Distant Shore: a Memoir

By Alvin L. Simpson

On the stormy night of September 16, 1967, young Marine Alvin Simpson faced the terrors of a long night at sea on a Higgins boat during a typhoon. Men all around him were convulsing, sickened by the waves, the cold, and diesel smoke. The trials of that night on the open sea strengthened Alvins faith in God as he remembered to pray the way his grandfather had taught him. And it was this faith that sustained him through the many months and battles yet to come during his time in Vietnam.

Distant Shore: A Memoir is the story of Alvins life, written to share with his daughter Tara, her children, and their posterity. He tells his story as an apology to Tara for not being able to answer her questions about Vietnam while she was growing up. His story takes the reader from the streets of Cleveland to the jungles of Vietnam. Alvin shares his own family history and the values he learned growing up in a close-knit African American community.

Born on July 4, 1946, Alvin praises his mother for raising him and four siblings as a single parent. He credits his grandfather, a Presbyterian preacher, for being his model of spirituality.

Alvins boyhood dream of becoming a Marine became reality when he enlisted after high school graduation. He served with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, 3rd Marine Division in 1967 and 1968 in the Republic of South Vietnam, attaining the rank of Sergeant.

After being released from the Marine Corps, Alvin began his college education at The Ohio State University, where he also ran varsity track. He earned his B.S. in Education in 1972 and his M.A. in Education in 1974. Alvins career as a Social Studies teacher for Columbus Public Schools began in 1972. He also coached track and field and was named Coach of the Year in 1996 and 2001. After 32 years of teaching and mentoring students, Alvin retired in 2004.

Once a Marine, always a Marine is the credo

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 29, 2009
• ISBN: 9781467048842

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© 2009 Alvin L. Simpson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 1/19/2009

ISBN: 978-1-4389-3775-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-4884-2(ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

MEMORIAL DAY 2006

UNTIL EVERYONE COMES HOME.

DISTANT SHORE

DEAR AMERICA

84TH STREET

DEAR JACK WEBB

PARRIS ISLAND

LET NO MAN’S GHOST

OUT POSTING

MY FIRST CAMPAIGN

NAS WHIDBEY

ON TO THE FAR EAST

FORTRESS SENTRY

MY FEAR

A PALE HORSE

TOP GUN

KHE SANH RATS

MCNAMARA’S WALL

WE CALL HIM VIC

THE END

HOMEWARD BOUND

REFLECTIONS

AFTERWORD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

EVERLASTING GRATITUDE TO ALL OF you continues to imbue me:

Reverend Willie Wiggins, Nancy Wiggins, Alberta Simpson, Janice Simpson, Jeff Simpson Sr., Jeff Simpson Jr., Willie Simpson, Nancy Simpson, Tara Simpson, Denise Simpson, Diana D, Kathleen M, Emilie F, Jackie K, Elden M, Diana T, Bruce S, Judy B, Darz T, Rick L, Edward S, Jeanie B, James C, Alvin L, Donald C, Patricia G, and to all of my 84th Street cohort each and every one of you, and thanks to the 84th Street psychology. I must thank all of the grunts I served with in the Corps; it is because of all of you that my light still shines. I shall never forget SSgt. Perry Smiley, Sgt W.E. Benner, and Sgt D.M. Donovan my Drill Instructors who forcibly, but with love taught me the skills I would need to survive on that Distant Shore.And, to the memory of my dear brother Lorenza Gayles. For all of this I thank Him.

"Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time;"

---Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

MEMORIAL DAY 2006

UNTIL EVERYONE COMES HOME. 

IT WAS OH, SO GOOD listening to all the patriotic songs, inspirational songs, and spiritual songs tonight. For reasons I can’t put a finger on, and often fight, the songs of national pride and glory always give me a little consolation; reality is, the horror of the war is never far away. The speeches stir my soul and lend some credence to the elusive utility of all the tragedy and death of my brothers—the loss of my friend Lorenza Gayles. The prayers and well wishes of the survivors and war’s spectators is fleeting comfort, and remind me there is efficacy in prayer, I don’t try fool myself; I know too well things of this ilk don’t get better, I have simply learned to wear the losses a bit more comfortably.

My heart today is as vacant as it became that day, 40 and some years ago when I got the news of my dear friend’s death Vietnam; the pain stings as deeply today, as it did 38 years ago, when we fought a faceless enemy there, when I survived and my brothers died, and I could only wonder why. As I have walked this world over the years, I have feared little and loved much; they are always with me, and will always be with me; my living is the reason they existed; the life I have been fortunate to live, the reason they had to die.

Oh it was kind of good tonight; the songs, the speeches, and the prayers gave me a brief respite from my anger over the present crisis. But, after all these years, thank God, the sorrow is still there in my heart. I need it. I will never forget them . . . I remember! And, I still cry. I guess I always will -- Until Everyone Comes Home.

DISTANT SHORE 

Distant Shore.

Storm of beautiful memories.

So often you bring joy to my heart-serenity to my soul.

In my mind I am free to venture back-

And set myself free of today’s malady.

There I walk in surf, surf that recalls to my mind

The scent of foreign and distant lands. My mind sails.

And dreams about the Corps of my brothers, my friends, my youth.

I dream of Immortality that I once possessed. I loved those days.

I was strong and determined. I was handsome.

I had faith. It was like an intermittent wind, but faith I had.

Often I recall those vintage days.

With Exacting clarity, I can recall them all, each one

Still glimmerng-now only memories of things that once were mine.

I came to life on that Distant Shore.

Today, today I am the offspring of my fallen brothers.

Today I blossom.

My faith, it thrives even in this world of trials and tribulations;

In this World gone mad, and destined to another Distant Shore.

Only a tested, honored few are strong enough to recall, with glee,

The splendid misery our tumultuous making.

Only we few, hold a sacred trust.

With pride, we are strong enough to recall, who we were there,

But moreover what we did there

Remember the brothers we left there, on that Distant Shore.

To the winds we few, the chosen few, have been blown.

We’ll dwell in this mire for generations

Charged to flourish and carry the legacy.

In this darkness we carry the torch and cast broad shadows

Upon civilization; lest it forget that this garden we call our home

Has been nurtured, and nourished

By the blood and tears of my brothers

On that Distant Shore.

Quietly, ever so quietly, we continue to sow

In the minds and hearts of the children of this morass

We teach any one who seeks the high moral ground.

Quietly, ever so quietly, we provide that light and inspiration

And should they ever be called

Called to do what we were proud to do

On a yet to be named Distant Shore.

And then they’ll rise, and carry the creed, the honor, the way.

Semper Fidelis.

And the new generation of Marines

Will bear these things, from this home I dearly love,

From this Distant Shore-

This place I call America

DEAR AMERICA 

October 4, 2004

America

The United States of America

North American Continent

Dear America,

I love you so very much, my heart aches watching you destroy yourself, watching this abuse of your young people yet again, using them for cannon fodder—and for what end? Iraqi Freedom! The ramifications of this war you have embarked upon are going to reach well into this new 21st Century. Why is it so hard for you to understand? Can’t you see the similarities between this war on terror, and that debacle known to many of us called Vietnam?

During the Vietnam War it was McNamara and his whiz kids who high jacked the direction of your nation, and almost brought about the internal destruction of it. You are now engaged in an eminent catastrophe, and again, your nation has been commandeered, this time by the neocons, led by Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, and Dick Cheney. You would do yourself a wealth of good to learn about these people. Their motives may be well meaning. I think they are wrong, and not good for the nation. Please stop this madness, and don’t allow what happened to us happen to the youth of today. During Vietnam, we were sent by our leaders to fight a determined enemy who, if he had succeeded would have brought communism to these very shores I love so much. No, we had to stop the spread of communism in its tracks—right there in Southeast Asia. As for our leaders, they too thought their motives were in the right place, but they too were wrong. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Today’s young warriors are on a mission of global hegemony—they don’t know that though. These young warriors, America’s best ever, don’t know that they are on a mission of conquest, designed to spread America’s dominance in this crucial, unstable part of the world; I believe this in spite of what the neocons say. Hegemony is not congruent with the traditions and teachings of the founders; it is not what America is and what America used to stand for. God knows, this is not the America I grew up knowing, loving, and fighting for.

Trust me. If you think the Vietnam veterans suffered there, they returned home only to suffer more from an ungrateful nation, and the ghosts and horrors that have haunted them since.

The Iraq war veterans believe in what they are fighting for, and if they have any doubts they won’t voice them. They believe as we (Vietnam veterans) believed, above all else, Duty, Honor, Country. And they too will return home with their own ghosts, their own horrors, and their own continuing struggles.

I don’t often have the kinds of dreams that plague many combat Vietnam veterans—hideous nightmares filled with brutalities, atrocities, inhumanities and fear. In the reality of my past these things are as much a part of the life I lived there in Vietnam, as they are of every combat veteran’s life who served there, and I know that they are a part of every combat veteran’s life regardless of the war he served in. But I am fortunate. I am living, I am alive and well enough to try to tell you my story.

This work is not an attempt by me to wrest myself from the past nor it from me. This is nothing more than my effort to revisit my past and try to make some sense of it—for myself, and then pass it along to you and my daughter, in particular for her and her children’s posterity. This is not the story about my life or my family’s rise up from poverty into America’s middle-class; this is not the story of a heroic Marine endeavoring to do his duty, his part to save the world from communism—all combat Marines of that war are heroic.

For many years my daughter has asked me to tell her stories. What was it like for you when you were growing up, Dad? What was it like for you in the Vietnam War? Did you kill anybody? As she grew older the questions became more complex and thought provoking. How come you don’t talk about it, and how did Lorenza, your best friend, get killed over there? Would you do it again?

I have never told her any stories; I never could. The stories seem to have gotten lost. I certainly didn’t file them away in a neat and orderly fashion. I always felt that stories about my youth could only serve to motivate her as those youthful kinds of experiences had done for me, so I shared many of those with her. Like many combat veterans I saw no real value to my daughter in any of those stories, my memories about the war and my participation in it.

The thoughts have been there for decades . . . I should tell her things about the life I lived and how I lived it. I should tell her these things now, because I wasn’t there to tell her bedtime stories when she was growing up. I should tell her because by doing so I might be able to give her some insight into who her dad really is, and perhaps why he is the way that he is. As it is with every man, the thoughts of my past are like 100,000 pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. To put those pieces together would necessitate stripping me and my ego of its armor. My age and my confidence have rendered the task less daunting today. Many of those pieces, especially those from my youth, will have to be exhumed from the crypts of time, from an era of innocence and freedom from want or worry. Some of those pieces of the puzzle will have to be forced up out of my subconscious. There are scores of things in every man’s life that he wishes he could forget—fights to forget. Every man is a unit-multiplex, a many sided one; every man is a whole being that is a composite of 100,000 experiences. Now I am engaged in the humbling and arduous task of putting those pieces together, taking 100,000 individual links of metal and forging one chain from them. I’m attempting to take my 100,000 experiences and use them to paint a picture of a chapter in my life.

I am never comfortable with a person until I know what motivates him or her, to do thus and such. I am never comfortable with things that happen, until I know what caused those events to evolve the way they did. I have forced myself to look for these causals in everyday life, and now I am forcing myself to look for meaning in my past.

In 1968 when the plane that I was on hurtled its way away from the shores of Vietnam, it was in the dark of night. It was only a few days later when I landed in California; again it was in the wee dark hours of early morning. Ironically, I arrived home in Cleveland, Ohio, in the middle of the night. It was fitting and I think proper, though maybe not intentional, that most of us Vietnam veterans did return home under a cloak of darkness.

For the first time in our nation’s history America was regretting her involvement in a war. The politicians in Washington, DC, by virtue of their policy of constrained military force in Vietnam, had rendered our military forces there impotent, and in so doing, assured the North Vietnamese a victory, if not militarily, at least politically. Our quest to contain communism from toppling all of Southeast Asia was all for naught. America’s fate in Vietnam dictated that its warriors slip back into their homeland under the veil of darkness, and under the specter of regret. If the truth could ever be known, however, from the multitudes of us who returned from Vietnam, only a few of us would have said we regretted the service, or the sacrifice we were called upon to render.

In my view, World War II was harder than Vietnam and so was Korea. But World War II and Korea had the support of the politicians in Washington; World War II had military leaders that most commanders in Vietnam could only dream of emulating. The Army had Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley. The Navy had Admirals King, Nimitz, and Halsey; and my beloved Marine Corps had Roy Geiger, Alexander Vandergrift, and Holland (Howlin Mad) Smith. These men along with many others who had the right stuff, used their exceptional military prowess, their determination of will, and they literally saved the world from tyranny.

I know I am the sum total of all my experiences. I also know that experiences never die. All of my experiences are lying dormant in the shadows of my once almost dead past, Iraqi Freedom has stimulated and Recalled to life the embers of my almost dead past—those precious memories that were hidden away in my subconscious, harbored safely and at rest, are now with much regret recalled to life. Many guys who served there have told their story about Vietnam—-long, ugly, gory stories. My story is different. Every combat Marine or soldier’s story is different—-no less true, just different. The mental activity that the war pressed upon me, and pressed me into, makes up the essence of my Vietnam experience. In recent past I have begun to attend reunions with guys who served with the Second Battalion, Third Marines, Third Marine Division during the Vietnam era. It might surprise many people to learn that during these gatherings, not many war stories are exchanged. A few are, but we all know what we did over there. Attending these reunions has made my sojourn into the past a lot easier. For the first time in over thirty years I am able to once again be around people who are like me; for the first time in over thirty years, I am able to talk with people who speak the same language I speak; I can be at ease with them and I can be at ease with myself—and not worry about the specter of February, invading me for four days. How can a man with such a large and supporting family as mine ever feel February’s gloom, and be alone in it? I am one in a million—living casualties of that war. When I left Vietnam, I left part of myself there, and I left friends the likes of whom I have not had since. I miss them. None of us came home from that war unscathed. All of us carry our own private little pieces of hell from that war, conscious or subconscious, and the hell will always be with us.

Now I am attempting to bring all of the pieces of the puzzle to form a picture. I must endeavor to breathe life anew into all of those experiences and bring them back—into my current existence of relative calm and ease, into an existence that is shadowed by inevitable death. Death is a certainty that every man must face, but it is a certainty that today I have a chance to contemplate, to steel myself for, to prepare and accept as the natural course of life, and yes at times to fear. Combat provided me with no such luxuries.

So, America, I am sharing with you as best I can the sum of a chapter in my life. I want to give you a glimpse of the wonderful, fun-filled life I lived growing up in Cleveland. I want to share with you part of the adventure my brothers and I had when we walked along the banks of the River Styx, when we looked death in the face because we had to, and learned the meaning of brotherhood. None of us are heroes. There are no living heroes from that war or any war. Every war story that has been written, and every war story that will be told should celebrate none but the dead. A war story should never exult in the cause of the war, and it certainly should not worship the lucky, living survivors. It is only slightly appropriate to rejoice at its end. Too many good young men have had die. Too many good young men died too soon, and much too young. America, as long as you or any group of people, deem it their right or their divine appointed duty, their manifest destiny if you will, to impose their will or their way of life upon another, we will have wars. You can count on it, eventually that country or those people you’ve placed under duress will resent those impositions, and they will fight. They have every right to! I believe humanity is destined to slaughter and annihilate itself, if we don’t learn to respect the rights, values, customs, and mores of our fellow man.

This book is more than a memoir. It is a history lesson and it is a composite of one Marine’s experiences in Vietnam. This very personal account is a cursory examination of the politics, the events, and the men who were the driving force behind the debacle known as Vietnam. This story will take you from the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, to the boondocks of North Carolina, to sunny Southern California, to the crystal clear beaches of Okinawa and then on to the majestic purple, dangerous hills of the Central Highlands of South Vietnam.

America, I should have written this letter in happier times, but alas, I must add my voice to the debate. The words of James Russell Lowell are reverberating across this great land, We see dimly in the present what is small and what is great, slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate.

Semper Fidelis,

Alvin

84

TH

STREET 

I WAS BORN ON JULY 4,1946. When my parents welcomed me into the world, we were living at 2627 East 61st Street in Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Sherman, elder friends of my mother, owned the two duplex houses that sat on the property. Mr. and Mrs. Sherman lived downstairs in the front house, and a guy named Jimmy Martin and his mother lived upstairs over the Sherman’s. My mother, two brothers, two sisters, and I lived upstairs in five cramped little rooms in the house behind the one the Shermans occupied. I don’t remember when my father left us. I don’t remember