American Sacrifice: The Pullers

I posted yesterday on the death of Chesty Puller on October 11, 1971. On October 11, 1968, his son was severely wounded in Vietnam when he set off a trip wire. He lost his legs, a hand, and most of his fingers on his other hand. When Chesty saw him, he wept. From the article:

"On this day 47 years ago—October 11, 1971—Lewis B. Puller died. Puller is still the most decorated U.S. Marine in American history. Born in Virginia on June 26, 1898, Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller wanted to enlist in the United States Army to fight Mexicans in the Border War of 1916 but could not get parental consent from his mother. (His father, Matthew, died when Puller was ten years old.) Instead, Puller enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1918. He attended Officer Candidate School (OCS) and was appointed a Second Lieutenant in 1919. After World War I, though, Puller was “downsized,” and re-appointed as a Marine corporal. He served in Haiti and was re-commissioned a lieutenant in 1924. He stayed in the Marines until 1955, retiring as a lieutenant (three-star) general. Puller fought in five different conflicts, including the so-called “Banana Wars,” World War II, and Korea, and received an unbelievable five Navy Crosses, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart. His was a life of service and sacrifice to the United States.

On this day 50 years ago-October 11, 1968-a U.S. Marine lieutenant in Vietnam was severely wounded by a booby-trapped howitzer round connected to a trip wire. This Marine, whose rifle jammed during an engagement with enemy troops, lost his right leg at the hip, his left leg below the knee, his left hand, and most of the fingers on his right hand. This Marine’s name was Lewis B. Puller, Jr., and he was nearly killed three years to the day before his famous father’s death.

Born at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina on August 18, 1945, Lewis B. Puller, Jr., was one of three children born to “Chesty” Puller and his wife, Virginia Montague Evans Puller. The young Puller graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1967 and promptly joined the Marines. He later stated that his father did not pressure him into military service, but that he felt the obligation to serve his country nonetheless. Undoubtedly, the younger Puller also felt at least some self-induced pressure to live up to his father’s reputation as a military hero. The young Puller also stated that he only saw his father cry twice: once while he was shipping out to Vietnam, and the second time after his parents came to visit him in the hospital after he returned to the U.S. following his catastrophic wounding. Lieutenant Puller eventually received the Silver Star, two Purple Hearts, and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal.

The young Puller nearly died after being so severely injured in action; at one point, his body weight dropped to just 55 pounds. But, as many of his fellow wounded veterans put it, Puller was “too stubborn to die.” One of the good friends he made in the hospital was Navy SEAL Bob Kerrey, later a Medal of Honor recipient, a U.S. Senator from Nebraska, and a presidential candidate. Puller later toyed with the idea of writing Kerrey’s biography.

The junior Puller spent several years in hospitals recovering from his wounds. He attended law school upon his release from the hospital and embarked on a career as a lawyer with the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense. Though he seemed to have recovered well from his near-death experience and years in medical treatment, Puller, like so many veterans of wars from ancient times to today, struggled to readjust. In his case, readjustment meant not just the transition from Marine to civilian, but also learning how to live as a triple amputee confined to a wheelchair. Puller struggled with alcoholism and post-traumatic stress. He ran for Congress in 1978 as a Democrat in Virginia, taking on incumbent Republican Congressman Paul Trible. Puller lost badly, receiving just twenty-eight percent of the vote. In 1981, Puller sought treatment for alcoholism. Though the treatment helped, he continued to struggle with depression and PTSD and suffered occasional relapses of drinking.

He published his autobiography—Fortunate Son: The Healing of a Vietnam Vet—to great acclaim in 1991. He acknowledged that he got the book’s title from the popular 1969 Creedence Clearwater Revival anti-war song “Fortunate Son,” which decried the Vietnam War as a rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight. In the song, singer John Fogerty laments that people of influence—politicians and the wealthy—get their own sons out of fighting, leaving poor and middle class men to be drafted and sent overseas to fight in a war that few of them understand: “It ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son,” and, later, “It ain’t me, I ain’t no millionaire’s son.”

Puller, however, wrote lovingly and affectionately of his own father and displayed little of the understandable cynicism of the song. As one of the nation’s most revered and influential retired military officers, the senior Lewis Puller could surely have pulled a few strings to get his own son out of serving altogether or, at the very least, into a military job far from the front lines of battle. Even had the elder Puller wanted to do this for his son, though, it is clear from the junior Puller’s autobiography that he would not have wanted this special treatment. Many of our modern national leaders—George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Trump, and others—used parental influence or student deferments to avoid serving in Vietnam. They were among the “fortunate sons” that Creedence Clearwater Revival criticized. The young Lewis Puller, though, considered himself a fortunate son simply because he admired and loved his father.

Puller’s book received the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for biography/autobiography. He appeared on numerous news programs and talk shows to promote the book and talked openly about his past struggles with depression and alcoholism. Though Puller seemed like a Vietnam veteran success story, he hid his ongoing troubles well. He and his wife, Linda “Toddy” Puller, whom he had married and impregnated before shipping out to Vietnam in 1968, separated in 1991. She was a heroine of Puller’s life and his book. When he first returned from Vietnam, Mrs. Puller was five months pregnant, and he told her to divorce him rather than burden herself and their unborn child with life with a crippled husband and father. Puller, in the throes of his depression and alcoholism, had attempted suicide after his failed congressional campaign, and his wife came to his aid and saved his life. One New York Times writer reviewing his book noted that Puller was not just a fortunate son, but a fortunate husband as well. The disintegration of their long marriage was devastating for Puller.

On May 11, 1994, Lewis B. Puller, Jr., just forty-eight years old, committed suicide by shooting himself. His estranged wife said in a statement, “To the list of names of victims of the Vietnam War, add the name of Lewis Puller… He suffered terrible wounds that never really healed.” One of his closest friends, Terry Anderson—the Associated Press journalist held hostage for years in Lebanon—was devastated and bewildered by his friend’s death. “This is a man who had so many burdens, so many things to bear,” Anderson said. “And he bore them well for twenty-five years. What did I miss? I was his friend. I thought he was winning.”

The Pullers are prominent reminders of the level of sacrifice some families and individuals make to serve their country. When leaders, especially those “fortunate sons” who avoided military service by virtue of their surnames or bank accounts, seem eager to send young American men and women to war for ill-defined objectives, they are asking more than many realize. Even those that make it home suffer mental and emotional wounds that can last forever. On this October 11, let us remember the Pullers, and just what it means to send young men and women to war. The true effects of such a decision can—and usually do—reverberate."