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Old 12-29-2019, 03:58 PM
John_W John_W is offline
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Originally Posted by thelegges View Post
For those who were met at the airport, with things thrown at them, spit on, no one would hire you because you were in that war. Its a different respect today...
It hear that a lot, yet I landed at one of the most liberal cities in America, Seattle on December 22, 1971. It was a Friday afternoon, about 3pm I arrived at Sea-Tac Airport and the place was swamped. I found out I could get to Chicago that night or wait until Sunday night, 9pm for an Eastern Flight to Tampa. So I decided to buy a ticket and wait Friday night, all day Saturday and most of the day of Sunday inside the airport.

We had a real menagerie of people. Two planes from Vietnam, two planes from Korea and all of the college students of the state of Washington were there for Christmas break. The guys from Nam were wearing Khakis, no jacket and had a tan, the guys from Korea were wearing winter greens and overcoats and the college students were long hair wearing jeans and sandals and a bunch of pretty college girls added to the mix.

I never heard anyone say anything negative or saw anything. The only contact I had was I went the first night to the USO area and got donuts and a coffee and tried to find a place to sleep but it was packed with guys sleeping everywhere. I basically hung out in the airport of Seattle and I more in amazement of all the people, especially the ladies and even looking at American dollars instead of MPC's was odd.

When I got out of the Army in Savannah, me and friend applied for a switchman's job with Southern Railroad. Out of 80 people applying that day, only myself and my Army friend and two others were hired. I'm not saying that stuff didn't go on, it just never happened where I was. I don't think everyone should be a bad rap, especially when I returned home to St. Petersburg. It was a very conservative city back then, and veterans were treated very fairly.

If I have to show my VA ID for a discount, such as at Walgreens and they say "Thank you for your service", I say "Your Welcome".

Last edited by John_W; 12-29-2019 at 08:19 PM.