"Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day"

Today, March 27, 2012, the U.S. Senate unanimously declared March 30th "Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day".

On March 30, 1973, all U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam under the terms of the Treaty of Paris.  They returned to a country that was tired of the war and hostile towards the soldiers that had bravely served their country.  It was horribly shameful how these soldiers, who were under the draft system, were shown no honor at all.  There were no crowds at the airports to welcome them home.  They were disrespected and called "warmongers".

Senator Richard Burr said, "I'm pleased that the Senate has agreed to set aside a day to give our Vietnam veterans a warm, long-overdue welcome home.  I strongly encourage communities throughout North Carolina and across the country to observe this day with activities and events that honor these veterans for their service.  It's time they receive the recognition they have earned and deserve.  This day also provides our nation with an important teaching moment.  Never again should our men and women serving in the armed forces receive the same treatment as those returning from Vietnam."

During the course of the Vietnam War 58,193 members of the United States Armed Forces lost their lives, and more than 300,000 were wounded.   Out of the 58,193 soldiers that were killed 51,968 were under the age of 30.  Eight were women.  These were boys and girls who went from the football field to the battle field.

On March 30 please make a special effort to thank all Vietnam Veterans for their brave service to this nation.

Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans and thank you for your service from all of us at National Write Your Congressman.

On a personal note, this author still has her MIA (Missing In Action) bracelet from the Vietnam war.  Mine was Major Gregg Hartness whose plane went down on Nov. 26, 1968.  Major Hartness' remains were found and identified on July 2, 2005.  I want to personally thank Major Hartness and his family for their sacrifice.

History, The Olympics, Afghanistan

Looking forward to the Summer Olympic Games being played in London, one might reflect back to 1980 and the Games that did not happen for the U.S. Olympians because of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.

Because the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter announced that the U.S. would boycott the Olympics scheduled to take place in Moscow that summer if the Soviets did not withdraw their troops by February 20, 1980.

The Soviet military invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to reinforce the country's communist regime against Islamic rebel forces. In a statement made after the invasion, Carter spoke out against the Soviet Union, specifically Premier Leonid Brezhnev, and said the invasion was a deliberate effort by a powerful atheistic government to subjugate an independent Islamic people that he called a stepping stone to Soviet control over Afghanistan's oil supplies. Brezhnev dismissed Carter's statements as "bellicose and wicked". The invasion threatened to revive the Cold War, which, during the late 1970s, had appeared to undergo a temporary thaw. President Carter said his opinion of the Russians had changed drastically since the beginning of his administration.

In addition to the boycott, Carter increased pressure on the Soviets to abandon the war in Afghanistan by issuing a trade embargo on two U.S. goods that the country desperately needed, grain and information technology. He also restricted Soviet fishing in American-controlled ocean waters. Carter called on the U.N. to provide military equipment, food and other assistance to help Afghanistan's neighbors, especially Iran and Pakistan to fight off further Soviet encroachment.

Canada, West Germany and Japan joined the U.S. in boycotting the games.  President Carter failed to convince Great Britain, France, Greece and Australia to also observe the boycott. When an international coalition suggested that the boycotting nations send athletes to compete under a neutral Olympic banner, Carter threatened to revoke the passport of any U.S. athlete who attempted to do so.  Reaction to Carter's decision was mixed. Many Americans pitied the athletes who had worked so hard toward their goal of competing in the Olympics and who might not qualify to compete in the next games in 1984. At the same time, the boycott symbolized commitment many Americans felt to fighting the oppressive, anti-democratic Soviet regime.

In retaliation for Carter's action, the Soviet Union boycotted the 1984 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles.

Women Sacrifice During the Revolution

On March 12, 1776, in Baltimore, Maryland, a public notice appeared in the local paper recognizing the sacrifice of women to the cause of the revolution.  "The necessity of taking all imaginable care of those who may happen to be wounded in the country's cause, urges us to address our humane ladies, to lend us their kind assistance in furnishing us with linen rags and old sheeting, for bandages." 

On and off the battlefield, women were known to support the revolutionary cause by providing nursing assistance.  However, this was not their only form of aid or sacrifice to the cause.  The boycotts that united the colonies against British taxation required female participation far more than male. In fact, the men designing the non-importation agreements generally chose to boycott products used mostly by women.  Tea and cloth are the two best examples.

When we read of the bravery of the male colonists dressing up as Mohawk Indians and dumping large volumes of tea into Boston Harbor as a form of opposition to the Tea Act, few realize that women, not men, drank most of the tea.  Samuel Adams and his friends dumped the tea in the harbor, but they were far more likely to drink rum than tea when they returned to their homes.  Similarly, when John Adams and other men in power thought it best to stop importing fine British fabrics with which to make their clothing during the protests of the late 1760s, it had little impact on their daily lives.  Wearing homespun cloth may not have been as comfortable nor look as refined as their regular clothing, but it was Abigail Adams and other colonial women who were forced to spend hours spinning the cloth to create their family's wardrobes.

According to history, in 1776 Abigail begged John to remember the ladies while drafting the U.S. Constitution.  She was not begging a favor, but demanding payment of an enduring debt.

  

The Boston Massacre

On March 5, 1770, a mob of American colonists gathered at the Customs House in Boston and began taunting the British soldiers guarding the building. The protesters, who called themselves Patriots, were protesting the occupation of their city by British troops, who were sent to Boston in 1768 to enforce unpopular taxation measures passed by a British parliament that lacked American representation.

British Captain Thomas Preston, the commanding officer at the Customs House, ordered his men to fix their bayonets and join the guard outside the building. The colonists responded by throwing snowballs and other objects at the British regulars, and Private Hugh Montgomery was hit, leading him to discharge his rifle at the crowd. The other soldiers began firing a moment later, and when the smoke cleared, five colonists were dead or dying—Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, and James Caldwell—and three more were injured. The deaths of the five men are regarded by some historians as the first fatalities in the American Revolutionary War.


The British soldiers were put on trial, and patriots John Adams and Josiah Quincy agreed to defend the soldiers in a show of support of the colonial justice system. When the trial ended in December 1770, two British soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter and had their thumbs branded with an "M" for murder as punishment.

The Sons of Liberty, a Patriot group formed in 1765 to oppose the Stamp Ace, advertised the "Boston Massacre" as a battle for American liberty and just cause for the removal of British troops from Boston. Patriot Paul Revere made a provocative engraving of the incident, depicting the British soldiers lining up like an organized army to suppress an idealized representation of the colonist uprising. Copies of the engraving were distributed throughout the colonies and helped reinforce negative American sentiments about British rule.

In April 1775, the American Revolution began when British troops from Boston skirmished with American militiamen at the battles of Lexington and Concord. The British troops were under orders to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock in Lexington and to confiscate the Patriot arsenal at Concord. Neither missions were accomplished because of Paul Revere and William Dawes, who rode ahead of the British, warning Adams and Hancock and rousing the Patriot minutemen. Eleven months later, in March 1776, British forces had to evacuate Boston following American General George Washington's successful placement of fortifications and cannons on Dorchester Heights. This bloodless liberation of Boston brought an end to the hated eight-year British occupation of the city. For the victory, General Washington, commander of the Continental Army, was presented with the first medal ever awarded by the Continental Congress. It would be more than five years before the Revolutionary War came to an end with British General Charles Cornwallis' surrender to Washington at Yorktown, Virginia.

We think of these men as Revolutionaries and signers of the Declaration of Independence, which gives you a vision of older men in white wigs. Born American, these young men in their 20s and 30s with great courage and conviction stood up against the government that had all the power over them.  There would be no more taxation without representation for them.  They were a new country called America battling against the tyranny of the home country of England.  It would be five more years before they won their freedom.