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Vietnam wall a way to tell more stories at S. Paula exhibit
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More from OpinionOne could fill a skyscraper with information about the Vietnam War and never completely tell its entire story.
This realization hit 65 Santa Paula High School 10th-grade world history students three months ago when they began their investigative journey. In attempting to explain what this historic conflict means to America and to the soldiers who gallantly fought it some 40 years ago, we realized all too many of the names have become forgotten. Our deepest regrets go to those brave servicemen and their families, particularly those who grew up in Santa Paula, whose stories do not appear in the exhibit. For this reason, we have established inside this exhibit our own "Vietnam Memory Wall" in hopes their names will appear through the collective recollections of those who see this exhibit.
We give thanks to the soldiers and volunteers we were able to connect with and whose stories have been captured. The students contributed hundreds of hours of work and reflection. I would like to convey just what this project has meant to them.
They learned war is hell and human life is sacred. Little things taken for granted like a hot meal, a sweetheart's smile, mother and father's comforting words and brother and sister's laughter and tears are not to be forsaken. They learned that definitions of friendship and trust take on totally different meanings in a foxhole or a trench.
Students learned that war can forever change not only the men who fought it, but can alter the directions of families who suffer the consequences with them. Gil Castro, one of the featured subjects in this exhibit, may have described it best: "This war made soldiers develop characteristics that were contrary to everything human beings are raised to believe."
The Vietnam War exhibit inside the California Oil Museum will run until Feb. 25.
— Edward Arguelles, of Santa Paula, is a world history teacher at Santa Paula Union High School. The museum is at 1001 E. Main St., Santa Paula, www.oilmuseum.net. It is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. Admission is $4 for adults, $3 for seniors and $1 for children, 6-17.
Posted by cassandra on December 4, 2007 at 7:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)
An frequently untold story of the war is the courageous resistance of the ordinary grunts to the military that drafted them against their will and against their interests, ending the notion that a person's body can be appropriated by the politicos at will.
Hundreds of thousands deserted. Stockades were full of naysayers. Canada and Sweden gained many new citizens. Some even killed their officers. The term "fragging" was born. The rebellion spread to the Navy and air force to a lesser degree. The war became unfightable.
The film "Sir, no Sir" tells their story, these grizzled old guys, proud of bringing an end to a misery that neither hundreds of thousands of protesters nor Congress seemed able to do.
They made history. The draft came to an end. But not unfortunately the pattern of war enriching the military-industrial complex at the expense of the nation. The kids should see this film.
Posted by lthrnek on December 4, 2007 at 9:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The turbulent void between those who served honorably in Vietnam and those who legally or illegally avoided Vietnam Duty will, I fear, never be filled. After all these years when a group of old codgers sit in their boardrooms telling tales of their Vietnam experiences, the draft dodger among them still fears the question, " Hey Sam... you're the same age as we are. . . What outfit were you with in Vietnam?"
Posted by cassandra on December 4, 2007 at 9:57 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Has anyone ever asked the president?
Posted by lthrnek on December 4, 2007 at 10:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)
A point not often discussed is whenever a person successfully avoids a National Draft, the next man on the list goes in his place. I would hope that every draft dodger would suffer the guilt of his decision but then, guilt is reserved for only those who have a conscience and an honorable character. Draft dodgers suffer from neither.
Posted by cassandra on December 4, 2007 at 10:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Oh, but what a silly I am! How likely is it that anyone else in those boardrooms served either.
Posted by lthrnek on December 4, 2007 at 10:14 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I don't know the exact number who served honorably but it was in the millions and they are everywhere among us. The war lasted some 12 years or so with as many as 500,000 being there at one time each on a 12 month tour. They are all around you Cassie but you hear only from the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and other such groups. Honorable men sit warm, cozy and guiltless in their homes. And yes, the President was asked and it almost lost him his position. The Air National Guard was only one of the many legal but morally questionable means of avoiding duty in Vietnam.
Posted by cassandra on December 4, 2007 at 11:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)
And I counseled many who went. And were not warm, cozy and guiltless. The fat lady never sings for those who saw what they saw and did what they did.
The war was fought by those who couldn't get out of it and very few were the kind of folks who end up in boardrooms.
Posted by del on December 4, 2007 at 11:53 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I too have known many who are deeply disturbed to this day for what they had to see and do in that boondoggle, pointless as it was, as they saw no way to avoid it.
"No state has an inherent right to survive through conscript troops and, in the long run, no state ever has. Roman matrons used to say to their sons: “Come back with your shield, or on it.” Later on this custom declined. So did Rome." L. Long
Posted by cassandra on December 4, 2007 at 12:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
ARghhhh! It was the women of Sparta who said that, not the Romans. You know, Sparta, the fascistic military state. A great model.
Posted by del on December 4, 2007 at 12:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I am sorry you decided not see the point being made, instead, focusing on an error with the historic 'location' of "mom".
Posted by cassandra on December 4, 2007 at 1:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
You're point was in error as well. The Romans lasted almost a 1000 years and another 500 in the East.
The problem wasn't a lack of military will but a host of other things, which I don't have time to enunciate.
And the Vietnam thing had zilch to do with our survivial. Ditto the Iraq thing.
Your historical knowledge is inadequate, so is your attribution of causality and so is your thinking process.
Posted by del on December 4, 2007 at 2:32 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Golly gee Wally, I thought my point was how the draft (conscription), providing the cannon fodder to feed the Vietnam meat grinder, was and is not a way for a nation to maintain itself.
Roman or Spartan history was and is not the issue. But, one can usually fabricate something out of nothing if one tries hard enough.
I suppose I could have only included the first line of the quote, being aware of the inaccuracy of the quote as I was. But I liked the analogy.
Posted by cassandra on December 4, 2007 at 2:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Sorry, I'm a little punch drunk from fighting off all the barbarians.
Posted by del on December 4, 2007 at 2:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I have found it best not meet the barbarian head-on. There are too many of them and much too thick-skulled.
As the man said, "Never appeal to a man’s “better nature.” He may not have one. Invoking his “self—interest” gives you more leverage."
Posted by lthrnek on December 4, 2007 at 5:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I always liked Winston Churchill's quotes and have modified one to fit today's comments.
"Never have so many. . . Who know so little. . . Said so much!"
Posted by cassandra on December 4, 2007 at 6:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I've always liked Lytton Strachley's comment facing the draft board about his stubborn refusal to a. submit to the draft or b. claim a medical exemption, to which he was certainly qualified.
"You people, " he said, rising in exasperation, " you don't seem to realize that when you have two groups of armed men lined up on a field shooting at each other, someone's likely to get hurt!"
Lytton was sane.
Would that the rest of you were. Semper Fi, and all that.
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