Mickey Walker-July 11, 2010
I am a Viet Nam Combat Veteran. It was August 2, 1965. My ship had just returned to San Diego from an extended deployment
in the Western Pacific when the Gulf of Tonkin incident resounded around the
world. The USS Maddox (DD 731), a
Sumner Class destroyer, had been fired upon by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. There was nothing to ponder. All liberty and leave was
cancelled. We began loading up
tanks, jeeps, steel causeways, ammunition, and new additions of (4) 50-caliber
machine guns welded to the deck. And then the Marines came. We stuffed them down below deck like sardines packed in a tin can. Congress quickly passed the Gulf of
Tonkin Resolution. Overnight, we
were at war with all of Southeast Asia. We deployed to Da Nang in a just a few days.
Almost a decade and over 58 thousand American lives later, American
forces withdrew from Viet Nam, our tails between our legs. The North VN had overrun the South, and
evacuees, like locusts, fled on foot, by boat, and by air to get away from the
oncoming communists from the North. Official body count of American dead was 58,193. American
Viet Nam War Casualties. Wounded in action was a little over 300,000, and
the Viet Nam casualties, both North and South, was many times the number of
Americans killed.
Americans back home found it hard to care back then. The nation had been torn apart by
drugs, demonstrators with signs protesting the war, acts of violence, arson,
and Americans shot dead for demonstrating at Kent State University. This was a war to forget. And many years passed before a major
movie was made about the Viet Nam War. There was no market for a film about such an unpopular part of America’s
dark side.
Americans hated that war. We were in massive, hypnotic, denial about what we were
doing there in the first place. Many dodged the draft and fled to Canada. Many got legitimate and illegitimate deferments from their
local draft boards so they would not have to face the jungles and rice patties
that ended up killing over 58,000 American soldiers.
But even back then there were legitimate draft
deferments. If you were married,
you were exempt from the draft. If
you were attending school to further your education, you were spared from being
drafted. Dick Cheney did not have to serve because of legitimate deferments from
the draft. But thanks to Sid Ager,
an old friend of George H.W. (Poppy) Bush, his son, George W Bush got an easy
appointment to the Texas Air Guard, the champagne, rich kid, unit that would
never have to see combat duty. General Rose, head of the Texas Air Guard thought it only fair to
elevate George W Bush over 100s of applicants for the sought-after Texas Air
Guard duty. While the Viet Nam War
raged, George W. Bush flew jets at Ellington AFB, Houston, for General Bobby
Hodges. When he could pass his
flight physical, that is. When
drug testing began, Bush failed to show up, imagine that. He was grounded. Usual procedure for such misbehavior in
any branch of the armed services was to move the offender up to the front lines
where the shooting was going on. Not junior Bush, though. He
got reassigned to reserve duty in Alabama.
There was a family friend, Winton Blount who was running for
the Alabama US Senate slot, and Poppy thought maybe W could lend a hand. So Junior got reassigned to the Alabama
Air Guard. Trouble is, Junior
never showed up. No one ever
remembered seeing him there, much less to report for duty. General William Turnipseed, Commandant
of the Alabama Air Guard, said, “I did some of my early flying in Corpus
Christi, Texas, and if I had had a Texas pilot assigned to my command in
Alabama, I would have remembered it. And there was no pilot from Texas assigned.” To add insult to injury, rewards of up to $60,000 (including
one from Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury syndicated Comic Strip) were offered to
anybody who might have seen Bush when he was supposed to be assigned to the
Alabama Air Guard. No takers.
Bush had signed up for 5 years Reserve Air Force duty. General Turnipseed did not see him in
Alabama. All the records of muster
were mysteriously missing. All
other forms of proof that Bush did serve there were missing, too. General Bobby Hodges at Ellington in
Houston was asked if Bush was in Houston. The general said, “If he had been in Houston I would have had him flying
the 102s.”
To add insult to high privilege irony, Bush got out of his
5-year contract in the Air Force Reserve, 6 months early. That’s right, Bush got out early in
order to attend Harvard Business School. Back at Da Nang Harbor and the rivers and junk patrol, I wondered how
anybody could achieve an early out short of a discharge under medical or
dishonorable circumstances. Nobody
can. The rest of us had to
continue the stress of combat, of military service to our country, without the
hope of an early discharge. We
were not of the high privilege set who pseudo-served our country.
So why bring up all this now? It’s old hat by this time, isn’t it? Dan Rather even got fired for flying
too close to the Bush-went-AWOL flame, didn’t he? So what’s the point at this juncture? My point, I suppose, is the chilling
realization that the truth and honor is as easy to buy and sell as a bunch of
fresh Redfish at the Fisherman’s Market on Bourbon Street. Why would there be two standards for
military service when life and death in combat is behind Door # 1 and # 2 while
at the same time special treatment and cushy country club settings for serving
in the military is behind Door # 3? The question looms: Why is
there no outrage when honest and honorable soldiers serve in combat and die
every day while a select few get away with murder? What country is this that does not cry out in outrage at
such a travesty of injustice?
It is the very same country that Bush led into war by
attacking Iraq who never hurt the United States nor did they possess the
weapons of mass destruction Bush scared us into fearing. Still we made no objection or
demonstration over the whole ruse of Iraq as THE target to attack and
destroy. We still yawn as usual while
casualties mount daily. It is now
the same embarrassment Viet Nam was to a country who forgot to care about the
truth and our doing the right thing.
So how can this be, this mangling of the truth without a
response from the people? Some say
television hypnotizes us all. Some
say we cannot see how we have any power to make a difference over an ongoing
political system that continues the same old corrupt policies after being
elected on the basis of change. So
why is the truth such a rare part of our spiritual diet these days? Is it easier to believe the spin? Is it that difficult to ascertain that
Sarah Palin is an airhead that just graduated from Dumb Down College of the
Klondike?
When Obama promises to end the notorious Bush signing
statements, to close down Guantanamo, and to restore habeas corpus, is it that
hard to see that he obviously did not live up to his promises? When he paid off Wall Street for
gang-raping the American people with TARP money because they were too big to
fail, did he fulfill his campaign promises to us who believed in him? When people lost their jobs, their
homes, and their financial futures, did he or a Democratic Congress leap into
action to make it right for Americans? Why did he and Congress continue to allow the deregulated Derivatives to
be issued without oversight or serial numbers in numbers even greater than ever
before during the last year? Have
we learned nothing? Will the electric
power companies and Big Oil continue to rule while we watch the rest of the
world go green and snicker at us? Will Big Brown continue to buy politicians to retard the growth of
solar, wind, and hydro power while we choke on the mercury and the hydrogen
sulfide air in most all our major cities?
Is our getting mad about it all and showing the outrage ever
going to rise above the whimper level?
Why did I fight for my country? What is it that I wished to preserve by serving? Bush did not have to serve in the real
military, so why did I and my comrades have to be forced to dodge bullets in a
real war? And why did I have to
live long enough to find out that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a hoax
perpetrated by the Johnson White House? That’s right, it was a hoax. The real ship’s log reported quiet seas on that fateful night that set
into motion the war machine Ike warned about that costs lives yet generates the
big bucks for all the right whites with deep pockets? “War is peace.” So Big Brother said. Perhaps Orwell was right. The world seems to work better, and the
big bucks flow when you got a good war on the agenda. Weapons, security services and devices sell better during
wartime, not to mention arms, big and small. Want to hear the real truth? Whether someone like Bush serves honorably or not is incidental
to the big picture. There are big
bucks in war. Ask
Halliburton. How else you think
they could sell a hammer to Uncle Sam for $500.00? While Americans continue to be hypnotized by large screen
television while entombed in their favorite easy chairs.