SwiftVets.com

[redneckvet]

My favorite memory of coming home is funny.

The day after I arrived home from Vietnam my family took me to Darlington SC to visit my sister and her husband. It happened to be Labor Day weekend and NASCAR was having their annual stock car race. The night before the race my father, brother-in-law and I decided to go to the track and check out the parties going on in the infield. The crowd was pretty rowdy and lots of noise. While we were walking around a young kid , without my knowledge, dropped a pack of firecrackers behind me. Needless to say, within a nano second, I was lying flat on the ground. My father and brother-in-law were trying to pick me up and my brother-in-law kept saying "the wars over son, the wars over". I was laughing at this point and kept trying to tell them it was not a "flashback", it was just a reflex action. The rest of the time we were there it was like a patrol in Nam, my father and brother-in-law walking point, checking to make sure no kids had firecrackers.
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"Full Tour Grunt"

[Tacan70UDN]

Hey Redneck -

Similar thing happened to me. Came home to a new house my parents had bought in a different town. Didn't know they had a volunteer fire department. My first night home, in "my" bed, the siren went off for the FD, and I went to the floor before I was awake! Hadn't thought about that in years.

[coldwarvet]

The VVAW tentacles and Kerry’s participation reached way beyond 4/22/71.

Letter sent to my brother 8/2/04 havn't heard from him since.

I wore my uniform home only one time and learned all I needed about the opinions about the military shared by many American’s.

While I was in the USAF 75-79 I found myself questioning my service and my contribution to the Cold War. When grandma died in 6/79 about the time you visited me in Cheyenne, I was really discouraged and depressed about the whole thing and when the Air Force denied my leave for grandma’s funeral I went AWOL I was fortunate that I had a few days before my next duty call and my absence was never missed. On my trip back to Cheyenne I did a lot of soul searching.

And these are the questions I played in my mind. These are not questions that came up in the wake of grandma’s funeral but questions I developed with the countless hours I had to think while I was out at missile sites.

Should of I wore my dress uniform to Aunt Lois’s wedding?

I remember seeing our cousin Gary at Grandpa’s funeral 1965 in his uniform. Why is it that I didn’t wear my uniform to Grandmas’ funeral? Just as well I might have offended someone and now is a time to mourn and not make a scene.

Why is their very little public support for our service I am not even comfortable wearing my uniform in public?

Why is it that the Vietnam veterans that I spent endless hours on patrol with taken so much public abuse for just doing the duty that their country called them to, and following the orders handed down by politicians, and ordered to carry out? The Vietnam guy’s I served with rarely ever talked about their war experience, however they would go on endlessly about their mistreatment from the American public.

After much thought just prior to Grandma’s funeral I convinced myself that nuclear war was unavoidable and that probably by the year 2000 it would all come to an end.

So with all this in mind with my arrival back to Cheyenne I went to my first sergeants office and told him I can no longer support the Cold War and that if we were a God fearing nation and if we truly believed “In God We Trust” we would not need all of these Nuclear weapons and then I told my first sergeant I would no longer carry an M-16. My 1st Sergeant asked me for my Security Police Shield and sent me to the mental health clinic wear they diagnosed me of having a passive aggressive disordered and recommended me for discharged. The Air Force reviewed my record that was mostly filled with positive remarks and I had received very high marks on all of my performance reports. Comments like every effort should be made to retain Airman Jelinek and that he shows much promise as being an effective NCO. So the Air Force did give me an Honorable Discharge.

At that time I had served 43 Months of a 48 month commitment with 3 months of unused leave so all I would have had to do is serve out another two months take my 90 days of leave and be done. In retrospect it was wrong for me to betray the men I served with and leave the Air Force in the manner I did. I have shifted my opinions regarding the Cold War and as a free nation we did what we had to. And I personally believe it is the hand of God who we do trust that has kept us from a nuclear catastrophe.

During that time I did not know of anyone I served with that paid attention to politics and I didn’t either at that time. I do not ever recall the name of Kerry even being discussed. I do recall receiving security briefings regarding the VVAW Vietnam, Veterans, Against, War that they had taken over the Statue of Liberty and that they might be plotting on taking occupation of a Missile Site in protest against the cold war.

When Jordan joined the Navy I thought that American public had gotten passed its anti military opinion of our Men & Women in uniform only to find out that when Jordan was in uniform on liberty in downtown Chicago with Justin & Jered that some guy on a bicycle waived his middle finger at him. Well that immediately brought me back to all the conversations I had with the men I served with and I took it upon myself to get to the root source of all these anti military attitudes.

In my research I came across two documents of records that put all the pieces together for me. One was the transcripts of the Kerry – O’Neil debate hosted by Dick Cavett and the other was Kerry as a member of the VVAW testifying before a select group of senators depicting American soldiers of committing War Crimes that have never been substantiated and with my own extended conversations with many of the men I served with that were in combat said that they ever saw or even heard of.

Perhaps after reading this you have gained an understanding of how emotionally charged the Kerry nomination has been for my self and many other veterans.

With love for my brother
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Defender of the honor of those in harms way keeping us out of harms way.

"Peace is our Profession"
Strategic Air Command - Motto

USAF 75-79 Security Police

[ETEE]

Homecoming
I am a Vietnam "Era" Veteran. I will admit that I was never spit at, upon my return to America in 1971. But I did make the mistake, on the day I was discharged, of wearing my Dress Navy Blues while hitchhiking home, on I-90 out of Boston to Albany.

As their car went by, one of three rather long-haired, "Peace Loving Citizens" threw a half full bottle of beer at me …… At 65 MPH. It turned into splatered glass on the entrance ramp retaining wall behind me. Had the aim of this hirsute purveyor of flower power and Schlitz been 10 cm to the right, I may well have been shipped home in a box.

I am sure that this American lover of peace and tranquility must have mistaken me for one of you “murderers, rapists, and perpetrators of atrocities” returning home from that “unjust war” in Southeast Asia. I am just as sure, that his attitude was in no small part shaped by the rhetoric of Jane Fonda and John Forbes Kerry.

Actually, unlike those of you who served “In Country” Vietnam, I had just returned from four years of sea duty, on a vessel whose purpose is to make sure that our government knows the location of the Soviet Unions Nuclear Missile Submarines , in our effort to counter and avoid a Nuclear war.
But then, that “hippy” didn't bother to ask.

[BigAl533]