On 2/6/14, 5:56 PM, Poco Loco wrote:
On Thu, 06 Feb 2014 16:36:51 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:
On 2/6/14, 4:25 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 06 Feb 2014 13:19:13 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:
On 2/6/2014 8:41 AM, Poco Loco wrote:
Smoking is very popular overseas. I think that's where the cigarette guys are making the big bucks.
In Germany, Marlboro was king.
And China.
In retrospect I always believed we fought in Vietnam to make the
country safe for Budweiser and Marlboro. It is a shame we didn't tell
the guys getting killed that at the time.
Hell I tried to go twice myself when I thought it was for freedom and
democracy. Wiser heads prevailed and both of my requests were denied.
I tried to go once, just for money at IBM and that was denied too.
Weren't you fellows aware of Thích Qu?ng ??c, who set himself on fire in
1963 to protest the oppression of the Di?m government? There was no real
question of freedom and democracy in Vietnam, even after Di?m was
assassinated and through the dozen or so governments that followed.
I think we were there in force because it provided products to make for
our military contractors.
In 1963 I was bouncing around from Cocoa Beach to the Bahamas. Didn't own a TV, and didn't ever have
an address for over a month, so didn't take a newspaper. At that age I wasn't much interested in
Vietnam. I became interested a couple years later, when I got drafted. I suppose I wasn't 'smart'
enough to evade it. Once in the Army, I didn't try the conscientious objector route as I'm pretty
sure you would have done, given your knowledge and all.
In other words, I did as I was told, like the other hundreds of thousands of guys and gals. And
guess what...I'm not ashamed of a thing I did. I'm quite proud of it , actually.
So put that in your pipe and smoke it.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, you and I came of age in entirely
different worlds. If memory serves, you grew up in a conservative part
of the midwest. I grew up in a small New England city in a state
dominated by moderate to liberal (for their time) educators and
politicians, counterbalanced by a large number of defense contractors.
There was a lot of discussion on every issue you can imagine. New Haven
was the locus of Griswold v. Connecticut.
I'm not saying where I grew up was better. It was just a lot different
than where you grew up. There were large, organized anti-war
demonstrations early in that decade. I remember long-winded discussions
at the student union in Kansas after that monk set himself on fire. As I
have posted here before, when a Buddhist monk sets himself on fire to
protest his government, you can bet there are serious problems with that
government.
We didn't do what we were told. We questioned everything.
I didn't "evade" the draft. I stayed in touch with my draft board. The
draft board never told me to report for a pre-induction physical. I
won't say I was upset by its lack of action.
Communist or not, I don't blame Ho Chi Minh for that horrific war.
Promises were made in the 1940s regarding the future of Vietnam, and
after WWII, the French returned and reneged and reestablished
colonialism, and then we stepped in and perpetuated white man's rule.
Never gave a second's thought to going for C.O. status. It just never
came up.