war & myth

[pynchonoid]

I haven't seen it yet but look forward to it.  

I was in the US Army from June 1972-June 1974, one of
the final batch of draftees (first lottery winners),
just in time to miss Vietnam when, in our final weeks
of boot camp, the powers-that-be announced no more
draftees only volunteers would be sent to die over
there.  That was our drill sergeant's big promise: 
master what we're trying to teach you and maybe you
won't die in the first 15 minutes or so after you get
over there. 

I had some contact with anti-war activists in the Army
when I got to boot camp and afterwards when I was in
clerk school, and spent considerable time reading and
discussing whether or not I should declare as a
conscientious objector (I didn't, but have come to
embrace non-violence).  An anti-military and anti-war
mood was pervasive among GIs everywhere I served -
Fort Ord (Monterey, California), Camp Howze (Republic
of Korea), Fort Hood (Kileen, Texas), although the
anti-war folk were always a minority.  In boot camp,
for example, in our training company of 125, 30 of us
were draftees and all against the war (although,
obviously, not to the point of avoiding the draft, or
desertion), another platoon of 30 were a group of
gung-ho volunteers from Hawaii who were itching to get
into combat, and the rest were somewhere in-between,
not volunteers but not particularly enthusiastic for
the war, either, except for one ex-schoolteacher from
San Diego who had dreams of war hero glory, kept
volunteering us for extra duty, and wound up beat-up
under a blanket one night while his bed and other
belongings accidentally fell out of the barracks
window. Drill Sergeant had us all standing out in
formation at 2 in the morning for that.




--- kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

> In addition to debunking the urban myth of the
> spat-upon vets, Sir! No Sir! does a fantastic job of
> unearthing some very hidden history.
> 
> Laura
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid at yahoo.com>
> >Sent: Oct 13, 2006 12:28 PM
> >To: Pynchon-L <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> >Subject: war & myth
> >
> >October 13, 2006
> >An Interview with Jerry Lembcke
> >The Myth of the Spat Upon Vets
> >
> >By STEPHEN PHILION
> >
> >http://www.counterpunch.org/philion10132006.html
> >
> >

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com