By Jimmie von Tungeln
Prologue
It takes a
Vietnam veteran to understand the lack of appreciation America has paid the
victor of the country's most famous battle. That would be the Battle of
Gettysburg, fought on the first three days of July 1863. The general would be
Maj. Gen. George Gordon Mead. If you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry, most
Americans haven’t. A majority of those who do are ones who never forgave him
for his monumental act of temerity. His army won the battle, if an army can
ever “win” a battle. And he was to blame for it.
Who was he to
defeat the undefeatable Robert E. Lee? Lee was then the rebellion’s darling,
later to become an American favorite, second only to George Washington. How
could he have been bested by someone named Meade, days before only an unknown
Corps commander in the U.S. Army? Americans don’t easily forgive those who fail
to live up to their mythical dogmas. Nor do they embrace those who destroy
their most cherished fantasies.
General Meade
paid dearly for his transgressions. A later generation would suffer in kind.
The difference? Meade earned his historical displeasure for a victory. Veterans
of the police action in Southeast Asia earned theirs for a defeat. In both
cases unpopular figures shattered myths. We don’t like that. We don’t allow it.
We stop it when we can with whatever means are available.
Meade paid with
historical neglect, ridicule, and outright prevarication. Vietnam veterans,
we’ll call them “Viets,” paid with the forfeiture of their valor, of which
there was more than the public at large would admit. In both cases, the damage
proved irresolute.
Victims fell
under the spell of stubborn myths. The so-called “Lost Cause Myth,” some now
call it the “Loser Cause Myth,” not only destroyed reputations, it destroyed
the lives of fellow Americans for more than a century. It even clings to its
evil purposes in modern times. Malicious, but talented, artists, like D.W.
Griffith and Margaret Mitchell, helped shunt generations of African-Americans
into ghettos, substandard schools, and labor that barely provided sustenance. Powerful
leaders like Woodrow Wilson stood by, sometimes idly and sometimes not. Myths
feed on it all: adherence, acceptance, and indifference.
Viets also fell
under the grinding spell of myths. Drug-crazed, spoiled brats in no way
deserved the war flags of “The Greatest Generation.” Yes, that’s the one that forced
its brothers of color to come home after the war to ghettos, substandard
schools, and labor that barely provided sustenance. More recently, the Viets
are enjoying some relief from the myth of “They could have won if the leaders
had allowed them to,” a laughable tenant were it not so poetically alluring.
Myths feed on it all: absolution, neatly packaged explanations, and ignorance.
All this swirled
about in my mind for years. Personally, I knew the Viets suffered from a bad
rap. I had been there. After I decided to study the Gettysburg battle, I began
to suspect that George G. Meade deserved more respect than Americans had given
him. All he did was take a badly demoralized and undersupplied army, filled
with political intrigue and, after only two days in command, defeat the
immortal Robert E. Lee. The latter, I began to suspect, deserved less respect
than America had given him. Myths feed on it all: selective facts, well-crafted
falsehoods, and propagation.
After beginning
my study of the battle, intrigue led me to the National Parks service. The
service maintains a web site on the battle of Gettysburg. I went there to find
out more about this man Meade. If any site should direct my study, this one
should.
At that time, the
effort met with failure and surprise. The National Park Website on the
Gettysburg Battlefield Park did not mention General George G. Meade whatsoever.
Instead, it concentrated on, as might be expected, Robert E. Lee. It also
featured prominently a rebel division commander, George E. Pickett. The
latter’s division was present for only one day of the battle. Being a fresh
unit, it took part, with two other divisions, in the most spectacular failure
of the battle. More on that later. Having enjoyed a 100-year publicity campaign
by historical revisionists, that rebel general now represents America’s most
famous, yet beloved, loser.
As for the
forgotten General Meade, Allen C. Guelzo summoned it well in a 2013 essay
republished in 2017:
“And yet the
mention of Meade has always been met with a certain degree of pause—surprise
that an officer with such modest credentials could manage to pull off such a
mammoth victory as Gettysburg, and then chirping criticism that, having
triumphed as he did, Meade failed to do more, failed to stop Lee from escaping
back into Virginia and thus end the Civil War right there and then. Although
both of those reactions are unfair, they are also accurate. And together, they
have come to define George Gordon Meade’s long-term reputation.”[i]
At the time of
this writing, the NPS website on the battlefield treats Meade with more
deference, a sign of a growing but grudging acceptance of the man’s remarkable
performance. That it has taken a century and a half for such redemption seems
regrettable, but is welcome, nonetheless.
Age has resulted
in the most beneficial catalyst for the Viets. At this time, they have become
too “long in the tooth” to play ubiquitous crazed psychopaths, lost souls, or deranged
superheroes—sometimes a bit of each. Those are roles they filled for years in
film, TV, and modern literature. Oh, they stand in on occasion as the most
despicable in a clan of despicables, usually southerners or actors attempting
to portray southerners. These days they mostly appear as old men with funny
caps who wander the streets dreaming of lost love and “lid bags.”
As Scott Cooper
expressed in it a piece for the Modern War Institute at West Point in 2021:
“In Vietnam the
troops lost their noble and heroic image. To others, they were baby killers and
suckers. The stereotype of the US soldiers in the war were the goons who
perpetrated the atrocities of My Lai, or the blue-collared Boston Southies who
didn’t have the connections to get out of the draft. And the result is a
generation of combat veterans perceived as products of a single mold, one that
gave us James Webb and John Rambo—that of the aggrieved warrior.”[ii]
All parties,
General Meade and the Viets, wander through history with their images drawn to
whatever viewpoint correlates highly with an individual viewpoint. Like the
nautical Flying Dutchman, their true legacy has never found a safe harbor.
I can’t provide
one. What I can do is recite my path toward understanding how the stories are
entwined. No doubt there are other unappreciated individuals or groups who have
endured the misfortunes of history’s spotted chronicles. England’s Alan Turing
comes to mind as do the men and women of color and same-sex orientation who
served our country through its wars to face discrimination and prejudice at
home. I can’t speak for them. But I can speak for the Viets with some degree of
authority. And I will try to provide some solace to the neglected personage of
George Meade. The damage we do to one another doesn’t flow from a single, or
even recognizable source.
Take the Viets,
for example. Few people in the 1960s or 1970s would have publicly condemned
them. That would have required a reason, an explanation, or even a verifiable
fact. In my personal experience the enmity was personal and multifaceted. It
included:
-
The band of protesters who met our plane at the
San Bernadino, California airport upon our arrival home from the war.
-
The airline representative who told me, with
distaste in his demeanor, that the baggage (seabags) of “you people” wasn’t
processed with those of normal people but was shuttled to a fenced bin three
flights of stars below the main course.
-
The veterans’ associations that didn’t want
“losers” as members.
-
The personnel officer on the ship to which I was
assigned on my return who bragged, “I always give those Vietnam vets the
shittiest assignment we have in order to put them in their place.”
-
The job interviewer who suggested I might omit
my military service from my application.
-
The myriad Americans who accepted the stereotype
of my brothers and sisters as drug-crazed sociopaths.
-
The book, film, and TV producers, even including
some Viets, who clung to the stereotype of misfits who could not function in or
after stressful actions.
No comments:
Post a Comment