Troll, a little info, if you don't mind. You indicated that you served in one of the amphib units. Would you mind sharing which one? And whether it was out of Coronado, Little Creek, or one of the other bases? I am just curious.

The problem I have with most of this conversation is the premise that the whole thing is constructed on. When I hear guys like troll, still so angry after all this time, it tells me that they haven't dealt with the experience. They haven't learned its lessons and then used to to move to a higher place. Very dangerous. It seems to me, as one who experienced much of this tragedy and participated in it, that the only way to make sense of it all is to view it from a distant place. Distant as in remove yourself from it, roll it around, smell it, and compare it to what has gone before. Do this and you find that Fonda was a passionate, ill informed young woman who believed fervently that what she was doing served a larger good. Many of us were rejecting many of the values and institutions of the day. Try to remember when you were that age, remember the things you believed that today you know you were a bit off base on, and then imagine what you would have done if you had the type of forum that Fonda had by virtue of family and profession. I reject her actions based on being a warrior in that conflict, but I understand that she believed that she was ending the war. If you will distance yourself, and then factor in the information on the Viet Minh that friend NH Dave (great post, Dave!!) supplied us, you will understand how many people found Ho Chi Minh and his troops to be heroic in their attempts to liberate their country. This is why many of us reject attempts to villify them. And when you also factor in McGrath's comments (another great post, if one thinks it through.) with regard to how Americans view it as compared to how the world views it, then you have the chance to grow beyond this kind of nonsensical discussion of how one misguided, naieve, and ill informed child of privilege pissed off so many people.

I guess what I am asking, especially to friend Troll, is that you attempt to use these experiences and these times, and this anger to grow and become more perfect. One never can attain the perfection, but one must never cease to attempt to attain it. If you have allowed yourself to stew in this anger for this long, I wonder how much else you are allowing to seethe within.

Big Mick