Ground Pounder: A Marine’s Journey through South Vietnam, 1968-1969

Introduction

xiii Introduction One of the reasons I had decided to write this book was because as a society and as a nation, I do not believe that we actually learned anything of significance from our Vietnam experience. Even today, our troops can be found patrolling distant lands and guarding foreign outposts without possessing a clear plan or a realistic objective to guide their way. Their lives and the security of this nation have been put in harm’s way, all in the name of projecting our political and military influence over areas that we will never fully control and over people that we will never fully understand. By continually relying upon our military establishment as a substitute for politically and economically dealing with our foreign problems, we have failed to achieve any lasting results, except for creating a unified chorus of worldwide anti-Americanism. If I have learned anything from my experiences in Vietnam, it’s that stark military force isn’t enough to overcome the brutal acts of international terrorism or the revenge-filled atrocities committed in every civil and religious conflict. By their very nature, these are political acts of desperation, which cannot be subdued by force of xiv Introduction arms alone. Thus in telling my story, I am attempting to remind my generation and hopefully warn the future generations of the terribly high price our nation has paid in believing that we can forcibly bend the world into our own corporate image. To my immense satisfaction, I have discovered that my mind has hidden or rejected many of my most disturbing memories about the war.Much likemy adolescent years,Idon’treallyrememberthemore negative experiences. Life goes on and Mother Nature tends to care for those who are always looking to the future. As any veteran will tell you,combatisaverydifficultsubjecttoaccuratelydescribe.It’salmost impossible to find anyone who agrees as to what actually happened duringalloftheexcitement.Memoriesfade,rumorsbecomeaccepted as fact, and one’s perceptions tend to change over time. In the past severalyears,Ihavereadseveraldifferentaccountsofaparticularfight in which I happened to have been a participant. Not only did these accounts differ in their content, but also they didn’t coincide with what I remembered. It was as if everybody involved had experienced a totally different situation. Throughout my story, the individual characters I will be describing were very real people. Unfortunately though, I don’t really remember a lot of their names. Therefore, I will use a few aliases and nicknames for the sake of convenience. It’s not that I didn’t care for my fellow comrades-in-arms. It’s just that I didn’t go out of my way to make any long-lasting friendships while I was in Vietnam. The fear of having to watch a dear friend die in my arms was always present in my mind. Thus I tried to approach the war with a sense of emotional detachment. Over the passage of time, I believe this aloofness was very beneficial to me. After coming home and attempting to adjust to civilian life again, I didn’t experience nearly the number of emotional problems that would arise in so many other returning veterans. However, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t have any difficulties. Introduction xv During my two tours in Vietnam, I served with four different Marine units within a nineteen-month period. If it hadn’t been for my desire to further my education, I would have probably signed on for another tour. Ever since I can remember, I had wanted to join the military, put on a uniform, and participate in a struggle against oppression and tyranny. Totally rejecting my peers’ best efforts, I never had any desire to become a professional athlete, a hip dancer, or even a glorified rock star. Instead, I always imagined myself charging the barricades with a sword in one hand and the shield of Pericles in the other. The fact that my father was a career military man probably had a lot to do with it. Regrettably though, my parents couldn’t get along, so they divorced each other before I reached my sixth birthday. But when my brothers and I did get an opportunity to visit our father, he certainly never sat around and regaled us with all of his old war stories. While loyally serving his country for close to thirty years in the United States Air Force, he never saw a shot...