VFW takes aim at Woodstock anniversary but misses a lot

I love the VFW and do a lot of posts about the good work they do, but this is not so simple. Woodstock was complicated and so were the people who went and listened to the music.

I was only ten. One of my brothers was 17 and so was the man I married many years later. My brother listened to the music and I loved it. I still do.

My husband didn't get drafted. He enlisted. He wanted to be like his WWII father, with a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. While my husband did end up with a Bronze Star in Vietnam, he ended up with a wound that did not qualify for the Purple Heart or any recognition at all. He ended up with PTSD. I've been doing this work since the day we met in 1982 and I have no plans of stopping.

When they go to war, they are in the war itself, watching over their brothers and sisters. It didn't matter when lives were on the line if one of them was drafted or enlisted, wanted to be there or not, they just watched out for each other.

Some protested when they got back and some faded into the background. Some got over what was asked of them and some were never close to the same. Some turned into Democrats and some turned into Republicans, the opposite of what their family members were. Some revolted against things and others ran to things.

There was nothing simple about Woodstock because there was nothing simple about America or the veterans back then. It was all complicated by nice intentions, like trying to save the lives of the men and women sent and stopping the forceful deployment of young men who didn't want to go. Things got out of control and the people they were trying to save became the targets. I often wonder how it was for veterans of Vietnam to be involved with protestors at the same time they were called "baby killers' and attacked by the people claiming valued them. Or what kind of heart tug happened when a Vietnam veteran was yelling at a soldier about to deploy.

The way things are for the newer veterans and even the Vietnam veterans finally getting the appreciation they so truly deserved was one lesson learned from the times of Woodstock and the times that came after. Woodstock was painful for a lot of people but the rest of the country managed to take away a lesson in never, ever allowing hostilities against wars fought to be taken out on the people we send to fight those wars.

I firmly believe that the events that harmed our veterans the most, ended up waking everyone else up to help the veterans more than ever before. There was a lot of pain to go around but there was a lot of good that did come out of it.

Culture wars redux: VFW takes aim at Woodstock anniversary
Culture wars redux: VFW takes aim at Woodstock anniversary
Posted by Bryan Bender August 3, 2009 04:08 PM
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- Nearly four decades after the Woodstock Festival, the culture wars are apparently still being fought at one of the nation's largest and most storied veterans organizations.

The cover story in the August issue of the Veterans of Foreign Wars' national magazine marks the upcoming anniversary of the four-day concert that symbolized the counterculture of the 1960s with an article penned by its editor, Richard K. Kolb, titled "GIs Died While Woodstock Rocked." (Click here to read the full article.)

Attacking the "illustrious spokesmen" of the Sixties Generation and criticizing the "elite media" at the time for hailing the "tribal gathering" in New York's Catskill Mountains while ignoring the sacrifices of young men in uniform, the article suggests that the hundreds of thousands of youngsters who attended the festival, widely known for its drug use and "free love," had abandoned their nation in a time of need.
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