Heartbreak in HiDef

[mickeym]

I'm watching the 'Vietnam in HD' special on History Channel, and it's breaking my heart right now. They've got two guys who served over there talking about when they came home, and people's reactions/responses to them. The one guy was saying how he came home in his uniform, with his medals on his chest, and he was proud of himself, full of patriotism... and people were staring at him, whispering, moving away from him. He was in a bus terminal (or airport), and the seats were full... except for the one to his left and the one to his right, and how people would rather stand or sit on the floor than sit beside him. The other guy was telling how protesters surrounded the car he was getting into, banging their signs on the hood and roof, and hitting the windows, shouting and calling him names.

40 years later, and these guys still get choked up trying to talk about it.

Matthew and I talked about some of this last night. He didn't know that our soldiers returning from Vietnam were...attacked, yelled at, called names, spit on, had garbage thrown at them. He was pretty shocked.

Comments

[embroiderama]

Gah, it's really sad. I think that a lot of people who acted that way back then feel like shit about it now, but that doesn't help those guys.

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

There is proof that we -- as a country, as people, as human beings -- can learn, though. Because that was the last time that returning veterans were treated that way. Regardless of public opinion regarding any conflict/war we've been in since then, we support our troops.

[spn-j2fan.livejournal.com]

Oh that isn't true! I wish it was. Please look at what anti-war protestors are doing at funerals. If you see someone waving a poster saying "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" at a loved one's funeral, you might not believe this. I hope I am adding the link correctly.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/05/eveningnews/main6930443.shtml

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but those are the people who are saying that our soldiers are dying in combat because we allow/condone gay rights, and so on. I don't consider that the same as the general public disrespecting soldiers returning from combat.

It's still awful, though, and I wish lots of horrible things to happen to every one of those people who picket soldiers' funerals.

[spn-j2fan.livejournal.com]

That was just one reference. It is so horrible that I couldn't help but mention it.

I do believe you are right though, all in all, there is much less hate toward the individual soldier now than there was during the Vietnam Era. Maybe we have grown up a little bit.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

(here because when I get bored I do the freinds of friends list)

I don't mean to be an intruder, but the reason you never heard about this before . . .

is because it's not true.

Yes, I am impugning the veracity of those soldiers' tales. Yes, I am implying that they are lying or they have soaked up false memories (it is so easy to do) from being told by liars that this happened to them.

(I was there: also, I look back at actual records from the time from time to time)

It happened a couple times, maybe: there's always a jerk somewhere. But the actual position of the anti-war movement was "Support Our Boys: Bring Them Home." And the actual relationship between vets and the majority of Americans -- who were vastly against the war by 1967 0r 1968 -- was different from that. Soldiers were looked on as victims, possibly as victims of brainwashing, definitely as victims of circumstance. Remember that there was a draft and very few soldiers were in the army by choice, and we knew it.

Even the boys who had enlisted we knew had enlisted because they believed what they were told about their role in bringing democracy and defending democracy.

Soldiers faced awkwardness. We weren't sure which tack to take with them, or whether they were one of the ones we read about at My Lai and other places (google it), so we'd tend to stand around in awkward silence when we first met. Some of the boys came back pretty damaged, too, and no generation knows how to handle shell shock. They also found out, like present-day soldiers are finding out, that once they get back here, wounded, stressed, having lost so much in the service of their country, the country as a whole has not much use for them. Their skills are not transgferable, and there's no jobs anyway. Services for vets look spiffy until you actually try to get them.

The History Channel is a notoriously bad source of information about actual history. This is a bit of retroactive swift-boating, and I imagine they'll get away with it unchallenged even though it is a vicious, politically-motivaterd lie about the American people.

[iontas.livejournal.com]

I was around then too and it happened more than just from time to time. I remember my Dad taking special pains to help out returning soldiers not only because it was the right thing to do, but because of the disrespect they often received. Remember the baby killer taunts? I think it is odd that you imply that they are lying, how do you know they weren't treated that way. You even say it happened time to time, so why couldn't it be them? It seems to me that is just as bad as spitting on them was then.

And unfortunately it will happen again. Vets rioted after WW1 and so we learned and the Vets from WW2 got great post war benefits, then Vietnam we screwed up, and now we are treating current Vets better. But 12% unemployment for returning Vets may mean we are forgetting again. We are not the smartest when it comes to learning from our past. Just my opinion.

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

Okay, first off, it was my son -- who is 16 -- who hadn't heard that before. Not me.

I realize that there were a lot of circumstances where people weren't sure what to think -- and I have heard of My Lai. Were there soldiers who deserved to be ill-treated, based on their actions? absolutely. Most just did what their superiors told them to do; but some, as is always the case, took it however many steps further and enjoyed doing it.

My mother worked for the Dept. of Veterans Affairs for 36 years. Some of her closest friends, or their spouses, were Vietnam vets. I've heard stories first-hand from them of themselves, or friends of theirs who were treated badly upon their return. Name-calling and trash-talking for the most part, but even stony, awkward silences can be pretty unnerving when you've just spent a year or more in the jungles, being shot at.

My ex-husband is a veteran of Desert Shield/Desert Storm. I've been through the trying-to-get-services thing. It took us a long time, a lot of patience, and a lot of dealing with the VA to get him a disability rating, and to get services going for him -- and he was a lucky one who did have skills he could transfer into a job outside of the military.

Anyway. While the mistreatment of returning soldiers may have been exaggerated, they still weren't treated well coming back -- certainly not like the returning War Heroes of WWII, etc.

[rainbow.livejournal.com]

and many of them who did what they were told to do wouldn't be old enough now to buy a drink legally.

i've heard a lot of first hand stories as well. *fierce hugs*

[brandywine28.livejournal.com]

Sorry to change the subject but how long would you say it took you to come to an arrangement with the VA? I'm trying to get my mother widow's benefits and it is not going well.

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

Hey, no worries about changing subjects :)

I think it was probably 3-4 years before we got everything straightened out with them. :/ Unfortunately the VA is super slow, and now they're likely to be even slower, from the flood of vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

I'm not 100% -- and I left a message for my mom to call me back, so I can double-check with her -- but if you're not working with a service officer, they can probably help you out a lot.

I'm going to take this to PM now, because I have some questions for you that you probably don't want to answer in public post :)

[fufaraw]

You may have "been there", but factually you couldn't be *everywhere*, and scorn, derision, verbal abuse, group verbal abuse and even group physical intimidation absolutely did happen. I was "there", too. My husband and friends experienced those things. It's highly ingenuous of you to assume your experience is that of everyone in that generation.

Granted, public opinion did begin to change to "Bring them Home," but a lot of shameful behavior happened before it did, and it took years of unpleasantness before that attitude prevailed. And there were catcalls of "babykiller!" and other pleasantries even after it did.

[missyjack.livejournal.com]

I hope you also showed him pictures of children with napalm burning their skin off.

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

We talked about napalm, and its effects on people. I found a few pictures, but unfortunately he's the generation who's grown up watching news reports of the Iraqi/Afghanistan conflicts and playing video games where people are blown up, torn apart, and so on -- so the "OMG effect" that we all had to pictures like that, is kind of washed out on him.

But I have emphasized to him that we weren't always the "good guy", that US soldiers did some really awful things (we talked about My Lai) -- but that's always been the case and probably always will be: there will be some who are psychopaths and sadists, like the ones from Abu Ghraib or the guy being brought up on charges now of having murdered some Afghanis, and cut off their fingers as war trophies.

I honestly always try to give my son as broad a view as possible on something -- so he can see that things are never as black and white as media, etc., sometimes want us to believe.

[missyjack.livejournal.com]

The atrocities in South East Asia were not committed by a few isolated psychopaths and sadists it was done by Western troops under the direction of our governments. I've seen first hand how people in Cambodia are still being killed and maimed by the US carpet bombing done 40 years ago.

Teaching him that "our troops always deserve support" teaches him that anything done by your government is right.

[elizah-jane.livejournal.com]

My understanding of the "support our troops" sentiment is that individual soldiers shouldn't be punished for the directives of their government. Men and women who serve don't serve under one president/administration. You can absolutely support the troops without condoning what's being done by the government.

[missyjack.livejournal.com]

That sounds awfully like the "they were just following orders"excuse. And it's hard to comment further on that without entering Goodwin territory.

I would maintain individuals are still responsible for their own actions.

[elizah-jane.livejournal.com]

And saying that "support the troops" = "the government is always right" sounds awfully black at white.

I didn't say individuals weren't responsible for their own actions, but I don't think members of the military are inherently evil either.

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

I never said anywhere that I was teaching him that "our troops always deserve support". If I somehow implied that, I apologize. And he hears from me frequently that the government is not always (seldom, in fact) right.

No, the atrocities in South East Asia weren't committed solely by a few isolated psychopaths or sadists. But it was done under the direction of the government. A lot of those kids over there were just following the orders they were given -- and while yeah, they are responsible for their own actions as individuals, a soldier doesn't get to say no. Not without risking court-martial.

I guess...I'm trying to say that I believe in supporting our troops, in general. Not blindly, but I do support them.

[spn-j2fan.livejournal.com]

Wow! There are very few of the nearly 3 million Americans deployed in Vietnam who had extensive knowledge about Napalm at the time. They had little or no control of its deployment. Would you truly hold that over the head of a returning 19-year-old combat veteran?

I'm not denying that the use of Napalm was an atrocity, or that other such atrocities have been committed by our country. I am certain that there are few countries on this earth that have not been guilty of committing crimes against humanity at some point. I wish that wasn't true, but it doesn't take away from the fact that these young men and women returned from war to a country that frequently shunned them and misunderstood or denied their complex problems.

[spn-j2fan.livejournal.com]

This was, and still is, such a huge--damn, I don't even have the right words to label it--scourge on America. What we allowed to happen to these proud men and women who did their best to take care of us...I just don't have words to say it properly. It still hurts.

Ho Chi Minh said that if North Vietnam could give him seven years, he could defeat America. He said we would defeat ourselves in that time. And he was right.

And honestly, in some ways it is still happening. What about the protestors at soldiers' funerals? Really? Who on this earth has the nerve to wave a sign saying "Thank God For Dead Soldiers" in front of a grieving widow and her three small children?

Can you say soapbox? :)

[brandywine28.livejournal.com]

When my dad came back from Vietnam he was treated pretty badly. Not to the extent that he was ever spat on, but from what I understand it was more than just a few unkind words. He's dead now so I can't ask him to clarify.

I would never suggest that the atrocities committed by our own army (during various wars) be overlooked, but it breaks my heart that these boys, who were pawns in the grand scheme of things, were treated so harshly by their own friends and neighbors. My dad was nineteen years old at the time, much younger than I am now, and when I think about what a gentle, mild guy he was it makes my blood boil. My mother is convinced that his shame and embarrassment contributed to his later drinking problems though I'm not sure I agree. I was recently contacted by a bunch of his old war buddies - they promised him they'd check up on me - and his best friend told me that neighbors had congregated outside his mother's house at night for months shouting that he was a baby killer, etc. He was also pushed to the ground and kicked while passing through midtown Manhattan, of all places.

I'm not sure if this is still on topic, but I read the other day that suicide rates for returning soldiers are skyrocketing.

[kamadu.livejournal.com]

It's sad that I'm actually glad my dad was injured and flown right to walter reed for months of recovery after he was badly injured in VietNam. He never really experienced the hate upon his return. His town was pretty supportive overall. I can't imagine how much worse he would be if it hadn't been.