     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990
     .                                  __                           .
     .                             ____/  \_                         .
     .  -*-  N A M   V E T  -*-   (      *  \                        .
     .                            \    Quang Tri                     .
     .       G. Joseph Peck        \_/\       \_ Hue                 .
     .       Managing Editor           \_Ashau    Phu Bai            .
     .                                   \_*       \_                .
     . Bob Morris         Jerry Hindle     \      *  )               .
     .     Distribution Managers          /    Da Nang               .
     .                                   (            \_             .
     .        Section Editors             \_    ------- \__          .
     .        ---------------               \_  I Corps    \         .
     . PTSD:  Kathleen Kelly, Ph.D.           \ -------     !        .
     . AGENT ORANGE:   Martin J. Kroll, Sr.  /\_____        !        .
     . MIA-POW:   Glenn Toothman            /       !        \       .
     . HOMELESSNESS:  Lefty Frizzell        !       !___      \      .
     . FEDERAL BENEFITS:   Jim Hildwine     !           \/\____!     .
     . INCARCERATED VETS:  Todd C. Looney   !                 !      .
     .                     Joyce Flory     /  Dak To          !      .
     . MEMORIALS:  Aaron Schmiedel        /     *            /       .
     . MEMORIES:   G. Joseph Peck         !                  \_      .
     . CHAPLAIN:   Rev. Ed Brant          !             Phu Cat\     .
     .                                     \    *            *  )    .
     .    -**-  N A M    V E T   -**-       \ Pleiku            )    .
     .                                       \                  \    .
     .                                       /                  /    .
     . "In the jungles of 'Nam, some of us  (       --------    !    .
     . were scared and wary, but we pulled  _\      II Corps    !    .
     . one another along and were able     /        --------     \   .
     . to depend on each other.  That has  \                      \  .
     . never changed.  Today, free of the   !                 *  /   .
     . criticisms and misunderstandings   _/          Nha Trang /    .
     . many veterans have endured,      _/                     /     .
     . NAM VET is a shining beacon,  __/                       !     .
     . a ray of hope, and a    _  __/  \                       !     .
     . reminder that the _____( )/      !              Cam Ranh Bay  .
     . lessons learned  /               !__                    !     .
     . at such a high  /                   \                  /      .
     . price shall not \          Bien Hoa  \                /       .
     . be forgotten  -  !  Chu Chi       *   \            __/        .
     . nor the errors    \_   *   ---------   \       ___/           .
     . repeated!!!"  ____  \      III Corps    \    _/        *      .
     .       / \_____)   )_(_     ---------     !__/                 .
     .       !               (               ___/   * Duplication in .
     .  _____!                \__      * ___/     any form permitted .
     . !                          Saigon/          for noncommercial .
     .  \___   --------           /  \/               purposes only. .
     .      \  IV Corps          /                                   .
     .       ) --------         /                                    .
     .      /                   !                                    .
     .     /               ____/                                     .
     .    /         Mekong/                                          .
     .    !         Delta/  This newsletter is comprised of articles .
     .    !        ____/     and items from individuals and other    .
     .    !       /       sources.  We are not responsible for the   .
     .    !      /      content of this information nor are any of   .
     .    !   __/        NAM VETs contributors or Section Editors.   .
     .     \_/                                                   gjp .
     

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                     T A B L E   O F   C O N T E N T S

     
     1.  EDITORIALS
          De ja vu???????? ........................................  1
          Coping With Christmas ...................................  3
          Veteran's Benefits Threatened ...........................  5
          A product of my yesterdays... ...........................  7

     2.  Special Times
          Khe Sanh: Vietnam's Most Controversial Battle ........... 11
          A Message to My Country ................................. 14

     3.  Agent Orange
          VA Awaits Further AO Research ........................... 15
          Pass the Clearasil <tm>!!! .............................. 16

     4.  Hearts n' Minds
          Vietnam Vets - Road to Recovery ......................... 17
          Old Salt's Lament ....................................... 25
          Say Over, Mary! ......................................... 27
          I ain't here alone! ..................................... 32

     5.  Veteran Benefits
          VA Pensions increase .................................... 34
          Veterans reminded of burial benefits .................... 35

     6.  Missing!!!
          Christmas and POW's ..................................... 37
          They haven't forgutten US!!! ............................ 39
          MIA News ................................................ 40
          MIA List - A through E .................................. 42
          Memorials Effect Is Deep! ............................... 51
          Wall Omissions? ......................................... 53

     7.  The Chaplain At Nam Vet
          The Bell Toll's ......................................... 55
          NAM VET's Chaplain ...................................... 59
          A visit or note once in awhile? ......................... 60

     8.  They've a special part
          Vietnam Nurses .......................................... 61

     9.  Of particular interest
          Danger to a Generous and Healing Spirit! ................ 68
          RAMSEY CLARK AND THE PANAMA INVASION .................... 73

     10.  Concentrated Service
          VIETNAM_VETS Echo targets on SERVICE! ................... 77
          D.A.V. Service & Involvement requested. ................. 78

     11.  Military Organizations
          Service Organizations & BBS's ........................... 80

     12.  Subscribe Now!
          Subscribe to Nam Vet .................................... 86

     13.  IVVEC - Who and What
          Vietnam Vets Echo Participants   ........................ 87
          IVVEC Nodelist & Parameters of VIETNAM_VETS Echo ........ 89
          Some Gave All... ........................................ 94

     NAM VET Newsletter                                      Page    i
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990



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                            E D I T O R I A L S
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                              De ja vu?????
     
                           by: Glenn Toothman
                      NAM VETs MIA-POW Section Editor
                    The Commo Bunker - Karnes County, TX
                VetPoint 8 (1:321/203.8) & FidoNet 1:387/801
     
     Just the other day I was returning  from  a  business  trip,   and 
     there   was  a  crowd at the airport that made my moving away from 
     the gate difficult,   and  when  I  got  up  to  the  commotion  I 
     discovered  that  it was a returning Air Force Capt.  from Panama. 
     Well,  I was upset (tired from the trip and annoyed  at  the  fact 
     that  I  wasn't  moving  as  fast  as  I  wanted  to),  I made the 
     statement that this guy had spent two days in Combat,  and he  was 
     getting  all  this attention,  and I had spent two years in Combat 
     and got no attention at all.   At this point a newsman  must  have 
     overheard  me make the statement, and he asked me about it..  Well 
     I told him that I had no comment and moved on with my business.
     
     What I had said bothers me.  Why??  Because I've been listening to 
     other   Namvets and what they are saying about the older Vets from 
     WW II et al. Hearing us say how  unlistening,  unconcerned,   etc. 
     that they were.
     
     Now we have something in common with the Older Vets...  Now we are 
     experiencing the  6  o'clock  trip  to  Combat,   that  our  peers 
     experienced.    The  media  is  now  showing  the  casualties  and 
     wounded, the civilian problems,  the  warriors  sucking  mud  when 
     sniped  at,   many  of  the same things that we experienced in Nam 
     (not to exclude Granada,  however due to the news  blackout  there 
     was  not  the coverage that there is in Panama).   I hear Namvets, 
     (and myself) getting angry, saying things (like I said above)  and 
     generally  reacting  to the new vets in a negative manner.   Could 
     it be that we are becoming like the WW II vets,  not wanting these 
     "young kids" in our exclusive club??  Are we feeling threatened by 
     these "young kids" experiencing the things we did,  fear,   anger, 
     frustration??   Will   these   "young  kids"   want  to  join  our 
     organizations and tell "war stories" about Panama,  and  not  want 
     to  hear  about  "Nam",  are  we  a  thing of the past???   Are we 
     becoming like the WW II vets, "old" warriors, "old"  men and women 
     whom  no  one  wants  to  listen  to??   Do  we  no longer have an 
     exclusive war, jungle war, war with civilians shooting,  war  with 
     the  6  o'clock  news  coverage??   Now  that we are no longer the 
     youngest vets, will we be put on the "back shelf"  and  no  longer 
     be getting the attention that we feel we deserve??   Must we stand 
     aside and let these "young kids" get all the "glory"  of  combat?? 
     I,  as  a combat vet from Nam,  feel we should stop and reflect on 
     our own feelings,  then put ourselves in the place of  the  WW  II 
     vets,  being  forced to acknowledge that we are getting old,  that 
     it  has been quite a few years since we were in combat  (25  years 
     ago  is when I enlisted and was sent to Nam).   Can it be that the 
     hardest  thing for us to do now is accept the fact that we can  no 
     longer  be  the "grunt" of the past,  that we can no longer be the 
     "youngest vets".   Maybe we should  take  the  knowledge  we  have 
     gleaned   from  our  experiences  and share it with the soon to be 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page  1
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     homecoming vets, and help them "get it together".
     
     These new "Vets"  didn't have to travel half way around the world, 
     move  through  countless  time zones, be exposed to "total"  alien 
     concepts,  didn't have to go through the anti-war gauntlet that we 
     did,   but  they  HAVE seen the world through the eyes of a combat 
     soldier, have fired shots at an enemy,  have been shot  at  by  an 
     enemy,  they  are  indeed Brothers, Brothers of Combat,  and we as 
     Brothers  should help them make the transition back  to  the  life 
     that  they  left.   These men and women did the same thing we did, 
     they went to war when asked (ordered?) by  their  country.    They 
     went  in  our  place,   though  many  of us would have gladly gone 
     again, for whatever reasons that we may have.  It  should  be  our 
     pleasure  and  pride to assist them upon their return,  to welcome 
     them back,  to give them the recognition and praise that we  never 
     got,  to keep them from experiencing the rejection and prosecution 
     that we were, in essence to give them what we  were  denied,   for 
     twenty  years.....  Panama  Vet, you are welcome here,  you have a 
     ready ear to talk to,  you have a friend to listen to your stories 
     you   have  a comrade to lean on when remembering those who didn't 
     make it back,  Welcome Home, and Welcome Aboard.
     
     I really don't know how this article will affect the Namvets,  but 
     someone  had  to say it,  I for one do not want these New Warriors 
     to experience what I have,  they have experienced enough with  the 
     experience  of  combat,   they don't need to have the rejection of 
     being the youngest veterans and shunned for it.
     
                              Glenn Toothman
                                 RVN 66-67
                                 RVN 70-71
     



























     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page  2
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                           Coping With Christmas
                              By: Todd Looney
                         NAM VETs Editor-In-Chief
                 Vietnam Veterans Valhalla - San Jose, CA
                        (408) 737-2564 (Mail Only)
     
          The   Thanksgiving/Christmas season has almost always been  a 
     tough  one for me to handle.   I was a POW in Laos for a period of 
     time in the early 70's.   Since I was captured in an October,  and 
     escaped  during a November 2 years later,  those months have since 
     held  a  place in my subconscious apart from the rest of the year. 
     Thanksgiving   and  Christmas  as  a  child  were  always times of 
     family  and  friends,  laughter,  surprise,  glee ...   happiness. 
     Those   images  were  clouded  while  I  was in those prison camps 
     because   I  was forbidden all the pleasures which had for so long 
     accompanied  them.    After  Vietnam,   the  dreaded images of the 
     holiday  season  continued  to  mar  my  perspective,   and  since 
     Vietnam   it has  been extremely  difficult at best for me to cope 
     with the months of October through December.
     
          In   1983  I  spent  6  months  in a VA Mental Rehabilitation 
     hospital under the auspices of a  "Combat Veterans Program"  which 
     succeeded  in  aiding me to attain the correct perspective on what 
     had  happened  to  me  during  the four years I spent in Southeast 
     Asia.  Now, incarcerated in  California's  penal  system,  I found 
     myself  replaying  those old  tapes I had thought were long  since 
     played out and erased.
     
          In jail,  one is isolated  from  the  "spirit"   of Christmas 
     almost to  the  extreme  of nonexistence.    Oh sure,  the inmates 
     have  programs  inside  designed to try and emote a feeling a well 
     being.  We decorated  the recreation  area  with boughs,   tinsel, 
     colorful  streamers  and holiday artwork.     We threw ourselves a 
     sanctioned  "party"  during  which  we "feasted"  on deli meat and 
     pizza prepared by volunteers from our prison chow hall.   Visitors  
     from   outside  came in and brought holiday fare with them to help 
     liven the inmates  mood  and  sway  the loneliness,  but when they 
     left  the  foreboding  feelings  of loss and loneliness  reemerged 
     in an all-consuming flash.    Many  of the Vietnam veterans in the 
     Santa Clara County jail,  as well as I,   were  not visited during 
     the   holidays  and  spent   them  alone  for  all it  was  worth. 
     Depression   and  grief  were  our  bedmates  during  the  holiday 
     season.
     
          I  took the  opportunity open to me to speak with many of the 
     Vietnam   veterans  incarcerated  with  me in Santa Clara County's 
     jail  system  about their feelings.   We shared ourselves with one 
     another  as  openly  as  we could,  and the feelings we had during 
     that  month  were in  common  -   almost a symphonic tune in their 
     sameness.   Each  knew how the other felt,  but we were helplessly 
     ensnared  in  the  grasp  of  that pain called Christmas.   All we 
     could do was  let each other know that we understood.     We tried 
     to incarnate  better feelings for each other,  and were successful 
     for the time  we were  together,   but when we returned to our own 
     little cells  we  found  ourselves once again alone ...   thinking 
     about   those  on  the  outside  and  wondering if anyone *really* 
     cared.    We  wallowed  in our own depressions until the next free 
     period   when  we  could  all  get  together  again to comfort one 
     another.
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page  3
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
          Coping   with  Christmas  for a  Vietnam veteran incarcerated 
     has   been one of the worst experiences  I  have ever had to face. 
     It   was very much akin to the way I felt when I was imprisoned by 
     the  North Vietnamese back in 1971 and 1972.   Of all the veterans 
     organizations   out there I was shocked that there were no efforts 
     by  *any*   of  them   to show some support for their brothers and 
     sisters incarcerated in Santa Clara's massive jail system.
     
          I  made   a  resolution  though.    I'll  never  let  another 
     Christmas  pass  by  without  at  least trying to bring a  message 
     of  hope  and  good will  to  my  brother   and   sister   Vietnam  
     veterans who happen   to   have   found   themselves  incarcerated  
     during   the  Christmas  season.    I  know  the  pain I  suffered 
     could  have been soothed a little if  someone  had  come  to visit 
     me bringing with them only a smile and a kind word of support.
     


                             Ciao

                             Todd





































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page  4
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                       VETERAN'S BENEFITS THREATENED
     
                            By: Martin H. Kroll
                   NAM VETs Agent Orange Section Editor
                 Fort Mountain BBS - Chatsworth, Ga. 30705
                              (404) 695-8703 
     
     
     I don't find it a bit surprising that The Office of Management and 
     Budget  (OMB)  has targeted DISABLED Veterans with their proposals 
     to  do  away with certain benefits and services.   It  seems  that 
     while  members of Congress are reaping the benefits of a pay raise 
     that  would be unimaginable to most of us in the labor force,  OMB 
     is looking to put over 600,000 service-connected disabled veterans 
     in jeopardy of losing their benefits from the VA.   Ironic,  isn't 
     it?
     
     According  to  their  proposals,  they would like to  institute  a 
     direct  performance  of duty clause in defining service  connected 
     disability  entitlements.   If this proposal should go through and 
     become  law,  a soldier serving in a far away land who is  injured 
     while off-duty would have no entitlement whatsoever.   He could be 
     totally  disabled and sent home with no source of income or health 
     care.   I  feel  that this is an outright shame to  even  consider 
     something of this nature!  So what if the soldier was off duty and 
     enjoying  himself  in  downtown  Frankfurt?   The way  I  see  the 
     scenario  now is that the young private gets a pass to go downtown 
     and while he is enjoying a meal in a nice eating establishment,  a 
     terrorist  bomb rips the place apart and he is left without an arm 
     or his legs,  or possibly blinded.   The government then sends him 
     back  home  to mom and dad and says "Hey,  tuff luck,  the  little 
     turkey wasn't on active duty!"  " Mr. and Mrs.  Smith,  you should 
     reimburse  us for his medical bills thus far and the expenses  for 
     his  flight home since he obviously can not fulfill the  remainder 
     of his obligation to us!"
     
     OK, so maybe that scenario is a little farfetched folks.....  but, 
     it  IS entirely possible should this clause be approved!   I think 
     that we should all remember that a soldier is a soldier 24 hours a 
     day,  seven  days  a  week,  and had it not been for him  being  a 
     soldier  he  would  not  have been in  Frankfurt  to  begin  with!  
     Veterans  have  enough problems trying to get their  due  benefits 
     without  adding exclusions such as this one.   I also feel that if 
     this clause is approved,  the armed services will become even less 
     appealing  to  the young of our country.   If the guys at the  OMB 
     really  want  to  save money for our country they  would  do  much 
     better to look elsewhere and leave our Disabled Veterans alone!
     
     I  wrote  a letter to President Bush a few months  ago  concerning 
     Agent  Orange and our Viet Nam Veterans.   As of this date I still 
     have  received  no acknowledgement from the White House  that  the 
     letter  has  even been received.   Of course,  after  reading  the 
     January  1990  issue  of DAV Magazine I am not  even  expecting  a 
     reply!   According to an article in DAV,  "the National Commanders 
     of  ten veteran's service organizations have signed a joint letter 
     to the President urging him to reject OMB's budget-cutting schemes 
     and emphasize veterans as a priority in the budget process."   The 
     article  further states that "At press time,  the White House  had 
     not  responded to the letter or to its request that the  President 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page  5
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     meet  with  the veterans."   Oh well,  so much for my  ideas  that 
     President Bush would respond to me, a solitary Viet Nam Veteran.
     
     Veterans  should  be one of the strongest lobbying groups in  this 
     country,  but for some reason that I don't understand this has not 
     been  the  case.   If  all veterans were united and spoke  in  the 
     numbers  that we actually are,  then the Government would not dare 
     to drag their feet when it comes to our just benefits.   The Agent 
     Orange  issue would have been resolved years ago.   There would be 
     no  talk  of taking benefits away from  disabled  veterans.   They 
     wouldn't  even dare to think it!   The Government would be looking 
     for  new  ways  to better care for the ones that  fought  for  our 
     freedoms and risked and gave all.  Why, brothers and sister,  have 
     so many of us overlooked this fact?  Why do so many of us continue 
     to  be silent?   Why could we be so brave and courageous in a time 
     of  war and come home to be treated as we have...  and accept  it?  
     Our  President is also a veteran.   Can we not show enough support 
     to  be  heard loud and clear from one end of this great nation  to 
     the other?  
     
     I  urge you once again brother and sister veterans,  sit down  and 
     write letters to your Congressmen, write letters to your Senators, 
     write  letters to the President,  and write letters to anyone that 
     may  be  able to help in our political situations.   Keep tabs  on 
     what  our  politicians are doing to help us or to hurt  us.   Help 
     those that help us and ruin those that hurt us!   The places to do 
     this are in the press and in the VOTING BOOTH!
     































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page  6
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                       "A product of my yesterdays"
     
                            By: G. Joseph Peck
                         NAM VETs Managing Editor
                       VETLink #1 - Pittsfield, MA  
     
                              (413) 443-6313
     
     "KED348 to East Fishkill Rescue Squad.  Respond to a traffic 
     accident on the eastern side of the Taconic State Parkway at 
     Miller Hill Road.  Person trapped in the vehicle.  Time out 
     2240hrs."  The Rescue Squad monitor at Joe's bedside went silent.
     
     The curve at the bottom of Miller Hill Road was treacherous.  
     Because the parkway veered sharply to the left and the road was 
     banked to the right, many locals claimed that it was engineered 
     wrong.
     
     Silently sobbing to himself, Joe restlessly tried to fall asleep.  
     He hoped that he wouldn't be called out again tonight.  
     
     "Just like in 'Nam," he cried.  "Just like it!  Another one dies 
     in my arms - and it wasn't his fault!"  Scenes from the past hour 
     or so refused to leave him.
     
     Unaware of the designed-in danger, the car and driver were 
     suddenly jettisoned through space.  Probably the last few things 
     the driver had seen were his car going off the bridge and the 
     gully below quickly coming up to meet him.
     
     First on the scene, Joe quickly saw that the ONLY way to get to 
     the man was to scramble through the shattered rear window.   
     Brushing aside crystallized windowglass with his coat sleeve, he 
     crawled through.  Stilling himself to everything external, he 
     laid fingertips gently to one of the mans carotid arteries.  No 
     pulse!  Climbing into the front seat, he had to act quickly!
     
     "Okay, Men - by the numbers: 1. Tilt the head back; 2. Clear the 
     airway; 3. Pinch the nose; 4. Make the seal;  5. Breathe into the 
     victim; 6. Do not stop unless you are relieved."  
     
     "I wish Sarge were here and not me," Joe frantically thought to 
     himself.  He tilted the man's head back, ran his fingers through 
     the mouth, quickly made a seal and began mouth-to-mouth 
     resuscitation.  Blood from the man's mouth and nose, pepper-and-
     onion tainted breath when forced air was expelled - a signal to 
     Joe that his efforts were futile.   Until the ambulance drivers 
     took over, though, Joe continued his vain efforts.
     
     Elephant grass...  Blood...  Broken window glass... Blood...  
     Ambulance drivers...  Medevacs...  White sheets...  OD Body 
     Bags...  Blood...  Blood...  Blood...  "Didn't make it..."
     
     Joe fitfully tried to fall asleep.  Sensing his inner turmoil, 
     his wife gently caressed him and tried to help him forget.  It 
     almost worked...  
     
     "KED348 to East Fishkill Rescue Squad.  Respond to an automobile 
     accident on Route 84.  State police report a pickup truck has 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page  7
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     crashed into the ravine near the Rest Stop and has come to rest 
     on a ledge halfway to the bottom.  Reported person or persons 
     trapped in the vehicle.  Time out 0130hrs."
     
     Quickly shutting out his own pain and sorrow, Joe hurriedly 
     dressed and raced outside - deafening himself to his wife's 
     anguished cry of "You're not going again, are you, Joe?"  Three 
     minutes later he was on the scene.
     
     Halfway down the 300-foot deep canyon, precariously rocking from 
     side to side, Joe saw the pickup.  A State Trooper was helping a 
     woman climb to the roadside.  "My baby!  My baby" she was crying.  
     "My son's nowhere to be found!  Please find them!"
     
     Just as he was nearing the teetering pickup, one of the other 
     rescue squad members, baby in his arms, was beginning to climb.  
     "The baby got stuffed underneath the dash.  That's probably what 
     saved her.  We haven't found the boy yet, Joe.  He was thrown 
     out.  He's probably at the bottom!"
     
     Joe aimed his flashlight toward the base of the ravine.  Nothing.  
     He began to scan the area as he continued downwards.  Trying to 
     trace an imaginary trajectory, he began at the underside of the 
     truck with the light's beam.  
     
     A form!  There was the boy!
     
     "I see him, I see him!  He's pinned underneath!" Joe shouted as 
     he sailed through the air towards the truck.  Had it not been for 
     the outstretched arms of John, the Rescue Squad's Captain, 
     centrifugal force would have taken him past the accident to the 
     gorge nearly 150 feet below.  
     
     "It's too late, Joe.  Nothing we can do.  He's gone."  Two other 
     squad members had just crawled from under the dangerously rocking 
     truck.  The slightest movement could send squad members and truck 
     to the bottom.
     
     "I can't give up NOW, John... not after the one we just lost.  
     Lemme do a recon.  Gimme your penlight.  Here... hold my 
     flashlight..."  He dropped to the ground.
     
     The smell of oil and gas filled the air.  It was hot under the 
     truck.  
     
     "SMOKING LAMP IS OUT!!!  SMOKING LAMP IS OUT!!!  This thing can 
     go up at any minute.  Do NOTHING that will cause any sparks!" Joe 
     cried out to the squad.  
     
     Joe carefully scanned the boy's body.  Not even the slightest 
     movement of his chest to indicate any breathing.  He looked kind 
     of blue.  "I've gotta get the boy breathing again - and NOW!" Joe 
     quickly surmised.  
     
     "Okay men - by the numbers: 1. Tilt..."   
     
     With alarm, Joe discovered that he couldn't fit under the truck. 
     There wasn't a fraction of an inch's clearance.  The oil pan was 
     resting right on the boy's back.  Each time the truck moved, it 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page  8
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     pushed him further into the ground.  
     
     "Dammit, Sarge!  How the hell am I gonna try to save this kid if 
     I can't even get my head near his!  He needs air - and he needs 
     it NOW!!!"
     
     The other squad members later said they'd heard it too.  A voice 
     coming from nowhere but everywhere.  
     
     "Dig, FNG! DIG!!!  If ya gotta do it with your hands, do it.  Now 
     DIG!!!"
     
     Joe didn't try to figure out who'd tried to play a military game 
     with his head.  He frantically dug, tried to make room enough for 
     at least his head to fit.  Time was going too fast!  Faster, 
     faster, faster!!!
     
     "Almost enough," Joe reacted after trying once more to fit under 
     the truck.  "But not time enough.  Got to do SOMETHING - and do 
     it NOW!!!"
     
     "2. Clear the airway..."
     
     Not even a hint of warm air came from the boy's nostrils or 
     mouth.  
     
     Wiping his hands on the boy's shirt, Joe began to force the boy's 
     mouth open.   Whatever was to be done must be done now.  The boy 
     still hadn't moved and a grey pallor covered his every feature.  
     
     "He's gone," one of the squad members told another.  "Two out of 
     three saved isn't too bad."
     
     "Oh no, God.  Please.  Not another one!  Help me, help me! 
     Please!"
     
     The boy's body temperature heralded quickly approaching death.  
     Almost too late for any help...
     
     The smell of oil and gas filled the air.  The truck moved a 
     little more towards the downside of the ravine.  It was as quiet 
     as a morgue around the perimeter of the truck.  Hardly anyone 
     except Joe was moving.  Time seemed to be standing still.  
     
     Almost like someone turned a bright light on in his head - as if 
     he had just woken up - Joe pushed three of his fingers down the 
     boy's throat!  
     
     "One last shot, kid," said Joe.  "If this don't work, I've done 
     the best I can."  
     
     Movement!  The boy started to move!  
     
     Three more times he put his fingers down the boys throat, 
     repeatedly gagging him...  pushing deeper and deeper, trying to 
     trigger the kid's automatic gag reflex...  tickling the back side 
     of the throat... again and again...   
     
     Suddenly the boy began to cough and then cry!  He was alive!
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page  9
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
     Rescue squad members quickly sprang into action.  A rope was tied 
     from above to hold the truck from falling; shovels were brought 
     down and everyone began to dig.  It seemed like only seconds 
     passed before the boy was placed in a stretcher and squad members 
     were carrying him up the hill to a waiting ambulance.
     
     Tears streaming down his face, gratefully taking the offered 
     oxygen mask, and trying to relieve the tension of the situation, 
     Joe commented to John:  "First time in my life I've ever jump-
     started a human.  I think Sarge woulda been proud..."
     
     The house was dark when he'd arrived home.  Quietly sliding into
     bed, he reached over and turned off the monitor.  Sleep came
     easily.
     
     Last thing he remembered before falling asleep was thinking to
     himself:  "Who says my military career 'don't mean nuthin'?  They
     shoulda been there..."
     
     Newspapers the following day reported that the boy only suffered 
     second and third degree burns to his back and he'd had to have 
     his head shaved.
     
                             'Til Next Month
                      Show a brother or sister veteran
                             That YOU care!!!
     
                               Ci'ao for Ni'ao
     
                                    -Joe-
     



























     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 10
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990



     =================================================================
                         S p e c i a l   T i m e s
     =================================================================

               Khe Sanh: Vietnam's Most Controversial Battle
                           By:  Albert Hemingway
                     Senior Editor - VIETNAM Magazine
     
                           Input by: Bob Morris
                       NAM VETs Distribution Manager
                   Pole Climber Two - South Durham, Ct.
                              (203) 934-9852
     
     Twenty  two years ago this month,  January of 1968,  North Vietnam 
     embarked  on  one of the greatest gambles in military history  --- 
     the Tet Offensive.  The Plan, which was to coincide with Vietnam's 
     sacred  holiday  of Tet,  or the lunar new year,  called for  over 
     60,000  Viet Cong/North Vietnamese units to invade major cities in 
     every  province  of  the  country.   It  was  hoped  the  civilian 
     population  would  rally  to  the Communist cause  and  achieve  a 
     stunning victory against the U.S. and her allies.
     
     Beginning  in the early morning hours of January 30th,  ten  enemy 
     battalions stormed the ancient imperial capitol of Hue.   It would 
     take   nearly  a  month  to  drive  the  V.C./N.V.A.   from  their 
     strongholds  within  the city at a cost of 1,100 Marine and  1,600 
     South  Vietnamese  casualties.   Other attacks  followed:  Saigon, 
     Quang  Tri  City,  Da  Nang,  Nha Trang,  Hoi  An,  Qui  Nhon;  36 
     provincial capitols in all.  Fighting raged everywhere.
     
     But of all the battles and skirmishes that were fought,  one would 
     stand  out  in the forefront.   Prior to Tet,  it was an  obscure, 
     remote  place,  located  in the northwest corner of South  Vietnam 
     near the Laotian border.  For 77 days, 6,000 Marines, Green Berets 
     and  South Vietnamese Rangers would withstand unmerciful artillery 
     barrages and savage ground assaults by 20,000 N.V.A.  troops.   It 
     would  receive  nationwide  attention  from  every  newspaper  and 
     magazine  in  the  country.   And in the end,  it would  topple  a 
     President of the United States.   It was known as the siege of Khe 
     Sanh.
     
     Before  the  war,  the village of Khe Sanh was  a  quiet,  idyllic 
     hamlet,  nestled  among  the  lush,  green hills of  the  Annamese 
     Cordilla   mountain   range.    In  1966,   General   William   C. 
     Westmoreland,  commander of all U.S.  forces in Vietnam envisioned 
     it  as a jumping off point for an invasion of Laos to sever  North 
     Vietnam's supply lines.  He immediately began a massive buildup in 
     the  area.   A  battalion of Marines was sent to establish a  base 
     camp  several miles from the tiny village.   The North  Vietnamese 
     followed suit.
     
     "It  was  like  setting  honey out to  attract  flies,"  said  one 
     correspondent.
     
     By the summer of 1967, the flies had come to take the honey.   The 
     illusive enemy entrenched themselves in the mountains encompassing 
     the combat base: 881 North, 881 South, 861A and 558.   These hills 
     overlooked  the  plateau  where the camp was  situated.   And  the 
     Marines  went after them.   Dubbed the "Hill Fights",  it was  the 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 11
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     scene  of some of the bloodiest fighting thus far in the conflict.  
     In  the  end,  the  Leathernecks were victorious and  drove  their 
     adversaries from the high ground.
     
     In December of 1967, with 8,000 plus trucks moving down the Ho Chi 
     Minh Train into South Vietnam, Vo Nguyen Giap, North Vietnam's top 
     military leader, was ready to strike.   And Khe Sanh was his first 
     target.
     
     The  siege  started on January 20th,  ten days before  the  actual 
     uprising.  The base itself was heavily defended.  Colonel David E. 
     Lownds,  26th  Marine Regimental commander was confident he  could 
     hold.  But the hills surrounding him were a different story.   His 
     men  were scattered over a wide area ---  some miles apart.   Hill 
     881 South for example, manned by "India" Company,  were 200 strong 
     at the onset of the struggle.   When it was over,  only 19 Marines 
     were present to answer the roll call.
     
     By  the  end of January,  artillery rounds were crashing into  the 
     camp.  One day alone saw 1,307 shells hit the small compound.  The 
     place   was  a  shambles.    Everyone  buried  underground.    The 
     ammunition  dump  was struck igniting 1500 tons of explosives  and 
     creating an ear shattering explosion.   Black billowing smoke rose 
     from  the  petroleum  fires.   A reeking stench hung  in  the  air 
     gagging  everyone's throat.   Countless rats roamed freely  biting 
     chunks   of  flesh  from  unsuspecting  Marines.    The   incoming 
     projectiles kept falling.  Hidden deep within the jungles of Laos, 
     the enemy guns couldn't be silenced.  Helplessness and frustration 
     grew.
     
     Resupply  as a serious problem.   The main encampment,  with  over 
     half  the  airstrip  ripped apart by  the  constant  bombardments, 
     relied  on parachute extractions from the bellies of C-130 and  C-
     123 planes.  It was a test of nerves.   Pilots braved "flak alley" 
     to drop off pallets of provisions to the besieged Leathernecks.
     
     The hills fared worse.   Fifty-one helicopters were either damaged 
     or  destroyed  attempting  to reach the  hilltops.   Marines  went 
     without food, water and ammunition for days at a time.
     
     Newsmen compared Khe Sanh to the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 
     1954,  and  there  were similarities.   But there was one  decided 
     difference --- American firepower.  Fixed wing aircraft, B-52s and 
     175mm "Long Toms",  located just 10miles from the base,  prevented 
     the invaders from launching a full scale attack.
     
     Other  areas weren't so fortunate.   The village itself was razed. 
     Thousands  of  refugees streamed down Route  9  eastward,  towards 
     Quang Tri City, to escape certain death.   The Green Beret camp at 
     Lang Vei, 4 miles from Khe Sanh,  was overrun.   Only 100 survived 
     out of the 500 stationed there.   Hills 861,  861A and 64 repulsed 
     determined assaults on their positions.
     
     President  Lyndon Johnson was visibly shaken.   He ordered a three 
     dimensional   model   of  Khe  Sanh  and  its  surrounding   hills 
     constructed  especially  for him.   It was called  "The  Sandbox".  
     Located  in the Situation Room,  far beneath the White House,  the 
     Texas  Democrat  would  study  it in great  detail  as  the  siege 
     continued.  The war was torturing LBJ by 1968.
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 12
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
     "I  couldn't stand it anymore,"  he said one evening after  waking 
     from  a  nightmare,  "I  knew that one of my boys must  have  been 
     killed...".
     
     The  months of February and March dragged on as the Marines  clung 
     stubbornly  to their positions.   The all-out thrust to  penetrate 
     their  perimeter never materialized.   Then,  in early April,  the 
     N.V.A.  melted  back  into  the jungle.   A relief  force  finally 
     reached the battered camp.  The official death toll was 205.   But 
     unofficial  sources  put  it closer to 500.   Hundreds  more  were 
     wounded.  The siege was over.
     
     Looking  back,  it  was doubtful Giap ever wanted Khe  Sanh.   The 
     American  military  command,  with the exception of  the  Marines, 
     placed  too great an importance on its strategic value.   However, 
     it  did create an excellent diversion for the Tet Offensive.   But 
     the  huge  gamble did not pay off.   The masses didn't rise up  as 
     Giap  had anticipated.   North Vietnam suffered over 45,000 killed 
     and 7,000 taken prisoner.  It was an utter failure.
     
     Ironically,  despite  their overwhelming losses,  the  Communists, 
     with  help  from the American press,  did achieve a  psychological 
     victory of sorts.  The biased nightly newscasts back in the States 
     reported  the  allies had endured a terrible setback  during  Tet.  
     The  American  people's  sentiment  turned sour on  a  victory  in 
     Vietnam.  The "doves" cooed louder.  Finally,  on March 31,  1968, 
     Johnson revealed he would not seek reelection.  It was the turning 
     point of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia.
     
     "Rarely   has  contemporary  crisis-journalism  turned   out,   in 
     retrospect,  to have veered so widely from the truth,"  said noted 
     journalist and author Peter Braestrup.
     
     In June of 1968, the Khe Sanh Combat Base was closed.  And so was
     an agonizing chapter in America's longest war.
     






















     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 13
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                          A MESSAGE TO MY COUNTRY
     
                            By: Ed Howdershelt                            
                    TOY SHOP-PC BBS  -  Spring Hill, FL
                              (904) 688-9124 
     
     For nearly twenty years it's festered deep within my soul;
     The time I spent imprisoned in an Asiatic hole;
     The friends I lost for certain and the guys we never found;
     And the over fifty thousand who lie six feet underground;
     The times when those we went to help set traps for us at night;
     Or cringed behind some cover while we carried on the fight;
     The government who sent us there but wouldn't let us win;
     And all the sorry bastards who cursed soldiers 'cause they'd been;
     The ones who demonstrated, throwing words and sometimes stones;
     And formed such strong opinions in the safety of their homes;
     And those who only knew the war from TV's nightly news;
     By journalists in Saigon who inspired such peoples' views;
     The heat and dust and then the rain that made it soggy hell;
     The vermin that disturbed our sleep and constant rancid smell;
     The night that fifteen hundred rounds of mortar fire came in;
     And Khe Sanh lay in ruins while we wrote to next of kin;
     The villages we found where Charlie'd been the night before;
     To leave his vicious message carved in tortured human gore;
     The drugs that some men seemed to think would help to keep them 
                  sane; 
     The only thing that some could find to handle so much pain;
     Those men who had a year to go, but died the first few days;
     And some who had just days to go, but died there anyway;
     Share feelings of death's presence in the dark from seven yards;
     Share brotherhood with strangers who can't leave the Veterans' 
                  wards...
     
           Revision 6; copy at will, but leave copyright intact.
                     Copyright 1989, by Ed Howdershelt
                4645 Commodore Ave., Spring Hill, Fl. 34606
      
        Share the poem in a manner that will help another veteran.
     




















     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 14
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990



     =================================================================
                          A g e n t   O r a n g e
     =================================================================

            VA SECRETARY TO AWAIT FURTHER AGENT ORANGE RESEARCH
                          DATED 24 NOVEMBER 1989
     
                          Input by: Jim Hildwine
                 NAM VETs Federal Benefits Section Editor
                    VetPoint 47 - FidoNet 1:321/203.47
                              Shady Side, Md
     
         Secretary  of Veterans Affairs Edward J.  Derwinski today said 
     that  he  has decided to wait for the results of a  major  federal 
     study  due next spring before determining if any Vietnam  veterans 
     should  be entitled to disability payments based on their exposure 
     to the herbicide Agent Orange.
     
          Derwinski explained that the outcome of a study begun in 1985 
     by  the  U.S.  Centers  for  Disease Control  focusing  on  cancer 
     incidence among Vietnam veterans should be weighed before he makes 
     any kinds of new policy decision.
     
          A  Department  of Veterans Affairs  (VA)  advisory  committee 
     recently reviewed significant statistical association between non-
     Hodgkins lymphoma --  a rare form of cancer --  and human exposure 
     to types of chemicals used as defoliants in Vietnam, but that such 
     an association couldn't be ruled out.
     
          The committee was guided by new VA regulations that went into 
     effect  Nov.  1,  following a ruling earlier this year by  federal 
     court  that  said  VA's cause-and-effect standards  has  been  too 
     strict in considering claims by veterans that the defoliant caused 
     health problems.
     
                                 - - - - -
     
         Jim's Note:  Adm.  Zumwalt's who first approved the use of the 
     Agent Orange in Vietnam,  plus the fact his son who also served in 
     Vietnam  died  of  Cancer is on the advisory panel  for  Secretary 
     Derwinski..   It  seems that the VA is awaiting the final word and 
     works for the CDC in Atlanta Ga.   It looks as though the VA would 
     make  a sound decision based on what is found from the CDC...  The 
     time range should be around the later part of April or NLT mid-May 
     90...
     
     
                       Federal Benefits?  Ask me!!!
     
                                  - Jim -
     








     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 15
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
     
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          "  I t ' s    o n l y    t e e n a g e    a c n e !  "
                                              -Robert Nimmo-
     
     










     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 16
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990



     =================================================================
                       H e a r t s   n '   M i n d s
     =================================================================

                  VIETNAM VETERANS: THE ROAD TO RECOVERY 
     
       by Joel Osler Brende, M.D. and Erwin Randolph Parsons, Ph.D.
                              Copyright 1985 
     
                      Input by: Kathleen Kelly, Ph.D.
                       NAM VETs PTSD Section Editor
                 The New York Transfer - Staten Island, NY
                              (718) 448-2358
     
     
                              RECOVERY PHASES
     
                                  PART I
                                  ------
          Recovery from the stress of war moves slowly through a number 
     of   phases.   Most   veterans  complete  these   phases   without 
     professional help while others become locked in one,  or vacillate 
     from  one to another and require assistance in order to  progress.  
     To  understand  the complexities of these phases is mandatory  for 
     the Vietnam veteran and those assisting his recovery.
     
          The  following  five  phases of recovery have  been  commonly 
     described:
     
          1.  THE EMERGENCY OR OUTCRY PHASE.   The survivor experiences 
     his  life being threatened and responds with  fear,  helplessness, 
     and  an  accompanying physiological "fight-flight"  activation  of 
     pulse, blood pressure, respiration, and muscle activity.
     
          2.  THE  EMOTIONAL  NUMBING AND DENIAL  PHASE.  The  survivor 
     protects himself by burying the experience in his mind.
     
          3. THE INTRUSIVE-REPETITIVE PHASE. Traumatic dreams,  images, 
     and emotions intrude into the survivor's consciousness and sleep.
     
          4. THE REFLECTIVE-TRANSITION PHASE.   The survivor develops a 
     larger  personal  perspective on the traumatic events and  becomes 
     positive and constructive; he thinks more about the future and is
     less fixed on the past.
     
          5.  THE  COMPLETION  OR INTEGRATION PHASE.   The veteran  has 
     successfully  integrated  the previously traumatic event with  his 
     prior  life  experiences  to  restore a sense  of  equanimity  and 
     continuity.  Now  able to put the war into its proper perspective, 
     the veteran sees the war as merely a past memory.
     
          To complete all phases of this progression obviously requires 
     a  great deal of personal effort on the part of the veteran and is 
     more often achieved through professional help than without it.
     
          Psychologist  John  Russell Smith,  a  Vietnam  veteran,  has 
     suggested a similar view of the recovery process.  But in place of 
     the  higher-level phase,  Smith has described two partial recovery 
     phases:  "sealing  over"  and integration,  and a third and  final 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 17
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     recovery  phase:  atonement.   "Sealing  over,"  which  enables  a 
     veteran  to  put  disturbing memories out of  his  mind,  is  made 
     possible  by  the "sanction"  or approval of the American  public; 
     this occurred for the young men in World War II. Sanction provided 
     an  overall  purpose  and meaning for the soldiers  in  that  war, 
     relieving  feelings of guilt or need to justify their involvement. 
     World  War II was clearly a war in which Americans participated in 
     order  to  save the world from Nazi Germany's destructive  use  of 
     power and prevent the Japanese from controlling the Pacific.
     
          The  sanction of their country enabled World War II  veterans 
     to live productive and meaningful lives in most cases because they 
     were not burdened with any collective or national guilt and could, 
     for the most part,  "seal over"  their traumatic experiences.  For 
     those   individuals  who  "sealed  over"   emotionally  disturbing 
     traumatic  memories,  recalling  and talking about them  over  the 
     years  helped veterans integrate the memories as they became  less 
     disturbing. 
     
          On  the other hand,  since Vietnam veterans lacked the  moral 
     sanction  of  their  country,  many are left with  the  burden  of 
     national  guilt on their shoulders and have never regained a sense 
     of meaning in their lives. Some individual veterans, however, have 
     experienced   partial  sanction  from  the  acceptance  of  family 
     members, friends, or other veterans,  allowing them to "seal over" 
     their combat memories and emotions.
     
          In  a  recovery  phase  beyond  "sealing  over,"   Smith  has 
     described  integration  as  a time when a  Vietnam  veteran  finds 
     personal  meaning through finally accepting responsibility for his 
     individual  actions.  This  is not an easy phase and requires  his 
     recognition of both the good and bad aspects of his war experience 
     in  order to "weave each strand of the experience into the overall 
     fabric of his identity."
     
          In  a  final  recovery phase that Smith  labels  "atonement," 
     veterans  find "At-One-Ment"  with experiences they had previously 
     rejected.  Or  they  may finally feel at one within themselves  or 
     with  forces  much  greater  than  they,   such  as  their  entire 
     community, nation, and even religion. The pursuit of atonement may 
     lead  to a resolution of guilt and self-acceptance,  described  by 
     Smith   in  the  following  example  of  a  Vietnam  veteran   who 
     accidentally  killed  his lifelong friend:  "For years  after  his 
     return [from Vietnam] Bill could not forgive himself for the death 
     of his friend.  Daily,  he made a detour around the town where his 
     buddy  was  buried.  Billy's judgment of that act was  frozen  and 
     locked  into  a  value system which allowed  him  no  forgiveness.  
     Several  years later,  he had come to accept the fact that he  had 
     slipped in a moment of panic, accidentally killing his friend.  It 
     was  only when he could drive to the cemetery,  kneel in front  of 
     his  friend's  gave,  say he was sorry and accept forgiveness  for 
     himself that he could go on with his life."
     
          While  it  has generally been thought that men and women  who 
     complete  the recovery phases successfully have received  therapy, 
     there are some who have achieved such results from life experience
     alone.
     
          Dr.Dan Conlon, a Minneapolis physician and a Vietnam veteran, 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 18
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     illustrates his own experience of traversing through these phases. 
     He had been exposed to many traumatic experiences, including death 
     and  killing.  After  returning to civilian life and  his  medical 
     practice,   he   had   considerable  problems   with   nightmares, 
     irritability, and periods of depression.  He recalls going through 
     the  denial  and numbing phase --  a phase he had seen in his  own 
     patients.  "I'm seeing the similarities between people involved in 
     divorces,  involved  in  the grief reaction with sudden  death  of 
     loved ones, grief from news of cancer and loss of a limb, etc. The 
     divorce  syndrome  looks very similar to the posttraumatic  stress 
     disorder  ....   Are ...  we ...  talking about the same thing  in 
     different settings?" 
     
          He  then experienced a degree of sanction,  which helped  him 
     feel  okay  about his work in Vietnam for a  time;  "Unfortunately 
     both myself and my men were all volunteers in hazardous duty apart 
     from our assigned tasks during our stay. At the time it all seemed 
     very  worthwhile and we were all on a high,  feeling that we  were 
     doing something heroic for our country `above and beyond'  as they 
     say.  The  medals we got helped a little but they look cheap to us 
     now."
     
          Nevertheless,  with  the support of his  wife,  friends,  and 
     religious  faith,  he  was able partially to integrate  and  "seal 
     over" the most disturbing aspects of his agonizing experiences and 
     continue  his  active  career as a family  practitioner.  But  not 
     without some struggle: "I've resumed my `Clark Kent' identity as a 
     family physician ... as though nothing had happened .... I've been 
     carrying  the  Vietnam  experience  around  in  my  conscious  and 
     unconscious  mind since I left Vietnam in January 1968.  Hardly  a 
     day  has  gone  by that flashbacks ...  and confusion  about  that 
     experience  hasn't popped into my mind.  But I have  conveniently, 
     until  just lately [during 1984],  shut out all deep thinking into 
     my Vietnam adventure. ...  I have managed to somehow sublimate all 
     my  thoughts and doubts and frustrations concerning my involvement 
     in Vietnam ... [and]  convince myself that nothing really happened 
     to  me of significance during my 365 days.  But I know it  did.  I 
     have felt it was unhealthy to be preoccupied with the past."
     
          He  goes  on  to  say:  "Drawing the whole  experience  to  a 
     meaningful conclusion would somehow make it okay ....  Recently my 
     thirteen-year-old  handed me a stack of envelopes --  unopened  -- 
     dated  1968 that I got from my buddies and some of the Montagnards 
     ...  after  coming  home.  I was so fed up with the whole thing  I 
     guess I just threw them in a pile and forgot about them when I got 
     back.  Only  now  am  I able to read them,  and they had  a  great 
     emotional impact on me even now."
     
          Finally,  beginning the integration and atonement phases,  he 
     has  begun  writing  a book and recently taught  a  course  called 
     "Vietnam -- retrospect" at his alma mater college.
     
          Clearly,  there  are many Vietnam veterans who have not  been 
     able  to traverse the recovery phases in such a remarkable way  as 
     this  veteran.  Many  of them remain fixed in one or more  of  the 
     phases  and require professional help in the form of psychological 
     therapy to be able to move forward.  Much of what has been learned 
     about  psychotherapy  began  in  1971 when  the  Vietnam  Veterans 
     Against   the  War  (VVAW)   organized  "rap  groups"   and  asked 
     
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     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     psychiatrist Robert Lifton for help in leading them. With the help 
     of  Chaim  Shatan  and  other colleagues  these  groups  continued 
     successfully for two years.
     
          Dr.  Lifton  found that the group members frequently suffered 
     from  the self-condemnation of "self-lacerating"  guilt.  However, 
     when they were able to talk openly about their war experiences and 
     guilt  feelings,  they began to make progress.  Eventually,  self-
     lacerating  guilt gave way to "animating guilt"  that enabled them 
     to take responsibility for their past actions and experience a new 
     degree of personal liberation. These veterans became interested in 
     helping  others,  particularly other Vietnam veterans;  they often 
     pursued   further  education  and  developed  skills  at  writing, 
     counseling,  and  public speaking.  Through such activities,  they 
     experienced a renewed sense of personal integrity.
     
          In addition to resolving guilt,  an important task of the rap 
     groups  was  to  help the members resolve  feelings  of  "impacted 
     grief,"  as  Dr.  Shatan describes:  "The `post-Vietnam  syndrome' 
     confronts us with the unconsummated grief of soldiers -- `impacted 
     grief' in which an unending, encapsulated past robs the present of 
     meaning.  Their  sorrow is unspent,  the grief of their wounds  is 
     untold, their guilt is unexpiated."
     
          Since  the  early 1970s there have been many others who  have 
     become  involved in the research and application of principles  of 
     treatment for Vietnam veterans. Most have found that while therapy 
     often  helps  them improve,  survivors rarely are ever  completely 
     free of the imprinting effects of the traumatic events,  beginning 
     with  the emergency arousal and initial outcry,  for  example,  of 
     Phase 1 -- a time marked by vulnerability and terror acquired from 
     a  soldier's  brush  with death.  Vietnam veterans  with  Phase  I 
     symptoms  continue  to  suffer from startle  reactions  and  panic 
     attacks,  triggered by dreams and reminders of the event.  Because 
     of these physiological responses to memories,  it is not difficult 
     to  understand  why  so  many of these men  complain  of  physical 
     problems  associated  with parts of the autonomic nervous  system: 
     the heart, stomach, urinary tract, genitals, muscles, nerves, and
     blood pressure.
     
          Researchers,  such  as  Drs.  Kolb and Mutalipassi at the  VA 
     Medical Center in Albany,  New York,  have conducted research that 
     found  these  symptoms to be a result of conditioned responses  to 
     trauma.  They  exposed veterans to noises simulating  battle,  and 
     found  that they responded with muscle tension,  rapid heart rate, 
     increased respiration,  and increased electrical conduction on the 
     surface  of  the  skin.   From  these  findings,   they  developed 
     successful  treatments using prescribed medications that not  only 
     subdued such conditioned physiological responses to memories,  but 
     the  accompanying anxiety as well.   It has also proved useful  to 
     teach veterans relaxation techniques,  meditation,  or biofeedback 
     training for controlling their autonomic nervous system and muscle 
     tension.   Weight  lifting  and  jogging are  additional  ways  of 
     maintaining muscle tone and releasing pent-up emotional tension.
     
          Some veterans with PTSD have reported other physical symptoms 
     such  as recurring dizziness and loss of balance,  particularly in 
     stressful  situations.   When we asked patients with PTSD if  they 
     ever suffered from dizzy spells or loss of balance,  approximately 
     
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     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     50%  said they have had such episodes.  One psychiatrist theorizes 
     that   these  symptoms  often  reflect  a  disturbance  in   brain 
     functioning due to the patient's profound fear of change and loss. 
     If  this should be the case,  a patient with these symptoms should 
     only  be treated with regular therapy to uncover and resolve  that 
     fear.
     
          A  Vietnam veteran often will develop a new physical symptom, 
     a  change  of dream content,  or a spontaneous recollection  of  a 
     specific  traumatic  memory  associated with an  earlier  recovery 
     phase as treatment progresses.  This is often made possible by the 
     development  of  a  trusting relationship  between  therapist  and 
     patient,  permitting  the  previously blocked memory to  begin  to 
     surface. If the memory is disguised in the dream or only partially 
     recalled,  it  may  be  more  fully  uncovered  through  treatment 
     techniques  such  as  hypnosis.  As reported  earlier,  a  Vietnam 
     veteran  was treated for 15 months and hypnosis was used only when 
     the  patient  developed a new symptom,  the most unusual  being  a 
     sudden  numbness and tingling in his face.  A hypnotherapy session 
     discovered  that  agonizing traumatic events created the  symptom. 
     During  a hypnotic trance state,  he reexperienced the distressing 
     memory that had been partially blocked.  He saw himself being shot 
     at  point-blank  range  and  felt the pain  again  of  the  bullet 
     penetrating  the  bridge  of  his nose and  piercing  through  his 
     temple.  After being ably supported through this reexperience,  he 
     fully  regained  his memory and the numbness and tingling  in  his 
     face disappeared.
     
          Sometimes  a new injury will cause physical symptoms  related 
     to a traumatic memory. For example,  Lee suffered an injury to his 
     neck  in  a fall.  When the pain persisted,  we believed  that  it 
     partly  represented  a  physiological  memory,   and  suggested  a 
     hypnotherapy  session.  This approach was successful and permitted 
     him  to  recall vividly a "blocked memory"  associated with  fear, 
     guilt,  grief,  and  his experience of nearly dying from a violent 
     wound. He experienced complete but only temporary (24 hour) relief 
     from pain following the session.
     
          Vietnam  veterans with Phase 2-specific symptoms suffer  from 
     emotional  detachment and numbing,  full or partial  amnesia,  and 
     little  pleasure  in daily living.  If they are recent victims  of 
     traumatic experiences, they may respond to therapists who confront 
     their   denial  by  evoking  hidden  horrifying  memories  through 
     hypnosis,  psychodrama,  Gestalt  therapy,  and other "uncovering" 
     techniques. 
     
          However,  there  are veterans fixed in this phase for  years, 
     who  do  not  respond to such treatment  approaches.  Their  major 
     psychological  defense is a persistent and profound hypervigilance 
     that  gives the appearance of a paranoid orientation to the world, 
     as Drs. Herbert Hendin and Ann Pollinger-Haas have observed. These 
     veterans  can often be intimidating to other people who sense  the 
     presence  of  smouldering  rage.  Unable to permit  themselves  to 
     experience  fear  or other emotions,  they are often  consumed  by 
     feelings  of  vengeance,  and  are prone  to  periodic  aggressive 
     outbursts.  They  also  have major conflicts pertaining to  power; 
     they view power as a destructive force and thus distrust people in 
     authority, including therapists.  Though Vietnam veterans stuck in 
     this   phase   have  associated  their  own  use  of  power   with 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 21
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     destruction,  they  still  attempt to control all events in  their 
     lives, but often do so in a self-destructive way.
     
          Long-term  treatment in group and individual therapy has been 
     recommended  for Vietnam veterans whose personality traits involve 
     problems  with  anger,  destructive  use of  power,  and  fear  of 
     vulnerability.   They   are   in  need  of  trusting   therapeutic 
     relationships,  which  can  sustain  them through the  months  and 
     sometimes  years it takes to change.  Through such  relationships, 
     gradual   acceptance  of  relative  states  of  helplessness   and 
     vulnerability  begins to emerge,  enabling them to proceed through 
     subsequent phases of recovery.
     
          We  believe  that it is very important for group  leaders  or 
     individual  counselors to remain personable and not detached  from 
     their  veteran  patients.  They  must  also be  able  to  tolerate 
     outbursts  of  anger and understand the relationship of  anger  to 
     other emotions.  Dr.  Arthur Blank has stated:  "It helps a lot in 
     groups  for the leader to make distinctions clearly among  various 
     emotions  related  to  anger  --  hatred,  rage,  jealousy,  envy, 
     paranoid suspiciousness, bitterness, contempt, fear,  anxiety .... 
     There  is often a relationship between anger and grief.  Tears are 
     sometimes  felt unconsciously as clean anger --  tears of rage may 
     be  extremely helpful,  and crying from anger may be something  to 
     welcome  as  a part of important growth in a group or  individual. 
     There are other kinds of crying --  relief,  joy,  frustration,  a 
     sense of contact and authenticity, sadness.  It is good to be able 
     to sense the anger involved sometimes in crying, though you may
     never say much about it."
     
          Yet  the  process of change for Vietnam veterans whose  anger 
     covers over their sense of vulnerability is slow.  They frequently 
     become  defensive  and test out how potentially powerful  they  or 
     their therapists are,  often for at least the first 6 months until 
     trust  develops.  Psychiatrists Frick and Bogart have reported  on 
     their  experiences of leading a group during the third through the 
     sixth  month  when the members reported on many of  their  violent 
     experiences,  felt  vulnerable,  and then distrusted the  leaders' 
     possible  misuse  of  their power over  the  group  members.   The 
     psychiatrists,  in  turn,  felt intimidated by the group  members, 
     sometimes  retreating from them or even feeling like  retaliating. 
     When  they  found  themselves  doing  so,  they  believed  it  was 
     important  to  be honest and to also admit mistakes if  they  made 
     them.   "We  sometimes had feelings akin to those of war prisoners 
     being  interrogated  by  their  captors.  We  struggled  with  our 
     feelings  of  intimidation,  keeping  in mind that these  men  had 
     actually   killed  and  were  at  times  genuinely  suicidal.   We 
     recognized  our own rage ...  and accepted part of it as realistic 
     and  appropriate.  On  the  other  hand,   their  criticisms  were 
     sometimes  quite  accurate;  it was necessary to be aware  of  our 
     mistakes." 
     
          Veterans  who are less angry,  emotionally numb,  and guarded 
     suffer  from a predominance of Phase 3 --  intrusive-repetitive -- 
     symptoms,  as researcher Dr.  Mardi Horowitz has described.   They 
     reexperience disturbing memories, images, dreams,  and emotions of 
     fear, guilt, and grief.  These symptoms are generally reenactments 
     of  the  original  traumatic  experience;   the  unconscious  mind 
     attempts  to  replay the experience so as to  master  it.  Certain 
     
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     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     therapeutic  approaches can help the survivor undo,  or master the 
     associated fear,  and help him eventually to understand the nature 
     of  his  symptoms.   These  approaches  include  hypnosis,   dream 
     interpretation,  and  guided  imagery  --  the  uses  of  imagined 
     "pictures"  to  remember unpleasant memories.  However,  there are 
     Vietnam  veterans  whose intrusive symptoms are so repetitive  and 
     disturbing  that specific treatments are designed to control them. 
     For example,  psychologists John Fairbank and Terence Keane of the 
     VA  Medical  Center  in Jackson,  Mississippi,  have  studied  the 
     effectiveness of a specific therapeutic approach called "flooding" 
     for  recurrent  nightmares,  intrusive  images,   and  frightening 
     flashbacks.  In a very pleasant state of relaxation,  the patient, 
     along  with  his  therapist,  is exposed to traumatic  scenes  and 
     sounds. After a period of eight sessions, anxiety-related images,
     flashbacks, and nightmares gradually diminish. 
     
          Similarly, we as therapists have suggested that veterans with 
     recurrent  disturbing dreams practice holding the images in  their 
     minds  as  long  as  possible.   This  approach  sometimes  has  a 
     paradoxical  effect  and  leads  to a  spontaneous  reduction  and 
     disappearance of traumatic images.
     
          Other less structured techniques have been used, with varying 
     degrees of success, to end the distressing recurrence of traumatic 
     images.  For  example,  counselor  John  McQueeney at  Bay  Pines, 
     Florida,  has  taught Vietnam veterans the technique of repetitive 
     dream  rehearsal  and modification,  a method that has  also  been 
     reported  on by other researchers.  He instructs a patient with  a 
     recurrent dream of being ambushed to rehearse mentally a change in 
     the  dream,  allowing  him to take a different path from  the  one 
     leading  to  the ambush.  With an attitude of expectation when  he 
     goes  to  sleep  at  night,  he soon learns  to  awaken  from  the 
     frightening dream and immediately change the outcome; when he goes 
     back  to  sleep,   his  mind  will  then  choose  the  safe  path. 
     Eventually, the dream stops recurring.
     
          Other  therapeutic approaches have also been helpful for  the 
     veteran.  For  example,  if  a  veteran is living in  an  unstable 
     environment or has experienced a recent major loss in his life, he 
     may  need his time and daily routines completely managed until the 
     crisis has passed. Voluntary hospitalization at such a time may be 
     helpful   to  alleviate  his  family  and  job   responsibilities, 
     providing him with extra rest, and permitting him a relative state 
     of  dependency on staff personnel.  During this time,  he will  be 
     prescribed medications if necessary, will have a therapist, and be 
     able to participate in a supportive group of patients with similar
     problems.
     
          Dr.    Horowitz,    who    has   advocated   "phase-oriented" 
     psychotherapy, has described the symptoms of trauma victims, which 
     often  vacillate  between extremes of symptoms typical of Phase  2 
     (denial-numbing) and Phase 3 (intrusive-repetitive). Survivors who 
     avoid  recalling  emotionally painful traumatic  memories  benefit 
     from  supportive  therapists  who  can give  "tolerable  doses  of 
     awareness" while helping to maintain a balance between extremes of
     either group of symptoms.
     
                           (Next Month: Part II)
                            -------------------
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 23
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
               From: VIETNAM VETERANS: THE ROAD TO RECOVERY 
         by Joel Osler Brende, MD and Erwin Randolph Parsons, PhD.  
      New York: New American Library, 1986. Signet paperback edition. 
                Chapter 9: "Recovery Phases," pp. 217-236.
     





















































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 24
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                             Old Salt's Lament
     
                      Input by: Ray "Frenchy" Moreau
                    Herndon Byte eXchange - Herndon, VA
                              (703) 471-8010
     
     Had  this since 1955 -  Was given to me when onboard the Edward H. 
     Allen  (DE531)  at  NavShip  Yard New  York.   Went  for  underway 
     training and tied up in Havana, Cuba in 1957 (just when things got 
     a little muddy with Castro and Baptista).  
     
     Just another locker full of history or memorabilia.
     
                            (Author - Unknown)
     
                       The Navy's very different now
                         From what it used to be.
     
                    Thus do the old salts all complain
                         To boots like you and me;
     
                       But we can't help but wonder,
                      As we hear them fan the breeze,
     
                     If they've not sort of overlooked
                        A few odd facts like these:
     
                       The firerooms were no cooler
                       In the gold old days of yore;
     
                       There were just as many hours
                       In a sleepy "twelve-to-four;"
     
                    There was "turn-to" just as often;
                          And we also understand
     
                  That the deck were treated then, as now
                         With holystone and sand.
     
                      They stood the same inspections
                       In the days that used to be,
     
                   And they stood the same old watches,
                       When the ship put out to sea.
     
                    Yes, they drank the same old coffee
                    And wore the same regulation blues;
     
                      And they used the same excuses
                 When caught wearing non-regulation shoes.
     
                      They had just as many scoffers
                         In the days of long ago,
     
                     And they showed the same capacity
                         Our modern scoffers show.
     
                   They had all the same old mess-cooks.
                        And they were just as slow.
     
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     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
                  And they growled--but they shipped over
                         In the days of long ago.
     
                    Yes, the Navy's very different now,
                        As all the old salts state,
     
                      So boots like you and me accept
                         The stories they relate.
     
                       But we can't help but wonder
                        As they talk the time away,
     
                  If the old salts used to tell the tales
                      That the old salts tell today.
     
     










































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 26
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                             "SAY OVER, MARY"
     
                         By Jim Boyle, Sgt., USMC
                             Vietnam: `69-`70
                               Dallas, Texas
     
     Mary was seven months pregnant when I left her.  I'll never forget 
     how  she  looked  that  day,  wearing  a  yellow  smock  with  her 
     beautiful, long, dark hair.   We were all gathered in the terminal 
     at Houston's Hobby Airport, making small talk. Her Mom and Dad and 
     two  brothers  were with us,  but all I could do was look at  her. 
     When the boarding announcement came she started to cry.  One final 
     kiss, and I started down the ramp pausing for one final look.  She 
     was  sobbing and her makeup was running down her cheeks.  I wanted 
     to  run  back to comfort her,  but I turned around  and  continued 
     walking.  I kept reminding myself that thirteen months would go by 
     in no time. Yeah, right!
     
     Welcome  back  to  sunny California,  and Camp  Pendleton.  I  was 
     assigned  to the 3rd Replacement Co.,  Staging Bn.,  but after  20 
     years  the memories are a little fuzzy.  All Marines who  received 
     orders  for  WESPAC  (Western  Pacific)  were  given  this  little 
     vacation. It was designed to get you back in shape quickly,  teach 
     you a little about staying alive,  and otherwise put you back into 
     a  "Combat  Mode".  What I remember is the mountains.  Strap on  a 
     pack, grab your helmet, and go... every "range"  we went to was on 
     top of one of those mountains.  Eat a little dust and hump,  hump. 
     For  some  strange reason our weapon was the WWII style  M-1.  The 
     reason  given was that "there were a lot of them in `Nam,  and you 
     had to know how to use `em". Yeah, right!
     
     The days were full and the nights were short. All I looked forward 
     to was the weekend, and THE phone call to Mary. I had filled out a 
     ton of paperwork, setting up a monthly allotment check for her. In 
     our  first phone call I told her how it was supposed to work,  but 
     there  would  be a two month delay until the checks  started.  She 
     would  be staying with her folks,  but a new baby needed all kinds 
     of  stuff!  We  talked  of California where we had spent  the  few 
     months  of  our  marriage.  I  had been stationed  at  the  Marine 
     Resupply  Depot at Barstow.  We talked about our old friends there 
     and  I told her I'd try to get up there next weekend.  Never got a 
     chance  to go.  The Marine Corps in it's infinite wisdom is scared 
     to  death  that  every building,  on every base,  is  destined  to 
     destruction. So every night someone has to stand "Firewatch". Now, 
     these folks couldn't be left without supervision,  so the Duty NCO 
     was  born.  I spent the next weekend sitting in an office  writing 
     "02:00 Post and building all secure", etc. Yeah, right!
     
     The  next thing I knew we were on buses headed for the Marine  Air 
     Station at El Toro.  I tried to find a few buddies there,  but had 
     no  luck.  The  next morning,  bright and early (why is it  always 
     early)  we  were standing in the parking lot with all our gear.  I 
     had bought a "cold weather"  shirt off another guy,  but was still 
     shivering. Little did I know what a fond memory this would become. 
     The  moments  passed  then I heard "Hey,  Top"  and  spun  around. 
     "Gunny!, where the hell ya been?" It was Bruce, crazy Bruce.   The 
     guys in the barracks had said he was in the hospital. His head had 
     been shaved on one side,  he looked a little white,  but still had 
     the same evil grin. "What the hell happened to you,  they said you 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 27
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     were  in  the hospital".  He looked a little  sheepish.  "Well,  I 
     racked  up the cycle pretty good and they had to put a plate in my 
     scull". "How the hell did you do that?", I replied.  He went on to 
     describe  how  he  had been on a `trip',  was  cruisin'  down  the 
     freeway  and  decided to stand on the seat.  Apparently the  metal 
     divider had kind of broken his fall. Yeah, right!
     
     Land in Hawaii, and refuel the plane. Days... later,  land in Guam 
     and refuel the plane.  Land again,  must be time to refuel.  Nope, 
     not this time we have arrived in sunny, downtown Okinawa.  The end 
     of  the line for my WESPAC orders.  Get on a bus and head for Camp 
     Henderson,  the  most Godforsaken place I've ever been.  My Marine 
     Corps,  in  its  utter  wisdom  had decided to  cram  in  as  many 
     replacement  Marines  as could fit,  along with as many  returning 
     Marines (from `Nam) as, well, you know. What a recipe! The pot, as 
     it were, was the EM Club. Us: Gung Ho, young, immature,  ready for 
     action. Them: Fresh from the bush, all-knowing, don't give a shit. 
     It was not pretty....  I had the duty once again.  Someone decided 
     it would be fun to drop a Frag in the Club,  50 or 60 wounded as I 
     recall.  MP's  swinging nightsticks wildly.  Marine walks into  an 
     office  and  unloads with a .45 at some  Top  Sargent.  Formations 
     every two hours,  and they had you here.  Miss a formation and you 
     might not hear your new orders.  Since we were assigned to the 9th 
     MAB there were three possible destinations: Stay on Okinawa, go to 
     the Philippines,  or go somewhere else south and west of here.  At 
     this moment Vietnam was just a word to me. They wouldn't waste all 
     the  electronics training they'd put me through,  and send me to a 
     damn jungle would they?  Yeah, right!
     
     It  was raining when we landed in Danang.  I learned later that we 
     were  coming into monsoon season.  I can still remember  something 
     that  one of my Instructors had said in Radar school.  "Since  you 
     guys  have  a clearance,  they won't put you with the  grunts".  I 
     thought  about that as I rode in the "six-by"  to my new outfit at 
     Hill 10,  BLT 2/26.  When we arrived it was dark,  and raining.  I 
     still  remember the first night.  Intermittent bursts of light and 
     the sounds of artillery. We "new-guys" spent the night on a wooden 
     floor  of our first "hooch".  Since we didn't know the  difference 
     between  "incoming"  and "outgoing"  the first loud "whooooossshh" 
     sent us scampering into the foxhole outside.  We were greeted with 
     loud  guffaws  as we landed in a foot of water.  Next day,  I  was 
     formally assigned to H&S Co., Comm Platoon. At that time each Comm 
     Platoon  was  comprised  of a Wire section  (responsible  for  all 
     field-phone   and   switchboard  operation),   a   Radio   section 
     (responsible  for insuring all radio operation),  and a Tech  Shop 
     (responsible  for all maintenance on the above).  Whirlwind  time- 
     get full issue, M-16, Flak jacket, cammo's, canteens,  etc.  Check 
     in with all other Battalion departments, especially the Mail Room! 
     In  the midst of all this the Bn.  was packing up,  we were  going 
     aboard ship. Another "six-by"  ride through the countryside,  many 
     strange sights, sounds,  and smells!   We unload finally at Danang 
     harbour.  After  a little confusion into the Landing Craft we  go. 
     Immediately,  an  argument breaks out between a Sargent and a Navy 
     Chief.  "There ain't no way a bunch of gyrenes are gonna get on my 
     ship with loaded ammo".  "Dammit,  Chief we all just loaded up our 
     clips  on  the dock".   A conversation was held on  the  radio.  A 
     little  later  we were all standing by the  side,  flipping  round 
     after round into the water. I thought to myself,  "Is this any way 
     to run a war?". Yeah, right!
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 28
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
     Our  new home was the USS New Orleans,  a helicopter carrier.  The 
     Troop  Compartment  was a little crowded,  row after row of  bunks 
     stacked 6 high, with about 18 inches in between. Life settled into 
     quick  boredom.   Lines  for  everything:   the  Head,   Messhall, 
     Formations,  etc.  With  time on my hands,  the thoughts  started. 
     How's  Mary and the baby doing?  When are we gonna get paid,  so I 
     can send her some money?  When is my mail ever gonna catch up with 
     me?  Mail  was so important!  I had gotten a few letters while  in 
     Staging,  but  nothing  since.  News blackout-  is everything  OK? 
     Without  mail  you didn't know.  The best turn around time  for  a 
     letter was 10 days. If a question was asked in a letter it took at 
     least  that long to receive a reply.  Most of the time the letters 
     arrived out of sequence, adding to the confusion. I tried to write 
     every day, and Mary did the same.  I just hoped everything was OK. 
     A few memories stick out:  Refueling at sea,  where a line is shot 
     between  the ship and a tanker.  Fuel lines are pulled across  and 
     the  "smoking lamp is out".  Some poor soul is transferred to  the 
     ship from another using a "bosun's chair".  Strapped into a little 
     seat  suspended from a cable,  he is pulled across.  The ships get 
     out  of  sync,  the  cable drops and he's dumped into  the  water. 
     Watching  movies on the hangar deck,  going back to the fantail to 
     have  a smoke.  Typhoon in the Gulf of Tonkin,  with 30 foot seas. 
     Lots of people seasick, but luckily not me. The plus side was - no 
     lines for a few days!  Good news comes in an announcement that all 
     tours are being reduced to 12 months, instead of 13.  Only 11 more 
     months to go.   The first letter from Mary arrives!  News at last, 
     both  she and baby are doing fine.  I take my first chopper  ride. 
     Some  of the Comm gear has to go to a higher echelon shop,  so  we 
     strap it to pack frames and head for the flight deck.  The ramp of 
     the CH-46 is slippery and I need help to get up it. We sit down on 
     fold-out  canvas seats.  Tremendous noise from the engine,  cables 
     singing, then nothing.  Crew Chief points to 2 people and they get 
     off.  More engine noise,  chopper kinds of just squats there.  The 
     finger points again,  and several more leave.  This time we slowly 
     get airborne, move off the side of the ship, drop suddenly 20 feet 
     and  we're off!   The whole trip we move 10 feet above the  waves, 
     then the land appears.   We get off the chopper and are surrounded 
     with huge stacks of bright orange US Mail sacks.  So that's why my 
     mail took so long to arrive.  "Through rain,  sleet,  and the dead 
     of night", but not typhoons.  Yeah, right!
     
     Welcome to LZ Rockcrusher, about 10 miles further west of Hill 10. 
     The baby is due in about 2 weeks, and I'm starting to get a little 
     crazy.  Everyone knows about my situation,  especially the Message 
     Center.  Fill sand bags, more sand bags. Raining almost constantly 
     now,  everything  has  turned into a sea of  mud.  We  constructed 
     sidewalks  made out of empty ammo crates.   The Shop gets set  up, 
     after  a few days the generator arrives,  and we get  lights.   We 
     build  an  EM Club and then it arrives -  beer!  Our hootches  are 
     built  by  the  Seebees,  framed out in wood with  a  canvas  tent 
     stretched  over it.   Plywood floor and screens all around.  Add a 
     cot,  pancho  liner,  ammo crate for a locker,  and you have Home, 
     Sweet Home.  The Gunny gives us the afternoon off, and a buddy and 
     I head out for Freedom Hill.   Except for the corrugated tin roofs 
     and  sandbags,  it  could pass for a shopping center back  in  the 
     world. Huge PX with aisle after aisle packed with goodies, and air 
     conditioned to boot. Huge movie theater with cushioned seats, just 
     like  home.  Snack bars which served hamburgers and  hotdogs.  Ice 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 29
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     cold beers, it was pig out time for sure. No C-Rats tonight!  Time 
     passes and the letters from Mary are sporadic. The baby is due any 
     day,  then  her letters stop.   In a past letter she mentions that 
     the allotment check still hasn't arrived.  We get paid, and I send 
     her  most of it in a check.  More waiting,  still no word.  Get  a 
     military  drivers  licence  for jeeps and  ammo  carriers.   Start 
     making  the  daily FSR run into Red Beach at Danang.  Lots of  new 
     sights.   Stopped at a road junction on Highway 1,  near Dogpatch. 
     Waiting  for a long Korean convoy to go by.  Kids quickly converge 
     around  the jeep,  reaching in.   I grab my rifle off the steering 
     column and they back off.  Finally get moving again. By accident I 
     run  into Ron at FSR.   He and his wife had been stationed with us 
     in Barstow.  We exchange a little small talk.  He's working in the 
     Krypto  Shop  there and wants to know what it's like in the  bush. 
     All I could do was laugh, bush,  huh!  Back to the Rockcrusher.  A 
     couple of days pass and now Mary is almost 2 weeks overdue. I talk 
     to  the Lieutenant and he gives me permission to go to the 1st Mar 
     Div  MARS station and make a call home.  I hitch a ride there only 
     to find out that calls can only be made on even numbered days. Aw, 
     sh*t!   A  few  days later I tried again.   The MARS  station  was 
     comprised  of  a waiting room containing 6 or 8  chairs,  and  the 
     Radio booth which had a glass window. Just outside this window was 
     a  phone.  You would give the Radio Operator the phone number back 
     in  the  states  you  wanted  to  call.  A  Radio  call  would  be 
     transmitted to the MARS station in Hawaii,  again giving the phone 
     number.   The  Operator  in Hawaii would then try to locate a  HAM 
     operator as close to the city as possible.  The HAM operator would 
     patch  the radio call into a landline,  and the charges were based 
     on  the  landline  call only.   This operation requires  a  strict 
     protocol  as  conversation only flows in one direction at a  time. 
     All  operators are listening and must switch between transmit  and 
     receive manually. I didn't know any of this then,  I just gave the 
     number  and  had a seat.  One by one guys were called over to  the 
     phone, made their call and left.  Wait some more. Suddenly.  I was 
     called over.  The operator slid back the glass and said "She's not 
     at  home,  they  said she's in the hospital and just had  a  baby. 
     We're not supposed to do this,  but we're trying to get the number 
     of  the  hospital.   Have  a seat".   My stomach  filled  up  with 
     butterflies,  and it was hard to breathe.  I was called over again 
     and picked up the phone.  "Cpl.  Boyle,  you start.  Say over when 
     you're done".   Taking a deep breath I said "Hi Darlin',  what did 
     we have? Over".   "Oh,  honey I can't believe it's you!  We have a 
     little  girl and she's so precious.   When the man called and said 
     there was a call from you I just couldn't believe it".   Pause.... 
     "Say Over, Mary",  some voice intervened.   "Oh,  Over".   "Honey, 
     what did we name her?  Over".  "Her name is Lisa Dawn".  Pause.... 
     Again, "Say Over, Mary".   "Over".   "That's great news,babe!  Are 
     you doing OK, and baby, too.  Over". "We're both fine,  I'm just a 
     little tired" ... "Over".   We exchanged a few more words and then 
     it was over. "Hey,  don't forget to bring me a cigar the next time 
     you  come".   I assured him I wouldn't and asked him where I could 
     crash  for  the  night.  It was 1 or 2 in the morning  and  I  was 
     suddenly  very tired.  "Just pull a couple of chairs together,  we 
     have people from the bush all the time". Yeah, right!
     
     Postscript:  I  met Mary in Hawaii for R&R,  about 3 months later. 
     She brought little Lisa with her, and it was quite a reunion! What 
     can you say when you hold your first child in your arms?  And when 
     you  haven't seen your young wife in over 6 months!  Twenty  years 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 30
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     ago.  I'm proud to say Lisa isn't "little" any longer. She's quite 
     a  young woman,  and in her second year at the University of Texas 
     at Austin.  And my Mary is still the same, only I love her more.
     























































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 31
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                            I ain't here alone!
                           By Michael  J. Martin
     
                         Input by:  Glenn Toothman
                      NAM VETs MIA-POW Section Editor
                   The Commo Bunker - Karnes County, TX
               VetPoint 8 (1:321/203.8) & FidoNet 1:387/801
     
     
     
                     One night this fellow at the bar
                       started talkin' 'bout the war
                    Tears of Rage welled up in his eyes
     
                      He said he'd been through Hell
                       In the jungles and the jails
                  Just lost another job and another wife
     
                   He said, "They just don't understand
                           what it does to a man
                I just can't seem to shake it from my mind
     
                            I pulled up a stool
                   said, "Shake the hand of another fool
                         I was there in '68 and 69
     
                                 (Chorus)
           "And they ain't gonna bury me while I'm still livin'
              Aint gonna shut me up 'til my story's been told
            I don't need o parades... I don't need no forgivin'
                  I just need to know...I aint here alone
     
                    I said "I aint never been too sure
                        if it was Luck or the Lord
                    I just know that somehow I survived
     
                        I've slept out in the rain
                         Been damn near blown away
                But, buddy, I, by God, learned how to fight
     
                         And when I had to decide
                  if it was Them or Me..gonna Live or Die
              there was no time for analyzin 'Wrong or Right'
     
                          I got plenty of regrets
                  got a lot of things I just can't forget
             But, Buddy, I'm still glad to be alive"  (Chorus)
     
                       Well, he and I were strangers
                    but we talked like we were brothers
            Laughed about the leeches and the girls on R and R
     
                    We talked of monsoons and mamasans
                      and the N.V.A and the Viet Cong
         And we cried about our buddies that died in that damn war
     
                       And we talked about the waste
                      and all the bitterness and pain
            of comin back and findin' out nobody cared no more
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 32
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
                     We put our arms around each other
                       just two more weary warriors
           who didn't feel quite so alone as we had felt before
     
            And we sang, "they aint gonna bury me.... "(Chorus)
     




















































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 33
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990



     =================================================================
                      V e t e r a n   B e n e f i t s
     =================================================================

                     VA PENSIONS INCREASE FOR VETERANS
                              VA NEWS RELEASE
                          DATED 22 NOVEMBER 1989
     
                          Input by: Jim Hildwine
                 NAM VETs Federal Benefits Section Editor
                    VetPoint 47 - FidoNet 1:321/203.47
                              Shady Side, Md.
     
     
        More  than  700,000 veterans and dependents will receive up  to 
     4.7  percent  increase  in  Department of  Veterans  Affairs  (VA) 
     Improved Pension checks payable Dec 31, 1989.
         VA  Secretary Edward J.  Derwinski said he hopes to announce a 
     similar  increase  in disability compensation rates  for  disabled 
     veterans before the year is out.
         VA   pensions  are  paid  to  wartime  veterans  totally   and 
     permanently   disabled  from  circumstances  unrelated  to   their 
     military service, and to needy survivors of wartime veterans.
         The  pension  increase applies to 436,505 veterans of  wartime 
     service  and  260,708  surviving spouses  and  children.   Payment 
     increases  will  also  go to 31,311 parents of  deceased  veterans 
     receiving Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) benefits.
          The increase in monthly payments is automatic and requires no 
     action by recipients.  Pension benefits range from annual maximums 
     of $6,76 for a veteran without dependents to $15,222 for a veteran 
     with three dependents who is in need of regular aid an attendance.      
     Unlike  compensation benefits paid to veterans disabled by illness 
     or injuries related to military service,  pensions are affected by 
     income  from  other sources,  so the exact amount of the  increase 
     varies.
         Increases   in  Improved  Pension  to  wartime  veterans   and 
     dependents and DIC payments to deceased veterans'  parents are set 
     by law at the same rate and date as Social Security increases.
         VA  pensions  other than the Improved Pension remain fixed  at 
     the  rates  in  effect in 1978.   The income limits  that  control 
     eligibility for these programs, however, also are increased by 4.7 
     percent, effective Dec 1.
          Recipients  of  these pensions may request transfer  to   the 
     Improved Pension plan at any time.  The VA reviews each request to 
     advise beneficiaries which program would be most advantageous.
          Veterans  and dependents with questions about pensions should 
     contact the nearest VA regional Office.
     
                       Federal Benefits?  Ask me!!!
     
                                  - Jim -
     
     






     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 34
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                   VETERANS REMINDED OF BURIAL BENEFITS
                              VA News Release
                          Dated: 6 November 1989
     
                          Input by: Jim Hildwine
                 NAM VETs Federal Benefits Section Editor
                    VetPoint 47 - FidoNet 1:321/203.47
                              Shady Side, Md
     
         Veterans  should know that one Department of Veterans  Affairs 
     (VA) benefit to which nearly all former armed services members are 
     entitled is burial in a national cemetery.
         VA's  National  Cemetery System expects to provide burials  to 
     nearly 60,000 veterans and their family members this year.   But a 
     VA  survey  found that only about one-third of veterans are  aware 
     that they, their spouses and dependent children may be buried in a 
     national cemetery.
        Veterans,  except  those  with  dishonorable  discharges,   are 
     entitled  to  burial in any of VA's national cemeteries that  have 
     space.  Service members with exclusively Reserve or National Guard 
     service  may  be interred in a national cemetery only if they  die 
     while on active duty for training.
        Although  families  cannot  reserve gravesites  in  a  national 
     cemetery,  a  veteran  can  make things easier  for  survivors  by 
     keeping  his  or  her  discharge certificate  and  other  military 
     service  records accessible,  and verifying eligibility at any  VA 
     office.
         Burial  is also available to a veteran's widow or widower  (if 
     she  or  he has not remarried),  as well as to unmarried  children 
     under  age 21 and,  under certain circumstances,  unmarried  adult 
     children.   Dependents  do  not  have  to be buried  in  the  same 
     cemetery as the veteran.
         For eligible veterans and family members, VA handles gravesite 
     preparation and burial,  furnishes a headstone or marker and flag, 
     and  provides  perpetual  care.    In  some  national  cemeteries, 
     graveliners are furnished at no expense.
          However,   VA   does   not  provide   funeral   arrangements, 
     transportation or military honors,  which often can be arranged by 
     funeral  directors through nearby military facilities or  veterans 
     organizations. 
          When  a  veteran  or  dependent  dies,  documents  supporting 
     eligibility  should  be  given to the funeral  director  who  will 
     contact  the  cemetery  where  burial is  requested.   Of  VA  113 
     national cemeteries,  66 have space available for the first casket 
     burials  of  a  family member.   In the  other  47  --  considered 
     "closed" --  an eligible family member may be buried if a previous 
     family member interment has occurred.  Most of the closed national 
     cemeteries can accept cremation burials.     Other burial benefits 
     are  available  to veterans who may not choose  national  cemetery 
     interment.   VA  will  furnish a headstone or grave marker  for  a 
     veteran's  unmarked  grave  anywhere in the world and  a  memorial 
     marker  to recognize a veteran whose remains were not recovered or 
     for  other reasons were not buried.   As an alternative,  VA  will 
     reimburse up to $80.00 of the cost to purchase a marker privately.  
     Dependent's  graves  may  receive a government marker  only  in  a 
     national or state veterans cemetery.
          Veterans'  families  also  may receive an American  flag  for 
     covering a casket and a memorial certificate bearing the signature 
     of  the  President,  expressing the nations's recognition  of  the 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 35
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     deceased veteran's service.
         Information  on  VA  burial benefits is  available  from  most 
     funeral  directors,  national  cemetery  offices and  VA  regional 
     offices, which are listed in the "U.S. Government"  section of the 
     telephone directories. 
     
                       Federal Benefits?  Ask me!!!
     
                                  - Jim -
     

















































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 36
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990



     =================================================================
                            M i s s i n g ! ! !
     =================================================================

                            CHRISTMAS AND POW'S
     
                            By: Glenn Toothman
                      NAM VETs MIA-POW Section Editor
                     The Commo Bunker - Karnes County, TX
               VetPoint 8 (1:321/203.8) & FidoNet 1:387/801
     
     This  holiday season while you are enjoying your meal,  looking at 
     the  fantastic  lights around town and your house,  watching  your 
     children  open  their  gifts,  as you enjoy the services  of  your 
     choice, celebrate the coming of Christ,  or Hanaka,  take the time 
     to reflect on our comrades who have not returned yet.
     
     These persons may be yet alive, or deceased, whatever the case, we 
     need  to  reflect  on these comrades.   As I sit in front  of  the 
     terminal  close to the tree,  looking over my shoulder to see  the 
     gifts  there,  I can't help but think "but for the will of God,  I 
     might  be  one of those unfortunate few who are still  unaccounted 
     for.  I sometimes just think that even if the beings missing, were 
     deceased, they still need to come home,  I take time to reflect on 
     this.  I look up at the crystal clear sky, look at the stars,  the 
     galaxy,  the universe,  and ponder these men.   I take the time to 
     think  and feel for them.   I still carry the memories of some men 
     that I lost, but they came home...  both in my mind (after my trip 
     to the 'wall') and physically (they rest in various places, church 
     cemeteries,  veteran cemeteries,  city cemeteries)  but they still 
     rest  in  peace.   The  christmas carol goes through  my  mind.... 
     Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm,  all is bright,  'round yon 
     virgin,  mother  and child...  sleep in heavenly peace,  sleep  in 
     heavenly peace.
     
     I  am  not a religious person,  however,  when I heard  that  last 
     night,  the sky was clear,  the stars seemed to be sparkling extra 
     bright,  and  I remembered my fellow warriors that still have  not 
     returned.
     
     There  is  a song written by a couple of Namvets (Mike Martin  and 
     Tim 'Doc' Holliday) called 'The Last Firebase' there is a verse in 
     it  that rings true to heart for me...  in part it says  "Sergeant 
     Major can we stand down now?  Yes,  but keep the homefires burning 
     there's  one  patrol  still out"  The one patrol  is  the  MIA-POW 
     persons,  and the homefires are kept burning in my heart,  at each 
     of  the gatherings that I and others sponsor there is a small fire 
     going,  regardless  if it is 25 degrees or 125 degrees,  it is the 
     homefire,  to  guide  the last patrol in...  I just sit  here  and 
     remember  some  of the times I had over in the Nam..  quite  warm, 
     humid,  listening  to Earnest Tubbs singing 'Blue Christmas'  (the 
     only Christmas song we had).   I remember in 66 taking a deuce and 
     half and driving out to Indian country, to get a tree,  decorating 
     it  with  C rat cans,  smoke and grenade pins,  some of the  Donut 
     Dollies and USO girls came over and made some decorations... Going 
     down to the 'Club'  on Christmas eve and getting depressed because 
     we  couldn't  be  with  our loved ones.    I had quite  a  few  OD 
     Christmases  but only two in country.  We still have persons  over 
     there  that  must celebrate this day,  at least in their minds  or 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 37
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     memories,  these  are  the men I think of at this time of  year...  
     Merry Christmas,  to one and all,  and especially those who cannot 
     be here in the land of the great PX,  and those who have been kept 
     behind, we think of you.
     
            Keep your nose in the Mud, from those of us at the
     
                     Commo Bunker of Karnes County, TX
     
                  Home of "Vietnam Veterans UnderGround"
     
















































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 38
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
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                       " Bring them home --- NOW !!! "
     












     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 39
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                        NATIONAL LEAGUE OF FAMILIES
            OF AMERICAN PRISONERS AND MISSING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
     
                         Input by: Glenn Toothman
                      NAM VETs MIA-POW Section Editor
                   The Commo Bunker - Karnes County, TX
               VetPoint 8 (1:321/203.8) & FidoNet 1:387/801
     
     December 5, 1989         Newsletter
     
     MORE   ACCOUNTABILITY:    The   Department  of  Defense   recently  
     announced  the  names  of  the  following  americans,   previously  
     listed    as unaccounted for in North Vietnam,  whose remains were 
     identified and returned to their families:
     
          COL  Floyd W. Richardson      USAF missing 3 March 67
          COL  Charles D. Roby          USAF missing 3 March 67
          COL  James C. Hartney         USAF missing 5 Jan 68
          LTC  Gordon B. Blackwood      USAF missing 27 May 67
          LTC  Robert Irwin             USAF missing 17 Feb 72
          MAJ  Larry Martin             USAF missing 15 Jul 68
          CAPT Daniel L. Carrier        USAF missing 2  Jun 67
          LT   David Kardell            USNR missing 9 May  65
     
     Including   these individuals,  260 americans (231 from   Vietnam,  
     27  from  Laos  and 2 from PRC)  previously missing in   Southeast  
     Asia  have   been  accounted for.   These  latest  identifications 
     reduce  the number still prisoner,  missing and unaccounted for in 
     Indochina  to 2,323.
     
     Comment:   To   each   of  the  families  involved,   the   League  
     extends  sincere  understanding,   though grateful that their many  
     years  of uncertainty have ended.   Those who claim no progress is 
     being   made should  consider  the 184 families whose loved  one's  
     remains   have  been  returned since priority was  established  in 
     1982.
     
     VETERANS    DAY:    During  the  Veterans  Day  ceremony  held  at  
     Arlington  National   Cemetery,  Chairman of the Joint  Chiefs  of  
     Staff  General Colin  L.  Powell,  speaking on behalf of President  
     Bush,   strongly  reaffirmed  the  U.S.   Government's  commitment  
     to  resolving  the POW/MIA issue, stating, ". . . We, the veterans 
     who  returned  --   and indeed  all American citizens --  have  an 
     obligation to account  for these  missing comrades in arms. We owe 
     this  to  their families  and we  owe it to future generations  of 
     Americans,  but  most  of all,  we owe to our  missing  buddies...   
     These  missing American veterans did not swerve from their duty to 
     fight for freedom.  We must  not either.   I can assure you that I 
     will  not rest,  that President Bush will  not  rest,   that  this 
     nation  will  not   rest;  until  we  have  obtained  the  fullest 
     possible accounting for our missing in action.   This is more than 
     a promise-- it is a solemn oath."
     
     EDUCATIONAL   VIDEO  AVAILABLE  SOON:   The  League's  educational  
     video,  providing   a  comprehensive  overview of  the  issue,  is 
     scheduled   for public  release  following the first of the  year.  
     This   VHS  video will be available on a secured loan and purchase 
     basis and is ideal in academic settings and to replace speakers at 
     many events.
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 40
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
     OPPOSITION   TO  H.R.   3603:    The  board  of  directors   voted  
     unanimously   to    oppose   this   legislation,   introduced   by  
     Representatives   Denny  Smith   (D-OR)   and  Bob  Smith  (R-NH), 
     calling    for   the   "heads   of  Federal    departments     and  
     agencies    to    disclose    information"   concerning  Americans 
     classified  as POW or MIA dating back to  World War  II.    Public  
     declassification has long  been  opposed  by  the League,  as such 
     release could jeopardize any American who may still be  held.   It 
     should  be  noted  that  the  U.S.  Government   policy   of  full 
     disclosure,  established  in  1982 and enacted into law in   1988, 
     ensures   that  all  information which does or may  correlate   to  
     a missing American is provided to the primary next-of-kin.
     
     SPECIAL  MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:   The Vessey Mission  
     to Hanoi and the Lambertson Mission to the Vientiane were critical  
     to the  issue.  I am confident in the U.S. Government's commitment  
     to "do  all a government can",  as stated by President Bush during  
     the  League's   20th   Annual   Meeting.    If   the   Indochinese  
     Governments  seriously   honor  these agreements,  there  will  be  
     greatly   expanded  results  due  to increased  viability  of  the 
     process.
     
     Going into 1990, there is valid reason for optimism .  As  always,
     careful   monitoring  of the process is crucial.   The League  has  
     the determination and ability to accomplish that objective.   Your
     prayers and support sustain the board of directors, the staff  and
     me.    We are grateful.   A special gift to the League in honor of  
     a  missing  American  would  be appropriate  and  welcome   during  
     the Holiday  Season.  Best wishes for a safe,  joyful  and  peace-
     filled holiday season and a New Year filled with many blessings.
     



























     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 41
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

            Listing of MIA's - Last Names ending in A through E
     
                         Input by: Charles Harper
                     Classic City Node-2 - Athens, GA
                              (404) 548-0726
     
     "I got the file off of PC-EXEC in Milwaukee but since then I have 
     seen a few messages in reference to POW BBS on a few boards."
                                          - Charles Harper -
     
     (Note from Joe:  The list is BIG! and includes info on Biographies 
     on the individual MIA's.  I've split it into three parts.  Parts 2 
     and 3 will be published in subsequent issues.)
     
                       From: *** The POW Network ***
                               319-386-7697
     
                          List of Available Bios
                             December 8, 1989
     
     Lastname         First Mid.    Branch-Rank  Incident   Country
     ========         ==========    ===========  ========   =======
     ACALOTTO         ROBERT J.        ARMY  E4  20-Feb-71   LAOS
     ACKLEY           JAMES W.         CIV       07-Mar-73   LAOS
     ACOSTA-ROSARIO   HUMBERTO         ARMY  E3  22-Aug-68   SVN
     ADACHI           THOMAS Y.        USAF  E5  22-Apr-70   LAOS
     ADAM             JOHN Q.          USAF  E3  22-May-68   LAOS
     ADAMS            JOHN R.          ARMY  E2  08-Nov-67   SVN
     ADAMS            LEE A.           USAF  O2  19-Apr-66   NVN
     ADAMS            OLEY N.          USAF  E5  17-Jun-66   SVN/OW
     ADAMS            SAMUEL           USAF  E5  31-Oct-65   SVN
     ADAMS            STEVEN H.        USAF  E3  18-Oct-66   NVN/OW
     ADKINS           CHARLES L.       ARMY  E4  02-Feb-68   SVN
     AGOSTO SANTOS    JOSE             USMC  E3  12-May-67   SVN
     AHLMEYER         HEINZ JR.        USMC  E1  10-May-67   SVN
     ALBERTSON        BOBBY J.         USAF  E5  31-May-66   NVN
     ALBRIGHT         JOHN S. II       USAF  O2  13-Dec-68   LAOS
     ALDRICH          LAWRENCE L.      ARMY  E4  06-May-68   SVN
     ALFORD           TERRY L.         ARMY  W1  04-Nov-69   SVN
     ALFRED           GERALD O. JR.    USAF  O2  11-Dec-66   NVN
     ALGAARD          HAROLD L.        ARMY  W1  04-Mar-71   NVN
     ALLARD           RICHARD M.       ARMY  E4  24-Aug-67   SVN
     ALLEE            RICHARD K.       USAF  O3  21-Dec-68   LAOS
     ALLEN            HENRY L.         USAF  O2  26-Mar-70   LAOS
     ALLEN            MERLIN R.        USMC  E3  30-Jun-67   SVN
     ALLEN            WAYNE C.         ARMY  E5  10-Jan-70   SVN
     ALLEY            GERALD W.        USAF  O5  22-Dec-72   NVN
     ALLEY            JAMES H.         USAF  E4  06-Apr-72   SVN
     ALLGOOD          FRANKIE E.       USMC  O5  26-Mar-68   SVN/OW
     ALM              RICHARD A.       USMC  O4  01-Feb-66   NVN
     ALMENDARIZ       SAMUEL           ARMY  E7  12-Jul-67   LAOS
     ALTIZER          ALBERT H.        ARMY  E3  08-Oct-69   SVN
     ALWAN            HAROLD J.        USMC  O4  27-Feb-67   SVN/OW
     AMESBURY         HARRY A. JR.     USAF  O4  26-Apr-72   SVN
     AMOS             THOMAS H.        USAF  O3  20-Apr-72   SVN
     AMSPACHER        WILLIAM H.       USN   E4  02-Jun-65   NVN
     ANDERSON         DENIS L.         USN   O2  11-Jan-68   LAOS
     ANDERSON         EVELYN           CIV       27-Oct-72   LAOS
     ANDERSON         GREGORY L.       USAF  E4  28-Jan-70   NVN
     
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     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     ANDERSON         ROBERT D.        USAF  O5  06-Oct-72   NVN
     ANDERSON         WARREN L.        USAF  O3  26-Apr-66   NVN
     ANDREWS          STUART M         USAF  O4  04-Mar-66   SVN
     ANDREWS          WILLIAM L.       USAF  O3  05-Oct-66   NVN
     ANGELL           MARSHALL J.      ARMY  E5  12-Dec-63   SVN
     ANGSTADT         RALPH HAROLD     USAF  O4  18-Oct-66   NVN/OW
     ANSPACH          ROBERT A.        ARMY  E8  11-Sep-67   SVN
     ANTON            FRANCIS G.       ARMY  W2  05-Jan-68   SVN/NV
     ANTUNANO         GREGORY A.       ARMY  E5  24-Jul-71   CAMB
     APODACA          VICTOR J.        USAF  O3  08-Jun-67   NVN
     APPELHANS        RICHARD D.       USAF  O3  16-Oct-67   LAOS
     APPLEBY          IVAN D.          USAF  O4  07-Oct-67   NVN
     ARD              RANDOLPH J.      ARMY  W1  07-Mar-71   LAOS
     ARMISTEAD        STEVEN R.        USMC  O2  17-Mar-69   LAOS
     ARMSTRONG        JOHN W.          USAF  O5  09-Nov-67   LAOS
     ARPIN            CLAUDE           CIV       06-APR-70   CAMB
     ARROYO-BAEZ      GERASINO         ARMY  E6  24-Mar-69   SVN
     ASHALL           ALAN F.          USN   O2  29-Aug-68   NVN
     ASHBY            CLAYBORN W. JR.  USN   E5  17-Feb-68   LAOS
     ASHLOCK          CARLOS           USMC  E4  12-May-67   SVN
     ASTON            JAY S.           ARMY  W1  18-Jul-71   SVN
     ASTORGA          JOSE M.          ARMY  E4  02-Apr-72   SVN
     AUSTIN           CHARLES D.       USAF  O2  26-Apr-67   NVN
     AUSTIN           ELLIS E.         USN   O4  21-Apr-66   NVN
     AUXIER           JERRY E.         ARMY  E6  29-Jul-68   SVN
     AVERY            ALLEN J.         USAF  E6  06-Apr-72   SVN
     AYRES            GERALD F.        USAF  O4  18-Jun-72   SVN
     BABCOCK          RONALD L.        ARMY  O3  27-Feb-71   LAOS
     BACKUS           KENNETH F.       USAF  O2  22-May-67   NVN
     BADER            ARTHUR E.        ARMY  E5  30-Nov-68   LAOS
     BADOLATI         FRANK N.         ARMY  E6  29-Jan-66   SVN
     BAILEY           LAWRENCE ROBERT  ARMY  O4  23-Mar-61   LAOS
     BAILON           RUBEN            CIV       25-Dec-65   SVN
     BALAMONTI        MICHAEL D.       USAF  O4  24-Nov-69   LAOS
     BALCOM           RALPH C.         USAF  O3  15-May-66   NVN
     BALLENGER        ORVILLE ROGER    ARMY  E5  22-Apr-61   LAOS
     BANCROFT         WILLIAM W.       USAF  O2  13-Nov-70   NVN
     BANKOWSKI        ALFONS A.        USAF  E5  23-Mar-61   LAOS
     BANNON           PAUL W.          USAF  O4  12-Jul-69   LAOS
     BARBER           THOMAS D.        USN   E3  17-Mar-68   NVN/OW
     BARNES           CHARLES R.       ARMY  O3  16-Mar-69   SVN
     BARNETT          CHARLES E.       USN   O5  23-May-72   NVN
     BARTOCCI         JOHN E.          USN   O4  31-Aug-68   SVN/OW
     BATES            PAUL J. JR.      ARMY  O3  10-Aug-71   SVN
     BATT             MICHAEL L.       ARMY  E4  16-Mar-69   SVN
     BAUDER           JAMES R.         USN   O4  21-Sep-66   NVN
     BAUMAN           RICHARD L.       ARMY  W2  17-Mar-71   CAMB
     BAXTER           BRUCE R.         ARMY  E8  08-Nov-67   LAOS
     BEALS            CHARLES E.       ARMY  E4  07-Jul-70   SVN
     BEBUS            CHARLES J.       USAF  E3  21-Dec-72   NVN
     BECERRA          RUDY M.          ARMY  E4  24-Mar-70   CAMB
     BECK             TERRY L.         USN   E4  02-Oct-69   NVN/OW
     BECKER           JAMES C.         ARMY  O2  15-Aug-70   LAOS
     BECKWITH         HARRY M.         ARMY  E5  24-Mar-71   SVN
     BEDNAREK         JOHNATHAN B.     USAF  O2  18-May-72   NVN
     BEECHER          QUENTIN R.       ARMY  W2  11-Jun-67   SVN/OW
     BEENS            LYNN R.          USAF  O3  21-Dec-72   NVN
     BELCHER          ROBERT A.        USAF  O4  28-Mar-69   SVN
     BELL             HOLLY G.         USAF  O4  28-Jan-70   NVN
     
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     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     BELL             MARVIN E.        USAF  E5  30-Jun-70   LAOS
     BELL             RICHARD W.       USN   E4  02-Oct-69   NVN/OW
     BENEDETT         DANIEL A.        USMC  E2  15-May-75   CAMB
     BENGE            MICHAEL          CIV       28-Jan-68   SVN
     BENNETT          HAROLD G.        ARMY  E4  29-Dec-64   SVN
     BENNETT          THOMAS W. JR.    USAF  O3  22-Dec-72   NVN
     BENSON           LEE D.           USN   O2  17-Mar-68   NVN/OW
     BENTON           GREGORY R.       USMC  E2  23-May-69   SVN
     BERDAHL          DAVID D.         ARMY  E3  20-Jan-72   SVN
     BERG             BRUCE A.         ARMY  E5  07-Aug-71   SVN
     BERG             GEORGE P.        ARMY  W1  18-Feb-71   LAOS
     BERGEVIN         CHARLES L.       USAF  O2  23-Aug-68   NVN
     BERNHARDT        ROBERT E.        USAF  O2  05-Feb-73   LAOS
     BERRY            JOHN A.          ARMY  W1  05-Dec-68   SVN
     BESSOR           BRUCE C.         ARMY  O2  13-May-69   LAOS
     BEUTEL           ROBERT D.        USAF  O2  26-Nov-71   LAOS
     BEYER            THOMAS J.        USAF  O3  30-Jul-68   SVN
     BEZOLD           STEVEN           ARMY  O2  29-Oct-68   NVN
     BIBBS            WAYNE            ARMY  E3  11-Jun-72   SVN
     BIBER            GERALD MACK      ARMY  E5  22-Apr-61   LAOS
     BIDWELL          BARRY A.         USN   E5  18-Jun-71   NVN/OW
     BIFOLCHI         CHARLES L.       USAF  O2  08-Jan-68   SVN
     BIGGS            EARL R.          ARMY  E7  16-Jan-68   SVN
     BINGHAM          KLAUS Y.         ARMY  E6  10-May-71   SVN
     BIRCHIM          JAMES D.         ARMY  O2  15-Nov-68   SVN
     BISCHOFF         JOHN MALCOM      ARMY  E7  22-Apr-61   LAOS
     BISHOP           EDWARD J. JR.    ARMY  E3  29-Apr-70   SVN
     BISZ             RALPH C.         USN   O2  04-Aug-67   NVN
     BIVENS           HERNDON A.       ARMY  E4  15-Apr-70   SVN
     BLACK            ARTHUR N.        USAF  E2  20-Sep-65   NVN
     BLACK            PAUL V.          ARMY  W1  01-Mar-71   CAMB
     BLACKBURN        HARRY L. JR.     USN   O5  10-May-72   NVN
     BLACKMAN         THOMAS J.        USMC  E2  10-May-68   SVN
     BLACKWOOD        GORDON B.        USAF  O3  27-May-67   NVN
     BLANTON          CLARENCE F.      USAF  O5  11-Mar-68   LAOS
     BLESSING         LYNN             USMC  E2  15-May-75   CAMB
     BLEWETT          ALAN L.          CIV       14-Jul-62   LAOS
     BLODGETT         DOUGLAS R.       ARMY  E4  19-Apr-68   SVN
     BLOOD            HENRY F.         CIV       01-Feb-68   SVN
     BLOODWORTH       DONALD B.        USAF  O2  24-Jul-70   LAOS
     BOBE             RAYMOND E.       ARMY  E3  16-Mar-69   SVN
     BODDEN           TIMOTHY R.       USMC  E5  03-Jun-67   LAOS
     BOFFMAN          ALAN B.          ARMY  O2  18-Mar-71   LAOS
     BOGARD           LONNIE P.        USAF  O3  12-May-72   LAOS
     BOGIAGES         CHRISTO C. JR.   USAF  O4  02-Mar-69   LAOS
     BOHLSCHEID       CURTIS R.        USMC  O3  11-Jun-67   SVN
     BOLES            WARREN W.        USN   O2  18-Jan-68   NVN/OW
     BOLLINGER        ARTHUR R.        USAF  O3  05-Feb-73   LAOS
     BOLTE            WAYNE L.         USAF  O4  02-Apr-72   SVN
     BOLTZE           BRUCE E.         USMC  W2  06-Oct-72   SVN/OW
     BOND             RONALD L.        USAF  O2  30-Sep-71   LAOS
     BOOKOUT          CHARLES F.       ARMY  E7  04-Jul-70   LAOS
     BOOTH            GARY P.          USN   E4  23-Dec-70   SVN/OW
     BOOTH            JAMES E.         USAF  O2  23-Jun-68   NVN
     BOOTH            LAWRENCE R.      ARMY  O3  16-Oct-69   LAOS
     BOOZE            DELMAR G.        USMC  O1  24-Jan-66   SVN
     BORAH            DANIEL V. JR.    USN   O3  24-Sep-72   SVN
     BORDEN           MURRAY L.        USAF  O2  13-Oct-66   NVN
     BORJA            DOMINGO R.       ARMY  E7  21-Feb-67   LAOS
     
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     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     BORONSKI         JOHN A.          ARMY  E6  24-Mar-70   CAMB
     BORS             JOSEPH C.        USAF  O4  28-Apr-68   SVN
     BOSILJEVAC       MICHAEL J.       USAF  O3  29-Sep-72   NVN
     BOSSIO           GALILEO F.       USAF  O4  29-Jul-66   NVN
     BOSSMAN          PETER R.         USN   E4  25-Sep-66   SVN
     BOTT             RUSSELL P.       ARMY  E6  02-Dec-66   LAOS
     BOUCHARD         MICHAEL L.       USN   O3  20-Dec-68   LAOS
     BOWERS           RICHARD L.       ARMY  O3  24-Mar-69   SVN
     BOWMAN           MICHAEL L.       USN   E4  02-Oct-69   NVN/OW
     BOYANOWSKI       JOHN G.          ARMY  O5  14-Dec-71   SVN/OW
     BOYD             WALTER           USMC  E2  15-May-75   CAMB
     BOYER            ALAN LEE         ARMY  E5  28-Mar-68   LAOS
     BOYLE            WILLIAM          ARMY  E7  28-Feb-70   LAOS
     BRANCH           JAMES A.         USAF  O3  04-Sep-65   NVN
     BRANDE           HARVEY G.        ARMY  E7  07-Feb-68   SVN
     BRANDENBURG      DALE             USAF  E4  05-Feb-73   LAOS
     BRANDT           KEITH A.         ARMY  O3  18-Mar-71   LAOS
     BRASHEAR         WILLIAM J.       USAF  O4  08-May-69   LAOS
     BRASHER          JIMMY M.         ARMY  O2  28-Sep-66   NVN/OW
     BRASSFIELD       ANDREW T.        ARMY  E6  06-Apr-70   LAOS
     BRAUNER          HENRY P.         USAF  O4  29-Mar-72   LAOS
     BRELLENTHIN      MICHAEL          USMC  E3  25-Feb-68   SVN
     BREMMER          DWIGHT A.        ARMY  E4  14-Dec-71   SVN/OW
     BRENNAN          HERBERT O.       USAF  O6  26-Nov-67   NVN
     BRETT            ROBERT A. JR.    USAF  O2  29-Sep-72   NVN
     BRIDGES          JERRY G.         ARMY  E5  20-Oct-68   SVN
     BRIDGES          PHILIP W.        ARMY  E4  30-Jun-71   SVN
     BRIGGS           ERNEST F.        ARMY  E5  05-Jan-68   LAOS
     BRIGGS           RONALD D.        ARMY  O2  06-Feb-69   SVN
     BRINCKMANN       ROBERT E.        USAF  O4  04-Nov-66   NVN
     BROMS            EDWARD J.        USN   O2  01-Aug-68   NVN
     BROOKS           JOHN H.          ARMY  E4  13-May-69   SVN
     BROOKS           NICHOLAS G.      USN   O3  02-Jan-70   LAOS
     BROOKS           WILLIAM L.       USAF  O4  22-Apr-70   LAOS
     BROWER           RALPH W.         USAF  O3  09-Nov-67   LAOS
     BROWN            EARL C.          USAF  O3  24-Nov-69   LAOS
     BROWN            EDWARD D. JR.    USN   O2  29-Jul-65   SVN
     BROWN            GEORGE R.        ARMY  E8  28-Mar-68   LAOS
     BROWN            HARRY W.         ARMY  E5  12-Feb-68   SVN
     BROWN            JAMES A.         ARMY  E4  12-Aug-70   SVN
     BROWN            ROBERT M.        USAF  O4  07-Nov-72   LAOS
     BROWN            THOMAS E.        USN   O2  29-Apr-66   NVN
     BROWN            WAYNE G. II      USAF  O3  17-Jul-72   SVN
     BROWN            WILBUR R.        USAF  O3  03-Feb-66   SVN
     BROWN            WILLIAM T.       ARMY  E6  03-Nov-69   LAOS
     BROWNLEE         CHARLES R.       USAF  O4  24-Dec-68   LAOS
     BROWNLEE         ROBERT W.        ARMY  O5  25-Apr-72   SVN
     BRUCH            DONALD W. JR.    USAF  O2  29-Apr-66   NVN
     BRUCHER          JOHN M.          USAF  O4  18-Feb-69   NVN
     BRUNSON          JACK W.          ARMY  W2  31-May-71   LAOS
     BUCHER           BERNARD L.       USAF  O4  12-May-68   SVN
     BUCK             ARTHUR C.        USN   O2  11-Jan-68   LAOS
     BUCKLEY          LOUIS            ARMY  E2  21-May-66   SVN
     BUELL            KENNETH R.       USN   O4  17-Sep-72   NVN
     BULLOCK          LARRY A.         ARMY  E3  31-Jan-67   SVN
     BUNKER           PARK G.          USAF  O3  30-Dec-70   LAOS
     BURD             DOUGLAS G.       USAF  O2  01-Aug-69   SVN
     BURGESS          JOHN L.          ARMY  E5  30-Jun-70   SVN
     BURKE            MICHAEL J.       USMC  E3  19-Oct-66   SVN
     
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     BURNAM           MANSON I.        USAF  O3  20-Apr-72   SVN
     BURNETT          DONALD F.        USN   E8  06-Feb-68   SVN/OW
     BURNETT          SHELDON J.       ARMY  O5  07-Mar-71   LAOS
     BURNHAM          DONALD D.        ARMY  O3  02-Feb-68   SVN
     BURNS            FREDERICK J.     USMC  E3  25-Dec-67   SVN
     BURNS            MICHAEL P.       ARMY  E4  31-Jul-69   LAOS
     BURRIS           DONALD D. JR.    ARMY  W2  22-Dec-69   LAOS
     BUSCH            JON T.           USAF  O2  08-Jun-67   NVN
     BUSH             ELBERT W.        ARMY  E6  08-Jan-73   SVN
     BUSH             JOHN R.          USAF  O2  24-Jul-68   NVN/OW
     BUSH             ROBERT E.        USAF  O3  24-Mar-66   NVN
     BUTLER           DEWEY R.         ARMY  E3  14-Jul-69   SVN
     BUTLER           JAMES E.         ARMY  W1  20-Mar-70   SVN
     BYNUM            NEIL S.          USAF  O2  26-Oct-69   LAOS
     BYRD             HUGH M. JR.      ARMY  O3  09-Jan-69   SVN
     BYTHEWAY         FRANK L.         CIV       02-Oct-68   NVN/OW
     CADWELL          ANTHONY B.       ARMY  E2  17-Oct-67   SVN
     CAFFARELLI       CHARLES J.       USAF  O3  21-Dec-72   SVN/OW
     CAIRNS           ROBERT A.        USAF  E5  17-Jun-66   SVN/OW
     CALDWELL         FLOYD D.         ARMY  E6  14-Dec-71   SVN/OW
     CALFEE           HAMES HENRY      USAF  E8  11-Mar-68   LAOS
     CALHOUN          JOHNNY C.        ARMY  E4  27-Mar-68   SVN
     CALL             JOHN H. III      USAF  O2  06-Apr-72   SVN
     CALLIES          TOMMY L.         USAF  O3  01-Aug-69   SVN
     CALLOWAY         PORTER E.        ARMY  E5  11-Mar-68   SVN
     CAMACHO          ISSAC (IKE)      ARMY  E7  24-Nov-63   SVN
     CAMEROTA         PETER P.         USAF  O3  22-Dec-72   NVN
     CAMPBELL         WILLIAM E.       USAF  O4  29-Jan-69   LAOS
     CANIFORD         JAMES K.         USAF  E5  29-Mar-72   LAOS
     CANNON           FRANCES E.       ARMY  E2  08-Jan-68   SVN
     CAPPELLI         CHARLES R.       USAF  O5  17-Nov-67   NVN
     CARLSON          ALBERT E.        ARMY  O4  07-Apr-72   SVN
     CARLSON          PAUL V.          USN   O2  13-Feb-67   SVN/OW
     CARPENTER        HOWARD B.        ARMY  E5  06-Mar-67   LAOS
     CARR             DONALD G.        ARMY  O3  06-Jul-71   LAOS
     CARROLL          PATRICK H.       USAF  O2  02-Nov-69   LAOS
     CARROLL          ROGER W. JR.     USAF  O4  21-Sep-71   LAOS
     CARTER           GEORGE W.        ARMY  O4  24-Apr-72   SVN
     CARTER           JAMES D.         ARMY  W1  13-Jun-68   SVN
     CARTER           JAMES L.         USAF  O4  03-Feb-66   SVN
     CARVER           HARRY F.         ARMY  E6  10-Apr-68   SVN
     CASE             THOMAS F.        USAF  O4  31-May-66   NVN
     CASEY            DONALD F.        USAF  O5  23-Jun-68   NVN
     CASTILLO         RICHARD          USAF  O3  29-Mar-72   LAOS
     CAVAIANI         JON R.           ARMY  E5  05-Jun-71   SVN
     CAVENDER         JAMES R.         ARMY  W1  04-Nov-69   SVN
     CECIL            ALAN B.          ARMY  E5  21-Sep-69   LAOS
     CHAMBERS         JERRY L.         USAF  O4  22-May-68   LAOS
     CHAMPION         JAMES A.         ARMY  E3  24-Apr-71   SVN
     CHANEY           ARTHUR F.        ARMY  W1  03-May-68   SVN
     CHAPA            ARMANDO JR.      USN   E4  06-Feb-68   SVN/OW
     CHAPMAN          PETER H. II      USAF  O3  06-Apr-72   SVN
     CHAPMAN          RODNEY M.        USN   O4  18-Feb-69   NVN/OW
     CHAVIRA          STEPHEN          ARMY  E4  28-May-71   SVN
     CHESTNUT         JOSEPH L.        USAF  O4  13-Oct-70   LAOS
     CHIARELLO        VINCENT A.       USAF  O2  29-Jul-66   NVN
     CHOMEL           CHARLES D.       USMC  E2  11-Jun-67   SVN
     CHOMYK           WILLIAM          USAF  O3  22-Apr-68   SVN
     CHRISTENSEN      ALLEN D.         ARMY  E5  03-Apr-72   SVN
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 46
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     CHRISTENSEN      WILLIAM M.       USN   O2  01-Mar-66   NVN/OW
     CHRISTIAN        DAVID M.         USN   O2  02-Jun-65   NVN
     CHRISTIANO       JOSEPH           USAF  O4  24-Dec-65   LAOS
     CHRISTIANSEN     EUGENE           ARMY  E3  06-Feb-69   SVN
     CHRISTIE         DENNIS R.        USMC  E3  11-Jun-67   SVN
     CHRISTOPHERSEN   KEITH A.         USN   O2  21-Jan-73   NVN/OW
     CHURCHILL        CARL R.          USAF  O3  03-May-70   LAOS
     CICHON           WALTER A.        ARMY  E4  30-Mar-68   SVN
     CIUS             FRANK E.         USMC  E3  03-Jun-67   LAOS
     CLACK            CECIL J.         ARMY  E3  01-Jan-69   SVN
     CLAPPER          DEAN P.          USAF  E5  29-Dec-67   NVN
     CLARK            JERRY P.         ARMY  W1  15-Dec-65   SVN
     CLARK            LAWRENCE         USAF  E5  18-Oct-66   NVN/OW
     CLARK            RICHARD C.       USN   O2  24-Oct-67   NVN
     CLARK            STANLEY S.       USAF  O5  14-Feb-69   LAOS
     CLARK            THOMAS E.        USAF  O3  08-Feb-69   LAOS
     CLARKE           FRED L.          USAF  E6  13-Dec-68   LAOS
     CLARKE           GEORGE W.        USAF  O3  16-Oct-67   LAOS
     CLAXTON          CHARLES P.       USAF  O4  29-Dec-67   NVN
     CLAY             EUGENE L.        USAF  E5  09-Nov-67   LAOS
     CLEVE            REGINALD D.      ARMY  W1  22-Mar-71   LAOS
     CLINE            CURTIS R.        ARMY  E2  18-Sep-69   SVN
     CLINTON          DEAN E.          ARMY  W1  11-Jun-67   SVN/OW
     COAKLEY          WILLIAM F.       USN   O4  13-Sep-66   NVN
     COALSTON         ECHOL W. JR.     ARMY  E5  21-Jan-68   SVN
     COATES           DONALD L.        USMC  E6  01-Feb-66   NVN
     COBBS            RALPH B.         USN   O4  17-Jun-66   SVN/OW
     COCHEO           RICHARD N.       CIV       31-Jan-68   SVN
     COCHRAN          ISOM CARTER JR.  ARMY  E3  23-May-68   SVN
     COCHRANE         DEVERTON C.      ARMY  E6  17-Jun-70   CAMB
     COEN             HARRY B.         ARMY  E3  12-May-68   SVN
     COFFEE           GERALD L. (JERRY)USN   O3  03-Feb-66   NVN
     COHRON           JAMES D.         ARMY  E6  12-Jan-68   LAOS
     COLE             LEGRANDE O. JR   USN   O3  30-Jun-67   NVN
     COLE             RICHARD M. JR.   USAF  E6  18-Jun-72   SVN
     COLEMAN          JIMMY L.         ARMY  E3  06-Mar-69   SVN
     COLLAMORE        ALLAN P. JR.     USN   O3  04-Feb-67   NVN
     COLLAZO          RAPHAEL C.       ARMY  E3  17-Mar-68   SVN
     COLLETTE         CURTIS D.        USN   E5  17-Jun-66   SVN/OW
     COLLINS          RICHARD F.       USN   O4  22-Nov-69   LAOS
     COLNE            ROGER            CIV       31-May-70   CAMB
     COLTMAN          WILLIAM C.       USAF  O4  29-Sep-72   NVN
     COLWELL          WILLIAM K.       USAF  E8  24-Dec-65   LAOS
     COMER            HOWARD B. JR.    ARMY  W2  24-Nov-69   SVN
     COMPA            JOSEPH J. JR.    ARMY  E6  10-Jun-65   SVN
     COMPTON          FRANK R.         USN   O3  21-Mar-66   NVN/OW
     CONAWAY          LAWRENCE Y.      USAF  O5  03-May-70   LAOS
     CONDIT           DOUGLAS C.       USAF  O2  26-Nov-67   NVN
     CONDREY          GEORGE T. III    ARMY  W1  08-May-68   SVN
     CONGER           JOHN E.          ARMY  E3  27-Jan-69   SVN
     CONKLIN          BERNARD          USAF  O3  29-Jul-66   NVN
     CONLON           JOHN F.          USAF  O2  04-Mar-66   SVN
     CONSOLVO         JOHN W.          USMC  O3  07-May-72   SVN
     CONWAY           JAMES B.         ARMY  O3  12-Apr-66   SVN
     COOK             DONALD G.        USMC  O3  31-Dec-64   SVN
     COOK             DWIGHT W.        USAF  O2  21-Sep-72   LAOS
     COOK             JOSEPH F.        USMC  E3  10-May-68   SVN
     COOK             KELLY F.         USAF  O5  10-Nov-67   NVN
     COOK             WILLIAM R.       USAF  O5  28-Apr-68   SVN
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 47
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     COOK             WILMER P.        USN   O4  22-Dec-67   NVN
     COOKE            CALVIN C. JR.    USAF  E5  26-Apr-72   SVN
     COOLEY           DAVID L.         USN   O4  22-Apr-68   NVN
     COONS            CHESTER L.       USN   E4  17-Feb-68   LAOS
     COOPER           RICHARD W. JR.   USAF  O3  19-Dec-72   NVN
     COOPER           WILLIAM E.       USAF  O5  24-Apr-66   NVN
     COPACK           JOSEPH H. JR.    USAF  O2  22-Dec-72   NVN
     COPENHAVER       GREGORY S.       USMC  E3  15-May-75   CAMB
     COPLEY           WILLIAM M.       ARMY  E4  16-Nov-68   LAOS
     CORDOVA          SAM G.           USMC  O2  26-Aug-72   LAOS
     CORNELIUS        SAMUEL B.        USAF  O3  16-Jun-73   CAMB
     CORNWELL         LEROY J. III     USAF  O3  10-Sep-71   LAOS
     CORONA           JOEL             ARMY  E3  08-Nov-70   SVN
     COZART           ROBERT G. JR.    ARMY  O3  20-Mar-70   SVN
     CRADDOCK         RANDALL J.       USAF  O3  21-Dec-72   NVN
     CRAFTS           CHARLES          ARMY  E2  29-Dec-64   SVN
     CRAIG            PHILLIP C.       USN   O3  04-Jul-67   NVN
     CRAIN            CARROLL O.       USN   O4  08-Mar-67   NVN/OW
     CRAMER           DONALD M.        ARMY  W2  05-Jan-71   SVN/OW
     CRAVEN           ANDREW J.        ARMY  E3  12-May-68   SVN
     CREAMER          JAMES E.         ARMY  E5  21-Apr-68   SVN
     CREAR            WILLIS C.        ARMY  E4  15-Feb-71   LAOS
     CREED            BARTON S.        USN   O2  13-Mar-71   LAOS
     CRESSMAN         PETER R.         USAF  E4  05-Feb-73   LAOS
     CREW             JAMES A.         USAF  O2  10-Nov-67   NVN
     CRISTMAN         FREDERICK L.     ARMY  W1  19-Mar-71   LAOS
     CRONE            DONALD E.        ARMY  E4  15-Feb-71   LAOS
     CROOK            ELLIOTT          ARMY  E4  16-May-71   SVN
     CROSBY           BRUCE A. JR.     ARMY  E4  30-Mar-72   SVN
     CROSBY           HERBERT C.       ARMY  O3  10-Oct-70   SVN/OW
     CROSBY           RICHARD A.       ARMY  E4  02-Dec-67   SVN
     CROSSMAN         GREGORY J.       USAF  O2  25-Apr-68   NVN
     CROWLEY          JOHN E.          ARMY  E3  10-Aug-70   LAOS
     CROWSON          FREDERICK H.     ARMY  E4  02-May-70   CAMB
     CROXDALE         JACK L. II       ARMY  E4  19-Nov-67   SVN
     CRUZ             CARLOS R.        USAF  O3  29-Dec-67   LAOS
     CUDLIKE          CHARLES J.       ARMY  E4  18-May-69   SVN
     CUNNINGHAM       KENNETH          ARMY  E2  03-Oct-69   SVN
     CURLEE           ROBERT L. JR.    ARMY  E6  10-Jun-65   SVN
     CURRAN           PARTICK R.       USMC  O2  29-Sep-69   LAOS
     CURTIS           THOMAS J.        USAF  O3  20-Sep-65   NVN
     CUSHMAN          CLIFTON E.       USAF  O3  25-Sep-66   NVN
     CUTHBERT         BRADLEY G.       USAF  O3  23-Dec-68   NVN
     CUTHBERT         STEPHEN H.       USAF  O3  03-Jul-72   NVN
     CZERWIEC         RAYMOND G.       ARMY  E5  27-Mar-69   SVN
     CZERWONKA        PAUL S.          USMC  E2  10-May-68   SVN
     DAFFRON          THOMAS C.        USAF  O3  18-Feb-70   LAOS
     DAHILL           DOUGLAS E.       ARMY  E4  17-Apr-69   SVN
     DAILEY           DOUGLAS V.       USAF  E5  13-Dec-68   LAOS
     DALE             CHARLES A.       ARMY  O2  09-Jun-65   SVN
     DALTON           RANDALL D.       ARMY  E4  24-Jul-71   CAMB
     DALY             JAMES A. JR.     ARMY  E3  09-Jan-68   SVN
     DANIELSON        BENJAMIN F.      USAF  O3  05-Dec-69   LAOS
     DANIELSON        MARK G.          USAF  O3  18-Jun-72   SVN
     DARCY            EDWARD J.        USAF  E5  29-Dec-67   NVN
     DARR             CHARLES E.       USAF  O2  21-Dec-72   NVN
     DAVIDSON         DAVID A.         ARMY  E6  05-Oct-70   LAOS
     DAVIES           JOSEPH E.        USAF  O3  19-May-68   NVN
     DAVIS            CHARLIE B.       USAF  O5  22-Apr-70   LAOS
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 48
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     DAVIS            EDGAR F.         USAF  O3  17-Sep-68   LAOS
     DAVIS            JAMES WOODROW    USAF  E6  11-Mar-68   LAOS
     DAVIS            RICARDO G.       ARMY  E7  20-Mar-69   LAOS
     DAWES            JOHN J.          ARMY  E7  05-May-66   SVN/OW
     DAWSON           DANIEL G.        ARMY  O2  06-Nov-64   SVN
     DAWSON           FRANK A.         USN   E3  17-Feb-68   LAOS
     DAY              DENNIS I.        ARMY  E4  03-Nov-70   SVN
     DAYAO            ROLANDO C.       USN   E6  02-Oct-69   NVN/OW
     DAYTON           JAMES L.         ARMY  W1  08-May-68   SVN
     DE BLASIO        RAYMOND V.       USN   O2  18-Jun-71   NVN/OW
     DE BRUIN         EUGENE H.        CIV       05-Sep-63   LAOS
     DE CAIRE         JACK L.          ARMY  E6  03-Nov-71   SVN
     DE HERRERA       BENJAMIN D.      ARMY  E3  19-Nov-67   SVN
     DE SOTO          ERNEST L.        USAF  O4  12-Apr-69   SVN
     DE WISPELAERE    REXFORD J.       USAF  E4  24-Nov-69   LAOS
     DEAN             CHARLES          CIV       10-Sep-74   LAOS
     DEAN             DONALD C.        USN   E5  02-Oct-69   NVN/OW
     DEAN             MICHAEL F.       USAF  E5  30-Jun-70   LAOS
     DEANE            WILLIAM L.       ARMY  O4  08-Jan-73   SVN
     DEERE            DONALD T.        ARMY  E4  17-May-66   SVN
     DEICHELMANN      SAMUEL M.        USAF  O3  06-Sep-68   SVN
     DEITSCH          CHARLES E.       ARMY  W3  20-Oct-68   SVN
     DELONG           JOE L.           ARMY  E3  18-May-67   SVN
     DEMMON           DAVID S.         ARMY  E5  09-Jun-65   SVN
     DEMPSEY          JACK I.          USN   E2  17-Jun-66   SVN/OW
     DEMSEY           WALTER E. JR.    ARMY  E4  18-Feb-71   LAOS
     DENGLER          DIETER           USN   O4  01-Feb-66   LAOS
     DENNANY          JAMES E.         USAF  O4  12-Nov-69   LAOS
     DENNIS           MARK V.          USN   HM  15-Jul-66   SVN
     DENNIS           WILLIAM R.       ARMY  E4  19-Apr-68   SVN
     DENNISON         JAMES R.         USN   O4  01-Jan-68   NVN/OW
     DENTON           MANUEL R.        USN   E4  08-Oct-63   SVN
     DEUTER           RICHARD C.       USN   O2  22-Nov-69   LAOS
     DEXTER           BENNIE L.        USAF  E3  09-May-66   SVN
     DEXTER           RONALD J.        ARMY  E8  03-Jun-67   LAOS
     DI TOMMASO       ROBERT J.        USAF  O2  29-Jul-66   NVN
     DIBBLE           MORRIS F.        ARMY  E3  05-Dec-65   SVN
     DILGER           HERBERT H.       USN   O3  02-Oct-69   NVN/OW
     DILLON           DAVID A.         ARMY  E4  20-Jul-66   SVN
     DIX              CRAIG M.         ARMY  E4  17-Mar-71   CAMB
     DODGE            EDWARD R.        ARMY  E7  31-Dec-64   SVN
     DOLAN            EDWARD V.        CIV       12-Mar-75   SVN
     DOLAN            THOMAS A.        ARMY  E5  10-Aug-71   SVN
     DONAHUE          MORGAN J.        USAF  O2  13-Dec-68   LAOS
     DONATO           PAUL N.          USN   E6  17-Feb-68   LAOS
     DONNELLY         VERNE G.         USN   O5  17-Sep-72   NVN
     DONOVAN          LEROY M.         ARMY  E7  19-May-65   SVN
     DONOVAN          MICHAEL L.       USAF  O3  30-Sep-71   LAOS
     DOOLEY           JAMES E.         USN   O2  22-Oct-67   NVN
     DORITY           RICHARD C.       ARMY  E4  03-Nov-70   SVN
     DOTSON           JEFFERSON S.     USAF  O2  09-Aug-69   LAOS
     DOUGLAS          THOMAS E.        USMC  E4  22-Nov-65   SVN
     DRAEGER          WALTER F. JR.    USAF  03  04-Apr-65   NVN
     DRIVER           CLARENCE N.      CIV       07-Mar-73   LAOS
     DRIVER           DALLAS A.        ARMY  E4  09-Oct-69   SVN
     DUBBELD          ORIE J. JR.      ARMY  O2  03-Mar-71   SVN
     DUCAT            PHILLIP A.       USMC  O3  25-Sep-66   SVN
     DUCKETT          THOMAS A.        USAF  O2  12-Dec-70   LAOS
     DUFFY            JOHN E.          USAF  O2  04-Apr-70   SVN
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 49
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     DUGAN            THOMAS W.        USAF  O4  13-Dec-68   LAOS
     DUGGAN           WILLIAM Y.       USAF  O4  31-Dec-71   LAOS
     DUKE             CHARLES R.       CIV       30-May-70   SVN
     DUNCAN           JAMES E.         ARMY  E7  03-Mar-71   SVN
     DUNCAN           ROBERT R.        USN   O2  29-Aug-68   NVN
     DUNLAP           WILLIAM C.       ARMY  W4  02-Dec-69   SVN
     DUNN             JOHN G.          ARMY  O3  18-Mar-68   SVN
     DUNN             JOSEPH P.        USN   O2  14-Feb-68   CHINA
     DUNN             MICHAEL E.       USN   O3  26-Jan-68   NVN
     DUNN             RICHARD E.       USAF  E6  26-Apr-72   SVN
     DUSING           CHARLES G.       USAF  E5  31-Oct-65   SVN
     DYCZKOWSKI       ROBERT R.        USAF  O3  23-Apr-66   NVN
     DYE              MELVIN C.        ARMY  E5  19-Feb-68   LAOS
     DYER             IRBY III         ARMY  E5  02-Dec-66   LAOS
     EADS             DENNIS K.        ARMY  W1  23-Apr-70   SVN
     EARLE            JOHN S.          USN   O3  22-Jun-70   SVN/OW
     EATON            NORMAN D.        USAF  O5  13-Jan-69   LAOS
     EBY              ROBERT G.        CIV       21-Aug-67   SVN/OW
     ECHANIS          JOSEPH           USAF  O3  05-Nov-69   LAOS
     ECHEVARRIA       RAYMOND L.       ARMY  E8  03-Oct-66   LAOS
     ECKLEY           WAYNE A.         USAF  E5  29-Dec-67   NVN
     ECKLUND          ARTHUR G.        ARMY  O2  03-Apr-69   SVN
     EDMONDSON        WILLIAM R.       USAF  O2  31-May-66   NVN
     EDWARDS          HARRY J.         ARMY  E4  20-Jan-72   SVN
     EGAN             JAMES T. JR.     USMC  O2  21-Jan-66   SVN
     EIDSMOE          NORMAN E.        USN   O4  26-Jan-68   NVN
     EILERS           DENNIS L.        USAF  O3  24-Dec-65   LAOS
     EISENBERGER      GEORGE J.        ARMY  E5  05-Dec-65   SVN
     EISENBRAUN       WILLIAM F.       ARMY  O3  05-Jul-65   SVN
     ELLEN            WADE L.          ARMY  W1  24-Apr-72   SVN
     ELLERD           CARL J.          USN   E5  02-Oct-69   NVN/OW
     ELLIOT           ROBERT M.        USAF  O3  14-Feb-68   NVN
     ELLIOTT          ANDREW J.        ARMY  W2  09-Jun-70   SVN
     ELLIOTT          JERRY W.         ARMY  E2  21-Jan-68   SVN
     ELLIS            BILLY J.         ARMY  E4  03-Jan-68   SVN
     ELLIS            RANDALL S.       ARMY  E4  18-Apr-69   SVN
     ELLIS            WILLIAM          ARMY  E3  24-Jun-66   SVN
     ELLISON          JOHN C.          USN   O4  24-Mar-67   NVN
     ELZINGA          RICHARD G.       USAF  O3  26-Mar-70   LAOS
     ENGLANDER        LAWRENCE J.      ARMY  E5  02-May-68   SVN
     ENTRICAN         DANNY D.         ARMY  O2  18-May-71   SVN
     ERSKINE          JACK D.          CIV       13-Nov-68   SVN
     ESPENSHIELD      JOHN L.          USAF  O4  21-Oct-69   SVN
     ESTOCIN          MICHAEL J.       USN   O4  26-Apr-67   NVN
     EVANCHO          RICHARD          USMC  E3  26-Mar-68   SVN/OW
     EVANS            BILLY K. JR.     ARMY  E5  05-Dec-68   SVN
     EVANS            CLEVELAND JR.    USMC  E5  13-Mar-68   SVN
     EVANS            WILLIAM A.       ARMY  E5  02-Mar-69   CAMB
     EVELAND          MICKEY E.        ARMY  E4  26-Oct-71   SVN/OW
     EVERT            LAWRENCE G.      USAF  O3  08-Nov-67   NVN
     








     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 50
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                       Memorial's effect is profound
     
                      Input by: Ray "Frenchy" Moreau
                    Herndon Byte eXchange - Herndon, VA
                              (703) 471-8010
     
                      From "The Dallas Morning News"  
                    Friday, November 10, 1989, pg. 27A 
                             by Arnold Isaacs.
     
     Arnold R. Isaacs, a correspondent in Vietnam from 1972 to 1975, is 
     the  author of Without Honor:  Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia.  He 
     teaches history of the war at Towson State University in Maryland.
     
                                 The Wall
                                 --------
     
        The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is seven years old this Veteran's 
     Day.  In that relatively short time,  the polished black wall with 
     its  rows  and  rows  of  names has secured  a  special  place  in 
     America's  consciousness.  More than 25 million visitors have gone 
     there  since the wall was dedicated.   Some went to grieve for all 
     of the 58,156 names inscribed on it.  Others went to mourn not the 
     abstraction  of  a  nation's  loss but for  one  particular  name, 
     representing a specific and unique loss of their own.
     
        Over the years, along with such traditional mourning symbols as 
     flowers or candles, visitors have frequently left letters or other 
     remembrances  at the wall,  trying to tell the dead that they  are 
     still missed, honored, remembered and loved.  These messages,  all 
     of  which  are collected and saved by the National  Park  Service, 
     express   grief  in  many  different  ways  but  share  a   common 
     bewilderment  and  terrible pain at the loss of young lives in  an 
     ambiguous and unsuccessful war.
     
        They  also  document,  sometimes  with  astounding  force,  the 
     emotions that can be released by the wall itself. One mother, in a 
     letter  that  must also represent the experience of  many  others, 
     wrote to her dead son:
        "We  had  been looking for about half an hour when your  father 
     quietly said, 'Honey,  here it is.'  As I looked to where his hand 
     was touching the black wall, I say your name,  William R.  Stocks. 
     My heart seemed to stop.  I felt as though I couldn't breathe.  It 
     was like a bad dream.  My teeth chattered. I felt as though I were 
     freezing. God,  how it hurt.  I looked around at all the people up 
     and down this black wall, this memorial to all those men and women 
     who had lost their lives in Vietnam, these thousands and thousands 
     of names.  I reached for your father's hands.  They were ice cold.  
     His  face was pale.   He looked at this black wall and then at  me 
     and said,   'What a waste.  All these men and women dead,  and for 
     what?  For fighting a war they had no way of winning.'"
     
        If  there is hurt at the wall,  though,  there is also healing. 
     That  mother,  interviewed by the writer Laura Palmer for her 1987 
     book  "Shrapnel in the Heart,  explained:  "As I see Bill's  name, 
     with  all  the  others,  it helps me to know I'm not alone  in  my   
     pain...  When I touch his name, my pain momentarily increases,  if 
     you  know what I mean,  yet it decreases.  So what am I trying  to 
     say?   On this black wall,  there is much pain,  yet there is much 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 51
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     love."
     
        As  well as parents,  children,  wives,  sisters and  brothers, 
     mourners  at  the wall include surviving veterans come to  express 
     regret  and  respect to their fellow soldiers,  In  the  veterans' 
     messages, along with sorrow,  there is often an edge of continuing 
     bitterness  at  the indifference with which the nation  responded, 
     for many years, to their experience.
     
        "You can tell which are the vets," one wrote.  "We are the ones 
     who  don't have to ask about the size or type of material used  to 
     make  the wall.   We just stand and look,  not caring who sees  us 
     cry, just like no one cared who died."
     
        As powerful as it is,  though,  the wall does not represent the 
     whole  tragedy of Vietnam,  or even the greater part.  There is no 
     reminder  here  to tell us that if Vietnam ever erected a  similar 
     memorial,  with  the names of its dead on both sides inscribed  in 
     the  same size letters,  its wall would not stretch 493 1/2  feet, 
     like  the  one in Washington,  but 25 or 30 times as far:  two  to 
     three  miles  long.  If  the  victims in Cambodia  and  Laos  were 
     inscribed  as  well,  that would add perhaps as many names  again. 
     Five  or six miles of names,  altogether -  that would be the true 
     measure of the war's suffering and loss.
     
        It's  natural,  of course,  for Americans to remember and mourn 
     chiefly our own dead.  But perhaps a small acknowledgement of that 
     greater  toll wouldn't be out of place;  a small sign,  off to one 
     side  of the memorial,  reminding us that not only Americans died.  
     For  if  we  fail to learn that ours is not the only  pain  to  be 
     remembered,  the true meaning of Vietnam and its war will continue 
     to escape our understanding.
     


























     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 52
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

           "Wall doesn't honor veterans who killed selves after war"
     
                           Input by: Joyce Flory
               NAM VETs Incarcerated Veterans Section Editor
                    Desert Dolphin BBS - Las Cruces, NM
                              (505) 523-2811
     
     This  is a reprint from The El Paso Times,Sunday 12-31-89  (copied 
     without  permission).
     
                            By  Laura  Palmer,  
         New  York columnist who writes  about  Vietnam veterans.
     
       "This  was the decade the United States finally honored the  men 
     and  women  who served in Vietnam.  The dedication of the  Vietnam 
     Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., in 1982 was a turning point.
        Engraved  in black granite panels are the names of 58,175  U.S. 
     citizens  who went to Vietnam and never came home.  In  dedicating 
     the memorial, we as a nation, were at last able to embrace our own 
     and say: "They were ours. This is what we really lost in Vietnam."
        An  era of healing had begun.  But before this decade fades  to 
     black, pause  for a moment and remember the veterans no one heeds, 
     the ones who committed suicide after the war.
        In a study published two years ago,  the New England Journal of 
     Medicine   estimated  as many as 59,000 Vietnam veterans may  have 
     killed themselves after coming back.
        "If  we put the names of all that have died since we came  home 
     on  the  wall,  tragically,  we could walk through a  canyon  down 
     there."  says  Steve  Bentley,  42,  who served with the  Army  in 
     Vietnam  from 1967 to '69.   Bentley runs the Veterans  Employment 
     and Training Services program in Portland, Maine.
        "In  the  last  year here,  we've had at least a half  a  dozen 
     (suicides).  I  don't know how many good friends I've had go  that 
     way  since  I  got home.  I know what killed them  was  unfinished 
     business  from  Vietnam they never got away from,  but  the  death 
     certificate won't say that."
        Bentley,   who   holds  a  master's  degree  in  rehabilitation 
     counseling   and  lectures  frequently  on  post-traumatic  stress 
     disorder, attempted suicide himself several times.
        "I  slashed  my wrists,  I overdosed on Quaaludes once,  I  was 
     hellbent for it.  I remember a couple of times making up my mind I 
     was going to do it but I couldn't locate a shotgun quick enough."
         Bentley, who no longer drinks or takes drugs,  says his trauma 
     after the war was survivor's guilt,  which still affects him.  But 
     he also says that rarely, just the war is to blame.
         "We  all  had  childhoods and a lot of those  childhoods  were 
     traumatic. If you grew up in the ghetto,  or if your father was an 
     alcoholic, or you were traumatized at an early age, and I had lots 
     of  that,  it means you're more susceptible to the kind of  trauma 
     Vietnam was."
         Unresolved   trauma,   lathered  in  alcohol  and  drugs,   is 
     combustible, and suicides are often the explosive result.
         John Paul Kolosowski was one of those casualties.  Born in New 
     York,  Kolosowski  was orphaned and joined the Marines when he was 
     18. In Vietnam, because of his small size, he became a tunnel rat. 
     His  job  was  to slither through the mazes of  communist  tunnels 
     hunting for enemy soldiers.
         In  those  years after Vietnam,  Kolosowski became one of  the 
     estimated  110,000 homeless Vietnam veterans.  Whiskey became  his 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 53
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     next-of-kin,  and  he  died  curled up like a baby in a  field  in 
     Houston.
         Bentley  says:  "I'm not one to say anything is just  Vietnam. 
     It's  the  weight of all that stuff together.   We know you  don't 
     have  to go to Vietnam to have the booze take you out.   But  it's 
     the  booze  that  kept  them from listening to  anyone  trying  to 
     help.""  
     
     
     

















































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 54
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990



     =================================================================
               T h e   C h a p l a i n   A t   N a m   V e t
     =================================================================

                              The Bell Tolls
     
                             by: Rev. Ed Brant
                       NAM VETs Protestant Chaplain
                     The Landing Zone - Fall Creek, OR
                              (503) 747-9809
     
     I  am  the  leader in a group known as  "Point  Man  International 
     Ministries of Lane County" Oregon.  My name is not important,  but 
     what  is  important  is that I served in Vietnam  and  have  dealt 
     rather  heavily with what is called PTSD or Post Traumatic  Stress 
     Disorder.  Many  of  my fellow Veterans have felt the same  thing, 
     namely,  a  malady of living in the present.  I am also a  Baptist 
     Minister  and have found that the Lord has given  me,  personally, 
     that which the VA has said is not possible.  That is,  the ability 
     to live and function in the present,  without medicines or ongoing 
     counseling. A healing, if you please.  
     
     No, the painful memories are still there.   I discovered this at a 
     meeting  of our local Point Man when I told the story of my second 
     trip  to Vietnam...  to evacuate Saigon,  and to recover the  ship 
     which had been taken captive,  the Mayguyez.   In the process,  we 
     picked up the boat people as they were fleeing their country.  One 
     of  the  most touching things I have ever seen happened late  that 
     first  night  as  we  moved  out  to  sea  immediately  after  the 
     evacuation.   I  was on the USS Blue Ridge and witnessed the first 
     of many boat families to come aboard.   The little boy,  perhaps 5 
     or  6 years old,  came walking proudly up the ramp at the tail  of 
     the  ship into the cavern of its well deck,  a big bay inside  the 
     ship.  He was carrying his sister, perhaps a year old.   Next came 
     Mama.   She  looked absolutely haggard,  bone tired,  and  scared.  
     Papa came last.  He was bent from much care and also appeared very 
     worn  out,  beyond fear,  and dejected.   By their dress,  I would 
     guess  that they had been living at a higher standard than many of 
     their countrymen.   He clutched close a very small bag in which he 
     carried all their worldly possessions.  He was a small man who had 
     fled  for  his life with his family and brought with  them  almost 
     nothing  in  their haste to be away.   There  were  more,  perhaps 
     twenty in that small rowboat, miles out at sea, but that sight put 
     a  scar  on  my heart and mind like nothing else had in  my  first 
     thirteen  months in that country,  during and right after the  Tet 
     Offensive  of  1969.  (After the first tour,  I came back  to  the 
     States  and  promptly put solid walls up around my feelings  about 
     everything, and lost my first wife and family.)  That night as the 
     first  of the many boat people walked up the ramp to the  watching 
     stares  of ship's company,  the first of many boat people that  we 
     would  pick up from the waves of the sea,  I had to leave the  bay 
     because  in no way would I want my men to see the sudden onslaught 
     of the tears in my eyes.  Compassion?  I don't know.  Maybe it was 
     just  the frustration of putting in my time there,  only to return 
     and  see the end of all that we had fought for and died  for.   At  
     any  rate,  to  this day I can't tell the complete  story  without 
     breaking down and weeping. 
     
     So  I,  and many like me,  went for years without once saying  the 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 55
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     word "Vietnam".   If the subject came up at all I'd just leave the 
     room.  
     
     When  I  retired two years ago,  I was told that only  about  5000 
     Vietnam  veterans  were still on active duty in the Marine  corps.  
     This  created  problems,  because as we fell out for  inspections, 
     etc.,  only one or two people had any amount of ribbons,  personal 
     awards, and unit awards relating to Vietnam,  and the young troops 
     would always ask questions... "What was it like?  How many did you 
     kill?  What is that ribbon for?"  and on and on.   My reaction was 
     to say nothing at all and walk away, or if pestered, just to say I 
     didn't want to talk about it.  I began to have a memory loss,  and 
     an  anger  that was not welcome began to manifest itself in me  at 
     people,  places,  and  things.   A coldness of attitude touched my 
     relationships, and a depression began to set in.   I began to have 
     a  bad  recurring dream of a certain time,  place and action  that 
     happened  long ago on a lonely hilltop in Vietnam.   Why was  this 
     building  up,  affecting the friendships,  the relationships,  the 
     work in the job I was doing at the time.   What was happening?   I 
     certainly  didn't think anything was exceptionally wrong.   But my 
     friends did.
     
     Well,  in  POINT MAN I have found other veterans who share similar 
     difficulties.   I can talk to them,  and they to me,  because they 
     understand.  They cry, too, internally, if not,  externally.   And 
     we've  discovered  that  these  damaged  emotions  can  result  in 
     unacceptable behavior patterns in our society.  The statistics are 
     alarming.   Over  100,000  of us are in jail,  and 200,000 are  on 
     parole;  we  possess  a divorce rate that is double  the  national 
     average,  and  many of us seem unable to hold a job for any length 
     of  time.   The  unemployment rate of the Vietnam veteran  is  two 
     times  the national average.   One of every four of us earns  less 
     than  $7000 a year.   79%  of all fatal single car accidents is  a 
     veteran  of  Vietnam.   The suicide rate is 33%  higher  than  our 
     national  average,  and  68%  higher  than our  peer  group.   The 
     statistics say that over 800,000 Viet Vets suffer from PTSD.  
     
     The  symptoms  are many,  and are similar to the symptoms of  many 
     stressful lifestyles.  Here are some of them:  depression,  anger, 
     lack of sleep, flashbacks, or nightmares,  emotional coolness,  or 
     an  apparent lack of emotion,  a loss of interest in the  everyday 
     affairs of life, distrust of authority,  hyperalertness,  suicidal 
     feelings,  and  avoidance  of  anything  that  might  "key"  their 
     memories  to their past in Vietnam.   Unlike those who have stress 
     as a result of a job or lifestyle, our stress doesn't go away with 
     medicines and counseling, although those things most certainly are 
     a help.  
     
     In  our group,  we know that we can trust each other,  and we  can 
     talk  and  share  our  feelings  freely.   Our  preacher  may  not 
     understand,  our  wives  and  families  may  not  understand,  and 
     certainly  our friends who weren't there cannot possibly know what 
     it  is  to feel a bottled up grief and guilt come bubbling to  the 
     surface  years  after the fact.   Grief and guilt are two  of  the 
     problems  we constantly deal with.   It's an accepted fact that in 
     the heat of battle one does not have time to grieve over the death 
     of  a close friend.   Years later we may begin to wonder "Why him?  
     Why not me?" and depression sets in.   When my fellow veterans put 
     their arms around me,  slap me on the back,  and I see the anguish 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 56
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     in their eyes,  I know that they understand and accept me just the 
     way I am.   They may not agree with my lifestyle,  or my attitude, 
     but  they accept me just the same with no reservation because they 
     are there or they've been there too.   That's something that helps 
     to heal me of the symptoms of PTSD.  
     
     We are a ministry,  and as such,  we have found that James 5:16 is 
     very true.   It says "Confess your faults (PTSD symptoms?)  one to 
     another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed."   It's 
     sort of like taking your pack off after 20 years.   A great relief 
     (1) that  you're not alone, and (2)  you have an improved outlook, 
     or perhaps just the ability to work all day without getting mad at 
     the boss and quitting.
     
     At  our  meetings,  we don't hold out condemnation just because  a 
     man, or woman is different, in attitude, in belief,  in dogma,  or 
     in  lifestyle.   We know what is felt,  what it is to fear,  to be 
     frustrated,  to feel alone.   We know what counseling is,  and had 
     been, what medicines have been given to "calm" us.  
     
     We,  who are POINTMEN,  unabashedly say that the secular world has 
     applied  a  bandage,  and a very good one,  in  some  cases.   The 
     trouble is that when the medicine ends,  the nightmare comes back.  
     When the counseling is all said and done, the memory returns.  The 
     bandage  falls off,  disabling us to the communities around  about 
     us.   On  the  other  hand,  we have found that the  Bible  offers 
     counsel on how to live in spite of the memories.  We go about life 
     without feeling incapacitated if we adhere to its instruction.
     
     It  is  my fondest hope that we who have fought  in  Vietnam,  and 
     those  who  didn't  but supported us,  will find the  peace  we've 
     searched long and hard for, and our rightful place in society.  
     
     For  a subscription to the "Reveille",  our newspaper of POINT MAN 
     INTERNATIONAL  MINISTRIES,  a veteran need only write to:  PO  Box 
     440,  Mountlake  Terrace,  WA 98043 requesting the paper.   In  it  
     they  will find a listing of each Outpost,  its location,  a local 
     phone  number,  and a name to contact for information on how POINT 
     MAN can help.
     
     For  those  of our population who don't know what a point man  is, 
     let  me  give  a brief definition:  a point man was a  person  who 
     walked  15 to 20 meters ahead of the squad,  or patrol in a combat 
     environment.  His job was simply to be the eyes,  ears,  and smell 
     of  the  men following.   He was to alert them to enemy  ambushes, 
     booby traps, mines,  and anything that would endanger the lives of 
     those  following.   The  point  man  often  died.   In  POINT  MAN 
     MINISTRIES,  we want to be the point man for the veteran who needs 
     deliverance from the effects of PTSD.
     
     As  an aside,  the point man had a counterpart sometimes known  as 
     Tail  End Charlie.   This one followed behind just far enough back 
     to  keep the last man in sight.   If the patrol walked through  an 
     ambush, or if the enemy was closing in behind them, his job was to 
     give  the  warning.   He often didn't live long either.  I have  a 
     favorite  scripture  for those who would like to see what  a  REAL 
     point man is.  It's Isaiah 52:11, 12.
     
     This is the first of a series.  Next month we'll talk about anger, 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 57
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     it's  causes,  the impact on the Veteran and how to deal with  it. 
     Meanwhile, time at the year's beginning is at a premium,  and this 
     paper, done some time ago, will have to do. Copy, share, use it to 
     introduce Our problems to those who don't know.
     
     In  the meanwhile,  fellow veteran,  "Keep in the battle"  because 
     there IS victory at the end!
     
                                  Rev. Ed
                            Protestant Chaplain
     
















































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 58
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

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                           Matthew 28:20
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 59
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

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     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 60
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990



     =================================================================
                T h e y ' v e   a   s p e c i a l   p a r t
     =================================================================

                              Vietnam Nurses 
                   These Are the Women Who Went to War
     
                            by Myra Macpherson
         In: LONG TIME PASSING VIETNAM AND THE HAUNTED GENERATION
     
                         Input by: G. Joseph Peck
                         NAM VETs Managing Editor
                       VETLink #1 - Pittsfield, MA
                              (413) 443-6313
     
     (1984 Note: Myra MacPherson has written for the late Washington 
     "Star" and the New York "Times."  She is now a political 
     correspondent for the style section of the Washington "Post" and 
     author of "The Power Lovers" (Putnam's).)
     
       The  Stars  and Stripes office,  not far from the United  States 
     Capitol,  was  a  sweat house of camaraderie on a rainy  night  in 
     November,  1982.   Finally,  a  long decade after Vietnam veterans 
     came home, there was a national reunion.   The media,  from across 
     the  country  and around the world,  recorded a week of tears  and 
     laughter  among  former  comrades in arms;   men in  fatigues  and 
     ponytails mingling with those in three-piece suits.  THE STARS AND 
     STRIPES, the national veterans' newspaper, was throwing one of the 
     best  parties.   Sixties  rock  and country music  blared  in  the 
     cavernous old warehouse.   The line was six deep at beer kegs.   A 
     crowd  stood  outside,  unmindful of misting  rains,  telling  war 
     stories into the night.
       Saralee  McGoran came to the reunion.   She was looking for  men 
     she  did not know.   She knew no faces.   She knew no names.   She 
     never did.  They came and went too fast through the "meat factory" 
     when  she  was  on  duty as an operating nurse  in  an  evacuation 
     hospital.  But they had haunted her for years.  And so she went to 
     the  Sheraton  Hotel reunion suite of the Army 25th  Division  and 
     wrote her name in their book: Saralee McGoran, nurse, 12th eva, Cu 
     Chi.  
       She was trying to complete the circle.
       She  starts  to tell her Vietnam story.   "If I can get  through 
     it."   McGoran  is a tiny,  intense woman with curly graying hair, 
     barely  five feet two,  who was 26 when she went to Vietnam.   The 
     horrors  of booby-trap wounds are recalled.   "A lot of times they 
     would come in with nothing from here down," McGoran says, touching 
     herself in mid-pelvis, above the crotch.
       "The  doctors and nurses would just cry and look at each  other.  
     We didn't know whether to work on them or not.  I couldn't bear to 
     look at their faces.  One guy couldn't have been more than 17.  He 
     had  red hair...  he was just blown apart.   We were putting  guys 
     back together the best we could.
       "About three or four days later, I walked into this long Quonset 
     hut  and I saw this stretcher and a white sheet.   All I could see 
     under the sheet was this little bump.  I walked close enough -- to 
     see  the red hair.   He would LIVE."   A little bump under a white 
     sheet.   She  was  plagued  by  a  terrible,   impotent  rage  and 
     helplessness  many nurses felt in a war that had so perfected  its 
     medevac  operations that the bloodiest no longer died on the field 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 61
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     of  battle.   They  were  brought to the operating table  only  to 
     survive  with a half life or to die crying for the assurance  that 
     they  would live.   There were more amputees from Vietnam than any 
     other   war;     Max   Cleland,    President   Carter's   Veterans 
     Administration  chief,  who lost both legs and one arm,  has said, 
     "If  I had been in World War II,  I'd have died."   Some amputees, 
     like Cleland,  learned eventually to find joy in being alive,  but 
     nurses, caught in the endless stream of mangled and severed bodies 
     in  an evacuation hospital,  were never to know their  fate.   For 
     years,  McGoran was plagued with thoughts of what happened to that 
     17-year-old.   Whether  he  was one of the many  disabled  veteran 
     suicides.   There  was  the terrible uncertainty of  whether  they 
     should have left him to die.
       She admits to being in "some kind of shock"  when she arrived in 
     the  States  in  January of 1968.   "I hardly remember how  I  cam 
     back."   Like  so  many Vietnam returnees,  McGoran felt an  alien 
     displacement,  like  the  medic who once told me he  somehow  felt 
     "safer"  in  Vietnam  than  at  home.   "I  felt  totally  alone," 
     continues McGoran.  "Everything was a blank.   I'd been home a day 
     and a half in Los Angeles when a siren sounded and I went right to 
     the bottom of the car.  We had been shelled a lot."
       McGoran  returned  to college in California for  her  bachelor's 
     degree.   Hers  is the universal story of veterans in college  who 
     were  made  to feel outcasts.   "I was the ENEMY.   I didn't  tell 
     ANYONE I was a Vietnam veteran."
       But her mind would not leave Vietnam.  "I went to two therapists 
     and  neither  was  able  to help me.   About that time  I  had  my 
     flashback.   One day on the freeway,  I saw an Army truck in front 
     of  me.   I  locked in,  and I 'saw'  bleeding bodies.   I  almost 
     crashed.
       There  was  a  recurring nightmare.   "In my dream there  was  a 
     hospital  on one side -  and a nightclub on the other.   All these 
     beds, just FULL of bodies, five or six in a bed,  and they all had 
     these  bleeding eyes.   You know how eyes bleed in death?   And on 
     the  other side -  everyone was partying.   And that's how it WAS.  
     Every  day,  there  would be broken bodies and pain -  and on  the 
     other  hand the way we coped,  not to FEEL,  was to drink beer and 
     have a party."  It was echoes of "M*A*S*H."  "I did it so well,  I 
     cut off all my feelings."
       A year later, in college, "I couldn't relate to the guys burning 
     draft  cards.   COULDN'T RELATE TO ANOTHER WOMAN ON  CAMPUS.   All 
     they wanted were short little answers.   I couldn't give the short 
     answers.  I feel they may have been the smart ones.  They saw what 
     we couldn't see."
       Perhaps  it  was  inevitable,  but  McGoran  married  a  Vietnam 
     veteran.   They  have  two children,  and both have eye  problems.  
     Like many Vietnam veteran parents, when there are abnormalities in 
     their children and no family history of problems,  there is always 
     that wonder.  "At first I never thought of Agent Orange - but they 
     were spraying it where I was."
       McGoran's  salvation from her deep depression and crying  spells 
     was a women veterans'  rap group.   "I was afraid to go,  but glad 
     later.  We told our stories - it help me understand."
       And  finally,  McGoran was at the Vietnam veterans'  reunion for 
     another bit of understanding,  another bit of closure on life that 
     was Vietnam. "I HAD to know what the men felt about what we did."
       "In  the Twenty-fifth Division reunion suite everyone was coming 
     up  and saying thank you.   FOR FOURTEEN YEARS,  I NEEDED TO  KNOW 
     THAT.  I went to the memorial today and all I could do was go from 
     
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     panel  to panel and cry for the ones I didn't know.   I never knew 
     their names."
       A veteran came up.  "I got hit hard by a mortar round in '67.  A 
     little  nurse,  she held my hand and cried all the way to the O.R. 
     with me.  Kept saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.'   I know 
     she saved my life.  A swell bunch of gals.   They did a better job 
     than anybody.  Worked twice as hard as the doctors.."
       McGoran interjects:  "The doctors were drafted.   Didn't want to 
     be there.  We volunteered."  Why?  "I was single,  there was a war 
     and American boys were in it, and they needed American nurses."
       The veteran can't stop praising "the girls."  He has his hand on 
     her shoulder.  "They were shelled and everything.   A little girl, 
     no bigger than you are, pulled me out of bed during mortar rounds, 
     so I wouldn't get hurt."
       The  hulking  veteran leans down.   The circle was slowly  being 
     closed.   "Thanks a lot,  little lady."   He gives her a hug,  and 
     they rock back and forth, holding on to each other,  holding on to 
     a memory, lost in a time and place of long ago.
       Lynda  Van Devanter tells her story with the flair of an actress 
     now.   Since  1980,  when she became a national VA spokeswoman for 
     Vietnam  women  veterans,  Van Devanter has told it on  television 
     shows and in Congressional hearings and for journalists.  To those 
     who have heard it often, there is a staginess to the tremble,  the 
     tears, the melodramatic catch in her voice.   And yet for years it 
     was not this way.  Buried deeply, locked away were her memories of 
     Vietnam.   From  1969 to 1970,  Van Devanter was an operating room 
     nurse in Pleiku.  Years later,  she sought psychiatric help.   She 
     never  dreamed  of  mentioning Vietnam as any cause  of  emotional 
     problems.  That, she thought, would be "overdramatizing.   Vietnam 
     was years ago.  It must just be me."   Today,  she recalls that in 
     those  "closet veteran"  years,  "I had a recurring nightmare that 
     scared  the absolute sh*t out of me.   There are tons and tons  of 
     black,  napalm-burned  skin about to crash down on me.   The dream 
     always starts with this 'plop, plop, plop,'  and I always think it 
     is  rain.   And  then I look up and everything over me is  covered 
     with  black,  bloody,  STINKING -  I can still smell it  -  burned 
     flesh.  And it's all coming down and I think I'm going to drown in 
     it.   I  would wake up screaming and realized I'd better get  into 
     therapy  real fast -  but I'd sure better not tell him about  THIS 
     because he might think I'm crazy, might commit me."
       Her  real  stories  were hardly different from  the  nightmares.  
     "Napalm burn just reeks - REEKS.   If you try to brush napalm off, 
     it  continues  to roll down,  it just oozes fire along  the  skin.  
     Burning-flesh  smells are so beyond description.   Add to that the 
     smell of napalm, a petroleum distillate, AND the infection,  which 
     happens  with  really bad burns,  the infection gives off  a  very 
     distinct  odor,  a  little bit like a sewer.   The combination  of 
     these three smells you will NEVER EVER lose the memory of."
       Another memory, so a part of Van Devanter now that it is told by 
     rote, in present tense, is the death of one young man.  "It is the 
     largest trail of blood leading to the table that I have ever seen.  
     I  slip  in it because my eyes are drawn to the gurney.   As  they 
     move  him to the operating table,  I watch in horror as the  lower 
     portion  of his jaw,  teeth exposed,  dangles from what is left of 
     his  face."   She  chokes.   "I have to catch myself to keep  from 
     getting  sick.   He  is  drowning  in blood.   I grab  a  tray  of 
     instruments.   For  the sake of speed,  we perform the tracheotomy 
     without donning gloves....  The surgeon grabs instruments from the 
     tray  to clamp off the largest bleeders in the face and jaw.   The 
     
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     soldier  is  bleeding so fact that it is necessary to  start  four 
     large needles in his leg, neck,  and both arms and pump blood into 
     all of them simultaneously."   For several hours Van Devanter does 
     this,  moving  around  the body,  continuously pumping blood  into 
     those  four large needles.   "During one of my circuits around the 
     table, I kick his clothes to one side, to get them out of the way, 
     and a snapshot falls out of the pocket of his fatigues."   It is a 
     picture of the soldier and his girl -  dressed for a prom.   He is 
     straight,  blond,  and  tall in his tuxedo.   She has shining dark 
     hair  and  is wearing a long pastel gown.   The tears come to  Van 
     Devanter again.  "Love for him shines in her eyes."
       For  months,  Van  Devanter  had  tried to  feel  as  little  as 
     possible.   "There  had been that veneer of unreality.   Suddenly, 
     now, he was REAL to me.
       "Finally, after six hours of surgery, the surgeon decided it was 
     hopeless.   He  packed his head in pressure dressings and sent him 
     to the post-op intensive care unit to die.   After making the room 
     ready  for the next casualty,  I walked over to post-op ICU to see 
     him.   His  bandages had become saturated with blood several times 
     over,  and the nurses reinforced them with more rolls of bandages, 
     and  now his head was grotesquely large under the swath of white."  
     Still, the red stains seeped through.   Van Devanter held his hand 
     and  asked if he was in pain.   He squeezed her hand weakly.   Van 
     Devanter  called for pain medication.   "I held his hand until the 
     life  just  literally drained out of him.   He literally  bled  to 
     death..."
       Van  Devanter's  quest today is to find the thousands of  nurses 
     who came back from Vietnam with their own troubled memories,  only 
     to receive the same hostility and indifference she and many others 
     found.   These  women  are  truly the forgotten  Vietnam  veterans 
     nobody knows.
       And,  like  male veterans,  they have diverse feelings about the 
     war.  Last year Van Devanter wrote the first account of the war by 
     a woman veteran, HOME BEFORE MORNING (Warner).   The autobiography 
     sparked  an emotional debate among nurses who said she exaggerated 
     and  distorted  conditions to bolster her  antimilitary  political 
     views.
       But her descriptions of Vietnam are substantiated by other women 
     veterans,   and  one  reader,   William  Baffa,   wrote  a  letter 
     representative of most.  "I read with horror the article about the 
     young  soldier  who  bled  to death of  head  wounds...  the  tiny 
     children  with arms and legs blown off...  the pregnant woman  and 
     her child who entered the world with a gunshot wound in his belly.  
     IT  RUINED  MY DAY!   My hope is that it ruined the day  for  many 
     readers...  Can  anything short of ridding our civilization of the 
     periodical  insanity  of  war  really honor  the  sacrifices  that 
     countless  millions  have  made  to  do  what  remains  a  "to-be-
     continued"  cause?   How  long  can  we continue  to  demand  this 
     devastating sacrifice of the young and innocent?"
       "What  haunts me,"  says Van Devanter,  "is that nobody knows of 
     the  contribution  of  these women.   The major  legacy  study  of 
     Vietnam  veterans does not include ONE woman.   The mother of  the 
     boy  who lost his face has no idea that somebody was standing  and 
     holding her son's hand.   Even the ones who were triaged out,  the 
     'expectant  ones,'  were  not  just  shunted  over  to  a  corner.  
     Somebody  would  always go and take their hand and speak  to  them 
     quietly, just in case they COULD hear.  The people of this country 
     have no concept of that.  Their sons might have died in vain for a 
     cause that was horrendous - but they didn't die alone."
     
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       One  of  the few research papers on Vietnam nurses is  sobering.  
     Eighty-nine  Vietnam  veteran  nurses were asked  to  complete  an 
     exhaustive  survey  in 1982.   An astounding 97 percent  complied.  
     Approximately  one  third of post-traumatic stress  symptoms  were 
     identified  by  25 percent or more of them as PRESENTLY  occurring 
     between  10  and  30 times a month.   Some 27.6  percent  reported 
     having suicidal thoughts between one and nine times a month;  19.2 
     percent  reported  feeling  depressed between 15 and  30  times  a 
     month;  16.1  percent reported feeling an inability to be close to 
     someone  they care about between 15 to 30 times a month.   And  70 
     percent  of those who reported having experienced stress  symptoms 
     stated that those symptoms are still present today.
       So  little  is known about the nurses of Vietnam that there  are 
     not  even  accurate statistics on how many were  there.   Official 
     guesstimates  ranges anywhere from 7,500 to 55,000.   So it is not 
     surprising  that  as vets they often  feel  invisible.   "Although 
     animal  studies  show  that females are more  susceptible  to  the 
     reproductive  side  effects  of dioxin,  not one female  has  been 
     included  in  Agent  Orange  studies,"  says  Van  Devanter."  (In 
     February (1984),  Congressman March Kaptur (D-Ohio)  was joined by 
     more   than  100  members  of  Congress  in  urging  the  Veterans 
     Administration  to include female Vietnam veterans in Centers  for 
     Disease  Control  epidemiological studies on the effects of  Agent 
     Orange  on humans.   The group also called on the VA to conduct  a 
     birth-defect  study  with the children of women Vietnam  veterans.  
     Congresswoman  Kaptur  is a member of the House  Veterans  Affairs 
     Committee.  --Editors of Ma.)   In each town I visited I've made a 
     point  of calling the VA hospital and stating clearly that I am  a 
     service-connected  veteran of Vietnam and I require  gynecological 
     care.   I was told by nearly every location that they did not have 
     a gyn clinic or a gyn physician."   The response of the VA is that 
     since  women comprise such a small number of veterans it would not 
     be  feasible  to provide such services -  but that the women  were 
     entitled  to  receive  government  paid  service  with  a  private 
     gynecologist.  Yet, Van Devanter claims,  "in no case save one was 
     I  told  that  I  was entitled to receive that  care  by  contract 
     service  with  a private physician -  and that was only because  I 
     pushed it."
       That  was in 1981.   Two years later,  in March,  1983,  for the 
     first  time  there was finally a General Accounting Office  report 
     and  a Congressional hearing that indicted the VA for its lack  of 
     services and outreach for women.
       Countless  nurses  did  not know they had been  entitled  to  GI 
     education  benefits.   Unfortunately  for most,  the 10-year  time 
     period for qualification after leaving the service had expired.
       Van Devanter and other Vietnam nurses still bristle at the image 
     of  nurses  in Vietnam.   "To many in the States,  I was either  a 
     lesbian  or  a hooker.   The 'did you have a  good  time,  honey?' 
     sneers."
       Later,  Van Devanter found out that even World War II nurses had 
     experienced similar reactions.  World War II movies portrayed them 
     as  bravely  waiting  for their gallant  lovers  to  return,  with 
     intermittent  forays to the operating table.   Or they were  given 
     saintly roles -  epitomized in one movie where Veronica Lake walks 
     towards  a  nest of hated Japs,  a grenade inside  her  blouse,  a 
     sacrificial  kamikaze  blond  beauty would save the  rest  of  the 
     hospital.
       In  actuality,  World  War  II's  massive  mobilization  brought 
     350,000  women into the service as well as many others who  served 
     
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     in  quasi-military  support  units such as  the  Women's  Airforce 
     Service  Pilots (WASP)  whose 800 women pilots ferried war  planes 
     around  the world.   Women drove trucks,  changed tires,  repaired 
     planes, rigged parachutes,  were gunnery instructors,  air traffic 
     controllers, naval air navigators, and nurses.   The first Women's 
     Army Corps (WAC) unit landed in Normandy 38 days after D-day.  And 
     65 women were taken captive as POWs on Corregidor.  Nurses were on 
     the beachhead at Anzio.
       Studies  of  World  War  II women in service  showed  that  they 
     developed psychological disorders less frequently than men,  their 
     venereal  rate was negligible,  and their disciplinary rates  were 
     much lower.
       During Korea, and then again,  during Vietnam,  the unpopularity 
     of the wars brought far fewer women into the military.
       In  all wars,  women have been  killed,  maimed,  disabled,  and 
     injured psychologically.  No Vietnam nurses argue that they have a 
     corner on this.  However, Vietnam had its special characteristics.  
     Nurses  often  suffered  a  more  severe  emotional  mauling  than 
     soldiers  who  had respites from combat.   They saw waves  of  the 
     mutilated  fresh from the battlefield,  who in previous wars would 
     never have been saved that long.
       Many  nurses tended to overinvest emotionally in their patients, 
     even when their chances of living were poor.   One,  who worked in 
     hospitals in Da Nang and Long Binh, recalls that on a 7 P.M.  to 7 
     A.M.  shift,  two nurses and two medics would take care of 78 men.  
     Exhaustion and trying to build a wall around their emotions led to 
     deep depressions for many.
       "People don't want to hear about the blood and guts," said Cissy 
     Shellabarger,  "but that's all I know about.   The grief.   It was 
     the first time I've ever been that frightened."   In the emergency 
     room  of  an evacuation hospital in Cu Chi she worked  around  the 
     clock during the Tet Offensive of 1968.
       Many  Vietnam  nurses  still recall how affected  they  were  by 
     working  on men so young,  in this teenage war,  where the average 
     age was 19.
       "I've never seen so many wounded in my life.   It reminded me of 
     that scene in 'Gone with the Wind' where all the wounded are lined 
     up  for  miles around the railroad  station,"  says  Shellabarger.  
     "And the rumors were so bad - that Saigon had fallen,  things like 
     that... Not knowing the truth was the worst."
       There are eight nurses'  names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 
     but that small number of dead does not represent the daily fear of 
     death  or injury.   There were no front lines and few rear  areas.  
     Although the antiwar movement made much of American pilots bombing 
     North  Vietnam  hospitals,  enemy  mortar rocket attacks  on  U.S. 
     hospitals were by and large overlooked in the States and formed no 
     part  of antiwar rhetoric.   For nurses,  mortar attacks meant the 
     nightmare  of trying to get the wounded under cots,  of working in 
     horrifying condition, of not knowing if they would be hit.
       "Oftentimes, they would bomb the hospitals intentionally,"  said 
     Van  Devanter,  "trying  to kill a high-ranking POW who  had  been 
     taken,  who was injured and in the hospital.   You knew if you had 
     any  officer in the North Vietnamese Army over the rank of  major, 
     you could COUNT on rocket attacks all night long."
       Many   of  the  women  went  because  they  believed  in   their 
     government,  believed  in  a  Florence Nightingale  role,  or  for 
     adventure, for the sense of helping.  Many seem to have been Roman 
     Catholics  trained  to believe in authority.   "If our  government 
     said we were helping to stop Communism," said one, "who were we to 
     
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     question?"   Many returned pacifists,  others upheld the view that 
     the  war  was  right but that the toll  was  terrible.   A  rather 
     typical reaction was that of a nurse who cannot recall whether she 
     was  for or against the war when she went.   "I just wanted to  go 
     and nurse."   After her second day in the emergency room "you look 
     at  one  more  of  those boys and you knew we were  in  the  wrong 
     place."
     



















































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     =================================================================
                O f   p a r t i c u l a r   i n t e r e s t
     =================================================================

           DANGER OF LOSING THE SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY AND HEALING
           Women's Memorials and Other New Memorials on the Mall
                         Statement by John Wheeler
           House Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands
                             November 14, 1989
     
                      Input by: Ray "Frenchy" Moreau
                    Berndon Byte eXchange - Herndon, VA
                              (703) 471-8010
     
                    ----------------------------------
                                       NOTICE
     
     Your  input  is NEEDED concerning this statement.   Our thanks  to 
     John "Jack" Wheeler in making his statement "public" for all of us 
     to comment.   Please address your comments in the VIETNAM_VET mail 
     section to JACK WHEELER.
     
                    ----------------------------------
     
     Chairman Vento and members of the Subcommittee:
     
     Today's  hearing  regards  the  petition  by  the  Vietnam  Womens 
     Memorial Project to commemorate the service of women in Vietnam by 
     placing a memorial work -- not necessarily a statue -- in the area 
     of the Mall in Washington, D.C.
     
     I support the women's petition and I support you, Mr. Chairman, in 
     advancing  this  legislation.   I also thank you for  the  several 
     years  of  work  that  you,   the  Subcommittee  and  your  staff, 
     particularly  Heather  Huyck,  have put into bringing  this  issue 
     before the public and making such progress.
     
     My concern is that the rhetoric being used to advance the cause of 
     the  women has gotten simplified and heated up so that the  spirit  
     that  animated  the  Vietnam  Veterans Memorial  and  the  Lincoln 
     Memorial -- a spirit of generosity and healing -- is being lost.
     
     The  danger is that the public,  including children,  will get the 
     wrong  message  about what these memorials mean and  that  people, 
     notably  groups  seeking to honor blacks and Martin  Luther  King, 
     Jr. will find their efforts unnecessarily complicated.
     
     All people involved in these efforts are well motivated, so that I 
     think  framing  these issues and noting them in the  Record  today 
     will  suffice  to help us all focus on the true roots of the  good 
     that  these memorials can do,  and to forego the hot rhetoric that 
     breaks  down unity,  halts reconciliation,  misleads our kids  and 
     appears  as selfishness and self-concern,  rather than concern for 
     others.
     
     By way of introduction,  I chaired the construction of the Vietnam 
     Veterans  Memorial  on the Mall and have assisted in  constructing 
     some  twenty other Vietnam Veterans Memorials,  most recently  the 
     Texas State Vietnam Veterans Memorial opened by the President last 
     
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     Saturday in Dallas.
     
     LOSS OF SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY
          To  make  something  happen  in  Washington,  D.C.,  forceful 
     language  is often necessary,  in order to animate people and  get 
     attention. Still,  there is a danger in the language that has been 
     used  to support the women's petition.  Over Veterans Day weekend, 
     Dana Delaney, the television actress who portrays an Army nurse in 
     Vietnam,  wrote  about the nurses that "America has never  thanked 
     them  for  their  selfless contributions"  and that  "The  Vietnam 
     Veterans  Memorial has begun an essential healing process for male 
     Vietnam veterans, but little has been done to address the needs of 
     women  veterans."   General  Wilma  Vaught,  a retired  Air  Force 
     brigadier  general,  said in support of the new Women in  Military 
     Service   Memorial  and  the  Vietnam  Womens  Memorial   Project, 
     "Goodness knows there are enough statues of men on horseback to go 
     around."   These quotes appear in USA Today of November 10,  1989, 
     op-ed page and news pages.
     
          The  problem that could emerge here is one of "We're here  to 
     get  ours!"  and  "Later for other people,  Buster!"  This is  not 
     edifying  for children who grow up with the debate buzzing around. 
     The  attitude,  if it fully emerges,  can indirectly but adversely 
     affect the artists who come up with designs,  so that designs that 
     unify  the  Mall  and unify people are not  created,  and  instead 
     designs  that isolate spots in the Mall area are created,  designs 
     that unfortunately say "Me, me!"
     
          This risk applies to all who create memorials,  especially in 
     the nation's capital.  The issue of generosity of spirit is vital, 
     since  great memorials can do so much good in being an example for 
     kids and adults, too.
     
          The  language  used  by Dana Delaney and General  Vaught  put 
     existing  memorials  in  a  harsh  light  --  a  sound  rhetorical 
     technique.  It  also focusses the purpose of the women's  petition 
     here  today as being mainly for the sake of the living women  vets 
     themselves.
     
          But  slamming  fellow  veterans,  including  dead  ones,   is 
     unnecessary.   And  the  reason I have long advocated the  women's 
     petition is because the representation of a woman near the Vietnam 
     Veterans  Memorial  would be very helpful for the 1,000,000  young 
     girls, 12 or younger, who visit the Vietnam Memorial each year.  I 
     have watched kids at the Memorial for seven years now; little boys 
     relate  to it and its symbolism quite easily --  especially at the 
     statue.  Girls  do not.  I think a woman's figure there would help 
     the girls.  The figure of a woman would also be important for many 
     men  treated  by  nurses and for the parents of  the  eight  women 
     killed  in the war and parents of nurses killed,  God  forbid,  in 
     future wars.
     
          So the petition, when advanced in the spirit of generosity is 
     one  of helping others and remembering others.   It is not  really 
     about "Us! Now!"
     
     FORGETTING AND MISSTATING THE TRUTH
          When significant facts are brushed aside, let's watch out. It 
     is bad for education and bad for unifying people.
     
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          Dana Delaney's statements,  for example,  would lead folks to 
     think  that  women were in some way deliberately or  inadvertently 
     omitted  from  the Vietnam Veterans  Memorial.   General  Vaught's 
     could  be  read in support of Ms.  Delaney's  view.   And  General 
     Vaught  by  her word choice did not show lots of respect for  men, 
     like  von Steuben,  Lafayette or Andrew Jackson who are,  yes,  on 
     pedestals in town.
     
          The  original  Congressional statute authorizing the  Vietnam 
     Veterans  Memorial called for it to honor the "men and  women"  of 
     the United States Armed Forces. We in fact asked Congress for that 
     language.
     
          All  eight military women killed in Vietnam are listed on the 
     Wall in Washington.
     
          The  dedication on the Wall,  right at the vertex,  is to the 
     "men and women" of the United States Armed Forces.
     
          The statue of three soldiers was created by us in the face of 
     fierce   opponents  of  the Wall who wanted  no Wall  at  all.  We 
     suggested  a  statue be  incorporated.   We were  then able to  go 
     forward.  There   were months in which any parties anywhere  could 
     suggest  themes for the statue.  No nurses came forward to  speak.  
     We  decided  to  present  three  soldiers  --  enlisted guys.  Not 
     officers. Not pilots. Not sailors.  That is because the grunts are 
     the emotional  center of  the war,  almost any war.  My thought is 
     that  nurses more than any would applaud the choice because it was 
     those   guys  who  bled  so  much  on  the  operating  tables  and 
     stretchers.
     
          The  design of the memorial itself was open for all Americans 
     18 or older to join in. "It was in fact designed by a woman", Maya 
     Ying  Lin,  then  21 years old.  The Wall is both a symbol and  an 
     instrument of healing for all Americans.
     
          For   purposes   of   rhetoric,   women  veterans   now   are 
     understandably  tempted to point to some great wrong or  oversight 
     that must hurriedly be corrected, a slight against them. There was 
     none.  The  opposite  is  the truth.  Women were  instrumental  in 
     building  the memorial.   Sandie Fauriol and Karen Doubek led  the 
     fundraising for it.   A woman designed it.  The American Gold Star 
     Mothers have been the Wall's staunchest ally.
     
     FALSE STEREOTYPING OF THE VIETNAM WAR AND THE AMERICANS WHO SERVED 
     THERE.
          There  is a risk that later generations will misinterpret the 
     emphasis  that  the women's petition is making.   Women  serve  in 
     American   wars.   That  is  important  for  kids  to  know.   But 
     exaggeration  and  hot language can suggest something that is  not 
     true.   It  is not true that women were everywhere in the war zone 
     in  Vietnam.  Vietnam  was  far  more than the  base  camps  where 
     hospitals  were.  Unfortunately,  the many good things that  shows 
     like  "China  Beach"  or "M*A*S*H"  (which was ab out Vietnam  but 
     placed  in Korea because Vietnam was so sensitive a topic)  do are 
     accompanied  by the risk that the many women on the set might lead 
     viewers  to  think  that  women were everywhere all  the  time  in 
     Vietnam. this is a false image, a false stereotype.
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 70
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
     MAKING LIFE HARDER FOR OTHER MEMORIAL BUILDERS.
          If an attitude of "We're here for ours!" grows among memorial 
     builders,  it will poison the work of others and vastly complicate 
     the  work of the fine Arts Commission,  this Subcommittee and  the 
     memorial  builders themselves.   There is only so much room on the 
     Mall.   Themes of unity and of linking existing memorials together 
     are  what  help  visitors  and our  country  itself.  Sharing  and 
     generosity  are what are needed.  So is a sense of proportion,  of 
     concern  for others and for landscaping and preserving the Mall as 
     a park, not a place virtually paved over.
     
     POSITIVE SUGGESTIONS
     Mr. Chairman,  this is a nascent issue,  not one that has grown to 
     become  a  huge obstacle.   All involved have very  good  motives. 
     Simple steps would suffice to address the concerns here:
     
     -- Airing this issue will help, and I thank you for receiving this 
     testimony.  On  thinking  about  these issues,  most  people  will 
     collect their thoughts and do the right thing.
     
     --  The  record for this legislation can make plain the intent  of 
     Congress  that  a  spirit  of generosity and  healing  be  carried 
     forward  in  the  women's  work and in the work  of  all  who  are 
     involved in memorials, especially on the Mall.
     
     --   The  Vietnam  Womens Memorial Project can consider healing  a 
     true  and  grievous  oversight:  the omission of a symbol  of  the 
     Vietnamese.   I suggest that thought might be given to a relief or 
     statue  that includes a Vietnamese child,  expressing the hope for 
     the  freedom  of all Vietnamese that was a theme of the  life  and 
     death of the men and women named on the Wall.
     
     --   A  simple  placement  of the women's commemoration  near  the 
     Vietnam  Veterans Memorial will solve a space problem that plagues 
     the  Park Service.  There are only so many good sites left on  the 
     Mall,  with  the  Korean War Veterans Memorial being  constructed. 
     Placement  near the Vietnam Vets Memorial for the women will solve 
     that  space problem,  and keep them from colliding with those  who 
     are  seeking  to build the memorial on the Mall to  Martin  Luther 
     King, Jr.
     
       In  fact,   in  the  spirit  of  generosity,   a  great  act  of 
     statesmanship  would  be for those building the  already  approved 
     Black Patriots memorial -- to go on the shore of the kidney shaped 
     pond  near  the Vietnam Vets Memorial --  to offer to  the  Martin 
     Luther King, Jr. proponents to share their beautiful space.   This 
     would  be  very  fitting and would assure blacks of  a  prominent, 
     emotionally full memorial,  an inspiration to all of us,  kids and 
     adults, for generations.
     
       The  key  is  the way the women  here  proceed.  Generosity  and 
     sharing,   and   placing  of  their  commemoration  in  a  simple, 
     landscaped   setting  near  the  Wall  will  open  up  all   these 
     possibilities.  The women, and all of use, can lead by example.
     
     Thank you, Mr.  Chairman.   I respectfully ask that this statement 
     be placed in the record.
     
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 71
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     John Wheeler
     
     Comments, suggestions and recommendations --  please address yours 
     in the message base, the VIETNAM_VETS echo, to Jack Wheeler.
     






















































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 72
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                   RAMSEY CLARK AND THE PANAMA INVASION
     
                      Input by: Kathleen Kelly, Ph.D.
                       NAM VETs PTSD Section Editor
                 The New York Transfer - Staten Island, NY
                              (718) 448-2358
     
     Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark on the Invasion of Panama
     
     Radio Havana Cuba interview with Ramsey Clark, December 30, 1989
     
     (RHC ANCHOR: Ramsey Clark was United States Attorney General under  
     Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War.  At the height of that war, 
     he  became an outspoken critic of the war of United States  policy 
     and is now criticizing the invasion of Panama.
     
     In an interview with Radio Havana Cuba,  Mr.   Clark condemned the 
     30,000 United States troops that invaded and are now occupying the 
     central  American country of Panama.  Charging it violates  United 
     States and international law. We more from this interview, next on 
     Headliners. With Ramsey Clark, Radio Havana Cuba reporter, Yolanda 
     Fisher.)
     
     [ RHC / Yolanda Fisher questions in brackets]
     
     [Some   people have made charges that President Bush acted outside 
     United States and international law when he launched his attack on 
     Panama. What's your assessment?]
     
     RAMSEY CLARK:  Well,  it's clear beyond argument,   in my opinion, 
     that   the  United  States  military  action  in  Panama  violates 
     international laws designed to maintain peace, and the laws of the 
     United  States which are designed to keep the United States out of 
     war, and from committing acts of unlawful military aggression.  So 
     I  think  military actions and all the deaths that  have  followed 
     have been a result of conduct that violates international laws and 
     the laws of the United States.
     
     [George   Bush  admitted  to reporters that  the  act  jeopardized 
     United States relations with Latin America -- do you think this is 
     correct?]
     
     It  would  be bad for Latin America if it  hasn't;   it  certainly 
     ought to.  The United States again commits direct military actions 
     against  any  nation  in the Western Hemisphere.   All  the  other 
     nations certainly ought to pay attention;  it concerns us all.  It 
     shows  that the United States is still willing to commit  military 
     violence to have its way, as if no other nations or peoples in the 
     whole  hemisphere  had  any rights,  any  sovereignty,  any  self-
     determination opportunities.
     
     We   begin  the last decade of the 20th century pretty much as  we 
     ended  the  first decade of the 20th century:  killing  people  in 
     Panama,  in violation of law.  At least Teddy Roosevelt had enough 
     sense  to admit,  when asked by what right he took the Canal Zone, 
     to say, "I simply took it." He used force, illegally, but at least 
     he  didn't try to use rationalizations that would only demean  the 
     law.
     
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 73
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     I   think  President  Bush's invocation of Article One of  the  UN 
     Charter is particularly unfortunate.  If true it would make the UN 
     Charter  an  enemy of peace.  If this is  self-defense,  then  any 
     aggression is permitted under the Charter it means that Charter is 
     a matter of concern for all who care about peace.
     
     [You   were  an  outspoken  critic of the  United  States  war  in 
     Vietnam.  And  now you're opposing the invasion of Panama;  do you 
     see any similarities between these two actions?]
     
     Well,  there  are  many differences and many  similarities.    And 
     complex historical analogies are difficult,  but there's one thing 
     in  common  that is,  to me,  a major lesson and that is  in  both 
     instances  the  United States is ready,  it seems,  at  least  the 
     government is,  to believe that might makes right,  it seems to be 
     willing  to use violence and technological sophistication  against 
     the  lives of poor people living in poor countries,  as a means of 
     imposing its will on their lives.  People who care about the human 
     species should never tolerate that sort of policy or attitude.
     
     [It  was said,   after the United States lost the War in  Vietnam, 
     that  the  United  States people would be reluctant to  allow  the 
     United  States to ever militarily intervene in another third-world 
     country. Can you comment on that?]
     
     Well, that was wishful thinking. The Reagan Administration came in  
     to  power in 1981 determined,   as far as I could tell,   to  find 
     military conflict wherever it could be sure it could win. We had a 
     stunning  illustration  of  the supremacy of its  military  forces 
     based  on  Grenada,  which  must be the greatest use  of  military 
     violence  by any of the so-called superpowers against a very small 
     country in history.
     
     The   United States had 25 people in full-time uniformed  military 
     service for every man, woman,  and child in Grenada;  it had three 
     nuclear  warheads for each person that lived there.  It gave 9,000 
     medals  to  soldiers for participating in that military  campaign, 
     and they were movies celebrating the courage of Americans invading 
     Grenada, if you can imagine it -- one of the worst examples of the 
     United  States'   imperialistic  military  power  in  the  Western 
     Hemisphere.
     
     Ronald  Reagan,   who is always described as an extremely  popular 
     President,  reached  the  height  of his popularity in  the  polls 
     immediately  after the Grenada invasion,  which was such a pitiful 
     use of force. More Grenadians were killed during that invasion, in 
     proportion  to the population of Grenada,  than the United  States 
     lost  in four years on all fronts in World War Two,  in proportion 
     to its population -- which is kind of a statistical trick,  but it 
     also  shows  how devastating to individual lives in such  a  small 
     place  the  United  States  invasion  of  Grenada  was,   and  how 
     celebrated it was in the United States.  It should have forewarned 
     us  that the United States would use military power against third-
     world  countries  when  its leadership  dared,  and  its  military 
     thought it could win.
     
     [Do   you  think  that  the  United  States  Government  met  more 
     resistance than it had expected in Panama?]
     
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 74
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     We don't know enough about what really happened there.  I've often 
     thought  that  the  greatest tragedy of the  Grenada  invasion  of 
     Grenada  was  the absolute control of information that the  United 
     States maintained, including -- well, everywhere,  as to the costs 
     and the facts of that invasion;  we didn't know.  They didn't even 
     allow  the United States press on the island of Grenada for over a 
     week after the invasion.
     
     In Panama, the thing that is never mentioned,   or even suggested, 
     with  rare  exceptions,  is how many Panamanians have  lost  their 
     lives. There's no way to tell here,  the only thing here is 20-odd 
     American  soldiers,  as if that's all that mattered.  The lives of 
     every  Panamanian  is  as  valuable  as the  life  of  any  people 
     anywhere,  and  we  ought  to be as concerned for  the  Panamanian 
     people as we are for our own families and children. And yet no one 
     even asks, much less seems to know, how many Panamanians have been 
     killed, but it's hundreds and hundreds and probably thousands, and 
     it's very important that we find out.
     
     That's  the  most  immediate and tragic price,   but  the  greater 
     threat  of the invasion of Panama is that if it seems to  succeed, 
     it'll simply be a precedent for other military adventurism,  until 
     the United States stops its use of military violence as a means of 
     having its will over other people.
     
     [General   Noriega  has taken sanctuary in the Vatican offices  in 
     Panama  City.   What are the realistic options for the Vatican and 
     for General Noriega at this point?]
     
     Well,  the most obvious and immediate option is --   and it's more 
     than  realistic;  it's traditional --  is for him to remain in the 
     Vatican compound there,  inviolate,  pending some resolution of -- 
     that  would involve free choice for Noriega and others --  is  for 
     him to remain there or go someplace else.
     
     The   principle  of sanctuary is critically important to the  hope 
     for peace. If you can go and smash down anyplace you want to,  and 
     drag people out and kill them or try them first and then hang them 
     or whatever it is you have in mind --  then we know there's no end 
     to  violence.  It's  just  a matter of  perceived  conquest,  that 
     sanctuary  tries to put a halt to that,  to resist violence rather 
     than  provoke violence,  and the Vatican has provided great  moral 
     leadership with sanctuary.  We've tried to emulate it some here in 
     the  United  States,  with  people fleeing from  El  Salvador  and 
     elsewhere for their lives, and the United States Government trying 
     to return them to a place where they would be their lives would be 
     endangered,  so  the  churches and others are providing  sanctuary 
     here.
     
     So I would think the Vatican would maintain its tradition,   which 
     is universal or catholic in its importance.  If some third country 
     agrees to accept Mr.  Noriega, which countries ought to be willing 
     to  do,  because it's a means of  conflict-resolution,  preventing 
     wars  and violence,  then if he chose he can go there or he  could 
     perhaps at some later date be released into his own country, which 
     everyone should always have the right to return to.
     
     [We've  been speaking with Ramsey Clark;   this is Yolanda  Fisher 
     for Radio Havana Cuba.]
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 75
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
                                   * * *
     
     Transcribed   by  Kathleen  Kelly  from  RHC's   English-language 
     broadcast  for  The NY Transfer,  A Free-Speech  Independent  BBS:  
     (718) 448-2358
     




















































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 76
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990



     =================================================================
                  C o n c e n t r a t e d   S e r v i c e
     =================================================================

                   VIETNAM_VETS Echo targets on SERVICE!
     
                            By: G. Joseph Peck
                         NAM VETs Managing Editor
                        VETLink #1 - Pittsfield, MA
                              (413) 443-6313
     
       Too  often  you and I have seen and been involved  in  instances 
     where  "foot dragging"  and "lip service"  seem to be the Order of 
     the Day.  With the beginning of 1990 - a new year and a new decade 
     -  VIETNAM_VETS  and NAM VET have targeted select areas of veteran 
     services  on  which  to  concentrate in order to  assure  all  our 
     veterans  access  to and receipt of the benefits they have  justly 
     EARNED and have every right to expect!!!
       Initial  "grass roots"  testing of a letterhead listing the City 
     and  State of many IVVEC-NamVet-BVC (Berkshire  Veterans'  Center, 
     Inc.) participants has had mixed results (i.e.  Letters of support 
     &  evaluation for incarcerated veterans have had positive results; 
     letters   accompanying   veterans'   resumes  have   resulted   in 
     applications  being  given  to the veteran -  but  no  employment; 
     etc.).
       AFTER  all  other  methods have been exhausted  and  WHEN  there 
     appears  to be a possibility of continued delay and  non-response, 
     either myself, as President/Service Officer of Berkshire Veterans' 
     Center,  Inc.,  or other duly-authorized Service Representative of 
     IVVEC-NamVet-BVC   will   make   public  a   text-file   copy   of 
     communications  that have been sent on IVVEC-NamVet-BVC stationery 
     to  a  particular individual and/or organization.   This  "initial 
     communication"  shall be followed by related responses and actions 
     taken unless requested otherwise by any of the involved parties. 
       This  "make  the  efforts public"  approach is NOT  intended  to 
     intimidate,  coerce  nor pressure an organization or individual to 
     act  in  a  desired manner,  but rather to educate and  allow  the
     general public examination of actions involved in service-delivery 
     to the veterans of our nation and an awareness of what is involved 
     in attaining them.
       
       As the innovator and initiator of the "Electronic Action For Our 
     Veterans"  service  concept,  the first such "text-file  copy"  of 
     communication(s)   delivered on  IVVEC-NamVet-BVC  stationery  has
     fallen,  by lucky-coincidence or poor design   <grin>  upon ME and
     involves a situation in which *I* am presently involved in.   YOUR 
     comments/criticisms/interest  regarding  the letter which  follows 
     are invited.
     
     As I can, I will keep you advised of events as they unfold.
     
                          Ci'ao for Ni'ao
     
                               -Joe-
     




     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 77
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                 D.A.V. Service & Involvement requested
     
     --Initially  caused  to  be published in  the  FidoNet  <tm>  Echo 
     VIETNAM_VETS on or about 1 January 1990 --
     
                           XXX XXXX XXXXXX
                   Pittsfield, Massachusetts 01201
                           1 January 1990
     
     (A  text-file  copy  of  this letter has been made  public  in  an 
     international  computer-based bulletin board network dedicated and 
     committed  to veterans and the issues that concern  them.   Unless 
     you  request  otherwise,  your replies and those of  DAV  National 
     Headquarters in Washington, D.C. - as well as actions taken by DAV 
     -  will  also  be  made public in order that we may  continue  the 
     education  of our Nation's veterans of the efforts of the Disabled 
     American Veterans to provide much-needed and valuable services to
     the veterans it represents.)
     
     Everett J. Nygard, Jr.
       State Commander
     DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS
     Department of Massachusetts
     Room 546 - The State House
     Boston, Massachusetts  02133
     
                              RE: Commonwealth of Massachusetts
                                            Land Court
                                  Department of the Trial Court
                                          Case No. 137397
                                  Request for HELP from DAV attorney's
     
     Dear Commander Nygard:
     
        As referenced above - and evidenced by the enclosed copy  -  my 
     family  and I are in a little bit of trouble and apparently on the 
     verge  of  joining the many homeless veterans throughout our  U.S.  
     The situation with my present house/home is critical.  As a result 
     of my continued unemployability, we are presently making our first 
     mortgage payments to U.S.  Dept.  of Housing and Urban Development 
     (Account  XX-XXXXXX-X).   The  action in question concerns a  home 
     equity loan for which I've fallen in arrears.
     
        As somewhat evidenced by the also-enclosed copies,  this is not 
     the first time we've been in this type of situation, nor the first 
     time I've asked the DAV (and many others)  for HELP in a situation 
     I have done the best I can in.
     
        The  original closing on my present house/home took place on    
     13 Mar 86.   The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget Act 
     eliminated my position at the VA Medical Center in Northampton,  
     MA on 14 Mar 86 - and its been downhill since.
     
        But  its  also  been  very  educational  regarding  the  still-
     challenged  loss of my Hillsdale,  NY house/home.   For  instance, 
     research has revealed that, among other things:
           (a)  The XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX Savings Bank failed to provide an 
                accounting statement as required by VA and Federal 
                regulations which would have shown that my VA 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 78
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                Disability Compensation check was being used as a
                guarantee for the home mortgage/improvement loans;
                (1)  IF the XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX Savings Bank would have 
                properly complied with regulations, Homestead, Soldier 
                & Sailors Act of 1940 as amended, and other protections 
                would have possibly aided;
           (b)  The XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX Savings Bank failed to notify me 
                of the possible intervention of HUD and/or other 
                methods of resolving the situation;
           (c)  In that the mortgage and subsequent home improvement 
                loans were "guaranteed" by my VA Disability 
                Compensation check, by accelerating the payments on the 
                mortgage and home improvement loans, the XXXXX 
                XXXXXXXXXX Savings Bank exerted apparent undue 
                influence in its effort to acquire my property.
        I could not then, nor can I now, afford an attorney to properly 
     present this matter to the New York State courts - although I HAVE 
     contacted  many  in the NY Attorney General and NY Dept  of  Law's 
     offices (among many others)  and have been advised to proceed with 
     proper legal representation.
     
        VA  and  DAV records will indicate that I have  a  long,  long-
     standing  claim  in  for  Unemployability -  directly  related  to 
     injuries received in or aggravated by military service -  which is 
     presently  under review by BVA Chairman Kenneth Eaton as per the 8 
     Aug 89 written advice of Mr. Anthony J. Principi, Deputy Secretary 
     of  the Office of the Administrator of Veterans'  Affairs.   IF my 
     claim   is  "assertively  represented"   rather  than   "passively 
     processed" the attendant retroactive benefits to which I have long 
     been  entitled will quickly resolve this situation and restore  my 
     own self-dignity and respect.
     
        CAN and WILL the DAV help me save my present home?
     
            Yours, in Service to America ... and my fellow man
                    In kindness, honesty and good faith
     
                           G(eorge) Joseph Peck
     Past Commander/Service Officer - DAV MA Chapter 15 Pittsfield, MA
                         Life Member # 20015L13624
     
     cc: Vernon V. Cardosi, National Commander - DAV 
          Washington, D.C. 20024
         Computer Copy: VIETNAM_VETS International CBCS Echo
         Files
     Encl's: 8/2/81 Letter to US Dept of Treasury
             2/17/82 Letter to X XXXXX, XXX
     











     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 79
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990



     =================================================================
                M i l i t a r y   O r g a n i z a t i o n s
     =================================================================

                       Service Organizations & BBS's
            From: Armed Forces & Veterans Service Organizations
             Found on The United States Veterans BBS in Minn.
     
                           Input by: Joyce Flory
               NAM VETs Incarcerated Veterans Section Editor
                    Desert Dolphin BBS - Las Cruces, NM
                              (505) 523-2811
     
     Name                      Address
     
     Air Force Ass.            1501 Lee Highway
                               Arlington, VA 22209-1198
                               (703)-247-5800
     
     Air Force Sgt. Ass.       PO Box 31050
                               Temple Hill,Md 20748
                               (303)-899-3500
     
     Alliance of Women Vets    PO Box 48817
                               Los Angeles, Ca 90048
                               (213)-931-6173
     
     American Battleship Ass.  PO Box 11247
                               San Diego,Ca 92111
     
     American Defenders of     PO Box 2052
     Bataan & Corregidor Inc.  New Bern, NC 25861-2052
                               (919)-637-4044
     
     American Ex-Prisoners of  3201 E.Pioneer Parkway Suite 40
     War Inc.                  Arlington,Tx  76010
                               (817)-649-2979
     
     American GI Forum of the  PO Box 7517
     U.S.                      Albuquerque,NM 87104-7515
                               (505)-247-4910
     
     American Gold Star        2128 Leroy Place NW
     Mothers Inc.              Wash.DC 20008
                               (202)-265-0991
     
     American Legion           700 N. Pennsylvania St.
                               Indianapolis,In 46206
                               (317)-635-8411
     
     American Military         69 Clinton St.
     Retirees Ass.             Plattsburg,NY 12901
                               (518)-563-9479
     
     American Red Cross        17th & D Sts. NW
                               Washington, DC 20006
                               (202)-639-3586
     
     American Vets Committee   1735 DeSales St.NW Suite 402
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 80
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

                               Washington,DC 20036
                               (202)-639-8886
     
     American Vets of WWII,    4647 Forbes Blvd.
     Korea & Vietnam (AMVETS)  Lanham, Md. 20706
                               (301)-459-9600
     
     American War Mothers      2615 Woodley Place NW
                               Washington, DC 20008
                               (202)-462-2791
     
     Armed Forces Communica-   4400 Fair Lakes Court
     tion & Electronics Ass.   Fairfax,Va 22033-3899
                               (703)-631-6125
     
     Army & Navy Union,USA     PO Box 7429 Station A
     Inc.                      Canton,O. 44705-7429
                               (216)-456-7312
     
     Army Mutual Aid Ass.      Fort Myer
                               Arlington Va. 22211
                               (703)-522-3060
     
     Ass. of the US Army       2425 Wilson Blvd.
                               Arlington, VA 22201
                               (703)-841-4300
     
     Blind Vets Ass.           1735 DeSales St.NW Suite 600
                               Washington, DC 20036
                               (202)-347-4010
     
     Blue Star Mothers of      Route 2,Box 335
     America                   Iola, Wi 54945
                               (715)-445-3733
     
     Catholic War Vets,USA     419 N. Lee St.
     Inc.                      Alexandria,Va 22314
                               (703)-549-3622
     
     Coast Guard Combat Vets   6858 Lafayette Road
     Ass.                      Medina,O 44256
                               (216)-725-6527
     
     Coast Guard SEA Vets      18 Golf Road Clarendon
     Mid-America               Hills,Il 60514
                               (312)-323-2234
     
     Combat Infantrymen's      43 Dunwell Ave.
     Ass.                      Asheville,NC 28806
                               (704)-253-5493
     
     Combined National Vets    419 N. Lee St.
     Ass. of America           Alexandria,Va 22314
                               (703)-549-3622
     
     Congressional Medal of    Intrepid Sea-Air-Space
     Honor Society of the USA  Museum 12th Ave. at 46th St.
                               New York, NY 10036
                               (212)-582-5355
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 81
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
     Destroyer Escort Sailors  PO Box 680085
     Ass.                      Orlando, FL. 32868-0085
                               (305)-290-5594
     
     Disabled American Vets    PO Box 145550
                               Cincinnati, OH 42550-5550
                               (606)-441-7300
     
     Fleet Reserve Ass.        1303 New Hampshire Ave.NW
                               Washington, DC 20036
                               (202)-785-2786
     
     Gold Star Wives of        1025 Jamaica Court
     America Ass.              Aurora, CO 80010
                               (303)-364-0300
     
     Italian American War Vets 115 Meridian Road
     of the US Inc.            Youngstown, OH 44509
     
     Jewish War Vets of the    1811 R St. NW
     US of A                   Washington, DC 20009
                               (202)-265-6280
     
     Korean War Vets Ass.      PO Box 12205
                               Baltimore, Md. 21281
                               (301)-327-2845
     
     Legion of Valor of the    92 Oak Leaf Lane
     USA Inc.                  Chapel Hill, NC 27514-9440
                               (919)-933-0989
     
     Marine Corps League       955 N.Monroe St.
                               Arlington,Va 22201
                               (703)-524-1137
     
     Mexican Border Vets Inc.  4248 Dryden Circle
                               Sarasota,Fl 34241
                               (813)-371-2916
     
     Military Chaplains Ass.   PO Box 645
                               Riverdale,Md 20737-0645
                               (301)-699-3505
     
     Military Order of the     5413-B Blacklick Rd.
     Purple Heart of USA Inc.  Springfield,Va 22151
                               (703)-642-5360
     
     Military Order of the     435 N.Lee St.
     World Wars                Arlington,Va 22314
                               (703)-683-4911
     
     NAM-POWs Inc.             5305 Boxwood Lane
                               Austin,Tx 78723
                               (512)-926-2489
     
     National Amputation       12-45 150th St.
     Foundation Inc.           Whitestone, NY 11357
                               (212)-767-0596
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 82
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
     National Ass. for Black   4185 N.Greenbay Ave.
     Vets Inc.                 Milwaukee,Wi 53209
                               (414)-562-8387
     
     National Ass. For Unifor- 5535 Hempstead Way
     med Services              Springfield,Va 22151-4094
                               (703)-750-1342
     
     National Ass. of Atomic   708 S.Aorora PO Box 409
     Vets                      Eldon,Mo 65026-0409
                               (314)-392-3361
     
     National Ass. of          PO Box 26031
     Concerned Vets            Washington, DC 20001
                               (202)-483-0342
     
     National Ass. of Military 4023 25th Road N
     Widows                    Arlington,Va 22207
                               (703)-5274565
     
     National Ass. of Radi-    78 El Camino Real
     ation Survivors           Berkely,Ca 94705
                               (415)-654-0100
     
     National Congress of      304 Park Ave.
     Puerto Rican Vets Inc.    NY,NY 10010
                               (212)-260-3000
                               ext.362
     
     National League of        1608 K St. NW
     Families of Prisoners &   Washington, DC 20006
     Missing in S.E. Asia      (202)-223-6846
     
     National Order of Battle- 923 E.Garfield Ave.
     field Commissions         Milwaukee,Wi 53212
                               (414)-562-5890
     
     National Vietnam Vets     1000 Thomas Jefferson St 6th floor
     Coalition                 Wash.DC 20007
                               (202)-338-6882
     
     Naval Reserve Ass.        1619 King St.
                               Alexandria,Va 22314-2793
                               (703)-548-5800
     
     Naval League of the US    2300 Wilson Blvd.
                               Arlington,Va 22201
                               (703)-528-1775
     
     Navy Mutual Aid Ass.      Arlington Annex Room G-070
                               Washington, DC 20370
                               (202)-694-1638
     
     Non-Commissioned          10635 IH 35 N.
     Officers Ass.             Austin,Tx 78233
                               (512)-653-6161
     
     Paralyzed Vets of         801 18th St.NW
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 83
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     America                   Washington, DC 20006
                               (202)-872-1300
     
     Patrol Craft Sailors Ass. 3921 Maybreeze Rd.
                               Marietta,Ga 30066
                               (404)-926-7430
     
     Patrol Frigate Sailors    5272 Doris Dr.
     Ass.                      Arnold,Mo 63010
                               (314)-296-5401
     
     Pearl Harbor Survivors    3215 Albert St.
     Ass. Inc.                 Orlando,Fl 32806
                               (305)-423-8344
     
     Polish Legion of American 3024 N.Laramie St.
     Vets USA                  Chicago,Il 60641
     
     P.T.Boats Inc.            PO Box 109
                               Memphis,Tn 48101-0109
                               (901)-272-9980
     
     Regular Vets Ass.of the   1309 Harrison Lane S/511
     US Inc.                   Austin,Tx 78742
                               (512)-389-2288
     
     Reserve Officers Ass.of   1 Constitution Ave.
     the US Inc.               Washington, DC 20002
                               (202)-479-2200
     
     Retired Army Nurse Ass.   PO Box 39235 Serna Station
                               San Antonio,Tx 78218-1235
     
     Retired Chaplins Ass.     9328 Sonora Ave.
                               Brentwood,Mo 63144
     
     Society of Military       5535 Hempstead Way
     Widows                    Springfield,Va 22151-4094
                               (707)-750-1342
     
     The Retired Enlisted Ass. PO Box 1218
                               Aurora,Co 80040-1218
                               (303)-364-8737
     
     Uniformed Services        5909 Alta Monte NE
     Disabled Retirees         Albuquerque,NM 87110
                               (505)-881-4568
     
     United Spainish War Vets  PO Box 1915
                               Washington, DC 20013
                               (202)-347-1898
     
     USN Armed Guard,National  5712 Partridge Lane
                               Raleigh,NC 27609
                               (919)-876-5537
     
     Vets of Foreign Wars of   406 W.34th St.
     the US (VFW)              Kansas City, Mo 64111
                               (816)-756-3390
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 84
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
     Vets of WWI of the USA    941 N.Capitol St.
     Inc.                      Washington, DC 20421
                               (202)-275-1388
     
     Vietnam Era Vets Ass.    242 Praire Ave.
                               Providence,RI 02907
                               (401)-521-6710
     
     Vietnam Vets of America   2001 S St. NW
     Inc.                      Washington, DC 20009
                               (202)-332-2700
     
                           Military Related BBS's
                Thanks to The United States Veterans BBS
     
     PC-8000 BBS              (704)-456-4366   General purpose board
                                                run by Wildcat!
     
     USCG Headquarters BBS    (202)-267-0925   Info for retired &
                                                active Coast Guard
     
     LZ-Birningham BBS        (205)-870-7770   Vietnam specific BBS
                                                that specializes in
                                                bringing together
                                                those who served in
                                                Nam.  Search by name
                                                or unit
     
     US Veterans BBS          (612)-522-2026   Vet. specific BBS.
                                                In Minneapolis,Mn
                                                PC Pursuit availiable
     
     Silent Service BBS       (202)-574-8423   For active duty,retired
                                                & vets with emphasis
                                                on sub service
                                                In Washington, DC
                                                PC Pursuit available
     
     Fighter Country III BBS  (602)-486-1833   General purpose
                                                military-oriented
                                                By John Savage,
                                                retired US Air Force
     
     Vietnam Data Rescource   (213)-373-6597   Data bank of info for
     &  Electronic Library                      researchers & Vietnam
                                                In suburb of LA
                                                PC Pursuit available
     










     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 85
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990



     =================================================================
                        S u b s c r i b e   N o w !
     =================================================================

     
     
     
     
     
     
                    --  SUBSCRIPTION FORM --
     
     
     
     The Nam Vet Newsletter is a nonprofit publication available
     free of charge to anyone wishing to have a copy.  It can be
     obtained in electronic computer format by anyone having access
     to a computer and modem by dialing up any of the IVVEC hosting
     bulletin board systems listed in this issue of the Nam Vet.  It
     can also be mailed to you in printed format if you are willing
     to pay the $1.67 cost for postage and the mailing envelope.  If
     you desire to have the Nam Vet mailed to you in printed format,
     please complete the subscription form below, clip it out, and
     mail it to:
          
                        Nam Vet Newsletter
                        Vietnam Veterans Valhalla
                        28 Cecil Avenue
                        San Jose, California  95128
          
     If you send your payment in check or money order, please
     make it payable to Todd Looney.
          
     NAME_____________________________________________________________
          
     STREET ADDRESS __________________________________________________
          
     CITY/STATE/ZIP __________________________________________________
          
     AMOUNT ENCLOSED ($1.67 per month desired) _______________________
     
     If this subscription is for someone else, to whom shall we credit
     the gift? ______________________________________
          
     January90
     
     












     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 86
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990



     =================================================================
                  I V V E C   -   W h o   a n d   W h a t
     =================================================================

                         Input by: Lefty Frizzell
                     NAM VETs Homeless Section Editor
                 The Executive Washroom - San Antonion, TX
     
              International Vietnam Veterans Echo Conference
                   Sorted ALPHABETICALLY by Origin Line
                        28 Nov 1989 to  31 Dec 1989
     
     Disgruntled, but still working (1:320/202)
     *OFFICIAL* FrontDoor Help Node - Oz East Coast (3:711/805.2)
     -=[ SoundingBoard of Houston (713)821-4148 HST ]=-(Opus 1:106/12)
     >>Radio Free Jacksonville * Echoes & Texts to go <(1:112/8)
     Bangor ROS ROSnet#07 *HST* Bangor, ME (1:132/301)
     Basic'ly Computers: Who's WAZOOming Who? (Opus 1:153/2)
     BEAR'S LAIR BBS (1:160/205)
     Berkshire Estates *HST* 413-499-1327 (1:321/210)
     Cedar Chemical / Southern Belle Gateway - NEC (1:361/13)
     Classic City Node-1  Athens, Ga. (404)548-0130(1:370/10)
     Classic City Node-2  Athens, Ga. (404)548-0726 (1:370/10)
     Cobra BBS! Pearland, Tx (713)996-1460 1:106/993
     Combat Arms BBS -Gun files source- 415-537-1777 (1:161/357)
     Commo Bunker of Karnes County TX "Don't Mean Nuttin" (1:387/801)
     Dak To Ridge Runner - VetPoint 47 (1:321/203.47)
     DESERT DOLPHIN WOC'in New Mexico (505) 523-2811 (Opus 1:305/105)
     Dickinson Night Light Dickinson Tx. (713)337-1452 (1:106/995.0)
     Disgruntled, but still working (1:320/202)
     Duffey's Tavern "Remember our POW's & MIA's !" (1:380/5.0)
     Elk Grove Repeater - (312) 529-1586 Elk Grove, IL (1:115/529)
     Fleming BBS                              (1:229/314)
     Fort Mountain BBS  VetPoint 401 (1:321/203.401)
     HARDWIRED - The WOCin' Bug Zapper (1:124/4210.0)
     HBX/EDS Vietnam Memorial Update Point (TComm 1:109/316.1)
     Helping Vets the best we can!  ISU BBS - Terre Haute IN (1:231/70)
     Hotel Six Whiskey Five Three Charlie(1:109/124.600)
     Jim's Hooch, once part of Meyers Motel, 21st Spec Ops Sq
     Kauai_1_Kekaha, Hawaii (808-337-9280) (1:161/414) 
     KIC-BBS, from the heart of Cincinnati, Oh. (HST) (1:108/89.0)
     KramMail, Check/Read/Reply/Quote/Download for OPUS (1:106/437)
     Long_Island RB                       (Opus 1:102/138)
     McScott's BBS, NorthEast Arkansas' VetLink -HST-(1:389/2001)
     Microplus Systems Technologies (1:204/27)
     Midas Touch: Where the Great & Wonderful Kahuna IS!!! (1:363/10.0)
     Moderator of STRESS_MGMT Echo, PCP CASAN 714-952-2110 (1:103/227)
     NASW New Mexico - Las Cruces,NM - (505) 646-286 (1:305/101)
     NCC-1701: "Beam me up, Scotty!!" (Opus 1:124/1701)
     Network Gateway to RBBS-NET  (RBBS-PC 1:10/8)
     Nighthawk - Running WILD! in Phoenix 602-995-3321 HST (1:114/36)
     Now and Zen Opus HST (916) 962-1952  (1:203/34.0)
     NPI III (617-592-5772) Lynn, MA USA (Opus 1:101/193)
     Oregon_XT/AT 1-503-640-6828 (1:105/306)
     Rocky Mtn Info Exchange  Parker, CO (303) 841-9570  (1:104/739)
     S-P-I-K-E-  @  Runway's End (1:232/18)
     SIREN IS CALLING SACRAMENTO CA [CASAC] (916)971-0589    (1:203/11)
     Scorpio BBS *PCBoard -> QuickBBS* (704) 542-5135 <HST> (1:379/3)
     SeaBat BBS - Home Of USS Liberty Veterans Association (1:160/230)
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 87
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     SEGUARO BBS-Somewhere in Illinois (Yuck!) (1:288/525)
     Setpoint, Inc. Houston, Texas  (1:106/116)
     Software Tools-You'll Never WOC Alone,Sydney OZi4i4 (3:711/403.0)
     Sonoma Online, RFE! 707/545-0746 Fido V12R/HST (1:125/7)
     Stingray! - Clovis, CA - [209-298-9461] - HST - (Opus 1:205/12)
     StormyWeatherI(DEBATER's WOC here)<1-713-644-4345>(Opus1:106/108)
     STRESS_MGMT&CFS_CFSIDS Avail from CASAN 714-952-2110 (1:103/227)
     TCS (301)261-3877 [AKA 7:524/2052] ...(Opus (1:109/50)
     The Buckeye Hamshack ~ Akron,Ohio (216)867-6984, 760Meg, HST
     The Bullfrog BBS*Memphis,TN * (901)684-1758 "RRrribitt"(1:123/18)
     The Chai Way : KESHERnet Dallas (214) 239-7607 (1:124/4106)
     The Debate Place BBS Houston Texas (713)451-6066 (Opus 1:106/113)
     Executive WashroomPlease flush and turn off the light! (1:106/449)
     The Fireside Opus, Houston, Texas (1:106/114)
     The FLIGHT-DECK  (201)896-8718  Carlstadt, N.J. (1:107/565)
     The Jimby BBS! * DB/WC/QBBS * What a Combo! (1:350/21)
     The NETWORK - G rated FAMILY oriented (1:129/34)
     The Point After TBBS Multi-Line *HST* (714) 826-0125 (1:103/226)
     The Precedent, Mukilteo,WA (206) 355-1295 (1:343/9.0)
     The Soldier's Bored, Missouri City, Tx, 713-437-2859, 14.4 HST
     The Steel Valley BBS  <HST & Lynx its PURRfect!>  (1:237/505.0)
     The VETNET Translation BBS (1:106/449.0)
     The Write Only Memory (Opus 1:109/415)
     THE ZOO BBS HST(Opus (1:108/50)
     The ZTRON BBS <> Hubbard, Oh. (Opus 1:237/510)
     There are only two kinds of ships Subs and Targets *HST*(1:308/60)
     They're alltryingtosilence TheNYTransfer (718)448-2358 (1:13/1033)
     TPTBB--That's just it, Bubba...Sic 'im MURPHY!  (1:106/116.1)
     VetPoint - VetCenter on a floppy disk!  (1:321/203.707)
     Vietnam Veterans Valhalla (1:143/27) 408-737-2564 (1:143/27)
     ZEPHYR, HST, National Capital Area, 703-620-5418(TComm(1:109/124)
     Zone 8 Echogate The No-Politics No-Games Network(1:129/34)
     \/irginian /X\etropolis/Churchland VA/804-483-0437 (1:271/309.0)
     
     My apologies to the Relaynet and Quicklink personnel.  I am 
     working on a way to show your taglines in the NAMVET News. 
     Hopefully, you will show up in the next newsletter.
     
                              Lefty Frizzell
                                 GateHost
     


















     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 88
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

               Parameters of VIETNAM_VETS echoconference...
      
     This  message  will  be  placed by myself or Todd  Looney  in  the 
     VIETNAM_VETS  echomail  area at regular intervals.   This  message 
     constitutes   the  parameters  regarding  the  use,   access   and 
     distribution of the VIETNAM_VETS EchoConference.
     
     LEGALITIES:   VIETNAM_VETS  is an International  "veteran-support" 
     EchoConference  that  is  privately owned and operated as  both  a 
     support  mechanism  and outreach effort by  its  originator,  Todd 
     Looney and G. Joseph Peck, President, Berkshire Veterans'  Center, 
     Inc.
       VIETNAM_VETS  is jointly moderated by Todd Looney and G.  Joseph 
     Peck.
       The ECHOMAIL COORDINATOR of VIETNAM_VETS is presently G.  Joseph 
     Peck - FidoNet 1:321/203; AlterNet 7:46/203 (1-413-443-6313).
       VIETNAM_VETS  is carried as a courtesy and service to  America's 
     veterans on the FidoNet <tm> echomail "backbone" and through parts 
     of AlterNet <tm> and other networks.
       Where  policies of FidoNet <tm>  or other networks and those  of 
     VIETNAM_VETS  conflict,  every  effort  will be made to  reach  an 
     amicable   solution   to   any  posed   problem.    Todd   Looney, 
     Originator/Co-Moderator, and G. Joseph Peck, Co-moderator/EchoMail 
     Coordinator,  herein reserve the right to remove VIETNAM_VETS from 
     a  network  should  the  policies  of that  network  prove  to  be 
     obstructive   rather  than  conducive  to  the  mission  of   this 
     EchoConference.
     
     OVERVIEW:   For  some  Vietnam  Veterans,  every day is  a  bitter 
     struggle  to survive as they try to find some way to either escape 
     the  horrible  memories  of  that war or to  come  to  terms  with 
     themselves  so  they and their families can begin a  normal  life.  
     For  other  veterans of the Vietnam era there is often  a  fervent 
     desire  for comradery with members of the military who also served 
     during  that troubled time in our nations history.   Until May  of 
     1986  and  the  creation  of the  International  Vietnam  Veterans 
     EchoConference   (IVVEC)   at  Todd  Looney's  Vietnam   Veterans' 
     Valhalla,  finding  a  way  to satisfy the needs of  these  -  the 
     toughest,  most  persistent and determined veterans in ALL of U.S.  
     history  -  as  well as give non-veterans and others a  chance  to 
     interact  and learn firsthand from the Vietnam veterans about  the 
     war  and  its  complexities,  was difficult at  best.   IVVEC  has 
     changed all that!
     
     DESCRIPTION:  VIETNAM_VETS is an "open forum"  type conversational 
     conference  for the discussion of topics related to service in the 
     SouthEast  Asian and other theaters,  crisis support and  possible 
     intervention,  state and federal benefit entitlements,  employment 
     rights  and  guarantees,  discharge upgrading,  and other  veteran 
     service-oriented topics.
     
     PURPOSE:    The   purpose   of  the   International   VIETNAM_VETS 
     EchoConference (IVVEC)  is to be the support vehicle through which 
     the  veteran,  particularly  the Vietnam veteran,  and his or  her 
     family  will  have an opportunity to communicate about his or  her 
     war  experiences,  often  for the first time since returning  from 
     Vietnam.  Each of us -  as veterans,  significant and/or concerned 
     others - participate in the IVVEC to help each other with support, 
     suggestions,  ideas and comments.   Together,  as one of America's 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 89
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     proudest groups, we can share resources and experiences which will 
     strengthen  and  build our fellow veterans and may help provide  a 
     guide  through the labyrinth of state and federal services many of 
     us have honorably earned and have every right to expect.
     
     HANDLES:  The use of "handles" in VIETNAM_VETS is allowed, only if 
     the  handle that you use is the name you normally use on the board 
     on which you access the conference.
     
     MESSAGE   CONTENT(S):   Personal  attacks  on  individuals   whose 
     sometimes-strong  opinions  differ  from  the  IVVEC  "norm"   are 
     discouraged.  The object is to learn from and support others,  not 
     argue with them or "go for their throat"! <grin>
       Aside from the parameter concerning attacks upon other users, it 
     is  hereby  stipulated  that messages in the conference  will  use 
     tasteful language.
       Flames,  comments,  suggestions  and such should be addressed to 
     the  conference moderator/coordinator via netmail at 1:321/203 and 
     NOT posted in the EchoConference.
     
     ADVERTISING:   Advertising  of  for-profit  organizations  is  not 
     allowed.    Acceptable  advertising  is  that  which  announces  a 
     veteran-oriented  BBS,  supports a veteran-related enterprise of a 
     veteran-member  of  the  EchoConference,  or of the efforts  of  a 
     nationally recognized veterans' group or organization.
     
     DISTRIBUTION:    The   conference   is  commonly  known   as   the 
     International  Vietnam  Veterans  EchoConference  (IVVEC)  and  is 
     distributed  throughout America,  Canada and parts of Australia as 
     "VIETNAM_VETS".   Distribution  in  America is generally  via  the 
     FidoNet  <tm>  backbone which is part of the distribution topology 
     currently  in  effect.   Other nets distributing the  VIETNAM_VETS 
     EchoConference  must  follow proper procedures for  zonegating  as 
     established by the FIDONET <tm> International Coordinator.
        All  messages in the echo must have a FidoNet  <tm>  compatible 
     origin  line.   The  Origin line should contain the  word  ORIGIN: 
     followed  by the originating systems name,  zone,  net,  node  and 
     point number if applicable.
        Distributing  messages  between  systems  of  various  networks 
     without  authorized  zonegating  and/or changing  of  distribution 
     topology  beyond  the original transfer is in direct violation  of 
     the distribution topology of this conference.
     
              I. Nodelist as of 01/01/90, Sorted by Area Code
                                                                   Max
      Net/Node               Name, City               Telephone No Baud
      =========    =================================  ============== ==
      7:520/563    3 EEE's BBS, Clifton NJ Ed Edell   1-201-340-3531 96
      107/563      EEE's BBS Clifton NJ  Ed Edell     1-201-340-3531 96
      141/488      Alice's Restaurant Branford CT     1-203-488-1115 24
      141/250      Wilton Woods Wilton, CT            1-203-762-8481 96
      124/201      Hardwired Dallas, TX               1-204-931-2987 24
      344/117      LSO QuickBBS, Everett WA           1-206-334-3088 96
      344/9        The Precedent, Everett WA          1-206-355-1295  ?
      138/35       US HDS Human Service Seattle, WA   1-206-442-8127 24
      343/26       AFMINS BBS                         1-206-488-4309 96
      343/111      Lessor Puget TB Edmonds, WA        1-206-742-8067 24
      138/52       Burrell's Ballpark Tacoma, WA      1-206-752-4672 24
      138/4        PTC Net Mount Vernon, WA           1-206-757-5248 24
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 90
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

      138/49       The Cohort Puyallup, WA            1-206-848-2646 96
      138/101      Story Board Puyallup, WA           1-206-848-5317 96
      138/3        Reg17 ADVISOR EMERITUS Puyallup WA 1-206-848-9232 24
      200/200      CSULB Long Beach, CA               1-213-494-8737 12
      200/100      The Board Room Belmont Shores CA   1-213-498-6425 24
      124/117      NCC-1701 Node 1 Dallas, TX         1-214-240-8821 24
      124/106      CHAI Way II Dallas, TX             1-214-250-3323 96
      136/200      The Chai Way II Austin, TX         1-214-358-3738 24
      124/4210     Hardwired Dallas TX                1-214-437-4075 96
      124/110      Flying Dutchman Dallas, TX         1-214-642-3436 96
      124/14       Chrysalis Dallas, TX               1-214-985-9054 24
      157/501      The PC-Key BBS Girard OH           1-216-545-9205 24
      157/1        Auer Register Cleveland, OH        1-216-883-0578 24
      227/1        Michiana TechLine Mishawaka, IN    1-219-258-0286 96
      227/150      The SX Project Whiting IN          1-219-659-2711 24
      013/33       Avi-Technic Lutherville, MD        1-301-252-0717 96
      109/648      Falcon's Rock College Park, MD     1-301-345-7459 24
      261/1004     The PainFrame                      1-301-488-7461  ?
      013/30       The Futurists BBS Perry Hall, MD   1-301-529-0716 96
      109/717      Tin Badge BBS Silver Spring, MD    1-301-589-2016 12
      109/722      Ronnie's Roadies, Camp Springs MD  1-301-736-0135 12
      261/628      Liberty Hall Reisterstown, MD      1-301-833-8933 24
      261/1044     Firestation BBS, Baltimore, MD     1-301-866-8613 24
      261/1007     FINAL FRONTIER                     1-301-947-4404  ?
      104/51       P2 B2 South Denver, CO             1-303-329-3337 24
      104/28       Pinecliff BBS Boulder, CO          1-303-444-7073 24
      128/16       Firenet Leader Colorado Springs CO 1-303-591-9600 24
      104/739      The Phoenix Parker, CO             1-303-841-9570 24
      135/35       The Sober Way Out BBS Miami, FL    1-305-445-6917 24
      135/27       Bitsy's Place Miami Beach FL       1-305-865-0495 96
      232/4        Runways End OPUS Peoria, IL        1-309-691-5416 96
      115/20       North Shore BBS Evanston, IL       1-312-491-2611 24
      115/529      Elk Grove Repeater Elk Grv Vlg IL  1-312-529-1586 24
      115/761      ICS/TRIX 1 OPUS Chicago, IL        1-312-761-7887 24
      011/202      SouthSide BBS Indianapolis, IN     1-317-882-9330 12
      285/622      Friend's BBS Omaha, NE Joan Renne  1-402-896-2669 24
      370/5        Athens Forum Athens, GA            1-404-546-7857 96
      370/11       Classic City Vet's Conf, Athens, GA1-404-548-0130  ?
      370/10       Classic Quick Echo, Athens, GA     1-404-548-0726 24
      128/13       COSUG-Colorado's User Clrdo Spg CO 1-719-633-4563 24
      385/6        Bink's Barn Lawton, OK             1-405-357-2473 24
      385/4        Info-Net Lawton, OK                1-405-357-6181 24
      147/14       Dark Star TBBS Oklahoma City, OK   1-405-691-0863 96
      363/10       Midas Touch Orlando, FL            1-407-648-1133 24
      363/9        MaMaB--Mark's Bedroom, Orlanda, FL 1-407-894-0807 96
      157/506      Beacon Hill OPUS Transfer, PA      1-412-962-9514 24
      321/109      PIONEER VALLEY PCUG #1 Amherst, MA 1-413-256-1037 96
      321/203      VETLink #1 Pittsfield, MA          1-413-443-6313 24
      321/210      Berkshire_Estates Pittsfield, MA   1-413-499-1327 96
      154/200      PC-Express Greenfield, WI          1-414-327-5300 24
      139/640      Fox Valley Tech Appleton, WI       1-414-735-2513 24
      125/78       Living Sober BBS San Mateo, CA     1-415-342-2859 24
      143/20       SeaHunt BBS, Burlington, CA        1-415-343-5904 96
      143/86       Cat's Tail BBS STOP San Mateo CA   1-415-349-8245 24
      161/208      G.A.D.M. Multi-User Hayward, CA    1-415-581-3019  ?
      125/31       Echo Coord San Francisco CA        1-415-621-5206 96
      161/56       Nat'l Family Forum Freemont, CA    1-415-651-4147 24
      161/1        Nerd's Nook Concord CA             1-415-672-2504 96
      161/509      Enterprize Pinole, CA              1-415-758-1650 24
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 91
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

      161/7        Mover Mouse BBS Fremont, CA        1-415-883-1644 24
      011/700      FCAU IBM Net Toronto, ON           1-416-427-0682 96
      148/120      Genetic Research Vat Toronto ON    1-416-480-0551 24
      014/703      Telen-Quest BBS                    1-417-882-5108  ?
      019/43       McScott's BBS, Blytheville AR      1-502-532-6212 96
      105/61       Shotgun OPUS Portland, OR          1-503-760-4521 24
      105/16       Net 105 EchoMail Hub Portland, OR  1-503-761-3003 24
      305/101      NASW New Mexico Las Cruces, NM     1-505-646-2868 24
      305/105      Desert Dolphin, Las Cruces, NM     1-505-523-2811 24
      381/401      Border Connection White Sands, NM  1-505-678-1318 24
      322/230      Denis's OPUS, Ayer, MA (Ft.Devins) 1-508-772-6373  ?
      382/1        Crystal Palace Lake Travis, TX     1-512-339-8037 24
      387/401      Comp-U-Gen II San Antonio TX       1-512-496-9373 24
      387/601      NCOA Intl BBS San Antonio TX       1-512-653-0409 24
      382/14       Corona Del Mar Rockport, TX        1-512-729-7026 96
      110/20       EDS Data Dayton, OH                1-513-455-2431 24
      221/156      Waterloo CBCS PUBLIC Waterloo, ON  1-519-746-5020 96
      153/130      VETSTAR (Northwest)                1-602-462-8752 24
      114/13       Corwin's Keep Tempe AZ             1-602-644-0179 24
      132/101      BBS Source Archive Nashua, NH      1-603-888-8179 24
      153/123      DAETECH Burnaby BC                 1-604-420-2641 96
      153/133      Hot Line Data Network Langley BC   1-604-533-0421 24
      220/20       Old Frog's Almanac Nanaimo BC      1-604-758-3072 24
      153/508      Ebenezer Christian BBS Mission BC  1-604-826-6607 96
      108/50       The ZOO BBS Independence, KY       1-606-283-2040 24
      108/105      Global Time Systems Cincinnati, OH 1-606-341-7910 24
      108/90       DATANET Info System Erlanger KY    1-606-727-3638 24
      150/803      Jersey Vertex Moorestown, NJ       1-609-869-0139 24
      362/1        The Mines of Moria Chattanooga, TN 1-615-344-9601 24
      362/501      Coconut Telegraph Chattanooga, TN  1-615-698-4858 24
      010/215      Silver BBS San Diego, CA           1-619-226-4502 24
      202/401      jabberWOCky Escondido CA           1-619-743-9935 24
      109/639      The RENEX BBS Woodbridge, VA       1-703-494-8331 24
      109/124      ZEPHYR National Capital Area       1-703-620-5418 96
      109/604      ShanErin Alexandria, VA            1-703-941-8291 24
      379/201      Metro Link Charlotte, NC           1-704-553-9534 96
      125/7        Survival Forum Santa Rosa, CA      1-707-545-0746 96
      125/12       The Grape Vine Santa Rosa, CA      1-707-546-4938 24
      161/502      Wildcat Benicia CA                 1-707-746-5820 24
      106/132      Fast BBS OPUS Katy, TX             1-713-392-0093 24
      106/114      The Fireside Houston, TX           1-713-496-6319 24
      106/357      TMBBS Houston, TX                  1-713-497-5433 24
      106/108      Stormy Weather I Houston, TX       1-713-644-4345 96
      106/113      The Opus Network Houston, TX       1-713-780-4153 24
      106/386      Info Center Exchange Houston TX    1-713-872-4429 24
      106/111      Shutterbug's OPUS Houston, TX      1-713-880-4329 24
      103/507      Philosopher's Log Anaheim CA       1-714-535-1258 96
      103/501      Mount Silverthorn Tustin, CA       1-714-544-3369 24
      7:441/1      Lord Frog Of Swamp                 1-715-362-3895  ?
      013/1033     NY Transfer Staten Island, NY      1-718-448-2358 24
      012/7        HPCUA Honolulu HI                  1-808-422-8406 96
      012/1        Aura Net Honolulu, HI              1-808-533-0190 24
      130/5        CUSSNET UTA Arlington, TX          1-817-273-3966 24
      366/38       Jolly Green Giant Shalimar, FL     1-904-651-3875 96
      019/5        Micro Application El Paso TX       1-915-594-9738 24
      381/201      Pro Link San Angelo, TX            1-915-944-2952 24
      161/943      Eagle's Nest Sacramento, CA        1-916-334-2822 96
      161/39       Nightline Mather AFB, CA           1-916-362-1755 24
      161/11       The Byte Boutique Sacramento CA    1-916-483-8032 24
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 92
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

      161/5        River City II OPUS Sacramento, CA  1-916-646-9678 96
      161/34       Now and Zen OPUS Fair Oaks CA      1-916-962-1952 96
      151/601      VMC-BBS Winston-Salem NC           1-919-744-0883 24
      151/100      NC Central Raleigh, NC             1-919-851-8460 96
      151/1000     REDCON Raleigh, NC                 1-919-859-3353 96
      632/350      Yarra Valley BBS Melbourne AU        61-3-848-331 12
     




















































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 93
     Volume  4, Number  1                             January  7, 1990

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
         Some Gave ALL ...                      Some Still Give!!!
     
     
     
               O                                      O
                O                    SOME GAVE ALL  ...
         ________O__________________________________O______________
        !         O                                O               !
        ! pow mia pow mia - BRING THEM HOME NOW! - pow mia pow mia !
        !           O                            O                 !
        ! ~~~~~ ~ ~  O~   ~~~ ~~ ~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~ O ~~ ~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~ !
        ! ~~~~ ~ ~~   O ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~  ~~~  ~~ ~O~~~ ~~~  ~ ~~~~ ~~ !
        ! ~ ~~ ~  ~~ ~ O~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~ O ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~ !
        ! ~~~  ~~ ~~ ~  O ~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~ O ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~ ~ !
        ! ~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~ O ~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ O ~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~ !
        !  ~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~  O ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~  O ~ ~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~ ~~ !
        ! ~  ~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~  O ~_~_~_~_~_ ~ O ~  ~~~~ ~ ~ ~~~ ~~ ~~  !
        ! ~~~ ~ ~ ~~~ ~~ ~  O          ) O ~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~~ !
        ! ~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ /(O)       / O \ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~~ ~ ~ !
        ! ~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~  /          / O   \~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~ ~ !
        !  ~~ ~ ~  ~~ ~~ / PRISONER /       \~~ ~~ ~~ ~~~ ~ ~~~~~~ !
        ! ~  ~~ ~~ ~~ ~ /          / MISSING \~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~~ ~ ~~ !
        ! ~~~  ~ ~~ ~~ /   OF     /\          \~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~~~~ ~ !
        ! ~ ~~~~ ~~ ~ /          /  \   IN     \~ ~~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~  !
        ! ~~~  ~~~ ~ /    WAR   / ~~ \          \  ~~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ !
        ! ~ ~~ ~~ ~ /          / ~ ~~ \  ACTION /  ~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~~ !
        ! ~~ ~~ ~~~(__________/ ~~ ~~~ \       /   ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ !
        ! ~~~~~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~~~ \     /  ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~ !
        ! ~~ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~ ~~~ \   / ~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~  !
        ! ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~ ~~~ \ /~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ ~  !
        ! ~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
        !  ~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~ ~ ~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~ SOME STILL GIVE
        ! ~ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~
        ! ~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~ ~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ !
        ! mia pow mia pow - BRING THEM HOME NOW! - mia pow mia pow !
        !__________________________________________________________!
     
     
     
     
     
     









     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 94

