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Welcome home, to all vets

“Welcome Home” to all the brothers and sisters from Vietnam, and everyone who served. Many of you know me as a Marine blinded in Vietnam, and now an attorney who has a history of assisting other veterans. Today is Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day.

Again, welcome home, all Vietnam veterans. Vietnam veterans were fighting on the side of freedom for our country and for the world. So were the Second World War veterans that have mostly passed, as well as the Korean War veterans. There aren’t many of them left either.

I’m also watching my brother Vietnam veterans pass. All of them stood for freedom, so did all of the veterans that served in the first Gulf War and those who fought in Iraqi Freedom and have fought and are still fighting in Afghanistan. The intent of those who are willing to fight is for America to be free, and sacrifice their lives and limbs for others throughout the world to be free as well.

In Vietnam, Vietnam veterans were caught in a debate of whether we should be there, and many of them came home unappreciated and mistreated. But, at the same time, the ideology we fought for was still clear: us against them – totalitarian communists against freedom-loving capitalists. It saddens me that our own country has changed the ideology for which we stand from within, while the men and women giving their lives and limbs are fighting for the same freedom that they always fought for since our Founders created the Constitution to protect individual freedom.

I hope and pray that our country, the United States of America puts itself on the same page as those who are currently serving in our military and those who have served in the past. For me, it would make Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day a real welcome home for our children.

America needs to stand for the principle of freedom it represents to the military while our military continues to pay the cost of war. Freedom-loving Americans love their freedom and are heartbroken whether those who endanger freedom are from within or without.

EDITOR’S NOTE: David Huffman is a Parkersburg attorney and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.

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