Read an Excerpt
chapter one
programmed for war
As if I were a river
The harsh age changed my course
Replaced one life with another…
—ANNA AKHMATOVA,
“As if I Were a River”
October 1967, Bien Hoa, Vietnam
I awoke as the giant transport aircraft lurched into a steep final descent. As we broke through the cloud cover, the pilot centered the nose of the aircraft on the pattern of blue lights marking the runway before he lowered the landing gear. Seconds after a jarring touchdown, the four jet engines of the C-141 transport screamed into reverse thrust. The soldiers on board braced themselves as best they could in the nylon paratrooper seats as the giant transport barreled down the dark nine-thousand-foot runway of Bien Hoa Air Base. The decelerating aircraft turned abruptly onto a right taxiway and lumbered slowly toward a group of cinder-block buildings some five hundred meters away. Day 1 of my 365-day tour in the Republic of South Vietnam began.
Inside the aircraft, the temperature and humidity soared as the air-conditioning shut down. The cramped soldiers jostled and cursed each other as they scrambled to find their gear. Most of the men had napped fitfully on the final leg of the flight from the refueling stop at Yokota, Japan. A few had slept deeply as if anesthetized by the steady whine of the jet engines. Others who had dozed with their limbs outstretched made movement to and from the latrine at the nose of the aircraft difficult. The C-141 was decidedly less comfortable than the chartered commercial flights that transported the majority of soldiers to Vietnam.
The rear hydraulic cargo ramp of the aircraft lowered to the tarmac, and a mixture of dank tropical air and jet exhaust fumes flooded the passenger compartment. A helmeted military policeman in a sweat-soaked flak jacket dismounted his jeep behind the aircraft and walked quickly toward me. As senior Army officer on board, I was the designated aircraft troop commander.
“Captain, move these troops on the double to those buses beside the terminal building. No smoking on this ramp or on the buses. You’ve got ten minutes to get them loaded up.”
“Where the hell are we going, Sergeant?” I blurted out at the MP.
“The 90th Replacement Battalion,” the MP barked over his shoulder. “Now, get them grunts loaded up, Sir!”
Thus began my first mission in Vietnam.
I arrived in Vietnam better trained for this war than most. My first real-life and work experience out of school was the Army. With a degree in English literature and no transferable knowledge or skills of use to the Army, such as building a road or a bridge, developing and operating a communications network, or supervising a clerical staff, I was commissioned as a second lieutenant of infantry.
At age twenty-five, with three years of infantry and Special Forces training behind me, I had acquired a credible level of expertise in the art of war. I could accurately fire, assemble, and disassemble an array of small arms—everything from an M16 rifle to a .50-caliber machine gun. I had mastered the deadly skills of adjusting mortar and artillery fire, blowing up a bridge with plastic explosives, directing an air strike, leading an attack on an enemy-held position, and parachuting behind enemy lines on a night raid. I had practiced these skills for two years on numerous field-training exercises, first as a student at Fort Benning, then as a platoon leader at Fort Hood, and later as a Special Forces officer at Fort Bragg.
A one-year assignment in Thailand with Special Forces served as a practicum, during which I was able to hone my skills in the rice paddies and jungles. I also read every counterinsurgency manual and book on guerrilla warfare that I could lay my hands on. Before departing Thailand for Vietnam, the Army sent me to the British Jungle Warfare School in Malaysia for a six-week course in jungle operations—my final dress rehearsal for war.
The British cadres at the school were all experts in jungle warfare, having battled Chinese terrorists during the Malaya Emergency, and later, Indonesian troops in Borneo. A number of the instructors had served in the Parachute and Special Air Service (SAS) and regiments.
The final exam for the course was a two-week patrol in the dense jungles of Malaysia, tracking and being tracked by elite and fearsome Gurkha troops who played the role of the enemy guerrillas. We learned and relearned the techniques of ambushes and counterambushes, land navigation, river crossings, and night operations. This six weeks of training would serve me well in the months ahead.
My confidence and youthful optimism were at an all-time high. I had no comprehension and little interest in learning the politics behind this war. Nor could I even imagine the horrific long-term consequences of combat on the human mind and spirit. As a twenty-five-year-old, I didn’t contemplate for long the possibility of my own premature death. I viewed Vietnam as a great adventure in which my military skills and manhood would be tested.
In retrospect, I believe that my generation was programmed for war during our most impressionable years. My earliest childhood recollections are related to World War II. During the war, our family lived in Defense Worker Housing across the Monongahela River from the Homestead Steelworks in Pittsburgh, where my father worked. I was too young to comprehend fully the events of that war, but I do have recollections of practice air raid blackouts, ration stamps stored in a kitchen drawer, a ball of tinfoil that I saved for the war effort, and a leather aviator jacket that was a birthday gift from my grandfather. I also remember my mother’s tears when my father finally received his draft notice a few days before V-J Day. He never had to go.
Several months after the war ended, my uncle returned from the Army after serving three hellish years in the jungles of New Guinea. After giving me a set of his cloth sergeant’s chevrons and his overseas cap, he asked my mother to burn all his uniforms.
All of the boys in our neighborhood played war in the nearby woods. Toy rifles, Army canteens, and pistol belts donated by fathers and uncles were highly prized. We defended our woods against hordes of imaginary Japanese and German soldiers, overcoming impossible odds and accomplishing extraordinary feats of valor.
It is impossible to estimate the effect the war had on our young minds. During the war and postwar years, it was all that adults talked about and all that we saw in Saturday matinee movies and newsreels. Films like Back to Bataan, Sands of Iwo Jima, and Flying Leathernecks left strong impressions on our young minds. At age six, we dreamed and fantasized of the day when we would take up arms and defend our country’s honor in some remote tropical jungle, returning home with a chest full of medals. These dreams of becoming a warrior were indelibly etched on my psyche at a very young age.
The war had a direct impact on my family’s future. The Steelworker’s Union negotiated with U.S. Steel to compensate its workers for overtime worked during the war. My father received enough compensation to make a down payment on a modest five-room house. Our family became a part of the great postwar migration to the suburbs brought on by an acute housing shortage in the cities. We moved to Penn Township, a sprawling suburban community nestled in the hills some fifteen miles east of the city.
In contrast to the decaying mill towns, everything was new and clean in the twenty-four-square-mile suburb. We moved into a tract housing development of some 750 single-unit homes. The brick five-and six-room cookie-cutter houses were small but comfortable. Transported by a shiny new yellow school bus, I attended a new elementary school with greenboards instead of blackboards. My family shopped at a new A&P supermarket stocked full of canned goods and frozen TV dinners. On Saturdays we drove several miles to shop at the Miracle Mile, one of the country’s first shopping malls, and on Sunday we attended Mass at the new Saint Bartholomew’s Catholic church. The contours of new lawns and clean streets delivered the unspoken message that the neighborhood was a safe and secure place to grow up.
My adolescent years were fairly typical for the 1950s. I had a paper route, and I joined the football team in ninth grade. I was too small to make the varsity team, so I switched to track and cross country in high school, lettering in both sports. Summers were an endless succession of hazy warm days and Little League baseball games interrupted only by a one-week family vacation at the Jersey shore. At fifteen, I was old enough to caddy at the golf course; this relieved some of the boredom of growing up in suburbia and provided an earning opportunity.
Memories of my younger years receded. The Korean War, called a police action back then, was remote and had no impact on my family. I gave no serious thought to future military service during the 1950s. Nevertheless, the Cold War did have an unforeseen impact on my future education.
The launch of Sputnik in 1957 was a shock to all of us. It appeared that the Soviets were outpacing us in the classroom, particularly in science and math. They were graduating better engineers and scientists—or so we were led to believe. The push was on to close the gap. Guidance counselors began to steer brighter students toward careers in the science and engineering professions. All of this was not lost on my parents, who encouraged me to pursue a university education.
After I graduated from high school in 1960, I was accepted at the University of Pittsburgh, where I would pursue a degree in electrical engineering. This fit my parents’ plan for my future: a well-paying job with a local employer such as Westinghouse, marrying a good Catholic girl, and raising a family. My family struggled to meet tuition costs at Pitt even though I had won a partial scholarship. With four other children to raise, my parents were unable to afford the expense of my living on campus, so I lived at home. Many of my freshman classmates were also commuter students from similar blue-collar working-class families. Most came from the mill towns up and down the Allegheny and Monongahela river valleys—towns like McKeesport, Clairton, Aliquippa, and Hazelwood.
