Raymond Bechard pays tribute to the men who hardly received any while they fought for our country.
Lately, I’ve been watching the much-deserved reception of American soldiers returning home from war. I was a media embed in Iraq a few years ago. In Baghdad and surrounding areas I saw up close the dedication, professionalism, and difficulties faced by everyone serving in hostile environments. It was inspiring to see people half my age taking on enormous responsibilities and making lonely sacrifices so far from home and for such long periods of time. They have a courage I’ll never know. There is no way we can thank them enough.
But I’m old enough to remember when soldiers came home from Vietnam. I remember how they and their experiences were shunned and ignored. Like cowards, we loaded our shame unjustifiably onto them. Then we tried to put them and our defeat behind us, or more accurately, beneath us. We didn’t thank them. Didn’t welcome them. Didn’t heal them. And certainly, we didn’t understand them. We never tried.
The lack of respect and gratitude we gave our returning Vietnam Vets 40 years ago seems even more deplorable when compared to how deeply we embrace those returning from Iraq, Afghanistan, and all other places of military service around the world today.
Were they heroes? Yes. Did they sacrifice their lives for others? Yes – over 58,000 of them.* Did they serve with honor, bravery, and courage under impossible circumstances? Yes. Did war change, even destroy, their lives, their families, their careers, and their dreams back home? Absolutely. And all this can be said of our soldiers for the past 236 years.
But Vietnam Vets are a different kind of hero than the rest. In many ways they are heroes above the rest.
♦◊♦
Here’s why. In 1910 a very soft spoken woman named Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born in Skopje, today the capital of the Republic of Macedonia. From the beginning it looked like Agnes was going to have a very mediocre life. Then she decided to become a Roman Catholic nun. That’s when her life got much more interesting – and complex.
From the moment Agnes decided to dedicate herself to God, she faced a very serious problem, one she would hide from the world for the rest of her life. This note, which she wrote to a friend many years ago – and revealed only after she died – illustrates the terrible dilemma Agnes faced. “I call, I cling, I want – and there is no One to answer – no One on Whom I can cling – no, No One. Alone. Where is my Faith? Even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness and darkness. My God. How painful is this unknown pain. I have no Faith. I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart and make me suffer untold agony. I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.”
This poor little nun had lost her faith in God. And from her letters we know she questioned the very existence of God for over 50 years, until her death in 1997.
Did her lack of faith in the God to whom she had devoted her eternal soul kill her dedication to her duty as a nun? Nope. In fact, at the time of her death the order of nuns she built had over 4,000 sisters, an associated brotherhood of 300 priests, and over 100,000 lay volunteers, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children’s and family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools.
Yet, along with having won the Nobel Peace Prize, Agnes – known to the world as Mother Teresa – didn’t believe in God.**
And that’s why she is one of my greatest heroes. Not because of her religious devotion, or her work, or the countless lives she saved. No. It’s because even though her faith in God faded away, she did the work anyway. She put herself aside and did the job that had to be done – no matter what hardships she was facing. She did it anyway.
And for the same reason, Vietnam Vets are our greatest heroes. They were thrown into the worst shit imaginable then they got shit thrown on them when they came home. But, they did it anyway.
♦◊♦
The Vietnam War was a mess. It was initiated by and fought for reasons only the most cynical Washington politicians could understand or justify. It divided America unlike any issue since the Civil War. It destroyed at least one generation’s faith in the worthiness of our government. It not only left permanent scars on our nation, but especially on those who rotted away in the jungles. No one really wanted them there in the first place; poor leadership let the entire conflict get completely out of control. Then, no one could figure out how to bring them home without losing our precious global standing which, by that point, had been lost. It was a filthy proxy war with Russia that could never have ended in anything but tragedy, loss, and humiliation.
Yet, despite all the wretched inevitability and with everything telling them not to go, those young men went and fought. Unlike all our other wars, the American men who sacrificed themselves in Vietnam carried the added burden of fighting and dying in war without faith. Our national heart was not in it. We didn’t believe in the fight. We were never willing to win, only to throw young, expendable bodies at an enemy who eluded us.
It is not difficult to imagine one of those lost soldiers, waiting through the night and rain in some far off swamp, uttering the same words as Mother Teresa, “there is no One to answer – no One on Whom I can cling – no, No One. Alone. Even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness and darkness.”
Yet, he waited there anyway. He desperately held onto his gun while his friends back home called him a baby killer. He went on endless patrols while Americans protested in anger against him. He got trench foot and diarrhea while his classmates got degrees. He looked into the dying eyes of his buddy while his high school sweetheart avoided the eyes of the next nameless guy she was banging.
The Vietnam Veteran is our greatest hero because he fought two enemies: the North Vietnamese and us.
♦◊♦
Even though we blamed him for something that was our fault, like Agnes, he carried on because of something greater; some need to help where and when no one else was willing to. He served because he was noble. He sacrificed because of the friends next to him in the trenches. He did his duty because his nation – a nation he so badly wanted to believe in – told him to.
And just like that little nun, he struggled every day to wade past all the obstacles and do the right thing. In the face of disease, death, and defeat, he somehow put aside the petty selfishness of the world – along with his own doubts – and fought the good fight.
* For a list of fascinating list of statistics on Vietnam, go to: http://www.mrfa.org/vnstats.htm
** I know that’s a tough fact to swallow. You don’t have to believe me. Read the words of the great lady herself in the book, “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light – The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta.”
—Photo TTVo/Flickr
About Raymond Bechard
“”But I’m old enough to remember when soldiers came home from Vietnam. I remember how they and their experiences were shunned and ignored. Like cowards, we loaded our shame unjustifiably onto them. Then we tried to put them and our defeat behind us, or more accurately, beneath us. We didn’t thank them. Didn’t welcome them. Didn’t heal them. And certainly, we didn’t understand them. We never tried.”"
What’s this “we” shit?
I talked to some Luftwaffe guys at Ft. Bliss in 1970. It was their view that the Battle of The Fulda Gap was being fough in stinking padi fields. If we’d do this for SVN, what might we do for NATO? The old farts in the Politburo, the Gemans thought, must have gotten religion about messing with the US.
Too bad about the five thousand guys who got killed shoving back the reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936. Just a little post-war realpolitic and market monopolizing. Wait. What? I didn’t happen? What did?
Ponit is, you never know what might have happened otherwise, and to presume it’s all Skittle-Shitting unicorns and fuzzy kittens is irresponsible.
Sorry, I can’t agree. The Vietnam draftees were victims, betrayed by their own government and sent to kill for imaginary reasons. They were screwed and stuck in an impossible, no-win situation… but that doesn’t make them heroes. It makes them casualties deserving of our sympathy, treatment, and rehabilitation.
Homer: “That little Timmy is a real hero.”
Lisa: “How is he a hero? He fell down a well.”
Homer: Well, that’s more than YOU did!”
Excuuuuuse me, little Timmy. Running off to Canada is falling in a well. NOT running off to Canada or paying off a Congressman was doing one’s duty.
You act like you somehow have great insight that our Government lies to us.
Now days, declaring your government is lying is a big “Duuuuuuuuh!” Like even the stupidest person isn’t in on the joke.
Back in that time, it was unthinkable. It was unusual. Our government was well aware our Dads had guns and knew how to use them. They actually took great PAINS to cover their tracks and hide their lies.
First Gulf war? Everyone’s running around cheering like it a high school football scrimmage. It practically was. Lessons learned: don’t sh*t on the people you are forcing into servitude. Tell ‘em they’re heros. Hide photos of their coffins. Make them think you care.
I always wince now when someone gives me a lame “Thank you for your service”. ‘Cause I know you don’t.
If you did, you’d be serving too.
copyleft. You forgot the guys who enlisted. SURprise.
No, I didn’t. Those guys aren’t heroes either, but for entirley different reasons depending on their level of gullibility.
Are you saying they aren’t “heroes” because you werre there, knew them personally, and have decided this?
Or are you saying you weren’t “gulible” enough to be a Hero yourself?
‘Cause I was there. From what I saw – there were a whole lot of heroes.
I protested the VietNam war by enlisting. I joined the Air Force, a branch of the military entirely volunteer.
As a woman, I thought doing my part and serving alongside my brothers would be welcome. Was I in for a rude awakening.
Instead of viewing me as a compatriot, I was viewed as a reminder of the inequity and unfairness they were suffering. After all, I could let down my waist length hair, dress in civvies and put it behind me for the night. As “GIs” with the tell tale haircuts, they were scorned and rejected by the local “Townies”.
The first year I served we were required to wear our Uniforms while traveling. By the second year we were advised not to – it caused fights and upsets.
Being so young and inexperienced at the time, the anger and animosity shown toward me was confusing and hurtful. Looking back now, I can see how wearing perfume, nylons and heels to work in a bomb shelter only added to the agnst. At the time I thought ” what’s wrong with these guys? They sit at a desk and type, I sit at a desk and type. We’re equals”.
There was no shadow hanging over me, knowing any day I might be called to go overseas, to have my head turned inside out and handed back. There were no reports on how many women died that day on the Huntley Brinkley report. My love “back home” wasn’t writing Dear John, I’m pregnant with your child, and marrying your best friend and you can’t stop me” letters.
I remember going to college on my GI bill. The homely Feminist Attorney who spole to our class about how “unfair and unequal” the veteran’s point system was. Qualified women were being passed over because some veteran used his 15 points for fireman or police jobs! It wasn’t FAIR!
Of course anyone of those able bodied women could have signed up and served like I did/ When I timidly raised my hand to mention that as a woman, I was a veteran, and those points would be taken from me as well. “Psst! Everyone knows women just join the service to find a husband!”
And that was that.
I remember the girls squealing and running from the admin office when the “weird looking” guy came in. It turned out his head was mishapened andveins like a roadmap coverng his face were from throwing himself on a grenade. He saved his buddies lives.
I remember the guy smashing through a window to get away when someone played a smuggled recording of a rocket attack on DaNang. The young returning GI angrily telling me “YOU DON’T TAKE YOUR DEPENDANTS TO THE BUSH” when asking a standard in processing question.
I’ve learned not to wake my husband during his nightmares, but to wrap my arms around and gently rock him…he hits and punches without realizing he’s home….
The one thing I’m most glad I ever did in my life and times, however horrible it was, is to have had a front row view.
I think the meaning of “hero” is diluted when used this way. Some Vietnam vets are heroes, no doubt, but simply serving because you were forced to and suffering trauma or death as a result doesn’t make you a hero – it makes you a victim. I’m not saying it’s ignoble or worthy of scorn, just that it’s not heroic. It’s like calling someone who died in an accident a “hero” because of the nature of the accident, as opposed to some voluntary sacrifice or danger that they chose to face.
I grew up hearing this so often that even now it’s hard to imagine anyone saying maybe it’s not true, and yet, there’s research that suggests the unwelcome homecoming was more a matter of altered memories shaped by urban myth, than the actual reception they got. There’s a book I can’t say I’ve read, called The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam, by Jerry Lembcke, but he was an academic that investigated this oft-cited terrible reception that the Vietnam vets got, and found little evidence for it. From one review of that book:
I only know of this book from a quick google search, so maybe it’s been thoroughly discredited by other research backing up the legend of Vietnam vets returning to spit and scorn. Are you aware of any that confirms this spat-upon Vientam vet legend that we’ve probably all heard many times since the early 80′s?
If that’s a hard myth to debunk, Mother Theresa is even harder, not because it’s hard to give examples of things she did (and didn’t do), but because people literally think of her as a saint already and dismiss any counterarguments as a pack of lies. The evidence is out there, though, from people who , and from people who worked for her or her order.
Mother Teresa’s approach to comforting the sick and dying was to tell them that suffering brought them closer to God. That was it. When you have no resources, maybe faith can somehow spin that into a kind or noble thing to do, but when you amass great resources (many millions of dollars in donations) and continue to keep people in squalid conditions, instead of also providing healing or palliative care with the resources now available to you, and still only comfort them by telling them their suffering brings them closer to God, that’s not kind or compassionate. Christopher Hitchens provided the most well-known debunking of the myth of Mother Teresa, but some googling should assure you he was not making up the facts out of thin air, regardless of whether you agree with his commentary on those facts.
The type of kindness and care that people think of when they here “Mother Teresa”—that wasn’t the kindness and care she provided. In impoverished squalor, it might be understandable, but ask yourself what kinds of things someone who generates millions of dollars for her cause—specifically for the kind of people she cares for—you would expect to be done with those millions, and then go see if her history shows her doing any of those things. Seriously, if you’ve never read about it, I encourage you make a list first of what a kind and compassionate person would do with massive donations to a previously-impoverished hospice program, so you can keep a checklist of how may of those things she (or her order after she died) did. What I think you’ll discover is a person who facilitated suffering as a godly thing to do, and who you’d never want providing her brand of kindness to you or someone you cared about if they were sick or dying. To defend her standard of care (not her faith, mind you, just the care), you would have to defend things like routinely re-using unsterilized blunt needles, long after the excuse of not being able to afford them ran out. Mother Teresa provided a horrendous, even inhumane example of what hospice care should be, while her boss (the Catholic Church) took most of the money.
Could it be Jerry Lembcke is writing of his own returning home experiences? If so, I’d LOVE to know where he returned to find a warm welcome.
The “return” I observed was cruel and very blatant put downs of guys who left to serve by guys who stayed home and moved in on their girlfriends.
The “return” I observed was College campuses awash with “women’s studies” that preached to beware of “crazed Vietnam vets – ESPECIALLY Marines.
You DO know the divorce rate of combat vets was over 80% about 15 years ago? Who knows what it is now.
Love the revisionist interpretation. Of COURSE the Fortunate Sons were not the least ashamed, deep down,that people died horrribly while they partied. I always love the old clips of Joan Baez exhorting women not to sleep with any guy who did’t burn his draft card. I knew a girl that married three guys shipping out to ‘nam to cash in their life insurance policies. I saw the Dear John letters, the phone calls that ALWAYS included “Oh, I’m marrying your best friend…he’s here…you aren’t.
A better book you might read would be Fortunate Son by Lewis Puller Jr. There is a very haunting scene he describes of lying wounded in the hospital and litening to the tick tick tick of high heels, delivering divorce papers to wounded soldiers.
Of course, you wouldn’t want to muddy the water by listening to someone that was actually there.
“I always love the old clips of Joan Baez exhorting women not to sleep with any guy who didn’t burn his draft card.”
I love them too, although I suspect it’s for different reasons. I love see true patriots in action, defying the government and opposing unjust wars. America’s a great country!
Joan Baez devorced her husband after he went to prison for refusing to pay taxes to support the war.
Who would have thought you could be a spoiled indugent brat AND a “great patriot” at the same time! Whadda country!
Marcus
You missed my review on Amazon of Lembcke’s book.
Several years ago, there was a long kerfuffle at a law blog called Volokh Conspiracy. Eventually, it boiled down to Lembcke deciding that if it didn’t make the papers, it didn’t happen.
See Bob Greene “Homecoming”.
Also, Jack Schaffer of Slate tried the same thing. Claimed the same thing Lembcke did, that if it didn’t make the papers it didn’t happen. I mean, he was forced back to that by the comments of guys to whom it happened.
When my brother was killed and the death notice hit the papers, my folks started getting “he deserved it” calls from the peace&wonderfulness folks. Same people who claim it never happened, most like.
I was insulted, flipped off, etc.
So it’s you or my lying eyes, right?
First off, sorry about your brother, Richard. I mean that sincerely.
Did you notice the part of my post where I admitted only being google-informed about this and asking if there were other sources debunking Lembcke’s findings? It would appear you’re aware of some, so why not just share your sources instead of acting like I’m disrespecting you and other vets by even doubting the prevalence of those bad homecoming stories?
Let’s say Lembcke was completely wrong and had it all backwards, and 3% of returning Vietnam vets found their homecoming friendly, and 93% found it unfriendly. (I guess the other 4% were undecided.) How do we as a culture look back on that kind of reception to returning troops now? I submit that however common the bad reception was (spitting or no spitting), succeeding generations were taught that it was a bad thing to treat troops that way, even if you opposed the war. Very few troops had any say in whether or how to fight, which is pretty much always the case, not just in Vietnam, so it doesn’t make much sense to blame and vilify them. (That’s as true for opposition forces as it is for ours, but it’s harder to concede that enemy combatants shoulder little blame for the wars they fight.)
I don’t know whether my education was an aberration, but I and most of my peers (Generation X) grew up being taught that it’s not okay to spit on returning vets, tell grieving families that their lost loved ones “deserved it” and that kind of thing. No matter how common that kind of thing was at the time, I think you would be hard pressed now to find people who still think the returning vets deserved that kind of treatment, or that it remains a respectable way to treat returning vets of wars we may not support. That, I think, is positive progress.
What I think has also happened is that because people are now so determined not to treat troops and veterans like that, the idea of “Support Our Troops” has become a propogandistic slogan that really means “If you don’t support the war, you’re not supporting the troops.” The slogan and its variations tend to characterize anyone who opposes their country’s wars as if it’s spitting on soldiers all over again, which it definitely is not. Before the Iraq War (most recent version) kicked off, I attended a protest in NYC, and I’m still of the opinion that it was an unjust war that was sold to the public on bogus grounds. Know what I say to vets that I meet or know? “Thank you for your service.” And I mean it, sincerely. It’s not a lie or the voice of a guilty conscience, but true gratitude and respect to people who serve or have served their country (and by extension, me), even when I don’t think they were served very well in return.
As far as I’m concerned, one of the most authentic ways you can support your troops is to try to keep them out of unjust wars. Their service, bravery, and sacrifice are still worth noting and respecting when they’re mostly doing a crappy job the best they can, but those qualities in the troops do not serve as good reasons themselves to start or continue wars.
So that’s what I worry about when I think about the mistreated returning Vietnam vets. Whatever the true frequency of that kind of treatment, I think we can agree that any was too much. The damage that was done to any vets who received it was unjustified and regrettable. I think “shameful and inexcusable” is how most people look at that kid of treatment now, even war protesters, so that’s a positive cultural lesson that we’ve taken from it. However, I think it’s also led to this propoganda kind of legacy that says any opposition to war is the same as heaping that kind of disrespect on troops. Or more subtly, that if you don’t consider each and every active service member or vet a hero, that’s another form of spitting—despite the fact that the armed services themselves don’t give each and every service member a hero’s treatment
Very well said, Marcus. A lot of vets seem to skip over the fact that the Vietnam War was, in fact, WRONG. It was a war crime. It was illegal. Americans opposed it for very, very good reasons.
So where does that leave those who were yanked into it against their will? They were victims. They deserve our sympathy. But that doesn’t make them heroes.
And those who knew it was illegal and eagerly signed up to go anyway and kill some gooks? They’re not even in the running for “hero” status.
All war is “wrong”. WWI was wrong. WWII was wrong. The Civil war. The war of Independance.
All wrong, wrong, wrong.
Lucky for you there are lots of people willing to be wrong so you don’t have to.
Ahh, so all military operations are automatically justified and deserve our unquestioning, unqualified support. Got it.
Not in America, though. We’ve had a few too many experiences with unjust wars to blindly believe that every military action is “defending our country.” That’s jingoism, not patriotism.
Copy – there are LOTs of “True Patriots”, and “non gullible” ones who would never dream of getting their hands dirty with “wrong” wars.
They are really, really the cool guys. You know – the ones who collect comic books instead of playing yucky football.
Everyone knows that.
“They are really, really the cool guys. You know – the ones who collect comic books instead of playing yucky football.”
Well that’s nice, way to bring in your overtly wrong views of masculinity into play in a conversation about veterans. Not every person who doesn’t grab a rifle is automatically less masculine than someone who does. That’s the kind of thinking that gets kids riled up and ready to go to war to prove their “maniliness” or some other screwed up version of masculinity. I should know, I was one of those kids.
Drop the “real men go to war/play football and wimps collect comic books” rhetoric at the door. This is a blog where men discuss issues, not throw barbs accusing men of being less than others because of a perceived lack in masculinity.
On the whole 100%cotton football vs. comics thing:
Take a look at the daily lives of men serving overseas from World War II onward. You’ll find G.I.s playing football AND reading comic books.
Man and boys who read comics are probably more conservative about military policy and more hawkish in their foreign policy than average, I’m guessing. There’s no need to insult people who may agree with you more than you think.
Copy. re. “wrong”. An unsubstantiated opinion does not equal fact.
I belong to the Presbyterian Church (USA). Shortly after the Gulf War, the Presbytery of San Francisco submitted a r esolution to the General Assembly to have the Just War Doctrine updated. Terrif. A bunch of preachers who couldn’t get churches were going to fix up what Augustine and Aquinas had overlooked. Humility is not one of the PCUSA’s big deals.
I called for a copy of the resolution. The form is to start out with “whereas this” and “whereas that” and “whereas some other thing”, now be it resolved….
The whereases were absolute crap. The one I remember was “whereas war in the modern world starts so quickly” (paraphrase). So I inquired. I thought it was Saddaam who had moved pretty quickly. The Coalition took six months to get going. Was it the German invasion of Poland they were talking about? The attack on Pearl Harbor? The Norks coming south in 1950?
Oh, well bumffufflebafflegabetc.
The whereases were all like that. Problem for the lefties was that, in the Gulf War, the US had checked each box pretty clearly for ius ad bello and ius in bello. There was no doctrinal way to condemn the US. It was not to be stood. So they figured they’d redo the JWD. What morons.
Then, of course, there is the selective morality. The lefties–and that includes the PCUSA hierarchs–are all about the landmine treaty. None had a single word to say about the Sovs scattering disguised mines broadcast over Afghanistan. That”s a horrid violation of international law…ho hum. That some of these things are still crippling Afghans is proof the US needs to stop using landmines.
Yup. I love hearing firm opinions from people like this. Sure do.
Marcus. I understand impatience, but, trust me, this stuff would go over better if you waited until all the Vietvets and their families were dead. Less contradiction then.
Richard. I don’t know what you meant there. Patience didn’t have anything to do with it, I wasn’t insulting vets or their families by expressing skepticism, and I invited contradiction.
Marcus. Couple of points: First, you seem to have missed my point about Fulda, the Rhineland, and what happened or didn’t happen. It appears your view of “unjust” war is lacking in historical perspective.
You are right in one sense. It would be hard to find anybody who admitted doing this shit to Vietvets. Not that they wouldn’t be pleased with themselves anyway. During the Gulf War, it took about eight seconds, talking to anybody putting up the iconic symbol, a yellow ribbon, to find they wanted to get ahead of those goddamned hippies so the same crap didn’t happen again. So the spitters have clammed up, at least in public.
If you’re only google-savvy, then you might want to listen to the more informed, instead of speculating as if you know anything at all that it’s kind of a made-up memory.
You want sources? Try Greene’s “Homecoming”. I talked with the mother of one soldier dissed at his church, confirming it with her and the church secretary. The pastor claimed he was elsewhere and his substitute would never do such a thing.
Then you go to “volokh Conspiracy”, a law blog and search for “lembcke”. Lengthy discussions. And the prescient–even used the term “jihad”–”This Kind of War” by Fehrenbach. Well reviewed on Amazon.
This discussion isn’t between people who believe it happened and those who don’t. It’s between people who know it happened but are trying to convince the young and the credulous it didn’t happen, and those who would rather the truth not be hidden.
And you can ask yourself why you fell for–or presume others would fall for–the premise that if it wasn’t in the papers it didn’t happen.
You attended a protest? Think you got the straight dope? Yeah, you would. That’s all it took. Wow.
Old joke: How come hippies attack crippled soldiers? It’s safer.
In May of 1971, I was at Valley Forge Army Hospital–now out of business due to lack of trade–for a non-combat issue. I got off orders when my brother was killed, so I didn’t see combat. It was during the Mayday Mobe,when the hippies tried to shut down DC, and levitate the Pentagon or something. It was before interior hood releases, so guys would come up to a car, rip open the hood and pull out the spark plug wires, daring the woman inside, or the old man, or whomever, to do something about it.
The crippled grunts in our ward were cheering the cops.
Once a bunch of the unwashed had been corralled in a stadium and we were looking at tv showing it from overhead, one guy opined, “Bring a gunship in on their ass”.
Another hint, Marcus. You don’t know enough and what you do know is wrong. Don’t even start this shit.
Good grief, you’re angry! Look again at my first post that stoked your anger:
Do you not see that as an invitation to be contradicted and set straight by “the more informed” you scold me for not listening to? Do you not see how it’s admitting up front that my skepticism on the point is only informed by light Google research, in anticipation that someone like you might write me off as a naive hippie young’un who believes everything he reads on the intertubes?
I’m not offended that you strenuously disagree with Lembcke’s work, and actually appreciate that you have other sources to offer, just like I asked for. I’m somewhat mystified as to why you feel it necessary to shove them down my throat as if I claimed to be an authority, and coming pretty darn close to attacking my character. You’re not my Pa or my Grandpa, and I don’t need your boot in my rear telling me that a little googling and one protest does not an education make.
Wanna go for the two-fer? Do you have anything on Mother Teresa about her building hospitals and improving hospice conditions that I’m unware of? Not just spiritual reassurances, but physical stuff that she and/or the church put those millions of dollars in donations toward?
Finally, Richard, please use the “Reply” button when you’re…replying. It keeps things tidier and a lot easier to find in case the comment thread gets huge. (I could have framed that as a hint, but “Another hint, Richard…” would have been a condescending way to say the same thing”.)
Marcus. If all you know is google, the proper follow up is to understand you don’t know enough to approach the keyboard.
You didn’t answer why you felt Lembcke’s idea that if it didn’t make the papers it didn’t happen was dispositive.
You referred to the Iraq war as “unjust” without the slightest evidence of any evidence at all, except you went to a protest.
The reason I provided the sources was not to convince you of anything except one thing; we know better already. Quit wasting our time.
After I got out of the Infantry, I was in Air Defense, defending the Detroit-Cleveland Air Defense district against manned bombers and air-breathing missiles. No Vietnam. Still got crap from the sillyvillians. Anybody who claims not to know about this is not fooling anybody.
You don’t get “patience”? Point is, you can’t sell this crap until all of us are dead. So you have to wait maybe another twenty-five years. Now, if you also happen to oppose the use of the atomic bomb on Japan, to make another example of where patience is necessary, you have about the same time to wait before the folks involved are gone, since they include the children who would not have been born–my sister and brother–were it not for the atomic bomb on Japan. Call it another quarter century. Hang in there.
My view of Lembcke’s effort is to label the spitting an urban myth, thus discrediting in advance stories of the same thing happening to current vets. Maybe he has a different goal. The problem is, nobody is stupid enough to do what he did and call it honest research.
I’m angry. Huh. Can’t think of a reason why.
Went ot a funeral of a relation who had two tours in Iraq, killed in a motorcycle accident shortly after he got out. The Patriot Guard Riders were in evidence. There’s a reason for these guys. They’re a lot calmer than I am or would be. In fact, I think that’s their role. Bless their hearts.
Look, Marcus. I went to a fraternity reunion of, roughly, the classes of 63-68. I was surprised at several things. One was the number of guys who were married to their first wives,which meant I remembered the women. Good time. Another was the number who had served. One guy, a KC135 navigator who had finessed flying with another guy from our chapter in when they were in SEA, remarked, “at a party it takes about fourteen seconds to figure out who served”, with the implication that that’s how you knew who was worth your time.
And I went to a lacrosse club reunion, going back to the early sixties. We were seated at tables by age. Which meant most of the talk at the tables where I was happened to be about Viet Nam and ancillary issues.
There’s us. And there’s you. Do your homework before you think you have something to say to us.
I grew up in rural Oklahoma, which was NEVER in on the hippie movement.
I used to make protest speeches in my speech class, and was totally hated and reviled for “not being patriotic”. People were outright hostile toward me.
As it turned out, I was the first women from Creek County OK to enlist in the military. Ever.
When I went back to my High School class reunion imagine my shock to find out…me and one other guy were the ONLY ONES to have enlisted and served.
Two out of a class of 500.
…so much for True Patriots.
True Patriots stop unjust wars, rather than signing up to fight in them .
Gee, Copy. You are bringing tears to my eyes.
Glad to hear it! I just love it when knee-jerk jingoism acts like it has exclusive title to the term “patriot.”
It’s so very easy to expose and humiliate such ignorance.
Copy.
It may be easy, but you’re not even close. Calling something “kneejerk” and “jingoism” is throwing labels complretely without a single idea.
Which is the best you can do.
Nice to hear you’re working to get rid of the War Powers Act. Thanks.
So, copy. Are YOU signed up for Selective Service, or are you too cool for that? Even though if you don’t you are breaking the law and facing stiff fines, prison time, the loss of your driving priviledges and many job opportunities.
If you ARE signed up for Selective Service, don’t be hatin’ on the “HERO” stuff. We know that’s all just a ruse so somebody else’s son goes instead of you. If they didn’t get those suckers to sign up voluntairily, you just KNOW what comes next.
It’s not looking good that women can continue to weasel out of the obligation, and it’s doubtful they will volunteer to fight in combat.
Maybe you should consider them your “hero” after all.
Marcus. You DID insult them.
Be happy someone else is doing the dirty work and let it be.
I wrote about this below before I saw this exchange about the Lembcke book. It is a deeply flawed book because he has such a huge axe to grind, but the central idea still stands up: try to find when and where this hippy spitting on a vet actually happened, and the story evaporates right before your eyes. It’s always a brother of a friend of a friend whose sister met the guy that it happened to. It is correct that one will never prove that it never happened, because you cannot prove a negative like that. But, a lack of any good evidence should give us pause before we treat it as fact.
Same thing about the oft-circulated story of Jane Fonda turning over to the prison guards the little slips of paper the American POW’s gave to her on her visit to the “Hanoi Hilton.” This story circulated virally all over the place again when the Iraq War began. This has been attributed to one of the POW’s telling this story when he got home. Trouble is, he claims he never said it and claims they never handed her any pieces of paper because they didn’t trust her in the first place! Someone else used his name and made that part up. Good God, what she really truly did in North Viet Nam is perfectly well documented and frankly treasonous enough (in spirit if not by the letter of the law) without having to make up stories about it! One of my senior History majors chose this topic for his research project. He was Marine ROTC, and when he started his research he was convinced as an article of faith that this story about the pieces of paper was totally true. It was he who showed me how the supposed source of the story said he never said it. I showed him all the evidence of all that she DID do on her visit to Hanoi.
Lembcke is not the first or last to point out that a lot of what passes for wisdom about the Viet Nam War is based on mythology that passes as fact. There’s an impression that since the war was so graphically covered in the media that we have great information about it. It is just as mythologized as any other conflict. (Well, maybe not as much as WWII or the Civil War.)
So there are no heroes in the military, since all of the wars starting with Korea have been illegal.
Pursuit.
You may have something there. About Korea, I mean. The North was only trying to reunite the country. So the UN and the US and the South were wrong in resisting the effort.
Sarc.
The Vietvet is no more a hero than the veteran of any other war. Getting dumped on by a bunch of ignorant and malicious sillyvillians doesn’t make you a hero. Except for the forebearance required not to do to The Kids what they deserve. THAT was heroic.
As one who served during that time, I will say this country is fortunate that the military took this abuse personally and not corporately.
I think what the kids are not aware of here is that Parents of Vietnam era veterans were themselves “heroes” of WWII.
Almost everyone’s father had served his country when I was a kid.
When YOU were a kid? I know. It’s laughable.
My husband was thinking of using his “surfer’s knots” for a deferment(look it up). His father threatened to disown him if he tried to get out of serving. His father was a flame thrower combat marine on Guam. My father was a Ball turret gunner. Incredible manly men. My husband was assigned an administrative job known at the time as a “titless WAF”. He thought he was “safe”, but ended up in hand to hand combat. Cali surfer guy one day, fighting for his life the next.
You never know what life will bring. I wouldn’t get too “soft” if I were you.
I really do appreciate the sentiment about respecting people who’ve gone through hell and back, and the call to find some respect for people who made it through life without respect that they deserved. I can’t find too much fault with the motives.
But the exaggeration and simplification here is rubbing me the wrong way. To me, the moral complexity of it all is what is so compelling and actually an even better reason to be compassionate. Many of the people sent to Viet Nam were drafted, not sent there by choice. Everyone sent there was sent there with the official reason of “fighting for their country,” but what actually motivated each soldier, sailor, airman, marine, and coast guarder(?) was incredibly varied. What each one really was there for (and not all actually “fought” in an active sense) and what motivated each on a daily basis was often not an ideological crusade for freedom and patriotism.
Hell, some people wound up in Viet Nam because they were trying to *avoid* being there. Men joined the Coast Guard assuming that meant they wouldn’t leave the U.S., but then were sent out on dangerous riverine operations in Viet Nam anyway. A friend of mine fled to Canada to escape the draft, snuck back into the U.S., was caught, and drafted into the Marines and sent to Viet Nam anyway. He’s a draft dodger and a Viet Nam vet in the same person. Bill Clinton didn’t go, of course, but his original plan in college was to join the ROTC with the understanding that he wouldn’t be sent to Viet Nam, and when the ROTC said that was a common deal but couldn’t totally guarantee it, he backed out. Others tried the same deal, some escaped and some didn’t.
Returning VN vets faced the most hateful response NOT from antiwar groups, but from WWII vets and the older generation. Forget the spitting hippy girl in the airport urban legend, the only good documented evidence of returning vets being spat upon is a moment when a WWII vet from the American Legion or VFW spat on a returning VN vet, because he thought the younger generation was shamefully losing the war. (No one thought WWII vets ever committed any atrocities or abused drugs during their war.)
Respect VN vets by not using them as a political football in current debates about military policy. Don’t let people use the “Tinkerbell theory” about Viet Nam to justify questionable wars and silence dissent. (The Tinkerbell theory: if we believe Tinkerbell can fly, she can fly. If we have total faith in the war effort, the war will be a success. If we doubt or question, then we’re not supporting the troops. If we question our leaders, it’s not supporting the troops and their morale will suffer and therefore we will lose. Just like we did in Viet Nam. If only the antiwar people had kept their mouth shut, we would have won that war.) It’s the classic “we would have won if we hadn’t been stabbed in the back at home” argument.
I know people believe very strongly in this argument and to question it offends their beliefs, but that doesn’t mean the argument is true or accurate.
We did it because at the the time, ‘it was the right thing to do’, I believed in fighting Communism wherever it was destroying people. It was a noble cause. I did not enjoy being spit on or the so called ‘flower childern’ offering me ‘peacenik’ flowers.
The ‘tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree’ after the Desert Storm-Desert Sheild war was a catharsist for me….a real welcome home.
When known to me I will always tell a fellow RVN vet, ‘welcome home’. For some of those it is the very first time.
Shame on you America for not welcoming home some of the greatest Americans yet! They did not die in vain….they died for your FREEDOM!
RVN 1970-71, 240th AHC ‘Greyhounds’
Vietnam vet here. I was spit on. It is NOT a myth.Ask some vietnamese refuges if our effort in vietnam was wrong………..Most viet nam veterans were NOT dreftees. they were enlisted. My draft number was 358. I enlisted and volunteered to go to vietnam.
Can Tho army airfield,march 1971 to march 1972. 191st asslt helo company and 18th aviation company……..
Welcome home Jeff…thanks for serving our country! It is important and will be in the future as well.