Conversations With Americans
McCollum, Michael
It Was the Devil in Me Conversations with Americans By Mark Lane Simon and Schuster, $6.95 The reading of Mark Lane's latest expose has left me so overwhelmed with its perversion that it all...
...All thirty-two veterans tell basically the same story...
...In view of the past activities of Lane and his ideological brethren it is easy to understand how revelations such as this would be just cause for considerable concern...
...Last week, somewhere in the Midwest, he took his girl for a walk and bought her a soda at the local emporium...
...In his introduction Lane explains that when American soldiers arrive in Viet Nam they are given an orientation lecture warning that the enemy is everywhere...
...After being wounded Whitmore was sent to Can Ram Bay where LBJ pinned a medal on him during his visit there...
...With much the same rationale Lane concludes that acts of atrocity are committed by our forces in Viet Nam with regularity...
...He sets aside the rest of the book for the testimony of thirty-two Viet Nam veterans whom he traveled far and wide to interview (alas, even to Sweden for many of them...
...a claim that Lane's book certainly can't make...
...In Whitmore's Marine boot training recruits were beaten, forced to yell "Marines are killers" and taught that the Vietnamese were subhuman...
...If Lane has proven anything it is that we have some sick people in our society, some of whom find their way into the military...
...One Drill Instructor reportedly even told his trainees that when they got to Viet Nam they could rape all the Vietnamese women they wanted without fear of punishment...
...With the Marines in Viet Nam every day was My Lai...
...At this point I could have saved Mr...
...Those interviewed go to great lenghts to explain how the military trains its men to be killers...
...This is not an entirely accurate analogy however, because being a country boy the skin show was a source of academic enrichment...
...Now there is a nice bit of logic...
...He now studies the plight of the young American entering the service...
...He admits that the enemy's tactics are treacherous and then PRESTO...
...Reasoning such as this can only be the product of a mind sequestered by Liberalism...
...Lane then asks, "Did it ever occur to you that the recruiter did not want you because you were black...
...It Was the Devil in Me Conversations with Americans By Mark Lane Simon and Schuster, $6.95 The reading of Mark Lane's latest expose has left me so overwhelmed with its perversion that it all seems a nauseous bore...
...in the flash of an eye our objectives in the war are evil...
...The stories run the gamut from executing their own officers in the field to the torture and murder of children...
...They burned and plundered villages stealing everything of value...
...Lane's integrity, indeed even his intelligence...
...Of course the best of the lot are now all-Swedish boys...
...Fairly typical are the experiences of a black ex-Marine from Nashville, residing of late in Stockholm, by the name of Terry Whitmore...
...Why did they save their stories for Mr...
...The show's performers were also much more convincing in their theatrics than is Lane in his...
...In order to document his thesis that our forces in Viet Nam are murderers, rapists and plunderers and so instructed by the military commanders Lane interviews thirty-two Viet Nam veterans who prior to their military indoctrination were all-American boys...
...military establishment (What's new...
...But having noted that he had included quotes from the New York Times in his introduction I figured he must be an intellectual and know what he was talking about, so I trudged on...
...While somewhat inflated at $6.95, Lane's book should provide fun reading for the sadists among us...
...Marines killed old ladies, children, water buffalo, even other Marines...
...Being an unbiased reporter in search of the truth Mr...
...He could likely find some equally gruesome tales in our prisons and asylums but this would hardly constitute an indictment against living in America...
...Should they get no satisfaction through military channels it is obvious that there are many politicians and newsmen who would love to be privy to such scandal...
...He doubted that the waiting list for the Navy ever existed...
...While this is common knowledge to most people, Lane needs 247 pages to make the point...
...Michael McCollumm...
...We are told of the barbaric treatment they received in basic training by deranged Drill Instructors...
...and everyone who has ever served in Viet Nam...
...Instead he has documented the evilness of some of the war's participants which are hardly one and the same...
...In six months he may be murdering unarmed women and children in Viet Nam...
...Once in Viet Nam they go to great lenghts to describe the execution of every hideous act known to man and then some...
...Taking only two pages to ascertain that we were committing atrocious acts in an evil war with evil objectives Lane gets to the task at hand...
...It should also prove to be an excellent reference for those in the protest movement who have long used trash of this type as a foundation for their beliefs...
...If one were to grant Lane the concession of assuming that all of his interviews were factual (which I certainly don't) he still hasn't shed any light on the evilness of the U.S...
...He then explains that the Viet Cong patriots and their Northern allies would never consider using such tactics...
...The remorse expressed by many of the participants is also a little hard to understand since it comes well after the fact...
...Lane the next 236 pages by explaining that any man who merely walks his girl down to the emporium for a soda before running off to war could be suspect for anything...
...objectives in the war...
...They are forced to yell "Kill...
...I know of at least three G. I .'s presently serving a twenty-five years on the rock pile who would likely dispute this...
...So complete is their "Kill" indoctrination that one Marine reported that Stateside Marines were never assigned to riot duty because it was feared that they would start killing the rioters in wholesale fashion...
...So facing the draft and not wanting to be in the Army he joined the Marines...
...When it appeared that he was headed back to Viet Nam young Whitmore took leave to Sweden where today he is a successful middle class citizen living in an apartment and driving a tow motor for a local furniture factory...
...They all either participated in, witnessed or heard about these incidents...
...and even brainwashed into thinking that killing "Gooks" is fun...
...After reading all of the sick stories told by these victims of the U.S...
...It is the war and its objectives, not the lectures that explain them, that constitute the evel...
...Military machine the obvious question comes to mind...
...The lectures, however odious, are neither irrelevant nor entirely inaccurate within the confines of the war and it's objectives...
...Then on to a hospital in Japan and an anti-war Japanese girlfriend...
...To this he adds, "Children may indeed carry weapons and booby traps do abound and much of the atmosphere is hostile...
...All of the services have Inspector Generals whose job it is to investigate such allegations...
...His only original contribution (at least all that he admits to authoring) is the introduction...
...Having always thought that mass terror was the modis operendi of Communist guerillas I naturally began to harbor doubts about Mr...
...Whitmore had wanted to join the Navy but was told there was a long waiting list...
...The acts they describe are all blatant violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice...
...Shame about the thousands of peasants who jumped in those holes and pulled the dirt in over their heads near Hue in 1968...
...How does the military accomplish this transformation...
...Lane's exclusive use...
...Michael McCollum...
...Since their existence is dependent upon civilian support any policy of mass terror would be "suicidal...
...The only similar experience that comes to mind is an evening I once spent at a carnival burlesque show in the back woods of Alabama...
...His apparent intention is to discredit the U.S...
Vol. 4 • February 1971 • No. 4
