Understanding Veterans
More than 50,000 americans died in Vietnam (Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics), but what for? In the 1950s and 1960s, the United States was involved in the Vietnam War. The country had split into North and South Vietnam where the North favored communism and the south democracy. The United States entered the war in hopes of protecting the democracy that South Vietnam was trying to create. In understanding the experiences of veterans it is important to follow the training the soldiers went through, the diseases they became at risk of, and how people treated them when they returned home. The first important thing to understand about the soldiers experience is the training they needed to go through. When
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When asked about how his friends and family treated him when he returned from the war Johnson said,“Yeah. Everybody wanted to feed me a home-cooked meal, and I couldn’t eat it. Similar to what I told you before, it would make me sick, because it was too rich or I wasn’t adapted to it, and I’d have to leave the table. And then they felt bad, and I felt bad when my mother-in-law……So that was one thing” (Johnson). When many soldiers returned to America, they were accepted back by their friends and family, even if it was difficult for them to adjust to civilian life. While explaining what soldiers experienced when they returned, the article, “Design and Methods of the National Vietnam Veterans Longitudinal Study” describes, “In the decade following the May 17, 1975 proclamation by President Gerald R. Ford that the “Vietnam Era” was over, controversy arose concerning the well-being of the men and women who served in the war and returned to civilian life. One faction believed that Vietnam veterans had answered the Nation’s call, served honorably, and returned successfully to civilian life; another believed that for an important minority of Vietnam veterans ‘the war was not yet over’” (Schlenger). While some people were supportive of the veterans when they returned, others who had been against the war saw them as a large problem in America. In order to understand the whole story of a veteran people need to see how they were treated after the soldier returned