Tom Glenn's Blog, page 119

The Battle of Xuân Lộc

I just learned that the South Vietnamese General Lê Minh Đảo died in a Hartford, Connecticut hospital on 19 March 2020 at the age of 87. General Đảo commanded South Vietnamese forces at Xuân Lộc, some twenty miles northeast of Saigon in the final days of the Vietnam war. His 18th Infantry Division fought bravely from 9 to 21 April 1975 against three North Vietnamese divisions before being withdrawn to defend Saigon. Xuân Lộc was the last obstacle to the communists. After the North Vietnamese captured it, they surrounded Saigon. The city fell to the communists on 29 April 1975.

I was in my office at Tan Son Nhat on the northern edge of Saigon when the North Vietnamese captured Xuân Lộc. I was struggling to evacuate my 43 subordinates and their wives and children as the communist threat against Saigon grew. The fall of Xuân Lộc was Saigon’s death knell. By dint of sheer determination, I was able to get all my people safely out of the country before the final conquest. I escaped under fire on the night of 29 April.

General Đảo did not escape. After surrendering to the North Vietnamese on 9 May 1975, he was imprisoned for the next seventeen years. When he was finally released in 1992, he fled to the U.S.

The courage and self-sacrifice of General Đảo and others like him remain the unwritten story of the end of Vietnam. I am grateful for their acts of bravery.

Doctor TQM

I have a supply of sweat clothes I use for working out during cool weather. Last week, as I put a sweaty shirt and pants in the wash and got out a new set, the shirt caught my eye. It was white with “DR TQM” in large letter across the front. It brought back memories I hadn’t thought about in a long time.

In the late 1980s or early 1990s—I don’t remember the date—I headed the National Security Agency (NSA) Total Quality Management (TQM) staff. My job was to introduce the agency to the concept and principles of TQM to improve its performance. Right around the same time, I completed my graduate studies at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and was awarded my doctorate in Public Administration.

My tiny staff of four people celebrated my new doctoral degree by presenting me with the DR TQM sweatshirt.

In my memory, those were happy days. I struggled to persuade the NSA top managers to lead rather than to manage—that is, to uplift and support subordinates and encourage them to be all that they could be instead of trying to control them. I was only partly successful, but where leadership became the rule, the achievements were noteworthy.

When I completed my tour and moved on to other duties, the TQM movement fizzled. The staff was eventually dissolved. I was never able to persuade the top agency managers to change their ways. But the agency and I both benefited from my efforts.

Rerun: What Is Courage? (2)

My blog of yesterday leaves me with the question: If it wasn’t courage that got me through the fall of Saigon, what was it?

Some of it was sheer stubbornness: I wasn’t about to let the North Vietnamese beat me at my own game.

I refused to give in. I was determined to get all my men and their wives and children out before they got killed. I knew I had to stay to the end. The Ambassador wouldn’t allow me to leave. And although he forbade me from evacuating my people, I did it anyway, under any ruse I could think of.

I was so fixated on the survival of my people that I had no energy left to think about my own. I recall momentary thoughts that I might not make it out alive, but somehow that wasn’t important enough to distract me from my self-assigned mission: all my guys and their wives and children were going to escape no matter what it cost.

I don’t claim any credit for that. It was my job. And I don’t see that as courage. It was concentrated attention to my mission. And pigheadedness.

If the goal is important enough, nothing else matters. Maybe Ike in Last of the Annamese has it right: “Do what you have to do, whatever it takes.”

Rerun: What Is Courage?

When I tell the story of the fall of Saigon, listeners come up to me afterwards and accuse me of having courage. I plead not guilty. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, courage is facing danger without fear. Believe me, I was scared the whole time.

Men and women I’ve talked to who are, by my standards, heroes for their acts of bravery, often say they were not being brave. All they did was what was required by the circumstances at the time. And I remember reading somewhere long ago a description of a man standing in front of a mirror and watching himself tremble with fear after carrying out an act of bravery and thinking wryly to himself: “This is the portrait of a hero.”

What the protagonist of Last of the Annamese, Chuck Griffin, does at the end of the book could be described as courageous. But he clearly doesn’t see it that way. He’d use words from his friend, Ike: “You do what you have to do, whatever it takes.”

Looking back on the last days in Saigon, what I remember most vividly is my determination to get all my men and their families out of Vietnam safely before it fell. It took every scrap of strength I had; I didn’t have time to dwell on my fear that I might not make it out. Toward the end, I wrote a letter to a neighbor of ours back in the states and told her to deliver that letter to my wife if I didn’t make it. At the time, I really didn’t see how I was going to get out of Saigon alive. That letter was another thing I had to do, whatever it took. When I made it back to the world alive, the marriage collapsed. I burned the letter unread.

So what is courage? I honestly don’t know. What Chuck and I had doesn’t fit the description. Maybe what drives people to risk their lives is more like determination or focus on a goal of overwhelming importance. Maybe some things are more important staying alive.

I’d welcome comments from readers: what is courage?

More tomorrow.

Presidential Dictums

The press these days is overloaded with criticism of President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Newspapers point out that he dismissed the problem as “hoax” early on but later declared himself a “wartime president” to confront disease’s spread.

I think the president’s words speak for themselves. Here are dated quotes from him about the pandemic:

January 24: “It will all work out well.” January 30: “We have it very well under control.” February 2: “We pretty much shut it down.” February 10: “When it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” February 19: “The numbers are going to get progressively better.” February 27: “One day, like a miracle, it will disappear.” March 4: “It’s very mild.” March 6: “There is no testing kit shortage.” March 7: “I’m not concerned at all.” March 10: “It will go away. Just stay calm.” March 13: “I don’t take responsibility at all.” March 16: “I’ve felt that it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” March 19: “Nobody knew there’d be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion.”

As of 23 March, the pandemic statistics in the U.S. read as follows: Covid-19 cases: 35,070. Deaths: 458.

Rerun: Cancer (2)

A second factor that helped me recover from cancer was that I never stopped working. Even on my worst days, I wrote. When the Naval Institute Press (NIP) accepted Last of the Annamese for publication in 2016, I redoubled my efforts. I worked on the proofs of Annamese and struggled through the editing process with a genuinely excellent editor from NIP to get the book ready for publication in March 2017. At the same time, I continued work on Secretocracy, a novel based on my years in intelligence. That book is due for publication this month by Adelaide, a New York publisher.

Recovery from the cancer has taken much longer than I expected. I realize now that the cancer came close to doing me in. And it took five years to get completely back on my feet. I have come to understand that there was a third factor that led to my recovery: utter bullheadedness. After years of risking my life on the battlefields in Vietnam, I wasn’t about to let a little thing like cancer take me out.

These days, until recently, I stuck to my demanding work routine. Besides writing, I was up to my elbows in promoting my books with presentations and readings. I was working ten-hour days and loving every minute. Then, with the onset of the coronavirus scare, venues where I give presentations, do readings, and conduct classes have all closed down. I suddenly find myself, for the first time in memory, isolated with time on my hands. I’m disciplining myself to use the extra time to work on the two novels I have sketched out.

So three factors led to my survival and recovery from cancer: my underlying excellent health, my devotion to my work, and my undiluted pigheadedness.

And I’m deeply grateful for my good luck.

Rerun: Cancer

A friend who follows this blog asked me why I never mention my battle with cancer. Somehow, it seems irrelevant. But just to set the record straight, here’s the story:

In 2013, I coughed up blood. My primary care physician said it was nothing to worry about. He diagnosed me with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Early in 2015, I brought up blood again. Since my doctor had told me not to worry about it, I didn’t go see him until time for my regular checkup in May. He sent me for a chest x-ray. I had a large tumor.

I underwent maximum chemotherapy and radiation for almost half a year, and then, in November 2015, a surgeon removed the upper lobe from my right lung. Initial recovery took about a year, and I still was not completely fit. I had a bad cough, and I lacked energy. But the tumor was gone. Repeated tests since then show no lingering signs of cancer.

I tried a number of times to resume weight lifting after my recovery from cancer but could never summon the sheer strength required. Then, earlier this year, I was finally able to do it. I started with very low weights, gradually increasing the load and number of repeats. Now I’m to the point that I’m doing twelve different lifts, three sets each, with respectable loads. I do the routine every other day. It takes about two hours. I’m looking better, and I feel great.

My surgeon and oncologist in 2015 were frankly thrilled at my ability to withstand the treatments and the surgery. I was, in every other respect, a pinnacle of health. I was a runner until my right knee gave out in 2013, and I’ve always been a devoted weight lifter. That meant that I had to watch my diet to be sure I stayed trim enough to run and work out. The end result was that I survived both the cancer and the treatment (chemotherapy and radiation) with flying colors. And I’ve never returned to the physician who failed to diagnose the cancer in 2013.

More tomorrow.

Rerun: The Gift: Foreseeing the Future

A blog reader questioned me about the gift of the protagonist of Last of the Annamese for foreseeing the future. How could that be? How did it work?

In Last of the Annamese, I tell of the ability of Chuck Griffin to foretell coming events. I describe how “he’d let his consciousness rove over patterns and trends and the flow of events until he knew what was going to happen next.” That depiction is derived from my own experience.

How does it work? I have no idea. My experience during the Vietnam war was that I discovered how to let my mind blur while I studied events. I’d let it wander over the data. Then, sometimes suddenly, I’d know what would happen next. I don’t know how I did it. Others with the same gift were equally puzzled.

One result was that we developed over the years a series of indicators. When the North Vietnamese did x, y followed. The system was too vague to be called scientific; it was intuition at work. I’ve always thought that the best analogy was the sense of smell: it was almost as if when a certain combination of scents appeared, I’d foresee the next event. My guess is that the gift springs from an ability to be in touch with one’s unconscious. That ability dominates my writing.

Rerun: Armed South Vietnamese Air Force Officers Demand Evacuation at Gun Point (2)

Before Bob and Gary and I left our office, we destroyed our crypto and comms equipment. Then we went to the evacuation staging area. Bob and Gary flew out on a helicopter at 1400 hours the afternoon of 29 April 1975. I followed that night carrying the two flags that had stood beside my desk, the stars and stripes and gold and orange banner of the now defunct Republic of Vietnam. Those two flags are now in the Cryptologic Museum at Fort Meade, Maryland.

My thoughts often return to those South Vietnamese officers. They were right. The U.S. was planning to abandon them to their fate, leave them behind to face the conquering North Vietnamese. As a result of their rebellious action, they were in fact safely evacuated. Other officers, who trusted the U.S. and took no action, were left behind. They were all killed or imprisoned by the North Vietnamese.

I knew some of those left behind. I had worked with them, shared time in the field with them. They had invited to me to their homes where I met their wives and children. To this day, I mourn their loss.

Rerun: Armed South Vietnamese Air Force Officers Demand Evacuation at Gun Point

In the final pages of my novel, Last of the Annamese, the protagonist, Chuck Griffin learns that South Vietnamese Air Force officers have forced their way into the DAO building (on the northern edge of Saigon at Tan Son Nhat) and are demanding safe evacuation from Vietnam at gun point—the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese is imminent. Chuck and his office mates receive orders to proceed immediately to the U.S. evacuation staging area.

The event described really happened. In the early hours of the morning on 29 April 1975, Bob, Gary, and I—the only ones left of the 43 men who had been assigned to my office in Saigon—received a telephone call telling us that the officers were roaming the halls, guns drawn. We were to leave our office suite and go immediately to the evacuation staging area, another office the U.S. Marines had secured. So we sent our last message. It’s a personal message from me to my boss, General Lew Allen, the Director of NSA. It’s now declassified so I can quote it:

HAVE JUST RECEIVED WORD TO EVACUATE. AM NOW DESTROYING REMAINING CLASSIFIED MATERIAL. WILL CEASE TRANSMISSIONS IMMEDIATELY AFTER THIS MESSAGE.
WE’RE TIRED BUT OTHERWISE ALL RIGHT. LOOKS LIKE THE BATTLE FOR SAIGON IS ON FOR REAL.
FROM GLENN: I COMMEND TO YOU MY PEOPLE WHO DESERVE THE BEST NSA CAN GIVE THEM FOR WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN THROUGH BUT ESPECIALLY FOR WHAT THEY HAVE ACHIEVED.

I added “from Glenn” before the final paragraph to assure that General Allen would know these words were from me personally.

More tomorrow.