Posted on 08/28/2010 6:47:31 PM PDT by SLB
A college student posted a request on an internet newsgroup asking for personal narratives from the likes of us addressing the question: "What is a Vietnam Veteran?" This is what I wrote back:
Vietnam veterans are men and women. We are dead or alive, whole or maimed, sane or haunted. We grew from our experiences or we were destroyed by them or we struggle to find some place in between. We lived through hell or we had a pleasant, if scary, adventure. We were Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Red Cross, and civilians of all sorts. Some of us enlisted to fight for God and Country, and some were drafted. Some were gung-ho, and some went kicking and screaming.
Like veterans of all wars, we lived a tad bit--or a great bit--closer to death than most people like to think about. If Vietnam vets differ from others, perhaps it is primarily in the fact that many of us never saw the enemy or recognized him or her. We heard gunfire and mortar fire but rarely looked into enemy eyes. Those who did, like folks who encounter close combat anywhere and anytime, are often haunted for life by those eyes, those sounds, those electric fears that ran between ourselves, our enemies, and the likelihood of death for one of us. Or we get hard, calloused, tough. All in a day's work. Life's a bitch then you die. But most of us remember and get twitchy, worried, sad.
We are crazies dressed in cammo, wide-eyed, wary, homeless, and drunk. We are Brooks Brothers suit wearers, doing deals downtown. We are housewives, grandmothers, and church deacons. We are college professors engaged in the rational pursuit of the truth about the history or politics or culture of the Vietnam experience. And we are sleepless. Often sleepless.
We pushed paper; we pushed shovels. We drove jeeps, operated bulldozers, built bridges; we toted machine guns through dense brush, deep paddy, and thorn scrub. We lived on buffalo milk, fish heads and rice. Or C-rations. Or steaks and Budweiser. We did our time in high mountains drenched by endless monsoon rains or on the dry plains or on muddy rivers or at the most beautiful beaches in the world.
We wore berets, bandanas, flop hats, and steel pots. Flak jackets, canvas, rash and rot. We ate cloroquine and got malaria anyway. We got shots constantly but have diseases nobody can diagnose. We spent our nights on cots or shivering in foxholes filled with waist-high water or lying still on cold wet ground, our eyes imagining Charlie behind every bamboo blade. Or we slept in hotel beds in Saigon or barracks in Thailand or in cramped ships' berths at sea.
We feared we would die or we feared we would kill. We simply feared, and often we still do. We hate the war or believe it was the best thing that ever happened to us. We blame Uncle Sam or Uncle Ho and their minions and secretaries and apologists for every wart or cough or tic of an eye. We wonder if Agent Orange got us.
Mostly--and this I believe with all my heart--mostly, we wish we had not been so alone. Some of us went with units; but many, probably most of us, were civilians one day, jerked up out of "the world," shaved, barked at, insulted, humiliated, de-egoized and taught to kill, to fix radios, to drive trucks. We went, put in our time, and were equally ungraciously plucked out of the morass and placed back in the real world. But now we smoked dope, shot skag, or drank heavily. Our wives or husbands seemed distant and strange. Our friends wanted to know if we shot anybody.
And life went on, had been going on, as if we hadn't been there, as if Vietnam was a topic of political conversation or college protest or news copy, not a matter of life and death for tens of thousands.
Vietnam vets are people just like you. We served our country, proudly or reluctantly or ambivalently. What makes us different--what makes us Vietnam vets--is something we understand, but we are afraid nobody else will. But we appreciate your asking.
Vietnam veterans are white, black, beige and shades of gray; but in comparison with our numbers in the "real world," we were more likely black. Our ancestors came from Africa, from Europe, and China. Or they crossed the Bering Sea Land Bridge in the last Ice Age and formed the nations of American Indians, built pyramids in Mexico, or farmed acres of corn on the banks of Chesapeake Bay. We had names like Rodriguez and Stein and Smith and Kowalski. We were Americans, Australians, Canadians, and Koreans; most Vietnam veterans are Vietnamese.
We were farmers, students, mechanics, steelworkers, nurses, and priests when the call came that changed us all forever. We had dreams and plans, and they all had to change...or wait. We were daughters and sons, lovers and poets, beatniks and philosophers, convicts and lawyers. We were rich and poor but mostly poor. We were educated or not, mostly not. We grew up in slums, in shacks, in duplexes, and bungalows and houseboats and hooches and ranchers. We were cowards and heroes. Sometimes we were cowards one moment and heroes the next.
Many of us have never seen Vietnam. We waited at home for those we loved. And for some of us, our worst fears were realized. For others, our loved ones came back but never would be the same.
We came home and marched in protest marches, sucked in tear gas, and shrieked our anger and horror for all to hear. Or we sat alone in small rooms, in VA hospital wards, in places where only the crazy ever go. We are Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, and Confucians and Buddhists and Atheists--though as usually is the case, even the atheists among us sometimes prayed to get out of there alive.
We are hungry, and we are sated, full of life or clinging to death. We are injured, and we are curers, despairing and hopeful, loved or lost. We got too old too quickly, but some of us have never grown up. We want, desparately, to go back, to heal wounds, revisit the sites of our horror. Or we want never to see that place again, to bury it, its memories, its meaning. We want to forget, and we wish we could remember.
Despite our differences, we have so much in common. There are few of us who don't know how to cry, though we often do it alone when nobody will ask "what's wrong?" We're afraid we might have to answer.
Adam, if you want to know what a Vietnam veteran is, get in your car next weekend or cage a friend with a car to drive you. Go to Washington. Go to the Wall. It's going to be Veterans Day weekend. There will be hundreds there...no, thousands. Watch them. Listen to them. I'll be there. Come touch the Wall with us. Rejoice a bit. Cry a bit. No, cry a lot. I will. I'm a Vietnam Veteran; and, after 30 years, I think I am beginning to understand what that means.
My Dad is a Vietnam Vet...the 101st out of Ft. Campbell, served sometime between 1964 - 1967 (I think).
I played Army Guard in the mid 90s and the few Vietnam Era types in the unit were the best ones to hang with.
Thank you for a wonderful letter.
My cousin (quite a bit older than me) was a nurse in the Mekong Delta. She wrote an article (back in the 90’s I suppose?) about her experiences. I don’t recall many of the details, but I know that I was very surprised by her upbeat thoughts. She said she survived by concentrating on the good things. The boys that she helped saved. The friends that she had made. The care packages from home including some material to make curtains out of! She said she wouldn’t have traded it for anything - it is part of her, and makes her who she is.
As the song goes... “weren’t no V-D heroes back in 1973.” I was too young to buy a beer when I came back.
The only time I ever saw him cry was when he pointed out, to me, his GIBs name at the Memorial Wall.
He said, "He was a terrific guy", and just broke down.
It still makes me sad to think about.
Num`Bah `Huckin’ One G.I...
Personally, being born in 1959 I missed being drafted by a few years and when I was old enough to volunteer the war was over.
I still remember working with people who had just come back from Vietnam and didn't really understand all the ramifications at the time
I do now
AS a Vietnam veteran, thanks for posting this. It is very cathartic to see someone else is in the same shoes I’ve worn for over 40 years.
Thanks, I needed that.
Heard a General on FOX tonight. 58,000 Americans died in Viet Nam. 100,000 Viet Nam vets have committed suicide.
(( ping ))
many “Thank Yous” ...for me it doesnt seem like enough, but I have nothing worthy to offer for those who gave so much...
Your dad was a hero.
“Vietnam veterans are white, black, beige and shades of gray; but in comparison with our numbers in the “real world,” we were more likely black.”
“Overall, blacks suffered 12.5% of the deaths in Vietnam at a time when the percentage of blacks of military age was 13.5% of the total population.”
Race and Ethnic Background
88.4% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were Caucasian; 10.6% (275,000) were black; 1% belonged to other races.
86.3% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasian (includes Hispanics);
12.5% (7,241) were black; 1.2% belonged to other races.
170,000 Hispanics served in Vietnam; 3,070 (5.2% of total) died there.
70% of enlisted men killed were of Northwest European descent.
86.8% of the men who were killed as a result of hostile action were Caucasian; 12.1% (5,711) were black; 1.1% belonged to other races.
14.6% (1,530) of non-combat deaths were among blacks.
34% of blacks who enlisted volunteered for the combat arms.
Overall, blacks suffered 12.5% of the deaths in Vietnam at a time when the percentage of blacks of military age was 13.5% of the total population.
79% of the men who served in Vietnam had a high school education or better when they entered the military service.
(63% of Korean War vets and only 45% of WWII vets had completed high school upon separation.)
Draftees vs. Volunteers:
25% (648,500) of total forces in country were draftees. (66% of U.S. armed forces members were drafted during WWII.)
Draftees accounted for 30.4% (17,725) of combat deaths in Vietnam.
Reservists killed: 5,977.
National Guard: 6,140 served; 101 died.
Total draftees (1965-73): 1,728,344.
Actually served in Vietnam: 38%
Marine Corps draft: 42,633.
Last man drafted: June 30, 1973.
The image of those who fought in Vietnam is one of poorly educated, reluctant draftees — predominantly poor whites and minorities. But in reality, only one-third of Vietnam-era veterans entered the military through the draft, far lower than the 66 percent drafted in World War II.
It was the best-educated and most egalitarian military force in America’s history — and with the advent of the all-volunteer military, is likely to remain so. In WWII, only 45 percent of the troops had a high school diploma. During the Vietnam War, almost 80 percent of those who enlisted had high school diplomas, and the percentage was higher for draftees — even though, at the time, only 65 percent of military-age males had a high school diploma.
Throughout the Vietnam era, the median education level of the enlisted man was about 13 years. Proportionately, three times as many college graduates served in Vietnam than in WWII.
Another common assumption: The war in Vietnam was fought by youngsters wet behind the ears, who died as teenagers barely old enough to shave. In fact, more 52-year-olds (22) died in Vietnam than 17-year-olds (12). An analysis of data from the Department of Defense shows the average age of men killed in Vietnam was 22.8 years, or almost 23 years old.
Though the notion persists that those who died in Vietnam were mostly members of a minority group, it’s not true. About 5 percent of KIAs were Hispanic and 12.5 percent were black — making both minorities slightly under-represented in their proportion of draft-age males in the national population.
A common negative image of the soldier in Vietnam is that he smoked pot and injected heroin to dull the horrors of combat. However, except for the last couple of years of the war, drug usage among GIs in Vietnam was lower than for U.S. troops stationed elsewhere.
From
http://www.vvof.org/factsvnv.htm
You are heros.
That was nice, thanks.
100000 Vietnam Vet suicides?
I have difficulty accepting that figure. That’s one out of every 28 Vietnam vets who served in theater.
Same here, except my dad was a Green Beret Major. I don't know what his unit was. I was just getting to my teen years during the time he was there, and paid little attention to those kinds of details.
Our family was stationed on Okinawa, and I was constantly surrounded by the hustle and bustle of wartime logistics. I got so tuned in to things, that I could tell which soldiers were incoming, and which were on their way back to the world, just by looking in their faces.
Where I lived, and where I went to school, nearly everyone's dad was in 'Nam. Our moms did everything in their power to keep us distracted, and to keep us away from reminders of what our fathers were doing. I think we would have been a bit nuts, otherwise.
On those rare occasions when Dad would get enough time off to come home, we had to walk on raw eggs around him. As the eldest child, I think I had the best formed concepts of what my dad had been living with, but even to this very day, I don't really know what he lived through.
At 80, he's still reluctant to talk about it. Vietnam is a bit like his "missing 18 minutes" when he reminisces about his military career. For my part, I've never asked him to tell me about it. I wish I could, but I don't know that I ever will.
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