13th Valley Read Free

located in the vicinity of Firebase Maureen, 22 kilometers southeast of Firebase Barnett; and the night conversations on the causes of war took place over a period of many months and various operations. In retrospect, brigade, battalion, company and platoon leaders from the 101 st were the best leaders I have ever known. Good leadership is visionary. Many of our military leaders foresaw what could be, and what would be if we withdrew too quickly. Many of our political leaders foresaw only what would keep them in office. Various young officers from the 2/502 went on to lead major units in later conflicts, most particularly Desert Storm.
    On Race: In Chapter 14, the character Jax (William Andrew Jackson), a black infantryman from the Old South, while on silent patrol in deep jungle, fantasizes:
    â€¦ if his child would be a boy or a girl. Girls is so pretty, he told himself, but boys is so much mo fun. William Andrew Jackson, Junior, an announcer said within Jackson’s thoughts, the son of the Viet Nam War hero, the great-great-great grandson of a slave, today was inaugurated as the first black the New United States of America .
    In 1970 Jax’ thoughts were admittedly fantasy. To deny that or obfuscate it would be to lie about the racial situation in American society during that time. There were racial tensions in military units in Viet Nam and some modern readers may find the racial tension in this novel overwhelming. Race has been the single biggest social issue in America for the post-WWII generation. It progressed from 1950s sit-ins and forced integration, through the ’60s Civil Rights movement, to the riots and near urban warfare of the late ’60s and early ’70s. And it showed up in military units fighting in Viet Nam.
    It was in this historical context that The 13 th Valley was written. On rereading the novel in preparation for the release of this anniversary edition, I was taken aback by some of the scenes, some of the dialogue and jargon—accurate for the time, but so removed from the way we think and talk today. We’ve come a long way, Baby, and that’s a good thing. Neither color nor creed was the defining measure of relations between boonierat brothers at the time. Today there’s more to guard against lest we believe the race issue is as remote from our society as is the war in Viet Nam.
    My mentor on race issues, General Harry Brooks, noted in 1971 that it was not a problem if black or white soldiers chose to congregate socially with those of similar skin tone, but it was a problem if a black wanted to associate with a white, or a white with a black, and was ostracized by his peers and prevented from doing so. Over the last four decades, in much of our nation, that problem has substantially dissipated. Today interracial marriages compose between five and ten percent of all domestic unions.
    We should recognize and celebrate this transformation, and we should condemn anyone, including national political, entertainment or business figure, who accentuates race or promotes racial division for their own political or economic gain. I think this attitude is common today, and I believe its roots are in the American military experience in Viet Nam.
    The world today is a very different place than it was 40 years ago, and yet is very much the same. Against a backdrop of amazing social, scientific and technological advances, the problems ripping us apart today are mostly mutations of the problems which were ripping us apart 40 years ago. To this aging curmudgeon, these problems are exasperated by a national media so self-centeredly desperate for survival that it has become not only a shaper of false realities but also a source of disinformation and an instigator of greater societal problems.
    The story we tell ourselves of ourselves, individually or culturally, creates our self-image. Behavior, individually and culturally, is consistent with self-image. Story determines behavior. When