Afghanistan: How Veterans can learn from Vietnam Veterans

No issues with vets learning from each other. A number of us Viet Nam vets served as volunteers at the VA and Walter Reed when casualties were coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. However, wish it were as simple as saying we withdrew "leaving them to determine their own future" . It is hard to explain that the tremendous sacrifice by our service men and women as well as by our ally Vietnamese and Afghanis themselves yielded chaos and disappointment, in this case a resurgent Taliban and possibly more terrorist groups and yet another flood of refugees. Perhaps the real lesson is let's quit trying to fix what can't be fixed and stay out of nation building adventures.

I sincerly hope that all the Afganistan vets are welcomed home with open arms. We Viet Nam vets werent. I respect all vets, whatever their Mos was and what branch they served in. It's the polititions fault the way things ended up, not the service people. A footnote I'd like to ad, When we came home in 1970 we were called baby killers. Now it's the liberal pro abortion people who are the baby killers

I work with groups at various vet centers; some are mixed (i.e. different wars) and some are not. I think that sometimes the age gap is as much a problem in getting younger vets to listen as anything.
BTW, what works is to do far more listening than talking...