Nothing makes the boredom of military life melt away like a book.I had a friend back in the states who sent me books. I will always be grateful. I doubt if she knows just how much that meant to me. I'm not sure anyone can know who hasn't been there, opening a box from home.
Which is why I'm also grateful to the more than two dozen people who signed up to send books to the 47th Combat Support Hospital in Iraq. I expect the first boxes will be showing up soon. I'll keep you posted.
You guys are terrific.
Sorry I haven't been posting much this week. I hurt my back doing something I must be too old to do, although I don't know what that was. Just sitting hurts.
This weekend I'm going to lie flat and relax. Maybe by next Monday I'll be whole again. Wish me luck.
4 comments:
Please feel no need to comment, but I have posted this around town--including the fact that I mailed 20 books for $6 by filling out a short form. Mostly at Unitarian Churches and universities. What could be worse than nothing to read. I always feel guilty about the way supposed liberals treated the soldiers in Vietnam--a great regret in my life.
Patti,
The ill treatment of returning vets from Vietnam is an urban myth.
Were there a few instances of spitting and being called a baby killer? Hell, I'm certain it happened a time or two. There are jackasses on the left, I know. But the stories always seem to start with "I know a guy..." Like the number of people who were at Woodstock, the number of returning vets being spat upon grows larger every year.
The right likes people to think that liberals shunned us. That is far from the truth. Young kids flashed me a smile and the peace sign. Hippies gave me a ride when I needed a lift.
College students wanted to know more about what I'd seen and where I'd been.
There were no conservatives offering me free drinks in airports. Maybe it was because so many of them had ducked their service like Dick Cheney.
Rent a magnificent documentary called Sir, No Sir. It sets a lot of things straight. The right has captured the narrative of this time and I can tell you, it's bullshit, just like the rest of the right's propaganda.
The biggest assholes I met as a returning vet were the old guys who blamed us for losing the war. Ask a vet how he feels about the treatment he got from the VFW and American Legion. The Bastards.
A liberal never refused to serve me a beer. An old Marine bartender did. My hair was too long.
Rent the movie. And thanks for the books. You're aces.
There is a scene in Born on the Fourth of July where Kovic is drunk and belligerent in a bar and a former WWII Marine insults him for losing the war.
I presume that actually happened to Kovic, but it is a movie.
Dang this stupid internet. That last comment was mine but under the wrong log-in.
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