The following is a speech given about a year ago. concerning our Veterans from Vietnam, I thought it very important to share it with you , lest we repeat past misdeeds to our troops. MsV

If you would like to help Connie and her family realize this dream, why not e-mail her and let her know. e-mail Connie




Hi, my name is Connie Sue and I am here tonight because Sue Wudy invited me to be with you.

I have a dream that I would like to see become a reality. It is very hard for me to stand before an audience of any size, much less one like this and tell my personal side of the story regarding how Vietnam affected my family and myself. I am not a public speaker and I am not a person who jumps on the bandwagon for every cause. However, I am here for a very important dream that has become a passion of mine. I am however only one person out of a multitude of complete families that need and want to express our love and our respect to the men and women who fought in the Vietnam War. I am also here representing other families who need to heal because of the pain and anger that they too developed during and after the Vietnam War.

I graduated from high school in 1965, naive and innocent. I was there watching our men and women leaving on a plane going to a foreign land, The Republic of Vietnam.


These young men and women were leaving because the United States of America needed them to fight and die for a cause. I remember the Vietnam War, the hippie movement and the demonstrations. I remember young boys burning their draft cards. I remember college students burning the American Flag and I remember Jane Fonda walking in the rice paddies telling the American people how our boys were "baby killers" and "murderers" in Vietnam.



I remember sitting with my family in the comfort of our home, eyes glued to the TV screen and listening to the news and watching images portrayed on television about the Vietnam War. Listening to the news was not the same as being there. The pictures that were being shown on TV were cut and dried, black and white. My family, like many other families, believed what we saw and what we heard. We watched on our TV sets as the numbers climbed representing the deaths of our young men and women in Vietnam. Each day the numbers climbed higher, each day my family would say a prayer for my two brothers Skip and Mike, fighting in Vietnam. We said prayers for my brothers and for their safety.



We prayed for a speedy end of the war, we prayed that Skip and Mike would be kept warm and dry, we prayed that we did not have to experience the soft knock on the door that chilled to the bone, as a young man in uniform hands us a letter stating that a brother or both brothers have been lost in action, MIA or never coming home at all. We prayed for the families that did receive that nightmarish telegram and we prayed for the men and women who came home maimed for the rest of their lives either by a land mine, a bomb, a bullet or friendly fire while on tour of duty in Vietnam



There was fear and anger, and many tearful times in our family during the Vietnam War. We were angered by the protestors---after all, my brothers were over there risking their lives so protestors can have a free democracy in which to protest. How dare they spit in The faces of our young warriors--How dare they burn their draft card, or tear the nation apart by saying we are fighting a loosing war. The families who had sons or daughters, brothers or sisters, aunts, uncles, cousin's and friends, believed what the U.S. government told us. After all, we won W.W.II, we did ok in Korea and now we will win in Vietnam.

We believed as a family that the government knew what they were doing and we believed that our men and women were fighting for a cause. Hey! we are the people of the United States of America, We are winners! We are the most powerful nation in the world. We will win this war and bring our boys back home with pride. Well, let me tell you about my two brothers and how they, after coming home, celebrated their pride for being a soldier in Vietnam! Let me explain how much pain and sorrow a family can go through when a love one comes home from Vietnam to a torn nation that can not give their own men and women, their own flesh and blood, a proper welcome home from a conflict, much less one that went on for almost twenty years.



I need to talk about how my family felt when we saw our loved ones come home from a lost battle where many of their friends died in front of their eyes. I too have pain different from yours but just as real. I want to talk about my pain, but I have no one to talk to. I would listen to you but you don't want to talk to me.



I tried to talk to my brothers, Skip and Mike but they would not open up to me. They refused to even think about their feelings regarding the Vietnam War. They refused to relive their experiences, not that I blame them with what I now know about the Vietnam Conflict. Mike, my oldest brother (a proud Marine) suffers from the pain of survivorship. Skip, my youngest brother (not so proud Army sergeant) became a drug dependent, alcoholic and died in a hospital as a result of a blood clot resulting from an amputation that wouldn't have been necessary had it not been for Vietnam.

I as a sister, as woman and as mother am asking for your help to help me heal a wound that I carry in my heart. I can no longer laugh and tease my brother; I can no longer talk quietly with Skip or feel the security of Michael. I need your help to help others whose hearts have a similar wound. I feel, as do many others, that we need to attend to the pain we have been carrying for 30 long years. We can no longer keep it locked inside and fear the haunting dreams. I ask for your support and cooperation in letting us, the families, the friends, the home front victims of Vietnam, express our respect and gratitude, and our apologies for waiting so long to honor you, the survivors, and to honor our son's and daughter's who fought and died in Vietnam so that we might meet here this evening.



Allow us to show our respect by doing the only thing we as a nation can do, allow us to march nationwide to express our feelings for the men and women of the Vietnam War. I know other families and friends who want to share this dream. I want to walk side by side with other families who will be wearing the names of sons or daughters, brothers or sisters, aunts, or uncles and cousins and friends pinned upon their chests over their hearts.



I want to walk with our heads held high in honor and recognition of your efforts and the suffering we all feel. With the support of the American Legion I feel confident that this march can be organized and orchestrated to take place the first of next year or at any such time as you might feel would be appropriate.

I want to thank you for letting me share my feelings with you tonight.



In memory of Skip Lawhon and May God Bless you and Bless all our soldiers present and past!

April 15, 1999