_Billy Springer_I feared for my life every day, not from the Viet Cong. I had to watch my back 24-7 from men who wore the same uniform as me. At first, it made me bitter. I failed to find any connection between the racial tensions in the USA and black troops serving in Vietnam. How could I be held responsible for the conduct of other people more than 10,000 miles from me, people I had never even met?
Billy explains how he was affected by racial discrimination even when he was miles away from his country, on an enemy land. Usually, soldiers have a great bond between them, and ideally it should be strengthened when they are in a foreign land, close to enemy lines. But Billy has experienced the opposite. His comrades made him suspicious of the possibility of a backstabbing by his fellow men. All these were because nothing else, but the racial uneasiness and civil rights movement in US, in which neither Billy nor his comrades were directly involved in.
This quality is commonly seen in humans. People tend to relate common issues to their own selves although they are not directly affected by or involved in those issues. And it is highly seen in religious and racial matters.
Why people tend to do so? Is it a feeling of unity? Or is it the feeling of doing the righteous thing against unfair treatment? Or is it merely use of an excuse to suppress the minority?