Veterans Day: Fifty Years Can Change Your Perspective

Today as I was thinking about what I would post on Facebook for Veterans Day, it occurred to me how much my views on military service have changed in 50 years. In 1969 I was a wide-eyed, easily-impressionable yet innocent fourteen-year-old. My favorite teacher at Cleveland Junior High School was Nancy Shinn, an ardent pacifist. She was a former Peace Corps volunteer, and she fit right in with the youth protest movement. I idolized her, and I came home and announced my intention to join the Peace Corps when I graduated from high school. My parents - equally ardent but on the opposite side of the political spectrum - were aghast. I think I was put on permanent probation after that. There was even brief talk of having me removed from her class.

In the spring of 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to St. Paul to speak against the war at the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota. I was only 12, but I heard about it. He was quite the celebrity, and the smaller sister of the Twin Cities didn't often get that kind of stardom. But even chaperoned, I doubt my parents would have let me attend the rally. They were already alarmed enough by my budding but slightly-left-of-center political opinions.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking against the Vietnam war at the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota; April 1967 (photo credit - Minnesota Historical Society)

Around Veterans Day of 1969, protests against the U.S. involvement in Vietnam were reaching epic proportions. (We did call it the Vietnam war back then; I guess later it's been downgraded to 'conflict' because apparently the U.S. Congress never declared war on Vietnam, and we lost thousands of soldiers in what was officially called a police action.) Students marched all across the country against the war, even here on local campuses. The next year, four student protesters at Kent State University in Ohio were killed by the National Guard. (Kent State went to the top of my prospective college short list.)

Scenes of that war and its carnage filled the news every night. In black and white, Walter Cronkite still managed to convey the awful graphic details. I remember listening to him talk about his trip to the war zone to see for himself what was gong on. He declared that those who believed we were close to victory were wrong. My grandfather called him a traitor. Harsh words, but I knew it affected him deeply. Cronkite and the evening news were staples in our family, and up to this point what Walter Cronkite said was right up there with Paul Harvey and the Gospel. But Cronkite's observations were embraced by almost an entire generation. Me included. The image of the naked young Vietnamese girl running in sheer agony after a napalm attack is seared in my mind. How could you justify something like that?

Thus, I found myself in the middle of an unintended controversy. My father hadn't been in the military. He was too young for World War II, and he was just graduating from high school when the Korean conflict ended. I think when Vietnam rolled around, he was too old to be drafted. But all of my mother's brothers and her brothers-in-law went to Europe during WWII. A couple of them were at Normandy for the invasion of D-Day, though they never spoke about those days. I knew of several young men who had been drafted and sent to Vietnam. Older siblings of those I went to school with came home injured in body and soul. My budding political self should have said they deserved it, but I felt bad for them. My dad's youngest brother didn't wait for the draft but instead enlisted in the Navy. When he came home from basic training in his uniform, I was secretly proud of him yet embarrassed at the same time, lest my friends find out. Not too many boys enlisted in those days; going to Canada to avoid the draft was more popular.

What was my personal objection to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam? That's a hard one to answer. Looking back, I think everything I believed at that time was based on what I had been told. We sang peace anthems at church camp and I heartily joined in. Bob Dylan was a Minnesota boy and he was opposed to the war. That was good enough for me. His "Blowin' In the Wind' played over and over again on the local radio stations. And we rocked out to "The Eve of Destruction". Those songs, the awful images of dead civilians and and the influence of Miss Shinn (there were no 'ms.' designations back then) were enough to form my opinion.

Even as the military action in Vietnam was winding down, I found that my anti-war spirit was rising. Not yet old enough to vote, I volunteered to stuff envelopes at the local George McGovern presidential campaign office that had set up shop in a former drug store on the corner of Maryland and Arcade. (I never had the guts to tell my parents about that one.) I knew George would never let another Vietnam happen, at least not for U.S. citizens. And I was excited to do my part to aid in his efforts to be elected. But it was not to be; instead we got Nixon and Watergate and a president and vice president resigning in disgrace. But we did get an end to the war, which was McGovern's #1 goal.

The last of the U.S. troops left Vietnam in the spring of 1973, shortly before I graduated from high school. We did not win that conflict, and it appeared that there was no way we could. South Vietnam was falling, and unless the U.S. pulled out, there would be dire consequences for our military. For the first time in history, faced with defeat, the U.S. military chose to walk away from a fight. Many of us cheered as our involvement in Southeast Asia was ending. I think we gave little thought to the consequences for those who were there.

Those soldiers - most of them barely older than me - came home to an 'unwelcome.' Angry shouts like "Baby killers!" rang out rather than "Welcome back, soldier" as they returned in waves. There would be no confetti parades for them like their WWII counterparts had received. In fact, it would take nine years before the nation recognized their service and sacrifice when the Vietnam War Memorial was dedicated in 1982. It seemed as if our nation wanted to close the door on this chapter in our history. As the troops returned, Nixon declared that all military personnel had been accounted for. Yet over 2,600 were missing. It was well understood that many of them were believed to be prisoners of war in Vietnam. Yet the efforts to bring them home were weak. It was almost as if they were abandoned out of a national sense of disgrace. To this day, over 1,500 are still listed as MIA.

When I read about all the depression and homelessness and drug addiction among Vietnam vets, I get it. For the first time in history, U.S. military came home to open public hatred and revulsion rather than gratitude. I didn't think about it then, but it breaks my heart now. Most of them didn't choose to be there. The nearly 60,000 that lost their lives weren't there because they wanted to kill someone. Most of them were drafted and had no choice. Others volunteered out of sense of duty and patriotism. And I find that now I cannot judge any of them.

I am older now, wiser, with a more balanced perspective on the realities of life. Since then too many military conflicts than I can recall have rocked the U.S. Young men and women in the military are still dying, both on the battlefront and at their own hands. There was the Grenada invasion and the Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm. Despite it being a time of relative peace for this country, U.S. service personnel are still in combat zones in in Afghanistan and the Middle East and assigned to patrol the border between North and South Korea. Our aircraft carriers and submarines are in waters across the globe. Though the anti-war sentiment isn't what it was during its height in the Vietnam era, there is still a strong undercurrent of opposition in this country to any military action. And in Congress there seems to be a reluctance to adequately fund the military or care for its veterans.

Fifty years ago I would have agreed. But I feel differently now. Maybe that's appropriate for someone who came into the world during the Cold War. When I was a young child, the threat of global nuclear war was very real. And so was the fear. I remember crouching in the hallways at Farnsworth Elementary School during our regular civil defense drills. I can still feel the cold, hard tile floor against my knees. A storage room in our basement was stocked with canned goods and bottled water. And my dad talked about converting the old, unused coal room into a bomb shelter.

I now understand that usually freedom comes at the price of war. After all, this country was born in bloody battles. The democracy that people around the world long to be a part of arose through violent conflict. It is estimated that around 30,000 colonists lost their lives, either in battle or as prisoners of war or as a result of injuries. That may not seem like much - it's only half the amount lost during the Vietnam era. But consider the population difference. And I also recognize that civilians are often the unintended casualties of war. It may not be fair, but it is reality. It would be nice if you could figure out a way to involve just the soldiers on each side, but it doesn't go like that. Bullets and bombs don't distinguish.

Ironically, I am now the wife of a Vietnam-era vet. The soldiers were being pulled out when he enlisted, and so he served overseas, stationed for most of his Army tenure in Germany. And even more ironically, our younger daughter is an Army sergeant, stationed very close to the base where he spent most of his time. Several of the young people she grew up with are either former or current military. Unfortunately at least two have returned from the Middle East with service-ending injuries. But that has not deterred her. She has considered the cost of freedom and is willing to pay it. Her convictions are backed up with courage and commitment.

Did my daughter enlist because of my husband? I doubt it. John never really talked with our children about his military service. For him, he was at a crossroad in his life and didn't know what else to do. For her, it was (and still is) a strong sense of duty, not necessarily following in her father's footsteps. Her overseas assignment was a coincidence, not an intentional act. She has gone from the Reserves (which was a way to get college paid for) to having applied for officer training and regular Army. She sees it as a calling she is happy to respond to.

How do I - a former Vietnam war protestor - feel about a daughter who has likely made serving in the Army her career? When I see photos of her in her uniform, I am intensely proud of her, though the various military actions overseas have me regularly concerned for her safety. If she is worried, she doesn't say it. But I'm her mom, and I can't help it. And yet, when I think of her, I am very proud.

She has guts. More than I did at her age. And she certainly understands more than I did back then. Still, for the life of me, I can't figure out where she gets the physical stamina to heft a rocket launcher that probably weighs almost as much as she does. She's got a deadly aim, so maybe I should be more concerned for anyone she might come up against in battle. I have made peace with the fact that the possibility exists, and that some day my husband and I might be standing on a tarmac sobbing over a flag-draped coffin. But there is no way I could ask her to choose a different path.

I have come to realize that we are indeed the land of the free because of these brave men and women. And I also recognize that our country's freedoms cost quite a high price - the lives of her citizens. And most of the time the only way to peace is through war. U.S. military members serve all over the world in U.N. contingents called 'peacekeeping missions.' It's an oxymoron, but all too often and sadly it's the only way. My teenage self didn't get that, and fourteen-year-old me would be shocked to find out how she turned out. So this Veterans Day, to all those Vietnam vets who came home to such hatred, I say what I couldn't say back then: "Thank you for your service." And the same to all those who have served and still serve. I appreciate your sacrifice, and I understand it far better than I did fifty years ago.