The American Patriot

The American Patriot: A Tradition of Service

Compiled by Jan C. Scruggs Founder and President Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund

For more information: Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund 1023 15th Street, NW Second Floor Washington, DC 20005 (202) 393-0090 Fax: (202) 393-0029 www.vvmf.org vvmf@vvmf.org Š 2006, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Printed in the United States of America First Edition Cover photo by Dan Arant Back cover photo by Tom Estrin

Table of Contents

Page

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Loyalty One Go, We All Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Lionel Chetwynd Sergeant Vic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Albion A. Bergstrom Four Heroes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Jon Hovde Duty John Francis Ward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bill Nelson Never Let Your Guard Down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ricky W. Jones Doing Their Duty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

H.G. “Don” Mercer, Rustic 41 The Defining Experience of My Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Honorable Charles S. Robb Answering the Call from Our Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Honorable John P. Murtha

13 16 20 23 27

Respect Snapshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Thomas L. Stirling Jr. Minh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 John Donovan Paying Our Respects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Karen Spears Zacharias

Page Service A Family Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Allen K. Hoe Providing Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Jon Hovde Living Up to the Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Gen. Peter Pace, USMC Preserving the Legacy of Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Richard K. Kolb Honor When Doing the Right Thing Is Not the Easy Path . . . . 63 Jan C. Scruggs Remembering Sid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Jack McLean Integrity My Honorable Medics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Steven J. Phillips, M.D. Answering the Call . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Peter S. Prichard Courage Welcome to Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Patrick C. Kelly Above and Beyond the Call of Duty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Robert Gouge Saved by Doc Lefty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

John Neely The Battle of An Loc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

James Beaubien III

79 82 87 90

Page

Road Trips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Thomas L. Stirling Jr. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center My Son: Serving Our Nation Still . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Dorothy Oxendine Helping an Idea Become a Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 The Honorable Richard Pombo Why We Need a Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Robert Duvall The War the Schools Don’t Teach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 James V. Kimsey VVMF Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Intentionally Blank

Foreword Jan Scruggs

On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere made his famous mid-

night ride through the Boston area to warn American patriots that British Gen. Thomas Gage had ordered his troops to disarm the colonists and arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock. The Minutemen armed themselves to face the well-trained troops coming their way. A battle began at Concorde Bridge, resulting in a rout for the colonists, who rallied more volunteers. When the skirmishes ended, nearly 300 British troops were casualties.

The War for Independence had begun.

Since 1776, American soldiers have faced other adversaries. They have fought for freedom when called upon to do so, often with great disadvantages against enemies who were better armed and equipped. Each time, we have ultimately prevailed.

Vietnam was no exception. Our military was undefeated on the battlefield in America’s longest war.

Our troops were withdrawn in 1973. The war ended in 1975, when a North Vietnamese invasion could not be stopped by our allies. Historians will forever debate the wisdom of the entire enterprise, but no one debates the courage and devotion to duty of the American soldiers who did what their nation asked of them.

The military has certain values which have remained constant: loyalty, duty, respect, service, honor, integrity and courage. From Concord Bridge to Gettysburg to Iwo Jima to Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq, these

simple values are the glue that holds our servicemen and women together as they have struggled through the arduous circumstances of war.

In this book, you will read stories of those who illustrated these important American values, some­times at the risk and cost of their lives.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial stands proudly on the National Mall, inscribed with the names of patriots who, in the words of President Lincoln, “gave their last full measure of devotion.”

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center will one day become an integral part of the visitor’s experience at The Wall. The Center came about after a difficult legislative struggle in which the efforts and talent of Congressman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) finally prevailed in November 2003. President Bush signed the bill into law, and we thank him for the efforts made by his administration in aiding the project.

The Center will be a place that touches the heart and teaches the mind. Visitors will be given a journey that takes them through layers of storytelling, emotion and history. This distinct and profound educational experience will be unlike any other in the world, working in synergy with The Wall.

There will be photographs of those who gave their lives in Vietnam displayed in the Memorial Center. The rich narrative history of The Wall and the memories evoked there will be told with displays from a collection of over 80,000 items left at the Memorial.

The Center will honor all veterans. Visitors will leave with an appreciation of those who served in all wars

and will see photographs and portraits of those who did their duty throughout history.

Maj. Sullivan Ballou was a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War. Before going into battle, he wrote a letter to his wife expressing his support for the cause of saving the Union, yet he feared the personal consequences of his decision to bear arms in time of war.

In 1861, he wrote to his wife, “If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen, I shall always be near you, in the gladdest days and darkest nights. And if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; as cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing. Sarah, do not mourn the dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.”

Sullivan Ballou was killed in action in Manassas, Va., on July 21, 1861—days after writing this letter.

The Center will honor Sullivan Ballou, just as it will honor Pvt. Ralph Diaz, who earned the Medal of Honor in Vietnam.

The Center will honor all of the nation’s service members by showing the values of those who have served and who serve today in America’s armed forces.

Loyalty, duty, respect, service, honor, integrity and courage are the values at the heart of the American service member and the values that form the core of this book. I hope that you enjoy reading it.

Intentionally Blank

Loyalty

Intentionally Blank

One Go, We All Go By Lionel Chetwynd

Major Bai, commandant of the prison system in

the north, known to his captives as “Cat,” thought of himself as a humane man. Probably Jesuit educated, he couldn’t understand the recalci­trance of the Americans.

“Simply admit that since there is no declaration of war by your country, that this conflict cannot be a war, and you may go home,” he said. “Admit that your raids were therefore illegal crimes, and I will keep you no longer.”

But one after another refused.

“One go, we all go” was the reply.

When they discovered that John McCain’s father was the admiral commanding the Pacific Fleet, they offered him an early release with no strings attached.

He would be allowed to go home without first admitting to his crimes.

But he demurred.

He was a soldier like the rest. And they stuck together; no matter the beatings, ignoring the torture, even through years and years of solitary confinement when they might not catch a glimpse of another American for five years or more, they stuck together.

Cat could not understand that his prisoners were bound by a loyalty, a devotion, a pride in their country.

Better to die than betray America or an American.

“One go, we all go.”

4 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

Lionel Chetwynd is a filmmaker who served in the 3rd Battalion Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada and is now an American citizen. He is the writer-director of “The Hanoi Hilton,” a film about American POWs and their heroic endurance in the notorious North Vietnamese Hoa Loa prison. He was also the writer and executive producer of the film “To Heal A Nation,” the story of the building of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

This story was excerpted from his booklet, The Keepers of the Flame, which details some of the experiences of prisoners of war in Vietnam.

Sergeant Vic

By Albion A. Bergstrom

“L-T, are you alive or not?”

The voice of Sgt. Victor Locke, the track commander for my M-113 command track, rang out from above.

It was 1970, and we sat on the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in Vietnam, two weeks before Christmas. I had been knocked on my backside by a sniper’s bullet and was having trouble breathing. The bullet hit my flak vest just over my heart. The experimental vest I was wearing had ceramic inserts that dispersed the bullet’s impact. I struggled to my feet while receiving a constant stream of verbal harassment about falling down on the job.

Locke, better known as Sgt. Vic, finally let up on me.

“It’s an early Christmas present, L-T,” he said. “Hope you don’t get any more like that.”

Sgt. Vic was on his second tour. He used his warrior skills to mentor new soldiers. He also eagerly assisted the platoon sergeant in distributing mail and care packages, especially the cookies he loved so much.

Sgt. Vic’s previous combat experience and sense of humor were a real plus. Of Native American heritage and raised in the West, he had a style of direct, honest feedback that could be humbling to the uninitiated.

In spite of his slow talk, he was fast to respond in the toughest of situations.

I served with some very special men in the Third Platoon (“Third Herd”) of A Troop, 4/12 Cav. I look

6 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

at Gary Pflaster’s and George Potts’s names on The Wall and remember the ultimate sacrifice they made for our country. Others, like Gary Thrappas, Tom Sawyer, “Tex” Anderson, “John Wayne” aka Charles Russell, Terry Buchalski, David “PD” Gahagan, Tony Caudill and Ripp Smith, who is now a physician and godfather to my son, were great soldiers who made successful transitions to civilian life.

Sgt. Vic and I made plans to get together at The Wall, but something always came up, and it never happened. On Nov. 30, 1999, I retired from the Army and dedicated the ceremony to him. He was only 51 years old, but very ill from the long-term effects of Agent Orange and unable to travel, so we videotaped the ceremony for him.

He called a few days later after viewing the tape.

He spoke of how proud he was of being in the “Cav” and the fact that I was finally a dad. Our daughter Victoria, named in honor of him, was five months old then, and he was thrilled to see her on the tape. He died the next day.

At his funeral in Arizona, I wore my Army uniform for one last time. We were disappointed to be told that the active duty honor guard had been diverted. In their place, a van pulled up with a group of elderly veterans from a local service organization. Some needed help getting out of the van, but their demeanor was professional to the core. These old soldiers presented their rifles and rendered the rifle salute to Sgt. Vic with great precision. They folded the flag to present to his children with equal pride. Then they returned to the van to go to another ceremony.

ALBION A. BERGSTROM 7

They did Sgt. Vic proud. He wanted a simple casket and a simple ceremony, and these men from previous conflicts respected a much younger veteran’s wishes.

Sgt. Vic always gave me a special greeting to start the day. My daughter, “Miss Vic,” gives me a big smile and a “hooah” each morning, and I am reminded of Sgt. Victor B. Locke Jr., a dedicated soldier who believed in his family, friends and the greatness of our country.

Al Bergstrom, from Dorchester, N.H., served as an armored cavalry platoon leader in the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Quang Tri, from 1970 to 1971. He was wounded in action in March 1971 during the Laos operation, Lam Son 719. He went on to a 30-year career in the Army and retired as a colonel.

He is now a professor of joint military operations at the Naval War College, Newport, R.I.

Four Heroes By Jon Hovde

On Dec. 29, 1967, I had dinner with my friend Dick

Godbout for the last time. We talked for hours as we waited to go out on a mission. We were in Vietnam, assigned to Company A, 4/23rd Mech. We were the “Tomahawks.�

We pulled security for convoy runs that originated in Saigon and brought food, water and supplies to troops in the south. I thought it was just another night. Dick felt otherwise. He said he had a bad feeling.

It turns out Dick was right, and I was very wrong.

At about 1:00 a.m., the convoy passed, and we were to get back on the narrow dirt road and return to our base camp at Cu Chi. We passed through the first small village with our lights off and drew some small arms fire. We just kept moving, and as we entered the second village, all hell broke loose.

Dick was sitting behind the .50-caliber machine gun in the armored personnel carrier (APC) directly in front of me. When I saw the first flash of the firefight, it was right where Dick was sitting. I knew it was a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), and Dick was gone.

Until the firefight was over, I never knew that one RPG round also killed Scott Cook, William Markle and Wylie Phillips, who were sitting behind Dick on top of the APC. After the firefight started, we called in three Cobra helicopters. One hovered just above my APC, and

JON HOVDE 9

what a welcome sight to see! These babies can cover every square inch of a football field with lead in 30 seconds. The North Vietnamese Regulars now had their hands full.

We won the battle that night, but we lost four men.

“Why them and not me?” was on most of our minds the next day.

Company A, 4/23rd Mech. had a bond. Our bond was that we would never leave anyone behind, dead or alive, in Vietnam. We left no one behind then, and we still don’t today.

Heroes are those who have their names etched on granite walls. They made the ultimate sacrifice. When you go to The Wall in Washington, D.C., visit four heroes there: Sgt. Richard Gerald Godbout, Pfc. Scott Howard Cook, Pfc. William Carl Markle Jr., and Pfc. Wylie Oria Phillips. They are on Panel 33E. Pfc. Jon Hovde served in Vietnam from October 1967 to February 1968. He is retired from the 3M Company and is a former president of the Minnesota School Boards Association. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2003 from Minnesota State Uni­ver­ s­ity at Moorhead.

In 2005, Hovde wrote about his experiences in his book Left For Dead, A Second Life After Vietnam, co-authored with Maureen Anderson (University of Minnesota Press, 2005). He is now a national motivational speaker. For more information, visit: www. jonhovde.com.

Intentionally Blank

Duty

Intentionally Blank

John Francis Ward By Bill Nelson

If you sacrifice your innocence, youth and life for your

country, you are a patriot and a hero.

John Ward and I were the best of friends. We hung around our neighborhood in the Bronx, N.Y., together throughout most of our teen years, during the mid- to late ’60s. We double-dated together, played sports together and were the best “eight ball” team at our local billiards place.

We both had graduated high school and were in different colleges. It was the end of 1968, and the Vietnam War was raging.

John approached me and suggested that the youth of this country needed not to wait to be drafted, but should volunteer for military service in America’s time of need.

John was a bit of a visionary then, given the allvolunteer military policy today.

I knew John was right. We both discussed the sacrifice and risks inherent in our mutual decision. We pledged to each other that we would pursue the Army and combat duty as infantrymen in Vietnam.

We had difficult discussions with each of our families, and then off we were to join on the buddy system in February 1969. This meant that John and I would go through basic training and advanced individual trainings for light weapons infantry together.

14 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

We did this at Ft. Jackson, S.C., and arrived in Vietnam in early July 1969. We were both assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and went through Screaming Eagle Replacement Training School for in-country air assault and jungle warfare training.

That was the last time I saw John.

John was assigned to the 2/327th “No Slack” Infantry Regiment of the 101st, and I to the 2/502nd “Strike Force” Infantry Regiment of the 101st. I’ll remember our parting words and embrace that day, always.

We exchanged letters every couple of weeks, and I knew from them that he was seeing combat action. We were brothers-in-arms, two ’Nam infantry “grunts” just like we planned.

I thought I saw him once during a major rede­ploy­ ment just north of Camp Eagle. I screamed his name, but my voice was never heard over the din of choppers and transports.

The next I heard, John was killed during a nighttime operation against Viet Cong infiltrations. It was a sad day for me, for his family and for his fellow soldiers.

His parents arranged for me to escort John’s body back stateside.

I was fortunate to meet some of the 2/327th troopers when I was processing back into Vietnam to complete my tour of duty. Two had served with John up until his death.

They told me of John’s selflessness, his commitment to them and his dedication to his mission. They spoke of his valor and of how well liked and respected he was within his unit.

John Ward was a warrior. He was one of the best

BILL NELSON 15

America had to offer. He was pursuing what was most important to him: giving service to the country he loved. He sacrificed his innocence, youth and life for his country.

John Ward is a patriot and hero.

Bill Nelson was with the U.S. Army in Vietnam from 1969-1970. He served with the 2/502nd Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, which operated out of the 101st’s Camp Eagle north of Da Nang and south of Hue, near Phu Bai. He left the Army as a sergeant.

Currently, Nelson is the chief operating officer of Home Box Office Inc. (HBO), responsible for dis­ tribution, financial, technological, administrative and international operations.

John Francis Ward’s name is located on Panel 17W, Row 46 on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Never Let Your Guard Down By Rick W. Jones

On Jan. 12, 1970, I found myself, as senior man, in

charge of the 1st Squad of 2nd Platoon of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade.

Our sergeant was on R&R, and the man who had taken over for him had been transported out the day before after a run-in with members of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) for much-needed medical attention.

We were in the Long Khanh Province working the Xuan Loc area of operations. The previous afternoon, we had discovered a massive bunker complex. It seemed like a small underground city, eerie because everything was so freshly lived in, but no one was at home.

Yet the feeling of nearness was inescapable, and tensions were high. We spent a long time that afternoon searching the upper levels of the tunnels, using the men small enough to enter the hidden openings. Then, we retreated to a nearby night defensive position for some much-needed rest and a long, worrisome night.

Early on the morning of Jan. 12, we moved back into the bunker complex, but there were still no signs of life.

First squad set up on the downstream side of the incoming trails at a three-way fork. We were the point element of where we anticipated the most likely return of the residents would be, assuming they would think that we had moved on without knowing of our discov-

RICK W. JONES 17

ery of their new base camp.

The morning passed slowly. What luck this was to have a reason to pause from the normal routine of humping the load of all that we carried.

Lunch was a leisurely meal of dried shrimp and rice, seasoned with the remaining pieces of onion that had come from home in my last “care” package. The ration pack was one that I had saved from an assignment in late November. A Texas boy has to have his onions.

Dessert was a can of mixed fruit cocktail, a favorite of most grunts in the jungle.

Shortly after burying my trash from lunch in the jungle floor and covering it with leaves and brush, I again relaxed against my tree.

It looked as though the day was going to be an uneventful one when, all of a sudden, the silence was broken by a crashing of brush and warning yells from someone who was returning to his position and screaming, “They’re here! Just when you drop your guard, they’re here!”

Grabbing my weapon, I looked toward the fork in the trails just in time to see the flash of an NVA AK-47 bearing down on me. As I rose to position, I felt bark hitting my left cheek, the bark flying from the tree I had taken cover behind.

I turned for a split second to look at the tree. In that moment, I felt a slap to the head, so I reflexed back to my firing position and fired with all I could get out of my M-16.

Somehow, I found myself on the other side of the tree when the firing subsided. I quickly moved back to the assumed safety of the tree and saw the intruder

18 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

lying in front of me only a few meters away.

I heard the distinct call “medic” and knew someone was hit. At that time, the left side of my face felt numb, and I noticed the blood that was squirting from my head.

I was hit and didn’t even know it!

I immediately applied my sweat towel to my left eye and surrounding area to stop the blood flow as best I could. Still, there was no pain.

Guys were screaming “medic,” so I joined in the chorus, wondering just how bad I was hit. Doc Hanger came shortly afterward and decided that the best way to dress my wound was a pressure bandage that required covering both my eyes.

I didn’t like the idea at all, but Doc’s remarks that I’d probably make it mellowed me to the fact that I would be completely blind from that point on until I could get treatment in the rear.

I was awarded the Bronze Star with “V” and the Purple Heart that day for assuming an exposed position, covering for a flanking movement by others in the platoon and fighting though seriously wounded in the eye, which resulted in the loss of my left eye.

How did I get a greasy bullet hole just above my left fatigue jacket pocket that exited at shoulder-blade level without a mark other than a scratch between my left shoulder and my head? I’ll probably never know all the answers to those questions.

Mike Webb of the 2nd Platoon told me later that my tree had really taken a great loss of sap from AK-47 rounds that day, rounds that passed completely through it. How I only caught one of those rounds will always

RICK W. JONES 19

haunt me.

Rick W. Jones was with the 2nd Platoon, 1st Squad of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade in Vietnam, where he served from August 1969 to February 1970. © May 2004 Rick W. Jones.

Doing Their Duty

By H. G. “Don� Mercer, Rustic 41

As a young man, I had the opportunity to serve our

great country. My father served in the Army during World War II, so the concept of being dutiful to my country and my fellow man came naturally. I am forever glad that was the case—that a strong sense of duty was instilled in me at an early age.

In Vietnam in 1970-71, as an Air Force pilot assigned to fly the O-2A, my primary mission was to provide support to the beleaguered Cambodian Army. While it was my duty to do so, it was a welcome duty, as I had the opportunity to communicate with soldiers on the ground in their native Cambodia who would, when the time permitted, relate a bit of who they were and how much they wanted freedom.

In the darkest hours of night, when we were flying far behind what may have been construed as enemy lines, I was able to gain a unique insight into those who did not have the freedoms that we so enjoy and which all of us, from time to time, take for granted. Those discussions with nameless and faceless young Cambodians helped put that war in better perspective for me.

Duty, however, is not just about our own individual behaviors and senses. The precept of duty permeates war. I needed only to look at my roommate, the other men in my unit or those in the fighter aircraft and gunships whom we controlled during air strikes to see this precept in action. Everyone around me believed it was

H.G. “DON” MERCER, RUSTIC 41 21

their duty to save me and all others like me should the need arise.

In fact, this sense of duty was the basis for a fundamental principle we lived by during the Vietnam War. It was said in the Air Force that if a pilot or crew member were shot down, the war would come to a halt while every attempt was made to rescue that man on the ground. Thus, a commitment to duty to others prevailed in everyone with whom I served. It made doing what we had to do all the more worthwhile.

In like manner, I have often thought of those men, many of whom I never even met, who fulfilled their duty to me and those in my unit. It was the maintenance men, many only recently out of high school, who tested the engines on my plane, serviced the aircraft and prepared it for each combat mission.

It is to these maintenance men that I and those in my unit owe our lives. My fellow forward air controllers who supported the Rustic Operation flew thousands of hours in the O-2A collectively, and not once did we have an engine failure attributable to maintenance.

In fact, while there were indeed problems with the aircraft that arose on occasion, our unit never lost an aircraft due to maintenance issues. That excellent record was the result of duties fulfilled well by those men.

These are prime examples of others having taken pride in their work, and it showed with the best of all possible results: people’s lives were saved.

Duty, then, is a manifestation of a job well done— because you want to do your job and you want to do

22  THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

it right.

In combat, that is the only way to survive and help others survive as well. It is simply a matter of doing your duty.

In my job as a forward air controller, I had the gratification of witnessing many acts performed by others who selflessly, and on occasion heroically, gave of themselves when duty called. It has been of immense significance in my life to have seen others acting for the benefit of their fellow man and be willing even to give their lives if called to do so.

Don Mercer, call sign Rustic 41 over Cambodia and Vietnam, graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1969. After serving in Southeast Asia as a forward air controller (FAC) flying the O-2A, he instructed in supersonic T-38 aircraft. Following that assignment, he flew the F-105 with the Virginia Air National Guard until 1981. He went into the insurance business in 1975 and retired after a 30-year career. He is a resident of Virginia Beach, Va.

The Defining Experience of My Life By The Honorable Charles S. Robb

Not everyone who served in Vietnam wanted to be

sent to Vietnam, but I did.

Not everyone who served in Vietnam supported the war in Vietnam, but I did.

By the time I finally got to Vietnam during the Tet Offensive in 1968, I’d been requesting assignment to expeditionary duty, and then to Vietnam specifically, for most of the decade. Instead, I’d received practically every plum assignment the Marine Corps had to offer, even though I hadn’t requested any of them.

By 1968, almost all of the Marines I’d served and trained with had already been to Vietnam at least once.

Some hadn’t come home.

In the early 1960s, I was the Executive Officer of the Marine Detachment on the U.S.S. Northampton, whose then-secret mission was to provide an alternative command post for the President of the United States and his senior military advisors to be able to fight a nuclear war against the Soviet Union.

President Kennedy spent two days at sea with us, and I saw the entire Atlantic Fleet pass in review in his honor—probably the most impressive display of sea power in the 20th century. Less than six months later, we steamed up the Chesapeake Bay to wait expectantly for the president and his designated official party to helicopter out to embark with us during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.

24 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

After that assignment, I served for almost two and a half years as Aide to the Commanding General of the 2nd Marine Division before receiving orders to report to Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., the oldest and most renowned post in the Corps.

Marine Barracks 8th and Eye, as it’s known in the Corps, was home to the Commandant, the Marine Band, the Marine Drum and Bugle Corps and a select contingent of Marines who performed all of the ceremonial duties at the White House, the Pentagon, Arlington National Cemetery and Camp David, and put on the famous Friday Evening Parades at the Barracks during the summer.

I was assigned additional duty as a military social aide to the White House and as officer-in-charge of the White House Color Guard, the group that leads the president and honored foreign heads of state down the grand staircase at official state dinners.

It was the kind of duty most Marines would “die” for, and it was exhilarating beyond the telling. But I wanted to be with the Marines who were really dying in many cases, while fighting for their country half a world away in Vietnam.

My 13-month tour in Vietnam wasn’t particularly unusual or heroic. During the first part of my tour, as a captain, I served as an infantry company commander with India 3/7 in the 1st Marine Division. This was the one job I really wanted.

THE HONORABLE CHARLES S. ROBB 25

During the second part of my tour, as a major, I served as the division’s assistant plans and operations officer G-4.

The first part of my tour was, by far, the most rewarding. My company had been nicknamed “Suicide India” before I got to Vietnam, because of the number of casualties it had suffered. While I had the company, over 100 additional Marines earned the Purple Heart, about a fourth of them posthumously. It was the defining experience of my life.

Some of the men I served with have kept up with me over the years, and several have truly distinguished themselves. Others never had that chance. That’s why I go to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, “The Wall”—to see their names etched in black granite and think about what the rest of their lives might have been. I will never forget their sacrifice.

It was because of their sacrifices, and the sacrifices and wounds suffered by so many other mostly young Americans, that I became involved with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I participated in the initial groundbreaking and have spoken there at Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremonies. I have taken my wife and each of my daughters there individually, during quiet times, to reflect on the contributions of all who served.

It reminds me of the time in my life when I was part of that band of brothers.

26  THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

Charles S. Robb served in the United States Marine Corps from 1961-1970 and was stationed in Vietnam from the end of March 1968 until the end of April 1969.

He retired from the Marine Corps Reserve in 1991.

He is the former governor of Virginia and later represented that state in the U.S. Senate for two terms.

A graduate of the University of Virginia law school, Robb joined the faculty of George Mason University in 2001 as a Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy.

Answering the Call from Our Country By The Honorable John P. Murtha

The men I served with in South Vietnam from 1966-67

were disciplined, courageous and devoted. We knew what we were fighting for: the war was to stop the spread of Communism.

We were from different socioeconomic backgrounds, but we were all equal brothers-in-arms. There were college-educated guys and high school dropouts. There were draftees and volunteers. You couldn’t tell the difference, and to us, it didn’t matter. We were well trained and motivated. We did our jobs.

My one-year tour of duty in Vietnam ended in late 1967. I was proud of what the First Marine Regiment had accomplished during that year. I was proud of my contribution to that effort.

On the flight back to the States, my thoughts went back to the many heroes I had served with in Vietnam.

I especially remembered Capt. Bobby Lane. His oneyear tour of duty had ended a few months before mine, but he extended it for a month in order to take part in a large operation that had been scheduled against a Viet Cong stronghold.

Capt. Lane participated in that operation and lost both of his legs when he stepped on a land mine.

After I received a physical and a discharge, I flew back to Johnstown, Pa. My reunion with my family

28 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

was a joyous occasion.

There was some opposition to the war when I returned to the States, but it was relatively low key. In Congress, for example, only 11 votes were cast against the 1967 defense appropriations bill, which funded the war. The doves in Congress were arguing for a negotiated settlement.

While a significant percentage of the American people did eventually turn against the war, it is important to remember just how long U.S. citizens showed strong support for our effort in Vietnam.

The massive Tet Offensive by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese in February 1968 is often cited as the watershed event that caused support for the war effort to decline.

Although the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese did not win a single battle in that offensive and suffered enormous casualties, the fact that they were able to carry out such a massive effort after so many years of war and so many optimistic statements from Washing­ ton disillusioned many Americans, and public support for the war steadily eroded.

Nevertheless, in 1972, seven years after I served in Vietnam, four years after the Tet Offensive and years after the columnists began to write about a “lost cause,” Sen. George McGovern, the peace candidate for president, carried only one state and the District of Columbia.

As I look back, I realize that to a large extent, the United States conducted a war of attrition during its involvement—a most difficult strategy for a demo­cratic

THE HONORABLE JOHN P. MURTHA 29

society to carry out over such an extended time.

I don’t recall the name of the commentator who said it, but it was a perceptive observation: “The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese were looking at the calendar. We were looking at the clock.”

Congressman John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) is the ranking member and former chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, a Vietnam combat veteran and a retired Marine Corps colonel with 37 years of service.

He joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1952. After his discharge from active duty, he remained in the Marine Corps Reserves and volunteered to serve in Vietnam from 1966-67, receiving the Bronze Star with Combat “V,” two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. He remained in the Reserves until his retirement, when he was awarded the Navy Dis­ tinguished Service Medal by the Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Intentionally Blank

Respect

Intentionally Blank

Snapshots

By Thomas L. Stirling Jr.

It had been raining earlier. Random puddles littered

the 4th Division fire base west of Pleiku, not far from the Cambodian border. Those puddles would soon be replenished by the dark clouds off to the west. The rainy season had come to the Central Highlands.

I don’t recall exactly what I was doing. My intelligence officer chores with the brigade staff were done.

I might have been reading a paperback novel or writing a letter while waiting for a flight back to the division base camp.

I’d been with the 4th Division in the Highlands for several months and had made scores of helicopter flights around its area of operations. Helicopter sounds were now so commonplace as to be hardly noticeable.

I thought I’d heard all the variations.

But a new sound suddenly registered. It was different, off the scale. I could swear I actually felt it before I heard it: a deep rumble, urgent, demanding. I looked for the source, but didn’t see it. The approach­ing noise seemed louder than necessary, the “wop-wop” tighter, harder.

The Huey that soon appeared came in faster than any I had ever seen. The pilot was really driving this bird, foot to the floor. He banked it hard, his rotors almost perpendicular to the ground, then straightened out, flared like a cowboy on a horse and eased down into some open space, engine still roaring. A few men

34 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

ran toward it, but what I noticed more were those who weren’t. They were briskly but unexcitedly getting ready for tasks at hand.

I found myself moving toward the roaring helicopter.

I knew instinctively what its cargo was. I felt I had to do something, but I didn’t know what.

The memories of what followed didn’t return until about 19 years later. They were never completely out of mind, just unfocused, hidden, put away in the attic.

Then one day they unexpectedly came tumbling out.

July 4, 1986, was an exceptionally bright, warm summer day. I was alone in a cottage in Honolulu, drinking coffee and watching “Today” on NBC. After a station break, they cut to Willard Scott who was standing by at the Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Marine Corps silent drill team was in formation and set to perform. They were splendid young troops in their crisp dress uniforms. America’s finest on parade— always a moving sight.

But this time, I began to notice a counter-surge, an unexpected emotional crosscurrent. There was something about watching these parading young warriors that was bothering me. Something felt dimly wrong here, as if someone had forgotten the real reason why such young men are put in uniform and given weapons.

My stomach was going tight on me, and some longstored stuff was starting to stir in my attic.

I went into the bathroom, sat down, closed my eyes and unexpectedly clicked into a long-impacted, suddenly vivid memory. I started crying—not just

THOMAS L. STIRLING JR. 35

soft weeping, but spring-loaded, unhinged, free-fall sobbing. I was suddenly back in a faraway place. A helicopter was roaring. I was with a different group of young troops, without any bright weapons or colorful uniforms. They wore muddy, tattered, gray-green jungle fatigues. There was nothing precise about them as they came off that helicopter. Some were on stretchers. Several were carried individually. None could walk. Most were barely conscious. All of them had been recently punctured by one or more pieces of high-velocity metal.

They each had tags attached to them that had been filled out by the field medics, alerting the triagers to the not-always-obvious wounds and the doses of morphine already applied. They were pale from loss of blood.

Three of them were laid out on stretchers, just above the mud, while the helpers tried to shield them from all the stuff being blown out by the helicopter’s prop wash. One had a chaplain for a shielder, giving him last rites.

Instinctively, I had started taking pictures—just four snapshots, before a shame wave hit me. What was I doing being a recorder instead of a participant? I jammed the camera into a pocket. What could I do? “There’s gotta be something I can do,” I thought. But there really wasn’t. The medics and the docs had evidently done this before and were efficiently doing all that could be done for these men.

I remember going to one of the wounded who was sitting silently against the surgeon’s bunker. He’d taken a single round through the leg. Dazed and medicated, he’d been triaged and left to wait while the more seri-

36  THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

ously wounded were treated. I tried to converse with him, seeking elusive words of comfort and support.

Whatever it was, it came out lame and useless. He didn’t seem to want any of it. He just slumped there, holding his head in his hand, trying to wish away the pain and be somewhere else. I backed off.

And there the flashback ends. I have no knowledge of what happened to those men. The guy who was receiving last rites, did he make it? Or is his name on The Wall?

I must have flown out on another helicopter, but I have no memory of how I left that place. In a way, I never did. It took me years to realize that a part of me will always be out there at that fire base with those guys, still looking for some way to be of help.

Thomas L. Stirling Jr. was commissioned in Army Intelligence out of Cornell University ROTC in 1964 and served in Vietnam from November 1966 to August 1967 with the Special Security Detachment (SSD), attached for the most part to the 4th Division in Pleiku. He left the Army as a captain.

Stirling is currently an attorney with Stirling & Kleintop in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he is one of the leaders of an annual late-night gathering of Vietnam veterans every December 23.

Minh

By John Donovan

Vietnamese Navy Seaman Nguyen Van Minh was a

cowboy on a mission.

Officially, he was just an interpreter.

We had been on and off water taxis on the Ham Luong River all morning. These water taxis were cavernous wooden beasts packed with women, children, old people, ducks, chickens, pigs and packages.

Minh was first to hop over the gunwale and dart easily down the hold crammed with human cargo. I watched him from behind, scanning the myriad faces like a robotic computer.

In a few seconds he was in the face of a feeble, wizened old man with a flowing white beard dressed in the saffron robes of a Buddhist monk. “Te can cuoc?� Minh said softly, looking right through him.

The old man fumbled nervously in his tunic, unfolding his ID card from a dirty cloth-bundled wallet. Minh looked quickly at the picture and the papers.

Gently, yet forcefully, he took him by the arm and led him onto our boat.

This hot, steamy morning, our two olive-green U.S. Navy river patrol boats were drifting in the midst of a constant flow of sampans puttering across the milewide brown river. We were just off the entrance to the Ben Tre canal.

38 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

It was just before the first presidential elections in the south, and we were on high alert for Viet Cong (VC) ambushes, attacks and the illicit movement of supplies and people.

In the stern of the patrol boat, Minh carefully tied the old man’s hands behind his back with a scrap piece of rope.

“He VC tax collector in disguise,” Minh said. “I see his eyes. They tell me. See here.”

He pulled out some scraps of paper hidden in the folds of the dirty cloth and held them up proudly.

“These are records of his collections in Rac Ghia Village,” he laughed. “He not get much Dong from these poor people!”

He held up a fistful of small bills.

With Minh by my side to interpret, we got on the cockpit radio and called the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) Operations Center in the provincial capital of Ben Tre. Minh told them we were bringing in a suspected VC tax collector for interrogation.

As I turned back to check on our prisoner, I saw a flash of steel. Harris, one of my most dependable gunner’s mates, had his eight-inch Bowie knife pressed hard into the throat of the quaking old man. With a clenched jaw and a gritty voice, he said, “Mr. Donovan, can I kill him?”

In that instant, I realized the fire of revenge burned inside this all-American country farm boy—sparked by the recent, brutal VC ambush that had taken the lives of our commanding officer and all but one of his crew.

Before I could open my mouth, Minh flashed a big grin, sprang to the old man’s side and put his hand on Harris’s flexed arm.

JOHN DONOVAN 39

“Hey, man, he too old to bleed,” Minh said. “Why make big mess here? He not ever hurt anyone. He just get stuck in middle between VC and the government.”

I watched the knife blade slowly come away from the old man’s throat and go back into hiding in the leather sheath on Harris’s belt. Harris looked pained and embarrassed, mumbling something unintelligible as he moved away from the trembling old man.

The crew was silent, tense, waiting to see what would happen next.

Minh turned to the old man and quietly sat him down against the stern thwart. He gave him a piece of candy, then a drink of water—all with a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Suddenly, Minh turned to Harris, grabbing his own tiny pen knife out of his pocket, flicking open a tiny inch-and-a-half blade. With a big grin, he feigned an exaggerated, hilarious dueling thrust.

“Touché,” he shouted. “I see old American movie.”

With the tension now broken, I turned to the coxswain on the wheel and said, “Let’s get this guy into Ben Tre ASAP.” A curious crowd awaited us as we pulled into the dirty, crumbling concrete pier in downtown Ben Tre. The ARVN propaganda guys had ordered up a protest mob to show what happens when you go over to the VC. Minh whispered in my ear, “OK I take Harris with me to escort old man to HQ? He maybe save some face if he guard old man.”

I watched this unlikely procession move down the dirty, dusty road. Led by Minh, an M-16-carrying Har-

40  THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

ris lightly held the arm of the shuffling old man, now guarding him from the threatening crowd.

Yes, Minh did more than translate.

John Donovan served in Vietnam from 1967-68 as a patrol officer on two boats in the Mekong Delta. He took part in over 210 combat patrols and received the Bronze Star and Navy Commendation Medal.

He is the president of Donovan Associates, an organizational development firm specializing in strategic thinking and planning.

Paying Our Respects By Karen Spears Zacharias

On Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2002, Terry McGregor walked

into the lobby of the Key Bridge Marriott near Washington, D.C., and welcomed me to town.

Previously, our only contact had been e-mails. Terry lives in Los Angeles and I live in Oregon, but we both belong to Sons and Daughters in Touch (SDIT). Our fathers paid our dues to this exclusive club. Their names—Donald V. McGregor and David P. Spears— are just two of the more than 58,000 etched in black granite and embedded in the earth at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We are children of The Wall.

Terry was 6 years old when his father was killed.

Capt. Donald McGregor, 29, was a military advisor assigned to the 1st Battalion, 51st Army of the Republic of South Vietnam. He was slain by sniper fire on Aug. 13, 1963, near the village of An Hoa. He’d been in-country six weeks and was on his first mission in the field. Capt. McGregor left behind two other sons: Jerry, 9, and Charles, 3, as well as his beloved bride, Leola, 29.

Other than my own siblings, Terry was the first person I met face-to-face whose father died in Vietnam.

Meeting him was like finding a childhood pal after decades of separation. Terry and I share a history of similar sorrows because our fathers share a history as slain soldiers.

42 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

At Terry’s urging, I’d signed up with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to read my father’s name for the commemorative service of the 20th anniversary of The Wall. It takes four days to read through all the names. Since both our fathers died in the early years, we were among the first readers scheduled. Jan Scruggs, president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, introduced Terry on Thursday afternoon.

It was late Thursday night when I approached the podium. Behind me, the ground lights cast an eerie glow on The Wall’s black surface. My father’s name was almost directly behind my back. I took a deep breath and began reading the list of 30 names before me: James Kevin O’Leary, Richard Norman Payne, Thomas Frank Presby, Ronda Lee Raglin. Finally, I came to Dad’s name: “And my father—you were a hero to me long before Vietnam—David Paul Spears.”

When I walked off the stage, Terry wrapped me in a bear hug.

While we were in D.C., Terry bugged me constantly about joining Sons and Daughters in Touch on their journey to Vietnam. I knew about the trip from the SDIT newsletter, but I couldn’t imagine going. I didn’t have much of a desire to go. Most of my life, I’d harbored a deep-seated resentment against the Vietnamese.

But something happened there in D.C. on Veterans Day that totally broke me.

I was with my friend Kathy Crisp Webb, and we were talking about our fathers as we entered the east end of the memorial grounds. I looked off to my left and noticed a group of Vietnamese soldiers, dressed in tan uniforms, holding flags: an American flag and a

KAREN SPEARS ZACHARIAS 43

flag from the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam, ARVN. When I saw those Vietnamese veterans standing in honor of their comrades-in-arms, our fathers, my spirit collapsed.

I cried for the entire day. I wasn’t weeping tears of anger. I was weeping over the humility and honor of those men and for the great losses both our nations had suffered. Nothing, not even Sen. John Kerry’s tremendous speech that day, moved me nearly as much as that Vietnamese honor guard. I knew then that I would join Sons and Daughter in Touch on that journey to Vietnam.

Karen Spears Zacharias’s work has appeared in The New York Times and on National Public Radio. She is the author of After the Flag Has Been Folded, William Morrow Co., 2006, from which this story is adapted.

Visit her Web site at www.heromama.org.

Intentionally Blank

Service

Intentionally Blank

A Family Tradition By Allen K. Hoe

Over 15 years ago, I took my 12-year-old son, Nainoa,

to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. As he touched the names of 1st Lt. Fred Ransbottom, William “Skip” Skivington and 19 more from Long Range Recon Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 196th Light Infantry Brigade, he knew the story of how they came to be on this sacred wall.

On Mother’s Day 1968, at a remote Special Forces camp called Kham Duc, 17 men were claimed. They were the men of Recon Team Snoopy, my comrades.

Something stirred in my son’s soul that day connecting him to this legacy. At that moment, he knew what he would do with his life.

He dedicated himself to being the very best, earning top honors in high school JROTC and a business degree with honors at the University of Hawaii.

His path to commission began from the enlisted ranks. In the United States Forces Korea, he was chosen Soldier of the Year, the United States Army Pacific Reserve Soldier of the Year and was the runner-up for the United States Army Reserve Soldier of the Year in 2001.

Why did he start out as an enlisted man? He told me, “I need to succeed as an enlisted soldier before I can lead as an officer.”

With a pure heart like that, the stars would surely guide him in his future Army endeavors.

48 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

He returned to the University of Hawaii for his MBA, was a platoon leader with the 100th Battalion 442nd Infantry and led the University of Hawaii’s Army ROTC Cadet Corps as its command sergeant major, battalion S3 and battalion commander.

He earned a scuba badge from the U.S. Navy Diving School in Pearl Harbor and was the 4th ranking ROTC graduate in the nation when he received his gold bars on May 17, 2003. Then he was off to the Infantry Officer Basic Course (IOBC) at Ft. Benning with jump school and Ranger school in a whirlwind of time and place.

My son knew he was to be a soldier. His ancestors had been warriors for 200 years. They came to his beloved Hawaii from the four corners of the globe. His U.S. Army heritage descends from his great-grandfathers, his grandfather and me, his father, with my service with Team Snoopy of Recon 2/1 in Vietnam.

But the men were not the only warriors in the family.

It was cool that Grandma served with the Army Signal Corps in the Women’s Air Raid Defense Command in 1942, at age 17. And Grandpa’s sister earned her gold bars as a member of the first group of women officers in the WACs. Hawaiian women serving their country are a proud family legacy that continues with Nainoa’s cousin, Army Capt. Courtney Momialoha Blake Sugai, who served with the 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In early 2004, Nainoa called. “Dad, I got a platoon in Charlie Tigers of the Gimlets,” he said.

He knew their history, the 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry, 196th Light Infantry Brigade, Vietnam. To be part

ALLEN K. HOE 49

of Dad’s legacy, to serve with a unit that served with Recon 2/1 in Vietnam, was all he hoped for.

At The Wall, we remember the 339 “Gimlets” of the 3rd Battalion who gave their last full measure on the battlefields of Vietnam. On Panel 54E, Line 9, is the name of 1st Lt. Edward F. Guthrie of Idabel, Okla., who died on May 2, 1968 while leading the 2nd Platoon, C Company, 3/21 Infantry, the “Charlie Tigers,” in the battle for Nhi Ha Village near the demilitarized zone.

He was the only officer killed from Charlie Tigers while the battalion served with the 196th Light Infantry Brigade in Vietnam between 1966 and 1972.

On Jan. 22, 2005, a single American hero died in the war on terrorism. It was my precious son, 1st Lt. Nainoa Keali’ihokuhelelani Hoe. Like 1st Lt. Guthrie, he too was killed while leading the warriors of the 2nd Platoon, Charlie Tigers, on a patrol of northern Iraq in the battle for the city of Mosul.

The other platoon leaders told me that Nainoa led from the front in Mosul. No matter the mission, he would be in the first vehicle leading his men or right up front with the lead element in a dismounted patrol.

He never asked his men to do anything he would never do first himself.

Is it fate that, after 37 years, the platoon leaders of 2nd Platoon Charlie Tigers are now linked together because of their commitment to duty, honor, country and the desire to make a difference in the lives of others?

Is it also fate that, 37 years ago, in the sky above Kham Duc, a young Air Force pilot with the call sign Helix 2-1 would be on station directing air cover strikes while the men of Recon Team Snoopy tried desperately

50 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

to escape the North Vietnamese, who had overrun their positions? And that the Helix 2-1 pilot, James Gibler, would have a son, Lt. Col. Mike Gibler, who would become Gimlet 6, Nainoa’s battalion commander?

Is it fate that the sacred battle flag that protected me through the grim days of 1967 and 1968 in Vietnam would be carried by my son and his platoon the day he was killed in Iraq?

In my Hawaiian culture, the bonds that bind American soldiers form an ‘ohana—an extended family cherished and closely held.

When Nainoa and I stood at The Wall, how could we ever imagine that he also would be bound to this place?

I am comforted knowing my son has joined that esteemed group of warriors. Nainoa is now in the corps of our guardian angels, vigilant always, in the cause of freedom and liberty.

Allen K. Hoe served with the long-range Recon Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 196th Light Infantry Brigade, in Vietnam. This story is adapted from a speech he made at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Memorial Day 2005.

Providing Hope By Jon Hovde

On the morning of Jan. 8, 1968, the armored person-

nel carrier (APC) I was driving hit an antitank mine.

My outfit was the “Tomahawks,” Company A, 4th/23rd Mech. We were assigned to the 25th Infantry Division in Cu Chi, Vietnam.

Medic Leslie Cowden checked for a pulse in my left wrist and said, “Hovde’s dead.”

Seconds later, my squad leader Darrell Dyer saw me move. Cowden took my pulse in my other arm. “He’s alive,” he said.

My left arm was severed just below the elbow, but was still in my shirt sleeve.

When I woke up six days later in the 12th Evacuation Hospital, nurse Kay Layman was at my bedside explaining all my injuries.

I lost my left arm above the elbow and my left leg above the knee.

My right leg was badly broken. My right foot was crushed. I had 185 wire stitches in my right leg, and it was in a cast to the hip.

My right wrist was broken. I had lost two fingers, but they sewed the index finger back on. I had 175 wire stitches in my right arm, and it was in a cast to the shoulder.

No one could believe I was alive.

Two weeks after being wounded, I had a fever. Kay was at my bed again, saying, “Your fever has reached 108 degrees.”

52 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

They placed an ice blanket under me and over me.

My head was packed with bread bags full of ice. I wondered how I’d ever survive this ordeal.

My first thoughts were that I wanted to die.

I was just 20 years old, half my body was gone and the other half was badly broken. The pain was unbelievable.

My girlfriend surely wouldn’t want a double amputee who may never walk again, would she?

Chaplain Donald Ostroot came to my bed and read the latest letter from my girlfriend Darlene. I wouldn’t be writing this article if she had said goodbye in that letter.

Instead, Ostroot read: “Dear Jonny, I don’t care about the amputations. I love you so much. Please come home. Nothing’s changed. I still want to get married…”

I wanted to live. Nine and a half months after I got out of the hospital, Darlene and I were married in California. This summer, we’ll celebrate our 37th wedding anniversary.

Chaplain Ostroot spent a lot of time with me in the hospital. He visited three times a day. He read letters and fed me.

He planted positive thoughts in my head at a time when I needed them most. I remember him saying, “I’m going to look you up in 10 years. You’re going to be successful and have a family.”

Ostroot wrote to my parents. “You have a wonderful boy in whom you can be very proud, and I have a feeling that his life and faith will turn out to be a blessing to many people for years to come.”

JON HOVDE 53

Another chaplain, J.E. Vessels, was with me when they first brought me into the emergency room.

He wrote to my parents: “I have spent many hours with him to keep his mind on the right thoughts, and he has responded with genuine interest and cooper­a­tion.

God bless you both in your ordeal. I will do my best to take your place with him.”

Nurse Kay never gave up on me. She was strong in her faith and an outstanding nurse.

The night before I left Vietnam, I heard explosions.

It was a mortar attack. Shrapnel sprayed the tin roof of our intensive care ward.

Kay and another nurse were taking guys out of their beds and putting them underneath, thinking the mattress would protect them from shrapnel.

When they arrived at my bed, I said, “Please don’t move me. The pain is too great, and the mattress will not save me.”

Kay took off her flak jacket and put it around my chest to protect me. Then she continued moving guys under their beds without her flak jacket.

In 2004, Kay was flown to North Dakota by the Fargo Air Museum for its annual Vietnam Week. She wanted to hear me speak to students. I wanted to find some way to thank her for all she did for me in Vietnam.

In front of 400 students at Moorhead High School, I presented Nurse Kay Layman with my Purple Heart.

She earned it.

It was my way of saying “Thank you” to Kay and all the nurses who served in Vietnam. It was also a way to say “Thank you” on behalf of the guys she helped who died in that intensive care ward.

54 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

Pfc. Jon Hovde served in Vietnam from October 1967 to February 1968. He is retired from the 3M Company and is a former president of the Minnesota School Boards Association. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2003 from Minnesota State Uni­ver­ s­ity at Moorhead.

Hovde wrote about his experiences in his book Left For Dead, A Second Life After Vietnam, co-authored with Maureen Anderson (University of Minnesota Press, 2005). Hovde is a national motivational speaker.

For more information, visit: www.jonhovde.com.

Living Up to the Legacy By Gen. Peter Pace, USMC

There are several hundred thousand members of the

U.S. armed forces in the Gulf region right now. And although they probably do not wake up every day thinking about their oath, I would like to remind us all of the oath that every service member takes and consider what it is all about.

It is a little bit different for officers and enlisted, but essentially it is the same. It says: “I (and the service member’s name) do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office of which I’m about to enter, so help me God.” I’ll guarantee you that all of our servicemen and women are not waking up every day thinking about that. But, when they have a free moment and start thinking about their service to their country, they will remember that oath.

Today, many of our servicemen and women are in combat. Those who have been in combat know a couple of very basic truths.

One truth is that there is fear on the battlefield.

56 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

Another truth is that those of us who have inherited this incredible legacy from our predecessors fear more that somehow we would let them down or that we would let the soldier or Marine on our left or right down.

And the fear of letting our predecessors down, of letting our fellow service members down and of letting our country down overcomes the physical fear of personal danger.

American servicemen and women will do what American servicemen and women have always done: stand up and be counted and get the job done.

I know with great certainty that I can promise for every single member of the U.S. armed forces today that we value the legacy we received from the veterans who have come before us.

We cherish the freedoms of this country. We will fight for this country until the very last man or woman.

And, it will not happen, but in case somebody were able to get through the 2.4 million men and women serving in America’s armed forces, there are 25 million living veterans in this country who are ready to strap it back on if it were necessary.

It is an absolute honor to represent the 2.4 million American men and women serving on active duty and in the National Guard and Reserves. We would like to say “thank you” to the millions of veterans across the United States today.

We are so proud to inherit your legacy. Your sacrifices and those who came before you have made this country what it is.

God bless every single one of you and this incredible

GEN. PETER PACE, USMC  57

nation that we call home.

Gen. Peter Pace is the first Marine to be named chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a 1967 graduate of the United States Naval Academy. In 1968, he was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division in Vietnam, serving first as a rifle platoon leader and subsequently as assistant operations officer.

He has held command at virtually every level and had assignments all over the world. Pace has been decorated many times in the course of his nearly 30 years in the Marine Corps.

This story is excerpted from a speech he made at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial during the Veterans Day 2005 ceremony.

Preserving the Legacy of Service By Richard K. Kolb

Today, only 1 percent of Americans defend the remain-

ing 99 percent of us.

We no longer adhere to the tradition maintained between 1917 and 1973 that obligated males to serve as a condition of citizenship. Society has lost something genuinely meaningful in this once-shared sense of collective duty.

Yet, for some families, that military service persists.

My personal experience is reflective—and I might add, typical—of many in a certain sector of society.

For those of us who grew up in the lower-middle or working class, it was never a question of if we would serve, but only when. Despite all that has been written and said about draft evasion and avoidance during the Vietnam War, there was no shortage of Americans who stubbornly stuck to tradition.

Some 3.4 million Americans served in the Southeast Asia theater during the Vietnam War. Another 4.6 million fulfilled their obligation on active duty elsewhere in the world. The names of the more than 58,000 who sacrificed all for their deeply held convictions are honored today on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

I am willing to bet that most of them came from families similar to mine. I had at least one ancestor who fought in the Union Army during the Civil War. One of my grandfathers served in the U.S. Army Tank Corps during World War I. My father and all four of my

RICHARD K. KOLB 59

uncles wore a uniform in World War II. My namesake uncle was killed in action in Germany at the age of 19.

From the time I can remember, I placed American flags at his gravesite every Memorial Day. A cousin of mine did his time in Korea from 1953-54.

So when my time came, I volunteered for two years.

It was hardly an exceptional act—it was simply what was expected and what had been done by millions of Americans before me. After my year in Vietnam, I re-entered civilian life like my fellow Vietnam-era veterans.

The vast majority of us went on to marry and have our own families. When it came time for our sons— and daughters nowadays—to confront critical choices such as serving in wartime, a good number opted to wear the uniform.

Why? Military service has been voluntary for more than 30 years. My theory is that, almost by osmosis, this tradition has been passed down to the present generation.

With my sons, I never harped on joining the armed forces. Yet two of them willingly joined the Marine Corps for four years. One is still on active duty today.

Most of my closest friends and associates are Vietnam veterans. Perhaps merely being in their presence rubbed off on my sons. They followed in the footsteps of those who led by example, not hollow rhetoric.

One often hears of the so-called “Vietnam Gen­ eration” and its legacies. Just maybe this is our legacy, a legacy of service. Though those who served in the war zone equaled only 8 percent of draft-eligible males,

60 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

they passed on a lingering sense of duty that serves the nation well in times of need.

Yet, that legacy must also be publicly visible. That is the role of memorials.

“War memorials not only evoke war history,” historian James M. Mayo wrote, “but, more im­portantly, they evoke the history that people want to remember.”

Enter the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. It, for the first time in U.S. history, successfully separated the war from the warrior. Moreover, it proved the absolute necessity of bearing names. Using the names of those who are being remembered gives a memorial its drawing power. It is the only way to memorialize the nobility of personal sacrifice and convey the scale of those sacrifices.

Likewise, museums possess the same potential power. When the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center becomes a reality, it must achieve the identical purpose of The Wall. Yale historian Robin Winks summed it up best: “Almost always, a monument is an attempt to interpret an event in which those who have erected it take pride.”

Indeed, pride in service says it all. And that is a legacy worth preserving.

Richard K. Kolb has been editor-in-chief and publisher of VFW Magazine for 17 years. He has written extensively on military history, including writing and editing six books. He served with the 4th Infantry and 101st Airborne Divisions in Vietnam from 1970-71.

Honor

Intentionally Blank

When Doing the Right Thing Is Not the Easy Path By Jan C. Scruggs

On March 16, 1968, Army helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson flew over the small village of My Lai. He looked in disbelief as he witnessed U.S. troops seemingly gone mad.

The troops were burning the village and firing their rifles at unarmed Vietnamese civilians cowering for cover and begging for mercy.

Men of Charlie Company of the Americal Division were out of control. Their leaders, platoon lieutenants and a captain, were leading them into a day of infamy.

As many as 500 civilians were killed by grenades and automatic weapons fired at close range. The soldiers had suffered many casualties nearby in recent months and were taking revenge, in violation of the law and the Geneva Convention.

During a 1998 interview, Thompson told Associated Press reporter Leslie Zganjar: “We wanted to find something that would point the blame to the enemy, but it just didn’t work. It all added up to something we just didn’t want to believe.”

Thompson yelled from his helicopter, demanding that the massacre stop. The last straw, as he related the story later to Zganjar, was when he saw American soldiers approaching a group of villagers crowded into a hut. The group included an old woman holding

64 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

a baby, with another child clutching her leg.

“These people were looking at me for help, and there was no way I could turn my back on them,” Thompson recalled.

So, he landed his helicopter in front of the advancing troops and instructed his crew to open fire on the U.S. soldiers if they harmed the civilians.

Then, he radioed to two gun ships behind him, and together they airlifted nearly a dozen villagers to safety.

Turning on fellow U.S. soldiers was not an easy decision, but it was the right one. Thompson risked his life in a successful effort to save a group of civilians and try to stop the killing.

Afterward, he reported the killings to his superior officers. “They said I was screaming quite loud,” he told U.S. News & World Report in 2004. “I threatened never to fly again. I didn’t want to be a part of that.”

Not all soldiers with Charlie Company took part in the killing of innocent civilians. Some refused to fire their weapons.

However, the carnage would not have occurred if the officers of Charlie Company had not taken part in and indeed led the killing of the civilians.

Few in the unit involved wanted the details of the massacre brought to light. But a former soldier, Ron Ridenour, continued to press for a full investigation.

Journalist Seymour Hersh began investigative work that revealed to the American public what happened at My Lai. He uncovered the details of how a group of angry and poorly led soldiers brought about a bloodbath in a rural, isolated Vietnamese village.

A trial was eventually held. A conviction was ob-

JAN C. SCRUGGS 65

tained for Lt. William Calley, but his sentence was later reduced by President Richard Nixon.

The My Lai massacre further eroded dwindling American public support for the war.

Hugh Thompson remained in combat after the My Lai massacre, then returned to the United States to train helicopter pilots. When the incident came to light, Thompson willingly testified about what he saw that day.

The thanks he got for his heroism was telephone death threats and dead animals left on his porch. He recalled later that it seemed when he came home, many saw him as the bad guy.

After he retired from his military career, Thompson worked as a veterans’ counselor in Louisiana. He gave lectures from time to time, including one at the U.S. Naval Academy. He died of cancer at age 62 in January 2006.

In the words of John Steinbeck, “A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean question: Was it good, or was it evil? Have I done well or ill?”

Hugh Thompson never had to ponder this question.

He lived a principled life.

When others took part in evil deeds, he showed extraordinary integrity. Through his example, he helped bring the ignoble and indefensible activity to an end.

He was awarded the Soldiers Medal from the U.S. Army in 1998 for his actions on one of the darkest days of U.S. military history.

As he told the Associated Press in 2004: “Don’t do the right thing looking for a reward, because it might

66 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

not come.”

Jan C. Scruggs is the founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. He served in Vietnam with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade of the U.S. Army.

Remembering Sid By Jack McLean

I’m listening to “God Only Knows” by the Beach

Boys. It’s a magnificent spring day. The song reminds me of my friend Sidney B. MacLeod Jr. In May 1967, we were stationed together in Barstow, Calif. Vietnam, still a country, was rapidly becoming a war. We would go to the slop chute—the enlisted men’s club—every payday after work for a beer. Sid would put “God Only Knows” on the jukebox endlessly. We’d order another round and wonder what might become of our lives.

I was 19. Sid was 20.

Sid had grown up in McLean, Va. He dropped out of college and, like many of our fellow Marines, was looking for action. We had 15 months left in the Marine Corps. Sid wanted to go to Vietnam.

I was content to remain in Barstow, working in the supply warehouse, sitting by the pool during free time and enduring the odd inspection initiated by a new gung-ho sergeant taking out on us his frustration at not being where the fighting was.

We’d been together since Parris Island—nearly a year. Sid was six feet tall with bright blond hair in a buzz cut. If you were looking for a Marine out of central casting, it would have been Sid. Then again, if you were looking for a more unlikely candidate than I to be in the Marines, it would have been Sid as well: intelligent, sensitive, funny as hell,

68 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

controlled, patient, intolerant of nonsense and, well, he just loved the song “God Only Knows.”

One year later, Sid was gone—killed in action at Khe Sahn, Vietnam. I was a few miles away, celebrating my 21st birthday on the demilitarized zone (DMZ), a brief week before my own unit was overrun. I was filled with horror when the news arrived by way of a returned letter stamped “K.I.A.” Despite our own staggering losses at the time, Sidney’s death shook me to the marrow.

It is now more than 35 years since Sid and I last sat in the slop chute. Over time, his memory has come to represent to me all that is honorable about service and all that is mind numbing about combat death.

Like so many millions of others throughout our history, Sid understood the honor of his duty to serve the country he loved.

Cpl. Sidney B. MacLeod Jr. USMC 8/31/46-5/9/68 Panel 57E, Line 28 Jack McLean is the vice president for external relations at Youth for Tomorrow in Bristow, Va. During the Vietnam War, he was a rifleman in the infantry and served with Northern I CORPS on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in 1967-68. He was the first Vietnam veteran accepted to Harvard University.

Integrity

Intentionally Blank

My Honorable Medics By Steven J. Phillips, M.D.

The 1968 Tet Offensive devastated the Imperial City

of Hue, including the Hue Central Hospital.

From September 1968 through April 1969, I was privileged to be the captain of a medical platoon attached to the 101st Airborne Division, based at Camp Eagle, Phu Bai, Republic of Vietnam.

My medics and I experienced a series of unexpected dangerous encounters while treating civilians through the Army’s Medical Civic Action Program (MEDCAP).

During the fall of 1968, while on MEDCAP missions in I CORPS, our medical team was repeatedly sniped at and ambushed twice.

On one occasion, we were stranded overnight when our chopper was unable to pick us up due to enemy activity. Though we had just completed a MEDCAP, the locals would not allow us to remain protected in their village.

Four medics and I spent the night avoiding Viet Cong (VC) patrols and had to cross multiple free-fire zones to reach the safety of a Special Forces camp.

A few days following that episode, I was asked by our S2 (intelligence officer) to undertake a voluntary mission involving the care of Vietnamese civilians in Hue City. The civilian authorities in Hue requested an Army medical team to treat civilians and help reopen the Hue Central Hospital.

72  THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

The S2 indicated that this was a local Civil Action Program project and emphasized that our role would be voluntary.

If we agreed to volunteer, we would pretty much be on our own. We would have to scrounge all of the medical supplies, eat and billet when necessary at the CIA villa and provide our own security.

I told the S2 that I wanted my medics to have a say in the decision. I told him they were angry with the MEDCAP civilians for not warning us of the dangers they knew we faced in our previous mission and would be reluctant to accept another civilian mission.

He asked me to try to convince them.

In order to allow my medics to make an informed decision, we drove into Hue to visit the hospital. When the medics viewed the mass of needy patients awaiting care, they immediately and enthusiastically agreed to volunteer.

Over the next few months, we treated a multitude of patients and performed many operations. When a medical problem was encountered that exceeded our local capabilities, American ingenuity and resolve to care for the patient took command. The medics somehow bypassed the bureaucracy and were able to transfer these Vietnamese patients to a U.S. military hospital.

We bonded with the returning Vietnamese doctors and nurses over time. The act of treating grateful patients erased the memories of those bad MEDCAP experiences.

The repeated acts of compassion and dedication to duty, under adverse and often dangerous conditions, exemplify the inherent values of integrity and dedica-

STEVEN J. PHILLIPS, M.D.  73

tion of these young American medics. I am proud to have served with them.

Dr. Steven J. Phillips was on active duty from 1968-70 and remained a reserve officer in the U.S. Army until his retirement as a lieutenant colonel in 1993. He served with the 101st Airborne Division and the 27th Surgical Hospital in Vietnam from 1968-69. He returned to Vietnam from 1969-70 with a research team to study the effects of altitude on the wounded being flown from Vietnam to the Philippines and Japan.

Phillips is a graduate of Tufts Medical School and is board certified in both general and thoracic surgery.

He is the founder of the Iowa Heart Center, where he practiced cardiac surgery for more than a quarter of a century.

He is a life member of the 101st Airborne Association and an invited associate life member of the UDT/ SEAL Association. He received the Governor of Iowa Science Medal for his scientific efforts in 1987.

Answering the Call By Peter S. Prichard

In the spring of 1967, I was 22 years old, teaching Eng-

lish to high school seniors in western Massa­chusetts.

I had no desire to teach school. I was teaching because, under the arcane rules of the Selective Service System at the time, I could escape the draft.

I walked out to my mailbox in Amherst, Mass., on a fine spring day and found two letters.

The first was from the Peace Corps accepting me as a volunteer and offering me a position teaching English on a small island in the Pacific. Visions of grass skirts danced in my head.

The second letter was from Gen. Lewis B. Hershey.

He wrote: “Greetings, you are to report to an induction center in Hartford, Conn. You have been drafted.”

Unsure of what to do, I called the Peace Corps and explained my dilemma. The woman in Washington, D.C., was very nice, but firm. She said, “The Defense Department takes precedence in these cases.”

So, despite my fears for my own safety and deep ambivalence about the cause, I reported for duty. I was one of the few Ivy League graduates to be drafted.

I served 13 and a half months in Vietnam, most of it in a small town called Sadec in the Mekong Delta.

I was not shot at very much, but I gained a lifelong

PETER S. PRICHARD 75

respect for the courage and competence of the American soldier, no matter how controversial the cause or how dirty and dangerous the duty.

Although over time, I grew to oppose the war and later publicly questioned the wisdom of our com­ mitment, I learned the value of service to one’s country, even in the most unpopular of wars.

Twelve years after I returned, I was a young editor at a start-up newspaper called USA Today. It was Veterans Day 1982, and there was going to be a parade of Vietnam veterans marching down Constitution Avenue to dedicate Washington’s newest memorial, that long black wall that had been so controversial to build.

When the Minnesota contingent came marching by on Constitution Avenue, it was led by a high school friend of mine who had been wounded with the 25th Division. He was pushing his buddy in a wheelchair; they both had been blown up when their armored personnel carrier had been hit by rocket-propelled grenades.

I jumped off the curb and joined the parade, swept up in the joy and gratitude of all of the veterans.

We had fought and served and suffered in the most unpopular war in American history. More than 58,000 of us had died. We finally felt that our service to our country was beginning to be recognized.

Peter S. Prichard is the president of the Freedom Forum and the Newseum in Washington, D.C. He was the editor-in-chief of USA Today from 1988-1994. He

76  THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

served in Army intelligence in Vietnam from 1968-1969 and was awarded the Bronze Star.

This story is adapted from testimony he gave before Congress in 2003 in support of a bill authorizing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center. It passed later that year.

Courage

Intentionally Blank

Welcome to Vietnam By Patrick C. Kelly

We arrived in-country on Jan. 15, 1968. After clear-

ing Long Bien, we were transferred to Camp Davies in Saigon.

When we arrived there, the quartermaster was closed, so we were without weapons or ammunition. We were taken to an area to sleep and told we would be attended to in the morning.

Things sometimes don’t work out the way you plan.

We had a welcoming party that evening: the camp was attacked by Viet Cong (VC). Since we had no weapons, we were told to hit the bunkers and stay there until the Marines arrived.

Once the Marines arrived and the mortars stopped flying, we were ordered down to the docks to load up on a Thailand ship known as an LST. By daybreak, we were headed down the Saigon River toward the China Sea. For two weeks, we slept, played cards, read and, overall, stayed bored and depressed. The food was pure gourmet sea rations. Wondering what was in store for us and having no knowledge of where we where headed, we were hot, smelly and scared.

Finally, on Jan. 31, we arrived in Da Nang. As we made our way to what is today the Furama Beach Resort (a five-star establishment), we saw a beautiful white sandy beach, where we were to settle for the next year and build a world-class depot to serve the Army in the Northern I Corp of Vietnam.

80 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

We went to work that afternoon setting up our twoman tents on the beach, our mess tent, administration tents and, most importantly, our latrines.

That night of Jan. 31 was my birthday. Guess who decided to attend my birthday party? That’s right—the Viet Cong.

We later found out the Tet Offensive was under way, and we were the new target in Da Nang.

At 7 p.m., we were enjoying our gourmet sea rations when the captain called us to order. There were expectations of a pending attack on us that evening.

The captain asked if anyone was qualified on the M-50 machine gun. No one was, but he saw me—the ranking NCO—so he handed me the procedural manual and said, “Learn quickly.”

As two privates and I marched out to the perimeter to set up our nest, one commented on how exciting it was going to be to man a machine gun.

I informed him we would probably be the first casualties of the fight, for the mortars have a tendency to land on machine guns first. His enthusiasm waned somewhat at that point.

We dug in deep and got ready for the battle. We could hear gunfire and mortar attacks all night at nearby Marble Mountain. We watched Huey heli­copters flying and firing into the mountain.

But, for some strange reason, we were never attacked.

Thirty years later, I found out why we were never attacked that night of the Tet Offensive. It seems a certain Marine captain and his company of men captured a VC earlier and found the plans of the pending attack.

They were lying in ambush on the railway tracks.

PATRICK C. KELLY  81

The fighting we had heard all night was the Marines finishing the job at hand.

That Marine captain went on to become the founder and CEO of Federal Express.

Thank you, Fred Smith.

Patrick C. Kelly served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam from 1968-69. He is the co-founder and former chairman and CEO of PSS/World Medical Inc., in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. He is also a member of the Corporate Council of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.

Above and Beyond the Call of Duty By Robert Gouge

When Charlie Company of the 5-12th Infantry, 199th

Light Infantry Brigade, began humping toward Hill 428 in Cambodia on the morning of May 21, 1970, they had already been out in the thick, hostile jungle for well over a week. The grunts were tired, sore, hot and homesick.

The point squad was paralleling a high-speed trail that was going in the same direction as their route of march. Word filtered back that they could not go forward another step. The jungle was too thick. The command came down to get on the trail.

Charlie Company walked into a near-perfect Ushaped ambush at the base of Hill 428. The warriors were outnumbered and outgunned from the very start.

Sgt. Warren L. Scanlon, 21, and Spc. 4 Donald G. Busse, 20, were immediately killed in the first few seconds of the ambush. Sixteen other soldiers were seriously wounded within minutes.

Despite the noise, bullets and shrapnel exploding and hissing around him, Capt. David Thursam, who had been in command of Charlie Company since February, formed what was left of the company into a loose perimeter several meters back from the kill zone, while the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) tried to surround and outflank them.

Once together inside the perimeter, those members of Charlie Company who were not wounded or still in

ROBERT GOUGE 83

a state of shock from the enemy fusillade began pumping out return fire. It was enough to keep the NVA at bay for the time being.

Inside the embattled perimeter, Thursam was in contact with the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) back at Fire Support Base (FSB) Brown, urgently requesting a medevac and air and artillery strikes. The company was still pinned down, not knowing if the NVA were going to overrun them with one massive attack.

After three attempts, the first two being unsuccessful because of heavy ground fire, a medevac was able to lift out three fortunate soldiers who were seriously wounded. It was to be the last attempt made to get the injured soldiers out for the next 16 hours.

Thursam, still in contact with the TOC, requested an immediate resupply of ammunition, first aid supplies, bandages and smoke grenades.

Back at FSB Brown, WO1 Robert E. Gorske of the 199th’s Fireball Aviation heard Thursam’s call for help and im­mediately cranked up his UH-1 Huey helicopter.

In-country since February, Gorske, along with Sgt. Roger Lowery, who had 50 days to go in-country when he went to Cambodia with the 5-12th Infantry, crammed what boxes of ammunition and grenades they could into the aircraft and buzzed off into the fray. The crew chief/gunner on Gorske’s helicopter refused to go with them.

In seconds, Gorske and Lowery were hovering over Charlie Company’s position, requesting that they “pop smoke”—set off a smoke grenade—so they could identify their position and get on with the drop.

84 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

According to Lowery, “When we were over their general location, purple smoke started drifting upward through the canopy. As we were looking at this location, another clump of purple smoke started to rise to our left in another part of the contact area. The NVA, watching what was going on, popped their own smoke.

I was not sure that we were over the right area until a pitiful looking American soldier appeared in the middle of the rotor wash below.”

With that sight, Lowery ferociously began unloading the desperately needed supplies as fast as he could.

AK-47 rounds were now punching half-dollar-sized holes through the aircraft, passing mere inches from Lowery‘s face. Gorske scooted back to Brown for, unbelievably, another resupply of ammunition and grenades.

After quickly shoving more ammo and supplies into the helicopter, they were back over the raging firefight within minutes.

Despite the contact area still being too “hot,” Gorske hovered over the perimeter while Lowery once again frantically kicked out the supplies. On the second drop, they took more incoming rounds. Still airborne despite more than 50 bullet holes punching through, the helicopter limped and sputtered back to the landing zone (LZ) at Brown.

As Gorske exited his machine, Col. Carter Clarke, the commanding officer of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, landed in his own helicopter to monitor the situation on Hill 428.

Gorske approached Clarke’s light observation helicopter or “Loach” and recognized WO1 Patrick F.

ROBERT GOUGE  85

Cawley of the 1-9th Cavalry. The two had gone to flight school together at Ft. Rucker, Ala. Gorske talked Cawley into going with him for a third resupply attempt, and the two pilots prepared the bird for takeoff while Sgt. John W. Rich, Charlie Company’s supply NCO, left his post at the firebase and boarded the aircraft to fly back with Gorske and Cawley. Shortly after landing at Brown after the second drop, Lowery was ordered not to go back over the contact area for another attempt.

John W. Rich, 21, had already spent the past 11 months in the field as an infantryman with Charlie Company. He had three weeks to go in-country before ending his tour of duty and going home.

For the third and final act, Gorske buzzed over the treetops and hovered over the same place in the jungle that he had two times before. The grunts and artillerymen back on Brown stood up on the berm, and those with binoculars watched intensely to see if Gorske would cheat death once again. The North Vietnamese, however, were waiting.

The small but rapid-moving reconnaissance helicopter reached the hole in the canopy and again came to a hover.

It was there for no longer than five seconds when it was nearly blown apart by the force of hundreds of enemy rounds, stitching the helicopter from one side to the other. The Plexiglas shattered with tremendous force, and other parts of the body were ripped away from the fuselage.

The grunts on the ground stared in awe as the helicopter dipped and the engine momentarily stalled, then restarted, gained a little bit of altitude and, like a

86 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

smoking, wounded bird spiraling out of control, flew back towards FSB Brown.

With 500 meters left to make it back to Brown, the tail boom on the Loach suddenly tore off, causing the craft to immediately nose-dive into the trees. There was a small explosion, followed by thick, black smoke curling upward through the jungle canopy.

Capt. George Lodoen, the commanding officer of Echo Company, took one of his sniper teams on a rescue mission and had the grim task of identifying the bodies and collecting their remains. While the snipers and attached infantrymen provided security, the two medics stoically began picking up the remains of the crew, gently placing them in body bags. Two of the bodies, burned beyond recognition, were still strapped in their harnesses.

“We returned to FSB Brown with the bodies that evening,” recalled Spec. 4 John Wensdofer, who was part of the rescue team. “It was May 22, my friend John Rich’s birthday. He was to be 22 years old.”

Robert Gouge is a history teacher in Asheville, N.C. His father, Jack Gouge, was with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade Redcatchers from 1969-1970. This story is excerpted from Gouge’s book Raiding the Sanctuary, which will be published later this year.

Saved by Doc Lefty By John Neely

Roger Brathwaite joined D Company, 1/327th In-

fantry, 101st Airborne Division, at the very end of 1968. He should have had trouble fitting in: his family had emigrated from the West Indies to the Bronx, where he was a member of a Pentecostal church and was an accomplished concert pianist. And, he was a conscientious objector—a first for that battle-scarred battalion.

But, fit in he did. When he decided to learn to shoot in case he needed to protect his patients, the story appeared in Stars and Stripes under the title, “Doc Lefty Keeps An Unwanted Rifle.”

When the battalion went into the A Shau Valley in July 1969, Lefty was close to the time when a medic could hope to be reassigned from the field to the rear.

David Shade described Lefty’s actions: “I was RTO [radio-telephone operator] for 3rd Platoon. On July 15, D Company came under heavy fire.

I was pinned down behind a fallen log by machine-gun fire. I was trying to call in helicopter gunship support when a Chicom grenade wounded me. I rolled behind a large tree for cover. With me was another trooper, also wounded by the same grenade. We both had numerous fragmentation wounds to our faces and extremities.

“I rolled out to retrieve my rifle and get back to the cover of the tree. As I was looking back, I saw our regular medic taking cover behind a tree some 15

88 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

yards up the hill. Then I watched as a black medic began to run down the hill, 30 to 40 yards through a hail of machine-gun bullets and exploding grenades, to come to our aid.

“The vision has been burned into my mind for 34 years and is as clear today as if it happened yesterday.

I can only describe it as something you see in the war movies that you think is impossible. This black medic that I didn’t know from Adam risked his life for a complete stranger. He laid me on the ground and bandaged my wounds and gave me an injection of morphine for the pain, then turned his attention to the other guy.

“I continued to fire for some 10 minutes, until my M-16 jammed due to damage from shrapnel. With my radio damaged and my rifle jammed, I decided to make my way up to the extraction area at the top of the hill.

“There, I was waiting for a dust-off when an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] tore off my left arm and inflicted other serious injuries. If Roger Brathwaite had not risked his own life to come give me that injection of morphine, I would have bled out on the spot. That morphine injection had slowed my system down so much that it gave me the time I needed to be medevaced.

“For 34 years, I thought that some day I would find this man and thank him in person.”

Unfortunately, that is not possible. Lefty stayed in the A Shau after medevacing the casualties. He died the next day.

John Neely served in Vietnam with the 1st Battalion/327th

JOHN NEELY  89

Infantry, 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, entirely in the Thua Thien Province, which includes the city of Hue and the A Shau Valley. He was initially a rifleman in Company C, but after recovering from wounds received during an earlier foray, he became the battalion public information officer (PIO). He wrote about Roger Brathwaite for Stars and Stripes.

Neely left the Army as a sergeant in 1969 and enrolled in law school. He and his wife live and work in Salem, Mass. They have three grown children.

The Battle of An Loc By James Beaubien III

Courage can be defined in many different ways. One

of the most basic definitions is “absence of fear.” Others that come to mind are: valor, gallantry, bravery, intrepidity and defiance of danger.

This is an eyewitness account of courage in combat.

About halfway through my one-year combat tour of duty in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) launched the Easter/Spring Offensive of 1972. This major invasion caught allied forces off guard and was, initially, overwhelmingly successful.

The NVA had launched a classic three-pronged attack across South Vietnam. The southernmost prong of the invasion targeted the provincial capital at An Loc, 55 miles north of Saigon. The overall objective was to take the city at any cost and establish it as the NVA’s new capital of the South. As a result, the battle for, and ensuing siege of, An Loc became a monu­mental life-and-death struggle, with both sides suffering staggering losses.

In an effort to defeat the NVA forces surrounding An Loc, a massive air campaign was initiated. It was during this campaign, as an Air Force pilot flying Forward Air Controller (FAC) missions, that I witnessed countless acts of courage and heroism on the part of U.S. air crews and the besieged defenders of An Loc on a daily basis. These courageous acts became almost routine as

JAMES BEAUBIEN III  91

we waged a war for the very survival of South Vietnam during the late spring and early summer of 1972.

I witnessed pilots and air crews brave the most intense and sophisticated anti-aircraft environment ever massed in South Vietnam. I observed the small garrison of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and their U.S. Army advisors defend their ever-decreasing perimeter at An Loc with tenacity and unbelievable courage.

It was in this atmosphere that I flew my most memorable combat mission while in Vietnam, on June 6, 1972.

That day, I departed Tan Son Nhut Airbase late in the afternoon and almost immediately encountered weather conditions that nearly forced me to abort the mission. Adjacent thunderstorms hung low with rain showers, light turbulence and poor visibility. Pilot reports from An Loc indicated that the entire area surrounding the besieged capital was unworkable for close air support.

During climb-out, my primary navigational aid, TACAN, which stands for Tactical Air Navigation, and DME, short for Distance Measuring Equipment, became unreliable and then totally inoperative. I elected to continue toward An Loc relying solely on my automatic direction finder (ADF) for bearing and on flying experience to make the time and distance calculations necessary.

Once over An Loc, I established radio contact with my assigned ground commander/advisor and was briefed on the tactical situation below. I was informed that things were quiet, and no tactical air support had been possible for several hours.

92  THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

After I had orbited for about 10 minutes, radio silence was broken with several urgent calls for assistance from Lt. Col. Edward Stein, senior advisor to the ARVN 21st Division. He and the 12-man ARVN command staff of the 33rd Regiment, 21st Division, had become detached from their infantry units. They had been ambushed in the rubber plantation on the west side of Highway 13 and were pinned down by intense enemy fire, while their main fighting elements were engaged in heavy fighting on the east side. They were unable to redeploy or reinforce their position due to the intensity of the ambush and the overwhelming size of the enemy forces.

Lt. Col. Stein was in desperate need of close air support. I radioed our Direct Air Support Center and requested all available A-37 and A-1E fighter aircraft be alerted for immediate scramble if the foul weather permitted their utilization. Then I began to descend through the weather to establish the base of the overcast and determine whether I would be able to direct close air support in that airspace.

Fortunately, when I broke out of the weather, I was about 2,700 feet above the ground—barely within the minimum required for the A-37s to provide crucial close air support. Within minutes, several sets of A-37s arrived in the target area ready to pound the enemy. I directed pass after pass, using hard bombs, napalm, cluster bomb units and high explosive rockets to inflict heavy casualties on the enemy, forcing them to disengage. Lt. Col. Stein repeatedly warned me that we were taking heavy ground fire from several .51-caliber machine guns southwest of the ambush

JAMES BEAUBIEN III  93

site. Periodically, he reported that I was also taking light arms fire during my rocket attacks to mark the targets for the A-37s.

Ultimately, the NVA forces that had sprung the ambush were crushed and forced to flee, suffering heavy losses. Lt. Col. Stein and his ARVN troops were saved and successfully reunited with their supporting infantry units. The selfless acts of courage I saw that day, I will never forget.

Ironically, what concerned me the most that day was not my personal safety, but what consequences I might have to face for descending well below our established minimum altitude at An Loc. Fortunately, I was not reprimanded, but instead, I was decorated for my actions.

On June 6, 1972, I did what needed to be done and decided to face the consequences later. Was there an absence of fear? No, absolutely not. But that day, everyone involved with that mission displayed valor, gallantry, bravery, intrepidity and most certainly defied danger.

Jim Beaubien served in Vietnam from October 1971 to October 1972. He flew 167 unarmed combat missions in the O-2A as a Forward Air Controller (FAC) supporting ground forces in Military Regions II and III. He graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1970 as an Air Force ROTC Dis­tinguished Military Graduate and served as a pilot for seven years, leaving the Air Force as a captain. Afterward, he flew for Delta Airlines for 25 years. He is currently retired and lives in Dallas, Texas.

Road Trips

By Thomas L. Stirling Jr.

What was “special” about the Special Security De-

tachment (SDD) was the information we had. Besides handling the Army’s most sensitive com­munications, we were tasked with being an all-source font for the commanders we supported.

We were expected to know what was going on, not just in our supported unit’s area of operations, but all over Vietnam and Southeast Asia and in any other area that might be of interest to our clients—or we had to be able to find out fast.

As the war expanded, SSD expanded with it, with separate detachments established at each division and higher headquarters. In order to be at least somewhat knowledgeable, SSD personnel—especially the officers—were expected to get around the country, visit the detachments supporting other units and learn what we could from each other. Such cross-training and bond-building meant frequent road trips.

During the first six weeks of my tour at SSD’s Saigon headquarters, I got my first such trip. An easy helicopter ride out to the 25th Division in Cu Chi. What I remember most was watching Air Force fighter bombers conducting air strikes close to the base camp and noticing that the troops hardly looked up, as if such bombings were just a normal part of the day.

Later, I was sent by jeep out to the 1st Division’s base camp at Di An, and then to the 9th Division’s at Bear

THOMAS L. STIRLING JR. 95

Cat, both of which were within easy driving distance of Saigon, then up to the Americal Division at Chu Lai by helicopter.

The most memorable of these trips was the one from my eventual assigned unit, the 4th Infantry Division in Pleiku, to the First Air Cavalry Division. No easy helicopter ride this time. I was ordered to accompany an Army Security Agency (ASA) captain by jeep from Pleiku City down Route 19 through the Central Highlands with a truck convoy heading to An Khe, where the First Cav had its base camp.

When we got to the convoy’s form-up point, we found to our surprise that since we were the senior— perhaps only—officers present, we had been desig­ nated as the convoy commanders. Neither of us knew anything about commanding convoys, but decided not to let on.

The pre-departure briefing wasn’t particularly reassuring. Although a few of the convoy’s vehicles were mounted with automatic weapons, we would be largely defenseless. No armored cars or tanks. No radios to coordinate with artillery fire bases or to call for helicopter gunships. Basically, we would just get on the road and drive, protected almost entirely by each solitary driver with the rifle on the seat next to him—not even a buddy riding shotgun.

What I’d heard about the route wasn’t reassuring, either. We would be driving up over the Mang Yang Pass. Just 13 years before, an entire French Groupe Mobile had been virtually wiped out there by a Viet Minh ambush. (The opening scene of the movie, “We Were Soldiers,” is based loosely on that event.)

96 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

The convoy had maybe 30 or 40 trucks, largely empty, heading back down to the coast and the port city of Qui Nhon to load up more ammunition and supplies to take back up to the troops in the Central Highlands.

The truckers looked bored and basically just drove. I thought that was a good sign. If they drove this road every day and looked bored, maybe it had become a pretty safe highway.

Although it was only about a 50-mile trip, it took most of the day to shepherd the whole convoy up over the pass and down to An Khe, blessedly without incident. It was a large relief to reach a checkpoint in the late afternoon manned by troops with First Cav patches who saluted as we drove past, shouting “Garry Owen, sir!”

It was Cav country. We were among warriors. I felt a lot safer.

Thomas L. Stirling Jr. was commissioned in Army Intelligence out of Cornell University ROTC in 1964 and served in Vietnam from November 1966 to August 1967 with the Special Security Detachment (SSD), attached for the most part to the 4th Division in Pleiku. He left the Army as a captain.

Stirling is currently an attorney with Stirling & Kleintop in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he is one of the leaders of an annual late-night gathering of Vietnam veterans every December 23.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center

Intentionally Blank

My Son: Serving Our Nation Still By Dorothy Oxendine

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a sacred place—a

place where veterans and family members come to remember and, often, to mourn. It is a place where love is shown—love for those lost in Vietnam.

Patriotic men and women answered the call in Vietnam, just as they did at Normandy Beach, at Yorktown and at Gettysburg. In a profound sense, The Wall is a resting place for those who did not return. They are together there.

Etched row upon row, they serve our nation still, reminding Americans of the price of freedom. And Americans are moved here.

I am moved by Brig. Gen. David Grange, who wrote these eloquent words about his visits to The Wall: “I whisper with tears in my eyes to the names on The Wall, ‘Thanks, you that have fallen. You made a difference then—and now.’”

They do make a difference now. The Memorial is obviously very powerful. Yet, if the Memorial is to do its job, it must reach out to America’s youth. That is why a Memorial Center is needed.

Inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center will be photographs of those enshrined here. I can picture it now: school kids will look at photos of young Americans nearly their age. Then they will journey to The Wall, and it will have a memorable impact.

William Oxendine III is on The Wall. Willie, my son,

100  THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

gave his life on May 30, 1968.

While there will not be a William Oxendine IV, my Willie will live on by inspiring young Americans. They will see his photograph. They will be moved. And the message of patriotism and sacrifice will be delivered.

Dorothy Oxendine has served as the national president and is currently the national parliamentarian of the American Gold Star Mothers. Her son, a U.S. Marine, died in Quang Tri Province in 1968. His name is inscribed on The Wall on Panel 63W, Row 19.

Oxendine testified before the House Committee on Resources in support of a Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center in May 2003. This story is excerpted from her testimony.

Helping an Idea Become a Law By The Honorable Richard Pombo

Much of my life has been spent as a rancher in Tracy,

Calif. Since being elected to Congress in 1992, I have had the great honor of representing the people of California’s 11th congressional district.

I have always worked diligently in my position as a member of Congress. In 2003, I was honored to be named chairman of the House Resources Committee.

At my direction, the committee focuses on many issues related to public lands and the national parks.

Not long after I became chairman, I was made aware of an ongoing effort to build a visitors center at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the most-visited memorial in Washington, D.C. For three years prior, Congress failed to pass the legislation, despite considerable support from former U.S. presidents and respected educators.

It was obvious that thousands of schoolchildren each day were being denied a chance to learn about patriotism and service—the kind of information they could receive at a visitors center. As a father of three, this void resonated with me.

There are always people who, in good faith, take issue with bills before Congress. There were some concerns from federal officials—and a U.S. senator or two—about the precedent that the visitors center would set if it were built on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. These concerns were important, and I listened.

I believe concerns should be heard and addressed

102  THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

in hearings open to the public. Therefore, I asked my colleagues in the House Resources Committee to join me in an official hearing.

Held on-site at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the hearing attracted many important people who came to share their views. Prominent veterans, business leaders, even actor Robert Duvall came to say a few words. At the hearing, the committee was persuaded that building a visitors center was the right thing to do.

Following the hearing, leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives brought the bill to the floor for a vote.

The vote was unanimous in favor of allowing a visitors center to be built on the Mall. The bill also passed in the U.S. Senate, and in November 2003, President Bush signed it into law.

While my work on this legislation is minimal compared to the sacrifices so many brave men and women made serving in Vietnam, I appreciate the opportunity I had to get this important legislation passed by the U.S. Congress. My hope is that the visitors center at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial will provide people of all ages with a quality educational experience that highlights the testaments of courage of those who served in Vietnam.

Richard Pombo is a Republican representing California’s 11th district in the U.S. House of Representatives.

He has been a strong supporter of the work of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.

Why We Need a Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center By Robert Duvall

“You know, someday this war’s gonna be over...”

I recited that line when I played Air Force Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore in the film “Apocalypse Now,” but I can promise you that the Vietnam War still remains present in the lives of so many. More than 20,000 American children, who today are grown adults, were left wondering why Daddy never came home.

There are more than 58,000 families whose loved ones made the ultimate sacrifice and whose names are forever inscribed onto the Memorial’s black granite panels. There are 3 million men and women whose lives were forever changed by serving with the U.S. military in Southeast Asia.

I understand what it means to be part of a military family. I understand what it is to watch your father go to sea, wondering if he will ever return.

My father, William Howard Duvall, was a rear admiral with the U.S. Navy during World War II. I grew up in military towns. I was born in San Diego and, at the age of 10, moved with my family to Annapolis, Md., the home of our U.S. Naval Academy.

I myself am a veteran. I served two years with the U.S. Army. As a veteran, I feel it is important for America’s youth to have a place to visit that will feature the photographs of those brave Americans who did their duty for our country.

104 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center will transform the Vietnam Veterans Memorial into the single best educational experience in the nation’s capital.

Four million Americans visit this memorial each year.

Many of them are schoolchildren too young to understand the magnitude of the Vietnam War, the human toll of war.

William Gladstone, the 19th century British prime minister, once wrote, “Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people—their loyalty to high ideals and their regard for the laws of the land.”

We owe it to those who never came home. We owe it to those who were forever changed. And we owe it to those who are too young to know.

Robert Duvall is an Academy Award-winning actor who has portrayed numerous members of the armed forces throughout his career. One of his most famous roles is in “Apocalypse Now.” As a veteran, he testified before Congress about the necessity for a Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center in May 2003, the year it was passed. This story is excerpted from his testimony.

The War the Schools Don’t Teach By James V. Kimsey

The Vietnam War was the longest in our nation’s his-

tory. It splintered this country unlike any other war in modern times.

Yet, a survey conducted a few years ago about Vietnam War education in America’s secondary schools showed that students do not learn about Vietnam. In fact, the survey found that high school students are taught less about the Vietnam War than any other major American conflict.

Only one-third of students between ages 12 and 17 are taught about the Vietnam War, as opposed to nearly two-thirds who learn about the Revolutionary War and World War II. The survey also found that less than two-thirds of students in this age group know on which continent Vietnam is located: 13 percent thought it was in Europe, and 3 percent believed it was in North America.

As we celebrate The Wall and all that it has accomplished, we realize there is more to be done. Our most important mission: educating our children about the war, our nation’s longest and most divisive conflict.

Nearly 10 years ago, the Vietnam Veterans Corporate Council, on which I serve as co-chair, brought forward the idea of expanding the mission of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to include educating about the impact of the Vietnam War. What resulted was a comprehensive curriculum kit, featuring a teacher’s

106 THE AMERICAN PATRIOT: A TRADITION OF SERVICE

guide, books and other valuable resources. The educational program, known as “Echoes from The Wall,” was sent free of charge to the nation’s 40,000 secondary schools.

Today, teachers and students throughout the United States are benefiting from the educational programs of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. But that good start cannot end in America’s classrooms. It must continue when those students visit the nation’s capital. It must continue when they visit The Wall. And it will.

At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center, we will teach our children the lessons we learned as soldiers and as a country. Throughout the Center, we will accomplish two goals: we will educate our country’s youth, and we will continue The Wall’s work of healing our nation.

We were young men and women fighting in an unpopular war, the youngest armed forces the United States has ever sent into combat. So, when we embark on our educational outreach to young people across the country, they will be able to understand that the Vietnam War was not some political battle of old men in a faraway land.

These were people almost their own age, faced with difficult choices and incredible challenges—challenges they themselves may have to face someday. They should be ready, and we owe it to them to make sure they are. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center will ensure that our nation’s young people have the opportunity to learn about service and sacrifice for generations to come.

JAMES V. KIMSEY 107

James V. Kimsey is the founding CEO of America Online Inc. and the president of the Kimsey Foun­da­tion, which works to bring a brighter future to the youth in the Washington, D.C. area.

Kimsey is a co-chair of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund’s Corporate Council and is also a member of the board of directors. He is a 1962 graduate of West Point and served three combat tours as an Airborne Ranger, two of them in Vietnam. He earned various awards for service and valor and was inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame in 2005.

This essay is adapted from his testimony before Congress in 2003 in support of legislation for a Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Established in 1979, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is the nonprofit organization authorized by Congress to build the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Today, it works to preserve the legacy of The Wall, to promote healing and to educate about the impact of the Vietnam War through the following programs: Ceremonies at The Wall are held each year on Memorial Day and Veterans Day to remember and honor those who served in the U.S. armed forces.

The Memorial Fund also holds ceremonies to honor veterans and their families on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and during the winter holidays.

In Memory honors those who died as a result of the Vietnam War, but whose deaths do not fit the parameters for inclusion on The Wall. A special ceremony is held on the third Monday of April each year.

The Wall That Heals brings the healing power of The Wall to cities and hometowns across America.

The traveling half-scale replica of The Wall is accompanied by an information center and a traveling museum about the Vietnam War, The Wall and the era.

Echoes From The Wall is a curriculum kit sent free of charge to every middle and high school in America. It provides students not only with historical in­for­mation about the Vietnam War, but also with an understanding of leadership, citizenship, patriotism and character.

Echoes From The Mall is a field trip guide that helps teachers interpret the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for their students. A wide variety of suggested on-site and classroom activities offer educators a framework for exploring all elements of the Memorial.

The Legacy of The Wall is a traveling storyboard that addresses several different aspects of the Vietnam War and the Memorial, including United States involvement in Vietnam, events on the home front, the history of The Wall and how America honors veterans.

The Teach Vietnam Teachers Network is com­ prised of educators throughout the United States who serve as liaisons between the Memorial Fund, their community and state and local school systems.

The Memorial Fund provides members with free educa­tional materials and professional development opportunities.

Volunteers provide assistance to the Memorial’s 4.4 million annual visitors—helping locate names on The Wall, providing history lessons and aiding with name rubbings. The Memorial Fund furnishes the volunteers with the necessary supplies to continue their useful work.

Name Rubbings are provided free. Each week, Memorial Fund volunteers bring paper and pencil to The Wall and begin the work to keep alive the memories of American heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice decades ago.

Memorial Preservation is a cooperative effort between the Memorial Fund and the National Park Service. The Memorial Fund pays for catastrophic insurance for the Memorial as well as for annual name additions and status changes. It also has hired engineering firms to conduct extensive studies on The Wall. The Memorial Fund keeps granite panels in storage in case of damage to The Wall.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and its funding comes from corporations, foundations, associations and the general public.

If you would like more information on our programs or are interested in supporting the Memorial Fund, please contact us at: VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL FUND 1023 15th Street, NW, Second Floor Washington, DC 20005 (202) 393-0090 phone (202) 393-0029 fax vvmf@vvmf.org www.vvmf.org