By Randy Rogers
There was a stark contrast between my Dad’s war and mine. They had Rosie the Riveter, Glenn Miller, Bob Hope and Betty Grable. We had Jane Fonda, Mohammed Ali, Abbie Hoffman, and Country Joe and the Fish.
They had Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, and ticker tape parades. Angry protesters spat on our returning soldiers and threw dog feces thrown on them.
Over There for us wasn’t Germany or Japan, it was Viet Nam—a country filled with jungles, rice paddies, corruption, death, and disappointment. I was too young to get drafted but I lived part of it through my older brothers.
Jimmy and Benji Rogers were both of draft age. Jimmy enlisted in the Navy and became an officer. He never went to war, but he looked good in white and brought home his dress saber for me to hang on my wall.
Ben’s draft number was low, something in the 70’s. Back then the draft board drew 365 birthdays randomly out of a hopper. If you were healthy, an 1-A, and you had anything under a hundred, it was like receiving a death sentence along with an invitation to go to Viet Nam. Draft-aged kids watched the newspaper and the mailbox dreading the letter that began with—of all things—“Greetings.” Only his college deferment and good grades kept my brother Ben out the service.
After meeting a couple of Viet Nam vets on a plane to Boston, I came home to write a song called “Promises Made, Promises Kept.” One had been to The Wall, the other one was headed there.
I swore to my buddies in ‘69
That I would never leave them behind
We fought many battles
The worst of them Tet
Promises made, promises kept
When I go back in my dreams
I can feel the sweat – hear their screams
Sometimes I wake up soaking wet
For promises made and promises kept
I knew I had to go to The Wall
Go there for the healing and all
I stared at the names and quietly wept
For promises made and promises kept
When I saw my face in the wall
I wasn’t a kid at all
Just a vet, who can’t let go yet
To promises made and the promises kept
When I came home
It was time to move on
But I still can’t forget
Those promises made and those promises kept
Once a framed print by Lee Teter hung over my fireplace. It’s of an aging Viet Nam vet in a business suit, his brief case on the ground, crying at the Viet Nam memorial.
His hand is on The Wall and in the reflection in black granite are all his buddies who never made it home alive—their hands reaching out and touching his.
My wife always wanted to replace it with a nice painting of a lighthouse in New England. One day she did. When I got home, I pleaded with her to put my print back up on the wall.
I explained I wanted it up there in memory of all those who could never come home, never again sit by a warm burning fireplace. I wanted it there to represent all of those Viet Nam vets we sent over and never forgave them for going.
Memorial Day is just one day. But it’s one day when we should pause between the barbecue ribs, chips, and Cole slaw to remember those who—that if they had their way—would be home with their families.
Let us not let this Memorial Day pass by without remembering them who, as Lincoln once wrote, “laid their lives on the altar of freedom.”
It’s the least we can do.
