War Was Fought With Blood of Our Youth

I was very moved by H.G. Reza’s piece on Vietnam veterans (“For Veterans, Life--Like War--Needs Courage,” Nov. 11) until I came to the second-to-last paragraph: “Frank and Walt took walks in the sun that lasted longer than the combined duration of our adventures in Grenada and Panama and the conflict with Iraq . . . “

This smacks of the same type of condescension some Vietnam veterans complained of when their experiences were initially dismissed by some of those who fought in “The Big One.”

Vietnam veterans deserve their due and more. They were certainly treated disgracefully by a great part of this country when they returned home from duty, and that alone calls for some kind of recompense.

But by elevating Vietnam to mythical status and denigrating other wars, one creates a desire to re-create or re-experience it in some strange way instead of keeping it grounded in the reality of what it was: a hard, bitter and savage war, fought, like all wars, with the blood of a nation’s youth.

SEAN COUGHLIN

Los Angeles

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Approximately 95% of my work as an attorney deals with the problems of veterans, and their efforts to obtain a measure of justice from the bureaucratic and uncaring Department of Veterans Affairs.

Gil Reza’s story about the plight of Vietnam veterans has some factual inaccuracies, which detract from the overall quality of his work.

Reza tells us that Walter Meeley received an award of $1,024 from the VA for a “disease related to dioxin poisoning.” Lump-sum payments are not made by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The writer is probably referring to a payment made by the Agent Orange Veteran Payment Program, established as a result of a class-action lawsuit brought against the manufacturers of Agent Orange.

Benefits are available on a monthly basis from the Department of Veterans Affairs for any veteran who has a physical disability which is attributable to exposure to Agent Orange.

WILLIAM G. SMITH

Los Angeles