0157-Vietnam revisited at McDonald's;more truth after all these years

You never know when you might learn more about one of the most emotional and political events in world history, the Vietnam War, that coldly began in 1955 and ended, also coldly in 1978. For me it was yesterday, sitting in a McDonald's restaurant in Mobile, Alabama where I was writing a blog on presidential candidate Newt Gingrich ( 10 reasons why he can never be president.)

 I am no stranger to the aftermath of the Vietnam war and met many Veterans in San Francisco who landed on the streets there and remained.

It was a poring rain and the gentleman had already eaten, was hanging around until he could get to his car. He volunteered to tell a few of us his experience, his take on Vietnam, and shared that he was retired and under psychiatric care due to exposure to Agent Orange and the sheer experience of what he saw and perhaps did.

 He didn't say his name so I will call him Ralph.  He wanted us to know about the My Lai Massacre, reminding us that he was there and he spoke to persons directly involved in the assault. There had been problems coming from the village. It's been revealed many times that women and children were trained as snipers and were often as skilled as men at hitting their mark - perhaps more so in some cases. It was determined that injuries and deaths of some American soldiers were coming from the My Lai village. Ralph pointed out that North Vietnamese soldiers were adept at using villagers as cover and mingling with them as a method of protection against the enemy. In this case their ploy did not pan out.


Military brass in Vietnam ordered the destruction of the village - the entire village, he said, to completely rid the problem in that sector. When political and media problems surfaced afterwards, the solution transferred to top brass in D.C and  a few people were offered as sacrifices to satisfy the media, Washington and the public probably in that order. Ralph denied that rape and intentional massacre of children occurred.

Ralph said earlier, no matter what movies you have seen, books you have read or news stories you've heard, none come close to what really happened in Vietnam.

I believed him.

What he described what does not come as a surprise. "That was the most backward country I have ever seen in my life. There was no running water inside, very limited electricity, it was like people living in  caves." He said most Vietnamese favored a rice and fish dish that had the head of the fish included and American soldiers were prohibited from eating it due to health reasons. His explanation was logical, that the Vietnamese had over hundreds of years acquired an immunity to the bacteria of such food. One solider that he knew of ignored the order, ate the raw food and got hepatitis.

There was the deep feeling or knowledge that the people you were fighting for, in the South of the country did not care or appreciate what you were doing.

Another gentleman at McDonalds, a security guard by trade, ask Ralph if he had seen "Full Metal Jacket" and he said no, he couldn't watch those movies but he had heard the movie came fairly close to conveying what  happened in Vietnam.

Ralph described his return to America, a no-hero affair with only his mom and dad waiting at the small airport. It was a thank God you made it home moment and nothing more. On the day he left Vietnam he said he arrived at the departing station some eight hours before the flight was to leave. He said he stayed in the building the whole time, daring not to venture out since there had been incidents of soldiers being killed by snipers a few hours before they were to leave for home.

Ralph described how he couldn't get a job once back home, and in one case an interviewer told him there were no openings. As he was leaving he looked back as saw the interviewer drop his application in the garbage can. It's sad to think one stupid action on the part of another remains with a man for the rest of his life, but comforting to know that if that happened today and was caught on camera or by witness, Ralph would own that company.

It made me sad to hear Ralph's story, how ravaged he was by the war but then I knew that he had fared better than many others who came back and just could not make it through the governmental medical system and rid the voices, sounds of war out their heads. They ended up on the streets of America, many homeless and eventually dead, and mostly forgotten.

Ralph said one soldier while in Vietnam couldn't take it anymore and cut his own wrists. The soldier survived and was threatened with destruction of government property. "They made it clear they owned you in the military over there and that soldier was the property that had almost been destroyed."


He spoke of a Veteran in his late 70's who he knows from the VA hospital. The man fought in World War II and saw a lot of combat action. He said the man told him that even after all these years he can't go to sleep without a television on, that silence would be filled with horrid recollections of war, something he preferred to avoid at all cost.

Many Americans including the media find that Vietnam has been said and done, overdone after all these years, but for men like Ralph it will never be finished. It will remain with him until his dying day, and he just wants people to hear more of the truth. He believes soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan are going through a similar experience.