I arrived in Viet Nam at the beginning of the conflict. Realizing the South Vietnamese government was losing the war, the United States chose to rapidly increase our troop strength in hopes of preventing a Communist takeover. However justified our involvement seemed in 1965, and I like most Americans thought that it was, the war would soon be perceived much differently.  

At home the rules for conscription were changing. College students in the lower part of their class academically were now vulnerable to the draft. Opposition to the war was growing. Tom Haydon had just returned to the United States after being one of the first Americans invited to tour North Viet Nam. Haydon went on to become a fierce anti war activist and later married “Hanoi Jane” Fonda. 

When I enlisted in the Air Force as a senior in medical school, I understood the risks and obligations. My opinion of “war”, however, was different from that of the young draftees who bore the biggest burden in Viet Nam.

My parents were part of what has deservedly been called by some “The Greatest Generation”. They grew up during the deprivation of the depression and as a nation went on to fight World War II. They were fiercely patriotic with a strong sense of duty. Some of those attributes were passed on to me.  

My father left his position as a high school principal in Stanwood Washington to work as a supervisor at the Everett Naval Ship Yard during the war. As a young boy I watched with pride as the bands played and champagne bottles christened the bows of ships being launched into Port Gardner Bay. 

I was seven years old when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 15, 1945 the Japanese surrendered. Everett, Washington was a mill town. The unbroken sounds of sirens and steam whistles blasting up from the waterfront below our neighborhood as we celebrated VJ Day still echo in my ears. We believed that a just war had ended. 

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7,1941 prompted many of my father’s high school students to  enlist in the military. One of them, Neil Hansen, stopped by our house on Hoyt Street in Everett shortly after the hostilities ended. I watched with awe as he approached the steps to our house in his Dress Blue Marine uniform. He greeted my dad with a handshake and a pat on the shoulder then uttered the words “Iwo Jima”. Slowly, he unbuttoned his jacket, pulled back the lapel and exposed the scar where a Japanese bullet had passed through his chest only inches above his heart. He wore it as a badge of courage.   

My parents traveled with me from Washington State to California for the flight to Viet Nam. It was a long, quiet ride. There were no tears when I boarded the plane at Travis Air Force Base. We had no idea of what lay ahead, but I had made a commitment and was fulfilling an obligation to my country. For my family that was the way it should be.

We would cross the International Date Line so it was already tomorrow in Viet Nam when I left that evening. Then, for the next year, as I waited for my DEROS (Date of Expected Return from Overseas), it seemed as if tomorrow would never come. 

The western sky was aglow that evening as our plane rose out over the Pacific Ocean. Then quickly, like a dog chasing its tail, the sun raced on ahead until it finally caught up with us again twenty hours later.  

During the long dim flight there was little conversation. Perhaps we weren’t interested in cultivating short termed friendships. As I looked around at the stoic slumbering faces I could not help but wonder which of those onboard would not be on the return flight.* 

En route we landed on Midway Island and Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines for refueling. As we reached the Vietnamese coastline and started our slow descent into Saigon, I could see orange clouds of napalm boiling up from the rice paddies and the jungle floor below, killing by fire and asphyxiation. There was no longer any question I had arrived in a combat zone. By the time my tour of duty was over, my perception of war and human nature would be markedly altered. 

*(2,700,000 Americans served in the Viet Nam War. One out of every ten  became a casualty. 75,000 would be severely disabled.  58,148 or one out of 46 soldiers would lose his life.)