Letters

OVERWHELMED

I am somewhat overwhelmed by the initial response to my article, “Lost and Found Connection.” I have heard from a dozen guys who see themselves in the analysis and who have contacted me to share their life experiences. In my career it has been rare to get feedback from those I have tried to empower, and rarer yet to learn that what I have written is helpful.

Thank you again for the opportunity to write for The VVA Veteran. Your publication facilitates the connections that are desperately needed.

AGE-MATES & SOUL-MATES

I was deeply touched by Eleanor Covan’s “Lost & Found Connections.” Many of her insights resonated with me, particularly those regarding reentry into society following combat in Vietnam. When I turned eighteen I volunteered to become an Army paratrooper and served fifteen months in Vietnam in an airborne recon unit. I arrived in Vietnam on February 14, 1968, and was immediately deployed with my unit to Hue City. Our task was to sweep west to east into the Hue/Phu Bai area of operations and intercept and kill NVA troops attempting to reinforce regiments fighting the Marines.

The time between arrival in country and my first firefight was no more than three days. The shock and memory of this first combat experience is indelibly imprinted in my memory. I could not fathom that someone was actually trying to kill me. After frequent contact until March 20, my recon unit was shifted to the Ashau Valley. In September 1968 my unit was tasked for operations northwest of Saigon. Given my small stature and my job, I spent a good deal of time inside tunnels. These experiences continue to weigh heavily on my spirit. I departed Vietnam on May 30, 1969.

Following my military service I used the GI Bill to attend undergraduate and graduate school and post-doctoral training in neuroscience. Upon entering college in 1970 during the height of the antiwar movement I felt, as Dr. Covan predicted, very isolated and unwilling to let my peers know that I had served in Vietnam. I was one of the very few students who had been in the military, much less in combat.

Hiding my service from my classmates only exacerbated my feelings of isolation and disconnected me from others and from myself. Why did I not have the courage to let people know I had fought in the war, when, in actuality, I felt my service was very honorable?

I had fought hard for those immediately around me, and them for me. I also knew that I would serve again in combat if asked. It boggles my mind today to see how I was willing to remain silent in hopes that I could establish those connections that Dr. Covan identifies. And, to make it worse, even if I did form connections, I would have had to hide my anger and bitterness over what I perceived as the clear hypocrisy displayed by many of my fellow students.

I have often wondered whether other combat vets who left the Vietnam War and immediately entered the unbelievable alienating contrast of college were affected in similar ways and whether their disconnections extended to the workplace. My chosen profession is not one where I come into contact with fellow veterans. In fact, over the past three decades I can count on one hand the number of individuals I have worked with either in the university or during my fourteen-year tenure at the National Institutes of Health who served in combat in Vietnam. Indeed, my colleagues of similar age have been and continue to be surprised that I served in Vietnam. It simply does not compute for many of them.

Surprisingly, many of my age-mates confide in me today that they actually gave little thought to those fighting in Vietnam or to the political and moral aspects of the conflict. For many, their war, in part, was against the practice of making money and purchasing external symbols of the establishment—practices which many embrace today.

The majority of my college classmates now evaluate their lives on the basis of external measures and indicators of success that they eschewed and protested vehemently during the war years. I may be unfair, but I observe that unbridled ambition among my generation is probably more common than service to others. Indeed, it would be interesting to learn of the beliefs and actions of my classmates who played the angles to avoid the draft during the late ’60s and early ’70s and who then went on to make fortunes on Wall Street. As I write this, I am again embarrassed by my difficulties accepting the non-connections of my past.

But despite years of anguish, as Dr. Covan eloquently describes, I have found that my strength of being arises from my connection with fellow veterans. It is as if I can sense their intensity and experience even before I know they fought and saw the horrors of combat. There is some type of emotional shorthand that cuts through the social intercourse no matter how we have dealt with the demons or what we do for a living. In many cases, I see a weird wisdom and sense of depth I do not see among my non-combat age-mates. Just being in the presence of fellow veterans lifts my spirits.

I have shifted my research focus from studying brain development in children to working with young vets back from Iraq and Afghanistan who suffer from traumatic brain injury and PTSD. I feel at home with them, and I find they are comfortable with me. They tell me I have “street cred.” I tell them my efforts are as much for me as they are for them; they help me become less resentful of my age-mates. They understand that that is not easy for me to do despite the destructive and selfish nature of that emotion.

I hope they will experience a world of genuine connection with others more rapidly than some of their Vietnam vet brothers and sisters. Dr. Covan has helped illuminate what that may look like.

Reid Lyon is Distinguished Scholar in Cognition and Neuroscience at the Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas, Dallas. He also is Emeritus Professor of Education and Leadership at Southern Methodist University.

IN A VACUUM

I am the wife of a U.S. Army Vietnam vet. He is a member of VVA Chapter 785. I started to read the article by Eleanor Krassen Covan until I read: “Although we are in same birth cohort, we knew little about each other. We tend to interact with people whose experiences are like ours.” 

She goes on to make the most ridiculous statement: “Before I met my husband I had no personal relationships with Vietnam veterans.” Was she stuck in a vacuum? How did one go through that time period and not know a Vietnam veteran? All you had to do was walk through an airport; they were right in front of you. In our high school we lost more friends than I would like to count.  

So, how is it then possible that she can connect with veterans or the spouses of veterans? No doubt her husband can, one veteran to another. To connect with a wife of a combat veteran, you had to know what life was like prior to his departure and what life became upon his return. It’s impossible to gather that information in a six-year period. Forty-three years later I am still gathering information.

I am not an academician; however, I am the wife of Vietnam veteran. We married on June 7, 1969, and he left two weeks later. We knew each other and dated in high school.

Dr. Covan, you have much more homework ahead of you. That’s because veterans with thousand-yard stares rarely speak about their combat experiences. They prefer to try to forget about them. Every now and then I learn a new passage of my husbands’ journey home—not because of lack of interest or caring on my part, but out of respect for him. I learned early on that you can ask, but do not expect them to tell you.

So excuse me when I say that this is one article in the magazine that I will not finish reading. My last thought, and the most important one, is to remember those whose long journey home has ended. You will find them on The Wall.

WILD MEN RUNNING

Eleanor Krassen Covan’s “Lost & Found Connections: Vietnam Veterans’ Struggle to Come Home” is one of the very best articles I have ever read regarding PTSD, our struggles to fit in, and some of what goes on with Vietnam veterans dealing with society in general: wild men running; reconnecting to others and to self; and understanding the impact of combat. These are things most of us have done, especially upon returning home.

I have passed this article on to as many veterans and their families as I can. Up here in Northern Idaho, we Vietnam veterans formed our own support group, the Dinky Dau Breakfast Club. We set up a phone tree. Sometimes all it takes to re-ground us is to talk with someone we know who has been there. Just hearing the other person’s voice can alleviate some of the stress. 

I highly recommend that other Vietnam veterans form their own support groups, but first be sure and check each person’s DD 214. We had to eject a wannabe who had worked his way into a friendship with members of our group.

Thank you again for this great article.

MIRRORED CONNECTIONS

The only difference between me and the guys described in “Lost and Found Connections” in the November/December issue is that I never married. I have had several long-term relationships with women, but none led to a mutual marriage decision. So we parted as friends.

I cried trying to read Covan’s article and had to stop several times because of seeing myself in that mirror. In fact, it is hard to not cry as I write this. I am sure there are others who were hit the same way by this article.  

CHEMICAL POISONING

I am renewing my membership in VVA because of the coverage that your magazine has given to the topic of the chemical poisoning of Americans and Vietnamese by Agent Orange and other herbicides used by the U.S. military at the direction of the government in Washington, D.C.

The questions I would like answered: Has VVA endorsed the Relief for Victims of Agent Orange Act of 2011 (HR2634) that would help Vietnamese and American victims of dioxin and clean up the contaminated areas in the People’s Republic of Vietnam? What are the differences between that bill and HR812 and S1629, both of which were mentioned in the great May/June 2012 issue?

The 112th Congress has ended, so the legislation proposed above has died. Although the 113th Congress begins with a clean slate, we have no doubt that bills that address the cleaning up of the toxic soup we left behind in Vietnam will be introduced in the new Congress, as will legislation to assist American veterans and their families. VVA’s position has remained consistent and can be reviewed at www.vva.org/testimony/summaries/2009/060409.html

BURIED WITH HONORS

The article about Paulie Narson accompanying the coffins of indigent veterans to their burial sites in the September/October issue of The Veteran brought back sad memories of the sudden death of my friend of fifty years, Robert G. LoPresti, who served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Qui Nhon from 1966-67. After leaving the Army he had considerable difficulty holding jobs and was homeless at one time, attempted suicide, and was living on a barely adequate VA/Social Security pension in a retirement home when he died in January 2012. He was classified as an indigent and would have been buried in a potter’s field but for the fact that he was a veteran. Instead he was buried with full military honors with myself as the only mourner at a veterans cemetery near Wilmington, Delaware.

NOT FORGOTTEN

It was with sadness that I read letters in the last issue from veterans who are now in prison and feeling forgotten. I would ask your help in letting these “forgotten warriors” know that there is one out here who has not forgotten them.

I welcome any incarcerated veteran to contact me. I will respond and help in any way that I can. Thank you for your attention to this message. May God bless you and your loved ones according to your needs.

DO THE TIME & SHUT UP

Why do you allow the rants of the likes of that poor Gary G. Van Zandt (Letters, November/December)? He did the crime and damn well let him do his time. He got where he’s at by completely ignoring the rights of a victim. To even suggest that he now is a victim of the system is a travesty.

There were millions of us who served, came home, and had more or less good lives and careers. In most every publication dealing with veterans, there are articles about the homeless, the incarcerated, the “left behind.”

Those very few left the “honor” of serving this nation behind. Not the other way around. To pander to them with articles and their rants just continues to exult them over those of us who still have the honor of having once served our country. 

HELP FOR THE INCARCERATED?

VVA should not endorse the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Act of 2012. We are in agreement that the act, which amends subsection 2991 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, goes a long way in helping veterans.

However, endorsement of this 2012 Act comes at the cost of having to reauthorize the Omnibus 1968 Act, which is not in the best interest of veterans. Our primary concerns as incarcerated veterans are two-fold: establishing veterans courts for the reconsideration of sentences and obtaining federally funded PTSD treatment programs for incarcerated veterans.

Psychologists and psychiatrists have confirmed that PTSD may have been a contributing factor leading to the mass incarceration of Vietnam veterans. The facts are clear that PTSD has been a plague on Vietnam veterans. Of the 2-1/2 million men and women who served in Vietnam, more than 500,000 ended up incarcerated.

On Memorial Day, President Obama stated he had increased and improved the VA’s mental health services to address the often unseen wounds of war veterans. Incarcerated veterans of Vietnam still feel the sting of the stigma attached to them from when they came home from Vietnam.

Vietnam veterans who are incarcerated receive no federally funded mental health treatment programs for their PTSD. They receive no consideration of their combat experience at parole boards. They receive no recognition that PTSD issues may have led to their incarceration. These veterans did their duty when they were called upon to serve. In contrast, draft dodgers of the Vietnam era were granted amnesty for failing to answer that call. These men were given a second chance to enjoy the freedoms of our nation. Do Vietnam veterans deserve less of an opportunity?

Veterans courts can ensure that incarcerated veterans get the treatment programs that will help them adjust and function in society. VVA should do all it can to push for legislation for treatment programs for PTSD in state and federal prisons.

We urge the VVA national leadership to escalate its efforts to establish veterans courts for the reevaluation of prison sentences of combat veterans. These issues should be a top priority. History is repeating itself. Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are following in our footsteps. Last July, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans committed suicide in the States in numbers that exceeded the number of troops killed in action.

EARNED HEROISM

I was hoping I had read the letter from Andrew H. Anderson the wrong way. I understand he wants to issue a Bronze Star to soldiers who received the Combat Infantryman Badge or Combat Medic Badge for service in the Korean War or the Vietnam War.

If the military of any branch begins issuing personal decorations for heroism because of earning some badge it will diminish the true meaning of the Bronze Star. We already have medals issued just for being in the service or serving in a combat zone. The Presidential Unit Citation was issued to some units during the Vietnam War and every member of those units received the recognition.

I am glad to see the public recognize any serviceman as a hero after the reception returning Vietnam veterans received. I have had more handshakes and “Thank You For Your Service” in the past fifteen years than I got coming home from the war forty years ago. But if we start issuing Bronze Stars without an act of heroism, it will not shed a good light on the military.

We are becoming a nation of “You owe me, and don’t expect me to have to work to get benefits.” I’m not talking about the military but a civilian population that expects benefits without working to earn them. The military would be taking the same path if it hands out medals like Cracker Jack prizes.

A very good friend was a Navy corpsman. He received a Bronze Star when he exposed himself to enemy fire to render aid to fallen Marines. How does someone receiving that same medal for earning a badge seem justified?

We need to reexamine the term “hero.” In a recent local political race a candidate stated: “I put my life on the line in the military.” He had served in the U.S. Navy during peace time, and his mission was no more dangerous than driving to work on a busy highway. Firemen have also been labeled heroes after 9-11. There is no doubt every fireman, policeman, and military man is prepared to give his or her life while serving. But let’s reserve the term “hero” for those who actually do a deed to earn that title.

INDOCHINA VET

I am interested in your articles on Dien Bien Phu in the July/August issue. I served in the USAF, 1951-54. I was part of a group of mechanics sent to Indochina in January 1954 to service C-47 aircraft that were dropping supplies at that outpost. We were stationed at Do Son Air Base south of Haiphong.

SEIZURES & AGENT ORANGE

Recently you published a request of mine in “Locator” about finding fellow veterans who might have seen me having a seizure while I was on Firebase Rockkasahn. I have not found anybody yet, but I have had a lot of emails from other vets who say they are also having seizures for no explained reasons. I bring this to your attention because maybe if enough veterans report this, the VA might look into it a little more. Agent Orange affects the nervous system, and these unexplained seizures could be a result of Agent Orange.