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View Point
LAST Memorial Day, I was honored to be included in a ceremony welcoming the "Moving Wall," the mobile, half-scale replica of the Vietnam Memorial wall in Washington, D.C. It had been erected on the lawn fronting the Arizona Memorial Visitors Center at Pearl Harbor. Southeast Asia owes
freedom to U.S. actionThe morning was a sparkler. Light trades fluttered the American and Hawaiian flags posted just behind the apex of the shallow "V." Already there were a few leis draped over the wall, with notes and scattered flowers at the base.
Honestly, it seemed like God had pre-blessed the occasion.
The wall represents a sort of summary of a very painful chapter in the history of our country and, for many of us, a painful chapter in our personal histories as well.
The 1973 release of those of us who were prisoners of war seemed to represent an end to that chapter. I believe that's why we received the incredibly warm and heartfelt "welcome home" that every Vietnam veteran deserved and should have had.
It has been said that this wall represents not only a painful chapter but also a shameful chapter in our history. Some believe we should have never been in Vietnam, that it was an "unwinnable war" and "a waste of lives and treasure."
In short, they believe that the lives of those whose 58,213 names are on the wall were sacrificed in vain. I have a different perspective on that.
Every single day of my captivity in the communist prisons of North Vietnam, my convictions were strengthened that we were, in fact, right to be there and that our cause was just.
The pervasive evil of communism was manifested not only in our treatment -- liberal use of physical torture, solitary confinement, degrading and inhumane living conditions, and the constant pressure of exploitation for military information and propaganda -- but also in the repression and indoctrination of the Vietnamese officers and guards who kept me there.
Their lives under the iron fist of communism were based upon a constant litany of lies, slander and deceit. I began to appreciate that the people outside the prison walls in downtown Hanoi were no better off than I was on the inside.
I soon realized that the sacrifices of my comrades and me were made to stop the spread of communism to South Vietnam, and to ultimately defeat it.
That is worthwhile, even if I had died in the cause.
So when I see the Vietnam Memorial wall in Washington, D.C., and note my own reflection among the names engraved in that shiny black marble, I am reminded that this wall had to go up so that a hated, grafittied wall across the middle of Berlin would come down.
YES, we lost the battle for South Vietnam. But even with a flawed strategy, we won it militarily, hands down. Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, the commander-in-chief of the North Vietnamese forces, has said as much.
Then, shamefully, our political leaders snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and broke our promises to our friends in South Vietnam, abandoning them to the non-mercy of the Communists.
But in the process we actually won the war for Southeast Asia.
Today, millions of people in those otherwise "domino" countries (Laos and Cambodia were the first two dominoes) -- Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, possibly the Philippines and probably Taiwan -- are living in free, prosperous and, by their standards, democratic societies.
This is primarily because of America's 10 years of holding action against the momentum of Chinese and North Vietnamese aggression (of course, the Aussies, South Koreans and South Vietnamese fought along with us).
On this Memorial Day, we should honor not only our veterans whose names are inscribed on the plaques of this wall, or on the walls of the Korean Veterans Memorial, or on the walls at Arlington and here at Punchbowl, but also those whose names are not engraved on any memorial.
Also meriting honor are those men and women killed in "routine training accidents" over the decades -- all in the cause of the military readiness essential for the defense of our nation and values, and for the perpetuation of freedom and democracy everywhere.
Gerald L. Coffee, 65, a former Navy captain,
survived 2,670 days as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and
now is a motivational speaker based in Hawaii.