WARS without a purpose SUCK..

I think I must have slept through the Vietnam War. Between working and moving around and of course, partying, I never really paid attention too much. I could never understand why we were fighting over there in the first place. No more than why we are fighting in Iraq. A lot of good men were killed in Vietnam and wounded both physically and mentally and the ‘lucky’ ones got pissed on when they returned. I never really knew many that had been there. Some would not admit it and some dropped out. I only knew or met a few. But one I will always remember. His name was just Joe for this writing. It was when I was living up in Montana. We were sort of neighbors up in the hills. He had a small ranch with a wife and two little girls. If ever there was the proverbial ‘man who never talked much’, it was him. He kept to himself and avoided, the best he could, any conversation with anyone except for the obligatory hellos’. He was having trouble trying to make it financially, as a lot of people were. I was working at a steel Corporation in Stevensville at that time. They were having a little trouble finding loaders for the trucks and general work around the yard. I thought about Joe and asked one evening if he would want to work for a while. He said that would help him get through the tough time he was having at the moment. It was 20 mile each way to work so I told him that I could drive each day. Every morning we left and he barely spoke and only if spoken to. It was the same on the way home. I found out that the guys he worked with said the same thing but that he was one hell of a worker. I did get him to tell me that he was over in Vietnam but never could I get him to talk about it. One morning, after about 1 month, he just said he didn’t want to go any more and that was that. Through the neighbors I found that he was that way at home around his wife and kids. It was so sad to see him totally isolating himself from everyone and nothing you could about it. I eventually moved back to Denver and never knew how he wound up. We were not friends, really. It just wasn’t possible.
I reluctantly must say that for a long time I didn’t much respect for some of the men that run around in khakis and used dope and smoked pot or let themselves go. I just went with crowd and formed that opinion. Gradually, as time went on, I realized that had I went through what they did, had seen what they did over in that war and come back to the insults and disregard and disrespect they were given, I would have been in the same condition. I can’t imagine this sort of reception for those that serve our country today will ever have to, go through that again. I would like to believe, once this Iraq and Afghanistan fiasco is over, that the only reason we will use our military will be for aid to countries where hunger or disaster are present or if our very shores are actually being invaded.