Am I the only one annoyed by this rolling thunder bullshit?

A guy called Ray served in Vietnam as a door gunner on Huey helicopters. He was shot down by enemy ground fire a total of 5 times. After each crash, as soon as he was able to walk again (i.e. recovered from his bullet wounds and/or crash injuries) although he didn't have to, he would head right back out to the flight line to fly yet more missions.

I asked him why he did that, and he said that if he didn't go, that somebody else would have to. And that it would likely be some stupid kid that didn't know shit and would only get himself and their entire crew killed.

The 5th time Ray was shot down he was immediately captured by the Viet Cong. He told me that it was like being held by a bunch of teenage juvenile delinquents. There were no interrogations or attempts by the VC to gather any intelligence information from him or his other crew members. The VC simply starved the Americans, denied them water to drink and would twice daily beat and club them with rifle butts simply for fun.

After a week of beatings and no food the VC finally provided some rice for the Americans to eat. Being half starved, the Americans all grabbed big fist fulls of this rice and started cramming it into their mouths. Too late, the helicopter crew realized that the VC had fed them rice with ground up glass in it. The crew all suffered terrible cuts and lacerations to the mouths, tongues, gums and throats. They bled so bad that they all nearly choked to death on their own blood and puked up the rice that they had just eaten, resulting in even more internal injuries.

That night Ray realized that if they didn't escape that they would all eventually die in captivity. I no longer recall the details of how, but they killed a guard, made their escape and were eventually picked up by friendly forces. Ray this time had to be sent back state side and the war was over for him. To this day he still suffers with ulcers in his esophagus and is unable to eat the foods that you and I take for granted every day. Not to mention his chronic back pain from compressed discs in his spine and arthritis in several broken bones he suffered during his string of crashes.

Try and place yourself in Ray's shoes. Imagine the level of abstract terror that a man would have to overcome in order to climb back into one of those nakedly exposed flying bullet magnets and go back up there time after time. Especially knowing that the odds of your coming back alive were decreasing with every flight.

There are tens of thousands of unsung hero's out there just like Ray.

They all deserve to be recognized whether they are alive, dead or still missing. If that tribute is only going to come in the form of 50,000 bikers riding into DC, well then so be it. And anybody who would do or say anything to detract from this gesture is not worthy of living in this country and partaking of the freedoms that we all enjoy today as a result of their sacrifices.

/r/washingtondc Thread