Viet Vet Advisers to Counsel Soviet Afghan War Veterans

Nineteen Americans, skilled in the counseling and physical rehabilitation of Vietnam War veterans, have been invited to the Soviet Union to address the problems of Russian soldiers returning from Afghanistan, the head of a Seattle peace organization said Monday.

One of the participants, the Rev. William Mahedy, Episcopal chaplain at San Diego State University and UC San Diego, said: “Groups in Russia are working on the rehabilitation of Afghan war veterans. They’re looking for specialists on the impact of war. I’m one of those specialists.”

Mahedy said: “I don’t know what the parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan will be, but I can suspect. In the last few years, we’ve found problems not just among Vietnam vets, but veterans of all wars. I’ve dealt with veterans of World War II, Korea, even the Spanish-American War. Vietnam really opened up a can of worms, and what it tells us is something we should have known all along: that war is a ghastly business.”

Diana Glasgow, director of citizen diplomacy projects for the Seattle-based Earth Stewards Network, said the trip has been approved by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and by the Soviet equivalent of the joint chiefs of staff.

Glasgow said the representatives of the Soviet government who requested the trip were interested in a delegation of experts in three main areas: prosthetic devices, especially those for the feet; wheelchairs and psychological trauma.

The experts from the United States, including doctors, psychologists and engineers, will share ideas with counterparts from the Soviet Union but will also work directly with Russian veterans of Afghanistan, Glasgow said.

“It’s not accurate to say that these men will be counseling Soviet veterans so much as they will be meeting with them,” she added. “How much counseling can you do with someone you’ve just met? The point is to meet with veterans of the war in Afghanistan to describe programs and processes that worked for Vietnam veterans. We hope that some of those programs and processes also work for veterans of the Afghan conflict.”

The Soviets are “particularly troubled about the social and psychological integration of returning war veterans,” Glasgow said. “They want to know tons about post-traumatic stress syndrome.”

Consequently, one of the key members of the U. S. delegation, Glasgow said, will be Charles Figley, a Purdue University psychologist and Vietnam veteran now heading a conference in London on post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Other Participants in Conference

She said other participants in the conference, scheduled Sept. 25 through Oct. 9 in Leningrad and Moscow, include Jack Smith, director of the Cleveland-based Center for Stress Recovery, which deals with the problems of Vietnam veterans; Shad Meshad, head of the Vietnam Veterans Aid Foundation, which is based in Los Angeles, and Mahedy.

In addition to his duties at SDSU and UCSD, Mahedy has long been active in the Vietnam veterans movement. He is also author of the book “Out of the Night: The Spiritual Journey of Vietnam Vets.” Mahedy said he had been asked to meet in Moscow with the metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church, a figure comparable to a Catholic archbishop. He also said he will meet with veterans of the war.

Glasgow said: “This is a first, and it’s amazing that it’s even happening. Obviously, this--doing battle--is at the heart of the issue for Soviets and Americans. Furthermore, the Soviets have been touchy about comparisons between Vietnam and Afghanistan. Very touchy, in fact. Generally, they despise the comparison.

“But one very clear comparison is undeniable. Men in both wars dealt with blood and death and returned to civilian populations that had no idea, no understanding at all of what they had experienced. It created tremendous psychological difficulty for Afgantsi (Soviet veterans from the war in Afghanistan), just as it did for Vietnam vets.”

The war in Afghanistan has created conflict within the Soviet Union, just as the Vietnam War created divisiveness within the United States. Moscow recently announced that half of its more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan were being withdrawn as part of an agreement reached in April. Western estimates had put the number of Soviet troops in Afghanistan as high as 115,000.

The Soviet Union now lists as many as 313 soldiers missing in action since its army moved into Afghanistan 8 1/2 years ago. Moscow recently declared an unconditional amnesty for all its troops who deserted in Afghanistan or left to live in other countries after being captured by Afghan rebels.

A Specific Request

Glasgow feels that U.S. veterans of the war in Vietnam are well-equipped to understand the feelings Soviet soldiers are bringing back from Afghanistan.

One member of the U.S. delegation, she said, will be a Vietnam veteran whose appearance was specifically requested by the Soviets. He was asked for, she said, after having written a letter to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

“He’s a (recovering) drug addict and alcoholic,” she said. “He wrote a very passionate letter, saying what the experience of war had been like for him. Obviously, somebody was moved enough by the letter to ask that he be included. Whether it was actually Gorbachev, I don’t know.”

Glasgow described her organization as an 8-year-old “non-religious, non-political, nonprofit educational corporation.” She said it had sponsored a delegation of Soviet children from Siberia, who visited the United States in 1986. She said it also hosted periodic exchanges between children in Northern Ireland and the United States.

She listed one sponsor for the upcoming trip as Komsomolskaya Pravda, “the organ for the youth version of the Communist Party, which has a circulation of 17.5 million. It’s read by young people up to the age of 35,” she said, “and, of course, that includes returning veterans.”

She listed another sponsor as the Russian newspaper Ogonyok. Glasgow said that, among individuals who expressed interest in the U. S. visit were Yuri Lepski, the managing editor of Komsomolskaya Pravda; Gennady Alferenko, secretary of the Fund for Social Invention, a non-governmental organization, and Sergei Akhrameyek, whom she described as “the chief of general staffs, one of the highest-ranking officials in the Soviet military.”

Visits to Hospitals

She said the itinerary would include visits to hospitals for demonstrations of new prosthetic devices and wheelchairs as well as “lengthy seminars” on the psychological repercussions of the Afghan conflict.

“They have a wonderfully designed prosthetic arm,” she said, “which we’re interested in. We have a wonderfully designed prosthetic foot, which they’re interested in.”

Mahedy, the college chaplain, said he welcomed the visit as an opportunity to further narrow the gulf between the United States and one of its oldest adversaries.

“I don’t know whether glasnost is behind it or not,” he said, “but the Soviets may be attempting, finally, to reach beyond the Stalin years. At least, Diana seems to think so. Even the Soviets are saying the Stalin regime was a monstrous evil. By turning to the problems of veterans of such wars as Afghanistan, they delve more deeply into the human soul.

“Evil, sooner or later, must be righted. The old notions of repentance and grace prove that God is indeed present in history. I’m not at all surprised at this reawakening in Soviet society. I see it as nothing less than trying to change the evils of the past.”