Vietnam: The Pain of War (2023) by www.pressdemocrat.com

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023 • SECTION O

Vietnam The Pain of War By JOHN D’ANNA

More than 100 military personnel from the North Bay — Sonoma, Napa, ■ Families grieve Lake and Mendocino counties — died 2 Mendocino or those of a certain age, the fall County aviators in Vietnam, and today we honor them of Saigon in April 1975 was one who went missing on pages O12 and O13 of this section, in Vietnam / O2 of those “where were you when including two, Daniel Dawson and ■ Petaluma … ” moments. The images of CIA ofman received Edmund Frenyea, whose remains ficers helping evacuees into a waiting 2 Purple Hearts, were never recovered. helicopter are etched in our minds — Silver Star for We are grateful to the Vietnam Vetwork in Army / O5 and in our history. erans Memorial Fund for allowing us ■ Army nurse But the beginning of the end of the spent 14 months to use pictures and biographical inVietnam War came two years earlier in Vietnam came formation so those 108 casualties will — 50 years ago this year — when the home with PTSD, not be forgotten. The organization’s nightmares / O7 United States signed the Paris Peace virtual Wall of Faces is dedicated to ■ Santa Rosa man Accords and agreed to withdraw its had to come to honoring every person whose name troops after nearly two decades of terms with being appears on the Vietnam Veterans Meinvolvement that would come to be drafted, going to morial wall in Washington D.C. If you Vietnam / O8 synonymous with the word “quag■ List: North are a friend or a family member, you mire.” Bay troops who can contribute photos or memories, Vietnam changed our nation in went to war and you can donate to support their and never came ways we are still attempting to underhome / O12-13 work at vvmf.org/give-to-vvmf. stand. It was our first televised war, ■ Veteran’s job In addition to honoring those who and the failures of our military and was to maintain died, we also pay tribute to those who political leadership undermined our computer survived. Ten men and women from faith, trust and confidence in our very systems, classified information / O16 the North Bay are sharing their stogovernment. Some 2.7 million American men UNDERWRITTEN BY ries, some for the first time. Their words are moving, and and women served the Vietnam in some cases their memories War, and more than 58,000 of them are stomach. But it is vital for us paid the ultimate price. to understand their experiences Today, The Press Democrat pays because, as the philosopher said, tribute to those who did as their those who do not remember the past are country asked and served in a war that was doomed to repeat it. not of their own making or choosing. THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

INSIDE

ONLINE To see videos of the veterans sharing their stories, go to pressdemocrat.com/painofwar

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Capt. Donald R. Brown crouches on the ground on April 5, 1965, in Saigon, waiting for the order for attack across an open ﬁeld against Vietcong positions in a treeline from where enemy combatants with automatic weapons had brieﬂy pinned down the HQ company of the 2nd Battalion, 46 Regiment. Of the 58,220 Americans who died in the Vietnam War, more than 100 of those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines hailed from Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Mendocino counties.

VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

PHOTOS BY KELVIN KUO / FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Mary Frenyea, daughter of Edmund Frenyea, shares a newspaper on Oct. 20 from her home in Ventura of The Press Courier on prisoners of the Vietnam War. Mary was 3 years old when her father was deployed to Vietnam. Edmund was an aviation mechanic chief in the U.S. Navy, one of four crewmen on an S-2 Tracker plane that took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet on January 22, 1966, in the Gulf of Tonkin, and was never seen again.

‘More heartache than hope’ Family members share grief of the 2 Mendocino County aviators who went missing in Vietnam

By AUSTIN MURPHY THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Of the 58,220 Americans who died in the Vietnam War, 5,575 were from California. More than 100 of those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines hailed from the North Bay counties of Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Mendocino. Of those, only two remain unaccounted for, their remains never found, their loved ones left to wonder. Both men were from Mendocino County. This is their story:

messed me up.”

‘Brother of the Pilot’

Donald Dawson found the lack of certainty intolerable in 1964 when his brother Daniel, from Fort Bragg, was shot out of the sky north of Saigon and was never seen again. Tormented by the possibility that Daniel was still alive, Don embarked on a dramatic and arguably luary Frenyea was 3 years old natic quest to find his older EDMUND H. when she lost her father. She’s sibling. FRENYEA 61 now but still remembers, That mission took him “as if it was yesterday,” the smell of to Vietnam, behind enemy May 24, 1930-Jan. 22, 1966 the tobacco in his pipe, the safety of his lines, where the civilian Hometown: Ukiah embrace. Donald went from village Branch: Navy She can describe the dress uniform he to village, handing out Rank: Master Chief Aircraft wore, embarking on his final deployment thousands of flyers offering Maintenanceman to Vietnam. a reward to anyone who Aviation Mechanic Chief Edmund could help him locate his Frenyea, from Ukiah, was a 35-year-old brother. During his search, aircrewman in the Navy’s Sea Control Donald was taken prisoner Squadron 35, tasked with surveillance in by the Viet Cong. the Gulf of Tonkin, searching for smugHe spent months in Viet glers and enemy gunboats. Cong prisons, enduring Edmund was one of four men aboard beatings, starvation and an S-2 Tracker plane that took off from near-fatal malaria, but he the aircraft carrier USS Hornet early in lived to tell the tale, which the morning of Jan. 22, 1966. was featured in Life magaJust before dawn, that plane disappeared zine in 1965. from the radarscopes of all allied ships in His search also was the the vicinity. It has never been found. subject of a screenplay by Now living in Ventura, in Southern Richard Friedenberg, betCalifornia, Mary has never made the trip ter known for adapting the DANIEL G. east to see the white headstone honoring Norman Maclean novella, DAWSON her father at Arlington National Ceme“A River Runs Through It.” tery, across the Potomac River from the Ultimately, “Brother July 23, 1938-Nov. 6, 1964 Cheryle Haggerty holds an old photograph of her father, Donald Dawson, on White House. of the Pilot,” the movie’s Hometown: Ft. Bragg Oct 22 in Costa Mesa. Donald was featured in Life magazine in 1965 where he “A couple of my friends have gone, and working title, was never Branch: Army detailed his story of flying to Vietnam to find his brother, Daniel, had been sent me pictures, and I appreciate it,” made. Donald died in 2003 Rank: Captain shot down in the jungle north of Saigon. she said. But she admits she is conflicted of pancreatic cancer at age about visiting the grave site herself. 62. “I want to go there. But what am I The Dawson brothers had two siblings. going to do, just stand there and look at Their father, George, was a fisherman. his headstone?” she said. “What am I Growing up, their family moved fresupposed to say? He’s not there.” quently, but lived in Fort Bragg for a spell. During some of Daniel’s Army career, acComplicated grief cording to his nephew, also named George Normal grief symptoms gradually fade Dawson, Daniel may have also been based over time. Those experiencing complicatin Fort Bragg, which is listed as his home ed grief, according to experts at the Mayo of record by the Defense POW/MIA AcClinic in Rochester, Minnesota, remain counting Agency. “in an ongoing, heightened state of Daniel was the pilot of a Cessna 01mourning” that keeps them from healing. Bird Dog, conducting reconnaissance “That’s me,” Mary said. “I’ve had people over Viet Cong territory. Slow though it say, ‘Just suck it up and let it go.’ But you was, and all but defenseless, that spotcan’t. We don’t have a body. We can’t say ter plane was feared by the enemy, who goodbye to something we don’t have.” learned that firing on it could expose As Santa Rosa-based marriage and their location — resulting in attack from family therapist Jennifer Westcott exfighter planes directed by the Bird Dog. plained, “Our brains function best when After takeoff on Nov. 6, 1964, Daniel’s we can make meaning and create some aircraft did not return to base and was internalized structure around a subject.” never heard from again. When a grandparent dies, she said, Donald, at that time, was a 24-year-old “We are sad and grieve, but can make captain for Shell Oil, on board his ship in sense of a long life lived.” Panama. Upon learning that his brother With sudden, unexplained loss, howwas MIA, he made immediate plans to ever, “when we don't know the details of find him. the how, why, and what happened, our brain doesn't get the opportunity to settle An unbreakable bond “Everyone wanted to make it about on meaning-making.” Mary used plainer language. “It sucks. Mary Frenyea, left, stands with her daughter Melynda Torrez on Oct. 20 in Ventura. Mary is I may not have fought in the war, but it TURN TO HEARTACHE » PAGE O3 the daughter of Edmund Frenyea, who was deployed to Vietnam and never come home.

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

PHOTOS BY KELVIN KUO / FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Pictures of Donald Dawson and images that appeared in LIFE magazine are on display at his daughter Cheryle Haggerty’s home in Costa Masa. A metal band remembering the life and service of Army Captain Daniel G. Dawson sits on top of an urn containing the ashes of his brother Donald, who went looking for Daniel when he went missing in Vietnam.

HEARTACHE CONTINUED FROM O2

the war,” said George Dawson, Donald’s oldest son, a 35-year captain for American Airlines. But at its essence, he believes, “the story is one man’s love for his brother. When Danny was shot down, my father felt a commitment to go get him.” That remarkable bond was forged during their rough, sometimes brutal, upbringing. As adolescents, after their parents had split up, Daniel and Donald moved to Bushy Island, in the Gulf of Alaska, with their mother and her then-partner, a homesteader George described as “just a mean person, and very abusive.” At one point, George said, the boys’ mother departed for the mainland, leaving them with the homesteader, who especially disliked Donald — just 12 or 13 at the time — and often beat him. One day, Donald decided to shoot his abuser. Out on a hunt, said George, “my dad gets out in front, gets in position and pulls the trigger — only to hear the gun go ‘click.’” Suspecting that Donald meant to harm him, the man had removed the gun’s ﬁring pin the night before. After that incident, the homesteader “beat the holy crap out of my father,” said George. “His face was all swollen. He couldn’t eat. He could barely breathe.” Daniel, two years older, “took some straws, and put ‘em in his nostrils, so he could breathe, then fed him soup, so he could get some nourishment. And he tried to protect him from this guy.” Donald always believed his older brother had saved his life. When Daniel went missing, his little brother acted reﬂexively. And recklessly.

Mary Frenyea shares family photos of her siblings, mother and father, Aviation Mechanic Chief Edmund Frenyea, who was from Ukiah. was recovered from Daniel’s crash site. Donald noted how unlikely it would have been for his brother, an Army pilot, to be carrying a Navy vest. Again, he was denied permission to visit the grave. Eventually, Donald was released. But he would return repeatedly to Vietnam, searching for answers. He came back to California a changed man.

Stranger in her father’s body

“My mom said my dad was great and wonderful, and when he came back from Vietnam, he was different,” said George. “He was abusive, and drank a lot.” Prisoner of Viet Cong His mother, Jeanne Dawson, Donald bought a one-way resented that his father had left ticket to Thailand, knowing the her behind with little money to plane would stop first in Saigon. fend for herself and their four Shortly before the flight children. arrived in Vietnam, Donald went Neither did it help that to the lavatory, and changed Donald, a handsome man by all into a uniform purchased at a accounts, had a wandering eye. military surplus store. “He liked women,” said Linda, “When the plane landed in Mary Frenyea shares memorabilia from the Vietnam war including newspaper clippings and photographs from another daughter of Donald and Saigon,” said George, “they Jeanne. “Can’t have that. That a Vietnam remembrance event. “I’ve had people say, ‘Just suck it up and let it go,’” said Frenyea who’s father, told all the civilians to stay on ended their marriage.” Edmund Frenyea served in the Vietnam War and was never found. “But you can’t. We don’t have a body. We board.” Donald stood up and As a girl, Linda sometimes can’t say goodbye to something we don’t have.” walked off the plane, “and no told herself that a stranger had one stopped him.” returned in her father’s body. The Viet Cong weren’t sure spider a captor had placed on his small office. Donald settled into a village “He’d always been playful and what to make of the rangy face, the guard beat him in the “He said that my brother was “on the fringe of Zone D, the fun,” she recalled. “He still had civilian who carried flyers that head with the butt of a rifle, his dead. He had been making a low Viet Cong stronghold north of contained a picture of the Cessdaughter, Cheryle Haggerty, said. pass over a clearing and they had that in him,” but also a deep Saigon, and spread the word na his brother had flown. More than once, she said, he shot him down. A bullet had gone anger that surfaced when he through the countryside that Donald was spared much of was lined up with POWs before a clear through his body, and they drank. he would reward anyone who “He’d start telling stories” of the torture to which the enemy firing squad. While the soldiers crashed and burned. He had been could help him find out what those months searching for his subjected captured soldiers, he were shot, Donald was spared. buried near the crash site.” happened,” according to a Life brother. “And you could feel his later told loved ones. Still, he “He saw the guys next to him get Donald asked to visit the magazine story published on pain.” was badly malnourished, eating blown away,” she said. grave, but was denied. Later in his captivity, anMarch 12, 1965. When he wasn’t on a bender, insects to supplement the prisOn his 18th day in captivity, During his search, he was she added, he could be excellent oners’ puny rations of rice and Donald later told Life magazine, other Viet Cong officer visited taken prisoner and held four monkey meat. a North Vietnamese officer came Donald, and gave him a yellow U.S. Navy vest, telling him it months. Once, when he bit into a large to the camp and took him to a TURN TO HEARTACHE » PAGE O23

VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

MARK WESTON BRANCH: U.S. ARMY

PHOTOS BY KENT PORTER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Vietnam veteran Mark Weston relaxes in his studio-workshop on Oct. 6 near Forestville. Weston fought and was injured in the Battle of Hamburger Hill in May of 1969.

Continuing to mourn losses Forestville man who fought at Battle of Hamburger Hill lives with ongoing pain, pride

By JEREMY HAY THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

o many years have passed since the war that Mark Weston still lives with. “I wake up with pain every f … ing day, and I’m almost 75 years old,” he said in a recent interview at his Sonoma County home. “Physical pain. The mental pain I’ve been able to arrest, if you will. I don’t want to say hide, because I’m not hiding it. Because I’m giving it to you.” Weston was one of 2.7 million American soldiers who served in Vietnam. As summer turned to autumn, he sat in the house he built on 37 hilly acres in Forestville and recounted experiences he had more than 50 years ago as a young soldier. He bought the stretch of land his home sits on in 1973, four years after he returned from Vietnam a shaken soul with a back full of shrapnel and two permanently damaged legs. “It was my sanctuary,” he said of his home.

‘A strangeness out there’ Hollywood-born, Weston said he felt out of place in Los Angeles, so he went to college at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He failed out after a year, though — too much talking politics and the war over beer, he said. So late in 1968, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, ultimately ﬁnding his place with the storied 101st Airborne. “I wanted to be with guys who knew what to do and when to do it,” he said. Boot camp — and his drill sergeant — changed him forever. “I realized that there was a strangeness out there that I could not wrap my head around,” Weston said. “It was ugly. Mean. You fought to survive. And that was a real revelation for me. I came from, you know, basically a middle-class home. Life was good. And to be treated in such a fashion. Being degraded. It was just so foreign to me. “But what he did to me helped me survive Vietnam,” he said. “I did not realize it at the time. But by the time I got to Vietnam, I was, yeah, I was ready to kill. Yeah, I could do anything. But that’s what they trained us for. That’s what they taught us to do. We’re at war. This is not a game of tiddlywinks.” Weston deployed to Vietnam in 1969. On May 13 of that year, his unit was in the A Shau Valley, on Hill 937 (as U.S. forces dubbed a mountain named Dong Ap Bia) during what came to be known as the Battle of Hamburger Hill, a grim nod to the particularly brutal nature of its combat. “Our position was overrun,” he said. “My medic and my platoon sergeant were killed. I was medevaced out. I saw my medic in the MASH unit. He was lying next to me. He rolled over and he says, ‘I’m not making it.’ Rolled back over. They picked me up, put me on another helicopter, and I was gone.” Four months recovering in military

Vietnam veteran Mark Weston holds a display of his medals. Embedded in that hurt, too, were the deaths of his platoon sergeant, “Bronco,” and his medic, “Doc.” “I dealt with that loss from 1969 on,” Weston said. “One of my jobs in Vietnam was to protect my medic, and I failed.” But Bronco and Doc did not die on Hamburger Hill. In 1986, a producer with KFTY Television 50 started excavating Weston’s past after she met him when he helped bring the Moving Wall, a 252-foot, halfsized replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that stands in Constitution Gardens in Washington, D.C., to Sonoma County. “I felt that by bringing the wall, just by putting my hands on the wall, that somehow I could put them to rest,” Weston said, referring to the friends he believed had been killed. “The wall was here for two weeks. I went every day. Vietnam veteran Mark Weston pauses Oct. 6 near Forestville. Weston fought and was It didn’t happen. I didn’t get peace of injured in the Battle of Hamburger Hill in May 1969. To this day he continues to live with mind. The wall left. I was a basket case.” physical and mental pain from his time in the U.S. Army. Months later, though, the producer located both the platoon sergeant, Weston read about the burgeoning hospitals. Gone: Friends. Blood and Anthony Branco, and medic, Donald ﬂesh. And, Weston added, “My youth.” California wine industry. Krieger, who were still very much He returned to his home state and alive, one in Hawaii and the other in ‘That’s why I still live here’ arrived in Sonoma County in 1972, Ohio. Back at college in Colorado, at the where he took a job as a cellar worker The three men — each of whom had same university where he’d once been and a year later bought the land where presumed the other two dead — were president of his dorm, “I was not the he built his home. reunited on a trip that included a visit same happy-go-lucky, ‘let’s party’ indi“Finding this place allowed me to to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washvidual that I was. The friends that I had insulate myself from that negativity,” ington, D.C. there dwindled away,” he said. he said of his secluded Forestville prop“All three of us were frightened to And as a Vietnam War veteran, he erty. “If I don’t have to deal with you, I death of each other. Can’t explain it. added, he couldn’t ﬁnd work because don’t get hurt.” Don’t understand it. It’s like looking at employers worried about, “you guys He added: “I’m still in that space, going crazy on us.” that’s why I still live here.“ TURN TO HILL » PAGE O10

VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

GARY GREENOUGH BRANCH: NAVY

PHOTOS BY KENT PORTER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Vietnam veteran Gary Greenough pauses Oct. 18 at the Paciﬁc Coast Air Museum at the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa. Greenough served two rotations on the USS Ranger aircraft carrier, which was stationed off the coast of Vietnam during the war. He was part of the team that kept the ﬁghter planes in the air.

Lone Ranger of Vietnam Veteran did 2 rotations on USS Ranger, which was part of the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet By MARTIN ESPINOZA THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

very time Gary Greenough’s aircraft carrier, the USS Ranger, pulled out of port, the seaman donned his Lone Ranger outfit, strapped on his two pearl-handle six-shooters and mounted a plastic, life-sized horse. As the “William Tell Overture,” also known as “The Lone Ranger” theme song, played over the carrier’s main communications circuit, a tractor — normally used to tow airplanes on the flight deck — pulled Greenough along the deck of the carrier. Seated atop the white plastic “Silver,“ Greenough blasted his blanksfilled revolvers into the air to the cheers of his fellow service members. It was one of the lighter moments from his time aboard the USS Ranger in 1969 to 1970, during the Vietnam War. Greenough served as an aviation storekeeper aboard the carrier. He was in charge of receiving, identifying and storing aviation supplies, spare parts and stocks of technical aviation items. Along with the airplane mechanics, Greenough was part of the team that kept fighter planes in the air. He did two rotations at sea during the Vietnam War. “Electronics. Metal parts. Flaps. Some of these planes came back all shot up — parts had to be replaced constantly,” he said. “I saw a whole bunch of A6 Intruders (an attack aircraft) that came in and just was shot to pieces. Some of the planes we would rip them out and cannibalize the parts.” His experience reflects the many roles American service members played during the conflict — from combat soldiers to airplane or tank mechanics to service members who never left American soil.

Aboard the USS Ranger Greenough, who grew up in Ukiah, is now 75 and lives in a mobile home park off Old Redwood Highway, near Windsor. In 1967, his draft number came up and he enlisted in the Navy. “You have to remember, back then we were only 15 years out of World War II, so it was like everybody's going, ‘It's our turn. It's our generation. This is our war,’” Greenough said, adding that while in boot camp in San Diego, he “watched the ships come in.” “I couldn’t wait to go out with the ﬂeet,” he recalled. But after 12 weeks of boot camp, Greenough ended up at a Naval air station in Beeville, Texas. “As far from the water as you could get,” he said. He spent the next two years learning his trade as an aviation storekeeper before his combat assignment aboard the USS Ranger. As soon as a carrier entered the combat zone some 100 miles off the coast of Vietnam, the Ranger’s crew

Gary Greenough did two rotations at sea during the Vietnam War. In 1967, his draft number came up and he enlisted in the Navy. shifted into a two-stage duty, with 12 hours on and 12 hours off. “You’re not spending much time lazing around if you’re sleeping eight hours and you have four hours to get all your personal needs taken care of,” he recalled. During Greenough’s two rotations to the combat zone, the USS Ranger was one of three carriers in Task Force 77, the main battle group of the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet. The Ranger and the two other carriers would rotate between Yankee Station, Dixie Station — fixed coordinates off the coast of Vietnam — with periodic R&R breaks at Subic Bay in the Philippines. Vietnam veteran Gary Greenough’s license plate. Yankee Station, which sat north of tions” for a potential emergency and “Everybody in that ship knows the Demilitarized Zone, was used for told the Corsair pilot to bring the plane what's going on, on the roof,” he said. airstrikes in North Vietnam, while in, Greenough said. The pilot landed “We have to know because if everyDixie Station, located below the DMZ the plane with the loose bomb still thing goes to hell in a hand basket, closer to the Vietnamese coastline, under its wing. people gotta move before the alarm supported the ground war in the “It came to a stop, from 170 miles even goes off.” south. an hour to zero, in three seconds,” he The landing ship officer radioed the A few close calls said. “The bomb came right off and pilot to “Power on. You’re too low,” During a recent interview at his skipped right down the flight deck and Greenough said. “So, (the pilot) hits mobile home, Greenough recounted over (into the water) it went. It never the throttle and nothing happens, iniclose calls out at sea that almost ended went off.” tially, and he panics. He punches out. in tragedy. On another occasion, he said, “We ...We see him punch out on the camera. In one instance, an A-7 Corsair, had another plane that came in withRight behind the carrier.” a subsonic light attack aircraft, on out a pilot — oh, how can that work?” Greenough said that after the pilot its way back to the carrier, had a It was another A-7 Corsair, which he ejected everyone thought the aircraft 500-pound bomb hung up in a rack described as an underpowered afterwould go into the sea, but the plane’s under one of its wings. burner aircraft. He said the “nugget” engine “spooled up” or increased “You could physically see the plane pilot, after his first strike mission, was thrust after being throttled by the shaking, and (the pilot) was trying to on his final approach into the ship but pilot. vibrate that bomb to come out of the was a “little low.“ Now without a pilot, the aircraft was multiple-injection rack underneath Greenough said the plane could be headed toward the rear of the carrier the wing and it was not coming off,” seen as it came in via cameras inside — right for the flight deck. he said. the carrier that were focused on the The carrier went into “battle staflight deck. TURN TO RANGER » PAGE O10

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

KATE O’HARE-PALMER BRANCH: U.S. ARMY

PHOTOS BY CRISSY PASCUAL / PETALUMA ARGUS-COURIER

Kate O’Hare-Palmer of Petaluma served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during the Vietnam War. In June 1968, O’Hare-Palmer arrived “in-country.” She had just turned 22.

Scars remain after coming home As a U.S. Army nurse, Petaluma resident saw more horrors than most in Vietnam By DON FRANCES PETALUMA ARGUS-COURIER

ate O’Hare-Palmer is the picture of contentment as she sits in her cozy living room in her home in west Petaluma. At 77, this national leader of the veteran community — she currently serves as the Vietnam Veterans of America National Women Veterans Committee chair — is active, engaged and whip-smart. She smiles often and laughs easily. But the smile fades quickly when she recalls the horrors she endured while serving as a U.S. Army nurse in Vietnam — and the scars they left behind. “When I first went over, I thought I was prepared,” she said. “And I wasn’t. And I realized it’s the overwhelming number of casualties that were coming in.” A Long Beach native, O’Hare-Palmer was “very naive,” she said. She was 21 when she and some friends stepped into a recruitment center in Los Angeles and signed up for the war. But for her, “Going into the Army was not a big stretch.” Both her parents had served during World War II, her brother had already served in Vietnam, and as a welltrained and newly certified nurse, O’Hare-Palmer figured she could help in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. In June 1968 — the year U.S. casualties in Vietnam reached their peak — O’Hare-Palmer arrived "in-country.” She had just turned 22. “Everybody says the same thing that goes to Vietnam. You get off the plane and the heat and the smell is just overwhelming. It just hits you like a wall.” Getting off the plane with her friend, the only other woman around, “We had our summer uniform on which was a little dress outfit.” They saw several soldiers lying on the ground nearby, heads on duffel bags, waiting to take that same plane home. They were quiet, filthy, “and they all have the thousand-yard stare,” she said. It wouldn’t be long before she had that same stare. O’Hare-Palmer was assigned to the 2nd Surgical Hospital in Lai Khe, and she made the difficult trip to the remote field hospital. “They dropped me off in a landing zone in the middle of nowhere, by myself,” she said. “When the guys came and picked me up they said, ‘Oh my God, you’re a woman.’ ” Finally she reached her destination. But her first day on the job was far from over. “Two hours later — I’d been up a long time — they were banging (on the door) and saying, ‘Come on Lt. O’Hare, you need to go to the O.R.’ “It was a Vietnamese lady who had gotten fragged, and one of them had hit her aorta,” she said. “It was

Kate O’Hare-Palmer, far right, smiles in a photo from the Vietnam War where she served as a nurse. She is with friends who she traveled with to Japan. Both O’Hare-Palmer’s parents had served during World War II, her brother had already served in Vietnam. pretty stark, you know. And we lost that woman, she didn’t make it. So that was my ﬁrst case.”

Patching up wounded people For many months afterward, O’Hare-Palmer spent 12-hour days in ﬁeld hospitals in Lai Khe and Chu Lai, patching up what seemed like an endless amount of grievously wounded people, mostly young soldiers, who had been chewed up by war. “We had guys that came in that had their legs machete’d off below the knees,” O’Hare-Palmer said. In another case, a young man “came in and half his face was just hamburger. And he asked me for a mirror. And I said, ‘I don’t have one. We don’t have any mirrors here.’” The bloodshed was so staggering that O’Hare-Palmer’s perspective — on the war, and on life — quickly took a downward turn. “After about three weeks, I realized that this was a war that was going to be long, and I didn’t see how we could get through it. And I was pretty religious, and I had a Bible, and I just started getting really pissed at God.” Three weeks was just the beginning. In all, O’Hare-Palmer served 14 months in Vietnam, and the things she saw during that time changed her forever. “When we did the work we felt so bad because we couldn’t save so many, and we focused on the ones we lost. And we got to the point where TURN TO NURSE » PAGE O11 Kate O’Hare holds the boots that were issued to her while serving in the U.S. Army.

VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

JOSUE LOPEZ BRANCH: U.S. ARMY

He had no desire to serve

Basic training for Santa Rosa man included racist trolling and war meant dying alone

By KERRY BENEFIELD THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

osue Lopez, 76, remembers it happened on the first morning of being “in-country.” His infantry unit was on its first “sortie” into the jungle around Dau Tieng in southern Vietnam. His unit was making its way through thick vegetation and sight lines were limited. “All of a sudden we heard this gigantic blast,” he said. “We all fell to the ground and we started crawling toward the sound,” he said. “We found that (a fellow soldier) had triggered one of the grenades strapped to his own chest. It’s strapped to him ... you’ve only got a few seconds to get it off.” Lopez guessed the first grenade ignited more. “I don’t know if one grenade is strong enough to do this,” he said. “But his body was completely unrecognizable. There were shreds everywhere ...” Guys in his unit got sick. Others cried. Lopez raised his hand. He knew the guy. He had ridden with him on the bus, the one that took him to U.S. Army registration in Oakland. It wasn’t a friendship, per se, but Lopez felt a duty to that soldier. “They asked for volunteers to go pick him up,” he said. “I felt some sense of brotherhood, some sense of connection toward him, so I volunteered. “They gave us body bags,” he said. “We collected no more than half of his remains.” It was Lopez’s first sortie (an attack made by troops coming out of a defensive position) and his second day in-country. He was 21 years old.

Not wanting to be in the military It wasn’t supposed to be this way for Lopez. A National Merit Scholar in high school in San Diego, Lopez spent his freshman year of college at UC San Diego. But he felt lost and unsupported there. Like high school, he said, his was one of the only — or very few — brown faces in his classes. He left school. He worked. He traveled. He rode a cargo ship to Europe. He came home. He had his heart broken. The Vietnam War did not play a central role in how Lopez was navigating that period of his life. That is, until he moved from Southern California to Santa Rosa. Lopez had just turned 21 and was newly married. He was working full-time as a psychiatric technician at Sonoma State Home, a job whose challenges with difficult patients and their complicated needs intrigued him, when he decided to return to school. “It was a hot time in Vietnam at that point,” he said. “I had not paid attention to registration. I was out there ﬂoating free. And again, I was not wanting to be part of this really weird enterprise we called ‘military service.’” But when he met with a junior college counselor to craft his course load in the fall of 1968, he was told he was required to register for the draft. “But, he told me I wouldn’t get drafted if I took a full course load,” Lopez said. So he did. But working full-time at the hospital and taking a full load became too much. Lopez dropped a three-unit class, which put him below the minimum number of units needed to avoid the draft. “Within a week of telling the (junior college) that I was dropping, I had a notice in the mail, ‘Greetings, you have been inducted into the (U.S.) Army,’” he said.

KENT PORTER / PRESS DEMOCRAT

Vietnam veteran Josue Lopez pauses Oct. 13 in Santa Rosa. “It is really no wonder that so many guys came back basket cases,” he said. “We saw some pretty horrible things and we lived under the clear impression that we were going to die. And not just die, but die painfully and alone.”

basic training in Washington. He remembers those weeks as a mixed bag. The war seemed oddly distant. But guys were tense and hiding it behind bravado. “I developed a bit of an attitude,” he said. “I got into physical scuffles.” There was name calling and racist trolling. “It reflected the kind of insecurity we had, calling each other cowards, saying I couldn’t be an American soldier because I’m Mexican,” he said. Black guys were particularly, and rightfully, angry, he recalled. “This racist society sending them here and here. We are training to be killers,” he said. Fear permeated everything. Lopez was assigned to the light infantry where he was tasked with carrying a grenade launcher. “I started thinking again, really hard, about running away because I didn’t want to be out there killing people,” he said. “I didn’t see the sense of going after people who hadn’t done anything to me, other young men who I didn’t know whose life I was going to Coming to terms with war end without any reason.” “It felt like I had been kidnapped, But Lopez stayed on. stolen away from what I thought was “I came to terms with it,” he said. going to be my life,” he said. “I became really curious with it too. Lopez thought about refusing. He What does it feel like to be in battle? thought about running — to Canada. What characteristics does it take? Perhaps he’d go to Mexico where he What kind of man are you, Josue? was born. He looked into what was Do you have enough strength? Do required to become a conscientious you have the will to survive? Can you objector. actually point a weapon at somebody But in the end, three weeks after and fire and kill them?” receiving his draft notice, Lopez After basic training, Lopez was boarded a 5:30 a.m. bus from Santa sent to the coastal city of Da Nang in Rosa to Oakland. Vietnam. “Da Nang was an airport, essen“I didn’t feel like there was an option,” he said. “I thought the only way tially,” he said. “It was very Third World, very low grade. It was taken out is through.” over by the military and spruced up In Oakland, his head was shaved. He was issued what he called ill-fitting enough to allow military planes to land.” fatigues and heavy boots. From Da Nang he was sent to Dau Then he was sent to eight weeks of

Lopez recalled. It didn’t make sense. And it didn’t take long, Lopez remembered. “Some explosion happens on the other side of him and his body comes looking like, what do those kids do? Cartwheels? He’s cartwheeling 13 out of 50 soldiers survived through the air without a head,” he Nearing the end of his one-year de- said. ployment, Lopez was sent with a new Lopez recalled spending the night unit to Cambodia, under the direction not moving and barely breathing. of a new captain. He heard people moving in the He was walking through thick juntrees around him, but still he didn’t gle, at the back end of their oval-like move. formation, when his group began to “Literally, nobody tries to get up to sense trouble. look. There is fire coming in,” he said. “We recognize that we are marching “We are pinned down for the entire along a path that has been established night.” already. The dirt is pounded down,” Today, he believes those noises he he said. “Someone points off to the heard when things were quiet were side and there is a latrine hole. Now North Vietnamese soldiers removing and then I catch sight of a wire up bodies through the jungle as they in the trees, a communication wire pulled out. probably.” “Now they were going to be facing As one of the more experienced a much bigger force of Americans so soldiers in the group, and the one they weren’t going to stick around,” with the grenade launcher, Lopez was he said. at the farthest rear position. It was By morning, Lopez heard new noisexposed. It felt dangerous. es. American voices. “Those of us who are experienced Finally he allowed himself to stand are shaking our heads because our up and look around. so-called captain is up front de“Standing up? It was scarier than manding we move on,” he said. “And s**t,” he said. a bunch of us are saying, ‘This is When Lopez stood, the horror occupied.’” became clear. Then Lopez laid eyes on a North Of the 50 or so soldiers he had been Vietnamese soldier to one side of him. marching with hours before, 13 had No more than 10 yards away, he said. survived, he said. They both fired their weapons, but “It is really no wonder that so many Lopez was using a grenade launcher. guys came back basket cases,” he He didn’t hit the soldier directly, but said. “We saw some pretty horrible no matter. He was sure he’d killed things and we lived under the clear him. impression that we were going to die. Gunfire immediately erupted every- And not just die, but die painfully and where, Lopez said. He used his helmet alone.” to dig a shallow trench and rolled into it. You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry To his right, Lopez spied a soldier in Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry. his unit who had dropped to one knee. benefield@pressdemocrat.com. He was yelling while shooting wildly, On Twitter @benefield. Tieng, a region in the southern end of Vietnam, just north of Ho Chi Minh City, more commonly known now as Saigon. That was where his fellow soldier triggered his own grenade belt.

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

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VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

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THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

KENT PORTER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Vietnam veteran Gary Greenough pauses Oct. 18 at the Paciﬁc Coast Air Museum at the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa. Greenough served on the USS Ranger aircraft carrier, which was stationed off the coast of Vietnam during the war. He was part of the team that kept the ﬁghter planes in the air.

RANGER

off, does a slow roll and crashes.”

comic “gave me a ration of guff” for the way he was sitting. Bob Hope and his USO tour "Good times during bad During Greenough’s first times,’ Greenough said in an CONTINUED FROM O6 “cruise” to the combat zone in email. Fortunately, with the carriVietnam, the crew of the USS After Greenough’s military er turned into the wind (as is Ranger were treated to a visit service ended, he returned to routine when planes are taking from Bob Hope and his USO tour California and started college off or landing) the plane was efcompany. studies at Chabot College in fectively “punched in the nose” Greenough, dressed in his Hayward. He later transferred by the wind, Greenough said. Lone Ranger costume with to Santa Rosa Junior College “Everything is configured for his plastic horse, was set up in and ended up getting a job as a landing,” he said. “It hits really the hangar bay. He was sitting ranger with the Sonoma County hard on the flight deck and the side-saddle to watch the show. Regional Parks, where he hook, the tail hook on the plane, Hope had apparently spotted worked for two decades. bounces over all four wires and him and decided to go off script, “After 20 years, I got a little does not catch and the plane takes Greenough said, adding that the tired of working every weekend

and holiday so I transferred over to code enforcement at (Permit Sonoma) and finished up my 30 (years) with code enforcement,” he said. Since retiring, Greenough has devoted endless hours as an amateur historian documenting the role local residents played during the Vietnam War. Two years ago, he helped organize a ceremony that honored the 59 Sonoma County residents who died during the conflict. He’s now a key spokesman for the Pacific Coast Air Museum, sharing his extensive knowl-

edge of military aircraft. But his greatest passion is doing what he can to bring dignity to the memory of Vietnam veterans. “Vietnam veterans have ﬁnally gotten their due,” he said. “Vietnam veterans no longer have the stigmatization they used to have because the public’s heart has changed.” You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.

HILL

CONTINUED FROM O4 a ghost,” Weston said. “It didn’t last very long. Once we started talking and comparing notes, we were right back there again and everything was ﬁne. They had gone on, you know. They had married. They had children. Like the rest of us, they were paying mortgages.” Weston, who was known as “Wes“ in Vietnam, remains in contact with both men, especially Doc. They talk every few months.

‘I was a daydreamer’ Historians view the Battle of Hamburger Hill as a signal moment in the war’s long passage. Seventy-two U.S. soldiers died in the battle and 372 were wounded. The mountain was surrendered two weeks after American forces took it because it was deemed to have no strategic value. It spurred a storm of political criticism and public outcry that further bolstered the anti-war movement. At the time, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, already a critic of the broader war policies, famously inveighed against the U.S. battlefield tactics. And it prompted a change in those tactics from “maximum pressure” to “protective reaction” — essentially, from taking the fight to the enemy, to launching offensive operations only when threatened by North Vietnamese or Viet Cong troops. Weston stayed clear of the arguments. “I’d done my time,” he said. Now at 74, he is still burly. Still 6-foot-1. Still living with his life in focus. “I was a daydreamer pre-Army,” he said. “After the Army, I was not.“ A registered nurse since 1992, he belongs to federal and state medical teams that respond to hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires and other disasters, though he works mostly in an administrative role nowadays. He is married and has two sons and two

PHOTOS BY KENT PORTER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Vietnam veteran Mark Weston pauses Oct. 6 with his 1941 Dodge Half Ton Army truck near Forestville. Below, Weston’s bookcases are full of military books at his home near Forestville. grandchildren. Weston looks back at the war he lives with daily. “The pride,” he said, “you cannot believe. As a baby boomer, hearing the stories of our fathers coming home from World War II. Hearing about … places like Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, the Ardennes forest. D-Day. Normandy. I mean, you say those words and you go, ‘Wow. Wow.’ And here I am. So many years later.” Then in a hushed tone, “And I participated in a ‘Wow.’ “I mean, when my grandkids ﬁnally understand what grandpa did. And they can take that information to school or write that paper in college. Yeah, I’m extremely proud of that.” You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 707-387-2960 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jeremyhay

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

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PHOTOS BY CRISSY PASCUAL / PETALUMA ARGUS-COURIER

Kate O’Hare-Palmer served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during the Vietnam War. She shares her story on Oct. 12 at her home in Petaluma.

NURSE

CONTINUED FROM O7 you couldn’t even cry. Because you didn’t have time. Because you had to go on to the next person,” she said. “So you just stuffed it, you compartmentalized it. And you got pretty cold, you had to get pretty non-feeling. I called that the ‘Robot Katie.’ And the real me was way down.”

Nightmares, PTSD At some point during the war, O’Hare-Palmer got engaged to a helicopter pilot. After her tours were up and she returned to the U.S., she waited for him — but found herself wanting to go back. “Because you saw what was happening on the news, and you knew that you could help,” she said. “That’s what happens, I think, in most wars. It gets to the point where you’re really not fighting the enemy. You’re just trying to help each other stay alive.” The helicopter pilot eventually came home too. But before they could get married, O’HarePalmer came to realize how badly the war had damaged her. “I started having these nightmares. Really bad. And I was grinding my teeth. And I was having blood drip down all the walls.” Kate O’Hare-Palmer holds her Vietnam Women’s Memorial commemorative book. “That’s what happens, I think, in most wars. It gets to the point The terrible visions weren’t where you’re really not fighting the enemy. You’re just trying to help each other stay alive,” she said. only in her dreams. “When I woke up, I would see blood dripping on me. And I was trying to get the blood off of me. I would even go take a shower, it was so real.” Fearing she was losing her mind, O’Hare-Palmer left her fiancé and returned to California. In 1972, she moved to the Bay Area, “And I started over.” She went to UC Berkeley, like she’d always wanted, earning a degree in nutrition. Throughout her adult life she remained a “workaholic,” as she put it, later coming to realize that this is a common trait of people with post-traumatic stress disorder. Before the 1990s, however, “We didn’t know what PTSD was.”

Peacetime work

A photo of Kate O’Hare-Palmer in Vietnam.

Although her wartime service was over, O’Hare-Palmer’s work with fellow war veterans was only beginning. She worked in Veterans Affairs hospitals, and joined organizations such as Military Women Across the Nation, which connected her with others who shared her experiences. Later she married an emergency room doctor, and in 1990 they moved with their two young daughters to the North Bay, where, “We opened up the hospital, Santa Rosa Kaiser” – which that year had leveled up from a medical center to a full-service hospital. The couple bought land in Healdsburg, and O’Hare-Palmer worked as a nursing supervisor

for Kaiser. “And then we got divorced, building the dream house,” she said with a laugh. A busy mom, she took her children and moved to Petaluma in 1997, where she still resides.

around the country gathered for the dedication, many gained new insight into the physical and psychological damage the war caused them. “We realized the same things were happening to all of us,” O’Hare-Palmer said. 'We did a good job’ For years, cancer, infertility, Healing from trauma was a PTSD and other ailments had slow process for O’Hare-Palmer. plagued them — but they never It didn’t help that the military understood how universal the devalued women’s wartime problems were. service, or that society had yet to Their eyes were opened in angrasp the enormous effect PTSD other way as well: to the critical had on the lives of veterans. role they’d played in the war, the But in 1993, a friend convinced lives they’d saved, and the gratiher to attend the dedication of tude many still felt for them. the Vietnam Women’s Memorial “When they dedicated this in Washington, D.C. memorial, we had a parade. And “It changed my life,” she said. there were all these people there. As female veterans from … What we didn’t know, all the

Kate O’Hare-Palmer is included in a Vietnam Women’s Memorial commemorative book. men were there for us.” As the women marched down Constitution Avenue, combat veterans came up to them carrying old medical records. The papers had “our names, because we had to sign the sheets. They were looking for us. They were looking for us to say thank you.” “Because to us it was just a big blur,” O’Hare said. “It took years of therapy to really own that — own that we did a good job.” Don Frances is editor of the Petaluma Argus-Courier. Reach him at don.frances@arguscourier.com.

A video of the Vietnam Veterans Parade in 1985.

O12

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • S

North Ba who never c

NAPA COUNTY

TYSON V. BEALL

RONALD A. BEARDSLEY

MICHAEL R. BISHOP

Jan. 20, 1948-May 6, 1969

Aug. 10, 1947-Oct. 31, 1968

March 25,1948-Dec. 16, 1968

Hometown: Napa Branch: Army Rank: Corporal

Hometown: Napa Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Of the 58,220 Americans who died in the Vietnam War, more from Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Mendocino counties. Photos a

By MICHE

NORTH BAY BUS

ROBERT H. BUEHLER

LOUIS CASTRO

MICHAEL R. CLASEN

Sept. 5, 1948-Sept. 22, 1968

May 21, 1936-April 13, 1969

July 8, 1946-Aug. 25, 1968

Hometown: Napa Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Union Branch: Army Rank: Sergeant 1st class

Hometown: Napa Branch: Navy Rank: Hospital Corpsman P3

ROBERT L. COONROD

MICHAEL ELKINTON

ARNOLD J. FERRARI

Nov. 11, 1943-Aug. 28, 1968

Sept. 30-1949-July 18, 1968

Aug. 7, 1941-March 31, 1968

Hometown: Napa Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Calistoga Branch: Army Rank: Corporal

Hometown: Napa Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Staff sergeant

JIMMY L. FISHER

ROBERT E. FLANNERY JR.

JAMES P. FRANCIS

Aug. 23, 1947-Nov. 15, 1967

Sept. 26,1947-May 3, 1967

Oct. 28, 1946-May 27, 1969

Hometown: Calistoga Branch: Army Rank: Corporal

Hometown: St. Helena Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Napa Branch: Army Rank: Staff sergeant

STEVEN G. HICKS

JACK D. LANELLI

DAN S. LONG

Feb. 3-1948-May 22, 1968

April 1, 1945-Aug. 31, 1965

Jan. 17, 1948-April 9, 1969

Hometown: Napa Hometown: Napa Branch: Army Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class Rank: Specialist 5th class

Hometown: St. Helena Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Private ﬁrst class

PATRICK D. MORIARTY April 17, 1930-March 9, 1968

Hometown: Napa Branch: Navy Rank: Hospital Corpsman CPO

RICKY A. MYERS

JERRY W. OFSTEDAHL

July 27, 1947-Jan. 29, 1968

June 27, 1949-Aug. 13, 1969

Hometown: Napa Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Napa Branch: Army Rank: Sergeant

GARY W. RODRIGUES

LAWRENCE R. SHEPARD

THOMAS J. SILVA

June 24, 1945-May 5, 1967

July 22, 1949-May 12, 1969

Dec. 15, 1948-April 3, 1970

Hometown: Napa Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

Hometown: Napa Branch: Army Rank: Sergeant

Hometown: Napa Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

STEPHEN L. TOWNSEND

CHARLES H. VESEY

ROBERT A. WILLIAMS

March 20, 1950-Sept. 26, 1968

April 15, 1946-April 20, 1969

July 15, 1945-June 19, 1969

Hometown: Calistoga Branch: Army Rank: Sergeant

Hometown: Napa Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Sergeant

Hometown: Napa Branch: Army Rank: Chief Warrant Ofﬁcer

SONOMA

CLINTON R. ANDERSON

DAVID W. AYERS

DUANE R. BAUMGARDNER

WILLIAM D. BLESSMAN

July 10, 1941-Feb. 22, 1966

Hometown: Healdsburg Branch: Army Rank: 2nd Lieutenant

THOMAS R. BOWEN

May 20, 1945-July 20, 1970

Sept. 15, 1948-June 2, 1969

Aug. 19, 1947-June 17, 1967

Nov. 19, 1949-April 1, 1970

Hometown: Simi Branch: Army Rank: Captain

Hometown: Cloverdale Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

Hometown: Sebastopol Branch: Army Rank: Sergeant

Hometown: Forestville Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

MANCOL R. CLIFTON

DONALD H. COLEMAN

DALE L. DAVIS

RONALD L. DOOLITTLE

CHARLES D. DORMAN

June 2, 1930-Dec. 18, 1968

April 14, 1943-Feb. 13, 1968

July 21, 1947-Oct. 15, 1968

Nov. 14, 1947-Oct. 19, 1968

Dec. 12, 1946-May 12, 1968

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Sergeant

Hometown: Healdsburg Branch: Army Rank: Staff sergeant

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: Sergeant

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 5th class

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: Corporal

EDSALL A. FRICK

FREDERICK W. HAAS

JOSEPH A. HADLEY

DAVID L. HARDING

MICHAEL P. HOURIGAN

Sept. 16, 1946-Nov. 4, 1968

Feb. 2, 1946-Feb. 15, 1968

March 24, 1947-Dec. 2, 1968

May 14, 1949-Feb. 18, 1970

May 27, 1947-June 1, 1968

Hometown: Petaluma Branch: Army Rank: 1st lieutenant

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: 2nd lieutenant

Hometown: Rohnert Park Branch: Army Rank: Sergeant

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: 2nd lieutenant

RODNEY E. MARRUFO JR.

GREGORY L. MARTIN

SIGURD M. MESSER

JOHN P. MILLS

WILLIAM E. MONTGOMERY

Aug. 18, 1947-May 23, 1968

July 24, 1947-April 19, 1967

March 20, 1947-July 10, 1967

Sept. 7, 1947-Oct. 18, 1968

Jan. 1, 1947-Aug. 9, 1965

Hometown: Stewarts Point Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

Hometown: Simi Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Eldridge Branch: Navy Rank: Hospital apprentice

Hometown: Sebastopol Branch: Army Rank: Sergeant

Hometown: Healdsburg Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

EDWARD G. RAINFORD

RICHARD A. RENNING

CAMERON A. RICE

JOSEPH M. RODRIGUES

DANA G. ROSE

Nov. 23, 1944-June 29, 1968

Nov. 11, 1929-Jan. 12, 1969

March 30, 1946-June 19, 1967

June 9, 1948-Feb. 2, 1968

Jan. 15, 1948-Dec. 31, 1966

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: Sergeant

Hometown: Glen Ellen Branch: Navy Rank: Lieutenant

Hometown: Petaluma Branch: Army Rank: Corporal

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Lance corporal

EDWARD W. WOODRUFF

DOUGLAS P. ZERBA

BRIGGS K. SICILIA

JOHN H. SNYDER

EDRICK D. STEVENS

WILLIAM D. THOMAS

April 28, 1942-Nov. 19, 1966

Sept. 14, 1949-Aug. 31, 1970

Aug. 26, 1937-Jan. 1, 1969

Aug. 24, 1947-Oct. 15, 1967

Feb. 16, 1948-Nov. 6, 1967

June 20, 1932-Dec. 15, 1967

Hometown: Napa Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: Captain

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Air Force Rank: Airman 2nd class

Hometown: Simi Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Healdsburg Branch: Navy Rank: Builder (Concrete) P2

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

O13

ay troops came home

MENDOCINO COUNTY

than 100 of those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines hailed and information from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.

LEE A. ADAMS

DONALD G. ARMSTRONG

JOHN R. BABCOCK

July 29, 1938-April 19, 1966

May 5, 1935-April 2, 1970 Hometown: Ukiah Branch: Army Rank: Sergeant 1st class

Feb. 10, 1944-Dec. 18, 1968

Hometown: Willits Branch: Air Force Rank: 1st. lieutenant

STEPHEN C. BRUNTON

KENNETH A. BUTLER JR

EUGENE C. CAMPBELL

July 4, 1948-Aug. 18, 1968

Oct. 7, 1947-July 23, 1968

July 1, 1947-Aug. 27, 1967

Hometown: Ukiah Branch: Navy Rank: Boatswain’s Mate P3

Hometown: Willits Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

Hometown: Redwood Valley Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Lance corporal

CHARLES E. CRAIN

DANIEL G. DAWSON

DENNIS P. DUNSING

Oct. 18, 1947-July 2, 1967

July 23, 1938-Nov. 6, 1964

April 13, 1943-May 6, 1968

Hometown: Redwood Valley Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Ft. Bragg Branch: Army Rank: Captain

Hometown: Ukiah Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

CLINTON B. FACKRELL

EDMUND H. FRENYEA

ROBERT M. LATHROPE

Dec. 7, 1943-April 13, 1966

May 24, 1930-Jan. 22, 1966

Oct. 23, 1943-Aug. 24, 1965

Hometown: Willits Branch: Army Rank: Sergeant

Hometown: Ukiah Branch: Navy Rank: Master Chief Aircraft Maintenanceman

Hometown: Mendocino Branch: Navy Rank: Builder (Light construction) P3

CLYDE A. LUCAS

VICTOR L. PAINE

CLYDE E. RAINS

Feb. 3, 1948-March 26, 1969

Oct. 30, 1946-July 7, 1966

Feb. 4, 1948-March 4, 1969

Hometown: Mendocino Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 5th class

Hometown: South Fork Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Corporal

Hometown: Covelo Branch: Army Rank: Sergeant

LOUIS C. SCHLOTTE

LEWIS L. SHORT

RONALD L. WAFFORD

Feb. 3, 1932-April 16, 1968

Dec. 12, 1947-Aug. 7, 1969

April 1, 1945-Aug. 24, 1965

Hometown: Ft. Bragg Branch: Navy Rank: Boatswain’s Mate P1

Hometown: Covelo Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

Hometown: Ukiah Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Lance corporal

Hometown: Newport Branch: Navy Rank: Lieutenant junior grade

ELLE FOX

SINESS JOURNAL

A COUNTY

JOHN N. BREWER

JAMES A. BULLINGTON

DEAN H. BURNS

CHARLES J. CATELLI

DAVID M. CHANEY

Aug. 16, 1947-Jan. 11, 1968

Nov. 26, 1945- May 6, 1967

Sept. 10, 1947-March 31, 1968

Nov. 3, 1947-Jan. 4, 1969

April 4, 1941-April 16, 1967

Hometown: Sonoma Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: Warrant ofﬁcer

Hometown: Sonoma Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Air Force Rank: Airman 1st class

GREGORY L. DUNN

THEODORE G. FELAND

ROBERT A. FENTON

RICKIE D. FISCHER

STEFFAN M. FREDSTI

Feb. 3, 1949- Nov. 13, 1967

Aug. 14, 1934-April 20, 1961

March 7, 1946-May 4, 1966

March 6, 1947-April 14, 1967

Hometown: Sonoma Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

July 20, 1948-Dec. 4, 1967

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Boyes Hot Springs Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Private

Hometown: Simi Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Lance corporal

JASON D. HUNNICUTT

G. B. JACKSON JR.

DAVID A. KARDELL

RONALD D. MARCRUM

July 18, 1949-June 7, 1969

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Private ﬁrst class

REGINALD V. MAISEY JR.

June 12, 1939-May 9, 1965

Nov. 17, 1934-Jan. 31, 1968

Feb. 25, 1946-Oct. 15, 1967

Hometown: Sonoma Branch: Navy Rank: Lieutenant

Hometown: Sonoma Branch: Air Force Rank: Captain

Hometown: Monte Rio Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

Hometown: Petaluma Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Sept. 15, 1948-Sept. 17, 1968

THOMAS J. OGLETHORPE

GERALD T. PARMETER

LAWRENCE L. PETERSEN

THOMAS M. PHILLIPS

BABE PINOLE

March 5, 1947-Feb. 24, 1966

Sept. 4, 1947-May 24, 1968

Feb. 7, 1949-June 26, 1970

Feb. 11, 1948-Sept. 13, 1968

Dec. 12, 1944-Dec. 7, 1968

Hometown: Petaluma Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Cazadero Branch: Army Rank: Sergeant

Hometown: Eldridge Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

Hometown: Healdsburg Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Corporal

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Lance corporal

JEFFREY S. WESOLOWSKI Aug. 24, 1950-June 19, 1971

Hometown: Ukiah Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

LAKE COUNTY ROBERT E. RUONAVAARA

JERRY D. SCHROEDER

ROBERT E. SCHULZE

BARRY M. SEARBY

ROBERT L. SHARPLESS

Aug. 7, 1943-March 29, 1967

Jan. 21, 1943-Jan. 3,1968

Oct. 16, 1950-July 27, 1971

May 7, 1948-March 16, 1970

July 19, 1949-Feb. 9, 1968

Hometown: Healdsburg Branch: Air Force Rank: Airman 1st class

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Navy Rank: Seaman

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Navy Rank: Aviation electronics technician (Navigation) 2nd class

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

CHARLES P. TORLIATT JR.

STEPHEN L. WEIGT

LARRY E. WITTLER

June 7, 1947-Feb. 9, 1968

Oct. 14, 1947-March 21, 1969

Nov. 18, 1948-Feb. 1, 1968

Hometown: Petaluma Branch: Army Rank: Private ﬁrst class

Hometown: Cloverdale Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

Hometown: Petaluma Branch: Army Rank: Private

EDWIN A. ZUMWALT May 13, 1950-June 16, 1969

Hometown: Santa Rosa Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Private

LEWIS D. GROTHE

PAUL W. HILL

April 22, 1946-Jan. 10, 1967

Sept. 25, 1946-Sept. 26, 1967

Hometown: Lakeport Branch: Army Rank: Specialist 4th class

Hometown: Upper Lake Branch: Navy Rank: Hospitalman

DAVID C. LINDBERG Sept. 17, 1937-May 21, 1967

Hometown: Lakeport Branch: Air Force Rank: Captain

ROBERT T. MILLS July 13, 1942-June 26, 1972

Hometown: Clearlake Highlands Branch: Navy Rank: Gunner’s Mate (Guns) P1

GEORGE L. SILVA June 11, 1948-Feb. 23, 1969

Hometown: Nice Branch: Marine Corps Rank: Lance corporal

VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

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THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

MICHAEL PATRICK BRANCH: U.S. ARMY

CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Michael Patrick was part of MACV, a Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. It was a joint-service command of the U.S. Department of Defense, composed of forces from the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force, as well as each branch’s respective special operations forces. Patrick pauses Oct. 19 in Petaluma near a Viet Cong battle ﬂag with bullet holes and stained with blood, given to him by a military counterpart.

‘I don’t need to relive it’ Veteran learned to emotionally detach while overseas and how to use fear, courage

By ANDREW GRAHAM THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

f everything Michael Patrick saw and learned in the Vietnam War, what stuck with him most — and frightened him most — is what he learned about himself. “The biggest thing that scared me, probably, was knowing what I was capable of doing to another human being,” he said. “It was a matter of survival and I was able to rationalize it — him or me, well I choose me — but it’s amazing what you learn about yourself and that’s what scared me.” Patrick, 76, eschews vivid recountings of combat. But his tour of duty in the Vietnam War, which lasted from March 1969 until April 1970, was not a pencil-pushing one. He was MACV — Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. It was a joint-service command of the U.S. Department of Defense, composed of forces from the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force, as well as each branch’s respective special operations forces. The designation meant he spent the war embedded with a South Vietnamese army battalion — a part of the 9th Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam — as a military adviser, but advising was far from his full job. Patrick fought alongside the South Vietnamese troops in the jungles and waterways of southern Vietnam. The battalion he embedded with “wanted to fight,” he said. “And they did fight and they weren't afraid to fight.” Even when pushed, he declined to described specifics. “I’ve lived through it once. I don’t need to relive it,” he said. But he recalled telling his son that he engaged in close combat in addition to firefights. “You definitely remember the first time you kill,” he said, “and then after that it’s just staying alive. You don’t count.” He learned, he said, to turn off his emotions. “I can be very cold-hearted if I have to be and just keep moving forward.”

Discovering fear, courage He was in the ﬁeld for the duration of his service except for brief respites in safe cities and towns. Helicopters ﬂew his battalion into Cambodia during the U.S.’s controversial incursion into that country to try and disrupt North Vietnamese supplies and troops moving along the so-called Ho Chi Minh Trail. His prior arrival in Vietnam set the tone for the rest of his time in the war — where he discovered the limits of his fear and courage. A helicopter dropped him off on a nondescript road in the jungle. He was told to walk down the road until

CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A fake Viet Cong commendation was given to Michael Patrick as a souvenir by the South Vietnamese interpreter he worked with during the Vietnam War. The souvenir that hangs on a wall in Patrick’s home in Petaluma. he ran into the South Vietnamese troops he would march and fight with for the next year. He grew close with the soldiers he was embedded with and advised them via his own military training. When away from the front lines, he dined with his interpreter and his family on traditional Vietnamese food. His office in Petaluma holds war memorabilia, including a bullet-riddled North Vietnamese flag captured following a three-day firefight. The discolorations on it are human blood, Patrick said. The commander of his South Vietnamese unit gave him the North Vietnamese flag as a gift after the battle. For Patrick, though, the gunfire didn’t end with the war. He became a police officer in Sausalito. Responding to a midnight burglary call in the hills above the waterside town, Patrick was shot by a suspect and the bullet struck him in the area near his liver. He shot back and wounded the suspect, who is now in state prison. It wasn’t until after the gunfire Patrick realized he was wearing an armored vest. The .38-caliber round fired by the burglar left a bruise the size of a softball. “Combat,” Patrick said. “You’ve

got to keep going until you can’t go anymore.”

Combat mentality His ability to stay emotionally detached amid tragedy, which he learned in combat, has beneﬁted him in other ways too. Patrick, who left the police force as a detective after nearly 20 years, switched careers and became a registered nurse. When his wife underwent brain surgery for a tumor, doctors gave her a year to live, he said. He spent two years as her personal nurse. The doctors were wrong, though. She lived another 25 years until April 2020. Patrick spent the last year and a half again serving as her nurse, only this time providing hospice care. “When she passed I was very stoic,” he said. “I just kept going on and never let nothing bother me — didn't show any emotion, no nothing in front of other people. And then I get off by myself and then I break down. You have this image, and I have to maintain that image.” People say “well that’s post-traumatic stress disorder,” Patrick said. “Call it what you want. I don’t know TURN TO RELIVE » PAGE O19

MICHAEL PATRICK

Photos of Michael Patrick during his service as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army in Vietnam from 1969-70.

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

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JOHN LOGAN BRANCH: U.S. ARMY

PHOTOS BY CHAD SURMICK / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Vietnam war veteran John Logan pauses on Oct. 5 at his Santa Rosa. He was a member of the airmobile infantry, assigned to the north-central part of South Vietnam, with Company A of the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division.

Vietnam is only a memory away After returning home, Santa Rosa resident became an advocate for North Bay veterans By MARY CALLAHAN THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

he shocked looks on the faces of the four Viet Cong soldiers in the moments before one of them shot and severely wounded him in Vietnam remain vividly clear in John Logan’s mind 56 years later. The men must have thought they’d managed to escape him, but Logan, a rifleman with the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division, had ducked through a small cave opening and come up behind them and taken them by surprise. It had already been a horrible, bloody morning. Five of Logan’s friends and comrades had been blown apart in front of him. He then worked side by side with other soldiers to recover what pieces of those men remained. So, when he and his squad were sent out a short time later to chase down enemy soldiers on a nearby ridge, he was angry and moving fast. He had almost caught up to the last of the Viet Cong group during a running firefight when the enemy soldiers slipped into a hillside. Logan, then 21, lunged in after them. “I could see the surprise on their face, that I had followed them in, and so it gave me an edge,” Logan, now 77, said. He quickly shot and killed three of the soldiers before the fourth fired his AK-47, twice. Both rounds tore into Logan’s right thigh, shattering his femur and tearing apart the soft tissue. He managed to kill the fourth man before he fell backward toward the cave door, where two of his squad members pulled him out. “I thought they’d blown my leg off because, you know ... it was just flopping there,” Logan recalled. From his hospital experience, he knew “if they hit my femoral (artery) I’ve got like three minutes,” he said. “And then I tried to move my foot, and I could, so I knew they hadn’t hit the nerve.”

Always on the move It was Aug. 22, 1967, and Logan, now a longtime Santa Rosa resident, had been in the country for 110 days. He was a member of the airmobile infantry, assigned to the north-central part of South Vietnam, with Company A of the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division. Helicopters would drop members of his platoon into the countryside for three or four days at a time, sometimes less. They were always on the move, ready to confront the enemy, stopping only long enough to get food, supplies and fresh clothes, and to acquire whatever medical treatment might be needed. Despite being the son of a career military man, Logan was already

Vietnam war veteran John Logan’s Purple Heart paperwork shown at his Santa Rosa home. He remembers a medic telling him a day or so later, “You’ve got a million-dollar wound. You’re going home.” opposed to the war when he joined it. Even so, he left an apartment in San Jose and a job in the emergency medical department at what was then Santa Clara Valley Medical Center to report for basic training at Fort Ord, then an Army training post, along the Pacific Coast at Monterey Bay. In April 1967, prior to shipping out from Fairfield’s Travis Air Force Base, he and his high school girlfriend, Janis Tanaka, got married. They’re still married today. Upon arrival in country, he was taken to base camp in An Khe. Logan was only there a day before he was put on a flight to Pleiku and the hills. Though his squad moved back and forth between the highlands and the coast, he never returned to base camp. During one mission, Logan remembered his squad staying near a beautiful freshwater stream and waterfall. They drank deeply, bathed and washed their clothes — unaware of the risk posed by the Agent Orange that had previously been sprayed overhead. He now believes, “That stream running down there was all Agent Orange.” U.S. forces used the chemical herbicide to defoliate the vegetation and prevent potential ambushes. At another time, he and his fellow soldiers were surrounded by aircraft carrying huge rubber bladders filled with the stuff — the dust from the dried herbicide whipped around in the air, mobilized by the helicopter

Vietnam war veteran John Logan’s U.S. Army portrait shown at his home. rotors. Logan is now ﬁghting four kinds of cancer, on top of the diabetes diagnosed earlier — all presumptive conditions resulting from Agent Orange exposure. “We’ve all known for — what — 30 years that this stuff can happen to you. So, at least for me, it’s always been in the back of my mind that this was going to happen,” Logan said.

Side of the helicopter was red The bleak August day that ended his combat service started with about 44 soldiers escorting two tanks back

to the coast highway. A soldier named Balthazar had taken point but was being rushed by a tank commander, Logan said. In his hurry, the soldier stepped on a small land mine that blew off much of his foot. Two other men, one a close friend of Logan’s, got Balthazar on a stretcher and were taking him to a medevac helicopter when a Viet Cong soldier hiding in a bamboo thicket detonated a large artillery shell buried in the road. The man on the stretcher and those carrying it were all killed. “One of the images I remember most was the whole side of the helicopter was red,” Logan said. “And I looked at the pilot, and he had this absolute terror on his face as he jerked the rotor and ﬂew away.” Logan, who had been running to help load the stretcher, was thrown backward by the blast, which ﬁlled his eyes, nose and mouth with dirt.” He said except for a mild concussion “... I didn’t have a scratch on me.” Two other men were killed by shrapnel. One of them, his sergeant, took several minutes to die. Leaning on his hospital experience, he stayed with him until the end. Logan was among those next directed to bag the body parts. He said he still remembers the names of all the men killed that day. It was later that morning when Logan dove into the cave and confronted the four Viet Cong, as well as his own TURN TO MEMORY » PAGE O20

VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

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THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

GARY COFFLAND BRANCH: U.S. AIR FORCE

PHOTOS BY CHAD SURMICK / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Gary Coffland smiles Oct. 9 at his Santa Rosa home. In 1971, Coffland was a sergeant and was sent to the Royal Thai Air Force Base in Korat, Thailand which was connected to a U.S. Army base called Camp Friendship where he had top secret-security clearance. He was maintaining the computer systems that managed classified communication.

Supporting those in combat

Veteran maintained computer systems, classiﬁed communications while serving in Thailand By JENNIFER GRAUE THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

he Vietnam War wasn’t just a conflict between the country’s north and south factions, or democracy and communism. It was a war that forced many young Americans to make undesirable choices. It was a time when a sense of duty and one’s beliefs, while not diametrically opposed, were sometimes in conflict. Sonoma resident Gary Coffland has understood that nuance for more than five decades. Speaking with a raspy voice and a slight cough during a recent interview, Coffland assured a reporter he didn’t have a cold. With good-natured sarcasm, he mentioned that he’d recently received another “award” for his military service. “I was diagnosed with lymphoma and hypothyroidism earlier this year,” he said. Coffland, 74, retired in 2011 from a long career in high tech. He credits his time in the U.S. Air Force with giving him his start in the industry, which included time as the lead technician on a cruise missile launch control system, a stint with a GPS start-up and finally with Cisco Systems. In 2008, he and his wife of 54 years, Chris, moved to Sonoma where he has enjoyed a post-retirement career in the wine industry as the resident historian for Gundlach Bundschu. Coffland said he has always been interested in history and current events and remembered reading about Vietnam in Time magazine in the 1950s while growing up in San Carlos. He graduated from high school there in 1967 and spent a year at the College of San Mateo before getting kicked out. “I was just going there to get the deferment,” he said. “School was a way to have a year off, knowing I would wind up being drafted and I was going to need to do something about that.” At the recruitment office in Redwood City, he chose the Air Force. My dad was a Marine (in World War II). I figured that one out. I had no interest in the Army or Marines given what was going on,” he said of the treacherous nature of combat in Vietnam. “(But) I was willing to invest the time and get something out of the service.” He tested well in math and electronics, and after basic training was assigned to a year at a radar dataprocessing school at Keelser Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. Coffland returned home to California, got married, and in December 1969 drove to Red Bluffs Air Force Station for his assignment in the Air Defense Command mobile radar program. There, he did on-the-job training with career airmen — most were

A plate of memorabilia from the Vietnam War sits on the dining room table in Gary Cofﬂand’s home on Oct. 9 in Santa Rosa. WWII and Korean War veterans.

Tough conversations It wasn’t long after the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970, and the then20-year-old Coffland had mustered up the nerve to let his superiors know what he thought about that tragedy and the war. “They’re all talking about how great that was, and I just wasn’t having it,” he said, clarifying that they weren’t gleeful, but certainly approved of the actions of the Ohio National Guard troops, who had ﬁred on students protesting the spread of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. The shootings left four students dead and nine others injured. “The moment you shoot and kill your civilians we are no longer a democracy,” he recalled telling them. “That was shocking to those guys.” Coffland said it led to three days of intense discussions, but he said his opinions weren’t held against him because “they recognized I did my job.” In 1971, Coffland, by then a sergeant, was sent to the Royal Thai Air Force Base in Korat, Thailand which was connected to a U.S. Army base called Camp Friendship. He had top secret-security clearance, since he’d be maintaining the computer systems that managed classiﬁed communications traffic for the military. He said because he wasn’t “boots on the ground” some people, even other Vietnam veterans, are dismissive of his service. Coffland said he tries to engage them in a conversation about all the servicemen and women who were

cooks, payroll techs, or in communications, like he was, who supported those who were in combat — considered “the point of the spear.” He tells them, “’Hey, I worked on cruise missiles. Maybe we’re softening things up before you went in somewhere, or maybe the Air Force is coming in and saving your butt when you’re stuck somewhere on the ground,’” he explained. “Try to get them to have a little respect, if you will.”

Illness, chemical exposure At the beginning of 2023, Coffland said, he began having trouble eating and breathing. He had his thyroid removed and a biopsy revealed he had non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He recently underwent his seventh and final round of chemotherapy and has so far been given the all-clear. His medical diagnosis is presumed to be associated with defoliant use, such as Agent Orange, which had been sprayed around the Air Force Base in Thailand. He described the area surrounding the base as “denuded.” Prior to last year, veterans such as Coffland, who had a role in the Vietnam War but who served elsewhere during the conflict — either on the sea or in Thailand, Laos or Cambodia — weren’t entitled to the same benefits regarding debilitating conditions associated with defoliants as those who served in the country of Vietnam. That changed in August 2022 when President Biden signed into law the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act, or PACT Act as it’s known. It was one of the largest health care

and benefit expansions in Veterans Administration history. Coffland noted that it came too late for many who served in Southeast Asia who died or were disabled due to illnesses attributed to toxic chemical exposure. “I think I ducked one for a long, long time,” he said. “It showed up with a lot of other people much earlier. Honestly, I feel lucky and I feel really bad for those people.” Every May 17, he said, he thinks about an accident in 1972 that happened on the Air Force base in Thailand, where he was stationed. A jet that had been shot up came in, and as a team of firefighters attended to it, a live ordnance aboard exploded. Six people were killed — four Thai firefighters and two Americans — and several others were injured. His eyes became watery as he spoke of the deathly silence that fell over the normally active base that day. On his Facebook page, Coffland posted a photo of his copy of the May 1, 1975 edition of Stars & Stripes with the headline “It’s Over.” In the comments he offered a lyric from the Led Zeppelin song “The Battle of Evermore”: “The pain of war cannot exceed The woe of aftermath.“ “I wasn’t the ‘point of the spear.’ I made certain I wasn’t going to be the ‘point of the spear,’” he said. “But you’re in it, you’re still surrounded by it. It doesn’t go away. It’s going to live with you.” You can reach Staff Writer Jennifer Graue at 707-521-5262 or jennifer. graue@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @JenInOz.

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

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MIKE BELLING BRANCH: NAVY

PHOTOS BY CHAD SURMICK / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Mike Belling, who was a Seabee in the Navy and entered Vietnam in 1968, pauses Oct. 20 at his Larkﬁeld home. “I spent four years in the Navy, and I never set foot on a ship,” he said. “We worked on piers and stuff, which means we had to get up on ships to do something. But they were docked.”

Returning home to hostility As a Seabee, Santa Rosa resident kept machines humming so others can do the ﬁghting By PHIL BARBER THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

ike Belling’s life seemed to pivot during a 90-minute layover in Tokyo in 1968. The ﬁrst leg of his journey to Southeast Asia, from California to Japan, had been a rowdy one. Belling was a kid, really, a month past his 18th birthday. Many of the enlisted men on his World Airways 747 were his age or only slightly older. They ordered drinks and laughed and whooped at 30,000 feet. The GIs got off the plane in Tokyo while it was being refueled. When they boarded again, everything had changed. “We got back in the plane and took off, and all of a sudden it was like a different group,” said Belling, now 74, as he sat in the comfort of his dining room in the Larkﬁeld area of Santa Rosa. “It got real quiet. I think at that point, it kind of settled in on everybody’s mind that the next time we touch down, we’re touching down in a war zone.” The somber mood grew heavier when the 747 reached its destination — Da Nang, a city on the central coast of Vietnam about 130 miles from the Demilitarized Zone separating the warring northern and southern factions of the country. As Belling’s plane approached the area that would be his home for the next 13 months, its captain came over the intercom to announce he’d have to circle a bit. Workers were patching the runway, which had been pounded by Viet Cong shells the previous night. Welcome to Vietnam.

Mike Belling uses an auger to set poles in Vietnam in 1968. He was a Seabee in the Navy, which are the engineers, construction teams and utility maintenance men and women of U.S. military operations. It was an irate U.S. general. He was hosting a party in downtown Da Nang, and didn’t appreciate the interruption. One thing you should know about Mike Belling: He’s a storyteller. His descriptions of his time in Vietnam sometimes sound like an episode of the popular TV show “M*A*S*H.” There may be a backdrop of hardship, and occasional tragedy, but the tone is usually comedic.

Becoming a Seabee It was a family friend, a Navy captain, who convinced Belling the U.S. military needed his help in halting the "cancer“ of Communism in Asia. But Belling came of age in 1960s San Francisco. He didn’t want to shoot a gun. So he compromised. He applied for, and was accepted into, the Navy’s Construction Battalions — known to all as the Seabees. The Seabees are the engineers, construction teams and utility maintenance men and women of U.S. military operations. They keep the machines humming so others can do the ﬁghting. “I spent four years in the Navy, and I never set foot on a ship,” Belling said. “We worked on piers and stuff, which means we had to get up on ships to do something. But they were docked.” Soon after, he was deployed to Public Works Da Nang, the hub of the military’s construction, electrical and water-bearing work in the I-Corps, the northernmost of South Vietnam’s four tactical zones.

‘It was never-ending’

Mike Belling holds the helmet given to him by his commander which he wore throughout his tour in Vietnam in 1968. The Navy put him to work in the generator room that powered the entire area. It was a massive facility with six “huge, bus-size generators” and a wall of switches. No more than three weeks into the job, Belling was on night watch in the generator room one evening when he attempted to bring one of the generators online, and take another one off. But he

threw the switch at the wrong time. The entire city of Da Nang (or at least those portions that were electriﬁed) and surrounding U.S. bases went black. “I blew out fuses for 40 miles,” Belling recounted. A couple minutes later, the phone rang. “Who the hell is this?!” the voice on the other end barked.

Among the tasks Belling and his fellow Seabees performed in Vietnam was planting and stringing power lines. His four-man team drove a huge truck and connected power grids around bases and towns. Sometimes they’d spend two or three days electrifying a hill the U.S. Marines had just taken. “And then we’d go back up there because they blew it all up,” he said. “It was never-ending. You had good job security.” Unlike those in the ﬁghting forces, Belling spent most of his days in shorts and boots. Not that there wasn’t danger. One day, the North Vietnamese rocketed the ammunition dump about a half-mile from Belling’s base. It set off a thunderous, slow-moving chain TURN TO SEABEE » PAGE O22

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VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

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RELIVE

CONTINUED FROM O14 what it is,” he said. Sitting in his home 50 years after the war, under his captured North Vietnamese ﬂag and surrounded by other combat mementos, Patrick said he “has forgiven the American people, but I’ll never forget what they did to us.” He is speaking, angrily like so many Vietnam war veterans, of the cold return they received from a general public that was disillusioned with the war and seemingly unable to separate its foot soldiers from the politicians and generals who directed their involvement in the conﬂict.

Friends keep him grounded Unlike many veterans, he never slipped into alcoholism or drug use in order to deal with his PTSD or his disillusionment, Patrick said. His lifelong friends in Petaluma, who welcomed him back and teased him when he jumped at a car backfire down the street, kept him grounded. “I had anger issues with the American public with the way we soldiers were treated and handled. But because of them it just slowly eased away,“ he said of his friends. In May, he and one of his sons took an Honor Flight to Washington, D.C. — a program that provides a free flight to the capital for Veterans of Foreign Wars to visit the memorials honoring the conflicts in which they served. During the visit, school groups and students approached him, stick out their hands and said, “Thank you for your service,” Patrick recalled. As he related those more recent memories during an October interview, the soldier who became a lifelong stoic choked up with emotion. He visited the memorial with around 20 other veterans, he said. “All of us we’re getting bombarded, for lack of a better term, ”with families, kids, small kids, older kids, adults coming up and thanking us for our service. So, I think we finally got our ‘Welcome home.’ “ You can reach Staff Writer Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or andrew.graham@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @AndrewGraham88

CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

North Vietnamese currency is framed on a wall in Michael Patrick’s home in Petaluma. The items were given to Patrick from the U.S. military. His tour of duty in the Vietnam War lasted from March 1969 until April 1970.

RELAX

CONTINUED FROM O18 He said a lieutenant in command on the boat later told him, “’You never know. Those kids could have been wired with explosives and when we got up close, they could have blown themselves up.’ And I thought, ‘Those kid are the age of my kids. How stupid.’”

‘It was a total waste’ He said he realized then how crazy the Vietnam War was. Commanding officers warned of the threat the civilian population could pose to American soldiers at every turn; they could be hidden in plain sight. “You don’t know who the enemy is,” Winget said “You can’t ever relax.” Despite this, the Vietnam War wrecked havoc not only in the minds and bodies of American soldiers, but across the villages and towns of the civilian populations. More than 5 million bombs were dropped over 20 years on Vietnam, a country only slightly larger than the state of New Mexico. Tens of thousands of people were killed. Civilians and Soldiers. Americans and Vietnamese. “It was a waste of time. All those bodies, all those men who died. It was a total waste,” Winget said. After a long pause, he told the story of a man in the South Vietnamese army who worked with the Americans. After the Americans pulled out of Vietnam, Winget said the man was sent to a “readjustment camp.” “The people that lived there had to put up with whatever was going on. He didn’t have a choice, he couldn’t leave. Where was he going to go? He’s looking at it, ‘It’s my country, and my country is at war.’” Following his return to the U.S., Winget found comfort with other veterans who shared experiences in Vietnam — a feeling he said was hard to understand

CHASE HUNTER / SONOMA INDEX-TRIBUNE

Portraits of William Peter Winget at various points during his nearly 25 years in the Navy, much of which took place during the Vietnam War. for civilians at the time. “Intellectually, you can say, ‘Oh yeah, I know what it was like.’ You don’t know what it was like. You can’t know. It’s not possible,” Winget said. “It's the only war that the civilian population blamed the military for. They spit on us when we came home. We didn't start the stupid war. It's the politicians that start wars.” Winget stayed in the Navy for almost 25 years, eventually earning the title of lieutenant commander. But his feelings about the Vietnam War, as well as the political leaders at the time, remain bitter and ﬁxed. “I can't say I liked Vietnam,” Winget said. “But I liked the Navy.” You can reach Chase Hunter at WILLIAM PETER WINGET chase.hunter@sonomanews.com. On Twitter @Chase_HunterB. Vietnam veteran William Peter Winget and his aunt Alice Mickle sit at the Los Angeles airport in 1956.

VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

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THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

MEMORY

CONTINUED FROM O15 possible death.

Becoming an advocate He remembers a medic telling him a day or so later, “You’ve got a million-dollar wound. You’re going home.” “I felt an immediate wave of guilt for not staying, because I had a job to do, and I had guys that relied on me to do that job,” he said. “It didn’t occur to me that I could be easily replaced. That never entered my mind. It was just, ‘How am I going to live with this?’ And that’s the way I was for a long time.” That guilt contributed to years of post-traumatic stress made worse by the horrors of war. He was hospitalized for his leg for about eight months, then rehabbed for an extended period before his military retirement in January 1971. His right leg will always before shorter than the other one. It ﬂapped backward at the knee for decades due to the loss of tendons or ligaments. Undeterred, he went on to raise a family and made a living doing odd jobs, building and repairing redwood decks. Most recently, he spent 13 years on the maintenance crew at Comstock Middle School. He was an enthusiastic participant in the anti-war movement for several years. But his legacy as a veterans advocate is longer lasting. That chapter began when a stranger in a San Jose hospital where he worked saw his Purple Heart hat and asked for advice. Soon, others were calling him, eager to ﬁnd guidance as they readjusted to civilian life — even looking Logan up at DeAnza Community College in Cupertino, which he attended for a time before moving north. For 26 years, he has been active in the Military Order of the Purple Heart, North Bay chapter, for which he now serves as commander. And telling his own story has helped him deal with the traumas of war. Still, the pain “stays with you,” Logan said. “It never goes away. I still see the faces of the guys in that cave, and I see what happened to the guys that were

CHAD SURMICK / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

For 26 years, veteran John Logan has been active in the Military Order of the Purple Heart, North Bay chapter, for which he now serves as commander.

John Logan addresses the crowd at a ceremony to designate Petaluma as a Purple Heart City in 2014. in my platoon. “I can’t forget their names. It’s all there, and it’s going to be there forever.” You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan (she/her) at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@ pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.

JOHN GAY

Jim Anderson, left, and John Logan, far right, of Military Order of the Purple Heart present Yountville Mayor John Dunbar with a Purple Heart City sign and proclamation in 2016 at the Yountville Veterans Home.

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VIETNAM: THE PAIN OF WAR

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THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023

CHAD SURMICK / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A letter from Mike Belling to his sister in Riverside from his time in service during the Vietnam War photographed Oct. 20 at his Santa Rosa home.

SEABEE

resourcefulness. He learned that the best food was in the Korean camp, that K-ration cigarettes were so dry they burned to CONTINUED FROM O17 ash in a few puffs and that his reaction. grandmother’s famed chocolate For a week, no one was chip cookies would arrive intact allowed near the dump, as the if she baked them in a 35-mm bombs and bullets continued film reel canister. “banging like popcorn.” Belling was surprised at the Belling still vividly rememhostility he encountered back bers the first time his battalion home. came under fire and was ordered When he touched down in San into the bunker they’d made out Bernardino, military officials adof sandbags. vised the servicemen to change “Sitting in a dark, wet bunker into civilian clothes in a room is a very chilling thing,” he said. set up by the USO, and to hide “We used to laugh that even the their uniforms. guys who didn’t believe in God Even older veterans from prewere praying. The first time in vious wars, Belling would learn, was probably one of the scariest seemed hostile to the Vietnam moments of my life.” guys. The primary lesson of Bell“It made me feel I’d spent the ing’s time in Southeast Asia was last couple years doing some-

thing that they didn’t think was worth anything,” he said. So Belling clammed up. It was 10 years, he ﬁgured, before he talked about Vietnam at all. Even after that, as he built a successful career in camera equipment, then computers, he felt alienated from the armed forces.

‘I could smell Vietnam’ All that changed on Sept. 11, 2001, as Belling watched the media images of smoke pouring from the shattered twin towers in lower Manhattan. “I could smell Vietnam,” he said. “I don’t know how to explain that. Luckily, I don’t have PTSD. But when I saw the tower burning and the black smoke, I could smell the ﬁre in Vietnam. I took two weeks off from work. I

lay in bed.” For the ﬁrst time, Belling felt compelled to visit his local Veterans Affairs office. And it was lucky he did. A routine chest X-ray revealed a mass in one of the lobes of his right lung. It was cancer. “We knew nothing about Agent Orange,” Belling said. “We knew that around all the bases we were working, there was no foliage for maybe 100 yards. Everything was dead. What I didn’t realize is, I’m drilling all these holes. And the dust is ﬂying. There’s no mask in the place. So that was the reason I got Agent Orange cancer in my lung.” Surgeons excised the entire lobe, and Belling has been healthy ever since. His positive experience with the VA opened Belling’s mind to

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ways in which he might connect with other veterans. Eventually, it led him to the breakfast club that meets at Castaneda’s Market in Windsor most Saturdays. The attendees are of varying age, pedigree, branch of service and belief system. They are bound only by their military service, and the feelings no one else could relate to. “When you get together with a group of us, and you know they’ve been through what you’ve been through, it changes talking about it,” Belling said. “I’m not touting it now. I’m just talking to someone who understands it.” You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil. barber@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Skinny_Post.

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THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2023