LAKEPORT — “Baby killers.”
The words are jarring, unsettling, ugly. But in the 1960s American soldiers prosecuting an unwinnable war in Vietnam heard themselves called that.
Barnett Hoffman, a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, was one such soldier.
Being called a “baby killer” was one of many indignities suffered by Hoffman and his fellow GIs. They were soldiers who were demonized by the very people they fought for. Even with Vietnam four decades behind them, the harsh memories and the nightmares of what was flippantly called an “unpopular war” — but is still claiming casualties today are vivid.
“Our own parents criticized us. Even our parents who had been in World War II,” Hoffman recalled. “Television is what pointed the finger at us. It put the war in everyone”s face every day at dinner. In World War II and Korea you got it Saturday afternoon between the two movies at the theater. You got a little news reel and then a little something on the radio, but it wasn”t graphic.”
It remained a grim, disoriented world for the solider who fought in Vietnam well after the fighting ended. Hoffman”s life serves as an example.
Exposure to Agent Orange resulted in a weakened heart seven years later. He has had three heart valve transplants and since 1991 has needed blood thinners to ensure that his current heart valve stays open. If it collapses, he dies. For the past three years, he has worn a pacemaker.
Despite these circumstances, Hoffman is an active veteran. He has been the county”s VFW commander for the past two years and with the late Terry Rose pioneered the creation of a Lake County Vietnam Veterans Assocation chapter, which is becoming the lead veterans” group in the county. He also chairs the Avenue of Flags commemoration.
Hoffman is among a cadre of Vietnam vets who have turned their anger into something more positive and are now leaders and organizers. Both state and national VFW boards are presently comprised of Vietnam vets, Hoffman noted, ” … But we”re talking 40 years down the road.”
It is a strange turn of events, because, said Hoffman, “Any veteran who fought in a foreign war was welcome in VFW, but the Vietnam veterans when they first came home were not considered war veterans (allegedly because the Pentagon never declared war on Vietnam), so they were not welcomed into a lot of VFW posts. It made a lot of Vietnam veterans angry.
“They accepted Korean vets, I think because Korea wasn”t seen,” Hoffman added. “We were open to public opinion. We were labeled, not by just the (post) commander, but his wife, his daughter, his son, his whole family.”
The nation had made the soldier who fought in Vietnam a virtual pariah. It seems hard to believe now, but Vietnam veterans were so reviled that they kept their past service secret.
“We were alone,” Hoffman remembered. “We couldn”t tell employers we were Vietnam vets; they”d be afraid of us. You”d go out with a woman on a date and you wouldn”t tell her, because she”d automatically be afraid of you because of what she”d seen on TV.”
He added, “It was sad. I had a young man who lived at my house with my wife and I for two years while he was going to the police academy. We did everything together — bowled, played in pool tournaments and we were best friends. But we did not tell each other we were Vietnam vets. His brother told me in 1978. I had been home for 15 years.”
“Baby killers” was a term that may have grown up around the hyperbole created by the court martial of Army Lt. William Calley, accused of slaughtering 20 Vietnamese civilians. The truth, however, is that fighting men like Hoffman did much to aid Vietnamese children.
“Our group cleared beachheads for the 25th Infantry Division and then when we were finished with our job we would go up into the central highlands and inoculate Vietnamese kids for diphtheria and polio,” said Hoffman. “We did a lot of good stuff over there.”
Quite possibly, it was these inoculations that kept polio out of Vietnam.
Some young descendants of the “boat people” era from Vietnam and Laos, he added, still regard U.S. soldiers “like gods” for their role in rescuing their parents from the Communists.
“Vietnam to me was … I don”t really want to get into it. It was on and on confusion.
“Good and bad. Killing and saving lives,” Hoffman concluded.
A soldier who knew what it was to fire and to be fired upon, Hoffman recalled setting up Claymore land mines to protect the perimeter of an encampment through the night “Charlie” (the GI”s name for the Vietcong) “would come in and turn them around on us, then he”d make a lot of noise like he was attacking and we”d (trigger) the mines on ourselves.”
Vietnam and U.S. relationships have changed dramatically but Hoffman said, “You don”t get away from the war; none of us ever do.”
Despite that, being a leader and organizer has necessitated that Hoffman maintain an emotionally stable persona. It has not been easy. Many from the era still “self-medicate” with marijuana and alcohol. Some will never be quite the person they were before Vietnam.
“I never could cry, I always had to be strong, I always had to work,” said Hoffman. “But I went to the (Vietnam) wall in 2000. I took my therapist, who was also a Vietnam veteran, with me so that when I read the names on the wall I could break down and cry. This time would be different. This time was for me.
“But I ended up holding my therapist in my arms for two hours while he cried.”
Contact John Lindblom at jlwordsmith@mchsi.com.
