 Hello, and welcome to Think Tech Hawaii, and it never got quiet. This is a half-hour program that explores the Hawaiian connection with the Vietnam War. I'm your host, Vic Kraft. The recent Ken Burns documentary on the Vietnam War has been unsettling to many people. In previous programs here, we have explored the observations and feelings of our guests on the conflict in Southeast Asia. On today's program, we have three guests, one volunteer, one draftee, and one who served in the Peace Corps during the time of the war. We will be discussing three questions as our topic today. One, are there any lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War, and if so, what are they? Two, have we learned from those lessons? And three, if not, what can we do in the future? Our first guest served in our country in another capacity other than force of arms. Peter Adler volunteered for duty with the Peace Corps, serving in India from 1966 to 1968. To earn degrees in English, history, community development, and interdisciplinary science, Peter was the president of the prestigious Keystone Policy Center in Colorado for nearly a decade and returned to Hawaii heading up a Corrid 3.0 consulting. Peter has also held executive positions with the Hawaii Justice Foundation, the Hawaii Supreme Court Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution, and the Neighborhood Justice Center. Peter has written extensively with his latest book on his experience in the Peace Corps, titled India 40. Our second guest has been on this program before, Miles Nishimoto. Miles was attached to the first air cavalry in the Central Highlands between 1966 and 1967. Miles received the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart and was medically discharged from the Army after spending two and a half years a tripler. He went on to a successful career in the import-export business here in Honolulu. Our third guest is Ken Kupchak, who has also appeared here before. Ken was commissioned in the United States Air Force after attending Cornell University and receiving a degree in chemistry. He subsequently earned a degree in meteorology from Penn State. Ken served on General Mo Mayer's staff as a weather briefing officer in Saigon. Ken attended Cornell again to obtain a law degree specializing in international affairs. Ken returned to Hawaii and has been practicing law since then. It took Ken Burns and Lindovic 18 hours to tell their story of the Vietnam War. I sincerely doubt we can come to any substantive conclusions here in the next 28 minutes, but we're going to try. Welcome, gentlemen. Miles Nishimoto, you were the draftee in this group. What are your thoughts about the three questions? Well, let me just reference the first question. What Ken, what about the legacy of Vietnam? And I think many of us would agree that the effects of Vietnam conflict didn't just end in 1973 when the troops started rotating out of the country. As a matter of fact, when they came back to the US, the American soldier was confronted by a couple groups. The first group was a fashion that was more or less known as the Protestants, the people who were really against this war. The other group so-called supporters. But then, of course, I mean, after hearing the responses from the riot group or the non-supporters was, boy, we got labeled like, here it is, we're civilian killers. Wow, we didn't feel too good about that. And then the so-called supporters said, oh, by the way, you know, it's a good thing we did a good job down there, but sorry to say we didn't win the war. So you can see the veteran was really caught in between. And the way he felt was that his overall total services to the country was not really appreciated. And what do we really contribute this to? There's several different things, but I can still come down to one, I think this one factor could be a big contributor. First of all, the government, I think, was not very sincere and open and truthful with us. For one thing, there were hidden agendas. Take, for example, this one veteran who told me, you know what else? I felt like a mushroom growing in the dark. I was never informed about different situations. Why do we need to do that? What is the purpose? I mean, he was given that, hey, the four months of practice and basic training that we had was sufficient enough to make us professional soldiers now. How can it be we come into a country which was originally controlled by more than a decade, more than 100 years, through the generations. And here it is, with four months training, we come into this country being able to conquer the world, almost impossible. But then, of course, when you look at a good example of the government holding back some information on us, is what about Agent Orange? Agent Orange, when we were communicated about the reasons for Agent Orange, and it was mainly this product was to describe all of the foliage, the thick jungle, that would kind of minimize the hiding area or camouflage areas for the enemy. Failing to realize that, hey, if this product could describe a foliage, what about us? But there was no communication on the effects that it would have for not only the enemy, but even for us as the veterans who serve in the country. We went down after they described the area, and we trashed through the jungle. We've got this Agent Orange all over our arms, face, everything else. And then when it comes down to the water area, there's a scream, we don't have fresh water every day, so we fill up on canteens, put in a purification tablet, put in a little bit of Kool-Aid in there, shake it, and we drink it, what? Why, that flavor of water, it tasted very good, you know? But again, failing to realize that, here it is now, the dioxins are in our bodies too. So what about the future impact that it could have for us as the veterans? But, you know, over the years, I've known several people who have felt claims about, gee, it stemmed first from being diabetic. Next thing you know, there's kidney problem. Next thing you know, there's some heart problem, all of which was originally from Agent Orange. This one person that I know of just recently has been on dialysis. He's been on dialysis now for three times a week for the past six months, I think. And he's in a situation right now where his claims have still been denied. Can you believe this? He's still been denied, even with the situation that he's in currently today. So this is another example about, wow, how the government deals specifically with numbers, yet when it comes to, hey, two things about the veterans. I'm sorry, we can't look at that. But the bad thing about this is that I've known some of the veterans that have passed. And till the day they passed, they never was granted what it was doing today. So when we talk about it, it never got quiet. One way to think about it, for those veterans, it finally got quiet. And he said to say that I think they were just, really, we all were taken advantage of by not being shared the truth to a lot of incidents. So that's my impression on what do I need to say about it. Peter, you served in a civilian capacity, and I know you from other places. And of course, you were willing to serve in any capacity, but you chose the Peace Corps. How is your view of all this? I mean, when you came back from India, things had to have been in turmoil. And what's the legacy of all this? I mean, it was a revolution going on at that time. I think people today don't know very much about the Vietnam War era and how turbulent those times were. When I talk to younger folks, it's like we could be talking about the French and Indian War or something like that. And I don't think they understand the turbulence. I think Ken Burns' series is maybe teaching. Maybe there's some teaching in that. I think one of the legacies of that era and of the war in particular is a tremendous mistrust of government and a lack of confidence in leadership. We suffer because of that, but it's also, that's the legacy. And Vietnam was the precipitating piece of that. I mean, there was some of that before, but people like you guys stepped up and you were there. That happened in Korea. It happened in World War II. But since then, I think things are different. It's curious. You mentioned that as far as Korea and Vietnam. I think there is a difference in the way we prosecuted war and for the reasons we did. One of our prior guests made the comment about having a goal. We were sent to Vietnam. What was the goal? World War II, we had some definitely bad people to deal with. In Vietnam, come to find out through the Ken Burns' documentary that you're just like us, folks. Maybe you had a different form of government, but whatever. And I think what comes out so strong in the series, which we all, many of us, thought, was we were being lied to. We were being lied to systematically over three Presidencies and Presidents who had other agendas. I mean, the domino theory was in the background and there were lots of other things going on. There's always politics and politics is tough and complicated, but fundamentally, you guys paid the price on the ground for that. And we'll never forget that, those of us who lived through that. I think Miles and my thought are with the guys that we left behind. And I can remember seeing the stacked body bags in the C-130 and whatever. Ken, you were not necessarily in a safe position, but you survived Tet in Saigon. And we discussed that on the previous program. We tend to laugh at those things now. And at the time that we were experiencing them, it wasn't that funny. No, I've never been so scared in my life. But the issue of legacy, what we learned, primary thing that hopefully we learned is never to do it again. And that's a very complex situation. There's a book, Embers of War, that tells about the lead-up to the war. And we were Ho Chi Minh's buddy during World War II helping him. And it fit in with Roosevelt's contest of we're going to get rid of colonialism. We're going to have democracy around the world. And it helped have people flock to us, where they were leaving the British Empire, and they couldn't get their own colony trips to fight for them at the beginning of the war. We come in with this idea. It's an Atlantic charter of the world, United Nations and human rights. But after the war, Roosevelt dies. Harry Truman comes in, he's stopped schooled in World Diplomacy, and he's talked into the Domino Theory, and we let Ho Chi go. It's been a pretty much an independence battle from the beginning from colonialism. And we were in there trying to do something. First the French threw in the towel, and we made them continue for a couple more years. So finally we had to bail them out and go in ourselves. And that's when the problem started. Pretty much everything the wrong way. Tom Sterling talked on your program about the fact that every 12 months we rotated, people are coming to go on every day, no learning curve, everybody making the same mistakes. I was 24 and 25. I was in the command post for Vietnam. I did all the go-no-go forecasts and missions over Hanoi, and I briefed General Westmoreland daily during K-SOM and TEP on various things. So I was flying the wall. I could see what was going on. The first lesson I learned there, or observed firsthand, was a lack of communication between D.C. and the field. I used the example on our last program of setting a mission over the north and having it canceled halfway by the Red Falls out of Washington by to drop our bombs in the Gulf and from back home. And the generals would stand around and swear and bitch about the people in Washington didn't understand this war, couldn't do it. And I got back to law school and we had Nicholas Katzenback, who was at the other end of that phone as the Attorney General, one of the people there, came up to our law review for a cocktail party and I asked him the same question. His response was, those darn generals, they didn't know what was going on. And from this I concluded that they had a tremendous communication gap. Previous people mentioned that we didn't know why we were there, why we were fighting. There was no cohort program and we couldn't have communication between the field and home. And it was scary. And then we come home, as Miles mentioned, and you were not supposed to show your uniform. You were the enemy. And hopefully we've learned that when they came home from the first Desert Storm, they gave them parades and everything and it helped the transition of the troops. I think it helped the troops, but that it helped the nation. I think trying to, you know, putting bumper stickers on the car would say we support our troops. Doesn't necessarily mean we support our troops. The volunteer army problem is a problem. And Vietnam is one of its legacies. Well, I'll tell you what, let's talk about that when we come back. Right now let's take a break and listen to these messages. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. I feel overwhelmed. I don't even know who I am anymore. I still have nightmares. I can't live like this anymore. I'm really not so good. But are you ready to listen? Heiden, the host of Voice of the Veteran, seen here live every Thursday afternoon at 1 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. As a fellow veteran and veteran's advocate with over 23 years experience serving veterans, active duty and family members, I hope to educate everyone on benefits and accessibility services by inviting professionals in the field to appear on the show. In addition, I hope to plan on inviting guest veterans to talk about their concerns and possibly offer solutions. As we navigate and work together through issues, we can all benefit. Please join me every Thursday at 1 p.m. for the Voice of the Veteran. Aloha. We were discussing volunteerism and the draft. And I'd like to get into that a little bit as far as discussing the draft. We gave up the draft in 73. And now we're doing what? We've got a volunteer army. Are we making the same mistakes that we did with Vietnam? I look at Iraq and Afghanistan. I've had friends who were in the intelligence community basically say, we didn't do our homework. We don't have a volunteer army that we can send wherever we want because they're mercenaries. Essentially they're getting paid for their job. Do you think that perhaps maybe having the draft and allowing kids and their families becoming more involved and where their kids were and what they were doing, do you think that might have had some kind of an impact on foreign policy or at least us getting out of Vietnam? Well, one of the reasons we went to the all-volunteer army was the drug problem in Vietnam. It was horrendous. And even the troops that came back and were in Germany and fighting against the Russian potential, they couldn't field the troops. So they had to go to do something to clean it out. Now that they've cleaned it out, it creates other problems that there's no buy-in from the rest of the country. And we talked a little bit before about the idea of volunteer or nationwide service in some capacity. It didn't have to be military. It could be public health service. It could be Peace Corps. It could be the service. But if everybody was expected to give a couple of years to their country and they picked where he wanted to serve, we probably wouldn't have any problem staffing it and it would be buy-in from the whole country into what we're doing. Do you think they might have some influence on our politicians in making the decisions like the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the Patriot Act? You're the lawyer. Never in doubt, frequently wrong. Well, I know... I don't know what the... I can't say what it would have affected, but I think we're talking about a major social and cultural change. And it's hard to see the value of service when you're in it, especially if you're young. You have many motives and many reasons and many forces working on you. But we know, and from our own discussions, we've talked about how retrospectively important that was in our lives. And we know that right here. Miles even mentioned it in the program that started this all off, and that was the value that he learned from being in the military. People tend to look at his... Yeah, we tend to look at it as being, well, you're in a disciplined organization, but basically you're learning self-discipline. And we carry that with us, plus the leadership that goes along with it. And it's not just learning from the leaders. You're now put in positions of leadership. I stopped to think I was a 21-year-old crew chief of a multi-million-dollar weapons system. So think about that for a second, and a friend of mine who was in the Peace Corps in Korea and around simultaneous with our careers recently told me, he said, imagine somewhere between 19 and 22, and you're put into positions of responsibility. He was treated like an adult. He said it was the first time he was actually expected to perform accountable. He had to do stuff. So, I mean, that's unusual. We don't see much of that now. We don't see that kind of expectation. That's what worries me. My take on the areas of responsibility and what I've learned from it is when I first went there, I was a regular infantryman. But then, of course, casualty rates happened at such a fast pace. Before I know it, I was like an NCO in charge of a squad. And then from there, they had sent me to additional training at which time we belong to the Love Team. Now, as a Love Team, we thought, oh, my God, I mean, I hope I can go ahead and extend some leadership skills on this. We should explain for what a Love is. That's Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol. Correct, yeah. So, you go out in an enemy territory and for a number of days, you've got a small team up to maybe four to five people maximum at which time you're reporting in any type of enemy movements or any type of activities that has been happening. But at that time, I don't know what had actually happened. I was a draftee, like I said, originally, right? And I went in there with just the intent of doing what I just needed to do. Failing to realize that all of a sudden now, I'm in a leadership position, and if I fail, I had failed this people's lives. I mean, it became such a stressful position that I received no real training for prior to going to in-country now. It was like an immediate on-the-job training which, wow, it created a lot of stress. You and I had different training that we were expected to perform. You live up to your expectations. Military gives you structure. When it came time, an enlistment would end for one of our enlisted troops. If they had plans to go to college or something like that, I'd encourage them to go for it. If they didn't, I encourage them to stay because we're family, and we take care of our people, and we educate them, and there's always OJT going on in all sorts of areas on it. So it's one way to grow up and have a family supporting you. I have a good friend of mine who's in Canadian Forces, just retired from Canadian Forces. He made the comment. He went to one of the NCO Academies, the Air Force sponsor. He said he learned teamwork more there than he did when he was in Canadian Forces. Your life depends on it. And he said, never in his life did he ever want to become more of an American than at that point in time. I thought that was an interesting observation. And I'm thinking, we have such a divisiveness in this country right now. How do we mend that? How do we fix that? One place for the least divisiveness is in the service. So you learn a lot about yourself when you grew up in a small community, and you come together, people from all over the country. It enables you to expand your horizons and be a better citizen, I think, in the long run. I think, Peter, you had a similar situation too, because you were thrown in India 40, and you started off with a group of people in your training. We did a lot of work together. We also worked individually, and it was a growing up. And we weren't under fire the way you guys were, or in the middle of a war, directly as you were. But we were killing rats and raising chickens and building schools and water wells and trying to do things that we'd been taught to do and try to move it forward. And there was accountability. We had resources that we were accountable for, and growing up is the exactly right word. And just to me, it's interesting how hard it is to see that when you're in it. I mean, growing up is not something you're just kind of aware of, but retrospectively, you see it. And that's part of the reason why I'm really for some kind of national service program, with a lot of options, with lots and lots of options. We need that. We've got to have it. But now we're sort of goal-less. Man and women. Yes. And one of the things that I have seen, though, for professional officers who object to the idea of having a citizen army, they will cite the statistics that were, I think, somewhat skewed, saying, well, the draftees took the brunt of the casualties in Vietnam. Well, they were the brunt of the people in Vietnam. That's right. It's got to work that way. But yeah, the leadership that you learned when you were growing up, and you said, we're treated like adults. You're now expected to do things. You were a junior officer. I was a junior NCO. You still had things that you were mentored by with other people. And I think that was part of the process, too. You had experienced people teaching you. Not so much in your case, Miles. I don't think. He was the experienced. Yeah, you were the experienced. He was the experienced. And I'll be the first to say that funny, when you're in a situation like that, becomes life or death. You learn pretty fast. And you need to really become a good salesperson to sell this program. People are going to be in your squad. They need to believe in you. I think that by itself became a key element that, even to today, whatever we do, we need to still have a relationship with all comrades. Rick, these lessons learned from the Ken Burns series from your own experiences, my experience from our era. Somebody said, if you don't know the history, you're doomed to repeat it. And I kind of worry that we're doing that because people are oblivious, despite huge amount of social media. And somehow we have to evolve some strategies that are going to not have to suffer the most painful parts of that history again. Well, it's a marketing job, I would think. More people are concerned with taking pictures of their lunch and sending it on to their friends. This is what I had for lunch, as opposed to the real issues that are facing us. I don't know how you sell that. How do you get people into that? And I think what you and I have discussed before, as far as national service, I think that brings more engagement into things. There are people who know how to do branding and advertising and all that. Why wouldn't we apply that to national service in the same way that applied to, you know, Diet Coke? You need a leader to energize the country. Most of us grew up in the early 60s where you had the Kennedy administration, not so much whether you support them or not, but the spirit that came through the country, not what you want for yourself but for your country type thing, really covered the generation on it. And it can, leaders can come in many different forms but someone who would energize the people again to want to do something like that that this is important. It goes right along with restoring some confidence in government because all the numbers show that we don't, we've lost that. I think we could probably take this on for about another three hours at least today. Unfortunately, we don't have enough time so we're going to have to end it right here. We'd like to have some feedback. If you have some comments, please send an email to 808VietnamVets at gmail.com. I would like to thank the staff here at Think Tech Hawaii for all their support and assistance. Surely without them, this program would not be possible. Please come back again next week for another issue of Hit Never Got Quiet. Mahalo.