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Book Review: Bloods

By Rick Tingling-Clemmons

An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans

A journalist by training, minister by calling, and war correspondent by fate, Wallace Terry, soft-spoken father of three, covered the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's before leaving for the jungles of Vietnam, an experience that inspired his best-selling work, Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans, published by Random House. With exceptional candor, compassion and a deep-felt concern for and sense of history, Terry visited 112 publishers and spent over a decade trying to spark interest in those who either disagreed with his manuscript or who honestly felt that enough had been said about Vietnam. Finally he met Mark Jaffe of Random House who led him to Erroll McDonald—and at long last, Blood was produced. Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, acclaimed by a long list of distinguished persons, Blood captures the waste, horror, corruption, futility and heroism of the Vietnam War more graphically than anything else I have read.

"The Bloods were there and they make excellent reporters," said on reviewer. Terry's book says it all. An anthology of eyewitness accounts of 20 Black Vietnam veterans, the book shows perspectives that cross the gamut of Viewpoints within American society. During the peak of the civil rights movement at home, the Bloods were in the paradoxical situation of defending the valor of a nation not willing to absorb them into its mainstream. As a Vietnam veteran I was struck by the beauty of Terry's unique exploration into some of the psychological torture to which these veterans were exposed upon their arrival home after the war. "I used to think that I wasn't affected by Vietnam ever since I left. You just can't get rid of it. It's like that painting of what Dali did of melting clocks. It's a persistent memory," said PFC Reginald "Malik" Edwards in Blood.

Blood also covers thoughts, feelings and actions of a group whose rate of attrition in Vietnam ranged from 23% to 14% (although only 11% of the population); who were disproportionately unemployed at home; who faced racism and Confederate flags often supported and sanctioned by the military and/or its officers; while knowing that they were fighting, dying and being maimed 8000 miles from home to (in the words of Dr Martin Luther King) "guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they have found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem." The need for such a book as Blood has its basis in a system that has historically denied the tremendous contribution made by Blacks, both in building this nation and in defending it. In a recent television interview, Terry responded to the contention that Blood might have been superfluous, that books about Vietnam were "old hat." Terry countered, "The story of Vietnam has not fully been told....when you look at today's atmosphere, with its emphasis on military readiness; when you look at the disproportionate numbers of Blacks dying in Lebanon, the US aggressive posture in Central America, in Nicaragua...you know that the story has not been told, the lessons not learned. Blacks not only died unequally, but were decorated—and came home." We came home all right—to disproportionate unemployment, incarceration, harassment, drug addiction and benign neglect.

However one feels about Blood or Vietnam, it is certainly important reading. For, it provides an excellent forum to talk about a period in history that laid bare the problems inherent in interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, a situation that is not only illegal and unethical, but serves to confuse us, drawing our attention from problems that exist unresolved here in the good old USA. The apparent contradiction of the centuries of oppression faced in this country by Blacks and their fierce loyalty and patriotism—proven in every war this country has ever participated in—must also be addressed and questioned. In explaining why he wrote Blood Terry recounted just one more story of tragic human waste: "Did you know that the youngest American to die in Vietnam was a 16-year-old Black kid from Bedford-Stuyvesant? His family was very poor and he lied about his age and joined the Marines when he was only 15 so that he could help out his family—and he lasted six weeks in Vietnam before he got wasted.

He's one of the reasons I came to write Blood."

My own personal assessment was expressed quite well by Black abolitionist Thomas Van Rensselaer in 1841, who wrote: "Let it be understood from one end of the country to another that we will never again take up arms in defense of this country unless all of the institutions are thrown open to us on equal terms." Because, for me, the true struggle for justice, for equality, for democracy—like charity—begins at home. You can start by buying and reading Blood. From one Blood to another, thank you Wallace Terry.

—Rick Tingling-Clemmons
VVAW-Washington DC