My son and the other soldiers landed in Baltimore last night after 11pm.

The U.S.O was there to greet them.

It was a nice surprise for them.

You're perzactly right also too.

Wanted to use a quadruple positive combined with a total negative factor of minus six, but I got lost somewhere along the way to the soup line. So there.

You two ganging up on me and there ain't nothing I can do about it, huh? Hold on a minute, JoElle's was a triple so she's off the hook. ... Don's a different matter though, he's still in even numbers and that just don't not add up noways.

The sad thing, Don, is that, good or bad, it had nothing to do with you as an individual. Some people behave irrationally in both instances; they have an unnatural desire to both look up to someone and to look down on someone. At different periods in history, soldiers fulfil those desires. You were fortunate to have felt the love, some vets only felt the hate.

One thing you can be sure of, you are loved here.

True words, Shelagh.

Dear Don,
I am sorry you were so badly treated. I wonder if the world is much better off in this day. Most people do not have a thought that someone has not put into their heads as the contemporary thing to think. I remember those days that you were in the service. Carol's Cuban book tells a lot, I think, about the mindset of many, but the music industry took a very profitable hold on the mindless who follow. There were many young people then who protested something they did not know only because the songs said it was the in thing to do. They had no idea what you went through for their right to be so mindless. For them, I apologize. I apologize for my self.
Love,
Betty

If any of you know Edd Voss (I know Betty does), you should read his short story, Welcome Home. It is a poignant story of the same time and mindset.

When I think of the ridicule so many Viet Nam vets received, I want to heave. It was disgraceful and disgusting. Anything short of cheers is too little!

I agree, Zada. You don't have to agree with the war, or why we were
there. It was still our young boys who answered the call and did their
duty. Same with Iraq and Afganistan.

My dad, a WWII vet, taught us boys that old "My country, right or
wrong", and followed that with "If Uncle Sam calls you, you go!"

I lost several friends to Vietnam. Others came back never quite the
same. Some have ongoing problems with Agent Orange exposure and PTSD.

I salute those who didn't return, and honor those who did.