[03Fox2/1]

I am a survivor and I have no right to bitch about anything really. My hard feelings have long ago went from myself to representing those that can no longer represent themselves because they are dead. If my country and my government and even the Corps forgot about me, what does that say about the countless unknown heros that reside silently in forgotten exile. Those on the Wall in Washington D.C. at least have a memorial, although it took all of us and our family members and civilian friends to get one. All the government did was donate the land if I remember right. You are correct that the entire military, especially the Corps was rapidly downsizing when you were available to go east or west.
Just as there were special circumstances that dictated my initial enlistment for only two years and infantry and VietNam guaranteed in March of '68, when my tour was over and I returned to America, again special circumstances dictated that since I only had four months left on my active duty obligation, I was offered and accepted an early out. So my entire time in the Corps was determined by circumstances out of my control and I went straight from boot camp and training to combat and a return to civilian life, all in 19 months with most of it in combat. The Marine Corps was then glad to be rid of me and between it's rush to discharge those like me and the nations new excitement over troops pulling out and the war winding down and the "Peace with Honor" that Nixon and Kissinger promised actually beginning to happen, it seemed like all of our sacrifice and personal effort had been for nothing. It wasn't for many months later before I got a letter in the mail telling me that my Purple Heart had arrived and for me to go down to the Reserve Center to have it presented. A ceremony in an office with a Gunny and a Major that took about 10 minutes and was obviously very non-newsworthy to anyone. So yes, times did change and change very rapidly.
You have nothing to regret about your decision to not go to WestPac and with hindsight, you probably were right. That doesn't make those like me wrong, it just means that we were each given a different set of circumstances and we each made what we believed to be the right choice. You know more Marines died long after I left, including the final evacuation of our Embassy later and let's not forget one of the saddest chapters in the history of this war, all the way to May of 1975 when Marines and others died trying to rescue the Mayaguez off the coast of Cambodia. Three fighting Marines were left accidentally behind and intentionally written off by President Ford and his advisor Henry Kissinger. They were captured and beheaded by our enemies and to this day I consider them the last casualties of the VietNam War and I think their fate was indicative of how our government considered all of we grunts as expendable.

Semper Fi Marine