The Reaction of the Veteran

For hundreds of thousands of American veterans, the news from Viet Nam last week had an intensely personal meaning. Many of the 56,000 Americans who died in the war were killed in the Highlands and the northern provinces that the Saigon government has surrendered to the Communists. To find out how veterans feel about the pullout, TIME correspondents across the nation last week questioned men who are now civilians as well as a number still in uniform. Inevitably, opinions were split about a war that has divided Americans almost from its beginning. A sampling of views:

At American Legion Post 19 in a blue-collar section of Somerville, Mass., the withdrawal has been the topic of worried conversation. "If the war keeps up, they may want to send more kids," said Joseph Bolduc Jr., who served in Viet Nam with the Navy and is now the legion post's steward. "We don't want to see any more kids go back over there." The best policy for the U.S., said Bolduc, is to "just do something to get it all over with. People have been hurt enough by that war."

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Former Marine Sergeant Leonard Budd, who now works for the department of public health in Rowley, Mass., spent 5 1/2 years in North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camps after the truck he was driving near the DMZ was ambushed. Budd feels that aid to Viet Nam should be cut off. "We were right to supply them as long as the supply was needed and they had the initiative to follow through and use it wisely," he said. "But the way they have been wasting it, with their morale as low as it is, and deserting at the rate they do, there would be no end to it."

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"I imagine they have their own good reasons, but I feel betrayed by the South Vietnamese government," said Staff Sergeant Vale D. Short, 25, who is stationed at Fort Jackson, S.C. Short was a crew chief and a gunner on an assault helicopter flying out of Pleiku. "I wish we could go back over and do it right this time. I don't mean under the old rules, but in a real war."

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Richard C. Williams, 32, an assistant dean at Princeton University, is a West Point graduate and a retired Army colonel. He saw action in both Pleiku and Kontum provinces. Williams regards last week's developments as "the logical, albeit tragic conclusion to the whole mess. My bitterness started halfway through my tour there. This week doesn't generate any new feeling. I'd long since given up the thought that I'd ever done anything over there that had real significance. One of the best people I ever knew died in Viet Nam. He had so much to offer the world. I can't imagine the feelings of parents who had sons who died in Kontum as they watch the region fall tonight."

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"I get the overwhelming feeling of waste, waste, waste of everything," said William Hallisley, 25, a former medical corpsman in Viet Nam and now president-elect of the student government at Georgia State University.

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"I served. I did my job. Now I don't care," said a former Marine now working for the Veterans Administration in New York City. His five closest friends were killed, fighting for the Highland provinces that were surrendered last week.

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Tommy Clack, 28, a senior at Georgia State University, remains an ardent hawk even though, while serving in Viet Nam as an Army captain, he lost both legs above the knee, his right arm and part of his right shoulder. He is angered by what he calls the "isolationism" of Congress and feels that the pullout would not have happened if the South Vietnamese had received more aid. "I believe very strongly in what was happening in Viet Nam," he said. "If I could grow my limbs back, I would go back again. If I didn't go to Viet Nam, I would go to Israel. I just do not like to see oppressed people have things jammed down their throats." -

Another former Army captain, Edward Miles, 30, also lost both legs in fighting near Tay Ninh in 1968, as well as one eye and partial use of his right arm. He does not share Clack's views. "It really is going down the drain," he said. "This week we can really see what a farce that whole thing was. It bothers me to face it." Supposing he could go back to fight in Viet Nam? "If I could go back now," he answered, "I'd fight with the North Vietnamese. They are the ones who are doing the right thing now."

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"You'd have to say that I was cynical," said Marine Captain John Ely, 35, who spent nine months at Fire Base Fuller in Quang Tri province. "They've had all the opportunities we can afford to give them. I don't care if they make it or not."

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Larry W. Brauer, 31, an Army E5, is a career noncom stationed at Fort Jackson, S.C. He served a year in Viet Nam. "What about the guys who died in the provinces? What did all those people die for? I'd like for Congress to tell me," he said. "We allowed the draft dodgers and deserters to return. We told them that we were the ones that were wrong. Who's to tell the mothers and wives of those who didn't come back that it was all a mistake--that we were wrong, that their sons and husbands were wrong? I'm no dictator. I don't want the Vietnamese to live like I do. But I don't want them to live as Communists unless that's the thing they want to do. They shouldn't have to do what Congress says they have to do. I guess that means I still care."

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"A friend of mine got blown apart in Hue," said an Army major last week, sipping coffee in a Pentagon cafeteria. "He was in charge of a long-range artillery unit. And now you see the people just walking away from Hue. You don't say to yourself, 'He died for nothing.' But you ask: 'For what?' What have we got after nine years? Twenty-twenty hindsight is always preferable, but we probably did the best we could at the time. But still you ask yourself: 'Was it worth it?' There is just a feeling of resignation, I suppose, that they can't even save themselves."

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