This Memorial Day please remember the Nurses that served!

[jimmil]

When I was wounded the last time I was damn near dead. After spending several hours in surgery I woke up in the middle of the night and the pain was intense. One of the nurses came to my bedside and just stayed with me wiping the sweat from my face and holding my hand as I just cried in pain. She stayed with me all night. She was an angel and I think I would have just given up and died if it weren't for her. The nurses in Vietnam were hero's every day to thousands of wounded soldiers. I wish just once a memorial service would recognize them for their dedicated service to the people who needed them the most.

[Warpy]

1. I've worked with some of those heroines of war

and they all had PTSD to one extent or another.

War hurts everyone who is in it from the fighters through the healers to the civilians that are trapped by it.

Memorial Day should honor those who fought, but it should also be a day to pledge that we won't ever let our children be destroyed to make rich men richer, not ever again.

[old mark]

2. I think of them often

I spent nearly a year as a patient in an Army hospital, and have nothing but good thoughts of all those who helped me walk.
Thanks for posting this thread.

mark

1st Bn 504 PIR 82d Abn Div SP4 1969-1971

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Right next to The Wall is this .........

This statue affects me more than any other statue I can think of. It is as if those women are alive, they affect me so. You look at the one on the right and you can hear the medevacs coming in. Look at the one on the left and you feel the compassion and the caring. It is amazingly visceral.

[TahitiNut]

5. "Entertainment"

Such "dramatizations" of the utter and despicable insanity of that war ... well, I can't help but be disgusted by it. It just seems too much like exploitation to me ... a 'touchy-feelie' sop for the "folks back home" so they can spend a few minutes (not a tour of duty, god forbid) dipping their consciences in self-indulgent juices of temporary compassion and empathy. Never mind that the 'tourists' never lifted the cross off the shoulders of those whose nightmarish REALITY "inspired" such "art" ... or shared those burdens ... or even sent C.A.R.E packages or made personally certain that the returning survivors (injured in ways that don't bleed - and don't heal) got support and nurturing (no - they're lepers) ... it's a convenient dip of the finger in the Holy Water of Empathy for a few minutes to offset a life of benign neglect and "better things to do."

That monument adjacent to the Wall is offensive to me. NO ... NOT the actual people represented. Obviously, they don't offend me. We had a lot of ordinary heroes. But THAT monument - melodramatic and self-serving - was a "What about ME?" piece of crap. The argument was "balance" and "we should recognize the WOMEN who served!" Well, guess what?!? The names on the Wall include WOMEN as well as MEN! It's gender-free. It's COMPLETELY proportional according to the people who did the dying. The notion that WOMEN need a "special" recognition for some unique heroism is just fucking insane. Believe me, nurturing one another in Nam was a duty we ALL had - even afterward. Nobody the fuck else did it.

At one time, The Wall was a unique and special remembrance. No GLORY. No ICONS. No depiction of John/Jane Wayne HEROISM for the entertainment of the Jody's. Somber. Reflective. THE DEAD, not the living. Then came the fucking statues. The pats on the back.

Sorry. Others may find my reaction 'offensive' ... like farting in the Disneyland Church. Hell... I've even been told "get over it." (Where have we heard THAT shit before?)

I guess if folks don't already understand what I'm saying ... they never never will.

Pardon me while I go remember the brothers (and sisters) that didn't come back like I did. Back to my "survivor's guilt" hole in the ground - not approved for "polite company."

Back to the regularly-scheduled annual dip in the Holy Water of Empathy ... and back to not having to think about it on Tuesday.

:cry: :cry:



P.S. ... the gal I married before I went to Viet Nam was a nurse. We were engaged for a year - even before I was drafted. She decided she wanted to get married BEFORE I went instead of after I came back. We did. She lasted 6 months before she found a lover. A male nurse, no less. Fuck me. Excuse me if I don't worship at the monument of "nurses." The people (male or female) who SERVED (and those who died) shouldn't be used as sop for the despicable cowards and betrayers. Fuck that monument. How about one that depicts the "home folks" throwing shit at returnees? How about one that shows the broken bodies and sprits of the 2.6 million who returned being driven over by the self-indulgent party bus of the "folks back home"?

[midnight]

4. Our nurses have been overlooked on so many fronts. They

themselves cannot recieve the health care treatment that many expect them to provide.