I was a fortunate son to travel to Vietnam with Paul Parrish in 2015. We traveled from Ho Chi Minh City in the south to Hanoi in the north, with a group that included one American (Jon Montgomery) who was close to Karin Alves True…………an Austin College friend of mine. Hey, there’s always a Roo tie.
At Ho Chi Minh City, we visited the old American embassy of South Vietnam and the Reunification Palace of a united Vietnam. Both were scenes of intense fighting during the January 1968 Tet Offensive. While technically a military victory for the American side, the bloody cost of the battle was proof to many Americans that their leaders were not being truthful about events on the ground or within hearts and minds of all parties involved.
And Americans were right to be skeptical. The Pentagon’s own study from the 1950s accurately predicted how disastrously the war would unfold over the next two decades. The military study was quietly shelved, and the politicians in numerous administrations proceeded anyway. When an analyst at the RAND corporation named Daniel read the study, he was so shocked that he risked imprisonment so that the rest of us could read it.
Our tour eventually took us just outside of Ho Chi Minh city, into the sprawling Mekong river delta. We were not far from Cu Chi, the site of the famous tunnels. In order to avoid American bombardment, Vietnamese built an elaborate system of deep tunnels that extended hundreds of miles wide. Conditions in the tunnels were harsh, but provided the Vietnamese a base from which to launch Tet and continue engagement as long as necessary until the Americans, like the French, Japanese, and Chinese before them, finally left. It was a dangerous place to be for an American soldier.
Danny Gilstrap was a track & field star at Austin College, earning his degree in 1967. He was also a soldier during his time at AC, and was sent to Vietnam in January of 1968 after the outbreak of Tet. His unit’s mission in the weeks after was to patrol the dangerous tunnels of Cu Chi. The tunnels were usually booby trapped, and often guarded by entrenched soldiers lying in wait. On February 22, 1968, Gilstrap’s unit approached one of them. It was guarded by a sniper. Gilstrap was hit by small arms fire; he never had a chance. At the tunnels of Cu Chi, a Kangaroo breathed his last breath.
Our tour guide in Vietnam was a wonderful man named Yang Maverick. He became a good friend. Yang is an incredible photographer; you should follow him simply to enjoy his pictures. Yang’s father was also a photographer, with the Vietnamese military when Gilstrap was in country. Yang told a story about how one of his father’s duties was to take pictures of the arrival of the army at the Reunification Palace in 1975. I told Yang that the arrival also had significance for me too. It occurred on April 29th. My birthday.
Up north near Hanoi, Yang and I talked about music. He told me the story of Vietnamese borrowing the tunes of American songs for their own national uses, and then later learning with shock that the songs were not their own. I mentioned to him that American music about Vietnam was very different than prior periods, as most of it focused on the angst of the soldier and the futility of the conflict. I asked him if he was familiar with “Goodnight Saigon,” by Billy Joel. Not surprisingly, he was.
The only good thing about the conflict in Vietnam is that every day pushes it further into the past. Today, Vietnam is a vibrant and increasingly prosperous society full of admiration for American culture and history, in spite of last century’s conflict and continued political differences. Vietnam is slowly moving on, and so is America. Given that the suffering of the Vietnamese was 20 times our own, we can certainly do so if they can.
But it’s important to remember the powerless lives affected by the questionable decisions of the powerful and their fortunate sons. Danny Gilstrap, the Roo track star who was struck down not far from our visit to the delta in 2015, will be inducted into the Austin College Hall of Honor this summer at Legends as an honorary member. Gilstrap’s family briefly spoke at Legends 2019 about the honor, and all of us listening on campus were deeply moved. You could have heard a pin drop.
In a perfect world, American administrations would have abided by their own Pentagon papers and would have wisely avoided the engagement. Doing so would have dramatically reduced the hardship for Yang’s family and potentially allowed me to shake Danny Gilstrap’s hand personally to congratulate him this summer. There ain’t no perfect world, unfortunately.
But we can still attend Legends in 2020. Yes we can all go down together….and tip our cap in Sherman to a Roo whose life ended prematurely at a place called Cu Chi.
