The Introduction by Julius Lester to David Parks' Letters

In every war in which America has engaged, blacks have been willing soldiers. During the Revolutionary War, blacks fought at Bunker Hill, Yorktown, and every other famous battle site. Blacks crossed the Delaware with Washington and when Paul Revere rode through the streets yelling “The British are coming!” he woke up black Minutemen as well as white.

Blacks fought and died in the War of 1812. They fought with Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, and Jackson afterwards maintained that the city would have been lost except for black troops. They fought in the Civil War, and after that war there were black cavalry regiments who fought Indians in the West. Black soldiers ran up San Juan Hill ahead of Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in the Spanish American War and were highly praised by him afterwards. World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the War in Vietnam all saw the participation in great numbers of black soldiers, who--almost without exception--fought well, fought hard, and fought long.

Yet blacks have always participated in America’s wars with mixed feelings. At home they were discriminated against. To many it seemed contradictory that they should fight and risk their lives to insure the freedom of a country that allowed them no freedom. But they also thought if they proved themselves willing to defend such a country, it would be more difficult to discriminate against blacks. How could America refuse to extend all the rights and privileges of citizenship to a people who fought for the country?

With the war in Vietnam, the thinking of many young black men changed. David Parks was one of them. The son of a distinguished black writer-photographer-composer, Gordon Parks, David grew up differently from most blacks. His father was famous and affluent. David knew no poverty and hardly any discrimination. When he was drafted at the age of twenty-one, he went without the slightest hesitation. He was aware that there were many blacks calling the war in Vietnam a “white man’s war.” He knew that blacks had been shot down in the streets of American cities by policemen and National Guardsmen during the urban rebellions. But went, because he was an American and believed in America.

His two-year tour of duty in Vietnam changed the way David looked at himself and America. On the battlefields of Vietnam, fighting alongside white soldiers, he learned about racism and discrimination. It was everywhere, even in the very fact of the war itself!

David kept a diary of his Army life. When he was discharged from the service in 1967, at the suggestion of his father he used the diary as the basis for a short, intense book. G.I. Diary was published the following year. In the selection reprinted here, David describes the treatment he and other black soldiers suffered at the hands of white soldiers and officers and his reactions to it. It seems ironic that it was while he was fighting for the alleged freedom of the South Vietnamese that he learned just how little freedom he himself had.

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David’s Diary Letters 

January 31, 1967

     The FO’s* job is one of the hairiest in a mortar platoon. He’s on more patrols because an FO is required to be with the patrolling squads at all times, and there are only three FO’s to cover sixteen squads. The odds are against him. Sgt. Paulson hand-picks men for the job. So far he’s fingered only Negroes and Puerto Ricans for this job. I think he’s trying to tell us something. I do known he gives me a sour look every times he sees me at the FDC** controls. Every time he comes around I get the feeling that I should have been born white. It’s a bitch. If only the Souls*** and Puerto Ricans could tell the world what really happens to them in this man’s army. We do receive more than our share of the shit.

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*Forward Observer—Many Black Vietnam soldiers said that the term stood for Fucked Over.—Amin Sharif

** Fire Direction Control

*** Souls -reference to Soul Brothers!

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February 2, 1967

The biggest laugh I’ve had lately was when I was on radio watch the other night and Paulson thought he’s sneak up on the radio tent and catch me napping. I heard a grunt and thud and looked out to see Paulson spread-eagled on the ground. I knew just what he was up to and burst out laughing. I really cracked up. Paulson was so ticked off all he did was get up and walk away. Paulson really is an ass. He’s always telling me that Negroes are lazy and won’t help themselves, etc. I tell him he’s full of shit and end up filling sandbags.

Whitey is the same throughout this whole damn organization. Somehow I though it would be different this time. Especially over here, where survival is the thing. But that seems to cut no ice with Mister Pale. All souls in the platoon are beginning to gripe, but not enough as far as I’m concerned. Lt. Alden, the platoon leader, usually calls us Negroes “you people.” Zerman, a Jewish cat from New York is hip to what is happening, but he’s got his own problems. Sgt. Golas changes  with the weather. Sometimes he’s human. At other times he treats Souls like dirt. What the hell. Maybe it’s the pressure.

Ten more months of this crap. These guys bug me more than Charlie. I’m learning one hell of a lesson in here. Whitey’s a good teacher.

The handwriting is definitely on the wall. Paulson says I’m not figuring the FDC data fast enough. Getting my walking boots ready. 

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February 9, 1967

Just got kicked out of my beautiful FDC job. The good Sgt. Paulson strikes again. He gave me the news with a smile. I am now Forward Observer Parks, attached to the First Platoon command track. On mission our platoon has to dismount and go after Charlie on foot. And I’m carrying that fucking telephone with the antenna, which makes a beautiful target. It’s a sergeant’s job, but Paulson’s not going to promote me. The bastard.

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May 25, 1967

Rain has brought everything to a standstill, and Bravo is under about ten feet of water. Sometimes I would prefer action to sitting around listening to these officers beat their gums. It’s either how many battles they’ve won or how many broads they’ve laid. At times they act like children the way they demand attention. And you’d better jump if you don’t want your ass out on the firing line. The only way to keep cool with them is to lie quiet. Show the slightest sign of intelligence and you’ve had it. Especially if you’re a Negro. Pratt and Gurney are pretty bright souls. But every time you see them they are pulling shit detail while the white cats lie in their bunks enjoying life. A couple of white guys got so ashamed that they came to the old man today and complained about Pratt and Gurney getting all the shit. I hope it does some good, but I doubt it.

Sgt. Paulson is detail boss. Capt. Thomas is a good officer and most of the time he treats me OK, probably because I am his RTO ( Radio Telephone Operator). But sometimes he forgets himself. I made the mistake of showing him a clipping Deedee sent about Martin Luther King’s denouncing the war. “Who the hell does he think he is? Just because he got a Noble Prize he thinks he can run the fucking world.” He went on, ripping King apart. I said I thought King was a man who believed in justice for all people. Then I shut my big mouth. I wasn’t in the mood for a night patrol.

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June 1967

Wow! Got a letter from Ken Gillman today. Liz told him I’ve been accepted at RIT. Hope it’s true.

Why doesn’t pop write?

For the past ten days we have been operating in the Tan An area, just south of Saigon. We got two kills the other day that will be hard to forget. The choppers spotted them as they were trying to get away and their gunner riddled them. We finished them off with the 50’s. It was just bloody raw meat mixed with mud. Not a very pretty picture. Passmore’s the other RTO, got sick and let go on the old man’s boots. He still isn’t used to it after six months. I didn’t get sick. But I didn’t want ant steak dinner after that either.

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June 8, 1967

Well it’s true. I’ve been accepted. Got letters from RIT and Pops this afternoon. This should push me up eighty days  earlier. Can’t wait. Damned tired of living in dirt, taking orders and being called names by my superiors. Paulson insults Negro soldiers just for kicks, I’m sure. Pratt hates his guts. “I going to mistake that son-of a-bitch for Charlie one of these days, baby,” he said, after pulling night patrol for the third straight night.

I’ve got 250 missions under my belt and over 25 major operations. That’s good enough for a full tour already. But the scuttlebutt is that we’re headed for the DMZ. Hope not. Could be true. We’ve killed a lot of VC around the Delta region. We have a good fighting record. Some of the villagers have come to think of us as murderers of civilians. That’s one of the main tragedies of the war, so many innocent people getting hurt or killed. Some of the guys have indulged in some raping too. They even brag about it.

Jones a Negro guy who joined us recently, killed a civilian the other day, and in front of his three kids. We’d taken the civilian into custody because he didn’t have an identification card.* We put him in a hut together with his wife and kids, while we waited for the local police to come and identify him. The man tried to get out of the hut a couple of times, but each time Jones ordered him back. Jones and I chewed the fat for a while, then I went outside and sat against the wall of the hut for a nap. Suddenly, an M-16 went off, so close I thought I’d been hit. I rushed back to see Jones standing over the guy, who was trying to get to his feet. Blood was pumping out of his back like a fountain. Jones stood there sweating and shaking. He said the guy ran for the door and he had to shoot. The kids were crying and holding on to one another, and his wife was kneeling over him, kind of moaning. A medic came and tried to save the guy, but he was gone. I could tell by the way the medic shook his head from side to side. A little later the local police arrived and said that the man was clean--he wasn’t a VC. Too bad they didn’t arrive a little earlier.

That night the wife complained to the Vietnamese authorities, because the next morning an MP came out to investigate. The CO told Jones not to worry, that he was doing his job.

I still don’t know what made that gut try to get out of the hut. The awful thing is that if we had tied him up as we should have he wouldn’t have tried to escape, and then he wouldn’t have gotten shot. The only reason we didn’t tie him up was because his family was there and we thought it would make them feel bad. I can’t stop thinking about the kids. They’ll hate us for the rest of their lives. And who can blame them?

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* All Vietnamese civilians carry an identification card issued by the Government of the Republic of Vietnam. 

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July 24, 1967

A strange change has come over the CO. He’s suddenly begun to think of himself as a great killer of men, brags about and laughs about the Charlies he’s killed. I’ve always respected him more than most of the other officers, and when he’s under pressure I try to help him. Sometimes he’s buddy-buddy, but other times he treats me like a flunky. A couple of weeks ago we were sitting around in a rice paddy waiting for orders and the old man decided to get in some practice with his .45. He had me sloshing around in the mud setting up C-ration cans as targets for half an hour, like a pin boy. And the other day he dropped his rifle in the muck and asked me to pick it up. I knew he was expecting me to clean it off, but I just handed it to him and walked off. He was really pissed. Passmore’s his boy for that kind of thing. I think he ended up cleaning the rifle, too. I’ve been through too much shit to take any from Thomas at this point.

Just received the operation order for tomorrow’s mission. It will be a three-day mission, and my twenty-third airmobile lift. The monsoons are still with us. I miss our tracks.

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August 1, 1967

On Operation Lansing to clear Highway 4 from the Delta to the capitol.

Charlie woke up at 2 A.M., a couple of mornings ago and we been catching hell ever since. We were to go out on operation against him in a few hours, but he caught us off guard. He throw rocket and mortar fire at us and everything else he had in his arsenal. We scrambled around in the darkness grabbing things we needed to survive and kill with. We finally got onto our tracks and were moving out of base camp when I suddenly realized that this was my last operation. I thought about Harris, Gurney, and all the other short-timers. And I began praying I’d make it. I kept praying as we headed for the battle zone where the VC had fired from. And I kept counting the operations and missions I had been on over and over, trying like hell to keep my cool.

We had already called the choppers in when the landing zone unit called saying we were being hit. Thomas gave the word, and we dismounted and moved over to help them. Then bullets started coming from every direction, even from friendly positions. We crawled as we fired, to keep out of the way of our own support. And I was awful thankful for all that crawling they put us through back at Riley. By now the landing zone was in bad trouble and Thomas took us on a short cut through the swamp. Muck was waist deep, but we kept on firing as we went.

Then suddenly I was stuck, sinking in. Each time I tried pulling out I went in deeper. The other guys were leaving me behind, going ahead blasting into the wood line. It was useless for me to yell for help. No one could have heard me in the noise. The VC was still pouring it into us. Suddenly I felt tired, so tired I wasn’t scared any more. I suppose I was giving up. Short-time had caught up with me. Then someone came splashing past. It was that bastard Paulson. Now he looked like an angel as he extended his rifle, butt first, and hauled me out of that hole. We both kept of moving forward.

By dawn we had the VC surrounded, but they wouldn’t give up. There are over two thousand of them in the area and they fought all day. They tired to break through by pounding Charlie Company that evening. A Med Evac chopper had been shot down in the Charlie Company area and ten guys died trying to secure it. The VC knew that this was the weak spot to try and get through, but artillery wouldn’t let them. We listened to the artillery rounds pounding the VC escape route all last night.

Charlie broke through at one point but couldn’t escape. We’re still on his tail. But he knows this country well, and there are plenty of places for him to hide. Right now things have quieted down. The army’s set up showers in a little town nearby and guys have gone, I on radio watch in the track.

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September 9, 1967

I take off for home day after tomorrow. Yowie!

Just got back from Bravo. The guys were out on the wood line patrolling, so I didn’t see them. Several guys got it while I was on R[est] and R[ecreation]. Don’t know exactly who they are. Did see Passmore, who is being transferred to headquarters company. I never like that guy, but when he walked me to the chopper that was taking me out, I couldn’t help but feel some kinship with him. We’ve been through a lot together. I wished him the best and meant it. He said he hoped he’d see me on the other side and didn’t mean it. I could do without that anyway.

The chopper ride back to Zulu is probably the last one I take in Nam. Looking down over the rice paddies I knew so well made me wonder if I had a right to be there. When I came into the army I had no questions, but I am leaving with some. Back in basic they told us over and over again that these people needed help, that they were poor and don’t know how to solve their own problems, that we promised them our help, and that we couldn’t go back on them. Well, there were times when it seemed to me we were doing them more harm than good.

I never felt that I was fighting for any particular cause. I fought to stay alive, and killed to keep from being killed. Now that it’s all over there is a funny feeling running through my stomach, when I think of what could have happened to me. When you’re in the middle of fighting you become strong and do things you didn’t think possible. You only think about it afterwards. It’s hard for me to believe I’m all here and in one piece. Somebody up there is with me after all.

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September 13, 1967

Homeward  bound. Went across on the thirteenth and going home on the thirteenth. Must be my lucky number. The white guy who sold me my ticket at the airport gave me some really dirty looks. He pitched my ticket at me like I was dirt. There is nothing like the army to make you conscious of such things. The ticket seller reminded me of how some white officers treated me. Well, I’m a Negro and I’m back home where color makes the difference. I was feeling good on the plane from Namsville. Thought I’d left all my problems behind. Hell, the new ones will just have to wait. I’m going to enjoy myself for a few days--just knowing Charlie won’t be around to wake me up in the morning.

Source: Young and Black in America (Random House, 1970)

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Julius Lester, once a forceful advocate of the black militant movement, is the author of Look Out Whitey! Black Power's Goin' get Your Mama; To Be A Slave;  Revolutionary Notes; Black Folktales; Search for the New Land; The Seventh Son; The Thought and Writings of W.E.B. DuBois; Long Journey Home: Stories from Black History; Two Love Stories; The Knee High Man and Other Tales, and Who I Am. To Be A Slave (1968) was the 1968 Newberry Medal runner-up. His writings have appeared in The Village Voice, The Guardian, The Movement, Broadsides, Liberator, and Sing Out. In addition, Lester has records for Vanguard Records. His reviews appeared frequently in the pages of the New York Times. His biography, All Is Well, was published in 1970. Strange New Feeling (1982) is a compilation of stories of newly freed slaves.

GI Diary (1982) by David Parks
GI Diary follows a black GI's struggle with American racism, both at home and abroad, during the Vietnam War. David Parks gives the reader a running account of the life in the Vietnam War over a two-year period, portraying the fear and insanity, the insensitivity and brutality.

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posted 9 November 2007