Focus 580; They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967

In the first hour today we'll be talking about Vietnam the war and the anti-war movement. And our guest is David Marinus. He's an associate editor at The Washington Post and we'll be talking about some of what you will find in his recently published book it's titled they marched into sunlight War and Peace Vietnam in America October 1967 and what he's chosen to do in trying to deal with the larger stories of the war and the anti-war movement is to focus on two events that took place on adjacent days in October of 19 67. One of them was a battle that took place in Vietnam in which a group of American soldiers was ambushed by a much larger force of Vietnamese. Sixty one American soldiers were killed among them. The battalion commander the other event took place the next day in Madison Wisconsin as students there were engaged in a violent confrontation with police. Sparked by the appearance on the campus of a recruiter for the Dow Chemical Company this was the chemical that manufactured both napalm and

Agent Orange. We'll talk more about these two things and perhaps what they tell us about the war what we can learn by looking back on them as we talk this morning with David Marinus. And of course questions comments are welcome. As I mentioned he is an associate editor at The Washington Post won a Pulitzer for his reporting for The Post also as author of some other books that were both well received by critics and sold well. One titled When pride still mattered the life of Vince Lombardi and the other first in his class a biography of Bill Clinton. He's joining us this morning by telephone. Questions are always welcome we just ask people to try and be brief so that we can get in as many as possible 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have toll free line and that was good anywhere that you can hear us. And that is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 again 3 3 3 W I L L toll free 800 1:58 WLM.

Mr. Magnus Hello. Thank you David. Well we appreciate you give us some of your time I know you have been in quite a lot of time over the past few weeks traveling and talking about the book. And I'm glad I got home right. Get ready to roll. All right well first let's talk about. About the battle. This as I said took place in October October 17th 1970. Some soldiers from a very famous from World War Two very famous Infantry Division and this particular battalion was known as The Black Lions. And they went into this situation. It was an ambush. They where over overmanned outmanned outgunned a number of them were killed and as I said including the battalion commander. Talk to us talk a little bit about what happened on that day. Well you know 44 miles northwest of the camp. Border it was during a period when the American military

leadership in Vietnam was arguing that it could win the war through battles of attrition where they simply went out in front of Viet Cong in North Korea to meas and killed them. Much like General Grant in the civil war perhaps and so did the talian. The black lines Battalion of the 1st Infantry was known for going out on search and destroy missions and on this morning they essentially got destroyed. Pro a lot of different reasons that were sort of emblematic of the war at that point but they walked into up to three sided horseshoe ambush less than a hundred fifty men surrounded by a full regiment of Vietcong of more than a hundred twelve hundred and one of the great ironies of the whole battle is that the the Vietcong regiment the 1st Regiment of the Knights division wasn't even supposed to be there and that part of you noticed the log when secrets only were starving there were a lot of rice they'd been eating boiled stick wheat for two weeks and they were sort of

rummaging through that jungle looking for. Service attachment group that might have some rights for them if they made their way to another part of that region to begin a battle so by accident they thought an American battalion in that area with their helicopters quitely around heavily as American battalions tended to do when they set up this trap. I guess one of those questions that comes meekly to mind is why. How is it that you know the Vietnamese knew the Americans were there. Why didn't the Americans know the Vietnamese were there but they didn't know they were there somewhere they just didn't know where they were over confident they were just this sort of American mentality was why won't the baster. Stay home don't fight they thought the words would do these little ambushes but never have a big battle with them so they walked into the jungle that morning totally confident that if they had encountered a Viet Cong they would win the battle

and they were tragically fooled. You you start this project really started on the medicine side of things. Yes I was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin that fall and now you freshman on the edge of the crowd at the protest against chemical company unfolded. I watched the city police arrive on the campus with their riot helmets and billy clubs. I watched as they walked into the building and kids came out with bloody heads and rocks were thrown and shouts of Saeco and tear gas used at a Madison campus for the first time. When I decided I wanted to do a book about Vietnam I started with that and then I said what was going on in Vietnam that they had found the battle and tried to link the two through the actions of President Johnson in the White House during those very days but it did start with the first anti-war protest I've ever witnessed.

So it worked out that way that that the protest was going on and you said well I wonder what's what's happening on the same day in Vietnam or two incidents and I felt the story. The story had a certain resonance to me because it wasn't a big story and it only was to two people who were killed in the battle. One was the battalion commander Terry L. a junior who was well-known because of his father Terry Allen Sr. terrible Terrio it had been the commander of the entire Big Red One division during World War Two had led the division into North Africa and was highly regarded as a soldier's officer with a huge reputation adored by Ernie Pyle above others and the other person killed in the battle. Aside from the son of Terry you know it was a brigade major named Donald Hollander who I didn't. That may bring a bell with me because he'd been an all-American football player at West Point and actually had been recruited to West Point by ed assistant coach there named named Vince Lombardi who was the

subject of my previous biography. So I just went to the paper saw. That battle saw those names and thought maybe this will fit together. Well I think what's what's important about this battle perhaps not so much in as a battle in and of itself to the larger war but what it says is the way that it was conducted. It says something about where things were going with the war and particularly how the kind of political pressure that was coming down on the military and then the kind of pressure that was visited upon everybody all the way down the chain of command that led to this happening and one I think would have to say arguably that maybe that this battle should never have happened in the first I think you're right. Kerry Allen Jr. the battalion commander was responsible but as I say in the book he was under enormous pressure. One of the heroes of the book is a lot of his company commanders named Clark Welch tried to talk it out of walking you. The jungle the way they did that morning he thought it was a mistake to go the same

way they had the day before and to try to do something different. He wasn't hurt and I said the reason he wasn't hurt is because of the that the pressure coming down from above as you put it. From Lyndon Johnson who wanted to prove that the war at that point wasn't at a stalemate which is what the correspondents in Saigon were reporting from. Well your Westmoreland who thought they could win the war by just having more and more troops there and win battles of attrition there were almost half a million troops there on their way to over a half million and he kept pushing for more. Westmoreland thought that the first division commander General Haig was too passive in his pursuit of the field. It was putting pressure on him to follow them into the jungles more and all that pressure was coming down a tear you know and so that when his best soldier Clark Welch said be careful this is a mistake he wasn't heard. Those those soldiers who fought and survived this battle you

know they knew full well that this was disaster I think the other thing that's that's kept eristic about this is the fact that the the military the leadership said try to spin it and say that it was a victory and that we have one. I was stunned when I saw the press releases put out by the by the military after the battle and also by the accounts of General Westmoreland and General Hayden coming up to the base camp afterwards to describe it as a victory. It was a horrible loss. They lied about the the body count. I was able to document precisely how they lied about it they made it sound like they killed a hundred three Vietcong soldiers and in fact they just interviewing survivors they did it up the same bodies 10 times to come to that total. And it was sort of a subtle thing that really impressed me is how I dishonor the soldiers who endure that battle felt by the lies about it. It was almost as though I mean the truth was it was what was important to them they knew.

But they had gone through it for the American military to call it a victory. To call it meeting engagement instead of a bush which is sort of a semantic thing in the army but important really for ever disturbed Eggert the soldiers who survived the battle. And it seems that the there was as far as the army was concerned the the leadership the army was concerned. This the fact rested on the battalion commander. And and they said they saw among themselves they said that although publicly they they recommended him for a medal. Things that are reported in the book what happened with with that is probably riled me more than anything. General Haig who was an ep the bentyl interviews later said that no one had lived he would have fired him and that he didn't deserve any medals but he was. Given a Distinguished Service Cross only because of his

famous father. Then I discovered that this same general hey who was not at the battle who according to all the people I interviewed showed up far after it was over and had chewed out one of the soldiers for crying after surviving that who had survived the battle. The same general who was awarded the Silver Star for this battle and the the the report that gives him the Silver Star is a complete made out of whole cloth. He would you know think things he did that he didn't do. Well it is fair to say that this disaster was the colonel while Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel Allen the commanders the man who was killed in the bell that was his fault. Well I think there is. Plenty of fault to go around he certainly made mistakes during the battle that I document but I think that the fault and the editor goes all the way up for instance Clark Welch who was the hero of the battle what's it unfolded it survived it what it was a true

believer of it is melted everything before the battle afterwards. He wanted to a deep funk for many decades until I found it. It was they agreed he was a great attorney when I won definitely but he was also angry at the government that allowed his men to be put in that position in the military brass that allowed it to happen. I should introduce Again our guest for this part of focus 580 We're talking with David Marinus he is an associate editor at The Washington Post. And if you're interested in reading this book that we're talking about here it's titled they marched into sunlight and it has just recently been published Simon and Schuster is the publisher and what the book does as I explain in the beginning is it tries to deal with the larger stories of the Vietnam War and the anti-war protest movement by focusing closely on two events one battle that took place in Vietnam on the 17th of October of 1967 and then a riot that took place on the campus of the University of Wisconsin Madison the next. Stay on the 18th as students there protested the presence on the campus of

recruiters from the Dow Chemical Company the folks who made napalm and also Agent Orange. Questions are certainly welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. How is it that in Madison then this particular event that the presence of the Dow recruiters there was the thing that touched off this ultimately violent confrontation. I think the anti-war movement was changing in the fall of 1967. The war had been going for two and a half years by that point that American soldiers had been killed which was of course an enormous amount. But forty five thousand more would be killed before the war was over. There was a sensibility about. So if you were protesters but nobody thought that everything they'd done to that point it failed in that they had to become more aggressive. So they staged an obstructive sit in this time the first of that sort where they would literally

try to stop the recruiters from seeing any students to recruit. And from there every possible bit. Stake that could be made was made much like the battle in Vietnam. The UW administrator Chancellor Bill Sewall who was a great sociologist but had no experience as an administrator. Actually I had opposed the war himself and had voted as a faculty member to pull out military already that corporations like to recruit on campus but when he became chancellor he felt that he had to. He believed strongly in freedom of speech and assembly in the tub had the right to do it and the Madison City policed campus did come up with many creative ways to diffuse the situation and watched in horror as the police marched into the building with their billy clubs raised in the kids came out with their bloody heads. Some of the police said never had any training in riot control before. Those few that had had only been trained by the Chicago City police which is kind of an irony when you consider what happened a

few months later at the Democratic convention in Chicago. We're eager to get at these spoiled brat college kids as they thought who were protesting a war while their brothers and friends were fighting in it in Vietnam. So there was some of that involved. There was a few there were a few protesters who were interested in provoking a confrontation with the cops and so for all those reasons it unfolded in the ugliest way possible. Well just in as you say in both cases there is so many points when you say if something had gone differently the ultimate outcome would be different. And here in this particular case there there was the Dow recruit around campus and the students decided they were going to occupy the building where the person was conducting the interviews and so it gets there in between that decision and the decision sent in the police. That's one of the places you want to could somehow things have gone differently here and you had the opportunity to talk with this man who was the chancellor. Really how

did he know. And you know I guess I just really it's really curious about what it was he thought what he considered doing Did he ever just say fine go ahead sit in the building so you know and see what we care until you're ready to come out you know what how how how. Ultimately the decision got made to say OK fine set in place it was a bad decision and he regretted it but he didn't he would he froze essentially he was paralyzed by the by the situation. Unfortunately he accepted that the police might go in there and then violence would ensue. But he couldn't think of another way to handle it mostly because it wasn't his interest was it in dealing with students. He thought about effect when he took over as chancellor that that that would not be something that he had to deal with. Naively And so between that time when the students came in and

and the police came he he he froze and he was spotted by that moment for the rest of his life I interviewed Bill Sewall when he was 90 years old. Still reported to his office as a sociologist of Wisconsin and still haunted by that moment but particularly one one moment the riot was unfolding and he was looking out the window from basketball onto the plots of the Commerce building where it was all happening and one of his sons a graduate student rushed into his office. Dad Dad can't you stop it they're beating the hell out of the kids and Sewell said I can't it's too late. I'm one of those moments that lived forever with him. Do you think that this event had a significance for in a larger sense for the anti-war movement in United States. Well I think that events like it had a profound effect on millions of kids. The funny bits of it for everybody but. But I interviewed a lot of

students who were freshmen and sophomores that year who said that it was an awakening for them. They've never seen anything like it before it got them to thinking in different ways but its effect was contradictory as well. There are a lot of people who were turned off by the violence and alienated from the from the anti-war movement because of its events like that. So I think it's simplistic to say that it had one effect I think it had various ramifications but it certainly represented a turning point. And that's why I focused on October 67 it was right when it was after the. Summer of Love the counterculture wave was rolling across the Midwest from the west coast before the Tet Offensive went when the American public's perceptions of the winnability of the war would be forever changed. But at the moment when everything was up in the air in the IF YOU WERE movement was becoming more aggressive and this was one of those events that defined that. You know it's interesting when you think about where this

happened and I don't people I'm sure don't really think of probably don't think of Wisconsin as being a hotbed of radicalism although you as as I recall I think it was a city of Milwaukee that has distinction of being the only city in America ever to elect a socialist as mayor. But aside from that I guess one wonders why why this happened there. Well you know the simplest confident Madison was a very strongly political anti-war campus. Traditionally it had a campus traditionally had more out-of-state students than any other big school a large contingent from the east coast at a certain to the to the place it had a history department with but the long tradition of examining America's Manifest Destiny had a role in the world and expansionism.

Tradition of sifting in a window waiting. Encouraging dissent. And so for all those reasons Madison was indeed a place that that something like this might unfold. And Wisconsin I just learned recently that two of the largest draft riots in the Civil War were in Wisconsin and Port Washington and greed Bay Ironically those riots were involve mostly the young immigrant men who didn't want to fight in the Civil War and hundred years later you'd see there the immigrants the second third generation immigrant working class kids being the ones who fought in Vietnam and the middle and upper middle class being the ones who didn't want to fight. Yeah. You know those were the rights that were touched up by the fact that at the time of the civil war if you could come up with enough money you didn't have to go there. It was so it was it fell disproportionately on the poor people who obviously couldn't come up with how much it was a couple of hundred dollars or something like that if you couldn't come up with that kind of money then you went

up in the board because the draft was also a constant source of conflict and discussion. Whether you had a draft. Minute felt guilty about it but for every American male who was in the military between the ages of 18 and 25 or 6 we had to think about and talk about what would I do if I got drafted if I opposed the war and that certainly added a fire to the anti-war movement and everywhere but especially in college campuses like this. Our guest again we're about midway through our guest in this part of focus 580 is David Marinus he is an associate editor at The Washington Post. He's authored a number of books one about Vince Lombardi. That book is when pride still mattered. He's also written a biography of Bill Clinton titled first in his class is the author of the Clinton enigma and co-author of The Prince of Tennessee Al Gore meets his fate. He now lives in Washington D.C. and Madison Both Well I'm proud

to be able to save it. My wife and I are from Madison and last year we bought a little house there that we were living in in the summers so it's great to be back after 30 years away. And the book here we're talking about is titled they marched into sunlight War and Peace Vietnam in America October 1970 published by Simon and Schuster. And a good question certainly are welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. I'm wondering if there was a particular reaction you've gotten to the book it would not surprise me and and I know that in the review that he wrote for the for the paper for your paper David Halberstam it kind of raises this question and that is that that by constructing the book this way and setting these two events side by side the battle in Vietnam and what happened the riot that happened in Madison that there it seems to suggest an equal once an equivalency between the experiences of the protesters and the soldiers.

And and I can imagine a lot of people saying that's just it's just not the same and I guess I wonder is that indeed how you think about that and do you see that there is a LONG before we want to first started writing a book about effect. I had a discussion with David before I wrote the book and he said you know he suggested against trying to get opinion is in the best minority not the soldiers that I've read in the book. The problem was. None of this of the other characters in it and none of the very few of the other reviewers because there's no question that they're not equivalent of events in terms of the danger that the soldiers faced versus what happened to the protesters. That's not the point of the book. The point of the book is to get people and people who might not read a book about soldiers to Vietnam but are interested in approaches to look at the other side and vice versa and that has happened

to a large degree and I've had amazing events where for instance at the marquis public library someone after the bye speech said how many people here were epis consonant 1967 and about 30 people. How many were Vietnam vets and another 30 raised their hands and they applauded each other's credibility. Now you've stepped in the modern American culture. But I was trying to get people from those two very different worlds to think and deal with each other. Well point to the book I've just written a book about a battle that would have just been another book about a battle. He does say something interesting I think in the review and that I think is is insightful and he writes of that. It's always struck me that one reason the Vietnam War does not go away is that in some ways it is our second civil war pitting us not only against the North Vietnamese Army and the Vietcong but dividing us against ourselves as well. You think that's I think there's some validity to that certainly and I think there's division

from you know more than from other events of the 60s or so. Somewhat evident in America all these years later. And really that's what I'm trying to deal with in the book. Let's talk with that we have some callers coming in we have someone first on our toll free line in the Bourbonnais. So let's talk with them on our line for. Thank you for having our David Maraniss back here the same year. It is one where I discovered the most appalling statistic and I went through a great deal of effort at the Pentagon to make sure this was a correct figure 1967 were killed by friendly fire five thousand three hundred seventy three Americans. Oh I got well I don't have interesting statistic I don't. I don't know that but it wouldn't totally surprise me. I know it

was a large number and I know that even in the battle that I write about some of the men were killed by friendly fire is of course ridiculous. Ever use of nothing friendly about the fire but but American artillery in the battle killed some of the American soldiers and this obviously this is accidental accidentally. When you're killed by said by your own when you when your soldiers are killed by it's on his own side that could happen in a lot of different ways. But misfiring accidents and so on it. But as I report in the book The Viet Cong strategy which they defined allegorically was to grab the opponent by the belt and the fighters close to them as you can which made it more difficult for American artillery to not injure and kill its own men as well and that was one is one instance or one reason that even though we had a an an overwhelming kind of techno line terms of

military hardware ethnological advantage that it was it wasn't it didn't. It didn't work when you were fighting didn't always work you know hopefully because of that strategy ambushes a guerrilla tactics. Another caller here in Chicago line one. Hello hello. I was 17 and 1967 and I didn't feel any division whatsoever. I felt that the majority of people my age or or the protesters or even society who stayed kind of neutral didn't really want the war. I don't feel I didn't feel any division like there was like today there's half for the war and half against. Well I don't write well. I can explain why you didn't feel that I think that the the right did in October of 67 the public was starting to turn against the war but the and the polls for the first time were showing that perhaps a very

slim majority was turning against the war but it was it was a very close. Call it that time so it certainly wasn't. I mean I just I don't know why I just didn't feel it. Yeah I thought from my maybe I was too my optic in myself you know I didn't. Well clearly I have to. When they did that the lottery I got a hummer and I wasn't drafted. But I don't I think I looked at that war were the greatest mana sure because I had there was no animosity against the Vietnam person I couldn't couldn't fathom right it was different in that sense from from the war in Iraq or in the military aspects of those wars are totally unlike as are the enemies. But there are still some echoes of Vietnam today in a lot of different ways you know soldiers in a place where they don't know who the friend is and who the enemy is. And oh it is in a sense but I think a lot of a lot of people feel that they're fighting civilians in Iraq an act right. And here's the thing that

I mean that was true. That's what I'm saying but here's what I'm I'm a little disappointed as a baby boomer you know and somebody who was a scared rabbit like everybody that I knew because really I don't think anybody wanted to go no matter what. Self-preservation and the fact that the same people are in charge now. Well you'd be interested in my book because one of the characters in the book is Dick Cheney. Right. It was a graduate student at Wisconsin in that fall of 67 and shady rep. He wasn't against the war he wasn't really even 40 just didn't want anything to do with it. Right and he was avoiding the draft it flunked out of Yale twice and was not trying to get a graduate degree getting serious about his studies. And the mindset was Just don't bother me with that. And now he's one of the main architects of the law a lot of the talk show hosts are in this category. Oh the ones the pro like to like to Rush Limbaugh was on this show on Hannity's they all kind of dodged the draft too.

So I mean it's very I'm very troubled by that. I understand your feeling. You know it's it bothers me a lot as somebody who face to directly to people and who are so adamant not to go sacrifice those people. I tell you what. Good thing I learned in this book you know because you go out of medicine I was somewhat familiar with that side of the story but the deepest thing I wanted to you know I'd seen all the movies about Vietnam and read a lot of the books but I was going to tell you to view the soldiers and some of the people who would do the work so they could understand what the horror of what it really is. I think the interviews will be a pretty a pretty close with Iraq's thinking. We hope you will thank you for thank you for the call and other comments questions are certainly welcome we have about 15 minutes left. The number here in Champaign-Urbana if you're listening we're here where we are 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have that toll free line that's eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 and again our guest David Marinus He's

associate editor at The Washington Post and the book that we're talking about is titled they marched into sunlight it's published by Simon and Schuster I think that one of the things that's true about the book and lot of people have remarked on it is just how vivid how intense your depiction of combat is. And that if you want to know what it's like. It's one of the things you could do is read it and I've I've not had the experience and and I know you would haven't had the experience. How did you how did you manage to learn about it and get that that level of understanding. A long time and I had to win the trust of all the survivors of the battle interviewed about 40 of them and also some of the soldiers who fought on the other side for the first regiment of the Viet Cong. And but beyond that I was lucky in that I found a whole stash of interviews taken with survivors of the battle in the days right after it occurred.

But I would be a military historian for a secret report that never really came out about why this battle unfolded the way it did. And so it was a combination of my interviews deep your abuse with people but I couldn't really trust their memories of the chronology of events but I could trust details like Clark Welch the first lieutenant about a remembering that he looked out of the ground and saw some blue thing. Like a worm or a fish he realized that it was his biceps that have been shot out. That's the kind of thing that people don't forget and you can trust. You know you can't trust the time whether they remember the time of events or everybody that was involved but they would use those details from my interviews with the survivors of the battle. But the interviews that were conducted right after the battle which were far more reliable in my opinion because of their proximity to what had happened the official documents and then I spent a few months just sort of

using these big old posters sort of block it out where everything was trying to figure out the contradictions before I wrote those two vivid chapters. It certainly seems that the one overall impression that you come away with is that you would never again think that a battle was somehow planned or the plan. Exactly but the trick for me was to evoke the utter chaos of a battle. Yet at the same time make it understandable for the reader to follow. So it's kind of impossible that's what I was trying to do. Post after we have some other callers here here in Champaign Urbana where we are so we're going next to a line of one in Champaign. Hello. Yes I did read your book autobiography I believe of one of my native sons and President William Jefferson Clinton wrote a biography of quickly. CLINTON Yeah. Anyway I would just like to ask the question and

made it a little bit farfetched but say took 20 or 30 years down the road and you happen to have the good fortune of still being alive. You see sufficient parallels between the Vietnam War and and the student on the tip of Madison Wisconsin. And what may be happening in a nascent or emerging Operation Freedom Iraq Ephraim and the anti-occupation and the unrest it seems to be coming to the fore now that you can say something like Well things never change in America's and everything to learn about pay its mistakes. Pick through it close. When I started this book before 9/11 before the war in Afghanistan or Iraq and yet I see a lot of echoes of the already. I think that militarily the words are very very different. The way the soldiers are regarded by the country is quite different for the better. But

the. And the policies that lead America into situations like this and sort of I think that situations change but human nature might not which is kind of a depressing conclusion for a historian to come to but that's sort of the way it appears to me in many respects. Well it's based on rationalizations at least that that are questionable. I think those are the reasons why Vietnam or or Iraq started but the rationalization of the Gulf of Tonkin attack. Some of the or the weapons of mass destruction or as Dick Cheney would claim a nuclear capability in Iraq. Questionable now after the war this started. I'll be 67 in October a president who was determined to show that he was prevailing and that the press was getting it wrong which is somewhat similar to what you see today. So I think you know a lot of ways. There are some echoes Yes.

Thank you very much. Thank you. I think you have another caller I believe this is also someone in Champaign. Hello. Oh I could act on the ocean but I think there's a trick to do it ourselves that what we're looking at here was a sort of second civil war in America and one of the most interesting sources for this poll the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations has been doing every four years with questions about the Vietnam War and their ads. One of the questions that is asked. I mean is the statement that the Vietnam War was more than a mistake. It was fundamentally wrong and immoral. Now that was the question people asked a good number in 1990 one percent of the kettle corn treatment at stake. That was just a blunder was fundamentally wrong anymore. But the fourth thing already. 70 the numbers were that high.

We had not so much of America the second American Civil War here in the middle of peace and order. Well we have had since the Reagan years I think is a massive campaign to sort of remember the Vietnam War you know where where they set up that is the notion that it's a second civil war is more of a public relations from really from the 80s and that it could indicate there is a lot of the bits of that that have been stirred up but by the right wing as you suggest about sort of the aftereffects of the 60s trying to blame all of society's ills. I mean it's not just part of it. I quite agree. Well and that as it seems he was suggesting a moment ago that even just a problem about well we're going to remember history but a very political problem. An op ed in your paper as a matter of fact

this last weekend at the American Enterprise Institute. The chairman of the project for New American Century. I was amazed that what we need in Iraq is tactics more like Vietnam. There was you know a bit of money for it. It's important it seems to be for the record to be quite a belt that there is this fundamental division of it for the people who are promoting the war in Iraq. I once read about a very sophisticated analysis and I appreciate it. Appreciate your time. Well thank you for the call again we have about this point about 10 minutes left in this part of focus 580 Marinus our guest associate editor of The Washington Post author of the book they marched into sunlight or in peace Vietnam America Tober 967 that aims at trying to deal with the two very large stories here of the war and the anti-war movement by looking at two events that took place October 17 18

and nine hundred sixty seven won a battle in Vietnam and the other was a riot took place on the campus of University. Johnson Madison the book is out now in bookstores you want take a look at it and questions you're welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. You have the opportunity. You went back and you interviewed a lot of folks people who were there in Vietnam who were in the command structure and also people who were involved in the anti war movement and one of things I'm curious about is how how many of the people that you talked to who were very much involved in the anti-war movement then went on to continue to be involved in politics. Well one of the key features in the book is who was a graduate student in history at Wisconsin sort of in the second or third year of the if you were leadership before that event well into building you know quote by police during the riot

and emerged afterwards as sort of a spokesman for the anti-war movement in Madison and six months later he did come of the times. Work within the system he did. Six months later he was elected to the city council in Madison six years later he was elected mayor of Madison and reelected four times and served for much of the 1970s 80s into the 90s. So he he definitely followed that path. I've actually only had Madison ironies he was defeated last year because people didn't remember especially thought he was too conservative. It does. I guess the question that that it invites is to you know to what extent the the anti-war movement continues to be a part of politics in this country or whether people who are directly involved or

the kinds of organizing that they did or the themes does that current still run through American politics today. I think it does I think it's somewhat different because of the lack of a draft and so there's a little bit less intensity on college campuses around that age group. But it is after the Vietnam era there were so many waves of despair over the Saxon nations in 68 and the ending of the war and of Watergate and so on that I think somewhat diminished that energy it did change somewhat some of the focus wanted to for young people wanted to the anti globalization idea. So. And that sort of merged it to some degree with the anti-war movement of today. I think it's different but I think that there is a very strong and deep rooted vein in American politics that carries that anti-war flavor.

One more caller I think will have in hopes a toll free line line for thank you. Yeah thank you. I haven't had a cast of Egypt book but I've been very much interested in the whole Thank you. But you're saying. But you've written about and I've had a couple things that have bothered me all the time and I feel free at my death to be an 18 year old boy. I started sharing the 18 year old boys in camp and Vietnam girls as young and truckloads of Vietnam girls as young as 13 being stepped up to service the boys and how we reacted to those children that were born and I out of that you know. Well I can tell you that the First Infantry Division in Vietnam was faced with like a base camp north of oak. I visited there two years ago when I was doing the research for the

part of the book a year and a half ago and I was told that. At some one point there were twelve hundred doomer Asian children living there. The legacy of the First Division after the war children who were scorned by the Vietnamese and were having difficulty getting into the United States during the Reagan administration there were no most of them sort into this country but. But it is one of the you know I went to thank one of my niece tried to adopt some children in the service you know and so we were and whole story about that that how they you know what cried over and they it died and all the things right here good people didn't know how to work with the children but the other thing is that I think it's very important in Chicago the Northwestern University has I mean that University dental work with the right will it will be better and home

up there. Now what is happening that I know they have to be absolutely true. They had a very going to tear that home down a little a few years and build another big fancy something. But I have better and Fran who can't go that the only way you can go to defy that will now is to go in as an outpatient. And I have to go away to the West Side of Chicago to other places now. I have said don't do that and the government believes that we're going to have all of our. Coming back and body bag Well I will. They need to be services. And yet in an area where they can be really their best. The psychological effects of war on soldiers are something above both soldiers for the rest of their lives and Americans sometimes forget the physical.

We're going to have to stop because we've just come to the end of the time. And I I want to say again to people who are interested in the story certainly should look at the book that we mentioned they marched into sunlight just out recently by our guest David Marinus is published by Simon and Schuster. He is an associate editor at The Washington Post and has written a lot about American politics. He's the author of biography of Bill Clinton and also one of Vince Lombardi. Mr. Berners thanks very much for thank you David thank you so much for your great interview.