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美国国家公共电台 NPR The Forgotten History Of A Prison Uprising In Vietnam

时间:2018-09-03 07:32:53

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(单词翻译)

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Now we're going to take some time to hear accounts of a nearly forgotten moment - an American prison riot that happened halfway1 around the world at the peak of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

It was 1968. There were half a million American troops in Vietnam, a quarter of them drafted to fight. The war was becoming increasingly unpopular both at home and among those fighting there. Discipline started to fray2 among the troops. More and more soldiers were going AWOL, and military stockades4 were filling up.

SHAPIRO: The Army's largest stockade3 located on the outskirts5 of Saigon was called Long Binh Jail, LBJ for short. It was originally built to house 400 inmates7. But eventually it held more than 700 men, more than half of them African-American.

CHANG: With so much bad news that year, the uprising at LBJ on August 29, 1968, didn't make many headlines. Fifty years later, Radio Diaries brings us the story.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ADRIAN CRONAUER: Good morning, Vietnam. Here we go with Armed Forces Radio.

RICHARD PERDOMO: My name is Richard Perdomo. I was with the 19th combat engineer unit. I didn't even know there was a jail in Vietnam. I was guilty of refusing a direct order. I refused to fix a flat tire on a dump truck that I did not drive. They gave me six months for that. That's how I ended up at the stockade.

SCOTT RILEY: My name is Scott Riley. I served with the 1st Air Cav. I was young, thought I was a bit of a badass, ended up going AWOL, got busted8 with a bunch of - a whole lot of marijuana.

JIMMIE CHILDRESS JR.: My name is Jimmie Childress Jr. I was stealing from the military - M16s, grenade launchers. I even stole a couple jeeps.

RILEY: In any war, there is always booty and money to be made. There is always criminal activities.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOWHERE TO RUN")

MARTHA AND THE VANDELLAS: (Singing) I'll never be, no. Each night...

PERDOMO: When I first got to the prison, I saw the gates and stuff. And I said to myself, hey, look; I'm going to be safer inside this chain-link fence with guards and guard towers than I would be out there in the field. And I thought, man, this is going to be all right, going to be a good six months, you know? But lo and behold9, it didn't take maybe just a few days to realize that danger was within that barbed wire fence.

RILEY: Long Binh was the kind of place that from the moment you walked in, you were trying to figure out a way to get out. Here you are sitting in a war zone, in a jail, just at their mercy.

PERDOMO: The whole prison was not much bigger than one square city block. And it was just full of tents. Each tent would hold maybe 10, 15 people.

CHILDRESS: In the mornings, they would take you out into this big, open yard to fill sandbags all day. We were out in 115 degree heat each and every day.

PERDOMO: Each three-man team had to fill 500 sandbags a day. But you were filling them with hard-packed clay which had to be dug up with a pick and shovel10.

CHILDRESS: The guards at LBJ - they treated you bad, bad, bad. You were being humiliated11 in that stockade. You were being kicked around.

PERDOMO: I remember one day something popped me in the back of the head. And I was ready to fight. But when I turned around, Major Jackson (ph) was standing12 there. And he was more or less in charge of the prison. He took me to the maximum-security area, which we just called the box, throwed me in that thing and just walked off.

CHILDRESS: I don't know if you know what a CONEX box is, but it's a steel box the Army used to keep supplies in. They had them in the stockade for us to lock us up in. That was their way of making you submissive.

RILEY: The temperature inside the box was a hundred-plus degrees. The light was constantly on, 24 hours a day. And you were in there naked.

CHILDRESS: And you're like, this is the U.S. military, and you're treating your own soldiers this way?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: This is AFVN serving the American fighting man 24 hours a day from the Delta13 to the DMZ.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHITE ROOM")

CREAM: (Singing) Black-roof country, no gold...

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I was the deputy commander at the stockade in Long Binh, Vietnam. When I first got there, I could see there was a problem. Guards were reluctant to go to certain areas, especially at night. It wasn't safe.

LARRY J KIMBROUGH: My name is Larry J. Kimbrough. I served as a guard at the stockade. I hated to go in having to deal with insubordination, name calling, profanities. The racial breakdown14 was there was more blacks than there were whites that were housed in the stockade. So they'd be dissing and dapping. Dissing and dapping was a show of solidarity15 between black prisoners. This would be a clenched16 fist or a bump. It's kind of hard to describe when you're white, but the - it was a soul brother thing.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JAMES BRIGHAM: Hey, hey, hey, hey. I'm your specialist James Brigham, and I'll be your host for two hours of the power of soul Saigon-style. Check it out.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOW YOU GONNA GET RESPECT (WHEN YOU HAVEN'T CUT YOUR PROCESS YET)")

HANK BALLARD: (Singing) You're black and you're beautiful, this I know, just being your natural self.

CHILDRESS: Black and white being in Vietnam was no different from black and white being in America. It was no different. You have racial tensions.

PERDOMO: From the very first day I got to the prison, the blacks all hung together. The whites that were there - we kind of all stuck to our one side. We weren't segregated17 through the military. We were separated by the want to be separated.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: As an officer, let me give you my perception. There's always tension between races in a prison. You can control this with adequate staff. When you have control, the tension becomes dormant18. Without control, what could you do? We needed more people. None came.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "NBC NIGHTLY NEWS")

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: NBC interrupts its regular program schedule to bring you the following special report.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Martin Luther King Jr. was killed tonight in Memphis, Tenn. As he stood alone on the...

CHILDRESS: When Martin Luther King was killed, that was definitely a turning point. They tried to keep the news from us black soldiers.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "NBC NIGHTLY NEWS")

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: Police made periodic sweeps up and down...

CHILDRESS: But we had heard that almost every major city in the United States had rioted.

RILEY: A new burst of anger was afoot in the prison.

CHILDRESS: All black soldiers felt the same. Like, why am I even over here? I mean, you can't even go back to America and sit at a lunch counter, you know? You can't go vote. You can't live in a certain community. Then you say, who is my real enemy? And we were hot and crazy. We were fed up. So we decided19 we're going to tear this [expletive] down. Excuse my language.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: You're listening to AFVN FM in Saigon. It's 11:05.

KIMBROUGH: On August 29, 1968, at approximately 11:25 p.m., I was standing in my guard shack20 when I began to hear a loud noise - screaming, yelling. Then I knew we had a serious situation.

CHILDRESS: We overpowered two guards. And people come from everywhere.

PERDOMO: I remember getting up out of my tent. And I walked out barefooted. I was looking around, and I saw guys just running - black guys, white guys, everybody was just going in all directions. And I thought, man, I got to get ready. So I put my boots on. I pretty much had on my underwear and my combat boots, and that was it.

RILEY: I was locked up in the box. And all of a sudden, kind of, like, out of nowhere, this black guy opens the door and says, come on out, man. And like, somebody had come over from the kitchen with a sheet pan full of flat cake. And we were just breaking hunks of this stuff off and eating it. The euphoria of being free - that moment - it was a beautiful moment, knowing all the while that this is not going to end well.

KIMBROUGH: Everything just sped up in fast motion. I saw six to eight prisoners running toward me. They threw me to the ground, started kicking and pummeled me with fists. After that, they moved on to the mess hall that was set on fire. And personally, I don't blame them 'cause the food was definitely lousy.

CHILDRESS: I can remember running past the administration building where they kept all the records of everyone. So I hollered for three or four guys to come go with me. And we kicked the door in. And I said, just start throwing records on the floor and set them afire so they would not know who anyone was.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I was the highest-ranking black officer at the stockade. So I just went in and - trying to get them to calm down. I was surrounded by about a hundred inmates. I think I talked to them for a good 15, 20 minutes. But then I heard two or three of them saying - yelling to kill the Uncle Tom. They stopped listening to what I was saying, so I left. They opened the gate and let me out.

PERDOMO: That's probably when it really got dangerous. They kept all the shovels21 and the picks in a little, bitty shed. When they got those things out, it just escalated22 - boom-boom-boom (ph). Everybody went to fight. And everybody - people were just knocking each other in the head, you know, starting fights and swinging shovels and picks and stuff. And it wasn't just blacks on whites. It was just everybody lashing23 out. That was the only time I was ever scared the whole time I was in Vietnam.

CHILDRESS: When everything started to quiet down, there were, like, six to eight guards that we had on the ground. And the military was saying release them, but I didn't want to let them go because I hadn't had enough. In fact, I walked past each one of them and busted them in the head with a stick 'cause I was really angry. I'm like, I'm going to make you pay for what you've done to me. And it took some of my comrades who had a little more sense than I did to say to me, no, man, let him go.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CBS EVENING NEWS")

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Direct from our newsroom in New York, this is the "CBS Evening News" with Walter Cronkite.

WALTER CRONKITE: Good evening. There was a riot with racial overtones of the largest U.S. servicemen stockade in Vietnam, and 65 GIs were injured. A white prisoner was killed. He was beaten to death with a shovel.

PETER ARNETT: The media was getting so little information as the story unfolded. My name is Peter Arnett. I was a reporter for the Associated Press in Vietnam. The riot had reportedly been put down, and things are back to normal. And yet three weeks later, the military was saying, well, we still have some holdouts. Twelve soldiers still controlled a section of the LBJ stockade.

RILEY: Days went by. The military is literally24 throwing boxes of C-rations over the fence for us to eat. So we kind of knew that they weren't going to kill us. People started pulling out drugs from God only knows where. And we're literally laying in the yard in the hot sun getting high.

ARNETT: Turned out to be really an astonishing story. I mean, at any point the military could have overwhelmed this group of resisting black prisoners. The decisions were made not to do it. The high command realized this story could grow much bigger. And with the resistance to the war growing, they just didn't want to start drawing even greater attention to this whole racial issue in Vietnam. So the military played it low key. And the riot basically lasted for most of September.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: The decision was made to send in a company in a riot control formation. They used tear gas. That ended at all. After it was all over, we knew who the ringleaders were. And we took care of them.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CBS EVENING NEWS")

CRONKITE: U.S. military sources in Saigon said today that six Negro soldiers involved in a riot at the Long Binh stockade will be tried for conspiracy25 to commit murder. The charges stem...

CHILDRESS: After the riot, I felt bad about it. I have regrets. And I felt disappointed because we didn't accomplish anything other than tearing something up like a child would tear up a toy. We just blew off steam. That's all. And we only made our bed harder than what it was before.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: Presenting the sounds of '68 on the American Forces Vietnam Network.

PERDOMO: When I come home, I kind of left all of that behind me. It was just one of those hush-hush stories. It's not like describing a battle. It was nothing heroic about it. Families just don't like to think about their sons marching off to war, and instead of marching off to war he marches off into a stockade.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TIME HAS COME TODAY")

THE CHAMBERS26 BROTHERS: (Singing) Go their way.

CHILDRESS: Today I am 69 years old. And I'm still angry about the way the military treated its own citizens. I still feel that something had to be done. I guess I was just trying to prove that I'm a human being. I'm over it now, but it took a long time. It took a long time.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TIME HAS COME TODAY")

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: (Singing) Now the time has come, time.

CHANG: After the riot, the Long Binh Jail was rebuilt and continued to house U.S. soldiers until 1973, when it was transferred to the Vietnamese government. Today the area where it stood is now a manufacturing center.

SHAPIRO: Ultimately the military convicted one man, a black inmate6, of manslaughter for the death of Edward O. Haskett in the Long Binh Jail riot. Other inmates were charged with a range of crimes from mutiny to arson27, assault and more. None of the prisoners in our story were charged by the military for their participation28 in the uprising.

CHANG: Our story was produced by Sarah Kate Kramer of Radio Diaries with Joe Richman and Nellie Gilles and was edited by Deborah George and Ben Shapiro. More stories from Radio Diaries are on their podcast available at radiodiaries.org.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TIME HAS COME TODAY")

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: (Singing) Time.


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 halfway Xrvzdq     
adj.中途的,不彻底的,部分的;adv.半路地,在中途,在半途
参考例句:
  • We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路,天就黑了。
  • In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上,最忌讳的是有始无终。
2 fray NfDzp     
v.争吵;打斗;磨损,磨破;n.吵架;打斗
参考例句:
  • Why should you get involved in their fray?你为什么要介入他们的争吵呢?
  • Tempers began to fray in the hot weather.大热天脾气烦燥。
3 stockade FucwR     
n.栅栏,围栏;v.用栅栏防护
参考例句:
  • I had not gone a hundred yards when I reached the stockade.我跑了不到一百码,就到了栅栏前。
  • A heavy stockade around the cabin protected the pioneer from attack.小屋周围的厚厚的栅栏保护拓荒者免受攻击。
4 stockades 6e68f9dec2a21761ed5a7f789474be85     
n.(防御用的)栅栏,围桩( stockade的名词复数 )
参考例句:
5 outskirts gmDz7W     
n.郊外,郊区
参考例句:
  • Our car broke down on the outskirts of the city.我们的汽车在市郊出了故障。
  • They mostly live on the outskirts of a town.他们大多住在近郊。
6 inmate l4cyN     
n.被收容者;(房屋等的)居住人;住院人
参考例句:
  • I am an inmate of that hospital.我住在那家医院。
  • The prisoner is his inmate.那个囚犯和他同住一起。
7 inmates 9f4380ba14152f3e12fbdf1595415606     
n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • One of the inmates has escaped. 被收容的人中有一个逃跑了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The inmates were moved to an undisclosed location. 监狱里的囚犯被转移到一个秘密处所。 来自《简明英汉词典》
8 busted busted     
adj. 破产了的,失败了的,被降级的,被逮捕的,被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词
参考例句:
  • You are so busted! 你被当场逮住了!
  • It was money troubles that busted up their marriage. 是金钱纠纷使他们的婚姻破裂了。
9 behold jQKy9     
v.看,注视,看到
参考例句:
  • The industry of these little ants is wonderful to behold.这些小蚂蚁辛勤劳动的样子看上去真令人惊叹。
  • The sunrise at the seaside was quite a sight to behold.海滨日出真是个奇景。
10 shovel cELzg     
n.铁锨,铲子,一铲之量;v.铲,铲出
参考例句:
  • He was working with a pick and shovel.他在用镐和铲干活。
  • He seized a shovel and set to.他拿起一把铲就干上了。
11 humiliated 97211aab9c3dcd4f7c74e1101d555362     
感到羞愧的
参考例句:
  • Parents are humiliated if their children behave badly when guests are present. 子女在客人面前举止失当,父母也失体面。
  • He was ashamed and bitterly humiliated. 他感到羞耻,丢尽了面子。
12 standing 2hCzgo     
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的
参考例句:
  • After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
  • They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。
13 delta gxvxZ     
n.(流的)角洲
参考例句:
  • He has been to the delta of the Nile.他曾去过尼罗河三角洲。
  • The Nile divides at its mouth and forms a delta.尼罗河在河口分岔,形成了一个三角洲。
14 breakdown cS0yx     
n.垮,衰竭;损坏,故障,倒塌
参考例句:
  • She suffered a nervous breakdown.她患神经衰弱。
  • The plane had a breakdown in the air,but it was fortunately removed by the ace pilot.飞机在空中发生了故障,但幸运的是被王牌驾驶员排除了。
15 solidarity ww9wa     
n.团结;休戚相关
参考例句:
  • They must preserve their solidarity.他们必须维护他们的团结。
  • The solidarity among China's various nationalities is as firm as a rock.中国各族人民之间的团结坚如磐石。
16 clenched clenched     
v.紧握,抓紧,咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He clenched his fists in anger. 他愤怒地攥紧了拳头。
  • She clenched her hands in her lap to hide their trembling. 她攥紧双手放在腿上,以掩饰其颤抖。 来自《简明英汉词典》
17 segregated 457728413c6a2574f2f2e154d5b8d101     
分开的; 被隔离的
参考例句:
  • a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
  • The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。
18 dormant d8uyk     
adj.暂停活动的;休眠的;潜伏的
参考例句:
  • Many animals are in a dormant state during winter.在冬天许多动物都处于睡眠状态。
  • This dormant volcano suddenly fired up.这座休眠火山突然爆发了。
19 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
20 shack aE3zq     
adj.简陋的小屋,窝棚
参考例句:
  • He had to sit down five times before he reached his shack.在走到他的茅棚以前,他不得不坐在地上歇了五次。
  • The boys made a shack out of the old boards in the backyard.男孩们在后院用旧木板盖起一间小木屋。
21 shovels ff43a4c7395f1d0c2d5931bbb7a97da6     
n.铲子( shovel的名词复数 );锹;推土机、挖土机等的)铲;铲形部份v.铲子( shovel的第三人称单数 );锹;推土机、挖土机等的)铲;铲形部份
参考例句:
  • workmen with picks and shovels 手拿镐铲的工人
  • In the spring, we plunge shovels into the garden plot, turn under the dark compost. 春天,我们用铁锨翻开园子里黑油油的沃土。 来自辞典例句
22 escalated 219d770572d00a227dc481a3bdb2c51e     
v.(使)逐步升级( escalate的过去式和过去分词 );(使)逐步扩大;(使)更高;(使)更大
参考例句:
  • The fighting escalated into a full-scale war. 这场交战逐步扩大为全面战争。
  • The demonstration escalated into a pitched battle with the police. 示威逐步升级,演变成了一场同警察的混战。
23 lashing 97a95b88746153568e8a70177bc9108e     
n.鞭打;痛斥;大量;许多v.鞭打( lash的现在分词 );煽动;紧系;怒斥
参考例句:
  • The speaker was lashing the crowd. 演讲人正在煽动人群。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The rain was lashing the windows. 雨急打着窗子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
24 literally 28Wzv     
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实
参考例句:
  • He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
  • Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候,她不走到真正要昏厥了,决不肯坐下来。
25 conspiracy NpczE     
n.阴谋,密谋,共谋
参考例句:
  • The men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.这些人被裁决犯有阴谋杀人罪。
  • He claimed that it was all a conspiracy against him.他声称这一切都是一场针对他的阴谋。
26 chambers c053984cd45eab1984d2c4776373c4fe     
n.房间( chamber的名词复数 );(议会的)议院;卧室;会议厅
参考例句:
  • The body will be removed into one of the cold storage chambers. 尸体将被移到一个冷冻间里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Mr Chambers's readable book concentrates on the middle passage: the time Ransome spent in Russia. Chambers先生的这本值得一看的书重点在中间:Ransome在俄国的那几年。 来自互联网
27 arson 3vOz3     
n.纵火,放火
参考例句:
  • He was serving a ten spot for arson.他因纵火罪在服十年徒刑。
  • He was arraigned on a charge of arson.他因被指控犯纵火罪而被传讯。
28 participation KS9zu     
n.参与,参加,分享
参考例句:
  • Some of the magic tricks called for audience participation.有些魔术要求有观众的参与。
  • The scheme aims to encourage increased participation in sporting activities.这个方案旨在鼓励大众更多地参与体育活动。

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