thedrifter
09-14-05, 05:58 AM
Myths of Vietnam/Lessons for Iraq
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 14, 2005
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Vietnam veteran R.J. Del Vecchio, the co-author (with Vietnam veteran Bill Laurie) of Whitewash/Blackwash: Myths of the Viet Nam War, a new booklet targeting high school and college students. (Copies can be ordered at TechConsultServ@Juno.com). Mr. Del Vecchio spent from December 1967 to November 1968 as a Combat Photographer in Vietnam for the 1st Marine Division. He has been active in various veterans’ groups and regularly gives presentations on Vietnam in high schools and colleges.
FP: R.J. Del Vecchio, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Del Vecchio: Thank you, I'm glad to be here.
FP: First things first, tell us a bit about your Vietnam experience.
Del Vecchio: Well, I got to Da Nang in December of 1967, assigned to the Photographic Services Lab of the 1st MarDiv. Working there meant you had two sets of duties, which were conventional developing and printing of pictures and standard photo assignments like promotions and awards on the one hand, and field assignments with infantry units- the grunts- on the other.
The field work would take you to the various battalions and their companies, during operations. Operations meant everything from hot walks in the sun to intense battles and a lot in between. Doing field work properly involved some risk; thirteen of my brother photographers died doing their job, some of them good friends of mine, and many of us were wounded.
The mission was to record as much as possible for historical purposes, which ranged from simple views of Marines for publication in their home town newspapers to trying to capture images during combat. I went on a number of operations with various units, and was involved in a number of skirmishes, ambushes, and pitched battles. I traveled from the southern part of I Corps all the way up to Hue in the north during my tour. Some of my pictures wound up in newspapers during the war, and are now in the National Archives in Maryland.
FP: What inspired you to write this new booklet and why are you primarily interested in targeting young people with the truth about Vietnam?
Del Vecchio: Last Fall there was a conference of veterans in Boston, discussing the myths of the war, and it became clear that while all wars beget a few myths and legends, Vietnam was unique in that the myths had become much better known than the real history. All of us concluded that waiting for the historians and the media to move towards the real history was clearly useless, and it was time for us to do whatever we could in the way of bringing out more of the real truth.
My co-author has a masterwork on the war in progress, the draft is 700 pages, but from my own experience as a lecturer and writer of technical books I recommended we come up with a basic, factual, and very readable booklet that would give students a glimpse of the realities and put them on the path to really worthwhile learning. So naturally I was suddenly elected to do the job. It is the young people coming up who will be the citizens and leaders of tomorrow, and many of them are very curious about Vietnam, so giving them valid information to help them learn the real lessons of that experience is of critical importance to the future.
FP: So what do you and the others involved in this booklet hope to accomplish overall?
Del Vecchio: The great mass of readily available information about Vietnam is riddled with inaccuracies, misstatements, and some outright falsehoods. Yet it is more critically important today for people to understand the real history of that war than ever, and unless people look carefully among those sources of information to avoid those with major flaws, they cannot hope to glean good information as the basis for thinking about the war and its meaning.
All we hope to accomplish in this booklet, which is written to be clear, concise and objective, is to help people see how many reefs there are in the river of information about Vietnam, and show them how to cruise that river to avoid those reefs. It is still true that sincere, intelligent people may see the same valid data about the war and draw somewhat different conclusions, but if any of the biased and inaccurate information is absorbed, then chances of achieving real understanding become very low, and chances of arriving at a very flawed view of the war become high. Those flawed views have damaged our country too long, and we cannot afford to indulge in them any longer.
FP: Why are there so many myths about Vietnam? What damage do they do?
Del Vecchio: The coverage of that war was different from all earlier wars, due to technical advances such as TV reporting, the very heavy presence of the media in-country, the evolving controversies of the war, the serious loss of objectivity by much of the media, and finally, the frustration and enormous discomfort most Americans experienced during and after it. The antiwar movement seized on everything from valid complaints to exaggeration of the problems inherent to any war to outright falsehoods and communist propaganda and publicized it all in an unending media blitz. Returning vets very often felt alienated, even rejected at times, and the bulk of them closed off the war in their minds and went on to jobs, families, making lives. The comparatively tiny fraction of antiwar vets tended to remain publicly active, and some of them went into teaching, so they've had a very disproportionate share of attention. And since the college campuses had become hotbeds of protest during the war, academia in general accepted and recorded much of the negative reports, and established a bias in thinking and teaching about the war that continues today.
The damages from these myths include things like the assumption that the US simply cannot apply military force anywhere in the world for even the most legitimate reasons without falling into a "quagmire". Another assumption is that the media always provide accurate, unbiased war reports and are fully qualified to critique military operations. A third is that antiwar activists are always knowledgeable and hold the moral high ground, and none of their recommendations will bring anyone to harm. These ideas tend to cripple the ability of the US, the last remaining superpower, to act intelligently and responsibly in the world.
FP: The North Vietnamese communists have themselves conceded that the anti-war protestors are to thank for the communist takeover of Vietnam. The Jane Fondas and Tom Haydens are directly responsible for the bloodbath that followed in Southeast Asia. Why do you think that today these same individuals and their ilk have not been chastised by their errors and apply exactly the same tactics toward Iraq, knowing full well that the American withdrawal that they seek will lead to yet another bloodbath. What do you think is in the heart of the Left?
Del Vecchio: They don't know a withdrawal from Iraq will lead to anything bad, just as they didn't know that a communist takeover in South Vietnam would lead to anything bad, and for the same reason. Simply put, they CANNOT allow themselves to see any such thing, since that would mean they are not really agitating against the truly bad side of the conflict, which is what their inherent prejudices and twisted thinking say absolutely must be the US.
Fonda and most of the rest of the very public and famous antiwar people have never even acknowledged the terrible things that happened in Vietnam after 1975, which go on to this day. The executions of many thousands after the fall of Saigon, the concentration camps that held hundreds of thousands for up to 17-18 years (with at least a 30% death rate), the ongoing denial of human rights of worship and free speech, the brutal persecution of the Montagnards, none of these can be admitted by the antiwar, anti-US fanatics. Only a small number of sincerely idealistic antiwar people have ever been able to look at the real results of the war and learn to live with the regret and guilt that come with honest admission of having supported liars, deceivers, and cruel despots.
continued...
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 14, 2005
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Vietnam veteran R.J. Del Vecchio, the co-author (with Vietnam veteran Bill Laurie) of Whitewash/Blackwash: Myths of the Viet Nam War, a new booklet targeting high school and college students. (Copies can be ordered at TechConsultServ@Juno.com). Mr. Del Vecchio spent from December 1967 to November 1968 as a Combat Photographer in Vietnam for the 1st Marine Division. He has been active in various veterans’ groups and regularly gives presentations on Vietnam in high schools and colleges.
FP: R.J. Del Vecchio, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Del Vecchio: Thank you, I'm glad to be here.
FP: First things first, tell us a bit about your Vietnam experience.
Del Vecchio: Well, I got to Da Nang in December of 1967, assigned to the Photographic Services Lab of the 1st MarDiv. Working there meant you had two sets of duties, which were conventional developing and printing of pictures and standard photo assignments like promotions and awards on the one hand, and field assignments with infantry units- the grunts- on the other.
The field work would take you to the various battalions and their companies, during operations. Operations meant everything from hot walks in the sun to intense battles and a lot in between. Doing field work properly involved some risk; thirteen of my brother photographers died doing their job, some of them good friends of mine, and many of us were wounded.
The mission was to record as much as possible for historical purposes, which ranged from simple views of Marines for publication in their home town newspapers to trying to capture images during combat. I went on a number of operations with various units, and was involved in a number of skirmishes, ambushes, and pitched battles. I traveled from the southern part of I Corps all the way up to Hue in the north during my tour. Some of my pictures wound up in newspapers during the war, and are now in the National Archives in Maryland.
FP: What inspired you to write this new booklet and why are you primarily interested in targeting young people with the truth about Vietnam?
Del Vecchio: Last Fall there was a conference of veterans in Boston, discussing the myths of the war, and it became clear that while all wars beget a few myths and legends, Vietnam was unique in that the myths had become much better known than the real history. All of us concluded that waiting for the historians and the media to move towards the real history was clearly useless, and it was time for us to do whatever we could in the way of bringing out more of the real truth.
My co-author has a masterwork on the war in progress, the draft is 700 pages, but from my own experience as a lecturer and writer of technical books I recommended we come up with a basic, factual, and very readable booklet that would give students a glimpse of the realities and put them on the path to really worthwhile learning. So naturally I was suddenly elected to do the job. It is the young people coming up who will be the citizens and leaders of tomorrow, and many of them are very curious about Vietnam, so giving them valid information to help them learn the real lessons of that experience is of critical importance to the future.
FP: So what do you and the others involved in this booklet hope to accomplish overall?
Del Vecchio: The great mass of readily available information about Vietnam is riddled with inaccuracies, misstatements, and some outright falsehoods. Yet it is more critically important today for people to understand the real history of that war than ever, and unless people look carefully among those sources of information to avoid those with major flaws, they cannot hope to glean good information as the basis for thinking about the war and its meaning.
All we hope to accomplish in this booklet, which is written to be clear, concise and objective, is to help people see how many reefs there are in the river of information about Vietnam, and show them how to cruise that river to avoid those reefs. It is still true that sincere, intelligent people may see the same valid data about the war and draw somewhat different conclusions, but if any of the biased and inaccurate information is absorbed, then chances of achieving real understanding become very low, and chances of arriving at a very flawed view of the war become high. Those flawed views have damaged our country too long, and we cannot afford to indulge in them any longer.
FP: Why are there so many myths about Vietnam? What damage do they do?
Del Vecchio: The coverage of that war was different from all earlier wars, due to technical advances such as TV reporting, the very heavy presence of the media in-country, the evolving controversies of the war, the serious loss of objectivity by much of the media, and finally, the frustration and enormous discomfort most Americans experienced during and after it. The antiwar movement seized on everything from valid complaints to exaggeration of the problems inherent to any war to outright falsehoods and communist propaganda and publicized it all in an unending media blitz. Returning vets very often felt alienated, even rejected at times, and the bulk of them closed off the war in their minds and went on to jobs, families, making lives. The comparatively tiny fraction of antiwar vets tended to remain publicly active, and some of them went into teaching, so they've had a very disproportionate share of attention. And since the college campuses had become hotbeds of protest during the war, academia in general accepted and recorded much of the negative reports, and established a bias in thinking and teaching about the war that continues today.
The damages from these myths include things like the assumption that the US simply cannot apply military force anywhere in the world for even the most legitimate reasons without falling into a "quagmire". Another assumption is that the media always provide accurate, unbiased war reports and are fully qualified to critique military operations. A third is that antiwar activists are always knowledgeable and hold the moral high ground, and none of their recommendations will bring anyone to harm. These ideas tend to cripple the ability of the US, the last remaining superpower, to act intelligently and responsibly in the world.
FP: The North Vietnamese communists have themselves conceded that the anti-war protestors are to thank for the communist takeover of Vietnam. The Jane Fondas and Tom Haydens are directly responsible for the bloodbath that followed in Southeast Asia. Why do you think that today these same individuals and their ilk have not been chastised by their errors and apply exactly the same tactics toward Iraq, knowing full well that the American withdrawal that they seek will lead to yet another bloodbath. What do you think is in the heart of the Left?
Del Vecchio: They don't know a withdrawal from Iraq will lead to anything bad, just as they didn't know that a communist takeover in South Vietnam would lead to anything bad, and for the same reason. Simply put, they CANNOT allow themselves to see any such thing, since that would mean they are not really agitating against the truly bad side of the conflict, which is what their inherent prejudices and twisted thinking say absolutely must be the US.
Fonda and most of the rest of the very public and famous antiwar people have never even acknowledged the terrible things that happened in Vietnam after 1975, which go on to this day. The executions of many thousands after the fall of Saigon, the concentration camps that held hundreds of thousands for up to 17-18 years (with at least a 30% death rate), the ongoing denial of human rights of worship and free speech, the brutal persecution of the Montagnards, none of these can be admitted by the antiwar, anti-US fanatics. Only a small number of sincerely idealistic antiwar people have ever been able to look at the real results of the war and learn to live with the regret and guilt that come with honest admission of having supported liars, deceivers, and cruel despots.
continued...