Because of the pandemic, Memorial Day observances are not being scheduled or are being scaled back this year, but the sacrifices of those who died in service to this country are still remembered and honored. While those who fought in the Vietnam War sometimes were met by antiwar protests when they returned home, they endured and sacrificed as much as any of the country's veterans, although they may have conflicted feelings about the war itself. Three local residents who served then now tell their stories and remember those who died.

Getting overrun near the DMZ
     Allan Sutherland of Eastport enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps when he was 17, spending four years on active duty. Following infantry training at Camp Lejeune, he volunteered for Vietnam. He first went to Okinawa, where he says he changed his mind. "Why do I want to go there?" he asked himself. But he ended up being sent, eventually taking part in Operation Kingfisher near Con Thien, a Marine combat base near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), about three kilometers from North Vietnam, that sought to prevent the infiltration of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) into South Vietnam. He served there with Hotel Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines from late August to November 1967. "We were there as a buffer battalion set up outside Con Thien," he recalls. "There was constant artillery and rocket barrage."
    When there were incoming rounds, "all you can do is get in the hole," he notes. "If we called in the Phantom jets, they would make so much noise, you'd have to stick your head up to see if anyone is coming. But if the jets are there, you can't hear artillery coming."
     One night in October "we got overrun" by NVA units, and the company's executive officer was killed. Sutherland recalls some of the Marines who were there from Maine, including a young man from South Portland who was killed, and Bobby Tracy from Calais, who survived, although a mortar round landed on his M16 rifle and he ended up getting wounded later on. Sutherland says what saved the company was that "we had a tank right up in back of us." When he was on sea duty in the Mediterranean, he ended up meeting with the fellow from Cape Cod who was in the tank.
Later his company was sent back to the same spot around Washout Bridge when his company experienced "another horror story." They started getting hit by mortar rounds, "did a hasty 3600" and found there were at least 250 NVA nearby. "It made for a long night," he recalls. The NVA soldiers would blow their bugles and bang their mess cans, "trying to psyche us out." His fire team leader from the Bronx was hit by shrapnel, earning his second Purple Heart. "They were bringing boxes of grenades to us. If we heard a sound, we'd throw a grenade. We didn't hesitate." Looking back at the experience over 50 years later, he can add matter of factly, "You were scared." His company then "called in our artillery," and half a battalion of Marines came the next morning "to bring us out."
     Sutherland recalls that at one time in Hotel Company there were just a handful of soldiers who didn't have a Purple Heart from being wounded or killed.
After leaving Vietnam in November 1967, he was later deployed for six months in the Mediterranean, where they did practice landings, and then went to "Sea School" and was stationed on the aircraft carrier Saratoga for 18 months in the Mediterranean. When the carrier was off Norfolk, Va., they got word that President Nixon was coming aboard. Sutherland was on duty on the bridge, and Nixon came up on the bridge. "I took out my camera, and it went click," and the admiral looked like he "wanted to strangle me," but Nixon put his arm around the captain and said it was OK. Sutherland took some photos, which were then printed in the Norfolk newspapers, although they were credited to the Associated Press.
     After the Marine Corps, Sutherland spent five years in the National Guard and later joined the National Guard combat engineers, going to leadership school, and then switched to a naval construction battalion. He retired from the U.S. Navy Reserve as a senior chief.
     Looking back on his service, he says that when he joined the Marines he was "young and naive. I never had one ounce of politics in my head. As time goes by, generations of us do remember it." But he fears that younger generations are naive about or unaware of the war. "When I first got out of the Marines, I hid the fact that I was in Vietnam," but when he was in the National Guard and Navy Reserve, "I felt like they understood."

Fighting in Vietnam and living with PTSD
     Another area veteran who enlisted in the Marines when he was 17 is Chuck Kniffen of Lubec, who joined in 1964 and served for four years. "When I went over, I was fully embedded in the Marine Corps. I had no concept of politics or the morality of it. I think that was true of a lot of fellows."
     He spent seven months in Vietnam with Fox Company of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, and his company took part in the Battle for the Hills in 1966. Of the war experience, he relates, "At a certain point, you just are there. You wait, you go on patrol and then sometimes there's a fight. It's a very present way of being. You don't think about what might happen, you don't think about what did happen, and you don't think about going home." The new guys and the "old timers" who were near the end of their tours may have been more likely to get injured because they had fears that "mess you up."
     At night in a foxhole or while on patrol one might be afraid -- "I guess you call it terror. It's like coming in on a helicopter. When you're coming in, the fear is palpable. But as soon as you're out the door, the fear disappears immediately."
     Kniffen ended up getting wounded during a firefight that occurred while his squad was overtaking a mortar position in the DMZ as it was going to provide help to a company that was surrounded. "I call it bait and switch. The NVA waited until they felt they can get you. But we snuck up on them this time, which was rare. We came up behind them, and we ran in on them and got into a fray." Kniffen got shot in the stomach, and two of his buddies were killed. "I was going to lay down and die," he says, as he couldn't move. "Then I got shot in the leg, and that woke me up."      He managed to crawl up a hill, with a flurry of bullets hitting around him and one of his finger tips being shot off. He notes, though, "I never felt afraid." A machine gunner from West Virginia got shot five times, and another of his Marine brothers got shot in the shoulder, which "shattered his lung," and he was bleeding out of the mouth. Both of them lived, but first they all had to walk about a mile through the jungle to reach where a helicopter could land to take them out. "I used my rifle as a crutch, and I swore more than I've done in my whole life," Kniffen relates, able to look back now with some humor at the near-death experience.
     While other veterans, when they returned home, "got things thrown at them" by protestors, Kniffen says he did not encounter any negativity at his home outside Groton, Conn. "I rode in the Fourth of July parade with the mayor" and attended a couple of dinners honoring veterans. However, over the years after the war he engaged in a lot of risky behavior -- driving motorcycles at high speeds, kayaking in all weather, drinking and substance abuse. "I'd been bouncing all around the country." About seven years ago he was "living in a hovel in Addison. I had my 12-pack of beer and an outhouse. I was thinking this is good, this is how people live." When he nearly got into a gun battle with a state trooper, he realized he needed to get help and came to understand he had been living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). "It was a mess. I messed up my first marriage," he relates. Of having PTSD, he notes, "Everything is heightened." A task that one might have some difficulty with, he would have "a ton of it." He now attends weekly therapeutic sessions with a counselor and other combat veterans in Machias. "It gives me a feeling of calm to be there," he says. "That presence is reassuring."
     In 2018, Kniffen published Fifty Years in a Foxhole, an episodic account of vivid flashbacks and remembrances of his seven months in combat and his 50 years living with undiagnosed PTSD. In the book's epilogue, he writes, "The Vietnam War was a complete betrayal of the young men and women who fought in it. This war had no moral, ethical or otherwise legitimate purpose." Today he feels wars "just get people killed" and waste a lot of money. "I was hoping people would learn from Vietnam," he says, but he observes, "We're not one step ahead now. We're right back at it."

Honoring those who served
     Another Eastporter who served, although not in combat, is Richard Mealey, who enlisted in the U.S. Navy in June 1968, a month before he turned 18. "I was like all the rest of the kids back then -- not really having any idea what we were getting into." He adds, "I knew I would get drafted. I had no desire to go to Vietnam."
     He served on the aircraft carrier Independence, mostly in the Mediterranean, as a "blue shirt," handling the aircraft on the flight deck and getting them ready for launching. "You learn how to work as a team," he says of his time on board. "You had to be as a team, else you get people killed. It was very fast-paced on the flight deck -- a very dangerous job actually. But I was very fortunate not to have to serve in a combat zone."
     However, he lost friends in the war -- "like [Eastporter] John Huntley, who's still missing, and the young Trott boy from Perry. He was a Marine and killed in combat. I always felt an obligation to those who served in combat."
     "We stole their souls," says Mealey of those who served in Vietnam. "All they did was what their country asked of them." When some soldiers returned home from Vietnam and were called names by those protesting the war, "It was demoralizing," Mealey says. "It affected them to this day. Every time I see a Vietnam veteran I say, 'Welcome home.' And I teach my grandchildren to do this, too."
     While those who protested against the war may have had good intentions, Mealey says, "You hate the war, but you love your soldier." He, too, believes war should only be a last resort and says, "Too many times it's political."
     Because wars keep happening over and over, "I try to tell people, 'Pay attention. Get an education so you can challenge people about this stuff, before we're sent to another war. If you don't know where you've been, how do you know where you're going?'"
      "Some people hate talking about the Vietnam War, but it's our truth and it's our history." He notes that some veterans, like Chuck Kniffen, are fighting PTSD 50 years after the war. "It's just hitting them now. Your mind hides it, then it hits you."
     Mealey is a member of a veterans honor guard, and as for why it was formed in the early 1980s, he says, "We knew what some went through. They gave it their all. They put themselves out there for our country. They deserve to be recognized. And their families -- they pay a high price, sitting at home and hoping they don't get that call."
     At first the group was the Passamaquoddy honor guard and then became the United Veterans Honor Guard of Washington County. "We used to travel all over the state. We went to Canada a lot. We covered everywhere."
     "When we show up, we're local, and the look on their face is 'thank you.' It's a closing," he says of when the honor guard participates in funerals of veterans. "What I like to say to the family when it's finally over is: 'We have now performed our duty. We now pass the torch to you, and it's now your duty to pass on to your children and your grandchildren what your loved one gave for this country.'" Mealey adds, "If we don't pass this on, it happens over and over. The price is terrible."
     After a funeral service, "People will hug me and say, 'Thank you. You didn't forget.'"
The honor guard's emblem is: "Keeping America's promise to those who served." Along with performing military honors at hundreds of funerals, they've marched in parades, served as the honor guard at dedications and carried out fundraisers.
     Of the veterans the honor guard recognizes at funerals, Mealey observes, "They earned this rite. They earned this passage. Some paid a terrible price, and some wounds today you can't see."
Now some of those wounds like PTSD are finally being healed, and the sacrifices made by those who served in a controversial war are being honored.