As the United States observes Veterans Day and Canada marks Remembrance Day on November 11, two Vietnam veterans from Washington County share the reticence of many of their fellow veterans when it comes to discussing their service during a time when the United States population was deeply divided about the war taking place overseas. Dennis Preston and Leroy Kelley feel it was important to share their experiences of war, to make sure that the service and sacrifices made by all veterans is remembered and that the younger generations understand that war exacts a terrible toll.
      Neither man wanted to discuss "the blood and guts" of their service, as Preston said with a shake of his head. It's what people want to hear, he added, but it's not what either wanted to talk about. The pain of returning to a country that judged and reviled their service is still with them. Instead each man shared a sketch of their time in service, the journey he took when he returned home, the undiagnosed PTSD, exposure to Agent Orange and more that took many years to understand and face.

'You made yourself forget'
      Lance Corporal Leroy Kelley served for 13 months with the U.S. Marine Corps as a helicopter door gunner. Growing up in Lubec he had an affinity for math and science. When his draft number came in at 12 he thought that he'd have a better chance of controlling his fate if he enlisted. His interest in science and math translated into avionics, and he trained for it. "If you worked on the helicopters, you had to be the door gunner," Kelley explains.
      "When we left the states, we left piecemeal, not as a group. I think that was a bad thing, and I'm not sure why" the Marine Corps structured it that way. Kelley adds, "When we got over there we didn't know anything." He thinks about the kind of questions he's asked when he goes to speak to school children. "Stay in school," he advises. "It's the only way to get ahead." War is not fun. "You're scared, and if you're not scared," he shakes his head, leaving the sentence unfinished.
      "When we first got there it was like going into an oven, it was so hot," Kelley says of arriving in Vietnam. Upon landing he remembers seeing a bunch of guys. "They looked so old." It turned out that the men had served their 13 months and were returning home. "We were pretty much into it right away," he adds. "You never really flew with the same crew. They thought it better if people were mixed." He remembers, "We'd be asleep and someone would come wake you up. You never knew where you were going." The helicopters ran offense and defense, medical evacuation, resupply and more. "We were the workhorse. We had to go in and pick up the guys if they needed extraction."
      In a citation that Kelley received when presented with one of his Air Medals, one such emergency extraction is described. Kelley was the aerial gunner aboard a transport helicopter assigned the emergency extraction of an eight man reconnaissance team heavily engaged in combat with a large North Vietnamese Army force. The Marine team was receiving hostile fire from three sides, with the North Vietnamese firing positions difficult to locate in the rugged terrain. Kelley's machine gun fire was so effective that the helicopter was able to enter "the hazardous area on its third approach, establish a hover and maneuver backwards into the pick up site until the rotor blades were within two feet of the hillside. When hostile fire erupted from a position 25 meters from the hovering aircraft as two men were being pulled aboard by the crew chief, Lance Corporal Kelley immediately delivered a stream of accurate machine gun fire which silenced the North Vietnamese fire and enabled his helicopter to depart."
      Kelley received 10 Air Medals, Combat Air Crew Wings, three with gold stars designating "heavy, heavy combat," Kelley explains. He has received other medals, but "these are the ones that count to me."
      When Kelley returned to the United States in 1970, "you made yourself forget" about the experience. He recounts how, when he landed in Los Angeles, the pilot welcomed them home. Then they were escorted down to the airport's basement exit rather than exiting from the main entry. They were being shielded from the protesters.
      He returned to Lubec and worked in electronics for a few years and then at the invitation of a fellow Marine and friend began his career in car sales at a dealership, first in Calais and then in Machias. He's retired now but has been active in the American Legion for over 40 years.
      For many years after he returned home, he self medicated with alcohol. "A lot of us found out the hard way" that self medication was not going to work out well. "I look back on it, and I was OK physically, but mentally," he pauses. "It took 20 years" before he decided to go to the VA and get counseling. Along with the counseling he began to talk with other veterans in a weekly group meeting in Machias. "I'm still in it." He adds, "When I first went, I learned more from the guys who had been through it themselves. I stuck with it." He adds that it had not been until fairly recently that he could actually sit still enough to sit through an interview. In the past, "I couldn't sit still and talk to you for more than a minute." It was only about 10 years ago that he finally showed his family the citation. "I was ashamed of it, because of the reception we had received," the terrible names they were called. "But I'm not ashamed now."
      The VA, Kelley says, has provided all the medical help that he has needed over the years, including for his exposure to Agent Orange, which has damaged his muscles and his nerve endings, which he says "are all gone." "They check regularly every year, so if anything is wrong they will find it." He was located in the second heaviest area of Agent Orange use in Vietnam. "I don't know if the government knew what they were doing," he says, but he shakes his head at the thought of the burn pits back then and still taking place around the world and what it could mean for those in service as well as for others.
      Kelley has not returned to Vietnam. He thinks about it. "I went to D.C. to see the wall [Vietnam Veterans Memorial]. It was very hard to do, but I was glad I did." He remembers seeing all the inscribed names and thinking about all those names of veterans not listed who have since died from self medicating overdoses, exposure to Agent Orange and war injuries, or taking their lives. "It was a no win situation." But with his family now extending to a great-great-grandchild, he wants to make it to 100. "Twenty six more years to go!" he says with a grin.

'They couldn't get you ready for it'
      Petty Officer Dennis Preston of Edmunds served in the U.S. Navy for six years and spent 13 months in Vietnam as part of the brown water navy as a forward gunner on a river patrol boat with a four person crew. The boats were small, light and highly maneuverable and considered the backbone of the brown water navy's ability to navigate Vietnam's maze of rivers.
      "I knew I was going to be drafted so I joined the Navy." Preston's brother was in the U.S. Army and advised him to serve in a different branch. In 1966 he went to Navy boot camp, and when he graduated he was sent to a missile cruiser in San Diego. He went on board as a fireman but "couldn't stand being below decks." He transferred to gunnery. "That may have been my downfall," he adds.
      After a year in the Mediterranean where his ship was involved in the 1967 Six Day War between Israel and Arab countries he returned to the states, where he was transferred to the brown water navy. "It was a special forces unit," he explains. He was enrolled in a number of different schools in California to learn a condensed version of the Vietnamese language, small-boat training and Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training. "From there it was downhill to Vietnam."
      A citation Preston received when presented with the Navy Commendation Medal outlines the duress river patrol boat crews were under. It states, "During those patrols, he boarded and searched numerous junks and sampans, interdicted cross river traffic, enforced curfew, inserted and extracted friendly forces in hostile territory, and provided fire support for besieged units and outputs." It continues that on October 4, 1969, "his boat was part of a five-boat patrol making an incursion in a small canal north of the Ong Doc River. As the canal narrowed and became more shallow, the patrol suddenly came under heavy enemy recoilless rifle, machine gun and automatic weapons fire. Petty Officer Preston immediately laid down a heavy volume of suppressive fire into the enemy positions. As the patrol turned in the narrow confines of the canal, he continued his suppressive fire and covered the patrol's progress out of the kill zone and the evacuation of the wounded from a disabled boat. His efforts were instrumental" in ensuring that the patrol boats cleared the kill zone.
      Preston was wounded three times and received three purple hearts, medals that "have meaning to me." As a gunner on a river patrol boat he participated in 206 combat patrols and engaged the enemy on 14 separate occasions.
      When Preston returned to the United States, "my wounds, other than in my head, were healed." He was offered disability benefits but refused them. "I didn't realize I was disabled, now I realize it."
      He has mixed feelings about the protests to the war. The government was lying to the people on a number of fronts. "They said we were not in Cambodia. I was in Cambodia a lot." He adds, "I'm so skeptical of the government." The skepticism and the pain that came from being treated with hostility by protesters is still very much alive. "It's been 53 years since I came home. You'd think it would dull, but it hasn't." He still wonders what kind of person he would have become if he had not had to serve.
      Once home, Preston was fortunate to eventually land in a field of work that he enjoyed. He took a job as a park ranger and stayed with it for 30 years. "It was a really good career; it kept me outdoors. It probably saved me." But it took him 30 years to realize that he needed help. "When I decided to go talk to them [the VA], they recognized right away that I was nuts," he says with a laugh, but his eyes are pained. He talked to a counselor who used a description that made perfect sense to him. "He told me you're like a bottle of wine with a cork in it, and every time you go by you give it a shake." Pretty soon that bottle of wine has been shaken many, many times, and at some point that cork is going to come out with an explosion.
      "The VA has been excellent," Preston says. "It's so different from the 1970s to now, it's like a different country." He has had Agent Orange related health problems and more to contend with. His counselor tried to get him involved with veterans groups, but "I just don't want to hash it over. I have friends in and not in the military, and they want to know my story. Everyone wants to know what it was like. It was so senseless. It was controlled chaos. There's nothing to compare it to. They [the military] couldn't get you ready for it."
      Preston has been offered opportunities to return to Vietnam. "I left a few pounds of flesh there; there's nothing to go back for. Maybe in my next life."
      Preston's family, his children, grandchildren and now two great-grandchildren and the many little neighborhood friends who call him "poppa" are "what keeps me sane." The pain is still very much there for Preston as he thinks about his time in Vietnam, but he gets up from his chair, corrals the big and rambunctious dog he and his wife live with and goes outside where a stream, the woods and pear trees still heavy with late-season fruit surround him.