The Pain That Does Not Diminish
I wrote this November 19, 1992; it was published in our local newspaper,The Times Mail, Bedford, Indiana.
The Vietnam war brought new meaning to the term “human sacrifice”. It has been called “an American experiment in Southeast Asia”, and has touched most of our lives.
Those who died there were victims, but we who still live were also victims. As we watched thousands being led to their slaughter, we could only feel helpless and frustrated.
Many people lost sons, fathers, husbands, sweethearts, brothers or friends. The Vietnamese people, as a group, were also victims; They not only stood by and watched their young men die, as we did, but they also saw countless scores of infants, toddlers, school children, elderly men and women, entire families, and even entire villages being destroyed, We can only imagine their horror and pain at losing their possessions, their heritage, their hopes, and their dreams. Each of us lost something in that war. There is no way to count the millions of people worldwide who still suffer daily for that useless, devastating war.
Those who were “disabled” (for lack of a more suitable term) will never escape the agonies they saw and endured. They are locked into a nightmare that will not end in their lifetime. Some scars are not visible, or even physical. Men who have been taught for about twenty years of their lives to value the sanctity of life cannot suddenly be “programmed” and licensed to kill without experiencing inner conflict, let alone lifelong guilt at the confusion, turmoil, and horror that resulted from the killing.
No one could listen to Tom Clay’s recording “The Victors” in its entirety without weeping; Clay recites the name, age, and circumstance of innocent people who have died in various wars as “Taps” is softly played in the background. A large majority of the people who were killed in Vietnam were civilian casualties, whose ages ranged from a few months old to persons in their nineties or even older. These people were “innocent bystanders” who just happened to be in the wrong place at the time. They could have just as easily have been you or me. Individuals have no control over the atrocities that their governments choose to commit.
The world has paid a high and painful price to stroke the egos of a few politically mad men, who were not worthy of such human sacrifice in all the various forms.
To hear even casual mention of that war or anything related to it rubs the wound in my heart raw again. The heart of humanity still bleeds from the pain of that war.
Joyce Marie Jeffries (Leach)
