{"id":31120,"date":"2012-07-28T00:10:47","date_gmt":"2012-07-28T04:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=31120"},"modified":"2012-07-30T01:48:51","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T05:48:51","slug":"a-reply-from-the-rag-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=31120","title":{"rendered":"UPDATED: A reply from the Rag Blog."},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago I asked for your experiences from the anti-war groups during the Vietnam War.<\/a> Many of you responded about your personal experiences in response to the accusations that these never happened. A few days ago the main editor responded in the article<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\nI was heavily involved in the movement against the War in Vietnam from its earliest days through its duration — working primarily in Texas, but also in Northern California and New York. I helped organize and attended dozens of demonstrations and public events, including major national actions like the massive March on the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

I rarely saw GIs in any way disrespected and never saw a single instance of physical abuse. It was a highly-charged time and certainly there were some idiots out there, but to suggest that there was widespread disrespect towards GIs from within the peace movement is patently absurd.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Vietnam War became extremely unpopular among the general populace and also within the military itself. There was major opposition — and active resistance — among soldiers in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

GIs and returning vets were at the heart of the peace movement and we considered GIs — who were overwhelmingly draftees and many of whom were our childhood friends — to be our brothers and sisters, and to be victims of the system. They were certainly not the enemy.<\/p>\n

This is a terribly destructive myth and a disgraceful — and highly political — reinvention of history<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How in the world do you expect us to believe that returning veterans were welcomed by the anti-war groups when people in the current anti-war generations have made it vary vocal to the contrary?<\/a> Or do you mean the veterans that say want you want them to say?<\/a> <\/p>\n

But the main point is that how can you say that the anti-war groups during the Vietnam War was a friend to US Veterans when the the current one has been anything but? <\/p>\n


\n Update: <\/strong>More comments are coming in.<\/p>\n

In the 47 years I have been back from that war, I have yet to find a veteran who can speak first-hand about being spat on or any of the other right wing lies about how the antiwar movement treated veterans. <\/strong>I am sure “Masterspork,” who probably never got closer to combat (assuming he actually ever served) than the “warehouse wars” in Cam Ranh Bay over how many cartons of cigarettes were going to be “lost” for later sale on the black market, can’t tell any first-hand accounts either.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yea, because I never deployed for 14 months and went on over at least 164 missions in that time<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n

No one can account for every hippie walking through an airport. But it was the consistent policy of every antiwar group to reach out to soldiers. Why else did we found the Oleo Strutt and a dozen other GI coffee houses?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yea like Under the Hood? The place where several people used as a place to meet before and after trying to stop the #rd ACR from deploying?Telling them they were going to “Die like Shit”? <\/a> <\/p>\n

But the best one of all. <\/p>\n

As a Vietnam War veteran who volunteered and served honorably, I feel I was very naive when I volunteered, but slowly realized that I had been lied to and duped. When I returned I was never accosted or abused by anyone, especially not the students at the University of Texas, or while I traveled; and I never observed this happening to any Vietnam Vet. As to those who say they did, well I just do not believe it.<\/strong> The book mentioned above (The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam, New York University Press, 1998) researched and documented the news reports and magazines of the time and never found a report of spitting or calling “Baby Killer.” That line by Unknown (Jul 21, 2012) above, “They shouted “baby killer” and spit on me” is right out of the movie “Rambo: First Blood in 1982 ” where Sylvester Stallone delivers a monologue saying, “”It wasn\u2019t my war. You asked me, I didn\u2019t ask you and I did what I had to do to win, but somebody wouldn\u2019t let us win. And I come back to the world and I see maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting, calling me baby-killer and all kinds of vile crap!” ” The only true part of that is the, “It wasn’t my war.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UPDATE x2<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Your statements are absolutely false. There were many of the lying, so called “Swift Boaters for Truth [sic]” and others who made the statements you did. For this reason VVAW had a strict rule that when we participated in protests we were to always carry our DD214s to prove our service in Vietnam. To this day I still carry a copy of my DD214 and my orders to report to the 5th Special Forces Group when I protest another war.<\/strong> When the liars, Scott Swett, Jerome Corsi, Larry Bailey, and B. G. Burkett, made those claims to me at the 5th Triennial Vietnam Symposium at The Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University, I pulled out my DD214 Burkett waved me off and said, “That doesn’t mean anything, those can be changed.” You can view and hear the SwiftBoat Liars talks here. Note at 1:12:44<\/a> Larry Bailey’s response to me when he asked for questions:<\/p>\n

Then you can watch the VVAW responses here:<\/a><\/p>\n

As to your claim, “Anti-War groups were very violent and intolerant of anyone in a military hair cut” you are painting all those who protested the Vietnam mess with the same brush. There were those who, after years of protest, became angry and may have been violent. However, most of it was overblown. And the SwiftBoat Liars tried to say that VVAW and John Kerry were violent, yet the very FBI records that the SwiftBoaters refer to stated very clearly: “The delegations from New England and the East Coast proposed activities a week before Christmas and advocated non-violent civil disobedience.” The VVAW New England and the East Coast were Kerry’s delegations to the VVAW Steering Committee, yet the SwiftBoating Liars used the violent claim against Kerry in the 2004 election, all LIES!<\/p>\n

It was the Texas VVAW who helped the GIs in the Oleo Strut Coffee House in Killeen. We were not “intolerant of anyone in a military hair cut,” we were there to help and support them. If you felt that way, I suspect it was your own projection that made you feel that way, because it did not come from the VVAW.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Peace, Terry J. DuBose, 1st Lt. US Regular Army, Airborne, Vietnam 1967-68; Texas VVAW State Coordinator & National Steering Committee, 1970-1972.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few days ago I asked for your experiences from the anti-war groups during the Vietnam … UPDATED: A reply from the Rag Blog.<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antiwar-crowd","category-ivaw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31120","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\/610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}