Title: No Sweat, GI. One Vietnam Soldier's Story
Description: Review Written by Bernie Weisz Historian, Vietnam War September 24, 2010 Pembroke Pines, Florida Contact: BernWei1@aol.com Title of Review: " A REMF, Vietnam and 1970:Working 6 Days a Week, 12 Hours A Day The Big Leagues Of Heat!"  It doesn't matter that Ed Callison was not a combat veteran, writing about endless search and destroy missions in the oppressive heat of South Vietnam's jungles. If you are looking for stories of M-16's, Claymore mines, "Bouncing Betty's", and combat assaults on an elusive enemy, you have the wrong book. However, if you would like to gain some insight that gives the reader a glimpse of what it was like to serve in the Vietnam War, whether in rear echelon assignments on land, sea and air, be it "in-country" (in Vietnam) or "in-theater" (Cambodia, Thailand, Guam, etc.) your curiosity will be greatly satiated by "No Sweat, GI." Ed Callison reveals roles rarely discussed in other accounts of this conflict. Throughout the 76 short but telling pages, readers get some sense of the sacrifices and contributions to the Vietnam War effort those in the rear made, referred to by some as "REMF's." When one mentions the "Vietnam War", the average reader's mental image are probably things like fire fights in deep jungles and rice paddies, artillery fire, rocket attacks, body counts, tunnel rats, napalm strikes, villages burned, and atrocities committed. Being America's first "television war", those were the images the media constantly fed to the public and that was what most saw of it. However, as the reader of "No Sweat, GI." discovers, it was much more than that. It may come as a surprise to some students of history, but the facts are that only a relatively small percentage of troops who served in that war were actually "in-country" ground combat troops. Some calculate it as from 1 of every 3 or 4, others from 1 out of 7 or 8, depending upon how it is calculated. 

Whether being in combat, or sleeping on a supposedly secure base worried that NVA sappers would overrun your position, sneak up on you and cut your throat or a communist mortar round would land on your hooch with your name on it, all who served in Vietnam were forced to endure hardship and horror too terrible for most to imagine. And may God bless every single combat soldier, airman or naval sailor who was a part of that brave minority that actually did do the fighting. They have earned and rightfully deserve all the honor and appreciation we can possibly bestow on them. Tragically, 58,236 of them made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. It is therefore only appropriate, they are the ones most people think of first when the words "Vietnam War" are mentioned. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the majority of GI's who served in that war were there serving in support roles, e.g. men and women often referred to by the "front line" troops as "REMF." These individuals participated, and their roles cannot be ignored. Like all wars, this conflict gave rise to it's own acronyms and catch phrases. The term "REMF" was often used by those who were out there "in the bush", sardonically referring to those who remained in rearward positions in places of relative safety. It was not a term of respect or endearment. Out of proper literary etiquette, I cannot define in print what "REMF" was verbal shorthand for. Indignation arose to those out there in the jungles of Vietnam who faced a cunning, elusive and deadly foe on a daily basis, sleeping out in the bush in tattered clothes, eating horrible C Rations and getting soaked to the bone by Vietnam's monsoons while so many others did not have to face the same danger which these the relatively few did. While those feelings were understandable, the broad brush application of "REMF" to all who served in the rear is, in itself, unfair. 

Much of the public, and many Vietnam veterans as well, grossly underestimate the scope and importance of the contributions made by those so-called "REMF's". As the old cliché went: "In the rear with the gear," the truth of the matter was that no war can ever be waged without the vast support machinery of supply, ordinance, vehicle and aircraft maintenance, construction, engineering, transportation, medical and intelligence personnel. And it is also a fact that those called "REMF's, like those in the bush, made that ultimate sacrifice in service of our nation, even in those supposedly "safe" rearward positions. It is interesting to note that of the 58,236 names on "The Wall" in Washington, incredulously 18,245 paid the ultimate price in "non-hostile" deaths. Regrettably, of the plethora of biographies, memoirs, documentaries and discussions on the Vietnam War, this sorrowful contribution is all too often forgotten. This is especially true of those operatives, referred to as "Spooks" (CIA Operatives) who served in "The Secret War", outside of Vietnam's borders in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Only recently has the machinations of the "Phoenix Program" and the tasks that "Air America" engaged in have come to press. Further removed physically were those who played indispensable roles serving on Guam and the Philippines servicing the air war, on Okinawa and any number of other remote places, thousands of miles from home and family and the land they loved, sharing the load and doing all that was asked of them in support of a war most care to forget about. 

Who were these "REMF's"? They were men and women, pilots and truck drivers, aircraft mechanics and engineers, radar technicians and aircraft armament specialists. They also were supply clerks, weather forecasters, doctors, nurses and medics. There was more. A war cannot be fought solely with ground combat troops. Essential were the were military police, communications specialists, interpreters, intelligence analysts, and others in occupations too numerous to list. Ed Callison was both a Military Police and Military Intelligence participant. Eager to read combat stories of this war, little does the public realize that someone was needed to repair and arm the B-52's that flew interdiction missions from Thailand over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, or the "Rolling Thunder" and later "Linebacker" bombing missions over Hanoi, or the combat support missions over Khe Sanh and hundreds of other remote places in South Vietnam. Let's not forget those that served on the ships in the Tonkin Gulf, manning the radar or launching the planes against North Vietnamese targets, or the maintenance crews that kept the "Brown Water Navy" operational in South Vietnam's Mekong delta. Even less is written about those brave non combat individuals that flew humanitarian missions into Laos to drop rice to the Hmong tribesmen and other indigenous peoples, our staunch allies who were resisting the Pathet Lao and the North Vietnamese there. And what about the medical professionals that sacrificed their safety and sometimes lives to toil in S.E. Asia? Doctor Thomas A. Dooley III was one of them. Dooley was American Catholic who, while serving as a physician in the United States Navy, became increasingly famous for his humanitarian activities in South East Asia during the late 1950's until his early death on January 18, 1961 from cancer. He authored three popular inspirational books that described his humanitarian activities in South Vietnam and Laos entitled "Deliver Us From Evil", "The Edge of Tomorrow", and "The Night They Burned the Mountain." 

Ed Callison's book goes further. It gives tribute to those nameless and forgotten who during this conflict spent endless days in mind-numbing toil, tending and performing triage on the stream of wounded and maimed, returning from fields of battle. Others braved withering hostile fire to rescue downed American pilots in the jungles of South Vietnam or the no-man's lands of Laos and Cambodia. There are others that never received credit performing monotonous labor sitting in windowless boxes in remote radio compounds of the boonies of Vietnam, surrounded by chain link and razor wire, or orbiting "cargo" aircraft somewhere over Cambodia tuning a radio dial, headphones clamped on, secretly eavesdropping on enemy communications. These credit-less "REMF's" had to be hyper vigilant, attempting to intercept a piece of enemy intelligence that could make the difference in a battle or perhaps help to save American lives. Some, like Ed Callison, spent their days in an office (in Callison's case it was DaNang), fighting unrelenting boredom, pounding on a typewriter, performing a thankless job that was very unglamorous, but without which the American war effort could not continue. After one year in the U.S. Army, at age 24, Mr. Callison in 1969 traveled 10,000 miles from his hometown of Georgetown, South Carolina to Tan An, Long An Province for what he mockingly referred to as the following: "I was with the majority of soldiers who were lucky enough to get a year's vacation to sunny Vietnam." 

The reader will discover in this memoir attitudes through the eyes of a noncombatant, equally important to the historian's perspective of history. Mr. Callison wrote about some of those feelings as such: "It would be equally disingenuous of me to pretend that I don't have strong feelings about those who served and did their duty for their country, and those who turned their backs on it, and in some cases, even assisted our enemies". He was alluding actions such as to Jane Fonda, Robert Garwood and Walter Cronkite, all considered detractors from what was clearly an American military victory in all areas. Walter Cronkite, Jr. (November 4, 1916 - July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962-81). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960's and 1970's, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America." In mid-February 1968, Cronkite journeyed to Vietnam to report on the aftermath of the "Tet Offensive". Upon his return, on February 27, 1968, Cronkite closed "Report from Vietnam: Who, What, When, Where, Why?" with an editorial report stating on national television that the war in Vietnam was clearly lost, stating the following: "But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could." As a response to this, then President Lyndon B. Johnson, aside from declining a second term as president, also went on the airwaves and declared: ""If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." 

Robert Garwood was a controversial former Vietnam War P.O.W.. He was a U.S. Marine Corps Private First Class when he was captured by the enemy on September 28, 1965 at DaNang, in Quang Nam Province. Often cited as the last American POW from the Vietnam War, he was taken to North Vietnam in 1969, and reportedly released in 1973 along with all other American POWs, but did not return to the United States until March 22, 1979. Spending 14 years in captivity, he was accused of being a North Vietnamese collaborator. Learning fluently to speak North Vietnamese, Garwood translated orders between his captors and American POW's and was given preferential attention. He even "walked point" for the NVA with an AK-47 slung around his neck in offensive operations against the U.S. When he finally returned to America, Garwood was considered by the Department of Defense to have acted as a collaborator with the enemy. In 1998, the D.O.D. changed his status from RETURNEE to AWOL/Deserter/Collaborator. Garwood vehemently denied the charges of collaboration and accused the D.O.D. of trying to rewrite history to make him seem like a liar to downplay his 1984 claims that he had seen other POWs "left behind" after 1973. Although he had been held prisoner for 14 years, there were inconsistencies in his story. Many former POWs claimed to have witnessed Garwood apparently collaborating with the enemy, although with the experience of Patty Heart and her collaboration with her captors, it can be assumed that others might have coped comparably under similar circumstances. The Marine Corps convicted Garwood of collaboration, reducing him in rank to private and dishonorably discharged him. He forfeited all back pay. Although author Robert Pelton in his book "Unwanted Dead or Alive" stated that there are still Americans abandoned and forgotten in S.E. Asia, events conspired against Garwood. In June 1992, a U.S. task force examined the sites where Garwood claimed to have seen live U.S. prisoners, interviewed nearby residents, and met with Vietnamese officials, but reported "no evidence could be found to suggest that there are, or ever were, any live U.S. POWs" there. One wonders if this is a whitewash. 

Regardless, Jane Fonda is a figure whose activities during the war dwarf both Garwood and Cronkite's actions. While American Soldiers were fighting and dying, Jane Fonda, the daughter of actor Henry Fonda, used her money and influence at colleges and universities to gather support to advocate communism and encourage rebellion and anarchy against the U.S. Government. Incredulously, on November 21, 1970, she announced before a University of Michigan audience of 2000 students the following: "If you understood what communism was, you would hope, you would pray on your knees that we would some day become communist." Fonda also helped in the organization of a production group called the F.T.A. This group helped to set up coffee houses near military bases where they would perform anti-war derogatory-type sketches for the visiting soldiers. The coffee-house sketches were intended to counterpoint the U.S.O. shows, such as Bob Hope and other U.S.O. sponsored performers whose performances increased morale and gave positive support to American soldiers. Some of the F.T.A. coffee house employees would mingle with the soldiers to help them to "relax and unwind", while encouraging the soldiers to desert. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War Organization received major financial support from Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda's F.T.A. coffee houses helped in recruiting soldiers and veterans for an organization dubbed "The Vietnam Veterans Against The War". She also personally sought out returning American soldiers from Vietnam to solicit them to publicly speak out against American atrocities against Vietnamese women and children during her broadcasts. In 1972 Jane Fonda and her entourage traveled to North Vietnam to pledge their support to the North Vietnamese's Government. When she returned to the United States, she advised the news media the false information that all American P.OW's were being well treated and not being tortured. As the American POWs returned home in 1973, they exposed Fonda's lies and inaccuracies, indignantly chronicling their inhumane treatment and torture they were subjected to as P.O.W.'s. John Mc Cain, a former Presidential candidate, stated that he was tortured by his guards for refusing to meet with groups such as Jane Fonda's. Jane Fonda, in her response to these new allegations, referred to the returning POWs as being "hypocrites and liars." 

Ed Callison gave within the pages of this short but telling book his own interpretation of the Vietnam War, as he saw it. Reflecting, he wrote the following: "Soon after going "across the big pond", as we GI's called that fateful trip across the broad Pacific Ocean, I learned that most of the news that was reported back in the States was fiction. I discovered for myself what the true nature of war was, as described in many texts before my time by other soldiers as "hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror," and I came to appreciate our heroic efforts to help the people of South Vietnam resist communism-perhaps flawed in execution, but noble in purpose." His book takes the reader from December 11th, 1969 when he stepped off an American Airlines behemoth with 250 fellow warriors to November 17, 1970, when he took "Flying Tiger Airways", a freight hauling airline, describing it as his "Freedom Bird back to The World". Commenting on this, he wrote this telling comment: "Of course, we appreciated being able to finally go home, but with our typical sardonic humor, we joked that they wanted to make sure we got to the 'Nam, so they brought us over on a major airline, but didn't really give a damn whether or not we got back or not-hence, the freight-hauling airline that no nobody ever heard of". Mr. Callison closed this incredible memoir with the following remark: "I see my Vietnam service as the noblest period of my life, and that time as my greatest real adventure. I pray that our country will have a rebirth of true patriotism and love of freedom, and that Americans will continue to stand up for the rights of peoples all over the world to at least have some chance for democracy and self determination. I close this review with a passage from a letter I received from Mr. Callison when I obtained this book from him. It states: "Thanks for getting my book: it is more patriotic than some, but I'm a patriot and proud to be one. There have been people who have written about the Vietnam experience who never set foot in the country. Such books are total nonsense. Although those of us who were actually "In Country" sometimes differ in our views of the war, at least WE EARNED the right to talk about it. God Bless America!". I say, God Bless Ed Callison for writing the fantastic, eloquent and well written memoir "No Sweat, GI." Reviewer's Note: This book is available directly from the author. Please contact Ed Callison at: 
Ed Callison 2550 Ivey /Oaks Road, Cumming, GA 30041 Price of book: $15.00 (U.S.) includes postage. Author e mail contact:
ewcjr@bellsouth.net