O P I N I O N
THE SOAPBOX
Stand up. Speak up. It’s your turn.
“That Nation which respects and honors its dead, shall ever be respected and honored itself.”
– Brevet Lieut.-Col. Edmund B. Whitman, 1868
On May 26th we celebrate our most sacred national holiday. Memorial Day, which originated in Upstate New York just after the Civil War, honors men and women who gave “the last full measure of devotion” to our country. This year, I find the Holiday especially meaningful. Fifty years ago, on April 30th, 1975, the Vietnam War ended. Members of my generation fought and died in that long war. This Memorial Day my thoughts will turn to them.
I graduated from Memorial High in 1965. Many of my classmates, facing the draft anyway, enrolled in the Armed Forces. Most of us had never heard of Vietnam, but that December, just when many of my classmates reported to bootcamp, President Johnson committed 195,000 soldiers to Vietnam. In 1969, the year I graduated from college, around 543,400 American men and women were serving there. By April 30, 1975, 2,709,918 Americans had served in uniform there; 58,148 died in the conflict. Another 100,000 were completely or badly disabled.
Manchester suffered grave losses. Eight students who attended Memorial High lost their lives in the war. The names of Leon Doucet, Frank Indyk, R Bruce Johnson, Norman Lozeau, Normand Martel, Wilfred Robillard, James Schunemann and Winston Taggart are engraved on a memorial in front of the school. My classmate Leon, a Marine gunner, died in Quang Nam Province in 1967, just two years after graduation. The most devastating loss Manchester experienced, however, came on August 26, 1969. Five Manchester men enrolled in the New Hampshire National Guard were completing a year serving in Vietnam. A week before their departure, a truck transporting several of them hit a landmine, killing five young Manchester men. Two thousand people solemnly waited at the airport for the plane that carried the remains of Richard Raymond, Roger Robichaud, Richard Genest, Guy Blanchette and Gaeton Beaudoin landed back home a few days later. It was, as John Mongan, then the mayor of Manchester, said “the saddest day.” All told, 37 Manchester men lost their lives in Vietnam. These men are forever young to me.
On this 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam Conflict, I also think of the survivors, the men and women who once served and who are now old like me. Approximately 19 million veterans are alive today. More than 96,000 are New Hampshire residents, 49% of them of them Vietnam veterans. To honor our commitment to these men and women, the Veterans Administration offers an array of services. You likely know a vet who receives medical care at the VA Health Center on Smyth Road or confidential counseling at the VA Center in Hooksett. They and other veterans also receive education and employment assistance, housing loans and a myriad of other benefits.
Recently, however, under the pretext of correcting inefficiencies, the Trump Administration has targeted the VA and announced a plan to cut its staff by 80,000 employees, many of them veterans themselves. Service cuts are inevitable if the plan goes through.
Veterans are fighting the proposed staff reductions, especially fearing a gutting of the VA Health Care services that comprise 90% of the VA workforce. Democratic congresspeople and senators have taken a unified public stance against reductions. Senator Gallego of Arizona, a Marine combat veteran, put a hold on nominations to the VA until it halts the proposed layoffs, and all four New Hampshire Democratic representatives have vociferously condemned the reductions. Representative Pappas, who serves on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, is fighting hard against the cuts as a recent press release clearly indicates.
“VA is already chronically understaffed, an issue I have worked to address for years on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. Slashing nearly 100,000 VA staff will have serious consequences for veterans in New Hampshire seeking medical treatment. These cuts would cut off veterans who need support for housing, addiction, mental health, and other lifesaving services. America’s veterans are not a line item on a spreadsheet. They are the heart and soul of this country, and we owe them a profound debt of gratitude for their service and sacrifice.”
Several Republican politicians, probably afraid to cross the President, have not publicly opposed VA cuts. “I trust the president,” responded Congressman Babin of Texas when asked about them. This is the same president who dodged the draft on a trumped-up medical exception, once called service members “suckers” and “losers” and who suggested that the joint chief of staff deserved the death penalty.
I no longer live in Manchester. I will observe Memorial Day by visiting the war memorials in my small Upstate New York town. My observance will not stop there. Throughout May, I will be supporting Vietnam vets and the children and grandchildren who followed them into the Armed Forces by contacting Republican congresspeople to protest cuts that harm veterans. I believe I best honor the dead by fighting for their comrades who survived. As my parents, both WWII veterans, taught me, patriotism and support for veterans know no Red or Blue. They are red, white and blue.
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