From the air, Army crew chief Joe Barton would take in the sweeping views of white sand and waterfalls dotting the Vietnam coast.
“They’ve got some of the best beaches you’ve ever seen,” said Barton, now 75. “Never got to go them, but they were beautiful to fly over. I would love to go back and see what it looks like now.”
As the U.S. beefed up its role in the years-long Vietnam conflict in the mid-1960s, Barton was part of a helicopter gunship crew, flying combat missions and escorting other American choppers.
They would sometimes fly for 16 to 18 hour stretches, “go to bed, get up the next morning and do it all again.”
“The only time we flew is if somebody was in trouble,” Barton said.
When Barton, then a 22-year-old state highway worker from Waynetown, received his draft notice in 1965, he didn’t know much about the unraveling situation in southeast Asia.
But the numbers of men going into combat was surging, reaching a total of 184,314 by year’s end, up from about 23,000 the previous year. The number of U.S. casualties soared to more than 1,900, compared to 216 in 1964.
Barton would be shipped out with the 174th Aviation Co., setting up base in the coastal city of Qui Nhon (pronounced Quin-YON.) He feared he was “never coming back because a lot of people didn’t make it from Vietnam.”
Barton’s brother, Harvey, who served in the Navy, left the military when Joe went in. The boys’ father, Charles, served with the Navy in World War II.
Back in Waynetown, the family didn’t hear from Barton until his yearlong tour was nearly over. He called his parents while on leave in Tokyo.
“People don’t understand: When you’re over there, how do you write home and tell them what you’ve done when you do the same thing every day. I tried to explain to Mom and Dad, ‘You don’t want to know what I’m doing … it just makes you worry,’” he said.
In the years after returning home, Barton, who retired from Vectren after 37 years as a field supervisor, became active in the American Legion and a local Vietnam veterans group. He helped organize displays of the Vietnam Memorial Travelling Wall in Crawfordsville.
But his children didn’t often ask him about his experiences, and “sometimes I don’t care to talk about it,” he added.
“Everybody thinks we’re murderers and stuff. We’re not. We’re there and trying to stay alive … we don’t make the decisions. That’s all made for us when you’re in the service,” he said.
“You either do it or you get court-martialed, so that’s what it is,” Barton added with a chuckle.
