Richard Cohen: A Right Not to Fight in Vietnam
[Richard Cohen writes a column for the Washington Post.]
As a kid, I had an abiding fear, reinforced by movies and comic books, that I would die on some foreign battlefield. I would become a casualty of the war that every generation of American men seemed destined to fight: World War I for our grandfathers, World War II for our fathers and Korea for our older brothers. Then came Vietnam, which is where many of my generation drew the line: "Hell no, we won't go," in the chant of the day. And I didn't.
It turned out I didn't have to. Just luck. I enlisted in the storied 42nd Infantry (Rainbow) Division of the New York National Guard, and I had done so to avoid the draft. The Vietnam War was then in its infancy, and it wasn't until I got to basic training that I realized something was up: Why were so many guys mentioning Vietnam? Why all this talk about combat? I returned to civilian life plenty worried.
For the next 5 1/2 years, I feared our guard unit would be called up for Vietnam. What would I do if the order came? I had once supported the war -- this noble battle against evil, monolithic, communism. But troubling facts kept seeping out. The Red Russians and the Red Chinese were at odds. The North Vietnamese hated the Chinese. So much for the communist monolith. The South Vietnamese government was corrupt. Why should I fight for it? What, exactly, was I supposed to die for anyway? I thought I had the right to know.
Now those of us who slipped the noose of Vietnam are sometimes characterized as spoiled shirkers of our presumed duty. The loaded word "privileged" is often used, as if attending public college at night and working for an insurance company during the day is a mark of privilege -- my life at the time. No matter. The zeitgeist has changed. This is why Richard Blumenthal, the long-serving Connecticut attorney general and now a senatorial candidate, said he served in Vietnam when, like me he was stateside, in his case, the Marine reserves. For this, he has taken ample criticism and responded with a singular lack of grace....
Read entire article at WaPo
As a kid, I had an abiding fear, reinforced by movies and comic books, that I would die on some foreign battlefield. I would become a casualty of the war that every generation of American men seemed destined to fight: World War I for our grandfathers, World War II for our fathers and Korea for our older brothers. Then came Vietnam, which is where many of my generation drew the line: "Hell no, we won't go," in the chant of the day. And I didn't.
It turned out I didn't have to. Just luck. I enlisted in the storied 42nd Infantry (Rainbow) Division of the New York National Guard, and I had done so to avoid the draft. The Vietnam War was then in its infancy, and it wasn't until I got to basic training that I realized something was up: Why were so many guys mentioning Vietnam? Why all this talk about combat? I returned to civilian life plenty worried.
For the next 5 1/2 years, I feared our guard unit would be called up for Vietnam. What would I do if the order came? I had once supported the war -- this noble battle against evil, monolithic, communism. But troubling facts kept seeping out. The Red Russians and the Red Chinese were at odds. The North Vietnamese hated the Chinese. So much for the communist monolith. The South Vietnamese government was corrupt. Why should I fight for it? What, exactly, was I supposed to die for anyway? I thought I had the right to know.
Now those of us who slipped the noose of Vietnam are sometimes characterized as spoiled shirkers of our presumed duty. The loaded word "privileged" is often used, as if attending public college at night and working for an insurance company during the day is a mark of privilege -- my life at the time. No matter. The zeitgeist has changed. This is why Richard Blumenthal, the long-serving Connecticut attorney general and now a senatorial candidate, said he served in Vietnam when, like me he was stateside, in his case, the Marine reserves. For this, he has taken ample criticism and responded with a singular lack of grace....