JACK'S BLOG
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VietnamTHE TRIPS MY family took from Baltimore to visit relatives in Pennsylvania when I was a child, long before the Interstate Highway System was built, followed US routes, state highways, and county roads. These intersected at towns and you would see sign posts on Main Street bending under the weight of four, five, six, or more markers for highways sharing the same pavement. The numbered roads split on the other side of town and you would find other highway markers with arrows pointing in the new directions that they meandered going their separate ways. If the roads bore any name it was usually the place they were headed for. For example, York Road exited north Baltimore and headed for - you guessed it - York, Pennsylvania. I guess that's pretty much the way it was in Vietnam, although I couldn't read the signs or understand what the people were saying, and we got lost more than once. There were rules for driving in Vietnam. Never stop on a bridge – machine gunners at both ends would fire on anyone who did as they might be stopping to detonate a bomb. Wait for the engineers to clear the roads of mines in the morning before venturing out and don't be caught on the road at night when the VC were re-mining them. Don't try to look down the rows of trees on rubber plantations as you drive by – they pass too quickly to get more than a glance and you'll only hurt your neck if you try (I tried on my first drive from the reception center at Long Binh to the 9th Infantry Division headquarters at Camp Bearcat). The jeep was our primary transport in those pre-Hummer days. It wasn't your grandfather's jeep from World War II. It wasn't built by Willys. It was a Ford. Unlike the Willys' Jeep, the Ford Jeep had swing axles. These were better suited for traversing uneven terrain, but made the vehicle inherently unstable on roads. I really felt badly for the Military Police who welded sheet metal armor to the sides of their jeeps and mounted an M-60 machine gun on a pylon. Many MPs were killed and injured when these rolled because of their high centers of gravity. Interestingly, I don't have a photo of one nor could I find one in a Google search. Maybe none survived the war. Every jeep I saw in Vietnam had sand bags covering the floor. I never saw any reports or statistics on the efficacy of these against damage or injury from jeeps striking mines, and I never had a chance to find out for myself – thank God. Our principle cargo transport was the deuce-and-a-half (two and a half ton capacity truck). Vietnam-eradeuce-and-a-halfs were built by Kaiser and had automatic transmissions that slammed gears on every shift no matter how fast or slow they were being driven. The springs on the rear axle that gave them their capacity to carry heavy cargo made the ride excruciatingly uncomfortable when loaded only with troops. You were likely to get saddle sores on a long drive. Our small cargo carrier was the three-quarter ton truck – similar in size and capacity to a civilian pickup truck. I had the displeasure of driving one to deliver coffee and pastries to the men on guard duty in my section (I made my driver sit in the passenger seat only because I felt like driving for a change). The steering was unbelievably heavy. I can only compare it to driving a car with power steering when the engine stalls. Maybe worse. However, it had an exceptionally high ground clearance and it would claw its way through mud during the monsoon season that would mire down almost any other vehicle. Whenever I had to go on a road trip, the Sergeant-Major would assign a driver. He always assigned Leroy because the old non-com hated me. Leroy was a personable young man of 17 or 18 years of age. Cute. A great smile. The Vietnamese girls loved him. Unfortunately, someone had impressed him with the inherent instability of the Ford jeep on roads and he refused to drive faster than twenty miles per hour – a full ten less than I thought was safe and usually twenty less than I would have preferred so I could get the hell where I was going!The Sergeant-Major invariably grilled my driver when we returned to make sure I hadn't pulled rank and gotten behind the wheel. He could have made trouble for me inasmuch as I didn't have a military driver's license. However, there were a couple of occasions when I did and got away with it.
On one occasion, I went to Saigon to pick up a supply of beer for my men. I had promised them all they could drink in a misplaced attempt at bravado when I tried to quit smoking. I bought a lot of beer. It was only $1.50 a case and I took a trailer to haul it back. Vietnamese children darted into traffic whenever we stopped and set the hand brake on the trailer so we couldn't drive away as they stole cases. I finally had the driver sit atop the cargo and threatened them with his M-16 and I drove until we got out of Saigon. If you have watched the Great Race on television, you may have noticed a very few contestants who pause to look around at the countries they pass through. Most are too focused on the prize to see the wonders of the places they visit. Incredibly, I met many military personnel who lived abroad who failed to take advantage of the places they were stationed. Once, when I thought I might make a career of the Army, I considered volunteering to return to Vietnam and then requesting assignment to Germany. I asked a fellow officer who had been stationed there what he thought of it. Not much, he opined. The Post Exchange (PX) at the base where he was stationed was inadequate, he complained. The poor man had never ventured off base during the three years he was there. As a passenger on road trips in Vietnam, I was able to get a glimpse of Vietnamese life as we slowly passed homes and shops along the road. Leroy gave me lots of time to look. I had him stop occasionally so I could shop or look around. I ate the food without ill effect. Indeed, as I will explain in another posting, I found the cuisine to be the best of all Asian fare. The only unfortunate affair I ran into happened in a shop where I was surrounded by Vietnamese children – preteens - we called them "cowboys." I was unprepared when one placed his hands on my wrist and stripped my watch. Fortunately, he lost his grip and it fell to the floor. I reached it before him and rose back with my watch in one hand and the nape of his neck in the other. I held him at arm's length and glared. I waited until the other children scattered and then dropped him. I doubt if he learned anything other than to be a better thief next time. One day while returning to Bearcat from Saigon, we got stuck in a convoy that included treaded vehicles – Armored Personnel Carriers (APC) and tanks. After much cajoling, Leroy began passing a few. Seeing oncoming traffic from a jeep when you are behind an armored vehicle is extremely difficult. Sitting on the passenger side, I couldn't help other than to scream and curse at Leroy to put his foot into it and try. This didn't help. What finally helped was a command-detonated mine that exploded just after we passed over a culvert. Poor Leroy couldn't find a way to push the accelerator any further than the firewall. I smiled all the way back to Bearcat.
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BloggingHOW MUCH DO you read every day? How much reading matter do you ignore? None of us can read it all. Tweets. Blogs. Emails. News feeds. That's why if you have something you want people to read, you better make it easy to read. We used to have graphic designers to help us. We still do, for a price. However, most of what we write goes straight from the word processor to the printed page or website. Thus, we better have some idea of what we're doing when we typeset our copy and avoid the most common traps. For example... [Note: Keep in mind that you may skip the following when you get tired of reading the following.]
ONLY MARGINALLY LITERATE PEOPLE READ LETTER-BY-LETTER. MOST OF US READ ENTIRE WORDS AND PHRASES AT A GLANCE. IT IS WELL ESTABLISHED THAT WE READ THE SHAPES OF WORDS. THE APPROPRIATE USE OF UPPER AND LOWER CASE LETTERS FACILITATE SHAPE RECOGNITION. FOR EXAMPLE, COMPARE THE SHAPES OF UPPER CASE “E” AND “F.” THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM IS A SINGLE STROKE AT THE BOTTOM AND THEY EASILY MAY BE CONFUSED FOR EACH OTHER AT A GLANCE. NOW COMPARE THEM IN THEIR LOWER CASE FORMS. THERE IS LITTLE ROOM FOR CONFUSION. THE PROBLEM WITH USING ONLY UPPER CASE LETTERS IS THAT ALL WORDS APPEAR WITH THE SAME SHAPE, AS BOXES, AND EVEN THE MOST LITERATE PEOPLE ARE FORCED TO READ THEM LETER-BY-LETTER AS DO ILLITERATE PEOPLE. IS IS EARY TO SEE WHY ILLITERATE PEOPLE READ SO SLOWLY WHEN YOU ATTEMPT THIS. READING TEXT SET IN ALL UPPER CASE LETTERS THUS MAKES READING HARDER. I CAN SAFELY GUESS THAT YOU ARE NOT ONLY READING THIS POSTING MUCH SLOWER THAN YOU MIGHT IF IT HAD BEEN SET USING UPPER AND LOWER CASE LETTERS APPROPRIATELY, BUT ALSO GETTING TIRED OF READING IT. INDEED, MANY OF YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY ABANDONED IT AND JUMPED TO THE SECTION BELOW THAT HAS BEEN SET USING UPPER AND LOWER CASE LETTERS APPROPRIATELY. INTERESTINGLY, I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AMUSED THAT LAWYERS HAVE USED ALL UPPER CASE TEXT IN LEGAL DOCUMENTS SUPPOSEDLY AS A FORM OF EMPHASIS. I KNOW THAT LAY PEOPLE WRITING ON SUBJECTS THAT THEY ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT, OFTEN USE ALL UPPER CASE TEXT TO EMPHASIZE POINTS. INDEED, IT IS TO ME A FORM OF SHOUTING IN PRINT. HOWEVER, INSTEAD OF COMMUNICATING THAT WHICH THE AUTHOR BELIEVES IS MOST IMPORTANT, IT OFTEN DISCOURAGES PEOPLE FROM EVEN READING IT. THEN, WHEN LAWYERS WISH TO BEFUDDLE YOU AND MAYBE EVEN DISCOURAGE CLOSE READING, THEY USE EXTREMELY SMALL TEXT – THAT WHICH IS COMMONLY REFERRED TO AS THE FINE PRINT – AND READERS BECOME SUSPICIOUS AND READ IT EVEN MORE CLOSELY. NOW, PLEASE DON'T BECOME ANNOYED WITH ME WHEN I TELL YOU THAT THE TEXT BELOW REPEATS EXACTLY THE SAME TEXT AS YOU HAVE BEEN READING TO THIS POINT. Only marginally literate people read letter-by-letter. Most of us read entire words and phrases at a glance. It is well established that we read the shapes of words. The appropriate use of upper and lower case letters facilitate shape recognition. For example, compare the shapes of upper case “E” and “F.” The only difference between them is a single stroke at the bottom and they easily may be confused for each other at a glance. Now compare them in their lower case forms. There is little room for confusion. The appropriate use of upper and lower case letters facilitate shape recognition. The problem with using only upper case letters is that all words appear with the same shape, as boxes, and even the most literate people are forced to read them letter-by-letter as do illiterate people. It's easy to see why illiterate people read so slowly when you attempt this. The appropriate use of upper and lower case letters facilitate shape recognition. The problem with using only upper case letters is that all words appear with the same shape, as boxes, and even the most literate people are forced to read them letter-by-letter as do illiterate people. Reading text set in all upper case letters thus makes reading harder. I can safely guess that you are not only reading this posting much slower than you might if it had been set using upper and lower case letters appropriately, but also getting tired of reading it. Indeed, many of you may have already abandoned it and jumped to the section below that has been set using upper and lower case letters appropriately. Interestingly, I have always been amused that lawyers have used all upper case text in legal documents supposedly as a form of emphasis. I know that lay people writing on subjects that they are passionate about, often use all upper case text to emphasize points. Indeed, it is to me a form of shouting in print. However, instead of communicating that which the author believes is most important, it often discourages people from even reading it at all. Then, when lawyers wish to befuddle you and maybe even discourage close reading, they using extremely small text – that which is commonly referred to as the fine print – and readers become suspicious and read it even more closely. Now, please don't become annoyed with me when I tell you that the text above repeats exactly the same text you have been reading to this point. Do you get the point? 6/16/2012 3 Comments Honor thy fatherOpinionTHE FIFTH COMMANDMENT has always given me a bit of trouble as I assume it must to all children of abusive parents. How do you honor a person who didn't honor their child? My father was a man's man. He was an athlete, a skilled craftsman, and the kind of man you wanted at your back in any fight. Indeed, my brother and I often heard from our friends how much they envied us, and it drove us crazy. Yes, to outsiders looking at our family, we must have seemed lucky to be sired by such a man. Yet, we wanted to scream, “Don't you see what a son of a bitch he is?” Well, they didn't.
The truth is that I am thankful to my father for many things not the least of which is the fact that he provided food, shelter, and clothing for his family through some of the worst of times. When other families suffered during the years following the Great Depression, he always found work. It wasn't the best of work – coal mining, prize fighting, stevedoring, cab driving, barroom bouncing – it still earned money and he provided. Sure, there were many meatless meals, but there were meals, and there were clothes though not the best, and there was a roof over the family's head even if it was often-patched. He never backed down from a fight. Our mother told us of a time when she and our father were dating, and they came upon two cars parked along the country road between there home and Sheppton, Pennsylvania where they had gone to the movie show. Four young men from one car had dragged the driver from the other and were beating up on him merely because of their ethnic difference. My father, being of neither ethnicity, didn't like the odds and he took on the four all by himself, and beat the snot out of all four of them. My father escaped with his fists from the company owned Pennsylvania coal town where he had been born and raised. He left his young bride and their first child to move to Philadelphia where he became a professional prize fighter. He won his first four bouts and appeared headed for fame, but was dissuaded by his boyhood friend who had gone with him and was beaten severely and became addled. The experience drove him south to Baltimore where he joined a fight club just long enough to find better employment as a cab driver and then as an auto mechanic. One day he spotted a sign at the Lever Brothers plant advertising for a maintenance machinist. Although he had no discernible qualifications he applied and won the position by fixing a piece of plant equipment to demonstrate his ability to do the job. Over the years, he became a qualified pipe fitter and welder as well as a union-rated machinist. He could fabricate almost any part from simple plate and bar stock metal. Indeed, I saw him fabricate complex replacement parts for machines at home using little more than simple hand tools. After leading our community in a fight against zoning violations, my father was encouraged by friends and neighbors to return to school. He got his high school diploma, a college degree, and a Bachelor of Laws, all at night. With his new credentials, he was able to obtain employment as a high ranking bureaucrat in the federal government and ultimately built a fine home on a ridge above Worthington Valley north of Baltimore. I imagine by now you understand why he was admired by almost everyone outside the family. Where's the “rub” you may well ask. Well, the “rub” was that there were two of him, one facing the world and the other facing us. Years later, speaking with my adult cousins, I discovered that they had all shared similar experiences. No, none of my father's siblings attained the level of success as he had. However, they were of the same disposition. One told me that her family referred to their father, my uncle, as “the street angel and a house devil.” He too was greatly admired in the community while abusing and often neglecting his own family. Multiple personalities seems to have been endemic among Eastern Europeans. My father's parents were Slovaks. They had emigrated to the United States from an area in the Carpathian Mountains then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although most Slovaks were traditionally Catholics, many joined the German Lutheran church in hopes of escaping the servility of their lot in life. It suited my father's purposes well inasmuch as he liked to claim that he was German. He was ashamed of his roots. Interestingly, National Geographic published an article about the state of Slovakia shortly before it was separated from the Czech Republic. The author, a woman, and the photographer, her husband, had taken their toddler with them on the assignment and remarked at how warm and caring the Slovakians were towards their child. It made me laugh to read their account. They might have written the same thing visiting our household. This left me to wonder what was going on behind all those closed doors that didn't make it into their article. At this point, you may be wondering just how I honor my father. Well, the simple truth is that I honor him with my life. I have been a sober and contributing member of my community and my nation. I have cared for my family and given them every ounce of love I could muster. At times I have stumbled in my duties as a father. Lacking in any good example of how to proceed, I have done my best. Surely people have considered me and thought that I must have been properly raised. How else can I honor my father? I suppose it is best that I now shut up and not belabor the rest. That is the greatest honor I can bestow upon his memory. VietnamTHERE POSSIBLY IS no worse sin for a soldier to commit than sleeping on guard. It is the ultimate betrayal of the trust that one soldier places in another. In most armies and in most times, it is a crime punishable by death. However, in my experience in Vietnam, it was virtually impossible to successfully prosecute such a case. It may be that the punishment was too horrific for anyone to apply. Then again, it may be that the Army was bending over backwards to prove itself fair and just to the point that it became impossible to satisfy civilians that the crime merited the punishment I once found a guard sleeping on duty atop the corner bunker in the center of our sector of the base camp perimeter. It was the tallest bunker and could not be scaled without difficulty, especially in the dark. I found his buddies asleep beside him while he sat behind his tripod-mounted M-60 machine gun. The fact that he was sleeping while sitting upright fooled me at first. However, he remained unresponsive to my calls and I began to suspect that something was amiss.
When I arrived atop the bunker I found him wrapped in his poncho, with his chin firmly embedded in his chest. I could see his eyes closed in the available light emitted by moonglow, stars, and drifting flares. He did not stir even when I shook him by the shoulder and spoke in a normal voice. I would have thought him dead but for his snoring. Failing to wake him I pondered the situation for a few moments. Seeing that there was no immediate threat, I called the Command Post (CP) on the bunker's field phone and requested that the senior officer join me. He too climbed the bunker with the same results. Sitting there surrounded by the sleeping guards we discussed the situation at length. He was prepared to file charges, but I cited the problems in courts martial for sleeping on guard duty to dissuade him. How, I asked, could be be sure which guard was supposed to be awake, since we allowed the teams to set their own schedules of who was to be awake and who was to be asleep? I suggested that we simply teach them a lesson and, maybe, allow them to decide who was at fault and apply punishment as they saw fit. He and I removed all weapons from the bunker. Thank God, we weren't Viet Cong. We were very inept at it. I forgot that a belt of ammunition was attached to the machine gun and it rattled loudly against the ammo can when I tried to pick up the weapon. The other officer fell off the bunker as we were working and landed on the sandbags stacked around the base with a sound similar to a car running into a fence. Even so, we were able to remove both machine guns, all personal weapons, and the detonators for the claymore mines that surrounded the bunker. After returning to the CP with our loot, we watched the sleeping men atop the bunker through starlight scopes as the sergeant of the guard rang them on the field phone. It rang a very long time. We could here it above the curses of the sergeant who was growing tired cranking his instrument until the guard who had been sitting behind the machine gun looked around groggily and finally answered. The sergeant followed the script we had given him saying that Ground Surveillance Radar (I believed that I had heard of such a thing) had detected movement near his position and that he should watch out for anyone lurking nearby. We waited awhile until the sergeant made his second call. Again, following our script, he told the guard that he should recon by fire – that is, fire a few rounds to see if anyone returned fire or reacted in some other way. We waited and watched. The guard lifted the poncho that had been covering his machine gun and we could see his body tense. Looking frantically left and right he stood up and tossed the poncho off the bunker. His buddies were awakened by the commotion and there was a hurried conference that we could not hear, and they left the top and entered the bunker where we had stolen their second machine gun. Again, the sergeant called asking why the man hadn't fired. He lied. He claimed the gun had jammed, and the sergeant ordered him to fire a claymore mine. Of course, he couldn't; we had taken the detonators. Finally, we walked to the bunker and explained what had happened. The guards began to argue among themselves as to who was supposed to be awake, and the man we had found sitting at the machine gun claimed that he had been awake the whole time. We calmly explained that we were not going to file charges. However, our experience had taught us that the difficulty of climbing up and down the bunker in the dark and that we would not be surprised if one of them might also fall as the officer in charge had done. We advised them to be careful as someone could suffer injuries. No one else fell that night nor did any of them sleep. Apparently, our suggestion was simply too subtle. VietnamCAMP BEARCAT, HEADQUARTERS for the 9th Infantry Division, was about one mile in length by one half mile in width, surrounded by a berm of dirt pierced by two main entrances on the western side. A bunker manned 24/7 by the Military Police flanked both sides of each entrance. Other bunkers at each corner and evenly spaced along each side of the base camp were manned by junior enlisted personnel among the REMF (Rear Echelon Mother F***rs). Although the rear echelons (behind the lines) were considered safe in conventional wars, there were no safe places in Vietnam and standing guard was vitally important duty. Command of these bunkers was divided into four sectors, each with a Command Post (CP) manned by sergeants and company grade officers, also REMF. Each bunker was connected to its CP by a field phone and the CP had lines connecting it to the other command posts and other division assets such as artillery. As a second lieutenant, I was generally second in command of a sector and had the privilege of walking the perimeter to check on the guards while my superior slept. Three men were assigned to each bunker and they took turns sleeping inasmuch as we all had to report to our regular duty posts each day following guard duty. All built revetments atop their bunkers using spare sandbags so that they could sit guard duty without going inside where the air was stale and fouled by rotting wood and humidity. Many feared the structure that was supposed to protect them would fall around their heads at any moment thanks to unrelenting attacks by termites. The most unnerving aspect of guard duty was the fact that division artillery fired flare rounds to illuminate the ground outside the camp all night and they cast shadows that moved as they drifted slowly to the ground on parachutes. Often they swung to and fro making the shadows dance even more sinisterly. One of my men was scared back to his bunker when the casing from a flare round that detonated too close to the perimeter, fell to the ground next to him while he was urinating. I lived on a boat moored in Marina Del Rey when I first moved to California. Sitting on deck in the late evening I could watch airliners approaching LAX and their landing lights reminded me of those flares and the memory took me back to Vietnam.
Sometime after midnight, I would take our assigned vehicle, a three-quarter ton truck to our mess hall where baked goods were being prepared for the following day's meals in the relative cool of the night. I then visited each bunker passing out hot coffee and cakes. In the morning, I had to form a patrol to sweep the area outside the base camp to look for signs of enemy activity or tampering with the defensive lines of barbed and concertina wire. One evening before sunset, the guards at one of our bunkers had spotted activity about a quarter mile outside our perimeter. Since the area was “closed” to all civilians about an hour before sunset, I was told to take a patrol to investigate. I chose six men, two with M-79 grenade launchers and four with M-16 rifles. I divided them into two fire teams led by the grenadiers. We followed a deep drainage ditch that exited the camp perpendicularly and led past the road where the activity was observed. When we passed the last line of wire defenses, I stopped the men and explained our situation. We were on our own. There was no preplanned artillery support and we were too far from the perimeter for anyone to organize a rescue and come help us. Thus, I reasoned that we would have to attack fast and furiously if there was any trouble. Five of the men simply nodded their understanding and climbed out of the ditch onto open ground. The sixth had to be coaxed out. We found a family collecting dead wood for their charcoal furnace and loading it onto a three-wheel motor scooter. I left the men to scout the area to see if they had done anything besides collect wood while I went to check for contraband and encourage them to leave. Since none of them spoke English, I had to pantomime my communication. On the way back to our camp I began to wonder about the security of the ditch we had used to traverse the defenses. There was nothing in it to discourage anyone from approaching our perimeter. That night I installed trip flares and Claymore mines in the ditch. Possibly the Viet Cong in our vicinity were also REMF. VietnamRULES OF ENGAGEMENT are “directives issued by competent military authority that delineate the circumstances and limitations under which United States forces will initiate and/or continue combat engagement with other forces encountered.” Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Related Terms. Unfortunately, this publication does not also define competent military authority, and we are left to our own devices to question, were the rules of engagement employed in Vietnam during U.S. counter-insurgency operations devised by any competent authority? I think that, by-and-large, it is obvious that they were issued to emphasize political rather than military objectives. Certainly, military operations cannot be divorced from politics. War is a failure of politics leading one to ask, what purpose can failed politicians serve meddling in the conduct of war? In Vietnam, we learned the answer to that question.
I was once asked to accompany an officer from the division's Judge Advocate General's office who was investigating a sergeant who had branded a suspected Viet Cong soldier on the forehead with a heated wire in the shape of a “9.” I believe that I was being considered to serve as his defense counsel, but I lost my favored son status with the Judge Advocate in another incident. The sergeant had led his platoon with great competency for the better part of a year, losing few to wounds and none to death, until he was denied artillery support because of his proximity to a peaceful village, resulting in numerous casualties. His branding of Charlie was an apparent reaction to his frustration with the rules of engagement. Although we can sympathize with his frustration, his was a criminal act and he accepted his justly deserved punishment, while plastic sergeants repaired the damage to the VC. In all probability, many such acts arose out of frustration with the rules of engagement. The massacre at My Lai probably falls into that category. Again, no excuses are being made, only understanding that hopefully would prevent competent military authorities from putting American service members in combat situations and then tie their hands. Armed forces are well-trained and adept at winning battles. They are not policemen nor nation builders. They should never be used as pawns in political games. Unfortunately, they are, more often in recent times. War has never been civilized, but it was once fought more gentlemanly. Civilians could sit on hillsides with their picnic lunches and thrill to the gallantry and bravery of their sons engaged in pitched battles for their amusement. Indeed, one such great battle, between the Bon Homme Richard, under the command of John Paul Jones, and the British man o' war, HMS Serapis, was viewed by spectators gathered on the cliffs at Flamborough Head, England. The defeat of the Serapis alarmed the citizens of England who subsequently prevailed upon the British parliament to sue for peace with their colonies and acquiesce to their independence. Insurgency or guerrilla warfare is fought by irregular forces who are as wont as not to insinuate themselves into the civilian population to shield themselves and their purposes. Indeed, Mao Zedong, the author of the strategies and tactics of insurgencies, schooled his disciples to disperse, to hide among the innocent population, and from there, to harass and demoralize the enemy. No leader of a counter-insurgency should miss the opportunity to read Chairman Mao's teachings. It appears that our political and military leaders never did. The rules of engagement denied us the freedom we needed to fight such an enemy effectively, until the Viet Cong made the mistake of massing for the Tet Offensive of 1968. Officers who violated the rules of engagement frequently were relieved of command and reassigned to battalion, brigade, and division headquarters until the furor died down or their tours of duty ended. I had the opportunity to get to know a few such officers. The 9th Admin company whose officers and men staffed the division's administrative, personnel, and finance offices, was frequently commanded by such men. I remember a pair of lieutenants who were serving as the Executive Officer of the 9th Admin company when I first arrived. They were affable young fellows with little to do but drink beer and chase mama-sans around the base camp. They told stories, speaking in guarded terms of tossing a grenade into a civilian hooch suspected of harboring Charlie or hiding his supplies. I suspect that they would not have been in trouble had there been reasonable evidence to support their actions. One of these young men complained that if a Vietnamese fired on him and fled, the American could not then respond if the VC had discarded his weapon before being caught. I did not have enough information to refute his assertion. The most controversial applications of the rules of engagement were those regulating combat operations north of the DMZ. I'm certain that the public was confused by them, but no more so than the military who suffered casualties for them. Driven by political expediency or changes in political leadership, U.S. Armed Forces were subject to constantly changing guidelines. North Vietnamese leaders openly confessed that they were on the verge of suing for peace when President Nixon declared most of the north a free-fire zone. The most prized rule of engagement was free unobserved fire, allowing us to fire any weapons system into an area for any reason, without first obtaining permission from the headquarters that had designated an area a free-fire zone. To my knowledge, Camp Bearcat was the only 9th Infantry Division base camp surrounded by a free-fire zone. In fact, it might have been the only one in all of South Vietnam. We could return fire or fire to interdict possible enemy activity anywhere, anytime within a radius encompassing the range of any enemy weapons system. As a result, Camp Bearcat received just one rocket during the whole of the thirteen months I was there. It was a 144mm rocket launched by a North Vietnamese unit several months after the Tet Offensive of 1968. All other division base camps had peaceful civilian enclaves within range of them. Viet Cong gunners would frequently enter innocent homes, cut holes in the roofs, and lob mortar rounds against which we could not retaliate without endangering innocents. I experienced the insanity of the situation one night while visiting our Mobile Riverine base camp at Dong Tam. I sat with the officer of the guard, watching through a starlight scope as VC's set up and aimed a recoilless rifle at us from just outside our perimeter. Being accustomed to our rules of engagement at Camp Bearcat, I wondered aloud when the artillery rounds would arrive on the enemy group, and was informed that we couldn't shoot at them until they fired on us. We ducked our heads when they fired, and the round pierced the base camp library behind us. The VC were long gone before our artillery could respond. The simple truth is that they didn't have any rules and ours gave them an advantage. The interesting thing is that we defeated them in spite of it. VietnamI WAS THE duty officer at division headquarters, Camp Bearcat, when Melvin Belli arrived on a fact-finding tour of military tribunals in Vietnam. The press was accusing them of being little more than kangaroo courts, and Belli was there to investigate on behalf of the American public. He wasn't expected until the next morning, and I had no instructions as to what to do with him. An aide for one of the Assistant Division Commanders (ADT) said that his general was away, and Belli could bunk in this trailer for the night. Wouldn't you know, the general returned unexpectedly to find the famous barrister, with his great beer belly and unruly crop of long, white hair sleeping in his bed. My night got exciting when the general appeared in the headquarters building demanding to know what the hell was going on. Unfortunately, I wasn't interviewed by Belli; I could have told him a few things. The division Judge Advocate found out that I had a law degree, and began sending defendants to see me. Most were being tried on charges of using marijuana, and were unhappy with the defense counsel assigned to their cases from the officer ranks of their own units. They came to me looking for a member of the Justice League to get them off. The best I could promise was to make sure the prosecution proved their case.
I was able on one or two occasions to introduce doubt. For example, an investigator from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) testified that traces of marijuana had been found in the breast pocket of the defendant's fatigue blouse, thus proving possession, in much the same way that traces of tobacco collected in the pockets of cigarette smokers. On cross-examination, I was able to force the investigator to admit that such traces might have occurred if the defendant's laundry had been used by Vietnamese civilians to smuggle marijuana on to the post to engage in illicit sales, thus raising a doubt that the evidence was conclusive. Unfortunately, for this defendant, another witness testified that he had seen the defendant throw away a butt as the witness approached. Suspecting that the defendant had been smoking marijuana, the witness retrieved the smoldering butt and turned it over to an investigator who testified, clearing establishing the chain of possession of the evidence to a criminal laboratory in Japan and back to the courtroom, proving conclusively that the defendant had been smoking marijuana. All of my “clients” were caught red-handed and destined for some bad time at the LBJ (Long Binh Jail). [Note: Bad time meant that your enlistment in the Army and your one year tour of duty in Vietnam were extended for a period equaling the time you were incarcerated.] All of my clients complained that prohibitions on marijuana were unreasonable if not unconstitutional. They weren't happy when I informed them that they could appeal, but only after they had been convicted. Most “copped a plea.” The most memorable case I handled actually made it to a battalion-level Special Courts Martial. Four young enlisted men had been caught using while sitting atop a bunker where they were plainly visible. Only three were seen smoking joints, which were collected by NCO's and sent by CID to Japan for analysis. The fourth was accused of being an accomplice. I felt I had a chance of getting him acquitted. I cross-examined the senior NCO who had apprehended the men, questioning him as to why he thought the defendant was an accomplice. He testified that the young enlisted man knew that they were illegally using a controlled substance. How? I asked him. The NCO testified that he must have smelled it. Ah, I thought I had my opening. How could he be sure the young man knew what marijuana smelled like? There was no evidence establishing that fact. The president of the court laughed, averring that everyone knew what it smelled like. Now, I was a virgin at the time, at least, in the world of drugs. I didn't know what marijuana smelled like. Indeed, when the marijuana they had been smoking was entered in evidence, I asked to see it; it would have been a first for me. The president of the court then informed me that he knew because their battalion commander had held an officer's call at which they all smoked a “joint” so they would know what they were dealing with. The other officers sitting on the court martial board concurred. That stopped me cold. I then asked the court, how could they sit in judgment of these defendants when they had admitted to being guilty of the same crime for which the defendants were charged? The officers defended themselves by saying that they were “only following orders.” The court martial ended in chaos when I reminded them of the trials at Nuremberg where Nazis defended themselves unsuccessfully using the same excuse. That evening, at the division officer's club, the Judge Advocate let me know that the battalion commander wanted me charged with insubordination. I countered with charges against him and all his officers. We negotiated a settlement over a rubber of bridge, and I was never again referred to defendants. It's just as well; I was the antithesis of Perry Mason. I never won one. Other than that experience, I did not see much to complain about in the application of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Article 32 investigations seemed to insure that charges were not filed without adequate cause. I could be wrong. Article 15 of the UCMJ permitted commanders to apply limited punishment for minor infractions without the need for trial by courts martial, if the soldier consented to it. I'm certain that there were cases of abuse by commanders, but none ever came to my attention, nor would anyone ever learn of such abuses at a division headquarters if the soldiers did not appeal. WritingIMAGINE A BOOKSTORE with the inventory of Amazon. Assuming that Amazon has 2.5 million unique titles (that's a guess – probably low, very low), and that our hypothetical bookstore stocks only one copy of each book, and that the average book spine is just one inch (I know, it's probably more), we would need more than four hundred miles of shelving to display them all. Okay, you could stack the shelves four high and have ten aisles of them. Thus, the store would only have to be about ten miles deep. (Do the math for yourself.) Now, imagine yourself going there to buy a book. Of course, it'll have the most popular books on display at the entrance and on endcaps of each aisle. That should help the popular authors a little. I don't think it's going to do the rest of us much good.
Do you get the picture? That's the problem facing all booksellers. Yes, you, too. Even if you are only an author, you're still still interested in selling your books, aren't you? The people who just add their books to the heap without attempting to market them are only adding to the clutter. Readers must become aware of your book before you can begin to coax them to purchase and read it. If they don't arrive at that store with a desire to find and purchase your book, the odds of them stumbling across it while browsing is highly unlikely, isn't it? And, if you're a reader, just imagine, browsing four hundred miles of bookshelves. Why, that's a lot like browsing all the books on Amazon, isn't it? I don't know how to help them find my book, yet. I'm working on it. I don't have any answers because I don't yet know all the questions. That's what I'm working on now. I'm trying to frame the questions. I have an idea of a few of them: What is the market for my book? Who wants to read that type? Where do they live? Where do they shop? How can I make my book stand out in the crowd? It seems that most authors and publishers are “working” the social media to build sales. How's that working out for them? For you? For me? Not so much. I've spent the past six months building a following on Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, and all the rest, and all I see when I look around me are other authors trying to sell me their books. True, I've bought a few. Unfortunately, I don't think any of us are going to go very far buying and reading each others' books. Does anyone remember CB (Citizen's Band) Radio? That was a true social media. People were chatting with one another all day and all night. I don't think that Twitter is anything like that. Not too many people are chatting on Twitter, are they? They're like Cbers who have tapped their “Push-to-Talk” switches in the “On” position and just keep yakking thinking that everyone else has nothing better to do than to listen to them. Of course, I'm no expert. I can only speak to the lack of Direct Messages and Replies that I've observed among my Tweeple. In fact, I've seen people complain that they don't want to receive Direct Messages claiming that they're only spam. In other words, they're not using Twitter to socialize. They're using it to broadcast advertising. Are things going any differently in your “following?” There has to be a better way. I don't know what it is. I don't even know if I would recognize it if I saw it, not until I know what I'm looking for. Until I know who my audience is and how to communicate with them, I can't even begin to worry about the content of my message. The only thing that I know for certain is that it is impossible to answer a question that hasn't been framed. I'm guessing that I have a lot of work ahead of me. I think that we all do, at least those of us who are trying to sell books in this economy. I would love to hear your thoughts. Please comment below. OpinionAMERICAN STEEL FOUNDRIES left these shores long ago, the victim of foreign competition. American auto manufacturers are beginning to leave with government help. (See last Sunday's opinion piece.) American publishers are folding like cheap tabloids. Newspapers are closing. Magazines are disappearing from racks in stores. Which of your favorites is gone? Mine just left: American Heritage. This publication has had a strange effect on people. Even the most contentious advocates seemed to find their reasonable voices in its pages, even when discussing even the most contentious issues of the day. I remember one occasion about twenty years following the fall of Saigon, when the editors polled politicians, religious, community and military leaders, anti-war advocates and scholars on the question: “What should we teach our children about the Vietnam War?” They all responded with similar answers, well-reasoned and devoid of recriminations. It seems that a few decades of reflection had cooled some tempers, and it took American Heritage to uncover that fact.
American Heritage died once before, about five years ago. Fortunately, a loyal group of fans resuscitated it and carried it forward against the currents of change. However, the Winter/Spring 2012 issue contains a notice from the editor announcing their surrender. “After surmounting many challenges, our publishing company must end its run of 61 years. In its place, a new organization – The American Heritage Society – rises to the occasion. As a nonprofit, the Society will be able to secure additional funding from donors, foundations, and government agencies.” – Edward S. Grosvenor, Editor-in-Chief Government? Where will they get the money? How many donors and foundations have the funds to spare in these troubled economic times? I fear that Mr. Grosvenor is far more optimistic than I. Still, hope springs eternal and I can think of no better organization to support. Just, leave the government out of this equation, please. Now I sit scanning what may be the last issue and again its pages reveal another aspect of history that I wish I had known before, one that I wish most of us had known. It's another of those incidents that cycle its way through history to crop up from time to time, one that every school child in America used to know but regrettably has been omitted from modern curriculum. It regards treason. Modern Americans have heard of treason but it has rarely been invoked except in times of great passion as when Jane Fonda wandered into a war zone. Like a wild moose that had wandered onto a freeway, she wasn't breaking any law, but was totally devoid of any sense of the trouble she was causing. Ms Fonda benefited from the fact that America's Founders cautiously limited the definition of treason when they crafted the Constitution. They feared that it would ever be used as European tyrants had to dispatch political enemies by reinventing treason to fit every occasion. As a student of law, I already had a firm grasp of the subject before reading their article, "Treason!" The part I didn't know came in a quote from William Wirt, one of the prosecutor's in the trial of Aaron Burr. Apparently, American school children used to memorize the following passage: “The destroyer comes; he comes to change this paradise into a hell;... he soon finds his way to their hearts... The conquest was not difficult. Innocence is ever simple and credulous... By degrees his infuses into [his followers] the fire of his own courage; a daring and desperate thirst for glory; and ardor panting for great enterprises, for all the storm and bustle and hurricane of life.” I wish I had heard that before. I wish we all had. It sounds familiar, at least to me, because it so well describes our current situation. That's why I study history. That's why we all should. Maybe then we could recognize the serpents in our midst much sooner – those with a desperate thirst for glory; and ardor panting for great enterprises – before they have a chance to change this paradise into hell. If American Heritage truly passes, I will continue studying history. I just will continue my study without a trusted guide and loyal companion of many years. 6/7/2012 3 Comments Spiders Were Our FriendsVietnamFLYING INSECTS WERE especial nuisances in Vietnam, especially those that could raise lumps in the event your head inadvertently crossed one of their flight paths. I believe that several species of beetles registered on our radar systems. One Goliath variety, the Rhinoceros beetle, outweighed any possible insectile airframe inasmuch as they grew to eleven inches in length. One of those in flight could easily knocked a man off his feet in the event of collision. The most dangerous, though, of all flying insects were the mosquitoes. Armed with eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium, they spread malaria indiscriminately. I was one of their victims. Although I was armed with mosquito netting and various forms of repellent and anti-malarial drugs, I think that I would have been better served encircled by an army of spiders. We welcomed spiders to our domiciles and took great care to avoid disturbing theirs; unless, of course, they proved inefficient. Each day we examined the accumulated insects in each spider's web and destroyed those that were barren, giving the occupant an opportunity to rebuild using a better design. Two consecutive failures resulted in instant eviction making their space available to a more suitable tenant. Those spiders were our friends. One night as I sat trying unsuccessfully to stay awake in the division headquarters (I was the duty officer that night), I heard a bug walking in the hallway outside my office door. It's footstep was not familiar; indeed, I was not certain it was an insect at first, thinking that it was rather a cat in serious need of having its claws trimmed. On investigation, I found an enormous example of the earwig family with long pincers at each end. It was a wonder. It was a trophy. I had to have it for the next night's bug fights. Scrounging through the drawers of my temporary desk I found a match box and, after emptying its contents into an envelope, attempted to imprison this specimen. After a few moments scratching around inside, it unceremoniously hacked away the end of the wooden box and exited. I don't think he was happy. I remember watching a trail of black worker ants scurrying to and fro outside my hooch in Vietnam one afternoon soon after arriving in-country, eviscerating some dead thing to stock their colony's larder. They were large ants, the largest I had ever seen. Just as I was about to lose interest, the flank of their column was assaulted by a platoon of red soldier ants with heads of such Godzilla-like proportions that I wondered how they stood and walked without tipping forward and resting on their mandibles like insane tripods. My attention riveted on one in particular that grasped a blank ant by the head and seemingly froze. I was not able to understand that it was simply applying pressure until the head of the black ant collapsed with an audible snap. Thus, I was introduced to the insects of Vietnam. Termites, the arch-enemies of ants, demonstrated voracious appetites by devouring any wooden structure they could find. Viet Cong mortars blushed in comparison. Apparently, our bunkers appeared especially appetizing to them. Inasmuch as any shelter we attempted to dig soon filled with water, we had to build our bomb shelters on the surface. We began with 4x4 frames covered in 2x10 planking, and then entombed all in layers of sandbags. Within three or four months, the sandbags fell into a pile after the termites had totally consumed the underlying wooden structures. Thank God our M-16 rifles had composite plastic stocks rather than a wooden ones. Our hooches were elevated above the ground in a futile effort to avoid crawling insects. Plywood floors were placed on half buried canisters that our friends in the artillery batteries had disposed after after removing the shells for delivery to the enemy. Insect screening was stretched over flimsy wooden frames and layered with widely-spaced clapboards to allow airflow. Heavy duty canvas tents were stretched overall, and we sat back to see which would occur first; would the termites destroy our abodes from below before or after the jungle rot destroyed them from above. It little mattered to the insects who traversed our hooches looking for a tasty ankle to bite. Interestingly, just as we learned to distinguish the type of helicopter approaching by the sounds of its rotors, we learned to distinguish species of insects by the sound of their footsteps on our plywood floors.
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