veteran’s corner

Tom Krabbenhoft

The Moorhead American Legion is hosting a free lunch for all Vietnam War and era Veterans and their families from 11am-3pm. Veterans and their families are encouraged to attend and bring their memorabilia to display and share. 

March 27th starting at noon the WF VFW is having several events including food and a flag raising. 

Try and make it out for one of these events. 

Please take the time to thank a Vietnam War Veteran as well. We owe them a lot. 

My previous column leads me into this weeks article which is opinion based. I enlisted in 1984 during my basic training I heard “in Vietnam” a lot. Arriving to my duty station and becoming familiar with my chain of command I discovered they were mostly Vietnam Vets. Needless to say there was no shortage of tough love to go around for young privates such as myself. These grizzled men that I admired were always blunt and to the point. Seldom, feelings were never spared. I never understood that until later. 

They wanted to get things right for the military especially the young soldiers. I spoke with many of my former military buddies for their insights. We all have the same consensus regarding the Vietnam Veteran. 

The average Vietnam Veteran was drafted, today’s forces are volunteer. This is in large part from these vets lobbying for a volunteer professional force. These veterans knew what it took to be successful in war. They also knew what ingredients made waging war unsuccessful.

They wanted a professional military. The old saying “you can lead a horse to water but can’t make him drink it.” This could be said about involuntary service as well. 

They wanted and built a highly successful force that cared about mission. They adopted and gave us mantras like “mission first people always” and stressed initiative by NCOs. We saw this effectiveness come into play in the late 80’s and through the early 2000’s. Coincidentally, as these Vietnam Veterans have retired and their influence diminished the military has changed. These days we hear fairness, social engineering and anybody can do this tossed about. Endless deployments and wars have led to “ticket punching” and where am I landing the fat consulting job after retirement. I suspect the pendulum will swing again only after certain tragedy. 

My opinion, they made sure we had a viable effective military. 

Veteran of the Week

Our Veteran of the week is a Vietnam Veteran, James Beckstrom. 

He served in Vietnam in 69-70, as a Infantryman with the 1st logistical command. In 1973 he joined the Minnesota Army National Guard and served until 1992. He has and still volunteers for veterans causes.

Thanks for your service Beck. Thanks for your mentor ship to so many of us that served. 

To submit a Veteran of the week email me at 11btwk@gmail.com