Can you describe how you felt coming home from a deployment or combat?

SP5 Donna Barr 1966 - 1967 173rd Airborne Brigade, DakTo. Tell me how you're feeling about the two million Cambodians slaughtered after we abandoned them? A reality, predicted by the Domino Theory.

Semper Fi! my brother I'm glad you made it back. I came back in Dec/1965 we were the last flight back to the states on prop. it was a 36 hour flight home into El Toro What a shock how lax the Air-Wingers were in mismatched uniforms, no covers, and the main gate sentries in utilities. What a shock from fourteen months earlier at San Mateo, Camp Pendleton!

Cpl Gerald Hill - Semper Fi Gerald, and welcome Home. We are fortunate to still be around when Agent Orange has claimed so many.

I'm very, very lucky to still be walking and talking at 77 yrs of age. I can still remember getting sewn up at 2nd Bn Aid Station at 2:30 AM by a 1st Class Corpsman, who used candlelight because of the nighttime blackout, and telling me all the sleep he was missing!

Mandatory service means everyone of service age serves. You never have a shortage of military personnel like recruiters experience now. There is no need for bonuses to get people to sign up or retain them. You have to have a clean record for 6 years before even being even considered for any special forces. You will get the cream of the crop as well as basically people who can't get jobs because they are from depressed areas because of economics. In Switzerland everyone is in the military their entire life and after they serve their required active time, they take their rifles home and wait if needed and serve 2 weeks ACDUTRA every year until a certain age. I don't quite think that would work here though. If everyone served, then everyone has pride in their country and themselves, everyone belongs, everyone grows up, no one is reaping the benefits of freedom without paying the price. It makes everyone cohesive instead of at odds. It promotes comradery among the population and dispels racism. It would never be that 1/2 the country was against the military as it became during Vietnam. It saves the country money! That's just my two cents.

SSgt Grover Nunnery - Do you think that all of us who got drafted in the 60's and 70's were ready for combat? I sure as hell wasn't but the Army trained us and the soldiers in Nam trained us when we got there and we did the job. I never went hunting as a kid but carried a M60 in Nam and hunted then. I was able to turn into a combat soldier at 18 and many others did so don't say they werent prepared for combat. We did the job as well as as an enlisted soldier today.

PO3 Larry Frame - You knew what you had missed while gone. Unlike some of the "protesters" both then and now. They should all get a chance to live in a 3rd world country, particularly one at war and see how they like it. And how blessed we are in this country. For now, anyway.

PO3 Bobby Quisenberry - Israel also has mandatory service. Not sure I think I'd be comfortable with women in combat, but I see they are doing it.