Vietnam vets mourn their fallen

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GREENVILLE – A group of Vietnam veterans – scarred on the outside by the war and on the inside by the loss of their comrades – arrived in town for a weekend reunion and to a homecoming nearly 40 years in the making.

“These guys are awesome people and to be accepted finally is … well, it’s indescribable,” Greg Long of Las Cruces, N.M., said Sunday. “To see these guys finally accepted and welcomed home in Greenville, Maine, was amazing.

“They deserve it; they more than deserve it,” the former soldier said while standing on the starboard side of the steamship Katahdin. “They did what they were told [in Vietnam], and they spent 13 hard months earning [the right to be honored] that right.”

Long and Greg Nichols, both nicknamed “Doc,” served as Navy corpsmen, or medics, with 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, 2nd Platoon of Company C.

Of the surviving 30 Company C soldiers who served in Vietnam, 17 gathered in Greenville for the two-day reunion.

All of the unit’s surviving soldiers earned a Purple Heart, a medal given to soldiers injured in the line of duty.

“Some have three Purple Hearts,” Nichols said.

The hidden scars were harder to notice, but could be seen in the tears that fell during a sunset memorial service held on the Katahdin in the middle of Moosehead Lake for the men who did not return home, and those who have died since returning. The still lake, covered with a light mist, made a somber but beautiful setting for the evening service.

Many in the group said the Greenville welcome was overwhelmingly better than the one they received upon returning home in the late 1960s. Returning from the Asian war zone, many in the unit were attacked, verbally and physically, by their fellow Americans for their service in Vietnam, Long said

Those scars are hard to heal, the former medic said.

Company C lost more than 20 soldiers while trying to hold off advancing North Vietnamese during a conflict around the 1967 Easter holiday near Con Thein hill, located along the Demilitarized Zone.

During the memorial service, the fallen soldiers’ names were read aloud by Charlie Runnels of Abbott, a former lance corporal with the unit who helped organize the reunion, and a bell was rung after each name.

“They paid the ultimate price,” said Ernie Campbell, minister at Dover-Foxcroft Congregational Church and a Navy Vietnam vet. “I think probably the best way we can honor our brothers in arms, our fallen comrades, is to … never let them be forgotten.”

Robert Kelley, company commander; David Rumsey, chief executive officer; and Robert Larson, brother of fallen Company C veteran Larry Larson, all of California, also joined the reunion.

To honor the fallen, the company commander threw a wreath into the water followed by an American Legion gun salute from atop the steamship.

Greenville resident Amelia Butman ended the service with a haunting rendition of taps that brought tears to the eyes of many in the group.

Several Greenville Legion members were on hand to handle the unfurling and display of the American flag.

After the service, many of the vets hugged and cried, but a few of them, including Nichols, tried to lighten the mood by telling jokes and picking on the former soldiers.

“I enjoy humiliating my fellow buddies every chance I have,” the former medic said with a smile. “I just came here to keep an eye on them.”

On a more serious note, Nichols said the group is fortunate to have each other.

“Very few people that go to war have this kind of thing to look forward to,” he said, noting that he enjoys the reunion every year.

Jerry Idziak of Michigan, sitting with a drink in his hand, said he considers everyone in the group his family.

“They’d do anything for anybody,” he said. “They’re all my brothers, and I love them all.”

Runnels, who works for the Greenville Police Department, said the Maine reunion, the first in the state and ninth for the group, turned out just as he planned it.

“We had a tremendous turnout, and we got treated wonderfully,” he said. “The town of Greenville really turned out for us. They were wonderful.”

The Marine unit’s first reunion was held March 27, 1997, in Rossville, Ohio, and the 2006 reunion will return to the same location.

The reunion also included a banquet and dance on Saturday at Squaw Mountain Resort and a town-sponsored pinto bean dinner at the Chalet Moosehead on Sunday before the memorial service.

Idziak said he was taken aback by the reception in Greenville.

“The hospitality was unbelievable,” he said. “It brought tears to my eyes.”