[03Fox2/1]

I'll try again and keep it short.
One year earlier was far different from your story.
The U.S. military, especially the Marine Corps because of our limited size and combat mission, due to heavy casualties from TET '68 and the escalating offensive nature of our Generals, was adding troops late in '68. Early '69 you could enlist in the Marine Corps for only two years but you were guaranteed infantry and VietNam. This is what I did, with my eyes wide open, albeit I was looking through rose colored glasses from the perspective of an ignorant youth of only 18 and someone with no worldly experience period. A patriotic idealist, short on facts and high on honor.... that was me.
Right before graduation, our Senior D.I. told us to pay special attention to our next training in AIT and Staging. He told us that one out of four of us would return either wounded or in a body bag and I'm afraid I can only say that he was correct. It comes as a shock to me that only a year later, you say the Corps was asking for volunteers to go to VietNam and that you could ask for and receive non-VietNam duty. There was no defeatist attitude in the Corps in late '68 but there was grim determination to fight the good fight and maintain the honor of the Corps and not let your buddies down. Most of us, even the few ones that were drafted, seemed to believe in our Corps and our country and each other. We knew we were winning the fight on the ground but at a tremendous cost of human misery and life.
About the middle of the year in '69 troops started to be pulled out of VietNam and those of us that remained became more resigned to our fate. It took real courage to continue the fight to the best of your ability and watch many fall each and every day, knowing that the war was being decided not by our sacrifice but by some politician thousands of miles away.
I can say without question that before I rotated home almost thirteen months after arriving in VietNam, after my entire tour in the bush as an 0311 grunt, wounded once and a squad leader before leaving, that the only thing we still believed in was each other and that we knew the enemy was even more determined to kill as many of us as possible. You see the real war of attrition wasn't about numbers reported in the rear, the real war of attrition was between those of us whose duty was to seek out and find and close with the enemy on his terms and kill him before he killed us, and that my friend took a lot of guts when the news from home talked about huge anti-war protests and the President was negotiating a "peace with honor" and pulling troops slowly out of VietNam. By the way, I'm proud of my effort and have nothing to apologize for to anyone. However I do feel that my country and my government owes me one.
And they wonder why so many of us have mental issues for the rest of our life. When news of the moon walk came out, I felt very disconnected to America. I looked at the moon and thought to myself, they care about that, not those of us in this damn war.
I'll stop for now, this may not get posted if I take any longer.

Semper Fi