Unlike John Duffy [Burning off the fog of history, Viewpoints, April 20], when I graduated from college I was drafted and sent to Vietnam as a combat infantryman, where I served from July 1970 until April 1971 with the 5th Battalion/7th Calvary, 1st Air Calvary Division. As a history teacher, Mr. Duffy knows that the 7th Calvary was Gen. Custer’s unit. Decades after returning home, I was finally emotionally able to take college graduate level courses on “America in Vietnam.”
Mr. Duffy and his Vietnam Veterans Against the War message of “Love the warrior, hate the war” is a nice message to present to students, but it does not reflect the actual experience of returning veterans. The civilian population, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and all other veterans groups turned their backs on returning Vietnam veterans.
The Vietnam Veterans of America was founded in 1978 because no one else would have us. In the entire history of the United States, the Vietnam veterans were the only soldiers who were not welcomed home from war by their fellow citizens. Which is why the greeting to a Vietnam veteran is “Welcome Home” rather than the traditional “Thank you for your service.” It was not until the Iraq war that there was the great America revisionist history movement when everyone claimed that back in the day they were against the Vietnam War but not the soldiers who fought in the war.
Mr. Duffy states: “They [the dominant national media] unquestionably repeat the administration’s messaging mix of truth, lies, distortion, and hypocrisy, reducing Ukraine’s death and destruction to the psychotic, imperial aggression of Putin — in a war they insist the U.S. has no responsibility in bringing about. The fog of history, sadly, continues.”
In June 1971 the New York Times published “The Pentagon Papers,” which had been provided to them by Daniel Ellsberg and which exposed the lies behind the Vietnam War. I believe Mr. Duffy should, like Mr. Ellsberg, publish what he believes represents the U.S.’s responsibility in bringing about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Duffy could thus lift the current fog of history.
Alan Krause
Oak Park
