Dennis and Gwynn Miller

              Eric Walz History 300 Collection
Dennis and Gwynn Miller – Life
during the Vietnam War
By Dennis and Gwynn Miller
March 2, 2004
Box 4 Folder 21
Oral Interview conducted by Rachel A. Miller
Transcript copied by Alina Mower May 2005
Brigham Young University – Idaho
RM: Today is March 2, and I’m interviewing Dennis and Gwynn Miller. What year were
you born?
DM: 1951.
RM: So how old were you when the war started?
DM: That depends on what we considered started.
RM: What do you consider the start of the war?
DM: My first recollection of the war was around 1967. I would have been around
fourteen, fifteen years old.
RM: Do you remember the president coming on and saying we’re going to war? What do
you remember as the surroundings of that?
DM: I really don’t. I don’t remember the president. It wasn’t like the gulf war, or those
kind of things. That war was entered into very, very gradually, with advisors first, and
then larger task forces, and then combatants. So it was just what they call an escalation.
GM: Kind of what we’re doing with Haiti right now.
DM: Anyway I just remember that there was a daily digest of news on TV every single
day 24/ 7. This was when news was not 24/ 7. We didn’t have cable TV. We did have
three basic channels and they had their 6: 00 news and the newspapers. Do you remember,
Gwynn, that every single day there was bodies and so forth, pictures of bodies in the
newspapers, and on TV.
GM: But I was young enough from you that all I remember my childhood years was
hearing about the Vietnam War. It seems all the while I was growing up we were in the
Vietnam War. And you have to realize that from a young age to a point I didn’t know
anything. But when I started knowing and paying attention to the things being said
around, it was the Vietnam War, we were in the Vietnam War for most of my childhood
because it was a gradual, gradual thing. It wasn’t something like Iraq; they can say we
went to Iraq to war on February, whatever
DM: I remember congress debating about it all the time as a teenager. And there were the
hawks and there were the doves. And this is how they were called, hawks and doves.
RM: The war hawks.
DM: And peace doves, so those battles were raging all the time in congress.
RM: According to your understanding what were America’s goals in the war?
DM: You know I don’t think that was very clearly annunciated. It was to stop
communism from spreading. I didn’t understand the landscape that well at the time. It
was to stop the North Vietnamese, the Viet Cong, from dominating South Vietnam.
GM: And my parents explained it to me, the reason that we had the Korean War is that
North Korea wanted to take over South Korea and we were trying to protect South
Korean interests, and the same thing with Vietnam.
RM: Did you as a teenager, as a child, did you have a fear about communism? Did you,
when you were older, did you believe the government, did you think there was an actual
threat from communism, that we needed to be there?
DM: Yeah I did, I believed them. As a teenager I was probably more on the hawk side
than the dove side. As a grown adult I can see better, I think that there weren’t any real
clear goals. And they talked about not being able to use all of their military might,
because of the political ramifications of it, of using all their war might, not political
might, all their war might. That didn’t register with me very clearly. I didn’t know one
way or another.
RM: So in high school the war was still going on right, so how did you feel about the
draft and the whole process?
DM: I was a teenager, I didn’t think about it very much frankly, as a teenager. When I got
closer to the draft age I certainly did.
RM: What was the draft age?
DM: At eighteen you registered.
RM: So what was about the age when they were taken?
DM: Eighteen, nineteen years olds and on up.
RM: Did you have to be graduated from high school though?
DM: Yeah.
GM: But I remember something. I remember that we used to have practices for air raids.
DM: In the 60s
GM: And I was always under the opinion that it was because of communists coming to
attack America, and we would practice, we would have to hurry and hide under our
desks.
RM: So did your teachers ever make the connection that we were fighting the
communists back?
GM: I don’t remember that, them saying that, but I just remember that we had practices
for air raids.
DM: When I was in grade school, for nuclear fall outs, and that kind of thing.
GM: And to me, and maybe I got it from my Mom and Dad, that to me it was because of
the
DM: Communist threat.
GM: Anyway what was the last question that you were talking about?
RM: The Draft? How did you feel about the draft?
GM: It was scary.
DM: I certainly remember the draft, and I studied the draft a little bit in debate, in high
school debate. And the criticism of the draft was there was a local draft board made up of
local citizens and they would bring people in for consideration for the draft and if you
had a good excuse you could get a deferment, if you had good political ties you could get
a deferment, whether you had good excuses or not. And the criticism was that the poor,
unconnected were disproportionately drafted to those who were more connected and
wealthy. Those young men went to college, and that kind of thing.
RM: So there were deferments for college then.
DM: Oh definitely deferments for college. Deferments for college, deferments for study,
deferments for religious, for missions, there were …
GM: That’s why dad gave up his opportunity to go on a mission.
DM: The deferments were rationed within stakes. The stake got one deferment a month.
So they could send out 12 missionaries under a deferment. That was the draft. Then there
was a lot of debate regarding draft or whether to use a lottery system, so that by the luck
of the draw rather than the connections.
GM: I thought that was what it was.
DM: Nope, nope the original draft was not the lottery. The lottery only came into
existence about 1970, 71.
GM: Which is what I would remember.
DM: Right, that time period.
RM: Did you get a lottery number then, how did that work?
GM: Yeah, you registered for the draft irregardless. And then they had a national lottery
of all eighteen year olds and it might have been nineteen year olds, I can’t remember, a
freshman in college as I recall. There were 365 days in a year and there were 365
birthdays. You had to be born on one of those days. And so they drew like a ping pong
ball or whatever, and they’d broadcast this on TV, lottery night. So that was the big night,
and they would draw out the first ping pong ball. Number one would [ be] June 2.
RM: So the birthday. . .
DM: Right, so it was random draws, one and they would match it with a day of the year,
two and the day of the year, three. And if you were within the first hundred draws you
were almost guaranteed that you would be drafted. So I can remember being in the
Manwaring building in the commons room with a large TV there. And lots of guys and
lots of their girlfriends, all of that age, and they would start with the lottery, and they
would start with number one, and I don’t remember if it was, if they took a birthday and
then went to a number or visa versa, but anyway you would hear the oohs and the cries
and so forth. April 30, my birthday came up like 335, 342, something like that, almost the
tail end of the year and almost totally guaranteed that I wouldn’t be drafted. I never felt
guilty about that because I took my chance along with everyone else. I did have
roommates whose numbers were 70, 85, and so they were assured to be drafted and they
ran to the local Idaho national guard just as fast as they could go.
GM: That’s what happened to my best friends’ boyfriend/ husband.
RM: Kathy?
GM: No, Pam Marley, Pam Kurnutt, Pete Kurnutt’s daughter. Her boyfriend, but then she
married him right before he went in, had a very, very low number, like eleven. And he
went and joined the army. He joined the army…
DM: Rather than be drafted you could join and then you would have more choice with
regards what branch you went into.
GM: And he got to pick where he wanted to go into and stood a better chance of not
being sent overseas…
DM: To be a foot soldier.
RM: So what were the kinds where you could go? The National Guard, what were the
other kinds?
DM: It was the regular troops that were being deployed. The National Guard was a
reserve. And the reserves don’t go in first.
GM: But I remember that they couldn’t do that at that time because Mike couldn’t go into
the National Guard. He had to join. He actually went and joined the army. He could have
chosen which service he wanted to choose, but…
DM: You could choose National Guard if you wanted.
GM: Maybe, but the war got over before Mike had a chance to be sent.
DM: There were National Guard units that were sent to Vietnam, but it wasn’t wide
spread this was an engineering battalion up at Rexburg.
GM: That’s the big news this week, was that the Idaho National guard got called up to go
to Iraq, or they’ve been put on notice.
DM: But we have a much smaller army today, or armed forces
GM: Yeah we had bigger armies back then because of the draft.
EM: Now we have a volunteer army, and it’s a smaller one. And so the National Guard is
being used much more extensively than it was in the 60s, 70s.
RM: Because we don’t have a large regular army.
DM: That’s right, they don’t have a large standing military force.
RM: Did you have the draft or the lottery during peace time, could you still be drafted
during peace time?
DM: And you were, yeah
GM: And that’s why it was so big
DM: Now it’s a volunteer army, no lottery.
GM: Now there were pluses and minuses to that. The pluses of having a draft and a
lottery was that you got a very broad spectrum of people in the armed forces. You got
educated people. You got poor people, rich people, middle- class people. To the extent
that the draft boards and the lottery worked, you got quite a cross- section and that was
considered healthy. What was not considered healthy was many of them didn’t want to be
there, and that was not healthy. Today’s armed forces are pretty motivated, and they
certainly want to be there. They have their motivations.
RM: How did your parents feel about the war? Do you remember how they felt about it
in the beginning, and how did they feel about it in the end with the possibility of you
being drafted, or your brothers being drafted?
DM: I remember my parents talking to adults, being worried about their sons being
drafted.
GM: My parents were worried, but they felt like it was your duty. My Dad served. My
dad was called up because of the draft. And my dad had to go serve in the Korean War.
And he felt it was your duty as a countryman, and they were very staunch republicans.
And they felt like we were there for a reason and a purpose, to stop the communists.
DM: In my case, I wasn’t motivated to volunteer. But I wasn’t looking to dodge a draft or
a lottery pick. It was like if I’m called, certainly I’ll serve.
GM: But our parents did worry, just like any parent would worry. What if our sons get
called up to fight a war?
DM: And again they showed killings every night on TV.
GM: And you heard of all the American soldiers over and over again that were being
killed.
RM: So did you have anyone close to you, or friends who went and didn’t come back or
who were affected by the war?
DM: I didn’t have anyone close. I had classmates at Bonneville High school who lost
brothers. And I was telling your mom, I remember her name was Gail. I can’t remember
her last name now. She mentioned something about her brother, and I asked where was
he, and I felt like crawling in a hole when she told me that he had been killed in Vietnam
like six months earlier. It was just really, really sad, you can imagine.
RM: When did you first recognize, or did you even recognize it in Idaho, Anti- war
Sentiment?
DM: There wasn’t a lot of anti- war sentiment
GM: In Idaho
DM: There were more hawks than doves; we didn’t have the peace marches…
GM: We would hear about the peace marches in the news.
DM: On the news all the time, the news hyped it up big time.
GM: And all the draft dodgers going to Canada.
DM: do you remember Kent state?
GM: Oh yeah
DM: Kent state students protested. The police came out. There were police clashes with
campuses all the time. Peace marchers on campuses. And Kent State, they called it the
Kent State massacre. There was a use of force that killed students. And it was a national
outrage kind of a thing. And they learned a lot about riot control in the late 60s, early 60s
based on civil rights and late 60s based on the protests to the war. And there is an art to
controlling crowds and they didn’t have it down, and there were a lot of people killed. I
remember saying very brashly as a teenager… They told them that they couldn’t go
beyond this area, this public area or whatever and they would anyway, and they would
start throwing things and that whole thing, and I thought that they just needed to kill them
all, as a youngster you did ( laugh). You need to back them up. I don’t think that now.
RM: How did you feel about the government at this time? Did you feel that they were
doing all that they could, or did you hold anything against the president for not getting us
out?
DM: President Johnson? President Nixon? President Johnson, I felt sorry for him in many
ways. General Westmoreland was the general in charge of Vietnam. I was pro-government.
You just have a natural inclination to support your government. I probably
supported them and it was a simpler time than maybe the reality of it should have been.
Because there were certainly some things going on that weren’t right. But yeah, I
supported the government.
RM: What did you think about those who didn’t support the government, draft dodgers,
did you have feelings against them?
DM: Yeah, I thought they were unpatriotic.
GM: I really did have feelings against them. They didn’t love America.
DM: They went to Canada, and we would say, “ Stay there, you don’t deserve to be here.”
There were a lot of draft dodgers.
RM: Were there a lot from Idaho?
DM: I didn’t know any. Of course, I was living in my own little conservative world here.
It was in the big cities normally that that took place. I do remember the big news about
Muhammad Ali. Was that right?
GM: Oh yeah, I remember Cashes Clay, and how he dodged the draft. He was called up,
who was Muhammad Ali, he was called up to fight, and he dodged.
DM: Muslim religion, and because of his religion he wasn’t going to fight, and he was
stripped of his heavy- weight title at the time. That was very, very big news. And there
was a lot of clash for that. He was stripped of that title, and I don’t remember what he had
to do… to be a… what are they called to be? A peace… I don’t remember the name,
peaceful dissenter.
RM: So did you feel that that was deserved, that he was stripped of his title?
DM: I probably did.
RM: Did you like him?
DM: I did like him, yeah. Stings like a bee, floats like a butterfly. He was quite the
engaging fellow.
GM: But I was raised to think that Cashes Clay was terrible, by my parents. And it wasn’t
until I married your dad or knew him, and your dad liked him, that I saw good things in
him.
DM: And my dad was a former fighter, and he liked his talent, he didn’t like his loud
mouth. But he thought that he was sure good at it. I remember him saying, he’s smart,
he’s a stage guy. And he does all of this for entertainment, and it attracts attention, and so
I had more favorable thoughts about him.
RM: Did you see more drug use from the people coming back?
DM: I worked one of my first jobs out of college, and there were a lot of return Vietnam
vets. And a lot of them had a lot of trouble readjusting. They had seen a lot of violence,
and had done some corrupt things themselves. And I recall one of them that I had worked
with had written stories and books and so forth that told about the mayhem, and villagers
being actually soldiers, and women carrying guns in their skirts, and you couldn’t trust
any of them. And there was a lot of hate by American soldiers for a lot of those folks
because it wasn’t a traditional type of war, where there were uniforms and the enemy
lines were this way and that way. They were everywhere. They were behind the enemy
lines. And there were a lot of booby traps and those kinds of things. So I read some pretty
gruesome things.
GM: And you had a lot of drugs.
DM: I had a roommate at Ricks College who was a Vietnam Vet, and not a saintly
individual, who loved his wine and women, and did drugs while he was in Vietnam. And
I remember him talking about hearing rounds come in, and they would just stick their gun
up and fire, like this, without putting their head up there, but they would get the rounds
discharged, so it was kind of cynical.
GM: Well any woman that I have ever talked to who has been married to a Vietnam vet,
says you never, never, go up and shake them to wake them up. They stand far back from
them and call their name to wake them up, otherwise they jump ya.
RM: What do you remember about hearing about the Tet Offensive? Do you remember
that as a time when feelings changed about the war, or did your feelings change?
GM: About what?
RM: After hearing about the Tet Offensive.
DM: The Tet Offensive.
GM: What’s that, why didn’t I hear about it?
DM: It was a big campaign and a big push, military push, at the time. I remember it by
name. I remember Westmoreland on TV. My history of it isn’t very good about it frankly.
So, no, it didn’t impress me a lot.
RM: Well I know in my history books that they make a big deal about it. And they say
that that was a turning point, and that was when Americans really got up about it, so I
think it’s interesting that you don’t remember it, but my history books make a big deal
about it.
DM: Well you have to remember that it was removed from day to day life. We lived
normal lives. And it didn’t seem real because it was just on this TV. And it was in this
paper. And around here, I didn’t know people who personally lost loved ones in that war.
So to me it was headlines, and TV. It’s just a perspective.
RM: How did you feel about the final peace settlement when we withdrew?
DM: You know I can remember thinking that it was a kind of shame that we lost so many
American lives and we didn’t really achieve what we were there to achieve. The Viet
Cong came into… What was the capital?
RM: Hanoi?
DM: Hanoi. And named it Hoi Chi Min City. So you know basically it was overtaken,
and wasn’t preserved as South Vietnam. So I can remember being disappointed about
that. And gosh what was that all about?
GM: And I can remember being really sad that we didn’t win the war. It was broadcast all
over that this was the only War that America has never won. And blah blah blah. And I
was sad about that, but I also felt a great relief that it was over, that our servicemen were
coming home, and I didn’t have to worry about my brothers being called to go over there
anymore.
DM: I can remember the relief as well. I can remember Nixon talking about his
campaign. And he had a troop withdrawal schedule. I remember that very clearly. Do you
remember that Gwynn? A troop withdrawal schedule. And then the news media would
mark the withdrawal that so many thousands would come out a month until they were
gone.
RM: Why did they do it gradually?
DM: I don’t know.
GM: I remember seeing pictures of the North Vietnamese coming into the cities and
taking over, and our servicemen hurrying, and I’ve read lots of stories since then of how
they only had like an hour, of our servicemen to round up the children they’d fathered, or
the orphans they were trying to get out that they were close to. They had to hurry quickly
before the North Vietnamese came in. So it seems to me that it was more of a hurried
thing.
DM: More like a retreat.
GM: A retreat, yeah.
DM: I do remember the scheduled withdrawal.
GM: But I have read a lot of stories of children being taken out during our retreat and
planes being full of these children coming to America. And there was so, so many
children that were fathered over there.
DM: From American Servicemen.
GM: And I don’t remember reading or hearing about that in other wars. About all the
children that were fathered in the Korean War or WWII.
RM: Do you think that maybe it happened, but they just didn’t report it back them?
GM: That’s what I’m wondering.
DM; I’m sure it happened. I don’t know if it was as extensive or not. But certainly the
reporting methods were heightened during the Vietnam War.
GM: And you didn’t talk about it.
RM: You said that your mission was delayed? Did you go into that? Why it was delayed?
DM: I was eligible for one of the deferrals. I’m trying to remember what it was. Scott
Sanderson took my deferral and left in August. He took my deferral because I didn’t need
it because I wasn’t going to be drafted anyway. That was just fine with the Stake
President and so forth. And then I left in November. But I was older than he was. I was
born in April and he was born in August. But I wasn’t ready to go in April because I was
still in school. And then I was the next oldest one to take a deferral. It was the stake
deferral. And then Scott got it because I think his number was a low number. So that was
how that happened.
RM: So did you on your mission ever hear anything about it, or in Bolivia were you
completely, isolated from the war?
DM: Totally, totally isolated. I heard about it so little. And that was in 1971 and ’ 72.
GM: Well, your mission was so isolated.
DM: So when I came back from my mission… I would hear about the gasoline shortages.
I think that was during that period. Yeah, it was. But I didn’t experience it, didn’t know
it. There were actually lines of cars at the gas station pumps and gas was rationed because
of the gasoline shortage. And it was the first time in America that that had happened.
RM: Was that because of the War?
DM: I don’t know if that was because of the War or not, I don’t remember. But I was so
removed from all the worldly issues that it was kind of amazing. I didn’t read newspapers
in Bolivia, didn’t listen to the radio.
GM: I graduated in 1972 from high school. And it sticks in my mind that the end of ’ 72
or the first of 1973 that we started seeing these, sad, sad, sad pictures, because they were
starting to send our Vietnam POW’s home. And it was just the saddest thing. I just sat
every night and cried. And had these big tears. And I mean just really sobbed
uncontrollably. To see these POW’s, and they would bring them home, or they would get
off a big plane at an air force base, and they would have all of their family waiting. And
as they got off the plane one at a time, they would say the soldier’s name and how long
he had been a captive, how long he had been a POW.
DM: Prisoners of War, right?
GM: And then they would say this is his wife, his children, as you saw him running, and
them all running up to hug him. And many of them six and seven years, many, many
eight, nine, who had been POWs that long.
DM: There were a lot of divorces.
GM: Yeah, and they would say that. His wife divorced him. And you can’t blame the
wives a lot because the wives lots of times didn’t even know if they were alive or not.
They thought they were dead.
DM: Missing in Action, MIAs.
DM: Missing in Action mostly is what they thought they were. They thought they were
dead. So they would get a divorce or probably a divorce because they couldn’t even
prove they were dead so that they could say they were a widow and move on.
DM: I think that after so many years you could declare someone dead.
GM: But their wife would have married. And so sometimes it would be their parents and
children, but they would say, I remember them saying that this man has his wife still
waiting for him, but this man’s wife didn’t. It was…
DM: Heart wrenching.
GM; So, so heart wrenching. Because then you would just start hearing all these terrible
things that happened to them and how mistreated they were in the POW camps. And
there was a guy from Idaho who had been a POW, and he was very famous.
DM: Fisher.
GM: From like Arco or somewhere, and he came and talked in some firesides. And told
of the things that happened to him.
DM: He won a congressional medal of honor.
GM: And he wrote a book about his experiences, and it was probably Fisher.
DM: No, no Fisher was a Congressional Medal of Honor winner, he wasn’t a POW.
GM: Well this guy from Idaho was a POW, and I think he was from Arco. You and I talk
about how it would be to see the passion because it was so real, and so personal and so
violent, and that’s what happened to these guys. And the way they had to survive year
after year. It’s like reading [ about] the Bataan death march with Children of the Promise.
It was just awful the way they were treated, and the terrible, terrible things that they
would do to them. And so they would come home and it was just… plane load after plane
load of POWs. And they would also say where their plane went down, or where they
were last seen when they became Missing in Action. And there still are many today who
are still Missing in Action from the Vietnam War, but they haven’t found a body. They
don’t know anything about them. And they are still trying to find them. I know that we
have people that are working with the Vietnam government trying to find these missing
men.
RM: So does the government think that there still are men held captive?
GM: They don’t know.
DM: For many, many years after the war, that was the thought. And the government did
find that they have held some. And as I recall, Vietnam made some releases and that kind
of thing, or produced bodies, or provided evidence of dog tags or whatever. So that was
part of the news in the aftermath of the war.
GM: Several years after the war.
DM: And Rambo is based on Vietnam and that whole element that there are still captives
there, and you are going to go in and rescue them. So it was part of the National
Conscience that a show like Rambo would become popular like that.
RM: So you were talking about the POWs coming home. When we were actually
retreating and the regular forces were coming home, was there any difference between
the POWs and the regular forces coming home, and how they were treated.
GM: I think so. But they will tell you today that they didn’t have a hero’s welcome and
that’s why they have so many problems.
DM: It was that scheduled withdrawal, rather than a victory march.
GM: And people just wanted to forget about the Vietnam War, and so they just ignored
you totally, rather [ than] welcome you home. And the POWs were different because they
had been kept captive, and had gone through all this horrendous stuff. So the POWs were
a little different.
DM: The regular vets, many of them did have many problems adjusting.
GM: Serious problems adjusting.
DM: And part of that problem was the feeling of others not looking up to them.
GM: And my mom and dad, if you were talking to them today, if they were listening to
this conversation would be outraged, and they still are outraged, that the poor Vietnam
vets, they had such a terrible time. They didn’t have it any different than my dad coming
home from the Korean Conflict. Because at the time it was called the Korean War, and
now they have lessened it down to the Korean Conflict. And Dad says that wasn’t a
popular war. We just had gotten done with WWII, and no one wanted to send our guys
over to Korea. It was an unpopular war, very, very unpopular. They didn’t win the
Korean War.
DM: It was called the line of Demarcation.
GM: And he [ her father] says we didn’t come home heroes, like WWII guys came home
big heroes, with the big bands and parades. And so he goes [ her dad] I don’t feel sorry for
those little Vietnam vets who whine and boob. I did the same thing and I’m not whining
and boobing and letting it ruin my life. My dad is very, very unhappy with the Vietnam
vets and why they got a big Vietnam memorial in Washington D. C. and the Koreans
don’t. They do now; they are working on it now. For years and years we heard about and
still do about the poor VN vets and how their lives have been ruined from the war. Well
we have had guys who have served in wars and seen horrific, terrible things, and they’re
not the same, I agree, they’re not the same. They’re different people. I’m not saying all
Vietnam vets did that. Look at Richard Byington, Bruce Dobson, really cool guy, Denny
Lowe. Good guys, good guys who saw lots of bad things and all of their wives say they
never talk about it. You can’t ask them questions like this, most Vietnam Vets, maybe
now they are going to start doing it, they are getting older, they are able to talk about it
more. You wouldn’t be able to talk to a Vietnam Vet, most of them.
RM: I didn’t want to talk to Richard Byington; that would scare me a lot.
GM: And I don’t think he would agree to talk to ya bout it.
RM: Do you think that WWII vets are more willing to talk about their experiences?
GM: No, I don’t. I watched a documentary and the WWII vets saying we didn’t ever talk
about it. We came home from the war and got on with our lives. We didn’t ever talk
about what happened over there when we were fighting those wars. It’s only now when
they’re getting old that they’re starting to talk about it. And they’re releasing some of the
pent up feelings that they’ve had when they go back to the some of the places that they
fought and so many of their comrades died, and it brings it all back to them for some
reason, and they’re sobbing and crying.
RM: Okay to wrap it all up a couple more questions. Do you think that your experiences
and memories of the Vietnam Era has impacted your look on government, politics, the
world? Do you think it has impacted the way you see things?
DM: I think that our performance in Vietnam hurt us internationally for a long period.
Korea took the Pueblo. Do you know what that is?
FM: No.
DM: It’s a battleship. This was years later, it was floating off the shores of North Korea
and they boarded it, shot people, and towed it to Korea, and we didn’t take it back. And
they still have it today. And that just shows the lack of respect that the international
community had for the United States and its will.
GM: But partly because of our government and because of all the protesters that said we
shouldn’t be fighting a war, [ the U. S.] became real, real soft. We don’t want to cause any
conflict with the NK because we don’t want to go to war. It’s just like what we’ve just
been through with Clinton. We don’t want to go to any wars. And Bush is called a
Terrorist because he says, “ Nope, we’re going to be strong.”
RM: So do you think that this is the first time then that America is willing to show some
will power since that era?
DM: Yes.
GM: Oh no, because we had Grenada.
DM: Reagan certainly had a strong posture. He built up militarily. He wasn’t afraid to
rattle the saber. He helped invade Grenada. Certainly influenced the bringing down of
Communism. Brought on the dialogue with Gorbachev. And those two made their peace.
And then the wall came down magically. But it wasn’t because we were trying to be
everyone’s friend. And that has been a political policy that has been pervasive since the
Vietnam War that we just need to get along and be friends with everyone, irregardless of
their human rights records, how they treat their citizens, irregardless of their political
aggression, military aggression, don’t make them mad. Bush has had a different thought
entirely. And Libya has determined to expose its nuclear plans. And how did that
happen? It only happened after Iraq. North Korea is now talking multilaterally with the
other nations, and it refused to do that. It only wanted to talk to the US, to basically
leverage money out of it to surrender its nuclear programs. But it is now talking. I just
think that the diplomacy of strength has worked better and will work better than the
diplomacy of ‘ we’re just going to try to soft- shoe and soft- pedal everything.’ That
diplomacy has been going on for decades. And what has it produced? It has produced
hateful, hateful nations that have festered terrorism.
GM: We had 9- 11 because we were soft.
DM: I believe that.
GM: And Bush went out and said, “ We’re not soft anymore.” And so guess what, Libya
is one of the countries that has said,” We don’t want that to happen to us.”
DM: Started to cooperate.
GM: and other countries have started to cooperate
DM: Pakistan, as soon as 9- 11 happened it was either you’re for us or you’re against us.
If you harbor Bin Laden and other terrorists, we will take you down. And Pakistan came
right around.
GM: A lot of countries have been backpedaling as fast as they can.
DM: And we have had a lot of international cooperation in rounding up terrorists. I think
that the newspapers have underplayed it big time. Little tiny pieces, buried in the back
pages, about this key person and that key person being trapped in Iran or Pakistan by
local authorities. Some of the French have been able to gather them. There’s been quite a
cooperation of the International community in the European theatre to gather in terrorists.
Only because of the leadership of the United States has that happened and will continue
to happen as long as we provide strong leadership. I don’t think that being nice has made
friends, being nice has festered additional hatred, and contempt, and jealousy for
America. Yeah there’s lots wrong with our approach to the International community.
There’s things that we could improve on, definitely. But just back off and being soft has
not been a good thing.
RM: Last question. Do you ever worry, like with Iraq that it might escalate, and there
might be a danger of us getting into another Vietnam situation?
DM: No, because I don’t think this country will let that happen again. There will be
protests so big. I don’t think the optical will of George Bush, right now is strong enough.
We have invested, although not very much blood of you compare to 50,000 dying in
Vietnam, 500 does not seem like very much for what we’ve done, although each death is
personal for the survivors of those. But I think that George Bush is bending to political
will to get out of there too soon. Such that the it could very easily be swamped again with
the influence and the horror and turning it over to the Iraqis way too soon. And again it’s
political. I think this is a great opportunity for America to have a strong foothold in that
region and use that as a base to influence other countries for good with regards to
democratizing them, but not if it’s turned over to the Iraqis too soon. And that’s too bad.
So that’s why it won’t turn into a Vietnam. It won’t.