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I was somewhat surprised at how people felt about us. By that, I mean I was surprised that people thought we had rampaged around the country, shooting anything that moved and venting our anger and frustrations on a humble populace. That was not true. For the large, large majority of us, our service was honorable. Whether we should have been involved in Vietnam is another matter. In retrospect, I believe our goals were honorable for the most part, but we should not have fought the war for the Vietnamese.I wasn't prepared for the image people had of us when I returned. This is an image many people still have of us.
I sometimes relate the memory of sitting in a community college classroom, attending night school economics and having a professor at the front of the class literally use some of the most abominable language to describe veterans and what we did in Vietnam to a class of young and open minds. I had only been back five months at the time and almost jumpedover some desks to punch him out. Whether he knew I was a veteran, I don't know. I managed to restrain myself and leave the classroom without doing or saying anything. I dropped his class after two weeks of not learning economics but hearing this person go into hysterics about our supposed behavior. This definitely stuck in my mind. During the Gulf War, I demonstrated in support of our troops (I was against sending them) and had a woman come up to me and say I should "have died in Vietnam." This was not an uncommon sentiment then and some people still feel that way.
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