“Good War” Veterans

This is a transcript of an earlier broadcast of this episode; there may be slight changes in wording in the rebroadcast.

ED: This is BackStory. I’m Ed Ayers. Each day in the United States, an average of 22 military veterans take their own lives. It’s a grim reminder of the deep psychological toll that wars take on the people who fight them. So how did Americans in a pre-psychological era understand the impact of war?

EDWARD TICK: Physicians of the 19th century believe that there were literal physical changes to the heart and how it functions as a result of exposure to war.

ED: Today on BackStory, we’ll ask whether vets are only as popular as the wars they’ve fought in. And we’ll consider how best to remember those who fought for causes in which we no longer believe.

FRANK EARNEST: We’re not necessarily promoting a secession again, a separate country, the Confederate States of America. That didn’t happen. But we still honor our ancestors for standing up for what they believe.

ED: The history of coming home from war.

BRIAN: Major production support for BackStory comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Virginia, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and an anonymous donor. Today’s episode was originally broadcast in 2008.

MALE SPEAKER: From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is BackStory with the American Backstory hosts.

BRIAN: Welcome to the show. I’m Brian Balogh, 20th Century Guy. And I’m here with Ed Ayers.

ED: 19th Century Guy.

BRIAN: And Peter Onuf’s with us.

PETER: 18th Century Guy.

BRIAN: At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 95 years ago this week, World War I officially came to an end with the signing of the armistice in France. The following year, Woodrow Wilson declared November 11 Armistice Day, a day to honor the veterans of the great war.

PETER: How much our nation honored those veterans the other 364 days of the year, well, that’s debatable. Let’s listen to this interview with Frank Buckles, who was the last surviving American veteran of World War I. In 2011, he spoke to a Library of Congress interviewer about his homecoming after the war.

FRANK BUCKLES: The YMCA did give me a one-month free membership. That’s the only consideration I ever saw given to a soldier after the war.

PETER: A one-month free membership to the YMCA. Now, compare that to this.

KEN BERGERSON: It was really amazing that when I went back to school, about half of the student body was veterans going to school on the GI Bill.

BRIAN: That’s Ken Bergerson, a Navy vet from the Korean War and one of the millions of veterans of his generation educated courtesy of the GI Bill.

ED: So which of these two veterans’ experience was more typical? That’s the question we’re asking today on our special Veterans Day edition of BackStory. How have we, as a country, treated returning vets over the course of our history? Are the challenges they face today the same ones that veterans faced in the past? And how much do the answers to any of these questions depend on the war? Our veterans only as popular as the wars they fought in?

BRIAN: We’re going to start by listening to a little more of my conversation with Ken Bergerson. A few weeks ago, he invited me out to the American Legion Post in Shadwell, Virginia, where he used to be commander. And he introduced me to a couple of his fellow vets.

LEN HARTMANN: I’m Len Hartmann. I was in the Korean conflict. I did not go overseas.

ART ORDELL: I’m Art Ordell. I enlisted in the aviation cadets in 1942. And I got my wings as a Bombardier and ended up with the Eighth Air Force in England.

BRIAN: We got to talking about the treatment of World War II vets while that what was still going on.

ART ORDELL: The people were 100% behind the veterans. Now, my brother went and enlisted in the Navy about two or three weeks after Pearl Harbor. He was at boot camp down in Norfolk. Now, he said he was there early enough to see signs around Norfolk at restaurants saying no dogs or sailors allowed in here. But that attitude certainly did not last very long. When the shooting started, the people were right behind us.

BRIAN: Those good vibes, they didn’t go away. Len Hartmann, the Korea era vet who did not go overseas, even got a little choked up when he talked about the gratitude perfect strangers sometimes show him even now.

LEN HARTMANN: It does me a lot of good to go have my hat on and go into a store and somebody will shake your hand and thank you for what you did for your country.

ART ORDELL: That embarrasses me when someone says that. I feel like I didn’t do anything. I was just doing what everyone else did there. The people that stayed home and built the bombers and the Jeeps and everything, it was just about at 99.9% effort by the American people.

BRIAN: Towards the end of our conversation, I asked them how veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would answer my questions.

LEN HARTMANN: I don’t think they would think any different than us. They’re doing the same thing thing that we did. They’re doing their duty and just praying that they can come home alive.

ART ORDELL: I don’t think our people are opposed to them as they were in Vietnam. I think we’re ignoring them. I mean if you don’t have a member of your family there, I think the way we live we just don’t think about it. We’re all mad that we’re in a war. But it’s not as personal to us as it was in World War II.