Critical Vietnam War history vs. theory
The day after their visit to the Oval Office, Riley received an encrypted email, which he forwarded to Oprah, and to Joline Wales, for her to share with President Bush. Here’s the text.
Dear Riley and Willa Sue,
Riley’s Vietnam War exposé on Oprah struck a deep nerve in me. I served two 1-year tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Marines. My unit was in-country most of the time. We clashed many times with "Charlie", and some of us didn't come home. Those men who died, and who lived, were the best friends I ever had. We watched each others' backs. We wept when one of us was wounded, and we wept a whole lot more when one of us was killed. And, the we got drunk, and stoned.
I came back to America very different from the boy who was sent over there to "save the world from communism." I came back with PTSD. I came back with herpes. I came back with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). I had a great deal of difficulty fitting into the America in which I had grown up. I'm still having a great deal of difficulty fitting in, although my shelter dog "Gunny" helps me stay somewhat level, after I finally figured out relationships with women were doomed from the start and I quit dating.
A childhood friend got married before entering his senior year in college. He entered Cumberland School of Law School at Samford University in Birmingham. By then, two of his college fraternity brothers in the US Army had been killed in action in Vietnam.
During my friend’s freshman year at Cumberland, the US Government started the Vietnam war draft lottery from which married men were exempt. By the time married men lost their war draft exemption, my friend's wife was pregnant and married men were not being drafted. Then, their 2-months-old baby tragically died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and he was exposed to the war draft.
He wrestled with applying for a student deferment, so he could finish law school and then be inducted and hopefully get into the Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG) and be a military lawyer; or join the Marines, hoping to get into JAG; or do nothing, hoping his name was not drawn in the war draft lottery.
Finally, he decided to apply for a student deferment, hoping to end up in JAG. He went to the Draft Board in Birmingham and applied for the student deferment. Two weeks later, his wife learned she was pregnant.
My friend went back to the Draft Board and explained that to the same lady clerk who had helped him apply for the student deferment. She said she was so sorry, but the student deferment was irrevocable. She said she would show him what he had signed. She walked to a green filing cabinet and opened it and pulled out a tan file and opened it as she walked back to the counter where he waited.
When she reached him, she said there was some mistake. He asked, what mistake? She said he had signed the wrong form, and he would have to sign the correct form to get a student deferment. He said, no thank you, he would go with his father deferment, and he walked out of the Draft Board feeling the weight of the world had been lifted off him by God.
Some years later, my friend shared that story with the daughter of a man he knew somewhat in Birmingham, who said her husband's mother had worked at that Draft Board during the Vietnam War, and she'd heard several similar stories of young men not being sent to Vietnam. My friend wondered if those were young white men? He was white, the clerk at the Draft Board was white, and her son and daughter-in-law were white.
I think, Mr. Strange, that you nailed it about Vietnam being a rich white men's war for $$$ profit, and that the two Kennedys and Martin Luther King and Malcom X were killed because they were against war in Vietnam.
By the way, I'm white, and when I was in country, it seemed to me that my white comrades in arms were more gung ho about saving America from communism, than were my black comrades. My white comrades had no interest in military careers, whereas my black comrades had much less opportunity outside the military. Maybe they did feel kinda like they were picking rich white men's cotton? I might have felt that way, if I were them.
There is is no doubt in my mind that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed by the US Congress, which paved the way for America sending troops into South Vietnam, was a false flag operation cooked up by American civilian and military war hawks, to persuade Congress to declare war on Charlie and North Vietnam, because what America really wanted was Vietnam's rubber trees.
But don't accept just my words and assessments.
Consider Muhammed Ali was put in an American prison because he refused to be inducted and sent to Vietnam. His view was no Viet Cong ever called him no nigger.
Here's something else Ali reportedly said:
Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?
No, I am not going ten thousand miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would put my prestige in jeopardy and could cause me to lose millions of dollars which should accrue to me as the champion.
But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is right here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality…
If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. But I either have to obey the laws of the land or the laws of Allah. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail. We’ve been in jail for four hundred years.
Imagine a U.S. Military with no black troops. Imagine only young white soldiers dying in Vietnam. Imagine the furor from American whites.
Consider also what a Birmingham friend emailed me last year:
In1988, my father invited me to attend a Downtown Birmingham Rotary Club luncheon with him. This was a top shelf club, its members prominent or children of prominent members. The guest speaker was the CEO (or President or Executive Director) of National Geographic. His topic was "Getting to Know Our Neighbors." He said the Geographic had come to think many conflicts between nations were caused, at least in part, by people not knowing much about people in other countries. He said a study had revealed that 95 percent of American high school and college students could not locate Vietnam on a map.
After the speaker finished his talk, he invited questions, The first question was, "Did the Geographic have a position on the Vietnam war?" The speaker said the Geographic had correspondents in Saigon, where there was a huge street demonstration of people carrying posters begging America to save them. The posters were in English. That demonstration was seen all over American television. It swung American sentiment from against to for American military intervention in South Vietnam.
The speaker said the Geographic's correspondents spoke Vietnamese and they interviewed many of the demonstrators, who said they had been paid money by the Saigon government to demonstrate and carry the posters. The demonstrators did not speak English and did not know what was on the posters or why they were demonstrating. The speaker said the Geographic did some digging and learned the money for the demonstration had been paid by American corporations and the U.S. Government.
You could have heard a pin drop in the Rotary Club. Many of the older members, including my father, were World War II combat veterans. My father looked like he was going to throw up. He had never liked the Vietnam war.. He said nothing about what the speaker had said, nor during the drive back to where he had picked me up to go to the luncheon with him. He never spoke of it later.
Consider something else my friend emailed me last year:
In the spring of 2000, I joined a "Seekers" group, who met weekly in the Unitarian Church in Key West. The church minister, who just happened to be from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, attended each meeting. There were about ten of us. We talked about on and of-off beat topics.
One day, a fellow maybe 10 years my senior said he had worked for the CIA and was stationed with a CIA team in South Vietnam when the French were trying to retake Vietnam and regain access to its rubber trees and other natural resources. Although publicly the American government was backing France, his team's mission was to help Ho Chi Minh beat the French, so America could have access to Vietnam's rubber trees and other natural resources. He said Ho wanted to do business with America, but in the end America wanted too much. Not caring at all for Communist China, Ho sought the Soviet Union's help.
The truth often is stranger than fiction. Gloria Steinem wrote a book entitled, "The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off."
Sincerely yours,
Charlie and Gunny
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