[2 items]
Clear the air on myth of the debased Vietnam vet
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2010/06/03/clear_the_air_on_myth_of_the_debased_vietnam_vet/
June 3, 2010
I USUALLY enjoy Sam Allis's column, even when I don't agree with him,
but I have to take issue with his statement: "I sure don't remember
seeing ['Support Our Troops, End the War' bumper stickers] during
Vietnam'' ("Never forget,'' g, May 31). [see below]
In high school, I sported a button that said "Support Our Boys in
Vietnam: Bring Them Home.'' One of Pete Seeger's best-known songs at
the time was "(If You Love Your Uncle Sam) Bring Them Home.''
On "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,'' the hosts often stated, in
the context of a joke, that the best way to protect American soldiers
was to keep them out of Vietnam.
While attitudes toward the military are certainly more universally
positive today than they were in the 1960s, the myth that returning
troops were reviled and spat upon was just that: a myth, promoted
largely by the Rambo movies. (See "The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory,
and the Legacy of Vietnam'' by Holy Cross sociology professor and
Vietnam vet Jerry Lembcke.)
Even among us rabid antiwar protesters, the worst feelings that we
harbored toward Vietnam vets was that we felt sorry for them. They
had trusted their government enough to allow themselves to be put in
harm's way as that government pursued a geopolitical strategy that
was both fraudulent and futile.
Paul Lehrman
Medford
--------
Never forget
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2010/05/31/never_forget/
Those beautiful flags, big and small, each signify a death in combat
in service to our country
By Sam Allis
May 31, 2010
Memorial Day is the most profound holiday of the year. July Fourth
may be more significant to us as a nation, but this is the one that
brings lumps to our throats. I gaze at the waves of small American
flags in cemeteries, flapping in the breeze like Kansas wheat, and I
am overwhelmed.
The burst of flags on the Common this year to honor the 20,000 from
Massachusetts who died in combat since World War I is breathtaking.
Nothing can approach the enormity of combat death. Members of the
First Marine Division stranded on Guadalcanal in World War II knew
many would die there. They stayed and fought and fell until help
arrived. They had no choice.
Respect for the military is a sometime thing. Troops who came back
from Vietnam were purportedly treated like pariahs because, by its
end, most of the country didn't support the war. (I say
"purportedly'' because, while I'm sure it happened, I know of no one
who experienced such mistreatment.) Some people back home failed to
recognize the distinction between war policymakers and its prosecutors.
This is not the case today. We have rallied behind our troops in
harm's way in Iraq and Afghanistan, regardless of how we feel about
the wars they are fighting. Americans this time have made the
distinction between policy and prosecution. There is significant
opposition here to both wars, yet we see bumper stickers declaring
"Support Our Troops, End the War.'' I sure don't remember seeing that
during Vietnam.
No one curses servicemen and women when they come home now. Instead,
what you hear a lot is "Thanks'' to the people in uniforms we see on
the streets or in airports. It is tough for anyone in fatigues to pay
for a drink in a bar these days, for good reason.
What is behind this change? Vietnam, primarily. As movies and
literature began spilling out about the soldiers who fought there,
they became far more sympathetic figures, often portrayed as victims
of Washington decisions. Movies like "Coming Home'' and "Born on the
Fourth of July,'' books like "Dispatches'' and "The Things They
Carried'' educated us to what they went through. We learned about
post-traumatic stress and alcohol and drug addictions.
Between Vietnam and Iraq, the military was all but invisible to most
of us. There was no major conflict to raise its profile, no cosmic
specter of the draft hanging over young men's heads. It was and is a
volunteer Army. Out of sight, out of mind. But with the US invasion
of Afghanistan and then Iraq, our troops moved front and center once again.
We know these men and women better than we did our troops in Vietnam.
Despite heroic combat reportage by print and television there, we
rarely got to know the grunts. In contrast, there have been countless
American journalists embedded with units in Iraq, bent on telling
human interest stories, often from a hometown angle, as well as the
reporting vagaries of war.
Death in combat is timeless, which is why the American flags that
blanket cemeteries today never feel old. In his masterpiece, "Let the
Great World Spin,'' author Colum McCann introduces us to a small
circle of women who lost sons in Vietnam. They meet regularly to
share their grief. One is a Park Avenue matron, another a woman from
the worst part of the Bronx who lost all three of her sons. They
share nothing in common but the holes in their hearts.
This is why Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's sketchy
memory about his military service is so devastating to his integrity.
You cannot associate yourself with those who died in combat if you
were not there. You just can't. This is more than a third-rail
political issue, like Social Security. It is a moral one.
There is no irony in death, nothing shiny about dying for your
country. It's just what happens when we send our own off to war. So
I'll look at the flags on the Common today and think long and hard
about those who died. Each flag that waves so prettily above the
grass carries a horror story all its own.
--
Sam Allis can be reached at [email protected]
.
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