Internal Conflicts
Subtitle: The Epic Novel Of The Turbulent Sixties
Publisher: Cable Publishing
Published: 2009
Place of publication: U.S.A.
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 331
ISBN-13: 13:978-1-394980-69-9
Description: Review Written by Bernie Weisz, Historian, Vietnam War  Pembroke Pines, Florida, U.S.A.  January 13, 2011 Title of Review:
 "What Good Is Fighting For People When The People You Are Fighting For Hate Your Guts? And By the Way, Welcome to Vietnam!"  Flint Whitlock has done come in with a superb historic lesson about many issues in "Internal Conflicts." On the surface, this is a novel about a young, Army officer who while joining the Army in an attempt to discover his manhood by way of wearing "army greens, sexual conquests and love," searches for the meaning of life in the tumultuous 1960's. Although Whitlock throws to the reader a novel of varied themes, i.e. eroticism, romance, sibling rivalry, mortality, murder, war, and peace, his protagonist, a Vietnam bound Officer named Peter, Luton, sums up his personal "Internal Conflict" best in this book with his following lament: "My mother is not really my mother, my brother is not really my brother, my father was not really my father, I am not who I always thought I was." The title chosen by Flintlock is appropriate, as Luton, an awkward, graceless youth matures into adulthood in the shadow of his older, athletically adroit brother Jack. Full of negative self poise and overly sensitive, Peter is forever plagued by self-recrimination, indecision and self doubt. As the reader will discover through what Whitlock deemed "The Incident," Luton's impulsive behavior precipitate negative repercussions that cause self doubt and insecurity that plague him nearly to the end of this story. Yet, the reader need to be forewarned: when it came time for Luton to step to the plate and prove his prowess and fortitude in the face of death, he smashed a grand slam home run. Unfortunately for Luton, his base clearing blast was in an unforgiving place that was not a John Wayne film, devoid of makeup, fake blood, flags and bugles. This was in Vietnam and in the watershed year of this conflict, where he was to ultimately find out that he was deceived by his drill instructors with the following admonition: "The more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed in wartime." 

The reader needs to be forwarded that it is once in a while a book will come along where the majority of occurrences one reads about can be identified vicariously. I myself experienced identical or similar incidents and experiences that Whitlock's protagonist encountered and experienced. It brought back poignant memories of my youth and my own voyage of self discovery. If the reader of this novel went through the 1960's, the whole scene of Vietnam, the search for manhood, sexual conquest, masculine identity, adoption, sibling rivalry, post traumatic stress syndrome, etc., this book will certainly churn both your head and stomach with emotions perhaps dulled with the passage of time. I did not expect this book to end as violent and abrupt as it did. Being Whitlock's first foray into fiction, I did not even expect this to be anything more than a marginal regurgitation of historical facts coated by a flimsy storyline. Needless to say, this book turned out to be a plot I simply could not put down until the last page was turned, and even then I was shaking my head as to "why?" I will not be a plot spoiler and let on to why I say this. I can promise anyone, man or woman, that there is something in this book that you will identify with and have you thinking about for weeks after you have finished it. One wonders if Whitlock is veiling his own biography through fiction. The writer of almost 10 best selling historical books that effectively convey the emotional and physical aspects of the soldier's experience, Whitlock's past parallels his protagonist. A college graduate in ROTC, Peter Luton, a Chicagoan, tearfully finds out the circumstances of his adoption late in life. Witnessing the death of his friend through a suspicious incident in basic training, Luton underwent a grueling ordeal of learning to be a soldier at Fort Benning, Georgia. Luton spent two years in Germany as an Officer for the Nike Hercules Missile Battery prior to his involuntary deployment to Vietnam at the height of the 1968 "Tet Offensive." His real father and mother perished in a fatal car accident and his adopted father vanished in a downed B-17 Bomber, shot down over Germany's skies during the Second World War. 

Flint Whitlock graduated from the University of Illinois in 1964 with a degree in Advertising Design. Whitlock's father, James, served with the famed 10th Mountain Division in World War II. With Vietnam escalating after the August, 1964 "Gulf of Tonkin" incident, Whitlock wanted to serve his country, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant through the Reserve Officer Commission Training Program and entered active duty in December 1964. Similar to his protagonist,after completing basic Air Defense Artillery officers' course at Fort Bliss, Texas, Whitlock received his jump wings at Airborne school at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was then posted to a Nike Hercules battery in Baumholder, Germany. After two years in Air Defense Artillery, he spent an additional year in Zweibruecken, Germany, where he was promoted to captain as part of the Supply and Maintenance Agency. In 1968, Flint was transferred to South Vietnam, arriving one day before the Tet Offensive in January, 1968 just like his protagonist. He served for six months as a supply specialist at 1st Logistical Command Headquarters at Long Binh, northeast of Saigon, before being transferred to the 14th Inventory Control Center at the same post. Although Whitlock never saw combat, he chronicles his protagonist's self recrimination and guilt at being a noncombatant, euphemistically called a "REMF," while his compatriots sweat, fought, were wounded, and died in the sultry triple canopy jungles of Vietnam. I have read and reviewed other men's memoirs of serving in the rear lines of Vietnam. Most have a complex called "survivor guilt." Whitlock makes an interesting statement at the beginning of this book, where Jack Luton's brother tells him this admonition: "Never expose your weaknesses to someone else, unless you want him to use your weaknesses against you." Possibly Luton exorcises Whitlock's impotence of his non involvement in the Vietnam conflict by this novel. Definitely, Whitlock hits, and hits hard at the major facts and issues that affected everyone unilaterally growing up during the Vietnam era. 

Needless to say, Flint Whitlock, former child of the 1960's, ex Army Officer, ex Vietnam Veteran, and current historian, has come up with a gem here that only a conglomeration of the following roles could produce. Incredibly, this book is a primer on the major issues of the era and the Southeast Asian conflict America became enmeshed in and eventually concluded in a debacle. Whitlock stated out early in this novel by including actual events cleverly included in a realistic storyline. In his last year of college, Luton mourned the fact that a lot of his classmates dropped out of college and joined one of the branches of service as part of the "Cold War" fervor as a reaction to the "Bay of Pigs Invasion." This was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the U.S. government, in an attempt to overthrow the Communistic Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The conflict started in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. It ended as a U.S. embarrassment, as the Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by the Soviet Union, defeated the invading combatants within three days. The failed invasion severely embarrassed the Kennedy Administration, and made Castro wary of future US intervention in Cuba. At the beginning of September 1962, U-2 spy planes discovered that the Soviet Union was building surface-to-air missile (SAM) launch sites in Cuba. J.F.K. complained to the Soviet Union about these developments and warned them that the U.S. would not accept offensive weapons 90 miles off U.S. shores. The National Security Council and the CIA recommended a U.S air-attack on the missile sites. Remembering the poor advice the CIA had provided before the Bay of Pigs invasion, J.F.K. decided that by doing that it would lead to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. 

It was finally decided to blockade Cuba in a naval manner, disabling any Soviet nuclear hardware to reach the island. As well as imposing a naval blockade, Kennedy also told the Air Force to prepare for attacks on Cuba and the Soviet Union. The army positioned 125,000 men in Florida and was told to wait for orders to invade Cuba. If the Soviet ships carrying weapons for Cuba did not turn back or refused to be searched, a war was likely to begin. Kennedy also promised his military advisers that if one of the U-2 spy planes were fired upon he would give orders for an attack on the Cuban SAM missile sites. The world waited anxiously. A public opinion poll in the United States revealed that three out of five people expected fighting to break out between the two sides. On October 24, 1962,J.F.K. was informed that Soviet ships had stopped just before they reached the U.S. ships blockading Cuba. On October 26 and 28th, Khrushchev sent J.F.K. two letters. The first proposed that the Soviet Union would be willing to remove the missiles in Cuba in exchange for a promise by the U.S. they would not invade Cuba and the second one demanded that the U.S. remove their nuclear bases in Turkey. J.F.K. accepted the terms of only the first letter, and Khrushchev agreed and gave orders for the missiles to be dismantled. However, The Cuban Missile Crisis was the first and only nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The event was used in Whitlock's book to show how frightened people were of the Cold War. Incidentally, three months after the Cuban Missile Crisis the U.S. secretly removed all its nuclear missiles from Turkey, 1,113 prisoners captured during the Bay of Pigs invasion were exchanged by Castro for $60 million from the U.S. in food, drugs, medicine and cash, but most significantly, the U.S. became convinced that the Soviet Union would not go to war over another communist country which encouraged the U.S. to help attempts to overthrow the communist government of Ho Chi Minh in North Vietnam, and later in Nicaragua and Grenada. 

Whitlock ingenuously included American sentiment over the assassination of J.F,K. and it's after affects, on November 22 1963, Luton's callous girlfriend could not understand why he had no libido on that night. Not being able to empathize why Luton, with images of the Zapruder amateur video tape of the Kennedy shooting in his mind, thus incapable of sexual performance, she used that as an excuse to break up with him. Luton also had school that day and watched students walk out of his ROTC class. Luton stayed, "internally conflicted" by his professor's advice: "Gentlemen, there's a lesson to be learned here. In the not too distant future, you will be on active duty. Some of you may even see combat-Europe, the Middle East, Africa, maybe even Vietnam-who knows where. your best friend may get killed right in front of you, his blood and brains splashed all over you. Are you going to start bawling your head off and run home to mommy? No. The real officer sticks it out, no matter how rough it gets. The real officer sets an example for his men, because, if he runs away, then his men are going to run away, and then the mission is lost." After Kennedy's death, his successor, Lyndon Johnson, took a steadfast policy of gradual escalation. While Jack Luton attended his Airborne training at Fort Benning, he realized units at Benning were alerted to go and were later placed on stand-by status for Vietnam. Luton mused the following during the training, echoing millions who similarly endured identical anxiety: "I wondered which ones would be going off to Vietnam, which ones would lose legs and hands and faces and genitals, which ones would return home in body bags and which ones would never be found, and I suddenly knew why we were all being hardened." An incident with racial overtones resulted in the murder of Luton's friend, and Jack's suspect, a bigoted drill master named Sergeant Krieger, is targeted for fragging. Soldiers serving under Lieutenant William L. Calley Jr., the culprit of the My Lai Massacre, secretly considering fragging him after he marched them into danger. "Fragging" referred to the act of attacking a superior officer in one's chain of command with the intent to kill that officer and was most commonly used to mean the assassination of an unpopular officer of one's own fighting unit. Killing was effected by means of a fragmentation grenade, hence the term. 

Flint Whitlock cleverly included this ugly aspect of the Vietnam War, as throughout the course of conflict, fragging was reportedly common. There are documented cases of at least 230 American officers killed by their own troops, and as many as 1,400 other officers' deaths could not be explained. Between 1970 and 1971 alone, there were 363 cases of "assault with explosive devices" against officers in Vietnam. Although Luton agreed that it was important to be "hardened," one Black soldier was mistreated, insulted and unfairly abused by Krieger that resulted in him quitting. There is another book, written by Joel Russell, entitled "Escaping Death's Sting" that also shows unfair mistreatment as part of basic training. However, another issue of the war, also dealt with in this book, is avoidance of the Draft, by going to graduate school, or even absconding to Canada or Sweden. Although he ultimately dropped out and was promptly drafted, Luton's friend back in college, Marty "Frog" Randall was used by Whitlock to illustrate those that went to war, and those that were against it and stayed. This issue broke up friendships, families, and marriages. Luton goes to a party prior to his deployment to Germany, and see's Frog in a different light. The underground usage of marijuana, the drug per se an anti-war, counterculture statement receives treatment in "Internal Conflicts." Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers served in West Germany during the Vietnam era, and Whitlock, since he was there, included his observations through Luton, of the Germanic vision of our occupation as a couple looked at him and smiled: "He couldn't help wondering, though the smiles masked a hatred of him and his uniform-a symbol of the conquering Army that had occupied their country for twenty years. Or did they view him as a valiant warrior, ready to die to keep the Russians from swarming across the border? He wished he could speak German so he could converse with them; he promised himself he would learn the language." 

Despite the fact that this is a novel, very real issues were brought up, particularly of the U.S. military in Germany in this period of time. Luton, trained to watch a radar grid of possible Soviet ballistic incoming missiles, is warned by lieutenant Stiles Van Dellen, a later casualty of Vietnam, the dangers of the Battery Control Center. Showing Luton how to work the radar, Van Dellen instructs the following: "Every so often, we'll see a dozen or so blips in formation heading our way-probably MIG's-but they always turn back before they reach the East and West Germany border." "What happens if they don't turn back?" "Then Pete," Stiles said, the proverbial balloon has just gone up." Peter gulped. World War Three would just be minutes away if ever those advancing blips did not reverse course." Aside from war games, Whitlock showed how the military could easily change one's "Military Occupational Specialty" at whim and even if one had a week left in their tour of duty, re-designate them for combat duty. During the Vietnam era, this was referred to as being "curtailed," although now with Iraq and Afghanistan in the background, it is referred to as "Stop Loss." This amounts to the involuntary extension of a service member's active duty service under the enlistment contract in order to retain them beyond their initial end of term of service date and up to their contractually agreed end of obligated service. It also applies to the cessation of a permanent change of station move for a member still in military service. There has recently even been a major motion picture of this issue. Peter Luton, thinking that he is safe from being called to Vietnam because he is in air-defense and the North Vietnamese had no planes, is corrected once again by Stiles as follows: "Pete, the Army can do whatever it damn well pleases, including sending you or me to anywhere." Yeah, but they guaranteed-" Army guarantees don't mean squat, Pete." In a memoir about Vietnam, written by James A. Daly entitled "Black Prisoner of War: A Conscientious Objector's Vietnam Memoir," Daly, a Jehovah's Witness, joined the Army under the promise of being made a cook and designated a permanent rear echelon job, was deceived, sent to the front lines as part of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, captured and spent over five years as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war. 

Flint Whitlock also included an incident where Peter Luton, on night patrol of his own men, discovered two men having sex. This is significant, considering the 1960's view of homosexuality in the military, the subsequent "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" term policy restricting the U.S. military from efforts to discover or reveal the sexuality of closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring those who are openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual from military service, and it's current repeal. Nevertheless, Luton did meet an Army nurse, Meredith, whom he eventually wed, had a daughter with, and then it happened. His worst fears were realized, as he was shipped to Vietnam, no less on the first day of the "Tet Offensive". Contrary to W. W. II, there was no enthusiasm of going to combat, and unlike any previous conflict the U.S. has ever been involved with, his war chariot was a commercial airplane, a Boeing 727. Given a short leave between Germany and Vietnam to visit his new bride's family and his own in America's Midwest, he was given this little speech by his new father in law: "We either stop Communism over there or we try to stop it when the Russians or Red Chinese parachute in to Milwaukee. That's our choice, Pete. Far as I'm concerned, I'd rather we stopped it over there, in Vietnam. I just want you to know that I'm damn proud that you are going over there." "Well sir, I guess it's my duty. When I joined the Army, I knew that was part of the bargain, he lied. "Well, I'm just proud of you. And my daughter, too, for being an Army nurse, Too many of these long haired hippies are running around, burning their draft cards and American flags and smoking pot, are just spoiled brats, if you ask me. The kids today are as soft as marsh mellows they need to go into the service to toughen them up, and learn some discipline and respect. That's what my generation did. We gave up our jobs and our schooling and our families to serve our country. When they called us up, we all went. There were no protests or demonstrations back then. Draft dodgers were few and far in between. In fact, guys who were underage or were four-F and unfit for service did everything they could to get in. It took almost four, years, but we licked those Japs and Krauts. That's the problem today-nobody's willing to sacrifice. Everybody just wants everything handed to them on a silver platter." 

Regardless, the "internal conflicts" of Peter Luton continue. After a two week stay in Milwaukee, Luton flew to Vietnam, via San Francisco and the Philippines, a common passage during the war. However, an interesting tract was included by Whitlock, which speaks volumes, in terms of ambivalence: "Luton landed in San Francisco, was bussed across the bay bridge to Travis Air Force Base, near Oakland, where he spent the night at the Visiting Officers Quarters. early the next morning, Peter, along with twenty other officers, was loaded onto a 727 in which now he sat, along with ten dozen other worried, frightened, and confused soldiers, to continue their westward journey. A brief refueling stop in Hawaii, and then they were airborne again, flying in a wide arc over Pearl Harbor, where Peter looked downward could see the submerged hull of the U.S. S. Arizona, and he though sadly of the noble men still entombed within her. Now that had been a war-a war to embrace fervently, a war to get excited about. He wondered why he-or anyone else he knew-wasn't excited about going off to war." Anyone that has experienced the Vietnam ordeal will immediately identify. Luton landed at Bien Hoa Air Base and Whitlock wrote: "Even though it was two in the morning, the heat and humidity swamped Peter like a soaking wet electric blanket turned up high." The day was January 31, 1968, the first day of the Lunar New Year, as well as the infamous "Tet Offensive." As promised, I am not going to spoil the outcome, but this is where this book travels at the speed of light to it's earth shaking outcome. Several key events happen that influence the outcome of this book. Luton goes on an emergency bereavement leave following several months "In Country" after he is informed that his mother without warning drooped dead of a heart attack and through a chance of fate gets caught in the 1968 Democratic Convention riots. "Internal Conflicts" continues as he is both tear gassed and bashed in the head by Mayor Richard Daley's goons,and assailed a "baby killer" by the protesting, unruly crowds. Like most Vietnam Vets that became "adrenalin junkies," as he couldn't resist the call of Vietnam to return, where ironically he felt at home. Luton cried "What are they doing to our country?" 

The major events in Vietnam were the meeting of Jack Luton with Captain Todd Gorman and Australian Army Captain Graham Birdsong, both of whom played vital roles in propelling the novel to its shattering, inevitable conclusion with an emotional impact that few readers will be able to ever forget! Gorman knocked America's role of world policeman and showed Luton, given a safe, air conditioned desk job, the realities of the war. Pulled to an evacuation hospital, Gorman showed Luton both KIA and WIA victims, some dismembered, some burned beyond recognition. While Luton sat behind a desk, Gorman explained that every promise and guarantee the Army made to him had been broken. Warning Luton, Gorman exhorted: "If the Army says we are winning this war, head for the bomb shelter. The generals don't want this war to end. It's their profession, their livelihood, their whole reason for being. If peace talks are ever held and the fighting stops, the generals will be out of work. They'll be stuck at the Pentagon, making chains out of paper clips." Luton also saw the false, inaccurate reporting of the Tet Offensive. A complete American route of the enemy, the men with the pens and microphones reported this as a U.S. military defeat, while in reality it was a shattering blow to the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. The final internal conflict was when Luton met a "Digger"(A soldier in the Australian Army) named Captain Birdsong, who albeit inebriated, hit a sensitive nerve in Whitlock by questioning his manhood and calling him a coward. Birdsong sent Luton over the edge by telling him: You should be out in the boondocks with us, mate, mixing it up with Charlie, not pushing a pencil back at your cushy headquarters. Oh sure, you can say, "I'm in Vietnam, but you aren't really, are you? This is just like being in the States, isn't it, with a bit of shelling thrown in from time to time-just enough so that you don't have to feel guilty about collecting your hazardous pay duty. You and your fellow REMF's are more than willing to take the credit and the glory and the medals that will come your way for being in a war zone without actually taking part in the war itself. You're content to stand on the fringe of the battlefield, handing food and ammunition to those of us who are doing the real fighting, just as long as you don't get any of the mud or blood on you, You truly do believe in stopping communism-as long as it's someone else who has to do the actual stopping. Am I right?" I promise what happens next will never leave you and will be read over and over again. If you read one historical novel about the Vietnam War, make it "Internal Conflicts."