Now, I am not insulting ANY veterans, I thank them for what they do, I am just putting forth something I've noticed. As of late, it seems that Veterans talk more proudly of killing their enemies. I do volunteer work at the local VFW, and I've talked to many Veterans from WWII to Somalia. Just recently, a few friends have made it back from Afghanistan and Iraq. Now there's a trend I've been noticing. Again, this may not be true, it's just an observation.

Veterans from WWII, Korea, and Vietnam seem to be quiet, not wanting to talk about their war experiences with other people, except with fellow veterans. They generally seem disturbed with the thought of killing and the other tragedies involved in war. Then, on the other side, there are veterans from the Gulf War, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. From conversations with veterans from those conflicts, they almost seem proud of killing their opponents, calling them "Sandmonkeys","Skinnies", and other names, and seem more ready to brag about their ordeals than the previously mentioned Veterans. Maybe it's a sign of the times, or maybe time is a factor, but it seems strange. Again, they all did wonderful work, and went through the toughest of the world's trials, but it's just an observation.

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"The Difference between Republicans and Democrats, is that Repbublicans come up with bad ideas, and Democrats come up with no ideas" Lewis Black

Its somewhat understandable. The German, Vietnamise, and North Korean grunt infantry that we fought were not themselves evil. We didnt hate them as individuals, we just hated what they were defending. In Afghanistan and Iraq we are pretty much killing bad people. The indidividual enemy comabatant grunts are all bad and evil people. Plus, the soldiers are kinda encouraged to kill as many terrosists as possible...

I think you're onto something, Printer. The individuals ARE the bad guys. I wouldn't have thought of that. I was thinking it was kind of like therapy, but your answer is better. I would add that nowadays we are taught not to hold things in.

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"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves." ~Ronald Reagan

I really like your point. Never really considered it.

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"The Difference between Republicans and Democrats, is that Repbublicans come up with bad ideas, and Democrats come up with no ideas" Lewis Black

I'm not sure how old you are, but I'll take my 91 year old father's word for it, as well as that of his (last remaining) best friend... they hated the Germans and Japanese and they were the bad guys (in their minds). We didn't round up Japanese-Americans and put them in concentration camps because we saw them as OK folks.

Pals of mine (just a bit older than me) were in Vietnam and some still hold hard feeling against Vietnamese people. Purely anecdotal, but this hug fest with Vietnam is a recent phenomenon. But years have passed and many (most?) people have gotten on with their lives, as best they could.

Whether the soldiers of the past were defending the Fatherland, the Emperor or communism, I don't recall that they were seen as just average boys doin' a job... until modern PC revisions of history kicked in.

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"Tweeter was a Boyscout before she went to Vietnam and found out the hard way... nobody gives a d@mn."

I'll try to follow the previous poster's logic, so what about the Iraqi soldiers who fought in the first Gulf War?

Good guys? Bad guys? Average guys doing a job?

While I guess it's good to get things out (afterall, I'm on a message board typing to people from around the world ), IMO, this country could do with a little less conversation and a little more action.

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"Tweeter was a Boyscout before she went to Vietnam and found out the hard way... nobody gives a d@mn."

I work with veterans professionally, as a substance abuse counselor. My observation is that this seems to be a function of age rather than which war. Young men seem to still very much need to feel that they were the "good guys" and that the war they fought in was an unambiguous battle between good (presumably us) and evil (presumably the other guy). As they get older, they are able to accept more and more that the people on the other side of the conflict had a different view of who was good and who was evil, and that indeed there is always ambiguity in war. In other words, they become more at peace with themselves and with their actions in the war.

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"Speak your mind even if your voice shakes" -- Maggie Kuhn