On Having Survived the Vietnam War
to alter history, to portray America’s involvement in Vietnam as just and necessary, and we who fought it as heroic and noble, as I look back upon that experience, the war remains a source of profound moral pain, remorse, guilt, and shame, not something to be celebrated or commemorated. As a veteran of that war, I feel a responsibility to contribute a perspective I fear will be ignored at the official commemoration web site. I am certain that there are as many perspectives as there are individuals who served, observed, protested against and supported that very divisive war. Consequently, I offer no guarantee that my observations, interpretations and conclusions about the war or being a veteran are definitive, or better than those of someone with a profoundly different recollection and analysis. What I offer in this essay, then, is my personal narrative and a perspective on the Vietnam War by a former Marine Corps officer, Vietnam veteran and philosopher who has spent many years studying the theory of war, diverse historical accounts of the Vietnam war and, perhaps more to the point, contemplating a life profoundly impacted by the experience.
If you truly want to recognize the legacy of the Vietnam Veteran, you must forsake the mythology, remember the war for what it truly was, aggression, barbarism, and a tragic mistake. You must understand the plight of those who served as both the exploited victim and brutal victimizer and appreciate the trauma of being forced to leave the safety of one’s family and then of being subjected to the horrors of the battlefield and killing to survive. In what follows, I hope to provide you a means not only to understand but to feel in verse what I hope you will never have to experience in life.
On Being a Vietnam Veteran
You were conscripted against your will or convinced by lies and deceit that the threat to all you held sacred was real, and grave, and imminent.
You believed that patriots must rally, sacrifice their life’s plans and dreams, enlist in the military or submit to the draft, to fight, and if necessary to die, in defense of freedom and the country you loved.
. . . before the final domino falls.
You were conditioned to forget all you had learned and held sacred, programmed a warrior, sent to a far-off land you never heard of, to destroy and to kill in senseless battles, your life and well-being threatened, your spirit a casualty, and many of your friends needlessly slaughtered.
. . . a war of “attrition,” concerned only with body count, theirs versus yours determining the victor.
You experienced horrors that eroded your moral character causing you to behave in ways that to this day weighs heavily upon your soul; the guilt, shame and regret you suffer pervades and overwhelms your being.
. . . longing for a peace that only death can provide.
And upon your return, the government that perpetuated the lies and sent you to war, disavowed responsibility and culpability for their crimes against the other and their own leaving you stranded in the jungle of your flashbacks and nightmares.
And after having been ignored and mistreated for a lifetime, you sought refuge in the mythology of heroism and nobility only to be exploited once more as a poster boy for recruitment to lure those too young and naïve to know better, to suffer a similar fate and to become the cannon fodder for their next fiasco.
As they celebrate and commemorate your suffering, you are expected to smile and express appreciation for their faux gratitude, their “thank you for your service,” to allow those who know nothing of sacrifice, who ignored or adamantly supported the war, or did nothing to stop it, to demonstrate their good character, patriotism, and support for members of the military and veterans.
But yet, for some, for those who have yet to see, despite all of this, your greatest complaint is that you were not allowed to win, whatever that may mean, as though winning was possible, and necessary, and right, and would have made a difference.
And so you misdirect your anger to those who saw the truth and sacrificed as well, they for peace and you for war. The final outrage, you allege, in your “victimization,” was being spat upon and called “baby killer” by some longhaired kid at the airport.
Postscript
Perhaps war is a reality that will not soon go away and sacrifices on the field of battle will again be required. But by demanding truth and recognizing war and our behavior on the battlefield as it truly was, by questioning purpose and necessity, by ensuring a clarity of vision rather than the blind compliance some wish to portray as patriotism, we will ensure that war remains a means of last resort, that no other person will again have to kill, die, or grieve the loss of their son or daughter for a cause that is misguided. We will ensure that those who dare to initiate such wars and connive to use deception and myth to encourage participation and support are held responsible for their crimes against humanity.
Let us make this our legacy.
Welcome home.
Copyright © Camillo Mac Bica • All Rights Reserved
The Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act of 2017 was signed into law by President Donald J. Trump, designating every March 29th as National Vietnam War Veterans Day, presumably to accord to veterans of that war the recognition, respect, and thanks they have been so long denied. President Trump escaped having to serve due to "debilitating" bone spurs. I wasn’t so lucky.
Despite the continued effort by those in government
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The Writings of Camillo Mac Bica, Ph.D.
