Honour Reclaimed

Of all the stories, disasters natural or otherwise, of all benchmarks reached or failed in 2004 there was one story that reverberated for me beyond others. I witnessed something begin that I had thought not to witness until the generation immediately preceding me had passed or faded away. That story started with John O’Neil and his band of Swiftboat Veterans. Front Page Magazine has named John O’Neil their Man of the Year and claims the mission was accomplished but something more has rippled from that long ago battle that has yet to reach the shore.

While the story began with John O’Neil and the Swiftboats; it quickly swelled until it was more than a small group of Veterans of the Vietnam conflict speaking out against the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States. It inspired Vietnam Veterans and their families collectively to make a public stand to reclaim their honour and their valour. They were no longer content to allow their service in Vietnam to be framed as a shabby shameful episode in their lives. They refused to live publicly with the label of "war criminal" collared around their neck for doing their duty or be content to have their service charactized as being reminiscent of the army of Genghis Khan.

No doubt, there are those would argue that individually veterans and their families had made their stand before; but in truth, the difference lies that this time their voice rose so loud and clear that it soared far above the cries made by the madding rabble of detractors who’d embraced the memories of the veterans of the Summer of Love or Hollywood’s pseudo-historians. And so the torch that was lit by B.G. Burkett and grasped by Vietnam Veterans has been passed; and the siren’s call has come to a new generation to re-examine Vietnam without the lens of Hollywood or by those who so heartily embraced the politics of the Summer of Love and deemeded that noble.

2004 represented to me the year when the words of former US President, Ronald Reagan would more manifestly resonate now then when first spoken on May 28, 1984 to commemorate the tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the Vietnam Conflict.:

He saw the horrors of war but bravely faced them, certain his own cause and his country's cause was a noble one; that he was fighting for human dignity, for free men everywhere. Today we pause to embrace him and all who served us so well in a war whose end offered no parades, no flags, and so little thanks. We can be worthy of the values and ideals for which our sons sacrificed--worthy of their courage in the face of a fear that few of us will ever experience--by honoring their commitment and devotion to duty and country.