Long Ago and Far Away
Remembering my own Vietnam War
I just turned seventy-eight and that started me thinking about how I got to this time and place. Inevitably, that led me to reflect on the Vietnam War.
As a child, I had read about Vietnam in an old copy of National Geographic magazine from my grandparents’ bookshelf. I remember thinking that it would be an interesting place to visit.
I next heard about Vietnam in 1964. I was a freshman at Brown University on a Naval ROTC scholarship. I had reported to school early and was in an NROTC classroom when we were informed of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
Little did I imagine the impact that it would have on my life.
Skipping ahead — as a clueless 19-year old, I had dropped my scholarship and taken a semester off from school to find myself. The local draft board found me first. I reported for U.S. Army Basic Combat Training, at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on September 6, 1966.
The Army was probably the best thing that could have happened to me at that point in my life. Over the next 5 years, I grew up and I found myself. I had been adrift and the Army gave me the tools to manage myself and the skills necessary to overcome most of the obstacles I might face.
On August 1, 1967, I graduated from Artillery Officer Candidate School and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Army. After 2 weeks of leave back in Rhode Island, I reported to a 105mm howitzer battery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to be the new executive officer. It was now time to be an adult.
I knew that my time in a stateside assignment was going to be short and that a tour in Vietnam was inevitable, so I decided to be proactive concerning what I would be doing there.
I had learned about a former Army Lieutenant Colonel named John Paul Vann and his ideas about how to win in Vietnam. They made sense to me, so I volunteered for service in Vietnam as a military advisor with the South Vietnamese and requested training at the Army Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I got my wish, and was soon off to North Carolina.
The Special Warfare School was the most grueling thing I had ever faced. It taught me weapons and tactics — Vietnamese language, culture and history — survival — and got me into the best physical condition of my life. It was excellent preparation for what was to come and, as I soon learned, I was definitely going to need it
As a MACV advisor with Vietnamese units in the Mekong Delta I probably have a much different view of the Vietnamese than do many of those who served in U.S. units in other parts of South Vietnam.
Working directly with Vietnamese soldiers — and with their families — showed me that they were real people with all the fears, hopes, and all the other emotions that I myself felt. They were never the caricatures that many Americans saw.
The Mekong Delta is the breadbasket of Vietnam and, outside of the cities and towns, most of the people in the Delta are rice farmers or provide goods and services to rice farmers. Just like American farmers, they are, for the most part, good and honest people who work hard and, like us, care about their families and neighbors.
When I first arrived in Vietnam, I worked primarily with South Vietnamese Regional Forces. You could think of them like our National Guard soldiers back home in America — only they had a real live war going on around them. They lived with their families in small compounds surrounded by sandbag and mud berms, a moat, and barbed wire.
Day and night, they patrolled their assigned areas and defended their compound from the Viet Cong. My job was to live with and patrol with them — and to help them get the resources (weapons, equipment, ammunition, food) they needed from the government to do their jobs.
I learned enough from Dai Uy (Captain) Lo, the first Regional Forces commander I worked with, to help me keep my people and myself alive for the rest of my tour.
After 6 months in that assignment, I was transferred to another MACV team that advised the Vietnamese military units charged with interdicting North Vietnamese personnel and materiel coming into the Mekong Delta from the southern end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But that’s another story …
The Golden Rule
The Vietnamese, with whom I lived and worked, were for the most part, good people whom I would still choose to have as my friends.
We seriously risk our own humanity when we view other humans as caricatures. That is even more true when it comes to nationality, race, religion, gender, and political viewpoint. Look at the mess we have made of our own domestic politics.
Those of us who profess to be Christians should remember that Jesus said: “So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.” Matthew 7:12
Most of the other major religions profess equivalent principles because it is the only practical way for humans to live amicably with each other.
Wishful Thinking and Self-Delusion
In retrospect, I do not know if the Vietnam War could ever have been brought to a reasonably successful conclusion. I do know now that by the time I arrived in Vietnam in 1968, General Westmoreland had already squandered any real chance of salvaging success. Many of us out in the field had already lost all respect for him.
Most of the American military and diplomatic efforts in Vietnam were based upon wishful thinking and self-delusion, very common human failings. That has also been true of most of America’s military adventurism since Vietnam. The only success was under a President who was a combat veteran himself.
The First Gulf War that kicked Iraq out of Kuwait achieved its objectives because George H. W. Bush understood the limitations of military power, insisted upon clear, achievable objectives, and called a halt when those objectives were met.
The 2nd Gulf War and Afghanistan had neither clear nor achievable objectives but rather were the result of willful ignorance and overreach. We are still paying the price for that wishful thinking and self-delusion.
Executive Power
The U.S. Constitution reserves the power to declare war to Congress. During the Cold War, Presidents (with the acquiescence of Congress) gradually assumed the power to make war without a Congressional declaration.
That is not working very well for us because it absolves the politicians in Congress of the political consequences of war. Congress needs to re-assume its responsibilities and clearly define when military action is acceptable (other than the obvious case of repelling a direct attack) without a declaration of war.
American military force should be used only in the defense of America and her allies. Preemptive military action leaves too much room for questionable intellectual gymnastics.
The All Volunteer Military
America’s active involvement in Vietnam ended because of domestic political pressure. That pressure was primarily generated because too many Americans and their sons both politically and violently objected to the draft.
That lesson was not lost on politicians — who ended the draft and switched to an all-volunteer military to meet personnel requirements — making them less vulnerable to the political consequences of an unpopular war.
Large standing armies were the subject of legitimate fear and suspicion for America’s founding fathers. When the need for large armies arose, as in the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the American Civil War, WWI, and WWII, America relied on volunteers to fill its ranks. When that was insufficient, America resorted to the draft — and when the need ended, rapid demobilization followed.
The All Volunteer Military is a standing Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. It’s existence, along with the political power of the industrial complex that arms it, would have been considered a clear and present danger to democracy by America’s founding fathers. We were warned about those dangers by the last American President who had also been a senior military officer.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be might, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. . . . American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. . . . This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. — President Dwight David Eisenhower, January 17th, 1961
Nowadays, we seem always to be at war. We need to find a better way.
