Tet was turning point for many area vets » Region » Traverse City Record-Eagle
TRAVERSE CITY — John LeBrun arrived in Vietnam on the first day of the Tet Offensive — 43 years ago today. On his second day, Jan. 31, 1968, he was sent to Hue, the ancient former capital of Vietnam and the scene of intense hand-to-hand combat. He was 18. The Tet Offensive, a surprise Viet Cong and North Vietnam attack against 100 South Vietnam cities and villages, is considered a major turning point in the Vietnam War because it marked the beginning of a growing American anti-war sentiment. Lance Cpl. John LeBrun had a turning point of his own, though somewhat different. It came on Hill 881 near Khe Sanh on April 22, 1968. Mortar hit him in the face. He lost an eye and the top of his head. Three pieces of shrapnel lodged in the left front lobe of his brain. Doctors removed the shrapnel, removed the injured eye and put in an artificial one. They closed his head injury with a platinum plate and sent him back to the United States for more medical care and rehabilitation. "I was a mess; no hair, no eye," he said. "My whole face was torn up with a scar ear-to-ear that follows the hairline. It looked like stitches on a baseball. They basically had to take my face off and put it back together." He had to learn to walk again. Doctors told him he probably wouldn't live past 40, that he likely would have epileptic seizures the rest of his life and that his memory wouldn't return. "Right then, I started doing multiplication tables in my head," he said. "I was too bull-headed to accept that." 'Well enough to give' LeBrun, a Bay City native who now lives near Interlochen, could be the poster veteran for the Vietnam War. He enlisted to avoid the draft; he was injured five times during his three and a half months of combat. He recalls war protesters spitting on him and calling him "baby killer" as he was rolled off a plane to be taken to a U.S. military hospital. He tried for six years to work, but finally had to stop because of seizures and severe migraines. Today, he has a 90 percent disability rating and lives with his wife. He volunteers once a week at the Veterans of Foreign Wars center on Veterans Drive in Traverse City because he's "well enough to give back." LeBrun avoids reflecting on the war today because his biggest fight in his healing is to maintain a positive, can-do attitude. "My self-preservation has been not to think about it," he said. "I've tried to stay positive, off drugs and keep busy. I take every day as it comes. I have good days, and I have bad days." He thinks the Vietnam War was a turning point for the United States, one that showed Americans the need to take better care of returning war veterans. Vietnam soldiers often met blame, criticism and ridicule, and got little treatment for post-traumatic stress and other war-related ailments. "People needed to learn to hate the war, but love the warrior," he said. "Don't let happen to today's troops what happened to the Vietnam soldiers." Dreams denied More than 58,267 of the 3.5 million soldiers who served in the Vietnam War between 1964 and 1975 never made it back home. "War is hell," said Bob Hanley, his voice cracking as he talked about joining the Marines in 1963 at age 18 with Tom Yagle, a neighbor and boyhood buddy. Yagle is believed to be the first area soldier to die in Vietnam. He died of multiple mortar wounds on April 16, 1966, near Da Nang. His name is among the 42 names of fallen area Vietnam soldiers listed on the Vietnam memorial stone at the new Grand Traverse Veterans Park along 11th Street. John Burgess' name is there, too. A "hell-hole" is how he described Vietnam in a letter to his sister, Peggy Waukazoo Hardley, of Traverse City. A 1967 Kingsley High School graduate and basketball standout, Burgess joined the Army in 1968 to serve his country and get an education, despite his adoptive mother's objections, Hardley said. His dream was to go to college after the war and become a professional basketball player. He became a helicopter crew chief in the 227th Aviation Battalion. His college and basketball dream crashed and burned near the Cambodia-South Vietnam border on June 30, 1970, after enemy fire hit the UHIH helicopter with a five-man crew aboard. Only one survived. Burgess' body was never recovered and is believed to have burned in the crash. His mother long held out hope that he was alive and only missing, Hardley said. She had adopted him, a sister and a brother when they were preschoolers. Originally born Larry Waukazoo in a family of eight children, Burgess was the great-great-grandson of Pen-dun-wan, Chief Peter Waukazoo, who in the 1840s played a vital role in preserving the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians to the present day, said family genealogist Art Dembinski, of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. His great-grandfather, Joseph Waukazoo, served in the all-Indian Company K of the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters in the Civil War, and his grandfather, Ed Waukazoo, was a World War I veteran. Connections through a Wall The Vietnam War touched Traverse City and the nation in many ways. Its wounds still ache in hearts of many Americans old enough to remember combat, protest marches, and inadequate veterans services and benefits. Families, friends and complete strangers leave flowers, notes and flags along the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. They look up the names of parents, siblings, cousins and old classmates. Peg Brace didn't know Jim Jaquish well when they graduated from Traverse City High School in 1967 and attended some of the same classes at Northwestern Michigan College the next year. But she made a point of going to the Vietnam Wall to see his name in the early 1990s while on vacation in Washington, D.C. She wanted to honor the kind, quiet classmate from Traverse City High School. "I remember touching his name on the panel and realizing that I actually knew someone whose name was on the wall. It was sad. He was so young when he died and had a whole life ahead of him" Jaquish was killed Sept. 23, 1969, in a mine explosion. He played football in high school and received the Order of the Arrow, a Boy Scout leadership honor. He also spent a year on the Traverse City Senior High School student council, the Record-Eagle reported in a front-page story. Melvin Wanageshik, an American Indian from Traverse City, was killed Feb. 19, 1968, during the Tet Offensive. His cousin, Valerie Maidens, tried to honor his memory by asking the Army to correct the misspelling of his name as "Wangeshik" and inaccurate descriptions of him as "Caucasian" and "Baptist." He comes from a long line of Methodists. Wanageshik served in Vietnam as a reconnaissance specialist with the 11th Armored Cavalry from March 8, 1967, until his death. He died of "multiple fragmentation wounds," in Long An Province. Born in Elk Rapids, he attended elementary and junior high schools in Traverse City, and transferred to Kingsley in 1961 and graduated from Kingsley High School. He graduated as a diesel mechanic in June 1966 from a mechanic school in Pontiac and enlisted in the Army in October that year. Maidens never heard back from the Army. She knows the monuments might never be changed, but she hopes clearing the paper record might correct misinformation on the Internet. "It just doesn't seem right," she said. COMING MONDAY: Psychological wounds slow to heal. -- http://record-eagle.com/local/x131146186/Tet-was-turning-point-for-many-area-vets Via InstaFetch -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. 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