A Year In Vietnam II
by Ken Hornbeck
W
hatever the feeling about Vietnam, the GI was not unpopular during the
war itself. (Arrival back in the world, sometimes to contempt and almost
always to disinterest, was another matter).
I remember Roosevelt Grier, the footbll player-singer-actor, arriving in
Vietnam one Christmas as part of the Bob Hope show. He expressed
surprise when asked why he, a well-known anti-war campaigner,would join
the rightist Hope and his pro-GI show.
"I never said I was against the GI's," he answered. "I want them home.
But they're here whether they want to be or not. They deserve the best
they can get."
School children wrote to "a GI in Vietnam" by the tens of thousands.
Boxes of books arrived daily for distribution.
Small shows of support like those made Vietnam a little more bearable for
GIs during the anti-war period. But it was still a tough life.
Young Americans were dragged from their country and told their leaders
were right and many of their people--their relatives and, even family, in
many cases--were wrong. They lived in dust, mud, heat and danger.
For the most part, they coped, at least until the bullet or shrapnel with
their name on it arrived.
Much of the life in Vietnam is probably best forgotten. But there are
some things that are only pushed back, not expelled, from the mind.
Ken Hornbeck
D/1/501: Vietnam 1969-'70