by Kate Stewart
While Ruth was on medical leave in 1968, Nell Strickland, another military brat and career army librarian, was temporarily appointed library director. She was stuck inside the Meyerkord Hotel with other librarians for a week and a half during the Tet Offensive, subsisting on eggs and crackers and playing Monopoly by candlelight. The library was undamaged, but Strickland noted that afterward, life in Saigon was very different. US civilians could go out only when escorted by armed military guards (curfews had been in practice years earlier).19
When asked if he was in any danger in Vietnam, librarian Peter Young said, “Oh, absolutely, every single minute.” All librarians described incidents that frightened them, whether it was listening to incoming rockets or dodging stray bullets.20 “I was with people who weren’t, shall we say, totally in control of themselves. People would come into my trailer library and, essentially, they’d take their weapons off and would check them at the desk . . . there would be grenade launchers very seldom, they’d bring in their M-16s, machine guns . . . and their .45s.”21 Ruth also complained to one soldier’s commanding officer because he kept falling asleep with a lit cigarette and burned holes into the couch.22
By the late 1960s marijuana use was very high among the troops, and other drugs such as heroin and painkillers were commonplace.23 In 1971 a drug treatment center was opened at the Da Nang base (one of three to open that year), and the officers who staffed it requested a small library there.24 The library system began to order books such as Drugs for Young People: Their Use and Misuse by Kenneth Leech for the permanent libraries and book kits.25 Troops were allowed to run their own “open mess clubs,” essentially bars (many of them with strippers) where they could serve alcohol and food and probably illegal drugs. Meredith H. Lair explained the lackadaisical attitude toward these quasi-official establishments in her book Armed with Abundance: Consumerism & Soldiering in the Vietnam War: “Open messes often emerged from the ether; all that was required was a spare room, some start-up cash, and a commander’s permission, though the prevalence of unauthorized open messes suggests this last requirement was unnecessary.”26 In addition, Lair continued, soldiers funded these clubs from their own pay, and the proceeds were supposed to be returned to Special Services to fund programming (what percentage of the money was actually returned is unknown). It is likely that the large budget for expendable books, magazines, and supplies, which came from nonappropriated funds, was supplied by the troops’ own drinking habits.
The open mess clubs competed directly with Special Services’ own clubs, which were generally more wholesome. Staffed by American civilian women, these clubs offered board games, cards, Ping-Pong, pool, and trivia nights and held many parties, often holiday themed (they also had their own small libraries). Along with elaborate recreational sports facilities, designated R&R vacation resorts in-country, religious services, movie theaters, bowling alleys, and soldier-operated theatrical and musical groups, this elaborate system of activities and entertainment became what Lair terms “the total war on boredom.”27 As the Vietnam conflict became a war of occupation and soldiers came in for specific one-year tours, the wartime experience became increasingly more like a nine-to-five job, with all the Americanized leisure and recreation time to accompany it (and many troops had copious amounts of free time during their actual work hours). About 75–90 percent of troops never saw combat.28 Like the other Special Services activities, reading was part of a plan to divert men from the inappropriate behavior rampant in the country. Besides illegal drug use and drinking, men also regularly visited prostitutes (many brothels or “spas” were operated openly on bases), stole from each other and the military, fought with each other, and worse, tortured and killed Vietnamese civilians or other US soldiers. Providing books and magazines was one way to keep men out of trouble and to pacify their restlessness and simmering anger.
At the American Library Association’s conference in 1966, the Armed Forces Librarians section held a panel to address the topic of “Books as Weapons” in the Vietnam War and in the fight against Communism more broadly. The panel included three military officers and one publisher. The first panelist, Captain Edward L. Beach, spoke about the morale provided by the ship library to the navy men serving at sea. According to notes taken at the presentation now in the American Library Association Archives, Commander John J. O’Connor, a chaplain and Vietnam veteran in the Marines, argued in his presentation that:
The nation’s newspapers, magazines and books have a “depressing effect” on the morale of our troops in combat. [Commander O’Connor] said that although morale is “very high” among the armed forces in Vietnam, they are “affected and infected by the materials they read, and these materials have been considerably less than encouraging.”
The attempts by the nation’s printed media to evaluate our position in Vietnam have a “depressing effect indeed on our military personnel.” “They have to turn off their minds (from this material) if they are to get on with the grim business of war.” […]
Fr. O’Connor said that, “somebody has a grave obligation to orientate and acquaint these fighting men with the moral issues involved in Vietnam.” He told the librarians that they could make their contribution by helping in every way possible to relieve the pressures and tensions of war and to help sustain morale.29
Major John Pustay of the air force spoke on the necessity of the availability of reading material on the enemy for the troops, and he recalled how important it was for American troops in World War II to read Mein Kampf. Today’s soldiers, he said, needed to read about the politics in Africa and China. Bennet Cerf, president of Random House, was also on the panel and discussed the recent literature on Vietnam. He noted that publishers were willing to offer books both supportive and against the war but that the manuscript submissions coming into Random House were about five-to-one against the war. He concluded, “We must keep an open mind at all times.” Whether he thought publishers had some obligation to influence the debate on the war is unclear from the write-up of this panel in the ALA archives. These speakers—notably, none of them librarians—seemed to avoid any discussion of what exactly was the role of the military library and librarians in an unpopular war: Did soldiers’ need for information on what was slowly but surely becoming a morally ambiguous, if not blatantly unjust, war trump the military leadership’s desire to control the narrative and maintain morale on the front lines? The brass was essentially asking military librarians to make a choice between their professional code and their loyalty to the military. But due to Ruth’s influence, intellectual freedom would continue to be prioritized over censorship in the name of military morale.
The more I researched Ruth and the work of all the librarians in Vietnam, I had to know: What difference had this library empire made in the lives of the men sent to Vietnam? As Veterans Day approached, I knew I needed to ask them directly, somehow. I created a flyer about the libraries and included my contact information, made two hundred copies, and brought Greg with me to the ceremony at the Vietnam Memorial on the National Mall. Before the ceremony started, I awkwardly asked groups of veterans standing around if they remembered using the libraries in Vietnam. None of them did, but some did remember reading and provided me with some useful stories. After the ceremony, we passed out flyers to men who, as they left, were probably so full of emotion and grief that they were not fully there.
Before Veterans Day, I had contacted Ann Kelsey, who maintained an email list for those who had worked for Special Services at bases around the world. A group of these women who had been in Vietnam often went to the Vietnam Wall on Veterans Day and also met up in a suite at a nearby hotel. I found Ann near the memorial, and she laughed at my flyers, explaining, “These guys don’t remember the libraries.” She invited me to the hotel, and I stayed up late into the night with this group of women, some of whom remembered Ruth as a legend. All of them had vivid stories about Vietnam. Later I created an online survey for veterans and distributed it to a few blogs for Vietnam ve
ts. Ann also sent it out on her email list.
Sixty-six men and women took the survey, and one contacted me later through the flyer. Only fourteen remember using the libraries. While not a scientific survey or broad enough to be truly accurate, it does call into question the visibility of the libraries at the time and how they seem to be forgettable to most veterans.30 Although not as memorable or explicitly popular as activities such as celebrity USO tours and chatting with the Red Cross “Donut Dollies,” the library service reached more men on an everyday basis than other Special Services and recreational activities, whether or not the troops were aware of its actual existence. However, many veterans who didn’t remember using the libraries did remember receiving packages of books and magazines, most likely the field delivery kits. One respondent to the online survey and one veteran I spoke with in person assumed they were shipped directly from publishers for free as a gift to the troops. Another respondent did not believe in the existence of the magazine field kits provided by the libraries, which I had explained in a survey question. He doubted that the military libraries would pay for magazines for troops, because they contained so much antiwar coverage.31
Like other American public libraries, the military libraries participated in outreach in person and through advertising and public service announcements. Word of mouth was probably one of the best ways to reach new users, and the air-conditioning helped draw in troops. Some soldiers had used base libraries while in basic training in the US and inquired in Vietnam if they were available there too. Special Services newsletters were distributed to officers, and they always included instructions on how to request either field libraries, if they had a certain amount of men under their command, or the field delivery kits.32 Other official printed publications delivered directly to troops included information about the libraries, and this information was always added to new troop orientation materials and to guides to bases and the Saigon area. Peter Young typed up lists of new books every few weeks and circulated them around the Cu Chi base, which drew in a lot of users.33 The public service announcement delivered on the radio in the opening scene of the film Good Morning, Vietnam! is most likely indicative of the radio and television spots that the library provided to the American Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN). It is telling that the library public service announcement is read by Dan “the Man” Levitan (played by Richard Portnow) in a monotone voice, in contrast to the subversive hijinks that DJ Adrian Cronauer (played by Robin Williams) would later bring to the airwaves. An announcement for bookworms to visit the library or request a book from the field was the perfect example of a disembodied, bureaucratic nanny that troops could easily tune out.
Whether or not the troops ignored the existence of libraries, who actually read and had access to books brings into question class and race issues prevalent in the war. Reading is a leisure activity, one that implies a certain amount of free time, not to mention the education and class status needed to appreciate anything considered more challenging than Playboy and Stars and Stripes. Some of those who responded to my survey stated they did not know libraries existed in Vietnam. Others claimed they did not have time to read, and one implied that my inquiry about reading habits there was outrageous in itself.
These respondents were probably referring to a long-simmering rift among troops who were divided among “grunts” (officially combat troops) and “REMFs,” which stood for Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers (officially combat support). The majority of troops were stationed on bases that were relatively safe and offered copious amounts of recreation. Even many of those designated as combat troops never saw actual combat.34 To some veterans, admitting to reading for pleasure while in a war zone is akin to admitting to laziness, shirking responsibility, or cowardice. To them, only nerds or men afraid of combat would have the time to read anything for pleasure. Gabe Horchler remembered that reading was actively discouraged at Fort Bragg, where he went to boot camp, even though there was a library there: “It used to drive some of the drill sergeants crazy that I had all these books. They thought it was so bizarre.”35 Some officers tried to censor what the men under their command were reading. Janice Carney, a transgender woman formerly known as John, remembers in her oral history that she was a voracious reader. “We used to have access to the Rolling Stone,” she said of her time at Camp Eagle in 1970, “which my commanding officer called a communist newspaper and took it from my desk and tried to tell me that I couldn’t read communist trash like that in his office.” She still managed to get copies of it and noted, “I used to like reading it in front of him.”36 She did not indicate whether the issues of Rolling Stone were from a book kit delivery from the library or whether she had bought them herself at the post exchange.
Underneath this divide concerning bravery and masculinity was another rift concerning class. Those who were college educated were more likely to obtain jobs, particularly desk jobs, at major bases and had more access to libraries, despite Ruth’s effort to extend books to all the troops in Vietnam. Project 100,000, implemented by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1966, was a plan to lower the intelligence and health requirements for men drafted into the army. Members of this group, known as “McNamara’s Morons,” were marked in their personnel files and were tracked throughout their service and beyond. Conceived as a Great Society program, it was meant to lift men out of poverty, to essentially “salvage their manhood,” which McNamara argued was the only way to win the war on Communism.37 Many of the men in this program were illiterate, and special training programs were developed to improve their reading skills and to prepare them for low-skill jobs. While many deplored this program as a racist and classist effort to get more poor and minority men into combat, a recent study by Tom Sticht (who helped design Project 100,000’s original testing and training materials) revealed that many participants were indeed helped by their military service. Compared to their counterparts who did not serve, they were more likely to be employed, to have higher incomes, and to have attended college after their service.38 Whether they took advantage of the library system in Vietnam—or whether it helped them in any way—is unknown. The military offered GED and college courses at all large bases. Men who were enrolled in these courses certainly used the libraries while they studied. It is likely that the military leadership who implemented Project 100,000 believed that access to libraries could aid these men, and it could be one reason why they supported Ruth’s push to rapidly expand the system.
Even though libraries were a symbol of middle-class leisure, they were an open space that cut across the rigid hierarchy of the military. Officers may have been the most likely to check out books, but it is unclear if they read them there. Officers could relax in their own air-conditioned clubs, but the libraries were the only cool, peaceful place for all troops to get away from the chaos.39 Ann Kelsey said that the men who came in often were studying for their GED exam or other courses.40 Despite the assumption that only well-educated “REMFs” used the library, it appears that disadvantaged men made good use of it too.
Some men, whether or not they cared about what anyone thought of their manliness or morale, read voraciously during the Vietnam War. Quite a few veterans in the survey said they weren’t choosy and would read whatever they could get their hands on, as books were rare where they were stationed. Some remembered how they carried books with them everywhere, despite the popular notion conveyed at the beginning of the movie Platoon that books were a waste and too heavy to carry on combat missions. One veteran that I talked to at the Vietnam Wall said that the men in his unit would rip up a paperback by chapters and pass them out so that a book could be read in a chain—a book group of sorts among the unit, as they no doubt discussed it with one another. A veteran named Marc who participated in the survey recalled, “I was reading all the time. As was a good friend later KIA [killed in action]. He was an English teacher. I recall he kept a copy of Shakespeare tucked under his helmet band.”41
Keyes Beech of the Los Angeles Times claimed in 1
969 that “Today’s GI is so much better educated and so much more sophisticated than his World War II counterpart that the difference is reflected in the quality of the books he reads.” In the interview with Ruth, she revealed that in a survey the army librarians had conducted, 38 percent of the books men were reading were fiction and 27.7 percent of officers and 35.4 percent of enlisted men read for pleasure. She noted that men in Vietnam were especially interested in philosophy, religion, and the social sciences. “Men in a war zone take everything more seriously,” she said.42 Of the more than sixty men and women who responded to my survey, forty-seven said that they did read for pleasure, although the respondents were probably more likely to be readers in general, as many of them stated when asked why they read in Vietnam. Some of those who did not know of the existence of the libraries during their tours then regretted it and stated it would have been very helpful to them had they been aware of them.
Three book lists from Vietnam survive in the army library system’s records at the National Archives.43 One is titled “Book Catalog, Paperbound Field Unit, 1971.” This was the shipment sent out to stock the smaller field libraries, which were usually just a room or corner of an office or service club. The list contains about 1,650 titles—a mix of nonfiction (with Dewey numbers) and fiction—and includes a surprisingly broad range of subjects and themes. Another, undated list, titled “Paperbound Collection: Part A,” includes 1,567 nonfiction titles—perhaps used for the permanent libraries—arranged by Dewey number (the third list is from Key Book Service and is likely the same as this one but unorganized). These three lists, along with this group of records’ other scattered and partial lists of books and magazines ordered for the field kits, offer a fascinating, albeit limited, glimpse into what was available for troops to read.