Associated Press Reporting Handbook

Chapter 23 Using the Internet

Still Stuck in Vietnam, 25 Years Later

By JERRY SCHWARTZAP National Writer

• This story is about retired professor Robert Blackburn in Missoula, Mont.

• What was the malady Blackburn said caused him to suffer?

• “Emotional Numbness”

• What was the paradox

• He could remember, but he couldn’t remember.

• “I do not remember the name of any person I ever served with in Vietnam.”

• He served two tours.

• What was the anniversary that sparked Schwartz’s story.

• 25 years since Saigon fell.

• Was the specter of Vietnam buried “forever?”

• It returns in shattered lives and our scars keep us second guessing our responses to provocations overseas.

• Jimmy Carter’s pardon of draft evaders was a slap in the face to some veterans.

• Jane Fonda’s actions not appreciated, either.

• The Vietnam War will be a major force in in our lives until the entire baby boom generation dies out -- and even after, according to John Hellman, author of “American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam.”

• It’s like the Civil War.

• Lou Szari’s experience was different from that of Blackburn.

• Kent State student teacher.

• Four students shot.

• Liz Troshane saw it happen.

• “Something died in me.”

• Jay Hatcher found he was surrounded by a mob.

• He never supported the war.

• He became a hippie.

• Quit school, dodged the draft, but still wound up going into the Coast Guard.

• Hatcher remembers

• Troshane remembers

• Liz Troshane saw it happen.

• “Something died in me.”

• Jay Hatcher found he was surrounded by a mob.

• He never supported the war.

• He became a hippie.

• Quit school, dodged the draft, but still wound up going into the Coast Guard.

• Hatcher remembers

• Troshane and Szari remember

• “It’s the American hero we’re rescuing, the American hero who has been unaccountably trapped and cannot get out,” Hellman says.

• Much like America itself. (American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam.)

• Mark Basinger lost his father in Vietnam. Basinger was only 17 months old. Capt. Basinger was 24 years old.

• There were 58,178 American deaths in Vietnam.

• 2,043 still missing when this was written.

• 3,403,100 served in Southeast Asia.

• Vietnam was weeks of tedium -- monsoon rains, smells, heat, long hikes through tall elephant grass with 75 pounds on your back, leeches everywhere …

• “There are some things I have to keep to myself,” Blackburn says.

• He wants to explain every casualty.

• He has no illusions that his work will help him put Vietnam behind him. He will work to help those who can.

• Jerry Schwartz was the editor of Penn State’s student newspaper when the Vietnam War ended.

• This story was an anniversary piece.

• He had lived the history.

• “I didn’t want this story to be a parade.”

• “I chose to rely on a reporter’s tool that did not exist when the last American choppers departed Saigon: The World Wide Web.”

• This story was researched almost entirely on the Internet.

• Blackburn’s Web site.

• Searched for “Vietnam widow”

• Discussion groups

• Tripped over a site devoted to Kent State shootings.

• Hatcher’s oral history was posted.

• Names on the Kent State library site.

• Tracked Hellman and bought his book online.

• Statistics on Vietnam were online.

• Richard Basinger’s name is on the Vietnam Memorial on the Virtal Wall on the Web.

• Only Allen Comba, the New Jersey veteran and lawyer had no Web connection.

• He was the lawyer who handled the closing on Schwartz’s house.