Voices from the Vietnam War: Stories from American, Asian, and Russian Veterans

Chapter 12: And Then They’re Gone . . .Just Like That

Chapter 12 And Then They’re Gone . . . Just Like That Maj. Curt Munson has few regrets about having volunteered for the marines and Vietnam. As a young man, he was willing to face challenges and take risks. It is still true these days when he sits in his big office as the investment representative for one of the largest national financial corporations.1 Major Munson was one of the U.S. Marines sent to Vietnam after 1968 as the war became unpopular at home. In early 1968, the NVA and PLAF forces launched a general offensive campaign against the American and ARVN forces during the Lunar New Year (Tet). After the Tet Offensive, Gen. William C. Westmoreland asked for 206,000 additional troops for South Vietnam. Pres. Lyndon Johnson turned him down and shortly thereafter announced his decision not to run for reelection. Nevertheless, 25,000 American troops were sent to South Vietnam as replacements.2 Major Munson joined the marines in the spring of 1969 when he was eighteen. The American soldiers who fought in Vietnam had the youngest average age of any American war. They were younger than those who had served in World War II (1941–1945) and the Korean War (1950–1953). In February 1970, Curt was sent to Vietnam. He came back home a year later. It has been forty years since Munson returned from Vietnam, but even after that long, he’s clear and decisive about his most important memories. After his tour in Vietnam, he went on to spend twenty years on active duty in the marines, plus four years on reserve status. He retired in 1993 as a major, after serving in such exotic locations as Somalia, Israel, Syria, and Egypt. Munson served as a UN Truce Supervision Officer, commanded the marine detachment on the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy, served in Desert Storm, and 112 Saigon’s Allies taught at the U.S. Army Field Artillery Center and the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. Maj. Curt Munson H&S Company, Third Battalion, First Marine Division, U.S. Marine Corps In 1969, the Vietnam War was raging and I was a freshman at the University of Arkansas. I knew that I wanted to participate in the most significant event of my generation, and didn’t want to spend the rest of my life on the outside looking in. Ironically, that is just where Vietnam veterans wound up. I chose to join the marines in the spring semester of 1969 once I decided to drop out after the term. Because I was eighteen, healthy, and out of college, I was pretty resigned to serving somehow. The son of a highly decorated World War II veteran and career soldier, and having always lived on army bases, my decision to join the marines broke with tradition. Joining the Marine Corp was essentially a minor act of rebellion, but was influenced by Leon Uris’s book Battle Cry, which depicted them as men of honor and greatness. I knew I had committed myself to a tour in Vietnam, although at that point, if someone had asked me, I would not have known much about the issues involved. Most of my exposure to the war came from the John Wayne film The Green Berets, with its one dimensional and jingoistic view of the war, and Walter Cronkite. Going to school in Arkansas , I wasn’t really aware of the antiwar factions. My thinking about going to war was that it was something I wanted to do, as part of my generation, as part of history, and as a part of growing up. As I say that, it seems amazingly naive to me, but there it is. In late July 1969, I reported for boot camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California. The objective of boot camp was to prepare basically trained marines, so we drilled, learned first-aid, Marine Corps traditions and history, physical fitness, and the care and shooting of our weapons. After I finished with boot camp in October, I went to Infantry Regiment Training [IRT] and then to Basic Infantry Training School [BITS]. I was a little smarter by then, and was ambivalent, both relieved and concerned to be designated an infantryman. I had to keep reminding myself that infantry was what I wanted, but it gave me pause as well. After And Then They’re Gone . . . Just Like That...