OREGON, Ohio — Wednesday is Vietnam Veterans Day. This year, it's also the 50th anniversary of when the last U.S. troops left Vietnam after serving in an unpopular war.
Many veterans, most of them now in their 70s, felt they did their duty for their country whether drafted or not.
Bob Stewart of Oregon, Ohio, enlisted with the Army infantry to stay near his brother who had been drafted. That didn’t work out. His brother was shipped to Germany for his tour and Stewart wound up in Vietnam spring of 1970.
“I am not Rambo.” he said. “My muscle won’t keep me alive. It’s what’s up here (in my head) because you have to outsmart the enemy. And you've gotta care enough about them too, because you live by the gun and you die by the gun.”
Stewart served with the 25th Infantry, and later the 1st Air Cavalry. As a tall, skinny kid, he wound up getting recruited to be a "tunnel rat," crawling into holes with rats and snakes. Sometimes he'd find traps.
Sometimes, he'd find the enemy.
"Took a concussion grenade, throw it in the hole, hand you a .45 and a flashlight. (They said) get in there and start shooting,'" Stewart recalled. "I said, 'well, how do I get out? Wait a minute, what’s this rope for?'"
That rope around his waist would be used to pull him back out.
"And what if I don't get shot? 'Then keep shooting until you find an exit,'" Stewart said. "On-the-job training."
He was shot in Cambodia but still fought with distinction to earn a bronze medal with valor.
While he did come home with PTSD symptoms, he felt going back to Vietnam four years ago helped heal some of the wounds.
He went to places like Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang, Khe Sahn and Cu Chi, where he saw the old tunnels. He even met some North Vietnamese soldiers.
"I went there to help fight for their right to choose what they wanted, if they want to be communist, have at it. We shouldn't impose our will on them, our way of life and nobody else should impose their way of life on them, communist or not communist," Stewart said, of his service. "But we were willing to fight for them for their God-given right to choose what they wanted to be. We were fighting for our buddy, the guy next to us."
Stewart is in the Ohio Military Hall of Fame and married with three grown boys. He retired from a career with the railroad and says he helps family and friends to stay busy.