The Vets' Return

Doesn't seem like it … at least to me, the Persian Gulf War was seventeen years ago. Thousands of young Americans have gone into battle since then and thousands are still at war. Guys who are over eighty like me remember those other wars. They too — don't seem that long ago. Tuesday was Veteran's Day, and I wasn't able to gather my thoughts for an appropriate column. That is why I am revisiting what was written here on April 18, 1991:

"A Montana veteran of World War II vintage made state news last week after he was quoted in the syndicated newspaper column of Mike Royko. The topic had to do with the soldiers of that conflict serving months that dragged into years, in bitter fighting where there were too many days when more men died in an hour than were lost in the entire Persian Gulf War. The aging Big Sky vet mentioned a proposed bonus for Desert Shield participants and suggested the federal government also pay him a bonus … along with interest since 1945.

"Obviously, Royko is not the only writer to write on this subject, i.e. comparisons of how different returning veterans have been treated. It is an item receiving national saturation coverage in magazines and in all media. I have received phone calls and letters on the matter. Some of the people are a bit critical and/or resentful of media coverage telling of yellow ribbons tied all over town, of patriotic speeches, giant welcome home parties, television galas. They say, 'Where the hell was all that love of America and soldiers when I came home?'

"I tell those fellas, 'That was then. This is now.'

"I feel we can not logically make personal judgments on public reaction to any war, outside the context of its time. If a World War II vet, or more understandably, vets of Korea and Vietnam, feel newly awakened bitterness about the way things have happened lately, I understand; but dwelling on the inequities of life only keeps the wounds from healing. I know about that.

" I once cursed God for the wars, cursed him for killing my kid brother instead of me, cursed fate, and fought bitterness that regularly depressed me, weighted me down. For several years during and even after the Korea business, I became a man who felt the only catharsis for his anger and frustration would be to somehow kill dozens of Chinese and North Koreans … fantasized about it. I was the kind of person then, I now feel pity for. I wasn't as thoughtful or productive a person. I was a hater.

"Sound terrible? It was. Hate is always terrible because it feeds on the soul. Preachers tell us that. Clear thinkers, from professors to ditch diggers say it. Bitterness may be a bit easier to live with, but it is still hate … just watered down.

"I feel badly that there are people who have not found a way to live with 'their war.' I feel even worse, knowing that they feel anything but joy for the way the Persian Gulf War ended so quickly and our country gave such a tremendous welcome home to our troops.

"Some people seem to be overlooking a truth that I know as an absolute, 'Those young people we sent to the Persian Gulf would have fought that war just as valiantly, just as professionally, and just as doggedly, if it had lasted three years like Korea and cost us fifty thousand lives.'

"The essential, 'the key word is COMMITTAL.' Those kids, those service men and women, like the ones in WW II, Korea, and Vietnam … and Panama … committed their lives to do the most terrifying task on earth. In measuring veterans, the bottom line to me is not how long the war lasted or how many we lost. The ultimate test, the questions are, 'Did you go. Did you do what had to be done?'

"They did that. I watched them come home. I thanked them from the bottom of my heart. Then I wept good tears … because there was no bitterness there anymore."

G. George Ostrom is a Kalispell resident and a national-award winning Hungry Horse News columnist.