Lawrence...Larry...Obrist [Click] Letters Home (others to be added)

I was lucky to have found about 45 letters I sent home from Jan-Dec. 1968 that somewhat chronicle what happened in the war, with our 25ID, and our Co. D. in Cu Chi and Tay Ninh.

I started transcribing them about 20 years later in 1988 and 1989. I have a few others since that covers the year pretty well. Unfortunately, I saw letter writing as chore at times and not history, and so did not ask recipients to save them and return to me on DEROS to States. Thinking of donating them to our 25th Division Association.

Some of them remind me of the traumatic mission experiences of Classmates of 1969 such as Fr. Tom Burns and Fr. Paul Bellevue.
The military caught anyone at that time who dropped out of MM or college....a few joined by choice. My small Pawnee Co. in NE had run out of 18 y/o to draft, so I at 25 would have been a prime target. So I enlisted on my own for 3 years....still went to VN!! One thought that has crossed my mind is comparing WWII and Vietnam vets. In the former, I've heard of the numbers to enter religious on discharge. Sure not so in VN!!

I am aware of some of our students who had brothers or friends in VN in 1965-66 and we got their points of view. We had one of the former Advisors join our 1969 class at the Knoll for a while but I don't know now his name. The advisor was a vet who was in the Army in VN. He joined Maryknoll and he ended up at the Knoll but I don't think he stayed a year. Most of troops prior to 1964 were only advisors for the S. Vietnamese army. He had pictures of how the villages were hit by both sides for helping in any way. He was old enough to remember and discuss what happened in France to war support pre and post their Dien Bien Phu loss in 1954. old enough

The French pulled out despite our US support. French wanted to hold to it as their pre-WWII colony but Truman did not really want to see that happen. Yes, similar to US, but not leaving so many to suffer from the North's invasion.

I was there in VN with the med unit of the 25ID and developed my own views pre and post deployment Jan.-Dec. 1968. I was a 91G, social work/psychology specialists that worked under the Division Psychiatrist and Social Work Officers to do the mental health screening and referral. I worked with our medics and surgical hospital, and the Chaplain there.

Lots of conflicting feelings of the war before, during, and after. Survivor Guilt hung on for long time as did some PTSD Sx.

I told people when I got home that our unit was where we kept score via KIA and WIAs. The score thing became a way of summing up what our unit did in my time there.

I too figured out what else to tell people to sum up my impact: I came home an isolationist and pacifist and angry at the flag as the patriotism was used to defend the war. Then we got into the Nixon Peace with Honor that caused the war to drag on.

In the series, one of the guys who is now a judge is from Nebraska.

Mi Lai really upset me as it happened in 1968 but did not break open until 1969. One of the guys from NE and other people tried to justify it all. It was a horrible atrocity that shows the brutality that war can dehumanize to the point that killing felt good.

War is like a tornado...horrible irrational and random if you were hit....whether you were KIA or WIA.

Like Korea, post WWII ended up divided. Same with Vietnam. Their patriotism was just to unite their country, though Ho Chi Minh had turned to the Communist eventually.

We pulled out, the country was united so not sure what our 58,000+ accomplished.

Some of the VN vets then felt bad for "losing" and looked to blame the press and pacifists and so voted Republican. Too many of them were not educated enough about the pre-war to make sense of it and so they too got into the patriotism thing, especially the Jane Fonda, and Canada people, and blamed Carter for pardoning them.

I go to the Wall (as should you) to see in flesh/blood what our policies meant from 1959 on and really instances prior to that, starting with Truman and on after the end of WWII.