Marble Mountain
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Published: 2011
Language: eng
Format: Paperback (softcover)
Number of pages: 484
ISBN-13: 9781456743482
Table of contents: title: Review Written By Bernie Weisz, Historian, Vietnam War, Pembroke Pines, Fl USA Sept.,15, 2011 Contact: BernWei1@aol.com Title of Review: Winning The Hearts & Minds of People Who Chain Themselves To A .50 Cal Machine Gun Is Going To Be A Tough Sell!; title: Is "Marble Mountain" a humorous book, a memoir, a personal legacy, or a war story regarding the author's plight as a Huey helicopter pilot in the early stages of the Vietnam War? The answer really depends on who is reading it. Regardless of who that is, Bud Willis's book revealed disturbing futuristic trends of a war America was only seeing, metaphorically speaking, the tip of the iceberg as to its unavoidable climax. In making this statement, there are several factors to consider. Willis selected the May 7, 1954 French surrender at Dien Bien Phu to Ho Chi Minh's forces, known then as the "Viet Minh," as his starting point. It should also be noted that within two years of this, America's casualties would commence. For the historically uninitiated, the author's history lesson is concise, arming the reader with reference points whereupon everything that followed makes sense. Two months after this French debacle, an accord was reached in Geneva, Switzerland whereby both North and South Vietnam were partitioned into two zones at the 17th Parallel, used as a demarcation point. Elections were to scheduled to occur within two years of this to determine Vietnam's fate, with its indigenous population selecting either Uncle Ho's Northern Communism, or opting for leadership from the former Emperor of Vietnam, Bao Dai.; title: Considered a French and Japanese puppet, it was taken for granted Dai would lose and Vietnam would become Communist. Eisenhower already had developed his version of the "Domino Theory," prompting the CIA to quickly step in. Next, they installed Ngo Din Diem as the South's Prime Minister, and Dai was quietly ousted. It is with regret that Willis did not publish his book at the conclusion of his 1966 tour. Between the next decade following the fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 to the August, 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, which would be used as a pretext to commit U.S. troops en mass, 401 Americans would be killed on Vietnamese soil. The next year saw 1,863 fatalities and in 1966, the year Willis wrote this memoir, 6,143 Americans would lose their lives. The worst was yet to come, as in 1967 the number would jump almost 50 percent to the demise of  11, 616 soldiers. The following year was considered the war's zenith with the infamous "Tet Offensive." This event spelled the beginning of the end for American involvement, with 16,592 of our nation's finest taking their "last ride home." Sadly, "Marble Mountain" unintentionally contains powerful hints as to why this war would inevitably turn into an American catastrophe, regardless of our forces zeal, technological or military superiority.; title: Willis conveys this early enthusiasm by using his hometown as an example,a small, but fiercely patriotic area in the south central part of Tennessee called Tullahoma. This unpretentious beginning takes you with him straight to South Vietnam, where he served as a Marine pilot flying numerous missions in the latest helicopter, a Bell UH-1 Gunship, affectionately known as a "Huey." Willis's missions were varied, from medical evacuation of wounded troops that were in areas inaccessible to anything but a vertical landing by helicopter, usually surrounded by hostile enemy troops shooting at his aircraft. Willis also flew other missions, serving as a fighter escort for "combat assaults." His helicopter could prepare an LZ for a landing, blasting the area with machine gun fire and rockets, thus making sure the enemy kept their heads down. Equally important, Willis would perform security by policing the area for enemy soldiers as he accompanied a gaggle of troop carrying helicopters called "slicks." These helicopters were without protective weaponry, designed solely for rapidly inserting or extracting troops, usually from "hot" landing zones. Other lesser performed missions were inserting or extracting Special Force operatives on covert missions tasked with snatching for intelligence purposes an enemy "prisoner of war," or undertaking  reconnaissance and sabotage in inaccessible, behind enemy line areas.; title: These were extremely dangerous missions that were undertaken in unmarked helicopters, with Willis and his crew wearing uniforms without insignias. These were generally in the no man's land of the DMZ or Laos, an area America officially denied ever being in. One common factor that was omnipresent from the minute Willis set foot in South Vietnam until his departure was the threat and fear of imminent death. He makes it clear that there was no safe place regardless of where he was in that country, with this threat only evaporating after his commercial airplane, known affectionately as the "Freedom Bird" lifted off and departed Vietnamese soil. It is interesting to note that most Vietnam War memoirs that have come out the past two decades are labeled "historical fiction." This is because despite the author's attempt to deliver a true and accurate rendition of what occurred almost a half century ago, names, places and the exact sequence of events can easily blur for even authors with vivid memory recall. Willis was smart, as without any future intention of publishing an account of his unfolding tour, he faithfully kept a daily journal of his impressions and emotions, diligently adding to it from the early days of his tour to its final conclusion. He also recovered the letters he wrote home to his family.; title: While Bud Willis qualifies that he was married with a two week old son when he left for Vietnam, he notes that his recovered letters home had to be taken with a grain of salt. While they complimented his journal in jogging his memory for material, he points out that in writing home, he did his utmost to avoid the carnage he witnessed. By doing this, he would prevent and shield his loved ones from worrying about the very dangerous occupation he was involved in, dealing with death on a daily basis in a variety of situations. An important subject he prefaces this memoir off with is the issue of relationships. A common concern to all those who are deployed for long periods of time overseas is maintaining a relationship with a significant other while separated and successfully resuming them upon return. While the blow of the initial separation was trying enough, Willis unequivocally wrote that receiving letters from his wife and photos of his son was the brightest part of his day. There are many Vietnam War memoirs that exist explaining the importance of mail and communication from home to the deployed soldier out in the remote jungles, mountain tops and rice paddies. Separated from home and subjected to extensive combat, those letters provided the only link of normalcy left, psychologically connecting these combatants to their peaceful past filled with pleasant memories.; title: The phenomenon of the "Dear John" letter is well documented, particularly in this genre. Not only did men change from combat, but women who were exposed to the massive domestic unrest and antiwar rhetoric of this period changed as well. Issues of infidelity arose. There were soldiers in Vietnam whose significant other would turn against the war, cruelly breaking up by sending him an insensitive "Dear John" letter, a formal notice that the relationship was over and that they have moved on and met someone else. This can be disastrous, especially when a soldier, already in a precarious state of mind from the daily grind of war heard this, no less was flying a helicopter or was armed with an M-16. As the reader will discover, Willis was exposed to incredible stress on a daily basis, constantly flying missions in a sleep deprived condition regardless of the day, time or weather. He saw wanton slaughter, death, and destruction of both the enemy and his fellow Marines. As a young eyewitness to the inevitable aftermath of combat, Willis reluctantly had a front row seat to something Hollywood tries to portray but never can quite duplicate the horrible repugnance of. Admitting that he returned from Vietnam a changed, emotionally unavailable spouse, his marriage sadly failed. Another challenge the author faced, less obvious to the reader, is the issue of the passage of time. "Marble Mountain" was put together in 2011.; title: Bud Willis was born in 1941.  He was 68 years old when he assembled this memoir, working with material he wrote at age 24. Clearly seeing the difference in mentality, he had to make a choice to alter his words of 1966 to fit his 2011 maturity level or leave them as he wrote it  45 years ago. He elected the latter, preserving it exactly as written. This memoir was almost not written, as Willis had decided to put his past, particularly the subject of Vietnam as far out of his mind as possible.  There are reasons for this. Unlike the W.W. II Vets who in 1945 triumphantly came back from the war together on massive troop ships where they consoled each other for weeks while out at sea, the Vietnam Vet had a completely contradicting experience. While the returning hero fresh from battling Hitler and Hirohito was greeted with ticker tape parades, camaraderie and later reconnecting VFW halls, the majority of Vietnam Veterans came home on a twenty four hour commercial flight, often alone. With the political climate focusing on "peace with honor" after the media falsely convinced America that the "Tet Offensive" was an American defeat, LBJ's decided not to run again. Richard Nixon was elected, and distrust with anything attached to the government ran high among this nation's citizenry. Incidents like the 1968 My Lai Massacre and the 1969 "Speedy Express" Operation extended this suspicion to the military. In this instance, the Ninth U.S. Infantry Division swept the Mekong Delta of enemy Viet Cong, and in the process claimed that they killed 10,889 of the enemy, while only losing 40 of ours.; title: The problem was that along with announcing a kill ratio of 272 to 1, only 748 enemy weapons were recovered. Not only did a Veteran return alone from S.E. Asia, but he had to worry about being assaulted by his own countrymen, unfairly accused of being a "baby killer" and "homicidal drug addict." There are ample memoirs that will attest to this, making the likelihood of this disrespectful phenomenon unlikely of being an isolated incident. The early 1970's only made it worse to be a Vietnam Veteran. Schisms broke out, with the emergence of the G.I. Anti-war coffee houses and the "Vietnam Veterans Against The War" both  becoming vocal. Watergate saw Nixon booted out, and along with his ouster from the executive office went his pledge to support South Vietnam through thick and thin.  Saigon fell and some Vietnam Veterans started to get sick, claiming this was a consequence of being doused by Agent Orange. Saigon was renamed "Ho Chi Minh City and Veterans of that war were now labeled "losers" by their W.W. II piers, and as a consequence their silence upped to a new  level even among each other. Bud Willis was no exception, claiming that he had no contact with virtually anyone he served with after coming home. He justified this by citing that his memories, most of which are within the pages of this book, were simply too exacting to recall. The reader of "Marble Mountain" can thank Francis Ford Coppola,  Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando for its existence, for without their portrayal in the Vietnam War movie "Apocalypse Now,"  this excellent account would never have seen the light of day. Taking his painful memories of his past into consideration, Willis decided in the late 1970's to go with a group of friends to see the movie "Apocalypse Now," where Martin Sheen portrayed "Captain Willard." He was a Special Forces operative sent on a dangerous mission into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade Green Beret played by Marlon Brando, who had set himself up as a God among a local tribe.; title: Willis claimed that he was only able to last one hour before he had to bolt out of the theater, the fear factor of combat gripped him so intensely. Acting as his own therapist, he decided to desensitize himself by going to re-watch it again and again until he could successfully watch the entire movie. Each time he lasted longer and longer until finally after five trips Willis was successfully able to view this movie from beginning to end without interruption.  This exact same scenario recently occurred with Richard Vnuk, a Vietnam Veteran and author of the new memoir entitled "Tested in the Fire of Hell." Thirteen years had passed since he flew from Danang to Okinawa on a 707, his last day in South Vietnam. Ironically, there is a picture of this in the book for the reader to view of Willis at the airport right before boarding his "Freedom Bird."  Needless to say, Bud Willis was now able to talk about his one year in hell. He began doing research for the purpose of writing this book, and because of the Internet this eventually lead to the author reconnecting with old friends he served with. Bud Willis unequivocally asserts that while ninety percent of this book is about his experiences as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, his intentions were for "Marble Mountain" to be a "coming of age story," explaining how pilots were caught between their compassion for the troops on the ground and global politics. His second intention was to expose to the general public what he deems "the human side of combat."; title: He clarifies this by using this memoir to communicate "what goes on in a young man's mind when he knows he is being asked to give up all he has for his country." Both of these points are very cogently expanded within the pages of this book. In describing the level of patriotism he was surrounded with as a child, he recalled his upbringing in Tullahoma, Tennessee. In that part of the South, one would learn "The Pledge of Allegiance" before "the Lord's Prayer." Citing Elvis Presley's draft into the military, Willis made two statements to prove his point. In regard to "The King of Rock 'n' Roll," Willis put forth: "If Elvis could be drafted, anybody could." In regard to backing up the rationale behind his native state's moniker of "The Volunteer State" being embossed on all license plates, Willis added: "I'll wager that none of the 70,000 men who fled to Canada to avoid Vietnam were from my home town." While there are no Tullahoma statistics to deny or support this, there is this undeniable figure: As of June, 2011 there were 58, 212 Americans killed in action in Vietnam. Of these, 17, 725 were drafted, and 40,484 that enlisted! Brimming with American ardor, Willis recalled that in 1961,when he was in his junior year at "Tennessee Tech University" his rehearsal for re-enacting King Henry V in a Shakespeare play was interrupted. Three men burst in to his classroom, asking for "a few good men" to join the Marine Corps as an Officer. These were the school quarterback, the commander of the ROTC Drill Team and the student body president. Willis must not have heard one of Murphy's Laws, particularly the one that warns "Never Volunteer for Anything" as he asked the accosting trio: "How many men are you looking for?" He was shocked at their answer: "Just one more, You!" The rest was history.; title: The author was off to ROTC training, where he quickly realized that between the grueling forced marches and humiliation, being an infantry soldier was not for him. This was probably the genesis of his later compassion for the troops on the ground. This class went from 350 down to 50 candidates upon completion, and in May of 1963 Willis graduated from college, bound for flight school in Pensacola. Strangely, he described himself as a man "dressed like an ice cream salesman with a sword," with a fever blister on his lower lip the size of a dime from all the stress. If he only had a crystal ball as to stress and the future! Upon entering flight school, a Marine gave him a taste of this by warning the group of 50 candidates that only 2 would graduate from flight school, 1 would be killed, leaving only 1 standing. After hearing this admonishment, Willis remembered that once one starts the habit of quitting, it's a tough habit to break, and consequently was both one of those two that graduated and the one that survived the war. However, in his fifth month there, worldly events started to gather warheads. On November 2, 1963, South Vietnamese President Diem and his brother were assassinated, and three weeks later, ex-Marine Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy. Prior to his death, J.F.K. publicly stated he was disenchanted with the corruption of the South Vietnamese elite and wanted American advisers withdrawn  from Vietnam.; title: Willis graduated from flight school, and reported to the "New River Air Facility," known as VMO-1 in Jacksonville, NC. With the first generation of Bell UH-1 Huey's being delivered to New River, this flight group Willis was part of was to be their pioneer pilots. The Tonkin Gulf Crisis had passed in August of 1964, and on February 26, 1965, Willis boarded a plane with three other officers from VMO-1. The small group flew from California to Danang, South Vietnam, with a brief one night stop in Kadena, Japan.  A Lieutenant with combat experience in Vietnam warned him shortly before departing in regard to what might be expected.  Aside from plenty of flying, Willis was told to be ready to "hit the ground running." The Marines had landed and established bases outside of Danang, at "Marble Mountain" (VMO-2) and Chi-Lau (VMO-6). While I will leave the large volume of individual combat anecdotes to be discovered by the reader,  this Lieutenant's warning would turn out to be an understatement. The Huey would change the face of warfare, shuttling Marines directly into combat on an hourly basis. This would be unlike any past war in history, catching Willis and all those who trained at VMO-1 completely unprepared. New River failed this first group of pilots in Vietnam, neglecting to teach their students everything there is to know about the Huey and its armaments, as well as code names, landing zones, descending  in pitch black darkness, radio frequencies, and memorization of the assigned tactical area of operation (TOAR). The cockpit would prove to be Willis's new classroom, and by the three week point, he was considered a veteran.; title: However, as stated in the beginning, Willis noticed that there were ominous signs that this early enthusiasm of an easy American victory would be a false illusion. While studying at New River, he came to the frightening realization that while American soldiers were trained to fight against Communism, the North Vietnamese showed an entirely different mentality, that is they were prepared to die for communism! "Marble Mountain" is full of examples of North Vietnamese tenacity, proving them to be an unrelenting opponent that would pick the time and place of most engagements.  The North Vietnamese degree of fanaticism to prevail included propelled them to unimaginable feats like digging miles of underground tunnels that rendered their soldiers invisible to American satellites, helicopters and spotter planes. They had anti aircraft heavy caliber automatic weapons that had to be rolled hundreds of miles from the North on primitive wheels that looked to Willis like something straight out of the Confederate Army. These big guns were operated by gunners that when killed, their corpses were discovered chained to their weapons so they couldn't run away. There was no emergency extraction from a Huey; they fought to the death! Willis made some other statements in this book that foretold the way this conflict would shape up. In assessing their method of fighting a first rate power, Willis  remarked: The North Vietnamese have a cockroach mentality and almost always prepare an underground escape route before exposing their position. We own the skies, and they own the underground."; title: Willis also made an excellent critique in examining the official reason given to the world community as to why we were in Vietnam in the first place, vehemently asserting that the premise of the "Domino Theory" was completely flawed. President Eisenhower justified funding the French with 400 million dollars and two atomic bombs (if only they would drop it themselves) prior to Dien Bien Phu. However, after this defeat, both JFK and LBJ would pick up the Domino Theory torch, while carefully eyeing the fertile Mekong Valley rice production as an asset subservient to American whims. Would men really fight a war and risk death over Communism, Socialism, Buddhism, Capitalism, or any "ism?" Willis concluded negatively, instead asserting that wars are fought over useful things that can be loaded on trucks and shipped around the world with price tags attached. The issues the politicians used as a rallying cry to whip up American war fever were smokescreens for their real designs of backing the "Military Industrial Complex." The real reasons wars are fought are to acquire land, natural resources, regional necessities such as food and water for free by placing an occupying force on it and asserting control.; title: However, Willis went way further then this, and he only saw this once he was in South Vietnam. He observed the American Military machine completely confused, with no singular strategy agreed upon to win the war. The Supreme Commander and Army General was William C. Westmoreland. He believed the path to victory was to wage a war of attrition, simply killing more of the enemy then they could replace, until they gave up. As a method to accomplish this, he ordered endless "Search and Destroy" missions, instituted "body counts" and in the process arrogantly missed the response Ho Chi Minh issued when asked how he planned to defeat a power as great as the U.S. Uncle Ho simply stated: "They will kill many of us, and we will kill a few of them. They will grow tired of it." In 1966, Ho was considered a foolish man and his answer completely preposterous. By 1968, this line of thinking began to make sense and would ultimately prove to be right on the money. Willis also cited the other two top Marine generals, who disagreed completely with Westmoreland. General Walt Lewis believed in winning the hearts and minds of the people with far reaching civic programs. Finally, the man with the intimidating "swagger stick," General Victor Krulak, believed the only way to stop the North Vietnamese was to mine the port of Haipong, which he called "the mouth that was feeding the war." Willis shows the reader that this divisiveness went all the way back to the U.S., with politicians disagreeing on the conduct of the war, and even the American people, who for the most part displayed an almost unbelievable lack of interest during the first nine years of this conflict.; title: In conclusion,  aside from the combatants, those involved in the Anti-war  movement and those that fled to Canada, the Vietnam War had little impact on Americans, except for the few who were for the most part from the least privileged elements of our society. To a large extent these were the ones who were called upon to do the fighting and dying. Willis gives countless examples throughout his memoir of how the American military was linked inextricably to the incompetent Army Republic of South Vietnam  (referred to by the acronym ARVN). The very same troops that were supposed to be our allies were mockingly referred to by our troops as "The Friendly VC." According to Willis, they were not trusted, unreliable and corrupt. This author joins a long list of Americans that went to Vietnam overconfident and filled with thoughts of an easy quick victory, until they saw many of the issues and false premises this author has clearly pointed out!  I will end this with a very telling comment Bud Willis made within the first month of his tour. At the time, he was flying missions out of  Marble Mountain, watching his fellow Marines guard the DMZ against NVA infiltration into the South. He lamented: "Taking over a piece of land is a concept that every Marine can wrap his head around. We were trained for that. Sitting around playing defense to protect it is someone else's job. Now, we've been inserted in the middle of a great civil war, playing political ping-ping with no clear-cut objectives."  It is truly a shame that Bud Willis did not publish this invaluable, well written and priceless memoir in 1967!