Each eventually settled in Montana. Their service in Vietnam - and their having lived to tell about it - brings them together today.
“My Vietnam” is exactly that: a 244-page book consisting of 13 separate, uncensored stories written by ordinary local veterans on their experiences in the war.
How these men came together begins with a teacher at Frenchtown High School.
In the mid-1990s, the students in Merle Johnston's U.S. history class began to ask detailed questions about the Vietnam War. Like many Vietnam veterans, Johnston, who served as an Army artilleryman, never wanted to share.
How could he tell them about the soldier from New York who took his place at the steering wheel of the armored vehicle the day Johnston - still recovering from an enemy attack earlier that week - was too shook up to drive? The soldier's name was Bob, and on that assignment, he was hit with shrapnel and killed.
Johnston said he remembers later packing Bob's duffel bag and holding the small knife that he kept attached to his belt, and thinking that his mom didn't even know her son was dead. He still hopes to someday visit Bob's gravesite in Idaho.
Some of Johnston's students had fathers who'd served in Vietnam, too. So in 1996, he asked several veterans to come talk to his students.
“It was pretty nerve-wracking for them,” Johnston said. “All of us shut down for 20-some years for various reasons. They were reliving things they didn't want to remember.”
There was no lack of the student interest.
Several years later, Johnston established a Vietnam elective class for juniors and seniors. Each year, around Memorial Day, Johnston invites Vietnam veterans to come spend the entire day talking with Frenchtown High School students about their experiences and answering questions.
Over time, word spread about the Frenchtown Vietnam Symposium. This year, the daylong event attracted 23 veterans from around western Montana. It has become more than an educational event; it's an opportunity for veterans to tell the stories they've hidden away for decades and meet others who help them to remember.
“The only people who can understand me are the people who were there with me. My whole life is run on that basis,” said Steve “Gus” Gustuson, a Vietnam veteran and middle school art teacher in Missoula. “You put up with those people or these people, but when it come down to who has my back, well, my brothers have my back.”
On Friday, Ed Kugler was in an airport on his way to a book signing in Washington, D.C., at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall for his most popular book, “Dead Center: A Marine Sniper's Two-Year Odyssey in the Vietnam War.”
The author from Big Arm, whose story also is featured in “My Vietnam,” has spoken about his experiences during the war at many high schools across the country, but none compares to the event in Frenchtown, he said.
“I've seen nothing like it,” he said. The symposium “captures Vietnam from across the time and jurisdictions and what it was like to be a pilot versus how it was to be an infantryman.”
Capturing a variety of different stories and impressions of the war was the same approach the veterans took to writing “My Vietnam.”
All of the veterans answered a dozen of the most frequently asked questions by students at the symposium. Each chapter in the book is a different question:
“Why did you go to Vietnam?” “What did you fear the most?” “What kind of adjustments did you have to make coming home?”
Nearly all the pictures are ones taken by the veterans during their time of service.
“It came out better than I expected,” said Kugler, who compiled the stories. “As it came together, it weaves a unique story.”
The book is not a perfect balance of duties or branches of military. Not all of the sentences are complete. There's jargon that the ordinary civilian may not understand. And that's all OK, Johnston said, “because it's our stories.”
That's the point.
There is serious talk about writing a sequel to “My Vietnam” and turning the project into a “Chicken Soup for the Soul” kind of series, where different veterans each time get to tell their stories, Johnston said. Thirteen new veterans have already shown interest.
All proceeds from the sale of “My Vietnam” go to the new Western Montana State Veterans Cemetery in Missoula. The 23-acre cemetery is under construction north of Big Sky High School. A dedication ceremony is scheduled for Sept. 11.
Charlie Crookshanks, administrator of the committee that worked to make the cemetery a reality, is grateful that the veterans are putting the proceeds toward the cemetery. The state allocates no general funds for the maintenance of state veterans cemeteries. Revenue is mainly generated from the $10 surcharge on veterans' license plates.
“Everybody in all different areas of government is under dramatic budget constraints,” he said. “We need all the income we can get.”
Anyone interested in purchasing a copy of “My Vietnam” can do so online after June 1 at www.lulu.com/myvietnam, or after July 1 on Amazon.com.
Reporter Chelsi Moy can be reached at 523-5260 or at chelsi.moy@missoulian.com
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