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One of the intriguing characters Nelson came across in the archives was “Concerned Sgt,” a whistle-blower who after My Lai began writing anonymous letters to army brass. “I am a US GI now in Germany, and I worry a lot about Vietnam, and the wrong we are doing there to the Vietnamese people, and to Gis like myself,” said the first of his three letters. “I know I have information about things as bad as My Lay [sic], and I don’t want to tell my congressman for fear I will hurt the Army. ”Concerned Sgt” reminded me of the anonymous cop who in 1989 wrote three letters to the People’s Law Office with inside information about police commander Jon Burge. Unlike the army, the People’s Law Office seriously followed up.
Yet we’ve known without knowing. Vietnam was the only war in American history whose heroes were its POWs – those hapless warriors whose positions were overrun, who got lost in the bush, or whose planes crashed. The careful deference that Barack Obama paid John McCain as an American hero hadn’t been enjoyed in earlier presidential campaigns by John Kerry, George McGovern, George H.W. Bush, or Bob Dole, all of them combat veterans. McCain wouldn’t have been such a hero if he’d simply fought the war; instead, somewhat like the country itself, he became its hostage.
