Go to The Ciel Show
- Add a comment
- Go to Thoughts on Vietnam
Re: Corbin Dallas,
I get what you're saying here, and I have a list, too, of things that give me pause. He truly was a damaged and flawed man, but I have to acknowledge that I don't really know enough about his life and experience to make judgements against him.
posted by
Ciel
on September 11, 2018 at 1:45 PM
| link to this | reply
My problem with McCain revolves around 2 things...his wife had a horrible auto accident a week before he came home....when he saw her disfigurements he left her while she was still in the hospital. #2 McCain gets to come home in the first prisoner swap (Daddy and Grandaddy were admirals). Then he runs for Congress, and gets on the Committee handling the POWs left in N. Vietnam and he leaves 600+ of them over there, shuts down the committee working on the subject, make the info top secret, while the wives of some of those men are begging to get them home.......
posted by
Corbin_Dallas
on September 11, 2018 at 1:37 PM
| link to this | reply
Re: Kabu,
America's best friends have always been our 'sibling' nations, the former colonial territories of Great Britain. Sometimes the relationships are maybe a bit dysfunctional, and sometimes the 'sibs' emmulate the wrong characteristics, like Australia's current war against the environment in favor of profit-seeking.
Sometimes they get hung up on the wrong interpretations of American behaviors and apparent attitudes.
For instance, I have never ever looked down on Canada or Canadians as 'not as good as' US people. I have never really made comparisons, but have appreciated differences. But I have been treated in Canada (occasionally) as if I did, because of those Canadians' assumptions.
In any case, I love certain Canadians, and Australian Canadians.
posted by
Ciel
on September 11, 2018 at 12:40 PM
| link to this | reply
Re: Pat,
This is a really important point. The trauma of the war extended grievously to the way veterans were treated, are still treated. So many of the most vehement protesters of the war were basically pretty shallow in their convictions, not insightful enough to see how complex the whole thing was.
posted by
Ciel
on September 11, 2018 at 12:29 PM
| link to this | reply
Re: Corbin Dallas,
For once, we are basically in agreement. Aside from the snark about McCain. We can't know what kind of service he'd have given this country free of the PTSD. Who knows what would have shaped him, without the POW experience?
posted by
Ciel
on September 11, 2018 at 12:21 PM
| link to this | reply
Re: CCT,
We all struggle daily, personally and socially, to overcome our primate inclinations, to set aside the beast-nature in favor of a higher consciousness. It isn't as if we always know that's at the root of the struggling we do. And some don't fight very hard, just go with the primate heritage without thinking about it. We can't all be philosophers!
posted by
Ciel
on September 11, 2018 at 12:18 PM
| link to this | reply
Re: But without the war in Viet Nam, how would McCain have been able to have "
Pretty much.....I don't want to change the focus of this thread.....I'll do a post on it.
posted by
Corbin_Dallas
on September 11, 2018 at 11:11 AM
| link to this | reply
Re: What a miserable time that was.
My brother was over there for 3 years, before the combat troops came in...the "Advisors" stage of the war, he worked for the Army Security Agency(top secret), they never wore army uniforms, but they were packing (armed) at all times.
posted by
Corbin_Dallas
on September 11, 2018 at 10:59 AM
| link to this | reply
But without the war in Viet Nam, how would McCain have been able to have "
Corbin dear this sounds like he didn't deserve the honours he was given. Six years of horrific ordeal and a life time of public service. yes a flawed human but aren't we all???
posted by
Kabu
on September 11, 2018 at 10:56 AM
| link to this | reply
What a miserable time that was.
Australia of course joined our Allie America and marched shoulder to shoulder into Vietnam and Cambodia.
In the beginning I agreed with the war...the 'yellow peril' was heading our way again...less than 20 years after the Japanese invasion and bombings in Northern Australia.
My age group were the first conscripts to be ...mostly dragged into a two years of hell.
We continued with our lives, dances, movies, sports, travel...why I actually flew home from Hong Kong over Vietnam!!! falling in love, marrying, life went on..except that if those guys we had known, did come home, they were different. odd misfits.
I eventually marched in the peace rallies.
posted by
Kabu
on September 11, 2018 at 10:52 AM
| link to this | reply
Most men and women who served the US military in Vietnam were
draftees. Unlike today's volunteer service, they did not choose to be there, but they were heroes, they did their jobs. Some returned with horrific wounds both physical and to the psyche. For the most part they were not greeted as returning heroes - they were yelled at, protested against, even spat upon because they took the brunt of public resentment of the political decision to get involved. I spent that decade in fear that my children's father would be drafted, and then that my sons would be. Any survivor of that conflict, especially those who were prisoners, deserve any gratitude and honor we who were protected and served can bestow.
posted by
Pat_B
on September 11, 2018 at 10:43 AM
| link to this | reply
The war in Viet Nam was a screw-up. I can't believe JFK got suckered into getting envolved, and Johnson thought he could straighten it up with more troops, and Nixon finally started winding things down, hoping to have a distraction from Watergate....
But without the war in Viet Nam, how would McCain have been able to have a Royal funeral? 
posted by
Corbin_Dallas
on September 11, 2018 at 10:11 AM
| link to this | reply
The trouble is humans Ciel.
posted by
C_C_T
on September 11, 2018 at 9:45 AM
| link to this | reply