https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/opinion/the-truth-behind-a-bright-shining-lie.html. Born in Holyoke, Mass., in 1936, Sheehan grew up in an era when Americans believed in their soldiers and their wars. The two first met in 1963 when Sheehan, a reporter in Asia for United Press International, and later for the New York Times, arrived in Vietnam. Already the war had raged on longer than any in the countrys history. . By 1967, back in the United States as the Pentagon correspondent for the New York Times, Sheehan was declaring his transformation from hawk to dove in an article in the newspapers Sunday magazine. Sheehan describes Vann as having led more American troops in direct combat than any other civilian in US history. In April 1963 Vann returned to America. Vann denied the charges. It was, indeed, a funeral to which they all came, (credit Susan Sheehan for astutely changing everyone to they all), because of Vanns stature as a military strategist and a civilian warrior. By the time he died in 1972, Vann had embraced the follies he once decried. With Dzu sent to command II Corps in the central highlands, Vann now had to alter his maneuvering so that he would replace Maj. Gen. Charles P. Brown as the II CTZ senior adviser. As the senior adviser to a South Vietnamese infantry division in the Mekong Delta in 1962, the first year American correspondents began to descend on Vietnam, Vann was the de facto contact for U.S. journalists who arrived to cover the war. November 9, 1988. Because of his track record in the field, Vann was the lead candidate to become CORDS deputy for the III Corps Tactical Zone (CTZ). I think the book is not propagandistic, although it is very outspoken., Sheehan believes that if you see anger in the book it is probably over the war. But it is not an anti-war anger, he insisted. 1965. In June 1942, Frank Vann officially adopted John. The longer the book took, the worse his anxiety, insomnia and stress became, but the passage of time gave his 861-page masterpiece the breathing room to become a hit. His mother, a sometime prostitute named Myrtle, showed him no love at all. His approach made him an ally of US operatives such as Edward Lansdale and John Paul Vann, . HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. [3] The New York Review of Books proclaimed it "An unforgettable narrative, a chronicle grand enough to suit the crash and clangors of whole armies. They Say He Burned Down the Reichstag. As the years went on, Mr. Sheehan increasingly regarded Vann as the personification of Americas long, painful war effort. Vann also was highly critical of South Vietnamese tactics, noting a tendency to make excessive use of airstrikes and artillery, rather than putting ground units into VC territory. Vann decided to remain with the Army and transferred to the infantry branch. Vann's compassion for the South Vietnamese was usually superseded by his attempts to manipulate, to dominate. In 1946 Vann enrolled at Rutgers University in New Jersey to earn his bachelors degree. He died believing he had won his war.. He would have been very unhappy with the Paris peace accords. Vann, the hero, the hell-raiser, the knave and the performer, Sheehan said, didnt miss his exit.. John Paul Vann had a horrific upbringing, but during wartime, he had focused energy and was a great strategist and tactician, which is rare in an officer. Mr. Sheehan himself makes a smart tactical decision by letting readers get to know Vann as a soldier first. He was an ardent critic of how the war was fought by the Saigon regime, which he viewed as corrupt and incompetent, and increasingly, on the part of the U.S. military. Vann was instrumental in leading the ARVNs defense of Kontum, which prevented South Vietnam from being bisected, but as protests mounted back home, the feat barely made a ripple. On the same day, the White House released the text of the citation accompanying the medal, which read as follows: William Colby (executive director of the CIA) was another pallbearer. When the Korean War began in June 1950, Vann coordinated the transportation of his 25th Infantry Division to Korea. heroes like John Paul Vann, and his successful fighting in Vietnam.Sheehan, like Halberstam, had been a Saigon reporter in the early 60s, and saw years of disastrous American defeat. Westmoreland, however, left the final decision to Lt. Gen. Fred Weyand, the newly appointed commander of U.S. II Field Forces, the senior American commander in the south of the country. John Allen led the family in refusing to stand at the end of the service for several dignitaries, including Secretary of State William Rogers. For most Americans, Vietnam was a small, faraway country where a small-scale guerrilla war was in progress. In 1955, with the help of the Americans, South Vietnam had . John Allen avoids contact with his sister and one of his brothers. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Neil dug up a lot more and unfortunately, its all true, John Allen Vann said. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. It was before the era of Vietnam protest, before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Attempting to direct the battle from a light and unarmed observation aircraft, Vann was later awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Hes a compelling figure: tough, brash, energetic, hardheaded, and with enough charisma for a dozen Audie Murphy movies. But at various times, Sheehan came close to being overwhelmed by him. A poor Irish farm boy from Holyoke, Mass., Mr. Sheehan first went to Vietnam in 1962 for United Press International. John Paul Vann became an adviser to the Saigon regime in the early 1960s. But before it could reach Kontum, the NVA had to take a series of ridges and high ground to the north, to which the outpost at Tan Canh was the key. [7] For his actions from April 2324, 1972, Vann, ineligible for the Medal of Honor as a civilian, was also awarded (posthumously) the Distinguished Service Cross,[8] the only civilian so honored since World War II. Other civilians, such as Komer, had held general officer equivalency rank, but Vann was the first to have the authority to direct American troops in battle. Harkins had finally had enough. Vann's wit and iconoclasm did not endear him to many military and civilian careerists but he was a hero to many young civilian and military officers who understood the limits of conventional warfare in the irregular environment of Vietnam. On June 16, the President met with members of the Vann family at the White House where he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously to Mr. Vann. Yet his victory at Kontumencompassing up to 40,000 North Vietnamese casualtieswas largely predicated not on guerilla finesse or a mature ARVN but rather . He would have to take risks that other men were unwilling to take, because he would have to defeat the system in order to scale it., The ambiguities of Vanns character often perplexed Sheehan as he was chiseling away at the complex individual who was the center of his book. Book IV details Vann's criticism of the way the war was being fought, his conflict with the U.S. military command and his transfer back to America. Porter gave Vann a virtual carte blanche for his travel. He died in a helicopter crash in 1972 at 47 years old. We all felt a pride in dad for standing up for his beliefs, because he was having a wonderful military career that was cut short, says his eldest son, John Allen Vann, now 69. [1] However, the war ended before he could see action. Working in the ARVN III Corps area, where he had served his previous tour, Vann was so successful that within a year he was chief of the civilian pacification program in all the provinces around Saigon. The North Vietnamese, however, had no real experience with pursuit in mobile warfare and failed to follow up aggressively. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. He walks with the aid of a cane, the result of a serious automobile accident in 1974 that badly set back his writing schedule. By that time, too, John Paul Vann was back in Vietnam, heading a civilian pacification program. SYNOPSIS: On January 17, 1966, U.S. State Department Foreign Service Officer Douglas K. Ramsey was driving a truck northwest of Saigon when he was captured by Viet Cong forces. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Vann landed under heavy fire at Tan Canh with his helicopter and began evacuating civilians and the wounded. Mr. Sheehan took a leave from The Times to write his book, but he never returned. He was assigned to Korea, and then Japan, as a logistics officer. John Vann attended public school in Roanoke, Va. [3] Vann returned to Vietnam in March 1965 as an official of the Agency for International Development (AID). Other duties were the distribution of food and supplies to Vietnamese peasants and training community-defense teams. At a September screening of the Burns-Novick documentary The Vietnam War, John Kerry told the audience he never understood the full extent of the anger against the war until he read A Bright Shining Lie, which showed him that all the way up the chain of command people were just putting in gobbledygook information, and lives were being lost based on those lies and those distortions.. Although separated from the military before the Vietnam War reached its peak, he returned to service as a civilian under the auspices of the United States Agency for International Development and by the waning days of the war was the first American civilian to command troops in regular combat there. The worst is an airplane. For that reason, his new job put him in charge of all United States personnel in his region, where he advised the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) commander to the region and became the first American civilian to command U.S. regular troops in combat. The prologue recounts Vann's funeral on June 16, 1972, after his death in a helicopter crash in Vietnam. Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. Seeing how badly the Diem regime was responding to the ever-growing Communist threat, and the lack of military progress against the VC, Vann decided he had to tell his superior officers, and anyone else who would listen, just how badly things were going in Vietnam. To Mr. Sheehan and other reporters in Vietnam, Vanns version of what was going on rang truer than the sunny propaganda emanating from the White House. A BRIGHT SHINING LIE: JOHN PAUL VANN AND AMERICA IN VIETNAM by Neil Sheehan New York: Random House 861 pp. Vietnamese woman walking down a dirt road in Viet Nam, ca. The consequences if he was found guilty would be enormous. By the time of his death in Vietnam in June 1972, Lt. Col. John Paul Vann had taken on the highest military authorities in Washington and had earned the respect and trust of a small group of newsmen. Among other undertakings, CORDS was responsible for the Phoenix Program, which involved neutralization of the Viet Cong infrastructure. Many of those counted as enemy dead were in reality civilians caught in crossfire. A Bright Shining Lie lives on as a lasting work of scholarship, and a staple of high school and college history and literature course syllabuses. He certainly never took the feelings of his wife, Mary Jane, into consideration. He encouraged his personnel to engage themselves in Vietnamese society as much as possible and he constantly briefed that the Vietnam War must be envisaged as a long war at a lower level of engagement rather than a short war at a big-unit, high level of engagement. Sheehan first met Lt. Col. John Paul Vann, the man they had all come to bury, in Vietnam in 1962. It makes it sound like something very strange. The Army then assigned him to Korea as a special services officer, coordinating entertainment activities for the soldiers. As soon as he left the service in 1962, he went full time with UPI. Vann took the polygraph without incriminating himself, and the Article 32 convening authority subsequently concluded that there was not enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to convict him. Dzu actually spent more time with Vann than he did with Maj. Gen. Hal McCown, who was Dzus official senior adviser in the IV CTZ. Vietnam Questions (NSSM-1) . Abrams, who had a relatively high opinion of Vann, was open to the suggestion, but there were still the institutional and legal hurdles of placing a civilian in a military command position. Various editions from 1950 to 1962. Dzu was happy to support Vann, but the whole plan almost derailed when South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu reshuffled the ARVNs corps commanders in August 1970. $24.95. I never thought I wouldnt finish the book, but it was extremely draining.. . Chronicles the military career of Lt. Col. John Paul Vann, profiling his military and civilian roles in the Vietnam War The funeral -- Going to war -- Antecedents to a confrontation -- The Battle of Ap Bac -- Taking on the system -- Antecedents to the man -- A second time around -- John Vann stays (speaking about the South Vietnamese), "Thats the best damn bombing Ive seen in my 11 years over here!" He argued that many of the tactics employed (for example the Strategic Hamlet Program of relocation) further alienated the population and were counterproductive to U.S. objectives. As Mr. Sheehan notes, Vann turned himself into an amateur specialist on the polygraph, passed a lie-detector test, and beat the rap, but he went to Vietnam knowing his career was already lost. Things would get worse for John Paul when he came under the wing of a young Methodist pastor, Garland Hopkins. The girl took a lie detector test and passed. On June 9, 1972, John Paul Vann was killed when his helicopter, call sign Rogues Gallery, flying in darkness, slammed into a stand of trees and exploded. Long-lost ship found at the bottom of Lake Huron, confirming story of tragic collision, TikTok to set default daily time limit of up to 60 minutes for minors, Jaguars, narcos, illegal loggers: One mans battle to save a jungle and Maya ruins. The depths of Vanns sexual compulsions are thoroughly examined in A Bright Shining Lie, and they were overwhelming. A jail term and dismissal from the Army were distinct possibilities. I talked to Susan that night and she said it sounds like this is a book., (Had I known how long the book was going to take, I wouldve committed hara-kiri, Susan Sheehan said with a laugh. He had five children by his wife, Mary Jane, and though they were divorced at the time he was killed in a helicopter accident in Vietnam, at the funeral she placed a rose on the coffin and told the man inside she loved him. Although an enormous number of people were killed, the die was cast., It is probably no coincidence that Sheehan all but dismisses Vanns views in the post-Tet period as those of an angry fanatic who could not accept the death of the war. John Allen Vann, Mr. Vann's son, received the medal on behalf of his family. Anyone can read what you share. When Maj. Gen. Ngo Dzu became the commander of ARVN IV Corps in 1970, he already had a good relationship with Vann, extending back to 1967. (Their lone daughter had just given birth.) Vann was also strident in his criticisms of the Strategic Hamlet Program, which he thought was a waste of time and energy, and he was critical of the way MACV ran counterintelligence operations. Vann's mother married Aaron Frank Vann, and Vann took his stepfather's surname; Vann had three half-siblings, from Aaron and Myrtle: Dorothy Lee, Aaron Frank, Jr., and Eugene Wallace. He wielded the power of a general, but would never hold the rank. 1966. When he first went to Vietnam, he remembered over dinner, my head was filled with the shibboleths of the Cold War. His generation grew up questioning nothing, Sheehan said. John Paul Vann (born John Paul Tripp; July 2, 1924 June 9, 1972) was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, later retired, who became well known for his role in the Vietnam War. It is over the waste. Sheehan, who makes his home in Washington now, is 52 and silver-haired. Vanns first duty was to organize a supply system for the ARVN forces. Perhaps the most appropriate tribute was detailed in a 1988 Washington Post profile by William Prochnau. I detect, maybe I am wrong, a receptivity to looking at the war with a new perspective., Recently, for example, Sheehan said a Navy pilot approached him and told him, I always thought we could win if we just got one more bridge. He returned to the United States in 1957 to attend the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Although the book was a fascinating and gut wrenching read, I found myself somewhat disappointed in the almost abrupt ending with John Paul Vann's death. If that was not enough pressure on the family, Vanns youngest son, Peter, was seriously ill and required extensive medical treatment. These officers knew that such questioning of the way the war was going could lead to the end of their military careers, but decided to pursue the truth regardless. One of his most trenchant observations was: This is a political war and it calls for discrimination in killing. Even in a world of macho libertine behavior, Vann stood out, bedding women everywhere he lived, traveled and worked, often multiple times a day. By 1988, the family was $295,000 in debt to his publisher, Random House, and The New Yorker, for which he wrote regularly and which had lent him money (as magazines did back in those days), keeping afloat through fellowships, teaching gigs and Susan Sheehans freelance work. Although he succeeded there for nearly two years, he missed Vietnam and angled to return. [9], "John Vann" redirects here. Many of them we can look up; the generals, journalists, public figures, etc have a continued history that we can see elsewhere online, but for others there is nothing. He died believing that the war had been won. In 1955 Vann was promoted to major and reassigned to U.S. Army Europe headquarters in Heidelberg, where he worked in logistics. In the early 1940s he was attending junior college as the United States entered World War II. The next worst is artillery. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (1988) is a book by Neil Sheehan, a former New York Times reporter, about U.S. Army lieutenant colonel John Paul Vann (killed in action) and the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. Unlike many US soldiers, he was respectful toward the ARVN soldiers notwithstanding their low morale and was committed to training and strengthening their morale and commitment. The 2nd Regional Assistance Command was redesignated the 2nd Regional Assistance Group, and Vanns title was director. ", "These people may be the world's greatest lovers but they're not the world's greatest fighters. For Sheehan, Vann was not only the quintessential American soldier in Vietnam but also the personification of the wars contradictions and complexities. 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