Jay’s face brightens when I ask, during his initial consult, if he served. While movement into community care from VA has occurred, millions more, not in the system, present for treatment with their own history invisible. Jay details service in Vietnam the same year my husband was there and seems relieved to have the dialogue opened. I listen carefully to the detailing that many offer, fifty years later- a world away from loved ones, returning to ridicule and pain. Sacrifices hidden, not celebrated and the impact still evident.
As the daughter and daughter-in-law of WWII veterans, I have managed cancer in that greatest generation with reverence. Now, my peers are moving into care and the stories hit home even harder. As college students, having my then boyfriend sent to Vietnam was an anomaly. We knew no one else serving- no family or friends. It was shocking and disorienting. There were film crews there and I watched the nightly news, holding my breath- perhaps even looking to see a glimpse. I sent letters daily- a thread – a lifeline to a world away. Two calls in the year through a ham radio operator whispering “say over” between the fragile words. The morning arrival home in civvies because the dress uniform of the young combat engineer would be ridiculed en-route returning to an ungrateful country. The loss of respect adding to the real and terrible outcome.
You may be surprised at my words today- in honor of my husband of 48 years whose quiet accepting strength never whispers of the time. When he received the Quilt of Valor and met a South Vietnam Captain who thanked him for service, was the first I heard his words of pride in his own efforts trying to rescue a country a world away. I see these men fifty years on with agent orange effects with cancer and the recall hits me like a wave. Treating these brave “boys” now is a high honor. The physician’s “laying on of hands” is a critical part of care. Can you imagine the unique privilege of arriving from a simple young eighteen year old girlfriend to the physical and also spiritual mission of working for their treatment fifty years later?
God Bless our Veterans – our young men and women who stand between each of us and evil. Your lifelong courage and sacrifice is acknowledged and you are honored and never taken for granted. The flag we are choosing to fly today says: “Home of the free because of the brave”. Thank you.