It didn’t take long for all that to change. As soon as you see people die, reality slaps you hard in the face and reminds you of your own mortality. But you get used to it. You don’t have much choice. You have a job to do, and you understand that other people may live or die depending on how well you do that job. While it’s become a cliché in books and movies that you don’t die for your country but for the man on either side of you, it’s the absolute truth.

When you watch your buddies die, you get mad. You get mad at the enemy for killing them and you get mad at yourself for not preventing it. Deep down, you’re also glad it wasn’t you, and you feel guilty that you feel that way. Your mind is a jumble of conflicting emotions.

When you kill the enemy in the heat of battle, you don’t think about killing another human being right away. You got him before he got you or the man next to you. It’s something you think about later. It doesn’t make any difference if you’re on the ground, in a plane, or on a boat or a ship. If you are close enough to see the enemy you just shot, shelled, bombed, or hit with a guided missile go down, that memory will stay with you for a long time. If your are close enough to see the enemy’s face when he dies, that face will haunt you until the day you die.

We’ve heard a lot about posttraumatic stress disorder since Vietnam. It’s real. It doesn’t affect every combat veteran, but those it does, it affects in different ways. Some get it bad. They reach a point where they can’t bear the pain, and they take their own lives. I had friend who did. Others bear their burden quietly, keeping it locked up inside like a heart attack that never stops hurting. For some, with time, that pain eventually goes away, but it’s never forgotten.

Enemies change from war to war. Technology makes weapons more lethal and killing more efficient. Armies, navies, and air forces modernize and improve. What doesn’t change is what goes on in a warriors mind, how he, and now she, copes with the combat experience.

Largely because of Vietnam, today’s all-volunteer US Armed Forces are better trained, better equipped, and better prepared for war than ever before. More than half the enlisted men in Vietnam were draftees who got their unit training on the job. They did everything that was asked of them and more, but inadequate training, one-year tours, six-month command tours, and rotating individuals, not units, cost lives, hurt unit cohesion and effectiveness, and sent us home one-by-one to an unappreciative country.

Still, in at least one respect, today’s combat veteran is no different than his Vietnam counterpart. He does what’s necessary, then whole, maimed, or disfigured, he does the best he can with the rest of his life. Until robots completely replace warriors, if they ever do, the hardest fighting, taking ground an inch at a time, will be done by human beings, and human beings are fragile.

I was extremely fortunate during that first tour. I was the only person, out of seven, in an armored personnel carrier to walk away after we hit a land mine. The small aircraft I flew in fell out of the sky on multiple occasions from enemy fire and mechanical problems. The Officer Candidate School (OCS) classmate and air observer I replaced, 1LT Larry Bonnell (24) of Winimac, Indiana, and the OCS classmate who replaced me, 1LT Ed Naylor (26) of Denver, Colorado, both were killed in action. I went on to complete a successful 20-year career in the Army, and I’m approaching 22 years as a Department of Defense civilian. I’ve never forgotten Larry and Ed, and I’ve never forgotten the lessons I learned on and over the battlefield.

So how did my experience 40 years ago change me? In ways I’m sure I’m not even aware. One thing’s for sure. I never had another job that affected the lives and deaths of so many people. After an experience like that you approach life differently. You see people differently. You see situations differently. Now, as I have for forty years, whenever I encounter a difficult situation I think back to 1967, and I tell myself no matter how bad it is, it isn’t that bad. Now, after all these years, I look at the world around me with a greater appreciation of the complex and conflicting forces that forge history. 

Had I not been drafted, graduated from Artillery OCS, or gone to Vietnam, I doubt I would ever have become the person I am today. Had I not seen first hand the sacrifices others made for their country, I doubt I could love my country as much as I do.

Ten years ago, in May 1997, thirty years after my first tour of duty in Vietnam, I was inducted into the Field Artillery OCS Hall of Fame at Ft. Sill Oklahoma. On that occasion I was honored by the opportunity to address my fellow inductees, including veterans from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, their friends and family, and members of the Field Artillery Association. What I told them then is as true today for the young warriors who go off to Iraq and Afghanistan as it was for me and all the others who went off to Vietnam and previous wars. “Like me,” I told them, “you were a young man setting out on a journey to an unknown destination. What you ultimately discovered was yourself.”

This memorial day when you think about America’s veterans, think about those who gave their lives for their country, but also think about those who survived and kept on giving. Think of all the positive contributions America's veterans have made to help make their country a better place. Think of all the personal sacrifices so many disabled veterans and their families made and keep on making. Think of the young men and women who have not yet but will experience what those of us who went before them experienced and how it will change their lives.