"Don't talk to me about atrocities in war, all war is an atrocity"

As I was reading the gory details of the Song My killings, better known today as the My Lai massacre, I was struck by just how much the war in Vietnam resembled the wars waged against the American Indians a century earlier. In both instances villages, containing mostly non-combatants, became the default target of US soldiers who were unable to locate the enemy that they were seeking. Indian warriors, and Vietnamese guerrilla fighters, had an infuriating tendency to only fight when the conditions were favorable to them. Unable to directly confront the overwhelming firepower wielded by their enemies, they both resorted to stealth tactics, which frequently resulted in days of fruitless chases on the part of the US Army.

A village offered a target of opportunity for frustrated soldiers who were frequently harassed by hit-and-run ambushes and, in the case of Vietnam, booby-trap devices that killed and maimed indiscriminately. Add to that the near-impossibility, on the part of the American soldier, to distinguish between friend and foe, and you have a perfect set of conditions for atrocities to occur. Every Vietnamese becomes an enemy, and "The only good Indian is a dead Indian".

That normal patterns of behavior are going to be distorted by the stresses of combat is a given. The military is also an institution that demands absolute obedience to orders, and individual soldiers are not encouraged to question whether or not an order is rational, or even sane. To expect a single soldier to openly defy a direct order by a superior, given in a combat situation, is not realistic. A soldier cannot simply "opt-out" in a situation such as the one at My Lai. He either turns his weapon on the villagers, as he was ordered to do, or he turns it on his fellow soldiers. What other choice is there at that moment?

The first-hand accounts are so excruciatingly painful that you just want to stop reading. What that helicopter pilot did was heroic beyond words, but that must be qualified with the fact that he was not a member of the unit involved, and he had a helicopter to fly away in. For those ground troops caught up in the massacre, there were absolutely no good options. The same excuse does not apply to those charged with investigating the crime. That the default response was to try and cover the whole thing up is not surprising, but is nonetheless despicable. And, as is so often the case in these things, most of the official outrage was directed at those who dared break the shameful silence surrounding the events.

Second Amendment Remedies?

The charges eventually brought against the students that took over Willard Straight Hall at Cornell University, in April of 1969, did not include any related to the fact that the militants brought a number of guns onto campus. Simply brandishing the rifles was perfectly legal under New York State Law, and they did not use the weapons to occupy the building. The rifles did not appear until after Willard Straight Hall was emptied of students, parents, and faculty. After a tense week of negotiations, the incident was peacefully resolved. Apart from some minor injuries sustained in a fracas between black students and members of a white fraternity, there were no casualties.

What a different outcome from what occurred the following year during disruptions on two other college campuses. On May the 4th of 1970, four students were killed and nine others wounded when National Guardsmen opened fire on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio. The shootings climaxed several days of anti-war protests on the campus sparked by the announcement of the invasion of Cambodia by US soldiers. Ten days later, protests by a large group of Black students on the campus of Jackson State University in Mississippi were met by a barrage of shotgun fire from some 40 state highway patrolmen, who later said they had come under sniper fire. A subsequent investigation turned up no evidence of any snipers. The gunfire killed two students and injured twelve others.

In neither of the 1970 incidents was any evidence produced demonstrating that any firearms, other then those in the hands of military and law enforcement members, were present. That some protesters used rocks and bottles as projectiles is not disputed. The question then becomes why was lethal force used at Kent State and Jackson State, but not at Cornell? At first glance, one would conclude that the difference was that the students at Cornell had armed themselves with guns, while the students at the other two schools had not. The lesson then becomes that the authorities blink in the face of well-armed protesters.

That simply doesn't hold up very well under scrutiny though. The Black Panthers armed themselves quite well, but ended up being decimated by law enforcement. And the fact that some rioters had guns didn't prevent dozens of them from getting shot down during the riots that wracked America's cities during that era. Perhaps what it comes down to is that the people in charge at Cornell exercised much better judgment then the authorities did in the two other examples. The administration at place at Cornell at that time has been flogged ever since for what has been termed a "craven surrender" to the demands of extremists. Would it have been better to call in the Cavalry? In all probability, the incident at Cornell would have become something far uglier then either Kent State or Jackson State. The example of Attica comes to mind. As Winston Churchill once said "It is always better to jaw-jaw then war-war" And he was certainly someone in a position to know...

No Peace No Honor

The issue date was December 16, 1968 and obviously the cover story is about the war in Vietnam. Richard Nixon had won the election to be the next US president, and the Johnson administration was in it's final weeks. There was still hope that a breakthrough might be possible in the peace talks that were underway in Paris. President Johnson had ordered a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam on October 31st, and that action had cleared the way for substantive negotiations for a cease-fire and eventual resolution of the conflict. This particular issue deals with the Paris peace talks at length.

At the time, it appeared as though the warring parties were on the cusp of an agreement. Johnson's announcement of a bombing halt at the 11th hour had given Vice-President Humphrey a surge that nearly overtook Nixon in the final days of the presidential campaign. Candidate Nixon also struck a conciliatory pose promising to end the war and bring what he called "peace with honor". Exactly how that was to be accomplished was something that the Nixon campaign never bothered to fully explain. There was vague talk of a "secret plan" to end the war, but that was about all.

So, in late 1968 the conditions seemed ripe for a negotiated agreement to end the war. And indeed, there would be a cease-fire and negotiated settlement. In 1973. The question that begs answering is why did it take another four years to arrive at essentially the same place we were at in 1969? Four more bloody years that saw an extension of the war into neighboring countries Laos and Cambodia, both of which were suffered violent upheavals as a result of the invasions. News of the operations in Laos and Cambodia triggered massive demonstrations on college campuses across America, climaxing with the tragic events at Kent State University in Ohio.

Some 30,000 Americans had died in Vietnam in the years leading up to 1969. More then 20,000 more would lose their lives over the course of the next four years. The circumstances surrounding the failure to end the war in 1969 have never been adequately explained. As I pointed out already, there was nothing of any substance gained by dragging the war out for another 48 months. South Vietnam couldn't stand alone in 1973 any more then it would have been able to in 1969. The regime in the south collapsed entirely in 1975, and the country was unified under a communist government. Quite likely the same events would have transpired had a settlement been arrived at in 1969. What would have been different? Well, more then 20,000 American soldiers would have arrived home alive.

Watergate? That was nothing compared to what Nixon did in order to look "strong" in Vietnam. They impeached him for the wrong set of crimes...

Voices from the Past

Being as I have the Newsweek issue that ran the letters-to-the-editor, generated by Newsweek's cover story on the abortion debate, I thought I'd post them here. So far as I've been able to determine, Newsweek has not yet made it's digital archives available online. As a result, I cannot link to the content that I am writing about. However, since I do have copies of the issues themselves, I can scan and post. The last letter in the column was written by Bob Packwood, a Republican senator from Oregon. His letter is cut-off because it continues on another page. Here is how it concludes: "...Neither should any woman be denied the right have a voluntary abortion. Again, congratulations for a fine effort."

Senator Packwood was consistently pro-choice and, as he points out in his letter, he introduced the senate's first abortion legalization bill. Sadly, if Bob Packwood is remembered for anything today, it is for the allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against him by 10 woman. The charges led to Packwood resigning from the senate in 1995. A distinguished career in public service reduced to tabloid fodder. Senator Packwood represented a species that was dying-off when he left office, and is now officially extinct. He was open-minded and independent to the point of defying his own party, and president, when he felt strongly enough about something. Try finding someone who fits that description in either party today.

I think that the letters give us a fascinating window into what people were thinking about an issue that remains as polarizing today, as it was 40 years ago. Curious that the suggestion made by Ms. Diane Keane of Pittsburgh, Pa never gained any traction...

Back to the Future

"Dorene is like most of the girls who come in here. She has a family problem, a social problem, a religious problem and a legal problem - when all she should really have is a medical problem. One simple five-minute procedure and she has the whole world off her back." Those words were spoken in 1970 at an abortion clinic in Santa Monica, California. The words were spoken by Harvey Karman, a psychologist who conducted interviews of patients at the clinic prior to their undergoing an abortion. Karman was talking with a Newsweek reporter who was working on the April 13, 1970 cover story about abortion, a procedure that was still illegal throughout most of the United States at that time.

In fact, the Santa Monica clinic in question was operating in open defiance of the law. The man who would perform Dorene's abortion was a 28-year-old graduate of the University of Southern California School of Medicine who had trained in obstetrics and gynecology at Los Angeles's Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. Dr. John S. Gwynne had opened his clinic both to challenge the constitutionality of California's abortion laws, and to provide women with the opportunity to safely terminate an unwanted pregnancy. That option scarcely existed within the continental United States in 1970. Hawaii was decidedly the exception to the rule with it's abortion law permitting the procedure, providing that be performed by a licensed doctor in a hospital, and that the patient be a resident of the state for 90 days. That second part was to keep woman from flocking to Hawaii from the mainland to get an abortion.

Woman continued to seek out abortions, and the kind of treatment that they received depended largely on their respective financial situations. For woman of means, there were safe options available. They could fly overseas and have the procedure done, or they could afford to pay a physician here enough money to secure his services. Even so, there were risks involved, but they were nothing compared to what their less-fortunate sisters encountered. All the stories we hear about the bad old days before Roe v. Wade are absolutely factual. Abortions were largely the province of a mixed bag of providers including midwives, medical students, druggists, and other amateur abortionists. A woman was quite literally taking her life and putting it into the hands of a complete stranger. Things could, and very often did, go horribly wrong.

This article was written over 40 years ago, and obviously the abortion landscape has changed considerably. But, it is still far from a settled issue and that perplexes me. Anyone reading this article in 1970 would come away from it with an overall impression that reform was in the air, and that it was only a matter of time before liberalization of the restrictive laws took place. Whether that would occur on a state-by-state basis, or by a ruling of the Supreme Court was still to be decided, but change was coming. And how could that be anything, but a positive development?

Sadly, it appears that the position of the Catholic Church has come to be widely accepted in many quarters. The 1970 article dealt almost exclusively with the legal and health implications of the debate. Refreshingly absent was all of the overcharged emotionalism that has come to define the issue today. Trying to determine the exact moment that a human soul comes to inhabit a fetus strikes me as a very inexact science, to put it mildly. Rather like trying to determine how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. In my opinion, the Catholic Church effectively forfeited any moral authority that they once had with their handling of the Pedophile scandal. And, since they have no authority whatsoever when it comes to matters of health, science, and the law, I suggest that they remove themselves from the arena entirely, and work to clean up their own house.

Space Age Spear Carriers

In the book I'm reading about the AK-47, there is an entire chapter devoted to the AK's capitalist counterpart, the M-16 rifle. Bearing the title The Accidental Rifle, this particular chapter sheds light on the scandalous circumstances surrounding the introduction of the M-16 rifle to combat troops in Vietnam in the mid-1960's. To say that the M-16 was rushed into production and deployment would be a considerable understatement. The development of the rifle took place almost entirely outside of the normal procurement channels that traditionally controlled the introduction and acceptance of a new weapon. Hence, "The Accidental Rifle".

For a variety of reasons that are spelled out in The Gun, the United States Military completely misread the significance of the AK-47 assault rifle, and initially dismissed the revolutionary weapon as being nothing more then another submachine gun. Testing obtained examples of the rifle merely re-enforced already existing prejudices. It wasn't until American ground troops, and their South Vietnamese allies, encountered AK-47's in the hands of their enemies that it became obvious that this weapon was indeed what we would call a "game-changer". The AK-47 gave the communist fighters a decided edge in the war that was being fought in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam.

Armed for the most part with heavy semi-automatic rifles firing a powerful cartridge, the Americans and their allies found themselves outgunned. The AK-47 was inaccurate at long-ranges, but that hardly mattered. Most of the fighting in Vietnam took place at close quarters and the best weapon was the one with the highest rate of fire. Something close to panic set in among the top brass when they realized that the standard infantry arm of the US Military was wholly unsuited for the mission in Vietnam. However, a solution seemed to be at hand.

A private firm called ArmaLite had designed a rifle, designated as the AR-15, and had subsequently sold the rights to the weapon to Colt's Manufacturing Company. The unorthodox-looking weapon already had some support within the military, having been tested and purchased in small numbers by this point in time. How the civilian AR-15 became the M-16 assault rifle is a story that reflects badly on almost everyone involved in the process. And it was the ground troops in Vietnam who would pay the price with their own blood.

Thousands of US soldiers and Marines were sent into combat in Vietnam with a rifle that was completely unreliable. That many of them were killed as a result is beyond dispute. The M-16's that were put into the hands of those troops were impossible to clean, quick to rust and corrode in the jungle environment, and most devastating of all, they were prone to jam at the worst possible moments. Namely, during firefights, when mere seconds could mean the difference between life and death. Infantry troops quickly came to despise the cheap-looking plastic rifle that many derided as a "toy" that was actually built by Mattel. Troops took to buying their own weapons on the black market, or arming themselves with captured AK-47's. Anything to avoid having to carry the M-16 into combat.

And what was the reaction of the high-command when reports of the new rifle's failings began coming back from the field? Well, that is where the real scandal begins. Instead of openly and honestly acknowledging the problems with the M-16 and working to address them, the Pentagon's decision was to try and coverup the entire mess. And when that became untenable, they next tried blaming it all on the soldiers themselves, claiming that they didn't clean the rifles properly. Conveniently forgetting that the first rifles were sent over without either cleaning kits or even instructions on how to clean the unfamiliar weapon. Not that it mattered much. The M-16's were just as likely to jam when they were spotlessly clean.

The difference between the way in which the AK-47 was conceived, designed, and introduced to service, and the way in which the M-16 was rushed into the hands of combat troops is a damning indictment of the US Military. In time, the problems with the rifle were worked out and what ultimately emerged was a decent infantry arm. But, it's reputation was indelibly marred by those first years when it failed at the most important test of all. The book is full of accounts that alternately make you want to laugh or cry. The one that sticks out in my mind is the Marine platoon leader being told to have his men fix bayonets before engaging the enemy. Which was something that he had already ordered them to do. They knew that they couldn't depend on their rifles to do what they were intended to do. So, they resigned themselves to launching a bayonet charge against fighters armed with automatic rifles that fired upwards of 600 rounds per minute. Rifles that functioned exactly as their makers designed them to...

"Spray and Pray"

I am about half-way through The Gun: The AK-47 and the Evolution of War, and thought I'd take the opportunity to put down some of my impressions while they are still fresh in my mind. The author, CJ Chivers, builds his book by telling the story of the long struggle to design and build a successful machine gun. The first true example of the species is generally held to be the Gatling Gun which was the creation of an American inventor named Richard Gatling. The story moves on and introduces other men who would leave their mark on the history of automatic weapons. Hiram Maxim and John Thompson are two of the most prominent, and it is General Thompson's device that concerns me here.

The Thompson submachine gun, or "Tommy gun", has achieved an iconic status in American culture, largely by virtue of what happened during the first decade of the weapon's existence. General Thompson designed a gun that he envisioned to be a kind of "trench broom", that would give American infantrymen the tool they needed to break the stalemate on the Western Front. However, the war ended before his submachine guns were shipped to Europe and Thompson needed to adjust his marketing tactics to reflect post-war realities. The Thompson submachine gun was favorably received by various military officials, but few orders were forthcoming.

Thompson started what he called the Auto Ordnance Company and set about trying to sell his invention to military organizations, police departments, and security services. Again, orders were slow to materialize and Thompson soon realized that he would have to cast his net further if his firm was to remain solvent. Incredible as it may seem today, it was perfectly legal for a private citizen to own a fully-functional machine gun in 1921 America. So, that is the market segment that Auto Ordnance set it's sights on.

What seems blindingly obvious in hindsight was apparently not so apparent at the time. Mainly, that interest in a lightweight, portable, hand-held machine gun would not be limited to the law-abiding members of society. Gangsters, bank robbers, and even the IRA, quickly realized the weapon's deadly potential. And while the mayhem attributed to the Thompson submachine gun has been exaggerated over the subsequent decades, it did change the game, so to speak. Given the twin incubators of alcohol prohibition and the Great Depression, organized and not-so-organized crime exploded across the country. And General Thompson's invention introduced a new dimension to gun violence, one that no doubt distressed it's inventor.

One of the ads that Auto Ordnance used to try and sell the Thompson submachine gun is worth considering. The ad features an image of a cowhand in chaps standing on the porch of what I assume is a ranch building blazing away with a Thompson at a group of horsemen, a number of whom are already on the ground. The horsemen are either Mexican bandits, or Mexican cattle rustlers. Given the current atmosphere of hysteria concerning Mexican immigrants, it is striking to realize how little some things change. There really is nothing new under the sun...