JOE WALLEVAND

Original publish date:

May-June 2017

www.yumpu.com/user/ thegoodlife

Where is he now?

Army Special Forces Green Beret Joe Wallevand’s story was published in the May-June 2017 issue of The Good Life.

Wallevand remains a musician as he continues to learn and play classical music on the piano as well as sing the National Anthem on occasion. He recently joined the Fargo National Cemetery Honor Guard, participating in gun salutes to honor fellow veterans.

Wallevand is grateful for how he’s been able to better manage his PTSD through group counseling sessions at the Fargo Vet Center and a few one-on-one sessions of a counseling technique termed Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). He encourages fellow veterans to use the Vet Center as it has helped him so much and urges anyone who has experienced trauma to seek counseling.

Overall, Wallevand believes that it can be fun getting to know yourself better. Since life is too short, it needs to be good. JOE WALLEVAND TEACHER, SCIENTIST, POET, SOLDIER

WRITTEN BY: BRITTNEY GOODMAN • PHOTOS BY: URBAN TOAD MEDIA

US Army Special Forces (Green Beret) veteran, Joe Wallevand served in the military for 21 years, taught in public schools for 19 years, and was a chemist for American Crystal Sugar for 24 years. In the Army Special Forces Wallevand served as a medic and also a trainer. When asked about any medical experience prior to the Army, he said: “I was a Boy Scout.”

Wallevand has three years of active duty and then served 18 years in the North Dakota Army National Guard in three different companies: the 191st Military Police Guard Company, 634th Service Company at Hillsboro-Mayville, and the 815th Medical Clearing Company Fargo-Bismarck, eventually attaining the rank of first sergeant for that medical company. He achieved the E-8 level before retirement.

Wallevand was drafted, then enlisted in the Army in April of 1965, completed basic training and then entered Special Forces Training, beginning with jump school in Oct of 1965 in Fort Benning, Georgia after completing his basic and engineering Advanced Individual Training.

In his youth, Wallevand described himself as an “egg-head” with high skills in math and a long-held fascination with parachuting, the military, and guerrilla warfare. Thus, the Special Forces seemed a good fit for his talents and interests.

Becoming a medic was a decision Wallevand made, at least partially, because of being involved in an auto accident prior to the service, which left him with guilt about “not being able to give proper medical attention to the elderly gentleman who died later.” He underwent 47 weeks of training, including 16 at the Fort Sam Houston medical school, nine of on-the job-training at an Army hospital, 16 at the advanced medical lab in Fort Bragg and six weeks of Special Forces tactics and techniques.

Wallevand explained that his Special Forces training involved map reading, irregular “guerrilla” warfare, infiltration, methods of instruction, defensive measures, land navigation, patrolling, raids and ambushes, sabotage, civic action projects, escape and evasion, and then the special skills training that Wallevand asserted that, “if I told you about that, I’d…,” which is a standard joke among service people.

Wallevand got his orders to go to Vietnam on Valentine’s Day, 1967 and arrived in Vietnam March 31. He was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group.

In Vietnam, Wallevand was initially a junior A-team medic. He recalled being in Hà Tiên near the Gulf of Siam. He was told “don’t go too far down that road or else you will be in Cambodia and it will be an international incident.” One of his jobs was also to “go out to our airfield, toward Cambodia, and deliver any personnel or supplies back to our camp.”

Wallevand was to train some Montagnard people whom he described as “some of the first inhabitants of Vietnam” and fairly primitive, with large piercings and some with “bones in their noses”. He was called upon to jumpmaster a training jump for them. Wallevand explained that jumpmasters normally jump last from the plane. However, due to the Asians’ lack of training and language, he had to jump first as an example. Wallevand recalled, right before he jumped, looking back at the Montagnard people: “Their eyes are normally almond-shaped. But when I turned around all of their eyes were as big and as round as mine. They were scared. It made me remember my first jump at Fort Benning, which was the first time I had flown in a plane.”

As part of a civic action, Wallevand handed out manual tools to the Vietnamese people – shovels, picks, and spades, to be used in the rice patties. He explained that “winning the hearts and the minds of the people” was one of the goals of the war. He remembered that the Vietnamese said, “Thank you, doctor.” To them, he was considered a doctor because of his medical training. Later, however, during the Tet Offensive, they had taken these same implements and built bunkers inside their huts.

Wallevand explained the “most successful” operation of his A-team, a month and a half before he was to return home: “We went into an area (restricted to us) to raid a small group of Viet Cong.” His team collected a number of documents, weapons, and propaganda. Wallevand said

Wallevand still has the Viet Cong flag that he retrieved.

An advertisement that intrigued Wallevand into joining the military.

“we did not lose anybody and killed eleven VC.” Wallevand retrieved and still has a Viet Cong flag and some propaganda.

Wallevand returned home from Vietnam in 1968: “I did not get spit on when I came back. A lot of my friends had very bad encounters.” Several years later, a colleague called him “a baby killer.” Wallevand explained: “At the time, I didn’t like hearing that and feel the same now. It is coming on my 50 year anniversary of going to Vietnam.”

Wallevand has been married for 47 years to fellow teacher, and fellow Concordia graduate, Linda. They are proud of their successful, creative children. Mike works for ThompsonReuters Find Law; Steve for Media Productions; Deb for Old Hat Creative managing promotions for NCAA sports teams.

Linda described her husband as “a real renaissance man” with talents in music, writing, arts, science and teaching. They are both musicians. Linda has been a piano teacher for 40 years, while Wallevand sings in the local Master Chorale. Wallevand has an uncanny ability to figure things out: “In our little school system – he was the first computer teacher,” and Wallevand chimed in: “They just dropped a computer in front of me one day, and I just figured it out. I used to describe myself as a full service science teacher.”

Linda described their first date, while at Concordia: “It was in January and it was 20 below. We were walking on campus and I was freezing. Joe was pointing out the constellations for me.” Wallevand is an amateur astronomer and the couple has travelled to Canada to witness and celebrate two solar eclipses and they will soon be going to their third event.

Wallevand currently does public speaking of many types and is active in talking with local students.

When asked, “What does ‘the good life’ mean to you,’ Wallevand responded: “The good life means peace and being with the people you love.”

Wallevand is reluctant to accept the title of “hero”: “You want to talk about heroes? My big brother was my hero. But there are guys who aren’t here anymore - their names are on the Wall. There are the guys who came back from the war with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) who don’t know what to do with their lives so they end them. Then there are the Agent Orange victims.” He goes on to describe local Vietnam War Medal of Honor winner, Loren D. Hagen, whom the new West Fargo American Legion is named after, a member of a special unit of Special Forces called the MACV-SOG. These soldiers engaged in

extremely dangerous missions without any identification – no dog tags. Loren died serving his country on one such mission.

Wallevand explained: “I’m sure I have PTSD. I don’t know if you could go through and see all the things I have, that anyone could, and not have it.”

A common problem for veterans of wars is “survivor guilt” - a term Wallevand described as “the feeling of not doing your part, of not giving, as Lincoln said in ‘The Gettysburg Address,’ the ‘last full measure of devotion’” – that gnawing question of “why did you make it while others did not?”

Wallevand continues: “If people want to call me a hero, I guess that’s fine. I did put myself in harm’s way for a greater good. But when you think of those guys on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, for the rest of us – the survivors – it is almost embarrassing to be called a hero.” •

To reflect on survivor guilt, Wallevand wrote a poem based upon Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1818 “Ozymandias.” He wrote it after returning from a visit to the Vietnam Memorial Wall. He read it as part of his 2016 Memorial Day speech at our local Veteran’s Memorial Bridge:

“Survivor Guilt” by: Joe Wallevand 2016

Along a watery pathway, Meeting in the middle: Two bold, black blocks of granite Stretch long upon the green, grassy earth.

And upon them written names — Seemingly endless list of names — Many the names I know — Chiseled in solemn relief.

I look for my name; I search the span of when I served. I am not on the Wall — Where is my name?

Surely my name is in the mix; I was there, as were they, But surely as we all were there, My name surely should be here.

Had there been a million names Without mine on it; Had there been a wall with no names at all; Mine could have been on it.

What did they do to deserve to be listed? What did I do to deserve being left off? But my name IS written… written deep within me… Just not on the Wall.