The Man Who Walked 3500 Miles to Kill Me: Reminiscences from Vietnam and Afghanistan

I carried a rifle in VietNam and a stethoscope in Afghanistan as an Army Reservist. I kept diaries from both conflicts and have factually reported all that I saw and experienced from the mundane to the absurd. With a thirty three year pause in between combat tours, I nonetheless noticed many similarities and opportunities lost in the two conflicts which discredits the current arguments that Afghanistan is not VietNam. In both conflicts the United States military fought to preserve the lives and countries of our allies yet despised them. Operations went on in both conflicts without heed for the expected results and in the process effectively isolated the vast bulk of soldiers from the populations that they were trying to defend. Both conflicts were severely underestimated by our leaders, both civilian and military. The VietNam veteran suffered the price of his unpopular war and now the Afghanistan and Iraq veteran is coming home to a growing public indifference to their sacrifices.