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All I Have Left Are Rhetorical Questions

By Jim Wohlgemuth

When I read in Stars and Stripes about the protests at the Pentagon, I was pretty sure. When I got out in September of 1972 and started meeting some other Vets, I was very sure. Then, when I watched the fall of Saigon in 1975, I was absolutely sure. I was sure that our boomer generation, and the experience we had either in the war or protesting it, would never let it happen again. Us Boomers understood, by experience, the futility and criminality of what we were ordered to do. I was positive that as we grew older and gained power, we would never send our youth overseas for futile, mindless conflicts.

Oh my God, words can not capture how wrong I was. Us boomers, with all our knowledge and experience, let it happen again. How did this happen? After all, we were in a truly unpopular war at home and over there. After all, so many of our friends were getting killed with no seeming end in sight. After all, we had seen the pictures of a naked little girl, a victim of napalm. After all, we were aware of My Lai. After all, we had seen Kent and Jackson State. After all, we had seen the Veterans throwing their medals away and testifying at the Winter Soldier hearings. After all, we had seen the horrible debacle of desperate people trying to escape as Saigon fell. Our generation had seen it all, and yet here we were. Did our generation forget that quickly?

I truly have no idea what happened. Maybe we were co-opted by that Coke commercial. Maybe, because Vietnam was so unpopular, it was easy to forget the trauma (but that doesn't make sense). Maybe it was the evil of capitalism in cahoots with the military-industrial complex. Maybe it was embarrassed politicians looking to fix our Vietnam legacy.

I don't know, but what I do know is that the political leaders we elected along the way rarely had Vietnam service either there or on the streets protesting here. There were a few: Tom Hayden, John Kerry (who is a prime example of being co-opted), John McCain (who had good days and bad days), and Bernie (who was a conscientious objector, God Bless his honesty then and now). However, look who we elected. Bill Clinton took off for Oxford, while George W. was on a binge with the Air National Guard, dealing with bone spurs and an STD, and Trump. And so many more, just look at those old guys in the Senate, is there a Vietnam Vet? Shumer, Graham, McConnell, Cornyn, Grassley?

What did we do? Why couldn't we remember? Why couldn't we make the public remember? Surely all those kids at Woodstock didn't end up on Wall Street or at Raytheon. Were we so glad to put it behind us that we decided (with important exceptions, such as VVAW and VFP) to stay quiet? Was there enough of us embarrassed by our loss that we were willing to sacrifice our sons and daughters to make amends, only to find ourselves in subsequent mismanaged profit-driven wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now facing who knows what? Were our voices silenced (like Phil Donahue and others)?

Why couldn't we get this misguided empire to stop? Sorry, this has been a lot of questions and no answers, but this nags me no end. I thought we were so smart. We are still getting in the way of progress. I guess all we can do is get out of the way. I suspect the Millennials and Gen Z will not mind as they reach for that mop to clean up the mess we left them.

Jim Wohlgemuth was on the USS Westchester County LST 1167 from 1969 to 1971. He was on the USS Point Defiance LSD 31 from 1971 to 1972. He is a retired Federal employee and Middle School Social Studies Teacher. He is co-host of the Veterans for Peace Radio hour on Radio Free Nashville.