Because he believed in service to his God and his country, his brothers and others did not grow up knowing his love and concern for them, our family was no longer whole.
Perhaps I treasured them more knowing that life is uncertain at best. know I prayed more fervently that our leaders would seek better ways to resolve differences, short of war. So I became more politically active.
As my priorities changed from Garden Club to activities engaged in by American Gold Star Mothers. Doing what I can to promote healing of our veterans and our Nation. Teaching our youth patriotism and following the Golden Rule.
More than likely I would not have spent 20 years of my nursing career in a VA Medical Center rather than a pediatric setting. My son's short life, 22, made me realize that it is not the number of years one lives but what one does with those years that really counts.
Each time I visit the Vietnam Memorial Wall I see and know that era affected not only my life and family but millions of American lives. The story is yet unfolding and will for a long time to come.
Frances Turley is National President of American Gold Star Mothers, Inc.
Before my war was over, something quite unexpected happened.
Emerging through the haze of death and suffering came a sign of hope and redemption. It presented itself in the form of a child's hand. And by rescuing me from the carnage that surrounded us, it changed my life forever. I grasped that tiny brown hand and have never relinquished it.
The hand belonged to a six-year-old Montagnard boy. Neither he nor I thought our friendship was earth-shattering at the time; however, we both did realize, in our own unspoken ways, that each benefited from the relationship. In me, he had a powerful friend who possessed food and modern miracles; in him, I had a friend who reminded me of what it was like to be human.
When I left my Montagnard son in 1968, we shook hands, never expecting to see each other again.
The third time I went to Vietnam, it was 1994 and the U.S. Embargo had finally been lifted. The country was changing rapidly. This time, my search took me deep into the jungle, and my son and I were reunited after 26 years of separation. It was a miracle neither of us expected.
The forth time I went to Vietnam, it was 1996 and my wife was with me. My Montagnard son calls her mother now, and his seven children call me grandfather. It is no longer a family of the past but one of the future. There will be more trips...we will never be separated again.
For me, Vietnam is not a tomb for the dead or the missing. My family lives there. It is my country too. I am its citizen. Without the war, I would never have had my Vietnam.
Michael C. Little lives in California and works to heighten public awareness of the Montagnard people's struggle for cultural identity.
The Montagnard are one of Viet Nam's 54 seperate ethnic groups.
So many of us went through the Viet Nam conflict (another word for an unofficial WAR), and will never be the same because of it. That is very much like the war that my father fought in France and Germany (WWII). It changed his life, and made him appreciate this great country of ours much more. Like him, Michael Little expressed himself about the family he left in Viet Nam.
These are the experiences that cause us to become better people... There is always so much more to a war than just killing innocent men, women, and children. We see the effect of our aggressiveness (or in the case of Viet Nam, our lack of aggressiveness through reconnaissance exercises) upon the lives of innocent people.
My thoughts are turned to the many friends that didn't come home, and to the people who were left suffering in a war-ravaged country forced to continue to live and rebuild without our help.
I want to know more about the people of Viet Nam, like the life-story contributed by Michael Little. This war has made us a better people for having been involved, even though I say that it is a lesson that we should not have been forced to learn.
Earl "Skeet" Williams