Joe Ramirez gazed at a photo of his 18-year-old self kneeling in a field in Vietnam’s Phu Tai Valley, holding a gun and wearing a combat helmet.
“I wanna cry because of what we went through,” Ramirez said. “I’ve seen so much death.”
In the 50 years since the Vietnam War ended, Ramirez, an Army soldier in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968, has woken from nightmares four to six times a week. He’s on a strict therapy and medication regimen to stem his post-traumatic stress disorder. He lost friends in the war.
“That was a brotherhood, so many friends that you had made during this time,” Ramirez said. “I’d give my right arm to see any of them.”
But despite mental challenges, grief and reconciling with the treatment Vietnam veterans received when they returned home, Ramirez says he’s proud to have served.
Collective pride, grief and patriotism filled the room of a Montclare VFW building where Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) held a ceremony honoring Vietnam War veterans on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the war’s end. Villegas, a Gulf War Marine veteran, and Chicago director of veteran affairs Kevin Barszcz, a Navy veteran, presented a small group of vets with pins honoring the anniversary. Veterans locked eyes and shook hands and clapped each other on the backs to a chorus of “thank you for your service” from other attendees.
Margarito Cardenas is an Army vet who was stationed in Cam Ranh Bay when he was 23 years old. He reflected on his time in combat, being ambushed and fighting to stay safe. But along with the soldier deaths and injuries, Cardenas was forced to reckon with the mark the carnage left on civilians.
“Another thing that broke my heart was that there were a lot of babies, a lot of mothers, innocent people that were being killed,” Cardenas said.
Veterans remembered not only the combat itself, but conflict surrounding the war back home. Widespread protests pushing the U.S. to pull out of Vietnam gripped the country while they were overseas, and when they returned, they were largely met with hostility and aggression.
“We knew it was a wrong war, we agreed with them,” said Mike Sosa, who joined the Air Force at 17. “I don’t want to kill that guy, he doesn’t want to kill me. … That was pretty pitiful, to be spit on and called baby killers, it was just demoralizing.”
Ramirez looked back on his unceremonious return from the war.
“I remember carrying my duffel bag over my shoulder walking through O’Hare Airport,” he said. “There was no one to greet me. People just stared me down because [they thought of us as] ‘child killers.'”
Looking back on 50 years since the end of the War, Sosa said the U.S. has an opportunity to learn from its mistakes in the 1960s in current foreign policy and military decisions. To him, the best way to commemorating the war would be “to look back and not to make the same mistakes again.”
“Let’s not forget,” Sosa said. “Whether it’s in Afghanistan, I don’t know the situation in Israel, there’s always going to be wars, we gotta know where to stick our nose. We can’t be playing games with kids’ lives to prove a point.”
As the Trump administration seeks to slash funding and resources to the federal government, the Department of Veterans Affairs, which provides health care and other resources to members of the military, isn’t immune. More than 80,000 employees of the department are expected to be cut, according to an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press.
For years, Cardenas has gone to the VA for a lorazepam prescription and trying to fight the effects of Agent Orange, a harmful herbicide linked to several health conditions that was used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.
“Every time I go, they take care of me,” Cardenas said.
Sosa called the decision to cut staff “disgusting” and Ramirez said it was a “shame.”
Villegas called on Congress to push back against the cuts to the federal government, specifically the VA, saying the three branches of government are meant to check and balance each other and Congress is failing to do that.
“Historically Republicans are always touting how patriotic they are, America first, and yet one of the first departments they decide to gut by removing 80,000 employees is the Veteran Affairs,” Villegas said. “Do they have some opportunities to thin down? Absolutely. But the one department that they need to double down and invest in is veterans.”
