letter to my sister's godfather
Posted: November 19th, 2007, 6:43 pm
Dear Robin,
(copy for your God-daughter, my sister,Kathleen) November 19th, 2007
first I wanna say thanks for your phone call Friday eve. I had just been to a street demo downtown, a lil old cornering with my "Bushwhacked" sign and a little American flag.
I listened to your WW2 audio discussion this morning and it stimulated much thinking and wanted to respond while still fresh in my mind. I found your tone about your WW2 flight training to be somewhat directed at the tangible aspects of flight training, the descriptions of the airplanes, etc, and found that your family's questioning really opened you up about your attitude towards going off to war. Yet at the same time I noted that you had no doubts or inner conflicts going on.
I went thru 4 years of AFROTC at Michigan during a time of dissent. I had roommates who told me that they were against the Vietnam War. So by my senior year I was informed about the history of our involvement as well as the history of Vietnam and colonialism. We were also well versed in WW2 combat films and had our military etiquette down real good. I commanded the honor flight my junior year, won a scholarship as well.
I thought that it would be good to get away from dissent and into a gung-ho environment, but instead I found myself somewhat alienated from my pilot training classmates, and was drawn to make friends with the oddball, John O'Keefe, from Boston, who had been in the Peace Corps and was getting a slot in the Mass Air Guard. John told me, "it's either the Guard, jail, or Canada, not Vietnam."
Plus, we went to a meeting of the American Friends Service Committee and encountered 1-AO conscientious objector medics in training in San Antonio, ft. Brooks, who were a revelation to me, assertive, bold, and as enlisted men, smarter than the officer classmates I had. We also went to a black church where we heard black liberation songs and heard a young revolutionary woman back from Cuba, which was, in effect, meeting with the enemy, as in our training squadron classroom, was the motto, "our mission is to fly and to fight and don't you forget it!" plus the instructor pilots, those who were back from the war, had their war patches on their flight suits. And I was having my doubts about what I was doing.
By the end of pilot training,T38's, I became withdrawn and alienated, and decided to go and fly up-front cargo planesin Vietnam, a way of finding out and also avoiding direct combat against the Vietnamese, with whom I felt no anger or threat. So I did not have the solidity of purpose of the stability of aircrew that you had.
I spent the first five months in Vietnam as a co-pilot, flying with a variety of AC's, some of them older Lt's, and a few older officers, as well as the third crew member the load-master-engineer. Becoming an AC was fun and a lot of routine transportflying and I got a steady crew, my co-pilot was a hot dog older guy and we always clowned a lot, plus I trained him to flyAC, and then after the 8th month, upgraded to flight instructor, my job to upgrade co-pilots to become AC's and gave in-country orientation to the more seasoned pilots, which I did not enjoy, as they were resistant to a kid commander, and jealous and cocky, plus the co-pilot to AC trainees were resistant to criticism, but, hey, I did my job, finished the year with top ratings. I remember talking with my rating officer. He told me, "I am a Christian and I want to be a general, so I have to fly a plane with armaments." Mercy. He was a tanker pilot before and was going into bombers after Vietnam.
I saw a lot of the terrain, some of it was cleared out, defoliated, including cropland as well as forest. I did a memory drawing of one such place in III corps. We also got rather intimate with casualties. I usually helped the load-master and the ground guys to load the bodies onto the plane. One memory drawing I did has helped somewhat to retain this intimacy. Plus I made several other memory drawings of airfields, including Dalat, Phouc Vinh, Katum, and have a photograph of Bu Dopafter it was abandoned. One strange afternoon in August, 1971, just before my tour was over, I was assigned to fly with an Academy grad, a nice fellow who was one of the few who did not upgrade to AC (he had taxi'd into a fire extinguisher). We flew into Phouc Vinh, then BuDop, and I asked the Major at airlift command if we should land as the bases were deserted. He affirmed we were to complete the mission as ordered, and having the Zoomie as a co-pilot, I was not about to cut corners, so we went in, virtually unarmed.
The last airfield we went into was Loc Ninh, which was about 70 miles north of greater Saigon near the Cambodian border. the base was deserted, the guns were gone. There was a woods to the left and south and the town was about a half-mile beyond the southern perimeter. I decided to dial in the "classified" FOX MIKE artillery radio frequency, more of my intuitive stuff, I guess, and we got wooden flute tones in our headphones, then the words, "lot luck!" I wanted to say the same back, but having the Zoomie there, I clicked the radio and then some angry Vietnamese words followed and we took off. I saw another C7 coming in and radioed on Guard to not land, called the major and informed him that all 3 bases were deserted.
A few weeks earlier I had flown into Thailand and saw the massive air war bases we had there, a huge armaments, mercy, and flew back across central Cambodia, across the eastern central part and saw a massive carpet bombing area I estimated was about 60 miles across and from horizon to horizon south to north (from 9,000 feet) into ad infinitum.. It made no sense, because the bomber flights could cover only a small area each time, and this had to have taken years to accomplish, with little real effectiveness, because people on foot walking laden bicycles kept coming thru. Of course the ecocide was enormous and the population moved out, those who survived. Some say this was an impetus for the Khmer Rouge Maoists, anyhow,\
The last week of August I shipped home and refused my end-of tour flying cross. I was asked to fill out the paperwork for it. I told them to "forget it."
I had chosen tankers early in my tour in Vietnam as a way to get Boeing 707 flight time for the airlines, and chose New England because I had no real geographical roots and maybe because my friend John was there, I don't really know. I got my second choice, Pease at Portsmouth.
I was having a lot of depression by the end of my tour. I felt no sense of comradery and no closure. So when I declared conscientious objector in tanker school, Jan of '72, I was already becoming less functional. The rest is history. I hit the ground running with the grunts in VVAW. I met your wife, Lydia, thru the referral from the Central Committee of Conscientious Objectors, and rediscovered you in Feb, 1972, my sister's long lost Godfather and our long gone father's AC in B-19's, a miracle of synchronicity, or just a plain miracle, because my own family had the shits.
I have to say, in retrospect, that I did not consider myself to be a conscientious objector either. It was an avenue to take to avoid going back to Southeast Asia, to which I was subject to redeployment, and the thought of refueling B-52's, which we were doing in training, was not acceptable to me, outside of a detente-deterrent situation. I was against the continuing bombing of that area in that war. it made no sense to me, any more than the whole theater of artillery bases, destroyed terrain, occupied territories and abandonment, which the South Vietnamese army had no intention of guarding.
I became alienated from the organization itself,the Air Force, from the lack of questioning and from the conformist mentality and wanted something else. And when I resigned my commission, I told them exactly how I felt, that I was against the ongoing war in Southeast Asia. Luckily, they let me out. I remember your counsel at that time. Also, Senator Tom McIntyre, NH, wrote to me and confirmed his support for the Church-Hatfield vote to stop the funding and force a peace deal.
So it goes to this day, when somebody says to me, incredulously, ""don't you think that 'they' know more than we do?" in reference to the current administration and the neo-cons. The encompassing intellectual and emotional capacity to speak clearly to this mentality is what drives me now.
I realize that, of course, your family gathering was congenial and it was enjoyable. I also remember that you told me once that your crew had dropped bombs on a German village and that you did not mention this directly in this audio discussion. It's OK. Some things are not for tender ears. You stayed behind and helped to rebuild the place, in the Marshall Plan, and you met a German survivor of the bombing who came to you in Meeting. But you did not describe the intensity of emotions that I know you felt, only began to express some intensity at the end of your talk when you began expanding into the neo-con agenda.
You also stated how you stay "in your head" more than in your heart. But I don't necessarily agree with the metaphor, because a meditative mind, while keeping the head calm, expresses a deep abiding presence. I think that your Quaker instinct provided you with a ground of calm abiding.
Anyhow, I am glad to have your memoir, and appreciate the kind words you had in there for your co-pilot, Jim Sr.
Like I said, love you, or really, am grateful to you, even better
and I sent in my ballot for the VFP board. I have to call a fellow about a possible school speaking experience.
Wednesday I will go back to work and Thursday Thanksgiving. Tomorrow is my YOGA class and the EMDR therapy that I am doing with a fellow who is a Zen teacher. Yowsa! Susan is doing well. She got her national certification in case management, and we are doing well.
Resilience and spirit to you this holiday season, friend,
Here we are at our 8th anniversarylast October! (edited by my brother John)
Jim
speaking truth to power
(I wrote this letter-memoir to Robin, now 84, and is a part of my coming together, another gestalt moment.
forgetaboutit.
)
(copy for your God-daughter, my sister,Kathleen) November 19th, 2007
first I wanna say thanks for your phone call Friday eve. I had just been to a street demo downtown, a lil old cornering with my "Bushwhacked" sign and a little American flag.
I listened to your WW2 audio discussion this morning and it stimulated much thinking and wanted to respond while still fresh in my mind. I found your tone about your WW2 flight training to be somewhat directed at the tangible aspects of flight training, the descriptions of the airplanes, etc, and found that your family's questioning really opened you up about your attitude towards going off to war. Yet at the same time I noted that you had no doubts or inner conflicts going on.
I went thru 4 years of AFROTC at Michigan during a time of dissent. I had roommates who told me that they were against the Vietnam War. So by my senior year I was informed about the history of our involvement as well as the history of Vietnam and colonialism. We were also well versed in WW2 combat films and had our military etiquette down real good. I commanded the honor flight my junior year, won a scholarship as well.
I thought that it would be good to get away from dissent and into a gung-ho environment, but instead I found myself somewhat alienated from my pilot training classmates, and was drawn to make friends with the oddball, John O'Keefe, from Boston, who had been in the Peace Corps and was getting a slot in the Mass Air Guard. John told me, "it's either the Guard, jail, or Canada, not Vietnam."
Plus, we went to a meeting of the American Friends Service Committee and encountered 1-AO conscientious objector medics in training in San Antonio, ft. Brooks, who were a revelation to me, assertive, bold, and as enlisted men, smarter than the officer classmates I had. We also went to a black church where we heard black liberation songs and heard a young revolutionary woman back from Cuba, which was, in effect, meeting with the enemy, as in our training squadron classroom, was the motto, "our mission is to fly and to fight and don't you forget it!" plus the instructor pilots, those who were back from the war, had their war patches on their flight suits. And I was having my doubts about what I was doing.
By the end of pilot training,T38's, I became withdrawn and alienated, and decided to go and fly up-front cargo planesin Vietnam, a way of finding out and also avoiding direct combat against the Vietnamese, with whom I felt no anger or threat. So I did not have the solidity of purpose of the stability of aircrew that you had.
I spent the first five months in Vietnam as a co-pilot, flying with a variety of AC's, some of them older Lt's, and a few older officers, as well as the third crew member the load-master-engineer. Becoming an AC was fun and a lot of routine transportflying and I got a steady crew, my co-pilot was a hot dog older guy and we always clowned a lot, plus I trained him to flyAC, and then after the 8th month, upgraded to flight instructor, my job to upgrade co-pilots to become AC's and gave in-country orientation to the more seasoned pilots, which I did not enjoy, as they were resistant to a kid commander, and jealous and cocky, plus the co-pilot to AC trainees were resistant to criticism, but, hey, I did my job, finished the year with top ratings. I remember talking with my rating officer. He told me, "I am a Christian and I want to be a general, so I have to fly a plane with armaments." Mercy. He was a tanker pilot before and was going into bombers after Vietnam.
I saw a lot of the terrain, some of it was cleared out, defoliated, including cropland as well as forest. I did a memory drawing of one such place in III corps. We also got rather intimate with casualties. I usually helped the load-master and the ground guys to load the bodies onto the plane. One memory drawing I did has helped somewhat to retain this intimacy. Plus I made several other memory drawings of airfields, including Dalat, Phouc Vinh, Katum, and have a photograph of Bu Dopafter it was abandoned. One strange afternoon in August, 1971, just before my tour was over, I was assigned to fly with an Academy grad, a nice fellow who was one of the few who did not upgrade to AC (he had taxi'd into a fire extinguisher). We flew into Phouc Vinh, then BuDop, and I asked the Major at airlift command if we should land as the bases were deserted. He affirmed we were to complete the mission as ordered, and having the Zoomie as a co-pilot, I was not about to cut corners, so we went in, virtually unarmed.
The last airfield we went into was Loc Ninh, which was about 70 miles north of greater Saigon near the Cambodian border. the base was deserted, the guns were gone. There was a woods to the left and south and the town was about a half-mile beyond the southern perimeter. I decided to dial in the "classified" FOX MIKE artillery radio frequency, more of my intuitive stuff, I guess, and we got wooden flute tones in our headphones, then the words, "lot luck!" I wanted to say the same back, but having the Zoomie there, I clicked the radio and then some angry Vietnamese words followed and we took off. I saw another C7 coming in and radioed on Guard to not land, called the major and informed him that all 3 bases were deserted.
A few weeks earlier I had flown into Thailand and saw the massive air war bases we had there, a huge armaments, mercy, and flew back across central Cambodia, across the eastern central part and saw a massive carpet bombing area I estimated was about 60 miles across and from horizon to horizon south to north (from 9,000 feet) into ad infinitum.. It made no sense, because the bomber flights could cover only a small area each time, and this had to have taken years to accomplish, with little real effectiveness, because people on foot walking laden bicycles kept coming thru. Of course the ecocide was enormous and the population moved out, those who survived. Some say this was an impetus for the Khmer Rouge Maoists, anyhow,\
The last week of August I shipped home and refused my end-of tour flying cross. I was asked to fill out the paperwork for it. I told them to "forget it."
I had chosen tankers early in my tour in Vietnam as a way to get Boeing 707 flight time for the airlines, and chose New England because I had no real geographical roots and maybe because my friend John was there, I don't really know. I got my second choice, Pease at Portsmouth.
I was having a lot of depression by the end of my tour. I felt no sense of comradery and no closure. So when I declared conscientious objector in tanker school, Jan of '72, I was already becoming less functional. The rest is history. I hit the ground running with the grunts in VVAW. I met your wife, Lydia, thru the referral from the Central Committee of Conscientious Objectors, and rediscovered you in Feb, 1972, my sister's long lost Godfather and our long gone father's AC in B-19's, a miracle of synchronicity, or just a plain miracle, because my own family had the shits.
I have to say, in retrospect, that I did not consider myself to be a conscientious objector either. It was an avenue to take to avoid going back to Southeast Asia, to which I was subject to redeployment, and the thought of refueling B-52's, which we were doing in training, was not acceptable to me, outside of a detente-deterrent situation. I was against the continuing bombing of that area in that war. it made no sense to me, any more than the whole theater of artillery bases, destroyed terrain, occupied territories and abandonment, which the South Vietnamese army had no intention of guarding.
I became alienated from the organization itself,the Air Force, from the lack of questioning and from the conformist mentality and wanted something else. And when I resigned my commission, I told them exactly how I felt, that I was against the ongoing war in Southeast Asia. Luckily, they let me out. I remember your counsel at that time. Also, Senator Tom McIntyre, NH, wrote to me and confirmed his support for the Church-Hatfield vote to stop the funding and force a peace deal.
So it goes to this day, when somebody says to me, incredulously, ""don't you think that 'they' know more than we do?" in reference to the current administration and the neo-cons. The encompassing intellectual and emotional capacity to speak clearly to this mentality is what drives me now.
I realize that, of course, your family gathering was congenial and it was enjoyable. I also remember that you told me once that your crew had dropped bombs on a German village and that you did not mention this directly in this audio discussion. It's OK. Some things are not for tender ears. You stayed behind and helped to rebuild the place, in the Marshall Plan, and you met a German survivor of the bombing who came to you in Meeting. But you did not describe the intensity of emotions that I know you felt, only began to express some intensity at the end of your talk when you began expanding into the neo-con agenda.
You also stated how you stay "in your head" more than in your heart. But I don't necessarily agree with the metaphor, because a meditative mind, while keeping the head calm, expresses a deep abiding presence. I think that your Quaker instinct provided you with a ground of calm abiding.
Anyhow, I am glad to have your memoir, and appreciate the kind words you had in there for your co-pilot, Jim Sr.
Like I said, love you, or really, am grateful to you, even better
and I sent in my ballot for the VFP board. I have to call a fellow about a possible school speaking experience.
Wednesday I will go back to work and Thursday Thanksgiving. Tomorrow is my YOGA class and the EMDR therapy that I am doing with a fellow who is a Zen teacher. Yowsa! Susan is doing well. She got her national certification in case management, and we are doing well.
Resilience and spirit to you this holiday season, friend,
Here we are at our 8th anniversarylast October! (edited by my brother John)
Jim
speaking truth to power
(I wrote this letter-memoir to Robin, now 84, and is a part of my coming together, another gestalt moment.
forgetaboutit.
)