But the tone of the article is that war makes you a better person.
So get ready, kiddies!
Sen. Hagel says U.S. draft may be unavoidable
You are about to be "improved" a whole lot!
God Bless!
"Vietnam veterans returning to Washington for Wall's 25th anniversary"
"For veterans, Vietnam is always with them; Heroes returning to D.C. for Wall's 25th anniversary" by Michael E. Ruane/Washington Post November 7, 2007
WASHINGTON - Even now, the sound of a helicopter or a phrase in Vietnamese can carry Len Funk of Arlington, Va., back to the war.
Mike Kentes of Falls Church, Va., still sits where he can keep an eye on the door at bars and restaurants.
And years after Hugh Jordan of Great Falls, Va., would sleep through the roar of outgoing artillery, his ears still ring from the thunder of the heavy guns.
Twenty-five years ago, the three men were young and proud as they attended the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, marching in berets and fatigues only a decade or so removed from the battlefield, and basking in the applause.
This week, thousands like them are again gathering in Washington, this time to observe the 25th anniversary of the Wall, as it is widely known. A downtown parade and other activities are scheduled for Saturday, and commemorative ceremonies will be held at the Wall on Sunday.
But now the men and women of the Vietnam War era are gray and more than 30 years removed from the conflict. Many have jobs near the top of their fields, and, numbering 7.2 million, they make up the nation's largest veterans' group. Seventeen sit in Congress.
"Military veterans of Vietnam have had an extraordinary influence on American society," said Jan C. Scruggs, founder of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which built the Wall.
They have clout and respect, and the old fatigue jacket now is often worn mostly for yardwork.
Yet, despite the passing of time and the veterans' ascent to mainstream wealth and status, the war remains with them, marking them and separating them, as war does with most who experience it.
In recent interviews, Kentes, 59, Jordan, 61, and Funk, 65, said the war is a vital part of who they are. It helped define them, mostly for the better, they said. It continues to do so as they mark this milestone, they said.
Mike Kentes was looking for the names of two buddies that chilly November weekend a quarter-century ago when he was photographed in his dark beret and camouflage jacket holding a red carnation reflected in the gleaming wall.
He was 34 and handsome, with gray-flecked dark hair and a mustache. The photograph would later run on the cover of National Geographic, prompting wisecracks from old Army comrades that they had seen his picture in restrooms across the country.
It was 1982, and several hundred thousand people gathered for the Wall's Nov. 13 dedication.
Scruggs, who had been wounded in the war, launched the crusade for the Wall with his own money and then raised $8.4 million for the project in three years.
Architect Maya Lin's design - a polished black granite chevron bearing more than 58,000 names of those killed or missing - was at first controversial, but the Wall would become among the most visited memorials on the Mall.
That weekend, Kentes was reconnecting with a firefight in the Mekong Delta 13 years before. It was Memorial Day 1969, he recalled, when he saw two buddies die, Curtis Daniels and Michael Volheim.
Kentes and five other Army Rangers were chasing enemy soldiers when Daniels and Volheim were cut down by gunfire.
Kentes and two others counterattacked to retrieve their comrades' bodies, and Kentes believes he killed two enemy soldiers in the process.
It was the first of many such encounters, he said.
Sipping coffee and smoking a thin cigar in a Falls Church restaurant last week, Kentes, now with light gray hair, said he did not keep track of how many enemy soldiers he killed in Vietnam.
In combat, "you get hardened," he said, "you get real, real hardened."
He was unemployed in November 1982, with a wife and a 6-month-old son, and had not put the war behind him. "I thought about it every day," he said. "Still do."
Vietnam veterans had been called whiners and losers by older veterans, and fools or worse by people of their own generation, Kentes said.
But now here was the Wall. "It was like being back in Vietnam, having all the guys there," he said. "In fact, the hardest part of the whole thing was that Monday, when everybody left. I mean, I just got really depressed."
Since then, he said, life has had its ups and downs. He and his wife had another son, and then divorced seven years ago. "I'm quite sure the Vietnam experience had something to do with that," he said. Kentes now runs a home inspection business and is active in veterans' affairs.
Twenty-five years after the birth of the Wall, he said he believes he is better for his experience in Vietnam. "There were periods when I didn't think that," he said. "Are things ever going to settle down?" he said he would ask himself. "When is some normalcy going to settle in in your life?"
"It never really does," he said.
When Hugh M. Jordan showed up at Washington's Shoreham Hotel for prededication festivities that weekend in 1982, he could find no gathering place for the outfit in which he had served in Vietnam, the Americal Division.
Other units had hospitality suites. But the Americal, formed in the South Pacific during World War II, did not even have a table. So he and some friends commandeered a desk. One man ripped the sky-blue division patch from his old uniform and pinned it on a poster board.
They started collecting donations in a shoebox, got enough money to rent a hospitality suite and stock it with beer, and soon had a regular reunion going, just like the other outfits.
Now being a Vietnam veteran has "cachet," Funk said.
He said the experience defined him, making him a better person and vehemently antiwar.
"It's always there," he said. "Vietnam never leaves you."
Yeah, put that the peace veteran in at the very end.
Whatever, lying war-promoters!
