Newspaper Wants to Hear Vietnam Veteran Voices

From the Editor: We Need Your Help on Veterans’ Project
Magic Valley
Twin Falls Times News
Matt Christensen
August 16, 2015

The Times-News can’t right those wrongs, but we can help veterans share their experiences so that history never forgets.

I was born 16 years after the United States first committed troops to the Vietnam War, so to me, it’s hardly more familiar than World War I, the Revolutionary War or any other I read about in grade school history books.

Veterans of those latter wars died long ago, most taking their personal experiences to the grave. If their stories live on, it’s often through unwritten family histories, foggy bits and pieces our great-grandparents might remember about an uncle or father.

Honor Flights, memorials and tributes to the Greatest Generation have taught us that we can’t be nonchalant about history. As hundreds of World War II veterans die by the day, we’re already lamenting their lost personal stories.

But it’s not too late for one generation of men and women: Vietnam veterans.

Their stories deserve to be told, especially after the treatment many received when they came home.

At a very belated welcome-home event held in Twin Falls this summer, 40 years after the conflict ended, one veteran recalled being spit on when he stepped off the plane in New York. Veterans couldn’t get jobs when they came back. They were called baby killers and blamed for problems that often had more to do with politics than what was happening on the ground and in the fog of war.

This was the first generation of veterans to bring post-traumatic stress disorder into the spotlight, because so many veterans were – and still are – afflicted. They made veteran suicide an issue, because so many Vietnam veterans took their own lives. And they raised major concerns about the ethics of war, because so many were subjected to Agent Orange through chemical warfare.

If you know a Vietnam veteran willing to share his or her story, visit Magicvalley.com/veterans or click on the “Vietnam Voices” link at the top of Magicvalley.com. There, veterans will have the opportunity to share their experiences in their own words by answering a handful of questions, and they can upload photos, either current images or shots taken during their service. If you’re a veteran without access to a computer, give me a call at 208-735-3255, and we’ll help you out.
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