Where the North Vietnamese beat the bejesus out of John McCain

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my dad is farsighted and has terrible eyesight, the smell of books,"this is CBS", the colors green and brown, that guy is running

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The first time Bob and I kissed was while we were watching Nixon's resignation speech. It marked the end of one era and the beginning of another.

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In My Lai two American soldiers were bothered when eating their lunch by the moans of the living coming from the pit of bodies they had just murdered. One of the soldiers got up and killed off those still alive in the pit, women and children mainly, so they could go back to their lunch.

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I have a memory of my eldest brother burning his draft card in our backyard in Kansas City. I don't know whether this was an act of civil disobedience, a celebration of the war's end, an empty "high draft number" display, or a false memory. It was summer and he wasn't wearing a shirt. Or that's how my memory has it. I was born in 1961 and he was born in 1952 or 1953. That is the only thing I remember about the Viet Nam war. And it might not actually have happened.

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Drugs and dread and rotten feet and sleeping in rain

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When I was a kid we always watched the tv news during dinner, and so every night the war report was on. I thought that the US was permanently at war - I did not understand that this was a particular war, but rather that the condition of being at war was normal and ongoing.

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My father was in the war and every night, even as a very small child, I recall being awakened by him screaming in his sleep. He rarely spoke of it, but when he did it was incredibly dark. The time his helicopter was shot down and his best buddy died before his eyes. He was only 21.

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My father is deaf in one ear only...but experienced several years in and out of the hospital with unknown or unidentifiable ailments thought to be brought on by agent orange. By the time I was 18 my father had a lung and a half, his adrenal gland, and one kidney removed. Each disease was mis-identified. His chest and back are like a road map of scars now, his breathing is labored, and he will never know exactly what caused it all.

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another thought...when i worked as a social worker I did home visits with a wide cross section of folks in the city who had children 0-3 with special needs. One of the families I adored and will never forget was from Vietnam. The parents grew up during the war there. After moving to America, they had a child...she was born with rare disabilities...likely related to the chemical warfare used. Subsequently they had 4 more children, all the while hoping for one who was "normal". They never got there wish. But, of course, love and care of each of their children deeply.

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The only thing I know and the only thing I remember reading about the Vietnam war is that the soldiers involved would mostly tend to shoot over the heads of the "enemies", because no one wanted to have an actual kill on their conscience. There was also much experimentation by the government regarding drugs, psychedelic or otherwise.