A couple of days ago, I received a comment about “moving on” with regard Vietnam. I might not have responded to the “move on” comment except that this was from a person who long ago earned the right to make it. That made me think about it all day in Vietnam.
    Although this was from a person whose opinion I must respect on this subject, I think they have it wrong. By almost any measure I have “moved on.” A continuing relationship with a wonderful wife, two successful sons, comfortable retirement after a good career, completion of more than one “bucket list”, I certainly cannot complain about life after the war years.
    Upon further reflection, I am believe that my years in the war(s) improved the way I have lived and appreciated life. I wrote a letter home every day from Vietnam. Here is an excerpt from one that I wrote in 1969: “It rained this evening, for the first time in two months. Walking in it, I thought about how lucky I am. I can still feel, see and hear the cool, fresh rain. I can see the swiftly moving clouds and feel the wind. Tomorrow morning, if I wish to do so, I can get up and watch the sun rise, hear the birds singing and watch the city come to life. I can see and smell the trees, the grass and the flowers. Maybe what makes me luckiest of all, I can appreciate these things now. How many people take so much for granted while striving for the “better” things in life. When a man lies dying, I wonder what he thinks he will miss the next day: his wealth, the trees, the singing birds? For me at least, this year will have been worthwhile if I continue to appreciate life the way I am learning to now. One learns how little material things are worth, or, rather, how easily they are lost, when flying over hundreds of miles of ruined farms and destroyed rice paddies. And leveled villages from which hundreds of thousands of people have been uprooted and forced to relocate (or rather, helped to “flee communist domination”). (How we can say we are helping these people fight for their freedom is beyond me.) One can see how tenuous is our hold on life and health seeing, as I saw today, a wounded Vietnamese soldier being carried to a helicopter for medevac, or the two bloody, bandaged and near death women being loaded from stretchers onto the same chopper.”
    I believe that that appreciation of life has stuck with me to this day.
    I still remember, during that year in Vietnam, the recurring longing to be in a peaceful shady park watching children play in the grass. ( I do not know why that scene, since I never planned to have children back then.) Now I can go do that any day I want.
    If moving on means not feeling a sense of pain and grief for the guys who were less lucky than I was, well, I am determined not to let that happen. It seems like a duty not to forget.
    Some years ago, I found a poem that pretty much sums up that duty for me. Before I get to watch Jeff play baseball, of course they play the National Anthem. During that playing, watching Jeff standing rigidly still along the baseline, I silently recite to myself:

If you are able,
save them a place inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say you loved them,
though you may or may not have always.

Take what they have left
and what they have taught you with their dying
and keep it with your own.

And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,

take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.

Captain Michael Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam