The Vietnam War
Memories storm his mind as he approaches the monument built in commemoration for people like him. It’s clearly overwhelming. He has visited the memorial numerous times. However, he cannot get used to the pain and loss of the memories it evokes. Approximately 58,000 names are inscribed on the two 246-feet-long walls. Many men and women lost their lives. In hindsight, Tim Ricketts feels as if they lost their lives in vain. Tim is a Vietnam War Veteran. This is perhaps the least appreciated group of veterans in the country’s history.
Tim was selected to serve in the military through the lottery draft of 1969. At the time, he was an apprentice at his father’s machine shop. He loved machines and didn’t envision himself doing anything else in his life. Fate had something else in mind though. Sometimes he wishes he would have gone to college because he would have avoided military service through student deferment. His father and grandfather had served in the military, and he had an opportunity to continue the tradition. He had no objection to the selection despite having little knowledge about the nature of the conflict in Vietnam. As a patriot, he felt that he owed this service to his country. He left for Fort Dix, New Jersey, for basic training, which lasted 8 weeks. Specialty infantry training lasted a further 8 weeks. He was now deemed ready to serve the country, and was shipped to Vietnam as an infantryman. His arrival in Cam Ranh was the start of a new chapter in his life. The first thing he realized after a few days in the camp was the war was not as glorified as congressional representatives set it out to be back home. The belief was that the war was coming to an end. In South Vietnam, the war was escalating. The prospects of an American victory were dwindling by the day.
The fresh-faced 20-year-old was now face-to-face with the realities of war. No geographical lines separated American soldiers from their enemies. Everyone he came across was a potential threat. That is just the sad reality of war. Villagers in the Cam Ranh area could be innocent or could be sympathizers of the Viet Cong. Tim experienced horrors he had never imagined. However, the invulnerability of youth kept him motivated to fight on. The unit would clear Viet Cong soldiers out of an area one week, only for the area to become dangerous the week after. The feeling of being in constant danger kept him on edge. Directives by superior officers only served to exacerbate his anxiety. Rather than follow knowledge imparted in military training, infantrymen were directed to cover ground as fast as possible and kill more of their enemies. The soldiers marched through the dense rainforests of South Vietnam all day. The 50-pound packs on their backs were a constant reminder of the weight of expectations by superior officers and politicians back in Washington. Many soldiers today have not witnessed large-scale battles or been ambushed in the jungle. Battle during the Vietnam War was the personification of jungle warfare. Soldiers were in constant fear of ambush from Viet Cong guerillas. Tim remembers surviving a harrowing ordeal after such an ambush. He was part of a 200-man unit caught in an ambush near Saigon. The unit was responding to information by confidential informants that Viet Cong soldiers would attack a nearby shopping center. Little did they know that they were being set up. The unit was ambushed in the middle of an open field. The terror that followed is still fresh in Tim’s memory. Bullets flew from all directions, with soldiers too terrified to react. Within 15 minutes, the unit had lost a third of its soldiers. All Tim and his fellow survivors could do then was to push the Viet Cong soldiers further into the forest. They still had a tactical advantage despite losing more than fifty men. Having gained enough ground, it was all about maintaining their position and preventing any further fatalities. Tim has never fired as many bullets as he did that day. The only salvation for Tim’s unit was that the South Vietnamese military had a base 20 miles from the location. Therefore, they received reinforcement an hour after the ambush. The damage done within that hour traumatizes Tim to this minute. After help arrived, the next step was identifying survivors in the kill area. It was a harrowing ideal for the survivors. Some of the bodies were so riddled with bullets that they were unrecognizable. Tim was lucky to survive the ambush. He survived Vietnam for another year before his eligibility date for return. At the time, he thought that his nightmare was over. Little did he know that it was the start of literal nightmares.
Before Tim shipped to Vietnam, anti-war sentiments were brewing. Demonstrations started in 1964, with college students questioning American involvement. Protestors cited a variety of reasons for their objection to the war. The role of the United States as the police of the world was greatly opposed by protestors. The mainstream notion was that the government used the threat of communism as an excuse to promote its imperialism. The draft lottery was skewed towards the working class. Most individuals selected to serve in Vietnam were from minority groups or working-class whites. Media coverage of the war also showed people the reality of the situation, causing a public outcry. Savage acts by American soldiers made Americans question the intentions of American involvement. With this in mind, Tim knew that he would not receive a hero’s welcome in the United States. The reality of the situation was even worse than he expected. Civilians did not see Vietnam War veterans as heroes but rather as villains. They were tools of oppression in a third world country. Tim admits that it was heartbreaking that these people did not appreciate the horrible conditions that they had to contend with in Vietnam. They forget that the soldiers saw their colleagues die in the battlefield. Memories that would be the subject of therapist notes for decades from then.
Military service exposes human beings to horrible experiences. Soldiers see their friends die in the most horrific ways. Additionally, soldiers are in constant fear for their lives. A Congress-mandated study showed that 30 percent of Vietnam War Veterans had PTSD at some point in their life after their military service. Tim Ricketts embodies the statistic. He found it hard to readjust to normal life. The government, which he had served so dutifully, failed him. Benefits, which they had been promised during the war, never came. For individuals who barely had any marketable skills, this was a severe blow. Tim’s mental health deteriorated by the day. He could barely sleep as nightmares of the horrors of the battlefield attacked his mind. The Hanoi ambush was a constant feature of Tim’s nightmares. The episodes were accompanied by panic attacks. The paranoia translated to Tim’s everyday life. He avoided things that reminded him of Vietnam, such as forested places. He was always on edge, fearing that something bad would happen to him. Hypervigilance affected Tim’s social life. This was a further cause of frustration because he had no support system