Community Chat

[KathyPet]

THe Ken Burns 10 part 18 hour documentary "THe Vietnam War" premiers Sept 17 at 8 PM on PBS.  COnsidering the extraordinary talent he has displayed in his prior documentaries especially The Civil War I expect great things from this series.

[Lindsays Grandma]

My dear frend's husband was a  bomber pilot in the Air Force and flew many missions to Vietnam.  He stayed in the Air Force until retirement as a Major.  Sadly he passed away from cancer when his two boys were very young and my friend believes it was agent orange that caused his cancer.

There was also the Korean War prior to Vietnam and a close friend of ours lost his life in that war.  His family had three children, two girls and him and we were all friends.  He was there three weeks when his parents were notified he was killed.  Just devastating. 

Such a sad loss of so many lives and continued suffering for something that never should have been.

[Lindsays Grandma]

I had a friend who was a navigator in the air force in World War ll, and  flew bombing missions.   When I met him in 1976 he still had his bomber jacket from those days.  I think why your father said they were the best years of his life is because pilots and other personnel on board get a tremendous rush from the moment the plane leaves the ground. 

If you watch movies depicting scenes of pilots running toward the plane, getting on board and preparing for take off you can see and feel the rush.  It continues until the flight is over and safely back on land.  As a kid you wouldn't have understood that and felt hurt.

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@tansy wrote:

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@suzyQ3 wrote:

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@151949 wrote:

I know some guys who still think VN was their glory days. They don't see that raising a family - having a successful marriage and making a decent living were their real glory days. Not those days surviving in hell.

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@151949, it might be that they have not found anything to match that adrenline rush and the comraderie that can't be duplicated in civilian life. The ordinariness of daily living just pales in comparison for these guys.

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My dad flew a P51 during WWII and always said those were the best years of his life.  That really hurt my feelings as a kid😕

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[lulu2]

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@AuntG wrote:

Never tied the meaning of that song to war protesters.  However, I was young so I thought it was about school.  

@AuntG

I was in high school when the song was popular and I never remember it being tied to the Viet Nam War.  We sang it every June when we were taking final exams.

I know a number of young men who lost their lives fighting in the war.  Probably the nicest and most handsome guy on our college campus was killed within a year of graduation. He was a year ahead of me and when word reached campus, it spread like wild fire. I did an etching of his name on the DC Viet Nam Wall.

My husband had a low lottery number and went to school on a ROTC scholarship.  Lucky for him (and me) he was allowed to continue his education.

Viet Nam was such a waste on so many levels.

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[Cakers3]

The song was not written by the Animals; it was written by the husband/wife team of Mann and Weil.  They originally wanted it for the Righteous Brothers.  It was not written as a protest song.

The demo ended up with the Animals producer (can't recall his name) but the reworking of the opening (In this dirty old part of the city...etc.) was in reference to the Animals working class origins.

The song became  the theme for our boys in VN-very true.  But the song was not originally a protest song such as the FIxin' to Die Rag recorded by Country Joe and the Fish.

Eric Burdon himself went on to say that the song means different things to different people but in the end it is all about changing yourself and where you are.

As far as VN, there WERE incidents of SOME protestors treating our retuning vets with disdainful attitudes.   And there were incidents of SOME protestors being supportive of our boys but not the war.

My memory is just as clear now as it was then.

[151949]

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@Cakers3 wrote:

The song was not written by the Animals; it was written by the husband/wife team of Mann and Weil.  They originally wanted it for the Righteous Brothers.  It was not written as a protest song.

The demo ended up with the Animals producer (can't recall his name) but the reworking of the opening (In this dirty old part of the city...etc.) was in reference to the Animals working class origins.

The song became  the theme for our boys in VN-very true.  But the song was not originally a protest song such as the FIxin' to Die Rag recorded by Country Joe and the Fish.

Eric Burdon himself went on to say that the song means different things to different people but in the end it is all about changing yourself and where you are.

As far as VN, there WERE incidents of SOME protestors treating our retuning vets with disdainful attitudes.   And there were incidents of SOME protestors being supportive of our boys but not the war.

My memory is just as clear now as it was then.

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My brother was a career military pilot. He served in VN and upon his return he said the only place he experienced any hostility toward the returning soldiers was in California. Once he left there he said people respected the soldiers but not the war.He served 2 times in VN - came home between them and again once during his second tour on R&R, but was killed during that second tour.

[Cakers3]

@151949  I am truly sorry for the loss of your brother. 

Whether one soldier or a thousand experienced hostility doesn't matter.  What matters is that they did.

The first full protest began in SF in 1964; most protests were college campus related and non-eventful.

Escalation of the VN conflict in 1965 and espcially the Tet Offensive in 1968 drew out more disturbing trends against returning military.

The whole era was filled with misinformation, lack of support by people who really didn't know what VN was all about (and still don't in some instances) and it wasn't until the 1980's that those vets were finally given the attention they so seriously needed.

Even if one doesn't believe in the eggs, urine, spit, and other things being thrown or the taunts of "baby killer" the treatment medically and psychologically of our military was hostile enough.

A sad era; it wasn't all love, peace, and Woodstock.

[Noel7]

There may have been a few campus protests in SF but most were city wide, walking 100,000 strong from downtown through GG Park.

I went to all of them, the goal was to get our troops home.  My husband left the university to volunteer for the US Air Force.

Many in service marched in protest also if they had been sent home while the war was still going on.

They were all welcomed and treated well here, many, including my husband, continued to wear the top shirt of their uniform with rank etc. at times.  No one accosted them around here.

[Noel7]

The widespread rumor about many who came home being spit on was just that... a rumor.  It has been disproven over and over.

Anyone interested can look on Snopes or Wiki, two of the several sources that have shown it not to be true.  There was also a book written on the myth.

[Noel7]

From the Berkeley Library account of SF protests against the Vietnam war, a photo of the 1967 march, not on campus and as far as the eye can see.  Look carefully, the marchers are clear across town, you can see them stretching all the way back to City Hall:

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificaviet.html