For Veterans Day, Oneida leader shares story of pain and peace following Vietnam War
Frank VaisvilasThe Vietnam War was raging when Dan King left his Oneida Reservation home one Sunday, telling his mother he’d be back.
“I never said what year,” King joked in a recent lecture recalling his experience.
King discusses his experiences at various events around Wisconsin. It's his way of keeping alive the memory of those who served alongside him. He shared his story for Veterans Day.
He didn’t know his father very well, but knew he served during World War II. He also knew that his grandfather served during World War I. King said he left home to sign up to serve in the Army, because he thought that's what he should do. It was a way to maintain his family’s and his tribe’s warrior tradition.
Soon, he was shipped off to Vietnam.
He learned the horrific truth about war, and being surrounded by death.
“I was scared, but didn’t admit it,” King said. “They don’t train you for that. They don’t tell you what it’s really like.”
He said movies always portrayed those who served in World War II as glorious heroes who earned medals and everyone’s appreciation.
“There’s nothing glorious about war,” King said. “It’s easy to go to war, but how do we live with it afterward?”
While serving, King was shot. He had killed to save others. His buddies had been killed saving him. He said many units, like his, might face some level of combat more than 100 times in a year. Some of the young men who came over, teens really, survived less than a month.
Back home, those sights, sounds, even smells would often come back.
King’s nephews would ask him how many people he killed, and he would just walk away, not wanting to answer.
King initially didn’t want any of the medals he had been awarded. And he drowned his post-traumatic stress disorder with alcohol trying to forget, often ending up in a county jail somewhere.
But he could never forget.
King later realized that Vietnam differed from other wars in that there often were no clear front lines, and no clear objectives. Soldiers were on high alert and under high stress around the clock.
King’s mother had urged him to go to church for healing, and that helped a little. He also turned to traditional Oneida ways by burning tobacco and praying to Creator. That helped, as well.
“They say it (the pain) goes away, but it doesn’t,” King said. “But I learned how to live with it and how to accept it.”
Today, as the commander of the Wisconsin Indian Veteran Association-Oneida Chapter, King is an advocate for veterans, lobbying for resources they need, such as PTSD treatment and housing.
King realized he will forever have a strong bond with those he served with, as well as other veterans, and that they are all really just there for each other in the end.
“Who goes to die for a flag or country?” he said. “All the guys on the (Vietnam Memorial) Wall didn’t die for a flag. They died for somebody like me, buddies. They died looking out for each other.”
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Frank Vaisvilas is a former Report for America corps member who covers Native American issues in Wisconsin based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact him at [email protected] or 815-260-2262. Follow him on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank.