I am 72 now and an XMarine Sergeant who attained rank in two years during the Vietnam era. I am always being thanked for my service. It is something I hide from as I am still here.
If you must thank someone, thank my friends such as Tim Gilson who was with 7th Marines and head shot while going to relieve another platoon of Marines who w…
I am 72 now and an XMarine Sergeant who attained rank in two years during the Vietnam era. I am always being thanked for my service. It is something I hide from as I am still here.
If you must thank someone, thank my friends such as Tim Gilson who was with 7th Marines and head shot while going to relieve another platoon of Marines who were surrounded. He was my friend through Boot Camp and ITR.
Paul Placzek and I were in Boy Scouts together. We camped together and did many thing until we left high school. He enlisted in the Army. While in country, he stepped on a land mine and was blown to bits. I can remember his father raging on the news in Chicago about the draft dodgers. Paul was a good person and friend.
Bobby O'Million lived on the first floor while we had the basement apartment. I used to go to his home in Highland Park, IL ands stay there, We would explore the area as it was still undeveloped. Bobby was killed while coming back from a hunting trip with his Sergeant First Class and five others in the Army. They were hit head-on by a drunk.
Three senseless losses for what, lies, human fragility, and things that should never have happened? Too much for the politics of the time. Being thanked for my service is an affront to me. Thank my friends as I always think about them.
Every time someone says "thank you for your service" to me, I want to ask them: "Oh, you want to thank me for serving in a war that nearly destroyed us, from which we still suffer because too many of you refuse to recognize what really happened?" I'm surprised no one heard my scream when I found and read the report by the NSA analyst of the Tonkin Gulf Incident (of which I was a bit player, the event by which I divide my life into Before and After), in which he presdented a compelling argument that the "lights in the water" they took for enemy torpedo boats was actually the moonlight and lightning flashes reflected off the enormous school of flying fish that annually transits the Gulf at that time of year. The "reason for war" was flying fish.
During a teaching session some years ago, Thich Nhat Hanh informed the audience that his movement of peace activists in Vietnam in the 1960s were simply farmers. “We were not communists or capitalists, we simply worked the land,” Thay (“teacher” in Vietnamese) said. We learned that one of his students was pictured on the front cover of an American periodical, his life alit in flames, his expression aghast, as a statement against the murderous actions of the invading US forces.
But America had been sold the Big Lie of the 1960s, that communists were ready to take ahold of Asia, subsequently leading to the loss (murder) of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and American lives. As a high school student then, I remember another picture on another magazine cover in America, of a woman from my hometown laying dead at Kent State University, during a peaceful protest, until the National Guard was sent in to disturb the peace. The picture shows the dead woman and a second woman kneeling, her expression aghast .....
Yesterday, I spent time at our local Civil War Monument, and read aloud the hundreds of names of local men who died in that war. Poignant is this ongoing human experience of men taking to violence to quell one’s own dis-ease.
Perhaps I will spend some of today on my own patch of land, remembering those: who worked the land in Vietnam; who followed orders throughout our history, and those souls who courageously challenged the orders. Every generation, ongoing war and resistance ....
Today is a time to remember the burning of Greenwood, Tulsa, OK, exactly 100 years ago
Vietnam was a true awakening for the ills that our country put dedicated soldiers, doctors and nurses through. I marched in moratoriums in DC then. Met my husband, 6 months after he returned from Nam. War is hell and the aftermath, even more so. It sure is a helluva way to decrease countries populations.
I shall long remember your words which seem to apply to much of human misery..." this ongoing human experience of men taking to violence to quell one’s own dis-ease". Well put!
Thx Elizabeth; after many years of study with Thich Nhat Hanh and others, I’ve retained some of this ancient Buddhist wisdom. Of course, “I” haven’t retained, in the Ultimate Truth sense, but the Relative Truth of “I” retains some things. But that’s another topic ......
Thank you for sharing your memories of your friends AND thank you for your service. It can be both/and, not just about you or them. I am sorry for your losses and for the losses experienced by your friends’ families.
You had many choices from the time you took the military oath through your entire six years in the Marines. Conscientious objectors made a different choice. Some young men at the time used connections of privilege to avoid the draft. Others took drastic action to disqualify themselves from service, such as starving themselves.
War is hell. You clearly had to routinely summon courage to survive and gain rank. I suspect you had resilience and support, hopefully, to have functioned in the years since then through trauma experienced in the war.
So yes, thank you for your service, thank you to those who supported you, and thank you for sharing the memories of your friends.
I never condemned those who made the decisions they did during the sixties. It was personal choices made when forced into a situation that could not be solved easily. We each did what we thought was right at the time. Some are still paying for those decisions.
At 19, I was still growing up and not mature. I enlisted after visiting my one cousin. He was a Master Gunnery Sergeant, another cousin flew F4 Phantoms, another was in the Army, and my friends were either in college, in the service, or off doing things.
At 19, people are on the brink of adulthood. I made a decision unknowingly and my father a WWII veteran was scared. I was fortunate the Corp trained me and placed where I was. An English Prof. would send me books to read; Porter, Rand, McCarthy, Dickens, etc. Some officers would borrow them at times.
My enlistment ended and the hard core press to re-enlist did not change my thinking. It was time to leave. Fifty three years ago I met a pretty young woman who lived in NYC between two of my aunts and a flock of young cousins who would rat on her. Fifty years ago this last April, we were married.
Life has not been terrible. I wonder what could have been for them.
For me? Helped raise three children and get them through college. I hold a Master's degree from a Jesuit university who has a pretty good basketball team. I traveled through Europe and much of Asia working, consulting, and meeting suppliers, lectured college students on how not the be an Ugly American. Did not need a fork and ate some different foods.
Some how, I chose a road that made all the difference. I have come pretty far from a family where the dad did not complete grade school and a mom who had a high school diploma.
Thank you for your comment. I hope that answers some of your thoughts.
I'm going to use this day as an excuse to promote a book, Rufus: A Boy's Extroardinary Experiences in the Civil War, Phoebe Sheldon. Sheldon is Rufus Harnden's great great granddaughter. She constructed a narrative from Rufus' letters home.
Rufus enlisted in 1862, at 17. He was preternaturally wise, and provides a soldier's eye view of the war, including the battles of Gettysburg, where he recalled fighting hard, and suddenly being confronted by the presence of three southern soldiers, badly wounded, who he tried to help until a blast above his head knocked him out; and Chancellorsville, in which Stonewall Jackson was killed.
A number of months after Chancellorsville, Rufus was working as a pillboy in a Northern field hospital in Vicksburg. One night at dinner he overheard some Southern doctors talking about the death of Stonewall. He eavesdropped. The seemingly weird thing about Stonewall was that apparently a lot of the Northern soldiers had a lot of deep respect and admiration for him, including Rufus.
Referring to a point in the Battle of Chancellorsville--the second night--where Stonewall's army was routing the Northerners, one of the doctors says, ""They say some fool yank boys come poppin' up out of a thicket. Just stumbles outa the bushes alongside the road, lost behind our lines. One of them damn fools up and fires a shot at the general's party."
Rufus' narrative continues, "His words froze the very air inside my chest into shards of ice. My heart felt like it stopped its beating in a terrible cramp. I couldn't cetch (sic) my breath for anything. For I knew in an instant the identity of that damn fool yank he was talking about I was that very same man."
Rufus suffered a lot of cognitive dissonance over that, as he strongly believed in the cause of freedom for the slaves, and he--like many North and South--believed the South would have won Gettysburg had Stonewall been there. He also believed in the North's cause, especially freeing the slaves.
It should be available on Amazon. (It's not my favorite place, either, but I'm not sure it's available anywhere else.) If you have trouble finding it, and you're on fb, you can contact Phoebe Sheldon there. If you're not, contact me at holzmandc at outlook dot com.
Bill, thank you for sharing your story. I once asked an active serving Marine Major ‘What does one call a person who served as a Marine but did not serve til retirement?’ He proudly said ‘ a Marine’! My late friend Marine Capt Ted Noble, who passed last year from a cancer whose seeds were sown in the Tet offense, taught me about the brotherhood shared by those who served as A Marine. I hope that you will remove the ‘x’ when referring to your service as a Marine!
"Thank you for your service" has become the GI version of "Have a nice day". When do I most often hear it? Immediately after the person saying finishes a rant about some minor inconvenience in their shopping life.
I was not at Hue so I can not tell you how realistic the portrayal it was in the movie "Full Metal Jacket." I can tell you, boot camp as portrayed in that movie was the one I experienced. Being thinner, a backpacker, and a runner paid off of me. I also learned fast and was only hit twice by the Sergeants.
I could have done without it. I ignore the comment mostly or ask them to thank my friends.
I am 72 now and an XMarine Sergeant who attained rank in two years during the Vietnam era. I am always being thanked for my service. It is something I hide from as I am still here.
If you must thank someone, thank my friends such as Tim Gilson who was with 7th Marines and head shot while going to relieve another platoon of Marines who were surrounded. He was my friend through Boot Camp and ITR.
Paul Placzek and I were in Boy Scouts together. We camped together and did many thing until we left high school. He enlisted in the Army. While in country, he stepped on a land mine and was blown to bits. I can remember his father raging on the news in Chicago about the draft dodgers. Paul was a good person and friend.
Bobby O'Million lived on the first floor while we had the basement apartment. I used to go to his home in Highland Park, IL ands stay there, We would explore the area as it was still undeveloped. Bobby was killed while coming back from a hunting trip with his Sergeant First Class and five others in the Army. They were hit head-on by a drunk.
Three senseless losses for what, lies, human fragility, and things that should never have happened? Too much for the politics of the time. Being thanked for my service is an affront to me. Thank my friends as I always think about them.
I am here and my memories keep them alive.
Every time someone says "thank you for your service" to me, I want to ask them: "Oh, you want to thank me for serving in a war that nearly destroyed us, from which we still suffer because too many of you refuse to recognize what really happened?" I'm surprised no one heard my scream when I found and read the report by the NSA analyst of the Tonkin Gulf Incident (of which I was a bit player, the event by which I divide my life into Before and After), in which he presdented a compelling argument that the "lights in the water" they took for enemy torpedo boats was actually the moonlight and lightning flashes reflected off the enormous school of flying fish that annually transits the Gulf at that time of year. The "reason for war" was flying fish.
During a teaching session some years ago, Thich Nhat Hanh informed the audience that his movement of peace activists in Vietnam in the 1960s were simply farmers. “We were not communists or capitalists, we simply worked the land,” Thay (“teacher” in Vietnamese) said. We learned that one of his students was pictured on the front cover of an American periodical, his life alit in flames, his expression aghast, as a statement against the murderous actions of the invading US forces.
But America had been sold the Big Lie of the 1960s, that communists were ready to take ahold of Asia, subsequently leading to the loss (murder) of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and American lives. As a high school student then, I remember another picture on another magazine cover in America, of a woman from my hometown laying dead at Kent State University, during a peaceful protest, until the National Guard was sent in to disturb the peace. The picture shows the dead woman and a second woman kneeling, her expression aghast .....
Yesterday, I spent time at our local Civil War Monument, and read aloud the hundreds of names of local men who died in that war. Poignant is this ongoing human experience of men taking to violence to quell one’s own dis-ease.
Perhaps I will spend some of today on my own patch of land, remembering those: who worked the land in Vietnam; who followed orders throughout our history, and those souls who courageously challenged the orders. Every generation, ongoing war and resistance ....
Today is a time to remember the burning of Greenwood, Tulsa, OK, exactly 100 years ago
Vietnam was a true awakening for the ills that our country put dedicated soldiers, doctors and nurses through. I marched in moratoriums in DC then. Met my husband, 6 months after he returned from Nam. War is hell and the aftermath, even more so. It sure is a helluva way to decrease countries populations.
❤️😢
Totally agree. I posted awhile ago that the memorial happening there this weekend was news relegated to inside depth of local paper.
I shall long remember your words which seem to apply to much of human misery..." this ongoing human experience of men taking to violence to quell one’s own dis-ease". Well put!
Thx Elizabeth; after many years of study with Thich Nhat Hanh and others, I’ve retained some of this ancient Buddhist wisdom. Of course, “I” haven’t retained, in the Ultimate Truth sense, but the Relative Truth of “I” retains some things. But that’s another topic ......
Dear Bill,
Thank you for sharing your memories of your friends AND thank you for your service. It can be both/and, not just about you or them. I am sorry for your losses and for the losses experienced by your friends’ families.
You had many choices from the time you took the military oath through your entire six years in the Marines. Conscientious objectors made a different choice. Some young men at the time used connections of privilege to avoid the draft. Others took drastic action to disqualify themselves from service, such as starving themselves.
War is hell. You clearly had to routinely summon courage to survive and gain rank. I suspect you had resilience and support, hopefully, to have functioned in the years since then through trauma experienced in the war.
So yes, thank you for your service, thank you to those who supported you, and thank you for sharing the memories of your friends.
I never condemned those who made the decisions they did during the sixties. It was personal choices made when forced into a situation that could not be solved easily. We each did what we thought was right at the time. Some are still paying for those decisions.
At 19, I was still growing up and not mature. I enlisted after visiting my one cousin. He was a Master Gunnery Sergeant, another cousin flew F4 Phantoms, another was in the Army, and my friends were either in college, in the service, or off doing things.
At 19, people are on the brink of adulthood. I made a decision unknowingly and my father a WWII veteran was scared. I was fortunate the Corp trained me and placed where I was. An English Prof. would send me books to read; Porter, Rand, McCarthy, Dickens, etc. Some officers would borrow them at times.
My enlistment ended and the hard core press to re-enlist did not change my thinking. It was time to leave. Fifty three years ago I met a pretty young woman who lived in NYC between two of my aunts and a flock of young cousins who would rat on her. Fifty years ago this last April, we were married.
Life has not been terrible. I wonder what could have been for them.
For me? Helped raise three children and get them through college. I hold a Master's degree from a Jesuit university who has a pretty good basketball team. I traveled through Europe and much of Asia working, consulting, and meeting suppliers, lectured college students on how not the be an Ugly American. Did not need a fork and ate some different foods.
Some how, I chose a road that made all the difference. I have come pretty far from a family where the dad did not complete grade school and a mom who had a high school diploma.
Thank you for your comment. I hope that answers some of your thoughts.
Thank you for your story, Bill.
I'm going to use this day as an excuse to promote a book, Rufus: A Boy's Extroardinary Experiences in the Civil War, Phoebe Sheldon. Sheldon is Rufus Harnden's great great granddaughter. She constructed a narrative from Rufus' letters home.
Rufus enlisted in 1862, at 17. He was preternaturally wise, and provides a soldier's eye view of the war, including the battles of Gettysburg, where he recalled fighting hard, and suddenly being confronted by the presence of three southern soldiers, badly wounded, who he tried to help until a blast above his head knocked him out; and Chancellorsville, in which Stonewall Jackson was killed.
A number of months after Chancellorsville, Rufus was working as a pillboy in a Northern field hospital in Vicksburg. One night at dinner he overheard some Southern doctors talking about the death of Stonewall. He eavesdropped. The seemingly weird thing about Stonewall was that apparently a lot of the Northern soldiers had a lot of deep respect and admiration for him, including Rufus.
Referring to a point in the Battle of Chancellorsville--the second night--where Stonewall's army was routing the Northerners, one of the doctors says, ""They say some fool yank boys come poppin' up out of a thicket. Just stumbles outa the bushes alongside the road, lost behind our lines. One of them damn fools up and fires a shot at the general's party."
Rufus' narrative continues, "His words froze the very air inside my chest into shards of ice. My heart felt like it stopped its beating in a terrible cramp. I couldn't cetch (sic) my breath for anything. For I knew in an instant the identity of that damn fool yank he was talking about I was that very same man."
Rufus suffered a lot of cognitive dissonance over that, as he strongly believed in the cause of freedom for the slaves, and he--like many North and South--believed the South would have won Gettysburg had Stonewall been there. He also believed in the North's cause, especially freeing the slaves.
Thank you David. 🏆
Wow
Who knew? Thank you for the book reference. I will have to find it.Who knew? Thank you for the book reference. I will have to find it.
It should be available on Amazon. (It's not my favorite place, either, but I'm not sure it's available anywhere else.) If you have trouble finding it, and you're on fb, you can contact Phoebe Sheldon there. If you're not, contact me at holzmandc at outlook dot com.
Thank you for sharing such a testament to your friends.
Bill, thank you for sharing your story. I once asked an active serving Marine Major ‘What does one call a person who served as a Marine but did not serve til retirement?’ He proudly said ‘ a Marine’! My late friend Marine Capt Ted Noble, who passed last year from a cancer whose seeds were sown in the Tet offense, taught me about the brotherhood shared by those who served as A Marine. I hope that you will remove the ‘x’ when referring to your service as a Marine!
Thank you for keeping their memories alive.
❤️😥I’m glad you survived and are sharing with us about those that didn’t. 🙏
:’-(
"Thank you for your service" has become the GI version of "Have a nice day". When do I most often hear it? Immediately after the person saying finishes a rant about some minor inconvenience in their shopping life.
NTN:
I was not at Hue so I can not tell you how realistic the portrayal it was in the movie "Full Metal Jacket." I can tell you, boot camp as portrayed in that movie was the one I experienced. Being thinner, a backpacker, and a runner paid off of me. I also learned fast and was only hit twice by the Sergeants.
I could have done without it. I ignore the comment mostly or ask them to thank my friends.
That's a thought. There's a National Cemetery here. Perhaps I should point the thankers there...