Book Review: Your Hero And Mine, Scott

101st Airborne Division

Duc Pho, Vietnam 1967

Specialist 4th Class, Scott Christofferson, Vietnam, 1967

After writing the previous post A Life Remembered, I was privileged to receive a heartfelt note from Scott's family and a copy of Your Hero And Mine, Scott a collection of letters written by Scott Christofferson to family and friends that recorded his journey from high school, into adulthood and finally, to his heroic death on the battlefield in Vietnam.

I am returning to this story because what I read in the pages of this little book not only held a treasure of similar memories, but puts to words the thoughts of many who came of age in the middle sixties and found themselves by chance or choice, living in the same chaotic world described by Scott in the final months of his life.

I earlier noted the degrees of separation that intertwined my own life with Scott's experience. We both graduated from high school the same year 1965. We both endured one frustrating semester of college only to chuck it, and join the Army the same week in late January 1966. His impression of Army life mirrored mine as he trained and then deployed to Germany via a leisurly cruise on the ,USS Admiral Hugh Rodman (AP-126), 1945-1997. Later USAT General Maurice Rose and USNS General Maurice Rose (T-AP-126). a sister ship to the USS General John Pope (AP-110) that I traveled to Vietnam aboard in late 1966. His letters about the crossing and trying to avoid duty by hiding in the nooks and crannies of the ship, mirrored my own efforts.

Scott kept volunteering for Vietnam and in May of 1967 got his wish. He was sent to join the 1st Brigade of the famed 101st Airborne Division at Phang Rang as a signal specialist running the switch board. He soon landed a chance to become a combat reporter in the brigade PIO section, and happily told his brother Jim in a letter, that he would no longer be called a "titless WAC" for running the switchboard.

Scott's observations and insight about the war struck me as insightful beyond his nineteen years. For instance, he wrote in letter to his family shortly after arriving in country, that the best way to keep China out of the war was, "We should admit China to the UN, urge the British to leave Hong Kong...I urge this because most friction is political and racial." He goes on the lay out almost the same philosophy adapted by Nixon and Kissinger five years later, when they opened the door to China and moved the Soviets to sign the SALT Treaty by changing the balance of perceived power in the world. This theme returns again in other letters to his brother and friends.

Another, observation came after only one month in country. Scott had written his first story about a GI who spent his off hours making sick calls in local villages, treating people with borrowed supplies. Scott wrote. "The Vietnamese situation will be improved by people like him, not by infantry." An apt description of a one man System Administrators (SysAdmin), that blog friend Thomas Barnett has written about for years.

After two months in country, Scott penned a description of both the average American soldier and his Vietnamese enemy, he presents an unvarnished view of friend and foe that stands the test of time. Reading his description, peeled away the layers of feelings that it took me decades to cover. His final pronouncement on the state of everyone in Vietnam at that time was that; "Everybody involved is getting fucked."

I wrote earlier how close the degrees of separation were revealed as I turned each page. When Scott contracted Malaria, and was sent to the hospital in Cam Rahn Bay in August, he wrote his family from the base library. Reading this gave me a major flashback. During the summer of 67 I was assigned to carry the logistics requests to Cam Rahn to prime the supply chain for combat operations in the coming week. I used to plan to miss the flight back north, and to spend Sundays in the library, reading and catching up on my letters home. When I saw the date on his letter August 6, I checked and it was a Sunday, happen chance was, that we shared the same small space for a brief time that summer.

By mid-September Scott had returned to the field and began to see and report on a lot of action. His description of forgetting to chamber a round in a firefight, brought a shiver, as I recalled my own brush with "Buck Fever" as I found myself staring at my weapon, wondering what was wrong, only to see the safety staring back at me, as I tried to bend the trigger out straight. The passage describing the emotion of the firing the first shot in combat is priceless for it's simplicity. "Intense sensual awareness, tenseness, shakiness that is caused by adrenalin, a desire for quick and climatic action."

The essay, September 1967 is both dark and revealing as Scott describes how men react to action and death, and how they hide their excitement and fear with jokes and laughter.

The poem introducing the final chapter, October 8, 1967 stopped me short. I know that the poems contained in this work were Scott's so when I read it a recognition of how close this was to an almost unknown passage I had read, caused me to be amazed at this fellow soldier's insight. The similarity to a passage written by Major General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. to his wife, Eleanor, upon his being relieved of command by General Patton in 1943, is amazing, considering that Roosevelt's letter was never revealed until quoted by Rick Atkinson, in The Day of Battle; The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944.

The jaded man stumbles again;

for the last time,

He tries with all his strength

to regain his feet,

But his muscles are all played

out with past efforts,

He dies struggling to stand

once more,

He dies grimacing with trial

But struggling also with a faint,

sweet smile,

For he knows he has lived.

Scott A. Christofferson

1967

The longer I live the more I think

of the quality of fortitude-

men who fall,

pick themselves up and stumble on,

fall again,

and are trying to get up when they die.

Major General Theodore Roosevelt Jr.

1943

I end this post by saying that Roosevelt's note has been a touchstone of courage for me. Scott's words create a link between brother's in arms that will forever reside amid my favorite poems.

My final thoughts are to make the highest recommendation to get your hands on this little book. It isn't about money for the family, it is about personal satisfaction and as Kit, Scott's sister wrote, "To share a remarkable story." I agree, and would urge it to be included in any reading list about the Vietnam War. It is not focused on total war as the classic World War II memoir With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge, but gives the reader a feeling of knowing and understanding what a young man felt coming of age, and giving his life in a war he came to understand and hate in the brief time he was in combat.

My highest recommendation:

Buy Your Hero and Mine

Cambodia Revisited.

Second oldest crime, selling humans.

Long Pross

Cambodian brothel

Cambodian women on the street

On January 1, 2009 I wrote a post entitled Sex Trafficking, The World's Second Oldest Crime. Since then it has become the most visited post on this site. Many of those who find their way there are seeking the obvious and only pause to realize that it does not appeal to their prurient interests. But more importantly, quite a few stay to read about Somaly and Sina and visit the link to the Somaly Foundation and the related links about Cambodia that appear under the Honoring our Commitments sidebar.

The problem of Sex trafficking continues to been written about by Nicholas Kristof at the, Nick Kristoff blog. and in the pages of the New York Times.

Kristof has written several times about CAMBODIA and the issues that still haunt a country that became part of the collateral damage of the war in Vietnam. Both the United States and Vietnam must assume a share in the destruction that tore the fabric of this once peaceful and beautiful country. Vietnam should assume more of the blame for using it as a staging area in violation of Cambodia's neutrality and the United States almost equally for not doing more to support the government of Cambodia in it's effort to prevent what occurred in the 1970's after we entered the country in an effort to end the Vietnamese sanctuaries and destabilized the fragile government.

I am compelled to return to this subject to draw attention to the latest reports filed by Kristof about Cambodia. I do this as part of my own recognition that as a soldier in the war next door, I feel a shared responsibility to add my voice to encourage help for this nation. After reading the article linked below, take the time to watch the video linked in the article to grasp in a few minutes what thousands of words cannot describe.

Kristoff writes:

Barack Obama’s presidency marks a triumph over the legacy of slavery, so it would be particularly meaningful if he led a new abolitionist movement against 21st-century slavery — like the trafficking of girls into brothels.

Anyone who thinks it is hyperbole to describe sex trafficking as slavery should look at the maimed face of a teenage girl, Long Pross.

Glance at Pross from her left, and she looks like a normal, fun-loving girl, with a pretty face and a joyous smile. Then move around, and you see where her brothel owner gouged out her right eye.

Yes, I know it’s hard to read this. But it’s infinitely more painful for Pross to recount the humiliations she suffered, yet she summoned the strength to do so — and to appear in a video posted online with this column — because she wants people to understand how brutal sex trafficking can be.

Read more: If This Isn’t Slavery, What Is?

Kristof writes about buying two young girls in this story.

In trying to figure out how we can defeat sex trafficking, a starting point is to think like a brothel owner.

My guide to that has been Sok Khorn, an amiable middle-aged woman who is a longtime brothel owner here in the wild Cambodian town of Poipet. I met her five years ago when she sold me a teenager, Srey Mom, for $203 and then blithely wrote me a receipt confirming that the girl was now my property. At another brothel nearby, I purchased another imprisoned teenager for $150.

Astonished that in the 21st century I had bought two human beings, I took them back to their villages and worked with a local aid group to help them start small businesses. I’ve remained close to them over the years, but the results were mixed.

Read more as well as watching the linked video: OP-ED COLUMNIST; Striking The Brothels' Bottom Line

Kristof sees part of the pathway to lead young women away from a short dirty life of abuse and drugs is through education. In this post he discusses how new schools are helping to mend broken souls.

One of the frustrations in trying to teach kids to read there is that, frankly, there aren’t a lot of great books to teach with. And exciting stories that might entice young people to read often aren’t translated into Khmer, the Cambodian language. So a few years ago, Bernie convinced J.K. Rowling to donate the rights to the first book so that a low-priced Khmer version could be published, so as to hook young people into reading.

Read more: Harry Potter in Cambodia

Now the world is filled with crappy places where the worst of human spirit still flourish. I look at Cambodia and see a cast-off of the Vietnam War that went through a horrific time in it's history called, the Killing Fields. Today, Cambodia is still recovering from the loss of a whole generation of future leaders and remains landlocked in a swampy time warp, awaiting the development that has stimulated it's neighbors.

Another reason prompts me to keep writing about Cambodia. A couple of years ago I met a young person whose parents escaped Cambodia during the worst of times. They went through hardships that they still keep tucked to their breasts so as to protect their five daughters from knowing what they endured to give their children a chance at life. I do not know this woman's families history except to know that her parents came here with nothing, made a life in a strange culture and out of that, saw a daughter graduate this past year from a university with a degree in international business, The First Saturday in May.

Now that she has graduated and seeks her future, this young woman remains a prize for any organization to capture. Her heart is dedicated to caring about people so much that once when she returned from a first vacation out of the country to the Bahamas, her favorite story was about the impression of the taxi driver who had his wife and small child riding along in the cab as they deposited her and her friends to a nightspot, and her concern that they got a reasonable tip. She is moved to write down quotes and use them as a guide. "We don't accomplish anything in this world alone... and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads form one to another that creates something." Sandra Day O'Connor.

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I have not seen this person since she went forth to seek her future, but her spirit endures and makes me proud to have encouraged her on her quest and been one small thread in the tapestry that will be her life.

So if you are reading this it is because what ever brought you here kept your attention to read about something more important that instant gratification. It is the investment in human connectivity that endures.

China in the year 8, Earthquake and Olympics Shake the Middle Kingdom

The year 2008 may turn out to be a watershed year for China. After demonstrating the worst of a response to trouble in Tibet, and suffering their most devastating earthquake in thirty years. China is poised to be a different country by the time the Olympics take place in August. No one expects it to instantly join the club of Western style democracies, but the signs of grassroots social change are evident across the width of China. Two articles, one by Steve DeAngelis of Enterra Solutions Will a New China Emerge from the Earthquake's Rubble? sees change afoot.

In a recent post about the earthquake in China [Globalization and Giving -- the Rise of Chinese Philanthropy], I noted some hopeful signs about how society is changing in there. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who traveled through China to see how the country is responding, also sees some hopeful signs ["Earthquake and Hope," 22 May 2008].

Steve points out that Kristof's article notes that China is still a couple decades away from true democratic reforms and that transformation will be moved along by continued capitalism.

He concludes that he shares Kristof's:

...Optimism that China is moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, I don't believe the course it will take towards democracy is going to be a straight one. The rest of the developed world is going to have to find ways to help China back on the road whenever it takes a detour.

In a related article from Reuters, China's '08 generation finds a voice in tumultuous times, by Chris Buckley

By the time 2008 ends, Wang Junbo joked during a sweltering afternoon in China's earthquake zone, he and other young Chinese will have seen enough suffering, conflict and drama to retire early and write their memoirs.

...Wang's belief that this year's cascade of crises, especially the quake, has been an initiation rite for Chinese born after 1980 is widely shared. And it could leave a deep impression on a nation where the ruling Communist Party has warily faced its youth raised on global capitalism, Internet and text messaging.

The article points out that:

The public concern fostered by the quake may also amplify public scrutiny over reconstruction efforts and the resettlement of quake refugees. The Chinese public has already shown acute sensitivity to post-quake corruption exposed by an emboldened domestic media.

"People's expectations have also risen. They want to see aid used in a more fully transparent and accountable way," said Zhang Tuo, a business student in Beijing who has been organizing quake aid. "If it's not, the response will be real anger."

A lot has been written about poor construction and lack of government control of safety standards. Author Tom Barnett has pointed out that China in many ways resembles America during the boom period in the final quarter of the 19th century. Our own experience with an earthquake in San Francisco in 1906 serves as a distant mirror of a time when our own construction standards were non-existent. The two pictures above the left from China's devastating 1976 earthquake and on the right San Francisco in 1906 look starkly similar.

2008 was suppose to be a year of good luck for China. The number 8 is considered the luckiest number in Chinese folklore. They have arraigned for the Olympics to begin on 8/8/2008 at 8PM to seal their celestial fortune. The earthquake, may in the long run turn out to do more to usher China towards a more open and responsive government than a dozen Olympic style events could accomplish.

Above and Beyond the Call of Duty

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The intimacy of the experience of World War II is passing to join the memories of other wars, whose only link to our national recollection, remain stored in the archives, among fading relics and forgotten memorials.

Today, World War II is taught and remembered by touching on the exploits of the leaders and strategies used by all sides. The personal memories are replaced with bullet points that spin a political position, dependent upon the current view of being either right or left in one's viewpoint. The stories of courage and personal dedication are largely lost to memory and in today's self-indulgent world, are discounted as sacrifices that any rational person would defer from making.

The blogger, CDR Salamander dedicates every Friday as Fullbore Friday, to remembering the deeds of those whose bravery during time of war has been largely forgotten. This week, he links the story of the crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber whose dedication to duty and courage is so fantastic that one would believe it to be fiction, without the visual record created, courtesy of the History Channel. Take the time to watch the videos and read the story of Captain Jay Zeamer and his bombardier Joseph Sarnoski who both won the Medal of Honor, as the bomber named Old 666 completed it's lone mapping mission over enemy territory in the South Pacific and single combat, took on 17 Japanese A6M Zeros as they struggled home, Wings of Valor II- Jay Zeamer and Joseph Sarnoski.