Students hear vets

[desdemona]

04/22/04

By SUE BIELAWSKI

Sun Banner Pride

Veterans have a different perspective on the Iraq war.

For the seventh year, Wadsworth High School history teachers invited veterans to come and tell their stories to students. Five men discussed their real-life experiences with students who've only learned about war in their high school history classes.

The connection was immediate. As Veteran's Administration psychologist Michael Jorge told students in classes taught by Brian Madigan and Kurt Kaufman, These five veterans were sitting in the chairs you now are sitting in. They felt the same patriotism you now feel. At your age, they had no information, and learned there were no rules. This discussion will help you feel connected to history and remind you that you, too, will live history.

Larry Smith is now employed at WHS as a security guard. He remembered how he felt as an 18-year-old.

You are fortunate, and I hope they don't have a draft again. As a high school senior, that was the major topic. As a senior you did not want to get out. You knew you'd spend two years in the military and 95 percent of draftees were going into combat, Smith said.

At 18, all men registered for the draft, Smith said. Sixty days after getting a you passed your draft physical letter, you went. Smith remembered feeling scared, obeying without understanding orders. Only two of the 23 soldiers in his army unit came back alive.

Nightmares again started when he heard President George W. Bush at a news conference last week. He remembered back when President Lyndon B. Johnson told the American public the same thing, that they were going to send as many troops as necessary.

Now retired, Wadsworth Middle School teacher Rod Rush served near the Laotian border from 1967-1968. I'm beginning to sense what the people back home were feeling during the Vietnam War. I empathize with the soldiers. Today there seems to be more support for the troops. You have to remember the soldiers have no choice but to be there. I see untruths being told in both wars. Time will tell if Iraq will escalate, he said.

Ground-pounder Jason McCourt was drafted into the infantry after he finished college in 1967. It was a surreal experience. It was not really me that was there. I spent most of the war feeling very confused, he said.

Mike Winkler, now 61, said it was strange to see men in the prime of life, ages 17-19 years, shooting to kill the enemy. He believes the men in his tank group were not properly trained in the language, culture and customs of the natives. That's why so many men died in Vietnam; he said he sees the same thing happening again.

Don Files was a pilot in Vietnam for two tours from 1963-1968. His two grandchildren, Ashley Brown and Curtis Brown, were among the WHS students listening to him last week as a speaker in front of their history class.

Nice guys finish last. The Vietnam war could have been won eventually, but the American people may not be willing to stay the course in Iraq, he said. It's different when you're fighting religious fanatics. There are so many Iraqi mullahs with their own armies.

Files, who now lives in Doylestown, said, Both the people of Iraq and Vietnam have been fighting for hundreds of years; that is their way of life. As Americans, we care. Americans would give their lives to save another; the people in Vietnam did not care. It may be the same in Iraq.

The father of three daughters said, I used to feel that everybody should serve their country for two years. I never thought girls should be fighting, although some want to now.

The students remembered what the five veterans said, too. Three students, all 16-year-old sophomores, talked about what they heard before their ninth-period American and world history II classes.

Amanda Craig said it was so similar, it's scary. One speaker said back then President Lyndon Johnson said we would keep supplying troops. That's what President Bush just said. That's a worry.

The recent Iraq uprising, or whatever you want to call it, is like the Tet Offensive. No one saw it coming. It won't go away any time soon. It will take longer than six months to get a working democracy. The U. S. will have a continued military presence in Iraq, just like it does in German, Japan and Korea, Aric Stano said.

In Kristen Stallman's opinion, If we keep sending troops, and then take them out, like we did in Vietnam, the democracy they are trying to achieve in Iraq will collapse.

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[Wolfie]

Unfortunately the decesion to go to war in Iraq was made by one of the ppl who never saw any action in Vietnam either which makes perfect sense for the optimistic reasoning behind it.