Thank You For Your Service

I waived my draft deferment in 1966 and went into the Marine Corps. I felt it was my duty. I landed in VN Christmas Eve and was helicoptered up to Dong Ha just a month or so before the Tet Offensive. Spent a 2 tours (18 1/2mos) in VN. I was discharged a month after coming home. The scene at San Francisco was not a Thank You for Your Service theme. I'm over that and I thank Jimmy Carter for allowing the guys to come home from Canada. Later in my life I realized that President Kennedy and mostly President Johnson lied to the America people and got us in a nasty war that killed about 53,000 guys like me. It also left a terrible legacy of the Agent Orange. Guys like me were agent orange troops. Many were physically adversely effected, some not as much. Some VN vets wear all the identifiers of their service in VN ---- caps, shirts, jackets etc. For me, it's over. I moved past my service and experiences through the love from my family and my wife. I used the GI Bill to get my MA. My country gave me the opportunity of a good life in return for my service. The VA gives me tremendous service, especially in the last 4 years. Now, we have people rioting, looting, burning buildings and taking over cities without a whimper. These same young people who never gave of their time to serve their country or their community now will have their school debts paid, their insurance paid and their everything free. This is the ultimate insult to all vets and especially those who now serve. I will never be sorry that I put my life on the line for my country. I am sorry that the guys who are now doing what I did 50 years ago will receive so much less from their country than those who are trying to destroy this once great nation. God bless America