Vietnam War

Next month marks the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Whether you were alive during that time or have learned about it since, we'd like to hear your answer to the following: What did that era - the war, the protests, the changes both brought about - teach you about America, its people and its values? Send essays of about 300 words to Community Voices/Vietnam, The Inquirer, Box 41705, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101. Send faxes to 215-854-4483 and e-mail to inquirer.

In the years since the end of the Vietnam War, movies on the conflict have divided neatly between the peacetime experiences of returning veterans and more traditional depictions of soldiers in combat. Cinematically, the difference between Vietnam and our previous wars was that the order was reversed. Because of the lingering, bitter controversy over Vietnam, the films about veterans preceded the movies dealing with the war itself. A new film to be added to the growing and generally distinguished ranks of Vietnam movies will fuse these elements in a fresh way. In movies such as The Deer Hunter, we have seen combinations of war and peace, but Missing in America takes a new tack.

We have been told repeatedly in recent weeks that the ghosts of Vietnam have been laid to rest in the Persian Gulf. But I still hear them in the night, and I bet I'm not alone. In 1968, when I was 12 years old, I was injured and then saved by American soldiers during a battle in my village south of Da Nang. My father was beaten to death by South Vietnamese soldiers as he demonstrated outside an American base against the bombing and shelling of our village. A few months later my mother and grandmother were killed when a GI threw a grenade into our bomb shelter; the grenade severed my esophagus.

After many years of pointed neglect, the Vietnam War has become a fit subject for the entertainment merchants. Although most movies and TV shows have maintained a high-minded gloss, one wonders how long it will be until that period is so distant, or cliched, that it can admit its own Hogan's Heroes or McHale's Navy. If that day ever comes, every viewer in the country should first be given a chance to see an unassuming but powerful little video called Kindred Men of a Dark War (28 minutes, $24.95)

Some people may feel they don't want to see even one more film about the Vietnam War. They should make an exception for "Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam," an exceptional Home Box Office film that premieres on HBO at 9 p.m. Sunday. The movie consists of real letters that were written to loved ones and friends by men and women stationed in Vietnam during America's long, ruinous war. Actors and actresses - including Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, Elizabeth McGovern and Sean Penn - read the letters on the soundtrack over footage of life in the field, some of it taken by the GIs themselves.

The recent second-season reappearances of both Tour of Duty (Tuesdays, Channel 10, 8 p.m.) and China Beach (Wednesdays, Channel 6, 10 p.m.) emphasize once more the way the Vietnam War has infiltrated popular culture to a remarkable degree. This most controversial of all modern-era wars has become the stuff of weekly drama, for better or worse. Thus Tour of Duty offers Terence Knox as hard-bitten Sgt. Anderson, now enduring his third tour of Vietnam in order to shepherd a flock of young actors through their weekly scenes of discreetly photographed carnage and despair.

If it's not too late, the Republicans ought to add another plank to their party platform. It should read something like this: "We believe in a strong military and are dedicated to stopping the spread of communism. We believe that if the circumstances become sufficiently grave, we should commit troops to this purpose, as we did in Grenada. "However, there should be certain exceptions. "We do not believe the son of a rich and prominent Republican should be required to take part in such dangerous military activities if he doesn't want to. " That would be appropriate, based on what I'm hearing Republicans saying about J. Danforth Quayle.

Although American involvement in Vietnam ended in March 1973, a symposium Tuesday night at Delaware County Community College demonstrated that the issues of the war still burn strong for many veterans. About 80 people, many of whom served in Vietnam, attended the session, called "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Vietnam But Were Afraid To Ask. " It was sponsored by Delaware County's Chapter 67 of the Vietnam Veterans of America. In an intense four-hour session, a six-member panel gave personal recollections of the Southeast Asian conflict and then fielded questions on such topics as veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome and Agent Orange.

"Full Metal Jacket," a drama starring Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lee Ermey and Arliss Howard. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford. Running time: 115 minutes. A Warner Brothers release. At area theaters. 'Full Metal Jacket," Stanley Kubrick's new Vietnam picture, steps into the box with two strikes against it precisely because it is Stanley Kubrick's new Vietnam picture. Through no fault of his own, Kubrick was beat to the Vietnam punch by "Platoon.

The end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in 1975 was a study in panic and tragedy. Thousands of civilians caught up in the war scrambled to get aboard the American helicopters to escape as North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon on April 30. The American military accommodated as many as they could in those days of desperation and despair. But what about the children? They couldn't get on the helicopters by themselves. It took a number of dedicated humanitarians to help them get away.

WASHINGTON — It's the rarest and most prestigious military honor, made rarer still by a 42-year delay attributed to lost paperwork. But Wednesday, Army Spec. Leslie H. Sabo Jr. finally was recognized for an act of wartime heroism that took his life at age 22 as he saved comrades when his platoon was ambushed in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. "Along with Les, seven other soldiers gave their lives that day," President Obama said as he presented the Medal of Honor to Sabo's widow, Rose Mary Sabo-Brown.

WASHINGTON - Support for the war in Afghanistan has hit a new low and is on par with support for the Vietnam War in the early 1970s, a bad sign for President Obama as he argues that to end the war responsibly the United States must remain in Afghanistan another two years. Only 27 percent of Americans say they back the war effort, and 66 percent oppose the war, according to an AP-GfK poll released Wednesday. A November 1971 Harris poll showed a record-high 65 percent of Americans said that continued fighting in Vietnam was "morally wrong.

Growing up, Joe Gilch often wondered about the young man whose portrait hung on the wall in his family's Camden County home. The man was Joe's uncle Jimmy Gilch, who wrote more than 80 letters to friends and relatives while serving in Vietnam before being killed just before his 21st birthday. "I was probably 6 years old when my grandmother used to read me the letters," said Gilch, who grew up in the Glendora section of Gloucester Township. "I got really involved in the mystery of it. " Jimmy Gilch's death in 1966 was a painful and rarely discussed memory for the large Gilch clan.

WASHINGTON - It took almost 60 years for World War II veterans to get a monument in Washington. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial opened less than a decade after that war ended. Now with the Iraq war just over, and Afghanistan continuing, there are already plans to honor those veterans in a National Mall tribute in the works. It would not be a full-scale Iraq and Afghanistan war memorial. But the group that built the Vietnam memorial wall of names told the Associated Press it would expand the scope of a planned education center nearby to include service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mavis Smith is a Bucks County painter and illustrator with a popular local following. In a way, she's a natural - as a mid-career living artist with a solo show, "Hidden Realities," at Doylestown's James A. Michener Art Museum - to provide balance for the Michener's comprehensive "The Painterly Voice," a milestone event featuring a century-and-a-half of Bucks County painters from the past. Yet my initial reaction to Smith's show was dismay: Was placing her work alongside those renowned Pennsylvania impressionists of yore simply a dramatic gesture, a symptom of today's taste for progressiveness combined with a desire for celebrity.

George Esper, 79, a tenacious Associated Press correspondent who refused to leave his post in the last days of the Vietnam War and remained behind to cover the fall of Saigon, died in his sleep Thursday night, his son, Thomas, told the AP on Friday. Mr. Esper logged 10 years in Vietnam, the last two as AP's bureau chief. While he considered his coverage of the end of the 15-year Indochina conflict the high point in a 42-year career of deadline reporting, it was far from the only one. Mr. Esper was legendary for his persistence in covering news in war and in peace.

HANOI, Vietnam - The siren's wail at the historic Metropole Hotel sent American folksinger Joan Baez and other guests scampering across a garden and into an underground bunker. Even through five feet of concrete, they could hear the roar of American bombs falling on parts of Hanoi. Nearly four decades have passed since the so-called Christmas bombings rocked parts of Vietnam's capital in December 1972. After the war ended three years later, the bunker was sealed and all but forgotten.

A 62-year-old Vietnam War veteran whose body was recovered Thursday from Darby Creek suffered a seizure and fell into the water, the Delaware County Medical Examiner's Office said Saturday. James J. Coghlan of Folcroft, who had been missing for six days before a man in a canoe found his body, drowned in the creek, the medical examiner ruled. He was pronounced dead at 4:41 p.m. Thursday. The manner of death was an accident, authorities said. Coghlan had a seizure disorder, an injury from the Vietnam War, according to the medical examiner.

A 62-year-old Vietnam War veteran whose body was recovered Thursday from the Darby Creek suffered a seizure and fell into the water, the Delaware County Medical Examiner's office said Saturday. James J. Coghlan, of Folcroft, who had missing for six days before a man in a canoe found his body, drowned in the creek, the medical examiner ruled. He was pronounced dead at 4:41 p.m. on Thursday. The manner of death was an accident, authorities said. Coghlan had a seizure disorder, an injury from the Vietnam War, according to the medical examiner.