RECOGNITION FOR VIETNAM VETS
On Wednesday of March 29, 2017 I attended a tribute to Vietnam veterans sponsored by The Hospice and Palliative Care of Rowan County, North Carolina. It was a nice gesture to a group of Americans who put their lives at risk for their country for a cause that in hindsight was ill conceived. It has only been recently that there has been interest in recognizing these men and women for the sacrifices they made.
COMING HOME
When I left Vietnam February 20, 1968 a couple of hundred soldiers boarded a TWA Boeing 707 in Ben Hoa bound for San Francisco ( I believe). When we arrived back in the United States we were scattered to the wind. Each soldier boarded another flight to wherever home was. There was no reception, no one to shake your hand, no recognition whatsoever. My flight reservations for a domestic flight from California to North Carolina were made before I left Vietnam through a military travel service. When I arrived in the US, I found there was no such flight. I just took the first flight headed east which was to Dallas, Texas. From there I caught a flight to Greensboro, NC where I called my wife and asked her pick me up.
I did not expect a grand homecoming from the military. The one I received from my family was certainly enough. To this day I do not expect any special consideration for my military service. When someone thanks me for my service to my country I get a little embarrassed. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to serve. My life turned around because of my military experience. The training I received helped me gain employment with the former Bell System (AT&T). The GI Bill paid for my first two years of college. AT&T paid the tuition for me to finish my Bachelor’s degree. I had a rewarding career with a great company. Without the US Army that probably would not have happened.
One reason for the lack of ceremony is that troops did not travel to and from Vietnam as a unit. Once the unit arrived in country, soldiers were shuttled in and out via individual orders. From the time you arrived in Vietnam you stayed for one year to the day in most cases. At the end of your tour you returned to a unit somewhere in the US. That meant a soldier could be with a unit under fire within a day or two of arriving in Vietnam. The reverse could happen too. At the end of a soldier’s tour, he could be out in the boonies and two or three days later sitting in his living room at home. It was surreal.
LETTING GO
Some say that Vietnam veterans were snubbed and disrespected when they returned home. That probably happened. But, I did not have that experience. I think the lack of ceremony was due mostly to the logistics of ferrying soldiers in and out Vietnam. No doubt many Vietnam veterans paid a great price and deserved to be recognized for their sacrifice. Vietnam left an indelible mark on all who served there. But, those who have not and can not let go for whatever reason are doomed to further sacrifice.
REFLECTIONS OF A TIME PAST
I have had many emotions about Vietnam. I was very scared when I got on a DC3 bound for Chicago and on to Oakland Army Terminal, the staging point for Vietnam. My fear subsided on the flight over until I saw the coastline of Vietnam. Then it returned. At some point it left me altogether. I can not say when. Once I was settled in, there was the boredom of working nights and looking forward to coffee when the mess hall opened at 4AM. There was the adventure of going to the Post Exchange in Cholon and going to the bars with the Vietnamese bar flies. There was the anxiety over the TET Offensive and wondering if I was going to get to leave on schedule. There was the excitement of coming home. There was the feeling of dismay and emptiness seeing the chaos at the American Embassy when Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) fell to the North Vietnamese. There was (and still is) the disillusionment that so many people died and suffered for the pretense of safeguarding freedom and making the world safer.
THE COST OF WAR
The stated purpose for getting involved in Vietnam was to stop the spread of “Communism” in Asia before it dominated the world. We now know that Communism would have collapsed on it own without the loss of so many lives. According to the National Archives 58,220 Americans died in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and China. Britannica states the estimates of others killed are as follows: (1). 200,000 to 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers (2). 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers (3). 2 million Vietnamese civilians. That is a total of 3,358,220 people who died during the Vietnam conflict.
As I looked around the room at this recent tribute to Vietnam veterans in Salisbury, NC I felt melancholy. I felt uncomfortable being recognized for something that happened so long ago. I felt I had gone “Back to the Future”. I didn’t want to be there. Many veterans before and after Vietnam have served in wartime. Unfortunately, there are likely to be many more.