50 years ago today (more or less)
An arbitrary date. Sadly wars do not end with the announcement of a ceasefire. It’s more messy than that. But that’s the date North Vietnamese and Vietcong took over South Vietnam and President Ford officially announced the “end of the Vietnam era” for purposes of veterans benefits on May 7th 1975.
Helicopters jettisoned, those damaged pushed overboard to make room for others landing.
Shocking scenes of desperate Vietnamese scrambling on to the roof of the US Embassy in a break for life. Some of us remember those days. Those who do not can choose to watch the amazing archive footage in documentaries about this war.
The Vietnam War was the coming of age conflict that woke up America. It was the first war to be so widely televised and reported upon. The trusted voices of experienced news men like Walter Cronkite, Julian Pettifer, Frank Gillard and Richard Dimbleby spoke out and relayed the truth of what war is. The era of John Wayne and Frank Sinatra storming the beaches and winning wars single handedly was over. The anti war movement grew. Protests spread quickly. Many returning GIs were villified, called baby killers. It was a shocking coming of age.
There is no way war is ever a sanitised clear cut ‘win for the good guys and the bad guys lose’.
“My memories will centre on the damaged children we nursed in Qui Nhon; the wonderful Montagnard people of the Highlands in Kontum between 1967-1970. But land mines, napalm and M16s cause the same damage to soldiers as well as the innocents”.
As James Michener, US assault helicopter pilot wrote in his memoir – archived at Swarthmore University, Pennsylvania. “American exceptionalism being overpowered by boys whose feet wore no more than sandals made from tyre treads.”
The Vietnamese were fighting a very different war. They fought for a united Vietnam. The French followed by the Americans were fighting to ‘stop Communism spreading to the neighbouring countries of Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar; referenced as the Domino Theory. Years later the differences became clear. The Americans carpet bombed and sprayed noxious chemicals to de foliate the thick jungle terrain. The aim was to expose the legendary Ho Chi Minh Trail, down which troops, food and weapons were thought to be transported. It was not till after the war that the full realization of the scale of underground tunnels, four deep in places (Like Cu Chi), forming a large part of the ‘trail’, ensured that the hit and run guerilla tactics were more effective than the mighty power of B52s, Phantoms, Corsairs and even the heavy lift cargo planes – the C130s.
Two very different types of war were being played out
My memories will centre on the damaged children we nursed in Qui Nhon; the wonderful Montagnard people of the Highlands in Kontum between 1967-1970. But land mines, napalm and M16s cause the same damage to soldiers as well as the innocents. Seeing wounded GIs being urgently disgorged from the Huey helicopters, loaded on to gurneys then taken immediately into the Field hospitals was an every day sight. Shocking, tragic – and what for? Encouraged to volunteer for infantry duties with the promise of college scholarships. Well worth the risk I was often told, as juke boxes played Tony Bennett – leaving his heart in San Francisco. The popular anthem, “We’ve Gotta get Outta this Place” by the Animals. Handsome young men many barely out of their teens, sweat and tears mingling as they sang with gusto, drowning out the thought that they may not make it back to ‘The World’. But without the voluntary kindnesses and help offered by the military, many civilian medical and nursing teams such as ours would have been unable to function well. I remember them well and respect and salute each one of them caught up in the nightmare.
I wonder where those children are now? The Amerasians, another by product of any war. Many disowned by fathers from another land; mothers sidelined for ‘fraternising’ with the enemy.
Could be any war. That’s the point.
While the arenas of war change, as do languages, uniforms, weapons and terrain change; the damage done to people never, ever changes.
So what have we learned in 50 years?
Those once young soldiers, now grizzled veterans, some still fighting for benefits following exposure to Agent Orange, the effects of PTSD, the first troops to be vilified when they arrived home, what trauma that would have been.
But, all over America on April 30th, veterans and their families will rightly stand with pride, as they remember. I too will remember and thank them for what they did.
Lessons learned in the 50 years? I think I’ll pass on that for now. Groucho Marx said it well.