"Simply serving our country" in Vietnam?

My Lai massacre

Letter to the editor in today's SF Chronicle:

On Veterans Day, we will honor with gratitude all those who served in our country’s military. And rightfully so.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the first American troops sent to Vietnam, which turned into one of the most unpopular wars in U.S. history, sharply dividing the country. 

Those of us who served in that war did not come home to a grateful nation with the prestige accorded veterans today. We were ignored, shunned and even blamed for a war considered by many an unwinnable disaster, even though we were simply serving our country.

So this year, let us honor all veterans but especially those who served in Vietnam by saying what was not said at the time: Welcome home and thank you.

Ken Kashiwahara

Millbrae

Rob's comment:

Kashiwahara provides a couple of whoppers here: that those who served in the US attack on/invasion of Vietnam were "shunned and even blamed" when they came home, a myth that's been thoroughly debunked.

And the notion that we should "honor" and thank Vietnam veterans in particular for their part in that historical atrocity/war crime committed by their own government.

Most US veterans were drafted and essentially victims, including more than 58,000 US troops killed during the war, not to mention hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese killed by US forces, including air strikes on a peasant population that had no air force to defend itself.

See also The Responsibility of Peoples.