The whole world, as well as the political climate in the US was far different than it is today.Scrappy said:I am not old enough to have experienced Vietnam. So I ask those who have knowledge about that time.
The biased comments regarding what John Kerry did 30 years ago, is a pet peeve of mine. Too many of those "opinions" come from people who were not yet born, or too young to really understand what was going on.
If you were not old enough to be subjected to military conscription your "opinion" is only hearsay.
53,000 + American lives were lost in Viet Nam. Some would say they died in vain because we "lost" the war. I say the only way they died in vain is if we didn't learn a lesson from that war.
During that time a college deferment was the "politically correct" way of avoiding the Draft. Politicians developed that "system" to protect "their own." The military at that time was "by design" made up largely of under privileged and poor. The not so politically correct solution was to move to Canada.
Rather than face the dirty & cold hard facts of the times, it’s easier to call a dissenter a traitor. Countless war “atrocities” were committed by US soldiers. Given the circumstances of that war, I’m not sure I wouldn’t be guilty of the same. If telling the truth is treason, Kerry is guilty.
Unlike today, during that time illicit drugs were cheap & or free, and easy to come by. Some claim that the US government was behind the distribution of those drugs to "sedate" and otherwise preoccupy the younger generation of that time. The assumed goal was to reduce the growing participation in the numerous anti-war protests. As a participant and survivor of the 60's drug culture, I tend to believe that either the government or the "corporate war machine" was somewhere behind it.
May 4, 1970 at Kent State is one example of how our government responded to war protestors of the time. Granted, a riot is a riot, and some of the participants overstepped the constitutional right to assembly, but the reaction was..... you decide. Today things would likely be dealt with differently. Today, bigger riots follow major sports events, but people don't suffer the same result. I suspect that if military conscription were in effect today, this political race wouldn't be as close as it is.
In my not so humble opinion the greatest travesty today is how innuendos and conjecture are used to cloud difference between anti-war, anti-military, anti-corporate war machine, and anti troops. To believe, and infer that ANYONE running for political office is anti-troops is ludicrous. The question we face in choosing our next leader is in how he prioritizes the importance of:
1.) The troops
2.) The military
3.) The war
4.) The corporate war machine
I think Kerry’s priorities are how I have them listed. I’ don’t believe Mr. Bush has his priorities in the same order.
With all that said, I'm throwing my vote away on a 3rd party candidate for one reason, and one reason only, I'm voting against the 2 party system.