Who are this forum's Vietnam vets?

Fertree,

Thank you for thanking us. After returning home, I made it a point to never again march in a parade. I had mixed feelings about Vietnam--but came back to "the World" feeling like a man from Mars surrounded by people back here couldn't or wouldn't distinguish between politicians who create wars and the soldiers who are sent to fight them. When I was between marriages in my 30s I dated a woman who told me that I was the only Vietnam veteran she knew. But in my home town you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a Vietnam veteran. Go figure. Parallel worlds.

I go to my town's memorial day event every year and attend the speeches, wreath layings, and parade, but I think my own thoughts and keep them to myself. I've never figured out how to respond to "Happy Memorial Day." I'm always kind of weirded out for a day or two afterward.

But last year, my wife recruited me to sing baritone in an ad hoc chorus that was being put together for the memorial day event at the cemetery in a neighboring town. I went to my own town's event, as always. Then I went to the other town for a noon rehearsal. A couple of members of the chorus who were veterans insisted I march with them in their town's parade to the cemetery. So for the first time in more than 40 years I marched. I'm really grateful to the people on both sides of the road who cheered and waved as our rag-tag out-of-step unit of veterans, who ranged from WWII to Iraq, marched past.

I was already enrolled as a freshman at FSU when I became eligible for the draft. My number came up 253 in the lottery and military service skipped a generation with me unless you want to count my sister who has been in both the Navy and the Air Force.

We are kind of a military family. My grandfather was a marine officer. My dad was a marine, got out, went to medical school and signed back up in the Navy. He still thinks of himself as a marine, I think, but all of the doctors in the marine corps are Navy docs. I was born in the clinic at Camp LeJeune Medical Hospital and as I grew up our summer vacations would be selected to be near Marine bases. Dad was in the Naval Reserve and he would ask for training duty somewhere we wanted to go and the Navy would pay us mileage to go. There was a shortage of doctors and he could get orders to go anywhere in the US where there was a Navy or Marine Corps base.

My sister, also a doctor, was in the navy for years, got out for a while, was called back after 9/11 and switched to the Air Force. My son spent five years in the army, 3rd infantry division, mechanized. He was deployed to Kosovo and to Kuwait/Iraq. I don't know if you remember the AP photograph taken the night before the invasion of Iraq that showed a bunch of mechanized infantry guys huddled around a radio listening to president Bush's speech, but my son is the guy holding the radio.

So I am not a vet and my family skipped the Vietnam war. But I come from a military family and we were there for both world wars, Korea, and Iraq. I have the greatest respect for everyone who has served, including all you guys who were in Vietnam.

This is a great thread.