Video by David Haynie - June 19, 2018 - En route to My Lai
Return to Vietnam by Glyn Haynie
In June of 2018, Mike Dankert, who I served with in Vietnam and my best friend, with my oldest son, David, returned to Vietnam.
For me, going back to Vietnam had nothing to do with seeing how the country had grown or progressed, or what the Vietnamese think of Americans today, or seeing tourist destinations in places like Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang, or Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). I had no desire to meet and greet with ex-NVA or Viet Cong soldiers and exchange stories. I understood the NVA and Viet Cong soldiers were protecting their country and their way of life, and I don’t harbor any unkind sentiments against them. My hatred of the enemy had long ago faded. Their patriotism was no different from the American soldier’s patriotism, going to war because he was called to service by his country.
My goal and desires were to find my platoon brothers. And for those who died during the war, going to the battle sites that took their lives was the only way for me to reconcile their death and be with them one last time. Having no idea how returning to the mountains, hilltops, rice paddies, fields, and jungles of Vietnam would affect me, it was still the only way to stand close to or on the same ground where they’d lost their lives. I had a need to talk to them one last time.
We visited the sites of:
Chu Lai Combat Center, Duc Pho FSB Bronco, FSB Thunder/Debbie, FSB Charlie Brown, FSB Hill 4-11,
Horseshoe, Rice Bowl, Bridge on Highway 1, Budest Temple that played music at night, Quang Ngai Airfield,
Hill where the Fire occurred, June 14 Attack Site, August 13 Ambush Site, August 15 Ambush Site
For me, going back to Vietnam had nothing to do with seeing how the country had grown or progressed, or what the Vietnamese think of Americans today, or seeing tourist destinations in places like Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang, or Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). I had no desire to meet and greet with ex-NVA or Viet Cong soldiers and exchange stories. I understood the NVA and Viet Cong soldiers were protecting their country and their way of life, and I don’t harbor any unkind sentiments against them. My hatred of the enemy had long ago faded. Their patriotism was no different from the American soldier’s patriotism, going to war because he was called to service by his country.
My goal and desires were to find my platoon brothers. And for those who died during the war, going to the battle sites that took their lives was the only way for me to reconcile their death and be with them one last time. Having no idea how returning to the mountains, hilltops, rice paddies, fields, and jungles of Vietnam would affect me, it was still the only way to stand close to or on the same ground where they’d lost their lives. I had a need to talk to them one last time.
We visited the sites of:
Chu Lai Combat Center, Duc Pho FSB Bronco, FSB Thunder/Debbie, FSB Charlie Brown, FSB Hill 4-11,
Horseshoe, Rice Bowl, Bridge on Highway 1, Budest Temple that played music at night, Quang Ngai Airfield,
Hill where the Fire occurred, June 14 Attack Site, August 13 Ambush Site, August 15 Ambush Site
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Mike Dankert and Glyn Haynie at the August 13 Site June 17, 2018 - Video by David Haynie (Video 5:30)
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Mike Dankert and Glyn Haynie at the August 15 Site
June 16, 2018 - Video by David Haynie (Video 2:32) |
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Driving to My Lai June 19, 2018 Video by
David Haynie (Video 1:40) |
My Lai Memorial and Museum June 19, 2018
photo by Glyn Haynie |
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The slide show captures the sites we visited during our week in Vietnam. The places we chose to visit held a significant memory for Mike and me. The slide show was presented at the Hill 4-11 Reunion July 27, 2018, at Columbus, Georgia.
Photographs taken during the trip.
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Vietnam Trip by Mike Dankert
I went back to Vietnam (2018) because Glyn asked me. I didn’t need any more reason than that. That’s not to say that I didn’t have a personal interest in going. I did. I wanted to see the places the First Platoon had been to, how those places that had been so important to me once were today. I wanted to see what Vietnam was like today; to talk to the people of Vietnam and learn what they thought about the “American War” then, and what they think of us today.
I wasn’t going to Vietnam to reclaim the sites where we fought the Vietnamese and where our friends were wounded and died. I don’t think like that. I wasn’t looking for “closure,” if that means “to forget what happened there.” I want to remember Vietnam. I want to think of it often to remember the men I served with, especially those who died there then and the men who brought their war home and have died here. I have suffered survivor guilt since August 15, 1969. It has taken me a long time to learn to live with it, to develop an uneasy peace with my time in Vietnam. Most nights now I can sleep, but there are times that I go over and over again in my head what happened there, wishing I had done more — something different that might have saved a life. I tell myself remembering is okay — it keeps alive the memories of those I served with in Vietnam. As long as I remember, some part of them is alive. I want to remember how hard it was just to survive, how it felt to lose friends — even those that I wasn’t close to. I want to remember the cost of war so that it doesn’t become too easy to accept the deaths of different generations in America’s military actions around the world. I sometimes question if my life has been meaningful enough. Have I taken advantage of the opportunities that Tufts, Jerry, James, Danny, and the others never had? Those are thoughts I struggle with today.
Vietnam taught me many lessons; among them was the meaning of friendship. It’s more than just accumulating acquaintances, people you socialize with, or those with shared interests. A true friend is one who supports and forgives you when you are at your worst, champions you when you are at your best, and someone who will risk his life for you. I have that kind of friend in Glyn. I also learned to choose my battles, literally and figuratively. There are things worth fighting for: family (that includes a best friend who is like a brother), a way of life, ideals, and freedom. Things that endure. Girlfriends, possessions, ideology, and opinions — not so much.
To say Vietnam had changed is an understatement. Forty-nine years allows for a lot of change. We found all the places we remembered with the help of military action reports, military maps, and Google Maps. The places didn’t look the same, but they were still familiar, especially “the bridge,” where I first joined the platoon and where Glyn got to know Lt. Baxter and the First Platoon soldiers.
There were no monuments to the North Vietnamese or the VC, or propaganda against us that we saw. No signs of the bitter fighting that took place 49 years earlier other than stark and untended “martyr” cemeteries near LZ Bronco and LZ 411. Nature and the villagers have reclaimed the land. The rocky hilltops where we fled the fire and where the enemy killed Tufts is now lush and green with trees. LZ Charlie Brown is a resort area because of its beautiful beaches. LZ Debbie’s barren, rocky surface, was reforested at some time, and it, too, is green. The “Rice Bowl” that was the site of heavy fighting, casualties, and deaths was now a man-made lake with clear, blue-green water. People were boating and fishing at the lake. Kids hang out at the dam built to create the lake. Even the site of what Glyn and I call the “Rice Bowl” incident has changed. It is part of the irrigation pathway for the valley below a dam. The August 13 and August 15 areas were flat and dry. The farmers excavated the land, created irrigation channels and widened the ditch that was so prominent on August 13th. The flat, dry, and barren area where we left Vietnamese bodies is now fertile — a part of acres of rice paddies, watermelon patches, and cornfields. LZ 4-11 is the site of a public cemetery. The “hill” is slowly “eroding” as construction workers dig away the soil and rocks on its south side to use for construction projects elsewhere.
The contrasts between 1969 and 2018 were surreal. In 1969, we slept in the field on ponchos on the ground. In the heat and humidity, we sweated just trying to sleep. We had to spray insect repellent around the edges of our ponchos to keep ants from crawling on us. In 2018, we slept on white sheets in a first-class, air-conditioned hotel room. Our 1969 breakfast was pound cake or crumbled crackers with peanut butter and jelly, a can of fruit eaten with a plastic spoon, and hot cocoa “in season.” In 2018, our day started with a made-to-order omelet, fresh fruit, cold fruit juice, and freshly made danish pastry or doughnuts. Back then, we humped (walked) everywhere with a 40-lb. pack. Today we rode in an air-conditioned van and left our daypacks inside as we walked around. Instead of drinking lukewarm, bitter-tasting water out of a plastic canteen (in 1969), flavored with presweetened Kool-Aid (or unsweetened Kool-Aid for the strongest among us), we had iced bottled spring water from a cooler in the van, supplemented with cold, fresh fruit. In 1969, we wore the same sweat-absorbing, cotton jungle fatigues for weeks at a time, steel helmets, and jungle boots. This time we had clean clothes every day — quick-dry, lightweight pants and shirts, hiking shoes, and ventilated hats. Some of us even wore underwear. On the last day, I sat with Glyn’s son David and celebrated the trip’s end with a cold beer. In 1969, we drank our soda and beer in the morning or evening because that’s when it was coolest. It was never cold.
While serving in Vietnam, I never imagined going back. I am glad I did. I needed to see those places again. In 1969, I mostly followed the guy in front of me and did what they told me. In 2018 I wanted to see if the places I went to, that we fought over, made more strategic sense now than they did then. They don’t. Driving from Da Nang to Quang Ngai each day gave me more perspective about how big the country is — the vastness of the mountains and the flatlands. There was no way 540,000 soldiers (only about 1/3 serving in combat) could control that country. We were, as we later found out, just doing our part in a war of attrition. We were bait to draw the NVA/VC into the open so that the full might of the U.S. military — artillery, bombs, rockets — could rain down on them. Choosing our battles wisely was the way to high NVA/VC casualties and crushing defeats for them was the way to a U.S. victory.
Each day of our Vietnam trip, we got more used to the heat. Old ways came back. Our big meals were in the morning and the evening. In the afternoon heat, we drank more water and ate lighter — crackers and fruit. Each day we got more used to being there and seeing the Vietnamese people. I started to enjoy walking around: walking across fields, the banks of rice paddies, following trails, streams, and narrow walking bridges. Kind of like 1969 but with a significant difference — no threat of being killed! The truth is that, in 1969, once I got used to the heat I didn’t mind the humping. It was like backpacking and camping with regular resupply. Rice paddies or mountains, it didn’t matter.
I didn’t get to talk to the Vietnamese as much as I wanted. Our driver wasn’t an interpreter. We didn’t speak much Vietnamese other than to give directions. In hindsight, I wish I had taken the time to learn more of the language. The people working in the fields were busy. They still plant rice and harvest as they did then. The fields are much bigger due to the irrigation. I saw mostly old people, people around my age — older and younger — working. I didn’t see any teens or other young people. I think most of them have scooters and go to the city to work. I seldom saw infants and young children in the countryside. Young people who work in the hotels spoke a little English. The least conversational of them had three basic questions they asked each time they saw us. “When did you arrive? How long are you staying? Are you enjoying your stay?” Oddly, they asked us what Vietnam was like 49 years ago.
Most people were friendly; some even joked with us — the guy who wanted me to pose with an American dollar as if he had to pay me to take a picture, the woman who noticed Glyn dragging as we walked along the street who wanted to give him some free gas to get him going. Some Vietnamese were indifferent, but no one was angry. Even an old woman who vociferously let Glyn know that she did not want to have her picture taken smiled at me when I clasped my hands in front of me and bowed to apologize.
Vietnam is a Communist country, but capitalism has taken hold. It welcomes and caters to tourists. There are a great number of hotels — independents and all the major chains like Sheraton and Marriott. The downtown of Da Nang is lit up like Las Vegas — wide streets and neon lights, huge expansion bridges, new “skyscrapers” downtown, and plenty of people on scooters. There are shops along each street and the side street selling name-brand clothes, shoes, backpacks, and electronics, just like those sold in the U.S. Check your labels for “Made in Vietnam” stickers. There was even a shop with a large selection of porcelain toilets. Progress has, indeed, come to Vietnam.
The road from Tam Ky to Quang Ngai was almost all open-air shops and large manufacturing plants. We saw few police or soldiers. Glyn, David, and I could travel the countryside and walk wherever we wanted. People smiled, waved, and gave us a “thumbs up,” and some flashed a peace sign, the “V” we used to exchange with other soldiers back in 1969. Vietnam will remain Communist, but it is not a threat to us.
Although I am sure there are some, we did not see any monuments or plaques celebrating Communist victories over the Americans. There was a park in Da Nang with a tank, an airplane, a helicopter, and weapons left behind by the Americans, or more likely the ARVN — the Army of the Republic of Vietnam — the Saigon regime. What we saw elsewhere were rows of coffins commemorating the war dead — the Vietnamese who fought the Americans. In 1969, we wondered if the Vietnamese villagers cared what government controlled Vietnam or if they just wanted to work their fields. I don’t know what they think today. The American soldiers and most of the Vietnamese soldiers are now gone. I saw plenty of closed military posts. The villagers remain, working their fields.
I admit the trip was mostly selfish, but our friends and former soldiers were in Glyn’s and my thoughts each day of the trip. I hope the trip, revisiting sites where we soldiered together, is seen as a small tribute to them — to their service.
I went back to Vietnam (2018) because Glyn asked me. I didn’t need any more reason than that. That’s not to say that I didn’t have a personal interest in going. I did. I wanted to see the places the First Platoon had been to, how those places that had been so important to me once were today. I wanted to see what Vietnam was like today; to talk to the people of Vietnam and learn what they thought about the “American War” then, and what they think of us today.
I wasn’t going to Vietnam to reclaim the sites where we fought the Vietnamese and where our friends were wounded and died. I don’t think like that. I wasn’t looking for “closure,” if that means “to forget what happened there.” I want to remember Vietnam. I want to think of it often to remember the men I served with, especially those who died there then and the men who brought their war home and have died here. I have suffered survivor guilt since August 15, 1969. It has taken me a long time to learn to live with it, to develop an uneasy peace with my time in Vietnam. Most nights now I can sleep, but there are times that I go over and over again in my head what happened there, wishing I had done more — something different that might have saved a life. I tell myself remembering is okay — it keeps alive the memories of those I served with in Vietnam. As long as I remember, some part of them is alive. I want to remember how hard it was just to survive, how it felt to lose friends — even those that I wasn’t close to. I want to remember the cost of war so that it doesn’t become too easy to accept the deaths of different generations in America’s military actions around the world. I sometimes question if my life has been meaningful enough. Have I taken advantage of the opportunities that Tufts, Jerry, James, Danny, and the others never had? Those are thoughts I struggle with today.
Vietnam taught me many lessons; among them was the meaning of friendship. It’s more than just accumulating acquaintances, people you socialize with, or those with shared interests. A true friend is one who supports and forgives you when you are at your worst, champions you when you are at your best, and someone who will risk his life for you. I have that kind of friend in Glyn. I also learned to choose my battles, literally and figuratively. There are things worth fighting for: family (that includes a best friend who is like a brother), a way of life, ideals, and freedom. Things that endure. Girlfriends, possessions, ideology, and opinions — not so much.
To say Vietnam had changed is an understatement. Forty-nine years allows for a lot of change. We found all the places we remembered with the help of military action reports, military maps, and Google Maps. The places didn’t look the same, but they were still familiar, especially “the bridge,” where I first joined the platoon and where Glyn got to know Lt. Baxter and the First Platoon soldiers.
There were no monuments to the North Vietnamese or the VC, or propaganda against us that we saw. No signs of the bitter fighting that took place 49 years earlier other than stark and untended “martyr” cemeteries near LZ Bronco and LZ 411. Nature and the villagers have reclaimed the land. The rocky hilltops where we fled the fire and where the enemy killed Tufts is now lush and green with trees. LZ Charlie Brown is a resort area because of its beautiful beaches. LZ Debbie’s barren, rocky surface, was reforested at some time, and it, too, is green. The “Rice Bowl” that was the site of heavy fighting, casualties, and deaths was now a man-made lake with clear, blue-green water. People were boating and fishing at the lake. Kids hang out at the dam built to create the lake. Even the site of what Glyn and I call the “Rice Bowl” incident has changed. It is part of the irrigation pathway for the valley below a dam. The August 13 and August 15 areas were flat and dry. The farmers excavated the land, created irrigation channels and widened the ditch that was so prominent on August 13th. The flat, dry, and barren area where we left Vietnamese bodies is now fertile — a part of acres of rice paddies, watermelon patches, and cornfields. LZ 4-11 is the site of a public cemetery. The “hill” is slowly “eroding” as construction workers dig away the soil and rocks on its south side to use for construction projects elsewhere.
The contrasts between 1969 and 2018 were surreal. In 1969, we slept in the field on ponchos on the ground. In the heat and humidity, we sweated just trying to sleep. We had to spray insect repellent around the edges of our ponchos to keep ants from crawling on us. In 2018, we slept on white sheets in a first-class, air-conditioned hotel room. Our 1969 breakfast was pound cake or crumbled crackers with peanut butter and jelly, a can of fruit eaten with a plastic spoon, and hot cocoa “in season.” In 2018, our day started with a made-to-order omelet, fresh fruit, cold fruit juice, and freshly made danish pastry or doughnuts. Back then, we humped (walked) everywhere with a 40-lb. pack. Today we rode in an air-conditioned van and left our daypacks inside as we walked around. Instead of drinking lukewarm, bitter-tasting water out of a plastic canteen (in 1969), flavored with presweetened Kool-Aid (or unsweetened Kool-Aid for the strongest among us), we had iced bottled spring water from a cooler in the van, supplemented with cold, fresh fruit. In 1969, we wore the same sweat-absorbing, cotton jungle fatigues for weeks at a time, steel helmets, and jungle boots. This time we had clean clothes every day — quick-dry, lightweight pants and shirts, hiking shoes, and ventilated hats. Some of us even wore underwear. On the last day, I sat with Glyn’s son David and celebrated the trip’s end with a cold beer. In 1969, we drank our soda and beer in the morning or evening because that’s when it was coolest. It was never cold.
While serving in Vietnam, I never imagined going back. I am glad I did. I needed to see those places again. In 1969, I mostly followed the guy in front of me and did what they told me. In 2018 I wanted to see if the places I went to, that we fought over, made more strategic sense now than they did then. They don’t. Driving from Da Nang to Quang Ngai each day gave me more perspective about how big the country is — the vastness of the mountains and the flatlands. There was no way 540,000 soldiers (only about 1/3 serving in combat) could control that country. We were, as we later found out, just doing our part in a war of attrition. We were bait to draw the NVA/VC into the open so that the full might of the U.S. military — artillery, bombs, rockets — could rain down on them. Choosing our battles wisely was the way to high NVA/VC casualties and crushing defeats for them was the way to a U.S. victory.
Each day of our Vietnam trip, we got more used to the heat. Old ways came back. Our big meals were in the morning and the evening. In the afternoon heat, we drank more water and ate lighter — crackers and fruit. Each day we got more used to being there and seeing the Vietnamese people. I started to enjoy walking around: walking across fields, the banks of rice paddies, following trails, streams, and narrow walking bridges. Kind of like 1969 but with a significant difference — no threat of being killed! The truth is that, in 1969, once I got used to the heat I didn’t mind the humping. It was like backpacking and camping with regular resupply. Rice paddies or mountains, it didn’t matter.
I didn’t get to talk to the Vietnamese as much as I wanted. Our driver wasn’t an interpreter. We didn’t speak much Vietnamese other than to give directions. In hindsight, I wish I had taken the time to learn more of the language. The people working in the fields were busy. They still plant rice and harvest as they did then. The fields are much bigger due to the irrigation. I saw mostly old people, people around my age — older and younger — working. I didn’t see any teens or other young people. I think most of them have scooters and go to the city to work. I seldom saw infants and young children in the countryside. Young people who work in the hotels spoke a little English. The least conversational of them had three basic questions they asked each time they saw us. “When did you arrive? How long are you staying? Are you enjoying your stay?” Oddly, they asked us what Vietnam was like 49 years ago.
Most people were friendly; some even joked with us — the guy who wanted me to pose with an American dollar as if he had to pay me to take a picture, the woman who noticed Glyn dragging as we walked along the street who wanted to give him some free gas to get him going. Some Vietnamese were indifferent, but no one was angry. Even an old woman who vociferously let Glyn know that she did not want to have her picture taken smiled at me when I clasped my hands in front of me and bowed to apologize.
Vietnam is a Communist country, but capitalism has taken hold. It welcomes and caters to tourists. There are a great number of hotels — independents and all the major chains like Sheraton and Marriott. The downtown of Da Nang is lit up like Las Vegas — wide streets and neon lights, huge expansion bridges, new “skyscrapers” downtown, and plenty of people on scooters. There are shops along each street and the side street selling name-brand clothes, shoes, backpacks, and electronics, just like those sold in the U.S. Check your labels for “Made in Vietnam” stickers. There was even a shop with a large selection of porcelain toilets. Progress has, indeed, come to Vietnam.
The road from Tam Ky to Quang Ngai was almost all open-air shops and large manufacturing plants. We saw few police or soldiers. Glyn, David, and I could travel the countryside and walk wherever we wanted. People smiled, waved, and gave us a “thumbs up,” and some flashed a peace sign, the “V” we used to exchange with other soldiers back in 1969. Vietnam will remain Communist, but it is not a threat to us.
Although I am sure there are some, we did not see any monuments or plaques celebrating Communist victories over the Americans. There was a park in Da Nang with a tank, an airplane, a helicopter, and weapons left behind by the Americans, or more likely the ARVN — the Army of the Republic of Vietnam — the Saigon regime. What we saw elsewhere were rows of coffins commemorating the war dead — the Vietnamese who fought the Americans. In 1969, we wondered if the Vietnamese villagers cared what government controlled Vietnam or if they just wanted to work their fields. I don’t know what they think today. The American soldiers and most of the Vietnamese soldiers are now gone. I saw plenty of closed military posts. The villagers remain, working their fields.
I admit the trip was mostly selfish, but our friends and former soldiers were in Glyn’s and my thoughts each day of the trip. I hope the trip, revisiting sites where we soldiered together, is seen as a small tribute to them — to their service.