The Terrible Realities
The Terrible Realities' Letters from a Gl in Vietnam The letters published below make up a representative cross-section of many others sent by an American Gl to his parents. Names of persons,...
...The other day a chronic schizophrenic was referred to the clinic...
...You know, when I was home on furlough we read this article about the army drafting (and rehabilitating) categories of young men who had heretofore been ineligible for military service...
...One GI was brought to the hospital last week because of bizarrre behavior and we discovered that he'd received a box of "brownies" from the States...
...One will never know but it's not comforting to think his death may have resulted from dropping the stretcher...
...He has been in the army one and one-half years and says every day of it has been hell...
...If this was to be a permanent relationship, fine...
...August 26 One of the saddest things I've run into here is the GI patients referred to us who were drafted under the army's special "rehabilitation" program...
...The helicopter medic had told us to be real careful because too much of a jar on this boy's skull could kill him...
...For hell sakes get going...
...and if they're ten minutes late they're fired but once they get here they know their duty assignments...
...This will also affect the GI benefits he would ordinarily receive...
...Dig it," his partner agreed...
...Can't you see this is an emergency...
...If we should be attacked you will go to the large bunker directly to your rear...
...You god damn son-of-a-bitch," I said...
...Huh...
...Because he was psychotic during the interview some of his confessions may have been erroneous...
...He had attempted suicide by swallowing forty pills, twenty Darvon and twenty Librium...
...About one month before this soldier was sent to the clinic he startled every one in his company one morning by throwing away twenty dollar bills in the total amount of $300...
...I hadn't slept for twenty-four hours but they put me to work as a night KP the moment we arrived...
...We'll never win this way...
...Sergeant Black doesn't give a shit about training those goddam gooks," Taylor said...
...When we got to the hospital I took hold of the stretcher on the inside and told Thayer to be real careful and not let his end drop as we came out...
...I'm sitting on the sofa observing the patients in the psychiatric ward...
...He said he thought she was a VC...
...That's some of our trouble in Vietnam...
...Her eyes wouldn't focus and her speech was almost unintelligible...
...I asked...
...He was telling me that once I got out of training the army wasn't so bad...
...I ain't gon'na have ya bandagin' up no gooks...
...Six sergeants grab him and he goes limp...
...The best soldier is a frustrated and hateful individual and if he is not that way at induction the army proceeds to make him so...
...One of the other soldiers was annoyed...
...You make beggars of our children, prostitutes of our women, and murderers of our men," he lamented...
...September 26 You'll never believe this one...
...August 16 Last night Medivac (term used for helicopters that pick up the wounded) brought in twenty-five casualties...
...July 1 Tony Young, the eighteen-year-old black boy, is back from another patrol...
...Yeah," I said angrily...
...Then there were some with various handicaps, physical and emotional, such as bed-wetters, sleep-walkers, etc...
...One hates to shoot a child...
...In the glaring heat, sweat pouring down our faces, we were ushered under a huge canopy...
...None were killed, however...
...Hell," Jones says, "that's what it was...
...The next day we begin to pacify the burned and embittered survivors...
...Someone commented that perhaps the CO should be here too...
...They were part of a twenty-seven man patrol that was caught in an ambush...
...Hey, I never thought of that...
...They hold him off the ground and handcuff him...
...Some goddam general back in the Pentagon was told we were supposed to do this so he tells some colonel who don't give a shit and he tells the captain who don't give a shit because he's too busy building bunkers and looking out for his men...
...Norman is twenty years old and has wet his bed every day of his life...
...He will now be given an unsuitability discharge which will be like another scarlet letter to brand him throughout the remainder of his life...
...Its continued use can be catastrophic to its victim...
...He wants to go home to his momma," someone shouts...
...Why, hell, he's runnin' all over the place, he couldn't of been hurt that bad...
...Then, dig it man, he took and lit his cigarette and just watched the gook burn...
...They were laughing about a Vietnamese civilian who had been run down by an army truck...
...It goddam well is," Taylor said...
...He couldn't figure out what was wrong with her...
...I recently read a statement by an old bearded Vietnamese gentleman who was reproving a Gl for throwing candy to some Vietnamese children...
...Names of persons, places, and military units have been changed or removed to conceal the identity of the Gl.—The Editors...
...He fined him ten dollars...
...Murphy stopped the truck beside him...
...He'd never been to Vietnam himself...
...August 21 Yesterday the CO of an airborne infantry unit brought one of his men to us stating that he (I'll call him John) had been acting strange lately...
...It is unheard of for a Gl to become friendly with a Vietnamese...
...Nineteen of them died...
...There is no mutual understanding...
...One of the doctors was working with a very pretty Vietnamese girl about sixteen years old...
...The soldier's foot is half blown off, just dangling, and he has a huge bandage around his head because the top of his skull has been blown off too...
...Then I can go to Vietnam and kill babies...
...They usually have outposts scattered through the city and village areas...
...The boy was thrown onto the plane amidst jeers and catcalls...
...No gook's ever an emergency," he said, irritably...
...Well, why the hell aren't we training them...
...This wasn't even published in the Army Times, the fellows here tell me...
...He also has a low IQ and is an extremely inadequate and emotionally unstable young man...
...This is the type of thing that is hardly ever mentioned in the papers back home nor does it get in the Stars and Stripes or Army Times over here...
...More comments on the way to the airport...
...Even with an escort we carry loaded M-14s and wear flack jackets and helmets and carry our gas masks along...
...They are merely tired and apathetic...
...You ought'a treat 'em...
...Four months ago the ammo dump just two miles from here was hit and twelve GIs killed without any VC casualties at all...
...If it's a GI, o.k., but no goddam gook...
...That gook was splattered all over the road...
...One day it is necessary to napalm a Vietnamese village to liberate it from VC infiltrators...
...Thirteen GIs were wounded and three or four of them seriously...
...A cigarette that is a combination of marijuana and opium is becoming more common here...
...We put him in the ambulance...
...I'm leaving today...
...June 21 11:30 a.m...
...Also, he'd used opium about ten times, and had taken Binoctal (Amytal and Seconal) on a number of occasions...
...June 15 Found out today I'm to be an ambulance driver...
...And those who are too ignorant to realize they must be liberated, must be pacified, so they'll not interfere with the liberation of their more enlightened brethren whose enthusiasm for liberation has been greatly enhanced by their participation in the profits of the economic boom the United States has brought to their hapless land...
...It's too dark to see his face or his eyes...
...You're a medic...
...psychologically healthy men do not make good soldiers...
...Some equipment and trucks were damaged but there were no casualties...
...A poor medic is like a poor cop...
...Whenever we make a run at night we're supposed to have an armed escort and we do if they are available...
...Thayer goes up front to drive...
...I used to get two or three of the Vietnamese Poppysohns who were always hanging around the compound to wash my ambulance...
...I don't like no gooks either," he said, "but I'd want 'em to help me if I got shot...
...There's a cute little Vietnamese girl about ten years old who's been here about three months, they tell me...
...So he tells the first sergeant to hire some goddam gooks so it'll go on the reports that he's doing his job...
...Well, they were here when I got here eight months ago," Taylor replied...
...Examples given were borderline IQs, who the army claimed they would teach to read and write...
...Send the bastard to jail if that's what he wants...
...She simply wouldn't react...
...For example, there isn't much need for a quartermaster laundry because one Mommysohn will do all the laundry plus the household chores of a Gl for $10 a month...
...You hypocrites...
...One only has to listen attentively to an average barracks conversation to realize that the ordinary recruit equates in his mind "stinking gooks, Jews, foreigners, and Communists...
...He was so far out he thought it was the year 1955 and he refused to sit down because he said "pins and stuff are sticking in the chairs...
...While in the mess hall I overheard two MPs talking with one of the cooks...
...A truck driver was shot through the chest on the same road I was driving on so it was a bit frightening...
...218 of us are loading onto the buses that take us to the airport where a plane awaits us, then on to Vietnam...
...The rest of the day they would hang around the wash patio sleeping and talking with the Mommysohns, who were listlessly but steadily cleaning our clothes and polishing our boots...
...We was out four days," one said...
...This is one of the reasons the civilian casualty rate is so high...
...June 28 8:30 a.m...
...All of us new troops were in one section and the troops leaving Vietnam were in a separate section...
...June 18 While standing in the sick call line I listened to the conversation of two fellows in front of me...
...He says the Vietnamese peas...
...While being interviewed he was agitated, loose, and hostile, with pressure of speech and flattening of affect...
...The GI was never punished...
...A bullet went through the locker and bed of one soldier but fortunately he was on guard duty...
...July 6 Last Sunday the compound next to ours was hit with six mortar rounds...
...Because he's got more guts than the rest of us...
...Good God," I said...
...The very dichotomy that is established between the officer and the enlisted man could hardly be improved upon as a method to instill jealousy and hatred between the two...
...There was still no improvement on the third day so it was decided he should be evacuated to PACOM (Japan...
...We can't win this war if the people hate our guts...
...Instead of starting the ambulance Thayer starts telling me about something we'd been discussing during our lunch break...
...Many of them are Puerto Ricans who can barely speak English...
...On the way back we seen a dead gook lying on the side of the road...
...To be a good soldier one must sublimate his aggression in a form of behavior that the army will tolerate...
...She walks about in a stupor refusing to associate or communicate with anyone...
...One of my patients, Norman Sanders (pseudonym), is a good illustration of what has really happened to these guys...
...September 8 Contrary to popular opinion I find that happy (psychologically healthy) men do not make good soldiers...
...They're to go to the wash-patio and sleep until they're to leave at four p.m...
...He states he has never had a room by himself and has not even been given a mat to put between himself and his sheets...
...She had fallen in love with the son of an American contractor and the boy had just recently told her to get lost...
...What surprised me was to discover that it's the little kids (age six to ten) who throw the grenades and set off explosives...
...July 26 I believe I've been here long enough now to make a few observations about the Pacification Program you read so much about in the States...
...Some days we will see as many as three or four marijuana psychotics...
...They must surely wonder if we are liberating them to death...
...He unfastened the gasoline drum from the jeep and poured gas all over the bastard...
...The old-timers laughed and sneered at that...
...So these guys report every morning...
...This is difficult to believe but his company commander decided upon some unusual punishment...
...July 18 Camp was hit last night by mortars, machine guns, and light weapons fire...
...They had LSD mixed in with the regular brownie ingredients and were therefore very potent...
...We're supposed to be training them to become ambulance drivers so they can replace guys like you and me," Taylor said...
...The places I've seen so far have the military bases located in the Vietnamese cities or on the outskirts...
...I protested, silently...
...Who in hell ever told you a thing like that...
...You only hate him because he's doing something you wish you had the guts to do...
...But one day I was talking to Pfc...
...and contradictory problem in pacification...
...The boys here tell me another reason is because Charley will murder them for various reasons...
...In general, the more tropical and humid the climate the richer it ". . . the army seems to tolerate all too well various expressions of race prejudice, tribal bigotry, and biased opinions . . ." is when the marijuana matures...
...Then he took a match and lit him up like a torch...
...There's nothing physically wrong with her vocal system because she talks in her sleep...
...Without any visible reason he would suddenly burst into tears or begin to scream...
...I thought that was the reason the Vietnamese men were hired, to wash the ambulances and provide them with employment...
...There are a number of goals intended here—stimulation of the economy, lessening the burden of work on the Gl, reducing the number of GIs needed for non-combat duty, and, of course, training the Vietnamese to replace the Gl...
...Yeh," one of the MPs smirked...
...policy in their country...
...June 12 We landed some twenty miles from Saigon...
...The GIs barricade themselves in their extremely well fortified bunkers and the firefight takes place, with the Vietnamese civilians caught in the middle...
...But liberate them we will...
...Then the loudspeaker blared...
...Those chronic marijuana smokers who keep themselves continually high on ten to fifteen "joints" per day inevitably develop marijuana psychosis...
...Hey, maybe he'll commit suicide...
...You asked about drug abuse in Vietnam...
...He can alienate those around him...
...some with silent cheers, others not so silent...
...I asked...
...Thousands of these handicapped young people have been drafted but from what I've seen here, the so-called "rehabilitation program" has been a farce...
...John was placed on sleep therapy with the aid of Thorazine but was still psychotic after forty-eight hours...
...Some of the shells exploded about 400 yards from our barracks...
...How long has this been going on...
...It seems that the proportion of the South Vietnamese now dependent upon our military activities here, in one way or another, is quite enormous...
...I don't blame him...
...This time they took a hill and Tony says: "The first sergeant says to me, 'Doc' " —Tony's a medic—" 'he always calls me Doc' [Tony says this with an ear-to-ear smile of importance], "now I'm going down to check this thing out an' I don't want you coming down unless I tell ya...
...She usually does this for about six GI's and earns $60 a month...
...I would estimate that thirty to forty per cent of the administrative discharges for unsuitability or inability to adjust to military life are given to these draftees...
...This boy is a passive-dependent person with much pent-up aggression which builds up over an extended period of time and is eventually projected inward, expressing itself then in self-destructive behavior...
...His bunk mates have always made fun of him and since coming to Vietnam has been given the unflattering nickname of "Babyson...
...The patient died that night...
...Taylor and he informed me different...
...I said, "Thayer...
...Is this on the level...
...They throw him onto the bus...
...The best soldier is a frustrated and hateful individual . . ." at eight a.m...
...There were several ambulances and eight or nine Vietnamese would spend two or three hours washing them at a very slow pace...
...I get in with the patient...
...Tony can't stand disapproval...
...He would lift up her arm and it would fall limply back...
...On each compound in Vietnam it is army policy to hire a certain number of Vietnamese civilians, the number depending upon the size and activity of the particular compound...
...He wasn't hurt that bad anyway," he said, edgily...
...At this rate they never will...
...8:30 p.m...
...The chopper has landed before we get there...
...I looked at those old timers as though I was gaping at hardened criminals through iron bars...
...While watching this girl I recalled an argument I had with my sergeant during training back home...
...I wouldn't of treated that gook even if the searg didn't care, I ain't gon'na go bandaging up no gook...
...We rush over to the landing field to pick up a Vietnamese soldier wounded in the field...
...he yelled at me and stomped out, shouting over his shoulder, "Things like that don't happen over there...
...Our Government faces a somewhat dual...
...Break his head in," another yells...
...However, the doctor finally concluded that she was suffering from a frustrated love sickness...
...He seemed irritated at me and as we came out of the ambulance he dropped his end and I knew then that all the casualties weren't caused on the battlefield...
...The typical army indoctrination course could make some effort to root out these preconceived half-truths and untruths, but, unfortunately, the army seems so obsessed with teaching anti-Communism in these courses that they reinforce these provincial bigotries rather than eradicate them...
...After obtaining his history we concluded he had most likely been schizophrenic for years, and recently his condition had rapidly deteriorated...
...They glanced casually at us through their cool sun glasses...
...They can buy a pack of marijuana cigarettes (ten joints) downtown for $1 MPC (military currency) or 100 piasters...
...The people in Vietnam are not pacified...
...If no GFs was hit I don't want ya coming down at all...
...He had the identity confusion that he was Jesus but rambled away about queers and homosexuals...
...Why...
...I was on commitment that night and made three runs to the hospital...
...He was referring to South Vietnamese fighting with us, not VC...
...You couldn't teach them worthless bastards anything anyway...
...The rest of us are watching through the window...
...The Vietnamese houses are walled off from the compounds by huge barbwire fences with trip flares fastened to them...
...John had been in Vietnam seven months and said that most of that time he'd been smoking five or six marijuana cigarettes per day...
...The strain of marijuana grown here is stronger than that grown in the States...
...I can only conclude that Norman, rather than being rehabilitated, has been considerably harmed by his army experience...
...The papers back home seldom mention such one-sided victories by the VC...
...I presume this program is intended to reach those recalcitrant and malcontented Vietnamese who somehow have not recognized the benevolent motives behind U.S...
...October 27 Yesterday I interviewed a patient who was sent here from a nearby medical dispensary...
...It seems that every third or fourth house in the villages near the compounds is filled with prostitutes who solicit the GIs' business...
...She tried to steal a GFs hat and he shot her in the head...
...At the dispensary his job was driving the dump truck to the dumpyard...
...Even though we fired back at the enemy with everything we had and called in "gun-ships" to lay down machine gun fire on them, no one ever saw the enemy and no VC bodies were found the next day...
...This is a good example to illustrate why the South Vietnamese army hasn't been able to replace the American army yet...
...He has been rehabilitated so well that he attempted suicide six weeks ago and very nearly succeeded in the attempt...
...I hope he tries to escape so they can shoot him...
...When the VC attack a compound they use the Vietnamese houses for cover...
...June 9,1969 My orders were delayed...
...The little girl hasn't spoken a word since the shooting...
...This soldier had been in Vietnam for a year and five months and was due to leave here in twenty-five days...
...But the question should be asked: What happens when the Americans leave...
...Some gook got shot in the leg and he's bleedin' all over like a motha-fucka...
...He explained to me why Vietnam has the cleanest dump-yards in the world...
...When Norman was drafted he was promised that he would be given a room by himself so that he would not be embarrassed and humiliated by his fellow GFs...
...Unfortunately, the army seems to tolerate all too well various expressions of race prejudice, tribal bigotry, and biased opinions of other cultures and ideologies...
...The army has received considerable publicity in the civilian press regarding this program, and I can only conclude much of it is undeserved...
...He would pinch her and she wouldn't flinch...
...It's utterly impossible for a Gl, especially a scared Gl in the dark, to make any differentiation between a VC and a civilian...
...the GIs who have been out in the field are the most vicious in their treatment of the natives...
...He was cool, man...
...One soldier stops at the bus door and refuses to get in...
...Usually, four or five other GIs accompanied him with his load of garbage and trash, to help him load and unload...
...The military deliberately keeps us apart...
Vol. 34 • January 1970 • No. 1
