I get outraged and sad when I think of our government’s handling of the Vietnam conflict. I’m angry that our leaders violated a trust and the finest traditions of our country when they sent the younger generation to fight an unprovoked and unwinnable war. I get sad that those vets, shunned when they returned home, couldn’t get the care they needed for Agent Oraange exposure and shell shock later to be called PTSD from the government that duped them.
What kind of person starts a war and blames the other side? What kind of politician votes to send our youth into the terror of a jungle war doused with Napalm and Agent Orange replete with punji sticks? I’m reminded of the movie,”Apocalypse Now”, when Marlon Brando says, “The horror.” He must have been speaking about our leaders.
President Johnson fabricated the whole thing based upon a trumped up attack by a North Vietnam gunboat in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964. In fact, there was no attack verified by various documents released from the Freedom of Information Act. In addition, James Stockdale, a Navy pilot of the highest integrity, confirmed that no attack occurred. He flew over the area at the time and confirmed that our gunboat was not fired upon. Stockdale one year forward became a POW, later earned a Medal of Honor, and eventually was promoted to a three star admiral.
Our government assumed the attitude that if anyone disagreed with them or their policies, they were communists, un-American, and unpatriotic. It gets worse. The country propagandized its citizens so families would allow their children to be drafted and risk death. Then those servicemen were put in perilous situations and rewarded with derision when they returned home.
Many experienced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but since psychologists didn’t identify the malady until 1980, the military refused to acknowledge the problem. Legal battles were required to force the government to accept responsibility.
Sadly, the lessons of Vietnam didn’t carry over when making decisions about Afghanistan and Iraq. Are we just bloodthirsty? When will wisdom, knowledge, virtue, and concern emerge in our political and military leaders?
