Doing What’s Right When It’s Hard: A Lesson from a Vietnam Veteran

by Mikaela VanMoorleghem, MPA

When my Uncle Jim VanMoorleghem was drafted in 1967, he was just 19 years old. The letter began the same way thousands of others did during the Vietnam era:

“Greetings: You are hereby ordered for induction into the Armed Forces of the United States…”

If you didn’t have a deferment, you knew your turn was coming.

My Uncle Jim went through training at Fort Hood, Texas, before being sent overseas. He served for a year and a half, 9 months in Vietnam. He stayed connected with family the best he could, writing to his mom, my Grandma Charlotte, and his Uncle Ed, asking them to send him plant seeds. He gave them to villagers, showing them how to grow food. Even in the midst of war, he looked for small ways to do good.

He also asked his dad, my grandfather, to send him a fishing pole, that he said really helped him survive the experience of Vietnam. The war forced him to confront choices he could never have imagined. Some of his fellow soldiers came back to camp with an enemy soldier they had killed, using this human being almost like a trophy. It struck my Uncle Jim as profoundly wrong. That person, like him, was trying to survive, with family and friends who loved him. From that day forward, My Uncle Jim refused to shoot at anyone unless absolutely necessary for self-defense.

Conditions could be rough, rotting boots in the wet mud, the constant threat of booby traps, and the need for basic tools that worked. My dad and Jim’s brother, Don, and his friend Dave Shanahan sent him a good knife, something he could actually depend on to cut through the jungle brush. When his helicopter was shot down during an evacuation, the pilot somehow managed to land it safely, though the engine was shredded with bullet holes. Soldiers sat on their helmets because the thin floor of the helicopter couldn’t stop incoming fire.

Those who served in Vietnam faced unimaginable circumstances, many in a war they didn’t believe in or understand. They were young, just barely adults, and were forced to make impossible choices. Not about politics or policy, but about survival, loyalty, and conscience. They had to decide what kind of person they would be when the world around them was falling apart.

Many Vietnam veterans have said that their greatest disillusionment came not only from the battlefield, but from realizing how deeply divided their own country had become. 1968 was a year of heartbreak, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, protests in the streets, and a growing sense that America was losing its way. While they were half a world away, they worried about home just as much as they worried about surviving another day in Vietnam.

That generation saw what happens when people stop listening to one another, when fear and anger replace understanding, and when the easy answer becomes to fight rather than talk. They watched an unrestrained government make decisions that cost countless lives. And they’ve seen echoes of that same division and distrust resurface in our nation today.

As we honor our veterans this Veterans Day, I keep coming back to this truth: we all have a choice to make between what’s right and what’s wrong.

For those who served, that choice was often immediate and life-altering; protect your fellow soldiers, get through another day, and try to hold on to your humanity in the midst of chaos. For us today, the choice may look different, but it’s still urgent. We can choose to deepen the divides between us, or we can choose to seek understanding. We can choose apathy, or we can choose courage, the kind that stands up for truth, compassion, and justice.

Many who served in Vietnam didn’t do so out of belief in the mission; they did it out of belief in one another. They showed us that doing what’s right isn’t always about the cause you’re handed, it’s about the integrity you carry into it.

This Veterans Day, may we honor that kind of courage. The quiet kind. The questioning kind. The kind that holds on to humanity even when the world seems to lose its way.

And may we, too, find the strength to do what’s right, especially when it’s not easy, especially when it costs us something, so that the freedom our veterans longed to see back home is truly lived out here among us. If you feel compelled to do so, please share a photo, story, etc. of a veteran/s in your life.