Forum Post: Dying for Lies - The Racket of War

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/18/the-racket-of-war/

...In December 1965, my outfit received orders to ship out to Vietnam. We were one bunch of frightened young boys. The immediacy of being in the heat of deadly battle started to work against my desire to be a hero. We started getting ready to ship out. We sharpened our bayonets and the edges of our folding shovels. The shovels were designed to dig foxholes but somebody figured that in close combat they’d be good to swing at the enemy and maybe cut off his head.

We were told the purpose of our mission. There were two countries: North VN and South VN. The North was evil and was trying to forcibly impose communism on SVN. SVN was one of those weaker countries that, like us, wanted peace and democracy so we had to protect it from the bad guys. We had been getting the same message on TV, in newspapers, magazines, on the radio, everywhere.

Just before my outfit was due to be shipped out, my commanding officer, a captain, summoned me to his office. He explained that since I had less than 90 days remaining in my three-year tour of duty that I would not be going to VN. My orders were changed from going to VN to being discharged from the army and being shipped back home to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to safety, to the bosom of my family, while my outfit, my buddies, would be going to VN, into harm’s way. I was so naive and stupid that I had no idea what this would mean to me later on.

After I got home, I started getting letters from my friends who were in VN. The letters told of horror after horror. One buddy, Jimmy, 18 or 19 years old, was somebody who would make us all laugh but he’d remain stone faced, not even smiling at we who were engaged in uncontrollable laughter. We’d look at him, see that he was not even smiling and we’d all stop laughing momentarily to ponder how he could keep such a serious demeanor. Then we’d all break out laughing all over again because it was just so funny that he could get us to such uncontrollable laughter but he wouldn’t even crack a smile. Well, Jimmy was standing among a group of his buddies when a hand grenade was thrown at them. Jimmy instinctively jumped on the grenade and clutched it to his stomach. None of his buddies were hurt but he had been blown in half. I called his parents. Their grief was mine. We cried.

I got a letter about a buddy from Missouri. He was a six-foot tall African-American who was quiet, honest, polite and respectful. He was a joy to be with. It was obvious he had been raised with loving care. He was riding with his squad in a helicopter. A .50 caliber bullet fired from the ground went through the belly of the copter, through the canvas seat he was sitting on and into his buttocks and then spine. He became a quadriplegic. He would lie on his back forever, never to have a job, a wife, children.

I then got a letter about John. John and I were close. He was from New England. He was fit, lean and strong. He was a reliable and serious young man. He was the lead man in a jungle patrol when the Viet Cong sprung an ambush. It was sprung early and only John was in the ambush zone. The VC caught John alive. The VC wanted to entice the rest of the American patrol members into the ambush area. It was all set with booby traps and explosives. To do this they began to torture John. They started by stabbing him in his arms and legs with his bayonet, they cut off his ears and tongue and his penis, which they stuck in his mouth. John, while he could, screamed uncontrollably in fear and pain, begging for help, but his buddies knew it would be instant death to try to save him. When John’s body was retrieved nobody could recognize him because he had been so badly mutilated. Naturally I was sickened. I felt like I had abandoned my friends by getting out of the army and coming home. I felt as though I had let them down. Maybe I did.

Then I got the most important letter I had ever received. A buddy wrote and said, Sandy, everybody here hates us. I wondered, how could any of them hate us? My friends were dying to protect them from communism, from the North. We were spending billions of dollars in VN. How could they hate us? We were the good guys, we wore the white hats. I was confused. Things didn’t add up. I began to critically think – possibly, for the first time in my life. Up until then, I had believed what I had been told by my government on faith. Faith is the belief in something for which there is no proof. I started going to the library and I read everything I could on VN.

Prior to WWII, VN was a French colony. When WWII started most of the French occupying force in VN went back to Europe to fight the Germans. After the end of WWII, France wanted VN back as a colony. The US supported the French. The US transported French troops to VN to fight Ho Chi Minh, a nationalist who wanted freedom for VN. The problem for the US government was that he was infected with a deadly virus, he was a communist. Nevertheless, the American enlisted men on the transport ships protested in a letter to then President of the US, Harry Truman. They wrote that it was against US principles to help subvert freedom of a people and to help those who would oppress them. Truman ignored the enlisted men. The US financed the French in a bloody war but nevertheless the Vietnamese beat the French in a big battle at Dien Bien Phu and the war was over.

The warring parties signed a peace treaty, the Geneva Accords. The accords called for a temporary division of VN, north and south, to take account mostly of the then relative strengths of the respective opposing forces and provided for free and fair elections to be monitored by the international community. The Vietnamese were to finally determine their own fate. There never were two separate Vietnam nations. The CIA told the then US president, Eisenhower, that if the elections were to occur that Ho Chi Minh would win with over 80% of the vote, even in the southern portion of VN. Eisenhower sabotaged the elections and US troops began replacing the vanquished French. So much for democracy. With this history, it all came together for me. I was no longer confused. The US was not fighting in VN to prevent the forced imposition of a form of government that the Vietnamese did not want but to impose one on them that they did not want. The US was the oppressor. That’s why my friends were hated. My own elected leaders, whom I had revered, had lied to my friends and me and had duped us. I felt violated. Raped. My friends were dying for lies told to them by their own elected leaders. I was angry and hurt. I continued to read.

My grandfather served in WWI. The American people, before the US entered the war, were overwhelmingly anti-war. The US government formed a propaganda organization, the Creel Commission. The commission was so successful that within six months most Americans were pro-war. President Woodrow Wilson told Americans that the purpose of the war was to end all wars. That it was a war to make the world safe for democracy. However, after WWI, in a speech in Ohio, President Wilson said: “Is there any man here, any woman, nay any child who does not know that WWI was a war caused by commercial and industrial rivalry.” After 10 million dead, after no immediate need for more warriors, the truth was told.

I studied about Smedley D. Butler, a Major General in the US Marines, who was awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor, the highest medal given by the US government for bravery in combat. In 1938, in bitter reflection on his military career, he said:

“I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. Looking back on it I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in 3 city districts. We marines operated on 3 continents.”...