Vietnam veterans reconnect after 53 years

It had been 53 years since Jesus Rodriguez Garcia had last talked to his Army buddy, but he was determined to see him one more time.

Garcia drove almost 1,000 miles last month to reconnect with mechanic Richard Howell.

“Jesse” Garcia is known around Wilson as a truck driver who hauled tobacco for Forbes Transfer Company for 38 years.

“The people of Wilson know me, but they don’t know what I have been through,” Garcia said. “All they know is, ‘There’s that truck driver.’”

The Bailey man got the job in 1973, two years after returning home from a tour in Vietnam.

Garcia had served as a helicopter mechanic and as a crew chief door gunner on a Bell UH-1 “Huey” helicopter.

For years, Garcia wondered what happened to Howell, a fellow Army veteran he served with from 1970 to 1971.

A Nash County Sheriff’s Office deputy used the internet to help find Howell in Cabool, Missouri.

“I just had to see him, and I went,” Garcia said.

FAST FRIENDS

“We got drafted, both of us,” said Garcia, a native of Texas.

As 19-year-old Army recruits, Jesse Garcia and Richard Howell made fast friends.

The two went to helicopter mechanic training together at the U.S. Army Aviation Logistics School at Fort Eustis, Virginia, in October 1970.

“He knew everything about me, and I knew everything about him,” Garcia said. “He told me, ‘Jesse, our next place we go to, I hope you go with me.’ So we made a buddy-buddy system. They say we are brothers from another mother.”

Arriving in Kon Tum, Vietnam, in 1970, the two men went to work fixing and maintaining helicopters for the 170th Assault Helicopter Company and then for the 129th Assault Helicopter Company near Pleiku.

‘YOU ARE GOING TO GET KILLED’

In the middle of the tour, Garcia visited a gunship platoon and asked a sergeant in the unit if he needed a crew chief door gunner.

“He said, ‘No, not right now, but I will keep you in mind,’” Garcia recalled.

About a week or two later, the sergeant came looking for Garcia.

The helicopter’s 18-year-old door gunner had just been killed.

The sergeant asked if Garcia still wanted to join the crew, and Garcia agreed.

Garcia told Howell that he planned to go to a gunship platoon.

“He said ‘What in the world is wrong with you? You know you are going to get killed,’” Garcia remembers. “He said, ‘Don’t you want to go see your dad, your mom, your sister your brother, your girlfriend?’ And all this time he’s crying.”

Garcia went to supply and got a helmet for his new job.

The supply sergeant told Garcia there was only one.

“‘The only one I got is from that kid got killed the other day. You want that one?’” the supply sergeant asked.

“I said, ‘I’m going to take his place, so yes,’” Garcia replied.

Garcia noticed that the little communications microphone on the helmet was full of dried blood.

“I got me a tooth brush and I cleaned it off and washed it all off,” Garcia said.

Garcia recalls the duty in the helicopter manning a machine gun by the open door as being terrifying.
“Somebody’s got to do it,” Garcia said.

‘THIS IS GOING TO PROTECT YOU’

During his entire tour, Garcia said he wore a St. Christopher necklace that his mother’s friend gave him.

“This St. Christopher necklace,” the lady had told Garcia before he had deployed, “you wear this when you do everything. When you take a shower, don’t take it off.

“This is going to protect you.”

Garcia took the advice and wore the necklace the entire tour.

In November 1971, he ended his tour.

“Me and a bunch of other young kids got on that plane coming home,” Garcia said, crying. “Oh my God, that feeling when that plane takes off, that’s incredible. There ain’t no better feeling than that feeling of coming home, but it is like they say. You left Vietnam, but Vietnam ain’t left you. (President Ronald) Reagan said a long time ago in the ’80s, ‘You Vietnam veterans, try to forget.’ Well, some of us can and some of us cannot.”

LIKE FAMILY

The memories of his buddy Howell also never left Garcia.

Garcia said that serving with Howell made them like brothers.

“He is like my family. You want to know they are OK,” Garcia said, crying. “I had to see him. I told him I had to see him before he kicked the bucket.”

Garcia drove into the country’s heartland and called Howell when he arrived in Cabool.

“Of course, we cried,” Garcia said. “I said ‘Richard, I had to come see you man.’”

Howell told Garcia that he was glad to see his old friend.

Garcia shared pictures with Howell, who had none from the war.

In the intervening years, each man has lost adult children, and each suspects that their deaths had something to do with their  exposure to Agent Orange, a cancer-causing defoliant used during the war.

“I’m glad you come see me Jesse,” Howell told Garcia.

“He is still the same laughter. Just like he was. He is a real funny guy,” Garcia said. “It seemed like he couldn’t get mad. He was just a happy-go-lucky guy.

“He’s always been that way.”

Garcia said some Vietnam veterans go back just to visit.

“I say I can’t do it’ Garcia said. “Richard said the same thing to me. He said ‘Jesse, some guys go back. I ain’t going back.’ I said ‘I ain’t going back either Richard. I ain’t going back.’”

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