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Seattle Times  - Opinion

Moments of magic in the chaos of the Vietnam War

March 25, 2022 at 11:57 am Updated March 25, 2022 at 11:57 am

  

Charles Kraus entertains three young boys with one of his magic coin tricks in Da Nang, Vietnam, in 1967. (Courtesy of Charles Kraus)

By Charles E. Kraus

Special to The Times

For the past 60 years or so, my calling has been to mystify audiences and make people smile; especially kids. About a year of that time was spent in Vietnam. Officially, the military had me down as an enlisted man who’d signed up for a hitch in the Navy and had gotten himself attached to MCB 71, a Mobile Construction Battalion, the Seabees. 

John Wayne had starred in a movie, “The Fighting Seabees.” The poster showed him with a hammer in one hand and a machine gun in the other. We participated in war by building things rather than destroying them but were trained to do both. Outfitted in military fatigues, we attended Escape and Evasion School, learned to use our M16s, practiced throwing grenades and even took a lesson in firing anti-tank weapons. We honed these skills in Camp Lejeune, training with the Marines. Then, off to Chu Lai. It was 1967. I think I was the only one in the battalion who took along props for a stage show.

These were brutal days, though the horrific Ukraine-Russia war has changed my perspective about what we went through. Some 4,431 Americans were killed in the Iraq War. And 58,220 Americans died in Vietnam. I guess we’ll eventually total up the current conflict. 

I spent much of my time in Vietnam performing shows. Some for military units in the area and some for children. Mostly, I’m a kid-show guy. Born with an ability to help distract children who are enduring traumatic events, getting them to refocus, albeit, for a few moments, on cheerful bewilderment. In this case, my magic tricks.

Some of my in-country entertaining was spontaneous. The streets of Chu Lai were filled with military and civilian vehicles — trucks, motor bikes, transports, rushing about in a nonstop frenzy. Commercial sheds (stores) were mixed in with massive tented areas that serviced troops — bivouacs filled with activity, all day, all night, the pandemonium blending ground-level racket with Skyhawks and other jets taking off and landing every few minutes. The concept of noise abatement had yet to be invented.

Children wandered through this chaos trying to go about their lives. When I could, I’d gather a little crowd and compete with the bedlam. Coins appearing and disappearing. Sponge rubber balls changing color. Silk scarves magically unknotting themselves. Even in Da Nang, which maintained an element of civility, war turned everyone into cautious, suspicious, fearful beings in need of a little diversion. 

I was a delivery man, passing out synthetic wonder to children who would have benefited from actual wonder. My performances provided a touch of relief for the kids and for the magician. Pretty tense times.

Sleight-of-hand magic turned out to be one of those universal art forms. Just as music can be appreciated by people around the world, an illusion that defies the laws of science can create an instinctual “wow!” And so, when orphaned children subjected to a war’s depravity surrounded the platform and watched the impossible being performed with a smile, sometimes the smile got returned. 

Sages

By Charles Kraus

Sages:  Rachel is back.  Tucker is unvaccinated.  Jen Psaki is moving on.  Jeffrey Toobin is keeping his hands on the table.  Who guides us as we stumble forward trying to survive the cumulative effects of the past?

As newborns, we are handed a packet of assumptions that we spend our lives scrutinizing.   Our parent's beliefs, our community's norms, social and religious canons. It is assumed we will feel, think and live these hand me downs.  Find them to be accurate pictures of reality.  Rock solid doctrine.  

Some of us have doubts.

Though my father never explicitly stated so, his motto was, always believe everything you read as long as it supports your point of view.  I took a look at that when I was about twelve and thought I'd try another approach.  One thing I found was that seeking truth was an aspirational goal.

I tend to favor mainstream points of view, the established scientific and historical pronouncements.  Who am I to question the experts?   I sign on, but with a caveat, a realization that lending support to such opinions is like making purchases from Costco.  I can take things back or exchange them whenever I want to.  I am, after all, espousing other people’s educated guesses, tainted with unavoidable bias and the limits of knowledge in its current state.

Religious and political charlatans build careers and movements by working persuasion and emotion.   Genuine experts, on the other hand, are well versed in facts and context.  What they know didn't arrive on carts of ethereal revelation.  Knowledge is verifiable, accruing and interlocking.  Though, of course, I keep in mind that each side in a lawsuit calls experts to the witness stand, and we get second opinions from doctors because medical diagnosis and treatment plans are not always formulaic.  

These days, most movers and shakers have resumes.  Bona fides.  Certificates of graduation.   An informal biographical survey of contemporary authority brings up a handful of alma maters. Stanford, Yale, and Harvard seem to have influenced more critical thinking than the King James Bible.  Do the names Elon Musk, Larry Page, Bill Gates, ring a bell?  How about Hillary Clinton, George W.H.. Bush, Paul Krugman, John F. Kennedy, and Michael Bloomberg?  Once upon a time they were matriculated at these universities.  And just to complicate matters, I'll throw in Ron DeSantiss, Ted Cruz, and Peter Thiel, gradates from Harvard and Stanford. People show up at the library with a notion of the books they want to borrow.  We are not all working from the same syllabus. Perhaps there is a difference between profound wisdom and grade point average.

I pick and choose my sages by their well reasoned arguments, and the caliber of their endorsements.  Folks who resort to outrage, to rhetorical gamesmanship, name calling, denials of reality, who are more interested in rights than responsibilities, can leave the room by the back door, please.  I'm not interested in watching them conflate temper tantrums with persuasive arguments.  

My kids attended a school where the philosophy for conducting one's self boiled down to a motto:  Curtsy and Common Sense.  I wish I'd gone to that school.  I wish all of us had.