30-04-2025
It happend so fast
I was so young and naive when, just out of high school, I served in Vietnam. Discharged, I was living in New York City when disturbing images of the fall of Saigon dominated my TV screen. There was no 24-hour cable news at the time, so America had to depend on other media outlets, such as newspapers' first-person stories.
Images were shown nightly on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite (the most trusted man in America). My reaction was anger. I was sickened, although not surprised at what was unfolding in-country. The chaos surrounding the withdrawal broke my heart.
As best I can recall, while sitting alone in my parents' basement, I wondered: What do you say to the American families who lost loved ones in that war? An estimated 58,000 American deaths. Have all those lost lives and injuries come to naught?
Even now, thinking back, did anything about that time I spent there make sense? Maybe that we served with honor and bravery. We answered the call, while so many of our peers at home didn't.
The fall came quickly as it so often does in situations such as this. And the irony that has followed me half a century since: How could anyone who spent any amount of time there have predicted that a new generation in Vietnam would be welcomed as friendly trading partners and the country now a popular tourist destination?
I get it: Time can change everything. Attitudes. Alliances, certainly. Time can heal physical wounds. But among my brother vets, the psychic wounds of that war are scars that run deep under the skin and will never heal.
When I watched the botched withdrawal of our troops from Kabul airport, I was eerily reminded of how history often repeats itself.
And not always for the better.
These days, I spend less time thinking about Vietnam and more — as a reporter for this newspaper — about what I can do every day to honor those who fought in 'Nam, Kuwait, Afghanistan-Iraq. We can do better for them in terms of services and support, and we must.
I am grateful that with time, the public's view of the military during the Vietnam War has changed as well, although it took decades to do so.
These days, in my quietest moments, I am trying to make sense of it all. What I did. Where I was. In retrospect, nothing makes sense. And probably never will.
Let me set the record straight: I was never a combat medic. I did a lot of my time in safely guarded medical units.
I am no hero, and have never pretended to be. But I was surrounded by heroes. The strength and resolve of those I met know no boundaries. Those memories sustain me in my worst moments.
I suppose the only 'good' thing to come out of the fall of Saigon was that it marked the presumptive end of our involvement.
Rick Dandes is a reporter for The Daily Item.
