Vets Discuss bin Laden at Tinley American Legion

In three words, Richard Zednick, 64, of Frankfort, summed up the main response to Osama bin Laden's death of members of American Legion Post 615 in Tinley Park.

"It's about time," Zednick said.

On Tuesday night, members of the post gathered for their monthly meeting. The recent death of terrorist leader and Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden by a team of Navy SEALs was the topic of much discussion before the meeting.

"There's nothing else they could do. They couldn't bring him back for a trial," said post member Virgil Smilgys, citing the cost, danger of attacks and difficulty finding an unbiased jury if bin Laden were brought to America for a trial.

Smilgys, who gave his age as "70-plus," was a special forces advisor in Vietnam prior to U.S. entry.

A former special forces sergeant in Vietnam, who did not wish his name used, praised both the decision to use the SEALs and the SEALs' handling of the operation, obtaining DNA confirmation it was bin Laden and burying him at sea so no one could make a shrine out of a burial spot.

"The SEALs were the only way to do it," the sergeant said. "He wasn't a martyr. He was a killer."

Of course, being military men, there was a good deal of joshing about which branch was responsible.

"When we found out it was Navy, we didn't like that," said Army veteran Jerry Mindeman, 66, of Blue Island. "Just kidding."

Their age of the current crop of soldiers was brought home to Mindeman while he was on an Illinois Patriot Guard ride about six weeks ago welcoming a soldier back from overseas. The group of volunteers, which sees off departing soldiers and welcomes back returning ones, presented the soldier with gifts including drink tokens for the American Legion bar.

The returning soldier thanked them for the tokens, but said he can't use them. He's not old enough to drink.

"Back then in Vietnam, you did one tour and came home," said Vietnam veteran Mike Murray, 62, of Tinley Park. "These kids, they're doing three, four tours. It's just wrong."

Paul Krumrie, 25, of Tinley Park, said younger soldiers seemed to be actively celebrating bin Laden's death more while the older soldiers, while pleased, took things more in stride.

"They get more excited," Krumrie said about younger active-duty soldiers. "When something good happens, it's a good thing. These older guys, they're a bit more mellow."

Krumrie, who was stationed at Fort Benning during his service, was at the Legion with his father Chuck Krumrie, 60, of Park Forest. The elder Krumrie served in Vietnam.

"I'm all for them," Chuck Krumrie said of the current crop of young men and women. "I'm proud of what they're doing."

It's a different kind of war for the younger soldiers, Vietnam veteran Zednick said.

"You don't know who your enemy is. It's not a conventional war – it's hide-and-seek," he said.

While the Vietnam-era veterans looked on with pride and concern for the current soldiers, one man remembered when these men were the young ones returning from war, just like Korean vets, Gulf War vets and vets from various military actions from Bosnia to Somalia to Grenada.

"It seems like perpetual motion. We're always in something," said 83-year-old Oak Forest resident and WWII veteran Bob MacDonald.