Uncle Sam
Ain’t Released Me Yet
Memoirs of a REMF
Copyright© 2016 by
Robert B. Martin, IV
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission
from the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book
review or scholarly journal. I have attempted to recreate events, locales, and
conversations from my memories of them.
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Chapter
2
The Pilgrimage
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story
inside you.”...........Maya Angelou
Carol
Ann and I took our son and daughter to Washington, DC during spring break in
1986. I very much wanted to visit the Wall (Vietnam Veterans Memorial), as it
had become known, although I wasn’t sure how I would respond to seeing it and
was experiencing some anxiety as a result.
We
almost had to force our son to go with us. He was seventeen years old and it
was “not cool” to spend spring break with your parents. We were “screwing” him
out of going to the beach or some other place where he would have more fun with
his friends.
It was a
very warm spring day and the cherry trees were in bloom. I vividly remember
walking along the shady curved walk to the Wall. I was extremely nervous and
becoming more anxious about how I might react to seeing the Wall but I felt
compelled to go and see it. I really had no choice. It was as if the Wall was a
giant magnet and I was a piece of iron. I was being drawn to the Wall and it
seemed the closer I got to the Wall the faster my heart beat and the faster I
walked. Carol Ann was almost jogging as she held my hand and did her best to
keep up with me.
For the
previous 16 years I had managed to keep all of my feelings and emotions
regarding my Vietnam experience bottled up in my “little black box,” which I
kept hidden deep inside of me. This was NOT the time to allow those feelings to
escape. I did not wish for my family to witness what I was afraid might happen.
I dared not cry, ESPECIALLY in front of my family.
When we
reached the Wall I stood as silent and as still as a statue. Only my head and
eyes moved as I slowly scanned the entire 493-feet of the Wall. Prior to seeing
the Wall, I had been extremely critical of the fact that it was “below ground”
and wasn’t as “grand” a monument as most of the other war monuments and
memorials in Washington. This was not my opinion alone. Many Vietnam Veterans
felt the same at that time.
Once I saw
it, that long, dark, somber line of marble tablets etched with thousands of
names along its length, I realized that it was going to make a much greater
impact upon me that I had anticipated. Over 54,000 names at that time (over
58,000 as of December 2015). The number only changes on Memorial Day if the
Department of Veterans Affairs receives additional information. Of those tens
of thousands of military personnel, I later learned that 61% were 21 years of
age or younger. Almost 18,000 of the men were married. Draftees accounted for only
a little over 30% of the names. National Guardsmen numbered only 101. That
should tell you why practically all draft-eligible males wanted to join the
National Guard.
Almost 10%
of my generation served in Vietnam. Out of over 8.7 million military personnel
on active duty worldwide during the Vietnam War (August 5, 1964 – March 28,
1973), 2.6 million of them served within the borders of South Vietnam. Of these
2.6 million, between 1 million and 1.6 million either fought in combat,
provided close combat support, or were at least regularly exposed to enemy
attack (Source: U.S. Government – VA Web
Site).
The
magnitude of such numbers is difficult to appreciate until you can see and
touch all of those names in one location. That’s when it hit me. All of these
people died in Vietnam and I came home without a scratch or so much as a
stubbed toe. The enormity of it was almost too painful to bear. I began hurting
so badly inside. I felt ashamed, like I had not done my duty, that I had
“gotten out of something,” or “lucked out.” I had a feeling that I
"owed" them; what, I don't know.
It was
very quiet at the Wall, as if no one else was there. As far as I was concerned
I WAS the only person there. It was just me and the Wall. If people spoke at
all it was in whispers, like in a church.
I stood
and stared for a few more minutes and even though I had promised myself not to
cry, tears were running down my cheeks as my mind bogged down in processing all
of this information.
Once the
initial shock began to wear off I decided to look for the name of the only
person I knew who had died in Vietnam. I found that name on panel 08W, line 38.
His name was 1LT James Robert Kalsu. Bob Kalsu was killed in action at Fire
Support Base (FSB) Ripcord in the A Shau
Valley on the 21st of July 1970. We weren’t friends, we had never actually
met. Yet, we were brothers. We were in the same artillery battalion but in
different batteries (what the artillery calls company-sized units). He was a
very popular and well-liked officer. The Buffalo Bills of the NFL had drafted
him in 1968 but he chose to enlist in the Army because he saw it as his duty to
first serve his country. I touched his name with my fingertips and, while touching
those engraved letters, I couldn’t help but feel the heavy pressure of “survivor’s
guilt.”
To be continued in Chapter 3, The Shock....
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