Foreword: The Wall
Richard Pena
Recently,
the Traveling Wall—a smaller replica of the National Vietnam Memorial in
Washington, D.C.—came to my community in Austin, Texas. My wife Carolyn, whom I
have known since before I went to Vietnam, thought that we should go visit it.
For me, and many other Americans, viewing the Wall is an emotional and somber
experience. This time was no different.
The
Traveling Wall spanned the length of our local high school football field. We
walked slowly past the etched names of all the soldiers who died or went
missing in Vietnam. I saw one woman making a rubbing of one of the names with
charcoal and a sheet of paper. For her, bringing the soldier closer in that way
might have made the hurt a little more bearable. Seeing her tears, I knew that
her pain had lasted for a very long time. “It will never go away,” I thought to
myself.
Loved
ones had left all sorts of mementos and flowers by the memorial. There was even
an old newspaper clipping of one soldier’s death announcement. We slowly walked
the length of the football field before turning back and revisiting the names a
second time.
A
young boy, about ten or twelve years old, walked towards us. He, too, was
paying tribute to the fallen in his own way. By the look on his face, I could
tell he was seeking some understanding from the memorial. He wore a red and
black football jersey, the colors of the local high school. The school had
recently won three state championships, and he must have been proud. One day, I
thought, he might even play on the team himself and maybe even compete in the
state championship. I sighed and prayed that he would have the opportunity.
Each
of the names represented a real loss. Carolyn wondered out loud what each
person would have become, given the chance. She reflected on all the hopes and
dreams that went unfulfilled because of the war, on what a waste it was—not
just for the families, but for our country.
As
we walked past the thousands of names—Donovan, Olson, Watson, Salinas, West,
Yardoch, Neu, Viado, Stokes, Young, Torres, Spillner, Castle, Lopez, Zeller,
Magee, Lafever—I felt only sorrow and regret. Most of these lives had been
extinguished just as they were beginning. I no longer felt anger, for I had
learned to accept this reality long ago. But like all the times I visited the
Memorial in Washington, D.C., it felt as if I had been punched in the stomach.
In
that moment of sadness, I wanted to reach out to those brave soldiers who died.
What would they want now, some thirty-seven years after we left Vietnam? I feel
they would want the truth to be told. It is for the sake of the 58,286 soldiers
whose names are etched on the Wall, their families, the 3,100,000 soldiers who
served in the Vietnam War—and, most of all, the truth—that John Hagan and I
have pushed this book to publication.
While
stationed in Vietnam as an operating room specialist, I kept a record of my
wartime experiences and reflections. I left Vietnam on the final day of the
American withdrawal, on one of the two very last planes out. Upon my return, I
put the manuscript in a cardboard box, where it remained hidden away in the
garage or attic for thirty-seven years. I knew that the American public had
mostly overlooked the war, an important moment in their nation’s history. But
everyday responsibilities kept me busy, and I went on to quietly live my life.
It wasn’t until 2003, when I led a law delegation to Vietnam, that I realized
the true significance of my departure on that final day.
Hanging
on a wall of the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City was a photo that
depicted Americans troops boarding the final planes out of Vietnam. The
inscription under the photo read, Last Plane Out. Carolyn and I both
immediately recognized a much younger me in the photo, carrying my law school
briefcase. I had never seen this picture before. The Vietnamese consider this
photograph to be one of the iconic images of war, but to my knowledge the
American public has been unaware of its existence.
Per
the Paris Peace Accord signed January 23, 1973, America was to withdraw from
Vietnam in sixty days. Those of us on the last two planes left on the
sixty-first day. The American press was gone, the brass was gone—nearly
everyone had left. I noticed a Viet Cong soldier taking a picture of. As I
boarded the plane, I had a sense that someday the photo would surface.
Many
Americans believe that the “end of the war” came in 1975 with the evacuation of
the U.S. Embassy via helicopter. The photos of that event are deeply etched in
our collective memory. However, historians know that American military
involvement in the Vietnam War actually ended in March 1973 with the withdrawal
of the last American combat troops. To this day, I am glad that I was one of
the last ones out. At the time, I was relieved to know that no additional
American soldiers would be sent to die for that war.
I
would like to thank John Hagan for his tireless work—without him, this book
would not have been possible. It was John who had me pull my manuscript from
the attic and who understood its historical significance. The core of the book
consists of journal entries I wrote while serving in Vietnam from 1972 to 1973.
I
would like to thank the People To People Citizen Ambassador Programs for
selecting me to lead the law delegation to Vietnam. Because of them, I was able
to discover the Last Plane Out photo hanging in the American War Museums
in Ho Chi Minh City. I thank the American Bar Foundation for its support and
encouragement.
I
would also like to thank my family and friends, who tried to understand and
accept me back into “The World” when I returned. I would like to thank my wife,
Carolyn Malley Pena, for her understanding, love, and support throughout these
years. Above all, I would like to thank all those who continue to remember
Vietnam and work to provide medical care for the veterans of all of our wars.
As
you read the following pages, please understand that I wrote these words in
real time as the war was happening. Stakes were high and emotions were raging.
These are the truths as I experienced them.
Please remember, this is only an interpretation.
The truth, of course, is far stranger.
John Hagan
John
Kerry once asked which young American would be “the last soldier to die for a
mistake.” Richard Pena knew that he did not want to be the answer. It was 1972,
and the Vietnam War was still raging. Despite American troop withdrawals, the
killing and dying continued unabated. Young and angry, Richard had no wish to
accept a death sentence or prolong the inevitable American defeat. However, if
he was going to serve in Vietnam, he wanted to be among the final American
soldiers to leave—alive. As one of the last men out, he would bear many of the
lasting lessons from this war.
In
his youth, Richard learned to be proud of his country and his ability to find
“his own way.” He learned many valuable lessons through the compassionate
discipline shown by his parents, Merced and Rebecca, as he was growing up. His
parents and extended family, who were proud of their Hispanic heritage and
values, taught him by example. Merced served in World War II and won a Silver
Star for his service at Iwo Jima as a Marine field medic. Upon his return to
San Antonio, Texas, he married Rebecca, his high school sweetheart and worked
as a postman for the U.S. Postal Service, while Rebecca worked at Kelly Air
Force Base. As rising middle-class parents of two baby boomer sons, they lived
a version of the post-World War II American Dream.
Richard
was born in 1948, fourteen months after his older brother, Mercy. Richard would
never be tall, but he was fast. His father believed that Richard’s speed and
scrappiness would make him a basketball star, and he promised his son that
there was “a way to win.” Richard’s mother would add, “There is always a way.”
In San Antonio, children played in the church leagues before moving on to
middle school basketball. Richard’s father put up a basketball hoop in the
backyard and led the community effort to build a neighborhood church, which
resulted in the Northwest Christian Church.
Eight-year-old
Richard became a standout church-league player for Northwest Christian Church.
When Richard was thirteen, he became starting guard for the basketball team at
Horace Mann Junior High School and won several city championships. He later
played on a high school team that was among the best in the city and in his
senior year he received the best all around athlete award. Richard’s childhood
friend, Fred Biery, still remembers a time when they played on opposite teams
in their church league. One of Fred’s exceptionally tall teammates played
defense at half court and tried to stop Richard’s dribble. To everyone’s
surprise, Richard dribbled through the legs of the tall defender and drove to
the rim for a basket. “There is always a way.”
Although
his parents voted for Richard Nixon over John Kennedy in the 1960 presidential
election, Richard hardly knew the difference between the candidates. His
political awareness only emerged after the assassination of President Kennedy,
and he became more politically engaged after he went off to college. In the
fall of 1966, Richard enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin. The
basketball coach, who had coached one of Richard’s opponents in high school,
wanted him to join the team as a walk-on. Richard declined, deciding to make
schoolwork his priority instead.
The
University of Texas at Austin was only seventy-five miles away from Richard’s
hometown, but the culture of the school made it seem worlds apart. During his
undergraduate years, Richard became interested in the questions others were
asking about American foreign policy. His interests took a bookish turn, and he
abandoned sports completely in favor of economics and political science. The
world was changing, too. Antiwar politics were on the march across America’s
campuses, and the University of Texas at Austin was no exception.
These
were turbulent times. In 1966, draft card turn-ins and burnings attracted
national attention. The fall of 1967—Richard’s sophomore year—brought events
like “Stop the Draft Week,” the shutdown of the Draft Board in Oakland, and the
first major Pentagon protest in Washington. That year was also stained by the
assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Late that
summer, the whole world watched as policemen rioted in Mayor Daley’s Chicago
and attacked antiwar demonstrators at the Democratic Party Convention.
The
year 1968 became a wakeup call for Richard. The war had already killed nearly
40,000 U.S. soldiers by the time Lyndon Johnson returned to his Texas ranch to
plan his presidential library on the Austin campus. Meanwhile, Hubert Humphrey
became the Democrat’s newly nominated war candidate, and the Vietnam War was in
full swing as people were being drafted and killed. America was tearing itself
apart. Richard started asking, “Why?”
The
revelation of the My Lai massacre struck a raw nerve in Texas during Richard’s
senior year. A young journalist for the St. Louis Dispatch, Seymour
Hersh, broke the explosive story that in March 1968 a twenty-six-year-old
soldier, William Calley, deliberately led the mass slaughter of at least 109
Vietnamese civilian men, women, and children. Fuel was added to the fire when,
in the spring of Richard’s senior year, President Nixon announced the expansion
of the war into Cambodia. Students roared into action in Austin and at over one
hundred other university campuses throughout the United States. The American
Council on Education estimated that there were nearly ten-thousand incidents of
protest in 1969.
In
May 1970, Austin antiwar leaders decided to hold a week-long protest. They
planned to march across campus in order to avoid the need for a downtown parade
permit, which the city had previously denied. The Monday before the march, word
spread of nine wounded and four dead in Ohio. The young National Guardsmen who
arrived at Kent State University had fatally shot the students with M-1 rifles
recklessly loaded with live ammunition. The Crosby, Still, Nash & Young
song “Ohio” eulogized the dead students and later became a poignant call to
arms.
By
noon on Tuesday, 8,000 had gathered at the University of Texas at Austin to
protest the Kent State shootings on the main campus mall. A crowd of 5,000
marched across the University and then headed downtown, disregarding the
required permit. Richard participated in several campus demonstrations over the
next week, some of which were reported in the national news media. Observers
estimated that about half of all American university students took part in the
May 1970 demonstrations. Richard ironically recalled that he held up a sign
that read, “Hell No, We Won’t Go.” Only a few months later, he would be a
soldier in Vietnam.
During
another march in Austin that spring, a front line of demonstrators left campus
and headed downtown into a phalanx of ten police officers. Followers fanned out
around the initial melee. Five blocks on, the crowd encountered another twenty
officers. The road of attack led to the state Capitol building, a symbol of
government control in Austin. One student leader later gave an account of the
event: By
this point, the planners of the march were no longer in control. We had never
left campus like that before; we all knew we wanted to go downtown. When we got
to the Capitol, most of us went around. There were probably thirty armed police
in riot gear and holding tear gas containers. . . . Some of the
more militant people headed straight at the police. Fistfights broke out
between police and students; some rocks were thrown. Four people were arrested.
The police began firing tear gas. They went absolutely nuts, even shooting off
tear gas inside the Capitol as the students retreated toward
campus. . . . A lot of people were blinded, being led by those who
could still see. We were very inexperienced.1
Richard
was among those young political protesters who were upset by all the wrongdoing
and violence caused by the war. He viewed the marches as legitimate responses
to the Kent State killings. To him, the Vietnam conflict was an illegitimate,
politically motivated war that sacrificed young Americans without good reason.
Those in power justified the war with the “domino effect” theory—that is, if
the war was not fought, communism would spread like falling dominoes. Richard
found the logic of this argument to be incoherent and disingenuous.
The
week of protest in Austin snowballed into a general strike, and tens of
thousands of students became involved in the rallies. The protesters even
briefly took over the state Capitol. By Friday, students had completely
abandoned classes in order to attend the strike. Governor Preston Smith, like
governors in fifteen other states, called out the National Guard, and the city
turned out 200 riot-equipped police. FBI agents with rifles lined the top of
the clock tower as police helicopters swooped down over the campus.
During
Friday’s demonstration, 25,000 people came to protest the Cambodian invasion
and the killings at Kent State. Led by a girl dressed in black, the march
spanned thirteen blocks and featured a procession of American flags and
coffins. As historian Beverly Burr writes, “The Friday march was the largest
student protest activity to occur in Austin history, and has yet to be rivaled.
The march turned into a huge love-in, which lasted into the twilight. That
evening a memorial service for the four who were killed at Kent State was held
on the main mall”2
The demonstrations were a powerful continuation of the free speech and antiwar
protests of the 1960s.
The
historian Todd Gitlin concluded that the protests after the Kent State shooting
marked the peak of the student antiwar movement.3 This may
have been true for radicals on college campuses, but ordinary citizens
everywhere were still being drafted into the military. Pro-war soldiers often
became antiwar after being sent to Vietnam, and many servicemen were angry and
motivated to halt the U.S. war effort. As the student movement broke off into
factions, leadership of the antiwar initiative passed to veteran and
active-duty soldiers.
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