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Thane Thomas (1977)
(Hardly a response as indicated by the button thingie; more a post, period- but then, coders of pages aren't known for their stellar command of anything but flashy signs saying "NEW!" or menus that amount to three cryptic ittle bars instead of actual language, are they? This is simply a...)
Nod and thanks to all those in the classes preceding ours ('77) who, one way or another, stepped up to serve our Greatest Nation to Ever Exist, in that s-storm on the other side of the Earth (technically up to 73, though I've met folks who were in the Highlands to after the 75 issue)
Having given up on that seditionist farcebook thingie, the post goes here:
Following on Cliff N.'s note, anyone should feel as impressed and honored as I to have known any Vikes who put themselves through that Hotpot of Phan (a fave word of theirs), "They fight not for the lust of conquest..." as FDR said, but that, just as per the Ike quote re: Normandy, "the World could be free".
I was lucky to watch real-time Hathcock get his Cup at Perry, get a homemade sandwich from a kindly Julian C. Smith for which I still owe the Corps, and crash the 91st Div. workouts at Cronkhite, but missed out on going as I had wanted to do (not up for using the GI Bill, just didn't go in, or would have gladly as the Folks had in their day)... but really respect any/all of those who did.
That man to the left of this page, in his NSAM 263, had it right: help out but don't bleed our own great people for it.. Even LBJ didn't want it, mentioned privately, early in his term. I went years later to see personally the answer to that sign on your Hill 937, and, after working among the V. kieu here and the natives there, can answer a distinct "no". Our fine people proved nothing new, that we always do more for the World than it has done for us, while today one sees Americans on the streets while same kieu live it up with their concerts and VSOP, helping themselves after ours suffered to help them. There's a news piece online from the time; a Viet says a la tieng-Anh that "I hope that the Americans will do all they can..." I stayed vertical long enough to read each name on that Wall; each name of the Americans who did all they could. I quit keeping tally at 58,163 awhile ago.
The facts that for every My Lai Medina there were probably 10 Hugh Thompsons (and he's a local hero there, btw), or that today the nuocs can't wait to come here, still...
...proves that you were all on the right side, doing, as some older family whom ours lost, the best for those people, as true Americans always have done. I see that just now, the VA wises up to the Blue Water A. Orange thing, and that after waiting 'til 09 to get their heads out and start admitting to it anyway (per the VFW blurb, at least). The cats I met working on Stand Downs, living with it to now, did all they could, way more than what they got back. Those of you with us today did the same, and I'll speak as one who absorbed as much as he could ex post facto of your heroism.
You're great people in my book. Thanks Again.
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