Vietnam: The Long War
It took eight long years of fighting, from the “shot heard around the world,” but the fledgling United States managed to cast off the chains of her British colonial overlords, against overwhelming odds. To fight the supreme military power of the 18th century, the often-divided American forces were little more than a rag-tag militia held together by ideology and nationalism. Armed with these, as well as with great patience and a singular determination to win by outlasting the redcoats, the United States emerged victorious in the Revolutionary War, defeating mighty Britain. Almost two centuries later, America took no heed of her own history when similar circumstances developed in Vietnam. It is not that “history repeats itself,” as the myth says, as much as a nation, the United States, overlooking the lessons from the past: in bloody conflict, the more powerful nation does not always win, especially if the enemy is much more committed. Such was the case in Vietnam, as many Vietnamese had, of necessity, pinned their hopes and dreams of independence on defeating the most powerful nation on earth in a war that would certainly be costly. As the redcoats had done before, the Americans strode into Vietnam assured of victory, to be handed defeat eight long years later. The nationalist determination of the Vietnamese people had defeated the invincible Americans.
In his novel Chickenhawk, former Army helicopter pilot Robert Mason gives a vivid account of the war, in the process expressing his feelings about the war as his experiences progress. Beginning as a green pilot thrust into the conflict directly out of flight school, Mason eventually succumbs to psychological damage caused by his war experiences. In between these two states, Mason goes through a gradual metamorphosis, from a state of ambivalence to complete cynicism regarding the motivations for and execution of the war. The tone of the narrative is pitched well by Mason. As he gradually changes his position on the war, he allows the reader to understand why by seeing the hardships of the American soldiers and, increasingly, the damage being wrought by the Americans on the people they were supposed to be “liberating,” the Vietnamese people. By the second half of the novel, Mason is clearly disenchanted with the war effort, and he is not alone. Rather than having soldiers clearly focused on winning the war, Mason’s experiences show soldiers just wanting to go home. Getting a ticket home required a somewhat serious wound, but even at this steep price, being wounded was a more viable option to many soldiers. “‘I told you Mason! A bone wound will do it every time….’ He was smiling like a man who just won a lottery…. I almost wished it had been [me].” Against such determination on the American side was a more resolute enemy suffering around ten times the casualty rate, yet the Vietcong and North Vietnamese continued to fight.
Referring to President Johnson as “the leader of the posse,” Mason seemed skeptical of the president’s claim that “victory is just around the corner.” That phrase had long since become an official presidential maxim in Vietnam, through the tenures of each president from Truman through Nixon, although its veracity could never be proven by finding the elusive victory. As the years dragged on and American involvement in Vietnam escalated, the need for an immediate victory became more pressing as the American casualties increased, and as more soldiers were being sent into harm’s way. This was per the plan established in 1946 by the Vietnamese, under Ho Chi Minh. Realizing that Vietnam could never defeat its more economically and militarily powerful French overlords in a traditional campaign, the Viet Minh fought a manpower intensive guerilla campaign, seeking to “gradually augment our forces, while nibbling at and progressively destroying those of the enemy…. Our strategy was, as we have stressed, to wage a long-lasting battle.” This plan succeeded against France, whose industrial superiority could not sustain the will to fight after eight years of incessant battle. Ho Chi Minh enacted the same plan against the United States, trying to outlast and survive, rather than decisively defeat. The VC and NVA were fighting a defensive war; to win, they only needed to not lose. On the other hand, the United States had to destroy the VC and NVA forces to win the war. Doing this proved to be impossible because the VC and NVA had such widespread support that they could not truly be eliminated. General Vo Nguyen Giap stated what American soldiers already knew, saying “the entire population took part in the fighting…in order to wear down and annihilate the enemy forces.” By using superior numbers to counterbalance American firepower, the VC and NVA could outlast the Americans and win. Just as against France before, the tactic eventually worked against the United States, gradually pushing the enemy out of the war because of great domestic distress and dissent.
As the war drags on, Mason realizes that it is not just the Americans who are suffering. Obviously the enemy is taking far greater losses of lives and injuries, but that is the nature of the war. What particularly bothers Mason is the way Vietnamese civilians are caught in the pincers of the onslaught. The prospect of moving refugees from their ancient homes when destroying villages the enemy might be able to use is anathema to Mason, because he realizes the refugees will probably just die wherever they are moved. “Soon she was only a memory, confused and frightened…. At that moment I hated Communists and was ashamed to be an American.” Mason seems to be rare among his men of his unit when he sympathizes with the plight of the Vietnamese, or when he thinks about the terrible impact American intervention is having on them. A reason for this is probably American racism toward the Vietnamese. The Americans are generally condescending toward native Vietnamese culture and race, referring to Vietnamese in denigrating slang terms achieving the effect of a purely barbarian people. Rather than being seen as adapted to their non-industrial environment, the Americans find the Vietnamese technology and culture to be inferior rather than different. Mason tries to show his fellow soldiers a Vietnamese-made bench that did not require nails to hold it together, marveling at its quality of construction. “‘That’s because they have to. Dumb gooks don’t know how to make nails.’” Along with the bench, the low-tech but effective approach to irrigation Mason sees with the bamboo village waterwheel shows him that the Vietnamese really do not need American technology to improve their lives, except that “the knowledge that built [Vietnamese technology] was being systematically destroyed.”
Destroying Vietnamese culture by killing so many people was one concern Mason had with the war, although he had others. “Nothing that I saw convinced me that we were doing the right thing in Vietnam.” As Mason’s tour comes to an end, he has fallen prey to the psychological horrors of the war, as the stress is too much for him to handle. In years after the war, Mason becomes a mental basket case and addict, unable to fly helicopters or function in society. He is not respected, appreciated, and has trouble finding a job. He spends a period of time in jail for drug trafficking. Life is hard for Mason, as it is on many other Vietnam veterans, because of the intensity of the war on the soldiers inflicting permanent scars upon them, and because of the negative reception many of the soldiers received upon returning to America. Mason cannot believe a woman he encounters calls him a murderer, as he naively believes that the public will appreciate veterans when they return home. The anger aimed at veterans made no sense to Mason; he only wanted to learn to fly helicopters. He did not set policy. He followed orders.
These problems facing Mason were the problems facing America after the Vietnam War. Division would be slow to heal, for the nation and for people individually hurt by the war. On local levels, men went to war and did not return. Nationally, the United States lost its first war, at the hands of a relative nobody on the global stage, taking a hit in prestige and pride on the way down. Vietnam had won, but not without enough turmoil to punctuate thirty years of fighting. Measuring the costs of a war is never easy, because numbers of casualties and monetary sums of destruction are unable to express the true cost. Perhaps Mason was on the right track thinking about the damage the Americans were doing to Vietnam’s people by fighting the war. Certainly, in more recent wars, providing for refugees has been given more emphasis, to lessen the damage done to civilian populations. However, it would seem that the most humanitarian way to prevent disaster would be to prevent war. Musings such as these, and others, are lingering reminders of the Vietnam era, a chapter in American history longing to be forgotten, but too important a lesson of costs and consequence for the future to be overlooked.