Those Who Have Borne the Battle (45 page)

 

 

Early in 2011 I visited with a nearby marine veteran of World War II and of Korea, someone who had fought in epic battles at Guadalcanal, Peleliu, and the Chosin Reservoir. He had several Purple Hearts and combat medals and had been recommended for a Medal of Honor for his bravery at the Chosin Reservoir when, sixty years earlier, his company fought their way up to Hagaru-ri to open the snowy road for the encircled troops there. It seemed like such a different time from the stories I had been hearing from veterans of the current wars.

Rocco Zullo had been so badly wounded in the Chosin Reservoir campaign that his troops thought he was dead. I told him that he had fought in some of the most difficult and storied battles in Marine Corps history; he said simply that he had seen a lot of marines die. He was not thinking of the history or the strategic place of these fights. He teared up when he went on, “Many of these boys were only eighteen years old.”
³⁹
At different times and different places, there is an important constant in war. As an exercise, read the digital accounts of the names on the Vietnam Memorial home page to see the ages and hometowns and the dates of death. Fighting wars means dying in wars.

Sebastian Junger wrote the powerful book
War
and codirected a companion documentary film,
Restrepo
, that focused on Battle Company of the 173rd Airborne Combat Team at Restrepo outpost in the Korengal
Valley in Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008. Junger was embedded with this company at that time of sometimes heavy fighting. In 2010 when the army announced it was withdrawing from this place where some forty soldiers had been killed, Junger wrote that the men with whom he lived “seemed to make ‘sense' of combat in a completely personal way. They were not interested in the rest of the war and they were not much concerned with whether it was just, winnable or even well executed. For soldiers, the fight is what gives a place meaning, rather than the other way around.” As one man from Battle Company wrote, “They might have pulled out but they can't take away what we accomplished and how hard we fought there.” It was just a base, but those who fought and those who died in this now forsaken valley were young soldiers who had answered the call. They deserve far more identity. They should not be reduced to the place where they fell. The soldier only asked, in words that might have echoed from every battlefield on which Americans have ever fought, “Remember that.”
⁴⁰

This book has been enhanced and my work has been advanced by many generous people in many capacities. I want to take an opportunity to acknowledge some of my debts and to express my gratitude.

Anyone who writes history or other forms of scholarship or nonfiction needs to begin by recognizing the library professionals and the research organizations who answer questions, locate materials, and suggest the right sources. As I have been for more than forty years, I am indebted to the Dartmouth College Library and the wonderful professionals who are there. From interlibrary loans to online resources to the rich Dartmouth collection, the staff at Baker-Berry and Rauner Special Collections Library were always knowledgeable, responsive, and supportive.

Colonel Warren Wiedhahn, USMC (retired), and Colonel William Weber, US Army (retired), along with Annelie Weber shared experiences and information on the Korean War and on the work of the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation. Dr. Charles Niemeyer, director and chief of Marine Corps history, was of great assistance in helping me with some Vietnam War issues. And Jan Scruggs and Dan Reese and their staff at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund were quick to provide information in their rich database of those who died in the Vietnam War. Paul Rieckhoff and senior research associate Moran Banai and their colleagues at the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America shared information on our current wars.

I could not depend upon my memory alone to frame the Galena, Illinois, experience. My main collaborator in locating information was former mayor Richard Auman. We joined the marines with three other friends when we graduated from Galena High School in 1957. He has always been a good friend, and he has also proved to be a good researcher. We both depended upon Steve Repp at the Galena Public Library for information. And the late James Glasgow of the Galena Veterans of Foreign Wars Post helped significantly in sorting out numbers of Galenians who served in wartime.

Three different Dartmouth students have assisted me in this study. They were great at ferreting out information and in tracking down books and articles. James Reed has been involved from the very beginning, doing analyses and finding leads; he has a good instinct for tracking down sources. James Shinn was intensively engaged as I concluded a draft, following his graduation in the summer of 2011. He was an excellent researcher and a good reader and editor. Finally, Michael Stinetorf, who had served with the marines in Iraq before matriculating at Dartmouth, provided research support and special insights.

My determination to write a book on this subject originated with my preparation for the Jefferson Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, which I delivered in February 2010. I had spent the previous eight months reading and thinking about veterans of America's wars, and I knew there was more I wanted to do on the subject. Two historians who critiqued that lecture and encouraged me to do more with it were Roger Daniels, professor of history emeritus at the University of Cincinnati, whom I first knew as a student in my first college history course in 1961, and Harry Scheiber of the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, whom I first knew as a Dartmouth colleague in 1969. They are exceptional historians, and both have helped me in so many ways from the first times I met them. They have been generous in their support. And Allan Bogue, the Frederick Jackson Turner professor of history emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has taught, mentored, and inspired me since 1964.

A number of people, many of whom I had known for years and a few I have still not met in person, provided me with critical readings of the manuscript. They provided thoughtful and informed critiques, sometimes challenging and always advancing my thinking on this subject. Academic readers directed me to new sources and questioned some of my assumptions. These, teachers all, included two Dartmouth colleagues, Robert Bonner of the History Department and Benjamin Valentino of the Government Department, along with Richard Kohn, professor emeritus of history and peace, war, and defense, University of North Carolina, and Wick Sloane of Bunker Hill Community College, a major advocate for veterans.

I also turned to those who both had served in military leadership and have contributed as civilian strategists and thinkers. John Nagl (colonel, US Army, retired) and former marine officer Nathaniel Fick each are veterans of our current wars and assumed leadership positions at the Center for New American Security. Nate Fick is CEO of CNAS, and Dr. Nagl, former president of CNAS, is now the Minerva Research Professor at the United States Naval Academy. Robert Killebrew (colonel, US Army, retired) served in a number of military leadership roles and has continued to work as a consultant on national security issues.
Bridging the academic and the service roles was Major Daniel Gade, who lost a leg in an explosion in Iraq and has gone on to finish a doctorate and is now a member of the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy.

Each of these readers has brought personal experiences and intellectual perspectives to this book. They may not have always agreed with my conclusions, but I respected their judgment immensely. If there are still errors of fact or interpretation, this surely is not their fault!

Susan Rabiner and Sydelle Kramer at the Susan Rabiner Agency advised wisely and professionally, represented my proposal well, and were very helpful to me as I stepped into the world of commercial publishing.

The professionalism and the commitment to excellence of the team at PublicAffairs have advanced this work significantly. From the outset Clive Priddle was strongly supportive; Brandon Proia has been a thoughtful editor and a wise sounding board. The production team headed by Sandra Beris, publicist Emily Lavelle, and managing editor Melissa Raymond have all patiently contributed to this book. I want especially to thank Annette Wenda for careful copy-editing that made this a better book.

A number of Dartmouth colleagues and graduates have encouraged my work with veterans and my commitment to this book. I want especially to thank E. John Rosenwald, Wade Judge, Macauley Taylor, and Samuel Seymour for their direct support of my research efforts. Dartmouth president Jim Yong Kim has encouraged and assisted me in this work, and the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees provided me with support and space and has enabled my transition from administration back to scholarship.

This transition and this book owe much to the support of my administrative assistant, Louise Moon. She has looked after the details and kept me on schedule, but even more important, she has been a colleague in so many ways. She has cared about the book and about getting it right. She has developed a historian's skills and insights and has been a thorough researcher, a thoughtful critic, and a very good editor.

Finally, my wife, Susan Wright, has been a collaborator, and she has encouraged and supported all of my veterans activities generally and this project specifically from the outset. I have often quipped that there is nothing more selfish than writing a book. And I have engaged in this selfish act at a time of major transition in our lives. Nonetheless, she has always pressed me to do this book that she knew I wanted to do. Perhaps she recognized that I even needed to do this. She has been a sounding board, editor, critic, and collaborator. This book simply would not have happened without her, and the Dedication affirms my debt and my gratitude.

There is one final acknowledgment. I wish to thank all of the veterans I have seen in hospitals over the past several years. They have touched me in ways that I cannot easily describe. I have never visited them without feeling inspired by their sacrifice and enriched by their attitudes. One story that I told a number of Dartmouth friends a few years ago can summarize this.

Before I stepped down from the Dartmouth presidency in June 2009, I decided I wanted to climb Mount Moosilauke, an iconic mountain that is part of Dartmouth lore and legend. Susan joined me with a few friends, and I asked several Dartmouth students to come with us. Among these were two Marine Corps veterans then enrolled as undergraduates at the college. I pointedly reminded them when I invited them that marines don't leave marines behind on the trail.

This climb proved to be far more demanding than I had thought it would be—and I proved to be in far worse condition than I imagined. Each of us carried a small pack with food, water, and extra clothing. Early on the two Dartmouth marines, who stayed close to me, asked if they could carry my pack. I declined. When they asked a second time, my ego was too weary to resist.

At the end of the hike, back at the base lodge, one of the young men handed my pack to me, and we sat down together. We had first met at Bethesda Naval Hospital in 2005, where he was a patient who was in great discomfort, suffering from gunshot wounds suffered in the Battle of Fallujah in November 2004. He was about to graduate from Dartmouth with an exceptional academic record. He majored in Arabic and said he hoped to do something to help make sure that others would not leave their blood on a dusty street. I asked him if he ever thought when we met at the hospital that we would climb a mountain together. He said, “No, sir.” I then asked if he could have imagined that he would not only climb that mountain but enable me to climb with him by carrying my pack. He said, “No, sir.”

There are a lot of mountains yet to be climbed. I have learned my lesson about taking on physical mountains personally. But I have also learned the lesson that there is a remarkable group of young men and women out there who have given all they have, and they are now ready to do more. We can all be the beneficiaries if we find ways to enable them to do just this. This book is also dedicated to them.

1
George Q. Flynn,
The Draft, 1940–1973
, 230.

2
Ron Kovic,
Born on the Fourth of July
, 73. Even though Ron Kovic is several years younger than I am, his Chapter 2 seems so similar in many ways to my experience, but obviously my boyhood was more rural. And, of course, my military service was not marked by the horror and sacrifice that his was.

3
Philip Caputo,
A Rumor of War
, 8.

4
David Maraniss,
They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace in Vietnam and America, October 1967
.

5
The Jefferson Lecture “War Veterans and American Democracy,” “Remarks, Veterans Day, 2009, at the Vietnam Memorial Wall,” and “Veterans Day in America: The Place of the Korean War in a National Day of Memory” are all available at
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jameswright/
.

6
Lloyd Kreider's account in Rudy Tomedi,
No Bugles, No Drums: An Oral History of the Korean War
, 59.

7
Christopher H. Hamner,
Enduring Battle: American Soldiers in Three Wars, 1776–1945
, 207. For a recent personal account of this experience, see Karl Marlantes,
What It Is Like to Go to War
.

8
Karl Marlantes,
Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War
, 343.

9
Thom Shanker, “Gates Warns Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan,”
New York Times
, February 26, 2011.

10
Quoted in Elisabeth Bumiller, “Defense Secretary's Trip Encounters Snag in Two Theaters,”
New York Times
, December 13, 2009.