Sunday, February 12, 2012

Taking Off from Phu Bai and Ha Noi--That's Right, It's Two Words, Not One--And the Trip Home

I have already posted the video of the take-off from Phu Bai, but it still deserves an explanation. We left our hotel in Hue for the airport at about 7:30AM, I think on January 28. I assumed that Hue actually had an airport and I dozed off on the ride. I awoke as the bus made a jarring left turn and realized that we were on the road into what had been the Phu Bai Combat Base. When I was there, there was a large sign over the base entrance that had all the major units located there-XXIVth Corps, the 101st and III Marine Amphibious Force. Under all that, it said, "Phu Bai Is Just All Right." It was sort of a lie, because we got hit there pretty regularly. In fact, the base was so huge that when the siren went off, unless the incoming was walking up our road, we would get up on the roof of our hooch and watch the fireworks, because everything on the perimeter would open up and gunships would take off and start firing rockets in the location of the enemy position.

Anyway, as we neared the terminal, I saw that it said, "Phu Bai International Airport." Who would have ever thought? When I got off the bus, I asked Song about the terminal and he said that it was built on the foundation of the terminal that was there when I was in the 287th. I already knew that the old runway was still a part of the newer, longer runway, but this was all just too much. Inside, of course, the terminal was very modern and not just full of military-type...well, everything. No guys in uniforms, running helter skelter, all rucked out in camo or green jungle fatigues and armed to the teeth. Just as I was every time I was going out on a mission from here. We usually took off from the XXIVth Corps or 101st chopper pads near our hooches, but there were also those times when we went by aircraft and through the terminal. And it was this very terminal that I went through when I left Phu Bai on March 24, 1970, to make my last flight home, that time on a C-130 that took me to Tan Son Nhat, where I caught a civilian jet to the States.

We boarded a bus, drove about 100 yards and got out. As we walked out across the tarmac to board our plane to Ha Noi, I saw buildings off the tarmac that I recognized as having been there when I was here 42 years ago. Something old, something new. I found my seat and immediately began looking out the window, making sure my camera was set to record a video of the take-off. I didn't have even a still camera when I left the last time, so I have no photographic memorial of that event. I wanted to make sure that I had one this time, especially because it was basically the same runway, taking off southeast to northwest as I did the last time. This time, instead of heading due south, I would head due north. As we sat on the tarmac, I was thinking of so many different memories of Phu Bai--but mostly about the men I served with and how much I loved them then and now. Many of us have stayed in touch over the years, and particularly since I tracked them all down in 2004 and even went and found almost everyone who had served in the 287th, before and after me, and helped organize a reunion in May 2004 at Eglin AFB, where the EOD training facility and our memorial are located. This past September, we had our National EOD Association convention right, here, in Central Oregon. Paul Duffy, Chuck Watson, Tom Miller and Dan Reese, our faithful clerk, made it and it was wonderful, as always, to be with them, along with my brothers from the 184th, Roger McCormack and Doug Rhodes and Danny Louwaerts, who I had been with in the States at Dugway Proving Grounds. Dan was with the 42nd at Bien Hoa. I wish they could all have been on this trip.

As we rolled down the runway, I have to admit that, as I was filming, I had a huge lump in my throat and, eventually, I could feel tears running down my cheeks. In fact, I'm kind of choking up as I write this. Maybe I'm a "Girly Man," but I make no apology for my emotions. When I left Vietnam on March 24, 1970, the constant thought I had then, as well as after I was back in the States, was that I was abandoning my team and that, somehow, something bad would happen to one or more of them if I wasn't there. Thank God that did not occur. However, in late-July 1970, Chuck Watson and Rod Wilkinson, Bob Lynch and the CO, Andy Breland, were all involved at various stages in the siege at Fire Support Base Ripcord, immortalized in Keith Nolan's spectacular book, "Ripcord." Bobby Lynch was wounded three times in two days and Watson and Wilkinson were wounded by incoming 120mm mortar fire as they were trying to be extracted. Wilkie was actually blown into the Tactical Operation Center, which then collapsed. The 101st reported to the 287th that Wilkie had been killed. Low and behold, several hours later, as they pulled the collapsed bunker apart, they found Wilkinson, alive. As he and Watson were attempting to take off shortly, thereafter, Watson turned to go back for something and Wilkinson said, "Fuck this," and grabbed Watson by the belt, pulling him into the chopper. Just as they lifted off, an 82mm mortar round landed right where Watson had been standing. I am so glad they all made it out alive.

As we continued to roll down the runway and pick up speed, I realized how big a part of my life Phu Bai had been, even though I was only there four months, having transferred in from the 25th at An Khe. When we lifted into the air, I felt as if more of the weight of my Vietnam time was being lifted away. During my time at Phu Bai, Paul Duffy and I cleaned up the remnants of Fire Support Base Rifle, a remote 101st base about 20 miles southwest of Phu Bai in low mountains. On February 11, 1970, Rifle had been overrun and when we flew in, I made the comment to Paul that is now the title of the book I am writing about my experiences in Vietnam as an EOD operator: "This is what hell looks like." The carnage and destruction we witnessed, both from the air and once we were on the ground, was devastating and I know that both of us were extremely affected by what we saw and did there, that day, and we talk about it when we are together. I talked about bodies, earlier, and Rifle was awash with them, both American and NVA. It had been a bloodbath for both sides and it had ended with hand-to-hand combat inside the perimeter. While we were there, including as we touched down, two more gun-battles erupted just off the perimeter and two members of a recon team were killed. We checked all the bodies for booby-traps and removed ordnance from all of them.

There is a picture at the bottom of the blog of Paul and me with some of the un-fired RPGs carried by rocket teams that had been blasted to pieces by artillery firing flechette (little steel darts, unleashed when the round blew open) rounds at point-blank range, and TNT blocks from satchel charges that had been duds because of bad fuses. Later, as we were waiting to be extracted, we were sitting on the lower LZ when a Flying Crane came in and landed on the upper LZ. If we thought anything, we figured it was bringing in a new 105mm howitzer and ammunition. During the attack, two of the three guns and a 4.2" mortar had been destroyed by incoming mortar and rocket fire. A few minutes later, we heard the Crane lifting off and as it gained altitude, we could see that all of the dead NVA were in a sling under the chopper. As we watched, almost in slow motion, the Crane flew out over the forest about a click and dropped the bodies. As I wrote in the draft of my book, "It was raining fucking dead," and it is a memory that neither Paul or I will ever forget. Notwithstanding all of the destruction we had witnessed that day, and in a dozen other places during my four months in Phu Bai, I felt much of that being washed away as my plane was finally at cruising altitude and headed for Ha Noi. Since I have been home, several of my friends, including fellow Vietnam veterans, have asked me how I feel now that I am back. I have been unable to describe how I feel in adequate terms, other than to say, "I feel lighter."

We landed in Ha Noi and the terminal was actually pretty quiet, unlike the bedlam in Saigon and Da Nang. We loaded onto our bus and headed for our hotel--the "Demantoid." I later said to someone, "So is this the house of Satan?" As we rolled into Ha Noi we were traveling on a dike shoring up the Red River and protecting Ha Noi, which is very prone to flooding during the monsoon season. You could see a lot of high-rise construction from numerous cranes in the sky in the part of Ha Noi that I guess you would call, "New Ha Noi," since we were headed to "Old Ha Noi." When we got to the hotel, because it was still in the AM, my, Vela's and John's rooms were not ready. Vela and I walked across the street and sat down at a table at a sidewalk coffee shop. Another thing the Vietnamese learned from the French was how to make really strong coffee. I have actually come to like the sweetened version that uses a sweet, thick milk. As we sat there, two things happened. First, as we watched the traffic, Vela turned to me and said, "Can you believe that we are in fucking Ha--Noi?" I looked at him and said, "It's pretty amazing and who would have ever thought..."

The second thing that happened was that as we both watched the flow of traffic, we realized that there was something important happening. There were thousands and thousands of small motorcycles, cars, small trucks, even buses, going by us at a constant speed of about 20-25MPH. As I watched, I realized that no one was yelling at anyone, no one was flipping the bird, even though there was a lot of weaving in and out, passing people on the left, cutting someone off. People were honking their horns at various intervals and places and everyone else seemed to understand why the honking was occurring and responded, accordingly. There was a complete Zen thing going on with the traffic, like so many other aspects of life in Vietnam, and all of this with few traffic signals and no traffic cops. In all the time we were in Vietnam, we saw only one accident and that was a truck that went off the road between the Delta and Saigon.

It was then that I realized what the difference is in what I was seeing and experiencing and driving in the US. In the US, many people who get behind the wheel of their car or truck, or the handlebars of their motorcycle, think the fucking road belongs to them, and them only. They are pissed of about something, probably their lives, in general, when they get behind the wheel and then they become a complete asshole. These are the people who cut you off, talk on their fucking cell-phones, or text while they drive, give you the finger when they pass you, if you're not going fast enough for them. Well, to them, I say, the road is not yours, it belongs to everyone and you should either stay off the road, or allow the rest of us to enjoy it without you being a total and complete asshole. This was today's short rant.

Our hotel in Ha Noi was really nice. The rooms were somewhat small, but more than adequate and we had WiFi in our rooms, so I was able to Skype with Mona every day we were there, which was really nice because I could share my adventure with her, as it was happening. Our time in Ha Noi was taken up mostly with meetings. We met with people from the National Youth Theater, the Ha Noi Writers' Association and herbicide victims, to name the major ones. Our group member, Brian, has written a play about a Vietnam veteran contemplating suicide. It's called, "Memorial Day." He was able to go to the playhouse and work with the people, there, so that he could perform a piece of it for us and the Vietnamese from the theater group. It was a longer version than what he had done for us when we were in the Delta at Tam Tien's place. It was incredible and with the right sound--not my computer, this time--and the offstage voices, it was extremely  powerful and I hope that I am able to see the entire production when he takes it on the road and, hopefully, it will come to Portland.

We also met with the Ha Noi Writers' Association and many of the poets were veterans of the war. The poems they read were spectacular and it was clear that we all share the same issues when it comes to war and it's effects on the human soul and spirit. Vela, again, read his phenomenal poem that he had written for Peter's ceremony at Gio Linh. And Karen--Brian's wife--read a very powerful poem she had written called, "To My Husband on Veterans Day after 9/11." Brian was a witness to the first plane that hit the World Trade Center. Can you imagine? One of the Vietnamese poets read a poem entitled, "A Late Written Love Poem." This poet, a former NVA soldier, had written a poem to his wife, thanking her for putting up with all of his Vietnam-related trauma and loving him, nonetheless. It immediately made me think of Mona and how lucky I am to be with her, given the turmoil I have caused her on more than one occasion over the years. I think this trip will help me never to have her be the brunt of my anger, my down times, or other issues that relate to my Vietnam "thing." At the poetry readings, I read three pages from my book about my time in Vietnam as an EOD operator. When it was translated for the Vietnamese, there, heads were nodding with understanding because I was talking about the universal issues of being a man who had gone to war and come back an entirely different person. Ed later told me that it was the first time that prose had been shared with this group and I felt honored to have been able to do that.

I suppose, however, that the meeting we had in Ha Noi that had the most meaning and impact for me, even more than meeting with the herbicide victims at the museum in Saigon, was when we met with "The Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange," particularly with their Vice President and Secretary General, Dr. Tran Xuan Thu. The meeting had been going on for some time when there was a slight lull in the conversation and I simply could not hold back any longer in terms of my feelings about the use of herbicides during the Vietnam/American War. I could no longer not say what was on my mind, particularly after seeing so many victims of the use of these poisons that were used with full knowledge, at least by the chemical companies, that this shit would kill people and would cause untold horrors by the diseases and deformations they were known to cause. I had not stopped thinking about the young child I had held in my arms in Song's ancestral village and probably never will. To say the least, my anger and vitriol simply spilled forth and, part of the time, I was on the verge of sobbing. I was biting my lip so I would not cry and so that I could say everything that has been bottled up all these years.

In 1983, I was diagnosed with bladder cancer, known to be caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, including the toxins used in the herbicides sprayed in Vietnam. I was lucky and was cured with surgery. Now, I have Type II Diabetes. I was one of the original plaintiffs in the Agent Orange litigation and, like most of us, got fucked by the settlement because I was, allegedly, no longer injured. In addition, the VA has never recognized bladder cancer as being presumptively caused by herbicide exposure because the fucking Institute of Medicine--an arm of the National Institutes of Health--has yet to find enough evidence of causation. Listen, here, you fucking losers--in my 34 years as a service officer, I have been made aware of dozens--dozens--of cases of bladder cancer among Vietnam veterans, many of them relatively young men--I was 35--when diagnosed. I've got news for you, IOM--bladder cancer is an old man's disease and everyone in the urology and oncology fields, apparently, except you, knows this. My urologist asked me if I had been in either the aviation or garment industry. Why? Because aviation fuel contains benzene, known to cause bladder cancer. Garments? The dyes contain aniline, known to cause bladder cancer. When I told him I had been in Vietnam, he immediately said, "It was caused by the herbicides you were exposed to." So, fuck you, IOM. In Vietnam, they assume that if you fought in the war you were exposed to herbicides and if you have some horrible disease, like bladder cancer, it was caused by exposure to herbicides.They don't screw around for twenty years while countless men die without compensation, often leaving their families in dire financial straits.

I finished my rant by apologizing to the Vietnamese for the position taken by the US government in the lawsuits filed against the chemical companies for the Vietnamese who have been injured and killed by the herbicides that have injured and killed tens-of-thousands--if not hundred-of-thousands--of us who served there. The government's position, that the courts used to dismiss the suits, is that because the herbicides were not deliberately made or used to injure human beings, therefore, there was no negligence. I'm sorry, but despite what the government and the courts have said, the use of herbicides in Vietnam was both a war crime and a crime against humanity, which means also against those of us who served there. This is just another version of  the same twisted defense that the Nazis tried to use at Nuremberg and it was rejected, there.

The chemical companies knew, or should have known, that, as early as 1957, research showed that dioxin was deadly and that it was carcinogenic. I remember, back during the litigation while I was in law school, reading a piece of research from 1957 about workers in a plant in Italy where they made herbicides using dioxin. The incidences of cancers and other diseases was off the scale. Furthermore, I have recently learned that DOD specifically told the chemical companies they could not use dioxin. They used it, anyway, and lied. If this is true, therefore, they clearly did not make the herbicides according to contract specifications and should not have been allowed to use the government defense that you cannot sue for something that happens to you in the military. Now, you understand my anger and why I could no longer contain it during this meeting. As I did, there, I apologize for this rant.

During our time in Ha Noi, we, unfortunately, did not have enough time to really explore the city. Vela and I did, however, bow out of one event so we could spend the morning looking for things we wanted, like a VC flag, a better necklace for my chip of The Wall and gifts for people back home. Plus, we were both looking for Tet dragon tee-shirts. I had bought one in Hoi An and even though it said "L," I would be surprised if it's a medium. We both found what we wanted in a galleria--that was a complete madhouse--and from a street vendor and I found my necklace in a little shop, as well as a nice carving from a deer bone that I am also now wearing around my neck with my chip from The Wall. We went to the lake where the temple to the "Golden Turtle" is located. Prior to crossing the bridge to the small island where the turtle is ensconced, we stopped at a wonderful coffee shop on the water. I have pictures to the right of the floating garden near our table and the designs in the whipped cream on our coffees. There is artwork in so many things in Vietnam. In one of the bakeries I visited to get baguette, there were cakes in the case that were just--well, works of art, as the picture to the right shows. I could not imagine why anyone would want to eat them, but when I went back at the end of the day to get more bread, they were gone and, by now, no doubt have been eaten. Maybe someone took them home and put them in a hermetically sealed glass case like the one holding the Golden Turtle.

The lake is called Hoan Kiem Lake. The legend of the Hoan Kiem turtle began in the 15th century when Le Loi--founder of the Le dynasty--became emperor. According to legend, Le Loi had a magic sword given to him by Kim Qui, the Golden Turtle God. One day, not long after Le Loi had defeated the Chinese and they had accepted Vietnam's independence, he was boating on the lake when a large turtle surfaced, took the sword from him, and dove back into the depths. Le Loi acknowledged that the Golden Turtle God had reclaimed his sword and renamed the lake Hoan Kiem Lake, or "The Lake of the Returned Sword." On June 2, 1967, a Hoan Kiem turtle in the lake died and was preserved and placed on display in the pagoda on Jade Island, on the lake's northern shore. On March 24, 1998, a photographer caught one of the elusive turtles on film, proving they still survived. However, it is estimated that there are no more than five of the turtles left in the two-foot deep lake (200 meters wide, 600 meters long) that is, sorrowfully, horribly polluted. As of 2011, there were three of the turtles in captivity, two in China and one being taken care of in an enclosure on Hoan Kiem Lake because it was found to have lesions all over its shell. This turtle, believed by some to be the sole remaining one in the lake was eventually captured by a Vietnamese military unit on April 3, 2011, after coming ashore to sunbathe on March 31. The government is promising to clean up the lake, and has recently dredged it. Plans are underway to build an artificial beach to encourage breeding if they can find a mate for the one in captivity and in order to avoid extinction.

Vela and I visited the temple and, I must say, that the turtle in the case was quite impressive and very large, as my picture shows. It weighed approximately 440 pounds when it was found and embalmed. There were many Vietnamese and Chinese in the temple praying fervently as they placed incense in the burners spread around inside. It was crowded--very crowded--so, eventually, we had to leave for typical reasons known to Vietnam veterans and their families. All in all, it was a wonderful experience to see the legend in the...uh...shell. Some Vietnamese believe that this is actually the turtle that made itself known to Le Loi. meaning it would have been some 500 years old, at least, when it died.

During the afternoon of our last day in Vietnam, we met in the hotel restaurant for a last discussion of how we were feeling, particularly in light of the fact that we were heading back to the States the next morning. Ed, Kate and John were staying a few more days so that they could attend the festivities for the upcoming marriage of Ed and Kate's adopted daughter, Ngoc. Ngoc had been with us since we had been in Hoi An and she is a lovely, wonderful young woman who is a journalist in Ha Noi and is now working on her master's degree. As I sat at the table, I was lost in all of the things that had happened to us, and to me, along the way of the past seventeen days. As we passed the totem around the table, each of us spoke about our feelings on this last night together and, without going into detail, it is safe to say that some profound words and insights were spoken. To be honest, I don't remember exactly what I said when the totem came to me, other than to make some specific comments about the impact that members of the group had on me. I was really lost in my own private thoughts about all that I had experienced and I was wondering how all of this was going to affect me once I was back in the States.

I realized, sitting there in the restaurant in Ha Noi, that I was a changed person. I don't know if it will be something that others will be able to see or pick up on the next time I'm with them. I'm pretty sure my wife and son will notice the difference and I'm hoping that I'm able to retain most of what I learned about myself and life, I guess, while on this journey. Once, again, I found myself thinking about my private moment with the monk in Da Nang when he said, "I think I will see you, again, some day." Ed recently reminded me of something else he said: "Replace your anger with passionate love for the victims." Although, as I thought about this, at first, I thought he was talking about the victims of herbicides, I think he was actually talking about the victims of all wars, of all violence against otherwise peaceful individuals. Maybe even violence against the planet. Of course, if you listen to blowhard scumbags like Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, none of that exists. The planet and all of the world's people are just hunky dory and God--their God, not mine--will take care of everything.

Which brings up an interesting point, at least for me. For many years, I think since shortly after getting to Vietnam in 1968, I have said that I do not believe in God, at least not in the sense that most people do and, certainly, not in the sense that I had been raised in a fairly religious Jewish family where we went to synagogue most Friday nights and where I was bar mitzvahed and, then, confirmed at 15. The reason for my change in belief was that within the first few weeks in Vietnam, I saw things that no human being should ever have to be witness to. As exposure to the horrors of war continued unabated during my time, there, this belief only hardened. If there is a God, how could (a) he, (b) she, (c) it, or (d) all of the above, let these things happen? If God, according to most organized religions is compassionate, where is the compassion? If Jesus was the true Messiah, where is the peace on earth we were promised? At least Jews believe that the Messiah hasn't showed up, yet, because, if the current state of the planet is "heaven on earth," then we are truly fucked.

Most recently, my take on life, the universe and everything--thank, you, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"--was that there is a cosmic glue in the universe that holds it all together and makes things happen. Now, I'm not so sure. Don't get me wrong. I still do not believe in God in the sense that bat-shit crazy Christians, Jews and Muslims do--since they use that God as an excuse for crimes against people, the planet and everything in between. The Taliban and people like Rick Santorum and his followers are the same.They all believe that their way, their belief system, is the only true belief system and moral way of living and the rest of us are wrong, we're sinners and God or Mohammed hates us, we'll burn in hell and all the other fucked up things that will happen to us because we are not "true believers." The monks that we met with in Tay Ninh and Da Nang taught me, and, I think, the whole group, a different way of thinking and living. I'm not sure I can really describe it, but I guess the one word that comes to mind is "peace." Not just peace in the sense of "no war," but peace in the sense of life, the universe and everything. What a great thought that Douglas Adams came up with when he wrote "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." If you remember, the hero, Ford Prefect, learned that he had been asking the wrong question. It was not, "What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything." The real question was, "What is six times nine?" And the answer turned out to be, "Forty-two." As a result, Ford commented, "I've always known there was something fundamentally wrong," or words to that effect. We've always thought that 6x9=54, but, in fact, it's apparently 42. I guess this means that man has been "off" by 29%. That would explain a lot if you look at the history of the world and all of the wars, man-created pestilence and disease, genocide, and all of the haters on the planet.

We had a final dinner, together, that last evening in Ha Noi and it was very nice, even though I had to wait for twenty minutes for my chicken soup since I don't eat shellfish and the soup that came with the meal had crab meat in it. In fact, there was so much fish served during the trip, including whole fish with their eyes bugging out, that I may never go fishing, again. Not really, but, man, this was a very fishy trip. At dinner on the night before, Vela and I had gone to a nice restaurant near the hotel and he ordered eel in curry sauce. Eel!! And when we were at a restaurant in Saigon, they had lamprey eel on the menu.  I have caught these ugly ichthyological vampires in freshwater lakes and...eating them? Well, whatever blows your skirt up, I guess. Anyway, the final dinner was both bittersweet and unifying in our joined sense of some kind of new beginning in our individual lives. At least, that's how I felt and I hope everyone else did, as well.

We were up early that last morning, had breakfast and loaded onto the bus. Ed, Kate, Song and John went with us to the airport, even though they were remaining behind. And Song--dude...none of this could have happened without your careful planning to ensure that we got to see these places that had so much significance in our lives. You are a true brother and you still have to come back to Oregon to finish becoming a cowboy. Just owning a cowboy hat isn't enough. There were many tears and hugs shared at the airport and, then, we were airborne for Saigon and our final flight home, again, through the Philippines, and into San Francisco. I can't speak for the others, but I was so exhausted, emotionally and physically, that I slept almost the entire time we were in the air, from Ha Noi to San Francisco. The lay-over in Manila was abysmal and the transfer terminal--this is directed at you, Phillipines Air--was despicable and disgusting. It was filthy, there were not enough seats for waiting passengers, no restaurant and rude people virtually at every place you went. The security precautions were ridiculous and when I asked one of the security personnel what the deal was, he said., "It's your US security people. They are making us do this." Why was I not surprised?

We arrived in San Francisco, I think after almost a total of twenty-four hours, and I was still worn out, even after sleeping for about fourteen hours. Vela and I had made arrangements to stay at a hotel near the airport and I was flying out the next morning. We caught a van to the hotel and then had dinner at the closest restaurant--an IHOP. It was good to see a menu that was not primarily filled with pictures of fish, eels, squid, octopus and mutant crayfish. Oh, yes, and freaking rice and noodle dishes. It was good to have a simple mixed greens salad with chicken. Vela and I said goodnight and we turned in. The next morning, we met for breakfast, although he had been up for several hours, watching the sun come up and walking around. We said our goodbyes--he was staying another day and headed for Golden Gate Park--and I headed for the airport, about three hours before my flight into Redmond. I used my time at the airport to work on my last blog post and to just sit, quietly, and read an old "Economist" magazine I had brought with me when I left back in January.

We took off from San Francisco in a small United jet that had us squeezed together like sardines. Not only that, these pricks charged me for both of my bags and it cost me $60. On the way down, I only checked one bag and it cost me nothing. As we flew over Northern California and into Oregon, I was quite moved by the beauty, even though I have seen this view many times over the past twenty years. I guess I just never really appreciated it as much I seemed to this time. Maybe that's because all of those other flights were probably connected to a murder case I was working on. Only time will tell if it had something to do with my trip to Vietnam, but I have a suspicion that it did. My good friend and fellow Vietnam veteran, Mike Taylor, picked me up at the airport--he had taken me, as well, when I left--and brought me home. I tried to explain a little bit about how I had perceived my trip, but I'm not sure I really got across what I was feeling. We left it at we'd get together soon to talk about it in more detail.

I immediately brought my doggies into the house and two of them--Lucy and Olive went nuts, just as they had when I returned from Afghanistan. Olive, our little English Bull Terrier was doing something like flipping around in circles and jumping on me and Lucy, our Lab-Pitbull, was trying to lick my skin off. Rosie, our shy little Blue Heeler-Aussie Shepherd, came up and gently licked my hand before returning to the cave she has dug under the dog house. It was good to get home and I went out to the corral to see the ponies before going in for good. I don't think they knew I had been gone. Give them hay and grain every night and they're happy. I unpacked, put a load in the washer and climbed on my Lazy-Boy recliner and flipped on the TV, first to the news and then, almost immediately, to Spongebob. I think it was still on when Mona got home. It was wonderful to hug her and feel her arms around me and I realized just how much I had missed little things like her hugs and the dogs licking me and barking their happiness at my return home.

Well, folks, that's it. I may come back to this in a few months and let people know how I'm feeling and whether I continue to be affected by the wonderful time I had in Vietnam and the friendships I made with my fellow travelers. I want to give a special "thanks" to my friend, Greg Walker. If it was not for Greg, none of this would have happened and I wouldn't be writing these last few lines. He knows Ed and Kate from Soldier's Heart and he talked to them about me and the rest is history. I love you, man, and I will always be grateful for what you did for me and for the work you continue to do for our fellow veterans, especially the wounded special operators to whom you give so much. This is EOD 6, signing off...

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Fire Support Base Tomahawk, Phu Bai, the Imperial City in Hue, Khe Sanh and Gio Linh, Part II

We arrived in Hue and, due to time considerations, went immediately to the Imperial City, scene of intense and savage fighting during the 1968 Tet Offensive. . To call the Imperial City impressive is an understatement, even though many of the buildings have been reconstructed. Even that feat is nothing short of compelling when you look at the detail of the recreations of the original structures. As you can see from the picture to the right, the Vietnamese left many of the original walls intact so that the bullet holes and shrapnel pockmarks would be preserved in some places to remind people of the savage fighting and death that occurred here during the Tet of 1968. 

The Battle for Hue City began at 3:30AM on January 31, 1968, and officially ended on March 2, 1968,although the city was declared "secured" on February 26. There were numerous NVA and VC units involved, too many to list. The main US units were 1/1, 1/5 and 2/5 from the Marines (2/5 is the same unit depicted in the sci-fi flick, "Battle Los Angels," a must see for sci-fi fans), the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cav and the 1st of the 501st from the 101st Airborne Division. The NVA and VC Lost more than 5,000 men and women. The US Marines had 142 men killed and 857 wounded; the Army had 74 KIA and 507 wounded; the Vietnamese Marines suffered the worst casualties, with 3845 men killed and 1,830 wounded. Other ARVN units lost hundreds more and thousands of civilians were killed and wounded, as well. It is well known that in the largest bloodbath of the Vietnam War, NVA and VC cadres rounded up and massacred more than 2,800 civilians they deemed, "Enemies of the people." Their mass grave was later uncovered and more than 3,000 civilians were never accounted for.

We left the Imperial City and finally made it to the hotel. Most of the group attended a dinner with Buddhist nuns from one of the local monasteries, but I chose to go to the hotel and just crash, really exhausted from the Tomahawk and Phu Bai stops and the walking we did to get to, and then inside, the Imperial City. The old knees can only take so much, despite the painkillers. The hotel in Hue was nice, although most of us continued to have problems getting onto the Internet, even in the hotel lobby. It was weird how this just “cleared up” once we reached Ha Noi. The next morning, we loaded up early—about 7:00AM for the trip down Highway 9, along the north side of the Ben Hai River—the road to Khe Sanh, and many other sites that are important to so many of us who served there: the Rockpile; Con Thien; Dong Ha, C1 and C2 and LZ Stud (Vandergrift Combat Base), to name a few. This trip was being made for Peter and his wife, Barbara. He was a Fire Direction guy for the 2nd Battalion, 94th Artillery, an Army self-propelled 175 unit. His battery was at Gio Linh, which was back up Highway 1 north of Hue and almost on the DMZ. He is a wonderful guy, dedicated to peace, who was also at Kent State when the four students were killed by members of an Ohio National Guard Unit. Can you imagine? To make it out of Khe Sanh and Gio Linh and then have to watch the events at Kent State unfold a few years later. Fate has no boundaries, apparently.

On the trip down Highway 9, we first stopped at a location near the “Rockpile,” a Marine base that was part of what was referred to as the area within a 54+-square-mile AO known as “Leatherneck Square”:  Con Thien and Gio Linh, in the north, traveling east to west; and Dong Ha to Cam Lo, in the south. As you can see from the pictures to the right, Rockpile was reachable only by air. I know that in 1967, the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, was there. I think this was my friend, Jim Gunn’s unit, but I don’t know if he and his company were part of this unit then. . It was an impressive and foreboding structure and another one of those places that was pounded pretty regularly by enemy artillery, rocket and mortar fire. All around it, there are farms and new growth of forest, the result of a large reforestation campaign in areas that were heavily defoliated by herbicides. 

We left the Rockpile and continued down QL 9 when we came to a nice paved road heading south over the Ben Hai River. It was the road to the A Shau Valley and, obviously, did not look like this back in the day. The bridge, when I was here, before, was quite rickety and you were never sure it was going to stay together as you raced over it. The picture to the right kind of says it all as you see the road disappear into the Valley. We made this run on a number of occasions to get to 101st fire support bases that were accessible by road when we couldn't get a chopper. Needless to say, it was always at full speed and you stopped for nothing.

As we continued down the road, we passed through several Bru (one of Vietnam’s indigenous tribes) villages, with their beautiful houses on stilts because of the monsoon flooding of the Ben Hai. There were Bru women on the roadside selling fruits and vegetables and they were wearing wonderful native clothing with complex embroidery and many colors. Over the years, the indigenous people of Vietnam have, until very recently, been treated very badly by the Vietnamese government and many non-indigenous Vietnamese. . It has been very similar to the way we treated African Americans until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the ways in which we still treat our own Native Americans.  However, I learned that things are getting somewhat better for Vietnam’s native people. Their young people are encouraged to advance their education and technical skills and the government subsidizes these things. They are still, however, treated much as our Native Americans are and there is a shitstorm going on over the plan for the government to seize native land for developers. Sound familiar?


On the bus ride, Peter spoke to us, quietly and fervently, about what he had experienced at Khe Sanh. It was both sadly and quietly emotional and, occasionally, humorous, as he talked about getting out of the base on a gun ship so he could go on R&R and the two weeks he spent after his R&R hiding out in Da Nang and making up excuses to his unit why he couldn't get back. I don’t know about the others, but I was crying during most of his talk to us because his pain was palpable and as he talked about those that he knew his artillery strikes had caused to die, I was focused on all of the dead—from both sides—that I had seen during my own time in Vietnam. One of EOD’s jobs was to check dead bodies—from both sides—for ordnance and booby traps after an enemy attack. Sometimes this was on a remote fire base in the A Shau Valley, such as Fire Support Base Rifle; or on the Qui Nhon airfield when the VC attacked shortly after I arrived in-country; or the many trips we made to Graves Registration to remove ordnance from American bodies just in from the field. Sometimes, when we opened the body bag, there was not much there and, somehow, we became numb to this experience. We had to, I guess, or we would have lost minds—and, maybe I eventually did—and not been able to perform our mission. I don’t know how many bodies I actually checked, but I’m guessing it was several hundred. It has always been my main issue in terms of what Vietnam did to my psyche. This trip back has helped me to relieve my soul of this burden and I feel significantly lighter—I can’t think of a better term—after my experiences on this journey. It was as if I had been carrying around some part of the spirits of the men I had “disarmed” and I was able to leave them where they belonged. 


Then we arrived at the site of the former Khe Sanh Combat Base—actually located near the village of Xom Cham—where Marines and other servicemen were under siege from January 21 – April 5, 1968. Although the Vietnamese government still attempts to paint this battle as a victory for them, the truth says something quite different. Several of the photos we saw inside the museum contained outright lies under them and others were grossly inaccurate. I intend to communicate with the Vietnam Embassy in Washington about this because some of the claims on the photos are just despicable and it is things like this that keep many US veterans—particularly Marines—from coming back on trips like ours. First, the contention that the Marines “abandoned,” or otherwise “ran away” from Khe Sanh—as two photos claim—is complete bullshit. It was General Giap who withdrew his army from the battlefield; the US soldiers never withdrew, as that phrase is commonly understood in military parlance. The US and its allies lost something like 475 men at Khe Sanh and in the surrounding hill battles.


During the operation to open up Highway 9 and lift the siege at Khe Sanh—Operation Pegasus—the 1st Cav and Marines lost another 125 men. The best estimate of PAVN killed in and around Khe Sanh is something like 5,500, but it could have been as high as 10,000. As those of us who fought in Vietnam know, the enemy often removed their dead from the battle area. However, Marine reports that counted actual bodies seen and counted show 1,602 enemy dead. Given the massive B-52 and other air and artillery strikes on enemy positions, one can only imagine how many PAVN men were simply vaporized. I don’t mean to belabor the point, but if the Vietnamese government’s position is still the same as reflected in some of the photographs we saw, it is an indefensible and dishonest position.


Looking around the site of the former base at Khe Sanh, we saw two original bunkers, piles of steel plate, possibly from the old runway, and numerous pieces of US ordnance and war machines. It was a sobering view of what the men who fought there had accomplished and seeing it, now, as a peaceful coffee plantation was a mind-altering experience. It was hard to imagine the complete and continuous bedlam and chaos that was extant on the ground, and in the air, during those 76 days that the base was under siege, and the peaceful scene that we saw today. We eventually gathered around a Buddhist altar and Peter poured his heart out about what he had been witness to when he was there during the siege and how his actions as an artillery fire direction controller had impacted his life ever since. We each lit incense and placed it on the altar, saying our own private thoughts to those of both armies that had perished there, or had been physically and spiritually wounded and managed to survive. I laid my chip from The Wall on the altar and told my brothers who died there that their names had been memorialized for all time and that they were not forgotten, at leas, not by me or the people I was with.


We left Khe Sanh and headed back down Highway 9 where we stopped in Dong Ha to have lunch. The Marines had a huge ammo dump, here, and it was hit by incoming artillery on June 20, 1968, blowing their ammodump all to hell. Lew Black, from the 184th team I was on in Qui Nhon, was killed there on July 18, 1968. I have a photograph from The Wall of his name. We finished lunch and then went to the site of the former Marine and Army artillery base at Gio Linh, where Peter’s unit was located and where he spent a lot of time directing fire at NVA positions, both inside what was then South Vietnam, and over the DMZ into North Vietnam and while constantly under attack, himself, from incoming artillery fire. From everything he told us, and from what I’ve read, it was another place of unmitigated hell. As you can see from the picture to the right, the base at Gio Linh had been stripped of all vestiges of plant growth and was a barren wasteland. We found the entrance to the old base, now completely overgrown with bush and trees and with a blown up tank still guarding the entrance. We made our way down a skinny, leaf-covered path until we were standing in what was probably a central location inside the former artillery base. As we moved down the trail—not everyone went because of the thick “bush”—my head was on a swivel looking fopr unexploded ordnance--once an EOD operator, always an EOD operator, I guess.


We came to a site near a nice tree and Peter said this would be a good place to pay homage to the men who had died at Gio Linh and to his friend, Keith Francis Perrelli, a Marine artillery forward observer, who had been killed near Con Thien during a mortar barrage on his FO team on September 27, 1968. He was only twenty years old when he died. We lit incense and placed them in the ground under the tree and Peter placed a small gold cross near the joss sticks. Ed found a piece of a broken joss stick near the tree, so we knew we were not the first ones to pray at this site. We each had our private thoughts and Peter spoke some more about his time, here, his friends who had died and his gladness to have returned to this place, once a living hell and now a peaceful forest. Vela read a poem he had written that was extremely powerful and which I know caused most of us to tear up. It was about a Vietnamese mother who had lost her son in the war and her meeting with a former US solider who had come back, just as we had. At the end of the poem, the Vietnamese mother said that the American would now be her son. That’s just exactly how it is, here, as the story I told, above, about John Howard Priesthoff, II, shows.


We made our back to the bus and then traveled to the area of the bridge over the Ben Hai River that had separated South and North Vietnam. It was the same bridge that the first US POWs had crossed into freedom in 1973, an event that my friend, Dick Tobiason, an Army pilot, was involved in; he helped bring these men home and I know how strongly it affected him. He is one Oregon’s true veterans’ advocates and has done herculean work to see that all veterans are honored. Today, he helps with “Honor Flight,” a group which raises funds to take World War II veterans to Washington to see their memorial. To be honest, I was just emotionally exhausted and actually woke up on the bus, parked on the side of the river that used to be North Vietnam. The rest of the group walked across the long bridge from what was the South Vietnam side, as I watched a lone water buffalo munching away. When the group finally appeared and was approaching the location of this very large animal, John was photographing it and I guess he got a little too close, because you could see that water buffalo raise his head and snorted, sort of giving a warning to stay clear. Rumor had it during the war that the water buffalo could smell “round eyes” and didn’t like the smell. It was always amazing to watch some tiny Vietnamese child leading these beasts around, or even riding on their backs. Everyone got on the bus and we made the long ride back to our hotel, all very tired and having to pack for our flight to Ha Noi at 7AM, the next morning.


I’m going to end this, here, so I can get it posted with a lot of new pictures. I’ll next talk about my very emotional experience flying out of the Hue-area airport—now the “Phu Bai International Airport”— located on the site of the Phu Bai Combat Base airport that I and my teammates in the 287th EOD team had flown out from on numerous missions, I also flew out of here in a C-130 at the start of my last flight home on March 24, 1970. It was a very different experience 42 years later. The short video I made, below, is the take-off to Ha Noi, but it looked the same, looking out of the window of this big jet, as it had when I looked out the window of that C-130. 
 

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I am having a problem getting the rest of the last post onto the page. For some reason it is publishing blank space. I hope I can get this figured out.

Fire Support Base Tomahawk, Phu Bai, the Imperial City in Hue, Khe Sanh and Gio Linh, Part I

On January 28, we left Da Nang in our bus for the ride to Hue. The trip has been so run together at this point, that I cannot tell you how long this drive took, except to say that I think it was 3-4 hours, including two important stops for me, along the way. Anyone who was in I Corps north of Da Nang knows about the Hai Van Pass, the “Ocean Cloud Pass.”  Although there is now a tunnel that avoids the dangerous twists and turns of Highway 1 that traverses the pass, our trip planners chose the historic route so that I could visit two sites of import to me: the old French base directly at the top of the Pass and Fire Support Base Tomahawk, a 101st and artillery outpost on top of two small hills just north of the Pass. On the way up to the Pass, we drove along the South China Sea and saw many extremely beautiful fishing villages that looked like the kind of places where you could happily live out your life. Scenic simply does not do justice to the views we had on that part of the drive. And the raod was just as dangerous as I remembeed it.

We stopped at the summit of the Pass and two things were immediately obvious. First, it has become a major tourist trap with street vendors following you no matter where you went and insisting that you buy whatever they were hawking. I must admit that I eventually became very irritated because they were interfering with the reason why I had wanted to stop there and I finally yelled at one persistent guy to get away from me. He did. Across the road from the tourist trap area, are the remains of the old French bunkers built during the late-1940s and eventually used by America forces, I’m guessing the 101st and, previously, the Marines. My memory, which I admit is not what it used to be, is that there was also an ARVN checkpoint in the Pass. However, whenever we made the run from Phu Bai to Da Nang and back, they always waved us through because they understood the distinctive red fenders of an EOD vehicle. Ah, the perks of war. There were many steps leading up the hill that the French bunkers are on and I was unable to make the climb because of now aching knees from all the walking we had done, already. However, as you can see, I did get some great pictures of the bunkers.

Apparently, the Vietnamese government does not want people to get off the stairs or the beaten paths because there is still a lot of unexploded ordnance in the area and I do not doubt that. One of the things we ran into a lot during my time with the 184th in Qui Nhon and the 287th in Phu Bai, were a friggin’ ungodly number of French Bouncing Betties. The French planted these bloody devices everywhere and left no maps or other markings to show their locations. Even the VC and the South Vietnamese Army marked their mines. Of course, with the VC, you had to know what you were looking for. It wasn’t as if they planted signs that said, “Dung Lai!! Min!!” I can remember blowing dozens of these devices near several small hamlets, usually after an unsuspecting farmer set one off with a plow or a water buffalo. In one small hamlet we got called into by a Marine CAP Team near the coast east of Phu Bai—I think I was with Tom Miller—we ended up finding and destroying about two dozen of these things and there is no question that we probably did not find all of them.

We left the Hai Van Pass and continued on to the site of the former 101st base called Fire Support Base Tomahawk. This was a bad place, in a terrible and virtually indefensible location, that was hit all—and I mean all—the time. Our team was in and out of there, blowing dud 82mm mortars or RPG-2s after an incoming attack. There was a self-propelled 155 unit and a signal outfit up there, along with some engineers, as well. It was not, by any measure, “the high ground,” and you have to wonder what moron in the 101st chose this site. In 1969 and 1970, the hill across the road was manned by the men of the 1st Battalion, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. Tomahawk was heavily attacked twice: first on June 19, 1969, and then, again, in June 1970. The June 19, 1969 attack is infamous because most of the men killed that night were Kentucky National Guardsmen from the same town—Bardstown. It was the most men killed from the same town from the same unit during the entire war. They were from C Battery, 138th Artillery Regiment, a self-propelled 155 unit and were on the hill on the west side of the road, across from the 101st base. Ten of their men were either killed the night of the attack, or died within a few weeks from their wounds. Thirty-five others were wounded, all of this out of a unit of 117 men.

I was in and out of Tomahawk twice when I was with the 287th in Phu Bai. Our tour guide planned the trip so that I could stop there and it was a very powerful experience. I crossed Highway 1 and, with help from two of my friends, was able to cross the drainage ditch on the side of the road and make my way a few feet up the side of the hill. I stood there for a few minutes and really broke down and I’m not really sure why. The times I was there, it was to blow duds from an incoming attack or some bad ordnance from the 155s. Maybe a booby trap or mine found on the perimeter. I really don’t remember exactly what it was that took us there. I think I was crying just because it was another spot of “holy ground,” if not for me, then for the men who died there, as well as their families. I just realized that I never put up the picture I have of my chip from “The Wall,” or explained how I got it. I just put it on the blog.

Dick Steen is the Commander of the National EOD Association and was at an event where he met a woman who had helped assemble “The Wall.” She saved some chips and gave four of them to Dick, who sent me one. This was about a month before I left for Vietnam and, of course, I had no idea when I got it that it would be an important relic to have with me. A local jeweler shaped it for me, and polished the marble and added the white gold cap. I wear it around my neck and now have added a small Vietnam carving made from the leg bone of a deer. As I did at the site of Marlene’s husband’s death, I laid the chip on the ground at Tomahawk and let the men who died there know that we had memorialized them at “The Wall.” Given all of the things that happened on this trip in terms of the Buddhist beliefs about the spirit and the soul, I have a feeling that they know.  We burned some incense and several of us said some private things to those, from both sides, that perished, there. It was a very palpable sensation, just being there.

We left Tomahawk and continued up Highway 1 toward Hue, leaving the mountains and moving into beautiful, green and very lush farm land. I dozed off and was awaken by the bus pulling off the road onto the shoulder. I looked out my window and saw masonry walls, extending down the open area off the road; I knew immediately that these were the walls that had surrounded the west side of the Phu Bai Combat Base and I got off the bus for a better view. Song took me a little way and pointed to a runway several hundreds of meters away to the east: “That runway was built on the same runway that was there when you were here.” As we stood there, a large Russian transport came flying down the runway and lifted off into the western sky. What a trip and there will be more about the Phu Bai Airport, later, when I talk about leaving Hue for Ha Noi.

There's something screwy going on with the program, so I'm going to publish this in two parts.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Hoi An, Da Nang, Tam Ky and Chu Lai--Continued


I have to admit that I’m getting a little confused as to what we did on each day because of not writing every day. Oh, well, xin loi—excuse me. I do know this—on Wednesday, the 25th, we went to the main Pagoda near “Marble Mountain,” where a military base was located on top. There is actually a very ancient pagoda there, and we were supposed to visit it, but when Song checked it out it was just way too crowded with Tet visitors, including many foreigners. It is the Ling Ong Pagoda and it is located in a cave. However, we did go to the newer and more modern pagoda with the 229-foot statue of the Buddhist goddess of mercy. The statue was actually finished, apparently, about five years ago and according to our local American guide—Don Blackburn, another Oregonian, Vietnam vet who lives here—he watched them put it up. He said that he would come to marvel at the workers racing up and down some not too sound scaffolding as the goddess rose from the ground.

I learned that all of the mountains in this area are actually the “Marble Mountains,” and that US soldiers called the one with the military installation on top by the singular name. The Vietnamese name for the mountains is Ngu Hahn Son-“Five Elements Mountains”—metal, wood, fire, earth and water. The French military built bunkers on the tops of several of the mountains, and the Viet Cong used the caves as sanctuaries during the Vietnam/American War. At the same time, the US built observation posts and artillery platforms high on their peaks. The shrine we went to is the Chua Quan The Am Pagoda, now a significant place of worship for Buddhists and which took six years to build. The name of the pagoda means, “Pagoda of the Goddess of Mercy Who Hears Us and Responds.” The best part of going to the pagoda was that Song was able to arrange a special sitting with the Most Revered Zen Master, Thich Hue Vinh, there, and his chief disciple.

They both talked to us and told us many things that gave us pause to ponder the truths they gave us. Most importantly, the Most Revered Zen Master said that, “The most important thing we can do while we are here in physical form, is to help the poor.” It is such a simple concept and I feel that I have done my best over the years to do that, both for my indigent clients as an attorney and investigator and the work I did with my fellow Vietnam veterans at Central Oregon Veterans Outreach. When he got to me—and I had been thinking long and hard what to ask—I said, “I am sure this is presumptuous, but I think that if I do not ask this now, I will never have another opportunity…Why are we here?” He looked at me intently for a moment and then started laughing and slapping his knees. He turned to his disciple, still laughing and, according to Song, later, said something like, “I cannot answer this. This is part of your final exam and you must try to answer him.” The younger man looked at me carefully and said, “You are not asking the correct question. You should be asking, ‘Now that I am here, what is my purpose’”. It was right out of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” I was simply floored and it was immediately obvious that he was correct. Both of the monks were now laughing together, as was everyone else, as Song translated.

After a few more minutes, the Most Revered Zen Master said that we had to stop. We all rose, bowed to him, and began to walk out. Okay, now here is just about the heaviest, most profound thing that has ever happened to me—I mean, ever. As we walked into the sunlight, he was walking behind me talking to Song and Ed and he poked me in the back. I turned around; he looked me directly in the eyes and said—in perfect English—“I think that I will see you again, someday.” I was immediately thrown for a complete loop and I knew that he was not talking about seeing me in this lifetime. I have been thinking about this, almost nonstop, since he said it and I have been pondering the meaning of it all. I hope that he is right because I have the feeling that I could learn much from him. I wish it would be possible to come back to Vietnam, someday, and talk with him, again, but I doubt that will happen, so I guess I’ll just have to wait until the time he was talking about.

On the 26th, we went to the home of Mr. Nhan, a former South Vietnamese solider who was a tank driver in an armored unit. He is known in Da Nang as the “House Father,” because he worked for many years at the Da Nang Street Children’s’ Center—an orphanage—and has been “father” to hundreds of poor and disabled Vietnamese children and has had as many as thirty at a time living with him and his wife in their small house. Ed and Kate first met him there, where, among other things, he would entertain the children with his guitar. Over the years, Soldier’s Heart has donated the funds to build an infirmary and bicycle garage for the orphanage. While we were sitting in Mr. Nanh’s living room, we could not help but notice that centrally located on his family altar was not an ancestor, but, instead, the picture of an American with his name in bold letters across the bottom—John Howard Priesthoff, II. Then, he told us the story of how this came to, although I do not remember the precise details because I am really overloaded with information.

Mr. Nanh, somehow, came to know Mr. Priesthoff’s parents when they were here on a journey to learn more about Vietnam and to try and locate the place where he died. They had the location’s grid coordinates and, if I heard correctly, Mr. Nanh was able to find out exactly where this was. At some later point in time, the parents and their other son returned to Vietnam with things of importance to their deceased son and brother and Mr. Nanh took them to the location where John had been killed and they performed a traditional Buddhist ceremony for his spirit. Mr. Nanh was so full of feelings for the parents and it was such an emotional experience for him, that he told them that he would consider John Howard Priesthoff, II, as his own son and put his picture on his family altar. It was an overwhelming experience for each of us to hear this story of spiritual connection between these two families and I think that all of us were pretty much in tears when Mr. Nanh was done telling it.

For the record, John Howard Priesthoff, II, was born on April 20, 1946, in Woodland Hills, California. He was a corporal in D Company, 4th Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 11th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division. He arrived in Vietnam on June 16, 1968, and died on September 22, 1968, during Operation Burlington Trail, north of Duong Dong and 11 miles southwest of the Tam Ky Airfield. Rest in peace, brother. I was able to get this information from the Coffelt Data Base, the official source of information about the men and women who died in Vietnam and which I have used for years to help my clients with their VA claims.

On the 27th, we went to an elementary school in Tam Ky which Soldier’s Heart has helped sponsor over the years, including providing books, a computer and, this time, many of us brought donations for the wonderful teachers and beautiful children. The little girls, I would guess were about eight or nine, all greeted us in perfect English, which they are required to study every day.  We all went into the classroom and sat around a long table where they had prepared snacks for us and provided us with a fresh bottle of water. The headmaster and main teacher both addressed us and let us know, once again, how glad they were to see us and how much they appreciated the relationship between them and Soldier’s Heart and the veterans who have visited them and then sent learning materials after they had returned to the States. Ed then addressed the faculty and students and told them how glad we all were to be there and that we had brought many wonderful things with us as gifts to help them with their education and their daily lives, as well as one particular treat.

Brian and Karen brought toothbrushes, toothpaste and Doublemint Chewing Gum. This was a little funny, since I seem to remember Vietnamese children trying to sell us the same gum and Cokes on the sides of the road when I was here during the war. I know that Brian and Karen had other gifts, but I cannot remember everything. Vela brought lots of different children’s books, including one with pop-up animals and a book about the Trojan horse. Later, I remember seeing Karen with a little girl on her lap as she read to her from a book to help them with their English language skills. I brought fifty calculators so that each kid could have their own. This got a big round of applause from the faculty and students. I just hope they can afford to replace the batteries when they run out. They were actually more expensive than the calculators when I checked at Radio Shack before I left.  We also gave the school $200 which goes a long way, over here, to but materials they need for their classrooms.

We left the school and walked to the teacher’s home, where we met her father, another former Viet Cong soldier. She lives at home because she is still unmarried and does not earn enough money to have her own place. Young men and women in Vietnam become teachers because of the honor it brings them and their families. They are revered members of the communities in which they live and are treated with respect and dignity. On Teacher’s Day, they are honored by the entire country. On the third day of the Tet holiday, I believe, people go to see their former teachers to honor them to let them know how important they have been in their lives. Once again, we were treated to food and water and I am sure that many of the teacher’s neighbors helped contribute to what must have cost them a lot of money by their standards. It was another way of welcoming us back to Vietnam and to honor us for returning to try and reconcile with ourselves and with the Vietnamese people. I could not help but reflect on the fact that many people in my own country would not be so gracious in similar situations.

We left Tam Ky and headed for Chu Lai, which was one of Brian’s AOs. On the bus ride to Chu Lai, Brian talked to us about his time in Vietnam and the impact it had on his entire life. He had also spent a lot of time in Duc Pho, a place where there was heavy enemy activity all the time, but the trip was not long enough to visit there, as well as Chu Lai, and I wish that we had been able to do that because it was clear to all of us that Brian had many memories of his time there and that it would have been important o his own healing to have been able to return there. Brian was a door gunner, among other jobs, and had spent a lot of time in the air. I think he said he had been shot down twice, including just after he had gotten in-country. He told us a pretty funny story about ending up running a supply operation, something he had not been trained for, and eventually ended up helping on the beach near Nha Trang to make sure people were safe in an area of the South China Sea that had notorious rip-tides, a significant drop-off and sharks. He told us about an event when he and another “lifeguard” had to save a guy who had been pulled under by a rip-tide and they all almost drowned.

We eventually arrived in a field off the highway near the former Chu Lai airfield that Brian had flown out f and where there is a monument to the VC and NVA soldiers who had fought in this area. Unfortunately, it was located atop a high edifice that had to be climbed and it was just too much for my, by then, aching left knee and lower back from all of the walking we had been doing. While the group climbed to the top of the memorial, I wandered around area and watched a rooster with his harem of hens walking around looking for delicacies. By now, a light rain had started to fall and I was trying to stay dry when the bus driver came over to me with a green pith helmet like those worn by the NVA. As you can see by the picture to the right, he had me put it on and took a picture. It was a little small for my giant head and I had to kind of smash it down so it wouldn’t look too ridiculous.

I remembered that my good friend and fellow Vietnam veteran, Billy Bob, had been in Chu Lai at the same airfield where Brian had been. He passed away from the ravages of cancer caused by herbicides while I was in Afghanistan and I was unable to attend his memorial service. I collected some dirt and smooth stones in a baggie and will give them to his widow when I return. At this point, everyone came down from the memorial and we returned to our hotel in Hoi An for one last night and a wonderful dinner at a restaurant on the waterfront. When we left the restaurant, the tide had come in and we had to pick our way around the sidewalk and against the wall of the building the restaurant was in to avoid the water. Across the way from the restaurant was a lively waterfront nightclub with a merry-go-round and loud, live Vietnamese popular music with a large crowd that was dancing their asses off.

The ongoing celebration of the Tet was something to behold and seemed to be participated in by everyone, young and old. Every place we went, parents would be sitting on their stoops, or at one of the many roadside cafes, with their babies and young children all dressed to the nines. Young men were on their motorbikes, many with their girlfriends behind them, going to who-knows-where, but seeming to enjoy just being out and moving with the flow of the traffic. I eventually returned to my room, packed and prepared to leave early the next morning for the bus ride to Hue. It turned out to be an eventful and emotional journey and I will talk about that in my next post. I may not get to finish this blog until after I return home because, sadly, we are flying from Ha Noi to Saigon early tomorrow morning and we will have our final group get-together and farewell dinner tonight. I was really sick this morning and had started an anti-biotic regimen, yesterday, hoping to break this thing up before the horrible 16-hour trip from Saigon to San Francisco. I am hoping to be well enough this afternoon to attend the meeting with the Ha Noi chapter of the Agent Orange Victims’ Association, so I’m going to lie down for a little bit. Chuc Mung Nam Moi—Happy New Year!!