This article made me weep.
We have learned nothing.
19
A lot of my high school buddies served in Vietnam. I was lucky and avoided the draft with a college, then teaching deferment. One of my friends is listed on the wall, killed shortly after he arrived in-country in June of 68. The others made it home but were never really the same. Of the six I knew well, five battled drug and alcohol issues and three died in their late forties or early fifties from issues related to their addictions. The one friend who did not encounter abuse issues died from his exposure to agent orange. Their Vietnam experience impacted their lives more than their parents, their religion, their education and their own families. America went into that war with good intentions but realized quickly that it was unwinnable and immoral. Unfortunately, those who could have brought it to a quick end were more interested in holding on to power and afraid of being labelled soft or the first to preside over a losing war. What was needed was not courage on the battlefield, but courage in leadership. Sadly, our leaders in that era failed miserable in that regard.
58
War is always the result of excuses to go to war by a political elite who become aggressors, or by the failure or unwillingness of governments to reach diplomatic solutions to critical economic conditions.
War in defense of one's nation--protecting both a form of government and its people or the national security of its allies--is perhaps the most tragic and yet heroic.
War's smell, it's taste, it's memories is tragic, totally wasteful, yet we haave not come to a place of human development where this will abate.
12
My dad’s brother James Davis was a fighter pilot in the 2nd world war and stayed in service after and saw the beginnings of the Vietnam war but got out and told my dad that the whole Vietnam situation was a big mistake. He was very upset that they were telling pilots to bomb woman and children along that major trail. He suggested to my dad and uncles that they keep their sons out of it at all costs. His own son went into the submarine service for 4 years. Luckily I was born a woman and stayed out but spent many years protesting and thought about moving to Canada. Traveled though Canada in 1976 to get away from the celebrations in 76 and met a fair number of those who left.
16
After the Vietnam war was over I called the Napa draft board to inquire about my status. Local draft boards had closed and moved into 3 regional centers so I was transferred to Vallejo. I asked the secretary how the head of the Napa Draft Board was doing, she said "he hung himself."
30
I'm afraid that your statement will ring all too true....the memories and horrors of Vietnam will not die until the last broken heart is gone......all too true!
19
I certainly hope the New York Times can dredge up an Oxford alum when the 55th Anniversary Celebration of the Tonkin Gulf Victory kicks off this October. We can reminisce about good old JFK and his Camelot legacy of benign assassinations in Saigon. And, of course, LBJ's famous defeat of the vaunted North Viet Namese Navy in the epic Gulf of Tonkin battle - the battle that dwarfed Midway...By all means, let's dredge up all of the filth of the American War. ALL. Let's not cut any slack based on political affiliation - Democrat or Republican - Johnson or Nixon - McNamara or Kissinger. Let's hail the patriotic draft card burners and bra burners. Let's salute the Hell-No-We-Won't-Go!!! marches on the Mall and campuses nationwide. Let's shame all of the draft dodgers like Trump and Biden. All of them...And, let's cast one more spitball at Viet Nam Veterans for old time sake. Then, solemnly and sincerely thank them for their service - half a century too late.
14
"I remember... the orphanage children burned alive by the Vietcong for having helped us." Sadly, most of the US does not remember those children, because TV had footage of the aftermath of My Lai and newspapers had the horrible photo of the naked girl fleeing napalm, but coverage of VC/NVA atrocities was scant--and I remember that from the perspective of someone who protested against the war.
17
I recommend "Reckoning: Vietnam and America's Cold War Experience, 1945-1991" by Neal F. Thompson as one of the best books regarding the totality of America's quagmire in Southeast Asia. All 'elephants in the room' exposed.
10
I have these long conversations with my brother at the Wall in Washington DC. I give him the latest updates and after all these years my heart still breaks , I think of all the laughter we never shared and how I have tried to be a better person because I had to live for him.
Thank you, this article was moving and tragically sad, 50 years and it all seems like yesterday. Thank you
59
Yes, being at the end of a war is tough. It was for those who died in the last weeks, days, or hours of WW1 and WW2 as well, when the surrenders were right around the corner. Viet Nam tugs at us much more, because in the end, the goal we were there to serve, preserving the independence and freedom of South Viet Nam, was lost. It was a worthwhile goal, as the goal of saving South Korea had been, but we had much better leaders then, and nothing like the well supported antiwar movement during Viet Nam. People forget we did achieve the goal of getting the ARVN to where they could defend their own country, as they did successfully against a conventional invasion in '72. Then we basically abandoned them, the Russians resupplied the North, and the tragedy that ensued was guaranteed. Viet Nam remains a totalitarian state, to the shame of all involved.
15
I do not understand a bit of this article: he suggests that he was drafted ( deciding not to go to Canada or fake a medical condition) but went as an officer commanding up to 57 personnel. The facts don’t appear to add up. Nor do the statistics which if you review them suggest that the war was found primarily by white working class, especially in the United States Marine Corps, which is typically less representative of the demographics of the United States society.
5
The war in the middle east is invisible to the American people. No draft. No increased taxes. No pain, except for the families who've lost their loved ones. It's a sick joke that we can forget that Americans and civilians on both sides are still dying, through three administrations now, so that politicians can further some vague, dubious, barely defined goals.
At least with Vietnam, Americans felt it and eventually stood up and said enough is enough.
21
The Nam is with me every day.
The guilt and sadness at times is overbearing.
It seams like yesterday, 1966, south of Marble Mountain.
A grunt in B-1-9, USMC.
Vince know where we were at all times.
We looked for for him and found him,
when we stepped on a mine,
when we got zapped by a sniper,
or got ambushed.
Some of us survived by instinct,
some by luck,
and some by fragging themselves,
to return to the world as heroes.
All of us at that time were volunteers,
for different reasons.
For some of us,
to make the world save for democracy.
Stupidity, greed and ignorance is still with us,
and I am still looking for answers to overcome...
Guilt and sadness will be with me forever.....
To all my brothers,
dead and alive,
SEMPERFI
24
Nothing more to say, Mr Broyles said it all.
12
And it was Bush who sent troops into Iraq because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that they never found, It goes on and on
18
This was a very good read but the ending was powerful. It caused me to tear up. Powerfully written and point well made. Thank you!
11
It is amazing how Nixon gets the blame for the war even though it was Kennedy and Johnson who got us into it. It is amazing how Obama and Hillary aren't blamed for all the death and suffering going on in Syria and Libya even though the were responsible for sending in the CIA with money and weapons to start those civil wars.
4
Yes, Kennedy and Johnson were involved, but you need to go back to John Foster Dulles and Eisenhower and the Domino Theory to get to where it all started. Then you have to understand that the peace deal was ready to be signed while Johnson was still in office. Nixon gets the blame for scuttling that peace deal that could have been made in 1969. He got Kissinger to convince the South to refuse the deal, and that blew it up. Then Kissinger got a Nobel Peace Prize for delivering that deal that he blew up at Nixon’s request. In the meantime, over 20,000 more Americans and countless hundreds of thousands more Vietnamese died.
43
@Michael Green
Your revisionist history is alarmingly political.
It was the Truman doctrine ('domino theory'), and Eisenhower's belief in it, that got the US started in Vietnam.
17
Thanks, hopefully we will learn.
5
I was in Vietnam about a year and a half ago, touring from Hanoi South through the country through Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). I was several years younger than required to have then been a soldier; nevertheless the relentless news coverage is in my memory of the times.
The complications of the United States’ participation in this proxy war even today seem apparent.
There is a massive difference between the North, heavily Chinese influenced country and the South, heavily western influenced country. While it is absolutely true that Ho Chi Minh and his followers had fought a war of liberation from colonial France, the American War was not based on any imperialist motives of the US but on the larger fear of international communism. Whatever the motivation, the lack of the ability of our leaders to evaluate the property US role, if any, is haunting as we continue in what, our 18th year in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Today, Vietnam is a thriving country; a tourist haven for Chinese, Australians, Europeans and Americans. It turns out that after the death of all the hard liners, the Communist Party evolved into a Union Contract with the people of Vietnam; they agree that the Communists will be their leaders, pay a small tax to them and also agree to absolutely not say anything bad about them; and, in exchange, anything goes as Vietnamese build and develop fabulous real estate, thriving commercial enterprises and compete.
I have had a hard time wrapping my thoughts about all of this
17
A great, on target, article. For myself and my shipmates we never had the time to even think about "the enemy ship sitting 100 yards away with all guns trained on us!" It only took 3 hours to go from freedom on the International Sea of Japan to hog tied and blindfolded in the back of some train which we finally learned when we got there was Pyongyang, in the "People's Paradise." Please excuse the sarcasm, I mean the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. We finally escaped 335 days later to a reception for us as heroes. We were never heroes, we were survivors of the one at the very bottom of the country pile, North Korea, period, case closed.
13
I arrived in Vietnam just before Jim Sterba's snaps here (he would become a friend) in May 1969, a 2LT eight months in grade, five years in service, in the Marine Corps Reserve, Regular Army, lastly an Infantry branch commission via OCS, two weeks after the birth of my first child, one week after my 25th birthday. I would be in and out of Cambodia with the 1st Air Cav on my next birthday, the same day other unimaginable events were searing America's collective soul at Kent State and elsewhere. From our Skytrooper perspective, an incursion into the NVA's corps headquarters, staging area and sanctuary was sound tactically, obvious and overdue. As hundreds of journalists, cameramen and television persons streamed from all over the world through Saigon to the hastily sorted forward press camp I "commanded" in the dusty red clay of Quan Loi, as gatekeeper of news and cruise director for rides to the war, it was clear the military mission was not relevant in the context of broader political opinion or in profound emotions expressed back home. Everyone was gobsmacked, from old Southeast Asia hands to the contemporaries with whom we had lost connection back in the "World." We would never regain that connection fully. We would never regain our youthful capacity for joy fully. We would never forget the special few we knew well who would not return with us. We would come to learn later that by crossing that line where the bomb craters used to stop, horror would awaken, an assist on us.
23
I recall watching Clark Clifford interviewed in PBS' 1983 Vietnam documentary. He gave an eviscerating deadpan of his discussions with the JCS shortly after becoming defense secretary in early 1968. Considered a hawk, he was reviewing General Westmoreland's request for 207,000 additional troops, but within weeks of his appointment became opposed to the war.
"We had long talks about Vietnam. How long would it take? They didn't know. How many more troops would we need? They didn't know. Would the 207,000 additional troops answer the demand? They didn't know. Might we need more? Yes, we might need more. So when it was all over, I asked them, what is our plan for winning the war in Vietnam? Well, the only plan is that eventually the attrition will wear the North Vietnamese down and they will have had enough. Is there any indication that it's working? No, there isn't."
41
"...the paths of glory lead but to the grave."
22
I did not go to Vietnam but ...... war was still hell. I was in my early 20's and friends were being shipped back home from Vietnam in steel boxes. J.F.K. was planning to withdraw America from a war against a country that posed zero threat to the homeland when he was "removed" from office. At that time there were about 75 American KIA. Subsequent to J.F.K.'s "removal" hundreds of thousands of Americans were sent to fight in this war that was justified by lies. Why? That's easy. Follow the money. About 58,220 were eventually shipped home in steel boxes. Many were young men in their prime just starting out in life. Many were plucked out of their homes via the draft to be shipped to the other side of the world to kill or be killed while fighting against a people who lived there and were simply fighting to free their homeland from the grasp of profit driven corporations. I have nothing but respect for the men who fought in Vietnam. The old men who sent them there and were doing the bidding of the military industrial complex ...... i will spare you the words i use to describe them. Oh, by the way, the names have changed but the money loving old men who play free and lose with our lives are still there.
39
Painfully vivid. And the lesson is: we learn nothing; we die for nothing. How pathetically sad – and revealing - for a country that claims to be the greatest nation in the world.
25 years after I fought to stay out of that war that betrayed the very people it asked to fight, I visited the Viet Nam Memorial for the first time. I was looking for the name of a good friend who had gotten engaged to be married, then was drafted and was killed in Viet Nam a week after he got there.
I searched but couldn’t find his name on the designated panel. I looked again -suddenly, his name jumped out at me. It was like a blow to the gut, and it sent me to my knees where I wept uncontrollably. I finally composed myself enough to approach a nearby park ranger to ask for a grease pencil so I could trace my friends name on a piece of paper.
After I finished, I returned the pencil and shook the ranger’s hand. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said. “Thanks” I said, “were you in Viet Nam?” He nodded in the affirmative and asked me if I had been there. “No” I said, “I fought for a long time to stay out.”
He nodded, and, still grasping my hand, looked into my eyes and said, “those were crazy times, weren’t they? We each did what we thought we had to do.” “Yes,” I said, “we did.”
I thanked him for his service, and for his help. He smiled and released my hand, and I walked away feeling a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders and common ground found – a great lesson indeed.
70
It wasn't lost until we cut the South Vietnamese off at the knees by denying them money to buy ammunition when the North Vietnamese invaded in 1975. The sacrifice of 58,000 Americans came to naught because of that decision.
In fact, we, slowly and painfully, learned counter-insurgency warfare, and by 1972 the Vietcong and their northern allies had been defeated. But that could not defeat North Vietnamese armor. The South Vietnamese weren't very good soldiers, but that is not a moral failing. In the 20th Century Germans were superb soldiers, and the source of more evil than any other people.
7
Mr. Boyles:
No wonder we didn't win with that kind of defeatist attitude.
1
@James It was more of survival (real survival) than playing war video games. You had to go through the expierience to really understand.
19
@James
Don't talk the talk, until you walk the walk.
Talk & flag waving are cheap.
The Presidents from Kennedy on to Johnson put americam military in a no win situation
21
@James,
Exactly what would you have wanted to “win” ?
There is no defeatist attitude here. Only a resigned acceptance of reality.
30
I read in the NYT but nowhere else about the talks in Qatar, thinking about those peace talks during the Vietnam War. My dad was in Vietnam in 1970; my child is in Afghanistan in 2019. This piece gives me chills - it's not the circle of life but rather the circle of death
48
A superb piece by Mr. William Broyles with evocative pictures, all very poignant and compelling, reflecting the horrors of war.
I too served in Vietnam but at a considerable distance from the combat area ensconced safely at NSA headquarters designing, developing and maintaining an automated online system that would return to MACV in near real-time decrypted Vietnamese traffic. We rendered our service in diverse ways. Thank you for your service and your brilliant writing. I’d like to read more.
Respectfully, Jerry Braunstein
13
Wish I could remember the date. I was driving to see my older brother in Northern California and picked up a hitch hiking soldier. He was returning home from Vietnam. He said he thought he would be the only member of his company who would come home alive. He may have been at La Drang.
18
This country needs to bring back the military draft so that everybody, rick or poor shares in the tragedy of our longest war. The all volunteer army has managed to keep the voices of protest down to a minimum while both democrats and republicans give lip service to ending these conflicts. The American military industrialist complex and the children of the wealthy are the only ones reaping the benefits!
31
We'll never get to read what the 58 said about the war. If they survived. Publications prefer to go with the college educated for these stories who were mostly were or became anti-war. You might not agree with the under privileged but they should be heard.
Of course you are right they were lied to but Nixon won two Presidential elections. He beat a much further right Wallace and a more centered but also pro war Humphry. The people wanted it. Maybe they learned after WW2 there was evil in the world and you shouldn't hide from it.
3
@JoeG Nixon was hardly pro-war. He won on ending US involvement both times. Almost no one liked the way he did it, but his goal from the beginning was to get out.
6
Clucking war hen Dick Cheney had ' other priorities' during the Vietnam War era.
Cowardly dishonorable and unpatriotic Donald Trump had bone spurs.
Bill Clinton got deferred. George W. Bush got in the Texas Air National Guard.
Milton Olive died. Colin Powell served. Muhammad Ali objected on religious grounds.
I objected to the war. The Viet Cong and North Viefnam were not my enemies. And with my knowledge of biology and chemistry failed the physical after receiving a draft notice.
My enemies were ruling from public buildings in the District of Columbia. And state capital public buildings.
Who were the patriots?
24
John Kerry served. John McCain served.
17
@Blackmamba-
As I recall, when asked about his dodging military service during the war Dick Cheney said, “I had better things to do”, deadpan.
Now, had the entire U.S. Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force said that very same thing ... .
I think an old Beatles song basically got it right. “What if they gave a war and nobody came.”
8
Your piece reflects a part of the war I did not experience.
I went over in August 1969 and was stationed at Cam Ranh at the port. I left a year later with no replacement in place.
Cam Ranh was a safe assignment. I also benefitted by being an officer and a recent graduate of law school.
I felt that I was contributing by moving supplies and saving some money for the government, but not to winning the war. Very glad to leave.
7
I graduated from college in 1967. I hoped that the war would end before my time came. I drew number 7 in the draft lottery and joined the Marine Corps with the agreement that I could finish school and go to OCC. My draft notice came the day after I signed my enlistment papers. I grew up in a small town and my dad told me he could keep me out of the draft. I didn’t want that, so I went. Vietnam sucked! It sucked so bad I served two tours. There were many younger men who I knew didn’t have a chance and I thought I could help them survive. I was wrong. I would never do that again but, I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. I’m in my 70’s now and if another stupid war broke out, I’d drive my grandson to Canada and support him. I worry about Trump. He’s an ignorant man and will do anything to keep from going to jail. This is not the America I fought for.
109
The "Mixmaster" anecdote summerizes the whole, sorry story of Viet Nam.
13
Not much to say, except that our soldiers fight under our flag even when they do not choose the conflict or destination. They deserve our support, always, before and after they serve.
11
Why again? They already get more than enough of our money.
Remembrance of war is a curious thing. I supposes all nations do the same. People always talk about the number of American soldiers killed in a war but rarely, not in this article, is it ever mentioned the numbers of the "enemy", which actually includes hundreds of thousands of noncombatant civilians, killed by our forces. My Lai is just one incident that we know about, but there were many more. During WW2 the allied terror bombing campaign against German cities killed approximately 800,000 innocent, noncombatant civilians who had the misfortune of living in a city. The American people pressured Richard Nixon to pardon the My Lai war criminals. Calley is the only one who served jail time and he was soon released. People remember these things even if it is censored in the popular media.
I'm from a family of war veterans. My father was drafted to serve in northern Africa and Italy in WW2. My grandfather, the one I knew, served in WW1. One of my uncles, who I visited when young, was a pilot in WW1. But my parents managed to keep me and my brother out of the military. My older brother got his draft notice but my mother made sure he applied for conscientious objector status, and he got it. I am fortunate they kept me from that evil. I also think our veterans are failing their fellow citizens by failing to warn the rest of us of the evil that permeates the military. At least one third of our mass murderers had served in the military.
9
I enlisted in the Marines in 1969. Half of the platoon I trained with got orders for Vietnam and half didn't. I didn't get mine. The old combat vets from WWII who knew me as a kid were elated I didn't go. I was a disappointed 17 year old. My war came later in another misguided government adventure and my wife, kids and mom learned about the fear of the car and doorbell. My son did six years in the Corps after enlisting the day after 9/11. I know what you mean about the car pulling up and the door bell ringing pride, fury and sweats. My daughter just got back from a combat tour in Afghanistan and we relived the fear of the car and doorbell. Now we live with the reality of our future son-in-law who is deployed in a far away land. We really haven't learned from your war, our kids war or my war. Same circus, different clowns calling the shots that costs so much in so many ways.
49
@Bill-
Many political scientists call that “circus” the “imperial imperative” — from the same Latin root word, “imperare”, “to command”, or “compel”. A compulsion.
As strange as it might sound, we do everything and anything that you might describe in “the same circus” not because we must but because we can. “If you build it they will come”, from the movie “Field of Dreams”, is its obverse. If you build a massive overarmed standing army, an immense two-ocean navy and intercontinental air force (“space force” even), those will be sent to unimaginably distant places to create unimaginable havoc, because the can. Heller explored the apparently logical cause/effect compulsion in his novel “Catch 22”.
This is why Founding Father and Third President of the United States Thomas Jefferson, for one, was deeply suspicious of — and inalterably opposed to — establishing any kind of large standing army or professional military generally. In part out of fear that it would embroil the new republic in adventures abroad, but mainly because it would become an instrument of tyranny at home (as indeed it has, in the form of the national security state we now have). The shape and substance of present-day United States of America would probably appall him.
35
For a little perspective on this piece, I left Vietnam as a Marine in February, 1968 and I and my brothers knew the war was lost. Yet it went on and on and on. Why? Simple. We were the occupiers. Sound familiar?
24
Interesting story on the rockets being fired at Da Nang, I was in the norther part of South Vietnam. In 2969 we were suppose to do night patrols to prevent motors and rockets being fired at our bases (fire and helicopter bases). We went out and hid, came back in the morning and reported no contact. Second lieutenant knew that taking us out and actually trying to find and engage the enemy was a way to get killed by either the enemy or his own troops.
33
No exit strategy. The story of our wars after WW II.
9
Well written, should be required reading for the arm chair soldiers who again would be willing to send our young men and women off to their deaths for what? Got a high number and avoided being drafted but those last years were like the sword of Damocles hanging over all our heads of draft age. My heart breaks for those whose numbers were low and were sent off to a war of lies to never return to their families. The anger still seethes!
23
I'm a veteran of the Vietnam War era, our first unwinnable, worse-than-useless war. Until 9/11 I'd taken solace in the thought that we'd at least learned our lesson. But then I'd never anticipated George W. Bush, who in his ignorance totally capitulated to the neocons and launched us into two additional ones.
28
Well written, foundry-tempered truth; I can only quibble with part of the conclusion.
The USA as a whole learned nothing. We are still willingly led into the abyss. Political and economic elites didn't learn anything beyond what they already knew; wars are good for their careers and fortunes.
Those of us who went to Vietnam learned a lot.
After four years of actively protesting the war, I was drafted in March 1969. In January 1971 I began my combat tour as an Infantry Officer with the Vietnamese Province Reaction Force in the Mekong Province known as "Vietcong Marketplace."
I learned whether I agreed with the war or not, my oath was to support and defend the Constitution. I internalized the mantra of prioritizing “My mission, my men, myself.” I learned you can have brothers and sisters from totally different parents.
With thousands of others, I learned to trust the people next to me and no one else. I learned survival in combat involves luck. I learned that many wounds are invisible.
I learned that my government will lie to me with no qualms. I learned Americans make a show of patriotism but will turn on veterans the moment we become inconvenient. I learned that the military is used in a game called "Let's you and him fight" when the majority of Americans have no intention of bearing any burden nor considering any sacrifice.
I learned our best chance is teaching and adhering to the ideals of the Constitution.
Some of us learned a lot.
770
@Patrick Borunda
Great article. I recently finished an abridged version of the Pentagon Papers. 70% of the reason we stayed was for "national honor," it says just that in the Papers. Lots of dead GIs and so called "enemy" for that chestnut.
63
@Patrick Borunda this is very well written and moving, but I wish you could elaborate on what you mean when you speak on supporting the Constitution. I’ve heard that phrase many times, almost always without the person stating what that actually means to them.
40
@Patrick BorundaI could not agree more - well spoken I joined the Marines to many John Wayne movies, but what you wrote is so true and even today with a professional army wars have become so much fun. Others die and when you come home the VA does not care nor to those who give you this Thanks for your service. Sadly, America has learned nothing and our time was wasted. A man in the White House who is a dictator why do we need the Congress when he signs Executive Orders. A rich kid who never served and paid his way out. 80% of the men back then were from the lower class whites, blacks, hispanics and only 20% white middle class and most in the officers ranks. Democrats who basically are spinning their wheels. I think of that Hollies song He ain't heavy he's my brother and the line "It's a long long road of which there is no return." There is a new book out on Mylai and Americas descent into darkness. America is a nation lost. Jim Trautman
95
in 1969 I was serving as second liutenent in Cachoeira do Sul-Rio Grande do Sul - Brasil and I day by day reading about atrocities USA soldiers did in vietnam..at the same time USA was sponsoring military dictactorships in may contry , and alongo the 70 decade almost all over latin amerca..Argentina, Chile with Pinochet, Paraguai, bolivia and many others in central america too. Your government did and still does all over the world atrocities in the of liberty but in fact is the name of profit..I know that soldiers and even lieutenents d'ont have the responsabilitie of these things...but the fact is that your country created against the british tirany..it's now the most tiranic power in the worls and trump is a fascist spreading hate all over the world. he thinks USA is the xeriff o f the world.. no nation like this..and some day this must be stopped...You should help doing this . God bless AMERICA..but america doesn't mean USA
28
To use the language of the day Mr. Broyles your article "nailed it"....in April 1970 Ft Belvoir my OCS class was to begin on a monday and on saturday we were all offered an "out"...guaranteed duty station of our choice for opting out of OCS contract...needs of the army...we joked that the kill rate on 2nd LTs must have dropped...
I spent the next 12 months at Ft Lewis driving a tank...my degree in accounting did not count for much...
some of the most powerful memories of my life are of the young met coming home from Vietnam...exactly as you describe them...& there was not much talk of PTSD treatment in those days...so I honor not only those who were lost but also those who survived...thank you for sharing your story
22
Is this supposed to make us feel better about Trump surrendering to the Taliban?
3
@mons
We don't have to surrender; we can just leave. Afghanistan is not Vietnam, but there are key similarities. In Vietnam we could have fought forever and kept the Viet Cong at bay. The same is true in Afghanistan.
Like Vietnam, Afghanistan has its own people. They care more about their country than we do. So they'll go on fighting us forever if they have to.
From the perspective of an infantryman in Vietnam those truths were plainly apparent. We have a choice in Afghanistan - stay and fight forever or leave.
Leave is the winning strategy.
22
@mons-
Of course, we could spend $1-trillion on top of the $1.5 trillion already wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan and stay, stay, stay ... .
8
How unfortunate, so many more unnecessary deaths in this uncalled- for war, all to save face? It goes to tell you, stupidity has never been in such ample supply. To everybody's loss.
7
"We learn nothing."
Too true. History, always written by the winners, says that war is the human condition.
Back in the day we fought for each other. There were very few tactical decisions, and no strategical ones, that did not reflect that reality.
As for the 3rd Marines, I am proud to have been one of your medevacs. Oorah...
USN 1967-71
Vietnam 1968
14
Don't forget Tricky Dick's sabotage in 1968.
. . . “the Chennault Affair.” Nixon gave Haldeman his orders: Find ways to sabotage Johnson’s plans to stage productive peace talks, so that a frustrated American electorate would turn to the Republicans as their only hope to end the war.
The gambit worked. The Chennault Affair, named for Anna Chennault, a Republican doyenne and fundraiser who became Nixon’s back channel to the South Vietnamese government, lingered as a diplomatic and political whodunit for decades afterward.
Johnson and his aides suspected this treachery at the time, for the Americans were eavesdropping on their South Vietnamese allies—(“Hold on,” Anna was heard telling the South Vietnamese ambassador to Washington. “We are gonna win”)—but hesitated to expose it because they had no proof Nixon had personally directed, or countenanced, her actions. ... Nixon steadfastly denied involvement up until his death, while his lawyers fended off efforts to obtain records from the 1968 campaign.
It wasn’t until after 2007, when the Nixon Presidential Library finally opened Haldeman’s notes to the public, that I stumbled upon a smoking gun in the course of conducting research for my biography of Nixon: four pages of notes ... had scrawled late on an October evening in 1968. “!Keep Anna Chennault working on SVN,” Haldeman wrote, as Nixon barked orders into the phone. They were out to “monkey wrench” Johnson’s election eve initiative, Nixon said. It worked. John A. Farrel
27
To die for a cause is a common evil.
John Osborne/Tom Jones
3
Since Nixon sabotaged the peace talks while Johnson was in office, apparently the author learned nothing.
Feel free to read,
"War is a Racket:
The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier"
by Smedley Darlington Butler.
7
Appears your 58 men were "Project 100000".
1
Something seems to be missing in this piece. The author was drafted, and a year later he's a Marine second lieutenant. How was that possible?
1
@BayArea101
There was a member of our unit in boot camp that came in as a private and left as a Captain. His second language was a dialect of Chinese. The Captain was sent to Vietnam.
3
@BayArea101
Officer Candidate School?
6
@BayArea101-
It’s possible because that person effectively ceases to be an individual after he, or she, takes the service oath administered to every inductee, be they a voluntary enlistee or a conscript, an involuntary draftee. They become property of the military service they joined, a chattel identified by name, rank and serial number, their personal freedoms subordinated to the needs of the service, governed by codes of conduct spelled out in the UCMJ.
Most important of all, they are objects in a command and are an integral part of a chain of command. You often hear that word, “command”, used in many different contexts. “MACV”, for example. “Military Assistance Command Vietnam”, during the Vietnam War. “CENTCOM”, “United States Central Command”. Or “SAC”, “Strategic Air Command”. They pass from one command to another as an overall “high command” decides what shall be done with them.
Those decisions are made in stages as the command to which they are assigned tests and evaluates them, subject to the needs of the service. It assigns them a “military occupational specialty” (“MOS”, expressed as a number) after determining what their strengths and weaknesses are. Based on that MOS it decides what they are to be taught, and where. And after that training ends a higher command decides where they will be sent and what they will do after deciding when, where and how to make best use of their services.
That’s how the author could be drafted one year and be a 2nd LT the next.
8
Lost two Cleveland Heights HS class of 65 classmates, Fred West and Tim Spring and an elementary school classmate, St. Margaret Mary School friend (class of 61) Steve Cunningham in that Vietnam fiasco. If there is a god and I meet him at a pearly gate I’m going to ask, What’s it all about Alfie? He best have a good answer. A very good answe.
16
Hello William !
geezz I would have written the Same first 3 paragraphs that you provide. Five years and 247 credit hours undergraduate with a definite career plan and path in place. Drafted May 22, diploma Jun 6, 1969, arrived Ft Jackson 12 Jun for basic and advanced. refused constant coercoion for OCS (2 extra years, No way). It was a pretty sick feeling, as you describe going into the 'country', jungles, killing zones, ( jan "70 Jun "71) knowing we were just another group of political placeholders.
Recently, I am increasingly concerned that the political group now in power is itching for a Conflict of Scale ! Judging from the tone and volume of political rhetoric, none of which expresses empathy - concern for the Young who would be called upon to (.........) make The Ultimate sacrifice - again for Political pomposity!........ What Are We Anyway ??
13
Thank you for your service Mr Broyles!
5
Kipling, If any question why we died, tell them, because our fathers lied.
18
Military incompetence extended the pain into my small hometown at a level that only they would be capable. A mother first learned of her son's death while in church listening to the minister offer a pray for her dead son.
10
He should have joined the Navy before he was drafted. When I joined in January 1970, you couldn't get to Vietnam even if you wanted too. All the lifers were already there in the safety of their offshore ships (except the riverboat personnel) adding fruit salad to their uniforms and faster promotions. My ship was home-ported in Naples, Italy, and on many weekends we drove all over Italy but especially he Amalfi Drive, sunning ourselves in places like Positano. A long way from that hated and stupid war.
3
@globalnomad-
The Navy was full. So was ROTC.
At Cal I knew a half dozen guys in ROTC. All were there to avoid being inducted after their II-S deferments expired.
4
I never served. I was a war protester and amateur journalist who, at age 20, published anti war underground newspapers. That caught the eye of army intelligence during my draft physical. Ultimately I was given a 1-Y, I would be called up in a “national emergency.” Now I have friends who did serve, wear their Viet Nam vet hats on Veterans Day, know more or less my story and don’t judge. I never felt guilty I didn’t serve, alternative service was difficult to obtain and put a different kind of brand on you. Reading and watching film on the history of the war sickens me. I’m glad I didn’t give my life for nothing
13
Brilliant. The only way to stop such nonsensical wars is if the kids of politicians at any level were compelled to go. Blind, deaf, no arms, no legs, or all of the above, they go.
13
"WE LEARN NOTHING"
A perfect way to end your story.
Gunship Crewchief, 335th Assault Helicopter Company
1967-68
18
Not one American should have died in Vietnam because not one American should have been there. This was America's war of choice, a vicious war against an impoverished people who were fighting to get away from French colonialism.
We were not the "good guys" in Vietnam. We were the bad guys whose bombs and soldiers killed at least two million Vietnamese. We left a dreadful legacy of unexploded bombs and Agent Orange that is still leading to increased cancer deaths and horrible birth defects.
The terrible crimes committed by some of our soldiers should have caused their leaders to be tried as war criminals.
Vietnam vet Nick Turse has documented many of those war crimes in his page turning book about Vietnam, Kill Anything That Moves. As I read about the rapes, the killing of women and children, the burning of villages I could only think that a swastika on the shoulders of some American soldiers would be been appropriate.
I am glad that I participated in demonstrations against that evil war.
15
Eloquent. Thank you and I hope your son returned from war healthy both physically and mentally.
9
"orphanage children burned alive by the Vietcong for having helped us."
Really? Aren't you perpetuating the very same false narrative that got us into the war -- that "they" the "Vietcong" (that word translates a "traitors" in the Vietnamese language), were savages, and we were the good guys?
The truth is our B-52s murdered thousands of Vietnamese children, and the Communist-led resistance was successful not because it massacred children, but because the Vietnamese people supported defending the nation against a vastly better armed invader.
And BTW, another part of the false narrative was that "North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam." Vietnam was one nation for thousands of years before the first white soldier showed up on their shores. "South Vietnam" was never more than a puppet state erected by U.S. money -- billions of it.
7
@Benjamin
I refuse to call what the Vietcong or our B-52's did murder. It was war. Broyles has first hand memories of what of what the VC did. Maybe it was his reason to keep going even today.
2
"Never believe that old sweet lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori".
Ain't it the truth.
6
This is a nice article but it does not do justice to the horror that was the war. The best and the brightest with their colossal ignorance; deGaulle, cting Dien Bien Phu, saying "Don't go there," but, hey, we're no. 1., you've got nothing to teach us, Monsieur President; Nixon's secret plan, which proved to be no plan other than to wrap things up in time for his re-election; Kissinger winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the end of irony as one sage remarked; the complete uselessness of 58,000 lost American lives and the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who were killed. For what? to return there on cruise ships? I was drafted in '69 but escaped Viet Nam with a psychiatric profile. You really want to learn about Viet Nam? Read Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. How any intelligent person subject to the draft could survive that experience without a permanently jaundiced view of American politics and foreign policy is hard for me to understand. Oh, and a great lesson learned? See Iraq for the answer.
225
@Terrance Mullin Matterhorn is indeed a great book.
5
@Terrance Mullin...No mention of Kennedy or Johnson. Why not? Were their roles in embroiling the United States in the American War noble? Do liberal warmongers get a pass? Is their no shame in the contrived Tonkin Gulf Farce just days before the 1964 election?
18
@Terrance Mullin
You criticize Nixon for ending a war that he inherited. Yet I never read any blame for LBJ for sending the troops in the first place. It seems politics colors the facts for many.
15
Sir. The war may have been senseless but we are grateful for your service. Thank you
12
You didn't have to go, Mr. Broyles. Many did not and turned and faced the penalty end of the system. Prison an honorable alternative to an obscene war.
2
@jeff porteous Part of the problem is that for many at 18 or so years of age, there is no knowledge or basis for making the decision you advocate. It is what we do with a volunteer army so the potential participants or their parents can object.
5
@jeff porteous
Easy enough for you to say Jeff. Are you a vet? Were you even born when Nam tore this country apart. So incredibly obtuse to say he could have gone to prison instead of going into the Corps. The great Jim Mattis did one better. He joined the Marine Corps Reserve in 1968 at the age of 18, went to college, graduated in 1972, and avoided deployment to Nam. Why not contact him,Jeff, tell him he should have gone to the “joint” instead of hiding in the Reserves/ College bubble. With the ending of the draft, which I assume you have benefited from, its rather easy to give advice to a vet.
6
Unfortunately the all volunteer army has led to our current situation, endless wars. I venture to say if there was a draft the world would be different. How many offspring of the one percent are volunteering. Only those whose opportunities have eroded in our oligarchy “volunteer”. Nineteen everybody goes the one percent would guarantee peace
4
So few of our leaders had skin in the game, so, of course they wanted to sound patriotic, brave and, above all, tough. If anything has changed since then, it’s that things have gotten worse.
More recently, we’ve devolved from Dick Cheney who said he “had better things to do” to the current WH occupant who said that worrying about and trying to avoid STDs was his Vietnam. And yet, millions of people voted for these guys.
Me? 173rd ABN., 1968-69.
26
@Patrick alexander According to the Wikipedia entry on Cheney his deferments after the ones for college students resulted from his being married and then having a child.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney
2
My friend from high school in Leominster, MA, PFC David Hill, died in Vietnam in 1969. Such a waste.
Thank you for this wonderful piece.
7
I believe an even more powerful essay by William Broyles Jr. appeared in Esquire Magazine back in 1984 titled:
Why Men Love War.
I discovered it via a wikipedia.org link to the footnote (footnote 3) after looking up his military experiences in Vietnam under the military career section.
One of the most powerful essays on war that I have ever read.
http://public.wsu.edu/~hughesc/why_men_love_war.htm
8
Well said! Thanx for writing this.
3
Do not allow the leaders of America today to make personal history accounts such as this of William Broyles, and the others who wrote in reply, possible in the future. Remember them and the uncountable thousands who suffered and who died and vote.
3
I will be 75 soon. Was there the first 2 years. It still does not go away. Every time I see a photo of guys I knew they never get old, just me. I will be better off when I'm done with that! "Zin Loi" for all you vets.
11
What we should learn is to bring back the draft. When everyone shares in the threat of the losses associated with war we as a society are more engaged in how our military is deployed. Veteran, 1st Marine Division, Iraq, 2004, 2nd battle of Fallujah. Please don't thank me for my service; the Marine Corps thanks me every month.
18
I believe an even more powerful essay by William Broyles Jr. appeared in Esquire Magazine back in 1984 titled:
Why Men Love War.
I discovered it via a wikipedia.org link to the footnote (footnote 3) after looking up his military experiences in Vietnam under the military career section.
One of the most powerful essays on war that I have ever read.
http://public.wsu.edu/~hughesc/why_men_love_war.htm
3
Beautiful ending.
2
I believe an even more powerful essay by William Broyles Jr. appeared in Esquire Magazine back in 1984 titled:
Why Men Love War.
I discovered it via a wikipedia.org link to the footnote (footnote 3) after looking up his military experiences in Vietnam under the military career section.
One of the most powerful essays on war that I have ever read.
http://public.wsu.edu/~hughesc/why_men_love_war.htm
1
"And I think the same about the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who died on both sides" The total number of Vietnamese fatalities, both soldiers and civilians, was on the order of two to three million!
7
War is insanity, absolutely. Politicians start wars and we die. I too was in the insanity of the US government's fabricated Vietnam War. This article has the perfect ending, "We learn nothing."
3
Fantastic article!
The new lieutenant being "corrected" by squad leaders sensitizing him to the geniuses in the rear versus the reality of bullets, mines and shells at the front. That is an exercise every fresh 2nd lieutenant should be put through, so the rah rah of OCS doesn't interfere with the real mayhem and blood of war.
Thank you also for, as a young man, recognizing if you didn't go, some poor lad from your area would. We should all be so caring for the strangers who make up our communites, and so attentive to our duties (is that HMS Pinafore?).
And that conclusion! Wow. We all know it's true, but your words and execution are brilliant. I'm sure we all hope for the health and safety of your son and all our poor soldiers on endless deployments.
6
"We learn nothing"?
I think it's "And we still don't care enough, as long as I have mine"
5
50,000 lost souls were marched into the slaughter house by America's leaders. The conveyor belt of death is still running today. The draft was stopped the year before I graduated high school, thanks to the real heroes of the Vietnam war. They gave up their comfortable place in society to fight the war on the home front, and won. God bless the nine million military personnel that put themselves in harms way to serve their country. They deserved better.
4
Since Nixon and his gang blew up the peace deal in 1968 committing an act of treason by negotiating with a foreign power behind a sitting president's back one could conclude that all those who died form 1969 to 1975 was blood on his hands. Johnson knew about it and in a now famous phone call confronted Everett Dirksen about it. What a tragic event in the course of US history for all involved.
8
A great read!
1
Didn't want to "give their lives for the diplomatic benefit of Nixon and Henry Kissinger."
The 'diplomatic benefit'? Wouldn't 'political benefit' be more accurate?
Or, more accurately still, the 'twisted egomaniacal black-hearted self-loathing/aggrandizing monstrosity'?
5
As others have said, the Vietnam will never be over until everyone with a broken heart has died. The love of my life lost his life in Vietnam in 1970 (took his body 30 years to catch up to that fact). My heart is broken and will never heal. I remember watching the carnage on TV while eating dinner on TV trays in junior high...no idea how that stinking, stupid war would change my life and the ones I loved forever. Thank you for this essay.
292
@NJ Mann
Your comment is very touching. It is rare a partner, a wife’s voice is heard. You who lost the 'love of your life' yet another outcome of the Viet Nam war. I am moved.
45
@NJ Mann
Your comment spoke to my heart in ways too profound and personal to express in words.
My experience is that there were hideous, invisible wounds suffered and untreated because no one had come up with the obvious diagnosis of "post-traumatic stress syndrome" until 20 years too late for many of us.
I am so sorry for your loss and want you to do that there are people who understand.
49
@NJ Mann
At our 50th college reunion (Middlebury class of 1967) we had a session on Vietnam. there were a couple of very moving stories much like your own. Dear lady, may some providence help you heal. We all lost something there.
48
In honor of all who served, and in memory of a brother (82d ABD, 1968-1970):
"On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.
"Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.
"East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
None that go return again.
"Far the calling bugles hollo,
High the screaming fife replies,
Gay the files of scarlet follow:
Woman bore me, I will rise."
-- A. E. Housman, On an Idle Hill of Summer (in the public domain)
7
Beautifully written, painfully true. "War is not healthy for children & other living things." Remember that poster from the Vietnam era?
Vietnam was beyond a quagmire. Like Iraq & Afghanistan. Why didn't the U.S. learn from watching the failures of the French (southeast Asia) & Soviets (Afghanistan)?
My husband enlisted in 1966 as a footloose 20-year-old & got fast-tracked into Rangers & then Special Forces. He was one of the early, unwitting Phoenix Project operatives. In 1968 he was nearly killed rescuing an asset from a house in North Vietnam. Spent 9 months in hospital & never was the same. But stubbornly, he went back, served for 20 years total, was nearly killed 2 other times & lost all his men near a Killing Fields site in Cambodia (where he was captured, tortured near to death & rescued by his Montagnard friends).
And all that time he was a Canadian, not an American (now dual).
His motto: "I want to be part of more living & less dying."
8
I recently read a new book about Eisenhower. I wrote the author and told him that I never understood the inner workings of the Domino Theory, despite reading about it many times, and despite growing up in the Viet Nam Era. I was initially for the war, but then strongly against it. The author wrote me back and recommended that I read the Pentagon Papers, which I did (an abridged version). This is a must to understand the inner workings of the White House on Viet Nam. They knew everything about what was taking place. They knew from the beginning that the war could not be won. One of the documents during the Johnson Era stated that 70% of the reason for staying in the war was due to national honor, and to send a message to friends and Communists. That's a lot of guys dying and the country being shattered for "national honor."
9
Once the draft was eliminated and we went to a 'professional' military , wars could keep on happening. Americans and people from other countries keep on dying. How long Afghanistan? WWII was over in 5 years. The Americans who benefit from these wars found the solution. Re-instate the draft and it all will stop.
6
@Jean louis LONNE I am sad for my country and the continuous wars in which we have engaged. I was a medic in Vietnam and greatly benefited from my time there. I used the GI bill for undergrad schooling and then went on to a Ph.D. More importantly I changed by views on war. The idea we would be fighting communist in California if we didn't fight them in Asia was CRAZY. We continue on with wasteful and costly wars. I'm all for a draft with multiple options--military, teaching in poor rural or urban areas, working preventing drug abuse, etc. Nobody gets a buyout for bone spurs.
10
"War itself is, of course, a form of madness. It is hardly a civilized pursuit. It is amazing how we spend so much time inventing devices to kill each another, and so little time working on how to achieve peace." - Walter Cronkite
8
Thank you for your service. If only Donald Trump or John Bolton had the courage that you had to serve too, perhaps the country would be far different today.
5
It's amazing to me that the party that supposedly supports the military more is the party that keeps sending our brave men and women to war.
5
Very honest and powerfully written.
I was in the first lottery and also still in college, so in time I was extremely fortunate to have a high enough number to keep me from being drafted.
That war was fought largely by the poor in our society, but of course perpetrated by lying politicians on all sides in my view.
Each side was brutal, wicked and evil at times. Such is war. But as is usual the politicians in charge didn't care about the unbelievable destruction they wrought. And most never served.
And Nixon, Kissinger, McNamara and others at the top knew for years that their so called objectives couldn't be met, yet 20,000 more Americans died over the last 4 years, and 10x that many Vietnamese.
That war ripped this country in half. Dreadful for the Vietnamese too.
As the author said, we don't learn. Especially the war hawks.
8
I can identify with the writer's experience and thoughts. A draftee, I went over as an E-5 NCO squad leader in 12/3/68 and was wounded 3/3/69, ending my tour in Korea. My unit also was mostly HS or less grads, ( I was a college grad). We too were leery of the officers who were reckless and respected those who made the effort to make sure we did not put men at risk for stupid reasons. I was with the Americal Div out of Chu Lai, mostly dealing w/ NVA regulars in a sparsely populated area of mountains and narrow rice paddies. The men were indeed brave when they needed to be but for what purpose?
4
My draft deferral which allowed me to work as a psychologist at a mental health center was challenged by Evelle Younger, district attorney in Los Angeles.
Younger was a General in the Air Force reserve and took it upon himself to personally challenge many draft deferments and send more young men to Vietnam to die.
I failed the army physical exam and continued my job as a psychologist and studying at Kent State University for my Ph.D.
Younger is dead now but I often wonder whether he has met his just rewards from all the dead soldiers he sent to a hopeless war in Vietnam.
11
Didn't have to go, many heroes did not go to participate in that illegal and immoral war and occupation.
3
@NY-
I refused. Wouldn’t have worked had I been born three years earlier.
2
I returned to the U.S. after my tour in Vietnam assigned to an aircraft maintenance company.
We would receive newly graduated mechanics from the school and we would attempt to provide them with experience prior to heading off to the war.
Many were ready for war, ready to kill VC.
We, the more seasoned, would laugh at them. We told them if they are sent to pretend to wage war, mark time and come home intact.
I wonder how many of those new guys made out.
5
enlisted in 69, parris island, camp geiger, pendleton, then okinawa. went to mt fuji in japan then back to okinawa. felt i needed to do my part in the corps and requested vietnam. did a tour there in quang nam province. saw combat and received CAR. never regretted a single bit of it. i did it for me and my country. everybody is different. Semper Fi
6
Ah, the war in Vietnam! Drafted in July 1972, marching, saluting, but mostly shooting the M-16 at pop-up targets as the sweat rolled down my glasses, AWOL from Fort Lost in the Woods in late August, 3 months later a week in the mental ward at the FLW hospital, then 2 weeks in the stockade, then a week at the PCF, long bus ride home with a general discharge, failure to adjust, feeling lucky. Seemed like the biggest thing in my life at the time, now just one more weird episode in my life.
I am so grateful I never had to kill anyone.
2
This was a great essay about the futility of war.
American politicians, defense contractors and the vast majority of Americans love a war. In my 60 plus years there have been very few years of peace for our country. For some reason we (the citizens of the United States) think everyone's business is our business. Maybe it is the simple desire of the politicians and their patriotic blinded followers to be an empire or just world wide thugs.
So much of the hatred and terrorism we face as a country are self inflicted. We treat other countries like a expendable pawn. Disagree with the US and you will have any aircraft carrier off your shore in a few days. This type of action only creates hatred and revenge toward us.
Think of all the lives and treasure spent in the useless wars after the big one (WW 2). Imagine the infrastructure, schools, health services, etc. we have frittered away being the new world empire.
At least the British got economic rewards from their oppressive rule.
7
This brave Mr. Boyles shipped off to Vietnam when as he points out 24,000 of the more than 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam were yet to die. Yet that war was depraved, senseless and lost before the first young American died there. But they and Mr Boyles were all heroes who suffered and died in our place, not protecting our freedom but accepting and enduring that particular consequence of living in a militaristic empire. Not to be conflated with a certain privileged incompetent flyboy nicknamed McNasty who spent no time on the ground in Vietnam and was shot down in a bid for promotion by dropping bombs on innocent people and subsequently captured and no hero at all.
3
"I had to go" is patently false. Moral compromise helped prolong the killing and the gutting of American patriotism.
3
I fought in the last major battle of the Vietnam War that involved U.S. units. In July 1970, the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, had 75 soldier killed trying to defend Firebase Ripcord against two reinforced North Vietnamese Army division. The 3rd Brigade was the same unite that had 72 killed during its assault on Hamburger Hill in May 1969.
4
Its obscene that some people still revere Henry Kissinger who helped Nixon get reelected by prolonging the war at the expense of so many thousands of dead on both sides, and including innocent civilians.
7
This piece should be required reading, especially for our president. Thank you for telling the truth of your horrible experiences. My husband was there with you in 1969, not on the ground; in the air.
3
@aries-
Ah, but it turns out our president doesn’t read, you see. He watches cable TV, the Fox Network especially, eight hours a day.
My late dad used to describe pablum founts, intellectual voids like Fox, as “chewing gum for the mind”.
5
Considering every one of our military actions since perhaps Korea but certainly Vietnam, and considering that the draft has been abolished, I simply cannot understand why anyone would enlist. I know that’s extreme, and I most certainly admire the impulse of especially the young to serve a heroic cause and stand for something noble, but this is precisely why the military should not be it. There are so many organizations and efforts that need these folks’ courage, strength, and drive...and that actually serve noble purposes. Our military is thoroughly anti-democratic and for a half-century has had our kids kill and die for lies and ignoble aims. Just say No!
6
Great essay - thank you for writing it and sharing your experience and the understanding you gained!
2
I was not drafted, but enlisted in April 1971. I ran out of money for college and needed to figure out my plan, so I enlisted in the Army. The government would help pay for my college when I got out. I did well on my pre-enlistment testing. 4 yrs of Latin in high school. I was offered foreign language school trg in return for a 4 yr commitment. I figured that was better than 2 yrs infantry. I spent 47 weeks in language school and 6 weeks in radio school. The delay of a year in going to Vietnam was very helpful to me. Big downside, I was studying N Vietnamese. Ended up going there in October, 1972 and returned home in February, 1973 at the ceasefire. Most of my unit went to Korea, I went to Ft. Hood. Spent 1 year working in battalion records ofc. I was offered the chance to get out a year early and jumped at it. I count myself lucky that having a good high school education kept me safer. So many young lives wasted, many died at 18. My oldest son spent 6 yrs in the Navy. When recruiters called for my youngest son, I told them don’t call back. We are not sacrificing sons. Our political leaders are willing to squander young lives as cannon fodder. No more.
8
Without skin in the game (ie: a precious child or spouse at risk), our "Leaders" feel and act like skirmishes and war are just a natural/expected part of a great game that comes withthe job.
Confrontations, injuries, and deaths are quickly long forgotten except by those directly impacted.
2
The war was not lost in 1969. The war was lost in 1974-1975 when the US Congress pulled funding from South Vietnam. North Vietnam was planning its real offensive for 1976, but planned a test in 1975. The South Vietnam military had tons of equipment without spare parts and ammunition, they had no ability to fight. The North Vietnamese easily overran their positions leading to imprisonment and flight for millions of our former South Vietnamese allies.
5
@Pat
No, the war was lost in 1945 when Truman and his brain trust were unable to recognize the morality and legitimacy of a movement of anti-colonial national liberation, led by Ho Chi Minh.
9
@Peeking Through The fence-
And Ho Chi Minh literally begged us for help.
European Colonialism was the problem in 1945. The French, British and Dutch tried to reestablish their pre-war Southeast Asian mercantilism that President Roosevelt, for one, loathed. He would have summarily evicted them in 1946 had he lived to finish out his fourth term, without anyone firing a shot. But because he died when he did it took a war of national liberation to evict the Dutch from Indonesia. Britain was forced to surrender control of Malaya and its South Asian, Middle Eastern and African colonies. We granted Philippines its formal independence in 1946. But the French stubbornly hung on in Indochina until defeated by Gen. Giap’s Vietminh soldiers. Ho’s government proclaimed itself to be Communist and part of the National Liberation Movement described in a U.S. National Security Council document called “NSC-68”.
Had the Republic of China not been destroyed by the Chinese Communist Party and Communist North Korea not invaded South Korea, triggering the Korean War, and Stalin’s USSR not imposed puppet Communist regimes throughout Soviet Red Army-occupied Eastern Europe (actions that culminated in Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain” speech), any significant long-term American military involvement in Indochina’s postwar political turmoil would have been inconceivable.
NSC-68 set the stage for NATO, SEATO, and our subsequent military involvement in that region.
6
I was the lucky one. Not able to find employment in my chosen field because I hadn’t gotten my “military obligation” out of the way, I attempted to enlist in the Army with promises of more education. Everything was moving right along until I went in for my physical where I was given a 4F, “not acceptable for military service” classification due to a very minor back problem. My best guess is that in 1963 the Army was very picky and had all the recruits they needed - but if I had gone in three years later they would have taken me in a flash. I also believe that if the Army had followed through with their commitments, I would have ended up photographing unspeakable carnage that would have infected my brain for all of these remaining years. I was the lucky one!
Thank you for this beautifully written essay!
7
Thank you for this piece, we can only hope those who should read this and the many comments that followed will do so and learn.
2
I cannot imagine the pain you have lived with all of these decades. When I was a kid film footage of the war was on nightly news programs during dinner so the tv would get turned off. I still remember the horror and was relieved that my uncle had been sent to Korea, not Vietnam.
My husband served as a Marine in Afghanistan and Iraq and the anger and anxiety about what could have happened won’t go away.
Thank you for telling this story.
4
William, first thank you for your service. I was drafted less than three weeks after I graduated from a two-year Community College in 1967. Yes, I panicked .... the only gun I ever held was a soldering gun .... after much thought, I decided to enlist for 4 years in the Air Force since I had learned electronics in school. I had to wait 2 months before I reported to AF basic training, but it stopped the draft notice I received from the Army. I guess I was lucky since my training school assignment was Electronic Warfare which is radar jamming. I went to school in Biloxi MIssissippi for almost a full year, very intensive training .... several of my buddies did not complete the training. Once I graduated I was assigned to a B-52 base 20 miles south of the Canadian border. From that base I had 2 deployments to a B-52 base in Southern Thailand for a total of 18 months. It was there that I fully learned and understood what was going on during the war. Constant bombing missions 24x7 ..... I am convinced that the roll of the B-52s during the war and the men and women who performed maintenance and support for the B-52s saved thousands of American and our Allies lives. However, I will take to my grave the thousands of innocent civilian lives lost because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
9
A sad and grim reminder. Almost unimaginable in so many ways...but real. It is difficult for me to ever imagine any sort of necessary large troop deployment by our country ever again. And impossible to see any of us supporting or wanting that as well. No more military invasions of other countries.
3
“Grunt to Grunt”...A great article; evoking memories and emotions stamped indelibly into the psyche of those of us that served “in country”.
5
Veterans who know war are aging quickly and the percentage of American families asked to do the actual fighting is less and less and now pathetically small. This means the vast majority of children in America are growing up without knowing anyone having any war experience.
In addition, the military is the one place where and often the first time people are exposed to others from different walks of life.
Without any model for public sacrifice in the home, foreign conflict becomes someone else’s video game and understanding of what unites us is diminished.
After Vietnam, abolishing conscription seemed like a good idea. However, 50 years after it may be time for mandatory public service for all.
10
" I also thought of getting a friendly doctor to say I had bone spurs or anxiety, but those choices would mean someone else from my refinery-town high school would have to go in my place."
That's what it's all about. Responsibility, morality, and obligation those are the pillars of a free society. Many decided to sit out the Vietnam war, such as our current President, they did so knowing full well that somebody else would be sent in their place.
It is because of Men and Women like William Boyles, those of us who feel in our Hearts that when your country calls you have to go, because without that the whole thing falls apart.
God bless him and all the other fine men who answered the call of duty. Patriotism isn't hugging the flag, patriotism is defending it when you country calls. Patriotism is caring about the man standing next to you, caring about his family. Patriotism is just caring.
The Vietnam War had a purpose and those men did not die in vain. The draft is a thing of the past, and we now have an all volunteer army. The lessons we learned in Vietnam will stay with us, it was a terrible lesson written with the blood of patriots, written with the blood of the best of a generation.
One wonders who served in Donald Trumps place, and if that person survived. One person who never asked that question...is Donald trump himself.
7
Thank you, William Broyles--thank you for your noble service in writing this editorial. Thank you for doing your part to make us feel the madness of war, and for trying to make us understand.
5
A very powerful article. The last sentence, "We learn nothing" says it all. I wish I could understand why that is...
2
"We learn nothing." Not being flip....Should the lesson have been that we don't go to war unless it's a direct attack on us? No Grenada, Panama, Iraq I, Balkans, Afghan, Iraq II, Libya, Syria.
No fair cherry-picking (Arguably some of those turned out fine, but who knew at the beginning)
Interesting to ponder how the world would have evolved differently if we struck all of those from the record.
I was 1/2 way through an Army advanced medic course at Ft. Lewis, WA, adjacent to McChord AFB when the photos in this essay were taken. Most of us in the program got orders for Nam when we graduated that November. In fact, the NCOIC (non-commissioned officer in charge) of the program had already bent sent to Nam, and not for his first tour, either. That first planeload of returning GIs may have made the national news, but it didn't make a ripple in the collective conscience of the Army base. I set foot on the ground at Bien Hoa in the middle of the night, Dec. 5th, 1969.
And so, I spent my first Christmas away from family in a hootch a few dozen yards from the perimeter wire of Quan Loi, a base camp for the 1st Cavalry Division and my unit, the 37th Medical Co, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. I had already zipped up the first of too-many-to-count body bags and loaded onto Huey's to be taken to the Long Binh/Bien Hoa area before being sent "home."
Part of Nixon's "secret plan" included a weeks' long sustained bombing of Cambodia, nine miles from Quan Loi, in preparation for what is now called the Cambodian Incursion (incursion, not invasion because Cambodia was "neutral" territory). More body bags, though not as many as anticipated when the 11th ACR led the ground assault. Nixon waited several days, until the worst was over, before he announced we had "just" crossed the border, making "just" sound like "now."
50 years sounds like a long time. It's not long enough.
10
Bill, i read your book "Brothers in Arms" back in the day, and more recently "Guts" by your friend and mine, Bob Nylen. I always wondered how I would have responded had they not stopped drafting my senior year in high school, when my lottery number came up 15. Thank goodness our military is populated by soldiers like you who are brave enough to be purposeful, humane, and honorable all while being put in impossible situations by politicians and bureaucracies who put their own pride first.
8
A prime example of why to never, never, never become involved with the the U.S. military. Young people still have the notion that they are protected by an imaginary "cloak of invulnerability". Even if they returned unharmed, the psychological damage of war never leaves them. Look at the Gulf War survivors...
3
I was drafted in 1968 after two deferments for working in a critical industry--we made ether for anesthesia and opium derivatives. I was one of the lucky ones who avoided Vietnam because of my chemistry degree. My folks fretted. My dad had been a captain in the Missouri State Guard during WWll, being in his thirties and working in communications, he avoided battle. He was such a strait shooter, I could never have shamed him by avoiding the draft. Since processing out of the Army in 1970, I think about the young man who may have taken my place and died leaving grieving parents.
6
I remember it well. The heartbreak so many of us felt because our college friends were going off to be killed while Nixon, Kissinger pretended to be negotiating peace.
24,000 of the 58,000 young American boys who died in Vietnam were there AFTER the peace talks began.
John Kerry was a hero to us. Despite his wealthy connected family making him eligible to avoid this war, he signed up and went. After his discharge, it was 1971 when he testified to Congress and said "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?" The war did not end until 1975.
America's military industrial complex has a hold on Congress and it's a killing machine. Cheney's Halliburton relationship and the Iraq war was a corrupt one.
10
Brilliant. I missed it with lucky number though I doubt I'd gone if not, for reasons so clearly articulated in this essay. I honestly never thought about the fact that had I refused another boy would have gone instead. I am haunted by that now.
I hated this war with everything in me and declared so as emphatically as possible in the streets of Washington DC. One of my friends got into a lecture and Q&A Kissinger gave at Georgetown and his question for the war criminal was "How do you sleep at night?" He was physically removed from the event.
When McNamara went on his rehabilitation and pocket-stuffing book tour my worst self wished him a slow and painful death.
Will we ever learn? It doesn't appear so. There is a military-industrial complex to feed. And the cannon fodder are someone else's kids.
8
Very much a "Look homeward angel" feel to this essay. I don't think we ever come entirely or completely home from Vietnam. It haunts. I think about it most days - more than during my relative youth - not sure why that is.
My DEROS from I Corps - 9/22/68.
5
What went on in Vietnam, AND Afghanistan, AND Iraq (and ALL WARS) was/is in large part about MONEY. Just as U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler described in his book "War Is a Racket" back in 1935.
To quote from its summary: "A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
6
Powerful piece! One thing, I’ll never understand, is the perception that U.S. Vietnamese veterans were treated poorly on their return home! In my Brooklyn sphere, we always honored our veterans for their service.
3
Fifty years ago I l left the land of Southeast Asia my year there done. Today I walk into a store and find that our shirts an other things are made in Vietnam. I wonder what the 58,000 on the Wall in D.C. would say to that. What I say is No War with Iran.
12
My Cornell graduate school classmate, 1969, drafted, took CO (conscientious objection) from his Arkansas(!!) draft board. Fifty years later, I think weekly of his bravery. Thank you, Joe.
6
Let’s not forget the somewhat recently released Nixon tapes where he clearly states that he wished to keep the war going to get re-elected. Nixon intentionally sacrificed lives on both sides, including civilians to protect his political career. I for one celebrated the day he died.
12
Everyone now and then should remind themselves that the Vietnam war was essentially a war fought over an economic system. 58,000 Americans died to uphold capitalism over the North Vietnamese choice of state ownership over private ownership .40 years later capitalism won without a shot being fired. Yes an absolute waste of young lives.
4
Thank you sir for this most poignant essay. Reading through the comments, I suspect you have given voice to many, and you leave me wanting to know more.
I was born in 1957, so my only experience of the Vietnam War was as a kid, watching the dead come home, the protests and the anguish of America.
10
Thank you for this excellent essay. You certainly captured the atmosphere of Vietnam and the feelings of many soldiers during that period. I arrived in Vietnam in December of 1969 and was also a clueless 2nd Lieutenant. My personal goal was to get every hero in my platoon home, if at all possible. No question in my mind that we had been abandoned by our politicians, as we fought with reduced support during that period.
21
In 1962 when I was stationed in Western Europe with the Army Signal Corps., I saw on the bulletin board on a Saturday morning that the Army wanted volunteers to go to a new theater in South East Asia, it was not called Vietnam at that time. The military was looking for what they called advisers. Now look what a mess it turned out to be. I am glad that I learned from early on that volunteering for something unknown in the Army was not a good idea.
8
A very moving and heart wrenching article, thanks much for the memories of that troubled time. Wish that General Shoup, Commandant, was around to protect you and all other Marines from harm's way, but I believe he retired in late 1963. If I recall correctly, he was the First American General to speak out in opposition to Vietnam around 1966.
12
@Austin Al-
He did, but not because he was opposed to fighting Soviet and Communist Chinese aggression per se. He spoke out against the Vietnam War because (echoing Gen. Omar Bradley's dismissal of Gen. McArthur’s idea of extending the Korean War into China) Vietnam was "the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy".
He also couldn’t see any way to win since it lacked a clear concise written strategic plan to win it. Nothing written down with the clarity still found in the instructions that U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall had carefully drafted that his subordinate, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, received upon his selection as Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force.
To read those instructions, go here:
https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/7-4/7-4_B.HTM
instructions that should be printed on the first page in any document titled “How To Win A War”. The only identifiable strategy that DoD applied in Vietnam was attrition. Alas, “attrition” is not a strategy, but a grand-tactic.
5
Such a poignant essay. And that last sentence - you are a young warrior still.
Thank you.
15
I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was 14 in 1965. It was and is a tough condition to have. In 1969 my draft number was 12. I remember then feeling lucky I had the disease.
21
It has been 50 years for me since my brother returned from Nam. I was in middle school at the time he enlisted, but I worried every single day until that Saturday afternoon when he walked into our living room and said, "I'm home . . . this time for good."
He and I talk a lot, especially since he stayed with us last summer through this spring battling his own fight with cancer. He always thought he was protected by a higher power while in Nam because he was a combat medic yet never got so much as a scratch.
He has been talking more and more about that time, especially about his friends and fellow soldiers who were not lucky enough to return alive and walk in their own living rooms. He can only talk for short periods of time because of the emotional weight of the stories he carries. He said the nightmares are not as extreme nor frequent as they once were.
"I alternated between great pride and helpless fury. I had cold sweats from thinking the car coming up the driveway was the casualty detail telling me that he had been killed."
The time from when my brother was in Nam until he arrived home was as terrifying as it was eventually thrilling.
I think a lot of people forget what a service man or woman's family goes through, emotionally, while they are serving this incredible country.
I think the words "great pride" and "helpless fury" says it all.
Bless all of those brave souls who did not come home alive and continued condolences to their loved ones.
46
@Marge Keller Your comments are over the top, as usual! The New York Times should compile them into a book! Thank you.
5
@Marge Keller
I've done some oral history work with old railroaders from the steam train era that ended in 1958. I urge you to get your brother to sit down with you or a history major and tape as many of his memories as possible. A hundred years from now his words will be priceless and valuable.
7
@Counter Measures
WOW! What an incredible compliment. I don't know what to say except a sincere and heartfelt thank you. Your words brought tears to my eyes.
9
I was born in the summer of 42 and went to Quang Tri Province in the summer of 69. This article was well written and was an excellent characterization of the feelings of many Marines of the Third Marine Division in the mountains and rice paddies of Quang Tri Province near the DMZ, Laos, and Khe Sanh. I went, as a Navy Surgeon, attached to the Marines, from the streets of New York's Greenwich Village to the Vandergrift Combat Base in Quang Tri Province in approximately 2 weeks. I, along with 85 Navy Corpsmen, was the family physician for a Marine Battalion, and they were weaponized and war hearty. I learned fast how to be a "Marine." The press had almost daily stories about how there was troops being returned to CONUS. No one told the NVA that the war was over. My main mission and that of the corpsmen, was to get as many of these Marines home . The hospital unit at Quang Tri did a superb job in saving those who were helicoptered in by the 911 helicopter pilots from the active battlefields. Many were sent out with high fevers and Malaria. I was pulled out with my unit 3/4 and sent to Okinawa. Many others were not sent out with us but transferred to other units. Before leaving Okinawa I had a long discussion of the meaning of this mess with the Navy Chaplin who was with one of our Marine units. The amount of casualties in 1969 stands out! I felt lucky to have survived NVA fire and Vietnam mosquitoes with Malaria. However, I did not survive AGENT ORANGE.
28
My dad served in Vietnam while the family waited his return at an abandoned SAC base in Salina, Kansas. He left as a career military patriot, having served in the waning days of WWII and throughout the Korean conflict. He came home from Vietnam a very changed man. My oldest brother joined shortly thereafter in 1967, 101st Airborne. The memory of my mother dropping to the ground as the military sedan pulled up in the yard to deliver the news that he had been killed in the Tet offensive will always be with me. A year later my dad was given orders to return to Vietnam. He chose to retire rather than be redeployed. I was drafted in the very last lottery, and was in basic training when the standdown was announced. I served in Germany, but it could have all turned out very differently. Mr. Broyles, I thank you for your combat service and your genuinely honest portrayal of that tragic war.
200
@rasweet Well said, as all Wars, conflicts, etc all sides have suffered regardless of the Victors. Which is only short-lived... etc...As with Vietnam, it was the US teenager conflict to sent in combat, who was inserted to fight in a place that the US best & brightest, failed in understanding. And with our involvements in other places where NO strategic is in danger, be it other Civil Wars, etc will always continue. Maybe try using the Peace Corps to get a better grip in life outside, Chevy, apple pie, & baseball.. many different cultures out there people...
4
In the summer of 1969 I enlisted since I knew it was just a matter of months before I would be drafted. I got lucky and spent the next three years in the U.S. Then the Army began a huge drawdown of troops and I was discharged in the spring of 1972.
These words and pictures bring back a lot of memories, but they also remind me of how much blood and treasure we waste time and time again. The grace of God kept me out of harm's way, but I grieve anew for those who weren't so fortunate.
44
Such a captivating and moving article that unfortunately is still relevant today. The bone spurs comment resonated with me - it made me think of the many Baby Boomer US Leaders (Trump, Bush Jr., etc.) who did not serve which meant another boy went (“a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight”). Thank you for writing and publishing this.
86
A heart-wrenching account of our young men’s sacrifice. Now a mom of a 17 year old boy, I cannot even picture the pain of going through this. My uncle was drafted into the Marines and set his mind on Canada. But for the grace of God he got into the Air Force Reserve just before his deployment date. I am so thankful he’s here. As for some of his young friends at the time, not so lucky.
31
"another war of dubious purpose"
The vast, vast majority of them are.
74
@mef Indeed. Yet many of our politicians are oblivious to the dubious wars.
1
My draft number was 28 and I was ready to go, when by pure fate the draft ended in spring 1972 and I graduated from college just weeks later.
Ho Chi Minh wanted to be America's friend. While Pres. Eisenhower "encouraged" our allies to leave almost every other colony in the world, in Vietnam he mistakenly supported the French. Ho could have become an IndoChina Tito.
Many of our country's problems stem from that ill begotten war. When a President used to ask for TV time in a crisis, we trusted hm, until it was shown that Johnson was lied to by his generals and we were lied to in turn. So began the major distrust of government, the loss of patriotism, the end of our schools teaching civics and history, a McCarthy-like opposition of the left to any discourse that disagrees with its point of view on campuses and elsewhere. Vietnam remains with us.
The one person who may have been able to bridge this divide was Colin Powell. I believe that America's greatest loss in recent times was his decision not to run for President. Had he run, he likely would have won in either party and we wouldn't of had George W. We might of had 9/11, but very unlikely the senseless effort to try to create democracies in middle east countries that never wanted them. With Powell, we might have learned something.
88
@Mr. Independent Powell did get his chance to make a difference. He could have opposed the senseless Iraq war built on lies and broken the momentum of that march to war. Instead, he chose to lie for Bush at the UN where he showed off questionable evidence in support of the effort. Shame on him for choosing to remain in the cabinet instead of doing the right thing.
15
@Mr. Independent
Colin Powell lied to us about Iraq. I felt betrayed as he stood before Congress and say that we knew a guy who had a cousin who knew a guy who knew a guy who said that there were good reasons we should invade Iraq.
No hero there, just another servant doing his master's bidding.
15
@Mr. Independent
Right on point. Ho wanted friendship with the US and we wanted imperialism. We supported the French after their disaster in WWII. The rest is history, and a shattered country, and over a million dead for "national honor," after the French left.
4
"There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs."
- Dwight D [Ike] Eisenhower
76
Thank you for writing this. Beautifully written with your final sentence, “We learn nothing” so poetic yet so unbearably painful and true.
37
60,000 wasted lives plus thousands of civilians.
We never learn; indeed.
28
@Jack McDonald
60,000? I think you are forgetting the Vietnamese dead, who number over a million.
2
Millions perished on the Vietnamese side. We usually say nothing about them.
2
@Jack McDonald
more like a million wasted lives
2
I was a PFC in C, 1/9, 3rd MarDiv in Jun69 when we were called together and told that we were all going home. We immediately left on Operation Utah Mesa. You can look that up for yourselves.
They didn't have time to rotate in a lot of short-timers, so everyone was taken. Even guys that hadn't been to the bush yet and gotten the full Walking Dead experience were pulled out. Probably the only time in the history of the Marine Corps that anyone actually wanted to be in 1/9 with its historically high combat casualty rate was Jun69.
The piecemeal withdrawal has always been difficult for me to accept. After I was pulled out, I met a friend from training on Okinawa that was going back to 1stMarDiv after recovering from a gunshot wound. I could only listen to his anguish. It was terrible. It still makes me angry when I think about it and in some ways I still feel guilty that I was one of the lucky ones.
217
Thank you Mr. Broyles for your service and for sharing your story.
20
Thank you Mr. Broyles for reminding us. Read every word when I often just scan the news. I am a tad younger, had a college deferment and then "won" the draft lottery with a number of 322. But like you I was ready to join up if the lottery had not happened. I may have been there in the last stupid year. We never learn.
13
At what point do American citizens embrace War. Is it only after a thorough vetting by each and every citizen of the Nation? Do we just let anyone opt-out who doesn’t agree with a particular national policy?
When WWII started (Pre-Pearl Harbor) the majority of Americans were opposed to our entry. —Yet now many decades later the generation that served is viewed as the “Greatest”?
I don’t presume to know the answers to these questions—In the future maybe drones and other non-human devices will do all of the violence for us.
Still as a kid from Texas who grew up watching John Wayne movies — I wasn’t going to miss the war. I joined in 69. — and arrived in Vietnam in 1970 with the best job in the Army. 11-B Combat Infantry. I-Corps 70-71. I wouldn’t change a thing.
Came home and ETS on July2 1971 and 10 days later I was sitting in a classroom at The University of Texas. I didn’t feel sorry for myself—suffered no known PTSD, — On occasion I would wear Vietnam Vet garb to class and never hid that I had been an American soldier Vietnam—-UT Austin was a very liberal campus— Yet no one ever spit on-me.
I’ve been back to that amazing country and will go back one more time. Over the years I’ve attended many Vietnam related events. But, even now, a half century later— many are still angst ridden about that war. Not me.
Mike Whatley
11B Infantry Scout Dog Handler/ 101St Abn Division 70-71
Charlottesville, Va
20
@mewcomm
The fact remains: We were told that if South Vietnam fell the remainder of the Pacific rim would also fall - like a row of dominoes. Well, the south fell and nothing else did. And for this, over 58 thousand of our brothers - many of them in, or just out of their teens - gave their lives. I'm glad that you don't experience any PTSD nor "angst", but you, sir, are the exception.
5
Vietnam had nothing on WWI when it came to senseless slaughter, but the wrongheadedness of our intervention into their civil war still stings. As does the use of poor young people to fight (and die) for the ego-driven fever dreams of pampered politicians.
I'm still waiting for those dominoes to fall.
37
My wife and I organized and protested the war. The war made no sense. VietNam and China had been rivals when our ancestors were in caves. There was no domino to fall.
The war was fought so LBJ and Nixon could find shelter from being accused of being 'Soft on Communists'.
That is the one true answer to why all of those deaths, maiming and loss of treasure happened.
Kissinger was a traitor and has not only the blood of Americans and Vietnamese on his hands but also the people of Chile.
65
@Edward B. Blau
Don't forget JFK's 11,000 military "advisors" that were sent in 1962.
7
@Edward B. Blau. Why is there such amnesia about JFK’s role in escalating Vietnam? Why is partisanship so pervasive even in looking back on heroism and tragedy?
It seems a running theme in many of these posts, and truly disgraceful.
7
And now, rather than stick with the Iran Nuclear Accord, trying to improve it, Trump throws it away and puffs up his chest, willing to put other people's sons and daughters in harms way.
There were plenty of folks (academics and foreign service officers, for example) at the time of the Vietnam War who had studied the area, had experience living there, and understood the history and interests of the countries of Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the Soviet Union, and advised how best to analyze what was going on, how to work on moving things in the right direction, and how to avoid war. But the fools won the day and sacrificed many for their stupidity.
Today there are plenty who have a good understanding of the Middle East, and try to advise how to avoid war and how to do things to reduce the tensions there and to pressure all sides to work on diplomacy -- and keep our young ones out of harm's way. But fools vote for Trump and Trump hires Bolton and look out.
75
@JustThinkin
Competence has a well-known liberal bias.
11
I have not learned.
I have not learned you’re point.
Is it pacifism?
Is it War no more? The lesson of the lost generation and prelude to World War Two?
Is it that the US is now in useless wars?
I for one would pay to know how to identify and avoid pointless wars.
Do tell.
And please have China in the chain.
And pararescue is a good thing and requires extraordinary people like those the SEALS lie about being when not committing war crimes or ordinary murder out of old school loyalty. Or so I read. Loyalty the defendant said it was all about. Not all SEALS of course. Just enough. With Trump’s approval showing it goes all the way to the top.
So if you got the answers I am all ears.
4
@In deed
Ok, here are some suggestions.
1. If a war is proposed, begin with the assumption that it is pointless. Do not begin with the assumption that you must defer to the wisdom of the politicians, generals, and spies.
2. A war in a foreign country to help one side in a civil war (Vietnam) or to effect regime change (Iraq) is almost certainly a pointless war.
3. If someone claims that war is necessary to protect our "way of life" (all of South and Central America, Vietnam, Iran) look around at other countries who share the same way of life. The overwhelming consensus among free and democratic countries was that the wars in Vietnam and Iraq were worse than pointless, they were illegal and immoral. The overwhelming consensus among free and democratic countries was that Iran was abiding by the nuclear agreement. Americans were and are too arrogant to listen to their friends and allies.
4. Any war in Russia is pointless (a mistake the US is unlikely to make) and any war against China is pointless (a mistake that the US will very likely make in the next five to ten years).
5. Trade wars are pointless, and are dangerous, because they lead to real wars (see point 4).
7
@Peeking Through The fence
Fascinating.
So the US has the unilateral power to decide if there will be war with others.
Exceptional!
Untrue but oh well.
Sweet too that this exposition assumes either the world is without Marxism Leninism or that it does not matter that Marxism Leninism is in a forever war with capitalism that it plans on winning. As Emperor Xi and his Steve Bannon have made quite clear.
Details. Details.
Lt. Broyles,
I was a weapons crew chief on B-52s flying out of Utapao, RTNAB, Thailand. We flew sorties 24/7 from the time I got there, 3/29/73 - 8/15/73. Little did I know that what we were doing was illegal. We murdered 200-300,00 Cambodians to keep the Khmer Rouge from over-running Phnom Penh. I'll also tell you about my trip from Thailand to Guam in 10/73 during the Yom Kippur War. That was a real DEFCON3 that no one really knows about. Cuban Missile Crisis level. I sure do because I was there. And Nixon slept through it. But I have deeper concerns for Thai vets in general. We are less recognized than 'Nam vets. We were exposed to AO as much as vets were in 'Nam. Ironically, Utapao is now Thailand's 3rd international airport. Since the Peace Accords were signed in 1/73, Paris, we knew something wasn't right with our Operation Freedom Deal, as it was called. Congress caught up in 6/73 and shut it down on 8/15 of that year. Nixon and Kissinger are both war criminals. I feel your pain, Lt. Thanks for a mighty fine piece.
70
Confirmed US causalities from 50 years ago up to the official end of the war in 1975. (https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics)
1969 = 11,780
1970 = 6,173
1971 = 2,414
1972 = 759
1973 = 68
1974 = 1
1975 = 62
There are several more listed after this date. Those were recovered remains. The search and recovery still continues.
5
@John
Your numbers do not add up.
The sum is nowhere near the 58,000 plus American military personell that died in Viet Nam between '69 and '75.
2
@two cents
The numbers add up in reference to what the writer said in his story --"Fifty years ago, American troops began withdrawing, but tens of thousands were yet to die." 1969 was 50 years ago. I know 58,000 + died throughout the entire war, but that is not what the story was about. Check my reference that I listed. It will show you that 58,000 were NOT killed between 1969 and 1975. The number between those years is 21,257.
2
To Brother Broyles:
Remember this saying;
"We the unwilling, led by the incapable asked to to the impossible for the ungrateful"
And so it goes, the history of the Vietnam.
A Fellow Grunt
51
After this article, how is our country “great” in anyway.
12
To quote from Air Force General Merrill McPeak in "Hangar Flying"... "I got the impression that he'd (another new pilot) volunteered for Vietnam to get away from all that (messy civilian life). As a reason for being here, it didn't pass the Farmer Jones logic test, but then the rationale for any of us being here was not so hot...."
5
war, what is it good for? absolutely nothing. and ever since, there has been an economic draft to send the children of the poor into danger as cannon fodder
14
“I have 58 men. Only 20 have high school diplomas. Average age 19. Over and over I read: address of father: unknown; education: one or two years of high school; occupation: laborer, pecan sheller, gas station attendant, Job Corps. They had grown up in the ghetto or Appalachia or along the Rio Grande border or on a rez. Kids with no place to go. No place but here.” LASER-QUALITY WORDS.
63
Just so it is clear to you...you didn't HAVE to go. Many of us who were anti-war and part of the "counter culture" refused. You could have too.
13
@John Paul Esposito
If you had money and means, yes. Everyone else? No.
1
@John Paul Esposito
In retrospect, knowing what I know now, I wish I had refused. Being naive and lied to by our government, I served like the author, feeling it was the honorable thing to do. What a sucker I was. I should have paid off some doctor to get me exempted for bone spurs.
4
@John Paul Esposito what's your point here? He went and served instead of you. Why attack him? Ridiculous and sad.
3
An honest and moving essay.
My Vietnam era story is hardly noble but probably pretty common.
I turned 18 in late 1968 and was a High School senior in Tucson, Az. Thankfully no one reached out and touched me. In August 1969 I became an undergraduate at the University of Arizona so had a student deferment. I still worried and wondered what I would do if called serve and potentially deployed to a war I knew was lost and for which I could see no purpose. The lottery was instituted. I think that was 1971 or 72. I got a number that made it clear I would never be drafted. Blessed relief.
After college I spent my professional life in Federal service of one type or another for over 40 years. I'm proud of it. But, I don't regret for a second that I successfully evaded being drafted and sent to Vietnam. I do regret the thought that someone went in my place to a fate I will never know. And, I do regret that more than 40 years after we lost that war I still can't see how our presence did anyone any good.
27
Thank you for your powerful and moving essay. I was ten in 1969, living in Brooklyn with my parents and twelve year old brother. The war was discussed often in our home as my parents actively protested (my dad was a WWII veteran having served three years in the Pacific) and we saw regular reminders in our neighborhood of boys not coming home. And they were indeed boys, as you sadly highlight in your story. At that time and until the war was officially over in 1975 I remember counting the years until it could be my brother's and then my turn to go. I'm sure my parents were in regular fits of worry, particularly given the lack of faith most had in our political leadership at the time. We do indeed learn nothing.
25
This is a powerful and wise piece of writing that I am deeply moved by. Like the author and many other young Americans I also resisted a senseless war that cost 58,000 US lives, including my best friend, and more than two million Asian ones, mostly civilians in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. For what? Because of the so-called Domino theory? Or for the fantasy that the Vietnamese wanted to be part of China? The senseless invasion of Iraq shows that the powerfuI have learned nothing and now war with Iran is a real possibility. They will never learn.
I chose the Canada option 51 years ago and feel blessed that I did. I was not drafted and my number did not come up in the 1969 lottery, but I never even considered returning and instead renounced my US citizenship. I had and have no desire to be part of a military empire. I can barely imagine the suffering and terror those who went to Vietnam endured and weep for those who died for no good reason.
441
@Tom Barrett There is nothing to learn. They know the score. They don't care.
34
Good piece, but no better and no worse than thousands some of us carry inside, many never spoken. With some fifty years - a half a century - having passed, as good a time as any to hear it one more time.
I disagree we have learned nothing. Question to me is whether or not we learned the right lessons. My own include not to go on crusades where we are neither welcome nor effective, and certainly not to persist in the vain hope in avoiding "another Vietnam".
13
I experienced something similar to the "mixmaster" tactic. I landed in Vietnam the day Nixon was inaugurated and while at 90th Replacement in Long Binh heard highlights of his inaugural while I was awaiting deployment to my assigned unit. I wondered what Nixon's plan to end the war was and how it would impact my 1 year tour.
I was ultimately assigned to a field artillery battery which was part of the 54th Field Artillery group. Sometime later that year we were advised that as part of Nixon's "pullout" the 54th FA Group was heading back to the States. Whatever momentary joy there may have been was immediately chilled by the realization that the only part of the 54th FA Group going home was the guidon flag and a few administrative types to escort it home. The personnel then serving in the 54th FA Group were all administratively transferred to the 23rd FA Group. Nobody actually moved anywhere and nobody went home any earlier than originally scheduled. All of our artillery pieces and vehicles were repainted to reflect that we were now part of the 23rd FA Group. That was peace with honor.
Too bad LBJ and Dirksen lacked the courage to make Nixon's treason known to the general public . The Watergate tapes were child's play compared to this treachery.
All those lives lost; all those lives shattered. And for what. For nothing.
Thanks Mr. Broyles for your very thoughtful piece and, of course, for your service.
110
Speechless. I will spend the rest of the day thinking of this article, thank you for your service and your eloquence.
30
@Karl
Ditto.
To quote another commenter (Jackie Jouret),
"Powerful piece of writing". It warrants repeating.
2
For several decades presidential candidates have been judged by whether or not they served in Vietnam and this has been a farce. The three Vietnam vets who were nominated were all defeated: McCain, Gore and Kerry. I was serving as an Air Force captain in 1966-68 and frankly my admiration goes to those who found a way to stay out of that mess.
22
I was in Viet Nam same time as Mr Broyles only further south. I was over 6 foot so I was in a few passing out ceremonies, they liked them troops big more impressive I guess. It really was surreal.
It wasn’t a bad gig you got the day off for rehearsal and the actual day of the parade. The TV cameras were there but we marched that badly that they had us in formation rather than march on and off.
7
This is a very nice follow-up to the series you did in 2017.
Our country is embarking on a hero worship about our veterans because veterans are success stories: They get jobs, they go through rehabilitation and learn to mountain-bike, and most importantly: they are alive and don’t die.
This country does not like to talk about the dead. In particular it does not like to talk about the children of the dead.
It would be nice to hear something about the experience and the reality of Golf Star Children and Families m, many of whom had to live (or continue to live ) in poverty once the main breadwinner is killed in action.
23
Brilliantly written as your words clearly paint a picture for us. As I have travelled to Southeast Asia to vacation, I continue to be amazed by how friendly the Vietnamese people are to Americans who vacation there. I have a hard time going there now and seeing those countries, then asking myself if the loss of American lives helped these people at all and the answer is a clear no. We have not learned nor we will ever given the egos involved in politics.
11
Missing from this article is the reason why the U.S. government was forced to withdraw from Vietnam: the unrelenting pressure from American citizens who refused to support an immoral military adventure.
Nor was it a “war”. Only Congress can declare war, and it consistently refused to do so.
So I’m sorry, Mr. Broyles, you did not go to war. You were tricked into service, and even at this late date, you seem unwilling to acknowledge how and why the trickery was exposed, and the role of the genuine American patriots who saved your life.
7
@Global Charm
A pedantic and ultimately untrue comment.
It may not have been a "declared" war...but we haven't had one of those since WWII. It was fought as a war and experienced as a war by those caught up in it on both sides. Who cares what you call it from British Columbia?
The anti-war movement was pivotal and did bring about cessation of hostilities. However, the majority of individual participants protesting did not act as patriots nor did they save Mr. Broyles life. Most protestors acted out of a moral sense salted by a stronger dose of self-preservation. This was not love-of-country patriotism nor even loyalty to the Constitution.
Mr. Broyles is with us today through a combination of training, luck and the effectiveness of his senior NCOs. So are all of us...protestors may have saved others' lives among those who may have had to come later. But they certainly did not save the lives of those of us who were in country.
The essay is one man's reflection on his experience; you've attempted to turn it into a foil for flogging your myth of patriotism. I wonder if you were born in BC?
3
The Gulf of Tonkin resolution was based upon a phantom attack on two US destroyers by phantom NVA gun boats.
President Nixon while campaigning for the presidency in 1968, persuaded South Vietnam to withdraw from the peace talks in Paris.
In my Bronx neighborhood many of the draftees were the first sons to go to college. One of the Bronx sons was KIA 6-26-1969.
We don't learn. We do not teach our children.
15
@brian kennedy
Brian, the Tonkin Resolution was written two months before the alleged attack on our vessel.
I often wondered who, in which office, wrote the Tonkin Resolution. After much digging I found it. William Bundy (Asst Sec of State for Far Eastern Affairs) wrote a Resolution two months before the Maddox incident.
See p.46 of this document, left column, midway down:
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/relea00012.pdf
5
When we went into Iraq the second time it felt like Vietnam to me. My generation of anti war protestors and casualties was acting like our fathers did in Vietnam. But we knew better. But we don’t know better. And we still don’t know better because we are about to do it again.
11
Wars are as old as humanity so there is no reason to think that we will stop waging them some day. They are fought for irrational reasons, yet a lot of what humanity does is not all that rational anyway. This is who we are, try as we may, there seems to be no escaping it.
6
Why do we keep fighting these senseless overseas wars? Did we learn NOTHING from the Vietnam war? Just like Vietnam, Afghanistan is not winnable, that was already known two years into that war. And STILL we go at it; trump's promise of a withdrawal turned out to be empty, like all his other promises. When will the US finally learn that you can NOT defeat a highly motivated enemy, no matter how fancy your own weapons are? Actually, those "fancy weapons", in THAT lies the answer. SO much money goes around in the defense industry, politicians sure do not want to miss out on that, so the (war) show must go on. The Afghan war costs the American taxpayer 45 BILLION a year. While our infrastructure at home is crumbling, and our health care system is a farce. Why do people keep voting for politicians who support all this war nonsense?
15
Just as now, we were told back then that we had the most powerful military on earth. Bombing them back into the stone age was the plan. We saw how that worked out. Since the revolutionaries fought to keep the airports safe, we haven't learned much.
14
Great article. I was a 22 year old college grad. “Volunteered” for the draft and was given an RA serial number. This was one digit off from the RA67 given to Project 100,000 which insured that a significant number of people who were early judged “unfit” were inducted. 19 of the 22 people in my AIT platoon were 100,000 draftees. most didn’t have a clue. While Cheney, and others were doing better things, these guys did their jobs without a great many complaints
11
It is the enlistee for ignoble wars of choice that enables the rotten politician to run his rotten wars. If a war is right and necessary, then the citizenry will support a draft. If it is not they will not. This simple fact needs to be held up against the constant clamor of "support the troops" and the even more ridiculous, "thank you for your service." Yeah, thank you for joining up so the rest of the country can be free to spend the absolute least effort considering whether the war is right, and politicians can run war for the interests of the Davos Class.
I tell young people in uniform I see, "Glad to see you are healthy and alive and; I do not thank you for your service, you are being used, and as they use you, they use us."
24
On July 21, 1967, I declined to submit to induction into the military on the basis of opposition to the Vietnam War and the then administration of the Selective Service System. I did then, and do now, hold that we are obligated (as individuals and as citizens) to act upon and accept personal responsibility for fundamental and deeply held principles.
I was charged with a violation of the Universal Military Training and Service Act and convicted on January 19, 1968. I was sentenced to five (5) years in the custody of the U.S. Attorney General.
My attorneys, the American Civil Liberties Union, pursued the case to the United States Supreme Court with the position that the system of exemptions and deferments administered by the Selective Service System was in violation of the protections granted through the Thirteenth (prohibits involuntary servitude / slavery), Fifth (prohibits deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process of law) and Ninth (individual rights not superseded by other enumerated rights in the Constitution) Amendments to the Constitution. We were denied certiorari (i.e., the Supreme Court disagreed that Constitutional issues were involved).
In October 1969 the Selective Service system of exemptions and deferments was abolished and replaced by the lottery system.
17
Powerful piece of writing. Thank you.
5
Old blind Homer recited the great war story from one end of Greece to the other; its greatness isn’t only the exquisite poetry or the gruesome details, those that drew Lincoln to the Iliad during the Civil War, but the idiocy of war since well near a million people died during the decade of the Trojan War that was fought over the arrogance of a warlord whose wife left him for a cowardly prince. Vietnam was a proxy war for us and a great excuse for dozens of war mongering corporations to make billions. I refused induction in 1966 even though I didn’t then know that Jerry Springer would one day host Miss Universe in Ho Chi Minh City. I did know however that my country hadn’t been invaded or attacked by either Vietnam and I knew that countries had been invading both Vietnams for nearly a millennium. I am still sad for young men drafted into the war and still outraged for the men who volunteered to kill in it. Of the aged vets I continue to know, not one supported the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and all supported the fight against Al Qaeda.
13
You don't stop the killing by getting a friendly doctor to give you a letter for a bogus medical deferment. You don't stop the killing by giving in and going to war.
You stop the killing by refusing to go along with it. By resisting, as many did at that time.
Eventually, the resistance won and the war was over.
But it would have been over sooner if more people resisted.
13
I was a U.S. Army 1/Lt on active duty from 1961 - 1964. If ordered to Viet Vietnam, surely I would have complied with those orders. I feel so fortunate that I missed that war and all other wars since then that have been cooked up by our greedy politicians and military/industrial complex. After Vietnam, the politicians killed the draft with the understanding that future draftees and the American public would violently protest future politically phoney wars.
213
Well said!
13
If our leaders learned that we will not go, then that is progress. Not much wisdom gained for the cost. And I don't hear politicians taking that lesson to heart. I hear the same old garbage.
@PoliticalGenius
36
The article pulled me in so many different ways. "Helpless fury and great pride." Thank you Mr Boyles for your service in support of our country, right or wrong, and for this powerful article. I have to believe we learn from our mistakes, but each generation gets to keep on making them for themselves. Stories like yours help to remind us of what we lose when we forget our past mistakes and tragedies.
11
One shouldn’t support their country when it’s wrong. Support what is right.
1
Great article (thoughtful and well articulated) and thank you to you and your family for your service. While sometimes not for the best of reasons it is, never the less, greatly appreciated!
7
Thank you Mr. Broyles for this sad and moving story.
16
Beautiful and sad story, brings to mind the best book I've read on that war, The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien.
17
@dave the wave Dispatches by Michael Herr!
2
Another sad chapter in the history of the USA. For the best detailed account of the American involvement in Vietnam, I recommend VIETNAM: AN EPIC TRAGEDY 1945-1975, by the great historian Max Hastings, who reported from Vietnam in the early days of the US military buildup (when I arrived there in 1966) and then returned frequently until the ultimate debacle. My time in Vietnam changed my life forever. It gave me a new political and historical perspective of the USA and, unfortunately, a cynicism about our country that is imbedded within me to this day.
98
Great article!
I was drafted May 8, 1969 and arrived in Vietnam on October 20, 1969 fresh out of advanced infantry school. As I recall, no members of Congress had family members serving in Vietnam. Draftees were mainly males from the lower economic classes which included many minorities. It is also well known that many of my contemporaries voided Vietnam service at any cost (Clinton, Cheney, Romney, Gore, Trump and Bush to name a few).
The only winner in the war was the US military-industrial complex that has continued since Vietnam to press for additional wars to sell their products and services. We have seen that war is entirely about money and/or oil.
277
@FailedDrugTest
Actually, Al Gore did serve in Vietnam in the military.
96
@FailedDrugTest
Many honorable men went to great lengths to avoid service in Vietnam. Only one of those guys, among those you listed, joked about it, with comments like "avoiding STDs was my personal Vietnam". Only one of those guys disparaged a former POW who went on to serve in the US Senate, with the comment "I admire guys who weren't captured." And now that guy is our president.
228
@FailedDrugTest
Al Gore served in the Army and deployed to VietNam as a military journalist. He deliberately refused OCS because he felt that most people where he grew up served in the enlisted ranks and he should, too. There are suggestions that the Nixon administration deliberately delayed his deployment so that he wouldn't look good in his father's Senate re-election campaign.
82
On the contrary, the right-wing learned a great deal from Vietnam. Most importantly how to isolate our military adventures from the vast majority of the public so they don't really have a personal stake in protesting or objecting.
349
@Pat
I think it also made them really, really good at learning how to ignore protests and turn our military into a sacred thing so that questioning justifications for war = hating the troops.
96
@Pat
Yup! And the critical piece, NO DRAFT. Although bone spurs and college did shelter the well to do and rich eventually with a draft the upper crust had to deal with these “ actions”, now we just “ enlist” our working class, right, they pay the money hides.
Sadly, No draft Vietnam would never have ignited such massive protests .
14
@Pat....yes the draft was abolished to neutralize organized complaints by the public about right wing wars started by Cheney, et. al..
14
"We learn nothing." Wow. I wish all Americans would feel the same as this former soldier.
143
Great article.
Although a Navy vet (1968-72, four tours in Vietnam), I had no idea that was the mood on the ground. We sailors just thought that the war was pointless and fraudulent.
Folks in the U.S. never got the real story back home. "Stars and Stripes" was blatant propaganda.
And Nixon -- surprise, surprise -- lied constantly: I remember after he was caught out in Laos, which he promised thereafter to stay out of, we landed Republic of Korea marines into Cambodia via helicopter. I questioned my chief, a highly decorated war hero, about it; he said, "Muncy, what the American people don't know, don't hurt 'em."
[Just remembered: He said if he were ordered back on a PBR in-country, he'd go AWOL, or UA, as it was then called. He was willing for other guys to die, but he was done with it.]
47
@Jim Muncy
Fifty years ago this month I was with an Assault Helicopter Company which transported and supported ROK Marines. When first arriving in VN the Company Comander of another company gave us all Zippo Lighters with the company insignia engraved. I didn't smoke.
One day when we knew we were deploying ROKs in Cambodia despite Nixon's denials I threw my lighter out the window hoping it would be proof of our actions someday.
17
@Jim Muncy
"Stars and Stripes" may have been "blatant propaganda," but it was not, nor has ever been, read by the folks back home. As a former employee I can tell you that newspaper only went to US military members stationed abroad. It was distributed free of charge in deployed areas then, and still is today.
8
@Lupo Scritor
Thank you. I didn't know that. But it was propaganda for us, but if we were near the event, of course, we knew the truth.
As one example, "Stars and Stripes" claimed that the U.S.S. New Jersey was headed to Japan for well-deserved R&R. The truth was that it had blown an engine in the middle of a major operation. We needed them there, but they had to leave. R&R, huh?
4
Every soldier killed is one too many, in this unholy barbaric war, but how many more Vietnamese and Combodjans, innocent men, women and children, were killed seems of less importance in American eyes. The same goes for my country, in the war in Indonesia. Shouldn't we, Western people , reconsider rewriting history as it truely happened?
59
@willem helwig Rewrite history as it truly happened? To paraphrase a movie line, many people cannot handle the truth.
5
I’m betting there are accounts if these wars already written by Asian people, we in the West just don’t know about it.
5
@Northwoods Cynic
True
Powerful article.
Whatever happened to leadership by example?
Cheney "had better things to do." W stayed stateside, helped by daddy. Trump had bone spurs, but can't remember which foot. Clinton was clever but also got lucky, as his birthday got draft number 311.
We have leadership by exception: rules apply to everyone except me.
236
@Europasr2 One shouldn't forget about Trump's war-monger John Bolton: "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy… I considered the war in Vietnam already lost.”
58
@Europasr2
John McCain served in Vietnam but unfortunately spent years in a POW camp, which, according to captain bone spur, was about the worse most shameful thing a military person could do.
12
It is wonderful to read these. Thank you for sharing. I am fascinated by LBJ and his times, and the times he created. His own father fought in politics for what he termed those "caught in the tentacles of circumstance," the more I read about LBJ I wonder if his deal w/ the devil The Browns of Brown and Root was the deal he made for those oppressed, they got their war and the war contracts, and he got his Great Society? Look at what is happening on our own border, very rich military contractors are profiting off these concentration camps. When and where does it stop? Bring back the draft!
28
I really hope the US switches from deploying Hard Power to Soft Power. People are drawn to America because of the Moon Mission, Hollywood, and the Bill of Rights. Not because of the US boots on the ground permanently on faraway missions. Or displays of tanks along the Potomac on July 4. And definitely not recklessly trashing atomic non-proliferation treaties which were so painstakingly built.
102
When talking about not learning anything I would suggest that it is those in power who do not have a vested interest in learning. Imperialist wars are the means by which they maintain power. I think those of us who have learned the lessons of the negative impact of force and war have the responsibility to continue to try and stop our government and the corporations that fund it from continuing down this road as was done in the anti-war movement.
38
Thank you, Mr. Broyles, for this moving, brilliantly written essay, a reminder of the horrific tragedy of the unnecessary Vietnam War--and all unnecessary wars and needless interventions. Your World War I reference is certainly apt.
93
Under any circumstance, war is terrible. And, it only becomes worse when it is as pointless as the Viet Nam War and the US Invasion of Iraq (2003-2011).
History will not judge us kindly: it was a colossal waste of people and resources. At least the Vietnamese won their freedom.
Thank you for writing this.
99
@PlayOn - History will not judge us kindly? Do you read history and have any sense of the hagiography that has been manufactured to cover for this vast crime? History has judged this very kindly indeed and it has worked. You can get into an argument over Vietnam with half of America, the half that never bothers to read real history and believes what it wants to believe.
13
@PlayOn Reminder: Vietnam won its freedom by resisting the US.
11
Obviously Mr. Broyles must have ended up volunteering as he became a Marine officer.
I wonder if he really believes that by doing this, he spared any else from his high school from going.
And perhaps he could have gotten a "friendly" doctor to get him a medical deferment but this might have not been that easy. Trump may have gotten one for alleged bone spurs but that appears to be because the doctor's landlord was Trump's father and there is no evidence that the doctor was writing similar letters for anyone else.
11
@Steve
Draftees could become officers, if chosen for officer candidacy school. And I don't believe a college degree was necessary by the late 60's.
2
@Steve, anyone attending a large university could easily find a list of the names of doctors and psychiatrists sympathetic to the anti war movement. When I went for my physical at Whitehall Street in 1970, the crowd was divided into two groups, the college graduates who were 22 years old or more and had manillla folders under their arms, containing their doctor's letters and the 18 year old recent high school grads who stood around nervously laughing with one another.
14
@Steve
Not all ‘volunteers’ in the Vietnam era had volunteered to go to war. For many young men without the means to pay for college, joining the ROTC on campus provided financial aid, which along with a part-time or summer job, allowed them to complete their educations in exchange for a 4-year commitment to serve. Many of these young men had made that ‘bargain’ either before the war or while it was still very limited. That was the case with my brother, who was sent to Vietnam in the summer of ‘69, as other soldiers were being withdrawn, and was killed several months later.
Nixon had run in 1968 on ending the war quickly, but dragged his feet on actually ending it so that he could use it politically when he ran for re-election in 1972. If he had ended it too soon, the voters might not remember his ‘feat’ several years later. Thus the sham ‘drawdown’ and ‘mixmaster’ strategies. From 1969 on, many American soldiers and Vietnamese and countless innocent Southeast Asians lost their lives for nothing other than Nixon’s political calculations.
22
your words are our education. thank you.
14
I wish someone would eventually put together a history of the atrocities, such as the one you describe, committed by the N Vietnamese. Such Freedom Fighters...
Unfortunately, Walter never reported on it.
8
@Twainiac
Atrocities were committed on both sides, including by US troops (e.g., the My Lai massacre). War itself is an atrocity.
7
@JR
The difference being that My Lai was reported.
And contrary to popular opinion we didn't compare to N Viet Nam in any way.
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.TAB11.1.GIF
The truth shall set you free.
No comment just tears
28
And by 1965 Johnson, McNamara, Rusk and the other "best and brightest" lunatic psychopaths knew that this war was already lost! Talk about war criminals.
131
@mk
Exactly, "mk!" The politicians knew it was a losing cause. The Pentagon had "gamed" the conflict several times, and each time the insurgents, the Viet Cong, won the "game."
3
Ho Chi Minh used to quote Thomas Jefferson in his anti-French colonialist speeches. He came to America in 1910 to better understand American democracy. On Long Island he met Koreans whose nation had just been raped by Japanese imperialism (after Japanese agent and US President T. Roosevelt GAVE Korea to Japan as a war prize in 1905).
The Koreans told Ho to forget "help" from America.
Ho then went to Paris and became a communist.
He wrote President Wilson for help (with French imperialism in Indochina/Viet Nam) and was ignored.
In September 1945, Ho had dinner in Hanoi with a US Army Tiger Team major who asked "Ho, are you a communist?" Ho said, "Yes, but we can still be friends can't we?"
President Truman ignored Ho's letters for years.
The North Koreans who had resisted Japanese rape for decades went on civil war mode with the south; and it escalated into Cold War. Over in the South China Sea, Vietnam went from being a "French problem" to a full blown imperialist destruction of a people. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution was the American "leadership" into the militarism and fascism that Eisenhower warned about in 1961...and which is now running global domination from 4800 mostly secret US bases and "stations" worldwide. Pure global military empire, run by millionaire fascists in Washington.
77
Mr Broyles, even if your essay feels like an exercise in futility ("we learn nothing"), it is a moment of clarity, the hallmark of culture. Culture is not all of life, but only the moment of clarity, a point of orientation around which we can feel some renewed sense of order and hopefulness. Thank you.
27
@Felix I think we will find out whether the essay, and similar expressions of others through the years, is an exercise in futility when we see what happens with Iran. I don't know one way or the other about what bad things the Iranians are doing, but I would hope the history of overthrowing the Iranian elected government and substituting a brutal dictatorship (Operation Ajax, Google it), our shooting down of a civilian Iranian passenger plane causing hundreds of civilian deaths, our withdrawal from a long negotiated treaty, movement of military personnel and equipment adjacent to Iran, would all be taken into account in considering what policies are best in relation to Iran. Needless to say, I don't count on Trump to weigh these things.
5
Humankind has never been able, and never will be able, to eradicate war. So long as we remain the commanding species on Earth (which won't last for ever) we must see to it that AI will do it for us - convincingly.
One of the best essays about war I have ever read. Right up there with "the things they carried".
53
Thank you for writing this. Now, as then, we need more honest truth and you've just given us some.
29
Very moving and powerful.
17
Mr. Broyles' brilliant piece aches with the tragedy of lives and innocence lost, and the profound message that no, we have not learned. Above all, though, his sense of honor and morality is painfully awe-inspiring:
'I also thought of getting a friendly doctor to say I had bone spurs or anxiety, but those choices would mean someone else from my refinery-town high school would have to go in my place.'
Thank you for educating us - so that more people will, someday, learn.
44
@common sense advocate
Another touching and poignant summary from a classy commenter. Beautiful job as always.
The very best to you and your family, and a gracious hello to your son. Take care and enjoy the weekend!
4
I was one of the lucky ones - caught in the first lottery with number 35. Luckily, by then I had a year of occupational experience as an engineer and was sent to Frankford Arsenal (Philadelphia). It was a small collection of drafted mathematicians, engineers, physicists etc. who had no business in the fighting army.
Yet, we still had military duties - the most important being driver on casualty detail. I'll never ever forget the unspoken words that I could see being formed from a mother "why are you alive and my son is dead". The war touched us in safe duty postings as well.
99
@fred nelson I too was one of the lucky ones at Frankford Arsenal after graduating Temple U in June of '66. At the time I and the rest of my friends didn't fully realize how lucky we all were. But part of me still wonders what would have happened to me had I gone to the Air Force OCS in San Antonio over my mother's objections.
16
We learn nothing and humanity being what it’s been for millennia, we never will.
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@Joseph Luchenta
That's what I learned. That we will never change, electing Trump is proof of that. That North Vietnam did what they had to do in order to reunite their country; We did what the politicians told us to do in order to keep them from reuniting and forcing them to accept aid from Russia and China, and, this "thank you for your service," a baseless, shallow compliment from those who buy into the politics. It was the protests of the 1960s that brought the troops home from Vietnam in addition to North Vietnam winning their independence. The real heroes? Those long haired, hippies who preached love, forgiveness, and letting those who what to be different - be different!
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@pets And the kids who were shot by National Guard troops while protesting the war at Kent State, my alma mater, which shocked the nation. They are heroes, too, but still vilified by those who continue to feel “they got what they deserved.”
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Unfortunately, we have not learned a thing. Excellent article
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@mary therese lemanek We know. They know. We care, they don't.
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Thankyou for this painfully heartfelt piece, which ends with a conclusion I tragically have to agree with. We learn nothing.
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@Nadya Disend
Some of us do eh? The question is, what are we going to do about the other 98%?
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