The only people who are ever immensely “helped” by wars are the ruling class/bankers, etc.

Why should WWII vets have been honored? For Nagasaki and Hiroshima? For killing and rampaging around the world? For liberating France? For saving Jews and giving them a state? Ask the peasants in North Africa if US soldiers were helping them as allied bombs rained down on them.

Why did the North Koreans sign an armistice in 1953? Were the indigenous NK less willing and able to fight off the US than the North Vietnamese?

And don’t get me started on the Civil War which white folk$ like to pretend was fought to end slavery.

I’m saying all war is evil - and how it is perceived and judged by the sheople is mainly through knee-jerk propaganda. Making some wars “unpopular” and others romanticized and justified is up to the “leaders”.

I say the US can win a war when it wants to. When it does not want to - you better ask why - cui bono?

Your comments seem to be again mired in obfuscation. If I understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that soldiers who had returned from Vietnam should have been honored just as U.S. troops in WWII were honored. I will again pose the same question that I raised in my earlier comments: honored for what reason? You claim that veterans should not be “showered with praise” when they return to this country but in the next sentence you believe that they should have not have been treated differently “than in previous wars.” Which is it?

You say that the “public and the era”… “shamed them rather than helping them.” This seems very similar to your earlier comments when you said that returning veterans were called “baby killers.” Should I and others have been told that I was “helping” the Vietnamese people? I suggest that you may wish to ask a Vietnamese peasant if he felt American soldiers were “helping” his or her fellow countrymen those thirty five and forty years ago, as American bombs rained down upon their villages and homes.

Finally, you bizarrely ask me if the United States could ever have “succeeded” in Vietnam, or now in Iraq and Afghanistan. Short of dropping a few atomic bombs on those countries, the obvious answer should be no. I think one has to be incredibly naive to believe that the Vietnamese would have ever stopped fighting against the Americans, just as the Iraqis and the Afghans will never stop fighting until the U.S.military has finally been driven from their respective countries. That is the reason that “U.S. wars in the last 45 years” have been “setups for failure”, since the indigenous peoples in those countries, as I had just mentioned, would never rest then and will never rest now until the United Stated had been ultimately repelled from their soil. But the United States continues to believe, despite the evidence, that it is invulnerable.

WW I and WWII were no different than Korea, VN, Gulf War I, Afghanistan, Iraq. Anglos fund, support, create the designated monster and then wage war. How the sheople view a particular war is all in the packaging, marketing.

US troops in WWII committed horrendous acts on innocents - but you didn’t dishonor your fathers and grandfathers - you made them the “greatest generation.”

I did not say anyone should be showered with praise. I said the public and the era treated the returning VN vets differently than in previous wars, which didn’t help the VN vets any at all on returning to civilian life. They shamed them rather than helping them, until Ronnie Raygun and Hollywood movies made VN vets “popular”.

Do you ever wonder why US wars in the last 45 years are setups for failure? Do you really believe the US could not have succeeded in VN, or succeed in Afghan/Iraq if it honestly wanted to?

Her comments are similar to what many on the left, as well as the right do, and that is to apparently confuse or conflate being victims with being heroes. I submit that there is nothing heroic about invading and occupying another country, whether that country is Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. Why in the world would one want to hold a parade for those who helped and aided in the subjugation of another country? Miss Evie may want to read the transcripts of those soldiers who participated in the Winter Soldier hearings of 1971 and the more recent one that took place a few months ago. If she were to do so, she would discover that there is nothing for Americans to be proud of regarding the military service of those who served in places like Vietnam and the Middle East.

Those who should be thanked and who should have parades given in their honor are those soldiers, such as the ones shown in the powerful documentary Sir! No Sir!, who had the courage to say no to taking part in the oppression of the Vietnamese people. Their equivalent today are the members of the IVAW, who have likewise said NO the illegal orders that they were given regarding the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

To reiterate, soldiers who have had the misfortune of being in a combat zone should not thanked or have people express gratitude [for what, killing people?] but rather lamented, because they had ended up being placed in an abattoir by their leaders. All the more reason for soldiers today to say NO to the illegal orders that they are given by their uncaring government.

Almost all the leaders today of VFW are Vietnam vets, and VFW lobbies for veterans.

I heard a VN vet say he wouldn’t join b/c a member told him he didn’t fight in a real war. But that’s what my WWII vet uncles told my Korea vet uncles too. And when our family vets get together, Army, AF, and Marines - each branch gives the other a lot of crap about who is best and who is real.

VFW as an organization did not mistreat VN vets.

It was the American sheople and their reps who treated Vietnam vets like shit for years b/c there was no gratitude, parades, etc.and they were “baby killers” and terrorists - the same brush some on the left today try to paint Iraq/Afghan vets with.