Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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Avoid long drawn out arguments. This should be a place to relax, not to waste your time needlessly.
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Personal anecdotes, puzzles, cute pics/clips - everything welcome
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Please do not spam at the top level. If you have a lot to post each day, try and post them all together in one top level comment
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Try keep things light. If you are bringing in deep stuff, try not to go overboard.
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Things that are clearly on-topic for this board should be posted as a separate post and not here (except if you are new and still getting the feel of this place)
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If you find people violating these rules, deport them rather than start a argument here.
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Feel free to give feedback as these rules are expected to keep evoloving
In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
So many times, I stumble into real-life rabbit holes. I am at Colonial Williamsburg waiting for the fireworks. A Vietnam Vétéran (wearing baseball cap) sits down next to me and I strike up a conversation. I don’t know a lot about Vietnam except for what my father has told me about his experiences. So I was kind of at a loss as to what to ask him about his experience. He did tell me he was a combat engineer.
But as we talked about how my father couldn’t talk about Vietnam until the past 10 years, he tells me that it was the same for him, but now he can’t even really tell his son what he did, because it involved the CIA and they have been threatened to not discuss what they did. One of their team did and he inexplicably “committed suicide.”
Since I know about classification of materials, I asked him why he thought his work had not been declassified, after all of these years. He shrugged and said, “Well they haven’t.”
His wife hurried him along to somewhere else, but I would have LOVED to pick his brain about the CIA some more!
What a great encounter you had. No telling what this poor man has to live with everyday. Has to be hard on him and his family. It’s sad. 🥲