Comment on The difference is real

• Hatshepsut@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Mueller has cited the combat death of his Princeton lacrosse teammate David Spencer Hackett in the Vietnam War as an influence on his decision to pursue military service.[24] Of his classmate, Mueller has said, “One of the reasons I went into the Marine Corps was because we lost a very good friend, a Marine in Vietnam, who was a year ahead of me at Princeton. There were a number of us who felt we should follow his example and at least go into the service. And it flows from there.”[25] Hackett was a Marine Corps first lieutenant in the infantry and was killed in 1967 in Quảng Trị province by small arms fire.[26]

  I was in 1st/2nd grade, but rode the schoolbus with high schoolers in the early 70s. Kids who had relatives drafted. Everyone hated that war but some felt a need to enlist for reasons such as those of Mueller. A good friend of mine enlisted in the Marines 20 years after his uncle was killed in Vietnam, out of a sense of honoring his memory. He is no monster.

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  • queermunist@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    So he went to Vietnam to avenge his monster friend who was rightfully killed for being an invader?

    We’d be better off as a society if every single person who volunteered for Vietnam never came back.

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    • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      [deleted]

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      • queermunist@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Even if you want to give some people the benefit of the doubt because of poor education and indoctrination, Mueller went to Princeton. He went to Vietnam knowing exactly what he was signing up for. He wasn’t tricked. He wasn’t desperate.

        He just really wanted to kill indigenous resistance fighters, because that’s the #1 USAmerican passtime.

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  • Hapankaali@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The logic is a bit weird though. Like picking up smoking out of solidarity because your buddy died of lung cancer.

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