By Betsy Brewer Brantner
Contributing Writer

Sometimes we need to revisit the past to understand the future. After all, the story is the journey, not the destination. And so it was with the U.S. veterans who served in Vietnam.

They were treated horrifically when they went to Vietnam, and they were treated badly when they returned home to the U.S. When they were drafted—and many people who served in Vietnam were drafted—they didn’t go on a whim. They were patriots. Their country called them and they answered the call to serve their country. What ensued after that was both a lesson of what to do, and what not to do to for soldiers who go off to war. Vietnam was a different kind of war. No one really knew what they were fighting for, especially the soldiers there.

Mothers who watched their children go off to war just prayed they would come back. Many soldiers didn’t make it home. And even now, five decades later, some of the soldiers are still missing and unaccounted for. It is estimated that 58,220 soldiers were killed in Vietnam. About 1,580 never returned. That means their remains haven’t been recovered.

Bob Herr, a kid that grew up in the small town of Oxford, was one of those people who answered that call. He was 20 years old when he went off to war. He wasn’t old enough to drink yet, but he was old enough to die in service to his country.

“I served in Vietnam from March 1969 until March 1970. I did my basic training at Fort Dix, NJ and then went to Fort Gordon, Georgia,” he said.

Many Vietnam veterans went to Fort Gordon, primarily for basic and advanced individual training (AIT) before deploying to Vietnam. Some soldiers were also exposed to Agent Orange during chemical testing at Fort Gordon between 1967 and 1969, often without their knowledge at the time. Agent Orange was also used in Vietnam. Agent Orange is a toxic, plant-killing chemical (herbicide) that the U.S. military used to clear foliage during the Vietnam conflict. Exposure to the herbicide causes Agent Orange effects, which include cancer, congenital (birth) disorders and life-threatening health complications, such as Parkinson’s Disease.

Years later, many soldiers discovered that Agent Orange had given them a variety of ailments – one more tough memento from Vietnam.

Herr  got married and 10 days later he flew to Vietnam. It was a 12-hour trip. He had a stop at Hawaii to refuel, then he traveled to Okinawa and then, finally, he arrived at Saigon.

“I volunteered,” Herr said. “I knew I was going to get drafted. I wanted to get in the Air Force or Navy but I wound up talking to an Army recruiter. He asked if I had heard about the Army Security Agency, which was four years rather than two if I was drafted. It turned out that there was no ASA at that time in Vietnam and I wound up doing Radio Research for two years.”

Herr added, “I was very nervous and sad leaving for Nam. I had just got married and didn’t want to leave my wife and all my friends. I know the guy I was then never came back.”

Herr was in Pleiku for a year. It was close to the fighting in north-central Vietnam. 

“The hill above us had artillery located there,” he explained. “They fired over top of us every night. Helicopters were flying over too. Obviously, if you wanted to sleep you just had to get used to those sounds.”

Pleiku was strategically important during the Vietnam War, particularly after the February 1965 Viet Cong attack on Camp Holloway and the U.S. advisory compound, which resulted in the deaths of eight Americans and more than 100 Americans were wounded. This attack was a major factor in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision to escalate U.S. involvement, leading to retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam and the deployment of more troops. The city was a key military logistics hub, and the surrounding area was the site of the significant 1965 Pleiku Campaign and the subsequent Battle of Ia Drang.  

The 633rd Air Base Wing was activated at Pleiku Air Base in 1966 and supported numerous units throughout the war until its inactivation in 1971. The base and city continued to experience attacks, such as rocket attacks in 1970. 

Herr explained, “I was a communications specialist. I sent and received messages to the States and I had a top secret crypto clearance. We worked in a communication center, where I received messages about the enemy’s location. They were encrypted, and we would send them back to the U.S. I worked a 12-hour day.” 

He was stationed in the central highlands which were hot in the day, about 80 degrees, and cool at night at 40 degrees.  And then there was the steady rain for a month. There were no trees or grass. It was a much different setting than the idyllic farmland that he grew up surrounded by in Oxford, where he often worked in the fields.

A mother of a Vietnam veteran once said, “They pluck a child from working in a field. He has been taught by his mother to do no harm and certainly not to kill. Then they just drop them in a foreign land where they have to kill or be killed. I don’t know how anyone can survive that.”

Herr was 21 when he came home from Vietnam. He came back to the small town where the biggest problem was making sure you had the coolest car in town. Fun in Oxford consisted of driving up and down Third Street to show off your cool ride, or to drag race on Route 472 near the Octoraro Lake.

Herr recalled life after he returned home from Vietnam.

“I met my wife at the airport,” Herr said. “I remember the great meal my mother made for me. My wife and I stayed at my family’s home. I had trouble sleeping at night. Even though I was home in my bed, I still heard the sounds, and smelled the smell of Vietnam. I remember drinking way too much. At the time, I didn’t know anything about PTSD. I just drank a case of beer a day.” 

It’s not unusual for a marriage to suffer for the Vietnam veterans. When you marry and leave right after that and are dropped into a country where the sound of rocket attacks are going on all around you, it is hard to come home to the quiet of a farm. The young farm boys and all veterans who came home from Vietnam were different. How could they not be?

“It bothered me that the people were so against the war and the veterans,” Herr said. “They called us baby killers. Everyone looked at us differently. We didn’t get any respect when we came home. I wouldn’t even wear my uniform to church. The Vietnam War was different from all the wars before us. It was a confusing time. I guess a lot of us covered up our feelings by drinking. Thankfully, after all these years, things have changed.”

But at what cost?

During the Vietnam era, roughly 25 percent of the U.S. population lived in rural communities, including those who lived on farms, meaning millions of potential soldiers came from that background. There's no precise figure for how many soldiers were from farms, a calculation based on the 9 million figure of men leaving rural communities during that period suggests approximately 2.25 million men were drawn from these areas for military service. 

Eventually, Herr’s marriage ended in divorce. His first wife has passed away. Eventually, he felt like he had grown up or maybe moved on from Vietnam.

“I felt like I did a lot of growing. The country had changed a lot, I had changed a lot in the year that I was away. Neither of us were the same,” he said.

He eventually met a woman and got married again.

“I stopped drinking when I met her. It’s been a long way back. I have a daughter from my first marriage. She lives in Florida, and we do talk,” he said with a sigh.

Herr did use his veteran’s benefits to go to school to learn about computers. He no longer lives in Oxford, and he now lives in New York.

When asked how he feels about the country now, he admitted that he was worried for his grandchildren. He votes. He has been married for 17 years now.

Even though Vietnam vets were treated differently, he said, “I would do it all again. I was proud to serve my country.”

Approximately 58,220 U.S. military personnel lost their lives during the Vietnam War, while tens of thousands more have died from war-related illnesses like those caused by Agent Orange exposure. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., lists the names of 58,279 service members who died in or near the combat zone. It took 50 years or more until veterans felt the respect they were due from the country that had sent them to Vietnam. In some instances, it also took almost that long for veterans to receive compensation for what happened to them there. Many never recovered from the experiences and they were homeless. The cost of the Vietnam War to veterans who served there will never be fully known or understood. Time, it turns out, does not heal all wounds, and there is a lingering question: Do they ever come home from a war?