Return to Vietnam (gallery)

"Return to Vietnam” is the story of amazing volunteer former American soldiers (“GI's") who in the era of the
Vietnam war, (1965-1975) were young draftees conscripted into a senseless war in which they saw death among
friends and enemy, alike, and returned to the United States with unsettled convulsed feelings.

Part of the tension of the film is that, as team leader Jim Sufka puts it “the last time I was in Vietnam, I was in a
free-fire zone (shoot-first, no questions asked). You wonder how these people will greet you when you return.”

By the mid 1970’s, the American public had turned against the war, and unjustly blamed the drafted soldiers for having
participated in it. In the film Navy Ensign Chuck Ward describes, how when his aircraft carrier returned from a tour of duty
and entered San Francisco Bay, thousands of anti-war protesters lined the Bay Bridge and threw buckets of feces and
urine on the sailors who were lined on the deck of the ship underneath the bridge. This was a far cry from the cheers
American soldiers had received when they returned after World War two. The "welcome" shocked and dismayed
American Vietnam vets, who felt betrayed by their country.

For decades the ex-soldiers kept to themselves, and only shared their stories and feelings with each other. As U.S. Marine
Ralph Beck puts it: “I talked only to Vietnam Vets, -- those who served in the same places that I served, and were
there around the same time. I never even shared what happened with members of my family.” The returning Vietnam Vets
could not even talk to U.S. veterans from previous wars because those veterans couldn’t understand why the Americans in
Vietnam didn’t “win.”

Eventually, by the late 1980’s, isolated and alienated American soldiers who had now tried to return to civilian life started to
tell their story, and slowly, the rest of America started to listen. The adjustment to civilian life had been especially difficult. As
Riverboatman Bill Isetts puts it: “in other wars, soldiers were given a mission, to win, and then, you came home as a unit. In
the Vietnam war, there was no single goal, and you left Vietnam when your 12 or 13 month ‘tour of duty’ was over.
You’d never hear from or see the other soldiers in your unit or know what happened to them.”

Little by little, the soldiers made the best of their participation in this unpopular war. Organizations such as the humanitarian
group “Vets with a Mission” started to send groups of Vietnam Vets back to Vietnam to do humanitarian deeds, such as
build health clinics. They have continued to send missions about once a year since 1989 of 15-20 returning vets
.
The Vets who return on this "10th Anniversary trip" are an extraordinary group of 15 individuals supported by volunteer doctors
and nurses. The Vets in this film have not fallen prey to self-pity. They reach out to past enemies who still need help to survive.
"Return to Vietnam" is a story of true courage and selflessness.