What he's talking about is the habit that is creeping over from across the pond. The American public, racked with guilt for the despicable way they treated their guys returning from Vietnam have swung the other way, so that now every clerk in the Pentagon who's never set foot out of the US gets a round of applause and thanked for his or her service.
Bang on Target Tankertrash,
I was stationed at Ramstein in the early eighties and the mawkish uber apologetic sentiment was embarrassingly cringe making. Broadcast on AFN, actors and so on were recruited to make a farrago of "feel proud of yourselves after all" type ads. And you're spot on, it contrasted acutely so with the scenes and sentiment reflected whenever the Vietnam era was the subject.
FB
