Veterans Day 11-11-11 (Rembembrance Day)

I saw this thing on the History Channel yesterday about the Vietnam War. It said in WWII the combat veteran was in actual combat an average of 10 days a year. The combat veteran in Vietnam was in actual combat an average of 240 days a year.

During "my war" over 58,000 Americans were killed. It's estimated nearly 3 million Vietnamese were killed. In Cambodia millions more were killed during the genocide brought on by the Nixon/Kissinger cabal involving Cambodia in our nasty and immoral occupation in SE Asia. Kissinger still has credibility in our national political arena. He was very much involved with the Bush/Cheney cabal that is responsible for millions dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's fascinating to sit down forty three years later and watch the footage of the war in Vietnam in HD. Especially after experiencing it in real time....would that be 3D, 4D...not sure. Somehow I couldn't keep from watching as footage of the Tet Offensive of 1968 came on the screen. The battle for Hue especially since that was one of my stopping points during my 13 month Marine Corps "tour". I could never understand how they could describe participation in war as a tour. I think I got the wrong travel agent.

I hate the holiday of Veterans Day. I hate the opportunity so many take to celebrate and glorify American militarism. Even the local Occupy Denver group made some statement about honoring the "fallen heroes" and all of us who "sacrificed" for our nation. I hate people thanking me for being a veteran of my immoral war. I hate other veterans saying "welcome home" forty two years after I came home.....the person I was and could have been never came home.

I don't need the History Channel to show me HD footage of the war. I have that on a regular basis running around in my head. It's the movie clip that never ends. And, for some reason..insane as it sounds.....I don't want it to end. I don't want to forget the waste of lives I witnessed and took part in. I don't want to forget the many names I found on the Vietnam Memorial...."The Wall", on a cold January day.

In 1970 after a two year battle with the USMC to get discharged and after I flipped off the MPs at the Camp Pendleton gate as I left for the last time, I made a promise I would never forget or forgive what this nation did in Vietnam. I promised my brothers of India Company, 3rd Batallion, Fith Marines who died during the entire year of 1968 I was in Vietnam I wouldn't forget them.

In 1971, I met Brian Adams and Steve Norris at an anti-war conference here in Denver. Brian was a national organizer for Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Steve was a veteran who joined us to organize VVAW in Denver. I've been told there was another version of VVAW before or after the time I organized. But at the time it was just us three. VVAW was the answer to the rage I felt about the war. It allowed me an opportunity to do "something". And 40 years later I'm still trying to do "something".

I don't buy into the fallen hero concept of combat veterans. Just yesterday a combat veteran was sentenced to life in a military prison for his involvement in the murders of Afghan civilians just for the sport of it. It would be easy to say the all voluntary military has brought about the decline of the military and led to such atrocity. But, I saw antisocial Marines in 1968 trying to be the first one to hit an elderly rice farmer working a 100 yards away from where we had stopped for a break.

When I was with the USMC less than one month in Vietnam I witnessed my squad leader tossing a fragmentation grenade into the air vent of an underground shelter occupied by fearful Vietnamese civilians. They wouldn't exit when he attempted to communicate he wanted them out of the shelter. He had ordered me to toss the grenade. I refused. I kept hearing the cries of a baby coming from that shelter. I wouldn't kill a baby.

Less than two weeks later the squad leader was killed by a sniper during an ambush. It was January 30, 1968. The beginning of Tet. I wasn't sad to see the sonofabitch die. I just felt guilty that I had wished him dead. I've never considered him a fallen hero. Never will.

The turning point of my 18 year old life came on January 30-31, 1968. My squad was overrun by a large North Vietnamese Army force trying to escape the trap my Marine company had them in. They were encircled within a village inside a grove of trees. It was during the dark of night. Earlier that day I had been close to a tree line burned down by the tumbling napalm bombs dropped by USMC jets supporting us.

Napalm burns at around 3000 degrees F when it ignites. It takes away the oxygen of the area of detonation. We called the charred bodies of the victims of napalm, "crispy critters". On January 31, 1968, following a night of combat in which I was knocked unconcious by the blast of a Vietnamese concussion grenade, I saw my first "crispy critter".

It was around noon when we entered the village in the grove of trees. The napalm had been dropped on the village. Earlier in the day the surviving members of my squad had the task of collecting bodies of the enemy strewn around a large rice paddy and tall grassy area surrounding it. One Marine decided he would use his survival knife to extract gold fillings and teeth from the dead bodies. We found over 30 bodies. We lined them in a row for the Batallion Commander. He posed with the bodies in the forefront for cameras of Marine combat photographers.

I first smelled the village. It smelled like ham. The napalm had incinerated the pot belly pigs of the villagers. The first thing I saw other than badly burned trees was charred forms of human bodies scattered on the ground of what used to be a village. Most of the village structures were burned to the ground. Nothing had escaped the heat of the napalm.

The first human form I came upon was the size of an infant. It was on the ground next to a form of an adult human. I guessed it was the mother of the infant. Besides the smell it was a grusome and horrific sight. But I couldn't take my eyes off the scene. Every where I looked I saw more forms. More "crispy critters". Some of the Marines laughed and joked about the crispy critters. Some talked about how the napalm had "got some". I wanted to puke but had nothing in my stomach to throw up.

Crispy critters, traumatic amputations, strewn body parts, evaporation of bodies from huge booby traps, short rounds killing us instead of them, water boarding and assassination of prisoners, torture, body mutilation,free fire zones, revenge .....this became my life at age 18 and 19. I didn't stop it. I didn't object. I could do neither and survive Vietnam. I just did my job. I became the squad leader I had hated and wished dead.

I've written this narrative several times, Each time I seem to remember one more detail. I've spoke with high school and college students about the experience of combat. I've given my oral history of war countless times. Each time is an emotional revisiting of those days of combat. I consciously decided to let emotion become part of any presentation I gave about my time in war.

The Marines gave me medals. I was given one for being wounded. I returned to the "world" with high performance and proficiency scores. I had been meritoriously promoted two times. I was a poster boy Marine when I came back. Squared away. Until I started refusing. And saying, "no". They tried retraining me, punishing me, jailing me.

Sargeants, Lieutentants, Captains, Colonels all yelled at me. Chaplains told me I was forgiven for what I had done because it was for my country. Military psychiatrists said I had some readjustment problems but wasn't sick enough for their hospitals. In the end they threatened me with prison at a Naval brig in New Hampshire. My military lawyer sold me out. My ACLU lawyer pressured the USMC and Naval legal service to offer a discharge.

So, there was a happy ending. Not if you ask my grown sons or my wife. Not so happy living with me on many occasions. Bouts of rage, self medicating, depression and suicidal thinking and attempts followed my happy ending. If only they had a diagnosis for whatever it was causing me to behave in such a way. About 12 years after my discharge PTSD was included in the psychiatric community's diagnostic bible, the DSM.

Since 1975 three times as many Vietnam veterans have killed themselves as were killed in action. 58,000 plus KIA. Over 150,000 committed suicide. I wonder how many during the 12 years I mentioned. The divorce rate for Vietnam veterans is 90%. 500,000 Vietnam veterans have been arrested or incarcerated. 100,000 are currently incarcerated and another 200,000 are on parole. 40% of Vietnam veterans are unemployed. 25% earn less than $7,000 a year. Drug and alcohol abuse ranges from 50-75%.

I'm going to a presentation by IVAW tonight. Operation Recovery is a project intended to get the needed help for active duty men and women. Such as stopping commanders from sending troops back to a war zone when the mental health professionals have declared them unfit for duty in a war zone. One of the statistics given me was one active duty troop commits suicide every 36 hours. Nearly 1/3 of the female troops report sexual assault or harassment. Clearly that number is greater because of the military attitude toward women making such a charge.

Don't tell me thank you for your service. I did no service to this nation. I had good intentions but failed to inform and educate myself. Don't welcome me home. Despite my body and much of my mind being back from Vietnam, a large part of me never came home. My mother lost the son she saw go to war despite her warnings. My sister could never be close to me again. If you want to thank veterans on this day set aside to remember....the day used to be called Rembembrance Day......work to end the wars. Work for peace and justice. That's what I thought I went to war for but instead became a tool and thug for the racketeers Smedley Butler talked about.



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