(NEXSTAR) — What’s it like to come face to face with your former enemy? Army and Marine veterans recently found out on an emotional journey back to Vietnam, marking the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.
The veterans who returned to the country fought hard to keep enemy troops out of the city and away from South Vietnam. Some nearly paid with their lives, including Marine Corps veteran Ed “Tex” Stitler.
“This is the Reunification Palace in Saigon where the communists came through the front gate with a tank and took over the government,” Stitler said.
“I was shot on the 21st of September 1967 — shot under the jaw and out the mouth. What saved me was I was talking, which was a pretty regular deal,” he added while laughing.
He can joke about it now, because these days, the tensions are gone. In their place: tourists. Vietnam has changed monumentally over the decades — a change Stitler has witnessed firsthand.
He’s been back dozens of times as part of a nonprofit he co-founded with other Vietnam veteran buddies 20 years ago. Their mission is to return veterans of the Vietnam War back to the war zone.
“I knew that it’s beneficial for veterans to return,” he said. “You know, some choose not to, but those that do come — it’s a benefit.”
Stitler knows the benefit first-hand. “I used to have a nightmare and it was all the time,” he said. “The nightmare was real except the end of it. Yeah, we were on a patrol and someone gets hit and that part was real. The part that was not real was I would try to reach out and bring him back, and I never could bring him back, you know, and that was emotional because I knew the guy. But after coming back here, it’s gone away.”
His friend and fellow veteran Bob Monette helps lead the tours too. He flew helicopters during two combat aviation tours in Vietnam.
“My first tour I got 900 combat hours in this,” Monette said.
“What’s really rewarding is when you get a combat veteran and his wife and their children back to where their grandpa fought,” he said. “It’s part of the healing process because back then we didn’t have time to cry. I only cried one time, two tours. When my buddy got shot down with an SA-7, and he took it all the way to the ground on fire. And after they threw him in the back of a Huey, I said, ‘Hey, they’re OK?’ My co-pilot and I burst into tears.”
“Every day, we would fly from Bien Hoa here,” Monette said during one of the return visits.
Who knew the country that brought them so much pain 50 years ago could bring so much fulfillment in the years since?
“You know, you hug up, there’s some tears, it’s a good thing. Good feeling,” Stitler said. “You know, I see some relief. I can see it in their face when we get them to that special spot and things are okay.”