How Can We Tell Children About ‘The Wall?’

For the children of today, the Vietnam War is as distant as the Revolution. For those who were in that land of swamps and jungles, hills and tunnels, who saw the terror and felt the pain, who watched in horror or wept in grief, that war never really ended. It never will, because that is the legacy of war to those who fight in them.
Today’s youngsters are amused by electronic war games where killing is merely a way of getting points and winning a senseless computer trophy. How, then, can we impress upon them what that Wall really means in Wildwood? Will they ever care that it is a way to keep alive the memory of 58,913 of our comrades who died in Southeast Asia?
Will they ever come to understand why, to this day, adults have but to look at certain names on that Wall and break down in tears?
Ah, youth, how sweet and tender, how distant today from those turbulent decades when my generation was their age. Was it that long or was it just yesterday?
Those names on the Wall were guys just like us. We knew them since grade school. We wrestled them in gym class. We dated the same girls, and they were just as brash and invincible as we. They were drafted or volunteered, and were sent to that divided nation where many towns had more consonants than vowels, and seemingly everyone wore black pajamas. Who could tell friend from foe?
Could the children of today understand that?
Is it possible for them to fathom the gut-wrenching decisions of boys, not much older than they, had to make about mandatory military service while still thinking about a prom date. Can today’s children understand those facts about that war? Draft age males had two choices that hung over our heads like the sword of Damocles: Join or defect. Serve or face prison.
Those who were astute learners and had money, got a draft deferment, and went to college. If at all, they entered the war as an officer. Those lacking a college degree, or just high school diploma without any real skills, enlisted or answered the call of their local draft board. Many of those are named on that Wall in Wildwood. But what does that mean to the children of today?
Modern teens feel naked without a cell phone to text each other. How can we take them back into that age when KIA was not a car, but had a terrible meaning: Killed in Action; when MIA was not a girl’s lovely name but Missing in Action? These
abbreviations meant little to us on the evening news as we saw numbers of KIA and MIA, little, that is, until they were attached to our brothers or cousins, neighbors or classmates.
Today’s teens play games where explosions wipe out humanoid characters, and they laugh. May they never have to witness a sad procession into a graveyard when a family is forever changed, and a flag-draped coffin contains the earthly remains of a loved one killed in war. May they never experience the agony of a service member who must present a tri-cornered folded American flag to a grief-stricken parent “On behalf of a grateful nation.”
As we enter this Memorial Day Weekend, it is estimated that 15,000 or more Vietnam veterans or their survivors will gather in Wildwood to help dedicate the only monument in New Jersey with all the names of America’s sons and daughters who died in Vietnam.
Boys and girls, eager to graduate from high school and get on with their lives may stroll by the Wall as they enjoy the freedoms of summer on the Boardwalk. They may look at it in puzzlement and wonder why so many are clustered around the newly placed memorial.
If only we could tell them how fortunate they are that, none of them must fly on a military transport plane to South Vietnam. Can they ever know how some of those, whose names are engraved on the Wall felt as they, too, walked the Boardwalk before reporting for duty in that country halfway around the globe?
As the children of today enjoy benefits of freedom, they may never know terms used back in Vietnam: incoming!, in country, R&R, Agent Orange, on patrol, short timer, MPC (military payment currency), M-1, to name just a few, but there were many more, and some would not be printed in a newspaper.
I have been told that some local Vietnam veterans have offered, as did vets from the Battle of the Bulge, to go into history classes and relate their stories of that dirty Asian war, only to be rebuffed by teachers who do not think it appropriate for students.
Some veterans never got over the pain of being considered an enemy at home by those who were against the war. They never heard, “Welcome home!” They were shunted away, and considered killers by some who never appreciated what they did for America. Such sentiments cannot be fully understood by the children of today as they wonder why it was so important to be welcomed back to their neighborhoods.
I suppose every generation of veterans has the same emotions, the same sentiments, but I suspect Vietnam veterans are just a bit different. World War II was a time when the nation united behind each service man and woman. It was not like that in the Vietnam War. Korean War vets were the first to fight a war that America did not win, just like their younger peers in the jungles of Vietnam.
Each time I pass that Wall, I will remember a cousin I knew only vaguely. He wanted to join the Navy, just like me, to serve his country, but he failed the entrance test. Angry at his failure, he stormed down the hall to the Marine recruiter and enlisted.
Sent to Vietnam, he was injured, and sent away to recuperate. Then, he returned to the war, this time to be the last time. He was killed in the Tet offensive. I was in Navy radio school, came home and found my mother in tears, “Bobby was killed,” she said.
For the children of today, such news is as distant as the Revolution. Perhaps they will look at that Wall and realize the awful price many gave to defend their freedom, and understand how precious and fleeting life is.