Vietnam G.I.

Vietnam, G.I. was a first-rate newspaper founded and edited by SP/5 Jeff Sharlet in January 1968. It was an almost-monthly tabloid. This piece is from the September 1968 issue. The last issue came out in August ‘69. Jeff died soon thereafter of liver cancer. I wondered if it was CIA Flu. He was easygoing but very serious and I admired him.

Long Binh Jail is infamous for servicemen. Since the inmate riot in August, it’s been infamous for the brass too. 

VGI: — So how in the hell did you ever get into the LBJ?

• Well, the way it happened is that I went on R&R. When I came back I was in civvies and I refused to put on a uniform. First the NCO ordered me to put on a uniform and I refused. Then the adjutant popped out and ordered me to put on the uniform and I refused. And then he started calling me names in order to get me angry, like coward, low dog, and words like this. And after a while he did succeed in getting my anger up. At one point he turned around and started to walk back into his office and he was laughing. This really bugged me. — I told him, “Listen you bastard, if you want to laugh about it I’ll knock your teeth out.” I followed him into his office. He sat down behind the desk. I swept all the material off his desk, and I told him I’d kill him.

My guard, who was a good friend of mine, came in and grabbed me and pulled me outside and said “You’re doing the wrong thing, man.” As I was going out, I said to the adjutant, “You better do something man, or I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you.” — They were going to court martial me, so I was put in LBJ for pretrial confinement.

VGI: what were you doing before you went on R&R?

• I’m a combat medic – that’s my MOS. I served an action. My function was to save lives.

VGI: what was the LBJ like? I hear it’s pretty grim.

• Well, there’s two groups in LBJ. There’s the in group and then there’s the out group. One group consists of soul brothers, They have a lot of prejudice heaped upon them on the outside, and when they’re inside they gather and form a clique. No one can penetrate it.

The other group consist of all the rest – the white guys, the Puerto Ricans... Sometimes the Puerto Ricans are with the soul brothers. It all depends on the Puerto Ricans’ point of view...

The Captain pressing charges against me had rotated back to the States so I pleaded not guilty and they had to acquit me. But I was very guilty as far as they were concerned. They transferred me to another unit... One officer told me, “We’re going to send you to where you can get killed a little easier.”

VGI: What unit was this?

• The 5th Battalion, 60th Infantry, Mechanized. The nickname for it is ‘Bandito Charlie.’ It’s a pretty rough unit.

VGI: What area was this unit operating in?

• The Delta, the Mekong Delta. We operated everywhere in that area. My Tho, everywhere. They were constantly getting attacked. They were mechanized infantry, they rode APCs, which are like very small tanks, but they’re not hardly as durable as tanks. You’re riding down the road, and Charley pops out with an RPG, which is an anti-personnel rocket, and he shoots one through the side and kills everybody. They generally ride on top so that they don’t get killed if Charlie shoot shoots one through the side. But it doesn’t work out too well, because if he hits the gas tank, which he usually aims for, it’ll all blow up. They’ve been getting some new diesel fuelers and they don’t blow up, they just burn. They’re made out of aluminum and magnesium, and they burn just like a firecracker. Once it starts, if you don’t get off, you’re just done for, you’re roasted, man.

VGI: You’ve now gone AWOL from Fort Hood. Why?

• I went AWOL because I feel that my duty to this country has been fulfilled. I have done what they wanted me to do all along. This was the major reason for going AWOL. There were a million other reasons. like I can’t see myself complying with their rules and regulations anymore, and being a paid killer, and things like this. As you’re growing up, you’re told that murder is wrong, but then when you become 18 or 19 years old, you suddenly find yourself thrown into a situation where murder is right. What justifies war? I can’t answer this question and they can’t answer it for me, so the way I feel is, fuck ‘em.

* * *

Cancel My Apology

No BFD, I thought, when an email announced that Jane Fonda had become a “Wellness Ambassador” for a brand of CBD-based products called “Uncle Bud’s.” And it’s no BFD that she is blaming Richard Nixon for the box-office failure of her FTA film back in the summer of ‘72. — But in my brain these two items had an entourage effect. — It is a big deal that this powerful, influential woman doesn’t understand how the medical marijuana movement –once intertwined with the peace movement and the civil rights movement– has made Cannabis safe for capital. 

On the Uncle Bud’s website I found a video of Jane styling while holding tubes of Uncle Bud’s ointments. This is our victory, Dr. Mikuriya… This is the pay-off for our movement, Dennis. 

Howie Machtinger, 79 has sent out the first part of a memoir trying to make sense of his life as a political activist. He was a Weatherman, living underground with his wife and daughter from 1970 through ‘78. He turned himself in, did graduate work at San Francisco State, and became a teacher. He just sent me the first part of a memoir that’s heavy on the sociology but includes some interesting facts. 

“After we decided in late 1969 to create a national underground organization that could carry on illegal – and sometimes violent activities – beyond the reach of the criminal justice system, collectives were set up in a few places that were centers of anti-war or anti-racist activity. The collective in New York came to be called the Townhouse Collective after a bomb that collective members were assembling in a Manhattan townhouse exploded prematurely. On its own initiative, this collective had planned to attack a Non-Commissioned Officers’ (NCO) dance at Ft. Dix with a fragmentation bomb. Had this action been carried out, it would have undoubtedly led to the deaths of not only officers, but also their dates and other bystanders – by any definition, an act of terrorism. Instead, the device went off accidentally and killed three WU members of the Townhouse Collective.”

I had forgotten — or maybe I just didn’t want to believe the rumor back in 1970 — that the WeatherAssholes intended that bomb to go off at an NCOs dance. The decision to build it without a safety fuse was made by the women in the collective led by Kathy Boudin, who survived the explosion. Howie’s closest friend, Teddy Gold, was killed.

NCOs were the working class of the Army. The Weathermen were — objectively, as the lefties used to say — anti-working class. 

I realized I had no clout within the GI movement when I couldn’t get Jane and Company to cut a skit in which the punchline was “lifers eat lettuce.” The farm workers’ grape boycott had expanded to include a boycott of lettuce, but how could soldiers in a mess hall have any impact? Were they supposed to leave over the lettuce in their salad? To the lefties the — punchline was a kind of twofer — putting down lifers and supporting Cesar Chavez.