

Vietnam: A Soldier's Journal

Jack Durish

Copyright 2012 by Jack Durish

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval program, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise except as may be expressly permitted by the actual copyright statutes or in writing by the publisher.

**ISBN:** 9781301381890

Visit Jack on his website at http://www.jackdurish.com
PREFACE

Survivor's Guilt

I SAT ON THE STEPS of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., looking in the direction of the Vietnam War Memorial. I wanted to go, but I couldn't. I feel that I'm not worthy.

I trained to be an infantry officer. I received six months of infantry officer training in addition to Basic Combat Training and Advanced Infantry Training, eight weeks each. However, towards the end of it all I was asked to volunteer for the Adjutant General's Corps, to be a commissioned officer in charge of a clerical staff, and, I still don't know why, but I did. It's obvious why they asked. I was several years older than my classmates and had a post graduate degree. There was at least one other officer candidate who encouraged me to take the branch transfer because he didn't think I could kill. Sadly, I knew I could.

That decision has haunted me ever since. Many of the young men I trained with died. I didn't. No one succeeds and graduates from Infantry Officer Candidate School without bonding with the other candidates in their class. We supported one another. We bore the same tests and harassment. We struggled, sweat, and hurt side-by-side. Less than half of us who started completed the course, and those who graduated and were commissioned shared a peculiar bond meant to bear us throughout the crucible of war. We would never fail or abandon a comrade. But, I feel that I did. As they marched to the front, I marched to a division headquarters. They wore the crossed rifles, the insignia of infantryman, and I wore the "Shield of Shame," the insignia of the Adjutant General's Corps. They had one MOS; 1542, Infantry Platoon Leader. I had two, 1542 and 2200, Administrative Officer.

I could have avoided all that strain and pain, and taken a direct commission. I was offered one, to be a commissioned officer in the Judge Advocate General's Corps, the Army lawyers. I voluntarily enlisted in the Army after graduating from Law School in 1965. I would have been a captain had I served as an attorney, but would have been obligated to serve on active duty for four years. I graduated from OCS as a lieutenant with just a two-year obligation. The funny thing is that I ended up serving for more than five years and even tried to become a "lifer" (one who serves until retirement after 20 or more years).

The error of my decision began to press on me just a few weeks into my tour of duty in Vietnam. I had arrived in-country shortly after being commissioned. My classmates arrived several months later inasmuch as they had been given short term assignments stateside before being deployed. I suppose this policy was created in recognition of the fact that infantry lieutenants had a life expectancy in combat just short of the common housefly. They were very expendable. I met one at the Post Exchange (PX) at our division headquarters shortly after he arrived in-country. He was on his way to take command of a combat platoon. I can't remember his name, but I remember meeting his young wife at our graduation ceremony. That memory would later haunt me as I wrote her of her husband's death in combat. I was in charge of casualty reporting at that time.

My guilt drove me to embark on many adventures that were outside the scope of my duties in the rear with the gear. I suppose that I exposed myself to some unnecessary risks in a vain attempt to expunge the regret. Here I am, more than 40 years later, still trying to reconcile myself to that decision.

However, my age and education, as well as my vantage point serving at an infantry division headquarters, provided me with insight into aspects of the war that were not available to those fighting for their lives. Their vision was often limited to the view through their gun sights, and their attention was riveted solely on survival. I, on the other hand, could indulge my curiosity.

I was also given many opportunities to travel around our division's tactical area of operations, to investigate and report on acts of heroism. My law degree attracted the attention of the division's Judge Advocate General, and I was assigned to serve as defense counsel at courts martial. The Provost Marshall, commander of the division's military police, engaged me in hearings on the status of prisoners of war and criminal investigations.

History has been a passion of mine all my life, especially military history, and this has helped broaden my perspective. Whereas most of this book is based on personal observations and experience, the last chapters include information that I could not have possibly learned in Vietnam. However, my experience there inspired questions that I was compelled to study and answer in later years. Why were we there? Why did our nation revile us when we returned? Did we accomplish anything worthwhile even though our government abandoned the South Vietnamese? Why does the tragedy of Vietnam continue to influence our foreign policy and make us timid in prosecuting war against our enemies?

My conclusions are not popular. They are contrary to the lessons being taught in our schools and propounded in our popular media. I won't ask your forgiveness if you are offended. I will simply be offended if you dismiss me as wrong without empirical evidence.

I propose to correct history.


CHAPTER ONE

A Little Detour

I SPENT A YEAR getting ready to go to Vietnam as an infantry officer, but was commissioned into the Adjutant General's Corps at the last minute. Along with my commission, I was handed orders to report to the 185th Military Intelligence Company in Saigon after a brief, six week, stint at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana to learn how to be an administrative officer.

During a week layover at home, I reconnected with my girlfriend - the one who had sent me a "Dear John" while in Officer Candidate School - and we "reconnected." Yes, I was really that dumb. (That last statement shouldn't require any explanation if you think about it.)

When I arrived at Ben Harrison, I was told that there was only one room left at the Bachelor Officer's Quarters on post. I slipped away and didn't return until after another lieutenant had taken it. That way I was able to collect a substantial amount of TDY (Temporary Duty) money for living off post, and was able to replenish my savings that were sorely depleted after I had to buy new uniforms as an officer.

I met up with three other lieutenants who had graduated from Officer Candidate School with me, and we found a two-bedroom apartment to rent by the week. It was located in a building filled with a surprising number of young women. Only one of the other lieutenants was married and we became popular additions to the community.

The girls took pity on us, and we were treated to many "home cooked" meals. Unfortunately, most were pretty bad and the guys insisted that I do the cooking. (I had been cooking since I was eleven years old.)

A trio of young women lived across the hall, and I became friends with one of them. Unfortunately, I maintained a hands off policy in deference to the girl back home (yeah, the one who had sent me the "Dear John" and who would repeat the performance while I was in Vietnam. Now you must understand the part about me being really dumb.)

We took weekend trips. A young man we met in Cincinnati introduced us to a couple of his girlfriends, and we drank and danced at the Whiskey A Go Go in the Metropole Hotel. There were girls in scanty costumes and boots dancing in cages, but we missed any of the famous bands that used to play there. We drove the girls to a roadhouse in Covington, Kentucky the next night, Sunday, and drank and danced there until after midnight. It was a race to make it back to Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis in time to report for duty Monday morning. Needless to say we weren't at our best that day.

We visited Chicago. I remember quite vividly the elevator ride to the restaurant at the top of the John Hancock Center in Chicago, and the descent, especially the descent. We were crammed into the car with far too many other passengers, and someone found the "Go" button. It only had two stops: Street and Restaurant. We dropped 108 floors faster than I could have fallen had I jumped off the roof. It was similar to riding in a dive bomber. (I know, I rode in the back seat of a U.S. Navy Dauntless built by Douglas Aircraft Company during World War II. The father of a friend had flown them during the war and had restored one for his personal use.)

I also remember well driving on the Interstate Highways to Chicago. The potholes from that winter's plowing had not yet been repaired, and we hit a few that I thought might swallow the car.

I had rented a Chevrolet Chevelle during the six weeks that we were at Indianapolis. However, we used the cars that the other lieutenants had brought with them for our trips since I had to pay mileage. Renting cars in those days was different than now. You paid a flat rate per day plus mileage. It was the first time I had ever rented a car and discovered that it was an opportunity to try things that I would never do with my own car, like placing the transmission in Park while it was still moving. (You're dying to know what happened, aren't you? Well, it made a ratcheting sound until the car had slowed to a crawl and then engaged. The car stopped suddenly and rocked back and forth a few times.)

After learning the intricacies of Army paperwork and the Functional Filing System, I went back home to dump my excess gear and have another week with my girlfriend. Despite all the young women I met in Indianapolis and on our road trips, I had remained "true." What an idiot.


CHAPTER TWO

Too Much to Drink

I ARRIVED IN Oakland, California, on the date specified in my orders and reported to the Army Terminal for transportation to Vietnam. The sergeant at the reception desk scanned my orders, handed them back, and told me to return the following morning.

What was I supposed to do? He gave me a tired look and explained that he didn't have a seat for me that day. He might have one the next day. I guess he had repeated that explanation countless times every day and didn't have the patience to recite it for another idiot lieutenant.

I knew a girl who had moved to San Francisco about the time I joined the Army, and I decided to look her up. She grabbed her boyfriend and a friend to be my "date," (here I am again with another girl and too stupid to take advantage of the opportunity), and we went out on the town. They had me return my rental car and threw my duffel bag in the trunk of their car. The party lasted until they delivered me back to Oakland the next morning.

They waited while I checked in and learned that they still didn't have a seat on a flight for me. I was again instructed to come back the next day.

It was April, 1967, and a chartered flight was taking off every twenty minutes, 24/7, and I still couldn't get a seat. It was the height of the Vietnam buildup.

The party continued another 24 hours and I was begging for a seat the next morning. I didn't think I could survive another day. If I was going to die, please let it be in Vietnam where I could at least be decorated with a Purple Heart.

The last thing I remember was a kindly policeman coaxing me to return the stone cupid I was carrying out of some park, somewhere, sometime in the middle of the night. The sergeant at the Oakland Army Terminal took pity, and I joined a queue headed towards a bus.

Unfortunately, I was yanked out of line at the last minute. A corpsman asked if I had my vaccination record. No. Well, it wasn't in my medical records either and I had to be re-inoculated before I could get on the plane. The bus was loading as the corpsman pumped me with seventeen different injections, all in the left arm. I decided that I needed at least one good arm to salute with and also to defend myself when we arrived in country.

It was not a comfortable ride from there to Travis Air Force Base where a World Airways Boeing 707 waited. You never heard of World Airways? They did a lot of charter service for the Air Force in those days. Indeed, I think that the Air Force was chartering just about every available plane that could make it to Vietnam.

There was no separation of cabins. The plane had been fitted with passenger seats in every available space. The front row was jammed against the bulkhead that formed one wall of the latrine. As an officer, I was allowed to board first and made a beeline for the window seat next to the emergency exit over the wing. It was the only seat with any legroom.

You could almost feel the aircraft settling on its undercarriage as the men loaded and took their seats. Someone once told me that a Boeing 707 could fly even if you filled the fuselage with water. I think we severely tested that theory that day.


CHAPTER THREE

Where is Vietnam?

I REMEMBER ONE of the young candidates in Infantry Officer Candidate School who thought that Vietnam was somewhere in Europe. I wish it were. It would have been a helluva lot shorter flight

There was no functioning entertainment system. No music and definitely no movies. A young soldier sitting near me asked a stewardess about it. She replied that she was the "entertainment." She wasn't very good at it.

Travis was built with extra long and wide runways to accommodate B-52 bombers. We needed them. As our plane began to roll we looked at each other. It didn't take an experienced flier to realize that we were carrying the maximum load. The plane floated on its suspension. Every seam in the taxiway caused the plane to dip and float slowly back. The cargo compartments must have been even fuller than the passenger compartment.

When we turned onto the runway, the pilot took us to the very end and made a u-turn so that we could take advantage of every inch of pavement to accelerate and get airborne. He set the brakes and revved up the engines until they were screaming with white hot fury. The plane rolled from side-to-side, and we expected to take off as though launched from an aircraft carrier catapult. Instead, when the pilot released the brakes, we surged ahead like a giant glob of molasses pouring from a jar in January. We were worried. Well, I was. I had flown enough to know that we needed speed to lift off. However, I swear that birds were passing us on the runway. And they were walking.

Towards the end of the runway there were signs warning that we were approaching the end. (I'm not saying the end of what.) 5 - 4 - 3... I don't know how far apart they were, but the plane still hadn't rotated - the nose wheel was still firmly planted on the ground - when we passed "2." I don't think the plane ever rotated. I believe that the pilot simply raised the landing gear like a woman might raise her skirts to cross a puddle, and we cleared the chain link fence at the end of the runway.

We circled until we gained enough altitude to clear the mountains circling Travis before heading northwest to Alaska. The planes headed for Vietnam alternated routes with the first stop being either Alaska or Hawaii. My plane went from Alaska to Japan to Guam to Wake Island to Bien Hoa, Vietnam. We were allowed to deplane and stretch our legs at each stop. I was comatose most of the time - almost 24 hours total, sleeping off a hangover and recovering some feeling in my arm.

Our first stop was in Alaska. I pointed my Yashika 35mm Single Lens Reflex camera out of the window and began snapping pictures of the mountains. I still have them. It was early evening and the shadows defined the ruggedness of the terrain in stark relief. Fortunately, the cold air in Alaska was "heavier" than in California, giving the aircraft more lift, and we touched down more or less normally.

The cold air gave us reason to put our heads down and make a dash for the terminal when we deplaned. We had to wait inside while the ground crew refueled it. I remember running headlong into the terminal before looking up into the gaping jaws and outstretched forelegs and claws of a giant Alaskan brown bear. The taxidermist had done a good job. For an instant, I thought that I was about to be consumed. Although, given the ache in my arm, I might have welcomed it.

The landing at night in Tokyo was similarly sane. No bears though. We reached Guam in the daylight. It seemed that the runway there spanned the whole island. It was another designed for the big bombers.

Wake Island was the most interesting stop of all. ("Interesting" is such an interesting word.) The runway there was the whole island. It was the only stop we made where no one checked us off or back onto the airplane. When I asked the stewardess why, she explained that they simply counted heads on the island when we were all aboard. If anyone had missed their flight, they would have stood out like a sore thumb.

I had a good friend, a few years later, a Lutheran minister who had been the FAA chaplain on Wake Island years before. He confirmed the horrors of serving an extended tour there. The island fever that I experienced living in Hawaii was nothing compared to what the people on Wake Island felt.


CHAPTER FOUR

Good Morning Vietnam

WE DESCENDED INTO Vietnam in the middle of the night. It was disconcerting to look out the window when the pilot pulled back on the throttles, and see nothing below. Anyone who has traveled by airplane at night has seen civilization below, even from cruising altitude, marked with clusters of lights connected to each other by strings of lights. I assumed that a cloud layer might have been masking the view below, but dismissed that idea when I began to see the ocean shimmering with a ghostly glow.

Soon we passed over a coastline and even that evidence was stolen from my view. I must have popped my ears two or three times before we heard and felt the landing gear deploy. Our angle of approach was much steeper than anything I had experienced before on any other flight. I didn't know until later that it was called a tactical approach, dropping steeply rather than gliding gently to the landing. The idea was to avoid presenting an easy target to enemy gunners hiding in the countryside around the airstrip.

I didn't see any lights until the wheels were skimming the surface of the runway and the edge lights began flashing by. Necks craned all around me as we taxied off the runway. We were all looking for the terminal. There wasn't any.

The doors opened as soon as the plane stopped, even before the engines were shut down, and ground personnel rushed on board and began directing us to move quickly. There was no milling around in the aisle as you see on most planes when they stop at a terminal. We were instructed to remain in our seats until directed to stand, grab our carry-ons, and move quickly off the plane. Every door had been opened and stairways had been pushed up to each one.

I couldn't help pausing in the doorway when it was my turn to exit. It was disorienting. I couldn't see anything other than the steps in front of me, dimly illuminated by small lamps on each side. All of the runway and taxiway lights had been extinguished before the airplane even came to a stop.

A sergeant standing to one side urged me to keep moving. Rank meant nothing. The only thing that mattered was to empty the airplane as quickly as possible. I don't think we could have done it any faster had they deployed the inflatable emergency evacuation ramps.

Another sergeant at the bottom of the stairway hurried us on our way towards a line of parked buses visible only by the dim light of their interior dome lights shining through their windows. A quick glance back at the plane showed me that every cargo hatch was open and teams of men had almost emptied it of everything already.

I trotted towards the buses following the line of men ahead of me. Behind me, I could hear the plane's engines restarting, and it began to taxi back onto the runway when the last men had descended the stairways and they had been pulled just a few feet away from the fuselage. The men pushing the stairways from the front doors of the aircraft had to rush to keep from having them toppled over by the passing wings. It was roaring down the runway and lifting off before we were all on board the buses which departed just as quickly as each was loaded.

They knew we had questions. A sergeant stood at the front of our bus explaining. The airfield we had just landed at was near the town of Bien Hoa. It was little more than an airstrip and a few shacks. The enemy would begin dropping mortar rounds on the airplanes if they remained on the ground long enough for them to set their sights. The planes were flying on to Thailand where their crews would rest before making the return flight with a stop at Ton Sun Hhut Air Force Base in Saigon to pick up passengers returning to the United States.

I looked out the window at the night-shrouded countryside when the sergeant paused in his explanation. The windows were covered in heavy wire mesh (to prevent anyone from tossing a grenade inside). The air blowing through the bus from its open windows was warm and heavy with the smell of humidity and rotting vegetation.

Welcome to Vietnam.


CHAPTER FIVE

Long Binh Reception

THE BUSES THAT picked us up from the charter jet at the airstrip near Bien Hoa transported us to the U.S. Army Reception Center at Long Binh. Like Bien Hoa, the base at Long Binh was a work in progress. In time it would grow to house the U.S. Army Headquarters in Vietnam (USARV).

My first impressions were pretty sparse. We arrived in the middle of the night. We passed between two bunkers with M-60 machine guns on top manned by Military Policemen (MPs). Inside the base was dimly lit by well scattered lights mounted high on poles.

We stopped in front of a flimsy structure with a corrugated metal roof and the sergeant who had been acting as our "tour guide" called me to the front. "This is where you get off, sir." The bus drove away leaving me standing on a packed clay surface, facing an enlisted man who smiled and invited me to follow him inside where another sergeant waited at a wooden counter with a copy of my orders sitting in front of him.

He gave me a flicker of a welcoming smile and told me that my orders had been changed. I wasn't going to the 185th Military Intelligence Company in Saigon. "Where am I going?" I asked.

The sergeant shrugged. "Maybe we'll know more in the morning."

He didn't wait for me to conjure up any more questions. "Specialist Jones will take you to your quarters," he said nodding towards the enlisted man who had led me in from the bus.

"My dufflebag?" I asked.

"Already on your bunk, sir," the enlisted man responded. "Just follow me."

Specialist Jones led me to the transient officers quarters about a hundred yards from the office. True to his word, Specialist Jones already had my dufflebag waiting for me. I cannot imagine how it beat me there considering the speed with which we deplaned and were whisked to the Reception Center. That was an impressive system they had working there.

Jones took me to the front door and pointed to another building next to the office. "That's the officer's mess, sir," he informed me. "The PX is over there," he said pointing to another, larger building about three hundred yards away.

With that, Jones departed and I found myself alone. It was then that I realized that I was the only officer to deplane. I wondered if I was the only officer who had been on the flight from Travis. I guess it's possible.

I know that some officers had difficulty keeping apart from the enlisted men. Our Executive Officer in Basic Combat Training used to wander among us seemingly attempting to make some kind of a connection but not really sure just how "friendly" he should be with the troops. I never had that problem. I was significantly older than most of them and was naturally separated from the younger men. I had experience piloting boats on the Chesapeake Bay and understood the loneliness of command. Thus, it's not surprising that I hadn't even thought to look around me on the airplane for someone to socialize with. There's also the fact that I was focused on my pain from all the injections I had received just before we departed. I wasn't good company for anyone.

Morning was approaching as I settled in and I didn't feel like sleeping. I got plenty of that on the plane. So, I looked around. The building that served as the Transient Officer's Quarters was a simple frame structure covered in screening and widely spaced clapboards that let the air circulate freely. It had a corrugated metal roof and screen doors. Double-decked pipe frame bunks lined both sides. All were empty.

Stepping outside, the sky to the east was just beginning to brighten a little. The sun wasn't yet visible, yet I could feel the heat and humidity beginning to build. I knew I was in trouble. I decided to escape to the mess hall and see if it was air conditioned. It was.

I discovered that the mess hall was open 24/7, with coffee and pastries always on hand. The mess sergeant told me to help myself and informed me that breakfast would be served in about an hour, beginning at 06:00. I wasn't in a hurry to eat, but the coffee was appreciated.

Army coffee is akin to "cowboy" coffee – thick enough to float a horseshoe. It serves as food as well as a beverage. I really didn't start drinking coffee until I entered the Army. I take mine with cream and sugar. A friend of mine in later years, who had served in Korea as an enlisted man, told me that all officers took their coffee with cream and sugar. Enlisted personnel drank theirs black because the officers had used all the cream and sugar before it got to them.

I hid out in the mess hall as long as I could. I darted to the office every hour to check on my new orders but the sergeant dismissed me with a wave after the third time. He was getting bored with me.

Each time I went outside, I felt the heat weighing down on me as though it had substance. I began hanging around under the eave of the mess hall roof. I knew I had to stay outside and begin acclimatizing myself, or I'd never be able to function in Vietnam. After a few minutes of that, I abandoned the shade and attempted a run to the Post Exchange (PX). I only made it about half of the three hundred yards there before I was forced to sit on a stump and catch my breath. I looked back to the mess hall and then again to the PX trying to decide which was closer. Inasmuch as I didn't know if the PX had air conditioning and I knew that the mess hall did, my choice was simple.


CHAPTER SIX

Me, Command-in-Chief?

I DIDN'T SEE another officer at the Long Binh Reception Center until my second morning there. A captain was sitting at the breakfast table in the officer's mess when I walked in. I joined him. I glanced at his branch insignia as I sat down and saw that he was a doctor. That helped explain the fact that he was muttering to himself in self-diagnosis as he took his own pulse. A glimmer of awareness grew in his eyes and he picked up the salt shaker. After removing the top, he poured a healthy dollop on the side of his hand and ate it – the salt, not the hand. He smiled and offered some to me. "It's for the heat," he explained. "We're dehydrating."

Speak for yourself, I thought to myself. I was already acclimatizing. Indeed, I became so acclimatized to the heat after thirteen months in Vietnam, I nearly froze when I was reassigned to Hawaii.

The truth is that I was becoming concerned about my status. The sergeant in the office hadn't heard anything about me other than the message he delivered when I arrived that I wasn't going to the 185th Military Intelligence Company as stipulated in my orders. Furthermore, I hadn't seen another officer since I left Oakland two or three days previously. It was hard to account for the time. We had been in the air almost a full day and we had crossed the International Date Line.

By the time the doctor arrived, I had been anxiously scanning the area for officers. As ridiculous as it sounds, it was beginning to look like they had sent me to Vietnam to take command of American forces. Yes, it not only sounds ridiculous, but also is ridiculous. Of course, I didn't expect to command the Army in Vietnam. It was just nice to find another officer even if he was only a doctor. It was nice to have someone else to talk to.

Unfortunately, we didn't even have a chance to finish breakfast together. The orderly came and told me that the sergeant had my orders.

I later learned that a lieutenant serving in the Adjutant General's office at the 9th Infantry Division had sufficiently annoyed the AG until they had him reassigned. He was sent to fill my post at the 185th and I was sent to replace him at the 9th Infantry Division. As it turns out, I too annoyed the old man for what turned out to be approximately the same reasons. We were both trained infantry officers who had little respect for "serving in the rear with the gear."

Generally, platoon leaders who survived six months in combat were reassigned to staff and support duty in the rear if they could be spared and a replacement was available. They rarely were. It seemed that most had "burned out" in that time. Sure, enlisted personnel could expect to serve their full twelve months in a combat role, however, they didn't carry the same responsibilities as platoon leaders. It's one thing to face death. It's quite another to face death and be responsible for sending others in harm's way.

Interestingly, there was a safety valve for enlisted men, too. Those twice-wounded would be reassigned to staff and support positions in the rear again with the same qualifiers – if they could be spared and replacements were available. Once the Army in Vietnam built up to about a half-million men, the flow of replacements could be diverted to this purpose more often.

But, I digress... (I always wanted to write that). The sergeant handed me new orders and asked me to hop onto a truck full of replacements headed for the 9th Infantry Division Headquarters Base Camp. It was waiting outside and the orderly already had my duffel bag loaded on board. As the only officer, I was invited to sit up front with the driver.

The first thing that I noticed was that everybody in Vietnam wore flak vests and steel helmets all the time. They carried weapons wherever they went. The replacements on the truck, including me, still wore our khaki uniforms with the starch already leached from them by the heat, humidity, and our own sweat. I don't know about the rest of them, but I felt my lack of armor and armament as soon as we passed out through the gates of the Long Binh perimeter.

The 9th Infantry Division Headquarters was located at Camp Bearcat, about twelve miles northeast of Long Binh. The road between was paved with asphalt that had worn away at the sides leaving a track too narrow for vehicles traveling in opposite directions to pass without grinding along the rubble-strewn shoulders. This was especially true for military vehicles. Civilian traffic seemed to be comprised mostly of bicycles and three-wheeled motor scooters carrying families and cargo. An occasional French-built Citroën DS-19 whizzed past giving me a new respect for these durable vehicles.

Most of the countryside was filled with rice paddies in those first miles after leaving the Army base camp and the town of Long Binh behind. However, as we drew nearer to Bearcat, we were flanked by a rubber plantation on both sides of the road. What little comfort I had been able to achieve during the ride evaporated when I realized that the foliage could easily conceal an ambush in waiting for us.

Rubber trees are planted in long rows to facilitate their maintenance and harvesting the sap from pots at the base of each tree. I discovered that my neck was beginning to spasm because I was attempting to look down each row for hidden enemies as we passed at about thirty miles per hour. I flushed with embarrassment as I glanced to my left and spotted the driver smirking. There was no way he wasn't enjoying himself at the lieutenant's discomfort.


CHAPTER SEVEN

The New AGC

ALL REPLACEMENT OFFICERS were welcomed to the 9th Infantry Division by Colonel Bell, the division's G-1, the division commanding general's staff officer in charge of personnel, discipline, and administrative matters. His NCOIC (Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge) laid my 201 (Personnel) file on the desk in front of him as I saluted and reported for duty. He opened the file and looked at the top sheet attached to the left inside cover to find my MOS (Military Occupational Specialty). It was the only thing that interested him. He found just what he was looking for, 1542 – Infantry Platoon Leader. Platoon leaders were in short supply and many platoons were led by junior grade NCOs (Non-commissioned Officers).

As soon as I saw his smile I knew the mistake he had made. "Sorry, sir," I corrected him and pointed out the entry on the next line. 2210 – Personnel Officer. I have beaten myself up for more than forty years for opening my mouth. Had I remained silent, I might have been sent to one of the combat battalions and, by the time anyone had figured it out, I would have been dead, wounded, or cured of the survivor's guilt I have carried all these years. Then again, as my wife is quick to remind me, I might have also missed the joys of marriage to her, our children, and our grandchildren. Of course, she's right.

Colonel Bell's smile faded and he replied politely, "Of course, the Adjutant General has been expecting you."

With that he had his NCOIC escort me to the 9th Infantry Division's Office of the Adjutant General and my fate was sealed. A short walk took me from the G-1's wabtok to a row of similar structures housing the offices of the Adjutant General.

A wabtok is a tent stretched atop a wooden floor set a couple of feet above the ground. A simple frame covered in screen provides a barrier to insects without impeding the flow of air. A screen door front and rear provide the only means of access; however, it wouldn't take much to burst through the screen in case of an emergency. Standard issue gun-metal gray desks lined both sides of a clear aisle through the center. They were identical to the desks I had left behind at the Social Security Administration headquarters in Woodlawn, Maryland, where I worked before joining the Army.

Other wabtoks, separate ones, served as housing for enlisted men and officers. They served their purpose until the monsoon season began and we discovered that the canvas tents had rotted away in the heat and humidity.

I was introduced in quick succession to the Adjutant General, Lieutenant Colonel Traylor, his deputy, Major Reed, and the Chief Administrative Officer, Major Rome Smyth. Next stop was my first desk: Chief of the Casualty Reporting Branch. With an NCO and eight clerks, I was responsible for the administrative processing of battle casualties for the division: Notification of the next of kin and initiating requests for replacements. We also had to prepare letters of condolence that would be sent to the next of kin on behalf of the division commanding general, Major General Julian J. Ewell at that time, the division chaplain, and the casualty's unit commander. Every letter had to be perfect. No erasures were permitted.

Many bodies sent home from Vietnam were mangled and mutilated. Explosions and large caliber bullets have that effect on flesh and bone. Most often, we advised the next of kin to avoid looking at their departed loved ones. Unfortunately, this could leave them with lingering doubts: Had the Army made a mistake? Was that my son or husband in that casket? Any error in paper work, even corrected ones, could feed that doubt. Thus we had to prepare every piece of correspondence letter-perfect. How simple it would have been had we had word processors. Unfortunately, all we had were typewriters.

My office was next to the Adjutant General's, in the same wabtok. I guess that he liked to keep a close watch on new second lieutenants, especially those who had been trained as infantry officers inasmuch as he had problems with others of that kind.

I spent my first few hours there getting to know my men and their responsibilities and watching the work flow as the first casualty report was telephoned in from the field. It seemed surreal sitting at a desk, surrounded by clerks, in the middle of a war zone. I felt completely out of place. The survivor's guilt hadn't set in yet. It was lurking in the future.


CHAPTER EIGHT

Home is where the hooch is

SOLDIERS REFER TO SHELTERS as hooches – a spelling variation of hotch, meaning booze or alcoholic beverages – but having no apparent connection to the hootchy-kootchy, a sensual form of a belly dance. During my tour of duty, I spent some nights in bunkers or sleeping in a ditch. Unlike the front line grunts, I spent most in a somewhat comfortable shelter. None of the hooches we occupied were in any way sensual but most were supplied hotch.

My first shelters in Vietnam, both at the reception center in Long Binh, and the transient officer's quarters at Camp Bearcat, headquarters for the 9th Infantry Division, were wood frame buildings built on concrete slabs. The walls were simple frames covered in screen and overlaid with widely spaced slats that provided some semblance of privacy without blocking the breeze. The roofs were corrugated, galvanized metal.

On my first night at Camp Bearcat, I unpacked my bags and used a horizontal member of the building's frame as a shelf. Shortly after taps, a nearby 8" howitzer battery went to work. I dove from my cot to catch a falling bottle of after shave lotion – yes, I took after shave to Vietnam – and succeeded despite being wrapped in mosquito netting that I dragged with me. The building seemed to breath – its walls expanding and contracting – with each salvo.

Several days later, I moved from there to a wabtok that I shared with five other officers. A wabtok is an interesting structure having a wooden floor elevated atop metal shipping cases for large caliber artillery shells, resembling sections of sewer pipes. A flimsy wood frame covered in screening to keep out insects forms the walls, and a tent – GP (General Purpose) Medium – serves as the roof. The walls of the tent are stretched out on all four sides to serve as awnings.

The Division Adjutant General's offices were also housed in wabtoks. They were arranged in pairs, end-to-end, along a road near the division headquarters building, close to the wabtok that housed the office of the division G1, the division's chief administrative officer.

The division had arrived in country en masse about four months ahead of me, and construction of more permanent facilities was well underway. The division's Finance Offices were already completed – a row of the single story buildings similar to the transient officers quarters. It was a clear indicator of who was considered more important.

However, when the engineers finally got around to building our permanent quarters – about six months after my arrival – we were treated to two-story versions of the type of building that the Finance Corps worked in. We felt truly honored until we saw how quickly the termites could gnaw their way through a 2x4 – about a boardfoot per day. Also, it was unsettling when we realized that our new offices extended well above the base camp's protective berm and we were sitting targets for snipers. At night, we exited using the door away from the base camp perimeter even though that forced us to retrace our steps on the ground to reach the urinals (fodder for a later posting).

When the two-story company grade officers quarters were constructed, each of us was provided an 8' x 10' room with a screen door exit. However, each room shared an open doorway with the one it backed up to so that we would all have at least two exits – in case of fire or attack. CW2 (Chief Warrant Officer) Ray Cimbalnik and I had adjoining rooms and decided to share one as a bedroom and the other as a living room. We requisitioned four risers and stacked our cots as bunk beds. I slept on the upper one and only regretted the choice on one occasion when 144 mm rockets slammed into our base camp. It was about three months following the Tet Offensive of 1968 and I hadn't heard a shot fired in anger until North Vietnamese Army (NVA) units reached the Delta and were able to resume the war that the Viet Cong had failed to survive. Ray and I both awoke sitting on the edges of our beds. The first rocket had awakened us. We didn't realize why until we heard the second explosion. Ray began to rise from his bed and my knees became hooked over his shoulders and he dragged me with him. This wouldn't have been a problem except that my mattress had slipped below the edge of the metal frame of the cot and my family jewels were hooked. I dragged Ray back with a handful of his hair.

Our living room contained four chairs, a card table covered with a woolen Army blanket, and a counter containing a small refrigerator, a hot plate, and a small TV. We covered the end walls with pin ups extracted from Playboy magazines. A 3" x 5" ad hidden among the photos asked, "Had any lately?" We could always tell when someone examining the photos found that sign.

Most Vietnamese hooches in the countryside were walled with wood or wattle and had thatched roofs. The floors were packed dirt and mama-sans swept them daily with palm fronds. They separated the fibers of the leaves so that they were finer than any straw or plastic broom. Many had walls clad with flattened beer and soda cans. It was amazing to see what they could fabricate from the trash heaps that we accumulated at our base camps – including weapons.

City homes were mostly built of clay bricks or cinder blocks. Most used bamboo for structural support in the same way that we use steel. It didn't rust and was impervious to termites. Although they could not build them higher than a couple of stories, they were amazingly strong structures.

One of the most common phrases heard came from new arrivals when seeing a Vietnamese hooch for the first time. "I wish my mom/sister/wife/girlfriend could see this." Yes, we all came back appreciating the homes we had in America, no matter how poor.


CHAPTER NINE

Latrines

MY FIRST ENCOUNTER with a latrine was during my first trip to Boy Scout camp when I was about eleven years old. One look, one smell was all it took. I held it in all week. Seriously -- all week. My father had to exercise the plumber's helper vigorously after my first visit to the bathroom when I got home. Fortunately, I outgrew my aversion to primitive privies by the time I got to Vietnam. There's no way I could have abstained for thirteen months.

Oh, come on now. Get over it. I had to broach this subject sooner or later. I know you wanted to know. How did we attend to the routine functions that are common to all of us, regardless of race, religion, or rank? Yes, even generals do it. In fact that reminds me of one of the more interesting stories that circulated around Vietnam during the war.

A sergeant was seated upon a throne at USARV Headquarters (United States Army, Vietnam), then in Saigon, when someone entered the stall next to him. After a few minutes the sergeant began fanning the air with his newspaper. A few moments later he began commenting aloud, "Damn, what the hell did you eat!"

He continued commenting on the smell rising from the stall next to him using more colorful language until his neighbor made ready to leave. He was startled when the door to his stall was yanked open and he was face-to-face with an angry gentleman wearing two stars on his collar. "Well, you don't smell like no bed of roses yourself, sergeant," the general exclaimed and left.

At least the sergeant and the general had the benefit of modern conveniences in Saigon. I doubt if they would have noticed each other had they been in a base camp where we all used latrines.

We had urinals scattered around the camp. They were simply barrels sunk into the ground and filled with stones. A three-sided shed with a galvanized tin roof provided some degree of modesty from observation by helicopters passing overhead and anyone else except those directly behind you. Fortunately, there were few women. There were a few and I remember feeling some discomfort whenever one walked past as I was relieving myself.

Generally speaking, you are no more vulnerable than when you are using such a facility. It is difficult to react, to run, or to defend yourself when you're relieving yourself. One of my clerk-typists learned this lesson when the casing from a poorly aimed illumination round dropped inside our base camp. It fell beside him while he was in mid-stream. He began to run without pausing to stem the flow or secure his equipment. Even worse, he ran in the wrong direction – into the urinal.

Our thrones sat atop sawed-off barrels that were accessed from a hatch at the back of the latrines. The "shit" detail made the rounds regularly, exchanging empty ones for full ones. The full ones were taken outside and downwind of the base camp. The soldiers added fuel oil and ignited them. Truthfully, those latrines weren't as bad as the ones at Boy Scout camp. Indeed, they were better maintained than most port-o-potties that I've seen at construction sites and public gatherings.

Which all brings me to the story of Shit-for-Brains. Sorry, that was the name we used for it. It was a monkey, the pet of a major who shared our hooch. I'm pretty sure he called it something else. We didn't care.

I don't know where the major got it, but the animal was getting on in years, and monkeys tend to get surly with age. We complained about the damage he caused but his "master" was the senior officer in the hooch. However, even he "lost it" one day when we returned to find everything turned over or spilled out, and our mattresses torn apart. At first, the major defended it while we complained. Still he refused to get rid of it until the monkey defecated on his shoulder. I don't know which made him more angry: The monkey's feces on his back or us laughing at him.

Before you accuse me of being insensitive to cruelty, please remember the degree to which we were provoked. We laughed as he grabbed the varmint and knocked it senseless with his fist. He shouted a few obscenities and carried the limp primate to the latrine and tossed it into one of the barrels. We sensed that something remarkable was about to happen, so we grabbed chairs and arranged them to be prepared for the next act.

A chief warrant officer (who shall remain unnamed for decency's sake) made his way unsteadily from the officer's club where he had been drinking, to the stage. Newspaper in hand, he entered. He must have been too focused on his mission to notice us.

The door closed.

All was quiet.

Then came the shout.

Next came the warrant officer bursting from the door. His pants were around his ankles. The monkey was hanging onto the only handle he could find in the dark.

I didn't know a man could run that fast bow-legged while straddling a snarling ape.

Men in the field had to squat wherever they could, whenever they were reasonably secure from attack. Interestingly, it was never a good idea to relieve oneself near a defensive position or when they were waiting for the enemy in ambush. Because of our radically different diets, the waste of Americans and Vietnamese have different odors, making it easy to smell your enemy at great distances. For the same reason, we also had to use soaps, shampoos, shaving creams, and deodorants without perfumes of any kind.

Although I didn't spend much time in the field, I was happy to pick up a can of G.I. Talcum powder. I didn't care that it was odorless. I only cared that it kept me dry at night. I spread a liberal amount between my mattress and my sheet when I made my bed with fresh bed linens each week. Then, just before I climbed in, I would pluck the sheet and a cloud of talc would filter through the sheet and keep me cool and dry all night.

I'm sure that after reading this, some grunt is going to hate us REMFs even more.

What happened to Shit-for-Brains? The MPs cornered him on the roof of their headquarters and shot him. His behavior had grown even more erratic.


CHAPTER TEN

Unconventional Warfare

IN CONVENTIONAL WARFARE an infantry division is deployed with two others in a Corps. Their combat elements, infantry, artillery, and armor, are deployed in a line of battle, and their support elements, logistics and administration, are arrayed behind in an area known as the rear echelons. Their combined front line usually faces an enemy similarly deployed and the two opposing forces maneuver and engage seeking victory. However, the war in Vietnam wasn't fought conventionally. We had neither front lines nor rear echelons. We were all scattered about the countryside attempting to hold out against the enemy like a man trying to hold down scattered papers in a windstorm.

We lived and operated out of base camps. Our division headquarters together with the headquarters for several of our support battalions were based at Camp Bearcat. We had three brigades, the 39th, the 47th, and the 60th Infantries, each with its own base camp. Each brigade had multiple battalions with multiple companies, all, with few exceptions, having their own base camps. Platoons and artillery batteries frequently operated from separate fire bases.

You have to see this picture clearly in your minds to understand all that follows. Unlike World War II, we couldn't have convoys of trucks rushing supplies from ports to the front lines. In most cases, supplies had to be airlifted over enemy strongholds to scattered units. Communications had to be relayed between microwave antenna towers located at each base camp or by wireless radio. Landlines were vulnerable to any man with a pair of wire cutters, a knife, or really sharp dentures.

Those of us who served in Vietnam often reflected that life inside the base camps, surrounded by earthen berms and barbed wire, was like living in a prison camp. The enemy were our prison guards. They shot anyone who ventured outside. Given the opportunity, they also shot those who remained in their cells.

In the coming chapters I will explain how we not only coped, but also waged war effectively against an enemy that lurked in the midst of the civilian population we were attempting to protect. Mine is neither the majority nor the popular view. However, you may find it amusing.

Every war is steeped in politics, even the popular ones. Take World War II as an example. Almost no one regrets our involvement and yet, the vast majority of Americans were opposed to becoming involved in it. Franklin Roosevelt was elected President on his sworn opposition to our country becoming involved in another "foreign war." Of course, immediately after making that promise he turned to his advisers and asked, "It's not a foreign war if we're attacked, is it?" Just how prescient was that?

Every war is fought with words as well as guns and bullets. Take for example, the War on Terror. I hope that President Obama will forgive me for writing that. He has forbidden the use of that phrase in his Administration. Yet, here we are fighting a war with terrorists whether we call it that or not.

The same was true in Vietnam. There we fought an invasion, but were never allowed to name it as such. We called it a "counterinsurgency" as though we were trying to protect an established government from discontented rebels. In truth, we were fighting a communist invasion sponsored by the Soviet Union abetted by Communist China. Unfortunately, we had no will to fight that war. We preferred to let it remain "cold."

How do I know this? It's a long story. I will tell it in several installments. Feel free to disagree. Most people do. However, the truth is in the history, not in the news media, not in our schools, and definitely not in our political posturings.


CHAPTER ELEVEN

Number Please

MY MOM WAS a telephone operator in the days before direct dial long distance calling. In those days, you dialed "0" (not "o") for Operator and told her the city and telephone number you wanted to reach. She plugged a cord to connect you with the city you wanted using a "trunk" line and placed the call for you. If you specified "person-to-person," she waited on the line with you and asked for the name you were calling. She didn't begin timing your call until that person came on the line to speak, but you paid a higher per minute rate than you would for a simple "station-to-station" call. Actually, she wouldn't be too lost had she been running a switchboard for the Army in Vietnam.

The Army had direct dial long distance calling long before it was available in the civilian world. They called it AUTOVON. It was a worldwide network and had an added feature that never appeared in the civilian counterpart. If the caller's message was especially urgent, such as notice of an imminent attack, they could press the "Flash" button on their phone and the call would be routed immediately, bypassing all other callers, even terminating their calls if necessary to make the connection.

AUTOVON connected to major headquarters in Vietnam, but all other phone lines connected to field phones much like those used in World War II and Korea. Even those of us who had desktop telephone instruments like the ones found in homes and offices in the United States had to request help from the operator to make a call anytime, anywhere. We had dials but not telephone numbers. Most often, the instruments at the other end were field phones, with a crank handle attached to a magneto to generate an electrical pulse to signal the operator that they needed help with a call.

We picked up the phone and waited for an operator to assist us. Some whistled and shouted into the instrument when they got tired of waiting. They believed that the operators could hear them. In truth, no one could hear them until the operator plugged a cord into the circuit of the person placing the call. The caller named the military unit they wanted to call and waited for the operator to find a circuit to connect them. The process wasn't dissimilar to the one seen in movies where you see someone step up to a wooden telephone mounted on a wall, turn a crank, and speak to the operator, often calling them by name.

Telephone circuits generally followed the chain of command. For example, if I wanted to talk to someone in Company B, 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry, the operator would begin with a connection to the 60th Infantry. If all circuits to that regimental headquarters were in use, they might call another regiment and see if they had an open circuit to the 60th. From there, another circuit was used to connect to the 3rd Battalion, and another from there to Company B. We had to rely on the ingenuity of the operator to get our calls through. If the operator who first assisted us happened to leave the "key" (switch) open, we could hear multiple operators collaborating to connect us to the person or office we were attempting to call.

Most of the calls that came to the Casualty Reporting Branch of the Adjutant Generals Office originated in the S1 office of a battalion headquarters. Just as division commanders, major generals, delegated responsibilities to a general staff (G1 - Administration, G2 - Intelligence, G3 - Operations, and G4 – Logistics), regimental commanders, colonels, and battalion commanders, lieutenant colonels, delegated responsibilities to staff officers (S1, S2, S3, and S4). Battalion S1s were responsible for notifying division headquarters of battle casualties: KIA (Killed in Action), MIA (Missing in Action), and MEDEVAC (Medically Evacuated).

Most S1s were platoon leaders who had survived six months or been relieved of command for leading combat patrols poorly. In either case, they were not administrative experts which is why I hitchhiked on helicopters to visit them and brief them on their duties, especially those relating to casualty reporting. Having been infantry-trained myself, I knew that they were ill-prepared for their duties.

Soon after taking over command of the Casualty Reporting Branch, I decided one day to take a few calls to see what my men were having to cope with. I took a blank form in hand and my pen when the telephone rang and took a report for a KIA, cause of death: Traumatic amputation of both legs when he stepped on a mine. It rattled me, but I completed transcribing all the information and confirming its details.

The Army tolerated no errors in casualty reporting. No excuses were allowed for the primitive communications that we were forced to work with. In addition to physical evidence (such as dogtags), each KIA had to be identified by at least two persons familiar with the victim. Confirmed identities were cross-checked with records at every level of command. Ultimately, I was responsible if anyone was misidentified and the wrong next-of-kin notified.


CHAPTER TWELVE

Our Condolences

THE NEXT OF KIN of every 9th Infantry Division casualty received three letters: One each from the unit commander, the division chaplain, the commanding general. There were probably others, but these were the only ones for which I was responsible.

During the six months that I was the division casualty reporting officer, only one letter reached me from a unit commander to be sent to the next of kin of one of his men who had been killed. It was beautifully written, but badly handled. I had it retyped and personally carried it back to the commander in the field for his signature. I also made sure that commanders at every level were aware of it.

Personal letters written by unit commanders were highly unusual because of the nature of the Vietnam War. They were in combat 240 days out of each 365 day tour of duty versus only 40 days for soldiers in the South Pacific during World War II. The mobility of helicopter and riverine transport made the difference.

Similarly, I can excuse the Commanding General for not writing his own letters of condolence inasmuch as he was responsible for combat operations spread out over several thousand square miles of the Mekong Delta. However, unlike other forms of official correspondence and documents, he insisted on personally signing each letter of condolence. I cannot make any such excuse for the division chaplain. I had to sign his letters as well as write them. I even had to find a non-denominational biblical passage to include.

Several years ago, my family visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, and, about midway through the tour, my wife found me weeping in a corner. I had been listening to a recording of Reagan speaking about his love of his ranch where he vacationed as President and entertained notable visitors including the Queen of England. He said that the vista there reminded him of his favorite biblical passage:

"I will lift mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.  
My help cometh from the Lord, which made the heaven and the earth"  
– Psalm 121

It was the same verse I had chosen to include in the chaplain's letter of condolence.

Every letter had to be typewritten perfectly. Erasures were equally forbidden along with errors. We feared that the next of kin might interpret any error as evidence that we could have made other mistakes, such as misidentified the remains, and that the person in the casket might not be their loved one. Of course, we frequently sought to discourage them from viewing the remains, inasmuch as battle casualties often suffered traumatic amputations and mutilations.

Interestingly, my best typist was a young man who seemingly should never have been drafted or recruited. His mental acuity was severely disabled. However, he was diligent in his duties, never distracted, and rarely made an error let alone allowed one to reach me. I wish I had more like him.


CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MEDEVAC

I WENT TO USARV headquarters in Saigon for guidance when I became the casualty reporting officer for the 9th Infantry Division. I was given two pieces of advice. First, the major in charge of casualty reporting at USARV stressed accuracy. There was no greater nightmare than misidentification and notifying the wrong next of kin.

Second, the major turned and reached behind his desk where he retrieved a box of 3x5 inch index cards. The cards were divided into groups, separated by rubber bands. He then informed me that each card represented a soldier who had been medically evacuated from Vietnam.

Generally, the "walking wounded" were treated by medical corpsmen and remained with their units. They visited aid stations for further treatment if infection was a concern or if they required a doctor's attention. All other wounds and illnesses were treated at military aid stations maintained near battalion headquarters and hospitals maintained at brigade and division headquarters. Patients with more serious wounds and illnesses were evacuated to offshore medical facilities, or MEDEVAC to the United States. They might be treated in nearer hospitals such as the Philippines, Japan, or Hawaii, if their condition precluded transport back to the continental United States.

Patients treated in-country usually were returned to duty with their units if their absence was short. However, those that were medically evacuated were not expected to return to duty and replacements had to be assigned to take their place. The casualty reporting office was responsible for initiating the replacement of MEDEVACs as well as making certain that their personal records and gear were shipped to them at the medical facility where they were being treated.

The deck of cards that the major at USARV showed me represented a MEDEVAC who had not yet been properly processed. They were waiting in medical facilities for their orders, their records, their pay, their mail, their personal gear. The deck of cards for MEDEVACs from the 9th Infantry Division was thicker than all the other U.S. commands in Vietnam combined!

On returning to my headquarters I brought my team together and told them we had a new priority. They complained that they hadn't been getting the cooperation they needed to take care of the MEDEVACs. I didn't care. Having worked for Social Security as a Claims Examiner before entering the Army, I knew that a Congressman was as effective as a polecat at a picnic, and I told my men to tell unit commanders that each MEDEVAC's case had risen to "Congressional attention."

We got results and our division Adjutant General received a visit from the USARV major who informed me that the 9th Infantry Division was not the paradigm of efficiency in casualty reporting.

So much for an officer's honesty.


CHAPTER FOURTEEN

¿Habla Usted Vietnamese?

I HAVE STUDIED eleven languages in my lifetime and speak none of them well due to lack of practice. Of them, Asian languages seem the most difficult,and I'm sure they say the same about ours, because it uses parts of the tongue that we never employ, much as German uses guttural sounds that are not common in English. Also, subtle changes in inflection have significant effects on the meanings of words and sentences.

I was fortunate that I had a native translator with me on most occasions that I had to communicate with Vietnamese civilians outside of the base camp. I was also fortunate that I usually had the same one. Although he was born and raised in Saigon, he communicated well with rural civilians. Not all city boys could.

For those occasions when a translator was not available, we were provided with a pocket-sized phrase card supplied by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – the MACV Phrasebook. It contained useful words and phrases written in English and Vietnamese. You only had to point to something in English that you wanted to say and hold it up to a Vietnamese-speaker who couldn't read his version. Most people living in the rural areas were illiterate.

No problem. Between each English/Vietnamese pair of phrases was a transliteration – an English approximation of what you wanted to say or ask. This brings us back to my earlier point about the importance of inflection in Asian languages. Also, there was the fact that there were many sounds which we had never heard and which could not be enciphered into English letters. Besides which, how many of us can even interpret those that represent English. Read the pronunciation guides in an English dictionary and get back to me.

Lastly, there were only about a hundred or so phrases to work with. What were the chances that any were appropriate to your needs? Not very good. For example, I arrived at a Vietnamese village with a jeep and a driver and a package to deliver to the headman. The section for Entering a Village included the following choices:

This village is surrounded (Right. I had one man with me, but he was really fast)

Bring the village chief

You will not be harmed (How about me?)

How many VC are there (There? How about here?)

Where are the weapons hidden?

Where are the tunnels?

Where are the booby traps?

Come outside

Enter first

When was the attack?

Fortunately, Bring the village chief answered my need – mang lại cho trưởng thôn. Once in front of me, I could hand the package and leave. But, just for fun, imagine a conversation of your own, on any subject, limited to the above selection of phrases. Feel free to provide a complete script.

Of course, the guard at the entrance to the village was illiterate. Thus, I was reduced to reading the transliteration aloud, hoping that he understood – mang li cho trong ton.

Now, that may be wrong. You see, my card had been soaked through from sweat and humidity, the ink ran, and I wasn't quite sure that is what it said. However, I took a breath and read it aloud to the best of my ability. I was met by a very puzzled look. So I tried a variation. Here's another game: How many ways can you pronounce that combination of letters? Please, add your list to the script you wrote.

After many attempts, I had attracted a large crowd of Vietnamese who sat on the ground around me and laughed uproariously at everything that came out of my mouth. I believe that there were a few Viet Cong among them who could have shot me but felt that my embarrassment was a superior form of torture.

An American unit arrived, led by a major who explained that the village chief had been sitting on the ground next to me the whole time.

đó là cuộc sống*

*that's life


CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Words of War

EVERYDAY LANGUAGE IS rich with idioms and phrases derived from wars throughout the ages: Act of War, All's Fair in Love and War, Axe to Grind, Bite the Bullet, Drop the Bombshell, Great Guns, In Your Sights, Loose Cannon, Pull the Trigger, Run the Gauntlet, Shot Across the Bow, Stick to Your Guns, Take the Flak, War Chest. These are phrases that we hear and use almost daily. More recently, World War II produced such famous words as copacetic (don't worry, everything's fine) and snafu (situation normal, all f**ked up.

It seems that unpopular wars such as Vietnam and Korea, do not bring anything to the nation's lexicon. I have never heard popular words and phrases from Vietnam used since I returned from my tour of duty. I suppose that veterans stopped using them when they returned home for much the same reason that they quickly removed their uniforms and hid them. We were unpopular for fighting an unpopular war and shunned anything that marked us for ridicule and scorn.

Beaucoup

Very many (French) - as in "beaucoup VC in the village"

C-rations

(also, C-rats or 49 C's - the last year they were produced, but we ate them anyhow)

Choi Oi

Program whereby enemy combatants who surrendered were paroled to join the Army of Vietnam (ARVN)

Cowboys

Gangs of street urchins - thieves and pick pockets like Fagin's crew in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Di di mau

(Vietnamese: Di Di Mau Len) go away fast

Donut Dolly

(Delta-Delta) - female Red Cross program director

Dust Off

Air ambulance

Expectants

(Triage) patient not expected to survive (usually shunted to the side and left to die when triage personnel are inundated with many casualties)

Geographical Bachelor

Married men separated from spouses by long distances

Getting your car washed

Having sex for pay. Soldiers parked their vehicles in the middle of streams where Vietnamese urchins swarmed over them, washing away the grime of war while young girls sat in driver's laps while servicing them. Thus it became synonymous with sexual intercourse with a hooker.

Gook

(Probably from Korean - han guk sa ram \- Korean) -- any Asian (pejorative)

Hump

Long hike

Immediates

(Triage) patients requiring immediate attention

Click

Kilometer

Mama-san/Papa-san

Vietnamese woman/man - Japanese woman or man when used in that nation.

Number One

Best

Push

(Triage) - large number of battle casualties arriving at medical facility

Real world

Life outside (before or after) the armed services

Round-eye

(Pejorative) - used by Vietnamese (and other Asians) to describe Americans (and other non-Asians)

Short

Due to go home soon. (As in, "How short are you? I'm so short I could sleep in a matchbox.")

Sick Call

(Triage) – time allotted to care for the walking wounded

Slant or Slant-eye

(Pejorative) - used to describe any Asian

Slope

(Pejorative) -any Asian

Sorry 'bout that

Response to inadvertently administered harm to another, especially a non-combatant is a byproduct of all armed conflict. From random drive-by shootings in urban areas to death by friendly fire in the combat theater, people are injured and even killed, and property damaged almost daily. This is especially true when your enemy fights according to a doctrine wherein they are directed to hide among the civilian population. In Vietnam, we often responded to such incidents, "Sorry 'bout that."

Steel Pot

Helmet (also used as a chair, wash basic, pillow, and anything else we could think of)

Strac

(High praise for a soldier) - tough and ready, all spit-shined and clean when preparing for a parade or guard mount

Walking Wounded

(Triage) - patients whose care may be delayed until after all immediates are treated

Finally, let me clear up the confusion of the evolving name of the insurgents in Vietnam:

Viet

The Viet or Lac Viet were the early peoples who occupied the area known today as Vietnam.

Viet Minh

"Intelligent" Viet – the League for the Independence of Vietnam – the nationalist movement that opposed occupation by French colonialists as well as the Japanese during World War II. Led by Phan Boi Chou during most of its early history and later usurped by Ho Chi Minh as discussed in Ho Chi Minh: The Man and the Myth.

Viet Cong

(VC or Charlie) Red or Communist Viet – National Liberation Front (NLF) – the name adopted by the Viet Minh following the defeat of the French at Diem Bien Phu, and used until the end of the American involvement of the Vietnam War era. I have been contacted by a Canadian teaching in Hanoi who disputed this translation and argued that "Cong" was Vietnamese for "Community." As you read in the chapter entitled "Habla Usted Vietnamese" I don't speak the language. However, I investigated further and could only find references to "Cong" as meaning "Curve" or "Scorpio." Inasmuch as "Viet Cong" was the name used by the communist insurgents, I will stick with "Communist Viet" until someone corrects me.


CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MPC

I LOST ALL MY MONEY soon after arriving in-country. We all did. The Army replaced it with Military Payment Certificates (MPC). Real money was too valuable to leave in our hands. The enemy might get it.

All MPC was paper money; there were notes for nickels, dimes and quarters as well as dollars (I can't remember if there were penny notes). Smashed together in your wallet and liberally saturated with sweat and humidity, it congealed into one mass.

Periodically, old MPC would be exchanged for new MPC. Only those who were authorized to have it could get the new notes. Thus, if anyone held any MPC illegally – Vietnamese civilians and the enemy – they ended up stuck with worthless money.

Purchases on the civilian economy were made using South Vietnamese piasters. I believe that the exchange rate was about fourteen piasters to the dollar when I arrived. A popular myth held that the value of the piaster was secured by a thin thread of gold embedded in each note. I don't know anyone who didn't try to find it, and I suppose that the Vietnamese government enjoyed watching us destroy the money we had purchased with hard American currency, looking for the gold, and leaving them with an unintended profit.

My first purchase on the civilian market was a bit of an adventure. I was returning from my first meeting at USARV in Saigon, and was passing Long Binh when I asked the driver to stop so that I could purchase a chair for my hooch and a trunk to store my clothes. The Vietnamese had made an industry of salvaging beer and soda cans from American trash heaps and converting them into all manner of useful merchandise. We stopped at Widow's Village outside the U.S. base at Long Binh.

The Widow's Village was named for the wives of members of the ARVN (Army, Republic of Vietnam) who lived there. Some were actually widows, and others were virtual widows – widows by virtue of the fact that their husbands marched off to war and were never seen or heard from again because their superiors were loath to give them leave to visit, expecting them to never return.

We stopped at a roadside shop and I selected my goods. The young woman waiting there asked for five hundred piasters. My driver interrupted when I reached for my wallet, and asked me to wait aside while he bartered for a better price.

A few minutes later, my driver came to me and announced that three hundred piasters were enough for the trunk and the chair, as well as fifteen minutes with the mama-san. Yes, he had bartered for sex for me. I was contemplating what to do when the MP's (yes, Military Police) arrived and informed me that the area was Off Limits. I grabbed my trunk and chair, and left the woman's honor (and my reputation) unblemished.

One of the most dreaded extra duties assigned to me in Vietnam was MPC exchange officer for the 9th Admin Company. In the event that an MPC Exchange was announced, I was supposed to be given a supply of the new notes and exchange them for every cent of old MPC held by all authorized personnel in the unit. I dreaded it because any mistake would come out of my pocket. Fortunately, no date was announced during the time I was assigned that duty. However, I once came close to making an even greater mistake.

I cannot remember why, but I once was handed a full attaché case containing forty thousand dollars in MPC and tasked with escorting it to our base camp in Dong Tam where the Mobile Riverine Force was headquartered. It was a simple enough assignment. I carried it to the airfield at Camp Bearcat and hitched a ride on a Huey (UH1-D) headed in that direction. Being that it was my first trip in that direction and I had been lucky enough to get a door seat, I wanted to take pictures. I jammed the attaché case against the door with my foot and leaned out to take photos. Unexpectedly, a Phantom jet fighter tore past us on a bombing run. Apparently, neither the fighter pilot nor our helicopter pilot had seen each other. The fighter dropped a large bomb under us and we dove to one side to avoid chunks of mud the size of sofas blown up around us. The attaché case was slipping out the door when I dropped my camera and lunged for it. Luckily, the camera was fastened to my neck with a strap and I was fastened to the helicopter by a loosely fitting seat belt. I believe I had both arms and legs securely locked around the attaché case.


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Military Justice

I WAS THE DUTY OFFICER at division headquarters, Camp Bearcat, when Melvin Belli arrived on a fact-finding tour of military tribunals in Vietnam. The press was accusing them of being little more than kangaroo courts, and Belli was there to investigate on behalf of the American public. He wasn't expected until the next morning, and I had no instructions as to what to do with him. An aide for one of the Assistant Division Commanders (ADC) said that his general was away, and Belli could bunk in his trailer for the night. Wouldn't you know, the general returned unexpectedly to find the famous barrister, with his great beer belly and unruly crop of long, white hair sleeping in his bed. My night got exciting when the general appeared in the headquarters building demanding to know what the hell was going on.

Unfortunately, I wasn't interviewed by Belli; I could have told him a few things. The division Judge Advocate found out that I had a law degree, and began sending defendants to see me. Most were being tried on charges of using marijuana, and were unhappy with the defense counsel assigned to their cases from the officer ranks of their own units. They came to me looking for a member of the Justice League to get them off. The best I could promise was to make sure the prosecution proved their case.

I was able on one or two occasions to introduce doubt. For example, an investigator from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) testified that traces of marijuana had been found in the breast pocket of the defendant's fatigue blouse, thus proving possession, in much the same way that traces of tobacco collected in the pockets of cigarette smokers. On cross-examination, I was able to force the investigator to admit that such traces might have occurred if the defendant's laundry had been used by Vietnamese civilians to smuggle marijuana onto the post to engage in illicit sales, thus raising a doubt that the evidence was conclusive. Unfortunately, for this defendant, another witness testified that he had seen the defendant throw away a butt as the witness approached. Suspecting that the defendant had been smoking marijuana, the witness retrieved the smoldering butt and turned it over to an investigator who testified, clearing establishing the chain of possession of the evidence to a criminal laboratory in Japan and back to the courtroom, proving conclusively that the defendant had been smoking marijuana.

All of my "clients" were caught red-handed and destined for some bad time at the LBJ (Long Binh Jail). [Note: Bad time meant that your enlistment in the Army and your one year tour of duty in Vietnam were extended for a period equaling the time you were incarcerated.] All complained that prohibitions on marijuana were unreasonable if not unconstitutional. They weren't happy when I informed them that they could appeal, but only after they had been convicted, and most "copped a plea."

The most memorable case I handled actually made it to a battalion-level Special Courts Martial. Four young enlisted men had been caught using while sitting atop a bunker where they were plainly visible. Only three were seen smoking joints, which were collected by NCO's and sent by CID to Japan for analysis. The fourth was accused of being an accomplice. I felt I had a chance of getting him acquitted.

I cross-examined the senior NCO who had apprehended the men, questioning him as to why he thought the defendant was an accomplice. He testified that the young enlisted man knew that they were illegally using a controlled substance. How? I asked him. The NCO testified that he must have smelled it.

Ah, I thought I had my opening. There was no evidence that my client knew the smell of smoldering marijuana. How could he be sure the young man knew what marijuana smelled like? The president of the court laughed, averring that everyone knew what it smelled like.

Now, I was a virgin at the time, at least, in the world of drugs. I didn't know what marijuana smelled like. Indeed, when the marijuana they had been smoking was entered in evidence, I asked to see it. It would have been a first for me. The president of the court then informed me that he knew because their battalion commander had held an officer's call at which they all smoked a "joint" so they would know what they were dealing with. The other officers sitting on the court martial board concurred.

That stopped me cold. I then asked the court, how could they sit in judgment of these defendants when they had admitted to being guilty of the same crime for which the defendants were charged? The officers defended themselves by saying that they were "only following orders."

The court marital ended in chaos when I reminded them of the trials at Nuremberg where Nazis defended themselves using the same excuse.

That evening, at the division officer's club, the Judge Advocate let me know that the battalion commander wanted me tried for insubordination. I countered with charges against him and all his officers. We negotiated a settlement over a rubber of bridge, and I was never again referred to defendants. It's just as well; I was the antithesis of Perry Mason. I never won one.

Other than that experience, I did not see much to complain about in the application of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Article 32 investigations seemed to insure that charges were not filed without adequate cause. I could be wrong.

Article 15 of the UCMJ permitted commanders to apply limited punishment for minor infractions without the need for trial by courts martial, if the soldier consented to it. I'm certain that there were cases of abuse by commanders, but none ever came to my attention, nor would anyone ever learn of such abuses at a division headquarters if the soldiers did not appeal.


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Rules of Engagement

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT are "directives issued by competent military authority that delineate the circumstances and limitations under which United States forces will initiate and/or continue combat engagement with other forces encountered." (Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Related Terms.) Unfortunately, this publication does not also define competent military authority, and we are left to our own devices to question, were the rules of engagement employed in Vietnam during U.S. counter-insurgency operations devised by any competent authority? I think that, by and large, it is obvious that they were issued to meet political rather than military objectives.

Certainly, military operations cannot be divorced from politics. Indeed war is a failure of politics leading one to ask, what purpose can politics serve meddling in the conduct of war? In Vietnam, we learned the answer to that question.

I was once asked to accompany an officer from the division's Judge Advocate General's office who was investigating a sergeant who had branded a suspected Viet Cong soldier on the forehead with a heated wire in the shape of a "9." I believe that I was being considered to serve as his defense counsel, but I lost my favored son status with the Judge Advocate in another. The sergeant had led his platoon with great competency for the better part of a year, losing few to wounds and none to death, until he was denied artillery support because of his proximity to a peaceful village. This event resulted in numerous casualties. His branding of Charlie was an apparent reaction to his frustration with the rules of engagement. Although we can sympathize with his frustration, his was a criminal act and he accepted his justly deserved punishment.

In all probability, many such acts arose out of frustration with the rules of engagement. The massacre at My Lai probably falls into that category. Again, no excuses are being made, only understanding that hopefully would prevent competent military authorities from putting American service members in combat situations and then tie their hands. Armed forces are well-trained and adept at winning battles. They are not policemen nor nation builders. They should never be used as pawns in political games. Unfortunately, they are, more often in recent times.

War has never been civilized, but it used to be fought more gentlemanly. Civilians could sit on hillsides with their picnic lunches and thrill to the gallantry and bravery of their sons engaged in pitched battles for their amusement. Indeed, one such great battle, between the Bon Homme Richard, under the command of John Paul Jones, and the British man o' war, HMS Serapis, was viewed by spectators gathered on the cliffs at Flamborough Head, England. The defeat of the Serapis alarmed the citizens of England who subsequently prevailed upon the British parliament to sue for peace with their colonies and acquiesce to their independence.

Insurgency or guerrilla warfare is fought by irregular forces who are as wont as not to insinuate themselves into the civilian population to shield themselves and their purposes. Indeed, Mao Zedong, the author of the strategies and tactics of insurgencies, schooled his disciples to disperse, to hide among the innocent population, and from there, to harass and demoralize the enemy. No leader of a counter-insurgency should miss the opportunity to read Chairman Mao's teachings. It appears that our political and military leaders never did. The rules of engagement denied us the freedom we needed to fight such an enemy effectively, until the Viet Cong made the mistake of massing for the Tet Offensive of 1968.

Officers who violated the rules of engagement frequently were relieved of command and reassigned to battalion, brigade, and division headquarters until the furor died down or their tours of duty ended. I had the opportunity to get to know a few such officers. The 9th Admin company whose officers and men staffed the division's administrative, personnel, and finance offices, was frequently commanded by such men. I remember a pair of lieutenants who were serving as the Executive Officer of the 9th Admin company when I first arrived. They were affable young fellows with little to do but drink beer and chase mama-sans around the base camp. They told stories, speaking in guarded terms of tossing a grenade into a civilian hooch suspected of harboring Charlie or hiding his supplies. I suspect that they would not have been in trouble had there been reasonable evidence to support their actions. One of these young men complained that if a Vietnamese fired on him and fled, the American could not then respond if the VC had discarded his weapon before being caught. I did not have enough information to refute his assertion.

The most controversial applications of the rules of engagement were those regulating combat operations north of the DMZ. I'm certain that the public was confused by them, but no more so than the military who suffered casualties for them. Driven by political expediency or changes in political leadership, U.S. Armed Forces were subject to constantly changing guidelines. North Vietnamese leaders openly confessed that they were on the verge of suing for peace when President Nixon declared most of the north a free-fire zone.

The most prized rule of engagement was free unobserved fire, allowing us to fire any weapons system into an area for any reason, without first obtaining permission from the headquarters that had designated an area a free-fire zone. To my knowledge, Camp Bearcat was the only 9th Infantry Division base camp surrounded by a free-fire zone. In fact, it might have been the only one in all of South Vietnam. We could return fire or fire to interdict possible enemy activity anywhere, anytime within a radius encompassing the range of any enemy weapons system. As a result, Camp Bearcat received just one rocket during the whole of the thirteen months I was there. It was a 144mm rocket launched by a North Vietnamese unit several months after the Tet Offensive of 1968.

All other division base camps had peaceful civilian enclaves within range of them. Viet Cong gunners would frequently enter innocent homes, cut holes in the roofs, and lob mortar rounds against which we could not retaliate without endangering innocents. I experienced the insanity of the situation one night while visiting our Mobile Riverine base camp at Dong Tam. I sat with the officer of the guard, watching through a starlight scope as VC's setup and aimed a recoilless rifle at us from just outside our perimeter. Being accustomed to our rules of engagement at Camp Bearcat, I wondered aloud when the artillery rounds would arrive on the enemy group, and was informed that we couldn't shoot at them until they fired on us. We ducked our heads when they fired, and the round pierced the base camp library behind us. The VC were long gone before our artillery could respond.

So much for the rules of engagement.


CHAPTER NINETEEN

Guard Duty

CAMP BEARCAT WAS about one mile by one half mile, surrounded by a berm of dirt pierced by two main entrances on the western side. A bunker manned 24/7 by the Military Police flanked both sides of each entrance. Other bunkers at each corner and evenly spaced along each side of the base camp were manned by junior enlisted personnel among the REMF. Command of these bunkers was divided into four sectors, each with a command post (CP) manned by sergeants and company grade officers, also REMF. Each bunker was connected to its CP by a field phone and the CP has lines connecting it to the other command posts and other division assets such as artillery. As a second lieutenant, I was generally second in command of a sector and had the privilege of walking the perimeter to check on the guards while my superior slept.

Three men were assigned to each bunker and they took turns sleeping inasmuch as we all had to report to our regular duty posts each day following guard duty. All built revetments atop their bunkers using spare sandbags so that they could sit guard duty without going inside where the air was stale and fouled by rotting wood and humidity, and many feared the structure that was supposed to protect them would fall around their heads at any moment thanks to unrelenting attacks by termites.

The most unnerving aspect of guard duty was the fact that flare rounds fired by division artillery and drifting about the base camp all night, cast shadows that moved as the flares drifted slowly to the ground on parachutes. Often they swung to and fro making the shadows dance even more sinisterly. One of my men was scared back to his bunker when the casing from a flare round that detonated too close to the perimeter, fell to the ground next to him while he was urinating.

Sometime after midnight, I would take our assigned vehicle, a three-quarter ton truck to our mess hall where baked goods were being prepared for the following day's meals in the relative cool of the night. I then visited each bunker passing out hot coffee and cakes. In the morning, I had to form a patrol to sweep the area outside the base camp to look for signs of enemy activity or tampering with the defensive lines of barbed and concertina wire.

One evening before sunset, the guards at one of our bunkers had spotted activity about a quarter mile outside our perimeter. Since the area was "closed" to all civilians about an hour before sunset, I was told to take a patrol to investigate.

I chose six men, two with M-79 grenade launchers and four with M-16 rifles. I divided them into two fire teams led by the grenadiers. We followed a deep drainage ditch that exited the camp perpendicularly and led to the road where the activity was observed. When we passed the outermost line of wire defenses, I stopped the men and explained our situation. We were on our own. There was no preplanned artillery support, and we were too far from the perimeter for anyone to organize a rescue and come help us. Thus, I reasoned that we would have to attack fast and furiously if there was any trouble. Five of the men simply nodded their understanding and climbed out of the ditch onto open ground. The sixth had to be coaxed out.

We found a family collecting dead wood for their charcoal furnace and loading it onto a three-wheel motor scooter. I left the men to scout the area to see if they had done anything besides collect wood while I went to check for contraband and encourage them to leave. Since none of them spoke English, I had to pantomime my communication.

On the way back to our camp I began to wonder about the security of the ditch we had been using to traverse the defenses. There was nothing in it to discourage anyone from approaching our perimeter. That night I installed trip flares and Claymore mines in the ditch. Possibly the Viet Cong in our vicinity were also REMF.


CHAPTER TWENTY

Sleeping on Guard

THERE IS POSSIBLY no worse crime for a soldier to commit than sleeping on guard, especially in a combat zone. It is the ultimate betrayal that one soldier places in another. In most armies and in most times, it is a crime punishable by death. However, in my experience in Vietnam, it was virtually impossible to successfully prosecute such a case. It may be that the punishment was too horrific for anyone to apply. Then again, it may be that the Army was bending over backwards to prove itself fair and just to the point that it became impossible to satisfy civilians that the crime merited the punishment.

I once found a guard sleeping on duty atop the corner bunker in the center of our sector of the base camp perimeter. It was the tallest bunker and could not be scaled without difficulty, especially in the dark. I found his buddies asleep beside him while he sat behind his tripod-mounted M-60 machine gun. The fact that he was sleeping while sitting upright fooled me at first. However, he remained unresponsive to my calls and I began to suspect that something was amiss.

When I arrived atop the bunker, I found him wrapped in his poncho, with his chin firmly embedded in his chest. I could see his eyes closed in the available light emitted my moonglow, stars, and drifting flares. He did not stir even when I shook him by the shoulder and spoke in a normal voice. I would have thought him dead but for his snoring.

Failing to wake him I pondered the situation for a few moments. Seeing that there was no immediate threat, I called the Command Post (CP) on the bunker's field phone and requested that the senior officer join me.

He too climbed the bunker with the same results. Sitting there surrounded by the sleeping guards we discussed the situation at length. He was prepared to file charges, but I cited the problems in courts martial for sleeping on guard duty to dissuade him. How, I asked, could we be sure which guard was supposed to be awake, since we allowed the teams to set their own schedules of who was to be awake and who was to be asleep? I suggested that we simply teach them a lesson and, maybe, allow them to decide who was at fault and apply punishment as they saw fit.

Agreeing with me, he and I removed all weapons from the bunker. Thank God, we weren't Viet Cong. We were very inept at it. I forgot that a belt of ammunition was attached to the machine gun and it rattled loudly against the ammo can when I tried to pick up the weapon. The other officer fell off the bunker as we were working and landed on the sandbags stacked around the base with a sound similar to a car running into a fence. Even so, we were able to remove both machine guns, all personal weapons, and the detonators for the claymore mines that surrounded the bunker.

After returning to the CP with our loot, we watched the sleeping men atop the bunker through starlight scopes as the sergeant of the guard rang them on the field phone. It rang a very long time. We could hear it above the curses of the sergeant who was growing tired cranking his instrument until the guard who had been sitting behind the machine gun looked around groggily and finally answered.

The sergeant followed the script we had given him saying that Ground Surveillance Radar (I believed that I had heard of such a thing) had detected movement near his position and that he should watch out for anyone lurking nearby.

We waited awhile until the sergeant made his second call. Again, following our script, he told the guard that he should recon by fire – that is, fire a few rounds to see if anyone returned fire or reacted in some other way. We waited and watched. The guard lifted the poncho that had been covering his machine gun and we could see his body tense. Looking frantically left and right he stood up and tossed the poncho off the bunker. His buddies were awakened by the commotion and there was a hurried conference that we could not hear, and they left the top and entered the bunker where we knew a second machine gun was placed.

Again, the sergeant called asking why the man hadn't fired. He lied. He claimed the gun had jammed, and the sergeant ordered him to fire a claymore mine. Of course, he couldn't; we had taken the detonators.

Finally, we walked to the bunker and explained what had happened. The guards began to argue among themselves as to who was supposed to be awake, and the man we had found sitting at the machine gun claimed that he had been awake the whole time.

We calmly explained that we were not going to file charges. However, our experience had taught us the difficulty of climbing up and down the bunker in the dark, and that we would not be surprised if one of them might also fall as the officer in charge had done. We advised them to be careful so that no one would get hurt.

No one else fell that night nor did any of them sleep. Apparently, our suggestion was simply too subtle.


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Driving in a Combat Zone

THE TRIPS THAT MY FAMILY TOOK from Baltimore to visit relatives in Pennsylvania when I was a child, long before the Interstate Highway System was built, followed routes that meandered from US to state highways and back roads. These intersected at towns and you would see sign posts on the side of Main Street bending under the weight of four, five, six, or more markers for highways sharing the same pavement. The numbered roads split on the other side of town where you would find other highway markers with arrows pointing in the new directions that they meandered, going their separate ways. Driving in Vietnam was a lot like this except that no one bothered to name or number the highways.

There were rules for driving in Vietnam. Never stop on a bridge – machine gunners at both ends would fire on anyone who dared – they might be stopping to detonate a bomb. Wait for the engineers to clear the roads of mines in the morning before venturing out and don't be caught on the road at night when the VC were re-mining them. Don't try to look down the rows of trees on rubber plantations as you drive by – they pass too quickly to get more than a glance and you'll only hurt your neck if you try (I tried on my first drive from the reception center at Long Binh to the 9th Infantry Division headquarters at Camp Bearcat).

The jeep was our primary transport in those pre-Hummer days. It wasn't your grandfather's jeep from World War II. It wasn't built by Willys. It was a Ford. Unlike the Willys Jeep, the Ford Jeep had swing axles. These were better suited for traversing uneven terrain, but made the vehicle inherently unstable on roads. I really felt badly for the Military Police who welded sheet metal armor to the sides of their jeeps and mounted an M-60 machine gun on a pylon. Many MPs were killed and injured when these rolled because of their high centers of gravity. Interestingly, I don't have a photo of one nor could I find one in a Google search. Maybe none survived the war.

Every jeep I saw in Vietnam had sand bags covering the floor. I never saw any reports or statistics on the efficacy of these against damage or injury from jeeps striking mines, and I never had a chance to find out for myself – thank God.

Our principle cargo transport was the deuce-and-a-half (two and a half ton capacity truck). Vietnam-era deuce-and-a-halfs were built by Kaiser and had automatic transmissions that slammed gears on every shift no matter how fast or slow they were being driven. The springs on the rear axle that gave them their capacity to carry heavy cargo made the ride excruciatingly uncomfortable when loaded only with troops. You were likely to get saddle sores on a long drive.

Our small cargo carrier was the three-quarter ton truck – similar in size and capacity to a civilian pickup truck. I had the displeasure of driving one to deliver coffee and pastries to the men on guard duty in my section (I made my driver sit in the passenger seat only because I felt like driving for a change). The steering was unbelievably heavy. I can only compare it to driving a car with power steering when the engine stalls. Maybe worse. However, it had an exceptionally high ground clearance and it would claw its way through mud during the monsoon season that would mire down almost any other vehicle.

Whenever I had to go on a road trip, the Sergeant-Major would assign a driver. He always assigned Leroy because he hated me. Leroy was a personable young man of 17 or 18 years of age. Cute. A great smile. The Vietnamese girls loved him. Unfortunately, someone had impressed him with the inherent instability of the Ford jeep on roads and he refused to drive faster than twenty miles per hour – a full ten less than I thought was safe and usually twenty less than I would have preferred to get the hell where I was going! The Sergeant-Major invariably grilled my driver when we returned to make sure I hadn't pulled rank and gotten behind the wheel. He could have made trouble for me inasmuch as I didn't have a military driver's license. However, there were a couple of occasions when I did and got away with it.

On one occasion, I went to Saigon to pick up a supply of beer for my men. I had promised them all they could drink in a misplaced attempt at bravado when I tried to quit smoking. I bought a lot of beer. It was only $1.50 a case and I took a trailer to haul it back. Vietnamese children darted into traffic whenever we stopped and set the hand brake on the trailer so we couldn't drive away as they stole cases. I finally had the driver sit atop the cargo and threatened them with his M-16, and I drove until we got out of Saigon.

If you have watched the Great Race on television, you have noticed a very few contestants who pause to look around at the countries they pass through. Most are too focused on the prize to see the wonders of the places they visit. Incredibly, I met many military personnel who lived abroad who failed to take advantage of the places they were stationed. Once, when I thought I might make a career of the Army, I considered volunteering to return to Vietnam and then requesting assignment to Germany. I asked a fellow officer who had been stationed there what he thought of it. Not much, he opined. The Post Exchange (PX) at the base where he was stationed was inadequate, he complained. The poor man had never ventured off base during the three years he was in Germany. What a waste.

As a passenger, I was able to get a glimpse of Vietnamese life as we slowly passed homes and shops along the road. Leroy gave me lots of time to look. I had him stop occasionally so I could shop or look around. I ate the food without ill effect. Indeed, as I report in another chapter, I found the cuisine to be the best of all Asian fare (see Le Cuisine Vietnamese). The only unfortunate affair I ran into happened in a shop where I was surrounded by Vietnamese children – preteens known as cowboys. I was unprepared when one placed his hands on my wrist and stripped my watch off of it. Fortunately, he lost his grip and it fell to the floor. I reached it before him and rose back with my watch in one hand and the nape of his neck in the other. I held him at arm's length and glared. I waited until the other children scattered and then dropped him. I doubt if he learned anything other than to be a better thief next time.

One day while returning to Bearcat from Saigon, we got stuck in a convoy that included treaded vehicles – Armored Personnel Carriers (APC) and tanks. After much cajoling, Leroy began passing a few. Seeing oncoming traffic from a jeep when you are behind an armored vehicle is extremely difficult. Sitting on the passenger side, I couldn't help other than to scream and curse at Leroy to put his foot into it and try. This didn't help. What finally helped was a command-detonated mine that exploded just after we passed over a culvert. Poor Leroy's couldn't find a way to push the accelerator any further than the floorboard. I smiled all the way back to Bearcat.


CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Flying in Close Formation With Your Aircraft

THE VIETNAMESE PEOPLE had a proud tradition spanning centuries, of defeating invaders. Many coveted the abundance of that land, especially the Mekong Delta where rice grew in great abundance. Chinese. Japanese. French. These aggressors gained toeholds for a time, but all were ultimately defeated, until the Communists came. Although the international community ceded the northern half of their country to the Communists, the Vietnamese were able to withstand their incursion into the south with the aid of the United States. Only after the Americans abandoned them were the Communists able to occupy their land. The helicopter was the tool that made the difference. It provided mobility in a land where all other armies had been mired in rice paddies, jungles, and precipitous mountain terrain.

In recent years, I lived under the flight path between El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and Camp Pendleton when we first moved to Orange County, California. I surprised my family and neighbors when I named any helicopter that flew near our home simply by the sound of its rotors. The reason was simple. The Marine Corps is still flying most of the same rotary wing aircraft today that I heard every day during my thirteen month tour of duty in Vietnam, and every one of them had a distinctive sound.

I flew in three of the four principal helicopters to serve the Army in Vietnam. My son, who studied aerospace engineering in college, cringes when I tell him of my adventures in helicopters. He believes that they are inherently unsafe close formations of thousands of precision parts all destined to fly apart without warning. To be honest, I never thought of them that way.

I got to know several helicopter pilots in Vietnam. I met others who had washed out of pilot training for ridiculously simple minded errors. Most were young enough that their parents probably were fearful of allowing them to drive the family car. I can only imagine their fright if they had seen their sons piloting aluminum eggshells over hostile territory.

Working in Awards and Decorations, I had the opportunity to document the courage of many of those helicopter pilots and crews. The division commanding general was authorized to award the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with V-device (for valor) when merited. Air Medals were also awarded without v-devices for persons who accumulated enough hours flying in combat operations. I accumulated the necessary hours flying as a substitute door gunner to relieve exhausted crews as well as on routine trips to outlying brigade and battalion base camps.

I believe that every grunt remembers those men and their magnificent flying machines with great affection for bringing much needed supplies and ammunition or carrying away the wounded in the heat of battle. There were no foxholes in the sky.

I cannot tell you anything about these aircraft that is not covered far better in other publications. I will limit my posting to my experiences with them.

UH1-D Huey

The most ubiquitous of all helicopters, the Huey was a magnificent feat of aeronautical engineering. It greatly simplified flying for the helicopter pilot, allowing him to focus more on the mission than the mechanics of flight. It also reduced the time needed to train pilots. Contrary to my son's belief, I can only imagine the safety record of this aircraft. Thousands were flown on thousands of missions with very few mechanical failures.

Weight was the aircraft's enemy. Everything unnecessary was removed, including doors. Passengers sat on canvas seats slung between a simple pipe frame. We sat on our flak vests to keep from being shot in the ass from ground fire.

We flew at low altitude between base camps to draw fire. Seriously. It was an efficient way of learning if the enemy was operating in the area. On my first mission as a door gunner I was told to watch behind the aircraft. The Viet Cong would duck at the sound of our approach, then stand up and watch us after we passed overhead.

CH-47 Chinook

This was our heavy lifter. It was banned from landing near buildings for fear that the downdraft from the rotors would blow them over.

I remember one evening just before sunset when an Air Force pilot landed his 0-1 Cessna Bird Dog on a road along our base camp perimeter. He was hopping mad about the potholes. The division's aviation battalion had agreed to avoid this road, but sometimes operations at the base camp airfield were so busy that helicopters had to use roads as airstrips. The Chinooks blasted potholes into any unprepared surface. Our compacted laterite roads were no match for the force of its downdraft.

I only flew in a Chinook once. I had to get to My Tho to deliver some classified documents. Checking in with flight operations, I learned that there weren't any aircraft headed there, but a flight of three Chinooks were headed for Dong Tam where I might pick up a ride to my destination. As I ran onto the airfield, I saw a large group of men loading into two of the aircraft. I decided to head for the third one, and became its only passenger. On the flight there, we suddenly peeled away from the other two and began descending. Watching over the shoulder of one of the door gunners I could see that we were about to hover over a fire base to hook onto a load while Viet Cong were attacking. As I turned back to pick up my flak vest and weapon off the seat, I almost stepped through an open hatch where the crew chief was operating the winch. Luckily, he grabbed my ankle and steered me away. (I can only imagine that I am part of another "stupid lieutenant" story in someone's memoir.)

OH-23G Raven

The Raven was an observation craft, often used to scout for enemy activity or fly artillery observations to active combat locations. It consisted mainly of an aluminum pipe frame, a Plexiglas bubble, and a very strong, noisy, four-cylinder piston engine. The pilot sat in the center behind a small instrument console perched on a pylon. Passengers sat on either side. Their seats accommodated about half-an-ass. The rest hung outside.

AH-1 Cobra

The Cobra was introduced into the theater of war about the time of the Tet Offensive in January, 1968. I saw my first one shortly thereafter. It landed in front of our division headquarters building near my office. I gave my men a break and we walked over to see it. One of our Assistant Division Commanders, Brigadier General William B. Fulton, went for a ride. We enjoyed watching the crew chief attempting to stuff the general, who must have been well above six feet, into a cockpit designed for a much smaller man.

The Cobra was an experiment – a successful experiment. It was the promise of better aircraft to follow including the AH-64 Apache. I know that the Marines love their Cobras, but I bet they wish someone would give them the budget to buy the more advanced gunships.


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

STOL

WHENEVER I FLY out of John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, I take a moment to ask the person seated next to me if this is their first time taking off there. I think it's only fair to warn newbies. The take off path from John Wayne passes over expensive estates that were built when the airport served small private planes. The land owners became upset when jet airliners began buzzing their homes, and they lobbied successfully for "noise abatement" rules. Thus, taking off from John Wayne is something like being launched from an aircraft carrier. Fast acceleration. Steep climb angle. Power back until we reach the coast. The plane feels like it is about to fall from the sky like a stone when the pilot pulls back on the throttles. I wish someone had paid me a similar courtesy the first time I flew in a Caribou.

I had never heard of STOL before I rode in a Caribou, and I only rode in it once. Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) is an important feature in a fixed wing aircraft in combat operations. Long, shallow glide paths only serve to expose aircraft to ground fire as they leave and approach runways. Unfortunately, no one explained this to me before I took my ride.

Caribous were operated by the Army during the early years of the Vietnam War to transport medium-sized loads of troops, supplies, and equipment, farther and faster than large helicopters. The Air Force was upset because it felt that the Army was infringing on their mission with the Caribous, and took possession of them in exchange for permitting the Army to provide their own rotary wing (helicopter) support in tactical situations.

Granted, my one and only experience in a Caribou was not the optimum flight to judge. I was the sole passenger on a flight carrying mail to the Mobile Riverine Base at Dong Tam. I was trying to watch the scenery from a small round porthole during takeoff when the cargo shifted and pushed me away. They were just bags of paper and the cargo master apparently was not concerned that there was anything delicate inside. He had forgotten about me.

Forget seat belts; there were no seats. I had hitched a ride on the runway and was invited to make myself comfortable among the bags. I have flown in many small twin-engine propeller-driven aircraft and the Caribou in flight is no more or less comfortable than them. The only alarming aspect of the trip was the landing and my problem could have been alleviated with a little warning.

Dong Tam did not enjoy free-fire around its perimeter and the Viet Cong were able to infiltrate quite close and take pot shots at approaching and departing aircraft. Thus, our pilot choose to begin his descent directly over the airfield. He simply dipped the wing and pointed it at the ground, and we began a rapid spiral. The cargo shifted violently, capturing me in its flow towards the downward most porthole and pressing my face against it. Now I had a view.

Prepared to meet my maker as the ground approached, I was surprised when we suddenly leveled off momentarily. My relief was short-lived as the pilot then pointed our nose at the ground. At least, I thought, he will die before me.

My second surprise came when he applied full power to the engines. Unbeknownst to me, he had reversed pitch on the propellers and they were now braking our descent. The load of mail now shifted forward with me in its grasp and I was now pressed against the bulkhead separating the cargo bay from the pilot's compartment. There is no doubt in my mind that he was imagining my plight and laughing maniacally as we plummeted those last few feet.

Our crash was averted when we leveled off and landed with a thump. I don't believe that the airplane rolled forward more than its own length before coming to an abrupt halt, not too dissimilar from running into a brick wall.

I vowed to walk back to Camp Bearcat.


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Bobbie The Weather Girl

MY TWO MOST POPULAR shows on Armed Forces Radio and Television Network (AFRTN) in Vietnam were Vic Morrow's Combat and Bobbi The Weather Girl. I suppose that my friends and I liked Combat because it portrayed a better war. Bobbie The Weather Girl, was the funniest show on the air. She and the AFRTN crew that produced the show did their best to keep it light and entertaining. If rain was in the forecast, it didn't make any difference in our plans. Soldiers don't simply drop what they're doing and run for cover because they might get damp. The war went on, rain or no rain. However, it was funny to see a bucket of water descend on Bobby unexpectedly when she forecast it.

Bobby was in Vietnam during the war working as a secretary at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) located at the Mondial Hotel in the Cholon District on the western side of Saigon. Her other activities were performed as a volunteer.

Bobby was no dumb blond. Her personality and wit soon made her popular with all of the troops and requests began to pour in to AFRTN in Saigon for Bobby to visit them. She happily obliged regardless of the dangers. Bobby was flown into remote base camps from the DMZ to the Delta. She was catapulted off of carrier decks and even had to duck enemy fire at times.

Honorary titles accumulated on Bobby like ornaments on a Christmas tree. She was the "Hawk Honey" to the members of the First Aviation Brigade and appeared in their December, 1968 unit magazine clad in a bikini and climbing out of a duffel bag. The First Cavalry dubbed her "a mini-skirted heat wave who raised troop's temperatures."

I never met Bobby beyond the screen of my portable TV, but, like every other GI, I suppose I was happy she was there. I think that all of us felt that she was a "friend," and she made our tours of duty a little bearable.

Interestingly, the weather girl that you'll see in video clips if you look her up on the Internet, is not the same one I watched in late 1967 or early 1968. It's the same person, but not the same performer. The girl I watched looked like a deer in the headlights whenever the camera first turned on. She glanced frequently off-camera where, we supposed, her handlers were attempting to distract her, to help her relax. They dressed her in tight sweaters, and when she attempted to point to the DMZ, our attention was riveted somewhere further south.

Apparently Bobby didn't hunker down in her quarters in Saigon after hours. It is reported that she pursued a busy social life among the locals. Many of the bar girls were suspicious of the blond round-eyed woman, and may have worried that she would interfere with their trade. However, Bobby seems to have won them over with her humor. She would sometimes sit on a bar stool near the door and ask GIs to buy her "Saigon Tea." The bar girls would laugh hysterically at the reactions of the young men hearing an American girl propositioning them.

Unfortunately, some didn't get the joke. One bar girl set Bobby's hair on fire, and an influential Eurasian put a contract on her life. It seems that Bobby had no problem recruiting bodyguards until the matter was settled.

Still, Bobby was taking a risk just being there. In an interview about twenty years ago, she admitted, "Had I not had the naiveté of youth, I would not have survived as nothing seemed real, nothing appeared permanent."

Bobby went on to say, "I never heard a bird sing the whole time I lived in Viet Nam, perhaps because of all the tragedy."

To tell the truth, I never heard a bird sing either, all the time I was there. War, or "tragedy" as Bobby said, clearly drove them all away. I only saw them once during my thirteen month tour of duty. Once while flying in a helicopter, a small flock of crane-like birds were startled from their roost and took flight below us. The white of their feathers starkly contrasted against the dark green vegetation. I didn't hear them singing. I couldn't even if they did. The beat of the rotors and the whine of the gas turbine engine were our constant companions. Maybe that's why we cherished the sound of a young, attractive, round-eyed woman attempting to bring a little humor into our lives.


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

REMF

A MODERN ARMY cannot move, shoot, or communicate without a dizzying array of intelligence, planning, and logistics. Along the way, it creates a mountain of paperwork to document, authorize, and memorialize every aspect of its operations. Every combat soldier has many needs that must be met for him to fight effectively, creating a need for at least three or four soldiers in the rear with the gear, to support every one in combat.

Every recruit takes the same battery of tests to measure vocational aptitudes as well as general knowledge and intelligence. The results are used to place each in a Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) to which they are best suited. The MOS list for the Army resembles a telephone directory for a large city. Other branches of the armed services have far smaller MOS listings simply because their missions are not as broad as that of the Army. Of course, errors are made in assigning recruits to an MOS and these are the stuff of legend (and jokes). However, the system works, in most cases, and those who are not tapped for one of the myriad occupations collect in one of three combat arms MOS: Infantry (grunts), Artillery (cannon cockers), and Armor (tank crews). To these men, all others are REMF (Rear Echelon Mother F**kers).

The prejudices of combat soldiers towards REMF resemble those applied to soldiers of African descent in all wars. Despite the fact that African-American soldiers served with distinction in every American war beginning with the Revolution, they have been derided as either too inept or too cowardly to fight. Time and again their actions belied these prejudices. The exploits of black volunteers led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, documented in the motion picture Glory, proved their courage. General John J. Pershing earned his nickname "Black Jack," leading Negro soldiers during the Cuban Insurrection where they were eclipsed by Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders in the press only; they were not eclipsed on the battlefield. The Tuskegee Airmen, memorialized in the motion picture of the same name, won the admiration of even the most diehard bigots during World War II. However, in every instance, they were still blacks who ultimately were treated to the same discrimination when they returned from war. So too, REMF were damned by antiwar protesters as "baby-killers" as were combat soldiers, when they returned home.

So too, REMF are considered less than real soldiers and cowardly for being assigned to the rear with the gear. And, like the blacks who served in other wars, these prejudices followed them home where combat veterans continued to deride them. Most REMF hide their service while combat veterans parade with their medals and their memories. Is it envy; REMF won the MOS lottery, and the combat soldier lost? In all honesty, the REMF cannot claim an equal share of the glory of war, but neither are they deserving of the derision they receive.

One of the itinerant combat infantry captains who came to babysit the 9th Admin Company for a while had lost half of his men in a battle with the Viet Cong. Before you judge him too harshly, let me add that the fault was not entirely his; his battalion commander had deployed his entire command on line to reconnoiter an enemy deployment, making them vulnerable to the ambush that they marched into. "On line" is an attack formation usually reserved until you know your enemy's location and disposition.

This captain, like most other combat veterans, had no regard for REMF and treated them with derision. Putting him in command of an entire company of REMF was a cruel joke.

I was passing his office one day and was attracted inside by the sounds of confusion. A company vehicle had broken down on the road somewhere south of Camp Bearcat in the late afternoon and the men riding in it would be in peril if left there overnight. The VC often traveled the roads under the cover of darkness and mined them in anticipation of the next day's travel by American and ARVN forces as well as civilians. Engineers swept the roads clean of mines each morning before they were "opened" to traffic.

The motor pool did not have a vehicle to retrieve our truck before nightfall, and it appeared that someone would have to secure it until the next day. The captain was frantically calling for help, but no one seemed available.

He laughed when I suggested that we could do the job ourselves. His scorn was clearly evident as he laughed at the idea of clerks and cooks going out on a combat patrol, and he dared me to even try and find volunteers for such a mission.

I sent runners around the company area to find anyone who was willing to go out with me to secure the truck for the night. I told them to meet me at the company HQ and bring their weapons, flak vests, and steel helmets. Within a half hour I had almost every off-duty member of the company lined up, ready to go. Cooks were armed with butcher knives as well as their M-16's. Clerks were cleaning and checking their rifles and grabbing loaded magazines of ammunition from a footlocker to stuff into their pockets. The captain stood transfixed. It was a sight beyond his imagining.

As we prepared to exit the base camp, the company executive officer arrived in a vehicle he had borrowed from another unit, towing the disabled vehicle we were on our way to defend. There was a general sigh of disappointment from my impromptu command.

Unfortunately, the change in attitude towards the REMF was short-lived as the captain was rotated to another assignment and his replacement arrived with the usual attitude that all had come to expect from combat veterans.

Combat veterans deserve all the glory, and REMF deserve equal respect. Unfortunately, they weren't equal until they got back home. There, we were all baby killers...


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

In The Rear

BY NOW, YOU MUST KNOW that I am defensive about the perception of soldiers who served "in the rear with the gear," believing that they were sometimes too harshly judged by their brethren in combat. However, there were those worthy of such judgment – the true REMF. Often times they were not so far in the rear. There were many combat commanders who sent men to their death through incompetence. There were many commanders of support units who failed to deliver the guns and butter that the combat soldier needed to fight effectively. Then there were some who were simply mean-spirited SOBs who demanded respect that they did not deserve. These are their stories as I experienced them.



As I discussed in the chapter Rules of Engagement, our division headquarters at Camp Bearcat enjoyed the rare privilege of free unobserved fire in all directions at any time of the day or night. However, there was a rubber plantation to the south of us that had been excluded from this free fire zone by senior officers who, rumor had it, enjoyed the society of the plantation's French owners. Their opinion prevailed until we lost a patrol there. They were denied artillery support when they came under attack by a large concentration of insurgents who were using the plantation as a sanctuary. Our new division commander, a former artillery officer, was not pleased and ordered all division artillery to fire TOT (Time on Target – a tactic where cannons of all calibers fire in a specially calculated sequence to have their munitions arrive on the same targeted area at a specific time). Several of the REMF sat atop the berm surrounding the base camp that day, cheering the flight of rubber trees as they were thrown into the air by the massive explosions. I have no idea if we did any damage to the enemy that day, but it is clear that they were served notice that their sanctuary had ended.



Exchanging salutes is a sign of respect, not only for enlisted men to show respect for commissioned officers, but also for these officers to show respect for the men under their command. The ritual is initiated by the enlisted man or junior officer whenever his path crosses that of a senior officer while not under cover (not under a roof, inside a building or a covered porch). I never had occasion to reprimand a soldier for failing in his duty, but I was riding in a jeep with a senior Adjutant General's officer at our brigade headquarters at Dong Tam, home of the Mobile Riverine Force, when we passed a young soldier who was the very picture of a man returning from combat. He was not physically wounded, but the scars of battle were clearly visible. He was obviously bone tired, dragging his weapon behind him. His helmet was gone, thus violating the general order that a soldier always be "under cover" when not under cover – that is wearing a regulation hat or helmet when out-of-doors. His flak jacket was open and his web equipment belts were loosely hanging from his shoulder.

This soldier failed to salute as we drove past him, and the senior officer ordered the driver to turn around so that he could go back and berate the young man for his lapse of duty. I tried to hide in the back of the jeep. The driver passed the soldier and pulled to a stop whereupon the senior officer jumped out. I remember the young man looking dazed as he slowly absorbed the fact that his way was blocked by a senior officer, and then slowly raising his hand to salute as the man began berating him for his lapse in military etiquette. The driver stifled a laugh when the soldier explained his actions by saying that he was not accustomed to saluting an officer who had over-taken him from behind and drove past. The officer bellowed that the infraction occurred as we first drove past in the opposite direction.

It was obvious to the driver and myself that the soldier simply had been unaware of the first passing as he was too focused on reaching his bed or maybe getting a hot shower and a meal. We could only speculate on how many of his buddies had been killed or injured in the action he was returning from, and we were embarrassed to be in the company of a senior officer who could not ascertain these simple facts for himself.

The story of this incident soon became common knowledge when we returned to division headquarters, not that I had any part in spreading it, of course.



Although I served as a staff officer at division headquarters, I had the opportunity to put my training as an infantry officer to good use when I was given command of one of our base camp reaction force platoons. However, before this posting was made, I was asked by a friend to accompany him one day as he led his platoon on a mission. Our company commanding officer was an infantry officer who had served nine months with one of the division's battalions before commanding the 9th Administration Company. While there, he lost most of his company in an ambush.

My friend had received his commission via the ROTC program and served in the division finance office. He had some basic combat training, however, he knew his limitations when he was called to assemble his platoon and rally with the rest of the company at the midpoint of our southern perimeter. There we learned that two Vietnamese civilians had grabbed a case of ammunition, scaled the berm, and headed for the rubber plantation about a quarter mile away. The guard on duty at the bunker about a hundred yards distant merely observed and reported the theft.

The CO deployed us in two lines facing each other and perpendicular to the berm. One line, consisting of two platoons stretched from the berm to the farthest wire tangle about two thirds of the distance to the tree line. My friend's platoon was positioned about a quarter mile from the first line, also perpendicular to the berm. Let me pause to clarify the deployment – you may not believe what you just read. Yes, we had two groups of heavily armed men facing each other and separated by about a quarter mile. The ground between was filled with concertina wire and barbed wire tangles. The ground was clear of vegetation but shallow trenches could have concealed someone. If anyone popped up between us, the firing would have commenced and many of us would have been wounded or killed by "friendly fire."

Let me also clarify the fact that, in all probability, the Vietnamese who stole the ammunition had escaped into the tree line long before our deployment – at least I hoped they had because I didn't want anyone to pop up and give anyone reason to start the shooting.

My advice to my friend was to keep his men low to the ground and tell them to keep their heads down if the shooting started. Don't shoot back otherwise they would only encourage their own men to keep shooting at them.

I decided to get out of there and see if I could do any good. I had heard that a road paralleling our berm was somewhere about a mile deep into the rubber plantation, and I felt that if we moved quickly enough, we might be able to reach it before the two men carrying a heavy case of ammunition between them. Thus, we could lay an ambush before they got there. I had my friend radio the CO for permission and took four volunteers with me into the rubber plantation.

Tall grass filled the area around the trees and I led the men in single file through it. I was moving quickly to get ahead of the men we were seeking until I came upon what appeared to be an eggplant growing wild in the grass. I stopped. Suddenly, I realized that I could come upon anything hidden in that grass unexpectedly. It gave me pause, especially considering that I had no radio or pre-arranged support. Oh, what the hell, I continued as soon as the men following me caught up.

We hadn't gone far after that when a runner sent by my friend reached us and said that we better turn back. The CO had spotted movement in the rubber plantation and was bringing the whole company on line to "recon by fire." Think about it. Do you have the picture? We were that "movement."

Thank God, my friend was paying attention and sent the runner. We escaped the fire zone just moments before the whole company, including M60 gunners, opened up.

I was hopping mad, Literally, I was jumping up and down in front of the CO while he stammered some lame excuse about forgetting me and my volunteers. Noticing that I had torn my pants leg and cut myself on some barbed wire during my headlong rush to get out of the way of the fusillade, he offered to recommend a Purple Heart. That only made me angrier.

Luckily my friend pulled me away and the CO was soon sent home. One less Mother F**ker to contend with.



These men, the officers who denied artillery support for men in combat, who demanded rituals of respect when they were not warranted nor deserved, or who did not have the courage to face a man while assassinating his character, these were M*** F**kers. There were others.


CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Added Duties/No Added Pay

I LEARNED A LOT about weapons and tactics in Officer Candidate School, but very little about being a good officer. That came with on-the-job training. Actually, I didn't begin to figure it out until a few more years experience beyond my tour of duty in Vietnam. The result is that anyone who had the misfortune to fall under my command had to put up with a typical idiot lieutenant. It also didn't help that I developed a very poor attitude towards some of my superiors, especially the ones that lacked spine. I sometimes bullied these men when they stood in my way and, thus, won their undying enmity; the principal reason that a career in the Army ceased to be an option. Of course, my men also sometimes suffered for my lack of tact, my superiors punishing them as well as me. The injury my men suffered in no way compared with that suffered by soldiers who were poorly led in combat.

Beyond the role of leader, commissioned officers have the authority to notarize documents, administer oaths, and witness official records. No one mentioned any of this when I became a commissioned officer. These requirements simply presented themselves from time to time. For example, I was handed a set of orders to be signed by the division's commanding general, and asked to sign the document. When the sergeant figured out that I had no idea what he was talking about, he explained how to sign "for" the commanding general; I not only did not know how to do it, but also, I had no idea that I had the authority to sign documents for the commanding general if they pertained to matters falling within the scope of my duties.

I was even allowed to sign the general's correspondence, such as the letters of sympathy to the next of kin of those killed in action. The division's commanding general at the time of my arrival allowed me to do it for him. His replacement did not, insisting he wanted to sign each personally. Imagine which one I respected more.

Shortly after taking over the post of the division casualty reporting officer, I was frequently interrupted to administer oaths. I shared "office space" with the division's recruiting officer who was rarely around when one of his "clients" showed up to be sworn in for reenlistment into the Army. A surprised number of men volunteered to extend their tours of duty in Vietnam. Despite the propaganda generated by the antiwar movement, most who served in Vietnam were volunteers and saw the value of the war against the communist invaders. The Army also appreciated the fact that the reenlistment bonuses paid to these men were a fraction of the cost of training new recruits.

I administered oaths of reenlistment often enough that I soon memorized the oath (and can still repeat it from memory today – although it may not be the same one used today).

There were other duties, such as auditing financial records. One day I was directed to audit the accounting records for the Non-commissioned Officers (NCO) Club. Fortunately, my law school required that its students take some classes in bookkeeping and accounting; the faculty reasoned that a lawyer should be able to tell the difference between a debit and a credit as well as read a balance sheet. During the audit I found a ten thousand dollar error that had been overlooked in the preceding three audits, and helped them correct it. As a result, I became friends with the club manager, an old sergeant who had served in combat during the Korean War. That association led to an invitation to join him and his buddies, other Korean War vets, on "combat" patrols. After promising to put aside my rank, I joined them one evening as we snaked through the barbed and concertina wire defenses and slipped quietly into a nearby rubber plantation to set up what I thought was to be a Listening Post and Interdiction Point (LP/IP). It turned out to be a poker game complete with a Coleman gas lantern to illuminate the cards. I sat outside the circle of light convinced that they were going to be murdered at any moment.

Apparently most of the Viet Cong knew better than to mess with these old warriors. One evening when I could not join them, their game was interrupted by a passing Viet Cong company. They were split in two columns that bracketed the card game. The unfortunate VC headquarters element ran directly into it resulting in several VC casualties and the capture of the VC commander. I was given his .25 caliber automatic pistol as a souvenir of the skirmish I missed. Incidentally, the sergeants suffered no casualties.


CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun...

Noel Coward purportedly wrote that song while on the road from Hanoi to Saigon while Vietnam was secure in the arms of the French colonial empire. I ran everyday in the midday sun while the country was locked in the grips of war.

Camp Bearcat was circled by a road along its perimeter, just inside the berm, and laced with a grid of streets. All were paved in compacted laterite, a reddish clay-like substance that was slicker than ice when wet. The grid was interrupted in the center of the camp by our airfield that stretched the full width encompassed by the perimeter road. I generally ran along the perimeter road, about 4 miles, in the cool of the night. I circled the airfield, about one and a half miles during the noontime break when more sensible people were having lunch and keeping in the shade. I never had a running-mate last more than a day or two.

When asked why I ran so much, I explained that if I ever had to run, I wanted to be able to run, far and fast. I was half-joking, but actually, it was a pretty good reason.

Most people were content simply to sit and shake their heads at my behavior while others made comments out of earshot. Remember, the temperature was well above 100 most of the time and the humidity made the air feel as though I was running through a thoroughly soaked sponge. The guards at the bunkers that I passed on my nightly runs along the perimeter road sometimes challenged me, and I would laugh in response. If a lone insurgent had made it inside the camp and was running in a white tee-shirt, they had my permission to shoot him on sight.

One night I decided to cut across the camp using the street that delineated one edge of the airfield, and a group of mechanics working on a Huey nearby decided to encourage me on my way by tossing rocks in my direction – at me, actually. I reversed direction without hesitation and ran back to them, all in the spirit of good fellowship, of course, and they scattered. When I found their commanding officer in a hanger nearby, he seemed annoyed that I should disturb his rest with such a petty matter. (He definitely was one who put the Mother F**ker in REMF.) So, I waited by the helicopter until the vagrants returned and explained the nature of their transgression. Although I was not wearing any insignia of rank, the .45 caliber on my hip might have given away the fact that I was an officer. Not too many enlisted men had them.

I never insisted on my men maintaining any kind of physical training nor did their company commander ever make such an effort. For REMF, duties continued 12 hours or more each day, 7 days each week. There was no break such as combat soldiers might enjoy between patrols. There were only church services on Sunday morning for those who chose to attend and then back to work.

I remember being cornered by an irate chaplain for not "leading" my men to church services on Sundays. I was already a "lapsed" Lutheran at the time and not inclined to attend. However, I never stood in the way of my men taking a moment for religious services. He felt that wasn't enough. Encouragement was needed. Unfortunately, I wasn't so inclined.

My attitude caught up to me one day as I walked back to the company area for dinner and one of my enlisted men caught up to me to complain about a new arrival. He's a Jew, he informed me. I held my peace for a few moments while this young man reminded me of the many sins of the Jews.

This young soldier was a black. In those days, I believe African-American was the politically correct description. I asked him if he had any sympathy for the Jews inasmuch as they had suffered persecution for thousands of years whereas his people had suffered for hundreds.

He responded by reminding me that the Jews had "killed Christ."

I am a great believer in tolerance. I grew up with a bigot for a father. He was indiscriminate in his discrimination, causing me to question his wisdom and recoil from his ways. This is why, I suppose, that I questioned everything, including his beliefs.

I also believe that a good leader must maintain the cohesiveness of his command, and defuse any situation that may imperil its ability to perform its mission. The rancor this young man felt towards a comrade because of his religion could not be tolerated. However, I hadn't been trained in handling such problems. I don't suppose I handled it well when I told him simply, I don't agree and that he must not act in any way on his prejudice.

He insisted that I must agree as a good Christian, to which I responded, "If God is as you believe him to be, I don't want any part of him or his heaven."

I left the young man standing there, stunned. At least, I heard nothing more of it and no one else complained. Both men performed their duties well although there may have been other tensions between them that were never brought to me.

I wasn't English, but I suppose some thought me "mad."


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

OH23G Follies

I HAD SOME rather harrowing experiences in helicopters during my thirteen month tour of duty in Vietnam, but none can compare with every flight aboard the Army's tiny observation helicopter, the OH-23G. As luck would have it, every time I climbed aboard one, I found the same pilot, Captain Dale R. Spratt.

Known affectionately as Jack Spratt, he was one of the most decorated helicopter pilots in the war; certainly he was the most decorated flier for the 9th Infantry Division. I have found just two citations for him in my recent searches of the Internet: One as the commander of the 174th Assault Helicopter Company in 1971, and another as a donor to an educational fund as a retired U.S. Army major.

The citations for his awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal barely scratch the surface of the legends that circulated about him. His passengers claimed that he would not fly an 0H-23G more than five feet off of the ground because he didn't trust the machine any higher than that. I was not reassured when he informed me that the aircraft could not be certified by the FAA for use in the United States. It seems that the engine was too powerful for the airframe.

When I hitched a ride with him from Dong Tam to Camp Bearcat, he insisted on taking the thing to its maximum altitude so I could take pictures of the clouds for him using his camera. I was confused when he made that request before climbing aboard. I pointed towards the sky. "You want pictures of clouds," I said. "There they are." No, he wanted pictures of clouds taken from aloft, there among them.

There is something disconcerting about sitting with half of your bottom suspended over open air with the ground several thousand feet below. The pilot sits in the center of the OH-23G while two passengers at most can ride along, one on either side.

As I was taking pictures, I heard a strange object pass us. This was no mean feat since the engine sits just a few inches behind your head and the manufacturer made no attempt to impede its noise. Captain Spratt hadn't heard anything because his ears were effectively muffled by his earphones. However, he heard it at last when he pulled one earphone aside after I dug my elbow into his ribs to get his attention. Consulting his charts, he decided that we had wandered into an area where artillery shells were en route to targets somewhere below. We had wandered into an "artillery corridor." Great. We quickly descended after he made sure that I had gotten the photographs he wanted.

I had heard stories of him strafing VC that he found in open terrain like some sort of WWII Spitfire pilot, shooting his M-16 out the side of the bubble canopy. Helicopters didn't carry doors in Vietnam to save weight. On another occasion, an artillery forward observer riding with him claimed that he landed on top of a VC bunker, and instructed the observer to lean out and lob a grenade in the firing aperture. No sense in throwing good artillery on a bunker.

There was a man we need in Congress to stop wasting money.

I received a delightful email from Captain Spratt's daughter after writing about him in my website/weblog. She appreciated learning about his exploits in Vietnam inasmuch as he never spoke of them. Few combat veterans do. I suppose that is the role of a REMF, to help tell the stories that would otherwise be lost.


CHAPTER THIRTY

Saigon Street Smarts

MY FIRST VISIT to Headquarters, United States Army, Vietnam (USARV), was to visit the officer in charge of casualty reporting. I had just been assigned to head up the casualty office of the 9th Infantry Division, and wanted to coordinate with them. My driver dropped me outside the headquarters building and went off on another errand while I waited for someone to come take me inside. I stood there watching a river of humanity swirl past me on motor scooters belching blue smoke until an MP tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to join him in his bunker where he guarded the door to the headquarters building. "You're making me nervous," he explained. I had just arrived in-country and wasn't street-wise to the fact that Viet Cong, usually women, rode on the backs of motor scooters driven by their confederates, looking for idiots like me to shoot as they passed by.

I hadn't seen much of the city on the way to USARV HQ because of the confused traffic patterns that distracted me even though I wasn't driving. After my initiation by the MP, I was too focused on the mass of people around me to see it. I felt vulnerable sitting in an open jeep until I had returned a few more times and decided to stop worrying about it.

I had been in-country about two months when I decided to quit smoking one day. I'm not sure why, it was cheap enough; a carton only cost two dollars. The health scare had not yet been realized. I simply quit and my men laughed. I promised them all the beer they could drink if I fell off the wagon, and soon found myself headed back to Saigon with a driver, a jeep, and a trailer. On the way back from the docks with the trailer full of beer, street urchins began climbing on, breaking into cases, and pilfering cans every time we were stopped by the congestion. One intersection was so jammed with trucks and motor scooters that we sat for several minutes while I attempted to hold back throngs of the little thieves. Frustrated, I left the driver to defend our cargo while I walked to the intersection to direct traffic. People obeyed because I was armed, and the intersection was quickly cleared. I was probably in more danger standing in the midst of those throngs, bullying them into obeying my commands, than at any other time during my tour of duty, even when we got lost on the way back.

A stalled convoy blocked the road on the way back to Long Binh and we detoured through Ben Hoa to get around it. We took a wrong turn there and ended up on a rural road bordered by rice paddies on both sides. It was too narrow to turn around, especially with the load of beer in the trailer behind, so we kept on looking for some place with enough room when we came upon an American patrol. They were strung out in double file, one on each side of the road, and I had the driver stop so I could talk to their platoon leader who confirmed that we were going in the opposite direction away from where we needed to go. I thanked him and we continued on ahead of them, leaving them to wonder what kind of an idiot I was. I should have referred him to the MP at the USARV headquarters for a conference.

We found a farmhouse about two miles farther on and were able to turn around in their front yard. Later, when we passed the patrol now going in the opposite direction, I stopped and told the patrol leader that all seemed safe for the next mile or two and wished him a good day. Now, he was certain that I was an idiot. I was.

My next trip to Saigon was by helicopter, and I had a much better view of the city. We approached from the south, over the Mekong River. The city sprawled from the docks and tank farms on the Mekong River and extended as far as I could see to the north, east, and west. A petroleum tank farm bordered the river. I wondered that it was intact. It would have been a simple matter for a VC to float downriver in a dugout with a mortar and lob a few rounds into it. Aiming would not be a problem. The place was huge. I asked a senior officer about it when I returned to Camp Bearcat, and he informed me that the owners, a major American petroleum company, were paying ransom to the VC to leave it alone. I was never able to confirm or deny his assertion.

Saigon was comprised of one-, two-, and three-story buildings; there were few that were taller. The Vietnamese used bamboo for structural support, except in a few government buildings and hotels, and it couldn't support the weight of a skyscraper.

Once known as the Paris of the Orient, Saigon had decayed after the Japanese replaced the French colonialists during World War II, and the city never recovered its glory. When I arrived, it was crumbling at the edges and a patina of peeling paint covered almost every wall and ceiling. Few bridges had escaped attack, and those that remained open had gaps in the roadway. Sandbagged bunkers stood on both sides of each end, occupied by machine gunners and displaying signs that warned against stopping anywhere on the bridge; violators to be shot.

I only found one functioning traffic light in the whole city and it was largely ignored. There was no one directing traffic either; police officers probably feared exposing themselves in the rush of traffic, just as I had learned. Thus, intersecting traffic wove around each other in scenes resembling a figure eight race course in a demolition derby. Amazingly, I never witnessed even one accident despite the crush of horse drawn, pedal powered, and gas powered bicycles, tricycles, scooters, buses, trucks, autos, and jeeps.

I'm sorry that I only saw the city once at night; that was my last night in Vietnam as I waited at the barracks near Ton Son Nhut Air Force Base for my flight out the next day. I couldn't see much from under my mattress. It was the first night that the North Vietnamese Army rocketed Saigon following the destruction of the Viet Cong during the 1968 Tet Offensive. I had nowhere else to go, so I simply dragged my mattress off my bunk and over me, and went back to sleep.


CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Field Expedients

NO ONE CAN ANTICIPATE every situation nor carry into the combat theater everything they might possibly need. Thus, soldiers have a long history of improvising the things they need from anything they find at hand. Everything from shelters to fortifications can be constructed from naturally occurring materials or debris on the battlefield. Machines to move cumbersome objects can be fashioned from trees and ropes so long as the soldier has a basic understanding of levers, inclined planes, and mechanical advantage. Men and material can be moved past man-made and natural barriers using primitive bridge-building techniques or fashioning a boat from leaves and a poncho.

One of the more interesting field expedients that we learned in Officer Candidate School (OCS) helped us keep a jeep on the road even though all but two of its tires had worn out or been shot away. We learned to move the remaining tires to the front axle and lash poles to both ends of the rear axle. With power to the front wheels, the vehicle would drag its rear end like a travois. I have also seen demonstrations of floating a jeep across a river by wrapping it in a tent.

Everywhere I traveled in Vietnam, I saw numerous examples of field expedients. The Signal Corps was especially adept at fabricating radio antennae in any environment, from mountains, to jungle, to the flat regions of the Mekong Delta. Unable to achieve the range they needed using the antenna tower they had been issued, our division signal battalion deployed a blimp, similar to the barrage balloon seen over London during World War II, to raise our radio antennae high enough to reach our far-flung combat and support units.

REMF found need of field expedients as well. For example, our offices were equipped with Remington desk top typewriters that were ill-designed to cope with the humid environment in Vietnam. There was no attempt to modify them. The ones we used were identical to the typewriters found in any office; they were not even painted Army OD (olive drab). Delicate parts quickly rusted away. The division's maintenance battalion was supposed to support our repair needs, but they were frequently too busy taking care of the combat troops to attend to us. Thus, we learned how to keep them working ourselves.

One of the more delicate parts in the Remington typewriter was a chain used to transfer energy from the operator to the spool that moved the inked ribbon from one spool to the other. Each time a key was pressed, it used a watch-like system of gears to convert the up-and-down motion into a rotating motion that turned another system of gears and pulleys to turn the ribbon take-up spool. The chain that transferred the movement from the bottom to the type of the mechanism rusted and frequently broke despite our attempts to keep them clean and oiled. Taking one apart we discovered that this chain resembled our dog tag chain and we were able to restore our typewriters for use by adapting one for this purpose.

On one occasion, a typewriter had completely frozen due to rust despite our best efforts at cleaning and oiling it with gun oil every day. In a futile attempt at repair, I disassembled it completely. As I held the basket, a frame holding the keys, I pulled the pin and all the keys dropped into my lap. When the man from the maintenance depot arrived, we handed him a box containing the stricken typewriter – no two parts assembled. I don't think that they appreciated my efforts to help.


CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Winning Hearts and Minds

WHEN IT CAME to strategies for winning the war in Vietnam, the only thing certain was change. Changes in the political winds back home. Changes in commanders in Vietnam. Changes in enemy strategies and tactics. Changes in the seasons. Winning the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese was one of those fleeting strategies that came and went with these changes. The objective was to win the support of the civilian population, support that would translate into denying sanctuary for the enemy and encourage civilians to report enemy activity with greater alacrity. The tactics of this strategy included civic action programs such as MEDCAP (Medical Civic Action Program) visits that I believe were sometimes effective. Propaganda programs, especially those without substance, were, at best, counter-productive.

My involvement in civic action came in a remote village somewhere near Camp Bearcat. A sergeant, three enlisted men, a Vietnamese interpreter and I, crowded into a single jeep to visit this village on several occasions. We built them modern latrine facilities that the Viet Cong countered by lobbing mortar rounds the night before one of our visits. We arrived to find the village chief comforting a mother holding a child who had suffered a grazing head wound from a piece of shrapnel. We sent mother and child back to the hospital at our division headquarters accompanied by my sergeant and one enlisted man to drive. That left me with two enlisted men and the interpreter, and about thirty members of a Popular Defense Force platoon. We mounted a patrol to check the perimeter of the village and its rice paddies to insure no enemy was lurking nearby.

The PDF was a ragtag group of local militia dressed in odds and ends of uniforms. Their weapons were equally eclectic. One carried a Browning Automatic Rifle that was as long as he was tall. I spent several minutes with him examining it; it was the first of its kind that I ever held, and I am something of a gun nut. It was Clyde Barrow's weapon of choice for bank robberies.

I was concerned with these men of the PDF about whom I knew nothing. I arranged them in a double file with my men and I placed myself in between. I whispered to my men that if we got into a firefight, they were to keep an eye on the PDF.

The village chief and I conversed with the help of the interpreter as we swept the area. He wanted to expand the area they were farming, but could not effect his plan unless we altered the boundaries of the free-fire zone encircling his village and its holdings. Unfortunately, I had not come prepared with a map to chart this area and had to make notes that I could later use to explain his plan at our tactical operations center.

My interpreter was a city boy. Many of the interpreters who served our forces came out of Saigon and could not relate well to issues in the rural areas. However, mine had the knack. He stopped often to examine the crops and explain them to me, giving the village chief the impression that his concerns were receiving a fair hearing. At the end of the day, when my jeep returned with a bandaged infant and its mother, as well as my sergeant and driver, we shared a moment with the villagers. The chief offered me a durian; a great honor, according to the interpreter, as it is considered the king of fruits in Asia and could fetch a significant price at a Saigon market. When opened, it emitted a strong odor like fried onions to me, like dirty gym socks according to one of the enlisted men. The interpreter demonstrated proper etiquette, by dipping his fingers into a pasty substance that filled cavities in the fruit and licking it with gusto. I dipped a fair portion and smelled it gingerly. I sensed all eyes on me and felt committed to taking the plunge. My expression elicited cheers, laughter, and applause. It tasted to me like fried onions, very sweet and very delicious (I have always enjoyed onions in all forms).

I think that we won a few hearts and minds that day, if only temporarily.


CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Battle Hardened

EVERYONE WORRIES OVER their reaction the first time under fire. No matter how hard the Army attempts to condition you to it in training, no one can truly simulate the reality of someone trying their damnedest to kill you. No one wants to be a coward, and few truly are. But the fear we feel just anticipating deployment, gives us pause. We wonder if we will meet the test of battle or will we flee?

Soldiers survive on just three things: their buddies, their leaders, and their training. No one fights alone in combat; they fight as a team, and they die as individuals. There is no room for rational thought; the senses are flooded with sights, sounds, smells, feels, and tastes, all vying for the brain's attention while it is focused on survival. Thus, leaders are expected to stand aloof from the battle and provide competent direction. Soldiers react as they are trained to react, which is why basic skills are repeated until they are reflexive; they can be performed without thinking.

Green soldiers arrive at their first battle unprepared. They lack trust in their comrades and their leaders, who in turn lack trust in them. Their training is incomplete. The soldiers who came before them have learned and practiced field expedients that no Army training prepared them for. Yet, they must survive. Thus, they are, in the best of circumstances, placed with battle-hardened troops until they are tempered under fire.

Survival is its own reward. Green troops most often greet its arrival with 'the shakes.' The adrenal gland continues pumping 'fight or flight' hormones into the system long after the bullets have stopped flying and the shells have stopped bursting. Euphoria washes away fear. Victor and vanquished alike celebrate life. Innocence is lost.

Battle-hardened troops react with exhaustion. Their automatic reflexes have adapted to battle, the adrenaline abates more quickly, and they become annoyed with the antics of the first-timers. Victories are not celebrated nor losses lamented with as much enthusiasm as they once were. Lost comrades are more quickly forgotten. Innocence is forgotten.

In the end, everyone knows that they risk death when they enter the battlefield. Only after experiencing their first battle, can they come to accept it. All who survive, survive with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome at some level. "Battle-hardened" is just another way of saying "battle-scarred."

Veteran units had the luxury of assigning replacements to fight beside experienced infantrymen. The 9th Infantry Division arrived in Vietnam, virtually en masse. Just before I joined them they infused with other infantry units around the country - trading inexperienced soldiers for combat hardened men - so that the green troops could have some experienced men to "steady" them in their first trials by fire.

I can't lie here. I wasn't a combat soldier and I never participated in a fire fight. I was sniped at on a couple of occasions and had rounds fired at helicopters that I was riding in. The truth is that it's probably a good thing that the Army didn't make me a combat officer. Someone must have looked at me and decided that I was going to get someone killed if I led men in combat. As it turns out, I got mad when someone shot at me and I made some stupid decisions. Of course, that occurred after I received my second Dear John from the same girl. Like I said, I was stupid.


CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Prejudice at War With Prejudice

EVERY SOLDIER MUST EARN the respect of his commanders, his buddies, and the enemy in the crucible of combat. Unfortunately, some may have to work harder than others to prove themselves. Although the military can expunge a soldier's civilian identity by simply shearing away his hair and dressing him in a uniform, they cannot alter the prejudices that he bring with him from his former life.

Lance Corporal Sel Louis tells this story far better than I could. While my father did everything he could to inculcate me with the prejudices of our kind, Corporal Louis did everything he could to avoid being a victim of bigotry. He is an American Marine of Chinese descent who served in Vietnam approximately the same time I was there – 1967 to 1968. He wrote to me after I began blogging on the Internet about my tour of duty in Vietnam and we corresponded a few times. He gave me permission to provide links to his story as he told it in his own words. You can find it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2UqUMHg_Xs&feature=player_embedded

Sel experienced prejudices from the very moment he donned the uniform and had to prove himself many times. Although such prejudice is no longer welcome in polite society and has no legal standing, it can never be totally excised, even by act of Congress. Unfortunately, prejudice and ignorance are inextricably bound together. To some Marines, Sel must have looked suspiciously similar to the enemy they were fighting, and he had to prove himself a Marine repeatedly. It's a mind-numbing, frustrating experience. But, Sel persevered. More importantly, he survived and served honorably.

All men are equal in the foxhole where bullets and bayonets snatch lives indiscriminately and artillery rattles the very soul. However, until a man experiences combat, he may cling to the prejudices that he brings to war with him. Even then, bigotry may be so deeply embedded that he cannot free himself of it.

I don't believe that most members of the majority realize that they suffer from the prejudice that they practice. Even those of us who attempt to expunge prejudice from our thinking and actions, often are victims of the practices of our fellow whites now and in the past.

People of all races, religions, ethnicities, national origins, genders, sexual orientations, have contributed to this nation. How many times have those contributions been rejected because of prejudice? How many of those rejected contributions might have enriched our lives or even saved our lives?

I used to think it was enough that I abstain from discriminating against others. Life taught me otherwise. I must also stand up to it, and so must you. I understand what I'm asking. Often, it takes just as much courage to stand against your peers as it takes to stand up in the face of withering gunfire. But, it's worth the effort.


CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Spiders Are Your Friends

I REMEMBER WATCHING a trail of black worker ants scurrying to and fro outside my hooch in Vietnam one afternoon soon after arriving in-country, eviscerating some dead thing to stock their colony's larder. They were large ants, the largest I had ever seen. Just as I was about to lose interest, the flank of their column was assaulted by a platoon of red soldier ants with heads of such Godzilla-like proportions that I wondered how they stood and walked without tipping forward and resting on their mandibles like insane tripods. My attention riveted on one in particular that grasped a black ant by the head and seemingly froze. I was not able to understand that it was simply applying pressure until the head of the black ant collapsed with an audible snap. Thus, I was introduced to the insects of Vietnam.

Termites, the arch-enemies of ants, demonstrated voracious appetites by devouring any wooden structure they could find. Viet Cong mortars blushed in comparison. Apparently, our bunkers appeared especially appetizing to them. Inasmuch as any shelter we attempted to dig soon filled with water, we had to build our bomb shelters on the surface. We began with 4x4 frames covered in 2x10 planking, and then entombed all in layers of sandbags. Within three or four months, the sandbags fell into a pile after the termites had totally consumed the underlying wooden structures. Thank God our M-16 rifles had composite plastic stocks rather than wooden ones.

Our hooches were elevated above the ground in a futile effort to avoid crawling insects. Plywood floors were placed on half buried canisters that our friends in the artillery batteries had disposed of after removing the shells for delivery to the enemy. Insect screening was stretched over flimsy wooden frames and layered with widely-spaced clapboards to allow airflow. Heavy duty canvas tents were stretched overall, and we sat back to see which would occur first: Would the termites destroy our abodes from below before or after the jungle rot destroyed them from above. It little mattered to the insects who traversed our hooches looking for a tasty ankle to bite. Interestingly, just as we learned to distinguish the type of helicopter approaching by the sounds of its rotors, we learned to distinguish species of insects by the sound of their footsteps on our plywood floors.

Flying insects were especial nuisances, especially those that could raise lumps in the event your head inadvertently crossed one of their flight paths. I believe that several species of beetles, in particular, registered on our radar systems. Fortunately, one Goliath variety, the Rhinoceros beetle outweighed any possible insect airframe inasmuch as they grew to eleven inches in length. One of those in flight could easily knock a man off his feet in the event of collision. The most dangerous, though, of all flying insects were the mosquitoes. Armed with eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium, they spread malaria indiscriminately, I being one of their victims.

Although I was armed with mosquito netting and various forms of repellent and anti-malarial drugs, I think that I would have been better served encircled by an army of spiders. We welcomed spiders to our domiciles and took great care to avoid disturbing theirs, unless, of course, they proved inefficient. Each day we examined the accumulated insects in each spider's web and destroyed those that were barren, giving the occupant an opportunity to rebuild using a better design. Two consecutive failures resulted in instant eviction making their space available to a more suitable tenant. Those spiders were our friends.

One night as I sat trying unsuccessfully to stay awake in the division headquarters (I was the duty officer that night), I heard a bug walking in the hallway outside my office door. It's footstep was not familiar; indeed, I was not certain it was an insect at first, thinking that it was rather a cat in serious need of having its claws trimmed. On investigation, I found an enormous example of the earwig family with long pincers at each end. It was a wonder. It was a trophy. I had to have it for the next night's bug fights. Scrounging through the drawers of my temporary desk I found a match box and, after emptying its contents into an envelope, attempted to imprison this specimen. After a few moments scratching around inside, it unceremoniously hacked away the end of the wooden box and exited. I had a winner.


CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

A Mosquito Bit Me

I WAS REASONABLY CAREFUL when I first arrived in Vietnam. I slept under mosquito netting and took my antimalarial drug from the dispenser outside the mess hall every week. However, as time wore on and wrestling with the netting over my bed became annoying, I let down my guard and contracted malaria. I ended up in the infectious disease ward of the field hospital for about a week.

It was not a pleasant stay. The nurses and medical corpsmen were attentive and I was treated well enough. Most of my fellow patients were congenial. The simple truth is that it is not much fun alternately baking and freezing, soaking your bed in cold sweats as the fever rises and then rattling your teeth until your gums are sore when your temperature plunges.

Most of the other beds in the ward were occupied by fellow malaria victims and an even number of those with acute cases of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD). The worst of these latter patients arrived shortly after I was admitted and remained mute for as long as I was there. Like the patient in Joseph Heller's Catch 22, he was hooked up with a catheter and an IV. He lay on his back, spread eagle with an ice pack atop his private parts like the mushroom-shaped cloud hovering over a thermonuclear detonation.

About two days after he was admitted a Miss America contestant arrived on a USO-sponsored visit. She was accompanied by her escort officer, one of our medical corpsmen, and an enlisted man with a Polaroid camera to take photographs of her with each patient she met. She stopped at each bed, introduced herself, and asked "What happened to you?" She then autographed a photo of her taken with the patient. Fortunately for our amusement, her entourage was delayed at the bed of one patient as she moved alone to the man with the ice pack. In response to her question he simply lifted the ice pack to reveal the most massively engorged penis anyone could imagine. It was black and blue and purple. The poor young woman stared agape in horror until her escort officer leaped to pull her away while the patients pulled pillows over their faces to stifle their laughter. I have often wondered if the incident scarred her in any way.

I was scarred, but not by the sight of the poor man's genitalia. The malaria remains with me to this day, hiding in my liver. It attacks my system if I allow myself to become run down. I spent another week battling it at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii about two years following my tour of duty in Vietnam. I had lesser attacks every few years thereafter. Doctors warn that it will kill me if I am weakened by any other malady.

Regardless of how long I live with it, I will never forget the misfortune of the young woman who came to help build up our spirits in the field hospital in Vietnam.


CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The 1967 War

THE 1967 WAR could just as easily refer to the war in Vietnam as The war in the Middle East. I spent most of that year in the former while I followed the latter in the pages of the Stars and Stripes, the U.S. military's news source.

Ironically, the men I served with seemed more interested in the war in the Middle East even though we were engaged in the one in Vietnam. Everyone I spoke with agreed that we would rather help the Israeli's since they appeared more willing to fight for themselves while the Vietnamese seemed docile, willing to accept almost any tyrant. Also, we fell victim to the typical American predilection to side with the underdog. I remember that the Stars and Stripes published a map of the Middle East listing the sizes of the armed forces of the participants, clearly demonstrating that the Israeli's were vastly outnumbered and out-gunned.

I was among the few who predicted that Israel would win, although I was loathe to put my money where my mouth was. My confidence wasn't that high and my pay grade didn't support a betting lifestyle. I can only dream about the odds I would have been offered had I been so rash as to predict an Israeli victory in less than a week.

Yes, the combined Arab armies greatly outnumbered the Israeli regulars. However, I pointed out, virtually every Israeli citizen was a member of a well-trained, armed, and organized reserve force which would help even the odds. Also, the Israeli's placed greater emphasis on air power and armor which could be very decisive factors in desert warfare.

Again, today, I watch developments in the Middle East from afar and wonder at the changes, not in the Middle East, but rather in the attitudes in my country. Why do we now revile the underdog? Why does our President call for a return to the borders existing before The 1967 Six-Day War? Doesn't he know that there were no recognized borders prior to 1967? Doesn't he know that the Arabs have never recognized the state of Israel, let alone any borders?

Some excuse our President for his ignorance in these matters. Although he is, by all accounts, an extremely intelligent and well-educated man, he was just a six-year old child when the Six-Day War was fought in 1967, and it is just another dusty page in history, one of the most poorly taught subjects in our schools. But, despite the fact that Iran boasts that it will soon have the means to destroy Israel -- one nuclear weapon is all that it would take -- and threaten to act as soon as they are ready, we cannot excuse our President when he clearly signals that he will not act to defend our only ally in that part of the world, one of the few allies that has stood by our side in almost every international dispute while traditional allies have deserted us.

Unfortunately, I and my fellow veterans from that bygone war are too old to do much now. We're too infirm to take up arms to defend the underdog. However, we can still vote. Hopefully, we will help replace this Administration with one that is dedicated to defend peace through strength.


CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Shave & A Haircut

EVERY COMPANY IN A COMBAT ZONE, even the REMF, were issued a barber kit containing the bare essentials for maintaining a "bare" head. There were no electric clippers simply because electricity was rarely available in the "boonies." Hand clippers like those used to groom horses and small animals were used instead.

Luckily, we had a lieutenant, Bobby Tillman, who had worked his way through college barbering, and a somewhat reliable source of electricity in our division base camp. He had his wife ship his kit to him and charged us 25¢ for a standard Army haircut, whitewalls on the sides and a fringe on top that created the illusion of a "flattop." Civilian-style haircuts were a bit more. Most of us went with the "bare" essentials, but one lieutenant kept the highly styled look of John F. Kennedy. Indeed, he looked like he sprang from the same gene-pool.

When Bobby DEROS'd (returned state-side), we were left with a problem. Our solution was to check out the company barber kit and give ourselves our own haircut. Recognizing the peril of this adventure, we agreed (over numerous beers) that we would take to the chair in a round robin, each taking a turn as a barber. No one was allowed to give a haircut to the person from whom they had received theirs. The result was comical. Flat tops were tipped at a jaunty angle, like a Parisian beret, or the fringe failed to circumnavigate the head. No two sideburns were equal. Mohawks transected skulls at odd angles. Fortunately, no one lost any body parts though some were injured.

The second solution to follow shortly thereafter was to solicit a Vietnamese barber to set up shop in the officer's club. This worked well until the Tet Offensive of 1968 and no civilian personnel were allowed access to our base camp for several weeks. When he returned, we learned that our barber had lost his home in the fighting. An empty 5-gallon water bottle was placed near his chair and it was soon filled with loose piasters that financed the building of a new one.

On rare occasions, I had the pleasure of slipping into Saigon and took those opportunities to get the full treatment, a facial and a massage as well as a shave and a haircut for the equivalent of $1.25 American. You spent about an hour in the chair and often had trouble walking when they were done.

Most Saigon barbers were women or, more specifically, girls in their late teens or early twenties, and very attractive. Many provided other "services" right there in the chair (or so I've been told).

I've missed the Saigon barbers since I left Vietnam. I had similar experiences in Okinawa and once in Hawaii. No mainland barber ever came close to providing "full services."


CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Monsoon

SIBERIA IS THE LARGEST land mass in the world where the tempering effects of water are absent. Without a large ocean nearby to ameliorate temperature changes, the thermometer descends well below zero and warm air from the Southern Hemisphere is drawn towards it. This latter air mass is super-saturated with water evaporated from the surface of the Indian Ocean. Massive clouds carrying untold amounts of water migrate northward until they collide with the Himalayan Mountain Range. As they push up the sides of this natural barrier, formed some 8 million years ago when the Indian continent ran into Asia, the air cools, water condenses, and rain begins to fall in torrents, and we stood naked with bars of soap in hand, taking warm showers unless, of course, we were unfortunate enough to be on a combat patrol.

We built showers in our base camps. They were simple wooden frames with corrugated tin or canvas sides for modesty. Some mounted barrels atop them. We bartered for wingtip fuel tanks from the Air Force, using cases of C-Rations for trade goods, and painted them black to adsorb the sun's warmth during the day. A cooperative family member mailed us some shower heads and we were in business just as soon as the engineers came around with our daily ration of potable water.

We were fortunate in the Mekong Delta. Although the land was built up from deposits of silt carried down from the Himalayan Plateau, wells only twenty-five feet deep provided plenty of sweet, clear water.

When I first arrived in Vietnam, we lived and worked in wabtoks; wood-frames covered in screening and topped by canvas tents. Unfortunately, the canvas had rotted by the time the monsoons arrived and they easily tore open wherever the tents sagged and water pooled. We used to send a man around with a broom to push up from inside to spill the water off. However, one young genius used the handle end of the broom and popped the sagging tent like a water balloon. He got very wet and we had a good laugh.

The first time I experienced a monsoon I was walking towards my hootch (the wabtok where I lived) as a wall of rainwater approached. I was fascinated by the sight and neglected to pick up my pace. Although I was able to reach the screen door before the rain arrived, I stepped inside thoroughly soaked.

Another pet project of the engineers was digging trenches to be used as bomb shelters. They were covered with culvert halves and then with sandbags. Unfortunately, they filled with seepage from ground water or rainwater. They were good as lap pools, but little else.

The engineers had prepared for the monsoon season by digging a network of deep, wide trenches throughout our base camp and leading away from it. It was a good idea but hardly adequate. They quickly filled with each storm and we found ourselves walking on a thin lake with hidden pitfalls. Using the radio tower as a reference point, we learned to navigate between the mess hall, our workplaces, and our living quarters while avoiding the ditches. Someone had laid down pallets like sidewalks in preparation for the coming of the rains, but these drifted with the winds and the currents and often led over the abysmal depths of the drainage system.

Our roads were compacted laterite, a clay-like material, that became as slick as oil in the rain. All vehicles, especially jeeps, slid across roads as though driving on black ice. One day as we were sliding sideways past a colonel on foot, I saluted, and he stepped into a ditch as we passed. I hope that he survived. We could not stop to help him, and I was still laughing much further down the road.


CHAPTER FORTY

CIB

THE COMBAT INFANTRYMAN BADGE (CIB) was the most sought after decoration in Vietnam, especially by people who didn't deserve it. While heading up the Awards & Decorations Branch of the 9th Infantry Division Adjutant General's Office, I was constantly beset by requests to issue orders awarding it to non-combat officers. No enlisted man ever sought one for himself.

There were four explicit rules governing the award of the CIB: (1) the recipient – any enlisted man or officer below the rank of general – had to be assigned in an infantryman's Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), and be assigned to a combat infantry platoon, company, battalion, or brigade; (2) soldiers with a primary MOS other than infantryman could receive the award if they were trained as infantryman and met all other requirements; (3) the recipient's unit had to be engaged in combat with a hostile force; and (4) commanders were not authorized to make any exceptions to these requirements.

These requirements were spelled out in Army regulations that I wore like armor when confronted by superior officers demanding that I ignore them. One major slammed his hat on the ground and shouted at me to issue orders awarding the CIB to every member of his non-combat unit. He cited another infantry division that was handing out CIB awards to everyone. Incidentally, the commanding general of that division was subsequently ordered by the theater commanding general to rescind every order and reissue them only to qualified recipients.


CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Reliable Academy

AS I WATCHED the casualty reports cross my desk, I began to surmise that anyone who survived their first month "in-country" had a better than even chance of surviving their one-year tour of duty. The reason seemed obvious; until a soldier acclimatized to the extreme heat and humidity of the Mekong Delta, they could hardly react effectively in a fire fight. Indeed, until I acclimatized, I often thought that if someone pointed a weapon at me I might welcome it.

I still remember vividly my first morning in Vietnam. Our plane landed at the Bien Hoa airstrip in the middle of the night. We were rushed off and loaded onto buses with heavy screening over the windows to prevent anyone from lobbing a grenade through them. Our luggage was thrown from the plane's cargo bays into deuce-and-a-half trucks that followed, and the plane was quickly back in the air headed for Thailand for a layover before the return trip. I later learned that speed was important since Bien Hoa was nothing more than a runway at the time. An Army patrol would sweep over it just prior to each plane's arrival to insure that mines had not been deposited. Mortar shells frequently rained there trying to catch sitting planes before they could take off.

We were transported to the reception center at Long Binh, headquarters for the United States Army, Republic of Vietnam (USARV). As an officer, I was segregated from the enlisted men and placed in a temporary barracks building. It was an open wooden frame building with insect screening stretched over all four walls. One-by-six clapboards were attached at an angle with wide gaps between to allow whatever breeze might stir to pass through freely. The roof was corrugated galvanized metal.

The sky was growing lighter as I tossed my gear on an empty bunk and looked around finding that all the others, maybe thirty of them, were empty. I knew that I was in trouble even before the sun rose above the horizon as the heat began to build to volcanic proportions. I quickly changed from my starched khaki uniform into fatigues, but they too were starched and didn't offer any relief. I was not issued the new nylon combat fatigues until I joined my unit, the 9th Infantry Division, several days later.

Stepping outside the door into the morning sun was a mistake. I should have stayed in the shade and surveyed my surroundings through the screened door and walls. A building clearly marked as a Post Exchange (PX) stood about a hundred yards away. The officer's mess to my right was only about a quarter of the distance away, and I went for it.

One other newly-arrived officer, a captain in the medical corps – a doctor – was the sole occupant, sitting alone at a table and I joined him. Neither of us had the energy to engage in small talk and I just watched him examine the salt shaker, then pour some on the side of his hand and eat it. "That's what I need," he murmured and ate some more. I joined him, though I didn't agree that it helped any. We were sweating like horses, but it couldn't evaporate in the high humidity and our core temperatures simply rose unabated. An enlisted man brought us trays of food, coffee, and milk. I grabbed for the milk but couldn't drink it. It was reconstituted from powder and warm. The coffee was like mud, and also warm. The doctor and I settled for warm water and picked at our food in silence.

Having exhausted the society in the officer's mess as well as its scant relief from the heat and humidity which were growing more oppressive every moment (it was not yet 8:00 a.m.), I began to speculate that the PX might be air conditioned and decided to make a break for it. I don't think I reached the half way point before I was forced to sit to keep from passing out. As my head stopped spinning, I tried to determine which was closer, the PX or the officer's mess I had just escaped. Fortunately, it was early May and the hot summer months had not yet begun.

Imagine the plight of the average infantryman newly-arrived in Vietnam. I had the same training as they; eight weeks of Basic Infantry Training and eight weeks of Advanced Infantry Training. However, I had the advantage of an additional six months of Infantry Officer Training that should have conditioned me for combat. Unfortunately, all my training had occurred in Georgia which was nothing compared to the crucible of Vietnam.

Over the years, I have wondered why our soldiers were not sent to U.S. Army bases in Panama, the Philippines, or Thailand, to better prepare us for our tours of duty in Vietnam. I have wondered how many lives could have been saved and how much more combat prepared we would have been. We will never know.

Fortunately, shortly after command of the 9th Infantry Division, "The Old Reliables," shifted to Major General George G. O'Connor, the Reliable Academy at our division headquarters at Camp Bearcat was established, and newly-arrived soldiers were given two weeks in-country training. Not only were they exposed to combat techniques taught by seasoned veterans, but also, they were given two weeks to acclimatize to the weather. I was no longer the division casualty officer when the Reliable Academy began operations, but I believe that it must have saved lives.

I wonder if other combat units in Vietnam did the same?


CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Dear Jane

THERE IS NOTHING more heart breaking than a soldier receiving a letter from a special girl back home who decided not to wait, except maybe for a Dear John from a hooker.

One of the young enlisted men under my command fell in love in Thailand. But, wait. Let me back up a little. He actually arrived in Vietnam, already in love with a girl back home. She even sent him a picture she had taken of herself, bare-breasted, in the bathroom, with a Polaroid camera. By the expression on her face, she wasn't too sure of what she was doing, and reaching across to the sink where she had propped up her camera to trip the shutter caused her breasts to sag unflatteringly. Still, her heart was in the right place, I suppose. (Forgive me, I couldn't help writing that.) He kept the picture on his desk where our division chief, a major, spotted it as he wandered through looking for a snack. Picking the photo off his desk, he held it at every angle and proclaimed it to be an interesting study in feminine anatomy.

Still, the young man remained captive to her allure until he visited Bangkok, Thailand on R&R (Rest and Recuperation). There he fell under the spell of a professional. This young lady had one thing that the girl back home had lacked, a night in bed with our hero. It was his first.

I don't remember his name, and that's probably for the best. I can't imagine he would be happy being reminded of the consequences of his experience.

He returned to the command in Vietnam with dreams of returning to Thailand after completing his enlistment in the Army. He kept up a steady stream of correspondence with his new paramour, and she replied in kind, signing her letters, not with her name, but rather, with her "license number." I remember overhearing one of his friends kidding him; "3895?" Imagine if you introduce her to your family and your father says, "Ah yes, I know your mother well. 827."

The ribbing continued for several weeks until another enlisted man in my command took R&R in Bangkok. He carried the prostitute's "number" with him. She had written our hero to have his friends "look her up" and she would see that they enjoyed themselves in Thailand. Well, this friend returned to report having a most excellent time – with her! That broke his heart.

I can't say for sure, but I don't think he ever went back...


CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Dear John

DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR? Have you read my earlier memoir about my experiences in Infantry School? Yes, I spoke of my "Dear John" letter in that memoir as well. Yes, it happened to me again. Another "Dear John," from the same girl. That can't possibly be true, can it?

Have I mentioned just how dumb I really am? Seriously. Many soldiers received a "Dear John" from their girlfriends who were supposed to be waiting for them back home. Few were dumb enough to later marry them. I did.

Some of you may be forgiving thinking, no, that's not dumb, it's true love. Well, you're as dumb as I. How can a person who can't even maintain a relationship beyond the adversity of being separated a few weeks or a month or even a year, expect to maintain it through a lifetime of shared trials of marriage, parenthood, and living in close proximity to the quirks and idiosyncrasies of another human being? No, it is better to accept the "Dear John" as a gift signifying an honest confession of a loved one's lack of commitment before you are legally bound to them.

Most were surprised by my reaction to receiving a "Dear John". Simply, I didn't react. Not really. They should have recognized the simple fact that I was in denial. Had I truly accepted the break-up, and ranted and raved a little, I would have been better off. Instead, I blithely slipped back into the relationship as though nothing had happened.

Other heads were wiser than me. One posted his "Dear John" on the company bulletin board. Many burned them. Almost all cursed their feckless loves.

Alas, as my mother often said, "Love sticks where it lands, even if it's in a pile of sh*t."


CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Fonda That Woman

IMAGINE IF BETTY GRABLE had goose-stepped before newsreel cameras that brought World War II to movie theaters across America. Or, if Gwyneth Paltrow appeared in a burqa to proclaim the virtues of Jihad.

Everyone has the right to dissent, even celebrities. But, when a beloved icon goes beyond dissent, and offers aid and comfort to an enemy during wartime, the act carries a special degree of hurt. The men who fight for their country feel a deeper sense of betrayal. These are, after all, the women many fantasize they are fighting for.

Many of those who fought in Vietnam hold Jane Fonda in special contempt because of her very public dissent of that war, going so far as to travel to Hanoi during that time to encourage them in their fight to kill Americans.

Yes, we fantasized over her. Those of you of a younger generation who may know her only as an aging actress, may not understand. However, anyone who fantasizes over Paris Hilton has no room to talk. Jane was a beauty in her day. Just look at her in Barbarella. Paris with the goofy look pales by comparison.

Hanoi Jane, as she came to be known, may be a revered actress in a community that expresses self-hate to garner popularity in foreign markets as well as among progressives at home, but she is the reviled icon of betrayal for my fellow veterans. Unfortunately, that derision has given rise to false stories of Jane's time in the enemy camp. Yes, she was there and up to no good. But no, she did not take any direct action that resulted in the death or torture of American inmates of the Hanoi Hilton, the infamous North Vietnamese prison camp where so many U.S. soldiers, sailors, and airmen were treated inhumanely. No, her statements and actions attempted to give legitimacy to the illegitimate acts of barbarians, but no one suffered directly at her hand.

I am strident in my assertions because I fear that those who help circulate false claims tend to denigrate the valid ones.

Also, I tend to be a little more forgiving of her stupidity. What else can you call it? By all accounts she was virtually abandoned by her father and easily influenced by men who recognized her vulnerability. A much older Roger Vadim directed her in movies that capitalized on her sensuality and Tom Hayden, a man with decidedly socialist tendencies, directed her political activism. There is little evidence that she had an ego or an original thought until much later in her life, long after she had been used by the anti-war efforts of the 1960s. Indeed, Jane did not appear to develop any self-will until she married Ted Turner and apparently cajoled him to finance a documentary extolling the virtues of Communism. One can only wonder why a man who had been afforded so many benefits through the auspices of capitalism, would back this venture. One can only assume that he was either senile or bewitched by his wife's charms (and some might argue that senility made him subject to them).

In any event, the sweetest irony of this period of her life was that Jane once proclaimed,

"It's my fondest wish, that some day, every American will get down on their knees and pray to God that some day they will have the opportunity to live in a Communist Society."

In which church do you suppose would Jane and the communists wish us to utter that prayer? (Do I have to remind anyone that communism espouses atheism?)

Also, being a man, I tend to forgive Jane somewhat because I spent so many years fantasizing over her myself. Forgive me. I can still watch those movies she made before she married Hayden, and even then somewhat later realizing that she was merely a dupe. After all, I wasn't fantasizing about discussing philosophy or any other subject with her.

Most importantly, I wish to reaffirm that I am not opposed to dissent. I have quoted Dwight D. Eisenhower many times on this subject.

"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

Anyone who knows me can safely vouch that I have often objected vociferously when I disagree with my government and even the majority of my fellow citizens. However, I would never knowingly advocate anything that would injure my country or imperil its Constitution. However, I would never give aid or comfort to my nation's enemies, nor would I travel beyond the shores of my country to encourage its enemies. That is my limit and Jane Fonda exceeded that limit by many thousands of miles.

That being said, let's turn to the question of treason. Did Jane Fonda go beyond mere dissent?

The framers of the Constitution intentionally limited the definition of treason so that it could not be used by the United States as it had been used by tyrants throughout the ages. Many "nobles" used treason to remove anyone who threatened their rule or even displeased them. Think of Henry VIII declaring it treasonous to disclaim his right to divorce and remarry at will.

In Ms Fonda's case, North Vietnamese leaders have openly acknowledged that they were on the verge of conceding the war and accepting a separate state to the south. Richard Nixon's willingness to attack NVA bases at home and pursue their lines of communication and supply in neighboring nations had brought them to their knees. North Vietnamese leaders also have openly acknowledged that they were encouraged to persevere by the extraordinary extent of dissent in America. This is the message that Jane Fonda effectively delivered when she visited North Vietnam during the war. She did not deliver arms or weapons to the enemy. She did not deliver secrets relating to American strategy or tactics. She did not take up arms against her fellow citizens. However, she did provide "comfort and aid" that significantly helped them maintain the will of their people to fight. Thus, it is reasonable to argue that she betrayed the trust we have a right to expect in our fellow citizens. It is reasonable to argue that there was at least an indirect causality between her actions and the resulting events in Southeast Asia. Although she did not take any action that might result in the overthrow of our government or our Constitution, she did provide aid and comfort to an enemy in a time of war.

Does all this amount to treason? If we are to remain true to our heritage, we must say no. We must presume innocence until guilt is proven and declared in a court of law. If we have any cause for anger, it must be directed at officials who have failed to bring this question to a competent legal authority.

Now, let's focus on the real question. Is Jane Fonda merely the focus of our anger for the fact that we believe that we Vietnam Veterans are still reviled? Despite recent protestations otherwise, does political will still remain firmly in the camp of the dissenter? If we were truly respected, would our officials take Ms Fonda's case before a grand jury?


CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Home Town News

I WILL NEVER FORGET my first day in the Army at the Fort Jackson Reception Center, filling out forms, a mountain of them. We were ushered into a large hall filled with old-style student's desks, the ones with an armrest and writing surface on the right side that left-handed writers would have to twist themselves uncomfortably to find a way of using them. Underneath was a small shelf to hold their books.

We were told to stand by the desks and keep our hands in our pockets to prevent us from touching anything. Our forms were wrapped in a rubber band with two No. 2 lead pencils on top. Sergeants patrolled the room ready to jump anyone who attempted to touch them while the Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge (NCOIC) stood at the front repeating threats to anyone who removed his hands from his pockets.

Step-by-step we were directed to place the forms on the shelf below us, sit down, remove the top form only and place it in front of us, fold our hands on top of the card, and not write anything until we had been instructed on the proper method of providing our name, date of birth, Social Security Account Number, and home address. After three recitations of these instructions, we were allowed to proceed with those items only. Annoyed at being treated like an idiot, I took my pencil in hand and began to comply. Feeling the eyes of others on me, I looked to my right and found the person there looking confused and following my every action. I often wondered if he even copied my information rather than providing his own. To my left, another man was holding his hand aloft to ask a question. Then and there I came to understand the Army and its ways.

One of the forms we filled out that day was the request for Home Town Releases that would allow the Army to provide stories to our home town newspapers whenever we completed training, were advanced in rank, or deployed to a new unit. We quickly learned to rescind this permission when antiwar activists began harassing the families of servicemen and women whenever one of these stories were published.

The most insidious form of harassment came in the form of official looking but counterfeit notices of death that were sent to the families of servicemen and women stationed in Vietnam during the war there. Thus, a program designed by the Army to create good will for them turned into a nightmare for our loved ones.

I never denied the right of anyone to dissent with the policies of our government, but I would gladly harm anyone who abused our families in this manner.


CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Le Cuisine Vietnamese

THERE I WAS in Vietnam, surrounded by some of the best cuisine in Asia, or the world for that matter, eating Army chow. Generally, Army mess halls are the brunt of many undeserved jokes. The most vocal critics are boys who have known little more than their mother's food. They have never had to pick up a salt or pepper shaker because mama made everything exactly the way they liked it, seasoned to a perfection defined by the tastes they had developed soon after being weaned and never varying. Ketchup or salsa were the only condiments they needed to make anything acceptable to their palate. I, on the other hand, had grown up cooking. I began by doing prep for my mother after she joined the work force when I was about age 9 or 10. By and by, I started cooking family meals on those days when she worked late. As a Sea Scout, I became the ship's cook and did the shopping as well as the meal preparation.

Inasmuch as my father had avoided service during World War II and my brother never really shared with me his experiences in the National Guard, I had little to prepare me for military life other than Beetle Bailey comics. I fully expected to see "Cookie" in my mess hall in Basic Training, wearing a dirty sleeveless t-shirt and slinging mystery meat and potatoes (that I would have to peel on KP duty). Imagine my surprise when I discovered basically good food that needed just a little "adjustment" with table condiments to sate my appetite for reasonably good tasting, if not delicious meals. Surprisingly, the mess hall food in Vietnam was equally good when you could get it.

Meals in the field were, of course, another matter. C-Rations had not been manufactured since 1949, and Meals Ready to Eat (MRE) would not make an appearance until long after the war in Vietnam was a distant memory. Modern soldiers have told me that MREs are pretty good, certainly better than C-Rations. "'49 Cs" or "C-Rats" (as we called them) were a mixed bag: some edible, some barely, some almost good. Finding canned fruit in your B12 (dessert) package was always a treat. Peanut butter and cheese spread were inedible since the oil and solids had separated since the manufacture date, but the oil could be burned to heat up the other portions of your meal. Also, every C-Ration kit included an accessory pack with a small bundle of toilet paper, chewing gum, can opener, and cigarettes. The latter had long since dried out and burned with all the ferocity of a fuse when lit allowing the smoker one brief puff before singing nose hairs.

Surprisingly, Air Force personnel who could not otherwise obtain C-Rations, seemed to really like them, and we were able to trade them for almost anything the Air Force had in surplus that we desired. For example, we built a shower outside our hooch using a jet fighter wing tip tank as a reservoir; painted black it absorbed the suns rays all day providing us with a hot shower at night.

Fortunately, I never had to survive on K-Rations. These were meals in a highly concentrated form, usually mystery meat by-products, grains, and fruits, all compressed into a bar and wrapped in foil, providing lots of calories in a most unappetizing form. Members of Long Range Reconnaissance patrols carried them to survive extended periods of time while operating in hostile territory where they could not be resupplied easily. You could survive on them, but had little inclination to do so.

Unfortunately, a tour of duty in Vietnam was like a stint in rehab for the milk-drinkers among us. Like most young American men, I had been raised drinking copious amounts of milk. Our family milkman wept when I marched off to war. Every Army mess hall stateside had a refrigerated dispenser with two large boxes of milk, one whole and the other chocolate, and it made early Army life bearable. The milk we were served in Vietnam was reconstituted from either powder or condensed milk, and it was undrinkable, even to those of us who were addicted. Imagine my joy when on R and R to Hawaii I sat at a breakfast counter while I waited for my hotel room to be prepared, a waitress delivered a large class of milk unbidden. When I mentioned that I had not ordered it, she replied simply, "You were going to," and she was correct. I downed it in one gulp and asked for more.

One of the unfortunate side effects of mess halls catering to our tastes was that our excrement smelled far different from that of the Vietnamese who ate more vegetables, rice, and fish. If you had a bowel movement while hiding in a listening post or sentry bunker, your location would be advertised to any Viet Cong hundreds of yards down wind regardless of how deep and how fast you buried it. Conversely, we could find their positions using our noses as well.

The only relief from Army cooking came in the care packages that we received from home or the food that we bought from the Vietnamese. There were rumors of Vietnamese sabotaging food and drink, and some soldiers were afraid to touch any of it. I felt that if I bought something from a street vendor who was catering to the local clientèle, and that I selected my own portion rather than allowing the vendor to pull something out of a special stash, I was safe. Thus, I came to discover Vietnamese cuisine.

Vietnamese cuisine is not loaded with the heavy sauces such as Mandarin cooking. It is not as spicy as Szechuan or Thai dishes. They are more likely to use rice paper whereas other Asian cooks might use wonton skins or crepes. The sauces are delicate and they use fish, shell fish, and oysters, while limiting the use of pork and beef. Pho is their best national dish consisting of vegetables and very thinly sliced meat cooked in hot broth as it comes to the table. The diner is then provided with an assortment of condiments rivaling the selection of kimchi found on a Korean table.

Towards the end of my tour of duty, our Division was joined by the Royal Thai Regiment. We built an annex to our base camp Bearcat near Long Thanh, and officers were frequently invited for a Thai meal and an evening of kick boxing for entertainment. Anyone who could eat everything placed before them was awarded a Dragon Pin that became coveted, not for the quantity one ate, but the ability to swallow molten lava with impunity.

I could not end this reminiscence without mentioning the snack foods that we survived on. Necessity is truly the mother of invention, especially when it comes to developing a comfort food from whatever you find at hand. With a loaf of bread pilfered from the mess hall and a can of mayonnaise or peanut butter (yes, they came in cans painted olive drab – Army OD) we added whatever ingredients we could come up with. Peanut butter and mayonnaise – the mayonnaise lubricated the thick Army-issued peanut butter and helped it go down. Onion sandwiches – simply slices of onion and mayonnaise on bread. Don't laugh; we developed a taste for them that has stayed with me to this day.

It's funny how many other foods I still eat though they were viewed with horror when I first enlisted. SOS (Shit on a Shingle) – creamed ground beef in a grayish white sauce served on toast for breakfast (the Navy version is made with rabbit and no where as good), remains one of my favorites. It is one of those foods that can transport me back to those days when I was a better man, certainly more fit and full of adventure.


CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

USO Follies

THE ENTERTAINMENT OPTIONS in the Vietnam war zone were equivalent to those you enjoy at home: radio and TV (via the Armed Forces Radio and TV Network), a night at the movies, live stage shows, and clubs featuring drinking and gambling. They were just a little, shall we say, off.

Of course, the news and entertainment broadcast on radio and TV were censored to protect us from the hate waiting for us back home. Hindsight makes me wonder if that wasn't a mistake. Would we have handled it better when we got home had they prepared us for it?

The North Vietnamese were only too happy to tell us that we were fighting an unpopular war. Trinh Thi Ngo, a popular radio personality in North Vietnam known to GI's as Hanoi Hannah, broadcast news and commentary about the war. I was never able to tune into her broadcasts. I suppose that we were too far south to get a clear signal.

Armed Forces Radio Network (AFN) played popular rock selections omitting only those that were obviously anti-war. I never saw any official rankings, but "We Gotta Get Outta This Place" by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and performed by the Animals, has to be among the top ranking ones. Troops sang along energetically whenever it was played.

Fundamentally, I left planet Earth for about five years. My first two years in the Army were spent in training and then Vietnam. Neither place offered much opportunity to keep tabs on the world I had known in civilian life. I saw popular shows such as Laugh In and Star Trek in reruns. The next three years were spent in Hawaii where I had little interest in the outside world. Also, satellite TV had not yet been established and everything came to the islands on tape delay. We spent the week avoiding newspapers so that we could watch last week's sporting events without knowing the outcomes.

One of the funnier incidents occurred during my time in Officer Candidate School when I realized that the World Series should be played, and I had no idea as to who might be in it. Another candidate told me that he had heard that Baltimore was playing. Baltimore? You've got to be kidding. I grew up in Baltimore with the Orioles and had never seen them win even one game that I had watched on TV, listened to on the radio, or attended at Memorial Stadium. We had a joke in Baltimore: What has nine assholes and lives in the basement? The Orioles. Now, the year I left, they won the World Series!

I purchased a small, battery powered Panasonic TV at the Post Exchange (PX) in Vietnam and my bunk mate and I watched Combat starring Vic Morrow. It was our favorite. I suppose we enjoyed it because it depicted a much more satisfying war than the one in which we were engaged. We also never missed the weather report featuring Bobbi the Weather Girl. I learned much later that the DJ that we listened to in the mornings was Pat Sajak, famous now as the host of Wheel of Fortune.

Feature Films were circulated throughout South Vietnam on 16mm film. The projectors were fitted with special CinemaScope lenses to accommodate the wide screen presentations. By the time these films reached our officer's club at Camp Bearcat, they were pretty well used. Sprocket holes along the film's edges were chewed up and the film frequently broke. We watched the projectionist scan the film looking for a good section before re-threading it into the projector and continuing the presentation. We would complain loudly if we saw him throwing away too much of it, and we were convinced that the scenes we missed were probably the best ones in the film.

One film in particular remains firmly embedded in my memory, A Fist Full of Dollars, starring Clint Eastwood. I wandered into the backroom of the officer's club where the projectionist had started the movie without an audience. I guess he was tired of waiting for someone to show up and decided to watch it for his own enjoyment. I watched with him a few minutes and told the projectionist to stop and rewind it while I gathered an audience for him. I walked back into the bar area and announced the number of shootings I had seen – more than twenty in the first three minutes of the film – and everyone came back with me.

Besides free feature films and cheap booze, the officer's clubs were meccas of gambling. We had slot machines and card games. You had to buy tokens at the bar for the one-armed bandits since we had no coins (all our money – Military Payment Certificates – was paper). Some of the most popular games of chance played at officer's clubs around the world involved five dice in a leather cup: Engineer's Dice, Liars Dice, Horses, etc. Bartenders would play patrons for drinks – double or nothing (win and you get a free drink, lose and you pay double).

Most people have seen films of the big stage shows that the USO sponsored including the annual Bob Hope Christmas Show. However, most are not aware that smaller, lesser known troupes of entertainers toured the camps regularly. Many came from Australia and some featured Vietnamese bands playing and singing popular songs. It was surprising how well Vietnamese girls could sing American songs even though they could not speak a word of English. Of course, most were dressed in hot pants or mini skirts and we weren't too critical. Our division had a portable stage that resembled a small camping trailer. A friend who DEROS'd a few months after me related that the stage had been hit by a rocket as it was towed south to Dong Tam where our division headquarters relocated. I hope that the NVA soldier who fired it never learned that he had wasted an opportunity and allowed many more strategic targets to pass unharmed.

Last, but not least, I must not fail to mention the Adjutant General's Special Services office. Never confuse this with Special Forces. Special Services managed movie theaters and craft shops at Army posts all over the world. They installed a large, above-ground swimming pool (unfortunately the water was heavily chlorinated and I stayed away). They also kept a supply of sporting equipment and hosted softball and football tournaments throughout the theater. I learned that their inventory included bows and arrows when we found that someone had stolen and shot them at our guard posts one night when I was the officer on duty. Now, that's entertainment!


CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Christmas

THERE WASN'T MUCH TIME to sit around and mope. Either you were fighting for your life or you were in the rear with the gear, working twelve hours a day, seven days a week. What little time you had was spent coloring in the spaces on your short-timer's calendar and counting the hours and days to DEROS. But, the holidays were different, especially Christmas.

After the fiasco at Thanksgiving (did I mention that?) I wasn't going to let my men miss another holiday dinner. The parents of one of my men owned a restaurant in Indianapolis and his father shipped several packages of food and decorations including centerpieces, table cloths, silverware, candles, and serving pieces. The son, who had grown up in the restaurant business, took over the setup. My sergeant requisitioned two GP (General Purpose) Medium (sized) tents to create a "banquet hall." I donated the beer and booze and the main course that I requisitioned from the ration breakdown point in Long Binh.

I signed out a jeep and trailer and took off for Saigon the week before Christmas with a driver. We stopped first at the docks on the Saigon river and picked up several cases of beer and Coke as well as a few bottles of Seagram's Crown Royal and real French Champagne. How did a mere lieutenant afford all this? Easy. The Coke was three dollars per case and the beer was a dollar-fifty per case. Go figure.

On the way back we stopped at Long Binh when I saw a refrigerated semi being unloaded at the ration breakdown point. The KP's were off-loading seventy-two pound cases of steaks into a refrigerated warehouse. I had my driver remove his blouse so that he would look like every other KP and he joined the line. He made two trips into the warehouse, but on his third trip, he detoured to the jeep and we sped away before anyone noticed. We had the main course.

Two days later, I stopped at the main mess hall at the division base camp and bartered for the rest. The mess sergeant wanted one of each medal to make a display for the dining room. I called my office and had my sergeant fulfill the request. The sergeant then entertained me in the dining room while his staff loaded my jeep.

When I finally left the mess hall, I could not believe my eyes. The jeep was buried in cases of food. Fresh baked bread. Canned corned beef. Five pound bricks of cheese. Half gallon cans of condiments, including ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, pickles, relish, and olives. I can't remember what else.

The laterite roads in the base camp had been recently oiled and we slipped perilously close to falling into a drainage ditch several times as we made our way back to our company area and loaded every available refrigerator.

Our Christmas dinner was an unparalleled success, I think. Some of the details are hazy. However, I remember a chugging contest with my division head, Major Rome Smyth. We used champagne. I didn't make it very far before he finished, drinking that is. He spent the rest of the night belching. We didn't waste a single bit of the carbonation.

The leftover food (and there was a mountain of it) was shipped off to the orphanage near Ton Son Nhut that we helped support, together with stockings that we had filled with small gifts and treats that our families had provided.

Baby killers, yeah, that was us.

Oh, I almost forgot. Bob Hope was there. I'm sure you saw it in the news. I'm somewhere in the crowd, playing cards. The view wasn't all that great, nor was the sound. It was rumored that someone was arrested for wandering into Raquel Welch's dressing room by mistake. Exciting.


CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Tet Part 1: Surprise

EVERYTHING I'VE WRITTEN in this journal of my tour of duty in Vietnam is based on personal experience and observation with the exception of my comments about Jane Fonda. Those were gleaned from extensive research. My recollections of the Tet Offensive of 1968 are a hybrid of the two \-- personal experience and research. No one could have been everywhere when all hell broke loose in the country, especially not the journalists who reported the events so badly.

I'm sure you caught the gist of my feelings about Vietnam war correspondents in that last phrase. They reported that the 1968 Tet Offensive was a surprise. That it was a major victory for the Viet Cong. That the U.S. commanders in Vietnam and at home had been lying about the conduct of the war. Walter Cronkite, the most revered news anchor on television, declared that the war was unwinnable. "Surprise?" "Victory?" "Lying?" "Unwinnable?" None of it was true and yet these reports served to inspire the antiwar movement in the United States and materially undermine its foreign policy to this day. More importantly, they emboldened the communists to continue their invasion of South Vietnam and ultimately murder and enslave its people.

In October, 1966, less than three months before Tet, elements of the 3rd Battalion of the 5th Armored Cavalry Regiment, attached to the 9th Infantry Division, and the 9th's 1st Brigade, uncovered a massive arms cache in an extensive system of tunnels and bunkers 13 miles southeast of the division headquarters at Camp Bearcat. It was the largest cache uncovered during the war. In addition to more than a thousand rifles, the cache included tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition, mortar rounds, and recoilless rifle rounds as well as four 75mm howitzers, the first found in South Vietnam. It was clear that this cache was intended to arm the civilian populace that the Viet Cong expected to join them during the Tet Offensive.

How did we know that the Viet Cong would launch an offensive during the Tet holiday celebration? Simple. They had broken every Tet cease fire in previous years. Every year they agreed to an armistice during Tet, Asia's most celebrated holiday. And, every year, they broke it. The only surprise was the scope and intensity of the offensive planned for 1968. However, U.S. intelligence had significant grounds to suspect that it would be far greater than previous offensives and were prepared for it.

January, 1968, was relatively quiet throughout South Vietnam, especially in the Mekong Delta where we were operating. It was the quiet before the storm, and the longer it lasted, the greater the storm we expected.

I had to run to the city of My Tho (pronounced "Me Tow") on January 30th. I hitched a ride on a helicopter from Bearcat to the headquarters of our 3rd Brigade, Dong Tam, home of the Mobile Riverine Force. From there I caught a ride to My Tho, about five miles east of Dong Tam. My business there took longer than expected and one of the battalion staff officers offered me a bunk to stay the night; however I was expected back at Bearcat. I was scheduled to be the Division's staff duty officer that night.

A staff duty officer is the commanding general's representative during off-duty hours. It's not really as important as it sounds. It's a lot like the people who sit in the seats of celebrities at the Academy Awards while they are on stage to present or accept awards. (Apparently the show's producers don't want empty seats to appear on screen when cameras sweep the audience.) It wasn't much of a job, and I could have called on one of my friends to cover for me, but I didn't want to have to pay the price they would ask for the "favor."

There weren't any helicopters scheduled to fly out of My Tho that late in the afternoon, and I couldn't expect a passing one to drop down and pick me up by waving a towel as instructed in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I had to get back to the airfield at Dong Tam and that wasn't easy or comfortable. The only vehicle headed that way was a U.S. Army Engineer's dump truck, and I had to ride in the back. It didn't have a load to soften the ride and there wasn't anything to hang on to, so I bounced around like a BB in a tin can. I know that the driver, his assistant, and his gunner were enjoying themselves imagining the ride I was having.

I ran limping onto the airfield as soon as we arrived at Dong Tam and found my old friend, "Jack" Spratt, lounging by his OH-25 observation helicopter. Luckily, he was just about to take off for Bearcat and didn't have any other passengers. (This was the flight I had mentioned in an earlier posting where he uncharacteristically flew "high" so I could take pictures of the clouds with his camera.)

As we approached Bearcat, I saw armor -- tanks and armored personnel carriers (APC) -- parked along the perimeter road just inside our protective berm. The line stretched almost all the way around the camp, about five miles. Their crews were camped out alongside their vehicles, relaxing, smoking, playing cards, gossiping. They were like arrows in a bow, just waiting to be sent flying at the enemy.

I barely had time to report to the division Adjutant General on my mission to My Tho, before running to the division headquarters to report for duty.

Usually, I spent the night on staff duty with my feet up on a desk, fast asleep. (You learned how to sleep anywhere, anytime you could in the Army.) However, I wasn't going to get much sleep that night.

The telephone rang sometime after midnight and the caller began shouting a codeword at me before I could even identify myself. He was attempting to reach the Division Tactical Operations Center (DTOC) which was located in a bunker to the rear of the headquarters building. I suppose it was easy for an Army operator to confuse the two. As soon as I convinced him he had reached the wrong phone, he pleaded with me to relay the "message" to the people in the DTOC.

I wandered in to the DTOC moments later and simply asked, "Does anyone know what [codeword] means?"

The result was similar to dumping a basket of live crabs onto a picnic table where a group of wealthy dowagers were seated, busily gossiping. (I chose that image because I had seen it actually happen once when I was a Sea Scout cruising with the Baltimore Yacht Club.)

Within minutes, there was a roar of engines firing up and tracked vehicles quickly filing out of Bearcat and headed for Saigon and other pre-assigned strategic points.

As the days passed, there were surprises. That is the nature of warfare. The test of an army, its men and commanders, is how well they handle those surprises. However, the correspondents used "surprise" as a charge, as though we were incompetent or had bumbled somehow, and the American public bought it. Didn't they remember the Battle of the Bulge? That was the greatest surprise in modern warfare, and they didn't castigate the Army for that one. Indeed, they celebrated the allied victory on that occasion. Were we less worthy? Of course, our victory wasn't reported. In the end, the press corps would announce the Tet Offensive as our defeat, the first lie.


CHAPTER FIFTY

Tet Part 2: The REMF's Battle

THE VIET CONG poured into Saigon from the west, through the Cholon district. Cholon was the enclave of the ethnic Chinese who had settled in Vietnam. The Japanese "imported" them to serve as police and petty bureaucrats during their occupation of Indochina, and the Vietnamese harbored great resentment towards them. The French admired the arrangement and continued it when they returned to reclaim their colony following World War II.

The scope of the attack on Saigon was unexpected. It didn't make sense. Whatever success the Viet Cong had enjoyed up to that time had been accomplished in small, hit-and-run attacks and ambushes. Trapping themselves in an urban environment where they would be decimated was foolhardy at best. However, as evidenced in later testimony by General Giap, the North Vietnamese leader who architected the Tet Offensive of 1968, the population was expected to rise up against the Americans and their puppet government when the communists arrived in the city. Thus, one of the first objectives of the Viet Cong assault was to bypass the Americans and South Vietnamese government officials in their residences, and capture communications facilities in Saigon so they could rally the citizens of Saigon to their cause.

There were no combat units stationed in Saigon. Unlike the Germans in Paris, the Americans were not occupying Saigon or any part of Vietnam. We were there, not as imperialists, but to halt the invasion of the communists from North Vietnam. Thus, the defense of Saigon fell to the hands of Vietnamese police and American REMF (Rear Echelon Mother F***ers), supply clerks, typists, switchboard operators, and intelligence interpreters. They barricaded themselves in their offices and depots and fought off the enemy until the cavalry could arrive.

A small contingent of U.S. Marines and American MPs defended the American embassy against a large Viet Cong force. Logistics personnel fashioned a fortress out of food and beer in storage at the docks along the Saigon River. Clerical staff donned their flak vests and steel helmets and fought from sandbag embrasures outside the doors of their offices while their buddies sniped at Viet Cong from the windows above.

There were hundreds of American civilians in Saigon at the time: businessmen and women, consultants, liaisons, volunteers, and news people. I never heard of any tourists at that time but anything is possible. Most hunkered down where they were or escaped to a friendly fortified position. Some participated in the defense. One in particular, Bobby Keith, better known as "Bobby the Weather Girl," pitched in. Officially, Bobby was a secretary for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) who worked at the USAID Annex at the Mondial Hotel in Cholon. She had been recruited by the Armed Forces Radio and Television Network in Saigon to host weather broadcasts on AFRTN television. She also traveled extensively around South Vietnam, braving gunfire, to visit the troops and boost morale. It's not surprising that she braved gunfire to deliver box lunches to a group of American engineers at "front lines" defending Cholon during the Tet Offensive.

Unfortunately, the Vietnamese who couldn't reach safe havens were gathered up by the Viet Cong and given the choice to take up arms against their government or face execution. Many were simply executed without the benefit of a choice. Few took up arms, and the Viet Cong political cadre were confused.

American war correspondents appear to have hunkered down in their hotel rooms and filed stories based on rumors and innuendo. Many proved to be false. A few of the brave ones ventured out with cameras and recorders to capture the action, but their vision was limited to narrow corridors of Viet Cong successes. They didn't realize that American and Vietnamese forces were fashioning a trap.

The First and 25th American Infantry Divisions formed a wall to the north and west of the city that began to close on the Viet Cong like a hammer. The 9th Infantry formed a barrier along the east and south. They formed the anvil. The Viet Cong were trapped between.

Urban warfare is vicious. Combatants have innumerable places of concealment and attackers must move slowly and methodically to insure that they don't accidentally bypass any. Every building, every room, every closet, every cabinet must be cleared. Just entering a doorway is a supreme act of courage. An enemy may be waiting on the other side and you are already a target before you can bring your weapon to bear. Tossing in a grenade before entering may help, but not always. We didn't have "atomic grenades" like those you've seen on television and in the movies. Ours couldn't always be expected to kill or wound every soldier inside.

In time the Viet Cong were driven from the city towards the trap waiting at the Saigon River. There was no refuge awaiting them there. There was no Dunkirk-like fleet waiting to transport them to safety. Many took refuge in warehouses by the docks and died when tanks blew out the walls after they refused to surrender.

It took more than a week to retake Saigon. It was a large city.


CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Tet Part 3: Fighting on Arrival

THE FIRST HOURS of the Tet Offensive passed quietly at Bearcat after our armor departed the camp. I slept through the rest of the night as Duty Officer blissfully ignorant of the battles raging throughout the country, and I was able to report for duty at the Awards and Decorations Branch of the 9th Infantry Division Adjutant General's Office early the next morning. I was seated at my desk when a blast rocked our two story wood-framed building.

I walked out onto the stairs of our second story office and looked in the direction of Long Binh to the southeast to see a mushroom-shaped cloud ascending into the morning sky. There were twelve miles between Bearcat and Long Binh, and I thought for sure that someone must have exploded a tactical nuke somewhere between. No, it was the ammunition dump at United States Army, Vietnam (USARV) Headquarters, Long Binh exploding. I spoke with some of our combat soldiers who were nearby at the time, and they were surprised they had survived even though they were in Armored Personnel Carriers (APC) headed for Saigon.

One of the true surprises of the 1968 Tet Offensive was the extent to which the Viet Cong had infiltrated Widow's Village across the road from USARV Headquarters. Widow's Village was the enclave of the women and children of the Vietnamese serving in the Army of South Vietnam (ARVN). Although most were not technically widows, few ever saw their husbands even though they were still alive. Thus, the name "Widow's Village" stuck.

Viet Cong had taken up residence among the widows and orphans, and tunneled extensively beneath their homes where they stored arms and ammunition to attack the main U.S. base in South Vietnam. They kept the widows silent through threats and intimidation. Some even began to work within the base as clerks and janitors. Thus, it wasn't difficult for sappers to plant satchel charges at strategic points. Some cut holes in the roofs of homes and began lobbing mortar shells at the American base.

When the Tet Offensive was launched, American and South Vietnamese combat troops were scattered around the countryside or rushing to defend key places. Thus, when the Viet Cong charged the base, Rear Echelon Mother F***ers (REMF) took up weapons and defended themselves. Bus loads of arriving Americans disembarking from planes landing at nearby Bien Hoa were hastily issued weapons, steel helmets, and flak vests, and thrown into gaps in the berm surrounding the base. Some died there, only hours after arriving in-country.

Other than the sappers who detonated their satchel charges in the ammunition dump during the initial assault, the Viet Cong failed to do any permanent damage. Although they were entrenched within yards of the base perimeter, REMF repelled every attack until combat forces arrived.

Back at Camp Bearcat, we began to notice a significant increase in activity at our airbase, and I tried to find out what was happening. Unfortunately, the Adjutant General had gotten wise to my little "field trips" and I had to send one of my men. I'm not really certain why he objected to us substituting for exhausted and wounded door gunners (although I've always suspected that he was intimidated by our willingness to go in harm's way).

We later learned that most bases were under siege and aircraft couldn't land to rearm and refuel, so they diverted to Bearcat where not a single enemy was in evidence. Apparently, the arms cache we had captured in October had been intended for an attack on us, and we had left them without sufficient war material to mount an effective assault. All day and all night, helicopters with every imaginable unit markings were landing, hastily rearming and refueling, and returning to the battle. The wounded began arriving from all over the countryside regardless of the unit they fought for.

My base camp reaction force platoon was frozen in place and we were limited in our ability to assist. We couldn't know that we weren't going to be attacked, and we had to remain ready to move into defensive positions. I called my sergeants together and had them visit each man in the offices where they worked to make sure they had plenty of ammunition and full canteens, and were ready to move out at a moment's notice. Surprisingly, the attack never came, although the media announced to the world that Bearcat had been overrun.

I received a panicky letter from my mother about two weeks after the Tet Offensive began. She was desperate to know if I was still alive and well. Yes, I should have written to her sooner but I had no way of knowing that American correspondents were spreading misinformation. I became furious when I read the news clipping that she had included. No wonder she was upset. In truth, I have never forgiven the members of the Fourth Estate who put her through that. Their distortions served as a warning, and I wasn't surprised when I returned home to find that the news media were instigating the antiwar movement there. They were like cowboys, recklessly stampeding the mob with lies and innuendo, to impose their ideology rather than disseminate truth. It is a proclivity that is recognizable in their activities to this day. Thank God that Internet bloggers and other informal news sources are shining the light of fact and empirical data on their fabrications.


CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Tet Part 4: The Aftermath

WE HAD VERY LITTLE contact with our combat units during the first week of the 1968 Tet Offensive. They were busy, very busy. Our work came later, processing the battle casualties and replacing them. Fortunately for the troops in the field, there was a lull in fighting following the battle. It wasn't until later that we learned why. Like World War II's Battle of the Bulge, the Tet Offensive was an act of desperation that went very wrong for the Viet Cong.

I know that you've heard it was their victory. However, it was a victory for them only in the eyes of the war correspondents who hid their ignorance in grand reports of stunning American and South Vietnamese losses. The truth is that the butcher's bill - the list of allied casualties - was very light. Years later, the architect of the Tet Offensive, North Vietnam's General Giap, admitted that the Viet Cong lost fully two-thirds of their forces, and the remaining communists were in disarray, their ability to fight forever broken. The war would have to be fought by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) following Tet. Inasmuch as the 9th Infantry Division was in the extreme south, we didn't see heavy combat until the NVA could infiltrate that far until a few months after Tet. In fact, I was on my way home, sleeping in a transient barracks at Ton Son Nhut Air Base in May, awaiting my Freedom Flight, when the first NVA rockets slammed into Saigon. I still remember dragging my mattress over me as I rolled out of the bunk and slept the remainder of the night on the floor.

If you have been following this series, you'll know that I was in My Tho hours before the Tet Offensive began, and might have been there when the Viet Cong overran the city. The lieutenant from the Adjutant General's office who was stationed there was injured in the attack. He donned his steel helmet and flak vest and ran from the trailer he slept in right into the sights of a Viet Cong soldier. The enemy pulled the trigger but his weapon misfired. He then walked up to the lieutenant and punched him in the gut with the butt of his weapon. Fortunately, he ran off without doing any further damage, but the lieutenant still had to spend some time in the hospital with internal injuries.

There's an African proverb that states, "When two bulls fight, it is the grass that suffers." In this case, the "grass" were the South Vietnamese. Although the Viet Cong inflicted relatively minor casualties on allied forces, they murdered or maimed countless Vietnamese men, women, and children. Upset that the indigenous population didn't rise up to join them, the Viet Cong political cadre shot many in their attempt to inspire a general revolt. It was a precursor to the mayhem that would follow when the United States abandoned the South Vietnamese in response to pressures from the antiwar movement and their allies.

More than a month passed following the Tet Offensive before we allowed civilians to return to Bearcat to their jobs as clerks, janitors, and shop keepers. One in particular, the man who operated a barbershop at the officers club, had lost his home as well as several family members. We placed a five gallon water jug in his shop and began filling it with Piasters to help finance the funerals and pay for the construction of a new house.

Our greatest anguish was reserved for the fate of the Catholic orphanage near Ton Son Nhut Air Base that we supported. We had no word of them and no way of contacting them until the roads were opened and we could get permission to go see for ourselves. We were relieved to learn that the nuns who operated the place had evacuated the children to storm drains and hid there during the fighting. Fortunately, their facility hadn't been heavily damaged and we made repairs pretty quickly.

Other villages that I had visited during my tour of duty weren't so lucky. Many were burned to the ground. The latrine we had built in one was totally destroyed. The Viet Cong didn't tolerate any symbol of American good will regardless of the fact that they were only harming the people they were fighting to "liberate".

It is interesting that one of the epithets most commonly thrown by the antiwar crowd at Vietnam Veterans was "baby-killer." It is true that Vietnamese civilians, including babies, had been caught in the crossfire. It is also true that some American criminals, such as the miscreants led by Lieutenant William Calley at My Lai, murdered civilians. Hopefully, most were prosecuted accordingly. However, the victims of their crimes could never approach even a small percentage of the crimes committed intentionally by the Viet Cong. I never heard antiwar demonstrators complain about them. Indeed, one of their most famous, Jane Fonda, visited their bastion to the North and embraced them to raise their morale and continue the slaughter. Meanwhile, Ms. Fonda is a revered icon to many of them to this day. She is certainly celebrated in the entertainment community that continues to extol the same ideology that buoyed the antiwar movement in that time.

Every time I think that I am getting a handle on my anger at the news media, another bomb drops into my lap. The most recent one came from the pages of American Heritage Magazine. I have been a long-time subscriber and learned much from its pages. However, they chose to feature The Sage of Black Rock, as Cronkite was known, in their Winter/Spring 2012 issue. I was dismayed to read that the author of this article supported Cronkite in his assessment that the War in Vietnam was unwinnable.

President Johnson, on hearing Cronkite's assessment, was reputed to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost [the support of] middle America." Some believe that he famously announced that he would "...not seek, nor would [he] accept the nomination of his party for President of the United States" after hearing Cronkite's broadcast. However, the American Heritage article goes on to correct that impression by stating that Johnson made that decision on the basis of personal concerns, including his health.

There is no doubt that Cronkite's assessment fueled the passion of the antiwar movement and greatly aided their cause. As a result, some hold Cronkite responsible for the many thousands of Vietnamese murdered by the communist invaders from the north after the U.S. abandoned them. I wouldn't go that far. Nor do I hold Jane Fonda accountable for her actions. She was, in my estimation, a mere dupe. However, I cannot seem to lay aside my anger at the press corps in general. Without them, the South Vietnamese might have lived in freedom. As North Vietnamese leaders have admitted repeatedly in many interviews and writings, they were prepared to surrender the cause many times, especially after Nixon became President and prosecuted the war into their sanctuaries. But for the influence of the anti-war movement, which still influences American foreign policy to this day, so many might have lived and lived in freedom.

Of course, there were surprises. There are surprises in every war. The Battle of the Bulge is one of history's most famous surprises. Ultimately, Tet was a surprise test, one that the Armed Forces -- even the cooks and clerks -- passed with flying colors. Shamefully, it was one that the American public failed. Fed by the hyperbole and hysteria manufactured by the press corps, they surrendered, and the war was, at that point, "unwinnable." How sad. In an earlier time, Americans cheered the courage and fortitude of their sons at the Battle of the Bulge. Cronkite reported on that earlier battle. What happened to him during the intervening years?

Tet was a hundred "battles of the bulge," and we won every one of them. When the smoke cleared, the Viet Cong did not hold one square inch of the land they had invaded and they were decimated.


CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Badges of Courage

I WAS THE LEADER of my youngest son's Cub Scout Den. During the last of four years, I prepared them to become Boy Scouts. They had to learn the Scout Promise, Motto, and Laws. They learned the meaning of "thrifty," "clean," and "reverent." My assignment to head up the Awards & Decorations Branch of the 9th Infantry Division's Adjutant General's Office during the second half of my tour of duty in Vietnam uniquely qualified me to help them with understanding the Boy Scout admonition to be "brave."

Like most people, including adults, they equated bravery with a lack of fear. However, after telling them a few stories they began to reach a different conclusion. I told them about Audie Murphy, the most decorated combat veteran of World War II. Some say that he listened in bewilderment as a citation of his heroism was read. It seems that he had lapsed into a fugue state on at least one occasion when he acted above and beyond the call of duty. All fear was lost, and he attacked like an automaton. After listening to several stories such as this, the boys began to see that a person may perform seemingly heroic deeds without a sense of fear. They then pondered if that was truly brave. It was a short leap from there to the conclusion that bravery or courage is "doing what is right or required in spite of the fear of the consequences." This is the lesson that I wanted them to learn. It was the same one that I learned in Vietnam.

The commanding general of a U.S. infantry division is authorized to award any decoration up to and including the Silver Star, which ours occasionally did in the afterglow of a major battle. We would follow up with the appropriate orders and a citation to memorialize the award. In most cases, recommendations for decorations came from field commanders, and I convened a board of officers about once each week to review them on behalf of the division commander. I was given a roster of officers who had been assigned to the Awards & Decorations Review Board, and called three to sit on each week's panel. I generally selected one senior officer, lieutenant colonel or colonel, to chair the board, and two lower grade officers, captain or major, to fill it out.

Generally, I gave them the date, time, and place, and they dutifully showed up. The first time, however, when I called the 9th Infantry Division Provost Marshall, a full colonel, to chair the board, he listened to my summons and asked, "Am I the senior officer on the board?" When I replied that he was, he informed me that he would tell me the date, time, and place of the meeting and hung up. I waited a few heart beats and called him back to ask when and where he wanted to convene the board. He asked for the time and place I had called with. After I repeated the information, he said that would be fine and hung up again. We had a delightful relationship following that first encounter. I always respected officers who wore their mantle of authority well, and effectively destroyed any hope of a career in the Army by disrespecting those superior to me who I had to bully to get anything done.

The Awards & Decorations board rarely disappointed me with their decisions, however, there was one that drove me to discard their votes and have them recast by another panel. A medic was cited for having rushed headlong to save a fallen comrade despite a hail of gunfire directed on him from a Viet Cong ambush. The victim was the point man of an American patrol who had sprung the ambush before his comrades entered the killing zone. As he fell, all of the Americans went to ground except for the medic. He rushed forward and covered the fallen man with his own body until the enemy was driven back, and then provided life-saving aid. He was recommended by the unit commander for an award of the Silver Star. The Awards & Decorations board were inclined to agree until I read the closing line of the recommendation; the medic was a conscientious objector. Personally, I found it noble that he served in combat even though his status could have shielded him from being drafted into the Armed Services. The panel of officers that day voted unanimously to reduce his award to a Bronze Star with "V" device signifying valor. The medic was ultimately awarded the Silver Star that he, in my opinion, deserved.

My most humbling duty was investigating and memorializing recommendations for the Medal of Honor. I was honored to work on four. Each required great care to detail and a thorough investigation to insure the validity of an award of the highest honor. I was pleased and astounded to learn years later that every one of them was awarded.

I bound each recommendation for award of the Medal of Honor in a three inch loose-leaf binder approximately three inches thick. It was divided into several sections including a detailed description of the action being cited, witness statements, intelligence assessments of enemy strengths and deployments, operational orders, weather reports, and everything else that I could provide that would help a panel of senior officers, located in a Washington, D.C. office, truly understand and appreciate the danger to which the individual had exposed himself and the significance of his accomplishment as well as the consequences of his possible failure.

Recommendations for award of the Medal of Honor often require years to process and reach a determination. Thus, I did not learn the outcome of those I investigated until after I left the Army three years after my tour of duty in Vietnam ended. I have a copy of Heroes: U.S. Army Medal of Honor Recipients by Barret Tillman, that mentions all four of the acts of valor that I investigated. Unfortunately, space limitations in his book seem to preclude complete explanations of their acts of heroism above and beyond the call of duty.

The most unusual recommendation that I investigated involved two persons acting in concert. Even more unusual is the fact that neither was killed nor wounded in the action. It is hard to imagine just how much danger was involved if the recommended recipient is not only alive, but also uninjured. However, in this instance, I was able to put my astonishment into words and the reviewing authority agreed.

In May, 1967, shortly after I arrived in Vietnam, Sergeant Leonard B. Keller and Specialist 4th Class Raymond R. Wright were pinned down behind a rice paddy dike with their platoon from the 16th Infantry operating in the Ap Bac area. The Viet Cong were firing from a series of heavily fortified bunkers at the edge of the rice paddy. Another company of Viet Cong were hidden in a tree line perpendicular to the line of bunkers. They too were firing on the Americans.

Keller and Wright became impatient with their platoon leader who was trying to provide accurate map coordinates to the supporting artillery, and Keller began crawling to the opposite end of the dike away from the Viet Cong in the tree line, taking an M60 machine gun with him. Wright followed.

The two soldiers then crawled to the flank of the line of VC bunkers. Keller handed his grenades to Wright and began laying down suppressive fire on the nearest bunker while Wright crawled up to it. Wright then tossed grenades inside. Keller joined him and the two rushed in to find the VC dead or severely wounded.

They then began to attack the remaining bunkers in the same fashion, one at a time, Keller laying down suppressive fire with his machine gun, and Wright approaching the bunker and tossing grenades inside.

Soon, the VC in the tree line began directing all of their fire on the two soldiers racing from bunker to bunker. The American platoon watched dumbfounded at the scene as it played out. Some even stood for a better view, until they realized that they should begin firing on the VC in the tree line to support their buddies.

After destroying the last bunker, Wright and Keller rushed the tree line although both had expended all their ammunition and grenades. However, by this time the remaining VC decided to retreat.

Wright and Keller found VC weapons discarded on the ground on the opposite side of the tree line when they burst through, and picked them up to continue their pursuit of the fleeing VC. They discarded them as these too ran out of ammunition and they continued their pursuit with other discarded weapons that they recovered. Their buddies didn't catch up until they ran out of ammunition and discarded weapons, and let the remaining VC escape.

It was not common for the VC to flee in a disorganized retreat. They were excellent fighters who employed hit-and-run tactics effectively. However, on this occasion, they must have sensed that there was some other force at work that they couldn't contend with.

Our Division Commanding General flew to the site of the action and pinned Silver Stars on both men. He then ordered the division Chief of Staff to have our office arrange for Keller and Wright to be reassigned to Division Headquarters to complete their tours of duty in relative safety while their recommendations for the Medal of Honor were processed. My investigation took several weeks, and was constantly interrupted by complaints that the two men were "misbehaving." They weren't very good garrison soldiers.

I was also glad to find in Tillman's book, that another of the men I investigated, PFC Thomas J. Kinsman, was awarded the Medal of Honor. He dropped onto a grenade that landed in the midst of him and seven of his buddies. Miraculously, he survived severe wounds to the head and chest proving that the Viet Cong didn't have "atomic" grenades like those depicted in movies and on television.

The fourth and final recommendation for the Medal of Honor that I investigated was approved and the honor went to PFC Sammy L. Davis. He had just celebrated his twenty-first birthday when the fire support base that his unit was defending came under attack by an enemy battalion. Fifteen hundred Viet Cong attacked an American howitzer battery of four cannons and forty-two men. The Americans loaded their 105mm howitzers with "Bee Hive Rounds" that fire 1,800 tiny darts, flechettes, and waited for the order to fire while a human wave assault approached.

A swath of men disappeared from the enemy line when Davis pulled the lanyard, but the gap was filled by others. An enemy recoilless rifle (antitank weapon) fired at the muzzle flash of the howitzer striking its shield. Davis and his buddies were wounded and the gun chief disappeared in the dark with a hole in his chest.

When Davis regained consciousness, he found himself at the bottom of a foxhole with enemy soldiers swarming around his howitzer. They were attempting to turn it on the other three howitzers in the battery. One of them fired a beehive round that swept the Viet Cong away from the gun and impaled Davis with more than thirty flechettes in his legs and buttocks. His flak vest saved him from more serious injuries.

With his gun swept free of the enemy, Davis gathered up another beehive round, powder, and primer and reloaded the weapon. Working alone, in the dark, with enemy racing past him in the dark, Davis had to stop frequently and lay low to avoid detection. Eventually, he was able to reload it despite the fact that its tires were on fire, and the flames licked at the breach where he was working. Not only was he in danger of being burned, but also of a premature detonation of the round.

He fired the howitzer and began reloading it when he heard cries for help from a buddy he recognized on the opposite side of the river bordering the island where his battery had set up. The cries were coming from an infantry platoon that had been attempting to secure the artillery battery. A mortar round had burst among them injuring all.

To appreciate what happened next, you must understand two things. Streams in that part of the Mekong Delta are deep and wide, almost as though they had been dug out by a machine. There was no shallow water. Secondly, Davis was extremely weak from his wounds.

Despite these facts, Davis grabbed an air mattress he had in his foxhole and began paddling across the stream under enemy fire. He found his buddy and two other Americans, wounded and needing help. He made two round trips to ferry all three to relative safety.

With more than fifty separate wounds, Davis finally allowed himself to be evacuated.

You won't find all this information in Tillman's book. As I mentioned, although it is an excellent resource, he could not have included all of the research data on each incident. Basically, he has reproduced a portion of the citations that accompanied each award. But you can hear Davis talk about the action and its aftermath in a video on the Internet at http://vimeo.com/13075124 .

My memory of those incidents, on the other hand, remains as fresh as the day I investigated them. It was an honor to serve such men in some small way.


CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

DEROS

THE CLOCK BEGAN to count down as soon as your plane touched the tarmac and you arrived in-country; 364 days and a wake up until Date of Expected Return from Overseas (DEROS). Many counted the days, one by one, by coloring spaces on an outline of a naked woman, called a short-timer's calendar. Short-timer was envied greater than rank. One week and a wake-up: I'm so short I can shave in your belt buckle. Six days and a wake-up: I'm so short I need a ladder to reach my sock tops. Five days and a wake-up: I'm so short I can sleep in a matchbox. Short-timers rarely made it to the Freedom Bird – their flight home, without annoying someone.

I remember one young captain who we partied with the night before his DEROS. He was disappointed when we disappeared while he kept drinking. He stumbled into our hooch in the middle of the night looking for someone to party with and got the scare of his life. Both my bunk mate and I reacted as we awoke by pointing our loaded sidearms at him until we identified the intruder; my .25 caliber in his face (I was on the top bunk), and my bunk mate's .45 caliber in his stomach (he was in the lower). The poor man was glad to go to bed after that, but I'm not sure he got much sleep.

I also remember when my good friend, Dennis DEROS'd. I arranged for a driver and a jeep to take him to Ton Son Nhut, where we shared a last drink together. On the way back, I stopped at Long Binh, then the sprawling headquarters of USARV (United States Army, Republic of Vietnam) to do some shopping at their Post Exchange (PX). I stopped at the reception center desk and inquired if they had any officers headed for the 9th Division. On learning they had one, I told them to round him up and I'd be back in an hour to collect him and give him a ride. I had learned through my own experience that sitting around the reception center was mind numbingly boring. He wore Denny's helmet and flak vest on the way to Camp Bearcat, and wore out his neck trying to peer down every row of rubber trees looking for lurking enemies, just as I had done several months earlier.

As I walked around Long Binh, wearing my flak vest and steel helmet over my jungle fatigues, I was surprised to see the newly arrived personnel sitting in any shady spot they could find, sweating profusely, and looking simply beaten. The sight surprised me as I found the day to be rather comfortable; then I remembered my first day in-country, and I became more sympathetic.

Generally, personnel arrived and departed in a constant stream. However, inasmuch as the 9th Infantry Division had arrived en masse from Fort Riley, Kansas a few months before me, and everyone had a one year tour of duty to serve, the entire division was scheduled to depart at the same time, which would have left a hole in the American deployment; especially, since we were the only unit in the Mekong Delta, including the invaluable Mobile Riverine Force that played a key role in disrupting enemy operations and logistics throughout the entire southern area of operations in Vietnam. To avoid this problem, we had traded personnel with other American units, until we were left with something less than a third of the original division, about 5,000 men, with the same DEROS. Straightening out this mess, arranging reassignments for the men, scheduling their transportation, cutting their orders, and securing replacements, all in just two weeks, earned me an Army Commendation Medal.

I extended my DEROS 30 days so that my arrival back home would coincide with my girlfriend's graduation from college. I had planned on marrying her at that time. Unfortunately, my Dear John arrived shortly after I requested the extension and I served the extra thirty days for naught. Actually, I don't regret that extra time half as much as I regretted ultimately marrying and divorcing her (but that's another story).

I was one of the few people who didn't keep a short-timer's calendar. My DEROS simply sneaked up on me on day, and I worked up to the moment it was time to catch a ride to Ton Son Nhut. My last night in Vietnam was spent on the floor of the officer's barracks, sleeping under my mattress as NVA rockets rained down on the city. It was the first attack on Saigon following the 1968 Tet Offensive that resulted in the destruction of the Viet Cong.

The most memorable part of my departure was the wait to take off. We sat in a chartered Boeing 707 waiting for higher priority traffic to take off. Outside the window I could see every model of fighter jet, military and civilian cargo plane, and various observation plane queued up. I distinctly remembered thinking that the only thing missing was a biplane when a biplane pulled alongside. Throughout the wait, no one said a word. Nor did anyone utter a sound as our plane pulled onto the runway and revved up its engines. Silence prevailed even as the plane rotated and began the long climb to cruising altitude. Then, as the pilot reduced power to cruising speed and extinguished the Fasten Seat Belt sign, pandemonium broke out. We were on our way home.

Fortunately for me, my next assignment was in Hawaii, and I departed the plane there. I did not have to suffer the reception that awaited the others in Oakland.


CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Are You My Daddy?

I OCCASIONALLY TREATED MYSELF in my old age to a manicure and pedicure. Yes, it was an indulgence. In Orange County, California, most manicurists providing these services are of Vietnamese extraction, many boat people or the children of boat people. Invariably, as I share memories of their homeland, I am asked, "Did you leave any children behind?" No.

Unfortunately, many American servicemen did, and the Amerasian children they left behind, taunted as the Children of the Dust by their peers, suffered ostracism by their own kind as well as the woes of poverty. Most were left to fend for themselves when the Americans withdrew in 1975. Thus, I can easily understand the plaintiff questions, some accusatory.

Okay, let me get this out of the way up front. It's a confession, one that I made to another man years ago who said, "I can't believe that a man would admit to that!" (The exclamation point indicates that he made the statement with great emphasis.)

The truth is that my first wife married a 26-year old virgin. (I've said it before. I'm a writer and honesty is a job requirement.) Don't worry, the lack of practice didn't keep me from fathering four children, two each by two wives. (I figure that's my limit for this lifetime.)

My virginity wasn't for want of interest. I was, I suppose, simply too busy. My adventures, intellectual, virtual, and real began as a prepubescent boy and continued through Sea Scouts, Infantry School, and Vietnam. I married less than a year after returning from Vietnam and, of course, lost my virginity. In hindsight, even that was too soon. One of the children of that first wife is lost to me and the other is dead. (But, that's another story.) Also, sex wasn't as casual in those ancient times.

However, that brings me back to my story - the Amerasian children fathered by American servicemen. Suffice it to say that I didn't father any.

There seems to be something about war that inspires lust. I'm not just talking about the teenage soldiers. Sure, they were exercising their newly won manhood before it could be shot off. There were also the geographical bachelors - married men who took advantage of the adage, "What happens in Vietnam, stays in Vietnam." (Sorry Las Vegas, you were second, maybe tenth to "coin" that slogan.) Had I served in direct combat, I might have been humping it for the nearest village to dissipate my fear in the comfort of some pretty Vietnamese girl. There were plenty available. [Note: "Hump" is army slang for hike.]

Sure there were plenty of prostitutes and Red Cross donut dollies to satisfy these baser instincts. But, there were also plenty of instances of American/Vietnamese couples pairing off and experimenting with the joys of premarital sex as championed in the pages of the Playboy Adviser. (Do I have to mention that openly practicing premarital sex was a novel concept in those days?) Maybe some Vietnamese girls conspired to use pregnancy as an opportunity to escape Southeast Asia, or it may have been love. However, it just may be that the vulnerability one feels in a combat zone lent immediacy to the instinct to propagate.

In any event, I was an observer (though not a voyeur) of this process, and was not surprised when various charitable organizations working in Vietnam following the war began to reveal that there were thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of Amerasian children suffering poverty and unspeakable privations.

Many of these children were abandoned as children in the streets and garbage cans principally around Saigon. Some found temporary refuge in orphanages but were soon driven to the streets when the government was unwilling or unable to support them, and charities in America simply weren't aware of the need.

When the plight of these children became known, the U.S. Department of Defense disavowed any responsibility for them. Indeed, their case seems reasonable though heartless. But, what were they to do. Congress had already set the tenor of the debate when they withheld all foreign aid from South Vietnam following the treaty that ended the war and virtually insured the fall of the South Vietnamese government.

For their part, the North Vietnamese had no sympathy for these children who they considered defective, "among the worst elements of society." They considered them as insignificant as a speck of dust, to be brushed aside." Thus, the communists were all too happy to cooperate with President Gerald Ford's request, and allow American transports to land in Saigon following its fall to gather up as many of these children as they could and carry them away to foster homes in the United States.

Tragically, the first transport of Operation Babylift crashed in a rice paddy outside Saigon killing all 144 persons on board. Local citizens rushed to the crash site to loot the plane and its passengers. There was little concern for the dead. However, the operation continued and approximately 2,000 orphans were evacuated. Countless thousands were left behind. There was no way of knowing how many. Birth records were not kept for them.

Although the official airlift ended prematurely, thousands more were able to escape. Some found their way to the Philippines where bureaucrats allowed them to languish until foster homes could be found in the United States. Ultimately, less than three percent were able to locate their fathers. Their mothers, of course, hadn't come with them.

Vietnam is a traditional society that values premarital virginity and ethnic homogeneity. Those mothers who attempted to keep their half-breed children were ostracized and soon persuaded to abandon them. Thus, the abuse of these children is one crime (probably the only one) that cannot be laid at the feet of the communists in Vietnam.


CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Real Change

WHAT A DIFFERENCE four decades can make. Congregants of the Westboro Methodist Church who protest at the funerals of servicemen killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are treated as pariahs by most members of polite society. Reputable groups classify them as a hate group. The news media report their activities with obvious scorn. The same depredations committed by anti-war protesters during the Vietnam War era were often celebrated in the press and on American campuses with the same gusto as in enemy camps.

The members of the anti-war movement during the Vietnam era were treated as righteous revolutionaries fighting the good fight against war mongering politicians and the military establishment. The dissenters argued that our political leaders would not be able to wage war if we all simply refused to fight.

It did not matter if a veteran had served in another theater. Anyone in uniform during this period suffered the same indignities. The sight of a uniform, any uniform, during the Vietnam War, justified any insult or assault. Servicemen had to disguise anything that might betray their identity so that they could move freely in the civilian community. Unfortunately, their haircuts, their farmer's tans, their very bearing gave them away, even when they were out of uniform. They had to wear their uniform on occasion, such as when traveling by air to enjoy discounted fares. They could not pay full fares on their niggardly pay. Thus, dissenters often congregated at air terminals where they found a target-rich environment. There were some who would attempt to defend them, but doing so made these good Samaritans equally targeted. Even the Boy Scouts suffered during this period and membership declined. Scouting leaders during this period downplayed the traditional uniform in an effort to stem the exodus.

Families of servicemen and women during World War II proudly displayed Service Flags on their homes to honor sons and daughters fighting for their nation. Few would dare to announce their involvement in the Vietnam War. Protesters would harass relatives of servicemen and women going so far as to send counterfeit death notices.

Why did this change come about? The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are probably no more popular than the one in Vietnam. Pundits argue that the justifications of all three were equally contrived. The Gulf of Tonkin incident that served as the basis for the Congressional approval to escalate the war in Vietnam is dismissed just as fervently as the WMD's in Iraq.

Is it partisan politics? The Democrats own the beginnings of the war in Vietnam and the wars in the Middle East, at least their initiation, fell on a Republican watch. Thus, it does not appear that either party is immune to criticism. Unfortunately, there are many extant instances of politicians of both parties abusing their positions and authority for personal gain – money, sexual favors, personal advancement, etc – and all politicians are tarred with the same brush when these few are caught. It is also true that we can find historical periods wherein political corruption becomes all too common as when Mark Twain was prompted to write, "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress." Thus, the press has had an audience willing to believe the worst in their political leadership when both the wars in Vietnam and Iraq were instituted.

It is not my intention to enter the debate as to the justification for either of these wars. However, I am deeply concerned with the fallout of that debate inasmuch as it affects the servicemen and women who fought them, and I fear that the support being voiced for those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan today is not sincere. I fear that they will be reviled one day, just as we who fought in Vietnam were.

"Reviled" may seem too strong a word to those who did not experience the era as an adult. It is not. Indeed, I would offer "despised," "vilified," and "abused," without any qualms. I know that teachers regularly expose their students to evidence of war crimes committed by U.S. personnel in Vietnam. I would never suggest that there were none. The incidents at My Lai and others were heinous crimes and the perpetrators justly punished. There were other incidents that were either successfully covered up by commanders or simply went unreported. The perpetrators of these too should be held accountable as well as any who helped them avoid prosecution. However, is it fair to tar all servicemen and women with the crimes of a few? The enemy employed the civilian population as cover, attacking us from the homes of non-belligerents. This placed American soldiers, sailors, and airmen at great risk and forced them to make impossible decisions. Despite this, there were amazingly few incidents of war crimes committed by Americans. Of the 2.5 million Americans who served in Vietnam, few were guilty of war crimes while, on the other hand, the Communists murdered tens of thousands with impunity.

Had there been no war crimes, would the dissenters of the Vietnam War still have been active? Were they really protesting the injustice of the war or were they simply protesting their own potential involvement? Considering that dissent began long before any reported war crime, I suspect that the latter is closer to the truth. It appears that the level of dissent was closely related to the rate at which people were being ordered to register for the draft. Thus, it may be assumed that the primary motivation for their dissent was their unwillingness to serve or to have those they love – sons, brothers, cousins, friends – serve. Interestingly, this has been true in every war. They fairly leap to mind.

Some may argue that the dissenters were willing to fight for their country, but unwilling to fight an unpopular war. Really? Why then were almost three-quarters of those who served in Vietnam volunteers while almost three-quarters who served in World War II, a popular war, draftees. Whereas those who do not support the wars in Iraq an Afghanistan are not at risk of being drafted, the lack of overt attacks on veterans of these unpopular wars seems to support the contention that dissenters during the Vietnam era were responding solely to the fact that they might be called to serve.

However, all the foregoing sidesteps my ultimate concern – the treatment of the men and women who serve in wars. Most veterans up to and including those who fought in World War II have received the thanks of their nation, but little actual support. The wounded and disabled especially are treated in substandard facilities. Those who are discharged face a job market glutted and exploited by those who stayed behind. Beyond this, the veterans of certain wars – Vietnam and Korea – have received neither the nation's thanks nor their support. And, Vietnam veterans have received their nation's enmity. Despite protestations to the contrary, they have not yet seen those who assailed and assaulted them prosecuted or even chided. Celebrities who instigated much of the assaults on Vietnam veterans continue to enjoy great popularity and success. News people who fabricated false stories continue to bask in the respect of their peers.

Now, here's the dirty little fact that teachers and news writers like to avoid – crimes were committed by dissenters and they were committed with impunity. Indeed, the celebrities and political agitators who instigated these crimes also avoided prosecution. What crimes am I referring to? Assault and battery for starters.

Assault is an act that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent, harmful, or offensive contact. The act consists of a threat of harm accompanied by an apparent, present ability to carry out the threat. Many returning Vietnam veterans were met by hostile crowds demonstrating great temper and potential to cause harm.

Battery is a harmful or offensive touching of another. Throwing paint and pig blood on returning veterans is just about as offensive as it gets. How many punches were thrown? How many homes and vehicles were pelted?

The truth of these crimes committed by dissenters is long forgotten in today's classrooms, but the veterans are slandered with crimes they never committed. I do not believe that Vietnam veterans will ever be vindicated unless these persons are called to answer for their acts.

It is doubtful that Vietnam Veterans will ever be truly thanked for their service, nor will they receive their welcome home. I have met former war protesters who continue to regard me as a war criminal. One Vietnam Vet described an incident wherein his brother asked him, "How many babies did you kill?" on his arrival home. However, most seem to have been shamed by the excesses of former war protesters.

Did the excess of war protesters during the Vietnam era shame today's protesters? Despite the popular support for our troops, the virulence of today's anti-war protests is just as strong as during the Vietnam era, possibly stronger. However, except for a few fanatics such as the Westboro congregants, its expression is directed solely at the politicians who support the wars and that portion of the population who support them. If the treatment we received is in any way responsible for the protected status of today's servicemen and women, then we suffered it for good cause.


CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Casus Belli

THE FIRST PART of this book is written from my perspective of the war and my participation in it. These last chapters, eight in all, are compiled from years of research conducted afterwards.

This is not an academician's tome. There won't be any footnotes or citations. I want to make it as readable as possible to the widest possible audience. Now you may think that it is the product of an amateur, and that it should not be taken seriously. However, inasmuch as none of the journalists, pundits, politicians, and academics who have guided the debate about the war in Vietnam to this point have made any effort to authenticate their sources, I don't see why I should be held to a higher standard. If anyone wants to challenge me on a particular point, I will be glad to lay my cards on the table, but they will have to lay theirs down first. After all, they will be the ones calling me. [Note: Find yourself a poker player to explain that metaphor if you don't understand it.]

In this first installment, I will touch on what the war in Vietnam was not.

  * It was not inspired by imperialism.

  * It was not a "rich man's war."

  * It was not an immoral war.

These are the claims of the people who dissented against the war in Vietnam. They shouted them in public. They painted them on placards. They repeated them among themselves until their slogans became dogma. However, they never offered any proof of their claims. There is little room on placards and graffiti for footnotes and citations.

I will attempt to address each in detail. I say attempt because at least one, "Vietnam was a rich man's war" is indecipherable. It seems only to be a cry of class envy. Although novel in that time, it is one that resonates with many people today.

Before I continue, let me make it clear that I am not opposed to dissent. I have cited President Eisenhower frequently in my writings on this subject.

"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels – men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

I have dissented to the policies and actions of our government on many occasions. Indeed, I am vigorously opposed to our current President and his allies in Congress, who have, in thought and in deed, pursued goals for our nation that I deem incredibly destructive and wholly at odds with constitutionally consistent institutions that I hold dear. I am vocal in my dissent. I encourage and support others who dissent at my side. However, I may disagree with the current Administration and any citizens who support it, but I respect their right to oppose me. I will defend their right to voice and act on their beliefs no matter how misguided I may believe them to be. I expect the same in return.

However, there is a difference between honest dissension and unlawful protest. For as much as I will defend anyone's right to dissent, I will not support protests like those that included the harassment of servicemen and women. I will not only encourage the prosecution and punishment of those who participate in unlawful acts, but also help their victims defend themselves. In fact, this history is part of that effort.

Our schools and documentarians are promulgating the myths espoused by the Vietnam War dissenters and protesters to this day. They teach them to our children and their progeny. They repeat them among themselves and in public displays and discussions to the continuing detriment of American foreign policy. There are some who still attempt to inflict guilt on the veterans of that war. I know. I have been a target of those assaults. Unfortunately for them and their cause, I am not a willing victim. I believe I not only have the right to defend myself and other veterans, but also an obligation to do so.

Imperialism

"Imperialism" is frequently used as a four-letter word to condemn a nation or its leaders. Do you know what it really means? Simply put, it is one nation making another its subject. It's the way that empires are created.

America frequently has been accused of imperialism, arguably true in the case of the conquest of the North American Continent including the wars with the native populations as well as Mexico and Spain. Although it later ceded its claims on Cuba and the Philippines, and granted sovereignty to some land to North American native tribes (albeit less desirable land than that which their ancestors held), it was still guilty of blatant imperialism in those times and, like Mark Twain, I am opposed to imperialism.

"I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land." Mark Twain, A Pen Warmed-Up In Hell

Was America attempting to subjugate Vietnam? There is no evidence to support this claim. Ultimately, we left voluntarily without reserving any claim whatsoever, thereby belying any charge of imperialism. Anyone who cares to argue this point further must demonstrate that any such intent ever existed. They must satisfactorily explain what advantage there might have been in annexing South Vietnam.

Vietnam had no known natural resources that the United States coveted. I was once told that our fleet of B-52 bombers, one of the legs of the U.S. Triad of Strategic Defense in those days, could not land on synthetic rubber tires. We had to make sure that we had a ready supply of rubber to keep those bombers in the air. Well, I was never able to confirm this theory, even after contacting veterans who had serviced the big planes.

What else did Vietnam have to offer? Cheap labor? Their agrarian population wasn't qualified at that time to man production lines. Rice? We produced more rice in America than was ever produced in the Mekong Delta. Oil? Yes, deposits of crude have been discovered off the coast of Vietnam in the South China Sea, but not then. Also, in those days, America had its own abundant oil reserves.

Finally, South Vietnam had no strategic assets, no port nor anything that would warrant the expenditure of lives and treasure to secure it from invasion from its Northern neighbor.

Of course, these days people charge the United States with subjugating other nations economically. It is true that there was a time when the United States could have more easily and cheaply bought many nations instead of bombing them into servitude. That may have been true during other times, but not during the period of the Vietnam War. The invaders of South Vietnam were being financed by the Soviet Empire and they were not to be bought off cheaply.

Morality

Anti-war protesters during the Vietnam period were quite adamant that it was immoral. However, veterans of that movement seem to have finally abandoned that argument. They now speak in terms of "just" versus "unjust" wars. I think that they're on firmer ground there. Morality is, after all, a judgment to be applied to individual actions rather than society at large.

One of the intellectual leaders of the anti-war movement in that time was Michael Walzer, a prominent political philosopher and professor emeritus of Princeton University. I recommend his book, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. (Yes, believe it or not, I read those authors with whom I disagree. I recommend the practice highly.)

Generally, although Professor Walzer allows that a war may be just, he argues that America's war in Vietnam was not. Basically, I agree with him in almost every detail save one: He declares that the war was unjust. Inasmuch as I will be addressing that in another installment in this series, I beg your indulgence until then. However, I recommend that you read Just and Unjust Wars to prepare yourself to debate if you disagree with me.

Vital Interests

The concept that the United States should not engage in war unless its vital interests are at risk was first promulgated by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger in 1984. Thus, that argument wasn't heard in the ranks of the Vietnam War's defenders or dissenters. In those days, the anti-war movement simply said that "it wasn't our war." But, it was.

Again, I'll beg your indulgence to allow me to debate this point in a later posting wherein it will be more appropriate. I've already challenged my reader's endurance with the length of this posting.

To be continued...

In the coming chapters I will address the following:

  * What was the war in Vietnam all about?

  * Wasn't the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin just a hoax?

  * Who was our enemy?

  * What was all the fuss about communism?

  * Who was Ho Chi Minh?

  * Why did we block attempts to reunify North and South Vietnam?

  * There wasn't really a "light at the end of the tunnel," was there?

  * Didn't we waste treasure and the lives of our children for no good cause?

  * Wouldn't the South Vietnamese people have been better off red than dead?

  * Why didn't we "Give Peace A Chance?"


CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Justification

"IT IS RIGHT to resist aggression..." - Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars. America, as well as every other nation has the right to defend itself but, Professor Walzer contends, there was no threat to America from the Vietnamese. And the anti-war movement held fast to this premise. However, there was a threat to America, and the rest of the Free World. It came from the Soviet Empire.

Everyone in Europe and America felt the threat. It became as pervasive and persistent as tinnitus. However, as the Cold War heated up in Vietnam, another emotion seemed to drown it out.

The war in Vietnam was a battlefield in the Cold War. The Soviet Union had usurped the victory of the Viet Minh over the French colonialists. The United States rushed in to "contain communism." It's as simple as that, but this is going to require a lot of explanation. Indeed, it sets the premise for all the remaining postings in this series. It raises the question: How did Vietnam become involved in the Cold War?

It is no secret that the Soviet Union was set on world domination. They proclaimed their intentions openly at every opportunity. They maintained armies along the Iron Curtain that separated Free Europe from the Soviet Bloc, armies far in excess of any reasonable defensive needs. They boasted at the United Nations that they would bury us (meaning the United States).

Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union, crafted their strategy for world domination. It would first subjugate all of Asia, then Indochina. From there it would move on to bring Africa, then South America into its empire. Once these continents were firmly under the Soviet's sphere of influence, Europe would fall and America would be isolated. Victory over the United States would be their crowning achievement. Again, none of this is speculation. Stalin was confident enough to speak openly of his plans.

Stalin's strategy was to employ insurgencies to topple governments from within. World War II had demonstrated that the Soviet Union did not have the resources to confront the "free world" in open warfare. Thus, he lured disaffected elements in targeted societies to champion his communist ideology with promises of weapons as well as diplomatic recognition.

The Free World, led by America, adopted the Truman Doctrine of "containment." Exhausted by World War II, no one wanted a direct confrontation. The Americans and allied Europeans chose instead to support whatever elements opposed Stalin's communist insurgents regardless of their merit. Thus, they ended up supporting some very unsavory tyrants at times.

The two sides, the Free World and the Soviet Empire, maneuvered for advantage, one timid, the other aggressive. Occasionally, the two sides met in heated battles such as Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. In all three cases, the regular forces of one, the Americans or the Soviets, engaged the clients of the other. The two main belligerents, Russia and the United States, never engaged directly. They were precluded from main battle because both possessed weapons of mass destruction that would result in "Mutual Assured Destruction." As Ray Bradbury famously said in that time, "We should worship at the altar of the atomic bomb." It prevented World War III. However, that did not prevent people from dying, as in Vietnam.

Warfare is not for the faint of heart. But, if there is one lesson that was hammered home repeatedly during the Twenty-First Century, it was this: The faint of heart encouraged more wars than did anyone else.

Neville Chamberlin and his allies appeased Herr Hitler time and again. In the years leading up to World War II, Hitler dreamed of conquest but was forestalled by the simple fact that the combined might of the French army and the British navy out-gunned and out-manned Germany. However, he began to doubt their resolve to employ these forces, and he opened his campaign with probing actions. Would they respond if he subjugated Czechoslovakia? He annexed the Sudetenland, and when no one objected, he invaded the rest of the country. France and England responded by making a treaty to defend Poland.

Next, Hitler annexed a portion of Poland. In failing to honor their treaty with Poland before the ink was even dry on the paper, France and England sent a clear message to Hitler that they had no resolve to defend others and, possibly, not even themselves. Thus, appeasement fed the fires of war.

In the case of Korea, Truman and his Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, sent mixed signals about their willingness to defend South Korea. Although Stalin was reluctant to take advantage of the situation, a brash young Korean leader, Kim Il Sung, prevailed on him to support his attempt to unify the peninsula under his control, and the Korean War began.

The Soviets suspected John Kennedy lacked resolve. His tolerance of communism's encroachment in the Western Hemisphere surprised the Soviets. They were astounded by his decision at the Bay of Pigs. That's not to say that Kennedy erred in withdrawing support for the invasion of Cuba, but the Soviets perceived it as a lack of resolve. When Kennedy later backed down the Soviets over the installation of nuclear weapons in Cuba, they blamed the weakness of Khrushchev rather than questioning their judgment of Kennedy. Ultimately, their success in Cuba encouraged them to pursue their objectives elsewhere, thereby setting the stage for war in Vietnam.

Warfare may appear exciting when viewed on the History Channel but, in reality, the time between battles is filled with much longer periods of resting, regrouping, rearming, and maneuver. A battle is often more influenced by where it is fought than by how it is fought. Armies maneuver to choose the best terrain. If the other side arrives to find that their enemy is firmly entrenched in the most advantageous positions, they will retire to another location, threaten the enemy from another quarter, and attempt to draw them into battle where they have the advantage. However, on occasion, while maneuvering, the forces bump into each other, and a battle commences.

Much like the battle of Gettysburg, the opposing forces may be drawn together by people and circumstances beyond anyone's control. Neither Lee nor the Yankee commanding general, McClellan, intended to join in the battle at Gettysburg. Two scouting parties ran into each other there and called for reinforcements. Soon, the main armies arrived and the battle lines were formed almost organically. Individual initiative on that first day, especially at Little Round Top, decided the outcome.

In like manner, the forces that came together in Vietnam met there by accident. The Soviets, emboldened by events in Cuba, opened the next stage of their campaign at world domination in Southeast Asia. They probed with insurgencies in Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Fortunately, the communists succeeded only in Vietnam. However, their victory was costly. Forced to focus all their energy and resources in Vietnam, they lost on all other fronts and the greater war in Southeast Asia went to the Free World. Had the United States not abandoned the South Vietnamese, they would not have won on even that front.

The question that remains is this: Why did Vietnam become the focal point of the war in Southeast Asia? Simply, the opposing forces of the Free World and the Soviet Union came together in Vietnam when Stalin's disciple, Ho Chi Minh, usurped control of the Viet Minh.


CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Ho Chi Minh

HO CHI MINH was generally regarded by anti-war demonstrators as the George Washington of Vietnam leading the popular revolution that ultimately defeated French and then American occupiers, making way for a free and independent society. Furthermore, the myth-makers explain that America's support of the French drove Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese into the arms of the communists. In fact, that message seems to remain alive today in American schools and on American campuses where teachers and professors pass on the myth to their students.

Interestingly, shortly after I wrote in my weblog about Ho, a correspondent who identified himself as a Canadian teaching elementary school classes in Hanoi, commented in my blog castigating me for denigrating a great man. Among his various complaints, some of which were well-founded, he mentioned that Ho like to compare himself to Washington. I'm not sure how to take that comment. Many people, including some of modern history's greatest tyrants, have compared themselves to George Washington. It's good for their public image.

It is hard to understand how men like Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara become popular icons, celebrities actually, in the United States. Only ignorance can account for this. Men such as these do not stand up well under close scrutiny. Looking at Ho Chi Minh, for example, he betrayed the Vietnamese nationalistic movement. He delivered the country into the hands of the communists after they fought so long and well to free themselves from the French colonialists.

No, Ho Chi Minh is nothing like George Washington. I should know. Washington and I share a birth date, and I was reminded of this fact every year in the form of a cake embellished with cherries alluding to the myth of Washington cutting down his father's cherry tree and then owning up to it. As I studied history, I was fascinated to learn that Washington was far more complex and interesting as a real man. The myths fabricated to endear him to the citizenry and elevate him to giant proportions were distracting to me. I can imagine the same being true of any Vietnamese child learning about Bac Ho – Uncle Ho.

"Truth is what is beneficial to the Fatherland and to the people. What is detrimental to the interests of the Fatherland and people is not truth. To strive to serve the Fatherland and the people is to obey the truth." - Volume IV of Ho Chi Minh's Selected Works, from a 1956 speech.

In fact, it's difficult to find any parallels between the Father of America and the Father of Vietnam. For the Father of America to be compared to Ho, Washington would have had to have begun his career engineering the slaughter of American revolutionaries.

Ho Chi Minh was abroad during the Second World War. He studied in America, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China. He returned to France to help form the Communist Party there, and then returned to Vietnam when the war ended. Although Ho was a hero to the Nationalists, they were not heroes to him.

Ho's problem with the Nationalists was that they were not fighting for a communist state. Once he rose to lead them, he was able to transform the Viet Minh into a communist revolutionary army.

Ho's history is also out of step with Washington's in that he did not suffer the privations and dangers of the battlefield. I'm not claiming that he was a coward. Ho simply was not up to the rigors of the battlefield. He suffered from tuberculosis. Other Vietnamese heroes led the front-line fight against the French and later the Americans.

If anyone deserved the distinction as Vietnam's Father, it was Phan Boi Chau. He led the nationalist movement towards a free and democratic Vietnam which was antithetical to Ho's vision of a communist state. Some claim that Ho, who had known Chau in his boyhood and continued to correspond with him over the years, had divulged Chau's travel plans on one occasion and the French were able to detain and imprison the nationalist leader. Chau remained incarcerated until he died in 1945, and Ho took over his movement.

Using his connections with the Soviets, Ho was able to offer the Nationalists the promise of virtually unlimited funding and supplies. It was an offer they could not afford to reject. Once embedded as their new leader, Ho refashioned the Viet Minh into the Viet Cong, a communist insurgency backed by the full resources of communist North Vietnam, and its sponsors, the Soviet Union and the Democratic Peoples Republic of China.

With the defeat of the French foreign legion at Diem Ben Phu, the opposing sides met in Geneva to fashion a peace treaty. Ho was clearly upset that non-communist leaders from the Viet Minh sent their own representatives to the meeting. After much dickering, an agreement was fashioned to divide Vietnam into a communist enclave in the north and an anti-communist enclave in the south.

The agreement crafted in Geneva also provided for free elections to unify the country at a later date. This provision of the treaty was seriously flawed inasmuch as the country was to be divided into two irreconcilable halves.

The parties also agreed to allow the Vietnamese to choose which half they wanted to live in. Ho was confident that his cause would prevail. However, he was greatly disappointed when hundreds of thousands queued up to flee communism. Ho was forced to allow a token amount to make the trek so as to appear to honor the accord.

One must wonder: What caused so many to flee communism? Why can't communism exist without the leadership of a strong tyrant and enforced loyalties?


CHAPTER SIXTY

Communism

WHAT WAS ALL THE FUSS about communism? Someone looking back who hadn't lived through the Cold War Era might well wonder. It's a defunct ideology practiced in a few backward and bankrupt countries.

Okay, China isn't exactly backward and bankrupt, but it isn't exactly a communist enclave anymore. Capitalism rules the streets while a few geriatric communists rule the government palaces.

"It's my fondest wish that, some day, every American will get down on their knees and pray to God that some day they will have the opportunity to live in a Communist Society." - Jane Fonda Hayden, 1970

Face it. All other arguments aside, there were those anti-war activists who protested our involvement in Vietnam for the simple reason that we were denying the South Vietnamese the fruits of communism that their brethren in the north were already enjoying. They did not care what the South Vietnamese themselves wanted any more than they cared what we wanted for them. It's hard to debate against unless it can be demonstrated that communism would not only fail to provide any material advantage to the South Vietnamese, but also significantly harm them. Fortunately, we do not have to speculate on the possible outcome of a communist victory in South Vietnam. It is an accomplished fact, and the results are readily apparent.

Let's be honest. Communism has its allure. In theory, it seems that it ought to work. No class distinctions. Deprivations borne equally. The fruits and benefits of the community are shared equally. Happiness and sadness shared equally. However, communism only exists primarily because, as Thomas Sowell so aptly states, intellectuals have a penchant to "...replace what works with what ought to work." This is why educators still preach it and, even today, students can be found on any American campus passing out copies of the Daily Worker.

Unfortunately, communism in practice has never matched its theoretical possibilities. One of the problems with communism is that it requires a central authority to decide what the community will produce and how it will be shared. If this central authority is weak, the ideology fails because people are about as easy to herd as cats. This was well proven in one of the early communal experiments here in the United States.

The Pilgrims formed a commune long before anyone defined communism. The land was owned by all and the fruits of their labor were stored in a communal warehouse. Families drew from the communal supplies and all starved equally.

Many think that the Pilgrims were saved by the American natives who were their neighbors. In fact, the Pilgrim's colony was on the verge of collapse even after the indigenous people taught them how to fertilize their crops with fish and hunt the forests. It was only after the Pilgrims abandoned their communal system and every family worked for themselves that the colony began to prosper. In all likelihood, it failed because the community was under the direction of a council of elders, a committee if you will. Their management was fragmented. Opportunities were missed and problems went unresolved for too long because committees are notoriously slow in responding to issues.

Fortunately, the Pilgrims chose to relinquish responsibility for making economic decisions to the individual members of the community, thus giving birth to capitalism in America and giving them the liberty to take care of themselves. Had they chosen instead to retain the reins of authority, they would have ultimately attracted a tyrant.

Tyrants always are drawn to the centers of power where they can grasp control. When people are free to exercise control over their lives as individuals, power is much too diluted to be grabbed by any one person. This is why history's most iconic communist societies have all been ruled by tyrants, and they rule with a heavy hand. Stalin reputedly murdered at least 20 million of his own citizens. Mao murdered more than 80 million. Castro had a smaller population to work with and his death count only numbers in the tens of thousands.

When communism failed, some communist leaders, most notably Chairman Mao Zedung, concluded that failures in communism were rooted in flaws in their citizens. They reasoned that people simply weren't constituted to live in a Utopian society. Mao attempted to create "perfect communists" during the Cultural Revolution. Children were taken from homes where they learned traditional Chinese values and mores, and sent to re-education centers where they were taught the skills and attitudes needed to be successful communists. Young intellectuals in the cities were sent to the countryside to learn the rigors of hard work. Youth gangs known as the Red Guards scoured the countryside for counter-revolutionaries, setting up their own tribunals and persecuting many. Children were returned home to denounce their parents as traitors of the People's Revolution. Another appealing idea, but now a proven failure. Indeed, not only have the Chinese abandoned Mao's Cultural Revolution, but also, those who would redeem it are branded criminals.

These communist leaders missed the point. The truth they refused to face was that their societies failed because of their own poor judgment. In a society where choices, especially economic choices, are left in the hands of individuals, their mistakes only harm themselves. However, in a centrally controlled society, the mistakes of leaders impact everyone. In Russia, for example, a committee had to set prices periodically on every one of the commodities and services sold there, from toothpaste to an oil change in a car (for those few who actually owned one). In a capitalistic society, these prices are set by agreement between buyers and sellers, and can vary greatly even within the same market region. Mistakes are borne only by the individuals who make them. As Thomas Sowell has observed so accurately, no one person, no matter how intelligent, can possess all the mundane information needed to know everything and make all decisions.

Poor decisions lead to unintended consequences. Even in America, economic control has become increasingly centralized, and a large segment of the population is more than happy to accept entitlements when they equal or exceed the rewards of marginal employment. The incidence of welfare families has grown steadily ever since the inception of President Johnson's Great Society programs.

Thus far, Jane Fonda hasn't gotten her wish, and it is my fondest wish that she never does. Unfortunately, it did come true for the South Vietnamese when we abandoned them. The human toll was staggering. Millions sent to re-education centers – prison camps – where more than 150,000 died (the toll may be exponentially greater). Hundreds of thousands lost at sea attempting to flee communist deprivations. Three million refugees were forced to live in relocation centers – a few fortunate enough to integrate into other free societies.

There are those who argue that these were casualties of the United States intervention in Vietnam. The two halves of the country should have unified "peacefully" under the terms of the Geneva Convention that ended French Colonial Rule. But, there were those Vietnamese who didn't want to live under communist rule. Shouldn't they have been allowed to live the lives they chose in peace? Isn't that what we were attempting to help them do?

Still, the argument is made: What right did America have to intervene?


CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

Intervention

IN THE BEGINNING the communist incursion into the south was disorganized. Weapons and supplies, but little else, were contributed from the Soviets via North Vietnam. However, Ho Chi Minh was too busy consolidating his hold on the north to give much attention to the south. When he did, the United States took notice.

Some argue that the American intervention into Vietnam began long before it became independent of France. I cannot find any evidence of this. Indeed, France and America have long had a quarrelsome relationship. Although France aided the American colonies in their fight for independence from England, the rift was clearly evident as soon as that revolution ended. The Founding Fathers were fairly evenly split in their attitudes to France and adamant in their positions.

Truman certainly never evidenced any great love for the French. It is rumored that he directed the newly formed CIA to secretly assist the Viet Minh and the French were most upset when they discovered this. The resulting flap was but one more grievance that ultimately led De Gaulle to chase NATO out of his country.

There were many among the Viet Minh who fought for freedom from colonial rule, and who did not want to trade French masters for Soviet ones. They formed a government in the south of Vietnam led by Ngo Dinh Diem. It was an unfortunate choice.

Diem was culturally segregated from the majority of South Vietnamese in all but one critical measure. He was adamantly anti-communist like the majority of peasants, especially those who fled North Vietnam following the communist takeover there. However, he was a practicing Catholic whereas the majority of the population in the south were Buddhist. Also, Diem was descended from privileged classes whereas the majority in the south were agrarian peasants. These differences caused a rupture between Diem and his people that greatly interfered with the south's ability to resist the communist incursion. Diem had to be replaced and, with alleged support from the American CIA, he was replaced by Duong Van Minh, the first of a succession of military leaders.

American diplomats worked feverishly, though unsuccessfully, to establish a popular civilian rule in South Vietnam. The unrelenting pressures of a communist invasion from the north made this impossible.

The Americans began patrolling the South China Sea when it became evident that the Soviets were shipping vast supplies of war materials through Haiphong harbor in North Vietnam. It was obvious that the newly minted Viet Cong, led from North Vietnam, were preparing to mount a major offensive. It was clear that South Vietnam was going to be hard pressed to defend itself unless something was done. The American excuse to act was delivered by North Vietnamese naval vessels that attacked American warships in international waters.

Anti-war protesters long argued that the attack on one of the American warships, the destroyer Maddox, was a hoax. The problem for them is that such an attack legitimized American involvement.

Under international law, an attack on a vessel is an attack on the nation under which that vessel is flagged, and is a casus belli \- a cause for war. In other words, an American warship is a floating extension of the nation. Attacking it is the same as attacking Cleveland.

The USS Maddox (DD-731) was an American destroyer attacked by high speed North Vietnamese torpedo boats while on an intelligence gathering mission in International Waters. The Maddox received air support from warplanes launched off the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, and suffered no significant damage while the North Vietnamese boats were severely damaged and repelled.

A second American destroyer, the USS Turner Joy, joined the Maddox and the patrol was continued. The jittery crews misread radar and sonar signals, and the two ships began maneuvering and firing on phantom attackers. These incidents, one real and one imagined, led to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

"Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repeal [sic] any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent any further aggression." – Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, August 7, 1964

Yes, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was flawed – repealed should have been repelled. Beyond that, the antiwar movement argued, it should never have passed Congress.

Politicians recognize that popular support for a war is just as important as a nation's armed forces. Without it, they cannot sustain the strategic support needed to wage war. Fearing that the general population will not be able to grasp the complexities of diplomacy, they fashion slogans and sound bites that will inspire the public.

I was about to begin my last year of law school when the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed by Congress and President Johnson ordered the mining of Haiphong harbor as well as strategic air strikes against North Vietnamese military installations. Our involvement escalated from that time and I was determined to enlist. As a sailor and Coast Guard certified operator of vessels, I endeavored to become an officer in the U.S. Navy, but they were slow in responding to my application. Thus, I entered the Army on March 3, 1966, approximately nine months after my graduation. I enlisted to fight the global communist threat. I did not march to war with "Remember the Maddox" on my lips. Indeed, I never heard those words uttered.

America has a long history of phantom attacks that led to war. "Remember the Maine" inspired Americans to go to war with Spain. The USS Maine, an American battleship anchored in Havana harbor, was purportedly sunk by the Spanish without provocation – in fact, it was destroyed by an explosion resulting from the accumulation of gases in its coal bunkers. Most recently, America invaded Iraq in search of phantom Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) – though none were ever found. The vilification of President Bush for purportedly lying about WMD in Iraq to justify that war is reminiscent of the vilification of President Roosevelt for purportedly engineering the attack on Pearl Harbor as an excuse to drag the United States into World War II.

President Roosevelt had a problem. He had promised Americans that they would not be drawn into another European entanglement. They were sick of the costs in lives and treasures lost in the previous debacle – World War I. However, Roosevelt and his advisers saw the peril in allowing Nazi Germany to complete its conquest of Europe – America would certainly be next in Hitler's sights. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was not sufficient reason for the United States to declare war on Germany, but it was a godsend to those who saw the dangers of American isolationism. It inspired the nation to war.

Ultimately, Roosevelt led us to war in Europe because he decided that the vital interests of America were threatened there. Johnson led us to war in Vietnam for the same reason. No, North Vietnam did not threaten us directly – rather, as a client state of the Soviet Union, it threatened to help spread communism and shrink the free world. Engaging the communists in southeast Asia was a logical extension of the Truman Doctrine of Containment of Communism.

Containment never worked. So long as Stalin's dreams of world domination were allowed to play out unopposed, it was able to seep across borders – thus, the foundation of the Domino Theory. Indeed, the war in Vietnam was America's last attempt at containment. President Nixon replaced it with Detente wherein the Soviets and the Free World would attempt to get along like any two sensible rattlesnakes stuck in the same burlap bag.

Containment failed in Vietnam for one reason only – lack of will. The American people gave up on the effort. The antiwar movement won the day and the communists won the territory even though they had lost the war. Thus, this loss may be directly attributable to the failure of Johnson to craft a better slogan to inspire the general populace. As I said, I never heard "Remember the Maddox," and few in America heard the clarion call to battle. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution had a flaw that the antiwar movement picked at like a sore until it burst and the will to fight deflated.


CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Escalation

I ARRIVED IN Vietnam in 1967, as part of the build up of American forces that led to the escalation of the Vietnam War. (In Iraq it was called a "surge.")The last of the military leaders to preside over the country, Nguyen Van Thieu, who would be elected as a civilian president, was then in charge of the Vietnamese army. General William C. Westmoreland was in command of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), which would quickly grow to become a half-million man army. President Johnson was determined to put an end to what was, by then, a North Vietnamese/Soviet invasion of South Vietnam.

So, whatever happened to the provisions of the Geneva Convention that ended the French-Indochinese War and mandated free elections to reunify Vietnam?

"I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held... possibly eighty percent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh" – President Dwight D. Eisenhower

There you have it – the anti-war argument damning the American government for its refusal to allow the Vietnamese to freely choose to reunify under the communists. Why were we sacrificing American lives and squandering its fortune if, as Eisenhower himself admitted, all Vietnamese preferred to be communist?

The truth is, that isn't exactly what Eisenhower said. The President was commenting on a hypothetical election between Ho Chi Minh and Bao Dai.

Bao Dai was the Chief of State of South Vietnam from 1949 to 1955. Previously, he had been the King of Annam (1926–1945), the portion of the French colony in Indochina that eventually became Vietnam. He was very unpopular as he was seen as a symbol of French occupation and abandoned the people during the Japanese occupation. Of course, he could not win an election in Vietnam against anyone. Bao Dai was replaced by Ngo Dinh Diem, the first President of South Vietnam, when the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu and the nation was partitioned between the communist north and free south.

Ngo Dinh Diem. Remember the protests – Buddhist priests burning themselves in the streets of Saigon – weren't they protesting to join North Vietnam? Hardly. They were Buddhists! Why would they want to submit to a government with an absolute stricture against religion – all religion? The truth is that the Buddhists constituted the majority of the population in the south. They were protesting the nepotism and corruption of the administration presided over by Diem – a Roman Catholic.

Catholicism was an irritant to the Vietnamese in and of itself. It was a vestige of French colonialism. The French had introduced it for much the same reason as the Roman Emperor Constantine purportedly created it: To help maintain the empire. It is far cheaper to enslave a people with religion than with an army.

Still, Eisenhower's statement being irrelevant, the Vietnam era anti-war activists argued – and college professors still argue today – that the United States reneged on its agreement to support reunification elections. Not true. The United States never agreed to such elections because the communists enjoyed an unfair advantage. Nearly eighty percent of the Vietnamese lived in the more industrialized north, while the remainder lived in the agrarian south. The results of any election would have been extremely lopsided.

Of course, none of this would have mattered if the people living in South Vietnam wanted to join their communist brethren in the north. After all, wasn't the Viet Cong a populist movement in the south? Prior to the Tet Offensive of 1968, there is no way of proving the argument one way or the other. It is clear that the Viet Cong were armed, supplied, and led by the communists in the north – under the command of General Vo Nguyen Giap. However, there are no records proving whether or not the majority of the members of the Viet Cong were southern born or if the people in the south freely supported them. Following the Tet Offensive, there is no doubt that the Viet Cong ceased to exist as a viable organization. The prosecution of the war against South Vietnam and the Americans was openly prosecuted by North Vietnam Army regulars.

It is clear that, following the Tet Offensive of 1968, North Vietnam was invading South Vietnam. They coveted the fertile rice-growing region of the Mekong Delta just as the Chinese had for centuries. They were encouraged by the Soviets to further the cause of world domination by, not communism per se, but rather by Stalinism.

Ultimately, President Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam War failed because he hamstrung the military from pursuing the enemy into their sanctuaries and attacking their supply trains.

Following the Tet Offensive, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) assumed the full weight of prosecuting the invasion of South Vietnam. They violated the sovereignty of neighboring nations, Laos and Cambodia, to move troops and supplies south to attack the flanks of South Vietnam. American armies and armies of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) were forbidden from pursuing them when they retreated into these sanctuaries to regroup, rearm, and resupply. To Americans watching the war on their televisions, it seemed that the NVA was unbeatable, and they were under those conditions.

It's interesting that American diplomats and politicians didn't learn the lesson. Their attempts to instill democracy in Iraq failed for much the same reasons and in much the same manner as Vietnam, and the results appear to be headed in the same direction. No, communism and Stalinism are not the motivating forces in Iraq, but the vision of world conquest by religious fanatics is equally as aggressive.


CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Lies

WERE THERE LIES? There were many accusations of them being told during the Vietnam War era. The politicians lied. The antiwar movement lied. Everybody lied to win popular support for their position.

As a student of history I have to admit that these accusations amuse me. They put me in mind of the American Civil War when President Lincoln employed a detective, Allan Pinkerton, to build a civilian spy agency so that he would not be wholly dependent on his military commanders for battlefield intelligence. As it turns out, Pinkerton didn't do much better than the generals. He often sent multiple agents to discover enemy strengths, then added together their individual reports, and arrived at grossly inflated estimates.

Today, we recognize that all battlefield intelligence, regardless of the source, is subject to the fog of war. Everybody is inclined to interpret facts in a way that suits their notion of reality.

Misleading reports and conflicting interpretations left the American public confused and, without their support, the war effort in Vietnam was threatened.

"It is evident to me that he believes our Achilles heel is our resolve... Your continued strong support is vital to the success of our mission... Backed at home by resolve, confidence, patience, determination, and continued support, we will prevail in Vietnam over the Communist aggressor!" – General William C. Westmoreland in a speech to Congress, April 28th, 1967

General Westmoreland was correct; our lack of resolve was our Achilles heel, and the North Vietnamese communists exploited it.

I met General Westmoreland briefly when he stopped at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii for a physical exam following his replacement by General Creighton Abrams as the Commanding General of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). I was the Special Services officer there at the time and provided facilities and equipment for recreational activities. Westmoreland was an avid tennis player.

Throughout his career, General Westmoreland earned a reputation as caring for his men and their welfare more than any other commanding officer. In Vietnam, he excelled by using mobility and a highly flexible logistics system to support rapid deployments to confront the enemy wherever they might pop up. As a former artillery officer, he also pioneered the use of mobile fire bases to provide fire power wherever a battle might develop. However, there was one problem he could not overcome. He could not find an effective means of communicating results. Body and weapons counts simply failed to impress the American people favorably.

The problem in Vietnam was that it was not like any previous war. There were no battle lines. Objectives were taken and surrendered, and then retaken repeatedly. Strategic targets were off limits, so Westmoreland had to content himself with engaging the enemy in small unit actions until enough had been killed to persuade them to abandon their invasion of the south. Thus, body counts seemed significant. However, body counts were gruesome reminders of the tragedy of war, and coupled with uncensored television images, repulsed the American public. Where Westmoreland saw a light at the end of the tunnel, Americans saw only the darkness of horror.

The truth appears to be that MACV (Military Assistance Command, Vietnam) was as guilty as the rest. It intentionally falsified estimates of enemy strengths at times to help justify additional resources. It may be that Westmoreland realized the trap he had stepped into using body counts to indicate progress in the war. Inasmuch as the Viet Cong refused to engage in decisive battles, subtracting a few hundred here and there from a total strength that may have exceeded half a million insurgents would blind the public to the fact that the Viet Cong could never defeat the Americans in the same manner that they had defeated the Chinese, Japanese, and French, and that the United States could hold the enemy at bay while South Vietnam crafted a representative government that was responsive to the citizenry and relatively free of corruption, if the American public would support the effort.

Westmoreland's house of cards was about to crash about his head when CIA, State Department, White House, and Army officials met in Saigon to clear up the conflicting assessments of enemy strength. Threats and recriminations were traded until, surprisingly, the Army relented and agreed to higher estimates than they had previously reported. Many have speculated on the reversal of the Army position. However, it is possible that Westmoreland learned of the Viet Cong's plans to mount a massive offensive during the lunar festival, Tet, and he would have the major battle he needed to deliver a decisive defeat without resorting to body counts.

Ultimately, when the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong agents staged the Tet Offensive of 1968, few cared that U.S. forces smashed the enemy in the first major battle the communists had attempted. They reacted only to the lies and grossly deflated estimates of enemy troop strengths. Inflamed by exaggerated reports from correspondents who hunkered down in terror in Saigon for several days, Americans believed that the Viet Cong had won the battle. Walter Cronkite sealed the fate of the counterinsurgency effort when he proclaimed that the war was lost. Indeed, I did not hear a shot fired in anger from the time of the Tet Offensive in January, 1968, until I left the country the following May 4th, the beginning of "mini-Tet," when North Vietnamese Army regulars had infiltrated and took over the prosecution of the war against the south.

Until the Tet Offensive, the antiwar movement had castigated Cronkite and his network, CBS, for broadcasting the body count numbers without challenge. After the Tet Offensive, Cronkite, the most trusted voice in America, observed, "It is increasingly clear that the only rational way out will be to negotiate, not as victors but as an honorable people who lived up to the pledge to defend democracy," to which President Johnson responded, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America." Thus, Cronkite rose to mythical proportions among the antiwar movement.

Generally, Vietnam Veterans also hated the body counts. In a war of small unit engagements, small body counts were not impressive enough to sway anyone's opinion, and some commanders inflated them. Counting bodies also forced young soldiers to confront the consequences of their actions in ways soldiers in previous wars had avoided.

How else could the war be reported? The Army tried to use statistics gleaned from civic action programs. Patients treated. Latrines built. Tons of food stuffs delivered. However, no one believed that any war could be won with humane treatment of the enemy. You see, most Americans believed that we were fighting a popular insurgency when, in fact, we were battling an invading army. It ceased to matter that neither the Viet Cong nor the North Vietnamese Army ever won a significant battle. The myths contrived by the antiwar movement simply got in the way.

So, which were worse: The lies told by the politicians or the ones told by the antiwar movement?


CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

Peace

HAVE YOU EVER listened to the words of Give Peace a Chance? Really Listened? Do they make sense to you?

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!

(Let me tell you now)

Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout

Revolution, Evolution, Masturbation, Flagellation, Regulation,

Integrations, mediations, United Nations, congratulations

All we are saying is give peace a chance

All we are saying is give peace a chance

– John Lennon/Paul McCartney, 1969

Give Peace a Chance became the anthem of the antiwar movement. Although this refrain had all the force and effect of children pulling the covers over their heads when they feared monsters lurking in the dark, flower children argued that conflicts had been won by peaceful resistance. The successes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King were ready historical examples.

When Nixon replaced Johnson as President, the United States made one more attempt at driving the North Vietnamese out of the south. He raised the restrictions on pursuing the communists into their sanctuaries. He even authorized the bombing of strategic targets in North Vietnam. Then, in an unexpected move, Nixon drove a wedge between North Vietnam's communist sponsors. He opened relations with China thereby allowing old rifts between the two communist giants to re-emerge. Border disputes flared up between China and Russia. They had differing views of the conduct of the war between communism and capitalism. They even had differing views of their shared ideology. Thus, the harmony that provided North Vietnam with seemingly unlimited war material began to dry up as Russia and China began rearming themselves for a potential Sino-Soviet conflict. Ultimately, like any schoolyard bully, the North Vietnamese had to accept the fact that they had met their match on the battlefield. Peace was about to be given a chance.

However, the North Vietnamese knew that they still held a trump card: The American anti-war movement. They used the peace accord as a subterfuge to remove the Americans from the battlefield and make one last push to invade the south. It worked only because the anti-war movement prevailed in convincing Congress to suspend all support of South Vietnam. There was nothing left to resist communist aggression. The path of pacifism was trampled under the feet of communist aggression, and more than 2.5 million people died in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

What then is the path to peace? To answer this, you must first define peace. If we can't agree on this, we can't find a path to it. However, if we agree that it is the absence of war, the answer is easy. First, remain strong, strong enough to deter all who might conspire to disturb peace. Then, if any are foolish enough to attack, destroy them. Destroy their capacity to make war. Destroy their will to make war. Do it quickly and decisively as we did in World War II.

Think about it. Who are America's greatest allies today? The French? The English? The Russians? These were our main allies during World War II, and yet, they are failing allies today. They are weak. They make themselves small to avoid appearing aggressive (as they did prior to World War II) and their behavior encourages attacks. The once mighty British navy now numbers less than twenty ships. The French army never regained its strength after surrendering to the Nazis. These nations are now attacked by terrorists far more often than the United States.

Now look to our former enemies, Japan and Germany, two of our greatest allies today despite the fact that we destroyed their cities, gutted their institutions of government, and even stripped them of their rights to self-determination. We built new ones for them. Now, we are at peace with them, and they are strong. How many terrorist attacks have occurred within their borders compared to our traditional allies? Interesting, isn't it?

Why can't peace be everlasting? Every time we let down our guard and exhibit weakness, we encourage a new enemy. Today, they attack us with terrorism, and they're winning. You disagree? Look at how your lives have changed. The economy has tanked. We have surrendered freedom of movement and peaceful assembly to agents who frisk and observe us as though we are the enemy.

We pretend to be strong. We invade Iraq and Afghanistan while the agents of terrorism lurk in other places, some even our "allies." And, when we take command of a place, we gather tribal leaders and allow them to reestablish the same institutions and customs that inspired them to attack us in the first place. Why don't we do in Iraq and Afghanistan as MacArthur did in Japan, and teach them a new way of governing themselves and living as peaceful, civilized nations.

More astounding is the fact that there are some, even in those places that sponsor terrorism, who plead for our help. How easy it would be to lend them a hand, even a kind word of encouragement would be welcome. And yet our government denies they even exist. We continue to exhibit weakness despite the fact that history cries out to us to be strong.

It reminds me of a popular TV series Kung Fu (1972-75) wherein a Shaolin Monk played by David Carradine, exiled to America in the days of the early westward expansion, wanders into one misadventure after another. Even though he has the ability to stop bad people from committing crimes or otherwise perpetrating evil deeds, he refuses until someone is hurt. Then, and only then, does he act, and the problem is resolved. Is there something more noble in fixing a problem rather than preventing it?

Ultimately, we who served in Vietnam, won our battles there. The Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army won skirmishes. They were, after all, excellent soldiers, battle-hardened by years of fighting the Japanese and the French. However, it is impossible to name even one significant battle that the Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese Army won. We lost only when we returned to be vilified by the antiwar protesters. Is it possible that they were the real losers?

All that pacifists believed in and struggled for has proven illusory. The peace that they sought is always beyond their reach. They abandon tried and proven principles of what works, and replace them with what they believe ought to work. They are driven by the best of intentions only to discover that their path leads straight to the gates of war and hell.

Why won't they learn?



Want more?

Infantry School: A Soldier's Journal by Jack Durish is available free on Smashwords

Jack tells the story of attending Infantry School – Basic Combat Training, Advanced Infantry Training, and Infantry Officer Candidate School – in his own words. It is a tale of new experiences, new attitudes, and new people. With little more than Beetle Bailey Comics to prepare him, Jack steps into a world that is known only by those who have journeyed there. Veterans will feel right at home. Those who have known and loved veterans, but could never get them to speak of it, will be interested in learning what their loved ones lived through.

Rebels on the Mountain by Jack Durish is available on Amazon.com

The Cuban Revolution comes to life in these pages..."

"A mature and fascinating novel..."

"A revolution in storytelling..."

On New Year's Eve, as 1958 drew to a close, Fulgencio Batista, the President of Cuba, said "Adios" to his assembled government. Early the next morning, he and his family as well as a few close staff members departed the island nation taking with them most of its accumulated wealth, and leaving its people at the mercy of a band of rebels racing towards the capital. Although just ninety miles offshore from the southern doorstep of the United States, few Americans knew or cared about these events. They would come to care, deeply care in the years that followed. Still, fifty years later, the rebel commander who led the revolution, Fidel Castro, is an enigma. Although Jack uses fictional characters to expose and explain Cuba, its leaders, and its revolution, the scent of reality is strong within the pages of Rebels on the Mountain.



About the author...

Jack Durish was born in Baltimore in 1943, he has lived to witness the events in Cuba from their beginning until today. A graduate of law school, Jack has the skills of a researcher needed to explore the social, economic, and political history encompassed in this story. As a former soldier and sailor, he has the practical skills to separate fact from fiction when old warriors spin their tales of revolution and battle.
