To a Vietnam Vet....I've Never Met

 

I decided to repost this on this Veterans Day - it never seemed as important as right now.

To a Vietnam Vet I’ve Never Met

by Holger (May 25, 2011)

First of all, let me simply thank you for your service to this country. And from the bottom of my heart, I want you to know how very proud I am of what you did for me in serving in the Vietnam War. To this day, I watch documentaries and videos of the war and every time I do, I am brought to tears by the sacrifice of our troops, that ultimate sacrifice. But the tears that fall from my face are not only for those who gave their lives over there, but for those who came home to America and felt the backlash of a people confused and angry and misinformed.

Yes, I have seen how they treated you as you set foot upon our land and yes, I have talked to some of your brothers who shared those stories of humiliation. I can only tell you how sorry I am that you, a fighting man, had to endure that. Even though I am only a civilian, I have enough close friends who have been in the military to know how important it is for you to feel the love and admiration and support of the people back home, and to see how some of the American people lashed out at you breaks my heart.

I want you to know, sir, that not all of us were lined up to treat you that way. But I have an admission to make, a confession actually. I was not one of those who spit on you or called you names. I was not one of those who burned the flag. I was one of those who stayed home and let you arrive here in America on your own…alone. I was one of those who felt I had to secretly hide my support of you and your brothers. Yes, I was one of the cowards.

On this Memorial Day weekend, I want you to know how sorry I am that I wasn’t brave enough to stand at the airports and the docks that day to welcome you home – to shout out how proud I was of you. To this day, I’ve lived with that shame.

But I hope today, that perhaps you can finally feel proud of your service and that this might be a long overdue welcome home and that maybe, just maybe, I can put my burden behind me as well.

I made a vow long ago that it would never happen again and since then, I have welcomed home the troops from various wars, I have stood along the roadside holding the flag as fallen heroes have passed by in their hearses. And yes, it will never happen again to another U.S. troop what happened to you.

I wish you peace this day. I wish you could know how proud I am of you.

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Thought For the Day: Vietnam

Have you ever wondered why in all of the years after the Vietnam War we never hear a PEEP out of Communist Vietnam?  We never hear of their criticism of capitalistic America, we never hear of them threatening other countries with Marxist aggression.  We never hear ANYTHING from them.  

You know why?

Because it has been effectively passed down from Vietnamese leadership during the war to every generation since just how decimated the communist forces were at the hands of Uncle Sam.  Everyone knows in Vietnam how entirely at the mercy of America the VC and North Vietnam regulars actually had been.  They all remember how, if not for their rescue by the leftist media in America, they would have been wiped off the bloody map by American soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors.

That is why.  And this is why.

America's Enemy...The Liberal Media

General VoNguyen Giap.

General Giap was a brilliant, highly respected leader

of the North Vietnam military. The following quote

is from his memoirs currently found in the

Vietnam war memorial in Hanoi :

'What we still don't understand is why you Americans

stopped the bombing of Hanoi . You had us on the

ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder,

just for another day or two, we were ready

to surrender! It was the same at the

battle of TET. You defeated us!

We knew it, and we thought

you knew it.

But we were elated to notice your media was

helping us. They were causing more disruption in

America than we could in the battlefields. We

were ready to surrender. You had won!'

General Giap has published his memoirs and confirmed

what most Americans knew. The Vietnam war was not

lost in Vietnam — it was lost at home. The

same slippery slope, sponsored by the U.S. media,

is currently underway. It exposes the

enormous power of a Biased Media to

cut out the heart and will of

the American public.

(Hat Tip:  Henry Bowman)

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To a Vietnam Vet...I've Never Met

To a Vietnam Vet I’ve Never Met

by Holger (May 25, 2011)

First of all, let me simply thank you for your service to this country. And from the bottom of my heart, I want you to know how very proud I am of what you did for me in serving in the Vietnam War. To this day, I watch documentaries and videos of the war and every time I do, I am brought to tears by the sacrifice of our troops, that ultimate sacrifice. But the tears that fall from my face are not only for those who gave their lives over there, but for those who came home to America and felt the backlash of a people confused and angry and misinformed.

Yes, I have seen how they treated you as you set foot upon our land and yes, I have talked to some of your brothers who shared those stories of humiliation. I can only tell you how sorry I am that you, a fighting man, had to endure that. Even though I am only a civilian, I have enough close friends who have been in the military to know how important it is for you to feel the love and admiration and support of the people back home, and to see how some of the American people lashed out at you breaks my heart.

I want you to know, sir, that not all of us were lined up to treat you that way. But I have an admission to make, a confession actually. I was not one of those who spit on you or called you names. I was not one of those who burned the flag. I was one of those who stayed home and let you arrive here in America on your own…alone. I was one of those who felt I had to secretly hide my support of you and your brothers. Yes, I was one of the cowards.

On this Memorial Day weekend, I want you to know how sorry I am that I wasn’t brave enough to stand at the airports and the docks that day to welcome you home – to shout out how proud I was of you. To this day, I’ve lived with that shame.

But I hope today, that perhaps you can finally feel proud of your service and that this might be a long overdue welcome home and that maybe, just maybe, I can put my burden behind me as well.

I made a vow long ago that it would never happen again and since then, I have welcomed home the troops from various wars, I have stood along the roadside holding the flag as fallen heroes have passed by in their hearses. And yes, it will never happen again to another U.S. troop what happened to you.

I wish you peace this day. I wish you could know how proud I am of you.

Memorial Day Weekend Tribute To Our Vietnam Vets - Blog Talk Radio

Tomorrow night, Saturday, I will be paying tribute to our Vietnam vets as part of my Memorial Day weekend of tribute to our military and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for America.

The tribute for our Vietnam vets will be broadcast on my Blog Talk Radio show at 12:00 midnight EDT, 9:00 p.m. PDT, May 28th - the show is: The Awakening - Honoring Our Vietnam Vets

The broadcast is only 30 minutes but I will do my best to honor those veterans who served us all so well. If you have some time, please join me for the show and in the chat room and if you are just too tuckered out from all of the weekend activities, try to catch the show in archives -I hope I can do these men justice.

Here's the link to the show tomorrow night:


http://www.blogtalkradio.com/holger-awakens/2011/05/29/the-awakening--honoring-our-vietnam-vets



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A Gift From A Navy SEAL

This story, from Family Security Matters here, is inspiring, to say the least. No more comments from me are necessary, just read it as I've excerpted it in its entirety:

A Gift from a Navy SEAL
Maj. W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

Thirty-six years ago this month I was a 13-year-old junior high school student: playing a little soccer, chasing a few girls, listening to Black Sabbath albums, and pestering my parents to buy me a motorcycle (which Mom refused).

Meanwhile, on the other side of the earth, 23-year-old U.S. Navy SEAL Michael Thornton was running a series of high-speed missions against the enemy in the final days of America’s involvement in Vietnam.On one such mission – Oct. 31 (Halloween), 1972 – Mike; his commanding officer, SEAL Lt. Thomas R. Norris; and three South Vietnamese Naval commandos were conducting what the official report reads as “an intelligence gathering and prisoner capture operation” against the enemy-held Cua Viet River Base.

The five men launched from a Vietnamese junk under cover of darkness, paddled toward the coast in a rubber boat, and, about a mile offshore, eased out of the boat and swam the rest of the way in.

Once on the beach, things quickly degraded from difficult to bad to utterly desperate: First, it was determined that the initial objective point had been missed and that the U.S.-South Vietnamese team had been inserted into far-more-dangerous North Vietnam. Second and worse, the team was discovered and quickly came under fire from a huge enemy force that outnumbered them at least 10 to one. Third, a fierce five-hour firefight ensued between the two forces, the enemy closing to within a few yards of the team, and Mike was struck in the back.

Naval gunfire was called in, and Norris ordered the team to begin a fighting withdrawal back to the waterline hoping to escape by sea and prevent the overwhelming enemy force from encircling them.

Near the water’s edge, Mike – wounded but still fighting – was informed by one of the South Vietnamese commandos that Norris had been killed.

Dead or alive, Mike was not going to leave his commander behind.

Through a hailstorm of enemy fire, Mike raced back toward Norris’s last known position. There he found Norris’s near-lifeless form, shot in the head, and two enemy soldiers standing over him.

Mike quickly killed the two soldiers, lifted Norris onto his shoulders, and began the several-hundred-yard dodge-and-sprint back toward the beach under heavy fire.

An incoming round from USS Newport News exploded nearby, the blast-concussion blowing both men into the air. Mike scrambled to his feet, again hoisted Norris onto his shoulders and made for the surf.

When he hit the water, Mike – wounded, exhausted, adrenaline surging – literally tied Norris to his body and started swimming. When he saw one of the South Vietnamese commandos shot in the hip and unable to swim, Mike grabbed him too; swimming both men out to sea for more than two hours before the three wounded men were picked-up by the same junk that had dropped them off.

Nearly one year later, Oct. 15, 1973, Pres. Richard Nixon presented Mike the Medal of Honor in a White House ceremony with Norris in attendance. Mike had “basically kidnapped” Norris from nearby Bethesda Naval Hospital (Norris would in 1975 receive the Medal himself for a separate action.).

Fast forward to October 2008: I’ve now known Mike for about 15 years. I met him even before that (though he doesn’t remember the meeting) when I was a green Marine lance corporal in the mid-1980s and Mike was a war-seasoned Navy SEAL officer wearing – above his myriad decorations – the loftiest American military award for valor.
In the years since, I’ve written about Mike, spoken with him for perspective on national security issues, broken bread with him, and more recently discussed with him the forthcoming Medal of Honor Society’s 2010 convention to be held in Charleston, S.C. (the state from which Mike and I both hail).

All of this brings me to an important event, in a personal sense, which took place last week when I was commissioned a major in the S.C. State Guard.

Being commissioned a field grade officer into a military-defense force with a lineage stretching back to the 17th century was an honor to be sure. But what made it particularly special was that Mike swore me in: He administered to me the oath of office, was the first man to salute me, and then shook my hand – pressing into my palm a gold coin engraved with his name, the SEAL trident, and the Medal of Honor – then he gave me great big bear hug (that’s the kind of good, unpretentious man Mike is).

As I later explained to my boss, Brig. Gen. Eugene F. Rogers (also a former Marine), the coin itself was a token more precious to me than the gold oak leaves I now rate. And I was somewhat bewildered by how I felt.”It’s because you were – and will always be – a Marine,” Gen. Rogers said. “There are certain things we treasure – things of tradition, no matter how seemingly insignificant to others – that others will never understand.”

And I’m not sure that any of us can adequately explain those things of tradition, but we must always try. Because, and as I said to Gen. Rogers and others in an e-mail, our military tradition and our national defense are inextricably connected.