Transcripts For CSPAN3 Vietnam War Veterans And The Humanities 20170930

Career during his freshman year which he described as disastrous. He then enlisted in the army in 1966. The result of various standardized tests characterize him for officer candidacy school. He was then placed in the artillery. He would on to go to the school of welfare warfare where he in language, counterinsurgency and special tactics. In may of 1968 he was sent to vietnam as a advisor to a various mall regional unit. With the he worked enemies militia units. In may of 1969 he returned to the United States. He would back to College First to the university of michigan and then returned to college. He went on to get a phd in philosophy at the university of California Center rooms with a curious timing that i graduated in the spring of 1972 from the same college. It was a sort of changing of the guard. He arrived in the graduate program in the fall of 1972. Earlier in the day i made a comparison to our mascot. I am not doing that tonight. It suffers by comparison. We will talk about that in our next reunion. Then moved to Westland University in 1988 where he was named the executive assistant to the president. He moved around to become the president of the university created in 2014 he was appointed as the chairman for the National Endowment of the humanities where he has demonstrated originality and steadiness making the case for the humanities and the lives and building programs connected to humanities for veterans. In a dramatic significant move for the humanities i was confirmed to the National Council in the late fall of 2015. It is my great honor and great pleasure to serve as a councilmember with dr. Adams. That observe earlier today it is not my strong suit. When i refer to him as my leader that is quite a thing. Taking orders is probably not where i strive. For him i will take orders. There are other people in the room that i will do that for. I am trivializing a very great point to serve on a council with dr. Adams as my leader. Livesare people whose theire and understand compliment that i am about to pay him. Sharing a meeting with the humanities the time flies by. Council members are visibly said when they are forced to leave his company and go home. Is that how you feel at the end of a meeting . Not us. He is a bicyclist and fishermen. He also has family ties in colorado. Waits andg fan of tom he uses the term fanatic instead of fan. Wants a flu from maine to jacksonville, florida because that was the only concert venue that he could get tickets for tom waits. A fan of right or listen. Sitting down in 2017 is now a senior fellow at the foundation and is returning to the scholarly world for his book on the french philosopher. I knew i would have anxiety over pronouncing that name. It certainly did not help with that problem. Oh lord. So shifting gears, join me and welcoming William Adams will be speaking about comradeship, or legacy and the vietnam war. [applause] dr. Adams thank you for those very generous words. What i love about her is that she puts everyone immediately at ease. She has a wonderful sense of humor, thank you for that in the introduction. I would also like to thank kirk for getting me here. It was not easy. Theell as the members of boulder community. Thank you for being here. I am very grateful that you are here. Things to dot of and there are a lot of. Bligations i was eager to come here for a number of reasons. Her compelling personality for the the most part. A spectacular member of our National Council. She does tell you how you proud. She has been a wonderful member of the council and it has been a great honor to have her in. I wanted to experience this program at the center for the American West honoring and commemorating the vietnam war. To a lot ofled places around the country. This is the First University witnessinge i am this. I was very eager to, and no more about it. This was also a time that many of you know where there were many different anniversaries. They all circulate around the number 50. That was very significant to me. To terms with that number. As i participated in some of these. One of these is the congressional celebration or remembrance of the war. To attend that breed there are many other things going on all around the country all around this anniversary. Buckley this has been in count personal recollection for me. I was very pleased to go to vietnam in april with a very close friend of mine. And atalk about that trip little bit. There was some pretty intense personal reflection for me on the war. Last but not least and more at the National Endowment for the humanities we took a great deal of time and energy for programs with veterans around the conflicts in American History. The standing together program for veterans and for american of thecal awareness involvements in foreign wars. This occasion was a way for me to find a chance to talk about this. It is a great opportunity to do so with you. I want to talk about some of the and whaties of the war has been left to us as american citizens. I want to suggest some of the ways the humanities are central and fundamental to understanding those legacies. A brief look at comradeship as a way of making sense of war experience. Then i hope we can have some time for discussion because i would love to know what is on your mind. What you are thinking about this reflection on vietnam and other issues involving the legacies of this war are many, fundamental, and terribly important. I will talk about three or four in particular. To talkt when i want about is what the war did to americans understanding of the federal government. Many of you lived through this time and you will recall that for the first time in contemporary history, certainly in the 20th century, vietnam became an occasion for americans to doubt the veracity of the government and what it was telling them about this incredibly important episode in american life. One of the important episodes was a release of the pentagon papers and the publication in the new york times. There were many similar situations where americans confronted the fact that the United States government was not telling it citizens the truth about what was happening in vietnam. We were coming out of world war time of extraordinary consensus about the government and the state and the military. It was a time of profound unity in this country. Vietnamears later, interrupts that fundamental sense of connection to the government. Suddenly, much of the citizenry of the country develops a fundamental skepticism, and the legitimacy of the state never recovers. We are still in a period of time , our last election cycle underscores this, we are still in a time when we are reeling from this loss of legitimacy, this loss of trust in the government of the United States. All of the negative use of the government, which are so abundant now, go back to this difficult time. One of the most important focal points for the skepticism and mistrust and protests that flowed from that was the draft. Those of you who were around remember that the draft was the mechanism by which americans were inducted into the military, this flowing out of world war ii and to some degree korea as well. Of the antiwar protest that rubbed it and was sustained was the draft the antiwar protest that erupt it was the draft. Students were exposed to the everyonet it made aware of what was happening in vietnam and gave every citizen a stake. War did focused protests on the draft itself. Itself it lent itself to the professionalization of the military and the end of the and the civilian military divide, which is with us still. We are living in a time of deep those peopleetween in the United States who have experienced the military and been part of the military, who have had that experience, and the rest of us who have not had. The numbers are profound. Of the citizens of the United States had any direct exposure to the conflicts in iraq and afghanistan. Only 8 of the entire United States citizenry has ever been exposed to military institutions. This is a serious state of affairs and a regrettable one because the experiences of veterans are becoming more and more remote, more and more abstract, and military institutions are becoming more and more remote and more and more abstract for most americans. We live dangerously for where mostnd a place citizens do not have existential contact with the risk of military involvement or with the experience of military involvement. As citizens, we are put at a disadvantage in knowing what the stakes are, what the risks are of military conflicts, and that makes our democracy weaker than it was. Legaciesnk about these and these negative legacies, we should also keep in mind that not every legacy from the war was negative. I want to talk about several that are hopeful and positive, that stand alongside these other factors which put us at some risk. I do not think that political curiosity and skepticism are bad things. Coming out of the Antiwar Movement and that time of protests, i think there were valuable things the country learned about government, about the tendencies of government, and we mightve become disenchanted with government, but we also became more realistic about how governments work. We also experienced in that war and subsequently the power of movement politics. The Antiwar Movement did demonstrate the power of political movement, the power of grassroots politics, and that is something that has stayed with ways we canositive talk about afterwards. Third, this is the most , the war in vietnam was the beginning of advances in our understanding of the effects of war on veterans. To be more specific, it was because of vietnam that we developed a growing and now much more. Ullsome understanding of the effects of war on veterans. One of the most powerful expressions of this was the thel Development Development of the clinical diagnosis of postTraumatic Stress disorder as part of the now diagnostic and statistical manual of all disorders. That happened in 1980, too late for some veterans, but it was a very important step in the understanding of the effect of combat on the individuals who were involved in combat, and particularly the exposure to trauma and catastrophic stress and the ways in which they overwhelm our capacities as people, leaving strong residual effects. , and in a more important way, we have developed an additional layer of understanding on top of this which is nownosis, going by the term of moral injury. Moral injury is now being defined as perpetrating or failing to prevent, bearing witness to or learning about acts that go against the deeply held moral beliefs or expectations, common among combat veterans that have violated their own moral codes when they kill or witness others being killed. The discussion about moral injury is relatively recent, but it is one of the most important toelopments in efforts understand the experience of veterans and their experiences in war and combat. It is all based on this hopeful idea that all of us live in the with some fundamental moral sensibility. I leave it to you to decide whether that sensibility comes from nature or nurture, but the notion that all of us have human asngs that all of us human beings have a moral grounding, and the experience of disrupts those moral leading to, difficult emotions and ,xperiences of shame, of guilt of anger as central components in the lives of people that have gone through this ordeal and trauma of combat. Subject, andficult it is a difficult one for veterans to talk about. It was difficult for me to talk thinkand still is, that i it is an enormous advance on where we were just 15 years ago and talking about just 15 years ago in talking about the legacy of combat in individuals. The sense of moral injury is leading us into a richer understanding of what veterans have experienced and subsequently, what we need to do to support them. Where are we now in the wake of these legacies and these advances in understanding veterans experiences . We have had several additional wars since vietnam depending on how you count, we have been at war for 25 years and given what the president said the other day about the future in afghanistan, we have to assume that will go on for some additional period, perhaps a prolonged one. Three land wars over the last 25 2. 7 million are now iraq and afghanistan veterans, depending on who you talk to and the data youre looking at, Something Like 20 to 30 of these veterans are presenting symptoms of ptsd, of dramatic brain injury and moral injury. That is between half a million and a Million People who are having these considerable challenges in their personal lives. , the 30 number came from my visit to Walter Reed Army hospital where i met the physicians working with these veterans. The question for us in this country is how do we address ptsd and moral injury as pervasive conditions of individual life and experiences among a large number of veterans , what role can the humanities play in coming to terms with those conditions and experiences , how do we connect with experiences and how to we connect veteran experiences to the population beyond the military . Inghink that is the most vex problem of all. It is difficult to grasp the internal dynamics and spiritual content. Least, how do we encourage the country to grapple with the legacies of recent wars and conflicts. It is not just veterans who have to come to terms with this experience. We all have to come to terms with what has happened to us as a country as we have gone through these difficult episodes in our recent history. Progress been enormous on the clinical side of the issue. There have been extraordinarily creative and helpful and impactful medical and psychiatric evaluations. I mentioned the walter reed program. Both the National Endowment for the arts and the National Endowment for the humanities have been involved in the programming they have done their. Theyre also been significant private institutional responses. One that im familiar with is the Home Base Program in boston that was created by Massachusetts General Hospital and the red sox foundation. This is an Effective Program dealing with high risk situations and individuals who have had very serious issues coming out of afghanistan and iraq. There are a number of local support,es organization, initiatives, and programs developed as a response to that, so we are making significant progress thanks to people like you and thanks to the Centers Programs and other programs like it. Heres the most important thing i want to say tonight. The clinical world i am talking summons a deeper and more complex issue, and it is this we have to find ways of addressing the ways in which Traumatic Stress and moral problems ofves meaning and identity, and we have to find ways of providing resources and guidance in the search for meaning and as they struggle with these difficult experiences. The best way i can communicate what i mean is to tell your personal story. A brief one with a single important point. I went into the army when i was and immature and somewhat confused person. I went through basic training and onto officer candidate school and to vietnam. When i was 20 years old i was a first lieutenant, this was taken in a helicopter in vietnam. I show the image to remind us all of how young soldiers are. Most of them, when we put them in these difficult situations. Older,issioned officers, and officers sometimes older, sometimes not. I was an officer at this moment in time. These are young people. That is something we need to keep in mind as we think about addressing the challenges. Year in an interesting this remote part of the mekong delta. Some of us were talking about how fortunate we were to be able to experience the war in close connection to the vietnamese. I spent most of my time with the vietnamese. Waysnk it saved me in some because it gave me a richer perspective of what was going on. I eventually finished my year there, complicated, difficult, challenging. Statesback to the united , i landed at the Travis Air Force base and was met there by my girlfriend and a couple other berkeley. D we went to one of my friends was eager to to transfer to berkeley from ucla where she was enrolled. That was may 23, 1969. Some of you might remember what was going on in may in berkeley in 1969. , one of the most difficult and violent episodes of the Antiwar Movement. That morning, on the berkeley campus, a protester was shot and killed by police on telegraph avenue. Id been back from vietnam for 24 hours. There was a lot of tear gas in desire wasd my only to get as far away from that as i possibly could. We left and went down the coast and collected ourselves. An interesting summer at the university of michigan wase the Antiwar Movement in full, and in fall i went back to Colorado College where i had the good fortune to enroll in a class of a philosophy professor. To hazel barnes who was a significant person at the university of colorado. I came up here during that time to hear a lecture. A veteran of world war ii and had been an Intelligence Officer in italy and france and germany. ,hen he came back from vietnam he wrote an extraordinary book about his experiences there called the warriors. When i got back, i enrolled in his class and as i was enrolled i read the book. Passage whicha in anl of this and it incredibly clear perspective. It reveals what im trying to say when i talk about them meeting my talk about the meaning challenges of these experiences. Here is what he says in the introduction of the book. It is exceedingly unlikely i shall ever be able to understand the why of war. Sufficient reflection, through the mirror of memory, may enable me to make sense of my own small career. The deepest fear of my warriors, one still with me, is that these happenings had no real purpose. Appeared to rule my course then, so the more mightd paths of peace well signify nothing, or nothing much. , i am unwilling to accept without a struggle, indeed i cannot accept it at all except as a counsel of despair. How often i wrote in my journals that unless that day had some positive significance for my future life, it could not possibly be worth the pain it cost. Sentences toon of me was an open sesame, it was life that i in my had to be able to start to make sense of these experiences. It taught me that for the individual, coming to grips with the experience requires making meaning of that experience in a personal way. It involves a question, and the answers to a question what happened to me, who am i now . It involves a collective question what happened to us, who are we now . It is for the nation critical to way. Meaning in the same how does one make meaning . How you make sense of these experiences in a way that ,ermits you to internalize it to hang onto it and to move on, to do something more in life . I think it is fundamentally a process of recollection and reflection. The building out of that reflection and recollection is, what about who one happened, and what is next. Building a story about that experience that pulls together fractured elements of that toerience and permits you grasp it in a deeply personal and significant way. If you think about life generally, most of the ways in which we make meaning are involved in this process of the creation of narratives. Are,tives about who we what we have done, where we are going. Narratives that tie the personal life to collective life, and of course this meetingmaking aking is where the humanities come in. Where meaning is at issue, the humanities have to be present. The humanities are about how we make meaning from our experience , whether it is history or anthropology, whether it is literature. All of those forms of humanistic meaning. N are about there are committed sleep are full resources in the humanities to help us do that. ,he narrative tradition itself out of which we build these stories of who we are, the literary tradition that gives us access to all of the rich resources of the past as we attempt to build narrative, and ,he historical tradition stories of where we have been as a people. All of you know that some of the oldest Literary Works are about combat and war, if you think about the greek epics, the iliad and the odyssey, these are still meaningful and important sources. It is because of that fundamental role of the humanities in making meaning that at any age we believe we can make a difference in working with and for veterans. We did it in a number of different programs we have provided to the entire country. One important one was called dialogs in the experience of war where we were training individuals how to work with groups of veterans as they themselves work to come to terms with their own experiences. Where wee seminars were trying to lay the groundwork for the multiplication of these experiences for veterans. Interestingrtant theater which came out of nyu and the Classics Department there. There is a piece of that program called the warrior chorus which uses ancient literature to provide dialogs about veterans experience. I saw some of the productions of the theater in new york and i have to say they were incredibly powerful. What was interesting is that the cast of the productions were entirely composed of veterans. They were the actors, they were the lighting people, they were doing all of the stage management, these were entirely veteran productions, directed by veterans and involving veterans in these incredibly interesting ways. Washer Important Program called the warrior scholar product the warrior scholar project. This is a Program Helping veterans who are interested in matriculating at four your colleges, to learn the ropes of college in a very intense summer using humanities as the fundamental text and work. Finally, this is an advertisement for the new film on the vietnam war by ken burns, it is going to air on pbs on september 17. It is a nine part, 18 hours series, i have seen the series, is extraordinary. Was one of the principal funders of this. I had the privilege as a chairman to sign the grant that went to the program. It is an interesting example of the kind of work that neh has done on the historical side as we attempt understand our history and the legacy of conflict on who and what we are. Say is thatying to we owe our veterans thanks, but we owe them more than that. ,e owe them resources to build out of their own reflections and memories, these stories, these meaningmakinge narratives that will help them make sense of their experiences. We go them our ability to listen and to hear what they are saying. By way of conclusion, let me say a couple other things about the war. Combat is, inbout part, an encounter with what is terrible in that experience. It also has to be about the recovery of the good thing that happened in that experience and that is important. I learned that reading glenns book and i think he was absolutely right have a chapter on the powerful attraction and experiences that happened to men and women in combat. Those powerful factors have several dimensions and one can talk about a lot of different things, the one i want to mention is the experience of comradeship, which is one of the most enduring and powerful experiences veterans have when they reflect on combat. Glenn was particularly eloquent about this, and i want to read you a couple passages where he talks about how we think about the terrible dimensions of war and also its healing and hopeful mentions. Many soldiers will admit that the communal experience of battle has been a high point of their live. Despite the horrors, participation with others and is wonpation in battle they would not want to have missed. For anyone who is not it is difficult to comprehend. The feeling of liberation is basic. It is the feeling that explains the commendation of earnestness and lightheartedness often associated with men in battle. Comradeship is a form of ecstasy. In most of us there is a long of a longing for community with our human species and a helplessness about finding a way to achieve it. And mortalerience danger is necessary to bring us together. Toe experience is necessary bring us fully together with our comrades or with nature. This is a pity, for there are surely alternative ways if we would only seek them out. Until now, war has appeal because we discover the mysteries of communal joy in its forbidden depths. Comradeship reaches its people in battle. Glenn eloquently describes the ways in which this act of reflection and recollection has to include these rich human experiences of the most positive kind. One last hopeful note i want to leave you with has to do with my own return to vietnam in april. Rich andrience was powerful for me. I had not been back since 1969. I went with a friend of mine, he was a marine pilot in the name in de nang. Trip. An extraordinary the end of the trip was to the place id been stationed on a branch of the mekong delta. This is about a kilometer from the cambodia border. It included a visit to one of the most difficult and complicated parts of the province in which i was stationed, this is a mountain in the southern part of the province that was occupied for most of the war by viet cong. Attalions there was a lot of blood and treasure shed on this mountain. It is today a state a National Park in vietnam, which was jarring for me. One can go there and see the way in which the vietnamese, the victorious be enemies, are commemorating their the , arerious vietnamese commemorating their experience there. This picture says it all. The flag of the republic of vietnam flies over the mountain. As i reflected on the trip, i wrote something in my journal that i will end with and that i hope gives you a sense of another hopeful dimension of with and i came away i was glad to have. In one important way, i end up with a powerful feeling that the american war and my own experience in it has been swallowed up, engulfed by 50 years of history since and the Amazing Energy and purpose and achievement of the country since 1975. In this sense there is very little left of that time, vietnam is a different place from the one i knew and experienced. For me, theres hopefulness and sadness in this, that a country so devastated by war and the titanic suffering was able to so much as areate normal sleep impressive. Vietnamese died during the war. It also saddens me to know that the sacrifices that were made here, both by americans and the vietnamese are becoming harder to imagine and understand. , and the less tangible worlds of culture and character, the past is not war changed us, the countries and people who fought it, for both good and bad ways and the changes are etched in who we are. They are part of our collective dna. Exactly sure i note now how it changed me. Vulnerableung and so and so unprepared for what i saw and did. Experiencing the complexity and scope of vietnam this time around, and being better able to grasp it puts me in touch with that vulnerability in a new way. I am sure that the pressure and violence of the experience made me more anxious and fearful and cautious, but i am also sure that it may be more curious and capable in some important way. The countries were greatly undermined ther legitimacy of our Political Institutions and processes in the United States and we are still dealing with the effect of that, and our military institutions were damaged as well. Side, i am sure that the length and harshness of the war made the communist tougher and more rigid and that the state that emerged from the war is more repressive than might have been the case. And yet, the country has been reborn and its emergence from this dark passage gives me reason to hope. There was no revelation or a tiffany behind the spots or hany behindr epip these thoughts. That is all there is. But that is enough. Thank you very much. [laughter] [applause] yes, please. I am involved in a local Nonprofit Organization and their mission is to find a way to connect the public to the veteran population. We are finding it extremely difficult. It is hard to know who is a veteran. That amazing when you find people you have known all your life have served and you never knew that. And i to Colorado College knew glenn. I was in a class with returning korean war students. It was a third of our class. I never knew they had served reunion in which we were celebrating the end of the war and all of these veterans were revealed to us. What is the process, how to we understand . We have these wonderful organizations that we want to makete and yes we want to more of our public aware of how these people served. How do we know who the veterans are . William it is a great question. It is a slow process, but we have to keep at it. This one and many others around the country are beginning to bring people out of their shells. There is a tendency, and the veterans will understand this, to put that behind in the distance. Tohave to encourage veterans share their stories, talk about the experience, not just because of the good it will do them, but because of the good it will do us, and the good it will do the Democratic Institutions of our country. We need to understand what these experiences are like, not just to honor them, but to no what we are doing as a country and to know what his next and what we should do next. The terrible thing about forgetting and not having this touchsion is that we lose of the suffering and terrible prices that people pay, and as we lose touch with that, we lose touch with what the real cost of these conflicts are. That does not mean you can avoid conflicts, im not saying that in every case there is not a where conflict is just inevitable and necessary, but we always have to understand the price. We just have to do everything we can in our neighborhoods, in our institutions, our schools, our colleges, our universities, to pull out these people and to pull out these stories. Vietnam left us with another like another negative legacy which was realized in vietnam aboutns being very wary talking about experiences. I do not think that is the case with iraq and afghanistan. It is a different time. We as citizens have to work hard to prompt these discussions. They do not have to be soulb earing conversations. Revelatory ofe the experience of military institutions, particularly at this time when so few americans experience it. Answer, iave a magic hope programs like this will multiply and flourish. Theres been a distinct change in the country in the way most people view military service and veterans. We have to keep pushing that agenda. Way in the back . Im a Colorado College alumni. I heard a lot about you when i was there but i never met you. I started there in 1970. Book manyd glenns time and youre right about the storytelling. I 2005 another cc vet and started Community Dialogues in which we tell the stories and we did it because we saw a lot of who had served in iraq and afghanistan. They were having similar experiences dos, not as bad, but similar in the sense they cannot talk about what they had gone through. What has happened at Colorado College is the rejection i had experienced when i came back and was too naive to know no one wanted to hear my stories, Colorado College has turned 180 degrees and now theyre hosting these dialogues. I wanted to pass that on to you and i think that the college has come a long way towards receiving the experiences that should be accepted. I wanted to ask you, how do the humanities help to heal veterans, especially the combat veterans . , combatnd i know veterans are a tiny minority of veterans. William their two ways of addressing that question. There is enormously rich thatature in all cultures has and provides tremendous ,nsight into these experiences and glenn profited from that as we profited from his book. He is a great example of a humanist who made an important contribution to this vast literature. It is by exposing veterans to those resources that we help them get a purchase on what they did. It is not just on what they did and experienced, i think we owe them context. We cannot pretend that these conflicts do not have political context. They do. We need to face that. Historye questions of andpolitical science efforts to understand the political context, the political that canthe very thing burns is doing in this great film. We owe them that context. It is all those resources together, and it is not the end of the journey. Those the reason i told the story about glenns book was because it was so important to me. Issue, but solve the it is better than not having the resources. It speaks to the way in which the humanities illuminate our own experience. Yes, sir reppo i like your hat. When i was in branson last year all the men wore these. I think it is a charm that this university is a lasting hope i remember patty giving me a pen. We are so lucky to have this person. I am speaking as the youngest member of my family, my dad was a world war i veteran, my older brother was world war ii and philippines, my other brother outfit wasa, his ,here they had 50 casualties so his coming back was an important detail. , i was drafted and trained for the rice paddies of indochina. When i was at Emporia State University i wrote a paper about Joseph Stalin and was wondering whether he would make up religion or what he religion. Ith a plansinto his fiveyear and most of them were too successful for my comfort, but near the last he had a fiveyear plan in which he would start a war in Southeast Asia that the people there would be the casualties, they would shed their blood, we would get entice d into it and shed our blood and the russians and the chinese would be providing the military equipment to engage in that vietnam war which you are entangled in. Goal was to destroy our think iresist, and i have right into three persons who were aware of that fiveyear plan of trying to destroy our will to resist. One of them was a high Intelligence Officer and another one was another Intelligence Officer. Those are the only two other persons i have come across. Was i went into guided missile training battalions in the army and at that time it was secret classification. The guys and it were in the upper 15 of intelligence, we were sending packages out to various cities and military posts and many people do not realize how many of our major cities have these sites that we had. Those whitee pencils coming out of the ground, it looks like. People do not realize that missile could go down range 30 miles, not an airplane out , and guys would test. One of the missiles bounced off an aircraft and was considered a mess. Was considered a miss. Not realize each of those missiles could carry three Nuclear Warheads. Many of our cities had stockpiles of Nuclear Warheads in their neighborhood and due to the fact that it was secret information, people did not know it. Here in boulder we had about put a people trying to ring around the plant that was used to build these warheads. These people were, in the name of peace, protesting against what was being used in defense in the name of peace. You, hows listening to successful was stalin and destroying our will to resist. I could go on, but my two uncles were in world war i and one came back shellshocked and the other came back without all the hair on his body because he was one of the eight guys that survived a gas attack. I remember him giving my dad a buckle that he took off of a dead germans shall a dead german soldier. I think that some of the attitudes, destroying our will to resist can be a political endeavor which causes a tremendous amount of consternation, with americans especially. Were you aware that that fiveyear plan existed . William you are a much better student of stalin than i am. I have not read that particular when i would say, i mentioned the ken burns film. One of the consequences of this film is that a lot of these arguments and conflicts about the war, the justification, the purpose, all this is going to surface again. That is going to be part of the conversation. We need to be prepared for that. It is also an opportunity to talk amongst ourselves about all conflicts, and now with 50 years of perspective, we can do that in a less acrimonious way than we did 50 years ago. I hope that is the case. I know there was one other question. As a veteran myself who is interested in humanities, and your experience, sometimes the suspects these subjects can be politically charged. Needless to say that can be difficult. In your experience, any advice you can offer ongoing beyond that boundary for better conversation, better dialogue along the lines where it is not so turbulent . Questionlike the other , i do not have a magic solution to this, i think we have to be ourselves onstrain the politics long enough to hear people out. Then they have to be restrained long enough to hear us out and we have to be able to have civil discourse. The discourse in the vietnam war was not terribly civil. People were dying and that is Serious Business and there is a lot of anger and that will happen to us again. We have to be able to surmount that emotion long enough to be able to say, as someone once suggested to me, tell me more. It is hard, it is tough stuff, and we do have reasonably powerful feelings and judgments about this. Ken anday about lynnes film, it does not give anybody slack. My reaction is that it gives everybody a black eye. With an experience that complicated, i think that is a reasonable way to approach the complexity. I remember bill moyer speaking with Joseph Campbell the war and he rose and and bill moyers suggesting the cause was not just an Joseph Campbell saying it takes the same amount of courage whether it was just or not. When youre talking with the veterans, you have to remember, we had no idea what was going on. I was 19, just like you. I sort of believed everything president johnson said. It did not take me long to different something when i got there. It takes courage to go. We cannot cut off the discussion because it is an unjust cause. William very well said. Here with a program it, that is writing about their experiences. I think it ties nicely to the humanity. The other thing you mentioned, really, about them finding meaning. There is a psychologist, andrew sullivan, and this is his theme. He is also one who has helped establish depression centers. I believe there are seven of them. And the Johnson Depression Center is one of them. I think it is seven. It was his idea to establish these. It is not necessarily tied to veterans issues. But depression is a big issue. William the Traumatic Stress post dramatic stress, there are a lot of different forms across the country and the world. I think the matters are at stake. I love your plan about writing. We founded a program at the university of california Santa Barbara that was on the way to becoming a program that was involved with writing programs for veterans. They were pretty long programs, not two weeks, they were pretty extensive. There is a creative professor there in Santa Barbara that is doing it and expanding it across the whole system. It was a wonderful program. Again, that is a way in which humanistic thinking and approaches can be extraordinarily helpful. I appreciate that. [indiscernible] in vietnam, 1968. It is great to reach out to the veterans and bring them home, but how do we close the gap that you talked about between the civilian sector and that small percentage of people who have dedicated a part of their lives, in many cases their entire life, to serving in the military . Most of us, i am saying the civilian we do not think of them as part of us. Those are those guys over there, those guys going to vietnam and dying, and coming back with postTraumatic Stress. What do we do, how do we close that gap . William i think one thing we have to do is Institute Compulsory National Service. And you know, we the country is too big now to make that service entirely military. But we would make some substantial progress, i think if we caused there to be a system that required service from every american in some fashion. And to, you know can make Public Service obligatory, part of being a citizen in the country. For some, that would be the military, for others there are a lot of possibilities. But it should be compulsory. And it should be a universal obligation. Audience member where does the political [indiscernible] come from . William ive no idea. When i think about it realistically, it is not going to happen. But i like to speak about it because i think it is an important issue. It is one of the country needs to stare at and their need to be people causing people to stare at it, because i think the silhouette, what you are talking about, in an interesting way. If i were the president , i would talk about it. And i think we need political leaders that will talk about it. Audience member i support your idea of National Service of some kind. And i think the answer to the question is how do we get the political will, it is us. We have met the enemy and it is us, us who needs to be part of the process. I also want to say one other thing. I was in the navy during 1967, i was not in country. I was not at all willing to talk about that. Not because i was ashamed of what i did or anything like that, because the rest of the country was ashamed. It was not after until 9 11 william yeah. Audience member i think i personally owe a debt to the returning and not returning soldiers, because i feel proud of them now. Thank you. William that is a good point. I think 9 11 to change the dynamics a little bit. But we still have a long way to go. And we have some systematic and instructional issues and structural issues, that will take a lot more with institutional work, but we need to start. We have made a lot of progress against to where we were when you came back. I do not know how much more of time we can take a couple more . In the blue . Audience member i honestly do not understand, honestly i do not understand why it is difficult, as you said, difficult to talk about. William why it is difficult to talk about . Audience member i do not understand that. Im sorry, have not been in war. But i can tell you a worse than war story if you want to hear it, and i would say it in front of everyone. William there are many things in life that are difficult to talk about, but i assure you these experiences are hard to talk about. Hard to talk about in part because it is hard to bring words to the vicinity of the experience and really make sense. And that is what i have been trying to say. At the bottom of this is this meaning of making it work. It is difficult, emotionally difficult, and intellectually difficult and complicated. Audience member i served in vietnam as well, i commanded a company in the infantry division. I was the fourth, well, only four other guys that were older than i was at that point. William how old were you . Audience member i was 22. 165 men at that time. But just getting back to the, the idea of how humanity has helped close the gap. From my own experience, and i stayed in the army for 26 years, you saw a tremendous change from a draft army to a much more professional volunteer one. But the thing i end up seeing is it is difficult in our society now where you have such a small percentage of people who even know someone. And again, i am very pleased we are recognizing ptsd and we have a moral entry. Now you start to see that it has brought up so much that once again what i tend to see in the general civilian community, kind of a view that veterans, particularly those that served overseas, or all damaged. Were all damaged. You cannot just deal with that. And i volunteer with a small veterans museum, as well. And again, it is amazing how well one veteran can talk to another. But quite often you end up seeing when civilians come in, particularly mothers with children or even high schoolers, you know, the view is you do not want to go into the military, because you will come out damaged. And again, but you look around the university or anywhere like that and veterans are everywhere and we are doing quite well in life. And we have all changed, weve all grown. And you know, in many cases, most i would say are better people for the service. But you know, i get very concerned with the much smaller population that we are drawing on for our military in the future. William there is always a risk of conveying the notion of veterans, particularly combat veterans in these recent conflicts, have as a general rule, have these issues. Some do and some do not. We have to find a way to talk about them that does not stigmatize the veterans. But also it acknowledges the depth of what they have experienced. It is tricky, i agree. Because there is a stereotype. I wrote articles on the vietnam war movies back when it was the thing. And some of those movies conveyed a lot of the stereotypes. And it did not do with a lot of good either. I mean, they are movies, but still. Risk and ire is a think we need to be mindful. You are right. Audience member i have two questions. Ive always been curious about, for you and others here that served vietnam in and came back and went to college and all around the you were people who had not served in vietnam and they were simpleminded about their stances, maybe too preoccupied with their next tiedye they were going to make, i mean you are in a situation where you might have just been in a constant lowlevel rage at the obliviousness of your fellow students, and i do not think i was as oblivious as a sum, but i was probably i was wondering what it was like to be in andege, a privileged kid i wanted to ask a humanities question. For me as a historian, the only knowledge i have of this is i know a fair amount about the military in the 19th century west. It is condemned to hell out of the military and reasons to be concerned about military actions towards the indians, so many of the soldiers were freed slaves, impoverished immigrants, so non test as demonized characters. Many of the officers were sympathetic to the indian people and they hated the orders. So i am wondering if looking at American History and the role of the military there, is that a way to get at those issues stepping away from vietnam, but coming back to that . William i think any kind of historical of military institutions and conflicts is usually viable and important. We funded all kinds of research and scholarships across the great swath of conflicts that the United States has been involved in. I think all of that context building is very important. And i think it is very helpful. And i think we should be more curious as people about that part of our history. As for college, did not experience a lot of witless people being witless around me. Maybe that was a rare event. Own kind of demons that were playing out. And i hope people at Colorado College have forgiven me for some of the behavior. [laughter] audience member i experienced the witless. William there you go. We all experienced different things. I was involved in the Antiwar Movement after i came back, which gave me a kind of place to go with some of these feelings. I understand other people were not and they did not want to be and do not share this point of view. For me it was extremely important expression. And very valuable. So but, there we go. Somebody did experience those witless people. [indiscernible] william one more question. Yes . So, i againber supports your desire to have this Public Service, but it is never going to happen. In lieu of that, is there any discussion at the federal level for copperheads of education or to make the gap more of a part of the conversation, because i think people are ignorant to ask existence it to its existence. And it exacerbates the kids we had coming in right now on parris island, they, they are even more immature probably than your generation was when it comes to vietnam. They are still trying to make sense of their experiences and that exacerbates when they came in and when they came out. 80 of the firstterm marines are done after their first four years. Back, these kids coming they are even further than when they started. Not going to venture so far as to say further than when you got back, because i think your experiences, very few of them now have very little but you never know. [indiscernible] william yep. [laughter] william good way to put it. Audience member mildly political way to put it. Is there any discussion . William there was a lot of pandering. I had interesting discussions with the veterans, the veterans administration, the Statement Department the state department, the defense department, about those, but not in any way that we give you confidence that people were getting traction on it. So i found the discussion at the federal level mostly, you know, carryingay anxiety about this issue. Um, im very interested in what you say about these young people and concerned by what you say. Reunion at mya ocs class two years ago, they have basic training now there, which they didnt have. I visited and i had lunch with a group of young enlistees in their fourth week of basic training. And i was overwhelmed by how young they were. And relatively inexperienced. And i was also concerned about the, you know, the obvious the lack ofc difference, lack of scale, lack of background experience, the lack of difference of background experience. You know, it is worrisome to me a classlass and perspective, primarily. Is know, the volunteer army has very powerful class dynamics. And just another way to talk about it. And why it is so worrisome. People from less welleducated backgrounds and people from poor backgrounds are driving that. [indiscernible] to get inember education. William in some cases that is true. Nothing wrong with that. I sure got an education. But i am very interested and worried about it. I think all of these expressions are you arming are alarming. Audience member that in that divide, the most import and consequence of that is it makes it that much easier to send is often to privilege environments. William that is what i have been trying to say. You said it more directly into better than i did. That is the issue, the most powerful in fundamental issue for me. It is too easy. It is too easy. Um, but i do not i mean, a lot of people think about it and are aware of it, but it is not talking about talked about in washington and not gaining traction, because there is not an alternative right now. We may be able to build one, but it will take a lot of political will and courage. Thank you for the comment. Thank you all very much. It has been a great pleasure to be here. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, this is the part where we would like to have the Vietnam Veterans that are here, if you would like to join us in front we want to have a ceremony of recognition. Inyou would prefer to stay your seats, we can send a party to you. We have folks and we have pins. We would like to have the people that are veterans come down and join us in the front, or signal where you are. I have read so much about you. William not bad stuff . Know, all good stuff. [applause] great. Ok, good. Thank you. Ok, so we will have the veterans clustered here. If there is anybody that would prefer to stay seated, make sure that we know that you are there. We will get a young people we will do young person there. They will be passing up the pins. Our custom is to ask you to pass the microphone along and tell us your name and where you served and at the time period. Um, so we can know that about you. We will have the occasion of passing out the pins. And then, usually i just shake hands, but i really prefer to hug people. [laughter] we could maybe added that variation. [laughter] [indiscernible] we could talk about that. Or we can shake hands. I will be fine with that too. And we would like to have our speaker also shake hands with people as we pass out the pins. Ok, lets go down the row. I have a pin. Should i help pass them out . No. I probably do not need it. Monthsvy, 19641968, 13 from the combat zone. Pete, i was in the u. S. Navy, stationed with the Third Marine Division at a field hospital. 19661967. I have been back to vietnam 27 times since 1989, working in hospitals there and we have helped a young lady put her through cu, and have a daughter in law that is an escapee from saigon during the war. [indiscernible] nathan who is passing up the pins is a veteran himself. [applause] johnston. Is curtis drafted 25. 5 years old. Did not make it well, at 26 that is when the draft cut off, so i did not make it. They drug me [laughter] no, heel marks in the concrete, that is me. I was a combat medic, 19th infantry division. There from march of 19681969. Ninth infantry division. And i am back. [laughter] [applause] evening, my name is joel, i was a combat infantry man with the fourth interface fourth entergy infantry. I participated in the battle of feather in 1968. May of 1968, which was the worst time for me, i was involved in tet we called the v offensive. So here i am and i am glad i made it back. I think it was my mothers prayers that saved me and i am forever grateful for that. Thank you much. [applause] my name is keith. I was drafted in 1969 and i as a 1542, if that rings any bells for anybody command that is a military mos, which is a platoon leader. And i am awfully glad to be back. [applause] dick watson, i spoke to you before, i was an air force pilot in vietnam in 1968. [applause] served withows, i the 65th engineer battalion as a Company Commander with the 25th infantry division. And when i returned from vietnam , i made the conscious decision to not get out. And each kind of assignment seemed interventesting. So i served from vietnam to the first gulf war and our older son served 23 years and served in iraq. [applause] whitney, thank you for being here everybody. November 1968 until november 1969, air force special operations. [applause] i am jack thompson. A vietnamesesor to infantry battalion. Up along the dmz. I was there from 19661967 and i came back, uh, to Travis Air Force base. Historian, like our speaker, at michigan. Um, i celebrate what the humanities can do, just like you do. Provide a story, we talk about the structure of the story, how important that is. It has a beginning, middle and end, we have not gotten there yet. It also teaches us how to ask the questions that probe, and probe, and go deeply. It gives us literature about the experience. Me hasorable books for been tim obriens the things they carried. Jack, um, forgot his last name now. He wrote loon. Matterhorn. Thank you. So, those are the stories that have structure, beginning, middle and end. Pick them up and read them. [applause] my name is skip, i was seven years in active duty in the air force. I spent two years in southeast basest one of the five find support for the war. And then i went to an airbase in vietnam, 7172. Earlier the speakers spoke about Daniel Ellsberg and the pentagon papers, that was an incredibly important event. Especially for young people, i suggest you get the documentary on the most dangerous man in america, about that event. I would also suggest you go to democracy now and you look up Daniel Ellsberg and watch his interviews, because he has interesting things to say about what is going on now. What is happening in afghanistan and other places. And i heard him as a speaker in 1968 at the miller ballroom. [applause] i am jim, 174 air brigade. From 6970. Ands [applause] [indiscernible] thank you. Just uh, [indiscernible] thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Our concluding moment that this will continue. The centennial, excuse me, the 50 Year Anniversary continues. We will have several more programs. More of these occasions. Our notion is the more that you will come as Vietnam Veterans. Did we miss anybody in the audience, by the way, who did not receive a pin . Ok. She did not get one. She does not get one, but he does wonderful writing programs. Anyway, we will continue. There is one a semester. We will be back in the spring. We might do one on american in an a megaindian veterans. And thank you very much for coming. Young folks, keep coming to these events. Thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer interested in American History tv . Visit our website, cspan. Org history. You can view our schedule, preview upcoming programs come and watch college lectures, archival films and more. American history tv, at cspan. Org history. Tvouncer American History is on cspan3 every weekend, featuring museum tours, archival films, and programs on the presidency. Here is a clip from a recent program. Was bully 1. And we had Billy Hutchison as bully 3. They take off, they are going down in North Carolina to go bomb for quarters. Some low angle strays. Everybody loves shooting a gun. I have never seen a Fighter Pilot pull a gun and not go bar. Rrr. Everybody makes the noise. [laughter] we are sitting in a meeting and we get a knock at the door. In and it wass david callahan, chunks is what we called him, and he said in an airplane just flew into the world trade center. And we look outside because our Conference Room was on the flight line. It was a huge glass window. And we are thinking, how does that happen . Because as you know, new york is not that far away, contrary to what traffic would have you believe, it is a stones throw as far as the bird flies. We share weather patterns. We look outside and it is a perfect crystal autumn day that we get here. How what . We are thinking, you know, did messed up their approach. It must have been enticing airplane that made a wrong turn. We made a couple jokes about little airplanes bouncing off of buildings. Because we, they certainly do not do any damage, they just fall to the ground. The airplanes. That is. And we continued on. It was not come i mean it was not really anything that triggered us. Until a few minutes later, chunks not again and knocks again and says another airplane flew into the world trade center. It was on purpose. Announcer you can watch this and other American History programs on our website, where all of our video is archived. That is cspan. Org history. Announcer this week in American History tv, on cspan3. Tonight at 8 00 p. M. , on lectures in history, university of virginia professor Gary Gallagher on the legacy of the civil war. The white citizenry and africanamericans in former confederate have a very different takes on the war and they went forward after appomattox. They embraced versions that suited their purposes. Announcer sunday at 10 akaka m, president bill clinton marking the 60th anniversary of the integration of little rock central high school. I wanted to say, you did 60 years. Take a victory lap. Put on your dancing shoes. Have a good time. Say, youad i have to have got to put on your marching boots. [applause] and lead us again. Announcer at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on oral histories, we continue our series on