John Fortier's Peace Vigil

Dear Reader, John Fortier is a Korean War veteran (this war was fought from 1950 - 1953), a husband, a father, a grandfather and a great-grandfather. He is also a retired school teacher.

Since March, 2003 just before U.S. President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, John has conducted a peace vigil every Friday evening in Redondo Beach (Los Angeles area) at the busy corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Knob Hill Avenue (KH), appealing to the consciences of others to help stop the U.S.'s wars.

What follows is John's description of a 60 ish man who briefly attended a recent vigil. This man regrets not having served in the Vietnam War (approximately 1964 - 1975), for as he expressed to John, he missed out on all the camaraderie the U.S. soldiers shared during that time.

John feels this man doesn't really understand the horrors of war, doesn't understand the terrible result of the Vietnam War nor other aspects of this camaraderie that soldiers share. 
 
I'm a little slow trying to write this down because it's not something I have any experience with and it's really a very emotional event. But I think the 'story' is worth telling, even if it isn't told very well, because if I can get the essence of it across there are some people who might find some relief reading it.
You know I do my 'protesting' from 4 to 5 pm during the winter, and I have a bunch of paraphernalia to haul around and set up by 4. My stuff includes my folding-seat-with-flagpole-holder; the War Is Not The Answer and Veterans For Peace combination sign; the Peace Is Patriotic and War Is A Racket combination sign; my two-piece Peace sign flag pole and the flag.
Toss in a kid's lunch bag with water, some Peace pins and candy, a jacket and scarf and it adds up. To get all this onto the corner where I sit, I drive down the parking lot, put all the stuff over the 5 ft. chain link fence, then drive back to a fence opening, park the car and walk back to the corner on the sidewalk. 
Well last Friday, Dec. 27, 2013, when I was starting to put things over the fence, I noticed a guy walking up Nob Hill towards PCH - 'my corner'. It takes me a little while to transfer everything from where I unloaded it to the other side of the fence because if anything breaks, comes untaped or unstapled, it's out of the protest for the night.
So I'm methodically reaching over the fence as far as I can and lowering everything as far as I can before dropping them as carefully as possible. Obviously this is taking some time, and as I'm doing it I see the guy slowly making his way to the corner and, slowing as he goes, start south on PCH. I know he is watching me every step of the way, and it wouldn't have surprised me to learn that he was thinking, "What the hell is that nut-case (meaning me) doing out here?"
+++++++++++++ To be continued.
I'm putting my last piece or two of gear on the ground across the fence and am ready to turn my back on the man and drive to the fence opening, park, and walk down to the corner. I want to set things up, take my seat, and raise the Peace flag by 4 pm, and it's getting close to that. 
But as I start to turn away from the guy I glance back over my shoulder and see something I really don't want to see. His mouth is moving. The guy is talking to me. But with time-worn and slight service connected loss, I can't hear a damned thing but cars whizzing by. 
I'm tempted to just wave him off and go about my little setting up routine, but I'm not comfortable with doing that, so I walk over and tell him I couldn't hear what he has said, and I'm in a bit of a hurry. The next seven or eight minutes involved one of the most profound, emotional 'service related' experiences I ever had.
It started off with familiar, almost annoying questions; are you a vet; what service were you in; were you in Korea or Viet Nam; were you in combat; what did you do. Short answers: yes, I'm a vet; U.S. Air Force; I was in Korea; yes, I was in combat; I was a gunner in a B-26.
He just stood there and his eyes watering a little bit. That is not the kind of thing I have ever seen anywhere for any reason not involving a death or tragedy. I think I might have stood there dumbfounded until dark, or it rained, or he left. Nothing occurred to me to do or to say. Finally, he said, "I didn't serve."
In my imagination he shrank when he said that. His eyes were full, his voice was faint and sad, and he just looked weak and tired and guilty. I was stll frozen solid and after a few seconds he said it again. "I didn't serve." And added, "I missed it be a year."
What a relief ! Here was something I could deal with, something in my realm of experience. I had left college to volunteer, but a lot of people I knew had gotten deferments for one reason or another. (Vice President Cheney got FIVE deferments. According to one report I read about him, he said he 'had more important things to do'. ) Some folks I knew hadn't gotten deferments, and they didn't go to Canada; they just trusted to luck and didn't get called. Some weren't so lucky, and some of them died.
Having gone to Korea is certianly not something I'm proud of.The best result of going is that it tends to give me some credibility or justification ('street creds') for my opinions. Most vets Ive met, in my vigil/protester role, are pretty much in agreement with me, especially the ones who are combat vets. Guys who passed out pillow cases in Nebraska tend to be a little more pugnacious, 'if you get my drift'. 
So I told this  gentleman, of around 60 maybe, nicely dressed in a casual way, that he had, in my opinion, nothing at all to regret about not having gotten involved in the complete disaster commonly referred to as the Korean Police Action. President Truman didn't get Congressional consent, so it wasn't called a 'war'. And it was the first war-ish, but not the last, event that ended in a draw - not a victory and not a peace. Just sort of a 'time out' from killing people. And after three years of killing and dying, it ended at essentially the same place it started: the 38th parallel.
His guilt, regret and pain fired up a rant from me about some of the stupid, destructive, wasteful, happenings I could recall. Korea is a paradigm of inefficient, poorly motivated, planned and conducted activities we've involved ourselves in since. For example, Mr. Rumsfeld said that 'you don't go to war with the army you want; you go to war with the army you have.' That evil, mouthy, shallow-thinking bastard couldn't grasp the possible alternative of NOT going to war at all. 
One result of his eagerness to get the war started in Nam was deadly, out-dated and inadequate protection for the soldiers in combat on the ground: personal armor (bullet-proof vests); protective head-gear; and armored vehicles. An early vehicle called the Humvee was made primarily of aluminum and was flat bottomed. Aluminum is nice for keeping the weight down, but for bullet-stopping it's not so good. The flat bottom might have been easier and cheaper to manufacture, but its poor ground clearance required it to pretty much stay on roads, which is where IED's were waiting. 

This seemed to surprise the strategists, the higher-ups in the chain of command. The poor vehicle occupants expected it, and the enemy hoped for and planned on it.
Anyway, I told the fellow that U.S.pilots in Korea were told sometimes to not return with bombs. If we couldn't hit assigned targets or find good alternatives, we were to just get rid of them anywhere. This was the same organization that could, and sometimes did, charge for a lost piece of equipment or clothing, like flight jackets or sunglasses. But a 500 pound bomb. Hell, drop it in some poor gook's rice paddy ~ no charge. The guy was looking less tragic every time I made a comment. "Really?" He said that every time I told another real life anecdote that reflected the ugly truth of things that really happened.

 

By the time I said I had to get back to setting up my gear on the corner, I think he was pretty much at peace with himself. He had gone from saying that he hadn't served to saying that he had felt so guilty for so long and now he didn't feel so bad anymore. That was the miserable, guilty man I'd met a few minutes earlier. If only guys like he was at first could find self-forgiveness somehow. Maybe they should seek out and talk with some vets. It worked for this guy.