Big Blue Huddle

Just a great heartwarming story that needs to be read.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/black-vietnam-veteran-finally-awarded-medal-of-honor/ar-AA18bYAk?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=7f35c641343945d6b806cf8e73d5bb58&ei=19

Quote from: LennG on March 04, 2023, 12:12:45 PMJust a great heartwarming story that needs to be read.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/black-vietnam-veteran-finally-awarded-medal-of-honor/ar-AA18bYAk?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=7f35c641343945d6b806cf8e73d5bb58&ei=19

Great story. I read that earlier this morning. He was one tough hombre

He looks like a very tough guy at his age...here's a picture of him in his younger days as a Green Beret during the saga of Vietnam. Wouldn't want to screw with him. He doesn't look like the humorous type you mess with

 I don't want to get up on a soap box for this, but what really bothers me is that we see stories like this, great, heartwarming stories and they get buried on page 12 of the paper, or in the last few minutes of a news show, yet all the killings, violence and all the other stuff, grab the headlines.

What's wrong here?

Quote from: LennG on March 04, 2023, 07:16:10 PMI don't want to get up on a soap box for this, but what really bothers me is that we see stories like this, great, heartwarming stories and they get buried on page 12 of the paper, or in the last few minutes of a news show, yet all the killings, violence and all the other stuff, grab the headlines.

What's wrong here?

Unfortunately stories like this don't sell papers or capture attention in the world today


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Quote from: LennG on March 04, 2023, 07:16:10 PMI don't want to get up on a soap box for this, but what really bothers me is that we see stories like this, great, heartwarming stories and they get buried on page 12 of the paper, or in the last few minutes of a news show, yet all the killings, violence and all the other stuff, grab the headlines.

What's wrong here?

I've read that no one wants to read that 37,000 flights landed safely today (good news). But "plane crashes killing all aboard" sells papers...or, politician X told the truth today and has paid all his taxes vs. politician Y is sleeping with an enemy spy and sold military secrets. The only news is that which upsets as large a number of people as possible, I guess

Regardless, journalism in general has gone to hell in a handbasket. Never know what to believe anymore

Quote from: LennG on March 04, 2023, 07:16:10 PMI don't want to get up on a soap box for this, but what really bothers me is that we see stories like this, great, heartwarming stories and they get buried on page 12 of the paper, or in the last few minutes of a news show, yet all the killings, violence and all the other stuff, grab the headlines.

What's wrong here?

The story generated more anger than warm feelings for me.   Twice the Medal of Honor paperwork was filed for his heroic deeds, and twice, the paperwork was "lost."  It's pretty sad that it took 60 years for this wrong to be righted. 

I don't think the Army considered this a good PR story.  Because of some racist officers, this poor man missed out on 60 years of these benefits:

The Recipients receive a special monthly pension, travel on military aircraft on space-available basis, have access to base commissaries, and are guaranteed burial at Arlington National Cemetery and admittance for their children to the military service academies. Some states offer special license plates and tax benefits.

Quote from: MightyGiants on March 06, 2023, 08:32:13 AMThe story generated more anger than warm feelings for me.   Twice the Medal of Honor paperwork was filed for his heroic deeds, and twice, the paperwork was "lost."  It's pretty sad that it took 60 years for this wrong to be righted. 

I don't think the Army considered this a good PR story.  Because of some racist officers, this poor man missed out on 60 years of these benefits:

The Recipients receive a special monthly pension, travel on military aircraft on space-available basis, have access to base commissaries, and are guaranteed burial at Arlington National Cemetery and admittance for their children to the military service academies. Some states offer special license plates and tax benefits.

Bing! Now wrap your head around this...

Wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_African_Americans_in_the_Vietnam_War

Black Americans were more likely to be drafted than White Americans.[3] The Vietnam War saw the highest proportion of African-American soldiers in the US military up to that point.[2] Though comprising 11% of the US population in 1967, African Americans were 16.3% of all draftees.[3]

During the period of the Vietnam War, well over half of African American draft registrants were found ineligible for military service, compared with only 35-50% of white registrants.[4] For example, in 1967, 29% of African Americans were found eligible for military service, compared to 63% of whites; the armed services drafted 64% of the eligible African American registrants, in comparison to 31% of the eligible white registrants.[5] Project 100,000, which helped dramatically increase US troop presence in Vietnam from 23,300 in 1965 to 465,600 two years later, sharply increased the number of African American troops drafted. By lowering the education standards of the draft, an estimated 40% of the 246,000 draftees of Project 100,000 were Black.[6] A total of 300,000 African-Americans served in Vietnam.[5] According to Daniel Lucks the reason behind the high turnout was the pay, which for many, was more than they had ever made in their lives, and that young African Americans "perceived military service as a vocational opportunity, and they had the additional incentive to enlist to prove on the battlefield that they were worthy of their newly acquired civil rights."[5]

Some activists in the US speculated that the uneven application of the draft was a method of Black genocide.[6] From the years, 1966 to 1969, opinion of the draft grew increasingly negative. A 1966 poll from Newsweek found that 25% of African Americans thought of the laws as unfair. A similar poll in 1969 saw the number rise to 47%.[5] Black people were starkly under-represented on draft boards in this era, with none on the draft boards of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, or Arkansas.[6] In Louisiana, Jack Helms, a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, served on the draft board from 1957 until 1966.[6] In 1966, 1.3% of the US draft board members were African American with only Delaware having a proportionate number of African American board members to the African American population.[5] In 1967, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in South Carolina demanding that South Carolina halt the drafting of African Americans on the grounds of their absence on the state's draft boards.[5] By 1970, the number of African Americans on the draft boards grew from 230 to 1,265, though this still only represented 6.6% of all draft board members.[7]

If you ever were in the military service, and you weren't, you couldn't possibly understand why this IS a good and wonderful story. Instead, you try and take the _------- heart approach and try and ruin it.

It's so easy to sit there and throw your views on here. But, I can guarantee, had you been drafted back in the Viet Nam War era, you would be singing a completely different tune. It's always the guys on the sidelines doing all the whining.

In that era, Blacks were drafted and went while many Whites were excused because they were in college, which was a deferment. Would you say most colleges had white enrollment or black? Everyone of age was eligible for the draft, white or black, and if you didn't have a deferment, you went.
Fair, who is to say, but when a guy, who deserved the MOH, gets it, people should be happy, which I am. If you look thru the annals of the MOH, you will find just as many White soldiers who never got it when they should have and really ended up getting it posthumously.

Take a good story and twist it to suit yourself. When you walked in this guy's shoes or any serviceman, then you can complain.

Quote from: LennG on March 04, 2023, 12:12:45 PMJust a great heartwarming story that needs to be read.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/black-vietnam-veteran-finally-awarded-medal-of-honor/ar-AA18bYAk?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=7f35c641343945d6b806cf8e73d5bb58&ei=19

Thanks for sharing....very good story. Sad he had to wait so long. A true hero