What I learned while interviewing Vietnam combat veterans

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

In 2017, my partner and I made plans to backpack through Vietnam for five weeks.

As many who own their own business can attest, there is no such thing as a vacation. Instead, you cram in as much work as possible before leaving the country, then deal with all the rest upon your return.

As part of my preparation to leave, for more than a month, I wrote several articles that could run in my absence, so as not to leave the remaining editorial staff with too heavy a workload.

Since I was headed to Vietnam, I thought it a worthy endeavor to reach out and talk with a handful of local veterans who fought in the Vietnam War. My plan was to share their unvarnished combat stories with our readers, shedding a light on the sacrifice and struggle our combat soldiers endured, and still endure today.

With Memorial Day on Monday, May 29, I found myself thinking of the five men I sat down with six years ago, some of their stories still reverberating in my brain.

Barney Ballard told me about how he watched the growing conflict in Vietnam while attending Occidental College in Eagle Rock, Calif., feeling the obligation to serve his country building inside of him.

“I thought if I believed in any of these altruistic principles as stated by our country, then I felt I needed to serve,” Ballard told me. 

Ballard shared stories of his flight training, flying everything from prop-driven Cessna T-41s to tandem T-38s to the F-5 jet. After some time spent in Korea, Ballard began his combat operations in Vietnam in 1972. As a forward air controller, his job was to coordinate air-ground operations. Almost immediately, Ballard began flying night missions over the Mekong Delta, conducting airstrikes in support of U.S. and South Vietnamese troops on the ground.

“There began a period of a siege of about 68 days,” Ballard told the Reader. “Because we didn’t have ground troops, we brought in lots of air support. A lot of airplanes and a lot of helicopters were shot down.”

Ballard flew an estimated 92 combat missions over the next three months, dodging anti-aircraft fire and flying low to attempt to evade detection. He laid precision airstrikes on the enemy next to friendly forces and watched with heartache as several of his fellow pilots didn’t return from their missions.

“It’s always been in my mind as to why in the heck did I make it and somebody else didn’t,” Ballard said. “So I thought that if there’s anything that you need to do with your life, it’s to seek to serve.”

While Ballard flew missions overhead, Marines like Ed Karasek did the onerous work of ground combat against Viet Cong forces that proved to be formidable.

The Vietnam War was already raging when Karasek joined the Marines in 1966.

Karasek began his combat experience in July 1967, entering the conflict as an O311 infantry rifleman. He was attached to the First Battalion, First Division Marine Dylan Company and, after only six months of combat, found he was the most senior person in the group.

“That meant the guys I came in with were all rotated out for injuries or death,” he said. “We took shitloads of casualties.”

Karasek told me all about a particular offensive he remembers in Hoi An, the former provincial capital of Vietnam where heavy fighting occurred during the war. After a shower and a hot meal following a grueling three-day patrol, Karasek was whisked into a helicopter and landed in the middle of a firefight to aid another battalion that had become overrun.

“The Fifth Battalion was pinned down by a heavy lot of what was believed to be the NVA soldiers, not the farmers that we had been mostly fighting up to this point,” he said.

Karasek and his fellow Marines were able to push back the offensive, but the unit they had come to relieve had taken about 80% casualties, with almost half the men dead by the time Karasek landed.

Marching to engage the retreating NVA, Karasek remembers a battle that raged well into the night, with fire coming from all points of the compass.

“We got overrun in the corner I was at,” he said. “There was a machine gun nest sitting right there to my side and the NVA threw a satchel charge and blew those guys up and came right through that hole. … I took one round right through the top of my head, one through my ear and out my neck. The Marine next to me just flopped over onto my lap, so I pretended like I was dead for a while and the battle just continued to rage.”

Karasek said he’s still haunted by the trauma.

“I was raised as a Catholic, although I became an atheist while I was over there,” he said. “But you thought you were really violating God’s orders in combat, that this was a horrible thing to be doing. But the next day you see some of your friends get killed and pretty soon, in all honesty, killing people becomes as easy as it is in the movies. 

“I can’t tell you how many Vietnamese I came upon that were wounded and I just blasted them as we moved on and chased the rest of them,” he added. “There was no emotional feelings for those people at all whatsoever, which was sad.”

Another Sandpoint veteran I spoke with also served in the Marines. Seth Phalen grew up obsessed by the idea of a “man’s duty” and, when the war began to escalate, he volunteered, saying he wanted to put himself on the firing line.

Upon arriving in-country, Phalen said he remembers the stink of the Marine Corps base, the gunpowder fumes and the awful heat and humidity.

“You stepped onto the land and it just penetrated you,” Phalen said.

Phalen joined a forward observer team attached to the Second Battalion 26th Marines, Third Marine Division. He had risen to the rank of corporal and was now taking part in active patrols and search-and-destroy missions in which he would call his own targets.

Wincing under the constant barrage of heavy artillery, Phalen carried a PRC-25 radio with two spare batteries, ammo belts, smoke and frag grenades, extra mortar rounds, field gear, gas mask, entrenching tool, bayonet, sleep gear, extra shirts and socks, and his weapon. The gear weighed more than 60 pounds.

It was about nine months after he’d joined the forward observer team that Phalen endured one of the most traumatic experiences of his life. He and his men were ambushed by a massive mortar attack while digging foxholes. Both Phalen and a nearby sergeant were hit by the same shell; Phalen taking shrapnel in his ankle, face and arms, and his sergeant taking damage to his skull, though surviving the attack.

Phalen said 20 of his fellow Marines were killed during that barrage. Even though he was injured, he remembered feeling regret that his injuries had forced him to leave.

“My ankle was basically ruined, but I hung back,” he said. “I didn’t want to go. That band of brothers thing, it’s very real. You have to experience it. You bond with these guys and go through shit, you don’t want to leave them.”

Jeff Dunnum also felt the weight of responsibility to serve when he joined the U.S. Army at the end of 1969 and began basic training at Ft. Ord, Calif.

“I felt I had a responsibility,” Dunnum said. “I went down to the draft board and said, ‘Take me.’”

Dunnum carried the M-60 machine gun while in combat, a weapon that weighed 26 pounds — not including ammunition. He was assigned to the Fourth Battalion, Third Infantry, 11th Brigade, Americal Division of the U.S. Army. His unit operated in what was known as a “free kill zone,” meaning the rules of engagement were different than in other areas.

“In a free kill zone, everybody was bad guys,” he said. “You’d drop in and just start searching and try to stay away from booby traps.”

Over the year that SPC Dunnum spent in combat, he keenly remembered rarely ever feeling at ease.

“You were always on alert, 100% of the time,” he said. “You never really knew where you were at from day to day. We were small and we’d get into a firefight and it would last maybe two or three minutes of total panic, then clean up and call the medevacs if we got hit, then search and try to find blood trails.”

When soldiers like Dunnum were injured, helicopter pilots like Capt. Bill Collier were tasked with flying in low to evacuate the wounded.

“I’m glad I flew helicopters,” Collier told the Reader. “The reason for flying jets is to kill people. You drop bombs on them, or you shoot them down with your air-to-air missiles, or your gatling guns or whatever they have on the jets. My job as a Marine Corps helicopter pilot was saving lives. I feel really good about that.”

Collier arrived in Vietnam in July 1966, about 50 miles south of the demilitarized zone, with his first medevac mission serving as his “baptism by fire.”

“It was one of the scariest events of my life,” he said.

Collier’s mission was to fly into Mutter Ridge, where an ongoing battle had raged to gain control of a hill. 

“We turned off all of our lights and spiraled down very carefully,” he said. “The Marines were shooting up the hill at the enemy and the enemy was shooting down at the Marines. The Marines had red tracers and the enemy had green ones, so it was like horizontal fireworks.”

It was when the tracers began pointing upward at his approaching helicopter that Collier realized his H-34’s floodlight made him the biggest target around.

“A helicopter is made out of magnesium,” he said. “And we had the highest octane fuel. All it takes is a few tracers to go through the fuel tank and it would explode. I knew I was dead, right then, when I hit that [floodlight] switch. I was only 23 at the time and I didn’t want to die yet.”

As each veteran shared their stories, I realized they all had a similar characteristic: humility. These were young men who had faced more trauma before turning 25 than most people would encounter in their entire lives, yet they spoke only of the duty to serve, the commitment to their fellow soldiers and the realization that they probably weren’t going to make it out of that war alive. There was no bragging, no posturing, no embellishment for effect — these were real heroes who served their countries in a time of war and didn’t ask for anything in return except the chance to return home when the fighting ended.

Many of their fellow soldiers didn’t make it back. Still others returned so broken inside, it would take years of therapy and self-exploration to overcome the trauma they had experienced while fighting for their country.

And they are just a handful of veterans in this community who have similar experiences that still haunt them.

Memorial Day is a time to remember those who gave their lives for our country. For me, it’s also a time to honor those who made it back to tell their stories. I thank each and every one of them for giving me the honor to share their stories in the Reader. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten.