Report from Vietnam
Diocesan Press Service. June 5, 1967 [55-2]
The Rt. Rev. Ralph S. Dean, Executive Officer, Anglican Communion
Ask a hundred people about the situation in Vietnam and you are likely to get a hundred different answers. Spend a week in South Vietnam and talk to all kinds of people, military and civil, as I did recently, and you will get a similar variety of response. Talking with a highly-placed neutral observer I told him of my difficulty in establishing common factors in all I had heard. He replied somewhat ruefully 'the only common factor is there are no common factors'. He is certainly more right than wrong. Of course there is one common factor and it is that everybody is agreed that the war in Vietnam is a tragic and bloody thing which ought to be stopped. But how to stop it in a way that does justice to all the factors involved is a question about which there is no kind of unanimity whatsoever.
Questions of all kinds abound - hard and sometimes agonizing questions which divide friends and even families. Never before has there been such a confused conflict, never a war waged in such bizarre and even macabre conditions. Is it a war about Vietnam or is it a war about something else which happens to be waged there? Or is it both? Who are the aggressors? The United States, whose help was sought by South Vietnam or at least by the reigning Government, or the powers behind Ho Chi Min, whose intervention was not? After the demarkation line between North and South Vietnam was drawn in 1954 as a result of the Geneva Agreement, one million Vietnamese moved from North to South and only twenty-thousand from South to North. What does this mean in terms of the North's claim to be fighting for the liberation of the South? Is this struggle a conflict of ideologies, Communist and non-Communist, or is it an economic struggle for the control of the Mekong Delta - the richest rice-producing area in Asia? Is it true that President Ky and the army are to be distinguished from the common people of South Vietnam who are said not to care who wins the war so long as there is peace? If so, why is it that there are at least 600, 000 South Vietnamese under arms prepared to fight on despite continuing heavy casualties? And as for ordinary people not caring, let it not be forgotten that when elections for a constituent assembly were held, people did vote - despite Viet-Cong attempts to prevent voting and reprisals on many who did? Is this a war to settle democracy in South Vietnam - which in the Western mode at any rate is certainly not 'on' in a society which has fiercely strong family loyalties and not much beyond them - or is it to provide self-determination for the South Vietnamese whether the outcome is democracy or anything else? And what is to be said about the United States bombing of North Vietnam? Is the unilateral demand for its cessation as a pre-condition for negotiations realistic when as a result of previous pauses at Christmas, New Year and the festival of Tet the United States casualties and even more South Vietnamese losses increased sharply? What is the significance of intermittent Buddhist uprisings? Are they of religious origin or politically motivated or both? These are only some of the questions. There are many more, and I do not want to add to them. My sole concern in this article is to draw attention to some aspects of the struggle which, because they are so eminently worthy, are presumably less newsworthy.
I confess to a sense of indignation at the one-sided nature of much of the press, radio and t. v. reporting which seems uniformly to take an anti-American line. I am not arguing for a pro-American line, only for fairness. Misplaced bombing, burnt-out villages, maimed children, defoliation of forests - these are things we are told of. Viet-Cong activities - villages raided and rice demanded on pain of death, frightful atrocities - these things haven't come to light in the press. If, however, you visit South Vietnam you will certainly hear of them in no uncertain terms from the villagers. But this kind of tit-for-tat is not my real concern.
It is in fact for a proper presentation of the great amount of dedication of hosts of United States personnel of all kinds in an attempt to meet human need in South Vietnam at every level. I want to report what I have actually seen of this kind of activity. After a visit to the marine base in Da Nang I was taken to see the refugee village of Phouc Nghia where 1500 refugees from the North have been settled as part of the Civic Action programme. Interestingly enough, many of the refugees are Roman Catholic and they have two Vietnamese priests with them. The Fourth Logistics command of the United States Marines, presided over by a General who plans to seek ordination in the Episcopal Church after his tour of service, supplies building materials and advice but does not fall into the error of merely taking over and doing everything for the refugees. He patiently and unwearingly works with them. I saw houses being built of concrete slabs, certainly not luxurious but the peoples' own, where they can live in peace. I saw people of all ages, old men and women and boys and girls alike, building a church with their own hands with guidance from the United States builders. True enough, I heard rumours of the well known United States generosity sometimes overdoing itself, as when twenty bags of cement, (I was told but without being able to find out whether it was true or not), being handed out when only seven would do, the balance going into the black market. But if all Viet-Cong are not devils neither are the refugees all angels!
I saw in the same village not only the little school with South Vietnamese teachers, but also a remarkable pediatric unit where absolutely dedicated United States personnel - all young - care for the children who are not victims of misplaced bombs, but sufferers from all the ravages of malnutrition and even bubonic plague. Outside the Unit is a notice board with the medical corps emblem on it and in Vietnamese and English the words 'Freedom, Happiness, Love'. A clear-eyed young United States doctor took me round and together we looked at those little scraps of humanity. Suddenly he bent down and scooped one such child up in his arms. 'I wish there were more of us', he said, 'we don't do enough of this'. A verse from the New Testament flashed into my mind, 'He took them up in his arms and blessed them'. Not only the blessing, so easy, but the taking up into his arms, so much more difficult, is what is needed in all our attitudes. The young doctor recognized this.
Then down the road to the combined action corps defence post where fourteen United States Marines are training volunteer South Vietnamese Popular Front personnel to protect themselves and their families. But they are also taught hygiene and self-care too, and respond with the greatest alacrity. And no one could fail to be impressed by the relations between the United States personnel and South Vietnamese. Don't let us forget that the whole U. S. operation is known as M.A.C.V. Military Assistance Command Vietnam. It is truly assistance of people whose struggle it is and no kind of imperial overlordship. This attitude runs all the way from General William Westmoreland - a magnificent man - at the top down to the lowest little defence post and Civil Action group. Let us at least give credit where it is due! And don't forget that Australians and New Zealanders are there, to say nothing of some Koreans and Filipinos.
At Trung Son a most astonishing piece of work is being headed by an Australian - Mr. Lionel Hitchcock - who had served in the British Army for twenty five years, mostly in India and Burma. His team has as its object the training and education of the Montagnard mountain people from twenty two highland provinces. These highlanders, looked down on by most other Vietnamese, are primitive tribal people. In groups of a hundred or so at a time, both boys and girls, they come for a thirteen week course in which they learn not only self defence but agriculture, cattle breeding, blacksmith work, barbering, nursing, hygiene, sewing, cooking, and clothes-making. These young people are chosen by the district and provincial chiefs and come entirely on a voluntary basis. What is done in thirteen weeks is well nigh unbelieveable. I don't ever remember reading about this in the press, or seeing it on television.
Finally a word about 'Chieu Hoi'. This means 'open arms' - words which are printed on a leaflet showered by the thousand over Viet-Cong territory. It is a safe conduct pass to be honoured by all Vietnamese Government agencies and Allied forces. Gaily coloured with the flags of the Allies on one side, it enables a Viet- Cong who so desires to be received into the South Vietnamese camp, and after due questioning, accepted without recrimination, political detention or whatever. The rate of flow of Viet-Cong who respond to this invitation rises steadily. It makes one think. As the senior United States Chaplain, who was my guide said, 'It takes 37 cents to win over a Viet-Cong. It takes seven hundred dollars to kill one'. We may talk about kill-ratio, over-kill etc., but that is not the whole story of Vietnam. There is a battle for the hearts and minds of men and it is slowly and steadily being won. What ever our views about the war may be, this kind of activity, this kind of attitude deserves not only more prominence but our prayers too.
A personal note. It was a joy to have the privilege of confirming eight members of the Australian task force in their forward post at Nui Dat. No sooner had the service started than the guns started up, so deafeningly that one could hardly hear oneself speak. I doubt if I ever had a more realistic confirmation. After all, when the guns are blasting it certainly gives vivid point to the confirmation prayer, 'Defend O Lord this thy servant'. The battle of the Christian anywhere is not in essence different from the battle for the souls and minds and hearts of people in Vietnam. We ought to remember that.
(Appended to Bishop Dean's column was the following poem.)
Found on the body of a dead Viet Cong
Since the day I left you mother, to follow my companions
To Central Viet Nam through Laos.
I've known the hardship of climbing green mountains
Of plodding through cold rain and under searing sun.
In this, my youth, my life should blossom like a flower,
But gladly, I bore hardship and danger,
For they told me it was in the name of Peace.
Month after month I marched by day and tried to rest by night.
My shoes wore out, my jacket is so thin the cold easily cuts through.
Evening finds me
Here in the heart of the Truong Son range,
O Mother I yearn for home.
I miss the blue smoke, the gourd arbor,
The butterflies, the old temple roof ---
Oh, how I miss them all!
But I am here on foreign soil,
And yet the South too is our country ---
Here the same green-crested coconut trees,
The same roads perfumed with the scent of rice paddies,
The same blue smoke tinting the evening sky,
The buffalo returning to its shelter,
The sound of the flute singing to me of home ---
And I feel less estranged
I look about and ask
What here needs "liberation" ?
The market crowded with people in festive mood?
The rice field green with the burgeoning crop?
The curve-roofed pagoda and its worship bell?
The class-rooms,
Full of happy children singing in joyous chorus?
The garden
With tiny butterflies busy on the yellow cabbage flowers?
Peace and happiness reigned throughout this land,
Why did they order me to burn these quiet villages,
Destroy the rustic bridges,
And sow the explosive seeds of sudden death
Among the people?
How my hand trembled when I had to set a mine ---
And then, I watched it do its work---
Blasting human flesh and splattering a rain of blood---
Whose blood, my mother?
The blood of people like ourselves---
My people's blood, mother---
That night my eyes streamed bitter tears,
And my sleep was filled with guilty nightmares.