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Aug 10, 2004 I went to Vietnam in 1965 and again in 1967 and 1968. Oddly, my first tour of duty was immediately following 47 weeks of intensive schooling in Monterey, California, to learn to speak, read, write and understand Arabic. I got that training because, being in Military Intelligence (No, that's NOT an oxymoron), I knew that fluency in another language would enhance my chances for advancement in that particular branch. Understanding that the new hot-spots were likely to be in SE Asia, I applied for French, Cambodian or Vietnamese, but I had to sign an agreement on that application that I'd accept training in another language if one of my choices wasn't available. Unaccountably, I got Arabic--I suppose because someone in the General Staff thought Vietnam might someday be overrun by Moroccans. At any rate, there I was in Vietnam, fluent in Arabic, of all things. I traveled up and down the coast between Cam Ranh Bay and Qui Nhon and over near the Cambodian border outside of Pleiku, based mostly in Nha Trang--an old French resort town with 3 and a half miles of beautiful off-white beach lined with old French villas fronting on a street with an esplanade and rows of coconut palms. There were two French-owned and run restaurants on the beachfront. One was called "The Frigate," pronounced "friGOT" and the other was "The Nautique," pronounced "nawTEEK." When I was there, there hadn't been a shot fired in anger anywhere near the City since the '50's. In fact, it was rumored that the VC used it as an R&R Center. I saw some action during that tour and was awarded my first Purple Heart because some sniper shot me in the butt just south of Pleiku as I was returning from an interrogation session at an old tea plantation used by the 1st Cavalry Division as a bivouac area. That was pretty depressing in and of itself, but what was worse was that, before that wound had completely healed, while I was back in Nha Trang reporting on that interrogation, I went to dinner at The Frigate and had oysters on the half-shell--which gave me a raging case of amoebic dysentery which hospitalized me for several days with temps running as high as 105 degrees. I return to the States some time later and went to school to learn to fly helicopters. In the Spring of 1967, I returned and was stationed mostly in what was known as the Third Corps Area. (If you think of Vietnam as a boot with the toe pointing west, I was stationed where the ankle and heel would be.) Again, I traveled all around that area and even down into the Fourth Corps in the Mekong Delta area. I didn't see quite as much combat during that tour, but did get shot at frequently--military intelligence people all had prices on our heads (to be paid when the VC were "victorious.") The heaviest action was during the infamous Tet Offensive in January of 1968, as it was for a lot of guys, I suppose. I'd gotten my second Purple Heart early in that tour when I got stabbed in the eyebrow with a bayonet trying to stop some sapper from blowing up the Tactical Operations Center outside of Long Binh. My third came during Tet. None of my wounds were terribly serious--certainly not serious enough that I required hospitalization for any of 'em. I came home in the Spring of 1968 and left the service the following Fall. I originally had the idea of getting my undergrad degree and going back in, but decided to just stay out-- which sort of hacked my wife off since she had all these visions of traveling all over the world as an Army wife. I got a job, went to school and everything seemed more or less normal except that I'd frequently wake up in a cold sweat or had lots of trouble sleeping or would duck every time a jet flew low overhead. It was over 10 years before I stopped doing any of that. Being a police officer, thankfully I never got involved with drugs or drank overmuch as a lot of vets seemed to have done according to the broadcast news and movies about Vietnam. Some years later, I noticed that I had a difficult time concentrating and seemed "down" all the time. I went to the doctor, finally, and he diagnosed me as having clinical depression which, to me, made no sense since I've always been a pretty upbeat, more or less happy guy. I began to explore what may have caused it. I remember being VERY incensed at the testimony of some guy named Kerry who appeared on TV saying that he and thousands of others in Vietnam were guilty of "atrocities" of the most horrible sort. As the campus rioting had increased exponentially afterwards and Jane Fonda was making her anti-American speeches and kids were burning their draft cards and even when the Kent State happened, I became angrier and angrier because I KNEW that what we were being accused of was a pack of lies. I'd had a run-in with "protesters" when I returned in 1968 that resulted in extensive dental work for one of those rotten-cheese-smelling "protesters," and there I was seeing the spit on GIs. "Why?" I kept asking myself. We'd done nothing except do our best to help a nation of beautiful, sweet people stay free. Then I got even angrier when Nixon pulled us out and Saigon inevitably fell to the communists. I STILL cannot go to "The Wall." I don't like to cry in public, for one reason. I seethe with anger from time to time when I hear myself and my compatriots described as "baby-killers" when I know we were nothing of the sort--quite the contrary, in fact. All these conflicting emotions can be traced directly to Lt. John Kerry's testimony and his later elevation to Congress where he's become a liberal icon. Now the man who betrayed me and hundreds of thousands of other GIs who served honorably in Vietnam for what was a basically- honorable purpose, despite what the revisionists are saying now, wants to be Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Not if I have anything to say about it! ------------ About the author: David A. Jared is a news junkie, semi-retired and an avid golfer who's been writing his first book, "4000 years of chopsticks" for the last 20 years. Email: Pappadave@sbcglobal.net |
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