Blog #25 Brothers: A Reunion 45 Years Later
From the Boston Area newspapers, Middlesex News, April 26, 2015, by John Shoemaker/Local Columnist
It was the spring of 1970 in Quang Tri Province.
The days were long. Danger was everywhere. And any wrong move could prove to be your last.
I was a platoon leader in the “Americal Division,” 196th Infantry Brigade. Every day in the rice paddies and jungles of South Vietnam tested my senses.
Years later, I learned that the highest casualty rate for the U.S. Army was in Quang Tri.
After one particularly hot and humid day, my platoon was joining Bravo Company for a night position on a hill rising above low-lying villages west of a firebase called Hawk Hill.
We were the last to join those already in their positions and readying for nightfall.
As I gave orders to my troops on where to go to complete the defensive perimeter, one of them decided to take a short cut and jumped into an old foxhole rather than dig a new one.
The explosion was deafening, and the soldier’s body was torn apart. A half dozen others were severely wounded.
I heard the Huey’s coming.
I woke up several days later in a hospital in Chu Lai at Division Headquarters, lightly wounded but totally exhausted and dehydrated.
Infantry lieutenants were scarce, and their survival rate was low.
One lieutenant, Jerry Hughes, in Bravo Company, managed to survive 10 months and was now Bravo Company’s executive officer and our battalion’s assistant S3 air operations. He earned a promotion based on his outstanding performance “chasing Charlie.”
He only had two months to go, and he would be on his way home.
Instead, Lieutenant Hughes got the urgent call to pack up and replace me.
One can only imagine the fear he felt as he counted the days.
While recovering, I heard he was on patrol with my platoon when they surprised a squad of enemy soldiers. Hughes and my platoon were able to kill three of them.
Such was life in 1970 for many of us who volunteered to fight a very unpopular war.
After a short time, I went back to relieve Jerry.
Soon, he was on the “big bird” home.
I lost track of him.
During the summer of 2014, I learned of his whereabouts, and we exchanged emails.
Finally, in March 2015, I drove to Key West, Florida, to meet him.
At the entrance to my hotel, I saw him drive up and immediately noticed him.
As I walked down the steps, Jerry came to attention and called out, “Lieutenant!”
We immediately embraced.
Greetings exchanged, we went to lunch to catch up.
We exchanged old war stories and notes of what we recalled and didn’t.
Vietnam has negative connotations for many, and the myths live on.
Little do most people know that while we tragically lost approximately 58,000, the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong, by moderate estimates, lost over 1.2 million soldiers. In fact, the Viet Cong were wiped out after the infamous ’68 Tet Offensive, when over 45,000 enemy soldiers were killed.
From a military point of view, the war was a lopsided disaster for the enemy. We never lost a major battle. The enemy’s losses were absolutely staggering.
Still, many have the “Hollywood” view of Vietnam, showing us getting hammered by the Viet Cong and NVA. Tactically, it was mostly a war where the enemy was willing to commit to poorly executed attacks and absorb horrendous losses that would never be acceptable to America.
Even so, the media crucified the military after Tet.
The political blunders, deceptions, lies and lost military credibility by General Westmoreland and others, however, were insurmountable. Eventually, as the media played it in our face, America’s political will was torn apart.
As a result, many think it was a war we lost.
Not really, at least not militarily. But it was not easy by any stretch.
Jerry and I remembered well how tough it was for us “grunts.”
From the start, Vietnam was an exceptional story. We had the best-trained and most-educated soldiers in American history. Two-thirds of all the soldiers were young volunteers – not draftees. Helicopters changed the battlefield by increasing the intensity of the war, with the average soldier experiencing 240 days of combat in one year (while the average soldier in the South Pacific in World War II saw 40 days of combat in four years).
In six months, it was not uncommon for the average Army platoon to conduct more than two or three dozen “combat assaults” from helicopters into enemy territory.
They called us “air mobile.”
North Vietnam finally toppled the South a full two years after the U.S. military had left Vietnam, and well after the U.S. Congress had cut off funding for the South Vietnamese and Cambodian governments – while Russia and China continued extensive support for North Vietnam.
After the fall of Saigon, Hanoi went on to kill an estimated 200,000 South Vietnamese followed by the genocide in Cambodia of over 2 million by the Khmer Rouge.
Both Jerry and I remembered that our platoons had killed Chinese soldiers fighting in South Vietnam.
We also talked about “stolen valor.” The lies before, during, and after the war continue to this day.
Many say they were awarded medals for valor without ever stepping foot in Southeast Asia. The U.S. Census revealed in one report that four out of five people who say they are Vietnam veterans are not. Our personal experiences have many examples of questioning those parading as Vietnam vets and easily discovering they lied.
It angers both of us.
We hear the lies too often: the politician who says he or she is a decorated war veteran; numerous resumes that falsely highlight military service; beggars wearing military garb and holding signs saying they are veterans.
Hundreds even claim that they were prisoners of war and never saw the battlefield.
Jerry suffered PSTD and still works today, helping our veterans deal with the pressures of combat. Relocating from New Jersey to change his life, Jerry got involved in various veterans groups and contributed to the community.
Jerry is giving back to veterans in need. As a member of his local chamber of commerce’s Military Affairs Committee, he chairs its annual Wounded Warrior Project Soldier Ride, empowering seriously injured Middle East Conflict vets. He is also working on the new Vietnam Living Memorial Park in Key West.
He illustrates the costs of war go far beyond the day the last soldier is killed in combat.
We visited a memorial in Key West to Col. Floyd J. Thompson, a Green Beret, who endured nearly nine years of torture, disease and starvation in North Vietnam as the longest-held prisoner of war in America.
And so it went. As we parted, we gave each other a big, heartfelt hug.
We are brothers in arms forever.