Blind Faith: June 2008

Blind Faith Receives an Award!

Bob O. from The BoBo Files has honored Blind Faith with the prestigious Arte y Pico award. It means a lot to me that someone appreciates my dad's diary of this trying time in his life. A diary that also shares a glimpse of history during a painful war for our country.

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THE FIREBASE: From This Clearing Comes the Destruction of War - Part 2

We made our way toward the pad, and Top pointed out Speedy's bunker. “Drop your pack and stuff off here and I'll take you over to the TOC so you can meet the CO's. You are planning to come to the party tonight, aren't you?"

"You bet. I wouldn't miss a steak dinner in Vietnam on a bet."

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THE FIREBASE: From This Clearing Comes the Destruction of War - Part 1

February 13. Middle afternoon

Dear Chaplain Miller,

Firebase Warrior was a clearing about the length of two football fields cut out of the dense jungle. It had a perimeter of twisted barbwire with thirty feet of clearing to the bush and jungle.

I was talking to a solider at base camp who was assigned to the 4th Engineer support battalion while waiting to get in to see a movie. He was telling me how firebases were established and the amount of involvement it takes to build one of these places.

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THE FAMILY: The Family That Prays Together Stays Together until There's A War

February 13, Early Morning

Dear Chaplain Miller,

In my mind I could see the white oblong shades that cover the wooden window frames that were painted shut by years and years of white trim paint. Glass panes were ornately shaped in half-hexagon fashion, letting ample light that filtered through with a soft white hue that cast shadows across the bedroom furniture, hiding its true finish. The antiquated dresser that I was able to resurrect from the dusty tenement basement, using a handy home-do-it-yourself, inexpensive, new-type antique kit, stood at proud sentry-like attention at the foot of the bed.

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BLIND FAITH: Being In A War Because Others Have To Be There (Part 2)

I had gone to Qui Nhon with Chaplain Father Taddy to visit the men from our divisions that were in the hospital. Four men had been hit with a fragment grenade. As I talked to each one and had prayer with them, I began to believe I was in a war, not just a dream. When we returned to Camp Radcliff, we found out that four more men had been wounded when their jeep hit a land mine.

That evening when I was cleaning up my hooch, (a hooch is the home where you rest your head in a war zone) I was still in a daze from the day’s events and feeling like I was watching myself in a dream, someone knocked on the side of my tent.

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BLIND FAITH: Being In A War Because Others Have To Be There (Part 1)

It was Valentines Day, Saturday, February fourteenth, 1970, the day of love in Vietnam. I was waiting on what was called the "Golf Course." No U.S. Open would be played here, no Riders Cup competition, no Masters Tournament. This was no Cypress Point or Pebble Beach. I was not there to play golf. It was the name given to the helicopter landing area at Camp Radcliff in An Khe, South Vietnam, 277 miles north-northeast of Saigon.

Brigadier General Jack Wright, who decreed that the landing area would be cleared by hand, instead of using heavy equipment, which would strip the area of its protective grasses and bushes, named the landing strip, the Golf Course. Without the grass and bushes to anchor the soil, the area would be a dust bowl during the dry season when the helicopters landed and a quagmire during the monsoon season. General Wright declared that by cleaning the area by hand it would be "as clean as a golf course." The name stuck and even appears on topographic maps of the facility. It was a grand idea. Too bad he didn't have an air-conditioned clubhouse to go along with the course.

I was sitting in the hot Vietnam sunshine breathing the heavy humidity, sweating profusely as I rested on several cases of beer with my feet on one of the half dozen or so wooden ammunition boxes. There were several cases of coke, two full bags of mail, and various other supplies to be forwarded to Firebase Warrior, where my Infantry Battalion Commander LTC. Anderson was to have his change of command ceremony on Sunday.

I was alone, except for the guard that was sitting in a little tin-sided shake at the far end of the dozen or so helipads. Even at a distance I could see a big, boldly painted "peace symbol" on the open door. Next to one of large gas fuel tanks nearby was another hand painted sign in bright red letters that read: "Super Shell with Platfermate will get you places you don't even want to go." I thought to myself, right on!

I took off my steel pot with its camouflage cover and adjusted the little black cross on the front. The cross was a symbol that told the soldiers that I was an army chaplain. I remembered being kidded by one of the officers in our base camp, that I should have my captain’s bars on the helmet, that way the VC wouldn’t think it was a sloppy x to mark the spot.

I took another look into my chaplain’s kit, to make sure, for the tenth time, that I had all my necessary supplies. The silver crucifix to place on any makeshift alter I could find while conducting services. My communion kit, a chalice that came in two pieces and screwed together to form a cup with a heavy base, and my little container, about the size of a snuffbox, that held the wafers. And of course, my little vial of wine, in which I dipped the wafers before placing them on the participants’ out-stretched tongues when giving the Lords Supper.

I thought as I looked over the kit: my, oh my, what if my Baptist friends could see me now, calling the Lord's Supper, communion, and dipping the unleavened wafer into real wine, not grape juice! I wondered what they would think? I was not sure what the long piece of black cloth with some holy words inscribed on each end symbolized. A shawl, you were supposed to put it around your neck when conducting services. I decided to just ignore it as too formal and priest-like.

I grabbed up my rucksack. A far cry from the seventy pounds that the average grunts took to the field. Mine contained a rubber air mattress, a change of underwear and a jungle uniform. There were two or three cans of sardines. I had packed three pairs of socks, my soft hat, my Bible and Stars and Stripes Newspaper, writing supplies, and of course, shaving gear and deodorant. I also had my daily log and notebook to keep track of the number of services I held each day and a head count of the number of attendees. Nixon wanted a Viet Cong body count for the record and the Chief of Chaplains wanted a GI head count for the religious record. I was beginning to understand that this conflict was a war of numbers.

This was to be my first visit to a firebase since I was in the country and assigned to my battalion, the 1/12 Infantry, the Red Warriors. It was a unit of the Fourth Infantry Division. A forward firebase was one step behind what served as the front line in the Vietnam War. Only there were no lines. It was more like circles. All throughout the II Corps and other U.S. Corps in South Vietnam, they used the same basic configuration. Base camp was where the division was located with all its various brigades and battalions.

Radcliff was such a base camp. It was named in honor of Major Donald Radcliff who was the first man killed in action when the 1st Cavalry Division arrived in the area around 1966. It was a sprawling base surrounded by a perimeter defense known as the Green Line.

The firebase was also subject to mortar attacks or infiltration by the VC. From the base camps battalions would go out into the jungle and clear a round area of two or three acres and set up a perimeter of defense similar to base camp, but on a far lesser scale. When the firebase was set up, the various battalion companies would go into the jungle and bush to carry out search and destroy missions. That was as forward as you could get unless you were on a long-range reconnaissance patrol called (LURRP's) or a squad point man "breaking bush."

Since 1969, the Fourth Infantry Division was in the midst of a new operation and policy, called "Vietnamization." It was an attempt to turn over the major fighting of the Viet Cong known as the VC to the Republic of Vietnam Army. The RVNA's were the South Vietnam army. The concept gave some hope that the combat troops were heading for the real world, home in the U.S.A.

In the meantime the war had to continue. The battalion would build a firebase that offered support for the various battalion combat companies to go out into the jungle to fight, if they could find the enemy. Firebases such as Warrior's, where I was headed were closer to population areas around Radcliff to protect them from the VC.

So far my first month in Vietnam had been rather peaceful, with the exception of Thursday, January 23.

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Introduction

Vietnam, how could this small Indochina country that I never heard of in any of my high school history classes come to affect my life and millions of other lives throughout the world? This strange country so far away from my world had it’s beginning in the same timeframe as the beginnings of Christianity, over 2,000 years ago.

Vietnam's country is an "S" shaped landmass, slithering like a two-headed snake in the heart of Indochina. One of the snakeheads is located in the North Country centered in the city of Hanoi. The other end with its head in the South, has its power center in the city of Saigon. These two heads are connected by a spinal cord of twisting mountain ranges. This connecting backbone is eighty per cent jungle and deep bush that offers a geographical protection to both the Western Vietnam border and the Eastern Cambodia border. It runs from the North and South along its' twelve thousand miles of snake-like body. The South China Sea protects its coastline along the Eastern Shore line.

I recall when I first arrived in Vietnam. Several planeloads of other military personnel and I were marched into a briefing room to hear a lecture on Vietnam's history and culture. The instructor was a 1st Lieutenant information officer. He described Vietnam as two baskets of rice at opposite ends of a bamboo pole, carried on the back of a peasant farmer. The baskets of rice represent the two deltas of Vietnam (two snakes head's one at each end). The Red River in the north and the Mekong River in the south of the country form them. The bamboo pole is represented by the mountain range with its' high peaks and its' vast jungles and undergrowth.

The instructor pointed out that rice was the major factor for the civil wars that plagued the country for over 2,000 years. The northern basket was the industrial power and the southern basket was the agricultural power. Each pulled against the other in attempting to try and control the other country.

In that lecture, the instructor gave the party line of course, claiming that the North took advantage of the South and repressed them in any manner possible. I had heard similar stories from my Southern friends in Mississippi who explained the Civil War of the United States in the same power struggle terms.

Our instructor stressed the party line of former presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and President Nixon. He hammered home that the United States and its allies were in Vietnam to prevent a hostile takeover by Ho Chi Minh and the evil empire of Hanoi, which was aligned with communist Russia. He spent a great deal of time describing the domino theory. That was the political idea that smaller countries were lined up like a wall of dominoes. If one were pushed over, all of them would fall in a chain reaction. He stressed the point that the area of Indochina was a line of nations like dominos. If the United States allowed one to fall toward the communists then all the others countries would fall with it. Our reason for being in Vietnam was to prevent the United States from losing the global domino game. I remember thinking to myself as I looked over the sea of young faces, some who had not even began to shave, I’m here only because you have to be here.

The instructor failed to mention the problem the French had with Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh. How in 1954 the French lost their war with Hanoi at Dienbienphu in spite of their military might and assistance with finances from the United States.

Most of the participants in that information briefing had little or no idea who the players were in the Vietnam conflict. They certainly had no idea what was causing them to have to sit there and listen to a Second Lieutenant tell them why it was necessary for them to leave their families. Why should they have to be the ones risking their lives to keep the dominoes from falling across the world?

No one asked: "Who is Ho Chi Minh?” (North Vietnam’s president, and for the most part, its spiritual leader.) No one asked: "What was the Vietminh?” (North Vietnam) No one asked: "Who is Vo Nguyen Giap?” (The General in command of North Vietnam Army.) Not one participant asked: "Who is Ngo Dinh Diem?” (He was a South Vietnam leader). Not one participating asked: "What did the Gulf of Tonkin have to do with the war?" (It was President Johnson's excuse for the United States Army buildup in South Vietnam.)

The list of questions could go on and on. In retrospect, most of the troops I met in Vietnam were like me. They did not know about the background of the war that they were asked and commanded to fight. They did not know enough about the political situation to even ask questions. They were there in Vietnam relying on blind faith. Their country said, “go,” and like thousands over the years have done for our country, they went.

On my way out of the lecture briefing on the history and culture of Vietnam, I began to reflect on my own reasons for joining the Army and becoming an Army Chaplain.

Early in January 1966, I was a pastoring my first full-time church. I was paid the salary of one hundred dollars a week and provided a parsonage for my family. The church was located in the suburbs of Fresno, California and was named the Calwa First Baptist Church of Calwa, California.

Calwa was a two-hundred member church set in the suburbs of blue color workers on the South Side of Fresno. The church ministered to an aging sub-division of first time homeowners. Its growth and potential was at a stand still. The once-young families were aging or moving out to larger homes to accommodate their growing families.

I was starting to wake up to the world around me. I had finished seminary; I had my first son and my first full time pastorate. I was a hopeful minister on my way into my calling from God.

The year of hope for the United States offensive in the Republic of South Vietnam was 1966. General Westmoreland had placed the American Army forces in Vietnam on the offensive for the first time. On New Year's Day, the 173rd Airborne Brigade rolled into the plains of Reeds, just South of Saigon. They were the first American forces to operate west of the Oriental River, taking over the Bao Trai airstrip.

One of America’s staunchest allies, the Australians, sent the First Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment into the battle. They took their position on the East Side of the Oriental River. The river was therefore cut off from the use by the Viet Cong who had used the river freely for some time in their invading the South through that passageway.

In mid January 1966, the allied forces began what was known as their search and destroy missions between Chu Lai and Qui Nhon by both the Marines and 1st Cavalry Divisions. They uncovered heavy enemy concentrations of Viet Cong in the area. They were, for the first time taking the war to the VC.

My third year as pastor of the Calwa Church began in 1966. I had no idea what this entire hubbub going on in Vietnam would mean to me. I preached to my congregation twice on Sunday and once in the middle of the week. I was aware that several families of my parishioners had children drafted who were serving somewhere in Vietnam. We had prayer for them on a regular basis in our Sunday services and in our prayer meetings on Wednesday evenings.

The newspaper reported in late January or early February that after six weeks of hard fighting the enemy was finally on the run. The United States was winning the war. The VC had left 2,389 bodies behind. America and its allies were harassing the enemy day and night on the ground and in the air. The headlines in the newspaper were filled with hope for an early victory in the war.

In late February, one of my church families received a telegram stating that their son was missing in action in Vietnam. The war had come to Calwa, to the First Baptist Church, to someone I knew and had to minister to. The newspapers played down the fact that Americans were losing lives in the war. A few war protesters were out there somewhere. Every once in a while the TV would show a college student burning his draft card before running off to Canada.

In February 1966, the press and news stations made a big deal out of President Johnson’s flying to Honolulu to hold a military conference. He met with South Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Cao Ky and his military advisors. There he pledged continued support to South Vietnam, as long as it maintained a democratic effort. It was at this meeting that Johnson told the Vietnamese, "It was time to nail the coonskins to the wall."

General Westmoreland, feeling that victory was at hand, knew what it would take to nail those coonskins. He requested additional troops be sent to mop up the coons. He wanted the President to request thirty-one more combat battalions, bringing the total American troop strength to 429,000. He did not get his request in full, but the American troop involvement in the war soared to 385,000. I did not know at the time, but I would be one of those additional new troops.

In March of 1966, I received a letter in the mail from the Sixth Army Chaplains Office in the Presidio of San Francisco. The Staff Chaplain was requesting that I consider applying for a commission in the Army Chaplaincy Corps. He pointed out the spiritual needs of our 385,000 men serving in the Vietnam War and how they were keeping that country from falling into godless communist control.

The letter read like a draft notice to me. It pointed out my qualifications. I was of the right age to receive a commission. I had over two years experience pastoring churches. I was a seminary graduate. My denomination had given them my name; thus assuring an endorsement would be forthcoming. My wife joked that one of my deacons must have suggested my name to the Sixth Army. It did indeed read like a draft notice. The only way Chaplains entered the Armed Forces was by volunteering.

Two days after the letter arrived, I received a large packet of enlistment forms from the Chief of Chaplains in Washington D.C, requesting that I fill them out immediately so they could be quickly processed. My wife and I looked over the stack of forms. They were almost overwhelming with so much paper work to be filled out. I put them in a folder and took them over to my office and laid them on my desk.

A week or so later, on a Fresno hot and humid day as I was going home for lunch, I grabbed the folder from the desk and took it on to the parsonage. As I entered the kitchen through the back door, I commented to my wife that since we had the parking lot black topped it burned my feet coming home for lunch. I threw the file on the kitchen table. Gwen, my dear wife, was doing the ironing and watching the news on TV. The attic humidifier fan was cranked up full strength. I sat down at the table. "What should I do about these forms?" I asked. Continuing to iron and watching the news, she said, "Send them in, or burn your draft card, I guess." That was it. We filled the forms out, and sent them to the Chaplains’ office. I remember thinking; maybe I won't pass the physical. My back kept me from playing football in high school.

Two weeks later I received a telegram from the Department of the Army, Chaplains branch. It was written in some sort of military code or jargon. I wasn't sure what it said. Was I in the Army or not? I took the telegram to the Army recruiter in Fresno. The Captain looked it over, stuck out his hand and said, "Congratulations, you are now a First Lieutenant in the United States Chaplains Army Corps." Then he added. "If you pass your physical."

He escorted me right to the military enlistment center where I was given a military physical on the spot. I kept thinking, I wonder if my back will keep me out? The exam is funny now. The doctor checked to see if I was breathing and passed me back to the recruiter who said, "Chaplain, you are to report to Chaplain’s Officers’ basic course sometime in October. I called your branch and you will receive orders in two weeks.”

Four years later, in January 1970, I finally arrived in Vietnam. What is to follow, is a record of that experience gleaned from diaries, and copies of letters I sent to a mentor chaplain friend, Chaplain (LTC) Jim Miller, who was stationed in Okinawa.

I hope someday my two boys will sit down and read this effort of love for them and for my country. I truly entered the military relying on blind faith and my God.

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Acknowledgments

Blind Faith, is a chronicle of my personal letters written from January to December 1970 to my friend and ecclesiastical mentor Chaplain LTC James Miller, stationed in Okinawa. He was my senior chaplain prior to my receiving orders to Vietnam. Time has past since I first wrote these letters and they have taken on an era of embellishment.

On reviewing the first manuscript, which was rejected by six of the best publishers in the country, my friend and English Literature professor, Academic Vice President and Dean, School of Arts and Sciences, Dr. J. V. McCrory suggested that the book needed some embellishment. Therefore, the embellishment has taken place in novel form at times. The main structure of the original book has not changed. Some additions to the content have been added to the letters to enhance and to better explain my changing point of view concerning my personal thoughts at the time.

I have taken liberty to include in these letters some of my past memories, retrospective actions and experiences while serving as an army chaplain. Names have been changed to protect various soldiers and commanders. Some have not been changed because I felt there was no reason to change them. Many names were changed because over time I have forgotten the names, but remember their faces and personalities.

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Dedication

This book is written to fill the gap of separation that occurred in January 1970 to December 1970 between me and my two boys and my wife. My hope is that my sons Tony and Mike will have an understanding of why their daddy chose to be away from them their mom for a year. Not because he wanted too, but because God’s mission for him was to be a minister to others who had no choice but to be separated from their family because of the military draft. To you my boys, I dedicate this story of Blind Faith.

A special expression of love and gratitude to my niece who spent considerable time helping to edit these thoughts of mine and to assist in restricting some of my rambling. She has been a mother solider, fighting for the welfare of her son who was born with cerebral palsy. She has served as an inspiration to me whenever I tended to feel sorry for myself and wanted to give up this book-writing endeavor.

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Photos

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Welcome

My dad wrote a book about his year in Vietnam serving as a U.S. Army chaplain. We have some family copies of the book but it was never published for the public. My dad passed away in 2004 after battling Leukemia. I've decided to share his story with the world in his memory. I'll be releasing pieces of the book a few days each week. If you enjoy the stories, please subscribe. If you want a copy of the book, send me an email and we'll see what we can do. Thanks and enjoy.

Tony from Seeking Things Above

Legal Stuff

ISBN 1-58747-064-0
Copyright 2004, Pale Horse Publishing
Don Fowler

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or adapted to any other medium without the prior written permission of the publisher. Brief quotations in articles or reviews are permitted and publisher requests a copy of the article or review.

Contact publisher at:
Pale Horse Publishing (800) 646-5590
POB 1447, Livingston, TX 77351
http://www.hospicecaregiver.com

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Blind Faith

When I was six I lost my dad for a year while he served in the Vietnam War. He was there because the soldiers he ministered to, had to be. He came home. Many of the soldiers he ministered to, did not.

Blind Faith Receives an Award!

THE FIREBASE: From This Clearing Comes the Destruction of War - Part 2

THE FIREBASE: From This Clearing Comes the Destruction of War - Part 1

THE FAMILY: The Family That Prays Together Stays Together until There's A War

BLIND FAITH: Being In A War Because Others Have To Be There (Part 2)

BLIND FAITH: Being In A War Because Others Have To Be There (Part 1)

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Photos

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