The Vietnam Experience or Coloring on a Tabula Rasa

Dr.  Frazier (Terry, in green shirt) hand-pedaling in 2020

If I was born a blank slate, it did not take long for the world to write the word WAR upon me. The year was 1965 and the number of troops in Vietnam went from around 23,000 to over 180,000. That’s 180,000 young Americans sent to a country that most had never heard of, to fight a war that was un-winnable. A war that was misguided at best, illegal and immoral at worst. Soon the death toll of Americans would rocket and the shockwaves created would reverberate through every aspect of our lives. The number of the fallen soldiers were read each evening on the nightly news as families sat around the dinner table. Their deaths smudged on our collective psyche. Each wave of bombing would shake and tear at the fabric of our social order. The broadcast of real war footage into our living rooms shone a light on the horror of war previously unknown to those who had not been in battle themselves. This war, fought so far from our safe lifestyle here in America, would shape the world around me. It changed the music I would hear. It affected the films that I would see. It shook the conscience of clergy and drove them to action for justice. It was a catalyst for social change that would forever erase a generation’s innocence.  If I was a tabula rasa the war would etch death, protest, and the upheaval of social norms upon me. And if I was a blank canvas it would also paint music, poetry, and art on my soul.

He rolled into the auditorium style classroom at the University that I attended. I had seen him around campus. His legs amputated at different and odd locations as if done in a hurry. No thought given to the aesthetics or potential functionality. He sat in his chair nervously twitching the several inches of leg that remained below one knee. The other leg barely existed. Just enough there that he could bend at the hip into a normal sitting position. His appearance in the room had resulted in an immediate hush of nearly 200 students. He said nothing at first. He paced the floor by wheeling back and forth, as if he wasn’t sure how to start or what to say. Without a word he pulled a pack of cigarettes out from his shirt pocket. His hand trembling slightly, he placed a cigarette between his lips and lit it. He inhaled deeply and let out a long billow of smoke. This was the 1980’s. Smoking was allowed in most buildings, but not inside of a State school, let alone a classroom. I’d never seen anything like him.

By the early 70’s I was a coloring book. The world had scribbled graffiti all over my pages. Spray painted phrases like mutually assured destruction, baby-burning, and carpet-bombing. Words scrawled on cinder block buildings and train cars. Words like napalm, Gook,  and Viet Cong.  Protest songs were being recorded into my skull: “War, huh! What is it good for? Absolutely Nothing”, “What are we Fighting for? Don’t Ask me I don’t Give a Damn”, and “Four Dead in Ohio.” Images were burned into my brain: Naked girl on fire, Asian man with a gun to his head, Soldier without legs being escorted home in his wheelchair across an empty, wet airport tarmac.

I have been told that that in the 1950’s, America itself was like a blank slate. Or maybe it was an etch-a-sketch. All the ugliness of two World wars erased by vigorously shaking itself clean.  So I have imagined what it must have been like for a young man born twenty years before me. A young man raised by the Greatest Generation. I have thought of him and how he must have believed in our government and had been taught the value of serving his country. And that the United States was a country that was morally superior to the rest of the world. He would have heard our President argue that the freedom his parents had fought for was at stake and the only way to save it was to stop the spread of communism that was domino-ing its way around the world. I Imagined this brave, honorable, kid would have voluntarily put his life on the line. I have pictured him signing his name on a document that would seal his fate forever.

After he took another drag on the cigarette and exhaling, our professor broke the silence, “I’m Terry and I’ll be teaching this class.” More silence. The class seemed stunned by the strange behavior they were witnessing. The cigarette smoke was spiraling upward in streams and dissipating into the high ceilings of the classroom. He continued,” If I’m going to teach this class, I’ll have to smoke. If that’s going to be a problem for you, leave now and drop the class.” A couple of startled students started quickly gathering up their materials. As they started to head down the steps toward the exit he added, “And I might as well add that if you will be offended by my use of the F-word or any other cuss words then you should leave now too. You can drop the class.” More students made rustling noises as they gathered up their things. A couple appeared to be in a real huff. He sat quietly and took long drags off his cigarette as ten or so of the original 200 made their way out of this madman’s class.

When the last of these deserters had fled, Terry relaxed a bit. He told us that as long as he was smoking, we were all free to smoke in the class as well. Someone on the front row asked if they could bum a cigarette from him. Terry laughed and then obliged. He seemed relieved to have gotten past the smoking and cussing disclaimer. Instead of pacing in his chair he now authoritatively wheeled front and center and addressed us in a casual voice. He had our attention.

The class was new. It had caught my eye when I saw it in the offerings of the English Department at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. There was no description. It just said ENG965: The Vietnam Experience, Frazier. 

In my Freshman Composition class, I had written a research paper on The Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. It had only been dedicated the year before. The memorial is a black granite wall engraved with the name of American soldier killed in the war. The wall is not a blank slate. Controversy surrounded the Memorial just as it had  surrounded the war itself. Prominent conservatives had objected to the design. They had called it a wall of shame. They complained that the designer was Asian American. A compromise had to be reached in order to have a memorial at all. A second more traditional statue was built close by to satisfy the opposition. The research had piqued my interest in the war. So when I saw the class listing, I signed up.

Terry informed us that it was going to be a film class. We would watch Hollywood movies about the War in Vietnam. Then we would have discussions comparing the films with his own experience as a soldier in the US Army. He told us that he lost his legs when he was hit by a mortar. He said that the Doctors had told him that prosthetics were not an option due to the small amount of leg that he had remaining. To lighten things up though,  he assured us that he was in full possession of another appendage and he had children as proof!

Platoon was a fairly new release and would be the first film shown. Our professor would be watching most of the films for the first time. There was no syllabus. Our professor was candid and told us that the class was going to be tough for him. He said that he was not sure if he would be able to complete the whole semester. It was going to be therapy for him. He explained that there was only one requirement to get an A and that was to complete a project of any kind about the Vietnam War by the end of the semester. 

Since the war, Terry had not talked much about his experience in Vietnam or his feelings about it. He was using this class as a mechanism that would enable him to approach the subject academically. But it was obvious that this class was going to be more than academic. Personally, I was about to participate in the only class in my entire college career that would change me in a fundamental way. With each film we watched and each emotion laden discussion led by Terry, I began to question everything that I thought I knew. Not just about Vietnam, but about our Government. I questioned our country’s honesty with itself.  I began to see that our entire worldview can be shaped by half-truths and one-dimensional perspective. I began to question myself. What kind of person was I? What kind of person could I be? And I questioned our entire system of education. Surely the experience in this smoke-filled, emotional, free to cuss seminar was at the core of what real learning should look like.

With each class Terry began to reveal more of his own feelings about the war. He talked about how his political views had been changed by his experience. There were heated debates that led a few more students to get up, walk out, and never return. I, on the other hand, was riveted to my seat. I was flummoxed that college kids like me, that enjoyed the luxury of being of age during peace-time, could be so self-inflated as to believe that they knew more about war than our teacher. Our teacher had been there. He had crawled on his belly through the jungles of southeast Asia. He could point out the inaccuracies of the firefight scenes in Platoon because he had been in the middle of the real thing. He could tell us that it was true that our leaders had supplied them with M-16s that jammed and cost men the seconds they needed to protect themselves or their friends. The students that walked out were slates just as I was. They were slates covered in indelible ink. Their ideas were like permanent tattoos not to be altered and as a result they walked out of the best class ever.  

Those of us that kept showing up had started sitting close together toward the front of the room. I had a regular spot on the front row. I had started on my project. I was testing a theory from a sociology class that suggested the popular culture prevalent in society reflected the political state of the country. I enlisted the help of my brother who had a large record collection and some nice recording equipment. The research entailed logging the major events of the Vietnam War and comparing the timeframe of those events with songs in the top ten pop charts according to billboard magazine. Then I would record my voice narrating the events over samples of the songs and demonstrate the relationship. The correlation exceeded my own expectations. I was excited about the finished product and turned it in early.

Terry rolled into the room with a jam-box in his lap. I wondered what was up. Was he going to play my tape? My stomach turned over. The thought made me nervous. I told myself that that he would not do that. It probably wasn’t as good as I had thought. He placed the tape player on the dais. He said, “Before we discuss the next film I want to tell you about a project that was turned in early by one of your classmates.” My face heated up. Oh Lord. I hoped he was talking about someone else’s project. Sort of. I also hoped that he was talking about my project. He went on, “Someone in this classroom has turned in one of the best projects I have ever received.” Holy Crap! Could he be talking about me? That would be a first. Surely it was someone else. Then he started describing the project. My project. I was breaking out in a nervous sweat. I thought he was going to say my name. He didn’t. He told the class that he had listened to it several times. He talked about how much the music from that era had meant to him. Then he played it. LOUD! He was smiling. He was snapping his fingers to the music. I was shifting between ecstatic at his enthusiasm and then completely embarrassed every time my nasally sounding voice came back in over the music.

He played the whole thing. When it finished the class burst into applause!  Now I wanted him to say my name. He didn’t. I caught the eye of the girl who sat beside me. I gestured to myself. She mouthed, “That was you?” I nodded. She whispered, “Wow. You’re like Walter Cronkite.”  Best compliment I had ever gotten! 

I didn't start out in Terry's class a tabula rasa. I had words and phrases. I had images. I had music. But his class didn't just add new information to my slate. He taught me I was an ever-expanding canvas. New space was being created all the time. Clean, white space to paint colorful new ideas. Blank space not just to record music, but to recognize its power. I learned that ideologies were not meant to be permanent tattoos. I learned to find confidence in my voice. And I could use my voice to speak up in the hope that there will be a day when we come into this world and it etches only the word love on our slates. That our world will not have a need for the word peace because it has no opposite.

This is me flashing Peace sign at age 6 in 1971


More information about Dr. James Terry Frazier

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/05/22/Terry-Frazier-who-lost-his-legs-during-the-Vietnam/2058580276800/