DA NANG

      Danang

     I loaded my rifle, seabag and 782 gear (a Marine's pack, web gear, canteens, etc.; so called for the number of the receipt form we signed when it was issued to us) aboard the truck that would take me to the airstrip at Chu Lai, where I'd catch a C123 or C130 to Danang, then another plane to Okinawa, then another plane back to The World. The guys who weren't on duty over at the DASC came out to see me off. They were envious, but they were also glad for me. They asked me to study for them, and of course to get laid for them. I promised to do my best. 

     The strongest thing they said to me came when somebody mentioned student antiwar demonstrations back in the States. They said to tell those fucking jerkoff wimps just what the war was about, on behalf of the guys who were fighting it. Everyone present, including me, loudly agreed that I should do that. 

     But there was another moment. It was more private, in fact intensely private. Along with the awareness that had come as I lowered my rifle just before firing on the Vietnamese man on the beach at Ky Hoa, and the shift in awareness that had come over me when the transparent veil dropped in front of my eyes as I was guarding the women and children and old man at the well in Tho An, this slap of suddenly shifting awareness that entered my skull as I climbed aboard that truck were among the experiences that I brought home from Vietnam that have most determined the course of my life during the forty-odd years since then.

     I was angry. I was angry about losing the young Marine when his buddy told me “You’re too late” getting the medevac to them. I was angry about our loss of those Recon boys who’d fought all night, hand to hand, on Howard’s Hill, as I sat in a relatively safe place and tried to send them help. I was angry about being too hot and too cold and too wet and too hungry for too long, angry about being terrified too many nights, and about having my body invaded by ants and mosquitos and rats and snakes and centipedes like horror-movie monsters. I was angry about the loss and the guilt. I was angry about having kept the faith with people who did not keep it with me. With us. 

     So what is still with me now, at this moment in late June, 2008, in my 12’x16’ log cabin three miles outside Joseph, Oregon, is the promise I made to myself as I climbed over that tailgate to begin my trip home. That promise was to study and study whatever it was I had to study until I understood the causes of the misery I had been a part of. And then I would fix it.

     Yup, that’s the promise I made to myself. This book is the result, whatever that’s worth. Of course, the problem isn’t fixed. If anything, it’s worse. No wonder I’m so angry. That’s a lot to carry, and a long time to carry it.

     At the staging area in Danang, where Marines who had finished our tours were being processed out of the country, I got a cot in a 12-man tent, and turned in my rifle and 782 gear. I suddenly felt naked, but tried to reassure myself that I was going where I wouldn't need a weapon. 

     All this, and waiting for the scheduled bird to Okinawa, took a few days. We sat around the tent and talked about what we'd do back in The World. Women, cars, jobs, school. Student demonstrations came up again. Others in the tent had heard more about them than I had. One guy said he'd heard about a vet who got to the States, thinking he was safe at last, and was followed into an airport bathroom by several civilians who beat him up just because he'd been in Vietnam. 

     The tent pounded with anger. One Marine, who'd seen more combat than some of us, was furious. "I'm takin' a piece back with me," he said, meaning a pistol. He deserved to be done with danger, he said. But if those pukes wanted a fight, he'd show 'em one, by God. He'd kill 'em. Period. 

     I was the only one of the group who would be going straight to a college campus. The guys expressed concern for me; they said to watch my back. I'd be unarmed, and there'd be no Marines to back me up. And those cowards always ran in packs. 

     That was what I took to school with me, mixed with the elation of being able to live my own life after one thousand, four hundred and fifty days of following other people's orders; and a focus, tinged with rage, on studying just what had caused this whole mess and others like it, and trying to find a way out. I fully intended to study so hard that I could answer, at least for myself, the question Why war?