Reading the story package “Remembering Vietnam” (Herald, May 3), I cried as memories of those years washed over me. In 1969, I was a teacher living in an attic apartment in San Antonio, and five of my friends stayed a few days with me prior to being shipped out. All medics, only two returned.
My cousin and I lost our boyfriends in that war. Hers was a helicopter pilot; mine was a medic.
A few years later, when I was in graduate school at the University of Texas, Austin, another cousin, the American hero we all looked up to in our family, was then serving in Vietnam, and I spent weekends at my retired missionary aunt’s cabin overlooking the lake, listening to his recorded updates with a background of explosions and gunfire.
We never talked about it; no one ever talked about it. We only listened in silence.
He told about his experiences in war and the CIA at Fort Lewis College where I was then teaching. The auditorium overflowed into hallways and other spaces that had live-feed monitors on carts. I could not sit still because I’d heard this story as it happened and knew what was coming.
At that time, there was very little honest disclosure about what really happens in war. I listened from the foyer with a colleague, also a Vietnam vet. I couldn’t help but feel angry on behalf of all who served when a young man in the audience stood up and questioned the speaker’s facts. Despite the harassment, the speaker remained calm, simply pointed out he (the student) had access to the information if he looked for it and could check the facts himself.
Times have changed. Now the world supports honest, open disclosure. By publishing this series, the Herald not only honors those who served and those at home who supported them but also offers an invitation to all who have opinions about it to reconsider their judgments and try to find a place of forgiveness – for themselves and for all others involved.
Pamela R. Young
Durango
