“You know, you try to forget it all,” Dick Kingsbury said, about this time in Vietnam.
But he couldn’t.
Over four decades after he deployed with the Navy to Vietnam in 1966 at 18 years old, he returned to the country with his wife Laura and has returned multiple times since that journey. In the interim he and Laura raised two children, and started, grew, and sold a business that started with an excavator and grew to a major diversified central Vermont contracting company with dozens of employees and a fleet of vehicles and equipment.
In the interim, however, his time in Vietnam and what he learned after the fact was PTSD, weighed on him. He deployed in 1966, joining the Navy after dropping out of high school. After six weeks at the Great Lakes Naval Academy, he trained in Corpus Christie, San Diego,and the Philippines before heading to Vietnam.
In Vietnam, he crewed on a river boat patrol, one of three boats that traveled in tandem. He was one of three people on the boat and was the forward gunner.
FIRED ON
“We were out every night, we’d go up and try to engage with the enemy on either side of the river. Sometimes we’d go pick up Seals or recons or whoever was out there and ambushed and try to get them out of there,” he explained.
When they were fired on, it was from AK47s and other weapons. His boat was hit by a 122-millimeter rocket and he and his fellow soldiers were launched into the water. One of them died.
They were told not to shoot first, but that advice was bad, he said.
“I didn’t think it was a very good deal at all. The whole Vietnam War. It was so sad. There were always kids on the bank with their hands out he recalled.
“There was one little girl, the cutest thing you ever saw. She came out to the boat and gave me a gold chain with etching on it, a backwards swastika which meant lovers. It was made by her father. It was the most beautiful thing,” he recalled.
AGENT ORANGE
Kingsbury served 18 months with one break when his boat was blown up and he went to a hospital ship to recover. In addition to shrapnel, he was exposed to Agent Orange while serving.
“After I recovered, I was given a choice of a different duty station, but I said I wanted to go back. You know, I was a young punk. I was so tough. I wanted to beat those guys. Because I was young, you’re young, you don’t know better. You want to be with a team. I understand that now,” he said.
He spent another six months in country before being deployed to Boston and Rhode Island. When he returned to Waitsfield, he returned with the knowledge that three of his friends, local men, had not returned. Bobby Fielder, Waitsfield;, Brian Orr, Waitsfield; and Wendell Weston, Warren, died in Vietnam and Kingsbury and others later erected a memorial to them at Couples Club in Waitsfield.
ANGRY A LOT
“I was angry a lot,” Kingsbury said about his return to Vermont. The first month he was home, he drank every day, until he got tired of throwing up and being hungover. He stopped drinking.
He started working for S.G Phillips and later Carlos Nelson before he and Laura started their own business and had a son and daughter. After a few years, Laura told him she thought he needed help. He went to the VA where he worked for seven or eight years with a doctor who didn’t help very much.
Later at 27, he met with another therapist, Bill Newkirk who did help him and got him diagnosed with PTSD, got him on medication for depression, Agent Orange, and other issues.
“Bill Newkirk got me to focus. Looked at all my injuries including the shrapnel I had in my head and the Agent Orange,” he recalled.
SWEET AS PIE
During those years, he said he was often angry, and moody and tired.
“I can be mean. I can be sweet as pie one day and the next day, I’ll see you and I just can’t stand you. There’s really no way of controlling it,” he said.
He credits Laura for a lot, including her understanding and her support and her ability to withstand the thrashing he does at night when he has nightmares about Vietnam. He still has them, but they are less frequent. He’s now 76 and still dreams about the war.
“We had some tough times in the 1980s and early 1990s,” he said.
HAPPY CHILDREN
He also credits Laura for that first trip back to Vietnam. She arranged the trip and it was an eye-opening and healing journey. Seeing happy, healthy children and interacting with them was a critical part of that trip and the subsequent ones.
“We’ve been back twice. I was just there last year. I think it helps. And I wanted to see the change from 2008, 10 years later,” he added.
They visited the site of My Lai massacre on the day of the 30th-year anniversary and there were flowers everywhere and they met the woman made famous for the book cover showing her in a ditch trying to shield her children.
“She bowed to us. What grace. I was crying, Laura was crying. It was totally unbelievable. It was powerful. I said we’d go again, and I can do it. We should not forget,” Kingsbury pointed out.
Later, they went to the Hanoi Hilton, the infamous prison where American POWs were held and tortured. As they drove up, they saw a sign that said “Welcome Mr. and Mrs. Kingsbury.”
Reflecting back, he said his time in Vietnam still informs his life and he thinks about it daily.
