Whidbey plans event to honor Vietnam era veterans

Upon their return home, many American soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War were welcomed with contempt from the public and little to no help from the government.

This further added to the trauma many veterans carried from their experience overseas.

Some chose to never speak of the war in an attempt to move on. Some became hermits, isolating themselves from the rest of the world. Others, unable to get much needed support and health care, were left to deal with their trauma alone and often resorted to alcohol and drugs.

Melanie Bacon, who is now an Island County commissioner, was at the time stationed in Germany. She remembers how anyone, regardless of what part of the world they served from during the conflict, could be subjected to public scorn.

Decades after she joined the Army at 18 years old, Bacon is in talks with the Whidbey Veterans Resource Center and other entities to plan an event to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War and to honor veterans and their spouses. The news came out just before March 29, National Vietnam War Veterans Day.

In 2012, former President Barack Obama launched the United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration, a 13-year commemoration of the Vietnam War that will conclude on Veterans Day in 2025, according to the U.S. Army website.

Bacon said veterans who served in the U.S. Armed Forces between Nov. 1, 1955 and May 15,1975 are eligible to receive a lapel pin, regardless of where they served.

The commissioner expects the event will take place on Whidbey sometime in 2024, though the details are still in the works.

“We have so many heroes in Island County,” said Bacon, who served in the Army Security Agency from 1974 to 1977, gathering information on the enemy from an army base in Augsburg.

Dana Sawyers, program coordinator at the Whidbey Veterans Resource Center, said the county has the highest number of veterans per capita in the state, with about 13% to 15% of the population being a veteran.

Over 40% of the veterans who reside in the county have served in Vietnam or during the Vietnam War era, Sawyers said.

One of them is Donald Kaiser, a North Whidbey resident.

When Kaiser returned to the United States after a year in Vietnam, he was advised not to leave the plane with his uniform on, or he would have been spit on and called a “baby killer.”

To this day, the 82-year-old doesn’t talk much about the war — few people ever ask him any questions about his time there. His family members didn’t inquire either when he returned, a silence he said hurt his feelings.

For many, killing people in Vietnam wasn’t a choice — it’s what they were sent there to do, he said.

According to Statista.com, about 1.9 million men were drafted during the war. Others, seeing the looming threat of conscription, chose to volunteer so they could have the freedom to decide which division to serve in. Kaiser falls into the latter group.

“We knew what was coming,” he recalled.

At the time, he was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in natural resource conservation and biology. When a Navy recruiter visited his campus, writing down his own name felt like the less unpleasant choice.

Back in the advisory years, Kaiser was in charge of a division of 50 men on the USS Navarro (APA-215), a 455-foot ship built during World War II that transported forces that would invade the shores in Vietnam.

It was a weird time, he recalled. When they would land on the beach, the men were ordered to carry their weapons, but with no ammunition inside.

“It did not feel safe at all,” Kaiser said.

Kaiser volunteered for a second tour in 1967, where, for 12 months, he was in charge of patrolling the coast on board of a swiftboat, a 51-foot vessel made of aluminum that offered no protection from bullets, which could pierce through multiple boats before stopping.

“Your protection is what you shoot back with,” said Kaiser, who, as the officer, was in charge of five men.

While the crew carried assault rifles and grenade launchers, the boat was armed with a twin .50 caliber machine gun above the cockpit and an 81-millimeter mortar that had another .50 caliber machine gun mounted on top of that.

Day and night, the swiftboat crew would inspect boats in search of Vietcong members, a guerrilla force that fought against South Vietnam along with North Vietnam. The crew also searched for any weapons smuggled to the Vietcong.

These boats would often be used for fishing or to transport supplies and were inspected with the help of the Vietnamese liaison officer.

On a normal day, Kaiser said, they would conduct 20 to 50 inspections. Those found without proper documentation or with weapons would be taken to the shore to be further interrogated.

Over time, Kaiser said, American soldiers grew more suspicious of the people they would encounter. Even children could represent a threat, though he acknowledged the children had no fault.

He recalled how children would often interact with the soldiers, who would give them candy while unloading supplies from the boats. One day, a little girl set off a hand grenade, killing herself and a soldier on another boat. After that, Kaiser said, they stopped allowing children to visit the boats.

Whenever they were stationed at the harbor in Da Nang, crewmembers on watch had to throw concussion grenades on the side of the boat to take care of any swimmer who could have been attempting to attach mines to the side of the boat.

The water posed another risk to the swiftboats, particularly at the river estuary, where huge swells of water would often make navigation to the other side impossible.

“Eight of these boats were lost during the Vietnam War,” Kaiser said. “I lost one of them.”

One day, after saving five Vietnamese fishermen who had fallen off their boats, a large wave flipped Kaiser’s swiftboat upside down and sank it. Each man in his crew had saved a fisherman, prompting Kaiser to write them all up for commendation.

Much to his disappointment, he said, the Navy did nothing.

With the swiftboat, Kaiser would also help the Marines sneak into areas where the Viet Cong moved at night.

About every night, they would be requested to attack the enemy with a controversial tactic known as harassment and interdiction. They would receive the coordinates to shoot at, firing a few rounds at random intervals to instill a sense of fear in the enemy.

This posed a risk to innocent civilians and also proved to be very wasteful, according to various sources.

When staying at the Marines’ camp near the border with North Vietnam, Kaiser and his comrades experienced multiple attacks from the enemy. Because they would leave their weapons on the boat, Navy sailors would let the Marines take care of it while they hid in what Kaiser called “fox holes,” which were basically holes in the ground. Sometimes, they would take a case of beer with them before seeking shelter.

All of these near-death situations, Kaiser later found, proved to be in vain.

At the beginning of the conflict, Kaiser thought he was helping prevent communism from “taking over the world,” as many Americans were told. But over time, as he experienced the horrors of the war and lost friends, he became disillusioned.

Over 3 million people died in the Vietnam War, half of which were Vietnamese civilians, and more than 58,000 were Americans, according to History.com.

Despite some positives, such as the friends he made along the way, Kaiser believes it’s a war the country should have never been involved in.

Grethe Cammermeyer, who led a neurosurgical intensive care unit at the 24th Evacuation Hospital in Long Binh, feels the same way.

Like Kaiser, Cammermeyer initially believed the United States was in Vietnam for the right reasons — fighting the evils of communism. When her husband at the time learned he was being sent to Vietnam, she decided to do her part and volunteered to go.

“When you’re in uniform, you believe what your superiors tell you,” she said. “No one would send people to war to die and to deal with that, unless it was the right reason.”

After she returned home, her beliefs began to crumble as she learned of details that were kept from her and many who had served overseas. Being born and raised in Norway under Nazi occupation, she felt even more appalled by the actions of the United States.

“Not only had we done an overkill, it was we had ruined this country,” she said, mentioning how, to this day, Vietnamese civilians are killed by unexploded bombs.

The devastation also affected her fellow Americans.

The former Army nurse, who earned a Bronze Star for meritorious service, has vivid memories of the agonizing men she took care of. The war, she said, not only traumatized soldiers, but nurses as well.

“Looking at these youngsters who were 18, 19 years old and realizing there was nothing that we were going to be able to do to help them was probably the most difficult experience that still lingers in my mind and heart,” Cammermeyer said.

For a while, Cammermeyer and her husband moved to the countryside, choosing to stay away from people and abstain from the media.

Despite feeling betrayed by the government, the 82-year-old South Whidbey resident believes those who served did not deserve the treatment they received after their return to America.

While there were parades for soldiers who served in other wars, Vietnam veterans did not receive the same accolades, which Cammermeyer said felt like their sacrifices did not matter.

Now, she said, the public tends to make a distinction between the war itself and those who fought it.

Many governments around the country have held events to honor veterans who have served between 1955 and 1975, with veterans receiving lapel pins and copies of the proclamation.

Now, Bacon said, it’s time for Island County to step up.

She stressed the importance of honoring the sacrifices made by Vietnam era veterans who went through various traumas during and after their service.

“We owe a huge debt of gratitude to everyone who’s ever served in the military,” she said.

The commissioner invites community members to give their input and reach out to her for volunteer opportunities at district1@islandcountywa.gov, or to the Whidbey Veterans Resource Center at whidbeyvrc@gmail.com.

Donald Kaiser poses with photos and a diary from his time in Vietnam while holding a drawing of the swiftboat he was in charge of during the war. (Photo by Luisa Loi)

Island County Commissioner Melanie Bacon served in the Army Security Agency from 1974 to 1977, and had top secret security clearance. At the time, she said, women in the army faced discrimination and harassment from their peers and superiors. For example, she recalled how the men would send their fatigues to be washed and ironed while women were expected to do that themselves. (Photo provided)

Donald Kaiser, 82, poses with a photo of himself at 24. (Photo by Luisa Loi)

A young Donald Kaiser in Vietnam. After he left the country, Kaiser has never returned. (Photo provided)

Margarethe Cammermeyer is a former colonel in the Washington National Guard and a gay rights activist. At 19, she joined the Army Nurse Corps, treating injured soldiers in Vietnam. The 1995 movie “Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story,” is based on her life experiences. (Photo provided)