GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – 3 days away from leaving home and heading back to Vietnam. It’s a trip Bob Stillman has been thinking about for months.
But this Army veteran has a bit of a different perspective than the 50 or so others who’ll be making the trip.
Stillman spent his early adult life in the U-S Army. His year in Vietnam doesn’t stand out as much as it does for the others because it was all part of a long military career. But that doesn’t mean it was uneventful.
67-year-old Bob Stillman got to Vietnam in 1969. At the time, he wasn’t even old enough to vote.
“I just turned 18 when I went to Vietnam. I joined when I was 17 so it was an eye-opening experience for a kid who didn’t know what went on outside our borders.”
And he was put in harm’s way as part of the 25th Infantry pretty quickly in the jungles near the Cambodian border, about 50 miles north of Saigon.
“We spend most of our time out in the boonies. We did patrols during the day and ambushes at night.”
As you might expect, they took a lot of fire on those patrols and every day was one of survival.
“We thought every day about getting through that day so that we could get to the end of the tour.”
Stillman was wounded, but figures he got away in pretty good shape.
“It’s all relative you know. I was wounded, but I had friends that had it much worse than I did. Were killed and wounded badly.”
He and his buddies kind had a mindset ….sort of a rules of the road to help them get through.
“Our thought was if we get killed in the first 6 months, not a problem. But the last 6 months than it’s our own fault.”
He says he’s has made peace with that time of his life…credits the support he received from the military as helping him through.
“I stayed in the army so I had people to talk to every day about my experience. I didn’t end up with some of the issues that some of the vets had long term. I stayed in the army for 22 years.”
Bob Stillman says he’s looking forward going back to see where his main camp was and the people and places he didn’t get to see during the war.
“I don’t hold any animosity towards them. They were just trying to protect their country.”
Follow the stories, interviews, pictures, and videos of this Old Glory Honor Flight over the next few weeks by the checking out the ‘Return To Vietnam’ hub at wtaq.co.
