Title: In Our Duffel Bags
Description: Review Written by Bernie Weisz, Historian, Vietnam War October 15, 2011 Contact: BernWei1@aol.com Pembroke Pines, Florida USA Title of Review: "Vietnam Was The Steady Whop, Whop, Whop of Incessant Choppers, Rain & Artillery Firing It's Version of Pain For Victor Charlie" 
At last, a book has come out that contains more than punji stakes, claymores, sampans and napalm sorties. Sure, a gritty war story of the hardships experienced by a soldier, marine or airman can be a gripping page turner. However, if you read enough of them eventually one blends into the next. Once in awhile a new book comes out where even those aficionados who know the most esoteric in that particular subject matter will read a new offering and be spellbound with fresh information. "In Our Duffel Bags" is one that does exactly that. If you check the literature for an existing memoir that details a soldier's experiences in the last American non-volunteer army who served in two major conflicts simultaneously, your findings will be scant. You might be wondering what those two major conflicts could be. The answer is the Vietnam War of 1964-1973 overlapping the Cold War of 1946 to 1991. This memoir draws parallels: the conflict in S.E. Asia was fought with search and destroy operations, free fire zones, and heliborne combat assaults. Equally if not more volatile was the situation in Europe, fought with super power coalitions, espionage, proxy wars and propaganda. The latter one all sides shuddered at the stakes involved, the possibility of nuclear obliteration. How important was Vietnam to America in relation to the Cold War? Consider this; while most Americans paid very little attention to the daily occurrences in Vietnam other than listening to a television rattle off the nightly 6 P.M. KIA and WIA figures, the "other war" had an entirely different, more prominent effect. The authors of this book, while trying to escape the raging war in South Vietnam inadvertently wound up with a front row seat where the forces of the Warsaw Pact and the NATO Alliance played a dangerous game of brinkmanship.

All Americans would be touched from the end of World War II, when English author George Orwell coined the term "Cold War," to the crumbling of Berlin Wall's in 1989. Vietnam would reach America's citizenry by virtue of being the first "television war." But other than those directly affected, the 8,000 oceanic miles from America to South Vietnam accented its minimal intrusion into public conscience. Conversely, at one point during the 1950's all of America was subject to air-raid drills, elementary school students were hiding under desks and families built personal bomb shelters. Although this level of apprehension subsided after the Cuban Missile Crisis, movies such as "Planet of the Apes, Dr.Strangeglove and The Day After" reinforced national awareness. Richard Geschke and Bob Toto were part of the 80 million children born during what was deemed the "Baby Boom." This was a group that from 1946-1964 grew up with Vietnam, John and Robert Kennedy, Woodstock and the Apollo 11 team of Armstrong and Aldrin landing in the "Sea of Tranquility." While Geschke and Toto uniquely experienced both wars, they also were participants in the last phase of the Vietnam conflict which became a fervent American quest to disengage itself . With the Anti War Movement fueled by a succession of events starting with the 1968 Tet Offensive and continuing on with President Johnson deciding not to run for reelection, the riots in Chicago at the Democratic Convention and the assassinations of both Kennedy and King, the " Domino Theory" became an anachronism. The Cambodian Incursion and resulting deaths at Kent State, My Lai, and the most damning, the "Pentagon Paper" leakage resulted in an unstoppable national obsession to desperately extract our troops and simply forget about Vietnam. Containing Communism had now become an anomaly,

These are the basics of what the authors would also witness in S.E. Asia, a program called "Vietnamization." This novel word came from President Richard Nixon's Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird. Henry Kissinger, the President's National Security Adviser and Secretary of State wrote a book in 2003 entitled "Ending the Vietnam War" explaining the word's origins. He revealed that in a National Security Council meeting that took place on January 28, 1969, the topic at hand was making the Vietnam War a conflict strictly fought by Asians minus any involvement of U.S. ground combat forces. Henry Kissinger wrote that during this meeting Melvin Laird remarked: "What we need is a term like "Vietnamizing" to put the emphasis on the right issues." Nixon immediately liked Laird's word." The term was promptly put into use, and both Geschke and Toto, freshly uprooted from a 18 month tour in West Germany would witness what would develop into an American exodus and a complete take over by the South Vietnamese of all their own military responsibilities and operations. However, all of these occurrences were forty years ago, and like most Vietnam Veterans experiences, these memories were buried in the back of Geschke's and Toto's minds. What changed this? A dream of Geschke's! Let's backtrack a little, and explain the genesis of this memoir. Dick Geschke was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated in the ROTC program from Kent State University in August of 1969 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve.

While he claims he could have become a teacher thus being granted a deferment, he acted on his desire to gain experience in leadership as well as pure curiosity. Certainly a peculiar time to be inquisitive, 1969 held perils quite unfriendly for an American stationed in Vietnam. Geschke was ordered in November to Fort Benning, Georgia for Infantry Officer Basic Course. There, placed into class "IOBC 10-70," he would receive ten weeks of training all geared towards placing him squarely in the gun sites of the North Vietnamese Army. In January of 1969, Operation Dewey Canyon began. This was  a major operation by U.S. Marines in the Da Krong Valley between South Vietnam and Laos. Now, the U.S. was breaking the "Rules of Engagement" and illegally entering a supposedly neutral country militarily without its permission. In March, President Nixon authorized "Operation Menu," the secret bombing of NVA sanctuaries in Cambodia by B-52s. In May, 46 men of the 101st Airborne died during a fierce 10 day battle at the infamous "Hamburger Hill' in the A Shau Valley, near Hue. If Geschke didn't notice this, he must have wondered why his IOBC instructors continuously issued this warning during every lesson: "If you don't do this, you will die in Vietnam." Nevertheless, after arriving at Fort Benning and settling into his assigned barrack, he noticed a fellow second lieutenant struggling with his baggage to find his quarters. Dick felt sorry for him and went to help Bob Toto, a Massachusetts native. This resulted in an unbreakable relationship that 42 years later continues to last, with the co authorship of this book as evidence of its durability.

While Geschke and Toto were trained at Fort Benning with the old M-14 rifles, despite the fact that M-16's were being used at their intended destination, it is interesting to note Christopher Ronnau's comments about this rifle while in Vietnam. In his book "Blood Trails, he made this disturbing remark:" "More than a few grunts in the company had already experienced problems with an M-16 jamming in combat situations and thought that we should be using AK-47's or something more reliable. Because the Brass couldn't contradict the official party line publicly, most of them favored the M-16. It would have been easier to teach a pig how to fly than it would have been to undo a multimillion-dollar contract between the Pentagon and the arms industry." In regard to the war per se, Geschke mentions that as 1970 approached, the nation as a whole was divided. The My Lai Massacre made headlines, and while Lt. William Calley was being held at Fort Benning awaiting his trial, the two authors saw Calley walking with his entourage to the dining hall. The Army's plan for Geschke and Toto was to serve at a domestic station for 6 months and head straight for a 12 month tour of South Vietnam. However, Geschke and Toto were enticed to sign up for an Army program called "voluntary indefinite," a "bait and switch" program that they would 18 months later call a "time bomb." The deal was that by signing up, they were guaranteed a 1 year assignment to anywhere that there existed U.S. Army infantry units. Geschke's tour of Europe would last from February of 1970 to August of 1971, with 14 of those months spent with a line unit at Graves Kaserne, West Germany.

Both Geschke and Toto spent one month in Fort Bliss, Texas at the "Redeye Missile School" and then shipped out to West Germany. Gescke wrote: "It was our hope that during this one year span, Nixon would withdraw combat forces and our tours would be completed in the non combat zones of the friendly confines of West Germany. However, he had not counted on inept, vindictive commanding officers standing in the way of fulfilling his hope. It was at this point that the two authors separated, as their only time together was while at Fort Benning and Bliss, and for a brief period in Panama, after their little gamble of "vol indef" did not pan out as expected. Once in Europe, Geschke actually wrote a profile of different officer types that existed in the zone of West Germany, such as ROTC, Officer Candidate and West Point Officers. He mentions that aside from confidence, leadership qualities and knowledge of all facets of their commands, these leaders needed to possess "a large ego with a noted military swagger." There are situations where this can be a negative trait, as it worked against one military commander noted for this. In Bud Willis's book "Marble Mountain," the author relates a story about "The Little Giant," General Victor Krulak. Upon realizing his name in Mandarin Chinese was "Chu Lai," Krulak named the area after himself. He excessively possessed the "military swagger" that Geschke referred to, even carrying a "swagger stick." The story in "Marble Mountain" is about Brooke Shadburn, Krulak's personal Huey pilot assigned to transport him about South Vietnam.

Bud Willis asserted: "Shadburn told us Krulak has a collection of swagger sticks. He carries a different swagger stick with him each day. Swagger sticks were discouraged in 1959, and are considered by most Marine Officers to be the epitome of attracting attention and intimidating others. One of Krulak's favorite sticks is a riding crop, commonly used to whip racehorses down the stretch. When he talks to Brooke, he sometimes unconsciously taps him on the shoulder with this riding crop. Unbelievable!" What follows is a fascinating development of what it was like as an American officer with the tense background of the Cold War, ever present. While in what Geschke called "Training in Hitler's Playground, he mentioned the poverty suffered by East Germans, drug and alcohol abuse, favoritism, carousing and womanizing antics. Nevertheless, the stark reality of his presence in the Seventh Army set in. American forces were outnumbered by Warsaw Pact troops six to one, and if attacked by them, he asserted: "We were mere cannon fodder and pawns in the grand Cold War Strategy of Armageddon. American tanks, should Soviet forces go on the offensive, were directed to point their guns and fire East, but flee West. This attitude is corroborated in Flint Whitlock's Historical fiction account of his tour of duty. Similar to Geschke and Toto, Whitlock wanted to serve his country, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant through the ROTC. He entered active duty in December 1964. After attending the basic Air Defense Artillery officers' course (ADA) at Fort Bliss, Texas, Whitlock earned 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 ADA, in 1968, Flint was transferred to South Vietnam, arriving one day before the Tet Offensive in January, 1968. 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. As Dick Geschke would discover, inventory control and transfer would be a critical element in Vietnamization. In his book "Internal Conflicts," Whitlock uses his protagonist, Peter Luton, to explain the anxiety that all American troops faced in West Europe. Training to man the "Battery Control Center" that launched missiles aimed at the Soviet East German border, he was being taught by Lt. Stiles, his commanding officer. Whitlock penned the following: "The green, sweeping line of the radar scope illuminated Peter's face with an unearthly glow as he scanned the blips that brilliantly bloomed as the sweep passed over them , then faded to nothingness until the next sweep. "That's commercial traffic around Frankfurt, said Lieutenant Stiles, the Battery Control Platoon Leader, as he pointed to a half-dozen slowly moving blips. "Down here, that's military traffic around Ramstein Air Base. And over here is Weisbaden Air Base. Peter noticed a diagonal, jagged line that had been drawn in red grease pencil across the upper right-hand quarter of the round scope. "What's this line?" "That's the border between East and West Germany," Stiles answered. "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 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 be minutes away would be just minutes away if ever those advancing blips did not reverse course and re-cross the red, grease-penciled line."

Bob Toto was assigned to the "Berlin Brigade" to be a central accounting officer. He had it "too good." With his own fully rigged apartment, the social milieu at that time offered an overabundance of single, aggressive females. This was a result of an overabundance of German WW. II deaths. Although they never were together in West Germany, events were about to conspire, reuniting the two. Vietnamization was affecting American combat units in Europe, with 90% of all brand new equipment going to S.E. Asia, earmarked for the use of the Army Republic of Vietnam's use. Toto and Geschke would soon follow. In May of 1970, Geschke was assigned to a mechanized infantry platoon of the line. His commanding officer was constantly disappearing to the Bavarian countryside with his fraulein for days at a time, with everyone covering for his unexcused absences except Geschke. Animosity developed between the two, and this commander in an act of vengeance treacherously gave Dick incorrect coordinates during a field exercise. Humiliated, hostilities mounted, and in asking for a transfer Geschke was about to jump from the frying pan into the fire. An opening developed in his Division Company Headquarters for a motor pool officer, and when offered this opportunity, Geschke jumped on it, a move he would live to regret. His new commanding officer had a character flaw of excessive braggadocio, prompting Dick to regard him as follows: "A small minded sycophant who thought he commanded the legions of Napoleon."

After a few days of vigorous field exercises in May of 1971, Dick Geschke was exhausted. He decided after a long hard day to head for his tent. have a meal and catch some sleep. After laying down and dozing off, his commanding officer, with no sense of propriety decided to inconsiderately awaken him with invented tales of; "How he single handedly put the Vietcong in their place during his one year tour of Vietnam." For Geschke might as well have guzzled a bottle of Nouc Mam sauce when he rejected this officer's boasts with this rebuff; "It's late. I wish you would take your war stories to another tent." His transfer was cowardly rescinded, and in the middle of June he received his permanent change of station notice. What was his reaction? Geschke scornfully commented: "I was mad, feeling that the military was nothing but a political battlefield played by small-minded people who took advantage of their subordinates. If the subordinates did not "play ball," the ball would be taken away, no matter how good or competent they were." He was to report to dual hells, the blistering jungle training school in Panama called "Fort Sherman" followed by the hell of Vietnam. His reaction? Typical of Dick, he lamented: "The bastards got me." He wasn't alone; they "got" Bob Toto too. There was no intrigue or backstabbing in his case. Under the impression that Vietnamization was flowing along at a rapid pace, Toto was given a leave and took a vacation in both Switzerland and Italy. As soon as he returned, a phone call from a staff officer gave him the news. Numb, he went with his friend on his pre Vietnam training jaunt, of which he would later deem the Panamanian instructors there as "snake eaters."

Geschke and Toto were about to find Vietnam to be a vacation when compared to the Panamanian hell embodied in Fort Sherman. This was where the Army prepared one prior to Vietnam deployment with core jungle training. Despite the distracting climate constantly hovering at 100% humidity without it raining, soldiers were expected to become novice botanists and entomologists. Geschke and Toto received instruction on the dangerous plants and wildlife of Panama, learning that the needle like points of the Panamanian Black Palm Tree will stick into one's flesh, and should that occur they will break off and cause a nasty infection. The two authors learned how to kill a chicken bare handed, how to rappel from cliffs and identify which snakes, spiders and ants can be harmful, if not fatal. Finally, they were taught to learn jungle land navigation, as well as recognition and avoidance of enemy mines and booby traps. Toto's warrior training paid off. Thanks to the instructors at Fort Sherman, Bob successfully vanquished what he deemed "a henhouse" of prostitutes that after making sexual advances "aggressively" attacked him. His tactic to ward them off was by bravely burning their hands with his cigarette. Geschke's training was inconsequential. He did not travel with Todo, but detoured with crutches under his arms and Black Palm points embedded in his palms as he was sent to the Army hospital at the Presidio in San Francisco. While walking through the jungle, he had twisted his ankle.

Between the two slimy commanding officers in West Germany, going from the possibility of ending his Army career in West Germany as the Vietnam War ended to having a permanent change of station redirecting him to a combat zone in Vietnam, what more could go wrong with Dick Gesche's tour? With his palms riddled with Black Palm Tree points and a hairline fracture of his anklebone maybe, just maybe his ankle was so badly damaged that a sympathetic doctor would deem his leg injury a "million dollar wound," and he could finish out his tour with a nice, comfortably air conditioned stateside desk job rather then do battle with Ho Chi Minh's minions. Thinks looked up as he walked in to the Presidio and found out the doctor, being from Cleveland, the hometown of both, might cut him a break. He wondered how he could perform as an infantry officer in Vietnam walking through wet rice paddies and triple canopy forest with a cast and crutches! That wonderment would slowly turn to vexation, then indignation, followed by haughtiness. After a medical work up, the doctor came back with earth shattering news. Informing Geschke that his malaise was a sprained ankle was one issue that rankled him. However, when the good doctor told him he would be going to Vietnam with a letter in his profile stating he was an invalid, Dick blew a fuse. He stormed out of the hospital, flipped the letter and crutches in the trash, and recorded his annoyance forty years later as he rushed to get on a plane bound for 'Nam asserting: In retrospect-it was a matter of personal honor. They told me I was an infantry officer, and by golly I would proceed."

This is the point of the book where everything would start to click for Dick Geschke. This would result in of the most unique and amazing memoirs this conflict has ever produced. "Vietnamization," and its implementation is examined, as well as the last few months of U.S. involvement in an unpopular war most chose to forget about. Geschke rationalized; "Here I was, 24 years of age, well trained, and heading for the ultimate two-way rifle range. Where I was headed was in fact the vernacular of a rifle range, only this range had targets that shot back." Now it was a fait accompli that the military careers of both authors would end with their Vietnam service. There is only one other memoir I know of that covers "Vietnamization" and the very last few months of America's presence before the 1972 Christmas bombings of Hanoi and the January, 1973 inking of the final Washington-Hanoi peace treaty signed in France.. Although it is from a Huey helicopter pilot's vantage point, just the title alone that Tom Marshall chose for his memoir is indicative of its revealing content. Many Vietnam Veterans that read this book and were "In Country" in the early years of "The Build Up" (1965 to 1967 or immediately before, during or after the "Tet Offensive," considered by most historians as the watershed of this conflict will have a hard time believing the veracity of this memoir. For those "Doubting Thomas's," I have checked every one of Geschke's and Toto's facts, and have found them to be flawlessly accurate. For any American that served In Country, the war was seen in a particular manner that depended on the year they were there, the branch of service they were in, and where in South Vietnam they were stationed.

Certainly a Marine that was in "I Corps" and Phu Bai in 1967 is going to have a different perception of this war as well as of reading "In Our Duffel Bags" compared to a "Brown Water Sailor" who spent his tour on a swift boat in the Mekong Delta in 1970. However, you are simply going to have to buy this book if you want the full account of Gerschke's and Toto's enthralling descriptions elucidating how America started its trek out the back door of a failed American crusade. Ultimately, the South Vietnamese would be left to fend for themselves, which after June 4th of 1973 became necessary with the U.S. Senate passing the Case-Church Amendment. This prohibited any U.S. military activity anywhere in S.E. Asia regardless of any NVA encroachment. Perhaps Nixon knew something was in the air about his political future, and tried to rush massive amounts of aid knowing Hanoi's supplier's, the Soviet Union and China would not. It would eventually amount to Vietnamization being too much, too fast, and too late. Once Nixon was out of office, an unsympathetic Gerald Ford showed Saigon an Isolationistic American administration that was indifferent to Southeast Asia, with military supplies, replacement parts and funding a thing of the past. In 1975 there was a video made in South Vietnam where Ed Daly,owner of World Airways, sent a Boeing 727 aircraft to Da Nang, which was surrounded by the fast approaching North Vietnamese in their final push that would end in the surrender of Saigon and the South as a whole. The airplane was there to pick up stranded woman and children. As soon as this plane landed, the aircraft was swamped by panic stricken, desperate ARVN military personnel climbing on the aircraft, all afraid of being murdered by the fast approaching NVA contingent. Let's not forget the "Reeducation Camps" the North punished the South with, or the "Boat People" exodus; all consequences of our departure.

Knowing what the North Vietnamese were capable of with their barbaric murdering spree of innocent citizens at Hue during the Tet Offensive, most American personnel including Geschke and Toto must have felt some degree of remorse in forsaking our ally. What Richard Geschke gives the reader starting from October of 1971 through March 30, 1972 is priceless and simply must be discovered on your own. As I mentioned earlier, this whole book was the result of a dream Geschke had. This dream brought back vivid memories of an incident that occurred in 1971 when he took a trip from Phu Bai to Danang. Geschke claims this dream was so real, so vivid, that he almost felt like it was happening for the first time. When first arriving in South Vietnam as a senior first lieutenant in the Fall of 1971, he paired up with another OOBC 10-70 graduate, Tom Stickney. They were ordered to Phu Bai as typhoon "Hester" slammed into the South Vietnamese countryside. Considering he was outside in a tent trying to sleep while the storm hit, this could very well be the source of his dream. Nevertheless, his mission was to command a contingent of unruly soldiers to build and secure an area slated for turnover to the ARVN as an ammunition supply point. Recruited as engineers with no prior knowledge or experience in construction, Geschke was given an uncompromising completion date and a rag tag group of "short" soldiers, all unmotivated with less than 90 days left in country to achieve this. The story of how he accomplished this is nothing less than amazing, as his efficiency in this miraculous achievement was to win him a Bronze Star Medal.

Although Geschke speculated who was in the helicopter overhead checking the progress of his work every day, he later learned it was his commanding officer, General Arthur H. Sweeney, who passed away in 1999. After this job was completed, he was ordered to Danang. When after reading Geschke's classification of soldier's living conditions, you will understand why he jumped for joy when ordered there. This classification system of Geschke's gives the reader a sense of class structure and just how one lived during their tour of duty in the combat zones of S.E. Asia. Everything from who had air conditioning, running water, security, staff servants, hot food, etc. was assessed. Geschke devised a four tier strata, with the best being 1 i.e. generals, diplomats, etc., to 4, which was the worst. Usually it was the grunts in the field that received the bottom ranking. Nevertheless, Geschke was so desirous of upgrading his living conditions and getting out of Phu Bai that he couldn't leave soon enough. Phu Bai might of been "okay" for Hanoi Hannah, but Dick had enough and wanted out. Hanoi Hannah was the radio voice of the Communists who would try to scare American forces with threats, instigative taunts and attempts to foment racial unrest. All her utterances were ignored by Geschke except when she bellowed "Phu Bai is okay." Certainly it was, as it was never attacked the whole two months the author was there.

Danang is approximately 50 miles from Phu Bai, only accessible by Highway 1 via the Hai Van Pass. Highway 1 was nicknamed the "Street Without Joy" by the French in the 1946-1954 "First Indochina War," and that moniker was later adopted by Bernard Fall, the famed author, for the title of a book he wrote. This highway runs the entire length of both North and South Vietnam, and during the war the Army invested substantial effort in keeping it open, especially when bad weather made aerial resupply of American troops in certain areas impossible. The Hai Van Pass, with its hilly cliffs and dense foliage lent itself to a natural haven for NVA and VC snipers. On the day he was to leave Phu Bai, he was awaiting the outgoing convoy, with gun trucks and security. However, two U.S. advisors, bizarre characters indeed, offered Geschke a ride in the back of their jeep. If you look up the Hai Van Pass on the internet, think of a jeep driving at breakneck speeds with a sniper shooting at you no less! Read this book for the insane description on Geschke's torturous ride to Danang. Maybe it was the Black Palms, maybe the crazy doctor at the Presidio, or those two sadistic advisors that gunned through the cliffs of the Van Hai Pass laughing hysterically at Geschke's panicky expressions when sniper shots rang out. Something gave him this dream, which prompted him to write about it. This task turned into what is now Chapter 18, called "Going My Way."

Upon going through his memories, which Geschke symbolically called his "duffel bag," he wrote a second chapter. Stimulating further thought, he contacted Toto, and after many conversations, they had enough material for a book. Geschke wrote the majority of these chapters, but this book would never be what it is without Bob Toto. Intentionally left out of this review, his input is from another dimension. Bob has a way of putting things I can't even think of a way of labeling or describing it. It makes this book complete, however, and adds a delightful, enhancing tilt to every single anecdote that is thoroughly augments this memoir and enhances the historical content. There is content that also is very telling as to what some consider myths and others say it is an absolute fact. The movie industry in Hollywood has picked up on this facet and certainly exaggerated it. This is the issue of drug use, particularly of heroin. Dick Geschke makes one thing perfectly clear: during his tour he personally saw heroin addiction and it was unequivocally a serious problem. Many soldiers that were in Vietman during the build up years and just after Tet (1965-1969 believe that drug use, particularly of heroin is a laughable myth. What they fail to understand is that it simply was not the same war in 1967 as it was in 1971. Although it is beyond the scope of this book, it does support Geschke's observations. After the Tet Offensive, the American anti-war movement gained strength. Jeff Stein's book "A Murder in Wartime" details how public revelation of the 1969 "Green Beret Affair," whereupon eight Special Forces soldiers, including the 5th Special Forces Group Commander, Colonel Robert Rheault were arrested for the murder of a suspected double agent Thai Khac Chuyen. This, along with "Operation Speedy Express" and the incident at My Lai provoked national and international outrage.

In Operation Speedy Express, the 9th Infantry Division claimed a body count of 10,889 Communist guerillas with only 40 U.S. KIA's from December of 1968 to May of 1969. However, only 748 enemy weapons were found. Something had to be done, and starting in 1970, U.S. troops were shifted away from the border areas where much of the killing took place. Instead, they were repositioned along the coast and interior of South Vietnam. The result: there were 11,614 U.S. KIA's in 1969, and 6,082 KIA's in 1970, almost 50% less. With troops now in urban areas, boredom set in, and drug use soared. A look on the Internet will reveal the severity of this problem, which started after the 1968 Tet Offensive and peaked in 1971, a year that revealed an estimated 37,000 American heroin addicts in South Vietnam. In another study conducted the same year under the direction of the U.S, "Special Action Office on Drug Abuse Prevention, Dr. Lee Robins conducted an investigation of heroin use among U.S. troops. Robins surveyed a representative sample of enlisted Army men who had left Vietnam in September of 1971--the date at which the U.S. Army began its policy of mandatory urine screening Geschke includes a discussion of two urinalysis tests given before leaving among his unit, and 9 men were caught and not allowed to leave. Geschke added: "It was a known fact that the local mama sans were selling pure heroin on the base.

The Robins team interviewed veterans a year later.  What were the results? Dr. Robins found that 50% had used either opium or heroin at least once during their tour of duty, 25 % tested positive for opiates on the way out of Vietnam and reported that they had been addicted to heroin at some point during their term of service overseas. Dr. Robbins, trying to sugarcoat this miscalculation, noted that the military had vastly underestimated the problem. In 1971 one out of every 5 soldiers in Vietnam had logged some time as a junky. As it turned out, soldiers under the age of 21 found it easier to score heroin than to hassle through the military's alcohol restrictions. The "gateway drug hypothesis" that marijuana led to stronger drugs didn't seem to function overseas. What about the target of Vietnamization, aiding our allies, the ARVN as well as the war itself? Some of Dick Geschke's assertions are a macrocosm of the attitudes of most Vietnam Veterans. As an example, the author stated: "If I had to guess as to the percentage of high market items that ended up with the ARVN, it would be at 95 percent. It got to be downright embarrassing when the ARVN became so demanding that they would not take a jeep with a slight crack in the windshield. That's when I knew that our so-called allies were nothing but spoiled brats." In all fairness to the South Vietnamese, Lam Quang Thi, a prominent ARVN General that fled South Vietnam on April 30th, 1975, the day South Vietnam surrendered, wrote a book entitled "The Twenty-Five Year Century."

While General Thi himself knew about corruption among his own people, he added that there was American complicity by stating the following: "Although I agreed that corruption must be rooted out, what disturbed me more was that there were indications the corruption drive was supported or at least encouraged by U.S. Officials in Vietnam. It was ironic because U.S. Officials were partially responsible for the corruption practices in Vietnam: their patronage system of buying obedience in exchange for favors had, in fact, nurtured and legitimized corruption. Now, in my opinion, these same U.S. officials were trying to use corruption and political instability to justify the U.S. disengagement from Vietnam." On the possibility of the ARVN winning the war on their own after the U.S. pullout, Geschke opined: "They had no concept of their mission or how they were to accomplish it! In the grand scheme of things, we could have given the ARVN the world, but never in one hundred years would they be able to rid themselves of the hostile actions of the North Vietnamese and the VC. No way! Bud Yost, a retired U.S. Army Major, winner of the "Distinguished Army Cross" and author of the memoir "Hard Core" had this to say about ARVN's fighting prowess: "We integrated the Vietnamese units into our company; augmenting the American squads and platoons with Vietnamese squads and platoons. This proved to be a very unwieldy method of operation. First, there was the problem of the language barrier as we did not have enough interpreters, but more importantly, was the lack of discipline and this was terrifying for the squads on ambush. When in ambush the Vietnamese would chatter incessantly and light up cigarettes throughout the night. Many of the soldiers would walk off during the day to return to their villages and not return until nightfall."

During Lam Son 719, Tom Marshall was a Huey helicopter pilot who flew ARVN infantry troops on a combat assault insertion into Laos. Heavily outnumbered, it turned into an ARVN debacle. It was Marshall's job to extract these Southern soldiers. In his book "The Price of Exit," he remembered this: "March 20, 1971 will be remembered as the worst ever day of army combat aviation. Pickup zones around Fire Support Base Brown were the day's objectives. And as ARVN's were dropping their weapons, too panicked to fight, the NVA carefully hugged the perimeters, waiting for a shot at the U.S. Army helicopters attempting to evacuate the ARVN's. It was a shooting gallery for the NVA, who were just yards from the landing zones. When a Huey came to a low hover, the ARVN's clambered aboard, many becoming casualties of AK-47 fire. It was a nightmarish, very real rout under direct enemy fire. Risking U.S. aircrew lives repeatedly for the ARVN forces was not justified because the ARVN were dropping their weapons and refusing to fight, which only made the Pickup Zones more dangerous for U.S. air crews. Terrified of dying at the hands of the NVA, the ARVN's crowded aboard the helicopters as they landed, creating a volatile, lethal environment. An overloaded Huey could easily be stuck on the ground if too many troops leapt aboard. The Huey's single turbine engine had a carefully measured weight capacity. However, the ARVN's in the landing zone were mobbing each ship that landed. They nearly trampled one pilot and his crew. He had to fire a burst from his M-60 machine gun into the ground in front of a landing Huey, which kept the ARVN's away from the next ship. Another Major called me on my radio warning me: "I've got about 15 ARVN's on board, 2 fell off my skids, and I still am flying with 3 on my skids. It's bad down there!"

You will also read Dick Geschke's story about a bizarre incident involving an ARVN captain and his involvement in the "Black Market." This cemented his opinion of the ARVN, declaring afterwards; "The government and its own military, which are supposed to be our allies, are nothing but a corrupt regime trying to live off the aid that we, their defenders, were providing. From that point on, I wanted nothing to do with a government so blatantly corrupt, and our command most certainly knew what was transpiring around them." Regarding the War itself? Geschke declared: "Never in a million years would the U.S. have won in Vietnam-which was nothing but a huge cesspool in which we Americans never belonged. And to put "In Our Duffel Bags" in perspective, what regrets did Dick have when it was all over? Aside from going to a party at a college and being asked by a very immature, brash girl the universally stupid, most insulting and insensitive question one could possibly ask of a returning Veteran, e.g., "How did it feel to kill women and children?" he voiced an opinion that ended with a question. This is a query that one can only hope the entire populace of America could hear. In the near future all of our forces presently deployed in Afghanistan will be returning. It is a shame when a Veteran returns home, after both risking their life and patriotically answering our nation's call to arms, thus ensuring a perpetuation of our democratic society, to be warned that it is not safe to be seen in a military uniform. It is an even greater travesty when a Veteran returns from a war zone and vocalizes this sad commentary that Geschke expressed: "Not only did we not have a welcome home, but we were also treated as a disease-a boil upon the populace. What had we done to deserve this treatment? I thought we had been serving our country. The country was trying to forget our participation. People went to work with the blasé attitude of an uninterested observer. Vietnam was an inconvenient blip in history. Tell that to over fifty thousand people that gave their lives!" If you chose one book to read about the Vietnam War, and there are a great many, DO NOT MISS this one! It is a gem!
Subjects: Massachusetts, biography, Military biography, Vietnam war, 1961-1975, biography