Quote Originally Posted by Schmedlap View Post
I'm not being a wiseguy when I suggest this, but some people are just jerks. I know a lot of people who served during Vietnam - my father, friends of his, uncles, et cetera. ALL were draftees. I've never heard one word out of them regarding anything bad from Vietnam. They did their time and then got out. It is not that they're repressing anything. They simply have the same attitudes that we associate with WWII vets - they did their job, went home, and got on with their lives. They weren't raised with a victim mentality. Some people were. Those people generally grow up to be jerks.
Quite so. And it's important to understand that every conflict (of any size...not just the "big ones" or the "long ones") produces folks who adjust well afterwards, some who view their time in the conflict as an excuse to act like jerks afterwards, and others who have difficulty adjusting afterwards. It's not unique to Vietnam (even though there is a significant minority on both sides who might wish us to believe that it is).