The war he fought ended 25 years ago, but Randy Evans of San Jose, Ill., still recalls the excitement and sense of adventure he felt when he enlisted in the Army knowing he was headed for Vietnam.
"I didn’t want to miss it," he said. "I did get my wish. Three days after I was there I thought, ‘Man, what an idiot! Now I got to pay attention for a whole year just to get out of here.’"
The former combat medic is one of 13 Illinois and Indiana Vietnam veterans who reflect on their war experiences in this WILL-TV documentary.
The veterans describe the great sadness they still feel because so many comrades died. They talk about the bonds forged with fellow soldiers, the shock of seeing long-haired war protestors when they came home, the guilt they felt about surviving when so many others died, and the way they are still haunted by what they experienced in Vietnam.
John Laemmar of Evanston, Ill., describes trying to build a life after he came home, but being unable to stop thinking about the men who had been horribly injured and were helicoptered out of the combat zone. "From time to time you’d wake up in the middle of the night or think, ‘I wonder what happened to so and so. I wonder if he ever made it back. I wonder if he’s got his legs or his arms or whatever,’ " said Laemmar.
"Especially after ’75 and the fall of Saigon, you said, ‘What was that all about?’ You know, all the sacrifice, all that effort, all that loss and it’s over now," said Laemmar. "And I think it was dealing with the sadness of a loss, the guys that never had a chance to make a life, really, just the intense suffering."
Producer Tim Hartin, along with co-producers David Inge and Carol Forsythe, set out to discover how veterans looked back on their Vietnam experiences and how the veterans thought those experiences had shaped who they are today. "For a lot of them, Vietnam is still a kind of puzzle," said Inge. "It’s something that’s still unresolved. They haven’t completely closed the door on it."
Former infantry officer Tom Wannamaker of Arcola, Ill., explained it this way. "I think that no matter what has happened to me, no matter what will happen to me, in the center of my being, I’m always going to be a young grunt Marine in Vietnam," he said.
Powerful stories told by the veterans are woven with combat footage, some of it shot by John Laemmar, and with photographs from the war years. Hartin produced WILL-TV’s award-winning Mr. Shimkus Goes to Washington, which aired in prime time on PBS in January 1999. He was videographer and editor for the Emmy Award-winning WILL-TV documentary, Walter Burley Griffin: In His Own Right. Inge is host of WILL-AM’s Focus 580 and WILL-TV’s public affairs program, Talking Point. Forsythe developed short films for the Nickelodeon Network and is now a film producer for the PBS children’s program, Sesame Street. |
Teachers' Guide to
Vietnam: Soldiers' Stories
(Adobe Acrobat required)
Veterans Featured:
John Laemmar
Randy Evans
Ned Broderick
Richard (Dick) Jaehne
Barry Romo
Ray Burns
Anna Marie Rutallie
Joe Fornelli
Tom Wannamaker
Michael Cunningham
Linda Earls
Richard H. Adkins Jr.
Paul
Wisovaty |
