This Saturday, March 29, is National Vietnam War Veterans Day, when America is called upon to acknowledge and honor the approximately 2.7 million American men and women who served “in country” between Nov. 1, 1955 and May 15, 1975 — the nation’s longest “conflict.”
President Nixon proclaimed in 1974 that March 29 would be the first “Vietnam War Veterans Day.” That date, March 29, was a day of special significance for Vietnam veterans. It was on that day, March 29, 1973, that the last American combat troops were withdrawn from Vietnam. It was also the day that the last American POWs, who had been brutally imprisoned in North Vietnam, were returned to the U.S.
It should be remembered, that at that point, South Vietnam was still free and did not fall to North Vietnamese conquest until the Spring of 1975 after the post-Watergate U.S. Congress removed military aid to the South Vietnamese armed forces, thus abandoning our former allies to their brutal fate.
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Evidently, President Kennedy’s pledge had exceptions we did not share with the Vietnamese until it was too late:
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
-John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961.
I graduated from a blue-collar, working-class high school in 1965, just as President Johnson was sending tens of thousands of American soldiers to Vietnam. I had childhood playmates and high school classmates who were either drafted or enlisted. A few did not come back, some were physically maimed, and they were all permanently changed by their experiences.
Vietnam was largely fought disproportionately by working-class whites and Blacks and Hispanics, and they were very young. The average age of a combat soldier in Vietnam was 19.6 years of age—much younger than WWII, Korea, or the Gulf War. And they served bravely and well. They never lost a major battle in the entire war.
I believe a majority of Americans, whether they were “hawks” (supporting the war) or “doves” (opposing the war) during that time period, now acknowledge that we have treated our Vietnam Veterans badly in their homecoming. They served honorably and well in a very difficult war, and too often when they came home they were treated very badly—certainly far differently than WWII, Korean War, and Gulf War veterans were treated.
During the 2004 Presidential Campaign, John Kerry’s controversial Vietnam service brought the Vietnam War to the surface again. One morning my wife asked me, “Will Vietnam ever be over for us (referring to our generation)?”
I answered, “No, it won’t. We’ll be throwing crutches and bed pans at each other in the assisted living facilities because both sides believe they were right and both sides believe they were lied to by their government—and they were!”
Putting that bitterness aside, we owe our Vietnam veterans more honor and gratitude than they have received. Many years ago I started thanking anyone I could identify as a Vietnam vet (by hat or other id) for their service and telling them that I hope they know that they had the gratitude of a grateful nation. I have never failed to get an emotional response from the vet (and often from a spouse or adult child if they were present).
Clearly, there is a deep, unhealed wound that we now have an increasingly limited time to rectify.
When Senator McCain was running for President in 2008, I suggested to him that if he won, he should request Veterans groups all across America to ask Vietnam Veterans to lead the Veterans Day Parade in their communities and receive the public “welcome home” they never experienced. Senator McCain promised me he would do it and I believe it would have been a very healing moment for the country.
Please allow me to close with a deeply personal experience, the memory of which I will carry with me to my grave. Christmas of my junior year in college (1967), I was home (Houston) for the holidays. My mother told me one of my teammates from my high school football team had been seriously wounded (paralyzed from the neck down) in Vietnam and he was in the Veterans Hospital near my home.
I decided to go and visit him, pray with him, and try to cheer him up. I had been to that Veterans Hospital a couple of times as a boy to visit my dad (a WWII Navy vet) when he had been there for routine surgeries. My memory was that it was sparsely populated with old veterans. When I visited in 1967 it was jampacked with wounded veterans, with patients in beds up and down the hallways for lack of available rooms. And almost all the wounded were my age (21) or younger! I will never forget that experience on that day.
We owe all these men and women who served our gratitude and appreciation. Let us all remember them, their sacrifices, and their loved ones and their sacrifices tomorrow, and if possible, contact them and tell them how much you appreciate their honorable, patriotic service.
Dr. Richard Land, BA (Princeton, magna cum laude); D.Phil. (Oxford); Th.M (New Orleans Seminary). Dr. Land served as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary from July 2013 until July 2021. Upon his retirement, he was honored as President Emeritus and he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor of Theology & Ethics. Dr. Land previously served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) where he was also honored as President Emeritus upon his retirement. Dr. Land has also served as an Executive Editor and columnist for The Christian Post since 2011.
Dr. Land explores many timely and critical topics in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” and in his weekly column for CP.
