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Soldiers’ Letters and Personal Accounts
54 Plays1 year ago
Host: Jason M. Kelly
Guests: Brody Hogan, Jennifer Manning, and Todd Shelton
Audio Engineers: Jason M. Kelly and Kelly Kerr
- Anti-imperialist League. “Soldier’s Letters. Reprinted in Philip S. Foner and Richard Winchester, The Anti-Imperialist Reader: A Documentary History of Anti-Imperialism in the United States, Vol. 1 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1984), 316–323.,” 1899.
https://shshistory.com/extra%20pages/Class%20Readings/letters%20from%20the%20homefront%20from%20the%20Philipinnes.pdf - Baker, Mark. Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There. Berkley, 1986.
- Tram, Dang Thuy. Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: An Extraordinary Diary of Courage from the Vietnam War (Excerpts). Translated by Andrew X. Pham. Rider, 2009.
https://sm.stanford.edu/archive/stanmed/2007summer/diaries.html
This program has been made possible by the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Justice and War in American History podcast. I'm Jason Kelly. And I'm Ray Habersky. War has long been an indelible part of America's story, shaping national identity, values and principles. The experience of war has transformed the lives of each generation. And because of this, it has historically elicited impassioned debates and conflicting perspectives.
Exploring War and Justice
00:00:28
Speaker
This podcast aims to explore this history by bringing together a diverse range of voices, veterans, active service members, citizens and scholars. Through our conversations, we will consider the ways in which war has shaped and reshaped notions of justice. In the process, we will engage with broad themes such as duty, heroism, suffering, loyalty and patriotism.
Focus on Three Wars
00:00:50
Speaker
Our broad framework during this season is to compare and contrast the histories of the Spanish-American
00:00:56
Speaker
Philippine-American and Vietnam wars, wars that had a profound effect on the people of the United States. The National Endowment for the Humanities has generously provided funding for this project, making it possible to have conversations about the effects of war on American veterans, their families, and the generations who bear witness to conflict. Welcome back to the podcast, Justice and War in American History.
Personal War Experiences
00:01:20
Speaker
In today's podcast, we look at soldiers' letters and personal accounts.
00:01:25
Speaker
Yeah, I get to sit down today with a faculty member and a couple of students, all of whom are veterans, just like last week. And we talk about the very personal experience of war, of course, back in the Spanish-American, Philippine-American wars, as well as the Vietnam War, and talk about how the soldiers' experience were shaped by their connections to home and what those letters home meant on the home front itself.
00:01:55
Speaker
It's a truly fascinating conversation, which takes us from 1899 all the way up to the present day, and we actually get to discuss the transformation and communications practices that soldiers experienced over the course of the 20th and actually the early 21st century.
Additional Resources
00:02:15
Speaker
And if people want to read a little bit more about this, where can they find some of the stuff that you guys read in common?
00:02:19
Speaker
Yeah. So you can go to our website at justice and war seminar.org, or if you're in your podcast app, this information should be available in the information bubble there. And we got to talk about a number of texts, including a period list league from 1899, as well as soldiers journals from Vietnam war. Thanks to both of you for joining us. Um, I'll let you both introduce
Introducing the Guests
00:02:46
Speaker
yourselves. Uh, Brody, do you mind getting us started?
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah, my name is Brody Hogan, a student at IUPUI studying secondary social studies, four years in the Marine Corps Network Administration. It's more fun than it sounds. Yeah, so my name is Todd Shelton. I'm a lecturer in the program of media arts and science in the School of Informatics and Computing. I was in the Army, started off as a 25 Bravo IT person and went into an 18 Echo Special Forces Communication Sergeant.
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah, again, thanks for joining us.
Soldiers' Experiences Across Wars
00:03:21
Speaker
Today, we're going to be talking about a really important element in the podcast series, which is soldiers' experiences. And we're getting those experiences looking at letters, we're looking at diaries, we're looking at oral histories. As always, we're doing some comparison and contrasting between the Spanish-American War, Philippine-American War,
00:03:43
Speaker
and the Vietnam War, but also we're getting some of your experiences as well and trying to see the connections across time as well as the historical specificities across time as well. So, you know, maybe you just get us started. You read these letters coming into this podcast. I'm just wondering what, what were your general senses of, of these personal accounts that you were coming in contact with? Yeah. You know, um,
00:04:15
Speaker
reading some of those I get some of that stuff gets me a little teared up sometimes you know thinking about some of the past stories I've heard of my father's friends and talking about their you know letters that they sent home stuff too and they all said basically the same thing we never considered them you know they were the enemy they weren't another person or something like that
00:04:41
Speaker
when you look at other letters, you know, there are a lot of people that, you know, miss home and it's changed their life and, and realizing where, where, why am I here? What are we doing? You know, and, um, and those are just coming from my personal experience, you know, reading those letters that came back to, you know, so yeah, I mean, I
Challenging War Narratives
00:05:05
Speaker
think,
00:05:07
Speaker
letter tells it you know these letters tell stories like crazy even though there's a lot of different ones you know if that makes sense I mean we could talk about a specific one if you wanted to or any of them but in general I think it's crazy how everybody sees something differently throughout their experience in that
00:05:27
Speaker
Speaking of specific letters, was there a letter that spoke to either of you that just really set itself apart? I think those, like the excerpts we read from last night, I dreamt of peace, like how
00:05:44
Speaker
eloquent the languages that she uses when she's describing her experience as like a trauma nurse, basically, or like a surgeon for the North Vietnamese, which you don't hear any kind of perspective from that side of the war, I think it's a lot more popular to hear like soldiers perspectives from the United States.
00:06:06
Speaker
You just don't expect that level of humanism from that enemy. I think that the Popular like consensus for the time was that there's some sort of savage and then you read this and you realize the yeah, they are people and they have the same hopes desires that you do and at the end of the day, you're both fighting for the cause that you believe to be right and Yeah, it speaks a lot to
00:06:37
Speaker
their view of the war. They're a family fighting this evil that is the United States, which is hard for us to grasp because that's where we're from. But that's, I think, the most contrast I've seen out of all the letters. Not one of these that I've read touched me, but it was one of the seminars that we had a little while back.
Unrecognized Strength of Nurses
00:07:01
Speaker
And again, it was coming from some of the nurses that wrote back and how
00:07:08
Speaker
During that time, you know, the females that came in during Vietnam, I'm talking about Vietnam, didn't get a lot of recognition about what they did. But then those letters that, you know, that we read talked about how they had to be so strong. When they walked in there, you know, and saw
00:07:29
Speaker
you know, these guys that would burn up or, you know, just whatever and how knowing that they're going to never see their family again, but try to stay positive and what that did to them. And then most of the time that relates back to me thinking, we always think about those soldiers coming home. And I don't think about those nurses, you know, that, that went over there at that point in time that had
00:07:52
Speaker
They had to have so much PTSD at that time when they come back. And those letters to me, at that time, that is personal. To me, it's crazy to be that strong, to deal with that every single day.
00:08:09
Speaker
Because even when you're a soldier and you're not writing a letter and you're out there, not every day is terrible. I mean, when you go into combat and stuff like that, it is. But just think, they're in there seeing that roll in all the time. So those letters that I read of those, that really struck me.
00:08:28
Speaker
What I think what came through, at least in the, these historical examples is, you know, as the soldiers are, I mean, the soldiers are constantly grappling, right? With, with this attempt to distance themselves from the enemy, but also at the same time recognizing them as fellow humans, right? It keeps going back and forth and.
00:08:51
Speaker
So they call on the things that they know as, as frameworks for, for making them different than themselves. Right. And, and race and racism is one of the big things that comes through in, in both the Vietnam, uh, world histories that we read and the, the, the stuff we're relating to the Philippine American war. Um, and I wonder to what extent you see.
00:09:18
Speaker
this need to or the desire or the necessity or the emotional push to distance themselves from other people. To what extent do you see that as reflecting
00:09:34
Speaker
some of the things that are happening at home. So for example, if we look at the Spanish-American war, this is the, you know, at the height of Jim Crow, right? And so these soldiers are distancing themselves from the folks that they're fighting in the Philippines by using some of the same racist frameworks to distance themselves from the, from the enemy. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on, on that.
00:10:02
Speaker
Um, I think that like from a position of, um, what would you call it? Like kind of like a racial superiority concept among soldiers. I think that feeds directly into like that same dehumanization of the enemy. Like a lot of the accounts we read from those who participated in the Filipino American war treated them like
00:10:28
Speaker
Most of them would call them insurgents if they weren't calling them something racist and derogatory. They still weren't quite people. And they would speak about massacres against their enemy and saying it's like shooting rabbits.
00:10:45
Speaker
There's no attempt to personify the individuals that they come into contact with, and it's also prevalent throughout the letters about how often they would move into a city and just decimate the population. They wouldn't spare anybody. They'd loot every home.
00:11:05
Speaker
and massacre whoever they found and there are a few who speak out against it but most of them just treat it as well as just what we were doing while we were there. It's kind of a
00:11:17
Speaker
It's interesting to see that this is their retrospective. They have time to think on it, and that's how they've rationalized their action. It was just what was expected of us at the time. I remember one account, I can't remember the name specifically, but he talks about how
00:11:37
Speaker
he abandoned his post to go and engage in a firefight. And rather than being charged, he was commended because of his actions, like how many of the enemy he was able to kill. And that was celebrated instead of his lack of adherence to his duty. It wasn't more about his ability to kill the enemy, which is
00:12:02
Speaker
like stand so against what I think doctrine is now is kind of that's not what it's about. It's not what warfare is about.
00:12:13
Speaker
So this first set of readings that we have from the Spanish-American wars is from the Anti-Imperialist League. I don't know if you picked up on who published these, this set of letters. And I'm just kind of curious in your mind, why do you think the Anti-Imperialist League would publish this set of letters?
00:12:35
Speaker
I think it helps to, uh, demonstrate to the audience that this isn't a defense of freedom kind of like, this is what you've all been told. This war is about when in fact, this is the account from soldiers. Like this should be shocking to you. I think that's why they chose them is an attempt to shock the audience to such an extent that they're forced to do their own research. It's like, okay, maybe this isn't what we thought it was.
00:13:01
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's why you said it accurately. I agree with that 100%. There's an interesting letter in here from Ellis Davis from company A20 of Kansas. I don't know if this stuck out to you, but... Oh, that's the one I was referencing. That's the one you're referencing. Okay, I'm just going to read a piece of it for the audience in case they haven't gotten a chance to read it before the podcast.
00:13:25
Speaker
They are fighting for a good cause, and the Americans should be the last of all nations to transgress upon such rights. Their independence is dearer to them than life, as ours was in years gone by and is today.
00:13:40
Speaker
They should have their independence and would have had it if those who make the laws in America had not been so slow in deciding the Philippine question. Of course, we have to fight now to protect the honor of our country, but there is not a man who enlisted to fight these people. And should the United States annex these islands, none but the most bloodthirsty will claim himself a hero. This is not a lack of patriotism.
00:14:04
Speaker
but my honest belief. One of the things that strikes me as I've been reading through all of the documents is really this deep sense of self-reflection that some of the soldiers are expressing.
00:14:21
Speaker
in their letters or their oral histories. And I'm just curious what your thoughts are on this. I mean, both of you served in the military. Are these the types of conversations that might take place among soldiers or is this kind of maybe the independent thought that might
Critiquing Political Decisions
00:14:41
Speaker
only be expressed to one's personal relations?
00:14:45
Speaker
I think that last point you made, like a kind of an independent thought, I don't think many service members would be open to talking to anyone about the grievances they have with like higher command. But I think when you sit down with two or three fellow service members, you trust you both, you talk to each other about what you think could have gone better. Why, why you think you're where you're at. Um,
00:15:13
Speaker
and like the justification that you can see from the ground. So I think every conflict you're brought up by Superior to have an idea of what you're going in for, like what you're
00:15:27
Speaker
Signing up to do and you get there and oftentimes reality clashes with that like sentiment And when it clashes that's when you have conversations like that, but oftentimes it's not proclaimed so What would you say? openly
00:15:47
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think we talked about this in another podcast, you know, it's very, uh, you know, if you're on a different mission or you're doing a totally different thing and you don't understand why you're there or anything, you're going to probably talk to, you know, the other soldiers there and you're probably going to have a, you know, a different.
00:16:06
Speaker
outlook, you know, of what what it is. And I, you know, I can't say that there were times when, you know, I talked to other service members I were with, and they were like, Yeah, my mind's totally changed. You know what I mean? And this is a different story for me. You know, so yeah, I agree, you know, reading those reading that one that you just did is
00:16:31
Speaker
probably very common, probably just not to the leadership. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting because as you both were talking, I'm thinking, yeah, this is not a critique of the military leadership for sure. This is a critique of the political decisions that were made outside of the military structure and this sense that, well, we're here to do our job, but we don't have to be happy about the job that we're doing here.
00:17:01
Speaker
Um, uh, and, and, and, and making sure, uh, I mean, what's really interesting is he separates out this critique of the politics from patriotism, right? You can, you can be patriotic and critical at the same time he's doing his job. Mm-hmm. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah.
Impact of Digital Communication
00:17:20
Speaker
So we're reading letters and, uh,
00:17:25
Speaker
At the beginning of this conversation, Todd, you were talking about, in times past, these letters reflect a lot of different things.
00:17:35
Speaker
But as we've moved in the post 9-11 years, right, letter writing has disappeared to some extent. And I'm just wondering, both of your experiences being abroad and writing back, or maybe there wasn't writing, maybe there was email, maybe there was letters, maybe there was just...
00:17:57
Speaker
Zoom calls or video conferencing. How did you both experience this kind of form of communication back home and what did it mean to both of you? I think like the virtual communication landscape now is so constrained that it makes it hard for people on the outside to get a good perspective.
00:18:23
Speaker
Because you're never going to find a letter from you're never going to find a letter from me back home because I didn't write anything. Almost everything I did was over the phone. So it's like whatever I was feeling at the time, only my family will remember and I don't think any of them wrote that down. I hope not. But it's a unique, like a unique situation. I don't think there will be as much
00:18:51
Speaker
personal account as there is now about like Vietnam and earlier wars unless more service members are willing to talk about their experience publicly and have it recorded like put on record. Other than that, you're never going to know what was said like on that phone call or like a text message. Yeah.
00:19:14
Speaker
I kind of had a different email. And then, of course, it depends on what you were doing. So there was a couple of times when we were not allowed to use any kind of electronic. Nobody was supposed to know where you're at. Nobody's supposed to know video.
00:19:31
Speaker
Any emails so I wrote home and my aunt my mom passed away a long time ago, but my aunt was always there and She always made me write letters and you know, even though I was I hate handwriting, you know as you get older and you type more I love those. I mean, I mean, you know in one thing when she passed away You know her daughter handed me those back. She kept them all and it was like oh
00:19:55
Speaker
That's pretty cool. I mean, you actually have something and you could read back and see the ones that she sent too. So that was really pretty cool. But I think compared to what it used to be, these letters that we wrote is a different story and the fact that...
00:20:11
Speaker
How long did it take somebody to get the letters back then where now ours is instant like I can send an email and they can read it like in a matter of a minute you know 30 seconds so you can get a lot of dialogue back and forth. But I think times has changed a lot and.
00:20:29
Speaker
can be bad or good, I guess. It'd probably be very interesting, you know, since we're doing kind of research and talking about this, is like how a person's thought process goes day to day, because you would probably see that now. Where back then, you're probably witnessing something that happens over a month or two months or three months of their decision, you know, their thought process. Does that make sense what I'm getting at? Like,
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I mean, I specialize in the 18th century and you can see this in the 18th century where, you know, they don't have, their thoughts aren't completely formed for that day. So they break off and then they come back to the letter and continue the letter on, or they're traveling for three weeks and you know, then they summarize everything. Yeah. So, but, but you're right. Yeah. Cause you can throw off an email, a two sentence email every day if you wanted to. And yeah, it's almost like it could potentially be like a diary as getting through it.
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's very interesting. I think about that all the time. I mean, you know, you think, man, you know, well, even yeah, you didn't write a letter in basic training.
00:21:30
Speaker
Um, we were encouraged to, but I did not. I was going to say they might just be me as a person, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Which was very interesting because, you know, it's, it's fun to, you know, when after basic training, we came back home for a little bit. It was funny to be like, Oh, yeah. The first one you sent, you were like, you hated it. You know what I mean? It was like, Oh, they made you do this and this. And you know, it was just like, Oh yeah. And by the time you get out, it's like, Oh yeah, it was pretty fun. By the end, you know, it was just, it was very interesting to read those letters, you know, coming back. It was.
00:21:59
Speaker
more humorous, but it was, it is fun to get a letter though. I will tell you, I mean, I can, even these letters are more thought provoking. Just in letters in general, there was nothing better than to be that person that gets called out saying, Hey, you got a letter, you know what I mean? And to be like, Oh, that's cool, man. I get, you know, you waited for somebody, you know, and I can imagine how they felt getting a letter from home.
00:22:31
Speaker
how lonely you could be in this period that we're talking about, in the decades that we're talking about, to be waiting for that letter and not get that letter. Whereas today, I'm imagining, assuming you're not out on a mission, you can be emailing every day or video conferencing regularly with folks.
00:22:52
Speaker
I think about this. I was thinking about this too.
00:23:00
Speaker
Yeah, here's something funny. I don't know if you ever had any of your friends or anybody do this, but a couple of guys that I was in with, when they get deployed, they would never talk to their wife for the entire time. And I found that very strange, you know, and I wasn't married or anything at the time, but I was like, why in the world would you want to do that? And he goes, well, my first deployment, we tried.
00:23:24
Speaker
and the letters back and forth, you know, and all of a sudden when they don't come regularly and you're forced to be here and you can't leave and he goes, I would just start getting angry. He goes, I'd find myself getting more and more angry because what's my wife doing back home? What's my, you know, or my girlfriend doing back home? Or I just don't know. And then, you know, and then even a phone call, like we were supposed to call at seven and all of a sudden they're not, you know. And he goes, now I just find it
00:23:52
Speaker
I don't, we don't get in a fight, we come home, you know what I mean? It's like, when you hear that kind of thing, it's weird how communication between back home and a soldier is different for everybody. You know, for them, they found that it worked. They kind of lived a different life for the entire time. And I was like, wow, I don't think I could ever do that. But more power to you, you know, that was probably a, somebody will probably hear that and go, yeah, that was me. I don't know.
00:24:20
Speaker
Yeah, I can't say from my experience that any of my peers have done that. However, I was also deploying with like junior enlisted. So we're preparing them for deployment. So it's like, if they are married, it might be a little shaky already. So maybe they don't want to talk to him for a while. Yeah, yeah.
Transition to New Guest
00:24:39
Speaker
Well, I just wanna thank both of you for talking about this. This is the first part of the two-part episode. So Brody, thanks for joining us. Todd, you're gonna be back for the second half of the episode. And we'll see you in the next episode, Brody. All right, thanks for having me.
00:24:59
Speaker
Well, welcome back to the second part of our podcast. Uh, joining us in the studio now, I taught Todd has remained. I have remained and Jennifer is joining us. So Jennifer, would you please introduce yourself to the audience? Well, I'm Jennifer Manning. I'm happy to be here. I'm a U S army vet 10 years. Uh, did one combat deployment to Afghanistan, 2009, 2010. Uh, I was a military police officer and now I'm a senior here at IUP. I get to be a history teacher.
00:25:27
Speaker
Fantastic. Thank you. Well, Jennifer, you weren't here for the first half of the conversation, which was really interesting. We talked about the technologies of communication, the content of the letters and things that we've prepared for this session. I was wondering your experience on the ground in communicating with home. Okay.
00:25:49
Speaker
You know, these soldiers, you know, this is clearly a very important thing in their lives. And I'm just wondering, like, what did communicating with home, what was that like for you when you were deployed?
00:26:00
Speaker
I was gonna say. So when I was in Afghanistan, one of the bases I was at was FOB Gardez and they had like a little USO that you could go in and annotate some time to get on like Skype. Skype was a thing back then at this time. But one of our maintenance sergeants ended up was able to convince some people to put a like an antenna or something like that over at ours. So for a hundred bucks a month,
00:26:30
Speaker
you'd get some limited internet access on your own laptop in your, in your, uh, B hut. So I was one of those people who was like, take my money. So, uh, now granted we were out in, uh, you know, out in the wire, out the wire majority of the time that I was there. But when I did come back, I would always spend at least a little bit of time trying to either
00:26:55
Speaker
write a message on Facebook saying, hey guys, cause Facebook was just starting up. It was like the end of my space beginning of Facebook era. So I would, you know, write family on there and say, Hey, you know, how's it going? Whatnot. Or I would try to, you know, set up a little Skype thing because you got to think it is a, I believe if I remember right, it was about a nine and a half or 10 and a half hour difference or whatnot between home.
00:27:22
Speaker
and Afghanistan. So I had to kind of pick when I was able to talk to them, if at all. So that was, so I made a majority of my stuff, maybe letters, or my mom would send me a care package every month, every month. And everybody knew that I had the care packages coming. They'd see my box come in. They'd be like, Manning, what did your mom bring for us? Cause I always had these like little Kool-Aid packets. I had those little,
00:27:51
Speaker
What are they called? Uh, like Kansas SpaghettiOs and stuff like that, or like the little Denty more, uh, things and stuff. So we candy. So it was definitely a lot of, uh, what we called lickies and chewies. So, so what did it mean for you to have this communication with back home? I mean, having these care packages and it sounds like you're writing letters as well. And how did that seem to compare to other folks that you were deployed with?
00:28:20
Speaker
Well, I mean, the communication helped, but it's not like you could really talk about what was going on. There's a thing called OPSEC, which is, you know, Operation Security. So it's not like I could talk a lot about what I was doing with my family and not like I'd probably want them to know anyway. I would always, I mean, that was just the same with all of us. Anytime we had an opportunity to try to talk to home, we did.
00:28:49
Speaker
you never knew if it was gonna be the last time to tell them you love them or, you know, and it just kind of almost made you feel better. Cause you're over in this place where all you can think about is what's going on and you're going through all this crap. And sometimes you just need that, that special voice or that calming voice to just make you feel a little bit better and make you remember why you're there kind of thing.
00:29:16
Speaker
Like I know when I was in Afghanistan, if we knew we were going on a
00:29:25
Speaker
Let's just say one of the more high risk missions that we were on, I would always call my mom for no reason and tell her that I love her on, you know, the little Skype or whatever. If we had a, if I could, if I couldn't, then, you know, I mean, it happens. And it wasn't until I got back that I told my mom why I told her I loved her all the time kind of thing. So, I mean, and a lot of people did certain similar things as well.
00:29:47
Speaker
So, but we were, of course, like I said, in the age of technology and a lot of the other outposts around where I was at, they didn't have that technology. I was one of the nicer ones, I guess, in the province. So. Yeah, that was just hearing that. I mean, instantly took me back to these letters, you know, and, you know, you talk about OPSEC and stuff like that.
00:30:12
Speaker
when you write a letter, they probably don't rip your letter open and read it. So you could probably get away with telling more to your family by writing a letter, you know, and currently, you know, and well, even back then, you know, you know, with some of the letters that we have written, you know, then, then what you could an email or a text message or, you know, nowadays phone calls or whatever, you know, all that stuff's monitored, you know, over there. So,
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah, a letter, you know, if you really had probably passionate thoughts or feelings about something would probably be, you know, to write a letter. Very much so. So moving away from letters for a moment, one of the things that we read this week was the NAM selections. These are the stories of folks who experienced Vietnam on the ground and
00:31:05
Speaker
A couple of the texts talked about their arrival. One of our podcasts is looking at coming home, but what we don't have set aside as a podcast is the conversation about arrival.
00:31:17
Speaker
in place. And one of these oral histories talks about what it was like to land on the ground and the experience of first arriving in Vietnam. I'm just wondering, maybe we can talk about that a little bit and get a sense of your take on that. And is there an element of that that struck a chord with you about your arrivals when you were deployed?
00:31:42
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it always talks about it being like almost overwhelming in a sense. And it really can be because you're in this whole culture shock. You're going to somewhere you've never been before. You've only seen in maybe some pictures, some letters or some kind of stupid training that they put you in beforehand. But until you actually get on the ground and it's all fast, the minute you get there, you're moving, you're moving, you're moving.
00:32:06
Speaker
Like we got off on a off the jet and quickly or off the tarmac and get moved over into our
00:32:16
Speaker
tents, you know, and then everything's from there. You're in processing into the country and everything like that. And then you're off to your unit, you know, wherever you're going to go in the country and stuff. So, I mean, it's, it's similar, like, you know, people I know were maybe even in the text that went to Vietnam, you know, they made it, like, got off planes and were driving right on in kind of thing. And it's kind of how it's saying, it's kind of the same thing.
00:32:42
Speaker
I'd probably say, you know, you're exactly right. I would think it also would have to depend on how you're actually getting deployed. You know, are you with your entire unit, you know, coming over there? Or are you just, you know, when I think about some of the Vietnam letters, and I know a couple of people like my father's friends, you know, they were just kind of
00:33:05
Speaker
Uh, they weren't reserves, but they were like extras that just would go out there. There'd be like five of them that would just, okay, here, you're going to this one. It's not a whole unit of people traveling together. So I think.
00:33:17
Speaker
We had some of those definitely during our time as well. Yeah. So I think it's a different experience for them. You know, I mean, it might be, they, they could have flown in on a commercial aircraft, you know, and been like, yeah, you know, and then, but as soon as they get to the country, they're going to be treated pretty close to the same, you know, you know. Yeah. I was going to say we had, uh, we had some inserts that came maybe about six months in or so. So we've already been in the crap for,
00:33:41
Speaker
forever and these guys are just replacement bodies and they came in and they were automatically kind of like I guess you could
Deployment Experiences of 'Inserts'
00:33:49
Speaker
say outcast of the unit except for a couple of them a couple of them had just got back from Iraq by the time we deployed so they had to go through that whole you know waiting period mandatory waiting period that the army mandated before they could come to Afghanistan with us so you know they wouldn't treat differently but the ones who just got inserted in they kind of got
00:34:08
Speaker
got a whole little different treatment than we did when we got there. They kind of got, everything was at a nice pace for them. They could just go in and be like, Oh, Hey, you're going to be going to this unit here. When you guys get done in processing here, when we can find you to ship out and kind of thing. Your path has already been paved. You know what I mean? So you just like, Oh, those, those letters would probably be a little nicer than what your letter. Yeah, no. When we, uh, when we first got into country, it was when Bo Bergdahl decided to, uh, uh,
00:34:51
Speaker
searching vehicles going down the route and whatnot. And then the next couple months after that, we were doing election year. So it was all securing voting stations, making sure they're set up security wise. And then those days we were always out there making sure people weren't, you know, intimidating voters to come vote for the next president of Afghanistan and stuff. So they didn't go through quite the same thing we did. And a majority of the people who came in at that like six month mark or whatever,
00:34:59
Speaker
go hiking off of his base.
00:35:17
Speaker
got to be the commander's unit, you know, the commander's squad. So they stayed on the fault most of the time anyway. So, I mean, that's always a different experience. You know, there are some people that get inserted in and right into a unit right out in the field and all that stuff. The people in my unit, they got kind of lucky. Jennifer, we got to talk a little bit about the things that stuck out to us in the first half, but, you know, we read through a good number of different experiences of Vietnam and the Philippine American war.
00:35:47
Speaker
And I was just wondering if there was a piece or a section of one of these things that really stuck out to you or resonated with you. I was trying to see if I can find the exact verbiage, maybe it was here, but there was actually one, some of the letters in the Spanish American war that were talking about how they were
00:36:11
Speaker
They weren't fighting who they really wanted to fight. Like they were there to fight Spain and instead they're fighting all these other people who aren't Spain. And it was kind of almost depressing. Kind of same way goes for when we were there in Afghanistan. Most of the time it's not, we were, we're not fighting Al Qaeda and Taliban half the time. They would pay these common citizens to fight us.
00:36:35
Speaker
So we were always fighting somebody else other than who we were there to fight because they would threaten their families. They would threaten to kill them and all this other stuff because they're a terrorist organization. That's what they do. And so we were never typically half the time fighting who we were there to fight. We were fighting the innocent.
00:36:53
Speaker
civilians there, which was really rough. I mean, the same thing can be said in Vietnam. We were fighting, what, Chinese, Cambodians, Laos, Vietnamese, different Asian places there. So that's kind of one of the things that stuck out for me was they were disappointed like who they were fighting.
Fighting Coerced Locals
00:37:16
Speaker
But Todd, did you feel the same way about when reading that through those passages?
00:37:24
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, well, we said this to before when Brody was in, you know, there's a lot of connection there between a lot of these letters, whether you're feeling, you know, the enemy is, that's what you kept them at as the enemy, you know, and you kind of hit on it. I mean, regardless, they're always an enemy and you keep them
00:37:42
Speaker
just that way. You don't want to know about them. You don't want to know their name, you know, and just kind of so I think that's where it touched to me. There was a couple others that we're talking about, you know, just feelings of home and things. So I think that touches base a lot.
00:37:59
Speaker
especially as a letter writer, you know, I think it's more important when you write letters like that back home. I think you get a little bit more personal, you know, because you want to put that personal touch in because emails now, you know,
00:38:14
Speaker
I think you don't, well, unless you're just trying to send something, you know, a love letter to somebody, you don't feel that passion as much. You know what I mean? Like used to, every letter always had some passion in it. But, you know, I did is, you know, to whoever you're writing with, whether it was your aunt or, you know, a family member or whatever, there was always some heartfelt gesture in there where I think sometimes that's lost in just an email every single day. Oh, I agree. I think emails just become more monotone. You just read them in a monotone manner. Yeah.
00:38:42
Speaker
Hey Jimmy, I love you so much. You are the best person in the world. Hugs kisses.
00:38:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I would tell you, letters can also speak a lot. So, um, and I'm not trying to personalize this, so I would only go into who and who, but, um, there was somebody that went to school with my dad, you know, so when you seen him in the old yearbooks, you know, there was the old collegiate pose, you know, in high school and they looked very, you know, 1950s, all American and
00:39:12
Speaker
to see the to talk to their wife at the time because they got married right out of high school and and I knew their wife and she goes you should read the letters from him who went to school with you know my dad and I knew him and he goes you could just see the change he was you know went to Vietnam and it was just like how it changed from this all-american kid to all of a sudden come back and totally different person
00:39:41
Speaker
You know, the letters just mapped out this mental change, which, you know, had to be disturbing, you know, to their family back home. And even after they got home, um, you know, you realize this person, you know,
00:40:00
Speaker
Got into a lot of gangs, you know at the time motorcycle gangs and did that and you know and to see that their son was like Here's this all-american kid that you thought would grow up like this and then read these letters and there's nothing you can do about it You know go from I love your family to
00:40:19
Speaker
kind of miss killing people from here. You know, I mean, that's a pretty crazy statement to put in a letter, you know. It speaks a lot about probably the emotional state for some people that get put into positions, you know. Well, it's the biggest thing is because they're dehumanized. Yeah. That's, I mean, day one in basic training, that's, that's kind of what it is, is you are
00:40:43
Speaker
broken down and built up and you were built up to look at the enemy as the enemy. The enemy is not some guy named Joe you walk down the street with day to day. The enemy is Charlie or, you know, whatever, you know, uh, derogatory term that I, you know, I'm not going to name off of him, but Charlie's a good, uh, word there. But you know, you just, you see one thing like it's the same in Afghanistan, uh,
00:41:10
Speaker
you don't see them as I never, I, I couldn't tell you the name of probably two or three Afghanis. And that's because they were my interpreters and you want to know I know him as Steve. Oh, or, or, uh, what was the other one? Jay or whatever that we wouldn't even use in their real names. Yeah.
00:41:33
Speaker
The only reason we were able to humanize our interpreters is because we gave them American names. Otherwise we would probably just look at them like every other Afghani and not gave two craps about them. So I mean, that's where you can definitely see the emotional difference is because now you are on scene and you are now they're nobodies. So it's you kind of like, Oh, I miss just killing anybody because
00:41:59
Speaker
They're nobody. And it really can play a toll because then when you come back to the United States, they're not nobodies, they're people. So it's a whole different experience. So you definitely can see that in letter writing.
00:42:13
Speaker
Todd, I want to go back to one of the words that you used, which is home. And I think this might be a good place to bring this episode to an end.
War's Impact on Perception of Home
00:42:24
Speaker
But of course, you know, home is so central to these letters and this correspondence. And I'm just wondering to what extent through this experience of war have you seen the meaning of home change? Maybe in what you read here, but maybe even in your own experience.
00:42:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, home to me always meant home. I mean, meant where I grew up, where I guess where to me is where I grew up. You know, again, I didn't have parents, you know, so at the time.
00:43:00
Speaker
Um, so it was wherever my aunt was. My sister was still alive. She was living in another part of the country. However, it was just home, you know, back where I grew up and that's, that's me. I mean, I think a lot of people would probably see that, um,
00:43:19
Speaker
But I could probably see where a lot of people would wherever they felt most comfortable, you know, you may have had a terrible home life, you know, but somebody at wherever you were at made them feel more like home, you know, and I could probably see that. But to me, home was here, you know,
00:43:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I mean, for me as well, you know, home was Greenfield, Indiana, because that's where I grew up. That's where I went to school. That's where I graduated. And that's where my parents lived, my siblings, all that stuff. So that was always home to me. So every time I said I'm going home, I meant I was going to Greenfield.
00:43:53
Speaker
Even when I was in Germany, I was like, I'm getting ready to go home. They're like, well, the barracks is just right there. I was like, no, no, no. But yeah, this, you know, we did have a lot of people like that as well in the military. And and basically, it was always home was where you could hang your cap and be yourself. And just
00:44:10
Speaker
get away in a sense because like overseas you're always in that moment you're in that area you are there home is where you don't have to be there home is where you can your brain can shut off even if it's just for a moment like i still struggle with that today in my own home because i still you know i still see therapy i still have you know some paranoia and some um
00:44:38
Speaker
hyper vigilance and over awareness and everything like that. And sometimes I don't even feel comfortable in my own home. Uh, but just some things just kind of, um, work themselves out or, you know, therapy helps as well, obviously shout to my therapist. Um, but, um, you know, like I put a couple of cameras up outside my home, made me feel a little bit more safer in my home.
00:45:05
Speaker
I have an alarm system in my home. I feel a little bit safer in my home. So it's just kind of somewhere where you feel safe, where you feel comfortable because I don't feel as tense anymore. Like when I first got back and I moved to Kansas to be at Fort Riley, I lived in an apartment with a buddy of mine who had also just PCS to Kansas as well. And whenever I came home from work and he wasn't in the house, I would literally,
00:45:33
Speaker
take a pistol, you know, my pistol in the apartment that me and him shared. And I would go through each room to make sure that that room was clear before I would even take my boots off. So like it's, home is a very big key thing. Like you, it's just that feeling of safety. That's what they yearn for. They feel that when you're overseas, you're yearning for the home, which is where you can,
00:45:59
Speaker
be free in my opinion and what I've seen in some other as well. Thank you both
Conclusion and Next Steps
00:46:06
Speaker
again. I appreciate it. And thanks for our audience. We will see you on the next podcast episode. All right. Thank you. Thanks for listening to justice and war in American history. Please stay tuned for our next episode, which you can find on Apple podcasts, Spotify, overcast, or through any of your favorite podcast providers.
00:46:29
Speaker
Please be sure to rate the podcast and to be in touch with us if you have any questions or feedback. You can find more information about this podcast and the broader justice and war project at justiceandwarseminar.org.
00:46:41
Speaker
If you are a veteran or concerned about a veteran who has experienced a mental health crisis, there is 24-hour support through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Dial 988 and press 1 or text at 838255. For more information on support from the VA, visit mentalhealth.va.gov. And, as always, special thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities for making this project possible.