“For the family whose son is just coming back, you aren’t going to have a public welcoming home ceremony when someone’s son just down the road was just sent off to Vietnam.”Īs the war ground on and became increasingly hopeless, the military personnel put through this kind of revolving door of service came to represent something many Americans would rather not accept: defeat. “The collective emotion of the country was divided,” says Jerry Lembke, a Vietnam veteran, sociologist and author of The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam.
For a decade, as one person was shipped off to fight, another was returning. Unlike conflicts with massive demobilizations, men came back from Vietnam by themselves rather than with their units or companies. The Vietnam War lasted from 1964-1973-the longest war in American history until it was overtaken by the one in Afghanistan-and servicemen typically did one-year tours of duty.
This was partly due to the logistics of the never-ending conflict. As a cohort, Vietnam veterans were met with none of the fanfare and received none of the benefits bestowed upon World War II’s “greatest generation.” No 'Welcome Home' parades for Vietnam vets. Some, like Wowwk, say they had invectives hurled their way others, like naval officer Ford Cole, remember being spit on. And for the men who served in Vietnam and survived unspeakable horrors, coming home offered its own kind of trauma. The Vietnam War claimed the lives of more than 58,000 American service members and wounded more than 150,000.
A group of amputee Vietnam veterans talk together at a hospital in San Francisco, California, 1967.
0 kommentar(er)
