"I was a Viet Nam Veteran before it was popular"

[YellowRubberDuckie]

This was a bumpersticker I saw today here in Oklahoma. Can someone please tell me what the fuck that means? :shrug:
Duckie

[ForrestGump]

1. They're in their '70s and

French?

[YellowRubberDuckie]

2. He was probably in his late 50s, early 60s...

and he was driving a green ford f150.
Duckie

[ForrestGump]

5. At that age...

he could well have been among the first wave of US troops sent in to Vietnam in 1965 or perhaps a Green Beret or other 'advisor' from the early '60s.

Seems like just yesterday that most of the Vietnam veterans I knew were in their mid-30s, younger than I am now, but all of a sudden I look around and they're all 20 years older. Guess I am, too...

[xmas74]

3. Unless he was saying

that he really did serve, compared to some reports of men in bars bragging about service. In wartime it becomes popular among the weak and the chickenhawks to brag about past service that they never actually completed. (You know-the "I crossed enemy lines w/ only a Swiss Army knife and killed 100 enemies" sort of crap.)

He might not mean it that way but that's the first thought I had. He's saying that he did serve and that at the time it wasn't something that "everyone was doing", whether they really did or not.

[sarge43]

4. Nam vets didn't get parades, "Support the Troops" stickers, etc

For the most part what they got was either hostility or indifference. The only troops that received any positive recognition were the POWs. And what xmas74 said.

[Critters2]

16. I read an article recently that said there were almost no

REAL incidents of people yelling at, cursing at, spitting at, etc. Vietnam Vets. That was something the media made up (if you can imagine!). I'll see if I can find it.

[sarge43]

17. Don't get me wrong.

I don't mean the 'spitting, cursing at' myth. Hell, I helped inprocessed a lot of people returning from Nam and I never heard of it. However, there were confrontations, arguments and, sometimes, shouting matches. Perhaps angry and frustration on both sides would describe it better than hostility.

[xmas74]

18. Exactly.

It wasn't "cool" to be a vet. Now, everyone wants to discuss their record, even if they don't have one.

[Madrone]

6. I agree with you.

I have a very close friend that was over there on the front lines. He has said it is VERY common to find liars bragging about their "service" - when they've, in fact, never even left the country in most cases.

This was the first thing that entered my mind when reading about this bumper sticker.

[xmas74]

19. That's kind of what I thought it really meant.

Look at all the men out there bragging about their service. Numbers don't lie-not all of them could have served.

I think the bumpersticker is this person's personal statement that he served. Simple and to the point.

[ForrestGump]

7. I hate those people. Hate them without reserve.

Got nothing but contempt for them.

A few Hollywood types are guilty of this, too. Steven Seagal is just one idiot who I guess deciedd that his own life wasn't Seagal-worthy enough and he borrowed the details of another's (in this case not imiltary, but CIA. Fake bozo. Real bozo, actually.

I used to see some f***wit hanging around on the Vegas Strip who was always wearing camouflaged fatigues and webbing and pack, all dressed up like Rambo, with shades and a look that just screamed he was on a secret mission (yeah, on the Strip, dressed like a special-ops type in one of the most heavily-surveilled pieces of real estate on the planet). He'd stand there and look around meaningfully, trying to look all broodily secret-agenty, some squirty little moustached f*** with slicked-back hair who even I could tell had never seen basic training, let alone combat or covert ops (and, yes, most of the special forces types I've ever known were also kind of squirty-looking, and entirely unlike the movie archetypes, but they still projected a certain bearing and most I know just seem to smile a lot).

Someone who actually bothered to talk with him told me that he claims to be a black-ops specialist. What a doofus. What's his assignment? Waiting for a bus? I'd love to have just taken him behind a wall, if it wasn't for Big Brothers watching every inch of The Strip, and beat the fake out of the slimy little weasel. I'm not a rampant militarist, but I've got a lot of respect, in general, for competent military people and to see some obnoxious wannabe like him out there breathing and wasting space on this planet while (pathetically unsuccessfully, in his case) co-opting the honor and tradition of real warriors makes me wanna go all Rambo on him.

Fake war veterans are scum. They're spitting on the graves of real heroes, however you define that word, and real casualties of war.

[ScreamingMeemie]

8. And then he ran back home to post on Free Republic or that "other

site" about his "service"... I imagine. They've been getting busted over there I hear. :hi:

[ForrestGump]

9. Could very well be!

We have our share of lunatics, too, but I highly doubt he's a DUer. More like one of theirs.

Maybe if he was wearing a Che-style beret with little red star, sure, but regular militaristic fantasties tend to be more the province of the right-inclined, I'd guess.

I have to say, though, when I went to DC for an interview a while back I wore a suit and tie (had to buy the stuff specifically for the trip, and learned how to tie the tie such that I successfully completed the mission that day and subsequently once again rapidly forgot to knot one) and on my way back from the interview, walking, I put on my shades and played Secret Service agent. :D

Can't recall if I actually did talk into my sleeve a few times -- I know I thought about it -- but, even if I was the only one who 'got' the whole thing, I had fun playing Agent on my way back to the hotel...kinda like playing as a kid. :-)

[ScreamingMeemie]

10. The only thing I will confess to is, sometimes when I am appraising

in the Grosse Pointes... in between appointments I will go shopping to kill time... and pretend that I can actually afford to buy what it is they are offering at any number of the swank little shops along the Blvd. :blush:

[ForrestGump]

11. That's all right

I pretend I'm a whole other person for my living... :D

[ScreamingMeemie]

12. Yeah...but that's COOL!

Once I bouffant-ed my daughter's hair up and did her makeup like Priscilla, because I think she looks a little bit like her. I wanted her to go to school like that for "Rock Star Day"... No dice. She went as Alice Cooper instead...believe it or not. :eyes: :rofl:

[ForrestGump]

13. Alice Cooper?

:D

That would have been cool. I think I'd choose him over Priscilla, too!

But Cilla is a beautiful woman -- was, anyway, before she got her lips so recently inflated and had other unfortunate modifications made -- and so it's hardly a surprise that your and Mr G's genes wouldn't predispose a certain resemblance there... :-)

[UTUSN]

14. SEAGAL did that? I knew about Brian DENNEHY faking a war record

*******QUOTE*******

http://www.aiipowmia.com/inter23/in171103wannabes.html

"Real war veterans increasingly uncover truths of 'wannabes'

Actor Brian Dennehy is among those who have either exaggerated their experiences or lied outright about serving.

By Mike Hudson

Toronto Blue Jays manager Tim Johnson fired up his baseball teams with bloody tales of his days as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam. War was hell. He had killed a little girl and her brother who happened into the line of fire.

The truth: He had been in the Marine Reserves. An exemption for baseball players had kept him out of combat.

The Blue Jays fired Johnson. Now he manages in the bush leagues.

U.S. Rep. Wes Cooley told reporters he'd fought in Korea as a Special Forces "demolition expert" trained in mountain climbing and escape tactics. The Oregon Republican said he'd engaged in countless secret missions.

The truth: Cooley never left the states during his military career. He hadn't even finished his training when the Korean conflict ended.

After his lies unraveled, Cooley dropped his re-election bid. He was convicted of falsifying campaign documents.

Actor Brian Dennehy, one of the stars of the Rambo movie "First Blood," said he served five years in Vietnam. He'd been hit by shrapnel. Combat, he told Playboy magazine, was "absolute f---ing chaos."

The truth: Dennehy had been a Marine, but his only overseas assignment had been as a football player on a service team in Okinawa.

After a long delay, Dennehy admitted his lies.

Pulitzer-winning historian Joseph Ellis spiced his lectures with tales of his Vietnam service. His unit had been nearby during the My Lai massacre. He served on the staff of America's top commander in Vietnam, Gen. William Westmoreland.

The truth: Ellis never fought in Vietnam. During the war, he taught military history at West Point.

Ellis made a tepid apology: "Even in the best of lives, mistakes are made."

********UNQUOTE*******

[xmas74]

20. And I think that's the point of the bumpersticker.

He saying that he really did serve and that there was no glory, no tickertape parades for his service. He served his time, he came home and he didn't really talk about it. Serving wasn't cool-it was something that some got suckered into. (And I do mean in some cases suckered-the drafted didn't get a choice in the matter.)

And most real vets will admit that it wasn't cool to serve, both over there (obviously) and when they came home. It's usually the people w/o a days worth of service or those who sat at their desks the entire time bragging about their service, not those who were actually incountry.

[Whoa_Nelly]

15. There's a guy here that panhandles sitting in different places around town

With a sign telling all about how he's a Viet Nam Vet, can't work, needs money (but if you give him food, as some people have told me they've done, he starts yelling nasty things at you)

Anyway, he looks to be about 25-30 years old.

Viet Nam Vet, my ass(es) :o