VLVL 4: War, politics and love

[pynchonoid]

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> US troops
> were finally withdrawn from
> Vietnam in January '73. 

That's not true.  They didn't all pull out until 1975,
in April, I think; that was when we saw those glorious
TV pictures of the remaining US troops, diplomats, and
spooks hightailing it out, stranding an unknown but
large number of people who were later persecuted for
having collaborated with the US invaders, more than a
few of them were left to dangle and then to fall after
trying to climb into the last few helicopters to leave
US facilities in Saigon.  In January 1973, the day I
shipped out from Oakland Army Base for an assignment
in the Republic of Korea, a crew came through the
facility looking for clerks, cooks, and carpenters to
put on an airplane bound for Vietnam later that day. 
I was a clerk, and there was quite a mob of us moving
from bathroom to bathroom trying to stay one step
ahead of the guy who was grabbing and reassigning
people.


>That "since the war"
> referent for their life
> together is pretty precise, however.

Yes, but it doesn't necessarily mean he's a Vietnam
vet.  Lots of people have been where they are "since
the war" who never had anything to do with the war.
I'm surprised to see you jumping to conclusions this
way, given your frequent and stern admonitions to the
rest of us to stick close to the text.  But we all
have our axes to grind, don't we.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com