Watching the Retired General talking heads on Meet the Press this weekend, the Freudian slip of Vietnam rose its ugly head. It made me curious, are we drawing parallels to Vietnam that don't make sense? That go to far? From a Knight Ridder article via Yahoo I'll let those with the most experience -- the troops -- speak for themselves:
"I tell the guys not to lose their humanity over here, because it's easy to do," said Marine Capt. James Haunty, 27, of Columbus, Ohio. "I tell them not to turn into Col. Kurtz."Lyndon Johnson gave his own stay the course speech in 1965. The United States left Vietnam in defeat in 1975, ten years later.
Haunty was referring to a character in Joseph Conrad's novella, "Heart of Darkness." It became the basis for the Vietnam War movie "Apocalypse Now," in which Kurtz has a mental breakdown and murders suspected Vietnamese double agents.
Asked for an example of the kind of pressure that could cause Marines to crack, Haunty talked about the results of a car bomb: "I've picked up pieces of a friend, a Marine. I don't ever want to see that s--- again."
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"It's a lot like it was in Vietnam, when the VC's (Viet Cong) would come out and pretend to be your friends," said Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Vidler, 23, of Syracuse, N.Y. "You're fighting an enemy on his home ground and you don't know who's who."
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"They (insurgents) are doing a hell of a job fighting this war. They know they can't take us head on but they can do a lot of damage with bombs," said Allen, 19, of Syracuse, N.Y. "There's no one out here to fight."
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"There's been reports of a .50 (caliber) sniper rifle out there. Maybe they called this in just to get us out here and take a shot. A .50-cal would go straight through our (body armor) plates," Coffey said, looking at the buildings across the river. "Why do I feel like I'm in a f------ Vietnam movie?"
