By Ken Wyatt
Writer’s note: I’m a U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam era, though my service overseas was in South Korea in 1970-71. I’m also a Hoosier by birth, but since 2012 I’ve been a resident of Swains Lake in the Concord area. During my years here, I’ve learned much of how this community served and sacrificed through its years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
All over America, Veterans Day will be observed on Monday. Veterans come from great cities and small towns. This article focuses on some veterans from one of the latter – Concord/Pulaski in Jackson County, Michigan.
The Indochina war raged well before active U.S. involvement. The first U.S. combat ground troops arrived on March 8, 1965 – under the Johnson administration. On March 29, 1973, the last U.S. combat troops were withdrawn under the Nixon administration.
During those years, more than 2.7 million Americans served in uniform in Vietnam. More than 50 of Concord’s men were among them. Of all who served there, 58,000-plus Americans were killed in what turned out to be a futile attempt to prevent South Vietnam from being taken over by communists in the North.
Of those deaths, three were young men of Concord – Bobby Jenks and Jim Morgan in 1968 and Tim Ballenger in 1969. A number of others were wounded.
The stories of many Concord men who served in those years have been summarized in a 2009 book compiled by one of their fellow Vietnam vets – Donald E. Winchell. The privately published book, “Vietnam Veterans of Concord, Michigan,” is full of stories and photos. The first three of those featured are of Concord’s three casualties – Jenks, Morgan and Ballenger.
Jim Jones is a Concord veteran whose service with the U.S. Army in ‘Nam began with his enlistment in 1965 – during the early days of the war.
Jones was close to the action, but in the northern part of Vietnam. “I don’t know if we had the right platoon, the right lieutenant, or what, but we kept out of trouble,” he told Winchell. “The right place at the right time, I guess. I never fired a weapon over there except in practice.”
One day his squad heard an intense firefight taking place at a village his squad had visited earlier. The next day, his squad returned to assist. A squad had been virtually wiped out at that village – 17 killed and the rest wounded.
Winchell’s book is full of stories from the surviving veterans he interviewed for the book. There was Robert Weston, an Air Force pilot who flew 127 missions in an F100. There was James Murdock, who wrote that “The day I arrived in Vietnam, my first child was born in Michigan and I didn’t ever find out for two weeks. Then it was another two weeks before I learned it was a girl.” There was Charles “Charlie” Dudek, who was a warrant officer pilot with a recon airplane company, who had the distinction of getting shot down twice in two weeks – yet living to go on serving.
Winchell had his own moments of hell during his service in ‘Nam in 1966. He called the night of Oct. 28 the “most scared I have ever been.” He and a friend had started loading ammunition in a truck in the “second largest ammo dump in the world.”
“All of a sudden we heard small arms fire which doesn’t occur in an ammo dump. We started to run for our trucks and to get our M-14 rifles, helmets and flak vests, when all of a sudden, a huge explosion went off. A huge ball of fire went up into a big mushroom. All of us thought that it was an atomic blast and we were about to die.” The explosion actually broke windows in Saigon, 14 miles away.
Shortly after, a jeep pulled up “with blood all over the inside.” Enemy soldiers had come through the wire fencing, cut the throats of two Americans and blown up the propellant charges for 175 mm shells.
Winchell made it home safely by Christmas of 1966. But his graphic account of some of terrifying moments in Vietnam were not his only memories of service.
He also recalled this: “One of the things that sustained me was the great care packages my mom and others sent me.”
That reference is to a little-known, but valuable support service back home in Concord – the Women’s Service Club. It is a service that deserves mention on Veterans Day.
Jim Jones’ mother, Bertha Jones, was part of that group. The women were mothers with young men serving in Vietnam. Bertha Jones died in 1983, but among the effects she left to son Jim were some items that had to do with the war. Jim was away at war, so had little memory of what his mother was doing back home.
His brother Bob Jones, 10 years Jim’s junior, has clearer memories. He recalls their mother helping to make sloppy Joes at various events. She and others raised money by selling Sloppy Joes and pies so they could send care packages to Concord’s boys in Vietnam. He remembers a couple of other local mothers involved in the service club – Flossie Tech, Dorothy Root, and a Mrs. Akin. When the question was put to an online Facebook group, another name surfaced – Iris Ball.
But apparently Mrs. Jones did more than raise money and send care packages to her son, Jim, and others. Jim found in her effects an MIA bracelet for Lieutenant Junior Grade Lee E. Nordahl, and a 1972 letter she had received from Nordahl’s sister Sharon.
Bertha Jones apparently had acquired one of Nordahl’s bracelets and written to his family in Montana. That MIA bracelet and the letter from a sister more than 50 years ago is a reminder of an aspect of war that is often overlooked.
Sometimes those serving the nation do not return – either dead or alive. They remain in a category that is undetermined: Missing In Action.
Nordahl, a U.S. Navy officer, was the navigator aboard a two-man crew flying a reconnaissance mission over North Vietnam in a Vigilante aircraft when they were shot down on Dec. 20, 1965. The pilot’s remains were recovered, but never those of Nordahl. He is one of 1,587 Americans still listed as Missing In Action from the Vietnam War.
All of Concord’s Vietnam vets were accounted for by the war’s end. But Bertha Jones left a reminder that for some families, there has never been closure. Eventually “her” MIA, Lee Nordahl, was promoted to Lieutenant Commander (LCDR). Today he is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. His name is also inscribed with his fallen comrades on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C.
Yes, his name appears along with the names of three men of Concord, Michigan:
SP4 ROBERT JAMES JENKS
SSG JAMES MARK MORGAN
SP4 TIMOTHY J BALLINGER.
Honor to whom honor is due. America’s veterans.
