The relatively “puny” 13 and 20 kiloton weapons that had so devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were awesome enough.  Combined, they instantly killed upwards of 175,000 people.  But they would be quickly dwarfed by ever more powerful warheads of unimaginable power – weapons whose individual equivalent explosive yield would be rated in tens of millions of tons of TNT!  Furthermore, building upon the rocket research, which had been conducted during World War II by captured Nazi scientists, ballistic missile systems would soon be developed that could deliver these horrible weapons to any point on the globe at the push of a button.  With such delivery systems, the layer of safety, which previously had been provided by human bomber pilots and the hours required by conventional aircraft to reach their targets, was completely eliminated.  The civilized world found itself sitting on a ticking time-bomb – one which could go off at the slightest jar.

I still have memories from my formative years – memories of the air raid drills that we went through on a regular basis in school, during the Fifties. The bell would ring, signaling an air attack, presumably by the Soviet Union. We would all immediately leave our classroom desks and pour into the inner corridors of the school building.  There we would squat or sit with our backs to the walls and duck and cover our heads with our coats or our hands, until the all clear signal was given.  Civil Defense (CD) teams were organized in every community.  They were made up of people trained and frequently drilled to respond and give aid to the victims of a nuclear disaster.  Neighborhood air raid sirens were regularly tested, and I recall they often filled the otherwise peaceful summertime air with their wailing, a sobering and frightening reminder to us all of our vulnerability. 

From the late Fifties through the early Seventies, many families were building bomb shelters in their homes – lead lined rooms below ground with air filtration systems to protect from nuclear fallout.  They were packed with stockpiles of water and food to survive for weeks or months below ground if need be.  Does that sound incredible?  People were spending tens of thousands of dollars on these shelters.  A whole new cottage industry sprang up in bomb shelter construction.  Discussions went on among neighbors, debating whether those fortunate enough to have the shelters would open the door for their less fortunate neighbors when the deadly radiation stalked the landscape. 

Who would survive to carry on?  Who would be wiped out?  Mindful of the horrendous carnage wrought on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by two relatively small nuclear fission weapons, what would be the effect on our world by the simultaneous release of thousands of multi-Megaton rated warheads?  Could mankind survive it?  If so, what kind of a life would the survivors face?  And who would be the more fortunate - the survivors, heirs to a poisoned, mutant, desolate Earth, or those who were mercifully killed in the initial blast?  Why all this fearful discussion, drilling and preparation for doomsday?  It was because the threat of nuclear destruction by the Communists, led by the Soviet Union, was a very, very real thing to us.  And these doomsday scenarios were well within the realm of possibility.  For a good portion of the mid Twentieth Century, they were even likely.

The memory of that threat evokes some visceral reactions in many Americans, who grew up in that part of the cold war era.  With the inexorable advance of technology, the world had become a much smaller place than it had been in previous generations, and we were much more vulnerable to attack from without than any previous generation.  In those times, we lived under constant threat of sudden and total annihilation by nuclear holocaust!  There existed enough nuclear warheads to destroy the civilized world many times over. 

When the attack came, it would be en-masse.  And once the missiles were launched, they could not be recalled.  We would have only twenty or thirty minutes warning, at best – just enough time to launch our own missiles, take cover and perhaps say a short prayer.   The one thing that prevented either side from launching was the assurance that they too would be destroyed in the nuclear Armageddon.  It was known as the policy of "mutually assured destruction", or appropriately enough, “MAD”.  But it was a delicate balance, one that we could not afford to allow to become tilted in our enemy’s favor - an enemy who after all, had sworn to bury us!

Stirring the pot ~ The Ante is upped....

With these chilling words still echoing in the nation’s consciousness, Kennedy took immediate action, instituting a naval blockade by American warships, and required that any ship entering or leaving Cuban waters be boarded and searched by US Naval personnel.   Ships that failed to comply would be fired upon and sunk!  He further demanded that the Soviets pull back the missiles they already had in place and disassemble the launch facilities.  Their compliance, or lack thereof, would be ascertained by U-2 spy planes orbiting high above Cuba, the same planes that had provided us the evidence of what the Soviets were doing there 

It was a huge gamble for the highest of stakes.  Even as Kennedy spoke to the nation, more Soviet ships were en route to Cuba with additional missiles and materials to finish the launch facilities and bring them to full operational status.  We simply could not allow that to happen!  But would a vessel of the Soviet Navy really allow itself to be boarded and searched by a hostile foreign force?  If the Soviets “called our bluff” and attempted to crash the blockade, a shot across the bow would be the next step in the process of escalation.  If that was not sufficient, we would have to carry through with our threat to sink the Soviet vessel!  They would of course be forced to fire back in self defense.  But if a shooting war erupted in the Caribbean, how much further behind could the ICBM’s be? 

Of course, the Soviets were carefully contemplating the possible scenarios and evaluating their options too.  Would their interests be best served by launching an immediate, massive pre-emptive nuclear strike?  Rather than going through the process of escalation, would they simply skip to the end game and let the chips fall where they may?  It is now known there were those inside the Soviet military who were eagerly pushing Khrushchev to do exactly that!  And there were those within our own political and military leadership who were urging Kennedy to take radical action, actions which, if played out to their logical end, almost surely would have led to a full blown nuclear war.

Amid much "saber rattling" on both sides, tensions rapidly escalated over the next several days, as the entire world held its breath, waiting to see how the Soviets would respond.  Many thought they would indeed initiate all out nuclear strikes, which of course, would bring retaliation in kind by the US.  In the midst of the crisis I distinctly remember going home from school on a Friday afternoon, seriously wondering if I would have a school to return to on Monday.  It's difficult to describe the feeling of complete helplessness I felt in knowing my own fate and the fate of my loved ones was entirely out of our hands, completely beyond our control.  There was nothing we as individuals could do but wait and hope and pray the Soviets would back down. 

In known targeted cities, a kind of controlled panic ensued.  Many residents clogged the highways, as they made their exodus to what they hoped would be the relative safety of homes of friends and family in the rural countryside.  All across America, grocery store shelves were cleared of their merchandise, as people hoarded and stockpiled food, doing their best to prepare for a fate too horrible to imagine.  Masses thronged to the nation’s churches to pray.  I recall seeing news footage of the frightened people standing outside churches and synagogues.  Lines stretched down the block and out of sight, as individuals and entire families waited for hours to get inside to light a candle and say a last desperate prayer for their own and for humanity. 

Tensions were further escalated with the downing of one of our U-2 spy planes over Cuba.  Conventional wisdom said this surely must lead to drastic response by the US!  But Kennedy would not be pushed to rash action by the shoot down.  He would not be the one to “pull the trigger” on the Third World War.  Acting with judicious restraint, he held firm, keeping the pressure on the Russians to capitulate, maintaining the strict naval blockade.  We had reached a virtual “Mexican standoff.”  Eyeball to eyeball, with their fingers on "the button", it was a stare down between Kennedy and Khrushchev. And the whole time, the world waited in fear, teetering on the brink of all out nuclear war

Eventually, Khrushchev blinked.  He wisely decided to call back the ships en route and pull the missiles out of Cuba, thereby avoiding a nuclear war that would likely have meant the end of the civilized world, as we know it.  Both he and Kennedy knew it was the only possible sane decision for him.  But it was a decision that left the hard liners in the Soviet military seething with rage and smarting with humiliation!  And it was that humiliation, which they suffered before the eyes of the world that would make them even more dangerous in years to come, more determined to oppose us at every turn.  And to the detriment of their own people and their own national economy, it would further strengthen their determination to lend massive aid and support to America’s enemies around the world, including the North Vietnamese Communist, Ho Chi Minh. 

In the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the Cold War had escalated by a giant leap.  It gave much greater emphasis to our “life or death” need to stay ahead in the arms race.  It gave impetus to the development and stockpiling of even more powerful weapons of mass destruction by both sides.  But at least an immediate shooting war had been averted.  The significance of what had just taken place had not been lost on me.  Those fateful few days in 1962 were as close as the world had ever come to total apocalyptic destruction!  It was a crucial point in the history of the US and the world.  But the immediate situation was resolved in America's favor, only because of strong, bold, judicious leadership on the part of Kennedy, and more importantly, because of the selfless sacrifice and dedication of the brave men of our nation’s military.

It was they who gave weight to Kennedy’s demands on the Communists.  They, who were willing to give the ultimate measure of devotion to our country, if necessary, were the “big stick” our political leaders could wield to protect our national interests.  Military strength and strong leadership were the things best understood and most respected by the Communists!  For the hard reality of life was, it took far more than brotherly love and "flower power" for our nation to survive in the dangerous world of the Cold War era.  To unilaterally lay down our weapons as the “peacenicks” would have us do would ultimately result in the demise of our culture.  To think otherwise is simply naive. Weakness and indecisiveness in responding to the Communist threat would be swiftly rewarded by domination and tyranny!

So at the height of the Cold War, International Communism led by the Soviets, and secondarily by Red China, had become America’s greatest nemesis.   America’s future and the futures of other freedom loving peoples depended upon our stopping the growth of World Communism!  This was the real motivation behind US opposition to the Communists in Southeast Asia.  The war in Vietnam, however badly handled, was not a plot to “enrich the industrial-military complex” as the political Left would like to have us believe.  Our official national policy would be to oppose Communism, wherever and whenever it reared its ugly head.  For at that time, it was the only credible threat in the entire world to America’s national security and long term survival!  The Vietnam War, at least insofar as America’s involvement was concerned, was just a hot spot in the Cold War.  It was really nothing more complicated than that 

The “Peace Movement” of the Counter-Culture ~ The Roots of Defeat

The seeds of dissent and civil disobedience were borne in the fruit of the new social liberalism of the Sixties.  And America's increasing involvement in Vietnam was to provide a fertile bed in which those seeds would germinate and flourish.  Anti-war sentiment provided a focal point for the movement, and it seemed to lend it a legitimacy which a social revolution alone might otherwise not have had.  If it were not for the Vietnam War, the whole thing might have withered on the vine.  But if the war had been in Europe or in some other small Asian or African country, instead of in Vietnam, the reaction to it would have been the same.  For I contend that to most of the draft dodgers, NO war would have been worth fighting. 

In spite of the nuclear threat from the USSR, they, like I, had grown up in a time of relative peace and unparalleled prosperity.   They had been pampered and sheltered.  Unlike nearly every previous generation in our nation's history, they had never really had to sacrifice much of anything.  Why should they put themselves at risk now?  It was far easier to hide their heads in the sand and pretend the Communist threat didn't exist. 

In fact, the popular phrase on the lips of many of my generation became, "Better Red than dead!"  In their minds, was there nothing worth fighting for?  Those who had the audacity to say such a thing might just rethink that position, if it ever really came to pass!  In 1850 John Stewart Mill wrote, "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest thing;  the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth a war is worse.   A man who has nothing which he cares more about than his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of living free, unless made and kept so by better men than himself." 

Today, many former draft dodgers, most notable among them being one William Jefferson Clinton, a man who, in an ironic twist of history, and having openly declared his utter loathing of the military, would eventually rise to claim the office of Commander in Chief of all our armed forces, now attempt to wrap themselves in self righteousness.  With a tone of great moral conviction, they offer the excuse, "I loved my country, but I hated the war!"..... as if those of us who did serve loved the war, as if WE were the weak ones for not refusing to serve!!  "I loved my country, but I hated the war."  What does that really mean?  For far too many this translates to, "I love the freedom, security, and standard of living afforded by being an American, but don’t ask me to risk anything to secure those things for others or for future generations!"  I don’t know of a single person who wanted to go, but there is something bigger in this life than just our own little existence.  Much to our nation's detriment, that philosophy was rejected by much of the pampered, spoiled Baby Boom generation....

Decades later, looking out over this jubilant, flag-waving crowd, I find myself wondering, "How many gathered here today in celebration of our independence refused to serve in that war?  How many burned our flag in protest?  How many spat upon and dishonored those of us who did serve?  Do they feel any shame, guilt, or remorse now for the actions they took back then?"  Had I been one of them, I think I would.....I know I would!   Under the draft quota system of the day, for every single one who refused, someone else had to go, perhaps die, in their place.  But I’d guess most of them have found a hundred ways to rationalize their actions.  And perhaps the fact that someone else may have died in their stead is proof enough to them that they made the right decision.

Whereas my parents' generation had been united in their war against the Nazis and the Japanese, mine was a fractured, polarized generation.  Much of the Baby Boom generation spent its time trying to avoid being drafted.  And indeed, the media coverage of their protests would lead one to believe that the majority of us were trying to avoid serving in a war to which they, the media, were largely opposed.  But fact is, fully two thirds of those who served in Vietnam were volunteers, only one third draftees.  That statistic is the exact opposite of World War II, when two thirds were drafted.

So what was the attitudinal difference between those who served and those who refused?  I’m sure that many who went did so because they felt powerless to do anything else.  But the bottom line is, they did serve when called.  Others, like myself, felt compelled to, as so many other brave Americans had in generations past, even as our own fathers and theirs before them had done.  In his article, "Heroes of the Vietnam Generation", former Secretary of the Navy, James Webb writes, "Few who served during Vietnam ever complained of a generation gap. The men who fought World War II were their heroes and role models. They honored their father's service by emulating it, and largely agreed with their father's wisdom in attempting to stop Communism's reach in Southeast Asia."  For me and many others, his assessment is an accurate one.

During World War II, my father had been stationed in England as a machine gunner on a B-24 bomber, an aircraft destined to live up to its glorious name, "Liberator."  When I was a child, Dad used to tell me of his experiences flying the bombing missions over Germany.  He spoke of anti-aircraft artillery flack so thick it seemed you could get out and walk on it.  He spoke of coming back and counting the hundreds of holes in the leading wing edges and the fuselage from flying through it.  And he spoke of those planes and crews that did not come back with them, of friends lost forever. 

(C) Robert Wheatley, 2002

To gain the acceptance of our own generation, we’d have to renounce our service, join the protesters and go over to the other side.  A small minority of us did.  I can understand it, and I won’t criticize them for it.  I figure they'd earned that right by having served.  Some, I guess, had become disillusioned with our reasons for being there and the way the war was being fought.  I can empathize with their disillusionment.  I don't know, but perhaps some, once back home, were just seeking to be accepted.  I too knew how that felt.  But renouncing my service was something that I steadfastly refused to do.  To this day, I'm convinced that most of us were there for the "right reasons".

By 1968, the Peace Movement was in full swing.  The new generation, drunk on its new-found power, and emboldened by the support it seemed to have from much of the media, continually pushed the envelope.  They exercised their power in varying forms of civil disobedience, some legal and some not so legal.  Since my enlistment in late 1964, as the US had become more deeply involved in Vietnam, the protest had waxed ever more strident.  The early demonstrations that had amounted to small groups gathering to sing protest songs and hold candlelight vigils had become large belligerent crowds, numbering in the thousands - hundreds of thousands in some cases.  And many of the purportedly peaceful demonstrations turned violent, resulting in riots or near-riots.  Crowd control had become increasingly difficult, and it was often necessary to call out the National Guard to maintain order and keep the peace.  At first starting in just a few places, most notably the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, generally acknowledged as the birthplace of the "Hippie" movement, the upheaval had metastasized and spread like a malignant cancer across the face of nation.

Are these the faces of "peace and love", or are they the faces of defiance and hatred?  I know what I see.  What irony and hypocrisy, what truth, is captured in this photo with the flashing of the "peace sign" and in the very same frame, a scowl and a clenched fist raised high!  Some will say the clenched fist is simply symbolic of their solidarity.  I say it is symbolic of their willingness to use violence, in spite of any professed creed of "peace and love!"  The scope of the violence and unrest in America's streets was unprecedented in the nation's history, and I'm incredulous to recall they had the gall to call 1968 the "Summer of Love."   That was quite a misnomer, considering it was a time that brought so much hatred for others who didn't see things their way. 

There seemed to be no room at all any more for patriotism, duty and honor in this, the age of "peace and love", the age of the "flower child", the age of free sex and mind altering drugs.   Anyone who clung to the outdated values of "the establishment" was an outcast.  For the truth of it was, our choice to adhere to the old value system pointed a mute finger of accusation at them. "Serve yourself!  If it feels good, do it!" they shouted.  "Tune in, turn on, and drop out!" were the orders of the day issued by the self appointed leaders of the movement, the so-called "intellectuals" of the nation’s college campuses. These were the words of Doctor Timothy Leary, admonishing students to tune in to the movement, turn on to drugs, and drop out of society.  It was a prescription for disaster for this nation, a prescription whose effects are still being felt today in many ways!   For the so-called "movement" of the Sixties produced a very fundamental change in societal attitudes.  In the minds of far too many today, there seems to be no absolute right or wrong.  All moral issues are shades of gray, and almost anything can be justified, one way or another.  This is the legacy of the social revolution of the Sixties and Seventies.

Back then, I realized, or at least hoped, the Hippie movement was not main stream.  Theirs was not the attitude of the majority of Americans.  The problem was, the majority remained silent, while the leftist, flag burning "peace-nicks" grabbed the headlines...... My, how times had changed!  It's true that in World War II, there had also been some who resisted the draft and refused to be inducted into military service.  But back then, that was not generally something one would openly admit.  For those who did were looked down upon by society as self-serving cowards!  But during the Vietnam War, society failed to condemn it.  Not only was it not condemned, the predominantly liberal media romanticized and glorified the protest and unrest, serving only to fan the flames.

The media’s role in the  vilification of a generation of warriors…

Indeed, the media played a very big role in shaping the way Americans thought about the war and its veterans.  The "power of the press" is truly an awesome thing.   In general, most of the coverage of the war was extremely negative.   Granted, the real nature of war is itself, a negative thing.  It is neither pleasant nor romantic.   But I can’t help but compare the coverage of the Vietnam War to the media coverage in previous wars.  It was in stark contrast to World War II, when every news article and movie short was designed to elicit feelings of pride in our country and its military and to unite the nation in a common cause against a common enemy.  On the other hand, the Vietnam War threatened to destroy this nation!   It was perhaps the greatest threat to our unity since the Civil War.  The leftward slanted media coverage of it only exacerbated the problems.

The ultimate insult was, the protesters and draft dodgers were often portrayed as somehow courageous in their dissent!  Far from being looked upon as cowards, they were seen as martyrs for the cause!   A typical news clip of the time portrayed the evil, oppressive police officers, armed with riot gear, advancing on and clubbing and gassing and dragging away the "poor, harmless, unarmed, peaceful demonstrators."  At the same time, those of us who served were often, at best, portrayed as "dupes" of our government - just misguided, unsuspecting, poor and middle class boys with no will of our own, who had been sent off to fight a "rich man's war."  In this scenario we were but dumb, obedient lambs being led to the slaughter! 

Ironically enough, at the other end of the spectrum, we were often vilified as calculating, marauding, cold-hearted murderers of women and children!   If and when we returned home, beware!  Forced to become psychotic killers by our rigid military training, we might at any time, flash back, go berserk and, "Rambo-style", take out anyone who got in our way!  The truth is, Vietnam veterans were no more likely to be violent and commit criminal acts than anyone else. Yet these were the stereotypes unfairly foisted upon us by the political left, reinforced by a willing media, and perpetuated by a gullible, ignorant public. The following quote from an unknown Vietnam helicopter crew member sums it all up rather succinctly: "Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life.  It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR."

So, despised and reviled by the radicals on the left and feared and mistrusted by the most gullible in our society, it seemed we were largely forgotten by mainstream America.  Most were just going about the business of making a living.  For that far-off war in Southeast Asia wasn’t really any threat to them.  It was barely a minor distraction, unless they had friends or family there.  I guess that was one major difference between the Vietnam War and the World Wars.  What was going on over there just wasn’t perceived as a direct threat to America.  America's Korean War veterans had tasted some of that public apathy, and accordingly, the Korean War had been aptly dubbed the "Forgotten War."  Unfortunately, in the Vietnam War, mere public apathy had degenerated into outright hatred for the military by a large segment of the population.  But I dare say, support from the majority would have been better, had their own comfortable life-styles been threatened, as it had in World War II.  The outrageous views espoused by the radical left would have been overwhelmed, drowned out by the majority voice.

But the reception we got (or didn’t get) on our return wasn’t really a total surprise to me.  For, as I hinted above, the goings on back home had not gone unreported to us over there either.  It seemed almost daily, we were faced with images or reports of flag burning, draft card burning, campus takeovers and other anti-war protests.  On the other hand, reports of support for the troops were virtually non-existent, never mind support for the war effort!  It was dispiriting to see what was going on at home, and it made what was already a difficult time only more so.  To this day, I can’t help but be bitter about it.  Today, those who weren’t on the receiving end of it might say, "Get a life!  Just get over it!"  I even say that to myself.  In fact, I do have a life, but getting over it is much more easily said than done.  "Getting over it" is something I may never completely accomplish.

Now the former flag burners, I'm sure, remember things in a different light.  They attempt to excuse themselves, saying, "We were only trying to end the war and bring our troops home", the implication being they were thinking only of the troops who were risking their lives for their country.  My, how altruistic they were!  For what purpose would they bring us home?... to spit upon and humiliate us?  I’ll grant that some who were protesting the war were sincere, though in my view misguided.  Perhaps even the majority of them had managed to convince themselves they were doing what they were doing, "just because it was right".  But as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."  And as for most of the draft dodgers, far from having any altruistic concern for the troops already there, the real motivation behind their protest was nothing more complicated than a desire to preserve their own skin!  Their slogan, "Better Red than dead!" was a very revealing one to me.  That little four word phrase spoke volumes, and I believe it went to the heart of where their real motives lay!  

To a few on the far left, the motivation behind the protest was much more sinister than that of simple self-preservation, for they hoped bring about the ultimate ascendancy of Communism over Democracy.  In 1972, Hollywood liberal activist, Jane Fonda, went so far as to visit the enemy in Hanoi to entertain their troops and express support for their cause, while castigating the US for its involvement in Southeast Asia.  Before the TV cameras of the world, she vilified our POW's, calling them murderers and war criminals. And in response to the reports of the absolutely inhumane treatment they had to endure in the POW camps, she called them liars.  She delivered copies of their personnel files to their captors, revealing information on the units to which they were assigned, information which they had been trained to resist giving the enemy, even when tortured or under threat of execution!  The willing delivery of such information to a hostile foreign power fits the definition of espionage!

In a declared war, her acts would have been deemed treason, at the very least coming under the heading of giving aid and comfort to the enemy!   And in our nation's past that had always been deemed a heinous crime, one for which one could pay with his life!  Yes, the war in Vietnam was an undeclared war, and she and her defenders will try to hide behind that technicality.  But just ask anyone who was there whether it qualified as a war or not.  The US soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen who gave their lives in it are just as dead!  And some may be dead today as a direct result of information provided by an American traitor.

What Vietnam vet could possibly forget the infamous photo of "Hanoi Jane" ensconced upon AAA gun battery in Hanoi, smiling and mugging for the camera?  There she sits, as upon a throne, reveling in the "adoration" of her Communist comrades, who were eagerly recording for future use, every vile word that spilled from a traitor's lips.  What a fool they must have thought her to be!  They surely couldn't believe their sheer dumb luck!  Like a trained dog jumping through hoops for her Communist hosts, she did everything short of shooting one of our planes out of the sky herself!  In fact, that's exactly what she pretended to be doing for the cameras.  What a propaganda weapon for our enemies!  What a "bag-over-the-head" punch in the face for us!  Did she realize then, she was only helping stiffen the enemy’s resolve to kill even more Americans?  Of course she did!  She was encouraging them to do so!  She herself, claimed to want to kill them, slavishly exclaiming for the cameras, "I wish I had one of those blue-eyed devils in my sights now!"

While young Americans were dying in the jungles of the South and in the skies over Hanoi, while they were being tortured to death in the Hanoi Hilton, she was cozying up to the very ones who were killing them!  If she was so much in favor of the Communist way, why did she not stay there and live the life of a Communist peasant?  Why did she not embrace and live the life that she was advocating for them?  These are rhetorical questions only, for their answers are obvious.  Who, having tasted the freedom and the standard of living we enjoy in America, would give it up to live the life of a peasant in a Third World Communist country?  If she truly wanted to lift those people up, why not try to bring them up to the level of freedom and economic prosperity we enjoy in America, as we were trying to do for the people of South Vietnam?   Our freedom and prosperity was not brought about by Communism, but by Capitalism and by a form of government that recognizes and honors the rights of the individual citizen!   But that is an inescapable truth the Communists in America just don't want to face.

With her mission complete, she left the peasants behind and returned to her lavish, elite Hollywood life style.  And rather than being rebuked and held responsible by the nation she'd betrayed, she was welcomed back to this country and applauded by the left wing radicals for her "courage" in opposing the war.  Were she and her supporters simply misguided?  What kind of convoluted logic could she, an American citizen, have been using to justify her reprehensible statements and her criminal actions?  She cannot hide behind the ignorance of youth, the contrived excuse proffered by some of her defenders today.  She was 34 years of age when she made this trip - certainly old enough to know better!  What she did went far beyond exercising the right to free speech - the same free speech right every American GI was sworn to uphold and defend.  Her actions amount to nothing less than treason! 

But this is simply another illustration of how our world had been turned upside down in the Sixties, the decade of "enlightenment."  What was right became wrong, and what had been wrong became "right."  Thankfully, not everyone had lost their minds.  Thank God for Bob Hope and his entourage. His Christmas shows meant a hell of a lot to us over there!  There was nothing political in his visits, for they were simply an expression of appreciation and support for those who were serving their country, his country, OUR country.   It showed us someone cared enough to visit us, instead of the enemy!   Today, that man is a saint in the minds of millions of ex GI’s, a true patriot - a man of integrity and honor and inner goodness!  If only there had been more like him in our time.

The wisdom of retrospect.....

Looking back on it all today, many will say we should never have become involved in that conflict.  Had we known in advance how it would go and what the eventual outcome would be, we probably would not have gotten involved.  At least, we certainly would have handled it differently!  But we had no crystal ball.  And the fact is, we did become involved!  (I'm still convinced it was the right thing to do!)  But whether all were in agreement or not, once ground combat troops had been committed, we should have united as a people and made an all-out effort to get the job done as quickly as possible and get out. 

But the politicians chose to take an incremental, “politically safer” approach.   Month after month, we took on more and more of an active role in defending South Vietnam, sending ever more troops.  Meanwhile, the reasons for, and the necessity of the war was never fully explained to the American people, except in vague terms.  To make matters worse, America's growing involvement there was by executive order of the President, not because of any declaration of war by congress.  In 1964, the same year I graduated high school, congress had somewhat abdicated its responsibility as the sole body with the power to declare war.  In passing the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, they basically wrote the President a blank check to do whatever he deemed necessary. 

In August that year reports had been received that North Vietnamese PT boats had attacked our fleet in the international waters of the Tonkin Gulf, off the coast of Vietnam.  Johnson saw it as an opportunity and the ultimate justification to escalate our involvement in the war. He immediately requested a congressional declaration of war.  But the congress at the time was hesitant to take such a politically risky step.  If they voted “NO” and American troops were killed due to their inaction, there would be a huge political price to pay.  On the other hand, they knew to that point, public sentiment for war had been “lukewarm” at best.  Much of the American public could see no benefit from sending our sons and daughters to defend a Third World country that no one had ever heard of before.  If congress voted “YES” to war, and there were a public backlash against it, there would also be a political price to pay. 

So, rather than stepping up to their Constitutional responsibility and simply voting a declaration of war up or down, they put the responsibility back on the President.  The Tonkin Gulf Resolution essentially stated the President was empowered to do “what he deemed necessary” to protect the safety of American troops in Vietnam.  Congress would review his actions, after the fact. Congress would be absolved of any direct responsibility for what happened.  They would be in a position to distance themselves from the consequences, and to criticize the Administration’s actions if it was politically advantageous to do so.  Furthermore, knowing he was vulnerable to such criticism, Johnson would be forced to step very carefully in his prosecution of the war.  What a convenient, tidy little political package!  But that tidy little package would have tremendous negative consequences for Johnson, for the troops, for the South Vietnamese people and for America itself.

As a result of all this political maneuvering, America perceived the conflict in Southeast Asia as "Johnson's war", not as America's war.  And as America's role in the war was expanding, public opposition to it grew correspondingly.  It was mainly because of that dissent at home though, our hands were effectively tied when it came to fighting the war we had been sent to fight.  It was a self-perpetuating quagmire.  For it became a battle of wills between the Administration and the American people.  The troops that had been sent to fight the war were the forgotten third party in all of it.  Yet we were the ones who paid the greatest price for America's inner division.  We paid for it in the currency of blood!  Contrary to what they’d have us believe, the protesters, at least through the early and middle years of the war, in trying to shorten and bring an end to it, insured the exact opposite result.  Witness the fact that Vietnam was to become America’s longest war, with major US involvement spanning four presidencies!

A House Divided...

Jesus said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."   You can be assured Ho Chi Minh well knew the truth of that.   He saw our inner division as America’s fatal weakness, and he correctly took it as a sign we would ultimately cave in, if they would only persevere.  America’s obvious lack of commitment to the war was strong encouragement for the enemy and only served to dampen the morale of our own troops.  The North Vietnamese would be the first to attest to the significant effect which our lack of unanimity of purpose had on the ultimate outcome of the war.

During the war, Colonel Bui Tin was a general staff officer and senior journalist for the North Vietnamese Army newspaper. He was mentored by North Vietnam’s highest ranking General, Vo Nguyen Giap, and his father was a personal friend of Ho Chi Minh.  As a journalist reporting on the final Communist offensive against the South, he rode the first tank column into Saigon’s Presidential palace in April, 1975 to receive their surrender and exult in the Communist victory.  He is a man who can speak with authority from the North Vietnamese viewpoint.  In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Bui Tin states...

“Support for the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and would struggle along with us .... those people represented the conscience of America .... part of it's war- making capability, and we [were] turning that power in our favor. 

In their propaganda, the Communists described America as an "Old Paper Tiger."  Judging by the war’s final outcome, they were apparently right.  But North Vietnam’s ultimate takeover of the South was not the military victory most of the world perceived it to be.  It was purely a political victory, one handed to them on a silver platter by a divided America 

"Then was America's involvement in Vietnam all just a big mistake?....."

Today, many continue to ask the question.  "Why should we have been there at all?"  Aside from the fact that we were obligated by congress' signing of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), the answer depends upon one's perception of the real motivation behind America's presence there.  The first was to preserve America's future from the growing threat of World Communism, and secondly, just as noble a motive - to help other nations, other people, resist its onslaught.  "Well", one might ask, "what's so bad about Communism, if that's what they wanted?"  In truth, only a small minority of the Vietnamese people were in favor of Communism.  For in spite of what the Jane Fondas of the world might say, the reality is, Communism is a brutal, oppressive form of government that allows no individual freedom, no dissent in any form - certainly nothing so outrageous as flag burning! 

As Bui Tin would later come to realize, the glowing promise of Communist ideology was a lie.  He would personally witness the brutality of which I speak being carried out against the people of the South, the very people whom the North had called their brothers and had claimed to wish to “liberate.”  As historically has always been the case, the bitter reality of Communist rule would be far different from its idealistic promise...

"I became disillusioned almost immediately with Hanoi's leadership.  There they were, with their lofty talk of national reconciliation and clemency, while at the same time sending South Vietnamese army and government officials to so-called re-education camps -- in effect, sentencing hundreds of thousands to years of forced labour and brainwashing."

He was to become further disillusioned by the corruption within the new regime, in fact, the very same kind of corruption which the North and their sympathizers had pointed to in the South Vietnamese government, and had used as justification for any action, any tactic taken in their “war of liberation.”  Hoards of ‘undesirables,” so called “boat people,” were ultimately allowed to leave the country illegally in overloaded, leaky boats, but only if they could pay the price in gold or US dollars.  Bui Tin’s lament...

"They were demanding payment in gold bars or wads of US dollars to send desperate people on highly risky journeys, in many cases to their deaths"

It is estimated that fully 50% of the innocents who embarked on these journeys perished along the way; women and children, men young and old, people just seeking to be free…  So much for brotherhood, liberation and the promised utopian collective society.  The sad results of the Communist victory are dismayingly clear to Bui Tin today.  From the safety of France, where he has been granted political asylum, he can now openly speak his mind...

"We have wasted 25 years. Vietnam is dirt poor, in fact has become poorer while Thailand and its other neighbours were developing fast. A very poor country it is, and a country without freedom"

We who served did so for many reasons.  But ultimately, we all were there attempting to save the South Vietnamese people from such a fate.  And in so doing, we were reaffirming the sacred principles upon which our own nation was founded, while securing America’s position of leadership of the free world.  Unfortunately, from the early stages of the war, much of the American public, at least those vocal enough to express their opinions, didn't see it as our obligation to intervene in what was happening over there.  "Why not allow them to settle their own problems, without US interference?"  But today I must ask of them, the former protesters, "Where is your strident, vocal, peace marching, flag burning protest now, when America sends troops to help in Somalia and Bosnia?   How is that so very different from our attempt to aid the Vietnamese people?   Could it be that the real difference is that the draft, for all intents and purposes is now dead?"   Back then, far too many of those of draft age saw the conflict in Southeast Asia only as a threat to their own pursuit of the "good life".  We who had the strength and courage to serve in the face of the hatred, ridicule and rejection of so many of our countrymen, can and should be proud that we were there.

To those who would characterize our involvement in Southeast Asia as "just a big mistake", I would simply reply, "The big mistake was in America's prosecution of the war and in the American public's reaction to it.  Ask the people of Thailand, who today still live and prosper under their traditional form of government, free from the oppressive, strangling hand of Communism, whether America should have been there.  Ask the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who, after the American pullout, endured years of virtual slavery at the hands of the Communists in the name of 're-education', whether America should have been there.  Ask the Hmong tribesmen and other indigenous peoples of Laos who, facing the aggression of the North Vietnamese and the Communist Pathet Lao, were forced to flee their beloved ancestral homes or die defending them, whether America should have been there.  And ask the nearly two million innocents who, after America abandoned Southeast Asia, were slaughtered wholesale by the Pol Pot regime in the Killing Fields of Cambodia, while America looked the other way, whether we should have been there. 

In a bloody genocide, second only to that wrought by Hitler and his henchmen, fully one third of the Cambodian population was brutally murdered by the Communists!  And why were they slain?  They were eliminated for no other reason than they were educated people who stood in the way of a Communist takeover.  They were murdered because they were doctors or nurses or politicians or journalists or scientists or educators and not dumb, submissive ignorant peasants, who would be powerless to resist a brutal Communist despot!  If you could ask these people today whether America should have been there to intervene on their behalf, and if they could speak from their graves, what do you suppose their answers would be? 

Why should the Holocaust that took place in Southeast Asia have been of no major concern to us?  Was saving those people not as righteous and just a cause as saving the people of Europe had been in World War II?  Was it not as just a cause as saving the people of Bosnia and Kosovo in our present day world? If this is our moral obligation now, why did we not bear the same obligation to the people of Southeast Asia back then?  Could it be that what happened back then was of no major concern, because it was not happening to white European people?"  These are questions requiring some very deep soul searching on the part of the American people.  The people of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand were people just like you and like me, with human faces and human feelings.   They had human hopes and fears and dreams, just as we do!  In the time I spent with them, I grew to love those people. America's abandonment of them will forever be our shame, and it will tarnish America's image in the annals of history

But why such bitterness and acrimony after all these years?  Can’t you just get over it!

I can tell you with absolute certainty, no one involved in any war, will ever “get over it.”  You simply live with it.  But for the veterans of the Vietnam War the memories are particularly bitter.  Aside from the issue of whether we should have been there or not, it is my firm belief, and the belief of many others, that the social-political upheaval at home, combined with a lack of real leadership in Washington, presented the biggest obstacle to our winning a decisive victory in that war.  The outcome would have been very different, and the end of the war would have come much more quickly, with far fewer lives lost, had we enjoyed the benefit of a "no holds barred" approach.  In fact, there are many in a position to know who will state, that war could have been won decisively in any three month period. 

There is no disputing the fact that the US was far superior in terms of air and naval power, weapons technology, training, and logistical support.  We had virtually everything in our favor.... except the support of the American people.  Yes, I could engage in "what if's" and "if only's" all day long.  My point is, we should have either committed 100% to the war or never gotten involved at all.  But because of the civil unrest at home, the politicians tried to wage a limited war, one of so-called "measured response", and it just dragged on and on.   The terrible result was thousands more precious American lives and millions of Vietnamese lives were needlessly lost

Jane Fonda and the other radical anti-war activists, the politicians of the time, the media, and the vast, silent majority all own a large share of the blame for American losses in Vietnam, blame which many of them have never accepted and probably never will.  But it's precisely because of them, year after bloody year, young American "cannon fodder" continued to offer up their lives in Southeast Asia to no good end.   I characterize them as "cannon fodder", only because we were never allowed to do what was necessary to win the war.  And why was it so?  Our political leaders, ever mindful of the protesters, played political games and walked their political tightropes.  The politicians and protesters, locked in their own intricate political dance, left us, the troops, to play the role of "odd man out".  Each attempting to protect their own interests, they placed those of us who were already there in even more jeopardy.  We were, it seemed, but expendable pawns in some outrageous socio-political chess game!

Though they would like to claim so, the media was far from innocent in the fiasco that was Vietnam.  They were complicit by virtue of their slanted reporting.  Watching from their "ringside seats", supposedly unbiased observers, they claimed to be "only reporting the facts."  Yet there is no doubt in my mind, the tone of the reporting, and those things not reported, did have a definite negative influence on the conduct and the ultimate outcome of the war.  Admittedly, some things rightly deserved criticism.  But with an air of lofty self-righteousness, most in the media seemed to be critical of absolutely everything about the war and those who were fighting it.  And in their vehement criticism, far from simply recording history in the making, knowingly or unknowingly, they became players themselves in the making of that history, either to advance their careers, or perhaps to advance their own pet political agenda.  So much for journalistic objectivity. 

Today, there are a few who, looking back and reevaluating the position they took in that war, realize the error of their ways and are willing to admit it.  In 1994, much to his credit, British journalist, William Shawcross, wrote: "[T]hose of us who opposed the American war in Indochina should be extremely humble in the face of the appalling aftermath: a form of genocide in Cambodia and horrific tyranny in both Vietnam and Laos. Looking back on my own coverage for The [London] Sunday Times of the South Vietnamese war effort of 1970-75, I think I concentrated too easily on the corruption and incompetence of the South Vietnamese and their American allies, was too ignorant of the inhuman Hanoi regime, and far too willing to believe that a victory by the Communists would provide a better future. But after the Communist victory came the refugees to Thailand and the floods of boat people desperately seeking to escape the Cambodian killing fields and the Vietnamese gulags. Their eloquent testimony should have put paid to all illusions.

And in the midst of the firestorm of public protest and the media criticism, there was but deafening silence from the majority of the American public.  Would no one back home stand up and speak out for us??  Perhaps some of the anti-war protesters truly felt they were acting as our advocates.  But if we could have spoken for ourselves we would have said, "The time for protest has passed!   We are already here by the hundreds of thousands - Like it or not, we are already committed to this war!.... Moreover, a limited war is a fool's war!  When you go to war, you don't play half-hearted games.  You go all-out!   You do whatever it takes to win it quickly and minimize loss of life!   Please, America! - Just get behind us, or at least get out of our way, and let us do what needs be done to finish it!"

But we had no voice of our own.  For as the saying goes, "...theirs was not to reason why; theirs was but to do or die."  And die we did, by the tens of thousands - young lives uselessly squandered in what was destined to become a wasted effort. Worst of all, it need not have ended that way!  Most of us were just boys really, fresh from high school.  Many became men overnight.  And far too many of us prematurely took that final rest "’neath the green, green grass of home."  Yes, in that respect, we were no different from any of the other young men who had been sent to defend the nation’s interests in previous wars.  But in other ways, this was a war radically different from any other in the nation's history.  For it seemed we had been sent over and abandoned, left hung out to dry and to die, while the rest of the nation bickered amongst themselves like a group of spoiled children, arguing over what game they would play!  And as the body count inexorably mounted, a steady stream of flag-draped military coffins returned home to a divided nation, swelling the population of the nation's cemeteries, and in so doing, further fueling the fires of civil disorder.  In light of all this, need one ask, "Why the bitterness?"