A Vietnam era perspective on Dormer [View all]

[OffWithTheirHeads]

Full disclosure, I never served in the Armed Forces. During the Vietnam war I chose to battle the truncions and teargas of the S.F.P.D. Along with the Berkley and Oakland P.D. As well as being photographed and kept track of by the F.B.I. As we expressed our right to protest poor people being used as cannon fodder for the benefit of the arms dealers. I did everything I could to avoid going. Long story short, Nixon had a draft lottery. My number was 359. I was not going. My stepbrother was 12. He went underground and ran from them for years. The government sent me letters asking where he was. I filled them with Salami wrappers and cigarette butts and returned them. They eventually caught him and told him that he would either show up at the draft board for processing or he would go to jail. The night before he went for his physical, he did so many drugs that he was guaranteed to fail. He failed. Ten years later, he died of a drug overdose.

My other stepbrother just went when he was called. To the best of my knowledge, he is still living in the jungles of Hawaii, unable to cope with society.

I remember having to hold one friend down in the middle of a street in San Francisco while he screamed that the "gooks" were coming to kill him, This was after one tour. Our cannon fodder today has to do two, three, four tours.

Everyone I know who had to go to Vietnam came back seriously fucked up! Do you really think it will be different when the vets from Afghanistan, Iraq, etc come back? This is just the beginning.