Vietnam Generation Volume 2 Number 1 GI Resistance: Soldiers and Veterans Article 11 Against the War

11-1990 Generation Newsletter, Volume 2, Number 1

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NOVEMbER 1990 VolUME 2 NllMbER 1

Na t IonaI AdvisoRy BoARd EdiTOR's N o t e s DAVID MARK NANCY ANISFIEI.D Australian National University Please note the new address of the Champlain College JOHN CLARK PRATT KEVIN BOWEN Colorado State University newsletter: William Joiner Center JOCK ILEYNOLDS University of Massachusetts Washington Project for the Arts Dan Duffy JEAN BEll IKE ELSHTAIN TOM RIDDELL Vanderbilt University Smith College 18 Center Road RICHARD FALK RUTH ROSEN Woodbridge, CT 06525 Cornell University UC Davis DAVID HUNT WILLIAM J. SEARLE 203-389-2559 William Joiner Center Eastern Illinois University FAX 203-389-6104 University of Massachusetts JAMES C. SCOTT PHILIP JASON Yale University US Naval Academy ROBERT SLABEY This issue of Vietnam Generation Newsletter WILLIAM KING University of Notre Dame (VGN) begins a process of spreading out University of Colorado NANCY WEIGERSMA MICHAEL KLEIN Fitchburg State College responsibility for Vietnam Generation’s (VG) University of Ulster CHRISTINE PELZER W1J1TE many activities. Kali Tal has been doing it all GABRIEL KOLKO University of Hawaii York University DAVID WILLSON since founding the journal, but now Dan Dulfy JACQUELINE LAWSON Green River Community College will edit the newsletter, calling on other VG University of Michigan at MARILYN B. YOUNG readers to supply as much copy as possible. Dearborn New York University The purpose of VGN continues to be to carry the letters and advertisements that do not belong C o n t e n t s in the book-format issues of the journal. The newsletter also serves to announce events, report on past events, call for contributors to EdiTOR's No te s...... 1 publications, introduce scholars in the field, and Report on 1990 PojxjIar C uLture C onvention...... 2 give brief notice to books received. VGN is also a vehicle for longer reviews, personal essays, and Book Review by DAvid C ortrIqIt t ...... 5 poetry. We welcome pertinent contributions Events...... 6 from all readers. For booksellers and publishers, avertising rates for camera-ready copy are as Letters...... 7 follows: ORQANiZATiONS ...... 7 Half page: $60 PubliCATiON OppORTUNATl'ES ...... 7 Quarter Page: $45 Resources...... 8 Business card size: $25.

ScIioLars iN tHe FiEld...... 8 Our goal is to mail a new VGN every three Letters...... 7 months, wrapped with each new volume of the journal. This issue, the first since August 1989. "Over Vietnam" - J ames PenIta...... 9 collects old business, cleaning the slate for more "Vietnam: GhosT of M em o ry" -A I an FarreIL...... 10 timely issues to come. Books RECEivEd...... 14 Our second issue, “A White Man’s War: Race SpEdAl A nnouncement...... 17 and Vietnam,” received a scathing, though predictable right wing attack from Douglas Pike VidEO RECEivEd...... 17 in the last issue of his Indochina Chronology. Just in case any of you missed this gem. I’d like

1 to quote most of it for you here: “Ten assorted collection of papers and presentations on the academics wearing colored glasses take a myopic and Vietnam war era ever look at America’s race problem and the Vietnam assembled at a PCA meeting. Dr. Jackie Lawson, War. Most get it all wrong. The point to be made whose heroic and successful struggle to pull about American blacks in Vietnam is that here everything together for the Toronto meeting was a war in which, as with other minorities in succeeded brilliantly, was in large part earlier wars...the battlefield was the opportunity responsible for the quality of our Toronto to win their red badge of courage with which they experience, and we all extend our heartfelt could come home to claim their full rights as thanks and appreciation for her efforts. citizens. Blacks who soldiered in Vietnam were cheated out of this, ironically by their friends One of the subjects under discussion was the back at the liberal barricades.” possibility of making Jackie’s life easier by organizing with colleagues and presenting Pike, of course, carefully neglects to mention proposals for whole panels, or series of panels, that many of the articles in “A White Man's War" for the meeting next year in San Antonio. The were by black authors, and that the issue’s panels dealing with the canon of Vietnam war special editor. Dr. William King, is both a black literature—organized by Dr. Brad Christie this veteran and the Director of Black Studies at the year—were quite well attended, and the question University of Colorado at Boulder. To and answer periods demonstrated the audience’s acknowledge that black, and other minority lively interest in the questions raised by writers took part in the project would certainly speakers. At the caucus, many members voiced have made his insinuation that the folks who an interest in panels and workshops with a produced this issue were back-stabbing “liberals" format which varied from the usual four-papers- sound as ridiculous as it is in fact. His glib delivered-in-twenty-minules-each approach, and summation of black wartime “opportunity" is a Jackie welcomed proposals for such alternative clear indication of his tendency to dismiss the events. problems of race and Vietnam as unimportant, and his sensitivity to race issues is reflected in One of the most controversial subjects his offensive opening pun. discussed at the Caucus was the question of jurying papers, or continuing the policy of open We encourage those of our readers who admissions for all scholars who wish to present found merit in A While Man’s War to write to Dr. papers. The Vietnam Area is, by far, the largest Pike, Indochina Chronology. Institute of East section of the Popular Culture Association, and Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. we often need to schedule conflicting panels CA 94720. (Back in February 1988, I received a since our numbers exceed the time slots letter from Dr. Pike in which he requested an available. Some members raised the question of exchange of journal subscriptions and wrote, whether we ought to jury papers, and to reject “Wish you good luck in your new undertaking, some submissions in order to avoid such and if there is anything we can do for you here, conflicts. Others argued that the open let me know." I assume that he has withdrawn admissions policy of PCA was one of its best his olTer....) features, and that to reject some papers would require a set of formal acceptance and rejection policies which would need to be administered by R e p o r t on jUe 1990 some committee. No firm conclusion was reached, and it looks like open admissions P o p u lA R C u Itu r e stands.

A sso c ia tio n C a u c u s , There was also a suggestion that the Vietnam Area form its own organization. Though we are T o r o n t o . not in any financial or administrative position to For those of you who missed the PCA meeting break away from the larger PCA, we are still loo large for that body to meet our specific needs. 1 in Toronto this year, I felt it important to include offered to associate the Vietnam Generation a summary of the meeting, and of the issues Newsletter with the Vietnam Area of PCA. and to raised in the special Vietnam Area caucus make this newsletter available, for a small fee to meetings. This was, without a doubt, the finest cover printing and mailing costs, to all members

- 2- of the Vietnam Area of PCA. As a condition of country. They carried the mantle of Vietnamese associating the Newsletter with the Vietnam nationalism and were viewed as military heroes, Area, I asked for volunteers from among the Area having defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu in members to serve as an informal committee 1954. They had also cooperated with the which would assist in producing the Newsletter Americans and the allied forces in evicting the by gathering information and writing reviews and Japanese in 1945. When Ho Chi Minh and the short articles. Volunteers included: Phil Jason, Viet Minh declared independence for Vietnam in Ellen Pinzur, Renny Christopher, Cindy Fuchs, September of 1954 (ironically employing the and several others. If you would like to words of our own American Declaration of participate in the production of the Newsletter Independence in their proclamation), they had please write to Vietnam Generation, and let me political control throughout the country, know. including in large areas of the South.

The war in Vietnam was not a civil war between two separate states, as American Book R e v Ie w : N o t e s on a officials insisted, but an attempt first by the French and then the to deny Bniqhr Shiuiisq Lie (New victory to a successful national liberation movement led by communists. Of all the bright YoRk: RAisdoiw House, 1988) shining lies of the war, this was perhaps the David Cortright most blinding. The Republic of Vietnam which Institute for International Peace Studies the United States created in 1954-55 was a Notre Dame, IN political fiction, an ersatz state completely December 1989 dependent on the support of its outside creator. For the Viet Minh and for most of the people of As correspondent for , in the country, Vietnam was one. and the American 1971 assisted in effort to create and prop up a separate Saigon publishing the Pentagon Papers, thus revealing regime was a hopeless and doomed enterprise. the Defense Department’s internal history of the Vietnam war. Now Sheehan has provided his Sheehan centers his tale on , own account, seventeen years in the making, of one of the most remarkable and enigmatic the deception and deceit that characterized Americans ever to serve in Vietnam. Vann American policy in Vietnam. arrived in Vietnam in March of 1962. at the is a masterful and extraordinary book that beginning of the Kennedy Administration's explains better than any previous work why the military buildup, and, except for a two year hiatus, remained in the country until June of United States lost the war. 1972, when he was killed in a crash As Sheehan makes clear, American policy near Kontum. First as an Army and was fundamentally flawed from the very outset. advisor to the Saigon army and later as a civilian The Saigon regime for which Americans were “general" in the Pacification program. Vann was supposedly fighting had no social roots or a central figure in the war effort and an political legitimacy. The Diem government was irrepressible champion of the American cause. founded on the old French colonial system and Vann was also one of the sharpest critics of war was run by the same narrow class of mostly and especially of the way it was being fought. Catholic Vietnamese who had collaborated with This tension between supporting the war effort the French. Sheehan refers to Saigon officials as while recognizing its flaws adds dramatic tension “thieving incompetents,’’ corrupt mandarins who to Sheehan's account and is a theme constantly stole everything they could from their own people woven throughout the book. and especially from the rich Americans, and who were so unwilling to fight and so incompetent in When John Paul Vann and American battle that many American advisors suspected advisors began arriving in Vietnam in the early them of being Viet Cong agents. By contrast, the 1960s, the guerrillas already controlled most of revolutionary guerrillas, first known as the Viet the country. In the five-province region near the Minh and later as the National Liberation Front, capitol where Vann initially operated, most of the were highly disciplined and motivated patriots roads were either controlled by the Viet Cong or who had wide popular support within their impassable. By the time full-scale American

3- combat units arrived in the spring of 1965, the would suffer high casualties and thereby incur Saigon regime was no longer in touch with most the wrath of Diem and his family in Saigon. For villages, and the National Liberation Front had the President the army was his principal power installed its political and social infrastructure base and he did not want to this bulwark of his throughout the countryside. 1965 was also the regime destroyed in battle with the Viet Cong. year when John Paul Vann returned to Vietnam to stay, and the deterioration of the government’s Instead of sending infantry units into the position in the country is graphically illustrated field, ARVN commanders resorted to the massive in Sheehan’s description of the circuitous route and indiscriminate use of bombing and artillery Vann had to take to get to his new outpost in against suspected guerrilla supporters, i.e., Bau Trai. The deterioration of the Saigon regime against practically the entire civilian population. had reached the point, in fact, where the It was easier and safer for Cao and his colleagues government was about to cede the entire to call in bombing strikes and artillery fire than northern part of Vietnam—the 1 Corps region—to to send infantry units into combat. Not only was the guerrillas. This was precisely the area where bombing and shelling ordered when a suspected the bulk of American combat forces were guerrilla force was identified, it was also used deployed and where American GIs fought and randomly against large areas of the died in greatest number. American soldiers were countryside—what the Americans later came to thus substituted for Saigon troops who would call harassment and interdiction fire. This was not or could not dislodge guerrilla control of the meant to terrorize civilians and thus prevent region. American GIs were led into a slaughter them from supporting the guerrillas. Unlike and had to fight not only tenacious and many other Americans, who closed their eyes to determined guerrillas but virtually the entire these practices and later adopted and expanded civilian population. them, Vann saw the indiscriminate use of bombing and artillery as senselessly brutal and Sheehan’s account is most convincing and counterproductive. He recognized that the policy insightful in its description of the appalling had little military effect against the Viet Cong corruption of South Vietnamese officials. We and merely increased popular resentment and follow John Paul Vann as he enthusiastically hatred of the Saigon regime. As Vann put it in tackles the job of advising the 7th Division of the one of his reports, the bombing and shelling Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and “killed many, many more civilians than it ever then see him slowly ground down by the venality does VC and as a result makes new VC." of our supposed allies. Typical of the ARVN commanders was Huynh Van Cao, a 29-year-old The corruption of the Saigon regime was not Colonel when Vann first met him in 1962 who only militaiy but economic as well. Sheehan was later promoted to General. Cao owed his describes in lurid detail the intricate system of high position and rapid promotion not to military bribes and cash payoffs through which the skill or prowess but to the fact that he was. like Saigon government and leading military , a Roman Catholic from the commanders maintained control. The payments former imperial capitol of Hue. He had been began at the company or village level and moved educated in the French colonial schools and had progressively up the military and government served in the French-sponsored militia during hierarchy: captains paying off , colonels the first Indochina war. What Cao lacked in skill paying off generals, and generals paying off the he more than made up in pretense. He had, as President in Saigon. The ranks of the ARVN Sheehan describes it, “a tendency to strut" and were filled with “ghost” soldiers and “potted tree" constantly carried about a polished swagger troops, as the Vietnamese called them. The stick. He had designed his headquarters briefing ghosts were men who had been killed or had room to be an exact replica of the map room of deserted but remained on the rolls. The potted Napoleon Bonaparte. Like other ARVN trees were those who paid bribes for false commanders, Cao went to great lengths to avoid discharge or leave papers and thus were home casualties and evade combat with the guerrillas. safely with their families while supposedly On numerous occasions Cao would fail to follow serving in the Army. Sheehan reports one up on assaults or would not carry through estimate from 1965 in which Saigon claimed to attacks that had been initiated at American have 679,000 troops, while the actual number direction. Cao and others like him were afraid to was only 450,000. Of course, the payrolls commit their troops to battle for fear that they funded by the United States were based on ihe

- 4 - higher figures, and commanders thus pocketed the peasants. Similarly, while the Saigon regime the difference and used it for private graft and to maintained the old colonial education system, feed the system of payoffs and bribes. which reserved secondary and higher education for the urban elite and the former landlord class, As Sheehan astutely observes, the military the National Liberation Front introduced a strategy adopted by General William universal education system in their zones and Westmoreland and the American command offered higher education and the opportunity for played directly into the hands of the advancement to ordinary peasants previously revolutionaries. Westmoreland and his excluded under the old system. Thus on such predecessor. General Paul Harkins, believed that vital matters as education and land reform, the a policy of attrition, of constantly wearing down communist guerrillas were meeting the needs of the guerrillas through overwhelming firepower, the people and winning their political allegiance. would bring victory. Blinded by their arrogance, they believed that the National Liberation Front For all of the rich information and insight and the North Vietnamese could never withstand offered by Sheehan, his book is not without the might of American arms. What the flaws. Perhaps the most serious is its failure to Americans called attrition, however, the question America’s right to be in Vietnam in the guerrillas saw as protracted war, a strategy that first place. The underlying ethical or legal fit perfectly into their centuries-long tradition of questions about U.S. involvement are never fighting outside domination (by the Chinese) and addressed. Vann himself never questioned that maximized Vietnamese capabilities while whether the war was right or wrong, and like his exposing American vulnerabilities. U.S. forces central character, Sheehan also seems unable to depended upon a ten thousand mile logistical state the obvious truth. The United Stales never supply line, while the guerrillas literally lived off should have been involved in the first place. The the land. The United States had to draft war was unwinnable no matter what tactics or increasing numbers of skeptical and rebellious strategy were employed. youth, while the guerrillas were constantly reinforced by local recruits embittered by the Sheehan also fails to evaluate Vann's critique destruction of their homes and the suffering of of the war. Vann believed that the war could be their people. The Vietnamese had already been won, but he wanted it fought with different fighting for twenty years when the American strategy and tactics. Precisely what that winning Marines landed and were prepared to continue formula might be, though, is never clarified. At the fight for decades longer if necessary, while times Vann urged that the United States take Americans became disillusioned after a few years over complete control of the war from the Saigon of pointless, bloody fighting. government and its corrupt armed forces. At other moments he urged the Vietnamese to John Paul Vann frequently criticized assume more of the fighting. Like William Colby. American tactics in Vietnam, especially the , and others, Vann recommended terrorizing of the countryside through massive policies that came to be known as Pacification bombardment, and he urged instead an and Vietnamization. These approaches were emphasis on pacification, on winning the “hearts tried under the Nixon administration, but they and minds of the people," as Lyndon Johnson too failed like eveiy previous American effort. put it. Vann was correct to see the importance Ultimately the war really was a battle for the of “people's war” in the countryside, but his hearts and minds of the people. Unfortunately hopes for winning the peasants to the Saigon for Vann and the United States, these hearts and regime were futile. The reason, as Sheehan minds had long been with the nationalist notes, is that the National Liberation Front had guerrillas and were never with the Saigon already carried through a successful social regime. revolution and was creating a popular new social system in towns and hamlets throughout the A Bright Shining Lie greatly expands our country. Whereas the Saigon regime attempted understanding of the Vietnam tragedy. The was to maintain the old system of large-scale was a colossal deceit in which American plantations and unequal land distribution policymakers thought they could turn back a inherited from the French, the National successful national independence movement and Liberation Front seized the old colonial estates impose their will on a faraway land. Sheehan and redistributed the land more equally among has brilliantly exposed the contradictions of the

- 5 - American war effort, and has thus made a courses on the Vietnam war will discuss contribution to the history of this vital chapter in approaches to teaching the conflict, to Include our national experience. syllabi development, textbook selection, class projects, assignments, and the use of visual aids. E ven ts For information, please write or telephone: Attn: Capt. Scott Elder, HQ USAFA/DFH, USAF Academy, CO 80840-5701: (719) 472-3230. Unfortunately, these upcoming events have now become past occasions, noted for the record. “Vietnam Veterans Salute the Korean Veteran"—Mid-America All-Veterans Reunion, The Second Annual DMZ to Delta Dance, Second Annual. Jefferson Barracks Park, St. Sunday, November 11, 1990. Auction 7:00 p.m., Louis. MO, June 22-24, 1990. Announced dance 8:00 pm till 1:00 a.m. JW Marriott Hotel events and displays include: Ballroom, 1331 Pennsylvania Avenue, Veterans Memorial Model, Britt Small and Washington, DC. To benefit the Vietnam Festival, Static Displays, Food and Memorabilia Women’s Memorial Project. Sponsored by DMZ Vendors, POW/MLA Light Ceremony. to Delta Dance Committee, PO Box 65073, Congressional Recipients, Washington. DC 20035: (703) 920-2179 or 385- Returned Prisoners of War. For more 0565. information write. St. Louis Last Man’s Club. PO Box 169, Chesterfield. MO 63006-0169. Vietnam, 1964-1973: An American Dilemma, 14th Military History Symposium, Writing After the War: 3rd Annual Writers' USAF Academy, October 17-19, 1990. 25 years Workshop, July 30-Agust 10, 1990. The William after the Marines first waded ashore at Da Nang, Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social American leaders till view limited war in the Consequences and the Creative Writing Program nuclear age as an uncertain proposition. The of the University of Massachusetts at Boston are 14th Military History Symposium will clarify the sponsoring a series of readings, seminars, and U.S. approach to limited conflict by illuminating panel discussions related to this year’s theme: the contradictions of America’s active military “Writing After the War." The workshop—open to involvement in Vietnam. After a session writers of fiction and nonfiction, poetry and examining the diverse nature of the war’s drama—involves two weeks of working sessions scholarship, the 33d Hannon Memorial Lecture and individual consultations with distinguished will probe the ambiguities of America’s writers who are attempting to come to grips with participation in the Vietnam War. Sessions on the experience of war. The faculty includes the morning of the second day will examine the Vietnam veterans and others whose lives have U.S.’s conduct of the war during the Johnson been altered by the conflict. Faculty members Presidency, while those in the afternoon will include Gloria Emerson. Wayne Karlin, Larry analyze Vietnamese perspectives of the conflict. Rottmann, Lamont Steptoe, and Bruce Weigl. That evening, a banquet address will evaluate Visiting writers include W.E. Ehrhart, Marilyn Hollywood's vacillating portrayal of Vietnam. The McMahon, Linda Van Devanter and others. symposium’s final day will first examine the war Special events held at UMass/Boston and at during the Nixon administration. That other Boston locations will be open to both afternoon, a panel of Vietnam-era political workshop students and the general public. leaders, officers, and journalists will discuss the During the second week of the workshop, these war’s impact on America's future military events will focus on writing by women. The capability and foreign policy. The analysis of the workshop is free; it will take place at UMass/ U.S.’s involvement in Vietnam will demonstrate Boston's Harbor Campus. Please address the complex nature of superpower conflict in the inquiries about the workshop and related public Third World, and, in particular, the American events to Michael Sullivan or Leslie Bowen. democracy's difficulty in fighting for limited ends. William Joiner Center, UMass/Boston, Boston. As a result of interest in teaching the war, a MA 02125-3393; (617) 287-5850.Letters luncheon meeting at the Colorado Springs Sheraton Inn on 17 October 1990, prior to the Symposium, will examine the topic “Teaching the Vietnam War." A panel of three distinguished historians who have taught

- 6 - readable, IBM compatible floppy disk. At L e t t e r s publication, contributing authors will receive a nominal honorarium and two copies of the book. Dear Kali, Query letters or submissions should be sent to: Gerald R. Gioglio. Publisher, Broken Rifle Press, Saw your thoughts on the Pro-Choice rally PO Box 749, Trenton, NJ 08607. [discussed in the preface of Gender and the War.] For the record, there were a handful of us pro- The Sage Publications Inc. Series on Race choice vets in DC actively opposing the so-called and Ethnic Relations invites manuscript “Vets Campaign for Life." We were at the proposals addressing race and ethnic issues, Hillcrest clinic when the police allowed these from American and comparative points of view, reactionary vets to shut down the building, and and interdisciplinary and historical works with at the mall for Sunday’s rally. contemporary relevance. Manuscripts should be 200-400 typewritten pages. Submit a five-page, Skip Delano single-spaced proposal including information on manuscript themes, comparable studies, and ORQAMIZATiONS manuscript’s markets to John H. Stanfield, II, Dept, of Sociology, College of William and Mary. St. Louis Last Man’s Club, Ltd., William R. Williamsburg, VA 23185. Lilley Memorial Chapter, A special Forces Association, A Not For Profit Corporation, PO Twayne Publishers announces the Box 169, Chesterfield. MO 63006-0169. appointment of Dr. Leo Marx as general editor of “Vietnam Veterans Salute the Korean Veteran,” Twayne’s Literature and Society Series. The Mid-America All-Veterans Reunion—Second series will focus on the interplay between Annual, Jefferson Barracks Park, St. Louis, MO, selected bodies of writing and their societal June 22-24, 1990. Korean War Veterans contexts. Each volume will be a relatively short Memorial Model; Britt Small and Festival; Static (200-250 pages) interpretive study of the Displays; Food and Memorabilia Vendors; POW/ relationship between a specific event, such as MIA Candle Light Ceremony; Congressional the Vietnam war and the writing it provoked. Medal of Honor recipients: returned prisoners of The texts may be selected from any kind of war. Write for more information. writing—novels, poems, plays, essays, histories— but the emphasis will be on enduring literary interpretations of the historical event under PubllCATiON OppORTUNiTiES study. The event may be a war, a social movement, a scientific or technological The Broken Rifle Press is issuing a Call for innovation, an epidemic, a political crisis, a trial, Papers on GI and veteran resistance to the war a piece of legislation, or a distinct historical in Vietnam. Papers are being solicited for trend. The aim is not to make a comprehensive inclusion in a book featuring a multi-disciplinary survey of everything written about the event, but examination of in-service resistance to that war. rather to provide a strong interpretation of the Papers must be original historical, sociological, most interesting and revealing writing. The psychological or theoretical works covering some touchstone of selecting events is the degree to aspect of the in-service resistance. Resistance is which they energized a significant body of broadly defined to include the personal actions of writing; the touchstone for selecting written individuals, participation in GI, civilian and materials is their capacity to elucidate the event underground networks, the formation and in an imaginative and compelling fashion. We impact of GI newspapers, coffeehouses and anticipate that volumes in the series will address organizations, overt or covert resistance in the recognized classics as well as allow for newly combat zones, and the consciousness-raising discovered important works. Twayne publishers antiwar activities of returned veterans. is an imprint of G.K. Hall & Col, part of the Contributors can query with a brief proposal Reference Division of Macmillan Publishing. letter or by submitting a draft copy of the Volumes in the series will be marketed to proposed article. The deadline for submitting academic and public libraries, universities, and proposals is September 15, 1990. Authors college bookstores. Each volume will be selected to contribute will be required to submit published in a hardcover edition for the library a finalized version of the paper on an ASCII market and. for those with course adoption

- 7- potential, in paperback. The first book in the periodicals, photographs, diaries and videos, is series, to be published in September 1990, is available to students and researchers by Vietnam in American Literature: The Puritcui appointment. Heritage, by Philip Melling of the University of Wales, Swansea. We are now inviting recommendations, proposals, and manuscripts Sc Ho Iars iN t Ne FiEld appropriate to the series objectives. A formal proposal should include the following: a current Cecil B. Currey, 3330 Lake Crenshaw Rd.. c.v.; two published articles: reviews of previous Lutz, FL 33549; (813) 949-5575. Request for publications If available: a 5-10 page prospectus Help: Author wants to contact Long Binh Jail telling us about the subject, your approach and inmates or guards to interview for a new oral critical method, and including a list of texts you histoiy book to be published on life in Viet Nam's would like to consider. If you would like to military prison. Confidentiality assured if propose a book, or if you would like to know desired. more about our plans for launching this program, please contact the general editor of the Paul L. Davis, Project Co-ordinator, The series or the sponsoring editor at Twayne Vietnam Project, Union High School. Peach Publishers: Liz Fowler, Editor, Twayne Orchard Rd.. Union. SC 29379; (803) 429- Publishers, 70 Lincoln St., Boston, MA 02111 1753(o) or (803) 427-0654(h). I want to offer you (617) 423-3990; Professor Leo Marx, Program in the opportunity to become involved in one of the Science, Technology, and Society, MIT, most comprehensive, challenging, and unique Cambridge. MA 02139 (617) 253-4056. projects ever undertaken by a high school. Starting with the 1990-91 school year, 1,250 University Press of Mississippi invites Union High School students will be involved in a inquiries and submissions for two series of year long, interdisciplinary study of the Vietnam interest to Americanists: “Studies in Popular war era. And in the process, these student, their Culture." edited by Professor M. Thomas Inge, family members, and our community will become Randolph-Macon College; and “Twentieth better informed about a war which occurred Century America," edited by Professor Dewey W. during one of the most turbulent periods of our Grantham, Vanderbilt University. For more histoiy. This study will be a vehicle for teaching information write: Dr, Richard Abel, Director, existing course content. For example, the or Seetha Srinivasan. University Press of English Department can study literature by Mississippi, 3825 Ridgewood Rd., Jackson, MS using selected authors of the 60s and 70s, while 39211 the Math Department learns about graphs and charts using data from the war, e.g. troop strengths, “body count,” or war expenditures as R e s o u r c e s a percentage of gross national product. Through out the first six to seven months of the study, six Vietnam Museum, 5002 N. Broadway. prominent speakers, specially selected for their Chicago, IL 60640: (312) 728-6111. Joe Hertel. experience, diversity of views and speaking Co-ordinator. The Vietnam Museum contains ability will address the student body and, three rooms of Military and civilian memorabilia perhaps, community organizations. Additionally, from both Free World and NVA/VC Communist community and family members will visit classes Forces. Uniforms, clothing, photographs, art, to share their Vietnam era experiences. During souvenirs, letters, patches, currency, stamps, the second semester, classes will share across publications and much more are on display. The discipline lines what they have learned. The Museum honors all who served in the Vietnam project will culminate in a student play depicting War, and is a place where those who were there a panorama of the Vietnam era which will be can come and remember and reflect, and for presented to the student body, junior high those who were not there to come and learn students, and the community. The purpose of about a turbulent era in History. Admission is this project is to provide a vehicle for our free. Museum gift section includes authentic students, their family members, and the North and South VN stamps, currency and community to understand a war which was set occasionally other items for sale or trade. The in one of the most traumatic and divisive periods Vietnam Museum library, containing books. of American history. But to make this ambitious

- 8 - and unique project a reality we need your help in War in Vietnam.” Also has done some research obtaining: 1) A nationally known, prominent on the Vietnamese novel. Vietnamese speaker to share a Vietnamese perspective on the war; 2) A nationally known Diane Steinhauser Shufelt, 999 Second Ave. Vietnam combat vet or POW speaker to share his S, Wisconsin Rapids, WI 54494. American Red experiences: 3) Material on Vietnamese culture, Cross “Donut Dolly," Qui Nhon—October 1967- to include folk dances that can be taught to April 1968. Lai Khe—April 1968-May 1968. An Physical Education classes: 4) Ideas on how to Khe—May 1968-November 1968. integrate the history of the Vietnam war into the various disciplines and material that can be used for that purpose. Our budget is limited so A P o e m ANd an E s s a y honoraria are not possible, but I believe we can cover airline tickets for the speakers and purchase resource materials. O v e r V i e t n a m H. Bruce Franklin, English Dept., Rutgers Univ., Newark, NJ 07102. I have been teaching I look out for history an interdisciplinary course on the Vietnam War and drama— and Literature since 1981. Co-author of Vietnam difference!— and America: A Documented History (Grove as the Thai pilot plots our plan aloud: Press). Currently working on "The Vietnam War Mekong River... as Fantasy and Science Fiction.” Danang... Ho Chi Minh D. Steven McCartney. 412 Tartan Court, City... Fayetteville, NC 28311. Librarian. Interested in but I see only green information concerning reading habits and ‘til clouds close my eyes. materials read currently and during tour of duty. Also interested in how materials were attained and moratorium during tour and currently (masters thesis. May over decades, 1988). Still interested in expanding research on topic. I march again to the Mall Ed Russell, 4401-A Connecticut Ave., NW trying not to be moved #282, Washington, DC 20008; 202/636-6700,09 but still and 202/291-9262 (please leave message). As a done in by Lincoln Ph.D. candidate majoring in Sociology and the blowin' of wind (specializing in Social Psychology and Health where we chanced peace, Sociology), and with degrees in Architecture, Urban and Regional Planning, and Public Heath, and memorial I am requesting statistical (with qualitative) data after decades. and sources pertaining to ail Vietnam era (combat and non-combat) and post-Vietnam era I fear to turn veterans who are or have been homeless as well to face as those who were in service and post who were/ the losers are not homeless. The extension of my cut by a die comparative analysis dissertation will be the into a grave application of my academic and practical skills slitting, to the actual housing of homeless veterans and shoring this land. their families and getting them actively and permanently reinvolved in mainstream society. Oh, the game was fixed Therefore. I am interested in networking and all right. receiving data from any organization, concerned Sure, we dealt person(s) and the homeless as per the above. no winners. Now my hands chill, John C. Shafer, Professor of English, and I will Humboldt State University, Areata, CA 95521. Teaches a course entitled “Literature and the mourn them

- 9- I had fought Here’s what the inscription so lovingly set into to save. the ground next to our national monument to the guys who died—and presumably to those I cannot speak to heroes: who didn't—in Vietnam, Republic of says: THE We built this wall; NAMES OF STUPID MEN APPEAR ON WALLS. we kept it to a stoiy Horace, I think. Or one of them. And that without babble. generous sentiment—obviously the product of an Each name educated mind if palsied spirit—is the homage of is pronounced. our brightest people to those who straggled back from the war. “Only the cowards come home —James W. Penha from war." wrote Jean Giraudoux, giving voice to the unspoken reproach that has greeted soldiers straggling back from war lime out of mind. William Butler Yeats wrote, once with the true Vi e t n a m : D u st o f M e m o r y fatigue of the soldier, verses on an Irish Airman that might just do for an Irish paratrooper: Alan Farrell Hampden-Sydney College I know that I shall meet my fate So you want to hear about Vietnam? Well, One day among the clouds good people, there’s Vietnam. And then there’s above: Vietnam. And then there’s Vietnam. Like to tell And those I fight I do not hate; you a story. And those I guard I do not love... Fall before last I finally let myself be talked into making a pilgrimage to that Black Rock up My name is Farrell. I straggled back from the on Washington Mall, the one where the names of war. And now I teach French at a college you all the Vietnam war dead are incised. It’s never heard of in Virginia. I am a dumpy, afternoon, and a pallid sun lingers behind the fortyish academic. My college is, like Mr. Chips’ trees along the mall where dutiful moms and Brookfield, “a good school...of the second rank." dads drag up and down the sidewalk in front of And there is fraaaaaagmentary evidence that 1 the Thing. A couple of those scraggly “vet” types am a good teacher. And that my “influence" lurking there, wearing scraps of uniforms, transcends the academic and passes outside the beards, mysterious badges and medals pinned to classroom. Students want to be like me. And a boonie hat; one is seated at the foot of the that’s scary. That's a graver responsibility than I Wall, with great dignity and apparent intensity bargained for. And it disturbs me because banging his head rhythmically against it. Blam. increasingly I find myself asking just what I am. Blam. Blam. I give him a wide berth. Another one approaches me: “I'm a vet. Gimme a dollar." Twenty years ago, as it turns out, I was Yet another claps me in a great, soggy bear hug, advisor to French-speaking montagnard rasping in my ear: “Welcome back, brother." tribesmen of the Haute Region of Vietnam. Somber adolescents piously set little souvenirs Republic of. Chosen because I spoke French not on the soft earth under the name of a loved one: Vietnamese, I found myself among men who had postcards, photos, flowers, letters, poems. I read fought that war since the Fifties and who spoke a a couple. Pretty tired stuff. Sincere, I guess. bruised version of French known as tai boy. a But tired. And I cannot seem to cry. pidgin of French dating from the beginnings of French colonialism in that troubled land. And Well, about this time my gaze lights on a little for twenty years I thought little enough about the flag planted in the soil. It is made of a popsicle adventure I had lived in Indochina. stick with a banner glued to it. An inscription inked across the banner in ball point. Neat, But when I became forty, for whatever that precise characters. In Latin. It says: NOMINA had to do with it. I noticed that uncertain STULTORUM PAR1ETIBUS HAERENT. How’s stirrings of the dust of memory now made me your Latin? What do you figure? Some paen to uncomfortable, uneasy, anxious even. Anyone the faithful dead? DULCE ET DECORUM EST..„ but a French teacher would call it "malaise" Something like that? Well, I do read Latin. (variously pronounced). Choking on the verge of

10- articulation, I found that I wanted to say... well... child—crush, dash, ruin especially small, Something, though I really id not know what. delicate things which catch their interest and which they would treasure. Furthermore, as a Maybe you didn't spend the last twenty teacher, I am—want it or not—a model for our years, as I have, listening to journalists, young Virginians out here. When 1 make peace commentators, actors, politicians, researchers, with my ghosts, when I grow, when I awaken, my professors, nurses, doctors, and now, students do, too. When I summon my haunts to unbelievably, students recite to me the unending an “accounting,” I just may stumble on some litany of shame, horror, and vulgarity, the “truth larger truth, personal and universal at once, that is, the “reality,” that is of what lately they some perhaps unsubtle suggestion that my have conspired to name one and all not even a demons are our people’s. Or our people. war any longer but the Vietnam “experience.” In Jean Giraudoux' dark comedy called There In fact, my guess is that whatever good I may Will Be No Trojan War (sometimes translated have done has sprung from what I learned about Tiger at the Gates). Andromache, Princess of Duty, Permanence, Dignity, and the solid wallop Troy, admits: “Whenever I see a deer die in the of Abstract Aspiration flung against Stern Reality hunt, I thank it silently for giving its life to keep in that war. And I do recall, child of the Fifties, my Hector from killing other men." Andromache. the vets from and World War II. men and Hector. The Greeks. The Greeks. I remember women, whom I had as teachers and who made reading in my Homer that detailed description of the lessons learned through suffering and the “euzonai,” the “high-bosomed," (“well- conflagration, endurance and human will the girdled.” was it?) women at work on their looms, matter of classroom instruction and moral plying the “whistling weft" or something like that. indoctrination, none of it glorifying war, but all of it explaining, exposing, extolling Man [sic]. And So. in January this year, impelled by 1 know all of it drawn heart-wrenchingly from the not what nameless urge, as I stood in a thatch- authentic grip of Lived Experience and with the roofed paillote in Laos, watching a young woman, genuine and quickening smack of Truth. a girl actually, sorting thirty-odd brightly-colored strands—picking, twisting, winding—of And so, like most vets, who look back on the homespun threat along a huge and handmade time snatched from their lives by war and its loom, I recalled that Homeric archetype and the aftermath, I keep hoping to retrieve Something ages-old art it evoked. I followed the intricate out of that nightmare, some abiding, some geometric design as it inched out beneath her useful... Something. Nor do I assert that the flying fingers, for she had no pattern and spun war was Right. I merely say that the war was out the colors and shapes from memory or there. imagination as she wove. And in that moment 1 had a pained recollection of a sentiment that had Safer went back there. Fallows went back made me wince for the first time in Asia twenty there. William Broyles, an ex-Marine and years before: I felt clumsy. I felt big and dumb Rhodes scholar who was the first to go back to and round-eyed. And clumsy. Vietnam, spoke at our commencement. I read his book. And with the indulgence of my family Now it may have been the street urchins who and my Dean, I went back to exorcise my run about, making little goggles around their demons.I eyes with cupped hands and shouting “Lien xo! Lien xo!" (Russian! Russian!) From Ha Noi, I am somewhat embarrassed to ask anyone through Sai Gon, to Phnom Penh and on to listen to me wail about personal demons. I through Vientiane tiny pointing fingers singled am guessing—guessing, mind you—that my out any Occidental as “Soviet! Soviet!” And sure bitterness is much more interesting to me than it enough, serried phalanxes of surly-looking, over- will ever be to another human being. And the stulTed, and brooding Westerners did roam the only case I can hope to make is to wonder aloud streets and haunt the marketplaces of if these very demons might not be also those of a Indochina, looking for all the world “Lien xo" lo generation, and worse yet of a people, a good me. But when I made my tormenters people, but a people so dynamic, vigorous and understand who—and what—I was (“Hoa ki! Hoa active that they cannot seem to lay a gentle hand ki.r ). they were all smiles. Thumbs up. on anything but—rather like an overgrown

- 11- “Numbah one! 'Merica! Numbah one!" The women lived, worked, laughed, gave birth, stole parachute badge tattooed on my arm, the one I forth to harass the patrolling Americans and considered covering up before appearing in their “puppets,” and when their time came died. public, won me the warmest regards and The tunnel complex is now a sort of national heartiest handshakes. “Sky soldier!" “Luc Luong park, presided over by its former denizens, some Dac Bietr “Green Beret!" “Numbah one!" serious looking guys, of a certain age like me, and who take a distinct and ill-concealed It may have been the spartan quarters of old pleasure in revealing the booby traps and hidden Ho Chi Minh, “bac Ho." as the Vietnamese call trapdoors we had trodden over in our clumsy, him, “Uncle Ho," that tired little man we saw roundeye blindness. And with what delight peering out of a rumpled and too-large suit at these warders of the patrimony lead us below to the Versailles conference in 1919 as Nguyen Ai pull and struggle through the warrens of Quoc and who was later to surface after so many chambers where in each one a homemade lamp trials with his little white barbiche and his feeds oils to a flickering flame, mute sentinel and indomitable will: “Nothing else,” he wrote, and witness to the defiance of a people: one lamp is consigned to endlessly waving banners up and an M-79, 40mm grenade round, defused, pierced down that land, “Nothing else is more important for the wick, and converted to light the shadows than Freedom and Independence.” His rooms, of this staff room six meters underground: preserved by reverent warders, his furniture, his another is a CBU-19 cluster bomb unit, books. Polished, dusted, but frugal, spare, bare. upended, its drag and stabilizer fins now legs, Three books on his table: Marx; Lenin; Dr. and the ball which formerly held the explosive a Spock. Then, alas, the apotheosis! In his will, reservoir for the oil as it, too, lights up a sleeping old Ho asked to be cremated and scattered about chamber; a third is an M-26 fragmentation the North and South of his land. “Let those who grenade, the explosive compound scraped out. would remember me,” he asked in his now oil-filled, and sputtering with light for the Testament, “plant a tree. That way the Nation hospital room. Clumsy. Clumsy. will at least prosper from such remembering. ” But his lieutenants would have none of it. They I felt clumsy. As an adolescent I had felt sent him to China to be stuffed, and not too well clumsy in my big American boots with my big at that. And now the poor old guy lies in American rifle and big American web gear full of perpetual state, hands forlornly crossed on his big American magazines and big American chest, under a class ledge, illuminated by two grenades and hung with big American canteens. red floodlamps, much like a Big Mac... awaiting, Now I felt clumsy as I tried to explain the policies what? Consumption? Assumption? The one of my Western world. What exactly is capitalism, vanity a people permitted themselves. One they wanted to know? Merchandising? How thinks one detects the heavy hand of the Lien Xo does interest work, they asked? Marketing? behind the whole spectacle. My sense of What’s that? The transition from subsistence to clumsiness returned, though, as I lurched in free-market economy? How exactly does that cadenced pace, hands by regulation held at my work? Multi-sectorism? That’s what they all sides, through the mausoleum and asked myself wanted to know. Persuaded by the same if I could have given myself to my people, bent a practical sense and intuitive grasp for what nation, nations in fact, to the will inside that frail functions and does not in the exacting world of body. “Nothing else is more important than mechanics, the same art that had turned the Freedom and Independence.” nitrate-loaded unexploded bombs into fertilizer, the Indochinese had—grudgingly I imagine for it The Vietnamese guide whispered archly to required a certain loss of face to abandon the us. by the way: “Nothing else is more important means toward a goal (“Nothing else. Freedom. than Freedom and Independence. We shouted Independence.” Remember?) which had become that slogan since 1954. And in the end that is associated with1 that goal—abandoned exactly what we got. Freedom. Independence. Communism with all its ancillary doo-wop: Nothing else." cooperative, planned economy, collaboratives, communal property. Clumsy. Clumsy. I felt clumsy as I hunkered down to pass through the narrow The hardest core of them swear it isn’t so. subterranean corridors of the tunnels at Cu Chi, But the family stores, private gardens, small 250 kilometers of conduit in which men and businesses, bakeries, and shops say otherwise.

- 12- bellows. They solder tin using an alcohol flame And the smiles on the faces of the people say so, and a pipette. And straighten twisted frames too. A deep gulp of fresh air after so many years and armatures by eye using a hammer, tongs, of holding one’s breath. A nation—nations fire, and a crude template. They slop water from actually for everyone admits that the concept one “riziere” or diked ricefield to another with a “Indochina” is a fiction—nations, then, who have hydraulic slinger made of hide and worked by discovered that their most valuable resource is two persons. the free release of the abundant energy of the people in its own behalf. That’s what we always All this, of course, the people of Indochina wanted for Indochina. And we were never still accomplish with an endless patience and reluctant to make sacrifices for that objective. emotionless iteration of tasks done incessantly We just apparently were toooooo clumsy. and incessantly to be done. Theirs is a grace of effortless efficiency bom of repetition. Of a faith What made me feel clumsy, I later decided, in the curative and restorative virtue of time was the awful agility of the people of Indochina— itself for the validation and vindication of all the Cambodians, the Vietnamese, the Laotians, endeavors. the Meo or montagnards—and their almost feline grace. A sensuous, captivating grace I saw in the It was. I now think, this abandonment of face of an unforgettable Cambodian dancing girl, time, a tireless treading of water in its eddies, her long fingers enfolding the imaginary fragility that I had glimpsed or foggily intuited in my first of “blossom," one of the traditional gestures, sojourn in Indochina. And so they wrote to perfected and handed down for generations since themselves and chanted to themselves and the time of Angkor Wat. where the same arching howled at one another for what we would call stance and same delicate fingers are to be seen decades but what for them was but a single graven in stone. The guileless mimetic grace of chunk of inevitably-circumscribed time: Vietnamese water puppets, a national art form “Nothing else is more precious than Freedom and drawn from the icons of life in a rural land and Independence." Nothing else. Freedom. cavorting in a pool of water, the eternal water Independence. Nothing else. buffalo with a little boy astride, snuffling his snout in the water in a gesture so natural and so So as I tossed in fitful sleep on the plane familiar, so perfectly summing up the nature and returning from Bangkok, I saw in a murky dream essence of that creature in Vietnamese life, that a hulking, round-faced, ruddy, baby. A gigantic for a moment the wood and lacquer puppet baby, toddling ungainly along a country lane, actually did seem alive. The geometric grace of faiiy tale paysage lined with tiny, red-roofed an aged woodcutter balancing an enormous load shacks, which he now and again squashed flat of whipsawing, twenty-foot bamboos on a simple as his feet strayed off the gravel way. scattering bicycle he trundled patiently down the dirt road. the tiny inhabitants who scurried to dodge his But most of all an artisanal grace—that of the steps. He seized up things to admire but “bricoleuf—in the plying of everyday activities crumpled them in the inadvertent grip of his struck me. Tinsmiths, welders, carpenters— huge infant’s paw. He stooped to watch the ant­ “ ," as the French called them for their menuisiers like men at work, his eager, intruding fingers skill with “small” things—mason, craftsmen, broke their tools, destroyed their dikes, caved in tinkers, “fixers” of all sorts. their scaffolds. He stumbled and rolled, scattering carts, animals, people, and houses in And all working by hand at crafts we either all directions. And always on his face a wide, entrust to machines or consign to the dark joyous, well-meaning, good-natures, imbecile, hollows of the “atelier* or workshop. Crafts are childish grin. plied in the open on the streets. For all to see. And comprehend. A crude vulcanizing of bicycle But it was no dream. If I could have had any tires (there are very few cars in the Socialist doubts beforehand that the people of Indochina Republic of Vietnam, and nearly none in the (and perhaps others elsewhere) perceived my North) they perform using the upended cylinder nation as a great lumbering dangerous giant from a motorscooter to clamp a patch on the kid—decent, moral, and friendly but implausibly rubber while a small charcoal fire built in the dumb and on that account immeasurably cup of the cylinder effects the bond. Ingenious. destructive—I could hardly have missed the They weld with charcoal, using hand-pumped incessant recourse to this image to explain to me

- 13- how the various disparate races that populate money than sense. We harumph and snuffle Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos could have had and in the end. of course, spring for the things, such a wide variety of experience with Americans though inquiries with the Joint Casualty but record one single and infinitely sad souvenir Recovery Office and the Marine Corps reveal of it all: we are a nation without malice but them to belong to living or accounted for without restraint or order as well. servicemen. But the issue is raised and the waters roiled again. How many times, from the end of December till the end of January this year did I sit in the What sort of purgation, what retribution lies offices of editors, ministers, ambassadors, at hand to exact? I settle on a petty though rectors, directors, bureaucrats, advisors, wholly satisfying vengeance, on worthy, alas, of a charges, managers: how many times did I tip man of my small stature. A malicious, pointless, teacups, juice glasses, coffee mugs, soda cans, anonymous Gesture, one I suspect, my missing and beer bottles; how many times did I hear that buddies just might approve of. And so it is that refrain: "We can’t respond to your policy till we under a shroud of fog one lugubrious night in Ha see one. We can't give you what you want till Noi, I slink out of my hotel room and work my you can at least state it once and for all. We way down to the Red River. There on the quay, can't comply with your demands till you stop in the slumbering shadows, with Right on my changing them. We just can't figure out what it side, I quietly and deliberately piss into the is you want." They asked me what we wanted in muddy waters flowing sadly seaward. But that’s Indochina in 1945. I couldn’t say. What we not the whole tale. A sound nearby advises me 1 wanted in Indochina in 1954. I had no idea. am not alone. Several meters down the dock a What we wanted in Indochina in 1965? I didn’t Vietnamese I have not seen in the penumbra is have a clue. What we wanted in Indochina in doing the same thing! He stares at me without 1975. Not the foggiest. And what in hell did we emotion for a second and then zips up his want in Indochina now, in 1990. Maybe you trousers with so grandiose and grave a gesture know. that I know in a flash he attributes the same philosophical meaning to his act as I have to Post Scriptum mine. Whereupon wordlessly he turns and pads off into his darkness; and I into mine. Perhaps Lest anyone be tempted to think that my someday, I wonder, the two of us can go piss into instincts have become numbed through fuzzy Potomac together. good feeling or dulled entirely by old age or that I have had some Damascene epiphany along the dusty roads of Indochina, I will tell you all just how small I still am. Though I clearly saw—and Books Received still see—what Generosity and Honor call for in our commerce with Indochina, I have not Most comments on these books are drawn forgotten my buddies who suffered, who died, from promotional literature. who disappeared there. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York. My buddy Ted, an uptown lawyer from and I are flaked out on China Schaeffer. Susan Fromberg. Buffalo Beach, schlurfing down cold Cokes and trying Afternoon, 1989 ($19.95), ISBN 0-394-57178-9. half-heartedly to figure out which of us, he the 535 pp. The story of three generations of a aging activist or I the fading fascist, had laid the Italian-American family from Brooklyn and their biggest bone on the midden of History heaped boy who went to Vietnam. The author is a high over Vietnam, when an oily character sidles briskly-selling literary novelist. up to us, a Vietnamese, a man. twenty or so, wearing faded fatigues. “You want souvenir?" he Dell, A Division of the Bantam Doubleday asks. Naaaaah. We go back to our conversation. Dell Publishing He holds out a hand in the palm of which are five Group, 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New dog tags. I pick them up. They are real. But are York, 10017. f t the names? And are there ghosts behind those Chesbro, George C, Two Songs This y names? Or is there a dog tag factory in town for Archangel Sings, 1986 ($3.95), ISBN 0-440- U gullible, paunchy bou mi tourists with more 20105-5. 255 pp, paper. One of the Mongo

- 14- Names and Places of the Era of United States series, it also involves the ex-CIA killer Veil Involvement in Vietnam, 1990 ($45). ISBN 0- Kendry (see Mysterious Press entries) in a search 89950-465-5. 600 pp. $45 library binding. A for Archangel, another Southeast Asia operative, dictionary, exhaustively described in the subtitle. who is up to no good. The author was bom in The period covered in primarily 1963-1975, but Washington, D.C., and graduated from Syracuse some terms are included from as early at 1945 University, he was a teacher of Special and as late as 1987. Clark spent a year in Education in Rockland County, New York, until Vietnam in 1969 as an Army sergeant training 1979. ARVN troops in the use of unattended ground sensors. Fantagraphics Books, Inc., 7563 Lake City y. Seattle, WA, 98115. McGrath, John M., Lt. Commdr, USN, Prisoner of War: Six Years in Hanoi, 1975, (no Vietnam: The War in Comics, special issue of price given), ISBN 0-87021-527-2. 114 pp., The Comics Journal: The Magazine of News and including appendix of NV prison regulations, and Criticism, pp. 62-114, no. 136, July, $3.95, ISBN elaborately illustrated by the author. The author 0-74470-74114. 120 pp, 8 1/2 by 11, paper, was shot down over North Vietnam on an armed four articles of great interest: Interview with reconnaissance mission from the U.S.S. Doug Murray, creator of The ‘Nam; Interview Constellation in 1967. His book details his with Don Lomax, creator of Vietnam Journal and treatment from the moment of capture to his High Shining Brass: reprint of Naked Aggression. release many years later. British scholar David Huxley's outstanding study of war comics; and The Comic Book Soldier, an Olsen, Howard. Issues of the Heart: Memoirs illustrated essay by David Willson, the well- of an Infantryman in Vietnam, 1990. (no price known REMF and bibliographer. given), ISBN 0-89950-506-6. 321 pp with index. The author remembers his participation in Lerner Publication Company, 241 First Vietnam in 1968 with the “Charlie" Battery, 1st / Avenue North, Minneapolis, MINN 55401. Battalion. 8th Field Infantry Division, U.S. Army, in the following operations: Barking Sands, Rutledge, Paul, The Vietnamese in American, Atlanta. Camden and Saratoga, Quyet Thang, 1987 (no price), ISBN 0-8225-1033-2. 64 pp Toan Tang, and Toan Tang II. with index. Part of the “In America" series. Thirty-four other titles include “The Blacks", Mysterious Press. 129 West 56th St.. NY NY “The Dutch", etc. Chapter headings are: 10019. Vietnam: A Divided Country", “Vietnamese Refugees: The First Wave", “Vietnamese Chesbro, George C., Veil, New York. 1986 w- Refugees: The Second Wave”, “Becoming ($3.95). ISBN 0-445-40523-6. 228 pages, paper. American", and “Some Notable Vietnamese A science fiction novel, one of a series about the Americans." hard-boiled Veil Kendry, former contract operative in Laos. In the current story. Kendry’s McFarland & Company, Inc.. Box 611 special mental skills are being examined at a Jefferson, North Carolina, 28640, 919-246-4460. research institute, when it becomes clear that more than science is at work. Outstanding Anzenberger, Joseph F„ Jr., ed.. Combat Art contemporary fiction (VG). o j the Vietnam War, 1986. 143 pp with index. $29.95 cloth, large format. 125 Photographs, Chesbro, George C.. Jungle of Steel & Stone, watercolors, charcoal and ink sketches, 1988 ($3.95), ISBN 0-445-40522-8. 200 pages, cartoons, sculptures, and other works in the paper. The Vietnam-era CIA agent uses his following subject categories: combat action, empathic sensitivities to find a stolen African support operations, the air war, portraits. god. POWs, humor, and the aftermath. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD ^ Clark, Gregory R., ed.. Words of the Vietnam 21402, 800-233-USNI. \ War: The Slang, Jargon, Abbreviations, Acronyms, Nomenclature, Nicknames, Pseudonyms, Slogans, Coonts, Stephen, Flight of the Intruder, 1986 Specs, Euphemisms, Double-talk, Chants, and ($15.95), ISBN 0-87021-200-1. 329 pp. A novel

- 15- set among naval aviators over Vietnam. The •Civil Engineers, Seabees, and Bases in author flew Intruders from the deck of the USS Vietnam Enterprise from 1971 to 1973. •Doctors and Dentists, Nurses and Corpsmen in Vietnam Francillon, Rene J.. Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club: •Fighting Where the Ground Was a Little U.S. Carrier Operations off Vietnam, 1988 (no Damp: The Are on the coast and In the Rivers price given). ISBN 0-87021-696-1. 214 pp with •The Naval War in Vietnam, 1950-1970 index. Begins with an overview of carrier •Market Time in the Gulf of Thailand operations from 1964 until 1973, then focuses •Jackstay: New Dimensions in Amphibious on the experience of USS Coral Sea, the carrier Warfare that spent the most time in action. Tabular •River Patrol Relearned information includes listings of carriers, their air •The Riverine Force in Action, 1966-1967 wings/air groups, combat aircraft inventories, •Naval Logistic Support. Qui Nhon to Phu monthly activity levels, and monthly sorties. Quoc Appendices detail the deployment of every attack •The Merchant Marine: The Last Satisfactory and anti-submarine warfare carrier. Solution? *U.S. Merchant Shipping and Vietnam. Miller, John Grider, The Bridge at Dong Ha, 1989 ($16.95), ISBN 0-87021-020-3. 186 pp. Political Research Associates, 678 The story of “Ripley at the bridge”, a Marine Massachusetts Avenue. Suite 205, Cambridge, Corps legend. In April 1972 John Ripley spent MA, 02139, 617-661-9313. three hours in direct fire to destroy a strategic bridge in the advance of a North Vietnamese Berlet, Chip, Clouds Blur the Rainbow: The invasion. The author is a retired Marine colonel Other Side of the New Alliance Party, 1987 and managing editor of the Naval Institute's ($2.00), ISBN 0-915987-03-1. 15 pp. with no Proceedings magazine. index, in report binder. The Political Research Associates Monograph Series provides individual Uhlig, Frank Jr., Vietnam: The Naval Story, authors and researchers an opportunity to 1986 (no price given). 515 pp with index. ISBN explore specific aspects of right-wing activism in 0-87021-014-9. The fifteen eyewitness depth. The present issue is concerned with the commentaries on U.S. naval operations that form New Alliance Party, which describes itself as a the core of this essay collection. The editor black-led, woman-led, multi-racial, pro-gay commissioned each essay from officers in independent political organization. Its most command or key staff positions in country with outspoken critics call it an opportunistic political the Navy, the marines, the Coast Guard, and the movement controlled by an unethical therapy Merchant Marine. Both combatant and logistical cult. The truth, says Chip Berlet, is complex. aspects of the war are covered. Originally published in the Naval Institute’s annual Naval Pratt Publishing Company, “The On-Site Review between 1967 and 1972, contents Publisher”, Fort Collins, Colorado, 80524. include: Boyer. Jay, As Far Away as China, 1989 •The Choice Taken: The Aerial ($8.95), ISBN 0-923707-02-6. 81 pp.. in report •Bombardment of North Vietnam binder. A story in the voice of an Air Force pilot •Task Force 77 in Action off Vietnam home from the war. The author, a professor of •Half an Amphibious Force at War: The English at the University of New Mexico, served Marines in I Corps in the Vietnam-era Air Force at a desk job. •Marine Aviation in Vietnam. 1962 -1970 •Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam, 1965- Dinh, Tan Van, No Passenger on the River. 1966 1989 ($9.50), ISBN 0-923707-01-8. 107 pp.. in •Application of Doctrine: Victory at Van report binder. Reprint of 1965 private printing. Tuong Village A novel set in Washington D.C. and Vietnam, in *A Novel Role: The Logistic Support of A 1963, among the events of coup against Diem. Major Campaign Ashore Central is a love story between an ARVN colonel •BuUding the Advanced Bas at DA Nang and an American. The author served the •Maritime Support of the Campaign in I Corps

- 16- women, accompanied by photographs placing Republic of Vietnam as a diplomat, and has each in the context of his present life. taught international politics at Temple University since 1971. SpEciA l A nnouncement The Real Comet Press, contact Laureen Mar, 3131 Western Avenue #410, Seattle. WA Jerry Gioglio, publisher of Broken Rifle Press, 98121-1028, 206-283-7827. is establishing a fund to bring copies of Days of Decision, an oral history of conscientious Lippard, Lucy R. L., A Different War: Vietnam objectors in the military in the Vietnam war, to in Art, 1990 ($18.95), ISBN 0-941104-43-5. 132 GIs who refuse to fight in the Middle East. pp, 8 1/2 by 11 paperbound, 64 full color and 35 black-and-white photographs. Work from the The fund, called Veterans Helping GIS: a last three decades by veterans, refugees, art Fund for Conscience and Resistance, is an stars and emerging artists, including Terry Allen, outgrowth of discussions held with antiwar Roger Browen, Jack Chevalier. Sue Coe. Robert veterans following the October 20, 1990 march Colescott, James Dong, Nancy Floyd. Rupert against the Middle East intervention. Garcia, Leon Golub, Theodore Gostas, Philip Contributions will be accepted by Broken Rifle Jones Griffiths, Kim Jones, Jerry Kearns, Chi Le, Press, which will make books available to the Maya Lin, Robert Morris, Claes Oldenburg, fund at below the wholesale price of the book, Martha Roselr, Nancy Spero, Wendy Watriss, and contrbute shipping costs. Every $6.00 and William Wiley. The editor writes a narrative donation will send a book free of charge to a GI argument around the work. She is author of 13 who has taken a stand against intervention. books on contemporary art. with a special Resisters are being identified by veterans interest in social activism. working in the antiwar movement. Contributions to the fund are not tax deductible. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL. A report of activities will be sent to contributors on a quarterly basis, beginning January 1, 1991. Linenthal, Edward Tabor. Symbolic Defense: With the resloulion of the Middle East crisis any The Cultural Significance of the Strategic Defense money leftover will be donated to existing Initiative, with a foreword by Paul Boyer, 1989 antiwar veterans' organiztions. Send check or ($19.95), ISBN 0-252-01619-x. 140 pp, with money order to: index. Linenthal uses more than 100 editorial cartoons, as well as analysis of editorial Broken Rifle Press. Fund for Conscience and comments, television transcripts, and political Resistance advertisements to argue that the heated debates PO Box 749Trenton, NJ 08607. about “Star Wars” reveal a fundamental split over the nature of the nuclear age. The author is a professor of religious studies, and a graduate VidEO RECEivEd of the Defense and Arms Control Program at MIT. California Newsreel, 149 Ninth Street. 420, William Joiner Center for the Study of War San Francisco, CA 94103, 415-621-6196. and Social Consequences, the University of Massachusetts. Berkeley in the '60s, produced and directed by Mark Kitchell, edited by Veronica Selver, 1990 Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: Photographs (16 mm sale: $1495. 16 mm classroom rental: and Interviews with Seven Vietnam Veterans, by $175: video sale: $295, video classroom rental: Janice Rogovin, 1988 (no price), no ISBN. $95), 118 minutes. This movie uses archival Published by the author with support from the footage and present-day interviews to narrate the Joiner Center and the Massachusetts politicization of the Berkeley campus. There are Foundation for Humanities and Public Policy. 24 three parts, on one tape. Part I, Confronting the pp. 8 1/2 by 11 paperbound. Lengthy University (42 minutes), shows how the 1960 statements by seven veterans, six men and one House Un-American Activities Committee demonstrations and civil rights sit-ins initiated

- 17- Berkeley students into a new political era. Part D: Confronting America (32 minutes) shows the PI ease E n r o U M e a s a protests moving off campus and into the streets to oppose the deepening war in Vietnam. Part j Vietnam Generation HI: Confronting History (44 minutes) shows the student movement changing into streams of I _ SubscRibER*. support for the Black Panthers and feminist j □ $40 (iNdividuAl SubscRipTioN) activism. I □ $75 (iNSTiTUTiONAl SubsCRipTION)

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