WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

         What does it all mean? To most people Viet Nam is a small country in South East Asia where America fought a war. To the combat veteran it means so much more.
 
         Viet Nam was so much more than a year of service for most of us. Many of us stayed for more than one tour. I stayed for two tours because I felt guilty. My friends died and I did not. For me Viet Nam is two years of service plus thirty-six years of survivor’s guilt.
 
         Viet Nam wasn’t a time for young men to find out what kind of man they might be, as some literature would have us believe. It is our life and for many our death. It is thirty-eight years of learning more about ourselves than we could ever understand.
 
         Viet Nam was the high point of our lives. With the adrenaline rush and our love for each other, Viet Nam is how we measure our highs and our lows, the experiences and relationships of our lives.
 
         Viet Nam was both good and evil. It is our life and our death, our creation and our destruction, flying and falling, R&R to Hong Kong and a rocket attack, an airplane ride home and an ambush.
 
         Viet Nam made us what we are, and tries to take it away.
 
         Viet Nam is something we would all do again but wouldn’t want our children to do.
 
         Viet Nam is thousands of young men smiling and thousands of old men crying.
 
         Viet Nam is the nurse becoming a woman and still looking for the girl.
 
         Viet Nam is when we learned to love not just the people we know but the ones we don’t know.