SGT MAJOR SPEAKS

From :	T. L. Rippy
Sent :	Wednesday, March 7, 2007 9:11 AM
To :	blueghostred@msn.com
Subject :	FW: Army Command Sergeant Major SEZ

 

Subject: Army Command Sergeant Major

 

 

 He says more in this short e-mail than most professional authors say in ten articles. 

 

SGT MAJOR SPEAKS

 

(J.D. Pendry is a retired Army Command Sergeant Major who writes for Random House. HE IS QUITE ELOQUENT, and he seldom beats around the bush!!!)

 

 

Jimmy Carter, you're the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the runner-in-chief.

 

Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia , and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses to the U.S.S. Cole and the First Trade Center Bombing and Our Embassy Bombings emboldened the killers. Each time you failed to respond adequately they grew bolder, until 9/11.

 

John Kerry, dishonesty is your most prominent attribute. You lied about American Soldiers in Vietnam . Your military service, like your life, is more fiction than fact. You've accused our Soldiers of terrorizing women and children in Iraq . You called Iraq the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, the same words you used to describe Vietnam . You're a fake. You want to run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as you did the Vietnamese. Iraq , like Vietnam is another war that you were for, before you were against it.

 

John Murtha, you said our military was broken. You said we can't win militarily in Iraq . You accused United States Marines of cold-blooded murder without proof. And said we should redeploy to Okinawa . Okinawa John? And the Democrats call you their military expert. Are you sure you didn't suffer a traumatic brain injury while you were off building your war hero resume? You're a sad, pitiable, corrupt and washed up politician. You're not a Marine, sir. You wouldn't amount to a good pimple on a real Marine's ass. You're a phony and a disgrace. “Run away John”.

 

Dick Durbin, you accused our Soldiers at Guantanamo of being Nazis, tenders of Soviet style gulags and as bad as the regime of Pol Pot, who murdered two million of his own people after your party abandoned South East Asia to the Communists. Now you want to abandon the Iraqis to the same fate. History was not a good teacher for you, was it? Lord help us!!   See Dick run.

 

Ted Kennedy, for days on end you held poster-sized pictures from Abu Grhaib in front of any available television camera. Al Jazeera quoted you saying that Iraqi's torture chambers were open under new management. Did you see the news this week, Teddy? The Islamic Nazis demonstrate real torture for you again. If you truly supported our troops, you'd show the world poster-sized pictures of that atrocity and demand the annihilation of it. Your legislation stripping support from the South Vietnamese led to a communist victory there. You're a bloated drunken fool bent on repeating the same historical blunder that turned freedom-seeking people over to homicidal, genocidal maniacs. To paraphrase John Murtha, all while sitting on your wide, gin-soaked rear-end in Washington

 

Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Carl Levine, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton , Pat Leahy , Chuck Schumer, et al ad nauseam. Every time you stand in front of television cameras and broadcast to the Islamic Nazis that we went to war because our President lied, that the war is wrong and our Soldiers are torturers, that we should leave Iraq, you give the Islamic butchers - the same ones that tortured and mutilated American Soldiers - cause to think that we'll run away again, and all they have to do is hang on a little longer.

 

American news media, the New York Times particularly: Each time you publish stories about national defense secrets and our intelligence gathering methods, you become one United, with the sub-human pieces of camel dung that torture and mutilate the bodies of American Soldiers. You can't strike up the courage to publish cartoons, but you can help Al Qaeda destroy my country. Actually, you are more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda is. Think about that each time you face Mecca to admire your Pulitzer.

 

You are America 's "AXIS OF IDIOTS". Your Collective Stupidity will destroy us. Self-serving politics and terrorist abetting news scoops are more important to you than our national security or the lives of innocent civilians and Soldiers. It bothers you that defending ourselves gets in the way of your elitist sport of politics and your ignorant editorializing. There is as much blood on your hands as is on the hands of murdering terrorists. Don't ever doubt that. Your frolics will only serve to extend this war as they extended Vietnam . If you want our Soldiers home, as you claim, knock off the crap and try supporting your country ahead of supporting your silly political aims and aiding our enemies. Yes, I'm questioning your patriotism. Your loyalty ends with self. I'm also questioning why you're stealing air that decent Americans could be breathing. You don't deserve the protection of our men and women in uniform. You need to run away from this war, this country. Leave the war to the people who have the will to see it through and the country to people who are willing to defend it.

 

 

No,  Mr. President, you don't get off the hook, either. Our country has two enemies: Those who want to destroy us from the outside and those who attempt it from within. Your Soldiers are dealing with the outside force. It's your obligation to support them by confronting the AXIS OF IDIOTS. America must hear it from you that these Self-centered people are harming our country, abetting the enemy and endangering our safety. Well up a little anger, please, and channel it toward the appropriate target. You must prosecute those who leak national security secrets to the media. You must prosecute those in the media who knowingly publish those secrets. Our Soldiers need you to confront the enemy that they cannot. They need you to do it now.

 

AMEN

 

J.D. Pendry Army Command Sergeant Major, retired

 

 

Interesting Post From Americal Brother

Subj:	Fwd: Interesting Post From Americal Brother and an Article on Him
Date:	3/3/2007 10:32:32 AM Central Standard Time
From:	Teeburkee
To:	BlueGhosRd

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Bob Delzell D/4/31 196th (69-70). Have been living in Vietnam for 5 years now, teaching English,a class on the stockmarket at the university level (used to be a broker with Morgan Stanley), and take vets back to Hiep Duc. Really hope to make the reunion but have a 4 month old baby girl, a wonderful, educated, Vietnamese wife, so aforementioned commitments might prohibit it.

After experiencing Vietnam at peace and prosperity, getting to know the people, and working with them extensively, I want you all to know that they honor and thank us for what we tried to do. They set Americans apart from the others who have came here and waged war. They have told me that we are different from the French, Japanese, Chinese, and Russians. I have had Vietnamese soldiers who fought for the South and spent years in their prisons, tearfully thank me for my service. I have had former VC and NVA tell me that we were formidable on the battlefield and in peace helpful to their country and it's people.

Never feel that what we did here was not respected by the people who on both sides fought the war. Don't believe me, come and see it for yourselves. I will welcome you all and be your guide and host. Take care, brothers, Bob Delzell bobinsigon"at"gmail.com Saigon, Vietnam - Monday, February 19, 2007 at 00:59:21 (EST)

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Article from His College Website

Bottom of Form 1

Robert L. Delzell, II '87, '88 - Finding Peace in Vietnam By Carol Bliss

Robert Delzell's classroom has no textbooks, no PowerPoint graphics, and no formal syllabus. The learning ground where he teaches is more likely to include snakes, steamy jungles, and precarious mountain paths. His classroom is littered with abandoned landing zones, overgrown military bases, and memories frozen in time.

A Claremont Graduate University alumnus (M.A., Education, 1987; Ph.D., Education, 1988), Delzell uses the training he received in the School of Educational Studies to help bring peace and closure to veterans of the Vietnam War, most of whom were impressionable young men whose lives intersected with some of the most turbulent times in our country's history.

At the age of 18, Delzell enlisted in the Army, graduating from both Ranger and Airborne Schools. He began serving in 1969, the year the American death toll reached 34,000. Hundreds of students staged sit-ins at Harvard, Cornell, and Berkeley. While a quarter of a million antiwar protesters marched on Washington and Lt. William Calley was under investigation for the My Lai Massacre, Delzell was serving in Vietnam.

He recalls those years vividly. "We almost never slept. At night we watched for the enemy, listened for the enemy, and even at times visualized him being there. Fear was constant. One of the things I remember most was the bond between the 19-year-olds I served with. Something strange happens when your life is based on how well another person responds under extreme stress. I was fortunate to serve with men who would have died for me. It makes you think about life in a different way."

Seventy percent of the men he served with during his term of duty were either wounded or killed in action. As a paratrooper and combat platoon commander, he was twice awarded the Silver Star.

He returned from Vietnam in 1971, a man whose perceptions of war and country were forever altered.

Time never erased the memories of Vietnam. "Robert Lifton calls it psychic numbing," says Delzell. "The only thing your mind focuses on is functioning and survival. The scenes come back in flashbacks and nightmares. If you feel emotion, it could kill you. You might not notice a line of ants disturbed where someone had just walked, you might not see the branch bent sideways, because the enemy was there, watching. In Vietnam it was pass/fail, live or die."

Delzell graduated from Occidental College with a major in political science. Eager to learn about alternatives to conventional models of education, he enrolled in the School of Educational Studies. Provost Philip Dreyer remembers Delzell's first day of class in Adult Development. "We had about 16 people. Everyone went around and introduced themselves. When Robert's turn came, he opened with a riveting story of his experience in Vietnam. Our jaws dropped and we just sat there in silence.  It was evident that 10 years later, the war was still the defining event of his life."

Dreyer thought it would be a good idea for Delzell to study the effects of war on veterans and encouraged him in the work he was doing, counseling other vets. "Many of my papers dealt with the clinical side of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in veteran populations dating back to the Civil War. It gave me a better understanding of myself and other vets," recalls Delzell.

"At Phil Dreyer's request, I researched Freud. He confirmed that the combat unit is many times closer than family.  Both Phil Dreyer and John Regan's classes in cultural education were instrumental in fostering my understanding and application of my experiences in education," says Delzell.

"I'm very proud of what happened to him here," says Dreyer. "We were able to provide him with the type of environment that allowed him to come away with a much better understanding of himself and what he had been through."

Adept in the wild, Delzell led hikes and wilderness adventures in the eastern Sierras for Upward Bound during summer vacations. A river trip with several teenage students heightened his interest in experiential education. He began to see the effects of hands-on and tactile learning when he took 10 high school students on an educational survival course, paddling 740 miles down Alaska's Yukon River. There among the rapids, forests, and mountains, Delzell taught geology, ecology, and cultural history as part of an adventure that made a lasting impression on the teens, developing their sense of strength and capability.

This nature-loving outdoorsman eventually traded in his hiking boots for a suit and tie. After graduating from CGU, he spent 11 years at Dean Witter, rising to the rank of vice president of investments. "When I worked at Witter, I used to take an M-16 bullet and put it on my desk to remind myself that no one's trying to kill me anymore," Delzell recalls.

He thought about returning to Vietnam many times, imagining what it might feel like after all these years. Delzell eventually left the brokerage business and launched his dream of planning trips for former vets. He began to make return visits, pouring over southeast Asian maps and planning complex logistics. As he traveled back to jungles and cities with the familiar names-Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta-he met several teachers working in Vietnam and decided to teach English to Vietnamese students. To learn Vietnamese, he volunteered to teach ESL classes at Cypress Community College and St. Ansel's Church in Garden Grove.

After working with teenagers and young adults in the American education system, Delzell was ready to return to Vietnam and teach in the country that had been such a defining force in his life. He moved to Vietnam, taking a job as director of studies at Super Youth English School in Ho Chi Minh City, teaching grades K-12 as well as training teachers and staff.

In his spare time, he began to realize the dream of leading healing trips back to the battlefields. He realized that the best way to do this was through an experiential process. He understood the importance of sensory images and emotional aspects of memory.

Delzell recalls, "On one of my trips with the vets I met a very sober 54-year-old man. He had tears in his eyes all during dinner, something a Vietnamese man just doesn't do. He told me that he had wanted to offer his apologies to an American for 32 years and was so glad I had met him. He asked for my forgiveness, and I gave it. When we parted he put his hands together in Buddhist fashion and bowed. I did the same and we touched foreheads."

Word of Delzell's work traveled. He began to get letters and phone calls from the now middle-aged men who had served in Vietnam. His goal was to help create peace where once there had been so much sorrow. To accomplish this he needed to overlay the memories of explosions and the sounds of war with more peaceful images. Technology helped create a strong network among the former combat veterans. "I'm still in touch with a lot of the guys on a monthly basis. We were 19. Now we're 50," he says.
Each trip takes about a month to plan. Together he and the former soldiers revisit the battle sites where they once fought, helping to heal some of the psychic wounds. "When we go to the sites where people were killed, we experience a lot of closure. These men were in a chaotic environment. Now they see peaceful villages where kids run up and welcome them so they can practice their English," he says. "A lot of our vets groups have met with the guys who tried to kill us. We've sat down and had beers. There's a brotherhood among service guys that transcends blood. When someone has taken a grenade for you, you never forget," says Delzell.

On one particularly memorable trip, he escorted a retired American Special Forces colonel and a former lieutenant who had served under him, arranging a trip back to Landing Zone (LZ) Mary Ann, which had been overrun by the Viet Cong in 1972. The Americans traveled by boat and on foot, back into the jungle to locate the old LZ.   Authorization to enter the area was difficult, because the Vietnamese government controls movement in areas that are now overgrown by jungle. There were heavy American casualties there.

After making elaborate arrangements with the Vietnamese government, the colonel, a lieutenant, the surviving daughter of one of the battle officers, and Delzell were allowed to hike back into the jungle. In one of those fortuitous moments of timing, preparation, and luck, the Americans ran into the former commander of the Viet Cong battalion on a small, winding, jungle mountain trail. The commander had been a Sapper, a fighter trained to break into fortified bases and blow them up. This man had also orchestrated and planned the battles at LZ Mary Ann and was responsible for defending the LZ against the Americans and South Vietnamese.

With Delzell interpreting, the former enemies sat and talked for several hours in the heat of the mid-day sun. At the end of the encounter, the colonel gave the battalion commander the shirt he was wearing, literally peeling it off his back and presenting it to his former enemy. The blue tee shirt was printed in memory of the 23 Americans who died defending Landing Zone Mary Ann. The colonel had worn this shirt back into the jungle in tribute to men who would never return, for those who had lost their lives defending this piece of ground.

Touched by this gesture of forgiveness, the former Viet Cong battalion chief sat down and wrote a poem, and with tears in his eyes gave it to the colonel. Its simple translation is:

We are all of the same earth,
yet due to circumstances, different
we are all brothers.

Delzell's special brand of experiential education has helped people transform their memories of the Vietnam War. Together they are creating new images and impressions of peace, appreciation of different cultures, and goodwill. Step by step, the present is replacing the past. This important work has benefited scores of former soldiers and their families.

Delzell is currently based in Ho Chi Minh City, where he teaches college English. In addition to the healing work, he consults with educational leaders in Vietnam on English curriculum. He has served as chairman for the Los Angeles County Veterans Advisory Board and is Commander of Lakewood Disabled American Veterans. Delzell's work with Vietnam veterans continues. Each trip contains a different story of lives shattered and sometimes rebuilt. He feels fortunate to be there, doing this work, returning to the familiar places and memories that have haunted former GIs for more than 30 years.