{"id":18902,"date":"2010-04-30T09:22:56","date_gmt":"2010-04-30T14:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=18902"},"modified":"2010-04-30T09:22:56","modified_gmt":"2010-04-30T14:22:56","slug":"35-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=18902","title":{"rendered":"35 years ago…"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Armorer<\/a> reminds us that the Vietnam War ended 35 years ago today. <\/p>\n

I was in jump school at the time, I think I graduated the following week because a week after that I was a 128 pound 5 jump chump drawing ammo at Hunter Army Airfield for our aborted preparations to rescue the Mayaguez from the Khmer Rouge – the last US operation related to the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n

At that time, nearly every enlisted soldier above the rank of E-5 was a Vietnam veteran among infantrymen. Every officer above the rank of captain had a combat patch on their right shoulder. Their experiences in Vietnam added color to every training operation with real life lessons. They were the ones who remained to train us newbies, to make sure that what happened to them would never happen to us. They stayed with the Army even though they were mischaracterized by the popular culture, they continued doing their duty and few ever mentioned their cultural enemies on the Left.<\/p>\n

I was fortunate in that the 1\/75th Infantry was populated with the heroes of Vietnam – everyday was like some sort of class reunion when the very best soldiers of that era relived their multiple tours of the war with their old classmates. Some had earned battlefield commissions and then gave them back when the Army started drawing down. More than few kicked my young ass with legs that were held together with pins. Most are now remembered in the Ranger Hall of Fame<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Vietnam veterans didn’t lose their war, yet they shouldered the blame for it silently. Their real victory is in the wars that we’ve fought since. There are soldiers walking around today that live because the Vietnam veterans didn’t abandon the country that largely abandoned them. I count myself in that number of troops who are alive because of the Vietnam veterans that taught me to soldier. That is a debt I’ll never be able to repay.<\/p>\n

This latest generation of veterans, from our more recent wars, have taken the cue from the Vietnam generation and serve in difficult times. My generation is lucky to have been bracketed by these heroes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Armorer reminds us that the Vietnam War ended 35 years ago today. I was in … 35 years ago…<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues","category-support-the-troops"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}