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May 26,1999
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M em orial D avj
Vietnam Remembered
By Eric Karlson
C ontrib u tin g W riter
At the age of IB, I found a letter
on my dresser. It read:
Dear Mr. Karlson,
Your num ber was chosen in the
nationw ide lottery and you have
been drafted into the United States
Army. You will re p o rt for your
physical exam in Perth Amboy, New
Jersey on December 9, 1969.
“Yeah right. Take a #*#* hike!
I mumbled, as I crumpled it up and
threw it to the floor.
I grew up in a very stressed fam­
ily with a rage-a-holic father and a
m other who was in and out of a
m ental institution. T here was a lot
of dysfunction. To survive the brute
reality of my home life, I consumed
a lot of alcohol and drugs.
I joined the Army, desperate to
kick my habit.
My uays o f b o o t cam p were
spt nt stabbing dummies with bayo­
nets, shooting paper targets of en
emy s o ld ie rs o u t in th e fie ld ,
marching, doing push-ups and KP,
and being pushed to our physical
and m ental limits.
T hey le c tu re d us a b o u t how
great the United States was for pro­
tecting little co u n tries from the
“evils of com munism .” No m atter
how much they seemed to explain,
1 still couldn’t get it. They told us
about Vietnam and how if we let the
commies take it, they’d be landing
on our beaches next.
A couple of m onths after my
training in the states, 1 was shipped
to Camp Eagle in Phu Bai, south
of H ue (near th e D em ilita rize d
Zone) in Vietnam.
When I got there, I quickly real­
ized that we were not going to win
this war. All the GIs knew this as
well. T he m orale was horrible. We
were apathetic and felt like we were
being used for canon-fodder - just
sent out there to get shot up rather
than actually winning anything.
We were under trem endous pres­
sure, especially the infantry on the
front lines to come back with dead
Viet Cong enemies or body counts.
Many of us turned to drugs. I
found myself smuggling m arijuana,
opium and heroin from the Viet­
namese villages to the m ilitary base
in Phu Bai where 1 was stationed.
As 1 traveled into the villages to
sc o re d ru g s, I w itn e sse d som e
A m erican forces b ru ta liz in g the
In Vietnam, the U.S. destroyed 9,000 out of 15,000 hamlets, 25 million acres of farmland, 12
million acres of forest, and left 25 million bomb craters.
life. I missed the simplicity of the
I grew my hair long, m arched in
Vietnamese to the point of murder.
peasants and their loving ways, and
After the end of one m onth in d e m o n stra tio n s in W ashington,
also my b u d d ies w ith w hom I ’d
Vietnam, I went AWOL. My break- D.C., and joined the antiwar move­
found
so much in common. T here
m ent and the V ietnam V eterans
ng p o in t cam e a fte r se ein g an
was
m
uch
confusion after having
\m erican Sargeant “blow away” a Against the War to continue my pro­
lived
u
n
d
er
such extrem e co n d i­
Vietnamese boy for ste alin g his test against the injustices taking
tions
where
compassion
and staying
place in Southeast Asia. T he GIs
vrist watch. S om ething snapped
alive
were
all
that
really
m attered.
there were counting on those of us
nside of me. I realized th at I could
Since
the
governm
ent
of V iet­
who had m ade it back to tell Ameri­
not be a p art of w hat A m erican
nam
recently
opened
the
country
to
cans the real story.
forces were doing in Vietnam.
tourism
,
the
possibility
now
exists
T
he
saddest
aspect
of
the
Viet­
To survive, I lived with the Viet­
namese villagers. T he locals p ro ­ nam war were how the veterans were for me to return. W hat would I find?
treated when they returned home. Are all my friends and lovers dead?
tected me from U.S. forces. They
dem onstrated to me th eir huge ca­ Unfortunately, they d idn’t receive A re the people who h elped, pro­
tected, and cared for me gone? Viet­
pacity for u n d erstan d in g and com ­ recognition for their courage and
nam ese who supported or even as­
desire
to
protect
their
country.
They
passion in a way th at I never expe­
sociated with Americans during the
were
placed
in
a
no-win
situation.
rienced before in my life. For the
Memories of Nam perm eated my U.S. occupation were either killed
most p a rt, my frozen heart began
to open.
I was ev en tu ally caught
near the city of Hue. Along
with two other GIs, we were
being chased by m ilitary po­
lice who captured us.
T here was a Colonel back
at the base wjto w anted to
court m artial me and lock me
up in Long Binh jail, b u t a
major who had befriended me
p u sh ed for im m ed ia te d is­
charge and I was sent home.
On O ctober 15, 1970, I
was back on U.S. soil behind
R E G G A E
R a B
twelve-foot barbed wire fences
in a stockade in Ft. Lewis,
south of S eattle. Two days
later, I was discharged and on
P a r t i e s • W e d d in c c • A n n iv e r s a r ie s • E t c
a plane back to New Jersey.
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or taken to slave labor camps in the
jungles. Few survived. But even if
their physical presence is gone, their
love and compassion lives on in my
heart.
In the presence of the V ietnam ­
ese peasants, I was given a vision
of w hat life could be for us all. I
hold th at vision in hopes that the
qualities these sim ple people ex­
pressed in their everyday lives will
som eday change the way people
think and act. Perhaps our world
will then reach the potential that
the C reato r in ten d ed for us - one
in which intellect and heart fuse as
one, an d our decisions are m ade
from a level where love and con­
cern for our fellow hum an beings
guide our actions.
Every injustice bears w ithin it
a seed. T his seed can be n u rtu red
in darkness and the fruit will be re­
sentm ent and fu rth er injustice, or
it can be n u rtu red in the light and
the fruit will be th a t of learning
and com passion. We have the op­
p o rtu n ity to expand o u r hearts
and find new ways within ourselves
to change life for the better. O u r
Vietnam experiences brought forth
a vital seed for all of us to recog­
nize the treasures that we have in
our lives.
Eric K arlson is th e a u th o r of
Fall To Grace (M ariposa Press). His
w e b site is www. M a rip o s a
Press.com . He can be reached by
e m a il
at
eric k 'S ’M a rip o sa -
P ress.com .