By Roger Herried
For the past two
weeks, Americans—some of them—have been glued to their TV screens, watching the
eight-part series by Ken Burns: Vietnam. On its face, Burn's presentation is a
monumental effort, but like a large legal case, it allows the proponent plenty
of room to weave his own agenda into the narrative with little choice left the
viewer but either to run away, or submit to further indoctrination into this
society's growing militarization cult.
But from my
perspective, as someone who served during that war, watching “Vietnam,” I could
barely stand sitting through a single episode.
When it showed clips of armed troops entering a village, I found myself
switching stations.
Burn's 18-hour
presentation drills into the details of the battles, of Presidents Johnson and
Nixon's political agendas, and the acknowledgement that although the war was clearly
unwinnable, once fully enmeshed in the briar patch, it had to be fought to the
finish. But imagine any attempt by Burns
to develop one of the most blatant themes, best summarized by a good old boy
who heard this from Johnson, himself:
“some of my friends were making too much money to want to withdraw!”
Another detail that
might have been given more play involves Kennedy’s desire to back away from the
war, a desire which may in part have led to his assassination.
As part of a recent
project where I was collecting images of protest I came to understood how necessary it was to
resort to a small balancing act. I
imagined that I had 10 grains of sand in front of me to represent the totality
of a huge event.
Land mines are
among many of Burn's unexposed grains of sand, something that would have
horrifying consequences long after the war ended. It would take several
generations of maimed humans finally to remove the millions of land mines left
behind after the war's end. (It wasn't until 2014 that the U.S. finally agreed
to abolish land mines, except in North Korea.)
Another grain that
might have taken up an entire program is
the human and environmental impacts from Agent Orange. Following the war's
end American military brass denied the medical impacts both to GI's and untold numbers of civilians
for years. Yes, it would be a bit more comforting to vets on this side of the
war had he covered the impacts to us, but imagine Burns actually taking the
time even to show the maps or some of the stark images!
Another grain of
sand is the mental trauma to service men and to generations of Vietnamese
people who survived. A veteran friend of
mine, who earned the nickname of Rambo, spent over 20 years on the San Francisco
streets homeless, crippled from exposure to Agent Orange that left him unable
to wear shoes year around, and unable to forget the cold blooded murders of
Vietnamese of all ages which still haunted him. According to the National
Coalition for the Homeless, 47% homeless veterans are those who served in
Vietnam.
Clinton may have
finally opened up trade relations with the country but this issue goes far
deeper than just PTSD, trust issues or even political anger. Burn's gloss over of racism during the heat
of the war or American GIs use of terms like "Gooks" or
"infestation" terminology to rationalize the dehumanization of the
enemy is disgraceful but the practice continues in use right up to the present
time.
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| Alongapo - "Shit River" |
Hundreds of
thousands of U.S. military personnel were living among Asians as part of the
support system. Subic Bay and what it stands for is another grain of sand.
About 500 miles from Vietnam, in Subic Bay the U.S. Navy maintains a base the
size of San Francisco, its largest installation outside of the mainland. Taking
its inspiration from a Wild West film, the scene recaptures the miles of
sheltered walkways, each building separated by a staircase from which
prostitutes hang, angling for a customer. Along the enclosed area where one
enters the base to change money runs a river studded with small boys in sampans
yelling, “For three bucks, fuck my sister.”
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| Alongapo |
Like most U.S.
military bases, a two mile strip of brothels known as Alongapo
was located where over 70,000 Filipino women many of whom were forced to
support their families, were on duty seeking money for sex – paid for by the
U.S. taxpayer. Five bucks to the bar
would buy a date upstairs for a girl. During the peak of the war an estimated
50,000 GIs a week were coming to Subic for a bit of R&R from the war zone.
As far away as Taiwan, where my destroyer
tender was berthed doing diplomatic duty, within barely 6 months nearly half of
the ship's crew of 700 men got caught up engaged to be married. The filthy underside of this business
included Mafia loan sharking, gambling activities and immense pilfering of the
supply chain. Yes, a duty-free case of
the best whisky in the world went for nine bucks, you could outfit entire
machine shops with the best quality tools or make 40% interest compounded every
payday on military men caught up in the partying. Anyone who might be incautious enough to
expose any of this would never make it back stateside alive. The version presented to me was and is not
for public consumption to this day.
I had the pleasure
of meeting a number of drug entrepreneurs during my tour of duty. The most
astonishing operation involved an entire destroyer from the captain on down,
who were using their ship to run drugs - taking stock investments that were
meant to make very large profits with an extremely fast turn around - a $2,000
investment for a $10K return every three months. They even had a remote lifting
system built into the anchor storage chamber to make sure any customs
inspections would turn up clean. Other
individuals planned on large single 'gotcha’ moments such as when they were
allowed to ship their belongings back from overseas where they were stationed -
a nice refrigerator for example, with its insulation removed and replaced with
large quantities of cocaine.
Every supply system
in the military was leaking large amounts of supplies to military
personnel. From just one of its ships -
mine - an average of a million dollars a year went missing - a big chunk of
change back then. What was the
connection between the Pentagon’s bloated budget and talk of $500 dollar toilet
seats?
For a number of
years, nineteen-year-old boys were placed in a national draft lottery where
anyone with a number below 100 was forced into the military and shipped out for
duty in Vietnam. Healthy boys from small
towns with low draft numbers like myself had few options other than escaping to
Canada or being accepted into college. I
went to the nearest induction center with the only other option available, the
request for a short term reserve deferment that would mean three months of
boot-camp, three months of active duty and then a return to civilian life as
part of the national guard. I was lied
to by the recruiter and told they were no longer accepting this type of
deferment. As a result I spent four years in the Navy, rather than 2 years in
the Army fighting in the war zone. Yet,
upon arriving in boot camp, I discovered that nearly half the recruits in my
company were given the above reserve deferment.
Boot camp was no Sargent Pyle moment - within a short time after
stepping off the shuttle bus in San Diego, the officer who greeted us made it very
clear - we were there to learn how to kill. From that moment on and for the next three months I was indoctrinated
into this country's killing machine. Those months forever changed me.
Eventually those experiences gave me the ability to say no to our murdering
machine, even if I wasn't quite brave enough go CO like many who did. One guy who grew up not far from my hometown
went CO soon after we arrived in Asia and was forced to spend a week confined
in a muddy pig pen before being discharged
to his now-destroyed civilian life.
In Taiwan where
nobody approached me because of the
language barrier except for sexual or financial exchanges, I learned what it
was to be an "Ugly American" I
experienced the dark underside of the Chinese Chiang Kai-shek dictatorship,
from loin clothed slaves carrying 50-pound bags of rice dawn to dusk, over many
blocks in the city of Kaohsiung where many were clearly dying, too weak
to keep up with me as I passed by. The
off-duty time I spent - not in bars or brothels but in bookstores or reading -
kept me sane, but just barely, a reprieve denied many others: at least as many
men died from suicide or drug addiction as those who perished in direct
combat. During my solitude - a
19-year-old foreigner in a foreign land - the real question slowly dawned upon
me - What was I doing in their country?
I had no answer - I still don't.
A Few of This Week's Roses
An article in the Hartford
Courant points out that the courts are finally taking climate
science seriously while the other two branches of government still either deny
or demur.
The U.S. is not alone. European
countries also spend billions each year on fossil fuel subsidies, but the
movement toward renewables is inexorable and growing. In the U.S. the solar
industry already provides many more jobs compared to coal. Despite the regressive
political climate, companies
are still investing in renewable energy because they see the advantage. The
Google Ivanpah Generating system is one example. Another remarkable example is Dong
Energy based in Copenhagen. Originally involved in fossil fuel exploration
and production, in less than a decade it became an 85% off shore wind company,
and is currently divesting from its remaining fossil fuel interests. And spurred
by the recent encyclical from the Vatican, in a project advanced by the Global
Catholic Climate Movement, 40
Catholic institutions world-wide are poised to make a record divestment from
fossil fuels. 
