Title: Tears of Tay Ninh
Description: Review Written By Bernie Weisz, Historian, Vietnam War, August 30, 2011 Pembroke Pines, Fl, USA 
Contact: BernWei1@aol.com Title of Review: "U.S. Troops in Vietnam: Tricked to Fight A Senseless War Based On Enhancing Political Careers & Enriching Business Interests!"   Undoubtedly, the title of this review is guaranteed to cause unrest to the families of the 58, 212 Americans that lost their lives in the Vietnam War. It will be equally painful to any of the 153,452 wounded still around to read this intriguing novel, and even more so to the families of 1,7111 Americans still missing. Is this another in a long string of conspiracy theories that should be dismissed as hogwash? Unfortunately, there are too many truisms involved in "Tears of Tay Ninh" to ignore. The problem of credibility lies in the fact is that America has been so inundated with plots of secret cabals that point to the wealthy few that make decisions for the masses, assassination schemes as well as political and military perfidy to the point that the average person scoffs instantly at any suggestion that this country would be so treacherous as to send 3,403,000 troops to S.E. Asia from 1955 to 1973 for financial and political gain. It is even more irksome that out of the aforementioned number, 2,594,000 men and women were sent to serve in South Vietnam only to line the pockets of the military industrial complex with incredible amounts of wealth. However, "Tears of Tay Ninh" goes one step further, as the ingenuous storyline Hutchings devised is a metaphor for many other issues, insinuating that the Vietnam War was the proving ground for both the military brass to further their careers as well as the politicians that developed their savvy for the upcoming decades. How far are these premises from the truth? Out of those approximately two and a half million Vietnam Veterans that were in Vietnam, find one of the estimated 850,000 still alive today, hand him a copy of this book, and ask him what he thinks after he has finished reading it! 
 
 
Thomas Hutchings is one of them, qualifying himself in the first page of this book as follows: "February 1970 was my first arrival in Saigon at the age of twenty during the Second Indochina War-called "The American War" in Vietnam.That significant event of my life was a milestone, particularly as a young man flying on intelligence combat missions." It certainly makes one wonder that many Vietnam Veterans have had a veil of silence over their roles in this conflict, as only in the last ten years have we seen a significant outcrop of newly published memoirs from these very participants.  Conspiracy theories abound, some so absurd that just the utterance of them brings rebuke from the poor individual unfortunate enough to be forced have to listen to such foolishness. The early 1900's saw the theory put forth regarding Jews and banking, including the myth that world banking was dominated by the Rothschild family, Jews controlled Wall Street, the U.S. Federal Reserve, Hollywood and the news media. A maniac in Germany named Adolf Hitler listened to this, twisting this to his interpretation. He sold his version of anti-Semitism to his countrymen, claiming that a "Jewish plot" existed whereby Karl Marx, the Bolshevik Revolution and the Jewish bankers, physicians and landowners of Germany were all interrelated and responsible for Germany's defeat in W.W.I. Then there was the "Bible Conspiracy," whereby there are those that insist  that much of what is known about the Bible, in particular the New Testament, is a deception. Books exist alleging that Jesus really had a wife, that a group such as the "Priory of Sion" had secret information about the bloodline of Jesus, as well as the one about Jesus not dying on the cross and that the carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin was part of a conspiracy by the Vatican to suppress this knowledge.  However, conspiracy theories are not limited to religion. 
 
 
There are claims that AIDS is a human-made disease, that the CIA deliberately administered HIV to African Americans and homosexuals in the 1970s via tainted hepatitis vaccinations. Lets not forget extraterrestrial conspiracies, the Bermuda Triangle, and Area 51. How about Bush's allegation of Iraq's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" or Barack Obama's birth conspiracy theories? While there are many more, such as who really assassinated John and his brother Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, the idea put forth that a programmed "Manchurian candidate" may have been used for ulterior motives is indirectly addressed in "Tears of Tay Ninh." The issue of "who benefits?" from these murders is indirectly addressed, as Hutchings starts his novel with six powerful members summoned at a moments notice by their leader, i.e. "The Chairman" to address the elimination of an individual that could threaten their status and livelihood. The issue at large was discussing the elimination of someone in Vietnam that held such adverse information. This is in line with conspiracy theorists who assert that insiders often have far more powerful motives than those to whom the assassination is attributed to by mainstream society. Until one reads Thomas Hutchings book, the future reader is warned not to scoff off Hutchings proposition. Going back to that secret cabal meeting, Hutchings included that when these six leaders flew in and flew out for this meeting, all air traffic was completely suspended out of this airport as the grounds were heavily patrolled by roving security. Is this far fetched? 
 
 
Juxtapose this with the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11,  2001 terrorist attacks. How was it that while U.S. airspace was completely restricted, airplanes were sanctioned by the George Bush administration to fly about the U.S. for the purpose of gathering up 140 high-ranking Saudi Arabians? Even more troublesome was the fact that this group included relatives of Al-Quaeda chief Osama bin Laden, all spirited out of the country within a week of the terror. As a symbol of Hutchings thesis, he used two characters, Hugh Campbell and Whitman Emerson. This duo was selected in 1966 from Army Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia for the infamous "MACV-SOG," an acronym for Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - Studies and Observations Group. Sent to South Vietnam in 1966 as part of SOG, they were given a highly classified, special operation in covert unconventional warfare. They were selected to carry out a "Black Operation," ordered to conduct a highly clandestine assassination of a North Vietnamese Army Intelligence Officer in an area outside of standard military protocol between Cambodia and South Vietnam known as "COSVN." This was the term for the political and military headquarters during the Vietnam War of the communist effort in the southern half of the Republic of Vietnam which involved the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. Campbell and Emerson were told that this NVA officer was supposedly carrying tactical and strategic operations plans directly from Ho Chi Minh and General Vo Nguyen Giap to COSVN which would provide the strategy for the Communists to win the war, end the hostilities, and reunify the country. Ho Chi Minh was the Communist North Vietnamese president from 1945 until his death in 1969 as well as a key figure in the formation of the Viet Cong in the South during the Vietnam War. Still alive today, General Vo Nguyen Giap is a retired Vietnamese officer in the Vietnam People's Army and a politician. He was the most prominent military commander, beside Ho Chí Minh, during the first Indochina War against the French, resulting in the Franco defeat at the 1954 Battle of "Dien Bien Phu" as well as in the Vietnam War. He was responsible for major military operations and leadership such as the 1968 "Tet Offensive" and the final 1975 capture of Saigon, overseeing the North's ultimately successful effort until the war ended.  
 
 
Thomas Hutchings sets up the reader of this seemingly perplexing story by jumping from situation to situation. Added to that is the twist that Campbell and Whitman returned forty years after the end of the war to visit Vietnam, with the latter being murdered under suspicious circumstances. From the 1966 secret American meeting rooms of cabal leaders making decisions to support the status quo of the military industrial complex, to Hugh Campbell and Whitman Emerson's interplay in South Vietnam both during the war and in their 2005 return trip, none of these anecdotes initially make any sense nor connection. Hutchings inter-spaces this with someone apparently blind describing what it is like to be trapped in a world dominated by tactile sensory input only, begging the reader to keep reading further and further. Each chapter is like building a puzzle, with the author continually adding seemingly non-related facts one on top of another until almost "a light" comes on in the reader's mind and everything makes perfect, crystal clear sense. Ultimately, upon conclusion of this novel, one can only wish and pray that this story is really only contrived, and God help us if it is not! Nothing prima facie turns out in the end as it is first presented. Hutchings, prior to describing Campbell and Emerson's mission, intentionally includes a peace initiative by Ho Chi Minh to President Nixon to end the war before any more senseless deaths occur or Agent Orange is doused on an innocent population. This later makes flawless logic, as the story concludes. The reader also wonders why after the two SOG officers successfully carried out their assassination and attempted to return back to American lines, the pair found themselves directly under an intense B-52 carpet bombing. This bombing suspiciously occurred immediately after Campbell radioed to his superiors that the mission was completed and that he was both unable to destroy the slain NVA officer's documents and in fact was still in possession of them. 

 
 
Would American forces actually order an assassination of their own, under any circumstances? How far fetched is this? Consider the following passage out of Michael Orban's 2007 memoir "Souled Out." Drafted in 1970 at the age of 19, Orban found himself as an Army infantryman in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. If you pick up this memoir, you will come upon this disturbing section that reads as follows: "When the Australian Army surprised an estimated five thousand NVA Regular forces lodged up in a huge and well fortified jungle bunker complex, we were told (after listening to the raging sounds of that battle for two days) that the NVA were retreating by cover of night. We were assembled in small units and were carried by helicopter into the jungle to set up an ensnarement. After arranging a huge arc of ambushes, we were positioned in the NVA's supposed path of retreat. There was no way we had enough ammunition so we realized that if every bullet we fired killed one of them, we would still be overrun and annihilated. A retreating Army would be desperate and not allow a dozen guys to stop them. We finally understood that we were there only to identify the NVA position so heavy guns and air strikes could be brought in to obliterate them. Before help could get to us, we'd be overrun and dead. We were "expendable," the "price to be paid." I have never had such a sinking and despairing feeling as I did that moment. Other human beings had no right to offer our lives for their meaningless goals!" Orban's following comments embodies the very essence of "Tears of Tay Ninh." Upon realizing that he was nothing but sacrificial bait in the eyes of American military leaders, he angrily asserted the following: "How could our lives be that useless and unimportant? I was at once emptied of shock and filled with fury. I wanted to get to those who were sending us to do this and drag their butts out to where we were. I wanted to make them suffer and endure the same fear, humiliation, and degradation of life that they were dealing out. But there was no escape, nowhere to run: Our only choice was to face death. We prepared to die for a war we knew had no purpose, no legitimate goal; we knew our country was in no danger, However, the NVA, being knowledgeable jungle soldiers, evidently sent out a scout who spotted our ambush, and so they avoided us and disappeared into the jungle. We never saw them." 
 
 
Needless to say, the novel continues with several twists. Prior to departing on their covert mission, Campbell had met a beautiful 18 year old girl, Vo Thi Thu Lan, who worked for the Colonel he reported to at the Tay Ninh Special Forces compound. Falling in love with her, he would meet her again during the mission, as a Viet Cong soldier.  However, She would save his life, leading him to safety as B-52 bombs mercilessly rained down, almost obliterating him. Although Emerson and himself would leave Vietnam at the conclusion of their tours, Campbell was able to hide these documents in a "Cau Dai Temple" in Tay Ninh, where it stayed, beckoning his return for four decades. Prior to the near fatal bombing, Thu Lan would tell him something about her country that would embed itself in his mind, a remorse that served as a partial motivating factor for his return forty years later. As a member of the Viet Cong, yet desiring an American Special Forces operative, she reasoned: "The constant discord inside her underscored the conflict that was taking place between the superpowers Soviet Union, China and the U.S., all using Vietnam to assert their global positions towards dominance of a certain economic and political system. Rather than fighting between themselves, they used and exploited the Vietnamese who simply wanted a reunified country." Campbell carried this secret of the hidden documents with him, even though Emerson would chide him that he was hiding them. Although denying this knowledge,Campbell would have upsetting, reoccurring dreams plaguing him every night, always involving a subconscious effort to recall Thu Lan. In addition to wanting to solve this mystery of his nightmares, he knew one day he would return to this Vietnamese temple to retrieve the documents. Little did he know that there were others that would go to any lengths to prevent this. Needless to say, as an ex intelligence officer who lived in Vietnam until recently relocating back to the U.S, Hutchings made daring statements that can be vicariously interpreted to represent the author's sentiments for many suffering Vietnam Veterans, both Vietnamese and American alike within this novel. 
 
 
For the indigenous Vietnamese War Veteran of this conflict, Hutchings sums his collective experience up as follows, using Campbell to substitute his own views: "Hugh thought of the human misery, beneficiaries of a war long over, ever collecting their monthly entitlements in the form of twisted limbs for simply being born in a country used as a pawn between the superpowers of the day. Presidents, Prime Ministers, Commissars oblivious to the horrors they would unleash; Johnson's Christmas bombing of Hanoi, Nixon's incursion into Cambodia and the secret war in Laos. Hugh returned his thought to people's suffering. His mind returned momentarily to napalm, Agent Orange and Agent Blue, White Phosphorous and eventually to suspected enemy agents being pushed out of helicopters at fatal altitudes." For the American Vietnam War Veteran, Hutchings used his main protagonist once again, explaining Campbell's thoughts as follows: The returning U.S. service personnel came back to the states to face their own battles of unemployment and many carried with them deep psychological scars. Some Vets Hugh knew became suicide statistics, others returned to the uniformed life, although it was a prison blue; sentenced for their inability to assimilate in American society once more. Hugh felt that after a year of being ordered to kill people, military or civilian, the guys who returned were simply messed up in their minds. They returned to a culture they had no more emotional contact with; a culture, they thought, had wanted them do to those horrible things but did not support them upon their return. They were taught to be killing machines, but were never told how to turn those switches off by the trainers. Their fathers were welcomed as heroes after World War II and even Korea. But the Vets who served in Vietnam were spit upon and called names, such as "Baby Killer" and other epithets that Hugh had since put out of his mind." How did Thomas Hutchings use this story to display his feelings for the ones responsible, i.e. Robert McNamara, William Westmoreland, Lyndon Johnson, et. al.? Once again Hugh Campbell was his surrogate spokesman: "Hugh would get invariably angry when he thought about the absolute lack of psychological support from the U.S. government and the military that sent them to Southeast Asia. Hugh was fond of calling the nameless and faceless "cowards" in Washington, D.C. Cowards with the courage to order others to kill and be killed while safely eleven thousand miles away. Cowards for their practice of ordering deaths one moment and ordering martini's for themselves and their mistresses the next." 
 
 
How about the teenager that was plucked out of high school or college and dropped off in a Vietnamese rice paddy, with AK-47 shells buzzing within earshot?  Hutchings commented: "The opportunity to finish his university degree, find a steady girl to get married and have a house with the white picket fence had been interrupted by the war, a war he believed, and later discovered, was absolutely senseless."  There is plenty of innuendo to support Hutching's claim that the Vietnam War was purely a money making enterprise to support the military industrial complex. It is widely known that J.F.K., should he have lived, would have pulled American forces out of S.E. Asia. It is now blatantly obvious that the "Tonkin Gulf" lie launched the Vietnam War. In the supposed August, 1964 NVA patrol boat attacks on two U.S. destroyers,  Secretary of War Robert McNamara later reported he had given L.B.J. false, inconclusive information that the president overreacted and ordered retaliatory strikes on. In fact, in 1965, L.B.J commented privately: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there." There are several comments in this book that summed up Hutching's feelings on the Vietnam War, whereas the author felt American soldiers were like intricate marionettes with strings pulled, perhaps by those in Washington, D.C. The second one was that American soldiers in Vietnam were nothing more than prostitutes for the brass and politicians, and finally he felt that the troops in Vietnam were  sent by politicians and domestic corporate business concerns to their senseless deaths primarily to protect American business interests overseas. Who were the winners? "Root and Brown" later renamed "Haliburton, Bell Helicopter Company, Lycoming Turbine Engine Division, Armalite, Inc., Colt Manufacturing Company, Dow Chemical Company and others. And the ones that suffered? The numbers are countless. This book is a fascinating exploration of a seldom looked at fact: war that is for profit has an incalculable price associated with it, casualties in the bodies, minds, families, later generations of both sides of combatants. This should always be taken into account and made clear to all that this is a very poor reason to kill someone else! This is an important book that speaks in many different ways for all that were involved in this woeful conflict almost a half of a century ago!