Kaiduorkhon
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A Moveable Vietnam:
A ContinentalMisunderstanding
Copyright 1984, 1985 & 2006, by Kent Benjamin Robertson. All rights reserved. May be reproduced for non commercial educational purposes, with due accreditation for authorship.
(This faction story is a composite of individual experiences by over a half dozen persons, who, without knowing it, form a dedication to one individual - Buddy Annelo <1946 - 1967>, of San Francisco, who foresaw his own death, and manner of dying in Vietnam. This story is a humble memorial to a fine young man; a Soldier's Soldier, a flawed Nation's martyred icon. This is a fiction story about a fictional U.D.T. 'Frogman', aka, SEAL, while the truth is even more melancholy and ineffable.)
BlueJacket this 21 year old Navy SEAL with straight A's in all studies. Excelled in most everything he applied himself to - Academics, Martial Arts, Social Sciences. Graduated from UCLA with a Master's Degree in Anthropology at age 19. D.O.B. 1947 Birthplace. Hollywood, California. Ht. 5' 8". Wt. 170. Multiple athletic skills. I.Q. 130. Spanish, Russian, French and German conversationalist. Wary of male intimidation rituals. Popular with and protective of women - Oedipus inclined. Nick-names, 'Mo', 'Animal' and 'Surf'. REASON FOR JOINING MILITARY SERVICE: "I wish to fullfill my military obligation to my country and help liberate the people of South Vietnam. My family and country expects and deserves this from me." REASON FOR JOINING for Underwater Demolition - Sea-Air-Land - qualifications: "To shorten the war and distinguish myself as a Soldier (Sailor)". Expert Rifle & Pistol Marksman. Excels in close combat. Functionally fearless. Modest demeanor. Conservative politics.
So they stationed him in the Riverines, for over a year. After the incident with what his superiors called the 'scattered gook confetti' and his measurable depression from that experience, his tour of foreign service was up and he was given leave to return to the United States and civilian life.
My county is the invader, I was the host-victimizing parasite; the Fascist terrorist, 'only obeying orders'. The military succeeded in this village and failed at home. I was making examples of their leaders in the night when I woke up doing the wrong thing to the wrong people in the wrong country in the wrong war. I was betraying these people because my country's key leadership and corporate state had betrayed every American - all who were persuaded by mass media propaganda - to believe it was a worthy war worth sacrificing for.
The illusion ended in a small village, 5 February 1968. Paint it green and black and white and red all over. There's got to be a morning after.
The Mekong Delta is as wet as it sounds. The lowlands being invaded from the north by nineteen year old Americans via the Ia Drang Valley, to River's End flood plane. Rice Paddy Heaven. A lot of navigable lesser rivers and canals. River Patrol Boat (RPB) and other U.S. Navy duty. Among the capillaries of the Red River (sometimes apocryphally called the 'Yalu') as it levels off in southernmost South Vietnam - through 'the 13th Valley' as it fans out from the main artery to more southern and numberous veins. Then stepping down even further and flatter, to hundreds of thousands of man made terraces and irrigation systems, tiny streams and river fingerlings.
"Stationed on a boat in the middle of this and the Navy, and you're 'PBR in the Riverines'. If you're regular Navy you can stay on your boat. If you're a S.E.A.L., you leave it when CRYPTO tells you to 'perish the enemy in the midst of his village and sanctuary and guarded perimeters, in the midst of his night; then exit those boundaries, without waking anyone else'. Charlie was even better at this then us. It was a psywar way of seeing to it that no one ever felt secure."
- Morgan Hallinen/U.S. Navy S.E.A.L./ET3rdC, The Riverines, 1967. Excerpted from his unpublished book...
"WE STUDIED AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS OF MOST OF THESE TARGETS. SOME WERE VARIOUS MAGNIFICATIONS OF SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPHS. WE WOULD KNOW WHAT ROUTE OF APPROACH BY WATER. WE WOULD EVEN KNOW THE EXACT LOCATION OF A ONE FOOT WIDE IRRIGATION OR DRAINAGE DITCH - ANY MINOR CANAL LEADING TO AND FROM THE TARGET AREA. WE KNEW WHAT HOOTCH (house) THE TARGET LIVED IN - WHAT BED IN WHAT CORNER. WE KNEW HIS PHYSICAL COUNTENANCE AND AGE; HIS DAILY ACTIVITIES. FOR ALL THAT, WE NEVER KNEW WHO HE REALLY WAS, BESIDES BEING THE OBJECT OF A GIVEN MISSION. OBJECTIVE TARGETS WERE TO BE PERISHED. THEN WE KNOW THEY ARE THE ENEMY - WHEN THEY'RE DEAD, THEY'RE VIET CONG OR NVA CADRE, OF THAT WE WERE ALWAYS ASSURED WITH IRREPROACHABLE CERTAINTY." - Morgan Hallinen/USN/The Riverines, 1967.
"I'D BEEN DOING THIS KIND OF DUTY FOR NEARLY A YEAR. RAIN OR SHINE. CHARLIE DON'T LIKE YOU. THE RIVER DON'T LIKE YOU. THE JUNGLE KILL YOU QUICK AS ANY ADVERSARY IN VIETNAM. THE MOSQUITOS, DAYTIME HEAT AND NIGHT TIME COLD AND MONSOON RAIN WILL TAKE YOU IN DARKNESS AND LIGHT. TRIPLE CANOPY JUNGLE CAN LEAVE YOU IN VANQUISHED SEARCH OF YOUR OWN ASS AT HIGH NOON, ALL DAY LONG. PIT AND BAMBOO VIPERS AND GENRE SERPENTS HERE CALLED 'MR. ONE STEP', AND 'MR. TWO STEP'. IN PARTING SALUTE TO ANY G.I. WHO GETS LUCKY ENOUGH TO MAKE HIS ACQUAINTANCE IN VIETNAM. MR. ONE STEP GIVE YOU THAT MUCH TIME. SAME THING MR. TWO STEP. HAZARDS LIKE THIS TEND TO INFLUENCE A GENERAL APPRECIATION FOR THE ONGOING MOMENTS OF LIFE. MALARIA PILLS. JOKES. BLACK 'n WHITE HUMOR. SOLEMN REFLECTION. HERE AND NOW WITHOUT PAST OR FUTURE.
"YOU KNOW THE STORIES OF A DEDICATED SOLDIER ON A PERILOUS MISSION. AIMED AT TERMINATING ONE PERSON IN ORDER TO SAVE THOUSANDS? WELL. I BELIEVED ALL THAT - I WAS A COURAGEOUS SURGEON EXCISING THE MALADIES FROM THE PEOPLE'S BODY POLITIC. THEN, THERE ARE THE STORIES OF MISTAKENLY TERMINATING THE WRONG PERSON, WHEN YOU'RE A 'BULLET FOR YOUR COUNTRY'. THE 'TEAR JERKER' YOU KNOW; 'THE MISTAKE THAT WAKES YOU UP TO THE MADNESS OF WAR' OH. THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED ALL RIGHT. BUT IT WASN'T ANY MISTAKE OF MINE. IN THESE REGARDS, THE ONLY MISTAKE I MADE WAS JOINING THE NAVY.
"MY STORY IS, I HAD JUST RETURNED FROM MY 37th NIGHT MISSION, TWENTY FIFTH CONFIRMED KILL, AND FIFTEENTH VILLAGE - WHICH I HAD JUST LIBERATED FROM TWO TREACHEROUS CADRE. I WAS GETTING COMFORTABLE LOOKING OVER MY MY SHOULDER AT IT ONE MOMENT, AND THE NEXT MOMENT THE ARMY BEGAN TAKING AN IMPROMPTU ILLUMINATING DUMP UPON IT WITH 105mm WHITE PHOSPHOROUS AND HIGH EXPLOSIVE FRAGMENTATION. MAYBE OUT TO ONE-UP THE NAVY IN SHOWING US WHAT A 'SURGICAL STRIKE' REALLY IS. EXCEPT, THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WE WERE THERE, OR, MAYBE THEY DIDN'T CARE. THE PLACE WAS DENSELY POPULATED WITH RICE FARMING FAMILIES AND COVERED ABOUT 15 ACRES. I HAD JUST SEEN MANY OF THESE PEOPLE SLEEPING IN THEIR BEDS.
"I'D BEEN ORDERED BACK TO MAKE ANOTHER KILL IN THE SAME VILLAGE, ON THE SAME NIGHT. I WAS UNEXPECTEDLY ON THE WAY BACK, AND I KNEW I WAS EXACTLY 175 SECONDS FROM BEING THERE IN IT WHEN THE ARMY ERASED THE AWAKENED AND SLUMBERING PEOPLE AND TERRAIN. THE LITTLE U.S. NAMED 'HAMLET' SUDDENLY BECAME INCANDESCENT, LIKE AN ENORMOUS FLASH BULB, MELTING THE VILLAGE FILAMENT AND PEOPLE. THIS ARTY (artillery) STRIKE WAS NO MORE THAN TWENTY SECONDS DURATION - THE BRACKETED VILLAGE RISING ABOUT FIFTY YARDS IN THE AIR TO FINALLY DESCEND IN FLAMING FRAGMENTS AT THE CESSATION OF THE BARRAGE. THE NIGHT HAD GONE FROM DARKNESS TO TRIPLE SUNLIGHT WHITE PHOSPHOROUS AND THEN BACK TO WHAT AMOUNTED TO A VERY LARGE CAMPFIRE SURROUNDED AGAIN BY DARKNESS. AS A BRIEF, SOLEMN LITANY, I SUDDENLY SAW THE LIGHT.
"THAT'S WHEN I BEGAN TO LEARN I MIGHT NEVER SLEEP AGAIN. IT SEEMS THE U.S. ARMY PERCEPTION AND 'MILITARY INTELLIGENCE' OF THE NUMBER OF V.C. AND CADRE IN THAT VILLAGE, DID NOT CORRESPOND WITH THE NAVY PERCEPTION. THAT'S WHEN I BEGAN TO REALIZE THAT THE PEOPLE I WAS PERISHING WERE... ANYBODY. ANYONE AT ALL.
"THE NEXT MORNING, THE ARMY WOULD CORDIALLY REQUISITION MY BOAT CREW TO OBTAIN A 'BODY COUNT', FOR THE INQUIRING ARMY OFFICERS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ARTILLERY STRIKE. KEEPING TRACK OF NUANCES, LIKE, HOW MANY RIGHT AND LEFT ARMS, LEGS, HANDS AND FEET - 'PROPERLY' INVENTORIED. WE HAD TO COUNT THEM ALL.
"I FORGET WHAT IT WAS - HOW MANY PEOPLE I HELPED SAVE THAT DAY, UPON THE PREVIOUS NIGHT. EVERYONE OF THEM WAS ME - OR SOMEONE I MAY HAVE KNOWN AS A FRIENDLY. EVERY DISMEMBERED, BURNED AND/OR MUTILATED SPECIMEN."
- Morgan Hallinen/U.S.N. 5 February 1968. To be continued
His 'silver freedom bird' civilian airliner had delivered him to Los Angeles International airport. Back to 'the world' - another planet. He had told no one he was returning 'home' - from now on it would be no less alien than the one he was returning from.
'A CORRIDOR OF ELECTRIC BLINKING HABITANT OCCUPIED BY PEOPLE IN DESPERATELY UNRESOLVED, ENDLESS PURSUIT OF EACH OTHER. EVERYONE WHO PLAYS THIS, WINS: ANOTHER GAME, SQUARED. HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD AT NEON LIGHTED NIGHT. BLACK AS INK. BLINKING ORANGE AND BLUE AND FLICKERING PINK, AND GREEN AIN'T MEAN, 'TIL YOU'VE SEEN..."
- A MOVEABLE VIETNAM, Excerpt
Los Angeles, California, 9 June 1969
"All you have to do is hit the major media and Hollywood 'entertainment industry' Mission Impossible factories." Soon became one of his favored interiorized, unspoken post Vietnam tour hyperboles. He didn't volunteer that he was a Vietnam veteran, though all his friends knew this - many of whom would not learn that he was back until he was gone for the last time. "Telvision Rules", was also amidst his arsenal of newly accumulated favorite one-liners - "Vietnam: The Television War." Besides an occasional, randomly intersected, juke box and pool playing, beer drinking acquaintance or friend, no one who knew him in Los Angeles understood what he was talking about.
"What'd you do in Vietnam, Mo?" / "Nothing, Ed. Not much?" / "Not much and nothing, eh? That's all?" / "Well. Nothing is really something these days." / "Would you care to elaborate on that, Morgan?"
Long pause.
"Have you ever heard of the 'Domino Theory'?"
"Of course."/ "Would you describe it to me, briefly, please?"
"That's about stopping communism wherever it emerges outside of the Soviet Union or China... The theory is that if one country, like Vietnam, becomes communist, it will cause a chain reaction of communist governments that could possibly move off the Euroasian continent and travel to the United States by way of Japan, Hawaii, the Phillipines, Somoa, the Pacific Micronesian chain..."
"Very good, Ed. Richard Nixon has never said it better. And, in that way, after pounding across the Pacific stepping stones, Communism could spread everywhere if we don't stop it wherever it emerges - it may wind up in Seattle or Portland - then on to Des Moine and Chicago, Grand Rapids, Boston and New York City; from there it would inevitably make a grand sweep southward, through Baltimore, Washington D.C., the Carolinas, Phoenix, West Virginia, Dallas & Miami, to the Gulf of Mexico; completing a pincer movement from the overrun United States into the jaws of Cuba..." / Ed shows no sign of incredulity or amusement: "Yes. Basically, that's it." / "So we've got to keep the commies from taking over South Vietnam. Nip it in the bud.." / "Right".
Pause
"Have you ever heard that the Domino Theory has already happened?"
"No. I hasn't happened. It's just a theory. You and everyone else who served in Vietnam kept it to being just a theory - 'The Yellow Peril' and all that."
"You're wrong, Edgar. For one thing, the 'war' isn't over, yet'."
Pause
"Morgan. Are you trying to tell me we're being invaded?"
"No. I'm trying to tell you that the Domino Theory has already happened, backwards."
Pause
"I don't understand what that's supposed to mean, Morgan."
"Well. It means that we, our country, has already invaded Vietnam. Post facto"
"What?"
"Yes. We've invaded Vietnam by way of the same route our Domino Theory predicted the Commies would invade us. It's history, Edgar - it's already happened, backwards. But, the news media hasn't said so, so it isn't perceived or seen to have happened. NEWSWEEK and TIME haven't announced it. Our culture is tragically oblivious to this reality, and many others of comparable magnitutude."
Pause
"I know you didn't learn that in Vietnam, Morgan..."
"You're wrong again, Ed. That's exactly where I learned it."
Pause
"I don't mean to impose on you, Morgan, but you've avoided my opening question about what you did and where you were in Vietnam. You wanna talk about something else. It's okay. I understand. It's all right with me."
"It's okay, Ed."
Long pause.
"You ever kill anybody in Vietnam - you don't have to answer that. I apologize if it offends you."
Pause
"Aw huh. The million dollar question..."
"Million dollar question?"
"Yeah. That's one of the terms for it, Ed. Asking someone if they've ever killed anyone."
"I'm sorry, Mo. It's just that I know you were assigned to some special duties because of the kind of training you went through. It was just another way of asking what you did in Vietnam. Please accept my apologies."
"There's nothing to apologise for, Ed. I understand. I was just being mysterious. I was paid, honored and decorated for being mysterious..."
Pause
"Now I'm condemned to making excuses for all of those who make excuses for fighting a war, for no real reason at all - short of profits from the tax free illegal opium-heroin trade, the petroleum industry, stuff like that..."
Pause
"I guess I'll continue to be mysterious as long as the United States invasion of Asia across the Pacific atoll remains an obscure, mysterious idea. As - long as 'the Domino Theory Backwards' is a foreign sound to the Occidental ear, on or off American television."
"Is there anything that you'd be comfortable with, telling me about your soldiering there - something you can talk about?"
"I wrote a book."
"Well. You hadn't told me that before at all. What's it about? How big is it?"
"It's about what I learned in Vietnam. The land. The culture and traditions and language, agriculture and ecology, flora, fauna, history - did you know Vietnam used to be called 'Cochin China'? Anyway, it's about 350 pages long, and it has a surprise ending. It's basically complete, but I'm stilll doing some, uhh, editing."
"Has it got a title?"
"Oh yeah. It's called, A MOVEABLE VIETNAM: A Continental Misunderstanding."
Pause
"Now, that is a catchy title".
"It sure is."
"Any particular reason for writing it?"
"Oh yeah. Lots of 'em. But in a nutshell, it was inspired by what I thought might help shorten the war. A while back I thought I might do that by contributing to the military objective of winning it. Since then I sort'a changed my mind about that. I don't think that war can be won by us; consequently, all any G.I. over there is doing, is prolonging the war."
"So. You decided a book might help do what a half million men can't do." Pause "That's right, Ed. You've been reading my mail".
"How long were you there?"
"Well. Objectively, a year. Subjectively, a lot longer than that. Too long."
Pause
"You know I respect you a lot Morgan...."
"Yes. But....?"
"Well. We're back to indulging in mystery - your prerogative of course. For all the respect you rightfully deserve, well... I still think that, uhh..."
"You still think I've got an attitude?"
"I wasn't going to say it that way, Morgan. But, yes. I think, in consideration of the magnitude of the war and the numbers of American families directly or indirectly involved and suffering for it, I think you might show a little more, well, uh... humility."
Pause
"Just let me know when you think of 'What for', okay?" / "How about The United States of America". / "You can't beat that?" / "You sure can't."
Pause. "No. I s'pose not. But it may be beating itself."
"Will you please be a little more specific about that, Morgan?"
Long pause. Someone had cued G-7 on the juke box and it caused a subtle changing of gears in Morgan's countenance...
"A fellow very recently told me what he said was a true story - He called it 'Death In The Key of E' - of a vet he knew that had just returned to 'the world' from the bush. He walked into his parent's house to find his father sitting at the kitchen table reading a newspaper. The returned son seated himself at the table and began playing his old guitar in sweet haunting tones. It's a fairly popular guitar solo I'd rather not mention and have always heard too often even though I do like it a lot..."
Pause. Morgan's eyes misted over slightly...
"Mind telling me where you're going with this story, Morgan?
"Not at all, Ed. The guy's father looked up casually from his newspaper and asked:
'Well, son. Did you have fun in Vietnam?'
'I was told that, on that note, as it were, the grunt kid from the bush quit playing and grasped the neck of his guitar in both hands. Looked squarely into his father's laughing eyes and promptly smashed the guitar box over his father's head, then stood up and garroted his father with the topmost, thickest E string. Dumped him out of his chair, made damned sure he was perished, and then dialed 911 on himself. Got life in prison without possibility of parole..." Pause.
"The moral of the story is ambivalent, Ed. But since I heard it, I always considered it two more casualties of the Vietnam War, and how it traveled to the United States to claim them both".
'Ed'. Put up his pool cue in the rack, set his beer down at a nearby table, cradled his head in his arms, and emitted a long series of soft, altogether genuine weeping sounds. Probly on accounta it's a sad song, no matter how one may hear it played.
An incognito refugee. M.I.A. in the U.S.A. Tinsel Town.
Given the peer group and culture he returned to, he just couldn't get out of Vietnam.
He'd always been protective, especially of women and children. Now he was struggling with that fact and his last mission - the village in the Riverines. Another beer. Another quarter's worth of SKY PILOT on the juke box - play anything but G-7. Another flashback memory on the inside of his eyelids. Another beer.
Sometimes a southern California macho man would pick a fight with him. They were always promptly neutralized with a minimum of violence - Morgan was often underestimated and the testy bullies paid the price of social embarassment, learning in just a few moments that they had tested the wrong man. Since age nine he had quietly and diligently practiced Kung Fu under an array of Hollywood based, genuine Asian masters. On one occasion he was obliged to floor a man in a public library, but such incidents usually occurred in one of several middle class fern bars with a juke box, pool table and good food. Morgan had a way of letting his man up and allowing him a dignified way out, once the latter had learned his lesson from the presiding Asian style pugilist (A Man Called 'Nobody'?).
The military had awarded 'Animal' Hallinen its second highest honorarium - the Navy Cross - just for emerging alive out from under the artillery barrage of his last mission. He refused to accept it. The Navy finally sent it to his widowed mother. Who immediately placed it on the mantle in the living room. Morgan would not return home after arriving in the States, though he did write one or more weekly letters to his mother. There was no return address, though she did know he was in Los Angeles from the postage marking. He assured her he cared for her more than words could say, but she wanted to see her son back home and he, for whatever reason, continued to avoid direct contact.
It was the same way with several close female friends. He did speak of spending a lot of time in bars and restaurants, whereas the Morgan Hallinen they knew had spent time studying at home or in librarys, or working on further advancing himself in Asian philosophy including the martial arts. His recreational outlet, for the most part, had been surfing.
Hollywood did not make a movie based on his life. No one beyond his immediate family and friends would ever know of his arrivals and departures. His life imparted no ripple effect on society. But for the unpublished book he would leave behind, he would disappear like any other unknown. A consistent message came through in all of his letters. He wished to 'shorten the war in Vietnam'.
One of the things that most disturbed Morgan was his increasing realisation of the Asian mind - 'It's mostly about respect for each other. True, unqualified love and caring.' No military force has ever taken and held Southeast Asia. China, Genghis Khan, Japan and France have all tried, and failed. Due to a double obstacle - the most prolific jungle in the world, and the most dedicated, indomitable troops in the world. Wipe out an entire village, just because it's there and produces rice for the enemy (refer: 'The Phoenix Program' - a euphemism for depriving the combatant enemy of his food suppy as it was obtained from rice farmers - become infrastructural sources of support for the enemy and to be targeted as such. Yes. Operation Phoenix - a genocidal policy; a deliberate targeting of non combatant, infrastrutural farmers), and you may be certain that whatever survivors may emerge from that conflagration will be among the most single minded, dedicated soldiers - every man, woman and child of them - in the world.
"YOU KNOW THOSE U.P.I. REPORTS ON VC SAPPERS DOING PIROUETTES WITH AN AK-47 ON ROCK AND ROLL (fully auto) ON TOP OF THE BQ (U.S. Battalion Hdqtrs.) JUKE BOX IN THE MIDDLE OF A G.I. 'VICTORY CELEBRATION'? THE ONLY PART OF SUCH STORIES THAT USUALLY ISN'T TRUE IS WHEN THEY TELL YOU THE ENEMY IS ALL DOPED UP BEFORE MAKING THE ATTACK. THE ENEMY IS HIGH ON WAR MOTIVATED BY LOVE FOR HIS PEOPLE AND COUNTRY. AND WHEN YOU FINALLY KILL HIM, FOUR WILL TAKE HIS PLACE IN DETERMINED VENGEANCE. ONE INDIVIDUAL SOLDIER WILL SIT BESIDE A REMOTE JUNGLE TRAIL - FASTING FOR WEEKS. JUST TO PULL THE REMOTE CONTROL DETONATING CORD ON YOUR LAST FOOTPRINT, JOE. CHARLIE LOVES YOU SO MUCH HE'S GOT NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT TO DO IN HIS LIFE AND THAT OF HIS FAMILY AND COUNTRY, UNTIL YOU GET THE HELL OUT OF IT." - Excerpt, A MOVEABLE VIETNAM: A Continental Misunderstanding.
'IT'S A BAD DREAM WHICH FINDS YOU THE ENEMY OF THOSE YOU LOVE' - Kublai Khan. WELL. I THINK IT'S CULTURE SHOCK. RIGHT HERE IN THE WORLD (U.S.). WE WERE BRIEFED ABOUT THIS UPON ENTERING VIETNAM - BUT THAT WAS FOR COMPLETE IMMERSION IN A FOREIGN CULTURE. HOLLYWOOD MAY BE THAT TO SOME AMERICANS, BUT I WAS BORN HERE, AND I THINK THAT'S WHAT I'VE GOT. THEY NEVER SAID A DAMNED THING ABOUT THIS...
'ARE YOU THE ONE TALKING ABOUT A BACKWARDS DOMINO THEORY?'/ 'YES'./ 'WELL. YOU'VE GOT IT AGAIN'.
- Excerpt, A MOVEABLE VIETNAM.
He learned he was the enemy of those he loved, in Vietnam. That was bad enough, but then he learned the worst of it - he was now also the enemy of those he loved in the United States. He was the living soul of an unknown Vietnamese village, on Hollywood Boulevard. Not a snowball's chance in Acapulco. The Inn Crowd had no room for him or interest in his story. No place for any of it on the marquis at LE BIJOU RIP TINKLE, down town.
Animal Hallinen now looking upon the Sunset Boulevard of his boyhood, a few years removed become a thousand. Discovering that he could no longer see or feel or stand upon that same street ever again.
"KNOWING THE TRUTH HAS COME TO MEAN THE REALIZATION THAT 'THE JUNGLE' AND ALL OF ITS REPUTATION HAS NO SOCIAL PERIMETERS. NO LIMITATIONS. IT'S CALLED SOCIAL DARWINISM AND IT'S A DAMNED LIE. INJUSTICE IS HAPPENING ALL RIGHT. BUT IT DOESN'T 'HAVE TO' HAPPEN OR MADE INEVITABLE BY ANY LAWS OF NATURE. TRUE DARWINISM IS SYNONYMOUS WITH COOPERATION, NOT COMPETITION AMONG THE SAME SPECIES. 'DARWINISM' HAS COME TO BE SOCIALLY 'UNDERSTOOD' AS MEANING EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT IT MEANS. WHEREAS, WITH THE SAME SPECIES, THE POWER OF COOPERATION IS GREATER THAN THE POWER OF COMPETITION. THIS IS BUT ONE IMPORTANT EXAMPLE OF LITERALLY HUNDREDS OF MISUNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT THE ABSOLUTE, UNSHAKEABLE VALUES OF MORAL RESPONSIBILITY.
ETHICS OFTEN HAS LITTLE OR NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS, FOR EXAMPLE. THESE PREVAILING, NATIONAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS DO NOT OCCUR INADVERTANTLY, BUT RATHER, ARE THE UNIFORM RESULT OF AN EQUALLY UNIFORM INFLUENCE-BY-DESIGN: NETWORK TV PROGRAMMING - ABOUT 75% OF IT - THE DESTRUCTIVE SOCIAL IMPACT OF WHICH IS CONSISTENTLY POO-POO'D AND UNIFORMLY MINIMIZED VIA THE SAME MEDIA, LIKE THE ONE PRECEDING IT. THE 4th REICH MACHINE AND ITS SUBSCRIBERS CAN NORMALIZE OR BANISH ANYTHING. WE ARE SUBJECT TO A War Of Perception, WHERE FEAR IS MANUFACTURED AND SECURITY RARIFIED. THEN SECURITY AND PEACE CAN BE 'MARKETED'; AT ALL COSTS. WE ARE ALL UNECESSARILY COMPETING FOR SECURITY AND WE ARE ALL UNNECESSARILY LOSING. THE SALES AXIOM: 'Find a need and fill it', HAS BECOME, 'Find a security and kill it'. PRODUCING THE 'PERFECT CONSUMER'...
Oh. Say. Can you see? - Francis Scott Keye
'WHO DO I TALK TO ABOUT THIS? MY PEERS SAY THAT IT'S MY 'KARMA'. FOR ALLOWING MYSELF TO BE SENT TO VIETNAM. FACT IS I VOLUNTEERED. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT? I DIN'T VOLUNTEER FOR NO VIETNAM. I BELIEVED IN THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AND NEWS AGENCIES AND ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY. I WAS CONFIDENT OF INHERITANCE OF A NOBLE MISSION. IF THAT'S WRONG AND SINFUL, THEN I AM WRONG AND THAT SIN IS MINE. POLITICAL SCIENCE CALLS THIS NATIONALISM. AMERICANS CALL IT LOVE OF COUNTRY AND 'PARTRIOTISM'. AN INESCAPABLE EXAMPLE OF ALL THIS IS THE THIRD REICH AND 'DER FUHRER'. THE SIN OF THE VIETNAM COMBAT AND SUPPORT TROOP VETERAN IS THE VERY SAME. THE SIN OF THE NATIONALISTIC PEOPLE IS SUPPORTING THE INVASION BY DIRECTION OF THEIR 'GOVERNMENT'. DISSENTING REALITY DOESN'T EXIST WITHIN NETWORK TV OR RADIO OR NEWSPAPER SYNDICATIONS. - Excerpt A MOVEABLE VIETNAM
"VIETNAM UNSEEN IN AMERICA AFTER THE TET OFFENSIVE IS VIETNAM IN AMERICA: A Moveable Vietnam: A Continental Misunderstanding.
JUST DRIVE IN AND THE AMERICAN MEDIA WILL STRANGLE YOU INTO BELIEVING YOU'RE SOMEPLACE ELSE. AMERICA LOOKS AT EVERYTHING AND BODY VIA TELEVISION - WHETHER THIS OR THAT INDIVIDUAL 'DOES OR DOES NOT WATCH IT MUCH', NO ONE CAN ESCAPE THE INFLUENCE OF THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF THOSE WHO DO.
Mercury vapor lights twinkle and rebound off the highway departments' reflective lane divider paint, further enhancing the dusk on Sunset Boulevard, 15 August 1969. Hallinen is standing in the middle of the street, peeing and walking, walking and peeing; utilizing his Master's Degree in Anthropology to non-verbally communicate with passing motorists. Many of these immediatately show disgust at animal's antics. Some laugh openly as they pass by; most driving faster, some slowing down...
A parked car about 25 yards away contains a middle aged 'couple from Germany. The husband is trying to recall the title of the art work featuring a very well done statue of a small, naked boy, standing straight up and holding his groin with both hands, casually peeing. In German the husband is now explaining that replicas of this originally Germanic art are now pastoral furnitures in parks and squares and hotel lobbies all over the world.
These observers will give testimony to the authorities as to all of what is about to follow. The wife looks on in light hearted silence while the husband continues narrating their ongoing perspective of Morgan Hallinen's last moments. Of course they have no idea...
"Usually it's fitted with plumbing and shown as a water exhibit or fountain. The story is that the original artist sculpture lost his baby son, who just wandered out of the house into the city, maybe Frankfort, he wasn't sure... The entire day then transpired, with the father in frantically more desperate search, passing out the word to the police and public... The day closing with the forlorn father suddenly seeing - in the middle of a large public square - his naked son standing in the middle of the street, casually peeing on the cobble stones. So, the story is, the father immortaized this happy moment of reunion in a fine piece of sculpture replicating the moment of finding his baby son."
He explains all this while the two languidly share a cup of hot herbal tea from a THERMOS jug., silently watching after Morgan. Each mildly fascinated, calm; as the object of their vigil weaves about in small circles and figure 8's in the middle of the down town thoroughfare. Horn blasting is now in consistent, erratic evidence.
The piddling is intermittant, apparently to further prolong his chosen theater and setting. '...by the dawn's early light'. - Excerpt, National Anthem
The police are called and their sirens now envelope Morgan's area of operation. Two black & whites deposit four cops upon the set. None of these or any of those arriving at later moments appear to be celebrating the finding of any son - native or otherwise. Two move forward with confidence; two more lag behind.
In a blur, the two lead policemen are grounded. The remaining two run to Morgan's circle of power and are likewise knocked down, as the first two officers regain their feet they are somehow tipped over once again. Neither Morgan nor the police have actually struck any blows, the former's style is difficult to evaluate, due to the swift efficiency of rounded, spinning movements.
More units with more officers continue to arrive. Northbound traffic is halted by officers, flares and broadside black and whites...
"...and the rocket's red glare!" - Francis Scott Keye
A movie production crew and lighting director's dream.
The gathering spectacle will go on for the better part of ten minutes, while Hallinen remains standing and officers fall and rise to and from the twighlight effervescing asphalt. The accumulating peacemakers around Morgan become so numerous as to actually get in one another's way. Police batons are wielded, none finding their mark or mission upon the intended target, while the nightsticks are grounded and their brandishers accordingly swept and thrown thither and skelter, further frustrating and angering the growing phalynx of foiled fuzz. MACE is employed with no apparent effect other than the canisters being contrabanded and turned on the skirmished officers.
'The bombs bursting in air!'
- Francis Scot Keye
Without ever having fallen or said a word through the cacaphony of cursing constables; snorting and sweating like a small workhorse, Morgan deftly disarms and acquires a police .38 caliber service revolver. While using the disarmed officer as a shield he puts the muzzle to his own head and abruptly ends his betrayed, suffering part in the ongoing ('What?') American disaster. Dancing now with Shiva, in Indian Country.
Vietnam. Vietnam. Vietnam.
Some northbound traffic is trickling by at close quarters throughout the scramble. The curtly resolved situation now mellowing in reflections of open mouthed, doe eyed Goddesses despairing for him with anguished expressions and audible notes of distress; audible even from behind closed windows of quickly accelerating vehicles enroute the schedules of business appointments in more important city locations. Passing traffic reflected in Morgan's wide open, sightless eyes gazing peacefully skyward, foregrounded by the passing machines and people, all those Goddesses he wished to carouse with - to tell, learn and teach with...
Sunset boulevard, about an hour after sunset, as imaged in the eyes of a young man's body lying upon it. Just after he realized he'd only gone through the physical technicality of actually transporting his body 'home'. There had been many women and children in The Last Village...
"Gave proof through the night!"
- Francis Scot Keye
... calling him back. Trying to cop a tan on the same beach towel near the same rock, trying to ignore a sun and surf now filled with Vietnamese doves, mermaids and tigers... Calling him back to two different sides of the same ocean. Pursuing and being pursued by two different kinds of lovely women, from two different cultures, and villages.
THIS ISN'T GOING TO WORK. WHO DO YOU TELL ABOUT THIS? WAITER. THERE IS A COMPLEX, MILITARY-CORPORATE STATE PLOT TO MAKE WAR FOR PROFIT - AND DRIVE A NATION COLLECTIVELY MAD ENOUGH TO SUPPORT IT - IN MY SOUP.
- Excerpt, A MOVEABLE VIETNAM: A Continental Misunderstanding.
Concerning the above, obscurely known Hollywood drama, a seasoned veteran of the L.A.P.D. commented later to a local small time journalist, 'It wouldn't have been so bad, but everyone who was at that raucous from it's beginning acquired a kind of respect for the guy. He was handing back our batons; everytime we tried to use one it wound up on the road or handed back to us. I mean, this kid was good, he was skunking us. One of our guys fractured an arm when he hit the pavement too hard. That's the only real casualty he dished out.. He strung us out and made us look bad for quite a while, you know. I mean you should have heard some of those spectators - and several cops - when he shot himself like that. All that blood on the road and the flourescent divider paint. A very tragic ending for him and the police. Like, he needed rescue, and we should have been able to save him.'
Varied rock 'n roll music accompaniment comes and goes with the passing of this Rolls Royce and that Bentley, Volkswagon or Mercedes - half inch open windows... His last fading visions of a comfortably supine, semi-nude nubile, swathed in gossamer; a lot like the kinds of oil paintings you might see in a museum or over an ornate wet bar in an 1890 setting. A composite of a half dozen or so women he saw floating past him, on the other side of SAFE-T glass General Motor's windows and such. It was in this way that Morgan Hallinen finally returned home from Vietnam; travel to Nirvana from his beloved U.S.A.
Sunset Boulevard scene reflecting from the peacefully dying eyes of a young man lying upon it and a Valentine cloud. No longer seeing or feeling the street. Soft 'Animal' eyes now finally closing upon it - still flowing uncomprehendingly - around him, for the last time. Police photography cameras flashing. A Cowboy's Dream, to smiling, relaxing, having-a-good time fade out...
"THAT'S A TAKE." - The closing sentence in the novel, A MOVEABLE VIETNAM: A Continental Misunderstanding.
No. Hollywood wouldn't make any movie about Mo Morgan The Animal. Wouldn't make any movie at all about Vietnam, throughout all of that ten year war, with the singular exception of John Wayne starring in THE GREEN BERET's. ON the other hand, scores of such films were produced, directed, starred in and released in the four relatively short years of World War II.. There were dozens of such films about Korea, during that 'police action'. But only one - in a decade - of the 'Vietnam War'. As though the Hollywood Entertainment Industry itself somehow knew and understood the vain and scandalous plan to invade and occupy the indomitable Asian continent... As Dwight David Eisenhower had warned that 'the military industrial complex might make war for industrial economic profit' , regardless of any other consequence... How could the 'Hollywood Entertainment Industry' know this - from beginning to end - about Vietnam? (From 'the jump', i.e., the Tonkin Gulf, squared.)
And then there is the world's purest crude oil in the South China Sea. And Titanium, untaxed heroine - the Golden (opiate) Triangle of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The historically contiguous European colonization of Southeast Asia, AKA, Vietnam, 'Annam'. The Mekong Delta on the southernmost peninsula. The world's richest source of rice. The rice bowl of 2/3rds of the world. The Sleeping Tiger.
All of world history and fully fifty percent of our living military advisory resources - Generals, Admirals, Commodores, Political Scientists clearly and openly condemned any sustained military action by anyone, against any part of Asia as foreordained to irrevocable failure. A sure fall. A fool's move. A Pilgrim's HEART OF DARKNESS, such as that admonished by Joseph Conrad. APOCALYPSE squared.
One nation, indivisible, with many of its international allies mustering in for role call where none of them belonged. Sending its chldren and young men there. And back. Grieving and sobbing about the ones that don't come back, and whining and complaining about the ones that return.
The military industrial, network syndicated electronics media executives were up for hustling the East, from the Western Hemisphere, with American television and 'double government' - that on the surface, and the other beneath that surface. The Orwellian 'double-think' ('hide-light') title: THE TELEVISION WAR.
TechoSpeak always had the war coming along splendidly. After nearly a century of French 'colonization', on 20 March 1954, French General Paul Ely, Chief of Staff stated:
"If the communists continue to suffer the losses they've been taking, I don't know how they can stay in the battle."
Two months later, May 1954, the French Colonists were routed from Vietnam, capped by the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
16 April 1954:
"The Vietnamese lack the ability to conduct a war by themselves or govern themselves". - Senator Richard M. Nixon.
12 June 1957, General Samuel T. Williams, Head of the U.S. Advisory Group in Vietnam announced:
"We have exactly 342 men ('in country'), the number allowed by the Geneva Armistice Conference. It would be a breeze if we had more."
America picked up where France left off...
25 February 1968, General William C. Westmoreland proclaimed:
"I do not believe Hanoi can hold up under a long war".
3 May 1970, Vice president Spiro T. Agnew stated:
"They have been in a war for years and years and they are quite debilitated and decimated, and I don't think they are capable with any kind of resistance of continuing this fight."
"Before the Americans came to our rescue, we lived in quiet and peace. But now that you are here, all our people know is terror and bloodshed." - Unnamed Cambodian Army Captain, Chup, Cambodia, 6 May, 1970 _______________
The war was progressively improving at the RAND CORPORATION for all ten of its victorious years in the field (Refer, FIRE IN THE LAKE, by Pulitzer Prize winner, Frances Fitzgerald - a Capitalistic woman who lived in Vietnam for years).
REMINGTON RAND-speak spoke that 'the U.S. held back too much', and therefore 'lost the war at home'. No support from Spiro Agnew's dubbed 'effete snobs' and 'unwashed, flea bitten, V.D. infested communist sympathizers'. These designated 'chumps' in the United States ('Four dead in Ohio - KENT STATE UNIVERSITY) were held up and shaken to explain why and how the most formidable infantry in the most formidable environment in the world, drove us literally off the Golden Continent - like a berserked, bug-eyed, full throttle, screaming locomotive - into the sea ('Go home. Joe'.)....
April 1975
The U.S. 'departure' so orderly as to leave (at least) thirty billion dollars worth of techno-industrial hardware and various war materials in and around every U.S. area of operations in and around North and South Vietnam. So conscientiously and tactically 'disconnected' as to literally leave intact, a complete master listing of the names, addresses and occupations of every ARVN soldier and his family and freinds in service to the Allyship of the United States and the Republic of South Vietnam: in the top drawer of the abandoned American Ambassador's desk at the Saigon Embassy. Every one of the survivors on this list, soon to be known to the world as 'the Boat People'. The charter members of whom were systematically punched and kicked from the landing skids of the last frantic - Huey Six - helicopter 'departure' from the roof of the Saigon French Embassy, April 1975...
Bon voyage, mon chez ami. Se la vie...
WHOP! WHOP! WHOP! WHOP! Whop! Whop! Whop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Whp! Whp! Whp! Pip! PIp! Pip! Pip! Pip!... To fade out, for the last time...
__________________
Everything about the U.S. in Vietnam - arrival to departure - Just pure encyclopaedic jabberwock: "Anything one may hear about Vietnam is probably true." - Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State, 1970
"Gave proof through the night! That our flag was still there!" - Francis Scot Keye
An 'open media', elaborately reporting an ongoing war, day after week after month, on year after year, for a decade, without ever revealing the (inescapable) truths of that war.
('What so proudly we hailed!')
The United States invaded Asia by way of the exact same route its favored 'Domino Theory' warns of the invasion of the North American continent by Asia - via the Pacific atolls of Micronesia, Hawaii, the Phillipines and Japan. Yet, the American people have never heard of the invasion of Asia by the United States; never heard of The Domino Theory: backwards. Ten years of 'free enterprise' - Democratic 'wide open' media coverage failed to reveal or uncover any of this 'news'.
Now THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT.
Have you seen HOLOCAUST, yet?
How many times?
Post traumatic stress disorder forum at: http://forums.delphiforums.com/Kaidupuppy
A ContinentalMisunderstanding
Copyright 1984, 1985 & 2006, by Kent Benjamin Robertson. All rights reserved. May be reproduced for non commercial educational purposes, with due accreditation for authorship.
(This faction story is a composite of individual experiences by over a half dozen persons, who, without knowing it, form a dedication to one individual - Buddy Annelo <1946 - 1967>, of San Francisco, who foresaw his own death, and manner of dying in Vietnam. This story is a humble memorial to a fine young man; a Soldier's Soldier, a flawed Nation's martyred icon. This is a fiction story about a fictional U.D.T. 'Frogman', aka, SEAL, while the truth is even more melancholy and ineffable.)
BlueJacket this 21 year old Navy SEAL with straight A's in all studies. Excelled in most everything he applied himself to - Academics, Martial Arts, Social Sciences. Graduated from UCLA with a Master's Degree in Anthropology at age 19. D.O.B. 1947 Birthplace. Hollywood, California. Ht. 5' 8". Wt. 170. Multiple athletic skills. I.Q. 130. Spanish, Russian, French and German conversationalist. Wary of male intimidation rituals. Popular with and protective of women - Oedipus inclined. Nick-names, 'Mo', 'Animal' and 'Surf'. REASON FOR JOINING MILITARY SERVICE: "I wish to fullfill my military obligation to my country and help liberate the people of South Vietnam. My family and country expects and deserves this from me." REASON FOR JOINING for Underwater Demolition - Sea-Air-Land - qualifications: "To shorten the war and distinguish myself as a Soldier (Sailor)". Expert Rifle & Pistol Marksman. Excels in close combat. Functionally fearless. Modest demeanor. Conservative politics.
So they stationed him in the Riverines, for over a year. After the incident with what his superiors called the 'scattered gook confetti' and his measurable depression from that experience, his tour of foreign service was up and he was given leave to return to the United States and civilian life.
My county is the invader, I was the host-victimizing parasite; the Fascist terrorist, 'only obeying orders'. The military succeeded in this village and failed at home. I was making examples of their leaders in the night when I woke up doing the wrong thing to the wrong people in the wrong country in the wrong war. I was betraying these people because my country's key leadership and corporate state had betrayed every American - all who were persuaded by mass media propaganda - to believe it was a worthy war worth sacrificing for.
The illusion ended in a small village, 5 February 1968. Paint it green and black and white and red all over. There's got to be a morning after.
The Mekong Delta is as wet as it sounds. The lowlands being invaded from the north by nineteen year old Americans via the Ia Drang Valley, to River's End flood plane. Rice Paddy Heaven. A lot of navigable lesser rivers and canals. River Patrol Boat (RPB) and other U.S. Navy duty. Among the capillaries of the Red River (sometimes apocryphally called the 'Yalu') as it levels off in southernmost South Vietnam - through 'the 13th Valley' as it fans out from the main artery to more southern and numberous veins. Then stepping down even further and flatter, to hundreds of thousands of man made terraces and irrigation systems, tiny streams and river fingerlings.
"Stationed on a boat in the middle of this and the Navy, and you're 'PBR in the Riverines'. If you're regular Navy you can stay on your boat. If you're a S.E.A.L., you leave it when CRYPTO tells you to 'perish the enemy in the midst of his village and sanctuary and guarded perimeters, in the midst of his night; then exit those boundaries, without waking anyone else'. Charlie was even better at this then us. It was a psywar way of seeing to it that no one ever felt secure."
- Morgan Hallinen/U.S. Navy S.E.A.L./ET3rdC, The Riverines, 1967. Excerpted from his unpublished book...
"WE STUDIED AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS OF MOST OF THESE TARGETS. SOME WERE VARIOUS MAGNIFICATIONS OF SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPHS. WE WOULD KNOW WHAT ROUTE OF APPROACH BY WATER. WE WOULD EVEN KNOW THE EXACT LOCATION OF A ONE FOOT WIDE IRRIGATION OR DRAINAGE DITCH - ANY MINOR CANAL LEADING TO AND FROM THE TARGET AREA. WE KNEW WHAT HOOTCH (house) THE TARGET LIVED IN - WHAT BED IN WHAT CORNER. WE KNEW HIS PHYSICAL COUNTENANCE AND AGE; HIS DAILY ACTIVITIES. FOR ALL THAT, WE NEVER KNEW WHO HE REALLY WAS, BESIDES BEING THE OBJECT OF A GIVEN MISSION. OBJECTIVE TARGETS WERE TO BE PERISHED. THEN WE KNOW THEY ARE THE ENEMY - WHEN THEY'RE DEAD, THEY'RE VIET CONG OR NVA CADRE, OF THAT WE WERE ALWAYS ASSURED WITH IRREPROACHABLE CERTAINTY." - Morgan Hallinen/USN/The Riverines, 1967.
"I'D BEEN DOING THIS KIND OF DUTY FOR NEARLY A YEAR. RAIN OR SHINE. CHARLIE DON'T LIKE YOU. THE RIVER DON'T LIKE YOU. THE JUNGLE KILL YOU QUICK AS ANY ADVERSARY IN VIETNAM. THE MOSQUITOS, DAYTIME HEAT AND NIGHT TIME COLD AND MONSOON RAIN WILL TAKE YOU IN DARKNESS AND LIGHT. TRIPLE CANOPY JUNGLE CAN LEAVE YOU IN VANQUISHED SEARCH OF YOUR OWN ASS AT HIGH NOON, ALL DAY LONG. PIT AND BAMBOO VIPERS AND GENRE SERPENTS HERE CALLED 'MR. ONE STEP', AND 'MR. TWO STEP'. IN PARTING SALUTE TO ANY G.I. WHO GETS LUCKY ENOUGH TO MAKE HIS ACQUAINTANCE IN VIETNAM. MR. ONE STEP GIVE YOU THAT MUCH TIME. SAME THING MR. TWO STEP. HAZARDS LIKE THIS TEND TO INFLUENCE A GENERAL APPRECIATION FOR THE ONGOING MOMENTS OF LIFE. MALARIA PILLS. JOKES. BLACK 'n WHITE HUMOR. SOLEMN REFLECTION. HERE AND NOW WITHOUT PAST OR FUTURE.
"YOU KNOW THE STORIES OF A DEDICATED SOLDIER ON A PERILOUS MISSION. AIMED AT TERMINATING ONE PERSON IN ORDER TO SAVE THOUSANDS? WELL. I BELIEVED ALL THAT - I WAS A COURAGEOUS SURGEON EXCISING THE MALADIES FROM THE PEOPLE'S BODY POLITIC. THEN, THERE ARE THE STORIES OF MISTAKENLY TERMINATING THE WRONG PERSON, WHEN YOU'RE A 'BULLET FOR YOUR COUNTRY'. THE 'TEAR JERKER' YOU KNOW; 'THE MISTAKE THAT WAKES YOU UP TO THE MADNESS OF WAR' OH. THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED ALL RIGHT. BUT IT WASN'T ANY MISTAKE OF MINE. IN THESE REGARDS, THE ONLY MISTAKE I MADE WAS JOINING THE NAVY.
"MY STORY IS, I HAD JUST RETURNED FROM MY 37th NIGHT MISSION, TWENTY FIFTH CONFIRMED KILL, AND FIFTEENTH VILLAGE - WHICH I HAD JUST LIBERATED FROM TWO TREACHEROUS CADRE. I WAS GETTING COMFORTABLE LOOKING OVER MY MY SHOULDER AT IT ONE MOMENT, AND THE NEXT MOMENT THE ARMY BEGAN TAKING AN IMPROMPTU ILLUMINATING DUMP UPON IT WITH 105mm WHITE PHOSPHOROUS AND HIGH EXPLOSIVE FRAGMENTATION. MAYBE OUT TO ONE-UP THE NAVY IN SHOWING US WHAT A 'SURGICAL STRIKE' REALLY IS. EXCEPT, THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WE WERE THERE, OR, MAYBE THEY DIDN'T CARE. THE PLACE WAS DENSELY POPULATED WITH RICE FARMING FAMILIES AND COVERED ABOUT 15 ACRES. I HAD JUST SEEN MANY OF THESE PEOPLE SLEEPING IN THEIR BEDS.
"I'D BEEN ORDERED BACK TO MAKE ANOTHER KILL IN THE SAME VILLAGE, ON THE SAME NIGHT. I WAS UNEXPECTEDLY ON THE WAY BACK, AND I KNEW I WAS EXACTLY 175 SECONDS FROM BEING THERE IN IT WHEN THE ARMY ERASED THE AWAKENED AND SLUMBERING PEOPLE AND TERRAIN. THE LITTLE U.S. NAMED 'HAMLET' SUDDENLY BECAME INCANDESCENT, LIKE AN ENORMOUS FLASH BULB, MELTING THE VILLAGE FILAMENT AND PEOPLE. THIS ARTY (artillery) STRIKE WAS NO MORE THAN TWENTY SECONDS DURATION - THE BRACKETED VILLAGE RISING ABOUT FIFTY YARDS IN THE AIR TO FINALLY DESCEND IN FLAMING FRAGMENTS AT THE CESSATION OF THE BARRAGE. THE NIGHT HAD GONE FROM DARKNESS TO TRIPLE SUNLIGHT WHITE PHOSPHOROUS AND THEN BACK TO WHAT AMOUNTED TO A VERY LARGE CAMPFIRE SURROUNDED AGAIN BY DARKNESS. AS A BRIEF, SOLEMN LITANY, I SUDDENLY SAW THE LIGHT.
"THAT'S WHEN I BEGAN TO LEARN I MIGHT NEVER SLEEP AGAIN. IT SEEMS THE U.S. ARMY PERCEPTION AND 'MILITARY INTELLIGENCE' OF THE NUMBER OF V.C. AND CADRE IN THAT VILLAGE, DID NOT CORRESPOND WITH THE NAVY PERCEPTION. THAT'S WHEN I BEGAN TO REALIZE THAT THE PEOPLE I WAS PERISHING WERE... ANYBODY. ANYONE AT ALL.
"THE NEXT MORNING, THE ARMY WOULD CORDIALLY REQUISITION MY BOAT CREW TO OBTAIN A 'BODY COUNT', FOR THE INQUIRING ARMY OFFICERS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ARTILLERY STRIKE. KEEPING TRACK OF NUANCES, LIKE, HOW MANY RIGHT AND LEFT ARMS, LEGS, HANDS AND FEET - 'PROPERLY' INVENTORIED. WE HAD TO COUNT THEM ALL.
"I FORGET WHAT IT WAS - HOW MANY PEOPLE I HELPED SAVE THAT DAY, UPON THE PREVIOUS NIGHT. EVERYONE OF THEM WAS ME - OR SOMEONE I MAY HAVE KNOWN AS A FRIENDLY. EVERY DISMEMBERED, BURNED AND/OR MUTILATED SPECIMEN."
- Morgan Hallinen/U.S.N. 5 February 1968. To be continued
His 'silver freedom bird' civilian airliner had delivered him to Los Angeles International airport. Back to 'the world' - another planet. He had told no one he was returning 'home' - from now on it would be no less alien than the one he was returning from.
'A CORRIDOR OF ELECTRIC BLINKING HABITANT OCCUPIED BY PEOPLE IN DESPERATELY UNRESOLVED, ENDLESS PURSUIT OF EACH OTHER. EVERYONE WHO PLAYS THIS, WINS: ANOTHER GAME, SQUARED. HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD AT NEON LIGHTED NIGHT. BLACK AS INK. BLINKING ORANGE AND BLUE AND FLICKERING PINK, AND GREEN AIN'T MEAN, 'TIL YOU'VE SEEN..."
- A MOVEABLE VIETNAM, Excerpt
Los Angeles, California, 9 June 1969
"All you have to do is hit the major media and Hollywood 'entertainment industry' Mission Impossible factories." Soon became one of his favored interiorized, unspoken post Vietnam tour hyperboles. He didn't volunteer that he was a Vietnam veteran, though all his friends knew this - many of whom would not learn that he was back until he was gone for the last time. "Telvision Rules", was also amidst his arsenal of newly accumulated favorite one-liners - "Vietnam: The Television War." Besides an occasional, randomly intersected, juke box and pool playing, beer drinking acquaintance or friend, no one who knew him in Los Angeles understood what he was talking about.
"What'd you do in Vietnam, Mo?" / "Nothing, Ed. Not much?" / "Not much and nothing, eh? That's all?" / "Well. Nothing is really something these days." / "Would you care to elaborate on that, Morgan?"
Long pause.
"Have you ever heard of the 'Domino Theory'?"
"Of course."/ "Would you describe it to me, briefly, please?"
"That's about stopping communism wherever it emerges outside of the Soviet Union or China... The theory is that if one country, like Vietnam, becomes communist, it will cause a chain reaction of communist governments that could possibly move off the Euroasian continent and travel to the United States by way of Japan, Hawaii, the Phillipines, Somoa, the Pacific Micronesian chain..."
"Very good, Ed. Richard Nixon has never said it better. And, in that way, after pounding across the Pacific stepping stones, Communism could spread everywhere if we don't stop it wherever it emerges - it may wind up in Seattle or Portland - then on to Des Moine and Chicago, Grand Rapids, Boston and New York City; from there it would inevitably make a grand sweep southward, through Baltimore, Washington D.C., the Carolinas, Phoenix, West Virginia, Dallas & Miami, to the Gulf of Mexico; completing a pincer movement from the overrun United States into the jaws of Cuba..." / Ed shows no sign of incredulity or amusement: "Yes. Basically, that's it." / "So we've got to keep the commies from taking over South Vietnam. Nip it in the bud.." / "Right".
Pause
"Have you ever heard that the Domino Theory has already happened?"
"No. I hasn't happened. It's just a theory. You and everyone else who served in Vietnam kept it to being just a theory - 'The Yellow Peril' and all that."
"You're wrong, Edgar. For one thing, the 'war' isn't over, yet'."
Pause
"Morgan. Are you trying to tell me we're being invaded?"
"No. I'm trying to tell you that the Domino Theory has already happened, backwards."
Pause
"I don't understand what that's supposed to mean, Morgan."
"Well. It means that we, our country, has already invaded Vietnam. Post facto"
"What?"
"Yes. We've invaded Vietnam by way of the same route our Domino Theory predicted the Commies would invade us. It's history, Edgar - it's already happened, backwards. But, the news media hasn't said so, so it isn't perceived or seen to have happened. NEWSWEEK and TIME haven't announced it. Our culture is tragically oblivious to this reality, and many others of comparable magnitutude."
Pause
"I know you didn't learn that in Vietnam, Morgan..."
"You're wrong again, Ed. That's exactly where I learned it."
Pause
"I don't mean to impose on you, Morgan, but you've avoided my opening question about what you did and where you were in Vietnam. You wanna talk about something else. It's okay. I understand. It's all right with me."
"It's okay, Ed."
Long pause.
"You ever kill anybody in Vietnam - you don't have to answer that. I apologize if it offends you."
Pause
"Aw huh. The million dollar question..."
"Million dollar question?"
"Yeah. That's one of the terms for it, Ed. Asking someone if they've ever killed anyone."
"I'm sorry, Mo. It's just that I know you were assigned to some special duties because of the kind of training you went through. It was just another way of asking what you did in Vietnam. Please accept my apologies."
"There's nothing to apologise for, Ed. I understand. I was just being mysterious. I was paid, honored and decorated for being mysterious..."
Pause
"Now I'm condemned to making excuses for all of those who make excuses for fighting a war, for no real reason at all - short of profits from the tax free illegal opium-heroin trade, the petroleum industry, stuff like that..."
Pause
"I guess I'll continue to be mysterious as long as the United States invasion of Asia across the Pacific atoll remains an obscure, mysterious idea. As - long as 'the Domino Theory Backwards' is a foreign sound to the Occidental ear, on or off American television."
"Is there anything that you'd be comfortable with, telling me about your soldiering there - something you can talk about?"
"I wrote a book."
"Well. You hadn't told me that before at all. What's it about? How big is it?"
"It's about what I learned in Vietnam. The land. The culture and traditions and language, agriculture and ecology, flora, fauna, history - did you know Vietnam used to be called 'Cochin China'? Anyway, it's about 350 pages long, and it has a surprise ending. It's basically complete, but I'm stilll doing some, uhh, editing."
"Has it got a title?"
"Oh yeah. It's called, A MOVEABLE VIETNAM: A Continental Misunderstanding."
Pause
"Now, that is a catchy title".
"It sure is."
"Any particular reason for writing it?"
"Oh yeah. Lots of 'em. But in a nutshell, it was inspired by what I thought might help shorten the war. A while back I thought I might do that by contributing to the military objective of winning it. Since then I sort'a changed my mind about that. I don't think that war can be won by us; consequently, all any G.I. over there is doing, is prolonging the war."
"So. You decided a book might help do what a half million men can't do." Pause "That's right, Ed. You've been reading my mail".
"How long were you there?"
"Well. Objectively, a year. Subjectively, a lot longer than that. Too long."
Pause
"You know I respect you a lot Morgan...."
"Yes. But....?"
"Well. We're back to indulging in mystery - your prerogative of course. For all the respect you rightfully deserve, well... I still think that, uhh..."
"You still think I've got an attitude?"
"I wasn't going to say it that way, Morgan. But, yes. I think, in consideration of the magnitude of the war and the numbers of American families directly or indirectly involved and suffering for it, I think you might show a little more, well, uh... humility."
Pause
"Just let me know when you think of 'What for', okay?" / "How about The United States of America". / "You can't beat that?" / "You sure can't."
Pause. "No. I s'pose not. But it may be beating itself."
"Will you please be a little more specific about that, Morgan?"
Long pause. Someone had cued G-7 on the juke box and it caused a subtle changing of gears in Morgan's countenance...
"A fellow very recently told me what he said was a true story - He called it 'Death In The Key of E' - of a vet he knew that had just returned to 'the world' from the bush. He walked into his parent's house to find his father sitting at the kitchen table reading a newspaper. The returned son seated himself at the table and began playing his old guitar in sweet haunting tones. It's a fairly popular guitar solo I'd rather not mention and have always heard too often even though I do like it a lot..."
Pause. Morgan's eyes misted over slightly...
"Mind telling me where you're going with this story, Morgan?
"Not at all, Ed. The guy's father looked up casually from his newspaper and asked:
'Well, son. Did you have fun in Vietnam?'
'I was told that, on that note, as it were, the grunt kid from the bush quit playing and grasped the neck of his guitar in both hands. Looked squarely into his father's laughing eyes and promptly smashed the guitar box over his father's head, then stood up and garroted his father with the topmost, thickest E string. Dumped him out of his chair, made damned sure he was perished, and then dialed 911 on himself. Got life in prison without possibility of parole..." Pause.
"The moral of the story is ambivalent, Ed. But since I heard it, I always considered it two more casualties of the Vietnam War, and how it traveled to the United States to claim them both".
'Ed'. Put up his pool cue in the rack, set his beer down at a nearby table, cradled his head in his arms, and emitted a long series of soft, altogether genuine weeping sounds. Probly on accounta it's a sad song, no matter how one may hear it played.
An incognito refugee. M.I.A. in the U.S.A. Tinsel Town.
Given the peer group and culture he returned to, he just couldn't get out of Vietnam.
He'd always been protective, especially of women and children. Now he was struggling with that fact and his last mission - the village in the Riverines. Another beer. Another quarter's worth of SKY PILOT on the juke box - play anything but G-7. Another flashback memory on the inside of his eyelids. Another beer.
Sometimes a southern California macho man would pick a fight with him. They were always promptly neutralized with a minimum of violence - Morgan was often underestimated and the testy bullies paid the price of social embarassment, learning in just a few moments that they had tested the wrong man. Since age nine he had quietly and diligently practiced Kung Fu under an array of Hollywood based, genuine Asian masters. On one occasion he was obliged to floor a man in a public library, but such incidents usually occurred in one of several middle class fern bars with a juke box, pool table and good food. Morgan had a way of letting his man up and allowing him a dignified way out, once the latter had learned his lesson from the presiding Asian style pugilist (A Man Called 'Nobody'?).
The military had awarded 'Animal' Hallinen its second highest honorarium - the Navy Cross - just for emerging alive out from under the artillery barrage of his last mission. He refused to accept it. The Navy finally sent it to his widowed mother. Who immediately placed it on the mantle in the living room. Morgan would not return home after arriving in the States, though he did write one or more weekly letters to his mother. There was no return address, though she did know he was in Los Angeles from the postage marking. He assured her he cared for her more than words could say, but she wanted to see her son back home and he, for whatever reason, continued to avoid direct contact.
It was the same way with several close female friends. He did speak of spending a lot of time in bars and restaurants, whereas the Morgan Hallinen they knew had spent time studying at home or in librarys, or working on further advancing himself in Asian philosophy including the martial arts. His recreational outlet, for the most part, had been surfing.
Hollywood did not make a movie based on his life. No one beyond his immediate family and friends would ever know of his arrivals and departures. His life imparted no ripple effect on society. But for the unpublished book he would leave behind, he would disappear like any other unknown. A consistent message came through in all of his letters. He wished to 'shorten the war in Vietnam'.
One of the things that most disturbed Morgan was his increasing realisation of the Asian mind - 'It's mostly about respect for each other. True, unqualified love and caring.' No military force has ever taken and held Southeast Asia. China, Genghis Khan, Japan and France have all tried, and failed. Due to a double obstacle - the most prolific jungle in the world, and the most dedicated, indomitable troops in the world. Wipe out an entire village, just because it's there and produces rice for the enemy (refer: 'The Phoenix Program' - a euphemism for depriving the combatant enemy of his food suppy as it was obtained from rice farmers - become infrastructural sources of support for the enemy and to be targeted as such. Yes. Operation Phoenix - a genocidal policy; a deliberate targeting of non combatant, infrastrutural farmers), and you may be certain that whatever survivors may emerge from that conflagration will be among the most single minded, dedicated soldiers - every man, woman and child of them - in the world.
"YOU KNOW THOSE U.P.I. REPORTS ON VC SAPPERS DOING PIROUETTES WITH AN AK-47 ON ROCK AND ROLL (fully auto) ON TOP OF THE BQ (U.S. Battalion Hdqtrs.) JUKE BOX IN THE MIDDLE OF A G.I. 'VICTORY CELEBRATION'? THE ONLY PART OF SUCH STORIES THAT USUALLY ISN'T TRUE IS WHEN THEY TELL YOU THE ENEMY IS ALL DOPED UP BEFORE MAKING THE ATTACK. THE ENEMY IS HIGH ON WAR MOTIVATED BY LOVE FOR HIS PEOPLE AND COUNTRY. AND WHEN YOU FINALLY KILL HIM, FOUR WILL TAKE HIS PLACE IN DETERMINED VENGEANCE. ONE INDIVIDUAL SOLDIER WILL SIT BESIDE A REMOTE JUNGLE TRAIL - FASTING FOR WEEKS. JUST TO PULL THE REMOTE CONTROL DETONATING CORD ON YOUR LAST FOOTPRINT, JOE. CHARLIE LOVES YOU SO MUCH HE'S GOT NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT TO DO IN HIS LIFE AND THAT OF HIS FAMILY AND COUNTRY, UNTIL YOU GET THE HELL OUT OF IT." - Excerpt, A MOVEABLE VIETNAM: A Continental Misunderstanding.
'IT'S A BAD DREAM WHICH FINDS YOU THE ENEMY OF THOSE YOU LOVE' - Kublai Khan. WELL. I THINK IT'S CULTURE SHOCK. RIGHT HERE IN THE WORLD (U.S.). WE WERE BRIEFED ABOUT THIS UPON ENTERING VIETNAM - BUT THAT WAS FOR COMPLETE IMMERSION IN A FOREIGN CULTURE. HOLLYWOOD MAY BE THAT TO SOME AMERICANS, BUT I WAS BORN HERE, AND I THINK THAT'S WHAT I'VE GOT. THEY NEVER SAID A DAMNED THING ABOUT THIS...
'ARE YOU THE ONE TALKING ABOUT A BACKWARDS DOMINO THEORY?'/ 'YES'./ 'WELL. YOU'VE GOT IT AGAIN'.
- Excerpt, A MOVEABLE VIETNAM.
He learned he was the enemy of those he loved, in Vietnam. That was bad enough, but then he learned the worst of it - he was now also the enemy of those he loved in the United States. He was the living soul of an unknown Vietnamese village, on Hollywood Boulevard. Not a snowball's chance in Acapulco. The Inn Crowd had no room for him or interest in his story. No place for any of it on the marquis at LE BIJOU RIP TINKLE, down town.
Animal Hallinen now looking upon the Sunset Boulevard of his boyhood, a few years removed become a thousand. Discovering that he could no longer see or feel or stand upon that same street ever again.
"KNOWING THE TRUTH HAS COME TO MEAN THE REALIZATION THAT 'THE JUNGLE' AND ALL OF ITS REPUTATION HAS NO SOCIAL PERIMETERS. NO LIMITATIONS. IT'S CALLED SOCIAL DARWINISM AND IT'S A DAMNED LIE. INJUSTICE IS HAPPENING ALL RIGHT. BUT IT DOESN'T 'HAVE TO' HAPPEN OR MADE INEVITABLE BY ANY LAWS OF NATURE. TRUE DARWINISM IS SYNONYMOUS WITH COOPERATION, NOT COMPETITION AMONG THE SAME SPECIES. 'DARWINISM' HAS COME TO BE SOCIALLY 'UNDERSTOOD' AS MEANING EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT IT MEANS. WHEREAS, WITH THE SAME SPECIES, THE POWER OF COOPERATION IS GREATER THAN THE POWER OF COMPETITION. THIS IS BUT ONE IMPORTANT EXAMPLE OF LITERALLY HUNDREDS OF MISUNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT THE ABSOLUTE, UNSHAKEABLE VALUES OF MORAL RESPONSIBILITY.
ETHICS OFTEN HAS LITTLE OR NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS, FOR EXAMPLE. THESE PREVAILING, NATIONAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS DO NOT OCCUR INADVERTANTLY, BUT RATHER, ARE THE UNIFORM RESULT OF AN EQUALLY UNIFORM INFLUENCE-BY-DESIGN: NETWORK TV PROGRAMMING - ABOUT 75% OF IT - THE DESTRUCTIVE SOCIAL IMPACT OF WHICH IS CONSISTENTLY POO-POO'D AND UNIFORMLY MINIMIZED VIA THE SAME MEDIA, LIKE THE ONE PRECEDING IT. THE 4th REICH MACHINE AND ITS SUBSCRIBERS CAN NORMALIZE OR BANISH ANYTHING. WE ARE SUBJECT TO A War Of Perception, WHERE FEAR IS MANUFACTURED AND SECURITY RARIFIED. THEN SECURITY AND PEACE CAN BE 'MARKETED'; AT ALL COSTS. WE ARE ALL UNECESSARILY COMPETING FOR SECURITY AND WE ARE ALL UNNECESSARILY LOSING. THE SALES AXIOM: 'Find a need and fill it', HAS BECOME, 'Find a security and kill it'. PRODUCING THE 'PERFECT CONSUMER'...
Oh. Say. Can you see? - Francis Scott Keye
'WHO DO I TALK TO ABOUT THIS? MY PEERS SAY THAT IT'S MY 'KARMA'. FOR ALLOWING MYSELF TO BE SENT TO VIETNAM. FACT IS I VOLUNTEERED. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT? I DIN'T VOLUNTEER FOR NO VIETNAM. I BELIEVED IN THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AND NEWS AGENCIES AND ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY. I WAS CONFIDENT OF INHERITANCE OF A NOBLE MISSION. IF THAT'S WRONG AND SINFUL, THEN I AM WRONG AND THAT SIN IS MINE. POLITICAL SCIENCE CALLS THIS NATIONALISM. AMERICANS CALL IT LOVE OF COUNTRY AND 'PARTRIOTISM'. AN INESCAPABLE EXAMPLE OF ALL THIS IS THE THIRD REICH AND 'DER FUHRER'. THE SIN OF THE VIETNAM COMBAT AND SUPPORT TROOP VETERAN IS THE VERY SAME. THE SIN OF THE NATIONALISTIC PEOPLE IS SUPPORTING THE INVASION BY DIRECTION OF THEIR 'GOVERNMENT'. DISSENTING REALITY DOESN'T EXIST WITHIN NETWORK TV OR RADIO OR NEWSPAPER SYNDICATIONS. - Excerpt A MOVEABLE VIETNAM
"VIETNAM UNSEEN IN AMERICA AFTER THE TET OFFENSIVE IS VIETNAM IN AMERICA: A Moveable Vietnam: A Continental Misunderstanding.
JUST DRIVE IN AND THE AMERICAN MEDIA WILL STRANGLE YOU INTO BELIEVING YOU'RE SOMEPLACE ELSE. AMERICA LOOKS AT EVERYTHING AND BODY VIA TELEVISION - WHETHER THIS OR THAT INDIVIDUAL 'DOES OR DOES NOT WATCH IT MUCH', NO ONE CAN ESCAPE THE INFLUENCE OF THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF THOSE WHO DO.
Mercury vapor lights twinkle and rebound off the highway departments' reflective lane divider paint, further enhancing the dusk on Sunset Boulevard, 15 August 1969. Hallinen is standing in the middle of the street, peeing and walking, walking and peeing; utilizing his Master's Degree in Anthropology to non-verbally communicate with passing motorists. Many of these immediatately show disgust at animal's antics. Some laugh openly as they pass by; most driving faster, some slowing down...
A parked car about 25 yards away contains a middle aged 'couple from Germany. The husband is trying to recall the title of the art work featuring a very well done statue of a small, naked boy, standing straight up and holding his groin with both hands, casually peeing. In German the husband is now explaining that replicas of this originally Germanic art are now pastoral furnitures in parks and squares and hotel lobbies all over the world.
These observers will give testimony to the authorities as to all of what is about to follow. The wife looks on in light hearted silence while the husband continues narrating their ongoing perspective of Morgan Hallinen's last moments. Of course they have no idea...
"Usually it's fitted with plumbing and shown as a water exhibit or fountain. The story is that the original artist sculpture lost his baby son, who just wandered out of the house into the city, maybe Frankfort, he wasn't sure... The entire day then transpired, with the father in frantically more desperate search, passing out the word to the police and public... The day closing with the forlorn father suddenly seeing - in the middle of a large public square - his naked son standing in the middle of the street, casually peeing on the cobble stones. So, the story is, the father immortaized this happy moment of reunion in a fine piece of sculpture replicating the moment of finding his baby son."
He explains all this while the two languidly share a cup of hot herbal tea from a THERMOS jug., silently watching after Morgan. Each mildly fascinated, calm; as the object of their vigil weaves about in small circles and figure 8's in the middle of the down town thoroughfare. Horn blasting is now in consistent, erratic evidence.
The piddling is intermittant, apparently to further prolong his chosen theater and setting. '...by the dawn's early light'. - Excerpt, National Anthem
The police are called and their sirens now envelope Morgan's area of operation. Two black & whites deposit four cops upon the set. None of these or any of those arriving at later moments appear to be celebrating the finding of any son - native or otherwise. Two move forward with confidence; two more lag behind.
In a blur, the two lead policemen are grounded. The remaining two run to Morgan's circle of power and are likewise knocked down, as the first two officers regain their feet they are somehow tipped over once again. Neither Morgan nor the police have actually struck any blows, the former's style is difficult to evaluate, due to the swift efficiency of rounded, spinning movements.
More units with more officers continue to arrive. Northbound traffic is halted by officers, flares and broadside black and whites...
"...and the rocket's red glare!" - Francis Scott Keye
A movie production crew and lighting director's dream.
The gathering spectacle will go on for the better part of ten minutes, while Hallinen remains standing and officers fall and rise to and from the twighlight effervescing asphalt. The accumulating peacemakers around Morgan become so numerous as to actually get in one another's way. Police batons are wielded, none finding their mark or mission upon the intended target, while the nightsticks are grounded and their brandishers accordingly swept and thrown thither and skelter, further frustrating and angering the growing phalynx of foiled fuzz. MACE is employed with no apparent effect other than the canisters being contrabanded and turned on the skirmished officers.
'The bombs bursting in air!'
- Francis Scot Keye
Without ever having fallen or said a word through the cacaphony of cursing constables; snorting and sweating like a small workhorse, Morgan deftly disarms and acquires a police .38 caliber service revolver. While using the disarmed officer as a shield he puts the muzzle to his own head and abruptly ends his betrayed, suffering part in the ongoing ('What?') American disaster. Dancing now with Shiva, in Indian Country.
Vietnam. Vietnam. Vietnam.
Some northbound traffic is trickling by at close quarters throughout the scramble. The curtly resolved situation now mellowing in reflections of open mouthed, doe eyed Goddesses despairing for him with anguished expressions and audible notes of distress; audible even from behind closed windows of quickly accelerating vehicles enroute the schedules of business appointments in more important city locations. Passing traffic reflected in Morgan's wide open, sightless eyes gazing peacefully skyward, foregrounded by the passing machines and people, all those Goddesses he wished to carouse with - to tell, learn and teach with...
Sunset boulevard, about an hour after sunset, as imaged in the eyes of a young man's body lying upon it. Just after he realized he'd only gone through the physical technicality of actually transporting his body 'home'. There had been many women and children in The Last Village...
"Gave proof through the night!"
- Francis Scot Keye
... calling him back. Trying to cop a tan on the same beach towel near the same rock, trying to ignore a sun and surf now filled with Vietnamese doves, mermaids and tigers... Calling him back to two different sides of the same ocean. Pursuing and being pursued by two different kinds of lovely women, from two different cultures, and villages.
THIS ISN'T GOING TO WORK. WHO DO YOU TELL ABOUT THIS? WAITER. THERE IS A COMPLEX, MILITARY-CORPORATE STATE PLOT TO MAKE WAR FOR PROFIT - AND DRIVE A NATION COLLECTIVELY MAD ENOUGH TO SUPPORT IT - IN MY SOUP.
- Excerpt, A MOVEABLE VIETNAM: A Continental Misunderstanding.
Concerning the above, obscurely known Hollywood drama, a seasoned veteran of the L.A.P.D. commented later to a local small time journalist, 'It wouldn't have been so bad, but everyone who was at that raucous from it's beginning acquired a kind of respect for the guy. He was handing back our batons; everytime we tried to use one it wound up on the road or handed back to us. I mean, this kid was good, he was skunking us. One of our guys fractured an arm when he hit the pavement too hard. That's the only real casualty he dished out.. He strung us out and made us look bad for quite a while, you know. I mean you should have heard some of those spectators - and several cops - when he shot himself like that. All that blood on the road and the flourescent divider paint. A very tragic ending for him and the police. Like, he needed rescue, and we should have been able to save him.'
Varied rock 'n roll music accompaniment comes and goes with the passing of this Rolls Royce and that Bentley, Volkswagon or Mercedes - half inch open windows... His last fading visions of a comfortably supine, semi-nude nubile, swathed in gossamer; a lot like the kinds of oil paintings you might see in a museum or over an ornate wet bar in an 1890 setting. A composite of a half dozen or so women he saw floating past him, on the other side of SAFE-T glass General Motor's windows and such. It was in this way that Morgan Hallinen finally returned home from Vietnam; travel to Nirvana from his beloved U.S.A.
Sunset Boulevard scene reflecting from the peacefully dying eyes of a young man lying upon it and a Valentine cloud. No longer seeing or feeling the street. Soft 'Animal' eyes now finally closing upon it - still flowing uncomprehendingly - around him, for the last time. Police photography cameras flashing. A Cowboy's Dream, to smiling, relaxing, having-a-good time fade out...
"THAT'S A TAKE." - The closing sentence in the novel, A MOVEABLE VIETNAM: A Continental Misunderstanding.
No. Hollywood wouldn't make any movie about Mo Morgan The Animal. Wouldn't make any movie at all about Vietnam, throughout all of that ten year war, with the singular exception of John Wayne starring in THE GREEN BERET's. ON the other hand, scores of such films were produced, directed, starred in and released in the four relatively short years of World War II.. There were dozens of such films about Korea, during that 'police action'. But only one - in a decade - of the 'Vietnam War'. As though the Hollywood Entertainment Industry itself somehow knew and understood the vain and scandalous plan to invade and occupy the indomitable Asian continent... As Dwight David Eisenhower had warned that 'the military industrial complex might make war for industrial economic profit' , regardless of any other consequence... How could the 'Hollywood Entertainment Industry' know this - from beginning to end - about Vietnam? (From 'the jump', i.e., the Tonkin Gulf, squared.)
And then there is the world's purest crude oil in the South China Sea. And Titanium, untaxed heroine - the Golden (opiate) Triangle of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The historically contiguous European colonization of Southeast Asia, AKA, Vietnam, 'Annam'. The Mekong Delta on the southernmost peninsula. The world's richest source of rice. The rice bowl of 2/3rds of the world. The Sleeping Tiger.
All of world history and fully fifty percent of our living military advisory resources - Generals, Admirals, Commodores, Political Scientists clearly and openly condemned any sustained military action by anyone, against any part of Asia as foreordained to irrevocable failure. A sure fall. A fool's move. A Pilgrim's HEART OF DARKNESS, such as that admonished by Joseph Conrad. APOCALYPSE squared.
One nation, indivisible, with many of its international allies mustering in for role call where none of them belonged. Sending its chldren and young men there. And back. Grieving and sobbing about the ones that don't come back, and whining and complaining about the ones that return.
The military industrial, network syndicated electronics media executives were up for hustling the East, from the Western Hemisphere, with American television and 'double government' - that on the surface, and the other beneath that surface. The Orwellian 'double-think' ('hide-light') title: THE TELEVISION WAR.
TechoSpeak always had the war coming along splendidly. After nearly a century of French 'colonization', on 20 March 1954, French General Paul Ely, Chief of Staff stated:
"If the communists continue to suffer the losses they've been taking, I don't know how they can stay in the battle."
Two months later, May 1954, the French Colonists were routed from Vietnam, capped by the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
16 April 1954:
"The Vietnamese lack the ability to conduct a war by themselves or govern themselves". - Senator Richard M. Nixon.
12 June 1957, General Samuel T. Williams, Head of the U.S. Advisory Group in Vietnam announced:
"We have exactly 342 men ('in country'), the number allowed by the Geneva Armistice Conference. It would be a breeze if we had more."
America picked up where France left off...
25 February 1968, General William C. Westmoreland proclaimed:
"I do not believe Hanoi can hold up under a long war".
3 May 1970, Vice president Spiro T. Agnew stated:
"They have been in a war for years and years and they are quite debilitated and decimated, and I don't think they are capable with any kind of resistance of continuing this fight."
"Before the Americans came to our rescue, we lived in quiet and peace. But now that you are here, all our people know is terror and bloodshed." - Unnamed Cambodian Army Captain, Chup, Cambodia, 6 May, 1970 _______________
The war was progressively improving at the RAND CORPORATION for all ten of its victorious years in the field (Refer, FIRE IN THE LAKE, by Pulitzer Prize winner, Frances Fitzgerald - a Capitalistic woman who lived in Vietnam for years).
REMINGTON RAND-speak spoke that 'the U.S. held back too much', and therefore 'lost the war at home'. No support from Spiro Agnew's dubbed 'effete snobs' and 'unwashed, flea bitten, V.D. infested communist sympathizers'. These designated 'chumps' in the United States ('Four dead in Ohio - KENT STATE UNIVERSITY) were held up and shaken to explain why and how the most formidable infantry in the most formidable environment in the world, drove us literally off the Golden Continent - like a berserked, bug-eyed, full throttle, screaming locomotive - into the sea ('Go home. Joe'.)....
April 1975
The U.S. 'departure' so orderly as to leave (at least) thirty billion dollars worth of techno-industrial hardware and various war materials in and around every U.S. area of operations in and around North and South Vietnam. So conscientiously and tactically 'disconnected' as to literally leave intact, a complete master listing of the names, addresses and occupations of every ARVN soldier and his family and freinds in service to the Allyship of the United States and the Republic of South Vietnam: in the top drawer of the abandoned American Ambassador's desk at the Saigon Embassy. Every one of the survivors on this list, soon to be known to the world as 'the Boat People'. The charter members of whom were systematically punched and kicked from the landing skids of the last frantic - Huey Six - helicopter 'departure' from the roof of the Saigon French Embassy, April 1975...
Bon voyage, mon chez ami. Se la vie...
WHOP! WHOP! WHOP! WHOP! Whop! Whop! Whop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Whp! Whp! Whp! Pip! PIp! Pip! Pip! Pip!... To fade out, for the last time...
__________________
Everything about the U.S. in Vietnam - arrival to departure - Just pure encyclopaedic jabberwock: "Anything one may hear about Vietnam is probably true." - Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State, 1970
"Gave proof through the night! That our flag was still there!" - Francis Scot Keye
An 'open media', elaborately reporting an ongoing war, day after week after month, on year after year, for a decade, without ever revealing the (inescapable) truths of that war.
('What so proudly we hailed!')
The United States invaded Asia by way of the exact same route its favored 'Domino Theory' warns of the invasion of the North American continent by Asia - via the Pacific atolls of Micronesia, Hawaii, the Phillipines and Japan. Yet, the American people have never heard of the invasion of Asia by the United States; never heard of The Domino Theory: backwards. Ten years of 'free enterprise' - Democratic 'wide open' media coverage failed to reveal or uncover any of this 'news'.
Now THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT.
Have you seen HOLOCAUST, yet?
How many times?
Post traumatic stress disorder forum at: http://forums.delphiforums.com/Kaidupuppy
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