05 Sept 2020--
"... to 'Born on the Fourth of July' (1989), Vietnam veterans were troubled and violent..."
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Incline Village, Nev. (EOC)-- Election year ultimately brings out the same recurring bad dream for America, the Vietnam War and this year is no different. The outrage began yesterday with an article published in the "failing magazine" The Atlantic by an editor using dubious and questionable sources, probably fabricated, to accuse the president of derogatory comments toward the US military establishment. So what. Soldiers have been called far worse in boot camp by their drill instructors, someone they hold in higher esteem than the commander-in-chief. In fact, most of the online profiles of The Atlantic editor-in-chief indicate he has never served in the US military but that's beside the point.
Way back in 1965, even before Tet, the height of the conflict, President Johnson was already taking incoming from opponents over handling the escalating conflict. In late November, the issue of escalation became the heart of challenge by Republicans, including former VP Richard Nixon who urged "intensified bombing of North Vietnam and shutting off supplies reaching it by sea." An article related to Nixon's concern in the Waukesha, WI Daily Freeman had the headline, "Democrats Could Be Vietnam Losers." (1)
As the war progressed, went badly and led to the ultimate withdrawal of American forces a decade later, the Democrats weren't the losers but the no-name foot soldiers who found themselves "Back in the World." What caused that deflection from the politicians to the GI? To begin with, the phrase "Vietnam Loser" became part and parcel to headlines across America in 1967 following the election of Nguyen Van Thieu elected as president of South Vietnam and Cao Ky as VP. (2)
The headline would soon come to be the battle cry for protesters nationwide, not just from the DMZ to Saigon, but from Washington, DC to Berkeley, California. Anything and anybody associated with the war by then was considered a loser. The stigma was exacerbated by the infamous My Lai massacre of March, 1968, barely a month into the Tet Offensive, the highlight of American involvement in the war. (3)
In a column in the Owensboro Kentucky Messenger-Inquirer in early January, 1968, with a headline that read, "Dramatic Improvement Predicted for Vietnam," George McArthur opened with the sentence;
"SAIGON (AP) --There is a widespread feeling that some kind of turning point hinged on Vietnam will be reached in Southeast Asia in 1968." (4)
McArthur was halfway right. Tet itself was the harbinger of things to come in the war, and eventually the hallmark of the loser, even though the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong took staggering casualties in the offensive. Nonetheless, it was a rude awakening when the casualty count spiked overnight and scenes of GIs in street combat pervaded the TV screens of America. US forces had repelled the invasion but not without accountability on the home front, and the creeping "widespread feeling" that if we didn't get out, all of us would be losers and not just the vets.
Ironically, that same month just before Tet in '68, the Pocono, PA Record elected the 'Nam GI as "The probable Man of the Year" in 1968;
"Nothing has so concerned the world and caused it to choose up sides and debate more than the actions in the most recent in a long line of GI Joes. ... He has helped make enemies (or at least opponents) in onetime friendly countries. He has been blamed on high for causing another war in the Middle East and for delays in still another war--on poverty--at home...Almost all of our troubles and hardly any of our blessings are blamed on half a million men stationed in Southeast Asia." (5)
A month later, three NVA divisions surrounded US Marines at Khe Sanh in a battle that began like Dien Bien Phu, but ended like Iwo Jima.
In 1999, Michael Dresser, reporting for the Baltimore Sun, noted a comment by the newly appointed secretary of Maryland's veterans affairs department, the disabled vet Tom Bratten;
" 'A lot of people who went to Vietnam were losers before Vietnam, were losers during Vietnam and will die losers,' Bratten says." (6)
Dave Monz wrote a stirring piece on the plight of the Viet vet for USA Today in 2000 and published in the Clarksville TN Leaf-Chronicle titled, "Exposing the damaging myths that surround Vietnam Vets,"
"Making of a Myth...The problems of a small percentage of Vietnam veterans came to be viewed as the norm by those who had a negative view of the war...But Hollywood created characters more likely to fit the negative findings in the study cited by Shay. In movies from 'Apocalypse Now' (1979) to "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989), Vietnam veterans were troubled and violent." (7)
That referred to the Jonathon Shay, VA psychiatrist study funded by Congress from 1986-88.
The article went on the add insight from "Stolen Valor" author (B.G.) Burkett that when the author attempted to raise money in Texas for a war memorial, the status quo rejected the idea, saying the "Vietnam veterans didn't deserve a memorial because they were drug addicts, alcoholics or bums."
Perhaps the single most important event in modern history that changed opinion of the Viet vet as loser came with 9/11 leading to the stalemates in Afghanistan and Iraq. Disaster had struck at the heart of America not seen since Pearl Harbor. The status of the soldier went from loser to hero overnight. In his column in 2004 with a headline in the Raleigh News and Observer titled "Vietnam just won't go away," Dennis Rogers noted;
"Never mind that we won our battles. Never mind that the infamous Tet Offensive to which some have drawn worried comparisons with recent events in Iraq was an American military victory the equal of anything the 'Greatest Generation' did in their 'Good War.' Whatever you do, today's military is warned, don't end up like those Vietnam losers." (8)
Cited
1.) Johnson, Waukesha Daily Freeman, 29 Nov 1965, Page 8.
2.) "Vietnam Losers," Passaic, NJ Herald-News, 14 September, 1967, Page 25.
4.) Turning Point, Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, 02 January, 1968, Page 9.
5.) Blame, The Pocono PA Record, 02 January 1968, Page 4.
6) Bratten, The Baltimore Sun, 19 September 1999, Page 27.
7.) Troubled, The Leaf-Chronicle, 21 Nov 2000, Page 12.
8.) Good War, The Raleigh News and Observer, 24 April 2004, Page 21.
Vietnam Service Medal image, https://www.medalsofamerica.com/vietnam-service-medal
Pvt. "JC" L'Angelle, USMC, Reno, NV
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China Beach (on a clear day), DaNang, 1968
27th Marines, Radio Operator
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