Smart choice, you get to sit on a boat

You're feeling confident with your decision as you walk into the Navy recruitment office, knowing that instead of risking your life in the war you can just sit on a boat outside some country and wait for it all to be over. Preliminary tests show you can't really swim or be of much use to the Military with your photography skills, so you and Mr. Pettigrew get to spend a few years in the Radio training school. You, being a smart (still naive) and extremely competitive LASA student, aim to be first in your class.
"Congratulations, you won 1st place! Your options for deployment are: Vietnam, Vietnam, or Vietnam"
"Gosh darn it!" You yell out, but you knew that was gonna be the case. You pick the first option, and become a Radio Operator Missile Detector Thingy guy that sits on a big 'ol bomber plane that strafes the canopy, blowing up SA missiles so they don't kill the actual bomber planes way up above you. 
At least you're not the guy that got the job of operating the Sonar of a Battleship in the Bay of Tonkin, cuz you probably would've caused the entirety, all 18 years, of the Vietnam War, with your terrible operations of a Radio. 

After serving your time in the US Navy, you come home to a country that hates you for no justified reason. Some of your friends over there were drafted, and were living wonderful lives until they were dragged into this war by the United States government. College students spit at you and call you profane names because you wore the same uniform as some truly terrible people that did some terrible things in the villages of Vietnam's jungles, but they don't care; in their minds all veterans are evil people. You have to take this shit that Society gives you for the rest of your life, except Just Kidding you're able to get back in the time machine now [Get back in Time Machine, saving you from emotional trauma]