A Vietnam Love Story

"We were soldiers once... and Young"

Coming Home a Vietnam

Love Story:

The Vietnam war claimed over 58,000 American lives. Many of these lives were of young boys fresh out of highschool who went into the war with hopes of returning home great war heroes. Sadly enough many of these boys never did return home and the ones who did, weren't necessarily treated as great iconic war heroes despite all the immense hardships they faced. Though many Americans disapproved of the Vietnam war, when the soldiers returned they never could have anticipated the lukewarm welcome they received from virtually the entire nation. Most were expecting parades, and grand spectacles because though the war was treacherous and unsupported, good American men lost and risked their lives for the sake of conserving freedom and they deserved to be recognized for their feats.

It was the night after we'd just graduated high school when I knew my life would never be the same. I was planning on having a few good friends over for a celebratory barbecue when my boyfriend of almost two years called with news that would change our lives forever. "I'm sorry Ellie, I can't come tonight, I've got a lot to think about," he said in a voice so cold and emotionless my heart dropped. It was the draft. My first instinct was to cry, then to scream, and then to run away from all of it and never look back. I was so shocked I couldn't even come up with a reply. Instead I hung up the phone. I just couldn't handle it. I blasted Beatles records in my room and started to destroy my room. It started with franticly ripping framed pictures from off my innocent pale-pink walls. Immediately following my first rampage, I went over to my cherished easel and paints and poured them all over my bed and carpets. An explosion of vibrant colors tainted my once quaint and quiet room. I proceeded on my path of destruction, with my music blaring for quite some time.

It just didn't seam fair to me. We had just graduated high school, and we all had such big plans for the future. I was supposed to be going off to college just an hour away from Connor. We were going to spend the weekends together, and live our lives together. He was my best friend, my role model, my shoulder to cry on and the best person I knew, and the fact that he could be ripped away from me was unimaginable. I buried my head in my pillow and just wept. I wept and wept until suddenly I felt a strong hand squeeze my shoulder. It was Connor. The rest of that evening seamed a blur, but I remember how strong he was. He promised me that everything would be okay, and that he would stay safe. He said his mother knew of a few other boys from the area his age headed off to the draft as well, and he knew he was among good company. He promised he'd write every time he got the chance. He sounded so sure I was almost positive that everything would be alright.

Three years almost exactly to that night Connor was home again, only a much different man. He had witnessed countless violence and bloodshead. While he was away I became an avid protester of the war, I did not believe in the reason we were fighting. Even Connor who was quite patriotic, felt that the reasons for loosing so many lives were pointless and vastly unclear. He wrote home constantly of all the horrible things he witnessed. It pained me greatly every time I read them but every time they came I thanked God for keeping him alive just one more month. One particular letter home I will never forget. It was soon before he was headed home when Connor and his fellow officers were doing a routine patrol through a heavily populated farming town when they found numerous battered bodies laying in the streets. They found out from surviving villagers that the VietCong had been through the village the previous evening terrorizing every person out at night. "There were still bodies lying in the street and horrified children ran from body to body trying to identify their parents. It was the worst thing I've seen since I've been here... and trust me thats saying something," Connor wrote. Through out his experiences he lost 7 members in his military assignment, one of them a best friend. The amount of pain he endured was immeasurable. Luckily Connor only briefly spent time in the hospital because he had some open wounds on his arms from a particularly rough battle, but he was by far the luckiest member of his crew injury wise. When he arrived home it was clear that the experiences he had faced had changed him forever. Though we were so incredibly happy to see each other, his homecoming was very bitter sweet. I knew that he would never fully recover emotionally from his experiences. In those three years he had been at war he had entered as a young, naive boy and came out a man who had seen far too much in his time. His soldiers morale was also very low because he knew that there was no real progress made in Vietnam and that at this point most American's were not in support of the war. If he ever wore his uniform in public most didn't even acknowledge the fact that he had risked his life for his country. Most of his fellow retired officers resorted to alcoholism after the war, and many had failing relationships. It took many years for Connor to get out of his depressive state, but he was just one of the lucky ones.

This is not a true war story, but it could be. Many high school age boys were drafted into the war. They expected to come home heroes, but came back changed men. The shell

shock was extreme. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder affected the vas majority of surviving soldiers. This disorder consists of constant night terrors, high levels of stress and anxiety. The nation just didn't treat the veterans who had come back from Vietnam and were facing such emotional turmoil with any respect. During the war there were countless protests. The protesters were all fighting for a common cause. They felt that Vietnam was a pointless war to be fighting and that Americans should not be loosing their lives for such an unclear cause, yet where were these supporters who were once advocating for these soldiers when they returned home from Vietnam? Their efforts were completely unrecognized. In 1975 it became clear that North Vietnam had won he war. Though America did not loose its superpower status, the scars left by the war left the nation torn.