Sedona AZ (November 20, 2013) – When Gary Chamberlain returned home from his tour of duty in Vietnam, most Vietnam vets came back to a country that despised their service or appreciated it, little middle ground on the political and cultural chessboard of 1960-70s America. Past war vets had returned to appreciative crowds and a nation united, but not so the men and women of Vietnam.
The Vietnam war was served up at the dinner hour on television, with apologies for its graphic content, viewed by a nation still reeling from WWII and Korean losses. Mothers and fathers watched their children on distant killing fields where helicopters coated jungles gray, medics scrambled over black and white bodies midst mortar explosions and gun battles, grenades and land mines, and napalm. Then, in its nightly aftermath, waited…waited for the bloodied, dismembered, burned bodies of their loved ones to be returned home.
There was no national rendering of cloth for the victims of the Vietnam war, although they much deserved it. It was Vietnam, the sacrifice of another generation of American youth, that turned a nation’s culture of political military acquiescence and apathy into a national wall of why.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Vietnam was but one changemonger for a new American ethos.
There was no returning to before Vietnam for Gary Chamberlain or for the country that he and other vets served. While Hanoi Jane cavorted with the enemies of an assassinated anti-communist President, America was testing its true measure, its democratic principles, at home. The American Civil Rights movement was redefining the national consciousness, as the majority of the nation questioned its political, religious, racial and cultural bindings, one to another. America was changing, from the inside out…
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Headquarters Communications
22 November 2013
Attention Patriots:
Helpful Veteran information from the VA, provided to the National Adjutant, and passed on to you, the Member.
For Immediate Release To All Veterans:
FRAUD ALERT: Veterans should be aware of a marketing scam targeting callers trying to reach the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Call Center or GI Bill Call Center. A marketing company has established two fraudulent numbers that differ from the two official VA call center numbers by one digit. If the fraudulent number is dialed by mistake, the answering party will offer a gift card and try to obtain personal and financial information, including credit card information, from the caller.
The answering party may even transfer the caller to the VA after the caller’s information is obtained. Note that VA will never ask you for a credit card number or banking information over the phone. Before giving personal sensitive information over the phone make sure you know who you are taking to.
The numbers to be avoided are:
800-872-1000 (the VA National Call Center number is 800-827-1000)
888-442-4511 (the VA GI Bill Call Center number is 888-442-4551)
VA has notified law enforcement authorities to address this situation. Please pass this information along and post on your websites.
Dear Gary, December 1, 2013
Your service during the Vietnam War did not really affect me in a negative way during your service, but once you returned home I witnessed some behaviors that startled and frightened me. It also gave me a greater appreciation for the men and women who serve our county.
I remember you quitting college so that you would be drafted into the service, even though you knew this would most likely mean deployment into a combat zone. I felt proud of you for putting yourself on the line for our country. Looking back I think I was young enough and naive enough to not realize how dangerous this really was for you.
While you were serving I wrote to you a great deal, and you wrote me back, which was comforting to me. I thought you are receiving mail and you are in a position to respond, therefore you must be all right. I know at times when I put my care packages together for you I would often wondered, especially once you were in Vietnam, if you would in fact even receive my package. But then would come a letter from you thanking me for items I had sent to you, again reassuring me that you must be all right.
The day the telegram about your injury arrived at the door, I remember it being a Saturday, and neither mom nor dad were at home at the time of its arrival. JoAnn and I were there, so we took the telegram upstairs into mom and dad’s bedroom to dad’s desk and called him at work. He asked that we open the telegram and read it to him, which one of us did (I thought I had read it to dad, JoAnn’s memory tells her she read it, who knows?).
Once you returned home, you came back to live with the family, using the bedroom downstairs next to my room. It seems strange now but you did not own an alarm clock so you asked if I could wake you up in the morning. The first morning was very frightening for me, and apparently to you as well. I called to you, but you did not respond, so I went up to your bed and placed my hand on your shoulder shaking you a bit, saying “Gary wake up”. All of a sudden you came out of your bed very disoriented and startled. The look on your face, and the frightening noise you made as you woke caused me to step back several steps. You were visibly shaken and breathing heavy. I asked you if you were all right; you assured me that you were fine, just startled. I continued to wake you on the mornings you asked me to but I stopped at the door and called to you from across the room until you woke up. Over time I witnessed your reaction upon waking becoming less and less startled, which made me feel a lot better.
Witnessing this I always wondered what you had really gone though and recall dad telling me you didn’t like to talk about it, so don’t ask, so I did not ask any questions about your experience. We have talked, but only in recent years, about your experiences while serving in Vietnam.
Thank you for your service and I am proud of your actions that saved the lives of your mates.
Love,
Mary
Thanks Gary. Thanks Jack. Thanks Mary. Thanks vets. Thanks American soldiers on active duty. Thanks reserve units.
It’s tragic that many don’t appreciate America and its people. America’s not perfect but there’s none better.
When my brother, Gary Chamberlain, went to Vietnam, I wasn’t too worried about him, as I expected him to come back. Gary was hard working, athletic, and had been a cub scout. We had lived in Eastern Oregon when we were kids and he helped my dad bale hay, milk cows, helped dad with sheep when they were birthing lambs. Gary and dad would go hunting for pheasants and deer, so he knew how to handle and shoot a rifle.
In November, 1967, on a Saturday, our front door bell rang. My sister, Mary, and I went to the door. Surprised. Someone we didn’t know. A military officer in his uniform was standing there. He handed us a telegram. Don’t remember what he said. Mary and I were sort of shocked and stunned. We looked at each other and I said, “We need to call dad.” We ran upstairs to our dad’s desk where the phone was. We needed to tell him about the telegram.
Dad said, “Open it and read it to me.” I was hesitant to read it so Mary did. “Specialist James G. Chamberlain was slightly wounded in Vietnam on 27 Oct 67 as a result of hostile action. He sustained multiple metal fragment wounds to his right arm, both legs, and right side of his face. He was on combat operation when engaged a hostile force in firefight.” Dad told us to leave the telegram on his desk and he would tell our mom when she got back from the store.
We were stunned, but went back to our Saturday chores. We never had a family experience like this before. When our parents got home they read the telegram and probably talked to us about it during dinner.
When Gary went to war, I never thought about him being killed or wounded. I expected him to come back home when the war was over. Years after the telegram, my dad was telling me stories about Gary in the war and that he was awarded the Silver Star. Dad told me he called Gary in the hospital and the first thing Gary told him was, “Dad, you
know how you taught me to deer hunt; to watch and be quiet. That saved my life.”
About 6 years ago, Gary was visiting our dad and they started to watch a World War II movie.They didn’t watch much once the shooting, bombing, and killing went on. Gary said, “Do you want to watch this?” Dad could tell Gary was uncomfortable with the movie’s violence, so they turned it off.
I am proud of my brother, Gary, for serving his country. I’m sorry they weren’t welcomed home like other soldiers of past wars. He was warmly welcomed by the family, but some of the experiences during the war did not let all the love and gratefulness totally sink in.
War memories had affected his behavior and would take awhile to be ironed out. Gary connected with other Vietnam vets when he retired in Arizona. I am so proud of him and the projects he has worked on in his community. Gary is still serving his country in small ways that make a big difference in his community.
Your sister, JoAnn
To my brother Gary,
As a kid, I was what about 4 or 5 when you went into the Army.
I was so scared for you, scared that you might go there, to the war, and could be shot and maybe even die, and never return home. I did not like that idea, not one bit. I did not want you to go and be a soldier. It was very frightening to me. I knew from watching TV that it was not something I wanted my brother to do.
I remember that mom would help me bake cookies for you and we would put them in an old shoe box and mail them off. Also I did not really know how to write and I would sit and ask mom how to spell every word. I remember throwing the pencil in frustration over my struggle with the writing and the fact you had to be at war. I am sure I cried many times over this.
I remember a letter from you, thanking me for the delicious box of crumbs you had received. I guess the cookies had some rough handling along the way.
Then when you returned and were living in the basement, Mom asked me to go wake you up for dinner or breakfast or some meal.
The first time I walked all the way into your room and I guess I frightened you because you grabbed me and said (yelled in a terrifying way) something like “don’t ever do that to me again!”.
After that I made noise all the way down the hall and stood outside your door calling to you cuz I didn’t want you to grab me like that ever again. You were scary to me after your return.
I remember the day you were using the saw, electric saw and you cut into your little finger by accident. You said you did not have feeling in those fingers and that is why you did not feel the saw cutting your finger.
I always wished and still do that you would have not had to go through that experience. I did feel fortunate that you came home alive.
My friends and I wore MIA bracelets, not sure I where we got them, if it was something we purchased or if they were given to us, but I do remember wearing them.
There were also the slides you brought back and looking at some of them in the basement of the yellow house. I never imagined that a place like that and events like were shown in the photos existed. I thought it was awful.
At the pond mom gave me a camera that I believe was yours, a 35 mm camera, and I learned to take photos with that. I still have the photos to this day. I liked that you had brought us that camera and felt lucky to be able to have the use of it.
I do remember your dark room at the house on the pond. I was impressed with your pictures and that you knew how to develop them.
I always gave you slack when it came to behaviors that I thought were “different”, I would tell my friends, he is like that because he went to Vietnam, he may be angry or just very intense.
To this day I have things you have given me over my life. I have the Japanese doll, a bracelet you brought me from Alaska with a vessel with green stones in it and some other things in my jewelry box.
I remember one Christmas after your return, you helped me go Christmas shopping for dad. You let me buy him a very large stuffed giraffe. I think it was something like $20.00 and about 4 feet tall. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world that we could get that for dad. Do you have a memory of that?
Anyway, I want to thank you for your service, let you know you’re my big brother and I love you.
Your sister Jean