一名越戰老兵的自白

4 人贊了文章Michael A. Dickerson, 俄亥俄大學藝術學士，洛約拉大學藝術碩士，曾於1966年12月至1967年12月作為美軍士兵參與越南戰爭。

在一段時間之前，我曾經有幸參加了他的公共演講課程。當我得知了他的越南戰爭的經歷之後，便提出了對他進行採訪的請求，我也十分榮幸Dickerson教授能夠接受此次採訪。以下內容經由實地採訪整理而成，內容有刪減。

本次採訪採用手機錄音的方式，根據錄音文件整理出文字內容。本次採訪內容已獲得教授本人同意發布。中文翻譯將會不定時更新。

Question (Q): So we have known that the Vietnam War was started from1955.

Dickerson (D): It was a long time. At first it started with Vietnam and French. And then, the Frenchpulled out, and Americans took over the war.

Q: So what wereyou doing then?

D: What did I do?I was in a psychological propaganda business.

Q: In the army?

D: In the army. Iwas in the army. I was a… At that time, I was a captain in the army.

Q: So you were inVietnam?

D: A year. I wasin the army. I got orders to Vietnam. I went to Fort Bragg and spent about 8weeks there learning things, and then we flew to San Francisco. And we were puton the ship with all our equipment, and we sailed to Vung Tau and Saigon harbor.This unit, which is about 400 people, did psychological things, propagandathings. They printed leaves, they printed posters and calendars and things likethat, and dropped them from airplanes. They are recorded Chinese funerals, I』mnot sure why. They broadcast from helicopters. And they had teams that wentout, and tried to convince the Vietnam C sympathizersto not support the Vietnam Com, and to support the Vietnamese. So our unit wasa battalion, which is about 500 people. And when it』s over, it was assigned tothe headquarter of Vietnam, and we were stationed in Saigon, initially.Although we went to four other different places. And we were stationed in anold movie theater, in the middle of Saigon. They had the country divided up infour parts. Our teams are all deployed from there. And so on a typical day, wedid something which we called 「The Country Fair」. And it was about 20 to 30people, and we had doctors and dentists and engineers that did waterpurification and constructional engineers. And we would go out, as a unit, withSpecial Forces leading. And we would surround the village, and we would go inand do good works. We would repair the buildings, we helped their water supply,we helped pregnant women, and we fixed teeth of a lot of Vietnamese. And whilethat was going on at the whole time, we also had propaganda things or postersand things like calendars. There we got that way. Our idea was that when weleft at night, the town, the city, and the village would not support theVietnam COM, who would come in at night, and want to hide their weapons andrice and all that sort of things. So we were trying to change the attitudes ofpeople.

Q: So what is theposter like? Is there any slogan?

D: Well they areall in Vietnamese. I have sample of all those things. And I come to a classhere once a year and taught the persuasion class about that sort of business.But we had Vietnamese assigned to us, and we paid them, and we were trying toget them to come up with slogans and ideas. One of the most popular thing wascalendars. They were beautiful calendars. Half of them was a picture, of VungTau or mountains or something. And then there was a message in that, there wasa calendar. People would keep that and they put it in their house. So the messagewas always there, to help the Vietnamese government, to support the government.That was the message. And we tried different ways to do it. They even had agroup of Vietnamese army entertainers who we would deploy at hospitals andrecreation centers. They would talk to the Viet COM and they were fixing up andsaving them. The whole thing was an attempt to change people』s minds, to getthem to support the government.

Q: So where doesthe posters go?

D: In theirhouses. We gave them away, dropping them from helicopters. Anywhere we couldfind people that would use them.

Q: In north?

D: Yes, anyplacewe were. We changed place all the time. Unlike other wars, there wasn』t a, youknow, one side and the other side. There was a several groups of people, so wewould try to get as many people as we could, to put those things out, to dothat sort of things. And we would hire companies to go and put them in thevillages, in post offices, in movie theaters. At any place we could put theposters out we put the posters out. And they were really pretty, and they wereabout that size. They were quite nice, and it』s just a reminder of that sort ofthings. The one of the program that we had which was called the 「The Chieu HoiProgram」. It was to… If a Vietnam COM was willing to turn himself in, and turn overhis weapon, we would train him, to be something, like a tailor, or something.And then we would pay him for his weapon. So he was not a, another guerrillaanymore. And then put him in a camp, to treat him, toward a transition into thecountry. And we did something like 30,000 people, in one year. That was a bigeffort. It was a pretty good success to change their mind. But as an operation,we could have done a better job. We never really understood Vietnamese. Wethought we did, but we didn』t. And all the time we would think this was themessage, but it wasn』t quite the message, you know. And that is the business,you can speak the language, but you have to understand the people before you canreally communicate with them.

Q: So have you gotin touch with any Vietnamese?

D: No. I did therefor a while. I corresponded with a couple of people. But you know, within thearmy, you get moved around, and you get new jobs and new people. You know. Imoved many times, 20 times in my army career. And I have family, I had threechildren and wife. So when I left Vietnam, what did I do? I went to thePentagon. That』s right. So I also was in Korea.

Q: You mean KoreanWar?

D: No, after thewar. Up on the DMZ. In south Korea.

Q: So what』s yourdaily routine?

D: What we wouldprobably do in a typical day is, in the morning, after we got some coffee and cuisine,we would be, we would be a convoy, which is about five to six trucks and jeepand things, to a village that we had been given directions to. And we went inthere and they supported us. The Vietnamese were very welcoming, but we worriedabout the Viet COM coming in so we had special forces surrounded the village, and then we went in and didall these things we talked about. And then about five o』clock we packed all upand went back to Saigon, and next morning we go to another village. So we wentto six villages a week. We didn』t go on Sunday.

Q: Did villagerswelcome you?

D: Yes, because wewere doing good works. We were feeding, giving them rice and helping theirwater and fixing the old people, and taking care of the dental needs. They werevery welcoming. One of the challenges we had was the village had hundreds ofhundreds of little children. And we had these great big trucks. We were alwaysafraid that we would run over somebody, you know, that sort of thing. So we hadto be careful. So one day I said to my boss, you know, if we had some movies,we could show the movies. And all the students, all the children would justcome and watch the movies. And they would be leaving us alone while we were doing our work. So hey, he said, whydon』t you write a letter to Walt Disney who wasstill alive. And he sent me three films, 16mm films. And I took a truck, acargo truck, which has a canvas on the back. And we put the screen, pulled downthe screen. And we mounted a projector next to the driver. So we taught him howto use the projector. So when we were driving to the village, we would put thescreen down, turn the projector on, and we show a cartoon. And we had thescreen back a little bit, so that it was dark around us, and we would show acartoon, and they were just like a magnet. They would just come and sit andwatch. It was really good. Although I must tell you I got tired of those threecartoons, whole year listening to them. But it worked, it worked well. So everyvillage was different, some were really bad, some were really good. A lot ofthe men in the village had been either put in the Viet COM army or Vietnamesearmy. So there were a lot of things that went unattended, needed repair or sortof things. So our coming to do that, to boast our buildings, and put in sanitationsystem like that are very welcomed. They liked that.

Q: What did Viet COMdo?

D: Well, after weleft, they would come in at night. And they had a team, very successful. Theyhad a team of about 8 to 12 people, and there would be a political officer, therewould be a woman, usually folk singer, there would be 2 or 3 infantry men, andmaybe an engineer, or something like that. Each team was a little different,and they would deploy those teams at night and they would try to undo or changethe mind of what we had done. Because Viet COM didn』t have a big resupplysystem, so they would come and store in the villages rice and guns and whenthey needed it they can go and get them. But if we could convince them not tostore, then that was helping the war. And they did a very good job. They werevery successful at propaganda business. Much more so than we were. Even thoughwe have lots of equipment and lots of people, they were good, they were verygood.

Q: So have you comeacross any fight or battle?

D: Well, a coupleof times they were shooting. There was fire being exchanged. We had to get outof the way, you know, that sort of things. I wasn』t firing a weapon at anybody.I carried one, and I often thought I would. Funny thing happened at one time,we couldn』t get back to Saigon, and we ended up spending a night in a specialforce』s camp, on the Bien Hoa highway. Therewasn』t a lot of beds, so many of us slept in hammocks outside. And I got ahammock, and I had anti-mosquito, which was really blessing. And I went tosleep and I guess the Viet COM attacked us, and I slept through the wholething. Then next morning I heard about it at breakfast, I missed it. We were inthe shooting part of the war. They were changing mind, and doing other kinds ofthings.

A: So is thatfrequent?

D: Every day. Sixdays a week.

A: Every night?

D: Yes.

A: So you didn』tcome across any fight in the day?

D: Yes, exceptwhen I was in Saigon, they shot into Saigon. Often times they would havesomething and you would have to go into a bunker. Iwas just lucky. But there was a lot of Americans, you know, 40,000.

A: So all of yoursquad are safe?

D: Yes, we didn』tlose anybody. One night, our headquarters, which I mentioned was a theater,they had put a satchel bomb on one side of the building,from the outside. And blew conical shaped hole into the building. And one of the people who lived in there, stayedthere all the time, lost his eyesight, at least temporarily. And a lot of us,you know, we heard the noise, at least one time and then, the big bomb. And wecouldn』t spend the night there, we had to go, find another place to live. Andon the day I left, the day I was supposed to leave, the Viet COM bomb Tan Son Nhut.All the flights were canceled, so I had to go at the next day, when we tookoff, we had to go around the holes where the airfield had been bombed.

A: So how longhave you been in Vietnam? From what time?

D: A year,December to December. 1966 to 1967.

A: What did you doafter going back to America?

D: I went to the Pentagon. And then I went to a school, there is a bunch ofschools you have in the army. And if you are successful, you go to all of them. And I went from Vietnam, to a school to the Pentagon.And, there I went to Korea. And back to the Pentagon. It』s all a blur now. ButI was in the Pentagon 4 times. As a captain, as a major and lieutenant colonel.

A: So do you mindif I ask your income in Vietnam?

D: I was paidwhatever army captains would be paid. All army captains are paid the sameamount. You get an extra pay when you are in combat. So when I was in Vietnam,I got, they called 「Hazardous Duty Pay」, which is based on your rank. And I wasa captain, I think it』s about 150 dollars a month. And then I was in Korea, I gothostile pay out of the first half, But I mean,you don』t make a lot of money, but the army put in much to take care of you.You get free medical care, and there are some real vantages when I was a Koreaofficer. And as you grow up in the ranks, you get more money. And you getbetter housing allowances.

A: So is there anyVietnamese in the army?

D: Yeah, I』m surethere are. I know we had at least 1 that was a Vietnamese in the U.S army whenwe were there. Because we needed it, but thearmy was really big, when I was there, there were 700,000 people. And I』m surethere were Vietnamese joining the army. I just didn』t know any of them. But youhave specialists in the army, and mine was communication. And so I pretty muchstayed in that business. Professionally it was arewarding experience. It was a big hardship to go off for years, away from yourfamily. But at the time, everybody thought it was worth it. And the good newsis that I came back. Because I know people who didn』t. Interestingly, there wasa captain that I knew pretty well, and he was in another unit. And I had heardthat he had been killed, and about 10 years later, I was at a military diningroom in an officer』s club, and I saw him sitting across the room. He reallydidn』t get killed, I just had heard he had been. He was fine. It was reallybizarre.

A: So what if asoldier died?

D: He getsinsurance and get free burial. And the family gets compensated. It』s differentbased on your rank. And if you die on active duty, especially in a combat zone,you can get buried in Arlington cemetery, which is where I hope to be, sometime. You get a lot of help, when you lose a soldier. It never replaces a soldier,but it does help the family. They assign somebody to be your survivor』s assistanceofficer. And he or she help with all the detail burial and transition. But I』mgrateful I didn』t.