Memorial Day reflection: Vietnam was a different war in so many ways
The Vietnam War was the central event of the lives of thousands of American veterans. It was, to quote several historians, “an epic event.”
Vietnam was one of the longest wars of the 20th century, for America lasting from 1959-75.
The cost of human suffering was monumental and difficult to calculate. In what was then called South Vietnam, the war produced an estimated seven million displaced persons, and two million Vietnamese casualties.
And no one should forget the 58,000 Americans who were killed, the 300,000 seriously wounded, and the thousands still listed as “missing in action.”
Among other miasmic effects, the war had a profound impact on American culture and politics. Only now, after decades of avoidance, repression and silence, Americans have finally come to terms with this war which deeply divided our nation for years.
However, it was a different kind of war. Politically, militarily and in its outcome, Vietnam didn’t resemble what I learned in school about America’s other wars.
Bloody events, which included the coordinated attacks that occurred throughout South Vietnam as part of the Tet (New Year) offensive of 1968; the My Lai massacre of March 1968; and the Kent State shootings in 1970 also contributed to making it a different war.
Vietnam was a different war in a helicopter or an F-4 Phantom jet, or a B-52 bomber. Different in the Delta, the Highlands, near the DMZ, Laos or Cambodia.
It was different on the rivers, in the mud, in field hospitals, on ships in the South China Sea.
It was a different war for women, the seven thousand American women, mostly nurses, who volunteered to care for those doing the fighting.
And the eight women who died and whose names are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Today it is remembered as a different war in its physical and emotional aftermath. For Americans and Vietnamese suffering from Agent Orange absorbed decades ago.
For the Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians still affected from exposure to toxic chemicals and unexploded ordnance left behind.
Finally, it is remembered today as a different war than it was 50 or 60 years years ago — for those who cannot forget it whether they were in Vietnam or not. Memorial Day’s significance, however, is in the hearts and minds of veterans and the families of veterans who are counted among the war’s casualties.
Especially each year on the observance of Memorial Day.
Ira Cooperman, a resident of Wyncote, served as an Air Force intelligence officer in the Vietnam War from 1965-66. His email address is: iracooperman@gmail.com
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