Vietnam Ruminations, Part lV
Robert
Wilson
US/Philippines
So many places
I couldn't go, the winter
it didn't snow
In the United States, most of us experience four distinct seasons. In
Vietnam, every day seemed like summer. I arrived in South Vietnam in February of
1968. It was the eve of the Tet Offensive. The Vietnamese New Year had just
begun. Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, was not a safe place. Viet Cong soldiers
and weapons were being smuggled in by the droves. There was an air of
expectation in the air. We sensed something was up but didn't know what. New to
the country, I knew nothing about the Vietnamese people. I was 18 years old and
away from California for the first time. My buddies and I wanted to party. To
sow our wild oats. Nightly we squandered our money on women and drink, going
from one bar to another. It was exciting and scary at the same time. My previous
duty station didn't prepare me for what lay ahead. We partied the three weeks my
buddies and I were in Saigon. The concept of war hadn't become real yet. That
would change when we were transferred to our permanent duty stations. For the
moment, we were waiting for our assignments. I ended up in Dong Tam, a base
occupied by the U.S. Navy and Army, 37 miles Southeast of Saigon, in the Mekong
Delta.
In Saigon, we were advised to stay away from certain areas. We were told that
these areas were suspected hotbeds of Viet Cong activity. Off limits were movie
theaters, marketplaces, and establishments off of the main highway. Life was one
big party for the moment. We resented being told where we could and could not
go. I look back now, and realize how fortunate many of us were. I left for my
assigned duty station a day before the offensive began. All hell broke loose in
Saigon. It was a bloodbath, the winter it didn't snow.
memories
zipped up in a body bag
this starless night
Over 50,000 American soldiers died during the Vietnam War. Thousands of Viet
Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers also perished. They fought for their
respective ideologies and paid the ultimate price. Once living, breathing human
beings, they are memories. We went to war unprepared for the reality it
presented us. Many died. The remainder of us went home after our tour of duty,
haunted by mental pictures that will plague us for the rest of our lives.
a thousand years of
slumber, this dragon in
a bamboo lair
For a thousand years, Vietnam was coveted and ruled by various foreign powers
including China, Japan, and France, due to an abundance of textiles, petroleum,
and minerals. When the French were forced out of power by Ho Chi Minh, the
country was partitioned into two countries: North and South Vietnam. The North
was governed by Ho Chi Minh and the communist government he set up. The South
was governed by a dictator closely aligned with American business interests. A
war broke out between the two countries. Hundreds of thousands of people were
slaughtered and killed.
Cock, you too
fight another's fight
this balmy afternoon
A Filipino friend of mine didn't joined the rest of us when we went on shore
leave to Mytho, the port city nearest our duty station in Dong Tam. Off base, my
shipmates and I did everything we could to forget the war. We ate, drank,
partied, and frequented the local brothel. We were young, away from home, and
still alive. When I asked my friend where he was going, he grinned, "To a
cock fight. It's a tradition. Something we do in my country every Sunday."
I knew nothing about the Philippines. My friend served in the Navy as a ship's
steward, a fancy name for a butler. Coming from a former U.S. territory,
Filipino males were allowed to enlist in the U.S. Navy. Most served as stewards
and cooks.
My friend didn't relate to our culture. His lifestyle was, in many ways, similar
to the Vietnamese. The Republic of the Philippines and Vietnam are neighbors,
living across the South China Sea from each other. My shipmate blended in with
the local populace and went places we could never go to and feel safe.
In a cockfight, two men engage their roosters in a fight to the death. The feet
of the cocks are wrapped with metal spurs. Released in an arena, the roosters
claw at one another, fighting for supremacy. Feathers flying, backs arched, they
bandy for position, hungry for the right moment. The real victor, of course, is
not the cock who wins the fight but the rooster's owner. He is the recipient of
the bets placed on the fight.
you furrow the skin
of those who furrow the ground
this long day
The Vietnamese sun is a hard task master. It breathes on the faces of those
laboring in the rice fields, seven days a week, transforming their skin into
leathery masks. Cosmetic creams and beauty treatments are for the rich.
Villagers get up before dawn, work long hours in the rice fields, and return
home at night to thatched roof houses without ovens, refrigerators, and running
water. It is a life few of us in the West understand.
a long day --
the water they drink
bathes the oxen
There was no running water in the villages of the Mekong Delta. Indoor
plumbing was non-existent. Bottled and filtered water, luxuries soldiers
purchased on shore leave. Villagers drank from the polluted Mytho River. They
also bathed in it and used it as their toilet. So did the oxen.
whose shadows are they,
these specters from
across the river?
Those living in the villages near our base played host to shadows almost
every night. Outside their thatched roofs homes, soldiers did what they did. The
villagers knew well enough to stay inside and wait for the night to pass. This
wasn't their war.
dragon, like an old
friend, you visit me
this autumn
Vietnam is called the land of the Ascending Dragon. As a sailor during the
Vietnam War, I was stationed in-country for eleven months. Not a particularly
long time under normal conditions. But these weren't normal times. I was 18,
newly graduated from high school, still in the throes of adolescence, and living
in a war zone. It was a mind numbing experiencing.
I left the former Republic of South Vietnam in 1968, glad to return home and
continue on with my life. Little did I know that what I experienced in Vietnam
would follow me home and influence my life even today. Many of my values and
perceptions on life were challenged during my tour of duty. I was forced to grow
up overnight, face skeletons I'd hidden in my closet, and make life changing
decisions without my parent's advice. Today, I am in the autumn of my life. Like
an old friend, the dragon continues to visit me.
manchild
waiting for the harvest
spring could not deliver
We were continually nervous, unable to relax, all the time we were
in-country. That is the nature of being stationed in a war zone. Safety was
short lived. Any moment an incoming missile or mortar could maim or kill one or
all of us. We were young men, fresh out of high school, living in a strange
land, fighting a war we didn't completely understand. Overnight, we went from
cruising the boulevard in souped up cars and living in comfortable homes to a
life that courted death. Day and night we waited for the moment when all hell
would break loose. Many took drugs or drank themselves into oblivion. The
Vietnam War. Waiting for a harvest spring could not deliver.
light in the village
this autumn night --
human candles
Napalm jelly is a mixture of gasoline and a thickening agent. It sticks to
its target while burning. A person hit with napalm, dies a slow, hideously
painful death. Some villages, thought to be enemy strongholds, were bombarded
with the weapon via flame-throwers and incendiary bombs. There were nights when
it rained napalm. Human beings were set on fire, burning like macabre candles.
summer of summers --
swallowed up by the dragon,
too many lives
The dragon never slumbers. He has been awake for over a thousand years,
eating soldiers and civilians alike. In his wake, a trail of bones. If only they
could speak.
newly planted rice paddies
painted with the
dragonfly's shadow
The Huey Helicopter we were flying in to Saigon, from afar, looked like a
giant dragonfly. Its shadow cut a steady swath across the patchwork quilt of
rice paddies below. I sat next to the chopper's gunner, his hands tightly
clutching the trigger of a fifty caliber machine gun, his eyes scouring the
countryside like a hawk in search of a field mouse. An enemy sniper could strike
at any moment, shooting at the chopper with an automatic rifle. A rocket or a
grenade could be launched in seconds. It was the gunner's job to see the enemy
before they saw us. If fired upon, his accuracy as a marksman was vital. In a
firefight, his life expectancy was twelve seconds. More than once I saw the
empty burned out shell of a downed helicopter hanging from a specially equipped
helicopter as it flew to wherever they took these metal behemoths. Relaxation
was a luxury in South Vietnam.
the sky rained rockets
this lanternless night --
umbrellas useless
The whistle of an incoming rocket. It came when we least expected it to. A
shrill, airy whistle not unlike the sound emitted by skyrockets at a fireworks
show. As the sound grew louder, the muscles in our bodies tightened; our nerves
tensed. We dove for cover and prayed that it didn't have our names on it. When
it exploded, deadly shrapnel (chards of sharp metal) shot out like tiny bullets,
cutting a murderous path. This was in addition to the crater the explosion
created. When the sky rained rockets, no one was safe.
She squats
in the shadow of another --
the heat!
The heat in Vietnam is intense. And the humidity, sweltering. Day in and day
out, those laboring in the rice paddies work out in the open, subjected to
nature's sunlamp. There are no shade trees or soda machines, The skin of a
long-time laborer is leatherlike and weathered. A young person's beauty fades
when they enter the rice paddies. The days are long. The work is backbreaking.
The weather merciless. There are no fancy skin creams to rub into the skin at
the end of the day. The only protection is the hat on top of the laborer's head
and the clothes clinging to her brown skin.
silly men,
you fed the fish
with yourselves.
It was like a dream. The moon was full. The faint sound of singing awakened
me. I peered out the leeside portal of our sleeping quarters on the YRBM-17 and
saw two drunken sailors walking arm in arm towards the water on a dock that ran
perpendicular to our barge. It was about two in the morning. The two men were
singing a country western song. I remember coughing. I always blink when I
cough. The drunken sailors were gone. The next morning at chow, a sailor told me
the drunken seamen walked off the dock and drowned. Most of those I served with
in Vietnam were ill prepared to fight a war they didn't understand. A tour of
duty was one year.
They were lonely. The culture was foreign. The pay was minimal. Unlike those who
served in past wars, those serving in South Vietnam were afforded no honor for
their participation in the war. Servicemen drank, smoked marijuana, or prayed.
After work
she walks into the jungle
with a different hat.
There was an old saying on Base: "They're our friends during the day and
our enemies at night." Most of the women who worked on our base were single
females in their early to late twenties. The majority washed and ironed our
clothing. The pay wasn't good but it was a step up from working in the rice
fields. Most were looked upon as potential sex objects by young servicemen fresh
out of high school locker rooms. More than once I heard guys proposition them,
using unsavory language. Some pinched their butts and grab their breasts. This
was degrading for the women and a total lack of respect. They weren't whores.
They weren't enamored with American servicemen. They had families to feed. The
sexual harassment was epidemic. Base commanders looked the other way. And when
one of the woman frowned and called her harasser a pig, the guys would laugh and
make fun of her. These women put up with the harassment because they desperately
needed the money they earned from their jobs. No wonder some of them were the
enemy at night. For them, we were a meal ticket. Our politics, unimportant.
Americans in their eyes were subhumans with no respect for the Vietnamese people
and their culture.
Stained teeth --
betel nut softens
the bite of the tiger
Betel nuts are extracted from the seeds of the betel palm. Middle aged and
older women in rural Vietnamese villages chew the nuts. A mild narcotic, it is
highly addictive. Those who habitually chew the nuts have grossly stained teeth.
For many, it helped them deal with the burdens of an ever present, unstable war,
the lack of control they had over their lives, and the threat of famine....a
tiger roaming the perimeter of every village, eating whoever it wanted to eat,
indiscriminately.
sunrise --
tiny dark clouds hover
over the jungle floor.
Life went on as usual during the daylight hours. People worked. People
played. People rested. The hot sun caressing our faces like a jealous lover. For
the most part, it was the only time many of us could relax, let our thoughts
wonder to better times back home where jungles and mortars didn't exist. In Dong
Tam, the war was fought at night when plows and baskets were replaced with
automatic weapons and hand grenades. Water Buffalo were tied up. Candles were
dowsed. The quiet pierced by flashes of light, pops of air, and sickening thuds.
In the morning, the jungle floor was harvested by blowflies.
in her wake -
a thousand bad movies
she'd never see.
I am haunted by a photo I took in Saigon during the Vietnam War. A woman is
walking down a dusty highway on her way to work or school. Behind her is a
pillar of smoke. She didn't look back. What was past, was past. Only the future
offered hope. Many movies have been made about the war. Most are cheap and
exploitative. Their purpose? To fill cash registers with dollar bills. Most
people are clueless as to what the Vietnamese people experienced, let alone the
soldiers who fought the war. War is not glorious.
To little children,
Santa Claus
with an M-16
As an American soldier, I was a Santa Claus to Vietnamese children. Wherever
my shipmates and I traveled, children mobbed us, asking for gum, money, and
candy. We were rich in their eyes. The children had charming smiles. Many were
street-wise. Some were orphaned. All were poor. They competed with other
children for the goodies we meted out from shallow pockets. The children didn't
see our M-16 automatic rifles as weapons of death. They saw us as purveyors of
candy and other goodies they couldn't afford to buy.
does she dream,
this lady picking rice
before the sun wakes up?
Water buffalos were the tractors of South Vietnam. Only the well off could
afford to buy one. Those who couldn't, plowed the fields with their backs...
Women carrying loads on their backs no American woman would ever agree to carry.
They had no choice. It was work in the fields or starve to death. People
starving to death in the villages and cities of Vietnam were an everyday
occurrence.
white owl
painting the summer night
with whisper
The night was eerily quiet in Vietnam. Not a sound. Even the water said
nothing. White owls were perched on a tall steel crane used for lifting gunboats
out of the bay in Dong Tam. Every once in a while, like a small ghost, one would
cut the night with its wings, emitting a small whisper, that, due to the quiet,
seemed louder than it was.
behind the darkness
more darkness
this lanternless night
The perimeters of our base in Dong Tam had to be guarded at all times to
prevent enemy intrusion. This was especially important at night. Everyone on
Base had their turn at guard duty, whether it was standing watch over the bay or
at one of the three land perimeters. The land perimeters were the most
dangerous. Teams of two stood watch. They had to be silent and refrain from
using any kind of light. Otherwise, they would set themselves up for enemy fire.
The area in front of the guard-post was planted with claymore mines and trip
flares. Beyond this was the darkest darkness imaginable. The place was spooky.
You would look out there and see nothing but you knew you were being watched.
You couldn't relax. You didn't dare. Your weakness was the enemy's strength. Off
and on during my stay in Dong Tam, the enemy fired at the guard-post. Sometimes
a single pop! Other times, the rat- a-tat-tat of automatic rifle fire. Where
were the politician's sons?
transplanting new rice
before the cricket sleeps
this humid morning
I had it good compared to the Vietnamese working in the rice paddies. I got
up in the morning, put on a uniform laundered and pressed by a Vietnamese
laundrywoman, and walked with my shipmates to the chow hall on base to eat an
all-you-can-eat breakfast featuring a choice of entrees, fresh fruit, and
pastries. After breakfast, we returned to the YRBM-17, where we did our
regularly assigned chores, complete with breaks, and an ample supply of soda
pop. The Vietnamese villagers we were there to protect, didn't have it so good.
For most, the day started before sunrise. Breakfast was scant, if they had any
at all. They worked long hours under a scorching sun. The humidity was 100%.
Breaks were non-existent. They relieved themselves where they worked. Lunch was
a bowl of rice with, possibly, a piece of fruit, or a duck egg. The water they
drank was polluted, drawn from the Mytho River. Their workday ended at sundown.
Some went home to their families. Others fought with the Viet Cong. My buddies
and I partied with one another when we didn't have guard duty. We knew so little
about our hosts...how they lived, how they thought, and what they believed. Most
weren't there because they cared about the Vietnamese. Many servicemen called
the Vietnamese, Gooks...a racially derogatory term. Most served there either
because they had no choice or because they felt duty bound to oppose communism.
It wasn't for a love of the country or its people.
who is using who
this humid afternoon
when war is resting?
I had been in-country a week and a half, temporarily housed in a converted
hotel between downtown Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and the airport, waiting for my
permanent duty assignment. My shipmates and I partied each evening, going from
bar to bar, brothel to brothel.
The tone in the streets changed radically the week before the Tet new year
celebrations began. None of us knew why at the time. Everyone was in a hurry, as
if tomorrow would never come. The streets were more crowded than usual. Vendors
hawking their wares. Homeless urchins begging for money. Bargirls standing in
every doorway. A thousand eyes watching us as we walked through the red-light
district doing what sailors do at night when the war is somewhere else.
Two days later, I was sent to my permanent duty station in the Mekong Delta, via
helicopter. The night after my arrival, all hell broke loose. It was the onset
of the Tet Offensive, a three week, non-stop attack by the Viet Cong and the
North Vietnamese Army. Rockets, mortars, automatic rifle fire, hand to hand
combat. Day and night.
That explained the urgency in the streets of Saigon before I was shipped out.
The Vietnamese people knew what was about to happen.
overcast night --
the skeleton you bring me is
older than the last
All of us on base were required to stand guard duty on a rotating basis. The
security of the base depended on it. Located in the Mekong Delta region of the
former Republic of South Vietnam, the area was a hotbed for Viet Cong activity.
Some nights were quiet. Others were forays into hell, the air pierced with
automatic rifle fire and incoming mortars. On guard duty, you stared into the
darkness, minute after minute, hour after hour, listening, waiting,
watching...your body tense, your imagination taunting you with pictures of what
could be. You never let your guard down. The night had eyes. Especially on an
overcast night.
It was a darkness unlike any darkness I'd encountered...an eerie rainforest of
nothing. Dense, inky, and quiet. Too quiet. Even the cricket knew to be silent.
Standing watch at night brought me face to face with mortality, a concept I
hadn't entertained as a high school student. Before the war, I thought I was
invincible. Death, something that visited the diseased and old people.
Facing mortality, my deepest thoughts and feelings surfaced. Psychological
skeletons, previously suppressed, came to life. Nobody to impress. No masks to
wear. My senses clear, unmuddied by alcohol and marijuana. The longer I stood
watch, the deeper my thoughts. Fear, hatred, self doubt... skeletons of every
shape and size appeared out of the darkness, waging war with my mind. A war I am
still fighting.
he poles his boat
through tall reeds
painted with shadows
The port city of Mytho was 13 miles from our base in Dong Tam. The city was
divided by a canal into two sections. American servicemen were allowed to visit
the southern section only. The other section of the city was off limits due to
the presence of the Viet Cong. We made a beeline to Mytho on the weekends we had
shore leave. Bars, brothels, and curio shops were on every corner waiting to
take our money.
The area between Dong Tam and Mytho was a flat countryside dotted with small
villages, rice paddies, waterways, and patches of jungle. We traveled there by
truck and boat, depending on what was available at the time. Traveling by boat,
we cruised out of the Base's harbor, up a narrow waterway lined with tiny
hamlets, onto the Mytho River, a tributary of the Mekong River. The Mytho River
is, at points, several miles in width, and navigated by a variety of vessels.
American and South Vietnamese patrol boats regularly cruised the polluted brown
water on the look-out for enemy boats smuggling arms and soldiers.
The enemy inhabited some of the thatched roof houses lining the shores of the
narrow waterway leading to the Mytho River, using them as lookout posts, due to
their proximity to the base. Prostitutes beckoned us to come to shore, fishermen
waved to us, and smiling children called out for gum and candy. Always, however,
there were those watching us from the shadows, recording our movements, the
types of boats we traveled in, the regularity of our trips, in preparation for
carefully calculated mortar and rocket attacks that almost always came at night.
dangling from your hand
the severed head of someone
not unlike yourself
War can turn a young man into a monster. Strip him of innocence. Sculpt him
into something far removed from what he was before he was plunged into a
battlefield he was unprepared to enter. A group of teenage soldiers posed for a
photograph with a buddy holding up the severed head of a Viet Cong soldier. They
were smiling, like deer hunters after a successful hunt.
The severed head the soldier held above his head belonged to a human being. A
person, not unlike himself. The soldier and his buddies didn't see their prey,
however, as a human being. They saw him as a "monkey." "A
gook." A canvas of skin painted with their hatred and scorn.
In a war they didn't understand, pumped full of fear and adrenaline, soldiers
watched fellow soldiers drop like flies. The carnage beyond comprehension. Like
something from a horror movie. Experiences that scar people for life, alter
their sense of right and wrong, slay their inner child.
The dehumanization of the Viet Cong Soldier was a venting of anger, a way of
dealing with the horror movie circumstances forced them to act in. It was a
dastardly, inexcusable act. A scene perpetrated over and over again by soldiers
on both sides of the battlefield. War can destroy a person's soul.
