There were things U.S. Army chaplain assistant Arnold Swift wished he could have said to John’s widow as he typed the man’s death notice in Vietnam more than half a century ago.
Personal things, like how much John loved his wife and children and was a good man who felt deeply and drank himself to death over an incident that likely wasn’t his fault.
But the U.S. Army had rules and protocols for notifying next of kin when a soldier died in Vietnam.
One never mentioned particulars.
“You would not go into detail as to how they died,” said Swift, 72, a Vietnam veteran who lives in Missouri. “I had to make 11 carbon copies of the letter. If you made one mistake, you started all over again.”
Swift said he must have written 20 death notices during two year-long tours in Vietnam with three military chaplains, each letter a tragedy—each one using the same pre-approved language and impersonal tone: “It is with deep regret …”
Substance abuse among the soldiers was one of the many legacies of Vietnam, Swift recalled, and a prime reason why military chaplains were considered vital in the spiritual realm of the war.
Doing God’s Work
As the military chaplain assistant, Swift ensured the soldiers had access to worship services, counseling, and information and accompanied the chaplain into the field when necessary.“For the most part, again, chaplains were there for if people needed to talk or help or to contact their families,” Swift told The Epoch Times.
“The downside—no computers, no telephones. The only communication we had with the home was letters. We could mail them for free.”
More than 600 chaplains served in uniform at the peak of the Vietnam War, according to Vietnam Veterans of America’s (VVA) Online Veteran. The U.S. Army Chaplaincy was known as Military Occupational Speciality 5310.
About a dozen military chaplains died on the battlefield in Vietnam, two received the Medal Of Honor, and “more than a few came back with PTSD.”
Bound by moral conviction none of them carried a weapon.
“Vietnam was far from the first war zone in which chaplains feared not to tread,” the VVA article “Faith On Trial” added.
“On the surface, chaplains and soldiers have little in common—the former being trained to save souls, the latter to take lives. But they are all human, which may explain why a tour of duty in Vietnam apparently could have much the same effect on you whether you carried a weapon or scripture.”
At 15, while growing up in southern California, Swift said he had never thought much about going to Vietnam to fight in a foreign war.
He dreamed of becoming a pop rock guitarist playing with a neighborhood group called Castle. The young band members would even cut a record, “Castle Doors.”
“It never went anywhere, but we went into the studio and recorded it,” Swift said.
Through the band’s drummer, Swift said he grew closer to his Christian faith as he approached draft age. By 1970, the draft had ended, and the birthday lottery replaced it.
“They threw all the different birth dates into a big tumbling thing” and drew a number. The unlucky winners received a notice in the mail, Swift said.
“My birth date number was 97. On May 20 [1970], I went to the recruiting station to sign in and join the army.”
Fit For Duty
Swift said he had hoped to be spared the lottery with a student deferment while attending a junior college. Then he became sick with an ulcer and could not complete a semester.Once again, he was a “1-A” prospective recruit in the eyes of the military lottery.
“They said, ‘We’ve got food. We can take care of that [ulcer]. You’re going.’”
Swift remembers a serviceman in boot camp asking if he wanted to work on helicopters.
“My mind is going, ‘That’s cool.’” Swift said. “My dad worked on Aerojet General and McDonald Douglas [aircraft]. He was stationed at Edwards Air Force Base when they were test-flying the X-15.”
“OK.”
After basic training, Swift reported to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland for what he thought was helicopter armament training. His orders were for a helicopter door gunner.
“No, it says I work on helicopters,” Swift told the recruit. “I won’t have to go to Vietnam.”
Crazy Prayer
Before deployment in Vietnam, Swift said he made a “crazy prayer.”If God made him go to Alaska or Germany, he would become a chaplain assistant and serve his faith that way.
But if Vietnam was his destination, he would work on helicopters.
On Dec. 22, 1970, while boarding the last military transport aircraft to Vietnam—a 22-hour flight—Swift’s plane stopped in Anchorage to refuel, then Japan, and finally, Vietnam.
At a military base in Bien Hoa, Army Chaplain Kenneth Robertson from Arkansas needed an assistant. Swift got the job because he could type 54 words per minute. “And that started the journey with Chaplain Robertson.”
Tragedy of War
However, Swift said tragedy and bizarre accidents would tarnish his duties as chaplain assistant.“One of the first services we did was—do you know what a Huey is?” he asked, referring to the helicopter gunship used in Vietnam.
Inside the helicopter’s cockpit, several smoke grenades had gone off by accident, and “the only reason the helicopter didn’t crash and burn was the copilot had a gas mask with him,” Swift said.
“The sad thing was the door gunner and crew chief both ran out of the helicopter at altitude”—falling almost 1,000 feet to their deaths.
“It took the squads about two days to find their bodies. Yeah,” Swift said.
Swift said it was his first memorial service and first time typing letters to families of deceased soldiers.
In those days, he said official death notices often followed Western Union telegrams the military hand-delivered to a soldier’s next of kin by cab drivers.
“Dear … The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your [name] was killed in action….”
“They would get the notification first from Western Union. Then our letters would come behind,” Swift said.
Today, the military policy is for notification teams to contact the next of kin, usually in person with a solemn knock on the door.
Swift said the facts surrounding a Vietnam soldier who died an ignoble death wouldn’t appear in the official death notice.
“We had another guy who was a [helicopter] crew chief. He'd been smoking a joint. He jumped off the berm and didn’t realize the helicopter was running. He walked into the tail rotor and was decapitated,” Swift said.
Blame Rolls Downhill
Swift’s friend John was a crew chief for a Huey helicopter that crashed in Vietnam.The military blamed John for the crash, even though “it could have been a pilot failure or something [else] that happened.”
“Without seeing the report, I don’t know what it was. I do know that I watched a guy who drank himself to death. He couldn’t deal with the guilt.”
While preparing to write John’s death notice, Swift grappled with his personal feelings and things he wished to express to the family.
“I wanted to share with his family because I knew this guy. I wanted to share his love for [his wife] and kids and his struggle knowing they blamed him for the crash.”
But rules were rules as Swift began typing a brief summation of John’s service to his country:
“Dear … Your [name] died serving the highest of military standards. It was an honor to serve with him.”
