[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 46 (Wednesday, April 12, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2612-S2613]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          COMMENTS ON VIETNAM

 Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, we have all read a lot on 
Vietnam, but nothing more thoughtful than the brief comments by 
Charleston, S.C.'s Charles T. ``Bud'' Ferillo, Jr. in the College of 
Charleston magazine, ``The Cistern.'' Mr. Ferillo, a 1972 graduate of 
the college, served in Vietnam. I ask that his comments be printed in 
the Record.
  The comments follow:

                              Perspectives

                   (By Charles T. (Bud) Ferillo, Jr.)

       Well before I was drafted, I viewed America's involvement 
     in Vietnam a political

[[Page S2613]]

     mistake at home, a foreign policy of misjudgment in Southeast 
     Asia and a personal tragedy for the tens of thousands of 
     Vietnamese and Americans who paid the price for the 
     misadventure.
       I had lost my college deferment in 1966 and received my 
     ``Greetings from the President of the United States'' draft 
     letter in early 1967. I decided to do my best and serve even 
     though I thought our policies in Vietnam were wrong. A lot of 
     awful experiences in the war would follow that decision but 
     not one day of regret.
       In Vietnam you joined your unit one soldier at a time, not 
     in groups that trained together back home or from old time 
     group enlistments. My unit was Company C, 1st Battalion, 22nd 
     Infantry, 4th Infantry Division. That night in July 1968 when 
     I joined Charlie Company as an incoming sergeant E-5, I was 
     ordered to take out a night patrol. I was exhausted from days 
     of travel and processing but I didn't sleep a wink all night, 
     and never solidly for the rest of the year I was there.
       Three days later, on patrol in a cornfield, my radio 
     operator who was walking just behind me was shot through the 
     neck by a sniper. I later lost another radio operator who was 
     shot while clinging perilously to rungs of a hastily 
     departing helicopter. If he had been able to survive his 
     wounds, he would never have survived the fall from the 
     chopper into the trees below. We found his body three days 
     later.
       Discipline was strongly enforced in our division. No 
     intentional killing of civilians or torture of POWs was 
     tolerated. After several reprimands I had one soldier in my 
     company court-martialed for cutting off the ears of dead 
     North Vietnamese soldiers and mailing them home to his 
     girlfriend.
       The final tragedy for me was that the man I recommended to 
     succeed me as squad leader in Charlie Company was killed as 
     he walked in the squad leader position in the field the day 
     after I left for home. It is his name I look for first on the 
     wall in Washington when I visit it.
       There were some light moments, too. I was able to keep a 
     pet monkey in my bunker for several weeks until he learned to 
     pull the pins on hand grenades and kick them off the 
     mountainside to explode below.
       My war experiences only served to support my initial doubts 
     about our involvement. Once when a convoy of U.S. Army and 
     South Vietnamese Army units that I was traveling with on 
     Highway 1 was ambushed by NVA regulars, we American soldiers 
     jumped off our trucks facing the enemy and returned fire. The 
     South Vietnamese soldiers jumped off the other side of the 
     trucks and ate lunch. Whose war was it?
       I recall numerous incidents when U.S. Army officers 
     instructed us to count each body part from a NVA soldier as 
     one casualty so as to swell the total body count reported. 
     Similarly, we noted that some known U.S. casualties were 
     listed long after the deaths in Stars and Stripes, the weekly 
     military newspaper. These small deceits, multiplied across 
     the country and if practiced widely, could have contributed 
     to an inaccurate picture of battlefield situations. And it 
     would have been done purposefully.
       What would I want future generations to know about the 
     nation's experience in Vietnam?
       First, that governments of men can and do make huge 
     mistakes. In understanding political situations in other 
     cultures, in intelligence gathering and interpretation, and 
     that an overzealous military can and will cover up their 
     miscalculations of enemy strength, exaggerate U.S. military 
     effectiveness and minimize cost projections and outcomes. 
     Once committed, reversals of policy are slow in our system of 
     government and often come too late for too many in harm's 
     way.
       Second, I would urge future generations to get informed and 
     involved in public affairs as a matter of civic duty and 
     personal interest to guard against poor political leadership 
     that can get the country in deep trouble because of political 
     ideology, showmanship or the pursuit of short-term partisan 
     advantage over the national interest. Not only is eternal 
     vigilance the price of liberty in Jefferson's phrase, but it 
     is also the price of intelligent foreign policy and peace in 
     the world.
       Third, I would want those who look back at what happened in 
     Vietnam to recall that it was not victories in combat by 
     soldiers and airmen that got us out of there. No, it was not 
     that at all. It was the courage and aggressiveness of people 
     of all ages here at home who protested in the streets that 
     finally turned the political tide in this country against the 
     war. Their courage and tenacity forced a reversal of policy 
     in Washington as time and events revealed military failures 
     and unacceptable losses.
       Finally, I would not want my children or anyone's children 
     to ever know the details of what war looks like up close. It 
     is very gruesome and terrifying for the safe and the wounded 
     and all those who survive are burdened with the awfulness for 
     their lifetimes. As time passes, the joy and fullness of life 
     can repair the damage and soften its impact for those whose 
     lives lead in healthy directions. For those who returned to 
     dysfunctional families, lack of schooling, joblessness, 
     illness, they are the walking wounded of Vietnam who cannot 
     ever come home.
       I would want my children to know that I tried to do my duty 
     when my country called even when I disagreed deeply with the 
     policies and conduct of the war in which we were engaged. I 
     would want them to know I felt no regrets or ill feelings 
     toward those who chose not to serve; those decisions of 
     conscience required a certain kind of courage as well as any 
     I saw in the war. Lastly, I would want my children to work 
     for a country that is a more thoughtful, careful and 
     respectful force in a world of divergent cultures, one that 
     expends its resources in war only when our national security 
     interests are genuinely at stake.

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