David Brooks to baby boomers " get over Vietnam "

[moof]

On the news hour tonight david brooks suggested that the reason for the AWOL story not going away was the inability of the "boomers" to get over Vietnam. He said he was over it & they should get over it, or words to that effect.

Dear David,

If you are indeed the David Brooks that was born in 1961, congratulations on being over Vietnam. Being as how you were
not even a teenager when the government was busy slaughtering
58,000 Americans in an illegal war, your ability to raise above the fray does not seem that impressive. Maybe if you had lost a
friend or relative that was close to you or you had gone thru
school with you might feel different. Tell you what, why don't you help all us poor boomers that you accuse of not being able to
get over Vietnam. Help us get some closure, lead the movement
calling for indictments & convictions of all the leaders involved in war crimes during Vietnam. Too big a job?, well just start with kissenger for now & when you get him convicted in the Hague we will give another criminal to haul over there.

Extremely not over Vietnam and never will be moof

[aquart]

1. Remember how the Republicans held a grudge over Nixon?

I can hold one longer.

[megatherium]

2. It's not really about Vietnam,

It's about Bush's credibility: if he piously says (to this day) that he really really did serve in Alabama, and it turns out he didn't, he's done. Toast.

[mac2]

3. Get over Vietnam....

Get over Vietnam when they're on the street, cold, menatlly ill.etc? I don't think so.

[salinen]

5. The next thug that says

"Get over it" kaboooooooooooooomb!

[shooga]

17. maybe, just maybe ..

.. David Brooks should get over the Holocaust.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

19. Very good point. And that was even longer ago.

[Dees]

4. I've spent my entire adult life getting over Vietnam.

Maybe this tree sitter can shed some long overdue light on
Nixon's secret plan to end the war.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

6. We will get over VietNam the same way the US got over the

Civil War... with the death of the last VietNam vets, or the children crippled by their father's exposure to agent orange.

No, we are NOT over VietNam. We still have nightmares. Our pins in our previously broken bones ache when it rains. Our severed limbs, buried in unmarked pits somewhere still feel phantom pain. Many of us can't give blood because of exposure to malaria, hepatitis, or agent orange. Lots of us limp. Some are blind.

And we are the ones who came home.

We came home to a country that was ashamed of what we did. Embarassed that we lost a war, as if it was the fault of the average GI. Confused about what the Government said, and what was obviously the truth.

Others of us came home with psychological disorders. We became outcasts in society. We took drugs, stole things, and lived in the streets. We drink too much. Sooner or later, if we did not die in the process of growing older, we cleaned up, found God or fellow vets and councilors.

We still take our medications. We pay more and more for them at the VA hospitals. The service at the VA got better, and over the past three years, got worse again.

No. We are not over VietNam.

I am still breathing, and I have to face going to sleep every night. And most every night I still see the faces of old friends now long dead and the face of a young Cambodian boy that I had to kill to save my own life so long ago.

[mac2]

13. I hear you.

Wouldn't it be great if Max McC. became head of the Veterans administration?

I read a few of Gore Vidal's books and see how historically we abuse our vets. In the book 1876, Civil War vets were in the streets too.

The revolutionary vets rebelled over the Wiskey tax. Heck they fought and can't even drink without huge taxes? The tax was repealed. They didn't get care or pensions. The country was bankrupts. Sound familiar?

A third of the homeless are Vets. The mental health care in this country is absolutely medieval.

Where do we contribute to Vets?

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

21. Max McC would be great... so would Ron Kovic

I think you might see either one in a Kerry adminstration.

[lucidmadman]

7. This boomer ('51) to David Brooks...

...Eat My Shorts.

[coloradodem2005]

8. I was not even alive during Vietnam..

...but I can at least comprehend what many of these people went through as being really bad. The fact that the government has let many of them fall through the cracks is terrible. It disturbs me that I am seeing parallels to Vietnam here in Iraq. I think that this is a travesty much as Vietnam was a travesty.

Lastly: David Brooks, get over your own self-righteousness.

[Lars39]

14. He was not only alive then, he was the right age to be watching

the six o'clock newsevery night, seeing the carnage and body bags, the absolute devastation resulting from war.

[Cat Atomic]

9. Wow- the Super Patriots sure are attacking veterans alot lately.

Between this douchebag and Coulter, I think they've got all the bases covered. Maybe Limbaugh could tell the remaining WWII vets to hurry up and die next week or something.

[roguevalley]

10. Bite me, whoever you are guy. Why do I never know these guys? :)

My cousin, Ross Paxton died of agent orange poisoning -cancer of his
bones- because unlike chimp boy, he went to Nam and flew the damned
plane. His brother went as a ranger and is still not right to this day. These little bastards need to shut the F**K UP!

[camero]

11. GenX to David Brooks

Learn from Vietnam. Don't send kids to die for a lie. Course I am just speaking for myself.

[shooga]

12. david brooks never ...

.... held an M16 in his hands while bullets were whizzing by his head.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

15. I doubt David Brooks knows an M16 from a shotgun

much less held either.

[DemoTex]

16. Easy for David Brooks to say.

Impossible for most of us to do. If only he knew the ghosts that whisper to me every night, he would never say "get over" anything to anybody ever again.

[Johnyawl]

25. If he said that to my face Mac,

...he would never say anything to anyone again.

PTSD? Anger management problems? Nah! I've "gotten over" it.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

27. Not if I was faster than you!

I am over it too.

[leesa]

18. Getting over it has produced the same nightmare all over again

Another illegal war. Another gulf of Tonkin, only this time it killed 3000 on our own soil. Never 'get over it'. Never 'get over the coup of 2000'. Never 'get over' the illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

[markses]

20. From "Dispatches"

After enough time passed and memory receded and settled, the name itself became a prayer, coded like all prayer to go past extremes of petition and gratitude: Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam, say again, until the word lost all its old loads of pain. pleasure, horror, guilt, nostalgia. (p. 56)

I saw a picture of a North Vietnamese soldier sitting in the same spot on the danang River where the press center had been, where we'd sat smoking and joking and going "Too much!" and "Far out!" and "Oh my God it gets so freaky out there!" He looked so unbelievably peaceful, I knew that somewhere that night and every night there'd be people sitting together over there talking about the bad old days of jubilee and that one of them would remember and say, Yes, never mind, there were some nice ones, too. And no moves left for me at all but to write down some few last words and make the dispersion, Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam, we've all been there . (p. 260)

- Michael Herr, Dispatches

[maggrwaggr]

22. it's called "learning from history, or you'll repeat it"

duh. double duh.

These fools WANT to repeat history. They're all going "you know, if only we'd done Vietnam right, it would have worked!"

They're the ones who can't get over the fact that it was a huge mistake and a lose-lose situation.

[Skittles]

23. I am not over Viet Nam

not now, not ever. I visited the travelling wall when it was at the Austin capitol building and I blubbered the rest of the day. I doubt I'd be able to visit the real wall. Mr. Brooks is an arrogant, slimy piece of garbage. I cannot imagine what the loved ones of those dead soldiers think when they hear someone telling them to "get over it". NOT NOW, NOT EVER.

[moof]

24. Here is a link to the entire segment.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/jan-june04/sb_2-13.html

If you skip down to the heading titled
" Presidential campaign " that is where it basically starts.

Here is the main passage although on the live feed Brooks
muttered a few more words that are not on this passage here.
It sure sounded like he also said
" I got over it they should get over it."

"I put it all -- it is so distant. He's had a record.
Both these guys have had long records which we
can talk about. Why doesn't anyone talk about the
90s, the '80s -- because boomers can't get over
Vietnam, a lot of us can get over it. "

[mykpart]

26. My husband walks with a limp,

has had four surgeries and still has nightmares. He would love to get over Vietnam! Brooks needs to get over himself!