[M.K. Borders]

I spent 21 years in the Army Guard and by year 3-4 quit listening to the stories. If everyone who said they had shot at “Charlie” had actually done so, Vietnam would be a state.
Later when I became a Battery commander I started looking up the official 201s for these “heroes”. One guy was so bad I took him aside and told him to lay off the stories to the younger guys. If he did not, then the next time we met in class-A, I was going to jail him for being out of uniform (should at least be a Vietnam service ribbon) and if he did show with the correct ribbon I was going to jail him for not having documentation.

It has been my life long experience that the ones who did the service and faced the hell, don't talk about it. Not unless you get real close to them.

[patton]

Now, there are occosions when the senior guy may be wrong about PX medals.

When I was up for the E5 Board, the CSM said, “Soldier, you are out of uniform! You are wearing only one expert medal!”

“Yes, CSM! I am out of uniform!”

“Why?” Glancing at my 201, he read for a few moments, and said, “Nevermind - you can’t even buy a ladder rung for an FPK. Or most of the others you are qualified to wear.”

In other news, some talk, some don’t. Me, I never got shot at. So I got nothing to talk about.

(What’s in a truck?)

[driftdiver]

“It has been my life long experience that the ones who did the service and faced the hell, don’t talk about it.”

yep, of course if you wanna talk about the time the really pretty north korean spy tried to make friendly with me I’m sure I could open up.