Oriental River, South Vietnam 1968 photo by Mike Marcellino, copyright 2010
Joan Baez and the Girl in the Oriental River
by Mike Marcellino
Twenty-seven years after I left the Vietnam War, after serving for a year 1967-68 as a U. S. Army combat correspondent and photojournalist, On August 20, 1995 I found myself seated in a campfire chair talking with Joan Baez, just as I would the girl next door. I had listened to Joan's albums, attended concerts, one at the former Front Row Theatre with a moving circular stage. I reviewed that concert for Sun Newspapers.
Darkness had set and it was quite outside Joan's tent in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park south of Cleveland where she had
performed for a Heritage Series Concert. I thought back to listening over and over to "banks of the Ohio" my favorite Baez song.
As I worked as an aide to then Mayor Michael White,I came armed with a proclamation, honoring Joan not only for her voice but her courageous opposition to the Vietnam War and support for human rights, all at great risk to her career.
Rather than an M-14 rifle, I carried to the concert a harmless treasure of seven hand printed black and white photographs I had taken of children caught in war. One of the photographs shows a young Vietnamese girl, smiling as she climbed out of the Oriental River balancing on a 155 mm shell casing and holding onto barbed wire. It was June 1968, the year the TET offensive by the VC and North Vietnamese regular throughout the country never seemed to end. I was following battery of 155 mm howitzers manned by the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 11th Artillery of the 23rd Artillery Group, my home base.
Again, I was in the middle of nowhere, alone and as almost always, without a weapon (or a toothbrush). But I had my notebooks, pens and cameras to record it all in stories and photos for Stars and Strips, the Army Reporter and other publications.
It was a bizarre scene in a bizarre war, one where the battle cry was often "The End" by The Doors. It was hot and it appeared the nearby Vietnamese village had come down to the Oriental River for a swim, right in the middle of a war. I was tempted but didn't join them in the murky river. Nearby was a camp of the 5th Special Forces called Tra Cu, 23 miles west of Saigon. I think they called this the Second Battle of Saigon. We won both battles, as we did all the battles but lost the war as it was a civil war and the South Vietnamese leaders weren't very popular and the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong weren't about to ever give up.
I walked up to the door of the Special Forces hooch (a primitive house made of concrete block, wire screening and a tin roof). A gruff looking sergeant told me to go away; it seems Special Forces isn't interested in publicity.
Joan Baez's first album, 1960, Vanguard (Wikipedia)
I knew the one she would pick, the young Vietnamese girl climbing out of the Oriental River. I hope Joan still has it. (I have a museum quality, hand printed framed version still, along with the other six, that includes U. S. Army artillerymen, the 33rd South Vietnamese Rangers on a search and destroy mission, an elite unit, and other children coping in war.
I always wonder what happened to the girl from the Oriental River.
i knew joan baez
by mike marcellino
i knew joan baez
joan baez.
i knew she would
pick
this
one,
her little sister.
joan baez
i knew she would
pick
this one.
she had a choice -
barbwire
or
bobbing 155 mm shell casing
on the Oriental River,
no number
rung sat zone
south, southeast of Saigon
the delta hell on earth,
special forces
say.
i knew joan baez
joan baez,
i knew she would pick this one,
like her little sister -
joan baez,
i knew joan baez.
i knew she would pick this one. copyright Mike Marcellino 2010
Here one of my favorite songs of Joan Baez that fits the story pretty well - "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" (written by Bob Dylan). This is a beautiful recording.
War's outcome rests with people's will
By Mike Marcellino
Part 3 of a 3 part series on America’s course in the Afghanistan War
Today I was asked what at first seemed to be a simple question about a recent column I had written about America’s course in Afghanistan and the escalation of the war. The column was called, “Afghanistan: Different viewpoints, same ol’ same ol.’ The column cited a BBC of an interview with a senior American diplomat and Marine captain in Iraq and a Stars and Stripes story about what U. S. troops are encountering fighting and community building on the ground in Zabul Province, a Taliban stronghold.
“You have to ask yourself, ‘what are the major powers doing in a backwater such as Afghanistan??’” a reader asked. He used two question marks and I would see why trying to answer his question.
What we are doing in Afghanistan? Like some people say on Facebook about their relationships –“It’s complicated.”
One answer could be that the United States leaders fear facing hostel governments in the Middle East and South Asia threatening our oil supply (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan).
A number of major powers have interests at stake, including the United States, Russia and China. In addition the struggle to control oil supplies, Russia and China have large Muslin minorities.
The answer may be the old Cold War “domino effect” is back in vogue in Washington. Politicians and military leaders had believed that if one country would fall to Communism then others would follow. This was the rationale for the Vietnam War, along with control of natural resources of Southeast Asia.
The United States feared the spread of Communism and yet, even though we lost the Vietnam War to the communists, other nations didn’t fall and the Soviet Union collapsed.
The decade long war in Southeast Asian cost 6 million lives, including 58,000 American troops. Some argue that just fighting against communism in the Vietnam War led to its collapse in the Soviet Union. Interestingly, Vietnam is now rather prosperous with many resorts on the South China Sea beaches and increasing tourism.
Since the beginning of the Middle East wars in the early 1990s, U. S. policy makers have put communism on the back burner and Islamic fundamentalist insurgents and terrorists on the forefront. Radical Islam is the “evil” we must confront with force, not communism, at least for the time being.
Afghanistan has been embroiled in political turmoil and war for 35 years with leftists, monarchists and Islamic fundamentalist and minorities battling for power. In the late 1970s the Soviet Union set up a communist government in Afghanistan. In a 9-year war, Afghan Islamic fighters, the mujahedeen, defeated the Soviet army. The country was devastated, as one million Afghans died and millions more fled the country as refugees.
Everyone agrees the present Afghan government is corrupt and lacks wide popular support. The country is rather lawless. Most of the people are poor and illiterate. The poppy crop supplies much of the heroin for the world’s illicit drug trade and funds the Taliban and other insurgents.
The answer may be that we’re convinced that in Afghanistan we’re in a holy war, with good fighting evil. Many fundamentalist Christians in the U. S. armed forces, including senior military leaders, believe they are engaged in a holy war.
Radical Islamic fundamentalist, principally al Qaeda and its supporters believe they are waging a holy war against the “infidels,” or non-Muslims.
One answer may be a resurrection of the Crusades of the 11th Century. Each side of course believes the other to be “infidels.”
Both “holy wars,” some historians and observers believe are rooted in the timeless desire for power and control, whether it be a cave, a country or the world.
Whatever the reason for the U. S. involvement in Afghanistan, we’ve decided that force and violence are the only solution. The U. S. won’t talk to the Taliban until they surrender and the Taliban won’t talk until the U. S. forces leave the country. There seems to be little attempt to break the deadlock.
Regardless of the answer to the question, ultimately the outcome of the war and the nature of Afghanistan will be determined by the Afghans.
The present U. S. strategy in Afghanistan seems to be predicated on the belief that we are engaged in a worldwide war against extremists, including the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A few political leaders, even Vice President Joe Biden to an extent, along with senior diplomats, military and intelligence officers believe in a narrow focused strategy to defeat al Qaeda.
President Obama, Secretary Clinton and our military leaders have rejected that strategy, believing that Afghanistan is the den of al Qaeda.
As a result 30,000 more U. S. troops are going to Afghanistan bringing the total of 10,000. Next spring the U. S. plans to attack Taliban strongholds in rural and urban areas, beginning a new "ground up" strategy of rebuilding Afghanistan in the towns and villages.
We plan to step up the training of Afghan troops, start turning security over to them and in the middle of 2011 start withdrawing U. S. troop “if conditions on the ground permit.”
That’s the strategy the U. S. used in losing the Vietnam War. President Nixon called it “Vietnamization.”
South Vietnam had an army of two million, one of the largest in the world at the time of its defeat by North Vietnam, two years after U. S. troops withdrew.
The likelihood of the Afghan army being able to secure the country is questionable. Factionalism and lack of confidence in and corruption of the present government must be overcome. Afghanistan isn’t much of a nation for nation building.
“What are the major powers doing in the backwater of Afghanistan?”
“It’s complicated.
The outcome of the war is simpler. It lies with the will of the Afghan people.
Part 2 of a 3 part series on America's course in Afghanistan
The more leaders tell you things are "different" the more they seem the "same."
In a nutshell, that's what I'm piecing together in another installment of my series - "America's Course in Afghanistan."
In Vietnam, where I served in the U.S. Army as a combat correspondent at the height of the war in 1968, they told us the body counts, how we were killing them 10-1 or more. The told us how most of the country was now "pacified." (Sometimes pacification took B-52 bombs, endless jet strikes, ship salvos, artillery fire and agent orange.) They told us we're winning "the hearts and minds."
The more reading, the more recalling , the more researching, the more America's involvement and increasing escalation in the civil wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam fit a saying learned on the streets of Cleveland - "same ol', same ol'.
In today's interview with the BBC, Matthew Hol, an ex-Marine captain in Iraq who resigned as the senior civilian in Zabul Province, says only political action, not the troop surge, will settle the 35-year civil war in Afghanistan. He also estimates 500,000 troops would be needed to subjugate the countryside.
More than 500,000 U.S. troops were in South Vietnam at the height of the war in 1968. That effort allowed U.S. and South Vietnamese forces to control the major cities, but not the rural areas in a country of 65,000 square miles and 16 million people. Afghanistan has nearly twice the land area (119,000 square miles) and population (30 million) and a terrain even more difficult, if that's possible.
President Obama and U.S. military leaders say the Afghanistan war isn't another Vietnam.
(In the Vietnam War, U.S. troops pulled out in 1973 after a decade long war. Three years later, the corrupt and controversial government and army of South Vietnam collapsed weeks after the North Vietnamese army invaded.)
A report November 12 "Stars and Stripes" from ZabulProvince, a Taliban stronghold and route from Pakistan, American soldiers tell a view of the war much different from our leaders in Washington. It reminds me of that similar difference between the capital view and the reality on the ground in the war 40 years ago in South Vietnam.
Drew Brown's interviews with soldiers from the U.S. Army's 5th Stryker Brigade from Ft. Lewis, WA, are telling in this excerpt -
“During the three-day mission in the Chinehs, a number of soldiers said that even though the area had been identified as a suspected Taliban stronghold, the villagers were the friendliest of any they had encountered in Zabul. But when officers asked about the Taliban, they were usually met with blank stares or polite, noncommittal responses. Most villagers denied knowing anything about the Taliban. Some made slashing motions across their throats. ‘You stay here for one and a half hours in our village, and when you leave, the Taliban will come in our homes and beat us or worse,’ said one man. Replied 2nd Lt. James Johnson, 23, of State College, Pa.: ‘Well, there’s nothing I can do to help you, if you don’t help yourselves.’”
Sounds awfully familiar to me as I covered the Vietnam War as a US Army combat correspondent and my stories and photographs were often published in "Stars and Stripes."
It also seems, even with the surge of 30,000 more U. S. troops to total of 100,000 won't be enough. As many as 500,000 (including Afghanistan government forces) may be needed to get the job done. The job being either defeating or at least beating the Taliban and other insurgent forces back enough to allow the Afghanistan army and police to keep the peace.
Though U. S. troops have been in Afghanistan for nine years, the effectiveness of Afghan security forces remains uncertain. What's odd about that is Afghanistan's insurgent forces, the Islamic mujahedeen, defeated the Soviet Union in a nine year war ending in 1989.
In 1996, the Taliban, a radical Islamic group, came into power in Afghanistan, but, by 2001, with help from the United States, the Northern Alliance, a group of minorities, overthrew the Taliban.
While all this is pretty factual summary, if you stop to think about it, it sounds bizarre. It reminds me of the Abbott and Costello comedic question, "Who's on first? Afghanistan also has the same chaotic ring of the Mexican revolution in the early 1920s,
The Afghanistan and Vietnam wars are also reminiscent of a scene in "Lawrence of Arabia." After the Arab army, led by British Maj. T. E. Lawrence, had defeated the Ottoman Empire, German ally in World War I, they couldn't get along well enough to keep the power on and water running in Damascus.
The winner in Afghanistan may be who is willing and able to fight and die and not give up. One thing seems certain; people don't like to be occupied by foreign armies. History tells us the people in far flung countries didn't like the oppressive rule of the emperors of Rome, and the Roman Empire collapsed.
In a recent commentary in "Dandelion Salad," an Internet blog highly critical of America's military involvement in the Afghanistan, Rick Rozoff indicates that documents show that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal estimates a combined army of 500,000 U. S., Afghan and NATO forces will be needed to win the war.
A foreign soldier on the ground in a civil war quickly understands that the will of the people who live there decides the outcome.
In the Stars and Stripes story, an Afghan villager tells a US Army officer what it will take to end the war -
"We asked what can be done to improve your situation here," (1st Lt. Christopher) Franco said. "They said, ‘Our problems will be resolved when you guys leave and we can sit down and talk to the Taliban leaders.’ At least they were honest."
Mike Marcellino, a national award winning civilian journalist, served in the U. S. Army as a combat correspondent and photographer in the Vietnam War
Peace route in South Asia through India and Pakistan
by Mike Marcellino
Part 1 of a 3 part series on America's course in Afghanistan
Why can't the United States resolve human rights problems peacefully, without the use of force, any longer?
Secretary Clinton says the U.S. won't talk unless the Taliban throws down their weapons (surrender).
Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, says they won't talk until the U. S. and NATO forces leave Afghanistan (surrender). Oddly, Omar was America's friend when he lost an eye fighting against and Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
And, the war and violence in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan escalates and widens.
According to an article written by Raja Karthikeya in Asia Times Online Nov. 25, 2009, the way to peace in Afghanistan is through India and Pakistan. Interestingly, the author never mentions the United States or NATO once in his article.
One wonders if American and European diplomats and political leaders are listening to the voices of reason, peace, history and politics of South Asia. Afghanistan, Pakistan and India share that region, its history and current entanglements. Granted Afghanistan has ties to the Middle East. And as Karthikeya points out, the Taliban doesn't seem to fit anywhere, and appears to be more an ideology than a political movement.
I highly recommend reading the article by Karthikeya, a researcher for the Center for Strategic Studies in Washington D.C.
The historical problem with the view of United States' diplomats and political leaders is the function, for the most part with blinders on - seeing the word in America's view without really looking at nations through their eyes of their own people.
America hasn't always had her provincial blinders on. Two cases in point that I can testify to from my experience in our national government as an aide to one of the most respected congressman and champions of human rights in our country's history.
In the past, the United States has ended oppression in the world without the use of military force. America brought freedom to Jews in the Soviet Union and ended the longest period of marshal law in world history, bringing freedom to the Taiwanese.
I can vouch for the fact that oppression can be ended and peace achieved without a shot being fired.
From 1983 to 1987, I served as an as an aide to former U. S. Congressman Louis Stokes of Ohio and worked successfully with many people in the United States and the world to resolve, without military force, critical human rights problems that at the time seemed insurmountable in the Soviet Union and Taiwan. Both human rights matters existed within the backdrop of tensions over the Cold War and the threat of war between China and Taiwan.
As an Englishman, "Lawrence of Arabia," (or, at least, actor Peter O'Toole in the Academy Award winning film), once said:
