The war that won't go away

Most Americans know Vietnam as a backdrop to scenes of GIs and their tanks and helicopters

'There's a lot of scar tissue there. It's still tender'

By John Christensen
CNN Interactive

(CNN) -- There are times, Jerry Coffee says, when he's driving his yellow 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang with the top down, savoring the wind in his hair and the tingle of Hawaiian sunshine on his skin. His companion, Susan, is by his side, a grandchild is in the back seat and all is right with the world.

"I"m so happy I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming," says Coffee.

A U.S. Navy pilot who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1966 -- his co-pilot was killed -- Coffee can appreciate these moments better than most. He spent seven years and nine days in Hoa Lo, the infamous North Vietnamese prison known as "the Hanoi Hilton," where he was beaten, tortured, interrogated and subjected to relentless communist indoctrination.

Since his liberation in 1973, Coffee has written a book ("Beyond Survival: Reaffirming the Invincibility of the Human Spirit") and turned his private nightmare into a highly profitable business. In giving 50 to 60 motivational speeches a year for the past two decades, Coffee has mined a vein that shows no sign of giving out.

"I thought the gig would have a shelf life to it," Coffee said recently, "but there's a huge void in our knowledge about Vietnam, especially among the younger generation. There are so many unanswered questions."

CULTURAL TIMELINE Step back in time as we trace the lasting impact the Vietnam War had on American culture.     KENT STATE Thursday, May 4 marks the 30th anniversary of the Kent State shootings     CHAT TRANSCRIPT "Good morning, Vietnam" DJ Adrian Cronauer talks about the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon    VIDEO National Correspondent Bruce Morton looks back on the Vietnam War. QuickTime Play Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

"It's embedded in our generation," says James R. Reckner, director of the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University. "It's been a quarter of a century, but the experience, the social traumas and the antagonisms won't evaporate. There's a lot of scar tissue there. It's still tender."

'Hell, no, we won't go!'

Extensive media coverage burned images of the Vietnam War into the consciousness of nearly everyone who lived through that era: American soldiers firing at unseen enemies in jungles and across rice paddies; medics tending to bleeding, muddy soldiers, looking skyward for helicopters that come blasting in at tree level; villages being burned to keep them out of enemy hands; a naked child running down a dirt road screaming, her skin burning from napalm dropped by South Vietnamese warplanes; a South Vietnamese officer executing a Viet Cong prisoner with a pistol shot to the head.

The media carried conflicting messages: U.S. government officials insisting at news conferences that America is winning the war, while the evening news showed GIs returning in body bags.

The country's post-World War II euphoria was shattered by scenes of young protesters who believed they were betrayed by their elders.

"Hell no, we won't go!" they shouted, burning their draft cards. They disrupted speeches, occupied offices and confronted police. Civil disobedience gave way to uncivil, even violent, protests. Families fractured, draft dodgers left the country and public opinion turned so strongly against the war that it had to be ended.

"It was an end to the American century," says Peter Kuznick, an associate professor of history at American University, and himself an anti-war protester. "It was an end to the sense of American triumphalism, of American exceptionalism. We thought our culture was different, that we were altruistic and only interested in the welfare of mankind. Those delusions were pretty much eliminated for most people."

• Overview • U.S.-Vietnam ties • America at 25 • Remembering Kent State • A soldier's diary • The boat people • Covering two wars • Dien Bien Phu • About the War • Vietnam Guide • Photo Gallery • Postcards • Vietnam's Neighbors

Cynicism about government

One of the most enduring legacies of the war and those tumultuous times has been an abiding cynicism about government. "We no longer trust government," says Reckner. "We lost our faith collectively as a people in our government. But maybe that was a weakness. Maybe we're stronger now. We're certainly different."

"There's less of a sense of the possibilities," says Kuznick. "We grew up with Reagan, Bush and Clinton. There's not a lot of real idealism and faith in government and the community as a way of solving things now. There's much more individualism. It's a selfish era. Greed is sanctioned in a way it wasn't in the '60s and '70s."

Another legacy of the Vietnam War is an aversion -- almost a phobia -- about sending American troops abroad.

In 1991, President George Bush was given credit for allowing military leaders to prosecute the Persian Gulf War swiftly and intensely, with ground forces mopping up after an extensive bombing campaign.

"By God," said a buoyant Bush, "we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all."

But as a consensus formed for an allied attack on Yugoslavia to try to halt the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in 1999, President Clinton announced that U.S. soldiers would not see action on the ground.

While the announcement played well at home, some analysts say that militarily it was a major blunder. They argue that letting President Slobodan Milosevic know that ground troops would not be used encouraged the Yugoslav leader to prolong the war. In fact, they say that had troops been massed at the border and the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons been maintained, Milosevic might have backed down without the firing of a single shot.

Military police keep back protesters during an anti-war sit-in at the Pentagon in October 1967

Justifying the war

Some U.S. military leaders opposed involvement in Vietnam at the outset, but they were forced by political considerations to fight a limited war.

"The State Department wanted to help the [South Vietnamese] government of Ngo Dinh Diem, which was neither stable nor representative," says Reckner, a naval officer who served two tours in Vietnam. "The senior [U.S.] military leadership was complicit [with the political policy]. They should have drawn the line and resigned if they had to, but they didn't."

The controversy over U.S. tactics in the Vietnam War continues to this day. Kuznick, for example, argues that the limits placed on the U.S. military were necessary.

"Robert McNamara [secretary of defense during the war] spoke in my class and said he accepts the Vietnamese estimate that 3 million Vietnamese died in the war," Kuznick says.

"The U.S. dropped more bombs on that tiny country than were dropped by all sides in all prior wars. Considering the number killed and the firepower used, I'm glad in the name of decency that there were some constraints."

Coffee tells his audiences that the 10 years the U.S. spent in Vietnam halted the march of communism through Southeast Asia.

But Mitchell K. Hall, associate professor of history at Central Michigan University, says historians agree that "it was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"It is easier to argue that the U.S. presence drove the Vietnamese into the arms of China, their ancient rival and American enemy," says Hall. "Since the U.S. refused Ho Chi Minh's repeated requests for aid, the Vietnamese had little choice but to turn to China to get rid of the French and later the Americans."

The war has been the subject of countless books as America struggles to come to terms with it. Reckner says the journal published by his center reviews 20 or 30 titles each quarter, "and that's just the tip of the iceberg. When you go to a bookstore, you see a whole shelf on Civil War books. I suspect 100 years from now, Vietnam is going to be the same way."

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara speaks with Lt.-Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam during a 1966 meeting in Hawaii. President Lyndon B. Johnson is in the background.

Vilified and ignored

American veterans of the Vietnam War have been vilified and often portrayed as misfits subject to addiction, homicide and suicide. They were unique in the American experience in that they returned to a nation that was less than grateful for their sacrifices.

"We could all argue about the reasons for our involvement there," says Reckner, "but I'm convinced that when the younger generation, without baggage, gets around to studying the situation, they will conclude that the young men and women served there with dignity and honor. They were not all crazed killers, they were not all William Calleys."

"Most came back and, despite difficulties, got on with their lives," Coffee says.

Many veterans have formed groups to discuss their experiences, and some have even met and reconciled with their former enemies. In some cases they have returned to Vietnam and helped build schools and orphanages.

'An emotional subject still'

Those who lived through the Vietnam war era often find it difficult to explain to those who did not. College courses are helping to fill the gap in knowledge for younger people.

"It's a very, very emotional subject still," says Kuznick. "Lots of kids say they can't get their parents to talk about it, and this opens up a dialog for the first time. It's a very good thing, and overdue."

Washington's Vietnam Veterans Memorial, or The Wall, is inscribed with the names of the 58,000 Americans who died in the war, providing solace to those who suffered losses and a lasting marker for future generations

Reckner says he finds that many men who were of draft age during the Vietnam era but didn't fight in the war go to great lengths to explain why, as if to assuage their guilt. Coffee says that people who attend his talks about his POW experiences say they wonder how they would have done had they been captured. Just fine, he tells them.

"I always emphasize that there was nothing extraordinary about me," says Coffee, although he did devise a tapping code by which prisoners communicated through the prison walls. "I tell them we all find strength from the same sources: faith in yourself, faith in one another, faith in your country and faith in God.

"I also remind them that we need to look around us and realize all that's good. That's seldom emphasized in any aspect of our media."

A divorce and heart bypass surgery after his return from Vietnam have further tested Coffee's theories.

"We're all POWs," he says: "Prisoners of Woe. But I've discovered that happiness is proportional to gratitude. Misery is optional."