Cherries; A Vietnam War Novel

Written by Bernie Weisz/Historian-Vietnam War Pembroke Pines, Florida U.S.A. contact e mail: BernWei1@aol.com Title of Review: The Price of War: Wondering One Time Or Another If You Would Ever Make It Home Alive And In One Piece!I am not quite sure where to start with John Podlaski's blockbuster book "Cherries", a fictionalized account of his 1970 to 1971 tour as a foot soldier in South Vietnam. As an avid reader of many historical memoirs, both fiction and autobiographical, rarely have I found one as in depth and revealing as Mr. Podlaski's work. Thirty years in the making, it was originally written in a first person format. "Cherries" was started in 1979 and ground to a frustrating halt ten years later. It sat dormant until 2009, where Mr. Podlaski, with renewed verve, finally took it to task to complete it. At the advice of his publisher to change the story to a third person fictional approach, and the technical computer dexterity of his daughter, Nicole, the writing was first converted from carbon paper to Atari floppy disks and finally to Microsoft Word. "Cherries" is now available to the public. Regardless of the format, Mr. Podlaski takes the reader, through the protagonist of John Kowalski, of his personal tour conveying his impressions of a war America currently prefers to forget. This historical gem will not let this happen. Through an incredible, larger than life manuscript, Mr. Podlaski reminds us that the jungle warfare against huge communist forces in Vietnam was a deadly and unique challenge to our U.S. forces. It is made clear in "Cherries" that limited American forces faced an unlimited number of Communist troops who had the incomparable advantage of a sanctuary for their replacements beyond the 18th parallel. With the memory of the 1950-1953 Korean War debacle, the U.S. government granted this sanctuary fearing that any military action beyond it would cause reprisals from Communist China.In South Vietnam, our troops could not distinguish enemy from friendly Vietnamese. Within the storyline, the reader finds that a village could be friendly by day and enemy by night. It was a battlefield without boundaries. A secret supply route in Laos, known as the "Ho Chi Minh Trail," funneled a constant arms supply to the enemy. The jungle provided the perfect cover for the Communists, constantly posing ambushes from the rear and flanks of our troops. Bayonet and gun butt, hand to hand fighting were frequent. Capture by the enemy could mean torture and a communist prison camp. The constant unbearable heat, with high humidity, enervated our troops. John Podlaski's story started in 1970, where America was in the process of what President Nixon called "Vietnamization." This was the President's policy of gradually returning the primary responsibility for conducting the war to the South Vietnamese. As US troops withdrew, South Vietnamese forces were increased in size and received additional training and equipment, with the ultimate goal being complete U.S. departure of the war. The South Vietnamese would be left to stand alone in their civil war with the Communists. Podlaski's emphasis was on this period of the war. "Cherries" described the ordeal of recently arriving American soldiers who were tasked with fighting an elusive, well trained and hard core Communist enemy force in their own backyard: the sweltering, triple canopy jungles of South Vietnam. They were naive young recruits, just graduating from high school within the past year. Dubbed "F.N.G's or "Cherries" by the veterans, these men found themselves in the middle of a situation they never imagined in their wildest dreams.As Podlaski emphatically stated in the book: "I guess you really had to be there to understand." As opposed to the ticker tape parades that U.S. servicemen were given upon their return from the W.W. II battlefields of the Far East and Europe, his terse remark in his epilogue spoke volumes upon his protagonist's return from the war; "There were no speeches or parades. One night you're getting shot at and looking at the bodies of your dead friends, and then two days later, you're sitting on your front porch, watching the kids play in the street and the cars drive by. There was no transition period." Throughout Podlaski's book, the general theme is for no U.S. grunt to be the last American to die in a war not sought for a victorious conclusion. The facts of American conduct of the war in 1970 to 1971 are interesting. Severe communist losses during the 1968 Tet Offensive allowed President Nixon to begin troop withdrawals. His Vietnamization plan, also known as the "Nixon Doctrine," was to build up the South Vietnamese Army (known as " ARVN") so that they could take over the defense of South Vietnam on their own. At the end of 1969, Nixon went on national TV and announced the following: "I am tonight announcing plans for the withdrawal of an additional 150,000 American troops to be completed during the spring of next year. This will bring a total reduction of 265,500 men in our armed forces in Vietnam below the level that existed when we took office 15 months ago."On October 10, 1969, Nixon ordered a squadron of 18 B-52's armed with nuclear bombs to fly to the border of Soviet airspace in an attempt to convince the Soviet Union, North Vietnam's main supporter along with Communist China, that he was capable of anything to end the Vietnam War. Nixon also pursued negotiations and ordered General Creighton Abrams, who replaced William Westmoreland, to shift to smaller operations, aimed at communist logistics, with better use of firepower and more cooperation with the ARVN. The former tactic of "Search and Destroy" was abandoned. Detente with the Soviet Union the Republic of China was also pursued. Easing global tensions, detente resulted in nuclear arms reduction on the part of both superpowers. Regardless, Nixon was snubbed as the Soviet Union and Red China continued to covertly supply the North Vietnamese with aid. Nixon appealed to the "silent majority" of Americans to support the war. With revelations in the media of the "My Lai Massacre," where a U.S. Army platoon commanded by Lt. William Calley raped and killed civilians, and the 1969 "Green Beret Affair" where eight Special Forces soldiers, including the 5th Special Forces Group Commander were arrested for the murder of a suspected double agent, national and international outrage was provoked and the American anti war movement gained strength. Starting in 1970, American troops were being taken away from South Vietnamese border areas where much more killing took place, and instead positioned along the coast and interior, which is one reason why casualties in 1970 were less than half of 1969's total casualties.In Cambodia, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, this nation's leader, had proclaimed Cambodian neutrality since 1955. This was a lie, as the Communists used Cambodian soil as a base and Sihanouk tolerated their presence to avoid being drawn into a wider regional conflict. Under pressure from Washington, however, he changed this policy in 1969. The Vietnamese communists were no longer welcome. President Nixon took the opportunity to launch a massive secret bombing campaign, called Operation Menu, against their sanctuaries along the Cambodia/Vietnam border. This violated a long succession of pronouncements from Washington supporting Cambodian neutrality. In 1970, Podlaski first set foot in South Vietnam., and in Cambodia Prince Sihanouk was deposed by his pro-American prime minister Lon Nol. Cambodia's borders were closed, and both U.S. and ARVN forces launched joint incursions into Cambodia to attack North Vietnamese/Viet Cong bases and buy time for South Vietnam. The invasion of Cambodia sparked massive nationwide U.S. outcry and protests. Public outrage peaked in the U.S. when 4 students were killed by National Guardsmen at Kent State University during an anti war rally in Ohio. The Nixon administration reacted indifferently to this, and was publicly viewed as callous and uncaring, providing additional impetus for the anti-war movement. In 1971 the "Pentagon Papers" were leaked bt Daniel Ellsberg to The New York Times. The top-secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, commissioned by the Department of Defense, detailed a long series of public deceptions. The Supreme Court ruled that its publication was legal.Although not mentioned in "Cherries", with U.S. support, The ARVN launched "Operation Lam Son 719" in February 1971, designed to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. Similar to the sham of Cambodian neutrality, "supposedly" neutral Laos had long been the scene of a secret war. After meeting resistance, ARVN forces retreated in a headlong, confused rout. Shamefully, they fled along roads littered with their own dead. When they ran out of fuel, South Vietnamese soldiers abandoned their vehicles and attempted to barge their way on to American helicopters sent to evacuate their wounded. Many ARVN soldiers clung to helicopter skids in a desperate attempt to save themselves. U.S. aircraft had to destroy abandoned equipment, including tanks, to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Half of the invading ARVN troops were either captured or killed. The operation was a fiasco and represented a clear failure of Vietnamization. In 1971 Australia and New Zealand withdrew their soldiers. The U.S. troop count was further reduced to 196,700, with a deadline to remove another 45,000 troops by February 1972. As peace protests spread across the United States, disillusionment grew in the ranks. Drug use increased, race relations grew tense and the number of soldiers disobeying officers rose. Fragging, or the murder of unpopular officers with fragmentation grenades, increased. The phenomenon of "fragging" is mentioned in "Cherries" in a rather interesting scenario. "Cherries" is a "catch all" for all of the subtle nuances and innuendo a grunt in the jungles of Vietnam from 1970 to 1971 would experience.Mr. Jack Stoddard wrote a book about a very common cliche Mr. Podlaski included in the nomenclature that was to arise out of this war. Aside from exposing racial conflict between blacks and whites in the beginning of Stoddard's book, there is a small anecdote whereupon there is almost a fight between blacks and whites in a pool room in the States just prior to deployment to S.E. Asia. A sergeant tells the combatants the following: "I'd be willing to forget this incident if everybody just walks away and returns to what they were doing earlier. What are you going to do if we don't ? "Send us to Vietnam?" someone called out from the crowd." No history book will ever contain this, but there were reasons that many returning veterans went back to Vietnam despite the anti war movement and the lack of resolve for America to win. To quote Podlaski, he uses an example of Sgt. Larry Holmes, nicknamed "Sixpack" who returns to Vietnam rather than finish his military obligation stateside as a drill instructor training new recruits. Here is a poignant and true example of "the times"; "He had his orders changed during leave and volunteered for a second tour. Why would he do a thing like that? He told me he was fed up with the civilians and all the hippies. He said that while on leave, he was spit on and people were getting on his case because he was training soldiers to be baby killers and then sending them off to Vietnam. He said there wasn't a day that went by without someone picking a fight with him. After the cops had jailed him for a second time for disorderly conduct, he went and signed the papers. The world is filled with jerks. Too bad he had to volunteer for Nam to get away from it all."Unfortunately, the reality is that this happened in the late 1960's and early 1970's more than one would suspect! Regardless of the aspect of fiction being the backdrop, this story is so real, nothing is missed. Podlaski describes his protagonist's reactions to Vietnam more accurately than over 100 memoirs combined. The red dust of Vietnam, the insects, leeches, the heat, rats, humidity and monsoons are all covered. Podlaski's description of observing betel nut by the indigenous Vietnamese is a classic: "Everyone wore straw conical hats that helped to shield their faces from the strong rays of the sun and they were all smiling happily. All looked as if they had mouths filled with black licorice. Their lips, teeth and insides of their mouths looked like a poster advertisement from the Cancer Foundation, warning of the dangers of smoking." Podlaski's description of a Vietnamese village is incredibly authentic, only to be told by a participant: "The entire time they were there, the soldiers were surrounded by at least 30 kids at any given time. Most of them were hustlers who tried to sell them anything from pop to whiskey, to women, chickens and dope. It was like a flea market making a sales pitch." Another truism is Podlaski explaining to the reader why soldiers were glad when children came to greet them: "The villagers know when Charlie is around and are smart enough to not let their kids be in the middle of a firefight." The paradigm of a new soldier, i.e. "Cherry" is instructive: "Just don't go out there thinking you're John Wayne, because it'll get you killed."Equally telling is Podlaski's "grunt rule" of Vietnam. Objecting to the useless pre Viet Nam deployment training the military gave, Podlaski's rule was as follows; "What more do we have to learn? There's a little guy with a gun that's trying to shoot me and I shoot him first. It's as simple as that." Another classic quote in "Cherries" is Podlaski's lament of his 365 day "prison term of Vietnam"; "We're all locked up in this country for the next year and all we can do about that is serve our time." John Podlaski's book captures everything an infantry soldier would encounter. Firefights, medical evacuations, booby traps, punji pits, mechanical ambushes, Cobra attack helicopters, medical evacuations and very graphic, violent depictions of death in the sweaty jungles of Vietnam are mentioned. All of Podlaski's comments within this book mirror and complement other classic memoirs. Lost, classic quotes specific only to the Viet Nam War are permanently captured. Examples of this are of the soldier with only a few days left of his tour (usually 365 days), who would say he was "About to DEROS" (return to the states-date of return from overseas service). Another classic cliche you will find in "Cherries" is being "On the Freedom Bird" (an expression for being a grateful, surviving passenger on a commercial airplane that would fly a soldier from combat in Viet Nam to the U.S., thus resuming life as a civilian). No history book has this realism or lost history! Here is a classic quote of Podlaski's found universally in every memoir I have encountered: "They say that you can be fearless as a lion after your first month in country, but feel like a Cherry again after that last month." Another factor of "Cherries" are the soldier's apprehensions of death running rampant throughout the book.Unlike any World War II account where the only goal was annihilation of the enemy and ultimate victory, the only goal in "Cherries" was for the characters of this story to survive their tour and come home in one piece. Ironically, the expression "Victory was never an Option" was later turned into a book by Col. Robert M. Bayless. Tragically, the fact that there was neither an American end game nor exit strategy made this war very different and distinct for our soldiers as compared to either of the two prior 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 World Wars. "Fragging" is also discussed. This expression referred to the act of attacking a superior officer in one's chain of command with the intent of killing him. It boils down to the assassination of an unpopular officer of one's own fighting unit. Killing was done by a fragmentation grenade, thus the term. This was used to avoid identification and apprehension. If a grenade was used, a soldier could claim in the heat of a battle that the grenade landed too close to the target and was accidentally killed, that another member of the unit threw the grenade, or even that a member of the other side threw it. Unlike a gun, a grenade cannot be readily traced to anyone, whether by using ballistics forensics or by any other means. The grenade itself is destroyed in the explosion, and the characteristics of the remaining shrapnel are not distinctive enough to permit tracing to a specific grenade or soldier. "Fragging" usually involved the murder of a commanding officer perceived as unpopular, harsh, inept or overzealous.As "Cherries" unfolds, the war became increasingly more unpopular. Soldiers became less eager to aggressively engage and seek out the enemy. The G.I.'s in the boonies preferred leaders with a similar sense of self-preservation. If a C. O. was incompetent, fragging the officer was considered a means to the end of self-preservation for the men serving under him. It would also occur if a commander took on dangerous or suicidal missions, especially if he was seeking self glorification. Individual commanders would be "fragged" when demonstrating incompetency or wasting their men's lives unnecessarily. The facts are that during the war, at least 230 American officers were killed by their own troops, and as many as 1,400 other officers' deaths were inexplicable. Between Podlaski's tour of 1970 and 1971 alone, there were 363 cases of "assault with explosive devices" against officers in Vietnam. Finally, there are explanations about the war rarely to be told in high school nor college curriculums. John Podlaski explains that in the ranks of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army, many women served as soldiers. Caves and spider holes were rampant, and this elusive enemy rarely left their wounded and dead on the battlefield. With the exception of the "Ia Drang" 1965 battle, the Communists rarely engaged in a "set piece", toe to toe battle. The NVA and Viet Cong fought mostly at night, when they had an advantage, and were an extremely cunning, formidable foe. In regard to the enemy, Podlaski quotes: "If you don't respect them and continue to underestimate them, you'll never make it home alive."In terms of surviving one's tour, Podlaski pointed to luck as the decisive factor. Superstition and omens were also prevalent. One of his characters was named Zeke, a grunt who was "short" (less than a month left on his tour of Vietnam) and forced to go out on one final mission before going back home, as ominously asserting the following:" Training and experience don't mean nothing "In the Nam." It's all luck. And I don't feel like I have any left." Nothing is missed in "Cherries." Agent Orange is vividly brought up. Involvement of the Koreans, Thai's, New Zealanders and Australians, a fact underplayed and rarely discussed, is also mentioned. Podlaski interestingly mentions a quip about the one year tour of duty that tacitly suggests a possible reason for ultimate American failure: "You learn more about this place every day. Yeah, and just when you think you know it all, it's time to go home." There are other prophetic comments and anecdotes. In discussing a soldier's difficulty in determining whether or not a villager is a Viet Cong or an innocent civilian, he wrote: "If we had that answer, the war would have been over a long time ago." Podlaski compared humping the bush with a Halloween haunted house: "In both cases, you felt your way along, waiting for something to jump out at you. In the bush, to get surprised could very likely result in death." His comment about humping around the 100 degree, insect, snake, rat and leech infested jungle with 60 lbs on one's back was as follows: "The grunts no longer thought of the never-ending jungle as Vietnam. Instead, they imagined themselves in a large box, constantly walking, but never able to reach the other side."In regards to dealing with the death of a friend in combat, Podlaski wrote the following "There will be others so you have to learn how to block out the emotions and live with the hurt, otherwise you'll drive yourself crazy." Unlike the camaraderie of W. W. II Vets with their V.FW's and perpetual fellowship, Podlaski exposed this missing element of Vietnam Veterans. As one grunt went home for the last time and said goodbye to his fellow G.I's, Podlaski wrote the following: "In the morning, as the three of them readied themselves for their final chopper ride out of the jungle, the men hugged and shed some tears. Promises were made to be broken, and it was unfortunate, but this would be the last time any of them heard or saw one other again." Also not to be found in any history book besides the lack of camaraderie among Veterans after they came home was the fact some Veterans incredulously denied ever being in the service or talking about Viet Nam for 40 plus years afterwards! Another Wolfhound, who wrote an excellent memoir of what his tour in Vietnam was like as well as a larger than life description of the April, 1970 Cambodian Incursion that "Cherries" focuses on was Richie Watkins book entitled "Vietnam, No Regrets." Watkins chilling description validates Podlaski's account; "Snipers always sucked, because you couldn't see them by the time they saw you. I would experience this first hand later in my tour when I first became a sniper. The fact that if you were unlucky enough to be wounded in combat in Vietnam, a chopper would be available to take you out and have you on an operating table in less than 15 minutes was a miracle in itself."Richie Watkins continued; "It was one of those things in combat we all depended upon and those pilots never let us down. Those medevac chopper pilots would fly right into an active firefight to take us out, at great risk to themselves and by doing so saved many a soldier's life." Watkins also explained his reason why 58, 209 Americans died in Viet Nam; Some of the men had shrapnel wounds from the grenades the enemy had thrown; but most had bullet wounds and bullets that made one hell of an ugly wound. The caliber of bullets that were used over there was basically the same for both sides. They were both very small in size, but when they hit human flesh and bone they would tear through the body with such force that the damage was to graphic to describe. Let me just say that it was a miracle in itself that anyone could survive getting hit by one of those bullets. As "Cherries" reveals, Watkins' view of combat was almost identical to Podlaski's; "We would always be looking for "payback." The more, the better. The feelings of the men that actually fought the "Vietnam War' was that the more of the enemy we could kill, the less of them there would be to kill. I know that thinking sounds kind of weird now, but at the time it made complete sense." How did Rich Watkins deal with the war in retrospect, the waste of lives, and death? He explained as follows: "As I look back on it now, my feelings aren't any different today then they were then. It wasn't worth it one bit, I thought it stunk then and I still do today. But once the fighting begins and the adrenaline starts to flow and the willingness to kill and the desire to live kicks in, all bets are off."Watkins concluded; "We all took our chances for our country in one way or another and prayed for the best. That's all one could do once a combat situation developed. As my time "In Country" dragged on and I became more hardened and experienced, I would tune out the possibility that I too could be wounded or killed. I would just go with the flow of the situation. After a while one doesn't really believe he will be making it home anyway. We tried to survive day to day and not worry about what tomorrow may bring. Tomorrow was out of our control and was going to take care of itself one way or another. We were all at fate's mercy and there wasn't much we could do about it. For in Vietnam, tomorrow was promised to no one." The very essence of this thought pattern will surface repetitively in "Cherries." I have encountered many Vietnam Veterans as well as historians that emphatically declare: "I don't read fiction!" the Vietnam War ended in 1973, almost 40 years ago. Do you know how many Veterans wrote books in the past 10 years that refused to talk about their experiences for the previous three decades? A second question is how do you create a memoir from almost half a century ago with accuracy if you have no letters home or diary to work from? The answer to both is "historical fiction." The "fiction" label only applies because of the elapse of exact details due to faulty memory; no incidents nor occurrences are fabricated. Usually this Veteran will have a close veteran friend die, or he might have recently had a close brush with a near fatal illness himself. Some go see a war movie like "Platoon" or "Hamburger Hill," emerging from the theatre hall with a vow to tell "their side" of the story."One example of this is Rich Vnuk. I am not going to give "Cherries" away, but Vnuk corroborates the dread of death Podlaski so perfectly expressed. After seeing the movie "We Were Soldiers" about his battalion in Vietnam, the "1/7th Cavalry, Vunk ended a 35 year drought and penned "Tested in the Fire of Hell." Vnunk did not know Podlaski nor Watkins, but there is a readily identifiable thread that runs through all three books. Vnuk described his tour as follows; "I felt a pain that would not leave as long as I was away from home and in Viet Nam. This thought was rooted in the back of my mind: I might never see my family again. This was very disheartening and would be on my mind until the day I safely left for home; the fear of dying so far away with complete strangers had an overpowering effect on me. I have met death face to face and experienced it in different ways. I could feel death and it was near us all the time. I wondered if death would make a personal call. It didn't seem fair I didn't understand why some should die and others live?" What was Vnuk's greatest fear? "The most fearful sound of all was the crack of an AK-47 round flying over our heads. I t seemed as if I was always thinking about the time when one round would tear through me. I just knew the odds were so great that it would happen. I had been pushed physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally, learned to function without sleep, and go without food.About his opponent Vnuk offered; "The enemy always knew our situation because we traveled like a heard of cattle and if there was any weakness they would know and use it to their advantage. After a battle, we became conscious of the fact that every ounce of energy emotional and physical had been zapped out of us. Only our minds registered that we had friends lying dead or wounded around us. We were grateful to be alive but began to be tortured by feelings of guilt because we survived. Could we have done more?" What about atrocities and death? Vnuk responded with; "There were a thousand "My Lai" incidents that took place that were never reported. In Viet Nam there was no time to bury or even mourn the dead. We could not fall back to the rear or secure area, there were none." In regard to the psychology of war, and the John Wayne and the macho Marine image, Vnuk wrote; "Most often the dead were used as booby traps and set up to draw more soldiers into another ambush. The Americans, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese were all guilty of mutilation and degradation of the dead. The psychological war going on both sides struck fear into men's hearts. The American military regarded tears as dangerous, a sign of a weakling or a loser. An American soldier who had wept for a fallen friend would be warned not to "lose it" and "to get your mind straight." Vnuk came home alone on a plane packed with soldiers completing their one year tours. He elaborated: "I arrived spiritually drained and completely exhausted emotionally and physically. Not much was said about Vietnam after that day. I did not talk about Viet Nam for 35 years. Now, I am tirelessly in the process of searching for answers to what really happened."John Podlaski's book is one important piece to a complicated puzzle. Another Viet Nam Veteran that wrote a tremendous memoir of the whole scene of going from a "Newbie" to a Veteran, then a three decade silence, and finally a mind numbing memoir that also validates everything in Podlaski's book is Clyde Hoch's "Tracks." Hoch was placed in a bad situation. Hoch was a Sergeant in command of an M-48 Tank unit who despondently described how he was placed in the unenviable situation in the war where a little boy's family was being held hostage by the Viet Cong. The boy was told by them to go into an American compound with explosives tied to his back to blow the compound up. If the boy refused, the VC would kill his family. Hoch was on guard when the boy came to the compound. What did he do? Hoch both answers and asks the reader; "Of course I shot him. Who was wrong? The VC? The little kid? Me?" These are situations Podlaski's men were to be faced with. Hoch also wrote his thoughts on survival; "There were so many times I went to sleep thinking that I would not last to see the morning sun come up. There were so many days where I woke up and said to myself, "This one will surely be my last day on earth." Somehow I made it through them all. There were so many close calls I don't remember them all. Someone once told me," You came back because God has a purpose for you!" Now I'm sure he was right." "Cherries," like Podlaski's tour, is broken up into two parts. Podlaski served as an infantryman in both the southern part of Vietnam as a member of the Wolfhounds, 25th Division and in the northern part of South Vietnam at the end of his tour. There he was attached to the 501st infantry Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division. It was like two different wars entirely, with different uniforms and tactics used in the different tactical zones. This reality is translated into the story line. Podlaski summed up his frustration of the war with he following comment, thinking he was going home; "No more humping, ambushes, eating C-rations, and having to carry the weight of another person on my back. Goodbye Vietnam! Good Riddance! And good luck!" This comment he made when he incorrectly thought his tour with the Wolfhounds was over. Podlaski erroneously "thought" he would go with them in their redeployment to Hawaii. Instead, he was sent to the 101st Airborne Division in the northern part of South Vietnam to finish his tour. However, when Podlaski finally did arrive back home, and deplaned from the "Freedom Bird,"Podlaski had the following classic commentary about his protagonist, John Kowalski.Podlaski concluded; "Pollack (Kowalski's nickname) had changed physically, rarely paying any attention to it in Vietnam. He remembered that upon leaving for war, he weighed 196 lbs. and had a 36" waist. That day, he weighed 155 pounds and had a 29" waist. Pollock did not regret anything he did during his time in Vietnam. He was the only person from his graduating class and group of friends that went to Vietnam, so nobody could share his experiences or even have the faintest idea of what he'd gone through. Friends and family tried to understand but they weren't quite able to comprehend what he told them. He was only able to get so far before they lost interest or rolled their eyes. In their minds it was just a bunch of war stories that he was blowing out of proportion. After all, it was impossible for somebody to go through that." How sad! This is a case of PTSD just waiting to happen, and undoubtedly this scene is occurring today with veterans returning from the Middle East. There are way to many more stories, examples and paradigms to mention, but you are just going to have to read this book for yourself to understand this! By reading "Cherries" you will get the knowledge and feel of what it was like in Vietnam that many non fictional memoirs of this war collectively failed to mention! Highly Recommended!