Nicely spoken al and peter.........

It is no secret around here that I didn't serve in VietNam. It is equally not a secret that I won't sing songs about diviseness and ones that affix blame. That said..........

Why the hell would anyone write this book? I'm sure that the narrow confines of his "documentation" these incidents did not take place. Now the fact that several people on this thread including myself witnessed them would make me believe that either this guy did no research, has ridiculous criteria for "proof" of these events (names,dates,times,witnesses,film...probably needs a urine sample too), or has some other agenda. And what could that be? Notoriety? The urge to stir things up? Enjoys revisionist history ala the Holocaust? Wants to make a buck with a controversial best-seller? I don't know.....I'd like to read it before I pass judgement.

But the fact of the treatment of returning vets is just that...a fact.

The Movement was filled with people of all stripes. The nutcases tended to make headlines and made it difficult for some of us who viewed it as a struggle to end those things that only divided us.........war, racism, poverty...............I witnessed abusive treatment of soldiers and police and I saw the same sometimes in return. Like other signal events in a lifetime, I too remember exactly where I was when the score went to National Guard-4, Student-0.

For thirty years we have tried to heal. What about a book that brings us together and helps us all understand what each of us did, why we did it, and that there is honor and shame, just plain folks, on all sides? This book seems to say to me that in these past years we have not healed yet. Perhaps we never will be........Or perhaps we won't make it collectively, but on an individual, one on one basis, it has happened, and we have come to understand those times and our parts in them.

Geeziz................

Spaw