[The following was delivered in Webster, MA on Memorial Day, 2015.]
I’d like to thank Jim Brinker, local veteran and author of West of Hue: Down the Yellow Brick Road, for inviting me to be here today; and thank all of you for allowing me to participate in honoring those who served, who sacrificed, who paid the ultimate price.
Emperor Minh Mang’s Palace, west of Hue, Vietnam: pillar detail
Memorial Day: It is a day to remember and to honor those Americans from long ago and from more recent times who paid the ultimate price—who paid with their lives, with their mortal existence—so that we may live as free citizens of this glorious nation, and not as subjects of a regime.
To remember and to honor! How do we do that? How do we remember; what do we remember; and how should we behave so that our memories do indeed honor the fallen?
We seem to have short memories. Not just short, but shallow. Every day our memories are diluted with trivia as we are bombarded with gigabytes and terabytes of images and information about celebrity scandals, blips in the market, the newest and greatest gadget from Apple or Microsoft, or the most recent sale on cars, trucks, dishwashers or shoes.
We can barely recall last night’s news, but that makes little difference for it is soon be supplanted with tonight’s news. Seldom do we attempt to correlate items; seldom do we have the time or energy to check the validity or veracity of what is said.
So… Memorial Day… This day of remembrance… this day to recall and to honor the fallen, this day to reflect upon the meaning of their sacrifice… Memorial Day… it becomes ever more important.
Yet amid the modern world’s massive assault upon our senses, even on Memorial Day, we tend to forget the perceptions and the reasons that were current at the time these men and women went to war.
That forgetfulness opens the door for politicians or political advocacy groups to tell us that we went to war without reason, or under false pretense. Some infer--if they do not overtly state--that the troops who fought were pawns in unwinnable conflicts; dupes in immoral conflicts; someone’s lackey used to enhance the personal power or wealth of others.
When we don’t recall history, we doubt ourselves, and that opens us up to accepting each new story… each new revelation… as fact. We then turn against those who sent our sons or daughters, our brothers or sisters, our mothers or fathers into harm’s way. And of the dead… though we may remember them as individuals, and though we may honor their courage… our forgetfulness allows us consider their lives as having been wasted, their sacrifices in vain.
What’s tripe!
As Jim mentioned, I served with the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) in Vietnam. The examples I’m about to use are related to that American engagement. Some of you might wish to extrapolate to more current conflicts, perhaps to the liberation of Kuwait, the fall of Ramadi, or to the slaughter of the Yazidi.
Over the past 35 years I have spoken in perhaps a hundred classrooms. A common question, particularly from younger students, has been, “Did you kill anyone?” My answer has always been: “You’re asking the wrong question. You should be asking, ‘Did I save anyone’s life?’ or ‘Did the soldiers with whom I served save lives?’”
We’ve all been told that the war was unwinnable; that we backed the wrong side; that our troops committed unending atrocities and “killed anything that moved.” Worse, we’re told that we went to war to protect French Imperialism, or so Lady Bird Johnson’s transportation company could make lucrative profits. If these accusations are true, what does that say about the deaths of 58,000 of our brothers and sisters? What does it say about the sacrifice made by so many?
Let’s back up and recall some of the basic events as they were unfolding. With the defeat of Japan at the end of World War II, France reasserted control over its former colonies in Southeast Asia. From 1945 to 1954 they battled the Viet Minh… mostly in the northern areas of Vietnam known as Tonkin. Some recent textbooks tell us that the United States paid 80% of the cost of that war—and that we thusly supported French Imperialism.
In reality, the United States paid 0% of those war costs from 1945 to mid-1950; and did not begin to pay until after China fell to Mao’s communist forces in 1949, and after Red China invaded the Vietnamese island of Hainan in early 1950. These events happened on the heels of much of Eastern Europe falling under the dominance of Soviet communism; yet even then our role was limited. By the time Dien Bien Phu fell in 1954, America had become involved… but our actual piece of the war budget against the Viet Minh amounted to approximately 8% -- not 80%!
One might ask, “Doesn’t that still prove that the U.S. backed the return of colonialism?” The answer is, “No.” That’s not what we were backing; nor is that what the French were seeking. Indeed, in Cambodia where there was no significant communist insurgency, France granted that nation de jure independence in 1949, and complete independence in 1953. Only the battle against communist tyranny kept that from happening in Vietnam.
Do you recall—a decade later—repeatedly being told that America escalated the war? Why would we do that? Perhaps you know… perhaps not… that in 1959, five years before the Marines hit the beaches at Da Nang, Hanoi’s politburo essentially declared war against the South by ordering the establishment of three infiltration routes to carry men and materiel from the north into the south. The routes were labeled 559, 759 and 959 for the month and year of their inception. Route 559, or May 1959, became the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Hanoi infiltrating agents began a terror campaign designed to disrupt the budding and burgeoning social and economic order in the Republic of Vietnam—that is, South Vietnam. In 1960, northern terrorists murdered approximate 100 South Vietnamese official—school teachers, hamlet elders, young village entrepreneurs—each month. These assassinations grew to 1,000 per month by 1962—12,000 murders and “disappearances” in a nation of approximately 11 million people in one year! That would be the equivalent of terrorist murdering 350,000 Americans in 2015. That was the terror campaign America opposed; that was the basic situation which convinced Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy to send the first advisors and first troops.
Communist atrocities accelerated in ’63 and ’64, yet the story we usually hear of those years questions the veracity of a single incident in August 1964—the attack on the American ship, the C. Turner Joy in the Gulf of Tonkin… as if, somehow, that was the only justification for further engagement!
Infiltration route 559, the Ho Chi Minh trail, was strategic to the communist war effort. Early allied efforts were not enough to stop the flow of insurgent troops and supplies. This route—a complex of interlacing mountain roads and trails—ran down from the North, crossed the DMZ at scores of points, then entered the jungled mountains of our A. O., our area of operation, known as I Corps. The trail continued down through the broad and treacherous A Shau Valley, and south into the Central Highlands. Jim and I, and thousands of Americans, fought here. Our mission in these sparsely-inhabited mountains was to find, engage and disrupt this heavily-armed, infiltrating force; and thereby to stop the terrorism and provide security for the civilian population in the densely populated lowlands.
That mission—from the time of the first Special Forces camp at Ta Bat, through the battles of Lang Vei, Khe Sanh, Dong Ap Bai (Hamburger Hill), Ripcord, and Lom Son 719… that mission—taken on by both American and South Vietnamese forces—despite tremendous hardship and significant loss of life—was highly successful. Every year communist forces had to escalate their efforts in order to keep up their terrorist attacks. Each year the Republic of Viet Nam grew stronger.
Some little known facts and figures: Following the 1968 Communist Tet Offensive, the South Vietnamese citizenry, previously untrusted by their government, was armed by their government. Over the next three years, while US forces were reduced by 58%, communist terror attacks (assassinations, abductions and bombings) on villages and hamlets dropped 30%, small-unit attacks dropped 41%, and battalion-size attacks dropped 98%! Armed citizens were the crucial factor.
At the same time, rice production increased by nearly 10%, war related civilian injuries dropped 55%, and enemy-soldier defections increased to the highest levels of the war. Armed, the South Viet Namese citizenry became an effective force in protecting themselves and their property from an organized terror campaign. Do you recall ever being told any of this? Do you know that more than 200,000 North Vietnamese soldiers defected to the South?
How do we remember and honor our dead if we don’t know what these men did; why they fought; what was the cause; who was the enemy, and why did we oppose that enemy? Let me also mention that knowledge—truthful knowledge, not politically correct propaganda—is a miracle elixir… It lifts the spirits, and ameliorates the suffering of PTSD.
But as it happened, by late 1968 our national focus shifted? In the defense of the civilian population from communist terrorism, and in the pursuit of freedom, errors and abuses had been made. Our national attention turned to these errors and abuses, and freedom and the defense of the defenseless were no longer in our sight.
Critics of the War in Vietnam called all American tactics into question. You may recall Ted Kennedy condemning U.S. military operations below the DMZ, in I Corps, in the A Shau valley, at Dong Ap Bia, and at Ripcord. Seemingly he had forgotten that terrorists were infiltrating via these very routes.
His focus, along with that of much of the media, had shifted. Recall the My Lai massacre where American troops killed some 300 South Vietnamese civilians. From exposure of that incident in 1969, to 1972, 473 nightly TV news stories—nearly 10% of all news coverage of the war from 1962 to 1975—focused on that one atrocity—yet not a single story was aired about the 6000 communist assassinations of South Vietnamese non-military, government personnel in 1970 alone! What did that skewed reportage do to the American psyche?! What did it to the image of American troops who served and who were still serving in Vietnam? How did it paint veterans of that conflict, how did it paint those who paid the ultimate price, for decades thereafter?
If we perceive American troops as barbarians—as undisciplined baby killers or drug addicts; or if we are ignorant of the foes atrocious acts and ultimate aims—can we say we have kept faith with those who fell?
Errors and abuses were addressed. American ground forces were withdrawn by early 1972. The armed southern population carried the bulk of their own local defense, yet America’s focus remained on “American atrocities.”
This shift in the political momentum led to the abandonment of our allies, and the people of Southeast Asia. The abandonment can be inferred by economic support. The US budget for the war, adjusted for inflation, fell by over 95% from 1969 to 1974. Weapons and ammo in the South became relatively scarce. By comparison, Communist economic support for the North Vietnamese Army increased by 400%.
With highly limited funds the Army of The Republic of Vietnam was not able to keep up the fight in western I Corps, below the DMZ, down through the A Shau Valley and south into the Central Highlands. By 1974 Communist forces had rebuilt the roads and trails of Route 559, and had established oil and gas pipelines from the north all the way to Song Be city in the south.
The final communist offensive which toppled the Saigon government employed 500 Soviet tanks, 400 long-range artillery pieces and over 18,000 military trucks moving an army of 400,000 troops down through this corridor, through western I Corps, past Ripcord and Dong Ap Bia, through the A Shau Valley, and south. 400,000 troops!
U.S. abandonment of the South Vietnam lead directly to 70,000 executions in the first 90 days of communist control; to the death of millions in Cambodia, to a half million Boat People fleeing the new oppression—many of those dying at sea; to more than a million people being incarcerated in gulag re-education camps; and to the communist ethnic cleansing of Laos.
Do you recall my asking students to change their question. Did we save lives? The answer is yes. Our presence, our efforts, our sacrifices, saved millions of lives. And that’s the point. That’s what made the effort and the sacrifice not in vain.
To Remember and to honor means knowing these things. It means remaining vigilant when pundits and propagandists are stressing the errors or abuses that we, as a nation, have committed; yet simultaneously omitting the good, the honorable and the valorous that we accomplished. Even worse, is when they ignore the evil which we opposed.
So… on this Memorial Day, what we remember, how we remember, and how we act and react is important. There is no honor in remembering falsehoods; no honor in manipulating history for political or economic gain. And we cannot and do not honor our fallen by believing they were pawns.
Lastly, may I suggest, if you truly want to honor our dead, be the kind of person, the kind of citizen, the kind of American, worthy of their sacrifices.