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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume. 33, Number 9. 25 June, 1970

'Every Day, the Rah Rah Kill Biz'

page 15

'Every Day, the Rah Rah Kill Biz'

Photograph of a soldier resting on boxes

Lon Louty wanted a military career because his father had been medically unfit for service in American forces during World War II. "I felt I had a job to do for two people," he says.

After high school graduation in Columbus, Ohio, he enrolled in the Coast Guard. He dropped out when "I found out I'd have to spend two years with icebergs." Transferring to Ohio University, he joined Army Rotc and was voted the outstanding cadet in the programme. He won several medals and a promotion to bat all ion commander before graduating in 1968 with honours in architecture and design.

Today Lon Louty is a graduate student and teaching fellow in A & D at the University still appalled at his nine months of active duty. He does not regret his resignation from the Army.

List autumn, seven non-commissioned officers at Fort Benning, Georgia, refused to go to Vietnam. Two were court martialed for smoking pot; both are still in the Army, one is still in the brig. Two suffered mental breakdowns; one stood up on a live firing range but still hasn't been discharged, the other was released. Three were given general discharges.

Lon Louty was one of the fortunate three whose resignations were accepted without penalty. Louty had been in the Army only four months when he quit. He had always been anti-Vietnam. Now he is anti-military, too. But he is still pro-establishment. Louty, who expected to work in cities as a commissioned civil engineer after graduation from Rotc, explains he "thought the military was more than a slaughter-house. I thought you could be a military man without being a butcher."

His architecture professors at Ohio University were the first to challenge that idea. "They said Rotc stood for the forces of destruction, while architecture stood for creation," he recalls. "But I rationalized it all away. My Rotc instructors had told me, "Don't worry, you won't have to fight, not with your grades and expertise,' That was bullshit." Later, after he'd been commissioned a second lieutenant, Louty was told he'd have to serve time in Vietnam.

Confronted with Vietnam as a personal dilemma, Louty decided to get out of the Army. He resigned his commission in June, 1968, shortly after graduation—over the protests of his Rotc commander who earns demerits every time a junior officer resigns. As a non-com, Louty had to deal with the Army's kick-'em-in-t he-kidney crops, rather than Rotc's "effete" academicians. The regular Army officers crawled through the underbrush of Guam or the swamps of Vietnam to get on top.

They do not like anyone who resents going to Vietnam. The 54lh Infantry at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, where Louty was sent in June, turned into a perplexing hell. No one met him and his wife with cheerful greetings. In fact, no one had even arranged housing for them. His first assignment was funeral duty with several Vietnam veterans.

"We were supposed to comfort bereaved mothers and widows," he laughs derisively. "They gave us prepared speeches where we just filled in the names. Most of these guys were so calloused after being in Vietnam they would bet on when the women would Mart to crack up. Usually it was when—they played taps or when they put the flag on the casket.

"Once a woman ripped the flag off and spat on it and swore at us. That wasn't supposed to happen. It was pretty hairy and shook up everybody."

Louty was put in charge of a company pregnant with young draftees, many from impoverished hill country and most with domestic problems like indebtedness or shaky marriages. The Awol rate ran at higher than 35 per cent. "I was supposed to remain objective and treat them like so many numbered cattle," Louty explains, "so I'd be able to send them into a machine gun nest without feeling any emotion."

Vietnam: the Final Solution.

Vietnam: the Final Solution.

The first crisis came in July when Cleveland black rioted. When Louty's company was ordered in to back up the National Guard, his black pfe's and he asked to be relieved. "I couldn't shoot a man for stealing a television set," he says. "That equates the value of his life to the price of the TV." Feeling the cross-pressures at having "copped out" on his first mission, Louty decided to confide in his chaplain. Within an hour, a report censuring him was on his captain's desk. "I was chewed out for expressing moral doubts about the miliary," Louty says. "That wasn't so bad, but the chaplain was supposed to listen to me in confidence."

What was supposed to be, as recorded in Rotc textbooks, was seldom what was, Louty found out. He became embittered and disillusioned. Especially unfuriating was the Army's re-enlistment practice. Instead of having been told, Louty discovered he would have to serve at least five years and two terms in Vietnam. Most of all he resented officers who bribed pfe's into signing up for an extra two years with the bogus promise they wouldn't go to Vietnam. Although widely known and applied, the ruse still works, according to Louty. The gullible joe is first shipped out to England or Germany, and they inevitably transferred to Vietnam sometimes as quickly as three weeks.

In September Louty and his company were ordered to Ft. Benning to train as Rangers. "Every day there, you live with the rail, rah, kill, kill' business. One day, I thought, my God, where am I?" He appealed for a transfer to his immediate superior, who told him, "Unless you serve in Vietnam, you aren't fit to live in this country."

So he went to Lt. Col. Wilbur Thiel. "Thiel thought I was part of the Communist conspiracy," Louty says. "I thought Dr. Strangelove was a funny movie until I met Thiel. Then I found out he was in the majority among the officers." Once he revealed publicly his objection to Vietnam, Louty was at the mercy of his superiors, who have virtually unlimited methods to make his decision unbearable. Thiel, a 23-year veteran, was so furious he threw Louty out of his office and filed a report with the base commander charging Louty was "a disgrace to his country, the U.S. Army and Officer Corps."

Louty resigned in Octber. "I began thinking, hell's bells, five years in prison can't be any worse than this." He was re-assigned to Thiel's secretarial pool, where he spent 12 hours each day mimeographing handouts for new recruits. Another secretary "got so sick of the half-truths" that he mimeographed his own handouts to countermand the official line. He was caught, court martialed and booted out.

Louty's discharge, which finally came through in March, was not that ignominious. In fact, it wasn't even dishonourable. Despite peer pressure, more and more officers are asking to be excused from Vietnam. But the command policy has held firm either fight our war or take the consequences. Some, not as fortunate as Louty, end up behind bars. Louty retors, "I could not order my men to get killed for a war that wasn't moral.

"In Rotc we learned to lead. In the Army they teach you to order. In Rotc it was supposed to be motivate. In the Army it's demand. Those who say we should keep Rotc on campus so the Army won't turn into professional killers should give up worrying," he says. "The Army already is all professional killers."

(Originally published in The Michigan Daily).