Vietnam

[KB]

Hi, I am a high school student doing a project on the 70's and my specific subject is Vietnam. If anybody has any memories or ANYTHING please send me an e-mail at [e-mail]
THANKS SOOOO MUCH
KB

[tamilynnedwards]

Try your local VFW or American Legion. Also any VA hospital. LOTS of vets around, though most Vietnam Vets do NOT like to talk about their personal experiences in-country.

[jo]

Does anyone remember when you get get a metal bracelet with the name of a POW on it. You were suppose to wear it until that POW was found. I had a bracelet, I dont remember what happened to it. Does anyone else remember that?

[Susie]

I remember those braclets too, but I didn't have one.

And tamilynnedwards is right, the vets DO NOT like to talk about it...trust me! My uncle went twice, front line. I can remember him falling asleep in his reclyner and then going into bad dreams...feet making running movements and my dad shooing all of us out of the house fast. After a short time, we would hear my uncle shout/holler in horror out as my dad coaxed him out of his sleep. And then Dad would come out of the house in tears and take us home...in silence.

I remember when my uncle came home after his second tour. All the families were there to greet there loved ones, and some protesters came out of nowhere and started spitting on them. It was unbelievable.

I can offer you a story though...during the war, many civilians had a bad taste in there mouths towards Military men. My dad was driving his motorcycle to work...to the base. A car full of war protesters deliberatly ran him off the road, he went air borne and he nearly got severed in half by a highway sign and landed in barbed wire. He had to untangle himself and walk a mile to the front gate. Nobody, but nobody stopped to help him. All because he was in uniform, he believed.

Those men were fighting that war on two fronts, and the whole thing has left them understandably bitter. Know this, MOST of them were DRAFTED and didn't have a choice but go to war. It was either go or be charged as a traitor.

Hope that helps you KB, even if this info comes too late for your project.

[Susan I]

One of my uncles was in the K9 Corps in Vietnam. I remember going to the post office with my mom to send him cookies and stuff. One year she sent him a little plastic Christmas tree that he got very early. He and his buds loved it and left it out for months.

When he came home, he ended up in a VA psych ward for a while due to PTSD. He was also wounded at one time from some shrapnel in his eye but had no permanent damage there.

One time she and my grandmother and one of my aunts all had this dream that he was in terrible danger in a firefight. It turned out he WAS in a firefight that day and had to hide from the VC under the body of a dead friend to survive.

This is all secondhand info from my mom because I've never had the gall to ask him about it, and he never talks about it.

My other uncle on that side was in college AND had real bad eyesight so he wasn't drafted. But he wanted to serve, so he volunteered for the Coast Guard, the only service that would take him.

Vietnam, Vietnam...will it ever really be over?

[bev]

I remember the P.O.W. bracelets. I still have mine. I should try to locate the soldier or his family to see whatever happened to him. My bracelet is inscribed, LT. Gary Thornton 2-20-67 They were the really cool thing to wear to support the soldiers who were taken prisoner. I believe the date is the date they were captured.