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THE AMERICAN WAR IN VIETNAM
Over time the draft brought resistance to the war into the military at home and in Vietnam… The first “official” American casualty in Vietnam occurred in 1961… I was 14 years of age. By the time I enlisted in the Army at 18 years of age, over 150,000 troops were on the
ground. By 1969 when I processed out of active duty at the tender age of 21, officers and senior NCOs were being killed by their own men. By the time I was an active organizer for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, one of the active duty GI cases we were supporting was the defense of Billie D. Smith, charged with fragging his commanding officer. By then most of the top brass were at their wits end trying to handle the total breakdown of discipline and morale in the Army and Marine units in Vietnam and around the world.
In an article published in the Armed Forces Journal (1971), Marine Colonel Robert D. Heinl Jr., a veteran combat commander with over 27 years experience in the Marines and author of Soldiers Of The Sea, a definitive history of the Marine Corps, wrote: "Our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and noncommissioned officers...."
Heinl cited a New York Times article, which quoted an enlisted man saying, "The American garrisons on the larger bases are virtually disarmed. The lifers have taken our weapons away... there have also been quite a few frag incidents in the battalion."
"Frag incidents" or "fragging" was soldier slang in Vietnam for the killing of strict, unpopular and aggressive officers and NCO's. The word originated from enlisted men using fragmentation grenades to kill their commanders.
Heinl wrote, "Bounties, raised by common subscription in amounts running anywhere from $50 to $1,000, have been widely reported put on the heads of leaders who the privates and SP4s want to rub out."
Shortly after the totally unnecessary and costly assault on Hamburger Hill in mid-1969, the GI underground newspaper in Vietnam, GI Says, publicly offered a $10,000 bounty on Lieutenant Colonel Weldon Hunnicutt, the officer who ordered and led the attack to make his “bones” and assure his CIB to increase his future promotional opportunities.
Congressional hearings on fraggings held in 1973 estimated that roughly 3% of officer and non-com deaths in Vietnam between 1961 and 1972 were a result of fraggings. But these figures were only for killings committed with grenades, and didn't include officer deaths from automatic weapons fire, handguns and knifings(!). The Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps estimated that only 10% of fragging attempts resulted in anyone going to trial.
In the Americal Division, plagued by poor morale, fraggings during 1971 were estimated to be running around one a week. War equipment was sabotaged and destroyed. By 1972 roughly 300 anti-war and anti-military newspapers, with names like Harass the Brass, All Hands Abandon Ship and Star Spangled Bummer had been put out by enlisted people.
"In Vietnam," wrote the Ft. Lewis-McCord Free Press, "The Lifers, the Brass, are the true enemy....."
Riots and anti-war demonstrations took place on bases in Asia, Europe and in the United States. By the early 1970s the government had to begin pulling out of the ground war and switching to an "air war" in part because many of the ground troops who were supposed to do the fighting were hamstringing the world's mightiest military force by their sabotage and resistance.
By 1973 there were 1,013 fragging incidents and 330 “combat refusals”. By 1970 there were 65,643 deserters. That is a total of about four infantry divisions.
OUR CHILDREN ARE ADVANCING THE RESISTANCE TO THE WAR ALREADY…
THE AMERICAN WAR IN IRAQ
Reservists of the 343rd Quartermaster Company defied orders (Combat Refusal) to go on a "suicide mission" delivering fuel without armor in October 2004. Eight soldiers filed a federal lawsuit on December 6, 2004 challenging the "stop-loss" policy, i.e. the backdoor draft. The Army National Guard fell "30 percent below recruiting goals" at the end of last year, and recruitment is "just 75 percent of the target for the first quarter of fiscal 2005'"
Black volunteers for the Army have fallen 41 % (from 22.7% to 13.9%) since 2000 -- a severe blow to the Army that depends upon Black men and women to supply nearly a quarter of its active-duty troops. Seattle Central Community College students threw out military recruiters from campus.
According to MFSO, membership currently includes over 2,000 military families, with new families joining daily." That is unprecedented historically.
Iraqi Veterans Against the War was established in August 2004. Iraq veterans, even though they were all volunteers rather than draftees, managed to organize an anti-war veterans' group within two years of the US invasion of Iraq. This is faster than Vietnam Veterans were organized. IVAW is modeled after, and supported by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW).
RECRUITERS UNABLE TO MEET THEIR VOLUNTARY ENLISTMENT QUOTAS… THE ARMY AND MARINES FIND THEMSELVES IN A “CATCH-22” SITUATION… Lowered enlistments means pressure to implement at least a “specialized” mos draft beyond the back door draft of “stop loss”
A military recruiter in New York said pressure from the Army to meet his recruiting goals during a time of war has given him stomach problems and searing back pain. Suffering from bouts of depression, he said he has considered suicide. Recruiters said falling short often generates a barrage of angry correspondence, formal reprimands, threats or even demotion.
At least 37 members of the Army Recruiting Command, which oversees enlistment, have gone AWOL since October 2002. Each of the Army's 7,500 recruiters faces the grind of an unyielding human math, a quota of two new recruits a month, at a time of extended war without a draft.
THE BRASS DON’T WANT A DRAFT so they will try new tactics to get their few good men and women…
The military is shifting from a strategy that focused first on wooing potential recruits to one aimed at gaining the trust and attention of their parents by using grassroots initiatives and multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns.
The public relations push comes as the Army and Marines, which absorb the brunt of the casualties in Iraq, encounter one of their worst periods in recruitment.
Among their initiatives:
* Four new "influencer" TV ads by the Army, aimed at moms, dads, coaches and ministers.
* A decision to pair Army recruiters with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans on visits to the homes of potential recruits. The idea: Tell parents "the Army story."
* A nine-minute video, "Parents Speak," in which parents of Marines say the Corps has been good for their children.
* A direct-mail campaign by the Marines to parents of high school juniors and seniors. The Marines highlight the benefits of joining and ask for an opportunity to talk to the students' parents about a military career.
Suppose a parent succeeds in recruiting their child… and she dies… how will they live with themselves? I have to believe parents will not join this unholy alliance…
One of my achievements that I am most proud of as a parent is defeating Reagan’s military from recruiting my son and daughter during the mid to late 90s. From elementary school on, the Weekly Readers sent home with my children were primarily funded with advertisements from the “XYZ Corporation”. This corporation took pains to assure the reader that it was in no way affiliated with the Department of Defense! Hello?
Let's tell the truth - at least to ourselves: the US is establishing 15 permanent US military bases in Iraq to occupy it. The US is trying to control a depleting oil supply to maintain profits for a few multinational oil and gas conglomerates - and keep America's freeways clogged with gas guzzling SUVs.
This is a Christian Crusade brought to the world by a born agin' christian president to battle the forces of evil, with the Marines in the role of crusaders.
Fifty-two percent of the American electorate don't care how many Iraqi innocents die in our quest for domination. Poor people continue to die so the rich can get richer. The US government is sponsoring a civil war in a country it has no business being in for nothing more than its own self-interest.
The "coalition of the willing" is shrinking further every day.
Washington is unable to cajole or coerce Iraqis or others to fight for
its self-serving goals. Therefore, it has and will be US soldiers who
bear the burden of fighting the deadly war and US workers (and their children and grandchildren) who shoulder the costs of financing it.
On March 16, 2005, the House approved $81.4 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which will soon bring emergency war spending since March 2003 to a whopping $300 billion.
THEN THEY WILL BE VETERANS…
Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI. I suggest that this will become the signature combat injury for Iraq. Like Agent Orange is to Vietnam, Gulf War syndrome (DU exposure) to the American war in the Gulf, 1991, TBI will be to Iraq.
It is partly the result of the high quality of body armor and related protective gear worn by the US military in Iraq. You remember that body armor many parents were buying and shipping it to their children fighting in Iraq when the US government couldn't supply it to all of the troops?
The body armor protects many soldiers who would have died in previous wars. That's the good news. The bad news is that it doesn't protect the soldier's brain from the shock of explosions.
The result is the brain experiences dramatic trauma similar to "shaken baby" syndrome. The brain is shaken violently by the explosions from roadside bombs, mortar fire and high velocity arms fire to the head, neck and shoulders.
THE RESULT: The medical problems that will debilitate the majority of these young people for oh say the next 35 years, will be psychological. It is the result of two sources: TBI and PTSD.
PTSD is the result of extreme stress coupled with extreme uncertainty. Every vet who has experienced this knows the hidden costs of this type of experience and it is completely invisible until it explodes to the surface.
As stated by those in the know – the troops: "In Iraq the knowledge that every stretch of road may conceal an explosive device - is tailored to produce the adrenaline-gone-haywire, hyper alert reactions that leave lasting emotional scars. Additionally, many soldiers also face the additional uncertainty about how long they will be deployed”, or how often. Some are now on their third tour.
The result of these two combat injuries will be slowly emerging and life long damage to a soldier's physical and psychological well-being for approximately 30% of returning troops.
Note to all the family, friends and particularly the yellow ribbon "supporters of our troops"-lite set: Be prepared to forgive the 10% of these soldiers for their alcohol and drug abuse and the spousal and child abuse that will result. Remember who the real criminal is: the village idiot that sent them off to fight in this totally unnecessary war.
HOW TO STOP THE WAR:
Support the soldiers who refuse to serve and those poor and working class children who say no to military recruitment. Support efforts by soldiers and veterans to stop the back door draft. Resist recruitment efforts in schools and homes near you by doing counter-recruitment activities. No troops – no war. Force the Bush administration to declare victory and bring the troops home or lose his military entirely.
At the same time we must call for all to sacrifice equally: the rich need to give up the money; the privileged young people hidden away in ivy league schools need to contribute their minds as well as their bodies along with the poor and working class youth dieing in Iraq already.
The more parents that feel the heat of war lapping at their front doors in the form of two military officers walking up the front walk… the sooner we can stop the killing of Iraqis and our young soldiers.
Take care of the soldiers after we bring them home and discharge them – regardless of cost. Tax the rich to pay for this. Why not? The rich benefit most from this war. Pay Iraq $50 billion a year for 10 years to pay for reconstruction of their once beautiful country and care for those civilians harmed by our "preemptive" war on them, a war crime the equivalent of Nazi Germany invading Poland.
Accept the possibility of international war crimes trials for the neocon leadership in the Bush administration.
Will this create problems for the Middle East? Yes, but fewer than we will cause staying another 10 years and then leaving anyway because we can't win the peace now or ever. But imagine how many US troops and Iraqi civilians we won't kill as a result.
Will this create problems for the US control of depleting oil resources in the world? Yes, but this going to happen anyway. Oil resources have peaked for the most part and are staring to decline all over the world. This is one reason for US "strategic" interest in dominating Afghanistan and Iraq, among many oil producing/transfer countries. The sooner we respond to the reality of depleting oil sources as a country, the sooner we begin to transition to the new millennium energy sources. Of course, this will cause a significant loss of income for Bush/Cheney supporting oil interests in the US.
Will this provide a breeding ground for terrorism? It already has. When a mother has the heads of her children vaporized by high velocity bullets, while sitting next to them in the car as she attempts to respond to demands in a foreign language at a highway check point – terrorists are being created.
51% of the US population gave Bush another four years to destroy any chance we have of rejoining civilized countries in the world working together to solve very complex and challenging issues facing us today and our children tomorrow.
Not in my name! Not now, not ever!
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Mark Hartford
US Army 1966-196
1/23rd Inf. 2nd Inf Div.
Korean DMZ 1966-1967 |
