40
Erwin’s Tale

The average American knew little of the Vietnam War until 1965, when the first television images of ground offensives and aerial bombardments spewed into their living rooms. Before long, those scenes of what looked like a rock festival from hell would become familiar around the world.

In fact, the US had been involved in an undeclared war in the region for many years. In 1961, President Kennedy surreptitiously dispatched four hundred Green Beret ‘Special Advisors’ to train South Vietnamese soldiers against the Communist enemy. And this was no conventional enemy – the fearless Viet Cong guerrillas moved like panthers through the jungle, setting tripwires and booby-traps, and digging concealed pits filled with sharpened bamboo spikes.

For years, American helicopter units had been transporting troops around the country, and the controversial procedure of spraying defoliants from aircraft was well established. These massively toxic chemicals, which included the notorious ‘Agent Orange’, were used to clear areas of jungle where the Viet Cong might be concealed. Unfortunately, the stuff also contaminated soil and water, thereby creating birth abnormalities for generations to come. Vietnam was always a controversial war.

In April 1961, Private Erwin Zachery – who had barely visited another state, let alone a foreign country, found himself dangling from a parachute, looking down at his huge boots high above the emerald jungle. Unlike the elite Green Berets, Erwin and his raggle-taggle comrades were part of a clandestine unit who had been selected for brute muscle-power and reckless calm under fire, rather than military experience or intelligence.

The freshly buzz-cut paratroopers, who settled like dandelion seeds on the forest floor, had spent the last ten weeks at a grueling military training camp in the Southern States of America. The method used to prepare them for battle was humiliation: these inexperienced and often under-educated boys were constantly yelled at, referred to as ‘beasts’ and exposed to terrible mental and physical pressures. They were harassed, bullied and beaten into shape by senior officers, many of whom were traumatized war veterans themselves. The only way to survive was to shed all sense of individuality. The young recruits learned unquestioning obedience to orders, and during bayonet training they were taught to shout, ‘HATE, HATE, HATE!’ and ‘KILL, KILL, KILL!’ They were told that soon they would be able to take out their frustration on the enemy, who were referred to as stinking foreigners or ‘gooks’. The psychology was simple – the cadets were taught to de-humanize the enemy, just as they had been de-humanized by their seniors. The young soldiers would imitate their officers’ aggression on the battlefield, in the same way as a violent father raises violent sons.

Of course, Erwin had not had a violent upbringing; he had grown up in a peaceable farming family, but he had always been a remote and strangely unemotional boy – something of a bully at school and not too gentle with animals on the yard. In the harsh conditions of the training camp, this unfortunate manner hardened into cold-hearted brutality. After several brawls with fellow recruits, for which he refused to acknowledge responsibility, Erwin was quickly marked out as someone with a total absence of conscience. According to the report, he was the kind of soldier who should either be ‘sent to jail, or sent to kill’.

Without further ado, Erwin was drafted into a maverick regiment, which had earned the alarming nickname, The Psyche Squad. Every last one of them was a petty criminal, a street fighter or an anti-social loner. Their mission in Vietnam was straightforward: they were a covert advance party whose job was to ‘break new ground’ – give the enemy a good scare. And if they were killed in the process, well, no one would make too much fuss . . . It wasn’t like losing college boys or sons of wealthy families.

Barely had he unbuckled his parachute, when Erwin and his buddies found themselves trudging through elephant grass and mosquito-ridden forest, laden with heavy packs and machine guns; or crawling on their bellies in saturated paddy fields. The skies above their steel helmets were thick with helicopters – known as ‘birds’ – which spewed machine-gun fire, and, later, the devilish substance called napalm, which sticks to skin and burns like acid.

The environment would have been horrifying for most normal boys, but Erwin was not a normal boy . . . he enjoyed it! It made him feel alive.

Within days of his arrival Erwin witnessed scenes of inhumanity from both sides. A report in the EZ file said:

Many in the company had given in to an easy pattern of violence. Soldiers regularly beat unarmed civilians. Civilians were murdered. Whole villages were burned. Wells were poisoned. Rapes were common.

In addition, naïve boys like Erwin discovered a strong culture of drug-taking in the army. By the later stages of the war, the majority of soldiers smoked marijuana, and hard narcotics like heroin were everywhere. Erwin had his first experience of LSD right there on the battlefield. Full details were not available, but it seems that Erwin was involved in some kind of brutal initiation ceremony, in which he was given massive doses of LSD before being thrown into a nightmarish conflict zone. Professor Cerberus’s file contained witness statements saying that Erwin suffered from ‘the screaming heebie-jeebies’. And in one forthright comment: ‘Ain’t no pretty way of saying it – this soldier fried his brains. Simple as that.’

The tribunal then moved to the question of race. Erwin had grown up in a segregated state, but his parents had not been racists – in fact, there had been many non-White employees on the family farm. In Vietnam, however, Erwin witnessed racism in its most savage forms. Hostility towards the Viet Cong turned into hatred for the whole Vietnamese population – the ‘Gooks’. The ancient rule of conflict is that it is easier to kill if the enemy can be reduced to a crude group; a lower level of humanity.

On top of racism towards the Vietnamese, the civil unrest from back home had been exported to the theatre of war. Tension between Black and White American soldiers began to emerge. Grisly practices, such as cross-burning were transferred from Mississippi and Alabama, and in some cases Ku Klux Klan ‘Klaverns’ were being set up at military bases.

Slowly but surely, Erwin became indoctrinated into the culture of racial hatred. He needed a scapegoat for the crazy paranoid feelings in his head and found it in the Vietnamese people, as well as the African Americans at his side. Ironically, it was in the dripping rainforests of South-East Asia that Erwin joined the Ku Klux Klan: being a Klansman gave him a sense of identity and belonging.

It seemed that Erwin gained a dangerous reputation, even amongst the Psyche Squad. The average Vietnamese is short in stature and Erwin was very tall indeed – the report paints an appalling picture of this uncontrolled giant storming into battle, out of his mind on drugs, killing without mercy. According to testimonies from the court martial, Erwin shot any ‘gooks’ he saw, be they soldiers or civilians, young or old. One fellow soldier reported an incident in which our platoon was checking out a remote village where the Viet Cong were said to be holed up. We had been taught stealth, but Erwin just runs ahead firing in the air and yelling ‘Hate, hate, hate!’ and ‘Kill, kill, kill!’ like some wacko. We hear dogs barking and babies screaming and Erwin is just firing at anything that moves. By the time the rest of us roll up Erwin has torched five or ten straw huts, and within twenty minutes the whole village is ablaze. I ain’t never gonna forget the sight of Erwin coming out of the smoke real slow, with a big smile on his face like it was all some crazy game. I looked at his eyes and I knew that boy was insane.

The events that led to Erwin’s dismissal from the army are more horrific still. In the heat of a firefight Erwin captured a peasant girl of about fifteen years of age. Right in the middle of battle he attempted to assault her against a tree. A Black senior officer saw what was going on and began to shout at Erwin to leave the girl alone. Erwin ignored him. The officer approached Erwin and told him that if he did not release the girl, he would be put on a charge. Erwin yelled obscene racist abuse at the officer and began firing in every direction. It took around ten men to bring him under control.

He was flown back to the United States under guard and brought before a tribunal. He refused to speak in his defence, but occasionally he could be heard muttering to himself. A member of his military guard thought the prisoner was mumbling, ‘Hate, hate, hate . . .!’ In spite of overwhelming evidence against him, Erwin did not serve a jail term; he was simply let off with a BCD or Bad Conduct Discharge. A senior army psychologist described Erwin Zachery as ‘suffering from acute battle trauma resulting in permanent psychological damage and severe personality disorder’.

So Erwin’s military career came to an end, but the bloody Vietnam War would rage until 1975, leading to the loss of between one and three million lives.

It seemed extraordinary to me that this murderer and rapist had escaped custody – but then I came across some personal correspondence in which, strictly off the record, the same military psychologist told Professor Walter Cerberus that Erwin possessed

many useful military skills which could be of benefit to the Invisible Empire. There is no question that this slightly alarming young man has serious problems, but in my view, if he is handled properly, he would be extremely useful to the movement.

Cerberus replies:

If you can secure his release, I would be happy to take him under my wing. It seems to me that Erwin is exactly the kind of boy who is brave or reckless enough to take our campaign to a higher level and, let’s be frank, to take the flak if things go wrong! I believe he should remain at Dead River Farm, from where he can travel and train our recruits throughout the state. He is a simple country boy, but he has a strong drive to climb upwards through the ranks, and this can be used to encourage him. He is easily pleased by small rewards and I have already ensured that he is supplied with a vehicle and sufficient ex-military equipment to meet his needs.

Professor Cerberus signs off his communication with these chilling words:

As you know, we have plans to escalate our campaign in dramatic ways. It is my considered opinion that Erwin Zachery will be a useful puppet for the Klan – albeit a puppet of super-sized proportions! Your contribution to the Cause is duly noted.

KIGY, brother

Walt