1st Place Essay by Cadet Rhapsody Esperitu

By Cadet Rhapsody Espritu

Farrington Army JROTC

A child had said this to his mother, who was struggling to describe what their father was like after he had come home from the Vietnam War, “You know Mom, Dad was killed in Vietnam, it just took him forty years to die.”

Everyone has a role to play in maintaining a strong and functional country. Duty to our country does not only mean joining the military and going off to fight in a war, but instead duty to our country is a complex concept that can only be fully understood when peering into the lives of service members’ family’s experiences and lifestyle. Many military families undergo a different type of war, a war that happens in their own home. Lessons such as the importance of being independent, considerate, adaptable, and resilient can all be learned from these military families.

On November1, 1955, the Vietnam War began, involving several countries including Communist China, the Soviet Union, Laos, Cambodia, South Korea, the United States of America, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (the Communist regime in North Vietnam), and the Republic of Vietnam (actually democratic nation in South Vietnam). The main cause of U.S. involvement in the war was the widespread fear and threat of communism. With exact dates unclear, in 1965 the United States entered the war with three thousand five hundred Marines near Da Nang. During the time the U.S. was involved, about two million two hundred thousand men were drafted. Soldiers, untrained citizens, and young men were all fighting against the spread of communism and serving out their honored duty to their country. The U.S. feared that if Communist Vietnam in the north took over democratic Republic of Vietnam in the south, then other countries would fall into a domino effect and convert into a communist form of government. This type of government was unwanted because it was the opposite of a democracy, it is a type of political and economic system that controls major productions and natural resources, which allows the government to possess higher control over their citizens. Many U.S. soldiers stayed in Vietnam for long periods of time as the U.S. finally began to withdraw troops in 1973.

As soldiers were being deployed to Vietnam, their spouses' and families had to prepare for their absence. As military wives and mothers they must keep up their end of things at home, such as raising their children alone. With their husband’s long absence, many families struggle with separation and maintaining healthy relationships (Syringa Cinema, 2018). A particular married couple, Terry Allen Jr., and Jean Allen, had experienced such struggles and many more as “the needs of a military career would dominate their marriage” (Public Broadcasting Service) during the time of the Vietnam War. As separation was a known stress factor within a military marriage and Jean had felt the sense of hopelessness as Terry’s deployments became more frequent and eventually elongated as the U.S. became involved in the Vietnam War. In February 1967, Terry was off to join his comrades in the Vietnam War, leaving Jean and his three children back in Texas. Jean’s isolation and postpartum depression grew as Terry “seemed to focus too heavily on the operational side of life in the country” (Public Broadcasting Service), resulting in the start of an unhappy marriage. As the Vietnam War was going on many Americans became anti-war. Jean’s exposure to their views left her in doubt of not only the integrity of the U.S.’s involvement in the Vietnam War, but also her marriage. Her doubt further grew like a poisonous vine that had slowly creeped up and around her leg, continuing to consume the rest of her body. Eventually, doubt took over and her isolation and depression were relieved after Jean had “an affair with a local rodeo clown and wrote a "Dear John" letter to Terry telling him the marriage was over” (Public Broadcasting Service). Although it is unclear, Jean was an independent woman that was able to raise three young children alone while still working a full-time television job. Her success in keeping up her end of things

made her a “model of this self-sufficiency” (Public Broadcasting Service) standard, but other struggles got the best of their marriage. Woefully, this situation happened far too often during the Vietnam War. Thankfully, more programs have been created in hopes of providing counselling and other tools to help military spouses and family members prevent similar situations.

Through the eyes of the children of soldiers and draftees from the Vietnam War, their experience and struggle were unique to only them. Vietnam Veterans’ children had felt a similar alienation from their peers as their mothers had, but in the sense of maturity and responsibility. Many children put on a fast track to growing up in consideration for their mother and father, having to help around the house at a younger age and cause less trouble than a normal child would. In a group interview, different children told their stories of their experience in being a child of a Vietnam veteran in which a common theme of pain was being exhibited from their stories. One of the boys within this group explained why he had felt different from other kids his age that had dreamed of, in his perspective, frivolous things. At the tender age of thirteen he had claimed to have felt five years older, explaining that he “was ahead of them as far as maturity” was concerned (Hoffman, 2019). These children were aware that compared to their peers they’ve “...dealt with a lot of stuff that they’ve never even thought about having to deal with” (Hoffman, 2019), that contributed to their higher level of maturity. When answering another question, a teenage girl brought to light a terrifying event she and her older brother had experienced at the ages of seven and eight years old. In detail she explained that when “You do something bad, you really get in trouble for it. He would scream and holler. He only hit me a couple of times, but every night till about two in the morning he would chase my mother around the house and throw things at her and beat her up. I hated him. Me and my older brother would be up every night when we were little, and I am talking about seven/eight years old. We would just sit upstairs in our room and we have this little vent in the hallway that goes downstairs, and we would take it out and we would sit there and watch him chase her around the house. Just making sure he wouldn’t kill her or anything” (Hoffman, 2019). This kind of unfortunate turn of events is due to the development of PTSD that their father and many other Vietnam Veterans suffered from, as a result of their experiences during the war. Their stories showcased their considerate nature, adaptability to change, and their resiliency as part of their duty to their country.

Even today, military families continue to fight their war between their moral values, relationships, and the important obligation of duty to country. The sacrifices they give for our country teaches us the importance of being able to live independently and to be considerate of others’ situations and their values. They teach us what resilience is at its unbearable core and how being adaptable is part of being strong. Military families must allow their serving family members to risk their life, and then helping with their transition back into civilian life. They must deal with injuries, illnesses, and even death that could be possibly inflicted upon their loved one returning from a war such as the Vietnam War. Staying strong for one another to maintain a functioning family and healthy relationships is key.

Works Cited

1. “One Family's Vietnam War Story.” The experience of Terry and Jean Allen, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/two-days-in-october-military-families-and-vietnam/. 2. David Hoffman, 5 Sept. 2019, “Children Of Vietnam Vets Tell Their Stories.” YouTube, , youtu.be/ ebB_nGTOMDM. 3. Syringa Cinema, Feb 21, 2018, “I Married the War - The Story of Wives of Combat Veterans.” YouTube, 21 Feb. 2018, youtu.be/99SAxng-ugc.