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Wallace Terry was born in New York City, raised in Indianapolis, educated at Brown, Chicago, and Harvard Universities, and ordained in the Disciples of Christ ministry.
His documentary recording of black soldiers in Vietnam, \"Guess Who\'s Coming Home\", was well recelved; he has produced documentary films on black Marines for the U.S. Marine Corps and served as a race relations consultant to General David C. Jones, when Jones was commanding general of the U.S. Air Force in Europe.
In recent years Terry has been a radio and television commentator for CBS, Post-Newsweek, The Evening Association, and In the Public Interest, and has written for USA Today. In 1983 he was named to the Veterans Administration Advisory Commitee on Readjustment, Problems of Vietnam Veterans. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Janice, and three children. He is at work on a new book, MISSING PAGES.
Summary
In this outstanding and moving book the story of 20 black Vietnam GIs, called "Bloods", is told. The crowd of Bloods was a new Generation of black GIs, who called for unity among black brothers on the battlefield, who spoke loudest against the discrimination in decorations, promotion and duty assignments, filled with a new sense of black pride and purpose.
Wallance Terry writes:
"The black veterans hoped to come home before; they came home to less."
It\'s not. easy to sum up all the experiences, that these Vets have lived through. "Bloods" deals with one topic, that still remaians in the heads of the American people:
The war in Vietnam.
Terry, who was a Time correspondent in the war, does not write about war in a usual way - all of us know Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and many more what has happened there in the little land in South-Indochina - he writes about the feelings and opinions of the black US-soldiers in Vietnam, who called themselves Bloods. For every soldier Vietnam was a very hard, awful and critcial war, but for the black soldiers it was worse. Being American citizens and fighting for the USA, they were treated "differently" to the whites. In the basic camp they had their own sections, own toilets and it was prohibited for them to go to the places, where white soldiers in high ranks used to be like casinos, special bars,... Terry talked to 20 black veterans in different army ranks and interviewed them. He wrote down their stories and experiences they had to live through. Often whites and blacks fought each other - blacks´ hope to come home to more than they had before kept them on fighting. But the fact was, that they came back to less - the hardest fact was black unemployment, which enlarged their psychological problems out of war.
Reginald Edwars, a rifleman in Da Nang, first could not shoot a human. He shot through walls and set fire to the hootches with tracers or Zippos. For him being a marine meant to be in jail - the process did allow him to be himself. For Bloods white people where aliens. In Vietnam nothing was like someone expects of a war to be - often GIs were killed by their own people, any Vietnamese out at night was an enemy to be shot, children and women, too. Back in the USA he joined the Black Panthers, trying to make Malcom X´s message reality like most of black veterans did. Films like Apocalypse Now did not tell the truth, because in Vietnam there was no music out of the helicopters, no lighted bridges, no attack at beaches in helicopters - GIs knew, what they were doing.
Harold "Light Bulb" Bryant worked in Ati Khe, where his profession was to probe fot mines and blew them up. His experience with "Body Count" was: 7 killed VCs (Viet Congs), in the base camp it was told about 28, in General Westmoreland´s office in Saigon 54 and in Washington it was told about 125 dead VCs to prove that the GIs were doing their jobs. New GIs, who were called "green guys", were killed soon by making mistakes - many of them, who volunteered, had a John Wayne complex, which was paid their lives. Whites used to take the ears off as a trophy and to have sex with dead girls. They tortured girls by putting cola-bottles in their womps or burning phosphor into their vaginas, which caused death by burning out the body.
Richard J. Ford III, a lurp, first felt insecure without a weapon and had to get on the floor in order to sleep in the first night back at home. He bought an a.38 and an a.22 to have something to feel secure in the night.
GIs, that married a Vietnameses girl like Manny Holloman, an interpretier, were called "gook lovers" and "traitors". In Archie "Joe" Biggers opinion, who was a Platoon leader, the VC believed in a cause of the war and did everything necessary to win it. They wrapped explosives around kids, and when GIs touched them, the explosives blew them up together with the kids. US-soldiers, that, were caught by the VC, had , if at all, a hard 1ife. They were tortured, got bad meals and were forced to speak on tapes against the war, which later should be published to decrease GIs\' moral. The VC, tried to make captivity as painful as possible.
Edgar A. Huff was the first black Sergeant Major in the Marine. Corps and got bis own Negro Marine Corps. They had their own barracks, tanks and guns. He even as a Sergeant Major, he was treated badly. Blacks in the war had the lowest level in jobs and the dirtiest ones. Although blacks were ready to die - "first class dying", they were getting "second-hand-treatment". - They had a special price to pay.
Character Analysis
Reginald Edwards and Harold "Light Bulb" Bryant are the best examples for black GIs who served in Vietnam.
With a weight of only 117 pounds, Edwards was not weak and wanted to go into the Army. He disliked the Navy and the Air Force because of wearing uniforms. Although the Marines were bad, he entlisted to become a soldier of the Marine Corps. - "Marine Corps builds men." The blacks hung together with the Mexicans, because white peope were aliens for them. From Cuban targets at the beginning of his training in the camp (Cuba-crisis in 1963) everything turned to Vietnam - they were told, that the Viet Congs were gooks to be killed. After finishing his, traininig the war in Vietnam was nothing like he expected a war to be. If somebody left in the village,hr was considered VC, rooms full of children were blown up with grenade launchers, houses and hootches were set on fire with Zippos, segregation was practised in the base camps almost more than in the USA, GIs killed other GIs in combat by accident,.... Edwards was no racist, but did not want to be called "Negro". A riot in his base camp started and in a trial he was fouind guilty of an attack on an unidentified Marine and therefore sentenced to 5 months in jail, 5 months without pay and finally he was kicked out of the Corps. Back in the USA Edwards joined the Black Panthers, Malcolm X´s armoured radical group, and tried to make X´s message reality until the FBI was harrassing him.
The first day, Bryant got back, he was not sleepy ans went out - he got drunk. He was sent to Fort Carson in Colorado. Because of disrespect to a 2nd Lieutenant he got burted one rank and was fined $25. Consequently the Army could not send him back to Vietnam, which made it hard for him. Bryant laught at the 2nd Lieutenant, who was shipped out to Nam, and told him, that he would not come back. After he ended the first semester at University he had no money left and got metal assembler at McDonnel Aircraft. Bryant wore an earing since the age of nine to pretend being an African warrior. He was sent to the engineers in An Khe, where they probed for mines and blew them up, disarmed and blew up booby traps. He killed his first VC in the Central Highlands. When he saw him, both were surprised, and Bryant was the lucky one and shot the VC dead. Women were much more friendly to blacks than to whites, because for them blacks were "looking like Buddha". His best friend, the 20-year-old truck driver James Plummer, received a mortar round and became an amputee without legs and arms. Every year Bryant reads through the whole Bible for explanations of what happened - he cannot find anything.
Personal Opinion
For me the book- of Wallace Terry is the best book about Vietnam I have ever read. The stories of these 20 black men having served in Vietnam are more than any film can express. It eulogizes the cruelity and madness of war, it alleges its reality, that affected the soldiers. Except the new Oliver Stone film, that will be soon released, this book deseribes the opinions and the circumstances of Vietnamese people, too. One of the interviewed veterans worked as an interpreter in Vietnam and had a close contact to the civilians. Out of his experiences with them, he told his impressions and is able to deliver also the feelings of the affected Vietnamese -people.
I like this book very much, which is, for sure, one of the best books on this topic, and everybody, who has the capability to read it, should do this.
"SIMPLY THE MOST POWERFUL AND MOVING
BOOK THAT HAS EMERGED ON THIS TOPIC"
United Press International
The Author´s language
"I´m flying a F-105 now. It was fast. Mach 2.5. Had good range. Dependable. Comfortable. Good weapons. Good navigational systems. But it was primarily a tactical bomber. We could carry up to 16,750-pound bombs. On a normal flight , we´d have 10, and then 2.5-inch rockets, and a 20-milimeter cannon, which was a real jewel.It was a far cry from what I could load on a F-84 or F-100. The F-4 Phantom.was certainly a better aircraft for air-to-air combat. And sometimes they would give us coverage. But the F-105 could carry a bigger load, faster and farther. I really 1oved that airplane." |p 269|
"I didn\'t see the ugly part of the war. I enjoyed the war ´cause at Cam Ranh Bay. Cam Ranh Bay was paradise, man. I would say Boy, if I got some.money together, I\'d stay right here and 1ive. I wasn´t even gon´ ccome back to the United Staes. I treated like a king over there. It was no war. Cam Ranh Bay was the inland R&R spot. That´s where the battle-weary people was supposed to come to have R&R in country. They could get everything. And it was so beautiful, pretty country. Beautiful coral reef. And the sand. Miles of perfect white sand. And the white boys could surf all they wanted. Boy, they had their fun." |p 258|
The author takes over the \"ICH-Form\" of the interviewed veterans to create a close contact between the vets and the reader. Consequently the whole book is written in spoken American English, implying sophisticated war-vocabulary.
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