My Father's Vietnam Page #7

friend of mine was killed by a booby trap."

I'm sure you remember me speaking

of a Loring Bailey after OCS

and a few months ago

when I met him on LZ Liz.

It is such a damn waste.

I tried ever since I got a job in the rear to

get him into the office and out of the field.

"Now I feel like

I didn't try hard enough."

A little over two months later on May 20,

the helicopter Glenn Rickert was piloting

received enemy fire,

and he was killed.

It's hard to recollect because I wasn't

there, but from the information that I got,

which was sparse,

and the Way I envision it

in my mind

is that he was on

a combat assault,

combat recon.

He had cover, aerial cover,

with maybe some other types of

gunships or maybe another LOH.

More than likely other gunships

and he was...

doing low-level

reconnaissance, I believe.

When I say that, we're talking

about five feet above the ground,

hovering around low and slow

blowing the bushes away,

looking behind rocks

and looking for tunnels.

I believe it was on

the side of a mountain,

maybe 150 feet or 200

feet above the valley.

It wasn't unusual

to uncover hiding places,

and have people get up and start

moving and running and shooting.

From what I was told

that's what happened.

He uncovered the enemy

or somebody was there

and maybe from behind

a rock they shot him down.

The bullet that killed him actually came

in through his back, through his shoulder,

and hit his heart,

so it was instant.

So somehow, even though

he had protective armor on,

it came in at a side angle, but

still directly hit his heart.

I was thankful it

wasn't a painful death.

For us it was very decisive

and we knew that it was quick.

I mean, that's small

comfort, but...

I don't remember too much about

Vietnam after that day actually.

I'm not sure of the day, whether it was

close to the end of my tour, I don't know,

but I don't really have

much of a recollection

of Vietnam or what

happened after that sad day.

[Soren] Before Glenn Rickert's body was shipped

home, there was a short memorial service

held to honor

the popular captain.

When my father was given the assignment to

shoot these pictures he initially refused,

so saddened was he by the

loss of his colleague.

When threatened with an Article

15 letter of reprimand,

he reluctantly

documented the ceremony.

We had been living up in

Sellersville, Glenn Jr. and myself.

And that Saturday there was

a Memorial Day parade

and of course it came right down

past our house, and we were outside.

And then it came down

to the little town square

and they had a little ceremony, and I'll

always remember at that time I prayed

and was thinking about

all the women who were widows

or had lost loved ones, or

mothers who had lost loved ones.

I said a prayer for them, just in remembrance

because this was a Memorial Day parade

and the next clay was Sunday.

I had gone with Glenn's parents and then we came

home to Glenn's parents' home in Souderton.

We came in the back door,

and as we came in the back door,

the doorbell was

ringing at the front.

And I walked through the living room

and saw the uniform and you just know.

So I opened the door, and the poor guy

there, I said, "Just tell me he's not dead."

And of course,

what could he say?

Just, "I regret to inform you."

And then Glenn's morn came in the room

behind me and she just started crying,

because she just knew.

I mean, that's a day

I'll always remember.

I'm feeling emotions right now because it's

just something you don't ever want to hear,

but the minute you see

the uniform,

you know they're not coming

to tell you he's fine.

You know that it's bad news.

So that's how we found out.

We were together.

And After Glenn had been killed,

the proceedings just stopped.

I had received one phone call the

week I found out Glenn was killed.

They said, "We're sorry,"

and they hung up,

and if I had wanted to go on,

I had no connections,

because Glenn was handling

everything over there.

And it's been a source of guilt,

like, whatever happened to Ian?

I pray that maybe someone else adopted her,

or that she was able to come here to America.

But I often wonder

what happened to her.

Every once in a while I wonder if

in fact this child got over here.

The follow up, again, the psychology

or my psychology was such,

and I think the psychology of a lot of

the people that served over there was,

you serve your time,

you get back

and then you get back into

the world and you do your thing,

which is essentially what I did.

[inaudible conversation]

[Rik] Where Ring's death fell

in terms of my activity,

I can't really recall now.

After he was killed,

we defaced a billboard.

The billboard said, "To an unemployed

veteran... peace is hell."

And so we changed it with spray paint,

"To a dead veteran... war is hell."

And for the first time in the history

of the Hartford Times newspaper,

they printed a picture

on the editorial page.

We wrote this letter about it

called "Yours and uncertainty."

We called ourselves "the

Children of American Blood."

But we were young,

and we were immature.

When President Nixon mined

Haiphong Harbor,

a group of us, maybe 20

of us, got together.

We got 40-gallon steel drums

and we made mines out of them.

We painted "Kaboom" on them and tied

them with ropes and cinder blocks,

and in the middle of the night,

drove over the Connecticut River

and dropped these drums off into the

river and drove to the other side.

When it was all secure, people

called all the media and said,

"We mined the Connecticut

River," in a protest.

I used to say "Nixon,"

now I say "President Nixon."

I hate the man, but there's

a respect that's important.

And then we held a press conference

in front of city hall in Hartford

and turned ourselves in.

This is what we did

and this is why we did it.

But that put the people onto us,

whoever they were...

the FBI, or army intelligence,

whoever they were

and they were parked outside

our apartment so...

So we moved, I was the last one

to leave and I came to Vermont...

The safety of Vermont.

We were no more liberating that

country than we're liberating Iraq.

We weren't even invading.

We were trying to prop up

a puppet state to our own ends,

either for economic reasons

or to "stop communism."

Stop the domino from falling.

[Elizabeth] He changed.

He was always pretty serious,

but I think this experience would

be life-changing for anyone,

and I think it was

life changing for him.

In the immediate return,

his startle response was high.

We were driving home from

a trip right after he got back,

and a helicopter flew over and

he almost dove out of the car.

He was just much more...

and that would be typical.

And I also think it made him more

grave, and a little bit darker.

[Peter] I feel guilt

about surviving.

That doesn't go away. Collateral damage extends

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