Reply #50: PS: don't rambo this guy

[ucmike]

i rememeber growing up that vietnam vets were stereotyped as "ticking time bombs" and they were "no longer able to live by societal rules". we imagined each and every one as a rambo-ish outsider, distanced from the mainstream society he had left behind, waiting to explode and take us all with him...all very dramatic and wrong. sure many suffered from ptsd, but most suffered in silence, or went on with their lives without incident.

our neighborhood had several vietnam vets, including my dad. the kids in my age group assumed my dad was nuts, because they saw movies where vietnam vets were nuts. they assumed that about all of the dads who had been there. meanwhile, dad plugged along, all the dads did. no violence, no anti-govt ranting, no dropping out, no barricades or russian roullete. finally, no tranny killing. there may have been much personal angst and issues, but not a rambo in the bunch.

don't feed the stereotype, just because this guy may have been in iraq doesn't mean thats what made him violent.