DEMISE: A novel of race, culture wars, and falling darkness

By: John M. Del Vecchio

To be released by Warriors Publishing Group — 8 September 2020

The following excerpts are from scenes in which Johnny Panuzio and Mitch Williams deal with the publication of Aaron William’s (Mitch’s son) thesis on race. Aaron’s full thesis will be available online in September at www.warriorspublishing.com or at www.peakingat70.com.

“Johnny, Mitch.”

“Hold one, Mitch.” Both men were in their offices in the ContGen­Chem tower. It was late afternoon. They had spoken earlier in the day, and Mitch had sent Johnny a portion of Aaron’s preliminary statement on affir­mative action. Johnny still had it on his desk, had read the first four pages, had blocked out several paragraphs and had underlined a few sentences. The concepts had sent his mind racing.

…behavior is consistent with self-image. Self-image is the prod­uct of individual and cultural story…

…I support affirmative action. However, I am opposed to race-based or gender-based — versus economic-based — affirmative ac­tion…

…I oppose race-based policies because they imply the genetic inferiority of the economically lagging race; as, too, do gender-based policies imply the genetic inferiority of the economically less advan­taged gender. The implications tend to instill a self-image of inferiority which, if it becomes internalized, produces specific self-defeating behaviors.

These implications of inferiority are hokum!

Race-based affirmative action is racist. It eventually hurts the very people it is intended to help.

Johnny glanced at his secretary then back at the pages. He’d felt as if Aaron had been talking directly to him. Within two pages, Johnny had decided to ask Mitch and Aaron if he could use Aaron’s paper as the basis for an article he intended to write. Johnny had seen how he could adopt the concepts of cultural story and self-image, but change the focus from race policy to advertising. He shuffled files on his desk, scanned another marked block.

Race-based solutions to economic problems are doomed to create worse economic problems for the protected race. It is time to scrap these programs, and to establish economic-status based programs. This will allow race to fall away as a conflict point. If the majority of those assisted are from one race, or one ethnicity, or if they are veterans, it is of no concern. The concern is only if they are poor…

Discriminatory actions, based on race, ethnicity, religion or gender, even if they are specifically tailored to make up for past discriminatory actions, per­petuate that discrimination…

“Hi, Mitch. I just heard from Julia. The game’s been canceled. Hold again, okay?” Johnny lowered the receiver, glanced at his secretary, said, “Lisa, can you give me a moment?”

“Certainly, Mr. Panuzio,” the young secretary answered. She slipped from the office and closed the door behind her.

“Son of a bitch,” Johnny said quietly into the phone to Mitch. “Tripps has been in and out of here all day. I’m only partway through Aaron’s — ”

“Mr. Impeccable or the old man?” There was no emotion in Mitch’s voice.

“Mr. Impeccable. You okay?”

“Yeah. Ah…I’ve got a big problem.”

“Vernon?”

“No. Aaron. We’re going to report Aaron missing.”

“What?!”

“He’s not at school. His girlfriend hasn’t seen him since they had a fight or something in school yesterday.”

“Jason said he was at the hospital last — ”

“No. He said a lot of kids were there. He was trying to cover for him.”

“That little…”

“The police are going to recheck the accident site, and there’s an inves­tigator going to talk to Ryan Willis. Damn it, Johnny. I’m worried. No­body’s seen a trace of him since yesterday!”

……………………………………………………………………………………….

Mitch did not let Johnny finish his sentence. “You know why?”

“A number of reas…”

“Bullshit!” Mitch bullied Johnny into silence. “There’s one fucken rea­son and only one fucken reason. Those cocksuckers at the top of the government…those gutless bastards who gutted…who emas­culated the War on Drugs. There’s a department known as the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Despite the fucking rhetoric, the fucking tears and wails about the tragedy, they chopped that budget by more than seventy-five percent. That’s just for starters. Shame on those bastards. What kind of example do they set?”

“They…”

“Bullshit!!” Mitch exploded. He was driving erratically. The car lurched left with each statement, swung right with each pause. “The example they set is tolerance. Tolerance for abuse! Reduced stigma for addiction! They glorify re­habilitation. It’s like it’s born-again Christianity! Bullshit! It’s not!”

“Whoa!” Johnny reared back as Mitch nearly rammed a car alongside them. The other driver swerved to a safe distance, flashed the finger.

Mitch was oblivious. “What the fuck do they think they’re goina get?!” His words were fast, hard, angry. “Reduced usage? Assholes. They’re all assholes. I fucken hate all them fucken enabling jerks. Try it. It’s okay. Experimenting is okay. Then if you get hooked, like it’s a mental disorder. ‘We’ll pay for your therapy.’ Fuck you!”

“Um.” Johnny swallowed. His head hurt. His mouth tasted like dirt and dirty socks. What could he say? He had not seen Mitch so angry since Thanksgiving 1965.

“Pricks,” Mitch raged. “They killed my son as much as if they pulled the trigger! Fuck ʼem! Fuck loyalty to those scumbags! If I thought I could get away with it, I’d blow away half the motherfuckers…”

“Mitch!” Johnny grabbed the wheel, pulled the car back into their lane. “Geez!” Mitch pushed his hand away. Johnny sat back. In a con­ciliatory tone he said, “If…if you decide to do it…I’ll go with you. But don’t go and do…”

“Fuck you!” Mitch balled his right fist, cocked his arm as if ready to strike. “You skipped out before. You’re not going to…”

“I didn’t skip out!” The words shot out defensively. “I never got called up.”

“Ssshhe-it!” Mitch hissed in disgust.

For some time they rode on in silence. Johnny wanted to defend himself, almost blurted out, “At least you’ve still got your job, your salary. At least your wife didn’t…” But he did not, could not. He knew there was no comparison; knew, too, that the spillover of Mitch’s anger, not cutbacks or downsizing, was threatening to subvert Mitch’s position with Tripps. He did not know how to help appease his friend’s anger. He had his own problems. His head throbbed.

Now Johnny imagined himself being arrested, being escorted from the Tower, maybe in shackles. Then he thought to say, “Ya know, Jason and the team can’t do it without Aaron any more than you could do it without me, or I could do it without you,” but he knew that that wasn’t any good, either. He wanted to empathize with Mitch; he wanted Mitch to get it out, felt he needed to get it out, felt Mitch had held it in too deep, had allowed it to fester too long; but this morning Johnny’s head hurt, he didn’t want to go in at all, and he wished that Mitch could empathize with him, too. It would have been so much nicer to have been able to talk about last night’s dinner, to share with him a tidbit about how sexy Julia had been.

They crossed the dam, swung north, came to a near standstill in rush-hour congestion. Mitch’s deep, slow burn streamed from him like an un­stoppable flow of lava. “You may not understand this,” he said harshly, “but what we’re going through — gone through — is a cultural revolution. Nobody calls it that, but America has changed as much in the past thirty or forty years as anything Mao or Pol Pot ever tried. We’ve changed more without programs of violence than Mao did with all his revolutionary pol­icies. This is not your father’s America.”

“Yeah,” Johnny shot at Mitch. “And it’s not my grandfather’s or your grandfather’s America, either. And I hope some of it’s been for the good.”

“You think I’m goina say yes because I’m black.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Fuck it. That change came a hundred, two hundred years ago. There’s a big lag time from attitude change to full implementation. That’s still not here. But these other changes — this cultural revolution of the last fifty years — it’s undermining everything. The ramifications are going to explode on our kids. Those that survive. Aaron…”

“Atlas Can No Longer Shrug,” Johnny said.

Mitch snorted, bit his lip, muttered, “That’s his paper…” Mitch paused. A deep breath came out of him. “Is it any good?”

“It’s terrific,” Johnny answered. “I wanta get it published.”

Energy seemed to ooze out of Mitch, seemed to flow from his every pore. Sitting behind the steering wheel in the car in the stalled traffic, he deflated. The skin below his eyes puffed, sagged. His jowls hung. Lifelessly he said, “You’ve really been going through those files, huh?”

“Yep,” Johnny said. It was better to talk about Aaron this way.

“He worked on it all summer,” Mitch said softly. “I didn’t pay much attention.” Mitch squeezed the wheel hard, held on. He was on the verge of tears but he held them in. “McMillian.” Mitch whispered. Again he swallowed. “Aaron had McMillian…had a lot of McMillian’s notes. You know McMillian?”

“Yeah.”

“They got pretty close — and with Aaron doing that legislative intern­ship, McMillian kind of guided him. Kind of was his mentor. Did you know he’d done some pretty extensive writing? Academic stuff. On Vietnam. Aaron used McMillian’s stuff as his paradigm.”

……………………………………………………………………………………….

The Lakeport Ledger

Section D-1 The Lakeport Ledger — A Callipano Corporation

Sunday, October 30, 199-

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Area Youth Lectures from Beyond the Grave

When Atlas Can No Longer Shrug — Freedom Is an Illusion

The first in a series of essays Aaron Williams with John Panuzio

RACE, CULTURE & PUBLIC POLICY: We stand at a critical time in the Lake Region, in this state, and in this nation, with regard to racial isolation and imbalances, and with regard to the equality of ed­ucation for all, and to the legitimate role of government in our lives. It is now time for us to analyze not simply where we are, how we arrived here, and where we are going, but also to understand what vehicle and what propulsion system has brought us to this point, and what vehicle and system is most suited for taking us into the future.

……………………………………………………………………………………

Callipano began by calling Aaron’s work “thoughtful yet controversial…an example of suburban thinking,” finished with, “No high school student writes this well. Much in these articles is certainly the work of John Panuzio,” at this Johnny grinned, his eyes twinkled, “director of marketing for Continental General Chemical. The articles smack of the conservative ideology which is certainly a trait of that corpo­ration. This commentator believes that Panuzio is attempting to pass off these ideas — in order to preempt criticism — as the work of an 18-year-old murder victim. The Ledger requests comments and rebuttals.”

Johnny’s mouth fell open. He reread the lines. Twice he’d met with Liz Callipano. She’d seemed so open, so sincere, so supportive of his position. How could she…? he thought. “…smacks of conservative ideology…“?! Johnny was baffled, stunned. Mitch is conservative, he thought. He’s the soldier. Not me. Request rebuttals?! He became angry, gritted his teeth, inhaled, huffed. As he began reading he grumbled, “Bitch!”

About the Author: John M. Del Vecchio is the author of five books, including two bestsellers with approximately 1.4 million copies sold, as well as hundreds of articles. He graduated from Lafayette College in 1969, was drafted and sent to Vietnam in 1970, where he served as a combat correspondent in the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile). In 1971, he was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for heroism in ground combat.

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• DEMISE is now available for pre-publication ordering at warriorspublishing.com and amazon.com

Fifty years ago today: I landed in this country...

In 1970 my field partner, Mark Gilreath (post Vietnam, the singer Marcus Leddy) introduced me to the song Boonie Rats. I included the song in The 13th Valley, which was published in 1982. The note in the original forward regarding the origins of Boonie Rats is erroneous. More on that in a moment.

The song begins: I landed in this country, one year of life to give, My only friend a weapon, My only prayer to live.

It is fifty years ago today, 13 June 1970, that I landed in Vietnam. To me, that calls for a celebration—at least a personal celebration. But it also call for a lot of reflection, a lot of memories, some regrets, some very deep sadness. Next verse and chorus:

I walked away from freedom and the life that I had known, I passed the weary faces of the others going home.

Boonie Rats, Boonie Rats. Scared but not alone, 300 days more or less, Then I’m going home.

Marcus wrote his own music to the song, recorded it, and sang it on a nationwide tour of backwater honky tonks and some pretty fine establishments. The original note in The 13th Valley states, “The words to the Boonierat Song in Chapter 7 were allegedly written by an M-60 machine gunner of the 101st under the double-canopy of the Ruong-Ruong Valley in the spring of 1970. He added music when his unit moved onto the Elephant Valley. In late October … The composer was allegedly killed in action.”

Marcus was one of perhaps two score of singers/composers who added their own music to Boonie Rats. Sometime around 1984 or 1985 Johnny Cash contacted me for permission to perform the song. I had to explain to him that I didn’t own it. We were treating it a a folk song. Singers were donating a portion of their income to veteran charities, as was I, in honor of their fellow troops who had not come home.

The first few days were hectic as I psyched my mind for war, I often got the feeling they’re trying to tie the score.

Some of the entertainers changed words, lines, to make the song fit their unit, or the occasion at which they were preforming. Of all the versions I heard, I always liked Marcus’ best. Together we attempted to chase down the true origin. For some time we believed the original composer was an ex-boonierat living in Maine, but the man said he didn’t remember writing it.

The air was hot and humid, The ground was hard and dry, Ten times I cursed my rucksack, And wished that I could die; I learned to look for danger, In the trees and on the ground, I learned to shake with terror, When I heard an AK round.

Several years ago I was invited to speak at the dedication of the John’s Creek, Georgia veteran memorial. And it was there that I received the attached audio, with The Boonie Rat Ballad sung, in 1970 in Vietnam, by the man who originally wrote the words and music. He is Ronald Jordan, and he served with Alpha Company, 1st of the 327th, 101st Airborne Division. I salute you Sir for all the pleasure the song has given me, and many others… now for nearly fifty years. If you listen to the end you’ll note that the song is dedicated to the City of San Mateo, California. San Mateo had adopted 1/327, and its residents sent care packages and letters to the soldiers of this battalion. Contrary to the current narrative, in 1970 not everyone was against the war.

Boonie Rats a legend, For now and times to come, Wherever there are soldiers, They’ll talk of what we’ve done.

They say there’ll always be a war, I hope they’re very wrong, To the Boonie Rats of Vietnam, I dedicate this song.

I wish Marcus had lived to learn the real story of The Boonie Rat Ballad. Hey Breeze, miss you man.

Burning History: The Fallacy of Inevitability and The Truncation of History

Final Thoughts: Paradigm shifts regarding the meaning of unwinnable, and the phrase the war ended, are imperative.

 By John M. Del Vecchio

At the home of one of our interpreters in 1970: “Ronnie” with his eldest son, his beautiful daughter with his youngest son. Twelve years later--11/11/82: Me, my wife Kate and eldest son Nate during the dedication of The Wall in Washington, D.C.  At Ronnie’s home we were served steak and shrimp fondue, paper thin slices we cooked in boiling alcohol and sugar. It was delicious. Few of the Americans appreciated the great sacrifice our host made—likely costing him a month’s wages. This, perhaps, was symbolic of American attitudes throughout our involvement.

The Fallacy of Inevitability

The war was unwinnable. This is the underlying motif in every episode, the main message of the entire series. And it is a fallacy. The theme begins with episode 1, Déjà Vu which ends with the devastating loss by the French at Dien Bien Phu, but never tells us why the base is there in the first place or that the North Vietnamese and Chinese communist were attacking in Laos in an attempt to widen the war. Déjà Vu is meant to be an omen that what happened in 1954 will inevitably reoccur in 1975. Burns hammers at this point through the following nine episodes, sometimes subtly other times blatantly, through four American presidents, through edited clips showing only their fears, skepticism, pessimism and duplicity.

But to claim inevitability and the un-winnability of the war for the allied side is to also infer that the communist side with all its aggression, coercion and tyranny somehow had a moral superiority or a mandate from the fates.

The theory of the unwinnable war rests on the fact that the war was not won. Because it happened this seemingly gives one arguing from that perspective the right to claim inevitable, but a change in any precursor might have produced a very different history. After the fall of Vientiane, Phnom Penh and Saigon, one may claim the war was unwinnable but at any point prior to the actual collapse that claim is untrue.

And if politicians didn’t see the possibility of winning the war, thousands, perhaps millions of American and South Vietnamese soldiers did. In the aftermath of the fall of Saigon, it became common to hear American veterans say, “We were winning when I left.” Think about what that means, about the significance it represents. Men knew the area in which they fought. They knew when it was “hot,” when there were large enemy forces present, and when that presence had been subdued.

Camp Eagle (101st Abn Div basecamp) sat close to Highway 547, the main road from the populated coastal lowlands to the mountains and jungles of the A Shau Valley. The first firebase west of Eagle was Birmingham. Through the spring of 1970 Americans only went to Birmingham via 547 in armed convoy. By late summer of that year the trip was often made by two guys in a jeep. Or recall Hue during the Tet offensive of ’68. Two and a half years later we would sightsee in Hue and the surrounding villages, and because it was peaceful GIs not on duty were not allowed to carry their weapons.

Imagine if the North Vietnamese communists had ameliorated their aggression in 1956; if they had realized their overly zealous slaughter of “land owners” was counterproductive to a healthy society; if they understood that fostering factions of the Indochina Communist Party and promoting wars of national liberation throughout Southeast Asia was not speeding the end of colonialism but was inducing the west, America in particular, to react to this spreading tyranny. Imagine if they stopped.

What would have been the reaction of the United States?

Imagine had the communists stopped in 1960 shortly after declaring war on the South, and after opening Routes 559, 759 and 959 which carried men and materiel—terrorists, assassins, political community organizers, and assault weaponry—because they realized this violent approach might create massive destruction in both North and South, and that recognizing the South might lead more quickly to reconciliation and unification— nationalistic goals versus dominance and hegemony by the party which were international communist goals.

What would have been the reaction of the United States?

Imagine if the North Vietnamese politburo had concluded after Tet 1968 that the price paid was not worth the desired aim, that a different approach might work better and not be as costly in blood and treasure; imagine had Le Duan said, “We have suffered too greatly, we must now seek reconciliation with the South and with the Americans. Imagine that same decision after the NVA offensives of Mini-Tet, the summer offensive of 1969, or the Easter Offensive of 1972?

Imagine had they not re-instigated and elevated their aggression after the Paris Peace Talks were concluded in 1973, but instead had withdrawn their 145,000 troops back to the North. [Burns talks about ceasefire violations by both sides as if this created a moral parity, but fails to mention that no South Vietnamese unit attacked a city or village or military installation in North Vietnam.]

At any of those times had the North stopped and sought reconciliation with the South and with the United States, and had asked for aid to rebuild their country, what would have been the reaction of the United States?

When you are imagining all this recall how the United States treated Germany and Japan after WWII. Would America have agreed to rebuild and reconstruct the infrastructure in the North if that nation had been open and no longer a threat to all other nations in the region?

Imagine also, at each step along the way, that the American “anti-war” movement, with many of its leaders having ties to the international communist movement, had not garnered its high degree of influence over the American media; and imagine too that JFK, LBJ, Nixon and Ford were not continuously reacting to public pressures created by the incomplete and slanted narratives these groups produced.

Imagine in ’67 or ’68 or ’70 had riots not erupted in American cities and on American campuses. Would LBJ, and then Nixon have been so defensive? Would they have developed their bunker mentalities? Would Nixon have ordered the break-in to the DNC headquarters in the Watergate complex? Regarding war decisions, would they have better reflected the realities on the ground and in the skies of Southeast Asia, and might they have been less based upon internal politics and provoked public opposition?

Any one of the above items and thousands more, had they happened, would have changed the outcome of the history of this war. Nothing is inevitable until after it has occurred.

Now also imagine the homecoming for veterans had they not be tarnished by skewed press stories leading many Americans to believe that Vietnam had turned them into savages, that they were all baby-killers, that they burned villages, raped women and young girls, and committed repulsive atrocities.

Imagine totally different homecoming scenarios and general attitude toward their service; and imagine the effect on the development of Post-Traumatic Stress disorders.

Truncated History

After Saigon fell one of the voices in the Burns documentary declares, “The Vietnamese people could finally live normally.” What?! Hello!!! Also said, “…no blood bath.”  How many people have to be executed for a documentarian to label an action “a blood bath”? I guess 60,000 murders in the first 90 days after the fall does not qualify. If one adds in the number of people who died in the gulags of re-education, does that push it into the category of blood bath? Some 1.5 million South Vietnamese men and women were treated to these communist camps—approximately 10% of the population of that country. Many were tortured. Many were starved. Many were worked to death.

Can we add in the South Vietnamese who attempted to escape the tyranny by sea—the boat people? More than a million tried to flee. Tens of thousands died in small, rickety coastal craft not designed for ocean voyage. Many more were captured and killed by pirates. Can we add any of them to the “no blood bath” equation?

What about the deaths in Cambodia and Laos. In both countries Ho Chi Minh was instrumental in establishing communist insurgencies. In both countries, long before the “end of the war,” Hanoi’s troops and agents controlled great tracts of land. Pol Pot’s faction of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge was born from Ho’s Indochinese Communist Party, but broke from Hanoi like a rebellious teenager from domineering parents. 1.7 million of 6 million Cambodians died after “the war was over.” Not a bloodbath, Mr. Burns? Francois Bizot, in his 2003 book The Gate “…understood the true nature of the Khmer Rouge long before other outsiders. Decades later, his frustration remains: ‘What oppresses me, more still than the unclosed eyes of the dead who fill the sandy paddy fields, is the way the West applauded the Khmer Rouge, hailing their victory over their brothers in 1975. The ovation was so frenzied as to drown out the protracted wailing of the millions being massacred…’”

This is a personal side bitch: Burns show American veterans returning to Vietnam years after the war, hugging and reconciling with North Vietnamese soldiers who had opposed them on the battlefield. The occasions are joyous, friendly, healing. All-well-in-good, BUT what about showing Americans reuniting with ARVN soldiers who were their allies? That’s not shown. And it’s not shown for a reason. ARVN vets are still second class citizens in Vietnam. There are numerous accounts of U.S. charities attempting to aid these men, many of whom still suffer physically from war wounds. Communist cadre always take a percentage of whatever is donated. Sometimes they take it all. Medical equipment meant to help these men is diverted to hospitals for communist party members. Americans who have pushed for fairness have become persona non grata.

And these nations, which we might have helped become Asian economic miracles, languished amongst the most politically repressive states on the planet with low per capita income and high per capita rates of disease and death. Religious and ethnic minorities are still repressed. Only a month ago two bloggers were arrested and jailed for posting items uncomplimentary of the party. The list of human rights abuses, for anyone following them, seems to be unending.

Conclusions

From the very first fallacy of accepting communist propaganda portraying Ho Chi Minh as a nationalist, then repeating it in multiple variations to make it a “fact,” this series has been intellectually dishonest; slanted toward a fake left-wing narrative for what purpose I do not know? Just a quick reminder: a true nationalist does not murder all his nationalist allies because only his sect of nationalism is acceptable.

Now I think, “Thank God that series is over.” But it’s not over. This series will likely be picked up by thousands of school districts and colleges across the country and around the world, and used to indoctrinate the next generations of young minds. This should be opposed. The series is offensive not only to millions of American veterans who served honorably and with pride, but to anyone who still believes in truth and academic integrity.

The war in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos did not end in 1975. More Southeast Asians died in the following ten years due to fighting and communist tyranny than died during the ten years of active American involvement. The repression in all three nations continues to this day.

With all the promise and potential, with all the wonderful presentations, the incredible photography and the moving musical scores, the slanting by choice of material and by massive omission renders this series not history but propaganda.

This is the eighth in a series of eight essays on the Burns/Novick program. Please like, forward and share this essay.  For the earlier essays, or for more on the need for paradigm shifts in the way we view history and other aspects of our culture, visit: www.peakingat70.com/lets-talk-america/ .

John M. Del Vecchio is the author of The 13th Valley and other works on Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq and veterans issues. He is currently working on: Peaking At 70: Rediscovering America and Self. www.peakingat70.com.