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Women in Green

By Sukie Wachtendonk

In the past few years since becoming actively involved in the Agent Orange struggle and participating in demonstrations and picket lines, I have several times become embroiled in conversations with veterans often uncomfortable with the fact that I and other women wear fatigues and march in formation with the men.

I am often asked "What gives you the right to wear the green? You're not a Veteran—you didn't put your life on the line; thus, you haven't earned the right." ("And a Vet is still a Vet," you know!) The last such conversation, with a veteran at the National Conference on Agent Orange, prompted me to address the issue.

Wives and lovers of Vietnam veterans have, for the past 10-12 years, been living and sharing—along with our veterans—the horrors of the Vietnam conflict. Not the actual combat but the dream battles. The 3 AM screaming fire fights complete with incoming rounds and the flashbacked low crawls across the bedroom floor. For most of our lives we've experience, along with our veterans, the searing LZ's, the leeched, the jungle rot, the mud, dust, monsoons, and the maniacal death.

We're angry that our government had taken from us our whole generation of healthy, handsome young men, wasted their lives and our, and thrown us away without hesitation once their purpose was served. We've had our babies cut from our bellies, birth-defected and stillborn. For too many of us, pregnancies ended in miscarriage and sterilization. The war continues in the form of dioxin poisoning, traumatic stress, inadequate VA healthcare and the government's unquenchable bloodthirst for another generation.

We may not have shed our blood on the soil of Southeast Asia, but we've definitely done our time on the battlefield of America. We've all pulled hard duty and we've committed ourselves for the duration.

We wear the fatigues proudly and honorable, as you have, and we fight for our veteran's rights and freedom, and the future of our children.

Sukie Wachtendonk