Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
logue or worse, a diatribe. But drastic conditions in war called for drastic measures in drama,
and Marlon Brando delivered the message of the ages adapted to the age:
I've seen horrors . . . horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer.
You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that . . . but you have no right to judge me. It's
impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means.
Horror . . . Horror has a face . . . and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror
are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies! I
remember when I was with Special Forces . . . seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a
camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio,
and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there,
and they had come and hacked of every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little
arms. And I remember . . . I . . . I . . . I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my
teeth out; I didn't know what I wanted to do! And I want to remember it. I never want to forget
it . . . I never want to forget. And then I realized . . . like I was shot . . . like I was shot with a
diamond . . . a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God . . . the genius
of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I
realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these
were men . . . trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had
children, who were filled with love . . . but they had the strength . . . the strength . . . to do that. If
I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have
men who are moral . . . and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to
kill without feeling . . . without passion . . . without judgment . . . without judgment! Because it's
judgment that defeats us.
The jungle war classic movies were still a few years away—gestating as we watched events
unfold, as the madness of the moment became known, widely viewed in thirty-minute seg-
ments each evening on three networks. But specifics beyond geographic coordinates and body
counts remained sparse, until fragging. Fragging was an act of refusal, the ultimate rendition
of:
Hell no, we won't go.
Well, the poor fucks were already there, a tad late to say no, but they
did what soldiers do, distracted by evil in critical mass, killing commanding officers who in-
sisted on another night patrol. The most frequent victims of fragging were first lieutenants.
James Calley, the single conviction from My Lai was a first lieutenant.
On college campuses across the nation young men were offered military advantage in the
Reserve Officer Training Corps. Only a few hours of military education each week could teach
many useful things about weapons, marching, chain of command and war. It could earn a few
bucks monthly
and
give a guy that certain leg up as a first lieutenant. After all, college grads
were smarter, and the smart guys should call the shots, so to speak.
Fragging was war resistance and military breakdown with a uniquely American spirit, far
removed from the Nuremburg defense, that
ve vass
only following orders. Our guys were bet-
