Vietnam Veterans
This morning, as I was heading out the door to a meeting with some Vietnam Vets, I turned to my wife and asked, “What can I possibly say to these guys? When I came home wounded, everyone treated me like a hero. But when these men came home, people spat on them.”
After a 55-minute drive and a hike under grey clouds around the VA Center to find the meeting spot, I finally walked into a room filled with men who looked like they could have been my father. They were rugged, weathered men, bearing the invisible scars of war and the sting of rejection from their own communities. The only exception was the psychiatrist—a younger man who had served in the Israeli Army before going to medical school. He was probably younger than me.
The group sat in a circle, and we began introductions, moving left to right. I was first. I used the moment to express my guilt over how differently our country had treated them compared to me. It felt criminal. Then I listened as each man shared a fragment of his story: being drafted, enlisting to escape troubles at home, or small but poignant details like, “I’m from a family of ten, and in Vietnam, I was homesick.”
Our book, Touching the Dragon, was something that many in the group had read, and there were questions. The most poignant was, “what made you want to commit suicide?” I explained to the group that my suicidal ideation was a product of losing hope. I had been a “action man” of sorts and the thought of being something other than that made me not want to live. I went on to explain that after I was wounded and sent home, it became clear that I was no longer a viable asset for our nation in the way I once was. This was my identity, this “action man” version of myself. I didn’t see that I had much else to offer. Why should I waste the oxygen that other, more productive citizens might use. The good Dr. nudged the conversation forward and asked me to explain how I healed. I talked about the immediate coping skills I learned in the mental
1 health facilities in which I resided over a period of 6 months, but then I naturally fell back on my educational discoveries; the things I’d learned at Yale that didn’t actually qualify as “self-help” assets to be used in a therapeutic manner. It came back to the same thing it always does with me: Literature.
I talked to the group of Vietnam Vets about the character Philoctetes and the saga of his life as expressed by Sophocles, a greek general and playwright. I will not spoil it for you, but give it a read. The themes are timeless, and anyone who has ever been through a serious trial will see themselves in the play. The themes are human suffering, loyalty, bravery betrayal and redemption.
In small groups of men, tucked away in VA hospitals across the country, the quiet but profound work of human reconstruction continues—at least for those fortunate enough to have reached a place where they can finally talk about it. At Yale, I’ve witnessed the transformation of young people into extraordinary global citizens, armed with self-driven confidence to tackle humanity’s most pressing challenges.
In the world of veterans, we need something akin to Yale—a dedicated “reconstruction” team. A group of brilliant minds focused on what I believe to be one of the most (to use a hip term) marginalized groups in American history: the Vietnam War veterans. These individuals were failed by our nation, but there is still time for redemption. They deserve nothing less than our very best efforts.
Like Philoctetes in Greek mythology, they are essential; the war cannot be won without them. What war? The ongoing battle for independence—the fight to ensure that every person in the United States can truthfully say they have been granted their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Until that day comes, the war continues.
