Posted by Jim on July 26, 2000 at 06:10:47:
In Reply to: Re: Forum Takeover posted by Bob-CH on July 25, 2000 at 08:51:54:
Bob,
I couldn't agree with you more on the notion that America mistreated her veterans during and after Vietnam. It was deplorable. But as someone who has fought (not there, I was a little kid at the time) in a war, I would caution you about discussing "what people were fighting for." Wars get started by politicians for political reasons, but the folks who fight them (even the bad, unjust, wars) fight for alot of different things. It's hard to explain if you haven't been there. If you want, e-mail me and I'll take a stab at it.
And you should realize that America has made efforts to atone for its treatment of its Vietnam veterans. I think alot of Americans now feel a great deal of respect for those guys- certainly the bikers do.
In terms of people disagreeing with your opinions, I don't believe it's the contrary opinions with which they take issue. I think it's the "Hey this is a bike forum, so don't talk about your opinions" that gets folks riled up. I think most of the folks here are interested in contrary opinions (Bert and I e-mailed back and forth for about a week discussing German military history and Germany's attitude towards the subject. We disagreed alot, but I learned an awful lot. I hope he did too.). Maybe the forum isn't the right place for it, but as long as it's not offensive, just skip the thread. If it starts eating up all of Bert's server space, I'm sure he'll tell us and the interested parties can switch to e-mail.
But the forum remains a great starting point for exchange of ideas. We all just need to be a little thicker-skinned (American expression = don't let stuff bother you.).
-KTRSD
-Jim