University of Virginia Library

6. John Luke Flyinghorse (Hunkpapa Lakota)

John Luke Flyinghorse, born in McIntosh, SD, is a member of the Hunkpapa Lakota tribe. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, continuing a tradition of military service among the males in his family; his father served in the U.S. Army, and Flyinghorse received great support from his entire family concerning his decision to enlist. His experience in Vietnam was with Golf Company in the area of the Thu Bon Mountains and the Ashau Valley in Vietnam, and with Communications Platoon, H & S Company. Though he expresses his pride in having served his nation in the Vietnam War, Flyinghorse also believes that

and speaks out against further American Indian involvement with the U.S. Armed Services' current activities.

VIETNAM: A Narrative
By John Luke Flyinghorse, Sr.

There was nothing to talk or think about. It was a given that all males in our family would join the armed services when their time came…so my dad, uncles and my grandfather's started preparing us for war when we were very young…all of us.

A lot of our activities started taking place late at night, especially when it was storming out and the moon was hidden. This included riding horses in electrical storms, when their ears would spark blue, and you could see the blue light dance between their ears. We were also taught to ride horses across swollen rivers, when the ice breaks up and the river is flowing bank to bank when the big icebergs flow past you real fast…we were taught not to show fear or panic because that would spook the horse and we would both drown. As I think back, I am thankful that we had these kinds of teachers…because holding our emotions in check is a leadership trait…

My friends were also my cousins. We had already buried some of my uncles in the family cemetery, and we honored them yearly because they were veterans, so it wasn't like we would just go and die and that would be the end. We knew if something did happen, we would be taken care of…forever.

My grandfathers told us that the white man has a myth about us—that we can see in the dark, hear movement miles away simply by putting our ears to the ground, and with our acute sense of smell, we can actually smell out the enemy. Of course, most of these myths are just that…but we prepared anyway. We did go hunting cottontails in the dark…and we were taken high up into the hills while someone was down below making sounds and noises, and we would identify them; our stealth was constantly being tested.

In my hometown of McIntosh, SD, all the Indians went to war; not very many of the white boys went, only the very poorest of the poor; but we all stood together as one in honoring all those leaving and returning. One of my cousins had just returned from Vietnam, and he told us younger boys about it. In the telling he didn't show any emotion or elaborate, he just told what he did and what he saw, so when my cousin George and I were old enough, we quit school and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, for four years each. Since our returning cousin was a Marine, we already knew what would happen to us; it was the brutality of boot camp that was challenging. When our cousin was telling us of his boot camp experience, we all thought he was making up these wild stories, but he wasn't.

My dad's and my grandfather's generations were all US Army; my generation was all U.S. Marines. My father took this especially hard because he always wanted us to join the 101st [U.S. Army Airborne Division] like he did. One of my grandfathers told me that since he knew I was going into combat, he knew I would be safe with the Marines; he just told us to do what we were told and taught, and we would be home safe before we knew it. As for the community, a few days before we were to leave, we were invited to the city bar where even the sheriff bought us beer, even though we weren't old enough to drink legally. This surprised us, but I think my uncles and other relatives had a lot to do with this.

Daily, the drill instructors separated all of us by race, so we weren't the only ones segregated…I think this instilled in us the fact that even though we all came from

different backgrounds, we were all there for a common cause. Of course, at first we didn't see this, but as time went on we could see how this was working for the benefit of the Corps; we learned to depend on one another without thinking about it. Through hard work I became a squad leader, and upon graduation I was promoted to PFC, a privilege provided to only eight out of a platoon of 180 men.

Upon learning that I was going to Vietnam, there was a big sigh of relief—a final knowing. This only left the question of when. Vietnam is possibly the most beautiful country in the world…and I was here and I couldn't believe it…like a huge manicured garden. Before I had left for Vietnam, one of my relatives sent me a letter they tore out of the local newspaper. It was a letter written by Kenny Jamerson, who was critically wounded in Vietnam, and he died because of his wounds. But before he died, he had a nurse write this letter home to his parents; they had it printed. I cried when I read that letter, because he wrote of the beauty and the people living here, and that he wasn't afraid to die, nor did he blame them for taking his life.

I was with Golf Company 2/7, 1st Marine Division. We were a bush company working out in I Corps, which included that area from LZ Baldy up to the DMZ. This area also included the Thu Bon Mountains and the Ashau Valley, what we commonly called Death Valley because of all the losses our forces suffered here. I was sent out on more ambush and listening posts than most of the others, and I was eventually made the Company Commander's radio operator. I served in a grunt unit. My only concern was for the safety of my men. When not on patrol or cleaning gear, I was playing guitar and singing songs; it was our way of coping.

My experience in Vietnam guaranteed [others] the right to spit in my face and throw bags of human excrement at me later on the 14th street bridge in Washington DC..

Now I wear my colors with pride; it's my way of letting everyone know that I did serve and I am still proud to have served. I would do it again.

American Indians always looked each other up…no matter what tribe we were from. That was the only mystique…why? I have no idea, but we had a bond. Its like this: I wouldn't rather put my life in anyone's else's hands than another American Indian, let alone someone else's life; so who better? No matter where we came from, we always walked point, or carried the radio, or were the Company Commander's operator…always.

I feel both honored and humbled at having that opportunity to go to Vietnam; so many vets have said that they wished they could have gone. You won't know why unless you've been there, and I know you have, so you know what I mean. I speak out against sending more American Indians to the Armed Services to go to any war the US is now engaged in, because the reasons have all been changed now. America has lost sight of what made her strong and united.

I landed at LZ Baldy, I Corps, RVN on December 7th, 1969 at 7:00 p.m. My first service was with Communications Platoon, H & S Company, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division as a radio operator. I had arrived a Lance Corporal; we were operators for the hill, and later on we were sent out on Listening Posts (LP's) and daylight patrols around the hill.

Christmas in Vietnam: I was out in the bush when Christmas rolled around, and I had gotten a package from my grandmother. It was papa—a form of jerky made from mule deer meat, cut into thin slices and dried from drying racks and seasoned lightly. This I shared with my men; we shared everything from home. Usually it was just a

taste of home, but it meant the world to us, especially to those who didn't get any mail or gifts from their families. I do remember the peas and mashed potatoes washed out of my mess kit because of the falling rain…

My first encounter with death: one night I had the third shift on radio watch. I would physically go from post to post along the perimeter, checking on our radio operators and others, making sure they were all right and their gear was working. I preferred this rather than the meaningless radio calls that others usually did to do their checking on their watch. But we called the LP's and other patrols we sent out at night.

When one of my LP's didn't answer, I waited until daylight; then four of us went out to check on the LP, which was only out about 200 meters from the perimeter, between us and the village.

When we reached their position, we found four stripped bodies; they had cut everyone's throat and taken everything they carried. There was no sign of a struggle, and one guy even had a smile. I knew they had been smoking dope, and they had probably all been asleep as well, and I was angry. I also knew that only two or three people had done this, but three would be enough people to carry away all their gear. We called for a medivac and our Lt. came out with the chopper; he was carrying an AK rifle. When he saw the bodies he cursed then he cried, then he said,

Field duty—working from the hill, we were rotated out on operations with the different bush companies of 2/7; I served with two bush companies, and after having gone out with them, I requested duty with Golf Company as one of their radio operators.

One of my father's younger brother's was a squad leader with Hotel 2/7, and I didn't want to endanger him, so I had requested duty with Golf Company. No sooner had I arrived then I was made the Captain's radio operator, filling a Sergeant's billet, and I was put in charge of the radio operators who were with the company; the man I had replaced had rotated back to the world.

When I was with the Captain, I set up the command post, and I carried a PRC-77 and a PRC-25 attached to each other through a connecting cable; the 77 was a cipher unit. But when I was on patrol, I carried the 25. We were severely undermanned, and our Captain was really a 2nd Lt., just like I was really a L/Cpl., but I was called Sergeant, or just plain Chief; I didn't mind this because I was the Communications Chief. Unlike all the movies, I was the only one who could call in artillery support or air support, besides the Captain, and I helped him write letters back to families of those we lost in combat.

We went to Laos and Cambodia and walked around a lot in the I Corps area; dates, times and places have no meaning to me, unlike my brothers and my two cousins who were also there at that time, and could keep track of all the places they had been and all the places they had seen action. I don't have that recall…and I don't know why, nor do I care.

Some things I do recall vividly…but they are perhaps best forgotten as well. Like the time we were on water patrol, we had all the men's canteens and we were searching for water. I was the second man back from point with my radio; I kept the point man in view, and when we had entered a slight clearing in the heavy jungle, this man in black pajamas jumped up from the trail we were on and started running away, tugging at his

pajama bottoms. He didn't carry any arms with him as he made his escape. The point man stitched him up the back, and I saw this man go tumbling, then I heard him open up again; this time it was a woman who was lying in the trail with her pajama bottoms still down. It was apparent they had been having sex and we had surprised them, but we had our orders. Anyone wearing black pajamas or anyone who ran from us, carrying arms or not, we had orders to engage.

New Year's Day 1970…New Year's eve we were atop a mountain overlooking LZ Rider. There was an artillery battery up there already with a support grunt unit; I had just come back from setting up a relay station and had settled in for the night, when a frightening thought occurred to me. I called my Captain and we discussed this, and he in turn called the CO on LZ Rider, down below us, about three clicks away (3,000 meters), and he assured me that everything would be fine, so I left a wakeup call to wake me just before midnight; then I went to sleep. At exactly midnight, down below on LZ Rider, everyone who carried a weapon opened up, firing into the night sky. Pop-up flares and fireworks were set off celebrating the New Year, but within seconds of everyone expending their rounds, we could see the green and red tracers being traded down below, and huge explosions erupting with sporadic white tracers feebly coming back in defeated response from the defenders. The radios went wild, calls for

and went out for artillery and air support…and all we could do was watch from above, and curse them, cry. The next morning we came into the base camp…

It was a slaughter. Sappers had gotten into the compound and had hidden under the hooches, waiting for this moment. Knowing the American psyche better then our own leaders did, they knew what we would do before it was done. While the men on LZ Rider were celebrating, the sappers under the hooches started blowing up the CP, the ammo dump and the fuel dump. And when our men came out of their hooches, they were shot as they came out. They killed 78 Marines that night; many more died from their wounds later on, and it took a huge effort to stabilize LZ Rider. The final body count was over 128 American lives we lost that night. But we didn't read about it in the Stars and Stripes, or hear about it on KFVN…but we were now a very angry bunch of Marines.

In June, I contracted Malaria and I was sent to Cam Ranh Bay Army Hospital for seventeen days; then I was sent back to Battalion to recuperate another 10 days…

July 4th, 1970, somewhere in I Corps, atop another mountain: While Golf Company was at LZ Baldy for a three day rehab, I had been dispatched to give support to an artillery battery on top of some nameless mountain with only a number to identify where we were. One morning at dawn, we had sent out a platoon-size patrol into the village down below, because we had seen a lot of activity there during the night. A Republic of Korea Marine patrol and an Australian Marine patrol was also in the same area, so they set up defensive positions on three sides of the village, forming a triangle with the village at its center, and we waited for night.

We did not have direct communications with either of our comrade units; we had to call Battalion to relay any communications to them, which complicated everything. At midnight on July 4th, again the American Marines opened fire with their weapons and other pyrotechnics into the night sky; this gave away their position and they immediately

drew gunfire from the village. When the people in the village opened fire on our Marines, the Australians and the ROK's [Republic of Korea troops] also opened fire on the village; then all gunfire stopped abruptly. What happened next was textbook war strategy, and we watched as we were manipulated into firing on each other.

Our Marine units used white tracer rounds to identify ourselves, and it was known that the enemy used red or green tracers and sometimes captured white tracer rounds, which they used to their advantage. When everything seemed to settle down we thought it was over, but it had only just begun. During this lull, some men from the village had gone out and positioned themselves between our three groups of Marines, and at a given signal they opened fire on all three Marine patrols at the same time. This caused an immediate response from all three Marines units, and they each opened fire in two directions—in effect, our Marines were firing on each other. This continued for most of the night. The next morning we medivaced about twenty men from the Marine units engaged that night, and we found no blood or blood trails, or tracks of the enemy.

There were many patrols and engagements of fire that I participated in, and one thing is certain. Neither I nor any of my Marines have ever shown any fear while engaged, only a very deep anger and sometimes a visible and verbal hatred for the enemy; sometimes this hatred has shown through even to our friendlies…lots of times.

Personally…I respect these people, very much. I did not feel this anger or hatred until the day my uncle was killed in a gunfight months later, in a place where even air strikes and artillery couldn't help us. A place where we fought on their terms, and we lost. But this anger and hatred left me almost as quickly as I felt it in my soul, and this feeling scared me, so I had to cry out.

From the time of my Vietnam experience, I've had many nightmares I've had to live through. Most of them were of my men being under attack; sometimes I was with them, and other times I couldn't help them. But in each, we were desperately out of ammunition, and the enemy kept on coming. I've lost track of time, and in some cases I cannot recall what happened during these lapses in time—two months once, three days another time, hours and moments in other times; sometimes I would meet and visit with someone, and not remember it. I feel guilty that I did survive and my uncle didn't; my tribute to him is trying to make a life for myself and my family that he would be proud of. I've learned as much about my disability as possible, and I know the triggers that send me into these time lapses and guilt trips, and I try to avoid them as much as possible. I don't hunt, or fish, and I hate the 4th of July.

Thank you for having me write this down. I voluntarily do this from time to time to keep my perspective and my sanity; then, I tear it up. I've found that if we can write about this experience honestly and sincerely, we can heal sooner, and we can become better human beings towards others.