I chose not to enter this thread a year ago, but I read it end to end today. Truly great perspectives from many very kind and sensitive mudcatters. Thank you GUEST for revising this gem.
My own perspective on Viet Nam has changed over the years; has become more mellow, like old wine, as I myself have.
Back in the 60's I thought ill of those who refused to serve. I thought most to be down-right cowards. I believed there were a few true pacifists, but far too many were simply afraid of death or injury. Believe me, all of us on the plane to Viet Nam were about as close to pacifism as one could be - having serious reservation about what we were about to get ourselves into. Nevertheless, we came, we served, and most of us left.
As a young enlisted Marine in the early-60's, I was sent to a beautiful college campus in Lawrence, Kansas to complete my degree. I had a great time, plenty of money, fine wholesome young ladies, football, wrestling, and even some great professors from whom I learned to appreciate the boundless universe of learning. And all the while, some of my best friends were "hippies". It was they who threw the best parties. Protest back then was mostly about 'free love' and freedom from the 'norm', what ever that was. Anti-war protests were springing up in those crazy campuses on the east and west coasts, but not in Kansas. (Long after I was gone the heartland was as violent as were the lowlands.) And there were drugs, beginning with morning glory seed tea, and later ending, for some permanently, with LSD. Honest, I never did drugs. I was too afraid of the USMC finding out.
Anyway Graduation, Quantico, and RVN quickly followed. I can't describe it any better than those above have, but even if you took the 'enemy' away, the life of an infantryman (grunt) was so miserable that it is difficult for me to believe I had ever experienced it. The bugs, the cold (yes cold!), the heat, the cuts, bruises, sprains, blisters - always tired, mostly boored, and a few moments of absolute pee-in-the-pants terror made for real life surrealism. Friendly and enemy casualties were shocking, but writing the letters (actually the Battalion Adjutant drafted the rough letters and I added a 'personal' touch) to loved ones was by far the most difficult task. After nine months I was wounded for the 3rd time and medevaced to the US Naval Hospital, Guam for recovery before returning to the States for reassignment (and also to get married). I was back in RVN in 1972 as a Battalion advisor the to VN Marine Corps. Much more danger, unbelievable human carnage, but not a scratch to me body? How strange The Winds of War! Returned to the 'world', a loving wife, and 2 infant daughters on Christmas Eve of 1972, never again to face the challenges of combat.
As the years passed, I began to meet, often through folk music, some whom I had previously despised for their anti-war activities. I found them to be both of strong conviction and of ever-lasting question. The question of course was, "Why?". "Why as a civilized people?" "Why as a Nation?" "Why as an individual?". To this day, neither I nor my new friends can answer these questions. We only can hope that our children will not have to make these terrible decisions. As for songs about Viet Nam, I don't much care for them.