Vets on Mission of Peace to Vietnam

Jerry Yahiro wants to return to the Vietnamese highlands where he led a mortar platoon almost 40 years ago.

Rich Vannucci wants to see former battlefields in the country he briefly set foot on as a sailor almost five decades ago.

A former sailor, John Reese, was spurred to return by a mission of peace and good will, instead of war and destruction.

On Friday, these and six other veterans, all Bay Area residents, will travel back to Vietnam, to a country they last saw in war. Their journey will take them not only across an ocean but back in time to a place that, for better or worse, most of them never forgot.

“I’m sure that everybody’s a little bit spooked by the thing and antsy about it, but they’re all anxious to face their demons, so to speak,” said real estate broker and trip organizer Mike Weber of Viet Nam Veterans of Diablo Valley. “There’s great motivation to go do this.”

That’s largely because the trip is more than an opportunity to revisit Vietnam and make peace with the past. During their 13-day trip, the veterans will help hand out 560 wheelchairs, bought in large part with money the veterans raised, to disabled Vietnamese.

During the past two years, the group raised $22,000 to buy wheelchairs. The Danville-based nonprofit Wheelchair Foundation, founded by Blackhawk resident and Seattle Seahawks owner Ken Behring, matched that amount and organized the purchase and distribution of the wheelchairs.

The veterans also raised about $3,500 to distribute to Vietnamese youth shelters and orphanages. Veterans also plan to bring toiletries and school supplies for the shelters and orphanages.

For at least some of the nine veterans who are returning to Vietnam for the first time, the chance to contribute to the well-being of the Vietnamese people overcame their wariness.

“I think this trip, being that we’re going back doing something good, overwhelms all the bad memories I have,” said Yahiro, 62, a Pacific Bell retiree and former Army captain.

Last week, as the group’s departure date approached, the Danville resident still worried that the trip would resurrect traumatic memories of combat. Yet he was willing to take that chance.

“I want to see the country,” said Yahiro, who hopes to visit Montagnards, an ethnic minority in Vietnam’s highlands and wartime ally of the United States. “I want to meet the people (and) see if there are any demons I have left that need to be put to bed.”

For Vannucci, who spent about seven weeks in Vietnam in 1959 while serving aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger, the trip is a chance to learn more about a war that claimed the lives of some 58,000 U.S. military personnel and wounded about 300,000.

The retired Navy master chief was in Vietnam when the first U.S. troops were killed in action. When he returns, the military history buff wants to learn more about how North Vietnam defeated its enemies, including the French forces that fought there before the United States.

“I want to see how Gen. Giap was able to bring down the French and essentially bring down the United States,” the 69-year-old Castro Valley resident said, referring to North Vietnam’s commander in chief.

Not everyone in the veterans group wanted to go back to Vietnam. Some feared that the trip would let loose haunting memories that they have managed to bar behind closed doors.

Even among those who decided to brave the trip, some were concerned about the reception they would receive, said Weber, who first returned to Vietnam in 2003 on a wheelchair mission and is returning again Friday.

Weber reassured the group that Vietnamese, even those directly affected by the war, treat returning veterans without animosity and usually greet them warmly. On Weber’s first trip, for instance, a Vietnamese woman dining with him mentioned that American forces killed her father.

“We had kind of an awkward moment, and I didn’t give her any kind of response to that; I just hushed,” said the 58-year-old Blackhawk resident and former Army medic. “Pretty soon, she said: ‘Well, that was then and this is now, and let’s enjoy the lunch.’”

If there was anxiety amid the group of veterans, who will be joined on the trip by five traveling companions and two charity representatives, it didn’t show when they met last week at Weber’s home to plan for the journey.

The mood was jovial as the group nibbled appetizers, sipped drinks and sorted out logistics details such as the group’s six-city itinerary, what clothing to pack and how their charitable mission would unfold.

Among them was Reese, a former Navy lieutenant junior grade who spent three tours in the war in 1970-74, including serving as a diver who cleared mines.

The 58-year-old Walnut Creek resident, whose ailments include post-traumatic stress disorder, was concerned that the trip could aggravate his physical and psychological conditions. But he and his doctors agreed that the peaceful journey would be healing.

“I’m just pleased to go back for a different reason,” Reese said. “To go back and do something valuable in a country that we fought in is extremely special.”

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Dogen Hannah covers the military and the home front. Reach him at 925-945-4794 or dh*****@cc*****.com">dh*****@cc*****.com.