Dear Americans, We Still Have Some “Unfinished Business” . . .
By Debbie Daniel (11/08/04)
There is a large group of “walking dead” in our midst . . . and I cannot get them off my mind and heart. We ignored them once, and I pray we won’t do it again.
If this past presidential election did nothing more than bring to the fore a story that we’ve not heard . . . we cannot in good conscience ignore it.
One, lone soldier, told his story several years ago, and we listened with “bated breath.” But recently when the other side of the story was told, we slightly turned our heads and called it politics.
There was no “slight” with mine . . . it was turned completely. I’m convinced we have some “unfinished business” concerning thousands of men and women who came home from a war that mistreated them, to loved ones who disowned them, and to a country that spat in their faces . . . all because of one man.
I spent election eve watching the movie “Stolen Honor.” It’s not about the Swiftboat Veterans, although we owe a great debt of gratitude to them, but “Stolen Honor” is about the men who served as prisoners of war for six and seven years being tortured at the hands of the North Vietnamese – and it got worse because of that one man’s voice.
They told their story in “Stolen Honor,” but we shunned them, too.
How can we have that many American soldiers, who were there, coming forward to tell their side of a story and we won’t listen? One man told his and it became immortalized as truth . . . the only truth.
Does it make us feel better to stick with the one man’s story? Then we have no apologies to make? Then we can move on with our lives? And then we can bury all of it . . . finally?
But these “walking dead” can’t even find solace while waiting for their graves to be dug. The wounds have been reopened only to have the knife dig deeper, the pain hurt more, and the scars much more visible.
We have a Vietnam Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. that honors 58,000 dead men and women who served their country honorably. Americans come by the thousands to pay tribute to these brave soldiers who lost their lives, but we won’t take the time of day to say “thanks” to those still living who also served honorably.
It’s as if these are the “bad ones” . . . only these living soldiers committed the atrocities of which that one man accused them.
These, who are still living, learned a long time ago to muzzle their mouths and suppress the awfulness of that war. Their greatest reward would have been to die along with the others.
The dead were brought home to finally have a wall built in their honor, but the living were to suffer a slow agonizing death for the rest of their lives. And we’ve been satisfied to let them.
I would implore you, Americans everywhere, to help us find a way to honor our “living” soldiers of Vietnam, for when they are finally laid to rest, there won’t be a “wall of gratitude” built with their name on it, but they can go to their graves knowing their country did love them.
They will never know any gratitude for fighting in a war on our behalf . . . unless we tell them. They served their country . . . and for that, and that alone, we should be grateful.
As we approach this Veteran’s Day, I hope that we can reach out to these soldiers and “bring them home again” . . . not with spit on their faces; not with bile thrown at their bodies, but with love and kindness for a job well done.
I exhort all of us to find a Vietnam Veteran somewhere . . . seek them out, to shake a hand, hug a neck, or say, “I never had the opportunity to thank you for your service in Vietnam, but I want to now.”
In light of all that’s happened in the past few months, they will know exactly what you’re talking about and nothing more needs to be said. Nothing at all . . . that’s it.
We can do this.
You talk about healing? I’ll say no more.
(Printer friendly version) Email: Debbie Daniel
