Is there anything better than a book you simply cannot put down? They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 written by Pulitzer Prize winner and best selling author David Maraniss is striking a cord with me. This story set on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and a battlefield named Ong Thanh, located 40 miles north of Saigon where American soldiers walked into an ambush.
There are so many elements of this book that make you want to slowly digest each chapter. The early chapters introduce soldiers making their way towards Lai Khe including Lt. Terry Allen, Jr. He was the son of World War II hero Army General Terry Allen. Soliders came from around the Midwest and were eager to serve our country.
Growing up in Ohio and today living in Milwaukee I was immediately drawn to the stories of those soldiers.
Chapter Six: “Madison Wisconsin” is just a wonderful overview to the student anti-war movement of the 1960s. One of the students involved in Madison campus protests was Paul Solgin. He has been elected Mayor of Madison three times since 1973. After his first stint as Mayor he became a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Today he is the current Mayor, elected in April 2011.
The student newspaper The Daily Cardinal editor-in-chief was Jeff Greenfield, current CBS senior political analyst. And former Vice President Dick Chaney was finishing his master’s degree on the Madison campus in 1967.
PBS produced an American Experience segment titled “Two Days in October” about They Marched Into Sunlight. The BBC re-aired the program renamed “How Vietnam was lost.” Is it any surprise that Tom Hanks’ production company Playtone, is shooting a movie based upon this book?
Lt. Allen Jr. tried to follow in his father’s footsteps but never achieved the same level of rank or recognition. By the time he was assigned to Vietnam his marriage was ending with three small daughters. He was in command of the the 1st Infantry Division, known as the 2/28 The Black Lions at the base camp at Lai Khe.
They Marched Into Sunlight reveals many tragic consequences. I was interested to read that members of the Black Lions unit saw the futility of war and were predicting it would last for decades. At the time the war was costing the government $2 Billion dollars a month.
Joining Lt. Allen was Don Holleder, an All-American football player from West Point. Holleder was on the cover of Sports Illustrated after leading Army to an upset of heavily favored Navy in 1955. He turned down an offer to play in the NFL to serve as a Marine officer. He was later assigned to Lt. Allen’s staff at Lai Khe for Operation Shenandoah II. This was the major operation that brought so much tragedy.
Don Holleder was killed by a sniper as he began to run towards troops under fire after observing the battle from a helicopter. Pat Tillman was like Don Hollender. I may look for a book about his life titled A Spartan Game: The Life and Loss of Don Holleder since he was such a leader, athlete and patriot.
Two Black Lions from Milwaukee, Danny Sikorski and Jack Schroder were both killed in the ambush. Danny Sikorski was born and raised on the south side of Milwaukee. Boys in his neighborhood all did the same thing – enlist or get drafted after high school.
The PBS website includes a childhood picture of Danny and his sister Peggy growing up in Milwaukee. I was touched by a photo of them together – Danny wearing a Boy Scout uniform. As a father of two young children this book’s story about Danny is going to break my heart. There are difficult, emotional stories to read on this Fathers Day 2012.
A native Wisconsinite, Maraniss shines in writing about his home state, Madison and Milwaukee in the 1960s. That weekend UW-Madison students (who paid $350 for fall semester tuition) were protesting Dow Chemical’s on-campus recruiting because Dow supplied napalm to the military. Student protests were violently beaten by Madison city police the weekend of the battle at Ong Thanh. I have just passed Chapter 9 (as of this writing) so details of the Madison police violence have not yet been revealed.