The majority of the soldiers serving in Vietnam were draftees. Back then, a classification of 1A meant the chance of getting drafted was about 99%, and the chance you would end up in Vietnam was around 90%.
Of the over 58,000 names etched on the Vietnam War Memorial, the majority were boys just out of high school, brothers who never had a chance to live out their lives, their dreams. Not to mention a forgotten list of wounded and dismembered to the tune of 304,000. Of the 2.7 million who served in Vietnam, one out of every 10 soldiers ended up a casualty. Amputations or crippling wounds were 300 times higher than World War II. Over 75,000 Vietnam veterans are severely disabled.
And not a single thank you, or welcome home, we missed you.
On Memorial Day, even today, president after president honors the WWII, Korean, Iraq, and Afghanistan veterans, but the Vietnam veteran does not even get an honorable mention.
There is another list of names that no one sees. These names are not written down or etched into a wall, nor do they have a monument anywhere. They are the names of the survivors who left Vietnam physically but not mentally, never fully returning home. Completely changed, a whole different person, a stranger alone in a crowded world they could not wait to get back to.
This is a true story told thru the eyes of one of those survivors.
Hopefully writing this book will help put the ghosts in his head to rest, and bring to light how badly Vietnam veterans were treated when they returned home.
