A mile-long black wall of smoke erupted as bombs exploded on Quang Tri, dropped by U.S. jets. Del Loewe and his amphibious squadron treaded through the warm South China Sea as a battery of bullets fired at them from Tiger Island in June 1972.
The fireworks seemed to last through light and dark, and Loewe felt his eardrums pulsing. The U.S. carpet bombing continued around the clock and smoke extended three to four miles, he said.
“It was awesome to imagine the devastation the bombings could inflict,” said Loewe, now president of the Viet Nam Veterans of Diablo Valley. “We wanted to flank the communists.”
Soldiers do not choose to fight in war; but they nonetheless have sworn an oath to serve their country, he said.
Nevertheless, it is still important for those who fought to remember the dead, he said.
Such is the path to freedom, the price of liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, many veterans believe.
Local Vietnam veterans like Loewe – who shares his stories with history classes at San Ramon Valley High School – Bill Picton and Richard Lambert and other veterans will hold a ceremony for veterans at the All Wars Memorial in Oak Hill Park on Memorial Day, Picton said.
Also, the Viet Nam Veterans of Diablo Valley and the All Wars Memorial Foundation will unveil two new 2,000-pound granite blocks that contain Abraham Lincoln’s words.
“Memorial Day is the premier event,” said Picton, president of the All Wars Memorial Foundation and an Alamo resident involved in the Viet Nam Veterans of Diablo Valley. “We are recognizing those who served and died since the revolution.”
“We want to honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice,” he added.
Loewe and his two war buddies said they were enthusiastic about joining the Army when they were in their teens. Picton said he always wanted to fly jets.
“I was infatuated with the Navy,” he said. “Frankly, I wanted to fly.” He said he joined the U.S. Marines.
Loewe said his father was a World War II veteran, and he used to watch the 1950s documentary, “Victory at Sea.” He also said he was around U.S. Naval bases in California. He said he enjoyed being around soldiers.
“I admired those guys,” he said. Lambert jjjoined when he was 18 and went to train in Pensacola, Fla.
Lambert’s family members were also involved in World War II. And like Loewe, Lambert had great respect for the Army, he said.
“I wanted to see the world and wanted to fly,” he said. So he joined the U.S. Navy and flew helicopters.
But though they wanted to serve, their family members had reservations about them leaving. Picton said even though public opinion toward the Vietnam War was not heated yet, his mother was hesitant to let him join the Marines.
“She was reluctant,” he said.
Loewe said his mother also had her misgivings about joining. But he said his dad was proud.
“I had a friend that said I was crazy nuts,” he said.
After joining, they said they soon began to truly understand what they were getting into when they went through training.
Picton recalled chuckling when one of his classmates in Marine training shaved his head, which afterward looked like a cue ball. The drill sergeant yelled at him and ordered him to do 50 pushups. He said he did that easily because he was in shape.
Upon seeing how quickly Picton did his pushups, the sergeant became angry and told him to do 50 more. And he told him to do a “captain’s chair,” which involved squatting down with his back against the wall. After a few minutes, his legs began to shake.
Loewe said one of his shipmates when he was training in San Diego had a thick beard and failed inspection. So his commander ordered his shipmate to cut his beard in front of him without any water or shaving cream with a dry double-edged sharp razor. When his mate came out, Loewe could see red lines slashed across his face.
“His face looked like a raw hamburger,” he said. “It was ugly.”
“No one failed inspection after that incident,” he added. “It was punishment by example.”
He also added that the drill sergeants were physical, and they would slap you around.
The whole purpose of training was to strip individuality and promote a mentality of serving your squad, they said.
Picton said humor was one of the best ways to get through training. And Loewe said seeing the light at the end of the tunnel was how he got through his experiences.
Being in combat was challenging, they said, but they were trained to do their jobs quickly and not think about the consequences. If they did, then their tasks would have been more difficult, they agreed.
Picton said after pressing the release button to fire his rockets when he flew his McDonnell Douglass A-4 Skyhawk jet over the southern part of North Vietnam, he felt a thud. He said the enemy had shot a 51-caliber bullet through his plane.
He thought about ejecting, but he didn’t want to lose a good jet.
So, he landed on a metal platform, which was used by helicopters and small planes, at a Marine base in Hue Phu Bai and people there doused the burning aircraft with foam before it exploded.
Afterward, his commander told him he should have ejected.
Lambert – who also flew jets – said he lost so many friends in battle.
When they came back to the U.S., they said life was different. Picton and Lambert arrived in California before the peak of the anti-war movement. But Loewe said when he returned, he dealt with harsh remarks from war protestors.
“Most of the people who talked to me about it said we were engaged in a wrong, illegal and losing effort,” he said. “They gave you the cold shoulder. The public was war weary. They didn’t want to be reminded that they were involved in this action.”
“They wanted to stop U.S. imperialism,” he said. “Not that anyone complained about communist imperialism.”
Protestors in San Diego said veterans were “baby killers,” recalled Lambert.
Picton said he was more hot-tempered when he returned to the States. He said he was angry at how President Lyndon B. Johnson mismanaged the war and because he had lost many friends in Vietnam.
He said he was able to control his anger, but when he loses his cool, he explodes. He said when he was in his early 20s and serving in the Marines, his perspective was different from those who protested the war in the 1970s.
When a reporter asked him what he thought about the protestors near San Jose State, he spoke bluntly: “They should take them in the back and shoot them,” he told the reporter.
Loewe said his mother worried about him.
“What did they do to you?” she asked. He said the war trained him to think automatically.
But he also saw different countries and the poverty of some of the people.
“I got a broader perception of the world,” he said. “You’re going to come back many years older.”
He said he drank a lot more, but he said he had toned this behavior down.
At the memorial Monday, the veterans will introduce the two panels recently added to the memorial.
One contains words from Lincoln’s second inaugural address March 4, 1865: “…with malice toward none, with clarity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
The other granite block has words from Lincoln’s letter to a mother who lost five sons in a war: “Pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice on the altar of freedom.”
The All Wars Memorial contains an upward climb through a valley of oak trees leading to a healing space, two bronze figures that depict American soldiers at war and spiral pathways.
The Viet Nam Veterans of Diablo Valley first conceived the idea of creating a war memorial in the San Ramon Valley in 1991. The Town of Danville donated space for the memorial, but the veterans group needed to raise funding for construction and material costs.
The project stalled for years, despite the initial enthusiasm. But after 10 years, in April 2003, the All Wars Memorial Foundation – comprised of local veterans, businessmen and elected officials – was formed. The foundation received support from David Behring and Joe Raphel, and it received enough funds to move forward with project.
Funding came from donations of money and construction materials, and funds raised through the sale of commemorative granite pavers. The site chosen for the memorial is a bowl-shaped area below the park’s ridge that looks out onto the pond at Oak Hill Park.
Last March, the Danville Parks and Leisure Services Commission approved the two 2,000-pound granite blocks with Lincoln’s words to be placed at the memorial.
The ceremony Monday is being held from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. with music performed by the 91st Division Army Band from Camp Parks and three keynote speakers. James McEachin, an author and TV personality who received Silver Star and Purple Heart Medals, will speak. Also, an uncle of a soldier who died in the Iraqi War will read a letter his nephew wrote to his fiancée.
And “Abraham Lincoln” will recite his famous Gettysburg Address.
