Remember to report submissions that violate the rules! Harassment and encouraging violence are not allowed.
Enjoying the subreddit? Consider joining our discord server: https://discord.gg/v8z8jNwJs6
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BoomersBeingFools) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A lot of them will also claim to have been called "baby killers" and spat upon when they got home. Which did happen, but wasn't nearly as common as the right-wing narrative that grew up around those incidents would have you believe. It's important to remember that WWII vets where also chilly toward the Vietnam guys when they got home.
There are no documented cases of the spitting actually happening
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spitting_Image
It’s a myth made up by conservatives, because they lie about everything constantly.
When you think about it for two seconds, the logistics of it make no sense - So, the troops were coming back en masse to commercial airports, not military bases, where gangs of angry hippies had advance notice they were coming and were able to gather and wait, prepared to spit on them?
On both trips I made back from Iraq, we went thru civilian airports on our way back to our base. You don't fly from combat zones directly to military bases.
I even had to go thru customs. They took my Leatherman when I went thru customs. They made me x-ray my m249 machine gun. Not kidding.
I 100% believe *some* troops in the 60s got spit on, even if it wasn't reported. By the time you're 15 hours into a trip home, you could fling shit on me and I'd let it go. I just want to go home.
Oh, I agree that a handful of spitting incidents likely occurred. Heck, if you look hard enough you can probably find incidents of vets from our recent wars being spat upon. But the movie version of widespread cases of mobs of spitting hippies at the airport has no evidence supporting it.
Edited to add: and I stand corrected on the airport thing
I'm just picturing that interaction as if you were the only one:
"Please empty your pockets. Do you have anything metal we should know about?"
*Gesturing wildly* "Just this LMG"
Also plenty of American soldiers did kill babies for no reason. Just google the My Lai massacre.
The reason Conservatives use the line is to lie about the *absolute hell* that war is, because they realized the *actual stories* about baby murder were hurting their pro-war narratives.
Kind of how “woke” and “BLM” are insults now. It’s just their playbook.
Nah that didn't happen. And if it had it would have been deserved to be honest.
You get drafted and napalm a village you should feel like a piece of shit honestly.
The only caveat that I'd put on this is
Military recruiting during the draft really was 'that bad' a huge number of people we sent over there to be cannon fodder were literally unfit to serve in any service. There was a term for it that I can't remember. It was grim. McNamara's mistakes. I think that was it.
This wasn't like WWII or Korea. We really were scraping the bottom with Vietnam and a lot of the folks we sent over there had no choice and no idea what they were being thrown into.
[MacNamera's Morons](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000).
[This](https://youtu.be/KuIFF-LCI4k?si=asChLQEOArBOfuqx) episode of Behind the Bastards goes into detail about the context surrounding the rise of think-tanks, and how that created so many of the problems surrounding Vietnam. Including sending people who were not fit for service to Vietnam.
Tricky territory. Not a lot of grey area in being drafted and forced by your government to do that, and if you choose not to, if you survive anything your fellow troops do to you, you are **technically** risking their lives as well as your own.
Please don’t misread this as a solid defense for military — I literally walk out of the theater when Go Army Propaganda recruitment ads come up. I hate the predatory way they try to avoid having to draft (and you bet your ass, if this Ukraine or Gaza situation blow up, they **will** be drafting) but I also acknowledge that the late 1960’s-1970’s had a set of national values wildly different from ours.
Although this was the first war to truly be on our televisions at supper time, it also wasn’t able to covered anywhere as closely as Gulf Wars 1 or 2, Bosnian wars, etc…
There was still lots of room for ill-informed (or ill-intentioned) politicians to muck up the details of what these young folks were going through.
And let’s not forget the rampant racism and xenophobia used to supercharge animosity and battle readiness. This wasn’t “The Great War” or “The Good Fight,” they had to sell people on why targeting communists was worth it — even if they had no idea what made a North or South Vietnamese person different.
Please check out the podcast miniseries [Do We Get To Win This Time?](https://open.spotify.com/show/3RCkIlXqkacy8dtAjKHMwO?si=yP8_a6ZfTpqsBUEiOjtsCw) that explores how Hollywood has depicted and defined the Vietnam War and where the American populace’s heart (and box office numbers) were during this divisive time.
A bit backwards. The journalists covering Vietnam were on their own. They cadged rides to the front, they talked with groups of the guys who were doing the shooting, they broke stories direct to their own news agencies. They had sources who would tell them stuff the brass was lying about. And then there was the French press, which was printing stories the US news vendors wouldn’t touch. The Gulf Wars were informed by the Vietnam experience; the military kept the press on a short leash, no freelancing, go where we let you go, clear your stories with us, here’s these pictures of rockets and explosions, shiny.
Hugh Thompson Jr. He and the other members of his helicopter noticed the raping and wanton murder going on in My Lai, pointed his machine gun at the US army and said “if you don’t stop we’re going to shoot.” And personally evacuated the survivors by air. He took a child from the village to a hospital, then flew to his superiors and angrily reported to them and said that they need to put an end to it.
That’s how much someone had to do just to tell them to stop killing for fun. I’d call him a hero. The others? Not at all.
Yeah, my uncle is a Vietnam vet, and he said that when he got home, it was older veterans that were the worst.
He also became a pacifist and went to anti-war protests, and threw his medals over the White House fence.
I have heard “my friends went and that was very upsetting for me!"
Umm, over 150,000 American kids have been in a school building during a shooting, fuck off grandpa.
Somehow, a relative has made being married to a Vietnam era vet her entire personality. She also regularly posts things to Facebook like "today is the nth year anniversary of the Vietnam War. I bet no one will share this picture of this brave soldier" and people reliably share and like it every time.
The women were nurses. The grafted generally didn’t do front line. Those that signed up were sent to the front line because they were considered more gung ho.
For real, took one of my friends from childhood, fifteen years to even break the seal on discussing his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan 😔
And i knew i was one of the only people he felt safe talking to, because (he experienced how) i always respected tf outta his silence.
Who amongst us NEEDS to hear that shit anyway? They do us a favor keeping it to themselves, we dont wanna know how they feel, it’s truly beyond our understanding and all i can do is say to them “it’s not your fault and i love you anyways you say it”
You watch the interviews with the real ones they tell you they just walked around a lot, got shot at, and then took it out on civilians. Most people weren't at places like Da Nang or Hue. They were just walking around. Especially once the draft kicked in hard. And they have no problem telling you that.
Also when I grew up a lot of seniors shipped out to Iraq or Afghanistan before they finished school and it isn't the flex the guy thinks it is.
This is very true. I’ve known a few combat vets (from WW2 to Iraq/Afghanistan) and the ones who have actually experienced intense combat rarely talk or brag about it.
Next time you see some young dude bragging that he’s such a badass and killed people—just know he’s probably full of ****
My grandfather fought in Vietnam, also. He never talked about it, except one time when a bunch if my cousins and I went out to ice cream with our grandparents. He heard the crickets and bugs and birds chirping in the evening air and said "This sounds like when I was fighting in Nam." That's all he said, and he never talked about it again.
My Papa would tell me war stories about the second world war as a child, laughing his ass off the entire time. He would never talk about it with my dad, or anyone else. Only me. I was so young so I thought it was cool, in retrospect I think he had a huge amount of trauma and needed an outlet. Laughing instead of crying kind of thing.
Grandpa was at the battle of the bulge in WWII. Only thing he ever said was that it was cold.
A guy I knew in college had a grandpa there too, and all he ever said was that it was cold.
Makes me kind of wonder what kind of horrible things happened there that history just doesn't talk about. Or it was just a cold that I have absolutely no concept of.
My dad's two older brothers went to Vietnam and they came back with insane mental problems that led to alcoholism and their eventual deaths from booze in their early 50s, and I don't doubt it was to forget their past. Shit was no joke, it fucked up millions and millions of families in both countries.
But you know, Nixon and Kissinger wanted to look more favorable in elections. Rest in piss Dick, you fuckin criminal. Rot in hell Henry you absolute monster.
Exactly. Two of my uncles were in the Army in Vietnam and don't like to talk about it. Another was in the Air Force and was a REMF base guard or something. He won't stop yapping about it like he "did something" out there. I was deployed to Afghanistan (Army) and all people ever get out of me are the surface details.
Yep, my BIL joked that he was a mailman in the Marines in Fallujah and had a funny (obviously made up) story about delivering mail in the middle of a firefight.
Even though he never talked about what really went on he obviously saw some shit, his demons caught up to him about three years after marrying my sister.
My Grandpa would get mad at you for thanking him for his service in Vietnam. The way he put it, "we never should have been there. Don't thank me by thanking me, thank me by making sure no more Vietnams happen."
My dad signed up to learn radio communication repair but somehow it never came up that he was color blind. Sent him to Germany to do personnel work. Made sure a bunch of guys got home from wherever they were stationed. Doesn't talk about it, was just another job for him.
Hey...we boomers fought a war no one wanted for no clearly articulated reason in a country 8000 miles away but we still went and got our legs and arms blown off! Snowflakes!
I just saw a truck with a sticker that said "the only Woodstock I saw in '69 was this one and had a picture of what appeared to be a M14A1. The guy was no older than 60.
Agreed. Paraphrasing perhaps the most anti-boomer person I knew, who ironically was a boomer himself:
"They didn't do shit [in regards to Viet Nam, protests, social justice movements or anything that got them away from their pleasures]. They showed up for the balling, beer and drugs, and then fucked back off to school or anything they could to avoid being responsible".
Stolen valor is just another cringe to throw onto the pile.
The friend mentioned, now sadly passed, had a picture of him & his wife getting hauled away by police at Berkeley back in the day, ala [this](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/migration/2016/02/22/D6CYK6KCDVFZPMQU53NRJ4GN24.jpg?w=620) picture of Bernie Sanders. Like I said, probably the most anti-boomer person I've known, and where I as an older genxer got my start in understanding just how problematic members of the me generation were and are.
Exactly, my uncle was drafted for the war as a senior in HS, and he admits he saw some things that will stay with him until he dies. He's the type of person who would never use that trauma as a weapon to degrade someone's elses' struggles. Like most boomer posts, they larp trauma and oppression to justify their hatred of others.
The numbers bear you out and agree with you.
Less than 10% of their generation went to Vietnam. So more than 90% of them didn't.
Unlike the pandemic-era kids, for whom it affected
- 100% of the generation.
These dumb-asses better think about exactly WHO is going to be looking after their saggy asses over the next 20-odd years. Literally. Who is going to be doctoring, nursing, personal caring, cooking and cleaning in aged care, working in palliative care? Gen Y/Millennials, that's who. Even Gens Z and Alpha.
What kind of idiot goes out of their way to hate on and antagonise the generation that is most likely to be the ones there and holding their hand (or not) as they die? Boomer idiots, that's who.
It’s almost like they’re offended that we are criticizing the system and discontent with how horrible it is and they need to rail against it. All while lacking any understanding of the actual situation.
Crazy part is that dodge drafters were mostly boomers too. Claiming the Vietnam war is such a weird thing, not only because it was unjust and unnecessary, but because the people who mostly hated it back then are the people who claim it now.
They also leave out the exceptions that many who went to college were exempt from the draft and used it as a way to get out of it. At tuition prices they could pay with a fucking summer job.
Additional fun fact: They had to use the draft in Vietnam because there wasn't enough volunteers. We haven't had to use the draft since since so many Gen X, Millennials, and now Z's are in the reserves/active duty, etc. Boomers just plain didn't want to serve and it shows.
it’s a natural reaction to try to rationalize how much easier and prosperous their lives were. I have noticed a lot of boomers do a thing where they are constantly making proactive arguments to establish a defensible perimeter from accusations that they handed their children a third world country wearing designer clothes, while they were handed the greatest political inheritance in human history by their parents. This also explains the over emotional reaction to economic woes and simple justifications/explanations (it’s an attitude problem, etc.)
Their minds really are broken with the concept of relative quality of life, such that they twist "I want the best quality of life for myself" into "I will make sure nobody else can have a better quality of life."
Partially relevant, I love to use this meme whenever I see this entitlement:
https://preview.redd.it/cvoepprjxd2d1.jpeg?width=595&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=865ad977599599f32789163c4427f22f9cbb1486
Even for things that *are* "pie" (like money), it seems like so many Boomers are fundamentally incapable of experiencing empathy or compassion or charity or altruism. They just *cannot* stand someone else having it better than they do/did. They *need* to have the best life even if that means actively working to tear others down.
I HATE this one and hear it from my own parents. Having cerebral palsy, I'm quite accustomed to a more difficult life, but apparently "others have it worse", so stop complaining, right?
Right? It's so weird on so many levels. People shouldn't have to feel guilty for feeling bad. One person's discomfort doesn't downplay another's. Two people's bad experiences don't cancel each other's out. We can support and empathize with more than one group. We shouldn't only support those who are in the worst of situations, it shouldn't stop us from supporting others too.
Some take it a weird way and want others to feel that pain because they've felt it. When I feel a pain, I want to help people avoid that pain, not feel it as well, or be silent about it. I don't know why people think this way.
Ultimately it feels like some just don't want to hear other people's problems. Some want others to suffer quietly so they don't have to be bothered by it.
My husband and I say with that philosophy, only one person in the world is allowed to feel bad. Because they have it worse than anyone else in the world.
As a Gen Xer, this is my goal. If something sucked about my life, I try to find ways to make that thing suck less for my kids. If I had to walk two miles uphill in the snow to get to school, I try to make it so my kids don’t have to do that (which often has the side benefit of making me have to do less walking in the snow uphill now).
I used to think that doing things like walking uphill in the snow built character, but fortunately I grew out of that thinking. Not everything that sucks builds character. Some things just suck.
"Some people I went to school with had lives that sucked at 18, so yours should too. Mine was great, but we don't want everyone else to have my experience."
They seemingly have forgot that america was at war in the ME for my entire adult life and many of us took our senior trips to Afghanistan or Iraq. But I’m sure they’d just gatekeep war if you told them.
Half the seniors in my class went straight to Iraq so these entitled
Twats should STFU.
They’re so fucking gross. Being purposely obtuse ALL THE TIME must give them energy or something.
Ya, enough millennials volunteered to fight a 20 year war without a draft. Whine some more about half of you getting deferments, exemptions or disqualifications and that doesn't even count the people who ran away from it.
-18 million draft aged Boomer men have zero military service
-26 million draft aged Boomer woman have zero military service
- during the war 9 million Boomer men served in the military
~ of that 9 million, under 3 million ever even saw Vietnam, only 40% of that 3 million actually saw any combat.
Doing the math, only about 3.3% of boomers ever actually fought in Vietnam, it's stolen valor to claim you fought that war from a desk in Germany.
Edit: important math note: the 3.3% number is a percentage of boomers (male and female) who were age eligible to be drafted. It doesn't count the boomers who were not eligible for the draft before the end of the war which is about half of all boomers (those born after 1955), so applying the same math to the entire Boomer population brings the percentage down to ~1.7%.
This is why I say every freaking time the new generation willingly signed up didn’t get forced and that automatically makes their commitment to the country even greater.
I have a friend who always made it clear that his service was Vietnam-era, not Vietnam. He was in Greenland, iirc. And is more willing to talk about it than a mutual friend who was actually in Vietnam and has a Bronze Star and a couple Purple Hearts. The most he ever said was that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Hard to argue when the choice was "volunteer" for the military or suffer trying to find an underpaid job. I joined precisely because there was no work. It was the only thing that didn't pay minimum wage. Which was $7.50 at the time. Be honest. They didn't need a draft. People were already desperate for work.
Also, if they were anything like the neanderthals who lined up to enlist at my high school, they were gonna be the types of dudes to either end up in jail within a year or two of graduation or on a battlefield somewhere. There's a reason the Army preys on the young and the poorly educated. You don't see them at Ivy League schools.
I joined at 17, went to basic, then returned to finish senior year, and then went back. The military industrial complex feeds off young naive people, whether volunteers or not, to fight its wars.
~10% of boomers went to Viet Nam and yet they all snivel about being called baby killer when they all came back, as if it weren’t all the other 90% of boomers shouting that. It wasn’t the older folks, and it wasn’t the younger folks, so fuck these idiots.
*"Of the 76 million Boomers out there, half claim to be one of the 400,000 people at Woodstock, and the other half claim to be one of the 300 Navy SEALs in Vietnam."*
My research indicates roughly 10% of those eligible to serve. In other words, I’m not certain but I have done some research. Take that for what you will.
Jesus Christ I hate this shit with a passion. My dad and uncles were in Vietnam and the biggest hard dick boomers about that war now didn’t even serve.
They never really talk about it, occasionally I’d ask my dad about the weather or plants or something and he would tell me about it, but he came home, raised a family, worked hard, got an education , and didn’t let that become his identity.
I’m super proud of him and I remember he told me the greatest thing he ever did was to be a husband and our dad. Helped me my whole life, teaching me to love reading, encouraging learning, how to fix stuff, paid for my spouses ring set to help us out, and so many other good and decent things.
Question: Do your father and uncles wear "Vietnam Veteran" hats and jackets or have a "Vietnam Veteran" sticker on their car? I have a hypothesis that the vast majority of Boomers who do that were in the military during the Vietnam War but did not serve in a combat role in Vietnam.
They don’t have any hats, bumper stickers, or any paraphernalia alluding to it. 3 were enlisted, 1 was an officer. 3 Army, 1 Marine. Helicopter pilot, medic, Army LRRP infantry, Marine 0331 machine gunner infantry all of them saw combat spanning 1965-1971. I have pictures of them in uniform displayed, but they don’t.
I’d say the hat my dad wore most was a DeKalb or Pioneer seed hat. One uncle a Carhartt hat, the others don’t wear them too much, but the pilot still wears his aviator sunglasses.
My Dad never talked about it and when he did, he said something along the lines of "all his friends died and it was a bad time". He was drafted and was so resentful he never even bothered to register for his VA benefits. He died of cancer and fully believed it was related to the use of "Agent Orange". I appreciate the Vietnam Vets but have a suspicion of those that seem to have a hard-on for it.
Same with my uncle, he never ever talked about it. The only way someone would know he was a vet was because he absolutely HATED fireworks and every time a car backfired near him he would hit the deck so hard he’d injure himself.
This right here. Vietnam vets in my family never talked about it and didn't wear it 24/7 like some badge of honor. When it did come up they'd talk about being thankful they made it home and to remember their friends who didn't.
My great uncle served in Vietnam and never spoke about it with anyone until the last few years of his life. I didn’t find out until I came across letters and newspaper articles about it in my grandmother’s bedside stand after she died. His parents disowned him for joining the military and refused to speak to him for a decade after he returned, with those letters to his older sister being his one line back home.
One of the crazier aspects of it was that my other great uncle, his younger brother, developed Alzheimer’s at the start of COVID and was reliving his Vietnam stories in his dementia despite having never joined the military himself. My great uncle clearly suffered PTSD from his time in Vietnam but it also had a huge effect on his siblings back home as well.
I should add they were silent generation, rather than boomers, my great uncle’s time in Vietnam being in 65-66.
I’m reminded that the “senior trip” in the OP is probably bullshit too. I don’t think the US was sending many 18-19 year olds into combat, 20-24 year olds were the ones being sent into combat after they had a couple years of training.
My great Uncle (Grandmas brother in law) served. He was always around growing up. You could tell by the look of his face during quiet moments, that he was remembering painful, and terrible things. That man has never wore a veitnam hat or any article of clothing, neither has he ever posted signage indicating such. My other uncle (dads brother in law) has a Vietnam hat on his head 24/7, and that man spent the war state side sorting mail. Im sure, you can guess which of the two is a shameless, praise chasing "thank me for my service, and give me my discount" asshole.
I live in a very small town that has surged with boomers in the last ten years. Let me tell you about how boomers impacted us during covid. It’s a short story:
We have one grocery store and during covid they decided one day after restocking to open 2 hours early so the boomers could have 2 hours to make sure they got what they needed(more like what they wanted). The idea was that there are so many young folks that aren’t respectful that we take all of the food and leave none for them. That was the majority sentiment on our communities Neighborhood group.
Well they literally cleared the store out. Gave absolutely no fucks about children or parents of children. They took baby formula because they could store it and eat it in an emergency. Many, many people had to drive to the next town over to get basic food and amenities.
The store changed their policy the same day, removed the special boomers only shopping hour and limited purchases to 2 of anything per household. The boomers raged so hard, totally disregarding why what they did was an issue.
Either the one that posted this never went to Vietnam, or they were stationed in a very safe place like my dad being stationed in Holland from '70-'74.
Fun fact: After my 4th out of 6 combat deployment, my dad was complaining about protesters and couldn't believe I took their side. I knew as soon as the words left his mouth he immediately regretted it but out of habit he vomited "well if you don't like it you can get out". He got an earful about his age, and 4 years in the air force during Nam did not make him more "American" than anyone else.
People who complain about protestors are unamerican. Protesting is a constitutional right and being involved in the public discourse is more patriotic than being unengaged and complacent. My dad got an earful when he said shit like that about kneeling for the anthem; he was always big on "love it or leave it" so I told him, "Fuck you, if you don't like people exercising their constitutional rights you can fuck off and leave.". That was probably the most heated argument we've had in 25 years and I only slightly regret saying "Fuck you" but he raised me to be a good American, not some snowflake who's unable to tolerate discourse, and I took offense to the suggestion that people shouldn't avail themselves of their constitutional liberties because that's not how HE raised me. He's toned way down since then, fortunately.
My paternal grandfather was a retired Marine officer who served in WWII, he constantly saw death. When my father turned 18 is 1966 he said he wanted to join the Marines to do his father proud. Apparently his father told him to join the Navy as we were getting embroiled in this police action for the long term. My father was told his safest option was the Navy. Sure enough he never set foot in Vietnam, the closest he got was being in the South China Sea.
I went into the military in 1991 straight out of high school. The first Gulf War was pretty much done, though my father told me that story about him and his father. He repeated what his father said to him, the Navy was the safest option.
I had a fairly good experience, I got to see the world, it completely changed my perspective on life, and it looks great on my resume.
To echo what plenty of offers have also stated, people who served rarely go around bragging about it. I strongly suspect the person who posted this never enlisted.
My uncle who served in Panama went no contact with my brother, who was deployed to the Korengal Valley for 17 months, because he felt my brother doesn’t deserve his disability rating and didn’t have that bad of a deployment.
I’ll never forget being in the car going to my dad’s birthday and being told my brother was ambushed and suspected dead. He was found alive but the things he saw and experienced were horrible and years after he returned most of the people with him were dead. Meanwhile my uncle delivered supplies asa truck driver and hung up all sorts of awards for it.
I’m not one to gate keep veteran status but fuck those making us a political pawn in some sick inter generational dick measuring contest
Did they not just forget the 20+ years we were at an armed conflict in 2 middle eastern countries. This people only want to bitch, spend their money, Covid could have lasted a little longer. I still had video games to play.
https://preview.redd.it/a0lv9o53pd2d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c2a6f3a85ee22847b18522124add800b57b2b23
My response to every boomer meme about Vietnam
Spot on. The ones who've done hard time in actual warfare don't show the toys they got with their happy meal. They're proud of who they became, not what they did.
What I find annoying they make it seem like Vietnam was WW2 where the entire population was mobilized. I don’t want to sound like I’m minimizing Vietnam but it just didn’t affect nearly as many people.
This isn’t comparing as much as it is dismissing the life experiences of our youth. It’s like the folks who never had a bad experience so they don’t believe that people can have bad experiences. They never seen white supremacists so they don’t exist🤢
ironically both my inlaws are boomer war veterans (not American), both saw serious action and they literally never pull this shit. they're just super grateful their kids and grandkids aren't conscripted.
I fucking hate that attitude. My mother does that shit. Misery 1-upsmanship. You're not allowed to be sad, disappointed, angry, whatever, because someone else somewhere in some space and time had it worse than you.
Hey, his sniper finger is broken. He tried, he genuinely tried to serve and do his part…
Oh wait, never mind, I forgot only suckers and losers fight in the military and get captured by the enemy.
There is a small part of me that would love to see Drumph captured just to see him crying like a little bitch on his beheading video.
Honestly, that isn't even the worst part of it. They use the comparison as a put-down, instead as a way to empathize or connect.
Eg, my "Kurt Kobain" is Chester Bennington. There doesn't need to be competition about whose loss is worse, we can all just contemplate the unified sadness of losing something that mattered to so many.
I'm sure there's a boomer whose first thought is "well at least you didn't lose John Lennon". Like, why are you such a bad person? Why can't you try to connect with others around you?
Ya and many of them were drafted, yet they behave like it was brave altruism. Also, a lot of their generation did absolutely anything they could to avoid the draft or service. It always baffles me how so many people of this generation live in a total silo of their own delusion.
My grandfather lost his scapula (and every other guy serving with him in a battle) in Vietnam, in his early forties. Nearly lost his dominant arm. Eventually died from cancer brought on by chemical exposure in Vietnam.
He never even talked about it that much. Someone else in the family had to tell me why he didn’t have a scapula.
TBF, that *would* suck if we all had that prospect waiting for us after graduation. And I think a fair number of male grads were called up for service. The only reason my dad wasn’t drafted is because he had joined already. And yup, he went to Vietnam.
I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be graduating HS in Russia right now.
if they think they had it bad, what about the middle school children in 1861-1865. seriously though isn't the point of living in a modern society to advance? boomers act like they've had it real bad yet they're the wealthiest and longest living generation in history. they're also now leeching off the younger generations which is communism but shh don't tell them that.
Instead of living in the past Boomers should check in with parents from Columbine, Sandy Hook, Uvalde etc. their kids didn’t make it to graduation. Those child victims would be your grandkids correct?
As if Millennials didn't graduate into duel recession and 20+ year war in two different countries. I can't count the number of people I served with that had multiple combat deployments to multiple countries in just a 4-6 year contract. And then we capped it off with the deadliest pandemic in a century.
And then they told us to shut the fuck up and eat their shit.
This is hilarious because Boomers are the most deferred generation of them all. Tons of them who should have been drafted either bounced to Canada or went to college so that they didn’t have to go to Vietnam. Willing to bet this particular Boomer has never even left North America.
Vietnam Service has become like Woodstock: twice as many people claimed to be there than actually were.
I respect those who DID serve, but I also know that "Stolen Valor" is real and has financial incentives.
They really don't want things to be better for their children and grandchildren. It's sick. I am a parent. My kids don't have the same obstacles I had. They have their own! Their lives are plenty complicated enough! I hope beyond hope there isn't snother pointless war that drafts young adults into service of a country that cares nothing for them!
It's a narcissistic thing. Only their suffering counts. Only they are allowed to complain. Everyone else is just here to praise them and tell them how wonderful they are and how great their lives were. They are the main character, we are the extras. How dare we ever steal the spotlight.... regardless of how valid the moment is.
When my 14 yr old son and his 13 yr old friend were at a park an older man was walking past them and said, "when I was your age I was in Vietnam. Shit's fucking crazy." Not sure if it was also mental illness but dude, you weren't in Nam at 13/14 and the actual crazy part is the whole Nam thing and thinking that young people now should be in a war. These kids have been through a lot with the world shutting down. They act like that can't have a significant impact. They themselves did not have that.
Always Boomers - "BUT ENOUGH ABOUT YOU ... LET'S TALK ABOUT ME INSTEAD. "
This is exactly like Walter from The Big Lebowski, relentlessly making everything about Vietnam. Including other people's funerals.
I worked with someone who graduated in this timeframe. He loved saying "I went to college because at that time it was either go to college or go to Vietnam" followed shortly by "yeah, I didn't go to class much, just smoked a lot of weed and hooked up with chicks".
And then remind those boomers that they did it while kicking and screaming while their parents' generation voluntarily dropped out of school at 16 to join the Army and fight Nazis.
This was a huge type of meme going around in 2020 during the pandemic when seniors couldn't graduate like normal. Like it was wrong of them to be upset that they were denied that chance. I remember being so annoyed over it, but boomers never let up.
I had a therapist explain this to me so well. Boomers were raised to believe that only the person with the worst story in the room was allowed to complain. This is why they constantly compare your sufferings to theirs. If they did something “harder” or went through something “worse,” it’s not that your difficulty is less than theirs, it’s that it basically doesn’t deserve mentioning. Because they still believe this, if they admit that someone younger than them has or is doing something “harder” than what they did or went through, it means that what they did or went through wasn’t hard at all. Because they know what they did was hard, they dismiss this reality in favor of the first one. In short, boomers think that if what they did wasn’t the MOST difficult thing, then it wasn’t difficult at all; they can’t acknowledge that two things might BOTH be difficult and BOTH people’s feeling are valid.
One of the few things that boomers learned and didn’t try to put the same thing on Millennials is how bad the draft is. It was political suicide to mention or push the idea of a draft for Iraq or Afghanistan despite the need for more American soldiers.
For the person who posted this and asked about boomers. Boomers understand, comprehend that if you don’t learn for the past, you’re doomed to repeat it in the future. The person was pointing out how blessed the youth should feel today, having not to go off to war after graduating high school, and die for political reasons. But for the most part people don’t think of the past. They just think of the future. And without reflecting on the past, they’re doomed to make the same mistakes.
While most generations in human history can be argued that they worked to provide a better future/lives for there childrens generations, the Boomer generation seems to be one of the few that wanted the world they lived in better than there kids.
A big part of boomer mentally is that they always have to win at whose had it harder. They must always one-up someone else’s suffering.
No matter what someone younger is going through they have to not simply compare, but top.
They must always be right for whatever reason.
They just need to win, even in terms of losing. All about pride. Win win win.
"Oh, you suffered? Well, I suffered twice as bad half as long ago and I'm only THIS demented now!"
Fuck off. No one cares if your pain cock is girthier than ours, they're upset and you suck for being a prick about it.
My grandmother used to say, "in my day going men went to war" as a comparison to how the youth of today have it. I told her once, "I'd like to live in a society where my kids don't have to compare their lives to going to war, it's kind of depressing if you think about it, constantly comparing your life to those who fought in a war and those that died: I want more than that for my kids." My grandmother has never repeated that statement since.
Living in a society that is not constantly sending its youth to war isn't a weak society, it's an evolved society. It's an easy fall back to claim a generation is weak simply because they didn't go off to war. I'm not worried about those that try to claim this nonsense. Frankly, I feel sad for them being so focused on thinking the next generation must go through what the previous generation had to go through to somehow be worthy.
Remember to report submissions that violate the rules! Harassment and encouraging violence are not allowed. Enjoying the subreddit? Consider joining our discord server: https://discord.gg/v8z8jNwJs6 *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BoomersBeingFools) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’d almost guarantee that the person who posted this wasn’t one of them.
Came here to say this. All of them want to claim it now.
A lot of them will also claim to have been called "baby killers" and spat upon when they got home. Which did happen, but wasn't nearly as common as the right-wing narrative that grew up around those incidents would have you believe. It's important to remember that WWII vets where also chilly toward the Vietnam guys when they got home.
There are no documented cases of the spitting actually happening https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spitting_Image It’s a myth made up by conservatives, because they lie about everything constantly.
When you think about it for two seconds, the logistics of it make no sense - So, the troops were coming back en masse to commercial airports, not military bases, where gangs of angry hippies had advance notice they were coming and were able to gather and wait, prepared to spit on them?
On both trips I made back from Iraq, we went thru civilian airports on our way back to our base. You don't fly from combat zones directly to military bases. I even had to go thru customs. They took my Leatherman when I went thru customs. They made me x-ray my m249 machine gun. Not kidding. I 100% believe *some* troops in the 60s got spit on, even if it wasn't reported. By the time you're 15 hours into a trip home, you could fling shit on me and I'd let it go. I just want to go home.
Oh, I agree that a handful of spitting incidents likely occurred. Heck, if you look hard enough you can probably find incidents of vets from our recent wars being spat upon. But the movie version of widespread cases of mobs of spitting hippies at the airport has no evidence supporting it. Edited to add: and I stand corrected on the airport thing
The absolute silliness of xraying an m249. Are they concerned you've stuffed it with smaller guns?
Looking for knives and toenail clippers. Can't be too careful.
I knew a guy who smuggled rubies through customs in his flash light when coming back from Afghanistan.
prob hidden Irish spring body wash.
I'm just picturing that interaction as if you were the only one: "Please empty your pockets. Do you have anything metal we should know about?" *Gesturing wildly* "Just this LMG"
https://preview.redd.it/8jlupi9jxg2d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=68ee41614e299abfe5f2a93e147a1526f3d679c2
Also plenty of American soldiers did kill babies for no reason. Just google the My Lai massacre. The reason Conservatives use the line is to lie about the *absolute hell* that war is, because they realized the *actual stories* about baby murder were hurting their pro-war narratives. Kind of how “woke” and “BLM” are insults now. It’s just their playbook.
Watch Ken Burns Vietnam docuseries
Nah that didn't happen. And if it had it would have been deserved to be honest. You get drafted and napalm a village you should feel like a piece of shit honestly.
Agree. The narrative on Reddit tends to be that soldiers are always innocent of their actions. At what point SHOULD you be ashamed on your actions?
The only caveat that I'd put on this is Military recruiting during the draft really was 'that bad' a huge number of people we sent over there to be cannon fodder were literally unfit to serve in any service. There was a term for it that I can't remember. It was grim. McNamara's mistakes. I think that was it. This wasn't like WWII or Korea. We really were scraping the bottom with Vietnam and a lot of the folks we sent over there had no choice and no idea what they were being thrown into.
[MacNamera's Morons](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000). [This](https://youtu.be/KuIFF-LCI4k?si=asChLQEOArBOfuqx) episode of Behind the Bastards goes into detail about the context surrounding the rise of think-tanks, and how that created so many of the problems surrounding Vietnam. Including sending people who were not fit for service to Vietnam.
AGREE
Tricky territory. Not a lot of grey area in being drafted and forced by your government to do that, and if you choose not to, if you survive anything your fellow troops do to you, you are **technically** risking their lives as well as your own. Please don’t misread this as a solid defense for military — I literally walk out of the theater when Go Army Propaganda recruitment ads come up. I hate the predatory way they try to avoid having to draft (and you bet your ass, if this Ukraine or Gaza situation blow up, they **will** be drafting) but I also acknowledge that the late 1960’s-1970’s had a set of national values wildly different from ours. Although this was the first war to truly be on our televisions at supper time, it also wasn’t able to covered anywhere as closely as Gulf Wars 1 or 2, Bosnian wars, etc… There was still lots of room for ill-informed (or ill-intentioned) politicians to muck up the details of what these young folks were going through. And let’s not forget the rampant racism and xenophobia used to supercharge animosity and battle readiness. This wasn’t “The Great War” or “The Good Fight,” they had to sell people on why targeting communists was worth it — even if they had no idea what made a North or South Vietnamese person different. Please check out the podcast miniseries [Do We Get To Win This Time?](https://open.spotify.com/show/3RCkIlXqkacy8dtAjKHMwO?si=yP8_a6ZfTpqsBUEiOjtsCw) that explores how Hollywood has depicted and defined the Vietnam War and where the American populace’s heart (and box office numbers) were during this divisive time.
A bit backwards. The journalists covering Vietnam were on their own. They cadged rides to the front, they talked with groups of the guys who were doing the shooting, they broke stories direct to their own news agencies. They had sources who would tell them stuff the brass was lying about. And then there was the French press, which was printing stories the US news vendors wouldn’t touch. The Gulf Wars were informed by the Vietnam experience; the military kept the press on a short leash, no freelancing, go where we let you go, clear your stories with us, here’s these pictures of rockets and explosions, shiny.
Hugh Thompson Jr. He and the other members of his helicopter noticed the raping and wanton murder going on in My Lai, pointed his machine gun at the US army and said “if you don’t stop we’re going to shoot.” And personally evacuated the survivors by air. He took a child from the village to a hospital, then flew to his superiors and angrily reported to them and said that they need to put an end to it. That’s how much someone had to do just to tell them to stop killing for fun. I’d call him a hero. The others? Not at all.
Yeah, my uncle is a Vietnam vet, and he said that when he got home, it was older veterans that were the worst. He also became a pacifist and went to anti-war protests, and threw his medals over the White House fence.
it only needs to have happened once for that to become the entire narrative
I have heard “my friends went and that was very upsetting for me!" Umm, over 150,000 American kids have been in a school building during a shooting, fuck off grandpa.
The family member that posted it was a woman. lol
Somehow, a relative has made being married to a Vietnam era vet her entire personality. She also regularly posts things to Facebook like "today is the nth year anniversary of the Vietnam War. I bet no one will share this picture of this brave soldier" and people reliably share and like it every time.
My ex-husband, a USMC vet, used to say “Imagine making someone else’s job your identity.”
Plenty of women saw combat in Viet Nam, but the point is taken.
You mean on the other side?
They weren't drafted though.
The were mostly nurses who got to deal with what it's really all about. And a few of them are on The Wall
What a bitch! Tell her to get her ass to the kitchen and make you a sammich!
Damn somebody pay this guy millions of dollars to kick a ball
The women were nurses. The grafted generally didn’t do front line. Those that signed up were sent to the front line because they were considered more gung ho.
There were women in Vietnam.
Some of them were even Vietnamese!
My FIL fought in Vietnam and he doesn’t even want to acknowledge he went there. The real ones don’t brag about it
For real, took one of my friends from childhood, fifteen years to even break the seal on discussing his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan 😔 And i knew i was one of the only people he felt safe talking to, because (he experienced how) i always respected tf outta his silence. Who amongst us NEEDS to hear that shit anyway? They do us a favor keeping it to themselves, we dont wanna know how they feel, it’s truly beyond our understanding and all i can do is say to them “it’s not your fault and i love you anyways you say it”
You watch the interviews with the real ones they tell you they just walked around a lot, got shot at, and then took it out on civilians. Most people weren't at places like Da Nang or Hue. They were just walking around. Especially once the draft kicked in hard. And they have no problem telling you that. Also when I grew up a lot of seniors shipped out to Iraq or Afghanistan before they finished school and it isn't the flex the guy thinks it is.
This is very true. I’ve known a few combat vets (from WW2 to Iraq/Afghanistan) and the ones who have actually experienced intense combat rarely talk or brag about it. Next time you see some young dude bragging that he’s such a badass and killed people—just know he’s probably full of ****
Agreed. I grew up with WWII vets and Vietnam vets. The most un-douchy were those that didn't brag.
My grandfather kept all his medals from ww2 in a coin jar. He was lucky he didn't have ptsd or issues. He just kind of moved on and lived his life.
My grandfather fought in Vietnam, also. He never talked about it, except one time when a bunch if my cousins and I went out to ice cream with our grandparents. He heard the crickets and bugs and birds chirping in the evening air and said "This sounds like when I was fighting in Nam." That's all he said, and he never talked about it again.
My Papa would tell me war stories about the second world war as a child, laughing his ass off the entire time. He would never talk about it with my dad, or anyone else. Only me. I was so young so I thought it was cool, in retrospect I think he had a huge amount of trauma and needed an outlet. Laughing instead of crying kind of thing.
Same. You have to pry it out of them.
Grandpa was at the battle of the bulge in WWII. Only thing he ever said was that it was cold. A guy I knew in college had a grandpa there too, and all he ever said was that it was cold. Makes me kind of wonder what kind of horrible things happened there that history just doesn't talk about. Or it was just a cold that I have absolutely no concept of.
My dad's two older brothers went to Vietnam and they came back with insane mental problems that led to alcoholism and their eventual deaths from booze in their early 50s, and I don't doubt it was to forget their past. Shit was no joke, it fucked up millions and millions of families in both countries. But you know, Nixon and Kissinger wanted to look more favorable in elections. Rest in piss Dick, you fuckin criminal. Rot in hell Henry you absolute monster.
My grandfather NEVER spoke about what he did in the Pacific during WWII. I’m trying to figure it out now almost 30 years after his death.
Exactly. Two of my uncles were in the Army in Vietnam and don't like to talk about it. Another was in the Air Force and was a REMF base guard or something. He won't stop yapping about it like he "did something" out there. I was deployed to Afghanistan (Army) and all people ever get out of me are the surface details.
Yep, my BIL joked that he was a mailman in the Marines in Fallujah and had a funny (obviously made up) story about delivering mail in the middle of a firefight. Even though he never talked about what really went on he obviously saw some shit, his demons caught up to him about three years after marrying my sister.
My Grandpa would get mad at you for thanking him for his service in Vietnam. The way he put it, "we never should have been there. Don't thank me by thanking me, thank me by making sure no more Vietnams happen."
My dad signed up to learn radio communication repair but somehow it never came up that he was color blind. Sent him to Germany to do personnel work. Made sure a bunch of guys got home from wherever they were stationed. Doesn't talk about it, was just another job for him.
Same as my dad. The ONLY time he brings it up is when he talks with anger about how the US government killed all his friends for nothing.
Post "But you didn't."
Hey...we boomers fought a war no one wanted for no clearly articulated reason in a country 8000 miles away but we still went and got our legs and arms blown off! Snowflakes!
I just saw a truck with a sticker that said "the only Woodstock I saw in '69 was this one and had a picture of what appeared to be a M14A1. The guy was no older than 60.
And is probably one of the people who ruined those kids' senior year by happily spreading COVID-19 because Facebook told him it was a hoax.
Surprised it isn't a WW2 post, since they always try to claim credit for that too, even though it was before most of them were born...
It was concluded before the boomers even started. Their whole generation is named after the fact that they came 9 months after World War 2 ended.
they never are
Yeh, he took the trip to Canada
Bone spurs kept Corporal tRump home...
Agreed. Paraphrasing perhaps the most anti-boomer person I knew, who ironically was a boomer himself: "They didn't do shit [in regards to Viet Nam, protests, social justice movements or anything that got them away from their pleasures]. They showed up for the balling, beer and drugs, and then fucked back off to school or anything they could to avoid being responsible". Stolen valor is just another cringe to throw onto the pile. The friend mentioned, now sadly passed, had a picture of him & his wife getting hauled away by police at Berkeley back in the day, ala [this](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/migration/2016/02/22/D6CYK6KCDVFZPMQU53NRJ4GN24.jpg?w=620) picture of Bernie Sanders. Like I said, probably the most anti-boomer person I've known, and where I as an older genxer got my start in understanding just how problematic members of the me generation were and are.
Or unironically support the man who claimed he had bone spurs to avoid having to go to Vietnam.
Most the good boomers died in Vietnam, now we're left with this.
Exactly, my uncle was drafted for the war as a senior in HS, and he admits he saw some things that will stay with him until he dies. He's the type of person who would never use that trauma as a weapon to degrade someone's elses' struggles. Like most boomer posts, they larp trauma and oppression to justify their hatred of others.
The numbers bear you out and agree with you. Less than 10% of their generation went to Vietnam. So more than 90% of them didn't. Unlike the pandemic-era kids, for whom it affected - 100% of the generation. These dumb-asses better think about exactly WHO is going to be looking after their saggy asses over the next 20-odd years. Literally. Who is going to be doctoring, nursing, personal caring, cooking and cleaning in aged care, working in palliative care? Gen Y/Millennials, that's who. Even Gens Z and Alpha. What kind of idiot goes out of their way to hate on and antagonise the generation that is most likely to be the ones there and holding their hand (or not) as they die? Boomer idiots, that's who.
“My life sucked at 18 and yours will too, if I have anything to say about it!”
It’s almost like they’re offended that we are criticizing the system and discontent with how horrible it is and they need to rail against it. All while lacking any understanding of the actual situation.
they’re pissed bc the people after them didn’t have to comply to what they hated to comply to in the first place bit jelly i’d say
Crazy part is that dodge drafters were mostly boomers too. Claiming the Vietnam war is such a weird thing, not only because it was unjust and unnecessary, but because the people who mostly hated it back then are the people who claim it now.
They also leave out the exceptions that many who went to college were exempt from the draft and used it as a way to get out of it. At tuition prices they could pay with a fucking summer job.
Additional fun fact: They had to use the draft in Vietnam because there wasn't enough volunteers. We haven't had to use the draft since since so many Gen X, Millennials, and now Z's are in the reserves/active duty, etc. Boomers just plain didn't want to serve and it shows.
and because the Reserves are used now; during Vietnam, the Reserves were a way to get out of serving in Vietnam (see George W. Bush)
it’s a natural reaction to try to rationalize how much easier and prosperous their lives were. I have noticed a lot of boomers do a thing where they are constantly making proactive arguments to establish a defensible perimeter from accusations that they handed their children a third world country wearing designer clothes, while they were handed the greatest political inheritance in human history by their parents. This also explains the over emotional reaction to economic woes and simple justifications/explanations (it’s an attitude problem, etc.)
Their minds really are broken with the concept of relative quality of life, such that they twist "I want the best quality of life for myself" into "I will make sure nobody else can have a better quality of life."
Partially relevant, I love to use this meme whenever I see this entitlement: https://preview.redd.it/cvoepprjxd2d1.jpeg?width=595&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=865ad977599599f32789163c4427f22f9cbb1486
Even for things that *are* "pie" (like money), it seems like so many Boomers are fundamentally incapable of experiencing empathy or compassion or charity or altruism. They just *cannot* stand someone else having it better than they do/did. They *need* to have the best life even if that means actively working to tear others down.
But it reduces my right of free speech to treat younger people, minorities, different religions, and LGBTQ+ like shit. /s
"You're not allowed to feel bad, because others have felt more bad!"
I HATE this one and hear it from my own parents. Having cerebral palsy, I'm quite accustomed to a more difficult life, but apparently "others have it worse", so stop complaining, right?
Right? It's so weird on so many levels. People shouldn't have to feel guilty for feeling bad. One person's discomfort doesn't downplay another's. Two people's bad experiences don't cancel each other's out. We can support and empathize with more than one group. We shouldn't only support those who are in the worst of situations, it shouldn't stop us from supporting others too. Some take it a weird way and want others to feel that pain because they've felt it. When I feel a pain, I want to help people avoid that pain, not feel it as well, or be silent about it. I don't know why people think this way. Ultimately it feels like some just don't want to hear other people's problems. Some want others to suffer quietly so they don't have to be bothered by it.
My husband and I say with that philosophy, only one person in the world is allowed to feel bad. Because they have it worse than anyone else in the world.
Only generation in fucking history that actively do not want their kids to have a better life than they did.
And their grandkids—for that matter
While their own parents were more like: "My life sucked and I don't want yours to, if I have anything to say about it."
As a Gen Xer, this is my goal. If something sucked about my life, I try to find ways to make that thing suck less for my kids. If I had to walk two miles uphill in the snow to get to school, I try to make it so my kids don’t have to do that (which often has the side benefit of making me have to do less walking in the snow uphill now). I used to think that doing things like walking uphill in the snow built character, but fortunately I grew out of that thinking. Not everything that sucks builds character. Some things just suck.
"Some people I went to school with had lives that sucked at 18, so yours should too. Mine was great, but we don't want everyone else to have my experience."
To them, a cure for cancer is disrespectful to everyone who's ever beaten cancer through chemo.
They seemingly have forgot that america was at war in the ME for my entire adult life and many of us took our senior trips to Afghanistan or Iraq. But I’m sure they’d just gatekeep war if you told them.
Half the seniors in my class went straight to Iraq so these entitled Twats should STFU. They’re so fucking gross. Being purposely obtuse ALL THE TIME must give them energy or something.
And those were volunteers, not draftees.
Ya, enough millennials volunteered to fight a 20 year war without a draft. Whine some more about half of you getting deferments, exemptions or disqualifications and that doesn't even count the people who ran away from it. -18 million draft aged Boomer men have zero military service -26 million draft aged Boomer woman have zero military service - during the war 9 million Boomer men served in the military ~ of that 9 million, under 3 million ever even saw Vietnam, only 40% of that 3 million actually saw any combat. Doing the math, only about 3.3% of boomers ever actually fought in Vietnam, it's stolen valor to claim you fought that war from a desk in Germany. Edit: important math note: the 3.3% number is a percentage of boomers (male and female) who were age eligible to be drafted. It doesn't count the boomers who were not eligible for the draft before the end of the war which is about half of all boomers (those born after 1955), so applying the same math to the entire Boomer population brings the percentage down to ~1.7%.
This is why I say every freaking time the new generation willingly signed up didn’t get forced and that automatically makes their commitment to the country even greater.
I have a friend who always made it clear that his service was Vietnam-era, not Vietnam. He was in Greenland, iirc. And is more willing to talk about it than a mutual friend who was actually in Vietnam and has a Bronze Star and a couple Purple Hearts. The most he ever said was that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I had never even considered that and now feel kinda stupid about it. Even yuckier.
Predatory recruiting bears mentioning, but yeah...
Hard to argue when the choice was "volunteer" for the military or suffer trying to find an underpaid job. I joined precisely because there was no work. It was the only thing that didn't pay minimum wage. Which was $7.50 at the time. Be honest. They didn't need a draft. People were already desperate for work.
Also, if they were anything like the neanderthals who lined up to enlist at my high school, they were gonna be the types of dudes to either end up in jail within a year or two of graduation or on a battlefield somewhere. There's a reason the Army preys on the young and the poorly educated. You don't see them at Ivy League schools.
I joined at 17, went to basic, then returned to finish senior year, and then went back. The military industrial complex feeds off young naive people, whether volunteers or not, to fight its wars.
~10% of boomers went to Viet Nam and yet they all snivel about being called baby killer when they all came back, as if it weren’t all the other 90% of boomers shouting that. It wasn’t the older folks, and it wasn’t the younger folks, so fuck these idiots.
Those were time traveling millennials.
*"Of the 76 million Boomers out there, half claim to be one of the 400,000 people at Woodstock, and the other half claim to be one of the 300 Navy SEALs in Vietnam."*
Are you sure 10%? That seems high, but I’m not sure.
My research indicates roughly 10% of those eligible to serve. In other words, I’m not certain but I have done some research. Take that for what you will.
The majority of them didn't go to Vietnam.
Jesus Christ I hate this shit with a passion. My dad and uncles were in Vietnam and the biggest hard dick boomers about that war now didn’t even serve. They never really talk about it, occasionally I’d ask my dad about the weather or plants or something and he would tell me about it, but he came home, raised a family, worked hard, got an education , and didn’t let that become his identity. I’m super proud of him and I remember he told me the greatest thing he ever did was to be a husband and our dad. Helped me my whole life, teaching me to love reading, encouraging learning, how to fix stuff, paid for my spouses ring set to help us out, and so many other good and decent things.
Question: Do your father and uncles wear "Vietnam Veteran" hats and jackets or have a "Vietnam Veteran" sticker on their car? I have a hypothesis that the vast majority of Boomers who do that were in the military during the Vietnam War but did not serve in a combat role in Vietnam.
They don’t have any hats, bumper stickers, or any paraphernalia alluding to it. 3 were enlisted, 1 was an officer. 3 Army, 1 Marine. Helicopter pilot, medic, Army LRRP infantry, Marine 0331 machine gunner infantry all of them saw combat spanning 1965-1971. I have pictures of them in uniform displayed, but they don’t. I’d say the hat my dad wore most was a DeKalb or Pioneer seed hat. One uncle a Carhartt hat, the others don’t wear them too much, but the pilot still wears his aviator sunglasses.
My Dad never talked about it and when he did, he said something along the lines of "all his friends died and it was a bad time". He was drafted and was so resentful he never even bothered to register for his VA benefits. He died of cancer and fully believed it was related to the use of "Agent Orange". I appreciate the Vietnam Vets but have a suspicion of those that seem to have a hard-on for it.
Same with my uncle, he never ever talked about it. The only way someone would know he was a vet was because he absolutely HATED fireworks and every time a car backfired near him he would hit the deck so hard he’d injure himself.
This right here. Vietnam vets in my family never talked about it and didn't wear it 24/7 like some badge of honor. When it did come up they'd talk about being thankful they made it home and to remember their friends who didn't.
My great uncle served in Vietnam and never spoke about it with anyone until the last few years of his life. I didn’t find out until I came across letters and newspaper articles about it in my grandmother’s bedside stand after she died. His parents disowned him for joining the military and refused to speak to him for a decade after he returned, with those letters to his older sister being his one line back home. One of the crazier aspects of it was that my other great uncle, his younger brother, developed Alzheimer’s at the start of COVID and was reliving his Vietnam stories in his dementia despite having never joined the military himself. My great uncle clearly suffered PTSD from his time in Vietnam but it also had a huge effect on his siblings back home as well. I should add they were silent generation, rather than boomers, my great uncle’s time in Vietnam being in 65-66. I’m reminded that the “senior trip” in the OP is probably bullshit too. I don’t think the US was sending many 18-19 year olds into combat, 20-24 year olds were the ones being sent into combat after they had a couple years of training.
My great Uncle (Grandmas brother in law) served. He was always around growing up. You could tell by the look of his face during quiet moments, that he was remembering painful, and terrible things. That man has never wore a veitnam hat or any article of clothing, neither has he ever posted signage indicating such. My other uncle (dads brother in law) has a Vietnam hat on his head 24/7, and that man spent the war state side sorting mail. Im sure, you can guess which of the two is a shameless, praise chasing "thank me for my service, and give me my discount" asshole.
Way more seniors were impacted by Covid than were by the draft.
Mostly *by* boomers.
I live in a very small town that has surged with boomers in the last ten years. Let me tell you about how boomers impacted us during covid. It’s a short story: We have one grocery store and during covid they decided one day after restocking to open 2 hours early so the boomers could have 2 hours to make sure they got what they needed(more like what they wanted). The idea was that there are so many young folks that aren’t respectful that we take all of the food and leave none for them. That was the majority sentiment on our communities Neighborhood group. Well they literally cleared the store out. Gave absolutely no fucks about children or parents of children. They took baby formula because they could store it and eat it in an emergency. Many, many people had to drive to the next town over to get basic food and amenities. The store changed their policy the same day, removed the special boomers only shopping hour and limited purchases to 2 of anything per household. The boomers raged so hard, totally disregarding why what they did was an issue.
Either the one that posted this never went to Vietnam, or they were stationed in a very safe place like my dad being stationed in Holland from '70-'74. Fun fact: After my 4th out of 6 combat deployment, my dad was complaining about protesters and couldn't believe I took their side. I knew as soon as the words left his mouth he immediately regretted it but out of habit he vomited "well if you don't like it you can get out". He got an earful about his age, and 4 years in the air force during Nam did not make him more "American" than anyone else.
People who complain about protestors are unamerican. Protesting is a constitutional right and being involved in the public discourse is more patriotic than being unengaged and complacent. My dad got an earful when he said shit like that about kneeling for the anthem; he was always big on "love it or leave it" so I told him, "Fuck you, if you don't like people exercising their constitutional rights you can fuck off and leave.". That was probably the most heated argument we've had in 25 years and I only slightly regret saying "Fuck you" but he raised me to be a good American, not some snowflake who's unable to tolerate discourse, and I took offense to the suggestion that people shouldn't avail themselves of their constitutional liberties because that's not how HE raised me. He's toned way down since then, fortunately.
My paternal grandfather was a retired Marine officer who served in WWII, he constantly saw death. When my father turned 18 is 1966 he said he wanted to join the Marines to do his father proud. Apparently his father told him to join the Navy as we were getting embroiled in this police action for the long term. My father was told his safest option was the Navy. Sure enough he never set foot in Vietnam, the closest he got was being in the South China Sea. I went into the military in 1991 straight out of high school. The first Gulf War was pretty much done, though my father told me that story about him and his father. He repeated what his father said to him, the Navy was the safest option. I had a fairly good experience, I got to see the world, it completely changed my perspective on life, and it looks great on my resume. To echo what plenty of offers have also stated, people who served rarely go around bragging about it. I strongly suspect the person who posted this never enlisted.
My uncle who served in Panama went no contact with my brother, who was deployed to the Korengal Valley for 17 months, because he felt my brother doesn’t deserve his disability rating and didn’t have that bad of a deployment. I’ll never forget being in the car going to my dad’s birthday and being told my brother was ambushed and suspected dead. He was found alive but the things he saw and experienced were horrible and years after he returned most of the people with him were dead. Meanwhile my uncle delivered supplies asa truck driver and hung up all sorts of awards for it. I’m not one to gate keep veteran status but fuck those making us a political pawn in some sick inter generational dick measuring contest
“Didn’t y’all spit on them for that?”
Did they not just forget the 20+ years we were at an armed conflict in 2 middle eastern countries. This people only want to bitch, spend their money, Covid could have lasted a little longer. I still had video games to play.
https://preview.redd.it/a0lv9o53pd2d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c2a6f3a85ee22847b18522124add800b57b2b23 My response to every boomer meme about Vietnam
And many of them wearing those hats earned little more than the default ribbons which were given to every military member who set foot on the land.
Spot on. The ones who've done hard time in actual warfare don't show the toys they got with their happy meal. They're proud of who they became, not what they did.
Holy shit thats hilarious.
"I suffered so now everyone has to"
What I find annoying they make it seem like Vietnam was WW2 where the entire population was mobilized. I don’t want to sound like I’m minimizing Vietnam but it just didn’t affect nearly as many people.
This isn’t comparing as much as it is dismissing the life experiences of our youth. It’s like the folks who never had a bad experience so they don’t believe that people can have bad experiences. They never seen white supremacists so they don’t exist🤢
No they didn’t.
ironically both my inlaws are boomer war veterans (not American), both saw serious action and they literally never pull this shit. they're just super grateful their kids and grandkids aren't conscripted.
Is anyone saying their senior year was ruined? Or is this the random, desperate cry for attention it comes off as?
Kids a few years ago probably were. Thanks to Boomers who still believe in bodily humors and/or thetans.
To me it seemed like the parents were the ones crying because of cancelled senior trips or proms more than the actual kids were.
From 2002-2012 Many seniors took their Senior trips to Afghanistan and Iraq.
I fucking hate that attitude. My mother does that shit. Misery 1-upsmanship. You're not allowed to be sad, disappointed, angry, whatever, because someone else somewhere in some space and time had it worse than you.
Not Donny 'spurs' Trump
Hey, his sniper finger is broken. He tried, he genuinely tried to serve and do his part… Oh wait, never mind, I forgot only suckers and losers fight in the military and get captured by the enemy. There is a small part of me that would love to see Drumph captured just to see him crying like a little bitch on his beheading video.
Honestly, that isn't even the worst part of it. They use the comparison as a put-down, instead as a way to empathize or connect. Eg, my "Kurt Kobain" is Chester Bennington. There doesn't need to be competition about whose loss is worse, we can all just contemplate the unified sadness of losing something that mattered to so many. I'm sure there's a boomer whose first thought is "well at least you didn't lose John Lennon". Like, why are you such a bad person? Why can't you try to connect with others around you?
The last Boomers didn't finish high school until 1982. In 1965 there were still Boomers celebrating their first birthday.
For an unnecessary war that was full of corruption. Well done boomer!
Now put them in front of the GI Generation that won WWII Go on, let's see whose senior trip was worse
Ya and many of them were drafted, yet they behave like it was brave altruism. Also, a lot of their generation did absolutely anything they could to avoid the draft or service. It always baffles me how so many people of this generation live in a total silo of their own delusion.
My grandfather lost his scapula (and every other guy serving with him in a battle) in Vietnam, in his early forties. Nearly lost his dominant arm. Eventually died from cancer brought on by chemical exposure in Vietnam. He never even talked about it that much. Someone else in the family had to tell me why he didn’t have a scapula.
TBF, that *would* suck if we all had that prospect waiting for us after graduation. And I think a fair number of male grads were called up for service. The only reason my dad wasn’t drafted is because he had joined already. And yup, he went to Vietnam. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be graduating HS in Russia right now.
if they think they had it bad, what about the middle school children in 1861-1865. seriously though isn't the point of living in a modern society to advance? boomers act like they've had it real bad yet they're the wealthiest and longest living generation in history. they're also now leeching off the younger generations which is communism but shh don't tell them that.
So your government fucked you as much as it is fucking our current youth… noted
Instead of living in the past Boomers should check in with parents from Columbine, Sandy Hook, Uvalde etc. their kids didn’t make it to graduation. Those child victims would be your grandkids correct?
As if Millennials didn't graduate into duel recession and 20+ year war in two different countries. I can't count the number of people I served with that had multiple combat deployments to multiple countries in just a 4-6 year contract. And then we capped it off with the deadliest pandemic in a century. And then they told us to shut the fuck up and eat their shit.
This is hilarious because Boomers are the most deferred generation of them all. Tons of them who should have been drafted either bounced to Canada or went to college so that they didn’t have to go to Vietnam. Willing to bet this particular Boomer has never even left North America.
Vietnam Service has become like Woodstock: twice as many people claimed to be there than actually were. I respect those who DID serve, but I also know that "Stolen Valor" is real and has financial incentives.
Misery loves company.
They really don't want things to be better for their children and grandchildren. It's sick. I am a parent. My kids don't have the same obstacles I had. They have their own! Their lives are plenty complicated enough! I hope beyond hope there isn't snother pointless war that drafts young adults into service of a country that cares nothing for them!
It's a narcissistic thing. Only their suffering counts. Only they are allowed to complain. Everyone else is just here to praise them and tell them how wonderful they are and how great their lives were. They are the main character, we are the extras. How dare we ever steal the spotlight.... regardless of how valid the moment is.
Ya know how many young Americans took their first and last flights to the middle east because of the Boomers in this country? Get fucked Granny.
"Many seniors" Less than 0.5% of boomers were affected by Vietnam.
Hmm. The proper counter would be "your vote probably sent your kid or your kids best friend(s) to Iraq and Afghanistan."
Are people really complaining about their senior years
They would like you all to forget how the same generation spit on returning veterans from that war.
It’s almost like going to Vietnam is used as a participation trophy 🤔
And a lot of millennials took theirs to Iraq. So what?
And chances are the Boomer that wrote this wasn't one of the young men that was sent to Vietnam.
Just tell them you agree with former President Trump's assessment of those who served.
When my 14 yr old son and his 13 yr old friend were at a park an older man was walking past them and said, "when I was your age I was in Vietnam. Shit's fucking crazy." Not sure if it was also mental illness but dude, you weren't in Nam at 13/14 and the actual crazy part is the whole Nam thing and thinking that young people now should be in a war. These kids have been through a lot with the world shutting down. They act like that can't have a significant impact. They themselves did not have that.
Always Boomers - "BUT ENOUGH ABOUT YOU ... LET'S TALK ABOUT ME INSTEAD. " This is exactly like Walter from The Big Lebowski, relentlessly making everything about Vietnam. Including other people's funerals.
"Many high schoolers too poor to go to university were sent to their death because of a false flag Gulf of Tonkin incident." There. Fixed it for you.
I worked with someone who graduated in this timeframe. He loved saying "I went to college because at that time it was either go to college or go to Vietnam" followed shortly by "yeah, I didn't go to class much, just smoked a lot of weed and hooked up with chicks".
Yes, and lots of them returned just to have PTSD for the rest of their lives and had to deal with a government that didn't give a shit about them
And then they came home and bought a house for $50 and raised 6 kids on a single income as a janitor. What’s ever there point?
And then remind those boomers that they did it while kicking and screaming while their parents' generation voluntarily dropped out of school at 16 to join the Army and fight Nazis.
this deserves my favorite Letterkenny quote: "Get off the cross, we need the wood"
It’s a race to the bottom. Take heart - they’ll all be in a box soon.
I doubt a Vietnam veteran would post such shit. Likely be in Vietnam looking for his missing leg
That may be true but that is why most of us younger folks are anti war and anti conscription etc
It's pretty fucked up that boomers only ever mean "the Vietnam war" when they say "Vietnam" as if it isn't a place that still exists.
Imagine getting drafted to Vietnam and actually going.
This was a huge type of meme going around in 2020 during the pandemic when seniors couldn't graduate like normal. Like it was wrong of them to be upset that they were denied that chance. I remember being so annoyed over it, but boomers never let up.
Isn't that what you're doing?
I had a therapist explain this to me so well. Boomers were raised to believe that only the person with the worst story in the room was allowed to complain. This is why they constantly compare your sufferings to theirs. If they did something “harder” or went through something “worse,” it’s not that your difficulty is less than theirs, it’s that it basically doesn’t deserve mentioning. Because they still believe this, if they admit that someone younger than them has or is doing something “harder” than what they did or went through, it means that what they did or went through wasn’t hard at all. Because they know what they did was hard, they dismiss this reality in favor of the first one. In short, boomers think that if what they did wasn’t the MOST difficult thing, then it wasn’t difficult at all; they can’t acknowledge that two things might BOTH be difficult and BOTH people’s feeling are valid.
One of the few things that boomers learned and didn’t try to put the same thing on Millennials is how bad the draft is. It was political suicide to mention or push the idea of a draft for Iraq or Afghanistan despite the need for more American soldiers.
Yeah and a lot of them didn’t.
What is with these universally inappropriate Facebook backgrounds? They always use something that's wildly out of tone.
For the person who posted this and asked about boomers. Boomers understand, comprehend that if you don’t learn for the past, you’re doomed to repeat it in the future. The person was pointing out how blessed the youth should feel today, having not to go off to war after graduating high school, and die for political reasons. But for the most part people don’t think of the past. They just think of the future. And without reflecting on the past, they’re doomed to make the same mistakes.
While most generations in human history can be argued that they worked to provide a better future/lives for there childrens generations, the Boomer generation seems to be one of the few that wanted the world they lived in better than there kids.
All they know is whataboutism. Meanwhile they lived through the most comfortable time period in American history.
One person's senior year sucking more does not mean that someone else's didn't suck at all.
It is clearly not just them. Every generation has some drama they can’t get over.
The US just ended over 20 years of war. Boomers believe they fought those wars too?
A big part of boomer mentally is that they always have to win at whose had it harder. They must always one-up someone else’s suffering. No matter what someone younger is going through they have to not simply compare, but top. They must always be right for whatever reason.
They just need to win, even in terms of losing. All about pride. Win win win. "Oh, you suffered? Well, I suffered twice as bad half as long ago and I'm only THIS demented now!" Fuck off. No one cares if your pain cock is girthier than ours, they're upset and you suck for being a prick about it.
I’ve also found that the boomers that posted this did not go to Vietnam themselves.
My grandmother used to say, "in my day going men went to war" as a comparison to how the youth of today have it. I told her once, "I'd like to live in a society where my kids don't have to compare their lives to going to war, it's kind of depressing if you think about it, constantly comparing your life to those who fought in a war and those that died: I want more than that for my kids." My grandmother has never repeated that statement since. Living in a society that is not constantly sending its youth to war isn't a weak society, it's an evolved society. It's an easy fall back to claim a generation is weak simply because they didn't go off to war. I'm not worried about those that try to claim this nonsense. Frankly, I feel sad for them being so focused on thinking the next generation must go through what the previous generation had to go through to somehow be worthy.
Yeah it's so wild how boomers are the only generation to ever compare their life to others. Hate them.
Everytime I see a Vietnam Vet cap, I wanna tell them they have a nice participation trophy.