Sierra Vista Company

Relief from Vietnam Duty

(Not "Attention to Orders," but more appropriately, "Slouch to orders.") 

"I, (state your full name,) do hereby relieve you (state your full name,) of all duty-responsibilities related to Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and the years since your return from the war."

You are hereby relieved from feeling guilty for having done what America's legitimate government ordered you to do. Your nation hereby accepts ALL guilt for the war, for all destruction that resulted from an ill-advised international venture promulgated by arm-chair theorists who thought of themselves as "the eye in the sky" while we had our "A__ in the grass." America accepts the fact of, and the guilt for, your actions performed in accordance with the orders of those lawfully appointed over you.

You are relieved from responsibility to patrol the perimeter --- from responsibility to stand guard all night and from all responsibility to remain constantly vigilant. You are authorized to relax, to take a very long and well-deserved break.

You are relieved from any responsibility to bear America's guilt and disgust with itself for the whole damn mess, from Dien Bien Phu to the Boat People. You are no longer authorized to be a "Scapegoat." You are entitled to be a mainstream member of American society in general, and are hereby WELCOMED into America's various veterans groups, political and religious organizations. You are therefore to reject any blame for being a "militant," a "war-monger," "invader," or any such blaming and name-calling. 

The people of the United States hereby TAKE full responsibility for all actions committed by the young men and women who were sent, by lawful civilian authority, to fight a guerilla-war that America's political leaders believed (however erroneously) was in this nation's long-term interests, as part of the "Cold War."

Before the Nam, your nation needed you as cannon fodder. Today, your nation asks your forgiveness for the shabby way you were treated, by an ungrateful nation, consumed with its own guilt and grief over the whole Vietnam war. Today "your friends and neighbors" who drafted you for war, now SOLICIT you to return to your rightful places in society, to exercise all our God-given privileges as American citizens. 

These orders are signed and validated this day, in the city of Sierra Vista, Arizona, by (state your full name.)"

Welcome Home, Viet-Vet!

Let us pray…

(Speech delivered at The Moving Wall Memorial Closing Ceremonies
by U.S. ARMY Chaplain (Retired) Stan Copeland, June 26, 2002, in Sierra Vista, Arizona)