Memories on Memorial Day

Me in Vietnam, 1969

This is the 40th Memorial Day since I was in Vietnam, a not-so-happy draftee serving with the 25th Infantry Division at a hot and dusty place called Cu Chi. Like most Vietnam vets of my acquaintance, I don't think much about the experience any more and I really don't like talking about it much. We got no parades when returned and we didn't win the war. Most of us just ditched the uniforms, grew our hair long and faded into our generation as quickly as we could. The last thing I ever wanted to do was tell war stories and drink beer at some VFW hall. I came away from it thinking Vietnam was just a big national misadventure that ended up doing little besides killing almost 60,000 Americans. Not a particularly popular position in VFW halls.

I was fortunate. Although I was drafted and trained to be a mobile radio operator with an infantry platoon, I never really was "out in the bush." Platoon radio operators were prime targets for snipers and their survival rate wasn't great. When I got to Vietnam, my journalism experience helped me talk my way into a job as communications specialist, writing press releases and articles for the Army newspaper at the division headquarters. I was also assigned a Polaroid camera to take pictures of the division commander and the wounded soldiers he visited in the makeshift hospital at the base in Cu Chi. My job was all about presenting a positive image for the Army and what our nation thought it was doing in that sad place. I call it my sportwriting period -- root, root, root for the home team!

I also was confused about my sexual orientation at the time, and very afraid to express what I was feeling to anybody. In other words, they didn't ask and I didn't tell. It was difficult to keep that kind of secret, always wondering who suspected and what would happen if the truth were known. I remember meeting a goodlooking Navy guy once who told me his job in the investigative unit was to get "queers to hit on him" so they could be drummed out and dishonorably discharged. He laughed about it, but it pained me to think about how many lives of decent, patriotic people they were wrecking. And I vowed that I would never become one of those statistics. I kept my secret. But if I had it to do again, I wouldn't. Why be part of a club that doesn't want me? All I had to do was raise my hand and I would have been spared the privilege of an all-expenses-paid trip to Vietnam -- keeping company with Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and a host of others with good connections or at least good luck.

I have made several visits to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., and I cry every time as I read all those names of lives cut short. I also think about all those who have survived Iraq and Afghanistan but in horribly burned or mangled condition. Maybe it's almost better that so many of my generation didn't survive their Vietnam injuries, if their future would have meant the endless surgeries and hospitalization our Middle East veterans are enduring.

When we lived in Santa Barbara a few years ago, the local symphony used to give a free concert at City Hall every Memorial Day. A highlight came when they played the song associated with each branch of the service, and veterans of that branch were asked to stand as it was played and the crowd cheered. I got a lump in my throat when Terry and I stood as they played "The Caissons Go Rolling Along." Sure, we were reluctant warriors in a muddled war that maybe never should have been fought. But it felt good as people applauded us more than 3o years later. The applause we never heard when we came home.