The Top Ten Reasons to be a Homeless Veteran in America Today!

Remarks delivered on Veterans Day 2015 -- John M. Del Vecchio

Farmington VFW Post 10361 and Farmington Exchange Club:  fund raiser for Veteran’s Matter

I would like to thank Al, Justin, the Farmington VFW and The Farmington Exchange Club for inviting me here today.

On this day, of all days of the year, it is an honor to be amongst so many who have worn the uniform of our country; and who have accepted the challenge and responsibility of protecting life and liberty for those within our boarders, and for many in foreign lands about the globe.

As you well know, tonight is a fund raiser for Veterans Matter—an organization dedicated to the mission of alleviating homelessness amongst our brothers and sisters. So tonight, let’s talk a bit about veterans who have been left behind…

Let’s give some thought to why it happens, and how it happens; and to the contributing factors.

But let’s start out on a light note—we’ll get more serious in a moment.

With a tip of the hat to David Letterman… and with a bit of tongue in cheek for the beginning of the list… I’d like to present THE TOP TEN REASONS TO BE A HOMELESS VETERAN IN AMERICA TODAY.

Reason # 10: Chicks dig it. Hey, some chicks like to take care of guys… well… you get the idea.

Reason #9: I’ve slept in a lot worse places than this.

Sleeping on a subway grate in NYC may be far more comfortable than sleeping on the side of a jungled mountain in I Corps, Vietnam, or in a shallow sand-trench in the Iraqi desert.

I remember one night… this was perhaps the worst sleeping position ever… we were on a steep jungled hillside about 20 clicks below the DMZ and 10 clicks from the Laotian border, and the only way to maintain our position was to straddle tree trunks. All night gravity pressed our weight, and the weight of our rucks, down against the tree trunks we straddled… well… again, you get the idea. A subway grate would have been most welcomed.

Reason # 8: The rent fits my budget.

          In 1970-1971, I spent a number of nights in the boonies with the Recon Platoon of Echo Company, 2d of the 502d Infantry. The company commander at the time was Captain Charles Ciccolella—Chick, as we came to call him. Chick retired as a colonel, went on to become Under Secretary of Labor for Veteran Affairs, and is now Chairman of the board of directors of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.

          His group reports that homelessness is highest amongst our youngest veterans; that is those vets under 30. The percentage falls slowly as we look at older groups. NCHV also report that on any given night over 100,000 vets take advantage of rent-free of benches, boxes, doorways, or of the back seat of a car. Another 300,000 struggle to meet their rent and are considered at risk.

Chick tells me the economy is only one factor, but it is a significant factor. Despite official figures pegging the unemployment rate at 5%, the American work force is at its lowest participation rate in four decades.

Reason # 7: My wife thought it was a good idea.

My apologies. It is not easy to keep this light. When a veteran returns from a war zone, his or her spouse—no matter how supportive—bears a re-adjustment burden few non-military spouses will ever experience.

Reason # 6: My job is being done for half the wage by a guy from Guatemala whose family is on assistance.

          What I’m actually asking you to do here is to study, to analyze, to cogitate upon all the factors—and the interplay of the factors—which lead to social withdrawal, self-medication with street drugs or alcohol, unemployment and homelessness.

          There are elements in these equations which each and every one of us has some control over or some influence upon. Reducing homelessness to the economy, or to a guy from Guatemala, or to PTSD, or drug use and abuse may be helpful, but it will not solve the magnitude of this very complicated problem. We need to go further; we need deeper understanding.

Reason # 5: The guy in Human Resources said I didn’t have the proper certification to qualify for the job.

          This past weekend I was at my 50^th high school reunion. Terrific time. Great to catch up with people… many of whom I hadn’t seen in half a century. It was also interesting to find out how many were veterans of the war in Southeast Asia. One of my classmates—essentially right out of high school—entered the Air Force. At 19 he became a flight mechanic on B-52s flying Operation Rolling Thunder over North Vietnam. In today’s terms, he was responsible for a $70-million dollar aircraft.

          Veterans tend to be the strongest, most-selfless, and most determined people in our society. They tend to be exceptionally competent. Most have lead others to one extent or another; and all have been responsible for thousands to millions of dollars of equipment—not to mention protecting the lives of vast civilian populations.

          Yet, over and over again we read, or hear, or see reports saying military service doesn’t translate into civilian jobs. Perhaps we need better translators; or perhaps the perception of what military service entails needs changing. That guy trudging through the arid mountains of Afghanistan carrying his weapon and about a hundred pounds of gear in not JUST a guy who can pull a trigger. As retired Marine Corps General James Mattis said:

      You’ve been told that you’re broken, that you’re damaged goods and should be labeled victims. I don’t buy it. The truth, instead, is that you are the only folks with the skills, determination and values to ensure American dominance in this chaotic world.

          Those skills, determination and values, and the inherent leadership and responsibility need to be recognized and incorporated in our cultural perception of veterans.

Allow me to group a few reasons together.

Reason #4: If I self-medicate with drugs or booze, bein’ on the street “don’t mean nothing.’”

Reason #3: Bein’ on the street puts me with a band of brothers that understand me and that I trust.

Reason #2: If your brain had been rattled the way my brain’s been rattled, you’d be out here, too.

          If I have not yet said this, let me say it here: Homelessness is not the problem; homelessness is the result of a complex constellation of problems. The above three reasons relate to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, and with Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI. We could talk about PTSD and TBI for months and just scratch the surface. For those of you who are interested in the topic, I would suggest looking into the work being done through the Fisher Foundation and the Intrepid Centers.

One resultant: TBI, once thought of as permanent brain damage because the brain was considered static, is now recognized as curable as it has become know that the brain is capable of not just plastic recovery (where one area takes over for a damaged area), but of actually repairing injured tissues and of growing new neurons.

Before we get to the #1 reason to be a homeless vet in America, I’d like you to do a little mental exercise with me. I would like you to imagine this scenario. Place yourself into this picture.

          You are a concrete worker, a member of a team responsible for creating and installing a beautiful sidewalk and plaza before the state capitol building. You work very hard on this project both in preparation before the actual project begins, and during the construction phase. The construction takes months. When the final pour is finished, the level concrete gleams in the sun; and when you leave the site you are proud of a job well-done; a job that has created something beautiful, something that literally millions of people over the years will enjoy.

But the night of the final pour dozens of vandals descend upon the site. They run across the still wet concrete leaving it marred and ugly. Weeks later you find out that there has been an official decision made to ignore the damage. Months later people complain about the lousy job done by the contractor. Over the years the plaza picks up the nickname… insert your name here …Del Vecchio’s Folly.

Please keep this image in mind as we get to… Ta Dah…!

Reason # 1 to be a homeless veteran in America! I feel betrayed by my country, by the media, by the general story being told, and by the gigantic gaps and omissions in the story of who I am, who I was, what I did, and why I did it.

          Have you ever hear or read of a vet saying--or perhaps said yourself, “When I left, we were winning.”? 

          This past August and September, Journalism Professor Mark Masse from Ball State University, interviewed me for a book he is writing on combat correspondents. The interviews were in-depth. He continuously probed for an explanation as to how I coped with my own experiences.

I explained how PTSD and PCSD [Post Combat Stress Disorder] are composite syndromes with varied facets that combine in many different ways. He didn’t like the explanation. I explained the concept of Post-Traumatic Growth… essentially that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. He still wasn’t satisfied.

What I’m about to read is my final email answer to him on this topic.

Mark, yes, one could say my coping behaviors were generally positive—writing, construction, real estate, and you could add friends/family, and physical fitness--I went from running to biking to playing soccer, the latter both coaching the kids but also playing in an over-40 league until I was 56. The thing is… were these coping behaviors to help deal with the trauma of combat? Or would I have done most of these things anyway? Likely I would have, with the exception of writing—and the trauma there has been more from the absurdities of many of the story told by American academia or by the American main-stream media; along with the betrayal by American politicians of not just our allies in Southeast Asia, but of the American military and every single individual who fought (or served) honorably.

As you know, I was highly motivated, even prior to being drafted, to find out the truth of what was happening in Southeast Asia. After Vietnam, after a tour in Germany, after being discharged into the Connecticut National Guard, I moved to California and began a career in real estate, and put Southeast Asia behind me. Real Estate was pretty much all consuming of my mental focus for 18 months… …until, in December of 1974 I learned of the massive movements of communist troops and materiel down through western I Corps, into the Central Highlands.

Historians now tell us this movement consisted of 400,000 troops moved by 18,000 military trucks, 500 Soviet T-54 tanks, 400 long-range 130 mm howitzers. All supported by a 12” gas and a 4” oil pipeline running down across the DMZ, through western I Corps, through the A Shau Valley, down past Kham Duc and Dak To, all the way down to the outskirts of Song Be City. That’s what we had stopped when I was there; it is what American troops had interrupted going back to the first advisors under Eisenhower; it was the essence of reason behind the battles at Khe Sanh, Lang Vei, A Shau, Ta Bat, Ripcord and in The 13^th Valley. Control of the corridor was the strategic linchpin of the communist war effort from ’59 to ’75.

Those late 1974 meetings of vets in California I wrote about in (my third novel) Carry Me Home—where the vets are talking about going back to VN to stop the communist invasion—those meetings took place at the times and places described… and I was a part of it. At that time, we all knew what was happening, and we could barely believe our country was letting it happen.

That was every bit as traumatic as having a 122mm rocket explode 75 feet to my right, or having an AK round go between the sole of my boot and the earth. Actually watching that collapse over a period of 4 ½ months, that was more traumatic than the 122 or the AK round or any of the mortars. It was more traumatic because I always felt I had some control in Vietnam—I could respond by firing back or by dropping into the nearest hole in the ground while others around me responded by firing back or calling in arty or air support.

But watching South Vietnam and Cambodia collapse (even if most of America didn’t begin to pay attention until sometime in March of ’75), realizing that we, now being civilians without the necessary transportation or logistical support, realizing there really was no way to go back; that we, Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Airmen, we the proud, the hard, the strong, we were essentially impotent. That’s where the motivation came from in ’75 to make the switch from real estate to writing—even if at that time I thought I was only correcting the record for the 101^st Airborne.

                It’s actually hard for me to write this right now without cussing. The anger from that betrayal at times slips beneath the surface but it has never abated. So… what would I have done had I not written about the war, had I not continued to read and study about it for decades… perhaps I would have coped via alcohol or drugs or petty crime and homelessness -- read that as my condemnation of those witless, gutless politicians who allowed the fall to happen; my denunciation of those evil activists (think John Kerry, et. al.) who skewed the story from reality (read that as lied their asses off for their own glorification); and my continued disrespect for all the well-meaning useful idiots that accepted the propaganda until its bulk virtually snuffed out fact and reason.

For the past several years I’ve been signing off on my emails We’re Americans. We’re Better Than This. And I believe that. But when story—conventional wisdom, the boilerplate of the news, the core curriculum, the politically correct explanation—is distorted for a long enough period, then perhaps we become a people who are not better than this!

That’s a sad statement, isn’t it?

If I feel this way after having 40 years to get used to the idea; how do you think our younger vets feel about Ramadi, Fallujah or Mosul?

If I’m still angry that not one in 100 Americans knows that the North Vietnamese communist terror campaign waged in South Vietnam in 1960, ‘61 and ‘62 (18 months before the Gulf of Tonkin incidents)… that in just those first three years of that campaign against a small nation communist terrorists murdered what would be the equivalent in 2015 of terrorists murdering half a million Americans; how do you think our younger vets feel that not one in 100 Americans know that the 2007 surge in Iraq uncovered 17,000 liters of sarin nerve gas and 550 metric tons of yellow cake uranium?

And if I still anguish over the genocide—not just in Cambodia, but in South Vietnam and Laos… if I still feel tormented by the ethnic-cleansing of the indigenous peoples of the highlands; how do you think our younger vets feel about the massacre of the Yazidi and the annihilation of Christians?

The veteran has built something that is meaningful to him or to her. It is meaningful to the people who use the plaza; and it is meaningful to those who will never set foot in the plaza—whether they understand this or not.

When what has been built is ignored; when what he or she labored and sacrificed to construct is distorted or denied, it impacts that meaningfulness—and it is in fact demeaning to the veteran. That societal impact may become the final straw which erupts into anger, or implodes into PTSD, unemployment and homelessness.

A veteran may not know the details of the history of his or her war, but he or she knows that when they left the plaza the concrete was level and gleaming.

Correcting the story will go a long way to correcting the problems that some veterans are experiencing.

Thank you. And God bless America.

Stop the smear campaign against US Vietnam Vets

Stop the smear campaign against American veterans of the war in Vietnam

Please go to the following site, read and sign petition:

http://www.standunited.org/petition/stop-antiwar-radicals-from-smearing-vietnam-vets-again

An interview I conducted 3 months ago with Military: A monthly history publication
http://the13thvalley.com/uploads/Military214_DelVecchio.pdf

 

Comments delivered for Veterans Day: Johns Creek, Georgia Memorial Dedication

November 9, 2013

 

Keeping Faith

And

The American Dream

Wayne, John, Robby, Gerry, members of the Johns Creek Veteran Association, and town administrators, thank you for allowing me to participate in this dedication.

What a lovely memorial. I can picture it completed, see citizens coming here, walking through, or sitting, contemplating the plaques, the names, the events, the meanings.

And what a lovely country we live in. What an exceptional country we’ve inherited. Memorials remind us that this has been at great cost.

I would like to tell you some of my thoughts on The American Dream, and on Keeping Faith with those who have gone before us, with those who have sacrificed so much, with those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and from whose hands we’ve taken the torch to hold high.*

I am thinking of friends who did not make it back. Thinking of advice heard many years ago. “There is a reason why you are here and they are not. It is your duty to find the reason, and to live your life in such a way as to make their sacrifice not in vain.”

We have been given days, and years, and decades which others have not. How do we Keep Faith with them?

What responsibility, what duty, do we have--not just those of us who made it back, but we, The American Citizenry—what duty do we have to those who made it possible for us to be here today in this wonderful nation?

Does Keeping Faith mean more than saluting the flag and standing for the national anthem before a ball game? Is saying, “Thank you,” enough? Or does Keeping Faith mean something more?

Does it perhaps mean understanding our Rights and Freedoms as American citizens? Does it perhaps mean being vigilant and protecting those Rights and Freedoms when they are being attacked from without or being eroded from within?

Does it mean overseeing national decisions as to how our current military is used, and ensuring that it is not being abused?

Our troops—soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and the coast guard, in Viet Nam, in today’s wars, throughout our history—have been the will to defend, the will to pull the trigger. Without that will no nation can survive. Keeping Faith with them requires of our leaders, and of all of us, that we do not waste the will.

          Let me back up.

As you know, I am a veteran of the fight opposing Hanoi’s war of expansion which sought communist hegemony over all of Southeast Asia. In 1970 and 1971 I was an Army combat correspondent with the 101^st Airborne Division (Airmobile). Our area of tactical responsibility—we referred to this as our Area of Operation or AO—was northern I Corps, below the DMZ, from the South China Sea west through jungled mountains and across the A Shau Valley to the Laotian border. Our mission was to provide security for the civilian population in the densely populated lowlands by engaging a heavily armed, infiltrating force in the sparsely inhabited mountains.

When I was writing The 13^th Valley in the latter part of the 1970s, the media was filled with negative stories about American troops. I wanted to tell the story of what I’d seen, of amazing soldiers doing impossible things in this unforgiving terrain. I wished to set the record straight for the 101^st. I knew the media definitely had it wrong about my unit—and assumed they were talking about the Marines. I did not know, at the time, about Dai Do. For me that came later…    John (K** -- present him with copy of book)… you’ll find a story of Dai Do beginning on page 115 of Carry Me Home...     The Marines, too, were pretty awesome.

          How can we keep faith if we don’t know what these men did; why they fought; what was the cause; who was the enemy, and why did we oppose that enemy? Why did we engage in the fight in the first place? Who are we, We Americans, to go on extended excursions to foreign lands?

          To answer to those questions would, of course, take semesters, but allow me to mention a few seldom recalled details about the origin of the war; and let me also mention that knowledge—truthful knowledge, not politically correct propaganda—is a miracle elixir… It lifts the spirits, and ameliorates the suffering of PTSD.

          Let’s go back to I Corps—before America showed up. And to Hanoi. In January 1959—more than five years before the Gulf of Tonkin Incident—the politburo of the Communist Party of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Viet Nam [North Viet Nam], met in secret session in Hanoi and declared war on the South. During that month-long meeting three logistic routes from the north to the south were authorized. These were known as Routes 559, 759, and 959, for the month and year of their inception. Trail 959—September 1959—went west from Hanoi into Laos, then south into Cambodia; 759 was a series of sea lanes and landing areas, including the circumnavigation of the Ca Mau peninsula to land men and materiel at the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville; and 559 became the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail in eastern Laos with spurs crossing the DMZ, running south, down through I Corps, through the A Shau valley and the mountainous jungles west of Hue.

           The first waves of communist fighters using these infiltration routes were political terrorists. One should make no mistake—our involvement, though not known at the time by this term, was a War on Terror. By 1960 communist terrorists from the north were assassinating between 50 and 100 South Vietnamese hamlet, district or province officials—including school teachers—each and every month! The terror grew to 100 assassinations and approximately 800 kidnappings per month by 1962. Terrorists terrorize! Hanoi dubbed this policy the ‘Elimination Of Tyrants’ campaign. Tyrants, I guess, meant to them hamlet chiefs and school teachers!

The 1962 numbers for South Viet Nam would be the 2013 equivalent of terrorists killing or kidnapping more than 250,000 American. A quarter million victims! And this was happening before the war “heated up.” At that time U.S. forces in Viet Nam numbered 900 in 1960, 12,000 at the end of 1962.

 So were we right to engage in this fight?

Could anyone knowing and understanding what was happening question whether or not our forces were on a humanitarian mission?

The next six years, to Tet of 1968, received the far more, but not necessarily far more accurate, attention from our media.

Some less known but interesting facts and figures: Following the 1968 Communist Tet Offensive, the South Vietnamese citizenry, previously untrusted, was armed. Over the next three years, while US forces were reduced by 58%, communist terror attacks (assassinations, abductions and bombings) on villages and hamlets dropped 30%, small-unit attacks dropped 41%, and battalion-size attacks dropped 98%!

At the same time, rice production increased by nearly 10%, war related civilian injuries dropped 55%, and enemy defections increased to the highest levels of the war. Armed, the South Viet Namese citizenry became an effective force in protecting themselves and their property from an organized terror campaign.

Ahhh… but were we ever told this?

Or had our national focus shifted? In the pursuit of freedom errors and abuses had been made. Our attention was no longer on the pursuit, but only on the errors and abuses.

For those of you who served in later wars, feel free to extrapolate this scenario. Some things have not changed.

Critics of the War in Viet Nam called all tactics into question. You may recall Ted Kennedy condemning U.S. military operations in I Corps, in the A Shau valley, at Dong Ap Bia, at Ripcord and Khe Ta Laou. Seemingly he had forgotten that terrorists were infiltrating via this very route.

His focus, along with that of much of the media, had shifted. Recall the My Lai massacre: from exposure of that incident in 1969, to 1972, 473 nightly TV news stories focused on that one atrocity, yet not a single story was aired about the 6000 communist assassinations of South Vietnamese,  non-military government personnel in 1970 alone.

If we perceive American troops as barbarians—as undisciplined baby killers or drug addicts; or if we are ignorant of the foes atrocious acts and ultimate aims—can we say we have kept faith with those who fell?

Errors and abuses were addressed; American ground forces were withdrawn by early1972; the armed southern population carried the bulk of their own local defense; yet America’s focus remained on “the American atrocity.”

This political momentum led to the abandonment of our allies, and the people of Southeast Asia. The abandonment can be inferred by economic support. The US budget for the war, adjusted for inflation, fell by over 95% from 1969 to 1974. Weapons and ammo in the South became relatively scarce. In comparison, the final communist offensive which toppled the Saigon government employed 500 Soviet tanks, 400 long-range artillery pieces and over 18,000 military trucks moving an army of 400,000 troops down the Truong Son Corridor—that is through western I Corps below the DMZ, past Ripcord and Dong Ap Bia, through the A Shau Valley, and south. 400,000 troops!

U.S. abandonment of the South Viet Nam lead directly to 70,000 executions in the first 90 days of communist control; to the death of millions in Cambodia, to a half million Boat People fleeing the new oppression—many of those dying at sea; to more than a million people being incarcerated in gulag re-education camps; and to the communist ethnic cleansing of Laos.

Keeping Faith means knowing these things. It means remaining vigilant when the propagandists are stressing the errors or abuses that we as a nation have committed; yet simultaneously omitting the good, the honorable and the valorous we accomplished. Even worse, when they ignore the evil which we opposed.

 

          Let me digress.

          America the beautiful: it has been miraculous. Exceptional. A beacon… the shining light on the hill guiding those seeking freedom.

          This is not genetic. We are the great Melting Pot, a land which has welcomed the diverse, huddled masses… a land which once celebrated the diverse aspects of all cultures, but that also subordinated diversity to unity—e pluribus Unum, Out of Many, One.

So if not genetic, could it be the system established by our Founding Fathers?  A system derived from concepts of the High Renaissance, forged in the rough environs of the new world, and perfected in conflict with tyranny?

Is it not that which we defend; which we proffer others; for which we risk our lives, the lives of our countrymen, the lives of our sons and daughters?

A number of years ago I came across the following thought, but I have rarely seen it repeated.

American Exceptionalism begins with the phrase: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of -------- Property. Yes, property! That was the 1774 wording from the Declaration of Colonial Rights drawn up by the First Continental Congress.

The concept of happiness, as you might suspect, was quite different 240 years ago… you know, back before TV, Movies, X-boxes, NASCAR or Atlanta Falcons. At the time Property and Happiness were almost synonymous. The hot topic of the day was Citizen versus Subject… A citizen could own property; a subject could only use the property of the sovereign, and then only with the sovereign’s permission.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of property: this is the American Dream. The pursuit of property means a person has the unalienable right to earn, to build, and to keep much of the fruits of his labor, ideas and diligence—without them being taxed to the extent they are taken away. This standard exhorts all to go forth and excel; it tells us that from our exertions we can, and should, benefit. The American Dream is not the house with the white picket fence, but the freedom to build, to have, to own and to be secure in that house.

This culture which the founding principles foster—through all the ups and downs and bumps and warts of the centuries—has provided not just the highest standard of living in human history, but the greatest liberty to develop self and family, ideas and ideals, associations and institutions.

Academics have interview infantrymen to discover why they fight. Scholars tell us that soldiers fight for their buddies, for the guys next to them, for the team. But they tend to miss the fact that motivation is not singular, nor is it always understood by the individual. The academic view, beyond a doubt, is accurate, but it is also shallow.

Protecting Mom, apple pie, and The American Way against all enemies foreign and domestic are all elements of that motivation. Yet the last may be subconscious. It is certainly more difficult to express. After all—my guys, Mom and apple pie are tangible; the American Spirit and a constitution establishing a government given rights by citizens, versus a regime in which subjects are given rights by a ruling elite—that’s a bit esoteric.

We fought and fight for all these reasons and more; but if we contemplate the sacrifice of so many, if we truly believe they did not die in vain, apple pie (and I love apple pie) comes up short.

So… when we—those of us given years others have not been given—judge ourselves, the criteria must include how true our lives have been to the great founding documents of our nation.

Without knowledge of our founding principles, without an accurate understanding of our foes and why we engaged in battle, we are at peril of losing the way—not simply for ourselves but for future generations. Let this be a challenge—a gauntlet thrown at our feet.

It is the preservation of American Exceptionalism that is worth fighting for, worth living for, worth risking life and limb for. It is the perpetuation of that Exceptionalism—built upon the dreams, aspirations and labors of free citizens—which makes the ultimate sacrifice of so many not in vain.

We have been given days, and years, and decades which others have not. Have we lived our lives in such a manner they would approve?

To those who have not had the years and decades, I wish to say: From your failing hands you threw us the torch to hold high; and you said, “If ye break faith with us who die; We shall not sleep…”*

To you, dear brothers, and dear sisters, I wish to tell you that there are many here, and millions across this beautiful land, who have not and will not break faith with you.

 Rest easy. We have your backs.

 

*From: Flanders Fields by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD

**John K: Marine, 2/4 @ Dai Do; highly decorated; Purple Heart

 

                                                          #    #    #

 

John M. Del Vecchio                                             http://www.the13thvalley.com/

       

       Memorial Day: Keeping Faith

 

Thinking of friends who did not make it back. Thinking of advice heard many years ago: There is a reason why you are here and they are not. It is your duty to find the reason, and to live your life in such a way as to make their sacrifice not in vain.

 

We have been given days, and years, and decades which others have not. How do we Keep Faith with them?

 

What responsibility, what duty, do we have--not just those of us who made it back, but we The American Citizenry and our elected officials--what duty do we have to those who made the ultimate sacrifice?

 

Does Keeping Faith mean more than saluting the flag and standing for the national anthem before a ball game? Is saying, “Thank you,” enough? Or does Keeping Faith mean something more?

 

Does it perhaps mean understanding our Rights and Freedoms as American citizens? Does it perhaps mean being vigilant and protecting those Rights and Freedoms when they are being attacked from without or being eroded from within?

 

Does it mean overseeing national decisions as to how our current military is used, and ensuring that it is not being abused? Our troops—soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and the coast guard, then, now, throughout our history—are the will to defend, the will to pull the trigger. Without that will no nation can survive. Keeping Faith with them requires of our leaders, of all of us, that we do not waste the will.

Keeping Faith is yet much more. I think of the last scene in the film Saving Private Ryan. An old man who once was young Private Ryan stands before the graves in an American military cemetery in Europe. He turns to his wife and asks if he has led a life worthy of the sacrifice paid by so many. 

We have been given days, and years, and decades which others have not. Have we lived out lives in such a manner they would approve and rest easy?

 

John M. Del Vecchio                              http://www.the13thvalley.com/

Guns, Legislation, Security and Solutions

       By: John M. Del Vecchio

 I am from Newtown.

I am a Viet Nam Vet.

My degree is in psychology; I have been a journalist, a race relations specialist, and a historical novelist.

I am a small businessman. I’ve worked construction, and in both residential and commercial real estate finance.

I am a husband, a father, a grandfather.

I am an American.

I am a patriot.

Self-images are is complex, and balancing one’s identity in the face of tragedy is challenging. This is as true for nations as it is for individuals.

The contentious issue raging in our country over gun rights is not close to being over. It divides not just political parties, but families, friends, colleagues, and our own thoughts. The matter is urgent; the ramifications of our actions may last for centuries.

 The Most Urgent Question

What can we do, and what should we do, to ensure the security of our children? Not just our children… all citizens. What comprehensive legislation might be passed to increase security; what program initiated? Will new laws, programs or initiatives make Americans more, or less, secure? What complications, what unintended consequences, might these enactments produce?

Fallacious statements and falsification of argument fly from all sides. Calls for complete confiscation, and replies of “From my cold dead hands,” are no more productive than other knee-jerk reactions from left or right self-serving pundits and politicians.

I do not know where this debate may take us, but for me, I stand on the side of life, on the side of security for our children, our homes, ourselves and our futures. We likely agree upon these ideals; we may not agree on the ways and means which will best achieve them.

Tragedy in Our Town

I live two miles from Sandy Hook Elementary. On December 14, 2012, like everyone in Newtown and so many nationwide, I felt as if my heart had been ripped from my chest and stomped. Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza had returned to his elementary school. According to a recent release from the state police, he took revenge for bullying he allegedly endured within those walls more than a decade earlier; took wicked, vile revenge upon twenty beautiful, innocent first graders plus six adults before killing himself. Again, according to official releases, this disturbed individual had planned and practiced his assault for months, perhaps for over a year, shooting quickly with his computer controller at monsters on video screens, and with an air pistol at images in his mind as they huddled in fear against his basement wall. The results for the families, the town, the state and the nation were devastating agony, gut-wrenching sorrow, and mind-numbing despair. How? How could this happen? How… in Newtown? Quiet Newtown?

What can we do, and what should we do, to ensure this never happens again? To ensure that the deaths from gun violence are minimized? Will banning guns, ammo or the size of magazines help; or will these acts be counter-productive? Have other nations attempted any of the various proposed policies? If so, what conclusions may we draw from their experiences? Banning and restricting by nature are negative acts. Are there more positive and effective ways to approach the problem?

 On War and Arms

I am a Viet Nam veteran. I spent much of 1970 and 1971 with the 101^st Airborne Division (Airmobile). Our role was to provide security for the civilian population in the densely inhabited lowlands by engaging a heavily armed, infiltrating force in the uninhabited mountainous jungles below the DMZ and along the Laotian border. For me, the murders in Newtown evoked thoughts of the war, of terror and genocide, of the massacre at My Lai, of innocents butchered beyond our minds’ ability to comprehend. It evoked news coverage and historical records of these events.

For more than a quarter century I studied the war, and analyzed the political, social and military causes and effects of terror, massacres and genocide.  A Viet Nam Era poster reads—WHAT IF THEY GAVE A WAR AND NO ONE SHOWED UP? Alter the question: What if they gave a war and only one side showed up? That happens. In war, one side showing up is a prescription for disaster. The holocaust in Cambodian—far worse than the war—is an example. Contributing, perhaps dominating, factors in the tragedies included a skewed information environment, distorted public beliefs, and counter-productive political actions.

I mentioned My Lai. It was an American war crime: no excuse, no justification. However, this atrocity was used by “anti-war” elements to paint the American war effort as evil, and all American troops as baby-killers—a blanket indictment which was false, offensive and absurd. Media coverage of that incident masked enemy atrocities a thousand times worse.

Some media coverage today seems to wish to portray all legal gun owners as potential Adam Lanzas. Is there truth or rationale to these charges, or do they mask more serious concerns? Is there a correlation between the degree of legal gun ownership and violent crime? Do more guns mean more death, and fewer guns mean fewer deaths? We’ll delve into that below. Allow me to back up.

Little known facts about Viet Nam may be exemplary.  In January of 1959 the Politburo of the Communist Party of The Democratic Republic of Viet Nam (North Viet Nam), in secret session, declared war on the South. During that month-long meeting three logistic routes from the North into the South were authorized. These were known as 559, 759, and 959 for the month and year of their inception. Trail 959 went west from Hanoi into Laos, then south into Cambodia; 759 was a series of sea lanes and landing areas, including the circumnavigation of the Ca Mau peninsula to land men and materiel at the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville; and 559 became the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail.  

The first waves of communist fighters were political terrorists. By 1960 they were assassinating between 50 and 100 South Viet Namese hamlet, district or province officials, including school teachers, each month. The terror grew to 100 assassinations and approximately 800 kidnappings per month by 1962. Terrorists terrorize! That was the stated policy of the communist ‘Elimination Of Tyrants’ campaign. The 1962 numbers would be the equivalent of terrorists killing or kidnapping 250,000 people in 2013 American. 250,000! This was before the war “heated up.”

At this time South Viet Namese civilians were essentially unarmed, and were dependent upon nascent military forces (regional, provisional and national) for their security. (US forces were minimal—900 in 1960, 12,000 at the end of 1962). Over the next six years of increasing communist infiltration and matching US escalation, the civilian population remained largely vulnerable to terror attacks. Then, in the wake of Hanoi’s 1968 Tet Offensive, the weaponry of Southern military forces was upgraded and their older arms were passed down to a growing People’s Self-Defense Force (PSDF). The PSDF consisted of those too old or too young or too disabled to serve in regular military units. This was the home guard, a militia at hamlet-level without mobility or the capacity to conduct offensive operations, but capable of home/hamlet defense. The civilian population, now with approximately 400,000 WW II rifles and carbines, was finally armed. 

Over the next three years, while US forces were reduced by 58%, communist terror attacks (assassinations, abductions and bombings) on villages and hamlets dropped 30%, small-unit attacks dropped 41%, and battalion-size attacks dropped 98%! At the same time, rice production increased by nearly 10%, war related civilian injuries dropped 55%, and enemy defections increased to the highest levels of the war. The South Viet Namese citizenry had become an effective force in protecting themselves and their property from an organized terror campaign.

Could it possibly be relevant to the gun control issue facing America today?  Errors and abuses were made in the pursuit of freedom in Southeast Asia. By 1968 America was no longer focused on the pursuit and defense of freedom, but only on the errors and abuses. Recall My Lai: from 1969 to 1972, 473 nightly TV news stories focused on that incident, yet not a single story was aired about the 6000 communist assassinations of government personnel in 1970 alone.

 Although many errors and abuses were addressed; although all American ground forces were withdrawn by early-1972; although the armed southern population was carrying the bulk of their own local defense; America’s focus remained on “the American atrocity.” This political momentum lead to the abandonment of the people of Southeast Asia as can be inferred by economic support. The US budget for Southeast Asia, adjusted for inflation, fell over 95% from 1969 to 1974. Weapons and ammo in the South became relatively scarce. In comparison, the final communist offensive which toppled the Saigon government employed 500 Soviet tanks, 400 long-range artillery pieces and over 18,000 military trucks moving an army of 400,000 troops. This offensive was supported by a 400% increase in aid and materiel by China and the Soviet Union.

U.S. abandonment of the South Viet Namese people, and their resulting lack of weapons and ammunition, lead directly to 70,000 executions in the first 90 days of communist control of the South; to the deaths of millions in Cambodia, to a million Boat People fleeing South Viet Nam with many of those dying at sea; to more than a million being incarcerated in gulag re-education camps; and to the communist ethnic cleansing of Laos.

Was Southeast Asia an isolated case? Did skewing of the story distort public beliefs and enable millions of deaths? And does an unarmed civilian population increase atrocity and murder?

 More Guns, More Deaths…

The deterrence of crime created by a legally armed citizenry is difficult to measure. We can, however, extrapolate from other societies which have been fully or partially disarmed; and we can project the ramifications of various actions.

In the study, Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International And Some Domestic Evidence, by Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser, which appeared in The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (Vol. 30; Jan 2007) the authors explored the maxim, “more guns mean more deaths and… fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths.” This paper is a review of dozens of studies which compare gun ownership to murder and suicide rates in a score of European countries, the U.S. and Canada. Some of these nations have a long history of banning guns, others a shorter history, and some varying degrees of legal ownership. The authors found (all emphasis is mine):

That the “endlessly repeated” assertions that “…guns are uniquely available in the United States… (and) the United States has by far the highest murder rate…” to be false.  

If the U.S. does not have “by far the highest murder rate,” how did this assertion become part of our common national narrative? The authors noted a Cold War disinformation campaign begun in 1965 “and possibly earlier” which spread “…the false assertion that the United States has the industrialized world’s highest murder rate…”  The motivation seems to have been to disguise murder rates within the USSR.

Since well before (’65), the Soviet Union possessed extremely stringent gun controls that were effectuated by a police state apparatus providing stringent enforcement. So successful was that regime that few Russian civilians now (2007) have firearms and very few murders involve them. Yet, manifest success in keeping its people disarmed did not prevent the Soviet Union from having far and away the highest murder rate in the developed world. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the gun‐less Soviet Union’s murder rates paralleled or generally exceeded those of gun‐ridden America. While American rates stabilized and then steeply declined… Russian murder increased so drastically that by the early 1990s the Russian rate was three times higher than that of the United States. Between 1998‐2004… the Russian murder rates were nearly four times higher than American rates. Similar murder rates also characterize the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania... (these) homicide results suggest that where guns are scarce other weapons are substituted in killings.

More points from the review: Gun ownership in America, Norway, Finland, Germany, France and Denmark, is high. “These countries, however, have murder rates as low or lower than many developed nations in which gun ownership is much rarer.”

The authors examined hundreds of studies by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and found neither organization able to “…identify any gun control that had reduced violent crime, suicide, or gun accidents.”

Perhaps the best data for projecting results of programs comes from England. 

Handguns are banned but the Kingdom has millions of illegal firearms. Criminals have no trouble finding them and (have) exhibit(ed) a new willingness to use them… In the decade after 1957 (first ban), the use of guns in serious crime increased a hundredfold… In the late 1990s, England moved from stringent controls to a complete ban of all handguns and many types of long guns. Hundreds of thousands of guns were confiscated from those owners law‐abiding enough to turn them in to authorities. …by the year 2000 violent crime had so increased  that England and Wales had Europe’s highest violent crime rate, far surpassing even the United States.

Contrast the above with their finding: “…despite constant and substantially increasing gun ownership, the United States saw progressive and dramatic reductions in criminal violence in the 1990s.”

In other publications we find anecdotal indications that in England, prior to gun confiscation, approximately 80% of all home robberies occurred while residents were absent. That figure is similar to current estimate in the U.S. After the English confiscation the figure there flipped. Today, nearly 80% of home robberies in England occur with the unarmed—and essentially defenseless—residents present.

Forty of America’s 50 states allow qualified citizens to carry concealed handguns, and some 3.5 million do. In one paper reviewed by Kates and Mauser, economists John Lott and David Mustard “conclude that adoption of (concealed handgun permits) has deterred criminals from confrontation crime, and caused murder and violent crime to fall faster in states that adopted this policy…” They further expressed that “… the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death…” argument “… especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra.”

In another study, Less Guns, More Violence: Evidence from Disarmament in Uganda by Laura Ralston of MIT, Job Market Paper, Nov 2012, the author’s motivation was “to understand how guns influence violent conflict and to understand the effectiveness of… (the) disarmament campaign in (a) highly volatile region…”   What she discovered was that “within Uganda the deterrent effect of guns outweighs their impact as a tool of aggression.”

If the national or ambient cultural story is skewed from reality will proposed legislation based upon that bias be counter-productive? As with Viet Nam, will a skewed information environment lead to horrific, unintended consequences?

The “Bad Boy” Syndrome: Trust, Story, Self-Image, Behavior

An ancient Greek adage, Ethos anthropou daimon, translates as a man’s story is his fate. The story we tell ourselves of our selves builds our self-image.  Behavior tends to be consistent with self-image. Story controls behavior. This is true of individuals and of nations.

If asked, “Who are you?” you may answer with your name, but if the question is pursued you’ll explain that you are a reader or a runner, a businessman or a patriot. Each of these identities is built upon a self-image; and behavior tends to be consistent with those images. Runners run. Readers read. Self-image and behavior are complex—more so when we consider cultural or national self-image, and macro behavior, yet in simplified form we can use the formula—internalized story creates self-image; behavior is consistent with self-image; story controls behavior. This is why a skewed information environment is detrimental to rational personal or policy decisions.

Who or what creates the story we internalize as individuals or as a nation? Tyrants and politicians put great emphasis on this—be it Mao’s ‘new communist man,’ Pol Pot’s purposeful campaign to destroy all cultural memory and return to ‘Year Zero,’ or a American spin doctors manipulating our knowledge of gun ownership.

Proposed gun control legislation sends overt and subtle messages. These statutes tell us who we are, what we are like. When authority does not trust legal citizens, what story is being projected? What self-images are being formed, challenged or altered? This should be criteria of review for all mandates, policies and programs. The less authority trusts citizens, and restricting legal citizens of rights is a form of distrust, the more those citizens will believe they are untrustworthy, and the more their behavior will match the new self-image. The action produces a “bad boy” syndrome similar to a continuously scolded child who internalizes the self-image of being bad and endlessly acts out. Thus, restricting gun ownership, apart from the constitutional dilemma, is counter-productive.

Is there a more positive way to approach the problem of gun violence and killings?

Solutions To Lessen Gun Deaths and To Make Our Children and Our Society More Secure

Go after illegal guns. This should be obvious yet reports from major cities lead us to believe this is not always the case. Most gun violence is committed by weapons in the hands of organized crime, drug cartels or street gangs. More children die in Chicago every two weeks from thugs with illegal weapons than died in the Newtown massacre. Laws do not need to be enacted, they exist. Begin aggressive campaigns, exert maximum law enforcement efforts, and remove illegal guns. Not removing this threat increase everyone’s vulnerability. Disarming the legal and responsible citizenry of a nation enables criminal and violent elements.

People are afraid of guns. The fear is broad and deep. Some people become tense and upset just seeing a weapon. This fear must be addressed. It makes little difference that guns are inanimate objects, or that less lethal weapons are used in the commission of most murders. It is this fear which motivates many sincere supporters of ‘gun control.’ Their ideals and desires are not misguided, but their knowledge and experience base with firearms is lacking. This imbalance is exacerbated by media and political slant. The resulting internalization and self-image cause unreasonable actions.

Reconsider politically correct mental health initiatives. Society is vulnerable to the criminally insane. David Kopel opined in the Wall Street Journal only days after the tragedy here, “People who are serious about preventing the next Newtown should embrace much greater funding for mental health, strong laws for civil commitment of the violently mentally ill—and stop kidding themselves that pretend gun-free zones will stop killers.”

Expand licensing classes. Every sane and legal citizen should be eligible to own and carry a firearm—pistol or long gun. Every gun owner should be fully trained in the discipline and art of owning, caring for, and handling a weapon.  I recently took Connecticut’s prescribed pistol permit class, and found the course to be inadequate. It does not train one how to shoot, and teaches only the rudiments of how to handle the responsibility of a powerful weapon. Training should include enough practice so owners are at least minimal proficiency in handling their weapon. You would not expect a 16-year old to drive a powerful sports car or a duel-wheeled pick-up with half a day of classroom instruction and 5 minutes of practice!  Offering firearms training in high school, a la driver’s education, might also alleviate irrational fears.

 

Conclusion

An evil man walks into a school and murders 26 innocent people. Two men bomb a public event killing three and wounding 200. As a nation we are overcome with shattering pain and horror. We want to do something. Our ambient cultural story contains the mantra: More guns mean more violence; fewer guns mean less violence. But this is wrong.

There is an undeniable deterrent affect which comes from a legally armed citizenry. Disarming them and taking away their rights and abilities to defend themselves, enables criminals and terrorists. People become more vulnerable and are more likely to fall victim to violent crime.

Ignorance of likely ramifications of proposed legislation is forgivable for the public, but it is unforgivable in leaders. Pundits and politician who know the figures and still promote gun control are either demonstrating a willful disregard for the truth, a hidden and self-serving agenda, a neurotic fear—or all three. Reactive legislation makes our children more likely to be victims.

Killings and bombings are abuses. They are no more justifications for abandoning the 2nd (and the 4^th) Amendment than a driver killing someone with a car is justification to outlaw motorized transportation. We must correct abuses and punish abusers, but abandonment of deterrence only enables future increases in the rates of violent crime and murder. To  seek security and to purposefully increase vulnerability is a form of psychotic insanity.

If we wish to protect our children from future “Newtowns,” we should encourage expanded legal, responsible and capable gun ownership.

Do it for the children.

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 The Viet Nam Trilogy by John M. Del Vecchio

 

Available at: http://www.the13thvalley.com/, http://www.warriorsinc.com/, http://www.openroadmedia.com/search/?q=del%20vecchio, and http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_11?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=del%20vecchio&sprefix=Del+Vecchio%2Caps%2C154.

 

Bio dat: Del Vecchio is a NY Times bestselling author. His novels include The 13^th Valley,  Carry Me Home, For The Sake of All Living Things, and Darkness Falls; other writings: The Importance of Story. He is a 32-year resident of Newtown, Connecticut.