5/25/20t25

 Sunday, May 25, 2025

D+179/124

1787 Constitutional Convention opened at Philadelphia, with George Washington presiding

1961 JFK announced US goal of putting a man on the Moon before the end of the decade

2020 George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer

In bed at 9:40, awake at 5, and up at 5:15.  42°, high of 58°, sunny day ahead.

Prednisone, day 375; 1 mg., day 17 /21; Kevzara, day 13 /14; CGM, day  8/15; Trulicity, day  3/7.  Prednisone at 5:30 a.m.  Other meds at 6:45 a.m.  Triamcinolone at 11:15 a.m.   Eye drops at 6:10 a.m.,  p.m., and  p.m.    

Email exchange with Pip:   On Friday, May 23, 2025, I wrote:

Hi, Sweetie.   I had warm thoughts of your Dad today when I watched a story on CNN about Project Benjamin replacing Latin cross gravemarkers in Europe with Stars of David for the Jewish soldiers who lost their lives in World War II's European Theater.  I remember your Dad telling of his fear over the possibility of being captured by the German forces during the war.  I remember too of learning of his memoir and wonder now whether knowing of his memoir writing is what prompted me to write one of my own.  I gave a copy of my memoir to each of my children and to my dear siser and I still find myself referring to it often when I get to reminiscing in my daily jjournal.  I so much liked and admired your Dad and wish he were still with us.Emoji (I can say the same of you, by the way.)

Yesterday, Pip wrote:

That is so sweet of you, Chuck. I'm truly touched. Especially if my Dad's memoir inspired you. Coincidentally, we had a couple over for dinner last night that wanted to see my Dad's memoirs. I know that most of his mementos should be in a museum but I can't relinquish them yet. 

Not sure if he told you that he actually was captured briefly - less than 24 hours, but it was his mistake that led his patrol into a German camp and cost the lives of some of his fellow soldiers. He repressed that memory for almost 50 years and then when it came up in a dream and he verified that it was true (meaning being able to prove it to others. He believes it was repressed because it so horrified him and he felt crushing guilt). 

Then after he wrote what happened so he didn't forget again, he decided to write the complete memoirs. I think it was very healing for him and I think it's wonderful that your family has your wonderful writings and legacy. I'm sure they will treasure it and it's great that it still gives you pleasure.

You are special to me; I feel lucky to know you and can't wait to see you this summer. Love always,

Pip

 

 This morning, I wrote back:

Hi, Sweetie.  Thank you for your kind words and thoughts, and for sharing more information about your Dad.  Your email triggered more thoughts in me than you could have imagined when you wrote them.  Here is a small section from my memoir:

"When a military person works in a technical support role such as I had in Vietnam, he or she doesn’t experience directly the lethality of the enterprise he or she is supporting, at least not on a regular basis.  We didn’t see dead people on the receiving end of the missions we kept track of.  We didn’t hear screaming or crying.  We never heard moaning or whimpering of grievers.  The Americans were bombing day and night, 7 days a week, weather permitting.  We bombed targets in the I Corps region of South Vietnam; we bombed targets in North Vietnam; and we bombed targets in Laos, although this fact was never admitted officially.  Our pilots had rules of engagement and I believe that for the most part those rules were obeyed (at least during the early phase of the war when I was there) so there would not be wanton killing of civilians.  But even in the best of circumstances, dropping bombs, especially from high altitudes, is an imprecise operation, and “collateral damage” is always a problem . . . For us back at the air base, away from the target areas, life could and did easily become a matter of routine, of regularly rotating watches, of greasy Spam sandwiches every third night, and of Black Label and Blackjack on the other nights.  Being such a small cog on such a large and lethal killing machine, it becomes easy to avoid thinking in terms of any personal responsibility for the suffering and loss that are the inevitable consequences and indeed the very purposes of modern warfare.  Front line troops don’t share this immunity.  The closest I got to feeling a direct responsibility for the deaths of others occurred one afternoon when I was completing one watch as Senior Air Director and another crew was coming on for the next.  A long distance bombing mission over North Vietnam by F4 Phantom jets had been scheduled and then scrubbed, just as the watch was changing at the TAC Center.  The mission was to be refueled by C-130 tankers in the air off the North Vietnamese coast.  Somehow in the transition from one watch crew to the other, the word never was sent to the tanker to return to DaNang, that the bombing mission was scrubbed.   As the tanker maintained its post waiting for the F4s, it was shot down.  The entire crew were killed.  If they had been notified of the cancellation of the bombing mission, they would have been ‘out of harm’s way’ and alive.  The circumstances were such that no one was blamed, no culpability was found.  But we all knew that that loss of life never should have happened.  Those Marine aviators were dead and someone fucked up; we all fucked up.  Whether the primary fault lay with the fighter squadron that cancelled the mission or with us at the TAC Center, with my crew that was being relieved or the crew that was taking over, the tanker should have been notified of the cancellation and the crew members should not have died, at least not on that mission and not as the result of a snafu.   I was a part of it all and knew I bore responsibility for those deaths.  I have never forgotten it.  I feel responsibility and remorse to this day."

That was 60 years ago.  Beyond the SNAFU that led to the deaths of those C-130 crewmen, I've come to feel remorse and responsibility for the whole damned Vietnam War, not that I caused it in any direct way, but that in my ignorance and complacency, my naive assumptions about the intelligence, wisdom, and good intentions of our American government,  I and millions of other Americans played along, went along, 'did our duty,' followed our leaders, and inflicted unmeasurable death, destruction, pain, and suffering on millions of Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians, and on Americans as well, the 58,000 killed and hundreds of thousands wounded, physically, morally, emotionally, and spiritually.  I felt it especially when Russia invaded Ukraine when I came to realize that, from the perspective of the Vietnaese and of the rest of the world, we invaded Vietnam, despite all the "happy horseshita spouted by LBJ, Robert McNamara, General Westmorland, and the rest, and I was a part of it.  We all were.  Maybe now, with Trump twice elected, we have a clearer understanding of the un-holiness of our government, after LBJ, Nixon, Clinton, the Bushes, Trump, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  And maybe not.  In any event, I very much appreciate the short time I got to share with your Dad, and, thakfully, the longer time I have shared with you.