Hello there DAVID F...

Well, why am I not surprised to hear of your take on that short piece ? Of course it would be a folly indeed to engage you in some intellectual contretemps, as I'd be surely thrashed ?

Still after reading your contribution I doesn't escape me that all these noble folk who've done so much for the moral benefit of this, and other great nations - I do wonder sometimes what would've happened, if our military forces were vanquished by our enemies, and reduced us to an existence of nothing more than mere serfdom ?

Who was it that gave us Freedom ? The Freedom to speak our minds ? The Freedom to choose a government ? The Freedom to undertake an education ? The Freedom to choose an occupation ? The Freedom to live our lives in any lawful way we wish, and so on ?

Without our military and the military of our allies eventually prevailing in the last war (WW2) who knows we may be feasting on a delicate Japanese cuisine ?

After reading material, structured in a similar vain to yours, I often feel I should apologise for ever joining the Australian Military ? Then I ask myself, why should I be ashamed, what did I do to be ashamed about ? After all we carried all that awful baggage when I returned from Vietnam, nearly fifty years ago now ? Yet I still feel it necessary to apologise, why ?

It's little wonder that Vietnam Veterans still seek suicide as a realistic option, as a salve for their feelings of guilt ? Not guilt occasioned by their wartime experiences, guilt they'd survived such an iniquitous War !

Dear o sung wu,

The Australian military has fought bravely and well. I appreciate what they have done to preserve Australia from foreign domination. However, that is not what all of Australia's wars have been about. The German and Japanese soldiers also fought bravely and well. I am very thankful that we won.

The Vietnamese War had absolutely nothing to do with Australia's freedoms. During WW2 Ho Chi Minh and others fought the Japanese. They were our allies. After WW2 France wanted its colony back. If we were really for freedom we would not have helped France in that effort. The French had a puppet government under Bao Dai. When the US came into the war to salvage western rule over Vietnam there was another puppet government under Nguyen Cao Ky.

I sympathise with the Australian Vietnamese veterans and their suffering. I also sympathise with the Vietnamese people, their soldiers and their suffering.

None if this suffering would have happened if the US and Australia had not sent forces into Vietnam.

My cousin, Richard, was a US pilot in that war. He flew many raids over North Vietnam. He was in there during the early stages of that war and became aware that the Vietnamese people did not want us there. There were incidents on the base such as a laundry woman coming in with grenades under her clothing. This was detected so she did no damage. Richard wanted to resign, but his resignation was not accepted. However, a US officer has the option of refusing promotion. After a time in grade if he is not promoted he must leave the service. He came home, and his wife had a baby which looked like a bunch of grapes. Possibly the result of Agent Orange. No more babies.

Another cousin, Alan, was a US Marine in that war. His main interest was to survive his tour of duty and come home. He did.

Those campus radicals who protested the war helped to arouse the Australian people to the iniquitous nature of that war.

Hi DAVID F...

Thank you for your response, the contents of which are noted. As sure as night follows day, you and I are so philosophically divergent, I don't believe there's any exigency available, that may yield a germane mechanism, that could possibly encourage either of us to reach-out and establish some sort of commonality ?

Happy New Year to you all.

Dear Foxy,

Belly made his decision based on the perceived lack of action on the harassment of both himself and yourself by onthebeach.

I thought it was a principled stance for which I continue to applaud him. There are some here who dismiss and decry those who seek to rein in the behaviour of some of the more confronting members of this forum, but those who have been long time contributors do get protective of this place and of others and Belly was one of those.

We certainly rarely saw eye to eye but I sincerely hope he is stirring up some other forum in another neck of the cyberworld.

Dear o sung wu,

I don't know that we are philosophically divergent. We probably agree that many brave men have performed many heroic and noble deeds in wars which cannot be justified. We may disagree on the justification for particular wars. It is hard to feel that something we have placed ourselves on the line for is not worth it.

My oldest son was a teenager during the Vietnamese War. He told me that even though he had doubts about the war he did not want to miss the experience of his generation. I did not argue with him, but I was glad the war ended before he was 18.

I am fairly sure that were we to meet a common danger we would cooperate to counter it as it would be in our mutual interest.

We can argue and disagree on the web, but we might see eye to eye on some things. I wish you well, and I don't feel it is a bad thing that we have disagreements.

That's quite true DAVID F. it's all part of the great learning curve of life, I guess ? I wish you a good night.