Vietnam vet looks back to battlefields

March 30, 2008 - 9:28PM
BY JAMES GILBERT, SUN STAFF WRITER

Some veterans who served in Vietnam wanted to put the war behind them as soon as they returned home from the fighting.

That's what Foothills resident Richard Hernandez, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, said he did for nearly four decades.

But in the course of getting records to document his claim for greater disability benefits, he decided he wanted to know more about how his actions on the battlefield fit into the bigger picture of that war.

"I wanted to know what all I did while I was there. It was important to me," Hernandez said of the armed conflict he experienced. "It was a lot of muscle, sweat and blood. But you got used to it after awhile."

Hernandez, 59, grew up in Gonzalez, Calif., and joined the U.S. Marine Corps on March 6, 1968, at the age of 18. He did so, he said, so he could be more like his older brother, who had already enlisted and was wounded while serving in Vietnam.

"We grew up really poor. And it was a way to help get my mother the money she needed to support the family," said Hernandez.who also has three sisters. "We never had a television. My brother and I slept on cots and we had a stove in the living room to cook with and keep the place warm."

His tour of duty lasted until Oct. 28, 1969, and he was given an early discharge in Nov. 1, 1969, at age 20. He had spent nearly 19 months in the service - 12 of them out on the battlefield.

Hernandez, who over the years has been wracked by recollections of his time in Vietnam, eventually sought medical help in 1999 and stopped by the Arizona Department of Veterans Services in Yuma to apply for benefits.

A psychologist diagnosed him with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The Department of Veterans Affairs in Phoenix granted him 30 percent in disability benefits, Hernandez said.

Hernandez says he is often in a lot of pain, both physically and mentally, and was able to get his disability benefit increased to 100 percent in 2002.

"I paid my dues. I have suffered. All I wanted when I first went was to get medication to sleep. I didn't go back after that first time because I didn't trust the government. I was afraid they were going to take my medication away."

Another reason Hernandez gave for not going back was that a friend he'd served with in Vietnam, Larry Andracchio, was getting 70 percent disability and that is all Hernandez thought he could get.

"We fought together and did the same type of things," Hernandez said.

Hernandez has since been diagnosed with diabetes from what he says was exposure to Agent Orange, depression, lower back pain, psychosis, degenerative joint disease and respiratory infections, as well as his severe PTSD. He takes 13 prescribed medications and to this day still sleeps on the floor.

While trying to get his disability pay increased, he wrote to the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis to request his military records.

In addition to receiving his personnel records, he was given the phone number to the Marine headquarters in Quantico, Va., where he could request additional information about the units in which he served.

He finally made the call in 2006, and one of the items he received back in response to his request was a book titled "The U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam in 1969."

While looking through the book, Hernandez said, he spotted three pictures of an unidentified Marine taken during missions in which he had participated. Hernandez believes he is that Marine.

"I'm pretty sure they are all me," he said.

He also received a CD that contained files of records regarding his units, which he is still in the process of printing. He spends several hours a day poring through all the documents and records.

After completing his basic training and all his advanced training, Hernandez shipped out to Vietnam from Camp Pendleton, the Marine base at Oceanside near San Diego. He hadn't been in the country more than two days when he volunteered to join a special landing force unit.

"I didn't have to, but they needed replacements. My sergeant told me not to do it because I had a good job and if I did, I would see combat. I told him that is what I wanted to do."

That was on Oct. 13, 1968. Hernandez would go on to spend most of the next year out on the front lines with the 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines, and see his share of combat.

Hernandez's tour of duty took him to the Quang Ngai Province in January 1969 for Operation Russell Beach and to the Quang Nam Province in February 1969 for Operation Defiant Measure. While there he also participated in Operation Taylor Common.

"Typically we would spend 30 to 40 days in an area conducting operations, then move on to the next enemy location," said Hernandez. "Our main objective was to search and destroy everything."

In early April 1969, Hernandez participated in Operation Oklahoma Hills, a search-and-destroy operation aimed at the 31st North Vietnamese Army regiment in the hills west of Da Nang. He also took part in defense of the Da Nang area to relieve enemy pressure in that province.

At one point during his tour of duty, his mother contacted the Red Cross trying to find about him because he had never written her.

"My sergeant asked me to start writing her. He said just write something like, 'I'm OK.' At first I told him I wasn't writing to her because I wanted to die over here so she would get $10,000 for it."

By the time he left the Marines, Hernandez had earned the Vietnam Service Medal, Combat Action Ribbons, Presidential Unit Commendation Ribbon, Navy Unit Commendation Bar and Ribbon, two Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citations, the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal and the USMC Rifle Badge.

Although he held regular jobs throughout the years, Hernandez continued serving in the military. After completing six years of reserve duty obligations with the Marines, he went on to serve another eight years, from 1980 to 1988, in the U.S. Army Reserves, and from 1988 to 2001 in the Army National Guard.

As a result of that service, Hernandez earned the Armed Forces Reserve Medal, another National Defense Service Medal, an Army Reserves Components Achievement Medal, Arizona Service Ribbon, Arizona Re-enlistment Ribbon and Arizona Southwest Asia Service Ribbon.


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James Gilbert can be reached at
jgilbert@yumasun.com or 539-6854.

Ellie