Among the various trending topics that students keep up to date on, the thoughts and concerns of those who have served America isn’t typically at the top of the list.
Kenneth Palm, now a retired master sergeant of the Marine Corps, enlisted in 1965. He deployed the first time to Vietnam in January 1967 and returned in December 1968. He then went back for a second tour in 1971 and finally retired in 1986 after over 21 years of service.
“Not very often, people are concerned with this type of thing,” Palm said. “It’s still our history; however, we may not always like it, especially when it came to Vietnam.”
The Vietnam War, to the general American public, was a fairly unpopular one. The U.S. government viewed American involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of their wider strategy of containment, which aimed to stop the spread of communism.
The end result of the Vietnam War, though, meant a cold shoulder for those who came back home to the States from the front lines in the jungles.
Palm added that he believed that the civilian sector, as a whole, has realized its error when it came to the veterans of tomorrow’s generation. Although they may not always be in the mainstream media, they are still better cared for upon arriving home from Afghanistan and Iraq compared to the years of Vietnam. Furthermore, they’re also getting the deserved medical attention they need now.
“Especially in regards to the Reserve, you can’t just take people off the street who normally work as store clerks, mechanics and such … and train them for one weekend a month and expect them to fight an all-out war,” Palm said.
“You throw them into a life-or-death situation, then right back into the status-quo civilian sector just like that. Many of these service people have been in need of this newfound medical attention for a long time, especially when it comes to the rising suicide rates among our Reserves.”
Brandon Fletcher, who has been a staff sergeant medic of the Tennessee Army National Guard since 2001, had similar views to Palm’s. Fletcher has deployed to Iraq three times between 2003-2012 and once to Afghanistan between 2009-2010. Not only is he currently a senior medical non-commissioned officer for the 268 MP Company in Ripley, Tenn., but he will soon graduate from UTM.
“It is my hope that tomorrow’s veterans will still be veterans of a grateful and appreciative nation. I hope that in the near future we will see the backlog of claims processing significantly reduced, as well as the constant improvements in medical care continued,” Fletcher said.
“I think that President John F. Kennedy said it best when he stated ‘A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces, but also by the men it honors, and the men it remembers,’” Fletcher said.
“So long as our nation does not forget the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, or who were at least willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country, the future for veterans will remain strong, and thus, the future of this nation will remain strong.”
The experiences and trials that these men have to go through are none like any that civilians can even begin to imagine. Sacrifice isn’t an everyday matter of business here.
World War II veteran Blaine Gamble can definitely testify to this.
Gamble enlisted at the age of 21 as a college student in what many referred to as “the time of the greatest generation.” He served as an Air Force medic during the “Island Hopping Campaign” of the Pacific for over 22 months.
“I was overseas longer than my dad was in the service altogether,” Gamble said.
After the famous Battle of Midway, the United States launched a counteroffensive strike known as “island-hopping,” establishing a line of overlapping island bases, as well as air control. The idea was to capture certain key islands, one after another, until Japan came within range of American bombers.
One of the first things Gamble was told when he first entered the battleground of Tarawa of the Gilbert Islands was, “you’re expendable.” This was because it was considered a major combat area at the time.
“I’ve never seen so many dead bodies in my life,” Gamble said. “This was pretty much the first land invasion and the Japanese were ‘raking the beach,’ if you will, from their machine gun nests, wave after wave of our boys.”
Gamble had countless, enduring experiences with soldiers of all types working as an Air Force medic. But he said that one of the most memorable was when he flew in to pick up some POWs who had been stranded for over three years.
“I actually dreaded the flight in to Hawaii. These poor men were skinny and malnourished and here I was in clean clothes and healthy. I just knew they were wondering where the hell we had been for the past three years,” Gamble said.
“But as soon as we got there, they instead were the happiest guys that I ever evacuated. They were just happy they lived through the war.”
He added that of the 32 men who boarded that plane, there were a total of 48 amputations.
Many things have changed since WWII. In fact, a lot of things have changed just over a few mere years as far as the military is concerned.
Michael Cochran, both a member of the Air Force and later Army Reserve, speaks about some of the changes he’s noticed since his enlistment in 1983.
Cochran helped establish “tent cities” in Germany for the men going in and out of places like Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War. Many times, troops come through places like this to get acclimated and to do their final preparations.
“In a lot of ways, I feel the younger generation is somewhat softer,” Cochran said. “All I mean by this is that, for an example, it wasn’t unusual to get cussed out during basic training. Nowadays it seems that there has to be more political correctness and more care with what’s said.”
On a slightly different note though, he also said that race relations since his enlistment in 1983 have immensely improved. There’s definitely not as much discriminatory behavior.
The War on Terror is considered to be a new war altogether. The tactics and weaponry is new as well as the generation fighting it. Many people wonder if the men and women overseas or even the veterans still find the military an honorable profession.
Micah Bowers, who has served in Operation Enduring Freedom in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, since July 2013, sheds some light on this matter.
Bowers is not only overseas serving as an Army cavalry scout, but is also married to UTM student Michelle Bowers.
“There is a lot of work to do in the military. As to combat arms, unless we are fighting a battle, training or maintaining our equipment, we are usually doing some kind of random job like picking up trash, picking weeds, mowing, etc.,” Bowers said.
“But at the same time, even doing that, I do believe that our job is honorable. About only 1 percent of Americans decide to become a soldier. So, we take pride in being who we are no matter the task.”
Being a solider may not be for everyone, but to those who serve, it is everything.
