Letter To The Editor – Healing

To the Editor:
As I have talked with folks about this Saturday’s American Legion Auxiliary’s fund-raiser I have heard some perplexing questions. I do not profess to having all the answers, but I do know why I am attending. I want to do what I can to honor our veterans. My first husband was a Vietnam combat veteran. He left home an innocent boy and came home a wounded man. For the rest of his life these wounds would scab over and then fester up again. As he aged he developed more and more medical problems which were directly related to exposure to agent orange. But with all he went through, his initial homecoming is what he was most bitter about. When he disembarked the plane on the west coast he was spat upon and called a baby killer. Then he was bombarded by the extensive media coverage of the few who protested the war. How he hated that traitor Jane Fonda! How different that was from how this community welcomed him home. Many hometown boys went to fight. When they came home their wives and girlfriends were waiting for them, and this community warmly welcomed them back.
This is a great place to live, and I want the world to know that this little community still respects what our veterans have done for us – not just the combat veterans but those that signed up to fight but never made it to combat. All of them gave up years of their young lives to protect us. To me, it seems that Wally is going back to Vietnam for all those boys who left us and for all of us who welcomed them home again.
Mary Lou Walters
Old Orchard Way, Petersburgh