ountry C Friday, November 5, 2021
cres A Focusing on Today’s Rural Environment
Volume 8, Edition 33
Still coming down from
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Wenning’s Vietnam experience remains difficult to share BY DIANE LEUKAM | STAFF WRITER
ALBANY – When Kenny Wenning walks around the home farm north of Albany where he and his wife, Linda, have been since 1988, his mind often goes back to April 1968. He was 20 years old at the time. “When I left that day to go to Vietnam, when I left home here I didn’t know if I would ever see this place again,” he said Oct. 21 while sitting at the table in the same farmhouse. “I walked around outside and looked at everything. Before that, I could walk out-
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Publications bli ti The newspaper of today is the history of tomorrow.
side and go do stuff and it never bothered me, but that last day … I walked around outside and cried a lot.” That was 53 years ago, and other than answering a few direct questions about his time in Vietnam, he had not spoken about the experience much at all. Talking about it is hard, something he has never wanted to do. Long moments of silence punctuated the stories of things that hurt, even today, much like the stories of so many other Vietnam veterans. And yet, these stories are
This month in the
his own. Wenning is the fifth child of eight of Alois and Genevieve Wenning. He was drafted into the Army in 1967, took his basic training in Fort Campbell, Kentucky and AIT (Advanced Individual Training) in Fort Gordon, Georgia. He served in Vietnam from April 1, 1968 to Memorial Day weekend in 1969. His training placed him the 53rd Signal Battalion, operating a switchboard in radio shacks in a number of places. He would also help get them set up, building bunkers of sandbags 4 feet thick over the top and 3 feet on the sides to protect the van with the radio equip-
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Watch for the next edition of Country Acres on Nov. 19
PHOTO BY DIANE LEUKAM
ment and the people. They also built bunkers to sleep in. When a new site was needed somewhere else, he moved on. His longest assignment in one place was two months. Some of those places included Hill 837, Long Binh, Chu-Lai, Xuan Loc (pronounced Swan Lock) and Tay Ninh, where he replaced a soldier who had been injured by shrapnel. “They told me what happened there, then I got a little scared,” he said. Throughout his time as a dispatcher, he worked 12hour shifts opposite another soldier, in what was one of the most solitary occupations
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A veterinarian for the birds Buffalo Lake
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Putting things to bed Diane Leukam column
10 At home in the country Glenwood
16 FFA student 17 Animals we love ` 18 Modern farming practices taught remotely Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City
Kenny Wenning thinks back on his service in Vietnam as he looks at his favorite veteran cap, Oct. 21 on the farm north of Albany. PHOTO COURTESY OF 104 SIGNAL SQUADRON, AU104.ORG
(Above) A U.S. Army Chinook (CH-47) comes into Nui Chua Chan (Hill 837), a major U.S. Army communications site during the Vietnam War. It was here that Kenny Wenning was sprayed with Agent Orange, a defoliation chemical that would cause health problems for so many Vietnam veterans, including Wenning.
in the war. “Nobody bothered me, and I never stayed in one
Wenning page 2
20 Bryce’s pumpkin patch Albany 21 Country cooking
