{"id":58464,"date":"2015-02-26T16:21:12","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T21:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=58464"},"modified":"2015-02-26T16:34:19","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T21:34:19","slug":"just-a-sailor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=58464","title":{"rendered":"Just A Sailor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Preface:<\/strong> Title blatantly stolen from Steve Waterman’s book “Just A Sailor”<\/a>. We met once and I have a signed copy.\u00a0 Kinda happy to give him a nod here.<\/p>\n

—-<\/p>\n

This post may seem a\u00a0 bit of a whine, perhaps, but it is primarily just a sort of journal entry. It was suggested I post some Navy stuff and that process has been ‘interesting’, and perhaps a bit painful at times.<\/p>\n

I consider myself a Vietnam vet. Says so on my DD-214 as well. Still the only VN mud I got on me was during a single trip to a bar in Da Nang. I can document being shot at by shore batteries and firing back. I can document helping to pick up downed aircrew in the Gulf of Tonkin. There is more similar, but I did my job well enough. Thing is… I was Just A sailor.<\/p>\n

Of course there were<\/strong> sailors in the thick of things, from Corpsmen to SEALS, and others like Steve Waterman. I wasn’t one of them. I was Just A Sailor.<\/p>\n

Came back to CONUS in May 1969. Arrived via SFO, in uniform, and was spit at and called a “Baby Killer”. But I was Just A Sailor.<\/p>\n

Certain veterans groups said I didn’t qualify for membership back then. I was Just A Sailor.<\/p>\n

Those last two items serve to highlight the one common area each and every Vet with a Vietnam Service Medal in their records share; the way we were dealt with when we came back and how we coped with that. \u00a0I was painted with THAT brush as broadly as any other. Even tho’ I was Just A Sailor.<\/p>\n

No two human beings standing side-by-side will experience even the simplest of things identically. That one saving grace, at least, makes me feel okay to call myself a ‘Nam Vet… even if I was Just A Sailor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preface: Title blatantly stolen from Steve Waterman’s book “Just A Sailor”. We met once and I … Just A Sailor<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":467,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geezer-alert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58464","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\/467"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}