In Honor Of The Fallen Vietnam War Brothers Of North Adamsville Now Eternally Etched In Stone At Town Hall And Down In Washington

In Honor Of The Fallen Vietnam War Brothers Of North Adamsville Now Eternally Etched In Stone At Town Hall And Down In Washington

By Frank Jackman  

I am probably the surprise choice to take up this assignment honoring a couple of my Tonio’s Pizza Parlor corner boys, Rick Rizzo and Donald White, from the early 1960s who grow up in the desperately poor Acre section of North Adamsville and laid down their young heads in some now forgotten battlefield of Vietnam.  You see this is the 50^th anniversary of my own struggle as a military resister to the war and the only one from our crowd who then joined the internal Army resistance. I have, and others too, have gone through the particulars of my experience elsewhere so that need not detain us here. Besides this is about Rick and Donald (nobody ever called him anything but Donald so I will stick with that).     

Rich was a gung-ho guy, a tough little bastard who imbibed all the anti-communist red scare stuff that we were being force-fed but he was a true believer, a guy who really did want to eliminate every enemy of America. There were a few other guys who hung around Tonio’s like Rick but most of us just wanted to get laid and have some booze, stuff like that. So he signed on the dotted line right after high school I think with the idea of making the military a career (a choice of many not going to college guys looking to grab a skill while serving their country). When Rick came home from basic or maybe it was AIT he was all spit and polish and frankly we looked up to him whether we ourselves would enlist or not. Then sometime in late 1965 he got orders for Vietnam and we had a big party for him, as it turned out the last time we would see him. In August of 1966 somewhere in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam during a major confrontation Rick got blown away. The news when it came to us was a shock and each one of the corner boys probably to this day has a little sorrow in his heart for Rick’s too young fate.

Donald White was slightly different. He had gone to college for a year but just couldn’t cut it, was not his thing. That subjected him to the getting very familiar notice to report for induction from his “friends and neighbors” at the local draft board. Instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop he decided to enlist and grab a clerk’s job as his MOS. Two unfortunate things befell him. One the war in Vietnam was raging out of control with call-ups of addition manpower every few months and so despite his clerical training he was assigned to an infantry unit in-country. Two, there were really no battle-lines in that war like in Europe in World War II and so even lowly clerks had to act as infantrymen or get blown away. Got into firefights when unit positions were under attack. One night when “Charlie” came over the top Donald fell down, laid his golden blonde hair down in some muddy field.           

All of us guys still standing, still around agree that there was a very big difference between what got Rick and Donald to the war before 1968 and what TET and the endless calls for escalation, more bodies as did to the morale of the American forces and the possibilities of winning. Most of us who did our military service did so in the post-1968 and that reflected the chance in spirit even among those who had not the slightest desire to resist (by the way not one of our Tonio’s guys was a draft resister and like I said then I was the only military resister)

All this to say whatever our personal attitudes then or now we had no wish for the death of any individual soldier. Certainly not Rick and Donald. So maybe that is why I am the guy selected to give this late eulogy for our Tonio’s fallen.   

   

From the Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- An Uncounted Casualty Of War

He, Peter Paul Markin, had returned, while on some unrelated business in the area, to the neighborhood where he grew up, old time North Adamsville just outside of Boston. The neighborhood is one of those old working-class neighborhoods, the old inner suburbs long gone to seed, long past its industrial- centered usefulness in its losing battle (ship-building) to the “race to the bottom” global economy. Also filled with every kind of cheap jack strip mall and excess fast food joint, and where the houses are small, cramped and seedy, the leavings of those who have moved on to bigger and better things. The neighborhood nevertheless back in the day reflected, and still reflected a certain shabby gentility, humbly displaying the desire of the working poor in the 1950's, his parents and others, to own their own homes and not be shunted off to decrepit apartments or dilapidated housing projects, the fate of those just below them on the social ladder. The fate of the cross-town denizens of the Adamsville Housing Authority apartment (“the project”) that his family had, just barely, escaped from as he came of age.

While there in the old neighborhood he happened upon an old neighbor who recognized him despite the fact that he had not seen her, Maude Brady to give her a proper name, for at least thirty years. Since she had grown up and had lived there continuously, marrying and raising three children there, then taking over sole ownership of the family house upon the death of her parents , he inquired about the fate of various people that he had grown up with. She, as is usually the case in such circumstances, had a wealth of information about how Billy, a boy she had prudently turned down for a date, was serving a twenty strength for armed robbery, about how Lannie, a girl that he, Peter Paul, had more than a passing interest in, had had a couple of kids out of wedlock with a married man who would not divorce his wife. A couple of good reports as well about how her Johnny had made the grade and was now on the North Adamsville Police Department and how her Susan worked nights at the Medical Center as a nurse-practitioner. The usual proud parent stuff, harmless,

But one story in particular cut him to the quick. He had asked about a boy named Kenny who was a couple of years younger than him was but who he was very close to until his teenage years. Kenny, who lived down at the bottom of Glover Street kitty-corner from his own street, used to tag along with his crowd until, as teenagers will do, he made it clear that Kenny was no longer welcome being ‘too young’ to hang around with the older boys, the corner boys, led by one pinball wizard Frankie Larkin, the king hell king of the North Adamsville High School night. And “owner” of the coveted Salducci’s Pizza Parlor corner spot all through high school. But the details of that story are for another day as this is Kenny’s story, not Frankie’s.

The long and the short of it was that Kenny found other friends of his own age to hang with, one in particular from down my street, Maple Street, named Jimmy. He had only a nodding acquaintance with both thereafter. As happened more often than not during the 1960’s in working class neighborhoods all over the country, especially with kids who were not academically inclined, when Jimmy came of age he faced the draft or the alternative of ‘volunteering’ for military service. He enlisted. Kenny, for a number of valid medical reasons, was 4-F (unqualified for military service). Of course, you know what is coming. Jimmy was sent to Vietnam where he was killed in 1968 at the age of 20. His name is one of the 58,000 plus that are etched on that Vietnam Memorial Wall down in Washington. His story ends there. Unfortunately, Kenny’s just begins.

Kenny took Jimmy’s death hard. Harder, as Maude related some of the more public details, than one can possibly imagine. The early details are rather sketchy but they may have involved illegal drug use. Hell, they, including Peter Paul, all knew about drugs, had at least experienced and experimented with some of them, along with almost all the other member of “youth nation,” circa the 1960s. But Kenny went overboard apparently, way overboard.

The overt manifestations were reflected in a flare –up of acts of petty crime and then anti-social acts like pulling fire alarms and walking naked down the street. At some point he was diagnosed as schizophrenic. Peter Paul, when he later checked up on that particular mental illness and its causes, said he made no pretense of having adequate knowledge about the causes of mental illnesses but someone he trusted has told him that such a traumatic event as Jimmy’s death could trigger the condition in young adults.

In any case, the institutionalizations inevitably began. And later the halfway houses, and all the other forms of social control for those who cannot survive on the mean streets of this wicked old world on their own. Apparently, with drugs and therapy, there were periods of calm but for over three decades poor Kenny struggled with his inner demons. In the end the demons won and he died a few years ago while in a mental hospital.

Certainly this is not a happy story, and Maude rather steely in talking about Billy and some other local desperadoes, was always on the edge of tears in relating this story. Perhaps, Peter Paul thought later, aside from the specific details, not this was even an unusual one in modern times. Nevertheless he now counted Kenny, Kenny Callahan, to finally give him a name, as one of the uncounted casualties of war. Along with those physically wounded soldiers who can back from Vietnam service unable to cope with their own demons and sought solace in drugs and alcohol. And those, who for other reasons, could no adjust and found themselves on the streets, in the half way shelters or the V. A. hospitals. And also those grieving parents and other loved ones whose lives were shattered and broken by the loss of their children. There is no wall in Washington for Kenny or them. But, maybe there should be. As for poor childhood Kenny, Kenny Callahan, from the old neighborhood- Rest in Peace.

IN THE TIME OF THE VIETNAMESE NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE

BOOK REVIEW

APRIL 30TH MARKS THE 32ND ANNIVERSARY OF THE MILITARY VICTORY OF THE NORTH VIETNAMESE ARMY/ SOUTH VIETNAMESE NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY


VIETNAM –A HISTORY, STANLEY KARNOW, PENQUIN BOOKS, NEW YORK, 1983 (Reviewed April 20, 2007)

As the current Bush Administration-directed quagmire continues in Iraq it is rather timely to look at the previously bout of American imperialist madness in Vietnam if only in order to demonstrate the similar mindsets, then and now, of the American political establishment and their hangers-on. This book, unintentionally I am sure, is a prima facie argument, against those who see Iraq (or saw Vietnam) as merely an erroneous policy of the American government that can be ‘fixed’ by a change to a more rational imperialist policy guided by a different elite. Undeniably there are many differences between the current war and the struggle in Vietnam. Not the least of which is that in Vietnam there was a Communist-led insurgency that leftists throughout the world could identify with and were duty-bound to support. No such situation exists in Iraq today where, seemingly, from the little we know about the murky politics of the parties there militant leftists can support individual anti-imperialist actions as they occur but stand away, way away from the religious sectarian struggle for different versions of a fundamentalist Islamic state that the various parties are apparently fighting for.

Stanley Karnow’s well-informed study of the long history of struggle in Vietnam against outsiders, near and far, is a more than adequate primer about the history and the political issues, from the American side at least, as they came to a head in Vietnam in the early 1960’s. This work was produced in conjunction with a Public Broadcasting System documentary in 1983 so that if one wants to take the time to get a better grasp of the situation as it unfolded the combination of the literary and visual presentations will make one an ‘armchair expert’ on the subject. A glossary of by now unfamiliar names of secondary players and chronology of events is helpful as are some very good photographs that lead into each chapter

This book is the work of a long time journalist who covered Southeast Asia from the 1950’s until at least the early 1980’s when he went back after the war was over and interviewed various survivors from both sides as well as key political players. Although over twenty years has passed since the book’s publication it appears to me that he has covered all the essential elements of the dispute as well as the wrangling, again mainly on the American side , of policy makers big and small. While everyone should look at more recent material that material appears to me to be essentially more specialized analysis of the general themes presented in Karnow’s book. Or are the inevitably self-serving memoirs by those, like former Secretary of War Robert McNamara, looking to refurbish their images for the historical record. Karnow’s book has the added virtue of having been written just long enough after the end of the war that memories, faulty as they are in any case, were still fresh but with enough time in between for some introspection.

The first part of Karnow’s book deals with the long history of the Vietnamese as a people in their various provincial enclaves, or as a national entity, to be independent of the many other powers in the region, particularly China, who wanted to subjugate them. The book also pays detailed attention to the fight among the European colonial powers for dominance in the region culminating in the decisive victory for control by France in the 1800’s. That domination by a Western imperialist power, ultimately defeated by the same Communist and nationalist forces that were to defeat the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies, sets the stage for the huge role that the United States would come to play from the time of the French defeat in 1954 until their own defeat a couple of decades later. This section is important to read because the premises of the French about their adversary became, in almost cookie-cutter fashion, the same premises that drove American policy. And to similar ends.


The bulk of the book and the central story line, however, is a study of the hubris of American imperialist policy-makers in attempting to define their powers, prerogatives and interests in the post-World War II period. The sub-title of the book, which the current inhabitants of the Bush Administration obviously have not read and in any case would willfully misunderstand, is how not to subordinate primary interests to momentary secondary interests in the scramble to preserve the Empire.

Apparently, common sense and simple rationality are in short supply when one goes inside the Washington Beltway. Taking into account the differences in personality among the three main villains of the piece- Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon- the similarities of response and need to defend some sense of honor, American honor, are amazingly similar, individual rhetoric aside. There thus can be little wonder the North Vietnamese went about their business of revolution and independence pretty much according to their plans and with little regard to ‘subtleties’ in American diplomacy. But, read the book and judge for yourselves. Do not be surprised if something feels awfully, awfully familiar.

*Where Have All The Protests Against The Iraq War Gone?

COMMENTARY

MAKE NO MISTAKE-THE PARLIAMENTARY ANTI-WAR OPPOSITION HAS FAILED-IT IS NOW UP TO MILITANTS TO FRATERNIZE WITH THE TROOPS IN IRAQ IN ORDER TO ORGANIZE AN IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL

UPDATED: NOVEMBER 16, 2006

Below are some thoughts concerning the lack of major street protests against the war in Iraq despite the rise in opinion polls of opposition to the war which will apparently filter through the upcoming midterm election results. These thoughts are a response to an article in the IDEAS section of November 5, 2006 Sunday Boston Globe entitled-“Where Have the Protests Gone?” The theme of the article is the rather apparent contradiction between the rise of opposition to the war and the lack of response on the streets in comparison to various stages of the Vietnam War.

Some of those interviewed commented that the lack of a draft and therefore a general immediacy of the effects of the war on vast sections of the population as a reason. Others argued that the movement was alive and well but that the parliamentary route was the way to go. Others that the rise of high technology has changed the nature of opposition. Yes, okay but we still have the damn hard fact of political life that the war continues unabated, will continue unabated and that unless we take action outside the parliamentary framework and off the Internet that will continue to be the case. In any case, here are a couple of points to consider.


The writer came of political age during the Vietnam War. Here are a few thoughts from someone who came to protesting from a leftist political perspective the Vietnam War rather late (1968) and the Iraq War very early (early summer of 2002) who also wonders where the heck the protests have gone.

I am as enamored of the potential political uses of today high speed technologies as the next person but let us face it this is a very passive medium. One cannot create social change or create “community” in the privacy of one’s office or recreation room. In fact a very good argument can be made that current technological uses are making us more individualized, or as someone recently put it hyper-individualized, beyond the trends noted in the book Bowling Alone. There is no substitute for face to face organizing. One of the most interesting parts of organizing against the Vietnam War was when local PTA-type groups would ask me, a known radical at the time, to come and talk about the war. While these suburban matrons did not come away as devotees of Ho Chi Minh they did take what I had to say seriously. To finish the thought up in one sentence- if the revolution will not be televised neither will it be broadcast over the Internet.

A thought on the effectiveness of street protests. Most people I know believe that the huge anti-war rallies were decisive in ending the Vietnam War. Wrong. In the final analysis it was the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese Army that sent the United States packing. Please remember (or find a photo of) those evacuations from the roof top of the United States Embassy in 1975. I have, as others have as well, noted the many differences between Vietnam and Iraq but every week Baghdad politically looks more and more like Saigon 1975. That said, it is still necessary for the good of our political souls as well as an act of elementary political hygiene to hit the streets to protest this war- against the policies of both Republicans and Democrats.

While the initial strong opposition to the Iraq War was welcome, if surprising, I believe that it was (and is) more shallow that the opposition to the Vietnam War. Vietnam occurred in the, perhaps, unique context of the 1960’s. No only were there many movements going on or created like the black liberation struggle, women’s liberation and assorted anti-imperialist struggles but fights to create alternate cultural traditions in music, the arts and social life in general were everywhere. That most of these failed or still have not achieved their goals does not negate the effect that it had on the times. When there was, for example, a vibrant Student for a Democratic Society (SDS, one of the main villains for most conservatives at that time) in places like South Dakota you knew something was giving way at the base of society.

In contrast, today’s protesters have virtually no connection with past social and political struggles which could help to drive the movement forward. And to some extent, from my experiences, they willfully do not want to know these lessons. Taking to the streets en masse again in 2008 after the Democrats fail to get the troops out of Iraq is way too late. Additionally, almost forty years of relentless right-wing attacks that would have made Genghis Klan blush have made many fearful of challenging this government. But that is another story for another time.

I have noted the following point previously, but as we close in on the 89th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution on November 7th, it bears repeating. That revolution was truly the only time that I know of that an anti-war movement actually ended a war. Without going into all the details here or all the many causes for it the Bolshevik seizure of power from those in the Russian Provisional Government who were committed to continuing Russian participation in World War I on the Allied side graphically points out our dilemma. The Russian soldiers, aided by Bolshevik propaganda, voted with their feet to leave the trenches. The American troops should do the same. Who will help them?

*THE TROOPS ARE NOT COMING HOME THIS CHRISTMAS OR ANY CHRISTMAS SOON!

Click on the title to link to an "Under The Hood" (Fort Hood G.I. Coffeehouse)Web site online article about the "Oleo Strut" Coffeehouse, an important development in the anti-Vietnam War struggle. Hats off to those bygone anti-war fighters.

COMMENTARY

IRAQ LOOKS MORE AND MORE LIKE VIETNAM EVERY DAY-IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL OF ALL UNITED STATES/ALLIED TROOPS!


FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY


This writer for a long time has resisted the seemingly facile task of comparing the situation in Iraq today to the Vietnam of some forty years ago. But it is getting harder and harder to do so. On the face of it the differences are obvious. In Vietnam, revolutionary leftist forces were attempting to unify into one state that which by international diplomacy and previous bouts of international Stalinist treachery had been artificially split.

Furthermore, the defining principle behind the revolutionary forces there was the resolution of the agrarian question and the fight for what those forces conceived to be the road to socialism. Today in Iraq there are nationalist/sectarian forces which want to take revenge on the results of the European- derived Treaty of Versailles after World War I and re-divide this artificially created state-gun in hands. The fact that in Kurdish-controlled areas only the Kurdish flag can fly really says it all. Additionally, as far as this writer can tell, from the little known about the murky underworld of radical Islamic politics there are no forces fighting for anything like a secular- democratic much less a socialist solution to the problems there. Rather something like an Islamic Republic under repressive and anti-women Sharia law appears to be the favored political solution.

However, those differences between the domestic forces in Iraq and Vietnam aside the real way Iraq today looks like Vietnam is the similarities in the role of American imperialism on the ground. The latest news this week, the week of September 18, 2006, coming from the central military command is there will be no draw down of troops any time soon. LET ME REPEAT- THERE WILL NOT BE ANY DRAW DOWN ANY TIME SOON. All those who foolishly believed that draw down would occur and did not take the Bush Administration at its word when it declared empathically that troops would not be withdrawn as long as it drew breathe should ponder this. More on this below.

Moreover, in the week of September 25, 2006 we have the spectacle of the consensus of the various American intelligence services in a 'leaked' report finding that the situation in general and in Iraq in particular is to say the least grim. LET ME REPEAT-THERE WILL BE NO SOLUTION TO THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CREATED AND DEMOCRATIC PARTY SUPPORTED 'WAR AGAINST TERRORISM' UNTIL THE GREEK CALENDS. There is no way to prettify those sentiments. The question is what to do about it.

There are starting to be voices heard, dormant for a while, spearheaded by the editors of National Review and other neo-con sources that the lesson to be learned from Iraq is that to really win in Iraq the Americans must sent in more troops. How much such sentiments are worth from these previous supporters of a quick and cheap air power strategy in Iraq is beside the point. What is noteworthy is that this premise is not an isolated sentiment even among alleged opponents of the war. And that, in a nutshell, is where the comparison to Vietnam comes into play. The hubris which led the United States into the quagmire of Iraq is still very much in play.

The notion that in order rectify the original mistake of invasion more mistakes, such as increased troop levels, can solve the problem and bring victory where none is possible is the same mentality that led to all the escalations of the Vietnam era.
Against all reason the Bushies of America and the world cannot believe that the situation is lost. Well hell, that is their problem. Militant leftists have other problems like organizing the opposition and getting the troops out to worry over.

Additionally, President Bush himself is getting a little testy at the Prime Minister of Iraq. He cannot believe that at this late stage the wholly-owned American puppet government in Iraq hasn’t stepped up to its tasks of creating domestic tranquility. One should remember the names Diem and Thieu from Vietnamese history who got the same kinds of dressing-downs from previous American administrations. With that thought in mind let me ask this question. Is there anyone today on the planet outside the immediate Bush family that believes that the writ of the Iraqi government runs outside the Green Zone (and even that premise might be shaky)? These guys (and they are overwhelmingly men) never led anything, went into exile under Saddam rather than go underground and build a resistance movement and represent no one but themselves. And the Bushies like it that way.

But, enough of that. The real question is what are we anti-war, anti-imperialist activists going to do about the situation. President Bush has been rightly accused of upping the security alerts during election time to highlight the security question that he has (successfully) used as a trump card to swing the electoral balance in his favor. A less well-known fact is that during the fall of election years, including this year, the leaderships of the reformist anti-war movements close down the nationally-centered anti-war demonstration campaigns which are the lynch pins of their politics. It is no secret that this is done to help so-called 'anti-war' Democratic politicians or at least not be a source of embarrassment to the weak Democratic parliamentary opposition to the war.

In a blog written this summer (see August archives) I wrote an open letter to the troops in Iraq. The thrust of the letter was that the conventional politicians, their own military leadership and the anti-war movement had left the troops in Iraq hanging in the wind. As we enter the fall electoral campaign this is truer than ever. I will repeat here what I stated there- if the troops are to withdraw from Iraq it will have to be on their own hook. Start forming the soldiers and sailors solidarity committees now. Militant leftists here must support those efforts. Begin to fraternize with the troops here. If you live near Oceanside, California go to Camp Pendleton. In North Carolina go to Fort Bragg and Camp Lejuene. Go to Fort Campbell in Kentucky. If you live near naval bases go there. Unfortunately today there is no other way to end the war. FORWARD.

Revised, September 27, 2006

THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES OF COMMENTARY ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!