Our two Vietnam veterans departed the war the way they had arrived: alone. They departed with a mixture of joy at having survived and shame at having left their buddies behind. Instead of returning to parades, they found antiwar marches. Instead of luxury hotels, they were sent to locked and guarded military bases where they were processed back to civilian life in a few days. Instead of movies about the veteran, his struggles, and his vulnerable emotional state upon reentry into civilian life, the media prepared the American people by calling the returning veterans “depraved fiends” and
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