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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 30, 2018)
6A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 2018 editor@dailyastorian.com KARI BORGEN Publisher Founded in 1873 JIM VAN NOSTRAND Editor JEREMY FELDMAN Circulation Manager DEBRA BLOOM Business Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN Production Manager CARL EARL Systems Manager EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK Ronald Anderson, Astoria Alan Barnett, Astoria Patrick Cadwallader, Astoria Francis Campbell, Gearhart James Emerson, South Bend Carl Green, Seaside Melvin Hebert, Seaside Richard Holman, Astoria Dan Klindt, Astoria Daniel Lloyd, Astoria Thierry Maxim, Ocean Park Terry Rippy, Hammond Gordon Zimmerle, Seaside Kenneth Phares, Astoria R emembeRing the fallen heRoes of V ietnam T hursday marked National Vietnam War Veterans Day, honoring the mil- lions of men and women who served in the longest conflict in U.S. history. March 29, 1973, is recognized as the date that most American combat and support units withdrew from South Vietnam. While some argue that the war in Afghanistan has gone on longer, at 16 years and counting, Vietnam spanned 20 years if you JIM VAN measure it from the first NOSTRAND American casualty in 1955 to the fall of Saigon in 1975. More than 58,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines were killed. Fourteen from Clatsop and Pacific counties are listed on the Wall of Faces (vvmf.org/Wall-of- Faces), and Clatsop Post 12 of the American Legion is looking for help locating their families and friends. If you have information to share, please call Adjutant Mike Phillips at 503-791-1921 or email clatsop12@gmail. com. The Legion has scheduled a Vietnam War commemoration day ceremony at 2 p.m. Saturday. Also on Saturday, at 11 a.m., Marine Corps League Daniel E. Crockett Detachment 1228 will sponsor the annual Welcome Home Veterans Appreciation Day to honor local military veterans. See page 3B for details on both events. Sobering exercise Scrolling through the faces on the wall is a sobering exercise. I was too young to serve in Vietnam, but likely would have had I been old enough. Military service was a rite of passage for the men in my family. I knew from a young age that I wanted to follow that path. The war arrived on our doorstep when the brother of one of my younger sister’s classmates came home in a casket. My uncles, who all served, fortunately escaped that fate. I enrolled in college on an Army ROTC scholarship three years after the war ended. It was not a popular time to walk around campus in a military uniform. Catcalls, derision and ostracism were the norm. Then, as now, society was divided — a small, pro- fessional warrior class of those who chose to serve, and everyone else. The draft had been eliminated in 1973 and the Army was an all-volunteer force. The ROTC cadre who trained us had all fought in Vietnam. We were eager to learn from them. They didn’t gloss over anything. They told of the hatred they experienced on their return home. They described a shattered, demoralized force, abandoned and forgotten by the coun- try which sent them off to fight. Discipline was nonexistent. For several years in the mid-1970s, you risked your life entering an Army barracks unarmed. They were loyal and chose to stay in, volunteering to train the next generation of leaders. When I reported to my first assignment as a young infantry lieutenant in Germany in the 1980s, the officers I served under expressed many of the same sentiments. AP Photo/Art Greenspon A first sergeant in the 101st Airborne Division guides a medevac helicopter through jungle foliage to pick up casualties suffered during a five-day patrol near Hue, April 1968. The war arrived on our doorstep when the brother of one of my younger sister’s classmates came home in a casket. My uncles, who all served, fortunately escaped that fate. They were determined that the lessons of Vietnam not be forgotten. They were committed to building a better Army. President Ronald Reagan doubled the defense budget, equipment and technology were modernized, professionalism and morale soared, and America’s armed forces again became the best in the world. I had left the active Army for newspaper work before the shockingly easy victory in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, but most of my fellow officers fought in that war. Never forget I never fired a shot in combat, but have had the honor over the years of talking at length with many who have. I’m proud to count Joe Galloway, the legendary war correspondent, as a colleague and a friend. We worked together on cover- age of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was the young reporter who, in 1965, took part in the first major battle between the U.S. Army and North Vietnamese regulars in the Ia Drang valley in the central highlands of Vietnam. That battle and Joe’s role in it were immortalized in the book “We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young,” and the movie “We Were Soldiers” (Joe was portrayed by actor Barry Pepper). Joe brought the commander in that battle, retired Lt. Gen. Harold “Hal” Moore Jr., to our office in Washington, D.C. for a meet-and-greet a few years ago (Moore was portrayed by Mel Gibson in the movie). I asked Gen. Moore about ordering men into battle, many to their deaths, in an unpopular war in a remote place halfway around the world that many Americans wouldn’t be able to locate on a map. His response was forceful and unequivo- cal. They followed his orders and gave their lives because it was their duty, he said. There was no question, no hesitation. They were serving their country. We should never forget their sacrifices. Jim Van Nostrand is editor of The Daily Astorian.