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Army.ca Dinosaur
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Another View of Vietnam Veterans
From time to time during the American war in Iraq which began in 2003, aging Vietnam veterans wearing baseball caps and khaki jackets emblazoned with pins, patches, and the names of their units gathered at the small commercial airport in Bangor, Maine. A few older vets of more noble wars were sometimes among them, frail men from the Second World War and Korea, as they assembled in the passenger lounge to greet returning troops when their planes touched down for refuelling. Bangor would be the arrivals’ first contact with American soil since they left for the zone of combat.
At the gate, the Vietnam vets usually formed two lines—as an avenue of welcome, of course, not a gauntlet. They were giving something that many of them felt they had not received decades earlier. Eventually, the strapping young men and women, looking vibrant in fatigues of desert colors, filed in, with heads high and backs straight, as the rows of bent and paunchy veterans applauded, shook hands, and patted backs. The lounge quieted down as other passengers realized what was going on and joined in a wave of appreciation. “Thank you for your service,” they said.
I saw this many times, while dropping off and picking up relatives in Bangor, and the faces of the returning warriors always seemed too flat, too expressionless for the occasion. You might have expected some observable relief, at least, and grins as well. Perhaps flying home made the transition from seeing and doing the unthinkable too short compared with the journey back by ship from the Second World War and Korea, with too “little decompression time,” as the historian James E. Wright, who is finishing a book about those who served in Vietnam during the late nineteen-sixties, puts it.
“There were no waiting crowds or bands at the airport for the Vietnam guys,” Wright told me recently. “Most of them had been warned to expect a hostile reception.” The animosity was probably less widespread than had been predicted, or than is now remembered, but “there was no ‘Welcome home,’ ” he said, “and in some cases there were protests and even outright hostility. So the veterans hurried home, often changing out of their uniform at the airport.”
Some needed to melt into invisibility, hide whatever trauma they carried, and bury their experiences in silence. Others, however, proudly joined veterans’ groups, spoke and wrote of the war, and took sides in support or opposition—most notably the young naval officer John Kerry.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/another-view-of-vietnam-veterans
From time to time during the American war in Iraq which began in 2003, aging Vietnam veterans wearing baseball caps and khaki jackets emblazoned with pins, patches, and the names of their units gathered at the small commercial airport in Bangor, Maine. A few older vets of more noble wars were sometimes among them, frail men from the Second World War and Korea, as they assembled in the passenger lounge to greet returning troops when their planes touched down for refuelling. Bangor would be the arrivals’ first contact with American soil since they left for the zone of combat.
At the gate, the Vietnam vets usually formed two lines—as an avenue of welcome, of course, not a gauntlet. They were giving something that many of them felt they had not received decades earlier. Eventually, the strapping young men and women, looking vibrant in fatigues of desert colors, filed in, with heads high and backs straight, as the rows of bent and paunchy veterans applauded, shook hands, and patted backs. The lounge quieted down as other passengers realized what was going on and joined in a wave of appreciation. “Thank you for your service,” they said.
I saw this many times, while dropping off and picking up relatives in Bangor, and the faces of the returning warriors always seemed too flat, too expressionless for the occasion. You might have expected some observable relief, at least, and grins as well. Perhaps flying home made the transition from seeing and doing the unthinkable too short compared with the journey back by ship from the Second World War and Korea, with too “little decompression time,” as the historian James E. Wright, who is finishing a book about those who served in Vietnam during the late nineteen-sixties, puts it.
“There were no waiting crowds or bands at the airport for the Vietnam guys,” Wright told me recently. “Most of them had been warned to expect a hostile reception.” The animosity was probably less widespread than had been predicted, or than is now remembered, but “there was no ‘Welcome home,’ ” he said, “and in some cases there were protests and even outright hostility. So the veterans hurried home, often changing out of their uniform at the airport.”
Some needed to melt into invisibility, hide whatever trauma they carried, and bury their experiences in silence. Others, however, proudly joined veterans’ groups, spoke and wrote of the war, and took sides in support or opposition—most notably the young naval officer John Kerry.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/another-view-of-vietnam-veterans
