As one who served in Vietnam as a Red Cross hospital worker stationed at the 24th Evacuation Hospital in Long Binh from 1970-71, I find the proposal to honor those who protested the Vietnam War with a statue and tree in Grant Park to be an affront to those who served in that war and to the families of the men and women who died serving the nation in Southeast Asia.
Intentionally or unintentionally, the efforts of the anti-war activists to end the war often resulted in heartbreak for those who served, as the movement totally failed to separate the “war from the warrior.”
During the years after the Vietnam War, while I was working in military hospitals with returning Vietnam veterans (and later, during my years as a commissioner with the Illinois Agent Orange Study Commission), I often saw the continuing effects of the total disregard for the veterans that the anti-war movement created.
Finally, the nation has honored those who served and has made peace with the teenage soldiers it turned against so many years ago. There is simply, I believe, no need for the City of Chicago to reopen old wounds by honoring those who created such suffering for so many men and women who served honorably in Vietnam.
