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Vietnam Veterans Memorial

By VVAW

As a highly decorated Vietnam combat veteran and a longtime peace activist, my emotions are always mixed on Veteran's Day, but never more so than last week. Memories of the last war were overshadowed by the possibility of the next.

Just the week before I had made a speech at a rally on Central America. I had said Vietnam veterans would not let it happen again. I had said Nicaragua would not be Grenada. I talked about an informal group of veterans called the Never Again club. In both cases I was guessing.

In the intervening days the situation had become tense. Talk of buildups, alerts and preemptive strikes was in the air. I would soon get a change to discuss my feelings with my brother veterans in Washington as well as get a sense of the feelings of the "other side" during my arranged interview at the Nicaraguan embassy.

"Nicaragua will not be another Grenada," one of my fellow veterans told me on Friday. "It will take five or six years to gain control of the cities and they will have to fight forces in the mountains for another 20 years." We were both painfully aware of the similarity of the situation in Nicaragua and that which we had faced 15 years earlier in Vietnam. We spoke quietly in a meeting room at the embassy. Roberto Vargas was a Vietnam veteran, but he was also the current liaison officer for the Nicaraguan embassy.

Three other veterans joined us. They had just returned from a mission delivering medicine in the combat areas of Nicaragua. Not all Vietnam vets were fighting for the contras. "There are 2,300 Americans in Nicaragua right now, about 1,500 of them are Vietnam veterans," Vargas said. Those 1,500 made CMA's handful of contra supporters pale by comparison. Vargas and I talked of elections in his country where the Sandinistas polled more than 60 percent of those eligible to vote and elections in my country where Ronald Reagan polled just over 31 percent of those eligible to vote. Guess which government's legitimacy was being questioned and which government was claiming a mandate?

Saturday more than 150 veterans representing various organizations gathered to discuss the role of the Vietnam veterans in the unfolding Central American situation. We agreed delegations of observers, medics, and perhaps even advisors would be in order. We agreed we must respond. We agreed, never again.

Sunday was the real test of our feelings. Thousands of vets representing a general cross section would be present to hear what was expected to be a call to arms by the President. To be sure there were the usual number of Jane Fonda effigies, but there were more anti-war slogans. There was more discussion of the new conservatives who equate war with glory.

"We ought to drop them in some mosquito-, malaria-, leech-infested jungle and let 'em see what it's really about," one vet quipped.

Reagan got more catcalls than applause. The reception was cool as the Park Police closed off the Memorial grounds to vets and opened it to politicians and generals who did not know the names of anyone on "the wall."

Reagan's speech was so low key as to be inaudible. A representative of the VFW was soundly booed as he spoke of the "glory" of Anzio and Normandy. Clearly this was a group that would not sit idly by while we marched headlong through the next bloody page on history.

On the train back a dozen a vets sat in the club car talking of our concerns. Isolated individuals from Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia agreed we must not let it happen again.

I left with mixed emotions. I returned with mixed emotions: a mixture of pride and hope. Pride in my brothers in arms who do not see Central America as a way to make up for our perceived "failure" in Vietnam and hope that their combined voices will halt any future fiasco.

The Never Again Club was a reality. Its message was clear—patriotism is one thing, foolishness is another.

—Elton Manzione
Athens VVAW