Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides

Preface

Preface / xvPart One: Introductions Commanders / 3 Bernard Trainor "It turned out the mayor of Danang was a double agent." 3 Dang Vu Hiep "With all those choppers they seemed terribly strong." 9 War Heroes / 12 Roger Donlon "We were babes in arms in every way." 12 Tran Thi Gung "I was stuck in a tunnel for seven days." 15 Paying the Price / 20 Ta Quang Thinh "They carried me the whole way back to the North." 20 George Watkins "That sand was probably the only thing that saved me." 21 Phan Xuan SinH "All my ancestors are buried here." 25 Where is Vietnam? / 28 Jo Collins "I just thought I was going to Europe." 28 DEirdre English "How can my country be at war and I don't know about it?" 30 Part Two: Beginnings (1945-64) "History is not made with Ifs" / 35 Henry Prunier "These were not ragtag farmers." 38 Vo Nguyen Giap "The most atrocious conflict in human history." 41 "Deliver us from Evil" / 44 Daniel Redmond "The doctor who won the war in Indochina." 47 Rufus Phillips "Tell 'em I'm not French before they lynch me." 50 Ngo Vinh Long "If they're making maps, they're preparing for war." 54 "Kick the Tires and Light the Fires" / 60 Richard Olsen "It was like 'Terry and the Pirates.' " 62 Malcolm Browne "You could smell the burning flesh." 64 Le Lieu Browne "There was one coup after another." 72 Paul Hare "My cock lost the fight." 76 "The Emperor has no Clothes" / 79 Paul Kattenburg "What's good for Peru is good for Vietnam." 81 Evelyn Colbert "Dissent which contradicted the public optimism was ignored." 83 Chester Cooper "Boy, you speak just like an American." 84 Sergei Khrushchev "The Vietnamese had their own ideas." 87 "Paradise Island" / 90 John Singlaub "We sent them all back with a generous gift package." 90 Luyen Nguyen "She divorced her second husband and waited for me." 94 Part Three: Escalations (1964-67) Trails to War / 101 Vu Thi Vinh "The Truong Son jungle gave us life." 103 Nguyen Thi Kim Chuy "We came home hairless with ghostly white eyes." 105 Helen Tennant hegelheimer "I was their wife, their sister, their girlfriend." 106 "You Want me to Start World War III?" / 112 James Thomson "This was crazy and deceitful policy making." 115 Seth Tillman "We could stop this war tomorrow." 118 Charles Cooper (I) "He used the f-word more freely than a marine in boot camp." 121 Walt Whitman Rostow "Take the North Vietnamese city of Vinh hostage." 124 Central Highlands / 128 Dennis Deal "Man, if we're up against this, it's gonna be a long-ass year." 130 Ward Just "It approached the vicinity of the spiritual." 135 Le Cao Dai "Sometimes I operated all night while the staff took turns pedaling the bicycle." 138 From Civil Rights to Antiwar / 142 Julian Bond "They said I was guilty of treason and sedition." 143 General Baker Jr. "When the call is made to free the Mississippi Delta . . . I'll be the first one in line." 146 "The Ultimate Protest" / 150 Anne Morrison Welsh "It was like an arrow was shot from Norman's heart." 150 Free-Fire Zone / 156 Jim Soular "A goddamn chopper was worth three times more than David" 139 Triage / 162 James Lafferty "No draft board ever failed to meet its quotas." 164 David M. Smith "The knife man." 167 Sylvia Lutz Holland "We saved their lives, but what life?" 170 Chi Nguyen "Being wounded was not considered the worst thing that could happen." 175 Morale Boosters / 177 Bobbie Keith "I got a butterfly right on the butt. So that's my war story." 179 James Brown "After they got the funk they went back and reloaded." 184 Quach Van Phong "An artist can be as important in war as a soldier." 186 Nancy Smoyer "I can't believe the Donut Dollies got us to do that." 188 Vu Hy Thieu "Nothing was more essential than our sandals." 190 Joe McDonald "I was president of my high school marching band." 195 Air War / 200 Jonathan Schell "I had my notebook right there in the plane." 202 Harlan S. Pinkerton Jr. "Good luck and good hunting." 209 Luu Huy Chao "Before I trained as a pilot I had never been in an airplane." 212 Nguyen Quang Sang "That was the first time I ever saw an American." 215 Fred Branfman "What would it be like to hide in a cave day after day for five years?" 217 Prisoners of War (I) / 221 Porter Halyburton "I don't see how you've got a worse place than this." 222 Truong My Hoa "They tried to make us say, 'Down with President Ho!' " 228 Randy Kehler "Friction against the wheel." 231 Cameras, Books, and Guns / 238 Philip Jones Griffiths (I) "Go see what they did to those people with your money." 240 Larry Heinemann "We had this idea that we were king of the fucking hill." 243 Duong Thanh Phong "We didn't need a darkroom." 247 Joan Holden "The counterculture was visible everywhere." 250 Oliver Stone "He lived to kill. He was like a real Ahab." 253 Nguyen Duy "Whoever won, the people always lost." 256 Yusef Komunyakaa "Soul Brothers, what you dying for?" 257 H. D. S. Greenway "We would write something and the magazine would ignore it if it wasn't upbeat." 259 Antiwar Escalations / 262 Todd Gitlin "A rather grandiose sense that we were the stars and spear-carriers of history." 265 Tom Engelhardt "It was like Vietnam had somehow come all the way into our living rooms." 268 Vivian Rothstein "What? Meet separately with women?" 274 "They Slept at Our House" / 279 Paul Warnke "We fought for a separate South Vietnam, but there wasn't any South." 279 Part Four: The Turning Point (1968-70) TET / 285 Tran Van Tan "He asked me for directions to the police station." 288 Barry Zorthian "Then-boom!-Tet comes along." 290 Philip Jones Griffiths (II) "You're not safe in those cities." 294 Nguyen Qui Duc "I was living a double life." 295 Bob Gabriel "We buried our own men right there." 298 Tuan Van Ban "Attack! Attack! Attack!" 302 Memorial Day 1968 / 304 Clark Dougan "He Was Only 19-Did You Know Him?" 304 From Johnson to Nixon / 307 John Gilligan "Our only shot was to help Humphrey break away from Johnson." 309 Peter Kuznick "Political conversion was the greatest aphrodisiac." 313 J. Shaeffer "The palace guard." 316 Samuel Huntington "You had to be pretty stupid to stay out in the countryside." 319 Douglas Kinnard "While we had the power, it turned out they had the will." 321 "A Three-Square-Mile Piece of the United States" / 325 Tom O'Hara "It was like being in a minimum-security prison." 325 Families at War / 328 John Douglas Marshall "You will not be welcome here again." 328 Huynh Phuong Dong "Receiving a letter was a mixed blessing." 330 Richard Houser "They told me I needed to choose between my country and my brother." 332 Nathan Houser "A sign this country has grown up will be when there is a memorial erected to the war resisters." 334 Suzie Scott "This nice young man from the FBI was here." 340 Lam Van Lich "I was away from home for twenty-nine years." 341 My Lai / 343 Larry Colburn "They were butchering people." 346 Michael Bernhardt "The portable free-fire zone." 349 "You Look Like a Gook" / 354 Vincent Okamoto "Damn, I'm a gook." 357 Wayne Smith "I was thanking God they didn't have air support." 362 Charley Trujillo "It sure as hell wasn't 'English Only' in Vietnam." 366 "An Acute Lack of Forgetfulness" / 371 Gloria Emerson "Before the war, I was Miss Mary Poppins." 371 Nguyen Ngoc Luong "To get their ID cards, the girls had to go to bed with the police." 374 From Cambodia to Kent State / 377 AnThony Lake "Quitting wasn't heroic." 380 A. J. Langguth "I think they pictured it as a kind of huge bamboo Pentagon." 382 Tom Grace "As much as we hated the war on April 29, we hated it more on April 30." 384 Part Five: Endings (1970-75) The End of the Tunnel / 393 Alexander M. Haig Jr. "Even the tough guys . . . caved in." 397 Morton Halperin "Kissinger did not trust anybody fully." 402 Judith Coburn "Vietnamization wasn't working any better than Americanization." 407 "We Really Believed . . ." / 413 Beverly Gologorsky "God forbid my boss finds out I'm here." 413 Nguyen Ngoc Bich "Why should my son die for your country?" 417 Chalmers Johnson "The campus was turning into a celebration of Maoism." 422 Steve Sherlock "Steve Sherlock, bronze star with a V." 425 Watergate / 430 Daniel Ellsberg "We're eating our young." 432 Egil "Bud" Krogh "Let's circle the wagons." 436 "The World was Coming to an End" / 441 Frank Maguire "The whole attitude was, stand back little brother, I'll take care of it." 441 Charles Cooper (II) "All this area was Indian country." 445 George Evans "I didn't know there was a bad war." 449 "Everybody Thought We'd Won the War" / 456 Charles Hill "Reporters just kept writing as if it were Tet '68." 456 Paris / 461 Daniel Davidson "I wouldn't buy a used car from that man." 463 Nguyen Thi Binh "The longest peace talks in history." 465 Nguyen Khac Huynh "It wasn't a mistake, it was an inexplicable crime." 468 Prisoners of War (II) / 470 Jay Scarborough "I read Anthony Adverse about four times." 471 Tran Ngoc Chau "The curriculum was designed to 'detoxicate' us." 475 John McCain "Americans like conspiracies." 480 Patty and Earl Hopper Sr. "What mushroom do they think we were hatched under last week?" 483 Gloria Coppin "The government wanted to control the POW/MIA movement." 489 Collapse / 493 Frank Snepp "There was classified confetti all over the trees." 496 Truong Tran "We could either lose or tie, but not win." 504 "The Merriment was Short-lived" / 508 Le Minh Khue "The letters remain, but the senders are gone forever." 508 Part Six: Legacies (1975- ) Missing in Action / 515 Tran Van Ban "We saw so many parents crying for their lost children." 515 Tom Corey "Why do you hate the Vietnamese?" 517 War-Zone Childhoods / 520 Tran Luong "I never got there in time to capture an American pilot." 520 Bong MacDoran "It's not worth my energy to lay blame on anybody." 522 Loung Ung "People just disappeared and you didn't say anything." 526 Silences / 529 Toshio Whelchel "I didn't want her to worry, so I lied." 529 R. Huynh "Your real self was only for you." 530 Jayne Stancavage "I just want to know what happened." 532 Souvenirs / 534 Hoang Van Thiet "They bought Zippos as a kind of birth certificate." 534 Taps / 536 Leroy V. Quintana "Old geezers . . . playing taps on a tape recorder." 538 William Westmoreland "I was leading an unpopular war." 539 Thai Dao "The first time I ever encountered the Vietnam War was in Hollywood movies." 540 Tim O'Brien "You can't talk with people you demonize." 542 Huu Ngoc "We no longer hate the Americans." 545 Wayne Karlin "The roof that hasn't been built." 547 Duong Tuong "Because love is stronger than enmity." 548 acknowledgments / 551 Index / 555

\ The Washington PostChristian G. Appy does not tell us when precisely he hit upon the idea of producing a full-fledged oral history of the Vietnam War, but an inspired moment it was. Five years in the making and based on hundreds of interviews with Americans and Vietnamese, Patriots is a gem of a book, as informative and compulsively readable as it is timely. — Fredrik Logevall\ \ \ \ \ The New York Times"One of the virtues of oral history is its capacity to encompass a wide range of individual experiences and viewpoints," Christian G. Appy writes in the preface to Patriots, his collection of 135 interviews chronicling the Vietnam War. … With the barest of introductions, Appy allows each of his chosen voices to offer an unvarnished recollection -- painful, conflicted, occasionally beautiful -- of an extraordinary time. — Katherine Zoepf\ \ \ Publishers WeeklyWhen Appy (Working-Class War) says "all sides" he is not exaggerating. It's difficult to think of any group of people who were involved in the many and varied aspects of the American war in Vietnam not represented in these oral history pages. Appy's testifiers include war hawks; peace activists; former Vietcong guerrilla fighters, Vietnamese Communists, Vietnamese anti-Communists; American veterans of many stripes, from privates to generals, medics to infantrymen; POW/MIA activists; poets, novelists, journalists; entertainers; and former government officials from all sides. Appy amply fulfills his goal of presenting a "vast range of war-related memories" in this massive, valuable book. He spent five years traveling around the country and in Vietnam, interviewing 350 people, and included about half of their stories. Oral histories often suffer from loose organization or from voices that pop up confusingly again and again. Appy takes a different approach. Each person appears only once, and Appy gives the participants plenty of room to tell their stories. He also provides on-the-mark, often insightful introductions to each entry, along with brief but to-the-point chapter introductions to set the historical context. The book contains the remembrances of some well-known people, including Gen. William Westmoreland, Gen. Alexander Haig, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, Walt Whitman Rostow, Julian Bond, Ward Just, Oliver Stone, poet Yusef Kumunyakaa and writer-activists Todd Gitlin and Jonathan Schell. There are others known mostly to Vietnam cognoscenti (Chester Cooper, Le Minh Kue, Rufus Phillips, Wayne Karlin and Nguyen Qui Duc), as well as many of the voices of just plain folks who experienced the war in myriad ways. It all adds up to a solid contribution to the primary source background of the longest and most controversial overseas war in American history. (May 26) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalThe Vietnam War has been portrayed through many oral histories over the last three decades, but this superb volume is quite possibly the best in a crowded field. Most oral histories draw primarily on the stories of servicemen and -women, but as the subtitle claims, this compilation presents 135 one- to five-page interviews with American and Vietnamese veterans and conversations with journalists, antiwar protestors, doctors, nurses, government officials, and many others whose lives were altered by the war. The book is distinguished by historian Appy's (Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam) skillfully conducted interviews and his excellent introductory essays on all periods of the war, beginning in 1945, when the first Americans parachuted into northern Vietnam, and concluding with the conflict's present uncertain legacies. The author notes that 40 percent of all Americans were born after the war ended in 1975, and his book is ideal for this audience as well as anyone else who wants readable personal accounts of how the war permeated all aspects of society, culture, and politics. An excellent complement to the Library of America's two-volume Reporting Vietnam; highly recommended for all public and academic libraries. [BOMC main selection.]-Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsThey wore many uniforms but shared the same hell: a wide-ranging collection of oral histories, à la Studs Terkel, drawn from veterans of the Vietnam War. To make this sprawling anthology, Appy (Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam, not reviewed) ranged across the US and Vietnam, eventually interviewing 350 participants in the war (and the antiwar movement). Some refused to speak to him--notably, Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger, and Nguyen Van Thieu--but most were quite forthcoming, and one of the best qualities of this already exceptional gathering is its thoroughgoing candor. Todd Gitlin, an antiwar activist and historian, recalls, for example, that "everything in our experience contributed to a rather grandiose sense that we were the stars and spear-carriers of history"; Alexander Haig, a chief player in Nixon-era Vietnam policies, admits, "I was very instrumental in the so-called secret bombing of Cambodia. To claim that it was done without legislative knowledge is hogwash"; Time correspondent H.D.S. Greenway remembers that before the Tet offensive "we would write something and the magazine would ignore it if it wasn’t upbeat," but later allowed criticism of the war. Of great value are the words from Vietcong and North Vietnamese fighters, though American veterans will likely be upset by some of what they have to say, as when cadre Tran Thi Gung, then a teenage girl, recalls, "As soon as I started to fire, I killed an American. After he fell, some of his friends came rushing to his aid. They held his body and cried. They cried a lot. This made them sitting ducks. Very easy to shoot." Even Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita’s son, joins in, remarking that the Americans werewrong in thinking that Moscow was guiding the war: his father, he remarks, mistrusted the Communist Vietnamese, who in all events were fighting their own war and "had their own ideas." An excellent addition to the literature of the Vietnam War, instructive and moving--but also likely to reopen old wounds. First serial to Military History Quarterly; Book-of-the-Month Club main selection/Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection\ \