Wednesday, May 1, 1985/The Battalion/Page 15
Fall of South Vietnam remembered
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Vietnam vets
coping with
memories
By CYNTHIA GAY
Stuff Writer
For millions of Americans, ‘the
rockets red glare, the bombs burst
ing in air’ ended 10 years ago in
Vietnam.
For 580,000 Vietnam veterans,
the past 10 years have been spent
coping, readjusting or trying to for
get the memory of war.
George Calloway, a member of
American Legion Earl Graham Post
No. 159, Bryan said that area groups
believe the best way to honor these
soldiers is to encourage gradual in
volvement in the community and to
take care of their health needs.
“We just want them (the veterans)
to be a part of any activities that we
carry on,” Calloway said. He said the
American Legion works on a na
tional level for legislation to provide
benefits for veterans.
Post Commander W.T. Cantey
said it has not been easy for the
American Legion to convince Viet
nam veterans that this organization
can help them and their families.
“We have had a little problem get
ting some of them to believe it,” Can
tey said. “(The veterans) feel they
got a raw deal.”
Calloway said his local post has
gained more Vietnam veterans as
members in the past year than ever
before.
“(Vietnam veterans) are not as
outgoing as you might expect,” Cal
loway said. “I think they are opening
up (now).”
John Thomas, assistant professor
of rural sociology, said most Viet
nam veterans could not find a place
in our society without redefining
their personal values because of the
mood of unrest in the 1960s.
“The 60s represented a significant
change in our social institutions, our
social values,” Thomas said. “When
the soldiers came back, there was a
different America here.”
Left: Members of the Viet
namese Student Association
play Taps for their country
men that died during the
Vietnam War.
Photos by
ANTHONY S. CASPER
Bottom: Nguyen Dung car
ries a torch to Tuesday
night’s ceremony commem
orating the fall of Saigon.
Thomas said many of the soldiers
arrived in Vietnam asking, “Why am
1 here?”
“They found out what death and
destruction and war is all about,” he
said. “(In the United States, the vet
erans) saw politicians debating and
they saw the American public riot
ing. The question of patriotism got
lost in all that.”
A Texas A&M student who lived
in Saigon during the Vietnam War
said she has trouble understanding
the trauma many American soldiers
had to combat upon returning
home. She said she was 9 years old in
1975, and she remembers the local
schools being bombed repeatedly at
that time. She thought nothing or it.
“You walked down the street,” she
said. “You saw dead bodies. You ei
ther helped, or you walked by.”
Thomas said the Vietnam veter
ans who have not fit back into the
American society by now are loners
or retreatists.
“Rather than trying to grasp the
situation, they retreat from it,”
Thomas said. “As time goes on, the
effects of the war in Vietnam will be
pretty much like Korea. It will mel
low out.”
Students remember the Vietnam War
ej
By ED CASSAVOY
Stuff Writer
Students walking to their classes
Tuesday saw the face of “The Killing
Fields.” It was not a movie, but the
voice of some of the survivors of the
Vietnam War.
The Texas A&M Vietnamese Stu
dent Association held a demonstra
tion by the statue of Lawrence Sulli
van Ross in front of the Academic
Building.
The purpose of the demonstra
tion was to protest the 10th anniver
sary of the Communist takeover of
South Vietnam.
Lined up in a quasi-military for
mation, about 40 students were
headed by a student carrying the
flag of South Vietnam.
Tu Gia Nguyen, a senior nuclear
engineering student, said the group
was trying to make Americans un
derstand the war in Vietnam.
“Ten years ago, the Communists
said they were going to help us,” Gia
Nguyen said, “how can they say that?
“They have concentration camps
in Vietnam,” he said. “They have
more jails than schools for the chil
dren.”
Son D Nguyen, a freshman trans
fer student, explained his reasons
for being a part of the protest.
D Nguyen said he came to the
United States five years ago, having
spent three years in the reunited
Communist Vietnam before escap
ing to a refugee camp.
“My father (a soldier in the South
Vietnamese Army) has been in jail
since 1975,” D Nguyen said, “I don’t
know where he is. My mother is still
left ther e.
“In the Asian tradition, the man
must help his family and parents,
but my mother told me to go,” he
said. “My mother was afraid for my
life, for my future.”
D Nguyen said he was saddened
by what the Communists had done
to his country.
“During the war, we didn’t have
much food to eat,” D Nguyen said,
“but we had freedom.”
After the unification of Vietnam,
D Nguyen said many personal free
doms were lost. He said living in the
United States has made him thank
ful for those lost freedoms.
“Here in the U.S., we can tell Pres
ident Reagan to go to hell if we
want,” D Nguyen said.
D Nguyen said the 100 members
of the Vietnamese Student Associa
tion were united in the belief that
their future was still tied to the for
tunes of Vietnam.
D Nguyen said he wants to unite
all Vietnamese, and sometime in the
future return to his country to fight
the Communists.
“We want a resistance front,” D
Nguyen said. “The battle is not
over.”
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Nguyan Nguyan, a senior electri
cal engineering major, said the pre
sent Vietnamese regime tries to kill
people’s minds and destroy their
hearts.
“The people that were left behind
(after the war), suffered the worst,”
Nguyan said. “But 10 years, looking
back, it is now everyone’s war.
“It is now our turn to tell our side
of the story,” he said.
The students carried placards say
ing; “Vietnam, the Killing Fields,”
and “The end of the war, the begin
ning of the Holocaust.”
The discussion continued even as
they gathered up their books and
rolled up their flag.
Vietnamese students talked
among themselves or answered ques
tions from curious listeners.
Many of the Vietnamese nodded
when Nguyan summed up the feel
ings of many of the demonstrators
when he said, “They call it Ho Chi
Minh City, but it’s Saigon to us.”
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