Ghost Busting

No event in American history
is more misunderstood
than the Vietnam War.
It was misreported then,
and it is misremembered now
--Richard M. Nixon

~~Are you a God?
~~No.
~~Then... DIE!
~~Ray, when someone asks you
if you're a god, you say "YES"!
--Ghostbusters (1984)

But give my daddy a job 'cause he needs one
He's got lots of mouths to feed
But if you've got one, I'll have a machine gun
So I can scare all the kids down the street
--Father Christmas, the Kinks
___________________

Our post Stone Gardens looked at the quantity of death which war commands.

This post looks at how we render those deaths. Myth-making has always been an important part of how a culture copes with its losses. While the purpose of myths is to bestow some meaning upon the killing, sometimes the mythic stories are just that -- myths.

At various online sites, including historynet.com is a moving memorial by Norman Brookman to comrade Henry Lee Bradshaw found at the Vietnam War Memorial, but something about the entry struck Ranger as amiss. It is an almost cliche (as one commenter notes) wonderful letter of courage, pathos and lost comrades, but it fails upon close analysis.

While the story and letter may be true, the empty cartridge case and the bullet so integral to the telling are not compatible. The cartridge case is clearly a 7.62 x 39 casing, which would have been fired by an AK/AKM/SKS or RPD machine gun; however, the projectile is NOT an AK projectile.

The round appears to have a greater sectional density than the 122/123 grain 7.62 bullet. It more closely seems to resemble a 6.5 Japanese WW II bolt action round. The diameter of the bullet is much smaller than the case mouth, which should nominally measure .311". The bullet in the photo lacks a clear cannelure (crimp groove).

It is extremely doubtful that this round was launched from this cartridge case. Further, if this was a fire fight, how can one cartridge case be determined to have been the case that killed a particular trooper?

At its worst, hyperbole and glurge is used to prop up meaningless slaughter. Mr. Brookman may have served with Mr. Bradshaw, but he should not have used props so obviously incompatible.

Hero's tales are not sacrosanct. This sort of abuse deserves to be busted.