I spoke recently to about 60 World War II and Korean War veterans at a senior center in a North Hempstead town, and I was amazed afterwards at what I felt was a series of hostile questions from the audience. I had been asked by a friend to talk for free about my tour in Vietnam in 1971-72 and my forthcoming book Heroes to the End, being edited by iUniverse, a Bloomington, IND. subsidiary of Penguin Random House.
“Didn’t we back the wrong people over there?”
“Shouldn’t we have used guerrilla warfare tactics instead of fighting a conventional war?”
“How do Vietnam vets feel about their service?”
“How come Vietnam vets don’t join clubs like ours?”
I tried to be dignified and responded that I had written a small book, about 90,000 words, based mainly on 70 bylined articles I wrote for the Defense Department’s daily newspaper Stars and Stripes. It isn’t going to be “Decent Interval” or “A Bright Shining Lie” or “Platoon.” It isn’t going to be made into a movie.
I said I couldn’t speak for all Vietnam veterans, and that depending on their units, veterans have had different experiences and different feelings. I tried to deflect the hostility by mentioning that I’m now on the Board at Bay Shore-based United Veterans Beacon House, which has a $4 million budget, 70 employees and runs 29 transitional homes with 235 beds for veterans and others on Long Island. I’m donating proceeds from the book to Beacon House. But I got the impression that the men I spoke to have a low regard for Vietnam vets.
I then was referred to Morris Miller, 67, of Massapequa, a Vietnam veteran who says he has spoken to thousands of students and service groups over the past 25 years. Miller was a draftee who spotted for artillery as a buck sergeant forward observer with the 5th Infantry Division in I Corps (the northernmost military region in South Vietnam) in 1968.
“When many of us went to join [service groups],” Miller said, “whether it was the VFW, the America Legion, it didn’t matter which…they would welcome us, take our membership dollars…but the WW II vets were very antagonistic to us. They told us to ‘sit down and shut up. You lost the war. You’re a bunch of baby killers and drug addicts.’… But if that’s true, how did we survive? There’s about 50,000 of us on Long Island.” (That figure could not be verified.)
Miller said he is certified by the Veterans Administration as a senior service officer to help veterans of all wars apply for and receive benefits. “Although I work with many of these people,” he said of older vets, “there is still an underlying feeling from World War II vets against Vietnam vets. Some older veterans have always looked upon us as crybabies” due to issues, he said, around Agent Orange, POWs, drug addiction [and massacres].
“When I speak,” Miller said, “I have to tone it down and explain the stereotypes.”
The former restaurateur said he has been a member of Vietnam Veterans of America for 29 years and that Vietnam veterans tend to congregate with their peers. “VVA started out as Vietnam Veterans Against the War [VVAW]. There was nothing out there [in terms of organizations] for us…Do they [Vietnam vets] bond with each other? Guys who were in heavy combat will not talk about this battle and that battle. It’s just not something we do; I don’t know why. The wannabees are the guys who embellish.”
Miller said VVA is federally chartered 501c(3). Asked about Vietnam vets not joining mainstream organizations, he said, “Many of us are still working, have family responsibilities. We were very mad, very frustrated over our treatment [by the public] and mistrust the government…I’ll tell you what: we were not over there fighting for the domino principle; we were fighting for each other and to survive.”
He said when he addresses students, he says, “we were foreign invaders on foreign soil, instilling our will onto foreign people. We were involved in a civil war for political and economic reasons, and the only thing we accomplished was the loss of over 58,000 American boys and girls…We’ve been lied to about our health [the effects of exposure to Agent Orange], we have the highest rate of divorce of any veterans of any war, the highest rate of PTSD [post-traumatic stress syndrome], except maybe now Iraq and Afghanistan vets.”
Those factors mitigate against Vietnam vets getting involved in helping others, he said. “Organizations will do everything they possibly can now,” Miller said, “Because they are losing members. World War II and Korea vets are dying at the rate of 2,000 a day. What are Vietnam vets saying? ‘You didn’t want me then; I don’t need you now. I needed you then, you weren’t there for me; I don’t need you now.’ “
“Vietnam vets are dying young,” Miller said. “We will never know the true specter of Agent Orange until the last one of us is dead. We don’t trust the government, we don’t trust the VA. But I’ll tell you: Northport VA Hospital is the finest hospital in the entire national VA system.
“We’re proud of our service,” he added. “We went over and we did the best we could under many restrictions … and we are more patriotic than any other vets from any war. We are vastly patriotic…A group of politicians sent us to Vietnam. The last legitimate war this country should have fought was World War II. Every other war fought since then was for political reasons.”
Jim Smith, 66, of Williston Park, is a Vietnam War veteran and has been a contributor to the Mineola American since 1988. He retired Dec. 31, 2014 after being a Newsday reporter and editor since 1966.
