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Editorial: What War?

By VVAW

Occasionally people ask us "Vietnam Veterans Against the War? That was is over!" And we have to answer, "Is it really?"

Statistics show that more Vietnam vets have killed themselves than were killed in Vietnam. Estimates range from 50% to 80% of combat vets will suffer from Vietnam-related stress problems if there is not psychological intervention by 1985. The prison population is 1/3 Vietnam veteran. And unemployment among Vietnam vets has doubled in the last year.

While these are just statistics to most people, to us they represent lives of comrades and friends, people we survived with, people we came home with. During the Memorial Day season, VVAW had several of its members attempt suicide and others who suffered flashbacks from 'Nam. The "holidays" were not that festive for vets unemployed, for vets denied disability, for vets with memories too painful to live with.

For us the war did not end with the plane ride home—it merely transported us from one battlefield to another. And so VVAW's name remains the same. We are Vietnam veterans a fact which will remain no matter what Reagan or Stockman come up with. And we still are against that war we fought in and any more like it in the future. And finally, we are against the war against us and tired of being on the front lines of unemployment, cutbacks and neglect.