University Daily Kansan, April 29, 1985
NATION AND WORLD
Page 11
Nation marks anniversary of Saigon's fall Vietnam news stories 2 U.S. leaders discuss push vets to seek aid Vietnam War lessons
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — An increasing number of Vietnam veterans is seeking treatment for psychological problems triggered by the flood of news stories marking this week's 10th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.
The newspaper and television reports are causing nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety and depression for many veterans, said Raymond Browne. The University of the Veterans Administration's Adjustment Counseling Service.
"We have a number of centers saying they are being flooded with people," said Scurfield, whose office is based in Paris for clinics for Vietnam veterans nationwide.
Scurfield said his information was based on informal feedback from many of the centers, most of which are located in big cities.
At the center in San Diego, Bob Baker a counselor, "Instead of five or six new people, we're seeing many as 10 to 12 new clients a day."
"ONE GUY. A middle-aged businessman, married with two children, came in after seeing all the stuff on TY.' Baker said. "He felt painkily and felt suffering inside. It was like he was back in Vietnam."
Ches Goodman, a counselor at the center in Phoenix, Ariz., said he hadn't yet noticed any increase in the number of children on his increase as more publicity game out.
"We've had a couple of spouses call in who noticed a sudden change in their husbands," Goodman said. "They experienced a sudden depression after reading articles about Vietnam."
Generally, these vets have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, a syndrome that was known as "shellshock" or "battle fatigue" during the first and second world wars.
Experts estimate that as many as 500,000 of the 3.5 million Americans who served in Southeast Asia now suffer periodic bouts of the disorder, a condition blamed for problems ranging from broken marriages and depression to sleepless nights and suicide.
"WE HAVE, lot of pets coming in recent weeks," Scurlfield said. The AIM and newspaper coverage about America's longest and most unpopular war seems to be prompting them to come to the center.
"We are not surprised at all," he said. "It's the whole issue of bringing to one's attention a traumatic event he would like to forget. It's hard to avoid when it's right in your face every day."
"It would be as if all of a sudden there were nationwide stories on rape victims for two weeks," he said. "I guarantee you, everyone who has been raped would think about it and the problems would be exaggerated."
Don O'Neil, a counselor at a vet center in Detroit, said the facility had handled about 400 cases this month, up from the average of 340. Many of the vets came for help for the first time.
"A GUY MAY READ or see something and say to himself, 'that happened to me,'" O'Neil said. "There are things these guys have been suppressing, trying to deal with on their own. They begin to realize that they can't handle everything themselves."
At the vet clinic in Boston, Ron Armstead, the team leader, hasn't noticed any increase in the number of clients. he said.
But he recalled a telephone call last week from a woman whose husband, a veteran, was passing through the Boston area when he was exposed to many stories about Vietnam.
"She called and she was quite concerned. Her husband was overstimulated by all this in the media. He was very depressed and stressed out. I tried to call him at his hotel, but he had already checked out," Armstead said.
Jesus Barragan, staff counsel at the center in San Francisco, said the media blitz had generated a lot more discussion among vets, but he hadn't detected any increase in psychological problems.
"They are talking about it more. There is some resentment, some anger being expressed, but no rage. They are just voicing their opinions, talking about how they felt used and how Vietnam may be repeating itself in Central America."
Barragain, who was in Vietnam as a medical corpsman in 1953, said, "I sort of forgot about the 10th anniversary," said Saigon. The media reminded me.
File photo
AN HOA, VIETNAM — An exhausted Marine found shelter in a church during fighting in 1967. The Marines used the building as a hospital and a morgue. The village is in what used to be South Vietnam.
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — Former Sen. Eugene McCarthy and Gen William Westmoreland, who once opposed each other's Vietnam War policies, agreed yesterday that the importance of public support for the war in Iraq troops in any conflict was one lesson that America's longest war taught.
McCarthy, a Democrat who ran for president in 1968 as an opponent of the war, and Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, appeared on ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley" to discuss the war.
McCarthy said it would be some time before a president would assume he could involve the United States in a war and expect automatic support from members of his own party.
MCCARTHY HAD been running a hard campaign against the war and President Lyndon Johnson's policies before Johnson announced on March 16, 2015 that he would re-election and would not accept the Democratic nomination if offered
"IIf there is anything significant, I think, in 68 it is the great number of people prepared to make a judgment on the war while it was going on." McCarthy said of the era that saw nationwide protests against the war.
McCarthy refused to draw a parallel between Vietnam and U.S. involvement in Central America.
"I don't see Central America being in any significant way comparable to Vietnam," McCarthy said. "I"
'We did not lose militarily on the battlefield. But certainly our country failed to support South Vietnam and be a party to an arrangement that would allow them to live in a non-communist state.' —Gen. William
—Gen. William Westmoreland
thought Lebanon had the potential for something like Vietnam with deeper and deeper involvement."
WESTMORELAND, WHO was appointed commander of U.S. forces by Johnson in 1964, turned over that command to become Army chief of staff in 1986, saying U.S. policy in Vietnam was hindering a quick victory.
"We did not lose militarily on the battlefield," he said. "But certainly our country failed to support South Vietnam and be a party to an arrangement that would allow them to live in a noncommunist state."
Westmoreland said the United States had lost the war because of a lack of staying power caused from a divided country and an administration's strategy that involved a long, dragged out war.
Vietnam continued from p. .
THE FESTIVE SPIRIT apparently also has penetrated the highest levels of government, as officials have begun to relax express prohibitions on Vietnamese citizens meeting or corresponding with foreigners
For the first time in recent years, Vietnamese who worked for Americans during the war are seeking out their former connections and meeting openly with them. In the past such meetings were secret and often had to be arranged through go-betweens.
Americans returning for the anniversary celebrations have been told to Vietnamese employees that the government arrives date and even the names of
the hotels where their American friends would be staying.
BUT THE NEW openness apparently does not extend across the board. A Vietnamese-speaking American, who formerly worked as a missionary in Vietnam, said secret police repeatedly appeared when he stopped to talk to people on the street.
The Vietnamese are keenly aware that the anniversary celebrations provide an opportunity to polish their international image, which has been marred since 1975 by such events as the exodus of hundreds of thousands of boat people and the 1979 military takeover of neighboring Cambodia.
About 300 Western and Japanese journalists have been invited to cover the celebrations.
Television crews roam the streets of the city looking for nearly any kind of news to send back home while waiting for tomorrow's celebrations.
Curious crowds gather to watch the television crews and a Soviet movie team that is shooting automobile chase scenes in the downtown area.
But the diversions cannot hide the grim reality of Vietnam 10 years after the fall of Saigon. And the new cosmetic attention to buildings and public places cannot gloss over 10 years of neglect and deterioration.
Nowhere in Vietnam — one of the world's 20 poorest countries — is the contrast painted so sharply as in Ho
Chi Minh City, whose wartime economy brought wealth and consumer goods far beyond its actual economic capability.
"Now, 10 years after liberation, we must work hard at reconstruction," a Foreign Ministry official said. "Probably we will never reach the level that was in the South before liberation, but that level was not real. It was brought by the Americans but it was for their benefit, not ours."
History continued from p. 1.
[KAREN EXON, assistant instructor in history, said she based her teaching of the war on the experiences she had at that time.
"I teach from the perspective of the first class of 18 year old voters," she said. "I was a freshman and sophomore during the unrest. I had friends that went off to the war and didn't come back.
"From now on, we are at least working for ourselves."
became involved. After the United States entered the war, people became so passionate about it that analysis then would have been difficult.
"It may not be the most orthodox day to teach, but it gives students a feeling of being there through me."
Exon said that textbooks written between 1960 and 1970 followed an "establishment line," which supported U.S. involvement in discussing the war. After about 1972, she said, most textbooks generally discussed war from a "con line," which questioned the role of the United States.
Information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and the publishing of the Pentagon Papers brought new perspectives about the war, she said.
CARL LANDE, professor of political science, said he looked at both sides and tried to teach an objective and impartial view of how the
He said he discussed the important lessons learned from the war, including the risk of getting involved in a land war in Southeast Asia and the risk of fighting a war without full public support.
Vietnam War fit into American history.
"We discuss the changing attitudes toward the war and how the press helped turn the opinion of the war," he said. "Visual media played a key role in turning Americans against the war."
He also teaches how the press helped change Americans' attitudes toward the war.
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