What Does Vietnam Have to Do With Anything?

I turned 18 less than a year after the draft for Vietnam ended. I sweated the decision to volunteer, allow myself to be drafted, or to run. I can claim any decision I want now, and who is to refute me?

I volunteered 2 years later (USAF) and served with a lot of people who had been there and done that.

Vietnam is an issue because the so-called "leaders" today are of that generation. Bush 41 was in WWII so Vietnam was not an issue for him.

And military service is an issue for very good reasons.

If you forfeited your Constitutional rights and "identity" and repatriated to a "foreign land" with its own language and culture, and you took your one own precious life and placed it anywhere near a premature and grizzly death because, in doing so, you might defend and save someone who could not (or would not) defend themselves ... you have something to say that others cannot say.

Kerry took shrapnel. Bush 43 breathed O2 in a heavier-than-air metal contraption, preparing for the possibility that he might have to be part of an effort to save his nation.

Clinton never got anywhere near these sorts of reality, so his "voice" on such issues had a muted quality to those who "smelled the smoke."

I never saw combat. But I have names on a wall of fallen buddies ... and when I swore the identical oath of service, I did so knowing that, in my own heart, I was facing down any and all adversaries, and if I was the only one left standing and there was a weapon at hand, I would die just like any war-hardened Marine ... I just wouldn't take as many enemy combatants with me.

Vietnam had its own "personality" as did Korea, and Grenada, etc. Otherwise, it was a large and protracted conflict with more "veterans" than any conflict since WWII, so it covers a lot more ground.

The issue of Vietnam is not a political football. It is a defining volume in the annals of the United States, rather than a single chapter.

And the nature of someone's service to the country is a direct indication of their attitude toward that country, and their inclinations toward service, overall.

The most embarrassing president in modern times was a civilian. Nothing against civilians ... but when it comes to leadership, it is said that the greatest leader is a servant, and no one serves like someone who lays down their life for others.