VIETNAMIt wasn’t until the late ’70s that I felt comfortable talking about the
Vietnam War and my role in it. Well, mostly comfortable. Although
I had mixed feelings about the war, I felt pride in having served my
country. But I also felt that pride diminished by the sense that people
who didn’t serve, and even some veterans, let it be known in subtle
(and sometimes not-so-subtle) ways that my service as a rear-eche-
lon soldier was inferior to that of “combat veterans.” To this day, I feel
demeaned by the assumption that those of us who weren’t in combat
units are some sort of second-class veterans. It’s as though there is
a two-tier war veteran caste system, with former rear-echelon folks
as the untouchables.
When people ask what I did in the Vietnam War, I tell them that I
was drafted, then got lucky—that I was a clerk in a personnel com-
pany and that only one guy in my unit was killed the year I wasthere. Most people respond kindly and say, “You served. That’s a
OWWL\PQVOº7Z_WZL[\W\PI\MЄMK\<PI\OWM[NWZVMIZTaITTWNUa
fellow Vietnam veterans.
*]\ ̧IVLQ\¼[I[QOVQÅKIV\¹J]\º ̧1KWV\QV]M\WPMIZ¹KWUJI\^M\-
eran” all the time. I admire and respect every Vietnam veteran who
served in the combat arms. My feelings have nothing to do with their
sterling service. But using “combat veteran” obliquely demeans the
service of all of us clerks, cooks, truck drivers and other rear-echelon
types. I realize that most people who use that term don’t intend to
minimize or mock the wartime service of hundreds of thousands of
other veterans, but that’s exactly what it does.
I was astonished to see British journalist Max Hastings go out of his
way in his recent, big history of the war, Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy
1945-1975, to deride the service of anyone who wasn’t humping the16
COURTESY^ MARCLEEPSONREFLECTIONS
boonies in Vietnam. How else to in-
terpret this snarky, condescending
sentence in which he sums up all
rear echeloners’ war service:
“Maybe two-thirds of the men
who came home calling them-
selves veterans—entitled to wear
the medal and talk about their
PTSD troubles—had been exposed
to no greater risk than a man
might incur from ill-judged sex or
‘bad shit’ drugs.”
Ken Burns’ much-ballyhooed 18-
hour, 2017 Vietnam War documen-
tary all but dismissed the service
of men in noncombat units. The
[PW_WЄMZMLPW]Z[IVLPW]Z[WN
OZ]V\[ÅOP\QVOJ]\OI^MWVTaINM_
minutes to rear-echelon people.
I understand that infantrymen could have
negative feelings about us rear echeloners,
but we were doing the jobs the military asked
us to. And in Vietnam, contrary to Hastings’
ridiculous generalization, you were in dan-
ger no matter where you were. In addition
to the GI killed in my unit while I was there—
Stephen Allsopp, blown up on guard duty in
1968—three other men from the 527th Per-
sonnel Service Company lost their lives in
Vietnam during the war. As did thousands
of others not in the combat arms.
Although there are no official statistics,
the best estimate is that 75 to 90 percent of
those who served in Vietnam were in support
units. That’s more than 2 million men and
women who came home without the label
“combat veteran.”
My suggestion to fellow veterans and those
who never put on the uniform: Please con-
sider dropping “combat veteran” from your
vocabulary and replace it with “war vet-
eran.” Or “Vietnam War veteran.” Or “Iraq
War veteran” or “Afghanistan War veteran.”
While you’re at it, I wouldn’t mind a “thank
you for your service.” VMarc Leepson is a journalist, historian and
the author of nine books, most recently,
Ballad of the Green Beret: The Life and
?IZ[WN)ZUa;\IЄ;MZOMIV\*IZZa;ILTMZ
He edited the Webster’s New World Dictio-
nary of the Vietnam War and is arts editor,
senior writer and columnist for The VVA
Veteran, the magazine published by Viet-
nam Veterans of America.People who didn’t serve, and even
some veterans, let it be known
that my service was inferior to
that of “combat veterans.”Soldiers in the 527th Personnel
Management Section, 527th Personnel
Service Company, shown in 1968, with
Leepson noted, were among the 2 million
troops who did not serve in a combat unit.