From Behing The Looking Glass

A Legacy of War

Camillo C. Bica

As the old men played Briscola, a card game of Sicilian origin, they smoked DiNobli cigars and drank Coffee Sport, a whiskey laced espresso, in small cups. The cigar smoke lay heavy in the room, dispersing the glow of the single lightbulb that hung precariously over the table. They spoke in broken English of coming to America. Some came illegally, most flirted a bit with the mafia, and all worked hard to support their families in a difficult job market for laborers. Nervous and excited, I listened attentively, from a safe distance, hidden behind the old green sofa. On most occasions I was quickly discovered and after a good natured reprimand and a gentle “boot in the ass,” I was sent on my way. On a few occasions, however, for reasons I can only speculate, no one seemed to notice my presence. My perseverance was greatly rewarded as this was a privileged place with conversation a ten-year-old had no business eavesdropping.

As they consumed the potent coffee, barriers lowered and the

discussion, as I remember it, invariably turned to their experiences

during the Second World War and the Korean Conflict. Despite being

immigrants, all were drafted into the American military. I listened

intently as my father, while contemplating his next discard, recalled

his experiences as a U.S. Army interpreter fighting through the

villages and countryside of Sicily, the land of his birth. Somberly, he

described in great detail how American artillery and bombing had

devastated his hometown. How he had been torn between strong

feelings of patriotism for his adopted homeland and a deep sense of shame and guilt he felt for the deaths of innocent villagers, some of whom had been his neighbors. I learned also that my Uncle Joe, a SeaBee, had narrowly escaped being killed by a Japanese sniper while building an airfield on Guadalcanal. How Uncle Tony, nicknamed “Squint Eye,” but only addressed as such by a few of his closest friends, had nearly been blinded by shrapnel during a kamikaze attack against his minesweeper in the South Pacific. What impressed me most, I think, was seeing my Uncle Gasper, a very strong, austere, and stoic man, cry as he described holding a fellow Marine in his arms as the dying man gasped his last breath at the frozen Chosin Reservoir in Korea.

Certainly, the Old Ones were aware of my presence behind the green

couch. Over the years, I often wondered why, on those few occasions,

I was allowed to remain and witness such intensely personal discussions

of aspects of their lives they kept so well hidden from all except those

who shared similar experiences. Perhaps they thought it important that

I know the family history. In my more fanciful moments, however, I think

that they were trying to educate me, make me aware of war’s realities,

and to spare me its devastating effects. As I listened to their stories,

despite my young age, I empathized with their obvious pain and grief.

I was born in Brooklyn, New York. My parents, like most immigrants of that time, were grateful to be living in this land of “unlimited opportunity.” Influenced by Catholic school education, John Wayne movies, and John F. Kennedy’s admonishment to “ask what you could do for your Country,” I grew up stridently patriotic with a strong sense of duty to God and to Country. In my youth, I was fascinated and exhilarated by war. Because of what I had learned from my hiding place behind the green sofa, however, I was also wary of its devastating consequences. War was an enigma I wished I could have discussed with the Old Ones. My concerns could never be raised, however, as I realized the inappropriateness of discussing such matters outside the sanctuary of “the warrior’s circle.”

In 1968, America was at war. Communism was the menace. Vietnam was the focal point of the confrontation between good and evil, the domino of choice that must, at all costs, remain standing. Portrayed as a grass roots conflict between north and south, it was, for the Vietnamese, a continuing struggle for national unity against another in a seemingly endless series of colonial or occupying powers intent upon denying them independence, national unity, and self-determination. For America, it was portrayed as a struggle against a pervasive evil seeking world domination. A morally ambiguous and divisive war few chose to fight, so many were conscripted. The unwilling doing the unnecessary for the indifferent and ungrateful.

As a consequence of the draft, many young Americans who questioned the justness and necessity of the war, were confronted with a profound moral dilemma. Whether to shame oneself and one’s family by expatriating - - fleeing to Canada - - or risk injury or death by becoming, in their view, a murderer, or an accessory to murder that disguised itself as national defense. I had an additional option, however. Having just graduated college, I had passed all the requisite teacher’s licensing exams, and been offered a position at the school where I had student-taught. Consequently, I could have availed myself, quite rightly my parents believed, of the deferment from military service that was available to teachers at the time. A testimony, I guess, to the importance of education in creating the “Great Society” that Lyndon Johnson had hoped would be the legacy of his Administration. Further, since the teaching position was at an “inner-city school,” the social importance of such an undertaking justified accepting the deferment. In dire times such as these, avoiding military service, staying home while others fought and died for our country, needed to be justified, not only to myself, I believed, but more importantly, to the parents of my childhood friend Ralphie who, a few months earlier, had dutifully, albeit reluctantly, sent their son to war. All they received in return were fragments of bone and sinew and a form letter from the President of the United States expressing the nation’s regrets and gratitude for Ralphie’s heroic sacrifice in behalf of freedom and democracy. Code words for a mistake, a paranoia-driven crusade against contrived evil that demanded the life of their only child.

As I watched the drama of Ralphie’s funeral unfold, I remembered, not many years before, playing “stickball” on East 87th Street. I smiled, recalling how a foul ball had broken Eddie’s mother’s window, Ralphie quickly handing me the bat before shrewdly escaping to the sanctuary of Anthony’s garage. No one believed I wasn’t the culprit, until Ralphie abandoned his hiding place, and, with cobwebs hanging from his forehead, bravely admitted to the deed. As they lowered Ralphie’s casket into the ground, I drifted among a tangle of childhood memories - - Ring-a-levio, kick the can on humid summer nights, and riding our bikes down “suicide hill.” Ralphie was nineteen years, eight months, and fourteen days old when war ended his life.

The lesson I learned from Ralphie’s death, I think, was that in war young people die and old people grieve. The rational response would probably have been to put the tragedy of Ralphie’s death behind me, to accept the deferment, and go on with my life. But those were not rational times. Rather, I enlisted in the Marine Corps with an understanding that doing so would guarantee a trip to Vietnam. In retrospect, I’m not really certain why I chose as I did. Perhaps, it was out of patriotism, or bravado, or even to avenge my friend’s death. Or perhaps it was just to fulfill my destiny as a warrior, a victim, and heir apparent to the legacy of the Old Ones.

After the appropriate goodbyes to family and friends, many of whom I had seldom spoken to, I left on July 5, 1968, for the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, Virginia. What I failed to realize at the time, however, was that I was leaving behind, forever, a way of life, an identity, a personality, and all that I had cherished and held sacred for the past twenty-one years. Most tragically, I was leaving behind my innocence.

Marine Corps training was truly a life altering experience. What ultimately enables a Marine to ignore the ethical limits normally placed on the use of violence - - to kill and to die in battle - - is not abstract ideology, but a personal code of honor, self-respect, loyalty and accountability to one’s comrades. I learned my lessons well and readily embraced the “mythology of the warrior.” I had achieved immortality and become part of a proud and chivalrous tradition, a select brotherhood of noble and courageous knights. Empowered by God and Country to exorcize the demonic agents of evil, I was prepared to kill and to selflessly sacrifice my life, if need be, for right and for good. After Ralphie’s death and the sacrifices of the Old Ones, how could I do anything less? Soon after arriving in Vietnam, however, it became very clear that no one is truly prepared for the actual horrors, the inhumanity and destruction of “demythologized” war. Fear, inevitably, is the myth breaker, restoring to war a reality that is bleak, uncompromising, and hellish.

My first experience of war was not auspicious.

As mortar rounds walked-in upon us,

like giant steps of death and destruction,

I was mesmerized by excitement and fear.

Frozen in place, gauging the next footfall,

I was pushed, rather unceremoniously,

into a sandbagged bunker,

more to clear the escape route

than from a concern for my well-being.

Overwhelmed by fear, all that I had learned forgotten,

I burrowed, wormlike, into the muddy bottom,

seeking sanctuary, cursing my humanity,

and my inability to disappear

into the earthen mother’s womb.

(War Journals, Bica, C.C., 1969)

Despite my childhood fascination and Marine Corps indoctrination, I was never enthusiastic about war. Even those more motivated than I, those who viewed war as a means for advancement, lacked fervor for this particular endeavor. Yet, even in such a war, men turned easily into killers, losing a young lifetime of humanity and compassion. In a brief moment of frenzy, killing became orgasmic, and death performance art.

A body of a dead VC sapper stood upright,

impaled in layers of concertina wire

marking the no-man’s land that surrounds

the perimeter of a firebase north of Danang.

Killed trying to breech the base’s defenses,

his catatonic body had been adorned,

by holiday revelers,

with Christmas decorations and a sign,

soiled with blood and entrails,

wishing all peace and good will

from Victor Charlie.

As we passed and entered the base,

few even took notice.

I heard one young Marine, newly arrived in country,

whisper to no one in particular,

“Ho, fucking ho, fucking Ho.”

The innocence of youth dies quickly

when killing becomes a right of passage.

(War Journals, Bica, C.C., 1969)

The reality of the situation on the ground failed to match the rhetoric of our leaders. I felt a moral uneasiness with both the purpose of the war and the manner in which it was conducted. Because attrition became the strategy and the goal, seemingly the only strategy and goal, and identification of the enemy problematic, killing became indiscriminate, and all too easy. Dying became routine, purposeless, and seemingly inevitable . . . and Ralphie’s death all the more tragic.

With the Marine Corps Hymn

lingering in the background of my mind,

I persevered, like Sergeant Striker

charging valiantly up Suribachi,

dying quickly, quietly, gently,

and without pain or regret. In truth,

most linger, scream for their mothers like children,

first imploring God to let their lives continue,

then begging for death to end their suffering.

Final glances exchanged

eyes burned deeply into my soul.

Faces of the soon to be dead,

I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

(War Journals, Bica, C.C., 1969)

The screams of the dying inevitably silence the inspiring patriotic anthems. As the warrior’s mythology crumbled, I felt an overwhelming burden of responsibility, no longer to Corps and Country, but to those whose lives depended upon my abilities and decisions. I saw Ralphie in each of their young faces, made empty and hardened by war, and heard the deafening cries of parents pleading for the lives of their children. Survival was all that really mattered. What I failed to realize at the time, however, was that, at least in spirit, we were all already dead.

It was up to me to decide who would be killed and who would die. War usurps the omnipotence of god and makes it anathema. Some find such power exhilarating. I knew some people like that. Didn’t like them much. Thought they were lucky, though, because killing and dying “meant nothing.” In a perverse way, they enjoyed it, enjoyed the jazz, the excitement, the power. Intoxicated by war, such men hated to see it end. For me, the war never ends.

For the remainder of my time in country, I struggled with the conflicting responsibilities of an officer of Marines in war and of safeguarding the lives of those entrusted to my care. Sometimes it became impossible to do both. Tragically, what mattered least in this moral equation were those we were allegedly there to protect and to liberate. They became expendable and their deaths proved a practical solution to my dilemma as dead Vietnamese posed no threat to our survival and satisfied the military demand for body count. Like most, I did what “had to be done” and this is something I will live with for the rest of my life. Atrocity? All war is atrocity.

In our conference rooms and government offices, we speak of “just war” and “rules of engagement.” Such talk, however, is, in reality, just shallow rhetoric, part of the mythology, necessary to maintain a guise of morality and allow our national conscience to remain clean. As is clear from history, moral rules as they apply to war, are merely a tactic of advantage having relevance and application only should belligerent nations find such rules and restrictions advantageous to the achievement of some important national goal or purpose. But when political or military interest comes in conflict with moral principles, it is inevitably the former that prevails. How else could one morally explain the systematic incineration of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children, as a consequence of the saturation and nuclear bombing of cities during World War Two, while, at the same time condemning the extermination of innocents in the Nazi death camps.

Make no mistake, however. Few if any go to war to murder innocent people. Most exert great effort, often at considerable personal risk, to protect the innocent and conduct themselves with decency and integrity. Unfortunately, either under the rubric of “supreme emergency,” as was the case in World War II, or due to the morally untenable conditions of guerrilla/counterinsurgency warfare as in Vietnam and Iraq, soldiers inevitably become the unwitting instruments of slaughter. Such occurrences are always tragic and regrettable, but never more so than when war is misguided and unnecessary. Those removed from the chaos and confusion of combat are understandably appalled by what, from their perspective, constitutes brutality and murder. When public outrage demands justice, it is invariably the warrior who is held accountable, while those who initiated the war, formulated an incoherent strategy, and devised questionable tactics are themselves absolved of responsibility and permitted to continue their charade of moral awareness and concern as they sit in judgment of our actions. We are the victims of their hypocrisy, the scapegoats for the inevitable affront to the national conscience, and the sacrificial lambs sent to slaughter in retribution for their sins and inadequacies. In fact, no one knows the sacrilege of war better than we who must fight it and then have to live with the memories of what we have done and what we have become.

The monster and I are one.

I have feasted upon the flesh

of decaying corpses

and with their blood

have quenched my thirst.

The transformation is complete

and I can never return.

Mea culpa, mea culpa,

mea maxima culpa.

(War Journals, Bica, C.C., 1969)

All who are touched by war are tainted. Upon my return to the world (the United States), I felt like a stranger in my own home, disoriented and adrift between the world I recognized as my place of origin - - though, now quite alien - - and the world of killing and destruction of which I was a part.

Things were different . . . or maybe I was different.

As much as I had come to hate the war,

there at least I felt I belonged.

I knew what was expected of me,

and I had become ruthlessly proficient

at fulfilling those expectations.

Here I am a misfit, an aberration,

isolated and alone.

(War Journals, Bica, C.C., 1969)

Vietnam was the defining experience of my life. Though physical wounds may heal, the emotional, psychological, and moral injuries of war linger and fester. Vietnam forever pervades my existence, condemning me to continually relive and question the past. “Did I do enough?”“Could I have done better?” “Did I make the correct decisions?” Inevitable concerns of those who must take life and whose decisions cause others to die. Despite the urging of well-meaning friends and loved ones, I can never forget Vietnam nor put it behind me. No one truly “recovers” from war. No one is ever made whole again. The best that can be hoped, I think, is to achieve a degree of benign acceptance. To that end, I strive each day, to forgive myself, to absolve myself of guilt, and to live with the wounds of war that will never heal.

The endless screams of the dying

forever echo in my mind.

A sacrificial offering of virgins

to placate the angry elder gods.

I’ve become an atheist.

(War Journals, Bica, C.C., 1969)

Of late, I think often of Ralphie and his parents, of ring-o-levio, and bike rides down suicide hill. I think often too of the Old Ones, and sometimes, while deep in thought, or, perhaps, lost in a daydream, I can almost smell the faint aroma of DiNobili cigars and alcohol-tinged espresso. For a fleeting moment, I am ten years old again, watching and listening from behind the old green couch. But now the exhilaration, awe, and wonder I enjoyed as a child is gone as I have learned the reality of war. I think of the Old Ones still with admiration, but now tempered by understanding and sadness for all they had endured. I know now the true cost of war and the burden of life in its aftermath. I realize as well, that all war is profane and unnecessary war is sacrilege. And perhaps worst of all, I know the frustration of having to sit idly by, helpless, as it all happens again. I mourn lives devastated by war. I see Ralphie in each of their faces and am deafened by the screams of devastated loved ones. Never had I missed the Old Ones more, especially my father. Never was my Uncle Gasper and the Marine that died in his arms at the Chosin more clearly in my mind.