Vietnam Redux

         I

Billy stood, looking into the eyes of the face mirrored in the polished stone.  They were old eyes, tired and full of regret.  At age 83, he was making his first visit to his nation’s capital, a three-day stopover on his flight to California.  It’d been 24 years since Billy’d left America, leaving a wife and country from which he’d grown intolerably estranged.  Oh, they’d tried to save Billy, save him from himself, but they couldn’t.  He just wouldn’t grow up, or grow old, or grow into whatever it was he was supposed to grow into, so he’d left.  But he was sick now, only a few months left, and he was going home to die.  He hoped he might find his wife and two sons, even though he’d had no contact with them for over 20 years.  But first, Billy wanted to reunite with his country, so he’d stopped in DC.

Billy’d spent a lot of time in the American military.  He’d enlisted in the Marine Corps in the early 1960’s, served most of his time in the Army Guard, and reached mandatory retirement age six months after the US had occupied Iraq.  He hadn’t gone to Vietnam, or Iraq, or much of anywhere else for that matter.  But he felt he’d been a good soldier, he’d done everything they’d asked of him, and he’d loved being a soldier.  The austere, lusty, grimy, comically absurd culture, predicated on self-sacrifice, had suited him well.  He’d loved his soldiers.  He’d hated the self-serving, arrogant leadership, which took them for granted.  For Billy, the military had been a love-hate relationship.

Billy had known a lot of GIs.  Some had gone to Vietnam and some to Iraq.  He knew some had lost their lives; others had been maimed in body or soul. He felt he’d gotten off pretty easy; a broken heart, some regrets, and a heavy dose of guilt, Billy knew it didn’t sound like much, but it still hurt.  He’d been told, a visit to The Veteran’s Memorial in DC would be healing, so here he stood, reading names engraved in black granite.

II

Billy continued to read, as his mind drifted back.  America had felt threatened, surrounded, under attack.  The dominoes were falling.  American GIs were being committed to a war in a strange, alien, far-off land.  They were being sent to halt aggression, to make the world safe for Democracy.

“What is at stake is the cause of freedom,” proclaimed The President, in his Texas drawl, “and in that cause America will not be found wanting.”

Billy’d felt uneasy from the start.  He’d read some history, even lived a little, and ventures like this just never seemed to work out.  But Billy was just a grunt and America’s finest minds had thought the entire thing through.  Besides, the President had confidently informed America, “God has favored our undertaking.”  Billy couldn’t argue with that.

The American military had no problem establishing a presence.  There were a few casualties, there’d been some resistance to liberation, but the indigenous people would quickly realize salivation isn’t cheap.  Their hearts and minds would soon belong to their benevolent occupiers.

Then, inexplicably, things began to bog-down.  Slowly, painfully, the weeks turned to months, the months to years.  A few hard-core, misguided, ingrates had continued to resist.  The Americans kept killing them, at times with extraordinary efficiency, but there always seemed to be more.  American casualties climbed.  Nobody seemed to know, or care, how many indigenous civilians were being killed.  The Air Force Gray Ghost flights began arriving stateside daily, filled with American GIs, peacefully reposed in the box they would occupy for eternity.  A compassionate administration in Washington thoughtfully spared the American public this ghastly sight.

As the war dragged on, Billy hurt more and more.  He hurt for all the innocents who were dying and he hurt for his soldiers.  He wanted to be with his troops, to help shoulder the burden, to absorb some of the pain, to stand between them and the pompous, naïve, sheltered leadership he knew didn’t give a damn about them.  But he couldn’t, so he’d tried not to watch.

“We will not be defeated,” proclaimed the President, from his Texas ranch, “we will not grow tired.”

“The enemy has been defeated in battle after battle.  He is no longer capable of major combat operations, “ announced the US Military Theater Commander, from the security of the safe zone the Americans had established to protect themselves from the people they were liberating.

The war was beginning to take its toll.  An increasingly bitter, divided America began to tear itself apart.  The situation was becoming desperate.  America was bleeding and the whole world was beginning to take notice.  Billy’d tried not to watch, but it was impossible.  One afternoon, Billy’d found himself standing in the electronics section of a Sears Department store, surrounded by television sets, all tuned to the same newscast.  Billy glared at the televised image of a Marine officer standing against the backdrop of a ravaged city.  He was dutifully explaining, “………we had to destroy it to save it.”  That’s when Billy’d left.  He’d feared they might try to save him next.

The Presidency of the Texan ended, consumed in the flames of a disastrous war of its own creation.  The incoming administration promised a cynical, exhausted America that they had a plan to end the war.  But it was a secret plan and it would take some time, but they promised Peace with Honor.  America would settle for that.  The war dragged on, America continued to bleed, the Gray Ghost continued to fly.

Then, almost seven years to the day the first American GIs arrived, the last ones left.  They left behind a shattered, devastated land.  It was now in the hands of a popularly elected, American sanctioned local government, supported by a powerful American trained, American equipped army.  A wounded, weary America withdrew inside itself and began to lick its wounds. It wanted to forget.

Billy was in Rome when he saw the photo.  It had been taken earlier that morning, in the capital of a country America had spent so many lives to save.  It was on the front page of every Italian newspaper.  Billy’s Italian wasn’t all that good, he could scarcely read the caption, but he didn’t need to.  US military helicopters were plucking members of the US diplomatic staff from the roof of the American Embassy.  Members of the collapsing local government could be seen, clinging desperately to the helicopter’s skids.  Their army had fled; it had possessed no will to resist.  Insurgents were swarming onto the embassy roof.  Billy’d thought about all the wasted lives.

III

Billy was deep within himself, when a familiar resonance found him.  The throbbing, drum like roar of military helicopters directed his attention skyward.  Looking up, he sighted a flight of Marine helicopters.  They were the same type Billy’d seen pictured on the front pages of the Italian newspapers.  He wondered if they were off to rescue more diplomats.

Lowering his gaze, Billy glared into the depths of the inanimate stone.  Suddenly a name triggered an explosion of emotion.  A surging, white-hot, witches brew of rage, regret and guilt burst forth inside him, forcing tears out through his eyes.  From behind the name, a pair of eyes was looking at Billy.  They were bright eyes, laughing eyes, eyes filled with the hope and innocence of youth.  They were the eyes of one of Billy’s soldiers.  Billy reached out and touched the name, he wanted to erase it, to replace it with his own, but the stone was unforgiving.

Billy turned away; he’d had enough.  He was a weary old man, and he’d come to placate his guilt, not add to it.  Feeling faint, he reached down to grasp his knees, hanging his head in the hopes that a little blood to the brain would ease his distress.  He paused for a few moments, then looked up.  In the distance, a glimmer of sunlight reflected of the Vietnam Veteran’s War Memorial.  Billy’d planned on visiting The Wall too, but The Iraq Veteran’s War Memorial had been enough.

Perhaps, Billy thought, a tour of the White House would lift his spirits.

The End?

Author’s note:  All quotes attributed to a US President are quotes of President Lyndon Baines Johnson (term: 1963-1969).  The Theater Commander quote is attributed to General William Westmoreland (circa 1968, somewhere within The Republic of South Vietnam).  The quote, “we had to destroy it to save it” is a commonly used phrase.

                                                                             Tim Huntington