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Recollections

By Dave Kettenhofen

I didn't have to go to Vietnam in 1970, I volunteered. People have intimated that I should have known the war was wrong by then and should not have put myself in that position. That's fair enough. I usually respond by saying that I needed to be a part of the biggest event of our lifetime, or that it seemed adventurous, or some such half-truth.

It's been twenty-six years since I returned from Vietnam. At first there was a long period of denial - fifteen years - when I tried not to think, say, or even admit that I had been a part of the war there. I was always quite active in political and social causes during that time, but I always tried to remain insulated or removed from the Vietnam thing. I didn't even become active in VVAW until the mid-80s when the pot was boiling in Latin America and all I could envision were my two sons coming home in body bags.

Last week I was reminded of the real reason why I went to Vietnam, and the reason I joined VVAW. While working on a hospital's boiler, I got into a conversation with Jerry, a maintenance worker there. Upon hearing that I was from Appleton, Wisconsin, he asked if I knew an old Army buddy of his from Vietnam named Tim Arens, also from Appleton. The name hit me like a brick. Tears welled up in my eyes and I said that yes, Tim was a friend of mine from high school.

Tim and I received our draft notices just in time for Christmas, 1967 and were scheduled to leave for the Army together in February of the next year, Well I decided that I didn't really relish the idea of stomping around the jungles of Vietnam as an infantryman, so I signed up for the Air Force instead. After that Tim would always try to talk me out of it, saying that the Army was only two years, instead of the Air Force's four, and that it wouldn't be all that bad. I didn't buy his arguments, and I left for the Air Force four days before he left for the Army.

I didn't see Tim again until the following October. I was home on leave, getting ready to go to Turkey for eighteen months, when Tim's death notice appeared in the paper. Grief-stricken and filled with guilt, I went to his funeral. They had a closed casket. It could've been, should've been me, I thought.

Jerry, the hospital worker, told me he was with Tim when he got killed. They were in-country for only a few weeks when their patrol came upon an NVA encampment and took it hard. Out of about seventy US soldiers, Jerry was one of only thirty who survived that action. He said that he was just getting to know Tim, liked him a lot, and loved his sense of humor. Jerry was wounded in the elbow and finished out his tour convinced that every day would be his last.

When I arrived in November 1968, I immediately put in for reassignment to Vietnam. Personnel assured me that it would be no problem and that I would be assigned there upon completion of my current tour. Somehow I felt that the only way I could relieve my feelings of guilt was to serve my time in Vietnam too. But I later realized that things don't really work that way.

A senseless, needless death, that's why I went to Vietnam and that's why I joined VVAW. Going to Vietnam didn't give me the satisfaction and relief I was looking for, but it did at least give me a firsthand look at the lies that were being spewed out by our country's leaders. Being a part of VVAW does give me that satisfaction though, because VVAW is fighting to stop those senseless, needless deaths. I can't make up for Tim Arens' death or even remove the hurt, but I can work to prevent the death of some other Tim. That's one of the reasons why VVAW has been around for thirty years and will continue to be around for many more years.

Dave Kettenhofen is a VVAW National Coordinator from Milwaukee.