News-Info-Alerts

Re: Families Returning to Vietnam

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: February 25, 2003

"Local veterans, families traveling to Vietnam

By RAY HACKETT
Norwich Bulletin

NORWICH -- Edward Banas' visit this week to Vietnam is the first of several trips that will bring eastern Connecticut residents to the communist country.

Thomas Burke, a New London County marshal, and Robert Howard II will leave for Vietnam March 1 as part of a group from Sons and Daughters in Touch, a nonprofit group of children of Vietnam veterans killed during the war. The group hosts annual Father's Day ceremonies at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington and organizes trips to Vietnam occasionally.

Robert Howard Sr., one of a dozen Norwich residents killed in Vietnam, was fatally wounded by small arms fire June 10, 1969, in Thua Thien, just six months after arriving in the country. His son, Robert, now 37, was 4 at the time.

"I've gotten to know him," the younger Howard told the Norwich Bulletin in an interview last April. "But it's always through other people's eyes. I want to find the final pieces for myself. I need to go where my father was killed."

SDIT's organizes trips for family members, providing them with the opportunity to visit the battlefields and learn about the country where their fathers fought. It also provides an opportunity to meet the people their fathers fought for -- and against. The organization acknowledges it is not a trip for everyone.

It is closure for many, curiosity for some.

And for others, it is a trip that will rekindle memories long forgotten.

Burke, a Vietnam veteran, agreed to accompany Howard on the trip but admitted in that same interview last April it was not something he would have done on his own.

"I never had any thought or desire to go back," Burke said. "But when he asked me to go with him, I'd said I would. I'm sure it will be good for him, maybe for me."

U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, also will visit Vietnam later this year.

Simmons served in Vietnam in the U.S. Army from April 1967 through December 1968 and then again as a member of the CIA from November 1970 through August 1972.

"Some of that experience was traumatic," he said. "But I think it's time for me to go."

Simmons' trip, an official congressional visit in late April, is primarily to visit with officials involved in the search and recovery of remains of the Missing in Action -- and specifically those of Waterford native, Capt. Arnold Holm. In April, members of the Defense Department's Office of POW/MIA will begin investigating two sites outside of Hue where it is believed Holm's helicopter crashed in1972.

"As a Vietnam veteran, it is critical that we continue to search and bring back the remains of those who died there, and that includes heroes like Capt. Arnie Holm," Simmons said. "Secondly, as a person who served there the idea of returning to a country that I saw only in war is, well, pretty dramatic. I expect there will be a lot of emotion. But I think it's time for me to go."

rhackett@norwichbulletin.com

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