Being A Veteran
11/11/2019
This is taken in part from my confirmation testimony to the Wisconsin Senate Committee on Transportation & Veterans Affairs, and from writings of mine and others that I've edited, buried and borrowed over the years. Thank you to all of the influencers who’ve given to this. Semper Fidelis.
My name is Bill Schrum, and I live in Middleton, Wisconsin. I am a life member of, the Vietnam Veterans of America, the American Legion, the Marine Corps Combat Correspondent Association AND the Disabled American Veterans. I am also a member of the Marine Corps League. I am also disabled and get my health care at the Veterans Hospital in Madison.
At the end of 2016, I retired as a Vice President at the University of Wisconsin Health System, after 40+ years in health care administration.
In August of 2019, Governor Tony Evers appointed me to the Board of the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; where we represent well over 340,000 veterans in the State of Wisconsin. 340,000-plus. Think about that… if all those veterans gathered in one place, we would be the second largest city in Wisconsin. And probably have great bars, great music, and lousy food.
I was born in Tacoma, Washington, on the cusp of the Korean War. Tacoma was an industrial town, big in shipping and transportation. I grew up in an "ethnically diverse" neighborhood before anyone even knew what that term meant. My Father was a native of Tacoma, and never went past the 8th grade. My Mother was British by birth and emigrated to the US when she was 12. My parents were railroad people; my Dad a switch tender and Mom, a Caller. They were both gone before I was 23.
One week after I graduated from Lincoln High School in Tacoma, I enlisted in the Marine Corps for three years. I’ve been asked numerous times, “why the Marine Corps?” and I am not sure I have ever had an answer for that. I’ve had a few occurrences in my life that I truly feel were guided by some “higher power” and this was one of them. The time was right after the Tet Offensive… and the extensive negative television of coverage of Vietnam, but I found that enticing. Most relatives thought I was making a mistake, but my parents supported my decision in spite of their trepidation.
After boot camp and infantry training, I was assigned to Force Troops, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as a journalist. How did I get to be a journalist? I took journalism in high school and a test in boot camp apparently showed that I could put who, what, when, where, why and how together into a storyline.
At Camp Lejeune, I had the opportunity to embed myself and write stories about the Force Reconnaissance Marines, and the trainees at the Naval Corpsman School. Those experiences gave me not only the chance to hone my journalism skills, but to learn firsthand what goes into developing these two unique groups of people who go where others don’t go.
My next duty station was the Marine Barracks, Great Lakes NTC, where I was assigned to the Fleet Home Town News Center. The FHTNC is the source for those little blurbs you may see in your local newspapers about local service members. One of my assignments while there was the “casualty desk” where my job was to screen all outgoing stories against the daily lists of killed, wounded or missing-in-action Marines to make sure no stories went out about anyone on those lists. That job also meant that I read the details of each Marine’s death and the actions they were in at the time. You can Google how many Marines were killed or wounded in Vietnam to get an idea of the number I read.
It's also how I learned that one of my good friends was killed...and how.
Then, I received orders to FMFPac, WestPac, Ground Forces, which if you’re familiar with the jargon meant “Vietnam”. However, I was pulled off the flight when it landed in Okinawa and assigned to the Marine Corps Public Affairs Office there. A lot of people would have thought that was a great deal, but after I was in Okinawa for about a month, and bored out of my mind, I volunteered for a TAD assignment to the Force Logistics Command at Camp Books in Danang, Vietnam. I did not tell my parent or any family.
At this point, I was 20-years old, and had made sergeant in the Marine Corps in 20 months. I’ll admit that I was full of myself and had enough rank as a combat correspondent to do things and get into things. I humped with, and interviewed a lot of grunts and wrote a lot of stories. I flew in Huey’s and wrote about the human side of that experience. I wrote about the stenches, the filth, the blood, and the things that differentiate “war” from “combat”. Ask any vet in the room and they will agree that there’s a difference that most civilians don’t get.
As a reporter, I didn’t want to report the same stuff others had said a thousand times before me. I got out and I talked with wounded and dying, and I talked with the stone crazy still living. Sometimes, to this day, they still talk with me and I still listen to them.
My only regret is that I had not volunteered much, much sooner.
I’ve seen the demons. I walked the valley of the shadow of death and truly feared no man because I knew we were the baddest ____ in the valley…. I think I’ve carried a little of that feeling with me to this day – but it is well-tempered now with maturity and knowing that I don’t have to prove myself to anyone. I carry with me the lesson I learned from the Recon Marines – success is never having to fire your weapon. (If you want a current depiction of what that means, google quotes by General James Mattis and look for the one that begins, “I come in peace….”
When my time there was done, and I was coming home, an event occurred which affects me to this day, and if you will bear with me, I would like to tell you about it.
As I was making my way through the San Francisco airport, the resplendent disabled veteran, in my Marine Corps uniform, medals worn proudly, a woman approached me.
I saw her coming well in advance. Call it jungle awareness, call it noticing the obvious, the point is that I knew she was directed at me and was on a mission.
She was in her late 20's, shoulder length dark hair and large brown eyes which showed the passion and fire of someone who was following her heart. She was carrying a brown leather shoulder bag and wearing a long navy blue wool coat. She moved toward me with the grace of the cat.
When she was within fifteen feet of me, I stopped and put my things down. My instinct and reflexes told me to watch her hands, her bag, her coat. My sense told me to watch her eyes.
She came right up to me, stopping within a foot of me and I could feel her energy, I could smell her scent.
She grabbed me with her eyes, pulling my focus there and initiating the shaking and nervous stomach of my apprehension. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I did not want to hurt her.
We stood there, locked in an optic connection, for what seemed like a long time --- then she blinked. Tears had filled her eyes and were beginning to move onto her high cheekbones. The passion she was sending to me was filled with pain, with sorrow, with hatred I had not expected.
Her right hand came up, index finger extended and her mouth opened, but she was struggling to find words. When they finally came, the voice was throaty, raspy, hoarse. Her finger tentatively touched me at the point of my chest.
"You're nothing but a hit man for the U.S. government."
With that she moved to my left and away. Physically out of my life. Mentally, forever a part of my memory.
That was my first welcome home.
Shortly after I got home, my Dad died. Later that year, I took the trip to England with my Mother that she had planned for them. I was a terrible companion for her, and not even close to being the support she needed at that time.
After that, it went from bad to worse. I tried college and dropped out because I realized that college kids were clueless. I smoked. I drank. I was not the kid I was when I left home. I was 21 years old and had seen and done things others never will. No one in my family knew what I had done, and no one ever asked. That was fine by me, "it don't mean nothing" was the only way to play it.
After that, it went from bad to worse. I tried college and dropped out because I realized that college kids were clueless. I smoked. I drank. I was not the kid I was when I left home. I was 21 years old and had seen and done things others never will. No one in my family knew what I had done, and no one ever asked. That was fine by me, "it don't mean nothing" was the only way to play it.
One day, I’m not sure why, I got in my ’66 Chevy, and travelled the country while living out of my car. I can’t remember the highways that led me back to Great Lakes, IL., but I found my Marine Corps brother Bill Marcotte and others there.
The second slap of homecoming came when Marcotte and I went to a VFW bar in North Chicago and we were called down by old vets and derided for not being real veterans, only Vietnam veterans. We were severely numbed, so we had a couple of cheap beers and left. This one hurt, because the Master Sergeant we served with at FHTNC was a member there and never spoke up. Thanks Top.
The second slap of homecoming came when Marcotte and I went to a VFW bar in North Chicago and we were called down by old vets and derided for not being real veterans, only Vietnam veterans. We were severely numbed, so we had a couple of cheap beers and left. This one hurt, because the Master Sergeant we served with at FHTNC was a member there and never spoke up. Thanks Top.
In ’72, after returning home, trying jobs and busting them, getting kicked out of the house, and other therapeutic events, somehow fate again decided I needed to get out of town and so I headed east again to visit Marcotte; only this time in Marshall, MN. Along the way, I picked up two hitchhikers outside of Seattle and took them to Minot, ND., I had the car, they had the smoke and pharmaceuticals. Along the way we camped and scraped for food and beer. Not sure I ever got their names or any other info. Just figured they needed a ride and I needed the diversion, so what the heck. When I landed in Marshall, and somehow found Marcotte’s house, I was welcomed by him and his wife, Pat, and toddler daughter, Shana.
The third strike of homecoming came when Marcotte and I went to an American Legion bar in Marshall (his hometown) and were greeted just as warmly there as we had been in North Chicago. As I recall, these guys wanted to get physical, and we almost got there. But after we mentioned that we were Marines and would be happy to accommodate them, they reverted back to name-calling and creative put-downs. And, again, Marcotte knew some of these NCMFs and none of them said a word.
Only Bill and I ever knew the truth of those days. My days of ever talking about my experiences were sealed then.
As fate would have it, I ended up in Denver, and it was there that I realized that I could continue to live like a bum, wallowing in anger and self-pity, or I could use my Marine Corps discipline and move on. I moved on.
Within two years, I had gotten married and went on to fulfill my dream of starting my own newspaper in Lafayette, Colorado. A few years later, with help from the GI Bill, some student loans, and even a scholarship, I graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in Economics. Yes, I worked a full-time job and went to school full-time.
For over 40 years, I never spoke much of my Marine Corps service, and never, ever, about my time in Vietnam. I threw away the journals, the writings, and most of the uniforms. Those days were compartmentalized and buried. Always below the surface, in my head, but never publicized.
In 1998, during a divorce and a difficult employment time, I went to a therapist and it all came back with a vengeance. Those times and PTSD almost took me down completely. But I had two kids then, and I could not give up. Their voices and their faces, their futures, were my focal points. I never shared all the details of my Marine Corps experiences with my wife nor my kids – my logic was that it would sound like an excuse by then. Too little, too late. I will regret that forever but, like Vietnam, there are no do-overs.
Ultimately, over time, I have accepted my history, and I accepted my demons, and stopped hiding them. The Marine Corps and Vietnam came back to become a proud part of my life.
You’ve heard enough about me now, and if you take anything from what I’ve said so far it is that I never gave up on myself – you can’t give up on yourself. If you’re down, get yourself up. If you’re walking through hell --- just keep going, just keep moving.
So let me finish, by telling you a little about veterans as a group. As was once written by someone much wiser than myself, a vet named Dan Mouser, who in 1996 answered a college student's question, "What is a Vietnam Veteran?" with some of these words: (I've elaborated, edited and added, but the idea came from him.)
Veterans are men and women. At some point in our lives we all signed a contract to serve our country and protect its people.
We are dead or alive, whole or maimed, sane or haunted.
We grew from our experiences - or we were destroyed by them - or we struggle to find some place in between. We lived through hell or we had a pleasant, if scary, adventure. We were Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, Red Cross, and civilians of all sorts.
Some of us enlisted to fight for God and Country, and some were drafted. Some were gung-ho to go, and some went kicking and screaming.
Veterans of all wars lived a tad bit -- or a whole lot -- closer to death than most people want to think about.
Some combat veterans never saw the enemy nor recognized him or her. We heard gunfire and mortar fire but rarely looked into enemy eyes. Those who did, like folks who encounter close combat anywhere and anytime, are often haunted for life by those eyes, the sounds, the sights, those indescribable fears that ran between ourselves and our enemies, and the very strong likelihood of death for one of us.
It’s not like in the movies, it’s not a video game, it’s real, and it’s not something we want for anyone.
Some veterans get hard, calloused, tougher.
But most of us remember and we get twitchy, worried, sad, moody, edgy, angry,…. pick one or all, sometimes or all the time…. Forever. Forever.
“All in a days' work.”
"It is what it is."
“It don’t mean nuthin’.”
“Life's a bitch and then you die.”
But most of us remember and we get twitchy, worried, sad, moody, edgy, angry,…. pick one or all, sometimes or all the time…. Forever. Forever.
Veterans are those crazies dressed in camo, wide-eyed, wary, homeless and drunk.
We are also Brooks Brothers or Brioni suit wearers, doing deals and appearing to live well.
We are housewives, grandmothers, and even church deacons. We are college professors or high school teachers engaged in the rational pursuit of truth about the history or politics or culture of the experience of life.
And we are sleepless. Oh my God, we are so often sleepless.
We pushed paper; we pushed shovels, we pushed gurney’s, we pushed each other. We drove jeeps, operated bulldozers, built bridges; we humped machine guns through dense brush, deep paddy and thorn scrub. We lived on buffalo milk, fish heads and rice. Or C-rations or MREs. Or steaks and Budweiser. We did our time in high mountains drenched by endless monsoon rains or on the dusty dry plains or on muddy rivers or at the most beautiful beaches in the world.
We wore berets, bandanas, boonie hats, and steel pots. Flak jackets, canvas, rash and rot.
We ate chloroquine and got malaria anyway. We got shots constantly… but then, and today, have diseases nobody can diagnose. We blame Uncle Sam or Uncle Ho and their minions and secretaries and apologists for every wart or cough or tick of an eye we have. Fifty years later, we wonder if Agent Orange got us. Fifty years later we wonder if the water of Camp Lejeune got us.
We spent our nights sweating on cots or shivering in foxholes filled with waist high water or lying still on cold, wet ground, our eyes imagining Charlie behind every bamboo blade. Or we slept in hotel beds in Saigon - or barracks in Thailand - or in cramped berths on ships at sea.
We feared we would die or we feared we would kill. We simply feared, and often we still do. We are afraid to be afraid.
We hate fireworks and crowds. We HATE fireworks and crowds.
We hate war, yet many of us believe it was the best thing that ever happened to us. We believe that no nation’s ruler should be allowed to declare war unless he or she has been in one or had a child in one. Wars are very personal undertakings too often created by people who don’t realize firsthand the impact.
Mostly -- and I believe this with all my heart -- mostly, Vietnam veterans wish we had not been so alone. Some of us went with units; but many, probably most of us, were civilians one day, pulled out of "the world", shaved, barked at, insulted, humiliated, de-egoized and then rebuilt and taught to kill, to fix radios, to drive trucks. We went, put in our time, and were equally ungraciously plucked out of the morass and placed back in the real world. But now we smoked dope, shot skag, or drank heavily. Our families, our wives or husbands seemed distant and strange. Our friends wanted to know if we shot anybody. Life was not the same.
And life went on, it had been going on, as if we hadn't been there, as if Vietnam was a topic of political conversation or college protest or news copy, not a matter of life and death for tens of thousands of us.
Veterans are people just like everyone else. We served our country, proudly or reluctantly or ambivalently. What makes us different -- what makes us different -- is something we understand, but we are afraid nobody else will. But we appreciate you asking, even if we can’t answer.
We were farmers, students, mechanics, steelworkers, nurses, and priests when the call came that changed us all forever. We had dreams and plans, and they all had to change...or wait. We were daughters and sons, lovers and poets, beatniks and philosophers, convicts and lawyers. We were rich and poor, but mostly poor. We were educated or not, mostly not. We grew up in slums, in shacks, in duplexes, and bungalows and houseboats and nice houses and ranches.
We were cowards and heroes. Sometimes we were cowards one moment and heroes the next. But we’d never claim the title “hero” and we are more than skeptical of anyone who does.
We came home and marched in protest marches, sucked in tear gas, and shrieked our anger and horror for all to hear. Or we sat alone in small rooms, in VA hospital wards, in places where only the crazy ever go.
We are Republicans, Democrats, Socialists and Confucians and Buddhists and Atheists -- though as usually is the case, even the atheists among us sometimes prayed to get out of there alive.
We are hungry, and we are sated, we are full of life or we are clinging to death. We are injured, and we are healing, we are despairing and we are hopeful, we loved and we lost. We got too old too quickly, but some of us have never grown up.
Some of us want, desperately, to go back to heal wounds, revisit the sites of our horror. Or we want to never see that place again, to bury it, its memories, its meaning.
We want to forget, and we wish we could remember.
Despite our differences, all of us have so much in common. There are few of us who don't know how to cry, though we often do it alone when nobody will ask us "what's wrong?" We're afraid we might have to answer.
If you want to know what a Vietnam veteran is, go to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC, or a travelling wall, on Veterans Day. There will be hundreds there during the day. But if you want to see the unseen among you, go in the middle of the night around 2 – 4 a.m. That’s where you’ll see many of us. Watch them. Listen to them. We'll be there, in Vietnam again.
Don’t be afraid to talk to veterans or those old guys in the military hats. Don’t be afraid to just say "hello" or "thank you" or "welcome home". Even the ones who tell you they don’t need to hear it, do appreciate your effort more than you may know or they will ever admit.
I am a Marine Corps Vietnam Combat Veteran, and after 50 years I think I am beginning to understand what that means.
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