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Homer Steedly Returns to Vietnam

I wish you all a nice Memorial Day weekend. It looks like the weather in the mountains of VA will be perfect. Homer Steedly was a platoon leader and company commander with B and D Companies 1/8. In March of '69 they sent him down near An Khe with the payroll. He shot and killed an NVA soldier and for years held onto that soldiers belongings. I introduced Homer to Wayne Karlin, who arranged for the belongings to be returned to the family. Homer didn't want to make the trip a couple of years ago. This year the opportunity presented itself again. Homer along with Wayne Karlin, a friend Doug Reese, and a crew from the Center for Emerging Media left for Vietnam on 5-19. CEM is posting a blog at http://www.centerforemergingmedia.com/blog/hello-hanoi Homer has a page on his website showing the articles returned and telling of Wayne's first trip. http://www.swampfox.info/PerDocNVAMed/NVAMedDocs.html

Re: Homer Steedly Returns to Vietnam

Thanks for posting this...very interesting.


Joy

Re: Homer Steedly Returns to Vietnam

this one detailed, piece of memory...Good read, although I didn't read everything, most I did. Thanks for the post...

Re: Homer Steedly Returns to Vietnam

Tom as always thanks for the news

Re: Homer Steedly Returns to Vietnam

Well Homer is home safe and sound. If you go to Homer's home page, at the top he directs you to the blog, which describes the amazing journey. I felt proud to read how Homer dealt with the ordeal. They met the family in the north, then travelled south, and the soldier's remains were exhumed, to be buried in the north. Homer was able to visit Camp Enari and the Mang Yang Pass. There are lots of great pictures.

Re: Homer Steedly Returns to Vietnam

Homer's wife Tibby sent me this url today, http://www.transylvaniatimes.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=1&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=1482&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=2538&hn=transylvaniatimes&he=.com This is a story from Homer's diary which he kept during the trip to Vietnam.

Re: Homer Steedly Returns to Vietnam

Homer has now posted his story of the trip, which includes loads of great pictures, including some of the Mang Yang Pass @ http://www.swampfox.info/PerDocNVAMed/DamReturnHome1.html
I've got another thing some might be interested in. The local TV station asked if I would do an interview on what the 4th means to a vet. From the brevity of the clip, you can tell that I didn't give the gal a great deal of good footage, but I did get my point across.
http://www.tv3winchester.com/home/headlines/23233959.html BTW, I am leaning on my 67 Camaro, which I bought new long ago. I was putting it in the parade on the 4th. Also, the repoter was Cambodian, and a bit of Vietnamese. She mentioned my using the word **** to describe our enemy. She understood, and was very gracious. Most of her family were killed by the Pol Pot regime.

Re: Homer Steedly Returns to Vietnam

I checked out his website and read his story. I know everyone has their own feelings about the war and things they did and saw. I myself could never feel sorry for any enemy soldier after being shot at quite a number of times and being wounded and seeing my buds get killed. Also one of our SRRP teams was ambushed in Duc Lap and when we found them all five of them were head shot. I may sound bitter and I am but I could never feel sorry for any of the NVA. Again this is my feelings and I know everyone has their own.

Re: Homer Steedly Returns to Vietnam

Gary, I think you make an excellent point. I found myself in a situation almost identical to Homer's, and I have never been haunted by the event. We did what we had to do. But, from following this story from the beginning, I have become aware of a fallacy I had regarding the Vietnamese people. I always thought, and I think most of my buddies thought the same, that "Gooks" didn't value human life as we do. After all these years the entire village shuts down and turns out in honor of documents being returned, then when Homer enters the village, then again when the remains are returned. These people honor their dead. Another point I would like to make is that, in some instances we were our own worst enemy. For instance when a Vietnamese soldier would hear of an atrocity, like My Lai, they very likely would take it out on a GI they would face on the battlefield. I think of the enemy as being much more cruel than we were, but they may see it just the opposite.

Re: Homer Steedly Returns to Vietnam

Tom off subject Light Ruck was a great read. Are you sure we didn't know each other in Vietnam,probably not, but we sure walked the same ground in some of the places you talked about. Great book Tom. Just wish they had it in Hardcover.

Re: Homer Steedly Returns to Vietnam

I don't think that I ever believed that the Viet Namese - either north or south - cared less about life or any of that. I did pretty much believe that the communists cared less about the lives of their troops - I thought that they saw their soldiers as just another piece of equipment to be used to achieve a goal. Same thing about the way they treated our guys - they were willing to do whatever hard thing that might advance their cause.

Come to think of it, I am not so sure that they were all that different in their approach from today's neocons.

I called the enemy "dinks" - because it is easier to kill a faceless group than an actual person.

If I ever did hold those feelings, they certainly went away during my second tour when I lived 24/7 with my Viet Ranger Bn for a little over 9 monhs. They were good people and good soldiers who stood to and fought hard. I came away thinking of them as good people.

Re: Homer Steedly Returns to Vietnam

JackB It me a lot longer to think of the Vietnamese as people. At a memorial day ceremony at the CA Vietnam Vets memorial I saw three ARVN veterans dressed in their dress uniforms. I asked them what they were doing here. An ARVN Dai Wi answered we are here to honor our fallen heroes. I told him there are no ARVN names on the memorial. He replied I know that, but the names on this memorial are our fallen heroes also. I was kinda dumb founded at that. I told him that I had no feelings whatsoever for Vietnamese people and I felt maybe it was time to change the way I felt. I aplolgized for what I had said to him and that I was sorry for the way I didn't care about the Vietnamese people and all I wanted to do in Vietnam was to do what I was sent to do, and get home. He told me he understood that and accepted my apology. I then saluted him and the other ARVN Veterans that were with him. I felt a lot better about myself and felt a burden lifted from me.