Today I hear "Welcome Home!" regularly to greet returning war veterans from Northeast Asia and that is good. They deserve to be welcomed home with open arms. It was not too long ago that the veterans of the war in South Vietnam were publicly ignored when they came home. As a Vietnam veteran, having to sneak back into the country we defended remained a raw memory for decades.
I remember my group’s homecoming as if it happened yesterday. It was late November 1969 when we landed at SEA-TAC airport in Washington (state). The plane taxied away from the main terminal to a side gate where we boarded military buses with screened windows and armed guards. We ran from plane to bus because our summer khakis were no match for the cold.
Then we were sped away through a small group of sign toting protestors just outside the gate. I still see the words "Baby Killers" on a placard and a woman running next to the bus yelling obscenities and pointing right at me. I could hear her words "You had no (expletive) business in Vietnam."
A few hours later, I arrived at the small airport in Rapid City, South Dakota. I wanted to be alone and spent the entire day there. My emotions were oscillating from extreme elation for making it home to remorse for coming home in one piece while so many did not. I thought about the horrific acts of war I had witnessed and committed. I thought about my friends. I thought about those that were still there.
Finally, since it was getting dark, I called the late Fred Two Bulls, the local BIA police officer. He had the only telephone in my home area. I remember the strong sense of alienation when he said, "I didn’t know you were in Vietnam." My older brother Frank and his wife Della (both deceased) arrived two hours later. The conversation on the ride home went from awkward to total silence.
Vietnam was an unpopular war where 58,200-plus combat soldiers were killed and more than 300,000 were wounded. About 17,000 soldiers remain unaccounted for today and remain listed as missing in action. The popular media called it "America’s costliest and longest war" (1965 to 1975).
The anti-war movement began in 1945 when merchant marine sailors protested the use of U. S. merchant ships to transport French troops to "subjugate the native population." England and Austria saw anti-Vietnam war protests in 1963. Hundreds of college students demonstrated in New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle in 1964. Twelve men burned their draft cards in New York.
In 1965, an 82 year-old Detroit woman burned herself to death to make a statement against the horrors of the war. In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. opposed the war on moral grounds condemning its diversion of funds from domestic programs and the disproportionate number of African American casualties in relation to the total.
I remember reading about the "anti-war protests" in my buddy’s hometown newspaper while I was in Vietnam in 1968-69. By this time the movement included prominent intellectuals of the time, the hippie movement, and those who rejected authority and immersed themselves in the drug culture. America was actually divided on the war between working class "hawks" and the peace preaching "doves."
In 1968, only 38% of the population supported President Johnson’s handling of the war and 50% disapproved. The rest of America had no opinion. Joining the anti-war demonstrations was the Vietnam Veterans Against the War organization. Many were in wheelchairs and/or crutches. Seeing these veterans throwing away their medals on national TV did much to win people over to the anti-war cause.
1969 saw the re-introduction of the draft lottery creating increased controversy and young men were fleeing to Canada to avoid going to Vietnam. In 1970, four college students were shot and killed at Kent State University while demonstrating against the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. Generally, a majority of American citizens against the war were questioning government and military accountability.
Meanwhile, those of us who were taking part in combat operations in the South Vietnamese jungles and mountains were forgotten. We stopped fighting for the "red, white, and blue" and began fighting to survive so we could go home. It didn’t seem to matter that this situation produced the world’s most efficient small-unit fighting teams and strategies.
At the same time, troop moral dropped while the American public was divided on whether or not we belonged in Vietnam. We still had that reddish soil under our fingernails when we returned home and were spit on and called deprecating names like "drug-crazed" and "immoral." WWII and Korean war veterans disdained us because in their view, we lost the war for America.
Although our families welcomed us home, we were shunned by an American public that was solidly influenced by the anti-war movement via the social media. As one journalist put it, most veterans went into "hiding" or tried to disappear into the woodwork. Suicides among the Vietnam veteran population were overlooked and discounted.
Consequently, I struggled alone with my chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Although PTSD has been in existence since Cain and Abel’s time, it remained largely misunderstood until the 1980s. Actually, many continue to view it through established stereotypes, including veterans of WWII.
During the late 1970s I even tried the spiritual aspect of our culture without success. Many years passed before I realized why I could not make a connection there. I practically grew up in a parochial residential school where my Lakota language, culture, and spirituality were banned. I did not understand my culture as I only knew about Christianity and its teachings.
My relatives did not understand my situation while I nearly lost my life to PTSD. The realization that I had a family who actually cared for me was enough to keep struggling. In 1991 a fellow Vietnam War veteran, Chuck Richards, told me about a walk that was happening and asked if I wanted to represent Pine Ridge. In desperation, I agreed to go.
The walk was to bring national attention to some proposed budget cuts to veteran’s benefits. To my surprise, the 700-mile Brotherhood Walk from Angel Fire (NM) to Pine Ridge’s Daniel Stands Memorial Arena had a life-altering therapeutic effect on me. I met other veterans who were experiencing similar symptoms and that alone helped me to begin a healing process that is ongoing today.
When we walked that last couple of miles from White Clay to Pine Ridge, I was pushed to the back by the crowd in their ambition to get in front for the news cameras. However, it didn’t matter to me as that moment was the start of my homecoming. When everything was over, I continued my struggle to come home by learning as much as I possibly could about this PTSD.
In 1997, I was very fortunate to have met a fellow Vietnam combat veteran, Mike Dafoe who got me into a PTSD treatment center in Denver. I learned nearly everything there is to know about this disorder. I am now at a point in my life where I can sleep regular hours without nightmares and only a fellow veteran can understand what that means.
I learned that people who have not seen or experienced war will never understand, not in the way the veterans of Vietnam and the "Forgotten War" in Korea understand as theirs is not based on clinical knowledge, but on actual experience.
Although I hope to someday close this episode and open a new chapter, I know it will never happen. That 18-year old who went to war is dead and I must symbolically mourn him and learn how to build myself a new life, but I will always remember. I extend a "welcome home" to all this Veterans Day.
– Ivan F. Star Comes Out, POB 147, Oglala, SD 57764; (605) 867-2448; mato–nasula2@outlook. com
Copyright permission Native Sun News
