Posted on 09/17/2004 7:56:38 AM PDT by presidio9
ARLINGTON, Va.
The rows of simple white headstones in the broad expanses of brilliant green lawns are scrupulously arranged, and they seem to go on and on, endlessly, in every direction.
It was impossible not to be moved. A soft September wind was the only sound. Beyond that was just the silence of history, and the collective memory of the lives lost in its service.
Nearly 300,000 people are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, which is just across the Potomac from Washington. On Tuesday morning I visited the grave of Air Force Second Lt. Richard VandeGeer. The headstone tells us, as simply as possible, that he went to Vietnam, that he was born Jan. 11, 1948, and died May 15, 1975, and that he was awarded the Purple Heart.
His mother, Diana VandeGeer, who is 75 now and lives in Florida, tells us that he loved to play soldier as a child, that he was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and that she longs for him still. He would be 56 now, but to his mother he is forever a tall and handsome 27.
Richard VandeGeer was not the last American serviceman to die in the Vietnam War, but he was close enough. He was part of the last group of Americans killed, and his name was the last of the more than 58,000 to be listed on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. As I stood at his grave, I couldn't help but wonder how long it will take us to get to the last American combat death in Iraq.
Lieutenant VandeGeer died heroically. He was the pilot of a CH-53A transport helicopter that was part of an effort to rescue crew members of the Mayaguez, an American merchant ship that was captured by the Khmer Rouge off the coast of Cambodia on May 12, 1975. The helicopter was shot down and half of the 26 men aboard, including Lieutenant VandeGeer, perished.
(It was later learned that the crew of the Mayaguez had already been released.)
The failed rescue operation, considered the last combat activity of the Vietnam War, came four years after John Kerry's famous question, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
Although he died bravely, Lieutenant VandeGeer's death was as senseless as those of the 58,000 who died before him in the fool's errand known as Vietnam. His remains were not recovered for 20 years - not until a joint operation by American and Cambodian authorities located the underwater helicopter wreckage in 1995. Positive identification, using the most advanced DNA technology, took another four years. Lieutenant VandeGeer was buried at Arlington in a private ceremony in 2000.
The Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation put me in touch with the lieutenant's family. "I'm still angry that my son is gone," said Mrs. VandeGeer, who is divorced and lives alone in Cocoa Beach. "I'm his mother. I think about him every day."
She said that while she will always be proud of her son, she believes he "died for nothing."
Lieutenant VandeGeer's sister, Michelle, told me she can't think about her brother without recalling that the last time she saw him was on her wedding day, in May 1974. "He looked so handsome and confident," she said. "He wanted to change the world."
Wars are all about chaos and catastrophes, death and suffering, and lifelong grief, which is why you should go to war only when it's absolutely unavoidable. Wars tear families apart as surely as they tear apart the flesh of those killed and wounded. Since we learned nothing from Vietnam, we are doomed to repeat its agony, this time in horrifying slow-motion in Iraq.
Three more marines were killed yesterday in Iraq. Kidnappings are commonplace. The insurgency is growing and becoming more sophisticated, which means more deadly. Ordinary Iraqis are becoming ever more enraged at the U.S.
When the newscaster David Brinkley, appalled by the carnage in Vietnam, asked Lyndon Johnson why he didn't just bring the troops home, Johnson replied, "I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a war."
George W. Bush is now trapped as tightly in Iraq as Johnson was in Vietnam. The war is going badly. The president's own intelligence estimates are pessimistic. There is no plan to actually win the war in Iraq, and no willingness to concede defeat.
I wonder who the last man or woman will be to die for this colossal mistake.
I share your sentiments.
You're too late. Dan Rather already did this in Florida in 2000.
And the NYT is still the left's last bastion of liberal propaganda...
We never lost a battle in Viet Nam and have never lost a battle in Iraq!
And if not for Kerry, Fonda and their ilk, the commies would have surrendered in Viet Nam in '71.
And that's the bottom line!
Kerry lied
and good men died!
Semper Fi,
Kelly
I am sorry for Lieutenant VandeGeer's death and he is a REAL HERO
BUT HE VOLUNTERED DID HE NOT?
At the current rate of deaths, our casualties in Iraq won't pile up to VietNam levels until ... (drum roll, please): the year 2090.
This is the DNC new line. Iraq IS a failure. Even though nothing has changed, they chandge the story and the MSM follows. We won't know if Iraq is a success or failure for years. I guess it depends on what your definition of is is.
Not only did we leave Vietnam under the umbrella of a treaty, which gave us the right to fly B-52's over Hanoi and begin where we left off in December 1972. They most definitely did not want that. But they saw that our ability to do anything was neutered by the Watergate crisis, and our position was destroyed by a DEMOCRATICALLY CONTROLLED CONGRESS which refused to approve any money to guarantee the success of a deterrent threat. When the NV saw that, the blood was in the water, and the fall of the South was only a matter of time. And then the bloodbath began.
bump
It's unfortunate that we lose soldiers instead of journalists...
More like Traitor Alert. This POS Herbert ought to don a towel on his head, for he does nothing but comfort the enemy.
Context is all!
Sept 17 1862 Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam)-bloodiest day in American history
(Date: September 17, 1862
Location: Maryland
Confederate Commander: Robert E. Lee
Union Commander: George B. McClellan
Confederate Forces Engaged: 51,844
Union Forces Engaged: 75,316
Winner: Union
Casualties: 26,134 (12,410 Union and 13,724 Confederate)
Personally these people make me sick
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