Book 2 Letter 17
Part 3 of 3
To Tacitus: on
the treatment of the dead
Tacitus, this
letter has been about war, but I also love to write about music, and
everywhere I look, I find stories of music in war. Sometimes funny,
sometimes tragic, such tales are always instructive of deeper values,
and of the nature we all share as humans.
Again, the
article by Friedman provided me with this story that made me laugh.
Miami Herald
writer Guy Gulotta recalled his experience with PSYOP in a feature
piece entitled “Master of the Game,” written for his newspaper in
1989. Guy was a Navy reserve lieutenant (junior grade) assigned as
commander of a small navy Patrol Craft Fast, also known as a PCF or
"Swift Boat." He was stationed on a semi-permanent base on
pontoons moored in the Cua Lon River in 1970.
“My crew
pointed this out to me the first time we were instructed to cruise
the canals playing tapes of "The Wandering Soul," a howling
banshee sermon promising eternal damnation to any Viet Cong who
didn't lay down his weapons and join up with us right away. Nobody on
the boat understood the words, but any boat that played it usually
got hit with rockets. "The Wandering Soul," as Seaman
Sherwood J. Drumheller told me, "is Number 10, and dropping off
the chart.”
Unfortunately,
I pointed out, we were the only boat on duty that had a functioning
PSYOP system - a loudspeaker. "We’re going to have to play
something," I said.
"Great,"
said Drumheller, who was 19 and the only normal person on the boat
besides me. He favored Steppenwolf, Credence or the Stones, but would
also go with Santana because "some of the words are foreign."
Boatswain's
mate Hogan, who was from Lubbock, and had no known first name, hated
Steppenwolf, but offered Buck Owens or Dolly Parton in exchange.
"Not
heavy enough," I concluded. I chose Ike and Tina Turner (Workin'
Together), pointing out that Tina, like Dolly, was a girl, and she
sang Honky-tonk Woman (Stones) and Proud Mary (Credence), which,
incidentally, was about a river boat. Besides, she had a voice that
could melt steel; Charlie would love it.
And it worked.
For six hours in the middle of the night Tina Turner ripped through
the forest like a chain saw, and we didn't hear a single gunshot or
see a single muzzle-flash. "The Wandering Soul" was never
heard again on the Cua Lon River.”
*
In 15CE,
Germanicus and his centurions buried their comrades on the
battlefield, their bones having lain undisturbed for six years where
they fell. The centurions worked together in this, they shared in
the grim task and all who were present knew the truth of it. This
kind of work is written about frequently by many ancient authors, the
stripping and burying of one's dead allies was a common part of every
soldier's wartime experience. Together they shouldered this burden.
In my reading of modern sources I have found a different kind of
story though, that of the army mortician, whose work takes place far
from the battlefield, and whose struggles are far more lonely than
that of their front line comrades.
From an article
on the subject of Vietnam wartime morticians, written by Matthew M
Burke for Stars and Stripes, I found the following.
The mortuary
men got through it by trying to shut down their emotions. However,
they still had to have respect for the grim task at hand.
“We treated
the remains of the soldiers that were killed with respect,” Fruendt
said. “It was sad but you had to do the job right and you had to
treat them like a member of the family.”
For Redlinski,
it was cathartic to talk to the dead.
“I would
say, ‘Sorry I have to do this. I have to get you back to your
family.’”
The Army
mortuary personnel were outcasts, shunned by their peers because of
their job.
“We stayed
to ourselves,” Redlinski said. “People thought, ‘Oh there’s
death, I don’t want to be near you.’”
Fruendt
remembers heading to the chow hall with the members of his unit one
day after work. They had all showered and were wearing fresh clothes.
They sat down and started eating. Before long, they realized that
everyone had cleared away from them.
“The smell
was vicious,” he said. “No matter how much you wash your hands or
clothes, it permeates you,” Redlinski added. “It permeates your
skin.”
Redlinski said
that the smell even reached the troops outside the mortuary.
Just before
Fruendt left Vietnam in the fall of 1968, a new, bigger, better
mortuary had been built at Tan Son Nhut. This one was far away from
the other troops.
“We were
kept away from the main body of troops because it was demoralizing,”
Redlinski said.
“Most guys
never knew we were there.”
The Army’s
mortuary personnel are still the experts in recovery, identification,
preservation and safeguarding remains until a deceased service member
can be sent back home to their family. It is one of the most
important missions during war, Ellerman said.
“There is no
better way to honor the fallen than to return them back to their
home,” he said.
That is still
the mission, one that is still largely unheralded.
*
So I guess that's
what I wanted to write to you about Tacitus. Two paragraphs from
your book sent me on an incredible journey of discovery, uncovering
stories from a war I thought I was already quite familiar with.
Every day it seems I am shown the incredible scope of my own
ignorance. It is impossible to draw conclusions, or to make
judgements. I am a student, perpetually seated at the feet of
teachers far more knowledgeable than myself. I am particularly
grateful to SGM Herbert Friedman for his writings which have featured
heavily in this letter.
Just as
Germanicus helped in the digging of graves and so shared in the grief
of all present, I hope that I, in discussing these difficult stories
from our collective history, can share in the burden which is all too
often, heaped unsquarely upon the shoulders of our soldiers, and who,
long after the fighting is done, must bear the weight of the tragedy
of war.
We are all the
inheritors of traditions which can be traced back to the earliest of
our ancestors. Theseus, the ancient Greek hero, is named as the
first commander of antiquity to declare that the bodies of the enemy
dead should be returned to their families. Now, some two and a half
thousand years later, the Australian army is continuing what Theseus
started, and through the courage and dignity of peacetime service,
are attempting to restore to our past enemies, the spiritual
resolution they have craved for decades.
Perhaps some of
those wandering souls can find their homes again, and perhaps their
whispered prayers of thanks might reach our living dreams, and
perhaps together we might find peace.
I think it is
worth the effort.
Thank you
Tacitus, your book is a magic mirror.
With gratitude
and respect.
Morgan.
PS.
For further
reading, the articles I have quoted from can be found here:
The Wandering
Soul tapes of the Vietnamese War (Article by SGM Herbert Friedman)
Operation:
Wandering Souls (Australian Army operation)
The article about
morticians experiences during the Vietnam War
P.P.S
Cabanatuan, the Philipine POW camp during WWII, also has some
interesting stories relating to the recovery of the bodies of dead
soldiers.
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