PVT MARK SPOONER, 1st Battalion 7th Marines

When a young Marine Private called Mark Spooner first saw Vietnam’s
Beautiful Annamite Mountains with their lush rain forests, ancient pagodas and meandering valleys, he said:

“Will somebody remind me why we’re having a war here?”

That was 1968, when the young East Side draftee had a ‘come and get me’ sort of attitude with the military.  But once they came and got him, and he’d survived the emotional and physical challenges of Parris Island basic training—tougher by far than boot camps in any other branch of the service—he’d developed into a dedicated Marine… which he remains to this day.

But his tour of duty, in which he saw action in the A Shau Valley as an FO (forward observer) and a mortarman attached to the H&S Company attached to Delta Company of the 1st Battalion 7th Marines, gave him enough ‘Vietnam’ to last him a lifetime.

“I don’t have the slightest desire to go back,” he said recently from his Harrison Township home.

Which was good enough for Visionalist Productions to consider him the perfect candidate for a return trip, especially with his daughter, Marine Captain Jennifer Spooner in tow.

Between February 7 and March 7, the Spooners accompanied the Visionalist crew and bush guide extraordinaire Bill Stilwagen of Vietnam Battlefield Tours on a mission of exploration, learning and hopefully, some closure.

Mark is a big fellow with a big sense of adventure; sliding back into the sort of heat and humidity he’d last experienced four decades ago, he was game for long, pre-dawn walks to Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem Lake, a clamber through the Vinh Moc tunnels that once housed men who’d tried to kill him, and an arduous climb up the rear of Hill 41, his former Marine command base, frequently helping the camera crew hump heavy equipment.  The only time he drew the line, choosing to remain in the air-conditioned bus to confront an army of aggressive marble hawkers, was our struggle up the ridiculously steep staircase leading to the top of Marble Mountain.  For those of us on the crew who still haven’t fully recovered from that experience, he was probably right.

Mark’s a big fellow with a big sense of humor.  He appeared delighted when the kids of Hanoi’s Friendship Village patted his belly in awe, crying, ‘Buddha! Buddha!’.  He proved equally gentle with the mostly-disabled children, helping them put together the drawings and messages that were returned to the Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Operation Exchange of Hearts.

He’s also got a huge sense of fair play.  Against the odds, he consented to spend the day with Nguyen Ngoc Ha, a former Vietcong Lieutenant who’d shot AK 47s at American Marines in roughly the same territory where he’d been stationed.  Still, he couldn’t resist one wry comment: When visiting a Communist military cemetery, viewing the sharp, angled rows of tombstones that memorialized men who’d once been on the wrong side, Mark quipped:  “It’s a beautiful place.  I wish it was a lot bigger.”

Inside the American Embassy for a photo with Ambassador Michalak, Mark is keenly aware that he posed before two flags—one, his beloved American Stars ‘n’ Stripes, the other depicting a stark yellow star planted in a bright red field. 

This is the flag of his former enemy, representing men that he was told to hate, representing ideals that he had offered his life to overthrow.  To see them juxtaposed in relative calmness may be as jarring as seeing the American flag standing proudly beside a Swastika.

Still, as Mark considered the tranquility of the Vietnam countryside, watching people raising children in peace and growing prosperity, he suggested that his sacrifice, and that of his fellow American soldiers, 58,000 of whom did not return, was ultimately aimed at this precise outcome, this vision. 

“This,” he said, pointing out a pack of kids playing in the failing light, “is all we really wanted.”

And leaving Vietnam, perhaps for the last time, Mark Spooner looked from the plane window at the sparkling China Sea washing onto bone white sands and said:

“Will somebody remind me why we had a war here?”