Just Sayin': Vietnam vets group proud of its work

When veterans came trickling home from Vietnam, unlike their predecessors from World War II and Korea, they did not get a parade or a welcome back. It got worse as the war continued and apathy was replaced by animosity, and these veterans were called “baby killers.”

This was made worse by many earlier veterans’ disdain for their service because most Vietnam vets were required to serve only one year in the combat zone. Ironically, the actual time in combat in one year was often more than some World War II veterans served.

The Vietnam veterans’ life back home was further complicated by high unemployment, mental health issues — later identified as post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD — and cutbacks in the G.I. program that provided so many prior veterans with benefits, including education and housing.

Given these problems and the lack of assistance from their predecessors, Vietnam veterans organized in 1978 as the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA). After creating U.S. chapters, they gathered in a convention in 1983 to establish a national organization with a constitution, officers and membership criteria.

The past 40 years, VVA has tried changing benefits provided to vets. This week, we commemorated our 40th anniversary with a four-day convention in Orlando, Florida, that ends Saturday night.

In 1983, one keynote speaker, former Rep. David Bonior (D-Mich.), drew a strong response from delegates to his phrase that soon became our motto: “Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another.” We’ve worked hard to live up to that motto, mostly by working with Congress and the Veterans Affairs bureaucracy.

Our best achievements include getting society to understand and provide assistance for PTSD and creating the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans, providing a way to get justice for those applying for benefits and reinstating generous education packages similar to the ones for World War II veterans and 9/11 first responders.

The most important change, however, was getting Congress and the VA to accept that Vietnam veterans and those who followed have been severely afflicted by exposure to toxic substances such as Agent Orange and those in burn pits.

As we came together this year and begin to fade away, the VVA can be proud of its accomplishments and know that we have lived up to our motto. Hopefully, the men and women who have followed us will continue our work.

— John Rowan, Middle Village, Queens

The writer, a U.S. linguist in Vietnam in 1967, was VVA CEO and president from 2005-2021.

I didn’t leave GOP — the party left me

Former President Ronald Reagan famously declared in changing his political party to Republican, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.”

As someone who voted for Republicans or Independents in presidential elections from 1988 through 2016, I understand Reagan’s declaration. But since nominating Donald Trump for President, the GOP has followed in lockstep with his allegations and charges.

When Trump loses an election, it’s because our voting system is rigged. When Trump is indicted, it’s because the Democrats have weaponized our justice system.

As a history major in college, I learned how the whitewashed teaching of U.S. history ignored our government’s treatment of Blacks, Indigenous Americans, and women to teach the glories of our electoral and justice systems.

But now, although with a better knowledge of our history, many Republicans wish to return to teaching the glorification of white males, which I was taught in the 1950s, while denying our “unseemly” history. And when voices are raised against the biased teaching of history, the GOP ironically calls that movement “cancel culture.”

In short, I didn’t leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left me.

— Raymond Boivie, Kings Park

In 1950s, firms were taxed at about 50%

One secret that some Republican lawmakers have trouble acknowledging is the role corporate taxes played in the postwar boom [“Remembering the 1950s’ postwar suburban boom,” Opinion, Aug. 5]. In the 1950s, the corporate income tax rate was around 50%.

Wages are a business expense, and to lower their tax burdens, companies increased the wages for their employees, leading to a boom in wages, homeownership and keeping moms at home.

Through the years, the Republicans have pushed for lower and lower tax rates, while wages stagnated, homeownership became out of reach for many, and two-income families became the norm while top executives’ pay has skyrocketed. It is not a coincidence that wages stagnated as tax rates dropped.

— Barbara Haynes, Hauppauge