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were talking about.”
During a year in captivity, Mr. Kim was beaten repeatedly and starved nearly to death. After the armistice in 1953, he returned to the south in a prisoner exchange. Mr. Kim’s hatred for communists was white-hot. He told me he didn’t understand the American antiwar protesters. To him, it was a great honor that his countrymen now were fighting to keep the people of South Vietnam free from the same ideology that had nearly killed him.
Choi Jung Yul felt the same way. I remember one day sitting with him in a little cafeteria on the compound. I was munching on a hamburger with fries. Yul was having a hamburger with kimchi.
“You see the American war protests, Yul,” I said. “How do you feel about the war?”
“I am proud to fight there,” he said without hesitation. “My family saw what happened to our own country between 1950 and 1953. You know my father fought in that war. Now, when communism is threatening a country so close to us, we believe it is something that cannot be taken lightly.”
If communism got a foothold in Asia beyond China and North Korea, Yul said, it could spread rapidly into the Korean peninsula.
“When we went into this war, many Americans felt the same way—that communism is not only a threat to Asia,” I said, “but to the rest of the world. And that America is the only country strong enough to stand up to it.”
Yul nodded solemnly. He felt the American war protesters were self-righteous dilettantes, impressed by their own bluster and completely uninformed by experience.
I told him I agreed with him completely.
5
WHEN I FINALLY MADE IT TO VIETNAM in November 1972, I considered sending Major Major a postcard. With the war winding down, General Faul and I went there to begin helping the Koreans redeploy three divisions back to their home country. To lighten the logistical load, we wanted to persuade the Koreans to turn their equipment over to the South Vietnamese. Our plan was to replace it with American equipment once they arrived back in Korea.
In some ways, my time in Vietnam was unusual. Faul and I, and our Korean counterparts linked up with some Americans, but I didn’t find any who had been drafted and resented being there. I really found myself in a bubble, insulated from this other attitude about the war. For me that was providential, a blessing. During my time in-country working with the Koreans, I kept thinking,
This is the way it’s supposed to be, like when my dad was in
. I was serving with people who were proud of what they were doing, who were committed, and who had the support of their people.
In Vietnam, the air itself seemed like a separate, living creature. Thick and damp, it curled around my shoulders on balmy days like a friendly cat and on scorching days like an anaconda. Always, beneath the smell of cordite and sulfur that floated on the winds of battle, the air seemed pregnant with the scent of rain. Nearly every day, I’d find myself in the belly of a UH-1 Huey, my stomach dropping away as the rotors bit into low humid skies. At first, rice paddies skated by beneath us in a pale green blur. Then the pilot would edge higher through jagged emerald gorges, hugging the terrain to make us a smaller target. Peering below, I often wished I had x-ray vision so I could see down through the jungle canopy and spot the men waiting to kill me.
Not every wartime soldier articulates it the same way, but at some point the crossover happens, the turning point between training and the real thing. There is a moment, sharp as a blade, when you realize:
this is not a drill
. There is a flesh and blood enemy out there with real bullets and bombs. He wants me dead. If he can, he will kill us all.
As a young lieutenant floating over secret-filled jungles, I had my pivotal moment and that moment produced fear. But fear was only a faint instinct compared with the adrenaline rush of the challenge.
Mano a mano
. Us against them. A macho territorial drive
During a year in captivity, Mr. Kim was beaten repeatedly and starved nearly to death. After the armistice in 1953, he returned to the south in a prisoner exchange. Mr. Kim’s hatred for communists was white-hot. He told me he didn’t understand the American antiwar protesters. To him, it was a great honor that his countrymen now were fighting to keep the people of South Vietnam free from the same ideology that had nearly killed him.
Choi Jung Yul felt the same way. I remember one day sitting with him in a little cafeteria on the compound. I was munching on a hamburger with fries. Yul was having a hamburger with kimchi.
“You see the American war protests, Yul,” I said. “How do you feel about the war?”
“I am proud to fight there,” he said without hesitation. “My family saw what happened to our own country between 1950 and 1953. You know my father fought in that war. Now, when communism is threatening a country so close to us, we believe it is something that cannot be taken lightly.”
If communism got a foothold in Asia beyond China and North Korea, Yul said, it could spread rapidly into the Korean peninsula.
“When we went into this war, many Americans felt the same way—that communism is not only a threat to Asia,” I said, “but to the rest of the world. And that America is the only country strong enough to stand up to it.”
Yul nodded solemnly. He felt the American war protesters were self-righteous dilettantes, impressed by their own bluster and completely uninformed by experience.
I told him I agreed with him completely.
5
WHEN I FINALLY MADE IT TO VIETNAM in November 1972, I considered sending Major Major a postcard. With the war winding down, General Faul and I went there to begin helping the Koreans redeploy three divisions back to their home country. To lighten the logistical load, we wanted to persuade the Koreans to turn their equipment over to the South Vietnamese. Our plan was to replace it with American equipment once they arrived back in Korea.
In some ways, my time in Vietnam was unusual. Faul and I, and our Korean counterparts linked up with some Americans, but I didn’t find any who had been drafted and resented being there. I really found myself in a bubble, insulated from this other attitude about the war. For me that was providential, a blessing. During my time in-country working with the Koreans, I kept thinking,
This is the way it’s supposed to be, like when my dad was in
. I was serving with people who were proud of what they were doing, who were committed, and who had the support of their people.
In Vietnam, the air itself seemed like a separate, living creature. Thick and damp, it curled around my shoulders on balmy days like a friendly cat and on scorching days like an anaconda. Always, beneath the smell of cordite and sulfur that floated on the winds of battle, the air seemed pregnant with the scent of rain. Nearly every day, I’d find myself in the belly of a UH-1 Huey, my stomach dropping away as the rotors bit into low humid skies. At first, rice paddies skated by beneath us in a pale green blur. Then the pilot would edge higher through jagged emerald gorges, hugging the terrain to make us a smaller target. Peering below, I often wished I had x-ray vision so I could see down through the jungle canopy and spot the men waiting to kill me.
Not every wartime soldier articulates it the same way, but at some point the crossover happens, the turning point between training and the real thing. There is a moment, sharp as a blade, when you realize:
this is not a drill
. There is a flesh and blood enemy out there with real bullets and bombs. He wants me dead. If he can, he will kill us all.
As a young lieutenant floating over secret-filled jungles, I had my pivotal moment and that moment produced fear. But fear was only a faint instinct compared with the adrenaline rush of the challenge.
Mano a mano
. Us against them. A macho territorial drive
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