FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (May 24, 2012) -- "Fighting is a terrible failure of diplomacy. War is insanity en masse. The existence of evil constantly drives people to one or the other." -- excerpt from "Toll of War/Vietnam: Inside a Veteran's Mind," by Erick W. Miller
Drafted at 20 years old, Erick W. Miller had his whole life ahead of him when the U.S. Army sent him deep into the jungles of Vietnam in 1969.
Assigned to B Company, 1st Platoon, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, Miller served as point man -- or as he likes to refer to it -- "the first idiot down the trail."
The 327th was the first Screaming Eagles unit to enter the fight in 1965, and the unit participated in more than 40 combat operations, including the Tet Counteroffensive before coming home for good in 1972.
The year Miller served with the Screaming Eagles thousands of miles from home altered the course of his life. As a way to relate his experiences and those of other veterans like him, Miller released a non-fiction, semi-autobiographical book of short stories based around his tour, which he self-published in 2004.
The book was more than just therapeutic for him, as he started gathering the stories in the mid-90s after VA doctors diagnosed him with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for the first time. He also wanted people to know the truth about what happened in Vietnam, especially in the final years of the fight.
"If you weren't there in '68, [people thought] you must have had it pretty easy," Miller said. "All the casualties in '68 were because the entire country was going up in smoke. By the time 1970 rolled around, other than the Cambodian Incursion, the war had moved up north. The 101st was bearing the brunt of that."
By the time Miller entered Vietnam, the war was highly unpopular and for the most part no longer highlighted by the mainstream media. There were fewer troops, but the battles the Soldiers faced were still all too real.
While battles like Hamburger Hill and Ripcord are well-documented now, Miller said there are more stories to be told.
"There's just so much to that war after Hamburger Hill in '69, that people had no clue," Miller said, who was promoted to a Specialist 4 while in Vietnam.
"I make two valid points; one is that the war was not over in 1968 like the press wanted," Miller said in a phone interview from his Apache Junction, Ariz. home.
"… There was an important book to write. Just to let people know that war was not over when the newspapers got bored with it."
While hard to write at first, Miller said the editing process got more "satisfying" over time as it helped make sense of his memories. Since publication, Miller now receives countless emails from fellow veterans saying the book is "a must read for everybody."
The book chronicles his perspective as an infantryman and what it was like to be trudging through a foreign land, never knowing what might be around the bend. This experience -- the dirt and grime of war, coupled with the nagging uncertainty -- helped create a bond that can only be shared by these Soldiers.
"I just wish sometimes I had clean food or dry socks," he said. "But you know what, like I say, when you're a grunt and you look around with all these other grunts, everybody's all dirty and hot and sweaty and scared, you know. That seems normal. Your new life is like this -- and you look around and everybody else is just as miserable as you, so that seems normal to you."
This situational camaraderie didn't translate upon his return home, where Miller said even World War II veterans did not understand the full scope of what he experienced.
"It was so hard to come back to America," he explained. "Everything's moving fast and everything's noisy, and there are bright lights and people are laughing. You just want to go in a closet and close the door and cover your ears. You shrink away from all that. Like guys who are in prison for a long time -- they become institutionalized. Everything is a certain way, and they get used to that."
Even though after Vietnam Miller came home to a negative viewpoint from most of America, including fellow veterans, he believes U.S. presence in the country was truly necessary.
"By '73, we made them [North Vietnam] sign a peace treaty and they didn't win that war until American troops were pulled out," he said. "And they wouldn't have beat the South if the politicians would have honored our commitment to send them spare parts and ammunition … How could that little tiny [place] survive the fight?"
"It was worthwhile," Miller said of U.S. involvement. "It kept communism from expanding for the longest time."
After the war and a rough reception on the home front, Miller pursued careers in carpentry and roofing. However, he fell into drug and alcohol too, a pattern he didn't break until 1992 when he found freedom in Jesus Christ. Without the crutch of intoxicants, he began to lose focus and have other issues. Through writing the book, remarrying and embracing the lasting effects of the war, Miller said his life is "darn good now."
He still remembers the names on the Vietnam Memorial, many of who served as pointmen like himself or slackmen like his battle buddy Travis Shattle.
"We were lucky -- where I was, we were lucky compared to those guys in Ripcord," Miller recalls. "… One platoon had 90 percent casualties. They were in hand-to-hand combat, grossly outnumbered."
While his PTSD is less intense now, Miller still sometimes wakes from nightmares. He remembers nights in the jungle where it was "pitch-black … like taping your eyes shut" that left many men jittery as they took the night watch. It's feelings like these that give Miller such respect for the 101st Airborne Division Soldiers of today, the majority of whom have a string of deployments to both Afghanistan and Iraq.
"In today's war, I give these guys credit," he said. "These guys are going back over and over. A year was enough for me. It was rare to hear of someone that had three tours in Vietnam. It was rare for two tours; three tours would be extremely rare. Some of [today's Soldiers] have been there five times. In the book I put in words, today's generation of warriors is truly the greatest generation."
To purchase a copy of Miller's book, visit bookstore.authorhouse.com and search "Toll of War/Vietnam."
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