48 yrs ago - destroy everything in the village that was "walking, crawling or growing

[O Really]

There's a lot of variation in "serving." I'm not sure that someone such as myself who had a cushy not-really-military job is entitled to the same level of recognition as the guy who volunteered for multiple tours in dangerous places.

[neoplacebo]

Goddamnit, I don't know of any fucking discounts, free donuts, or good looking girls with no underwear crossing their legs real slow for my benefit. I did get a VA loan to buy a house two different times. I've thought for a long time that the draft should be reinstated. My experience in the military only reinforced my opinion of that. And I've been out 43 years.

Here are a few hundred

https://militarybenefits.info/military-discounts/#home

Very well. A lot of that is stuff I'd never utilize. But it does put the idea in my mind of actually asking at the time of purchase if the seller offers a veteran discount.

[Vrede too]

Very well. A lot of that is stuff I'd never utilize. But it does put the idea in my mind of actually asking at the time of purchase if the seller offers a veteran discount.

Some are active military rather than veteran, but you can google veteran discounts. Many probably also offer a senior discount, which I always forget to ask about, and you probably can't double dip. You may have missed your pre-senior veteran opportunities.

[neoplacebo]

Very well. A lot of that is stuff I'd never utilize. But it does put the idea in my mind of actually asking at the time of purchase if the seller offers a veteran discount.

Some are active military rather than veteran, but you can google veteran discounts. Many probably also offer a senior discount, which I always forget to ask about, and you probably can't double dip. You may have missed your pre-senior veteran opportunities.

Yeah, I noticed more than a few that were only for active duty military. What needs to happen is that my source for Mr. Natural offer a senior citizen AND military veteran discount. Now I could get behind something like that. Errata: I use my old Navy id that expired Jan 9, 1979 for ID at the polling place. Or at least I've used it since moving back here in 2015. I figure the state GQP will soon make my old military ID invalid as voter ID and instead insist on me providing my Qidiot ID in order to vote.

[Vrede too]

Yeah, I noticed more than a few that were only for active duty military. What needs to happen is that my source for Mr. Natural offer a senior citizen AND military veteran discount. Now I could get behind something like that. Errata: I use my old Navy id that expired Jan 9, 1979 for ID at the polling place. Or at least I've used it since moving back here in 2015. I figure the state GQP will soon make my old military ID invalid as voter ID and instead insist on me providing my Qidiot ID in order to vote.

I got my RealID drivers license last Fall. In theory, I can vote if the RepuQs ever beat the courts here and can fly without ending up in an ICE detention camp. We'll see.

[billy.pilgrim]

Now we are mostly required to thank vets for their service without knowing what they did, why they joined or who they are.

Discounts and many a thank you, thank you as we all bow down to America's patriots - including those who couldn't get a job, those looking for uncle nanny and retirement after 20 years, those with sick family members who couldn't get health insurance, people too stupid to form their own fact based opinions and those who simply wanted to kill people different than their own folk for the fun and excitement of it all.

There is a myriad of reasons people join. Thanking Steven Green or Timmy McVeigh for their service and handing out 10 and 15% discounts at Home Depot, drug stores and movie theaters to similar scum, assholes and idiots shouldn't be where we are on lil bush's Forever Wars For Fun and Profit, but it's the New US (us).

Is it our fault that so little has changed in 50 years?

It has changed - big time and for the worse. TV news people now always Thank all vets for their service no matter how they served or why. That wasn't the case 50 years ago even though the Vietnam War was slightly more justifiable than our new for profit war in Iraq and elsewhere.

The money spent to insure that our kill ratio is 1000 • 1 is almost as bad as the salaries and benefits of joining this volunteer mercenary army.

And the real kicker, now politicians are almost required to be vets. Those who haven't served are ridiculed on fox and all right wing sites.

[Vrede too]

... And the real kicker, now politicians are almost required to be vets. Those who haven't served are ridiculed on fox and all right wing sites.

. . . if they're Dems. Chickenhawk RepuQs get a pass because "of course they are patriots." Then, Dem vets get trashed.

[billy.pilgrim]

... And the real kicker, now politicians are almost required to be vets. Those who haven't served are ridiculed on fox and all right wing sites.

. . . if they're Dems. Chickenhawk RepuQs get a pass because "of course they are patriots." Then, Dem vets get trashed.

All true. Never a word about bush or trump dodging the draft, but over and over we heard military say that they couldn't serve a CIC who had never served during the Clinton and Obama administrations.

[Ulysses]

48 years ago today women, children, the elderly, babies and livestock were gunned down in the village of My Lai. exposing this atrocity helped bring an end to the very wrong viet nam war. As many as 500 were murdered. The U.S. government has maintained that atrocities like this were isolated incidents.


until recently when Nick Turse stumbled on files of over 300 similar events that the military was able to keep quiet. His book, Kill Anything That Moves exposes the real viet nam war.

a Chris Hedges review
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/it ... s_20130312

from Moyers another excerpt

http://billmoyers.com/2013/02/08/excerp ... hat-moves/



(an excerpt followed, see first message in thread for text)

Wow. I read as much as I could of the link and one of the works it linked to.

I started college in the fall of 1969. I was dimly aware of the war, from TV news, and a growing number of protests in the city where I grew up.

After living in a campus dorm for a few months, I became appalled at the carnage halfway across the globe.

In the winter of 1970 I joined a group of students from my dorm to march from one end of a major city to another, in protest against the war. It was a memorable experience. I'm glad I did it, and nobody I knew, including family, was critical of the march.

Those were turbulent years on campus. It took me six years to get my four year degree, changed my major twice, and the counsellors told me this was not unusual for the time.

In December 1969, I remember standing around the third floor of the dorm while the first draft lottery numbers were announced. I was relieved to get a relatively high number. But, since I was still only 17, the number didn't count. Fortunately the next year's lottery gave me an even higher number, so the chances of getting drafted in a war that was gradually winding down were not great. The luck of the draw. But I know people who fled to Canada rather than serve. It was that bad.

I had nothing against those who did serve, but then I didn't ask questions. One time I hitched a ride from the Sacramento Valley to the coast. I got picked up by an army sergeant in a silver Porche. Top down. Over 80 mph most of the way. Whee. He told me he was on leave from Nam. I don't know what he was on, if anything, but later when I learned more of what was going on in our military, I wondered what horrors he had seen or even caused. The plus was it was the quickest trip on land from point A to point B I had ever taken. I hope things turned out OK for him.

[Vrede too]

... And the real kicker, now politicians are almost required to be vets. Those who haven't served are ridiculed on fox and all right wing sites.

. . . if they're Dems. Chickenhawk RepuQs get a pass because "of course they are patriots." Then, Dem vets get trashed.

All true. Never a word about bush or trump dodging the draft, but over and over we heard military say that they couldn't serve a CIC who had never served during the Clinton and Obama administrations.

I'm not sure whether this is random, brilliant or offensive. USWNT First game:

2023 Women's World Cup Championship, Australia and New Zealand
USA vs Vietnam
Group Stage
Jul 21, 2023 9:00 PM EDT

Go futbol!

[billy.pilgrim]

It's really amazing how other countries in light of the future want to put the evils we've done to them aside, but not us, if you're smaller or browner, or just different we don't need much to reestablish the hate.
McCain gave a speech at a big kumbaya party in Hanoi. Everyone was making nice and then McCain took the podium. To the tens of thousands who he and his kind had recently fire-bombed with incendiaries and sticky jellied fuel, lost family members and friends, lost limbs, homes and gone without food or shelter, McCain stood up and said, "the wrong side won"
Hey John you asshole, I'm rooting for Vietnam.

Joe Scarborough had those republicans who contrived and financed the Swift Boat lies against Kerry on his msnbc tv show in what memory indicates as nightly, but in truth was at more like twice a week.

Other than his continuing to highlight these assholes and his failure to clap back at the free-for-all lie fest was the Headline under the picture. I don't remember the exact phrasing, but in all capital letters are swift boat, John Kerry and coward in the form of a question. Another of those unnecessary questions media asks, in a you decide fair and balanced if you will, a 2 tour volunteer Democratic Party candidate when heavy protection big money prevents asking the republican draft dodger.

[neoplacebo]

Yeah, it takes massive amounts of money to nurture and cultivate the kind of gullibility it takes to give traction to a lie. Weird, ain't it? Lies are expensive as hell; truth costs nothing.

[Vrede too]

Yeah, it takes massive amounts of money to nurture and cultivate the kind of gullibility it takes to give traction to a lie. Weird, ain't it? Lies are expensive as hell; truth costs nothing.

Then, there are the lies by omission.

Thousands of pieces of unexploded ordnance found buried in ground at Cambodian school

... The site was an ammunition warehouse during the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s before being turned into a school and all of the ordnance was thought to have been removed, Chheang Heng said.

From Friday through Sunday, 2,116 pieces of ordnance were collected by deminers from the Cambodian Mine Action Center, the government agency's director general, Heng Ratana, posted on Facebook

They included M79 grenades, FuzeM48 shells and ordnance for the B40 rocket launcher....

The brutal rule of the radical communist Khmer Rouge was blamed for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodian from starvation, illness and killing before being ousted by a Vietnamese invasion....

The article rightfully blames the genocidal Khmer Rouge, but it neglects to mention that it arose thanks to the "radical" capitalist US invasion of SE Asia.

It also never states that the M79 grenades and FuzeM48 shells (M1 mortar) were US products. Yay team.

Otoh, the B40 was a North Vietnamese clone of the Soviet RPG-2.

If we aren't already we should be paying for some of the Cambodian ordinance recovery and removal.

[billy.pilgrim]

Yeah, it takes massive amounts of money to nurture and cultivate the kind of gullibility it takes to give traction to a lie. Weird, ain't it? Lies are expensive as hell; truth costs nothing.

Then, there are the lies by omission.

Thousands of pieces of unexploded ordnance found buried in ground at Cambodian school

... The site was an ammunition warehouse during the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s before being turned into a school and all of the ordnance was thought to have been removed, Chheang Heng said.

From Friday through Sunday, 2,116 pieces of ordnance were collected by deminers from the Cambodian Mine Action Center, the government agency's director general, Heng Ratana, posted on Facebook

They included M79 grenades, FuzeM48 shells and ordnance for the B40 rocket launcher....

The brutal rule of the radical communist Khmer Rouge was blamed for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodian from starvation, illness and killing before being ousted by a Vietnamese invasion....

The article rightfully blames the genocidal Khmer Rouge, but it neglects to mention that it arose thanks to the "radical" capitalist US invasion of SE Asia.

It also never states that the M79 grenades and FuzeM48 shells (M1 mortar) were US products. Yay team.

Otoh, the B40 was a North Vietnamese clone of the Soviet RPG-2.

If we aren't already we should be paying for some of the Cambodian ordinance recovery and removal.

https://youtu.be/ztZI2aLQ9Sw

[Vrede too]

https://youtu.be/ztZI2aLQ9Sw

Here he is in a 1969 video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01-2pNCZiNk

The Temptations original version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0K3LJq9KnU
Also well done.

D.O.A. version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRbimSYh2ow

War (The Temptations song)

"War" is a counterculture era soul song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for the Motown label in 1969. Whitfield first produced the song – an obvious anti–Vietnam War statement – with The Temptations as the original vocalists. After Motown began receiving repeated requests to release "War" as a single, Whitfield re-recorded the song with Edwin Starr as the vocalist, with the label deciding to withhold the Temptations' version from single release so as not to alienate their more conservative fans. Starr's version of "War" was a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1970, and is not only the most successful and well-known record of his career, but it is also one of the most popular protest songs ever recorded.

It was one of 161 songs on the no-play list issued by Clear Channel following the events of September 11, 2001.

Assholes.

Temptations' version and initial release

... The label did not want to risk the image of its most popular male group, and the Temptations themselves were also apprehensive about releasing such a potentially controversial song as a single.

Opps.

The label decided not to release "War" as a single, a decision that Whitfield fought until the label came up with a compromise: "War" would be released, but it would have to be re-recorded with a different act.

Phew, and here we are 53 years later.

Later covers

The song's power was reasserted when Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band took their rendition into the U.S. Top 10 in 1986.

... in 1982, Vancouver punk band D.O.A. released a version of "War" as the title track of their EP War on 45....

In the 2010 film adaptation of Gulliver's Travels, the song is adapted as a musical production within the movie, with Jack Black singing the lead, and key lines sung by supporting vocalists including Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly, and Emily Blunt....

War - Jack Black from Gullivers Travels 2010

We ain't Lilliput.

[billy.pilgrim]

https://youtu.be/ztZI2aLQ9Sw

Here he is in a 1969 video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01-2pNCZiNk

The Temptations original version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0K3LJq9KnU
Also well done.

D.O.A. version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRbimSYh2ow

War (The Temptations song)

"War" is a counterculture era soul song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for the Motown label in 1969. Whitfield first produced the song – an obvious anti–Vietnam War statement – with The Temptations as the original vocalists. After Motown began receiving repeated requests to release "War" as a single, Whitfield re-recorded the song with Edwin Starr as the vocalist, with the label deciding to withhold the Temptations' version from single release so as not to alienate their more conservative fans. Starr's version of "War" was a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1970, and is not only the most successful and well-known record of his career, but it is also one of the most popular protest songs ever recorded.

It was one of 161 songs on the no-play list issued by Clear Channel following the events of September 11, 2001.

Assholes.

Temptations' version and initial release

... The label did not want to risk the image of its most popular male group, and the Temptations themselves were also apprehensive about releasing such a potentially controversial song as a single.

Opps.

The label decided not to release "War" as a single, a decision that Whitfield fought until the label came up with a compromise: "War" would be released, but it would have to be re-recorded with a different act.

Phew, and here we are 53 years later.

Later covers

The song's power was reasserted when Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band took their rendition into the U.S. Top 10 in 1986.

... in 1982, Vancouver punk band D.O.A. released a version of "War" as the title track of their EP War on 45....

In the 2010 film adaptation of Gulliver's Travels, the song is adapted as a musical production within the movie, with Jack Black singing the lead, and key lines sung by supporting vocalists including Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly, and Emily Blunt....

War - Jack Black from Gullivers Travels 2010

We ain't Lilliput.

Yeah, I first pasted the 69 version, but it didn't fit the words.

[Vrede too]

Yeah, I first pasted the 69 version, but it didn't fit the words.

It wasn't meant to be a complaint, just a supplement. I like the version with the lyrics. Here's another video, not sure when it was made:


Edwin Starr - War (w/lyrics + Vietnam War footage)

[billy.pilgrim]

No complaints here. Those of us who lived then know what an accomplishment it was for a black man with a political song to get on TV. His appearance may also been a reflection of the necessary compromises.

[billy.pilgrim]

Such a good reason for never blindly following your country into its wars.