Tom Glenn's Blog, page 142

My Many Tours in Vietnam

More than two years ago, I posted a blog here about why I served so long and so often in Vietnam. It’s time to update that post.

Every year between 1962 and 1975, I was in Vietnam at least four months. I had two PCS (permanent change of station, a stay that lasts two to three years) tours and so many TDYs (temporary duty trips that last from one day to many months) that I lost count. Why did I go into a war zone so often? Was I required to make those many trips to Vietnam?

No. They were all voluntary. I was not in the military—I had completed my army enlistment before the government hired me. I was a civilian employee of the National Security Agency (NSA). I did it because I felt I had to.

The U.S. was at war. I didn’t question the validity of that war. That wasn’t my job. Few if any other NSA employees had the needed skills to do the job on the battlefield. I spoke Vietnamese, Chinese, and French, the three languages of Vietnam. I was professionalized in many different cryptologic disciplines. I knew the radio communications of the invading North Vietnamese as if they were my own—I’d been intercepting and exploiting them since 1960. And I was willing to go into combat with the units I was supporting, both army and Marine Corps, all over South Vietnam. That combination made me unique.

I was, in short, capable of supporting military forces on the battlefield better than any of my counterparts. That made me feel compelled to be of service. My willingness to go into combat made me very popular with the forces serving in Vietnam. No sooner would I get back to the states (what we called “the real world”) than a message would arrive saying, “Send Glenn back,” and back I’d go.

I was and still am patriotic. I genuinely love my country, with all its flaws, and believe with all my heart that it is the best country in the world. I couldn’t tolerate the idea of sitting, safe and sound, back in the U.S. while my military buddies, the guys I’d come to know so well by serving at their side, were risking their lives. If I wanted to live with myself, I had to go back and do all I could to help.

More tomorrow.

My Last Counterpart in Vietnam (3)

A few months later, I was invited to a ceremony honoring the general. He was to be given a medal. I refused to attend. That brought a reprimand from the deputy director of NSA, Ann Caracristi. Summoned to her office, I referred her to the messages I had sent General Allen about the general’s emotional collapse. I told her of his escape and his abandonment of his troops. She told me that General Allen, when he left the job as director, had destroyed all his eyes-only messages. She had never seen them. She had been unaware of the general’s actions at the end of the war.

She declined to call off the ceremony honoring the general, but she allowed me to boycott the event. I learned years later that a few other people knew of my reports to General Allen. These were the guys in my comms shop who encrypted my eyes-only messages for General Allen and the communicators at NSA who had to decrypt the messages for him. When my counterpart general died a few years later, we all refused to attend his funeral.

Hence my dishonorable counterpart. I wish I could label his behavior as rare, but such cowardice and self-service at considerable cost to others were run-of-the-mill in the South Vietnamese government. There were also noble and courageous South Vietnamese officers and officials who acted admirably during the fall of Vietnam. I often wonder if the ending might have been different if there had been more of them.

My Last Counterpart in Vietnam (2)

By early April 1975, the general was hysterical. He sat alone in his darkened office weeping as the North Vietnamese drew ever closer to Saigon. I visited him there, urging him to lead his troops in their mission to determine North Vietnamese intent. I was unable to get him to act. Instead, I worked directly with the most competent of his staff to assure that signals intelligence on the enemy would continue.

Meanwhile, in eyes-only messages (encrypted so that only the intended recipient can read them), I reported in detail to my boss, General Lew Allen, the director of NSA, on my counterpart’s emotional collapse. I and my staff did all we could to motivate his officers to keep the signals intelligence flowing.

By the last week of April, I had succeeded in getting all but two guys of my staff evacuated. The three of us, I and the two communicators who had volunteered to stay with me to the end, were holed up in comms center as the North Vietnamese laid siege to Saigon. After dawn on 29 April, I got a call from a Vietnamese officer I’d been working with. He wanted to know where his boss, the general, was. He’d tried to telephone the general but got no answer. I dialed the general’s number with the same result. I found out much later that the general had somehow made it from his office to the American embassy and got over the wall. He was evacuated safely while his men stayed at their posts awaiting orders from him. They were still there when the North Vietnamese arrived and captured them. Some were killed outright; others were sent to “re-education camps,” concentration camps where so many died.

When I recovered from the illnesses I had come down with during the last week in Saigon (amoebic dysentery and pneumonia due to sleep deprivation, inadequate diet, and muscle fatigue), I returned to NSA. I learned that the agency had hired the general and that he was now working there. Disgusted that he had abandoned his troops and fled to save his own life, I avoided him.

More next time.

My Last Counterpart in Vietnam

Over the years, I’ve mentioned in passing in this blog the general who headed the South Vietnamese government’s agency responsible for signals intelligence in 1974 and 1975. I have not, until now, told his whole story.

His name was and, as far as I know, still is classified. I first met him in 1974 when I headed the covert National Security Agency (NSA) operation in Vietnam. U.S. troops had been withdrawn in 1973, so my entire staff of 43 men were civilians but all, including me, were veterans. The general was in charge of the South Vietnamese signals intelligence effort, whose mission was the same as mine—intercept and exploitation of the radio communications of the invading North Vietnamese. He was my counterpart.

I didn’t much like the general, and over time, I came to respect him less. He knew almost nothing about the signals intelligence discipline, and I learned early on that to get results I had to work with those of his subordinates who were professionals. I began to suspect that he had been named to his job because of his connections with senior officials in the South Vietnamese government, not because of his expertise or even talent. Such corruption was commonplace in the South Vietnamese military. It contributed significantly to the collapse of the armed forces as North Vietnamese victory loomed.

On 9 March 1975, as it became obvious that the North Vietnamese were bent on seizing the northern half of the country as their first step in the final conquest, I flew with the general to prepare his units there for the coming onslaught. He remained mostly mute and distracted. I did the best I could to encourage his troops. We went to Phu Bai, in the far north, then to Ban Me Thuot in the southern reaches of the highlands. We knew from intercepted North Vietnamese communications that the first attack in the highlands would be at Ban Me Thuot. By the time we approached the town, the offensive was already underway. We landed at an airstrip on a hill nearby. While the general was reviewing his troops, I saw the beginnings of a firefight in the valley to our west. We took off as the airstrip came under fire.

Ban Me Thuot fell within days as did the whole northern half of the country. The general was becoming more and more agitated.

More tomorrow.

My Talent for Sleep (2)

So many times during my life, I have had to subsist on a minimum of rest, and I became an expert on sleeping. I learned how to snatch a brief nap of fifteen minutes between shifts at work, snooze during meal breaks, sleep on busses and airplanes and trains. I taught myself to fall asleep instantly and awaken just as fast. When I slept, I slept soundly. I became a master of sleeping.

Since I retired from NSA, I’ve written fulltime and have given presentations and readings at an ever-increasing rate. Once again, I find myself hard put to find enough time to rest. So I’ve become creative. When I have the evening to myself, I put off dinner until eight o’clock, then go to bed, usually by nine. That means I awaken around four in the morning. I work until eleven or so, then eat and sleep for an hour. Then I have the whole afternoon for work. If I’m doing a presentation or a reading, I rearrange my schedule and sleep whenever I can.

As a consequence of the life I’ve chosen to live, my expertise at sleeping is unmatched. I can drop off at a moment’s notice. My sleep is deep and undisturbed. I can sleep in almost any circumstance, alone or surrounded by others. When necessary, I awaken instantly.

Most of my physical and mental abilities have become impaired as I age. Many tasks now take me longer to do than they once did, and the results are less than perfect. But in two activities I’m better than I ever was before. One is writing which keeps improving with time and experience. The other is sleep. I keep getting better at it.

I know writers who are better than I am, but among sleepers I remain unsurpassed.

My Talent for Sleep

Two years ago or so, I wrote here about my unparalleled ability to sleep. I know no one as adept at sleeping as I am. Time to update my post: I’m still the unrivalled master of sleep.

It all started when I was a child. My father was in prison, my mother an alcoholic. Sometimes, I didn’t have enough to eat. I realized that if I was going to survive, I was going to have to take care of myself. So I got part-time jobs to keep myself going. First paper routes, then delivering packages for a drug store, later as a gas station attendant, a theater usher, a store clerk—anything I could find.

One result was that I often didn’t have time for sleep. I got through high school by napping on school busses and during lunch hour. In college, I worked twenty hours a week to earn enough for tuition and food. I missed my college graduation ceremony because I was in the hospital for exhaustion.

I suffered my second bout of exhaustion when I was in my thirties. I went back to school to earn a masters and later a doctorate while working fulltime at a demanding job at the National Security Agency and taking care of my wife and children. I succeeded but wore myself out in the process.

My years in Vietnam between 1962 and 1975 tested my ability to go without sleep. Days and nights on the battlefield often left no time for rest. As the fall of Saigon loomed in April 1975, I went for days without sleep and had almost nothing to eat. After my escape under fire when Saigon fell, I was diagnosed with amoebic dysentery and pneumonia due to inadequate diet, sleep deprivation, and muscle fatigue. I slept for days.

More tomorrow.

The Vietnam Effect (3)

Since I couldn’t seek therapy for my Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI), I knew I had to handle it on my own. If let it go, my memories would ensconce themselves in my unconscious and haunt me with nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks, and irrational rages. I knew that I had to face my memories head-on, bring them into my conscious mind, learn to control my emotions. So I did. I taught myself to face them. I trained my emotions to react less violently.

These days, except for occasional nightmares and involuntary tears, I’m managing my memories. That effort was not helped by another brand of shame.

When I returned to the U.S. after the fall of Saigon, I quickly discovered that Americans considered the war in Vietnam shameful. The less said about it, the better. For decades, I never mentioned my Vietnam experiences. Knowledge that I had engaged in a shameful war for thirteen years made my PTSI worse.

Five or six years ago, that all began to change. I was invited to something I’d never heard of, a celebration to welcome home Vietnam veterans. I decided to risk it. When I arrived at the gathering, young people, not even born when Saigon fell, came up to me, shook my hand, hugged me, and said words I never thought I’d hear: “Thank you for your service. And welcome home.” I cried.

That experience and working with veterans made me aware of another emotion, pride. I have every reason to be proud of my service to my country. The days of shame are gone. These days I no longer hide my Vietnam service. I wear a “Vietnam veteran” pin on my American Legion hat. I have a Vietnam button that I use on some of my casual jackets. When I dress in a suit, I wear my Meritorious Medal button, earned for my work during the fall of Saigon, on one lapel.

I have come to understand that we Vietnam veterans deserve the honors now being given to us. Today, the Vietnam Effect for me is pride.

The Vietnam Effect (2)

My time in Vietnam had a profound effect on me and on my family. My children all remember their time in Vietnam. Most of their memories are not happy ones. They recall the beggars on the streets, some missing limbs. They remember the filth and the stink of Saigon, especially toward the end. They still speak of the heat and the monsoons.

They also remember my absences. Throughout their childhood, both in the U.S. and in Vietnam, their father was often missing. He was on the battlefield, supporting the troops with signals intelligence. They glumly accepted that he wouldn’t be present at first communions and graduations. Father’s Days came and went with no celebration. They knew where he was but never spoke of it—it was classified.

And the experiences in Vietnam changed me. My linguistic proficiency grew rapidly. I was surrounded by the languages I had learned for my job, Vietnamese, Chinese, and French. Living under cover—pretending to be someone I wasn’t—became second nature. My body grew accustomed to the tropical heat and monsoon downpours.

More important, my soul was damaged. I got to know the soldiers and Marines I lived with, slept beside, ate next to, and went into combat with. I know of no stronger love than that of fellow combatants. I watched some of them die. Their deaths were grisly. My memories of each of those deaths are as vivid today as they were the day they happened. Soul-damaging memories never fade.

I suffered more spiritual injury when Saigon fell. The horror of those days is always with me.

Today we call my condition Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI), but for years I didn’t know it had a name. I was ashamed of my inability to shrug off my experiences and resume a care-free life. I knew I needed therapy, but I had top-secret-codeword-plus security clearances. Back in those days, had I gone for therapy I would have lost my clearances and my job. That was not something I could risk with a wife and four children to support.

More tomorrow.

The Vietnam Effect

My participation in the Vietnam war shaped my life. I spent so much time in Vietnam between 1962 and 1975, when I escaped under fire as Saigon fell, that I felt more at home there than in the U.S. I had two complete tours there and so many shorter trips—what we called TDYs (temporary duty)—that I lost count. Most of my writing is about Vietnam. Three of my four novels and the majority of my 17 short stories detail my experiences there.

But I was not in the military in Vietnam. I had completed my military service before the National Security Agency (NSA), my employer, sent me there the first time in 1962. Granted, I was under cover as military in Vietnam until 1973 when U.S. military forces were withdrawn. I dressed in the uniform of the army or Marine Corps unit I was supporting. I cut my hair like that of the troops, lived with them, ate C-rations sitting on the ground next to them, slept beside them, used their latrines, and went into combat with them.

After 1973, my cover was State Department or, briefly, CIA. I dressed as the diplomats did in that tropical climate, white short-sleeve dress shirt and slacks. I and my crew of 43 analysts and communicators were indistinguishable.

On my two permanent assignment tours, between 1963 and 1965 and again in 1974-1975, my wife and my children lived with me in Saigon, my home base. My oldest daughter, Susan, learned Vietnamese and French along with English as a toddler. My family was safely evacuated twenty days before Saigon fell, even though the ambassador, Graham Martin, had forbidden evacuations. I lied, cheated, and stole to get them and my 43 subordinates out of the country before the North Vietnamese took the city. I was the last one out, after the North Vietnamese were already in the streets.

More next time.

Washington Post Review of Honorable Exit

On Sunday, June 16, the Washington Post published on page B7 a review by Pierre Asselin of Thurston Clarke’s Honorable Exit: How a Few Brave Americans Risked All to Save Our Vietnamese Allies at the End of the War (Doubleday, 2019). When the book first came out, I did an interview with the author. You can read it at at http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/an-interview-with-thurston-clarke

The book is of singular interest to me because Clarke describes in scrupulous detail the last six weeks of the Vietnam war which I lived through, escaping under fire when the North Vietnamese captured Saigon. He includes half a dozen anecdotes about me and my struggle to save my South Vietnamese counterparts.

The review devotes several paragraphs to the appalling performance of the U.S. Ambassador, Graham Martin, who refused to believe the warnings from me and others that the North Vietnamese were preparing to attack Saigon. His failure to prepare caused the death of multiple thousands of South Vietnamese and the imprisonment of thousands more.

One paragraph of the review caught my attention for its eloquence and detail: “Boldly assuming that the U.S. government would not leave them behind, these daring Americans refused to board rescue ships and helicopters until most if not all the Vietnamese for whom they felt responsible had departed. Risking their careers and lives, they collectively saved more than 130,000 men, women, and children. ‘America’s first helicopter war,’ Clarke writes, ended with ‘the largest helicopter evacuation in military history.’ Sanctioned by neither the White House nor Ambassador Martin, the effort constituted the biggest wartime evacuation since Dunkirk in 1940 and the largest humanitarian operation in American history to date.”

Nearly all the books I have read on the Vietnam war portray the U.S. performance as abysmal. We deserve that judgment. But the valor of those who, at the end, fought with everything they had to save the South Vietnamese most at risk has, until now, gone untold. I’m grateful to Thurston Clarke for setting the record straight.