COMBAT CORRESPONDENT PROFILES SERIES STEVE STIBBENS: Semper Fi Correspondent MARC YABLONKA
 
When Steve Stibbens got to Vietnam in 1962, he had already been a reporter and photographer with Pacific Stars and Stripes in Japan. But even before that, as a Marine correspondent (MOS 4312), he had served as the Regimental Correspondent for the 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, California. He was no babe in the woods. In fact, he had already jumped off a few choppers. “I was a 26-year-old Marine buck Sergeant with eight years in the Corps when I got to Stripes. As a Marine Combat Correspondent, I'd been preparing for war all that time." Stibbens' preparations were about to pay off. The late Al Chang, renowned photographer of the Korean War, had gone on a fact-finding mission to Vietnam quite early on. When he came back, he encouraged Steve to head south to Vietnam himself. "This is the real one. You need to be there," Chang had told Steve. In the meantime, Steve began to bone up on war; he read books about World War II and Korea. He read "all the books," but then a trip to the library garnered him a book about the French war in Indochina, which was to prove insightful to him. One of the things he realized was that the U.S. Marines were still thinking along the lines of large unit actions, not the guerilla warfare made popular by Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh, later Viet Cong, communists. These were large unit actions, not the war that French had fought. "At the time, I just knew it would be great adventure," said Steve, and he began working his editors. When he arrived in Saigon In December of 1962, he set up a one-man Stars and Stripes bureau. He had an immediate mission: to cover the Christmas visit of Francis Cardinal Spellman, a hawkish supporter of the war in Vietnam. Once Steve was safely in Saigon, he followed Al Chang's advice and headed to the Associated Press's Saigon bureau. It was there that he would meet civilian correspondents Malcolm Browne (who took the famous photo of the Buddhist monk Hoa Thuong Thich Quang Duc immolating himself on the Streets of Saigon), Peter Arnett (later of CNN), and Horst Faas, Saigon photo bureau chief. Coming to Saigon also afforded him the friendship of then New York Times reporter the late David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan (of United Press International), Life magazine's Larry Burrows (later to lose his life, along with the Associated Press’s Henri Huet, UPI’s Kent Potter, and Newsweek freelancer Keizaburo Shimamoto, in a helicopter shoot down over Laos during Operation Lamson 719), and Nick Turner of Reuters. It is safe to say that his admiration for Horst Faas and Faas's work knows no boundaries. Stibbens is quick to point out that by that time, Faas, who in 1997, along with renowned British photojournalist Tim Page, published the book REQUIEM: BY THE PHOTOGRAPHERS WHO DIED IN VIETNAM AND INDOCHINA, had already experienced war when Faas himself had arrived in Vietnam, not only in his native Germany as a lad, but as an AP reporter in the Congo and Algeria. It was Faas who took Steve on his first combat operation. "It was a dawn H-21 (Piasecki "Flying Banana") helicopter landing in the Mekong Delta south of Saigon. I just wanted not to do something stupid. I tried to hide my apprehension, but I really wondered how I would react to live bullets all around me. After all, I was a Marine." The bravado that would come with the next several years would develop later on though and not during that first mission. Stibbens and Faas were the first to jump out of the helicopter into the rice paddy where they immediately began to wade through the paddy's knee-deep water. Jumping out first, Horst taught Stibbens, was always safer because the enemy will not have had time to draw a bead on you if you are first out the door. To Stibbens relief, no shots were fired on either side. They "sloshed" into the nearest village. But before very long, the first bullets Stibbens wondered about began to kick up the dirt all around him. For some inexplicable reason, Huey gunships were firing at them. Luckily no one was hit, and the Hueys flew away. "Very quickly, I was feeling like a veteran as we walked and walked and walked. We stopped on the trail for lunch, and Faas somehow located two large bottles of Biere Larue, a popular Vietnamese brew of the era. The South Vietnamese troops they accompanied commandeered some chickens from a local farmer; they ate, drank, and settled down for a siesta. Before the sun went down, they boarded a landing craft and made their way back to an ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) base. By dark they were back in Saigon. Said Stibbens, "That's what missions were like in those early days." But it did not stay like that for long. Steve was tasked with reporting on the 16,000 American "advisers" in country. The Buddhists were already protesting in the streets with banners against the Catholic government of American-supported Ngo Dinh Diem, which was maltreating them, but the editors at Stars and Stripes told him to not bother with the Saigon political story. "They'd use AP and UPI stories (and cover their ass with the brass, which looked over their shoulders all the time)." On January 2, 1963, a rumor went round the press corps about "big battle" in the Mekong Delta some 70 miles south of Saigon. "I was hanging out at the AP office with Peter Arnett when David Halberstam came in. Peter and David knew I had access to a small Ford Falcon. So, instead of their usual transportation via Saigon taxi or military helicopter, they persuaded me to change into a Marine uniform and drive them to the battle at the village of Ap-Bac. (Note: all Stars and Stripes staffers wore civilian clothing and received field-grade privileges just like the civilian media people.) The uniform helped get us past roadblocks and check points on the way to Tan Hiep airstrip, the staging point for the Ap-Bac action. “At Tan Hiep, we got briefings from Col. Daniel Boone Porter, senior adviser, and {the legendary} Lt Col. John Paul Vann, 7th ARVN Div. adviser. I flew out to Ap Bac on an H-21 with Vann and a group of U.S. Army maintenance people. When we landed at Ap Bac, I got off with the mechanics that were going to repair downed aircraft—two H-21s and a Huey--if possible.Richard Tregaskis, the WWII writer was on the H-21 with us and shot a photo of me as I slipped and fell at a paddy dike. He knew who I was but he identified me in his book Vietnam Diary as an `unidentified soldier.'" Though he may have fallen into a rice paddy, throughout the five years Steve spent in Vietnam, he was constantly aware that the bar had been set very high for him, and other combat correspondents, to represent the GI by his World War II counterpart Ernie Pyle. Though not a soldier himself, Pyle might as well have been. His acceptance by troops in both the European and Pacific Theaters because of the way he portrayed them for the families back home in his "Hometowners," remains testimony to a remarkable war chronicler to this day. In part because of Pyle, and because of his own allegiance to the Marine Corps, Steve felt a heavy responsibility to represent the Corps, which he carried with him for three additional years as a reporter in Vietnam for the Marine Corps' publication Leatherneck magazine. In 1967, he felt equally committed to painting a valid picture of the war in Vietnam when he left Leatherneck and became a war correspondent for the Associated Press. During his tenure with Leatherneck, Stibbens was interviewed by his friend Bob Schieffer, today an anchorman with CBS News, but then a reporter with the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram newspaper from their mutual home state of Texas. “He’s one Marine who wasn’t sent here to fight the Viet Cong,” Schieffer wrote in a 1966 edition of the paper for which they both once wrote. “His instructions were to write about other Marines, but earlier this month when Stibbens arrived for his sixth tour of duty, he had to disobey orders somewhat—he was responsible for the capture of six VC.” Steve had been on patrol 15 miles south of the base at Da Nang when he saw something move about ten feet in front of him, Schieffer wrote in a style of reportage most often associated with their World War II war correspondent predecessor, the famed Ernie Pyle, called a “hometowner.” Stibbens’ attention was immediately drawn to a hole in the ground covered with a lid. Inside were six enemy combatants hiding from the company patrolling the area. “I looked at them and they looked at me,” Stibbens told Schieffer. One of the Marines pulled the lid back and, all at once a hand emerged from the hole with a grenade, pin pulled. He slammed the lid down and the concussion killed three of the hidden VC. The other three were forced out with a smoke bomb, Stibbens told Schieffer. "I always carried the heavy weight of Ernie Pyle. I had read his books before joining the Corps and they stuck with me, especially when I was in journalism school. Even today, I think of Ernie Pyle when I'm writing about military people. He had a knack for placing the reader in the locale of the story... around the campfire, so to speak." While being around the campfires himself and plodding through the jungles of Vietnam as a "Striper," Stibbens was always on the lookout for enemy fire. Stibbens’ admiration for his employer was also something he carried into battle. "Stars & Stripes was truly the greatest duty I ever had. In my day, Pacific Stars & Stripes, headquartered in Tokyo, was a real newspaper. They published five editions daily for GIs in Korea, Taiwan, Okinawa, Guam, Hawaii, the Philippines, Thailand and South Vietnam. Daily circulation was 500,000. We had a civilian Managing Editor, City Editor, Features Editor, Sunday Editor, a 10-person art/graphics department, a dozen outstanding Japanese photo lab technicians, our own press, truck drivers, etc. Several hundred people. The only GIs at Stars & Stripes were a dozen or so from each of the services. The civilians were top-notch editors from the great newspapers who had taken a couple years leave of absence for the adventure of Tokyo life. I was the only Marine reporter on staff. There was a staff sergeant in the art department and another staff sergeant in production." While working for the U.S. Military newspaper is today paramount in Steve’s mind, at the same time, working for Leatherneck and the AP, three somewhat different assignments during his time in Vietnam, he is ever cognizant of those differences that existed in working for each; the main difference being the audience. "Stripes’ focuses on the grunt and troop-level action for a generally military audience. AP speaks to the world and requires telling the broad story as well." Covering events and battles for the AP, Steve was usually in a hurry to get information and get back to a telephone to call Saigon. In fact, he got a cable once from the New York bureau of the AP congratulating him on a nine-minute beat with a story about a B-52 crash. With Stripes, Steve knew that he could take time to get to know the troops; like during one mission in 1963 when he went on a a ten-day mountain patrol with three Special Forces troops and 85 Koho Montagnards. "Stars & Stripes wanted coverage of the GIs for the GIs. The civilian correspondents, of course, had to cover everything, especially the politics... with a coup rumor every day. Horst Faas and I wanted action and we constantly went on adventures while the others had to stay close to Saigon. Afterward, the Saigon-bound newsies treated us like great heroes, buying our dinners and soliciting tales of our adventures in the countryside. It was great!" How long the war would last was anybody's guess in the early days of Vietnam. But there was a sense of pre-packaged optimism among the brass. In October, 1963, Steve interviewed the two top American generals, Gen. Paul D. Harkins (MAC-V) and Maj.Gen. Charles Timmes (MAAG). In almost identical words, they separately told him, "We've done our job here. We’ve trained the Vietnamese forces." Gen. Timmes said he could see "victory" by the end of the next dry season, about nine months away, barring unforeseen political upheaval. "Harkins even sent me to talk with his G-1 to verify that 1,000 advisers were going home next week. Answering my question about the Catholic soldiers brawling with the Buddhist soldiers, Timmes said, `Just as you and I are loyal to our president whether it's Eisenhower or Kennedy, they are loyal to their government.' My interviews hit the streets in Saigon on November 1st with a bold five-column headline, 'VIET VICTORY NEAR,” It was the very day of the coup that resulted in the murder of President Diem and his hated brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, head of the secret police. Gen. Harkins quickly asked Steve if he would write a retraction for Stars & Stripes. but he declined. Then Harkins claimed he didn't say it. President Kennedy sent Harkins a “cable rocket'” reminding him they'd agreed to not predict the ‘light at the end of the tunnel.’ “David Halberstam took the lead and went to bat for me with the generals.” Three days later, Stars & Stripes arrived in Saigon with a front page box stating, "Our correspondent in Saigon erred in quoting both Gens. Timmes and Harkins. Both generals said the South Vietnam armed forces are loyal to their country, not government." As Halberstam wrote in his book, Making of a Quagmire, the issue was never in question, Stibbens said. In a move reminiscent of the fact that in more recent years Stars and Stripes has found itself in a tug-of-war with the military over the fact that its reporters endeavored to be free to report the facts as any newspaper staff would, yet being beholden to the United States government at the same time with a mission to represent the military, Stibbens took the next plane to Tokyo to protest. General Collins, the senior general in the Pacific, flew in from Hawaii to interview Steve. Then he asked Steve if he would help the Army save face and return to Saigon. The civilian media suspected I'd been kicked out by Harkins. It turned out that General Harkins’ PIO, a Col. Lee Baker, had sent the retraction to Stripes, implying that I had written it. As he looks back on Vietnam today, Steve Stibbens is flooded with the emotions that any combat veteran knows all too well. His time in Vietnam served as a kind of measuring stick against the entirety of a brilliant career in military journalism: “There was a lot of tragedy in 'Nam. I especially remember an old man--about 85--who took off running when the Marines landed near his village. About a dozen Marines opened fire and he lay there for awhile with his brains oozing into the sand while his family screamed. The Marine lieutenant barely held back the tears when they learned what had happened. As an AP correspondent, I covered a lot of tragedy… like a Braniff plane crash in Dawson, Texas (near Waco) in 1968. I was the first newsman to arrive on the scene and was wandering around the wreckage with the firemen. It had crashed trying to fly through a thunderstorm. Eighty-five dead. There were a lot of body parts in the muck. Arms, legs, a torso or two. The captain's cap. A wallet full of money. Then, there was another crash of a small corporate jet in Dallas, barely missing a school in session. Again, body parts everywhere. In Vietnam, I saw a lot of bodies but usually, they had been covered and it was hard for me to connect. I can't forget my surprise suddenly confronting the poncho-covered bodies of a half-dozen lifeless Marines. It was during Operation Orange, about 1966. I jumped on a H-34 helicopter and realized I was the only passenger with a stack of about 10 Marines. They were so big, I thought. It hit me hard. I was accustomed to seeing the relatively small Vietnamese dead. But this was like a slap in the face. I didn't know them but they were Marines, like me. " Visit Steve’s Website, MY WAR - VIETNAM, 1962-1967  Now available from Amazon.com, Knights Over the Delta: The Story of the 114th Aviation Company in Vietnam, 1963-72 [Special Limited Edition] [Hardcover] by Steve Stibbens (Author), Horst Faas (Introduction), Joseph L. Galloway (Introduction) Marc P. Yablonka is a military journalist whose reportage has appeared in the U.S. Military's Stars and Stripes, Army Times, Air Force Times, American Veteran, Vietnam magazine, Airways, Military Heritage, Soldier of Fortune and many others. Marc is the author of Distant War: Recollections of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia Visit Marc’s website! http://stibbens.com/war.htmhttp://digitaljournalist.org/issue0603/stibbens.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/Requiem-Photographers-Died-Vietnam-Indochina/dp/0679456570http://www.amazon.com/Requiem-Photographers-Died-Vietnam-Indochina/dp/0679456570http://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-Diary-Richard-Tregaskis/dp/059500248Xhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Pylehttp://articles.latimes.com/1995-04-02/news/mn-49894_1_ernie-pylehttp://www.loc.gov/rr/main/stars/stars.htmlhttp://stibbens.com/war.htmhttp://www.amazon.com/Knights-Over-Delta-Aviation-Company/dp/0974246506/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320125844&sr=1-1http://www.amazon.com/Knights-Over-Delta-Aviation-Company/dp/0974246506/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320125844&sr=1-1http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books&field-author=Steve%20Stibbenshttp://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_2?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books&field-author=Horst%20Faashttp://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_2?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books&field-author=Horst%20Faashttp://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_3?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books&field-author=Joseph%20L.%20Gallowayhttp://www.amazon.com/Distant-War-Recollections-Vietnam-Cambodia/dp/098341680X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1307835446&sr=1-1http://navigator-books.com/marcpyablonka/index.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/Requiem-Photographers-Died-Vietnam-Indochina/dp/0679456570http://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-Diary-Richard-Tregaskis/dp/059500248Xhttp://www.amazon.com/Knights-Over-Delta-Aviation-Company/dp/0974246506/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320125844&sr=1-1http://www.amazon.com/Distant-War-Recollections-Vietnam-Cambodia/dp/098341680X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1307835446&sr=1-1shapeimage_2_link_0shapeimage_2_link_1shapeimage_2_link_2shapeimage_2_link_3shapeimage_2_link_4shapeimage_2_link_5shapeimage_2_link_6shapeimage_2_link_7shapeimage_2_link_8shapeimage_2_link_9shapeimage_2_link_10shapeimage_2_link_11shapeimage_2_link_12shapeimage_2_link_13shapeimage_2_link_14shapeimage_2_link_15shapeimage_2_link_16