Last Memorial Day, I was at work at an ice cream store when a coworker told me that he didn’t approve of all of our military’s actions, but that he was grateful for their sacrifice nonetheless. I just nodded and went about restocking napkins and plastic bowls and spoons. Then my coworker touched a nerve. He tried to tell me that we should not have been involved in the Vietnam War.

My grandfather worked as a Navy mechanic during the Vietnam War. When people start dumping on Vietnam vets, I become extremely defensive. This was not different when it came to my coworker’s choice of conversation.

I stiffened when he said the Vietnam War was pointless. “My grandfather was a Vietnam vet,” I say as I hold back hot tears of anger.

“Tell him thank you for his service,” My coworker’s voice was sincere.

“He died ten years ago this June.” By now I’m more upset at having to talk about the death of my grandfather (which I avoid like the plague) than I am about this kid trying to talk 1960’s politics with me.

“I’m so sorry to hear that.” I walk past my coworker and continue organizing things and prepping waffle mix because we were almost out of waffle cones and bowls. “You do know what they did during the Vietnam War, right?”

I inwardly shake with anger. How dare this kid argue that my grandfather was a monster. I’m not so naïve to think that there weren’t bad people involved on the American side of the Vietnam War, but my grandfather and most of the veterans involved were not. They were standing for what they believed to be right.

My grandfather died when I was eight years old due to agent orange complications. Agent orange was present on my grandfather’s ship and it caused him to develop diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, and a myriad of other health complications. I never got to say goodbye to him because he died of a heart attack in his sleep. Holidays are still hard sometimes. What is even harder is when people so ignorantly claim that Vietnam Veterans were animals or monsters or beasts.

I’m not quite sure what point I’m trying to make here. I don’t if I am making one. I guess what I’m trying to convey is that if I could say something to that coworker now, or if I would have been brave enough to say it then it would be, “My grandfather, though he never saw combat, is a hero in my eyes. Even though he didn’t die in the line of duty, he still died having served his God and his country.”

I am and will always be proud of my Vietnam Veteran grandfather.