The Best of Medic in the Green Time: Writings from the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath by Marc Levy

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Best of Medic in the Green Time: Writings from the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath by Marc Levy Richard Levine (bio) the best of medic in the green time: writings from the vietnam war and its aftermath Marc Levy Winter Street Press 641 pages; Print $22.00 It is 1970. The Vietnam War is still going full throttle. Marc Levy is "nineteen, a virgin, innocent in the ways of the world," and a newly arrived medic in Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Division, U.S. Air Cavalry (Delta 1/7 Cav). He's an FNG ("Fucking New Guy"). Levy's service would earn him a Combat Medic Badge, the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars with V (for valor), Air Medal, Army Commendation Medal, a lifelong battle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and a dishonorable discharge. (After a second court-martial this was upgraded to a general discharge, which does not carry the stigma and does not withhold earned benefits. Twenty years later he was finally granted an honorable discharge.) How, you might wonder, does such heroism lead to expulsion from a service after duties so valorously performed and rewarded? The answer, which is perhaps a window on the military's failure to meet the needs of its veterans, is part of what is chronicled in The Best of Medic in the Green Time. [End Page 117] It brings the war to life in many forms and voices—memoir, reportage, letters, and poetry, some written by Levy. But it reaches beyond personal witness to argue its worth as a valuable historical document. What gives a war captured on the page historical value rather than just being a good yarn? Allegiance to truth, resisting exaggeration to tell a better story, examining events from many vantages, with exacting detail that locates events geographically and in time, knows weapons systems and tactics and identifies key players by name. It's all there in The Best of Medic. Perhaps the best example is an account of a failed invasion into Cambodia. The ill-fated campaign was undertaken clandestinely and without oversight by Congress. Even the families of fallen soldiers were not told. Carl Lee (4th platoon squad leader, Delta 1/7 Cav) told Levy of writing to the parents of Mike Dawson, a close Delta-friend who was killed in the invasion. "I did contact Mike's parents … and sent some pictures. I told them he had died in Cambodia which surprised them, because the Army had told them that he had died in Vietnam." If the first truism of combat is "War is hell!," then the second is surely "You never forget war, but you never remember it quite right." Knowing this, and perhaps not trusting his own memory—he is now in his seventies—Levy contacted members of Delta company, as well Bravo 1/7 and First Cavalry field artillery crews, and invited their recollections of that grizzly time. There are perhaps a dozen different descriptions that begin, "Medic received this account of the attack from …" Each account begins with a brief introduction by Levy. "In the second week of May, lifting off from Quan Loi, we chopper into Cambodia. I remember my fear and dread. … This is it. We're gonna die. But after the door gunners open up, after the birds (helicopters) swoop low and we jump out, after we rush forward and throw ourselves down, nothing happens. Instead, every blade of grass. Every layer of canopy, every shimmering mote of sunlight is vivid and beautiful—until the cool, summery night when sappers1 attack LZ (Landing Zone) Ranch, overrun it." "Colonel Everette 'Moose' Yon," the battalion commander of LZ Ranch, "was likely responsible for (the base's) poor placement, the eastern berm too [End Page 118] close to the wood line." "I want to give the gooks a chance," he is alleged to have said. After the sapper attack he was relieved of his command. Medic writes: "On May 16, at 2:45 AM, sappers crawled past the trips and Claymores (anti-personnel mines) on the eastern berm, defended by Delta's fourth platoon. They killed machine gunner Mike Dawson immediately, then headed for the TOC...