What we should have learned (but may have forgotten) from the Vietnam War

The U.S. observes two national holidays each year to honor its military veterans. Memorial Day, held at the end of May, honors those who are dead. Veterans Day celebrates the nearly 18 million living veterans who served honorably in war or peacetime.

However, significant distinctions exist between those who served in war and those who didn't — especially those who served in combat. Everyone who served honorably deserves recognition, but the National Archives points out that less than 15 percent of enlisted personnel ever see combat.

Combat veterans are more likely to suffer from lifelong post-traumatic stress disorder. Studies show that up to a third of the men and women who served in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan are experiencing PTSD. Their risk of suicide is 72 percent higher than that of other Americans.

In 2022, researchers at Duke University found the number was as high as 24 suicides daily, plus 20 deaths by overdose. The Department of Veterans Affairs reports that the suicide rate for female veterans jumped more than 24 percent from 2020 to 2021, four times higher than the increase among male veterans.

Tens of thousands of veterans are homeless. A survey on a single night in January 2023 found 35,574 homeless vets, nearly half without shelter. Almost 4,000 were women. Suicide, homelessness and PTSD are all symptoms of the visible and invisible wounds of war.

I especially relate to Vietnam veterans, for several reasons. First, I am one. I served as a 20-year-old combat correspondent for the U.S. Army in 1966 and 1967. It was the same job people such as Al Gore and JD Vance once performed.

We attached ourselves to combat operations to report on them, sometimes during battles. We typically were not trained as infantrymen, but if things got bad enough, we were expected to fight like them.

A second reason to think about Vietnam vets today is that suicide is more common after veterans reach age 70. This is evidence that PTSD lasts a lifetime.

This touches on a third reason. Medical professionals have found that the politics of a war are a factor in PTSD. The trauma is likely to be pronounced in Vietnam vets who knew while in combat and after they came home that the American people opposed the war and often blamed veterans as well as the government for it.

In World War II, the trauma of battle and the transition back into civilized society were eased somewhat when veterans were welcomed home as heroes. But Vietnam vets were vilified. One study found many veterans experienced feelings of "betrayal, isolation, and helplessness" due to "the perception of the military in the politics of the populace."

That compounded the moral injury many combat veterans already felt as a result of the situational ethics of war. They were trained and encouraged to do things considered immoral in civilized society. Sometimes, stress, anger and desire for revenge resulted in acts considered wrong even in war. The My Lai massacre was an extreme example. But it also wasn't uncommon, for example, for combat troops to cut off the ears of dead enemies and wear them around their necks as trophies.

Imagine the culture shock of living like a savage for a year, boarding an aircraft, and being injected a few hours later back into normal society.

Vietnam veterans were subjected to a final insult when they learned their government and commander in chief had betrayed them. In 2017, years after the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam, the New York Times reported that Richard Nixon, while running against Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 presidential election, secretly sabotaged peace talks "for fear that progress toward ending the war would hurt his chances for the presidency."

Nixon reportedly sent an emissary to persuade the South Vietnamese to hold off and "wait for a better deal" when he became president.

After he won, Nixon promised to end the war and achieve "peace with honor." However, presidential historian Ken Hughes, who researched Nixon's tape recordings, found that Nixon delayed ending U.S. involvement in the war.

Historians say America's leaders — civilian and military — knew the Vietnam war was unwinnable as early as 1965. During his first term as president, Nixon knew South Vietnam would fall if America withdrew. He did not want that to damage his chances for reelection in 1972, so he and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger decided to prolong America's involvement.

"Nixon's decision to time military withdrawal from Vietnam to his reelection campaign cost thousands of lives," Hughes points out. "More than 20,000 American soldiers died during Nixon's first term. The Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian death toll was many times higher. This is by far Nixon's worst abuse of presidential power. … Many paid for Nixon and Kissinger's deceit with their lives, others with their freedom."

It was, and remains, an unforgivable breach of trust between a U.S. president and the men and women sent to serve, sacrifice and risk death under the pretext of national service. It also demonstrates a disregard for human life in general. As many as 2 million civilians, 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and 1.1 million enemy soldiers were killed during the Vietnam War. More than 58,300 American soldiers died or went missing in action.

The only way to redeem their sacrifices is to learn from that war and never repeat its mistakes. That ultimately is the responsibility of the American people. We must never again elect a president who devalues sacrifice and puts his political career above the lives of the men and women sent to war.

William S. Becker served with the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division in South Vietnam from 1966 to 1967. He received the military’s Bronze Star Medal for his reporting.