This article is from my column posted in the (No We Wont-NWW site) It is my 12 posting and deals with how Viet Nam relates to my "Two Americas".My arrival at the airfield located in the southern portion of South Vietnam (Cam Ranh Bay) was one of mixed emotions. My first thought was one of euphoria, an excitement that only a young, highly motivated Buck Sergeant (Sgt E-5) would have as I was about to follow the long line of Gregory’s who have proceeded me in defending our country and it’s Allies. My euphoria and excitement was short lived as I observed the sight of those black “Body Bags” being placed in refrigeration unites and loaded onto aircraft on their journey home. As the group I was in just got of the charter Boeing 707, we simultaneously stopped, came to attention and gave those brave soldiers a salute, and I shed the first of what would be many. Most of us would shed tears shed for someone we would come to know, then hear their last breath, and watch the life disappear from their eyes as they passed from this world into one that he or she believed in. The haunting desire for me to join my comrades in arms in a fight that most would never understand, many would never believe in, and all would learn to hate for taking so many of our best, would change to one of concentrating on fighting and learning to respect my enemy.
Yes, I said respect my enemy! After all, those young men and women from North Vietnam were more like those I have met all over the world, needing and wanting the same things as we, in America, do. Their love of their country must have been every bit as deep as mine; they fought just as hard, just as deep, and with just as much conviction as any of us. They were so young and so afraid, and so much like us, they wanted to return home to those they had left to join in a fight that no one understood, and no one wanted, with the exception of a our governments, who felt that each were on the right side of the war. I could understand their side, wanting to reunite their country (North and South); after all, did we not fight a similar war. The difference was one was to free a race of people from slavery, so we have been taught, while the other was to enslave those who would fall under the rule of communist North Vietnam! War has always been a mystery to me, and probably most people who are not engaged in deciding either to start a war, or end one. I will not question my government for any war I have witnessed in my life time, I will only believe in how I feel about the war I requested, volunteered to be a part of, as that is how I was brought up. I do not apologize for my desire to be a part of a war that I believed was to stop the spread of communism. It is something I was raised and taught to see as a threat to the very freedoms I have enjoyed all my life, with the exception of my year in Vietnam, a war to this day I believe was fought by those who’s boots were on the ground, for the right reasons. (Most soldiers I fought alongside of felt as I did, and still do, none of us will ever understand how any American would give support to our enemy, an enemy who killed and tortured our fellow soldiers, but many did just that) My America supported those who served their country in combat, the other America, well; they aided and abetted our nation’s enemy!
I could tell you many stories of war, how many times my life was saved, how many times someone else died in my place, but I’ll just relate one, as it best describes my America, and how it behaves. It was Feb, 3rd, 1968, and TET had just exploded across the nation of South Vietnam. I was at Camp Evans, and we had just received orders to prepare to head North (we were going to Hanoi and end this crazy war) but then something happened. In any case I heard they needed someone to go to a place called PK-17, and ARVN compound, and as usual, I jumped at the chance to do what I could to help my unit. At the time I had no Idea that TET had kicked off.
Bottom line I was taken to PK-17, just outside of Hue, by helicopter and set up radio communications to the Brigade (remember, I was with the 3rd Brigade, 1st Airmobile Cavalry Division, at the time) and ran through an intense hail of gun fire, mortar fire, and whatever else that the retreating North Vietnam Army could toss at this small compound, to guide the convoy in and direct them to the bunker I chose for the command post. It was during this time that a young black soldier grabbed me, and yelled not to go out as mortars were hitting all around. This soldier took the full blast of a mortar that hit just outside the entryway, protecting me from being seriously injured. I believe that I would have been killed had it not been for this brave fellow soldier who wrapped his arms around me and was mortally wounded. His blood mixed with my own, and I knew that this bleeding soldier was from My America! I will not go into the details that followed as I try to erase most of those days from my mind. I’ll never forget those who I served with, maybe never recall many of their names, but will always remember all of their faces. While this young black soldier was saving my life, other Americans, definitely not from my America, was sending blood, food, and sweaters (to keep our enemy warm) to the North Vietnam soldiers. I know, I saw the addresses on boxes, labels addressed from Berkley California and other Liberal colleges, who did not want us to hurt the soldiers who were killing us, and yes torturing us, and that I will never release from my memory banks, to recall those events would destroy what little sanity I have left.
We would fly over 800 helicopters to Kason, and go into the A Shau Valley, and so on. But what I think are my best memories during my year there in Vietnam, is my R&R trip to Hawaii, where I spent 4 nights and 5 days with my beautiful wife, and you can be sure that I will never reveal my nights or days there with Val. I will say only that on the 5th day, I never saw so many men, along with their wives and girlfriends, shed so many tears, to include Val and I, as I did that day. When I first headed to Vietnam it was with the excitement of joining my fellow soldiers in battle, this time, there was no excitement, only the new understanding of the reality of war, and the nature of killing or be killed, along with the thought of how many more will I see die before I went home, if I did. I will have to leave Vietnam now as my memories are becoming more and more alive and what those memories are bringing to me I do not want to relive. I’ll just say, Vietnam is just one more place I learned that there are two Americas, the one I love, and the one that I’ll never understand, and I don’t think I even want too. It took many years for all the shrapnel to finally work its way out of my body, in tiny chunks of metal that formed a pimple, and then worked its way out. My wife was my doctor at home, assisting to remove the fragments with a pair of tweezers, never asking, never wanting me to reach back into my brain and relive the year that I finally grew up and became a man. It was that year that I learned more about myself than at any other time to date. I also learned a lot more than I want to admit, about the other America, one I really did not know nor understand at the time, but became all too clear as time and knowledge enlightened me.
I recall all the movies made about communism in the United States over the years. “Reds” is the one that I recall the most and raised my first questions about how could any American even think about being a communist, and gave me even more reason to follow my father’s footsteps and enlist into the Army, choosing Intelligence as my field to spend over 20 years in. The more I learned about communism and Marxism and extremist views, the more confused I became as to how any man or woman would chose to believe in those ideologies. The farther away the Vietnam war drifted into my memory, the more confident that America would never turn to those extreme views, I was so wrong, but it did prove to me that there really are two Americas. I am so glad that I am a part of mine. Mfgjr
Yes, I said respect my enemy! After all, those young men and women from North Vietnam were more like those I have met all over the world, needing and wanting the same things as we, in America, do. Their love of their country must have been every bit as deep as mine; they fought just as hard, just as deep, and with just as much conviction as any of us. They were so young and so afraid, and so much like us, they wanted to return home to those they had left to join in a fight that no one understood, and no one wanted, with the exception of a our governments, who felt that each were on the right side of the war. I could understand their side, wanting to reunite their country (North and South); after all, did we not fight a similar war. The difference was one was to free a race of people from slavery, so we have been taught, while the other was to enslave those who would fall under the rule of communist North Vietnam! War has always been a mystery to me, and probably most people who are not engaged in deciding either to start a war, or end one. I will not question my government for any war I have witnessed in my life time, I will only believe in how I feel about the war I requested, volunteered to be a part of, as that is how I was brought up. I do not apologize for my desire to be a part of a war that I believed was to stop the spread of communism. It is something I was raised and taught to see as a threat to the very freedoms I have enjoyed all my life, with the exception of my year in Vietnam, a war to this day I believe was fought by those who’s boots were on the ground, for the right reasons. (Most soldiers I fought alongside of felt as I did, and still do, none of us will ever understand how any American would give support to our enemy, an enemy who killed and tortured our fellow soldiers, but many did just that) My America supported those who served their country in combat, the other America, well; they aided and abetted our nation’s enemy!
I could tell you many stories of war, how many times my life was saved, how many times someone else died in my place, but I’ll just relate one, as it best describes my America, and how it behaves. It was Feb, 3rd, 1968, and TET had just exploded across the nation of South Vietnam. I was at Camp Evans, and we had just received orders to prepare to head North (we were going to Hanoi and end this crazy war) but then something happened. In any case I heard they needed someone to go to a place called PK-17, and ARVN compound, and as usual, I jumped at the chance to do what I could to help my unit. At the time I had no Idea that TET had kicked off.
Bottom line I was taken to PK-17, just outside of Hue, by helicopter and set up radio communications to the Brigade (remember, I was with the 3rd Brigade, 1st Airmobile Cavalry Division, at the time) and ran through an intense hail of gun fire, mortar fire, and whatever else that the retreating North Vietnam Army could toss at this small compound, to guide the convoy in and direct them to the bunker I chose for the command post. It was during this time that a young black soldier grabbed me, and yelled not to go out as mortars were hitting all around. This soldier took the full blast of a mortar that hit just outside the entryway, protecting me from being seriously injured. I believe that I would have been killed had it not been for this brave fellow soldier who wrapped his arms around me and was mortally wounded. His blood mixed with my own, and I knew that this bleeding soldier was from My America! I will not go into the details that followed as I try to erase most of those days from my mind. I’ll never forget those who I served with, maybe never recall many of their names, but will always remember all of their faces. While this young black soldier was saving my life, other Americans, definitely not from my America, was sending blood, food, and sweaters (to keep our enemy warm) to the North Vietnam soldiers. I know, I saw the addresses on boxes, labels addressed from Berkley California and other Liberal colleges, who did not want us to hurt the soldiers who were killing us, and yes torturing us, and that I will never release from my memory banks, to recall those events would destroy what little sanity I have left.
We would fly over 800 helicopters to Kason, and go into the A Shau Valley, and so on. But what I think are my best memories during my year there in Vietnam, is my R&R trip to Hawaii, where I spent 4 nights and 5 days with my beautiful wife, and you can be sure that I will never reveal my nights or days there with Val. I will say only that on the 5th day, I never saw so many men, along with their wives and girlfriends, shed so many tears, to include Val and I, as I did that day. When I first headed to Vietnam it was with the excitement of joining my fellow soldiers in battle, this time, there was no excitement, only the new understanding of the reality of war, and the nature of killing or be killed, along with the thought of how many more will I see die before I went home, if I did. I will have to leave Vietnam now as my memories are becoming more and more alive and what those memories are bringing to me I do not want to relive. I’ll just say, Vietnam is just one more place I learned that there are two Americas, the one I love, and the one that I’ll never understand, and I don’t think I even want too. It took many years for all the shrapnel to finally work its way out of my body, in tiny chunks of metal that formed a pimple, and then worked its way out. My wife was my doctor at home, assisting to remove the fragments with a pair of tweezers, never asking, never wanting me to reach back into my brain and relive the year that I finally grew up and became a man. It was that year that I learned more about myself than at any other time to date. I also learned a lot more than I want to admit, about the other America, one I really did not know nor understand at the time, but became all too clear as time and knowledge enlightened me.
I recall all the movies made about communism in the United States over the years. “Reds” is the one that I recall the most and raised my first questions about how could any American even think about being a communist, and gave me even more reason to follow my father’s footsteps and enlist into the Army, choosing Intelligence as my field to spend over 20 years in. The more I learned about communism and Marxism and extremist views, the more confused I became as to how any man or woman would chose to believe in those ideologies. The farther away the Vietnam war drifted into my memory, the more confident that America would never turn to those extreme views, I was so wrong, but it did prove to me that there really are two Americas. I am so glad that I am a part of mine. Mfgjr
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