So, let's get started. Like I said in my Bio, I want this to be a dialogue not a lecture, so jump on in here all you war novelists and readers. Let's talk about why war literature means so much to us. I tried to explain it somewhat in my Bio. I think war lit tells us more about the human condition than any other form. And I think it gives us veteran writers a constructive outlet for our feelings.
I remember when I came home from Vietnam, everyone kept asking me what it was like. Part of me, a big part, didn't want to talk about it, but in reality, I had no clue how to talk about it. I couldn't put the experience in perspective until I started writing it down eighteen years later. It didn't start out as a novel; it started as a vent that over time got shaped into The Second Tour as I learned more about writing.
Has anyone else experienced something similar, or even something quite different?
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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I've only started publicly admitting that I was an Infantry point man in Vietnam during the last few years.
ReplyDeleteWhen I came home from Vietnam, there were anti-war protestors at some airports spitting on returning Vietnam veterans. No one spit on me, but that was as much of a welcome home as I got.
A growing number of Congressmen were calling for war crime trials of Vietnam veterans. The media portrayed us as psychopathic baby killers. And most of the public just didn't give a damn. So I hid what I had done in Vietnam, and tried to get on with my life.
I attacked three enemy machine gun positions in Vietnam. Another point man was fatally injured by one of those machine gunners, and spent an hour dying next to me. During a lot of that time, the machine gunner tried to kill me as well. It’s very scary to have an enemy machine gunner give you his undivided attention!
After the other point man died, another man and I carried his body to safety. Then a machine gunner and I attacked the machine gunner who had killed him. I was sure I was going to die, but didn't want the other guys to know that I was afraid. 23 years after I came home, I contacted that point man's family and wrote them a ten-page letter describing what happened, and how he died. My family learned about these attacks 30 years later, when CNN broadcast a TV segment on me and on that letter.
I was wounded seven times in Vietnam. My family learned about that two years ago.
In 2001, I typed the name “Monte Payne” into Google. We both were point men in the same platoon. He hit a boobytrap and died while walking point.
To my surprise, Google found a plea from his family. 32 years after Monte died, his family still was trying to find someone who could tell them how and where Monte died. I wrote them a ten-page letter explaining what happened and how he had died. I gave them the address of a U.S. Geologic Service web site that shows a detailed map of the area where he died. (The U.S. Geologic Service web site hosts hundreds of pages of small-scale maps showing what was South Vietnam.)
His sister wrote me a very nice letter saying she was glad that her brother had had such a friend. I wouldn’t admit it in public, but I cried when I read her letter. It was the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me about Vietnam.
For several years, my nephew has been asking me what that was like to do that in Vietnam. Now that I'm a retired bum, I decided that the easiest way to tell him was to write it down. That way I could avoid the traumatic areas.
I thought that it couldn't take more than five or ten pages. What was there to tell? The problem was that as I wrote about one thing, it would bring to mind another thing that I really should include.
When I was writing about how you stand guard in the jungle, I realized that I really should mention how you wake up the man who will replace you at the end of your guard shift. Many men carried a sheath knife, and some slept with it under their right hand. For some reason, many men were touchy about sleeping in the jungle. If you touched them when you were waking them up for their guard shift, they would instantly grab their knife and try to stab you - before they woke up. It was something that the Army somehow neglected to mention during all their training.
The final result of my writings was 200 pages long, and contained 100 pictures. The pictures illustrated the difficulties of living, fighting, and dying in heavy jungle. (Although it really wasn’t that difficult to die in heavy jungle.)