Period 2 - Family Member of Soldier KIA

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Position Summary
Personal Views/OP-ED's
Songs Written About The War
Pictures
Charts
Poem
A Personal Experience
Additional Families of Veterans
Sources

Position Summary

We must stop fighting in the war on terror in Vietman, before all of our soldiers are killed. One of my family members has already died and if we don't get out soon all of our precious soldiers will be gone. It was not in our position to be in this war in the first place. We do understand that it is our soldier's responsibility to ensure the safety of the citizens of America but we the family members believe that we have fought this war long enough and it's time to come back home.

Personal Views/OP-ED's

I guess what I can say is that I am anti-war myself. I think that this war took us nowhere and we will just end up with losses instead of wins. Everything went back to the way it was before the war, after it was over. There was no reason for us to go fight in the first place. The only thing the Vietnam War did was kill our innocent American soldiers. It wasn't even their choice to go into the war, it was just the government's.

My brother died while in combat in the war. I support all of the curagous young soldiers fighting in the war but my brother died for people he didn't even know and would never even meet. I'm extremely angry. He was killed by a little Vietnam child and that makes me go insane everytime i think about it. -Hope Peyton

Leon Christian, He lived in Indianapolis, Indiana. He lived on a small farm with two kids with a wife. When the Vietnam War was was going on he really didn't care to much for it. He was only interested in providing for his family. Soon a draft was issued. Leon had no choice but to go into the US Army. He joined the Marines to do his part to defend his country. Leon wasn't only fighting for the U.S. he was fighting for his family back at home. He confronted his fear by making an agresssive effort to be a good soldiers, but the horrors came to haunt him after he was accidently killed as an United States Corporal. His family back at home suffored as they soon found out about his death including me. -Jordan Taylor

How do you feel about the situation when you have a family member in the war? He died for people he didn't know about and the other states that you didn't unstand about them.

What I am trying to say is why would you let one of your family members go into the war.-Chris Hogue

Songs Written About The War

Machine Gun- Jimi Hendrix

Machine Gun

Tearing my body all apart

Machine Gun, yeah

Tearing my body all apart

Evil man make me kill ya

Evil man make you kill me

Evil man make me kill you

Even though we’re only families apart

Well I pick up my axe and fight like a farmer

(You know what I mean)

Hey! And your bullets keep knocking me down

Hey, I pick up my axe and fight like a farmer now

Yeah, but you still blast me down to the ground

The same way you shoot me down, baby

You’ll be going just the same

Three times the pain,

and your own self to blame

Hey, Machine Gun

I ain’t afraid of your mess no more, babe

I ain’t afraid no more

After a while, your, your cheap talk don’t even cause me pain,

so let your bullets fly like rain

’Cause I know all the time you’re wrong baby

And you’ll be going just the same

Yeah, Machine Gun

Tearing my family apart

Yeah, yeah, alright

Tearing my family apart

(Don’t you shoot him down)

(He’s ’bout to leave here)

(Don’t you shoot him down)

(He’s got to stay here)

(He ain’t going nowhere)

(He’s been shot down to the ground)

(Oh where he can’t survive, no, no)

Yeah, that’s what we don’t wanna hear anymore, alright?

(No bullets)

At least here, huh huh

(No guns, no bombs)

Huh huh

(No nothin’, just let’s all live and live)

(You know, instead of killin’)

May this be

Love or just

Confusion Born out of

frustration wracked

feelings - of not

being able to

make true physical

love to the

Universal gypsy Queen

True, free expressed music

Darling guitar please

rest. Amen.

Edge of Darkness- Iron Maiden

I've looked into the heart of darkness

Where the blood-red journey ends

When you've faced the heart of darkness

Even your soul begins to bend

For a week I have been wating

Still I am only in Saigon

The walls move in a little closer

I feel the jungle call me on

Every minute I get weaker

While in the jungle they grow strong

What I wanted was a mission

And for my sins they gave me one

They brought it up just like room service

'Cause everyone gets what they want

And when that mission was all over

I'd never want another one

I know, captain,

That you've done this work before

We've got a problem

You can help us all I'm sure

The colonel's gone rogue

And his methods are unsound

You'll take a PBR up river track him down

There's a conflict in every human heart

And the temptation is to take it all to far

In this war things get so confused

But there are some things

Which cannot be excused

He's acting like a God - an insane lunatic

Your mission - exterminate

With extreme prejudice

The route is dangerous

And your progress may be slow

Here is the file and it's all you need to know

Here I am the knife in my hand

And now I understand why the genius must die

Now I stand alone in the darkness

With his blood upon my hands

Where sat the warrior the poet

Now lie the fragments of a man

I've looked into the heart of darkness

Where the blood-red journey ends

When you've faced the heart of darkness

Even your soul begins to bend

Pictures

Charts

Poem

VIETNAMESE MORNING

Before war starts

In early morning

The land is breath taking.

The low, blazing, ruby sun

Melts the night-shadow pools

Creating an ethereal appearance.

Each miniature house and tree

Sprouts its, long, thin shadow

Stretching long on dewy ground.

The countryside is panoramic maze,

Jungle, hamlets, hills and waterways,

Bomb-craters, paddies, broken-backed bridges.

Rice fields glow sky-sheens,

Flat, calm, mirrored lakes

Reflect the morning peace.

The patchwork quilted earth,

Slashed by snaking tree-lines,

Slumbers in dawn's blue light.

Sharp, rugged mountain peaks

Sleep in a soft rolling blanket

Of clinging, slippery, misty fog.

Effortlessly, languidly, it flows

Shyly spreading wispy tentacles out

To embrace the earth with velvet arms.

-Curt Bennett

A Personal Experience

I was young enough at the time of the Vietnam War that kids my age did not serve in Vietnam. We were required to register for the draft, but the draft was rapidly winding down. I’m not sure when the draft ended, but it probably was essentially over by 1972, the year I graduated from Arlington High School in Indianapolis.

The biggest direct impact on me and my Mom, Dad, and two sisters was the death of my brother, Darrel. I was a quiet introverted high school student with a very close-knit family. My brother, Darrel, was four years older than me and my oldest sibling, and at the time I felt he was the best brother in the world. He was always there for me, providing answers for the insecure high school student that I was. We had always been close, for as long as I can remember as he always watched out for me and made me feel a part of any activities such as basketball or baseball that we would play in the neighborhood. He would choose me to be on his team even though I obviously could not compete with some of the older kids on the teams. He was my confidant for answering endless questions about growing up, questions that were difficult to ask parents about. It is very difficult to describe in words the emotional support that I received from my brother in the often difficult adolescent years.

As much as I had my brother on a pedestal, he had his own struggles during his teenage years, struggles that as a younger brother I was often only vaguely aware. He was a very sensitive, kind person. A loyal friend, a hard working, and honest person. Music was one of his big passions. He would work many hours in high school to spend his money (much to my Dad’s disappointment), on albums, 100’s of albums, mainly rock such as the Doors, the Stones, Jimi Hendricks, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the British Wave groups but across a variety of genres including some country such as Roger Miller, traditional such as Frank Sinatra, to comedy albums by Bill Cosby. Besides the music, he was more interested in who would show up at the major drive-in restaurant such as the popular TeePee restaurant near the Indiana State Fairgrounds than the current political upheaval and the “War” itself. While I am sure he was aware of the “War” because he had to register for the draft, I’m not sure that he personally knew anyone that had gone to Vietnam, let alone any good friends that served there. Again he spent most of his time listening to music, with his close circle of friends, and trying to meet the girl of his dreams. I don’t think he was for or against the war, but I don’t know, as we never talked about it. I think he was most concerned about music, family, girls, and friends as were most kids.

When he left for college at the University of Evansville, he was a little lost on what direction his life was going and I guess maybe a little depressed looking for his life’s purpose. I remember numerous phone calls that he had with my Dad, regarding his direction with some serious discussions about the spending of money, grades while at college, and his break-up with a “girl of his dreams”. I went to visit him with a friend for a weekend and was concerned about his and his friend’s apparent “partying” more than studying. This was especially troubling for me because I was well aware of the “college deferment” that was available if you could stay in school. (During the Vietnam War, you would not be drafted from college if you could maintain your grades.) Unfortunately, at the end of his first year of college, he could not (or would not) maintain his grades, and was dismissed from the university. The draft lottery number quickly followed and again his luck had run out because the draft lottery number was low, meaning that a draft call-up would quickly follow. My anxiety elevated when he came home and told the family that we was going to sign-up. He was going to shave his head with an army regulation haircut. (This was ironic, as it meant he was going to shave his beautifully long hair, hair that had been a constant battle between he and my father.) We talked him out of signing up, but the call-up notice came quickly, a couple of months in boot camp and Fort Knox, Kentucky quickly followed by his assignment to Vietnam. I remember saying my good-byes trying to suppress the tears welling up in my eyes. I worked hard to deny the potentially worst outcomes, concentrating more on the chances that most who served in Vietnam would return including my brother.

After he went to Vietnam, we tried to keep abreast of his where abouts in the letters he sent home about names of places that were unique to a fifteen year old Hoosier more familiar with Indiana town names such as Indianapolis, Russellville, and Morton places with fond memoirs of extended Clodfelter family gatherings – numerous memories with Darrel. The foreign sounding city names only accentuated the isolation and fear I felt in Darrel’s absence. I could only imagine what Darrel felt.

The time went slowly as we counted the days until Darrel’s return. We watched the nightly news’ daily accounting the casualty list. We tried to match the news to the descriptions and places that Darrel described in his letters. We knew that he was in some pretty tough areas, as he would describe various firebases that he flew to. We were relieved that he did not describe any actual conflict that he had seen. One letter describes an incident where he thought he might have seen some Viet Con movement in the brushes at night, but there were no actual descriptions of combat to our relief. Another described a night where he awoke with a rat searching for warmth inside his shirt. Darrel was trained as the radio operator in his squad. He would fly several missions to firebases to look for Viet Cong movement. They were trained to rapidly take cover in the brush after landing to avoid the exposed areas at the landing site. Often times, the Viet Cong were very familiar with the rush to cover and would booby trap the brush with explosive devices. We were never sure who triggered the device only that in the aftermath three were dead, one was my brother, mentor, and hero.

One early January morning, around 5:00am, the date is not important to me, I was awoken from a sound sleep to the anguished screams from my dad. (My dad was very stoic and I have never seen such emotion from him.) My mom was trying to open the front door to two army personnel at the door. My dad was physically refusing to let my mom answer the door, as if he could prevent the inevitable reality by keeping them out. The news was devastating.

One impact of a war that I often feel is not addressed, is the far reaching and long lasting impact. The Vietnam War is not over for me, my mom, or my sisters and is not obviously over for the veterans, their families, or other fallen members’ families. Fortunately the pain for me is mostly gone, but it is never forgotten. I really miss not knowing, Darrel as an adult and as an equal. I really don’t know what he thought and felt about a lot of things. These were not things he would share with a little brother. The impact on me was life changing. Not all thing swere bad, as I had a new understanding of my dad, and I think I am closer to my mother and siblings as a result of Darrel’s death. I am also glad that I am no longer naïve about the reality of political systems and the danger of blind political loyalty.

I have always considered myself to be very patriotic. As a sophomore in high school, I was very loyal to the President and those that emphasized the need to be in Vietnam. If we were told that all Southeast Asia would fall under the “scourge of communism”, I assumed that our trusted leaders were correct. I was like a sponge absorbing all the information and following like a sheep. As a good patriot, this was my duty. War protestors, as I thought, were heading down the wrong path. Our country needed everyone’s support. The leaders of America must be right!! After Darrel’s death and the following revelations about the necessity of the war (and the fact that 40 years after the war none of the dire predictions about the fall of Vietnam and the threat of communism was real), I became a skeptic about a lot of things and the information and learning I had received to that point in my life, particularly regarding politics and religion. I have switched believing that being patriotic means questioning the information you are presented. No longer should you passively accept anything you hear or read. The free access to information is vital to a strong democracy. Challenging the information we are given by the politicians, the news media, internet sources etc. is important to a strong country. This I believe is a constant struggle, for those who can control the flow of information can wield significant power.

-Dean Clodfelter