President Barack Obama hits it out of the park.

[SGMRTDARMY]

Watching Pres. Obama now at the Vietnam Memorial paying tribute to the Vietnam vets of which I am one.

Makes me proud to have voted for this extraordinary man.

[liberal N proud]

1. Looked like the wall touched him like it does most

Thought I saw him wipe a tear.

[SGMRTDARMY]

2. I went there 3 years ago

and found the names of comrades I served with and I'm not ashamed to say I cried like a baby.

I taped the Pres. address today so I can watch it again and again.

[calimary]

9. I never went to war and have always objected to them. I went there in the mid-80's

and walked the whole length of that monument. I started at one end, dry-eyed. By the time I reached the other end, I was nearly sobbing. You walk on a downward-sloping path, leading down below ground-level, til it's almost as though you're submerged - by these tall, slick stone panels carved with all these names. At either end, it starts with one line of names. Then, as you start the walk downward toward the center, there are two or three lines of names. And then more lines. And then more. And then STILL more lines of names. And it just keeps going til you're drowning in names - on slick stone panels that stand higher than your head. And by then you feel like you're drowning in your own tears. And then you start walking back up from the center, which is the lowest point, along the panels sloping upwards toward ground-level. By the end of the journey, you're emotionally spent, and you feel like it's a huge and incredibly profound life/war metaphor. You've climbed back up above ground-level (where the living dwell) from the below-ground-level monument (the realm of the dead), and you emerge into the light and to the day-to-day life that continues around you, fairly oblivious of everything else. And you carry with you the memories of being submerged with all those names. The names of the dead. You emerge, alright. But you emerge quite changed. Affected deeply by what you walked past, down there below-ground-level, and VERY sobered.

It's the heaviest, most profound, most viscerally powerful monument I've EVER seen. Especially close up. It compels you very quietly and in the most subtle fashion to experience the whole concept of war and loss - in a very personal way. It's utter genius on so many levels. Almost ridiculously simple. And more powerful and personally moving than ANY other monuments I've ever seen. Designed by a young woman, too. How 'bout that.

[tclambert]

11. Very nicely said.

[Frustratedlady]

12. Beautifully said. eom

[coalition_unwilling]

24. +1,000,000,000 x 1,000,000,000 - n/t

[Beaverhausen]

28. well said. Another thing that happens is the quiet that falls upon us as we walk the length of it

if we enter with more than one person, we might be chatting, but as we walk we are overcome with emotion and can't even come up with the words. Our silence is filled with the sound of the thousands of dead men and women who's names we read.

[babylonsister]

36. Wow. I went there. I cried.

I think you explained it a lot better than I ever could have.

[JonLP24]

31. Replying to troll here - I apologize in advance for it being out of place

Goodbye "Constitutional conservative-patriot-avid tennis player-artist". Clock is ticking.

[cheriemedium59]

3. CNN poll says Romney is ahead of Obama with Veterans..

I have a hard time swallowing that one. What the heck does Romney have to offer that would make Veterans vote for him?

[SGMRTDARMY]

5. I just don't believe it

why would any vet support or vote for this chickenhawk asshat?

[sarge43]

7. Don't believe it either.

Stinks of a padded poll

[Mutiny In Heaven]

17. Here'a a link

http://www.gallup.com/poll/154904/Veterans-Give-Romney-Big-Lead-Obama.aspx

Looks like a pretty substantial sample. It's a much bigger lead than McCain had at the same point, which is...curious.

A caveat, however, is that it was recently revealed that Obama has received a LOT more money from currently serving military members.

At the end of the day they're only himan, so perhaps a large majority of older vets are just dancing to the tune they came to know best without looking at the bigger picture, without casting an objective eye at the two candidates...like all too many GOP voters.

You can't unring a bell, and the GOP spent a lot of time ringing the military one very, very loudly in an incredibly cynical yet successful way.

Still, there's plenty of time for Obama to shatter a few perceptions about Romney's readiness to serve as Commander-In-Chief.

[Doctor_J]

20. Because while active they are bombarded with Limpballs

and other fascist propaganda 24/7. Your tax dollars pay for seditious, treasonous lies and hatred fed to our troops every day.

[Aviation Pro]

26. Good fucking question, SGM...

...this walking assclown of a fucking poser and his five service avoiding sons should be an anethema to every man and woman in uniform. When the clarion call for duty came, this motherfucking wad of phlegm turned yellow and fled to "mission work."

Although the President never served, he has the mind of a brilliant tactician as evidenced by his use of SOF to surgically strike and decapitate the heads of our enemies.

Lurch the Fucking Stiff^TM would use our military to fatten the wallets of his fucking buddies while buddy fucking our service members.

[SGMRTDARMY]

32. Couldn't have said it better myself.

[calimary]

10. That hurts. It's a slap in the face to the Obama and Biden families who've made veterans and

their families a high personal priority. Michelle Obama and Jill Biden have done more for veterans and their families than ANY other administration I can think of. Made it their personal cause. And Joe Biden's son is an Iraq War veteran. Seems to me NO ONE supports veterans quite as profoundly as a family that has one in its own midst.

I hope this poll is not correct. I can't believe veterans would turn their backs like this - in favor of a guy who doesn't even know who our "#1 enemy" is, and still sounds like he wants to ramp up war and a policy of international aggression again.

[Rittermeister]

15. Most of the veterans I know

are extremely socially conservative and swallow every bit of propaganda they've ever been fed. Maybe that's me coming from a rural area.

[Ship of Fools]

25. Edge of rural here, too.

A small group of VFW men parked themselves outside of our local
grocery with table, donation tub, and a large sign that read:

"Obama Bin Lyin"

This was just a few weeks before the SEAL team did the dirty deed.
I approached the table with a few bucks and put my hand over my
heart. I said, "Thank you, gentlemen, for your service. But that's
our President of the United States you're dissing..." or something
like that. They looked a little embarrassed and didn't say anything.
A few minutes later when I came back out of the grocery, they
were gone.

I felt a little better, but shaming these elderly folks (Korean War)
made me feel a little bad. I think it worked, though.

Point is -- Rural, right-wing, and older...they grew up Repub and have
had Limbaugh pounding his shit in their head for a long time. In my
fantasy, Limpballs is drawn and quartered in a public square as the
traitorous fuckwad that he is.

[GoCubsGo]

29. VFW...

It wouldn't surprise me if the VFW halls are where Gallup sampled their veterans. These are the same guys who brainwashed my uncle. He's a Vietnam vet, and was raised a Democrat. Several years after he got back, he started hanging out in the VFW hall. Next thing you know, we're all getting the BS anti-Clinton e-mail that was so prevalent back in the 1990s. When he would go to visit my parents (he's Mom's brother), he would spew right-wing bullshit--up until my parents had enough of it and let him have it. He learned not to open his mouth about politics around them. My grandpa would be spinning in his grave if he knew his kid turned into a wing nut. I haven't spoken to him since I asked him to quit sending the anti-Clinton shit, and he got into a snit over it. Oh well. His loss, not mine.

[SGMRTDARMY]

33. I would love to see a poll

done with just Iraq/Afghan vets. I'll bet by pension that it would be overwhelmingly Pres. Obama.

[Iliyah]

16. I have very little respect for CNN as a news network

and its polling. They want to be Fake news like. I come to realize that many of the polls are paid for by secret corporations. The only poll that I do have some respect for is PPP.

Pres O does have strong support from the Military, maybe not from the older whites and the officers, but toops on the front lines will overwhelmingly vote for Pres. O.

[jeff47]

18. The group "Veterans" includes a lot of old, very right-wing people

Also known as "the Republican base". They just happened to have also been in uniform at one time.

Polls of active-duty soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen show Obama with a large lead. It's not a "military loves Republicans" story, despite CNN's spin.

[Mz Pip]

19. He wants to increase miltary spending.

Lots of Vets think that's important. I don't understand it but there you have it.

[NYC Liberal]

21. Someone else raised the point that the demographics in that group tend to be older white men,

who tend to be more conservative in general and I believe that's the only demographic group that Obama did not win in 2008.

That's NOT a slam against all older white men (there are tons of liberals in that group), and it's not necessarily about race; it's just the reality of it. I don't think many of them would be voting for Obama anyway, veterans or not.

[Tarheel_Dem]

4. K&R

[AlinPA]

6. He was pretty blunt about how badly the returning vets were treated after the war. I recall

how shameful it was. I got out after 4 years in the service just before the first major deployments to Vietnam.

[SGMRTDARMY]

8. I remember being called some pretty awful names

while coming through SFO back in 69.
Today's speech made up for all that. This is the first true welcome home.

For all of us that served in Vietnam:

WELCOME HOME BROTHERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Frustratedlady]

13. Welcome home to you, Sir!

That is a touching comment about the speech. I'm so glad it was a comfort for you. Bless your heart.

[calimary]

14. People back then just didn't understand, SGMRTDARMY. They just didn't get it.

Last edited Mon May 28, 2012, 09:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Having come from that time, myself, many of us just didn't understand.

Yes, there were many among us (coming of age in the '70s) who protested the war and followed the carnage, and tried to understand the horrors of that reality that we were all so insulated and sheltered away from. I don't know of anyone in those ranks who responded to returning Vietnam Veterans with as much cruelty and ignorance as there was. But we saw it. And yeah, there were people who cursed and denounced. Not sure about the stories of spitting on returning troops and if it happened I completely condemn it! I would have, then, too. It was such a horrible morass that sucked some people down into a darkness where they would otherwise never have chosen to go.

And there was so little understanding of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and what war does to you. Easy to misunderstand when all one does is watch it on the evening news and never sees or feels or smells or touches the bloodshed or wreckage or dismemberment or death. The human mind processes simplistically, it seems. Many of us when you and your brothers came home just did not understand. And there was precious little attempt to make sense of it, or to educate about it - mainly because there was so little public or official recognition of it. In some places it was just not even spoken. And people ACTIVELY sought NOT to recognize this as a fact, to acknowledge PTSD as something very real requiring proper classification and treatment and response. Easier to ignore it and sweep it away - and in true willful defiance of any 12-step program - to deny you even have a problem.

Hell, too many people TO VERY THIS DAY still scoff and sneer at the very idea of PTSD. "Just something those stupid naive lib'ruls made up to force me to pay higher taxes..." "when 'Real Men' know their job is to just shut up and get over it." But it's VERY real. You don't emerge from that kind of horror without being affected, without being changed, without being scarred. And it takes a LOT of work to heal that - not just within your own self as one who went to war, but also within all those around you who love you and live with you and/or see you or work with you or otherwise interact with you every day.

We've become a nation where empathy is laughed at. Laughed at!!!!! Sneered at. Scoffed at. Viewed as dehumanizing, somehow. As some sort of terrible un-American unpatriotic negative. Empathy somehow means you're weak and not a "real" American. Well, NOBODY quite understands what a "real" American is, anymore, and it sure as hell is NOT some John Wayne-meets-Steven Seagal-on-"24" hybrid. And it seems to me that's the biggest dishonor we show to our troops and our veterans.

Welcome back, SGMRTDARMY. Thank you for your service, and your struggle, and your sacrifice. It is very real to us here. I'm sure as hell not going to belittle it or roll my eyeballs at it or tell our Vietnam veterans (or ANY veterans) in their pain just to get over it. And you sure as HELL don't boo them as they cope with their own issues and struggles. Patriotism isn't just some slogan you slap on your back bumper. It's how you live your life and how you treat your fellow Americans, especially those who cared enough to put THEIR lives on the line for this country.

[SGMRTDARMY]

35. Reading this I teared up.

Thank You very much and everythiing you said is 100% spot on.
I was lucky when I came home as I had a wonderful wife who sat with me and kept me sane while I tried to work through all the horror I went through during my 2 tours.

I'm still married to that same woman.
God Bless all of you and thank you.

[calimary]

37. grover norquist quote-of-the damned - featured in one of babylonsister's threads

Here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002738067#post5

This is one of the main spear-headers of the present-day mean-spirited, hate-mongering, racist, selfish, greedy, Dark-Side mentality. grover norquist - who would love to see government shrunk so small you could drown it in a bathtub (OR, I suppose, force it up inside every vagina in the country). But note the first one - about the main goal being to inflict pain.

Nice, 'eh? And our country is suffocating under the toxic smog of that mentality. And chances are, they all loudly call themselves Christian, too.

[pinboy3niner]

34. That was especially meaningful, hearing the President say "Welcome Home"

Especially at the Wall on Memorial Day--and repeating it.

You're right, SGM. It was an excellent--and healing--address.

Welcome home, brother!

Love & Peace,
pinboy3niner

[NYC Liberal]

22. I am going to have to watch this later on.

I have no doubt it's fantastic.

[SunsetDreams]

23. Here: Watch President Obama's Speech at the Vietnam War 50th Anniversary

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002737405

So you can easily find it

[Scurrilous]

27. K & R