THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 14, 1995 TAG: 9512140356
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL SIZEMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
As Hampton Roads residents ponder the deployment of 20,000 American troops to police a peace agreement in Bosnia, the ghost of Vietnam hangs heavy in their thoughts.
In an ironic turnabout, among those whose lives were directly touched by Vietnam - veterans and their loved ones - opposition to the Bosnia mission seems strongest. And where support for the Bosnia operation can be found, it seems most prevalent among those who opposed U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
It has been 20 years since that painful episode of U.S. history ended, but memories keep bubbling up in this area's large military community. It happened earlier this year when former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara published his memoirs about the war, and it is happening again as U.S. forces ship out to the Balkans.
The two deployments are different in many ways. But opponents, who are clearly in the majority here and across the country, focus on the potential similarities.
They remember American troops being sent to a far-off, inhospitable part of the world and injected into a longstanding civil war against a committed foe. They remember the 58,000 American dead and the thousands more whose lives were physically or emotionally shattered. They remember the deep division the war effort caused at home as popular support crumbled. And they remember the humiliating U.S. pullout as the war finally collapsed.
As Norman Hedrick, 78, a retired businessman in Chesapeake, watches the Bosnia deployment unfold, it all comes flooding back.
``My older son did three tours of duty in Vietnam,'' he said. ``The last time, he wrote back and said, `Daddy, I can't take it anymore. I had hoped to make a career of it, but as soon as this tour's up, I'm not re-enlisting.'
``And then along comes my youngest, about eight years younger, and he had the draft breathing down his neck, and I told him I would pay his way as best I could if he wanted to go to Canada.''
As it turned out, the younger son enlisted in the Army but avoided Vietnam, sparing his family further worry.
A generation earlier, Hedrick said, his father had endured a similar agony as Hedrick's brother went to war in Korea.
And now, Bosnia.
``I'm an old man,'' Hedrick said. ``My children are beyond the age of going, and I know I'm not going. But I hate the thought of any young American male having to go. We have sent the cream of our young men, for years and years now, into battle and they've been killed off.''
Hedrick scoffs at the description of the NATO Bosnia force as peacekeepers.
``Peacekeeping. I guess it depends on what your definition of `peace' is. I guess there's nothing more peaceful than the stockyard after the killing's done and the cleanup is done at night. That's peaceful.''
Running through the opposition to U.S. policy in the Balkans, particularly in the military community, is a visceral strain of contempt for President Clinton, a member of the Vietnam generation who avoided service there.
``I put in 2 1/2 years in Vietnam,'' said Wayne Williams, a retired Air Force master sergeant from Portsmouth. ``I do not think that we should make the same mistake again, and I do not think that the commander-in-chief of this country is qualified to send anyone into harm's way. He is a devout coward.''
``To me, it's a European problem, and they're throwing the bulk of the work on us as they usually do, and they'll turn right around and smear us if they can.''
Mary Kirby, a retired Virginia Beach librarian, doesn't buy the Vietnam parallel. She holds the minority view: that the United States is right to go into Bosnia.
``I did not believe in the Vietnam War, because that was, it seemed to me, a war of ideologies. We weren't out to save anybody,'' Kirby said. ``This, I feel, is different. I think it's a moral issue.''
To explain why, she draws a parallel to an earlier chapter in this century's bloody history: Hitler's extermination of European Jews during World War II.
``It's been terrible to watch all this slaughter. It's a holocaust. We said that we didn't know what was going on in Germany years ago until the end of the war. Well, we know what's been going on over there now. . . .
``People say, `Well, they're not worth an American dying for.' Somehow or other, to me that just doesn't seem right. We're all people on this Earth, and I can't see that people in one country that happens to be very lucky are worth more than other people. ''
Kirby understands the anxiety felt by those who have loved ones facing a call-up for Bosnia. If she had children in that situation, she said, ``Of course, I would be very concerned. But I don't think it would change my feeling that it's the right thing to do.''
And she added: ``This is a volunteer Army. These people are trained, and, from what I've heard, they're ready to do this. It might make a difference to me if they were going to be drafting people who might not agree with what we're doing.''
KEYWORDS: OPERATION JOINT ENDEAVOR PUBLIC OPINION U.S.
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