The Vietnam Wall Controversy - Round 1

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4/5/1975. Approaching the fall of Saigon -- what to do now?: "Earthquake Vietnam," New York Times, 04/05/75, 28. "Vietnam now has to be seen as an earthquake, not a battlefield; our moral commitment must be to its victims. . . . There are victims on both sides and no sides, who are voting for life, not governments. . . . The fate of millions of displaced persons in South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos depends on such humanitarian assistance -- regardless of which governments rule. And the fate of America's future in this corner of the world depends on its contribution to restoring lives brutalized by the war. . . . Out of the ashes, there is still a great opportunity for the United States to build toward peaceful reconciliation -- if possible, with governments, and surely, with people." [FullText]
4/14/1975. And how to feel now?: "How Should Americans Feel?" Time, 04/14/75, 27. "It is impossible for Americans to regard the flow of refugees and the anguish of the orphans without pangs of sorrow and even outrage. Every image of a bewildered child, of a weeping mother, makes a claim on the conscience. . . . If the long American presence in Viet Nam was misguided, is the American absence now also to become a national nightmare? Must Americans feel as haunted about the close of the war as they were about its conduct?" [FullText]
4/21/1975. No graceful way out.: "Seeking the Last Exit from Vietnam," Time, 04/21/75, 7. "Ford faced a predicament unprecedented in U.S. history. His first concern could not even be candidly expressed. It was the delicate and dangerous task of extricating 5,000 Americans from an allied nation, South Viet Nam, that seemed in imminent danger of being overrun by the Communist forces of North Viet Nam and the Viet Cong." [FullText]
4/30/1975. The fall of Saigon.: "Ford Unity Plea; President Says That Departure 'Closes a Chapter' for U.S. Helicopters Evacuate 1,000 Americans and 5,500 South Vietnamese From Saigon." by John W. Finney, New York Times, 04/30/75, 1-2. "The emergency helicopter evacuation was ordered last night by President Ford after the Saigon airport was closed because of Communist rocket and artillery fire. The 1,000 Americans were the last contingent of a force that once numbered more than 500,000." [The famous picture of refugees entering a helicopter on the embassy rooftop.] [FullText]
5/7/1975. President Ford declares this day the end of the Vietnam War era.: "Ford Asks Nation to Open Its Doors to the Refugees," by David Binder, New York Times, 05/07/75, 1-2. "President Ford, described today as 'damned mad' about widespread opposition to resettlement of 130,000 Vietnamese and Cambodians in this country, appealed tonight to the nation to "welcome these people.'" [FullText]
5/19/1975. The North Vietnamese take over.: "Ripples from Saigon," by Richard Steele and Lloyd Norman, Newsweek, 05/19/75, 36. North Vietnamese General Tran Van Tra declared, "'The land of Vietnam has been rid of all foreign aggressors.' The rulers of the world's newest Communist country put their stamp on South Vietnam last week, and the rest of the world began to adjust to the new order." [FullText]
7/19/1975. Television: the visible veterans.: "TV's Newest Villain: The Vietnam Veteran," by Robert Brewin, TV Guide, 07/19/75, 4. "I am a Vietnam veteran, and if I acted according to what I have seen on television in the last six months or so, I should probably be harboring extreme psychopathic tendencies that prompt me to shoot up heroin with one hand while fashioning plastique with the other as my war-and-drug-crazed mind flashes back to the rice paddy where I fragged my lieutenant." [FullText]
8/4/1976. The invisible veterans.: "The Invisible Vietnam Veteran," by James H. Webb, Washington Post, 08/04/76: A11. "I don't need to elaborate in front of this assemblage about how incredibly difficult it has been for the Vietnam veteran. His anonymity and lack of positive feedback about himself and his fellow veterans have intensified all the other difficulties he has faced, including those shared by non-veterans. With the exception of a few well-publicized disaster stories, he is invisible." [FullText]
10/1976. Demilitarized Zones: Veterans After Vietnam by Jan Barry and W. D. Ehrhart.
1/3/1977. Television movie Green Eyes starring Paul Winfield and Rita Tushingham.
1/23/1977. The still wounded veterans. Scruggs makes public appearance.: "The Old, Unhealed Wounds of Vietnam [Conversations with Three Veterans]," by William Greider, Washington Post, 01/23/77, A1, 14. Conversations with three veterans, including Jan Scruggs, whose purpose is to make this simple statement: "it is a terrible thing, even obscene, that other Americans should forget so easily 'when something more needs to be done. A monument or a law or something.' The problem is nobody has yet figured out how to say to all those veterans the healing words they need to hear." [FullText]
4/18/1977. A permanently disabled vet heads the Veterans Administration.: "The VA's Max Cleland: A New Kind of Battle," by Myra MacPherson, Washington Post, 04/18/77, B1. "Cleland was among the thousands of crippled Vietnam veterans treated like embarrassing relics of an unwanted war. He became one of the severest critics of the gigantic agency he now heads [the Veterans Administration]. Cleland testified before a 1969 Senate subcommittee that it took 18 months to persuade V.A. hospital doctors to fit him with artificial legs. Even then he had to practice on two inferior sets before they gave him a good pair. Cleland recalled that he got no wheelchair of his own for a year, went without pay for two months after he left the Army and that the V.A. refused to teach him how to drive. 'I learned from another amputee.'" [FullText]
5/1977. The novel Rumor of War by Philip Caputo, a book the Vietnam Memorial competition judges were asked to read.
5/25/1977. Forgotten veterans. Scruggs in his first solo appearance suggests a monument.: "Forgotten Veterans of 'That Peculiar War,'" by Jan Craig Scruggs, Washington Post, 05/25/77: A17. "There is a major issue here for this country to resolve, for the indifference and lack of compassion that the veterans have received is, to a large degree, a reflection of our lack of a national reconciliation after Vietnam. The fundamental challenge should now be to meet the very real needs of this group as a major step towards America's final recovery from that war. The power -- and the responsibility -- to make good on the national obligation to Vietnam-era veterans ultimately rests with the President and the Congress. No efforts can provide compensation, of course, to the Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam. For them, perhaps, a national monument is in order to remind an ungrateful nation of what it has done to its sons." [FullText]
6/22/1977. Scruggs testifies at a Senate Hearing on the Veteran's Health Care Amendments Act of 1977 (Hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Readjustment of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, United States Senate, Ninety-Fifth Congress, first session, on S. 1693 and H. R. 6502). In his testimony, Scruggs cites his work as consistent with that of Robert J. Lifton, Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans: Neither Victims nor Executioners (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973).: See also Robert J. Lifton, "The Post-War War," Journal of Social Issues 31.4 (1975): 181-96. "The author draws on his work with rap groups of antiwar veterans to describe the struggles of these men with their personal and the country's socio-political survivor's mission." [FullText]; Hearing report: [PDF]
10/1977. The book Dispatches by war correspondent Michael Herr.
10/1977. A Generation of Peace, a volume of poetry by W. D. Ehrhart.
10/14/1977. The movie Rolling Thunder starring William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones.
11/4/1977. The movie Heroes starring Henry Winkler, Sally Field, and Harrison Ford.
12/2/1977. A television documentary.: "The Class That Went to War," Washington Post, 12/02/77, A16. "The thing I remember about the day I came back from Vietnam was that the stewardess on the plane tried to cheer us up a little and she cheered over the loud-speaker, and there was absolute dead silence in the plane. And all of us had just returned. And I think that indicated that we didn't know what to expect." [FullText]
2/2/1978. The movie The Boys in Company C starring Stan Shaw and Andrew Stevens.
2/15/1978. The movie Coming Home starring Jane Fonda and John Voight.
4/8/1978. But how to remember?: "A Plaque for Vietnam," by Josh Martin, Nation, 04/08/78, 389. "The war in Vietnam killed 55,000 Americans and injured another 300,000; it tore at the hearts and minds of millions. Now that the war is over, comes the time to honor the dead. But how? A statue of Marines wading through a rice paddy? Honor rolls in town squares? An eternal flame, perhaps? The army has recommended that a plaque and display of medals be placed in the Memorial Amphitheatre behind the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier." [FullText]
5/28/1978. Memorial Day.: "Walking Amid History at Arlington Cemetery," by Richard Cohen, Washington Post, 05/28/78, B5. "Vietnam kicked my generation in the head. It did to us what the Depression did to our parents." [FullText]
5/29/1978. Memorial Day.: "'Range of Intangibles' Said Hurting Viet Vets the Most," by Warren Brown, Washington Post, 05/29/78, A9. Veterans Administration head Max Cleland: "Each soldier would like to think that what he did was fine and noble and that his sacrifices made a difference and counted for something. Unfortunately, we don't have that feeling about Vietnam, and we [veterans] have to come to terms with that and pick up our lives and move on." [FullText]; "Vietnam Vets: Does Congress Finally Understand?" by Colman McCarthy, Washington Post, 05/29/78, A21. "Veterans whose needs for schooling, jobs, health care and readjustment aid have been ignored or met grudgingly have been joined by some members of Congress who share the despair." [FullText]
6/1978. The movie Good Guys Wear Black starring Chuck Norris.
6/14/1978. The movie Go Tell the Spartans starring Burt Lancaster.
8/2/1978. The movie Who Will Stop the Rain starring Nick Nolte and Tuesday Weld.
8/5/1978. Nothing happening. The second article by Scruggs.: "Continuing Indifference to Vietnam Veterans," by Jan C. Scruggs, Washington Post, 08/05/78: A15. "My view is that a belated, fiscally inadequate program is a pitifully small opening price for this country to pay for all the damage done to its sons who served. Past inaction on this matter is more than a mere misfortune for those veterans who have needed professional help -- and more than a blatant injustice to this group. The fact that even this modest readjustment-counseling program would not be in existence until 1979 is a national disgrace." [FullText]
11/12/1978. Veterans Day.: "Veterans Day: 'Ignored' Men of Vietnam Owed a Debt, Carter Says," by Stephanie Mansfield, Washington Post, 11/12/78, C1. "President Jimmy Carter went to fog-shrouded Arlington National Cemetery yesterday to plead for the nation to remember its 'ignored' veterans -- the men who fought in the controversial Vietnam War." [FullText]
12/1978. The novel Fields of Fire by James Webb.
12/1978. The novel Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien.
12/8/1978. The movie The Deer Hunter starring Robert Deniro and Meryl Streep.