Mostly civilians, somewhere between four to six million were killed, with countless wounded, maimed, and displaced. Somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 are still missing from that war, including about 2,000 Americans. An opportunity to genuinely begin a national healing was missed when U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen explicitly refused to apologize on his recent historic visit to Vietnam. If we continue to believe that Vietnam was a noble cause, then efforts to conceal our humiliating loss will continue to manifest in belligerent activities and their accompanying lies. The darkness that resides deeply in our cultural soul needs to be pierced, then healed.
Genuine apologies create a psychological and emotional basis for reparations and reconciliation.
If we are able to genuinely acknowledge the harms we have caused, asking forgiveness while offering appropriate reparations that evidence a profound transformation in our hearts, then space opens for genuine peace. Some of us Vietnam veterans have chosen, out of necessity, to pursue our own healing in this manner. We anxiously await an authentic healing and transformation of our national heart and soul.