Topic: Operation LZ
started by: MADDOG
Posted by MADDOG on Aug. 24 2015,12:00 pm
This is the upcoming weekend for a heroes' welcome finally coming. Many of us know what kind of welcome our soldiers got when they came home from Vietnam. They were told to burn their uniforms, told they should probably not wear they in public and certainly not talk about it.This weekend a group of members of the VFW posts locally here got together and decided to have a welcome home hoopla long past deserved. Several area Legions heard about it and joined. More and more came wanting to be part of it.
It looks like this thing got REALLY big. I think they are expecting (what I heard) as many as 20,000 people coming to this event.
< Operation LZ > is a four (five counting the arrival of the travelling wall) day event honoring those who served. Thursday and Friday are aimed as educational days for local areas schools . Saturday and Sunday will feature aircraft rides, sky jumpers, air shows, music by Rockie Lynne and speakers;
Retired Lieutenant General Dennis J. Hejlik USMC, Governor Terry Branstad, and Navy Lt. Commnander Larry Spencer ~ 7 year Hanoi Hilton Prisoner.
Come celebrate, honor and remember.
< View on YouTube >
Posted by MADDOG on Aug. 27 2015,9:50 am
The Vietnam Memorial travelling wall arrived yesterday afternoon. Also the arrival of at least one Cobra AH-1 (?)and one Huey HU-1 (?) seen flying around already. I did hear over 5000 veterans had registered to come as of Monday. Registration is closed, but they are announcing to all veterans who didn't, just come on in and share and observe and be present. This is your weekend to be honored for your service.
Posted by hymiebravo on Aug. 27 2015,8:20 pm
Dude you don't even honor the vets on this discussion forum.
Posted by MADDOG on Aug. 28 2015,9:35 am
Yes, I do honor the vets. I can honor the uniform, but not necessarily the man wearing it just as I can like a sports team, but not one of it's members. Just because I see no honor in Bowe Bergdahl doesn't mean I don't honor the branch he serves or the others who defend our country.
Posted by Liberal on Aug. 28 2015,3:05 pm
You're delusional. Also when I was in the Army every single time I met a Vietnam vet I'd ask them if they knew of any first hand information of people calling them baby killers or spitting on them. Not one person knew of it happening and the vast majority said pretty much the same thing, that they'd beat you dope smoking hippies half to death if you ever spit on them or even looked at them wrong.That was always the craziest urban legend, I always wondered why a soldier would be intimidated by you hippie trash.
Posted by MADDOG on Aug. 28 2015,3:26 pm
I know a lot of veterans who served in 'nam and I've never asked them a question like that. You sound like an arrogant POG
Posted by MADDOG on Aug. 28 2015,3:49 pm
I hope that the people who do see this and want to attend and honor these men and women can see through the personal attacks. 
Posted by Common Citizen on Aug. 28 2015,4:09 pm
There was a time when the VFW wouldn't allow Vietnam vets to join. That's why so many of them belong to the American Legion.
Posted by hymiebravo on Aug. 28 2015,7:04 pm
(MADDOG @ Aug. 28 2015,9:35 am)
QUOTE
Yes, I do honor the vets. I can honor the uniform, but not necessarily the man wearing it just as I can like a sports team, but not one of it's members. Just because I see no honor in Bowe Bergdahl doesn't mean I don't honor the branch he serves or the others who defend our country.
Yah gee, gosh. You know I'm just not feeling it from yah dare.
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2LLB9CGfLs >
Posted by Marneman on Aug. 29 2015,12:32 am
Looking forward to attending tommorrow (whoops!, I mean today).My father returned from Vietnam in April 1969. He flew from Saigon to Seattle, arriving there about 2 o'clock in the morning. The first thing after getting off the plane he had some REMF E-5 MP giving him crap because his combat boots weren't shined! (The majority of men on his flight were wearing fatigues on the flight, and they landed at the MAC terminal in Seattle). Then they were told they shouldn't wear their Class-A's when they went to the civilian terminal because there were anti-war protesters there. Well most of the men like my father didn't have civilian cloths with them so they had to wear their uniforms.
Sure enough there where protestors at the airport(apparently they worked in shifts) and my father and other soldiers had to go through a gaunlet of them to get to their respective flights home. As for hitting back, my father would have loved to, but UCMJ regulations forbid soldiers from striking back for this kind of abuse. To top it all off when he returned here, to Albert Lea, My grandfather, a WWII vet, took my Father to the local VFW for a welcome home drink. When they walked in the VFW he was met about halfwy in by another WWII vet that told him to get out because Vietnam vets weren't welcome there. A lot has changed in the last fortyfive years since then (like the local VFW getting a dose of Karma), and we here in the US have come to grips with our guilt over the way these vetrans were treated when they came home. Events like this are long overdue to welcome these men and women who served in Vietnam home.
Posted by Expatriate on Aug. 30 2015,7:47 am
I can only remember one Vietnam War protest in Albert Lea, the Lea College students along with a few local students marched up Clark St. If you were in the Military in those days you were required to wear your uniform to receive the Military discount for transportation by plane, train, or bus. The Military didn’t give you travel vouchers so travel was at your expense!
I was lucky enough to get leave after basic and also got another leave before I was shipped overseas, meaning I traveled all over America in uniform from 1969-71, no one ever gave me any disrespect.
When I got back to the Oakland Overseas Replacement Station in 71, khakis were the travel uniform, we didn’t have civilian clothes.
As for warnings given by the military, they weren’t worried about the flower children, they were more concerned about us being robbed by local Oakland thieves.
No matter your military status DEROS or ETS you had back pay, leave pay coming, the military paid you in cash in those days so we all had a nice chunk of change in our pockets.
Posted by Marneman on Aug. 31 2015,1:15 am
Haven't heard the final numbers yet, but they had a big turnout on Saturday. I was impressed with some of the displays they had to veiw, and the airshow was pretty good too. I was a little bummed that the CH-47 Chinook helicopter wasn't able to make the show due to the weather(the stormfront that moved through Friday was between us and their homebase in Mich.), but overall it was a good celebration especially for all the vets involved.
Posted by Liberal on Aug. 31 2015,9:07 am
So I can add yet another Vietnam era vet that wasn't attacked by protesters? Being a 20 year old MP NCO, with Air Assault wings, jungle expert badge, two Army commendation medals, and being on the cover of soldier magazine I got stuck recruiting at High schools all over the south, Back then they called it a TEIR team for Total Involvement in recruiting. The only team about it was whatever MP came with would load and operate the slide projector while I gave a speech and then had a question and answer sessionThe only part I liked was debunking all the crazy war stories from friends and relatives. If they brought up relatives being mistreated after Vietnam I'd always ask for more information and the story would collapse over the simplest questions. Best BS story I evee heard was this kid in Muscle Shoals high school told me his drill sergeant made his uncle bury a tank with an entrenching tool. I didn't really debunk that I just laughed and said, "Have you seen the size of a tank?"
Also being a young NCO with a fancy uniform I got stuck with all kinds of crappy duty assignments like guarding General's parties but the one thing cool about that is I got a chance to meet a lot of senior NCOs like Sergeant Majors and Command Sergeant Majors. And one of the questions I always asked was about the Vietnam treatment. And to a soldier not one ever had a problem with protesters, and nealry everyone I talked to said they wouldn't have stood for it and would have beat the snot out of them.
Also as an MP I was pretty well versed in the UCMJ, state, and Federal law and there is nothing that says you have to take crap from some dope smoking hippies that didn't have the balls to serve, like Maddog.
I'm not saying it never happened but going by the lack of news reports on dope smoking hippies getting their teeth knocked out I'm calling BS.
Also the VFWs made that decision locally and had more to di with the generation gap.
Posted by MADDOG on Aug. 31 2015,12:04 pm
(Marneman @ Aug. 31 2015,1:15 am)
QUOTE
Haven't heard the final numbers yet, but they had a big turnout on Saturday. I was impressed with some of the displays they had to veiw, and the airshow was pretty good too. I was a little bummed that the CH-47 Chinook helicopter wasn't able to make the show due to the weather(the stormfront that moved through Friday was between us and their homebase in Mich.), but overall it was a good celebration especially for all the vets involved.
I thought it was a huge crowd on Saturday. I planned on coming back on Sunday, but with the weather similar in the morning to Saturday I didn't. I heard they parked over 5000 cars on Saturday. Some of the reports were modest to say the least. < KIMT reported over 50 motorcycles >in an escort for the wall. I guess close to 300 cycles is over 50, isn't it?
By the end on the day last Monday, they had over 5000 vets signed up. I don't know though if that was 5000 vets or 5000 including spouses.Thursday I saw many, many buses of schools coming in, but donm't know how many. On Friday it rained all day, yet 12 school buses full of kids showed up.
OK, just heard some preliminaries...over 15,000 on Saturday and 8,500 on Sunday.
Posted by Expatriate on Sep. 01 2015,7:19 am
My modem was making a roaring sound so thought I’d discount, reboot and see if it resolved the problem.I pick it up in an effort to see if the card was burnt, when I turned it over I noticed a placard, Made in Vietnam.
thanks a lot Charter
there’s your welcome home maddog, it’s all about money, always has been always will be..
Posted by Self-Banished on Sep. 01 2015,12:03 pm
Veitnam has a very large manufacturing base now, making some quality products 
I suppose you could buy you electronic goods in the states.
Posted by hymiebravo on Sep. 04 2015,6:11 pm
Saw a 60 Minutes type show once that was showing how even China's manufacturing wasn't even cheap enough, any more. So China needed their own 'China' so to speak. That's when you started to see Indonesia and Vietnam, listed as country of origin, instead of China, Korea or Japan.
The were teaching everyone to speak Chinese, as well.
Posted by hymiebravo on Sep. 04 2015,6:25 pm
(MADDOG @ Aug. 31 2015,12:04 pm)
QUOTE
(Marneman @ Aug. 31 2015,1:15 am)
QUOTE
Haven't heard the final numbers yet, but they had a big turnout on Saturday. I was impressed with some of the displays they had to veiw, and the airshow was pretty good too. I was a little bummed that the CH-47 Chinook helicopter wasn't able to make the show due to the weather(the stormfront that moved through Friday was between us and their homebase in Mich.), but overall it was a good celebration especially for all the vets involved.
I thought it was a huge crowd on Saturday. I planned on coming back on Sunday, but with the weather similar in the morning to Saturday I didn't. I heard they parked over 5000 cars on Saturday. Some of the reports were modest to say the least. < KIMT reported over 50 motorcycles >in an escort for the wall. I guess close to 300 cycles is over 50, isn't it?
By the end on the day last Monday, they had over 5000 vets signed up. I don't know though if that was 5000 vets or 5000 including spouses.Thursday I saw many, many buses of schools coming in, but donm't know how many. On Friday it rained all day, yet 12 school buses full of kids showed up.
OK, just heard some preliminaries...over 15,000 on Saturday and 8,500 on Sunday.
I guess it would have been pretty hard to ignore. And would have pretty much dwarfed any other entertainment options in that hamlet.
Do you guys still have a Pamida there?
Posted by MADDOG on Sep. 05 2015,8:10 am
(hymiebravo @ Sep. 04 2015,6:25 pm)
QUOTE
(MADDOG @ Aug. 31 2015,12:04 pm)
QUOTE
I thought it was a huge crowd on Saturday. I planned on coming back on Sunday, but with the weather similar in the morning to Saturday I didn't. I heard they parked over 5000 cars on Saturday. Some of the reports were modest to say the least. < KIMT reported over 50 motorcycles >in an escort for the wall. I guess close to 300 cycles is over 50, isn't it?
By the end on the day last Monday, they had over 5000 vets signed up. I don't know though if that was 5000 vets or 5000 including spouses.Thursday I saw many, many buses of schools coming in, but donm't know how many. On Friday it rained all day, yet 12 school buses full of kids showed up.
OK, just heard some preliminaries...over 15,000 on Saturday and 8,500 on Sunday.
I guess it would have been pretty hard to ignore. And would have pretty much dwarfed any other entertainment options in that hamlet.
Do you guys still have a Pamida there?
Nope, no Pamida anymore. Been replaced by Shopko Hometown (merger). Before Pamida, it was Gibson's.
I guess it was entertainment with people still honoring the Vietnam vets. As far as other events, it equaled the < Tree Town Festival > in attendance.