VIETNAM AND VIETNAM VETS - THE LIES CONTINUE, EVEN TO THIS DAY
I got a copy today of an email that's been going around for a year or so now, and it reminded me of something I've been meaning to talk to you about - that the lies about the Vietnam War and the veterans of that war need to be exposed to the light of truth.
We all know how much the press in the 60s and 70s hated the war in Vietnam . The bottom line was that the leftists hated anything American, or anything that benefited America. But often the targets of that hatred were the soldiers who fought the war that the liberal intelligentsia so despised.
The Vietnam Veteran was vilified when he was young, and now that he's older he continues to be portrayed as a drug addicted, homeless misfit, dying before his time. The American People have been conditioned by decades of relentless propaganda to believe that those Vietnam Veterans remaining are living desperate lives as a result of their exposure to a war that was “illegal,” “immoral” and just not accepted by the American public. The popular perception of the average Vietnam Veteran today is one of a man who has shut out society, is a criminal, drug-addicted, and probably homeless. No education, no skills, no family, no job, no health, no home, no hope.
Even in this age of FOX News, Blogs, the Internet and other alternative media - media that have finally broken the strangle-hold that the liberal intelligentsia used to have on the dissemination of information - we still tend to hang on to "truths" that we've known since childhood that are not truths at all, but "truth" as the liberals want us to see it.
That alternate “truth,” they would have you believe, the miserable condition of the Vietnam Vet, goes back to two destructive forces, so they say:
1. Exposure to a brutal, "illegal" war that traumatized the veteran and
2. Drug addiction, again as a result of the war. Heavy drug use among soldiers during the Vietnam Era was for them a means of escaping the horrible realities of the war, it was said.
The picture that emerges is one of a peaceful American boy, usually poor and usually of color, ripped from his home and life by the draft and thrust into an evil war of American "Imperialism" that he didn't want and couldn't face. This is the popular picture of the dysfunctional Vietnam Vet that has been propagated for 40 years now.
So now, the poor American boy who was torn from his family by the draft, thrust into an evil war of Imperialism, and hooked on drugs by his struggle to escape the horrors of war, is dying in record numbers, well before his time, and dying friendless and poor, homeless and without family to ease his way.
IT IS ALL LIES.
The truth is something much different than the story we have been fed for 45 years, so let's get to the truth:
LEFTIST LIE: THE WAR IN VIETNAM WAS IMMORAL
TRUTH: Is it immoral to defend a defenseless people from the terror and slavery of Communism? Fighting the Communists in Vietnam was the right thing to do. John F. Kennedy considered it the decent thing to do. We fought because South Vietnam had been attacked.
Communism is the bloodiest ideology in the history of mankind. Communism has been responsible for more murder, more genocide, and more human misery and suffering than any other political system in history. And as Communist murderers go, Ho Chi Minh was the worst. In fact, he was the most prolific mass-murderer in human history – worse than Stalin, far worse than Hitler. (Hitler was an amateur compared to these guys.) He was an evil, murdering, genocidal pedophile (he preferred young girls – very young, like, eleven years old) who took PERSONAL sadistic interest in executions. No war to save a people from being overrun by such an obscenely evil system could possible be “immoral.”
LEFTIST LIE: American soldiers in Vietnam did drugs to escape the horrors of the war that they were thrust into.
TRUTH: American Soldiers who did drugs did so because they were part of the leftist drug-free love-dropout culture of the 1960s that made it seem ok to do drugs. It was their liberal generation, not the war.
LEFTIST LIE: More men of color were drafted and fought and died in Vietnam than whites, especially affluent whites.
TRUTH: As a percentage of those who died in Vietnam , most were volunteers. Only 23 percent of the men who served in-country were draftees, and only 30percent of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice were draftees. The military didn't like to send draftees into combat, preferring to give them support roles.
Almost 90 percent of those who served in country were Caucasian, and the same held true for the numbers killed. About 12 percent (served and killed) were blacks – a number that corresponded roughly to the percentage of blacks in the general population.) Twenty-Six percent of combat deaths were men who came from affluent families, and 76 percent of those sent to Vietnam were middle to upper-middle class.
SUMMARY: I could go on and on with these stats, but you can look them up for yourself. The bottom line is that the American Soldier in Vietnam was at that time the most motivated, the best educated, best trained, and most successful (in terms of kill ration) American Solder that this country had ever produced up until that time, and if you were one of them, YOU HAVE EVERY RIGHT AND REASON TO STAND UP AND BE PROUD OF YOUR GENERATION OF VETS.
Finally, let's deal with this popular image of the Vietnam Vet TODAY as a homeless, addicted basket case, living a lonely life and dying off too early. In FACT, Vietnam Veterans today exceed their peers who did not serve, THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT POPULAR CULTURE WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE. This is measurable by every socio-economic measure – income, marriage, success, advance education, psychological health, lack of addiction, avoiding prison. In all of this, the Vietnam Veteran is better off than the non-vet of the same generation. (“ Vietnam and America , a Documented History,” Gettleman, Franklin, Young, Franklin)
“The myth that Vietnam Veterans are racked with guilt and nightmares and angst, disproportionately prone to violence and drug use, and unable to easily fit into society, tenaciously survives despite the fact that statistics available from hundreds of sources – verterans groups, the VA, the Department of Defense, studies by scores of universities, and more – utterly disprove it.” – Phillip Jennings, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War.” Regnery.
So be proud, and take every opportunity to educate yourself and to answer those who still, after all these decades, still cling to the shameful myths about Vietnam Veterans – myths that survive despite the availability of facts because they make leftists feel good.
A PS TO THE ABOVE:
This is not to say that there are no homeless, addicted, and sick Vietnam Veterans. There are. Just as there are homeless, addicted and sick people from all walks of life, as a percentage of the population. There are those whose lives were destroyed by PTSD, by Agent Orange, and other ills and wounds. To those we must be faithful.
We who survive and live good lives owe it to our brothers who were not so fortunate to lend a hand and do what we can to help them. Those of our brother vets from our generation who need help, they answered the call of their nation, they kept faith with America , they kept faith with their service, and with their brothers - and we, as fellow vets, should look after them if we can.
From those to whom much has been given, much is required.
- Wayne Lutz
*This newsletter is named "The Weekly Ride" or "The Ride", for short, in memory of and to honor Sgt. Jennifer Hartman, U.S. Army. Sgt. Hartman was killed in Iraq by America's enemies. She died in defense of our freedom at the age of 20. This quote from Jennifer was read at her graveside:
"It's not about what happened in the past. It's not about what might happen in the future. It's about the ride, for Christ's sake."
Click here for a Tribute to Sgt. Jennifer Hartman: "The Ride"
