Not everyone who died in our wars was a hero by John T. Reed

John T. Reed Re Mendesohn: I am well aware that is part of the reason. I was on the receiving end of that stuff along with all my fellow servicemen starting when I was a cadet in the mid sixties. I also edited my West Point class’s memories book of the 44 years since we entered West Point including the incidents of being spit on and spit at and being forced to leave an area at the airport or elsewhere because of a menacing crowd.

I agree that the “Thank you for your service” is often motivated by regret about the spit, including by person who were not themselves spitters, but two wrongs don’t make a right.

We veterans do not thank each other for their service. Our “service” wasn’t so simple as to be the subject of such a pro forma ritual. Each guy’s service was unique and his motivations and experiences mixed. A little bit of patriotism, a little bit of getting away from the girl who broke up with him (the guy who shot bin Laden), a little bit of wanting to be a West Point cadet but not so much in the Army, a little bit of joining because the judge gave you jail as your only alternative, etc. And our experiences were more with SNAFU crap than with the Hollywood combat you not-vets think is what our service was about.

If we vets don’t say “thank you for your service,” you non-vets ought to follow our example and do the same. The corrective for the outrageous spitting and verbal “spitting” of the Vietnam era is not cheap praise and the total destruction of the very important word “hero,” it is to simply refrain from the Vietnam-era behavior. Apologize if you must, and if you have the character, but don’t atone for the Vietnam-era behavior and/or lack of service by claiming everyone who enlists or completes an officer program becomes a hero on their first day in uniform.

Re Chrisner: You’re new around here, aren’t you? First, your first sentence is illogical on its face. The harshness of my words was so obvious as to not need you or anyone else to point it out. Second, you are being disingenuous. What you really mean is inappropriately harsh or overly harsh, but you lack the character to say it. Third, evidently, I obviously do NOT think they were too harsh or I would not have said them. Such lame, sloppy thinking is not the way we do things at this wall.

The definition of a hero “in your book” goes on your wall, not mine. If it had any validity, I would allow it. I said we who served during war deserve some credit for risking being deployed, and possibly hurt or killed. But “some credit” does not equal “hero” in any book that values facts or logic or respect for the true definitions of English language words. I am a writer. I treasure the English language and hate those who try to steal its words for political purposes and illegitimate agendas like absolution from draft-dodger guilt.

There is far too much grief counseling when it comes to the dead and their families. That’s for funeral directors, clergy, and families and friends of the deceased. The fact is the sacrifice of the guys who died in Vietnam was trivial. It was about Nixon’s reelection. The more important point is to call a spade a spade in order to prevent any more Americans from losing their lives for trivial reasons.

Our children are not even close to being educated about the “realities of war.” If they were, the “All-volunteer military” would cease to exist for lack of volunteers.

And draft dodgers sure as hell are not the onesto be teaching the “realities of war.”

“Sacrifice to provide the way of life we enjoy” is the sort of Hollywood, politician cliche that is the opposite of the realities of war. The reality of war is politicians have sent us to too many of them recently and made us fight them with rules of engagement that were intended to serve domestic political purposes, not foreign military ones.

Death in war is mostly banal, not a patriotic Broadway musical paean to America. My dad’s best friend in WW II, Reds Oyster, was walking guard duty one night at a slightly rear area. An artillery round came in and killed him.

I experienced the same thing on a number of nights in Vietnam, only without the incoming enemy fire at that particuar time. Is Oyster a hero and I’m not? I’m not. He might have been if he had been in a situation that required heroism and he had done heroic things. But he obviously to us vets was just unlucky. His being there was noble, but no more noble than the other guys, like my dad, who stood guard on other nights; no more noble than my being commander of the guard in Vietnam..

A young West Point lieutenant in Iraq was wearing his helmet and flak jacket in another seemingly peaceful, slightly rear area. He bent over. A mortar round came in, he was seemingly untouched, but dead. A fragment had gone through his unprotected arm pit. Had he remained standing up, the fragment would have hit his flak jacket.

On some abstract level, both of those ultimate sacrifice vets were “defending freedom,” but neither the North Vietnamese nor the Iraqis truly threaten American freedom. They are relatively weak militaries who are 8,000 miles away. The West Point lieutenant is not dead because of protecting our way of life. He is dead because George W. Bush and the American people overreacted to 9/11 and he had some bad luck while in the combat zone.

Treating Memorial Day as a time for abstract palliatives on the loss of concrete human lives exalts grief therapy for the few surviving relatives over preventing future loss of more numerous lives and survivors because of politicians sending men into future battles for their reelection purposes.

Memorial Day is for all of us, not just those whose close relatives died in combat. It is a day to remember those who died in the line of duty from combat. It is NOT a day to lie about reasons behind their sacrifices or to exaggerate their heroism.

Here is a related Facebook post I just put up:

The word “hero” was thrown around criminally loosely yesterday on Memorial Day.
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You want to hear about a real hero. Go to the link below and listen to this radio broadcast.
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It’s about Buddy Bucha and his company in Vietnam. He got the medal of honor for the action. Two others in his unit got the DSC, the second-highest bravery medal.
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Buddy was my regimental commander when I was a freshman at West Point. He was a senior then. One of his soldiers called me to criticize me about something I said about Buddy in an article about medals. (http://www.johntreed.com/militarymedals.html) I said Buddy had an attractive personality. I said a guy who was disliked, might have done the same and not gotten the MOH. After the guy complained to me, I sent Buddy an email asking if he had a problem with what I said. He did not. I later talked to him in person late last year and again in March of this year.
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What happened when he got the MOH? His company suspected some enemy in the area and went out to see. That is standard infantry tactics. If you perceive the enemy is in your area, you need to go find them to ascertain their size, strength, and intentions. Turned out it was a huge NVA unit that did not know Bucha’s company was there. They were doing stuff like gathering water and having roosters to produce chickens and eggs to eat. In other words, the NVA thought THEY were in a rear area of sorts with no Americans around.
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One of Bucha’s guys asked if he could “recon by fire”—shoot into the area where you suspected the enemy was to see if they responded.
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Boy, did they!
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The heroism was essentially dealing with suddenly and unexpectedly finding themselves surrounded and vastly outnumbered.
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http://transom.org/20…/weve-never-been-the-same-a-war-story/
Don’t bother with the written article. It’s more about the writer’s feelings than the Vietnam action. Just push the play button to listen to the radio broadcast documentary.
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Then you will have a better idea about REAL “heroism,” known to those who did it as “just doing my job” albeit in extremely scary circumstances.