Former NVA

What PTSD Looks and Feels Like

I was asked by a psychiatrist to describe how the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was effecting my life. I spent a full fifty minutes trying to explain the connections between the images I had stored in my memory and the emotion that accompanied it. There was never just one emotion, I told her. There are many. Then I said, how about if I paint you a picture. She said okay, probably thinking I would put a kid-like drawing in her mailbox the next day. Instead, I worked on "One Bullet Option" each evening for about two months. After a zillion changes, I was finally satisfied. The painting shows the sufferer in a suit, meaning he's not just a professional veteran as some are, but a regular middle class American, going to work every day. On the TV are images of the airstrikes on Baghdad and the medicine bottles are from the VA and are drugs to treat anxiety and depression. On the left hand side is a door and coming through it is his best buddy that was KIA. The pillow is painted the Marine boot camp colors, red and yellow. Beneath the pillow that is giving him some emotional comfort, is a .38 revolver and on the table, next to the clock is a single bullet. It's the final option for a lot of veterans struggling with severe PTSD and with it, major Depression. When I took this painting into the Mental Health Department of the William S. Middleton VA Health Facility to show to the psychiatrist I was told by another professional working there that I should not, under any circumstances, allow it to be seen by other patients because it was too upsetting to look at. Wow, I never expected that kind of reaction.

The second painting is titled "What it Felt Like."It shows a Gold Star mom and dad (having lost a son in Vietnam) being told the war was officially over. Next to them are protestors dancing on the graves of service members killed in Vietnam. On the top are two guys the same age doing different things on exactly the same date -- one is golfing and the other heading into a fire fight somewhere in Vietnam. They are the same age but the golfer is in a private college full time and is the son of a wealthy business owner. who belongs to the same country club as their family doctor. The other kid's last name is Beck (see older mans shirt pocket) and his dad works in a factory and didn't have the money to send his son to college. He's also a WWII veteran who has instilled in his son the notion of God, duty, honor, country. The news paper the dad is holding has various headlines that include "10,000 Draft Resisters Welcomed Home From Canada." In his other hand is his sons dog tags, one of the few items returned to the family after his son was KIA and had a closed casket burial.

Pre-Vietnam Counseling

The Counselor  

The Caseload

The Clients

     We were days away from finishing-up staging at Camp Pendleton, which is the final two weeks of training before heading to Nam. And we’re now on a plane headed for Okinawa, and our final staging, which meant getting shots and storing most of the stuff in our sea bags. Every seat on the civilian plane is full, of course, and we’ve just left Hawaii for refueling and are on our final leg. We were all able to get off the plane while we were there. We just stood in formation for about an hour, which was great because then we could say we’ve been to Hawaii. 

      With so many hours strapped into your seat and surrounded by a couple hundred other Marines, you get desperate for things to think about. I had been feeling pensive, even philosophical for much of the flight. Maybe most of us were but you couldn’t tell because the last thing a nineteen year old Marine wants other Marine’s to know is that they’re being introspective -- which as everyone knows is a hair away from being chicken shit, a smart ass or both. That deep stuff was saved for your best buddy, family and maybe your steady girl or wife.

     So, it was just for grins that I tried to guess which of us wouldn’t make it home alive. You know, it might sound stupid but at the same time it’s real. That’s just the way it is, some aren’t going to stay lucky for the whole 13 months or more. 

     I looked at guys as they slept, played cards, ate, read comic books, or joked around and then asked no one in particular, who are the walking dead, sort of. Which one’s are in their final hours, days or weeks of life and don’t know it? Which mother’s son kissed her cheek for the last time? Whose wife had lain next to him after making love and didn’t know it was her last time either? And which of the guys children would know their father only from a few family photos, a boot camp and high school graduation picture? 

The first guy I pegged was a cocksure little blond kid from Texas, who was in our staging company. Even though he was a runt, maybe all of five and a half feet and skinny, he was in Force Reconnaissance, one of the Marine Corps most elite units. These guys could be a real pain in the ass to be around and this little fresh-out-of-high school turd was no exception. For example, he would never just walk into the barracks at the end of a long training day, he’d storm in yelling: Reeeeee-con, die you mother fucker’s, Reeee-con ... kill, kill, kill!

      He’d often playfully try to put one of us in a headlock or want to shadow box. One afternoon, in the middle of his routine, our beer bellied, barrel-chested platoon sergeant, who up to that point always had a firm but quiet demeanor, ran over to the kid and grabbed him around the throat and started choking the shit out of him. Sarge’s buddy, another twenty-something older guy finally pulled him off when the kid went bug-eyed and started turning red. It was anyone’s guess what would have happened if he hadn’t. Then the sarge, who was married, had a couple little kids, and was going back to Nam for a second tour, started screaming and spitting in the horrified kid’s face, 

You little fuck ....... you think this is a joke?

You think you’re going on a fucking camp out with the goddamned VC?

Listen you little cock sucker ....... you could be deader than shit in a week, you stupid fuck. 

Fuck you and that recon shit ... fuck you!

     I think everyone knew that sarge wasn’t just pissed off at the kid, he was pensive as hell and scared shitless for him as well as himself and the rest of us. He was trying to counsel us, recon in particular, what lay ahead. We had only seen the war through a largely bloodless telecast, a couple of training films and on the nightly news. The sarge let slip one day when we were in the field that even after two years, he could sometimes smell gook houses. 

     From then on things got a lot more serious. There were fewer towel fights and a lot more letter writing home after that.

     The next day Recon was sitting quietly on his bunk, still looking like a puppy that’s just been whipped with a rolled up newspaper when sarge walked over to him. When recon saw him coming there was fear in his eyes and was already starting to draw back. That was until sarge held out his big mitt to shake his hand. Then the little shit looked up at sarge, gave him this shit-eating grin and as he reached out to shake his hand, sarge pulled it away, put him in a headlock and started giving him nookie. The barracks exploded with whistles and laughter and the rest of the recon boys started shouting, Kill, kill, kill!


     The last training day our company commanding officer threw us the traditional beer bash and wienie roast before we packed up the next day for Nam. Our training and counseling had ended and we were prepared as we'd ever be, for what was ahead. 

Spitting Hippies and Cherry Garcia

     Its spring of 1989 and I had just lost out on a tenure track teaching job I was doing as an adjunct for 3 years (got fired) and I’m helping two neighbor kids with a high school project they’re doing about the Vietnam war. They asked if they could interview me and I said sure, but warned that there’s lots of things I wasn’t qualified to talk about. Like what, one asks? Like most of what you’ve already heard or seen in movies about the war, I reply. 

     I’ve done this interview thing several times and its always a struggle. Should I go into the canned schtick or dig a little and talk about my real experiences and feelings about the war? I decide to wait until I hear the questions. The first one takes me by surprise because of the ridiculousness of a claim that’s been floating around for years:

     Mr. Gilmore, we heard that hippies were spitting on you guys when you got off the plane in your uniform ... did that really happen?

     Hell no Sean, that’s a load of crap. Fact is I never met anyone, especially a Marine that could say it happened to him or anyone else they could name. Besides, do you think a Marine, soldier or even a squid would let someone spit at them and not do that person great bodily harm. Lets start going into detail here so you know I’m not going to given you any bullshit. I'll tell you the details about what happened to me on my way home from Nam. Give me a minute to think and I'll meet you guys on the patio: 

     We just took off from LAX and were on our way to Chicago when this guy in a suit sitting across the isle from me asks if I been to Nam and when I say yah, I’m just back, he asks if he could buy me a beer. I tell him, you bet. That first chug of a Michelob tastes like god’s nectar after a year of rot-gut Black Label. Pretty soon, after some small talk, he asks if I’m a hawk or dove. Like an idiot, I’m thinking he wants to know what I want to come back to life as. I tell him a hawk, of course. He laughs and then buys me another beer. He say’s no that’s not what he means ... are you for or against the war? I don’t know how to answer right away. If I say I’m against it, I’m shitting on my buddies and if I say yes, I support it, I’m not sure about that either. And if I tell him the real truth, that I don’t know for sure, he’ll think I’m a real moron ... seeings how I’m just coming home from the dam thing.  

     That’s when the conversation starts to piss me off because when I don’t answer right away, he starts giving this dumb ass in dress greens an anti-war lecture. He doesn’t ask me questions and when I try to say something, he keeps interrupting, like what I have to say isn’t jack-shit. I knock back the second beer and pretend I’m going to sleep. This is after he finishes his fourth or fifth mini-bottle of scotch. But he just keeps talking at me, probably because he can see even though my eyes are closed the muscles in my jaw keep working. I'm getting hot, but know smacking the shit head isn't an option. I know he just wants me to feel down low, like it was me that started the fucking war.   

  We land in Chi-town and as I’m walking through the airport, an old guy smiles, nods his head and says, “Hi yah, Mac.”, which is short for the WWII moniker, Mack Marine. This makes me feel really good like he knows I’m just home from Nam and he’s another Marine. So now I want to hang around for awhile, see if other people might say hello and I can show off my new rows of ribbons. Its like your first pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, you don’t want it to end. 

  I’m standing there, with my seabag next to me having a smoke when this good looking brunette in a rental car uniform comes up to me and introduces herself. Imagine how I’m feeling, she’s the first round eye I’ve talked to in a year other than stewardesses. I about shit when she reaches out and grabs my arm and asks if I know her brother who’s a Marine and is in Nam. All of a sudden she’s teary-eyed and I feel bad I have to tell her no, that there’s thousands of us, spread out all over hell. 

      By the time her lunch break is over she knew all about how my outfit taught poor Vietnamese farmers how to raise chickens for profit and the VC stole 'em all and the whole village laughed. I was so damn proud of being a vet I wanted to tell my stories to anyone that would listen. It wasn’t to brag but to set the record straight that we weren’t all wacko’s and baby killers like the guy that next to me on the plane said some people were calling us. 

      Before she has to get back to work I’m sure to tell her that most guys in Nam never even fire a rifle during their whole tour. She liked knowing that. Heck yah I say, somebodies got to sort mail and make martini’s for the officers. When I ask her what her brother got trained to do she doesn’t know exactly ... only that he calls his buddies and himself “grunts”. I don’t tell her he’s hard-core combat Marine whose got a better chance of almost anyone to get dinged or KIA. 

     She gives me her phone number but never get around to calling her. After a few days of reading the paper and watching news on TV, I wasn’t the same guy she met at the airport. Besides, what she really wanted was her brother and I happened to be standing there. After those few days, I just wanted to take my mom to dinner a couple of times, see my dad and sisters and then get my ass back to my next duty station. As it were, I went back to base almost two weeks before I needed to. Being home wasn’t doing shit for me. I felt like a turd in a punch bowl, if you know what I mean.  

  Fact is, I only felt good about being a Nam vet those first few hours after I got off the freedom bird. When I’m hanging loose and kind of having my own Times Square celebration in my head, pretending that my homecoming was a big deal, even to strangers. I have this crazy urge to walk up to everyone who looked my way and tell 'em I was just back from the war and then they’d pull out a noise maker, throw confetti and if it was a pretty girl she’d kiss and hug me. There would be TV camera’s and reporters with note books asking how to spell my last name. Stupid, kid stuff like that I saw on WWII newsreels. Fact is, after awhile, I felt invisible. The few people that even glanced my way, seemed to look through me like I was someone they didn’t want to know and were afraid that if they smiled and said hello, it would lead to a handshake or a minute long conversation. A cockroach in the breadbox, yah, thats what it felt like after those first few hours in the airport. If they didn't turn on the light and open the door, you could pretend the roaches aren’t there. 

     Now, I just want to get home to my family. I don’t call ahead because I want it to be a surprise. I walk outside and stand in a long taxi line with everybody else. It took forever because assholes with briefcases kept cutting in front me. 

     When I finally get a cab, my hack is a good guy and right away asks if I’ve been to Nam. I tell him I’m still pissing gook water and he laughs and says his nephew said the same thing right after he got home. When he pulls up to ma’s four-story walk-up on Seeley Avenue, I pass him a hand full of singles and gets out. I hold-up so he can count to make sure it’s enough. He gets done and says:

Here, pal, I can’t take the tip, you’s guys deserve something for what you did. 

He clicks his changer and gives me two quarters. 

     Hell no guys, nobody spit on me when I got off the plane and if they had, I’d a kicked their sorry asses.

Those That Made It

    




      
     I awoke as if there was an explosion in the room. Allie’s gasping and thrashing broke me from a dead sleep in a way I never thought possible. I knew she was in trouble even before opening my eyes. Some primal survival response, I think. Hitting the wall switch, I looked over at my daughter who was still in her sleeping bag and knew immediately she was having a hypoglycemic seizure, caused by low blood sugars. We had been warned of this time and again by her diabetes nurse educator. Her arms and legs were flailing and her mouth was clenched as if she was under excruciated pain. I grabbed a squeeze tube of cake frosting I kept in my duffel, rubbing a small dab on her gums. No help. I then race to the refrigerator and tried trickling some orange juice into her mouth while I held her upright in my lap. Goddamn, still nothing happens. Prey to God something has to work, give it time, give it time, but every muscle in her body just continues to twitch and tighten -- her whole body possessed. Every ounce of my loving soul is focused on her and I scream inside my head, God help her, goddamn you, help her, you fucking bastard.

     Finally, I grab the plastic case containing the large hypodermic needle and unmixed Glucagon. I’m afraid, so afraid, I’ll get the mixture wrong as I once did with her insulin. My hands shake, but only slightly, as I draw the liquid up to the mark, and slowly push the plunger, releasing it into her thigh. Within minutes her eyes open and begin to focus. She’s regained control of her breathing and her muscles quiet. Like a boxer that's just coming-too after getting his clock cleaned, she’s scanning the room, as if desperately wanting to know where she was and what had happened. The relief I felt at that moment was indescribable. Just to hear her mutter, dad, I’m so sick, what happened -- was a voice from heaven?

Just hours earlier, she was listening to music with a dozen college students, who were my archeological field crew for the summer, and was the picture of health and pre-teen charm and beauty. I noticed her primping her hair more than usual before dinner and she had on her second set of clean clothes for the day. I new it was because one of the handsome college boys had playfully flirted with her that afternoon, even though she was barely twelve. I felt joyful seeing her smile and the way her eyes sparkled as he teased her. And now the same young man had innocently peered at her through the open doorway -- when her eyes were partially rolled back in her head and as I held her, streams of frothy stomach juices dripped down her chin and onto the front of her tee shirt. I wanted to strike out but only shoed him away with a glare.  

I would witness an episode just like this another time and her mother more than that. And the outcome was always the same. After the glucagon, she would throw-up uncontrollably until there was simply nothing left. Then she’d lay sweating and moaning from because of a headache worse than any migraine. It was as if she’d been shot or hit by a car. She’d feel the effects for several days afterward, from stiff muscles to throbbing headaches.  

     Each time she had them, whether I was with her or not, I would curse the wretched condition and wish for a miracle, that I be given it instead of her. And I would curse myself for going to Vietnam, to be exposed to the most toxic chemical known, Agent Orange.

      It was just a hunch, a parents gut feeling, lacking scientific or statistical evidence that linked Allie’s Type 1 Diabetes with the deadly concoction that I might have drank repeatedly, perhaps scores of times, from open wells in Hoa Xuan. But then, no one actually knew what was causing Type 1 in ever increasing numbers, either. There was, however, plenty there that linked Agent Orange to a litany of health problems in the children of Vietnam veterans, from asthma, to downs syndrome to severe learning disabilities to spina bifida. Why not Type 1 Diabetes? At that point, there wasn’t a smoking gun, but nor did I think there were enough studies done. There was only a parent’s silent obsession of wanting to know the cause of his child’s affliction. I wanted to once and for all shoulder the responsibility and end the questioning she might have of herself. I wanted her to know that there wasn't a defect in her at all -- it was me, all me. There was a reason her pancreas stopped working and it was because of what I had done, thinking it was the brave and proper thing to do for my country. I felt it was the very least I could do.

     I left Hoi An with the worst case of bedbug bites ever. Worse even than the shared bathroom bed stalls I slept in, in Cambodia, Guatemala and Laos. But as I read in the Times months before, even the better hotels had them these days, including those costing fifteen dollars or more per night. The one I was in cost less than half that. Serves me right, I muttered, as I splashed on the Calamine.

     I kept thinking about the things I learned about dioxin in Hoi An during the past several days and am eager to do a follow-up. Actually, I hatched an investigation plan of my own during the short bus ride to Danang. To begin with, I wanted to know how much dioxin I was exposed to during my year in Vietnam. Not a precise measurement of course but I needed to have a handle on the general degree of exposure. Right away, A 2007 Denver Post news article pops up on the intranet that provides a partial answer: 

A scientific study has found extraordinarily high levels of health-threatening contamination at the former U.S. air base at Danang.

"They're the highest levels I've ever seen in my life," said Thomas Boivin, the scientist who conducted the tests this spring. "If this site were in the U.S. or Canada, it would require significant studies and immediate cleanup."

Soil tests by his firm, Hatfield Consultants of Canada, found levels of dioxin, the highly toxic chemical compound in Agent Orange, that were 300 to 400 times higher than internationally accepted limits.

The report has not yet been released, but Boivin and Vietnamese officials summarized its central findings for The Associated Press.

     That’s what scientists found in 2007, imagine what the concentrations were by the end of the war? These data shows that the tens of thousands of Marines that were stationed on the air base were exposed to levels of dioxin higher than most other areas in all of Vietnam. It appeared that the air base, and more precisely the mixing area was the eye of the storm and we had all been in it.

     I was there physically for several months and then just a few days per month for about eight months after that. The remaining time I was with CAP 2-5-1, in Hoa Xuan Village, about 7 kilometers southwest of the airbase. To our east was Marble Mountain and on the west was Hill 327. The first brief exposure troubled me most. I was assigned perimeter guard duty of the air base, essentially walking near or through the hotspot night after night. A potentially worse case scenario occurred during the first month when my buddy, Lance Corporal Davidson and I were given the shit job of filling sand bags, needed to repair bunkers. Every day, we literally covered ourselves with sandy soil adjacent to the flight line and possibly the Agent Orange mixing area.

     And then I happened upon a website that listed the locations and actual number of Agent Orange spraying missions throughout Vietnam. This helped me zero in on the possible exposure our CAP team had in Hoa Xuan.

Records show that a total of 12,740 gallons of the herbicide was sprayed on an area known as Dog Patch Hill 327, which depending on the coverage, could be less than a mile from the village. Another 15,800 gallons was applied to civilian areas near China Beach which was within 4 miles or so and 34,470 gallons was applied to areas around Hoi Anh, about 6-8 miles south and west of Hoa Xuan. Depending on wind conditions at the time of spraying, our entire area had probably been covered with at least dioxin residue at multiple times and there was almost a sure bet that it was in the rice paddies, ground water and mixed with the soils from runoff. All this left no doubt that I had been moderately to greatly exposed to Agent Orange. But what might that mean in a real life scenario? In other words, it’s one thing to say that the people of Hoa Xuan, including my buddies and I were exposed and quite another to know its effects.     

I asked my new Danang City translator, Tam, to help me locate any agencies or government offices that kept records of the numbers of agent orange victims in the Danang area. After a phone call, she told me that the data I was looking for is difficult if not impossible to find because the government doesn’t have the resources to collect that information, and keep it up to date. But that there were two rehabilitation centers where children with agent orange related disabilities were cared for and given medical treatment. They are operated by an organization called, Danang Association of Victims of Agent Orange, which was founded in 2005. Tam was quickly able to locate the addresses and we made plans to visit at least one of them the next day.     

I really can’t remember what I expected to see before we arrive at the first center. What we saw was a large school-like facility were dozens of pre-teens to young adults were gathered in small groups, talking, sitting at desks drawing and stitching and playing games. But when they saw Tam and I come through the large, open doorway, they immediately rushed toward us and began asking questions and holding onto our arms and hands. I was a little unnerved at first but after a minute or two realized that I was amidst one of the least threatening social settings I had ever been in. Their acceptance of us, people they had never laid eyes on before was absolutely contagious. Everyone, it seemed had a smile on their face and we couldn't help but smile back. Many were anxious to pose for pictures once they noticed the camera case strapped to my belt. I hesitated, not knowing what the polite and respectful thing to do but was told by one of the workers that it was fine, especially if it brings attention to the Agent Orange problem that persists in Danang. 

     Tam and I spent several hours between the two centers and had a chance to talk briefly to the Director of the entire operation. One of the first questions I asked her was, if any of the children were from Hoa Xuan or the general area. She replied, of course, there are several whose families they home visit every week. I thought to myself, they were the Hoa Xuan babies that made it.

      Once I got back to my hotel room and the exhilaration mixed with sadness wore off from our field trip, I began reading and researching more on the topic until it became an overload of data and findings. The debate over the harmful effects of Agents Orange is massive. After hours of reading, over the course of years, there are at least three things that, to me, are irrefutable: 1.) The manufacturers of the dioxins used in Vietnam were warned early on that its use posed a risk to the health of not only civilians but ground troops as well. But they chose to sell it to the unsuspecting government, anyway; 2.) There was a far safer manufacturing process, but Monsanto, Dow and others chose not to pursue them because of cost; 3.) The Department of Veterans Affairs has wrongfully and consistently dragged its feet in compensating veterans and the children of veterans that have been harmed or have died prematurely because of their exposure to this chemical.

     At this point, what more was there to know, I thought. Although I still held out hope for the day when conclusive or even suggestive evidence would surface that addressed the cause of daughter Allies diabetes. Months went by and after I made this, my fourth trip to Vietnam, I must have Googled a new word combination because up popped the following in the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) website:

Since 1990, Birth Defect Research for Children has collected data on birth defects and developmental disabilities in the children of Vietnam veterans. The National Birth Defect Registry is a collaboration among seven prominent scientists to identify patterns of birth defects and disabilities in children with similar prenatal exposures. When compared to non-veterans’ children in the registry, the children of Vietnam veterans have shown consistent increases in learning, attention, and behavioral disorders; all types of skin disorders; problems with tooth development; allergic conditions and asthma; immune system disorders including chronic infections; some childhood cancers; and endocrine problems including thyroid disorders and childhood diabetes. More and more studies of prenatal exposures to dioxins and similar chemicals are adding support for these associations. According to Linda Birnbaum of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, dioxin can modulate growth and development. In the embryo and fetus, dioxin-altered programming can result in malformations, anomalies, fetal toxicity, and functional and structural deficits that often are not detectable until later in life.

     I emailed Allie immediately with the news of what I had found. She barely raised an eyebrow saying, Dad, I’ve had asthma, skin problems, allergies and dental issues on top of my diabetes. I never had any doubt that Vietnam had something to do with it. Yah, sweetie, I never doubted it either. I'm sorry.

Fear Laughter and Bittersweet Tea

Which children should I save?

      CAP 2-5-1 and our Civil Affairs Team were moving about a klick (kilometer) away to a remote part of the village we only saw at night. Our routine was to  pack up and change locals every 12 to 24 hours to avoid detection by the VC. This time Sergeant Bowers chose a remote family compound on the Southeast edge of Hoa Xuan to set-up for the night. Setting up for the night meant pitching our tents, made of bamboo stakes and a poncho and blowing up our rubber ladies (air mattresses). Once we had that squared away and had our perimeter and the M-60 machine gun set-up, the Sarge would start assigning guys to either patrols, ambushes or three-man killer teams. Then we'd huddle with our platoon of Vietnamese Popular Forces troops (PF's) and figure out who was going where that night. The rest of us would take radio watch and if you got lucky, skated and slept all night. Which didn’t happen often. 

     It was still light out, which was odd because we usually arrived at our next location just after dark, hoping the VC, if they were in the area, wouldn’t pinpoint our location.  There’s 12 or 14 of us walking single file with about a 10-15 meter interval between us, which was standard distance. I was maybe the second or third man behind the Sarge. Just as we turned up the short path to the family compound and start setting down our gear, we see this woman first walking and then running across the bare yard in front of the main house. I hadn't put my camera away and it still hung from the strap around my neck so I instinctively snapped a photo like I was shooting skeet, while a few of the guys were starting to raise their rifles. I could see right away that she was carrying a baby in her arms. Shit, what if we blew away a mother and her child, I thought to myself. That must have freaked everyone out and we wanted to let her know that we meant no harm so we kept walking toward her with our weapons slung or pointed toward the ground. 

      We saw her go into the house, using the front door but when we peeked-in, all we saw was a small baby laying on the bed, just off the living room. No more did the baby start crying when the mother re-appeared, snapped it up and again disappeared from sight. She looked as frightened as I had ever seen anyone. We went ahead and set-up for the night but never saw the mother, father and their children again that night. 

     I’m back in Hoa Xuan in 2009 and showing a few people a photo album I brought along to leave at the village Pagoda. They were copies of the more than a hundred photo's I had taken throughout the village in 1969-70. An older woman that was standing next to me pointed to the photo of the frightened woman running and pointed her finger, indicating that she lived in that direction. Since it was still early in the day, I asked my translator to get detailed directions on how to find her. 

     As we walked up the path toward the woman's house, everything looked the same, even the haystack where I took a picture of Sergeant Bowers sleeping under was still there. It was the last one I had taken of him before he was killed. The couple must have spotted us right away because they came out onto their patio to greet us. I walked up to the woman, politely said hello and asked if the person in the photo I had in my hand was her. She immediately started laughing. Soon her husband was laughing and and then all of us were. Why, I hadn’t a clue.

     I then asked Ha, my translator to ask the woman what was going on that day, why she was running and looked so afraid. Still smiling she explained to Ha that there was a rumor going around the village that the Marines had orders to start killing anyone they felt like, including small children and babies. Apparently, the story of My Lai had trickled down through the villages. And she said that because this couple lived on the very edge of the village they had had very little contact with us. The now elderly woman then launched into the details of what she was doing when the photo was taken.

     As soon as she saw us coming up her path, the first thing she thought of was how to save as many of her children as she could. She made a snap decision, she said, to sacrifice the baby and then grab the two older children that were inside the house and escape with them out a back window. She thought the baby would distract us long enough so that she and her other children could run to safety in the next hamlet. But when she heard her baby cry, it made her come back for him. More laughter. I could only imagine what it must have felt like for this mother to feel forced to sacrifice the life of her infant in order to save her two older children? 

     As it turned out I not only had the photo of her but I also had one of her husband and father as well. She said it was the only photo ever taken of her father and when she invited us in for tea, she pointed to a blown up copy they had framed and placed on their ancestor shelf. She had gotten it from the CD filled with the village photos I had left at the Pagoda the previous year. How bitter sweet that tea tasted.

Dog Patch - A Shrewd and Cunning War Strategy

VC mortar rounds falling short of the airbase flight line

 Another aftermath from the use of Agent Orange

What our garbage meant to these Vietnamese during the war

The kids did the climbing

A pork chop bone and a cigarette, a lucky day for this little Marine

Along for the ride, what fun!

First real look at how the war was going for the Vietnamese 

  
































      The second job assignment I had in Vietnam was guard duty. I did it for two long months before getting myself transferred to civic action. It was just as it sounds, about two platoons of us had walking posts or sat in guard towers in and around the Danang airbase. It was mostly just boring. All we did is walk back and forth on an assigned post watching for any strange movement or sounds. There were neither for the duration. 

      The most dangerous part of the job was having our Samoan Sarge catch us asleep or fail to give the proper “halt, who goes there” when he came out to inspect us. The guy was huge, about an axe handle and a half wide at the shoulders. His problem was he couldn’t or wouldn’t speak English worth a shit. What he would do instead is simply hit guys that fucked up. There were no threats or warning, he’d just walk up to a guy and “pow” knock him on his ass. Needless to say, sleeping on post didn’t happen very often. And if he didn’t like you for some reason, he wouldn’t smack you but you’d be the last to get your lunch, which was always either a sweaty bologna sandwich on white bread with yellow mustard or olive loaf fixed the same way. Or, sometimes guys would get their sandwiches and they’d be flat as a pancake. We thought the sarge was sitting on the lunch bags of the guys he didn’t like but could never catch doing anything wrong. Toward the end, I started feeling sorry for the big asshole. Acting like a tough guy day after day must have been stressful and made it hard to make friends.  

The only break we had from the monotony of walking fifty yards back and forth for eight hours starting right after dark was an occasional rocket or mortar attack. Usually sirens would blow after the first one hit and everyone that was sober enough to, would scramble for their bunkers. They’d plop in one or two 122 mm rockets, usually on or near the airbase runway and it would all be over within minutes. It was pretty obvious that their main targets were the napalm and bomb carrying fighter jet aircraft and not us. We’d then go back to walking our post unless there was an alert for a possible ground assault. One night the base got hammered by both rockets and mortars but that’s another post.

Another change of pace was to volunteer for special duties. One that always needed guys was runs to the dump. This was riding shotgun on big six-wheeled trucks that took a half dozen or more 55 gallon drums of trash and garbage from mostly the mess hall to the city dump. As soon as I found out about it, I signed up. I was anxious to get off base for any reason, hoping to mingle with the Vietnamese. The only locals we ever saw were the housekeepers for the officers and staff NCO’s. But they were all but invisible, slipping quietly from one hootch to the other during the day. 

  The first dump run I made helped enlighten me about the impact the war was having on the Vietnamese. After our truck with the garbage on-board rounded a curve, leading to the dump site, we were literally swarmed by kids attempting to jump up into the truck bed and begin picking through the heaps of stale bread, half rotten canned corn and pork chop bones. Even though I was warned beforehand, I wasn't prepared for what I saw. All I could do was snap pictures while the driver shouted warnings that he would run the little fuckers over if they didn’t get out of his truck. A few of the kids even asked me for gum and a cigarette and wanted to know where I was from. Jumping aboard garbage trucks must have been part of their daily routine and was probably the reason they knew a few words of English. 

When we arrived at the dumping location and the driver began backing-up toward a smoldering garbage heap, I was shocked to see a whole community of kids and adults alike, living in haphazardly constructed cardboard shelters and shacks at the far end of the dump. There were hundreds, maybe even a thousand or more scattered throughout the 4-5 acres, many holding a plastic bag in one hand and rummaging through the piles with the other. Some were barefoot and wore filthy, tattered clothing.

As more people rushed the truck the driver shouted at me to point my rifle at them to scare them away. The two guys that were sitting in the front seat then got out and began dumping the drums filled with the stench off the back of the truck. They had the drums emptied in less than five minutes and we were on our way out the gate and back to base mintues later. But not before having one of the guys snap a picture of me -- trying to strike a war pose for the family and friends back home. I didn’t plan on telling them the truth about what I was doing. That this is your son, providing security for an important mission -- slopping the host nationals. 

      On our way out the gate one kid had to make the decision to get first dibs on the garbage or enjoy the ride. Surprisingly, he chose riding with us halfway to the main road, over putting something in his belly. 

What I saw was pivotal for me, having seen first hand the impact the war was having on the people of South Vietnam, and for what purpose our guys are dying by the dozens every day. I remember asking myself if this is what the war planners had in mind or had something unexpected happened? I would find find out the answer to that question much later. 


       It’s 2009 and I’m in Vietnam a second time, feeling much more at ease and able to travel alone throughout the country without concern. I had just taken a bus from Ho Chi Minh City to Hoi An, a small, beautiful historic city a dozen or so kilometers south of Danang. After checking into one of the fleabags I usually stay at ($7.00 per night is in my range), I went out scouting on-foot as I always do, usually minutes after arriving in a new city.

I happened onto a gallery that was showing the works of two artists. They looked Dali like, lonely landscapes but using a palette of only grays and muddy browns. An unusual look for Vietnam, in favor of endless panorama’s of rice paddies in rich, dazzling greens and blues, everything looking alive and pregnant. These paintings were lifeless and to me, ugly. I then spotted on a table off to the side, a stack of books with “Agent Orange” written in bold letters across the cover. Then the paintings made sense, defoliated landscapes look similar to barren deserts. Just then one of the artists walked up and introduced herself. She was French, very attractive, dressed entirely in black, as one would expect and spoke very good English. Which she did immediately, pointing out a donation box setting on a table near the front of the gallery.  She explained that she and her husband were putting together dioxin clean-up campaigns in various parts of Vietnam, wherever concentrations remain high. When I asked how much of the stuff there still is here in Hoi An she said there is very little as far as they knew and that her show was to raise funds and awareness for the Danang area, where levels are the highest scientists have seen anywhere in Vietnam.      


I picked up one of the books, popped a twenty American in the donation box and began reading it as soon as I got back to the hotel. After reading the first couple of chapters and doing a bit of Googling, the garbage dump photo's I had taken in 1969 came into focus for the first time.     

Our military flew 6,542 spraying missions in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, dropping approximately 20,000,000 gallons of various kinds of dioxin, but mainly Agent Orange. About 17% of Vietnam’s forests were defoliated. While almost half of the total that was sprayed, 42% was applied to agricultural land, hoping to deprive the Vietcong and NVA operating in the South of food supplies. Of course that included civilian foodstuffs as well and in the end, the spraying alienated large numbers of civilians, turning them against our mission in Vietnam. I wondered, did someone in the Pentagon actually believe that the South Vietnamese would become table-slapping, pro American freedom fighters as they watched their rice crops turn to hay?    

Another goal of poisoning agricultural land was to drive the rural population into the cities. This, in turn, led to the growth of huge slums surrounding larger cities such as Saigon and Danang, which military personnel collectively referred to as Dog Patch.  This too served to alienate large portions of the civilian populations. It was also the principal reason the garbage dump I photographed in 1969 also served as lodging and food sources for a great many people. There was nowhere for them to go and nothing else for them to eat. They came from the countryside, forced into the city by laying bare their cropland and contaminating their bodies with Agent Orange. Urban centers in South Vietnam went from 2.8 million in 1958 to over 8 million by 1971. In summary, under a general policy of “forced draft urbanization”, the goal was to defoliate rural land, destroying the ability of peasants to support themselves in the countryside, forcing them to flee to U.S. dominated cities (and garbage dumps), while depriving guerrillas of their rural support base. 

In all 12% of South Vietnam was defoliated. According to the Vietnamese, it affected an estimated 4.8 million civilians and led to birth defects among about 500,000 children. And another 400,000 civilians were either maimed or killed directly by the chemical. There were not only grave health problems among both Vietnamese and American veterans, but the spraying permanently altered the ecology of many areas, killing all of some plant and animal species in certain areas and encouraging invasive species to dominate. According to one study, more than half of the species of birds and mammals in select areas of forests were still gone decades after they were sprayed. Not surprisingly, applying toxic chemicals  to the land, likely did more harm than good relative to the war effort, turning many apolitical rural civilians or even supporters into Vietcong or their sympathizers. Some shrewd and cunning war planning that was.


In the summer of 1985 I attended the welcome home parade Chicago graciously put on for Vietnam veterans. General Westmoreland, our commander in chief for much of the war was asked to give a speech in Grant Park. It seemed ironic that he was speaking from the very place war protestors gathered and were clubbed all to hell during the 1968 Democratic convention. During his address I slipped in back of the bandshell and waited for him to finish and exit via the back stairs. As he began stepping down, I approached him and held out my hand, maybe a bit too quickly. He jerked back, but quickly regained his composure: Well General, did we finally win one today? Hell, you go tell your buddies we won in Vietnam, and don't they forget it." Yah, go tell that to the Vietnamese. 

How Could She Even Touch Me?

    
The first stop after Phnom Penh, Cambodia was Ho Chi Minh City, which I kept calling Saigon. After checking into my guesthouse, a friend I met in Cambodia and I headed for the War Remnants Museum, reported to be the city’s biggest tourist draw. Heida, my new traveling companion was an international money laundering expert working for the Citicorp office in Geneva. Of greater interest to me was that she described herself as a devout Muslim and peace activist whose family is from Tunisia. She said her worldwide travels focused on wars and their impact on poor civilian populations, especially women. We made a deal over breakfast at the guesthouse we were both staying at, if I agreed to let her to travel to Hoa Xuan with me, she would take photos and make a video that I would receive a copy of for my use. This was getting too bazaar, going to Vietnam the first time I was involved with a peace activist and now the second time?    

There was a line forming at the entrance to buy tickets and when it was my turn to step up with my 20,000 dong ($1.00) I said to the ticket seller that I was a Vietnam war veteran, wondering if I’d be allowed in. Expecting to see her raise her eyebrows at least, she simply turned and made a motion for a young woman standing at the far end of the room. She was extraordinarily lovely and I guessed her to be in her mid-twenties. She introduced herself in near perfect English and said she would be our docent, if we wished. We were of course pleased to have someone with us that spoke English.  

The beginning of the tour was not easy. After all, what American wants to look at the horrendous suffering, death and destruction we bought to these people for over a decade? It was obvious that the museums goal was propaganda, however, it appeared to be factual and real in every way. Could it then be classified as propaganda, I wondered?  

Nothing is left out, from close up photos of My Lai to the bodies of children incinerated by napalm. The docent held my hand through a part of the tour and kept talking and explaining what the exhibits were about without a hint of emotion or anger. When we stopped in front of a photo of a soldier with a smug grin on his face, holding an M-16 in one hand and the half body of what looked like a Vietnamese boy in the other, I thought how could she even touch an American? And yet, when we passed a photo of a few KIA Marines wrapped in ponchos, and I started to lose it, she held my hand even tighter. That was until a big bodied Russian tourist walked up to me, shouting something while giving me the finger. My first and only reaction was, I had it coming because my country did all this.  

When we arrived at the Agent Orange exhibit, I was of course appalled to see and be told what this chemical has done to so many thousands of innocent Vietnamese. I also felt a connection I never expected. For the first time I realized that it wasn’t just what Monsanto, Dow Chemical and our government had done to the people in the photos but also what they did to my buddy Norm and all the other vets and their children -- that were suffering and dying from the same illnesses the Vietnamese are. I also thought about my daughter, wondering if the day would come that researchers would link her diabetes to Agent Orange. Looking at the images of deformed children and cancer ridden adults, I felt more of a kindred spirit toward Vietnamese than I did Americans. It hit me for the first time that we were both unknowing victims of America’s industrial and chemical war machine.  

And then it occurred to me, could that have been part of the planning all along? Did someone, somewhere know or even suspect the dangers of this wretched concoction even before the first rice paddy was destroyed? Why did North Vietnam claim to know the defoliant we were using was toxic, according to a 1967 Rand Report, and the guys that handled it every day have a hint? They were told instead that it was harmless to humans.  

Could clearing the undergrowth along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the waterways in the Mekong Delta in order to expose enemy supply routes and ambush sites have been worth the sickness and early deaths of a few hundred thousand young American men and their children? Did some of our leaders believe that a victory in Vietnam was worth what might have been to them an insignificant price ... all those unsuspecting young men they would never lay eyes on, their children not yet born, family’s destroyed by the pain of their loss. Was it all just a political monopoly game and were we and the Vietnamese the play money? Was there laughter, white gloves, tuxedo’s and dancing going on at a White House gala at the hour our Hoa Xuan baby was born? Was the President on the 7th green of an exclusive golf course the afternoon Norm unloaded a truck load of leaking metal drums filled with dioxin?  

Damn, I was getting morbid and resentful enough for a shot of rice wine and cool one, once we got out of there. That's all I needed to be off to the races. Fortunately, I had a Muslim woman from the Arab World and a Vietnamese party member from Hanoi holding my hand. How strange is that?

Prepping for Pol Pot and McNamara

Human bones stacked like kindling

Soon to be tortured and killed 

A former high school classroom made into a torture chamber

     I began my return to Vietnam, by flying first to Bangkok, Thailand, where I stayed a few days at the Atlanta Hotel. A place made famous by the sign at the entrance that warns, sex tourists and “louts” are not allowed. But during the war there were probably five “Happy Girls” for every G.I. taking R&R in Bangkok. From the mid to late 1960s and early 70s, the place was literally pulsating with the orgasms of twenty year old farm boys and high school football stars taking a much needed break from the war. I thought it wise to ease my way back to Southeast Asia, insuring everyone including myself of my moral and peace loving intentions. Or, is this a cover up for the fact that I was, lets just say, reluctant. Going back wasn't something I wanted to do but knew I needed to. I quickly learned that no one really gave a shit, especially here in Bangkok. The war was ancient history or no history at all because the bars and hotels were still there, where pot bellied, denture-wearing old vets returned to spend their Social Security checks on beautiful young bar girls. They would love them just as before, but now for only an hour or two and at twice the price, allowing for inflation.

To further prepare, I attended an eleven day Buddhist meditation retreat called Suan Moke in the south of Thailand, hoping it would help me to “center” and be able to focus on the present and not the past. A noble and wise gesture, I thought. Plus, my liberal friends thought there was something special sounding about a former Marine and Vietnam veteran appealing to Buddhism for solace and guidance. It must have had a soft and cuddly air of redemption written all over it. An image that’s in stark contrast to the one the media and even we veterans created for ourselves soon after the war was over.      

After Apocalypse Now, image was everything and literally became the war. Veterans including myself were suddenly whatever Vietnam war flick was showing at the local cinema. Putting all the leading roles together there was basically one personality type; brooding, angry, violent, resentful, paranoid and generally, fucked up. I think many of us were vulnerable to taking on these Hollywood traits, only because we didn’t know what our true character was or should be as vets. After coming home maybe some of us got the message that who we really were wasn't good enough, so we tried on something new when it was offered to us. Even the guys that spent the war in an air conditioned office doing crossword puzzles started to publicly brood after a time. Some rode Harley's and draped themselves in a POW/MIA flag on weekends, weather permitting.    

The public didn’t know what to make of us either. We fought a war that not only half the country hated but knew was wrong. We were the unwanted middle child, all but ignored, perhaps even an embarrassment to those who strongly supported the war in the beginning. My dad literally cringed every time I tried to talk to him about the war. The image of who we were was left largely to the popular media and fantasy moguls to define. And they were only too happy to oblige -- making us he classic antihero of a political and moral tragedy. That had best seller, action hero and movie awards practically built in.    
    
There was opportunity aplenty for everyone that set foot in Vietnam to now become tortured and damaged victims, regardless of what they actually did or where they served. I’m not saying many weren’t justifiably angry about the war or emotionally damaged by it, god knows, that's an understatement, but it’s anyone’s guess how much was created by novelists and screenwriters and errantly bestowed on some of those 90% that were there for a year and never fired a weapon. I salute them all but like it or not, they're not the same Vietnam veteran that humped for 13 months, saw buddies get killed and wounded and were in dozens of firefights. Regardless, everyone gets to ride the victimized and tortured antihero express, even a shit load that were never even in the military. 

There were a hundred foreigners accepted at the Buddhist retreat at Wat Suan Moke on a first come first serve basis. At a cost of fifty bucks for the entire 11 days that included meals and individual rooms, it was getting more popular each year. Thankfully, I arrived a day before and got in. The participants were evening divided between men and women, from worldwide but all speaking English. There was a strict code of silence, that a lot of us got around just by our glances at each other and body posture. The strictly vegetarian food was great but the wooden pillow they gave us and just sitting there all day cross-legged in the sand, visualizing our breath going in and out didn’t really suit me nor my needs.      

I would have left after only a few days if it hadn’t been for a couple of other American guys my age who had actually escorted me to the retreat center from Bangkok. One was a friend of a friend back in Madison. Great guys. They had been several times in the past and were the old salts of the expedition. After a time, however, I sensed that sitting motionless and acting holy became a subtle competition between us. After that, handing in your baggy pants was no longer an option -- and be able to maintain your manhood. Being too old and arthritic for arm wrestling and foot races, we reverted to seeing who could sit still and hold their farts longer than the other guy. There were a couple of times when one or the other of us would fall asleep and simply topple over like dominos. We’d sit up wide eyed and red-faced, hoping not too many others had seen us. 

Aside from the excruciating boredom, I'll always remember the instructions one of the lay-persons gave us on the first day about how to use our plastic wash bowl and a piece of paper to remove spiders and other insects from our rooms, rather than to unmercifully kill a living creature, regardless of how small and creepy looking they were. We should learn to love and value the lives all living creatures, we were told. This was indeed difficult for some of us to wrap our mind around. But I did manage to feel somewhat guilty about how good it felt to crunch a couple of cockroaches that went twiddling across my cement floor. The second item I'll always remember proved to be much more significant and continues to play a significant role in my life.      

The men were well into an hours long walking, moonlight meditation around a small pond near the back of the retreat grounds. Behind the fence was jungle and we could hear an orchestra of every kind of tropical insect and tree frog. There wasn't a breeze and it was so hot and humid the sweat trickled down my back and face and down my arms. We were walking at a crawl almost, about ten meters apart, not making a sound when suddenly my mind started flashing -- who the fuck's in the rear, watch your intervals assholes, look at that tree line good point, bring up the fucking starlight scope up for a look-see. Goddamn, I'm there, I'm right there and I want to get my guys back to our A.O.R quick before the shit hits the fan. I was well aware of how crazy I was acting but couldn't control it. The odd thing was, I had never been a platoon sergeant or even a squad leader except in training back in the states. Our CAP team only did small patrols, ambush and killer teams at night. Regardless, all I could do was follow my feet back to my room where I took off all my clothes and sat down in the lotus position on the cool cement and began breathing deeply until I could feel the fear and panic melt from my body. The next evening I told one of the Abbots about what had happened the night before. I was half expecting a minutes long conversation but all he said was -- "embrace your fear." That's pretty much what this book attempts to do.    

I’d later find out that visiting Pol Pot’s Killing Fields and Building S-21 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia was in a different way, a much better warming up exercise for Vietnam. And it was my next lay over on my way to Ho Chi Minh City. Seeing the bones of peace and life loving Buddhists and intellectuals protruding from their mass graves and the actual clothing of the victims still scattered everywhere, and their skulls arranged like a giant center piece set the tone for some of the things I would see in Vietnam. Particularly after I read how the American government had a hand in this history making, mass killing, as well.    

Walking through the exhibits gave me chills at first, as I suppose it does everyone, but after a time my brain stopped registering what I was seeing as real -- it became instead a kind of Disneyland of death. And then I spotted an advertisement for a Shooting Range Killing Field. I asked our guide what the Shooting Range was and he explained that it is a local restaurant that caters to tourists that are willing to pay to shoot any of the dozen or so military rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers, most used by either side of the Vietnam war. For some reason that really did creep me out.    

At first I just gasped and went into a righteous indignation bit, but then reminded myself of the many American industries, from movie studios, to high tech armament  manufacturers, that have pimped death and human suffering straight into the DOW, Nasdaq and S&P 500. Why not here, in a country that was just emerging as a capitalists nation? After all, wars and atrocities sell. Whether its film, music, literature and even tourism, a war or mass killing is a potential cash cow, providing it’s marketed and advertised properly. That means, entrance fee charged to gawk at death should be billed as a learning experience, helping to insure that history doesn't repeat itself. Sometimes they are even warmer and fuzzier, labeled a tribute or honor to the victims. I wondered how honored I would feel if my skull was buried in one of those stacks I was photographing.
    
I stood watching mostly American, British and Australian tourists my final hour at the Killing Field. They gathered in front of one set of photographs and display of horror after another, clucking their tongues and finger waving, remaining blissfully ignorant of the blood smears on their own governments hands. They were perhaps even more unaware, as I was until then, that it wasn't their government that helped put an end to the genocide, but rather it was the Vietnamese that overthrew the Khmer Rouge when they invaded Cambodia/Kampuchea in 1979. That was less than a decade after the United States basically disemboweled Vietnam, first with the bombing and then embargo. Suddenly, I became a little less concerned with "easing" my way back to Vietnam and wanted to learn more about the people that Americans once derided so passionately as evil.