American Regrets
I think one of the reasons I got into military journalism was because I regretted, and have regretted for many years, the fact that I didn’t serve my country when I should have in some capacity. Whether I would have ended up like my neighbor who is a Vietnam era Veteran or in some other capacity. And I think that my venturing into military journalism is in some way, an effort on my part in my psyche and in my heart of hearts and my soul, to make up for that. If I didn’t serve in Vietnam at least the least I can do is write about who did. I’ve met refugees, who felt like we abandoned them starting in 1972 with the Vietnamese invasion of the war and 1975 when Saigon fell. And I’ve been, a lot of my Vietnam Veterans, friends feel exactly the same the same. They feel that we betrayed people, Vietnamese in particular. There is a group of people that is not heard about too much these days they go by their French name, the Montagnards, the mountain people. They were our staunchest allies in the Vietnam War in central highlands in particular. They’re sort of tantamount to the Hmong in Laos. They’re hill tribes’ people. We made a promise to those people that if anything that happened, if we had to leave Vietnam, we would take them with us. And we reneged on that promise because we left them there. To this day, largely because of their Christian faith, they are harassed and discriminated against, forced to intermarry, forced to forgo their customs And very few people in the world other than people who fought with them in the Vietnam War who know of their history because they settled in North Carolina for example most of them. The world just as doesn’t hear about them.
The Power of Journalism
A lot of people are of the mind and Vietnam Veterans many of them among them that the journalist who covered Vietnam are the reasons, is the reasons that quote, unquote we lost the Vietnam War. As I said earlier I’m not at the opinion that we did lose it, but I don’t really see that point of view. I know why people feel that way because pictures for example, the very famous one of Kim Phuc, the napalm girl, taken by the Vietnamese AP Photographer, Nick UT and Eddy Adams photo of General Juan shooting a Vietcong in the head. I can see how people would come to or could come to the conclusion that losing the war was the journalist fault. A lot of these guys and gals have become my friends over the years or acquaintances; I’m talking about those who covered the war. And I believe they just had a job to do. I don’t believe that it was their intent to purposely make us lose the Vietnam War. In point of fact, I envy them for the experience and a big part of me wishes that I had been there along with them to, in a sense, bring the war home to the American Public.
Killing Fields
Where I think I feel a little stirring inside, is the fact that after the Vietnam War was over the journalists, like the soldiers, went home. Maybe they’d had it up to here with the war and I certainly understand, but what transpired after the war, I believed is far worse if not equally worse than what happened during the war. You have basically up to about a hundred thousand Vietnamese, like my brother-in-law, forced to live in communist re-education camps. If you ever saw the movie The Killing Fields, which is about Cambodia, very similar things happened in Vietnam. Certainly happened to my brother-in-law. I just wonder where was everybody then. Yes, they were willing to report the war as they saw it to bring it home I wish that someone was more steadfast in telling the American Public what was going on in Vietnam after we left. Because I think, like me, who changed his mind, my mind, about the stance I took during the war, that a war protester, they might have changed their minds too.
Returning to Vietnam
My three trips to Vietnam happened in 1990, 1992 and the last time was 1995 so I have not been back recently. But my wife is from Vietnam and has friends that have gone back, family members have gone back. I have friends who were both correspondence in Vietnam and Soldiers and Marines in Vietnam. And they have gone back and we get pictures and emails and we are totally blow away. Skyscrapers in Saigon, resorts on the beaches on the beautiful beaches in Vietnam.
I Have A Letter
By the time I got to Vietnam in 1995, there was a marked change. First of all, we just opened up an embassy in Hanoi. And I remember distinctly meeting the brother-in-law of one of my teacher colleagues. In fact, we taught ESL together in LA and this woman’s happened to be my Vietnamese teacher at dare I say it, UCLA. She had a note for her brother-in-law. And I was shocked in 1995 when he openly walked into the lobby because of Vietnamese national during the first two times I was in Vietnam was not allowed to walk into a hotel lobby where Westerners will stay. He walked in and had a seat and I said to him I whispered to him I have a letter from your sister-in-law shall we take a walk. And he said, “Oh No, things are much different now.” And he asked to see the letter and he read it right there. And I saw him about three weeks later, we met up again at the Continental Hotel in the lobby and he jokingly said, “I have a letter from my sister-in-law. Would you like to take a walk?” And I said, “No, that’s fine.” So I saw a marked difference in 1895, and have not been back. My career I think as an educator well it ended as far as the LA school district was concerned in 2012, but I’m now an adjunct instructor at Pasadena City College. And I teach when there’s a need at the University of Laverne and also Columbia College. A private school that has satellite campuses on military bases and they happen every campus where I served when I was In California State Military reserves, the unit that I had alluded to earlier. So those things and my wife’s work schedule, have kind of gotten in the way. We talk about going back to Vietnam together one day and I don’t know we will, it’s just not in the immediate plan.
Distant War Regarding my book, Distant War that came about Distant War Recollections of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia came about because I got to a point in my career as a military journalist, having written for a lot of different publications some of those I mentioned earlier. And I started looking around for something to do and I had this plethora of articles that were Vietnam related and I thought, “Well why not put them into a book.” I thought I might be able to interest someone. It took a couple years, but I did actually it’s been published twice. What I strove for in putting the book together what’s to be eclectic in my choices and certainly the people that I interviewed and those who relate to the book seem to be appreciative of the fact that I kind of went to write about or included stories that were Vietnam related that hadn’t been explored before.
Closing Remarks
I think if there’s any lesson to be learned from the war that we can apply to today it’s that they’re two. Number one, that we should never go into a conflict with one hand tied behind our back like our Vietnam Veterans were forced to experience for, politically reasons, both in the beginning of the war and in my ways throughout the war because it was an undeclared war. And the other thing I would say, is that we should never again, treat our Soldiers, our Marines, our Airmen and our sailors the way that they were treated when they came home from Vietnam