Facilities brace for aging vets of Vietnam War

Charlie Thrower, a Vietnam veteran whose 10-month tour in the U.S. Army ended on May 28, 1971, was 19 when he was drafted.

The same day his parents sent him off on the Army bus, they attended his cousin's funeral. That young man had just been killed in the war.

"That was hard on Mom," Thrower said.

He sat at a card table at the Cape Girardeau VFW Post 3838 on Monday afternoon, a beer nearby. His hands shook and he pulled on his fingers as he reflected on his tour.

Thrower saw some killing and he did some, he said simply. He was called a "baby killer."

"I wasn't as far as I know," Thrower said, but the 175 mm guns his battery used shot a range of 23 miles, so he couldn't see what he was shooting.

It also was difficult to distinguish civilians from soldiers, he said.

A different kind of war

The Vietnam War was different for its American soldiers for many reasons, explained Dr. Joel Rhodes, history professor at Southeast Missouri State University.

The United States joined the war between the communist North and South Vietnam in the early 1960s, and U.S. forces were not withdrawn until 1973.

It was considered America's first lost war.

"The most colossal mistake in the history of the nation," Rhodes said. "Who wants to be associated with that?"

Future Vietnam soldiers were raised in the 1950s and were exposed to a wholesome view of America and its culture, history and role in the world, Rhodes said. The Vietnam War fundamentally challenged what they thought about the U.S.

"Vietnam was such a disaster for the country," Rhodes said. "That really confronted them mentally with some realities that were very, very uncomfortable; realities that they had never entertained before."

Many soldiers were drafted at a young age. The average age of a Vietnam soldier was 19, compared to 26 for soldiers in World War II, Rhodes said.

Men who experienced that type of trauma so young, when they still were developing emotionally and cognitively, have experienced very negative, long-term effects, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, he said.

The objective of the Vietnam War was not clear-cut, and the reasoning for U.S. participation in it changed over the years, from containing communism to protecting the freedom of the Vietnamese people to making America's power credible.

"It's difficult to rally the emotions needed to put yourself in harm's way when you're not 100 percent sure what you're fighting for," Rhodes said.

Questions of why -- and were the fighting and sacrifice worth it? -- are issues Vietnam veterans have struggled with since, Rhodes said.

What began as a popular war with Americans turned sour for most after the Tet Offensive in 1968, a turning point in the war that failed to overthrow the South Vietnamese government, but proved the war was not progressing in America's favor.

When former President Richard Nixon began withdrawing troops, it sent a powerful message that the U.S. was not going to win the war, causing "incredibly destructive psychological ramifications" for soldiers who were already questioning their involvement, Rhodes said.

"Nobody wants to be the last man to die in Vietnam; nobody wants to be the last person to die for what is obviously, now, a lost cause," he said. " ... That's a hell of a burden to put on those guys."

When Vietnam soldiers did make it home, they often arrived alone, becoming easy targets for abuse from people opposed to the war. The veterans also had a tough time re-integrating into society given all the emotional baggage they carried, he said.

For the most part, Vietnam veterans had to struggle through that alone, and many internalized their feelings and wrestled with deep-seated guilt about the war.

Being a part of perhaps one of the most disastrous undertaking in the country's history put "a lot of weight on one guy's shoulders," Rhodes said.

Future care

The Missouri Veterans Home in Cape Girardeau has 150 beds, and 305 veterans are on the waiting list for the home, which is one of seven in Missouri. All of them have waiting lists.

About 18 percent of veterans in the state's veterans homes are Vietnam veterans, said Daniel Bell, public information officer for the Missouri Veterans Commission. The Cape Girardeau home houses 16 veterans of the Vietnam War.

The number of World War II veterans in veterans homes is diminishing as the number of Korean War veterans increases, Bell said.

In the next decade, Vietnam veterans, most of whom now are in their late 60s or early 70s, will begin living in veterans homes, something the state veterans commission began planning for a few months ago.

An internal report is being assembled to see what services need to be added and how things must be changed to be able to accommodate them.

Preparation

When it comes to future needs, the Cape Girardeau veterans home is prepared to deal with normal aging and conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer's disease, but it is not a psychiatric facility, said administrator Viviane Rains. It depends on the severity of a condition, such as PTSD, on whether the home can provide a safe environment.

"The emotionally traumatic events that [Vietnam veterans] experienced is most likely going to create a new mindset for us to have to take care of. And with us not being a psychiatric unit, and not being trained to deal with strong psychiatric issues, where are these guys going to get the help they need? That's the big question," Rains said.

There haven't been many Vietnam veterans so far that the veterans home couldn't take care of, added Donna Reynolds, its social services director. But the facility is a skilled, long-term nursing home, and is not prepared to handle more severe psychiatric needs.

"It's not that we don't want to care of them, it's just [that] we're not equipped," Rains said.

And she doesn't know that they ever will be.

Should the veterans home encounter a client with psychiatric issues it's not equipped to handle, the veteran is either sent to psychiatric facilities in Sikeston or Farmington, Missouri, which are not confined to just veteran services, or they travel to a Veterans Affairs facility in St. Louis, Kansas City or Columbia, Missouri.

Which is a distant trip for a psychiatric patient who might be out of control, Reynolds said.

A concern then becomes a limited number of beds available in those facilities, Rains added.

The local veterans home's Veterans Affairs hospital jurisdiction is in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and that facility does not have a psychiatric unit.

"Our world's going to change, not necessarily because of their psychological, social needs, but just because their upbringing was so different than the clients that we take care of right now," Rains said of Vietnam veterans.

ashedd@semissourian.com

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