EDITORIAL: Celebrate our servicemen and servicewomen throughout the year
Mar. 3—You may have seen them in our newspaper, including one in today's edition.
They are stories about men from Whitfield and Murray counties who were killed in Vietnam.
Their stories of patriotism, selflessness and honor are being beautifully told by former staff writer Mark Millican, himself a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. The Daily Citizen-News is running a series of stories profiling the 17 veterans of Whitfield and Murray counties who lost their lives during the Vietnam War.
It is easy to honor and celebrate those who have served in our armed forces on Veterans Day in November, and to venerate our beloved soldiers who have died in the call of duty while serving in those armed forces in May on Memorial Day.
But it is important to remember their sacrifices, their commitment to our country, throughout the year, and Mark's stories are an excellent way of doing that and of reminding us of what service to country is.
And Vietnam is also a special case.
A deeply unpopular war that divided the country, it resulted in some of our soldiers suffering indignities upon their return, being called "baby killers" or even spit upon.
Kyle Longley, author of "Grunts: The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam," addressed this phenomenon in an opinion piece in The New York Times in 2017:
"Long after the war ended, the idea of the Vietnam veteran as an amoral, drug-addled, even psychopathic baby killer pervaded American culture, cropping up in films like 'Taxi Driver,' 'First Blood' and 'Jacob's Ladder.' But those stereotypes are flawed. A vast majority of Americans who served never committed atrocities; they fought bravely against a determined enemy in harsh conditions, and they reintegrated into society and made substantial contributions over the years."
That description of fighting bravely describes the soldier profiled in today's paper, Kenneth Ogles.
His brother Jerry said Kenneth was "excited at the prospect of bringing the fruits of liberty to a people whose culture and values were alien to his thinking. He truly believed that his going to Vietnam would make a difference in the lives of the men, women and children who had endured savage tyranny under a host of despotic rulers and ideologies. This was the fulfillment of his life's dream."
As you can see, Mark is capturing the lives of these men well.
He has previously written in a column for the Daily Citizen-News in 2018, "The return of the bodies of our troops from a foreign battlefield in flag-draped caskets elicits a visceral response from many Americans. These are the men, and sometimes in modern warfare, the women, who have paid the ultimate price to protect our freedom."
He has described what it was like for him to write similar profiles of Gilmer County veterans who were killed in Vietnam.
"Writing about these veterans who were killed, and those who remembered them, was personally rewarding. In 1973, I registered for the draft as a high school senior. It was the same year we began pulling troops out of Vietnam, and I was never drafted. But the unrest of those years I remember well. I believe it was therapeutic for those who helped me write, and likewise for other older folks who recall those tumultuous years and read the stories. These were the returning war veterans, after all, who were sometimes spit upon in airports and called 'baby killers' when they arrived back in the States."
Of the Whitfield and Murray County men killed in action, he implored, "Let's salute them all in 2021-22."
He is doing that, and our newspaper is blessed by the stories.
We encourage you to read them, to think meaningfully about them, and to honor these men and others who have honored us with their service, not just today and not just on holidays, but all year long.
