Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with John Wheeler, 1981

Were turning markedly down 31. Jack what is the unfinished of the business the unfinished business of the Vietnam war is to confront all remembrance of the war in a way that helps us understand how the events of the war years shape us now. I think the events of the Vietnam War years will have more effect in the next 20 years on American life than they did in the last 20 years. Thank you. And larger than that. Why would that be.

The main reason that the war had such a major effect on us and will have effect in the future. Is that the largest single. Generation in American history came of age during the war years. And they were profoundly affected by the events of the war years. You have to remember that those events are interconnected. There was the Vietnam War. There was also the war protest. In addition there was the civil rights movement which was reaching a crescendo before the war which continued during the 60s and in the environmental movement and the and the. The women's movement. They were interconnected but a principal catalyst and source of fuel for all of that was the fact that the Vietnam war was going on. What kind of what kind of dialogue can you imagine Kerry like. Right. I think a dialogue between the anti-war people

the men and the women who protested the war in the 60s and the Vietnam veterans is very likely to happen. One reason is they have so much in common. The people. Who were just becoming 15 16 17 years of age during the period 60 61 62 were. That is our generation the Vietnam generation were very idealistic. And when Kennedy said Ask not what your country can do for you but rather what you can do for your country that's something. Men and women all across my generation believed in. And so there's a there's a fundamental idealism in common and I don't think that idealism has been lost. I think it's I think it has become matured by the experience that our generation has gone through so fundamentally there's much income and so the dialogue would be one that gets a lot of underbrush out of the way and makes it possible for people to have to find out what they have in common and perhaps the perfect example. It is a conversation I

had with a friend who was in Colombia one Peace Corps mission to Colombia first tour he gave up a lot in an idealistic way because he was a believer to spend two tours and then to become an administrator in the Peace Corps. Now in some ways similar to the way I and others went into the the army. I'm going to just mention some words that are very frequently raised in connection with past experience just as I think perhaps word for word. I think anger Well I think anger is the story of of America's response to Vietnam. Intense anger in the question is why so much anger. Now the signs of the anger were the vigorous and quickly growing anti-war protest especially after 965 the size of the crowds and such things as raising

the Vietcong flag whatever raising the Viet Cong flying meant it. It surely meant these people were angry whether a lot of them knew all the reasons they felt angry is an open question. Something we need to look at. But but but anger was surely in America's Vietnam story. If we could get back in touch with some of that anger now rather than then spending rather more of our time as a culture denying that there was a war going on just like we denied that the Vietnam veteran was back among us that might be healthy. It might even better be better to see a little bit more anger. Anger will probably characterize a good part an early part of the dialogue that's necessary especially among the Vietnam generation. Anything happening. Absolutely. The number of books have been written and unfortunately in this country we have a dilemma to develop mental telepathy so we've got to use words and

one of one of the important vehicles for words is books and op ed pieces in newspapers slowly a dialogue is developing. The first step is already evident some terrific books. This ahead of some rule number 13 goes with a head of Carroll number 21 for Debbie GBH Vietnam Viet 13 legacies continuing with the interview with John Wheeler. He was getting his writing history. The dialogue is the dialogue among the Vietnam generation is already growing. The first step is is to remember what did happen a

long time ago in a place far away that was Vietnam and the war zone. A good typical book that shows that has begun that part of the dialogue has begun. Is Phil computers a book of rumor of war which is autobiographical. There are other books like that. The next step how what happened long ago affected in Vietnam affects or affected what happened in our country long ago. And there is some literature that begins to look at that of course there are books about the war protest but they are there but those aren't retrospective in terms of seeking healing or a dialogue they're rather just statements. But the books are important. There are there have been a lot of books that the talk about the war protest. The next step is how what happened long ago affects us now to begin to look to the future. One book that does that is the book the wounded generation. So far it's the only

book it's an anthology that begins to take the step of saying this is what happened long ago in the generation how does it affect us. Now I think it includes a dialogue an actual reproduce symposium among. War protesters and Vietnam veterans and include significant contributions from blacks. And I think it's a very thoughtful piece by Susan Jacoby about how women were probably affected by the war. Now there's a need for about 85 books. All that I've got to be written in the next seven or eight years there. That tells us more about how America is shaped in the present by the events of the 60s and then begins to take the next. Then there is a need for the next most important step in the dialogue which is to to think about how it does shape our future and there is an urgent need for for some books that begin to say these are the likely of facts of the war years on America's future

because the war years affected the Vietnam generation which is 60 million people the largest single cohort unified cohort in world history all born at one time with much in common how the effects of the war years will of will shape America. And that that that need one way of looking at that need is to think about our children the children of the generation our children who enter kindergarten in September of one thousand nine hundred three are going to be the college class of the year 2000. If denial and avoidance of the subject of the war particularly wartime service goes on you can be sure that our children will pick up those clues. And it would be better that we talk these things out among ourselves and be conscious about how we are affecting our children. Just as an example then if we're not the hope the purpose of this dialog is a modest one it's it's not that there be some artificial

reconciliation some artificial forgive and forget. It's rather that by understanding where we've been by understanding how our past shapes us we can govern how our past shapes us. When I entered West Point in July of 1962 I started beast barracks which took most of the summer. And then. Spent the next four years I graduated in 1066. My class at West Point. Had casualties as as heavy as any of the other Sixties classes the war fell across the middle one thousand sixty as classes of West Point very heavily just like it did across the back of my dad's class at West Point. January 1943. And also the class of 40 for the class of forty two and the same as the class of fifty and

fifty one during the middle of the Korean War. So you have got the injury condition to his last breath. And yet you're not angry at the hour. I am angry at some of the things that the any war protesters did. And also I know that I have been very angry at them and that I first vent a lot of time not even knowing I was angry at them. When you got off the airplane at Travis Air Force Base in 1700 which I did it was that's when the culture shock began. West Point prepared me and the army in the Marines prepared everybody very well to go in to combat that's their job. We were not very well prepared to come home. When we came home we found out there was a taboo the taboo is you don't talk about having been in combat service or in Vietnam and we want to ask you about it. It was a comfortable

contract. The trouble is it made it very hard for us particularly the Vietnam veterans to bring up to the surface things that just as everyone knows just from simple common sense have got to be talked about. So for 10 years. I was angry at any of war protesters and didn't realize it. I think about two or three years ago I was a lot angrier openly then I am now now. What is the truth is that I am angry at some of the things they did. But here's what's important. I think that there is still a lot of other anger like acid running around the generation that hasn't been been openly confronted. Some of it I think runs among any war protesters. And I think some of it is is being directed at people right at themselves. And this is all common sense. And I think common sense also says that America is at the point where we can begin to look at this a very important thing with respect to the dialogue and with respect to the anger is that

the first major statements that have been made about the need to look at our national remembrance of the war have been made by Vietnam veterans the people that that in many ways gave the most certainly gave as much as anyone else in our country's history are still giving. And they're giving by exposing themselves. I go back to Phil Caputo his book I go back to the guys who express themselves in the wounded generation. They have begun the painful process of this national dialogue in many ways. An important thing to remember about that 10 years while the contract was in effect the contractor the two have moved and said We won't ask and you don't answer. Is that it was stripping away part of the personhood of the Vietnam veteran. Now there were three million of us who came back alive from Vietnam in round numbers.

A very important cohort within the generation 3 million we're not all twins of each other. Through our three million individuals but one thing that did happen is that we were we were told to put on our shelf somewhere up in our hearts an important part of our life. Part of our personhood was being stripped away. And in a way as a metaphor it can be said that we were turned into the niggers of the 1970s. We were made a nigger. You make someone a nigger by taking away part of their personhood by pretending an important part of them doesn't exist or even by pretending they don't exist. When you pretend a soldier who's been through a searing experience doesn't exist as a former soldier. And he can exist as a banker or he can exist as someone who is not employed or he can exist as someone in law school but not as a former soldier. You're making him a nigger. So what are the events two events that seem to be connected.

The 60 day war protest the successful rise. I think that's. One of the most important things to remember as as this dialogue of first writing and then teaching teaching in high schools and teaching in colleges seminars and as this dialogue develops is to remember that the world was not invented in 1960. But it is true that the decade of the sixties was like the last stage of a space shuttle. It put a lot of things into orbit it took a lot of cargo into orbit and two things that got carried far into orbit by the way heated exchange within our country during the 60s was the women's movement and the the war protest. Now as an academic matter there are people who write in this appears in the book the

wounded generation that the there was first the civil rights movement and that trained if you will like Khadr a lot of people who were activists and then included men. Who ran the show and women you know hey you go get us some coffee while we plan this here March. Then the war protest which included the same cadre for example some of the same people in the Berkeley Free Speech Movement were civil rights activists. Well some of the women in that group began to get hip and this disappears in the literature and. They they saw that that actually lately they've been treated like niggers and you know they for a little while they were the new nigger and. The white you can say is that that to some extent there was some teaching going on that was important the women's movement was roots that go back through and beyond the 19th century in America.

Ned up with some warnings that were right at just at that time. One of the most important aspects that gives a clue to the importance of the relationship between man and woman and the way that that was changed during the Vietnam War and the way that the protest of the of the war affected the women's movement is to look at America during the 1950s. Men became flower children. They were wearing shoulder length hair which in our culture during that period of time was was rather a feminine trait. And what was happening. Was that America like a large aircraft carrier in the ocean was shifting two or three degrees in courses towards the feminine pole a feminine

feminine eyes zation of our culture. The the the other other signs are there. For example we started talking about sharing ideas and sharing leadership. There was no more leadership there was. There was a sharing and cooperation among among war protesters. For example people of voided being put in positions of authority. I argue that these are our signs of a shifting toward the feminine now and I'm not saying that's bad. But it means some things first of all it means that some serious research and writing needs to be done to explore this possibility. Another thing it means is it is it was therefore a shift away from the masculine. Part of that shift away from the masculine would be understandable if the war was seen as masculine soldiers or masculine the war is masculine it's bad. We are going to shift away from it pull back away from it. I think that helped the women's movement. It

gave some more energy to getting women into orbit more women in law schools more women in banks. There is a connection there. It isn't all one cause and want to effect in the world wasn't invented in 1060. But the the link is there and this is part of it is good news it's good news because many women in the in our generation are going to help save our country if the country's going to be saved as the year 2000 and very able women. In my agency at the Securities and Exchange Commission a great many over a third of the principal managers are women very able people. And it's it's a pleasure to work with them. So that's a hopeful sign. A sign of something that needs to be worked on. Is that by being rather tilted toward the feminine side. I think we're rather tilted toward the toward the idea that life is full of things that are worth living for if the 60s stand for anything they stand in part for the proposition

that. Sure there are many things worth living for. It's not complete coincidence that the environmental movement took off in 1990 Earth Day of 1970. But we're forgetting a principle that is is probably at least in our culture rather a masculine principle that there are also things worth dying for. You seem to be a balance as you get used to something. Could something please please can you address that explain. Well it's common sense and in many ways most people have experienced a real setback in life or some event where expectations they had have been dashed. A common occurrence is the birth of a child who needs a lot of help in order to grow up normally.

Oftentimes a birth defect calls that causes that. Well you grieve over that process but it's true in life that many times looking back through a hard time you find things that make have made you stronger for having been over the journey that does not mean that if you had to do all over again you take the journey. But. You know you're a stronger person for having had the journey. Now there are some very hopeful signs. That appear to me to have roots in the events of the 60s that are redemptive in that sense one of them is the great strength of women in our country especially among the Vietnam generation. I think it has some roots that in some important way were fed by the attitude during the 60s of all bets are off. That's a redemptive sign. There's another one it is that the guys who were who were the niggers of the 1970s it had some training in in how it is to hurt their compassion their capacity for compassion has been deep and

I think and some examples of that if they'll forgive me or are guys like Chuck Robb. The governor of Virginia or Bob Kerrey the governor of Nebraska John Kerry lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. Men like that. I think we'll see more guys who served in Vietnam who by dint of hard work and in part the authority and respect which they've earned and their sense of responsibility for their country are emerging as leaders that's that's a redemptive sign. The hope in all of this is that our country will in the end be more united stronger during the 80s and the 90s and past the year 2000 than it would have been maybe even if if there had been been no Vietnam War at all. But you know that's hope. You don't realize a hope. Without some work. Now I have I have to confess you know I work for the FCC and so there's full

disclosure of the disclosure is I believe the 19 creed. I say it on Sundays when I go to church and I believe in redemption in the sense that everything we see in space and in time including the death of our friends is not the last word. And so I'm looking for signs like most Christians do or even many people. Who believe solely in the Old Testament Jews. I'm looking for signs of God's action in the world. Now it's important to realize there are a lot of people who don't have the faith that it says I'm looking for those signs. But those people. Can still examine the signs and ask the question what does that mean. If I see people becoming stronger if I see something shaping people and making work together better maybe there's a reason for that that it's not just locked in space and time. So I think all Americans

both want to be and will be open to the spiritual aspects of of this process. You know already this way or this year or if it isn't already you think it's like years. While. The the chief legacy of the Vietnam War is an open question and it's in our country's hands right now. And it is primarily in the hands of the men and women who came of age during the Vietnam War years. It's an open question. We can shape that legacy by by carrying on the dialogue that I've talked about it. It cries out for books. It cries out for teaching. It cries out for seminars in universities and high schools all around the country. You know 15 or 20 years ago

the the book being read on every college campus in a seminar was sold on ice. Written by a nigger from the 1960s Well now there are books being written by the niggers of the 1970s the Vietnam veterans and they're they're just not talking about themselves and they're being joined by by all of us. So in shaping the legacy the answer to your question the it the first step is for all of us to realize we went through it together. Men and women especially people in the Vietnam generation. The hope the hope for what the legacy will be that I have is is that our country will be stronger and more united. After a serious dialogue over six or seven years. Then if there had been no war at all and there is some basis for thinking that's true Martin Buber was a theologian he was also a heck of a philosopher and he said that war has an enemy and that enemy is

dialogue. True open honest dialogue. Not artificial. Forgive and forget but a real exchange over time. This is a process that will take six or seven years and the 85 books that are needed won't all be written but maybe nine or 10 will get. It Right. It's true that that the women in our lives have been. In in many cases an important redemptive. Or healing aspect of of our lives after coming back from Vietnam. In the book the wounded generation that's referred to several times Bobby Muller said that the woman he met married made a major change in his life Dean Phillips said that filk a puto said that in the book in my own experience the woman I met

Lisa created environment in which after three or four years of marriage I could begin to say my memories of the war years and the friends who were killed hurt me and I need to talk about it. And I think one of the most graceful things that happened is is she became an Episcopal priest and is a completely that's a sign of her capacity to heal it made a heck of a lot of difference to me I had spent a year in seminary and I still wasn't clear why I was there I think the reason is that I learned not to be afraid of priests so that when I met a woman who was who in some later years as she did became a priest it was fine. OK. OK this is ahead of the summer 14 goes ahead Carol number 23 to

be GBH Vietnam vs 13 legacies and continuing with the interview with John Wheeler. Mark So looking back at what I see now is that the reason the surprising reason I went to seminary was so it was so that I learned not to be afraid of priests. Later I met Lisa and we were married and she said no I'm going to become a priest I said fine. Jack let's go let's go and brief description of how you got here. In talking with Lisa while I was in law school I began to sense that my own pain from my wartime experiences that led to organizing the ten West Point classes of the 1960s to build the Southeast Asia Memorial which is now completed and built at West Point.

What what we learned from that experience was that the important thing if you're going to build a Vietnam Memorial in the in the 1980s is it has to be a landscaped solution not a big huge white marble structure. When I met Jan and he had one hundred forty four dollars and fifty cents contributed to his two or three month old organization. I offered all the help I had which included people I knew who had helped on the southeast asia Memorial Project and other lawyers. And Vietnam veteran friends of mine here in Washington very soon after that we met with Charles Mathias and I'll never forget it he opens up the big Exxon map of downtown Washington the one that's got those beautiful green places where there's Park Lane he puts his thumb right there next to the Lincoln Memorial. And said That looks like a good place. Now that was right off the Senate floor right next to the Senate floor in the Capitol under the Capitol dome. And that's how the site got picked.

The reason the site made its way through Congress was because we had fixed on the strategy of a landscape solution and we learned that from our exercise in West Point. That finally all of you. My my personal feeling is I feel very very privileged to have to have had a role in building the memorial. And I also feel very grateful that as far as our country is concerned the reports that are coming in the articles that are being written the speculation by people who think about our country and have talked to me or to Jan Scruggs. Or to members of our national advisory board is that the dedication of the memorial was a watershed. It has made it possible for this dialogue

to accelerate to really begin to take off. I think it's a very hopeful sign. Would you like yours if you were just you know. Yes. Oh I did. You think you can recapture that. Well. My personal feeling is that I'm very well OK. My personal feelings about serving as chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. Are that I'm very very grateful and I also feel privileged to have been involved in the project. As far as

our country is concerned. The the memorial and particularly its dedication it represents a watershed a beginning. Of the dialogue that needs to take place in our generation. That's the news that we're getting from people who are commentators on the memorial and on the course of events in our country they tell us that they've written that. Me. Attorney in the Securities Exchange Commission but because of the work that I've done on the first the Southeast Asia memorial at West Point and in the National Memorial on the mall I thought a lot about the future of our country as it as it relates to what went on in the 60s because of my thinking I was asked during the Reagan transition if I could think of a way to to create a volunteer program that would help Vietnam veterans. What would make sense. My

idea. Was to identify successful Vietnam veterans across the country. And make it possible for them to work very effectively as volunteers. To help bring everybody back from the Vietnam battlefield especially guys who need a leg up in getting into career jobs. The president authorized that program personally on July 16th 1981. And I became the national director for the first year of its operations. Then I had to go back to being a lawyer and to get my own career back on track and the program has been a large success. I think one sign of its success is that it's being noticed and people are asking sometimes very vigorously exactly what are these Vietnam veterans doing who who are wearing fatigues and who are bankers and lawyers and what they're doing is two things. They're defeating the false stereotype of the Vietnam veteran as someone to feel sorry for. And they are moving their

communities to do everything possible to get these Vietnam veterans as many as possible of them into career potential positions. It's a long slow process now. The program. Will end its federal funded phase on September 30th 1904 but each of the 50 Vietnam veteran leadership programs which are now under way can continue if their local chairman wants to. Because each one of them is a separate corporation set up by their chairman. The lifetime cost of the program is six million dollars a year which is roughly the cost of a project director a central communications person one each for each of the 50 cities. Six million dollars lifetime total cost is less than the replacement cost of an F-4 Phantom the airplane that did most of the close air support work in Vietnam. So the program's a bargain. Got.

To work so there is a great separation in the events of the 900 60s especially the war and the war protests created three kinds of separations among the Vietnam generation it fractured our generation like the front of a car windshield that's been hit by a brick. First man has been separated from men and guys who are Vietnam veterans feel estranged from guys who did not wear the uniform for any number of reasons there are 30 million men who came of age. Three million of us went into Vietnam and came back seven million more wore the uniform. That's 10 million in all. Twenty million. Did not wear the uniform there is a great sense of estrangement. Nobody has articulated that better than Jim Fallows in his commentary in the book the wounded generation and the predicate for that

was his terrific piece What did you do in the class war Daddy. The other separation is man from woman. I've talked to a lot of women especially professional. Working business women in our country and they tell me there's something that makes them feel edgy when they look at their success. In many cases that puts them two or four years two to four years ahead of. The Vietnam veteran who's still catching up. We'll be catching up in our career on the career ladder for the next tilt through the 1900s. Something that makes them feel edgy. Talking about these issues there is some tension as well as some of the attraction because women have been a healing force. That needs to be explored and I think women have got to start helping us by writing about it. Then there is separation of self from self. I was a Vietnam veteran the minute I got back to Travis. And yet for almost 10 years I didn't talk about that experience I was hiding something away from myself that separation of self from

self. I think that a lot of the men who did not go into uniform during the 60s. Feel some separation of self from self an important clue of that was a terrific piece written by Michael Blumenthal in the New York Times op ed page some years ago where he said you know I dodged the draft I pretended my my asthma was terrible and then you looked at the men and came back alive and he said I'm not so sure they're not better men. And that was in italics. I'm not so sure they're not better men than I. But he said I still wouldn't serve in a war. There was a cop who go in and start. A further example of guys like Michael Blumenthal might be men who quickly affirm that their wartime experience in their choices are unimportant now. I think all of us in the generation have got a record have to give all of us in the generation have to give up the pretense

that our choices made in the 60s are unimportant. And each of us as an individual has to examine that. I sense that there are a lot of men like James Fallows and Christopher Buckley who's written a piece just as strong as is Jim's about his choices in the 60s. A lot of men like them need to look at their choices so that. 15 or 20 years from now they won't feel needlessly sheepish when we will need their full strength. Another example of of why I prefer to think of it and go to Carol Twenty three hundred feet into Carroll 20 more than 40. Having served in Vietnam is a very high voltage thing especially politically.

There was one man who wanted to run for Senate in New York and during the course of his his campaign which was a very promising one early on the report got out that he was a Vietnam veteran It was on his campaign literature. The problem is that he was not actually a Vietnam veteran he did not serve in country and that led immediately to the end of his campaign and terminated. Now it's not as though he said you know I'm going to skip alien but but really he was some other denomination. It shows that he had said something about which there was very high voltage. It was important and it was positive to be a Vietnam veteran. This is just a clue. That the the best brains that our country can find need to look at these issues and think about it. OK this is Route time for the John Wheeler interview.

Yeah. Turning 31. Years. In February one thousand seventy seven. Lisa. Had our twins Katie and John. They're now six years old. John appears to be fine. Katie had a very unusual birth defect. It was a trachea that wasn't fully formed and so she needed almost instantly a tracheotomy to be put in here where she breathes. And she's been maintained on that tracheotomy all six years of her life it takes about $500 a week in nursing to keep her

alive. Her prognosis is a very hopeful one but it's a very unusual birth defect that she has. And I've wondered over the last several years whether there might be a dioxin connection and I think there is. If I think there's a possibility of one. Yeah I've been thinking over the past several years. Watching Katie grow up that that that there was a possibility that that there is a dioxin connection to her birth defect. My hypothesis is grounded in some of the things I learned at West Point about how you manage a battlefield. Now the main thing that people have focused on so far with respect to Agent Orange may be the

wrong half of the question. They they are focusing on surface contact. With dioxin by brushing against it or perhaps having it rub against you when you're delivering it as it as an Air Force person in a C-130 in Vietnam. That is an important question to examine the protocol so far have zeroed in on that. But there is another path. Perhaps the most important one. Imagine if you are the officer in charge of clearing a field of fire in one of those huge fire bases or security zones in Vietnam like a long bin or Camp Eagle or in and around not training or a camera on your coochie. All of which were stripped with vegetation as as any Vietnam veteran who flew up in a helicopter over him will tell you. How did you do your job well. You could use Rome plows those big bulldozers or you could use diesel fuel and burn or you could dig it out with machetes. Or I

think in a lot of cases there is a possibility that the army officers involved borrowed some dioxin from the Air Force. Those big barrels in and in a couple of Jeeps and some steaks would go over to say Ben Wa and then over maybe to long Ben comes the juice to spray the stuff or squirted out and clear the fields of fire. We need to find out how much that happened. I know it happened some. We need to find out how much it happened because if it did the stuff went into the water table. Then we need to find out if the engineers filtered it out. If they were just filtering for sepsis for disease but not. For dioxin then it might have been in the drinking water the drinking water that went into the lister bags that the helicopter flew out to the troops in the boonies as well as what was being drunk. In each of the major base areas. The mash subculture was drinking the stuff and the battlefield subculture was drinking the stuff as a possibility.

The protocol. At the Centers for Disease Control were Agent Orange investigations going on now has to include all possibilities. It therefore has to include inquiry into the possibility of this hypothesis. You think it. I think the Centers for Disease Control will include it in the hypothesis because they are the same people among other medical centers who are focusing on the question of what happened. Love can now or Times Beach which which is where dioxin or problem similar similar to dioxin have confronted our domestic culture. The important thing is to integrate our knowledge about what happened in the United States as say at times beach with what we believe or know happened in Vietnam. And then do careful research to find out. But but there is a possibility. If this hypothesis is right at least as to a lot of Vietnam veterans that that a

lot of us will die much younger than the other members of us in the generation. Thats something that I dont feel angry about. I think one of the things a Vietnam veteran got ready for was to die. But I would like to have it sorted out because I'm interested in Katie and and claims that she may need to make when she is much older. Thank you.