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

Chapter Eight: Gypsy

143 Chapter Eight Gypsy “Truth might be the first casualty of war, but sweet reason comes in a close second.” By the time I had returned from my R&R in Hawaii, the American people were still reeling from the shock over the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. (April 4) and Robert F. Kennedy (June 5). Within two short months, our nation’s leading advocates for getting outofVietnamhadbeensuddenlycutdownintheprimeoftheirlives. To millions of Americans, they represented the hopes and dreams of a whole generation, a bridge between the wrongs of the past and the promises of a bright new future. Duringthisturbulentperiod,Ihadnoideaastotheimpactoftheir tragic deaths. As grunts, we lived with death and suffering all around us.Sowhenweheardthenewsabouttheirassassinations,ourattitude was one of almost callous indifference. While I was in the field, I had overheard more than one person remark, “Well, better them than me.” It’s not that we didn’t admire and respect these men for their accomplishments; it’sjust that formany of us, we hadrun out of tears. 144 Ground Pounder Sometime in the middle of June, Westy was rewarded for his efforts by being kicked upstairs to the Pentagon. His replacement was Gen. Creighton Abrams of World War II fame. Revered throughout the U.S. Army as a tough-minded, no-nonsense type of commander , he had earned his spurs while commanding Patton’s 3rd Army spearhead during the relief of Bastogne. Although he was a tank expert by training, Abrams had an astute knowledge of the particular problems facing our infantry in Vietnam. In an effort to get a clearer picture, he would interview many of the Army’s top soldiers. Without question, his presence was a stabilizing force around a mountain of growing doubts. Of course, like every other commander in Vietnam, he had a tiger by the tail that was prepared to go the distance. With the help of the People’s Republic of China and the former Soviet Union, the North Vietnamese were prepared to drag the war into the next millennium. Time and space were on their side and they knew it. Thus Abrams found himself in an impossible situation. After overseeing the Vietnamization Program, the American troop withdrawals , and the invasion of two neutral countries (Cambodia and Laos),heleftVietnamknowingfullwellthatitwasnotourkindofwar. Insurgencies, counter-insurgencies, black ops, helicopter extractions, free-fire zones, and bombing limitations were concepts completely alien to the World War II generation. Ever since the U.S. Army moved up to I Corps, the air bases at Da Nang and Phu Bai had gone through several changes. The dirt roads were widened and paved, new facilities and camps were built, perimeters were expanded, and the entire area was brimming with Army personnel.Muchlikemyexperiencewiththe1stAirCavin Operation Pegasus, I was in complete awe of their organizational wealth. These guys knew how to fight a war. Besides bringing an impressive array of weaponry, tanks, and fighting vehicles to the battle, they also brought with them pizzerias, beer gardens, pool halls, air-conditioned movie Gypsy 145 theaters, PXs, and bath houses. In no time at all, they had the place looking like a part of home. Guerrilla, or rather counter-insurgency, wars are very difficult to wage, because they tend to become self-perpetuating affairs. An army just can’t expect to grab the enemy by the testicles and hope that their hearts and minds will follow. The nature of the game in Vietnam was unlike a conventional conflict like World War II, where an army’s success is based upon its ability to gain ground and to induce massive casualties. From the very start, we had to win over and possess the center of gravity, which happened to be the South Vietnamese peasant . Whoever won the majority of their support would eventually comeoutontop.Inessence,theNVAcouldn’thaveinitiallysucceeded withoutthesupportoftheVietCongandtheVietCongcouldn’thave operatedwithoutthesupporttheSouth Vietnamesepeasants.Infact, we were so busy trying to undermine the enemy’s will to fight that we missed the whole point of the conflict. As history has shown in this type of struggle, the winning of the hearts and minds of the populace can only be achieved through political stability and the economic improvement of their everyday lives. In actuality, the widespread use of military forces in any civil or counter-insurgency conflict will only interfere with those objectives and perpetuate the conflict. In general, people don’t like foreigners moving them out of their villages, ransacking their homes, arresting their relatives, killing and maiming their children, or putting large...