Hearts and Minds Page #4

and I was on one of the tanks.

And I had an M-16,

and I had stacks of magazines.

And there were two guys, you know,

that were going through,

like, some grass and bam!

I dinged in on one of 'em,

and I nailed him, you know.

And the Aussie with me confirmed,

you know, that I dinged him.

And I felt good. And I wanted more.

And it wasn't that I wanted more

for politics or anything like that.

No. I couldn't of cared

if they were whatever.

I just wanted them because they

were the opposition, the enemy.

Stinking little savages.

Wipe 'em out, I say.

Wipe 'em out.

Wipe 'em off the face of the earth!

Will we ever understand

these Eastern races?

Hit me, Poon Soon.

You hideous yellow monster!

I wanted to go out

and kill some gooks, you know?

I-I really... I-I don't know. I guess

I had been totally brainwashed,

because I could remember when people

used to call me "blanket ass"...

or "chief"

and they still did, you know?

I think my name was, uh,

Ira Hayes in boot camp.

Either Ira Hayes or squaw, depending on

what mood the drill instructor was in.

But there I was, you know, saying

I wanted to go kill some gooks.

They were instructed to remove

the eyes of the individual...

and place them in a hole

in the middle of the back,

and that would say to the

Vietnamese, you have to understand,

uh, that whoever did that

was ubiquitous.

In other words, the eye being

the symbol of ubiquity,

uh, or of all-present, all-powerfulness

on the part of the Saigon government.

Which is an easy message

for the local villagers to get.

In fact, the American advisors didn't

have that much of a stomach for it.

So they used to use CBS logos.

You know, the eye of CBS?

And they would kill the individual

and then they would leave him...

with kind of a calling card on him.

At one point, I was invited to go

along on an airborne interrogation...

in a helicopter with the marines

northwest of Da Nang.

And they took along two Vietnamese.

And one was already reduced

by beatings with a rubber hose...

and some other methods

of, uh, beating and torture...

to the point where he couldn't

talk, he couldn't respond.

As an example to the one they

wanted to question, they'd say,

"If you don't tell us

what we want to know,

we're gonna throw you

out of the helicopter."

And, uh, he couldn't respond.

He didn't understand.

They were using, uh, pigeon Vietnamese,

which he didn't understand.

It was more English

than Vietnamese.

They'd run him up to the helicopter...

two hefty E.M. were along...

they'd take him by each elbow and run

him up to the door of the helicopter.

They'd do this three or four times.

He was reduced to whimpering and crying.

And they finally, um, uh, told

him that this was the last run.

He still responded the same way, and

they winged him out of the helicopter.

The second fellow

immediately started to babble.

Anything he could tell them.

Any kind of information

he could give them for one goal.

And that was to reach the ground

alive again.

I just can't see in my mind somebody

throwing somebody out of a helicopter.

I don't believe this kind of stuff

happened. Maybe it did. I don't know.

I never saw it, put it that way.

I've seen G.I.'s get mad and, uh, uh,

rather than shoot one of these dinks,

uh, just punch him right out, yeah,

with his hands.

Americans say Vietnamese are

just slant-eyed savages.

The Vietnamese have

5,000 years of history.

We fight against the invaders.

It is not we who are the savages.

I don't know where they are.

That's the worst thing.

Right around and run into the sewers

and the gutters, anywhere.

They can be anywhere. Just hopin'

you can stay alive from day to day.

I just want to go back home

and go to school. That's about it.

- Have you lost any friends?

- Quite a few.

We lost one the other day.

The whole thing stinks.

The dude in the foxhole with me,

he was dead.

And, like, here come the jets.

Everybody's, "Yay, jets! Do it to 'em.

Get these motherfuckers

off our ass." You know.

'Cause they were diggin'

in our behind real good.

And, like, the jet came in

and "Yay, jet, get 'em."

And you see 'em swoopin' all around.

"Yay, jet, get 'em."

And he came over that way and let

it go, and you say, "Uh-oh."

And you could see it's napalm

cannister, because you can tell 'em.

They spin a**hole over head, backwards

as they're tumbling through the air.

And the thing is just tumbling down.

You know it's coming right at you.

You know. And, like, wow. The

napalm hit, I grabbed this dude,

just put him up over my head

in the hole like that.

F***in' napalm went down the whole line.

Just creamed everybody in the line.

Thirty-five dudes, man, just burnt.

Post-toasty to the bitter, you dig?

And that napalm was just drippin'

on both sides of this dude.

He's dead, you know. I'm just holdin'

him up, using him as a shield.

I just chunked this dude off of me

and just sprung out of the hole.

I didn't know which way I was going

outside of back, you dig?

And just ran through.

Burned my pants off.

Spent the rest of the battle running

with no drawers. My stuff hanging out.

You ever try to fight a battle

without any drawers on, man?

Awful sick of it.

I'll be so glad to go home.

I don't know. It's the worst area we've

been in since I've been in Vietnam.

You think it's worth it?

Yeah. I don't know. They say we're

fighting for something. I don't know.

I was at a very kind of

sobering thing last night.

Memorial service for four men

in the second squadron...

who were killed the other day.

One of them being a medic.

And, uh, the place was just packed.

And we sang three hymns

and had a nice prayer.

I turned around, looked at

their faces, and they were...

I was just proud.

My-My, uh, feeling for America...

just soared because of their...

The way they looked.

They looked determined...

and-and-and reverent

at the same time.

But still they're

a bloody good bunch of killers.

"When you go forth to war

against your enemies...

and see horses and chariots

in an army larger than your own,

you shall not be afraid."

Well, let's not anybody

be so naive as to think we're here,

in any way, to worship football.

Nor are we here,

as I'm sure many people believe,

to pray for a victory.

We believe in victory.

We believe it will come to the team

that's best prepared.

This is serious business

that we're involved in.

And that's religious,

and God cares.

There are going to

be men made tonight.

And that's religious,

and God cares about that.

We're concerned about the big game.

But we're also concerned

about the bigger game,

the biggest game of all that

surrounds us:
The game of life.

May you be winners.

Winners in the big game.

But even more importantly,

winners in the biggest game of all,

which we all play. Let us pray.

That's a touchdown.

Because we got our kids

geared to crack like hell.

Holding, number 37.

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