back from there only to be labeled as baby killers. Why were Vietnam vets called 'baby killers' when civilians - reddit And he espouses that post-traumatic stress disorder was an invention of the government to garner support for the war. WebThe "baby killer" epithet was pretty unfair, since it was based on the actions of a few: the Mai Lai Massacre, plus things like carpet bombing and napalm bombing, which was ordered by a relative few higher ranking officers, and for which the pilots & crew were not responsible (they had no way of knowing who they were bombing). Every soldier, sailor, airman, and marine who served While we honor todays veterans, we can honor Vietnam veterans as well by following their example as great Americans to help those who deserve to live with dignity and respect and in freedom. General Colin Powell and General Norman Schwartzkopf did not want a repeat of the debacle that was caused by the politicians in Congress when all of South Vietnam fell to the communists. WebAnswer (1 of 6): Its a hateful name to call any veteran, and even today, Id be careful calling a Vietnam Vet that name to his face. They were not a group of mutinous draftees, although many were drafted, and if they did not begin their tour disillusioned by their war, they most likely concluded it with that view. According to cultural historian M. All Rights Reserved en.trandaiquang.org - 2023. Few could have anticipated the duration and cost of this commitment. In the era when the North Vietnamese invaded the South, the world was facing Russian colonialism, the spread of communism, nuclear arms, the Cuban missile crisis and other threats to world peace. Starring Tom Selleck. This song was a group write, along with the very accomplished Nashville songwriter, David Kent. Vietnam This along with the use of napalm that probably also pushed the negative public image.Compare that with the heavily directed media coverage of the Gulf war 1991. WebOther people being guilty of your misdeeds does not make you innocent of your misdeeds. Ukrainian POW Unveils, Russian forces eliminating Ukrainian saboteurs that violated border, Greetings from Oujda, Morocco, the City of Mosques, VT RADIO: Exposing East Palestine Train Derailment Disaster with VTs, VT RADIO: Foreign Policy Gone Mad with VTs Senior Editor, VT RADIO: UFOs, Aliens, & Chinese Balloons with VTs Jack, Republican Candidates Defend Killing Civilians to Fight Terrorism and so do Democrats, Iraq veterans could be prosecuted for war crimes, says head of inquiry, Khazarian Mafia at War: The Jewish Oligarch Who Planned the Terror Attack on Bryansk, Covert Operations In Vietnam: The Incomplete History of US-Norway Collaboration. Mr. Schultz served in the U.S. Army as an artilleryman operating howitzers in Vietnam from February 1969 to April 1970. The Gulf War American Forces marched in New York City to a very well deserved ticker tape parade and were so magnanimous to allow the Veterans of the Vietnam War to march with them. I bought a wig to hide my military haircut. Original Reporting. The baby boomer generation grew up in the world of the 1950s, a world of duck and cover drills in schools in preparation for a nuclear attack, of reminders of the threat posed by Soviet and Chinese Communism, of the fear of the near-inevitability of war, and of their obligation to serve in this war. I was not a baby killer. David: I can tell you this about my time with Operation Song, which I believe has been about seven or eight years at this point. Why are Vietnam vets called baby killers? - Quora Many of them served in Vietnam. Many Americans blamed Vietnam Veterans for the loss of the war even though all the main American combat forces had been brought home as of March 1973. Make sure to familiarize yourself with our rules and guidelines before participating. American service members did not suffer defeat, even though most of us felt defeated. How you were treated by the country you defended, So heres a song. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. More people probably knew Lt. William Calley, the man in charge at My Lai, than knew the name of any other combat officer who served in Vietnam. With no idea of what was waiting for you back in your home town They found his refusal to do the same offensive. An overwhelming majority of Vietnam veterans served honorably and bravely. In previous wars, civilians at home had no footage of the horrors besides government-prepared newsreels and the occasional lone wolf report. In his purported study, Lembcke's sampling was not random, it was statistically insignificant, and he stated that stories of spitting first surfaced in the 1980s. All Gave Some. Zippo, burning down people's homes in small towns (villages). WebOne of the Vietnam veterans, Ed Barick, 73, a retired truck driver who lives in San Diego, served as a US army engineer from 1964-67 and returned to a nation that was deeply He has written well over 100 songs for veterans from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghan wars and Gold Star children and surviving spouses. The horrific actions of those that committed atrocities were widely shared on television, newspapers and magazines. Policy and politics out of Washington had failed, not the military. Reached the golden shores of Heaven, and could hear those angels singin, CH: Legal Statement. In October 1967, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter James Reston's front page article in the New York Times described his eyewitness account of protest behavior so vulgar that spitting was the least of the transgressions. The study was based on focus group and individual interviews with 26 war veterans who had killed or believed that their combat actions caused the death of others. Why were Vietnam veterans called baby killers? - Answers Commenting on these feelings, one veteran said, Getting close to peoplebeen a big issue forcaused me to get a divorce, the agitation, irritability through all those years and not really talking to my ex-wife or kids at that time.. WebVietnam veterans recall being 'spit at,' labeled 'baby killers and drug addicts' upon return home It was the return home that left many Vietnam veterans feeling wounded and Another topic covered wasBack in the World. The following The impact of their indifferent, if not hostile, reception was all the greater because they had assumed the responsibility of citizenship they understood was theirs. Feel free to submit interesting articles, tell us about this cool book you just read, or start a discussion about who everyone's favorite figure of minor French nobility is! Vietnam Your email address will not be published. Although not all veterans who have taken a life suffer guilt or mental health consequences, Maguen said the growing number of veterans seeking mental health services suggest that high numbers of veterans are experiencing moral injury. Love, Poverty And War: Journeys And Essays [PDF] [5qkamljh8p80] Martha's Vineyard Spewing hate at them over Vietnam was an atrocious act by the American media and public, who didn't have the balls to blame Johnson, Kennedy, et al. They described how they felt after killing in combat and some opened up about hidden agonies. It doesn't help that a lot of men claimed to be VietNam vets who weren't. Thirty three veterans gave interviews on various topics relating to Vietnam including: basic training, the trip to Vietnam, being in the field, helicopter and aircraft stories, support groups, the Vietnamese, and their general thoughts on the war and the country. All rights reserved. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Thanking veterans for their service today does not absolve us of our guilt and we can never wash away the national stain of such treatment. Vietnam veterans were treated in despicable ways by Americans from being spit on to being called baby killers. How much money does leasinging a factory cost in vietnam? Like refugees before them in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, there are many Afghans who need to be given the opportunity to live in freedom. The Vietnam War Crimes You Never Heard Of | History News CH: Technology. In 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson sent in ground combat troops, there was criticism and dissent, but the dominant image was of young Americans taking a stand in the jungle, a heady sense of Americans defending the free world.. Within a few years, they quickly passed it along to their children. As Churchill wrote, The Statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. He argued, Let us learn our lessons., https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/opinion/the-baby-boomer-war.html. Welcome back where you belong.you know there shoulda been a ticker tape parade The researchers urged the public and health care workers to allow veterans to express themselves to help them work through these conflicts. Thanking veterans for their service today does not absolve us of our guilt and we can Why Is Assange in Jail and Not Seymour Hersh? FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. Let's all stop listening to those who refuse to consider the facts. Youre all heroes now so come and get what you deserve Of course there was anti-war press there that did everything to denounce the war and call our soldiers murders and baby killers, which of course the hippies ate it up on the tv and news and it spread like fire. Because they had to endure so much pain and even felt abandoned by the their own people and country, more than 100,000 Vietnam veterans (the actual number would be even much higher) committed suicide after the war, which is nearly two times the number of soldiers had died in Vietnam. Legion Logistics is a third-party logistics provider (3PL) based in Newport, Kentucky. Theirs was the Apocalypse Now war. The race became a referendum on the issue, which was bad news for Mayor Lori Lightfoot. And number two, they probably wouldn't believe you anyway if you told them what you saw, and what you experienced. The profile of those who served was more complicated than their stereotype the men and women in Vietnam were not defined by peace symbols and love beads, although some displayed them. With Whalen out, what's left behind for Gophers women's basketball? Many described confronting a dark side of themselves that they did not know existed before they had killed in combat. Purcell said that for some veterans, this disrupted their sense of identity, making it difficult for them to see themselves as good. Vietnam vets were raised in a society that honored veterans. Many did, but many also served. The entitled elite who used the term baby killers against us re-purposed the term from World War I, when the English used it to refer to what the German use of zeppelins did over English cities. Despite the depths of their wounds, Purcell said that many veterans found, especially when they were able to connect with other veterans, that talking about their experiences eventually became a source of healing, as did volunteering to help others. This changed as the numbers of troops grew, their casualties increased, as draftees made up more of the units, and as the rationale for the war and its conduct were more broadly challenged and unpersuasively defended. We wanted to be left alone and thought we could forget our war experiences, but we learned that was an impossible task. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Sergeant Major El Sar is now the Command Chaplain Sergeant Major for the U.S. Army Japan. Montana-Class Battleships Would Have Been Powerhouses, Nitro Express: Worlds Most Expensive Bullet ($149 a Round? Made us question why we ever joined the fight ", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homecoming:_When_the_Soldiers_Returned_from_Vietnam. Routing number of commercial bank of Ethiopia? Official census figures for August 1995 showed 1,713,823 Vietnam Veterans were still living. The biggest factor, as far as I can tell, was television. But always that nagging question, why do I hurt like this?. As Americans, we have a collective guilt over the way our Vietnam veterans were treated. I've always suspected that the spitting and the "baby killer" insult (re: the movie 'Rambo', for instance) were largely myth, although I would guess that a few incidents must have occurred. After Vietnam, governments started to embed reporters with combat units and exercise control over what camera crews could film. Islamic terrorists attacked on 9/11/2001, and then President George Bush ordered the American Military, the best in the world, to respond and air strikes were carried out against the cowards that had trained in Afghanistan and killed innocent civilians with four hijacked airliners in New York City and Washington, DC. In 2004, the VA called the house and said because of Agent Orange, I was welcome at the VA and I went and still there. To the average U.S. soldier, it was very difficult to distinguish between who was a civilain try to eck out an existence and a Viet Cong rebel. Why was america’s policy of containment a failure in vietnam? The Vietnam Veterans wanted to make sure no Americans returning home from fighting for their country ever received the negative treatment as they did during the Vietnam War. There has never been, nor will there ever be, a charge to any veteran or family member for our services. The reason why the Vietnam War became so unpopular is that What is the reflection of the story of princess urduja? Mistakenly kill a civilian and push the populace into the hands of the Viet Cong or kill a Viet Cong before they got you. friend and some information about Christian video life to put my social media "When we came home, some of us were spit at. thought we had no business being in to start with. Sharing this post with your friends through social media is a way of sending "kudos" to the Veterans Radio team and their guests. Other spitting incidents were reported by Pulitzer Prize winners Max Frankel in the New York Times (November 1969) and Carl Bernstein in the Washington Post (May 1970). Only this time, the young people of the same age as the returning Veterans were not protesting their generation of warriors but were showing them respect and thanking these brave patriots. Did they not also kill women and children? The study was based on focus group and individual interviews with 26 war veterans who had killed or believed that their combat actions caused the death of others. I cannot tell you how many songs I have written since joining the program, my guess is somewhere between 50 and 100. That was a good, well documented reply. As we reflect on American military history on this Veterans Day we can draw a simple parallel between our attempts at peace with honor in both Vietnam and Afghanistan. For meand I think most others returningwe transported in a civilian airplane, that landed on a military base, which would have greatly restricted civilians from being where they could protest against us. Being asked about killing left many veterans feeling anxious, isolated and even angry because most felt that someone who did not serve in war could not possibly understand what it was like to kill.. Their Impact of Killing (IOK) treatment program emphasizes self-forgiveness and helping veterans make amends, heal relationships, plan for their future and move forward. With a brilliant left flank maneuver around Iraqi military forces, General Schwartzkopf and the highly motivated and courageous Americans and Coalition Forces encircled the Iraqis and liberated Kuwait. A human reaction to the crowds and returning Afghanistan and Iraq War Veterans by Vietnam Veterans could have been bitter and resentful, but those that fought in Vietnam wanted to make sure our returning warriors were respected and thanked for their service and for doing so rose above their own emotional and mental pain. After Greene made his best effort to check the truth of the accounts to be printed, he inserted a minimum of his own commentary in the text, preferring to let the veterans' words speak for themselves.
