Title: The Angel from Vietnam
Description: Written by Bernie Weisz Vietnam Historian Pembroke Pines, Florida e mail:Bernwei1@aol.com  June 27, 2010 Title of Review:
"It's Hard to Leave"  I defy the reader of this book not to read this in one sitting! It's almost impossible to put down. The author, Jim Stewart, in his writing debut, expresses himself so clearly, emotionally and graphically, you get visual pictures in your mind of the descriptions you read! There is a part of everyone's life experienced that the reader will be able to identify with within the pages of this book. This is a story where Stewart looks back on his life, sadly interrupted by the Vietnam War, the loss of his lover, his daughter (and later, he finds out his son, too!) and the sadness of excommunication from his family because of his choices. Originally written as "The Ghosts of Vietnam" (renamed "The Angel of Vietnam" to improve marketability, the book starts off with a prophetic quote:"Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions for your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great. Look at my affliction and my pain, and forgive all my sins". You are forewarned that a "heavy story" is coming up. Stewart was never in combat or was fired upon by the enemy, but he certainly was a psychological casualty, as his "wounding" in many ways hurt much more than a physical wound. Stewart starts off this book asserting that most Vietnam Vets today, aside from those involved in some of the unfortunate tragedies of the war (the My Lai Massacre, for instance) don't regret their tours of duty and wouldn't change any of it, whether positive or negative. They very much resent the undeserving and false stereotypes heaped upon them, such as "baby-killer, "junkie" and "loser" heaped upon them for many years after the end of the war. Stewart has the intelligence to look back at it philosophically and sum up the American Experience, and his personally as:"to me there are no "bad guys", it was a nation at war, and although I may not have understood it much then, I have come to realize that it was a country fighting for it's future. We were part of their struggle whether we accepted that fact or not. Individually we had a tremendous impact on the country and it's people. After all, we were there for a long time and were going to be there forever, weren't we? We wouldn't turn tail and run. We wouldn't be pushed out and be defeated by the Communists like the French. We would stay and build. We would always be in Vietnam. Of course, we didn't stay. We looked over our shoulders and hoped it would all just quietly go away and be behind us, like a bad dream that never really happened. But it has never gone away. it will always be with us far beyond the dying breath of the last Vietnam Vet. The legacy will remain". Unfortunately, some of that legacy is currently having disastrous results, with premature deaths and birth defects occurring in later generations as a consequence of "Dioxin", the poisonous chemical used to defoliate the jungle and deny the enemy it's sanctuary, as well as Vets that are still limping around with permanently disabling injuries. To support the actual combatant in the jungles and rice paddies, for every grunt you had 10 "R.E.M.F's (rear-echelon men-I can't use the exact obscenity-sorry!) in the background safe from combat and engaged in supporting roles. Mr. Stewart was one of those. Growing up Fair Haven, MD., Stewart describes his childhood as one of happiness and financial hardship. Stewart explains that his first glimpse of sex was only to "mate." Relating this story to describe this, "The cellar was also where dad would breed his Beagles. I was not allowed to watch. Any image of sex, even animals breeding was something children were made to turn away from. Often times, his brother, Uncle Fred, would come and help. I'm not sure why it took two grown men to breed two dogs, but I guess that was the wonder of sex. I certainly wondered about it." As the reader will see, Stewart's ideas of sex and children will continue to be confused later in life. Initially attracted to baseball, Stewart realized that his prospects at being a professional baseball player were dim when he realized that he couldn't hit a curve ball. As a teenager, a close friend received a guitar, and Jim was jealous. His father bought Jim one and he became an accomplished strummer until one day tragedy visited him. Jim had two brothers. One, John, was a lot older than him and joined the Air Force, leaving home when Jim was young. His second brother, Bob, was only three years older than him and also joined the Air Force. in 1963, Stewart learned that his father had a lethal form of Leukemia and had less than one year to live. Home without his brothers, Jim was forced to take care of his rapidly declining father unit his tearful death. There is a very painful anecdote where Jim and his brother Bob, on leave form the Air Force, take their father hunting one last time before his death. Jim's dad trapped a buck and his little deerling family in tow, having a perfect shot. Stewart witnessed his father's inability to take that perfect shot, unable to kill the leader of the deer's family. Jim believed that incident was his father's way of making peace with this animal, his impending death, and leaving this world. This story had me in tears, as it made me think of how poorly I dealt with my father dwindling down to nothing from a big, strapping man, the consequence of liver cancer, and my mother, who died instantly in front of me as I was talking to her from a massive cerebral stroke. There are tough descriptions of Stewart cleaning up his immobilized dad after soiling himself from incontinence. In this case, Stewart became "his father's father". There is also a story where Jim's dog, with a broken leg and internal injuries had to be euthanized as with his dad dying there was no money to bring the animal to a vet. What followed is a very hard to read of how Stewart had to kill his dog with a rifle! His father died shortly after-all before Stewart's 18th birthday! Incidentally, as a testament to her loyal devotion, Stewart's mom never dated nor remarried anyone. She died at age 81. Stewart graduated from high school with a "D" average, obviously suffering from depression and shock. He went to a baseball game to see the Philadelphia Phillies and saw an Army recruiting ad and decided to enlist. Flunking all technical tests, the recruiter proposed "Military Police" to Stewart and he acquiesced. Needing to take an M. P. hearing test. Stewart failed that one too (too much guitar playing when he was young destroyed his hearing). Stewart talked to a sergeant and told him that his grandfather was a police sergeant. The sergeant does Stewart a favor, "rubber stamping" his hearing test as passed, and in September, 1966 found himself aboard the "U.S. S. Buckner", the largest troop carrier in the world. Although returning for visits, Vietnam would be Stewart's home until July, 1970. However, during basic training more of Stewart's feeling became confused. Aside from being taunted and humiliated by a sadistic drill sergeant who made fun of Stewart's double chin, he befriended a muscular, massive black G. I. named Ding Rhodes. Three days after basic training graduation, Stewart learned Rhodes was killed in a car accident. More tragedy, abandonment and loss would plague Stewart to the end of this book. Stewart arrived in Long Binh, Vietnam before the massive American build-up of that city. He was eventually moved to Bien Hoa, and lost his virginity soon after to an under aged teenager being pimped to him by her father..for a whopping $2.00! Stewart found brothers pimping sisters, dirt and corruption in Vietnam-anything went! Stewart reflected on that experience with shame: "If I was supposed to feel invigorated, born into manhood, I didn't. How old was this girl? Was that her father who wanted to know where the money was when I entered that shack? I felt guilty." Despite being warned of a dreaded venereal disease in S.E. Asia called "Black Syphilis", Stewart ignored that warning and as a consequence of that experience contracted gonorrhea. Lying about his symptoms to get into sick bay, Stewart was busted upon exposure of his infection and after treatment was punished further by being given latrine detail whereupon he had to "burn feces" for waste disposal. Stewart was warned by his superior, Sgt. Aguirre: "always tell the truth, Stewart. No matter how much it hurts, tell the truth, son". Strange events kept happening to Stewart. He was in Vietnam for 3 months and as mentioned contracted VD, drank till getting drunk, passed out and "mysteriously" woke up at the base's perimeter, and then slept through a mortar attack with the whole base on alert. Next, he was assigned "lookout duty" at a listening post at the perimeter of Long Binh from 2 A.M. to 8 A.M. Fighting off sleep, in the wee hours of the morning, he saw and heard "something out there" coming towards the base. With the fear of sapper and charging NVA "human wave" attacks, without permission from his commander he fired off a flare to light up the area so he could see what was going on. Seeing the flare, the duty officer threatened Stewart "Court Marshal" if he ever did that again. Stewart wrote a remark that well speaks of the entire futile American involvement in Vietnam: "it was no use arguing. The rules of engagement, previously unknown to us, were now clear. No flares would be set off without permission. If we were shot at we'd have to ask permission before we shot a flare off. No matter if we were under attack we'd have to get on the phone and let them know and ask for permission. Would we win the war this way? If there were VC out there in the bush they must be laughing their asses off. I could envision them huddled low around the shrubbery now with one class clown cradling his AK-47 sarcastically chattering in Vietnamese, "call it in, call it". After Stewart took his first chopper ride where the helicopter leaped into the atmosphere at blinding speed with the gunner door opened, he witnessed a tragic incident that would come back to haunt him later. Being on gate guard street duty in Long Binh, he witnessed a 10 year old girl riding a bike get crushed to death accidentally by a wayward truck. He mournfully related: "She laid face up with her head tilted to the left. The back of her skull was missing. A trail of blood and scalp had splattered the roadway from where her twisted bike lay. There wasn't a drop of blood on her anywhere, just the exposed portion of her brain. Her school pack lay open on the roadway. Homework papers from the previous night clung to a three ring spiral notebook thrown out from it's impact. How could this have happened? This was just a girl on her way to school. She had become another statistic of the war that no one would ever know about except her family and friends. I helped place her body in a body bag and she was whisked away by an ambulance". More bizarre incidents happened as Stewart pulled convoy duty and was in the lead truck of a long convoy. He accidentally dropped a grenade out the back of the truck, and avoiding a "friendly fire" tragedy every truck rolled over it without detonation. Then, while out on patrol, Stewart's truck stopped in front of a house in the middle of nowhere. Stewart went in the house and the sole occupant was a beautiful woman reading a book called "Lady Chatterly", a pornographic novel. As Stewart wrote, the woman: "was standing in front of me now. She was absolutely beautiful. This woman belonged with some aristocrat, not standing in front of a dirty MP. "Can you come here" the woman asked. I looked up and she was standing in the doorway of another room. She was completely naked and her hair was down over her shoulders. I must have let out a loud gasp at the sight of her. The only thing I could think of was "I'm awfully Dirty" She held out one hand to me and said "I have a bath". That did it. Possibly with the memory of "Black Syphilis", Stewart bolted out of the house, never looking back. Stewart, during "Operation "Cedar Falls" reported he slept a lot. He elaborated as follows: "One thing we could do was sleep. Sleep took away the reality of being awake in a land so far from home." Next, Stewart was assigned to Bien Hoa, then Cong Ly, and finally Saigon. Some of his assignments as MP included security at Saigon Harbor and guarding the MACV compound outside the main gate to the airbase. One day, he was pulling a security detail and he saw a girl in a red "ao dai, (a Vietnamese "in style" typical female dress) on a cyclo (a motorized bicycle) pull up to him. After they both said hello to each other, Stewart reported: "I was in love, that's all it took". Stewart went back to the same spot the next day, saw the same girl again, found out her name was "Mai." She handed him her address. He later went to her house, met her sister, Dao, and found out Mai worked in a bar pushing drinks known as "Saigon Tea". This drink was nothing more than a kool-aid flavored drink (most bar girls did not drink or smoke) no bigger than a shot glass. The cost of the "tea" usually ran from one to two dollars. The girl split the cost with the bar owner, so it would be a lucrative income for a young 17-20 year old girl. Typically a girl would sit with a G. I. and get him plastered,of course with the Saigon Tea coming to the table for her. An "excuse me" would usually mean she was off to another table and another G. I. out of sight of the first one to tell him he was "handsome too" and to order more tea. Stewart fell "head over heels" in love with Mai (it was his first love!) and like many GI's, moved off base and in with her. Mai taught him many things. As Stewart saw much death (his father, his dog, Ding Rhodes, the young girl, he observed Mai lighting incense for her deceased relatives. She prophetically told him: "the incense is so that I can remember the people that are gone. The people are no longer on this earth, but are still here in, how you say? I don't know the word. But like "ghost". They come and go. They come back to help us, protect us, and give us advice". This will later happen for Stewart. On Stewart's D.E.R.O.S. (return to the U.S.) Mai thought he would never come back to her. Stewart, madly in love, promised that was not the case. He asked Mai to marry him and accompany him to the U.S., but sadly she refused. Stewart painfully returned home without her. As soon as he arrived in the States, his older brother, dominating, insensitive, arrogant and condescending in his manner pounded into him. Stewart explains:"It was a two week leave I could have done without. My mom didn't stop crying and my brother John didn't stop persecuting me about my decision to return to Vietnam. John added uneasiness and intimidation to every aspect of life and those around him. His way of solving a problem was through fright. If you cowardly shrank away in fear of him, he solved the problem. He could have been a knight among men:instead he pounded your senses with rejection and inferiority". Stewart extended his tour willingly and hi tailed it back to the love of his life. Arriving back in Vietnam in Oct. 1967, he was assigned to ship security duty and made frequent trips up and down the Mekong Delta back to Saigon. Then, the unthinkable happened. At the end of January, 1968, the North Vietnamese and V. C. attacked every single U.S. installation, city and province from the D.M.Z. to the southernmost tip of South Vietnam. The idea of American invincibility had been shattered. On national television, a famous C.B.S. reporter, Walter Cronkite quipped "What the Hell is going on here? I thought we were winning this war!" Despite clearly being a U.S. victory, the press in this country portrayed what was called the "Tet Offensive" as a major American Defeat. Public opinion permanently became galvanized against the Vietnam War. While peace talks at Paris, France dragged on, then President Richard M. Nixon ordered U.S. troops to assume a "defensive posture" (only fight when attacked) while the responsibility of combat was being handed over to the South Vietnamese. The term "Vietnamization" simply meant that this was to become an Asian war strictly fought by Asians. Stewart now saw this. He begged and pleaded with Mai to marry him again and come with him to America, to no avail. An incident occurred that drove a permanent wedge in their relationship. All Vietnamese frowned upon seeing their women walking or living with American soldiers. In addition, all Vietnamese civilians had to have government issued I. D. cards. To be stopped on the street without them would automatically subject one to arrest as a suspected V. C. One day, Mai and Jim went to the Saigon Zoo together in separate taxi's. Foolishly, they took the same cab back home and were stopped by the Q.C. (South Vietnamese Police). Mai, having lost her I. D. card, was arrested, despite Jim's protests. It took three days to come up with the capital to bail her out. Finally released, Jim asked her if she was sexually abused, tortured, or mistreated. Mai would never tell. Finally, in October, 1968, Stewart's tour of duty in Vietnam ended along with his enlistment in the Army. Again, he begged Mai to come with him to America. Once again, she chose to stay with her family, instead of going with him. One has to wonder if Jim loved Mai more than Mai loved him. Jim returned on the "Freedom Bird" (airplane) back to "The World" (the U.S.). However, he went with a reluctantly "heavy heart". Upon returning home, he had a horrible encounter with his nasty, obstreperous brother, John, with led to a separation of the two siblings that has lasted to this day. John's intimidating, condescending and insensitive manner and his disrespect for Jim's feelings and love for Mai were too much for him. This time, paying his own way, Stewart returned to Vietnam as a civilian and landed a good job as an investigator for an American firm investigating the "Black Market" in Saigon. Once again he begged Mai to come back to the U.S. as his wife, knowing that the American pull-out before a complete Communist take-over was imminent. She still refused to listen to good reason. Stewart did everything in his power to convince her. He worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week to the point of where he was so overworked that he contracted mononucleosis. Finding out that Mai was pregnant with his child, Jim obtained a beautiful apartment for the two of them, so that they could have a little privacy from all of Mai's intrusive relatives. None of his efforts convinced Mai into action. After she refused to move into the apartment, Stewart angrily moved out himself, and six months went by without communication. Stubbornly waiting for Mai to come to him, he missed the birth of his daughter. Meeting her for the first time, he learned her name was Phong. For the last time, he begged Mai to marry him and take their daughter to America. Same result. Stewart, fed up, left Vietnam for the last time, never to return. He spent the next 17 years drinking too much, living in self pity, and searching for his daughter. Then, 32 years later, through Internet search, he found out Mai had escaped Vietnam via the Philippines and moved to the U.S. Mai lived in Dallas, Texas, was married to a Vietnamese man and had 4 kids. Finally, the day came, whereupon after finding out Jim was searching for her, Mai called Jim at this job, at the Brawley, San Diego Police Dept. in California. In a tearful conversation, Stewart found out that just like the 10 year old girl he witnessed killed in the streets of Saigon, the same thing happened with Phong. She was killed in 1977 when she was playing in the street with her best friend and were both hit by a big truck. They were, according to Mai, buried together. Stewart also found out that Mai became pregnant with a boy in their last union, with the result being a miscarriage. This incredible story ends with Jim dozing, having a dream with his daughter telling him: "don't worry papa, everything's okay". He was forgiven. This book was originally entitled "The Ghosts of Vietnam" and with that dream, "the ghosts" were gone, and Jim was at peace. This story is for everyone. Anyone who has been to war, been in a one-sided relationship gone sour, lost a love, a child, even a dog can relate. This story nor author doesn't miss a beat. Truly, this is an awesome story!
Places: South vietnam, United States
People: Jim Stewart
Time periods: Late 1960's