thedrifter
04-26-04, 10:11 AM
Echoes of 'Nam
April 25,2004
MIKE SHERRILL
DAILY NEWS STAFF
They don't talk about Vietnam. After more than 30 years, there are too many other topics to discuss over coffee and cigarettes. They leave rehashing the war to media, historians, professors and politicians.
"Looking back on it 30 years later, what do I think of Vietnam? I don't," Jacksonville veteran Paul Harrington said.
"It was a chapter of my life, is all. Everybody handles things differently."
Talking to a Vietnam veteran about the war is like watching an R-rated movie on network television - edited for content. Some scenes are deleted.
"We don't open any doors we don't want opened," said Jim Myers, another Jacksonville vet, and Harrington's best friend.
But the Vietnam War is still picked like a scab. And it won't seem to go away even though it ended 29 years ago.
Politicians use it to argue about Iraq - and so does the media. Vietnam is either the reason to stay the course or the example of a muddy, lingering conflict.
The Vietnam War is also a contentious point in the presidential race. U.S. Sen. John Kerry was either a hero or a traitor. Democrats want to know what President George W. Bush actually did in the Air National Guard and for how long during the 1960s, just as Republicans pointed to Bill Clinton's lack of service when he ran for president in 1992.
Then there's the treatment, the stares and insults for troops returning from Vietnam. Now, America, especially military areas like Onslow County, honors those who return and those who die. Often, they want to remember Vietnam vets who never got their due.
Harrington and Myers, both 57 and former Jacksonville police officers, see this as an awkward product of today's political correctness.
"It's over and done with," Harrington said. "Leave us alone."
Lingering questions
Vietnam lingers, historians say, because it was divisive then and still is.
"I think the obvious reason is we lost, and somebody is to blame," N.C. State associate professor Ken Caddell said. "We've never come to grips with what went wrong, and we have a hard time being objective about that."
Caddell teaches two adult night classes about Vietnam. Many students either vocally supported or opposed the war. Though some are friends now, they still argue.
Students and historians have the pleasure of objectivity. For men like Myers and Harrington, that's impossible.
They don't mince words about the mission or who lost the war. They say the feeling of most veterans is they went over there to do a job. They did it, then Washington and the American people let them down.
During Vietnam and the civil rights struggle, the country was shifting from the "Eisenhower period to the Nixon period" when Americans started mistrusting politicians' motives, said Kenneth Berger, Duke University military history subject specialist.
"The country didn't as readily accept Mom, apple pie and the American flag. People started to question these," Berger said.
But veterans like Harrington, originally of Cambridge, Mass., and Myers, raised in an up-state New York orphanage, came from the working class with patriotism born from an older era.
"Where I came from when you graduated you did one of three things," Harrington said. "You became a priest, you went to prison or you joined the Marine Corps."
Mental photographs
Every war is surreal, but Vietnam especially still carries a through-the-looking-glass quality.
The enemy was anyone. Operations flowed one into another. Intense firefights would yield enemy casualties but no Vietnamese bodies.
Troops were prepared by their superiors with stories of World War II or Korea. But the landings, landscapes and little else were like those wars.
"All you picture is World War II. The ramp comes down and you're looking at a machine gun," Harrington remembered thinking. "We had fishermen meeting us, because we ran over their fishing nets."
The countryside was beautiful. High hills would look down to valleys flush with elephant grass.
One of Myers' most vivid, almost enjoyable, memories was watching mist rise off the grass before dawn outside Khe Sanh. He'd drink coffee and sit in silence.
Harrington was a Marine Corps combat engineer in 1966 and again 1969. He'd built bridges, cleared mines, disabled booby traps and set some of his own.
Myers served from 1965 to 1967 and from 1969 to 1970. Originally a Marine Corps heavy equipment operator and mechanic, his height and build suited him for a helicopter machine gunner or tunnel rat.
On his first day training in a helicopter, Myers fell out and hung by his tether. He landed and told his sergeant "you can't fall out of a tunnel."
The tunnels suited him, crouched and crawling, unafraid of snakes and roaches. He had no one else to worry about.
"I guessed that's why boxing is my favorite sport," he said.
But Myers fell in a tunnel once and landed in a deeper pit used as a hospital by the enemy. Ready to fight, Myers was confronted by a Vietnamese doctor, who was only worried about the wounded. The two took the casualties out of the tunnel and into captured care on an American ship.
"Later, through an interpreter, I learned he was drafted," Myers said of the doctor.
These stories, "stupid little stories," Myers called them, showed human moments, normal only in chaos.
Presidential service
Now, Vietnam works its way into other areas where the veterans don't think it belongs, like partisan politics.
Both Kerry and Bush backers have targeted the candidates' service records. Both candidates want to appear as qualified commanders in chief, and party mudslingers are looking for any ammo, educators say.
It's nothing new. Clinton faced opposition for his actions during Vietnam, and former Vice President Al Gore's combat correspondence was scrutinized, just as some think Bush's Texas National Guard record is dubious.
"It has become a litmus test like World War II was with the earlier presidents," Caddell said.
"It's dirty politics on both sides, and I don't think its going to change," Harrington said. "In 20, 30 years people will be asking (which candidates) served in Iraq."
Myers and Harrington don't compare Iraq to Vietnam, with its much larger body count. But both speak of having to wait to be fired at before shooting, and politics or public opinion interfering with war.
"These kids seem to have to be politicians and diplomats before they're warriors," Myers said. "I don't want them to see the disgrace we faced with our second-place finish."
Fraternity continues
Even though Myers and Harrington don't want thanks or parades, they are proud of their service and the bonds they formed.
They marched in close formation, forced to watch each other, use hand signals or yell before the time of wireless war.
On patrol, the men didn't dig foxholes. Instead, facing outward in a circle, they sat cross-legged with interlocked ankles. A nudge would work its way around the group to see who was awake.
That us-against-them bond continued in post-traumatic stress meetings where Myers has counseled or participated in more than 100.
In the groups, since the early 1970s, the men moved past war horrors and close calls. They focused on the cold homecoming, the sneers in airports about killed babies and burned villages.
"It was, 'Why am I the bad guy?'" Myers said.
The men still talk with other Vietnam vets by e-mail or phone. Being there forms a line that outsiders, however empathetic, however compassionate, cannot cross.
Harrington said he's never had a conversation that extended beyond where he was and when.
"Mostly," Harrington said, "we really don't talk about it with other veterans. With the guys who were there it's really just a look, like, 'glad you made it back home.'"
http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=22070&Section=News
Ellie
April 25,2004
MIKE SHERRILL
DAILY NEWS STAFF
They don't talk about Vietnam. After more than 30 years, there are too many other topics to discuss over coffee and cigarettes. They leave rehashing the war to media, historians, professors and politicians.
"Looking back on it 30 years later, what do I think of Vietnam? I don't," Jacksonville veteran Paul Harrington said.
"It was a chapter of my life, is all. Everybody handles things differently."
Talking to a Vietnam veteran about the war is like watching an R-rated movie on network television - edited for content. Some scenes are deleted.
"We don't open any doors we don't want opened," said Jim Myers, another Jacksonville vet, and Harrington's best friend.
But the Vietnam War is still picked like a scab. And it won't seem to go away even though it ended 29 years ago.
Politicians use it to argue about Iraq - and so does the media. Vietnam is either the reason to stay the course or the example of a muddy, lingering conflict.
The Vietnam War is also a contentious point in the presidential race. U.S. Sen. John Kerry was either a hero or a traitor. Democrats want to know what President George W. Bush actually did in the Air National Guard and for how long during the 1960s, just as Republicans pointed to Bill Clinton's lack of service when he ran for president in 1992.
Then there's the treatment, the stares and insults for troops returning from Vietnam. Now, America, especially military areas like Onslow County, honors those who return and those who die. Often, they want to remember Vietnam vets who never got their due.
Harrington and Myers, both 57 and former Jacksonville police officers, see this as an awkward product of today's political correctness.
"It's over and done with," Harrington said. "Leave us alone."
Lingering questions
Vietnam lingers, historians say, because it was divisive then and still is.
"I think the obvious reason is we lost, and somebody is to blame," N.C. State associate professor Ken Caddell said. "We've never come to grips with what went wrong, and we have a hard time being objective about that."
Caddell teaches two adult night classes about Vietnam. Many students either vocally supported or opposed the war. Though some are friends now, they still argue.
Students and historians have the pleasure of objectivity. For men like Myers and Harrington, that's impossible.
They don't mince words about the mission or who lost the war. They say the feeling of most veterans is they went over there to do a job. They did it, then Washington and the American people let them down.
During Vietnam and the civil rights struggle, the country was shifting from the "Eisenhower period to the Nixon period" when Americans started mistrusting politicians' motives, said Kenneth Berger, Duke University military history subject specialist.
"The country didn't as readily accept Mom, apple pie and the American flag. People started to question these," Berger said.
But veterans like Harrington, originally of Cambridge, Mass., and Myers, raised in an up-state New York orphanage, came from the working class with patriotism born from an older era.
"Where I came from when you graduated you did one of three things," Harrington said. "You became a priest, you went to prison or you joined the Marine Corps."
Mental photographs
Every war is surreal, but Vietnam especially still carries a through-the-looking-glass quality.
The enemy was anyone. Operations flowed one into another. Intense firefights would yield enemy casualties but no Vietnamese bodies.
Troops were prepared by their superiors with stories of World War II or Korea. But the landings, landscapes and little else were like those wars.
"All you picture is World War II. The ramp comes down and you're looking at a machine gun," Harrington remembered thinking. "We had fishermen meeting us, because we ran over their fishing nets."
The countryside was beautiful. High hills would look down to valleys flush with elephant grass.
One of Myers' most vivid, almost enjoyable, memories was watching mist rise off the grass before dawn outside Khe Sanh. He'd drink coffee and sit in silence.
Harrington was a Marine Corps combat engineer in 1966 and again 1969. He'd built bridges, cleared mines, disabled booby traps and set some of his own.
Myers served from 1965 to 1967 and from 1969 to 1970. Originally a Marine Corps heavy equipment operator and mechanic, his height and build suited him for a helicopter machine gunner or tunnel rat.
On his first day training in a helicopter, Myers fell out and hung by his tether. He landed and told his sergeant "you can't fall out of a tunnel."
The tunnels suited him, crouched and crawling, unafraid of snakes and roaches. He had no one else to worry about.
"I guessed that's why boxing is my favorite sport," he said.
But Myers fell in a tunnel once and landed in a deeper pit used as a hospital by the enemy. Ready to fight, Myers was confronted by a Vietnamese doctor, who was only worried about the wounded. The two took the casualties out of the tunnel and into captured care on an American ship.
"Later, through an interpreter, I learned he was drafted," Myers said of the doctor.
These stories, "stupid little stories," Myers called them, showed human moments, normal only in chaos.
Presidential service
Now, Vietnam works its way into other areas where the veterans don't think it belongs, like partisan politics.
Both Kerry and Bush backers have targeted the candidates' service records. Both candidates want to appear as qualified commanders in chief, and party mudslingers are looking for any ammo, educators say.
It's nothing new. Clinton faced opposition for his actions during Vietnam, and former Vice President Al Gore's combat correspondence was scrutinized, just as some think Bush's Texas National Guard record is dubious.
"It has become a litmus test like World War II was with the earlier presidents," Caddell said.
"It's dirty politics on both sides, and I don't think its going to change," Harrington said. "In 20, 30 years people will be asking (which candidates) served in Iraq."
Myers and Harrington don't compare Iraq to Vietnam, with its much larger body count. But both speak of having to wait to be fired at before shooting, and politics or public opinion interfering with war.
"These kids seem to have to be politicians and diplomats before they're warriors," Myers said. "I don't want them to see the disgrace we faced with our second-place finish."
Fraternity continues
Even though Myers and Harrington don't want thanks or parades, they are proud of their service and the bonds they formed.
They marched in close formation, forced to watch each other, use hand signals or yell before the time of wireless war.
On patrol, the men didn't dig foxholes. Instead, facing outward in a circle, they sat cross-legged with interlocked ankles. A nudge would work its way around the group to see who was awake.
That us-against-them bond continued in post-traumatic stress meetings where Myers has counseled or participated in more than 100.
In the groups, since the early 1970s, the men moved past war horrors and close calls. They focused on the cold homecoming, the sneers in airports about killed babies and burned villages.
"It was, 'Why am I the bad guy?'" Myers said.
The men still talk with other Vietnam vets by e-mail or phone. Being there forms a line that outsiders, however empathetic, however compassionate, cannot cross.
Harrington said he's never had a conversation that extended beyond where he was and when.
"Mostly," Harrington said, "we really don't talk about it with other veterans. With the guys who were there it's really just a look, like, 'glad you made it back home.'"
http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=22070&Section=News
Ellie