Tom Glenn's Blog, page 203

Music (2)

Through it all—my thirteen years of trundling between the U.S. and Vietnam on covert missions, my time in combat, my survival of the fall of Saigon, escaping under fire, my still-classified work after 1975—my devotion to music never flagged. I still play the piano (I now have a Steinway grand, thanks to my daughter, Susan) every day. I play Mozart more than any other composer. I’d play more Bach, but much of his music is simply too difficult. Also in the mix are Satie, Beethoven, and Chopin.

Writing has always been my major vocation, but I dallied with theater, dance, and music before I accepted the judgment of my Muse and returned happily to telling stories. It’s clear to me that my fascination with languages and love of music have served me well as a writer. My novels and short stories show the steady influence of my work in languages other than English, but music rarely appears in my stories. I believe that its absence is explained by the inapplicability of the logic of music to writing. The thinking inherent in music applies to no other endeavor, and the ratiocination of no other pursuit is applicable to music.

For all that, learning to think in multiple systems of logic has helped my writing immensely. I’m especially grateful for the contribution of music. Even if it hadn’t helped, I’d be thankful for the beauty and peace music has introduced into my life.

Music

Growing up with an alcoholic mother and a father in prison, I had a hard scrabble childhood. Told I wasn’t very bright and would never be able to go to college, I turned inwards and depended on myself. Three things delighted and fascinated me: languages, writing, and music.

I taught myself French and Italian as a child, the first two of seven languages I would eventually be proficient in. I started writing stories when I was six. And I fell in love with music.

One Christmas I received a record player as a gift and bought the cheapest LPs I could find in a Payless Drugstore—knock-off labels offering performances copied from foreign radio broadcasts. I taught myself to play the piano, practicing on instruments at school and in churches.

As a teenager, I scraped together the money to buy an ancient upright. I played by ear but eventually taught myself to read music. When I graduated from high school, I went against the advice of the school counselors and applied to the University of California in Berkeley where the tuition was $58 a semester for California residents. At first I majored in drama, then switched to music. By the time I graduated, I knew I didn’t have the talent to be a first-class composer. Immediately after graduation, I enlisted in the army, was sent to language school for Vietnamese, and my career as a spy began. It lasted thirty-five years before I retired as early as possible to write fulltime. One result of that career was my novel, Last of the Annamese.

More tomorrow.

Alone and Roadblocked (3): Not Anymore

Two developments precipitated my escape from a sense of isolation after the fall of Saigon.

One was the discovery that I wasn’t the only person to suffer the aftermath of combat. Not only that, but reacting to the horrors of battle with shattering memories was a healthy, normal human response. Rebounding without shock was unhealthy; not rebounding at all was sick. Combat sickens healthy people and leaves the sick unmoved.

And there were lots of us from a variety of wars. None of us wanted to talk about what we’d witnessed and participated in. That’s the nature of the disease. For many years, I couldn’t talk about my experience because my presence and work in Vietnam on and off for thirteen years was classified. To this day, I still can’t talk about some events. It’s not because they’re classified; it’s because I can’t control my emotions.

But I learned that we veterans didn’t need to talk to help each other. Each of us knew what the others had been through. Most important, we found that we were not alone with our brutal memories. We were a band of brothers and sisters, ready to help one another.

The second development was the gradual declassification of my work in Vietnam. By the beginning of 2016, I was free to discuss what had happened to me while supporting army and Marine units in combat before 1973 and what I had experienced as the head of the covert NSA operation in Vietnam after the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1973. I could tell the world what had transpired during the fall of Saigon and how I escaped under fire after the North Vietnamese were already in the streets of the city.

Now I can publicly own my status as a veteran of the war in Vietnam. And I can hear and savor the words I so ached for: “Thank you. And welcome home.”

I still cry when I hear them.

Alone and Roadblocked (2): On My Own

Another—and in some respects far more serious—aspect of my sense of isolation was my struggle with Post-Traumatic Stress Injury. As I noted before, I don’t call is a “disorder;” it’s the result of an externally inflicted psychological wound. When the malady hit me in May 1975, after escaping under fire from Vietnam, I had never heard of it. We didn’t have a name for it back then. I knew I needed psychiatric help, but I held top secret codeword-plus clearances; had I gone for treatment, I’d have lost my job. So I sweated it out on my own.

I thought I was the only person going through the nightmares, flashbacks, irrational rages, and panic attacks. I was profoundly shamed by the symptoms. I took them to be signs of cowardice. My memories of being called a baby killer and butcher and of being spat upon by crowds at the San Francisco airport when I returned with the troops during the late sixties and early seventies made it worse.

I couldn’t talk with anyone about Vietnam. The fact that I, an NSA employee, was in Vietnam was classified. And in the halls of NSA, the Vietnam war was seen as a shameful exercise. No one wanted to hear about it. I was silent.

I didn’t want to talk about Vietnam. I was ashamed. I believed that my condition proved that I was unbalanced or a coward or worse. I was alone.

I wrote in this blog earlier about being forced to depend on myself in childhood by an alcoholic mother and a father in prison. Foraging on my own was my natural state. I was—and still am—a loner, uncomfortable with having to depend on others. So gritting my teeth and getting through the multiple bouts with my memories on my own felt natural to me.

Some years after the fall of Saigon, I read about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a disease that affected those with experiences so ghastly that the psyche was permanently damaged. I had all the symptoms. Figures in most recent studies vary, but one finds that four out of five men who faced combat in Vietnam shows symptoms of PTSD.

“Thank you. And welcome home.” Words I so yearned for and never heard. Then, three or four years ago, I attended a Vietnam veterans gathering. Young people who hadn’t even been born until after the fall of Saigon came up to me. They smiled and took my hand in theirs. “Thank you for your service,” they said. “Welcome home.” I cried.

I wasn’t alone anymore.

Alone and Roadblocked

Some months ago, I wrote here about my sense of abandonment during the fall of Saigon. Here’s part of what I said:

“As the North Vietnamese encroached on Saigon and I struggled to hold together what was left of my mission and my organization, I was doing it alone. I managed to get forty-one of my subordinates and their families out of the country, even though the ambassador had forbidden an evacuation. The embassy and CIA not only didn’t help me; they threw roadblocks in my path. I lied and cheated and stole to save the lives of my guys and their wives and children. I succeeded. The only help I received was from the two communicators, Bob and Gary, who volunteered to stay with me through the fall of Saigon. The three of us propped each other up through the days when we had nothing to eat and no time to sleep.”

Because the ambassador had forbidden me to evacuate my people. I used every ruse I could think of to get them out—vacations. home leave, business travel—and toward the end even bought a ticket on Pan Am with money from my own pocket and sent one of my guys out with no orders or authorization. That turned out to be the last Pan Am flight from Saigon.

What my earlier entry may not have made clear is that there was a split in the perception of the U.S. government. The civilian side—the U.S. Ambassador, the State Department, the CIA, and the president—believed that the North Vietnamese would not attack Saigon. The Ambassador, Graham Martin, and the CIA chief of station in Saigon, Tom Polgar, accepted the assurances of the Hungarian member of the ICCS (The International Commission for Control and Supervision) that the North Vietnamese had no interest in seizing Saigon. The north wanted instead to form a coalition government to rule jointly.

The ICCS member was a representative of a communist government allied to North Vietnam. I had been warning the ambassador for more than a month that North Vietnamese forces were moving closer to Saigon and had every intention of attacking the city. The evidence from intercepted North Vietnamese communications left no doubt as to their intent. Besides, since they now held almost all of South Vietnam, why should they negotiate when conquest of Saigon would be so easy?

The military side of the U.S. government—the Department of Defense and Commander in Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC)—were persuaded by the signals intelligence evidence and distrusted the assurances of a communist government allied to North Vietnam. They prepared by dispatching the 7th Fleet with Marines aboard to the South China Sea.

The result was reportedly the largest helicopter evacuation ever attempted. The numbers vary, but according to one source, 81 helicopters ferried more than 7,000 people from the Saigon area to the ships of the 7th Fleet.

More tomorrow.

Last of the Annamese Dust Cover

The flag of the now defunct Republic of Vietnam is three horizontal red stripes on a field of yellow. When the Naval Institute Press prepared to publish Last of the Annamese, the story of the end of the Republic of Vietnam, the artistic staff designed the dust jacket to echo the republic’s flag. The upper half of the cover, against a field of yellow, shows the name of the book. The lower half is a dark red field with yellow stripes shown diagonally, seeming to disappear in the distance. Where the stripes come together, at the center left, is the small figure of a woman in an áo dài (literally “long dress”), the traditional Vietnamese feminine gown, and a nón lá (literally “leaf hat”), the conical hat worn throughout Vietnam. The woman’s back is to the viewer, and she appears to be moving away.

The woman, to my mind, represents Tuyet, the nominal heroine. She is walking toward the end of the stripes, symbolically toward the end of An Nam, as Vietnam was once called. As one character in the story observes watching South Vietnam fall to the North Vietnamese, “An Nam is no more.”

Corpsmen (2)

I wrote earlier in this blog about meeting former navy corpsmen recently and how moved I was by their stories. The more I learn about corpsmen and what these men experienced, the more troubled I am. I just learned that the number of corpsmen killed in Vietnam was 639.

The corpsmen are naval personnel assigned to operate as medics with Marine combat units. I encountered them when I was providing signals intelligence support to the Marines in Vietnam. As I described in previous blog posts, my experience in combat damaged my psyche permanently; my memory still holds things I can’t talk about.

But my experience pales in comparison to what corpsmen went through. My job was to learn what the enemy was doing and to target hostile units. The corpsmen were there to take care of the wounded. They saved lives by their work. But they also had to face repeatedly, time after time, in every battle, the ghastly things that combat does to the human body.

I have tried, through my writing, to inform readers about the unspeakably gruesome catastrophes inherent in combat. I’ve talked about survivor’s guilt—why was the guy next to me hideously killed and I escaped unharmed? The daily lot of corpsmen is to cope directly with the savagery of combat. That’s their job. How any of them survive sane is miraculous. They are better, stronger, braver men than I have ever been.

Both of the former corpsmen I’ve met struggle with from Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI). My guess is that all corpsmen do. How could anyone go through what they go through and not suffer an unhealable wound to the soul?

My Red Marine Jacket

I’m a member of the Marine Corps Association. I joined it out of respect and admiration for the Marines I’ve known and worked with, particularly General Al Gray. My bias in favor of Marines is undisguised. I supported them with intelligence on and off for thirteen years in Vietnam. Three of the principal characters in Last of the Annamese are Marines.

Because I’m a member of the association, I have access to the Marine Shop, an online merchant. A little over a year ago, I spotted in the Marine Shop catalogue a brilliant red sports jacket with brass buttons showing the words “Semper Fidelis” and “Marine Corps” above and below the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, the official emblem and insignia of the United States Marine Corps. My taste in clothes runs to the subdued with dark colors, like black and navy blue. But this jacket fascinated me. So I bought one.

Every time I wear the jacket—usually out to dinner—I am the center of attention. A surprising number of people recognize the Marine Corps connection. When I wore it to the American Legion Christmas party last year, the color represented both the season and the Corps.

I tend to be a quiet, shy person, not very talkative in gatherings. I’m learning what it’s like for people to turn and stare at me. I think I like it.

Midshipmen

A former Midshipman, now a retired navy officer, emailed me after discovering this blog. He reminded me that the Glenn family, my four children, my wife, and I, sponsored Midshipmen from the Naval Academy from 1976 to 1979. We invited the mids to our house for weekends away from the gruel of academy life as they prepared to become navy officers upon graduation.

It was a rough time in my life. I was struggling with Port-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI) from my years in Vietnam supporting units in combat and escaping under fire when Saigon fell in April 1975. My family had lived in Saigon and escaped twenty days before the city fell. They talked freely with the mids about their life in Vietnam. I didn’t. I still couldn’t talk about what I had lived through.

I wanted to invite the mids into our home because of my love for military men and women, a feeling that still lives in me today. And these young men, aged 18 to 22, were among the finest I had ever met. I still remember my heartbreak when one of them was killed in an auto accident.

Working with the mids was the beginning of my volunteering. In subsequent years I helps AIDS patients, the homeless, dying people in a hospice, and sick and dying soldiers in a VA hospital. I learned, starting with the mids, that when I focused my attention on others, my unbearable memories receded. It still works today.

Misidentified (2)

In yesterday’s blog post, I failed to mention that Maryland Public Television misidentifies me in the travelling exhibit soon to be in Denton and Crisfield, Maryland. In an earlier post, I explained what happened:

In 2013, Maryland Public Television (MPT) chose me to be among the sixteen veterans they featured in the three-part Vietnam war documentary to be aired in 2016. When they first interviewed me in 2014, my connection with the National Security Agency during my years in Vietnam was still classified. So I simply didn’t mention who my parent organization was. MPT found photos of me in various uniforms and finally concluded that I must have been an army officer. They produced eight-foot banners on each of us vets to be displayed in their travelling exhibit. Mine shows two of those shots of me in two different uniforms and proclaims that I was an army intelligence officer.

After the final declassification of my work in Vietnam in 2016, I informed MPT of my true status. It was too late. The documentary was already scheduled for broadcast in June. The traveling exhibit, still touring throughout Maryland, shows me as an army officer.

End of quote. I have trouble to this day explaining that during the thirteen years I was trundling between the U.S. and Vietnam, I was an NSA civilian operating under cover. I posed as soldier sometimes, a Marine at other times. After the withdrawal of military forces in 1973, my cover, at various times, was as a foreign service officer working for the State Department and as an employee of CIA. As far as I know, neither uncleared friendlies nor the enemy ever discovered my real identity.

During my Vietnam years, I never used a phony name. That came later, but those stories are still classified.