Document for Vietnam Veterans

Collumnist Bob Herbert described a recent document made ba Wisconsin PublicTelevision about the Vietnam veterans in Wisconsin (Herbert). The goal is to give veterans "an overdue welcome home" (Herbert) which they did not receive after they returned from Vietnam forty years ago. The document is called "Wisconsin Vietnam War Stories" and is composed of collection of memories by former soldiers who talk about their Vietnam experience and how they were treated by the public after they returned. (Herbert)

The Vietnam War was one of the examples how the public often cannot distinguish between the soldiers and the conflict they are involved in. The war was long and in the end most likely very negatively received by the people and negatively portrayed by the media. One of the soldiers remembers that upon returning home, he was being called a baby killer and told that he should have died in Vietnam. (Herbert). But the soldiers probably did not care about the politics (or at least most of them did not) and they did not cause the war, most of them were draftees and they should not be villified by the publics and media just because they were forced to fight and die in an unpopular war. A war in which most of them almost certainly suffered and watched other people suffer.

The article also has an interesting discussion by readers attached to it if you would care to follow it. As I stated in the first post, it is important to separate the people in uniform from wars they fight in and not let your opinion on one influence the opinion on the other.


Works Cited
Herbert, Bob. "An Overdue 'Welcome Home'." New York Times. May 15, 2010.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/opinion/15herbert.html