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Richard Arnold
Those of us who served in Vietnam left that distant place, one way or the other, more than 55 years ago. But for many, the Vietnam Experience still hovers at the edge of our consciousness as though it all happened just yesterday.
The smell of wet grass after a summer storm, the echo of a distant helicopter thumping its way through a morning sky, the image of a tree line silhouetted against a bank of rain clouds on a humid afternoon, any of these might carry us back in an instant. That said; it would be wrong for non-veterans to presume that such flashbacks are inherently unpleasant, wrenching experiences. Frankly, I am of the opinion they take veterans back to the good far more often than to the bad. In fact, stereotypes of the Vietnam veteran notwithstanding, and recognizing PTSD is real, I am also convinced that the war emotionally strengthened many more of us than it might have damaged or destroyed.
Though an infantryman who experienced his full share of traumatic events, I can only tell you that my war was indeed filled with far more laughter and wonder than it was with tears and horror.
Nothing in my lifetime has ever approached the intensity of emotion, or heights of experience, of that which painted the 12 months I spent in the jungles and mountains of that far-away land. Nothing. It is also true that I would not part with those memories for the world, and experience tells me that I am not alone in that regard.
The soldiers of the Vietnam generation had the ill luck to draw a bad war, an unnecessary and unwinnable war; a tragic, terrible mistake. But valor has a worth of its own; and ours deserves to be honored and remembered.
Dick Arnold
RVN 1967-68
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