Longmeadow, MA 01106
12 April 1990

Dear Elizabeth,

I am sorry that I am late with this letter and report. My excuse is that I got overwhelmed by work. Sound familiar? Anyway, here is my response plus to your questions about Vietnam and the 1960's in general.

What is your full name and occupation?

My name is John J. Fitzgerald. My current occupation is social studies teacher with a main focus on American history and Ancient Civilization. I teach at Longmeadow High School, Longmeadow, MA. I also receive some pension money from the U.S. Army for a wound to my right arm, which I incurred in the Republic of Vietnam in 1966. I have a disability with my right arm and a loss of hearing in my right ear.

Why did you enlist in (the) Vietnam War?

I did not enlist in the Vietnam War so much as I enlisted (joined) the U.S. Army in 1964 with a view of spending some time in Europe. I was not a cold war fanatic. I considered myself to be a liberal person in 1964. I voted for LBJ, not Goldwater, in 1964. I was then, and I remain, a supporter of civil rights. I guess I accepted the idea of the necessity of a military. I knew that force was sometimes necessary to protect innocents from malicious people. It is sad to admit, but some humans are deranged and they will only be controlled or prevented from harming others by force or the threat of force. I was perfectly willing to use force against an enemy of this country. Perhaps I had watched too many WWII films. I knew I had no qualms about killing a Nazi. The death of JFK made me wonder whether there was a providential god. If there was not then we needed to learn how to protect our loved ones and ourselves. I joined the military in 1964. My main allegiance in 1964 was to the ideals of the ACLU not the American Legion.

Another factor in my decision to join the military was an emotional breakup with a young woman I cared about. I quit graduate school and headed for life outside of the Ivory Tower of UMASS. I knew that I would be drafted, so I joined the military. I thought of joining the airborne, the paratroopers. The recruiter let me know that a college graduate would be better off as an officer. I joined and volunteered for OCS (Officer Candidate School) at Fort Benning, Georgia. I hoped to tour Europe as an officer and live the good life of a James Bond. I read every James Bond novel ever written. My mind was filled with those kinds of fantasies.

Did you have a different perspective of the war two years after you enlisted?

Two years after I enlisted, I was in Hawaii training to go to Vietnam. I volunteered to go to Hawaii from Alaska when most of the men in my unit were ordered to go. I had a choice. I felt very noble and felt I had to be with them. I was their Platoon Leader. I guess I felt that Vietnam was going to be like the Dominican Republic in 1965. A show of force would lead to negotiations and a diplomatic settlement. I believed that the communist forces, the NLF, were a minority in Vietnam. I did not know very much about Vietnam at all. I stupidly felt that I should support LBJ because he was supposed to be different from Goldwater, who was a fascist nut. I learned a lot about life in Vietnam. Both Goldwater and Johnson were swine.

In March of 1964 I joined the Army and planned to be in Europe for my tour of duty. Vietnam was not on the front burner of my brain or the country's. In 1966, I was on a ship, MSTS General Walker sailing from Hawaii to Vung Tao, Republic of Vietnam. In Hawaii, I had serious reservations about going but I felt trapped. I would disappoint my family if I did not go. I did not want to die, but I did not want to be a coward either. Perhaps, I needed to prove something to myself. I did not feel "gung-ho" for the war. I saw it as my "duty". I hate the idea of duty. It can lead to a lot of human unhappiness. I occasionally still do my duty, but I am strictly political now. I would never carry a gun for the political establishment again. The alternative to duty is your personal choice. It sounds self-indulgent, but it is what makes us human.

What is it in your background that made you patriotic and how is that at odds with the reality of Vietnam?

Patriotism had nothing to do with Vietnam. Patriotism was a factor for the Vietnamese. It was only a bogus concept for us. We were not fighting a defensive war like WWII. We were fighting a Korean kind of war. We were enforcing the "realpolitik" of containment and the maintenance of the status quo in the world. Some felt that they were doing their duty to their country. This was not a major factor in 1966 when I was in Vietnam. I suppose that we felt we were doing what the country needed, but I found my faith in what we were supposedly doing being undermined in Vietnam. I saw that the Republic of Vietnam was a farce and had a farce army. I saw that the NLF was a tough force and they had most of the countryside. I also felt that we could go nowhere without guns to protect us. We were the enemy. I once told a reporter that this war was like the American Revolution and that I thought we were the British. He asked me if I was a West Pointer. He seemed to think I had a clear insight into the situation.

Patriotism probably covered our minds with a blanket. We wanted to believe that somewhere, somehow all of this was necessary. I was an atheist in Vietnam. I did not go to church. I did not wear medals. I once joked with a friend; called him up on the radio-telephone to tell him that he was talking to an atheist in a foxhole. I had a grim, cynical sense of humor. I was not a theist in college. In college, I was convinced that there was no God. In Vietnam, I was hoping that somehow there was still an America, but daily I was coming to doubt it. I felt myself becoming harder and harder for every day I spent in the country. I was losing my "soul" and becoming a tough, well disciplined soldier. I was fearful, but I accepted the fact that I had chosen to walk into the valley of death. I was the leader of 1st platoon and I was "tough". That was my image and my mask.

I had joined and I had done it to myself.

When I was wounded after two months, I felt overjoyed to have been hit. I knew I was out of there. In a twisted way I came to believe that I was "being spared". One of my men, Sp4 Charles Brown, a machine-gunner was killed the same day that I was wounded. I only found out this year that he was born on the 4th of July! 4 July 1943 His name is on the wall in Washington, D.C.

I was wounded leading a counter-ambush to rescue him and five others from being destroyed after they got ambushed. He was killed on the 26th of June 1966. That day I was wounded. On that day I was born again! Not in the “Born Again” Christian sense!

I was being given an opportunity for a renaissance. I went back to Japan and then to the states. I became one of the most avid readers of history the world has ever known. I needed to know the history of the US in Vietnam. I now had earned my right to question anything on this planet. Nobody, nothing was my superior anymore. If I did not accept what you were saying, because you had no evidence, then you were dishonest. I really enjoyed trashing authority figures. I was the only authority I had respect for. I went back to graduate school in early 1967 at UMASS in Amherst. It was good to be home, but UMASS, not the USA, was my home.

How long did it take you to realize (that) the war was a hoax?

I caught glimpses of the hoax of Vietnam while in Vietnam. It was clear that most of the people did not like us. It was clear that the only reason the Saigon tax collector came into Cu Chi (our area) was because we had made it safe for him. I buried most of these thoughts while in country. My main mission was survival and carrying out my orders. That sounds very Nazi-like today.

I was not a Nazi. We did not kill innocent people. We only fired at enemy combatants. My platoon fired when fired upon. Our artillery probably killed many innocents. Our own artillery once dropped by accident several shells on us. It killed 13. I remember loading the bodies of the men who were wounded onto helicopters. They were turning blue from lack of oxygen.

I remember telling my men that we were not here to kill all the Vietnamese. I tried to preach the mission of a political war. Many of them just wanted to forget the distinctions.

I was happy to be wounded. In Japan I spoke with some of the enlisted men who came to visit me. They did not want to go back to Vietnam. I told them that I agreed. I told them that as far as I was concerned they had earned their trip home. They had done their duty. I don't know if they were sent back to Vietnam. I think if you got evacuated to Japan, then they shipped you home.

In Vietnam I remember talking to a kid who had been wounded 3 times on 3 different occasions. I wondered how he kept his sanity and whether he would survive his next encounter. He was not evacuated to Japan.

In Japan I had a long recovery because my right arm was shattered and the gunshot wound ripped up my shoulder muscles. While in traction, I began reading. I read Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, and Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Those books helped me regain my sanity.

How did you feel returning as a veteran?

I felt good about myself in general. I had time to reflect while in Japan for about 3 months. I came back to the states in September of 1966. In January of 1967 I was back in graduate school at UMass in Amherst. Political Science was my field. The department was split into two camps of hawks and doves. I was treated warmly by all. One day I was walking into the Student Union building and a student saw my arm in a cast and asked if I had broken it skiing and I told him, " No I got wounded in Vietnam." He seemed surprised. I was the first Vietnam Veteran he had encountered. I had a non-union fracture and my right-arm was in an extended support cast that covered 1/2 my body. It was my "hair shirt" of penance I thought. I suppose I became a figure on campus because my cast was unique.

Graduate School was great therapy for me. I had many serious conversations with people about the war and the morality of it. I helped them think about it because I let them know that I had doubts. They probably helped me the most.

I joined the anti-war movement in the summer of 1967 and in October of 1967 I was part of the march on the Pentagon. In November of 1967 I became a part of the McCarthy for President campaign. I helped organize Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1968. I worked in Massachusetts and New Hampshire for McCarthy.

1968 was a very good year for me. It had tremendous promise and I felt that we were about to take control of our lives.

The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy hurt and the Democratic Convention fight was painful. Eventually the conservatives took control and Nixon became President and that was sad for us but even more so for the Vietnamese. 1968 had a lot of pain in it. Bittersweet. It had promise in a way that no year since has had promise. It was great to be alive and young.

Let me spell out why I concluded that the war was immoral and unnecessary. It was undeclared. It was unconstitutional. Vietnam belonged to the Vietnamese. The nationalism of the Vietnamese was real. The tension between China and Vietnam was real. Our attempt to create a phony country called, "The Republic of Vietnam" was part of the problem. I saw this as a form of imperialism. I did not believe that we were going to be seriously threatened by a unified Vietnam. We would still control the Pacific Ocean. I also came to believe that socialism/communism was not that bad a way to run an economy. The immorality of what we were doing in the fighting of the war left me cold. That kind of killing and inhumanity would kill us philosophically, while it killed the Vietnamese literally. I had a respect for the Vietnamese that I did not have before entering their country. In a mystical sense, I felt I could do some good for humanity by speaking up for peace and a negotiated end of the war. I was sick of the war and the madness that said this was our only choice. I wanted to give peace a chance. I asked myself whether I was cheering for the lions or the Christians. I was for the people being devoured by rich, capitalist America. This sounds real sophisticated doesn't it? It is true though. I did not want to see the United States win this war.

By 1990, how have you become assimilated into popular culture?

I have not been assimilated. I am a civilian, but I am still a radical. I like to think of myself as a subversive. That is why I am a teacher. I want people to question the ideas they have been fed by their parents, priests and media. I am opposed to Reagan and Bush. I would like to see Jesse Jackson as President. I don't think that will happen, but I will continue to offer alternatives and issue dissents.

American society is a stupid culture of consumption. It pollutes and it degrades. I ignore mainstream society for the most part. I think one of the legacies of the 1960's is that we have more dissenters and alternatives today. Capitalism remains the dominant, governing ideology.

Do you feel (that) you have (or can) fit back into popular culture being a product of that?

I have answered this in part already. I did not want to marry and have children after Vietnam. In many ways I felt that this world was too insane to willingly bring children into it.

I believe in teaching children how to survive in this chaotic world.

How do you think Vietnam shaped -- for those at home as well as those involved -- the sixties?

Vietnam was an opportunity to confront yourself and ask who you were and what you believed. The Vietnamese provided a dose of reality for the United States. They told us we had better learn to live with limits. They also told us to get out of their country. We finally did.

Vietnam ripped America apart and showed the seamier side. We should never forget what we saw.

The only people who should be sad about Vietnam are the fascists in this country. They lost. They probably want to have another Vietnam in Central America. This time they want to win, of course. The Movement of the 1960's made it too difficult for Nixon to pulverize Vietnam with nuclear weapons. Perhaps those same folks have restrained, with limited success, the hand of Bush in Central America. We are all a little more familiar with world geography today. It is not easy to be an imperialist today. Low intensity conflict seems to be the route they will take. Grenada and Panama have been invaded, but I don't see much of a chance for another Vietnam. If we cut our defense budget, then the world will become a safer place. It will be safer for people, but more dangerous for capitalists.

Well that is the longest letter I have written to anyone. I hope it helps.

Let me know when it arrives.

Best,


John J. Fitzgerald