Kevin Roberts, now 64, will build houses for poor families along the Mekong River
He is a former Marine who has lived with battleground nightmares for 40 years and now plans a return to the land that haunts him.
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As for a sense of closure: "I hate that word," he says without hesitation, thinking both about the war and his 13-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, who died in 1995 from a congenital heart problem.
"I was there and did what I did; that's not going to change," he says. "My daughter died and is not coming back. Things like this don't close."
So why, after years of heroin addiction, alcoholism and untreated post-traumatic stress disorder, has Roberts decided to do something good in the land he remembers as bad? And how will it affect him?
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Next week, he'll pick up a hammer and saw for the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project 2009, an annual weeklong affordable housing project led by the former president. Roberts will join a team of about 20 volunteers who will construct houses in Ke Sat village, just outside Hanoi, November 15-21.
His daughter Mary organized raffles at the Starbucks where she works to raise money to defray his costs. "He really wanted to go," she says, "and I am so proud of him."
The tough part for Roberts will begin after the back-breaking work is over. He plans to hop on a motorcycle and fly like the wind south to Da Nang, where he learned the meaning of fear.
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But nights were another thing. The war was full throttle after the sun went down. Small-arms fire rattled the valley below and artillery rounds tore through the air overhead. Roberts learned to await the thud of the impact somewhere in the near distance.
"We expected the enemy to attack every night, and we spent entire nights listening to the darkness."
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Roberts is on his way back to the land where he was sent on a mission of destruction more than 40 years ago. This time, his task is quite the opposite, though the journey may be no easier...>>>>
More than just a holiday now, Veterans Day has become every day
With two wars and the recent attack at Fort Hood, there’s more public concern about the treatment of vets. The Obama administration and Congress are doing something about that.
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One troubling sign here: Iraq and Afghanistan vets are likely to become homeless sooner after they’re back in the US than veterans of previous wars did. The state of the economy no doubt is a factor, but so are the multiple combat deployments many are required to make — an important difference with Vietnam where draftees did their one tour and came home for good.
It’s no coincidence that the suicide rate among solders today is 11 percent higher than it was in Vietnam.
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Obama recently went to Dover Air Force Base to witness the return of GI’s who’d been killed in Afghanistan. As there has been with former presidents, there was talk about whether — as a civilian, even though he is commander in chief — he should have saluted the caskets.
But one Marine Corps gunnery sergeant and Iraq war vet I know says he’s OK with that, pronouncing Obama’s salute “impeccable.” That may not mean much to most civilians, but it counts with those in uniform … whether or not it’s Veterans Day...>>>>
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