Back to Vietnam Before and After

By Robert Wall

This Personal Account of my Life after the Vietnam War and LIVES of others whom I met and made my life livable to this point in 2015.
During the war in Vietnam, I NEVER expected to be alive at this moment in history, and to ENJOY THE FRUITS OF LIFE that GOD has utterly provided me.
I GIVE HIM ALL THE GLORY!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514477205

Robert Wall

SFC E7 Robert Wall, US Army Special Forces Retired: Volunteered for two tours in VN during the VN War, 1965 and 1968. Both times served in the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne). Headquartered at Nha Trang––Approximately 1/2 mile from the city of Nha Trang and approximately one mile from the coastal highway running north and south (beach road).....1965/66. Second tour served with the Military Assistance Command/Special Operations Group–1968/69. He was the Noncommissioned officer in-charge of a Recon Team–Team Alaska....Teams were named after US States. The team consisted of three Americans and nine Montagnards (mercenary troops). The team went on recon missions both in South VN and the country of Laos. The team was headquartered at the Khe Sanh Combat Base a few miles south of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two VNs. The US Marines had control of the base and runway. Special Forces had a small strip of the base facing the country of Laos. When the North Vietnamese were pushed back from the base in April 1968, his Special Forces unit was relocated to Phu Bai–Quite a number of miles south of Khe Sanh and just south of the Old Imperial City of Hue off Highway #1. The teams continued recon missions in South VN and Laos, especially in the Danang area and across the border into the Laos mountains and valleys. In 2004, he and a nephew (Gene Wall) flew to Vietnam with other VN War veterans for a tour of the entire country––Hanoi south to the Mekong Delta area, including the former Khe Sanh Combat Base, Danang, Pleiku, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Can To and other southern cities including towns near the Cambodia border. This was a three-weeks tour. His final thought after the tour –NEVER AGAIN go there.

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Copyright © 2016 by Robert Wall.

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Rev. date: 04/15/2016

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Gail

Our Marriage

Honeymoon

Gail and Work

Move to Gardner

Meetings in Boston

Drive to Nova Scotia

Back to Work for Gail

Drives to Cape Cod and Rhode Island

Drive to Northern Massachusetts and Maine

Concerts

Robin’s Visit

Fateful Day

Back to Gardner

Wall Family Reunion

Meeting Mary Lou/Dane’s Drums

Ed, Rita, and Penny

Mike and Elaine Price

Group Sessions in Boston

Drive Back to North Carolina

Gail’s Sickness

Gail’s Passing

Back to North Carolina

Residing with Robin and Family

New Life Church, Rolesville

Travel Trips

My Move to Cary

My Auto Accident in Raleigh

My First Visit to Sweet Tomatoes, Raleigh

Facial Cancer and Treatment

Attending Capital City Church Of God, Raleigh

Back to Vietnam

Back to The United States

Meeting Fay

Our Marriage

Our Travels

Our Future Travel Plans

Family and Friends’ Sicknesses

Family and Friends’ Passing

Family and Friends’ Sicknesses

My Life’s Best Friends

Lisa’s Passing

Passing of Important Friends

Business Friends and Family, Spiritual and Medical

Family: My Favorites

Driving Trip to Massachusetts

Home Again

Church News

Family and Friends Events: Our Lives

Names and Nicknames: My Time

Back to Israel

Prayer for the Military

World and Church Happenings

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank Gene Wall, my nephew, for his photos taken during our three-week tour of Vietnam in 2004.

I want to thank Nelda Hodge Rose for the photo of my three elder brothers, Ernest, Vernon, and Jack, taken during their young years. Also of Rosa Pulley and Cecil Bell in church at Rolesville (North Carolina) Church of God of Prophecy, October 1998.

Nelda’s father and mother, Haywood and Clarine Hodge, at Preston Bell’s seventy-fifth birthday party, October 1998.

I want to thank my niece Georgia for the photo of her and Guy Biggie’s daughter Autumn and my great-niece.

I want to thank my daughter, Karen, and son, Robin, for the photos and added information used in this writing.

I thank the Almighty God for allowing me to live and enjoy life after all that’s been said and done through the past years.

This is a personal account of my life after the Vietnam War and the lives of others whom I met and made my life livable to this point in 2015.

During the war in Vietnam, I never expected to be alive at this moment in history and to enjoy the fruits of life that God has utterly provided me with.

I give him all the glory!

GAIL

I had been patronizing a restaurant in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, for several years. I’d purchase the local paper and would have a cup of coffee while reading it. This would take some over an hour as different folks would stop and want to chat with me.

I noticed a very attractive lady seemingly in her midforties come in, and I made up my mind that I wanted to meet her. Each time she was there, she had another lady and a small child with her.

I got up enough nerve to walk over and introduce myself to them. The younger lady (Lisa) was her daughter, and the boy (Eric) was Lisa’s child. Eric was about five years old.

Gail invited me to sit with them in their booth as Lisa and Eric sat across us. Gail always had several books with her and read them as much as she could while chatting with Lisa and Eric.

I asked her about the books, and she told me that the books pertained to her work. She said that she and Lisa worked at a home for mentally handicapped kids up to eighteen years of age in the town of Lancaster, approximately five miles east of Fitchburg. Gail was a supervisor there, and Lisa was an attendant in the huge house on the main street near the center of Lancaster. They worked together each shift due to Gail having the only auto in the family.

Sitting there and talking, I found out lots of information about who they were and what they did.

They took Eric to work with them as he got along good with the patients at the home.

I lived on the south side of Fitchburg, and Gail lived on the north side. Up a long and winding street from Main Street, they had a unit on the bottom floor of an apartment building. I lived approximately a mile from them.

The city of Fitchburg is a factory city with a river running west to east through it and mountainous sides along with a railroad that runs alongside the river from the western portion of Massachusetts to North Station in Boston. When I would have an appointment at the VA in Boston, I would drive to the Fitchburg train station for boarding and back to Fitchburg after my appointment. The train stopped at twelve different stations to and from Boston. The last train departed North Station just before midnight with the engine in front, and reaching Fitchburg, the passengers would disembark and the engineer and conductor would walk through the train to the rear car, where the controls that operated the train were, and back the train up the track for approximately half a mile and park it for the balance of the night.

At approximately five the following morning, the train crew would steer the train back to the train station to pick passengers up for the trip to Boston. This routine would be the same Mondays through Fridays, and the departure hours would change for the weekend trips.

I started visiting Gail’s place rather regularly, and we would drive someplace for a meal, sometimes staying at her place to eat, depending on her work hours.

Lisa met Pat, an electrician who lived in downtown Fitchburg with his parents, and he had his own transportation, which was a great help when it came to getting Lisa from one place to another.

It wasn’t long before he moved in with Lisa and Eric. This took a load off Gail as Pat was Lisa’s transportation to someplace other than her job at the home.

We had been going together for approximately five months when Gail asked if I wanted to move in with them.

I had been staying there on and off and purchasing groceries at the Fort Devens commissary for our benefit.

I stayed with them for several months before deciding to sell my place and completely move in with the family. Gail couldn’t go with me to the commissary, being that she wasn’t my wife.

After another month or two, I decided that it was rather crowded at her place, and we decided to look around for another place to live in. We checked the newspaper ads for housing and came across an apartment complex in Leominster which is next door to Fitchburg. We drove to the apartment office and were shown a newly finished apartment which had its own parking spaces.

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Gail sitting on a beach, someplace in Maine, 2002

By this time, we had driven north to Townsend and to a used-car lot on Route 13. There we viewed many autos and Gail picked out a Pontiac Firebird that was dark blue and traded in her old car for it. The Firebird was a beautiful car, and Gail fit right in it.

I had never seen her as happy as when she drove the car off the lot and back to Leominster and her parking place.

The apartment had a living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, and bath with a small outdoor patio.

We rented a small truck and moved all our belongings in and settled down.

I had purchased a new 1985 Cadillac that had an ivory body and black vinyl top from a Caddie dealer in Fitchburg. We used it for trips, and Gail used her Firebird mainly for work and back.

Gail’s mom (Betty McGrath) lived approximately three miles from us in a complex for the elderly in Fitchburg.

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Betty McGrath, Gail’s mom, date unknown

She was in her late seventies and always had a smile on her face. The only time I ever saw her down was when she came sick with shingles. The pain accompanying that sickness was so severe that she was constantly crying.

Several times a week, we would drive to where she lived and check on her and bring her groceries. Gail would knock on her door and she would come to it (crying), and we would slide the groceries she requested inside her door and leave. It took quite a long time for her to get better.

Gail’s brother Bob McGrath and his wife, Barbara, lived in New Hampshire, just a few miles from Nashua, at a storage-rental company. They had an apartment-like place to reside in inside the lot. This way, they could be on duty even though they had regular opening and closing hours. Their immediate family lived in adjoining towns. We would visit Bob and Barbara regularly, stopping in Fitchburg to pick up Betty. Barbara was a great cook, and we always enjoyed visiting them.

Bob was an excellent musician and basically played the organ keyboard.

After several years, they got tired of type work and decided to move to Virginia Beach, Virginia.

We would drive several times a year to visit them, taking Gail’s mom with us.

Her mom was extremely scared of heights, and on the way to Virginia Beach, we would have to drive across the JFK Bridge spanning the Delaware River.

The peak of the bridge is many hundreds of feet above the river. As we’d reach that point, I would look in my rearview mirror and see Mom sitting with her eyes closed. Gail would try to get her to view the surroundings with no luck.

Reaching the Maryland-Virginia border, we would traverse the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel just north of Virginia Beach and wouldn’t take but a few more minutes to arrive at Bob and Barbara’s apartment. We would stay several days with them before leaving for Massachusetts and home.

While in Virginia Beach, we’d eat at several good seafood restaurants and enjoy some fresh and delicious seafood.

Mom was totally aware that we’d have to take the JFK Bridge on the way back to Massachusetts, and she really hated the thought of having to traverse it again. We would be tired from the trip and stay in Virginia Beach, and Gail would lay off her mom and let her enjoy the drive back to Massachusetts.

After about a year, we decided to look for another place to live in and decided to drive to Gardner, which was a town on Route 2 west of the Leominster-Fitchburg line, approximately five miles from both cities. We had driven through Gardner before on driving trips to the western portion of Massachusetts.

We drove through Athol, Orange, Turners Falls, Greenfield and eventually arrived in North Adams, which was relatively close to the New York State border. In that area were beautiful mountains, streams, and rivers.

On our way back, we took a left in Greenfield and drive to Brattleboro, Vermont, and drive onto Route 101 east and across the New Hampshire State line.

Reaching New Hampshire, we continued on Route 101 through Keene until we reached Route 12 and then drive back to the Fitchburg-Leominster area.

On the driving trip through Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire, we stopped at many souvenir shops and maple syrup shops, where Gail purchased a T-shirt symbolizing the area. For my own benefit, I purchased fresh maple syrup after a tour of the maple tree estate that showed how the syrup was produced. Nothing is better on morning pancakes than fresh maple syrup.

We decided to drive to Gardner and look at an apartment that was advertised in our local newspaper. Arriving in Gardner, we drove to the address and found that it was a huge seven-story apartment building that was formerly a coffin-manufacturing company.

We walked to the office and told them why we were there, and we were given a total rundown of the apartment building. Along with a female employee, we walked outside and to the entrance of the first floor.

Once inside, to our left we noticed a balcony that overlooked the entranceway. There was an elevator, which took us to the balcony area, and once we left it, we walked a few feet to the only apartment unit overlooking the entrance and asked to view it.

Inside we walked through a beautiful entranceway and into the living room. The living room and dining area was connected. Off the dining area was the kitchen.

As we walked through the dining area, we noticed that there was a bedroom and at the far end was a bathroom.

We walked back through the living-and-dining area and into a small hallway that had another bathroom to our left plus a closet, and a few feet farther was the master bedroom and closet.

We decided to make the first bedroom into an activity room.

Connected to the living-and-dining room was an outside enclosed-window patio that was above the main street in Gardner. There was enough room in that location for a small dining table, chairs, and an easy chair.

We left the apartment, and the employee walked us down to an underground parking area, where we would have spaces for both our vehicles.

Leaving the parking area, we walked back to the office and signed the lease paperwork for the apartment.

We left Gardner and drove back to Leominster and our apartment. Gail called Lisa and told her what we had found and we would be making plans to move within a few more days.

She called Cheryl, her other daughter, and told her of our plans. Cheryl was single but had two children of her own. I don’t remember Cheryl ever having a real job but taking handouts, including cash. She and her kids were on welfare, and she was never embarrassed about her situation, usually bragging about how she made her living, and that really bothered me. Gail was terribly embarrassed about Cheryl; she was a grown woman but was out of her control.

We rented a U-Haul truck, loaded it up with all our possessions, and drove to Gardner. We unloaded the truck, and Gail followed me back to Leominster. I turned the truck in and got with Gail and drove back to Gardner.

We were totally happy being in our new apartment. We placed furniture in appropriate rooms and decided to drive out for a celebration meal. I think we ended up at the Leominster Denny’s, which was near Searstown Mall, where we needed to visit and purchase a few odds and ends. Then we drove back to Gardner and unloaded her car. It had been a long day, and we decided to straighten out the main bedroom and went to bed.

We woke up the following morning happy, being in our new apartment. Gail had to drive to her work site in Lancaster. Moving to Gardner had made her approximately fifteen miles from