Vietnam Veterans Are Dying, Need Stories Told

There has been a well-deserved tendency to focus on the veterans of World War II (1941-1945) and Korea (1950-1953).  Their names, however, are showing up less frequently in obituary columns namely because so many of them have already died.  They knew the hardships of battle, some kept diaries, most wrote letters home.

      Sad to say, I’ve noticed more and more Vietnam veterans, many of them friends, also showing up in the obits.  Most others have retired.  Their hair has grown white.  Yet their stories haven’t been told, so what they saw on the battlefields of Vietnam will probably die with them, often never having shared their experiences with their own families.

       Even so, it must be remembered that every observer has a unique personal background that allows him or her to make sense of combat in a highly individualistic way.  Those in the same foxhole will see what is unfolding before them differently.

       This is why reporter Tom Griffith’s excellent front-page article in the Rapid City Journal yesterday (1-4-16) was so opportune:  “Days of darkness: Local Vietnam vet opens up about his days as a tunnel rat.” 

     The veteran,  Army draftee Arnold Bergstrom, is humble and self-effacing, not wanting to be elevated to hero status for “just doing my job.”  But measured against our own humdrum lives, his daily peril in the tunnels of Vietnam might be hard for us to imagine.  Then, again, so is the source of our freedom and strength as a nation.