Kelsey Palmer
Jacksonville Progress
JACKSONVILLE — After 40 years of silence, two Vietnam veterans decided to come clean about their experiences as servicemen both on and off duty and the many struggles they faced after returning home.
Brothers and native Jacksonville citizens Dale and Larry Walker first approached the Progress staff with their story after seeing a letter to the editor in the Sunday, Feb. 14 issue of the newspaper titled “VFW Wall of Shame?”
“This letter suggests that some of the names of soldiers listed on the map of Vietnam in the VFW entrance didn’t fight in the Vietnam War,” Larry said. “I have no way of knowing of names on that wall that didn’t serve, but I know that all of us (Dale, my three other brothers, and I) honorably served the United States in that war, and I’m proud to say our names are all on that great wall.”
Larry, who served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, said the general mistrust of the military during the time the Vietnam War was fought caused a great deal of shame for both him and Dale.
“When we shipped off to Vietnam, there was no shame,” Larry said. “We wanted to go and fight for our country. The shame didn’t start until we returned home to Jacksonville.”
Dale served three tours in Vietnam as a part of the U.S. Navy and received two Purple Hearts for the injuries he sustained while on active duty.
“I was a boat captain on riverboats on the Me Kong Delta, which was all swampland,” Dale said. “I transported the Army troops and dropped them off at their mission. Then, two days later we would go back to pick up whatever was left of them.”
Dale said he first realized the strength of the general population’s anger towards servicemen while at the Travis Air Force Base in California after returning home in 1970.
“I had just got off a plane, and the first words I heard were, ‘How many babies did you have to kill?’” Dale said. “It was a young girl, hippie-looking, and I just kept walking. That hurt me for years right there.”
Larry said he first experienced conflict for being a soldier was while waiting in front of the Jacksonville bus station immediately after returning home in 1967.
“I was standing on the street corner in full uniform when a police officer made a U-turn in his vehicle and approached me and said, ‘You can’t stand on this corner,’” Larry said. “The officer told me that if I continued to stand there I would be arrested for loitering.”
Days later, Larry was also denied membership to the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) in Jacksonville.
“During the time I came back, there was no place to find help for a veteran except for the VFW,” Larry said, “but they said I couldn’t join because it was not a declared war. Forty years later, I am a proud member of the VFW, but it took a while to get here.”
Some of the greatest struggles Dale has had to face being a Vietnam veteran began upon the receipt of his second Purple Heart.
“I was on a gun boat on patrol one evening on the Son On Doc River,” Dale said. “We hit an underwater mine that blew me 30 feet in the air. The boat was sinking, and I couldn’t move my hips or legs. Thankfully, another guy rescued me and took me to the hospital there.”
At the time, Dale received medical service for a broken hip, but has had to fight the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for the past 40 years for service he feels is rightfully his.
“I received a Purple Heart for damage done to my hips while serving in Vietnam,” Dale said, “but I have had four hip transplants because of that damage and have received no help for medical expenses from the VA.”
Though he can’t say his experiences with the VA have been pleasant, Dale has received medical benefits for two other conditions he sustained during the war.
“I am being treated for exposure to Agent Orange and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder),” Dale said. “I have type 2 diabetes, which is the direct result of Agent Orange.”
Though both brothers can recall the defoliation of trees and thick fog surrounding areas treated with Agent Orange, Dale is the only one who has suffered the effects of it at this time.
“By the grace of God, I haven’t suffered from any of the symptoms of Agent Orange or PTSD,” Larry said. “Even though I was around it, for whatever reason I haven’t had problems from it so far.”
Dale has filed for compensation and been denied service four times because the VA feels he has yet to prove his hip injuries were sustained in combat.
“It takes about three years to file a claim and be denied each time,” Larry said, “and his appeal is pending again. The strange thing is, each time he has been denied, he has received the same denial letter word for word. It never changes.”
Dale’s last appeal went all the way to the national VA headquarters in Washington, D.C. to the Board of Veterans Appeals, the highest court of appeals for veterans seeking medical service from the VA.
“I signed on that dotted line, but so did the government,” Dale said. “I did my job; I fought, and I came back, but the government hasn’t done what they promised.”
Larry agreed.
“The real shame isn’t on the VFW wall,” he said. “The real shame is that a veteran has to fight to get medical care that he was rightfully promised.”
Though they have faced hard times together, both Dale and Larry say fighting in the Vietnam war and having to struggle with the aftermath and adversity has made their brotherly bond stronger.
“Me and Dale are always together,” Larry said. “He’s my brother. We live together so I can help him out with his injuries. We go to Temple to the VA Hospital together because he can’t drive. It’s just us together.”
