A changing world.

When I was growing up, I remember watching more than my share of war movies.  I consumed everything with American soldiers that I could find.  They fought Nazis.  They fought the Japanese.  The fought other Americans.  But the enemy they seemed to face the most was “Charlie.”  I was fascinated by films set in the Vietnam War.  This was the 1980’s and these films were full of all the action, coarse language and gore that excite the imagination of an elementary school boy.  The stutter of the machineguns and the sound of burning napalm was a part of the soundtrack of my youth.  It must also be admitted that Creedance Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” has always sounded best when accompanied by the chatter of a Huey helicopter.

Television was no less a source for material influenced by Vietnam.  The A-Team wouldn’t have traveled the country, righting wrongs and causing general mayhem without their Vietnam experiences.  Magnum P.I. wouldn’t have been able to solve every problem of the Hawaiian Islands without his skills earned from being a Navy SeAL during the war, either.  The ‘80’s were a true product of the Vietnam war.

Unfortunately, not all portrayals of Vietnam veterans have been so positive and comical.  As I grew up a bit I began to see how the public, at least Hollywood, saw the war veteran.  Every other week, whichever cop show seemed to have the Vietnam vet portrayed as a rapist, sniper and always as an alcoholic or drug abuser.  This lead me to ask some questions of the only person I knew with any experience with Vietnam.

Uncle Earl was an Army medic during the late 1960’s.  He completed at least one tour during the war.  He very rarely talked about it.  In fact, it wasn’t until 2003 that he really told me about some of his experiences.  He always skirted around talking about the violence, choosing instead to tell stories about the terrible monsoon rains or how great it was when helicopters would bring in hot chow.  Then the dam broke.  He told me about things he saw and his buddies who were hurt or killed.   He gave me the general sense of how horrible it was.  The things he told me about what it was like to come home were, to me, the worst of it.  He was one of those who heard people chanting “Baby killer!” and had people spit at him.  He also told me other stories of young men returning from the war having dog feces thrown at them, though nothing like that ever happened to him.  I could tell, after all he had been through, that this was devastating. 

After the decidedly warm welcome home the troops from the Second World War were given, this was a slap in the face.  Every veteran deserves better treatment than this.  The result of this change in attitude towards the Vietnam veterans was an increasing disregard for their post service benefits.  Were once the GI Bill had paid for a very good education, including schools of the Ivy League, the rising cost of education was far outstripping the benefits paid out.  In 1975, the tuition for Temple University in Philadelphia was $1500, or over half of the GI Bill benefits paid out to a veteran in that year.  This would continue to rise throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s.  Whereas the WWII veteran would have their books and tuition fully paid for and a stipend of $75 per month.  Various plans to correct this problem were proposed throughout the late 1970’s, but no real meaningful progress was made until The Montgomery GI Bill in 1985.

Also of note during this time was the utter failure of the VA Hospital system.  During the late 1960’s and 1970’s, the VA’s budget was dramatically reduced, despite the fact that more and more badly wounded veterans were returning from Vietnam.  Conditions in VA Hospitals, especially in areas with high populations, were appalling.  An excellent pop culture example of this was the 1989 film Born on the Fourth of July.  This movie depicts a paraplegic Tom Cruise living and recovering in a New York VA Hospital.  This is the true story of Ron Kovic, a Marine Veteran, who lived these experiences in the Bronx VA Hospital.  These facilities were later investigated by Congress, leading to the restoration or closure of the worst of them.

I sympathize with the Vietnam veterans.  Many were drafted and sent to a war they did not want to fight.  They returned home to a country that seemed to hate them, and we abandoned to the general public with no support and a rapidly degrading program of benefits.  America is still trying to make up for these shortsighted failures and will be doing so for years to come.

Leepson, M. (1977). Vietnam veterans: continuing readjustment. In Editorial research reports 1977 (Vol. II). Washington: CQ Press. Retrieved November 11, 2010, from CQ Press Electronic Library, CQ Researcher Online.

Image of Vietnam Reflections by Lee Teter retrieved on November 19, 2010 from:  http://www.qsl.net/n/n6tx//veteran/