Tag Archives: Waiting for Westmoreland

Vietnam and Waiting for Westmoreland–Two Anniversaries

This an extended excerpt from an article by John Maberry that appeared in the October Eagle Peak Quarterly.

Most people, I suspect, celebrate anniversaries as special occasions. They exchange cards or gifts and perhaps go out to dinner. These anniversaries aren’t like that. They are reference points in the tapestry of life. They’re signposts of events that have significantly affected the trajectory of my existence or describe it.

My arrival in South Vietnam came fifty years ago, in September 1967. Ten years ago in September, I published the memoir, Waiting for Westmoreland. (WFW)

This special feature in the Quarterly is more of an observance of those two anniversaries than a celebration of them. It’s also an announcement of a special tenth anniversary edition of WFW coming later this fall. It will feature a new cover, a foreword by an accomplished friend who’s known me for forty years, a brief preface and an expanded epilogue. Those ending words will include a few paragraphs from an update to WFW. My human revolution (a profound change in one’s character—a fundamental benefit of practicing Buddhism) continues so I must share it. The current plan calls for that book to be out two years from now but perhaps it will come sooner. I have a sci-fi novel to get out next year and another novel in 2020. This is my Third Age and I cannot relax too much.

The memories of Vietnam are as vivid as though it were last year—or even last month. Memories of sweating in the shade of tropical heat. Taking turns awake on the berm surrounding the base camp at Bear Cat, sleeping atop rock hard sandbags. Listening to the brothers talking about the two Mister Charlies they were fighting—the Viet Cong and Whitey. Watching how the drinkers and the dopers responded to nighttime alerts—the former in a daze, slowly, and the latter with no impediment. So a few months in, I joined the smokers—buying the shredded salad sized bags of marijuana that went for five dollars. Eventually I gave into the illicit sex too, in shacks with walls made of ammo crates from American munitions.

In WFW, I recounted my loss of innocence and the shattering of illusions about America’s virtue. We weren’t really there to fight for and protect those people. We were there fighting the Cold War by proxy. Fearing that the “domino effect” could mean the loss of all of Southeast Asia to Communism. Many soldiers and their superiors called the Vietnamese by racist epithets such as Gooks or slope-heads. Five American Presidents, I later learned, could have avoided the deaths of more than 58,000 Americans. But at every decision point, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon took the wrong turn. Then they lied incessantly about what was happening and why were there.

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Vietnam–a 50th Anniversary

It’s September 21, the day I arrived in South Vietnam. Fifty years ago today. Ten years ago, on September 7, I published Waiting for WestmorelandThat memoir provides an explanation of how the loss of innocence and the shattered illusions I experienced put me on a quest. A quest that wound up providing me the tools to tend my garden, as Candide did by the end of Voltaire’s famous book. But that’s a post for another day.

In a wonderful coincidence of sorts, Ken Burns 18-hour Vietnam War series began showing on PBS this week. I don’t know if those of you in other countries around the world will have ready access to it or not, but it’s well worth watching. 

Today, I’ll offer a glimpse of my arrival and first night in Vietnam. Next month I’ll have an extended feature on these anniversaries, the book and more in the October Eagle Peak Quarterly. In the meantime, I’ll be offering excerpts from the book on John Maberry’s Writing. So if you haven’t yet subscribed to John Maberry’s Writing, now’s the time. I don’t use a hated popup but you’ll easily find the subscription box on the sidebar. Later this fall, I’ll publish a slightly revised and updated tenth anniversary edition of Waiting for Westmoreland with a foreword, a preface and some snippets from a sequel of sorts to be published in 2019.

Here’s the book excerpt:

On the ground at last, after the long flight from Guam, the plane taxied past sandbag-clad heavy steel revetments surrounding bombers and fighters on three sides. As we rolled to a stop, the flight attendant popped the door, allowing the cool cabin air to escape. Tropical heat—asphalt-softening, frying eggs on a sidewalk heat—washed in like a sunny surf, carrying unfamiliar smells. It was Saigon in late September 1967. A throng of cheering khaki-clad soldiers in loose formation waved and beckoned to us from the tarmac at Tan Son Nhut. They laughed and shouted as kids on a playground, all the while looking about as secret service agents do during a presidential walk on a crowded street. A year later, I would better understand their uneasy excitement. Barring a last-minute attack, they had survived their year in Vietnam. They would fly back to “the world” in the plane we exited.

Wasting no time assembling here, we went straight from the ramp onto a prison bus. At least it looked like one. The kind of bus that hauls convict work gangs around some places in America, guarded by shotgun-shouldered Bubbas in Smokey hats. Only we weren’t the criminals. The bars and mesh covering the windows were there to protect us. How odd, I thought, we were here to protect the Vietnamese but we must be protected from them. Yet, on the busy streets we traveled, other military personnel walked freely about or rode in jeeps while Vietnamese civilians sped about on mopeds and bicycles. Other locals fearlessly shopped at the colorful stalls crowding sidewalks along the narrow streets. It was the first of many incongruities, in a year filled with them.

Wealth and poverty, filth and beauty fought for my attention along the 16-mile route to Long Binh for in-country processing. Shacks of wooden ammo crates topped by rusty tin roofs stood next to trash-strewn alleys plied by scavenging birds and occasional cats. Nearby, women emerged from stone buildings of faded grandeur, wearing brightly hued pastel ao dais, snug from neck to waist but billowing in the breeze over their black silk pants. People of all ages carried huge loads on bent backs—bags from the market, bundles of straw or wood. Nearing a river away from the city, workers with conical straw hats strapped under their chins and pants rolled to their knees waded in muddy rice paddies. Further on, we passed the lush green of a rubber plantation, its opulent mansion only slightly tarnished by this or previous wars.

I don’t remember at all, the afternoon arrival at Long Binh. So much of military existence is filled with an unremitting and unremarkable sameness. Hurry up and wait. “Assemble in a column of twos. Close it up ‘til your buddy smiles!” I do remember that first night in-country bunked under the cover of a circus-sized tent. Intermittently throughout the night, bright flares fell from the sky on parachutes, illuminating the nearby countryside as they swung to and fro. Muffled sounds of rifle fire, far away artillery and other ordnance unfamiliar to my ears rumbled through my head. Adrenaline-fueled wariness overcame weariness, shorting my sleep. Later, I would learn there was no fighting nearby and the flares were just routine. On the first night, however, fear filled me with dread.

 

November Eagle Peak Quarterly is Here

 

November 2014 Eagle Peak Quarterly cover

Check it out, the all new Eagle Peak Quarterly is now up. Beginning today, see these items:

  • An experience by long-time member Keith Robinson chronicling his introduction to Buddhism and the peace initiatives of SGI leader Daisaku Ikeda, culminating in a happy and fortunate life for Keith and his family
  • The conclusion of  the three-part series on Buddhism and Pragmatism, pointing out the significant correlations between what some people may view as a Japanese religion and an American philosophical system
  • An excerpt from Waiting for Westmoreland, John Maberry’s memoir, not previously up on the internet
  • A blurb about the the accomplishments of The Carter Center, one of the web links on Eagle Peak Press
  • A video introduction by jazz great Wayne Shorter to the Power of Women exhibit featured at the September,  2011 Montreux  Jazz Festival
  • A preview of a coming series on writing which will begin in February, 2015.

Five Essential Story Ingredients

Updated 2018, with the cover image and link to the 10th Anniversary Edition of Waiting for Westmoreland

Thanks, Richard Brownell for posting this on LinkedIn to remind us of some essential story ingredients needed for successful writing. The tips are contained in an article on Writer’s Digest, by Steven James. James begins his piece by asking  is the following a story:

Imagine that I’m telling you about my day and I say, “I woke up. I ate breakfast. I left for work.”

Of course it isn’t. From my own writing courses from a bygone time, I recall that a story needs exposition of a character who experiences a conflict. The crisis the character meets may be exacerbated by a weakness or a character flaw. The story arc proceeds through the protagonist discovering more about him or herself and finding the change required to resolve the difficulty. Rather than my explaining all that here, take a look at the item on Writer’s Digest at the link in the first paragraph. Of course, you can also see a real life example looking at my own memoir. Waiting for Westmoreland.

The cover of the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Waiting for Westmoreland