They Served with Honor

Wednesday, November 11, 2015 ONLINE AT WWW.DAILYJOURNALONLINE.COM Daily Journal  PAGE 1B

Full veteran profiles and additional photos are available online at www.dailyjournalonline.com.

They can also be found in printed editions of the Daily Journal during the months of September, October and November

Larry Barton M o s t Vietnam veterans prefer not to talk about their time overseas or what it was like when they returned home.

“No matter what though, you still do think about it because those are experiences at 20 years old you don’t forget,” explains Larry Barton, a Bonne Terre native.

Being drafted was something that every young American male knew was an option in the mid-1960s. Pretty much back then it was common knowledge that if you were drafted or enlisted you were on your way over to Vietnam.

Barton said that he served three years total in the Army. He was drafted and then enlisted. When they drafted you it was for two years and you'd go through the same process as when you enlisted.

On an enlistment you got three years instead of two.

Barton said he believes they went through about two days of training at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and then they were sent home for 30 days. He had to report to Fort Bliss after the 30 days were up and they left out from there.

“They told us the route we would be taking and it wasn’t what they told us,” said Barton. “We were flown into Cameron Bay and at the time I looked it up because I knew that was where we were going. I found any and all information I could on Cameron Bay and it was gorgeous. I was supposed to be assigned to an engineer attachment and I wasn’t looking forward to it, but it eased my mind about a lot of things.”

Once they arrived at Cameron Bay that night they were fed and put up and around 3 a.m. they woke everyone up and told them they had order changes. Barton said they started reading them off and all of a sudden he was heading for the 11th Armored Calvary just outside Xuan Loc.

Barton saw many things during his time in Vietnam, but what he experienced upon his return stateside left a lasting impact as well.

Returning soldiers weren’t treated very nice and Barton said it wasn’t just him, it was everybody.

“We weren’t looked favorably upon,” said Barton. “When I came back about 14 months later, instead of feeling 20 years old, I felt like I was 60 years old. I have seen things that I will never experience like that again. It worries me that any young man today would.”

Joe Snyder J o e Snyder, a Marine who served in Vietnam in the ‘60s, has always cons i d e re d himself a lucky man, but has often wondered why he's among those who have been so richly blessed.

Born in Bismarck, Snyder spent his earliest years growing up in a three-room apartment on the ground floor of a rooming house owned by his grandmother. He attended first and second grade at Bismarck before his parents built a house in Washington County.

Snyder said he wondered what he was going to do after graduating high school.

He wasn’t the only one with that question.

"When I was a senior in April of ’63, a Marine recruiter came down and met with me and signed me up on the 120day delay plan. I could sign up and then leave four months afterwards. I went up and took my physical over the weekend and came back to school on Monday.”

In July of that year Snyder was put on a plane and flew Los Angeles. He then took a shuttle flight to San Diego for 13 weeks of boot camp.

Snyder was eventually placed in the 3rd Battalion Fifth Marine Regiment in 1964

when it was sent overseas as a transplacement battalion. The men loaded up their rifles and gear and traveled across the Pacific Ocean. Once the battalion arrived, it became the 1st Battalion Ninth Marines of the 3rd Marine Division. Snyder said he spent three months in Japan, took jungle training in Okinawa and also spent time in the Philippines ... Vietnam hadn’t started yet.

After 30 days leave, Snyder returned to California where he soon learned his unit was going to be sent back to Vietnam via Okinawa.

They arrived in Vietnam sometime in late September or early October. By November they had left Okinawa and were heading to Vietnam.

After returning from Vietnam, Snyder attended Mineral Area College for two years and carpooled to Southeast Missouri State University for two years to earn a degree.

"After graduation, I could not find a teaching position so I worked at AMAX Lead Company at the Buick Mine as a warehouseman and later in the engineering department as a surveyor,” he said.

He taught 28 years in the Potosi School District before retirement.

Bill Gillam For a 20year veteran of the U n i t e d States Army (from June 1960 to June 1980) and an avid civilian international traveler, it could be said that Lt. Colonel Bill Gillam has seen the world.

After graduating in 1955 from Bonne Terre High School, Gillam went to West Missouri State College (now Missouri State University) in Springfield, where he joined the Army ROTC. He joined the Army as a lieutenant. He trained in Georgia, Kentucky and then Alabama before being sent to Panama in 1964.

Gillam served in Panama from January 1964 to December 1966. He was in Korea for over a year between 1967 and 1968.

He served in Vietnam and Cambodia for most of 1970, then went to Germany in June 1971 until July 1974.

He spent his last six years of service in St. Louis with the Army Troop Support Command and Aviation Systems Command.

Gillam’s most distinguished service occurred while he was in Vietnam and Cambodia. He had been promoted to major by then and during his time incountry he performed “over 500 helicopter missions as a supply officer getting supplies, equipment, food, weapons and ammunition to troops on fire bases” in both countries.

Gillam eventually made it home and continued his military service until June of 1980.

His interest in travel and the cultures of other countries, however, was not sated. According to Gillam, his love of traveling was sparked while he was assigned to Panama from 1964 to 1966.

During his two-year tour in Panama, he visited Brazil, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

After retiring from the Army, Gillam and his wife continued to travel. They have traveled to Israel multiple times, floated down the Nile River and visited the pyramids and the Sphinx. They have seen Buckingham Palace, the Berlin Wall, the Roman Coliseum and the Parthenon in Athens, Greece.

They have been behind the former “Iron Curtain” and traveled inside the Kremlin Wall, Lenin's Tomb, and the Russian Czars’ home in St. Petersburg.

They have visited Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Spain, London and India, where they visited the Taj Mahal.

Thailand, Singapore, Manila and the Philippines were next on the list before heading to Hong Kong. Later that year, Gillam gave his wife a cruise to Greece, Turkey, England and France for her birthday present.

To date, Gillam and his wife have visited 102 countries, territories and independent states. As long as they are physically able to travel, the Gillams plan to continue to explore the planet and all of its wonders.

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Wednesday, November11, 11,2015 2015 WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER

Preston Matthews

James Hutchins

It's said there are seasons to a person's life.

Unfortunately often times the calendar showing all those seasons doesn't completely unfold until after the person is gone.

For many of his friends, Preston Matthews was a white-bearded, balding, cigar-smoking landowner and coffee drinker that could be found at Plank Road Inn most mornings solving the world's problems from behind a white porcelain cup. Those around the community of Gumbo who knew him in his younger years would recall a high-spirited, flat-topped young man big on fast cars and living life to its fullest.

It wasn't until Matthews passed that his family and close friends started to get the real picture of just how much more their beloved relative and friend had been.

It was while his wife was going through some of his personal belongings after his death that she found countless snapshots, memorabilia and letters from the Navy. Included was a commendation accompanying a Silver Star for bravery that Preston received after a daring helicopter rescue.

The paperwork outlined the details as told by gunners on the small helicopter and a fighter pilot that was plucked from the ocean after his plane was shot down.

The pilot later said it was beyond belief that the helicopter pilot could maneuver a chopper through enemy fire that he couldn't avoid in his airplane.

After his passing his wife found numerous snapshots taken of aircraft carriers, planes, helicopters, ships and even one of actor John Wayne taken while he filmed aboard one of the ships Preston had been stationed on.

As she weeded through his belongings she discovered more and more recollections of heroics her husband showed during his time oversees. She eventually decided to compile the clippings, photos and copies of commendations into an album for their children.

On June 1, 1970, James Hutchins stepped off a plane in Vietnam, a pretty familiar sight for the time.

But for this particular Navy hospital corpsman it wouldn’t be his first tour, in fact it was the beginning of his third tour.

“I had already been on two tours aboard the USS Enterprise,” Hutchins, of Farmington, said. “They called those Westpac Cruises. That would have been 1966-1968. But with my third tour, from 70-71, I was in country.”

For Hutchins stepping off of that plane was not a part of his original game plan. He had joined the Navy in 1966 because he was avoiding the draft. All he was looking to do was serve his time and get out.

“I joined the Navy because I didn’t want to get drafted into the Army,” Hutchins said. “I didn’t want to be in the service and I really couldn’t imagine myself staying in. I just wanted to do my two years and come home.”

And that is exactly what Hutchins did. He enlisted in Navy and began his career aboard the Enterprise, first in the air department and then eventually as a hospital corpsman.

Although he would eventually make the Navy his career and retire after 20 years of service, Hutchins did exactly what he said he would. He put in his two years and then went home.

But a year later, as a result of the second Tet Offensive, Hutchins would be pulled back into active service. Once back in Vietnam, Hutchins would move around with the Marines and help patch them up no matter where they were.

The Vietnam war was not a popular war. Many veterans remember the attacks on their character and being spit on when they arrived home. But except for one isolated incident, Hutchins did not see what he heard about.

When the war ended Hutchins stayed in. He would be stationed at the U.S. Naval Home in Philadelphia and then eventually get stationed back with the Marines. He would go on to retire from the Navy after 20 years of service.

Henry Shumake Henry Shumake will tell those who asks what his definition of a "hero" is.

This 88-year-old veteran of three wars — World War II, Korea and Vietnam — says his thoughts are with those who served their country and never returned home.

"That's a hero to me," he said with tears in his eyes.

Born north of Bonne Terre, Shumake and his family moved to Farmington in 1939. He admits he was eager to start his military service early.

"I was 15 when I joined the Army," he said. He received Infantry training to drive a tank prior to being sent to the Philippines during World War II. Shumake would spend a year in Japan after the war ended.

In 1950, Shumake made the move from the Army to the Air Force. He was a member of the 51st Fighter stationed in Okinawa, Japan. He spent three years in Okinawa. His wife, Maxine, and daughter would make the move as well for two years.

The family would move back to the United States in 1954. Shumake ran the commissary at the base located in Cheyenne, Wyoming after his return from Korea.

He found himself volunteering to serve his country once again, this time as an Air Force recruiter. During the early 1960s, Shumake would be sent to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Shumake would serve around a year-

and-a-half in Alaska before he was sent to Springfield, Illinois to again recruit in a three-state area.

In 1968, Shumake was again called into service. He was sent to Fort Lee, Virginia, for Army exchange training. He would be sent to Phan Rang in Vietnam.

His daughter said one thing her father talks about is how the soldiers were treated when they returned from Vietnam.

"When he got on the train to come home he was told to take his uniform off so no one would know he was a soldier," Calhoun said.

Shumake began showing the effects of his exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War after he turned 70 years old, developing Parkinson's disease and diabetes.

After retiring from service in 1969, Shumake would go on to work for Blue Cross until retirement in 1989. After that he worked at Barton Insurance Services in Farmington with his daughter and grandson much of the time.

Robert Tomlinson While many of his high school classmates prepared for college during the summer of 1970, Bob Tomlinson was preparing for something quite different – a tour of Vietnam as an infantryman in the U.S. Army.

“I was 18 years old and had just graduated from high school that May,” Tomlinson said. “The Army got me in July. I was with the 1st Cavalry Division, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry.”

According to Tomlinson, not much time passed before he found himself going on missions with his unit.

“We knew we were going to Vietnam,” Tomlinson said. “As an infantryman, your sole job was to search out the enemy. It was our only purpose for being over there.

Depending on our mission, we either did search and seizures or search and destroy.”

During his time in the jungles of Vietnam, Tomlinson would serve as a rifleman, a grenadier and a machine gunner, which was an extra 26 pounds on an already heavy back pack.

According to Tomlinson, being in the jungle was the norm for his unit. Although they would be pulled out for short periods of time, most of his time in Vietnam was spent living in the jungle.

Tomlinson would face the enemy time and time again during his tour of Vietnam and would be part of more fire fights than he cared to remember. According to the former infantryman, it was something you knew was going to happen but you weren’t truly ready for it until it did.

During his time in Vietnam, Tomlinson said the military kept the soldiers unaware of the peace movement going on back in the states. He also added that prior to his induction in the Army, he never really paid much attention.

“It never really phased us when we were over there,” Tomlinson said. “But when we got home, the real shock of it finally hit us. We were so unpopular. They called us baby killers – I never killed a baby – they spat on us and called us names.”

Tomlinson believes it was the atmosphere of the times that fostered a lot of problems him and his fellow Vietnam vets experienced following years of the war.

Wayne Spain Going to Vietnam in the late 1960s was an eyeopening experience for a young man who grew up in Madison County and had lived there his entire life to that point.

Lindell Wayne Spain graduated from Marquand High School in 1965 and entered the United States Army on July 19, 1966.

Wayne says his father was sad to see him go and it was one of the only times he saw his father shed tears.

Wayne served in Vietnam from Feb. 14, 1967 until Feb. 13, 1968. He says he was in infantry intelligence. He entered the Army as a private first class (E-3). In Vietnam he was a dog handler and a forward scout observer with the Army First Infantry Division. The team worked with different branches of the military.

He said temperatures were over 100 degrees, especially in the summer. He recalls he carried two canteens of water. He explained that if his canteen ran out of water he would be out of luck. The other soldiers would give water to Axel because they appreciated him being there so much. Wayne and Axel worked mostly north of Saigon

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Wednesday, November 11, 2015 ONLINE ATWWW.DAILYJOURNALONLINE.COM WWW.DAILYJOURNALONLINE.COM Daily Journal PAGE 3B WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2015 THEY SERVED WITH HONOR• PAGE 3 ONLINE AT near the Cambodian border. There was thick vegetation, making locating the enemy difficult. Axel and the other dogs would help the troops locate the enemy.

Each set of maneuvers would last from a week to a month. They measured their progress in terms of klicks, which was 1,000 meters or one kilometer.

“We covered as much as three klicks a day sometimes,” he recalls.

Spain came back from Vietnam as a sergeant (E-5).

When he returned to the United States, he said, he witnessed the different political feelings people had toward the war. He remembers the protesters.

“I didn’t get any flack in the local area. There is a lot of compassion in this community. I’m proud to live here.”

Steve Mauk Steve Mauk served in the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1970 in the rank of Petty Officer 3rd class with the title Boatswain’s Mate, or as many know it “Bosun Mate”, in the U.S. Navy.

Mauk was a river patrol boat captain on a LCPL (Landing Craft Personnel Light) with the River Security Division. The unit was attached to two U.S. Naval bases in Cua Viet, which was just a few miles from the DMZ (demilitarized zone), from 1967 to 1970.

His unit patrolled the rivers of Vietnam mainly at night looking for members of the North Vietnamese Army.

Mauk and the men he served with built up a strong bond that comes from knowing that one life depends on another. He served two successive tours of duty in Vietnam with the first being one year and the second being 18 months.

“The hardest thing I had to do was leave," he said. “I felt like I was abandoning my fellow service members.”

He wonders at times if the price and the blood loss helped to pay the price for someone else’s wealth. For example, to help pay for the American aircraft manufacturing and sales industries, oil industry, and other industries.

Mauk is a graduate of the Flat River High School class of 1965 in the town where he grew up. He is an active member of the VFW Post # 5896 in Farmington and serves his fellow veterans as head of the building and grounds crew.

Don Wynn When Don Wynn received his draft notice in 1966 he requested to be placed with the military police after completing his basic training at Fort Leonard Wood.

By the time Wynn completed training it was 1967 and he was 23-years-old and headed to Vietnam.

“We landed over there and I got attached to a military police outfit and we were doing machine guns on jeep patrols. I thought 'man, this is pretty cool,' that’s kinda on the line of what I wanted to do anyway.

That lasted about three weeks.

"They had a big killing out in the 25th Infantry and that’s when they grabbed all of us up to replace the soldiers that had been killed. They took us out there and showed us what the real world was like.”

American infantry soldiers were under immense pressure and a constant risk of injury or death. When asked about how he dealt with this uncertainty and fear and risk of being wounded or killed, Wynn replied matter-of-factly. “You had to learn how to make something livable out of nothing.”

Wynn kept a camera in a spare ammunition pouch and took photographs whenever he happened to have film.

One of the photographs is of a young soldier eating food from a can. The soldier had turned to look at Wynn’s camera. His eyes were filled with fear and uncertainty.

Looking at the photo, Wynn said, “I still can’t get over this, the look on this guy. Look at his eyes and look at his face. Do you think he came back? He lasted about two weeks.”

After serving a full year in Vietnam, Wynn spent the last few months of his active duty at Fort Hood in Texas teaching ROTC candidates some of the basics of combat duty, running them through obstacle courses and other physical instruction.

Wynn’s service to his fellow Americans continued well beyond his military service. Most recently, for the past three to four years since retiring from operating an ambulance service in Iron County, he volunteers much of his time serving with the Patriot Guard.

Ron Bohn Although Ron Bohn is a veteran of the Vietnam War he doesn’t consider himself a hero by any stretch of the imagination.

Originally from St. Louis, Bohn, 73, ended up in southeast Missouri because a family member owned some acreage in Irondale. When he enlisted in the Naval Civil Engineer Corps in late 1966 he was working road construction in the state of Louisiana.

“I was living in New Orleans at that time working on Interstate 10 — the same bridge everyone was standing on during Katrina,” said Bohn of Irondale. “I was looking for something to do. I wasn’t afraid of being drafted or anything like that. I thought, ‘I’m going to change my life and take advantage of the Seabees.’ They were really building up so it was really easy to get in. So I went down and said, ‘OK, here I am, I want to go into the Naval Civil Engineer Corps.’"

His next stop was Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, where he went through several months of civil engineer training. In 1967 he was assigned for 18 months to the contracting group at Dam Neck Fleet Training Center, located a little bit south of Virginia Beach. “One day I got something in my inbox saying, ‘You’ve been assigned to Seabee CBMU 301.’ I said, ‘Hey, lieutenant, what’s CBMU 301?’ He said, ‘Oh, that’s the Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit.

Their home port is in Danang [Vietnam].’ I said, ‘Well, I guess I’m going!' I wasn’t that upset, but you know …”

Bohn said that Vietnam was a strange experience for him. Although it was a war zone for many, for others life continued on as usual. Bohn counts himself as fortunate because, unlike so many others serving in Vietnam, he never had to carry a weapon or go out on patrol. “When we got to Chu Lai there had been contractors working down there. There was a runway built down there that could support any kind of aircraft in the world. It was all built by civilian contractors. I was assigned to take over some work that they were doing.”

Bohn admitted that while Vietnam for him wasn’t a traumatic experience, he was often reminded that in a war zone one should never take life for granted.

After returning stateside, Bohn remained in the Civil Engineer Corps.

Although he never saw armed combat, Bohn still believes his time in Vietnam mattered.

Art Jones Art Jones went to Vietnam straight out of high school and ended up spending the next 35 years of his life working as an Air Force mechanic. He says it’s one of the best decisions he could have ever made.

Jones was born in 1952 while his father, a Bismarck native, was stationed in Schweinfurt, Germany. He had met his wife, a German citizen, while there.

“He was in artillery almost all the time he was in the service, but he was a diesel mechanic,” Jones said. “We lived on base in base housing and it wasn’t nothing on the weekends to have a deuce-and-a-half, jeeps and stuff at our house. He and his guys would be out there working on them.”

When Jones was 7 years old, the family spent two-anda-half years in France where his sister was born. Over here we stayed in Texas, Tennessee, Alabama — all over.

Less than two weeks after graduating high school and after already enlisting in the Air Force, the younger Jones received his draft notice.

“That day I took the letter to the Air Force guy and that evening I was at Lackland Air Force Base starting basic,” he said.

Jones was sent to Cam Ranh Bay where he was assigned to the 6250th Support Squadron. He said he rarely felt that his life might be in danger while stationed in Vietnam.

Jones said his experiences in Vietnam helped open his eyes to the real world. “One day me and my supervisor were sitting on these pallets ... reading the Stars and Stripes newspaper. The President’s on there saying, ‘We have nothing to do with Cambodia or Laos.’ I looked down at the shipping label and said, ‘Well, this is going to Cambodia … and that one is, and that one is …’ My supervisor said, ‘You’re going to learn.’"

After leaving Vietnam in 1972, Jones was flown to Travis Air Force Base in California, and through the help of a friend had his orders changed from Texas to Germany. Jones went on to spend three-and-a-half years at Rhein-Main Air Base and was then transferred to Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base outside Kansas City.

Despite spending much of his life traveling the globe, Jones admits that, when all is said and done, he always considers Bismarck to be his "real" home.

Clifford Barnes Clifford Barnes served as a U.S. Army Warrant Officer and piloted UH-1 “Huey” helicopters in a heavy combat environment in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969.

These helicopters frequently transported troops in and out of “hot” zones throughout the conflict.

“I flew slicks in Vietnam,” Barnes said. “We could fire off about 6,000 rounds a minute.”

His flight squadron mainly covered the area designated as 3 Corp near the cities of Saigon and Bien Hoa, with most flights originating in Bien Hoa. “The DMZ was north of I Corp,” the pilot said.

“Cambodia and along the border of South Vietnam is where I had most of my trouble. The lines were blurred.

We shouldn’t forget that some of our troops were killed in Cambodia."

“I patrolled from the air to help the troops who were on the ground," Barnes said. “I hated it because that was usually when they were getting shot at.”

He believes there was another reason for the war.

“We were not fighting Communism as we were told," Barnes said.“We weren’t told of the true mission in Vietnam.

It was to help the French sell war machines. There were French businesses in Vietnam for a decade before the war.

He has other theories as well.

After volunteering, Barnes completed U.S. Army Basic Training at Ft. Polk, Louisiana in 1967. His next stop was pre-flight training in Fort Walter, Texas and then on to Fort Rucker, Alabama.

“I knew I would get drafted, so I signed up to get flight school,” he said. “I served about four years before I was eligible for discharge.”

The warrant officer graduated from flight school and was certified to fly Hueys at Ft. Rucker. Bien Hoa was his first duty station as a pilot upon his arrival in Vietnam in 1968.

Barnes is a member of the local VFW Post #5896 in Farmington and enjoys supporting its mission of helping local veterans. He finds comfort in the comradery with his friends and fellow veterans there.

Dave Watson Dave Watson of Farmington remembers the letter he received in 1970.

“Greetings from the President” it read at the top of the page.

Watson, 66, lived in Cape Girardeau at the time.

He had flunked out of Southeast Missouri State University – “I liked playing pinochle more than studying,” he admits.

Because he was no longer in school, his college deferment was cancelled.

Watson received the number “13” when the draft lot-

tery was held – and, the lower the number, the better one’s chances were for getting drafted.

Watson recalled his days of basic training at Fort Leonard Wood. "We were tested, interviewed and analyzed as to what we were best at as far as the Army was concerned,” Watson said. “For whatever reason, which still eludes me to this day, the Army decided I would make a great military policeman.”

He would be sent to Fort Gordon, Georgia for eight weeks following his completion of basic training for military police training. In 1971, at the age of 20, Watson was assigned to an MP unit in Phu Loi, a helicopter base located about 25 miles north of Saigon.

Watson said his main duties consisted of patrolling the highways around the base camp during the day, patrolling the base camp itself at night and manning the only gate for the base. Working as an MP had Watson seeing first-hand the toll of being in Vietnam had on some – with drugs, alcohol and depression — “some of the biggest things we were forced to deal with on a daily basis,” he said.

Watson would begin his journey home on March 19, 1972. He kept his travel home a surprise from his family in Cape Girardeau who did not expect to see him until May. He remembers “triple-checking” his paper work to make sure everything was in order. Until this day, Watson said, he has dreams of missing the plane back home due to a lack of orders.

Watson said the entire plane erupted in cheers the moment the plane’s wheels left the ground – with the servicemen on board singing “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place” by the Animals and “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag” by Country Joe and the Fish for the first few minutes of the flight.

Don Firebaugh “Don” Firebaugh began his lengthy career in military and public service at a young age.

“I spent one year out of school," Firebaugh said.

“My family couldn’t afford college. I got a job in St. Louis at McDonnell Aircraft, and decided it was not for me.”

So Firebaugh joined the military. Specifically, he joined the Marine Corps in 1964 before Vietnam started. He was a private first class when he went into Vietnam.

“I was with the first bunch of Marines that went into South Vietnam in April of 1965,” Firebaugh said. “A few started moving in March. We were up on Okinawa doing operations. Actually we were coming back from Bangkok, Thailand, and they turned our ship around and sent troops on in directly to Vietnam in April of 1965. There had been one bunch in March, then us. We were infantryman in the Marine Corps.”

He was in the 3rd Marine Division, which went into Vietnam following after advisor groups, which had been going in since 1958.

“The Army sent advisors to stabilize the region ... it didn’t work,” he said. “And after the Gulf of Tonkin incident the president decided it was time to send troops.”

Firebaugh said the troops didn’t know what to expect when they hit the beach.

In the year he served in Vietnam, Firebaugh says, the mission really didn’t change.

"I was offered E5 sergeant if I re-enlisted,” he said.

“My dad said it would kill my mom if I went back.”

Instead he went to college. He said there were some negative feelings there. “(During) The Tet Offensive in '68 and in '69, we were watching it all on the nightly news and I was going to college with protesters,” he said. “Nobody gave me a hard time. It just seemed like people you got acquainted with would back off when you said you went to Vietnam. We wondered ‘what did I do wrong?’"

He joined the National Guard in Fredericktown in March of 1983. He says he kind of missed the military.

He became administrator in 1984, transferred to Farmington in 1992, and was promoted to supervisor of both the Fredericktown and Farmington National Guard armories in 1994. He retired from the National Guard in 2005 as E8 first sergeant.

He was elected Madison County Clerk in 2006 and took office in 2007. He was re-elected in 2010 and 2014.

Donn Adamson For many who served in Vietnam their role was not that of a combat soldier.

They served in support of those who fought. They tended to the injured as they came back from battle, they ordered supplies, provided transportation or made sure those back at camp were safe and sound.

For Donn Adamson his time in country was spent working as a military police officer in the U.S. Army’s K-9 support unit station in Long Binh, the site of the TET Offensive in 1968 and 1969.

Like many young men of the time, Adamson took charge of his own destiny and enlisted in the service in 1968 before being drafted.

“I had been going to college and I had a deferment up to that time,” Adamson said. “But because I wasn’t paying enough attention to my studies as I should have I knew I was going to be drafted, so I joined. I wanted to make the selection of what I wanted to be.”

For Adamson, his first choice was to become a pilot, but after finding out he would have to give the Army an additional year of service, he changed his mind.

“I originally thought I was going be a pilot,” Adamson said. “But I found out I would have to enlist for four years instead of three. So I picked another MOS (Military Occupation Specialty), and I picked the military police.”

For the first year and a half, Adamson would be stationed at various forts. He was sent to Ft. Lewis in Washington for basic training and then off to Ft. Gordon in Georgia for military police training.

It was during that time that Adamson was asked if he wanted to volunteer for the sentry dog program. Since he liked dogs and thought it might be a safer route to go, Adamson agreed.

"So I went into the sentry dog programs, which wound up giving me a one-way ticket to Vietnam. They sent almost all of the sentry dogs over there," he said.

After his initial training, Adamson and his class were transported to Oakland, California and then to Okinawa for two more months of training before being dropped into Vietnam.

When Adamson finally landed in Vietnam the reality of the war immediately set in for the young soldier. He was being stationed in Long Binh, about an hour northeast of Saigon. Just one month before his arrival, his camp was in the middle of the second TET Offensive.

Adamson kind of chuckles when he talks about sending his future wife a recording where you could hear bombs going off in the background. He had to do his best

PAGE DailySERVED Journal ONLINE ATWWW.DAILYJOURNALONLINE.COM WWW.DAILYJOURNALONLINE.COM PAGE4B 4 •THEY WITH HONOR ONLINE AT

to convince her everything was OK and that he was not in danger.

When Adamson finally got back to the states, the first thing he did during his month of leave was get married to the woman who was waiting for him back in California. Unfortunately, Adamson would not secure a station close to home and was sent to Georgia.

Once Adamson left the service, he returned home, raised a family and worked in several different fields before become a minister and a journalist. Most days, you can find Adamson on the sidelines of a football field, a soccer field or a baseball diamond shooting pictures and writing stories about local sports as the sports editor for the Daily Journal.

squadron. After a period of time each troop got its own maintenance. Lee did general maintenance.

Lee said during the Tet Offensive in January of 1968 they were rocketed quite often. The POL (Petroleum Oil Lubrication) for the helicopters was hit during the offensive.

He left Vietnam in October of 1968 and returned to Fort Lewis, Washington.

He spent November of 1968 until March of 1970 at Fort Hood, Texas, in the Second Armored Division ... nicknamed “Hell on Wheels.” He took some more schooling on vehicle mechanics.

In March of 1970 Specialist 5th Class Lee was discharged from active duty. He was a reserve through 1973.

Gary Lee

Clyde Briley

Gary Lee was born in Fredericktown and grew up in Yount, Mo. He graduated from Perryville H i g h School.

Then his parents moved to Madison County.

“The day my parents moved here in October of 1966 I was in St. Louis at the induction center getting my physical,” Lee said.

He enlisted in late 1966 and entered the U.S. Army in March of 1967. At 18 years old Lee had rarely left the rural community where he grew up.

First he went to Fort Leonard Wood for eight weeks of basic training.

“It was kind of shock being a country boy,” he said “I grew up on a farm.”

After basic training at Fort Leonard Wood he went to Advanced Individual Training. He enlisted specifically for helicopter maintenance.

Lee said he was “farmed up” at Fort Knox, Kentucky, after AIT and left Fort Knox in October of 1967. He and the other members of the 7th Squadron 17th Air Cavalry Regiment flew from Fort Knox to Ford Ord, California, and they loaded on a troop transport. They took the transport and landed in Quy Nhon Vietnam, a coastal port, around Oct. 26.

Then they were transported to Pleiku, Vietnam.

Lee said in Pleiku they were at Camp Enari, the base camp of the fourth infantry. They were under a mountain there they called Dragon Mountain.

“When we first got there, we worked on the helicopters for all the troops,” Lee said. They did maintenance for the whole

A f t e r completing infantry training at Fort Ord on the coast of c e n t ra l California, 20-year-old Clyde Briley landed in Saigon on the southern coast of S o u t h Vietnam on Friday the 13th in November of 1970.

A soldier in the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry of the 101st Airborne Division, Briley was soon flown to the northernmost tip of South Vietnam where he spent most of his tour in such places as Khe San, the “Rock Pile,” “Hamburger Hill” and the DMZ. As an infantryman Briley primarily served as a machine-gunner.

Briley was not in Vietnam for very long before he faced the North Vietnamese and witnessed first-hand how quickly men could be injured or killed.

Like other young soldiers suddenly forced to deal with the common-place horrors and death that occurred every day during the Vietnam War, Briley relied upon the bonds of brotherhood to get him through. Whenever they were not engaging with the enemy, the men would gather together and drink beer if it was available, play cards, talk about their families and play practical jokes on each other.

This strong sense of loyalty to his brothers-in-arms remains with Briley.

He says the worst thing he experienced in Vietnam was not anything that happened directly to him.

After receiving an honorable discharge from the Army, Briley trained to become a carpenter. He eventually worked for Union Pacific Railroad building bridges. Despite a very different life

Kudos to the

Daily Journal for its informative series of articles that focused on some of our local veterans. One example, I have known Henry Lee Shumake for more than 70 years but had never known that he served in three wars (WWII; Korean, Vietnam) until I read it in your newspaper. I hope this series will continue.

--Jon Cozean

Wednesday, November11, 11,2015 2015 WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER

with a full-time job and a family, Briley’s loyalty to his Vietnam brothers never waned. He made the effort to see many of them by taking trips around the country to attend reunions and gatherings. He spoke with many of them over the telephone.

Retired from Union Pacific, Briley still sees many of his brothers, traveling to a different city every year to get together and tell war stories and share information about their families.

Over 40 years later, the lasting bonds with the men with which he served are far more important than any medal.

Danny Lunsford Danny Lunsford of Farmington was as an E5 engineman in the U.S. Navy and served during the Vietnam W a r between 1966 and 1969.

Lunsford was on the Landing Craft Maintenance or LCM Crew attached to the USS Matthews AKA 96, an attack cargo ship. He and his

four-person crew worked out of the Task Force Clearwater Advanced Tactical Support Base in Cua Viet, Vietnam. He also worked out of the U.S. Navy Sea Bee Base at Tham My and others.

“I graduated high school at 17 in 1965, from Poplar Bluff High School. Just about all of the boys in his town were signing up to enter the military after high school then,” Lunsford remembered. “All of my friends went to the Navy recruiter. They said if you join the Navy, you will get three meals a day and a clean bed to sleep in at night. The Army recruiters didn’t promise that so I signed up for the Navy.

"After I got sent to Vietnam I realized I got put in the ‘brown water’ Navy, as some of us called it. “We ran the inland waterways delivering supplies. The water in those rivers had run-off and was muddy.

We, in the ‘brown water’ Navy slept wherever we could. I slept in my engine room."

He said 95 percent of the Navy got three meals a day.

"We were the other 5 percent,” Lunsford said. “We got exposed to Agent Orange in the rivers. The Cua Viet River was the farthest north in South Vietnam in the DMZ. But, I would do it again.”

The area of the country in which Lunsford served was jungle and U.S. military aircraft sprayed the river banks with Agent Orange. It was done to kill the vegetation along the river banks in order to help U.S. troops see the enemy better.

“We were told it was insecticide and that it was not harmful,” Lunsford said.

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Saluting all veterans

FILE PHOTO‌

St. Francois County natives who died while in service are memorialized on a monument outside the county courthouse. It’s here that area residents gather each Veterans Day to remember the fallen.

Honoring those without a voice ‌A wall stands in Washington DC to honor Vietnam veterans who died as a direct result of war. It’s known as the “Vietnam Veterans Memorial” and it bares the names of 58,300 American military personnel, eight of which were women and about 1,300 who are still considered Missing In Action (MIA) but are officially classified as “Died, body not recovered.”

Today there are 2,539 individuals named on the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial that were placed in a “Missing in Action” status and their families left in a state of limbo. The origins of the POW/MIA issue date back to during the war itself. Suffering from a lack of accurate intelligence sources inside North Vietnam, the U.S. never had solid knowledge for how many American prisoners of war were held.

The U.S. often relied upon possibly inaccurate North Vietnamese newspapers and radio broadcasts to find out who had been captured, as well as memorized lists of names brought out by the few American POWs given an early release.

As the Department of Defense created lists of those in the categories of killed in action, killed in action/body not recovered, prisoner of war, and missing in action, its tentative numbers fluctuated.

However, the Nixon administration reportedly made return of the POWs one of its central arguments to the American public for prolonging the war and bringing North Vietnam to terms. In doing so, the administration was reported to have exaggerated the number of POWs at issue, at one point stating that there were “fifteen hundred American servicemen” held throughout Southeast Asia. These numbers would be the focus of much of the controversy in the issue to come.

Following the Paris Peace Accords of January 1973, U.S. prisoners of war were returned during Operation Homecoming from February through April 1973. Some 591 POWs were released to U.S. authorities, including a few captured in Laos and released in North Vietnam. U.S. President Richard Nixon announced that all U.S. servicemen taken prisoner had been accounted for.

At that time the U.S. listed 2,646 Americans as unaccounted for, including about 1,350 prisoners of war or missing in action and roughly 1,200 reported killed in action and not recovered.

The low numbers of returnees from Laos caused some immediate concern, as previous Pentagon estimates were as high as 41 for prisoners held there, although only a few had been known to be captured for certain.

Investigation of the fate of all the missing service personnel would end up residing with the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office. The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command also played a major role in subsequent investigations. In 1973 the Defense Department established the Central Identification Laboratory–Thailand to coordinate POW/MIA recovery efforts in Southeast Asia.

The U.S. conducted some limited operations in South Vietnam in 1974 to find the remains of those missing, and pursuant to the Paris Accords the North Vietnamese returned some remains. These efforts halted following the collapse of the Accords and the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, and over the next 10 years little progress was made in recovering remains.

It’s important for us to remember not only those who were/are prisoners of war or missing in action, but also those who gave the ultimate sacrifice of their lives while fighting for the freedoms that America is able to enjoy today.

Corporal Dennis Isgrig, of Bonne Terre, is one of those who paid the ultimate price. Serving three years in the service as a rifleman with the C Co, 1st Battalion, 26th Marines, 3rd MARDIV,

III MAF, he was sent to Quang Tri Providence in Vietnam on Nov. 9, 1967. On May 15, 1968, at the age of 20, he died during hostile fire with the enemy.

Another voice silenced during the fighting was (Warrant Officer) WO1 Reginald David Cleve, of Farmington, who lost his life along with his three man crew on March 22, 1971. The 176th Assault Helicopter Company, 14th Cbt Avn Bn, provided a five-ship resupply flight in support of ARVN forces operating about 10 miles inside Laos.

One of the aircraft, UH-1H tail number 68-15759, was being flown by Cleve and his co-pilot WO1 John Grove Traver III, along with Gunner SP4 Walter Ray Hall and Crew Chief SP4 Donald Paul Knutsen. About a mile short of the resupply point Cleve’s Huey went down.

The four men aboard were classed as “Killed in Action, Body not Recovered.”

Sergeant First Class Delmer Lee Laws, of Mineral Point, served 14 years in the United States Army and was sent to Vietnam. He was an Indirect Fire Infantryman (Special Forces Qual) with FOB 1, CCN, MACV-SOG, 5th SF Group. USARV. At the age of 31 on July 29, 1966, Laws lost his life when he encountered hostile fire form the enemy. Due to his classification, it’s unknown where he was stationed in Vietnam and his body was never recovered.

Airman First Class Benny Ellis Seabourne, of Leadwood, served seven years in the United States Air Force. On March 10, 1967 he was sent to Quang Tri, South Vietnam. A few months later while stationed with the 620th TAC CTRL SQD, 505th TAC CTRL GRP, 7th AF, Seabourne, at just 24 years old, he lost his life when his unit encountered enemy artillery, rocket and mortar fire.

United States Army First Lieutenant Roger Lee Johnson Jr., of Flat River, served two years in the service under the DET A-105 (NONG SON), C CO, 5th SF GROUP, USARV as a Psychological Operations Officer (Special Forces Qual).

He was stationed in Quang Nam Province, South Vietnam on May 6, 1968 and several months later on Sept. 28, 1968, at the age of 20, Johnson lost his life when he encountered hostile enemy fire and died of his wounds.

Specialist Four Delbert Leon Reese, of Esther, served two years in the Army Selective Service as a Medical NCO. On Aug. 11, 1967 he was sent to Pleiku, South Vietnam. On Feb. 2, 1968 while in the field with the 1st PLT, D CO, 1st BN, 22nd INF RGT, 4 INF DIV, his unit was came under intense fire and he was killed.

Others from around the area who were killed in action are Thomas Dewey Pipkin Jr. of Farmington who died on Oct. 11, 1967; David Freeman of Farmington who died on Sept. 15, 1970; John Suggs Jr. of Farmington who died on Nov. 5, 1968; Billy Jay Meador of Farmington who died on May 13, 1967; Jimmy Ray Young of Fredericktown who died on July 8, 1968; Earl Wayne Ellis of Bonne Terre who died on June 21, 1971; Robert Wayne Werley of Desloge who died on June 13, 1968; Lindell Francis of Fredericktown who died on March 9, 1969; Sylvan Keith Bradley of Irondale who died on Nov. 10, 1966; Charles Wayne Buntion of Ironton who died on March 31, 1972; Richard Wayne Middleton of Ironton died on Oct. 27, 1967; Warren Paul Seawel of Ste. Genevieve who died on March 23, 1971; Frederick John Shuh of Ste. Genevieve who died on March 24, 1967; and Larry Lee Thomure of Ste. Genevieve who died on May 12, 1969.

Renee Bronaugh is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-518-3617 or rbronaugh@dailyjournalonline.com

‌O nce a year we come together to honor those who have served our country in military service.

Whether they were in the midst of battle or served in a supporting role, their service to our country is debt that we will never be able to repay.

This Wednesday marks Veterans Day. Whether they were at Battle of the Bulge, the Chosin Reservoir, a rice paddy in Vietnam or in a desert in the Middle East, our nation pays tribute to their bravery and dedication for serving.

“Every service member who ever served gave us the opportunity to have the freedoms we enjoy,” said Air Force Senior Master Sergeant Ernie Heflin. “No matter what branch they served, no matter how long they served, they have my respect and we should honor their service to our country.”

For almost 100 years we have been honoring our veterans with a special day. We have thrown parades, made speeches and laid wreaths on tombstones in honor of those who did not return ... but how many of us know the origins of Veterans Day and the significance of Nov. 11?

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs the day of honor was first set aside by President Woodrow Wilson in November of 1919. The President selected Nov. 11 for one specific reason. It was on that day in 1918, World War I, known as the “The Great War,” came to an end on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

W i t h W i l s o n ’s p ro c l a m a tion, Nov. 11 would be known as Armistice Day and was originally intended to honor veterans of World War I. But in 1954, after the U.S. involvement in World War II and the Korean War, President Eisenhower issued the first “Veterans Day Proclamation” to honor those who had served after World War I. This year will be no different than years past. Our schools will invite local veterans to breakfast.

Our high schools bands will play patriotic songs as our country’s colors are displayed. We will meet on the steps of courthouses across the country and have speeches honoring those who served and those who did not come home.

According to the Office of Public Affairs, Veterans Day recognizes approximately 23.2 million veterans in the United States. Government reports shows there are 9.2 million veterans over the age of 65, with 1.9 million under the age of 35, and 1.8 million veterans are women.

The largest group of veterans today are those men and women who served during the Vietnam era with 7.8 million members, which represents 33 percent of all living veterans.

For those who served during the Vietnam era this year is a very poignant marker. It marks the 50th anniversary of that war, a milestone and a reminder of the toll it took in casualties and the price many veterans paid when they returned home.

Since August the Daily Journal has been honoring members of our region who participated in a war that would forever change our view towards human rights, war, our government and the our place in world politics.

Unfortunately the men and women who served in this era were caught in the middle of the turmoil.

Their service often went unnoticed, or for some it was met with contempt. There was no parades, no special recognitions.

Just like most wars, those who served came home with many different experiences. Some were in the thick of battle and came home to a world that was indifferent to them, while others were lost and

faced an unsympathetic world.

Others came home and picked up their lives where they had left off before their tour of duty.

For Bob Tomlinson, a member of the 1st Cavalry Division, 2nd Battalion 12th Infantry, his experience began just two months after leaving high school. According to the veteran infantryman, his only job in the Vietnam was to engage the enemy.

“As an infantryman, your sole job was to search out the enemy,” Tomlinson said. “It was our only purpose for being over there. Depending on our mission, we either did search and seizures or search and destroy.”

For Tomlinson war became reality after his first fire fight. It is where, he said, 18-year-old boys age 10 years.

Tomlinson said part of the culture shock came from how you were sent home after your tour was over.

He went from a firefight to a 13 hour plane ride back to the states where he was thrust back into the “real world.” For many it was too much of a shock.

“When a lot of us got off the plane from Vietnam we would find the closest men’s room, trash our uniforms and immediately put on our civilian clothes. We were just shocked how people really hated us.”

Tomlinson believes it was the atmosphere of the times that fostered a lot of problems he and his fellow Vietnam vets experienced during the years following the war.

For others they served their country by administering to the aid of their wounded brethren. As a Navy hospital corpsman, James Hutchins would do three tours in Vietnam, the first two aboard the Enterprise and the third tour, a year after leaving the Navy, in country with a Marine unit.

“I went back because they pissed me off. They killed some of my Marines over there,” Hutchins said.

“I was mad, so I went back over.”

Hutchins admits that during his time in Vietnam he lived a very charmed life. During his year in combat he was never wounded and was only shot at once.

Hutchins’ luck would stay with him even when he returned to the United States. Like most veterans from that era will tell you, the military kept information on the anti-war movement away from the soldiers, and Hutchins only experienced one episode.

“When I came home we had landed at Travis Air Force Base in California and there was a Marine in front of me,” Hutchins said. “I don’t know where this girl came from but she came up and spit on him. He didn’t know what to do. He had a pretty good temperament. He was just thinking about getting home to see his parents and his girl.”

For some serving in the war, they would not see battle or conflict.

They were in the rear units supporting the troop in the brush. They were in transportation, supplies or the military police.

For Donn Adamson, his time in country was spent working as a military police officer in the U.S. Army’s K-9 support unit station in Long Binh, the site of the TET Offensive in 1968 and 1969.

“Kennel support meant I didn’t have to walk around the ammo depot every night on patrol with a sentry dog. I got to stay inside,” Adamson said. “While the other handlers were walking at night, I was asleep in my bunk. I was on easy street, or so I thought.”

Each veteran, no matter what war or conflict they served, paid a price.

It is to these men and women that we pay tribute on Veterans Day. This Veterans Day the Daily Journal will wrap up its special tribute to those who served in the Vietnam War, and offers our gratitude to all who have served to protect our freedoms.

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Adamson supported his comrades CRAIG VAUGHN 573-518-3629‌

‌For many who served in Vietnam, their role was not that of a combat soldier.

They served in support of those who fought. They tended to the injured as they came back from battle, they ordered supplies, provided transportation or made sure those back at camp were safe and sound.

For Donn Adamson, his time in the country was spent working as a military police officer in the U.S. Army’s K-9 support unit stationed in Long Binh, the site of the TET Offensive in 1968 and 1969.

Like many young men of the time, Adamson took charge of his own destiny and enlisted in the service in 1968 before being drafted.

“I had been going to college and I had a deferment up to that time,” Adamson said. “But because I wasn’t paying enough attention to my studies as I should have, I knew I was going to be drafted, so I joined.

I wanted to make the selection of what I wanted to be.”

For Adamson, his first choice was to become a pilot, but after finding out he would have to give the Army an additional year of service, he changed his mind.

“I originally thought I would sign up to be a pilot,” Adamson said.

“But I found out I would have to enlist for four years instead of three.

So I picked another MOS (Military Occupation Specialty), and I picked the Military Police.”

For the first half year, Adamson would be stationed at various forts.

He was sent to Fort Lewis in Washington for basic training and then off to Fort Gordon in Georgia for Military Police training.

It was during that time that Adamson was asked if he wanted to volunteer for the sentry dog program. Since he liked the idea of working with dogs and thought it to be a safer way to go, Adamson agreed.

“I didn’t want to go into the infantry. I didn’t want to be involved in killing or being killed,” Adamson said. “I thought working with the dogs wouldn’t be bad. I like dogs.

So I went into the sentry dog programs, which wound up giving me a one-way ticket to Vietnam. They sent almost all of the sentry dogs over there.”

After his initial training, Adamson and his class were transported to Oakland, California and then to Okinawa for two more months of training before being dropped into Vietnam. But for Adamson, his time in Oakland was also life-changing.

“During the day, if your ship or plane wasn’t going out, they would put you on duty sweeping floors, washing dishes, whatever to keep you busy,” Adamson said. “They put me on duty one day, and in the process, they called the guys I had been in class with to go to Okinawa.

Consequently, I got left behind.”

According to Adamson, things just kept getting better. By the time he arrived in Okinawa, the Army did not have a dog ready for him.

So, while the rest of his class were

SUBMITTED‌

As a young military police officer in Vietnam, Donn Adamson was stationed in Long Binh with kennel support. For almost a year, he met the needs of the sentry dogs assigned to his unit and helped other handlers in any way he could.

going through class, he basically lived in Okinawa for two weeks.

When Adamson finally landed in Vietnam, the reality of the war immediately set in for the young soldier. He was being stationed in Long Binh, about an hour northeast of Saigon. Just one month before his arrival, his camp was in the middle of the second TET Offensive.

“That was a little scary,” Adamson said. “There was still fires and debris on the side of the road. It made you think ‘what had you gotten yourself into?’”

Adamson kind of chuckles when he talks about sending his future wife a recording where you could hear bombs going off in the background. He had to do his best to convince her everything was OK and that he was not in danger.

As Adamson began his tour, he was finally assigned a dog named Sunyow. Although he would never go out on sentry with his canine partner as he was reassigned once again. He was now assigned to kennel support.

“Kennel support meant I didn’t have to walk around the ammo depot every night. I got to stay inside,” Adamson said. “While the other handlers were walking at night, I was asleep in my bunk. I was on easy street, or so I thought.”

Sunyow later contracted what the soldiers called ‘Bleeder’s Disease’ which was fatal and restricted all of the sentry dogs to a fate of not being able to be return to the States.

In his role as kennel support, Adamson worked with more than one dog. He actually worked with all of the dogs assigned to his unit.

“My job was to take care of all of

SUBMITTED‌

Donn Adamson’s assigned sentry partner, Sunyow, is among the casualties of the Vietnam War. The sentry dogs were unable to return to the States after being subject to a rare disease in Vietnam.

CRAIG VAUGHN, DAILY JOURNAL‌

Although he has left the army life behind him years ago, Adamson is still serving his community. Most days you can find him at any number of sporting events taking pictures and writing stories for the Daily Journal.

the dogs who were without handlers, especially after the soldier was shipped home at the end of his duty” Adamson said. “I also made sure all the dogs were fed, even the ones with handlers. I cleaned out the kennels and whatever else was needed.”

Just like any dog handler, Adamson has lots of stories of interactions with the dogs. From the ones who became company pets to ones that liked to taste you before they worked with you, Adamson dealt with all of them.

In one incident, Adamson tells about being initiated as a dog handler by Samson, a dog left in his care. According to Adamson, when handlers were shipped out, the dog was left behind and was placed in the charge of kennel support.

Adamson will tell you how much this one particular dog just loved him. Apparently, the dog would let Adamson pet him and he would put his head on his lap.

What the former dog handler did not know was his new best friend did not like to be put on a leash, especially by anyone besides his handler who had just left to go back home.

“A lot of dogs don’t like anyone but their handler,” Adamson said.

“I didn’t want to go into the infantry. I didn’t want to be involved in killing or being killed. I thought working with the dogs wouldn’t be bad. I like dogs.

So I went into the sentry dog programs, which wound up giving me a one-way ticket to Vietnam.

They sent almost all of the sentry dogs over there.”

Donn Adamson

“There was this one dog, he would let me pet him and love on him, but when I went to put that leash on him, he went up and down on my arm with his teeth like he was chewing corn-on-a-cob. But afterwards, he let me put his leash on and we were best friends.”

When Adamson finally got back to the states, the first thing he did during his month of leave was get married to the woman who was waiting for him back in California.

Unfortunately, Adamson would not secure a station close to home and was sent to Fort Benning Georgia.

“Once I got back home, I really didn’t have much to do with Vietnam,” Adamson said. “The closest I came was to patrol around the house of Lt. Calley, who was

convicted for the My Lai Massacre.

He was under house arrest so all I did was drive around his street to make sure no ill-minded protestors showed up.”

Once Adamson left the service, he returned home, raised a family and worked in several different fields before becoming a minister and a journalist. Most days, you can find Adamson on the sidelines of a football field, a soccer field or a baseball diamond shooting pictures and writing stories about local sports as the sports editor for the Daily Journal.

Craig Vaughn is a reporter for the Farmington Press and can be reached at 573-518-3629 or at cvaughn@farmingtonpressonline.com

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For veteran Clyde Briley brotherhood is eternal AMY PATTERSON 573-518-3616‌

‌After completing infantry training at Fort Ord on the coast of central California, 20-year-old Clyde Briley landed in Saigon on the southern coast of South Vietnam on Friday the 13th in November of 1970.

A soldier in the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry of the 101st Airborne Division, Briley was soon flown to the northernmost tip of South Vietnam where he spent most of his tour in such places as Khe San, the “Rock Pile,” “Hamburger Hill” and the DMZ. As an infantryman Briley primarily served as a machine-gunner. “I was tall, 180 pounds, six foot three, larger than a lot of guys so I got to carry an M-60 machine gun that weighed about 20 pounds,” Briley said. “When you start shooting one you’re either spraying a big area or you’re shooting it and see where your tracer goes and line it up. Sometimes it’d get so hot your sling would burn off so you’d have to make do.”

“We moved every day.

Maybe once we stayed twice in the same place,” Briley said. “They’d take us in a helicopter and put us on a hill and then we’d go to another hill. It was search and destroy.”

Briley was not in Vietnam for very long before he faced the North Vietnamese and witnessed firsthand how quickly men could be injured or killed.

AMY PATTERSON, DAILY JOURNAL‌

Clyde Briley served with the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry of the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army in Vietnam from 1970 to 1971.

“My first contact with the enemy we were out on patrol and there was three of us plus a staff sergeant … we were on top of this hill and they sent us down to a river and that’s usually where you find the enemy because they had to have water, too. We get off that hill and there’s a point man walking and he spots some North Vietnamese soldiers … and so he passes it back and it goes all the way

back to the guys at the end very quietly.”

Orders are sent back up the line of soldiers to sweep the area.

“I got noticing the guys behind me who were mostly old-timers,” said Briley.

“One of them found a rock, one of them found a tree and got behind it so I found a tree and got behind it … then you heard ‘tak tak tak tak’ ‘cause an AK-47 has a distinct sound to it, then

PHOTO COURTESY OF CLYDE BRILEY‌

Sgt. Alonzo O’Dell was veteran Clyde Briley’s platoon leader in Vietnam before he was severely injured after walking into a booby trap. He died from complications from those injuries after returning to the U.S.

you heard someone call for the medic. The staff sergeant got wounded so they had to call in the med-evac.

I was amazed. I hadn’t been on many patrols (at that time). So they called in the med-evac and here comes the helicopter. The guys were standing out on the skids, one on each side with the medics. It really surprised me ... them standing out there like that.”

It was not until later, Briley explained, that he learned about the international law that prohibited everyone from firing upon military personnel while they were in the air.

Like other young soldiers suddenly forced to deal with the common-place horrors and death that occurred every day during the Vietnam War, Briley relied upon the bonds of brotherhood to get him through. Whenever they were not engaging with the enemy, the men would gather together and drink beer if it was available, play cards, talk about their families and play practical jokes on each other.

“You got to know everything about the guys you was with,” said Briley. “You get to know more about

them than you do your own brothers and sisters. We spent our times out in the jungle and up on the hills and we had our bad times and we had our good times.”

This strong sense of loyalty to his brothers-inarms remains with Briley.

He says the worst thing he experienced in Vietnam was not anything that happened directly to him.

“The only thing that really got me was what happened to my platoon sergeant,” said Briley. “I was gone on R&R and some of my guys went out on patrol and Sgt. O’Dell was in charge and they saw some Viet Cong and got to trailing them. According to what Carl told me, they got down to a creek and then went a little further, and three of them got wounded pretty badly from a booby trap. Med-evac was called in and I never saw the three of them again.”

Sgt. Alonzo O’Dell, Briley’s platoon sergeant, was one of the men who was wounded and was sent back to a hospital in the states.

Briley said, “… he never really recovered from his wounds and it ended up killing him. I’ve seen the [Vietnam Veterans

Memorial] wall four times and seen the names of the men killed in Vietnam.

My personal opinion is the Congress ought to make a bill that if a person died from their wounds they received, even if they was back state-side “their names should also be added to the memorial).”

“They should be honored, too,” suggests Briley.

“Their names are not on the wall. They deserve as much attention and glory.

They sacrificed for their country ... the ultimate sacrifice. But they slipped through the system ‘cause they didn’t die in Vietnam.”

After receiving an honorable discharge from the Army, Briley trained to become a carpenter.

He eventually worked for Union Pacific Railroad building bridges. Despite a very different life with a full-time job and a family, Briley’s loyalty to his Vietnam brothers never waned.

He made the effort to see many of them by taking trips around the country to attend reunions and gatherings. He spoke with many of them over the telephone.

Retired from Union Pacific, Briley still sees many of his brothers, traveling to a different city every year to get together and tell war stories and share information about their families.

“I can go just about any place across the country and have friends, and I’ve seen a lot of these guys over the years or talked to them on the phone,” said Briley.

“You get a bond that’s closer than your blood relatives when you’re over there.”

Briley was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Air Medal. These honors seem to be of little significance to him, however, compared to the value he places on the relationships that were formed during his year in Vietnam.

Over 40 years later, the lasting bonds with the men with which he served are far more important than any medal.

Amy Patterson is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-518-3616 or apatterson@dailyjournalonline.com.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CLYDE BRILEY‌

PHOTO COURTESY OF CLYDE BRILEY‌

Veteran Clyde Briley, pictured sitting second from the right wearing a hat and eyeglasses, waits with fellow soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division for a helicopter to pick them up and take them to their next assignment.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CLYDE BRILEY‌

After completing infantry training at Fort Ord on the coast of central California, 20-year-old Clyde Briley is sent to Vietnam.

Clyde Briley landed in Saigon on the southern coast of South Vietnam on Friday the 13th in November of 1970. He was flown to the northernmost tip of South Vietnam where he spent most of his tour in such places as Khe San, the “Rock Pile,” “Hamburger Hill” and the DMZ.

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Looking back on the ‘5 percent’ “All of my friends went to the Navy recruiter. They said if you join the Navy, you will get three meals a day and a clean bed to sleep in at night. The Army recruiters didn’t promise that so I signed up for the Navy. After I got sent to Vietnam I realized I got put in the ‘brown water’ Navy, as some of us called it. We ran the inland waterways delivering supplies.

The water in those rivers had run-off and was muddy. We, in the ‘brown water’ Navy slept wherever we could. I slept in my engine room.”

Veteran Danny Lunsford TRACI M. BLACK, DAILY JOURNAL‌

Danny Lunsford of Farmington served in Vietnam and is currently an active member of VFW Post 5896.

Farmington veteran shares his story TRACI M. BLACK 573-783-3366‌

D a n ny L u n s fo rd o f ‌ Farmington was as an E-5 engineman in the U.S. Navy and served during the Vietnam War between 1966 and 1969.

Lunsford was on the Landing Craft Maintenance or LCM Crew attached to the USS Matthews AKA 96, an attack cargo ship.

He and his four-person crew worked out of the Task Force Clearwater Advanced Tactical Support Base in Cua Viet, Vietnam. He also worked out of the U.S. Navy Sea Bee Base at Tham My and others.

“We were stationed the farthest north in South Vietnam in the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) about five miles from North Vietnam,” Lunsford said. “We were on a MIKE boat. The LCMs are equipped with two .50 caliber machine guns, one on each end. I operated the one in the front during times of gunfire.

“It is a World War II vintage type of boat that could haul trucks,” Lunsford explained. “It was our job to haul cargo from the (sea) coast. We ran supplies up the rivers to our troops farther inland.”

Some of the rivers in the territory worked by Lunsford and his troops were Dong Ha, Cua Viet, and the Perfume River.

“Perfume River—I don’t know why, it was nasty,” Lunsford said. “The rivers had a lot of run-off from the banks.”

“I graduated high school at 17 in 1965, from Poplar Bluff High School. Just

PROVIDED BY DANNY LUNSFORD‌

Lunsford is pictured on a Landing Craft Material (LCM) off the coast of Subic Bay, Philippines in 1969. The U.S. Navy ships stopped there at the ship yard for supplies and repairs while the crew got some “R and R.”

about all of the boys in his town were signing up to enter the military after high school then,” Lunsford remembered. “All of my friends went to the Navy recruiter. They said if you join the Navy, you will get three meals a day and a clean bed to sleep in at night.

The Army recruiters didn’t promise that so I signed up for the Navy.

“After I got sent to Vietnam I realized I got put in the ‘brown water’ Navy, as some of us called it. “We ran the inland waterways delivering supplies. The water in those rivers had run-off and was muddy. We, in the ‘brown water’ Navy slept wherever we could. I slept in my engine room.”

He said 95 percent of the Navy got three meals a day.

“We were the other 5 percent,” Lunsford said. “We got exposed to Agent Orange in the rivers. The Cua Viet

River was the farthest north in South Vietnam in the DMZ. But, I would do it again.”

The area of the country in which Lunsford served was jungle and U.S. military aircraft sprayed the river banks with Agent Orange. It was done to kill the vegetation along the river banks in order to help U.S. troops see the enemy better.

“We were told it was insecticide and that it was not harmful,” Lunsford said.

During the Vietnam War, large ships from the Merchant Marines or the U.S. Navy would anchor off the coast of the Philippine Islands. The mission of Lunsford’s crew was to take combat essential supplies from these ships up the rivers to U.S. Marine and Army troops in the battle field.

Supplies and equipment included things like food, armaments, tools, uniforms,

boots, landing mats, concrete, and etc.

“The cargo ships would anchor about 10 miles off shore. We would take it up river to the American bases on the rivers,” the former engineman said. “Supply routes hauled gas, arms, and even beer. They were supplied by planes also.”

“In ’68 around Christmas time we hauled a big load of beer to the troops near Dong Ha,” Lunsford said. “They (our commanding officers) told us, ‘now don’t you guys be drinking this.’ OK, like that didn’t happen. When we got it there, those guys were really glad to have it.”

All of the branches of the U.S. military agreed on dividing lines within South Vietnam which cut the country into four corps or areas. There were thousands of troops at the bases along the rivers in the area of the country called I Corp in the

north. Some of I Corp’s main rivers were Dong Ha, Cua Viet, Perfume, and Thach Han at Quang Tri City.

“The rivers were like highways,” Danny said. “We used MIKE 8’s (LCM’s).”

Troops were allied with some of the South Vietnamese military troops and some civilians acted as aides.

The boat crews had to watch out for the North Vietnamese military and the Vietcong (VC) who put bombs or booby traps in the water or along the shore lines.

“Steve (Mauk) and I were at the TET Offensive in ’68 at Hue City, which was one of the biggest battles,” he said. “It was when the NVA took over Hue City.

“Part of our job during this was to haul troops in and haul body bags out. The drop off point was about two miles down the Perfume River. We were told not to tell the troops in the boat what we were doing.

This was to try to guard the morale.”

Lunsford also had knowledge of the detriments of friendly fire. He sadly remembered some of his fellow service members, an entire helicopter crew that were shot down, and he was able to see from a distance.

He talked about a few of the times when he and the members of his unit came under attack or were close to enemy fire.

“We always thought the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) would take over. I always felt like that (getting shot) won’t happen to me.” he recalled, “I wasn’t scared at the time because of the adrenaline. I thought about it afterward” He pointed out there was no hiding on the river since the boats were loud.

“Especially since sound carries over the water,” Lunsford said. “The Army guys would say to us, ‘You guys are crazy, we’ve been quietly going from tree to tree. We could hear you coming two or three miles away.’”

“My friend Dave Puzek got out his .50 caliber and was shooting at an angle kind of close to a group of us. I said to him, ‘that was kind of close.’ Dave said, ‘You guys were getting small arms fire.’ Dave and I ran the rivers on separate boats, he was on 5 and I was on 6. We felt safer running together.”

His friend died in 2014 of lung cancer. He never smoked.

Lunsford discussed the importance of remembering all of the American service members who gave their lives during this conflict. He wants every citizen to always remember those who did not make it back home.

Traci M. Black is a reporter for the Democrat News and can be reached at 573-783-3366 or at tblack@democratnewsonline.com.

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Mauk wants people to remember the soldiers

TRACI BLACK, DAILY JOURNAL‌

Steve Mauk is an active member of the VFW Post 5896 in Farmington and serves his fellow veterans as head of the building and grounds crew.

TRACI M. BLACK 573-783-3366‌

‌S teve Mauk served in the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1970 in the rank of Petty Officer 3rd class with the title Boatswain’s Mate, or as many know it “Bosun Mate”, in the U.S. Navy.

Mauk was a river patrol boat captain on a LCPL (Landing Craft Personnel Light) w i t h t h e R ive r Se c u rity Division. The unit w a s a t t a c h e d to t wo U.S. Naval bases in Cua Viet, which was just a few miles from the DMZ ( d e m i l i ta r i z e d z o n e ) , from 1967 to 1970.

His unit patrolled the rivers of Vietnam mainly at night looking for members of the North Vietnamese Army.

“We were called night “jagers”, this is the German word for hunters,” he said. “We had to keep t h e r i ve r f ro m b e i n g mined by NVA “zappers”.

K e e p i n g t h e r i ve r s c l e a r o f i n te r f e re n c e and hazards was vital.

During the war the rive rs we re u s e d by t h e U.S. military like highways for supplies and transportation. During that time it took eight logistical troops to support one combat troop, according to Mauk.

There weren’t that many troops that went on foot into the jungles.

M a u k re ce ive d t h e highest marks possible on his evaluation from his Lt. Commander in 1969. He worked to keep his patrol boat up to the highest Navy standards.

River boat captain Mauk kept his unit trained on the latest combat river warfare procedures.

The letter that Mauk received from his commanding officer stated, “3rd Class Bosun Mate, Steven Mauk, willingly accepts additional duties regardless of the situation, which makes him an asset to the division.”

Mauk and the men he served with built up a strong bond that comes from knowing that one life depends on another.

He served two success ive to u rs o f d u ty i n Vietnam with the first being one year and the

PROVIDED BY STEVE MAUK‌

Mauk on a patrol boat on the Cua Viet River sometime between 1967 and 1970 in Vietnam.

second being 18 months.

“The hardest thing I had to do was leave,” he said. “I felt like I was abandoning my fellow service members.”

S teve ’s u n i t h a d to face many weather conditions including the monsoon season. And during the dry season troops had to frequently push the boats off of sand bars and pull leeches off of their skin and clothing. The temperatures were very high d u r i n g t h e d ry t i m e s.

Another huge factor that troops had to contend with were the mosquitoes.

“The conditions were almost terrible, at best,” he said.

S teve d e sc r i b e s t h e years that he spent there a s a c o n s ta n t u p a n d down. There were weeks of boredom with long l o n e ly n i g h ts. So m e times the nights would suddenly turn into chaos with enemy gunfire raining down around their camps.

“The fighting was q u i c k a n d v i c i o u s ,” he said.

“There was a fear among us that if we were k i l l e d wo u l d a nyb o dy really give a s—t,” Steve said. “Many of us were away from home for the f i rs t t i m e a n d seve ra l were just kids.”

“What I want to talk about is those service members who gave their lives to save the lives of others,” he said. “On those boats there were many that made sacrifices for others. Many troops suffered losses.

I lost a personal friend, Gary Graves from Bonne Te r r e . We we r e ve r y close and I am still suffering from that loss.

His name is on the wall (in Framington).”

He still worries that no one remembers these things and the sacrifice of lives.

“When we came home nobody cared,” he said.

“Nobody (Vietnam veterans) wanted to come home to demonstrators.

Some of us felt ill will toward the draft dodgers, because we felt they were cowards. It took years to adjust back to being home. (The) training gives a you a sense of superiority. Fighting in combat gives you a sense of higher respect for yourself.”

Steve remembers how he and the friends would read one another’s letters from home a n d i f so m e o n e go t a care package they would share it with each other.

“My dad sent a tape of him, my uncle Billy, and Denny when they went c o o n h u n t i n g ,” M a u k said. “It was when Billy’s son Denny was little.

My f r i e n d L a r ry Wi l liams and I listened to it a lot. Larry and I finally wore the tape out.”

“You lose guys,” Steve said solemnly. “You hear about the wounded and wonder if they’re still alive. You wonder how their families are doing.”

Steve injured his knee and was sent for treatment to a U.S. Naval hospital ship anchored in Da Nang harbor. He spent 21 days there before being put back into the conflict on full duty.

He witnessed so many horrors on that ship and ex p l a i n e d t h a t i t wa s worse than the actual war in some ways. There were men with burns, arms missing, legs missing. He listened to one

Steve Mauk takes a brief moment to pose for the camera while in Vietnam.

Manning the guns was just one part of the patrol boat captain’s job in Vietnam.

sergeant yelling for his wife throughout the night and he didn’t make it past the next day. “ O n e o f my p ro u d est moments was when I got off of the hospital ship and my patrol boat squadron came to get me,” he said. “The people, doctors, and nurses were out on the deck giving me a send-off.”

“There was one patient out there that day with no leg and one arm cheering us on and he said ‘Go get ‘em guys,’” Steve reminisced. “That was one I will always remember.”

“I volunteered for it

and have pride in being with such an elite group, but I am still suffering from the losses,” he said.

“The losses we (Vietnam veterans) suffered over there, people have forgotten.”

He wonders at times if the price and the blood loss helped to pay the price for someone else’s wealth. For example, to help pay for the American aircraft manufacturing and sales industries, oil industry, and other industries.

“I want the citizens of our country to remember the individual troops,”

PROVIDED BY STEVE MAUK‌

PROVIDED BY STEVE MAUK‌

Mauk stressed. “Remember the regular service men that were fighting and dying, not necessarily the generals and officers.”

S teve i s a g ra d u a te of the Flat River H igh School class of 1965 in the town where he grew up.

He is an active member of the VFW Post # 5896 in Farmington and serves his fellow veterans as head of the building and grounds crew.

Traci M. Black is a reporter for the Democrat News and can be reached at 573-783-3366 or at tblack@democratnewsonline. com.

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Barnes returns from war to be called a ‘baby killer’ Veteran shares his story of Vietnam and after TRACI M. BLACK 573-783-3366‌

‌C lifford Barnes served as a U.S. Army Warrant Officer and piloted UH-1 “Huey” helicopters in a heavy combat environment in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969. These helicopters frequently transported troops in and out of “hot” zones throughout the conflict.

“I flew slicks in Vietnam,” Barnes said. “We could fire off about 6,000 rounds a minute.”

Vietnam War After Action Reports by BACM Research describes a portion of an actual “slicks” or UH-1 helicopters’ mission.

“The PAC, normally the first to locate the team upon receiving a radio communication for extraction, determines the location and degree of enemy resistance, directs gunships to the target area, and obtains close air support when necessary.

The PAC calls for launch of the slicks, based upon his estimate of the situation, and the time he estimates for suppressing enemy resistance. He usually launches the gunships first, with the slicks not far behind.

The slicks move to an orbit or release point, located in the vicinity of the planned extract.”

Barnes wasn’t aware of the heavy protests that citizens were engaging in the United States until he landed at the airport. Protesters were lined up outside and inside terminals at airports in several U.S. airports in 1969.

“I came back to protests and I didn’t realize this was going on here,” Barnes said. “We got called war mongers and baby killers.”

W h e n B a r n e s a n d a few other vets first landed back on American soil, they landed in California and the terminal was marked off by tape. The AP’s or Airport Patrols were directed by the U.S. Army to help take care of the Vietnam veterans at the airports.

“One guy slipped under the tape and called me a war monger and baby killer and spit on me, so I punched him in the nose,” Clifford said. “After that, I went in the restroom and the AP’s followed me and stayed with me.”

“One of them went and got my duffle bag,” the pilot said.

“When he came back with it, two of them walked on either side of me down to where I had to get my next plane. They waited until I got on my plane for St. Louis.”

During the Vietnam era the U.S. military did not send its troops back home in groups. It would send a few at a time and

Pictured are Bell UH-1H Iroquois (Huey).

TRACI M. BLACK, DAILY JOURNAL‌

Clifford Barnes served as a U.S. Army warrant officer and piloted UH-1 “Huey” helicopters in a heavy combat environment during the Vietnam War.

“I came back to protests and I didn’t realize this was going on here. We got called war mongers and baby killers.”

Warrant Officer Clifford Barnes

sometimes, as few as three or four would travel to the same destination.

“So, we would have to get off the plane and face these protestors,” Barnes said. “After getting called a baby killer and a war monger, I started to believe it.

I turned to drugs for a while. I suffer from PTSD.” His flight squadron mainly covered the area designated as 3 Corp near the cities of Saigon and Bien Hoa, with most flights originating in Bien Hoa. “The DMZ was north of I Corp,” the pilot said. “Cambodia and along the border of South Vietnam is where I had most of my trouble. The lines were blurred. We shouldn’t forget that some of our troops were killed in Cambodia.”

“I patrolled from the air to help the troops who were on the ground,” Barnes said. “I hated it because that was usually when they were getting shot at.”

He believes there was another reason for the war.

“We were not fighting Communism as we were told,” Barnes

Huey helicopters demonstrate various capabilities. Man and machines worked well together transporting supplies and troops, as well as in defense mode, whenever necessary.

said. “We weren’t told of the true mission in Vietnam. It was to help the French sell war machines. There were French businesses in Vietnam for a decade before the war.

“I remember a rubber plant that did regular business during the war. It was near the fighting

COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF FLIGHT‌

but was never hit. The employees and deliveries went on as if there was nothing going on around them. The French helped us (the United States) during the Revolution (Revolutionary War).

Maybe the U.S. government felt indebted to the French because of that.”

He has other theories as well.

After volunteering, Barnes completed U.S. Army Basic Training at Ft. Polk, Louisiana in 1967. His next stop was pre-flight training in Fort Walter, Texas and then on to Fort Rucker, Alabama.

“I knew I would get drafted, so I signed up to get flight school,” he said. “I served about four years before I was eligible for discharge.”

The warrant officer graduated from flight school and was certified to fly Hueys at Ft. Rucker.

Bien Hoa was his first duty station as a pilot upon his arrival in Vietnam in 1968.

According to the Military Analysis Network, the utility Bell UH-1 series Iroquois or “Huey” helicopters like the ones flown

by Barnes were manufactured by Bell Helicopter Textron. This was

the most widely used military helicopter and it began arriving in Vietnam in 1963.

Before the end of the conflict, more than 5,000 of these versatile aircraft were introduced into Southeast Asia. “Hueys” were used for MedEvac, command and control, air assault, personnel and materials transport; and as gunships. These aircraft were considered the most widely used helicopter in the world, with more than 9,000 produced from the 1950s to 1999. By the late ‘90s Huey’s were flown in about 40 countries.

Barnes is a member of the local VFW Post #5896 in Farmington and enjoys supporting its mission of helping local veterans. He finds comfort in the comradery with his friends and fellow veterans there.

Barnes rides his motorcycle in his spare time. He describes the three-wheeled vehicle as a “motorcycle pulled by a car.”

Traci M. Black is a reporter for the Democrat News and can be reached at 573-783-3366 or at tblack@ democratnewsonline.com.

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Among the first Marines in ‌Donal “Don” Firebaugh began his lengthy career in military and public service at a young age.

“I spent one year out of school,” Firebaugh said. “My family couldn’t afford college. I got a job in St. Louis at McDonnell Aircraft, and decided it was not for me.”

So Firebaugh joined the military. Specifically, he joined the Marine Corps in 1964 before Vietnam started. He was a private first class when he went into Vietnam.

He spent 13 weeks in boot camp in San Diego, then four weeks of advanced infantry training. He came home for leave for 20 days, then back to San Diego. He trained there at Camp Pendleton in the mountains.

“This was before jungle warfare,” Firebaugh said. “We had conventional warfare training.”

“I was with the first bunch of Marines that went into South Vietnam in April of 1965,” Firebaugh said. “A few started moving in March. We were up on Okinawa doing operations.

Actually we were coming back from Bangkok, Thailand, and they turned our ship around and sent troops on in directly to Vietnam in April of 1965. There had been one bunch in March, then us. We were infantryman in the Marine Corps.”

He was in the 3rd Marine Division, which went into Vietnam following after advisor groups, which had been going in since 1958.

“The Army sent advisors to stabilize the region ... it didn’t work,” he said. “And after the Gulf of Tonkin incident the president decided it was time to send troops.”

Firebaugh said the troops didn’t know what to expect when they hit the beach.

“Then we went out into the jungle,” he said. “We had artillery, and you would hear the constant ‘boom boom boom.’”

In 1965 the United States rapidly increased its military forces in South Vietnam, prompted by the realization the South Vietnamese government was losing the war.

“I was in there early, and it hadn’t heated up much yet, except the South Vietnamese ... they were called Viet Cong,” he said. “They were people living in South Vietnam (who were) sympathizers with the North Vietnamese communist government. They were constantly harassing us, shooting at us, snipers mostly.”

Firebaugh said the mission was two-fold.

“One was to suppress the enemy,” he said, “which we had very little knowledge of the enemy unless they shot at us.

The other mission was that at least a couple weeks we went on people-to-people missions with medical teams with medicine and food. It was more of a humanitarian mission. They were trying to win the hearts and minds. The next day we’d go through we had to fire back.”

There weren’t any base camps.

They had tents in the rear. They were 10 to 15 miles from the battalion command post. Malaria was a big thing. Firebaugh thought he had malaria one time, but it turned out to be something else.

In the year he served in Vietnam, Firebaugh says, the mission really didn’t change.

“It was very confusing to us,” he said. “All we had was M-14s.

They’d shoot at us, and we would try to get to them before

Don Firebaugh, as he appears today, spent a year in Vietnam. He was among some of the first Marines to land there.

DEFENSE DEPT. PHOTO (MARINE CORPS) A184395 PROVIDED BY DON FIREBAUGH‌

Private First Class Donal E. Firebaugh (Rifleman, 3rd Squad, 1st Platoon Company F; 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Division) checks in with Company CP from his outpost position near Da Nang, Vietnam.

they got to us. It wasn’t a very good life to be honest with you.

Most of the time we went out on patrols we had no vehicles. We were on foot.

“We’d be patrolling villages, rice paddies, up the side of a mountain, down the side of a mountain. We’d be out there on patrol for a week. Days might go by where we didn’t see anything enemy-wise. And then you might get into an area that was full of Viet Cong. Then as time progressed we started encountering what we knew were North Vietnamese because they had on the actual army uniform.”

Firebaugh was in communications. He was a radio man, carrying a radio along with a rifle.

He would relay any message that came from battalion command on the mountain. The radio had a range of ten miles on a good day.

“I tried to stay insignificant

because when you carry a radio with a ten-foot antenna sticking out of your back you’re a pretty good target and I got shot at some because of that,” he said.

“VC (Viet Cong) were hiding in rock buildings and when we’d go by they’d shoot at us.

“I only got grazed one time on the forehead. I didn’t even know I’d been hit until I got up and the corpsman told me I’d been hit and I had blood running down my forehead, but it was just a superficial thing.”

They enemy started attacking more near the end of the year, during “the monsoon season.”

“Where we were at, close to the DMZ (demilitarized zone), Da Nang, Khe Sanh, Chu Lai,” he said. “They took advantage of the weather. It rained all the time, and they started sending a lot of North Vietnamese soldiers and they would hit us at night.

“One night they hit the Da Nang Air Base. We were out forward and they tried to come through the helicopter base that had just been put in. We got a radio message to prepare for an attack. It’s hard to say how many, probably 30 to 40. You just return fire and try to keep your head down. They had AK47s and grenade launchers similar to what they’re using today in Iraq and Afghanistan, Chinese and Russian weapons.”

Firebaugh says the soldiers who went over after he did had it a lot harder. After he returned to the United States he was at an air station in South Carolina for 16 months. He was an E4 corporal when he was discharged.

“I was offered E5 sergeant if I re-enlisted,” he said. “My dad said it would kill my mom if I went back.”

Instead he went to college. He

ALAN KOPITSKY, DAILY JOURNAL‌

said there were some negative feelings there. “(During) The Tet Offensive in ‘68 and in ‘69, we were watching it all on the nightly news and I was going to college with protesters,” he said.

“Nobody gave me a hard time. It just seemed like people you got acquainted with would back off when you said you went to Vietnam. We wondered ‘what did I do wrong?’”

He joined the National Guard in Fredericktown in March of 1983. He says he kind of missed the military. He became administrator in 1984, transferred to Farmington in 1992, and was promoted to supervisor of both the Fredericktown and Farmington National Guard armories in 1994. He retired from the National Guard in 2005 as E8 first sergeant.

He was elected Madison County Clerk in 2006 and took office in 2007. He was re-elected in 2010 and 2014.

Firebaugh is a member of the VFW and volunteers for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve in Southeast Missouri. It’s a federal program to help any military individuals who come off active duty to get a job or maintain their job.

He also works with the retiree council which meets in Jefferson City quarterly.

He said he also keeps in contact with a few people that were in Vietnam when he was.

“We don’t talk too much about the experience,” he said. “We try to keep it light.”

Firebaugh also has thought about perhaps returning to Vietnam for a visit now, more than 50 years after he was there the first time.

“Now, I wouldn’t mind going,” he said. “Vietnam has changed so much over the years that it would probably do me some good to try to find Chu Lai, Marble Mountain, some of those places that I remember vaguely through the eyes of a child and the expectation of getting shot at.”

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Veteran Bill Gillam’s bravery shows no boundaries AMY PATTERSON 573-518-3616‌

‌For a 20-year veteran of the United States Army (from June 1960 to June 1980) and an avid civilian international traveler, it could be said that Lt. Colonel Bill Gillam has seen the world.

After graduating in 1955 from Bonne Terre High School, Gillam went to West Missouri State College (now Missouri State University) in Springfield, where he joined the Army ROTC. Many of his friends were being drafted or had enlisted in the Air Force, and Gillam wanted to make sure that if he went into the military, he would not do so as a private.

He joined the Army as a lieutenant after marrying Mary, who was from Monett. He trained in Georgia, Kentucky and then Alabama before being sent to Panama in 1964.

Gillam served in Panama from January 1964 to December 1966. He was in Korea for over a year between 1967 and 1968. He served in Vietnam and Cambodia for most of 1970, then went to Germany in June 1971 until July 1974.

He spent his last six years of service in St. Louis with the Army Troop Support Command and Aviation Systems Command.

Gillam’s most distinguished service occurred while he was in Vietnam and Cambodia. He had been promoted to major by then and during his time incountry he performed “over 500 helicopter missions as a supply officer getting supplies, equipment, food, weapons and ammunition to troops on fire bases” in both countries.

Gillam has been awarded four Bronze Stars and three Air Medals. He was also in line for nomination to be awarded a Silver Star for his actions in May of 1970 while he was with the 4th Infantry Division.

As described by Gillam, “I was being nominated for a Silver Star for my actions as a door gunner on an OH-6 helicopter in Cambodia on May 10, 1970. I refused the nomination because young enlisted men did it on a daily basis for six to 10 hours and five to six days a week and got nothing.

“I volunteered to be the door gunner because the actual door gunner couldn’t be located when the pilot artillery officer was

given a mission to locate at least 100 Viet Cong soldiers who had recently been seen entering into the jungle near our fire bases. We were flying under the tree tops like driving in an underground parking lot. The pilot called in a lot of artillery fire and there were casualties.”

In February, Gillam was inducted into the Missouri State Bear Battalion Hall of Fame for his acts of bravery in saving at least 23 lives on four separate occasions, “including two Red Cross Donut Dollies and a young Viet Cong soldier” who Gillam pulled out of a river to save him from drowning.

Vietnam Donut Dollies were young American women who spent a one-year tour in-country as morale boosters for American troops. In response to a request by the military, the Red Cross sent teams of young female college graduates to Southeast Asia to conduct recreation programs for men stationed in isolated sections of the region. Donut Dollies also dispensed coffee, donuts and various “comfort” items such as toothpaste and cigarettes.

Aside from the dozen or more lives Gillam saved on other occasions, the main reason for his induction into the Bear Battalion Hall of Fame, according to Gillam, “was for my actions concerning a helicopter crash as troops were returning from Cambodia on the 13th of May 1970. The helicopter crashed on top of a troop truck that killed at least 11 soldiers. Four were outside of the truck and seven still on the truck, including a friend of mine.

“The truck had soldiers who had just returned on a helicopter. The next helicopter hit the ground too hard, bounced into the air and landed upside down on the truck.

“At that time about 1,500 gallons of JP4 fuel drained onto the truck, the dead troops and the ground. All of a sudden from some place, a hand grenade hit the ground near five soldiers outside of the truck. The safety clip came off and they immediately ran.

“I was about 10 to 15 feet from the grenade and I knew I had four to five seconds before it exploded.

I immediately ran to it and tossed it away. It exploded about 30 feet from the helicopter. If it had exploded in the JP4 it would have

PROVIDED BY BILL GILLAM‌

In February of this year, U.S. Army veteran Bill Gillam was inducted into the Missouri State Bear Battalion Hall of Fame for his acts of bravery on May 13, 1970, when he managed to remove a live grenade from the wreckage of this truck and helicopter seconds before it exploded. His actions saved 12 soldiers’ lives and prevented the incineration of the bodies of 11 soldiers who had died in the crash.

Pictured is Lt. Colonel Bill Gillam in 1970, then a major, during his tour of Vietnam and Cambodia.

been a miniature atomic bomb.

But at least 12 more soldiers did not die and the 11 who had died were not cremated. They made it home for their parents, relatives and friends to see one last time.”

Gillam made it home as well and continued his military service until June of 1980.

His interest in travel and the cultures of other countries, however, was not sated. According to Gillam, his love of traveling was sparked while he was assigned to Panama from 1964 to 1966. During his two-year tour in Panama, he visited Brazil, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

After retiring from the Army, Gillam and his wife took advantage of his veteran status and began to plan their trips so they could ride on military transports to save money on airfare. They also often stayed on military bases to avoid hotel expenses.

The Gillams have traveled to Israel multiple times, floated down the Nile River and visited the pyramids and the Sphinx.

They have seen Buckingham Palace, the Berlin Wall, the Roman Coliseum and the Parthenon in Athens, Greece.

They have been behind the former “Iron Curtain” and traveled inside the Kremlin Wall, Lenin’s Tomb, and the Russian Czars’ home in St. Petersburg.

They have visited Mexico, Panama and Costa Rica.

One of their most extensive trips was in January 2007. The trip began in Dallas as the couple headed overseas. Their first stop was in Spain, then London and onto India, where they visited the Taj Mahal.

Thailand, Singapore, Manila and the Philippines were next on the list before heading to their last stop in Hong Kong.

Before the trip was over, the

PROVIDED BY BILL GILLAM‌

PROVIDED BY BILL GILLAM‌

Since retiring from the U.S. Army in 1980, Bill Gillam and his wife have traveled all over the world including India where they visited The Taj Mahal.

PROVIDED BY BILL GILLAM‌

Since retiring from the U.S. Army in 1980, Bill Gillam and his wife have visited 102 countries, territories and independent states, including Thailand where they visited the Bridge over the River Kwai. The iconic bridge was a subject of the film by the same name filmed in 1957 for a move starring William Holden.

Gillams had visited 11 countries and covered 24,879 miles.

Later that year, Gillam gave his wife a cruise to Greece, Turkey, England and France for her birthday present.

Between October 2007 and October 2008, the Gillams covered more than 50,000 miles during their travels.

To date, Gillam and his wife

have visited 102 countries, territories and independent states.

As long as they are physically able to travel, the Gillams plan to continue to explore the planet and all of its wonders.

Amy Patterson is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-518-3616 or apatterson@dailyjournalonline.com.

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PHOTOS PROVIDED BY GARY LEE‌

Lee shares experiences as helicopter mechanic in Vietnam ‌G ary Lee was born in Frede r i c k tow n a n d g rew u p i n Yount, Mo. He graduated from Perryville High School. Then his parents moved to Madison County.

“The day my parents moved here in October of 1966 I was in St. Louis at the induction center getting my physical,” Lee said.

He enlisted in late 1966 and entered the U.S. Army in March of 1967. At 18 years old Lee had rarely left the rural community where he grew up.

First he went to Fort Leonard Wood for eight weeks of basic training.

“It was kind of shock being a country boy,” he said “I grew up on a farm.”

“Basic training is just infantry training, physical training, firearms and those kind of things,” he said. “We ran.

We learned what the military is like, military discipline, history, courtesy.”

After basic training at Fort L e o n a rd Wo o d h e we n t to Advanced Individual Training.

“That’s where you get your specialty,” he said. “Once you got through your basic training then you went on to your advanced individual training for your specialty of some kind ... whether it be infantry, mechanic, whatever field is needed.”

He enlisted specifically for helicopter maintenance.

“I went to Fort Eustis, Virginia,” he said. “I went through two schools. They had different designations for different helicopter types. There was the 67N20. That was for the UH1 Iroquois Heweys, and then another training course, 67V20, on the OH6A Cayuse, a light observation helicopter.”

Lee said he was “farmed up” at Fort Knox, Kentucky, after AIT and left Fort Knox in October of 1967. He and the other members of the 7th Squadron 17th Air Cavalry Regiment flew from Fort Knox to Ford Ord, California, and they loaded on a troop transport.

They took the transport and landed in Quy Nhơn Vietnam, a coastal port, around Oct. 26.

Then they were transported to Pleiku, Vietnam.

Lee said in Pleiku they were at Camp Enari, the base camp of the fourth infantry. They were under a mountain there they called Dragon Mountain.

“It was in the highlands, kind of a mountainous region,” he said. “It didn’t get really cold there. Maybe in the 40s.

It was either hot and dry or rainy wet. During the monsoon it rained every day. And then during the dry season it was just dry. I think one thing everyone would mention was the red dirt dust during the dry season. It was always there and

the helicopters really stirred it up.”

T h i s wa s t h e h ea d q u a rters for multiple troops and each troop had helicopters and infantry.

“When we first got there, we worked on the helicopters for all the troops,” Lee said.

They did maintenance for the whole squadron. After a period of time each troop got its own maintenance. Lee did general maintenance.

“The UH1 Iroquois C models were the designated gunships,” he said. “They had mini guns on each side and they had rocket pods on each side. They were flown in support of the ground troops and if they got in hot water they would come in and use the rockets and machine guns for air support.

“The UH1Ds and UH1Hs, which were the troop carriers, had a longer cargo compartment and you could haul troops on those.”

The med evacs would pick up wounded. They picked up troops and delivered supplies.

“We also had the OH6A Cayuse, most people called them ‘Loaches,’ light observation helicopters,” he said. “They were scout helicopters. They did reconnaissance. They got in low and slow.”

The maintenance crew did not do much flying.

“The only time maintenance flew was after we had done repairs,” he said. “We flew for flight checks. I flew just a couple times.”

Lee said the base would get mortar attacks occasionally. He said the sappers (combat engineers) would get through the wire and try to get explosives in and destroy the helicopters.

“One sapper was killed trying to get through,” he said. “That was kind of gruesome. In another instance one of the helicopters went down in the perimeter wire. It lost power and crashed.

That was another terrible thing that happened.”

Lee said during the Tet Offensive in January of 1968 they were rocketed quite often. The POL (Petroleum Oil Lubrication) for the helicopters was hit during the offensive.

He left Vietnam in October of 1968 and returned to Fort Lewis, Washington. He spent November of 1968 until March of 1970 at Fort Hood, Texas, in the Second Armored Division ... nicknamed “Hell on Wheels.”

He took some more schooling on vehicle mechanics.

In March of 1970 Specialist 5th Class Lee was discharged from active duty. He was a reserve through 1973.

He married Barbara Ames in 1972. He moved back to Fredericktown, worked for a short period of time and then went to

PROVIDED BY GARY LEE‌

This is a UH1C Iroquois “Hewey”, one of the types of helpcopters Gary Lee helped maintain during his time in Vietnam.

It was in the highlands, kind of a mountainous region. It didn’t get really cold there. Maybe in the 40s. It was either hot and dry or rainy wet.

During the monsoon it rained every day.

And then during the dry season it was just dry. I think one thing everyone would mention was the red dirt dust during the dry season.

It was always there and the helicopters really stirred it up.

Gary Lee

school at Linn Tech for a couple of years. After that he worked for Bennett and Smith in Madison County, and then worked at Walmart for 25 years.

In returning from Vietnam to southeast Missouri he said he understood it was a “turbulent time.”

“Actually, here there were not a whole lot of questions,” Lee said. “People ask me about (the experience) more now.”

He recently spoke about his experience to his

Gary Lee served in Vietnam in helicopter maintenance.

granddaughter’s class in Park Hills. Reflecting on the time he served, Lee says he still thinks about the experience and the people he knew in Vietnam.

“During that time frame, when we got there until when we left, in the unit I went over with there were something like 125 or 126 causalities plus all the wounded,” he recalls. “That

weighs on your mind.”

Lee said there is an organization which holds reunions each year and he’s gone to a few. He also was recently visited by one of the men he served with in Vietnam, Bob Bronson, and he is going to try to visit him in Oregon.

“I served with a lot of good people,” he said.

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Former MP remembers time in country SHAWNNA ROBINSON 573-518-3628‌

‌Dave Watson of Farmington remembers the letter he received in 1970.

“Greetings from the President” it read at the top of the page.

Watson, 66, lived in Cape Girardeau at the time. He had flunked out of Southeast Missouri State University – “I liked playing pinochle more than studying,” he admits.

Because he was no longer in school, his college deferment was cancelled.

Watson received the number “13” when the draft lottery was held – and, the lower the number, the better one’s chances were for getting drafted.

According to Brittanica.com, college deferments were limited in 1971, but by that time the military was calling up fewer conscripts each year. President Richard M. Nixon ended all draft calls in 1972, and in 1973 the draft was abolished in favor of an all-volunteer military.

Watson recalled his days of basic training at Fort Leonard Wood – comparing the experience to “a seven day a week regimen for eight long, hard weeks.”

The young solider took a battery of tests during basic training.

“We were tested, interviewed and analyzed as to what we were best at as far as the Army was concerned,” Watson said.

“For whatever reason, which still eludes me to this day, the Army decided I would make a great military policeman.”

He would be sent to Fort Gordon, Georgia for eight weeks following his completion of basic training for military police training.

“We learned how to drive a Jeep the military way, more military law, basic law enforcement and how to handle ourselves in most situations we would encounter,” he said.

Watson shared a memory of a fellow soldier nicknamed “Brutus” – someone he remembered coming “from a very rough background.”

“We were housed in some very old wooden barracks,” Watson remembered.

“We had to take turns during the night for an hour on fire patrol. The list was posted and I always had to wake up ‘Brutus.’ After the first 2 to 3 a.m. fire patrol, I went in to wake him up and he came out of the bunk swinging.

“After he apologized for bloodying my nose, I let him sleep when it was his turn and I took an extra hour of fire patrol.”

In 1971, at the age of 20, Watson was assigned to an MP unit in Phu Loi, a helicopter base located about 25 miles north of Saigon.

Watson said his main duties consisted of patrolling the highways around the base camp during the day, patrolling the base camp itself at night and manning the only gate for the base. He would work 12-hour shifts, 7 days a week.

The only entry or exit to the base was by vehicles – foot traffic was not allowed.

Watson recalls an incident where a soldier hopped off a Vietnamese vehicle and came hobbling over to the gate to gain entry.

“We asked him to sit in the guard booth and rest while we asked him a few questions,” Watson said. “The first question was, ‘why are you limping?’ He replied, ‘My boots hurt.’ So, we asked him to take off his boots. He refused and bolted, running from the camp.

“I gave chase, yelling for him to ‘halt!’ and even pulled out my weapon. The other guys called for vehicular backup. He finally ran into a large culvert, sat in the middle of it and yanked off his boots. As soon as his boots were off, he surrendered and carried his boots out of the culvert.

“I was huffing and puffing and clearly out of breath – and out of sorts. I handcuffed him, made him sit in the muddy ditch and crawled into the culvert looking for whatever he had in his boots. I found four vials of heroin.

“Instead of taking him to the station by Jeep, I marched him in his socks across the hot asphalt the quarter mile to the station.”

Working as an MP had Watson seeing first-hand the toll of being in Vietnam had on some – with drugs, alcohol and depression — “some of the biggest things we were forced to deal with on a daily

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY DAVE WATSON‌

Left: Dave Watson (standing) served for 13 months in Vietnam as an MP with the United States Army. Watson worked at a helicopter base located 25 miles north of Saigon. Right: Dave Watson was drafted into the United States Army in 1970 and served as an MP at a helicopter base located near Saigon.

basis,” he said.

Watson recalls being on patrol one afternoon when he and his partner discovered an Army truck pulled over on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

“There was a roadside stand there, where they sold who-knows-what,” Watson said. “We walked around the truck and there was one lone solider, sitting on the running board with a folded piece of paper held up to his face.”

The MP’s saw a white powder on the soldier’s nose and arrested him for heroin possession, taking the soldier back to the base for booking. Watson recalls a Vietnamese woman at the stand, shaking her head during the encounter.

“I put him in a cell and started filling out paperwork,” Watson said. “My partner went to check on him and he was spitting something out of his mouth.

When he coughed, little bubbles would come out of his nose. He started asking for water. Then, he started foaming at the mouth.

“About that time, another patrol came in … upon questioning, they asked where we found the guy. When we told them, they suggested we check the vial. After checking, we found out it was pure, unscented Vietnamese laundry powder.”

Watson also remembers the spraying of Agent Orange around the base to keep the vegetation from growing.

“In the base camp we were at, the perimeter was surrounded by rows upon rows of concertina wire … like you would see at the prison. Razor-sharp barbed wire to keep the enemy from coming into the camp and destroying our prized helicopters and us.

“There were guards stationed around the perimeter 24 hours a day watching for an enemy strapped with explosives, who liked to try to crawl under the wire to blow stuff up.

“In order to keep the vegetation from growing, and hindering the guards’ sight, they sprayed Agent Orange at least once weekly, which killed all vegetation.

The area they sprayed was about 100 feet wide. Our barracks were very close to the edge of the camp, so we got a lot of the spray.”

Being on a helicopter base camp allowed Watson the opportunity to fly in “all types of choppers – from the smallest to the largest and even the Cobra attack helicopter.” When he did fly, it would be as a “door gunner” – sitting on the side of the chopper with a machine gun.

Those in the base camp would also barter with the food distribution people for chicken, steaks and other staples.

Watson remembered a gentleman named Willy from Georgia who lived in their barracks. Willy’s mother sent an electric frying pan to her son.

“We would get the chicken and he would fry up some of the best fried chicken on that side of the Pacific Ocean,” Watson said.

He also remembers wearing out radio station recordings on cassette tapes sent

SHAWNNA ROBINSON, DAILY JOURNAL‌

Dave Watson of Farmington looks at photos from his time as an MP with the United States Army in Vietnam. Watson was assigned to an MP unit in Phu Loi, a helicopter base located north of Saigon.

over by friends and family.

Watson said there were around 24 people in his unit “so we got real close, real fast,” he said. Watson would serve 13 months in country.

“Working with people 12 hours a day, you learned all about them and heard stories about their families and learned who you could trust and rely on.

“Most of the guys I worked with were hard-working, honest – albeit lonely – group who I would and have trusted with my life. We watched each other’s backs and became like brothers in a short period of time.”

Watson was offered one week of leave after six months “in country.”

“I could have gone to Australia or Hawaii with friends, but that meant I would have had to stay in Vietnam another week,” he said. “No way was I going to stay any longer than I had to.”

Watson would begin his journey home on March 19, 1972. He kept his travel home a surprise from his family in Cape Girardeau who did not expect to see him until May. He remembers “triple-checking” his paper work to make sure everything was in order. Until this day, Watson said, he has dreams of missing the plane back home due to a lack of orders.

Watson said the entire plane erupted in cheers the moment the plane’s wheels left the ground – with the servicemen on board singing “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place” by the Animals and “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag” by Country Joe and the Fish for the first few minutes of the flight.

Landing in Los Angeles would mean being shuttled to a large warehouse – “a sea of beds,” as Watson remembers – waiting for the final discharge papers.

Watson would be there for five days. The center was a place where lights were on at all times, names for processing were

constantly called out, food was served 24 hours a day and the troops entertained themselves by making large paper airplanes out of newspaper and holding contests for longest distance and best style.

Once he made it to St. Louis, Watson recalls making a mad dash for his connecting flight home to Cape Girardeau through the airport in his dress uniform.

It was at that time Watson said someone began yelling obscenities and spat at him, with it landing on Watson just above the cuff on his pants.

“I dropped my bag and made a jerky move toward him, just to spook him,” Watson said. “He looked kind of startled.

Then, with a panicked look on his face, turned and ran away. If I wasn’t in such a hurry to get on that connector flight and get home, I would’ve dropped everything and chased him down.”

Watson said it was around 9:15 in the morning when he took a cab from the Cape Girardeau Airport to Scott’s Shoes – the store his parent’s owned and where his brothers all worked. He remembers the shocked look on their faces at their surprise.

He would go on to reapply at SEMO and work for his dad in the shoe business.

Watson would later meet and marry his wife, Pat and have two children, Jennifer and J.D. Watson said he was reluctant for many years to talk about his time in Vietnam – based mostly on the reactions similar to the one he had in the airport upon his arrival home.

“I took a lot of years after I got home for anyone to thank me for what I did,” he said. “That’s why I never wanted to talk about it.”

Shawnna Robinson is the managing editor for the Farmington Press and can be reached at 573-5183628 or srobinson@farmingtonpressonline.com

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Art Jones became world-wise in Vietnam

KEVIN R. JENKINS 573-518-3614‌

‌A rt Jones went to Vietnam straight out of high school and ended up spending the next 35 years of his life working as an Air Force mechanic. He says it’s one of the best decisions he could have ever made.

Jones was born in 1952 while his father, a Bismarck native, was stationed in Schweinfurt, Germany. He had met his wife, a German citizen, while there.

“He was in artillery almost all the time he was in the service, but he was a diesel mechanic,” Jones said. “We lived on base in base housing and it wasn’t nothing on the weekends to have a deuce-and-a-half, jeeps and stuff at our house. He and his guys would be out there working on them.”

When Jones was 7 years old, the family spent two-and-a-half years in France where his sister was born. Over here we stayed in Texas, Tennessee, Alabama — all over.

“I never spent more than two years at any one school because my dad was always going back and forth,” he said.

After having to leave the military due to medical reasons, Jones’ father got a job at the AMAX mines in Bixby working on equipment underground.

“We bought my grandmother’s house in Bismarck, but lived with my uncle Woody for about a year-and-a-half while we fixed the place up because it was in pretty bad shape,” Jones said. “I only went to school here in ’70 and ’71. I graduated in ’71.

Because we’d been in Texas, I had more Texas credits and could have graduated in my junior year because Texas has one more class hour than here.

“When we got to Bismarck the only class I had to have in my senior year was the Missouri Constitution, but I stayed anyway. I knew I was going to get drafted. Back then was when they got the lottery number and recruiters came to the school. El Paso was a basic training base and I had seen what they were doing and I thought, ‘Maybe that’s not what I want to do.’ So, I went into the Air Force.”

Less than two weeks after graduating high school and after already enlisting in the Air Force, Jones received his draft notice.

“That day I took the letter to the Air Force guy and that evening I was at Lackland Air Force Base starting basic,” he said.

“After about four weeks at Lackand my mom sent me a letter that the draft board was looking for me because I didn’t show up. I took it to my instructor there and he took care of it. Right after that I went to Wichita Falls, Texas, to tech school. I think I had 15 days, but then I went straight to Vietnam.”

Jones was sent to Cam Ranh Bay where he was assigned to the 6250th Support Squadron.

“We assisted the Army, the Navy and the Koreans — they were called the Blue Dragons — with all their shipping going in and out … aircraft … anything like that, we helped them out,” Jones said. “You didn’t know what you were going to do from day to day. Everybody was getting shorthanded, so whatever needed to be done was what you got to do. Some days you’d go out and help the airfreight people with cargo loading and unloading or working on the airplanes themselves.

“The Army had the 22nd Replacement Battalion there.

They were mostly men going

KEVIN R. JENKINS, DAILY JOURNAL‌

Art Jones of Bismarck is proud of his 35-year career as an Air Force mechanic — with one of those years spent in Vietnam. Jones said his time in Southeast Asia was when his eyes were first opened to the ‘real’ world.

PROVIDED BY ART JONES‌

Art Jones spent a year in Vietnam where he was assigned to the 6250th Support Squadron at Cam Ranh Bay. He said one day was never the same as another because their job was to provide support in whatever way might be needed at the time.

back to the states. We would have to help them get all setup and get the airplanes ready for them.

When the planes would come in they’d be ready for cargo and we had to get them ready for passengers. It was 12 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Jones said he rarely felt that his life might be in danger while stationed in Vietnam.

“I was really worried when I went there about what was going to happen to me,” he said. “The only time we were really endangered was like when they would rocket attack or shoot mortars at us. There was nothing you could do, but we were lucky because that was one of the reasons the Koreans were there. They would go out and take care of them.”

Jones said his job left no room for error. A mistake could bring with it devastating consequences.

“Getting everything ready, everything you did had to be done right,” he said. “You couldn’t take a chance because the pilots’ lives depended on it. A lot of them — once they knew they could trust you, count on you — they’d ask for you. A couple of times I got to go on a 130. They had this big bomb that was a concussion bomb and they would drop it in the jungle and it would clear a helicopter landing pad. It would clear 100 yards.

“Until recently when I watched YouTube, I never got to see one of them go off because the thing

PROVIDED BY ART JONES‌

As with many jobs, part of Art Jones’ responsibilities serving in Vietnam included filling out paperwork as a member of the 6250th Support Squadron.

going to learn.’

“You know when you’re first weighed 15,000 pounds and out of high school and you have when that leaves the airplane, it a whole different way of thinkgoes up in a hurry — but I never ing about the way things are. You got airsick. found out that the things you saw “One of the first times I ever on TV, the news and everywhere went, there was else — even what a dirt road out in you heard from the government front of us and the — was not the pilot dropped that airplane way down “I was young then, between way things really were. When you low. He said to get 19 and 20, and that’s when got there it was ready and when you start learning about a whole differthe bell went off what’s really going on.” we should kick ent story.”

— Art Jones t h e ca rgo o u t .

After leaving They were these Vietnam in 1972, fuel bladders. He started doing Jones was flown to Travis Air it and I heard ‘zing, zing!’ They Force Base in California, and were shooting at us, but I didn’t through the help of a friend had know that. The loadmaster boy his orders changed from Texas said, ‘When you hear that, forget to Germany. what you’re doing. Get down!’”

“I only had five days travel Jones said his experiences in time from Vietnam to Germany,” Vietnam helped open his eyes to he said. “I barely had time to come back here and visit with the real world.

“I was young then, between my mom and dad and then I was 19 and 20, and that’s when you gone again. My dad couldn’t start learning about what’s really believe it. He’d been to WWII, going on,” he said. “One day me he’d been to Korea. He said, ‘I’ve and my supervisor were sitting never heard of them just giving on these pallets we’d just built you five days.’ I told him I wasn’t up. We put the nets on them, going to question why.” tightening them all down to make Jones went on to spend threesure they’re ready and we’re on and-a-half years at Rhein-Main top of it reading the Stars and Air Base and was then transferred to Richards-Gebaur Air Stripes newspaper.

“The President’s on there say- Force Base outside Kansas City. ing, ‘We have nothing to do with “It was so laid back it was Cambodia or Laos.’ I looked down unbelievable,” he said. at the shipping label and said, When Richards-Gebaur was ‘Well, this is going to Cambodia closed down, Jones was trans… and that one is, and that one ferred to Scott Air Force Base is …’ My supervisor said, ‘You’re in Illinois, where he left the

service briefly.

“I wasn’t out more than two or three months and at Tinker Air Force Base they do depot maintenance — a complete overhaul of the C-135s,” he said. “They were hurting bad for lead mechanics and I happened to be at the right place at the right time. I was putting in for a civil service job and this guy said, ‘If you want, I could do an interview with you and maybe we’ll get you down at Tinker.’

“I thought, ‘that might not be bad,’ so I talked to him and took him out to show him the 140.

They hired me right then. So, I moved down to Oklahoma and ended up staying 27 years.”

While living in Oklahoma, he met his wife Roberta, a Minnesota native. The two moved to Bismarck in 2007 to care for Jones’ mother until she died in 2010.

“Roberta and I are going to figure out what we’re going to do next, but right now we’re living in Bismarck,” he said.

“When I was a kid every time we’d go and come back we’d always come back to Bismarck to visit with my uncle and other relatives.”

Despite spending much of his life traveling the globe, Jones admits that, when all is said and done, he always considers Bismarck to be his “real” home.

Kevin Jenkins is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-518-3614 or kjenkins@dailyjournalonline.com

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Vietnam vet Ron Bohn says he’s no hero PROVIDED BY U.S. NAVY‌

Looking back on his experience in Vietnam, Ron Bohn said he is mostly struck by the futility of it all.

KEVIN JENKINS, DAILY JOURNAL‌

Ron Bohn of Irondale served in the Seabees during the Vietnam War. He is quick to admit he was no hero and says his experience there taught him that the United States can’t change in only a few years a nation’s way of living that goes back hundreds or even thousands of years.

KEVIN R. JENKINS 573-518-3614‌

‌Although Ron Bohn is a veteran of the Vietnam War he doesn’t consider himself a hero by any stretch of the imagination.

Originally from St. Louis, Bohn, 73, ended up in southeast Missouri because a family member owned some acreage in Irondale — but that’s getting ahead of the story. When he enlisted in the Naval Civil Engineer Corps in late 1966 he was working road construction in the state of Louisiana.

“I was living in New Orleans at that time working on Interstate 10 — the same bridge everyone was standing on during Katrina,” said Bohn of Irondale.

“I was looking for something to do. I wasn’t afraid of being drafted or anything like that. I thought, ‘I’m going to change my life and take advantage of the Seabees.’ They were really building up so it was really easy to get in. So I went down and said, ‘OK, here I am, I want to go into the Naval Civil Engineer Corps.’”

His next stop was Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, where he went through several months of civil engineer training.

“The Civil Engineer Corps aren’t line officers,” Bohn explained. “They’re staff officers who take care of all the shore facilities which are worldwide —most of them in the U.S. They also do all the new construction for the Navy and they provide the officers for the Seabee battalions. I figured that wasn’t bad. You got sent to places like Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Naples, Florida.”

In 1967 he was assigned for 18 months to the contracting group at Dam Neck Fleet Training Center, located a little bit south of Virginia Beach.

“We were building, among other things, the Poseidon Missile Training Center there,” Bohn said. “I was there through 1969 and I thought, ‘Hey, this isn’t too bad. This is great duty at Virginia Beach doing construction work just like I was doing before I went in.

“One day I got something in my inbox saying, ‘You’ve been assigned to Seabee CBMU 301.’ I said, ‘Hey, lieutenant, what’s CBMU 301?’ He said, ‘Oh, that’s the Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit. Their home port is in Danang [Vietnam].’ I said, ‘Well, I guess I’m going!’ I wasn’t that upset, but you know …”

Before heading overseas, Bohn was sent to A Company Commander School.

“I was going to be the A Company commander — which is the heavy equipment company in the Seabees,” he said.

“I had to go to Port Hueneme on the west coast of California. It was the headquarters for the Seabees. I was there for around two to three weeks. Then we flew over to Vietnam on Continental Airlines.

Every seat was packed. You flew right in on contracted airlines that were going in and out of there all day long.”

Bohn said that Vietnam was a strange experience for him. Although it was a war zone for many, for others life continued on as usual.

“I’d been there about six months and I’m sitting in Quang Tri when I get an invitation to a wedding written in English and French from some guy I went to high school with,” he said. “He’s working for IBM in Saigon and he’s marrying

PROVIDED BY RON BOHN‌

Ron Bohn, fifth from the left, was assigned to Seabee Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit 301.

His home port was in Danang, Vietnam.

some princess down there at Saigon Cathedral. Here I was sitting in a war zone and I’ve got med evac choppers leaving 24/7 and there’s a guy that’s over there working for IBM and getting married in a big cathedral and everything. I thought, ‘This is strange. This is a war zone.’”

Bohn counts himself as fortunate because, unlike so many others serving in Vietnam, he never had to carry a weapon or go out on patrol.

“While I was in Quang Tri doing maintenance work, at the same time they were starting to pull the Marines out of Vietnam and the Army was moving in and taking over,” he said. “I don’t know the politics of all of that. I guess the Marines had enough of it. They’d had their share of the war.

“When we got to Chu Lai there had been contractors working down there.

There was a runway built down there that could support any kind of aircraft in the world. It was all built by civilian contractors. I was assigned to take over some work that they were doing.

“At that time they were supplying materials to build Highway 1 — the north and south highway in Vietnam. They were also still building concrete encasements over the aircraft at the airport. I had 140 guys down there and I ran it as a detachment from our main battalion.

“What we did was maintain the advance combat bases for the Marines — and they were pretty good sized. They were like small cities. We took care of water supply, electrical generation, sanitation, roads … all that kind of stuff.

Our principal mission was to maintain runways. If they got blown up we’d go out there and fix them. We had to make sure they were open all the time.”

Bohn admitted that while Vietnam for him wasn’t a traumatic experience, he was often reminded that in a war zone one should never take life for granted.

“I wasn’t scared a whole lot when I was over there, but there were a couple of times when we got some incoming mortar attacks,” he said. “You’d think, ‘One of those things is likely to hit me.’

You’d get into a ditch and THEN the siren would go off. It was sort of like a tornado warning where it goes off AFTER the tornado has already come through.

“I used to go to briefings in the morning and they’d talk about little encounters out there. It was all outside our perimeters. It sounded to me like for every one of them being killed we had the same number of guys killed. It seems to make sense that when you run into somebody who has a gun — he has a gun and you have a gun — the odds aren’t that much in your favor. Particularly when you don’t know where he is.

“You didn’t have to be there long to realize there was no winning that war.

It was nuts. By the time I was there

PROVIDED BY RON BOHN‌

Ron Bohn says that as soon as he returned to the United States he went to the airport restroom and changed from his uniform into civilian clothes. The Vietnam veteran recalls the “low regard” the general public had for the military in 1972.

meant I was eligible to become an admiral’s aide. I didn’t want to be an admiral’s aide and I didn’t want to go to graduate school at Monterey either.

“I could get out by resigning my commission and at that time the Civil Engineer Corps was dropping people off and it was easy to get out. It was easy to get in when I went in. It was easy to get out when I got out. So, I resigned my commission and two months later I was out and went back to St. Louis to work for the contractor I was working for when I went into the Navy.”

Looking back on his experience in Vietnam, Bohn said he is mostly struck by the futility of it all.

“There was the United States running around the world trying to take care of people that when you leave revert back to exactly what they were before you arrived,” he said. “They’ve been there for 1,000 years. It was immediately obvious once you got there that the whole pacification program going on was only successful because American troops were there. You knew as soon as they pulled out these people would say, ‘Oh, OK, those guys are gone. Now there will be some other people come in and take over.’”

Bohn said he recalls the Seabees building a school house for a Vietnam village with the help of Vietnamese workers.

“We were trying to win the hearts and minds of the people by doing it,” he said.

“One day none of the workers showed up and we ended up finding out they were celebrating [Communist leader] Ho Chi Minh’s birthday. They were hedging their bets for whoever ended up winning the war.”

Although he never saw armed combat, Bohn still believes his time in Vietnam mattered.

“I felt like at least I was there,” he said. “I felt that my obligation to serve had been satisfied. If they had asked me to do something else I would have, but I was lucky. I was really sour on the country at that time as a lot of guys were in the military because we were blamed by the college students and everybody. There were guys going over there who were killed and maimed and everything else. He’d rather be somewhere else and he’s getting blamed for this? It was nuts. It was absolutely nuts.

“When I got home, the first thing I did was go into the restroom and get out of my uniform and put on civvies so I wouldn’t be recognized as a member of the military. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I got out. I got out in 1972.

I loved the military. I respected everybody that was in it, but it was held in such low regard by the general public — at least that’s the impression we got.

I didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t feel like I was serving anybody or the needs of the country.”

Bohn pulls no punches about the year he spent serving in Vietnam.

“I do not consider myself any kind of a hero,” he said. “In fact, I rarely ever talk about it because the fact of the matter is, I don’t think I was in the war. The real heroes over there were the chopper pilots and the gunners; the med evac crews; and of course the foot soldiers. Those Marines that were in these isolated fire bases up in the hills were all by themselves. They were vulnerable. Those guys were the heroes. They were the ones who fought the war.”

they had already abandoned the frontal attacks with the regular Vietnamese army. It was just these two armies clashing out in the jungle. Whoever had the most dead bodies at the end lost. It was usually them because we had more sophisticated weaponry, but we had a lot of guys killed, too.”

Bohn had arrived in Vietnam on April 20, 1969, and was heading home exactly one year later on April 19, 1970.

“Unlike WWII where you’d go over there until it’s over, in Vietnam they’d just cycle everybody through for a year.

You knew when you were leaving. If you were still alive, you just tried to stay out of trouble the last few months which wasn’t the case for these heroes. A lot of them were killed on their last day there, which was tragic.”

Bohn was transported to Danang where he boarded another chartered airplane for the states.

“I think it was Pan Am that time,” he said.

After returning stateside, Bohn remained in the Civil Engineer Corps.

“While I was in Vietnam running my own operation, I really liked it,” he said. “I was getting up there to the point where I was going to make full lieutenant. I hated being an ensign — you just didn’t get that much respect. Lieutenants got respect because everyone knew they were in for awhile. I liked this Navy.

I was a reserve officer and I augmented into the regular Navy. When I got back I was assigned to the Public Works Center in Pensacola, Florida. That was where all the aviators were trained at that point in time.

“I got promoted to lieutenant — had my tickets punched — had the right ribbons and everything. Without Vietnam Kevin Jenkins is a reporter for the Daily Journal service it was hindrance to you going up. and can be reached at 573-518-3614 or kjenkins@ You needed the Vietnam ribbons. This dailyjournalonline.com.

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Wynn still serving his country almost 50 years later AMY PATTERSON 573-518-3616‌

‌When Don Wynn received his draft notice in 1966 he requested to be placed with the military police after completing his basic training at Fort Leonard Wood.

When he ended up at “Tigerland,” however, he knew he was bound for Vietnam.

“I went to Fort Leonard Wood for basic and I wanted to get into MP school and they had our orders posted … they took all of us but 14 out of the whole company and made infantry out of us. I thought I was going to Georgia to be in military police school, that’s what I wanted to do ... but they took us all and sent us to Tigerland down in Fort Polk, Louisiana, and when you went there you knew dang good and well you was going to Vietnam. That’s where they did their Vietnam infantry training.”

By the time Wynn completed training it was 1967, and he was 23-years-old and headed to Vietnam.

“We landed over there and I got attached to a military police outfit and we were doing machine guns on jeep patrols. I thought ‘man, this is pretty cool,’ that’s kinda on the line of what I wanted to do anyway. That lasted about three weeks.

“They had a big killing out in the 25th Infantry and that’s when they grabbed all of us up to replace the soldiers that had been killed. They took us out there and showed us what the real world was like.”

He was assigned as team leader of a six-man mortar squad. “That was better than being straight infantry because we were usually a couple feet behind everybody.”

Wynn’s company was flown by 10 helicopters to assigned locations throughout the jungles, rice paddies and tobacco fields of Vietnam.

“They’d fly you into a place and you’d get your butt kicked and get dug in and start getting a good body count … stay three or four days and they’d pick you up and move you someplace else.”

This process was repeated over and over.

During one of these periods near the beginning of the Tet Offensive members of Wynn’s battalion were on night patrol. His friend “Hack” was walking point, heard some enemy soldiers walking around a nearby creek and soon the unit was surrounded. Hack’s second lieutenant panicked and did not call in and report the situation.

“They had got all around our perimeter and exactly at midnight, man, you start hearing the

mortar tubes going off out there and you’re thinking ‘man, this ain’t gonna be pretty when they start landing in here,’ so we started getting up and tried to start returning fire, [but] we were all pinned in all night long.’”

Come daylight “I never was so glad to see somebody my whole life … daylight, here he [Hack] comes walking in. … I figured he was probably dead and he thought we were, too.”

As the soldiers began taking stock of their own men and dead enemy soldiers, Wynn described seeing 125-130 bodies of the enemy strewn around the battalion’s perimeter.

The Vietnamese were not the only casualties from that night.

Wynn could not recall exactly how many men were in his company, but after that night all but 15 of his brothers in arms were either killed or seriously wounded.

American infantry soldiers were under immense pressure and a constant risk of injury or death.

When asked about how he dealt with this uncertainty and fear and risk of being wounded or killed, Wynn replied matter-of-factly.

“You had to learn how to make something livable out of nothing.”

Wynn told another story about his friend Hack and a second lieutenant known as “Mother” because he was always worried about getting in trouble and trying to keep his men from misbehaving or taking risks.

During a skirmish the Vietnamese first dropped some napalm on Hack’s company. Hack and his fellow soldiers were “all in a hole dug in.” Mother was behind them and thought Hack had been shot. “He jumped out of the hole and went running up to see if he could help him and he got shot and just fell into the hole with Hack, dead.”

Before the fighting ceased, Hack had no choice but to stay in the hole with his dead lieutenant. When the skirmish finally ended, Hack was “absolutely crazy as a bedbug … and we couldn’t help him. He still hasn’t gotten over that and never will probably, because Mother was one of us.”

Wynn kept a camera in a spare ammunition pouch and took photographs whenever he happened to have film. One of the photographs is of a young soldier eating food from a can. The soldier had turned to look at Wynn’s camera. His eyes were filled with fear and uncertainty.

Looking at the photo, Wynn said, “I still can’t get over this, the look on this guy. Look at his eyes and look at his face. Do you think he came back? He lasted about two weeks. And we talk about that

PHOTO COURTESY OF DON WYNN‌

Still serving his country through volunteering with the Patriot Guard, Wynn and his wife, Sue, stand next to their motorcycle after a veteran’s funeral.

Wynn (front) eating Thanksgiving dinner with a fellow soldier.

a lot. You could look at somebody when they came in there and you could tell they wasn’t going to make it. That guy was absolutely scared to death and you could see it right there. He didn’t make it.”

After serving a full year in Vietnam, Wynn spent the last few months of his active duty at Fort Hood in Texas teaching ROTC candidates some of the basics of combat duty, running them through obstacle courses and

PHOTO SUBMITTED BY DON WYNN‌

Wynn said that he felt safer sleeping outside under a tent rather than inside barracks or other structures.

other physical instruction.

Wynn’s service to his fellow Americans continued well beyond his military service. Most recently, for the past three to four years since retiring from operating an ambulance service in Iron County, he volunteers much of his time serving with the Patriot Guard.

The Patriot Guard allows Wynn to combine his love of riding motorcycles with a desire to help his fellow veterans. “What I

Wynn, second from left, takes a break with fellow soldiers.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DON WYNN‌

like about helping people out … the look on the guys’ faces when they get off the bus and see all of us standing there with a flag. They just break down and bawl their eyes out because no one gave a sh** about them either. That’s worth it all.”

Amy Patterson is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-518-3616 or apatterson@dailyjournalonline.com.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DON WYNN‌

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Vietnam: A long way from home

Wayne Spain

TRACI L. BLACK, DAILY JOURNAL‌

‌Going to Vietnam in the late 1960s was an eye-opening experience for a young man who grew up in Madison County and had lived there his entire life to that point.

Lindell Wayne Spain graduated from Marquand High School in 1965 and entered the United States Army on July 19, 1966. Wayne says his father was sad to see him go and it was one of the only times he saw his father shed tears.

“When the country calls, you go,” Spain said. “I had uncles that served in WWII and Korea and I felt I’m no better than they are.”

Wayne served in Vietnam from Feb. 14, 1967 until Feb. 13, 1968. He says he was in infantry intelligence.

“I grew up in a large family,” Spain said. “We always had two things: plenty of love and enough to eat.” He said when he got to Vietnam he was surprised to find little kids on the roads begging the GIs for whatever they had to eat, even rations. He said there were 12- and 13-year-old girls selling themselves to help their families get food.

“It was a lot for a 19-year-old kid that had never seen anything like that,” Spain said. “It was different.”

He entered the Army as a private first class (E-3). In Vietnam he was a dog handler and a forward scout observer with the Army First Infantry Division. The team worked with different branches of the military.

“Our team would be attached to different units in various patrols that needed help,” he said. “I still remember the name of my first dog, Axel. We trained together for a month after we arrived (in Vietnam). No one else but me fed him. We grew close.”

He said temperatures were over 100 degrees, especially in the summer. He recalls he carried two canteens of water.

He explained that if his canteen ran out of water he would be out of luck. The other soldiers would give water to Axel because they appreciated him being there so much.

Wayne and Axel worked mostly north of Saigon near the Cambodian border. There was thick vegetation, making locating the enemy difficult. Axel and the other dogs would help the troops locate the enemy.

Each set of maneuvers would last from a week to a month. They measured their progress in terms of klicks, which was 1,000 meters or one kilometer.

“We covered as much as three klicks a day sometimes,” he recalls.

Spain said there was a lot with the job which involved the terrain. Troops had to be thorough and careful as they often contended with booby traps and Punji stakes.

“Naturally I pulled a lot of point,” the veteran tells. “I saw a lot of action. I saw a lot of friends shot next to me.”

Working mostly near the Cambodian border, Spain says the North Vietnamese Army would shoot at the U.S. troops from Cambodia.

“We couldn’t do anything because we couldn’t violate the border,” he admits.

Spain came back from Vietnam as a sergeant (E-5). When he returned to the United States, he said, he witnessed the different political feelings people had toward the war. He remembers the protesters.

“I didn’t get any flack in the local area.

There is a lot of compassion in this community. I’m proud to live here.”

He says he feels the troops in Vietnam were limited by the government. “We

SUBMITTED‌

Above: After his six-year enlistment was over, Wayne Spain (right) went into the Army Reserve in Farmington when it was an infantry division. It converted to a tank unit while Spain served there. Here the unit is training in Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. Below, Left: Wayne Spain while in the Army Reserve Unit in Farmington. Below, Right: Wayne Spain receives the Commandants Award at Drill Instructor Training School at Ft. Leonard Wood in approximately 1975.

could have done more if politics hadn’t gotten in the way,” he said.

The experience changed and shaped his life.

“It made me a lot of things that I am today,” he said. “There were some traumatic times. I saw some good times, too.”

Spain says he has asked himself why he was one of the ones fortunate enough to come home after serving in Vietnam. “I think about the ones that didn’t make it,” he tells. “I lost close friends and relatives.”

He said he feels those he knew who lost their lives would have said the war

was worth it. “It helped to contain communism over there,” he said. “Because we fought it on their soil, it didn’t have to be fought here in America.”

After Vietnam, Spain went into the National Guard Engineering Battalion to serve the remainder of his six-year enlistment. He went into the Army Reserves in Farmington when it was an infantry division. It converted to a tank unit while Spain served there. He was promoted to sergeant first class and became a drill sergeant. The annual trainings were in Fort Knox.

“We replaced their drill sergeants for two weeks at a time,” he said.

Spain married Linda Hale on Oct. 15, 1967. He and his wife of nearly 48 years have three children, Bobby, Kim (Spain) Slinkard, and Audra (Spain) Hibbs. Bobby is the Madison County sheriff. Kim works in the Social Security office in Park Hills.

Audra is a recruitment specialist at Southwest Baptist University near Springfield.

Traci M. Black is a reporter for the Democrat News and can be reached at 573-783-3366 or at tblack@democratnewsonline.com.

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CRAIG VAUGHN, DAILY JOURNAL‌

As a Navy hospital Corpsman, James Hutchins did three tours of Vietnam. Two tours were spent on board the USS Enterprise, the biggest warship at the time, and one tour was in country watching over 126 Marines.

U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman James Hutchins CRAIG VAUGHN 573-518-3629‌

‌O n Ju n e 1 , 1 970, Ja m e s Hutchins stepped off a plane in Vietnam, a pretty familiar sight for the time.

But for this particular Navy hospital corpsman it wouldn’t be his first tour, in fact it was the beginning of his third tour.

“I had already been on two tours aboard the USS Enterprise,” Hutchins, of Farmington, said. “They called those Westpac Cruises. That would have been 1966-1968. But with my third tour, from 70-71, I was in country.”

For Hutchins stepping off of that plane was not a part of his original game plan. He had joined the Navy in 1966 because he was avoiding the draft. All he was looking to do was serve his time and get out.

“I joined the Navy because I didn’t want to get drafted into the Army,” Hutchins said. “I didn’t want to be in the service and I really couldn’t imagine myself staying in. I just wanted to do my two years and come home.”

And that is exactly what Hutchins did. He enlisted in Navy and began his career aboard the Enterprise, first in the air department and then eventually as a hospital corpsman.

“When I got aboard the Enterprise I was told my ASVAB scores were great and I really didn’t want to go to the air department,” Hutchins said. “I went up there and I hated it. I didn’t get along with anyone. It was long hours and you stank from not showering. It was just grunt work.”

After a couple of weeks Hutchins returned to personnel to see if there was somewhere else he could work. It was suggested he move to the medical department. With some trepidation because of a past experience when his father was ill, he took

When James Hutchins first left for Vietnam it was aboard the USS Enterprise. From 1966-1968 Hutchins was part of two different “Westpac Cruises” as a hospital corpsman. After leaving the Navy for a year Hutchins would return to the Navy and do a tour in country.

the transfer.

“I told them I couldn’t work around drugs because when my father was sick I suffered sympathy sickness and I just passed out. I was young and thought he was dying,” Hutchins said. “They convinced me that I would only be mopping passageways. That’s basically how I got my start.”

Although he would eventually make the Navy his career and retire after 20 years of service, Hutchins did exactly what he said he would. He put in his two years and then went home.

But a year later, as a result of the second Tet Offensive, Hutchins would be pulled back into active service.

“I went back because they pissed me off. They killed some of my Marines over there,” Hutchins said. “I was mad, so I went back over.”

Once back in Vietnam, Hutchins would move around with the Marines and help

patch them up no matter where they were.

“I was with an artillery unit on Hill 10 and then we moved to Hill 65 at the mouth of the A Sau Valley at the head of the Arizona territory,” Hutchins said. “I was out there for a while with 32 Marines and myself.”

During his tour, Hutchins said, he was a very lucky man. He was never wounded and was only shot at once.

“I walked around with a halo over my head. I was blessed. I only got shot at once,” Hutchins said. “I fired back until our lieutenant told me to stop. I was firing that old .45.

“I was lucky I was able to hit the woods directly in front of me.”

That halo seemed to follow Hutchins the entire time he was in Vietnam. According to the Navy corpsman, he was once again very lucky when deciding to take a shortcut back to the

rear area.

“We were headed back to the rear area, just west Da Nang. The Marines I was with told me to tell the new driver how to take this shortcut because it would cut off like eight miles,” Hutchins said. “So I yelled at him to take the next left and take us through the pass.

“While we were heading back, we passes a deuce and a half truck just filled with bullet holes.

We found out the week before it had been bushwhacked. All the other drivers knew about it, but our driver was new and I sure didn’t know about it.”

Although Hutchins talks about the times he was blessed, the truth was being a Navy hospital corpsmen in Vietnam was not an easy job. In fact, the Navy Hospital corpsmen were the most decorated branch in the service.

W h i l e eve ryo n e i s ly i n g down and taking cover a corpsman would be standing over a

Marine, making (the corpsman) an easy target.

“Most of the corpsmen during the war were the same,” Hutchins said. “We didn’t do it because it was an easy job.”

As most know, the Vietnam war was not a popular war. Many veterans remember the attacks on their character and being spit on when they arrived home. But except for one isolated incident, Hutchins did not see what he heard about.

“When I came home we had landed at Travis Air Force base in California and there was a Marine in front of me,” Hutchins said. “I don’t know where this girl came from, but she came up and spit on him. He didn’t know what to do. He had a pretty good temperament. He was just thinking about getting home to see his parents and his girl.”

Hutchins added that the scene was rather surreal to him and he wasn’t expecting it.

“We took off our military shoes and bought brown ones,” Hutchins said. “You didn’t wear military socks, you wore blue ones. You let your hair grow. I wasn’t ashamed of what I did over there, but there was a lot of camouflage. You didn’t want to get mad and you didn’t want to fight. At least I didn’t. My experience coming back was pretty depressing.”

When the war ended Hutchins stayed in. He would be stationed at the U.S. Naval Home in Philadelphia and then eventually get stationed back with the Marines.

He would go on to retire from the Navy after 20 years of service.

“I was never really that ambitious,” Hutchins said. “But I was proud of my nation and I thought it was a great thing. I wanted to stick up for it.”

Craig Vaugh is a reporter for the Farmington Press and can be reached at 573-518-3629 or at cvaughn@farmingtonpressonline.com‌

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CRAIG VAUGHN, DAILY JOURNAL‌

Vietnam War veteran Bob Tomlinson sits at a table at the VFW Post 2426 in Desloge with his picture album from Vietnam. For Tomlinson, of Bonne Terre, the local lodge has become a safe haven: a place where he can talk about his experience amongst those who understand exactly what he went through.

Searching out the enemy in the jungles of Vietnam CRAIG VAUGHN 573-518-3629‌

‌W hile many of his high school classmates prepared for college during the summer of 1970, Bob Tomlinson was preparing for something quite different – a tour of Vietnam as an infantryman in the U.S. Army.

“I was 18 years old and had just graduated from high school that May,” Tomlinson said.

“The Army got me in July. I was with the 1st Cavalry Division, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry.”

According to Tomlinson, not much time passed before he found himself going on missions with his unit.

“We knew we were going to Vietnam,” Tomlinson said. “As an infantryman, your sole job was to search out the enemy.

It was our only purpose for being over there. Depending on our mission, we either did search and seizures or search and destroy.”

During his time in the jungles of Vietnam, Tomlinson would serve as a rifleman, a grenadier and a machine gunner, which was an extra 26 pounds on an already heavy back pack.

“The M60 was a light machine gun. It only weighed 26 pounds,” Tomlinson said.

“But that was an extra 26 on top of a 115-pound rack sack on your back that you carried around in the jungle.”

According to Tomlinson, being in the jungle was the norm for his unit. Although they would be pulled out for short periods of time, most of his time in Vietnam was spent living in the jungle.

“We carried everything we needed with us because we were always out,” Tomlinson said. “We got resupplied about every three days, but we ate and slept out there constantly in search of the enemy.”

Tomlinson would face the enemy time and time again during his tour of Vietnam and would be part of more fire

fights than he cared to remember. According to the former infantryman, it was something you knew was going to happen but you weren’t truly ready for it until it did.

“After boot you pretty much knew that you were going to Vietnam,” Tomlinson said.

“The fear, you really didn’t feel that until you were choppered out to the field, got your feet on the ground, and found yourself in your first fire fight. That is when the reality of where you are at really hits you.”

Tomlinson stated that is also when something else takes place. Your survival instincts take over and you begin to realize you need to rely on the guy right next to you.

“It’s during that first fire fight that an 18 year-old kid ages 10 years,” Tomlinson said. “You do whatever it takes to stay alive.

You learn that your buddy has your back as well as you having his.”

One of the most surreal moments during Tomlinson’s time did not happen during battle but on a visit to Cao Dai Temple, the center of the Cao Dai faith in Tay Ninh.

While visiting the sacred temple, Tomlinson and some of the men of his unit, came face to face with the enemy.

“We went to see the temple and had no idea we would come face to face with the enemy,” Tomlinson said. “We had respect for the temple, so neither side did anything, but it was pretty strange looking at them and them looking at us. We got out of there pretty quick.”

During his time in Vietnam, Tomlinson said the military kept the soldiers unaware of the peace movement going on back in the states. He also added that prior to his induction in the Army, he never really paid much attention.

“It never really phased us when we were over there,” Tomlinson said. “But when we got home, the real shock of it finally

PROVIDED BY BOB TOMLINSON‌

Standing guard during his tour in Vietnam, Bob Tominlson served with the 1st Cavalry Division, 2nd Battalion, 12th infantry from 1970-1971.

hit us. We were so unpopular.

They called us baby killers – I never killed a baby – they spat on us and called us names.”

Tomlinson said part of the culture shock came from how you were sent home after your tour was over. He went from fighting to a 13-hour plane ride back to the states where he was thrusted back into the “real world.” For many it was too much of a shock.

“When a lot of us got off the plane from Vietnam, we would find the closest men’s room, trash our uniforms and immediately put on our civilian clothes. We were just shocked how people really hated us.”

Tomlinson believes it was the atmosphere of the times that fostered a lot of problems him and his fellow Vietnam vets experienced following years of the war.

“So many of the Vietnam vets feel the government tossed us out when we got back,” Tomlinson said. “We didn’t even get a thank you. We were cut loose and had to struggle on our own. It’s a terrible feeling when your government lets you down. We fought, bled and died for our government. We didn’t care about the politics. It

was about the brotherhood and getting home alive, that was the only thing.”

Tomlinson admits that he went through some dark days following his release from the service. He said there was a period of time where there was excessive amounts of drinking and the use of drugs. But he eventually realized that he needed to change and get back to as normal as he could.

“I finally said to myself, you need to make some type of productive life,” Tomlinson said. “And I did. I went to work for the St. Louis Tow Boat and Barge. It’s where I learned how to become a welder, and I was pretty good at it.”

Tomlinson said he also found a place of refuge at St. Francois County VFW Post 2426, where he is able to talk with other veterans. It doesn’t matter when they served, Tomlinson added.

According to him, the lodge was a place he could feel safe.

“If I talked at all the atrocities that I saw, it was with the other vets at the lodge,” Tomlinson said. “There is a camaraderie here that makes you feel safe and comfortable. I would never talk about it the war outside of these walls.”

When asked how he is feeling, a typical response from Tomlinson is “I’m 50 percent normal.” According to the

former infantryman, it is a response many of his fellow vets use because of their experiences they will never be completely normal, and 50 percent is sometimes the best you can expect.

Tomlinson will also tell you that it wasn’t just him that suffered the effects of the war, it was the wives of combat soldiers.

“The ones who really suffered the most was my family, especially my wife,” Tomlinson said. “She was the one that had to put up with me when I would go off by myself. She was the one who had to talk to the kids when Daddy wasn’t feeling well. She’s the one that really deserves a medal.”

Although he served with honor and distinction, one of the most poignant moments of his military career came almost 40 years after he had left the jungles of Vietnam.

“I was at Huddle House a couple of years ago just minding my own business and a young man came up to me to say thank you for my service,” Tomlinson said. “It was the first time in 40 years that anyone ever said that to me. It really kind of broke me up.”

Craig Vaughn is a reporter for the Farmington Press and can be reached at 573-518-3629 or at cvaughn@ farmingtonpressonline.com

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Vietnam was one of three for Shumake SHAWNNA ROBINSON 573-518-3628‌

‌Henry Shumake will tell those who asks what his definition of a “hero” is.

This 88-year-old veteran of three wars — World War II, Korea and Vietnam — says his thoughts are with those who served their country and never returned home.

“That’s a hero to me,” he said with tears in his eyes.

Born north of Bonne Terre, Shumake and his family moved to Farmington in 1939. He admits he was eager to start his military service early.

“I was 15 when I joined the Army,” he said. He received Infantry training to drive a tank prior to being sent to the Philippines during World War II. Standing shoulder to shoulder with his fellow soldiers, Shumake recalls how he was assigned to his duty. “They lined us all up, took the two short guys on the end (of which he was one),” he recalled. “And I became a cook.”

Shumake would spend a year in Japan after the war ended. He said he often thinks about how the families at home spent each day not knowing the wellbeing of their loved ones.

He knew each night he was okay, but as he thinks back to that time, it’s the not knowing for the families he finds himself reflecting upon.

The delay in communications also brought about the delay in good news during his first round of service.

“She was three months old when I found out she was born,” he said of his daughter, Cheryl.

In 1950, Shumake made the move from the Army to the Air Force. He was a member of the 51st Fighter stationed in Okinawa, Japan. There were three squadrons that were sent out on daily fighter-bombing missions. His duties during the Korean War included taking over three clubs for the servicemen on the base.

He spent three years in Okinawa. His wife, Maxine, and daughter would make the move as well for two years. Not long after his family arrived, Shumake was tapped to run the commissary opened on base for the soldiers and their dependents.

“I received a commendation from the Air Force for that time (served),” he said.

The family would move back to the United States in 1954. Shumake ran the commissary at the base l o ca te d i n C h eye n n e , Wyoming after his return from Korea.

He found himself volunteering to serve his country once again, this time as an Air Force recruiter. He would be sent to Rolla as recruiter for three years and returned to Farmington for one year in the same capacity. “I got a year in Farmington because I made my quota (in Rolla),” he said.

During the early 1960s,

PROVIDED BY CHERYL CALHOUN‌

Henry Shumake served in both the United States Army and Air Force. He served with the Army in World War II and the Air Force during the Korean War. In 1968 he was again called into service. He was sent to Fort Lee, Virginia, for Army exchange training. He would later be sent to Phan Rang in Vietnam.

Shumake would be sent to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. He ran the Exchange (known as the PX) and the snack bar.

Shumake was assigned this duty due to his predecessor breaking his shoulder after being knocked over by the high winds on the island.

“There wasn’t anything on the island but 1,200 of us. No trees. No civilians,” he said. “For seven months I didn’t go out of the building.”

He remembers seeing Russian ships camouflaged as fishing boats. “Every time you looked out to the horizon you could see them,” he said.

Shumake would serve around a year-and-a-half in Alaska before he was sent to Springfield, Illinois to again recruit in a threestate area. “I was in charge of central Illinois, northern Missouri and three counties in Iowa,” he said.

That time as a recruiter was particularly hard.

Shumake recalls how the mood of the day towards soldiers was sometimes directed toward him and his recruits.

In 1968, Shumake was again called into service. He was sent to Fort Lee, Virginia, for Army exchange training. He would be sent to Phan Rang in Vietnam.

Shumake remembered his first duty once he made it in-country. With the absence of a “front line,” Shumake would be sent in to determine if there was enough battle activity for the soldiers to be given free beer and PX supplies.

“I was assigned to the Army even though I was still in the Air Force,” he said. Shumake said because he was 40 years old at the time, he was not on that duty for long. He would later be assigned to oversee three exchanges in Phan Rang.

He re ca l l s h ow t h e North Vietnamese would rocket the camps every night. “They’d set up these tripods of rockets during the day and set them on a timer. They’d go off somewhere between one and three in the morning.

They did that every night and sometimes they made a mistake,” he said.

His daughter said one thing her father talks about is how the soldiers were treated when they

PROVIDED BY CHERYL CALHOUN‌

Henry Shumake shows the shadow box displaying the medals received during his military service. Shumake served in World War II, Korean War and the Vietnam War. His daughter, Cheryl, said he remembers the treatment of soldiers returning home from Vietnam— being instructed to change into civilian clothing so “no one would know he was a soldier.”

FILE PHOTO‌

Henry Shumake, center, holds his hat showing his service in three conflicts in this photo from 2013.

Shumake retired from military service in 1969. Since 1989 he has worked much of the time alongside daughter Cheryl Calhoun, on left, and grandson Eric Barton at the family insurance agency in Farmington.

returned from Vietnam.

“When he got on the train to come home he was told to take his uniform off so no one would know he was a soldier,” Calhoun said.

Both father and daughter are thankful about the way veterans and those c u r re n t ly se rv i n g t h e country are now looked up to. Four years ago Shumake traveled with his grandson, Eric Barton, to Washington, D.C. for

an Honor Flight. It was a whirlwind day that Shumake said meant so much to him.

“I feel honored to have the opportunity to take the trip,” he said, talking about the hundreds present when they left the airport, as they arrived at the nation’s capital, and again when they returned to St. Louis.

He’s also appreciative of the work of VFW posts, American Legion posts

and the Veteran’s Administration.

Shumake began showing the effects of his exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War after he turned 70 years old, developing Parkinson’s disease and diabetes.

“The VA has been great,” he said.

Robert and Susan Webb are friends of Shumake.

In an e-mail back in 2013, Susan told the story of when her husband took

Shumake to the VA hospital in Poplar Bluff.

“He wore his veteran’s hat that has all three war logos and Bob watched as the personnel and patrons at the hospital took note, stood by and gave him total respect,” she wrote.

His daughter said during a visit to a veteran’s event in Branson he was recognized as one of only three “old timers” present — a nickname for those serving in all three conflicts.

Shumake thinks of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. He told a story of the airplane on which he was a passenger when he left Vietnam. On a return trip, 95 soldiers were killed in a plane accident.

After retiring from service in 1969, Shumake would go on to work for Blue Cross until retirement in 1989.

Since then Shumake has worked at Barton Insurance Services in Farmington with his daughter and grandson much of the time.

One of his greatest honors he feels is being able to work alongside his family each day.

“That means so much to me,” he said.

Shawnna Robinson is the managing editor of the Farmington Press and can be reached at 573-518-3628 or srobinson@ farmingtonpressonline.com

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Joe Snyder — A ‘lucky’ man remembers Vietnam KEVIN R. JENKINS 573-518-3614‌

J‌ oe Snyder, a Marine who served in Vietnam in the ‘60s, has always considered himself a lucky man, but has often wondered why he’s among those who have been so richly blessed.

Born in Bismarck, Snyder spent his earliest years growing up in a three-room apartment on the ground floor of a rooming house owned by his grandmother. He attended first and second grade at Bismarck before his parents built a house in Washington County.

“That meant I couldn’t come to Bismarck School anymore,” he said. “There was a little country school named Sherlock, maybe a quarter-of-a-mile down from the three-room house my parents had built. There was no water, no electricity. I used to tell people we watched television by candlelight.

“It was a two-room school, but we only used one classroom because there were five grades in it. We would go into the other room in bad weather to play at recess. I spent a year there.

After the district out there was consolidated, they closed down Sherlock and I was bussed to Caledonia. I graduated from Valley High School in 1963.”

Snyder said he’s always had a strong attachment to the military — especially World War II. “I was born in March of 1945 and the war was still going on in both Europe and the Pacific,” he said. “I had relatives that served in the war. My dad was a WWII veteran. He didn’t go overseas, but he was in the Army. I was surrounded by war veterans everywhere. I guess that’s what got me interested in the military.”

Snyder said he wondered what he was going to do after graduating high school. He wasn’t the only one with that question.

“My dad worked 25 years on the railroad and had a third grade education,” he said. “One day he asked me what I was going to do when I graduated. I told him I’d probably work on the railroad.

He told me, ‘If you do, I’ll kick your butt.’

“When I was a senior in April of ’63, a Marine recruiter came down and met with me and signed me up on the 120-day delay plan. I could sign up and then leave four months afterwards. I went up and took my physical over the weekend and came back to school on Monday.”

In July of that year Snyder was put on a plane and flew Los Angeles. He then took a shuttle flight to San Diego for 13 weeks of boot camp.

“The Marines met us at the airport and put us in the back of a six-by truck,” he said. “They put the tarp down in the back and we must have drove for an hour. We finally got to the receiving barracks at about 1 in the morning. They threw open the tarp and started screaming.

I thought, ‘Oh, my God, what’s going on here?’

“They ran us in, stripped us down and sheered us as fast as they could. The barber asked me if I had any kind of mole on my head and I told him I had a small mole on the back of my neck.

He zipped over it and there was blood flowing down my neck and chest. I had hair on me … I had blood. “When the other guys saw me bleeding they asked, ‘What are they doing in there?’

“After boot camp they loaded us on busses and took us to Camp Pendleton for four weeks of infantry training. Every Marine goes through infantry training

“When I came home from Vietnam I did not expect a parade.

I was a Marine.”

— Joe Snyder

KEVIN R. JENKINS, DAILY JOURNAL‌

Joe Snyder of Bismarck served as a proud Marine during the Vietnam War. He considers himself a lucky man who was able to complete his overseas service “without a scratch.”

PROVIDED BY JOE SNYDER‌

As a new Marine, Joe Snyder was placed in the flamethrower section, a position he said he loved. Because he spent so much of his time in Vietnam setting fire to things, he said it’s ironic that today his best friends are firemen.

in case you ever have to use this stuff. We saw demonstrations of all kinds of weapons. We were using WWII weapons. After the four weeks I got 20 days leave to come home. I was lean and mean — I was a Marine.”

While Snyder was home on leave, President Kennedy was shot in Dallas, Texas. He expected that every serviceman on leave would be called back from leave, but that turned out not to be the case. Snyder said he was eventually sent to the 1st Marine Division in California where the young enlistee was placed in the flamethrower section.

“I’m 150 pounds and this weighs 72 pounds,” he said. “I thought it was neat. I loved that fire. It’s ironic that so many of my best friends are firemen.”

Snyder was in the 3rd Battalion Fifth Marine Regiment in 1964 when it was sent overseas as a transplacement battalion.

The men loaded up their rifles and gear and traveled across the Pacific Ocean. Once the battalion arrived, it became the 1st Battalion Ninth Marines of the 3rd Marine Division. Snyder said he spent three months in Japan, took jungle training in Okinawa and also spent time in the Philippines.

“It was a great time to go over,” he said. “Vietnam hadn’t started yet. We were put on an aircraft carrier in the Philippines that carried helicopters. We cruised up and down the coast about three miles offshore where we could see flairs, tracers and all kinds of stuff. But we couldn’t go in until they told us to.”

Snyder said he and his fellow Marines were loaded up on helicopters with their flamethrowers ready to go. This was a daily occurrence until February 1965.

“Our tour was going to be up in April,” Snyder said. “We had time

PROVIDED BY JOE SNYDER‌

Joe Snyder enlisted in the Marine Corps straight out of high school and completed nine major operations without injury, but says of his days in Vietnam that “death and destruction can visit you in a minute.”

to leave the Philippines, go back to Okinawa, leave in March and head home by ship. So, we had to turn in all of our gear on Okinawa to this other transplacement battalion coming in and we became the 3rd Battalion First Marine Regiment — part of the 1st Division again.”

After 30 days leave, Snyder returned to California where he soon learned his unit was going to be sent back to Vietnam via Okinawa.

“We get to Okinawa and our unit is way under half strength,” he said. “Every unit in the Marine Corps was looking for bodies to fill slots. We even had a guy who was taken from the golf course at Camp Pendleton and put in our unit. When we got there here were a bunch of new guys from boot camp and we had to train them.”

They arrived in Vietnam sometime in late September or early October. By November they had left Okinawa and were heading to Vietnam. It was at the end of January they made land.

“We consolidated our positions, spread out and were told to dig holes,” Snyder said. “My squad leader and I had a hole.

Later on that evening we were told we were going to be pulling back about 100 yards because the enemy knows where we’re at.

We pull back and dig some more holes and then they’re putting out listening posts — a couple of guys here and a couple of guys over there.

“My squad leader and I were told we were going to be a listening post, so you crawl on your bellies real quiet … you slide into the hole. We’re watching C-47s flying over and there’s solid sheets of red coming down and flairs popping all over the place.

We were up all night waiting.

We didn’t get hit, but somebody got the crap blown out of them somewhere up there.”

The Marines continued guarding the beach for around two weeks.

“The helicopters came in, picked up the grunts, went on out, dropped them off and then they went on patrols,” Snyder said. “At night we would run patrols on our bellies out to the sweet potato fields trying to catch these snipers shooting at us.

“One night we got out there and somebody didn’t tell this other line company we were out there and they opened up on us.

Our guys didn’t know what was going on over on the line and they opened up on them. So, here we are in the middle hugging sweet potato plants.”

There are several incidents that occurred during the war that

Snyder admits he can’t forget.

“Operation Utah was a bad one,” he recalled. “My flamethrower section was on the beach. A couple of line companies had gone out and they run into a hornet’s nest — I mean they were just literally chewed up. They had everyone you can imagine put on helicopters and taken out there because the other guys were just having the hell shot out of them.

“We landed on a hill and my flamethrower section was heading toward the firing. The next day we worked our way down to where the grunt companies were at and the enemy had already disappeared by then. They were asking for volunteers to go down and help carry out the dead to get to a landing zone. I told them I would. So, I went down with Sgt. Flannigan and there was a guy from Texas who had been hit in the head. “ T h ey a l rea dy h a d h i m wrapped up in a poncho with belts around his waist, feet and chest. Got a pole that I slung as I carried him to get through the rice paddies. I had the head part and about halfway up to the LLC the poncho snapped open and his head came back. I had blood and brains covering my boots. I just thought about his mother — her son’s dead and here I am carrying him back to the LLC. It runs through your mind that maybe someday somebody’s going to be doing that to me.”

Snyder admitted that another experience he had while on a mission is always on his mind.

“There was some guys on a flatbed four-wheel drive multipurpose vehicle that was delivering some C-rations down the road there in Danang,” he said.

“They went through this brushy area and there were some Cong hiding over there and they threw a grenade on there. It blew the thing up and killed one of the guys and the other guy was bad wounded.

“The company commander told us to take our flamethrowers down there and burn the hell out of that whole area because it was a bottleneck there. So, we took kerosene and napalm and we burned the hell out of everything. We had a man with us who was named Ray Vedder. Ray was not really one of us. He had been put in our flamethrower section because his records had been lost.

He was on his way home, but they were trying to find his records so they put him in our flamethrower section temporarily.

“It was my time to shoot and I put my flamethrower on. We’d soak it down with fuel oil and set it off with napalm. We’d burned a large amount of brush — it was about a whole day affair. We were pretty close to leaving. I was getting ready to load up my flamethrower and do some more and Vedder said, ‘Here, let me have that.’ He put it on goes over to the side of the road. Our flamethrowers had just come back from the Force Service Regiment and they said our flamethrowers were in topnotch shape. They had done all the maintenance work on them and they were ready to go.

“Vedder is firing the napalm to set off the kerosene fuel when the hose blows off the body of the flamethrower. When it does,

he starts going in a circle and then the napalm ignited and he was nothing but a ball of fire. I couldn’t get over there. There was a wall of fire. We dragged the flamethrower into the paddy and Vedder was laying on his stomach. His head was on the ground and he was still alive. One ear was burned off and his hair was gone.

He had huge blisters hanging in his face and hands. We put him on a poncho, lifted him up and set him on a six-by.”

Snyder and several other Marines took Vedder to the hospital in Danang and a few days later the seriously injured man was flown back to the states.

Snyder doesn’t know if the man lived or died, but years later he recalls being at a local fast food restaurant when he saw a man whose face was horribly scarred from fire.

People in the restaurant were turning away, but Snyder said he walked up to the man and shook his hand. He didn’t ask how the man became disfigured — he said he didn’t want to know, but he wondered if people would be turning away from him in disgust had he been the one burned that day in Vietnam instead of Vedder.

“I’ve always carried this guilt,” he said. “Why him instead of me? I’d been firing the thing all day. Why was it him? I feel like I was saved for something.

I call it emotional baggage. You can’t explain it to a lot of people.

They don’t understand the military. Death and destruction can visit you in a minute. I’ve been extremely lucky all my life. This is one thing that’s always carried me through — I’m very lucky. I made nine major operations and never got a scratch. I keep saying the ‘old man upstairs’ is watching over me.”

Now, as far as recognition and honors for his time in the service, Snyder said he received the Combat Action Ribbon, but getting pats on the back is not something he demands or expects.

“I was not drafted — I enlisted,” he said. “When I came home from Vietnam I did not expect a parade.

I was a Marine. I went over and did what I was trained to do.

What’s the deal about parades?

Guys go on about not having a parade and being welcomed home and all that. Hey, you’re alive and you’re home with family.”

After returning from Vietnam, Snyder attended Mineral Area College for two years and carpooled to Southeast Missouri State University for two years to earn a degree.

“After graduation, I could not find a teaching position so I worked at AMAX Lead Company at the Buick Mine as a warehouseman and later in the engineering department as a surveyor,” he said.

Snyder is married to his wife of 47 years, Margaret, and the couple has four adult children and five grandchildren.

He taught 28 years in the Potosi School District before retirement.

In 2001 he became a tour guide at Fort Davidson State Historic Site — now known as the Battle of Pilot Knob Historic Site — in Iron County. Today he spends much of his time as a member of Bismarck’s VFW Post 6947 and takes part in many other community organizations and events.

“So much to do, so little time,” said someone who has proven by a life well lived to be a very lucky man indeed.

Kevin Jenkins is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-5183614 or kjenkins@dailyjournalonline. com‌

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Sent with honor, received back with disdain RENEE BRONAUGH 573-518-3617‌

‌Most Vietnam veterans prefer not to talk about their time overseas or what it was like when they returned home.

“No matter what though, you still do think about it because those are experiences at 20 years old you don’t forget,” explains Larry Barton, a Bonne Terre native. “I guess the biggest thing was our troop movement. We would leave out early in the morning and may be three days before we even came back to our base camp. You never knew what you were going to experience or what you were going to meet with in the three days that we were gone.”

Drafted‌

Being drafted was something that every young American male knew was an option in the mid-1960s. Pretty much back then it was common knowledge that if you were drafted or enlisted you were on your way over to Vietnam.

Barton said that he served three years total in the Army. He was drafted and then enlisted. When they drafted you it was for two years and you’d go through the same process as when you enlisted.

On an enlistment you got three years instead of two.

“I was drafted in 1965 and turned 20 years old at the airport in Yokota, Japan on my way to Vietnam,” said Barton. “It was very difficult for me to grasp everything at 20 years old. I just had no idea what to look forward to. I had been away from home (at) different times, but never for that reason. I had no idea what was coming down the pipe for me.”

Barton said he believes they went through about two days of training at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and then they were sent home for 30 days. He had to report to Fort Bliss after the 30 days were up and they left out from there.

“They told us the route we would be taking and it wasn’t what they told us,” said Barton. “We were flown into Cameron Bay and at the time I looked it up because I knew that was where we were going. I found any and all information I could on Cameron Bay and it was gorgeous. I was supposed to be assigned to an engineer attachment and I wasn’t looking forward to it, but it eased my mind about a lot of things.”

RENEE BRONAUGH, DAILY JOURNAL‌

Larry Barton was drafted at young age, like many young men were in the Vietnam era. Here are snapshots of Barton, pictured in uniform while overseas during the Vietnam War.

“We were always experiencing casualties, whether it would be death or just wounded.”

Larry Barton, Vietnam Veteran and Bonne Terre native

Saigon to the infantry troops and everybody else I guess, so we were there just to give them support.”

Barton said it was an ordinary thing to encounter enemy fire and you would get to the point that if you didn’t you were kind of disappointed.

“We were always experiencing casualties, whether it would be death or just wounded,” said Barton. “In our base camp we were the largest armored unit in Vietnam. We had the largest base camp and field hospital in Vietnam. The enemy was constantly after us, because prior to joining up with the 11th Armored Cavalry the United States took this base camp away from the Viet Kong.

“So they were constantly messing with us, either with mortar fire on the airstrip In the Field‌ or always doing something. We pretty Once they arrived at Cameron Bay much experienced enemy fire almost on that night they were fed and put up and a daily basis because we weren’t on the around 3 a.m. they woke everyone up and base very much.” told them they had order changes. Barton said they started reading them off and all War Life‌ of a sudden he was heading for the 11th It was very difficult for soldiers to Armored Calvary just outside Xuan Loc. bathe or wash their clothes. Barton said “I was a track commander on an their base camp wasn’t very secure and armored personnel carrier, which is a they didn’t allow them to have the Viettrack vehicle,” said Barton. “I was with namese come in to clean their tents, do the 11th Armored Cavalry and ordinar- their laundry or anything like that. ily the track carrier was used for trans“A lot of times we might go three or porting troops, but ours had 50 caliber four days that we wouldn’t even see machine guns and two M-60 machine water, besides what we were drinking,” guns mounted on there so we used them said Barton. “When we got back to the strictly for combat. Each armored per- base camp everyone would scramble to sonnel carrier was equipped to carry the showers and try to catch them before four: there was the driver, the track com- we ran out of water. We lived in tents. Our mander, which was my position behind latrines and showers were all outdoors. a 50 caliber, and two M-60 operators. We didn’t have very many luxuries.”

So there were four people assigned to each carrier.”

Injured‌ When the Tet Offensive started they “The only time I was injured there was traveled from their base camp, which an accident in our base camp and I don’t was in a little village called Xuan Loc, and think anyone was ever sure what hapwhen we left that village they went all pened,” said Barton. “We were drawing the way up within 17 miles of the “DMZ” ammunition to go out on patrol and this (demilitarized zone, a military term that fellow that was issuing the ammunition refers to a combat-free area between screwed the blasting cap out of the gretwo enemies). They traveled back south nade. Not only did he do that, he pulled along the Cambodian border and up the pin on it. And I guess out of ignothrough the southern part of Saigon to rance he didn’t know that once he pulled meet with the Tet Offensive (named for that pin he had a live grenade.” the lunar new year holiday called Tet), Barton said that the only saving factor a coordinated series of fierce attacks was that it wasn’t down in the grenade on more than 100 cities and towns in casing as normal. The guy threw it out in South Vietnam. the middle of a half dozen soldiers stand“We were then assigned to a group ing around waiting to draw ammunition called 507th Transportation and what and when it went off several people were we were assigned to them for was to hit and one guy lost an eye due to his give them support,” said Barton. “They injuries. Barton had shrapnel from the moved a lot of supplies in and out of blasting cap and debris from the ground

embedded in his knees. The six to 10 soldiers standing nearby all received some type of injury, but nothing life-threatening. He added that they didn’t slow down for much and they gave him some iodine to rub on his injuries.

Coming Home‌

“I can remember I was scheduled for a flight from San Francisco to St. Louis and by time we got from Oakland to San Francisco our flight was going down the runway,” said Barton. “So we ended up spending the night in the airport and I left there the next morning, flew to St. Louis and I was going to catch a bus from St. Louis to Bonne Terre. It was actually going to let me out at the Highway 67 and Bonne Terre intersection.”

Barton said a lady he sat with on the airplane from California to Missouri asked him how he was going to get from the airport to the bus terminal in St. Louis. Her husband was a career man in the military. She insisted that her family take Barton down to the Greyhound bus station.

“As I was buying my ticket the bus I needed to be on was pulling out,” said Barton, “So I missed the bus and I wasn’t going to call and tell anyone I was even in the country, but I was stuck until sometime later that day.”

Barton ended up calling his mother to let her know he was in the country and safe. She called his dad and he drove up to the airport to get him.

In the meantime he sat in a bar enjoying a few beers. He recalls that he had a Zippo cigarette lighter that he carried.

“On that lighter was a map of Vietnam and a couple of places that I had been,” said Barton. “I was drinking beer and after about my second or third beer, I lit a cigarette and laid my cigarettes and cigarette lighter down on the bar. The bartender saw the cigarette lighter, I guess, and he quit serving me. After that I waited on the sidewalk for about two hours waiting for my dad to pick me up.”

“I realized it was from that cigarette lighter (showing a connection to Vietnam). I was even in uniform,” he said, noting the bartender had no issue serving a military man until he found out where he had been. “I didn’t do too well with any of it for the next several years. It was a really hard blow.”

From there it was all downhill for a while. Returning soldiers weren’t treated very nice and Barton said it wasn’t just him, it was everybody.

RENEE BRONAUGH, DAILY JOURNAL‌

Larry Barton of Bonne Terre was drafted into the army at the age of 19 and was sent to Vietnam. Like most soldiers from that era he didn’t get the homecoming welcome that soldiers often receive today.

“You could turn on the TV and see everything that was going on and they just didn’t like us ... we were accused of everything,” said Barton. “There was a lot of protesting back then against the war and there was never anything in favor of it. They burned draft cards, they burned flags and some of the signs they held up were awful and directed toward the Vietnam veterans. I can’t remember all of the signs they carried around, but one of them called us baby killers and it was all just terrible things.”

Experiences not forgotten‌

“We weren’t looked favorably upon,” said Barton. “When I came back about 14 months later, instead of feeling 20 years old, I felt like I was 60 years old. I have seen things that I will never experience like that again. It worries me that any young man today would.”

Barton said he received an Army Commendation Medal, given for an act of heroism.

“I don’t remember what I did, but the incident took place at the start of the Tet Offensive and we were set up in a French villa with the 507th Transportation,” said Barton.

He didn’t elaborate any further on it.

Renee Bronaugh is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-518-3617 or rbronaugh@dailyjournalonline.com

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The young helicopter pilot and crew discuss their dangerous work.

Pilot’s heroics come to life posthumously

‌It’s said there are seasons to a person’s life. Unfortunately often times the calendar showing all those seasons doesn’t completely unfold until after the person is gone.

For many of his friends, Preston Matthews was a whitebearded, balding, cigar-smoking landowner and coffee drinker that could be found at Plank Road Inn most mornings solving the world’s problems from behind a white porcelain cup.

Those around the community of Gumbo who knew him in his younger years would recall a high-spirited, flat-topped young man big on fast cars and living life to its fullest.

It wasn’t until Matthews passed that his family and close friends started to get the real picture of just how much more their beloved relative and friend had been.

“When you talk to his best Navy buddy the words he always uses is ‘Man of Honor,’” Preston’s widow Liz Matthews said several months after his passing in 2002. She said her late husband made only a couple passing references to his time spent in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot during their more than two

decades together.

It was while she was going through some of his personal belongings after his death that she found countless snapshots, memorabilia and letters from the Navy. Included was a commendation accompanying a Silver Star for bravery that Preston received after a daring helicopter rescue.

The paperwork outlined the details as told by gunners on the small helicopter and a fighter pilot that was plucked from the ocean after his plane was shot down. The pilot later said it was beyond belief that the helicopter pilot could maneuver a chopper through enemy fire that he couldn’t avoid in his airplane.

The narrative of the nowdeclassified military document tells of young Matthews winding and weaving 24 miles through enemy strongholds only 20 miles south of the northern border of North Vietnam to rescue a downed pilot. The fighter pilot was floating in a raft and under heavy enemy fire from the shore of the Faitsi Long Chain of islands. Matthews got close but had to call for additional firepower to knock down enemy resistance to allow him to finish

the last leg of the trip.

M inutes later he arrived and plucked the pilot from the ocean only an estimated 300 yards from enemy positions on Nui Cuong Island. While lifting the pilot from his raft the hoist stuck and the crew was forced to make repairs as the helpless pilot hung from the cable below.

The commendation goes on to tell how moments later the lift started working again and the pilot was taken on board. The Lt. Matthews made the trip back through the same enemy fire, this time with one more person on board and with maneuverability at a minimum.

Jeff Wright knew Matthews for about the last 15 years of his life.

“I was so taken back that this little bald-headed man did things that people in Hollywood only make movies about,” Wright said upon discovering what his friend had done. “Preston never told me any of this, and he and I talked a lot about

flying airplanes and helicopters.”

Matthews flew for the Navy for 16 years. Once out of service he flew another 23 years for Ozark Airlines, and one year for TWA before retiring.

After his passing his wife found numerous snapshots taken of aircraft carriers, planes, helicopters, ships and even one of actor John Wayne taken while he filmed aboard one of the ships Preston had been stationed on.

As she weeded through his belongings she discovered more and more recollections of heroics her husband showed during his time oversees. She eventually decided to compile the clippings, photos and copies of commendations into an album for their children.

Is Matthews’ story of quiet bravery rare for this area? The answer is a resounding “no.” The region is rich in a history of men and women who have stepped up and gave much, sometimes all, when called upon to do so.

“Somebody we all took for

Preston Matthews

granted as just a good friend turned out to be a hero in his own right,” Wright said upon Matthews’ passing. “Not only am I proud to have called Preston my friend, but I’m very proud to call him my ‘hero.’”

Editor’s note - This is the first entry in a multi-part series highlighting the contribution of Vietnam veterans. These stories will run on most Mondays and Thursdays through Veterans Day.