Mark Fleming and Maggie O'Conner Reardon
Recorded
September 17, 2021
Archived
September 17, 2021
40:52 minutes
0:00 / 0:00
Id:
ddv001162
Description
Mark Fleming (73) talks to his life partner, Maggie O’Conner Reardon [no age given], about his experiences as a Vietnam War veteran and the impact it has had on him.Subject Log / Time Code
(Track 1) Mark (MF) compares the Vietnam War to the war in Afghanistan, saying both were “wars of choice.”
MF remembers his home while growing up in Virginia.
MF explains how he avoided the draft as a college student and then ultimately joined the Vietnam War. He explains the risk he took and how it landed him in an infantry position.
Maggie (MR) and MF remember a classmate of MF’s who fled to Canada, and MF explains why choosing to join the military was easier than choosing to leave to Canada.
MF describes what it was like to grow up during Jim Crow segregation and reflects on the resistance of Black soldiers on the front lines in Vietnam.
MF explains why the US was in Vietnam and says the North and South Vietnam binary didn’t really exist. He considers what it means to have fought the war in people’s backyards and how this began to shape his anti-war views.
MF reflects on the lack of support he had when coming back from Vietnam. He considers how soldiers weren’t supported until they began having issues transitioning to civilian life.
MF considers himself lucky, saying “nothing happened in Vietnam,” but still feels the impact of the stress, anxiety, and panic during and after service.
MR asks MF about his experience hiking the Appalachian Trail. MF shares that hiking through the woods with a pack took him back to Vietnam and made him question “how is it I served in a war I didn’t believe in.”
(Track 2) MF recites a poem he wrote from his self-published book “Reluctant Soldier, Uneasy Veteran.”
Participants
- Mark Fleming
- Maggie O'Conner Reardon