It is a simple plaque in the lobby of the United States Embassy when the city was named ‘Saigon.’ It reads: In Memory of the brave men who died January 31, 1968 defending this embassy against the Viet Cong. Here are the names of those five brave men: Sp.4 Charles L. Daniel, Cpl. James C. Marshall, Sp. 4 Owen E. Mebust, Pfc. William E. Sebast and Sgt. Jonnie B. Thomas.[1]
They may not have been the first five deaths the first night of Tet; their deaths are perhaps the most notable. Other deaths would follow, chief among them being as many members of the Vietnam People’s Army and the South Vietnam People’s Liberation Armed Forces.[2] The events of that night and subsequent weeks shocked the folks at home. To those of us who were present for those events – and the events which followed for several more years – it was just more of the same: patrol aggressively, keep listening for that ‘thunk’ of a mortar round in the tube, fill more sandbags and mark another day off of the short timer’s calendar.
Like you, I have had 37 years to reflect on the events of Tet. One of the songs of that era repeatedly asked the question, when will they ever learn? These words have come back to me repeatedly over 37 years as I have watched our nation attempt to “learn the lessons of Vietnam.”
It is imperative that our nation learns lessons from the Vietnam War. Certainly this is been one of the goals of Tet ’68 (organization) – to educate our youth about the Vietnam War so that proper lessons can be drawn. Tonight I can think of no more fitting place to list some of the lessons I have learned in 37 years, especially since a number of our own sons and daughters are once again in harm’s way during the Tet Lunar New Year. Perhaps these lessons are similar to the ones you have learned. Let us hope the nation will listen and learn.
Lesson Number One: The troops always perform magnificently. Notice I didn’t say we performed perfectly and with zero casualties. Sadly we lost 3,895 officers and men from our combined forces between January 29, and March 31, 1969. For many of us that figure represents a comrade or someone we went to school with; no doubt some of us here tonight are relieved we didn’t add our name to that total – and some of us owe our life to someone who is a part of that total. But in Vietnam we rose to the challenge of Tet, just as our fathers did in the Battle of the Bulge and the Chosin Reservoir; just as our children did in Kuwait City and continue to do in hellholes like Fallujah and Kabul. The troops have learned this lesson well.
Lesson Number Two: The national media are inevitably surprised by the troops and usually get it wrong; the embedded reporters applaud the troops and typically get it right. Joe Galloway and other reporters with his skill and courage took the time to serve beside us. They fought with their editors back in ‘media central’ to get the truth out the way we sometimes fought with our own commanders so that the enemy kept his standing appointment in hell. Reading the news reports about the Tet Offensive, I conclude the national media succeeded in plucking defeat from the jaws of victory. The national media still seeks to accomplish this. We need more reporters like Joe and fewer talking heads like Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Tom Brokaw. We need far fewer retired generals doing the kind of Monday-morning media quarter backing they would not have tolerated when they were on active duty. The national media has yet to learn this lesson. When will they ever learn? Only when we get a blizzard report from hell.
Lesson Number Three: Political leaders usually want the troops “home for Christmas.” Senator Strom Thurmond gave an amazing speech as he learned of the events of January 31, 1968. Addressing President Johnson as if he were in the room, Thurmond implored “use your power to bomb them so that they cannot take it…quit playing around.”[3] Such candor in Congress was rare then and it remains rare to this day. The nation’s leaders have yet to learn that victory is the only acceptable exit strategy. If political leaders “want the troops home for Christmas,” then send in enough well trained troops with enough equipment to defeat the enemy and win the peace. It takes years not months to build such an effective military, and this is what they must do if they want the troops home. Political leaders don’t yet seem to have learned this lesson. When will they ever learn? How are we coming on generating that blizzard report down in hell?
Lesson Number Four: National religious and educational leaders are more worried about the welfare of our adversary than about the safety of our troops. It gives me no pleasure to say this, my comrades. Our national religious communities welcomed few of us home. On the local level congregations of all faiths worry about the safety of their own; but when national preachers and professors get a chance to speak about any American in combat, they sound more like apologists for those who would kill us at the first opportunity. These leaders have not yet learned the essential difference between free speech and seditious speech, between liberating speech and libelous speech. When will they ever learn? Since many of us have stood where we could see the gates of hell, I think St. Peter would let us get a few of them started in the proper direction – along with some snowballs.
Lesson Number Five: The care packages and prayers of ordinary citizens do much for the troops’ morale. I have a confession to make: I finally ate a bit of fruitcake on New Year’s Eve. I still have the identification bracelet my mother gave me before I deployed in 1968, ‘just to remind you of my prayers,’ she said. Every time we’ve have troops deployed under arms the American people respond with care and prayer. On D-Day this nation rang the church bells as a call to prayer. The families of the ‘Frozen Chosen’ prayed mightily during that awful Christmas in 1951. Your parents and neighbors prayed for us while we were in Vietnam, and even if you haven’t darkened the door of a church in decades, God hears your prayers for the safety of the troops – for your son and your daughter. When will they ever learn? We’ve learned this one – and we put it into practice every day.
There is one final lesson from the Vietnam War: never leave anyone behind. At the end of the Vietnam War there were 2,583 Americans unaccounted for. There are still 1,870 unaccounted for. Before 1976 there were eleven live-sightings of Americans in Vietnam and we had some fears we might have left someone behind. Anxiety over this concern continued to deeply divide our nation for years. I have studied this issue as both a minister and as a researcher and come to this conclusion: our anxiety about POW’s left behind grew out of our knowledge of the enemy’s cruelty and our direct experience of our national leaders’ reluctance to fully prosecute the war. When will they ever learn?
We have been most effective in driving this lesson home to the American political leadership. I believe the nation has learned this lesson – both the recognition that an enemy can be horribly cruel to American POW’s along with the demand that this nation expend its treasure and talent to liberate current POW’s and recover the remains of MIA’s. The presence of the POW Flag on most government buildings and many schools throughout the nation affirms our success in teaching this lesson to the nation. The POW flag is a ringing witness to a lesson painfully felt and truly learned.
So we come here tonight, amid battle- tested comrades, with the echoes of those fiery days and dark nights still alive in our souls. We come to bear tribute to men who never returned, to honor their sacrifice, to hallow their memory and bear witness to the enduring anguish of their families. We also come to celebrate those among us who, having been in Hanoi’s fiery forge, came home to live with us as free men. Let us pray that this nation will never again be forced to learn through the awful lesson of distrust the imperative of never abandoning her fighting men and women to a cruel adversary. Amen!
DONALD D. DENTON is coordinator of assessments and publications at the Virginia Institute of Pastoral Care in Richmond, Va. He is a licensed professional counselor in Virginia and Texas; a licensed marriage and family therapist in Virginia.
1 Oberdorfer, Don. Tet: The Turning Point of the Vietnam War. (Da Capo Press, Inc.: New York, 1971), pg. 1.
2 58,373 enemy combatants; 8,763 allied military; 14,300 civilian, men women and children
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