The First Step

In about six weeks my life-partner and I will set forth on a trip to South-East Asia. We will be going to Lao and Viet Nam. This will be her first time in that part of the world. For me, to Viet Nam at least, it will be a return trip, after an absence of forty years.

The first time I traveled to Viet Nam was in October, 1969. We had just flown for what seemed like days across the Pacific, from Ft. Lewis, Washington, to Guam, to Viet Nam. The atmosphere on the flight was subdued, interrupted by occasional outbursts of bravado.

It was night when we arrived in Sai Gon. Hot dampness rose from the tarmac and enveloped us as the door opened and we stepped out into an unwelcome world. Some of us would leave again in 365 days. Others would leave sooner, though not in the seats.

My arrival in Viet Nam marked the beginning of my second year in the Army. 1968 had been a year of almost incomprehensible upheaval, in America and in Viet Nam. In January, the North Vietnamese Army, aided by Viet Cong guerrilla forces, launched a massive military offensive all across South Viet Nam. Many, many people died. Some cities, particularly the former imperial capital of Hue, suffered tremendous damage. The offensive was beaten back. However, as many have noted over the years, it was a political victory for North Viet Nam. Scenes of war played endlessly on television, putting the lie to military and government claims of success in Viet Nam.

This sort of visual connection with war had never happened before. Anyone with a television could see film of Americans slogging across flooded rice paddies, cutting their way through tangled jungle - fighting and dying. Previously, views of war had consisted mostly of black and white, still photographs, which froze the moment while creating some distance between the viewer and the action depicted. Television erased that distance in the late 1960’s.

In March, 1968, Lyndon Johnson went on national television to state that he would not seek, nor would he accept, his party’s nomination for a second presidential term. This set in motion an unanticipated political rush among other Democrats who believed they could lead the country through difficult times. And the times became more difficult.

As American efforts in Viet Nam unraveled, the civil rights movement at home gained momentum. On April 4th, the most prominent leader of that movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee. American cities were devoured by rage and flames, as many Black Americans responded viscerally to Dr. King’s violent death. At my college in northern Texas, black students – with whom we had little contact - drifted across the campus in angry knots.

Two months later, in Los Angeles, Robert F. Kennedy won the California Democratic Primary for the presidency. He was shot dead that evening, just after his victory celebration, and new violence rose up.

The summer of 1968 came to a close in Chicago, as the Democratic Party met for their national convention. It stands (and I hope it continues to stand for a very long time) as the most contentious, divisive and bloodiest of American political conventions. As the whole world watched, Chicago cops beat anti-war protesters senseless while the Democratic Party imploded inside the convention hall. No one could be blamed for wondering if America was falling apart. I did.

The American dreams we had been taught growing up in the years after World War Two – freedom, justice, equality – were jaundiced and shattered. Cynical real politik collided with idealism. We really did believe those dreams! But, in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, with the birth of a civil rights movement in the South and growing involvement in a far-off war, for obscure reasons (domino theory?), many people realized that our dreams, our self-image as Americans, were no longer accurate - and perhaps never had been. And people reacted to this realization in many different ways.

Within this tattered skein I was experiencing rising depression and sinking college grades. My life seemed without purpose or direction. And there was another layer to it. I was also idealistic and patriotic (and still am…in altered form). Despite all that had happened in the preceding nine or ten months, I felt Viet Nam was my generation’s war, just as my parents’ generation had to fight World War Two. Who was I, then - white child of privilege and college opportunity - to avoid this war when so many others had little or no choice in the matter?

That October, I left college and joined the United States Army. I was 21, and I wanted to change my life. In this, I was wildly successful – though in ways I could not foresee that Autumn. The first immediate success was in getting me out of Dallas. I was shipped off to Ft. Bliss, Texas, outside El Paso. An ill-named place, Ft. Bliss. There I had a number of first-time experiences: integration; regimentation; pre-dawn runs; verbal abuse; pneumonia.

The pneumonia was a result of the Drill Sergeants’ insistence on leaving windows open and the air conditioning system running, even though it was 35 – 40 degrees outside. By the 5th week of Basic Training I was very sick. By the 6th week, I was hospitalized. Mildly criminal behavior, of the “that which does not kill you makes you strong” school. No charges were filed, of course, but it did keep me from participating in the “final exam” of Basic Training: an obstacle course with a bit of live fire over your head to make sure you got the point.

No big surprise, I was graduated from Basic Training anyway. It ended just before Christmas, 1968. I went home with completely red eyes from all the coughing I had been doing. The red eyes and my new uniform gave me a rather forbidding appearance. Photographs from that Christmas show me wearing dark sunglasses, regardless of the time of day or night. In one photo, taken Christmas Day at my aunt and uncle’s farm, I am in uniform (with the dark sunglasses) and wearing a black armband. I told everyone it was in memory of those who had already died in the war.

Such a new soldier and already disenchanted.

After Christmas I reported to Ft. Ord, California, near Monterey. During the following eight weeks, I was filled with the distilled wisdom of an Army fighting an anti-guerrilla war in South-East Asia, amidst a culture almost completely unlike ours (save their humanity, which, far from being discussed, was simply denigrated).

We fired a lot of different weapons, marched through woods and over sand dunes, got filthy, wet and cold, ate mediocre food, and generally became at least a little familiar with how we would be living during our year in Viet Nam. Except for death, amputation, or emotional distress. Those things were not discussed.

Yet, they are among those things that people have a sense of, a kind of understanding without really knowing. The kind of things people don’t like to talk about very much. People are especially loath to talk about them when they are caught in an inescapable situation, confronting the almost daily possibility of death.

Emotional distress was probably the least understood of these. But that’s a story for another time.

Towards the end of my infantry training, in March, 1969, I had the opportunity to apply for Non-Commissioned Officer School (NCOS). I had no particular leadership aspirations. However, going through the NCOS program would delay my going to Viet Nam by several months.

Amidst the general social disarray, Richard Nixon had been elected President the previous November. So-called “Vietnamization” (turning the mess over to our South Vietnamese allies) was accelerated and Nixon had actually begun to withdraw some military units from South Viet Nam.

I leapt at the chance and was accepted. Nixon had a “secret plan” to end the war, and everyone hoped he would bring it to an early end.

What followed were several months at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and Ft. Polk, Louisiana. It was all really just an expanded version of infantry training, with some leadership classes added in. “Follow Me” was their motto. Not that anyone really wanted to follow anyone else to Viet Nam in 1969.

Nixon’s secret plan remained a secret and the last American troops did not leave Viet Nam until March, 1973. Instead, for me and a few thousand others, the war was just beginning. And, on the night of October 14th, 1969, in the dark heat of Sai Gon, it did begin.


October, 1969: An opinion poll indicates 71 percent of Americans approve of President Nixon’s Viet Nam policy.

October 15, 1969: The “Moratorium” peace demonstration is held in Washington and several U.S. cities. Demonstration organizers had received praises from North Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, who stated in a letter to them "...may your fall offensive succeed splendidly," marking the first time Hanoi publicly acknowledged the American anti-war movement. Dong's comments infuriate American conservatives including Vice President Spiro Agnew who lambastes the protesters as Communist "dupes" composed of "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."

Over the next few weeks I will write of my experiences in Viet Nam forty years ago, as well as other topics that interest me. In March and April I will be writing about my turas through Viet Nam and Lao.


Thanks for reading.