NATION With Iraq, Vietnam vets, families relive years

The families know through their own experiences what war means.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The clean, sparsely furnished living room where Frances Sevick sits is as spare as her memories of the day her son John died.
"He was a lieutenant. Tet Offensive. Vietnam. February 1. 1968. That was it. When the Army guy parked outside, when he walked in, I knew what happened. He told me, 'John's dead.' That's something you never forget. Twenty-five. My son was 25."
Sevick, 84, dabs beneath her glasses with a tissue.
She pats her hair and looks out the window of her Kansas City, Kan., home, past the television where an anchorwoman delivers the latest news on Iraq.
"I know what they're feeling," Sevick says of families with sons and daughters in the military. "Every day they're over there, it's torture. And like Vietnam, there're some dying every day, isn't there?"
Three decades after the war ended, families of Vietnam veterans are reliving those years as they follow the bloody conflict in Iraq. These families, better than most people, know what war means.
Similarities, differences
While comparisons of the two wars are controversial politically, both conflicts share stark similarities: a tenacious foe, a hostile civilian population and an inability to quickly root out insurgents despite overwhelming military power.
But striking differences exist as well. Volunteers make up today's American army, not draftees. Combat in Iraq occurs in desert cities and towns, not the jungles of Southeast Asia.
Returning American soldiers haven't confronted the anti-war protests of the Vietnam era.
These differences matter little to the soldiers who have to kill and risk being killed.
"There's no glory in it," said Michael K. Edmonds, 50, a retired Marine staff sergeant who did tours of Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia in the 1970s.
His son, Marine Cpl. Matthew Edmonds, 21, was deployed to Iraq in March. In June, he was sent to Kuwait, and he should be back in the United States this fall.
"War is the most base thing a human being can engage in," Edmonds said. "The first casualty of war is innocence. My son is no longer innocent."
Family tradition
Generations of his family have served in the U.S. military, dating to the Revolutionary War, Edmonds said.
His son enlisted when he was 18.
"We've been soldiers for 200 years," Edmonds said, sitting next to his wife, Judy, in the kitchen of their Belton, Mo., home. "It was in his DNA to do this."
Despite the proud family tradition, Edmonds, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, had difficulty accepting Matthew's deployment to the "sand box," as he calls Iraq.
"I wasn't happy with it," Edmonds admitted. "I didn't sleep well. I dwell on it at work. I still have recurrent nightmares from my PTSD. Recently, Matthew's been in those dreams. He doesn't belong there."
Edmonds and his wife understand what his parents must have been feeling when he served in Vietnam.
"We've been overwhelmed by it," said Judy Edmonds, 51. "With Matt, we stopped watching the news. If it's real bad, we figure someone will tell us."