Where my interest in Vietnam got revived

7 April 2006

Where my interest in Vietnam got revived

Posted by Bob Keith at 4/7/2006 1:30 AM 

Categories: Vietnam the study of, travel blog, Vietnam, Vietnam never ends

A haunting reality
     While attending classes at Madison Area Technical College in the fall of 1998 I came across a new class offering - a history class about America's Vietnam War.  Having been in the Army in Germany when Saigon and South Vietnam surrendered in 1975, the subject always haunted me.  By 1998 Hollywood had re-fought the war in nearly one hundred movies.  Every political election we Americans re-fought the war in the campaigns.  Every time we thought about military action somewhere in the world we re-debated the wisdom of the Vietnam War.  I did not know what to think anymore.  I was drawn to the class like a moth to a porch light. 

     The instructor was a guy named Jim Roseberry.  I was immediately put at ease by him.  When I asked him about the class before hand he simply said, "welcome."  I was then struck by his methodical, calm pursuit of the saga as he started with some ancient history of Vietnam and then brought the class slowly forward from World War II.  

Gestating a reality
     I later interviewed Mr. Roseberry about his new class for the school news paper - he mostly constructed the class curriculum himself - it was his creation.  "Why did you take so many years to take on the subject?" I asked.  He smiled slightly, paused and said, "being in the military during the war and in the county of Vietnam during the war I had to let it all gestate."  

     And  he was right.  Gestation was an odd but appropriate description.  The class pulled together 15 years of the American Vietnam War that were disjointed in my memory.  My war, the era that touched me was 1975.  Yet I knew there was more to the story.  A neighboring farm kid had died over there in 1967 or so.  Another one who served over there came to our grade school to talk about his experience.  That must have been around the same time.  Little did I know six years later I would be in the Army and the War had taken on yet another dynamic. 

     Five U.S. presidents or more, millions of soldiers, and millions of civilians were touched by the war that lasted so long and each year of it had a different signature of timbre.  No wonder many of us so many decades later still could not understand the war.  
   
The living war
     In 1998 when I asked Mr. Roseberry about how we attach Vietnam to other military conflicts, he quietly said, "Vietnam is a living history."  Never was so prophetic a statement made now that I reflect on the Iraq War now in its fourth year.  

     In the summer of 2005 I looked up Mr. Roseberry to consult him on my then graduate study of the subject of Vietnam.  I had been to Saigon in January of 2005 and was to go back again in August of 2005 this time to more locations. He seemed pleased and excited for me and my continued quest. 

    Here's to you Mr. Roseberry.  Your guidance helped revitalize my interest in my own life's touching of the complicated subject. Your own quest for clarity inspired me to continue with the study of the complex subject.  And finally, I am glad you yourself got a chance to get back over there and continue your journey with the "living history" of Vietnam.