The story that follows is based on the actual experiences of Richard
Zommer, a Corporal in the U.S.
Marines. Known as an E4, or
enlisted corporal, Mr. Zommer served our country from March of 1966 to March of
1970. He spent 13 months of his
service in Vietnam, repairing the hydraulics and pneumatic systems of the A-6,
an all weather plane still used today.
Honorably, Mr. Zommer enlisted at age 18, directly after graduation.
Leaving from Collinsville and returning to North Canton after the war, he has
lived in Canton all of his life. Mr. Zommer now works at Patriot Mechanical in
Plainville, Connecticut. He values
his time spent in the service, as shown in his personal collection of war memorabilia,
including a “family”
Christmas card and an old sand bag, signed by all the men in his unit.
Vietnam was a controversial and unpopular war. For the first time, a war unfolded in civilians’ livingrooms
and on their television sets.
Protesters accused the president and the men in service of being
“baby killers” and inhumane monsters. Perhaps the war was wrong, but these protesters could never
understand Vietnam. They would
never be able to grasp the fear instilled by the Vietcong, who viciously used
booby traps and trip wires. They
did not even have to be present when they murdered a soldier. Vietnam was not a war of guns, but of
logs with bamboo spikes swinging in the jungle. The Vietcong were devious, using the jungle as their
sanctuary and children as their soldiers; they wore no uniform and had no trait
distinguishing them from the inculpable locals. In Vietnam you didn’t know your enemies from the
people you where there to serve.
Richard Zommer knew this personally.
It was the summer of 1968, and Richard Zommer was just getting used to
Vietnam. MAG 12 and 13 were off
base for the day, helping the local Vietnamese clean up and build some new
buildings. There were only about
20 to 25 men in the two MAG’s, or the Marine Air Groups, put together.
The heat washed over Richard and the other men as they worked. He could hear the soft voices of kids
playing a few hundred feet away.
He had respect for the local Vietnamese; they had had no conflicts with
the U.S. air base since Richard had arrived there.
Richard watched, with some curiosity, as one of the children came
running up to MAG 13’s Captain.
The child asked for the captain’s help because one of the children
had been hurt. The captain, a
compassionate man, went to help the child. Richard thought little of the incident as the day
progressed, but by the time evening had crept up on the working men, the
captain could not be found.
A search group of men went out to scour the village with little reward. The last that any of the men had
remembered seeing their captain was with the child. It was disturbingly perplexing and only continued to grow
more perplexing as the search went on for seven days without success.
After a week of searching, the men found their captain. They found him three miles away from
where the children had been playing one week earlier. His Geneva Convention card was nailed to his forehead. They found their captain dead,
indubitably tricked by a cunning Vietcong , who had chosen their captain, and,
with a child’s aid, found him.
For Richard, the Vietcong was no one and everyone; the victim and the
perpetrator. Richard Zommer knows,
through poignant memories, that Vietnam was complicated. Not always fearful, but always
chaotic. In Vietnam, as in any
war, the objective is victory by defeating the enemy. The problem with Vietnam, the problem most protesters failed
to see in the ‘60s, was that the enemy was no where and everywhere, all
at once.