When my uncle Tommy went to Vietnam, I had not yet started school, but I remember.  I remember going to Fort Bragg to visit him before he was deported.  I remember sitting at the kitchen bar writing letters to him and asking my mom how to spell almost every word.  I remember the box of letters my parents kept on the bottom ledge of the bar.  I remember my grandma’s constant concern.  And I still have the Vietnamese doll he brought back for me.

When I asked him recently what he most vividly remembers, he said “everything.”  “I can see that period of time in my mind much more vivid than I can remember what I did last month or last week even,” he said.

Tommy was drafted into the U.S. Army in August 1967 at the age of 20 and served for 2 years, one of which was spent in the Vietnam Conflict.  He served there as a trained artillery surveyor, mostly in the Hue area (which later became Camp Eagle, home of the 101^st Airborne).

Tommy remembers landing in Vietnam at Cam Ranh Bay in the middle of the night, and soon afterwards, boarding a military plane for Bienhoa (South Vietnam NE of Saigon) where he would remain for one month before the whole unit packed up and moved northward to the Hue area.  “To do this,” he explained, “about half our guys would drive all our trucks and vans packed with everything we had, down to Saigon to board a ship and live with their vehicle until they got off at Da Nang where they would meet the rest of us who flew there by a large cargo plane.”  They then drove from Da Nang up the coast and over the mountains to the Hue area.  This would later become an asphalt road (highway #1), but at that time it was a small dirt road “sometimes on the edges of cliffs and sometimes crossing over small bridges that would scare any sane person.”

“What was the hardest part of being away?”  I asked him.  “Just that,” he said, “being away, but at the same time I was single and only 20 years old, so it was also quite an adventure as well as one large learning experience about almost all aspects of life.”

“What sustained you while you were there?”

“Number one I would say is the fact that I knew I had a loving family at home all of whom I knew were praying for me to be safe and return home,” he said, and he went on to talk about the comforting letters he received regularly from the whole family.  “I think Martha wrote to me everyday while I was there,” he said.  (He would later marry her!)

“What is your fondest memory of those days?”

“My fondest memories are of what I saw in others as a military person.  I saw unselfishness, I saw bravery, I saw kindness, I saw loneliness, I saw heartbreak . . . I saw young American soldiers who were not there of their own will but nonetheless were doing what they could for the cause.”  He also fondly remembers getting to go to Thailand and Malaysia, and going to Da Nang to see the Bob Hope Christmas show.

Then there are the more difficult memories.  The knowledge that  58,479 did not return alive.  The media’s mind control of the people back home, how the American people allowed the press to control what they should think.  The “Jane Fonda types.”  The sickening memory of the president “bringing all the deserters home from Canada to be the real heroes of the Vietnam era.”  There is disgust and pain in these remembrances.

“What do you wish people could understand?”

“People will never understand what I wish they could.  They are too brainwashed by Hollywood and cowardly writers” who did all the stories about Vietnam on drug users and baby killers.  People choose to believe Sean Penn and Tom Cruise over those who were actually there.  “While in Vietnam I knew only one person who used drugs and was smoking pot.  I saw two other guys smoking but I didn’t know them.  They were pumping water from a stream into a tank to take back for showers.”

One more question:  “What did your Vietnam experience steal from you?”

“My Vietnam experience stole nothing from me.  Even though I was drafted, I was glad to serve.”

 Four months after Tommy’s return home, he married his favorite letter writer, and they now have two children, grown and married, and both expecting their first children in January of 2009.  In his retirement he enjoys spending time with his family, music, history, and hunting.



the surveying equipment



A temple with a personal story:  Tommy and a friend wanted to explore this temple, and they walked all through it.  A few days later others went there and leaned against a wall, which turned out to be a fake wall leading underground to the VC hospital.  They were killed. 



a muddy worksite



a typical street scene



not unusual to lie on the ground in the rain to rest



Camp Eagle Fire Direction Center



holding enemy AK47 rifle



stopping on the road to talk with young boys


I am honored to post this story of my Uncle Tommy, as he is one of my heroes.  May this post inspire you to hug or thank your own Vietnam hero!  Following is a list of MyChurch's Vietnam vets, posted in appreciation and honor.  (Find their links in the comments; others will be added as they comment here.)

Ed
Golden2100
Faithrock




Similar blog:  My great-uncle Bill in WWII:  http://www.mychurch.org/blog/329893/A-Veterans-Day-Tribute-Genealogy-Series-Blog-2