Class of: 1969
Brick: yes

Thoughts on the Vietnam War By Dean Boggs Bunch [email protected] February, 2021

I am writing this essay to place in my family history with the idea that my family may be interested, in the years to come, in my view of the Vietnam War, where I served in the U.S. Army, 1970-71.

I. The ROTC Decision.
My experience in Vietnam was the result of a decision I made in September, 1965, when I started my undergraduate education at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. The Vietnam War had started in earnest during the spring of 1965, when the first combat troops, U. S. Marines, were sent to Vietnam. Prior to that time, the soldiers were all designated as “advisors” to Vietnamese Army units and thus were not technically in combat. However, as advisors, many were killed and to them the war was very real.

As the war heated up, it was apparent that when I finished college in 1969, if I had not made other arrangements, I would probably be drafted. Facing this prospect, I had to make the decision concerning whether to join the Reserve Office Training Corps (ROTC) at Stetson. ROTC, West Point and Officer Candidate Schools are the main avenues through which men and women earn their commissions as officers. By joining ROTC, I was assured of serving as an officer, and having some minimal influence as to what my job in the military would be. Therefore, I made the decision to join, and confirmed that decision at the end of my sophomore year when I made the commitment to enter the Army upon graduation.

II. The ROTC Program. Commission in the Signal Corps.
The ROTC program consisted of 4 years of college classes, taught by Army officers, and one summer camp, generally between a cadet’s junior and senior years. My summer camp was at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, during the summer of 1968. As a result of attending summer school in 1965 and 1966, I completed my degree at Stetson in December 1968. However, my last semester or two quarters of ROTC classes remained to be completed. This requirement meshed well with my civilian ambitions, because by this time I had decided to pursue a career in journalism. By a vote of the student body,,, with a margin of five votes out of a thousand cast, I was elected as editor of the student newspaper at Stetson, The Stetson Reporter, during the 1967-68 school year. However, Stetson did not have a journalism major. The University of Florida had, and continues to have, one of the nation’s top undergraduate journalism programs. Therefore, having earned my degree in history and political science at Stetson, I entered UF at the beginning of the winter quarter in January, 1969. It would take me three quarters to earn a second bachelor’s degree (this time in journalism) from UF, and two quarters to complete my ROTC classes. While at UF, I continued my journalism work by writing for The Florida Alligator and editing the ROTC magazine, The Gung Ho. In June 1969, I attended graduation at Stetson and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U. S. Army Signal Corps. The Signal Corps is responsible for all electronic communications in the Army. The summer quarter of 1969, although enrolled at UF, was spent with a journalism professor as an intern at The St. Petersburg Times and Evening Independent.

I had originally sought and been granted a delay in active duty by the Army in order to attend graduate school in journalism. However, by the middle of spring 1969, I was tired of school. I decided go on active duty in the Army immediately upon completing my journalism degree in August, 1969. The Army obliged by scheduling my active duty to begin on October 15, 1969. My commitment was two years of active duty, with the general rule being that an officer would serve the first year in the United States and the second year in Vietnam.III. U. S. Duty: 1969-70.

During my first year, I attended two Signal Corps officers classes, of approximately 10 weeks each, at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. I was thereafter assigned to the Second Armored Division at Ft. Hood, Texas.

Upon arrival at Ft. Hood in March, 1970, I presented my journalism credentials and was assigned to the information office, which produced articles for publication in The Armored Sentinel, the base newspaper, and for transmission to soldiers’ hometown papers.

While there, I also took a computer programming class in the computer programming language COBOL from the community college near the base. Although I never made my living by programming a computer, that class proved invaluable during my legal career because I was one of the few who understood how computers function.

During the middle of the summer 1970, right on schedule, my Vietnam orders arrived, to depart on October 15, 1970. By this time, I was considering what to do with the rest of my life, and specifically how to most effectively utilize the four years of educational benefits from the Veterans Administration to which I would be entitled as a result of my service.

IV. Application to Law School.
Although I considered a program in newspaper management at Columbia University, I decided to pursue a career in law, and applied to the University of Florida law school, to begin in the fall of 1971. I submitted my application before leaving for Vietnam, and did not have to wait too long after my arrival for my admission letter from UF to arrive. This made my time in Vietnam much less stressful because I did not have to worry about what I was going to do when I was released from active duty. During those days, communications between the U. S. and Vietnam were extremely slow and very limited, so applying for a job was very difficult. Most soldiers had to await their release and return to the United States before arranging their post-army life.

Although I was not due to be released until October 15, 1971, UF was on the quarter system at that time with the fall quarter starting in late September. Because the gap between my anticipated release date and the beginning of school was only a days, I was entitled to apply for an “early out for school” in order to exit the army and arrive in Gainesville in time to start law school.

V. Vietnam: October 1970-August 1971.
Prior to my arrival in Vietnam, I had communicated with the information office in Saigon, hoping to be assigned there. When I arrived, I learned that I had been assigned to the information office at the headquarters of the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal) in Chu Lai. The Division was formed in the South Pacific in New Caledonia during World War II, and thus earned the name “American Forces in New Caledonia” or “Americal.”

Chu Lai was a very large base along the coast of Vietnam, approximately 90 miles south of Da Nang. It was approximately three miles wide, and eight miles long. It had many different units: hospitals, helicopters, a post exchange, officers and enlisted clubs, and an amphitheater where Bob Hope had performed in prior years. In short, it was a very safe place to be.

However, shortly after I arrived in Chu Lai, two small rockets were fired from out of the mountains by the enemy. One landed harmlessly in the ocean. The second one, by sheer luck, happened to hit a small dispensary, which is the army term for a first aid station. Unfortunately, several men were killed. On the evening news back in the United States, however, the word “dispensary” translated to “hospital” and it was reported that a hospital was hit. I had told my parents that my office was near the hospital, which was true, and designed to assure them that I was safe. However, the news report on the rocket attack destroyed the impression I had attempted to create, and they worried terribly about me for the rest of the year.

I was the officer in charge of the Division’s newspaper, The Southern Cross, named for the division’s emblem: the constellation of stars known as the southern cross, because it can only be seen from the southern hemisphere, the location of New Caledonia. In addition to my newspaper duties, I also accompanied journalists from the United States when they were in the Division’s area. I have attached a picture of me at Firebase Mary Ann, as I was accompanying a journalist there. It was a small artillery position on a mountain top, high in the remote jungle.

Only a few weeks later, on March 27-28, 1971, Firebase Mary Ann was overrun in the middle of the night by the North Vietnamese Army. Thirty three men were killed, and 83 wounded, in one of the most deadly single engagements of the war. See, Sappers in the Wire. The Life and Death of Firebase Mary Ann, by Keith William Nolan, ISBN-13: 978-1585446438.

By that point in the war, combat was winding down. The soldiers and officers were complacent and lethargic, which resulted in inadequate security at the base. And, of course, it is important to remember that significant number of the soldiers were draftees.

As the spring progressed, two events occurred which impacted my stay. First, the army was cutting back on its forces as the war wound down. Lieutenants who had arrived during the period around October 15 had their tours in Vietnam, and for me, my time in the Army, shortened by two months. So, instead of going home on October 15, I would be going home in mid-August. Welcome news! Thus, the “early out for school” process would no longer be necessary. Second, the division was cutting back and I was assigned to the 723rd Maintenance Battalion, as a “materiel officer” in charge of monitoring the repair and replacement of various electronics and computers in the division. At night, I took college classes offered at all army bases.

VI. Departure from Vietnam. Release from the Army.
On August 7, 1971, my DEROS (Date Expected Return from Overseas) was coming up, and I took a plane down to the Saigon area, where “out processing” from Vietnam was done. There was a test to be passed. In order to leave, every soldier, including officers had to pass a urine test to demonstrate that they had no drugs in their bodies. Obviously, everyone wanted very much to pass that test so those who engaged in drugs stopped well in advance of their DEROS, so the drugs would no longer be in their systems.

After passing the test, I was on the chartered jet back to the States (or “the world” as it was referred to by troops in Vietnam. We arrived at the Seattle airport and those of us whose time in the army had ended were bussed to Ft. Lewis. We spent the day going through various classes and processes necessary to be released. The last stop was the paymaster. As with every pay day, you handed your military ID to the paymaster, who then counted out your pay. There was one difference this time, however. Your ID card was not returned. That’s how you knew you were not in the army any longer. No: “Thanks for your service” or any other recognition.

I took the “redeye” flight from Seattle back to Atlanta, and Jacksonville, where my parents were waiting for me the next morning. After a few weeks rest, I was off to Gainesville to start law school and preparation for the rest of my life.

VII. Thoughts about the Vietnam War.
I was obviously very lucky to have spent my time in Vietnam and never faced combat or other danger. I was in the majority in this regard. At the height of the war, there were over 500,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines in Vietnam. The vast majority were support troops. A minor percentage were actually out in the field, facing the enemy.

However, 58,318 U. S. military personnel were killed during the U. S. involvement. More than 12,000 of these were draftees. Perhaps 1.3 million people, including military from both sides and civilians were killed. It was not on the scale of the two World Wars, but it was a series of bloody battles, in which many brave Americans died.

The Vietnam War actually started in 1954. Vietnam had been a French colony before and after the World War II. During World War II, the Japanese occupied it. The majority of the fighters attempting to kick the French out were under the national hero Ho Chi Minh, who was an ardent nationalist but also a communist. His organization was the Viet Minh. After the French were defeated, the U. S., China, Russia, and the Viet Minh met in Geneva and the country was “temporarily” divided into North where the Viet Minh were located, and the South, where the U.S. set up a government to its liking. But who was not at Geneva: the South Vietnamese.

The “temporary” division was supposed to lead to elections, but the elections were never held because the U. S. believed, probably correctly, that the elections would not be fair in the North, and even if they were, Ho Chi Minh would win because he was the popular nationalist. So, the process was destined to fail.

President Eisenhower (1953-1961) was pressured by his military advisors to send in troops but refused to do so. President Kennedy (1961-1963) sent in “advisors” but refused to send in combat troops.

When Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and President Johnson took over, his military told him that the North would overrun the South if he did not send in troops, which may have been correct. Johnson needed a basis to expand the number of ground troops to a level that his military advisors told him were necessary to defeat the North. On August 2, 1964, a US destroyer was in a minor skirmish with a North Vietnamese patrol boat. No US sailors were killed. It was later disclosed that the US fired first when the North’s boat came closer than 10,000 yards.

However, two days later, on August 4, the US claimed that there was another attack on a destroyer. On the basis of these two attacks, Johnson persuaded Congress to pass the “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution” which authorized Johnson to send in an unlimited number of troops. However, that second attack that was used to persuade Congress: it never happened! That’s right, it later came out that the alleged second attack never occurred.

So, the U. S. troop expansion to 500,000 troops, was premised upon a lie.

Johnson continued the buildup of troops because his advisors kept telling him that if he sent in more troops, the South and the United States forces, together, could defeat the North. This was a fallacy, in my opinion, because if the North was going to be defeated, the South Vietnamese Army would have to do it. The North Vietnamese Army knew that, if they held on long enough, the U. S. would get tired of the war and go home, leaving the South Vietnamese Army to fight the battle alone. The problem for the South, was that they were not just fighting the North; they were also fighting many residents of the South who were on the side of the North. These people were members of the Viet Cong, or “VC”. The other problem for the South Vietnamese Army was that they were fighting to support a corrupt government. As soon as the U. S. departed, the South Vietnamese Army was unable to maintain control over much of the South.

Earlier, in March 1968, Johnson announced that he would not run for reelection so he could devote all his efforts to ending the war. By the fall of 1968, the North Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese, and the U. S. were on the verge of reaching an agreement in Paris. This agreement would have allowed the U. S. to exit, while obtaining the release of its prisoners of war who were held in the North.

What happened? Why wasn’t the settlement adopted? Although he denied it throughout his life, documents now reveal that Richard Nixon, before the 1968 presidential election (while he was still a private citizen and was barred by law from involving himself in foreign policy) scuttled the agreement. He passed word to the South Vietnamese urging them to refuse to agree to anything. He told them that he would get them a better deal after he became president. Over 21,000 U. S. troops were killed in 1969 and thereafter, when the war should have been over at the end of 1968. Thus, the Vietnam War, as it progressed after January 1, 1969, resulted from President Nixon’s illegal act, interfering in foreign policy before he took office.

Ultimately, the Paris Accords did end the U. S. Involvement in the war in 1973. The agreement provided that the North would not introduce additional troops into the South but would only retain control over the areas that it then held. Both the North and the South immediately violated the terms of the agreement. By 1975, the North had enough forces to invade the South on a large scale. The U. S. had agreed to replace equipment lost by the South in battle on a “one for one” basis. However, by 1975, President Nixon had resigned as a result of the Watergate affair, and there was no support in the U. S. for sending aid to the South. The South Vietnamese government fell quickly as the North invaded.

Why? The South Vietnamese were in the war for one thing: to get as much out of the U. S. as they could. The people in the South only tolerated the U. S. because we brought billions of dollars into the country and supported their economy for many years. They did not have the will to fight when the North invaded. Many of those who fought on the side of the U. S. in the South immigrated to this country.

The last man drafted into the U. S. military before the draft was abolished, entered the Army in 1973. It should come as no surprise that the average quality of the soldiers during Vietnam, when the draft was in effect, was not as high as it has been since the end of the draft. The soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines with whom I have come in contact since the end of the draft have been of uniformly high quality and dedication. Hopefully, our nation will never have to resort to a draft again.

VIII. Conclusion.
I’m personally not bitter about the war. My Army service was a good break from my schooling and allowed me the opportunity to recharge before starting law school. I am convinced I would never have gone to law school if I had not had that break. I also got the Veterans Administration financial assistance that helped me get through law school, together with the support of my parents.

However, I do feel an overwhelming sense of loss and tragedy for those 58,000 servicemen and women who died, and for their families. As a result of the Vietnam war, one would think that we would have learned that we cannot win what is essentially a civil war between two factions in a country. Now having been in Afghanistan, fighting its civil war, longer than any other war in U. S. history, that is a lesson it appears that we have not yet learned.

XI. Afterwards.
And so the war ended in 1975, or at least I thought so. In February, 2010, I got the dreaded call from my urologist telling me I had prostate cancer. For many years prior to my arrival in 1970, the US had sprayed the jungle in Vietnam with a defoliant called Agent Orange. This took all the leaves off the trees so U. S. planes could more easily observe conveys of troops and material coming down the Ho Chi Minh trail from the North.

Tests revealed that men who served in Vietnam had a greater risk of contracting prostate cancer as a result of exposure to Agent Orange than those who stayed home. Also, those who contracted the disease and served in Vietnam tended to have a more serious case, which was true for me. I scored 8-9 on the Gleason pathology score of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst case. In Chu Lai, the chemical office was next door to the information office. Where I sat for 5 months, I could see 55 gallon drums of chemicals, presumably Agent Orange, outside in the sun and rain, rusting with chemicals were leaking out. Did Agent Orange cause my prostate cancer? That, of course, we will never know, because there is no proven “cause and effect” relationship in any one case of a person who served in Vietnam. The relationship is statistical, based on studies of large numbers of those who served.

Again, I’m not bitter. I have gotten excellent medical care from the Veterans Administration for my illness which is ruled to be service-connected. It has now been almost 11 years since my surgery and diagnosis, and I’m still going.

In recent years, to honor the service of our military, I have volunteered my services with a non-profit organization formed by veterans of recent wars: Service2School.org. This organization assists those leaving active duty in the application process to undergraduate school, as well as graduate and professional schools. I have only the highest respect for those who have volunteered to serve in the military, and have placed their lives on the line to protect our country.