ProgressOhio

During Vietnam it was IMPOSSIBLE for Military Families to Question the War! Part One of a Two Part Op/Ed and Book Review By Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force – Retired AND Willard D. Gray, First Sergeant (E-8) U.S. Army-Retired 

Home Front: Families at War – a Primer for what Military Families who question, not oppose, but only question the War on Terror can expect from their community if they had done the same during Vietnam. This is a must read if you are a member of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) or can relate to our concerns.

http://www.amazon.com/Home-Front-Vietnam-Families-War/dp/1600020194

 

 

      When will the war finally come to an end? No, we are not talking about Iraq, Afghanistan, or even the War on Terror. We are talking about Viet Nam (Willard uses the spelling acceptable back in the day). 

      Home Front: Viet Nam and Families at War teaches and informs those of us who can relate, and the public in general, of the private and public humiliation, personal family ordeals, and shattered families that war had brought to any family that questioned the Vietnam War. 

      Despite what critics have said to dissuade Willard from writing the book, and others from reading it, not one Veteran, including Willard, not one family written about in this book was part of the established anti-War movement back in the day. Their only socio-political crime was having the Patriotic gall to question the war and course set for the nation by decision makers who, like today, cannot relate to those who carry the burdens of war. 

      Their experiences, an ongoing tragedy since the last U.S. Soldier left Vietnamese soil, reveal the physical and psychological wounds of war (PTSD when it was unheard of and its existence challenged, proliferation of bad conduct and personality disorder (or failure to adjust to military service) discharges that were less than Honorable, even if the Veteran had served multiple combat tours in Vietnam.

      The lesson we as military families can take from reading this book is that as Willard said these are, “wounds that don’t discriminate between soldier and family.”

      From the backwoods of Maine to the rugged wide open spaces of Montana, Willard has collected testimony from at least a dozen soldiers and their extended families. On hindsight this is testimony that should have been given at the first Winter Soldier, but that one did not have a panel for Veteran and Military Families shattered by the war. Most families back in the day would most likely not have attended anyway, because it was the war they questioned, but did not oppose. Most families only sought, like the Tillman’s today, answers from their government and military as to why? 

      These are the subjects covered in Willard’s book: 

1. A Different Era – Contrasts with the Military of Today.
   1. The POW/MIA issue.

               b.   Casualties of War – the families of the wounded or killed who question their loss.

         c.   Three Families.

               d.   Home Coming.

               e.   The Webb Family. 

1. Health of a Nation

            a. Agent Orange – a families struggle to get Agent Orange recognized.

            b. The Twinam Family

            c. PTSD – a families struggle to get PTSD recognized

            d. The Kenny Hayes Family

            e. Home Life – the Welcome Home Vietnam Vets never got and still seek, even when they finally get one.  

            f. The Frank Hayes Family

            g. Suicide – Reasons why we should not allow the VA, politicians, or even Veterans and Military Families to downplay it today. They will do so until and unless they have experienced PTSD without denial. 

            h. The Rigdon Family. 

3. From the Ashes

            a. Outcasts – families who experience Patriotic [Nationalistic] Ostracism, not because they were Unpatriotic or because they opposed war. The soul justification for quarantining them was that they QUESTIONED. It was considered more  UNPATRIOTIC back in the day to QUESTION than it is NOW. Ask any military family, Veteran, or even active duty troops TODAY how it feels, the reaction and reception they get when they QUESTION their war, or any war. Then multiply that response by ten, then you have the equivalent of what families during Vietnam got if they but QUESTIONED the war. 

The same WWII mentality, racism, nationalism, propaganda apparatus, and hate and war mongering system existed then as NOW, except more vicious and effective than now, or the national popularity polls for Bush and his war would be much higher. Point: The national popularity ratings of Johnson and Nixon never reached the lows of Bush, because it was near impossible to QUESTION anything they or our government did. 

Willard's book breaks the MYTH spread by the pro-war movement that it was liberals and the liberal media that lost the Vietnam War as it would be the sinful elements that would lose Iraqnam. 

The center of the anti-war movement back in the day was urban areas, college campuses, NOT rural America by a long shot. Frankly, the center of the anti-war movement TODAY pretty much remains the urban scene, there is realistically no anti-war resistence on college campuses, because we have NO DRAFT, and it a family resides in rural America, that is where most volunteers for Iraqnam come from YOU BETTER NOT QUESTION LET ALONE OPPOSE THEIR WAR! However, the price you pay comes nowhere near what these families endured.  

            b. The Cantrell Family. 

            c. Homeless [Veterans] – the beginning of a national disgrace and epidemic that has endured into the 21st century to now include Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

            d. The Lintecum Family.

            e.  Career Moves – Yes, Stolen Valor freaks there were and still are successful Veterans. That does not mean WE were immune to or free from the horrors of war, just better equipped to cope. [BACKGROUND: Stolen Valor was a ultra-conservative, partisan book written by friends of the Bush family in Texas to ironically expose Fake Veterans, as they ignored just how Fake G.W. Bush was and still is. These right-wing Veterans created the MYTH that liberals [Rush Limbaugh helped enhance this myth during 2004] within the anti-war movement and leftists within Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) turned the American people against the war effort and against our troops].

            f.  The Rudow Family – it was this chapter more than any, because it tells the story of how many Vietnam Veterans returned to the world and what they perceived as back to normal. If anyone even admits they were in combat, tells you as they look off with that thousand mile long stare that they had no problems readjusting to the world, either they were never in Vietnam, in combat, or they still are just as looney now as when they returned from Nam. (Point: You are not going to find too many Nam Vets telling you they returned to a normal life, successful maybe, like me, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say NORMAL).

           G. Honor Restored – Willard saved the best for last. The story of his family coping with trying to upgrade their son’s less than honorable discharge during a period of time when Draft Dodgers were being granted amnesty and welcomed home from Canada, was what focused public attention, prejudice, hate, and anger toward Willard's family.  

      Being a Life Member of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), and volunteering for Veterans for America (VFA), I know first hand that the Justice Project formed by Bobby Muller after he left VVA and now has legal expertise allied with VFA, was designed with a mission of trying best they could to upgrade less than honorable discharges and get the coding of DD-214s stopped. (Coding that told employers everything about a Veteran from low IQ to drug and alcohol abuse even if the discharge was Honorable). This in fact, was an effort of VVA, and still remains so with our incarcerated Veterans program. Did you know that VVA is among the only VSOs that allow Veterans in prison to form a chapter????

      h. The Gray Family. I want to provide an extract from this chapter in order to give members of MFSO, or military families thinking about QUESTIONING any aspect of our war (deployments, expectations, PTSD, national commitment to win) food for thought. Are YOU prepared to potentially go through what these families did? Some in fact went through more horrible experiences than the Gray Family. 

      As WE read this excerpt from the last chapter in Home Front, I ask that WE take a moment and walk in the shoes of the Gray family. (Believe me, I can almost relate! The hurt and pain is there but in no way compares to what this family went through) 

      Here is a Retired Military Senior NCO, a fellow military retiree (who BTW is treated as a fifth class citizen, as our generation is treated like third class or stowage) when it comes to the military retiree benefits they have been screwed out of. The most successful among that Greatest Generation sweeps the stench under the carpet for political expediency for they have money to burn at Casinos, and could care less if they got Social Security of not, because they can’t take the $$$ they have with them when they depart the mortal plain. 

      Anyway, his son or daughter (our son or daughter) patriotically and proudly joins the Army (or Marines), they survive two, three, or ten combat tours but when the pressure and heat of battle fries their brain, who do you think will be the first to make a move to dispose of them? GIs were (and are) referred to as GIs (or Government Issue), because WE were and are expendable.  

You got it the Pentagon. Figuring that cost savings was not as much of an incentive to prevent Veterans from becoming Veterans by giving them bad conduct or less than honorable discharges, there was an epidemic of them compared to today.

During the Viet Nam ear (from 1964 to 1974) some 432,000 less-than -honorable discharges were issued in Vietnam alone. World wide the service issued a total of 550,000 bad paper discharges. Each and every one of these discharges threw the bearer and family into a Black Hole. No government or community recognition, help or assistance for the wounds to body and mind they suffered ONLY GRIEF and OSTRACISM.  

Ask anyone at VVA or VFA staff who has had to work bad papers how the numbers compare to our relatively smaller All Volunteer Force, and I rest our case. 

      It was also far easier to get rid of used up troops during Vietnam, because not only was PTSD unheard of, but efforts to research it and get it recognized were being opposed by every right-wing, conservative element that supported a continued presence in Vietnam, including established Veterans organizations like the American Legion and VFW working with the Pentagon to keep troops wounded in mind and body continuously fighting in the jungles of Viet Nam. In fact, PTSD became associated with Vietnam Veterans within the anti-Vietnam War movement and joingly refverred to VVA as Vietnam Victims of America a derogatory term for Bobby Muller’s VVA back in the day, because it was one of the only VSOs fighting to have both Agent Orange and PTSD recognized by our government worthy of compensation and future treatment. 

     Willard begins his families’ story by talking about his own military career, blends in how his son joined the military following in Dad’s footsteps only to be disenchanted by the war as a combat medic, how it was going, and gaining a distain for “lifers” like his Dad.

     The moral of Willard’s story is that here is a Career Military Family, with the father a Senior NCO, having to deal with the fact that right, wrong, or otherwise, their child [a military brat] has gotten a bad conduct discharge from the Army after gallantly serving in Vietnam as a medic. We are talking about a Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) trained medic here.

Talking about bursting your patriotic bubble, in their trails and tribulations trying to and successfully getting their son’s discharge upgraded to a General Discharge, that would make him eligible for VA benefits, this military family went through HELL ON EARTH!!! 

Willard writes from page 318 to 322 in Home Front: Viet Nam and Families at War. 

“On a Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1972, I approached the pastor at a local church which was my childhood church. I was still considered a member of the church. I presented [the pastor] with three documents on the [Vietnam] war [that were intended to inspire questions and debate on the war within our congregation], and I asked him if I may address the congregation on a “human needs issue.”

[In many Churches of the Christian faith such soul searching testimony is called to Bare of Give Spiritual Witness or share spiritual inspiration with the congregation even if it bordered on ethical-moral-spiritual-political controversy. Any bible will reflect where even Jesus, the Christ, was placed in a position of having to respond under diress and torture to political questions regarding Caesar, and the son of God.] 

I did not ask [the pastor] for money, or for any specific time. The pastor seemed to be very open [minded] to the idea and took the manila envelope, promising to look over the documents and discuss them with me the following week. When I returned the next Sunday, I found the church empty, and the parsonage occupants would not respond to my knocks. Disappointed, I visited an old family friend nearby who, upon hearing my story, said, “Now I know what this morning’s sermon was about!”

[Depending upon denomination churches may have an early morning service, and Sunday school, then a service later in the morning before lunch]. 

Eagar to discover if perhaps I had struck a cord with the pastor, we both hurriedly returned to the church, where we found [the pastor] exiting with the package I had given him the week before. “Good!” I exclaimed as we got out of the car. “What’s the word?” 

[The pastor’s reply was shocking to say the least].

“After the services this morning,” [the pastor] said, “they held a special deacons’ meeting and decreed that you are not welcome in this church.” [We are talking about a House of God here folks????]

“Apparently, [the pastor] had not mentioned me by name in his sermon, but had managed to arouse the curiosity – and indignation – of several in the congregation. Upon finding out the source of the sermon, the church deacons met and wasted little time in officially banning me from the church. 

Honest debate on the war, I was finding out, was not just unpatriotic. It was heretical.

Two weeks later, my childhood home, which I was planning to rent out, was vandalized. Built in the 1860s, it had been where my mother, her sister, and her brothers – like my siblings and I – had been born. Now it was in pieces. Vandals has smashed the windows, shredded the plaster, and scrawled graffiti inside and out.  On the front of the house at the second-story level, three-foot-high in all caps – and visible from the highway – read

Foxtrot-Uniform-Charlie-Kilo      Yankee-Oscar-Uniform [minus the code words].

Friends advised me not to work the fields by my ancestral home any longer. [Willard became a farmer after retiring from the military]. Neighbors near the trashed house pleaded with me to remove the graffiti. I refused. “I think it represents the community well,” I said.

      What a [fitting] memorial that still stands to this day in my name and in the community of my childhood!”

[Remember next July 4th, Veterans Day, and Memorial Day that Willard was not only a Veteran of the Greatest Generation [WWII], but a Retired Military Senior NCO. Ironically, Jewish officers and NCOs who had served in the German Army during WWI were treated even worse by the Nazis but the feeling of humiliation and ostracism was on par. Their service, like Willard’s, was irrelevant to the socio-Nationalist, political, and backward religious zealots of the Vietnam War]. 

      The mistreatment of the Gray family got worse as Willard’s narrative continued.

“As the months went by, our ostracism from the community grew more palpable. Some folks did business with me. And several troubled souls with a brother or son or father in Viet Nam sought me out for advice and assistance. But most avoided me and my family like the plague, to be seen with us was to be seen with the enemy.

[As with most members of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) today, this sort of interaction went on underground per se out of public eye for fear of retaliation, either from the community or our government. In comparison to Willard, our military family is still invited to [but refuse to go to] block parties organized by the Republicans that think they run our neighborhood. We attended one of these social functions with folks who were in fact personal friends from my Air Force career, fellow officers, and their wives. Being the only Independents at the event and blatantly supporting Kerry/Edwards, we were not only ostracized by ganged up on, belittled, told what the NeoCons though of us. There was no other family present who felt as we did nor supported us, and thus we can relate to the Gray family. When we are invited by ultra-conservatives, who have no children serving in the Armed Forces, they are interested in one thing and one thing only. Picking your brain to see how your child feels about Iraq. What they really want to know is if our child supports the war or not, so they can use it for or against us. Nope I’ve played military politics too long to not know another set up when I see one. Willard’s answer was to leave the FU memorial up for his neighbors, mine would be to create the largest FU - BRING ON THE DRAFT sign on our property once it is paid off and on the market removing it when we sold our house]. 

The Grays and American Legion and VFW supporters of Troops and Families during Vietnam 

The American Legion and VFW back in the day were more so supportive of those troops and those families who putting it mildly drank the cool-aid. Given that Vietnam Veterans have pretty much taken over these old fashion Vets groups, it is not that bad today, because even they are DIVIDED at rank and file levels. Believe it or not, the Legion and VFW were even more Nationalistic flag wavers and exploiters than today if that could be possible. Today, we at least have Legion and VFW clubs that are divided on the Iraq War depending upon which political affiliation dominates the membership at city, county, state, and regional levels. During Vietnam, there was no such debate among the Victory achievers of the WWII generation.

“A visit to the local VFW,” Willard continues, “building yielded more of the same. “I haven’t got time to mess with you,” growled the portly sergeant at arms, [usually a Vet Service Organization leadership role filled by someone who has politically risen through the social hierarchy of the Legion or VFW. Just like the military, if one cannot play politics within VSOs, one cannot be a leader. Today at least it is done diplomatically, but back in the day it was survival of the shrewdest]. The VFW sergeant at arms had been “a recently retired Air Force sergeant with a beer belly. I didn’t recognize the man, but he obviously knew me. My apparent lack of patriotism had preceded me.” 

Flabbergasted [remember Willard was a fellow military retiree like this Sergeant At Arms], but undeterred, I set out for the American Legion building. As I entered, two men asked pleasantly, “How can we help you?” Though I did not know them, they knew me through their employment with the Norris Electric Company, formerly Rural Electrification Association (REA), which serviced the entire region. They would stop and visit or communicate with my elderly father and mother while on their many line maintenance missions over the years that I had been in the service. My mother had shared many of my service experiences with them. They understood the family.   

“I want to see someone in the Legion concerning help or assistance for my son,” I told them. 

“You couldn’t have picked a better time,” said one of the men. “They are installing new officers tonight, and the State Commander will be here.” 

Finally, a glimmer of hope, I was on Cloud Nine when I headed for home to do the [farm] chores and eat supper.  Perhaps someone there would talk to me. Perhaps they would grant me a sympathetic audience. [Remember also that Willard was of the Greatest Generation and he seriously believed these guys meant what they were supposed to stand for. Heck these are the guys who got him the G.I. Bill of Rights, if anyone would give a sympathetic and open-minded ear, even if they disagreed with him, it would be THE LEGION – wrong!!!]  

“Hell,” I muttered to myself as I approached the American Legion building later that night, “I’m going to be at home here.” Several hometown Legionnaires, classmates, and family members were standing outside the entrance [to provide Willard moral support]. But as I approached, those who saw me, including the State Commander, turned their backs to me.

[Ala John Kerry’s reception at the VFW in 2004, except Willard was no John Kerry, his family only questioned the war. They had no time or made no effort to oppose it. They were not part of the anti-war movement in any way YET!].

“It went downhill from there. One life-long legionnaire who had been a classmate offered to run interference for me, but this turned out to be a bad idea. Taking a seat in the back of the hall [sort of like the back of the bus], I sat through a pitiful prayer expressed by the Legion chaplain – who had been a junior classmate of mine and a post-WWII veteran – the induction of officers, and even the taking of a collection for an American officer – [Lieutenant William] Rusty Calley, on trial for the massacre at Mai Lai.

Note: When atrocities became public knowledge during Vietnam, it was national policy of both the American Legion and VFW to provide rank and file support for those accused by the Pentagon of such crimes. Calley was among the most notorious due to the media frenzy his case attracted. University archives that retain newspapers from the 1960s show that overwhelmingly Legion and VFW Posts across the nation provided monetary support to the few troops placed on trial for committing war crimes that the Legion and VFW adimantly denied ever happened during wartime. Ironically, when troops in Iraq are alleged to have committed atrocities, these VSOs are so split on the war or loyal to the Bush administration that such efforts are not national organization policy but left up to local and state level or preferably individual efforts depending upon which political party dominates the membership. 

Willard concludes, “As the night wore on, the members drank to excess [that, and smoking, is still SOP in VSO bar and bingo joints today except their clientele is mostly non-Veterans looking for a local hang out. This, natural attrition due to age, and blind support for war, more than any reason accounts for the declining membership in old fashion VSOs. They have reached and passed their zenith, and are on the decline or transforming into more so political and Nationalist organizations than Veterans Service. I project that their days are numbered unless they can attract younger blood in significant numbers from an increasingly smaller pool of Veterans. Most forming their own organizations like IAVA, IVAW, and even Veterans for Freedom (which is filled with older Veterans)] 

      It became exceedingly clear to Willard that he “would not be granted an audience, sober or otherwise. My friend Bill also realized that I would not be seen or heard by any of the local officers or the state commander. My community, and the State Legion Commander, was more interested in helping an officer who had presided over a massacre of [innocent] civilians in a drainage ditch in Viet Nam than in helping one of their own sons shake off the stigma of an undesirable discharge. After an hour of this, I departed for home. At a restaurant years later, I ran into Ernie, one of the Legionnaires who had been my classmate. He and his wife joined me, and paid for my lunch. He said, “Willard, I want to apologize for my past actions to you,” I told him he was fifteen years too late.”

FINAL NOTE: to you Military Families Speak out (MFSO) and potential MFSO members, or even National Guard, active duty troops, and military family members who only QUESTION and not oppose the Iraq War. How many of you will be having the above conversation with someone from your community in the year 2022?

The sooner we bring our troops home, the faster this conversation will be over. Let us not have it come the year 3022, most of us, even Iraq and Afghanistan Vets will not be here to exchange it. 

Robert L. Hanafin

SP/5, U.S. Army (69-76)

Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired (77-94)

Military Families Speak Out – OHIO