and staged a psychotic break. It must have been a convincing one, they made him 4F instead of the usual 1Y.
That war was so unpopular that any way someone got out of it was seen as a good way. With the draft, the military had plenty of young guys to suck off the street and ruin.
Most of the guys I know who got sent there came back angry and a lot were completely shattered by the experience, both from the war itself and from the idiotic way the military rotated them in and out of it.
One of my best friends still reacts so badly that when there's a promo for a war show or film on TV, he breaks out in tears and has to leave the room, and he's one of the toughest guys I know.
The only guys I know who consistently survived with relatively little damage are the INDN guys around here. I don't know if they went down the peyote road when they got back and got healed or if being raised in a warrior culture helped. I just know the glue that holds them together is a bit stronger than it was for the innocent suburban kids they threw into that insanity.
I don't condemn Nugent for escaping that war, I know too many who did. What I do condemn him for now is wrapping himself in the flag and surrounding himself with guns like some tough Rambo clone.
I know the real tough guys, the ones who went and who faced those demons down when they got home. Most of them never want to touch a gun again as long as they live.
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