“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
This quote was part of the inaugural address of John F. Kennedy in 1961. I am sure that he never realized the gravity of these words and the effect that they would have on the generation of Americans that where growing up during this period of history. Larry Burke, a Vietnam veteran, reflected on the impact that these words has on his life. He recalls, “Those kinds of things just where so meaningful, I think, to people in my generation. When we went to Vietnam and this is the ironic thing about it. I think one of the things that a lot of people don’t understand is that when we went to Vietnam I was willing to go. This was my thing for my country” (Burke, 19).
He and countless other young men volunteered for the Army in the early 1960’s. These men where proud of their country and of its ideals. Like their fathers before them they where ready and willing to defend the United States and the world from evil. This time the evil that was threatening the world was the Communist regime in Northern Vietnam. Mr. Burke remembers thinking, “We’re the ones that are going to go save the world from Communism. We’re willing to make that commitment and proud to do it (Burke, 19).
Burke who was interviewed in 2001 about his experiences in during the Vietnam War relates that there was a very positive feeling in the United States in the early 1960’s before the Vietnam War. He recalls, “I can remember the intense patriotism in the country at that particular time. Total determination to win that war. Everybody was united by it. Even as a child you could just sense that it was just a kind of glorious, maybe not glorious. Maybe glorious is not the right word, but a satisfying feeling of everybody just with the same determination going in the same direction. As a child, even as a child, I could sense that and feel it. It’s something that has stuck with me. I don’t want war to unite us like that again obviously, but it was great for the country to be that unified” (Burke, 3).
The theme that united the country during this period in history was a determination to rid the world of communism. Jed Proujansky another veteran comments on the policy of the United States. He says, “In the 60's there was a growing trend towards Communism and it was feared that if Vietnam went Communist, so would much of S.E.Asia. (The Domino Theory). So we decided to make a stand and try and prevent that trend from happening.” (Proujansky)
The government was determined to promote the war. Burke relates, “they were issuing bumper stickers, “Win in Vietnam” Trying to mobilize public opinion behind the war.” The public response was mixed. There were those that supported the quest to save the world from communism and there were those that were bitterly opposed to going to war from the start.
One group of people that went to war willingly was the soldiers. They viewed themselves as heroes. As one veteran commented, “We’re the good guys. We’re the ones who are going to go save the world from Communism. We’re willing to make that commitment and proud to do it” (Burke, 19).
As another citizen put it, “So many young men served their country during this was, without even really knowing why. Those who did not ask to go ther but did so without protest, answering the call of their government. They Truly risked their life daily for a year or more, hardly giving it a thought; most did what they were supposed to do, and went on to the nest day!” (Betrayed).
One soldier, Donald Fredrick, was wounded early in the war and recalls giving a speech in support of the war at a local high school while on leave. He said, “At that time (Dec. 1966) I did not here of or see any anti-war activities. He also recalls heeding the call to do something for his country that Kennedy so effectively delivered. He speaks for many veterans when he says, “I was there and did my best and would have done the same giving what had led up to the Vietnam War as a teenager.
Any doubt that the United States forced these first troops to fight is dispelled by his pointed recollection. He says, “We did not tazke a lot of prodding, so don’t kid yourselves. We went because we wanted to. Yes we were ignorant of the history of Vietnam, had we had any knowledge of the Vietnameese we would have know a coundty wo fought or was occupied by the Chinese for 12 hunders years were not going to be vanquished by Uncle Sam’s boys in a short war which is the only kind America will fight in…” (Frederick)
A Long War
By the late 1960’s and early 1970’s the outlook of both the American public and its troops in Vietnam was beginning to change. As one veteran said of the troops, “they believed and they went. They didn’t know any better But they learned otherwise rather quickly. The men who sent them there knew better along” (Rosenberg).
The jungles of Vietnam were brutal. Without going into the gory details it is possible to gain a picture of the situation from the mouth of returning veterans. These testimonies along with the picture of those long dead paint a grim and awesome picture of war.
One veteran Arthur Varanelli relates, “I cannot forget my feelings about how we actually fought the war on the eye to eye combat level. That’s where the action was. You have to realize that the mission of any soldier is to win, and to win by any means” (Varanelli). This testimony speaks volumes about the way that American troops gave their all and many their lives for the cause.
This cause that was embraced by the first combat troops was beginning to wane however. One veteran remembers, “…you could see the support for the war starting to slip. You could get trainees who would do anything to get out of going. They’d come up with the damndest stories like, “I’ve got a bad back.” You know all this kind of stuff to keep from going” (Burke 94).
Another veteran recalls his experience in Vietnam. He says, “there was no sense of winning. No territory was ever gained. The front line was the first strand of concertina wire around your fire support base or the perimeter of your LZ or NP. You were mortared and rocketed from any direction. An assault by sappers could happen at any time. We all knew that the “pacification” campaign was a real joke. Some retarded general decided we should give the local people jobs inside the wire. We really had the “enemy “all around us.” (Varanelli).
“We really felt that we were not supposed to win, with all the conditions and restrictions placed on the conduct of combat” (Varanelli). Another veteran recalls the same sense of restriction in a sobering account of a massacre of U.S. troops on May of 1970. In his opinion the U.S. government was using their own troops as part of a publicity campaign. He relates, “…the highly unusual order was given for everyone to turn-in every weapon into the armory. Rumors were going around that we were going to get “hit.” THAT NIGHT, at 11:35pm, we were! … you can’t imagine the scramble when Charlie hit. They came under the wire, got in, burned some BRAND NEW helicopters which had just “happened” to have been brought in earlier that day, killed at random, and left” (Betrayed). This is crazy. How did things like this happen? In his opinion, which was shared by many at this point in the government was betraying its own troops. He states, “We were ALL set up, Someone in Washington needed casualties in Vietnam that day, and were to be those casualties.”
Arthur Varanelli informs us, “Most of us realized soon after we arrived in country that this was not war that could be won.” The sheer number of the foe that they faces and the unconventional fighting practices also deflated the courage and fighting spirit of the troops. Mr. Varanelli continues, “Stories of children throwing hand grenades into busses, jeeps and trucks, were true. I recall a hand grenade tied to a mess hall tray at the 8/6th ARTY which blew up at lunch, and blew away a lot of guys. The hand grenade did not get there by itself… I feared the legendary Dong Nai Ladies Mortar Platoon, as did most everyone else. All this stuff did not inspire confidence about our mission. Who was the enemy?”
The recollection of veteran Andrew Alday is very close to the truth. He relates, “what I did was serve my country in the noblest of ways, fighting a war that it did not intend or knew how to win!” (Alday). The men in the trenches of Vietnam were heroes. They did what their country asked them to do.
It is the opinion of some veterans like Arthur Varanelli that the governmental and military leadership was the cause of the U.S. losing the war. He states, “the Military leadership was a real contributing factor to the chaos… I was firmly convinced that the Vietnam Was was just a career boost to many. The mistakes these people made were crazy” (Varanelli). He concludes, “How can anyone win with such chaotic conditions. They called it a war?”
After the War
Vietnam was taxing on the mind, will, emotions, and physical wellbeing of American troops. What they experienced there could never prepare them for the reception that awaited them on their return home however. The patriotism that was so strong in the early years of the war had long since disappeared. Some Veterans have never recovered from the horrible way that they were treated.
Larry Burke one veteran relates, “I think if a lot of Vietnam Veteran’s have trouble adjusting and have problems underneath because ther’s still that seething resentment of the fact that here I was going to do something heroic and these other people made me out to be the bad guy. They were the ones that didn’t have the guts to go and do their job.” Mr. Burke reflects the feelings of many returning veterans. They went to Vietnam at the call of their country and never received the heroes welcome that all U.S. troops that serve in combat deserve.
This is also the opinion of another veteran Arthur Varanelli who states, “I think if ther’s bitterness among Vietnam War Veterans it’s not toward the Vietcong and the NVA some just as it is toward the people back home who turned their heroic image of themselves into something else” (Varanelli).
Many vets received harsh treatment by anti-war protestors that were taking out their frustrations out on the veterans. This was often the result of miscommunications between the front lines and the news media. The Vietnam War was the first war to be seen on television and the images that people viewed on the news were often skewed which turned public opinion away from the cause of the troops.
One veteran John Ratliff believes that part of the problem was a failure by the government to support the troops on the home front. He tells us, “I think the Nixon administration did much for the GIs in the field but was extremely negligent in explaining their actions at home; at times they lied to the American public about the actions occurring in Vietnam, and this really turned the public off concerning their feelings about returning GIs” (Ratliff).
In response to a questionnaire by a student earlier this year one veteran Richard Coogan from Philadelphia shed some light on what power the newsmen had in Vietnam. He stated, “I also became more aware of the power the press had, specifically Walter Cronkite who reported that the North Vietnamese 1968 Tet offensive was a catastrophe for the USA. Tet 1968 was a catastrophic defeat for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese. There were (40,000 wounded and 80,000 killed)but America did not know this at the time and as a result of this demonstrators nad bogus information to further fuel their rhetoric (protest speeches) (Coogan).
How many other news broadcasts and newspaper reports from the war were bogus? This is a question that will probably never be answered. It does however shed some light on the reasons for the vehement protests that occurred in such fury on returning veterans.
The anti-war movement had been growing for a few years already. This was something that not all veterans where exposed to. The story of one veteran Donald Frederick is proof of this. He comments, “Having been out of the country and not keeping up on the news and shutting out news of the war I had not been exposed to the Anti- War Movement” (Frederick).
Understanding that the reactions of some of the protestors and anti-war demonstrators were ignorant of the truth there was still much injustice committed at the end of the war on returning veterans that was uncalled for. The veterans that experienced combat in Vietnam were changed for life emotionally and physically. The experiences that they received at the hand of the anti-war crowd are something that still affects many veterans today. For example one veterans recalls “There was an organized attempt to demonstrate these feelings against GI’s at airports and terminals…” (Ratliff). Their bitterness and hate ran deep and in most cases was well justified.
One veteran named John Mendenhall recalls his shocking experience. He relates, “I wasn't a protestor. I remember, though, getting off a plane at Seattle, drunk in a dress uniform they'd given me that morning at Nha Trang, and being splattered by hot melted plastic from a baby doll being burned with a Bernz-O-Matic hand torch by a girl with braces and a screaming face red as a baby's in tantrum. She shook the burning doll at me. I have the little round scars still. This was because, I assume, the girl wanted to teach me a lesson about burning babies that would make me think twice before I burned any more. I am completely to my core contemptuous of that girl, whoever she grew up to be, as well as her compatriots, whoever they grew up to be…” (Mendenhall).