Tom Glenn's Blog, page 169

Official Optimism and Vietnam (2)

Another aspect of the upbeat reporting by U.S. administrations during Vietnam was what I consider to be a misunderstanding of the nature of the war by the U.S. military. General Westmoreland and his subordinate commanders saw the conflict as a contest of attrition. They fought a conventional war with large combat units taking to the field in pursuit of the enemy. Their measure of success was body counts, often no more than an estimate, because of the North Vietnamese practice of removing the bodies of their slain from the battlefield. Body counts, in sum, was a misleading indicator.

The North Vietnamese, moreover, doggedly pursued a stratagem of guerrilla warfare summed up in the words of Mao Tse Tung: “The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.” Hence, the U.S. military spent a great of time looking for the enemy and not finding him.

What repeatedly baffled American officials was that the data showed we were winning the war, but the enemy kept getting larger and controlling more and more territory. How could that be?

Because we Americans didn’t understand the war that the North Vietnamese were fighting. They focussed on the village and hamlet level, spreading their control with small irregular units and political cadre while avoiding contact with U.S. military units. Over time, their strategy worked, and we never understood why.

Next time: a footnote.

Official Optimism and Vietnam

I’m currently writing a review of Brian VanDeMark’s Road to Disaster: A New History of America’s Descent into Vietnam. The book is due to go on sale on 18 September 2018. Once my review is published, I’ll post a URL here.

I’m impressed with VanDeMark’s grasp of the history of the Vietnam war and the detail he includes. A theme that recurs throughout the narration is how official optimism misled Presidents Kennedy and Johnson in their decision making about the war.

During the entire period covered by the book I was in Vietnam at least four months each year. I had two complete tours there and so many shorter trips that I lost count. I remember being struck by the upbeat portrayal of the war from the administrations then in power. I scratched my had in wonder that they could see only the bright side of the picture and ignore the more foreboding news from the battlefield. Optimism was becoming wishful thinking. Self-delusion was quick to follow.

I know that some of the misunderstanding came from reporting by U.S. forces in Vietnam. I know that the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) and many U.S. generals stressed, for example, the huge losses suffered by the North Vietnamese. But I also knew that those figures were exaggerated. And what the numbers did not take into account was the determination of the North Vietnamese to seize all of South Vietnam even if every member of their forces had to die in the process. The U.S. had no such resolve.

I’ll have more to say about the book over time, but I’ll conclude this post by pointing out that U.S. forces won every major battle in Vietnam, but we lost the war.

Leadership Versus Management (2)

I wrote in this blog some time back the story of how I failed to use leadership with the 43 guys working for me in Saigon as the fall of the city to the North Vietnamese loomed in April 1975. At the risk of repeating myself, it’s worth revisiting.

By the middle of March 1975, I knew that the North Vietnamese would take Saigon. The U.S. Ambassador, Graham Martin, forbade me to evacuate my people and their families. In essence, he didn’t believe it was possible that South Vietnam would fall to the enemy—it was unthinkable. I cheated, lied, and stole to get the people I was responsible for safely out of the country. I succeeded. By the end only I and the two communicators who had volunteered to stay with me remained.

But I didn’t tell my guys that the ambassador has refused to allow them to be evacuated. At the time, it seemed to me that they had enough to worry about without that burden. I thought that they never knew. I was wrong.

Last year, I met one of my former subordinates for coffee. He told me that the men in comms center had read the eyes-only messages I was sending the Director of NSA, General Lew Allen, about my predicament and how I intended to solve it by sending my men and their families out of the country on any ruse I could think of. In short, all of them knew what was going on.

As a former NSA colleague pointed out to me when I told that story earlier in the blog, I should have expected NSA employees to use all the skills they had mastered to learn what was really going on. We NSAers all did that all the time. We had invariably figured out what our bosses were up to long before they made their actions public.

What’s more important is that I managed when I should have been leading. A cardinal rule of leadership is to share information with the followers. Instead, I tried, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to withhold the ambassador’s orders from them. As a leader, I should have trusted them to have the fortitude to withstand the bad news. But they, God bless them, outsmarted me.

Leadership Versus Management

Early in this blog, I wrote at length about why leadership is better than management in any undertaking involving people. Management is for things, leadership for people. I emphasized that while management stresses control, leadership is, at its essence, freeing people to do their very best. Ultimately, leadership is a form of love.

As I pointed out, leadership is far harder than management. It demands undivided attention to the goal of the operation and to the welfare, growth, and fulfillment of those working toward that goal. That means that I, as a leader, must direct all my awareness to the followers and direct none to myself or my ego. When it works, leadership accomplishes miracles.

I learned early in my career that leadership produced results while management prevented mistakes. As a section chief over a half dozen workers, I lifted up my subordinates rather than holding them down. Each promotion I got was grudgingly given—the results I achieved demanded promotion even though my method was contrary to the organization’s culture which stressed keeping employees under control. Even when I reached the executive ranks, I led rather than managed. It always worked.

One experience I had is especially precious to me. One of my subordinates, who I led and encouraged to be the best that he could be, moved up in the organization and became my superior. From that position, he led me. He urged me to attain new levels of excellence and supported me in ways that reminded me of myself. I was a leader being led. I was fulfilled.

Family Versus Duty

During all my years at the National Security Agency (NSA), I was torn between the needs of my four children and my duty as a defender of our country. I’ve written extensively in this blog about my thirteen years in and out of Vietnam, but I haven’t talked about the years after 1975. That’s because my work during those years is still classified. The tension between the calls of the nation and the duties of a father continued until I retired as early as I could in 1996 to write full-time.

Throughout those years, I gave my duty as a patriot priority over the needs of my children for a father. That meant I was often out of the country, away from my children as they were growing up, for extended periods. There is no question in my mind that they suffered as a result. So did I. And yet, looking back, I conclude that my decision was the morally correct one.

Part of the reason for that conclusion is that in so many cases, there was no one else available to do the job who had the requisite talent and training. I was comfortable in seven languages and often knew the signals intelligence business better than anyone else available at the moment. I was combat-tested and could work effectively on the battlefield. I was adept at operating under cover. I had better than average ability to withstand exhaustion. I was used to living in danger and had developed a sixth sense for detecting the presence and threat of those inimical to the interests of the U.S.

I did everything I could to keep my children with me. My children went with me on two tours in South Vietnam—they spent more than five years of their childhood living in Saigon and escaped only twenty days before the city fell in 1975. After Vietnam, I had no more full tours abroad, but I had many shorter “temporary duty” trips—hence the term TDY—that took me away from them.

So my children suffered the privation of a father’s absence. And I learned the pain of being away from them. To the degree that I am a patriot, they, too, are patriots. They gave up time with their father for the good of the country. The U.S. should honor them, as it does me, for their sacrifice.

1984 in 2018

On August 13, Anu Garg, the author of the daily email called “A.Word.A.Day,” began a week-long series comparing the statements from President Trump with sentences that appear in George Orwell’s 1984. I quote from his email:

“Words from 1984 that are now a part of the language . . . George Orwell predicted it. It’s just that his numbers were a little off. Instead of 1984, it happened some 30 years later (perhaps Orwell didn’t have access to a computer fast enough to precisely account for the retrograde motion of Jupiter).

“Anyway, compare:

“‘What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.’

(US President, July 24, 2018)

“‘The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.’

(Orwell in 1984)

“In this new reality, real news is fake, faux (also spelled as Fox) news is real.”

You can subscribe to “A.Word.A.Day” at https://wordsmith.org/awad/

Presentations and Veterans (5)

So, in summary, the audience I most want to reach with my presentations are the young. They need to know and understand what happened in Vietnam. But my favorite listeners are the veterans, especially those of Vietnam. I share with them the bond that men have with others who have fought by their side. That’s the strongest human bond I’ve ever known.

Most of the veterans I talk to are not much like me. I spent my career as a spy. I’m highly educated, with a Ph.D. I’m a writer of literary fiction. I’m a linguist competent in seven languages. Most of the veterans are the most ordinary men you can imagine—high school graduates, maybe with some college. The majority are blue-collar kinds of guys who worked with their hands. But many, like me, are now retired and dote on their grandchildren.

The differences among us don’t matter. We share that bond I spoke of. We don’t say much to one another. It’s a look in the eyes, maybe a handshake or a pat on the back or even a slug to the bicep. We know and recognize each other as brothers who share memories beyond the imagination of those who have not served.

There’s another reason why I feel so close to Vietnam veterans. Ours was the war that failed. We came home to crowds who spat on us and called us baby killers and butchers. Most of us didn’t speak of Vietnam for decades. Everyone except us considered it a shameful war and blamed us. We stayed silent.

And the war ended in disaster. The evacuation from Saigon, during which I nearly lost my life, was a shameful retreat. We abandoned tens of thousands of Vietnamese who had fought at our side. We ran away and made no effort to save them. A shameful war came to an even more shameful end.

Only in the last few years have people started to change their way of seeing Vietnam veterans. We are now accepted along with the veterans of Iraq and Syria. Young people at gatherings come up to me and say, “Thank you. And welcome home”—words I yearned to hear for decades. Now, when I hear them, I cry.

Presentations and Veterans (4)

The third moment that brings tears to my eyes during my presentations is when I describe how, as the fall of Saigon loomed, I made my last visit to a South Vietnamese signals intelligence officer I’d known throughout my years in Vietnam. I can’t tell you his name. It’s still classified. This man understood North Vietnamese communications better than anyone I knew. He was also a superior officer and a fine leader. His troops would do anything he asked.

I had to see him face to face to be sure he and his troops knew where to go when the long-delayed evacuation order was finally issued, something I couldn’t discuss on an unsecured phone line—by that time North Vietnamese were monitoring my phone calls. Always a model of Asian politeness, he invited me into his office and served me tea. He told me that his wife, who worked for USAID, had been offered the opportunity to leave the country with her family. That included him. But he wouldn’t go because he was unwilling to abandon his troops—no evacuation order had been issued—and she wouldn’t leave without him. So there they were, a mother and father and their three children, still sitting in Saigon as the North Vietnamese came closer each day. Alarmed, I asked him what he would do if he was still in Saigon when Communists tanks rolled through the streets. He told me he couldn’t live under the Communists. “When the Communists come, I will shoot my three children, then I will shoot my wife, then I will shoot myself.”

That officer didn’t escape at the end. I have no doubt he carried out his plan because so many other South Vietnamese officers did precisely what he described.

When I tell his story during my presentations, the audience is silent. I can’t hear a sound. Every eye is upon me. And the Vietnam veterans, especially those who worked with South Vietnamese who were left behind when Saigon fell, understand my grieving in a way no others can.

More tomorrow.

Presentations and Veterans (3)

I’m surprised that no matter how often I do my presentations, I invariably choke up when telling the audience about several events. Tears come into my eyes even though I’ve done presentations repeatedly.

One such moment is when I talk about the two guys who volunteered to stay with me to the end during the fall of Saigon. The communicator was Bob Hartley, and the equipment technician was Gary Hickman—I can tell you their names now, they’ve been declassified. When I realized I had to stay in Saigon as it fell, I asked for two volunteers, a communicator and a technician, to remain behind when everyone else was evacuated. Most of the sixteen guys in the comms center felt that they owed it to their wives and children not to risk their lives. Then Bob and Gary stepped forward. As long as I live, I’ll love those guys for their raw courage. They risked their lives because I asked them to.

Another such moment is when I read my last message to the Director of NSA, General Lew Allen, telling him that we were closing down shop. Here’s the text:

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.

More tomorrow

Presentations and Veterans (2)

What moves me the most in giving presentations and readings about the Vietnam war is the empathy I share with the veterans in my audiences. So many have told me that my stories bring tears to their eyes. One audience member, a veteran and physician, told me that I was handling my Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI) in the right way—confronting my memories and learning to live with them. Another told me that I was the only civilian he’d ever met who understood combat.

That was perhaps the greatest compliment. It recognized and approved the oddity of the situation I was in while serving in Vietnam. I had completed my military service before my first tour there. While I was in-country, I was always a civilian under cover—most often as a member of the military unit I was supporting. So I lived the life of an army soldier or a Marine. That meant staying with the troops, sleeping on the ground, sitting in the dirt and sharing C-rations, and dressing in the uniform of the outfit I was with. It also meant going into combat with the men I was there to help. The combat I saw and participated in and the unspeakable deaths I witnessed are the principal source of my PTSI.

The other source was living through the fall of Saigon. I cope with grisly memories by talking about them in my presentations and in my writing. To deal with my angst was one reason I wrote Last of the Annamese telling in detail what happened during the fall of Saigon.

My fulfillment comes from veterans who hear my presentations and read my writing and are moved. One of the curses of PTSI is the sense that one is alone with one’s unbearable memories. The veterans who reach out to me, who comfort me and seek consolation from me, will always be with me. They give me peace.