Souvenirs of War Read online

  Souvenirs

  of War

  ONE MARINE’S WAR

  AN ENTIRE GENERATION’S STORY

  william murphy

  Murchada Publishing Company East Lansing, MI

  Souvenirs

  of War

  ONE MARINE’S WAR

  AN ENTIRE GENERATION’S STORY Dedicated to all members of the ’60s Generation. It was a wild ride.

  I also dedicate this book to all who served in the past Copyright 2007 © by William M. Murphy and those that still serve our country today. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or by the publisher. Requests for permission should be made in writing to Murchada Publishing, LLC, 850 Tarleton Avenue, East Lansing, MI 48823.

  ISBN 978-0-9795442-0-0

  Manufactured in the United States of America First Edition / First Printing

  Photographs property of the author unless otherwise noted. Especially the Grunts

  FOREWORD This book is about the hundreds of thousands of young men, their families and friends, wives and girlfriends, who shared similar experiences as they moved through life prior to, during, and following the Vietnam War. Though it focuses on war veterans, it’s the story of an entire generation; a generation of idealistic men and women that was forged in the fires of controversy and emotions that surrounded the war, if not in the flames of the war itself. Although I write of my own story and how it was affected by those times and events, the book is really about and for everyone who came of age in that contentious period. It tells the story of a special generation that was defined by strife, controversy, and most of all, The War. Only the Civil War saw an American nation more divided and society more torn asunder politically, socially and emotionally. Our longest and most unpopular war was also the most contentious. It tested the resolve and values of good and patriotic Americans like no other event in modern times. For those just coming of age during that period the war was the 800 pound gorilla in the room that affected our lives with a totality that is hard to imagine today.

  That enormous and complex issue we simply called Vietnam created the generation that rejected labels but which was known by many nonetheless. We were the generation of Love and Peace, the Flower Power gen

   Souvenirs of War Foreword  eration, the rebellious generation, the Vietnam generation, and the Me generation. In the end being known simply as the 60s Generation said it all; the good, the bad, and the ugly. We were the generation proudly and arrogantly defined by The Who in their hit song My Generation, the anthem of our times, which we sang loudly and defiantly.

  We were determined that our generation was going to be different; more socially aware, wiser, less interested in material things and money than our elders. We dreamed big but in the end found that we were fundamentally the same as those who came before and paved the way for us. In many ways we weren’t so different — our overconfident and outspoken intentions notwithstanding — than our parents. But in some important ways we were a vastly different generation. We coalesced under the influences of different forces than our parents, and our goals were different than theirs in many ways. Suffering through the Depression and World War II they knew hard times and sacrifice that we could only imagine, and thus they wanted simply to finally enjoy some fruits of their struggles and work. Our troubles were quite different. In many ways people born during or just after World War II saw the goals of their parents — a nice house in the suburbs with financial security and a future that ensured a happy retirement — as part of the problem. It all seemed too self-focused with a lack of attention on important social issues of the day such as poverty, civil rights, the environment, and simply — peace. The passage of time of course has witnessed our idealism being mixed with a good dose of pragmatism, and we too strive for many of the same financial goals our parents did. But ours is also a generation that still holds tightly to those core values with which we led America down a new and different road in our youth.

  It seems that every generation must face a challenge in order to form and mature. In the end, they had their wars and we had ours — war seemed the only constant. But without Vietnam we would have been a generation with no defining moment.

  We hated the war, but it made us who we are. Many years later most of our generation still has souvenirs of Vietnam. For some these keepsakes are bittersweet memories of the time and their tumultuous youth, while for others they are troubling emotional scars that will never heal. In tens of thousands of homes it’s a family member who went away as a young man and never returned, existing today forever young in faded photographs. For doctors and nurses who valiantly fought to keep those young men alive it’s the memories of chaos and pain. Many combat veterans carry the physical scars that each day remind them of the circumstances and places they received their painful memento, and all of the Grunts — those front line riflemen who bore the brunt of that brutal guerilla war — have memories that they would very much like to forget, but never will.

   Souvenirs of War For most people who grew up during the war souvenirs of the time are memories of Walter Cronkite and the daily pronouncement of how many hundred young men were killed that week. Others were active in anti-war protests hoping their actions would bring an early end to the war. Many tried to simply ignore the war, hoping it wouldn’t interfere with their lives. But it wasn’t to be ignored.

  Veterans have their military ribbons and medals stored in dust-covered boxes which are themselves stored on lonely closet shelves. There are artifacts and war souvenirs brought home to display as a sort of trophy, a way of saying that the holder of the prize faced death in an insane sporting event and won. But for all of us in the 60s generation there are the memories — those powerful images that are nearly as fresh in our minds as when they were formed. All it takes is the right song, smell, sound, picture, or person to awaken them and they all come flooding back in an inexorable and overpowering wave of emotions — those souvenirs of the Vietnam War.

  William M. Murphy

  Th e Looming Storm

  It seems strange that a problem on the world stage that I heard about in middle school — a distant event that was occasionally mentioned on the nightly news or for which photographs sometimes showed up in the Saturday Evening Post — would stick around until finally it was my turn to face it. In the meantime it stewed and grew like an out of control growth that knew no end to its ability to usurp the lives of young men, and in fact ultimately dominate almost all other issues on the world political stage. Such was Indochina throughout the decade of the 1960s. I recall looking at maps to see just where these heretofore unknown countries of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were located. They seemed so very far away — why were they being talked about on American television and in magazines like Life or the Post? Why were people killing one another there? Why were monks willing to set themselves on fire? What could possibly be so very important to a person that such a horrible act of self-destruction could even be considered?

  I remember the first time I saw the term coup d’état in print — what in the world does that mean, I wondered. There was a coup in Vietnam — so what? Such things were all well beyond my abilities of comprehension. And I had enough things on my plate already. I didn’t have the time, energy or desire to invest too much thought into the problems of grown ups, especially if they were thousands of miles away in a culture that may as well have been from another planet.

  The State of Vietnam, as South Vietnam was initially designated, was created at the 1954 Geneva Conference. World leaders declared that the former Cochin-China Fre
nch protectorate would henceforth be a sovereign nation. Everything south of the 17th parallel would be part of this new independent country. Along the 17th parallel a two-mile wide demilitarized zone was created to form a buffer and to prevent cross border incursions. Insurgents, however, kept the political waters roiled resulting in instability and the eventual coup that I recall reading about as a youngster. North Vietnam had their backers, who would support the South? President Kennedy, and prior to him President Eisenhower, decided that we would in an effort to keep those dominos from tumbling — and the stage was set for a military, social and political event that would shake the very foundations of America.

  I recall reading in the 1960s that North Vietnam had one of the largest land armies in the world — behind only the Soviet Union, China and of course the U.S. Economically they were a very poor and undeveloped country that could never sustain such a military by themselves, and nobody was threatening their borders. Why would they need such a huge force? The answer was coming into focus.

  But my youthful hero President Kennedy would certainly handle this and other problems on the world stage. He took care of the Cuban missile crisis, didn’t he? That threat was much closer to home and seemed much more real than coups and monk immolations in Southeast Asia. The whole Indochina problem, as it was called before it was known simply as “Vietnam”, didn’t seem like much of a threat at all — it was just something out there that we all assumed somebody would take care of.

  Kids of my generation had practiced enough nuclear bomb drills in school to at least understand that nuclear weapons were serious stuff. The photographs and film footage we saw of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were enough to convince even self-absorbed teenagers that this was serious. We could easily imagine what would happen if such weapons were dropped on American cities. Teachers and adults in my community near Flint, Michigan used to say that if we ever went to war with Russia the city of Flint would be an early target for elimination because of its heavy manufacturing and automobile industries. Many fathers of my schoolmates worked in those very factories. Accordingly, we were much more concerned about the Russian nuclear threat than Vietnam, Laos, or other countries in Southeast Asia whose exotic names we saw in print but knew nothing about.

  Life went on. School, work on the family farm, baseball, hunting and fishing, time spent with friends, countless nights spent cruising the hot spots and drive ins on the north side of Flint, skipped school days spent doing things that parents never found out about, and of course the occasional brush with authorities filled the months and years. But how everything had changed! President Kennedy was dead; the unimaginable and impossible had happened. News of Kennedy’s death is burned into the mind of every American who was old enough to comprehend what had happened. I clearly recall our high school principal making the announcement over the loudspeaker that he had been shot, and later in the day, her voice breaking and on the verge of tears, announcing he had died. I recall the stunned silence and sobs from kids in shock, and the astonishing developments that followed — the live murder of Oswald on television, the funeral procession, the grieving widow and young children, the salute — it was a lot for fifteen and sixteen year olds to get their arms around. But for members of our generation it was a shot across the bow warning us that nothing would ever again be the same.

  And suddenly there were news reports about Americans dieing in Vietnam — the country that settled out like so much sediment in a pail of muddy water as the focus of this growing problem in Asia. Then in my senior year of high school the Marines landed on the beach at Da Nang, and we began talking in school on a regular basis about what was now being called a war in Vietnam, and of how a few people we knew, boys who had graduated from our high school just a year or two earlier, were going there to fight. Even with an eighteen year old male’s attitude of invincibility, it all seemed vaguely disconcerting. It abruptly hit us that this was real, and it could affect us individually. We could end up there! How would we respond? Could we handle it? But surely the Marines and Green Beret advisors would soon have the problem corrected and life for draft-age American youth could resume normality.

  But it was not to be. Things spiraled downward. The Vietnam problem grew and more people died and more soldiers became needed in order that the faceless enemy could be defeated. But with every increase in troops more civilians died and more American soldiers died and the ranks of the faceless enemy seemed totally unfazed. Suddenly, getting into college to avoid the draft was one of the prime reasons teachers used to urge hard work and study for good grades. Those who got bad marks or got in trouble with the law wouldn’t get

  10 Souvenirs of War The Looming Storm 11 into college and would be drafted and sent to Vietnam — that became the new mantra of teachers, parents and counselors.

  The military was a respected institution all across America in those post-World War II years. Almost everyone had a relative that served during the last good war and twenty years later sons and nephews still talked about the magnificent deeds of those men. But something was changing. Young men were suddenly being urged to find a lawful means of avoiding the draft and military service. For most that meant a college deferment. Some got married early hoping that a wife and children would keep them out of harm’s way.

  As the scope and intensity of the war grew in 1966 and 1967 steps to stay out of the Army took on a new urgency. Unthinkable actions became thinkable and even acceptable by many. Moving to Canada, going underground, even desertion; these were new means to avoid the draft or avoid service in Vietnam. Society had been changed by this puzzling and unconventional Asian war. The Haves found they could largely avoid it if so desired, while the Have Nots saw few options beyond accepting their fate.

  Of course tens of thousands voluntarily joined the military, or readily accepted being drafted regardless of the consequences. The spirit of military service certainly hadn’t died altogether. But with each passing month, with each broadcast on the six o’clock news of the weekly count of dead and wounded Americans coupled with the lack of credible reports about territory won and held, the number of Americans willing to sacrifice their sons in “Johnson’s War” grew smaller. It was clear to all with no words needed, that this war was different. It lacked the noble cause and desperate struggle for survival that marked other major conflicts America had found itself in.

  How had it all happened? How had this small problem on the distant side of the world that was going to be taken care of by diplomacy and highly-skilled military advisors grown into this unquenchable fire that seemed to consume American society and affect millions of individual lives? How could fundamental questions of right and wrong, of what’s correct and incorrect, of what’s good and bad, of what’s patriotic and unpatriotic, have changed so suddenly and utterly? Just how the hell did we get into this very real war that we all knew even then was unlike any other? How did it grow from a barely noticeable blip on the radar to a massive storm that would disrupt the lives of millions?

  By 1967 almost everyone knew of somebody who had fought or had died in the war. It was no longer an obscure place or far-off problem. It was real and many of us had to come to terms with it.

  Coming from a family in which public service was almost an instinctive quality there was never any question but that if it came to pass, we would serve. After all, all four of my mother’s brothers and her sister served in the military during World War II. An uncle on my

  1 Souvenirs of War The Looming Storm 1 father’s side had been a doctor in that war, and all members of my father’s family served in a wide variety of public service posts in their daily lives. No, avoiding the military wasn’t an option. Besides, I arrived at a conviction that we were on the right side in this war. Whether we should have become involved in the first place could be argued, but the legality and justness of the South Vietnamese cause was clear to me. A sovereign country that we were allied with was being invaded by a communist neighbor with the singular goal of domination and indoctrin
ation, with urging and material support from the Marxist giants of Russia and China.

  South Vietnam didn’t have a chance of survival unless we fought on their behalf. I had read of the atrocities committed by the Viet Cong and their communist backers. I had studied the history of the exodus of Christian Vietnamese from the North due to persecution, imprisonment, and torture. Clearly, I believed, we were on the side of good and right. And didn’t we surely have a moral responsibility to help them in their struggle? Wouldn’t failure to act be akin to a strong and healthy young man standing by and doing absolutely nothing when he saw a thug beating and robbing a defenseless person?

  Difficult questions were debated in the college dorm rooms during my abbreviated enrollment at Michigan State University following high school. What obligation did we have to go thousands of miles away to fight in a war involving two foreign countries with whom we had no long-term relationship, and in which we were not being threatened? Did we have a moral responsibility to go, or did we have a moral responsibility to stay out of the fight? Was it altruism or imperialism? Tough questions for kids who were more concerned about grades and girls than international diplomacy and war.

  But ingrained beliefs in duty and service won more than they lost in the individual battles that took place in the minds of untold thousands of young men in 1967. At the height of the Summer of Love, when thousands were in San Francisco wearing flowers in their hair I made a trip to the local Marine Corps recruiter with two friends who also had decided that if called they would go. And, we reasoned, if a person was going to be drafted anyway, why not end-run the process and do it on our terms rather than the Army’s? And thus it happened — we were Marine recruits. Of course we knew that while others could get hurt or killed in the Corps, we certainly wouldn’t be. I recall that, purely by coincidence, I was purchasing a small life insurance policy just days before leaving for Boot Camp. When the agent learned of that fact he said that he had to make sure my family understood that the policy would not cover death or disability as the result of military service. I can still clearly remember saying “well of course that’s the case, but nothing is going to happen to me!” Perhaps a little overconfidence is a good thing in our lives when we embark on journeys into the unknown.