SONGMY
Mayer, Milton
SONGMY by Milton Mayer "Of course we didn't pay Meadlo for the interview—he wanted to get a burden off his conscience, and we arranged for him to do so. —Spokesman for the agency which sold...
...His eyes are opened...
...Mayer with them) knew all about it because they knew how wars are fought and won (and lost) and always have been and always will be...
...But "they" are only the boys we shanghaied off our streets and sent to Vietnam to rescue our Vietnamese brethren from the atrocious clutch of the Reds...
...It wasn't "the army...
...Neither could Private Meadlo...
...Tragedy?— "I ain't talking to nobody now unless they pay...
...When our agents land on the moon, it is "we" who did it, but when they kill villagers it is "they...
...Tragedy?—Fellow-Meadlos, hear ye Colonel James E. Shaw, chief chaplain of the American Division (after the event): "We should be proud of our country because the American Division's rules of engagement are based on Judeo-Christian traditions and are moral, unlike those of the enemy...
...Instead of doing the heroic and dashing their eyes out, they unite in their rejection of recognition and push forward, huddled together, to the brink and over it...
...Reston knew all about it all along, and kept it quiet, and so did you and you and you (and I), and kept it quiet...
...The devil it is...
...there being (as General of the Army MacArthur said in Seoul and Cardinal Spellman in Saigon) no substitute for victory...
...I am sure that C. in C. Meadlo in Washington has moral compunctions against letting ten to fifteen million people (always including women and children) die of hunger in the United States, but he cannot let his moral compunctions interfere with his winning the war...
...We don't kill gooks just because they're gooks...
...The United States of America, as if it were one nation, under God, indivisible, is indivisibly appalled ("shocked and sick," says its War Minister, Mr...
...The art of war is the art of inflicting unbearable pain on others, and that's what it was in Songmy...
...Spokesman for the agency which sold the Meadlo reminiscences of Songmy to CBS for $10,000...
...Mr...
...One day, all at once, discovery breaks in upon him...
...It wasn't "the hawks...
...Nixon and Mr...
...Haeberle, the former combat photographer, took the pictures of it for them (and for you and me) at Songmy and, after his discharge, showed the pictures all over Cleveland at public meetings and they caused no commotion— the words are Mr...
...Ex-Private Meadlo, confirming the report that he had not been paid for the CBS interview...
...And Mr...
...yes, twenty-four hours before...
...Reston knew all about the Songmy massacre within twenty-four hours after it happened...
...Reston of The New York Times says that the Americans are "a moral people...
...The tragic instant is the instant of recognition, when the dramatic hero discovers what, or even who, he really is...
...These two splendid representatives of the two recently irreconcilable estates are suddenly reconciled when somebody blows the whistle on them and all the lights go up and there is their war: not the way it is spoken or written but the way it is fought...
...It wasn't "the Pentagon...
...His pride in his faultlessness has been shaken hard by evil rumor (which he calls calumny...
...Haeberle's—until somebody blew the whistle and turned up the lights and he sold the pictures to Life (that is, to you and me) for $40,000 for another crying jag a la Kennedy and King...
...Nixon and Mr...
...Bundled up in their store-bought and hurried along to their flat little destinies, the two hundred million component parts of the American tragedy are denied the tragic instant...
...Now is the time to support our boys in Vietnam, and not run out on them as if they were infected and, worse yet, infectious...
...That's what the Nazis do...
...What Private Meadlo—and Captain Meadlo and General Meadlo and Commander in Chief Meadlo— did and go right on doing is fight the war and, if possible, win it...
...And the devil they are...
...The massacre, said Mr...
...Laird) by what they did at Songmy and will leave no head unrolled to bring them to justice (now that the whistle's been blown by a former private...
...Nixon, is "abhorrent to the conscience of all Americans...
...They aren't...
...It was the sovereign citizens of the United States of America who hired and trained and commanded their agents to do whatever was necessary to win...
...He dashes his eyes out and totters off into the dark...
...The sight is unendurable...
...There being no substitute, such as conscience or morality, for victory...
...They (and Mr...
...It was the sovereign citizens of the United States of America—look who's here!—who killed the people of Songmy...
...They aren't because they aren't lordly entities but scrabbling conglomerates...
...There is no tyrant here to pass the buck to: no Hitler, no Stalin...
...Supernations ought (like supermen) to be pushovers for the classic formula...
...Tragedy?—Fellow-Meadlos, hear ye a staff sergeant major of the American Division at Songmy: "It may not be humanitarian, but that's what it's like...
Vol. 34 • January 1970 • No. 1
