Ches Schneider - From Classrooms to Claymores: A Teacher at War in Vietnam

Later that night Jimmy moved his poncho farther away from mine. Ants or termites were tormenting him while he tried to sleep. Mulling over the next days mission, I anticipated a restless night, but within moments of reclining, I performed an excellent imitation of a rock.

Kaboom! The first explosion ripped me awake. Kaboom! The second spun me around, and I faced the inner part of the circle. The gook trail was on the far side of our perimeter. Kaboom! The third explosion blinded me and took away my senses. Machine-gun and small-arms fire raged. I was living a facsimile of hell. Id never heard such a torrent of gunfire in my life.

My God! I screamed. Were being attacked! Although disoriented, I soon discovered that most of the firing was coming from the section of the circle near the trail. In the early-morning haze, guns roared and muzzles flashed.

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To:

God who watched over me and always placed good people in my path

Sharon, whose encouragement gave me the extra push I needed to see my written dream come true

Karen, who supported me throughout my time in Vietnam

My parents, Chester and Lorraine Schneider, and my brothers, Ron, Larry, and Don, who provided the emotional foundation I needed in Vietnam and afterward

My kids, Chris and Debbie Schneider and Jason and Richard Brosch, who have heard my stories so many times they could have written the book

The four to five thousand students I have taught in my lifetime as an educator; they were my first and often most critical audiences

Jason Holmes, Nancy Rathjen, Peggy Shores, Gary Wilbur, Sue Brannan, Steve Kestle, Steve Berger, Steve Warren, and Vinnie Mancusiwho helped me polish my work

Gary Linderer, who guided and counseled mea gentleman and a scholar who best typifies what is good about Vietnam veterans

All the men I served with in Vietnamthe ones whose names I have lost in memories but with whom I share a bond as tight as brotherhood

I stood at the door of Room 601. I was back. I was back from the jungles of Vietnam. Now the room in which I had taught history and English seemed as foreign as the Viet Cong bunker complexes of Southeast Asia. In Vietnam, I had served as an infantry grunt. Like everyone in Nam, I had one dream. That was to return to the World, as we call the United States, alive and, preferably, with all my limbs and organs in their proper places. I had been a teacher for two and a half years before being snagged in the 1968 draft, and I was returning to the life I understood. Of all my fantasies while hiding in ambush sites in Nam, little did I ever think that I would return to the exact same classroom.

Fortunately, our school had employed several other returning veterans. Our common experiences enabled us to support one another. Now, looking back to that time, I can say that of the top ten teachers I have worked with, five are Vietnam vets. The year in Vietnam did something to us: it made us builders. Vietnam vets understand the concept of mission and of teamwork. They understand sacrifice and pride in accomplishment. In our contemporary public education environment, they understand about giving their lives in what some people think is a losing battle.

Our young people need to see warriors. They need to hear real warriors stories. Unfortunately, American kids are receiving distorted messages. They think Rambo is a true-life hero and that the American hunter is a Bambi killer.

Vietnam was a down and dirty war. It was our last great military learning experience. The Gulf War was a success because we had learned in Vietnam. It was Vietnam veterans and their families who led the way and stood at post offices to show their support for our troops in the Middle East. After an initial attempt to provide Vietnam-style journalism, the news media saw that the American public wasnt buying antiwar messages; major news organizations did a one-eighty to support the war.

Yet the Gulf wasnt like Nam. It was largely an air war and a real-time television war. Because of advanced communication capabilities, the real-time news coverage actually came from both sides of the line of combat. But watching smart bombs fly down ventilator shafts had the feel of Hollywood special effects. In a sense, the Gulf War had the aura of a Star Wars movie. It wasnt dirty or unpopular.

As a teacher of American history, I have never hesitated to tell stories of Vietnam in class. I have had to clean them up a little. Maybe I even embellished a story or two, but who hasnt fibbed a little on the length of a fish or the number of points on a buck. Mark Twain explained that expanding a story wasnt truly a lie, just a stretcher. Over the years, I have earned a reputation as a storyteller and a good teacher. My students have begged to hear about Vietnam even when a test was not a prominent feature of the days lesson. Our younger generations want to hear personal experiences from people who have been to war and lived real-life military experiences. Ive always considered this passing on of oral history to be a strong component of the educational program I provide for my students. Parents have mentioned to me that my stories have been told and retold across their dinner tables for twenty-seven years. At times, I have heard my students retell my adventures to students who have not been in my class, and I have been shocked at their accuracy. I can only hope that my lessons on the Articles of Confederation and the Jacksonian Era have made half the impression.

Those of us who served in Vietnam had many things taken from us. Two years is a long time to be away from ones trade. Before going to Nam, I had always assumed that I would become a principal, but upon my return, I saw that others had been promoted in my absence. I was a step behind in my career path, and I was never able to crack the old boy network. Part of this was my fault; I was too stubborn to play educational politics. I had crawled though jungles in heat and rain. I had encountered fire ants and very nasty Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers. I had faced AK-47 fire and claymore mines, so there was little that school principals or superintendents could do to me that would make me fear them. Some school administrators can be self-serving and petty despots. In Nam, I had served under both strong and weak officers. I knew good leadership from bad and wasnt afraid to express my views on contemporary educational issues. The educational decisions I made were based upon what was right for children, not upon my career aspirations.

But Room 601 was still a dreamworld, a classroom that should have been familiar was strange and alien. In a way, the disorientation I felt reminded me of my first days at Song Be, Vietnam. But as my mind adjusted to where I was, I noticed that the broken Venetian blinds still hadnt been repaired. There was a new bulletin board. Decorating a bulletin board wasnt one of my teaching strengths, and Id have to address that matter during my panic period the morning of opening day.