FOR 40 YEARS VIETNAM VETERANS HAVE BEEN TREATED AS PARIAHS BY "UNCLE SAM"
NEW VETS BEING USED AS AN EXCUSE TO ABUSE THE LAST SURVIVING VIETNAM VETS
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER
When Vietnam veterans started coming home, legless, PTSD ridden and suicidal after having suffered higher casualty rates than any war in our history (Marines lost nearly as many dead in Vietnam as WW2 with 1/4 as many serving), they faced a VA managed by powerful service organizations with huge numbers of WW2 and Korean War veterans in control of policy making. Vietnam vets were denied membership in many of these groups and consistently were denied proper treatment for their wounds because of prejudices supported, in large part, by veterans themselves.
Decades later, many Agent Orange diseases are still partially denied and though tens of thousands have died. Suicide rates for Vietnam vets were far higher than the current "war on terror" vets but nothing was done. PTSD wasn’t "invented" until 1982 with only a few vets being diagnosed as late as 2000. Most Vietnam veterans suffering from decades of undiagnosed "raging PTSD" are still neither receiving treatment or compensation, often because of corrupt practices by the VA. Treatment for TBI, traumatic brain injury was non-existent and amputees routinely died by the thousands of infections and pneumonia due to inadequate treatment here in the US. No single group in our history with the exception of the American Indian, received abuse at the hands of the American government of this kind.
Thousands of Vietnam veterans survive, suffering PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury and decades of victimization by America’s most corrupt bureaucracy. Still, decades later, attempts to receive medical care and compensation for veterans of Vietnam are met with "stonewalling" by our government. New vets complain about claims taking 6 months to process. Many Vietnam veterans have claims that are 20 years old and still in appeal.
THE MOST COMMON METHOD OF ADJUDICATING A VIETNAM VETERANS REQUEST FOR MEDICAL CARE OR COMPENSATION IS DEATH.
VA hospitals were underfunded, staffed with the worst doctors and nurses in the country, filthy hell holes used as alcohol and drug rehab facilities for the thousands of shell shocked WW2 vets who became institutionalized and totally dependent. Vets would line up each week for free cigarettes and bus money with homeless vets sleeping in lobbys and basements of hospitals. Real treatment for war wounded was never a priority for the VA which never made any attempt to correct abuses and shortcomings.
With only 213,000 Vietnam veterans, remember, these guys are in their 50’s and 60s, located out of 2.4 million who served in Vietnam, no effort has been made to track their survivability. Total deaths from Vietnam may actually be higher than all previous wars combined. We can never know. Nobody will ask the question and nobody will certainly ever look for an answer
Notwithstanding, the current crop of veterans have had difficulties with employment denial, shredded disability applications, Walter Reed abuses and third rate leadership. These veterans have become a political football with each side of the fence claiming they will vote more funds, more pay, better equipment and more suicide hotlines for today’ vets. From what we are led to believe, today’s veterans are pampered, overfed, living in expensive condo’s with social workers hounding them daily as to their aches and pains and mood swings.
In reality, of course, we all know this to be baloney
RIVALRIES/COMPARISONS: DIVIDE AND CONQUER
Today our military is voluntary, although with a collapsed economy, someone choosing military service to starvation is hardly a volunteer. However, pay is, equalized to the period, 5 times higher than during Vietnam and combat demands and living conditions, for "front line" troops, is far different than during Vietnam.
It was not uncommon in Vietnam for troops to go months without a hot meal or sleeping in a cot. Body armour was non-existent or ineffective and most equipment and even uniforms were second hand, stripped from the dead and wounded and reissued or scrounged. Heavy weapons, armour, air support and such were most often unavailable and combat was exclusively small arms or hand to hand.
However, the enemy in Vietnam didn’t drive automobiles and talk on mobile phones. During Vietnam, reservists and National Guard were protected from serving in a combat zone (as were most women).
Vietnam vets are told Iraki war vets live in luxury, use equipment unimagined and are overpaid, overfed and coddled. World War 2 veterans were told Vietnam war vets were baby killers, drug addicts and murdered their officers. Korean War vets were hated by everyone, even each other.
Given the fact that interservice rivalries can become brutal, with Army and Marines at each others throats and everyone hating the Air Force, today’s services are even more competitive. Each service now has its own air force, special operations units and navy but with the huge portion of our military budget, that not stolen by crooked contractors, going to the Air Force whose weapons and bases are well beyond those of other services.
Stimulating and encouraging rivalry is a way of covering up failed policies, failed leadership and massive corruption. Abuses have continued, not for years but for half a century with the military, veterans groups, congressional and executive branch officials promising "to look into things" and finding nothing but fat paychecks for themselves and even fatter paying jobs in the private sector later on.
VIETNAM VET BASHING MUST END: TIME FOR AMERICANS TO HONOR THEIR HEROES
With the new benefits and GI bill designed to reward only veterans of the current counter-terrorism effort and punish veterans of the Vietnam War, America has turned her back on her heroes. Washington now believes you can fool all of the people all of the time and believing this has served them well. Are they wrong?
Veterans who survived the concentration camp atmosphere of the VA hospitals of their era were systematically denied, not only diagnosis and treatment for agent orange disorders including a wide range of cancers, but also diabetes, closed head injuries (TBI) and PTSD. Those vets with significant disabilities were denied compensation on a wide scale along with denial of diagnosis and treatment. This was done systematically as a government policy. Thus, treatable diseases became untreatable chronic conditions, often turning fatal.
Not only the veterans themselves were punished. Families of Vietnam veterans were denied any support services, health insurance, educational benefits and survivors benefits that veterans from other wars qualified for. Hundreds of thousands of children of Vietnam veterans who should have qualified for educational benefits, health care and the stability that household income from pensions or veterans preference employment would have helped provide, grew up in poverty stricken and/or damaged families.
The Vietnam generation, themselves children of WW2 vets and "Great Depression" survivors, were sent to war with no support on the home front, defective weapons, little food or equipment and subjected to abuse and neglect, not by "airport hippies" but their own government when they got back. This group is still receiving neglect and abuse, by a government, many of whose members were only children when these heroes served. We do know how few in the government served.
We don’t know how many Vietnam veterans are still alive. We do know the government has chosen to ignore them and push them aside while concentrating on "lip service" for more recent vets, who were well on their way to years of neglect and abuse also.
A debt is owed, not just treatment for the living but compensation for families denied decades of pension benefits, employment preference, educational assistance and survivors payments. Billions is owed, not to corporations or banks but to heroes and their surivors, heroes who fought, outnumbered in the jungle and even more outnumbered and abused at home.
Start bailing out the families of America’s heroes. There are hundreds of billions of dollars for the thieving rich. Perhaps we can remember our veterans and start paying them. Even slave laborers in Nazi Germany have gotten back pay. Tens of thousands of veterans are owed decades of back pension benefits and allowances. Do we only reward thieves?
Perhaps this bill should be paid before asking any more of our children to give their lives for a country that forgets its promises. Sacred Honor. These are words our "Chickenhawk" hacks in DC love to use when asking for money so they can keep their jobs. Perhaps we might want to load some of these boys onto planes and let them get a year or two of firsthand experience in Afghanistan. I am sure plenty of us would be more than happy to have them as leaders, as long as they never got behind us.
Gordon Duff is a Marine Vietnam veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.
Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.
Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
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