Serotta,

You have to remember there are many people that have little to no respect for not only Vietnam vets but other war vets as well. Unfortunately you really can not blame many of those individuals.

Why? Because it is what they are taught through other peoples perceptions and skewed depictions of history. One great example is Moore’s movie about 911. There are many other examples but it’s even in many public schools. Students rarely get an accurate account of history. If they had then the vast majority if not the entire country would have understood, accepted and approved when we dropped the nukes on Japan. Was it a sad event? Not when properly put into perspective with an honest account of the entire situation…

Just figured I would bring that up should you ever come across someone that may not have the respect they should for any war vet, be it Vietnam or any other…

It is sad but a fact of life that the feel good people with illusions of dancing in the streets have skewed the actual facts of history and assisted in raising a population that, for the most part, has absolutely no appreciation for what “really” happen in history, because they have been giving a few events completely out of context and that is what some of these people base their views and feelings on…

 

Good point 01, I rarely think of it in those terms. If people want to be educated, there are plenty of places to get that education, but you should still retain the common sense and reasoning power to filter fact and fiction.

I don't believe Bighersh fits your category, if I though he did I wouldn't have bothered to respond at all.

Keep on my RIGHTeous brother.

IF KERRY'S THE ANSWER.... WELL, YOU KNOW THE REST!

 

Just to make clear my post wasn’t in regards to Bighersh, just a general post about the subject…

”If Kerry is the answer, it must have been a stupid question…”

 

Absolutely correct. I was lucky enough to have an AWESOME american history teacher. He taught me more about history than I would have even thought. Everyone in the school loved taking his class, because he made things interesting, brought in cool facts, even wore WWII uniforms during the part where we were learning about WWII. To him (Mr. Covney) I thank for my education.

Post Script: I did tell him this at graduation and even gave him a couple of pics that my grandfather took when he was over Japan.

 

"If Kerry is the answer, then Bush isn't a question"

 

Thanks 01 & Serotta-

Although my words left my intent totally up to interpretation- I never intended to convey ill-will towards my Vietnam Vets. What I was trying to say was that prior to We Were Soldiers, my opinion (And I'll bet that of many others) was somewhat shaped by the Hollywood personification of the Vietnam era soldier. Many of those movies showed our guys doing things no volunteer American-Soldier could be proud of:

Rape, murder of non-combatants, killing and wounding our own Officers & NCO's (Fragging), blatant drug abuse, etc..

I'm sure the incidents above is a clear example of the actions of a few tainting the efforts of the many (Same thing with the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal today, threatening to do the same) but one has to wonder when you see the same thing in so many movies, especially when that's all you've been shown. Watching WWS, made me dig deeper, and I've learned so much more than I (thought I) knew before about Vietnam.

We Were Soldiers showed what I know to be the true spirit of the American Soldier; I'm just glad to finally see it was present in Vietnam and to see that image presented by Hollywood showing that things weren't (for everyone) as depicted in Platoon and Casualties of War.

Again, my hat has been, and shall always be- off to the Vietnam Vets, and all Veterans.

Interested in learning more about the Ia Drang Valley, November 1965? Below you can see a short animation of how things went down, and you can even read LTC Hal Moore's After-Actions Report. Incredible...

LTC Moore's After Actions Report: http://www.lzxray.com/documents/aar-xray.pdf

LZ (Landing Zone) X-Ray animation: http://www.wtj.com/articles/xray/

LZ- X-Ray: http://www.lzxray.com/

YaHoo Search: Ia Drang: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22...t&cop=mss&tab=

 

The thing that I have discovered about films about Vietnam is that whoever is making the film usually has an agenda and is basically spoon feeding you their beliefs about Vietnam, not nessescarily the truth. I've talked to a few vets b/c I have always been curious about what thing there were really like and from the little I have gotten out of them I think it was somewhere in the middle between say "The Green Berets" and "Platoon". From my perspective, I say thanks to everyone who did their duty over there, its a shame you didn't get the homecoming and honors you deserved b/c LBJ decieded to scapegoat his crappy policies on the military. You guys were just as heroic as the WWII vets and you deserved better.

By the way, I really liked We Were Soldiers.