Cold War Veterans Blog

“Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard and do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”


John Kerry might well have read this monolouge before he made that joke or whatever he called it in Seattle.

Platoon
written by Oliver Stone

Chris: Of course Mom and Dad didn't want me to come here, they wanted me to be just like them. Respectable, hardworking, a little house, a family. They drove me crazy with their goddamn world Grandma, you know, Mom....I guess I always been sheltered and special. I just wanted to be anonymous like everybody else. Do my share for my country, live up to what Grandpa did in the first war and Dad in the second. Well, here I am anonymous, alright, with guys nobody really cares about. They come from the end of the line most of them. Small towns you never heard of. Palasky Tennessee, Brandon Mississippi, Pork Band Utah, Wallpom Pennsylvania. Two years high school, that's about it. Maybe if there lucky a job waiting for them. They got nothing. They're poor, they're the unwanted, yet they're fighting for our society and our freedom. It's weird, isn't it. They're the bottom of the barrel and they know it. Maybe that's why they call themselves grunts. Cause a grunt can take it, can take anything. They're the best I've ever seen Grandma, they're the Heart and Soul.

Was this true during Vietnam maybe so whether you think Servicemen are uneducated slobs or rocket scientists or somewhere in between the point is they are us from every corner of the country and yes from every socio-enconomic group they are us and they are our Heart and Soul.