What We Owe the Vietnam Veterans Who Stayed
David Barno and Nora Bensahel
November 8, 2018
As Veterans Day approaches this weekend, there will be a well-deserved outpouring of support for all those who have served the United States in uniform. After almost two decades of war, public support for veterans and those serving in today’s all-volunteer force remains extremely high. Yet few among us, including those currently in uniform, truly understand how much we owe to a special group of veterans: those who fought in Vietnam and chose to continue serving in the military afterwards. They transformed a force that was deeply broken after the war into the remarkably capable and highly respected U.S. military that exists today.
One of us entered the Army just after the Vietnam War, and remembers those troubled days well. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Vietnam veterans in America were largely disdained, ignored, and sometimes even reviled by American society. Movies commonly depicted Vietnam veterans then as deranged psychotics, bitter broken people, or bloodthirsty renegades. Commemorations of Veterans Day in that era were far more muted than today, as American society remained deeply divided not only about the Vietnam War but also about how to treat the men and women that fought it. Over time, most Vietnam veterans quietly melded successfully back into society and continued with their lives, building businesses and starting families.
https://warontherocks.com/2018/11/what-we-owe-the-vietnam-veterans-who-stayed/
