Vietnam War made real to student

I realized recently that a student can’t get the real picture of history from the pages of a book. My eyes were opened to the realities of war when I interviewed Lon Renolds, a Vietnam veteran. He was able to help me catch a glimpse of what it was like over there.

“You grow up real fast, too fast,” Lon said.

He volunteered at the age of 19 in hopes that he wouldn’t have to go to Vietnam. Lon had a 1A draft ranking, so he would have been drafted if he had not volunteered. He chose the Navy in hopes that he would be off shore and away from the fighting. He said, “We didn’t choose to go there.”

Lon was in the war for nearly two years serving in “the brown water Navy.” They operated the supply and patrol boats that went up and down Vietnam’s inland rivers. Lon considered himself lucky because he was never where the heavy fighting was. He said, “Going to Vietnam altered the course of my life.” Lon’s wife, Nicole Renolds, described those on the boats as “moving targets.”

The Vietnam War was a complicated war, not just the fighting itself, but the feelings behind the war. Lon said, “I didn’t feel like we had a purpose over there.”

Most wars have the people’s support behind them. The Vietnam War did not. When vets came back to the states they were treated with disrespect and were ridiculed. Lon said, “You were better off not to tell people you were a Vietnam veteran.”

The soldiers who fought in Vietnam faced the same risks and paid the same prices as veterans in all wars, but they didn’t get any heroes’ welcome home. Lon said, “I volunteered to go into the military; it wasn’t my choice to go to Vietnam.”

When the soldiers got home there was no help for them. They had to bottle up their struggles. There was no one to talk to. Lon explained that most Vietnam vets became carpenters or contractors, taking jobs that didn’t involve working with other people. Later in his life, Lon got help dealing with buried emotions, like many other Vietnam vets. Lon credits God for the recovery he has made.

When asked what he wanted my generation to remember about the Vietnam War, Lon answered, “Don’t ever let this sort of thing happen to veterans again.”

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Montana Eve is a high school student who, like Lon Renolds, resides in Plummer.