Many Idaho Vets Resent Clinton’s Decision Establishing Diplomatic Relations Hits A Sore Spot Among Vietnam Veterans

Ray Carter dodged plenty of bullets with the first combat unit to land in Vietnam. Still, he believes President Clinton is right to open the diplomatic doors with Vietnam.

“The hurting has been too long,” said Carter, who landed with the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division in August 1965. “It’s a dark day in our history, and it needs to be gone.”

Carter, who owns Ray’s Chevron in Coeur d’Alene, volunteered for the Army because “I watched too many war movies … too much John Wayne.”

Until a few years ago, he was bitter about North Vietnam. But he changed his mind after watching a Sunday morning television news program about the large number of Vietnamese still missing in action.

“A lot of families over there don’t have closure,” Carter said. “I think it’s a sad situation all around.”

There still are 11 servicemen missing in action from Idaho and 52 from Washington, according to the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia.

Two hundred ten Idahoans and more than 1,000 Washington residents were killed in the unpopular effort to stop the spread of communism.

Many of those who returned seem to resent Clinton’s decision.

Dan Michaud, a Marine telecommunications specialist, doesn’t care that the Vietnamese have an equally painful problem with their own missing soldiers. “It’s their country; it’s their inventory problem,” said Michaud, who now sells real estate in Post Falls. “I’m 100 percent against relations until our MIAs are returned or accounted for.”

Re-establishing diplomatic ties now is tossing out the only leverage the United States had to get that information, added John Dunlap, who served in the Navy and now is commander of the Post Falls American Legion Post as well as the Idaho state American Legion.

“Big business is pushing him into it,” Dunlap said of Clinton. “The American government is giving in, letting the American people down.”

John Smith, shop foreman at Coeur d’Alene Monument Co. and a former Navy diesel mechanic, says joining hands with Vietnam is the right thing to do. But “the timing is wrong.”

Both countries need more time to forgive each other and for the MIA issue to be resolved. Moreover, Clinton isn’t the right president to do this because he didn’t serve in the military, Smith said.

Foreign aid is the worst part, said Ben Keeley, who works with Kootenai County’s 11,000 former military men and women as county veterans service officer. “More than 250,000 veterans are homeless on any given evening,” said Keeley, who survived two years in Vietnam as a radio operator.

Diplomatic relations will mean foreign aid for Vietnam, while “our vets continue to suffer,” Keeley said.

Like other veterans, he says he suspects big business is behind the move. “There must be some oil fields Americans want to get into.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo