The Vietnam Reader (49 page)

I’ve said enough about it. Don’t ask any questions. When I come home, if I feel like talking about it I will, but otherwise don’t ask. It may sound dramatic, and I’ll tell you it is. It’s just something you don’t feel like discussing and can’t begin to write about.

Well, Mom, I’ll sign off. Be careful driving.

Love,
George

PFC George Robinson was assigned to the Recon Platoon, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, based at Di An, when he was wounded on 11 June 1966. He lives in North Massapequa, New York, and teaches history at Roslyn Junior High School.

March 2 [1969]

Darling,

I love you so very, very much. Finally it’s over for a while and I can write. I don’t know where to begin or what to say or how. I guess I’ll just try to tell you how I feel, which is mostly proud, sad, tired and relieved. After all these endless days and nights, they gave me and the platoon 36 hours off. I spent today going to memorial services for my people, doing wash, catching up on work in my office and writing up people for medals.

Oh, Darling, it’s been so unreal. I’m not going to go into detail—it would only scare, depress or worry you. Just be convinced I’m fine, it’s over and all I have to complain of now is a bad cold and a lot of fatigue. These last days were just so filled with fighting, marching, thinking, all the time thinking, “Am I doing it right? Is this what they said at Quantico? How can I be sure I haven’t led us into a trap and the NVA are waiting?” etc., etc., until I became so exhausted just by worrying. I’m just so grateful (to whom?). I “only” lost six men (I
know
how awful that sounds)! I had a seventh guy fall off a cliff and get a bad cut and concussion, but he’ll be OK.

I’m so confused. At the service today they were talking about God protecting people and eternal life and I felt so desolate, so despairing. I know there is no reward waiting for them or any hope. I began crying I felt so awful and hopeless, but somehow held it back and it just looked like I was sniffling from my cold. (See! How awful my ego and pride that I couldn’t even let myself weep for those poor, poor kids!) All I can say is that considering how awful it was, I’m so lucky I didn’t lose more.

I said I was proud. Mostly of them. I’m putting 10 of them in for decorations. Enclosed are some of the rough drafts of citations. Don’t read them if you don’t want to. Just save them for me. I guess I should be honest. I’ve been nominated, I hear, for the Silver Star, the third highest medal. Please don’t get upset. I didn’t try to win it—I was just trying to keep my people alive and doing the best I could. I may not even get it, ’cause the reviewing board might knock it down to a Bronze Star. You know me so well, you know I’m lying if I say I’m not pleased. I am, I’m proud, but only the worst part of me. My better part is just so sad and unhappy this whole business started.

Again, though it may be foolish, I’ll keep my word and be honest. The post-Tet offensive isn’t over. All intelligence points to a return bout. However, my platoon is 1,000% better than it was, we have so much support now—like a family, really. We’ll all watch out for each other. Also we don’t believe they’ll hit again near here, so whatever happens, I’ll be OK. That’s the truth too, honey. I have fantastic good luck, as strange as that may sound, and what’s US is too good and too strong for any badness.

Love,
Brian

Brian Sullivan, a lieutenant assigned to the 4th Battalion, 11th Regiment, 1st Marine Division, was a field artillery officer and infantry platoon commander in the area around Da Nang from June 1968 to June 1969. He is now an associate professor of history at Yale University and lives in New York City. This letter was written to his then-wife Tobie.

Saturday
14 Oct 67

Dear Mom and Dad,

Well, the day after tomorrow we go on Operation Golden Fleece. All we do is go out and make sure that no one steals the rice from the harvest. All it is is a lot of walking and cold nights and hot days. I’m writing in the dark with only a candle for light, so please forgive the handwriting.

Well, I’ve got the 3rd Platoon—44 different, completely different, men. Some small, some big, some only 18 and some 24. Each one has his own problems, and what I’ve become is a mother hen watching over her brood all the time, day and night. I’m the first up, the last down at night.

It seems like a long time until I get home, but the days go by quickly. I have a platoon sergeant who keeps my head down for me. He says he doesn’t want to lose me so I let him have his way. They haven’t had any enemy contact here since June, and the men become hard to handle, too cocky and sure of themselves. There sure is a lot to think about here, and so much to do, really. Tonight I had a 19-year-old come to me for help and advice. He is married to an 18-year-old, and he was having problems. If he knew I was only 20, I wonder if he would have come. I think I helped him—he seemed happy.

Well, how are you both and Jeanene, Bob and Billy and Vallette and Sam and the kids? I do hope they’re all doing well. I hope to get some mail from all of you soon.

Well, not much more. It is raining again.
Mud!

Love,
Don

2Lt. Don Jacques, Co. B, 1/26th Reg., 3rd Mar. Div., Khe Sanh, 1967-1968, KIA 25 February 1968.

18 October 1967

Dear Sue—

Well, I’ve been transferred to another section. River Section 522. I didn’t really want to leave 533. I’d grown attached to the men in the section. My crews found it pretty hard to say good-by. I did, too. After all, we’d seen a lot of action together. When you’ve been under fire with the same people enough times, you don’t even have to think about what they’re going to do or wonder if what they do will be right. You work as a team. Torres, before he went home to Hawaii, told me he could tell by the look in my eyes what I wanted them to do. I didn’t have to say a thing.

I got that letter from my mother. I’m trying to think of the best way to answer it. I know she only wants me to come back home alive and without battle scars—as you and everyone else [do]. But I can’t be anything less than I am out there. You know that. I suppose it’s because I’m a perfectionist in everything I do, including waging war. If I have a chance to shoot it out with the enemy, I’m not going to turn tail and run. I’m not [the] fool she thinks I am. I gambled and won. I killed at least one of the enemy and didn’t lose a man, whether because of blind luck, or God, or ability to handle myself in a tight situation. There are too many armchair quarterbacks in this war, whether they’re sitting in the States or a safe chair here in Vietnam. You have to be in the war to understand it and be able to make judgments on the actions of men in war. My ex-CO in 533 never went out on the river, except for an occasional special operation. Yet he had the balls to stand up before commanders, etc., and tell them which were the bad canals and what kind of weapons this or that VC company used—all of it based on information I’d brought back or actions I’d been in. I could tell you the name of the man who lives in the last house on the east bank near the broken bridge where I’ve been ambushed twice and give you a description of the man I’ve seen him meeting on the other side of the bridge. I keep book on my patrol areas. He couldn’t even tell you the name of the sector the canal is located in. All he’s thinking about are his promotion to lieutenant commander and the medals he’s going to put himself in for. And he—like the commanders and captains above him—are afraid some obscure ensign is going to upset all of that.…

• • •

28 October 1967

Dear Susan—

The war is getting worse. The bastards are getting more and better weapons, and are making use of them. For the first week I was down here on the Ham Luong, the monotonous quiet of the river lulled us into a false sense of contentment that we had the Viet Cong on the run. The only way we could get him to fight was by going into his backyard. However, we went into his backyard once too often. During the previous night, a VC platoon (as near as I can figure) overran an outpost next to the riverbank almost directly across from the heart of the city of Ben Tre and set up an ambush for our PBRs. The battle was terrible. They hit the boats with recoilless rifles (like bazookas from WW II), wounding every man and completely destroying one of the boats. Fortunately the patrol officer had the sense to have his men bail out after the first two rounds hit the lead boat. No sooner had they jumped over the side than five more rounds hit. The men swam for it, and as they scrambled ashore, helping one another through the barbed wire, the VC fired the rockets after them. One man, having lost three fingers and much blood from numerous wounds, was about to collapse on the shoreline. The patrol officer was screaming at him to keep going and trying to haul the man (who was twice my size) over the fence, when a round exploded ten yards from them. The wounded man leaped completely over the barbed wire without any help—that was all the incentive he needed. All Americans are now well on their way to recovery.

Sue, I thought about keeping this whole thing secret until I got home. But I can’t. I have to tell you people back home what this war is like. It’s worse than any war the U.S. has fought to date. I know most people back home are wondering why we’re even bothering to stick it out. I’m no superpatriot, as you know. And I’m no Navy stooge. It’s just that for the hundred garbage-pickers you meet over here who have no belly for fighting the VC, I meet a couple of people I like and respect, who are my friends and who stick up for their rights, and I don’t want to see them get killed by the VC. I’ve come to evaluate things as a soldier. I’m closer to life and death every day than the majority of men are on their last day on earth. And I tend to form my values about one simple axiom: Life.

Love,
Dick

LT. J.G. Dick Strandberg, River Patrol Sections 533 and 522, Mekong Delta, 1967-1968.