Customer Reviews

Bury Me with Soldiers

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Book Review: Bury Me With Soldiers
Author: C. W. Standiford
Publisher: 1stBooks
ISBN: 1-4033-9523-3

From the Valley of the Shadow... by Bob Gray

I've spent the last thirty-five years avoiding books and movies about Vietnam. The few I was exposed to infuriated me for their absolute refusal to see any good in what we did, or to appreciate the sacrifice our soldiers made. It never mattered to me who ran the country, nor did I buy into the Domino Theory - a McNamara creation that proved to be, like the man, a lie. What mattered to me were the American lives lost in a half-hearted pursuit of - not victory - peace. Then I discovered the book by Wayne Standiford; Bury Me With Soldiers.

This is the story of how one average guy - average size, average intelligence, average outlook, life, and concerns - grew up and grew old in a few months of combat. The hopeless numbness that sets in after days of going from boredom to terror in one word - "incoming!" - is chilling in it's dissection of warfare on the human spirit. We watch as a callus grows over the author's heart, and his soul goes into remission to await the all-clear siren. And mail call.

We meet Standiford as a high school senior. A friend of his who had graduated the year before dies in Vietnam. From the universal frustrations of high school (the drudgery of studying subjects you know you'll never use, to sex - and the lack thereof) to the middle-class values still prevalent but losing ground in the 1960's, author Standiford's life and choices mirror the particulars of millions of men caught on one side or another of the Vietnam war dilemma.

Beset by the normal doubts and aspirations of any American teenager, he stands at his personal crossroads and wonders aloud what to do. The sixties were, as has been described by an endless array of social scientists, a disaffecting time for those of us then reaching adulthood. The old parameters of "America, Mom, and Apple Pie" were no longer enough. Not merely not enough - they were openly ridiculed. Jingoism was often the appellation applied. Bedrock beliefs were overturned with nothing to replace them. As someone else wrote about that period, America was ripe for a dictator. Free love played into the hands of every teenage boy who wanted to get laid more than anything else on earth. The beckoning hedonism was hard to resist.

But some did. In a seamless progression Standiford shows us that some took seriously the idea that America was worth fighting for - even if the reasoning behind the fight might be flawed. The author was such a man. Standiford joined the Marines, went through Recon training and scuba diving school, and set off to destroy the enemy to the best of his ability. He did so without reservation. Then.

In a recent email from Mr. Standiford, he told me the following: "I wouldn't take a million dollars for the experience - and I wouldn't do it over again for two million." Besides dating him (when a million dollars was big money), the statement describes my own attitude and that of most of the vets I know.

The story he tells called up memories without being predictable. Several times the unexpected sentence made me laugh out loud - a tough row to hoe when discussing mortar round-amputated limbs and burned bodies. And the honesty of this work is mesmerizing. Standiford's early loss of heart and how he dealt with it tells us what we need most desperately to know about any author: Can I trust his word? We find that, indeed, we must. No one would admit to the things he does and lie about lesser things.

His description of real people, men whose names should be engraved on our hearts, is riveting. The men with whom he served, Meatball, Tut, Ernie, Mac, and Doc, will always be a part of Wayne Standiford. The pain of seeing a friend lose an arm, a leg, life; the exhilaration of returning from the bush as a whole person one more time; the devastation experienced when the fickle love back home sends a Dear John letter; the unreasoning fear that becomes commonplace while sitting in a hole in the ground half-filled with water as mortar rounds creep ever closer; these too will always be a part of him. They become a part of us when we read his story.

The acceptance of the simple but horrific fact that man-hunting is suddenly legal can be discouraging (which means, literally, to lose one's courage). That so many American boys became men while undergoing this terrifying experience says much for this country and the values we continue to hold dear. That they did it despite attempts, by those Americans who hate America, to convince them they were all criminals for being there says much for the integrity and courage of the individual men. To this day the prevalent notion (and an awful lie) that all our military men came back junkies and killers continues to blacken the sacrifice they made.

So to all those men and women who survived and those who died trying to save a tiny country from the communist dictatorship that eventually did engulf and murder those with the temerity to stand against the Stalinist horde - I've never had the opportunity to say this before: Thank you.

That our faint-hearted politicians wasted your efforts, and many of your lives, does not reflect badly upon you - only on them. You stood up when your country asked you to. And I appreciate it, even if I prove to be the only one. You hear the complaint repeated endlessly nowadays: Where are our heroes? The answer is that they are all around us - many of us just don't want to admit it.

And my most profound thanks to Wayne Standiford for sharing his story with me and all who care to know what really happened there. If I can't occupy the plot next to yours, then I ask the same thing you do: please, Bury Me with Soldiers.

As the editor and publisher of our county newspaper, I must read a great deal, and have gotten very particular about what I really enjoy reading- and I LOVED this book.
With a son in the military, three brothers who served in the military in the Vietnam era, and with a Dad who served in WWII, I have never really known what they faced, what they struggled with, and what a shock it must have been to be taken from "Hometown" to defending our country halfway around the world. The author skillfully walks us through his time in 'Nam, and I feel I've gotten a glimpse of thoughts and feelings, fears and emotions, that I could never have gotten otherwise.
I sent the book to my son and his wife, and they both love it also- (and my daughter-in-law finished it before my son!) We have compared notes, and decided we truly LOVE the way this author writes. I intend to check and see if Mr. Standiford has written other books, because if he has, I'm sold.
I've purchased books before, dug into them, and then struggled to even WANT to finish them because I was disappointed in the quality, and didn't feel the author delivered what he promised. Standiford delivers MORE than he promises- I was never disappointed and I found myself arranging my schedule so I could hurry up and get back to the book!
In short- this is a great book.

C. Wayne Standiford's memoir, originally released as "Crucible 0311" misses nothing about the Viet Nam War, i.e. the attitude of the grunts, the anti-war movement, and the King assassination. It's a serious, comprehensive history lesson of what really went on in Vietnam, with facts that most history books will rarely touch! Standiford initially served in "Lima Company", 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, in Dong Ha, I Corps, in the northernmost part of South Vietnam, by the DMZ. He eventually transferred out to a reconnaissance unit, with bases at Quang Tri, Phu Bai and Khe Sanh. He conducted 27 reconnaissance missions deep into enemy V.C. and N.V.A. territory. Very Crazy, G.I.!: Strange but True Stories of the Vietnam War Although Standford's unit was lightly armed, their functions were to gather intelligence, locate, capture and destroy weapons, caches of rice, ammunition, documents, and attempt prisoner snatches for interrogation. Standiford gives highlights of his most memorable missions, vividly describing dangerous insertions and extractions that resulted in his unit being credited with 606 confirmed killed.

However, there is much more to this memoir then simple military tactics, missions, shooting and death. Standiford ironically sets the tone right in the beginning of this story, when he mentions that he was having coffee with his younger brother 15 years after the war was over, and with absolutely no warning, his brother said: "I never did thank you for going to Vietnam. I want to thank you now". I am not going to be a plot-spoiler and reveal the details of Standifords missions. You'll just have to find this book. What I am going to write about, is some iota the author mentions that is rarely seen in other biographies and memoirs of this war.

Standiford volunteered for the Marine Corps in 1966 right after graduating high school and deciding that he didn't want to go to college. Vietnam was a hot issue in the early 1960's. Standiford prefaced his story with a quote from L.B.J., which turned out to be anything from the truth: "We are not about to send American boys nine or 10,000 miles away from home, to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves". Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973 Standiford angrily asserted that: "L.B.J. did not want to overthrow the government of North Vietnam. This basic philosophy, I believe, caused the war to drag on and cause the loss of many lives." Standiford was very confused. He saw conflicting bumber stickers of "America:Love it or Leave it", "Hell No, We Won't Go", and "Make Love, Not War."

Standiford's anger is vented throughout the book. He mentions that when he watched in 1975 the news of panic stricken Vietnamese fleeing the Communist North's final invasion, with images of U.S. choppers being pushed off the decks of carriers to make room for fleeing citizens, he went into his bedroom to cry.The Fall of Saigon (We the People) Standiford lamented: "Honest to God, I tried to cry, but all I could do was produce some mist in my eyes. My pump did a half stroke, but the well would not flush the soul. I could not believe we had lost the war". To that effect, he continues elsewhere in the book his bitterness of unfinished business. Standiford asserts: "It was the only protracted war that saw this country flounder pitifully. With that failure, the fabric of this nation was immutably altered. Cyclops in the Jungle: A One-Eyed LRP in Vietnam (Stackpole Military History Series) The innocent blood flowing through our teenage veins would never be the same. We had gone to stem the tide of communism to fight an honorable fight. As the war protracted, our music died. The honor of this nation suffered a near fatal blow. Gone forever was our youth. For those of us who went, the Vietnam War will go with us to our graves. It will go as a task not completed."

Standiford voices his opinion on other aspects of this war rarely discussed elsewhere. In terms of the media's portrayal of the Vietnam Vet in their productions of the 3 post Vietnam War movies, e.g. "Apocalypse Now", "Platoon" and "The Deer Hunter", Standiford angrily dismisses all these as showing the Vietnam Vet as a demented, "wigged out" killer. Platoon (Special Edition) He angrily fires back: "What I saw was an entirely different war. In the 2 units I served with there, there was no dishonor. We never burned a village or mistreated a prisoner. Drugs were taboo, men fought to survive and to help their friends to survive. Time after time honor and self-sacrifice saved the day". He illustrates this in 2 paradigms. The Killing Zone: My Life in the Vietnam WarOne of Standiford's recon teams ran into a large NVA force. They called for an emergency extraction. If the choppers didn't arrive immediately, all team members would be surrounded and killed.

An Army Huey, with a "new pilot" (F.N.G.) dropped in to do the extraction of the trapped and surrounded Recon team, amongst heavy enemy fire. The door gunner cranked out heavy lead flying from his M-60 machine gun at the enemy. All team members dived in to the chopper, except the radioman, who following normal procedures, was always the last to climb aboard. The pilot lifted the chopper off without him inside. Seeing that the chopper was lifting off without him, the radioman dove for the skids of the Huey, holding a death grip on them as the bird climbed out of the hot zone. Team members yelled at the chopper pilot to set back down to let the radioman in, which was ignored. As the Huey continued it's ascent, a rope was dropped to the radioman, but between the G forces, the prop wash and air currents, the rope was kept out of his reach. The radioman lost his grip, tumbled to his death, and his body was later found impaled in the trees. He died alone as the chopper continued back to base without him. Team members almost killed the pilot after it landed.

Standiford tells of a similar incident with this team a week later where a different Huey pilot tried to take off on an extraction from a hot landing zone without all team members on board. 1500 feet over Vietnam: A marine helicopter pilot's diary This time, team members put a .45 pistol to the head of the pilot, and no vertical movement of the chopper allowed until all team members were on board. Towards the end of his tour, Standiford had multiple missions in the "A-Shau Valley", one of the most hotly contested areas of the Vietnam War. Death in the a Shau Valley: L Company LRRPs in Vietnam, 1969-1970 No matter how many of the enemy's forces were killed, it seemed it made no impact on a conclusive U.S. victory. Standiford remarks: "It appeared no matter how many missions we went on, no matter how many NVA our little bands spotted or killed, we still paid a heavy price for snooping around in Charlie country. The war seemed to drag on with no thrusts to end the carnage."

Another interesting point you will find in this memoir is the impact Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination on April 14, 1968 had on the effect of troop morale. Coming just two months after the "Tet Offense" debacle, Standiford wrote: "It was never said in the open, but I believe every white man in the states, and maybe even here, was held responsible for Dr. King's death". A Bad Attitude: A novel from the Vietnam War When Standiford finally D.E.R.O.S'ed back to the U.S. (his tour ended, returning back to the States) he wrote: "The mind dug a hole and pulled the lid over all the senses concerning Vietnam. I talked to no one about Vietnam, and no one talked to me. It never really happened." This is common in other memoirs, particularly where upon returning, a Vet would immediately shed his uniform to try to blend in without attracting attention. Chickenhawk I am leaving out many other stories of this tremendous memoir, but I will relate one last tale that Standiford leaves the reader with. In 1995, his son, Cody announced to Standiford that he joined the Navy to become a "S.E.A.L." Standiford immediately talked him out of it, with his son settling for a less than honorable discharge. Feeling that Clinton would neither be willing to send his own sons or daughters to battle, nor willing to spend his own blood, Standiford did not want his children in the nation's military with Clinton at the helm. Standiford defended his position by explaining his anger at Clinton for "wiggling out" of the draft, Clinton's defense of his drug use, claiming that when smoking marijuana, he supposedly "did not inhale", Clinton's employment by the "World Peace Organization, and the issue of Clinton's infidelity towards his wife with his indiscretion with Monica Lowenski.

Standiford's final comment, when voicing his opinion as to why Vietnam Vets have such a high incidence of suicide, is as follows: "It is this veteran's belief that these incidents were probably a direct result of these men coming home to a nation that held no esteem, or gratitude, for their offering. "Bury Me With Soldiers" is an exceptionally powerful Vietnam memoir, teaching the reader and student of this conflict nuances rarely expressed elsewhere. This memoir needs to be redistributed, placed in all high school and college American History curriculum's, inculcating without either the warping of time nor Hollywood's version of what really happened in the Vietnam War.

Once I started reading this book I couldn't put it down. I know a number of people who served in Vietnam but never talk about it. I found this book to be a real eye-opener. It's a very candid, honest and often humorous account of Vietnam. It made me proud of our soldiers and ashamed of the way we treated them and welcomed them home. As a mother of a recently returned Navy Corpsman who served with the Marines in Iraq, this book made me even more determined to make sure our soldiers are taken care of, no matter how we feel about the war or the president.
Loved the book and highly recommend it for everyone.

I read an awful lot of books about the Vietnam war and those who survived it- I have my own little library in fact. Some books are good, some are not so good. Some are filled with so much tactical jargon or language that an average person cannot even get through to decide if they like the book!Some just sounds like one person pounding their chest real hard!
This is not one of those books. It is hands down one of the best books I have ever read on any subject. I am not sure I can explain why his words touched me so. But I think it is because he wrote not from a researcher's point of view, but a survivors point of view. Not from second hand- but from his own memories, his own heart, sadness, joys, anger, hate and sometimes humor. You can't make that up. No matter your talent, you were either there, or you were not and people know the difference. He is the real McCoy.
When I read his book it felt like he was sitting right there in my living room- as if he was my old friend come back from a long stay away from my home. And he sat there in my oldest most comfortable chair, kicked off his shoes and told me about everything that had happened since last we met. Some of his story made me laugh so hard I couldn't not stop- like when he got to boot camp. There were times when I thought my heart would break, and there were times, like when I closed that book, that I wondered how in the world did any man or woman ever survive that war, not just physically, but mentally, spiritually- for that, he is my hero. Yes he did some powerful things as a soldier no question, he was decorated for that more than once. But more than that, he is my hero because he wrote personally about things that we all need to read if we will ever, ever begin to understand how Vietnam was different for our soldiers. It is not easy to put everything you own personally in your heart on paper for other people to dissect. He is brave and I think this book should be read by every American.