I never got the hatred thing.
The majority of us didn't ask to go there, but of course many volunteered for various reasons. It was like being transported to another planet and there you were till fate got you or you did your time. It was a long 11.5 months before I got on that beautiful Coninental Airlines jet in Saigon! A lot of guys had an incredibly shitty deal there and had to survive every day, I was lucky to be on the fringe of the madness. A special memory was seeing the Bob Hope show in Lai Khe, just a few days before Christmas 1969...it was in the upper 90s and incredibly humid. Connie Stephens closed the show by singing "Silent Night", I just can't tell you what that was like!
Why so many were treated so badly will forever be a mystery to me, we just wanted to do our time and go home. I just don't even think about it anymore, it's just a far away and long ago memory.
Some of the sweetest words I've ever heard were from the pilot not long after takeoff..."ladies and gentlemen, I'm happy to announce that we are now well beyond enemy gunfire". That has kinda stayed with me.
Thanks for the post, the honors and praise go to those that didn't come home, there and every other war zone.
WC