“Wounded Warriors” Should Not be Necessary
Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart Born in July of 1946, it is obvious that I am an original baby boomer. My father was discharged from the United States Navy in Seattle Washington in 1945. He met my mother, who had been working for Boeing during the war. They married in July, and less than a year later I took my first breaths. I was too young to know much about the Korean Conflict. Most of what I learned about it came from the popular television show, “MASH.” The first war I remember was Vietnam. I graduated from high school in 1964 and enlisted in the USAF. I couldn’t afford college, and the recruiter promised me that the Air Force would train me well. He lied. However, I feel a small amount of gratitude. After I was out of tech school in Mississippi, the war in Vietnam rapidly escalated. I might have died for nothing on a battlefield halfway around the world. I was medically discharged in 1965. I watched the news as the body bags began to arrive from Southeast Asia. I learned that some of the ...