Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
An important part of my philatelic hobby is learning the history behind the stamps and covers that come my way. Some time ago I purchased a Vietnam War-era cover with contents the presents me with a conundrum — do I publish a web page about it, or not? At this point I think not. Here's the cover, with sender and addressee blurred out:
The cover and letter were posted by a U.S. Marine recruit on July 5, 1965, from the U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Oceanside, CA where the Marines’ Camp Pendleton is located. He was writing to a friend in Vancouver, early in the Vietnam War. The Marines had only been engaged in combat in Vietnam since March that year. The writer, whose name I am intentionally not disclosing, discusses his hopes that he might be selected for training as a Ranger, and his plans to go sailing in the South Pacific after his enlistment ends. Here's the section of his letter that I find so poignant:
Now the kicker: The Marine did not become a Ranger, and he never got the chance to sail in the South Pacific. On April 12, 1966, just over nine months after he wrote his friend, he was killed in Quang Nam Province, South Vietnam he triggered a mine and was killed. The details are on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial website.
His letter resonates strongly with me: Just six weeks before he was killed, my Marine Corps company had participated in Operation Double Eagle II in Quang Nam Province. I was directly involved in half a dozen extremely traumatizing incidents in that operation. The young Marine, who was not in my battalion, was killed only 38 days after I myself was seriously wounded and 10 Marines in my company were killed in an ambush by North Vietnamese and Main Force Viet Cong soldiers a few miles to the south, in Quang Ngai Province. But there’s more….
The friend he was writing may have been a draft dodger. Thousands of young Americans came to Canada to escape the draft, and many of those ended up in British Columbia. One of the counsellors at Duchess Park Secondary School in Prince George, BC, where my wife taught, was a draft dodger. Generally speaking, the American draft dodgers did well in Canada. Many of them became highly respected professionals. But I’m afraid that didn’t happen with the friend to whom the Marine’s letter was written.
In a Google search, I found a 1982 document describing the case of the high school principal here in British Columbia, with the same unusual name as the Marine’s friend, who was charged with “innappropriate touching, alcohol use, poor superv.” while on a field trip with his students. The name, the date, and the place all fit.
I am interested in knowing your opinion about the morality of publishing a web page about the Marine and his letter. I don't want to open old wounds in his family and friends, much less picture him as a "war monger". At the same time, I believe that it's vital for people to understand the nature of military training and its effect on young minds. It's instructive, I think, that James says nothing in his letter about patriotism, democracy, the evils of communism, etc. He is just very open about what was certainly brainwashing.
Even if I were to publish the Marine's letter, whether I identify him or not, I would not publish information about the dismissal of the principal, assuming he is the same person. It could be that he has turned his life around and become a model citizen. Publishing what I seem to have learned about him would serve no purpose.
Please let me know what you think. Should I publish, or not? Should I use names, or not? I would simply report the facts, and not even attempt to editorialize.
I will say that my training with the Marines was primarily medical, with several dollops of Marine Corps lore. I wasn't encouraged to kill communists. I don't think that the word "communist" was even used in my training. And, I didn’t want to be in the Marines, I didn’t want to go to Vietnam, and I certainly didn’t want to kill Vietnamese communists!
Bob
P.S. The Marine’s cover — a stampless cover! — is a great example of a cover that has, at least to me, significant historical and philatelic value but little commercial value.
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I collect war time covers, WW2. I find the contents, postal markings, sender and receiver part of the story. I like to try to find out if the soldier ever returned home and if not what was his fate. A non collector asked me where I acquired the letters and if I should try to return them to the owner.
I can't believe they may have been stolen and passed off to collectors. I assume these entered the philatelic market because the family does not want them. Possibly sold when the family was cleaning out contents of a home of a deceased relative.
My opinion on your letter is that you should write it up and use the Marines name. It helps us to know what this soldier felt and thought about what he was trained to do. We don't get to hear many stories about the mind set of those who fought that war. It is something we should hear.
I wouldn't put the person's name who the letter was sent to because because that does not add to the story. You can speculate that he may have been a draft dodger but if you don't know for sure leave out his name. I don't think it would be fair to use his name. Just the idea of a Marine writing to a friend who may be a draft dodger what his own thoughts are about the war is very interesting. It doesn't seem like he judged his friend for his choice not to go to Vietnam.
Vince
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write it up, Bob
You pay great tribute to those whose stories you tell.
and, what a great way to tell the larger story than through this exchange between fighter and dodger.
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09:01:38am
No Bob, you should not publish the letter in its entirety. It is still subject to copyright law.
http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2011/02/sixteen-things-writers-should-know.html
Fair use allows you to analyse, critique, quote from and discuss the contents, but not to publish it.
I'd suggest the "names have been changed to protect the innocent" approach to be on the legally and morally safe side.
Roy
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"...approach to be on the legally and morally safe side."
I agree 100%. I think we should all be aware that many of the original letter writers never, ever expected they personal thoughts and feelings to be published worldwide.
Imagine getting contacted by a family member who resents having their parents or grandparents personal information being published. I think we should keep this in mind when we publish or exhibit any content of our covers.
Don
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Painful.
Bruce
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I would like to allow that the selected text might have been written with tongue in cheek, relying on the recipient to read the text in light of what the recipient already knew about the author.
Thus, even reprinting the text in its entirety might be a disservice to the author, let alone his family.
Few things strike me as creepier than the thought that strangers might publish any personal correspondence of any person I know without their consent and, obviously the dead cannot extend consent.
Lastly, the excerpted text is not all that informative. That a young man will find himself in a new environment and find himself adapting to the values of that environment is hardly news; as AngloPhile points-out, this is kinda what boot camp is about.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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10:03:46am
"The letter is unlikely to be protected by US copyright. It was created in 1965 and therefore subject to the Copyright Act of 1909 (which was replaced in 1976). Under the 1909 Act, to obtain protection, a work had to have copyright notice affixed, and be published. This does not appear to have occurred. The letter is probably in the public domain. "
According to Wikipedia:
"The 1976 Act, through its terms, displaces all previous copyright laws in the United States insofar as those laws conflict with the Act. Those include prior federal legislation, such as the Copyright Act of 1909, and extend to all relevant common law and state copyright laws."
Roy
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Spooky. And poignant.
I tend to agree with the majority, that publishing the letter could unnecessarily re-open old wounds.
Bob, I was wondering if you've attempted to establish the birthplace (ie, citizenry) of the recipient. If he was a US citizen, that would provide circumstantial evidence to support the presumption that he was a draft dodger, especially if he was born in 1947.
Having done a bit of genealogy, I would guess that such a quest is going to be tough. Might be a chance if you presume that the sender and recipient were schoolmates, and you know the hometown of the sender. Findagrave.com might give you info on the father's or mother's kids, and if you can find the letter recipient's name somewhere that way, that might do it.
Thanks for sharing this!
-Paul
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08:02:46pm
" ... 9. As with any quotation, the more you "transform" what you are quoting -- comment upon it, analyze it, criticize it, put it into a larger context -- the more likely it is that your use will be found to be "fair use." Similarly, a starkly commercial use, such as quotation of a letter in advertising, is less likely to be found fair. ...."
In general, I am in favor of quoting anything that sheds light
on the quagmire that this nation stepped into in the 1960s.
I can see writing it up and using pseudonyms,
probably first names only since the actual names add little
to the history you are writing.
The principle side story need not be overly specific
and something like "His friend came to Canada and after a time
fell upon hard times caused by some legal problems."
Perhaps some people might catch the likely draft dodging angle,
but many might miss it entirely.
That way you can avoid opening old wounds and yet depict
this veteran's feelings.
You can add a rejoinder at the end explaining that
all names and specific locations have been concealed
to protect the names of innocent third parties..
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I'm at a loss.
Why can't you publish just about everything except identifying information?
Like, "John, from San Diego, who enlisted ... wrote to his friend, Fred, in Vancouver, the following: ..." It is unknown whether Fred was a Canadian friend or a draft dodger, but I suspect ...
Why positively identify anyone? It's the historical sentiment that matters, is it not?
Lars
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Thanks to everyone for their responses. I am leaning toward publishing, but without names or any context that could identify either the sender or the recipient.
I don't agree that my proposed web page adds nothing "new to the Vietnam narrative or to postal history scholarship”. I've been collecting Vietnam War postal history for at least 20 years, even before much of it was available anywhere. I have covers with contents from only two Vietnam veterans — the Marine who wrote the letter that is in question in this thread, and several letters that I wrote to my parents and to a young woman who is no longer young, but is still my wife after 51 years. Every other cover in my collection is empty. To me, that means that the letter in question is new to the Vietnam narrative and to postal history scholarship. Its message is not unique, I’m sure, but it is a message from a history that all American share whether they wish to admit it or not.
Is it possible, as Ikey Pikey says, that the Marine recruit’s comment about brainwashing was written with tongue in cheek? Perhaps. But if we believe that the Marine was engaging in irony for the benefit of his friend, and didn’t mean what he said, then nothing in history should be taken at face value. Did Martin Luther King have a daydream, not an actual dream? When Teddy Roosevelt said that people should “Speak softly and carry a big stick” did he actually mean that people should “Speak loudly and carry a small stick”?
I am not saying that letters written by soldiers from combat zones — or Marine Corps boot camp — necessarily present unvarnished truth. While mail posted from Vietnam during the war was not censored, I expect that a great deal of “self-censoring” took place. Sons, friends, and lovers don’t ever wish to upset their parents, friends, and lovers. For example, letters to my parents and to my girlfriend are very short on details about Marine Corps operations in Vietnam, but rather “long” on generalities. To paraphrase, I wrote statements like these: “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” and “This is certainly the most interesting situation I’ve ever been in.” I didn’t describe the torture that I witnessed (at the hands of Marines and “Ruff-Puffs,” South Vietnamese vigilantes/thugs), the shooting of civilians (I witnessed one, by a Marine), the incredible amount of blood that I saw flowing out of the body of a wounded VC as he was dying, the bone chips from the humerus of a Marine who’d been shot by a sniper, the Marine whose legs had both been blown off by a mine just a few yards from me.
I have also collected covers sent home by soldiers representing America’s allies in the Vietnam War, notably New Zealand, Australia, and South Vietnam. I have just one other letter, posted by the girlfriend of a soldier in the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN). I’ve had it translated, but there is nothing of military interest in it.
Of course, the letter from the Marine at Camp Pendleton is not a letter from a Vietnam veteran as such, but as far as I’m concerned it qualifies as Vietnam War postal history. The facts that it is missing a stamp, and couldn’t have been free-franked because it wasn’t sent from a combat zone, are immaterial. One interesting philatelic attribute of the cover is that it was cancelled in Vancouver on arrival. I agree with Anglophile that publishing the Marine’s name in connection with his letter could amount to a secondary wounding for his surviving friends and family.
I can’t disagree that military training by definition includes some “brainwashing,” although I did not encounter any Marines who appeared to be unthinking automatons. On the day I was wounded in the Battle for Hill 50, in Operation Utah, my company commander, 1st Lt. Simon Gregory, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a wounded communist soldier.
Simon fought to save his own life, but did not try to kill the communist soldier, who nevertheless died of his wounds in Simon’s arms. To me, successful brainwashing implies loss of humanity among the brainwashed. Simon Gregory is one of the most ethical, thoughtful, kind people I have ever known. To this day, he worries that he might have made mistakes that led to the Battle for Hill 50 during Operation Utah. Operation Utah was Simon's first experience as a commander in combat; the company commander had been hospitalized a few days previously when his eyes were burned by white phosphorous smoke. Not only did he have to engage in hand to hand combat, he had to work out the tactics that might, with luck, lead to our survival, and he even had to deal with a deserter during combat. I'm not sure that a brainwashed Marine could have coped as well as he did. He received a Silver Star as a result of his actions during the Battle for Hill 50.
Some of the Marines I was with were poorly educated, and perhaps not all that intelligent, and a very few might have been “natural born killers,” but I don’t recall that a single Marine ever invoked any patriotic memes about duty, God, and country, which you would expect a brainwashed soldier to do. Their main goal — our main goal! — was staying alive while trying to ensure their buddies’ survival. If they had to kill communists, well, that was war.
Many Vietnam veterans became war protesters after their tours of duty; one of my friends volunteered to go to Vietnam twice, yet became an anti-war activist. Was he “brainwashed” by Doves? I don’t think so. I would say that Marine training emphasized personal integrity and independent thinking and action far more than group-think. During the battle in which I was wounded (along with 19 Marines who were wounded and 10 who were killed), a junior officer ordered a very senior sergeant, who had fought in the Korean War, to “take out that machine-gun”. The sergeant, who believed he would be killed if he followed orders, told the officer to do a biologically impossible thing to himself. I don’t think that the sergeant said what he said because he’d been brainwashed. He said it because he was experienced, and the officer wasn’t.
Bob
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Just to be fair to me, Dr King made his prepared remarks in a staged public speech.
One can expect that he was very deliberate in what he wrote & said, and we can even watch the whole speech on YouTube just to catch any sarcasm, hyperbole, etc.
Personal correspondence between friends does not adhere to the same standards as an address you deliver on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in front of a coupla hundred thousand people when you are in a position of responsibility.
Nor, for that matter, did the Vietnam-era correspondence between my brother (z"l) and myself.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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"... if we believe that the Marine was engaging in irony for the benefit of his friend, and didn’t mean what he said, then nothing in history should be taken at face value. Did Martin Luther King have a daydream, not an actual dream?"
Just found this little gem while doing the first sort of a small pile of stuff I bought at the 4th Sunday New Haven Bourse last, well, Sunday.
Ah, serendipity.
The text nicely illustrates the point that private correspondence between friends is not composed with the same care as, say, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.
The slogan cancel is also a treat:
http://www.geneve-int.ch/1872-alabama-arbitration
Mediation and arbitration are two very different things, so beware the vagaries of gTranslate, never mind that the claims for the event might be a little, uh, positive.
"On 15 September 1872, the Alabama arbitration is pronounced in Geneva. For the first time, a dispute between two nations is settled through international mediation.
The arbitration tribunal condemned Great Britain to pay a heavy compensation to the United States of America for having failed to respect its international obligations of neutrality during the American Civil War. The ruling underlined that the Government of Great Britain failed to prevent the delivery, from its territory, of about twenty armed boats - including the Alabama - to Southern Confederates."
Lastly, just for grins:
"... I've decided to sell the van and purchase this cottage ..."
https://www.palace.ch/en/
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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And what do I do with this???
An important part of my philatelic hobby is learning the history behind the stamps and covers that come my way. Some time ago I purchased a Vietnam War-era cover with contents the presents me with a conundrum — do I publish a web page about it, or not? At this point I think not. Here's the cover, with sender and addressee blurred out:
The cover and letter were posted by a U.S. Marine recruit on July 5, 1965, from the U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Oceanside, CA where the Marines’ Camp Pendleton is located. He was writing to a friend in Vancouver, early in the Vietnam War. The Marines had only been engaged in combat in Vietnam since March that year. The writer, whose name I am intentionally not disclosing, discusses his hopes that he might be selected for training as a Ranger, and his plans to go sailing in the South Pacific after his enlistment ends. Here's the section of his letter that I find so poignant:
Now the kicker: The Marine did not become a Ranger, and he never got the chance to sail in the South Pacific. On April 12, 1966, just over nine months after he wrote his friend, he was killed in Quang Nam Province, South Vietnam he triggered a mine and was killed. The details are on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial website.
His letter resonates strongly with me: Just six weeks before he was killed, my Marine Corps company had participated in Operation Double Eagle II in Quang Nam Province. I was directly involved in half a dozen extremely traumatizing incidents in that operation. The young Marine, who was not in my battalion, was killed only 38 days after I myself was seriously wounded and 10 Marines in my company were killed in an ambush by North Vietnamese and Main Force Viet Cong soldiers a few miles to the south, in Quang Ngai Province. But there’s more….
The friend he was writing may have been a draft dodger. Thousands of young Americans came to Canada to escape the draft, and many of those ended up in British Columbia. One of the counsellors at Duchess Park Secondary School in Prince George, BC, where my wife taught, was a draft dodger. Generally speaking, the American draft dodgers did well in Canada. Many of them became highly respected professionals. But I’m afraid that didn’t happen with the friend to whom the Marine’s letter was written.
In a Google search, I found a 1982 document describing the case of the high school principal here in British Columbia, with the same unusual name as the Marine’s friend, who was charged with “innappropriate touching, alcohol use, poor superv.” while on a field trip with his students. The name, the date, and the place all fit.
I am interested in knowing your opinion about the morality of publishing a web page about the Marine and his letter. I don't want to open old wounds in his family and friends, much less picture him as a "war monger". At the same time, I believe that it's vital for people to understand the nature of military training and its effect on young minds. It's instructive, I think, that James says nothing in his letter about patriotism, democracy, the evils of communism, etc. He is just very open about what was certainly brainwashing.
Even if I were to publish the Marine's letter, whether I identify him or not, I would not publish information about the dismissal of the principal, assuming he is the same person. It could be that he has turned his life around and become a model citizen. Publishing what I seem to have learned about him would serve no purpose.
Please let me know what you think. Should I publish, or not? Should I use names, or not? I would simply report the facts, and not even attempt to editorialize.
I will say that my training with the Marines was primarily medical, with several dollops of Marine Corps lore. I wasn't encouraged to kill communists. I don't think that the word "communist" was even used in my training. And, I didn’t want to be in the Marines, I didn’t want to go to Vietnam, and I certainly didn’t want to kill Vietnamese communists!
Bob
P.S. The Marine’s cover — a stampless cover! — is a great example of a cover that has, at least to me, significant historical and philatelic value but little commercial value.
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re: A "stampless" cover foreshadows a Vietnam War death
I collect war time covers, WW2. I find the contents, postal markings, sender and receiver part of the story. I like to try to find out if the soldier ever returned home and if not what was his fate. A non collector asked me where I acquired the letters and if I should try to return them to the owner.
I can't believe they may have been stolen and passed off to collectors. I assume these entered the philatelic market because the family does not want them. Possibly sold when the family was cleaning out contents of a home of a deceased relative.
My opinion on your letter is that you should write it up and use the Marines name. It helps us to know what this soldier felt and thought about what he was trained to do. We don't get to hear many stories about the mind set of those who fought that war. It is something we should hear.
I wouldn't put the person's name who the letter was sent to because because that does not add to the story. You can speculate that he may have been a draft dodger but if you don't know for sure leave out his name. I don't think it would be fair to use his name. Just the idea of a Marine writing to a friend who may be a draft dodger what his own thoughts are about the war is very interesting. It doesn't seem like he judged his friend for his choice not to go to Vietnam.
Vince
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re: A "stampless" cover foreshadows a Vietnam War death
write it up, Bob
You pay great tribute to those whose stories you tell.
and, what a great way to tell the larger story than through this exchange between fighter and dodger.
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BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 500 categories
18 Apr 2018
09:01:38am
re: A "stampless" cover foreshadows a Vietnam War death
No Bob, you should not publish the letter in its entirety. It is still subject to copyright law.
http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2011/02/sixteen-things-writers-should-know.html
Fair use allows you to analyse, critique, quote from and discuss the contents, but not to publish it.
I'd suggest the "names have been changed to protect the innocent" approach to be on the legally and morally safe side.
Roy
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re: A "stampless" cover foreshadows a Vietnam War death
"...approach to be on the legally and morally safe side."
I agree 100%. I think we should all be aware that many of the original letter writers never, ever expected they personal thoughts and feelings to be published worldwide.
Imagine getting contacted by a family member who resents having their parents or grandparents personal information being published. I think we should keep this in mind when we publish or exhibit any content of our covers.
Don
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04:35:06pm
re: A "stampless" cover foreshadows a Vietnam War death
Painful.
Bruce
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re: A "stampless" cover foreshadows a Vietnam War death
I would like to allow that the selected text might have been written with tongue in cheek, relying on the recipient to read the text in light of what the recipient already knew about the author.
Thus, even reprinting the text in its entirety might be a disservice to the author, let alone his family.
Few things strike me as creepier than the thought that strangers might publish any personal correspondence of any person I know without their consent and, obviously the dead cannot extend consent.
Lastly, the excerpted text is not all that informative. That a young man will find himself in a new environment and find himself adapting to the values of that environment is hardly news; as AngloPhile points-out, this is kinda what boot camp is about.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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19 Apr 2018
10:03:46am
re: A "stampless" cover foreshadows a Vietnam War death
"The letter is unlikely to be protected by US copyright. It was created in 1965 and therefore subject to the Copyright Act of 1909 (which was replaced in 1976). Under the 1909 Act, to obtain protection, a work had to have copyright notice affixed, and be published. This does not appear to have occurred. The letter is probably in the public domain. "
According to Wikipedia:
"The 1976 Act, through its terms, displaces all previous copyright laws in the United States insofar as those laws conflict with the Act. Those include prior federal legislation, such as the Copyright Act of 1909, and extend to all relevant common law and state copyright laws."
Roy
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08:47:26am
re: A "stampless" cover foreshadows a Vietnam War death
Spooky. And poignant.
I tend to agree with the majority, that publishing the letter could unnecessarily re-open old wounds.
Bob, I was wondering if you've attempted to establish the birthplace (ie, citizenry) of the recipient. If he was a US citizen, that would provide circumstantial evidence to support the presumption that he was a draft dodger, especially if he was born in 1947.
Having done a bit of genealogy, I would guess that such a quest is going to be tough. Might be a chance if you presume that the sender and recipient were schoolmates, and you know the hometown of the sender. Findagrave.com might give you info on the father's or mother's kids, and if you can find the letter recipient's name somewhere that way, that might do it.
Thanks for sharing this!
-Paul
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
20 Apr 2018
08:02:46pm
re: A "stampless" cover foreshadows a Vietnam War death
" ... 9. As with any quotation, the more you "transform" what you are quoting -- comment upon it, analyze it, criticize it, put it into a larger context -- the more likely it is that your use will be found to be "fair use." Similarly, a starkly commercial use, such as quotation of a letter in advertising, is less likely to be found fair. ...."
In general, I am in favor of quoting anything that sheds light
on the quagmire that this nation stepped into in the 1960s.
I can see writing it up and using pseudonyms,
probably first names only since the actual names add little
to the history you are writing.
The principle side story need not be overly specific
and something like "His friend came to Canada and after a time
fell upon hard times caused by some legal problems."
Perhaps some people might catch the likely draft dodging angle,
but many might miss it entirely.
That way you can avoid opening old wounds and yet depict
this veteran's feelings.
You can add a rejoinder at the end explaining that
all names and specific locations have been concealed
to protect the names of innocent third parties..
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re: A "stampless" cover foreshadows a Vietnam War death
I'm at a loss.
Why can't you publish just about everything except identifying information?
Like, "John, from San Diego, who enlisted ... wrote to his friend, Fred, in Vancouver, the following: ..." It is unknown whether Fred was a Canadian friend or a draft dodger, but I suspect ...
Why positively identify anyone? It's the historical sentiment that matters, is it not?
Lars
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re: A "stampless" cover foreshadows a Vietnam War death
Thanks to everyone for their responses. I am leaning toward publishing, but without names or any context that could identify either the sender or the recipient.
I don't agree that my proposed web page adds nothing "new to the Vietnam narrative or to postal history scholarship”. I've been collecting Vietnam War postal history for at least 20 years, even before much of it was available anywhere. I have covers with contents from only two Vietnam veterans — the Marine who wrote the letter that is in question in this thread, and several letters that I wrote to my parents and to a young woman who is no longer young, but is still my wife after 51 years. Every other cover in my collection is empty. To me, that means that the letter in question is new to the Vietnam narrative and to postal history scholarship. Its message is not unique, I’m sure, but it is a message from a history that all American share whether they wish to admit it or not.
Is it possible, as Ikey Pikey says, that the Marine recruit’s comment about brainwashing was written with tongue in cheek? Perhaps. But if we believe that the Marine was engaging in irony for the benefit of his friend, and didn’t mean what he said, then nothing in history should be taken at face value. Did Martin Luther King have a daydream, not an actual dream? When Teddy Roosevelt said that people should “Speak softly and carry a big stick” did he actually mean that people should “Speak loudly and carry a small stick”?
I am not saying that letters written by soldiers from combat zones — or Marine Corps boot camp — necessarily present unvarnished truth. While mail posted from Vietnam during the war was not censored, I expect that a great deal of “self-censoring” took place. Sons, friends, and lovers don’t ever wish to upset their parents, friends, and lovers. For example, letters to my parents and to my girlfriend are very short on details about Marine Corps operations in Vietnam, but rather “long” on generalities. To paraphrase, I wrote statements like these: “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” and “This is certainly the most interesting situation I’ve ever been in.” I didn’t describe the torture that I witnessed (at the hands of Marines and “Ruff-Puffs,” South Vietnamese vigilantes/thugs), the shooting of civilians (I witnessed one, by a Marine), the incredible amount of blood that I saw flowing out of the body of a wounded VC as he was dying, the bone chips from the humerus of a Marine who’d been shot by a sniper, the Marine whose legs had both been blown off by a mine just a few yards from me.
I have also collected covers sent home by soldiers representing America’s allies in the Vietnam War, notably New Zealand, Australia, and South Vietnam. I have just one other letter, posted by the girlfriend of a soldier in the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN). I’ve had it translated, but there is nothing of military interest in it.
Of course, the letter from the Marine at Camp Pendleton is not a letter from a Vietnam veteran as such, but as far as I’m concerned it qualifies as Vietnam War postal history. The facts that it is missing a stamp, and couldn’t have been free-franked because it wasn’t sent from a combat zone, are immaterial. One interesting philatelic attribute of the cover is that it was cancelled in Vancouver on arrival. I agree with Anglophile that publishing the Marine’s name in connection with his letter could amount to a secondary wounding for his surviving friends and family.
I can’t disagree that military training by definition includes some “brainwashing,” although I did not encounter any Marines who appeared to be unthinking automatons. On the day I was wounded in the Battle for Hill 50, in Operation Utah, my company commander, 1st Lt. Simon Gregory, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a wounded communist soldier.
Simon fought to save his own life, but did not try to kill the communist soldier, who nevertheless died of his wounds in Simon’s arms. To me, successful brainwashing implies loss of humanity among the brainwashed. Simon Gregory is one of the most ethical, thoughtful, kind people I have ever known. To this day, he worries that he might have made mistakes that led to the Battle for Hill 50 during Operation Utah. Operation Utah was Simon's first experience as a commander in combat; the company commander had been hospitalized a few days previously when his eyes were burned by white phosphorous smoke. Not only did he have to engage in hand to hand combat, he had to work out the tactics that might, with luck, lead to our survival, and he even had to deal with a deserter during combat. I'm not sure that a brainwashed Marine could have coped as well as he did. He received a Silver Star as a result of his actions during the Battle for Hill 50.
Some of the Marines I was with were poorly educated, and perhaps not all that intelligent, and a very few might have been “natural born killers,” but I don’t recall that a single Marine ever invoked any patriotic memes about duty, God, and country, which you would expect a brainwashed soldier to do. Their main goal — our main goal! — was staying alive while trying to ensure their buddies’ survival. If they had to kill communists, well, that was war.
Many Vietnam veterans became war protesters after their tours of duty; one of my friends volunteered to go to Vietnam twice, yet became an anti-war activist. Was he “brainwashed” by Doves? I don’t think so. I would say that Marine training emphasized personal integrity and independent thinking and action far more than group-think. During the battle in which I was wounded (along with 19 Marines who were wounded and 10 who were killed), a junior officer ordered a very senior sergeant, who had fought in the Korean War, to “take out that machine-gun”. The sergeant, who believed he would be killed if he followed orders, told the officer to do a biologically impossible thing to himself. I don’t think that the sergeant said what he said because he’d been brainwashed. He said it because he was experienced, and the officer wasn’t.
Bob
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re: A "stampless" cover foreshadows a Vietnam War death
Just to be fair to me, Dr King made his prepared remarks in a staged public speech.
One can expect that he was very deliberate in what he wrote & said, and we can even watch the whole speech on YouTube just to catch any sarcasm, hyperbole, etc.
Personal correspondence between friends does not adhere to the same standards as an address you deliver on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in front of a coupla hundred thousand people when you are in a position of responsibility.
Nor, for that matter, did the Vietnam-era correspondence between my brother (z"l) and myself.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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re: A "stampless" cover foreshadows a Vietnam War death
"... if we believe that the Marine was engaging in irony for the benefit of his friend, and didn’t mean what he said, then nothing in history should be taken at face value. Did Martin Luther King have a daydream, not an actual dream?"
Just found this little gem while doing the first sort of a small pile of stuff I bought at the 4th Sunday New Haven Bourse last, well, Sunday.
Ah, serendipity.
The text nicely illustrates the point that private correspondence between friends is not composed with the same care as, say, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.
The slogan cancel is also a treat:
http://www.geneve-int.ch/1872-alabama-arbitration
Mediation and arbitration are two very different things, so beware the vagaries of gTranslate, never mind that the claims for the event might be a little, uh, positive.
"On 15 September 1872, the Alabama arbitration is pronounced in Geneva. For the first time, a dispute between two nations is settled through international mediation.
The arbitration tribunal condemned Great Britain to pay a heavy compensation to the United States of America for having failed to respect its international obligations of neutrality during the American Civil War. The ruling underlined that the Government of Great Britain failed to prevent the delivery, from its territory, of about twenty armed boats - including the Alabama - to Southern Confederates."
Lastly, just for grins:
"... I've decided to sell the van and purchase this cottage ..."
https://www.palace.ch/en/
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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