The Final Mission The Last Day In A Soldier's Life

Over the years, the Vietnam War has been reduced to a matter of statistics. Perhaps you have heard some of them. Due to political mismanagement, it lasted some 9 years and:

58220 were killed in action.
Many have since died of their wounds.
The youngest soldier killed was 15 and the oldest 62.
997 were killed on the first day.
1448 were killed on the last day.

Some have described this conflict as "an immoral war." I can't think of anything more immoral than placing soldiers in the field, allowing the enemy protected sanctuaries and permitting the matter to become one of political debate – all with names for the opposing sides such as "hawks and doves." During the Cambodian incursion, perhaps the most despicable act of the war occurred when Congress passed some sort of resolution requiring all the American forces to be withdrawn from Cambodia within 7 weeks and disallowing them from going any further than 21 miles into Cambodian territory. No one seemed to take note of the fact millions of rounds of ammunition and assorted weaponry were just sitting there in massive supply terminals, just waiting to be fired at American soldiers.

I especially remember seeing a television reporter on the nightly news crouched down with a disabled armored personnel carrier behind him. At the door of the vehicle was a dead American soldier sitting with his head slumped over. I could see his white t-shirt at the top of his fatigue jacket and thought of all those times when I was in the Army when I put on my t-shirt. I always wore it backwards so it would fit closer to the neck and look neater. Many troubling thoughts rushed into my mind. What thoughts were in that soldier's mind when he put on his t-shirt on the last morning of his life? Was he afraid when the mission began? How long did he live after he was hit? How much pain did he endure? What was in his loved ones' minds when they learned he had been killed? I'm constantly punished in the knowledge that when my generation was serving in Vietnam, I should have been at their sides, but I was not.

Today, the Vietnam Wall is visited more than any Washington site. I hope this is out of gratitude and recognition of the fact that while a conventional victory was not achieved in Vietnam, the 9-year involvement of American soldiers did halt Communist expansion. During this period, the Communist doctrine in Russia began its breakdown and the regimes in China and North Korea deteriorated to the point they could no longer feed their own people. Weather you are an exponent of the "domino theory" or not, each soldier who one day went on his final mission did so much to preserve our way of life.