Forgive this pause en route Hill 41.

Was caught up short this morning listening to public radio’s “Story Corps.”  These recordings are gemstones of American life. Today’s was a remembrance of a meeting between former Marine Corps Sergeant Kevin Powell and the mother of a member of his platoon in Iraq, Brian Parrello.  Brian was killed (by an IED) in Iraq 10 years ago. (Here is the url: http://storycorps.org/listen/kevin-powell-and-shirley-parrello/)

Sgt. Powell and 19 members of the platoon did what we could not do during the Vietnam War. Together, after their unit returned to the United States, they paid a visit to Brian’s mother to express their sorrow and their support to Brian’s family.  As a unit, we had no way of doing the same thing for the families of CPL Alexander, LCPL Zagerac, LCPL Ottey, and LCPL Hahn. Captain Gibbs wrote letters to family—he was supremely devoted to this task—but the policy of rotating troops out of country as tours expired, rather than rotating whole units in and out as was done in Iraq and Afghanistan, made it virtually impossible for us together to create such moments with the families of those we had lost, or even to connect with those whose wounds sent them home.  Once gone, generally, these Marines  were out of our lives–though seldom out of mind.

In the traditional Marine Corps sense, Alexander, Zagerac, Ottey, and Hahn were “my” First Platoon Marines, as were those who were wounded and sent home. Their families were “mine,” as well. And yet, as I listened to Sgt Powell and Mrs. Parrello  this morning, I could only cry.  Not only for young Brian, lost in Iraq, and his mother, but also for Alexander, Zagerac, Ottey, Hahn, and the many others later for whom and for whose families I was not “there” as Sgt. Powell could be for Mrs. Parrello.  If only I knew how to make amends.

* * *

In August 1966, analysts at the CIA produced an extraordinary, 315-page document entitled the “Vietnamese Communist’s Will to Persist.” It contained the following paragraph:

“The Lessons of the Franco-Viet Minh War: Present Vietnamese Communist strategy is appreciably influenced by the 1946–1954 struggle in which the Communist-controlled Viet Minh forced the French to withdraw from Vietnam. In Communist eyes, probably the most significant feature of this earlier successful campaign was the fact it was won without inflicting a strategic defeat on the French military forces. During their nine-year struggle, the Communists successfully used military pressure as a political abrasive. They worked more on French will than on French strategic capabilities and eventually succeeded in making the struggle a politically unsaleable commodity in metropolitan France. Communist strategy, in short, succeeded in creating a climate in which the government in Paris lost its will to fight even though the French Expeditionary Corps remained effective and largely intact as a military force. The Communists suffered horrendous casualties and went through periods of severe setback, but their persistence eventually paid off.”

http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0001169545.pdf (paragraph 17 on page 8)

That passage was written as Bud Eckert and I and many more Marines, including my classmates at The Basic School [for Marine second lieutenants], in Quantico, trained on opposite coasts for our assignments. Of course, none of us knew about that assessment, which was intended for Secretary of Defense McNamara and which would not be made public until about thirty years had passed.

Not that it would have mattered to us. We did have Bernard Fall’s cautionary classic Street Without Joy, which I did read (and would come to understand the meaning of that title in time), but we were Marines and Americans, and we could do anything. (Bernard Fall was himself killed by a mine near that street in late February 1967—word of which somehow travelled to 3/1.)

So, after the preliminaries at division and regimental headquarters, and introductions to Lima Company’s great leaders, it was on to command of Lima One, but only after an orientation patrol with my predecessor, Lt. Gran Moulder. (He was an effective commander, and I had substantial boots to fill.) Largely uneventful, the patrol did take some harmless evening sniper fire, my introduction to bullets that would have been happy to find me or any of my Marines. Such evening visits became a kind of routine–later, it seems to me, made fun of in an episode of Mash. (Actually, I remember reading of such sniper “visits” in “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the classic novel of World War I.)

Our beachfront headquarters was not at all sumptuous or elegant–a wall of sand surrounded by sand and scrub brush with simple buildings as shown in the previous post. Still that was home of a kind. In short order, the prospect of leaving it always filled me (and I’m sure others) with butterflies (if not grim foreboding). We had our orders (always the five paragraph order famous in military units), all details of movement were nailed down: Situations in our planned operating areas clarified as best as possible (though intelligence always seemed sketchy); missions and objectives identified; routes and movements drawn; loads of ammunition and rations clarified; and communications and passwords defined. Everything in perfect order.

For the many years since then, the feeling of walking or riding out of the security of that base camp, has defined my sense of dealing with something big and new. Yes, everything has been thought through, but the first step out of the gate….

Time and again we passed through that gate. Maybe only a platoon, maybe the entire company–though more often the latter. We’d sweep through an area to disrupt any VC movements, set up ambushes of our own on trails thought to be used by VC infiltrators, or respond to some intelligence report concerning an enemy movement.

Booby traps (sorry, IEDs) were big worries, as were the snipers we inevitably would hear from. “Move out,” “spread out,” “down,” “dig in,” “go go!” the watchwords of daily life.  Days and days in motion. Nights of fitful sleep in shallow fighting holes, fighting anticipation and red ants. In this environment, there were no historic battles or even newsworthy events.

But, although the stories of wars are most often told on the basis of the actions of large units (and large arrows drawn on large maps), they are lived one Marine, soldier, sailor, or airman at a time. Tens of thousands of “pixels” of individual experience in a massive, moving image.

For the following pixels, as Bud Eckert has recalled them, I am grateful. I’m doubly grateful that he has been able to juxtapose his memories of the day with his visions of this day in Vietnam, an amazing parallax view in time. So, with thanks to Bud for giving me permission to this, I will let him describe our common experience (in italics), with my occasional notes inserted in brackets.

——————–

“Today [January 4, 2015] was an incredible experience. Early this morning I rented a Yamaha motorcycle and headed for the battalion’s old area of operations [south of Danang and Marble Mountain, in the so-called Mortar Belt]. Initially I thought I had crossed some type of time warp as everything was so different. Major highways crisscrossed our AOR along with major luxury resorts. There are no longer any hooches [bamboo structures with thatched roofs or worse]. Instead, big buildings everywhere. In Nui Kim Son (the village nearest our base camp–it is now about twenty times larger than it was in our time), I hired a guide named Tuoi, who could speak minimal English.

“I found the spot where Ottey was killed on August 23^rd. Today, that spot is adjacent to a major golf course. Another golf course lies next to the area in which we walked into a terrible ambush. Eight of the 11 squad members were hit, and Zagerac was killed. I then found the spot where I was wounded and Hahn was killed.  It lies not far from a large cemetery for thousands of dead Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army soldiers. [A search of GoogleEarth reveals the amazing extent of development since the war.]

[It fell to me days later to formally identify Hahn at the morgue of the naval hospital in Danang. In some ways, Mash, had it pegged. In thinking about the fortunes of many of my Marine comrades, I can say I was blessed not to be required to do this as often as they might have been. Still, it is duty that never leaves the memory.]

“I then drove all the way to An Hoa looking for the areas we had worked so many years ago. I had a wonderful seafood lunch on the beach and toured a number of ancient temples and counting houses before heading back to Nui Kim Son. I then spent over an hour climbing to the top of Marble Mountain, exploring a variety of caves containing among other things the statue of the sleeping Buddha. [Marble Mountain loomed over our positions. Sometimes it held snipers, and we were sure its caves held much more.]

“What happened next was amazing. I headed out to the Tu Cau area to the village where Alexander was killed in February. The area was largely like it was in our time with the exception of regular houses and electricity. Still, there was a lot of jungle and rice paddies. I was driving down a small trail when I spotted a large family gathering. I saw an old man who looked about my age. I walked up to the gathering and was invited in. It was a multi-generational family and the 71-year old man turned out to be a senior Viet Cong commander during the war. He was able to speak chapter and verse, through the interpreter, regarding a variety of major events he planned. One was the January attack on the desert position that resulted in over 20 Marine KIAs as well as over 80 dead VC.-It seemed that every event I brought up, he knew about … we spoke for over an hour and ended the meeting by toasting our dead brothers.”

Wish I had been there, Bud. Semper fi, Andy

The brothers Bud toasted from this period are: CPL Charles Alexander, LCPL Daniel Zagerac, LCPL Carl Ottey, LCPL Paul Hahn.

Next: Hill 41.

Should anyone have noticed the long interlude since the last exploration of this shack,  my apologies.  Holidays, press of work, and existential angst are my excuses. To those I’ve promised to bring in more material related to my immigration and University of Rochester experiences, I have not forgotten, and I will keep my pledges.  It is a New Year, after all, and I wish readers good luck in keeping their resolutions in 2015.

Now,  I am urgently drawn back to rummaging by a Marine comrade, a member of my platoon in Vietnam, a man I have not seen in decades, but with whom I have corresponded and talked–especially during the past few months. His name is Bud Eckert. He was wounded twice during his Vietnam tour, the second occurring not long before he was due to return home. The wound, in a way, hastened that return, as it was serious and would result in the amputation of his left leg below the knee. He was evacuated, hospitalized and returned to his home.

With Bud’s permission, in this and follow-up postings, I will tell a bit of his story. In particular, I will write of the journey he is on at this moment in Vietnam. Actually, I will mostly let Bud speak for himself about the his  visits to the battle grounds of his squad of Marines, the Third Squad of the First Platoon of Lima Company of the Third Battalion,  First Marine Regiment in 1967. (In Marine Corps parlance, we were Marines of Lima Three One or L/3/1 or Lima Company of the First Marines. )

I asked Bud’s permission to share his story–as he is writing it even now–because in many respects it is also mine–and I know it will be so for many others. I wasn’t wounded and I didn’t spend as much time with First Platoon as Bud did, but for many pieces that he describes I was there or nearby and doing the things, I like to think and pray, Marine platoon leaders were supposed to be doing.  Bud also has an extraordinary memory–it is vastly superior to mine.  So in talking to him and reading his emerging memoir, I am rediscovering very dusty and moldy boxes and their contents heretofore lost in my miserable memory shack.

As the leader of the First Platoon, I knew Bud as a genuinely fine rifleman.  Bud was also a fine point man, often serving as the Marine who was first in line when his squad, platoon, or company moved on patrol in column, one man at some distance behind another.

The point was an unenviable position. He might be the first to draw  enemy fire or the first to encounter a booby trap, explosive mine, or some other device. (In those days, 1967, our language was much simpler it seemed. Nowadays such things have more professional sounding names, such as the infamous “improvised explosive device” (IED), e.g., as a substitute for “booby trap,” which I suppose implied to some that only an idiot or fool would trigger it.)

Another thing Bud is (and has been since he was a teenager) is a wanderer, an explorer.  I think in retrospect that quality may be one of the attributes that made Bud a good point man.  The Marine walking point has to be able to move comfortably in unfamiliar environments, be observant, and, in the guerrilla war environment in which much of our time was spent,  go almost unnoticed or invisible to those looking to harm us or warn others of our approach.

Until Bud and I resumed our communications, I knew nothing of the explorer in him. In the memoir he is writing, which he shared with me, he tells of leaving home at 17 and hitchhiking across country and then sailing as a merchant marine to Europe, where he hitched more rides into the (for him) unknown. While exploring the United Kingdom, he learned the war in Southeast Asia was intensifying and decided he needed to join it. He sailed back to the United States, and enlisted in the Marine Corps–probably at nearly the same time I was commissioned a second lieutenant, in June 1966.

We would both arrive in Vietnam and join Lima 3/1 in January of 1967. Our company commander, the “Skipper,” was Captain Joseph Gibbs III.

Long since retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, Joe remains, for all intents and purposes, our Skipper. He has followed our fortunes and still writes regularly to us these decades later.

Enough for now.  I invite you to board this vehicle, on a journey through parts of Vietnam, with Bud observing the “today,” and remembering 1967—with occasional interjections and illustrations  (I hope) from me, including, eventually, a picture of Bud from that time.

A word of warning,  this journey is unlikely to accord chronologically with the actual sequence of events  we all experienced.  In a way that is appropriate. Three-one’s radio call sign was “Circumference.” First platoon’s was “Circumference Lima One.” We did, indeed, turn many circles, as may these stories.

No reservations (and no packing) needed to board this vehicle.

It’s likely that in 1964, during my second year at the University of Rochester, I had pretty simple and unrefined ideas about the course my life might take—perhaps most simply captured in the word “floundering.”

Academically, I’d slipped from a major in biology (I loved nature but not at the level of Latin needed to explain it) into psychology (seemed kind of like fitting square–theories–into round holes–common sense–yet having some face-saving connection to life sciences). I was about to surrender into something I had been doing for years, English–that is, the reading of it. New was writing about it. But I managed that well-enough to get by.

But the above journey didn’t matter all that much. My Navy ROTC scholarship guaranteed a future, whatever came after the AB degree I would receive: a minimum of four years of service for Uncle Sam in the sea service as an officer in the US Navy or the US Marine Corps.

But which? The television series “Victory at Sea” made it impossible for me to go into any service other than the Navy or Marine Corps. I was devoted to the series, never missing an episode. The opening film of destroyers plowing through heavy seas and sailors working as single organisms firing their guns, keeping the ships moving, carrying Marines ashore, and saving each other as Japanese fire rained on them were captivating. The bravery, in the face of almost certain death, of Marines in the island-hopping campaign of the Pacific was even more impressive.

And the music! Richard Rogers’ “Victory at Sea” score was beyond captivating. It pulled at this adolescent’s soul. The “Guadalcanal March” had him marching around the living room like a full-fledged Marine down Broadway!! Though he had no reason to think he’d ever be one.

And of course, there was his birth in a country, Estonia, occupied by the Soviet Union–which, in effect, made service to undermine or oppose that occupation in some way a birth-imposed duty. (His escape, carried as an infant in his mother’s arms, is a posting for the future.)

And so, then-Major Ohanesian became the instrument that would point that jumble of senses and obligations into a specific and most honorable purpose–at least so I think. And in doing so, he found a quality in me that I had no reason to believe existed.

In short, he gave birth to me as a Marine. How?

First, one must know Major Ohanesian was a model of the Marine’s Marine. He made John Wayne look like a slouch—and anyone else who played a Marine in the movies. He ran 5 miles a day before daily running was cool, even in the Marine Corps. On top of that, he was a Marine from my neighborhood in the Bronx, New York.

Navy Department policy in 1964 gave Marine Option Instructors (MOIs) each the right to bring 12 percent (as I remember) of the midshipmen in NROTC units into the Marine Corps. Put another way: “a select number.”  Make that SELECT.

The Major called me into his office in the spring of 1964, just before we were due to head home and to our summer NROTC “cruise”— three weeks playing at Marine stuff in Little Creek, VA, and three weeks making like Naval Aviators in Corpus Christi, TX.

“Midshipman Vaart,” he said. “I believe you would make a good Marine.”

Dropped jaw. “Guadalcanal March.” “Select few.” “Marine’s Marine saying that??”

“Think about it, Midshipman. I won’t be here next fall but check in with my replacement and let him know what you have decided.”

“Aye aye, Sir,”  I responded, dumbfounded.

In Little Creek, the Major, by then promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, turned up at an amphibious landing we conducted in training. He found us Rochester midshipmen, said hello, and as he left looked at me and Midshipmen Dick Hulslander, Tom King, and Bob Rivers, and said, “See you in the Corps.”

I dutifully checked in the next fall with the new MOI, Major CB Webster. I explained my conversation with Major Ohanesian and said I was ready to take the Marine Option. He pulled out the paperwork for my acceptance, completed in every detail except for my signature.  Major Ohanesian had me pegged. Truly.

Hulslander, King, Rivers, and I all went into the Corps, but we didn’t see him again. Colonel Ohanesian was killed in battle in Vietnam in March 1967.  I was in-country at the time and was crushed by the news. (I would again be crushed by news in July that Tom King was killed in an ambush.)

And so, all of the above is prompted by the ceremony that took place on 17 October at the University of Rochester’s NROTC unit to commemorate a plaque installed in Major Ohanesian’s honor in the Midshipmen Training Room—an effort made by the Marine Option Midshipmen of the class of 1964, men Major Ohanesian swore in as Second Lieutenants in the Corps.  The Major would not swear us in, an event for two years later, but he gave us birth as Marines. (A shadow box in the same room honors Tom–and an award given each year in his name to an exemplary midshipman.)

Images following: the plaque, the NROTC training room, and the two Marines of the class of 1966, Bob Rivers (left) and the poster, Andy Vaart (right). Neither of whom today are sculpted in the form of the MOI they admired so much way back then.