Vets scorned in homecoming from another war help today's soldiers
When John Kelley came home from Vietnam in 1969, he couldn't believe the disregard and disrespect he encountered when people learned he'd been to war.
"We were primarily pictured as drug users and baby killers,'' he said.
When Fred Becker came home in 1972, the first thing he did was slip into the airport restroom and change into civilian clothes. His hope was anonymity.
"But I was still identified as a GI,'' he said, and therefore subject to derision.
Never again, the men vowed.
Today, they're part of a generation of Vietnam veterans using their experiences -- at war and at home -- to mentor and counsel the current generation of warriors.
Becker, a member of the Vietnam Vets Motorcycle Club, spent Wednesday at Fort Richardson talking to recent returnees from Iraq -- conversations he never had when he returned from Vietnam.
Kelley, the state service officer for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, spends his workday guiding new vets through the benefits system -- assistance he never got when he returned from Vietnam.
And at the Veterans Center on Tudor Road, Bob Erwin and Bob Nelson use their service in Vietnam and their degrees in psychology and sociology to address the mental health issues of veterans -- help that didn't exist when they returned from war.
All of the men are motivated by their Vietnam, and their post-Vietnam, experiences.
"The Vietnam veterans have vowed that no other veteran would be treated the way we were,'' Kelley said.
With the number of Iraq veterans growing, the Vietnam vets are getting a chance to live up to that promise.
Nelson said about 40 percent of the people he counsels are veterans of the war on terrorism, with Vietnam vets making up the rest of his clientele. When the two groups come together in therapy sessions, something special happens.
The old guys are eager to shepherd the young guys, to make sure they don't make the same mistakes they did. Sometimes they do that with words of wisdom. More often they do it simply by sharing their troubles.
At a recent therapy session, Nelson said, an Iraq veteran who often sits quietly finally spoke up.
"You guys are good to me,'' he told the older guys. "I know that drinking's not going to work for me,'' he said, looking at a vet who had failed to find comfort in a bottle. "I know arguing with my wife's not going to work for me,'' he said, looking at another vet. "And I know quitting my job's not going to work for me,'' he said, looking at yet another.
"Now all I've got to do is figure out what is going to work for me.''
The room filled with laughter. But it was a serious moment. The old guys who had made destructive choices saw how they could make a difference for someone else, and the young vet had listened and learned.
Sometimes, Erwin and Nelson said, Vietnam vets come to group sessions not because they have something bothering them but because they want to be there for the Iraq vets.
They've been there, they've done that, so they know a little about what the guy who spent a year in Baghdad went through.
"If you didn't smell it, see it or touch it, you don't understand it,'' said Nelson, who served twice in Vietnam, in 1964-65 and 1972 and once in Desert Storm.
"We know that hearing the whop-whop-whop of a helicopter blade is enough to send us back to Vietnam,'' said Erwin, who was there in 1966, 1969 and 1970.
Today, the sight of a white pickup might catapult a veteran back to Iraq, where such vehicles often are bombs in disguise. Different triggers for different generations, but the result can be the same: unwelcome memories and a cold sweat.
The difference is it's OK for today's vets to admit to such feelings, and to seek help for them. It's OK, in part, because of Vietnam vets. Their needs sparked the law that mandated the country's 209 Veterans Centers, the first of which opened in 1979 to provide outreach to Vietnam vets who for too long had been disregarded and disrespected.
Veterans Centers are open to all veterans now, although Vietnam vets still outnumber all of the others put together. Only now they don't just go seeking help. They go offering help.
"The older vets love the young ones,'' Nelson said. "They almost smother them. They want to get them healed as fast as possible.''
The Anchorage Daily News
