Posted on 09/22/2004 12:37:37 AM PDT by Jet Jaguar
CUMBERLAND, Md. (AP) - When Army reservists from the 372nd Military Police Company are welcomed home Friday at a belated public ceremony, the loudest cheers will likely come from the local chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America, who say they're heeding their vow to never again let one generation of veterans be shunned by another.
Seven members of the 372nd were accused of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and the Vietnam vets say they want the community to embrace the company's other soldiers, who they believe have been unfairly treated.
"It was only a small percentage that did what they did, yet this town was descended on by 19 or 20 different TV channels from all around the world and all they wanted to talk about was what had happened at Abu Ghraib, and you can't do that," said Roger Krueger, president of Vietnam Veterans of America Ahapter 172.
The unit's other members are "the good guys," Krueger said. "They should be proud of what they've done."
He and other Vietnam vets say they know firsthand about ostracism. Krueger, who spent 2 1/2 years in Vietnam and Southeast Asia with the Army in the early 1970s, said that when he returned, he found he had lost his old job at a civilian-run base exchange at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas.
"I guess we weren't fit for dealing with the public because of the perceptiol some people had about Vietnam vets," he said.
Stephen Parsons, a chapter board member, ticks off the stereotypes: "We were baby killers, we were hoodlums, we were junkies, we were dope addicts, we fought in a war that we shouldn't have been in."
Parsons, a former Marine, said innocent members of the 372nd will likely face discrimination because of the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
"All they're going to be remembered for - and maybe not just them, maybe everybody - in years to come, they'rg going to talk about this and say, 'Oh, yeah, that was the one where they tortured all the prisoners,'" Parsons said.
Staff Sgt. Sean L. Davis of Fort Ashby, W.Va., said he hasn't experienced disapproval, at least from local residents, since he returned with most of the unit's 180 members in early August after nearly 1 1/2 years away.
Still, he feels slighted, he said, because the honorable things his unit did in Iraq - training Iraqi police officers, protecting civilian contractors - havg been obscured by the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
Davis said the decision to forgo a public homecoming seven weeks ago was made by the unit's members, who wanted to rejoin their families in Maryland and surrounding states without facing reporters.
"I don't think the soldiers, or many of us at the time, were really well equipped to deal with that," he said.
Now that the media attention has lessened, Davis said he's ready for a public ceremony - and humbled by the Vietnam vets' attention. ' "Those guys, in my mind, went through far worse than what I went through," he said. "I think thanks coming from a guy like that is undeserved because they're the real heroes."
In addition to the seven enlisted soldiers from the Cresaptown-based 372nd who were charged with abuses at Abu Ghraib, at least seven officers have been disciplined. Twenty-seven other people, mostly from the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, were accused in an Aug. 25 Army report of complicity. And a military invelligence soldier, Spc. Armin Cruz of Plano, Texas, pleaded guilty Sept. 11 to mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
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On the Net:
Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 172: http://www.vietnamreflections.com
Not Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
This is a great idea..I thank the Vietnam Veterans for the determination to not have this unit smeared with the conduct of a very few.
Welcome Home to the 372nd Military Police Company!..Thank you for serving our country!
At this point - after all the beheading videos, roadside bombs and suicide bombs - most of the "conduct of a very few" that you mention seems quite trivial. I'd like to welcome every single one of our soldiers back home. Job well done.
Wow. The stuff that's coming out and finally making it thru the MSM concerning VV's and their positive recognition just has me at a loss for words.
Kudos to you Staff Sgt. Sean L. Davis, Welcome home.
Semper Fi
This is a great idea.
Unfortunately, as could be expected, a superficial reading of the headline makes it look like the Viet Nam Vets are supporting those who were actually invovled in the abuse situation, which is not the case.
The Mainstream Media is dangerous to one's mental health.
We all should be supporting those soldiers to the point that their punishments should be no less or more than those guilty of the same offenses and aren't big media events.
Those soldiers who were involved in the Abu Ghraid idiocy deserve no respect, support or sympathy.
By their mindless actions they provided the insurgents with a moral lever they previously lacked, disgraced their uniforms, and handed the Dems rocks to throw at Bush and our military operation there.
None of those abberrrant behaviors represent in any way the average American military man or woman's behavior there, and were not conducted for any rational purpose. They were merely acting out as undiscplined idiots, and gratifying thier own depraved tastes. Some of them, like the woman soldier involved, appear to have been particularly depraved, copulating in the presence of other soldiers on a regular basis.
I hope all of the individuals involved in this event are given dishonorable discharges and sent to spend the rest of their wretched lives in Leavenworth.
My sentiments are not expressed from any sympathy for the prisoners at Abu Ghraib, who, it is my understanding, were hard cases anyway. My sentiments solely arise from the depraved motivation of the individuals involved and the disgrace they brought upon their this country, our war effort, the President, and their uniforms. Theri actions border on treason.
Not Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
I think the Vietnam Veterans of America used to be the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I think the national president of the Vietnam Veterans of America was the guy in the wheelchair that tried to disrupt the veterans rally on September 12 in D.C.
Probably the best way to deal with this is to simply not mention those who acted disgracefully in the same breath with those who served honorably.
Is that a problem?
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/VVAW_entry.html
Is that a problem?
I would not belong to any organization that accepted former members of the VVAW...but hey, that's just me.
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