Letters November 10, 2006

A Vietnam veteran remembers the scorn
In November of 1965 I was assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade in South Vietnam. I served with that unit all of 1966. By the end of the year things back in the states were getting pretty bad for the men who serve their country in Vietnam.

I decided then to extend my tour for one year, and was sent back to the states for a 30-day leave. I was standing in San Francisco International Airport waiting for my flight and a young man walked up to me and spit on my uniform. It was either fortunate for me or not fortunate that I couldn’t catch him. The airport police saw what had happened and made me sit in the USO until my flight was called.

When I arrived in my hometown two police officers that I went to school with stopped me and asked if I’d just gotten back from Vietnam. When I said yes, they informed me that they would be watching me.

I returned to Vietnam and served out my second year. By then things had gotten much worse for people who had served in Vietnam, so I volunteered to stay another year. Again I came back to the states for a 30-day leave and was met with statements by my fellow Americans about me being a baby raper and a murderer.

When I returned to Vietnam to serve out my third year, things had deteriorated over there as well. We were winning all the battles, including TET of ’68, but with the negative publicity from the media and some of our government officials saying that we shouldn’t be there to begin with, the younger troops felt that they did not want to die for a cause that a majority of their country was against.

Try to put yourself in a young warrior’s place returning home after a tour in Vietnam expecting the people of his country to show some appreciation for what he had done. He was hoping to find validation; instead he was met with scorn. In some cases people here felt that we should all be prosecuted for some crime.

As in the Korean War we were not allowed to win in Vietnam. Because of political pressure our government agreed with the North Vietnamese in Paris that the fighting would cease and South Vietnam would be allowed to exist. North Vietnam agreed to stop fighting and not to invade South Vietnam.

History will attest to North Vietnam’s honor and integrity. When the U.S. forces and our allies pulled out of South Vietnam in 1973, South Vietnam was a free and democratic nation. The North Vietnamese waited for the American people to feel that the war was over and we did not want to go back before they launched their aggression in the South.

The only way to stop any further problems with countries like North Vietnam, North Korea or even Iraq is complete and total victory.

Fred MurphyApple Valley

Copyright © 2006 Daily Press, a Freedom Communications newspaper.

Thank you Daily Press for printing this letter