“Welcome Home”
By Victor M Adamus
This was a speech that paid tribute to the men and women who
died defending America in the Vietnam War.
Veterans who were under-appreciated, sometimes maligned as war heroes
who remained true to their nation despite an unwelcome homecoming. It was time, on this 50th anniversary of the
Vietnam War, to set the record straight once and for all. And in this moving speech by President Barack
Obama he was blunt in saying, “Even though some Americans turned their backs on
you, you never turned your back on America”.
These are words Vietnam Veterans have been waiting to hear
for some 50 years. “You came home and
were sometimes denigrated when you should have been celebrated. It was a national shame, a disgrace that
should have never happened”.
Yes, to many employers we were known as “hop heads” kids who
“lost their war” and came home to do drugs and sleep with a .45 under our
pillows. Veterans attending College under the GI Bill even had to
sue the Nixon Administration for the cost of tutorial assistance. It was Nader’s Raiders who filed the suit and
broke free the impounded funds, a victory that showed Vietnam Veterans were
still fighting battles to get what normally a grateful nation would have
delivered. But we lost our war.
As the President said, “Like generations before you, you
took off the uniform, but you never stopped serving. You became teachers
and police officers and nurses -- the folks we count on every single day.
You became entrepreneurs, running companies and pioneering industries
that changed the world. You became leaders and public servants, from town
halls to Capitol Hill -- lifting up our communities, our states, our nation”.
As I remember it, we had to fight for everything we
got. This was a war that introduced the
chemical Agent Orange. A war where
returning veterans suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A war that didn’t have enough volunteers and
so the draft was imposed and thousands answered the call as patriots. It was an unpopular war that caused some
young men to take flight to Canada, serve in missionaries in France, or hide
out in other foreign countries. The war
was fought by the middle class, people of wealth used their influence to send
their sons elsewhere. The true patriot
was the person who answered the call.
The President said, “You have earned your place
among the greatest generation. Welcome
Home. Welcome Home. Welcome Home”.FULL TEXT HERE
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