YARBROUGH: Atlanta vets seek truth about Vietnam War | Chronicles

Let’s face it. The Vietnam War was not our finest era. The greatest generation that fought Germany and Japan in World War II and triumphed came home and spawned a not-so-great generation that put its own interests above its country.

I leave it to you to do your own research and study how the United States became involved in the conflict between North and South Vietnam in the mid-1950s, but we were drawn into the conflict. It began with the Kennedy administration sending 9,000 troops to South Vietnam. By 1967, that number had swelled to over 400,000, prompting many of the Greatest Generation of Americans to flee to Canada, dubbed “draft dodgers.” By the end of our involvement in 1975, some 58,220 Americans had lost their lives.

It’s hard to believe that half a century has passed since all this happened, and yet in some cases the war continues to be fought by those who participated in it. The Atlanta Vietnam Veterans Business Association (AVVBA) is one such group. My friend, Atlanta banker Rod Knowles, is a member of the group and told me about the organization’s efforts to correct public misconceptions about Vietnam and combat the narrative that the war was unwinnable.

The catalyst was American filmmaker Ken Burns’ 10-part series on Vietnam. Knowles and many others who lived through the experience—not Burns—felt that the series was biased against the war and those who fought in it. So the AVVBA developed its own version of events and produced a film called “Truths and Myths About the Vietnam War,” a 47-minute documentary produced with Emmy Award-winning film producer David Naglieri and hosted by actor Sam Elliott. The production was released on the AVVBA’s YouTube channel in February. I encourage you to watch it. (To view or download the film, go to AVVBA.org.)

The Atlanta Vietnam Veterans Business Association says myths about the war, many of which have been proven false since the war’s end, continue to be perpetuated by uninformed elements in academia and the media. Much of the information about the history of the Vietnam War is incorrect or incomplete, and much of the additional information that has become available in recent years has not been widely disseminated.

Therefore, according to Knowles, the purpose of the film is to honor those who served in the Vietnam War “by providing factual information to counter decades of misinformation that has presented a skewed historical perspective of the war.” For example, opponents of the war today deny that returning soldiers from Vietnam were mistreated, and do not mention any instances of them being spat on. This is a blatant lie. A neighbor of mine told me that when he returned from Vietnam, he was spat on in the streets of (where else?) San Francisco.

You will be outraged by the actions of John Kerry, former U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and later Secretary of State, who testified in 1971 about U.S. soldiers raping, torturing, and beheading Vietnamese, and then in 2001 dismissed his comments as “quotes from an angry young man.” What a disgusting human being.

One of the most puzzling incidents in “Vietnam War Truths and Myths” is a report by CBS journalist Walter Cronkite who, on February 13, 1968, called the Tet Offensive a “major success” for both the United States and the South Vietnamese government and that the Viet Cong had been soundly defeated. On February 27, he declared the exact opposite, that the war was stalemate and “unwinnable,” prompting President Lyndon Johnson to declare, “If I’ve lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America” and choose not to run again. What changed Cronkite’s mind? Only he knows, and he is no longer available to explain.

It took about seven months to complete filming on “Vietnam War Truths and Myths” and another five months for Sam Elliott to do the intro because of delays caused by the Screen Actors Guild strike that prevented the actors from doing anything until the November 2023 deal.

Kudos to the Atlanta Vietnam Veterans Business Association for taking the initiative to showcase another side of Vietnam history, a project championed by such luminaries as James Livingston and Patrick H. Brady, both Medal of Honor recipients in the Vietnam War.

Rod Knowles says one of the goals of the Atlanta Vietnam Veterans Business Association is to promote a positive image of Vietnam veterans, their dependents, and the widows and orphans of deceased Vietnam veterans. I say mission accomplished.

Dick Yarbrough is a longtime Georgia resident and former public relations executive. He can be reached at [email protected]; at PO Box 725373, Atlanta, GA 31139; or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb.