thedrifter
12-20-08, 05:52 AM
Columbus man finds healing by returning to Vietnam
By PAUL SCHARF, Staff Reporter
COLUMBUS - Will Gilmore went to Vietnam in 1969 to fulfill his obligations to the United States government.
Gilmore, now a Columbus resident, served in the Marine Corps there in 1969 and 1970. He was in Hoa Dah, a village of about 6,000 between the cities of Denang and Hoi Ane.
"We were a team of 10 to 14 Marines that performed civic action in the village as well conducting combat activities to keep the area protected from Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army activities," Gilmore said.
"I think (the residents of Hoa Dah) were glad we were there versus their having been strictly combat units in the village," he said.
"Our experiences were highly personalized, which was challenging, because we knew from intelligence that approximately 30 percent of the adults in our village were either Viet Cong or supporters of the Hanoi government. We could be sharing tea and lunch with people during the day and discussing their families, and at night we could be pursuing the same people by way of patrols and ambushes."
Sometimes villagers would tip the unit off about the presence of the enemy there, but the soldiers were in a tenuous position.
"If we in any way created a reputation as being bothersome, we would be overrun," Gilmore said. "The last thing we wanted to do is recruit the enemy based on our actions and our behavior."
"That formed the core of not only our mission in the village, but our survival. What we spread was mutual respect, good will, wanting to understand the culture and people on an individual level."
Gilmore earned the rank of sergeant in his four years in the Marines.
Will Gilmore went to Vietnam in 2008 to fulfill his obligations to his own conscience.
He travelled alone back to his village (now called Hoa Xuan and still about the same size) for two weeks in March. It was his first trip to Vietnam since the war.
"I went to reconcile for some lives," Gilmore said. "My mission, beyond seeing everyone again, was to make some compensation, or offer my sorrow to the people for the damage we had done in the village."
"Some innocent people were killed as a result of our being there. Today they call it 'collateral damage' when civilians are killed inadvertently, and I wanted to pay respects to the families, if I could find them, of the people who were killed," Gilmore said.
In the days since the war, Gilmore has taught anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and the UW Center in Manitowoc. He is now a retired contract archaeologist who is focused on travelling and painting, with his work portraying local scenes currently being displayed at Columbus' West James Street Gallery.
Gilmore said the trip was a necessary part of his personal healing.
"My going back to Vietnam has less to do with politics and everything to do with re-uniting with old friends," he said.
"It's something I just felt I had to do as part of the goals I had for myself for recovery and well-being. I wasn't talking about my government or the Marines. I went there as Will Gilmore," he said. "I wanted to rid my psyche of some traumatic memories and the best way I felt I could was to re-visit the setting where those memories first occurred."
Gilmore said the area is mostly the same as it was when he was there originally, except it now has electricity.
He had many noteworthy experiences during his visit, but there was one special friend he knew he had to locate. The man's name is Hoa, and Gilmore calls him his closest friend when he was in Vietnam
Hoa had earned money back then by serving as an errand boy for Gilmore's Marine unit. His father had been killed fighting for the South Vietnamese, and he was left as the main income earner in his home. Gilmore said the Marines gave him pocket change for running errands.
"He and I just hit it off," Gilmore said of Hoa. "He cried when I was walking out of the village for the last time."
Gilmore asked the boy why he was crying.
"He said, 'You're leaving and you're never coming back and I will never see you again.'"
Stunned, Gilmore told him he would come back.
The reunion with Hoa was emotional.
Hoa still lives in the same family home, and recognized Gilmore immediately when he saw him in March.
"He fell apart," Gilmore said. "He called me 'Corporal Gilmore.'"
Hoa is now married with three children, and was making hand tools from scrap metal for a living.
Gilmore knew he wanted to do something for his old friend in return for his work as a translator for the American soldiers during the war. He took Hoa into Denang to buy him industrial equipment which has greatly improved his business by making his work easier and allowing him to use much better raw material.
"It's me compensating him for all those days and weeks and months that he was by our side translating conversations we would have with local villagers, including where the Viet Cong were operating," Gilmore said. "I am saying, 'For all I know, we may owe you our life, and I am just helping you out a little bit.'"
Gilmore believes that Hoa acted at great personal sacrifice to help the Americans.
"If he would have supported the Viet Cong, he would have had more opportunities. I know that for a fact," Gilmore stated.
Gilmore has since been able to talk to Hoa on the phone, and has found out that the purchases have helped his business considerably.
"I still call him 'Cowboy,' because that is what we called him then," Gilmore said with a laugh. "He likes the name 'Cowboy.'"
"His eldest son was getting married, so I was able to help him finance a little better wedding than he might be able to."
From the perspective of four decades later, Gilmore shares this view of the war: "In an ideal world, South Vietnam would have been allowed to form their own government, to raise their own army, with America perhaps only providing behind-the-scenes military support, in the form of supplies and some logistics."
"I am vehemently opposed to communism," Gilmore made clear. "On the other hand, I am such a believer in democracy that I feel the people in other nations should decide, and themselves be part of the struggle for self-determination."
Will Gilmore is going to Vietnam in 2009 to fulfill one of the major storylines of his lifetime.
"I am going to go back to Vietnam and write my memoirs," he said. "I am going to talk a lot about reconciliation, about healing, about the price young men and women pay as a result of being asked to serve their country in combat and how we can help them overcome those life-changing effects of war."
Gilmore is leaving at the end of January and will stay in a rented flat for two months. He said he will sit in a sidewalk café sipping tea and write.
His goal is "to give to younger men and women from this war, and their families, a description of not only (his) war experience, but the paths that (he) took toward healing from that."
He does not know if or how the work will be published.
"Even if just a manuscript results that can be passed around at the VA Hospital, I would be happy with that," he said. "I am not a writer, but I do want to put on paper 40 years of trying to deal with this war."
"What is done is done, the war is over," Gilmore said of an era that sometimes still divides this country.
"Everyone there is quick to say, 'There was no winner.' No one I met gloated in victory."
Ellie
By PAUL SCHARF, Staff Reporter
COLUMBUS - Will Gilmore went to Vietnam in 1969 to fulfill his obligations to the United States government.
Gilmore, now a Columbus resident, served in the Marine Corps there in 1969 and 1970. He was in Hoa Dah, a village of about 6,000 between the cities of Denang and Hoi Ane.
"We were a team of 10 to 14 Marines that performed civic action in the village as well conducting combat activities to keep the area protected from Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army activities," Gilmore said.
"I think (the residents of Hoa Dah) were glad we were there versus their having been strictly combat units in the village," he said.
"Our experiences were highly personalized, which was challenging, because we knew from intelligence that approximately 30 percent of the adults in our village were either Viet Cong or supporters of the Hanoi government. We could be sharing tea and lunch with people during the day and discussing their families, and at night we could be pursuing the same people by way of patrols and ambushes."
Sometimes villagers would tip the unit off about the presence of the enemy there, but the soldiers were in a tenuous position.
"If we in any way created a reputation as being bothersome, we would be overrun," Gilmore said. "The last thing we wanted to do is recruit the enemy based on our actions and our behavior."
"That formed the core of not only our mission in the village, but our survival. What we spread was mutual respect, good will, wanting to understand the culture and people on an individual level."
Gilmore earned the rank of sergeant in his four years in the Marines.
Will Gilmore went to Vietnam in 2008 to fulfill his obligations to his own conscience.
He travelled alone back to his village (now called Hoa Xuan and still about the same size) for two weeks in March. It was his first trip to Vietnam since the war.
"I went to reconcile for some lives," Gilmore said. "My mission, beyond seeing everyone again, was to make some compensation, or offer my sorrow to the people for the damage we had done in the village."
"Some innocent people were killed as a result of our being there. Today they call it 'collateral damage' when civilians are killed inadvertently, and I wanted to pay respects to the families, if I could find them, of the people who were killed," Gilmore said.
In the days since the war, Gilmore has taught anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and the UW Center in Manitowoc. He is now a retired contract archaeologist who is focused on travelling and painting, with his work portraying local scenes currently being displayed at Columbus' West James Street Gallery.
Gilmore said the trip was a necessary part of his personal healing.
"My going back to Vietnam has less to do with politics and everything to do with re-uniting with old friends," he said.
"It's something I just felt I had to do as part of the goals I had for myself for recovery and well-being. I wasn't talking about my government or the Marines. I went there as Will Gilmore," he said. "I wanted to rid my psyche of some traumatic memories and the best way I felt I could was to re-visit the setting where those memories first occurred."
Gilmore said the area is mostly the same as it was when he was there originally, except it now has electricity.
He had many noteworthy experiences during his visit, but there was one special friend he knew he had to locate. The man's name is Hoa, and Gilmore calls him his closest friend when he was in Vietnam
Hoa had earned money back then by serving as an errand boy for Gilmore's Marine unit. His father had been killed fighting for the South Vietnamese, and he was left as the main income earner in his home. Gilmore said the Marines gave him pocket change for running errands.
"He and I just hit it off," Gilmore said of Hoa. "He cried when I was walking out of the village for the last time."
Gilmore asked the boy why he was crying.
"He said, 'You're leaving and you're never coming back and I will never see you again.'"
Stunned, Gilmore told him he would come back.
The reunion with Hoa was emotional.
Hoa still lives in the same family home, and recognized Gilmore immediately when he saw him in March.
"He fell apart," Gilmore said. "He called me 'Corporal Gilmore.'"
Hoa is now married with three children, and was making hand tools from scrap metal for a living.
Gilmore knew he wanted to do something for his old friend in return for his work as a translator for the American soldiers during the war. He took Hoa into Denang to buy him industrial equipment which has greatly improved his business by making his work easier and allowing him to use much better raw material.
"It's me compensating him for all those days and weeks and months that he was by our side translating conversations we would have with local villagers, including where the Viet Cong were operating," Gilmore said. "I am saying, 'For all I know, we may owe you our life, and I am just helping you out a little bit.'"
Gilmore believes that Hoa acted at great personal sacrifice to help the Americans.
"If he would have supported the Viet Cong, he would have had more opportunities. I know that for a fact," Gilmore stated.
Gilmore has since been able to talk to Hoa on the phone, and has found out that the purchases have helped his business considerably.
"I still call him 'Cowboy,' because that is what we called him then," Gilmore said with a laugh. "He likes the name 'Cowboy.'"
"His eldest son was getting married, so I was able to help him finance a little better wedding than he might be able to."
From the perspective of four decades later, Gilmore shares this view of the war: "In an ideal world, South Vietnam would have been allowed to form their own government, to raise their own army, with America perhaps only providing behind-the-scenes military support, in the form of supplies and some logistics."
"I am vehemently opposed to communism," Gilmore made clear. "On the other hand, I am such a believer in democracy that I feel the people in other nations should decide, and themselves be part of the struggle for self-determination."
Will Gilmore is going to Vietnam in 2009 to fulfill one of the major storylines of his lifetime.
"I am going to go back to Vietnam and write my memoirs," he said. "I am going to talk a lot about reconciliation, about healing, about the price young men and women pay as a result of being asked to serve their country in combat and how we can help them overcome those life-changing effects of war."
Gilmore is leaving at the end of January and will stay in a rented flat for two months. He said he will sit in a sidewalk café sipping tea and write.
His goal is "to give to younger men and women from this war, and their families, a description of not only (his) war experience, but the paths that (he) took toward healing from that."
He does not know if or how the work will be published.
"Even if just a manuscript results that can be passed around at the VA Hospital, I would be happy with that," he said. "I am not a writer, but I do want to put on paper 40 years of trying to deal with this war."
"What is done is done, the war is over," Gilmore said of an era that sometimes still divides this country.
"Everyone there is quick to say, 'There was no winner.' No one I met gloated in victory."
Ellie