(11 of 12)
$ Many antiwar protesters were sincerely trying to find answers to the profound moral questions Viet Nam raised about the legitimate uses of American power, and about the nature of the struggle in Indochina. The questions the war raised--in some ways, still raises--were endless. Were the Americans acting as idealists, honoring a treaty commitment to an ally and defending freedom against Communist aggression? Or were they anti-Communist crusaders who committed atrocities against a land of peasants? Were the North Vietnamese under Ho Chi Minh austere and virtuous folk heroes, or murderous, Stalinist totalitarians who committed barbarities far worse than those of the Americans and South Vietnamese? Was Southeast Asia a line of dominoes waiting to fall, one after another, before the sinister push of Communism? Or was the region a complexity of nationalities, all different, with mutual historic antagonisms that predated the war and will endure when its 100th anniversary rolls around? Were the Americans a collection of baby killers, or basically honorable men doing their duty when the nation called? Were the soldiers of the peace movement representatives of a uniquely virtuous generation, the most idealistic in history? (The antiwar protests died away when the draft ended in 1973.) Was the South Vietnamese army corrupt and cowardly? (ARVN units did not desert to the other side, and some 240,000 men gave their lives in the fight.)
Viet Nam was a crisis of the American identity. It was often said that Americans lost their innocence there, which, if true, may not have been an altogether bad thing. Innocence allied to great power may be refreshing but can be very dangerous.
If there is a peculiarly American saving grace about the war, it may reside with the 700,000 Indochinese who have come to the U.S., like so many other immigrants and refugees from around the world, and made their lives here. If they were brought to the U.S. by tragedy and the destruction of their past, they are also proceeding with the construction of a future. Like all first- generation immigrants, they fear that their children will lose the old culture. They ask questions in their native language and their children reply in English. In Orange County, Calif., where some 90,000 Vietnamese live, the parents run shops selling jewelry and herbs, ginseng and pickled ginger. They worry that their children are wearing punk hairdos and staying out at night. They send packages of food to their families in Ho Chi Minh City. They think about the past a lot.
So do Americans like Richard Corkan, a disabled veteran who served for two years as a Ranger in I Corps. "I have mixed feelings about it all," says Corkan. He does not have nightmares anymore, but sometimes in the deep of night, he blurts out in his sleep, "Who's on guard?" Sitting in the George N. Meredith V.F.W. Post 924 in Anniston, Ala., Corkan says slowly, "I don't know. Viet Nam just stays on your mind."