Over Here: Veterans in the New Age
Rehyansky, Joseph A.
has even less to do with one's approach to constitutional interpretation and basic judicial philosophy than the latter. What is needed most is a remedy for what might be called the hypertrophy...
...From Herodotus and Plato to Douglas MacArthur, wise, intelligent, and humane men have reflected on and helped define the code of the mature warrior...
...Frank, who is not unintelligent, by the way, is not the main point...
...Now the unrefined statistical printout will show these v e t e r a n s as problem v e t e r a n s ; in fact, they are problem Americans...
...David Stockman and James Fallows, among others, stayed home, keeping company with all the others who were bright enough, principled enough, or slippery enough better to discern where their higher duties lay and how their country's best interests might more suitably be served...
...and 57,685 of us did not live to see the year through...
...not of indulgence, but of personal responsibility...
...Volumes have been written on these terrible matters by worthwhile men who took them very seriously...
...Yet, at bottom, I s u s p e c t t h a t the problem is one of unique e x p e c t a t i o n s , not unique suffering...
...In evaluating what, if anything, is owed the vast majority of our Vietnam veterans, it should not m a t t e r at all that national interest was being bitterly disputed even while we were charged with defending it...
...And during most of it nobody, it seemed, wanted us there...
...if the psychological reasons therefor are not apparent by now, they never will be...
...For the record, the chasm between them and me is as unbridgeable as the one between me and Jane Fonda...
...So goes the line served up by the worst of the waffle-heads and a r r o g a n t mendicants at the forefront of the Vietnam v e t e r a n s ' movement...
...everyone got a week o f f at about the mid-point of his tour, transportation paid, at any one of half a dozen or so luxurious vacation spots...
...The result is emotional instability caused by a philosophical conflict grounded primarily in profound ignorance...
...In between, Frank served for 12 months as a sniper in Vietnam, killed several people and enjoyed it (it was comparable to ejaculation), mutilated a few Viet Cong corpses with a knife (that was en better), and shot some holes in the ceiling of a whorehouse with his Navy . 38 while copulating with a Vietnamese prostitute in the female superior position (that was best of all...
...That approach, as some have said, may in the long run have hindered our e f f o r t t h e r e , but t h a t ' s a n o t h e r subject I must defer...
...If the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial now planned in Washington turns out to be a travesty--and it looks as if it'might--let's build another: For starters, we can get to work on the nation our children will be inheriting and may be called upon to defend, sooner than we think...
...In the meantime, what about Frank and his gripes ? The fact is that every specific, legitimate complaint of Viemam veterans can and should be equitably disposed of under the legal dispensation that every civilized nation provides for all of its veterans: Those permanently disabled in their nation's service, whether the disability be physical, emotional, or psychological, are entitled to be maintained at an appropriate standard ot living for the rest of their lives...
...a war where men often saw the very faces of the men they killed, the kind of war that was never supposed to happen again...
...Roosevelt's failure to pack the Supreme Court, even at the height of his popularity and power, suggests that drastic institutional restructuring along the lines of legislation currently proposed to abolish various categories of federal jurisdiction is not the answer...
...We have been told to "get in touch with what's going on inside our heads...
...Timothy Noah, writing l a s t August in the New Republic, the government has determined that, at most, 1,220 v e t e r a n s were exposed to Agent Orange...
...The appropriate means of rescue from our present judicially exacerbated disorders lies in making thoughtful and painstaking appointments to the federal bench, particularly to the Supreme Court...
...The lesson that needs to be learned here is not about Vietnam, or why we fought there, but how we fought, and whom we sent to fight...
...a mixed drink at the base camp was 35 cents...
...The benefits and privileges g r a n t e d them should, t h e r e f o r e , at least equal (read: exceed) those made available to American v e t e r a n s of this c e n t u r y ' s other major wars...
...He also has nightmares...
...Did we really fare so poorly compared with our fathers in Korea and World War II, and our grandfathers in World War I? C } f c o u r s e , many of the complaints of Vietnam veterans at least sound genuine...
...In other words, they are having many of the same problems shared by their economic, racial, and educational counterparts in the control group of non-veterarts...
...to primitive, personal, emotional responses (I have killed/mutilated another human being...
...But in our time, men like Siegfried Sassoon, Norman Mailer, Michael Herr, and others have driven home the terror of war and the tragedy of its consequences i'n terms lyrical, stark, grotesque-and populist...
...Where were you in 1968...
...the unemployment rate for the two groups is virtually identical, and a higher proportion of Vietnam veterans are using their much maligned (as inadequate) educational benefits than did veterans of either Korea or World War II...
...unit rotation in and out of the worst of the fighting was regular and reliable_9 Turning to quotidian matters, cigarettes were 12 cents a pack, and a beer was 15 cents (when it wasn't free...
...Foremost among these is a sturdy and reflective sense, in part a historical sense, of the difference between those choices in public policy which are excluded by the Constitution and those which merely ought to be excluded by the good sense of the American people and their elected representatives...
...Certainly the dissension made the job more difficult and less fulfilling, and certainly it demoralized us...
...Manifest/~tions of professional Vietnam veteran syndrome--a personality and behavior disorder at least three times as obnoxious as the post-traumatic stress syndrome currently in vogue--have been much with us through 1981: from the veterans' protests and their fizzled opera bouff[ hunger strike of the spring and early summer, through the continuing controversy over the design and meaning of the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington, to the recent discharge emitted by Mr...
...Another 153,303 suffered what the Department of Defense 1981 Almanac calls "wounds not mortal": an imprecise category that lumps together those permanently blinded or paralyzed or maimed with those who got cuts, scratches, or bruises, or a temp...
...not of savagery, but of duty...
...And talk he did, for one hour, pausing now and then just long enough for salient dates and facts of his life to be flashed on the screen in computer printout style...
...War is an ugly business...
...To those of our brothers who came back whole and today s u f f e r from little more than their own effete self-consciousness and a juvenile craving for attention, who lost nothing more than 12 months "back in the world," I ~ay it is time to put Vietnam not out of your minds, but where it belongs: behind you, and in perspective...
...there isn't even enough in there for most of us to know that these questions have been grappled with since the beginnings of recorded history...
...We, the Pepsi generation, insist, in our ignorance, on reducing the most complex philosophical questions (Is war justifiable...
...we are running out of excuses...
...It is a code not of killing, but of honor...
...men of other times have found ways of drawing strength and spiritual unity from shared sacrifice...
...The conclusions he draws from these facts are obvious, though not widely considered: The problems t h a t Vietnam veterans are having do not seem to t u r n on whether they served in Vietnam, but rather on whether they are poor or well off, black or white, educated or dropouts...
...The show opened with a predictable 30-second disclaimer: Frank, of course, isn't typical of Vietnam veterans, and we don't want you to infer that he is...
...ary ringing in the ears...
...What we found was that war really was hell, and there-has probably not been a g e n e r a t i o n in American history more ill-prepared to face the revelation...
...OKLAHOMA 14004 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1982 21...
...The national interest is a special matter that has historically demanded special sacrifices, especially of its young men...
...the postage was free...
...Every generation has come to know this fact...
...generation who did not go to mat war, and especially to all the others who have never been to any war, that there must be among us a ring-knocking, secret-handshaking bond, a mutual acknowledgement and respect that says, "Look me in the eye and I'll tell you if you were really there," an implacable, shoulder-to-shoulder, VFWish solidarity that probably hasn't actu'ally existed since the Alamo, or Bataan, or the Warsaw ghetto...
...Only a few living men can compare one war with another on the basis of personal experience, and the sum of my own experience in down-anddirty combat is relatively small--though it was enough to last me ten lifetimes-compared with that of many others...
...Perhaps, but a few things about Vietnam are worth remembering: Except for career military personnel, virtually no one was required to serve more than 12 months...
...The qualities of mind and spirit required in those who would execute the awesome responsibility of judicial review are not easily discerned, nor is their persistence following appointment assured by any facile formula...
...Larry King, of late-night radio talk show fame, that tended to show that Frank is, well, typical ("over half our Vietnam veterans have unresolved problems related to the w a r . . . " ) . Frank is now 37...
...They speak to us of a code that was as relevant at Quan Loi and Laf Khe as it was at Bataan, Bull Run, Valley Forge, Hastings, Masada, Thermopylae, and Troy...
...It is time--past time--for all of us to remember that we are a nation of v e t e r a n s , of citizen soldiers, and that thinking of ourselves as a special, discrete group will in time lead to eccentricity at least, and to bitter isolation from our fellow citizens at worst...
...This is, of course, much easier said than done...
...What is needed most is a remedy for what might be called the hypertrophy of judicial review, which is symptomatic of both the present era and that of Lochner despite the almost diametrical opposition of the...
...But, my fellow Vietnam vets, that--to use the old Army clich~--sounds like a personal problem to me...
...Call us...
...A lot of us felt, then and now, that we'd been had...
...But those who carrie back hale and hearty, like me and most of the rest of us, are owed--nothing...
...Something undefined in my own temperament or character has kept me from feeling the way they do: cheated, embittered, unappreciated...
...The youngest of us are no longer very young, and most of us are in our thirties and forties...
...The information specialists at Phillips Petroleum will help you...
...By my count, and I had to cou~nt fast, he has been in and out of the United States Navy four times since the early 1960s, when a judge told the drug-pushing ninth grade dropout to enlist or go to jail, and 1977, when the Navy told him he could not continue to serve as an alcohol abuse counselor, but had to return to h~s critically undermanned official specialty of engine repair and maintenance...
...a war which stank and hurt and bled before Our eyes, like all the wars before it...
...not the reckless and haphazard sexual indulgences of healthy young men pushed to the outer limits of their learned restraints...
...The country was dotted with post exchanges that rivaled Macy's and Gimb e l ' s , and anyone, r e g a r d l e s s of rank, could order items frorh them and have them shipped home (and almost everyone could afford to...
...Those of us who went to Vietnam had grown up prepared to face acne and mortgage payments, or nuclear holocaust, but nothing in between...
...No nation engaged in a war has ever expended more genuine effort directed toward securing the safety and comfort of its fighting men than did America in Vietnam...
...According to Mr...
...medical evacuation was the quickest and most e f f i c i e n t in the history of warfare...
...In those called to fill judicial office, however, subtler and more exalted moral and intellectual commitments are required...
...By all means, let the President fill the cabinet and the agencies with those whose qualifications include a determined preference for a freely functioning economy and a minimum of governmental intrusion in the lives of the citizenry...
...Yet the VA has examined 65,000 v e t e r a n s for possible exposure and effect, and is p r e s e n t l y processing 5,000 disability claims from individuals claiming permanent harm from contact with the chemical (a recent issue of the Army Times puts the present disability claim total at 12,000...
...specific constitutional doctrine of each...
...Agent Orange, for instance...
...Those whose disabilities are temporary and tractable should be rehabilitated and cared for at taxpayer expense as long as necessary...
...There followed about three minutes of alleged facts and figures, most ably pronounced by Mr...
...Never mind, even, that warriors sometimes mutilate the bodies of their fallen adversaries...
...That is why, in my judgment, a relatively small band of malcontented semi-professional Vietnam veterans, in concert with the ideologues, simps, and media panderers still looking for opportunities to validate the positions they espoused during the war have been able to focus a sizeable portion of the public's concern on their "plight...
...Joseph A. Rehyansky OVER HERE: VETERANS IN THE NEW AGE D o n ' t look back...
...We're too busy selling you your appliances, fixing your cars, writing your'wills, manning your assembly lines and offices, and teaching your children...
...Vietnam was the common _9 I experience of our generation...
...Noah points out that the National Academy of Sciences and the VA have studied the e f f e c t s of Agent Orange and are unable to show that it causes anything more severe than chlora c n e - - a fairly aggravated, form of the adolescent skin condition...
...We went, all of us, through a scarifying and unearthly year, a year of risks and dirt and exhaustion, fear and homesickness, and very loud noises...
...Upon his return home, Frank became, in approximately this order, an opium smoker, a bisexual, a wife-beater, an alcoholic, and a near suicide...
...They have turned us off to war and are persuaded that they have, by doing so, committed a supremely moral act...
...Frank, as far as one can determine from viewing tb, is show, is a THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1982 19 talking head...
...Well, were we...
...Frank may not have read them, but their influence--from the front page of your local paper to the lead item on almost any national news broadcast--has spread much further than their actual readership...
...I do not defend the practice, though I think I understand it: Revenge, and the incredible pressures and fears that drive men sometimes to the brink of savagery and beyond, are important f a c t o r s . But the main point, of course, is war--not the Vietnam war and all the tortured political baggage it dragged along with it thanks to the egregious ineptitude and short-sightedness of our political leadership...
...Those of us who have taken advantage of lawfully provided benefits such as civil service examination points, VA educational benefits, follow-up medical and dental care,, re-employment rights, and government-secured loans 20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1982 have, for the most part, gratefully accepted these offerings for what they are: gifts, not as solatium payments or balms for the uneasy conscience of the nation that sent us...
...Noah goes on to point o u t - - a n d on this m a t t e r , t o o , I think the f a c t s are with h i m - - t h a t Viemam was a war fought primarily by lower-income group individualss minorities, and the uneducated...
...In the City of Men, where beasts roam, they lead us, and Frank, astray...
...Never mind that many warriors serving in combat engage in a lot of indiscriminate sexual debauchery...
...A lot of us didn't know how to handle a trite, ugly, and personal war...
...This much is known, insofar as something is "known" when it resides in the body of information available, with a little digging, to all of us...
...Still, most of us aren't Frank...
...Bill Adams Dan Harrison Jere Smith Susan Stoffle Dave Dryden Bill Flesher (918) 661-5224 (918) 661-5204 (918) 661-4982 (918) 661-4974 (918) 661-4987 (918) 661-6760 Research & Development Jerry Regan (918) 661-8727 BARTLESVILLE...
...This term, which is now taking its place in the lexicon of knee-jerk buzz-words that includes Jonestown, Watergate, Spiro Agnew, Kent State, and Cambodia, describes a herbicide that was used in Vietnam to defoliate areas of s u r r e p t i t i o u s enemy activity...
...Frank thinks that all this has happened to him because he wasn't fully persuaded that what he did in Vietnam was morally defensible, and because he has belatedly recognized that the slopes, dinks, and gooks he killed, mutilated, and fornicated with were . . . human beings like himself...
...In an ideal world, the City of God perhaps, where there is no reason for men to kill other men, their reflections would have great relevance, and worthy effect...
...The American people are likely to be at least as hostile to efforts to annul the established authority of the courts as to abuses in the exercise of that authority...
...But there isn't enough inside the heads of many of us to deal with the weighty questions...
...Noah examined some other interesting statistics and concluded: The median income of Vietnam veterans is slightly h i g h e r than t h a t of non-veterans...
...we haven't the time for morbid navel-gazing...
...So it must seem--and I get the impression that it does--to those of our Joserph A. Rebyansky is an enlisted veteran of service in Vietnam with George S. Patton Ill's l l t h Armored Cavalry Regiment, a contributor to National Review, and a lawyer...
...No high school senior, circa 1963, would have believed you if you had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and told him: "Son, soon you're going to be fighting for your life in a bloody l i t t l e ground war in a country you never heard of and the things you're going to fear most will be a hand-held, shoulder-fired rocket that weighs less than a twenty-five dollar sack of groceries, booby-traps made out of Budweiser cans, and wooden stakes coated with excrement...
...not the random mutilation of a conveniently located enemy body...
...They need to be read (which they aren't, as a rule), and critiqued for our time (maybe my next article...
...Vietnam was a unique agony for the men who served there, a war that exacted unprecedented sacrifices from them...
...Frank Barber...
...You know--Frank, as in "Frank: A Vietnam Veteran--A Matter of Life and Death Special," brought to us this Veterans' Day last on public television, courtesy of WGBH Boston...
Vol. 15 • January 1982 • No. 1
