Reply #77: I am not talking about all the troops [View All]

[reggie the dog]

I am talking about men like my father and uncles who were counting down the days until the end of their tour and who got pulled out weeks earlier than they should have as a part of Nixon slowly winding down the war. It was Johnson who built up the troops in Vietnam and Nixon who was president when they were being brought home. The overall schedule may have been slower than announced but who knows if Johnson would have scaled down earlier or later. My father was never really good at school and for him being sent over to vietnam was traumatizing and he was happy as hell to be let out sooner than thought and as Nixon happend to be president he associated coming home early with Nixon, and going to hell (war) with Johnson. he had a shit lottery number, really early date so to get around 2 years active tour of duty in the army he joined the marines for their 1 year active tour of duty and only got 49 weeks into it before leaving. those 3 weeks were huge for him and i doubt he was the only person in the usa who had that happen, who talked to friends about it and who influenced others to support the republicans.