MADE IN VIETNAM (Repost for the Nam Vets, thanks for your service)

                         Repost, Happy Veterens Day, special thanks to our Nam vets!

Many years ago in a galaxy far away, I was moving some dirt with my somewhat used wheelbarrow. I noticed the tire was a little flat so off to the barn and the air compressor I went.

That's when I saw it, I had looked at that wheel many times but had never noticed the words "Made in Vietnam" on the tire, I was pissed! Every since John McCain and others decided to make nice with the commies more and more stuff from Vietnam had made its way over here.

If I would have had the receipt I would have returned the damned thing. As with most wheelbarrow tires it had a slow leak so whenever I wanted to use it after that day I would have to make the trip down my own little Ho Chi Minh Trail to the barn to air it up. That damned phrase now unavoidable to see, would piss me off every time.  Since the embargo was lifted I made every effort not to purchase anything manufactured there, so how did this slip by me?
The wheelbarrow was manufactured in some other shit hole country, but the tire was made in Nam.  No, I didn't serve in Vietnam, the closest I have ever been to a firefight was shooting M16 blanks in war games at Camp Atterbury.

 I did learn how to take the brass from a spent M16 blank and jam the tip in the end of the barrel and fire it downrange into the trees to convince your opposition that they were being fired on with live rounds.  This is most effective in the dark when being attacked by the aggressors.  We were bunked down in our tents one night when the enemy attacked our position.  We all started returning fire with our blanks, me with my brass flinging weapon. After shooting brass into the trees above our "enemy" for a while I decided to try some friendly fire on a buddy's tent down our defensive line. It was illuminated with the occasional flare so I took a bead on his tent and nearby trees and peppered the hell out of it.
I took a cease fire after awhile and in a bit I heard a noise over the now sporadic gunfire. It was my buddy whose tent I had been flinging brass at, he was hugging the ground, low crawling up to my position.  "Man some son of a bitch is shootin live rounds at me!", he said.  "No shit? Better keep your head down" I said with the dark of night masking my huge grin.  I must confess the idea for the brass flinger was not my own. I got paired up to tent with a guy who was back from Nam finishing up his active duty time in the Reserve.  Each soldier had in his field gear half a pup tent, about a quarter of the guys still had the shelter halves that buttoned together and all the rest had the newer snaps so I had to match up with another guy with buttons that's how I came to be paired up with this guy.

He also suggested that instead of buttoning our shelter halves together, we lay one shelter half on the ground and the other one was made into a lean-to facing the perimeter.  This little trick made it so we didn't have to get out of our sleeping bags when the fake shit hit the fan. All we had to do was sit up in our sleeping bags and fire away at the supposed enemy.
He had learned a thing or two from Charlie don't you know.  

Although I didn't serve in Vietnam I knew a lot of guys that did and most of the D.I.'s in Basic Training were fresh back from Country. In high school we had thoughts about ending up in Nam then Nixon started the whole "Peace with honor" thing and it became apparent we had literally dodged the bullet.  But I had retained a general hatred for that country especially after the North broke that bullshit "cease fire in place" deal.  When the U.S. dropped the embargo against Vietnam I was pissed. I was shocked John McCain was in favor of it after the hell he suffered at the hands of Jane Fonda and the Hanoi Hilton.  It took a long time to bury the hate for that reunified by murder country. Over the years I thought about all the "what ifs" when thinking about the 58,000 plus guys we lost over there. Mostly I wondered if our involvement would even have happened if France hadn't hung onto their colony and let those people determine their own fate. Maybe that asshole Ho Chi Minh wouldn't have gotten the support he needed to start that war.

 Things turn out the way they turn out and fate has some interesting twists and turns. During the fall of South Vietnam a young Vietnamese man who had fought in the Navy for the South escaped with his wife and baby and became refugees eventually coming to America. They came with nothing but the drive to work hard and they built a successful business. Later they had another son who would graduate from Purdue University with degrees in Molecular Biology and in Chemistry.
That young man would marry my daughter.  Together they used some of that Molecular Biology and Chemistry and made a grandson for me.

 A while back I stopped thinking about all the "what ifs" and focus now on the what is.  My grandson is now a year old, I can't imagine not having him around. I can't imagine him looking any differently than he does, he is beautiful.

Although some think he has some features from our side of the family like my "butt chin", he sure looks like he was made in Vietnam.
And that's just fine by me.