OPINIONS & VIEWSnClear Voices from DarknessnAl Santoli: Everything We Had;nRandom House; New York.nby Edward J. WalshnOix years have passed since the fallnof South Vietnam to the regular armynof the communist North, and todaynthat ill-starred country is one insteadnof two. The political adjustment hasnbeen accomplished. The little nation ofnbattlehardened communists, once thentoast of leftists throughout the world,nis a pathetic, vicious slave state stillnreeling from the effects of its “victory.”nBy contrast, the United States, humiliatednin March of 1975 by the loss ofnSouth Vietnam, has undergone a remarkablenrecovery. It is ready, then, forna book like Everything We Had.nAl Santoli’s book is an anthology ofnthe reminiscences of 33 Americans whonsaw combat in Vietnam; they were collectednon tape by Santoli, who is himselfnone of the narrators. It is a chronologynof near-unspeakable horrors experiencednby the contributors—that is,nan intimate, albeit collective, memoirnof the Vietnam War, and at the samentime a panoramic portrait of war, anynwar, all war. Santoli traveled the lengthnof the United States seeking out Vietnamnveterans from all branches of thenservice, as well as nonmilitary governmentnpersonnel who were there, interrogatingnthem sensitively, drawing onnindelibly ingrained memories, evokingnthe horrors they have struggled to blotnout. They tell of terrorist murders atnmidnight, of men blown apart, of endlessngrenades and rockets and machinengun fire, of years in a North Vietnamesenprison. These were the details of thenVietnam War that drove ordinary, goodheartednyoung men mad as they trampednthrough stifling jungles and neck-deepnswamps or flew over them, seeking annMr. Walsh is a frequent contributornto these pages.n6nChronicles of Cultttrenenemy they did not understand.nThe American soldier knew wellnenough, however, that the enemy wasntrying to kill him in an amazing varietynof time-tested ways. Old women whonwould offer him water during the daynwould hide ammunition for the VietnCong by night. Young children carriednweapons. Everything, it seemed, wasnmined. The most important lessonnlearned by Americans in Vietnam,ntherefore, was the continual nearnessnof death. They arrived not comprehendingnthe culture of Indochina as one ofnages-old warfare and realized, if theynwere lucky, that the Viet Cong of thenlate 60’s employed the same tactics asnthe Viet Minh used against the Frenchnin the early 50’s and Ho Chi Minh’snirregulars against the Japanese—and sonon, back into history. The Americansnwho survived were the ones who, asnNavy SEAL scout Mike Beamon put it,n”learned how to walk like a Viet Cong,nmove like a Viet Cong, think like a VietnCong.”Hecontinues: “Most Americansndidn’t know where they were going ornwhat they were doing in Vietnam. Theynwere kind of tromping around. I wasnmoving slowly, hesitating, blending innwith my environment.”nSantoli has arranged his oral historiesnto develop a theme of the growth innunderstanding of what the U.S. was doingnin Vietnam. Those who were therennnin the early 60’s had little idea of whatntheir presence in the country meant.nSays Jan Barry, an Army radio techniciannwho served there in 1962-63, “Inbegan to realize that we were the war.nIf we wanted to go out and chase peoplenand shoot at them, and get them tonshoot back at us, we had a war going on.nIf we didn’t do that, they left us alone.nAfter which it became clear there wasna pattern here.” Later, he adds: “Atnsome point you began to realize that thenpeople around the military base werenclearly cooperating with the guerrillasnbecause they were able to infiltrate theninside of our bases and we hadn’t thenfaintest idea of where the guerrillasnwere.”nAs the years passed and Americannforces were committed inextricably tona land, sea and air war in that fetid cornernof Asia, the men learned more ofnwhat they were about “in country.”nThey saw assassinations of entire familiesnby the Viet Cong, sadism and cowardicenby South Vietnam’s > “ntroops and the tragic efforts o ,..^.nleadership—from the Pentagon to thenplatoon leader—to fight the war withntactics learned at the U.S. militarynacademies instead of in the jungle. Somenadjustments were made, such as thenSEAL infiltration teams and Vietnamesen- language intelligence – gathering,nbut the war itself was conductednas if body counts of guerrillas—whonwere mostly pressed into service in thenSouth, anyway—would force Ho ChinMinh and his successors to negotiatenseriously. The “search and destroy”nmissions that secured villages by daynand lost control of them by night bencame futile idlling exercises. Gradually,nas the troops gave up trying to understandnwhat their officers were doing,nthey concentrated on reducing personalnrisks to the minimum: self-inflictednwounds became routine, patrols wouldnavoid dangerous areas. The bewildermentnof the ordinary soldier and ma-n