thedrifter
06-21-09, 07:35 AM
Recalling the heroes of Vietnam
By: GARY WECKSELBLATT
Bucks County Courier Times
Kimberly Hill never got to meet her uncle, Robert Hill Jr.
But through her father's recollections, she knew what kind of man he was.
So when it came time to compete for a college scholarship, the young woman, then 17, passionately wrote an essay about her wish to meet the man who died so young.
Asked "If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be?" Kim's answer was her uncle, an Army helicopter pilot killed during the Vietnam War:
?
"My uncle Bobby was a hero. He died fighting for his country in Vietnam. For as long as I can remember, I have heard stories, seen pictures, and heard audiotapes he sent home from Vietnam. These things have given me a special connection to my uncle and a special love that transcends time."
?
It's that expression of appreciation that was on display Saturday during the 25th anniversary of the dedication of the Bucks County Vietnam War Memorial.
The memorial honors the lives and sacrifices of the 133 young men from Bucks County who were killed in Vietnam, along with three still missing in action. Another plaque was added Saturday, honoring those who came home but later suffered the physical effects of war.
The name of Kim's uncle is one of those etched on the memorial.
Robert Hill Jr. grew up in Churchville and graduated from Council Rock High School.
His helicopter crashed over Vietnam Sept. 27, 1970, in zero visibility on a mission to find another missing helicopter.
Kim's dad, Bruce Hill, a year younger than Bobby, served with his brother as a Green Beret.
"He'll always be my big brother," said Bruce, who married, had two children and relocated to Northern Virginia.
To this day he cherishes childhood memories: " + walks to the bus stop together, new bikes for Christmas, our favorite oldies from the early '60s, dating the Griffith sisters, and him teaching me to drive his '61 Chevy."
"If I could have him back, it would always be his turn to run the train set, and my turn to mow the lawn."
He recalled meetings with Bobby in Vietnam. "Each time we parted, he'd tell me 'Be careful and keep your head down.' "
Bruce is still haunted by his brother's death.
"I truly miss what could have been: large family reunions, joint family vacations, picnics, holiday dinners together and all the other things that brothers do," he said. "We siblings are the survivors, but it's a long and often lonely road we travel."
He didn't know about his daughter's essay until it was finished, and didn't realize the impact of a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., would have on his then 7-year-old girl.
?
"As I ran my fingers over his name, Robert O. Hill, Jr., the cut in the smooth stone tickled my fingers. My dad told me stories he remembered of his brother - how he was always looking for a way to make someone laugh, how they would go camping together when they were Boy Scouts, how he once replaced the contents of the sugar bowl with salt to surprise everyone at breakfast."
"Seeing the way the loss of my uncle has affected my dad has had a profound effect on my own life. + It is hard to explain how I can have so much love for a man I have never met, but there is a love that grows deep inside of me. + It is a love that stems from seeing the love my dad has for him."
"I would love to have even a few minutes to meet my uncle, and tell him how much he is loved, and how greatly he is missed."
?
Bruce Hill gushes with pride when talking about his daughter and her connection to a brother he hasn't seen in nearly 40 years - and who she had never known.
"It's so important to me that all the men and women are remembered," he said.
Men like Douglas Arthur Post, a Navy airman from Richboro who was killed in action aboard the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal on July 29, 1967.
Post followed in the footsteps of his older brothers Ronald, who now lives in Chalfont, and the late Gerald, both of whom served in the Navy.
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"I enjoyed the Navy and he thought he would too," Ron recalled last week. "He was a restless kid, struggling to find out what to do with his life."
He remembers his kid brother pressuring their mom, Elba, to allow him to enlist. " 'Mom, there's nothing around he for me to do,' " Ron recalls Doug would say. "She was not too enthused."
Eventually, she relented.
Ron said the death of his brother and 132 fellow servicemen was entwined with the career of Sen. John McCain, a former Navy pilot.
According to Ron, McCain's plane was getting loaded "to strike in Vietnam."
McCain's aircraft was struck by a missile that short-circuited and fired from another aircraft. His plane was hit, and the fuel tank exploded. It created a large fire and a chain reaction. McCain's got scars to this day because he was on fire.
Ron cried when asked about his brother, who the Warminster VFW post is named after.
"A country like ours is a great country," he said. "It's just a shame we have to pay a terrible price to keep it. It's a terrible price on our young and the people who survive them. This is the price we pay for our freedom."
?
For some, that bill comes much later in life.
When you get the answering machine in Susan Dougherty's Warminster home, you hear the voice of her husband Roy.
The couple was married for 38 years before Roy lost a decade-long battle with prostate cancer last August at the age of 61.
Yet, the recording remains.
"I just want to hear his voice," she said.
The Doughertys believe the genesis of Roy's cancer occurred when the Marine Lance Corporal was stationed in Vietnam in 1967-68. So did Roy's doctor, who discovered the cancer.
Roy's exposure to the herbicide code-named Agent Orange, which the U.S. government sprayed in areas of Vietnam
to defoliate the jungle that hid the enemy, was the likely cause. It was used between 1962 and 1971. In 1977, Vietnam
veterans started reporting serious health symptoms.
Roy found out he had cancer during Christmas of 1998, on the day his grandson Connor was born to his daughter Lisa Maloney of Warminster, also a veteran. Lisa served with the Marines in Operation Desert Storm after graduating from William Tenant High School.
The decade that followed - Roy's last - was not easy.
"He had everything removed," Sue said of her husband's surgery. Then there was radiation, hormone therapy and chemo.
"Our daughters were devastated," Sue said of Lisa and Stacy Ruth. Lisa, with a military background like her dad, doesn't show as much emotion, Sue said. But Stacy "found it very hard to accept that he was dying. She was daddy's little girl."
Roy never spoke much about Vietnam, Sue said. "To him it was private. He didn't want to share and we didn't press him."
After the cancer diagnosis, however, and through therapy "he was more open. Thanks heavens," Sue said, "because it did help him come to terms with what he went through."
Roy told Sue he felt like he was going to die. "I'm a Marine, I'm not afraid to die," she recalled him saying. "I just don't want to."
Through it all, Sue said her husband, the love of her life, "was very all-American. He would do anything for his country."
"He said 'If I was ever called again, I'd be there in a second.' "
Gary Weckselblatt can be reached at 215-345-3169 or gweckselblatt@phillyBurbs.com.
HAND-IN PHOTOS IN THE SYSTEM
SUGGESTED PULL QUOTE:
"If I could have him back, it would always be his turn to run the train set, and my turn to mow the lawn," said Bruce Hill about his brother, Bobby, who died in a helicopter crash over Vietnam on Sept. 27, 1970.
June 21, 2009 02:10 AM
Ellie
By: GARY WECKSELBLATT
Bucks County Courier Times
Kimberly Hill never got to meet her uncle, Robert Hill Jr.
But through her father's recollections, she knew what kind of man he was.
So when it came time to compete for a college scholarship, the young woman, then 17, passionately wrote an essay about her wish to meet the man who died so young.
Asked "If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be?" Kim's answer was her uncle, an Army helicopter pilot killed during the Vietnam War:
?
"My uncle Bobby was a hero. He died fighting for his country in Vietnam. For as long as I can remember, I have heard stories, seen pictures, and heard audiotapes he sent home from Vietnam. These things have given me a special connection to my uncle and a special love that transcends time."
?
It's that expression of appreciation that was on display Saturday during the 25th anniversary of the dedication of the Bucks County Vietnam War Memorial.
The memorial honors the lives and sacrifices of the 133 young men from Bucks County who were killed in Vietnam, along with three still missing in action. Another plaque was added Saturday, honoring those who came home but later suffered the physical effects of war.
The name of Kim's uncle is one of those etched on the memorial.
Robert Hill Jr. grew up in Churchville and graduated from Council Rock High School.
His helicopter crashed over Vietnam Sept. 27, 1970, in zero visibility on a mission to find another missing helicopter.
Kim's dad, Bruce Hill, a year younger than Bobby, served with his brother as a Green Beret.
"He'll always be my big brother," said Bruce, who married, had two children and relocated to Northern Virginia.
To this day he cherishes childhood memories: " + walks to the bus stop together, new bikes for Christmas, our favorite oldies from the early '60s, dating the Griffith sisters, and him teaching me to drive his '61 Chevy."
"If I could have him back, it would always be his turn to run the train set, and my turn to mow the lawn."
He recalled meetings with Bobby in Vietnam. "Each time we parted, he'd tell me 'Be careful and keep your head down.' "
Bruce is still haunted by his brother's death.
"I truly miss what could have been: large family reunions, joint family vacations, picnics, holiday dinners together and all the other things that brothers do," he said. "We siblings are the survivors, but it's a long and often lonely road we travel."
He didn't know about his daughter's essay until it was finished, and didn't realize the impact of a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., would have on his then 7-year-old girl.
?
"As I ran my fingers over his name, Robert O. Hill, Jr., the cut in the smooth stone tickled my fingers. My dad told me stories he remembered of his brother - how he was always looking for a way to make someone laugh, how they would go camping together when they were Boy Scouts, how he once replaced the contents of the sugar bowl with salt to surprise everyone at breakfast."
"Seeing the way the loss of my uncle has affected my dad has had a profound effect on my own life. + It is hard to explain how I can have so much love for a man I have never met, but there is a love that grows deep inside of me. + It is a love that stems from seeing the love my dad has for him."
"I would love to have even a few minutes to meet my uncle, and tell him how much he is loved, and how greatly he is missed."
?
Bruce Hill gushes with pride when talking about his daughter and her connection to a brother he hasn't seen in nearly 40 years - and who she had never known.
"It's so important to me that all the men and women are remembered," he said.
Men like Douglas Arthur Post, a Navy airman from Richboro who was killed in action aboard the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal on July 29, 1967.
Post followed in the footsteps of his older brothers Ronald, who now lives in Chalfont, and the late Gerald, both of whom served in the Navy.
Advertisement
"I enjoyed the Navy and he thought he would too," Ron recalled last week. "He was a restless kid, struggling to find out what to do with his life."
He remembers his kid brother pressuring their mom, Elba, to allow him to enlist. " 'Mom, there's nothing around he for me to do,' " Ron recalls Doug would say. "She was not too enthused."
Eventually, she relented.
Ron said the death of his brother and 132 fellow servicemen was entwined with the career of Sen. John McCain, a former Navy pilot.
According to Ron, McCain's plane was getting loaded "to strike in Vietnam."
McCain's aircraft was struck by a missile that short-circuited and fired from another aircraft. His plane was hit, and the fuel tank exploded. It created a large fire and a chain reaction. McCain's got scars to this day because he was on fire.
Ron cried when asked about his brother, who the Warminster VFW post is named after.
"A country like ours is a great country," he said. "It's just a shame we have to pay a terrible price to keep it. It's a terrible price on our young and the people who survive them. This is the price we pay for our freedom."
?
For some, that bill comes much later in life.
When you get the answering machine in Susan Dougherty's Warminster home, you hear the voice of her husband Roy.
The couple was married for 38 years before Roy lost a decade-long battle with prostate cancer last August at the age of 61.
Yet, the recording remains.
"I just want to hear his voice," she said.
The Doughertys believe the genesis of Roy's cancer occurred when the Marine Lance Corporal was stationed in Vietnam in 1967-68. So did Roy's doctor, who discovered the cancer.
Roy's exposure to the herbicide code-named Agent Orange, which the U.S. government sprayed in areas of Vietnam
to defoliate the jungle that hid the enemy, was the likely cause. It was used between 1962 and 1971. In 1977, Vietnam
veterans started reporting serious health symptoms.
Roy found out he had cancer during Christmas of 1998, on the day his grandson Connor was born to his daughter Lisa Maloney of Warminster, also a veteran. Lisa served with the Marines in Operation Desert Storm after graduating from William Tenant High School.
The decade that followed - Roy's last - was not easy.
"He had everything removed," Sue said of her husband's surgery. Then there was radiation, hormone therapy and chemo.
"Our daughters were devastated," Sue said of Lisa and Stacy Ruth. Lisa, with a military background like her dad, doesn't show as much emotion, Sue said. But Stacy "found it very hard to accept that he was dying. She was daddy's little girl."
Roy never spoke much about Vietnam, Sue said. "To him it was private. He didn't want to share and we didn't press him."
After the cancer diagnosis, however, and through therapy "he was more open. Thanks heavens," Sue said, "because it did help him come to terms with what he went through."
Roy told Sue he felt like he was going to die. "I'm a Marine, I'm not afraid to die," she recalled him saying. "I just don't want to."
Through it all, Sue said her husband, the love of her life, "was very all-American. He would do anything for his country."
"He said 'If I was ever called again, I'd be there in a second.' "
Gary Weckselblatt can be reached at 215-345-3169 or gweckselblatt@phillyBurbs.com.
HAND-IN PHOTOS IN THE SYSTEM
SUGGESTED PULL QUOTE:
"If I could have him back, it would always be his turn to run the train set, and my turn to mow the lawn," said Bruce Hill about his brother, Bobby, who died in a helicopter crash over Vietnam on Sept. 27, 1970.
June 21, 2009 02:10 AM
Ellie