Can we believe that he was not a monster but a man? That he was innocent of everything except his life?
Could the truth be so simple? So terrible?
TIM O'BRIEN received the 1979 National Book Award in fiction for Going After Cacciato. His novel The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger and the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize, and was chosen as one of the best books of 1990 by the New York Times Book Review. In the Lake of the Woods was named the best work of fiction in 1994 by Time and selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of the year. It was also awarded the 1995 James Fenimore Cooper Prize for historical fiction.
Footnotes
1. Interview, December 4, 1989, St. Paul, Minnesota.
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2. Interview, July 12 and July 16, 1993, St. Paul, Minnesota.
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3. Missing Persons File Declaration, DS Form 20, Office of the Sheriff, Lake of the Woods County, Baudette, Minnesota. Kathleen Wade was reported missing on the morning of September 20, 1986. The search lasted eighteen days, covered more than 800 square miles, and involved elements of the Minnesota State Highway Patrol, the Lake of the Woods County Sheriff's Department, the United States Border Patrol, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Lakes Division), and the Ontario Provincial Police.
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4. Interview, September 21, 1991, Edina, Minnesota.
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5. Interview, July 19, 1990, Fargo, North Dakota. Former PFC Thinbill, a Native American (Chippewa), served with John Wade as a member of the First Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade, Task Force Barker, Americal Division, Republic of Vietnam.
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6. Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Minnesota Poll, July 3, 1986, and August 17, 1986, p. 1.
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7. Interview, May 6, 1990, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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8. Interview, June 6, 1989, Angle Inlet, Minnesota.
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9. Interview, June 10, 1993, Angle Inlet, Minnesota.
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10. Interview, January 3, 1991, Baudette, Minnesota.
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11. Interview, June 9, 1993, Angle Inlet, Minnesota.
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12. Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1965; reprint, New York: Perennial Library, 1990), pp. 21-22.
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13. Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery (New York: Basic Books, 1992), p. 7.
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14. J. W. Appel and G. W. Beebe, "Preventive Psychiatry: An Epidemiological Approach," Journal of the American Medical Association 131 (1946), p. 1470.
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15. Robert Parrish, The Magician's Handbook (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1944), p. 10.
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16. Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1982), p. 228.
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17. Woodrow Wilson, in Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition (1948; reprint, New York: Vintage Books, 1989), p. 310.
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18. Herman, Trauma and Recovery, p. 35.
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19. Woodrow Wilson, in Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition, pp. 310-311.
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20. Richard M. Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978), p. 1088.
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21. Yes, and I'm a theory man too. Biographer, historian, medium—call me what you want—but even after four years of hard labor I'm left with little more than supposition and possibility. John Wade was a magician; he did not give away many tricks. Moreover, there are certain mysteries that weave through life itself, human motive and human desire. Even much of what might appear to be fact in this narrative—action, word, thought—must ultimately be viewed as a diligent but still imaginative reconstruction of events. I have tried, of course, to be faithful to the evidence. Yet evidence is not truth. It is only evident. In any case, Kathy Wade is forever missing, and if you require solutions, you will have to look beyond these pages. Or read a different book.
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22. Parrish, The Magician's Handbook, p. 15.
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23. Bernard C. Meyer, Houdini: A Mind in Chains (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1976), p. 136.
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24. Patience H. C. Mason, Recovering from the War: A Woman's Guide to Helping Your Vietnam Vet, Your Family, and Yourself (New York: Penguin, 1990), p. 12.
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25. Parrish, The Magician's Handbook, p. 16.
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26. Ibid., p. 122.
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27. Interview, St. Paul, Minnesota, December 16, 1991.
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28. Mason, Recovering from the War: A Woman's Guide to Helping Your Vietnam Vet, Your Family, and Yourself, p. 320.
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29. The Nuremberg Principles, 1946, Principle IV.
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30. Marvin Kaye, The Stein and Day Handbook of Magic (New York: Stein and Day, 1973), pp. 303, 305.
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31. Richard M. Nixon, Six Crises (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1962), pp. 120-121.
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32. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power, p. 740.
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33. See Exhibit Nine.
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34. Thomas E. Dewey, in Nixon, Six Crises, p. 423.
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35. Matthew and Hannah Josephson, Al Smith: Hero of the Cities (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1969), p. 403.
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36. Aren't we all? John Wade—he's beyond knowing. He's an other. For all my years of struggle with this depressing record, for all the travel and interviews and musty libraries, the man's soul remains for me an absolute and impenetrable unknown, a nametag drifting willy-nilly on oceans of hapless fact. Twelve notebooks' worth, and more to come. What drives me on, I realize, is a craving to force entry into another heart, to trick the tumblers of natural law, to perform miracles of knowing. It's human nature. We are fascinated, all of us, by the implacable otherness of others. And we wish to penetrate by hypothesis, by daydream, by scientific investigation those leaden walls that encase the human spirit, that define it and guard it and hold it forever inaccessible. ("I love you," someone says, and instantly we begin to wonder—"Well, how much?"—and when the answer comes—"With my whole heart"—we then wonder about the wholeness of a fickle heart.) Our lovers, our husbands, our wives, our fathers, our gods—they are all beyond us.
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37. In Richard Hammer, The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1971), p. 272.
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38. Report of the Department of the Army, Review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai Incident, Volume I, Department of the Army, March 14, 1970, p. 3-3. Hereafter referred to as The Peers Commission.
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39. In Hammer, The Court-Martial of Lt. Galley, pp. 161-162.
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40. CBS Evening News, Nov. 25, 1969, in Michael Bilton and Kevin Sim, Four Hours in My Lai (New York: Viking, 1992), p. 263.
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41. J. Glenn Gray, The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle (1959; reprint, Harper Torchbooks, 1970), p. 186.
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42. Colonel William V. Wilson, American Heritage, Feb. 1990, p. 53.
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43. In Hammer, The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley, p. 151.
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44. Ibid., p. 91.
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45. Ibid., p. 269.
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46. Ibid., p. 155.
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47. Herman, Trauma and Recovery, p. 1.
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48. In Hammer, The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley, p. 101.
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49. The Geneva Conventions on the Laws of War, 1949, article 3, section 1.
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50. In Hammer, The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley, p. 104.
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51. Ibid, p. 117.
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52. Ibid, p. 193.
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53. Ibid, p. 263.
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54. Gray, The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle, pp. 184-185.
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55. Herman, Trauma and Recovery, p. 54.
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56. In Hammer, The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley, p. 93.
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57. Ibid., p. 188.
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58. Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984), p. 307. Connell writes that "John" was the name "ordinarily used by whites when addressing an Indian." At the Little Big Horn, on June 25, 1876, one terrified trooper "was heard sobbing this name, as though it might save his life. John! John! Oh, John! This plea echoes horribly down a hundred years."
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59. In Bilton and Sim, Four Hours in My Lai, p. 7.
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60. In Hammer, The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley, pp. 122-124.
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61. Connell, Son of the Morning Star, p. 309.
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62. In Hammer, The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley, p. 112.
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63. Ibid., p. 114.
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64. Ibid, p. 127.
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65. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, translated by Ralph E. Matlaw (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1960), p. 35.
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66. Mason, Recovering from the War: A Woman's Guide to Helping Your Vietnam Vet, Your Family, and Yourself, p. 181.
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67. Wilson, American Heritage, p. 53. The number of civilian casualties during operations in Son My village on March 16, 1968, is a matter of continuing dispute. The Peers Commission concluded that "at least 175-200 Vietnamese men, women and children" were killed in the course of the March 16th operation. The U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) estimated on the basis of census data that the casualties "may have exceeded 400." At the Son My Memorial, which I visited in the course of research for this book, the number is fixed at 504. An amazing experience, by the way. Thuan Yen is still a quiet little farming village, very poor, very remote, with dirt paths and cow dung and high bamboo hedgerows. Very friendly, all things considered: the old folks nod and smile; the children giggle at our white foreign faces. The ditch is still there. I found it easily. Just five or six feet deep, shallow and unimposing, yet it was as if I had been there before, in my dreams, or in some other life.
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68. Edith Wharton, The Touchstone (1900; reprint, New York: Harper Perennial, 1991), p. 102.
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69. Interview, Worthington, Minnesota, April 2, 1993.
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70. Parrish, The Magician's Handbook, p. 16.
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71. Obsessed? See footnote 88.
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72. Kaye, The Stein and Day Handbook of Magic, pp. 304-307.
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73. Anton Chekhov, "The Lady with the Dog," in The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories, translated by Constance Garnett (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917), pp. 24-25.
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74. In Hammer, The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley, pp. 153-154.
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75. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (reprint, New York: Modern Library, 1955), p. 580.
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76. Doug Henning, Houdini: His Legend and His Magic (New York: Times Books, 1977), p. 26.
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77. Alexander L. George and Juliette L. George, Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study (New York: The John Day Company, 1956), p. 8.
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78. Interview, St. Paul, Minnesota, March 1, 1994.
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79. George and George, Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House, p. 8.
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80. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power, p. xx.
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81. Reported by Patricia S. Hood, from a conversation with Kathleen Wade.
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82. Alexandre Dumas, My Memoirs, in D. J. Enright, ed. The Oxford Book of Death (New York: Oxford University Press! 1983), p. 275.
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83. Richard R. Ellis, "Young Children: Disenfranchised Grievers," in Kenneth J. Doka, ed. Disenfranchised Grief: Recognizing Hidden Sorrow (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1989), pp. 202, 206.
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84. Robert Karen, "Shame," The Atlantic Monthly, February 1992, p. 42.
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85. In Hammer, The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley, p. 110.
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86. Richard Thinbill, transcript, Court-Martial of Lieutenant William Calley, U.S. National Archives, box 4, folder 8, p. 1734.
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87. In Hammer, The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley, p. 150.
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88. It was the spirit world. Vietnam. Ghosts and graveyards. I arrived in-country a year after John Wade, in 1969, and walked exactly the ground he walked, in and around Pinkville, through the villages of Thuan Yen and My Khe and Co Luy. I know what happened that day. I know how it happened. I know why. It was the sunlight. It was the wickedness that soaks into your blood and slowly heats up and begins to boil. Frustration, partly. Rage, partly. The enemy was invisible. They were ghosts. They killed us with land mines and booby traps; they disappeared into the night, or into tunnels, or into the deep misted-over paddies and bamboo and elephant grass. But it went beyond that. Something more mysterious. The smell of incense, maybe. The unknown, the unknowable. The blank faces. The overwhelming otherness. This is not to justify what occurred on March 16, 1968, for in my view such justifications are both futile and outrageous. Rather, it's to bear witness to the mystery of evil. Twenty-five years ago, as a terrified young PFC, I too could taste the sunlight. I could smell the sin. I could feel the butchery sizzling like grease just under my eyeballs.
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89. Wilson, American Heritage, p. 53.
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90. The Peers Commission, p. 5-14.
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91. Ibid.
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92. George Sand, Indiana (1832; reprint, New York: Penguin Books, 1993), p. 232.
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93. The Peers Commission, p. 5-14.
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94. General William Tecumseh Sherman, in Connell, Son of the Morning Star, p. 132.
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95. Nebraska City Press, in Connell, Son of the Morning Star, p. 127.
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96. Varnado Simpson, in Bilton and Sim, Four Hours in My Lai, p. 7.
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97. J. P. Dunn, Jr., Massacres of the Mountains (New York: Archer House, 1886), pp. 343-345. This passage describes, in part, the "battle" of Sand Creek, an attack by two regiments of Colorado militia on a Cheyenne village in present-day Oklahoma on November 29, 1864.
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98. Mason, Recovering from the War: A Woman's Guide to Helping Your Vietnam Veteran, Your Family, and Yourself, pp. 278-279.
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99. Anonymous personal letter, in Vincent J-R Kehoe, We Were There, privately printed, p. 169. Available at Minuteman National Park, Concord, Massachusetts, We Were There is a compilation of British and American accounts of the running battle on April 19, 1775.
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100. Fred Widmer, in Bilton and Sim, Four Hours in My Lai, p. 74.
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101. Lieutenant Frederick Mackenzie, in Kehoe, We Were There, p. 128.
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102. In Hammer, The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley, pp. 158-159.
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103. In Kehoe, We Were There, p. 113.
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104. Richard Thinbill, transcript, Court-Martial of Lieutenant William Calley, U.S. National Archives, box 4, folder 8, p. 1735.
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105. General Edward O. Ord, in Dunn, Massacres of the Mountains, p. 617.
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106. In Kehoe, We Were There, p. 184.
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107. Gray, The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle, p. 175. Gray, a professor of philosophy, served with the U.S. Army as a counterintelligence agent during World War II.