I should have taken more interest in the outcome of a faraway battle that would affect my life so completely. It was on this day in 1954 that the battle of Dien Bien Phu began in a remote valley in northwestern Vietnam. France had controlled Vietnam for almost a century and wanted to continue exploiting the country for its resources. France also wanted to prevent the spread of Communism as the U.S. had just done in Korea and as Great Britain was doing in nearby Malaysia.
The communists in Vietnam were known as the Viet Minh and had been fighting the French since the beginning of WWII. After the war, the fighting against the French intensified. The Viet Minh were now being supplied by China and Soviet Russia. The French built an airbase at Dien Bien Phu and flew in thousands of soldiers to interrupt the Viet Minh supply line.
This seemed to the French at the time like a good idea. But it was all wrong. For one thing their base sat in the bottom of "a rice bowl." The Viet Minh pulled heavy artillery, which the French did not know they had, through the thick jungle, which the French did not think they could do. The Viet Minh hauled their guns up the backsides of the surrounding mountains, then dug tunnels through the mountain and aimed their guns at the French base.
The French were not able to hit the enemy's guns which were destroying their airfield. With no airfield, reinforcement was impossible. The Viet Minh began attacking the base, forcing the French into a smaller and smaller area. The French surrendered on May 7, 1954. While being marched to prison camps hundreds of miles away, over half the French soldiers died. Most of these soldiers were from France's colonies. The French public would not tolerate seeing their own boys killed.
After Dien Bien Phu, the French public would no longer tolerate any presence in Vietnam. At the peace conference, France was out and the Viet Minh were given the north half of the country while the former emperor was given the south. Here was the fly that would spoil the ointment and see me living in a remote valley in northwestern Minnesota.
In hindsight, the West should have bitten the bullet back in '54 and given the whole of Vietnam to the communists. Much death and destruction could have been avoided. The U.S. had been supplying the French during their war with the Viet Minh. After the war we propped up so-called democratic rulers in South Vietnam with advisors and financial aid. After Kennedy's assasination, Lyndon Johnson used a minor attack by North Vietnam patrol boats against a U.S. destroyer as a pretext to launch a large scale land war in Vietnam.
It was about this time I got my first draft notice. I had just graduated from high school and figured I'd go to college and get a deferement. Surely this will all settle down in four years. Fresh out of college in 1968 I got my second draft notice. Nixon had been elected on a promise to end the war. But bodies were still being shoved to the hot zone and hauled home in bags.
My options were graduate school for two more years, Army for two years and likely time spent up front, or Navy or Air Force for four years. My brother Bill was joining the Navy so I followed the path of least resistance. After boot camp I was sent to the Army's language school where I studied Vietnamese of all things. From there I went to the National Security Agency outside of Washington. I can't say what I did there, but my duties only took about an hour. I spent the rest of the day in the library.
From there I could have been sent to a base in Vietnam or to a ship along the coast of Vietnam or to the Philppines. I went to the Philippines. Ah the Philppines. Beautiful country. Lovely people. My duties required little of my time. Like the poet Milton I was one of those who "also serve who only stand and wait." By 1972 the U.S. was negotiating hard to get out of Vietnam. My services were no longer needed and my enlistment was cut short by six months. Instead of getting home in October, I arrived in May, just in time to meet Teresa who would be in town for three months only.
While in the Philippines I had rented a house in the barrio. I loved its dusty streets and free-range pigs and determined I would live in the country rather than the city. When I visited Teresa's home I was sold. It was July. Maybe December would have changed my tune. But no, I had come for love.
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| Outside the cemetery, St. Remy-de-Provence, France |
Thanks for your Vietnam service.
ReplyDeleteYour story about the French, in 1954, putting themselves in a ‘rice bowl’ in Vietnam and then being bombarded into surrender from the entrenched artillery of the Viet Minh in the surrounding mountains, suggests that wasn't the best strategy for a positive outcome -- and it wasn't.
ReplyDeleteStrategy, historically speaking, wasn't their best strength for they weren’t very good at defending themselves even when they had the high ground, as happened 195 years earlier on September 13, 1759, when the British scaled the near vertical cliffs outside the city of Quebec to take the French fort and later defeat French forces during the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, also known as the Battle Of Quebec.
Further reading, on June 6, 1944, during the Normandy Invasion, U.S. Army Rangers had to climb a 100-foot cliff at Pointe du Hoc, to rescue France from the Germans.
Éloignez-vous des falaises et des montagnes!