How did the Vietnam War impact US veterans?
There was a wide range of impact on the young men who served. Some spent their whole tour of duty in headquarters companies and never saw the enemy. Some had their only contact with the enemy through occasional mortar rounds dropping in on them which was very demoralizing because by the time you had a chance to regroup and go after them, they were long gone. The infantry men were the most impacted as they fought a war in which it was very difficult at times to determine where the enemy was. Also by the time I returned home after serving up near the DMZ and at Pleiku, the war had become unpopular. It was a very uncomfortable trip home wearing my worn fatigues so that everyone in theplanes and airports knew I was coming home from Vietnam. There was no words of encouragement, only tons of questions about the validity of the war which was something that was not on my mind at all, just doing a job that I was sent to do and following orders. Like many others I returned home, got a job, marri
