The Vietnam Veteran: the forgotten warrior..

I wonder just how many of this generation are taught about, or even heard about America's involvement in Southeast Asia, specifically, Vietnam and the war that lasted -- officially -- from 1960 to 1975?

On December 16th, it will be 51 years ago -- fifty-one-years -- that I went to Vietnam!

Whatever has become of those veterans that served and are still with us today?  Of course we see the Wall in Washington, D.C., but those 58,000-plus names are only names.  Or are they?   Sure, the names are chiseled into the block of black granite, everyone can see that, but each and every name has a family behind it; a story behind it.

I went to Vietnam just before Christmas of 1967, and returned just before Christmas of 1968.  My specialty was that of Air Force Security Police; my duties were to protect and defend the perimeter of the two air bases I was assigned to.  I suffered no wounds, physical wounds that is.

One-hundred-eleven of my fellow security police brothers did not return; their names are on that iconic Wall in D.C.

When I first returned to the U.S. (we called it The World), I really didn't want anyone to know that I was a Vietnam Veteran, but that is not the case any longer.  I am proud of my service: helping the Vietnamese people fight off Communism for over ten years.  Our "defeat" was orchestrated by a treasonous media and gutless politicians that despised the Catholic heads of the South Vietnamese government.  If anyone doubts that, simply do some open-minded reading on the subject, and you'll see that the back-stabbing and deceit that took place over a period of years, led up to the assassination of the President Diem and his brother (both practicing Catholics).

But that is a subject of another article...

My focus here is to remind those younger folks that we, Vietnam Veterans, do, in fact, exist.  The troops that made it back took on the unexpected challenge of having to respond to attacks on their service; protests; alienation from some insensitive family and friends, as well as other indignities that led to some veterans taking to the bottle, drugs, homelessness, PTSD (it wasn't called PTSD at the time; some called it shell-shock, and, yes, even cowardice -- if you can believe that!). And some, very sadly, took their own lives...

Our generation is getting older; our numbers are shrinking fast.  I'm 71 years old; there are some brothers in their 80s, and some in their 90s.  When we are all gone, will we be remembered, or will we all be forgotten?

I realize that some would like to "forget," but that can't be; it shouldn't be; we all served those unable to defend themselves in the face of Communist aggression to take over and control other peoples' lives.  My mission was to help stop the commies cold, and we did, until we were betrayed.

I am not bitter; just sorry that we couldn't keep the Vietnamese people a free people.

Freedom, it is said, is not free.  I agree; I have first-hand knowledge of just how "expensive" freedom is.

I pray everyday for my fellow Vietnam Veterans that didn't make it back, and those who did, but are still suffering even as I write this little article.

Please remember us...

Pray for our country.

Gene DeLalla