@spiderw wrote:
I wasn't going to watch the series because I lived through that time of chaos and losing so many people of my generation. I knew those who went to Viet Nam and conscientious objectors, but throughout I always backed the soldiers but never the war.
I just finished the fifth episode tonight and like the others it was riveting. My emotions go from anger to sadness throughout. I realize after all these years, I finally know so much more than told back then. We were kept in the dark and this series, which is now of course history, reinforces how I felt about the war and always did.
I am so sorry for all the losses and didn't agree with how the soldiers were treated when they returned home. While I didn't believe in the war I never would take it out on the men who served.
I could say so much more but I will leave it at that and just add Burns and Novick deserve an award for this unbelievable, emotional stirring , top notch series.
Spider Women
I was in high school when my brother was sent to Vietnam. The day after he came home, my Mom asked my brother to go to the grocery. She needed something for dinner. So since he just came home, my brother asked if I wanted to go. He never asked me to tag along before but we had both "Grown" in the year he was gone. I cheerfully agreed.
Well, we were checking out and the women in front of us started to scream at my brother. She could tell by his haircut that he was in the service. She was calling him a baby killer and he killed innocent people etc. She I am sure could have been heard by everyone in this large grocery store. And she kept yelling all sorts of things at him. My brother calmly turned to me and said here are the car keys go to the car and wait for me there. I didn't know what this lady might do and protested a bit. And my brother repeated the request. He said he could handle the situation.
So I stated to walk to the car. I then heard him calmly say to the screaming lady. "You have no idea what I did". He was a fireman on the base. It a plane landed and had trouble - he put out the fire or foamed the runway. If a house caught fire, they put it out. They were like any municipal fire department we have today.
After it seemed like forever my brother came out. He said everything as OK. I asked what happened and he just said everything was OK. I said I could not believe the lady screaming at him. He said that was nothing, He said it was worse when he got off the plane in the US from Vietnam.
Years later my brother said - He was being discharged out of the service right after he got back from Vietnam. He wanted to make sure that he flew through the discharge process and that there would be no problems. So he said he got a haircut, just to make sure that they couldn't find anything to slow down the process. He said that is what tipped everyone that he was in the service. In the year he was gone, hairstyles were even longer than when he left. He said he shouldn't have gotten that haircut. It caused lots of trouble for him.
Blogs & Forums
