11 March 1971

 

After 55 years my memories of Vietnam are getting fuzzier.  Even early on, I began wondering about what I recall from that experience.  The question--"Did that really happen?"--looms larger with each passing year.

This day, however, remains very clear:

 

COMRADE

I never really knew him but he has been my companion for many years.

Some say he was an asshole jerk. I can't say for sure.

All I know is that the brief time we were together left a lasting impression.

You see, I watched him die.

His death was not dramatic or heroic. Just dumb.

An accident in a war filled with many accidents.

The difference was that I saw it happen.

I watched him die.

He fell out of a helicopter that was his ticket to safety.

A medical evacuation for a minor cut,

Hardly even a wound,

A convenient excuse to get out of the jungle.

But nobody expected him to die.

We watched him rising toward the chopper

Cursing his good fortune, each of us

Wishing that we were ascending in his place.

The chopper's big rotors slapped the air

As it hovered above the mountainside.

Its turbines screaming,

Waiting to carry him back to the rear.

I saw the medic leaning out of the door.

I saw the medic reach out to pull him in.

I saw him put his feet on the skids.

And I saw him fall away from the chopper.

He fell abruptly, violently.

No slo mo effect. No eternity to reach the ground.

Just a rapid free fall and a bone crunching THUD.

Mere seconds ended his life at 19.

His buddies wrapped him in a poncho

And hooked him to the cable again.

This time he made it,

Boots pointing upward as they disappeared into the open door.

But this time was too late.

The chopper carried away a corpse,

Leaving us to our thoughts, black and evil.

No one wanted to trade places with him now.

 

All these years I've remembered his fall

And seen his body break upon

That nameless mountain.

All these years his death has been my companion.

I did not know him well

But he remains with me still.

Even now all I really know is that I saw him die.

That seems to be more than enough

 

[The image above is not the actual event.  A few weeks later, a medevac chopper came out and hoisted up a couple of our lieutenants to show that aerial evacuation is safe.]

An Inconvenient Memory

Yesterday in traffic I noticed something odd hanging from the back bumper of a car in the adjacent turn lane as I approached an intersection. It was a grayish-green rectangular box with a convex curve and looked very much like a Claymore mine. When that lane got the green light I paid attention to the car as it passed and, sure enough, it was a Claymore mine. I could clearly read the "Front Toward Enemy" markings on the outer surface. I'm guessing that it was actually only the plastic exterior casing of the mine and did not include the 700 1/8 inch steel balls or the pound and a half of C-4 plastic explosive that makes a Claymore such a deadly anti-personnel weapon. On the other hand, in an America awash in deadly weapons, I wouldn't bet on it.

Most drivers probably would not recognize that item hanging from the back of a car as a weapon, although the fact that the wording says it is pointed at the  "enemy"--in this case the viewer--might suggest something not quite right.  I, on the other hand, am familiar with Claymore mines.  I carried one for months in Vietnam, setting it up outside my position when my company established its night defensive perimeter at the end of each day.  Most everyone else did so too.  At dusk we'd put out a trip flare and wire a little farther out beyond the Claymore.  The idea was that anyone attempting to infiltrate our perimeter would set off the trip flare and the guy on radio watch could detonate the mine and blow the fucker away.  

That only happened once and was probably an animal that was immediately scared off by the flare and long gone by the time the guy fired the Claymore.  We found no sign of any body or any thing.  The few other times I recall Claymores detonating were accidents that left us with casualties.  So, yeah, I have Claymore memories.  They came rushing back when I saw that plastic case on the bumper. 

People accessorize their vehicles to express something or other.  I wonder what hanging an anti-personnel mine (even if it is entirely inoperable) on one's back bumper is saying.  Seems a bit hostile to me.  Others may not get the message.  I got it loud and clear.

Some Years Ending in the Number Two

This year being 2022 memories from previous years ending in the number two are on my mind. 1972 is the earliest. In January of that year I was fresh off the plane home from Vietnam, happy to be alive and looking forward to beginning life after the Army and war. I had plans but it took some effort to get back into civilian life. I soon discovered that much of the war came home with me. Not in the sense of flashbacks and nightmares but rather just sheer dumbfoundedness at the whole experience. But those thoughts, while ubiquitous, were compartmentalized—always there but not particularly controlling over my life. As it turned out, I was accepted into the public administration master’s degree program at the University of Virginia and even landed an research assistant position at the university’s Institute of Government. By May I was back in Charlottesville where I had spent four years as an undergraduate before the Army and Vietnam

The surroundings were familiar but I felt detached from them, especially since everyone I knew from my undergraduate days was long gone. Meeting new people during the slow days of summer was difficult. I spent a fair amount of time on my own hiking and camping in Virginia’s mountains where it dawned on me that I was unlikely to ever walk in the woods without thinking about walking in the jungle. It also dawned on me that I was unlikely to be actually be at risk in those mountains except due to inexperience or carelessness. I did find a couple friends from my undergraduate days still in town, Peyton Coyner and Gordon Kerby. I hung out with Peyton a lot that summer and to a lesser extent with Gordon. Both kindly listened to my Vietnam stories and we have been close friends ever since. Once school began in September my world opened up considerably and I began to feel more like a normal person rather than a war veteran.

Ten years later, also in January, I wrestled with the decision to move to Arizona. By that time I had long ago finished my master’s degree and worked over seven years as an analyst for the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission in Richmond. It was interesting work in a good environment. By late 1981, though, future opportunities within JLARC were limited—the senior management positions were not likely to turn over any time soon. I was restless and looking about for other opportunities in Richmond when a colleague returned from a conference and told me that the Arizona Auditor General was looking for a performance audit manager. I was definitely interested although it would mean a big change. That opportunity fell through when the position was filled before I could arrange an interview but the director suggested I might consider a Senior Auditor position at a decently higher salary. I was less interested in simply doing the same work in a different place but decided to interview anyway even though I would have to pay my own travel costs. I figured that, if nothing else, I would get a chance to see another part of the country. I flew out to Phoenix for an interview and they were sufficiently impressed to offer me the position at an attractive salary. That meant I had to make a decision.

At first, I was not inclined to take the offer. Phoenix did not impress me—it looked like an endless procession of strip malls and housing developments stretching into the desert infinity. Even worse, moving to Arizona would mean leaving everything and everyone I knew. But I was restless in my job and my life. I was recently divorced and I had no family remaining in Virginia; my mother died a few years earlier. Several things finally convinced me to make the move. A brief excursion into the Verde Valley, Oak Creek Canyon and Flagstaff during my interview visit gave me a glimpse of Arizona’s grandeur beyond Phoenix. So did looking an Arizona map and seeing vast swaths of national forest and the Grand Canyon. I figured I could do some bodacious hiking there. Ten years earlier I had considered moving to Washington State after being impressed with what I saw there during Army training at Fort Lewis. I chose not to make that move and wondered ever since where that would have led. In 1982 I was more open to taking a chance so I accepted the position and made the move. It was emotionally difficult. It was also one of the best decisions of my life.

Fast forward to early 2002 and I was preparing to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail—2,000 miles north from Georgia to Maine. In January I had relocated back to Phoenix after working as a audit manager for the Navajo Nation Auditor General for almost five years. Life was much more complex than 20 years earlier and figuring out how to just step away from it all for eight months was daunting, especially the part about making a living without a job. As it turned out, I didn’t actually figure it out so much as I just made it work—with much help from my partner, Maggie, many friends along the way and even some complete strangers. Many loose ends remained when I departed Phoenix in late March for the trailhead in Georgia. I never entirely escaped them on the trail but I did make it all the way to Maine. Along the way I had my share of trials but I also met many amazing people and experienced many moments of joy and wonder.

As with every hike since Vietnam, my thru-hike brought back memories of walking in the jungle carrying a weapon. Unlike those previous hikes, the lengthy duration and many hours walking alone on the trail gave me an opportunity (or forced me)  to sort through those memories and come to terms with that experience in a way that had eluded me for three decades. Intrusive war memories not withstanding, my thru-hike remains one of my most memorable life experiences.

Not all of my major life decisions occurred in years ending in the number 2 but these three sure did.

An Encore Read

With the library shut down due to the pandemic I am forced to rely on my own personal book collection for reading material which means I am re-reading books that I thought were worth saving during recent years’ culling. My first selection was Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation by Myra McPherson. The book grew out of a series of Washington Post articles McPherson wrote about Vietnam veterans in the late 70 and early 80s. It examines the war’s impact on not only the soldiers who served but also the impact on all who were forced to make difficult decisions about an unpopular war. Soldiers, draft-dodgers, exiles, women and minorities all tell their stories and illustrate just how all-encompassing the Vietnam war was for the generation that came of age during the war years. A best-seller when published in 1984, Long Time Passing was the first major work to recognize and explore the impact of post traumatic stress on returning veterans and their re-entry into civilian life.

I read the book when it came out and thought it spoke accurately of my own experience and understanding of the war. It’s remained a fixture in my bookcase along with other Vietnam literature. Reading it a second time after 36 years I’m struck by how little detail I remember. The only image that has remained clear in my mind is the draft resister who chopped off a finger to avoid military service. The rest is almost as if I was reading for the first time. My perspective has changed with the added years but my original judgment stands. Long Time Passing remains an important record of America’s difficulty in reconciling itself to its war in Vietnam.

Long Time Passing is encyclopedic in its scope with extensive interviews to provide detail. The interviews, along with McPherson’s research and commentary highlight the differences and conflicts within the Vietnam generation—the changing context of patriotism, how the war pervaded all aspects of life for the (mostly) men and (many) women of that generation—and the varied backgrounds and experiences that led individuals to make choices about military service, resistance and flat out avoidance. Early on, McPherson admits that she came to the task largely ignorant of the war and its impact. She described herself as too old to be among the generation at risk, too young to have military age children and consequently, not directly affected by the war. As the war and its controversies spilled into Americans’ consciousness, McPherson realized that she had no personal contact with anyone affected by the war.  Long Time Passing shows that she made those contacts and developed an intimate understanding of the war’s the enormous impact on the men and women who came of age in the mid-1960s and early 70s.

McPherson is a good listener and conduit for the multitude of stories she presents, stories that come from all sides of the war’s many controversies and illustrate the widely varied experiences of the many who were affected by the war. Her subjects are not archetypes meant to represent an entire group but rather they illustrate the thoughts and feelings of the people as they weighed options and made choices. She doesn’t rely on single sources but usually offers multiple examples and background research to present a broad overview. McPherson presents all of the perspectives without judgment. That’s not to say she is uncritical—she often follows up with questions and examines how the individual experiences compare and contrast with others. She never simply dismisses the stories out of hand but draws her own conclusions.

Not surprisingly, much of the focus is on the draft, military service and resistance which served as a crucible of fire for military age males, their parents, wives and girlfriends. One section includes chapters on the draft and the many ways men found to avoid service. Another section focuses on the soldiers who served, including discussion of post-traumatic effects. Other sections examine military resistance and the role of women in the war and resistance. Throughout, McPherson seems favorably inclined toward veterans but not slavishly so and not at the expense of non-veterans.

My initial reaction to Long Time Passing after 36 years was that it seemed like a period piece with its intense focus on the controversies surrounding the war and its veterans. These days it all sounds like ancient history even though the war’s consequences continue to reverberate into our present. At the time, however, the Vietnam war and its myriad wounds were still quite raw and McPherson was among the first to explore the issues in such detail and scope. Veterans in particular felt wronged by the entire experience, whether it was disgust at America’s failure to fully prosecute the war, serving in a war they opposed or the wholesale characterization of veterans as dangerously on edge. McPherson doesn’t challenge or question that veterans were often ill-treated after returning from Vietnam but she correctly identifies the alienation that many felt.

Perhaps the the most important service of Long Time Passing is the clear demonstration that much variation exists within the Vietnam generation, simple stereotypes mask the nearly infinite versions of peoples’ experience with the Vietnam war and the draft. McPherson comprehensively shows that “hero versus coward” and “baby killer versus principled objector” tropes often used to reduce the complexity of individuals weighing values and beliefs as they faced life-threatening choices are essentially meaningless. In 1984 McPherson’s words were revolutionary; in the years since they have become, if not common knowledge, at least recognized by historians and analysts.

Long Time Passing is 620 pages which makes for a long read. Like any work that attempts to deal broadly with America’s war in Vietnam, it goes in many directions and sometimes feels as endless as the war itself. On the other hand, the interviews are compelling and honest, even when McPherson suspects they might be a bit iffy. The interviews and background research illuminate the passions, conflicts and aftermath of a very ugly war.

The one aspect that stood out to me personally was veterans talking about indifference and sometimes hostility from (both anti- and pro-war) civilians and and institutions, especially veterans' organizations like Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion. Many veterans who attended college following military service said they felt alienated by the antiwar movement; even antiwar veterans expressed little affinity for their non-veteran fellow students who opposed the war. Veterans  who did not attend college also dismissed opposition to the war by civilians who lacked war experience. And virtually all of the veterans interviewed noted how different they felt from their civilian counterparts. I can relate to the alienation. I’ve felt different ever since returning from Vietnam. I never experienced any ill treatment or hostility, just indifference. While I was in service I was always uneasy wearing a uniform in civilian society, largely because I felt guilty about serving in the war. No one ever hassled me about it, though, and some people were actually kind.

When Long Time Passing was published In 1984 America was still trying to come to terms with defeat in Vietnam. Recriminations, blame and anger still dominated the discussion. Who did what? Who was a coward? Who, if anyone, was a hero? The war left America with doubts and uncertainty that ran counter to our national belief in our good intentions and reliance on common sense and practicality. All those wounds werestill quite raw and controversial then. McPherson was among the first to examine the many threads of that uncertainty; her signature contribution was to give voice to the motivations and beliefs of the many paths people chose in making decisions about the war. Long Time Passing did not put an end to the bickering and blaming about the war in Vietnam but it offered thoughtful and nuanced insight into the full range of dilemmas confronting the Vietnam generation and how their choices affected their lives and America's collective memory in the years following the war. 

Memories of a Long Ago Spring

The history of late April and early May are very much on my mind today.  Today, May 4 is the 50th anniversary of  the Kent State Massacre in which Ohio National Guard Troops killed four students and wounded nine others in an attempt to quell protests of the US invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.   I was a senior in college then, about to lose my student deferment and a draft number low enough to make my conscription, if not certain, very likely.  By the spring of 1970 I was firmly opposed to the war for both policy and self-preservation reasons.  Nixon was withdrawing US troops from Vietnam but American casualties were still running about 500 dead a month.  It was becoming clear that Nixon's plan for ending American combat was not at all immediate and it was looking more and more like I would end up in the military not too long after graduating.

None of this was new to me in early May 1970.  The draft was a constant during my college years.  By my senior what had been a distant possibility had become a real likelihood.  When demonstrations erupted on campuses around the country in response to the Cambodian invasion and expanded exponentially after the Kent State killings I participated in the nationwide student strike that closed most colleges.  I finished my college career without taking exams in most of my classes and took one early so I could head to Washington, DC to join the organizing and protests there.

And despite that activity I never found a good alternative to military service.  Nor did I have the courage to refuse to serve.  Within two months I was in the Army, having enlisted for two years.  Six months later I was an infantry grunt risking my life in a war that I didn't believe in.  The logic of those choices seemed plausible at the time although in retrospect I marvel at my naivete.  (I won't explain that logic here; if you really want to know, (shameless pluggery  ahead) you can read all about it here.)   As it turned out, I was very, very, very lucky.  Unlike the dead at Kent State and two weeks later at Jackson State, I survived.

So for me, after 50 years, May 1970 feels like the time when everything I knew about life seemed to fly apart.  Not only were fellow students under lethal attack but I was being sucked into a pointless war.  By the end of the year I was in Vietnam facing the very real possibility that I would not live to see 1971 much less survive a full year in-country.  The memories of those times always come back to me every spring and follow through the rest of the year.  But then again, I am alive to have memories.  So many others are not.

Memory is cumulative so other Vietnam-related events also fit into the late April-early May timeline.  Almost a year later in April 1971 when I was still humping the boonies in Vietnam with an M-16 in my hands and a PRC-77 radio on my back, Vietnam Veterans Against the War launched Operation Dewey Canyon III, the first ever protest of an American war by the veterans of that war.  Reading about their protest in Stars and Stripes (which seems to have reported the event objectively) I was electrified to see fellow soldiers speaking out so forcefully and dramatically against the war.  It certainly increased my determination to speak out as a veteran if I made it home alive.  Given my lack of any serious combat, reading about Dewey Canyon II may be one of my most exciting memories of my year in Vietnam.

I did make it home alive and whole.  Which means that four years later in the closing days of April 1975 I watched, along with the entire world, as National Liberation Front and North Vietnamese Army forces swept rapidly through my former area of operations on their way to capturing Saigon.  I saw the South Vietnamese Army fight desperately and tenaciously at Xuan Loc in a futile effort to stop the onslaught.  And I rejoiced to see the end of a war that should have ended 20 years before when those same forces defeated a US-backed French colonial regime that had ruled Vietnam for almost a century.  In 1975 the war was finally over.

The war may have ended but the memories remain.  They are part of a never-ending kaleidoscope that plays in my head.  Different dates trigger different memories and my reactions have varied over the years but I never forget those events.  But I am alive to have memories.. And I can do no greater justice to those memories than to remember the many Vietnamese and Americans who suffered far worse than I did.

 

The Days Just Seem to Run Together But That's Normal

I've seen a few articles and Facebook posts about how the Covid-19 shutdown has caused people to lose track of weekdays.  During normal times the closest most people come to slipping away from weekdays is during vacations (for those lucky enough to have that opportunity) but even then the vacation ends and weekdays become real again.  What makes the shutdown different is that it just goes on and on.  And seems like virtually everyone is in the same situation.

As a retiree, I'm largely immune to the idea of weekdays but even so I am aware of them as a time to do things when the rest of the world is busy.  But I am no stranger to living for months in situations where the concept of weekdays and weekends are entirely absent.  Serving in the Vietnam war and hiking the Appalachian Trail were both like that.  The latter was much more fun than former but I was keenly aware during my hike that I had experienced the same blending of days during my five months on combat patrol with the 1st Cavalry Division.

Once I became accustomed to the operational routine in Vietnam, days on patrol were pretty much the same.  Each day unfolded pretty much as the previous one.  The only real distinction among days was whether I was out humping the boonies (most of the time), on a firebase for a few days between missions (maybe a quarter of the time) or on in-country R&R with my unit (six days out of those five months)  Even with the difference in location he day of the week was irrelevant.  Whether it was Tuesday, Saturday or any other day made no difference.  What routine I followed depended on where I was and what I was doing, not the day of the week.  I'm not sure when it dawned on me that I couldn't remember what day it was but it was a shock to me,  It was a new experience for me, something that seemed to completely remove me from anything I had ever known.  Of course, that was pretty much my entire Vietnam experience but somehow not knowing the day of the week left me feeling completely untethered.

Even when I became company clerk in the safety of the Bien Hoa Army Base the days were routinely similar.  I did pretty much the same thing every day.  Sundays were somewhat more relaxed compared to combat  but I was still Vietnam so the only  difference between one day and the next was that each passing day was one day closer to home.  That was the only reason to pay attention to a calendar.

Losing track of days on the Appalachian Trail was not a shock nor did I feel untethered.  Numerous extended hikes allowed me to briefly slip into a world where days were just days on the trail in the forest but they always ended in a relatively short time.  A month-long hike on Vermont's Long Trail in 1991 gave me a greater sense  of the disconnect but even that hike always had an end date that I had to keep in mind.  My AT thru-hike also had an end date but it was a goal rather than a hard target so it felt open-ended form most of the six months I was on the trail.

It did not take long for days on the trail to become routine:  wake up, eat, break camp, walk, make camp, eat, sleep.  The details of each day varied but I was responsible for planning each day--on patrol in Vietnam I just followed the guy in front of me, no thought required--so I am far more cognizant of the how the activities differed from day to day.  In the end, though, those activities typically boiled down to determining mileage, finding water and camp sites, figuring how to make the next resupply stop and whether I would get a shower and maybe sleep under a roof in the process.  Knowing the day of the week was usually not a factor in any of those decisions and that information soon slipped out of my higher level consciousness.

So not being aware of the day of the week is hardly a new phenomenon  for me.  And, in truth, I still know that I started writing this on Sunday and I am, still at it on Wednesday.  Unlike Vietnam or the AT, plenty of things are readily available to keep me oriented to the calendar, if need be.  The fact that my routine is unstructured means I can often ignore the calendar or days on end.

It didn't take the pandemic shutdown for me to lose track of days.  Been there.  Done that.  Still doing it.

Old Lesson for Current Times

Nearly 50 years on I am finding new value in my Army experience.  Booby trap training has prepared me well for dealing with coronovirus.  Well, at least insofar as not touching potentially infected surfaces limits exposure.  Not touching things unnecessarily is a basic principle of not getting killed by a booby trap, a principle that has stayed with me ever since my military servitude.  I often refrain from touching or disturbing some object thinking "I don't need need to do that.  Let it be."   Never once did I believe that the object might be dangerous but why take any chance for no good reason?

That caution is a hard-earned lesson.  One evening in Vietnam I was stetting up my Claymore anti-personnel mine on my sector of the company's night defensive perimeter when I spotted an unexploded American grenade on the ground.  The pin was missing but the thrower had forgotten to flip the safety clip off the spoon so the grenade did not detonate.  For some reason I thought I could not just leave it sitting there.  I also remembered that it might be a booby trap.  I was on a slope where I could get below the grenade and figured I'd be below any shrapnel if it was a booby trap and prodded it with a stick.  It did not explode.  I thought I had very cleverly rectified a potential hazard but when I told my platoon sergeant what I had done, he informed me in no uncertain terms that I was stupid fuck who could have gotten himself killed.  I don't think he actually yelled at me since we were supposed to maintain noise discipline but it sure felt like it.

Now every surface is dangerous and I look for ways to avoid touching them wherever I can but I am always remembering that grenade.

Post-Vietnam Assault Weapons Blues

For the second time in three years heavily armed individuals are gathering in a Virginia place that has special meaning in my life.  This time the place is Capitol Square in Richmond where I worked eight years as an analyst for the General Assembly. On August 12, 2017 they gathered in Charlottesville where I spent six years in college and graduate school.  That gathering erupted in violence and death.  This year, authorities seem to have locked down the area far better than in Charlottesville so perhaps the day will end with no one injured or killed.

My unease with these gathering is not based on my differences with Second Amendment advocates about legislation regulating firearms.  Same-same with the opponents of removing Confederate monuments from places of public honor in Charlotttesville.  Protesting or against policies and making one's views known to policy-makers is as old as the idea of America itself.  I've exercised that right plenty of times in my life and won't deny the same to anyone else, regardless of my differences with them.

What disturbs me is the open display of weaponry, especially assault rifles with magazines in place (and maybe  a round in the firing chamber).  The weapons are legal but seeing groups armed to the teeth marching on city streets where I once lived represents an acceptance of violence that I would rather not have in my life.  Our wars are bleeding into what should be places of domestic tranquility.

The assault rifles and other military hardware disturb me because I know what they are for--to kill people, lots of people.  I carried an M-16 in Vietnam.  My job was to put out a high rate of fire.  If my and my buddies' bullets were insufficient, then we'd call in helicopter gunships to rake the area with rapid fire miniguns, grenade launchers and aerial rockets.  For many years after Vietnam I found solace in the absence of that weaponry.

Not so much any more.  Weapons are everywhere and mass shootings are a common occurrence.  When my office began having active shooter training I felt like I was back in the jungle on the alert for ambushes.  Actually, I had that feeling even before we had the training since I was already figuring out how my ambush training could be put to use if our office was ever attacked.

So seeing all of the weapons on display in Richmond today and Charlottesville in 2017 leaves me sad.  I have many fond memories from living in both places.  None of those memories included weapons and violence.  Those years sure helped me put Vietnam behind me.  But Vietnam is never too far behind.  On days like this and that August 2017 day in Charlottesville it catches up with me.

A Day That Will Live in Infamy

Today, 16 March 2018, is the 50th anniverasry of the My Lai Massacre, perhaps the most notorious of America's shameful acts in our war against Vietnam.  Not an anniverasry to be celebrated but one that should always be remembered.  The nation was shocked when freelance reporter Seymour Hersch broke the story 18 months later.  Our national consciousness did not admit that American soldiers could flat out just murder as many as 500 people.  I guess by now we've come to some gudging recognition of that disturbing fact. Still, we prefer to blame it on a few "bad apples" and ignore the environment in which atrocities occur.

The enviornment for My Lai was mass violence.  As documented by journalist Nick Turse in 2008 the US launched "Operation Speedy Express" in the Mekong Delta in December 1968.  By the time it ended in May 1969, the operation claimed "...an enemy body count of 10,899 at a cost of only 267 American lives.  Although guerrillas were known to be well armed, the division captured only 748 weapons." 

A "Concerned Sergeant" wrote multiple letters describing official command policies that had led to the killings of thousands of innocents, what the sergeant described as a "My Lai each month for over a year."  The investigations that followed documented the systematic murder of civilians but resulted in no prosecutions.  Three decades later, fllowing up the Concerned Sergeant's letters and declassified military records, Turse investigation painted a "...disturbing picture of civilian slaughter on a scale that indeed dwarfs My Lai, and of a cover-up at the Army’s highest levels."

Add to that the hail of bombs, bullets, artillery, and defoliants dropped on Vietnam in the by American forces during our war there.  Some of that ordnance continues to maim and kill to this day. 

It is right and proper to remember My Lai.  Equally important is to remember the totality of American violence unleashed on Vietnam and the many victims.

Secret Plans, a Con Artitist and a War Criminal

Never trust a a candidate with a secret plan. Donald Trump says he has a plan to destroy ISIS but won't tell anything about it lest he tip off the enemy. Last time a candidate claimed to have a secret plan to end the war it ended with Richard Nixon killing another 25,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians. If Americans had known that Nixon's secret plan was to escalate the violence even more I'm sure that would have changed enough votes to make Hubert Humphrey president.

As in the current election, America in 1968 was faced with two flawed candidates. Both were experienced in government but Richard Nixon had a reputation for dishonesty and cold war militarism while Hubert Humphrey had spent the previous four years defending Lyndon Johnson's escalation in Vietnam. The war pretty much destroyed Humphrey's reputation as a progressive liberal. Fortunately I was too young to vote that year. I was almost 21, in my third year of college and keenly aware of the war as a draft-age male. In the end, I thought Nixon's secret plan had more credibility than Humphrey's late embrace of some anti-war policies. Nothing else seemed to matter as much. In the end a very divided nation chose Nixon.

Okay, I thought. He says he has a plan. He's known to be intelligent and experienced in foreign affairs, I'll give him a chance (or the benefit of the doubt, as Hillary Clinton would say). I figured a couple of years to wind things down would be reasonable. Aside from ending the carnage in Southeast Asia, that timetablewould eliminate the chance that I might have to go to Vietnam. By the time my student deferments ran out, the war should be over.

Except that the war did not end. Two years after Richard Nixon's inauguration, I was humping the boonies on combat patrol in the mountains of Long Khanh Province in South Vietnam.

So, yeah, color me skeptical about secret plans.

A Soldier's Tale

Listening to Folk Alley this morning I heard Tim O'Brien's version of "Mick Ryan's Lament", an account of one of the American dead at Little Bighorn.  I had not heard the song before.  The tune is a familiar one--a traditional Irish drinking song -that was adopted as the marching song by various British and American military units, most notably George Custer's 7th Cavalry.  I also recognized the tune's name--"Garryowen".  Garryown was the official tune of the 1st Cavalry Division in which I served in Vietnam.  The division adopted the tune when it was created to consolidate Army cavalry units in 1921.  When the Division left Vietnam in March 1971 it left a separate brigade in Vietnam.  The brigade included one battalion of the 7th Cavalry regiment along with one battalion each from the 5th, 8th (mine) and 12 Cavalry regiments.  The brigade was called the Garryowen Task Force and I saw that name used in various descriptions.

At the time I did not know that "Garryowen" was an official division tune so I thought it unfair to just bundle the other cavalry regiments under the rubric of the 7th Cavalry which incorporated Garryowen into its insignia.  Of course, that was a minor irritation in a war zone and my concern was fleeting.  It did, however, imprint "Garryowen" on my brain so I was all ears when I heard the melody this morning.

"Mick Ryan's Lament" is especially moving for me because the lyrics reflect my own experience in Vietnam.  Like Mick Ryan I was fighting people who were fighting for their homeland.  Like him I "turned into something I hated."  Unlike Ryan I was not killed and carry that memory.  I did not need the song to recall the memory but when the song recalled it, the memory hit hard.

Timeless Words

I've posted this before but if the mainstream media can focus almost exclusively on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech, I will continue to remember that he also spoke against the the war in Vietnam.

The Other Side

Saigoneer has some excellent photos of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces from all years of the American War in Vietnam.  Two are particularly striking.  The first is of local militias firing at US warplanes.  They are firing what look like SKS rifles, a a 10 round, semi-automatic weapon, against a jet bomber.  I give them credit for determination.  That characteristic, determination, is woven throughout the photos, whether it's hauling supplies down the Ho Chi Minh trail, performing surgery in an underground bunker, sighting a mortar, or female guerrilla fighters at the ready with their weapons. 

The second striking image is of a US plane heading directly for a impact, trailing black smoke and its pilot parachuting into life as a prisoner of war.  Here, too is a reminder of that determination.  All along the images reveal low-tech, sometimes primitive technology.  Yet in the end a mighty force is brought down by the determination of its less powerful adversary.

It's a timeless story. 

postscript

I couldn't figure out a way to make a copy that would do the image justice.  You'll have to go there yourself or just take my word.

No Thank You for My Service

Our local military base held a Welcome Home ceremony for Vietnam veterans the other day.  I did not attend.  No doubt the ceremony was meaningful for those who went but for not for me.  When I came home from Vietnam I wanted done with the military.  I did not want a parade or a ceremony.  I still don't.

That's why I am uncomfortable being honored as a veteran.  I didn't do much of anything except survive and not commit war crimes or otherwise fuck up.   No great service to my country there (well, not committing war crimes seems like some level of service).  I did risk my life at my country's order but I did so unwillingly, grudgingly, and with great anger.  The experience certainly opened my eyes but in the end, it did my country no good.

When people say, "Thank you for your service" I want to say what service?  Participating in an illegal war?  Lacking the courage to resist?  Carrying arms in a foreign country against an adversary who was no threat to mine?  Not something I care to be reminded of by others.  I don't forget.

As I scroll through memories of Vietnam I end up with the realization that the only real service I have given to my country has been to speak out against war as a veteran.  So maybe the best response  is to accept thanks as long as the offeror knows that my service is continuing one in support of peace after serving for a lie. 

One of the disturbing aspects of the "thank you for your service" and "welcome home" for Vietnam vets is that these gestures somehow make the lies, deceptions, and mis-judgments of that (or our current) war go away.  That by recognizing and honoring veterans' service Vietnam becomes a noble cause instead of the clusterfuck that it was.  I don't begrudge my fellow veterans recognition for their courage and sacrifices in Vietnam nor would I deny them a welcome home but all the parades and thanks don't change the fundamental fact that the war was a colossal blunder. 

For that same reason I am skeptical of the official 50th anniversary commemoration of the Vietnam war. I suspect that it will be more in the nature of the noble cause commemoration and will ignore the lessons of the war.  Americans would do well to look beyond the official narrative to get the rest of the story.

Date & Time

About this time--2100 to 2200 hours UTC--on 15 December 1971 I stepped off a troop plane at Bien Hoa Airbase in Vietnam.  I never saw the 15th.  My flight crossed the dateline between the 14th and 16th without notice in the dark of a long, long night over the Pacific.  Local time when we landed was around 0600 hours, right before sunrise which for me was the dawn of nothing I looked forward to.

The day proved to be a long one.

More followed.

Enough to get home.

Stark

War up close and very personal in this collection of AP photos from the American War in Vietnam.

Found on Veterans Day

A friend's facebook greetings to his fellow veterans on November 11 brought up this video in the comments. 



It was posted by the composer who wrote and performed the sound track.  The veteran who offered the greetings was the soldier who took the photos.  He served in Bravo Company of my battalion when I was in Vietnam.  I did not know him at the time but we met in Phoenix and discovered our shared history a few years before I moved to Window Rock and began spending my time in Gallup, New Mexico where he has lived a very long time.  I showed my Vietnam art along with my friend's paintings and read my Vietnam poems at the premier.

Finding this evoked very mixed emotions.  I remembered how fucking brutal that jungle was and how brutal we were to it.  Seeing Firebases Silver, Mace and Fontaine again brought back memories of living in the dirt.  The more pleasant memories include the fact that I survived that shit somehow.  Even better was recalling my years in Window Rock and Gallup where I made some very good friends and found an amazing community of artists. 

Talking Scat

Recently, I had to collect a stool sample for laboratory tests.  Not a particularly fun experience but it does put one in contact with a routine fact of life:  we all defecate.  Rich, poor, famous, unknown--all bodies process food into feces.  For most of us in the first world, that means a trip to the bathroom and a flush.  The rest is handled by our sewer pipes and treatment plants.  Even an outhouse leaves us with minimal contact with our own wastes.

Occasionally, that routine elimination is a bit more elemental.  As a long-time hiker I've taken my share of dumps in the woods, digging cat holes and squatting before covering the hole.  But even those occasions are relatively infrequent and, at best, slightly inconvenient.

Where it was not infrequent and definitely inconvenient was on patrol in Vietnam.  We were out for weeks at a time which meant that most every day I and my fellow grunts would make that trip to just outside our perimeter to take a dump.  Of course, I carried my M-16 with me but somehow when I was squatting over that hole with my pants down to my ankles I felt particularly vulnerable.  If a VC or NVA had appeared in the jungle ahead of me, I'm pretty sure that I would have dumped my load pretty quick.  I am less than certain that I would have offered much more in the way of a response.  Fortunately, that test never came.

What did come was the indelible memory of my vulnerability and fear.  One of those lingering memories of a time so long ago that always seems to be part of my present.

A Vietnam Archive

Came across the story of Charlie Haughey, a Vietnam infantryman photographer who took many, many photographs of his unit in 1968-69 and is just now printing from scanned images of negatives never printed.  A show of Haughey's work opened in Portland this past Friday.

His photos show Vietnam as I remember it.  A bit different in some details from my own experience but close enough.  Even more than simply bringing back memories, Haughey's images highlight much of the war's little known detail.
 
This guy looks barely old enough to be a soldier, much less one humping that big, heavy machine gun and looking at the world with those steely eyes. But the jungle was indeed that green.

 This photo is my favorite, a nice composition of chaos and strength--the strength of the Chinook hoisting that Huey and the chaos of all that chaff flying in the Chinook's rotor wash.   Nice composition and black and white exposure. 

Haughey's website has lots more.  It's worth checking out.  The story of the collaboration that brought these prints to light is worth reading as well.

His Name Should Become a Synonym for Murderer.

A harsh judgment on a man who richly deserves it--Henry Kissinger--in Michael Yates' review of the Vietnam episode of Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States.  Beyond that nice turn of phrase, Yates is appalled that Barack Obama is commemorating what Oliver Stone shows to be a a true crime against the peoples of Southeast Asia.

It is appalling but, as Yates points out, Americans have no sense of the destruction we wreaked in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.  Our national myths will never allow us to honestly acknowledge our responsibility for that destruction.  Maybe the reason we must continue to commemorate the Vietnam War (the American War to the Vietnamese) is because it we can never escape the fact that it was a crime based on a lie compounded by ignorance, arrogance and greed.  So we keep piling on the patriotic bullshit to keep that truth away.

And because we refuse to learn that lesson we continue to wage war.   And need ever more of that bullshit to cover our doubts.

I'll pass on the commemoration.  I saw that shit in Vietnam and learned that lesson.  I haven't forgotten.