A band of brothers and sisters

Ienlisted in the Army in May of 1972 and finished my active duty on April 30, 1975, returning from Europe on the same day as the fall of Saigon.

I have been a part of the Army family ever since.

Like families everywhere, we have our ups and downs, wins and losses, sometimes arguing with each other. But there is love, and always, family. Veterans of all armed services are like that, too. It’s that “band of brothers” effect and it holds for our sisters, too.

Several of my friends and brothers are longtime Antelope Valley folks and each fought in the 101st Airborne in Vietnam. They stopped sending most Americans to Vietnam about the time I joined, but many troops I served with were Vietnam vets, so I learned a bit about their hardships and challenges after war.

From the Screaming Eagles wing of the family, Mike Bertell is president of Point Man of the Antelope Valley. It’s a group that helps vets heal and keep faith with each other. Another, Gerry Rice, served with the 101st as a grunt and scout dog handler and is a therapist for veterans with PTSD and other difficulties.

Two more friends from that storied unit, Henry Ochsner and Daniel McBride, fought from D-Day to Bastogne and then VE-Day, 1945. We lost Henry at 96 in September 2019. McBride is still living, serving, giving witness and testimony to what those men did to win World War II.

Last week I visited the Museum of the US Army at Ft. Belvoir, Va. It’s the first to encompass the full history of the Army and opened, virtually, this past Veterans Day because of the pandemic.

It’s been only open to visitors since Independence Day. It’s on scale with a Smithsonian museum and comprises galleries that begin shortly before Gen. George Washington’s stand at Valley Forge and the story continues through the battles waged since 9/11.

In the gallery of World War II, a full-size Sherman tank is being waved toward Bastogne, by a battered, battling trooper of the 101st Airborne. They did not win World War II by themselves. Twelve million Americans served, but they remain symbolic of the will required to beat Hitler and the Nazis.

Ochsner, 96 when he died, still had that spirit and McBride, 97, also still has it.

“I would do it again in a minute,” McBride said at a dinner this year. “I’d go right now.”

The trip back East was part of a journey that began almost 50 years ago. My Army paratrooper wings were awarded in 1973, after my fifth jump on a drop zone near Wiesbaden Air Base where the 8th Infantry Division’s Parachute School made its headquarters in Cold War Germany.

The best officer I served with was Stuart Watkins, a Ranger-qualified captain who served with another historic unit in Vietnam, the “Red Hat” advisors who fought alongside paratroopers of the Vietnamese Airborne Division.

Unlike many Army of Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) units, the paratroopers of Vietnam fought to the last day of the war, April 30, 1975. Fighting at their side in 1969, Watkins was awarded the Silver Star and other decorations. It was an honor to exit an aircraft in flight with him, many times, in our NATO posting.

When I left Army Europe in 1975 to jump-start a journalism career, Watkins presented me his camouflage battle jacket with Vietnamese rank and patches. “They deserve to be remembered Andy,” he told me. “They were gentle people and brave fighters.”

After the fall of South Vietnam, numerous Vietnamese paratroopers went into communist prison camps where many died. Some who survived came to the United States in a program President Ronald Reagan initiated. The survivors’ sons and daughters joined the US military in droves, mostly as officers.

When Vietnamese paratroopers hold reunions, they join with the American brother advisors, the “Red Hats” of Team 162, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. Retired Lt. Gen. John LeMoyne said the Americans of Team 162 “we’re there to support them with helicopters, air support, artillery ... and they taught us how to fight. They were the reason I stayed in the Army.”

This year, the two groups of warriors in jaunty red berets gathered at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Watkins and I reconnected after more than 45 years. I returned his jacket with Vietnamese Airborne patches intact. We plan to jump together next month at Ft. Benning, Ga. for “Airborne Day.”

I attended the joint reunion, part of a research project that succeeded, thanks to generous help from “Red Hat” friend Germaine Loc Swanson, one of the first Vietnamese paratroopers in the late 1950s.

“We are like the Band of Brothers,” Bernard Nyugen, another Vietnamese Airborne survivor who lived to succeed in America, said. “We are family, like that.” Family. With all the ups and downs of family, thick and thin. War and peace. Peace is better. Much better.