You served your country in tumultuous and chaotic times when it was not popular to serve our nation.  68% of you enlisted.

You were the best educated fighting force our nation had ever sent to combat. Seventy-two percent of you had a high school diploma or better.  Virtually no College athletic teams have that ratio.

You grunts served more time in combat than any soldier of any war. The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 24o days of combat engagement during a twelve or thirteen month tour of duty. The average infantryman in the South Pacific during World War ll saw approximately 44 days of combat in four years.

Your service in Vietnam developed the air mobile concept–the extensive use of helicopters for transport, logistical support, medvac, reconnaissance and fire support.  Your service in Vietnam also assisted in the development of new tactics, weapons and means of communication, and new and improved procedures in emergency medicine that saved lives. Less than 1% of Americans wounded, who survived the first 24 hours, died. As a result a modern day soldier can be triaged faster that most local hospitals.

Your service in Vietnam defeated the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army major offensives during Tet of 68 and 69. You won.

Your service prevented Communism from taking over all of Southeast Asia. Ho Chi Minh was a Nationalist more than a communist. Some say he was ingenious enough to use them. They are now business partners and the source of precious resources including one of the best kept secrets in the world….oil off the South China sea shores. The Phillipines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore (our creditor) and Thailand stayed free of Communism. You WON the war to save most all of South East Asia.

In December of 1972, the massive bombing of North Vietnam, ugly and necessary, compelled the North Vietnamese to sign the Paris Peace accords in January of 1973.  You WON the war then.

Saigon was overrun by the North Vietnamese Army on April 30th, 1975, two years after the U.S. Military left Vietnam. As the saying of Nam Vets goes..”we were winning when I left.”

You kept your wits about you when a nation shunned you and doled out some pretty shabby treatment. 

You are now the light at the end of tunnel and some of the most refined leaders America has ever known. You know things that can save us.

You are all Heroes of the highest order for you service in Vietnam. Welcome Home!

Happy Veterans Day.

statistics provided by Colonel Joe Abodeely U.S. Army Retired.