Testaments to Reconciliation : ‘To Heal a Nation’ Story of Memorial

Dear Mom and Dad. Well, they haven’t got me yet.

--from “Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam” on HBO

A simple truth about the Vietnam War is that there is no simple truth. The same applies to Americans who participated in that ambiguous and controversial conflict that polarized and demoralized the nation.

Nor is there a single truth, as we see from the current flow of eclectic TV projects connected to the Vietnam experience.

They include the CBS series “Tour of Duty” and the ABC series “China Beach.” Both will return next season. Last Sunday’s CBS drama, “My Father, My Son,” was another. And towering above them all was last month’s extraordinary HBO documentary “Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam.”

Now add to that list the NBC drama “To Heal a Nation,” airing at 9 p.m. Sunday on Channels 4, 36 and 39, and a “CBS Reports” documentary, “The Wall Within,” airing at 8 p.m. Thursday on Channels 2 and 8.

Although vastly different in most respects, all of these programs are connected by a reconciliatory spirit. They are largely apolitical (which is probably why they were deemed acceptable). And they are healing programs which, for the most part, embrace and honor the often-maligned Vietnam veteran without endorsing or condemning the war.

Directed by Michael Pressman and written by Lionel Chetwynd, “To Heal a Nation” is the story behind the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Although not great film making, it’s a moving account starring Eric Roberts as Jan Scruggs, the determined Vietnam veteran who led the private campaign to erect this national monument dedicated to people, not killing.

“To Heal a Nation” suffers the plight of most of TV’s issue dramas in that the issue tends to eclipse the drama. It has its deeply affecting moments, though.

For the most part, returning Vietnam vets were not greeted as heroes. “To Heal a Nation” makes that point early. Coming home on a commercial jet in 1970, Scruggs tells his pretty seatmate he’s “just back from ‘Nam,” whereupon her interest in him immediately cools and she takes another seat.

Nine years later, it’s obvious that Scruggs remains one of the war’s walking wounded, a person of drastic mood shifts, wound tight, impatient, pacing, oozing energy, obsessed, his single-minded zeal for a veterans memorial becoming part of his personal healing. “It’s gotta have all the names,” he insists. “All the names of the ones we lost.” He has no interest in using the memorial “to refight the war.”

Although Scruggs and a few like-minded vets face an uphill battle, the memorial project gains momentum with the support of key members of Congress, only to temporarily stall over controversy about its design: a black granite wall inscribed with the 58,156 names of Americans killed in Vietnam.

Anyone who has visited the Memorial at the end of Constitution Gardens and experienced its simple, austere power and deep reverence for life, may find it hard to fathom the design protests. No matter your feelings about the war, just standing before this headstone for the multitudes and reading the names is an awesome and very personal experience.

Yet the 1982 ground-breaking took place only after the Scruggs group agreed to a compromise, that the wall of names be accompanied by a more traditional statue of Vietnam veterans.

A CBS documentary on Thursday refers to a different wall. And in a way, its subjects are living dead.

Reported by Dan Rather and produced by Paul and Holly Fine, “The Wall Within” is about Vietnam veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. These are men who have been unable to adjust and remain deeply troubled even today.

Many live in rugged areas of the state of Washington, on the fringes of society, according to Rather. You wonder how typical these men are. Whether the CBS assertion of widespread stress disorders is true, however (the preponderance of veterans seem to have satisfactorily adjusted), one can’t dismiss the genuine, raw emotion and enormous rage articulated by these veterans who are being destroyed by their interior wars.

One of them talks about coming home to try living routinely after spending his Vietnam tour as an “18-cent-an-hour assassin.” Says another: “After awhile, you get where it’s almost a rush, almost a high to be hurting people over there. Then you come home and are told to stop.” Another man openly bawls. Still another pulls a blanket over his head to escape into his own reality.

Rather compares the Vietnam vet’s reception with the World War II aftermath: These men “came back to silence while their fathers came back to cheers.”

Silence and hatred. One of the men recalls seeing a woman spit in the face of one of his comrades who was returning from a Vietnam tour. What would he say to that woman today? The words gush.

“We did what we were told to do. And we did it for our country. And we did it for our government. And we did what was right. And we survived. And you ain’t got no right to treat us like that.”

“To Heal a Nation” and “The Wall Within” have merit. And at its best, ABC’s “China Beach” is a stirring and achingly real tribute to women who served in Vietnam in various capacities.

But it was “Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam” that was the most humanizing as it probed deeply into the personal side of soldiering. These actual letters, integrated with news footage and period music from Bob Dylan to Sonny and Cher, contained love, anger, humor, bitterness, hope, fear, silliness, cynicism, patriotism and despair:

“We are all scared. . . .”

“Don’t tell mother this, but there are times I think I will never come home. . . .”

“Most men here believe we will not win the war. . . .”

“This war is all wrong. . . .”

“The frightening thing is that it’s so easy to kill in war.”

Marine Rod Chastant wrote to his mother: “For awhile, as I read your letters, I am a normal person. I’m not killing people, or worried about being killed.” Chastant’s name can now be found on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.