Event finally welcomes Vietnam veterans home

Event finally welcomes Vietnam veterans home

DAYTON, OHIO — Dave Endlich, a Vietnam veteran, remembers his homecoming as prayers answered for his family.

When Endlich arrived home his family and friends had a small house party, but he remembers feeling like a stranger in his own household.

“It was so different when I got back. I just can’t explain my feelings,” he said.

Mike Jackson, who came back from Vietnam in 1972, also did not have an entirely happy homecoming. He was met by war protesters — not exactly a warm and fuzzy hello.

Now, 30 years after the war ended, Jackson is helping organize an event to finally welcome Vietnam veterans home.

“You’ve got a whole segment of the population that went through the same thing I did,” said Jackson, who wrote a war memoir titled “Naked in Da Nang.”

“I just want somebody to say thank you, somebody to say welcome home. It would mean a lot.”

Jackson is spearheading Operation Welcome Home, a four-day celebration on Veterans Day weekend in Las Vegas. A similar event, Operation Homecoming USA, is set for June in Branson, Mo. A highlight of both will be a parade.

There haven’t been many ceremonies and parades over the years for the 7.9 million Vietnam veterans, though there was a homecoming parade 20 years ago in New York City that drew about 25,000 former soldiers.

Military historian J. Michael Wenger can’t recall any official homecoming parades during or shortly after the war.

“The military was just ready to have it done with,” said Wenger, of Raleigh, N.C., who also has written about the Vietnam War. “It would have been a publicity nightmare. It would have attracted protesters like a magnet.”

Jackson, 57, vividly recalls his June 25, 1972, return to the United States. Anti-war protesters were at the airport in San Francisco to harass him and his fellow soldiers as they caught flights home.

“We walked a gauntlet through these guys on either side of us, putting signs in front of your face and screaming at you,” recalled Jackson, who flew 210 combat missions during the war. “This was our welcome home.”

The war protests made Endlich angry.

“I felt our country was fighting two wars — one at home and the other in Vietnam,” he said. “To me the war protesters were an enemy just like the NVA. I had no respect for them.”When Jackson returned to his hometown of Tipp City, just north of Dayton, there were no parades or any official welcome-home events. People were pleasant, he said, but not one asked him about his Vietnam experience.

“Nobody wanted to hear it,” he said.

Endlich remembers people asking him questions about where he had been and what he had done, but it being hard to answer them.

“If you weren’t there you could not understand,” he said. “We were told not to talk about our experiences, so I never talked much to non-Vietnam Veterans. A homecoming is part of the healing process, it’s very important. Don’t make our veterans feel like they did wrong or worse like a criminal, we went because we were asked, we did it with honor and pride.”

Clinical psychologist Steven Herman said many Vietnam veterans feel that their service was meaningless because of the way they were treated when they came home. This year’s homecoming events could ease those feelings, he said.

“At the very least, it would provide some validation,” said Herman, who practices at the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis.

Gene McMahon is a Vietnam veteran and directs the Vets Journey Home, a program for his former fellow soldiers to vent traumatic wartime experiences.

The program has simulated homecomings for small groups of Vietnam veterans. McMahon said those homecomings that can be critical to helping them heal.

“They have a missing piece,” he said.

McMahon appreciates this year’s homecomings but questions whether the Las Vegas and Branson events will be able to heal the severe psychological wounds suffered by some veterans.

“It will be too little too late,” he said. “It’s deeper work than that.”

Endlich also feels too much time has past.

“It’s been too many years, people may think we are beating our own drums,” he said.

Jackson calls the Las Vegas event a start.

“The time is right in the American psyche to do this,” he said. “I think that there is a little bit of guilt in the American public on what did we do to these guys.”

Branson organizer Gary Linderer, of Festus, Mo., agrees the homecomings are late but better than nothing.

“There are a lot of vets that are bitter and angry to this day,” he said. “How do you apologize for what happened 30 years ago? This doesn’t make up for it.”