Memorial provides chance to 'remember and honor'

The arrival of The Wall That Heals in Kalispell this week brought hundreds out for the opening ceremony Thursday, but for two local brothers, both Vietnam War veterans, the Wall brought much more.

For Larry and Terry Baker, the half-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., symbolizes a radical change in the America they returned to following their service in the 1970s.

In those days, Terry said, returning veterans were greeted not with the flowers, flags and applause that accompanied Thursday’s celebration, but with beer bottles and curses hurled through bus windows, and a cold shoulder from their fellow American veterans.

The Baker brothers were born and raised in Kalispell. They came from a family of five boys, all of whom served in the military. Their father was a World War II veteran, and their grandfather, Terry said, went up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt. Several of their uncles died in Korea.

“Hell, we couldn’t get along with anybody,” Larry said.

So in 1969 when the draft began, both brothers said there was never any question as to whether they would serve.

“It was just something that you knew you were going to do,” Terry said.

Larry, the older of the two, was the first to be shipped off to Vietnam where he served as an Army medic.

For a year, he was the first man on scene to treat every kind of casualty imaginable, from “sucking chest wounds” to men whose limbs had been blown off.

“It was a pretty traumatic experience to be the one responsible for saving people’s lives. Especially considering he was a 19-year-old kid, for crying out loud,” Terry said of his brother.

“Which we all were,” he added. “We were all kids.”

The average age of an American soldier in Vietnam was 19.5 years old.

Men and women young enough to be college freshmen were sent into triple-canopy jungle 7,300 miles from their homes where they would face day after day of mud, torrential rain, venomous creatures and hostile enemies.

At the end of that year, Larry said he “got out of there as fast as he could.”

During World War II, soldiers saw an average of about 44 days of combat a year. In Vietnam, soldiers faced an average of 240 days of combat out of 365.

“It was hell, is what it was,” Larry said. That was the best he could do for a description.

He returned home just as his brother was shipping out.

Terry said he had just about enough time to shake his hand in passing before he left, headed into “the pit” to serve as an infantryman.

During his own time in Vietnam, Terry said he lost at least a dozen close friends in combat, their names now carved into the Wall alongside over 58,000 who gave their all.

“We both made it through, which says a lot,” Larry said. “With the amount of people that were killed over there, you were extremely lucky to be put in a situation like that and come back, A) alive, B) not missing any legs, arms or body parts and C) to still have your mind.”

After facing almost endless open fire and horrors he wouldn’t and couldn’t describe, Terry said he too finally returned to his home country.

But, he said, there was no “welcome home” parades for he and the other veterans as they got off the plane on U.S. soil still donning their uniforms.

Instead, they were put onto buses with chicken wire stretched across the windows, much like they’d experienced in Vietnam.

As the brothers settled back into the somewhat normal routine of life back in the states, they learned not to talk about their experiences in the war for fear of retribution.

Though Terry said the experienced had profoundly changed and aged him, there was little his country had to offer him in return for his youth.

“My best friend, when I came home, looked at me and said, ‘My God, you look like you’re 40 years old.’ And I did,” Terry said.

The brothers both married and had families, but re-adjusting to civilian life proved difficult.

“Your nerves were shot,” Larry said after describing an incident where he found himself face down on the sidewalk after hearing a car backfire.

Both brothers developed varying stages of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder among other health problems related to a toxic herbicide used to defoliate the thick jungles of Vietnam.

Because of the toxic chemical called Agent Orange, Larry developed diabetes, high blood pressure and COPD, among other issues.

After years of working for various city departments in Columbia Falls, and many more years of battling with his health, Larry received a full pension and now resides at the Montana Veterans Home in Columbia Falls.

His brother worked extensively alongside the Vietnam Veterans of America Northwest Montana Chapter 1087 to bring the Wall That Heals to their home community after four years of work and preparation.

Terry has now been married for nearly 50 years and has five children and six grandchildren.

He said the Wall has proved monumental in reshaping the way Americans view the war and its veterans and how he views America.

Over the years, he said, the nation’s attitude has drastically changed, and he has even had people from his own generation approach him and apologize for taking their anger out on the soldiers who served.

Out of the 12 soldiers from the Flathead Valley whose names are engraved in the Wall, Terry said he knew at least 10.

“It’s a war that everyone wanted to forget,” Larry said. “And consequently, for the guys that fought it, we can’t forget it. It’s there forever.”

That, the brothers said, is the value of the Wall — the ability for veterans to remember and honor their fallen friends and the ability for the nation to re-remember the war and the names that reshaped its history.

The Wall That Heals is at 2000 U.S. 93 South, just north of Roseaurs and will remain open through today. For more information, visit vvmf.org.