Word: vietnam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Given Carter's own understanding of the issue, his campaign rhetoric of "love" and compassion for the poor, his indebtedness to black voters, and his characterization of the Vietnam war as "racist," it would be hypocritical for him to grant an amnesty that effectively discriminated according to race and class...
...discriminatory amnesty must also include Vietnam-era vets with less-than-honorable discharges. Bad discharges were issued disproportionately to minorities (who also according to the military's own statistics, received stiffer court-martial sentences than whites for identical offenses). Ninety per cent of bad discharges were issued administratively, without a court-martial, mostly for offenses that would not be crimes in civilian life. Yet the consequences for a less-than-honorable discharge is severe: veteran's benefits are denied, good jobs are almost impossible to obtain. Bad discharges help to account for the nearly half-million Vietnam-era vets...
...declaring a universal, unconditional amnesty. Groups like the VFW and the American Legion, who are adamantly opposed to any form of amnesty, will probably protest even if Carter proclaims only a partial amnesty or "pardon." But a limited amnesty would generate protests indefinitely among the excluded victims of the Vietnam tragedy. It would certainly subvert any goal of reconciliation...
...used to have a teacher who loved to tell how he won the Silver Star fighting the Nazis in the Big One. But he was no die-hard old soldier. When people realized that we were killing innocent people in Vietnam, he was there in the forefront with the best of them, his grey hair growing long and a massive peace symbol hanging prominently around his neck...
...Vietnam veterans don't sound like my teacher. They tell cynical stories of an arbitrary war. They tell of buddies killed in the jungle by an anonymous trap or an accidental bombing. They learned to kill to save a corrupt government, and they learned to accept death as a pointless inevitability...