Warrior to Warrior

Vietnam veteran and author John Harriman returns to Mudville with the latest installment of his series Warrior to Warrior, letters from a Vietnam veteran to our soldiers in Iraq.

The way we?ll never be again

Dear Warrior in Iraq . . .

If you got one of those two-week leaves from the combat zone, you now have one more thing in common with the Vietnam veteran of yesteryear. Very likely, you reminded yourself every day about how great it was to be home. You also tried to tell yourself not to think about what you left behind in Iraq.

Not likely you could put the Raq out of your mind, though. You left behind friends, a mission, a slice of your daily life, a piece of your very being. It?s possible you felt guilty leaving those friends in danger while you were safely home enjoying the company of family. Perhaps a fear visited you in your alone moments, a fear that something might happen to somebody you?d left over there. You might even have felt that, if something did happen, it might be your fault, that had you stayed there, you might have prevented an injury or a death.

Eventually you came to your senses. After all, it is awfully arrogant to assume so much responsibility for what could happen in a war that?s bigger than any one country, let alone a single man or woman. Besides . . .

In your heart of hearts, you did feel that sense of relief that, if something did happen, it couldn?t happen to you while you were stateside. Still . . .

Well, there was nothing left to do but put it out of your mind. Just not think about it. But not thinking about it is a guilt trip all its own, isn?t it? And, hey, the harder you try not to think about it, the more it?s like trying to ignore the elephant in the room.

It?s a heck of a game your mind plays on you, back and forth like that. It?s a sign of change in you.

One day you?ll realize that there?s no going back to the way you were before you entered the combat zone that first time.

And so it is for all who go to war. My father in law was a veteran wounded in Normandy in World War II. He was also the father of four daughters, and none of them ever wanted to awaken him from his chair for dinner because of the way he startled from a nap?it was as though his war visited him every time he closed his eyes.

For others, the changes were less visible but more sweeping, not even evident until after years of reflection. For instance, I have auto-reactions to some of the myths and revised history of Vietnam, that notion that we lost the war, which crops up on every anniversary of a Vietnam event or upon the death of an old warrior like Gen. William C. Westmoreland. I cannot forget certain things, such as a youthful John Kerry testifying before Congress and painting all Vietnam warriors as war criminals.

When I hear such things or remember them, I get a kind of startle, like being awakened from an emotional nap too suddenly. For years, I had to ask myself: ?Where is that coming from??

Lately I have come to understand the feeling. You see, I was young when I went to serve, with no particular future mapped out for me. The first important job in my life was as a combat tank platoon leader in Vietnam, the most important job I ever had. I liked the Army well enough to stay in it for a shade more than 20 years. If not for the war, if not for the draft, if not for Vietnam, if not for officer candidate school, if not for combat . . . well, you can see where this is going. If not for those things, I?m a different guy in a different place.

That?s why I react to any antiwar sentiment that tries to trivialize my life. It?s not that I?m particularly pro-war. Most soldiers are not. Fact is, in my career, the only guys I met who said they loved war were either downright fakes or certifiable psychopaths.

It?s just that I won?t let the antiwar war crowd call me a loser, a war criminal, a tool of the politicians in an unjust war.

I was called to service, and, perhaps more by accident than design, I did answer the call. Simple as that.

I?ve never tried to attach any particular importance to what I and others did in our service. I know full well that the generation that truly saved the world was the one that fought World War II. Although lately, some would even try to trivialize or criminalize that effort on the part of American veterans.

I?m not buying it. Not in WWII. Not in Vietnam. And not for you in Iraq.

Till next week . . .
God bless you and Godspeed.

John is a veteran of two combat tours in Vietnam and a member of the American Legion. His novel, Delta Force #1 : Operation Michael's Sword is a fictional account of the 9/11 attacks and the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom.

And today we're proud to announce the publication of the second of John's Delta books, Prelude to War