In Our Duffel Bags: Surviving the Vietnam Era

Vietnam Was The Steady Whop, Whop, Whop of Incess

Review Written by Bernie Weisz, Historian, Vietnam War October 15, 2011 Contact: BernWei1@aol.com Pembroke Pines, Florida USA Title of Review: "Vietnam Was The Steady Whop, Whop, Whop of Incessant Choppers, Rain & Artillery Firing It's Version of Pain For Victor Charlie"
At last, a book has come out that contains more than punji stakes, claymores, sampans and napalm sorties. Sure, a gritty war story of the hardships experienced by a soldier, marine or airman can be a gripping page turner. However, if you read enough of them eventually one blends into the next. Once in awhile a new book comes out where even those aficionados who know the most esoteric in that particular subject matter will read a new offering and be spellbound with fresh information. "In Our Duffel Bags" is one that does exactly that. If you check the literature for an existing memoir that details a soldier's experiences in the last American non-volunteer army who served in two major conflicts simultaneously, your findings will be scant. You might be wondering what those two major conflicts could be. The answer is the Vietnam War of 1964-1973 overlapping the Cold War of 1946 to 1991. This memoir draws parallels: the conflict in S.E. Asia was fought with search and destroy operations, free fire zones, and heliborne combat assaults.
Between the two slimy commanding officers in West Germany, going from the possibility of ending his Army career in West Germany as the Vietnam War ended to having a permanent change of station redirecting him to a combat zone in Vietnam, what more could go wrong with Dick Gesche's tour? With his palms riddled with Black Palm Tree points and a hairline fracture of his anklebone maybe, just maybe his ankle was so badly damaged that a sympathetic doctor would deem his leg injury a "million dollar wound," and he could finish out his tour with a nice, comfortably air conditioned stateside desk job rather then do battle with Ho Chi Minh's minions. Thinks looked up as he walked in to the Presidio and found out the doctor, being from Cleveland, the hometown of both, might cut him a break. He wondered how he could perform as an infantry officer in Vietnam walking through wet rice paddies and triple canopy forest with a cast and crutches! That wonderment would slowly turn to vexation, then indignation, followed by haughtiness. After a medical work up, the doctor came back with earth shattering news. Informing Geschke that his malaise was a sprained ankle was one issue that rankled him. However, when the good doctor told him he would be going to Vietnam with a letter in his profile stating he was an invalid, Dick blew a fuse. He stormed out of the hospital, flipped the letter and crutches in the trash, and recorded his annoyance forty years later as he rushed to get on a plane bound for 'Nam asserting: In retrospect-it was a matter of personal honor. They told me I was an infantry officer, and by golly I would proceed."

This is the point of the book where everything would start to click for Dick Geschke. This would result in of the most unique and amazing memoirs this conflict has ever produced. "Vietnamization," and its implementation is examined, as well as the last few months of U.S. involvement in an unpopular war most chose to forget about. Geschke rationalized; "Here I was, 24 years of age, well trained, and heading for the ultimate two-way rifle range. Where I was headed was in fact the vernacular of a rifle range, only this range had targets that shot back." Now it was a fait accompli that the military careers of both authors would end with their Vietnam service. There is only one other memoir I know of that covers "Vietnamization" and the very last few months of America's presence before the 1972 Christmas bombings of Hanoi and the January, 1973 inking of the final Washington-Hanoi peace treaty signed in France.. Although it is from a Huey helicopter pilot's vantage point, just the title alone that Tom Marshall chose for his memoir is indicative of its revealing content. Many Vietnam Veterans that read this book and were "In Country" in the early years of "The Build Up" (1965 to 1967 or immediately before, during or after the "Tet Offensive," considered by most historians as the watershed of this conflict will have a hard time believing the veracity of this memoir. For those "Doubting Thomas's," I have checked every one of Geschke's and Toto's facts, and have found them to be flawlessly accurate. For any American that served In Country, the war was seen in a particular manner that depended on the year they were there, the branch of service they were in, and where in South Vietnam they were stationed.

Certainly a Marine that was in "I Corps" and Phu Bai in 1967 is going to have a different perception of this war as well as of reading "In Our Duffel Bags" compared to a "Brown Water Sailor" who spent his tour on a swift boat in the Mekong Delta in 1970. However, you are simply going to have to buy this book if you want the full account of Gerschke's and Toto's enthralling descriptions elucidating how America started its trek out the back door of a failed American crusade. Ultimately, the South Vietnamese would be left to fend for themselves, which after June 4th of 1973 became necessary with the U.S. Senate passing the Case-Church Amendment. This prohibited any U.S. military activity anywhere in S.E. Asia regardless of any NVA encroachment. Perhaps Nixon knew something was in the air about his political future, and tried to rush massive amounts of aid knowing Hanoi's supplier's, the Soviet Union and China would not. It would eventually amount to Vietnamization being too much, too fast, and too late. Once Nixon was out of office, an unsympathetic Gerald Ford showed Saigon an Isolationistic American administration that was indifferent to Southeast Asia, with military supplies, replacement parts and funding a thing of the past. In 1975 there was a video made in South Vietnam where Ed Daly,owner of World Airways, sent a Boeing 727 aircraft to Da Nang, which was surrounded by the fast approaching North Vietnamese in their final push that would end in the surrender of Saigon and the South as a whole. The airplane was there to pick up stranded woman and children. As soon as this plane landed, the aircraft was swamped by panic stricken, desperate ARVN military personnel climbing on the aircraft, all afraid of being murdered by the fast approaching NVA contingent. Let's not forget the "Reeducation Camps" the North punished the South with, or the "Boat People" exodus; all consequences of our departure.
You will also read Dick Geschke's story about a bizarre incident involving a South Vietnamese captain and his involvement in the "Black Market." This cemented his opinion of the ARVN, declaring afterwards; "The government and its own military, which are supposed to be our allies, are nothing but a corrupt regime trying to live off the aid that we, their defenders, were providing. From that point on, I wanted nothing to do with a government so blatantly corrupt, and our command most certainly knew what was transpiring around them." Regarding the War itself? Geschke declared: "Never in a million years would the U.S. have won in Vietnam-which was nothing but a huge cesspool in which we Americans never belonged. And to put "In Our Duffel Bags" in perspective, what regrets did Dick have when it was all over? Aside from going to a party at a college and being asked by a very immature, brash girl the universally stupid, most insulting and insensitive question one could possibly ask of a returning Veteran, e.g., "How did it feel to kill women and children?" he voiced an opinion that ended with a question.. In the near future all of our forces presently deployed in Afghanistan will be returning. This awesome book honors Vietnam Vets and present ones!