My grandmother liked to say that snow was “healing”—that it healed everything. A typical Yankee point of view: if it snows a lot, snow must be good for you. In Toronto, it’s good for me. And the little children sledding at the St. Clair Reservoir: they remind me of Owen, too—because I have fixed Owen at a permanent size, which is the size he was when he was eleven, which was the size of an average five-year-old. But I should be careful not to give too much credit to the snow; there are so many things that remind me of Owen.
I avoid American newspapers and magazines, and American television—and other Americans in Toronto. But Toronto is not far enough away. Just the day before yesterday—January 28, 1987—the front page of The Globe and Mail gave us a full account of President Ronald Reagan’s State of the Union Message. Will I ever learn? When I see such things, I know I should simply not read them; I should pick up The Book of Common Prayer, instead. I should not give in to anger; but, God forgive me, I read the State of the Union Message. After almost twenty years in Canada, there are certain American lunatics who still fascinate me.
“There must be no Soviet beachhead in Central America,” President Reagan said. He also insisted that he would not sacrifice his proposed nuclear missiles in space—his beloved Star Wars plan—to a nuclear arms agreement with the Soviet Union. He even said that “a key element of the U.S.-Soviet agenda” is “more responsible Soviet conduct around the world”—as if the United States were a bastion of “responsible conduct around the world”!
I believe that President Reagan can say these things only because he knows that the American people will never hold him accountable for what he says; it is history that holds you accountable, and I’ve already expressed my opinion that Americans are not big on history. How many of them even remember their own, recent history? Was twenty years ago so long ago for Americans? Do they remember October 21, 1967? Fifty thousand antiwar demonstrators were in Washington; I was there; that was the “March on the Pentagon”—remember? And two years later—in October of ’69—there were fifty thousand people in Washington again; they were carrying flashlights, they were asking for peace. There were a hundred thousand asking for peace in Boston Common; there were two hundred fifty thousand in New York. Ronald Reagan had not yet numbed the United States, but he had succeeded in putting California to sleep; he described the Vietnam protests as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” As president, he still didn’t know who the enemy was.
I now believe that Owen Meany always knew; he knew everything.
We were seniors at Gravesend Academy in February of 1962; we watched a lot of TV at 80 Front Street. President Kennedy said that U.S. advisers in Vietnam would return fire if fired upon.
“I HOPE WE’RE ADVISING THE RIGHT GUYS,” Owen Meany said.
That spring, less than a month before Gravesend Academy’s graduation exercises, the TV showed us a map of Thailand; five thousand U.S. Marines and fifty jet fighters were being sent there?—“in response to Communist expansion in Laos,” President Kennedy said.
“I HOPE WE KNOW WHAT WE’RE DOING,” said Owen Meany.
In the summer of ’63, the summer following our first year at the university, the Buddhists in Vietnam were demonstrating; there were revolts. Owen and I saw our first self-immolation—on television. South Vietnamese government forces, led by Ngo Dinh Diem—the elected president—attacked several Buddhist pagodas; that was in August. In May, Diem’s brother—Ngo Dinh Nhu, who ran the secret police force—had broken up a Buddhist celebration by killing eight children and one woman.
“DIEM IS A CATHOLIC,” Owen Meany announced. “WHAT’S A CATHOLIC DOING AS PRESIDENT OF A COUNTRY OF BUDDHISTS?”
That was the summer that Henry Cabot Lodge became the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam; that was the summer that Lodge received a State 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 416 to 0; it passed the Senate by a vote of 88 to 2. 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 1970—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 1965, 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 1966, 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 2,389 “known enemy casualties.” And then there was Operation Paul Revere/Than Phong 14—not quite so successful, only 546 “known enemy casualties.” And how about Operation Maeng Ho 6? There were 6,161 “known enemy casualties.”
By New Year’s Eve, 1966, a total of 6,644 U.S. military had been killed in action; it was Owen Meany who remembered that was 483 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 ’67, there were five hundred thousand U.S. military personnel in Vietnam. That was when General Westmoreland 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.