Department cable advising him that the United States would 'no longer tolerate' Ngo Dinh Nhu's 'influence' on President Diem's regime. In two months, a military coup toppled Diem's South Vietnamese government; the next day, Diem and his brother, Nhu, were assassinated.
'IT LOOKS LIKE WE'VE BEEN ADVISING THE WRONG GUYS,' Owen said. And the next summer, when we saw on TV the North Vietnamese patrol boats in the Tonkin Gulf-within two days, they attacked two U.S. destroyers-Owen said: 'DO WE THINK THIS IS A MOVIE?'
President Johnson asked Congress to give him the power to 'take all necessary measures to repel an armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.' The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was approved by the House by a unanimous vote of to ; it passed the Senate by a vote of to . But Owen Meany asked my grandmother's television set a question: 'DOES THAT MEAN THE PRESIDENT CAN DECLARE A WAR WITHOUT DECLARING IT?'
That New Year's Eve-I remember that Hester drank too much; she was throwing up-there were barely more than twenty thousand U.S. military personnel in Vietnam, and only a dozen (or so) had been killed. By the time the Congress put an end to the Tonkin Gulf Resolution-in May of -there had been more than half a million U.S. military personnel in Vietnam; and more than forty thousand of them were dead. As early as , Owen Meany detected a problem of strategy. In March, the U.S. Air Force began Operation Rolling Thunder-to strike targets in North Vietnam; to stop the flow of supplies to the South-and the first American combat troops landed in Vietnam.
'THERE'S NO END TO THIS,' Owen said. 'THERE'S NO GOOD WAY TO END IT.'
On Christmas Day, President Johnson suspended Operation Rolling Thunder; he stopped the bombing. In a month, the bombing began again, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee opened their televised hearings on the war. That was when my grandmother started paying attention. In the fall of , Operation Rolling Thunder was said to be 'closing in on Hanoi'; but Owen Meany said, 'I THINK HANOI CAN HANDLE IT.'
Do you remember Operation Tiger Hound? How about Operation Masher/WhiteWing/Than Phong II? That one produced , 'known enemy casualties.' And then there was Operation Paul Revere/Than Phong -not quite so successful, only 'known enemy casualties.' And how about Operation Maeng Ho ? There were , 'known enemy casualties.'
By New Year's Eve, , a total of , U.S. military had been killed in action; it was Owen Meany who remembered that was more casualties than the enemy had suffered in Operation Maeng Ho.
'How do you remember such things, Owen?' my grandmother asked him. From Saigon, General Westmoreland was asking for 'fresh manpower'; Owen remembered that, too. According to the State Department, according to Dean Rusk-remember him?-we were 'winning a war of attrition.'
'THAT'S NOT THE KIND OF WAR WE WIN,' said Owen Meany. By the end of ', there were five hundred thousand U.S.
military personnel in Vietnam. That was when General West-moreland said, 'We have reached an important point where the end begins to come into view.'
'WHAT END?' Owen Meany asked the general. 'WHAT HAPPENED TO THE 'FRESH MANPOWER'? REMEMBER THE 'FRESH MANPOWER'?'
I now believe that Owen remembered everything; a part of knowing everything is remembering everything. Do you remember the Tet Offensive? That was in January of '; 'Tet' is a traditional Vietnamese holiday-the equivalent of our Christmas and New Year's-and it was usual, during the Vietnam War, to observe a cease-fire for the holiday season. But that year the North Vietnamese attacked more than a hundred South Vietnamese towns-more than thirty provincial capitals. That was the year President Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection-remember? That was the year Robert Kennedy was assassinated; you might recall that. That was the year Richard Nixon was elected president; maybe you remember him. In the following year, in -the year when Ronald Reagan described the Vietnam protests as 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy'-there were still half a million Americans in Vietnam. I was never one of them. More than thirty thousand Canadians served in Vietnam, too. And almost as many Americans came to Canada during the Vietnam War; I was one of them-one who stayed. By March of -when Lt. William Galley was convicted of premeditated murder-I was already a landed immigrant, I'd already applied for Canadian citizenship. It was Christmas, , when President Nixon bombed Hanoi; that was an eleven-day attack, employing more than forty thousand tons of high explosives. As Owen had said: Hanoi could handle it. What did he ever say that wasn't right! remember what he said about Abbie Hoffman, for example-remember Abbie Hoffman? He was the guy who tried to 'levitate' the Pentagon off its foundations; he was quite a clown. He was the guy who created the Youth International Party, the 'Yippies'; he was very active in antiwar protests, while at the same time he conceived of a meaningful revolution as roughly anything that conveyed irreverence with comedy and vulgarity.
'WHO DOES THIS JERK THINK HE'S HELPING!' Owen said. It was Owen Meany who kept me out of Vietnam-a trick that only Owen could have managed.
'JUST THINK OF THIS AS MY LITTLE GIFT TO YOU'-that was how he put it. It makes me ashamed to remember that I was angry with him for taking my armadillo's claws. God knows, Owen gave me more than he ever took from me-even when you consider that he took my mother.
