Whether they were stationed on a Navy destroyer or flew B-52s, Vietnam veterans at an event Thursday in Bellevue had plenty of stories to share about the personal impact of the war.
A panel of four veterans representing the Army, Marines, Air Force and Navy were featured in the “Voices of Vietnam” event hosted by Bellevue University’s Freeman/Hozier Library and the Military and Veteran Services Center.
As it took place the day before Vietnam Veterans Day, the event was a timely way to honor those who served in Vietnam, Jerome Richardson, the military liaison at the center, said as he introduced the veterans.
“Today we’re here to recognize these gentlemen,” he said. “But they represent, each one of them, a branch of service where we had hundreds of thousands of our service members serve in the Vietnam era and so we want to recognize them as well.”
People are also reading…
George Parks spoke about his time in the Navy aboard the USS Isle Royale and later on the USS Berkeley, a guided-missile destroyer positioned off the coast of Vietnam.
Parks told the story when the ship was headed toward the coast of Vietnam without a working gun mount. He said he remembers the North Vietnamese forces started shooting at the ship and everyone went running.
“We had no guns operating, but we still had to keep going,” he said. “And at that time, I felt like that we were waiting to get hit any minute and nothing to defend ourselves with.”
Parks said he felt his prayers to God were answered when the North Vietnamese forces for some reason stopped shooting and he was able to make it out alive.
Retired Lt. Col. Bill Robinson was commissioned in the Air Force to conduct B-52 bombing operations in Vietnam. He spoke during the event about the time when a plane he was flying in had severe battle damage and the crew decided to eject.
“We started to bail out of the aircraft, and when it came my turn, when I pulled the handle to eject nothing happened,” he said.
Robinson said he was eventually able to climb out of the hole where his partner had ejected from before the plane went down.
“I made it out and so did he,” he said. “That was an interesting day.”
Retired Lt. Col. Jeff Flagg served 25 years in the Army, which included a year in Vietnam and a year in Cambodia. He spoke at the event about working in mechanized infantry and how little he knew about the political climate surrounding the war until he stepped off the plane after returning from Vietnam.
“Politics was not something we talked about at all in Vietnam,” he said.
Joel Schneider, who served for nearly a year as a combat field radio operator in the Marine Corps, talked during the event about the difficulty of grappling with what happened in Vietnam and the journey of recovering after coming back from the war.
“I think looking back, my real trauma started when I came home,” he said.
Schneider said he worked for several years as a peer support specialist for veterans and he believes avoiding isolation is key to recovering from PTSD and trauma.
“Recovery is possible,” he said. “And you can thrive beyond your illness.”