“A Rift in American society has come to an end.”

This is the view taken by one veteran, commenting on the end of two decades of military involvement in Vietnam.

RANDALL KROENING, an attorney now associated with the law firm of Kunz and Mueller, was in Vietnam for a year, from December 1968 until December 1969,serving with the U. S. Army in military intelligence.

Kroening was in Quang Ngai, the area where the My Lai massacre took place.

“When I was over there I felt that it was more a civil war between the north and the south,” he said, “rather than a fight against the Communists.”

KROENING LOOKS on the Vietnam involvement as a definite mistake in our foreign policy. “It was a mistake not only in policy, but also militarily,” he added.

While he was in Vietnam, he learned in a letter from his mother of the death of a good friend, Dan Lloyd, who was killed in 1969 after being in Vietnam only nine days.

“I look at this as a very divisive period in our nation’s history – a time for the country to look around and reassess our role in world affairs,” Kroening said.

“Although I feel a sense of the futility of it all, at the same time I feel a sense of relief that it is all over.”

AL BOETTGER, who was in an area 45miles northwest of Saigon for the period from October 1967 through October 1968, said the news Tuesday night did not surprise him.

“It was just a matter of time after the American troops left,” Boettger said.”What is unbelievable is the billions of dollars of equipment the Americans had over there fighting against people who had nothing.”

“I don’t feel bitter,” he added, “but sad about the waste of time and money. After the beating we were taking in ’65, ’66 and ’67, we should have pulled out.”

STEVEN WORASCHKA, 24, 1410 N. Minnesota, said of the South Vietnamese surrender:”I hate like heck to see all that money go down the drain. I’d like to see us get something out of it.”

He said even when he was serving at Cam Rhan Bay in late 1971 a whole fleet of trucks was left instead of being shipped home when the base was closed.

“One thing I can’t understand,”Woratschka said, “is why the Vietnamese people gave up so easy. It must be they can’t do anything by themselves.”

Woratschka was an aircraft mechanic, serving one year in Vietnam. He said he never touched an M16 rifle. He was part of a ground crew but also did a lot of flying.

Woratschka now works at the rye mill.

DUANE LAMBRECHT, manager of D G Shelter Products, recalls that a New Ulm man, Steve Seemann, was killed the day after he arrived in Vietnam.

“At the time I was there I thought there might be some hope or possibility that we would do some good, but there always was the factor that when the Americans left, it would be over,” Lambrecht said.

He said there was “too much corruption in the government” to begin with.

New Ulm Daily Journal

April 30, 1975