CSU professor: 'I think they need to know what happened'

FORT COLLINS - The syllabus for Norm Dalsted's econ class has students learning everything from supply and demand to marginal analysis.

Each year around this time, Dalsted, a Colorado State University professor, closes the economics book and opens a chapter in history - his own history.

"I was a platoon leader in Vietnam having served with the 1st Brigade, 5th Mechanized Infantry Division," Dalsted began.

Friday, he was speaking at the front of a lecture hall.

None of the students sitting before him were even alive when Dalsted stepped off the plane and into battle.

"I can smell it, I can see it and I can feel it," Dalsted said. "I have a lot of friends that didn't get to live what I've lived and that's hard."

He started giving this lecture, which is accompanied by a slideshow, to his classes in the late 80s, partly to help him cope with long-suppressed emotions.

"This was a healing exercise for me," he said.

In time, it became something more.

"I think they need to know what happened in the 60s," he said. "I want people to know (my friends) gave their lives for this country."

Lecture after lecture, Dalsted realized he was providing a living history along with an opportunity to talk about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"It's important for you to be healthy emotionally and mentally," he told his students, before encouraging them to seek help if they are dealing with excessive stress.

Dalsted now has no trouble releasing emotion. He often cries while speaking of Vietnam and often moves his students to tears as well.

He gives this presentation to his class towards the end of the fall semester in the lead up to Veterans Day. The students in his spring semester classes get the same lesson around Easter.

Dalsted always asks students whether he should continue taking this break from the syllabus and promised himself that if one student ever answered "no," he would stop, forever.

"I've probably given this presentation to probably thousands of students," he said. "I have yet to get one "no," so obviously it has some value ... I hope."