Veteran comes to grips
with the Vietnam legacy
In March 1975 I found a National
Geographic map of Southeast Asia, covered
with some pins of black, red and yellow with a
red stripe.
On my bedroom wall in Kitsilano they
became the objects of a daily ritual. The red
headed pins moved across the printed
geography and swiftly engulfed, and in some
cases bypassed, the yellow and black pins. A
living geometry created by the death-throes of
the Republic of Vietnam.
By mid-April, An Loc ceased to exist
under the crush of B-52 carpet bombing. A last
gasp tribute to the “we had to destroy it in
order to save it” mentality.
Commentary
After that, as the noose around Saigon
tightened, the evacuation reached a frenzied
pitch in anticipation of the coming blood bath.
What is clear in my memory, amid the
flotsam of Hueys, is the two tons of gold
bullion left on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhut by
former South Vietnamese President Nguyen
Van Thieu’s Swiss pilot.
It seems Thieu couldn’t take it with him.
The night Saigon fell I watched Walt
Rostow try to explain it all away. And I laugh
ed until I cried.
I was on a jag between the high that the
light at the end of the tunnel was unplugged
and deep sorrow of the waste of what was the
best in America and of Vietnam. That night I
became a member of the first generation of
American soldiers to lose a war.
Vietnam: the black hole of American
history. The average American doesn't have a
clear chronology of the war. Most veterans are
familiar only with their nitch in the decade of
American involvement.
Vietnam is generally regarded as a
mistake.
When I hear that statement I’m tempted to
ask them if they ever lived in a house with a
low hanging door jam that caught them mid
forehead. And is it a mistake to keep banging
their head against that jam for 10 years?
By and large, Americans don't want to be
brought down by the grim details, and God
knows there is a wealth of grim details. But we
are an image-conscious people, and Vietnam
damages our self-image.
The public has preferred that the veteran
carry the emotional baggage of the war.
Yet, the word makes a daily appearance in
the newspaper — any given periodical and
scandal sheet. America has a morbid fascina
tion with the one issue it cannot face head-on.
It appears that the American public has
received most of its knowledge of the war and
the participants through the vignettes of prime
time.
In the early 70s there was the ever-popular
“freaked-out mad-dog ’Nam vet” plot.
The most twisted of these was a British
production wherein a deranged lieutenant sets
up a one-man base camp on a deserted RAF
airfield and proceeds to imagine he’s being
over run by VC, charging through the green
fields of England.
They had to kill the poor boy to make him
happier.
More recently, the trend in pop culture is
to portray the Vietnamese bouncing off any
strong American presence. As though we can
stroll through Yellow Peril’s backyard any
time we choose.
Now we have the added characterization
of the POW/MIA being kept as a pet for the
amusement of Yellow Peril and his chums.
Considering that the United States spent
twice the amount of ordinance it did in W.W.
II — including the atomic bombs — I’m sure
the Vietnamese have nothing better to do than
amuse themselves with a day at the zoo wat
ching the antics of a stir-crazy, tattered pilot.
But it makes good ratings for the-, net
works. Imagine what would have happened to
Jeremiah Denton if he were Vietnamese and
was captured by us.
His would be a short story indeed.
Vietnam is the lover of our dreams, with
whom we can never live with, much less
fathom.
What is odd, considering that the affair
was torrid and brutal despite similar founding
principles, she misses us. She will haunt our
collective memory for decades to come.
By Julian Camp
Camp served in Vietnam with the First In
fantry division during 1969-70.
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