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VIETNAM VIDEO: BEFORE THEY GO
“
OF THE 2.900,000 WHO SERVED IN VIETNAM, FEWER THAN 800,000 SURVIVE TODAY
BY 2015, ALL MAY BE DEAD WITH 390 VIETNAM VETERANS DYING EACH DAY
OVER 130,000 VIETNAM VETERANS HAVE COMMITTED SUICIDE SO FAR, 7 WILL DIE WHILE YOU WATCH THIS SHORT VIDEO”
(Veterans Today is in no way affiliated with any organization involved in this film)
EDITOR’S NOTE: STATS AND FOOTAGE WELL WORTH THE TIME, ENJOY, g duff
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=24115
The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VT or any other VT authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors or partners. Legal Notice
Posted by Gordon Duff on Mar 29 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Vet News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Posted by Gordon Duff on Mar 29 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Vet News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Not since the US civil war and World war 1 have combat veterans been treated so shabbily.
A HEART FELT VIDEO!
SEND IT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW.
Sobering truths here. I salute the men and women who served in Vietnam.
So it is, but it still don’t mean nothing. And when we’re all gone, Vietnam will be striken from all records. Holocast numbers will probably increase to 12 million. See you all on the otherside. Cpl. G.A. Lovenguth S-4 HMM-262 door gunner 70/71
Thank you G, and thank all you other writers on VT. And of course, all you other readers. It’s unbelievable the rate we are disapearing. See you on the other side Night Flyer
Tom Dillman, Houston Vet, 1st Cav Grunt
I just watched the video and I think that it is a complete outrage that someone would go to all this trouble to say “goodbye” to those of us who are Vietnam Veterans. Do you think this token makes me feel better? I have diabetes. I have heart disease and hypertension. I have had five heart attacks since January of 2010. I have PTSD. I have tinnitus. I have neuropathy in both legs and both arms. I have retinopathy. I haven’t slept more than four hours in a single night since I came home 38 years ago. Should I go on? I know of more than a dozen men who were officers, who were pilots, who are living on the streets. And you want to say a last good-bye? If you want to do something for Vietnam Veterans – Raise Your Voice, Raise Awareness! Use your resources to Teach People What Happened to Us! So that it doesn’t happen to our children. And our children’s children! Don’t turn our deaths into something meaningless as they usher us out the door of life. Who gives a damn! Isn’t that the problem! No one really gives a damn! How dare you say “Good Bye” to me and my brother vets. We don’t want your sympathy. We want you to care. We wanted to do what was right for our country when our country needed us to. NOW we want our country to do what is right for us. If you want to do the right thing, then help us. Treat our diseases. Support us. Keep us alive as long as you can. WE DESERVE IT! Believe in us. And learn from our experience so that it never happens like this again. Maybe you’re just doing what you think you can. But if you are smart enough and capable enough to create a video like this and enlist the help of others, Make It Count. You are going at this the wrong way. I don’t want to go quietly. I want to be remembered as someone who volunteered to do the right thing, just like our forefathers did for us. I was trying to put something back. I was trying to pay my dues. I was trying to be someone who could feel that they deserved to live in AMERICA. So I don’t want to go quietly. I don’t want Any of us to go quietly. What happened to Freedom and Justice and Liberty for ALL or does that just mean for all who live in America? If it does, then why do we go to any foreign wars? Should we be counted as cannon fodder? Should our children? Or are we in the war business FOR MONEY AND GREED. If we are? Then all us should stand up and take back this country. This was supposed to be “The Land Of The Free And The Home Of The Brave” OR IS THAT BULLSHIT TOO!
SP/4 James P. Lawrence DOORGUNNER UH-1 RVN “IT TAKES BALLS”
P.S. I have a wife, three sons, one daughter and three grandchildren. And I’m suppose to have five years to live? This sucks.
Jim,
It saddens me to know that you and so many other Vietnam, Korean,Desert Storm and now Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have lived and are living their lives miserably because of the physical and psychological trauma while “in country” and the secondary trauma by the way we are treated when we come home.
As a flight medic in Vietnam, I was hammered every day with back to back missions to the extent I assumed death would be my fate. Instead coming home to fit in again has been my problem as we have all experience.
I am also 100% disabled, my dad was in the South Pacific for 46 months and was could not provide for his family, was not able to do public work, ect. and died at 62 years old from life beating him down.
I have been on trips with Gorden Duff and his wife many time and feel he is the only one that can get inside my head and pick me up when down. Help other vets and you will feel good about yourself.
Henry, I like the list. Korea definitely belongs after Vietnam, but a lot of folks don’t know that casualties are in the books since the HoChiMin boys got into Saigon back in 75 (I think I remember that year correctly) in a cease-fire situation in that part of the world. The conflict there is still not over, unfortunately.
What really gets my butt is all the rear folks that didn’t have to worry too much about anything other than the possibility of sappers, or lower velocity rounds coming into the compound. Most of those rear folks had pretty good billets, pretty good food, and overnight passes to the ville.
No problem with that. Some folks get lucky. And as anybody who has been on a hot LZ knows, luck can mean everything.
My point is, they were there. Yet they remain quiet.
What we could really do for the folks that did the heavy lifting and sufferred is to wake up the rear echelon folks and get their voices into the mix. I would bet they are in the area of 50 to 60 percent of the remaining Nam vets left and it’s time for them to stand up for those that were out there on the hills, or down in the valleys. That actually might be 60 to 70 percent.
Now please don’t get me wrong when you folks read this post. I have not one bit against those guys who did all that work back at the supply depot, or the airfield, or the base camps, or … hell, the list is quite long. It takes all those folks to get others out on point.
But it might be a good time for them folks to start speaking out.
I hadn’t really thought about the Nam crew going the way of the Korean conflict folks and the WWII folks, but reading that up there made me realize that it has been a few decades, hasn’t it? I don’t really ponder to much over my youth, except to remember how stupid I was. And to wish I knew then what I know now.
Oh, by the way, for all who don’t know, you can never heal a vet. Us folks might get lucky and the Maker can do that healing. But it ain’t going to happen in our life. It just isn’t possible. We all deal with it in our own way. It is the nature of the beast. The beast that was born with the birth of the human race. We are way too competitive for our own good. And that competition creates pain. Always!
Henry,
Damn it, where have you been?
g
Jim,
Your response is noted. Yes, Jim, you are probably totally right. I would have liked to have edited much of the film away. I just put them there…and a note indicating my lack of involvement.
g
We won’t be far behind them.
http://snippits-and-slappits.blogspot.com/2010/03/regulated-or-not-nano-foods-coming-to.html
What a heart wenching videdo brings the tears down my face. I served two tours of duty off the coast of Vietnam but new the death that was taking place not far from me.I pray that their service will never ever be left in the trash ben of history. Just as I want are service members fighting two wars now home” ASAP NO MORE WARS FOR ISRAEL”
Best wishes to all that have serverd!
Phillip F Tourney
USS LIBERTY SURVIVOR
It is a great deal of sorrow that I have to realize that I will not live as long as my parents because of 14 months spent in Vietnam being poisoned by my own country. Where is the accountability of the suits in Washington for what they did to us?
Jack
We won a huge lawsuit many years ago over agent orange. The attorneys made millions.
g
I am a nam veteran of 2 tours and an officer for VFW pots # 10097 here in fort myers which is the largest post in fla. The Bostob Red Sox’s and the Minnesota Twins have spring training here in fort myers also. It ois too late for this season but maybe we can organize a fund raiser for you next spring training. Let us know.
To all the NAM Vets that i have served with,Thank You and god bless you all.I still can,t get over the indifference that the so-called citizens of this country gave to you when you returned.It,s just a disgrace, Less than ten percent of our citizens have ever served this country. Like you said, Night Flyer, Don,t mean nothing.
Dear Gordon,
There is no substantiation of the ridiculous “facts” that this guy mentions. The problems facing Vietnam veterans and our families are daunting enough without charlatans just making up stuff to scare veterans and their families, in this case apparently to raise money for a film that will benefit his “Alliance.”
There is in fact such an entity as the “Naval Health Research Center,” but we can find no study cited on their web site that even remotely resemble the spouted “truths” in this film advertisement (which is really all it is).
It is just plain wrong for “Veterans Today” to continue to aid the spreading of these untruths. I urge you to take it off your web site.
Rick Weidman
Rick,
I went out of my way to mention that we don’t support what is put forward. However, some of the basic tenets are interesting. As this is a charity, our records with such have been poor and I am always suspicious.
With closer to 2.4 million serving in Vietnam, around 200,000 are combat veterans. Probably well under 100,000 are alive, with 45,000 having died in action during and another 25k out of the 50k who died in the first 5 years possibly being from that group.
The suicide rate of 130k is unusual but needs to be discussed. The CBS westmoreland figures were pure denialism. If other figures are to be used, then the questions must be asked.
They never have been asked, such is the nature of the VA and their failure to meet their responsiblity.
g
why is it thay everyone hates us so ,,we did what way rite at the time ,,im 100% disable also but it took me years too get it i had too fight too get what was owe too me and im still figthing for things , i was a radio oper but never worked in it thay made me a tunnelrat because i was short ,, but theres no recoed of me doing it just like them never any paper work ,, i see alot of my brother passing on every day so i try too call as many as i can at least once a year too keep in touch ,, i think the film didnt do us any good because the goverment still isnt going too do for us,, thanks john wisher Atroop 1/9cav (tay ninh)67 to 69
man i regret not seeing the film,so i cant comment on that.but i can relate to much of the way my fellow vets feel,even after all these decades i am hounded by sleep deprevation ,my treatment by the va and the memories that forever linger.the fact that im so dead inside emotionally and still held with contempt by others for leaving my country and being a soldier.the va treated me like a junkie and war criminal.agent orange is slowly killing me like so many of my nam vets.i love you all because ive been down that long arduous road of failure,twists and turns.i to draw a hundred percent service connected granted late in life after a long battle and much abuse.i will never forget a lot of things.but know this i know the hell weve all been through and it aint stopping.love you all fellow vets.
To those who put forth this effort…a heart felt thanks from one former Marine grunt who served in Vietnam in 1968-69..God bless you, your families and our country…and, no I’m not a lifer..did my piddling little 3-years..19-months of it in Vietnam (13 and 6).
To the ever-whining, punk assed phoney warriors, posers, fakes and a few vets with a goddamned endless passion for living on their knees “BEGGING” and “BASHING” the country which my fellow veterans (men and women) gave everything they had..fuck you.
You lying, phoney-assed bastards with your lying phoney assed tales of baby-killing, genocide, rape and pillaging (all lies) are the scum bags who the media have latched onto since 1968 and given my brothers and I the undeserved rap of baby killers, murderers and low life, in the first place…Together, you whores spread a false and bloody blanket of attrocity over the honest and honorable service of my brothers and sisters in Vietnam…The damage you’ve done is incalculable.
As for you…Lawrence..the supposed “DOORGUNNER”…cut the goddamned whining, you ungrateful asshole..You’re goddamned lucky to be living in the greatest nation in the history of humanity…and it owes you and me NOTHING…It was my honor to serve her, to be wounded in combat for her, to kill for her and I would do it all again..any day..every day…and if I have to collect honestly earned VA benefits and live under a goddamned bridge, it will be my personal honor to do so in a free country, bought and paid for by the sacrifice of my friends..
…a nation which offers me the opportunity to crawl from beneath that bridge and succeed in life…granted, perhaps with the help of the VA, my friends and the generosity of others, for which I am eternally grateful…
As for the ever present peaceniks and well intended dumbasses who really believe our country and people in general are “too competitive”..:::.. your right to your point of view was the pleasure and honor of my friends and I to ‘purchase’ at a very high price…and I respect your right to your views…but you’re full of shit.
Patrick,
A couple of things. Language and attacks need to be moderated. Your views are shared, oddly, by some of those you seem to attack. Note that the video, though interesting, has manipulative aspects to it. I was worthy of posting, however,
I also thank the “peaceniks” for assuring we have some veterans still alive. the cowardly military brass…that you omit from your diatribe…would have killed all of us off long ago.We have the same amount of time in vietnam…how much of yours was served as an 0311?
If some, my thanks. If none, you are taking undeserved credit and know it.
Good to have you onboard. Do note that many of us are responsible for those VA benfits you enjoy..the government didn’t give them to you…we fought for years so you could have them. Enjoy them. “whiners” are why you are still around.
g
Gordon…Get something straight..I don’t receive VA benefits…but I would be proud and glad to do so if I ever need them..and I would be grateful, not an incessant whiner about the benefits…I realize there have been problems and there’s always lots of room for improvement but that’s not a basis for bashing the country or the VA.
Secondly, I served two weeks with Echo Company 2nd BN 27th Marines (0311)…Duc Ky area SW of DaNang after an emergency unit air lift from El Toro on 13-Feb 1968.
This was followed by reassignment and 7-months as a grunt (0311)..rifleman..Fireteam Leader…Squad Leader..More firefights than I care to remember ect ect ect (DaNang rocket belt arear…Convoys to Phu Bai…Hue City/Canal fights…Operation Allenbrook in the Go Noi near Liberty Bridge ect ect ect)….then reassigned to 9th Engineers (1345-my original MOS) at Chu Lai to complete my 13-months and 6-months extension there…Wounded once…was in more firefights than I care to recall…lost 7-brothers KIA and 55-WIA on just one day 5-June 1968…killed as many of the fucking NVA and Viet Coing as I could put in my target area…and generally did my job.
So…you do not lecture me on a fucking thing..punk!
Third…your peacenik pals cost thousands of U.S.casualties and the lives and suffering of millions of Southeast Asians by encouraging the North Vietnamese to hold out after we kicked their ass during the 1968 Tet Offensive….they discouraged the political leadership from letting us enter North Vietnam and ending the goddamned war on our terms…
You must be one the so-called vets against the war guys who pissed on your brothers by passing your ass off as poor beleaguered, mistreated warriors, pathetic false claimers of attrocities that didn’t actually happen, murder, rape and pillage that you didn’t really do.
You’re a pathetic piece of shit…and get this ..punk..you have my name and my address…If you EVER decide to put your ass on the line…make yourself happy, come see me.
Clearly you are a cowardly piece of shit.
Peter..I am a former Marine grunt/rifleman/Vietnam Vet two tours…You are a fucking phoney!
You need to cut the phoney bull shit and get yourself a life..”a head injury right out of boot camp” ???…So, how did you get assigned duty after that?….”WOODEN SEATS” in your trucks ??? I don’t think so…..”Vietnam Offensives” ??? We called them operations not offensives..
You say that you “Lost” your memory ??..That’s typical of bull shitters, phoney bastards who urinate on the memory of my brothers…you sick little prick.
You’re 100-percent bull shit, you phoney little fuck….Suicide ???…Bull shit! ..Crawl back under your rock, you piece of shit.
Gordon, they have taken the video off or something because it doesn’t work. I wanted to see it becuase I lost a fiance in that war and it definitely changed my life and from the way everyone is talking I could have used the boost.
I just want to say to that vet who spoke above about all that he is going through, that I have talked and talked about all this that we are doing to our men for greed, money, profit and empire building. I haven’t stopped talking about it and the comfort is people are starting to wake up.
Its slow, but its happening, I can tell, I have been at it for years now and its finally happening. I have a blog where I spill everything and I tried to put this up on it and nothing, can’t get it to work. So let me know what is wrong or what I am doing wrong. Thanks My email is artist2@skywerx.com, so please contact me and tell me how to operate this one since its obviously different than what I am used to. Thanks.
Percy
Suggest you try using a different browser…mozilla is not working on some videos
g