Life Honors Sacrifice, Not More Death
By an oft-wounded and much decorated veteran of the Vietnam War
In 1995, I hosted a Buffalo NY visit of the Moving Wall, the traveling half-scale replica of the Vietnam Memorial. A young female reporter showed up to cover the event and asked to be filled in on some of the specifics of the Wall and those enshrined on it. She also asked why the recent book by former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was causing such a stir among Vietnam vets. I took her over to the east wing of the Wall and stopped at Panel 5. This is about the point, I told her, where McNamara now says he realized the Vietnam War was a mistake and probably unwinnable. I pointed down the other 65 panels that ran the length of that side and called her attention to the 70 panels of the west wing. That is how many Americans died after McNamara's epiphany, I told her. Those are the names of those who died for the nation's "mistake." Fully two-thirds of the Vietnam War casualties died after McNamara knew he was sending them to a flawed crusade.
I thought of that moment again when I heard someone say that a pullout from Iraq would dishonor the sacrifice of those who have already died there. I first heard that justification of "stay the course" mentality just after I had returned from Vietnam. I wondered then as I wonder now, from whence do we derive this flawed, suicidal notion that only future bloodletting can sanctify past blood shed? Who thinks up this perfidious twaddle? Surely, it doesn¹t come from the mind of anyone who has ever been in combat.
To believe that the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq would dishonor the heroism and sacrifice of those who have suffered and died already is to sentence American men and women to a war without end. That's what guerrilla wars are wars without end. It also misinterprets the motivation of the men and women fighting and dying. Politicians love to throw out a bunch of tired clichés, especially around patriotic holidays. They spit out the words like so many "Spill and Spell" words that are supposed to give special meaning to the killing and dying political decisions cause. But in my war, in the jungles and the rice paddies, we couldn't have cared a rat's rectum about "Vietnamese democracy." We fought for what Americans have always fought. We didn¹t fight for wealth nor glory; nor for fame nor honor. The ignominious way American treated Vietnam veterans eschewed any notion that we were honored in any substantive way. We fought for each other. We fought for mean survival, for our own and for our buddies'. We were sent off to a country few of us had ever heard of prior to 1966. The specious notion that our participation had anything to do with our desire to spread democracy to Southeast Asia wound up killing more than 58,000 of my generation. We fought with honor not because of our cause, but because of our courage and our commitment. That commitment was to each other; to trying save each other and enough of our humanity to get back to "The World" and pick up the pieces of lives broken by war.
On December 3, 1968, I was hunkered down behind a foot wide anthill with bullets and rockets whizzing around me. The barrel of my machine gun had been blown off by a rocket-propelled-grenade. I was defenseless against the onslaught of the 368th Viet Cong Regiment that had surrounded my rifle company of the 7th Cavalry. A guy named John Noble Holcomb recognized my plight and charge across fifty meters of that bullet-swept battlefield to bring me another machine gun. He knew that if he didn't do it, I would die and for recognizing my danger, he was killed; shot four times as saved my life. John Holcomb received the posthumous Medal of Honor for his actions that day and I was proud to provide eyewitness testimony that was used to award the Medal. Holcomb¹s name is on Panel 37W of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, about 33 panels away from the name of the last casualty. Does anyone think the future of South Vietnam was on either of our minds that day? Does anyone believe that the blood of those brave Americans who line the remaining 33 panels of death and honor in anyway make Holcomb¹s sacrifice more meaningful? Does the fact that a communist government rules Vietnam today diminish the courage or the dedication or the commitment of those died? Hell, no it doesn't! Is the country poorer because so many brave men and women died? Hell, yes it is!
The country said we went to Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction and found none. The country said that we would be welcomed as liberators and the liberators are now merely targets. The country said we needed to spread democracy to the Middle East using our blood. Does any of this sound familiar? Does any of this remind anyone else of Vietnam: the lofty ideals hoping to expiate the brutality?
More blood will not sanctify blood already shed. It will only mean more killing, more death, and more devastation. I know John Holcomb would not have wanted anyone else to die in Vietnam. I know this because he died to keep me alive. Death is made meaningful by the lives of those who continue, not by more death.