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COAL CELLARS and COMMON SENSE -- By Don Bendell

 
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Deuce
Senior Chief Petty Officer


Joined: 19 Mar 2005
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Location: FL
PostPosted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 12:25 am    Post subject: COAL CELLARS and COMMON SENSE -- By Don Bendell Reply with quote
Quote:
As Vietnam veterans; for decades, we were like the shiny black lumps in our coal cellar when I was a little boy. That coal bin was dark, cold, scary, and out of sight of the neighbors. That is where the American public shoveled all of us after Vietnam. Out of sight, out of mind after-all. We were not seen or heard from for years, except as psycho killers in movies and TV shows. War is always hell, but a lot of our real pain came from the heartbreak of Americans not giving us enough credit. Newsmen said it, so many thought we all lost our values and character that we grew up with. Instead, in the publics’ minds; amazingly, we became brain-washed, robotic killers, and rapists after only a year or two of military training. Please! It was chilly and emotionally-barren in that coal bin all those years, because we, “Vietnam Untouchables,” were blanketed by an icy coldness of public shame and apathy.

Then, a few years ago, we came into vogue. Even the left saw us as fashionable, so now there are 11,000,000 Vietnam vets running around. Except for one problem, there were only 2.7 million of us in Vietnam. People finally learned though that we are not sociopaths, that only 17% of us were black, which was commensurate with that racial percentage nationally, that we did not mostly come from low income families, and most of us were; like me, volunteers, not draftees. And so many more myths about Vietnam have been exploded.

found at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2327582/posts


Link provided for this brilliant word picture, because I sense that someday it will also be a brilliant Memorial to SwiftVets, who raised most of us out of that Coal Cellar in which we seemed destined to remain buried.

there is of course, much more at the link above,
Deuce
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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 1:05 am    Post subject: Re: COAL CELLARS and COMMON SENSE -- By Don Bendell Reply with quote
Deuce wrote:
...I sense that someday it will also be a brilliant Memorial to SwiftVets, who raised most of us out of that Coal Cellar in which we seemed destined to remain buried.


I concur. While we may not be around to read it, history written by Historians will prevail.

P.S. In deference to the original host....

http://www.redcounty.com/coal-cellars-and-commom-sense
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TEWSPilot
Admiral


Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 1235
Location: Kansas (Transplanted Texan)
PostPosted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 3:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
...and for all these years that the old coal bucket and shovel from my grandparents' house has sat next to my fireplace, I always thought I was honoring my grandfather's memory and the memory of all those nice warm winter nights visiting them in Illinois when he kept the furnace burning warmly. It will certainly take on a whole new meaning now.
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BuffaloJack
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy


Joined: 10 Aug 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:10 am    Post subject: Re: COAL CELLARS and COMMON SENSE -- By Don Bendell Reply with quote
Me#1You#10 wrote:
... While we may not be around to read it, history written by Historians will prevail.


Sorry, Me#1You#10, it won't.
About 12 years ago I began studying the history of the Civil War by reading newspaper accounts from the period. Amazingly, they are on line if you search. For each battle or event, I picked a Southern paper and a Northern paper and tried to filter out the bias (not too hard if you read both sides).
The Civil War was absolutely nothing like I was taught in school and the Reconstruction was even further away from the teachings of our education system.
The Vietnam War will forever be recorded with a lefty bias and I fear there is nothing we can do to prevent it.
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Me#1You#10
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 2:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Jack, while a leftist perspective currently dominates the public discourse on any subject they perceive to be relevant and important to their ideological cause, Historians worthy of that name (at least as I see them) are, first and foremost, chronicleers of ALL documentable facts which might then be subjected to some form of historical analysis. Obversely, those who traffic in selected or over-emphasized "fact" to support their own "historical" perspective are decidedly NOT Historians...but propagandists. (see David Brinkley for a most recent demonstration).

On an assumption that there is some truth in the above, and that Historians are not (yet perhaps) an endangered or extinct species, History has ALREADY recorded the leftist (and the Democrat Party) hand on the tiller of our shameful withdrawal and failed American commitment to Vietnam. While that inconvenient fact might well be ignored (or, perhaps more likely, even celebrated) in some propagandist tome, it cannot be "erased" from History. I take no small comfort in that fact though, like you, I've regretfully resigned myself to contemporary "minority status" in supporting its importance.

As to your personal insights into the prevailing "history" of the Civil War, I'm ill-equipped to discuss the subject...other than to note that "media bias" (with which we, here, are more than familiar) has a long and storied pedigree.
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BuffaloJack
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 11:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
You are right Me#1
Genuine HISTORIANS will record events truthfully.
History teachers in the schools will just spew the party line and agendas in their task of indoctrination.
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TEWSPilot
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Joined: 26 Aug 2004
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 6:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Here is a good place to start learning our true history.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers

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