When I was young, I started out in the work force and considering I was born when the Vietnam War was in its heyday, I could not help but find myself working along many Vietnam War veterans. In the eighties at a time that the end of the Vietnam War was slightly over a decade in the past. I can remember a gentleman who hid a beer can inside a hallowed out seven up can and could not get through the day without a couple of beers. I learned later that he had gone out on a patrol and was the only survivor of his squad. Another gentleman picked up a stick and within two days carved out a k bar knife in excruciating detail. He had been a US Navy SEALS and did not talk too much about what he did, but he did share a couple of telling items. The first was a story was about being dropped off in Seattle after his enlistment. In the story he was in a bar and someone called him a baby killer. He said within seconds he had the person on the ground and was about to tear the guys throat out when someone pulled him off. In retrospect how grateful he did not kill that man. The other about how one of his teammates had gone completely off the grid somewhere in the Northern California woods and would only talk with his Vietnam team mates. Yet another gentleman that I worked with woke up at 4:00 every morning to take care of farm animals before coming into work for a long day of sometimes manual labor. His eyes would at times go far away and mist up. He had been in the US Army Special Forces and he did not talk about what he had done or saw.
Moving forward slightly over a half a decade later I worked with a gentleman who had served in Cambodia and Laos in the US Marine Corp. He too almost killed someone when he returned home because he had been spat on. This, of course, was in California. He credited the Marine Corp with getting him some psychological help that calmed him down. He made the comment that if he had not been on active duty at the time and had not received the treatment, he probably would have killed someone and ended up in prison. Later in life, when I was preparing to go to Afghanistan, a gentleman that I had met as a professional insisted that he meet with me before my deployment. A person who I had known for more than ten years and had worked on several projects with confided in me that he had served as a young enlisted man in the US Marine Corp doing a tour in Vietnam. During the conversation he asked me to keep confidential that fact because the people in the industry that we were professionals in would have, in his opinion, not favored his service favorably. He too mentioned the shame that our country showed toward these returning veterans upon their return from Vietnam.
I have spoken with many Vietnam Veterans and they all seem to have had some variation of the same story. This was the shame that was heaped upon them when they returned home. Fortunately for me many lessons were learned and upon my return from war it has been so much easier to talk about PTSD and the lingering effects of being in a war zone and etc. I thank heaven this is the case because it is not easy and it is real, speaking from personal experience, and I now have a small glimpse about what they went through upon their return and what they probably still experience. I say this because being a uniformed member of the armed services in a war zone has changed me in ways that I would have never expected.
Yesterday I went to my first Veteran’s Day parade and I must admit I was nervous about attending. For many reasons I was fearful about what my emotional response would be. I experienced a spectrum of emotions including, as previously mentioned, fear, stoic tension, anger, laughter, and relief. I will not go into details, but I am glad that I went. Next year I may even try to cajole my family along since after all they are a veteran family.
What struck me is the overwhelming majority of Vietnam Veterans in the parade. I am pumped up that some many of them are stepping up to keep the tradition alive considering what they went through upon their return and in the years afterwards. What I believe is somewhat of a lost generation of men in this country is and has found its way back into society. It saddens me that essentially some of the best years of their lives were wasted thanks to Hollywood figures such as Jane Fonda and the leftist antiwar movement demonizing the everyday soldier. However, thanks to their sacrifice I and others of my generation did not experience that. I was heartened to see one banner that essentially said though the Vietnam Veterans are the lost generation we will never leave behind another generations. They truly are living up to that and I thank them for that. Happy Veterans Day to all the veterans and their families and thanks to all for their service.