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Tuck Kemper
The article that follows was written in February, on the day that East Texas celebrated a "Welcome Home" event for military veterans, primarily those who served in Vietnam, many of whom were welcomed back home less honorably than those whose returns are more celebrated today. The ceremonies were meaningful, and inspired me to put my thoughts on paper about heroes and sacrifice. The full article was printed on the webpage: http://www.easttexastowns.com
My thanks to Cindy Anne Duncan for compiling, completing, and posting for me. The photo accompanying the article is MY photo rather than the one she submitted with the article. Hers was a great photo, I just wanted the one I took with this posting, and in her defense, I didn't submit my photo for her to use! I hope you enjoy reading "In the Company of Heroes"
In the Company of Heroes
On February 16, 2013, I was privileged to join with approximately 1,500 fellow Vietnam Veterans, spouses and families for a time of celebration. The occasion was the 45th anniversary of the 1968 TET Offensive in South Vietnam, but more appropriately, a celebration of “Welcome Home” to many vets from that conflict. It was a conflict only to those back in the states that refused to admit that it was a war. It was war, pure, ugly, unabashed, and certainly unwanted to those whose boots were on the ground in Southeast Asia. I say Southeast Asia, because while it is commonly known as the Vietnam Conflict, there were thousands of us who, while stationed in places like Guam, Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines, and, God forbid, Laos, were in the skies daily “in country” or standing guard, ready to go at a moment’s notice to pluck some unlucky airman or soldier out of the jungle.
Upon their return home, especially for those who returned through West Coast points of disembarkation, they were shown great disrespect for serving this great country of ours. Most were jeered, many spat upon. Some were called “baby killers”. All any of us had done was go when we were called, serve where we were sent, and protect freedom, as we knew and perceived it, for those who could not, did not, or refused.
I was one of the lucky ones. My time of service in SEA was late in the war, and I, by no means, should be included among the “heroes”. The biggest battle I fought was boredom and loneliness. As I said, it was late in the war…1974 when I got there, the prisoners had returned home; the ground troops had been taken out of Vietnam; but the fight was still raging. We still had interdiction missions over the Ho Chi Minh trail daily, and guys, while stationed in Thailand, were being shot at on a regular basis. My job was to stand a watch as a rescue helicopter pilot, and be ready to go, if needed. When Saigon finally fell on April 29-30, 1975, I was once again safely ensconced back in “the world”, as we called the USA back then. My unit, a helicopter airborne missile support unit in South Dakota, had received a flash message (flash meant top priority), approximately 1 week prior to the fall of Saigon, asking for any UH-1 Huey helicopter qualified pilots willing to volunteer for an urgent, then still classified, short term or “TDY” mission. Several of us volunteered, awaiting further orders. Before those orders could be issued, we saw scenes, now so familiar, of the North Vietnamese tanks rolling into Saigon, and scenes of chaos, as people tried to escape the country, ahead of the enemy troops. We saw people scrambling to get through the gates of the embassy in Saigon, and then, lo and behold, we saw video of helicopters being flown to naval aircraft carriers, stationed just offshore. As soon as those aircraft were unloaded, they were either pushed over the side or hovered away from the ship and intentionally ditched into the South China Sea. It became clear to those of us who watched as “volunteers” for the urgent mission, that there would be no mission…there had not been enough time to get us to Vietnam for, what I believe was the sole purpose of flying US military aircraft over the Laotian border to Thailand in an effort to recover assets left behind for the South Vietnamese, but which now would fall into Viet Cong and North Vietnamese hands.
Why the background? Well, on Saturday past, we all gathered together again to say once again to one another, “Well done! Thanks for your service”. We were joined by The Moving Wall, a scaled down replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which stands as a black granite monolith in Washington, D.C., and bears the names of over 58,000 brave men and women who gave the supreme sacrifice in the service of their country and the defense of freedom. Most of them didn’t want to go to Vietnam, and all of them sure as hell didn’t want to die, but they went when they were called, and served where they were sent, all in the name of preserving freedom. As I volunteered to assemble “The Wall” in the parking lot of the Gregg County Exposition Center on Friday, I determined in my mind to go home and research the brave men from Marshall, Texas, my hometown, who made the complete sacrifice. On Saturday when I arrived, I had the names of: Joe Herbert Epps, Arthur D. Simmons, Edward Lee Davis, Charles Edward Manning, Patrick Lynn Blair, Herbert Williams, Sam Jones, Freddy Dean Dodson, James Wimberley Lewis, Richard A. Worth, James Grady Johnson, and Marion Edward Waugh in my hands. I located their names on “The Wall”, and took a photograph of each man’s name. Those photographs are included with this article, under separate cover. Their mothers and fathers, many of whom I suspect are now deceased, should know that I honored their son’s sacrifice last Saturday, because they couldn’t be there, except as a name on a monument. You, their parents, siblings, friends, and families knew their stories, and grieved their loss. Let me just add, “Well done! Thanks for serving! Welcome Home!”
If you ever get to Washington, D.C., please take time to go to “The Wall”…the original one. It is hallowed ground. It is a somber place. I hope the lesson you, and all of us, will take away from the overwhelming experience of being in the company of these heroes is this. “Please God, don’t let us forget this place. Please don’t let this happen again!”
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