From Nazi Occupied Holland to the Jungles of Vietnam

A few months after Hitler had promised Holland neutrality, German paratroopers invaded our country at night. This happened while I was only a few months old. Therefore most of my recollections about World War II date back to the end of the war or from 1944. We were having a very difficult time because when Dad, our breadwinner was captured and when he did not return from a German concentration camp, the odds of survival were against us. Mom was forced to place her kids with various family members, and lacking my Dad's income, she visited Dutch farms to beg for food. During the notorious Dutch "hunger winter" of 1944 to 1945, she managed to collect enough food for us to survive. 

In September 1944, Dutch railway employees struck in an effort to assist liberating Armies that were trying to capture bridges across Holland's main rivers. Montgomery's thrust north towards Arnhem depicted in the film, 'A Bridge Too Far' failed and the allied armies came to a grinding halt south of our main rivers. The German administration retaliated by placing an embargo on all food transports to the western Netherlands. When the embargo was partially lifted in early November 1944, and some food transports were allowed over water, an unusually early and harsh winter had set in. The canals froze over and became impassable for barges. Also, gas, electricity, and heat were turned off. Roughly 30,000 Dutch died from starvation, exhaustion, cold and disease.

In the hunger winter, we literally fed on anything that could be found. We learned that sugar beets, turnips, and even tulip bulbs could stem from hunger. Our streets were empty of cats and dogs. Butcher shops advertised "rabbits for sale," but we learned that a cat's body cannot be anatomically distinguished from a rabbit's body. In spite of those food substitutes, many people died from hunger. The Germans had flooded our normally productive agricultural lands to stop Montgomery's British-Canadian forces from crossing the Rhine. Our food was rationed and rations shrunk dramatically as the winter progressed. Even the black market was running out of food. 

My Dad was employed in a prison and helped two Jewish men who were undoubtedly destined for a gas chamber, to escape from prison. He then took the prisoner's place in the same prison. I recall scary experiences in trying to get Dad released, our farewell from him on a train station destined to a German concentration camp and V-1s flying over our homes, some of which landed far short of London and destroyed a neighborhood. I also remember when our living room exploded from joy when a clandestine radio broadcast announced that the allies had landed in Normandy. Today the Dutch are still extremely grateful for the liberation of their country and the graves of fallen U.S. servicemen are draped with flowers each and every year.

Fast forward to when I went to Vietnam as part of the 11th Armored Cavalry. In my job as commander of the 3rd Squadron's 105MM self- propelled howitzers battery, I had trained the unit for about one year and fought with the unit of another year. This turned out to be the best job that I have ever had. 

I recall getting caught in an ambush, getting mortared and fighting against a large coordinated attack from a North Vietnamese regiment. I was one of the first U.S. soldiers to enter the notorious Iron Triangle, where my battery distinguished itself. 

What did the average U.S. soldier experience when fighting in Vietnam? For the uninitiated, imagine fighting for the most powerful military in the world and being tasked to fight a guerrilla we had to search out in unfamiliar jungles rife with millions of miles of underground tunnels that allowed him to appear and disappear at will. In President Kennedy's words, "...the enemy was everywhere and at the same time nowhere." Imagine also that the guerrilla was supported by the local population and that this enabled him to blend in with civilians whenever opportune. The guerrilla wore the same black clothes (we called them "pajamas") as the farmers and hamlet dwellers. 

When we saw what looked like a unit of Vietcong, we had to make sure that they were actually Vietcong. We could not just fire at them, but we needed to obtain clearances from district officials to ensure that we were not killing ordinary farmers or villagers since only the regular army of North Vietnamese wore a clearly identifiable uniform. Communications with South Vietnamese district leaders were sometimes difficult and we could not always get permission to fire in a timely manner. The potential bounties would then have spotted us and escaped since we only were allowed to fire spontaneously when we were fired at and/or when we rode into an ambush. The enemy, whether guerrillas or North Vietnamese army units, were often able to engage us when most opportune for them; hence their successes in ambushes. We had learned some effective counter-tactics, but we always took casualties. 

Initially in WWII, the U.S. bombed mostly military targets in day time and at low altitudes and suffered many casualties, while the British bombed from safer high altitudes at night with fewer scruples at avoiding civilian casualties probably because they had endured many bombing raids on their own cities and because they thought it also would adversely affect German morale. Even as late as July 21, 1944, Eisenhower ordered the Eighth Air Force to use only precision bombing of military targets which resulted in the destruction of oil facilities and bridges that effectively kept most of the grounded on D-day and kept panzer units tied up at river crossings when these could have been used to stop the allied invasion of France. However, our Air Force eventually used napalm and bombs to destroy cities in both Germany and Japan causing hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties. 

In Japan there were not many industrial targets left and military targets were often co-located near large cities. Truman had hoped to avoid killing women and children but he judged that he needed to use the atomic bomb to impress the ever aggressive Russians in East Europe and he thought that it would save up to a quarter of a million American casualties.

In Vietnam, we made a concerted effort [with some widely publicized exceptions, such as in the My Lai massacre] to avoid civilian casualties, because it was essential for us to win over the South Vietnamese people. At the time we had no idea that this was probably a fool's errand. An ordinary U.S. soldier has been trained to kill on impulse in the words of Colin Powell, we aim to apply overwhelming force in order to secure a victory and that cannot be done in a socially acceptable manner. Collateral damage is always present, but yes we must try and limit it when possible. However, when we go to war we must be allowed to use maximum force and the best tactics to achieve victory all within a clear set of moral standards. Hand-to-hand combat with guerrillas that have clear operational advantages should never be necessary. 

There are further similarities in Vietnam, the second Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan. Our objectives of nation-building, rooting out corruption, freeing women from cultural oppressions and converting locals into religiously tolerant 21st Century democracies are pie in the sky kinds of objectives. Those types of changes must come gradually from people themselves. We cannot convert a nation overnight from a middle-age culture into a modern democracy or a capitalist society and especially not with the use of force. 
 
Why was the Vietnamese conflict such a difficult war? We possessed the most powerful military and were armed with weapons that could wipe out the rest of the world. It ought to have been simple to subdue a technologically inferior people. Yet somehow these people had resisted Chinese domination for centuries and more recently defeated modern Japanese and French armies. Apparently our involvement began with requests for assistance from the leaders of South Vietnam. President Kennedy wanted to restrict our commitment to advising the Government of Vietnam's (GVN) military with our Special Forces, which eventually grew to about 15,000. Earlier President Eisenhower had warned about sending troops into Vietnam. He said that the jungles would absorb battalion after battalion with no clear victory in sight and the military would continue to ask for more. 

President Johnson, however, increased our commitment under the banner of our need to fight for the great causes of "freedom" and "democracy." He, as well as President Eisenhower, had believed in the domino theory, that if Vietnam fell to the communists, the whole of South East Asia would fall. That too proved to be a myth. 

I personally witnessed some ironies while gaining enormous respect for our soldiers who always did their duties and performed heroic acts under trying circumstances. In my memoir, I compare Vietnam to WWII and reflect on our society in the late 1960s, when I navigated some street riots while trying to carve out a career in civilian life. Since that time our society has changed and it now better appreciates the sacrifices of our soldiers, but much more must be done to heal the wounds of the disabled ones.  

Editor's Note: Leo Deege took excerpts from his book "Warrior: From Nazi-Occupied Holland to the jungle of Vietnam" for this article. The book itself may be purchased at Outskirts Press/Bookstore, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

All profits will be donated to the "Disabled Veterans Association."