After failing to show up at a major American cemetery in France at least our president did not add to his shame by failing to show up for the big show with 60 or so other national leaders at the Arc de Triomphe for the official ceremony marking the centennial of the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of November, 1918, when the guns fell silent on the western front of World War I, officially ending it in the eyes of most historians, even though fighting would escalate in certain other important zones whose outcomes still shake the world, most notably between Greece and Turkey, with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire coming out of that leading to many wars since, some of them gong on right now. We get it that Trump was uncomfortable given that President Macron was lecturing against the sort of nationalism that led to WW I, with a three day forum to follow that Trump will run as fast as possible back to the US to avoid. And, hey, Macron did not even have tanks and missiles for the parade this time, which Trump really likes to see.
This important day, the first Armistice Day, which we renamed Veterans Day in the US after the War to End All Wars’ unfortunate sequel (actually in 1954 right after the end of the “forgotten” Korean War) and have since turned into one of those Monday holidays, has turned into a curiously sad one personally. It involves another war, Vietnam. My cousin, Bill Atwater, died yesterday, the day before this serious centennial and also the 243rd birthday of the U.S. Marines. Yes, Bill was a Marine and was in Vietnam where he was exposed to Agent Orange that led him to have various cancers that basically led to his death, although it was an opportunistic pneumonia that finally actually did him in. He will be cremated with his ashes spread over the cemetery at Arlington. I had not communicated with him directly for over 20 years (did through another cousin), but he told me at his mother’s funeral that he had been spat on when he returned to the U.S. I have more recently seen stories that such reports were exaggerated, if not outright true. As it is, I have no way of checking on Bill’s story now, but I know that he was a multiply wounded man.
Barkley:
I feel the need to answer this as I have heard of the spitting accusation and am also a veteran. When I was closer to the states, I would get leave after 6 months in Cuba and fly back via a tin can with propellers called a C130 and to Cherry Point, spend a couple of days at Lejuene, and take off with my TAD pay in hand to visit a young women in NYC who eventually became my wife then and still now. I was in uniform, although coming out of Cuba I was in khakis and short sleeve shirt as that was the uniform for Cuba (not dress greens).
Quite honestly, I did not want to be bothered by anyone while stateside. I moved quickly through the airport just to get to where I wanted to be. I do not recall any noise from those who objected to Vietnam, neither was I spit at, and mostly people let me travel in silence. Some of the older men would talk to me. A cabby picked me up once while hitch-hiking to Friendship airport on the Beltway. Asked me where I was coming from and then asked for a cigar. He was on his way to the airport anyway and this was a freebie for me. As we arrived there I gave him $3 and suggested he buy a good cigar as Cuban ones were contraband and would put me in the Brig. $3 in 1970 could buy a good cigar then.
The name Atwater sounds familiar to me; but so do many names of that almost forgotten time. Sometimes I have to look in my yearbook from Boot Camp to see if I know them from then. I do not do rolling thunder. I do not do the Legion or the VFW although my dad was a member of the later as a WWII Navy Vet. He was not happy when I enlisted. Didn’t go get the freebie meal. As I told my children and my wife, this was such a short period of my 70 years on the planet. I believe I have done some things outside of the USMC which are far more important to me than my service. My wife of 44 years, my children, my integrity and being known for it, my helping others, and my knowledge and education.
I was not exposed to agent orange; but, I do have a blood disorder were my platelets disappear and then they expect me to stay cooped up in a hospital bed for a few weeks till they find something which will reverse it. Rituxan worked this time. VA will not admit my disorder may be due to drinking benzene-tainted water at Lejeune for the months I was there. The VA did take me in though.
A little further down in the comments I wrote about James Gilligan a prison physiatrist and shame. He had this to say on WWI and WWII.
Shame plays a big part in wars also or at least the two WWs. There did not need to be a Vietnam if we had talked to Uncle Ho. My friends Tim Gilson, Bobby O’Million, Bill Olson, and others would still be around. Bill Atwater would not have been exposed to Agent Orange. I would not have been half crazy when I left the service. And we still keep repeating the same mistake over and over again. Sorry to hear about your cousin. I am sure he was a good person.
Sorry about your own health problems from the war, Run. Well states and thanks for it. Never forget.
Barkley:
No reason to be sorry. This is of unknown origin. The first bout was 10 years after I left. Rituxan is like chemo and it worked for a nominal fee of $10,000 a litre times 4. If we knew what caused the VA would be forced to pay for it. Getting too old to care too.
Barkley/Run
I was never in Vietnam, I did ROTC and came on active duty about the time of the December B-52 bombings in 1972 which brought the NV to the peace table and Nixon/Kissinger not needing to beat a democrat we got an accord.
I was career AF reserve with more active time than most.
Two friends affected by Agent Orange a Marine still fighting a rare skin cancer, bravest man I know, he married for third time after second “remission”. Anyone who fights that hard to live is tops in my book. The other fellow was helicopter crewmember with the Army in Vietnam, handled missions dispensing it. He died about 15 years ago, before VA acknowledged it. Several kids I grew up with were KIA.
My main service was supporting cold war capabilities some times defensive some times in the air breathing side of Strategic Air Command. Later I got in to acquiring weapon systems, which a knowledge of using and planning to support helped keep the troughers in line, I tried anyway.
It was sometimes comforting to live and work near prime targets!
I buy a Buddy Poppy on Memorial Day and keep it on my dash through Veterans Day.
Once in a while someone puts up Pericles’ funeral oration or Garfield’s similar speech at Gettysburg well after the Civil War. Not sure I buy the patriotism reasoning!
Robert Service, the Kipling of Canada/Alaska, wrote a poem I cannot remember name, but one line:
To the effect:
‘All the rich orders on the chests of the living pale in comparison to the simple white crosses the slain have earned’.
About what Pericles said without the lure of patriotism.
Barkley sorry about your cousin.
“In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses row on row……
We are in the process of rewriting history.
A soldier’s experience on returning to the US depended on where he landed.
I returned from the Panama Canal Zone in the late summer of 1967. I processed out in Fort Jackson South Carolina and traveled in uniform back to Kentucky without any angry confrontations.
My brother returned from Viet Nam in late summer of 1968. He processed out in Fort Lewis Washington and traveled in uniform back to Kentucky without any angry confrontations.
One of my cousins returned from Viet Nam in the late summer of 1970. This was after the President Nixon had sent US troops into Cambodia which lit off a firestorm of antiwar protests. He returned thru southern California, Oakland I think. There at the airport he was confronted by antiwar demonstrators who were screaming and spitting. I had never seen him as angry, as he was about that experience. And I never saw him as angry about anything after that either.
I don’t believe that he was lying.
Weren’t we as a nation better off when vets were “disrespected?” It did a much better job of keeping us from committing more major war crimes than the unthinking “thank you for your service BS” we have today.
I was a vet–I enrolled to pay for college. You don’t need to thank me–had Bush tried to send me to Iraq I would have been one of the refuseniks sitting on the tarmac. THEY were the real heroes, and are the only vets I’d ever thank.
June 13, 1986 Chicago held a parade for the Vietnam veterans, I, with other downtown lawyers, brokers, bankers, real estate people, and assorted secretaries, staff people, janitors, restaurant workers, sales people and others lined LaSalle St. and cheered those guys and watched them cry and stand up straighter. Whatever one thought about the war, those people (they weren’t all guys) suffered and did the best they could under difficult circumstances and it was downright cleansing to appreciate them. Many of us standing on the street were veterans as well and it was good for us too.
Hi Jack:
The parade? I never knew anything about it. Knowing you, I am sure you went all out on it. In 1986, Jan and I were living in Madison Wisconsin and we would have missed it anyways. As I said, I did not see the physical disrespect others may have experienced. I was home, had a pretty girl friend/wife eventually, my family was around me, and my dad breathed a sigh of relief. Finding work was tough and eventually I ended up in college which was fortunate. The VA bill and the Illinois State Grant at the time covered my tuition and books at a reasonably good college taught by the Christian Brothers. I was out in April 71, in college in September 71, graduated December 74, and had enough left over in the VA bill to help pay for my Masters in the late seventies early eighties.
I am going to rat on you here. Jack is X-Army having served early on in Vietnam before it really heated up. He is one of us. I am in town this Thanksgiving. If you are around, I will see if I can break away and visit. Thank you Jack for your thoughts and your efforts in Chicago. It is something I did not know about you or maybe have forgotten since we met at Slate’s The Fray.
There was a simple equation operating during the Viet Nam War.
Two years of prison instead of being drafted or the possibility of an early violent death. (Or being maimed)
If you survived, then you came home to a country which denied that your service had any value. God help you if your health was damaged by agent orange, because the VA would deny your claim for healthcare. Viet Nam vets with PTSD were looked down on and did not receive adequate treatment until years later.
Pardons were issued to those who refused the draft or deserted.
The veterans that I knew only discussed their military service with family or other vets because the environment was toxic. I did not hear any thank you until after 9-11 and that was from a much younger generation.
And now some Americans want to deny that Viet Nam vets were treated horribly during the late 1960s and all of the 1970s.
Jim:
Nobody is denying anything. My mom was Italian and my dad was English German and a bricklayer/tuckpointer in downtown Chicago. When I left High School, I worked with him on the rope hung scaffolds in downtown Chicago till I went in. in 68. When I was on leave and when I got out, there were no cheering crowds, and I did not care as I had other things on my mind. I was common folk. The VA had its issues and I remember being angry at the guy in Wheaton, IL until I went down there and saw he was a disabled veteran in a wheel chair and I was standing in front of him on my two good legs. It is kind of hard to be angry at someone who is trying to help you when he is in a wheel chair and you are standing up in front of him. I lost some of the attitude, knew what I had to do, and started to do it if I wanted to provide for my pretty wife and have children by her.
After coming back from Cuba, I was made a prisoner chaser and I picked people up, got them some money, took them to the PX, took them to the Brig, and eventually took them to their Court Martial. I do not remember any pardons being given. I do remember General and Bad Conduct discharges. I do remember many leaving the country to where they felt safe. The military had harsh consequences for everyone who did not march to their orders. I left the Corp a Sergeant E-5, recommended for re-enlistment, and driven to the New Bern, NC airport to catch a Piedmont plane by my Staff Sergeant and a couple of other guys in the car. We were drinking cans of Budweiser. It was a good send off.
I had other things on my mind like getting home and becoming normal again. I do not know of many Americans wanting to deny us anything. They are curious about us and ask questions. I just talk to them. If you want to be angry, get angry with those who are trying to change the VA and privatize it. The VA is a functioning service for its veterans and changed a lot since the sixties. We do not need to lose it’s services to people like heel spurs and the Repubs.
For a couple of years of sleeping in a bed with another person, I would wake up if she moved. If she got out of bed, I told her to talk to me before she got into bed. One time in New York City I was waiting for her on a corner near the diamond center where her engagement ring was waiting to be picked up. I was in uniform. She decided to sneak up on me to kiss me until I spun around and almost hit her. It took a few years to get over being wired.
The times were tumultuous in 68. The west side of Chicago burned as I dropped off my then girl friend at her home near all of this. My last year we were trained for riot control and spent weekends stuck on base waiting for the call. I used to sit in the coffee houses pre-military with friends and listen to the music. Long time ago and in my past. Got two grand kids I am going to see next week. See my son and his wife. Talk about returning to Chicago. etc. Maybe lecture on supply chain down at Loyola. I have other things on my mind to do. Good luck to you.
JimH, I appreciate your comments but would like to point out that the Agent Orange victims eventually got an inadequate measure of compensation. I knew the judge who was assigned to disburse the funds provided. As to the rest, yes. I did think the parade in Chicago I mentioned helped a little. It didn’t do anything for the PTSD victims to the shame of our government and society.
As to the spitting or no controversy, details don’t really matter. The vets were not appreciated and many looked down on them despite the fact, as you point out, that they were forced into their situations.
Run, I missed Vietnam by 2 months. I was in Germany in January ’66 when they started pulling NCO’s and company grade officers out to form units going to VN. You had to have 12 months to go. I had 10. Left active duty at Fort Dix in October and drove home to Chicago. Coming up South Shore Drive just after dawn I was surprised to see the Hancock building. When I left in ’64, the Prudential was the tallest building in town.
I do not want to leave the wrong impression. Two of my cousins and I had enlisted in the US military before 1965. Each of us had a brother who was a year or two younger. They were all drafted and served because it was the honorable thing to do. Three of the six served in ground combat in South Viet Nam. All came home.
I did not like the way we were treated. And I don’t want that treatment to be edited out of history.
That is not much to ask.
Run75441,
Got very busy and missed your reply to my comment.
On 21 January 1977 President Carter pardoned draft dodgers including those who did not register for the draft. (First full day in office?) From this article it appears that deserters where not pardoned, they just had their discharges upgraded to something less than dishonorable. (But other men had been drafted and sent to Viet Nam in their places.)
See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/01/22/president-pardons-viet-draft-evaders/dfa064a5-83fc-4efb-a904-d72b390a909e/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.319bf7dc890f
The phrase ‘becoming normal again”, struck a deep cord with me. I remember that feeling.
I felt like a foreigner must feel. I did not understand the changes that had happened while I was in the Army. (From the trivial of personal grooming and clothing, to the more serious such as the use of illicit drugs.) A swath of young Americans had come to believe that military leaders were inept and evil. But military decision making was certainly no worse than that of large corporations. (Though the consequences were.) Civilians seemed to believe that wars of insurgency were easy to understand and to fight. Some of them seemed to believe that young moral American men became monsters in Viet Nam. The news media reported the numbers and delivered their simplistic opinions. I like music but song writers of that time seemed to live in some parallel universe. And young college students wanted an education, but they seemed to believe that they already understood the answers to the big questions of life. What do we owe to others in our society? Nothing or very little? Should we share the dirty work of our society? I remembered the phrase ‘sunshine patriots’ but with a better understanding.
My generation of students/workers were 4 years ahead of me. I remember the fear that my savings would run out before I had finished school. The $135 a month from the VA did not go very far even in the late 1960s. I lived with family. The savings did run out, but by that time I could work full time and finish school part time.
There was a swirling mass of change. Initially I did get angry but after a while that ended and I just took note. It took me more than a year to assimilate. (To the degree that I ever would.) I married, we raised well adjusted children, I thoroughly enjoyed my work, and retired with a pension.
But there is no denying that an object lesson has been taught. If the US government ever has to reinstate the draft, they had better build more prisons.