MALCOLM GARCIA: Iraq looks a lot like Vietnam to one veteran

MALCOLM GARCIA: Iraq looks a lot like Vietnam to one veteran

(EXCERPT) Randy Barnes listens to the phone ring, mumbles that the
guys in the back offices of Vietnam Veterans of America are sometimes
slow to pick up.

The minor administrative snafu distracts him only for a moment. He
wants to talk about Vietnam, especially now that he thinks another
generation of GIs is confronting a similar conflict.

"There isn't any question to me that Iraq has turned into a war very
much like Vietnam except that it's fought in urban areas whereas
Vietnam was very rural," says Barnes, a volunteer at the Walnut Street
agency that assists Vietnam vets. "I mean rural to the point of
peasants plowing rice with water buffalo."

Barnes, 64, was a medic in the Army's 25th Infantry Division from 1968
to 1969. He was a 27-year-old reservist when he was called up shortly
after the Tet offensive. These days he has thick graying hair and
beard. He wears a T-shirt and shorts. He has a...

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The American War Library
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