Biographies

Booneville, Missouri
Wife of Col. Benjamin Purcell, US Army

Anne Purcell was no stranger to military life. Her husband, Ben, was career Army. Like tens of thousands of other military wives, she had lived on bases all over the U.S., and had already seen her husband off to war once in Korea. But on February 12, 1968, less than six months after Ben volunteered for a tour of duty in Vietnam, her world suddenly came crashing down when her husband was reported “missing in action”. She and her five children would spend the next several years living in a tortuous state of limbo, wondering whether her husband was dead or alive, whether she was a wife or a widow. In 1970, Anne became a founding member of the National League of Families, an organization that publicized the issue of MIAs and POWs in Vietnam.

Higganum, Connecticut
U.S. Army, 101st Airborne
Service: Spring 1969 - Spring 1970

By his own admission Arthur Wiknik was just an 18-year old "punk" when his draft notice arrived in April of 1968. Like thousands of other draftees, going off to fight a war a half a world away was not part of his plan. Rushed through non-commissioned officer candidate's school and after just one month in country, Wiknik found himself engaged in one of the most notorious episodes in the Vietnam conflict - the battle of 'Hamburger Hill'. On May 20th, 1969, Wiknik and his men were fighting their way up the hill when he was suddenly struck in the chest. Knocked to the ground, his shirt burst into flames from a tracer round that lodged in his equipment. Badly shaken, but undaunted, he got up, and continued on, eventually fighting his way to the top. Wiknik finished out his tour and returned home in March of 1970. For the next several years he endured the challenges and personal struggles of balancing his wartime memories with those of an America that did not want to hear about Vietnam. Thirty some years later, he would write a memoir, entitled 'Nam Sense,' as a means of coming to terms with his experiences.

San Bernadino, California
U.S. Army, 196th Light Infantry Brigade and Americal Division
Service: Summer 1967 - Spring 1968

In 1966, fresh out of high school, Barry Romo enlisted in the U.S. Army to join the struggle against the communist threat in Vietnam. Romo’s father and brother had both served in WWII and as a Catholic boy growing up in suburban California, Romo was raised to believe in God and Country. By 1967, at the age of 19, he was a newly commissioned officer and platoon leader with the 196th Infantry, during a period when the U.S. military was increasing the number of ground troops stationed in Vietnam. Romo proved his own valor in the field and was awarded a Bronze Star for his efforts to save his wounded men when his unit was decimated by enemy fire. Despite the military decoration, Romo grew increasingly disillusioned with the role of U.S. forces in Vietnam, and when his nephew was killed in an ambush, Romo escorted his body home and served out the remainder of his tour stateside, training troops at Fort Ord, California. By the fall of 1968, Romo was discharged from the Army and two years later became involved in the controversial Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Romo helped to organize demonstrations in Washington, D.C. that included veterans’ testimony before Congress, search and destroy reenactments, and an unprecedented act of hundreds of vets throwing away the medals they had earned in Vietnam. Barry Romo is still a patriot who believes in the responsibility of the government to its people and the citizen’s responsibility to speak out in the cause of fairness and democracy.

Salem, Ohio
U.S. Advisor to the ARVN and U.S. Army 101st Assault Helicopter Battalion
Service: Summer 1964 - Summer 1965 and Spring 1970 - Summer 1971

A farm boy from rural Ohio, Bob Clewell grew up listening to his father and uncle relay heroic tales of World War II, so when as a teenager he found himself ‘bored with life’ the military seemed like the perfect solution. Arriving just weeks after the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August of 1964, Clewell was one of over 16,000 American military advisors serving in Vietnam. After his advisor tour, Clewell remained in the army and rose through the ranks, returning to Vietnam first in March of 1967 as a fixed wing reconnaissance airplane pilot and then again in 1970 as a company commander of the ‘Comancheros’ in the 101st Assault Helicopter Battalion. Clewell saw intense action in Operation Lam Son 719 – the largest helicopter operation of the entire war. Narrowly surviving, Clewell eventually returned to his home in Ohio. Today he remains active in veterans groups, and regularly gets together with his fellow Comanchero pilots and crewmen.

Hattiesburg, Mississippi
U.S. Army, 173rd Airborne Brigade
Service: March 1967 - April 1968

In 1958, Mississippi held little opportunity for young African-American Charles Brown. Just out of high school, he quickly realised that in the segregated south the Army was his best shot at a better life. So he left his home and family for training at Ft. Bragg. Before long, he found himself stationed overseas performing some of the most dangerous missions of the war. As Platoon Sergeant, Brown was second in command to a platoon in the 173rd Airborne Brigade, leading search and destroy missions through the deadly jungles of Pleiku and Dak To. After taking shrapnel in both legs from a booby trap, Charles went back to the front lines and in November of 1967 fought in the battle of Dak To, which ended in the bitter fight for Hill 875. For his role in the fighting at Dak To and Hill 875, Brown was awarded two Bronze Stars. After the war, he struggled with health problems stemming from his wartime injuries. But within time, he recovered, completed his education and lived to see the dawning of a new South in the United States. In 1994, the mayor of Hattiesburg, MS, named Brown the town’s first Veteran of the Year. In 2000, Brown paid a visit to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) for first time since the war. There he met a Vietnamese man who remembered the war. “Come”, he said. “We celebrate survival.”

Monticello, New York
U.S. Army, 1st Division
Service: Spring 1969 - Summer 1969

Like thousands of other young American men, Don DeVore struggled intensely with what he would do if he were drafted to serve in Vietnam. He had no desire to become a war hero, and no dreams of winning glory or greatness on a battlefield. In the late summer of 1968, DeVore’s number was called and within weeks he was shipped off to basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Arriving in Vietnam in March of 1969, DeVore was assigned to an artillery unit at a fire support base known as Firebase Jim. His job was to provide accurate fire support for the search and destroy patrols that were taking place on a near daily basis in the surrounding jungles. After four months, DeVore was granted compassionate leave to attend the birth of his first child. Upon returning home, he found himself in the middle of the largest peace and love festival of the decade – Woodstock. It was a stark contrast to the harsh combat he returned to just days later. In September of 1969, the Viet Cong infiltrated Firebase Jim and DeVore was severely wounded by an RPG (rocket propelled grenade), sustaining an injury to his left arm that kept him hospitalized for nearly two years. The psychological and physical effects of his combat experience were devastating. For years, DeVore never spoke about the war. When questioned about the scars on his arm, he would tell people they were the result of a motorcycle accident. Finally, in the late 1990s, he sought treatment at a VA hospital, and after several years of counseling he was finally able to come to terms with wartime experience.

Huntington, West Virginia
U.S Army, Nurse Corps
Service: April 1967 - April 1968

Elizabeth Allen graduated from Ohio State University with a Masters in psychiatric nursing. With a brother serving in Vietnam, Allen turned her back on a potentially profitable career within the medical profession stateside and instead joined the Army to help men like her brother. Captain Allen requested frontline duty and was assigned to the remote 12th Evac Hospital at Cu Chi where the constant stream of wounded was a gruesome introduction to the realities of war. In the winter of 1967, Allen transferred to another field hospital in Pleiku, which would soon come under attack during the Tet Offensive. Donning a helmet and flak jacket, Allen watched as a rocket tore through the roof of an operating room at the hospital. She heroically dashed out into the night, amid the falling bombs to try to save the lives of those caught in the explosions. In April of 1968, Allen completed her tour in Vietnam but went on to serve 14 years in the U.S. Army Reserves. She was then appointed by Governor James Blanchard to the Michigan Agent Orange Commission, where she served five years - three as the Chair. She has also consulted with the Veterans Administration on the care of African American and women veterans in the areas of post-traumatic stress and exposure to Agent Orange.

Charlemont, Massachusetts
U.S. Navy, “River Raiders”
Service: Fall 1968 - Winter 1969

20-year-old Gery Benedetti joined the Navy and found himself assigned to a cable-laying ship doing acoustical work from Greenland to the Azores and Alaska to Midway Island for two years. In the summer of 1968, however, while the ship was docked at Mare Island in California, he caught his first glimpse of Vietnam river boats and was immediately hooked. He put in for a transfer and after three months of river training and attending S.E.R.E. school, was in South Vietnam. Benedetti spent the next year serving as a gunner on a troop carrier and a coxswain (boat driver) on an alpha boat A-112-6. Benedetti participated in Operation Giant Slingshot on the Van Co Dong River, setting night ambushes against NVA and VC insurgents headed for Saigon and the Mekong Delta, and also transported infantry soldiers and Navy Seals to and from points of incursion. As part of Nixon's Vietnamization program, he was tasked with helping to train the South Vietnamese to take over combat operations. After the war, Benedetti got marries and went to college, where he earned a degree in physical education. After teaching for one year, he decided his temperament wasn't right for it and decided to go into construction. Today, he enjoys mountain biking, downhill racing, white water kayaking, climbing and hiking.

New Lexington, Ohio
U.S. Advisor to the ARVN, Aide to General Creighton Abrams, and U.S. Army 1st Cavalry
Service: Summer 1963 – Summer 1970

James Anderson first arrived in South Vietnam in 1963, long before American ground troops were mobilised to Southeast Asia. As an experienced Army Ranger School instructor, Anderson was assigned as an advisor to the South Vietnamese Army as a counter-guerilla specialist, tasked with training the ARVN to avoid enemy ambushes. In July of 1964, he returned home to complete his education and to teach physical education at West Point. When General Creighton Abrams replaced General Westmoreland as overall military commander in Vietnam in 1968, Anderson was reassigned as an aide to the newly appointed commander and spent seven months working closely with him. In January of 1970, Anderson assumed command of a battalion in the 1st Cavalry and led them on a controversial mission over the border into Cambodia to locate and destroy enemy supply dumps. But when the American public erupted in protest over the Cambodian mission, President Nixon cut the operation short and Anderson was ordered to halt before he could reach his objective. Later that year, at the end of his tour, Anderson returned to the U.S. to work at the Pentagon. After receiving his PhD at Indiana University, he returned to West Point where he became Professor and Head of the Department of Phyiscal Education, known as "The Master of the Sword." 

Refugio, Texas
Combat Reporter, UPI (United Press International)
Service: Spring 1965 - Spring 1975

In the early 1960s Joe Galloway was a fresh, young reporter fascinated by accounts of the growing political and social turmoil in Vietnam, so he began writing letters to his editor begging for a transfer to Southeast Asia. If his generation was going to fight a war in Vietnam, Galloway was going to cover it from the frontlines. In the spring of 1965 Galloway got his wish. As the first American ground troops began streaming into the country, UPI transferred him to South Vietnam, and assigned him to cover the blossoming conflict. By November he would be embedded with the command unit of the 1st Cavalry Division in the midst of the first major battle of the Vietnam War – the Ia Drang Valley. He would go on to serve a total of four tours in Vietnam – returning in 1971 to cover Operation Lam Son 719, in 1973 for the release of the POWs, and in 1975 for the fall of Cambodia and, ultimately, South Vietnam. Galloway became one of the most influential reporters of the period and went on to co-author ‘We Were Soldiers Once…And Young’ based on his experience at Ia Drang. Joe Galloway would spend more than 20 years working as a foreign and war correspondent for UPI, causing General H. Norman Schwarzkopf to refer to him as “the finest combat correspondent of our generation.” In 1998 Galloway was awarded a Bronze Star with V for Valor for rescuing wounded soldieries under fire at Ia Drang. He is the only civilian to receive a combat medal from the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

Seaside, Oregon
U.S. Marine Corps, 3rd Marine Division
Service: Fall 1968 - Fall 1969

In 1967, twenty-two-year-old Karl Marlantes was poised for a brilliant academic career. A Marine Platoon Leaders Class Candidate turned Rhodes scholar, he was eligible to defer military service until he completed his education. But at Oxford as he watched more and more friends from his small hometown ship off to Vietnam, his conscience began to get the best of him – and so he gave up the Rhodes Scholarship and volunteered to serve. By the fall of 1968, Marlantes was a Marine Lieutenant leading a group of men against the North Vietnamese Army in the vicious ‘I Corps’ region of South Vietnam – the area closest to the Demilitarized Zone that separates the North and South. It would be up to them to stop the enemy in a seemingly endless succession of hills and mountains – all to be taken, often at great cost. After the war, Marlantes came home to experience painful examples of the public distain inflicted on many who served in Vietnam. He returned to Oxford to complete his education and later in life published two books: ‘Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War,’ and 'What It is Like to Go To War," a non-fiction book, both based on his experiences.

Sioux City, Iowa
U.S. Air Force Fighter Pilot (F-100s & F-4s)
Service: Spring 1965 - Fall 1965 and Spring 1969 - Winter 1969

Born in Sioux City and raised in Denver, Colorado, army brat Keith Connolly always knew he loved the military life and its promise of adventure and excitement. Landing at Da Nang Airfield in February of 1965, Connolly was among the first USAF units to be stationed within South Vietnam. Within weeks of Connolly’s arrival, he participated in one of the war’s first massive bombing campaigns, known as Operation Rolling Thunder, flying countless missions against strategic targets in North Vietnam. In June of 1969 Connolly returned to South Vietnam for a second tour, this time flying F-4 Phantoms targeting the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Connolly remained in the Air Force until 1990, when he retired with the rank of Brigadier General. Today he remains active in veterans’ organisations.

Sterling, Illinois
Navy Corpsman, E Company 2/26 Marines, 3rd Marine Division
Service: Fall 1967 - Spring 1968

One of 13 children born to poor Mexican sharecropper parents in Louisiana, Raymond Torres joined the Navy as a means to get a better education. He always had an interest in the medical field and thought he could pursue his dream by volunteering to become a Navy Corpsman and then eventually attending medical school. Arriving in Vietnam in the fall of 1967, Torres was assigned to a Marine Corps company running patrols around Phu Bai, and a few short months later, landed in the middle of America’s longest battle in the Vietnam War – the 77-day siege at Khe Sanh. Stationed on Hill 861A, one of several defensive outposts that ring the Marine base, Torres and his men participated in some of the most vicious close quarters fighting of the war. Tending to wounded Marines during the battle, Torres was critically injured when a grenade exploded within three feet of him. He was med-evaced from the base – never to return to Vietnam again. After the war Torres returned home to find that his father was terminally ill. Rather than pursue his education he took an early discharge from the military in 1970, just three months short of his four-year tour, in order to stay home and care for his father. He spent the next thirty years working in a local steel factory in Illinois. When the mill closed, he worked drawing blood for the Red Cross, forever grateful for the care they had provided him during the war. Torres spent many years dealing with the fact that the men and women who sacrificed in Vietnam did not receive the proper respect upon returning home. He believes that the many American troops who did not suffer physical wounds should still be considered casualties of war.