Near midnight, the helicopter landed at 3rd Field Hospital. I was the sole passenger. Stretcher bearers carried me to a large med/surge ward that was dark and quiet. In a warm soothing voice a nurse asked me, “How are you? How was your flight?” “Fine,” I said, a bit taken aback. She had been told […]
The plane finally landed at Camp Drake in late afternoon. In the distance loomed the rising snow capped peak of Mt. Fuji. Those who could walk exited the aircraft first. Stretchers bearers carefully hoisted the remaining men off the plane. No one spoke. A rumbling caravan of green army buses brought us to the sprawling […]
As the plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base the nurses on the plane said goodbye to the patients on board. Then the huge loading ramp opened, letting in fresh air and sunlight. After twenty-two hours of darkness and noise I was happy to be stateside but wary of the future. A crew of soldiers […]
I was born in Sweden in 1943. After dropping out of high school I held odd jobs, mostly underground mines in Sweden. The Swedish army drafted me in the summer of 1965. I served my obligatory ten months primarily in an infantry platoon. I liked it and excelled in Swedish peace time soldiering. In early […]
The earnest looking black soldier kneeling in front is the much liked and aptly named 3rd platoon squad leader Larry Hunter. The black grunt second row on the left, right fist raised in the Black Power salute, is the much disliked militant Brother Al. Understandably pissed at being drafted to fight a white man’s war […]
First published in Solstice Literary Magazine, Winter 2025. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A day before the long drive to Northampton, where I would join friends in a book talk about war and language, I arrived at a small town emergency room, signed in, took a seat, and for the next half hour mulled over […]
From time to time in 1970 combat medics with 1/7 First Cav might have occasion to speak with battalion surgeon Theodore Plucinski III. They may have held him in high regard. My own impressions of the man were somewhat mixed. Late one rainy night on LZ Compton, as Delta Company secured the perimeter, a man […]
I got in-country a week before Christmas in 1969. After a few days in the rear I flew by slick from Quan Loi to LZ Compton in An Loc. When the bird left I found a shady place at the end of the landing strip and hung out, waiting for whatever was next. After a […]
We froze, staring into the ditch as the wounded NVA twisted in agony. His face was gone, his brain bulged from cracks in his skull, yet he lived and breathed, strange spasms inching him forward. If not for that head wound he might have been crawling. Was he really alive? It shouldn’t have mattered. He […]
Originally published on Pangyrus 12 September 2025 Not the elevator. I don’t like enclosed spaces. Instead, each morning, I climb the four flights of dark angular stairs, up and up the cinder block stairwell, until I emerge from semi-darkness into the harsh glare of fluorescent lights, my gray metal desk one of several at A.G. […]
One summer night in Cambodia Delta 1/7 Cav had perimeter guard on LZ Ranch. Around 2:30AM a dozen sappers crept past the trips, Claymore’s and barbed wire and killed Mike Dawson with a Chicom. Moving forward they hurled satchel charges into bunkers, gunned down GI’s with AKs and Chicom’s, until they themselves were annihilated. All […]
First published in Ragaire Literary Magazine Winter, Issue 2, Autumn/Winter 2024 Made drowsy by the stifling air inside the converted American school bus, I caught the guidebook as it slipped from my grasp, sat up, and continued reading. “Few tourists visit its lovely beach of dark volcanic sand,” claimed the well-traveled author. “From Tegucigalpa, a […]
In 2022 Medic edited Gary Rafferty’s memoir Nothing Left to Drag Home: The Siege at Lao Bao During Operation Dewey Canyon II-Lam Son 719, as Told by an Artilleryman Who Survived It. Three years later I sent Gary the above photo, found on the internet, and vaguely captioned “U.S. artillerymen relax under a crudely made […]
On the morning of 16 March 1968 Army Lieutenant William Calley Jr. led his platoon into a small Vietnamese village. There had been no report of enemy fire, yet Calley ordered the men to begin shooting. Terrified old men, women and children were slaughtered by grenades, rifles, bayonets and machine guns. Some were piled in […]
Per Odman’s memoir on Medic details his extraordinary path from Sweden to Liberia, from Khe Sanh to Washington, DC, to photographing the last remaining Swedish American community in Brooklyn, NY. Here Per relates his experience of climbing Vietnam’s tallest peak in the company of an NVA veteran. In the remote and forgotten northwestern corner of […]
Boz. That’s what they called me. In May 1969, during an ambush off LZ Phyllis I threw a frag that landed on the rucksack of my platoon leader, Lt. Karl Swenson which should have killed him. It happened like this: We’d set up an ambush with multiple lines of fire along a well used trail. […]
As noted elsewhere, in 1998 Medic met Swedish American Per Ödman through our mutual friend Mike Gillen, the three of us members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Below, Per relates how he became a noted documentary photographer. I was born in Sweden in 1943. My father was highly educated and very successful in his […]
We said it each day of our miserable lives. We said it when it rained, and when it didn’t rain. When it was hot. When it was hotter. It don’t mean nothin, we said. We said it because it sounded tough. We said it to keep from crying. We said it because it might be […]
Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental groups, and the […]
Byron De La Beckwith Jr. (November 9, 1920 – January 21, 2001), was a Marine veteran, a white supremacist, and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963. In 1964, he was tried twice by all white male juries on murder charge in Mississippi. Each […]
First published in Collateral, Issue 8.1, Winter 2023. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Teeming, pouring, relentless rain all weekend long. The downpour rattling windows, thudding on roof tops, pouring from gutter spouts, flash flooding streets. Until at last, the storm subsided, the merciful scent of petrichor filling the languid air. “Or something like that, Steven […]
First published in Panorama, The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature Issue 10 Winter 2023 He began typing. Sloppily at first, the words advancing in broad choppy strokes across the blank page. Relax. Just let it happen. And Steven allowed his feverish mind to wander, observed how it gradually focused its purposeful lens on large […]
On the afternoon of 8 April 1956, after drinking several shots of vodka, Staff Sgt. Matthew McKeon, a WWII and Korea veteran, chose to discipline Platoon 71 with a night march into Ribbon Creek, a swampy area of Parris Island. He knew that some recruits could not swim. He was unaware of the swamps deep […]
There was no one like ’im, ’Orse or Foot, Nor any o’ the Guns I knew; An’ because it was so, why, o’course ’e went an’died, Which is just what the best men do. Rudyard Kipling Disclaimer This guide is intended solely for personal use. It is not meant to cure, diagnose or treat war […]
Though the following occurred 41 years ago, I remember it as yesterday. My plane landed in the evening. I was in Washington, D.C. to attend the annual convention of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, but the conference was not my first objective. In my room at the Mayflower Hotel, I unpacked and carefully […]
As a grunt Medic had no idea of the immense scale of Vietnamese port theft of US goods, equipment and weapons, the parallel black markets in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, the extraordinary profits made from currency exchange, the US and Vietnamese government officials, military officers, civilians and aid agencies complicit in the sprawling criminal enterprise. […]
The FTA Show, which toured Hawaii, the Philippines, Okinawa and Japan, was an extremely popular 1971 anti-Vietnam War road show for GIs. Its biting satire was a direct response to comedian Bob Hope’s hand-to-helmet pro-war USO vaudeville routines. Among the performers were Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and Peter Boyle. The film includes highlights from the […]
As a youngster Ernest Novak learned photography from his dad. Like most grunts he carried a camera in his pack. Fifty-three years after we served in Delta 1-7 Cav’s third platoon we spoke by phone. A few days earlier he’d sent a few of his extraordinary flicks. “Got any more flicks?” I asked. He sent […]
First published in the Summer 2023 issue of Queen’s Quarterly. Hopper bought the camp at auction with money saved from his pension. Fifty-two thousand, five hundred, forty-four dollars and seventy-three cents, back taxes which the absentee owner had refused to pay. “Going once…twice…sold!” cried the auctioneer. A bargain, thought Hopper. An all-American, first class bargain. […]
This article, based on a filmed interview, was published in Báo Phụ Nữ, a popular women’s newspaper in Vietnam, on 30 April 2020, the 45th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. It was translated in the U.S. by Nguyen Ba Chung. Medic has corrected errors and omissions made in the original Vietnamese to English video […]
Medic’s latest short story was first published in the Spring 2023 issue of The Westchester Review. Young officers can be marched and drilled to exhaustion. Taught to jump from trembling choppers. The sons of bitches can be told what to say and how to say it. But twelve weeks of make-believe do not prepare […]
Earl Dennison Woods (1932 –2006) was the father of Tiger Woods. Woods started his son in golf at a very early age and coached him during his first years in the sport. He later published two books about the process. Woods served two tours of duty in South Vietnam and retired with the rank of […]
First published on CounterPunch 11 November 2022 Each year at Boston College I’m one of several guest speakers for Professor Seth Jacobs course, “America’s War in Vietnam.” During the semester the students are assigned primary and secondary sources from across the political spectrum. Every few weeks a Vietnam vet further enlivens the popular class. That […]
First published in Gloucester Encounters, Essays on the Cultural History of the City 1623-2023, edited by Martin Ray. Gloucester Cultural Initiative, November 2022. Until twenty years ago I saw the Vietnam war through a shallow, selfish lens: My platoon. My war. Vietnamese culture was an alien poisoned thing. The enemy was a slippery bug to […]
Jesse LeRoy Brown (1926 –1950) was a Navy officer and the first African-American aviator to complete the Navy’s basic flight training program, and the first African-American naval officer killed in the Korean War. Born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to an impoverished family, Brown was interested in aircraft from an early age. A gifted athlete, despite racial segregation […]
First published in Queen’s Quarterly, Summer 2022. – They say wherever you go, there you are. In ’90s Nha Trang it is not too difficult to clamber up the sides of beached wooden boats, jump aboard, wander about the wood plank decks. But there are times you must ask. And here, where only men crew […]
In 1971, Medic, Robert Bowman and Marcus Gaufman were among the active-duty soldiers who met weekly at the Common Sense Bookstore in Ayer, Massachusetts. Located less than a mile from Fort Devens, the book store, the converted first floor of a single-family house, was overseen by college grad activists Peter Hagerty, and Paul and Claire […]
Following Samuel Freeman’s piece about his war nightmares Medic is pleased to publish his war time account of helping Vietnamese orphans. I went through ROTC in college. I had requested assignment to the Infantry, and Airborne and Ranger schools. After completing Ranger school, I was assigned to the 82nd Airborne at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina […]
First published in the Winter 2021/2022 issue of Calliope, the official publication of the Writers’ Special Interest Group (SIG) of American Mensa, Ltd. – “Funday,” said Dennis, breaking the silence. He meant the end of the week. The four of us sit at the big wooden table in the dim lit shed. Here is Peter, […]
In January 2022 Medic received an email from Vietnam vet Samuel Freeman. Samuel had read The Best of Medic in the Green Time, which had a profound effect on him. He laughed. He cried. He felt unburdened. Like many combat vets Samuel has war nightmares. His article below was first published in The Advance News […]
Medic met Tom at the Salem Veteran’s Writers Group in 2017. We have kept in touch ever since. Tom wrote the piece below for CounterPunch, which published it on 25 August 2021. “No one can win here,” I found myself whispering as I looked at the distant mountain peaks surrounding Bagram Airfield. Single file out […]
This article by Medic appears in the November 2021 issue of The Bosphorous Review of Books. In 1949, my parents, two of the strangest people I ever knew, made the unfortunate decision to marry. One morning eight years later, when I was nine, my mother, who screamed uncontrollably while pummelling my child-self with her tight […]
In 1997 Medic met Bruce Weigl at a William Joiner Center Writer’s Workshop held at U Mass Boston. Bruce is the author of several books of poetry and prose. He has returned to Vietnam many times, speaks the lingo and knows Bao Ninh. To help with a story he’s writing Bruce recently asked me what […]
First published on CounterPunch on 28 May 2021. I worked on this piece for hours; it worked on me for fifty years. At first sight I did not like him. The young man, a boy really, seemed to resemble the comical clash of his first and last name, which could have been Matthew Flunkt or […]
When first published on Medic in the Green Time the name of the Salem, Mass veterans agent was fictionalized. On 11 November 2021 the article appeared in CounterPunch, where Medic named the veteran’s agent. Subsequently, the Secretary of Veterans Services for Massachusetts and the veterans agent expressed their strong disapproval of the story. See addendum. […]
In early 2021 Medic exchanged emails with Owen Luck, who did two tours in Vietnam (’68–’69) as an OR Tech at the 90th Evac Hospital/22nd Surgical/Aid Station at LZ Baldy and Dust Off medic at Hue/ Phu Bai. An American photographer known for his photography of Native American and First Nation Canadian life and history, […]
Recently Medic received an email from noted song writer and musician Jack Murphy, a heavy combat grunt/RTO with Delta Company, 5th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 199th Light Infantry Brigade. A video link accompanied the words “PLEASE SHARE IT.” I don’t particularly care for music long on sentiment, short on talent, and the title of the track […]
-First published in CounterPunch on 22 August 2007- RAMADI, Iraq: Troops swallow diet pills and slurp can after can of Red Bull, fighting to stay awake as they peer from armored Humvees into the pre-dawn darkness. Twangy country music pours from some vehicle sound systems, angry rap from others. Associated Press, December 8, 2006 Exhaustion […]
Many novels, poems and nonfiction accounts have been written about war, as well the American war in Vietnam. Below is Medic’s completely subjective reading list. Literature Paco’s Story, Larry Heinemann. Farrar Straus, Giroux, 1986. National Book Award, 1987. Reissued by Viking Press, 1989. Reissued by Penguin, 2002. The only man to survive a ferocious attack, […]
Published in CounterPunch on November 11, 2020 The War Inside the War in Vietnam by Doug Anderson On the cover of Marc Levy’s The Best of Medic in the Green Time is a photo of a Colonel in clean, starched fatigues with a bit of a paunch. He’s been choppered in for a little pep […]
Waves like silk lick sand like concrete While the roller coaster flies, We’re on planet California getting wrecked and telling lies. For the war casts a long shadow, And it takes a lot of wine, To pretend it doesn’t matter, Back in 1969. __________________ Note on the Photograph: I attended a workshop with Ansel […]
As an FNG he walked point. Forty years after the war Medic and Mike Derrig caught up in Portland, Maine. I met his lovely wife Robyn, stayed a night or two in their welcoming house. It was a good visit. Ten years later Mike came round to telling me how he got shot in Cambodia, […]
Mike concluded his story with a final burst of email: “Before the litter basket dropped through the jungle, and I was hoisted to the medevac bird, some of the guys came by and said, “You lucky bastard. That’s a million-dollar wound and you’re going home.” Little did I know they were right. It wasn’t long […]
First published on CounterPunch on 24 July 2019 Once, on a good day in a bad war, as we lay in wait, four young men, unsuspecting of what lay ahead, walked into the perfect ambush, and we took no casualties. After we scavenged the bodies for souvenirs, silently, we marched away. An hour later, a […]
In March of 2018 Medic was contacted by GEP Umbrella Inc, which sought to license one of my war photos for the Netflix sci fi series The Umbrella Academy. In short order a sum was agreed upon, a contract was signed. Below is the image as used in the series. Beneath it, the actual photo. […]
During his 34 year career Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (1881 –1940), fought in the Philippines–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, World War I, China, Haiti and Central America. At the time of his death, he was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history, winning the Medal of Honor twice, though he refused […]
Through FOIA queries Medic has obtained numerous military and Red Cross documents pertaining to the war experiences of Ernest Hemingway. The files are embedded in the text below. Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899 – 1961) was an American journalist, novelist, short-story writer, and noted sportsman. His understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence […]
This article by Medic first appeared in the 25 April 2019 issue of CounterPunch. Maya Lin’s war monument succeeds by its simplicity. The long tapering wall gradually rising to a delicate peak, falls equally away. Unencumbered, row upon row, by the tens of thousands the mute granite names speak to us, and we are filled […]
Medic’s friend Peter Sablock was drafted in August 1966. He took basic at Fort Dix and AIT at Fort Knox, where he was a proud participant in the Vietnam indoctrination course, which culminated in a ground assault on a mock Vietnamese village during a driving Kentucky snowstorm. In Vietnam Pete was a Scout Observer with […]
Thanksgiving: I’m wandering the city streets outside the sprawling Air Force base. A passing couple invite me to their home for the holiday meal. It will be the last decent food I will have for quite some time. The next morning, we new men march to an Army warehouse crammed with military gear. The stagnant […]
The Personnel Files generally include only the military records and a short bio of the prominent vet. However, Matthew Hoh’s 26 Feb 2020 article on CounterPunch is exceptional in its fair handed analysis of Mayor Pete’s military service, and is reproduced in full below. Buttigieg’s military records are located after the first paragraph. Heaven […]
CounterPunch first published this piece by Medic on 17 September 2007 “I carry my adornments on my soul. I do not dress up like a popinjay… With deeds for decorations, twirling — thus — A bristling wit, and swinging at my side Courage, and on the stones of this old town Making the sharp […]
Medic first met Larry Roy on LZ Compton in late 1969 or early 1970. At seventeen, bright, cheerful, confident, not more than 5′ 8″/130 pounds, in high school he played golf, and played well, he said. That same day, in a bomb crater, I helped Larry assemble the things he would carry in his new […]
“Rhythmic, visceral, laconic, powerful, Levy’s stories will haunt the reader long after reading them.” Nguyen Ba Chung, William Joiner Center “… Any family member, any therapist, who wants to know something of the pain that vets carry in their heads and hearts…should read this book.” Hamilton Gregory, author of MacNamara’s Folly “His quiet voice details […]
Bob Shearer, who served with Bravo 1/7 First Cavalry in 1969-1970, sent this story to Medic. For many years after returning home from Vietnam Christmas was difficult for me. One particular memory involved a Michelin rubber plantation in Song Be. In December 1969 Bravo Company spent a “stand down” on LZ Compton, a remote, muddy […]
In the fall of 2018, Rohit Inani, a freelance journalist based in New Delhi, contacted Medic after reading my 1998 interview with Bao Ninh. Rohit, who admires Ninh’s work, asked to be put in touch with Ninh. Several weeks later, with help from the Joiner Institute, and the Vietnamese Writer’s Association, Rohit interviewed Ninh in […]
This article, by Medic, was first published in the June 2006 hard copy edition of CounterPunch, and subsequently in CP online. ____________________ VA Shrink: Were you in Vietnam? Vietnam Vet: Yes. VA Shrink: When were you there? Vietnam vet: Last night. I’m kneeling. Tears streak my face, drip down, fall to earth. It’s only my […]
THE DRAFT Were you drafted? After dropping out of college I was living at home. There wasn’t much on offer in the way of work and my parents were not emotionally well people,making life increasingly difficult. I needed an escape and the Army promised a career and the chance to find myself. And it was […]
Jack Kerouac (born Jean-Louis Kérouac (though he called himself Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac); 1922 – 1969) was an American novelist and poet of French-Canadian descent. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his method of spontaneous prose, and […]
John Herbert Dillinger (1903–1934) was an American bank robber. During the Depression,Dillinger and his gang robbed two dozen banks and four police stations. In 1933–34 Dillinger stood out even among such violent criminals as Baby Face Nelson,Pretty Boy Floyd,and Bonnie and Clyde. When the Roosevelt administration demanded federal action,J.Edgar Hoover used Dillinger and his gang […]
Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of children, the angering of the orderlies in the front parlor of the charnel house. We could not, so help us God, do otherwise. Daniel Berrigan, SJ __________________ From time to time Medic talks at colleges and high schools. The […]
Clinton Dugald MacDougall was born 14 Sept 1839 in Kintrye, Scotland. He enlisted on 16 September 1861 at Auburn, NY as a Captain. In 1861 he joined A Co. NY 75th Infantry. The following year,upon joining the Field & Staff NY 111th Infantry he was promoted to Lt Colonel and promoted to full colonel […]
I met Seth in Luang Prabang, Laos. With three Swiss backpackers we planned a trip up the Mekong, but Seth came down with food poisoning, so nervous Peter, plump Renata, charismatic Pascal and I made our way upriver on hired fantail boats. Sailing six to eight hours a day, we marveled at the sight of […]
The H’mong in Sapa wear blue. They weave the cloth and dye it themselves, as evidenced by their indigo stained finger tips. I could not take my eyes off this beautiful woman (above), though it was sad to see frenzied gringos encircle her and other H’mong men and women, lusting after souvenirs. In ’94 the […]
Outside the Hanoi Air Force Museum, a converted airplane hangar—admission 50 cents—thick vines creep up the skeletal remains of deactivated SAM missiles pointing skyward, frozen in the act of imminent launch. Seth and I are the only persons present. A short and stooped very old man, wearing faded military fatigues and toting an ancient rifle, […]
We gave it names Like contact, Movement or Bringing scunnion. We psyched ourselves up Scowling, “Time to kick ass And take names.” But never talked about The human beings. This is how it worked: They walked into our patrol Or we walked into theirs Or we ambushed them Or they’d ambush us Or we walked […]
A large Army base fifty-seven miles north of Saigon and twelve miles from Cambodia, Quan Loi was built near a rubber tree plantation populated with deserted French buildings. Quan Loi supplied grunts with ammo, food, water, heavy artillery and air support, and medical care. Due to frequent rocket attacks, it was nicknamed Rocket City. GIs […]
The war, I’m told, with its white-tailed rockets and hard crack ricochets; the war, with its thumping whirl of trembling choppers; the war, with its shirtless gun crews manning steel- wheeled cannons; the war, with its fine plumed shells cutting silver arcs through infinite sky; the war, with its lumbering tanks and sun bleached bunkers; […]
After three weeks on patrol Delta pulls perimeter guard on LZ Compton. The remote base is surrounded by an earthen berm ringed by bunkers, concertina wire, Claymore mines, trip flares, steel barrels filled with diesel oil rigged to explode. Foo gas, we call it. Inside the perimeter, bare-chested gun crews man steel-wheeled cannons or stout […]
We’re in Song Be. How long has it been? Two weeks? Three? I hand my camera to gunner Jim Lamb, or rifleman Alfonso Gamble, or point man Larry Roy, or rifleman Glenn Williams (shot by Bill Williams after an enemy bullet clipped the back of his head). Or RTO Mike Wilson who followed Six over […]
The perimeter is on fire. From the pick up zone a hundred grunts watch smoke and flames fill the sky. The Captain yells,”Choppers in zero two.” Sobbing,I walk past him to our head medic,hunched on his helmet,engrossed in a book. “What’s wrong?” he asks,looking up. Between sobs I tell him I can’t think straight,can’t take […]
After eight months in the bush I say good-bye to my men. “Doc, don’t leave us,” they say, “Don’t leave the platoon.” We’ve been through so much. Weeks on end of jungle patrols, ambush or rocket and mortar attacks. A base over run. Or waiting and waiting, the tension rising, and nothing at all. In […]
We recline on the bed in our little cubicle room, Karla and me, volunteer workers on a seaside kibbutz. We’ve worked long and hard;it’s time to rest. Sometimes she speaks in her sleep. This afternoon, when she wakes we abandon ourselves to love making while Gerard the Frenchman pounds the flimsy screen door. “Open!” he […]
The lieutenant has red hair. “Carrot Top,” we secretly call him. Carrot Top says the Captain says build a bunker. What for? On patrol in Song Be we are grunts,not engineers. Armed with sandbags and machetes we obey the order. Our Kit Karson’s,Jim Dumb and Papa san,make multiple quick cuts to the base of bamboo […]
Medic and Nam vets Henry Roll, George Knoll, Rick Claggett, Rick Owen, and Randy Brack were recently contacted and interviewed by high school student Frank Nygegger, who attends Kantonsschule Wohlen in Switzerland. With Frank’s permission Medic is delighted to publish his exceptionally well written research report, US Soldiers in Vietnam. The paper is divided into […]
Medic first published this article in the June 2, 2007 of CounterPunch ________________________________________________ Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, That here, obedient to their laws, we lie. Epitaph on the Cenotaph of Thermopylae, Simonides of Ceos Cambodia 1970 The first dead American I ever saw was black. Third platoon had perimeter guard. Second platoon […]
After posting Captain Joel Rosenbaum’s essay in the Five Simple Words project, Medic asked him to further write about his job forecasting weather in Vietnam. The climate of Vietnam is monsoonal: a rainy season with frequent and heavy downpours; a dry season of unbearable heat. In 1968, while serving with Air Force Detachment 18, 30th […]
In 2008 Medic met the distinguished photographer Jeff Wolin, then working on his book Inconvenient Stories: Vietnam Veterans. Jeff has kindly lent permission to excerpt several of those stories and their accompanying photographs. Benito Garcia 173rd Air Borne, PFC May 1965-1966; 1966-1967; 1968 “The first time I saw a dead American, there were three […]
In 1987, while living in Astoria, New York, Medic joined CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity to the People of El Salvador, a grass roots organization opposed to US foreign policy in El Salvador. We meet weekly in Manhattan to discuss political developments, fund raising, and civil disobedience. CISPES also joined other grass roots efforts in […]
After completing his book Inconvenient Stories: Vietnam Veterans, Medic’s friend photographer Jeff Wolin traveled to Vietnam twice to photograph Vietnamese war veterans. From All Sides: Portraits of American and Vietnamese War Veterans was exhibited in the US and abroad, and featured at the Photo Biennale in Lyon, France in 2010. With Jeff’s permission here are […]
Delta 1/7 Cav grunt Jeff Motyka spent many months in hospital after being severely wounded on LZ Francis. Here, he describes his days and nights in Vietnam. First published in 2600, The Hacker Quarterly,Vol 32, Number 4, 2016. Radio Telephone Operator. Sounds like a cushy job. Air conditioned office. 8 AM to 5 PM. Monday […]
More than thirty vets have responded to Medic’s open query: what do you feel, think and say when someone says to you “Thank you for your service.” Bill Ehrhart 1/1 Marines Infantry (corporal) Vietnam 1967 Over the past decade or so, it’s become quite the fashion, when people learn that I once served in the […]
Christmas 1970: a hot meal in a muddy fox hole, a Red Cross gift of WD 40. Excellent for cleaning my M16. Thank you, Jesus. Twelve months later, three on a remote fire base burning human shit, it was time to head home. At Bien Hoi Airport I met other GIs leaving Vietnam, some with […]
Medic asked his grunt and Arty friends if they smoked weed in Vietnam. Officers and NCOs were asked how they handled men who did pot. Here are the replies: Arlan Ervasti Bravo 1/7 Cav ’69 I was in Vietnam from April till late Oct 1970. I can’t recall anyone smoking dope or getting high in […]
On 11 May 1970 troops from Delta 1-7 First Cav combat assaulted into an abandoned NVA base camp in Cambodia. In a very short time, the vast area, shown above as the choppers touch down, would be transformed into the ill fated LZ Ranch. Ranch was the first of a trio of US bases in […]
Medic received this extended account of LZ Ranch being overrun from retired Command Sergeant Major, then Chief of Section, B Btry 1st/21st Field Artillery, Mike Dunn. Prior to the Cambodia invasion B Btry 1/21st FA was staged at an airfield outside of a Special Forces Camp which I believe was Bu Dop. I choppered into […]
by Richard Boes I was trained as an MP and had been assigned to the First Cavalry in ’69-’70. We were stationed on a small base camp on the outskirts of a Vietnamese village near Bien Hoa. Our POW compound was surrounded by twenty-foot high barbed wire. The prisoners, who never had names, were kept […]
When Medic returned from Vietnam in 1970, one year remained on his military enlistment contract. After 30 days leave, he reported to the 595th Medical Battalion, at Fort Devens, MA. In 2005, New Millennium Writings published Medic’s short story How Stevie Nearly Won the War, which includes this fictionalized account of his time at Devens: […]
Medic was not present when staff sergeant Mark Hambleton hit the trip wire of an Automatic Ambush, which detonated the Claymores, which exploded and killed him. In 2003 Kirk Anderson sent this harrowing eye witness account. Other recollections follow. For reasons that will become clear Medic has waited until now to publish them. “Hambleton was […]
Readers of this site and of CounterPunch know that Medic’s decorated Grenadian friend Roger Byer, upon completing his tour with Charlie 1/5 First Cavalry in Vietnam and Cambodia, returned home, only to be arrested by the Cav when the US invaded Grenada. By odd coincidence, Roger was a platoon mate of Sgt. James Bonard Fowler, […]
In 1998 Medic met Per Ödman through our mutual friend Mike Gillen, the three of us members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Per’s story relates his extraordinary resilience during and after his time at war. This article first appeared in the Spring 2016 issue of The Veteran, newspaper of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. […]
From time to time Medic scours the internet for images or accounts of certain fire bases used during the Cambodian invasion of 1970. Among them was the short lived Fire Support Base Bronco, a remote muddy hole manned by the line companies of 1/7 Cavalry and bolstered by 1/21st Field Artillery. In forty-five years I […]
From 1955 to 1975 Dr. James Ketchum and other Army researchers at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland explored the use of psychedelic drugs in US Army soldiers. The experiments were similar to MK Ultra, a secret CIA program that focused on mind-control and psychedelics. Both studies were cancelled after media reports and congressional hearings; the project’s […]
Medic’s friend John Neely, a Civil War buff and Vietnam vet, relates the tale of his ancestor, Jacob Grundtish. While with a group touring Gettysburg, I mentioned that a relative had been wounded during the battle. When asked questions about him,I realized that I knew next to nothing: his surname,his country of birth the year […]
“You must remember what you are and what you have chosen to become, and the significance of what you are doing. There are wars and defeats and victories of the human race that are not military and that are not recorded in the annals of history. Remember that while you’re trying to decide what to […]
Medic and Roger Byer met briefly in Quan Loi in 1969. A year later we recognized each other at Fort Devens. We have been trading emails since 2013, when Roger found this website. Here is an excerpt from his memoir, Tattooed Memories. At 0500 hours on the morning of October 25, 1983 the United States’ […]
CounterPunch published this piece by Medic in 2006. After an ambush, bodies were scavenged for souvenirs–money, pistols, photos, etc. Anything important was sent to military intelligence. “Don’t burn this one. It has fire in it already,” said Fred Whithurst’s interpreter in 1970. Ignoring orders to burn all items without military value, the young Captain Whitehurst […]
In July 2024 Medic received an email from international educator, photographer, and ’68 Air Force FAC team sergeant Ted Engelmann, who has taught or lectured in middle schools thru college level in Korea, Viet Nam, Australia, Canada and the US. Based on his direct involvement in returning the diary to Dang’s family Ted updated my […]
In 1995 I backpacked six months across Southeast Asia and Indonesia. While in Hanoi, I regretted not locating Bao Ninh, the former NVA solider and acclaimed author of The Sorrow of War. In 1996 we corresponded by post, and in 1998, by a remarkable chance, we met at the William Joiner Center Writers’ Conference in […]
The Monkees were a 60’s rock group appealing to American teenagers. Their wildly popular TV show showcased their music via madcap adventures which poked fun at mainstream culture. But their 1968 psychedelic art movie Head, a stream-of-consciousness black comedy that mocked the Vietnam war, America (stunned by the recent Tet Offensive), Hollywood, television, the music […]
During the Cambodian invasion, grunts found tons of NVA weapons, ammo and supplies, hidden or buried in well concealed caches. Men were allowed to keep as souvenirs a prized SKS, an officer’s 9mm pistol, or work horse AK47. The remaining 30 caliber machine guns, hand grenades, anti-personnel mines, rockets, mortars, ammunition, radio equipment, rice, etc, […]
Private First Class Jack P Smith saw horrific combat while serving with the Army’s 7th Cavalry in November 1965 during one of the first battles pitting US troops against NVA forces. He described those experiences in a 1967 Saturday Evening Post article. The 1st Battalion had been fighting continuously for three or four days, […]
An Automatic Ambush consisted of one or more Claymore mines spread several meters apart on the side of an enemy trail. Each mine contained two pounds of plastique explosive embedded with 700 lead pellets. A trip wire,connected to a firing device,was strung across the trails width. At the slightest touch the mines exploded. Instantly legs […]
THE NEW YORK TIMES / August 24, 2009 An Apology for My Lai, Four Decades Later By Robert Mackey Last week, William Calley, the only American soldier to be held legally responsible for the massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians in and around the village of My Lai in 1968 by a platoon under his […]
We’ve choppered into Bu Gia Map, a flat deserted area of scrub and jungle where no hearts and minds will be won today. After years of aerial bombings the village is abandoned, the people scattered like chaf to the wind. A banana shaped chopper, Shithooks we called them, lowers a bulldozer to the ground. An […]
In 1995, having backpacked through Singapore, Thailand, and Laos, I flew from Vientiane to Hanoi and traveled down the coast with Seth. We had many adventures but parted ways in Pleiku. In Saigon I hitched a ride to the Long Distance Bus Station. The trip to An Loc cost sixty cents and took ninety minutes. […]
In the Days After
At twenty-one, James Aalund was not a lucky man. As he looked out a bunker port during a mortar attack, a round exploded and blew his head off. Medic did not know James but still recalls the wounded men screaming into the radio,“ Dead man! We have a dead man!” Some months later,after a similar […]