CONTEMPLATIONS FROM A FULL LIFE/Why Did You Not Love Us?




Why Did You Not Love Us? 
                                      
We were the generation of unloved warriors.  It is still hard to understand why. 

But, don’t ever think you made us ashamed.  We know we fought, bled, and died with honor...if not with acclaim.  As you distanced yourselves from us on our arrivals home, so, too, did we distance you.

As we assess the reasons and reality of so many homeless Vietnam vets in our cities and the rate of suicides, I hope in the future we give value to the affirmation and need for validation our men and women require coming home from service in our foreign wars.

Winning the Vietnam War was considered so vital to our interests  that a draft was imposed.  Serious students had their lives turned upside down; many would pay the ultimate price.  

 Did we fight less for flag, country, and home than any other American soldier of any other war?

I was drafted, but proud to say that I volunteered for service in Vietnam.  Ours was a dirty war, men hunting men.  It was a long way away, affecting a race of people that do not look like the majority of us.  I understand that Americans were tired of war; World War II and Korea were not distant in the memories of our fathers and mothers.  But, we sacrificed and endured hardships beyond your comprehension as soldiers of this country.  Yet, you scorned us.  We heard the radio news broadcasts talking of how unpopular the war was in America, the demonstrations, and the accusations against the young men risking their lives daily for you.  Why did you not love us?

It was not a little war. It was a big war and we paid a tremendous sacrifice in blood, tears, and debilitations.  Almost sixty thousand of us bled out in the jungles, rice paddies, and rubber plantations…in the elephant grass along the big rivers. We wanted you to appreciate and somehow justify the mortal price we were willing to pay…for you.  Unlike any other war, your displeasure and impatience was directed at us, and not the war in general.  And we processed those sentiments and filed them in a place the war had taught us---a place that hid them from significance and daily recall.

 Most of us allowed enough time to pass that we could revisit those safe places in our senior years.  Some, though, never would revisit, because they never left the war and never were able to receive the validation needed for their experiences on the battlefields of Southeast Asia.
 
I suffered the indignity of being called a baby killer, not once but a number of times.  Not just on my return, but all over the streets of New York on our one day pass before boarding to Tan Son Nhut. It was a common occurrence. Your parades of protest waved not the flag we were dying for, but the flag of our enemies.  I was greeted with such a protest on my arrival stateside in Oakland.  And I dodged the hail of rocks regurgitated from the center of the animated mass. Where were your handshakes in the airports and buses as we made our way back to our loved ones?

 Think how many men sixty thousand are; how many men, women, and children in the city where you live represent those gallant souls of vanquished warriors?  We were white, black, brown, yellow, and red…but, we came together because our country deemed our service integral to preserving life and liberty of those unable to defend themselves from the atrocities perpetuated with horrifying gore in hamlets and villages untold times over. Where was that on the news?

Forget the politics.  Forget why we were there—if we should have ever been there.  We were there! and after Tet, nothing mattered to us more than getting the man next to us home.  Because it sure didn't look like a good outcome.
 
We will go to our own graves with the question still on our lips, “Why did you not love us?”  Our service and sacrifice confirm, that we loved you.

Keith Wayne Ragan
Sgt., 2nd Brigade, 1st  Infantry Division
DiAn Forward Base Camp 1968-1969
United States Army

                                                                        
copyright by the author, Keith Wayne Ragan

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