Clinton’s Tilt on Troop Use Shows Duplicity

* Dana Parsons’ column (“Vietnam War Wrongly Cast Some of Us as Forever Anti-Military,” May 5) describes Clinton’s Vietnam War protest generation as one overcome with rage and a legacy of despising the military.

Living through that era, I remember a very vocal minority protesting the war, an uneducated majority confused about the war and another minority ready to fight a war forever.

The vocal minority and uneducated majority wanted to stay in college and not get shot at, while others played Rambo for a year or two.

I was one of the uneducated majority that opted to go to Vietnam because I was called upon by my country to do so, got shot twice, went down in two choppers and was awarded a chest-full of ribbons for saving people, getting wounded and just being there.

Today I realize I made the correct choice. We were in a chicken fight with the Soviet Union, better known as the Cold War, and won by spending more money than they could on defense. They surrendered, claimed bankruptcy and reorganized.

We had best avoid creating new wars on the soil of the former Soviet Union, especially at the hands of a frightened draft dodger eager to redeem himself in the eyes of the mainstream military.

President Clinton and his kind were shortsighted, frightened and self-indulgent when the threat of serving in Vietnam faced them in the ‘60s, and he is equally shortsighted, frightened and self-indulgent today if committing troops in and around the former Soviet Union is thought to be rational.

Warren Christopher, the man who brought us failed missions in Iran, should not be relied upon to advise the President or other nations to promote war when we have Los Angeles and Waco on the home front to deal with.

BOB FORSBERG

Lake Forest