Vietnam Syndrome

It has been 20 years since the end of the war in Vietnam but about three weeks since the end of the war in the Persian Gulf. Yet it seems that those who were in Vietnam are still unable to let their past fade into history. When I read the letters section to fulfill my interest in how other people feel about the Gulf War ending so victoriously, virtually all the letters contain some reference to the contrast between the Gulf War and Vietnam.

Is it blasphemy to suggest that these guys get a life? We know all we need to know about how rough it was then, but this is now. What connection is there between 20 years of complaining and stories out of Vietnam of fraggings, dope, civilian massacres, body counts, etc.? By comparison from the Persian Gulf, we hear of teamwork, pilots taking chances to avoid civilian loss of life, of our guys feeling sympathy for the Iraqi war prisoners, etc. It suggests to me that there was a different morality in the Gulf War.

When I was 17, I was in the most atrocious POW camp in Korea (Camp 5). This group of 725 prisoners disappeared for two years only to emerge with nearly 500 dead from executions, starvation and untreated disease. We were repatriated, put aboard a ship and returned to San Francisco. Without ceremony, I walked through a door and was standing in the city. I received no decorations, no counseling, no parade. They tried to repair my wrist that had been broken and left without medical attention for the previous two years, and discharged me. That was it. I don’t think you hear an awful lot from our guys who were in Korea even though there were more KIAs, MIAs and POWs in those three years than in 10 years in Vietnam. We fought our war, took our lumps and came home to resume life in the big city.

EUGENE L. SCOTT, Tustin