University of Nebraska Kearney - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Kearney, NE)

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by Mark Bates The Vietnam Conflict — rock ’n roll singers sang about it; college students, public figures and the American public protested it; and politicians debated it. Four men from KSC recall the Vietnam era. • History Professor Michael Share • Lt. Col. Gary Hamilton, com- mander of KSC’s ROTC • Political Science Department Chairman Thomas Magstadt • Political Science Professor Phu Tonthat Curiosity about the Vietnam conflict has arisen at KSC. Thirty-seven stu- dents enrolled in Share’s history course for the fall semester. The course doesn’t go toward credit for the general studies program or a history major. The stu- dents enrolled are genuinely interested in the course, Share said. Share was involved in anti-war or- ganizations including the Student Mobi- lization Committee and Students for Democratic Society during his under- graduate years at Bingington University in N.Y. Many of the activities of student government involved the war. He said these organizations didn’t stop the war but they may have caused public aware- ness which could have led to stopping the war. (C T hings like 'Rambo’ movies misrepresent and create a legend that is bogus in terms of what they are saying. — Share “The role of the anti-war movement has been misunderstood,” he said. “Some claim the anti-war movement had no impact one way or the other, while others felt it had a huge impact on getting us out of Vietnam. I think the truth is somewhere in between.” Al- though Share opposed the war, he plans to teach his course objectively. The publicizing of Vietnam vet- erans, people hearing stories from rela- tives making the war more personal, the Vietnam Vet- erans’ Memorial in Washington, D.C., and the an- niversary cele- bration all con- tribute to the Vietnam curiosi- ty, Share said. Major news magazines have published ar- ticles on the Viet- nam conflict. Books are being Professor Michael Share published on the subject which centers on the question, “What was Vietnam like that would cause people to compare it with the Cen- tral America controversy?” he said. “Parallels drawn to present foreign policy, the fact the war was the first we ever genuinely lost, and the movies about Vietnam have developed an inter- est,” Share said. “Many wanted to ig- nore it after we got out but now people are wanting to know about it.” Share hopes the course will be- come a permanent part of the KSC cur- riculum. The course has been labeled “special topics,” and the history depart- ment is looking to identify students' re- sponse to the course, he said. If the Vietnam course arouses a rea- sonable amount of interest, there’s a good chance it will become a part of the curriculum, Share said. Last year the history department of- fered a mini-course on Vietnam which was successful. Out of that course evolved the ideas for the present Viet- nam course. For three years Share taught a simi- lar course at the University of Wisconsin and Ohio’s Dennison University. Stu- dents at these colleges felt this popular course was the best one they had ever taken in college. He would like to offer the course as a night class. ‘ The next time we offer the course, I may ask for it to be a night class so veterans of Vietnam can be included too,” Share said. “It’s good having vets in the class because they add their own personal experience to it.” Share hopes students will become better informed citizens as a result of the course. “My hope is that they will inquire to what specifically is going on and its implications,” he said. “The United States was drawn into the war step by step and no one knew what was happen- ing until it was too late. “One of the lessons is that we should be more aware of what our gov- ernment is doing. We should be aware of our foreign policy supporting unpopu-

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I Women rising in business world [ The statistics showing graduates who got jobs in Nebraska are mis- leading, according to Jackie Ro- senlof, KSC Career Planning and Place- ment director. “Nebraska is a state with its head in the sand. All of the companies here hire at less than the national average”. You have to keep in mind when you see the lower wages for women that women haven’t been in the business field for very long,” Rosenlof said. “Women haven't had the time to ad- vance in a corporation like men.” Rosenlof thinks that there isn't as much harassment on the job toward women as there has been. “Women who use the excuse of ‘I’ll never get ahead anyway, why try’ will never get those upper management jobs,” she said. “Let’s get on with the business of growing and getting ahead,” Rosenlof said. “Women shouldn’t be stagnant be- cause of the excuse that their efforts in the corporation wouldn’t be noticed be- cause of male discrimination.” Rosenlof was one of the speakers at the Women’s Issues Symposium. Her presentation was titled, “Professional Behavior of Women - It’s Effect on Their Careers.” To prepare for this presenta- tion, she interviewed 25 women and asked them if they felt harassed on their jobs. “I didn’t find all the discrimination and harassment we always hear about,” she said. “There were very few women who reported harassment.” Rosenlof also interviewed six men who work for women. The men reported that they were not uncomfortable work- ing for a woman. Rosenlof thinks this shows a “team spirit” among male and female co-workers. “This year’s graduates are going to be the real beginning of a side-by-side working relationship between men and women, she said. “The companies that are moving ahead are the companies who are realiz- ing the assets of hiring women,” Rosen- lof said. “Women are bringing a new concept to business, a personal con- cept, because women are by nature more compassionate and inventive.” Jackie Rosenlof, Director of Career Planning and Placement, believes the figures showing em- ployment in Nebraska are misleading. “I don’t want to be categorized as a feminist,” Rosenlof said. “I want to be looked at like I’m a woman who gets the job done.” | Women’s issues course draws interest. | Some people may feel uncomfort- able having an interest in women’s issues, according to Kate Benzel, co-coordinator of the Women’s Issues Symposium. “That’s because of the traditional conservative attitude many Nebraskans have,” Benzel said. “The people in the Nebraska are very family oriented. For a family farm to survive, there are specific roles each member must fulfill. “These roles are slowly changing and that’s hard for the people who de- pend on these family roles to accept,” Benzel said. Benzel said she hoped the sympo- sium would give people an outlet to voice their interest in women’s issues. “There hasn't been a chance for anyone to express themselves because there hasn’t been much on this issue in this geographical region.” Benzel taught a women’s issues course in a Horizons honorary class last year. “What I liked about teaching this class was that I was able to watch stu- dents develop and get a sense of their personality. Students learned to ex- press themselves regarding the feelings they’ve had about women's oppres- sion,” Benzel said. “I’m amazed at the interest women and men students have on this topic.” Benzel’s interest in women’s issues came from her interest in literature. “Virginia Wolfe, who wrote The Female Artist along with other books, helped me understand the dual role women play. In Wolfe's books, women were defiant to patriarch authority on the inside and submissive on the outside. Wolfe deals vith women in a credible way. She isn’t screaming women’s rights,” she said. “My real interest in women’s issues came when I was finished with my grad- uate work and was at Bowling Green University. It was clear to me that wom- en are not as visible in higher education as men. Women in higher education are not outspoken; they are not the policy makers,” Benzel said. Benzel said she feels the potential for women in higher education is great because women deal well with relation- ships and can compromise more easily. “Women are more sensitive to the effects of policy and can deal with other people effectively,” she said. Benzel and Betty Becker-Theye, dean of Fine Arts and Humanities, came up with the idea for a symposium on women’s issues because there aren’t many activities on this campus which deal with this topic. Benzel said, it is possible that inter- est in this symposium could enable KSC to create a minor in women’s studies. Benzel would like the people to learn, as a result of the symposium, that there are professional women working and to show that people do have an in- terest in women’s issues. 17

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lar movements or national liberation movements.” He said that over the past few years Americans have tried to justify the war. “As memories of Vietnam faded, people from the president on down said it was a just, good and necessary struggle and that if we gave the military a chance, we could have won the war. ‘‘There’s a revision of the Vietnam conflict going on and a glorification for what we were doing there. Things like ‘Rambo’ movies misrepresent and cre- ate a legend that is bogus in terms of what they are saying. ‘‘Sylvester Stallone goes over to Vietnam to win what we lost in the war. It didn’t happen like that but they’re say- ing, 'Come to the movies and see how it could have happened.' They’re totally missing the point of what happened and why. ‘‘It’s a dangerous thing when we create these myths. The danger is that we could get involved in something else, forgetting the lesson in Vietnam.” Share classified the Vietnam con- flict as a ‘‘rock 'n roll war.” “Vietnam definitely had an impact on the music of the 60s,” he said. “I think our music of today comes out of that. The words of some of the songs by Jimi Hendrix, Rol- ling Stones, Beatles and Bob Dylan are directly about Vietnam.” He said there are still songs being written about Vietnam. Some of those songs include Charlie Daniels’ “Still in Saigon and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA.” “In the 60s we had civil rights, Viet- nam and rock ‘n roll all coming togeth- er,” he said. “Now, groups are not afraid to engage themselves in political mat- ters by singing about them.” Share hopes his course and similar ones will cause public awareness of the United States’ foreign policy and pro- T he role of the anti- war movement has been misunder- stood. Some claim the anti-war movement had no impact one way or the other, white others felt it had a huge impact on getting us out of Vietnam. I think the truth is somewhere in between. ” — Share voke Americans to become more in- volved in their government. Hamilton: Yankees at War The year is 1969. Your mission is to fly an airplane over enemy territory, spot the enemy and draw their fire so ground forces can move in for attack. You’ve flown the mission many times and have been shot at on several occasions. You’ve seen enemy soldiers shooting at you as they run for cover. This time is different. In the midst of gunfire one of your plane’s engines is hit. It sputters and then dies, causing you to make an emer- gency landing in the jungle. Fortu- nately, you land in friendly territo- ry and there’s no danger of being captured. Throughout your 12-month stay in South Vietnam, some of your friends are killed in combat. You talk to others on a radio, hear gunfire in the background, and then, the voice on the other end is silent — he’s dead. If you can imagine yourself in these situations, you may know how Lt. Col. Gary Hamilton, commander of the ROTC program at KSC, felt during his service in Vietnam in 1969. Hamilton’s first impression of Viet- nam was that it was not a war zone be- cause everyone was flown into Saigon on commercial airlines. Saigon is the largest city in South Vietnam. “Many people were in uniforms and carrying some type of weapon, but busi- ness was as usual in the big cities, Hamilton said. “Much commerce, trans- portation and hustle and bustle — you didn’t get the feeling of being in a combat zone until you got out of the big city.” At the time, Hamilton was a captain assigned to the 185th Reconnaissance Airplane Company. Soldiers within the different compa- nies depended upon each other for sur- vival which resulted in close bonds be- tween them. Hamilton explained that even though soldiers were close in Viet- nam, the bonds broke after the soldiers’ tour — the time spent in military service in Vietnam. The tour lasted 12 months — if one survived 12 months. People came and went as their 12 months expired, he said. “Not everyone went over or came back at the same time,” he said. “One might be put into a military unit where he might be the newest person there, but the next week, three more people arrive. Twelve months later, that person is an old-timer with 50 new people in the unit.” Soldiers were more concerned with surviving their 12 months, going back home to be with their friends in the United States, and forgetting their expe- riences and the people they left behind in Vietnam. “The attitude was ‘It’s their turn to do their 12 months,’ he said. Hamilton admitted there were inci- dents of some American soldiers who killed women, children and civilians. “What occurred in Vietnam was no dif- ferent from any other war the United States, or any other nation has been in- volved in,” he said. “Did cavemen line up with their clubs and kill only healthy males? Did In- dians only kill pioneer men, and did pio- neer men only kill Indian men? No. It’s the same in every conflict in the history of mankind,” he said. Hamilton explained that when peo- ple are placed in a combat situation, they lose the sense of what is civilized and morally right. “War is a terrible thing and it does terrible things to people’s mentality, he said. “You are dealing with survival in- stincts. Whether a man has a club or a machine gun, when he is personally threatened and his life is at stake, he’s willing to do whatever is necessary.” Vietnam was no different from any conflict the United States has fought, in terms of the soldiers’ age, Hamilton said. The difference rests in the educa- tion of the soldiers. World War II had bet- ter educated soldiers. The draft was so inclusive so that college graduates as well as high school dropouts were con- scripted. Many of the Vietnam soldiers were 18-20-year olds with only a high school education, if that. Most were directly from larger U.S. cities and were placed into a rural, oriental environment which they couldn’t identify with, he said. £ Q tk Mar IS a terrible m m thing and it does W W terrible things to people's mentality. You are deal- ing with survival instincts. Wheth- er a man has a club or a machine gun, when he is personally threat- ened and his life is at stake, he’s willing to do whatever is neces- sary. ” — Hamilton American soldiers couldn’t speak Vietnamese and the Vietnamese sol- diers couldn’t speak affluent English, making communication difficult, he said. The terrain, animals, religious beliefs, culture and climate differed from the United States. Hamilton said soldiers adapted to the heat after being exposed to it for awhile. The climate varied. It was still a tropical climate, but during the rainy sea- son, it became cool and wet. He said his flights took place in the central highlands continued 19