|
VIETNAM 1999 - Brian Wizard
Tools of Engagement
If I've heard it said once, I've heard it said many
times, “The Viet Nam War is over, done, finished. You lost. Let it go.”
Most people who tell me that weren't there. Those
who were there and believe the verbal claims, are right. They did lose and the
war is over. Obviously, their commitment to the struggle for freedom did not
rival mine. I took it to heart. Not necessarily any of the political rhetoric
spewed forth from any side, but definitely the idea that life in a free and open
society is the best. We all want the best. We all deserve the best.
When I fought for such an ideal in Viet Nam I was
only nineteen years of age. I was too young to vote for the politicians who sent
me into harm's way for whatever personal or professional justifications they
might have had. I was also too young to handle the intoxicating effects of
alcoholic drink. I sure could kill, burn, maim, and cripple, though. I had what
it took to execute the military rules of engagement from a frontline position.
The alternatives of incarceration or self-exile to a foreign country didn't
interest me.
To set the record straight, no, I could not
personally handle the psychological aftereffects of my over-the-edge,
on-the-job-training as a frontline combat warrior. I needed just as much, if not
more, retraining of my combat-conditioned mind and body to bring me back into
the peaceful lifestyle of a civilian as went into giving my civilian mind and
body the mental capacity and physical wherewithal to wage war.
I am no longer a naive nineteen-year-old. I now
possess a much larger data base from which I can draw conclusions based on
experience. Let me share some of that knowledge with you. I did not lose the
fight for freedom in Viet Nam.
Thirty years beyond my hands-on effort as a teenage
soldier, I remain committed to bringing peace and freedom to all countries of
the world. This is not to say that my interests are in returning to the military
rules of engagement. On the contrary, I will use knowledge, friendship,
communication, tolerance, and prosperity as my tools of engagement.
Viet Nam 1999
On May 12, 1969, at approximately 0200 hours, I
departed Viet Nam after my mandatory military tour of combat duty. For ten
months I held the position of an assault helicopter door gunner. Yes, I saw some
action. Yes, what I saw and did had a long-term effect upon me. How? The whole
ordeal disturbed my well-being socially, spiritually, professionally,
emotionally and mentally. Unattended, I had to carry not only the burden brought
on by the lack of treatment for what is now documented and judged to be a
service-connected, psychological combat wound, but I also had to engage in
another conflict in order to obtain professional attention. This new war was a
battle for justice, and it is still being waged. I have taken my initial
Veterans Administration claim all the way to the Supreme Court. I wage this war
not for myself, as much as for every member of the active military and military
veterans.
Thirty-odd years ago I left Viet Nam with unresolved
issues and a lack of closure. What happened after I left? Who lived? Who died?
What about the people I met? What about my dog, Bitch? What about the towns I
frequented? How has Viet Nam changed? Has the country, the land, recovered from
the explosive misery of war?
This is a report on my efforts to resolve issues and
stimulate closure. My memories of Viet Nam and what it meant to be a soldier in
Viet Nam, emanate from a core of negativity. My job as a soldier was to
negotiate peace through the barrel of a machine gun. That was then.
This is now. Thirty years and thirteen days after I
departed Viet Nam in 1969, I returned. On May 25, 1999, I landed at Ton San Nhut
Airport, Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam, at approximately 0100 hours. I had
no problem passing through customs and immigration. Nonetheless, the government
employees of both departments possessed a hard and unfriendly countenance.
Beyond the uniformed heavies, I found just the opposite: people who were kind,
friendly, ready to smile, talk and please. The exact kind of people I remember
meeting, and defending to the death, three decades ago.
From the airport, I took a taxi to the Empress
Hotel. The streets were quiet, almost empty. If you plan on going to Viet Nam,
make your first night's hotel reservations yourself by contacting any of the
hotels directly. If you make a reservation through your travel agent, you will
spend three times as much money. It is not the hotels' or the travel agents'
fault. It's the middleman between the travel agents and the hotels who jacks the
price up 200 percent.
The staff at the Empress Hotel was very friendly and
helpful. The Empress is located downtown Ho Chi Minh City, and close to the Hong
Kong Bank, which at the time of my visit had the only ATM in the city.
The Rex Hotel is government owned and twice the
price of the Empress, but it is twice the hotel. The Empress cost me $28 U.S.
The Rex cost $56 U.S. I am sure all the prices have increased since my last
visit.
Public transport around the city comes in three
forms:
-
Scooter. You can rent one and drive it yourself,
or you can ride on one as a passenger.
-
Cyclo. This is a three-wheeled rendition of a
Chinese rickshaw. It has a man behind a large passenger seat who peddles you
around.
-
Taxi cab, which is truly the fastest and safest,
but the most expensive.
The flight from Seattle to HCMC had been grueling.
Nonetheless, I awoke only a few hours after I went to sleep. My heart raced with
excitement at the realization that this was not the recurring dream of being
back in Viet Nam. I was back in Viet Nam.
As soon as I opened the window of my third-story
hotel room, the purpose of this journey engulfed me. My goal was to explore
myself, my past, my disability, my enhancement, and not only my future, but my
future relationship with the Vietnamese people. My mental reconditioning started
with the sights, sounds, and smells of present-day Viet Nam. The indigenous
ambiance gave the very air I breathed definition. It was Vietnamese air.
Among all that existed to stimulate my memories
there was one thing lacking. I didn't miss it, but every sensor in my body, mind
and spirit felt its absence. There was no war. Without fear of death
accompanying every second, Viet Nam was a very comfortable place to visit.
With the stress of war not barking at everyone's
heals, there was no collective fear permeating the aura of the people, or their
city.
The struggle the people have now is ages old,
economic. In fact, the collective cry I heard repeated by the people was,
“Economics, not politics.”
I knew this cry all too well. I, too, wanted to
succeed at business, before I allowed myself time to play.
On my first day back in Viet Nam I rode around town
on a cyclo. This allowed me a slow moving and personal contact. The cyclo driver
was more than happy to tell me about the different aspects, sights, and
intricacies of the city.
Many cyclo drivers are former ARVNs. They did not
fare well after the communist takeover. Reduced to the bottom rung of the social
ladder, former ARVN soldiers found advancement difficult. Many cyclo drivers
spoke English better than the younger, more affluent taxi drivers.
I let fate send me wherever this cyclo driver took
me. I knew some sort of business opportunity was out there. I brought a few
copies of my two non-war related books, Heaven On Earth and Shindara.
Even if I had to give the books away, someone would want to read them.
First stop on the cyclo driver's tour was the Hong
Kong Bank. I needed to hit the ATM for some Viet Nam dollars. The ATM asked an
interesting question. How many dollars did I want? It gave me two choices: 1
million or 5 million. Having just arrived, I thought five million would be a
good start. Even in $50,000 V.N. bills, five million is a large wad of cash to
carry. That was only $350 U.S. How far it would take me, I didn't know.
The cyclo driver then drove me to what he thought I
should see: the War Remnants Museum. The story told inside the museum had a
serious anti-American bent to it. It was sort of like watching a sit-com re-run:
an old story built more on fiction than fact with a script I knew by heart. What
I saw appealed to my business sense and encouraged me to meet the museum's
director.
The director was eager to help me. I told her I
would like to show her a video of the war that portrayed my personal
perspective, a perspective not seen in her museum. She invited me back the next
day with a promise to give me some of her valuable time.
The museum also has an extensive market on its
premises. With a firm business contact under my belt, I had time to play. It was
early in the day and the main flow of tourist traffic had not yet arrived. A
saleswoman sat behind her cash register reading an English-language novel. I
struck up a conversation with her. Not only did she read English well, she also
spoke it well. I asked if she would like to read a novel I wrote. I gave her
Shindara to read under the condition that she do it soon so she could give
me her harshest critique over supper sometime in the near future.
There are some dangers in Ho Chi Minh City. If you
wear or carry anything of value you will become a target of the street thieves,
especially when riding on a cyclo. There are no police patrolling the streets.
Let me give you an example:
Later in the week, after spending two days riding
around in a hired taxi, with a driver and an interpreter I needed to do some
laundry. The hotel charged $2 U.S. to wash one T-shirt. I lightheartedly
complained to the front desk clerk. She told me I could buy a new T-shirt at the
nearby market for $1 U.S.
I hired a cyclo driver and went to the market.
Tropical evenings have little twilight. After
enjoying a couple of beers with the cyclo driver in order to pick his brain, I
forgot I was wearing a silver necklace. Had I known I was going to be riding
around on a cyclo after dark, I would have left this necklace in my hotel room.
The necklace had a hefty silver chain with a large quartz crystal strung on it.
The crystal was one I had personally set, and the setting included one of my
signature silver leaf embellishments. This bright and shiny piece of jewelry was
an immediate target for street thieves.
I had a beer-buzz going on and I was having fun. We
picked up a young lady the cyclo driver introduced me to, who sat between my
legs as we rode among the scooter, cyclo, and taxi traffic on our way to dinner.
Suddenly, from my five o'clock position, a scooter
with driver and passenger, both young men, pulled up beside us. The traffic was
so thick that this did not appear unusual. The passenger reached toward my neck
and yanked the necklace from my body. They sped away as best they could.
It took me a nano-second to think, “How rude.” The
rest of the second I spent unlocking my combat frame of mind. I became the
warrior of old and gave chase to my new Vietnamese enemy.
My left leg went up and over the girl. I hit the
street running, my bag of T-shirts still in my hand. The traffic congestion
slowed the rip-off artists' get-away to a crawl.
If I had had an auto-focus camera with me at that
moment I could have snapped a great photo. The look on the rear thief's face
when he turned around, no doubt after hearing the sound of my feet slapping the
pavement at an accelerated rate, was precious. His eyes bulged, and his face
stretched in awe and surprise. He tapped madly upon his driver's shoulder. I can
only imagine his words were something to the effect of, “Dee dee mow! That crazy
tourist is gaining on us!”
When I saw the wild expressions of the cyclo driver
and my female companion, as they caught up to me, I appreciated having their
company. I had someone to talk to about the incident.
My intent was to retrieve my necklace. Lucky for me,
the scooter-mobile thieves broke right and sped away down a less congested side
street.
Why was that lucky? Public fighting is a crime.
Prison was not on my itinerary. The driver informed me, “No one gives chase!
Police will arrest you if you hurt a Vietnamese. No matter why.”
The next day, I went to a police station and asked
the man at the front desk for confirmation about the consequence of fighting
back. He affirmed the cyclo driver's words. I had no right to attack the
thieves. “What am I supposed to do?” I asked. “No one has the right to rob me
without retaliation.”
“Bring the thieves to us,” he told me.
“Yeah, right. In a body bag,” I wanted to tell him,
but I kept that to myself.
I returned to the museum to meet with the director.
She took me to an air-conditioned room. After she had prepared the television
and VCR, and her secretary brought us bottled water and glasses, we took seats
at a table to watch my video documentary, Thunderhawks.
The air conditioning was a relief. Viet Nam's heat
and humidity have not decreased. I remembered how good it used to be in my
airborne capacity; fast-moving assault helicopter gunners and machine guns were
air-cooled.
After watching my video, the director congratulated
me on my honesty in portraying my side of the war. As we walked through the
museum, I told her that the honesty of the museum was not at the same level as
my video. As we viewed various captioned photographs, I pointed out the
propaganda. One photo depicted a GI carrying the upper torso of a dead NVA. The
caption read, “GI laughing at the mutilation of a Vietnamese soldier.”
I told her, “That man is not laughing. He is
grimacing. He's on body bag detail and not enjoying it one bit.”
I suggested that the museum needed to open up to
other sides of the same story, my side included. She said she would have to
discuss this with the committee.
Eight months later, I received a request from the
museum for my Thunderhawks video documentary and the novels that make up
my Viet Nam War-related trilogy, The Will He Make It Saga. The committee
decided to include them in the museum's archives. I regard this business
activity to be a healthy step toward the mutual healing of the people of both
countries. It is definitely part of our walk together across the bridge of
peace, understanding, and prosperity that spans the time between our negative
past and our positive future.
On the following day, I hired the taxi and its crew
for a two-day drive-around adventure. Our first stop was Bien Hoa, my base camp
during the war. I felt a rush of excitement similar to what I felt upon the
return to my hometown after the war. Had I known how good going “home” to Bien
Hoa would feel I would have done it decades ago. In Bien Hoa I became reunited
with some old friends: the downtown water tower, still standing tall, and the
Esso gas station, now a Shell gas station, and still pumping gas, and between
those two landmarks I found the small park that is still the center of a
four-way intersection. I could see all three landmarks in a glance during
liftoff from and return to the Birdcage, thirty-odd years ago.
We drove through downtown once, just for a recon. On
the drive back, I looked for another landmark, the original Dong Nai Hotel. I
remembered this hotel to be a place where officers and civilians used to live in
luxury. I had wanted to visit the hotel during my tour of combat duty, but never
could due to my low rank and matching low pay. I felt disappointed when I could
not find the hotel as I remembered it. It turned out that the hotel I remembered
has become sheltered by a new addition. As we drove by the new addition, I
looked through its foyer, and there in the background I found the old hotel.
As we parked in front of the entrance to Bien Hoa
Airbase, I told my interpreter, “I'm home.” This homecoming was a deep
psychological re-conditioning. I was among old friends. Inanimate as they were,
their images had never been diminished by time.
I wanted to climb the water tower's ladder. I
remembered too vividly the time our perimeter took enemy fire from the water
tower during TET. A gunship solved that problem. I thought the view from that
high vantage point would make a good video shot. I walked toward the ladder with
the intent to climb it until I heard a voice yelling at me. My interpreter
explained to me that I would have to seek permission from the Water Department.
We went to the Water Department and asked for the permission.
My interpreter told me his goal was to become a
lawyer. We discussed law several times throughout my stay. One discussion was
about how bribery is a mainstay in the process of getting permission to do
anything in Viet Nam. I experienced this when the Water Department official told
me that I could not climb the tower.
“He says you might want to poison the water supply
and kill everyone in the town,” my interpreter told me. I laughed at the
thought.
We left somewhat disappointed. As we were about to
exit the government compound that housed the Water Department, two men ran up to
us. My interpreter listened to what they had to say, then told me, “For $200
U.S. you can climb the tower.”
I explained to him that I don't do under-the-table
bribery. That is not appropriate governing. If they want money, then they should
ask for a fee, up front and tabletop.
I went to the Dong Nai Hotel. My mission was to
shoot some video from the hotel's roof. I had to walk through the new hotel's
lobby, where the man at the front desk greeted me enthusiastically. “You want
massage?” Perhaps I looked as if I needed to unwind, or get laid.
“No,” I told him. “I want to go to the roof of the
old hotel.”
“No problem,” the receptionist told me. He assigned
me a young lady to show me the way.
I sensed the days of old as I walked down the narrow
hallway and glanced inside a few of the rooms. The place felt haunted.
On the roof, I found the laundry crew. Mamasans
squatted around laundry as they sorted the day's work. Sheets hung on
clotheslines flapped in the gentle breeze. Two generations later, and thirty
years back, I existed in a convoluted time frame of then and now. The old and
the new combined their realities. I enjoyed a sense of floating within time.
I chose to stay in the past for a while. My next
goal was to spot another old friend: Non-directional Mountain. This hill was a
landmark we used to set up the flight's approach to the Birdcage. This partially
carved-away mountain had been a threshold of safety that announced I had most
likely survived another day defining the frontline of combat.
It didn't take much to find the landmark. From the
top of the hotel I knew exactly where to look. I smiled when I saw this sentinel
of safety. My memory of this landmark's shape and position has never faded. The
silhouette I looked at in 1999 was exactly the same as that of my memories and
my dreams.
A small forest now grows where the 118th Assault
Helicopter Company flight of Hueys used to sit. I wanted to stand where my
revetment used to be. I wanted a piece of the asphalt that made up the Birdcage.
I left the hotel and walked into the area that used
to be a mine field separating the airbase from the town. I wasn't far from the
area of the Birdcage and the place my ship, Pollution IV, the company
smokeship, used to park. Something new stood in the way of my goal: a stone
wall. Unfortunately, as I approached the front gate of the military compound,
the unfriendly, authoritative voice of a guard told me I could not enter the
base, nor could I video its entrance.
Another landmark of old was the Newport Bridge. I
had to find it, and I did. The bridge was exactly the same as I remember it. It
still had its guard houses at each end. The ruts worn into the wooden footpaths
on both sides of the metal bridge were thirty-odd years deeper.
Standing on the bridge, I saw the old Viet Nam I
remembered, with palm trees standing tall and thickets of nipa palms lining the
river bank. Grass hooches and wooden docks stuck out of the foliage. A fisherman
peddled his sampan down the river with oars he worked with his feet, the way he
would peddle a bicycle. This was in contrast to the new renovated Viet Nam, with
its new multiple-lane, American-built bridge that now spans the river only a few
miles away.
We then drove to Xuan Loc. I wanted to find two
places: the old airstrip and the French-owned rubber plantation that had a large
swimming pool.
Xuan Loc has not been as developed as Bien Hoa. This
means I was able to remain back in the days of old. Thirty years ago, Bien Hoa
was a shanty town with dirt roads. Xuan Loc is much like Bien Hoa used to be.
While sitting at a restaurant for lunch, I enjoyed the external stimuli of food,
sights and sounds emanating from all directions. The dream-like scene actually
taking place before me was dirty and rugged, yet beautiful.
I remained in a time warp. I could easily have
believed that fourteen assault helicopters sat shut down not far away. I could
be on a stroll into town, while the flight waited for the ground troops to make
their sweep through hostile territory after a recent insertion.
I re-experienced the difference in cultures when I
went to pee. I stepped up to a hole in the tiled floor. A bucket of water with a
ladle stood in a corner to help flush things down.
Two reality checks came when I paid the bill. I
didn't pay with Vietnamese piasters or dong. I paid with Vietnamese dollars. I
didn't board my assault helicopter and fly away, either. I climbed into a late
model Japanese car and drove away.
After lunch, our first stop was the airstrip. What
we found was a vegetable field. Where were the girls from Flight Operations?
They are grandmothers now, I suppose.
Excitement rushed through me when we drove into the
rubber plantation and I spotted the swimming pool. We used to circle this pool
whenever we had the chance. We would use our trained hawk-like eyes to spot
French girls sunbathing poolside.
This time, I was poolside. I looked up and saw the
airspace I had flown through many times before. The people of Viet Nam own the
land because they live on it. If that is the case, then I owned the air space
above the pool because that is where I used to live. I could easily imagine the
sight the girls used to see as my ship circled overhead.
Next time through the area I'm going to go swimming
in that pool. Next time, I want bathing suit-clad French girls, food, drinks and
fun. I still have a dream I want to make come true, pun intended.
Our next stop was a hotel in the town of Song Be.
Some confusion arose between my interpreter and me. I wanted to go to Song Be
Mountain. He thought I wanted to go to the town of Song Be, which is a totally
different place. I will have to check the old maps to be sure, but I don't think
this town existed thirty years ago. I could be wrong.
The driver and interpreter needed naps before
dinner. “Fine with me,” I told them, but I didn't need a nap. I needed to mingle
and have a Tiger beer.
What I experienced in Song Be brought back another
flurry of memories. The monsoon season had just begun. I made the walk from the
hotel to the nearest bar in a downpour. The dirt shoulders of the road turned to
mud soup. There were no sidewalks. I carried an umbrella, but it didn't help
much keeping my pant legs dry. Billions of huge rain drops pummeled the world
around me.
The bar was an opened-faced cement building. I
walked down an aisle between tables and chairs, as well as orchids, palms and
ferns. The plants gave the interior a jungle-like ambiance. The place was devoid
of customers. Music played over the stereo speakers. I inhaled the mix of
fragrances deep into my nostrils. This was Viet Nam: hot and humid, with the
odors of sweat, plants, and food wafting through air that was slowly churned by
overhead fans.
I was 19 years old again, and walking straight into
the lion's lair. Three young female lionesses looked up from their mundane
chores. When they saw me standing there, no doubt looking as dumbfounded as I
had looked thirty-odd years ago, they broke into smiles and rushed toward me.
They were classic bar girls. With no one else to serve, their collective
attention focused on me. They directed me to a chair at the far end of the room,
closest to the food and drinks.
I placed my order. Ready to please, the girls
brought me a dish of roasted peanuts and a six-pack of Tiger beer. I had lived
this scene before, only the beer was different. I had enjoyed similar bar scenes
thirty-odd years ago, too.
I don't think they've had many Americans frequent
their bar lately. I was a source of entertainment, and exploration. The oldest
of the three was twenty-five years old. She could speak enough English to carry
on a conversation. She wasted no time in getting physically friendly.
A new twist in the restaurant scene was the
provision of a platter laden with chilled, moist towels that were individually
wrapped in plastic. Yes, I sat there and let two of the three young ladies open
the sealed towels and wash the sweat off my face, arms, and neck.
The youngest girl, a mere seventeen, wanted to know
how well endowed I was. With all the touching and seducing going on, I admit,
they got me somewhat excited. Old Sparky was feeling nineteen-years-young his
own self. When the oldest of the three girls reached down and found Sparky ready
to play, she squealed with excitement to express her approval of Sparky's
wherewithal to her cohort. The youngest girl's eyes widened as she held up her
left arm to clasps her right hand around her forearm. With slow and meaningful
strokes, she said something in Vietnamese I couldn't understand. Her brazen, yet
embarrassed laughter and body language clearly explained her understanding of
Sparky's health. She asked permission to have a feel for herself. Being the
gentleman I am, I told she'd have to wait another year. Maybe she didn't
understand me, maybe she didn't care, but before the tryst was over, she copped
a feel. (I felt so cheap. I was just a piece of meat to those girls. Oh, the
trauma!)
Back at the hotel, I tipped over around eleven. I
had a room to myself. Lying back on my bed, I watched geckos raced around the
walls. I slept well every night I was in Viet Nam except for one, which I'll
explain later. I had no dreams of war.
The next day took me back to Tay Ninh. It was great
to see the Black Virgin Mountain standing tall, with a crown of clouds adorning
her peak. I wanted to go to the top of the mountain. I would walk all the way if
there was a cleared trail. Cleared of booby-traps, that is. There was a path up
the mountain, but it led to the Buddhist Temple on the northeast side. I didn't
remember the temple from before. It was the perfect place for me to go. I had
also returned to Viet Nam on a spiritual quest.
I didn't have to walk up the trail to the temple. I
took the gondola. That's right. I said, “The gondola.” It was the closest thing
to a low-leveling Huey I experienced this time around.
This ride was more of my ongoing rehabilitation,
too. There I was, flying low and slow over banana groves and thick jungle
foliage. Every once in a while I could see the exposed path below, and sometimes
people walking on the path.
I told my interpreter, “Movement, two o'clock.” My
feigned warning flew right over his head.
From the landing at the top end of the gondola I saw
something I had never seen before: a huge body of water. Tay Ninh Province had
been one of my major areas of operations, thirty-odd years ago. In my video,
Thunderhawks, you see an aerial view of the area where I now saw water. The
video shows the triple-canopied jungle torn apart and the ground up-churned by
extensive B 52 bombings. The way the Vietnamese decided to deal with this
earth-in-upheaval was to flood it.
What took place next might be hard for some of you
to understand, but for me it was the pinnacle of my journey.
I have a theory that when a person commits his mind,
body, and soul to a fight to the death, the killing of his living body does not
deter the warrior's spirit from its intent to win. Therefore, a spirit liberated
from the physical limitations of earthly bondage may be able to continue the
fight on a spiritual level. In doing this, the liberated spirit can project
itself into its enemy's body, clinging onto life by a sharing of spiritual
space. If this is so, perhaps an ongoing, spiritually based conflict is a major
source of extreme combat trauma and stress.
Why would one person have limited space on its
spiritual level? Could not one living human being be possessed by his own
spirit, as well as by the spirits of those he physically killed in mortal
combat?
It's just a theory, as are all spiritual
speculations. I had a well-defined spiritual quest, though, and I needed to
speak to a monk about it. Through my interpreter, who told me later that he
found my spiritual quest quite interesting, I explained to the monk something to
this effect:
“During the war I killed many Vietnamese in and
around Tay Ninh Province. I believe some of the dead soldiers' spirits have
clung to life within me. They share spiritual space with my spirit. This has
caused some chaos and confusion within me.
“Today, I have done all that I can do to bring these
spirits back to their homeland. My hope is that they will understand this and
take this opportunity to move on. What do you suggest I do to make them
understand that it is okay to move on?”
The monk listened intently to my interpreter as he
told him my story. The monk nodded to my interpreter, acknowledging his
understanding, then looked at me. Lifting his right arm, he pointed to a place
further up the mountain.
The interpreter repeated the monk's instructions.
“Further up the path is a place called the Soldier's Cave. It is where many
wounded soldiers died or recovered from wounds. This is where you can make a
prayer and tell the spirits within you that this is the time and place for them
to move on.”
Sure enough, there it was, the Soldier's Cave. I'm
not real good at making with the prayers. I personally consider my life to be a
form of worship; my every breath is my prayer and my acts are the workings of a
greater consciousness than mine. Nonetheless, I gave it shot. I told the
clinging spirits that this was the best I could do for them. “I brought you
home. The war is over. It is time for you to move on.”
Just before I gave them a swooping arm gesture to
send them on their way, I added, “It's been a hell of ride for the past thirty
years. I hope you had as much fun as I did. I might have another thirty years
left in me. If you don't want leave now, I understand. We can all go together
after this body's demise.”
I raised my arms over my head and gave them a
powerful swoop in front of me, ushering out the guests, and pulling back an
emptied space. I turned to my interpreter and announced, “I'm free!”
Walking around in the heat and humidity made me
thirsty, so my interpreter and I patronized a refreshment stand on the path
between the Soldier's Cave and the temple.
While I took a moment to come down from my
emotionally charged spiritual experience, I noticed an older Vietnamese man
pushing a rock-filled wheelbarrow up the hill. His objective was to reinforce
the wall behind me. He looked as if he needed some water, so I asked the
interpreter to ask him if I could buy him a drink. He accepted. It turned out
that this guy used to be the police chief of Plieku. Of course, that position
bought him no favors from the conquering government.
After we talked, I passed him some money, suggesting
that he buy himself a beer after work. He said, through the interpreter, “I'll
buy rice, instead, if you don't mind.”
The driver remained at the base of the hill. He was
always in search of a card game. We found him at the cafe next to the entrance
to the gondola. He had himself a game going with five other men. They all looked
up with surprise when I walked up to their table and sat down. “What did I
want?” they all asked me with their eyes. My driver told them I was with him.
While they played their game, they asked why I was
there. My interpreter explained my situation. The guy closest to me laughed and
told the interpreter that he was a Viet Cong. He thought it was amazing how his
side held the middle of the mountain, while my side held its bottom and top. He
had been active in combat in 1968 and ”69. We were enemies at that time.
The man at the far end of the table was a former
NVA. He came down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the early seventies, after my time.
The man to his right was a former ARVN. I could not have organized a better
reunion. The best I could do was buy a round of beer and pass out King Edward
cigars. I always thought that if we could have done this during the war, we
could have negotiated peace.
Around lunch time I was in search of Tay Ninh West.
Just before I left in 1969, the large hospital at the end of the Tay Ninh West
airstrip had taken some direct hits from NVA rockets. All that remains of the
complex is the water tower. A park has since replaced the hospital. The airstrip
is now a through road.
We stopped at a restaurant at what I considered to
be the general area of Tay Ninh West. This cement building was two stories high.
It was clean, neat, and served a great spread of food. I had Cambodian fish,
rice and veggies. The food was nourishing, but it did not quench all of my
hunger. I wanted to meet the people. Satisfaction came when I met the
restaurant's owner. She came to my table, and asked, “Who is this man?”
My interpreter told her my story. She left my table
with something on her mind. She returned from her living quarters on the second
floor. On the table before me she plunked down a red cloth-covered display of
two Ho Chi Minh combat medals. She had been a former VC and received the medals
for her combat role as a frontline infantry soldier. She claimed to have killed
two American soldiers.
“They gave you two medals!” I exclaimed. “I received
twenty-six from my government.” This could have been a point of contention,
leading to confrontation, but that was not my mission. This time in Viet Nam I
ran the show. My mission was to make friends, not war. I stood up and gave the
woman a hearty hug. “We can be friends?” I asked my interpreter to relay to
her. She was very willing and happy to be my friend.
It was later that night that the scooter-bandits
snatched my necklace. That experience kept me on my toes. All was not safe in
this communist wonderland.
Let me tell you of the most moving experience I had.
It came from many of the Vietnamese people I met and befriended. “Thanks for
being here before,” was a phrase I heard from many of them. Some were ARVNs of
old. Others had not experienced the war, as it was before their time. Still,
they understood that I had had good intentions as a person when I was a combat
soldier.
Again, what happened next might be hard for some of
you to understand, or believe. Nonetheless, it happened.
This was the one night I did not sleep well. I slept
safely tucked away in my hotel room at the Empress. Two days earlier I had
returned the spirits of the soldiers I killed to the Buddhist Temple part way up
Nui Ba Din. Remember how I told them they didn't have to leave if they didn't
want to? I awoke startled after I clearly heard a voice state, “I am here. I am
here.”
It didn't take my subconscious a split second to
detect a serious intrusion into the private space of my hotel room. Normally, I
keep a weapon in the area where I sleep. I was feeling very vulnerable without
one. I immediately turned on the lamp beside my bed to see who, if anyone, was
actually in my room. If there was an intruder, there would be a confrontation.
I saw no person, but I did see an energy form. This
nondescript form floated at the foot of my bed. I felt its awareness of me. It
moved faster than I could and before I knew it, this energy mass entered my
body. My head and shoulders became weighted down. I stood up and exhaled
powerfully. This action seemed to help the energy disperse its weight throughout
my body.
I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the
mirror. I saw nothing different. Other than the heaviness, there was no change.
It was an experience that affirms my theory about the ability to share spiritual
space.
I accepted this intrusion, after all, I had invited
this guest to remain within me. So, I guess I'm possessed. Great! For a moment
there, after I released all of the clinging spirits, I had worried I'd be all
alone. It was good to have a friend close by. I did make it clear, though, that
this time I wanted some serious cooperation: winning lottery numbers, whatever.
Something to help carry the weight.
Some of the events that happened next are examples
of how my new mental conditioning will change the memories of what I did in Viet
Nam. Remember the clerk I met at the War Remnants Museum? I gave her a book to
read, with full intentions of hearing her opinion of it. We dated several times.
Dated! We went on bona fide, getting-to-know-one-another dates.
We went to my favorite eating establishment in
Saigon: the Trade Center. Thirty-two stories above the seven million inhabitants
of Ho Chi Minh City is a restaurant with a spectacular view. You can see Non
directional Mountain, Nui Ba Din, Bien Hoa, Ton San Nhut Airport, and much to my
surprise, a large amusement park, with Ferris wheel and other rides and
attractions. (I did not go to the amusement park. I will the next time, though.)
From this elevated vantage point you can see old Viet Nam, as I remember it, and
new Viet Nam, with this skyscraper included.
On one date, I took Nhung and her sister bowling.
This was a great new memory of what I have done in the country of Viet Nam.
Instead of knocking down people, I knocked down 157 out of a possible 200
bowling pins in my best string.
I also met with the one man who buys all the books
that come into the southern part of Viet Nam. I put a total of nine books, five
copies of Heaven On Earth and four copies of Shindara, on
consignment with him, for distribution to the various bookstores in the area.
I also met with the head of the university's foreign
exchange department in Ho Chi Minh City. I thought it would be good if I could
do a tour throughout Viet Nam's universities to show my video and tell my side
of the war story.
In Conclusion
Over the past thirty-odd years of living with combat
stress I have found several methods of dealing with the never-ending malady. My
first approach was to ignore it. This was easy due to my lack of knowledge about
such inner turmoil. In retrospect, I realize that my most successful method of
dealing with the combat stress incurred in Viet Nam was to incur more
combat-like stress by continually risking my life. I should have become a
policeman, fireman, or an ambulance EMT, but that was not possible due to my
condition.
To this day, I cannot understand why the people in
charge of my young and impressionable teenage mind did not realize that after
the institutional reconditioning of my civilian frame of mind into the mental
state it takes to become a ruthless warrior they did not provide equal
debriefing, retraining, and reconditioning to assist in my re-entry into normal
civilian life. I completely understand that the troop rotation system
implemented in the Viet Nam War was unique, and was supposed to reduce the
incidence of combat stress. I know for a fact that the architects of the Viet
Nam War who implemented this course of action also realized that some combat
soldiers would return psychologically messed up, in spite of the troop rotation
strategy. Their error was not providing a follow-up program to bring combat
soldiers like myself back from enjoying a life of conflict, danger and risk.
The architects of the Viet Nam War were negligent,
irresponsible and incompetent in their handling of this country's greatest
assets: its young warriors. In all of the rhetoric I heard from the military
mental hygiene professionals, the Veterans Administrations psychiatrist and
mental health experts, I received no solace.
I personally had to carry the burden of combat
stress and its detrimental effects alone, unattended by any mental health
professional for twenty years. At the brink of my demise, due to the adverse
effects of the war of attrition waged upon me by those responsible for creating
this inner disturbance, I had to retaliate. I fought this battle for four long
years. It was harder than any battle I fought in Viet Nam. It was the new war.
My enemy's stronghold was the reluctance of the VA to perform its duties
adequately, as well as appropriately.
I won my battle against the VA's incompetence. This
victory has helped many veterans who followed in my wake. I did not win the war,
though. I fought for full compensation for the detrimental effects the combat
malady created. I took my fight from the Regional VA to the Board of Appeals
within the VA, to the Court of Veterans Appeals outside of the VA, to the
Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, and finally all the way to the Supreme Court
of the United States of America. You can find this battle in the public records
of the Supreme Court under docket No. 99-7176.
Unfortunately, due to the status quo of denial on
the part of the governing bodies, I lost that battle. I have not lost interest
in seeking justice. The core of my case is the breach of contract on the part of
the United States government when it did not provide adequate medical attention
to soldiers suffering from combat stress. This breach of contract continues in
such cases as Agent Orange poisoning, and Gulf War Syndrome. It will continue
until the incompetent, irresponsible, and negligent officials in charge of
providing immediate and adequate medical attention to all combat-related wounds
uphold the mutually binding contract between the government and its military
personnel.
With the judicial system exhausted, I am now moving
the battle onto the Congressional battle field. Keep in touch, and find out what
happens. It could save you, your children, your grandchildren, as well as all of
your descendants' lives.
With all of that said and out of the way, I want to
express my belief that the best therapy I have experienced over the past
thirty-odd years was this recent return to Viet Nam. I recommend that every Viet
Nam combat veteran consider such a trip. It will be good for your head, your
heart, and your soul if you return with the intent to make friends, not war. The
Vietnamese people are friendly, happy and willing to make your trip a good one.
There are risky elements, so be careful. As careful as you would be in any city,
town or country.
As for me, I am desperately trying to turn the whole
negative experience of war into a positive conclusion. You can help by
purchasing any of the
books, videos, or other artworks I have created.
The sequel to the Viet Nam War video documentary
Thunderhawks
, titled Viet Nam 1999: Make Friends, Not War, will be coming out as
soon. Don't forget to look at the
photos from
my latest trip.
Visit Brain Wizard's website
http://www.brianwizard.com/index.htm
| 
