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Make New Friends But Keep the Old

By Marty Webster

Text of VVAW National Coordinator Marty Webster's speech to the membership of VFP at their Annual Meeting
and 25th anniversary at the Holiday Inn in Portland Maine.

This weekend you are here to remember and to apply those memories as you plan for the future. First of all I bring greetings not only from the national office of VVAW but from our entire membership. Most of all I bring our heartfelt congratulations on this the occasion of your 25th anniversary weekend.

Today I would like to speak to the Vietnam Veterans who are here today. Some are members of VVAW. Some are members of VFP. Some are members of both organizations.

Memory is one of humanity's supreme endowments. Each of us acts today, and hopes for tomorrow, in the light of past experiences that have been woven into a life-story.

When we want to know someone else, we ask that person to tell us something of the story of his or her life, for in this way personal identity is disclosed. To be a self is to have a personal history. This is what defines one's uniqueness.

In a larger sense this is true of human communities, especially those in which people are bound together primarily by shared experiences rather than natural factors. In terms of today's insanities, our national self-consciousness must find expression in the remembrance of events that the Vietnam veteran has lived through, and the events that have given him a unique sense of identity and destiny.

If, for instance, a visitor from outer space were to drop down on American soil and ask why this country is called United States. Citizens would probably try to explain what it means to be an American by narrating a history: the dramatic epic of the migration of the Pilgrims to the New World, the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence, the Civil War, the conquest of the new frontier. But how would the average citizen explain and justify the recent events that have thrust this nation into the center of the world arena?

To be an American is to share a particular history whose events are retold and relived from generation to generation. By the same token, this is true of the Vietnam veteran.

The most distinctive feature of VVAW is a sense of tradition and legacy. In many respects, the community of Vietnam veterans is diverse, in politics, in culture, in race, and in religion. But the Vietnam veteran has a unique memory that reaches back through a long chain of tradition to the nightmares of southeast Asia, events that formed them as people with a sense of identity and a legacy that must never be silenced.

Whenever the National Anthem is played, whenever the Pledge of Allegiance is recited, whenever parents discuss with their children the meanings of Memorial Day, or when Taps is sounded or Amazing Grace played at a military funeral or on Veteran's Day this memory must be kept alive.

Indeed, if historical memory were erased, our country would soon dissolve. VVAW and VFP are a vital part of a distinctive community with a long memory that reaches back through the years to the crucial events of the Vietnam war. In our hearts is an indelible record and witness. To be sure, this remembrance must focus especially on the future.

The history of the Vietnam experience may be expressed in many ways, but in the last analysis there is no substitute for retelling what the Vietnam veteran considers the story of our life, that is, the dramatic history to which society must bear witness.

The war in Iraq and Afganistan has breathed new life into our organizations. Vietnam veterans are family and we must look for that unique bond that only exists between Vietnam veterans. A bond that expresses itself in the fact that we have been there, done that, and the insanity must stop.

Our recorded story must be boldly understood in relation to the present conflict. Vietnam veterans must continue to remind the world that all legacies come with a price, and that price must give meaning to all in the face of such loss and grief. The purity of our message must be maintained.

In the Old Testament, Jeremiah, known as the weeping prophet, complains to God concerning the current situation he is facing. "Let my eyes stream with tears day and night, without rest, over the great destruction which overwhelms my people, over her incurable wound. If I walk out into the field, I look and see those slain by the sword; If I enter the city, I look and see those consumed by hunger. Even the priest and the prophet forage in a land they know not. Why have you struck us a blow that cannot be healed? We wait for peace, to no avail; for a time of healing, but terror comes instead."

VVAW, VFP must stand shoulder to shoulder with IVAW as one impregnable veterans unit to help banish the evil that has overtaken our land There can be no honor in what we carry deep inside us, unless it reminds us that we have done something that has made a difference.

George Jessel (1898-1981) was a screen, stage, radio, and television actor and comedian. He also made over 300 after-dinner speeches in support of political, humanist, and social causes. He was nicknamed "The Toastmaster General" due to his appearances at many testimonial functions and dinners for various celebrities. He died on 24 May 1981 in Los Angeles, California, USA of a heart attack. He would always close with a toast utilizing an old girl scout song which I have slightly altered for this occasion:

Make new friends,
But keep the old.
One is silver,
And the other, gold.
A circle's round
It has no end
That's how long
We are gonna be friends.
A fire burns bright,
It warms the heart.
Many of us have been friends,
From the very start.

VVAW has one hand,
VFP has the other.
Put them together,
We have each other.
Silver is precious,
Gold is too.
and together
we will see things through.
Across the land
Across the seas
Friends forever
We will always be.

May God bless VFP. May God bless VVAW and may God protect and bring home safely our young men and women who have been placed in harm's way for a lie.