Category: Soldiers

 

The Hidden Truths Within A Picture

By Chris Gibbons – Originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, December, 2014

“That wasn’t right!  My father yelled as his booming voice filled our living room.  “You can’t do that to people!”, he shouted at the TV.

“Jesus”, I thought to myself.  “What the heck is up with Dad?”  It was sometime in the early 1980’s, and a news program had just shown a video of an infamous incident that occurred years earlier, during the Vietnam War.

It’s a chilling video to watch.  A North Viet Cong prisoner is standing along a roadside with his hands tied behind his back.  A South Vietnamese officer then quickly positions himself next to him, raises his pistol, and fires a point-blank shot to the prisoner’s head.  His lifeless body crumples to the ground.

“He’s a God-damned son of a b****!  That wasn’t right.” my Dad said again. I was somewhat stunned by his angry reaction.  If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that he knew the man who was shot.  I looked at Dad’s hands, and noticed that they were slightly trembling.

2014 marks the 45^th anniversary of the awarding of a Pulitzer Prize for a photo taken of one of the most infamous incidents of the Vietnam War as South Vietnamese general Nguyen Ngoc Loan executed Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem.  AP photographer Eddie Adams and an NBC cameraman filmed the execution, and Adams’ still picture of the incident soon appeared on the front pages of newspapers and evening news telecasts across the U.S.  The picture outraged the American public, and it seemed to galvanize the growing anti-war sentiment.  The picture soon became a symbol of the apparent brutality of the U.S. supported South Vietnamese regime.  In 1969, Adams won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.

But the picture didn’t tell the whole story, and Adams later came to regret the damage that it did to Loan. The Viet Cong prisoner who he shot was reportedly part of a “death-squad” that targeted the families of South Vietnamese policemen.  According to witnesses, the prisoner was captured near a ditch where 34 bound and shot bodies of policemen and their families were found.  Adams later said, “I killed the general with my camera.  Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world.  People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation.  They are only half-truths.  What the photograph didn’t say was, “What would you do if you were the general at that time?”  Adams later apologized to Loan and his family.

General Loan eventually escaped Vietnam, and opened a pizza restaurant in a Virginia suburb.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t escape his past.  Word got out to an angry public of who he was.  Someone once wrote an ominous message on the restaurant’s walls, “We Know Who You Are F***er.”  Loan eventually had to close the restaurant because of the negative publicity.  He died of cancer in 1998, leaving a wife and five children.  Adams sent a note to the family that read: “I’m sorry.  There are tears in my eyes.”

As for my Dad’s reaction that day, I assumed that, like so many Americans at that time, the execution in Saigon was the final straw. The Vietnam War had once sharply divided the nation, but by the late 1960’s even its staunchest supporters had seen enough.  I concluded that my Dad finally realized this as well, and seeing the video again that day must’ve brought back those bitter feelings of anger and betrayal.  I quickly forgot about the incident, and never asked my father about it.

It wasn’t until many years later that I finally came to understand the hidden truths behind the picture, not only the story of general Loan, but my Dad’s story as well.  We had a quiet moment alone in 2008 on the 55^th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, and I asked him if he could tell me of his worst experience during the war.  He said it would be too difficult for him to tell me the worst, but there was one incident that still haunted him.  Shortly after his company had set up a defensive perimeter around their base in South Korea, two frightened and dirty Chinese prisoners were brought before a company sergeant.  This sergeant was a WW II veteran who my father and the other young soldiers in his company admired and looked up to.  “We were very young, and often scared,” my Dad told me.  “But he helped us get through some of the toughest times during the war.”

The sergeant needed to understand how these two Chinese soldiers had gotten through so he could fix the weakness in their perimeter. If they escaped and revealed the weakness to the enemy, the lives of his men could be at risk.  “Ask them how they got through!”, he barked to the interpreter.  The prisoners replied that they didn’t “get through”, but were separated from their outfit, and simply hid in covered fox-holes when the Americans moved into the area.  The American soldiers unknowingly piled the dirt and barbed wire right on top of them, and the prisoners simply climbed out later and surrendered.  “I don’t believe them.  Ask them again!” shouted the sergeant, as he raised his rifle and pointed it at the head of one of the prisoners.  My father believed the prisoners and was shaken by the horrible scenario that was now being played out in front of him and his fellow soldiers.  Again, the frightened prisoners told the same story.

The sharp sounds of gunshots echoed across the Korean sky, as two lifeless bodies crumpled to the ground.

“It wasn’t right”, my Dad said softly as he remembered the incident and vacantly stared ahead.  I looked down and noticed that his hands were slightly trembling.

(Postscript: I originally wrote this story in 2008.  I sent a copy to my Dad prior to publication to ensure that my facts were correct.  After reading it, he immediately called me and told me that he didn’t want it published because one of the soldiers who witnessed the incident with him was severely traumatized by it.  “He was never the same again, he had a lot of issues from it,” my Dad said.  He told me that even after they returned home, his friend continued to struggle and the remainder of his life was difficult. My Dad was concerned that seeing the story in the newspaper might adversely affect his friend’s already fragile psyche.

 My Dad passed away earlier this year, and before he died I asked him if I could ever publish the story.  He didn’t mention his friend this time, possibly because he had passed away.  My Dad simply responded, “When I’m long gone.”  It was then that I knew that the picture and its hidden truths would now haunt me as well, as I realized that there were actually two young soldiers who witnessed the execution that day who were never the same again.)

Chris Gibbons (gibbonscg@aol.com) is a Philadelphia writer.  gibbonscg@aol.com

 

The Forgotten Hero 

By Chris Gibbons – Originally published in the December, 2015 edition of Philly Man Magazine

Although it was 20 years ago, Paul Sweeney still remembers that momentous evening well.  On July 28, 1995, the Marine Barracks outdoor facility in Washington D.C. was filled to capacity as the attendees patiently waited for the awards ceremony to begin.  Dignitaries in the audience included former Marine aviator, astronaut, and United States senator, John Glenn, Jr.  A Marine announcer asked for everyone’s attention.  The guests quieted.

“Lieutenant Edward Seeburger, center walk”, the announcer said.  The Marine Corps band’s drums beat a military cadence and bugles echoed across the barracks.  All eyes then shifted to a gray-haired man in his early 70’s, sharply dressed in a navy-blue suit, as he stood and proudly walked towards the center stage with a noticeable limp, the result of an old war injury.  Tears filled the eyes of his family members as they watched Seeburger approach the stage where Marine Commandant Charles C. Krulak waited to present the graduate of Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic High School with the prestigious Navy Cross – only one grade below the Congressional Medal of Honor.  “It was quite a moment to see”, Seeburger’s son-in-law Paul Sweeney told me recently, but when you consider what Edward Seeburger did during the Korean War’s Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, it is hard to believe that this award was overlooked and nearly forgotten.

On December 2, 1950, First Lieutenant Edward Seeburger, a veteran of WW II, was leading the remains of his Dog Company Unit as they desperately fought their way south to reach the U.S. held Korean town of Hagaru.  Of the 220 Marines originally in his Company, only about 20 were still fit to fight as the rest were either dead or wounded.  Out of seven officers, only Seeburger remained.  The men were not only fighting the enemy soldiers, but the weather as well.  The snow impeded their progress in temperatures that plummeted to minus 20.

Seeburger was near the lone tank at the front of the convoy when it was suddenly attacked by well positioned Chinese troops with small arms, automatic weapons, rockets, and mortars.  “One minute there was no action, and then there was artillery and mortar fire,” Seeburger said in a 1995 Philadelphia Inquirer article. ”We couldn’t move.  Everybody stopped.”

The Marines took cover, but the American tank gunners could not see where the enemy fire was coming from.  The convoy was being decimated.  Seeburger knew that he had to do something or he, and his men, would die on the frozen Korean hills.  He climbed on top of the lead tank so that he could locate the enemy positions, exposing himself to the enemy fire.  “Somebody had to give them some direction,” he said in the article. “We were being hit from both sides and the front.  I told them to open up with their weaponry to help our men out.”

Seeburger’s direction was working as the tank’s guns began to neutralize the enemy positions.  Suddenly a bullet tore into his right knee, knocking him to the ground.  The soldiers advised him to go back with the other wounded, but Seeburger refused.  The official Navy Cross citation reveals what happened next:  “With well-entrenched machine guns defending a roadblock to the front, and with his ranks depleted by eight further casualties, and he himself painfully wounded and unable to walk, he staunchly refused evacuation, and directed his men in an enfilade movement which wiped out the obstruction and enabled the entire column to move forward.  By his great personal valor and dauntless perseverance in the face of almost certain death, First Lieutenant Seeburger saved the lives of many Marines…”

For his actions, Seeburger was immediately recommended for the Navy Cross by his Major, James Lawrence.  However, unknown to Lawrence, the paperwork was destroyed when a regimental building burned down.  Lawrence long assumed Seeburger received the award but was stunned to learn over 40 years later that Seeburger never received it.  Lawrence then spoke to Navy officials and his recommendation was approved.

Edward “Bud” Seeburger from the R.C.H.S. Class of 1940 proudly received the Navy Cross that night in 1995, and it also coincided with the formal dedication that day of the new Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.  How fitting it was that on the day that the “Forgotten War” was finally recognized, one of its forgotten heroes was finally honored as well.  Sweeney told me that Seeburger never really talked about that night in Korea until he received the award.  “It couldn’t have been in a better setting,” Seeburger said in a 1995 Philadelphia Daily News article. “It was quite an honor.  My daughter and grandkids are able to see me get this award whereas, 45 years ago, they would not have been around for this…it’s amazing to me.”

Seeburger worked as a park police officer, and then later as an engraver for 32 years at Becks Engraving Co.  After retiring, he and his wife moved to Ocean City, N.J., and he worked part-time for the Claridge Casino in Atlantic City.  He died in 2007 at the age of 85.

Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic High School, founded in 1890, is still thriving today.  In one of the classrooms at the historic school are various plaques honoring alumni who distinguished themselves in battle, and one of those plaques bears the remarkable story of Edward Seeburger.  They serve as a reminder to the students of the proud legacy of their school, which is the only Philadelphia Archdiocesan high school, and one of the few in the country, whose alumni have served in the Spanish-American War, WW I, WW II, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  Over 150 alumni have given their lives in these conflicts.  On March 8^th of this year, several of these veteran alumni were honored during Roman’s 125 Year Anniversary celebratory banquet where the school formally recognized Roman’s “125 Persons of Distinction”.  The Seeburger family was there to accept the award on behalf of their father.  Roman’s Alumni Association felt that it was important to remember and recognize men like Edward Seeburger, whose actions and achievements are so remarkable that they reveal, not only to fellow alumni, but to the rest of our country as well, those quality characteristics that Roman has always strived to instill in its students.

(Chris Gibbons is a freelance writer and a 1979 graduate of Roman.  His recent book, “Soldiers, Space and Stories of Life” is available at Amazon.com – link below)