Stationed in Vietman

I just finished reading “ Dear America Letters Home from Vietman”. My heart is torn. My first reaction after closing the book was to thank them for what they did for me…for us. The first letters were too painful for me to deal with and so I decided to read no more than a couple of them per week. During this time I felt I was closed to each one of these soldiers. Every word, every line, every letter had a voice that perhaps was unheard not by family or friends but for the world.

Through those words I sensed, I heard, I felt…I suffered. Every page was loaded with fear, passion, hatred, hope… resignation. I pictured them in their barracks, their tents, their ambushes, their trenches and their moments of solitude. Moments used to escape, at least for a few minutes from the horror around them and transport themselves back home. George O., John C., Hector R., James R., Sharon L., among thousands of others were my father, my brother, my son, my uncle, my sister, my friend, or me myself. I got to know them for what they were. I guess war portraits you for what you really are. Men scared and sometimes horrified for what they were witnessing but also men with courage and convinced of what they were fighting for.

I know there is so much history in the lives of the one who survived, but I was wondering what is the untold story behind the ones who never made it home. For they had dreams, ambitions, desires, hopes. They were men, young guys and even kids. Was it worthy? I don’t know much about politics but the world they left us is a free world or at least it seems to be. Borrowing some words from Rodney B.: “…the war we are fighting in South Vietnam is a war against communist aggression, which is an ever-present threat to the free world today.” I wonder if I had been ready to live in a world oppressed by a dictator, a tyrant, or ruled by some kind of religious lunatic or by someone telling me how to live my life in order to worship them. My answer is: No. And I will never be.