When I joined the US Marines, I was a high school graduate and an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy. I was not an intellectual—instead, I was a walking libido filled to overflowing with testosterone like so many of my fellow Marines.
I turned twenty-one in Vietnam, and up to that time Vietnam veterans were the best educated force the United States has ever sent into combat—79% had a high school education or better. Two-thirds of the men who served in Vietnam were volunteers, and eighty-six percent of those who died in Vietnam were Caucasians, 12.5% were black, and 1.2% were from other ethnic/racial groups.
If I had gone straight to Vietnam instead of spending a few weeks in Okinawa for additional training, I could have died a virgin—having never known what it was like to be sexually intimate with a woman.
And that reminds me of a film called Mrs. Henderson Presents staring Judi Dench as Mrs. Laura Henderson who opens a theater in London during World War Two with an all-nude female review for the allied troops, because her son had died a virgin in combat and she didn’t want these young men to die without having at least seen a young, nude woman at least once.
Continued on June 28, 2013 in US Troops and the Prostitutes Who Service Them: Part 3 or return to Part 1
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Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.
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The Soulful Veteran's Blog 
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