Photo By Ken Scar | Vietnam veteran and former U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class John Blehm, recipient of three...... read more read more
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KILLEEN, Texas – Greatness gathered in an unremarkable conference room of a Holiday Inn April 15, as Vietnam veterans of Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division converged here for their annual reunion.
“These guys won’t tell you that they’re any different than any other company that served in Vietnam, but it’s a very special company,” said U.S. Army Capt. Kyle Hatzinger, the commander of D Company from Sept. 1, 2011, to April 5 of this year, who helped organize the event. “There are a lot of heroes in this room. Guys with unbelievable stories about what they did for one another, and how they were able to come home, face a lot of adversity and right the ship.”
More than 35 seasoned vets and their families showed up this year. Some slight limps and bent backs were evident as most of them are moving into their 70s, but each man still carried himself with a stalwart dignity that only comes from surviving the gauntlet of war and witnessing the fragility of life.
The vets chatted and joshed easily with each other as if they were life-long neighbors, but this was only the third time D Co. has gotten together since fighting shoulder-to-shoulder off the South China Sea more than forty years ago.
It was Vietnam, so the missions were unrelenting and the fighting was brutal.
“Just like a rifle company anywhere, we were in and out of base camp,” said retired Lt. Col. Jim Buckner, who commanded D Co. as a captain from 1966 to 1967. “I took command on Christmas Day of 1966, and that very afternoon we got in twelve helicopters and did our first air assault, not three hours later. We would come back in once every three weeks, get a cold field shower, a hot meal if we were lucky, then we’d go back out.”
With hard fighting came hard wounds that did not heal easily, if at all. That is the reason it took so long for them to finally come together again.
Theirs is a story of coming to terms with the mental wounds of war that is profoundly relevant to present-day soldiers.
“I was in the Army eight years, four months, thirteen days and breakfast,” said John Blehm, a stocky retired sergeant first class, Ranger and recipient of three purple hearts. “I got [post-traumatic stress disorder] in 1969. I wasn’t diagnosed until 1997.”
Nearly every veteran that attended the event shared stories of suffering from PTSD, and how rejoining their brothers in arms helped alleviate some of the pain.
“This is a healing process when you have these reunions,” said Dave Ciocca, who led the 1st squad of 3rd platoon as a staff sergeant from 1966 to 1967. “When you go to an infantry reunion, and you’ve all been under fire, it’s very emotional. The first one started out very sad, but after the three days we were like a band of brothers again, joking around and having fun.”
“No one is closer than men that serve together when they’re getting shot at,” said Larry Willis, a draftee who served for two years and left the Army as a sergeant. “You get closer than you do your own family. We didn’t see each other for 45 years, but when we first met in Washington, D.C., two years ago it was like that 45 years didn’t exist. It was like we were 20 years old again – we recognized each other, hugged each other, cried and laughed – it has really done a lot for some of our guys.”
“There have been a lot of things said that are very, very sad,” said Mel Feather, a former staff sergeant who served in combat in 1969 and 1970. “But I think if you add it up you’d find that we have laughed much more than we’ve cried in the last three days. I’ve had a hell of a good time.”
One of the highlights of the three-day event was visiting the D Co. offices and motor pool on Fort Hood, where the current members of the unit proved to be gracious hosts.
“Those guys were up all night on a training mission, but they stayed around and waited for us,” said Willis. “They treated us fabulously on Fort Hood – I can’t say enough about them.”
The present-day soldiers of D Company took their compatriots for a tour of their headquarters, where they had laid out their modern uniforms, equipment, and weapon systems for the veterans to get a good look at. In the motor pool, an M1A2 SEP Abrams tank was staged for the vets to check out up-close, and even climb into if they wanted.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for two different generations of the same unit to meet and learn from each other.
“Back in Vietnam it was an infantry company and now it’s a tank company, but the fact that it’s a bunch of 19-year old kids facing the unknown . . . that’s what these guys were 46 years ago,” said Hatzinger. “Hopefully those friendships and bonds are formed, and these new Soldiers will have an ear to help them through. These men fought a very determined enemy and [today’s new Soldiers] are going to fight a very determined enemy.”
“The technology is totally different, but they had the same hardships,” said Pvt. Kevin Burzesi, a driver for D Company who spent time answering questions and helping the vets get in and out of the tank. “History tends to repeat itself, so it’s important for us new guys to remember the sacrifices these men made.”
“It’s neat to see who’s carrying on the legacy and vice versa,” said Hatzinger. “Unfortunately even in the last year we’ve lost a couple [D Company Vietnam veterans]. We’re almost to the point where we were when 'Saving Private Ryan' came out and people realized we were losing 1,000 WWII vets a day – that’s about where we’re at now with Vietnam vets, and there are a lot less of them. The window to learn from these men is getting smaller and smaller.”
Back in the Holiday Inn conference room, at the end of their three days together, the vets all had a chance to stand up and speak to their brothers from the heart. A couple of the battle-scarred old warriors had even written poems.
The concept of healing, and PTSD, were mentioned often.
“What’s helped me the most with my PTSD is being with you guys,” said retired Capt. John Read, one of the many Purple Heart recipients in the room. “I had so much shame about the night I got shot, that I was a failure, all these messages that I gave myself. The treatment for PTSD is wonderful, but being around guys that have seen the same stuff, and having the ability to help each other, is a blessing.”
“These are good men,” said Willis. “Vietnam veterans got a little bit of a bad rap when we got home – and we’re not bitter about that. We just went back to work. Now we’re being recognized a little bit, and people seem to be proud of what we did.”
Most Americans would call “being proud” an understatement.
| Date Taken: | 04.23.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 04.23.2013 17:54 |
| Story ID: | 105701 |
| Location: | KILLEEN, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 1,136 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Vietnam veterans of 5th Cavalry Regiment reunite, confront PTSD, and meet their contemporaries on Fort Hood, by Ken Scar, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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