Jennifer Fraser

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San Mateo Middle College High School

Jennifer Fraser, Stanford student

(A present teacher at San Mateo Middle Collage High School, in California, Jennie Fraser was a Stanford College student during the times of the Vietnam war. Jennie, a woman filled with life and contentment is now a person who contributes to our youth’s development. The smile, which lights up the classroom, is a smile of a woman who has learned important lessons from her college years.)

“During Vietnam, I was a college student, who didn’t really know much about what was happening in my surroundings… I am referring to the war. As teenagers we were naturally rebellious, so our disapproval of the government’s decisions was not unusual. Also, students were scared of being forced to go to a war that they did not even believe in. As the war intensified, the student protests increased. I personally participated in some protests, but I didn’t enjoy them. Since my information about the was was very one-sided, I had to decide right from wrong myself. As the protests continued I saw that they were very violent, which was hypocritical of the protestors. They were fighting for peace by throwing bricks, breaking windows and even attacking policemen.” (Jenny says this with a hint of regret on her face.)

“ This war also created some minor problems between me and my family. My father had been in the military, the Coast Guard, so he was very pro-war. He thought that we college students were ignorant, idealistic, naive, and that we hadn’t seen the world yet. This created problems between us. I remember coming home and at dinner my father and me would argue to the point that eventually we had to avoid the subject so it wouldn’t stir up issues. My mother always went along with what my father said, so I decided not to mention the war.” (Even though she manages to smile Jenny seems to be sadly affected by her last statement.)

“At Stanford mostly everyone was pro-peace, and those who weren’t kept quiet. My social group did not change; even though certain aspects of my life did. When I was a sophomore in Capuchino High School, I had a boyfriend who was a junior. He was very macho and not really an intellectual. It’s not that he was stupid or anything, but his goals were very different than mine. His macho attitude got him to join the military. He wrote me letters, but he never talked about the war and when he did mention something, it would be his anger toward the protestors. I felt bad, because I’d protested a couple of times. I remember sitting in my dorm and reading one of his letters, and the only thing that was mentioned about the war was that it “was hell.” I think that the reasons why he or anyone else in the war didn’t mention it was because they lived it every day, so they wanted to get away from it somehow. Also I was seeing other people, and I let him know. I wanted to be honest. I felt very guilty and I was worried that he would get shot and it would be all my fault. The guy that I started to date was the very opposite from my previous boyfriend. He was a free minded, longed hair hippie that played the guitar and was against the war. This is where things kind of changed; now I had two perspectives on the war. One was the one of a person who was very pro-war and the other was very pro-peace

“The Vietnam war is a little like the situation in Afghanistan today, because they both were never declared wars. What scares me is that it can all be repeated again. People are going in blindly into something that seems stupid. Today, acts such as putting up flags all over your car and house as a symbol of U.S. patriotism frightens me. It seems people are willing to rush into a war without thinking they will have to pay for it – emotionally as well as financially.”

The Vietnam War was the 1^st war that was covered so completely by television. When I went home and turned on the TV, I would see real people being shot on the news; I could not turn the channel. I wasn’t about to turn my back on someone that is dying and go watch a different channel as if nothing was going on. I never saw the war as a good thing, and even now I see that no good came out of it. When John F. Kennedy was President, people admired him, young people had faith in our government. Then he was assassinated, followed by Martin Luther King’s assassination, then the Vietnam War; people became cynical of the government, of the power of strong individuals to make a difference. People started thinking that politicians were crooks ; they were untrusting of the US actions. This is bad because people who might have been interested in having a career in politics gave up on their dreams.”

“One of the saddest things that I have seen as a result from this war was the Vietnam Memorial, just seeing the length of names of those who have died for a war that a lot of people didn’t even believe in. The saddest thing about this was seeing the families, lovers, friends at the Memorial crying for their loved ones. Recently the man who was the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam era wrote a book about the war being a mistake, which gave out the message that the soldiers died for no good cause and the ones that survived had wasted their time.”

“ Now I encounter people who are still affected by this war. I taught my ex-boyfriend’s best friend’s son, and it was very hard for me. It brought a sense of guilt and shame for me, because I had left him during the war…”

“Sadly enough these are not the only times that I am reminded of the war. Now that I watch war movies I think of everything that had happened and how a whole generation of men went to war to die and eventually lose, for no reason at all. I hate to see war movies that glorify war.”