White River Junction
America was sharply divided over the war, which lasted from 1955 to 1975 and took the lives of more than 58,000 American troops, including 226 from New Hampshire and 100 from Vermont. The event, intended to honor veterans and heal damage caused by the rift in public opinion, was off to a slow start, as police and VA workers directed vehicles to overflow parking, registered veterans so their names could be called at the appropriate time, and brought white blankets or tall paper cups of hot coffee to make the minutes pass a little more pleasantly.
One of the organizers checked the sound system.
“How you doing out there?” he asked.
“You really want to know?” a veteran called from the crowd, setting off a wave of laughter.
Originally planned as an indoor event, an overwhelming response from more than 500 people forced a relocation outdoors. Stragglers, many of whom had been made late because they had to park off property and walk or take a shuttle in, came past a line of grizzled gray-haired men and blond women wearing black motorcycle jackets and worn denim jeans, each one holding a flag upright.
One of the men, Unity resident Ernie Lord, had a long beard reminiscent of those worn by the rock band ZZ Top. It once earned him second place in a Newport beard competition, he said.
Lord spent most of his tour at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, near Saigon, where his duties included adding or removing seats from planes, depending on whether they would be used for cargo or troop transport, and refueling them.
Tan Son Nhut never came under enemy fire while he was there, but he saw violence just the same.
Once, a group of civilians approached him and told him to move a van that was parked on the airstrip.
Suspicious of their motives, he called his command center. It turned out they were part of an attempted hijacking — the van was in the way of a plane sitting on the runway, where a pilot and U.S. marshals were being held at gunpoint, anticipating a takeoff.
“They said, ‘No, you put it in the middle of the taxiway, set the brakes, take the keys out and go inside,’ ” he said. “So that’s what I did.”
Today, roughly 50 years after his actions helped to foil the hijackers, Lord finds camaraderie with fellow veterans as part of the Rolling Thunder and the Veterans of Vietnam Motorcycle Club.
One of the men he rides with is Kevin Ridley, of Fremont, N.H., who loaded weaponry onto airplanes at Phu Bai Combat Base, 20 miles south of the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. Often, he said, there was an urgency to the work, created by the need to speed a plane off to support American troops under fire.
Some of his fellow servicemen had died by accidentally detonating rockets while loading them onto the planes, he said.
“Static electricity would set the motor off,” he said.
Lord and Ridley are friends with Jim Constantin, of Concord, who remembers vividly the high of returning to the United States.
“Coming back to the States was euphoric. Going away that long, and being bombed, it was like a dream come true, just to come back,” he said.
That high quickly was followed by the crushing realization that he was not going to be embraced like the veterans of World War II. When he disembarked from his plane in Seattle, still in combat dress, he was confronted at the terminal by protestors screaming obscenities at him.
“The Viet Cong liked us better,” he said. “It was surreal.”
Ridley’s first experience with the American public was even worse.
While waiting for a flight in a San Francisco airport, he fell asleep on a bench near his gate.
“I was in the deepest sleep I’d been in,” Ridley said. “The next thing I know, I’m getting kicked, spit on and called a baby burner.”
He said the airport assault was committed by two members of the Hare Krishna religious sect, and he was saved when a Marine in the airport noticed and fought them off.
“ ‘What the hell was that all about?’ ” Ridley asked the Marine. “He said, ‘That was your welcome home.’ ”
When Lord got off the plane in Keene, N.H., the reception was different, if only marginally better.
“No one was there,” he said. “I hitchhiked home.”
Once Tuesday’s ceremony was underway, representatives from a variety of state politicians expressed regrets that their respective elected official could not be there in person, and offered remarks from the offices of Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. (“this is the largest gathering of Vietnam veterans and their families I’ve seen in Vermont”); Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt. (“too many of you didn’t get the welcome home you deserved”); Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. (“our region has a proud record of military service”); Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. (“we also remember those Vermonters who gave their lives as members of the armed forces”); Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H. (“the legacy of all those who served during the conflict remains an inspiration to the nation”); and Rep. Frank Guinta, R-N.H. (“you represent the best of this country”).
For 20 minutes, those onstage read a list of names of those in attendance, giving each one of them a brief moment of thanks, while the wind caused the flags to dance and snap like lightning and the long white walls of the tent rolled and boomed like thunder.
Al Montoya, the interim director of the veterans hospital, took the podium and offered a heartfelt address to the crowd.
“A central part of this 50th anniversary will be to tell your story as it should have been told all along,” Montoya said. “You persevered through some of the most brutal conditions ever faced by Americans in war. The suffocating heat. The drenching monsoon rains. An enemy that could come out of nowhere and vanish just as quickly.”
He criticized an American public that, during and immediately after the conflict, targeted U.S. troops with its anger.
“You were often blamed for a war you didn’t start when you should have been praised for serving the country at large,” he said. “You came home and sometimes were denigrated when you should have been celebrated.”
“You have earned your place among the greatest generation,” he said. “I know the wounds of war are slow to heal. You know that better than most. But know that your legacy endures.”
The veterans said that they are, indeed, still wounded.
Lord said he returned to the States to begin a series of what he calls “regular jobs,” most notably a long-term stint as a boiler operator.
Ridley, who worked for the government for 42 years — including 20 years spent doing software surveillance for Raytheon, a defense contract management agency — said his mind has blocked out his ability to remember his dreams.
“They say I dream, but my body won’t remember,” he said. “I’m glad, because I see what other guys go through.”
Constantin, who went back to school on the GI bill and had a successful career in traffic management, said he dreams — sometimes even when he’s awake.
“I have problems with what’s fantasy and what’s reality,” he said. “I still hear screams at night of a situation I was in. Those screams, I never want to hear again. But I hear them in dreams, know what I’m saying?”
Asked about the value of the event — bringing together veterans and recognizing their period of service — Ridley offered a shrug that was neither validating nor critical.
“It’s a little too late, but it’s still — you feel people are finally starting to realize what you went through,” he said. “It’s an attempt to say thank you. People are trying to do more than what they did. It still doesn’t erase the memory of what you went through when you came home.”
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.