Portland resident Mike Hastie served as an Army medic during the war. What he saw in Vietnam sickened him.

“It wakes you up when you take a teenager off a helicopter who’s got his head missing or took a bullet in the head,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.

“What we saw in Vietnam was the utter complete (expletive) lie of Vietnam,” he went on. “Ken Burns talks about there were many truths. No! There was only one truth: The truth is the war was a lie — total and complete fabricated bullshit.”

When he got back from Vietnam, Hastie said, he tried to explain to supporters of the war that it was a terrible mistake, but found no one would listen to him.

“Whenever you give information that threatens someone’ core belief system, there is an urgent need to deny,” Hastie said.

“Not only am I betrayed by Vietnam, but I’m betrayed by the American people when I come back and try to bear witness.”

Joseph White of Corvallis, who led an Air Force communications squadron in the Philippines during Vietnam, said the war dragged on as long as it did because politicians hid the truth about the conflict from the American people — and the American people let them get away with it.