bodies of our friends decomposed." After a skirmish, there wasn’t a chance to pick them up. “We didn’t realize their strength. They’d fire a 122-millimeter rocket, man. It’s 10 feet long; they’d fire it from a bamboo tripod with a plumb bob, and they’d be accurate!” Because of the precise NVA artillery, he and his buddies didn’t dare expose themselves. “The trenches were terrible! There were rats all over the place. Shit! There was nothing you could do. You’d shit in a C-ration box and throw it over the barbed wire. You’d never go upstairs.” They didn’t have water to shower. “Our uniforms were so dirty! We had beards, and our hair was matted with blobs of crap. We smelt so bad, but — our uniforms became like little costumes. We had discipline, but they liked to let us express ourselves.” The officers knew it was a tough situation. “Anything could drive any guy over the line, at any time. Because you sit in a bunker all day, and just get bombed on — it does things to your reality. It changes things around.” They smoked dope once in a while, but because the military situation was so bad pilots didn’t like to fly in booze and pot. They had to be bribed with captured weapons. After six months was up, he asked to be transferred. “I was at Khe Sanh longer than anybody — me and another guy.” A piece of shrapnel hit Denny in the neck. One inch either way, he would’ve been dead, or crippled for life. His officers realized he had been in combat a long time, so they got him a good job, in an aid camp far out in the jungle. “We did a lot of civic stuff — we trained the Montagnards to defend themselves. We’d build bridges for ’em, and irrigation projects.” After three months of an ideal assignment, Dennis was sent near the Cambodian border. He realized by the way the Vietnamese were acting that a battle was developing. So he took his R and R, rest and recuperation, in Hawaii, where he met his girlfriend. “I’m sittin’ drunk, stoned, and high on these pills — it’s the last day of my stay in Hawaii. My girlfriend had just left. I’m in the Hilton, on the bed, watching Walter Cronkite on TV — and he says, ‘The special forces camp in Duc Lap was partially overrun by North Vietnamese regulars.’ OH MY GAWD, I’M GOIN’ BACK THERE IN 12 HOURS!” "Ideally the whole culture^ the whole population should be supporting vets and saying9 ‘Look, we understand what happened to you. We9re trying to understand.9But that's not happening!99 Using his savvy, Dennis decided to go to the doctor in Nha Trang and put himself in the hospital to have a tiny piece of shrapnel removed. By the end of two weeks, the fighting at Duc Lap had almost stopped. He recounts triumphantly, “I made it. I missed out — I got back to my unit, and they were real pissed off with me. They were going to get me for being AWOL. And I said, ‘Wait a minute. I’ve been in the hospital!'They didn’t even know it.” “When I got back home, I put my uniform away. Period. My sister took my green beret. Man, I haven’t seen any of that shit for a long, long time.” Dennis spoke of his rather instantaneous return to stateside, unbelievable as it may seem, “I got back from ’Nam and out of the army on the same day! Bop! One day you’re there, and the next day you’re home.” There was no debriefing. There was no chance to share or relive the common painful experience of the war with other combat buddies, as Second World War and Korean vets had done on slow troop ships home. This was the typical return for most Vietnam veterans. There was no one to understand them nor to empathize i with the hell they had been living. Treating flesh-and-blood soldiers like abstract statistical ciphers, could the Pentagon brass have dreamt up any better way to bring the war home in all of its negative aspects? Is it any wonder that — in 1970 — Dennis began to feel symptoms of delayed stress? He began crying, at times, uncontrollably. After The War Dennis: It was real hard. Fortunately, the woman I was living with was real understanding! She gave me a lot of help and support. It was impossible for me to get work. At first I thought being a Vietnam veteran was something to be proud of. I’d write that on my application, but every time I never got the job! It didn’t work for us like it did in World War II. I went to school to be a welder. I worked in the shipyards, but that work didn’t come very often. I didn’t really start recuperating from the war — really getting over it — until 1974 or ’5. I didn’t feel guilty anymore. By the Bicentennial, I realized that this foolishness was still around. Why should I be feeling guilty about the insanity that happened in Vietnam? I said to myself, I refuse to take responsibility for other people’s actions. That took a long time.... I have two friends who worry me right now. It brings me back to Vietnam — for a long time, I never told anyone I was a Vietnam vet. But now — seeing my friends directly affected and saying, “Man, I’m screwed up because I’m having nightmares about what I did in ’Nam. Things I never told anyone about.” Walt: Even though it's 10 or 15 years later, some vets are still having problems? Dennis: I know the problem is still there. It’s gonna be there! I don’t think people are aware of it. They try to shoulder the responsibility on the Veterans’ Administration. It’s not that! Ideally the whole culture, the whole population, should be supporting vets and saying, “Look, we understand what happened to you. We’re trying to understand.” But that’s not happening! Walt: So we ignore vets then, too? Dennis: We don’t wanta be reminded of that. It was an atrocity! Like they say, it was Hitler marching into Poland. IT WAS THE SAME THING. It was an atrocity. We murdered millions of people! Millions — and destroyed their culture. And we don’t want to accept that! We don’t want to accept the position, the role of bully. In a way, I don’t blame people. That takes a real heavy commitment to look at yourself like that. It’s like — we can still cruise by on what we’ve got, right now. I mean Vietnam was an expression of ourselves. It was! We have to look at it that way. It was PEOPLE WORKING TOGETHER Shopping at Food Front gives me a sense of family and neighborhood, because co-op members take pride in their store. It's a happy, lovely place to shop. Wendy Westerwelle, Actress A Cooperative Grocery 2675 NW Thurman Open Daily 222-5658 URBAN G CLASSES October 5 PLANTS FOR DRYING & DYEING October 12 HERBS IN THE WINTER HERBS INDOORS October 19 CHRISTMAS PLANNING & PLANTING October 26 HOUSE PLANTS Classes are offered free 7:30 Every Tuesday Evening 226-0577 2714 NW THURMAN Open 10 a.m. 'til Dusk 7 days a week 36 Clinton St. Quarterly
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