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What strikes you about Greenway’s account of his time in Vietnam? Does his description of the war the soldiers and attitudes toward the conflict enhance your understanding of America’s war in Vietnam? Explain with specific reference to the reading.
Please post a draft or a sketch of the image for their protest poster. If students need extra help, they should go to Professor Gallagher’s office hours on Wednesday between 12:00-1:30.
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One thing that strikes me about Greenway’s account of his time in Vietnam is the crystal clear quality, the shocking vividness, of his writing. One example is his description of bullets flying through the air early in the excerpt: “Often the first you knew that the enemy was even near would be the fireflylike muzzle bursts winking at you from a tree line across a paddy field.”
I was also surprised by his description of his being “like a grandfather” to the soldiers because of his age–he was only just past thirty. That really drove home not merely the age, but the youthfulness of the soldiers there–their immaturity, their proximity to childhood. That helps me to begin to grasp what it meant to send such young men, in such large numbers, off to war. -
One thing that struck me about Greenway’s accounts of his experience in Vietnam is just how powerful the written word can be when the descriptions are crisp and the imagery abounds in the work. The crack of the bullets, the imagined smell of dead bodies when he slept, the viewing of an execution- each account, I could feel myself getting deeply involved in the storyline. However, despite the immediate command that the war seemed to take on the soldiers and citizens, there seemed to be a sense of normalcy that could exist in all the chaos, from Greenway’s daughter’s calm statement in reference to an explosion that it was “only a bomb” in Hong Kong to the smiles, laughs, games and interactions that could occur in a bar in Saigon despite the circumstances. It seems as though Greenway and others were perhaps desensitized by the pure volume of violence of course, but perhaps he (and others perhaps as well) had developed a sort of defiant confidence stemming from his ability to seemingly evade all the death traps around them. Finally, I thought it was quite striking to see the effects of the pressure to quantify “winning” as soldiers began to theorize how many more Vietkong might have been killed to create a narrative on the battlefield to match what their generals were saying in the press.
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The question of the purpose of the war hangs over Greenway’s piece. The idea of any Americans being in Vietnam voluntarily amazed the soldiers, who couldn’t understand why any reporters would venture out in combat. It seems the soldiers themselves didn’t even understand why they were there and only knew that the draft had brought them there. The constant assurances by Westmoreland and other American officials that the war was soon to end only heightened the confusion of the war when the conflict continued to escalate.
Along with the purpose of the war, the Americans were far from understanding the society they had entered. As Greenway says, “we blundered in and blundered out again without ever really coming to grips with the society we were trampling underfoot.”
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I feel after reading several biographical accounts of war that it is hard to identify what is it that makes each of them unique aside from their content or perspective. Greenway’s account is definetly powerfully clear, and his use of language to iterate his experiences is masterful; but at the same time its hard not to read a widely circulated memoir of war that isn’t strikingly descriptive. How could you go to war and not have memories so vivid that extreme clarity is the only way to feasibly communicate them. So in a literary sense, I dont think Greenway’s account is particularly unique, but his political and diplomatic sense is where I think I sensed the most value from his account. I haven’t really read any Vietnam war memoirs, or war memoirs in generals, that sort of went beyond the traumatic narrative of their experience, the existential element. Greenway though does a great job of painting a political context to the war outside of the battlefield that I wasn’t at all familiar with. The tensions in China that unfolded simultaneously to the war, which he witnessed firsthand, were a great supplement to the events in Vietnam.
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One description during the reading that really got my attention was Creighton Abram’s worry about the sapping morale of the American soldiers as the war progressed. He particularly mentioned the occurrence of “fragging” (“the deliberate killing or attempted killing by a soldier of a fellow soldier, usually a superior officer or non-commissioned officer”) by the French army in World War I with a feeling of unease that the same may occur as the morale continued to plummet among the soldiers. The fact was, it did occur, with Senate candidate Roy Moore being one of the officers to be a victim of fragging by his own men.
Another description that was really gripping was the description of the execution of one of the soldiers who, instead of dying with dignity, blindfold removed and last cigarette puffed away at as Greenway would have liked to imagined, instead “died in a hail of bullets, having soiled his pants and slumping like an animal killed in the stockyard”, highlighting the raw and macabre horror of what the process of execution was like. Even more unsettling was the fact that many soldiers gathered round to watch the show, as if bored with nothing else to do.
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The description of Vietnam by Greenway greatly enhances the imagery of what American soldiers were going through during this war. In particular, the description of watching people die, and how some soldiers “would drop just like sacks from a clean bullet to the head” while “others would die screaming in agony” brings home the reality of the conflict as well as the life-long memories it produces.Greenway also does an incredible job of connecting wartime correspondence of other writers, in particular Ernest Hemingway, into his experiences. How it is similar yes but also how it has changed. He reminisces about his inability to write in the same style of Hemingway. Yet he needs character to the horrors of war in a more modern way that Hemingway could not have. The unwinnable nature of the war “maybe with 600,00 troops and 20 years we might pull it off” as well as the mistrust of the South Vietnamese “there is a dangerous apathy, a total mistrust of the Saigon government”. Finally, he does an amazing job speaking too how war had become normalized in his life. When a bomb goes off in Hong Kong even his daughter says “For heaven’s sake, Pop, it’s only a bomb.
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What struck me most about Greenway’s writing was how he chose to reflect. The manner in which he described the war, the soldiers, and attitudes toward the conflict seemed as though they had just occurred. There detail and storytelling was uncanny. This in itself showed how horrifying things were—man can never forget such harsh conditions and acts.
Throughout the chapter, there was an eery and lingering feeling of desperation rooted in being immersed in such a war-heavy environment. War never took a backseat whether Greenway was speaking about the actual war-induced scenes of bombings, shootings, and the smell of death, or other areas of his life such as his family…one could never mentally or physically get away from the war. In addition, the pessimism toward the changes of winning the war did not help. It was clear that the people were not acting on good faith but the need to survive.
To some extent, it is as if the people were merely acting on their professional duties instead of coming from a place of understanding as to why change was being sought out. In fact, Greenway exposes that people did indeed come to Vietnam with differing ideologies and political beliefs. There is nothing that points this out to be a negative, until it emerges into caring nothing about Vietnam for Vietnam’s sake (69). This is often how I feel about the soldiers and journalists who were present during the Vietnam War. When entering Vietnam, it seems as though the majority did not attempt to acknowledge who the Vietnamese were, what the culture was, or why this war held importance. What was the true fight being fought? Would the answer differ between the natives and foreigners? If so, by how much?
In respects to Greenway, I did appreciate his relationship with Pham Xuan An who gave him insights into Vietnamese life and ways of thinking. So while I do not believe Greenway completely enhanced my understanding of America’s war in Vietnam in terms of new information, his account of his time in Vietnam brought me some relief because of the personification. He welcomes people to see the war in a different perspective; rather than a textbook that merely states historical events. There was much vulnerability which allows the readers to see the depths of the war’s influence.
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Greenway’s writing provides a formidable insight into the sights and sounds of the Vietnam War, creating a scene through his powerful imagery and strong description. Throughout the entire piece, an air of skepticism about the war in even those at the front lines supports the arguments and protests made back home. Greenway describes the sentiment as “American self-delusion” even, speculating about the veracity of body counts and forced optimism in the troops. Also striking was the account about the execution of the young “aspirant,” especially Greenway’s own romantic imagination. He had imagined a proud, defiant death, but was presented with only a man’s visceral terror in the face of mortality and was sorry he had come. Also illuminating was Greenway’s accounts of the Americans with the locals of Vietnam, as most accounts focus on the war itself and less on the specific interactions and how they associated with the locals. In addition, Greenway’s vivid accounts show how close to the battle the reporters were. When writing about helping a wounded soldier, it was very interesting to see the difference in opinion, as other reporters criticized their actions to get involved in the battle. As reporters, their duty is to document and observe, but they are also at once entrenched in the battle itself and are risking their lives, just as the soldiers are.
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Greenway brilliantly weaves specific stories with the overall backdrop of the war. He provides a history of the war not only in the Vietnam countryside, but also in Vietnamese cities like Saigon, in China (mainly Hong Kong), and a brief experience in the United States. Greenway traces the progress of the war while making historical references (to the Franco-Viet Minh War, for example), identifying turning points like the Tet Offensive, the replacement of Westmoreland, and more. Amongst this, Greenway tells personal stories from his times in Vietnam and China, giving the reader insight into his daily life and how much it changed throughout the war each day depending on his location and the war itself. The two things that most struck me were (1) Greenway’s increased involvement in the battles themselves and (2) his comment that he “was very glad to be back in Saigon” after talking to American anti-war demonstrators who “cared nothing about Vietnam for Vietnam’s sake” (69). At the beginning of the memoir, Greenway shadowed the soldiers and felt lucky and invincible. By the end, however, he was firing guns and helping to carry wounded men. He ultimately ended up being shot and wounded, no longer feeling so lucky. There is a clear parallel between Greenway’s personal involvement and the US’s involvement. Greenway’s account did not necessarily change my conception of wartime attitudes and experiences of soldiers during the battles in the jungle, but it definitely more clearly outlined the timeline of attitude changes and what not (tracing the progression of journalist attitudes to do so). It also gave me greater insight into the political/casual/cultural goings-on in Hong Kong and Saigon during the war. At the time, everything was about the war, and Greenway does a great job of clearly depicting that.
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I thought Greenway’s account both echoed and expanded upon several ideas our class has come up with regarding the Vietnam War. Mainly, Greenway conveys that all war operations were hopeless. The tone of his writing suggests that there’s a lack of purpose pervading the soldier’s psyches. Soldiers are burdened with torrential weather, mental trauma, and almost inevitable death/suffering. Greenway (much like Walter Cronkite asserts) “But I can see no indication that the other side is willing to give up” (43). The war is portrayed as an immense burden—whether it be financially, mentally, or socially. No useful outcomes could come from it, and that fact alone explains the dejected demeanor of journalists and soldiers who had boots on the ground there. Greenwood touches upon the disconnect between the rhetoric and reality of the Vietnam War. Statements by the government and military officials were not compatible with what met Greenwood’s eye.
More, he shows the reader that violence is not only pointless, but inhumane. When he writes “Prisoners were treated roughly. Once I saw some Americans set dogs on terrified suspects” (39). This passage reminded me of that image of a U.S. militant shooting a harmless and captured Vietnamese man. Greenwood informs us that the mission is undeniably gruesome, purposeless, and immoral. -
In the book, there are several places that strike me about the Vietnam war.
There are writings on how the war was like during the wartime, and others are about post-war thinking.At the beginning of the piece, Greenway writes that he was wondering if he was wounded the Vietnam people would even be able to take care of him due to the out-dated medical equipment. That reveals an important fact of the war, the medical condition. Even the United States had a much better medical system, the causality was still severe and a lot of young soldiers died before they could even get treatment. And we can image the even worse situation of Vietnamese people. They might even do not have good medical equipment for a non-soldier person if he/she was wounded.
This part of the severe condition in the war would contribute to the stressful and depressing atmosphere amid soldiers. Greenway mentions that “soldiers shoot at any wildlife they came across.” I see that as if the soldiers were trying to relieve themselves from the war. There were so many emotions inside them that they might not have a good way to express and vent with, and in some ways, shooting animals might be better than shooting people. But sometimes, things went worse than that. “‘Frogging’, soldiers murdering their officers, was on the uptick as the war dragged on.” This tension of the war did not only break out the war between two groups of people but also between people inside one group.Then, Greenway’s writing involves a lot of reflections on the war. “One couldn’t find a better way to get away from the war, but the war never completely left my mind” That’s true for soldiers but also for anyone participated in. People usually assume that “veterans,” are the people suffering from the post-war sickness, but are not quite aware of other people, like the reporters, who were also part of the war. And sometimes, since not all soldiers chose to be a soldier, but most war reporters come to be a war reporter, those reporters could get even worse mental illness than others.
Despite the thinking on the results of the war, Greenway talks about his views on the causes. He reflects that American people never really knew about Vietnam and what’s going on there before the war. And most of the time, even the leaders were indulging in their own fantasies. I think that’s a quite shocking statement. It’s quite brave to just point that out, regardless whether it’s 100% true or not. -
Greenway’s piece begins with a notion of the regularity of death in vietnam. He says that he rarely saw a live North Vietnamese or Vietcong, and on occasion saw a wounded prisoner. That was striking, especially aided by the stark images he creates using the second person in some places, putting the reader in his shoes saying “bullwhips of death could reach you before you heard anything,” then pushing back and describing exotic circumstances no one could understand unless they were there—Greenway watched elephants roaming around until they met soldiers ambivalent bullets, and he watched a man be executed in such a pathetic way that he hunched over like an animal—but could not remember the infraction he was shot for. This inability to remember highlights the mundaneness of murder that surrounded the Vietnam war, and Greenway’s description of it suggests that Americans kept reaching for a dignity to the war that just wasn’t present.
As the piece progresses, it gets more erie. A wondrous home-abroad situation is described in the city of Hong Kong, and it seems that those involved in war, who aren’t soldiers on the battlefield on the daily are living quite glamorously. Diplomats met with diplomats in scenic restaurants, and there was a unqiue sort of cultural exchange on the part of those whose lives weren’t on the front lines, and who were allowed to have it—many Americans had beautiful Vietnamese girlfriends and wives. Away from Hong Kong, Saigon was such an exciting place, that when Greenway went home, he describes being disillusioned and wanting to return to Saigon—a contradiction which is made more powerful by his descriptions of people not understanding why he would be in Vietnam unless he had to.
Otherwise, Greenway describes the conflict as a way of life, as something that people were intrigued by. He and the people he hung out with, as described by Simon Fentress, would sit for their free hours to discuss everything about the war. It seemed to be a mentality that was both frightening and enchanting, and all who were involved in it (besides rural Vietnamese who just wanted it to end), couldn’t stop thinking about it, as those at home participated in a “conspiracy of wishful thinking.” Greenway highlights how American disillusion was a large part of the war, and though he recognizes that, he’s too curious to turn away. -
Greenway’s psychological analysis of himself (and possibly other reporter’s similar experiences) was intriguing. In particular, I was struck by the criticism made by another reporter, Gloria Emerson, after Greenway and his colleagues tried to save a dying marine who was struck during combat. A rocket grenade shot and left shards in Greenway’s leg while he was trying to carry the marine to safety. Gloria rebuked their actions, “No, it was male hysteria” (68). Based on my understanding, I believe that Gloria was pinpointing how the reporters should not have injected their subjectivity of their events. As reporters, they were supposed to objectively watch and write their experiences, rather than participate in it (although trying to save the marine was not morally wrong either). However, the wave of war obviously infected the reporters as well.
When Greenway rode on the boat heading to the Perfume River, Greenway grabbed a rifle when the boat behind his was hit. However in the same boat, another colleague, a NY Times reporter decided not to grab a rifle. Greenway reflects, “Years later, Gene and I were having dinner together in New York and he told me he thought I had done the right thing under the circumstances. But I believe it was he who did the right thing” (65). Rule stated that reporters were not supposed to be armed, although in such a circumstance, I doubt if I would not have picked up a gun myself. Greenway notes a sort of obsession with the Vietnam war with not leaving any offensive or battle unreported. In accordance with Greenway, he, and possibly many others, probably had post traumatic stress syndrome.
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A number of things strike me in Greenways account of the Vietnam War. He sets the scene of the war in a matter of fact way, describing the realities and giving us insight into the mindset of soldiers, and reporters. The most interesting insights I found were were those that were not in depth, but rather side notes that hinted at the role of women and general attitudes of the Americans.
The complete disregard or lack of understanding about the war’s impact on mental health was clear throughout Greenways account. Obvious through his reference to h wasn’t the same until years later, or his fellow reporter Gloria’s suicide. The constant threat of death and injury was obvious and you can feel the impermanence of people in Vietnam through the comings and goings he describes.
One aspect not really touched on is the North Vietnamese soldiers the US soldiers are sometimes working with, aside for a remark that stuck out to me after Greenway is waiting to see a doctor after he is wounded. He talks about the doctor’s frustrations that badly wounded Vietnamese were forced outside in the rain, when only lightly wounded American soldiers were told to wait outside, and all the Americans were seen by the doctors first. This gives us an unspoken insight into the hierarchies that existed, possibly racialised hierarchies, and that the Vietnamese and American did not see one another as equals even though they were technically on the same side.
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The main thing I took away from Greenway’s account of Vietnam was how unrealistic the United States was in their perspective of the war. The words that really stuck with me from this reading and I feel encapsulates the American attitude at the time were: “It wasn’t as if American officials were actually lying to you about the progress of the war. They were just inviting you to join in a conspiracy of wishful thinking.” (p.59). The American government was unable to see reality because they were so blinded by their attitude of American exceptionalism and military strength. They saw the United States as always having the moral upper ground and unable to do wrong after World War II. The US was so consumed to the fear of Communism and their commitment to nation building during the Cold War that they were blinded to the reality of what they were doing and how their choices were playing out in real time. This attitude was so pervasive, that Greenway said that before the Tet Offensive, even people living in Saigon, just miles from combat, could believe the United States was winning the war. Greenway and the men on the ground he got to know on the other hand, were actually able to see the reality of how hard and how intense the fighting was, as well as the carnage and pain it was creating for both the American soldiers and the Vietnamese. Unfortunately, this reality came hand in hand with witnessing the death of many peers.
The impact of the harsh reality that the military ignored, and therefore exposed their soldiers to, is evident years later. This has been clear in all readings we have done and cinema we have watched including today’s reading. Even as a reporter and not a soldier, Greenway himself mentions how haunted he feels having picked up a gun to shoot at the shore while riding down the river. The fact this one action weighs so heavily on him speaks to how much actual soldiers that killed in Vietnam must be affected by their more intense experiences.
Greenway was also very successful at tying his experiences into a larger global context. He mentions the war in Iraq later in American history as well as supplies a discussion of British colonial history and tension with Communist China over Hong Kong (he also very briefly mentions the struggle England encountered with their former colony India). These aspects put the Vietnam War into larger conversations that include colonialism and the nature of American military conquests as at times being over-reaching and largely unnecessary. Mentioning both of these aspects also places this American attitude in the same light as colonialism and forces readers to think about these two phenomena in reference to each other more than they otherwise would. This is essential, because these actions are arguably very interconnected, which Greenway subtly presents in order to promote further conversation and thought.
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On pg. 41 of the text, Greenway talks about how many of the journalists around him, himself included, often identified with Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway is still considered by some to be among the great American authors of the early twentieth century (though I personally think he’s seriously overrated), and many journalists saw their decision to report on this war as comparable to Hemingway’s decision to report on the war in Spain. I thought it was interesting he mentioned the Spanish Civil War, which was presumably a war where the lines between good and evil, right and wrong, were much more clear than they were in Vietnam.
Greenway’s fantasies about the US war effort begin to break down, and he describes the vicious side of the war he began to observe. He writes to his father about a Frenchman he was friends with who was killed in combat; after the US and South Vietnamese army loots his house, a special forces lieutenant buys hundreds of dollars worth of francs off a South Vietnamese soldier after he lied to him and convinced him the francs were worthless. The supposedly altruistic motives which drove the US into this war are replaced in this story by the lieutenant’s callous greed. Firsthand accounts like this demonstrate how quickly the lines between right and wrong became blurred in Vietnam. -
It was really curious that Greenway illustrated the public life of the American soldiers in Saigon, whether it was about their leisure time in bars or their private relationship with Vietnamese girls. This definitely has enhanced and enriched my understanding of the experiences of the Vietnam war, for we see mostly accounts of the situations in the war front, but not so often the more personal and private stories of the everyday life in the Vietnamese cities. The discussion of the many Americans who had relationships or even married with the native Vietnamese also strikes me, not that it was impossible to imagine (and in fact it makes so much sense like in everywhere else), but reading the first-hand report on the day-to-day life and the interactions between folks from different backgrounds in Vietnam has really informed my understanding of the diverse aspects of the war experiences. Not only the American soldiers but the peasants, the Saigonese and other foreign personnel’s stories have been rendered alive in the journalist’s writing and have provided me with a new insight and take on the actual happenings during the Vietnam war.
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I think one of the more profound and enhancing aspects of the lives of the soldiers in Vietnam as described by Greenway is life in Saigon prior to Tet – absolutely not far away from the war, but certainly at least some minor degree removed from the frontline warfare that we might conjure up initially. I think the sentence that struck me the most from the reading was: “The US military was always upbeat, and if you stayed in Saigon you might think the war was being won.” Whether this was a result of the soldiers looking for as much comfort as they could while away from the battlefields or a constructed optimism “in a conspiracy of wishful thinking,” I find it rather interesting that wartime Saigon almost seemed breathable for the American soldiers while the rest of the country was likely hellish. Greenway covers several anecdotes of differing content (though a large majority of them corresponding to stories of Vietnamese girls, which indeed carries a certain question of morality of American soldiers in the war) but altogether, it seems that the camaraderie of the troops was built through the knowledge that they were all in this foreign country because of the war. Altogether, I am able to see a more leisurely side to the war in contrast to the traumatic and devastating aspects that we were previously more familiar with, and it just goes to further enhance the notion that war is altogether an extremely complicated entity with many facets that we may not perceive from cursory inspection.
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Greenway’s writing offers a first hand account of the Vietnam War from a non-soldier’s perspective. The account is from an “outsider’s” perspective who has direct knowledge of Vietnam. Greenway was not actively participating in the fighting, but was still involved in the war in some way with first hand experience. This allows for a different narrative to develop and for different outlook on the war. Throughout the account, Greenway utilizes language that helps develop a sharp image of the war and make the reader almost feel as if they are watching a video of the war. Whether he was describing bullets, bodies, or even just making a phone call, Greenway’s descriptions were fraught with descriptive words and language that create a clear image of whatever is being described. Greenway also describes and explains more than just fighting, creating a better picture of life in Vietnam, not just war in Vietnam. Passages such as the one describing when he was in a helicopter filled with corpses who’s ponchos had flown away, give an insight into the general death and decay that surrounded the whole war and not just the actual fighting. This particular passage gives insight into how the many corpses were dealt with and what happened after the fighting ended. It also delves into the effect the constant presence of death had on people. In this passage, Greenway goes so far to say that he even considered jumping out of the helicopter to follow the ponchos and escaping the decaying corpses surrounding him. Overall, Greenway writes in a way that reveals what the war was truly like for those that experienced it, even if they did not physically fight in the war.
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“Strangely I used to wake up in the middle of the night with the smell of dead people in my room” (pg. 53). I think this says everything about Greenway’s experience in Vietnam. The first 5 pages of the first chapter we were assigned was just describing different ways that young men were being killed. Surrounded by death yet protected in the comfort of malaria pills, ability to travel to major cities outside of Vietnam, of course Greenway felt like an outsider in Vietnam. He even describes himself as someone from a different era come back to observe the war at its ugliest. I’m not sure that this piece necessarily changed my understanding of the war, but it definitely gave me perspective on just how gross the war was. Being on the ground, getting PTSD when you’re only observing, that is just such a tough event to undergo.
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The proximity Greenway was to the action as a reporter was remarkable. His experience in Vietnam was almost identical to a soldier’s in terms of encountering battle and witnessing the horrors of the war in general. At times, his experience was worse, as he lost not only his friends that were soldiers but also his friends that were reporters. His proximity to the inhumanity around him was palpable: “As the helicopter rose the wind caught the ponchos and blew them away, and I was left in the company of corpses. Soon the effluvia of their drained lives began to spatter me, and just for a moment I had an urge to fling myself out of the helicopter, to follow the fluttering ponchos down into the green jungle below.” In this passage, Greenway had been completely demoralized by the war, not even as a soldier, but as a reporter. His descriptions enhance the feeling of resignation that was common among the soldiers but himself and other reporters in Vietnam. After many of his descriptions of disturbing events, he continuously demonstrates that this war was just not worth it and made him just want to go home. He describes a story of a South Vietnamese soldier that was publicly executed for a small infraction: “He was allowed his last words, which were: ‘I did for two sergeants,” presumably meaning that two sergeants were the guilty ones… He died in a hail of bullets, having soiled his pants and slumping like an animal killed in the stockyard. I was sorry I had come.” Earlier in the story, Greenway mentions how he and other reporters and soldiers imagined how their experiences would be portrayed in movies. He explains how this soldiers execution was the furthest thing from the grandeur and flashiness of film. This scene was just plain, realistic, brutality. The soldier wasn’t a martyr, he didn’t die for his country, he was killed because death had become a simple and unavoidable reality during the war; human lives had become deadwood.
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As a foreigner, I have very little background knowledge about Vietnam War, the last thing before this semester’s class I watched about Vietnam War was Full Metal Jacket. However, through Greenway’s description, I’m able to have a more lively and comprehensive understanding of the war. Greenway analyzed the war in many perspectives rather than just throw me a bunch of data.
For instance, during the combat, Greenway and his colleagues tried to save a dying marine. However, it is definitely unreasonable to risk more than one person’s life to save only one person. Just like the reporter, Gloria Emersion, said “No, it was male hysteria”. But they just believe that it is the right thing to do.
It reminds me the heroic part of the human nature. We all live our lives rationally and subjectively during daily day time. However, during the war, when we are watching somebody close to us slowly dying in front of us, something changed. It is the heroic nature. We want to save something valuable from vanishing even when we are not allowed to.
However, for me there is another way to interpret this. From my perspective, the thing Greenway was trying to do (saving the dying marine) is something like following the contract. The content of the contract is, we cannot give up our teammates. Why? Because if anybody give up on their teammates because it is irrational, then through this logic, everyone is consumable, and it will lead to a situation that everybody lives in terror.
For Greenway’s event, if he decided to give up his teammates, then it would give him the kind of feeling that maybe someday his teammates may give up on him because it is irrational to save him. To save his teammates may be something more complicated than being a hero. He did it, also because he does not want to live in fear of the possibility that his teammates may give up on him because it is irrational. -
In Greenway text, I again find striking how close to the army the journalists could be during the Vietnam war. I was surprised by the same fact in Michael Herr’s test. For example, they were close enough to witness clearly how the number of guerilla people killed by the army was drastically inflated (according to the memoir, the reason to overestimate the results was strong wishful-thinking and not utter lying). Greenway could also see a US soldier throwing two film bags that belonged to some US television network out of a helicopter and keeping the third, without any clear reason.
The memoir’s observations regarding US intervention in South Vietnam politics are also useful to better understand how the war was fought in Vietnam. I am thinking about how the US promoted Ngo Dinh Diem for president and then also encouraged his deposal, which concluded with his assassination. Greenway also reflects on how, while the US allegedly wanted to take distance from French colonialism, it was not clear if they were really doing it. Vietnam is certainly an important case of study to understand how politically responsible US foreign policy has been and what effects it has had in other countries.
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What struck me most about Greenway’s account was his opinion regarding the spread of communism into Vietnam from China. Greenway writes that in a memo he wrote during the war, he wrote about how fear of the spread of Chinese communism was the main reason the United States went to war in Vietnam. However, he claims that upon further consideration he realizes this may have not been true: “history would suggest that the fiercely independent Vietnamese would resist China’s intrusion into Southeast Asia…” He also writes that this realization became clear for many after the war. Before reading this, never before had I considered this to be a possibility. The Vietnam war is always taught as American resistance to communism in Vietnam. But by looking at the conflict as Greenway does, as avoidable and unnecessary, it reshapes opinions about not only the Vietnam war but the greater Cold War. Had the American public come to this realization earlier, would there have been no Vietnam War? Was this history consciously ignored by those who decided that war was supposedly inevitable?
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What strikes me most about Greenway’s account in Vietnam is two things: first, horrifying realities of war and, second, the way that Greenway became painfully aware of his unconscious preconceptions of war. I believe this is important because it is a poignant example of the disillusionment process: in truth, many wrongly believe that they know what war is truly like. However, when faced with the reality, the truth quickly becomes clear. This is especially apparent in moments such as when Greenway witness an execution: “if I had imagined a scene where the victim refuses the blindfolds, flips his last cigarette, and faces his end with some kind of dignity, I was quickly disabused. He died in a hail of bullets, having soiled his pants and slumping like an animal killed in a stockyard. I was sorry I had come” (44-45). This is a poignant example of the stages I had described: first, realizing the horrors of war, and then, confronting his false preconceived notions. However, the last line of this passage is the most striking – “I was sorry I had come.” I believe this sentiment echos the thoughts of many who had experienced the same disillusionment, and this level of regret is powerful.
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What strikes me is everything Greenway went through as a journalist and when I read his book I get such vivid images of what he experienced. He was always so close to the action in Saigon and the guerilla warfare which killed so many during the war. It is not surprising that the terrors witnessed continued to affect him, for example, when back in Hong Kong with his daughter he was taken aback by the occasional bombings in the city and the sound brought him back to Saigon. Firsthand accounts of events such as Greenway’s correspondence definitely help me understand America’s role in Vietnam.
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The most striking thing about Greenway’s time in Vietnam was the contrast between the hell of the battlefield and the relative peacefulness of his time on leave in Saigon or back home in Hong Kong. Before the Tet Offensive, the South Vietnamese capital was in a way insulated from the violence further north, save for the occasional small-scale bombing. This separation between the city and the battlefield twisted the optimism of military higher-ups, who only saw the war through the misleading statistics of bodycounts and search and destroy operations. Likewise, Hong Kong was also largely isolated from the violence of the Cultural Revolution occurring in the mainland. In a time of great insecurity in Asia, Greenway describes pockets of relative peacefulness.
Greenway’s description of soldiers as happy to accommodate reporters and answer questions conveyed a surprising willingness to express their emotions and doubts in a stressful wartime environment. Although the military was pushing for greater reinforcements and greater involvement, US soldiers struggled to justify their presence in a foreign jungle fighting rice farmers and villagers. Greenway’s text helped me better understanding this disparity between military optimism in Saigon and frustration in the battlefield. -
Greenway’s strength, to me, is amazing. How could an educated journalist — accustomed to life in sterile journalistic offices stand the Vietnam war ground? How is it possible that Greenway is able to consciously reflect on such shocking (I know they were shocking to him) images of violence? This ability for journalistic objectivity in the wake of brutal violence is amazing, and it reads right through Greenway’s account. Yes, Greenway clearly has natural fears — he fears his own death. But his psychological strength is unique — one of his fellow reports committed suicide! This seems to be the mark of the true journalist — this sort of mental objectivity. (But, of course, I, have questions about the nature and ethics of objectivity — is it even really possible? Is it a defense mechanism? — These questions, though, are for another venue….)
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What strikes you about Greenway’s account of his time in Vietnam? Does his description of the war the soldiers and attitudes toward the conflict enhance your understanding of America’s war in Vietnam? Explain with specific reference to the reading.
I was especially struck by Greenway’s flashbacks of the war when he was in Hong Kong with his family because I had been to the same bay as him and have family living near that area. I am also a part of a similar expat community in Tokyo as the one Greenway was a part of in Hong Kong so I could really put myself in his shoes as he travelled between two worlds. I was most surprised by how close Greenway could get to the ground. He could speak casually to soldiers and soldiers seemed to be able to speak to him casually about their own true thoughts, too. That type of honest, candid interview wouldn’t happen today.
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