“The Killing Fields” of Cambodia and Vietnam vs. American Freedom

The March 31^st Wall Street Journal’s news roundup “U.S. Watch” carried this brief article from the Associated Press:

“Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country's murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film "The Killing Fields," died Sunday. He was 65 years old.

“Mr. Dith died at a New Jersey hospital Sunday morning of pancreatic cancer, according to Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Mr. Dith had been diagnosed almost three months ago.

“Mr. Dith was working as an interpreter and assistant for Mr. Schanberg in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, when the Vietnam War reached its end in April 1975 and both countries were taken over by communist forces. Mr. Schanberg helped Mr. Dith's family get out but was forced to leave his friend behind after the capital fell; they weren't reunited until Mr. Dith escaped 4½ years later.

“Eventually, Mr. Dith resettled in the U.S. and went to work as a photographer for the Times. It was Mr. Dith who coined the term "killing fields" for the clusters of corpses and skeletal remains of victims he encountered on his journey to freedom.”

I added the boldface in the above Associated Press article because that moment in history when Saigon fell is a pivotal one in U.S. history -- we abandoned the friends we had promised to save.

I describe this moment in the epilogue of my forthcoming book MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL:

“She flashes on the chaotic images of the American embassy at the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, captured on news footage: The last American helicopters lift off from the roof, desperate South Vietnamese civilians trying to cling to the helicopter skids. And in the embassy compound below, watching their last chance take off, are the masses of South Vietnamese who will become fodder for the brutality of the victorious Communists.”

Dith Pran was one of those left behind to face the brutality of the victorious Communists. But he was also one of the lucky ones – he eventually reached freedom in the United States.

And freedom in the United States is something we should never take for granted. It is a privilege for which all Americans should be grateful.

President Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr. and Vietnam 40 Years Ago

Forty years ago tomorrow – March 31, 1968 – President Lyndon B. Johnson announced to a surprised American public that he would not seek another term as President of the United States.

Johnson’s exact words on national television were: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”

In Clay Risen’s April 2008 Smithsonian magazine article “The Unmaking of the President,” Risen says that, after making this announcement, Johnson was “by all accounts a man renewed.” Johnson felt he now had “the political capital to get passed” several of his domestic programs as well as achieving peace in Vietnam.

Yet just four days later on April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray shot and killed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. And as riots spread in cities throughout the U.S. over the loss of this major civil rights leader, Johnson’s ability to follow through on his new agenda was severely hampered, Risen says.

In my forthcoming book MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL, I describe the moment when Sharon hears the news of the killing of Martin Luther King. In 1968, only four years after the passage of the Civil Right Act, this is an incredibly dramatic moment in American history.

Yet what I had never considered, until reading Risen’s article, is that besides all the potential improvements in the lives of American blacks that might have been made if Ray had not killed King, the Vietnam War might have ended in 1968.

While the young men already in ROTC would still have served their two-year active duty commitment, in the spring of 1970 (when the novel takes place) these young men and their wives would not have had to fear an unaccompanied Vietnam tour. And the Kent State National Guard shootings would never have taken place, because the U.S. would no longer be fighting in Vietnam.

Forty years ago one man’s mad act changed the world in ways that may never fully be understood.

The Vietnam War vs. the War in Iraq -- Who Should Serve?

I received an email sent to the Alliance of Women Directors about a woman director’s film opening nationwide today – writer/director Kimberly Peirce’s STOP-LOSS. (She previously wrote and directed BOYS DON’T CRY.)

According to the forwarded article by Peter Clines in “Creative Screenwriting” online magazine, Army Staff Sergeant Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) goes AWOL. He does so because he’s served two tours of combat duty and now he’s getting out of the army. Except that due to the policy of stop-loss, he’s not getting out even though he’s completed his service.

“A moment of instinctive reactions sends him running,” Clines writes. And now he’s AWOL – absent without leave.

Joanne Kaufman in her review of the movie in today’s Wall Street Journal says about that moment – “decides that hell no, he won’t go.” (A slightly paraphrased slogan of one chanted by anti-Vietnam War protesters – “Hell no, we won’t go.”)

During the Vietnam War – against which the background of my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL is set, young men who received their draft notices sometimes fled to Canada rather than serve in the army. This was a drastic decision because, at the time, they could never return to the United States without the risk of being arrested.

In the novel, Sharon’s husband asks Sharon if she thinks her brother would go to Canada if he were drafted. Sharon replies that she doesn’t know what her brother would do at that pivotal moment.

The wars are different – a Vietnam-era drafted army vs. an Iraq and Afghanistan-era all-volunteer army. Yet there are still questions being raised about who should serve.

Michigan State University – the Vietnam War vs. the War in Iraq and Afghanistan

My forthcoming book MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL takes place in the spring of 1970, right after the Kent State National Guard shootings and during Nixon’s two-month incursion into Cambodia. The novel is told from the point of view of four women, one of whom is Sharon Gold.

During the course of the novel Sharon reflects on certain events that took place a year or two earlier when she was Sharon Bloom and a student at Michigan State University.

I graduated from MSU in journalism in 1969 and have not been back since then. Thus it was with anticipation that I looked forward this week to meeting Sarah Blom, the director of development and alumni relations for MSU’s College of Social Science.

My husband Mitch (B.A. and M.A. from MSU) and I enjoyed hearing what’s new on campus since our time. But it was surprising to learn that in the last few days there had been two war-related protests at MSU.

I quickly went on the website of the MSU college newspaper – the State News – where my husband and I both worked during college. (In fact, that’s where we met.) And here were the two stories:

On March 20 – “Hundreds of protesters marched through the MSU campus and clogged East Lansing streets … in protest of the war with Iraq.

On March 25 – “Protesters swarmed the intersection of Grand River Avenue and Abbot Road … as more than 50 people gathered for a vigil to honor U.S. soldiers who have been killed in the Iraq war.”

It’s almost 40 years since I graduated MSU, and yet history seems to be in a loop, with the same news stories covered by the State News. There’s one main difference, though. Back in the late ‘60s there were protests against the Vietnam War AND against the draft. Now we have an all-volunteer army.

And regardless of what we think of this current war, American troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve to be supported by the people back home. When the website for my novel launches in a few days, you’ll be able to learn about supporting some worthwhile organizations that help military personnel and their families. Let’s take care of the people who take care of us!

Life After Active Military Duty

The front-page of the March 25^th Wall Street Journal has this news blurb:

“Returning veterans earn less than civilians and have a harder time finding work, a government report concluded.”

An hour after reading this news item I received a message on MySpace from “Jay.” He told me about a website www.afteryourservice.com to help former military personnel earn good pay in civilian jobs.

I’m not endorsing this website because I don’t know enough to do so.

What I am saying is that this is a very important topic – civilian employers frequently do not adequately value the skills and talents that ex-military personnel have learned in the military. And this leads to the lowered earning power and harder time finding work.

One reason for this may be because civilian employers have never been in the military themselves. Thus these prospective employers have no idea what skills and talents are learned. And putting “Reconnaissance Marine” on your resume probably doesn’t mean a great deal to people who have no experience with the military.

I have another blog – www.flippingburgersandbeyond.com – in which I discuss career considerations for young people and making your own luck. While national programs to help ex-military personnel enter civilian life are needed, I also believe that ex-military personnel must learn how to leverage their service skills for the civilian workforce.

A Reconnaissance Marine, for example, must figure out – by himself/herself or with help from others – how to translate military skills into civilian work skills. Here’s a partial list of military skills that are very important in business:

Teamwork

Cooperation

Initiative

Preparation

People can be taught civilian skills such as marketing or bookkeeping much easier than people can be taught teamwork, cooperation, initiative and preparation. These four skills are best learned while actually doing them – and these skills are practiced every single day in a person’s military career.

I will return to this subject sometime in the future. I have the letters I wrote home to my parents while my husband and I were stationed in Munich, Germany. In the letters I complained that my husband was losing valuable years out of the workforce. And my mother wrote me very encouraging letters about all the skills and knowledge my husband was gaining that others were not.

It’s important to focus on all these important “business” skills that military personnel utilize every single day. These skills can be great assets to any prospective employer.

ROTC – Reserve Officers Training Corps – in the U.S.

In MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL, the husbands of the four newly married women each earned an officer’s commission in the U.S. Army by participating in Reserve Officers Training Corps – ROTC – on their college campuses.

At the start of the novel in the spring of 1970, anti-Vietnam War protests have frequently targeted these ROTC on-campus programs.

The Wikipedia entry on ROTC gives the history of the program:

“The concept of ROTC in the United States began with the Morrill Act of 1862 which established the land-grant colleges. Part of the federal government's requirement for these schools was that they include military tactics as part of their curriculum, forming what became known as ROTC.

“Until the 1960s, many major universities required compulsory ROTC for all of their male students. However, because of the protests that culminated in the opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, compulsory ROTC was dropped in favor of voluntary programs. In some places ROTC was expelled from campus altogether, although it was always possible to participate in off-campus ROTC.”

The four husbands in MRS. LIEUTENANT have signed on for a two-year active duty commitment. When they arrive at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, right after the Kent State National Guard shootings, the expectation is that each of these four officers will serve a “short tour” – a year in Vietnam. And each night on the television news are the reports of the dead and wounded, a daily reminder of what their wives fear most.

Shakespeare, Jealousy and “Mrs. Lieutenant”

I’ve just seen the terrific production of “Othello” by the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company.

The playbill notes of producing artistic director Lisa Wolpe state: “(T)he story is not just about racism, but also classism, sexism – and even heroism.”

She believes Iago’s motivation for what he does to Othello comes from being a working-class career soldier whose deserved promotion goes to someone else who has “advantages of breeding, position, and class, regardless of his inexperience in the field.”

In my opinion, Shakespeare wrote this play about one primary human emotion – jealousy. Shakespeare dramatically portrays how jealousy provokes even leaders of men to easily believe the worse without seeking any contrary opinions.

In my forthcoming novel MRS. LIEUTENANT, jealousy plays an important part in the story of one officer’s wife. While some readers may feel that the denouement of this story line is overly dramatic, I believe the role of literature in certain stories is to grab us by the throat, shake us, and say: “Learn from this and watch what you yourself do.”

The next time you’re jealous of someone, think about Shakespeare’s plays such as “Othello,” “Richard III” and “Macbeth.” Then try to curb the little green-eyed monster we all have within us before you do yourself and others much harm.