We have been learning about Marshall’s Doug Hamilton, who was married with a six-month old daughter when the Army drafted him and deployed him to Vietnam in May 1969. The Army assigned him to the first of several fire support bases that were his Vietnam home. He served with that unit on a 155 mm howitzer section throughout his fourteen-month tour of duty.

Life on a fire base was rugged. Doug’s artillery crew slept in sandbag-covered, concrete half-culverts elevated off the ground with long, wooden, boxes so the guys could crawl inside. The unit moved to a new fire base so often that Doug could not remember them all. His section frequently worked 16- to 18-hour days and often fired nighttime, harassment and interdiction missions. Food supplies were sometimes sporadic.

While fire base life was grim, the young men on the guns looked for reasons to laugh. Doug explained how the wooden platforms under the howitzers were often slick and that led to a funny incident.

“Grease on the gun would drop on these boards and if you got it wet from swabbing the tube, it got slipperier than a Q-ball. One time we got a fire mission and then stopped. We had a round in the tube, so we pulled it out. Then we got called back to fire. This guy from Council Bluffs, Kenny, decided he was going to ram the hell out of that round. So, he came with the ramming staff, which is over six feet long, like a pole vaulter. We were saying, ‘Don’t do it, Kenny!’ He was running and hit the tube. There was nothing in there. (Doug chuckled) The ramming staff went up the tube and ‘zoop’ he slid underneath on his butt. He had to go to the Medic station to get the slivers out of his butt. (Doug laughed) I think he had a tattooed butt for a long time from that grease.”

The day finally arrived when Doug had no more days to cross off his calendar.

“The sergeant who woke me that morning said, ‘You’re going home today.’ I felt rotten that I was leaving my friends behind, like I was deserting them. Then, I thought, ‘I’m going home!’ (Doug laughed) I flew into Song Be on a Huey and then it was a C-123 (Provider) that flew into Tan Son Nhut Air Base. We were taking off from Song Be when the plane suddenly went up like this (Angling his arm to show a steep ascent). The captain said, “We’re being shot at.” We flew into Tan Son Nhut and I got off. I flew out on Capital Airlines. I tell you, it was an experience getting on that plane! (Doug laughed) There was a lot of whoop-dee-do going on.”

Doug’s orders for stateside included an unexpected blessing.

“I was fortunate when I came back. My orders were to Fort Dix, New Jersey, instead of Fort Ord, California. Fort Ord was a hotbed for all the hippies and (protesters), throwing nasty barbs at military guys. We stopped in Osaka, Japan and Anchorage, Alaska and then flew directly to Fort Dix. We landed at four o’clock in the morning. They woke us at eight and said, ‘If you’re not off the base by four o’clock this afternoon, you’re here until Monday.’ By 4:30 p.m. I was in a taxi, racing to Philadelphia to catch a flight to Minneapolis.”

Chari and Becky met Doug at the airport. The little family returned to Willmar where Doug began working for the railroad. The Hamiltons moved to Denver for a time before returning to Minnesota where Doug pursued a degree in mortuary science.

He sees, in that career, a connection back to his time in service.

“I used the G.I. Bill to go to college. I wouldn’t have been able to go to college if it hadn’t been for that.” (I learned in service) that I could take more. I think, in the profession I chose, (my service time) helped me deal with people in situations they felt they couldn’t handle and needed help getting through. I had more empathy for them.”

But Doug had been at war and lived with a grim, personal truth of that war from the month he arrived in Vietnam.

“My good friend, Tom, whom I went to school with, was a medic. He was killed on Hamburger Hill about two weeks before I got there. Chari didn’t want me to find out, fearing I’d be shook up. But there was a medic on the LZ who, like me, had been raised a Seventh Day Adventist. He told me that Tom had been killed.”

Doug reflected on the tragedy of death in war.

“One of the regrets I have is that I killed people. I deprived them of becoming parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. I did it because I had to — it was a war. But it was still a human life. They didn’t want to be there any more than I wanted to be there in the jungle. The end product was that everybody got screwed. A big mess.”

Doug shared another, simpler reflection about what it was like to return from Vietnam.

“When we graduated from Basic they told us that when we returned from overseas there’ll be someone at the airport to buy you a drink. But there wasn’t anyone there.”

Thank you for your service, Doug. Welcome home!

Please visit our new exhibit, The Vietnam War and Lyon County, at the Lyon County Museum to learn more about the experiences of our area Vietnam veterans.