Why do you want to go?
If you have decided to go to war, you are probably convinced
that your side is good and just, while our opponent is evil and unjust. Be not deceived! After the war is over, should
you survive, you may begin to understand that both sides were partially good and just, as well as partially evil and
unjust. Study the history of civilizations and its wars, and you will begin to understand that very little has changed
in two thousand years.
"Therefore my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to
hear and slow to speak and slow to anger" (James 2:19)
All of us who have gone to war have made that decision based
on what we have seen on television, or read in the papers. Unfortunately, the first has become a wasteland of carefully
stage-managed sound bytes by pro-war propagandists. The newspapers vary, and there is some hope of catching a glimmer
of truth there, but you have to be very selective.
The good news is that you can probably still find a financially
struggling small-town paper, in which an overworked and grossly underpaid editor insists on providing his or her readers
with the truth, so that they may be able to devise strategies for the upcoming crises in their lives.
The bad news is, that that newspaper is most likely in it's
rapid downhill slide, precisely because of that editor's insistence on providing their reader with the unvarnished truth. The truth
is not pretty or sexy, and it seldom fits in with the agendas of those who have advertising dollars to spend, and with
those politicians who are in bed with the war promoters, like the "embedded" reporters who have fed us a series of half-truths
and lies about our tragic Iraq adventure:
Everyone who was able to spend half an hour a day surfing
on the web before the war knew, as I did, beyond any possible shadow of a doubt, that Al Quaida, not Iraq, was responsible
for the 9-11 massacre of our citizens in the World Trade Center.
Everyone knew, that not only did the genuinely evil Saddam
Hussein have nothing to do with that tragedy, but that he hated Bin Laden's guts, and that Bin Laden felt the same about Saddam.
Yet the majority of our citizens appears to believe that the two were close buddies, even today. Such is the power of
a lie, when it is skilfully propagated.
Although the Bush administration did, with lies and innuendo, connect
Saddam and Bin Laden, the two hated each others' gut so passionately, that they would have tried to kill each other if
they had come close enough to recognize the other's face. In fact, before our war, Iraqi soldiers attempted to eliminate
an El Quaida cell, which was terrorizing a small village in north-eastern Iraq, and they were stopped largely by
our control of the air space over that area, near the Iranian border.
The evil machinations of those among our leaders who
would gain from this war, have bogged down our formerly great nation in a war which has resulted in a tragic catastrophy:
They say it is almost as bad as Vietnam. I say
it is much worse, and here are my qualifications: I have felt the air pressure from two enemy bullets, fired from a rifle
only a scarce twenty feet away.
During one combat operation, I have seen a Chinese advisor
to a main-force NVA unit running toward me with his hands up, and die, hit by fire from his unit, as well as my #748
Montagnard Regional Forces Company behind me. I saw the surprise as he was hit several times, both by the Montagnards
as well as the rear guard elements of the NVA unit, firing at this deserter from their side, from the far end of
the jungle clearing.
His body now perforated by many bullets, I saw the pain,
then the fear in his face, as he realized that he would not survive. He fell less than two feet away, and, with
the help of the Vietnamese commander, I read the unmailed letter he had so lovingly written to his family,
encouraging them to hope for his safe return, only a few hours earlier.
I have seen the bullet-riddled and limp bodies of Vietcong
"sappers" in the barbed wire entanglements of our defensive perimeter, their powerful explosive charges clutched in their
bloodless hands.
In the 4th U.S. Infantry Division, I have carried our wounded
toward the safety of our helicopter pad at night, past a gauntlet of our shaken defenders, whose timid and squeaky,
breaking voices betrayed their very real fears that there were still enemy soldiers within our lines, and that we might be
part of that infiltrated attacking force.
I have walked through a minefield, in the footsteps of a
captured female enemy soldier, from her appearance and behavior probably an important enemy political or military leader.
As I followed four feet behind her, I could tell from her excessive perspiration, that she was almost as uncertain as I was
about the exact location of her mines. I released her after our shared experience of terror, to fight against us,
and me, another day.
A few minutes later, as my six Vietnamese soldiers and I
joined an American platoon for a search for a missing soldier in the"Iron Triangle" also known as "War Zone C", the most impenetrable
enemy stronghold, we found his scalp nailed to a tree, and that was all we were able to find of him.
Still, except during the infamous "Tet" offensive, we
could walk the streets of any Vietnamese town with a population of at least 10,000 in groups of 3 or more, with relative safety,
as long as we carried our M-16's at the ready position, and avoided looking like easy targets.
At Trung Lap, an ARVN post at the edge of the "Iron Triangle",
we were mortared every night, but mostly by the relatively light 60mm mortars, that were unable to penetrate the layer of
sandbags and steel planking above our box spring matresses. As advisors we did have a few perks, but, on the downside, we
also had enemy soldiers among the troops we advised, but somehow these satisfied themselves with gathering information and
did not overtly attack us.
In contrast, our soldiers in Iraq seem to be under attack
wherever they go, and at any time. If I had to choose whether to return to Vietnam when I left in August 1969, or fight
in Iraq, I would joyfully jump at the chance to finish the job in Vietnam, and I would be horrified at the possibility of
having to serve in that hornets' nest inside a snakepit, in which our soldiers are now struggling to survive.
How to survive in combat:
Most of us who survived Vietnam head when we arrived
"in-country", that if you survive the first month or so, your odds are very good that you will survive the entire tour of
duty. I agree, although the time frame will vary among individuals.
In addition to training the conscious mind, a lot of our
actions are heavily influenced by our unconscious and less critical mind, that realm to which hypnotists direct their efforts.
Once you have repeated an action many times, it becomes almost instinctive, and you may barely be aware that you
are about to move, duck, or take any multitude of evasive actions which end up saving your life. For me it worked like
this: In a millisecond, a familiar sound which had always been connected with some sort of danger found me leaping
for cover, and seconds later a mortar shell explosion proved to my conscious mind that I had made the right choice.
Before a combat operation, prepare and think ahead: You must analyze the terrain,
the weather, the capabilities and limitations of your unit, and that of the enemy. What kind of support can you count
on? What additional support may you be able to get in time, if you make the effort? What conditions will dictate whether
or not that help will be effective?
The night before a combat operation, I would spend at least
two or three hours visualizing the route we were going to take. Which terrain features would favor the enemy,
which would favor us?
During the actual mission, I would visualize what the enemy commander would do to counter
my mission, depending on his known and suspected capabilities.
