Long before Donald J. Trump or coronavirus rules, there were other issues that were deemed too touchy to bring up in polite company. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Vietnam War was one of them.
But the more that American history has presented other, newer flashpoints, and the more the march of time has created new generations eager to learn about the more recent past; more and more Vietnam Era veterans and survivors are finding - or being asked to find- their voice.
A new group of Pennsylvania veterans has just joined that chorus, lending their stories to a new documentary video called “Vietnam Veterans of the Valley: A Half-Century Later” that will have its broadcast premier on the Pennsylvania Cable Network on Sunday, Sept. 26, at 2:30 p.m.
PennLive hooked up with the program’s creator, former CBS21 News reporter and longtime veterans advocate Kirk Wilson to learn a little bit more about the show.
Wilson said the inspiration for the film came in part from a 2018 “Wall of Honor” project at Carlisle High School that sought to memorialize former students who served in the war. Social Studies Chair Kevin Wagner mentioned to Wilson how, after years of collective silence, it seemed that more and more Vietnam vets were more interested in telling their histories.
“I think a lot of students and even people of my generation were used to veterans of the Vietnam War not talking about their story, particularly to a stranger,” Wagner said. “I think the fact that we were interested at least in recognizing them helped them to maybe open up to a stranger who didn’t know the story.
“And nine times out 10 it ended with: ‘Thank you for recognizing our service, because we didn’t get that when we returned.’”
Wilson saw possibilities to capture more of those stories on film, and wound up speaking with a dozen different subjects, ranging from relatives of the fallen to former soldiers, pilots and nurses, to those trying to teach the war to the next generation.
Here’s his take on the soon-to-be-screened project:
Q: The Vietnam War became one of the most politicized wars America has ever fought, airing - often more intensely - all the questions that the current generation has just been through with Iraq and Afghanistan. How did you deal with the politics of the war?
Wilson said he was happy to take a neutral position on that, making the conscious decision to let his subjects bring up the politics as they chose.
“I more or less let the soldiers and the civilians speak about what they wanted to. There is mention about how they were treated when they got home, and I mention in the opening about the government couldn’t make up its mind how it wanted to win the war...
“So there was no conscious effort to deal with or stay away from that. But this was their chance to talk. I didn’t want to try to put words into their mouths.... I would give them questions, and they could answer however they wanted.
“From what I basically see they were there to do a job. They trained were to do the job. They followed the orders in doing their job. They were non-political in their response, and only felt the political pressure when they got home.”
Q: Is this a strict military history, or more of a set of personal histories?
Wilson said the documentary focuses more on the latter.
As one example, the film features former soldier Joseph McDermond’s account of how his wife numbered her letters to him, so he could read them in sequence irregardless of the vagaries of the military’s mail calls.
“I think it was a little more human interest. How did we get through the war, that sort of thing,” Wilson said.
“The former nurse (Florence Huard) talks about how she could get used to the sights. She could get used to the smells. But she could never get used to the screaming and the crying of these young boys coming in, and the sound of helicopters still to this days sends her adrenaline rushing.”
How much were you inspired by Ken Burns’ “Vietnam,” a 10-part broadcast series that premiered on PBS in 2017?
“To be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t even watch it.... And I think it’s probably better that I didn’t because this way what came out was the product from Craig (Hockinson, owner of the video’s production company, Southeast Media Productions) and me. And that’s something that we knew had been acclaimed, so we might have tried to make ours like his.”
What do you hope the project accomplishes for viewers?
Wilson thinks the greatest value is adding to the oral history of a war that many Americans never really got.
“Unless you knew somebody that was in the war... you didn’t know the war. You didn’t understand the war,” Wilson said.
“With this you get an opportunity to, number one, meet people who fought in the war, to hear what their words are. And I think that’s important because remember these people didn’t always speak when they came back, and they haven’t spoken about it for years. So now they’re starting to talk about what they did and how they did it and why they did it. That’s important.
“And then to hear from the family members who now for 50 years have lived without their best friend or lived without their brother.”
Carlisle High School teacher Dana Neeley, who teaches U.S. History, said he thinks those stories about the costs of war are probably the most relevant to his audience.
“What would have come of this young man had he had a chance to grow up; have a career; have a family? Just them talking through the emotions and thoughts about not getting to have any of that for their siblings” was very powerful for him and will be for his students, Neeley, himself a Navy veteran, said.
“It’s hard to make a lot of sense of the Vietnam War,” Neeley said. “There’s still divided opinions about it. But that’s something I think we could all agree on.”
For his subjects, Wilson added, he hopes the film adds to the belated measure of respect his subjects say that they didn’t feel in the aftermath of the war, and in most cases really didn’t sense until the Gulf War in the early 1990s elevated the overall profile of military service members once again.
“I think they all felt for the most part that they were sent to a war that they weren’t allowed to win. And that was very, very frustrating to them,” Wilson said.
“And instead of the president or the Congress or other influencers being blamed for it, all of the blame and hatred and everything else was laid back on the soldiers who went over there to do the job they were told to do and came back to be totally disrespected for it.”
The voices are varied: a fighter pilot, an infantrymen, an Army nurse, a helicopter pilot, family members who suffered on the home front.
Local voices are joined by one of Pennsylvania’s most famous Vietnam vets, former Pittsburgh Steeler running back Rocky Bleier, who interrupted a nascent National Football League career to go fight in Vietnam, was injured in combat, and then came back to play for four Super Bowl winning teams.
Bleier’s comments came from his appearance at Carlisle’s Memorial Day services earlier this year.
And all the interviews are interspersed with photos and some real-time footage and facts mined from the Army Heritage and Education Center in Middlesex Township.
“I’m hoping it will be a resource in years to come for people who have no touch with the Vietnam War,” Wilson said. Teachers can use the film - which is being shared with local schools, museums and oral history projects - to supplement their class texts, and most of the subjects are willing to speak, Wilson noted.
Underwritten by a group of local sponsors and produced by Southeast Media, “Vietnam Veterans of the Valley” will be broadcast on PCN this Sunday and again on Nov. 14, at 5:30 p.m. The program will also be carried online on the Cumberland Valley TV YouTube channel.