Why do I feel guilty about not going to Viet Nam?

[Monkeyleg]

This is something that has bugged me for over twenty years.

I have friends and relatives who went to Viet Nam. Some didn't come back.

Some friends who enlisted in the Army, Air Force or Navy, hoping that by enlisting they wouldn't be sent to Viet Nam. Most didn't go, but a few did.

I graduated high school in June of 1969. My whole high school curriculum was the "fast track" courses for college. I was an honor roll student.

By 1970, I was attending the university. On and off.

Some semesters, I was on. Others, I was off.

There was a year or two in there when I wasn't enrolled at all.

IOW, the draft board could have picked me up just about anytime they wanted.

In 1965, I was certain that I would go. It seemed like the only right thing to do.

By 1970, thanks in no large part to the media and the popular culture I thrived on, going to Viet Nam didn't seem like the best of ideas. My friends and relatives who were coming home said, "don't go." And Walter Cronkite had already convinced us all that the Viet Nam war was lost.

I waited for my number in the draft lottery. I came in at #314. I wasn't going to be drafted.

It really wasn't until TFL and THR came online that I gave any of this much further thought. Prior to that, any movies made about Viet Nam were along the lines of "The Deer Hunter," or "Platoon," or "A Popsicle Now." They made the friends and relatives I knew who fought to look like felons.

Now, I read some of the posts on THR and TFL between members who were in the same fights, some even in the same units.

And, as I read those posts, I ask: why was I not there? Was I a coward? (I wasn't in my day-to-day life).

Or was I just happy chasing skirts and getting drunk, while other guys were getting shot at and living in mud?

During the past several years of fighting for CCW, I've met many,  many veterans. And I always feel that I owe them an apology for not being there with them.

[280plus]

Possibly for the same reason that at 49 I feel guity that I can't be with them now. It's all a matter of circumstance I'd say. I wouldn't beat myself up over it.

[Leatherneck]

"I graduated high school in June of 1969."

Timing is everything. By the time you graduated HS, our society was caught up in the anti-war fever that many of us believe marked the downhill slide our society has been on ever since. Not surprising for a tadpole to think: "Eh...not me." Not cowardice--just finding out who you intended to be as an adult on your own. And there's that hormone thing...

No apology necessary. I think the only apologies appropriate are from the scumbags that spurned--and worse--those of us who fought that ill-fated war.

TC

[280plus]

No apology necessary. I think the only apologies appropriate are from the scumbags that spurned--and worse--those of us who fought that ill-fated war.

Very nicely put...

[Ron]

Monkeyleg, the overwhelming majority of men of your age didn't serve. I wish I had the figure on hand but it is in the +90% range.

In some way I have a little of the same feeling as you do. I piddled away much of my young adulthood on "ME". Only now do I look back and have some regrets that I didn't participate in something bigger than me.

I am not very comfortable being hawkish against the Islamofascists not having served myself. But facts are facts and they are going to keep comming at us whether we are agressive against them or whether we curl up in a defensive fetal position.

[Antibubba]

You can still go.  Seriously.  You have friends and such who didn't come back.  Any of them MIA?  There are American groups who search for information-tags, personal effects, and the like-on the final whereabouts.  Or if you can't afford the trip, then offer some of your time at home, as a researcher.  Or help to re-integrate the current crop of combat vets coming home.  But let the guilt go; it was pretty clear by the time you were draftable the nature of the war, and the character of those who organized it.

[HankB]

I was in high school when the draft was discontinued in 1973 - it was the happiest day of my young life. I would've gone to fight in WWII and done my duty just like a couple of million other guys, but Vietnam - uh uh.

My father - a WWII combat vet in the Pacific - was even happier than I was when we heard the announcement. His advice as I was approaching military age was along the lines of "If Congress and the President don't think the situation is important enough to declare war and fight, all out, to WIN, then I don't think it's important enough for my son to risk getting his head blown off!"

By that time, it was pretty obvious that the US wasn't trying to win - for example, take the "peace talks' with Hanoi. With all the bombs we dropped, there shouldn't have BEEN a Hanoi left to negotiate with - it should've just been an area of overlapping bomb craters, right out to the suburbs. Ditto for Haiphong, in fact, ditto for every other N. Vietnamese city of over 1000 people. Yet guys were still getting sent into the meat grinder.

Respect is due those who went & served honorably, but a pox on those wretches that sent them.

[Leatherneck]

I generally agree, and thank you. I think the original intentions were honorable but the follow-through was weak and became non-existent. And in that regard, the war in the ME right now is on the same track. Without popular support at home, victory will never be possible. Objective, constructive criticism is fine, but the bleating and screeching sells our troops short. Then and now.

TC

[AJ Dual]

Just piling on here, but I don't think you have anything to feel guilty about either.

Between your age which was "just right" and and the high draft number, you never went. You didn't "get out" of anything, as you took your chance with the draft board like everyone else.

Monkeyleg, I can sort of identify wth what you're feeling though. Granted, there was no draft, but I was just the right age to be 17 during the first Gulf War, and married with a house, twins on the way, and a mortgage for the second. I feel a vauge sense of guilt over it sometimes.

I remember in the opening weeks of the second Iraq war the press was interviewing a NCO, I forget what he did, but it was front-line combat arms of some kind, and he was saying how weird it was being in Iraq, when he remembered watching the first war on TV when he was in the fourth grade.

It made my chest tight to hear that...

[Art Eatman]

I agree with "I think the original intentions were honorable but the follow-through was weak and became non-existent."  

Given the rsults of McNamara's policies and how the whole affair had degenerated after the Tet Offensive of 1968, I can fully understand anybody's unwillingness to go into the military in 1969 or 1970.

In 1965 I was 31.  Had I been single I might have gone back in.  I can tell you that by 1969/1970, I was so disgusted at the way things were run that for me to go back in would have meant three people going to the repple-depple:  Me and the two MPs dragging me.  And that's from one who still believes we were justified in going in.

In my opinion, Monkeyleg, FWIW, don't sweat it.

Art

[The Rabbi]

I have been privelaged to meet Vietnam vets who served in different capacities at different times.  It is amazing how different their experiences were.  Someone who was there 1964-1967 has a completely different take from someone there 1969-1970.  In the early stages the U.S. had the best leadership and were doing well with an impossible job.  By the end of the war anyone with any experience and talent had already rotated through and it was so unpopular at home the troops were practically in rebellion.

[Standing Wolf]

I finished high school in June, 1966.

I knew lots of guys who went to Viet Nam. Without exception, those who came home assured me I hadn't missed a thing. I went to plenty of funerals of childhood and high school class mates who'd died over there.

I was fortunate enough to have realized in late 1965 and early 1966 that war was going all awry, so I didn't volunteer. Even at that point, it was clear the politicians were hashing things up for the troops in the field, and reasonably clear the war was going to drag on and on and on. I doubt I could have imagined at that point the politicians would end up losing the war, but certainly by 1967, it seemed to me as though a.) that war wasn't going to be won, and b.) it was already tearing the country apart.

Even during my socialist days, I could never quite bring myself to write off war as an intrinsic, inherent form of evil, nor could I hope the communists would win, although I knew plenty of people who did. I thought all along we ought to have fought that war, won it, and cleared the !@#$%^&*! out of Asia altogether. We weren't willing to fight it to win.

We're obviously not willing to fight the famous "war on terror" to win, either, and we're stuck in yet another land war in Asia, with yet another batch of loud-mouthed, long-winded politicians determined to go every whichway but forward.

I can't tell you why. All I'm sure of is that we're continuing to refuse to learn the obvious lessons.

[Monkeyleg]

Thanks for all the replies. They do make me feel a bit better about the issue.

I watched "We Were Soldiers" last night for the umpteenth time, and that triggered the guilt again. It's hard for me to fathom what going through a firefight like that must be like.

I had a cousin, Gary, whom I was close to while growing up. He enlisted in 1965. When he came back, he hit the booze heavily, and never stopped. He died a few years ago. Literally drank himself to death.

A former friend worked as a DJ on Armed Forces Radio in Berlin for his entire four years. He's one of those who likes to talk tough. His best friend saw a lot of combat in Viet Nam, and doesn't want to talk about it at all.

A couple of years ago, I was at the range and saw a guy shooting a hunting-style rifle. It was right around deer season, so I asked him if he was sighting it in for the season. He said, "no, I don't hunt. After Viet Nam, I pretty much had it with killing."

[Monkeyleg]

Go to hell. I'll feel better.

[mustanger98]

Monkeyleg, the overwhelming majority of men of your age didn't serve. I wish I had the figure on hand but it is in the +90% range.

In some way I have a little of the same feeling as you do. I piddled away much of my young adulthood on "ME". Only now do I look back and have some regrets that I didn't participate in something bigger than me.

I am not very comfortable being hawkish against the Islamofascists not having served myself. But facts are facts and they are going to keep comming at us whether we are agressive against them or whether we curl up in a defensive fetal position.

Here ya'll go... http://www.military.com/forums/0,15240,84591,00.html

FWIW, I used to be anti-war, but I was a teenager vs. being 32 now and having seen more. That said, I'm not a combat vet... haven't even been in the military... but this is my country too just like it is your's. My grandfathers and great uncles served in WW2. My cousins served in Vietnam. I have friends who served in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam. I think we owe all the vets a debt of thanks, but we cannot thank them enough.

[mustanger98]

You can still go.  Seriously.  You have friends and such who didn't come back.  Any of them MIA?  There are American groups who search for information-tags, personal effects, and the like-on the final whereabouts.  Or if you can't afford the trip, then offer some of your time at home, as a researcher.  Or help to re-integrate the current crop of combat vets coming home.  But let the guilt go; it was pretty clear by the time you were draftable the nature of the war, and the character of those who organized it.

I was in a college class on Vietnam... it's going on two years since then. The professor made a point to tell us about Vietnamese people selling dogtags and watches and stuff they "found on the battlefield". They make that stuff up to sell. Then, somebody buys it and makes it their mission to "return dogtags and personal effects to the deceased soldier's family". It causes a lot of hurt feelings when a family gets hit with "the return". The Vietnamese know it too.

[Art Eatman]

War affects different people in different ways.  For instance, the guy who sold me my Terlingua place was a retired Green Beret M/Sgt.  13, yeah, 13 years in SE Asia.  The guy had gotten two (2) Silver Stars because there weren't enough living witnesses for the Medals of Honor for which he'd been recommended.  The guy TRIED to get the Medial of Honor.  I read through his 201 file, one time.  84 insertions behind NVA lines.  Two inches thick stack of commendations.

I still think my father regarded the fighting across France and into Germany in WW II as a rather interesting deer hunt, from the relatively few comments he ever made.  He led the patrol that was in front of Patton at the Remagen bridge, that captured the bridge.  Among other things.  After the war, he became pretty well-known around Texas for his deer hunting.

Me, I was never in combat.  Occupation duty in South Korea was 99% boredom and 1% hassle.  100% bad smell.

I dunno.  Maybe Satchell Paige was one of the smartest guys who ever lived:  "Don't look back.  Somebody might be gaining."

"Woulda, coulda, shoulda" is usually a serious waste of time.

Art

[Perd Hapley]

Go to hell. I'll feel better.

Was that a response to a deleted troll comment?

[Guest]

You made the right decision then; don't second-guess it now. This "war" is dumber than that one - if that is possible. Don't (anyone) even think of volunteering for it.

[Monkeyleg]

Yes it was, Fistful.

[ilbob]

I missed the VN by age, graduating HS in 1976.

My plan was to sign up anyway.  Had not decided quite which branch, but my ASVAB scores qulaified me for everything (95+ in all categories).

Had four years of JROTC in HS which would have made me an E4 coming out of basic.

Went to take physical and failed eye test.