Streetalk: What does Memorial Day mean?
May 20, 2008 at 5:00 am by Jeff Slate in Streetalk
No Show: There is no Memorial Day to me. I love my country, but am I to memorialize all my brothers I lost? I watched them get shot in front of me. Memorial Day for me, brother, there is none. I got my own Memorial Day in my heart. I’m pretty mixed about Memorial Day. I live and breathe it every day. It’s a delicate situation. The parade I had was getting shit on. That’s Memorial Day.
Bill: A day we honor the people willing to put aside personal interest for their country. It’s become a long weekend for most people. Hopefully this country will realize again that when you send kids to war, you have a responsibility to take care of them afterward. We’re not doing that. Honor the dead by supporting the living. Go to a VA Hospital and visit these guys. I was a paramedic in the Air Force. I had 47 combat rescues in Vietnam.
Professor: I’m not going to a Memorial Day parade. When I came back from Vietnam, the first woman I talked to told me I was a baby killer and an Uncle Tom. If I do anything, I would go to Arlington Cemetery. Twenty-seven friends [there]. I counted. I was in Kilo Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine. I was treated pretty bad and I’m still treated pretty bad. I wouldn’t tell anybody for years that I was a Vietnam vet. A parade, I don’t want to participate.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
We owe all Vietnam vets a huge apology. Thank God we aren’t treating our Afghanistan and Iraq vets like we treated these guys.
May 21st, 2008 at 4:31 pm
The country as a whole has a much better attitude about vets now than we did then, but we’re still treating vets rather shabbily in very important ways.
Health care for War On Terror vets is something the nation should be ashamed of.