Watching the Victory Parades, I Confess Some Envy

Every year on the Marine Corps’ birthday, the commandant sends a message to all Marine units worldwide commemorating the event. On Nov. 10, 1969, I was stationed with the 11th Marine Regiment northwest of Da Nang in Vietnam. It was my task to read the commandant’s message to the Marines of our unit.

One sentence, in particular, caught my attention: “Here’s to our wives and loved ones supporting us at home.” Ironically, that week my wife had joined tens of thousands of others marching on the nation’s capital to protest U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

It was a divisive, unhappy time. Few people believed the war could be won or that we had any right to interfere in Vietnam’s internal affairs. However, for those of us “in country,” there was a more pressing issue. Our lives were on the line. Even though our family and friends meant us no harm by protesting our efforts, and probably believed they were speeding our return, their actions had a demoralizing effect.

Couldn’t they at least wait until we were safely home before expressing their distaste for what we were doing? But by then, the military had become scapegoats for the nation’s loathing of its war, a war where draft dodgers were cast as heroes and soldiers as villains.

Watching the Desert Storm victory parades on television, I was struck by the contrast between this grand and glorious homecoming and the sad, silent and shameful return of so many of us 20-odd years ago.

Disembarking from a troop ship in Long Beach, my contingent of Marines was greeted at the pier by a general and a brass band. There were no family, friends, well-wishers, representatives of the Veterans of Foreign Wars or children waving American flags.

We were bused to Camp Pendleton, quickly processed and sent our separate ways. After a two-week wait for my orders to be cut, during which time I spent most days at the San Diego Zoo, I was discharged from active duty. I packed up and flew home to begin pre-medical studies.

As the plane landed in Detroit, the on-board classical-music channel happened to be playing Charles Ives’ “America.” The piece’s ironic, teasing variations on the theme, “My Country ‘tis of Thee,” seemed a fitting end to my military service.

My wife met me at the airport and drove me directly to Ann Arbor for a job interview. We were candidates for a job as house parents for the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) International Co-op. Face to face with these sincere, fervent pacifists, I felt almost ashamed of the uniform I was still wearing with its ribbons and insignia.

I recalled stories of comrades who had been spat upon in airports and called “baby killers.” The Friends, however, were exceptionally gentle and kind. They, at least, seemed able to see beyond the symbols of the war they hated to the individual human being beneath the paraphernalia. Much to my surprise, we got the job.

I took off my uniform that day, put it away and tried to resume the camouflage of student life. I seldom spoke of my service in Vietnam. It was somehow not a topic for polite conversation, and when it did come up, the discussion seemed always to become angry and polarized.

Like many other Vietnam veterans, I began to feel as if I had done something terribly wrong in serving my country in Vietnam, and that I had better try to hush it up.

I joined no veterans’ organizations and, on those rare times when I encountered men who had served with me in Vietnam, I felt embarrassed and eager to get away. We never made plans to get together and reminisce. The past was buried deep within us, and that is where we wanted it to stay.

The feelings aroused in me by the sight of our victorious troops marching across the television screen are mixed and unsettling. There is pride, of course, at their stunning achievement. Certainly they deserve their victory parade. But there is also envy. Were we so much different from them?

Soldiers do not choose the wars they fight. Theirs happened to be short and sweet, ours long and bitter. Yet we were all young men and women doing what our country had asked us. Seeing my fellow Vietnam veterans marching with the Desert Storm troops, watching them try, at last, to be recognized and applauded for their now-distant sacrifices, is poignant and sad.

We have come out of hiding in recent years as the war’s pain has receded. It has become almost fashionable to be a veteran and sport one’s jungle fatigues. Still, a sense of hurt lingers and, with it, a touch of anger. Anger that the country we loved, and continue to love, could use us, abuse us, discard and then try to forget us, as if we were the authors of her misery rather than her loyal sons and daughters. It was our curious, sad fate to be blamed for the war we had not chosen to fight, when in reality we were among its victims.