Viet Nam Vets...
07/23/2010
I have spent the past two nights in Louisville, KY attending an educators’ conference. As you probably could guess without my acknowledging it, both nights found my rear parts firmly planted on a bar stool. The Galt House has a huge bar over the street on the bridge that connects its two buildings.
My first night as I slowly sipped at my beer I noticed a small group of guys and their wives sitting the other end of the bar. The guys’ clothing was nothing special but is was adorned with all things military, as was the very military looking caps they had on. As they laughed and talked it was pretty easy to gather this was a Viet Nam vet’s reunion going on.
My first impression of this group was not wholesome; I thought of them as a bunch of blue-collar types who just couldn’t get beyond the past. I couldn’t understand how a group of guys dwelled on what was and not what is or could be? Truth is now very clear to me. Much like the recent revelations of Shirley Sherrod (the NAACP speaker) and her transformation from racist to humanist, my epiphany regarding these guys was realized rather quickly last night when I engaged them at the bar.
I, too, was in the military during the Viet Nam (1963-67). Though I didn’t make it to Viet Nam, many of the guys I served with did, and some did not make it home. These guys made it home, but as I listened to their stories I found many of them left a lot of themselves there. I was on the verge of tears as one guy’s wife described how he was when he returned home. Her husband wouldn’t discuss the war with her. Often he got home from work and immediately began to drink, at times consuming an entire case of beer – 24 of them, until he passed out. He had nightmares and night sweats. He began to confront this when he hooked up with the buddies who had formed a group they called the “F Troop.”
He didn’t tell me the entire story, but one part involved him as a “minesweeper” walking out in front of a convoy detecting mines buried by the Viet Cong. One day he missed one and a jeep following him hit it and was blown to pieces killing the three GI’s in it – his buddies, all guys he knew. That is a hell of a lot of pain for a twenty-year old to bear, and a lot of guilt to hold on to for all those years.
My mother used to preach to me “Judge not, lest you be judged.” My cynicism got the best of me, but just for a little while until some guy from upstate Wisconsin handed me my comeuppance.
And that is all I have to say about that…