Jonathan Zimmerman: The Truth About 'Nam
[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at New York University. He is the author, most recently, of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory."]
At a Memorial Day parade in Milford, Conn., three years ago, Richard Blumenthal re called his return from the war in Vietnam: "We had to endure taunts and insults, and no one said, 'Welcome home,' " the Connecticut attorney general told crowd, which included relatives of a soldier killed in Iraq. "I say, 'Welcome home.' "
As we now know, Blumenthal never went to Vietnam. Indeed, he actually got five military deferments and then got a spot in the Marine Reserve, which pretty much guaranteed that he wouldn't see combat....
The myths start with the disillusioned soldier, wounded physically and psychologically by the war, who faces yet more hostility when he gets home.
Almost every reported Blumenthal comment about his fictitious role in Vietnam echoed this theme. "I remember the taunts, the insults, sometimes even physical abuse," he asserted at a veterans' ceremony in 2008. All the more reason, he added, that present-day vets should receive a warmer welcome. "When we returned, we saw nothing like this," he told a 2003 rally for military families. "Let us do better by this generation of men and women."
But the Vietnam comparison rests on a set of falsehoods. Despite what you might have read, Americans who served in Vietnam did not come disproportionately from poor or minority communities; most did not report abuse or alienation upon their return -- and they have not suffered abnormal rates of mental illness, addiction, incarceration or homelessness since then....
Read entire article at NY Post
At a Memorial Day parade in Milford, Conn., three years ago, Richard Blumenthal re called his return from the war in Vietnam: "We had to endure taunts and insults, and no one said, 'Welcome home,' " the Connecticut attorney general told crowd, which included relatives of a soldier killed in Iraq. "I say, 'Welcome home.' "
As we now know, Blumenthal never went to Vietnam. Indeed, he actually got five military deferments and then got a spot in the Marine Reserve, which pretty much guaranteed that he wouldn't see combat....
The myths start with the disillusioned soldier, wounded physically and psychologically by the war, who faces yet more hostility when he gets home.
Almost every reported Blumenthal comment about his fictitious role in Vietnam echoed this theme. "I remember the taunts, the insults, sometimes even physical abuse," he asserted at a veterans' ceremony in 2008. All the more reason, he added, that present-day vets should receive a warmer welcome. "When we returned, we saw nothing like this," he told a 2003 rally for military families. "Let us do better by this generation of men and women."
But the Vietnam comparison rests on a set of falsehoods. Despite what you might have read, Americans who served in Vietnam did not come disproportionately from poor or minority communities; most did not report abuse or alienation upon their return -- and they have not suffered abnormal rates of mental illness, addiction, incarceration or homelessness since then....