War and Remembrance

A bit of the bitterness is buried along with an Unknown Soldier

The ceremonies were done with crisp military punctilio—which was not the way that Viet Nam went at all. The men in the honor guard wore dress uniforms and skinhead haircuts and composed their young faces into masks of abstracted obedience. Like robots suffering an obscure sorrow, they carried the casket of the new Unknown Soldier, the one from Viet Nam. They laid him to rest last week at Arlington National Cemetery beside those from the two World Wars and Korea.

Viet Nam was a different kind of war for the U.S. It was a shattering time, a bomb that originated a world away and went off in the middle of the American mind. Even at this remove, the war is still intensely felt, but now in a more reflective, inward way. The Viet Nam Veterans Memorial, dedicated in 1982, is as popular as the Lincoln Memorial and the National Air and Space Museum. The entombment of the Unknown Soldier was another symbol of the nation’s respect for the uniquely complex ordeal of the Viet Nam veteran. In a quiet, moving speech at Arlington, President Reagan concluded, “Let us, if we must, debate the lessons learned at some other time; today we simply say with pride: Thank you, dear son, and may God cradle you in his loving arms.”

It was a tear-stained and cathartic day. Weeping, veterans saluted the anonymous bones in the casket, and the pain of memory was visible in their eyes. The prevailing note was one of acceptance and reconciliation, as if in burying the Unknown Soldier, the nation were also interring another measure of its residual bitterness.

But the spirit of the late ’60s did make a fitting appearance. For a little while, one saw again the era’s genius for street theater, for impromptu enactments of political and moral emotion.

A group of Viet Nam veterans, many of them dressed in camouflage fatigues, formed up outside the Capitol, where the Unknown Soldier had lain in state for three days. The vets tried to join the line of march—some military bands and representatives of the services and veterans groups—that was to escort the caisson to Arlington. The police intervened. Once again, as in the war, there was a gap between official policy and the will of the grunts. Once again, some Viet Nam veterans were being denied the soldier’s crucial ceremony of return from war: the parade, the public ritual of a welcome home. The organizers agreed that the veterans could bring up the rear of the procession. “I don’t mind,” said one. “That’s what we’ve always done.” They formed a line of march and stepped out with an unexpected precision and esprit. A tall veteran played Amazing Grace on the bagpipes. As they marched along, other veterans left the sidewalks and joined them. Eventually, there were about 300, most of them members of the Vietnam Veterans of America. They were dressed in something like the raggedy irregular’s garb they had worn in the field, festooned with badges and other ornaments, some wearing beards and mustaches. It was an affecting spectacle, but it irritated some other Viet Nam veterans who watched from the sidelines. For them, the ragtag ” brigade unfairly reinforced the image of losers or outcasts or victims.

Watching the procession, one saw, poignantly, the pas sage of time. The young men in the honor guard carrying the casket were as bright as dimes: battle age. They were in knee pants during the Tet offensive.

The vets in the march showed their age, some losing hair, getting paunchy, thickening with the years. As they marched, the crowds fining the route broke into applause, a sweet and deeply felt spontaneous pattering that was a sort of communal embrace. Welcome home.

— By Lance Morrow