Veteran Remembers the Day Sgt. Johnnie Mitchell Wahl Died

Vietnam Veteran meets fallen soldier’s family
Port Lavaca Wave
By MELONY OVERTON
Jul 5, 2017

Holmes’ fellow soldier and friend Sgt. Johnnie Mitchell Wahl was shot in the neck and died in Holmes’ arms.

It was Thanksgiving Day 1969. Weldon Holmes and his platoon were in Quang Tri Province in Vietnam not too far from the demilitarized zone.

“We were sitting around arguing over who was going to get the peaches and the pound cake out of the C-rations that went along with the turkey and dressing. The lieutenant came and said, ‘Why don’t you all load up,’” into armored personnel carriers, Holmes said.

Leading up to that fateful day, Holmes had facilitated seven days of R and R (rest and recuperation) to Sydney Australia to celebrate his 21st birthday Nov. 20.

“I really didn’t want to come back, but I couldn’t see leaving friends and brothers that…you get real close when you have to depend on somebody to protect your life 24/7. I got back to my unit on Nov. 23,” he said.

The platoon watched as jets 3,000 meters away flew their missions.

“You could still feel the ground shake. We got off (out of the carriers) to pick up bodies (of the enemy). We tried to do the right thing by leaving them for their families because the Viet Cong came from that area,” he said. “Arms were here. A leg was there next to a torso mutilated from explosions.”

“I was the only one to call them about Johnnie. They were told his whole company had been wiped out and that the ones who died were missing in action, but that made me mad because he (Johnnie) was never missing in action. We didn’t leave them behind because their bodies would have been mutilated so badly if we did,” Holmes said.read more here

For veterans in rural areas, health care can be a battle

For veterans in rural areas, health care can be a battle

Associated Press
Posted: Sunday, June 12, 2011

WASHINGTON • Frank Munk earned his veteran's medical benefits more than four decades ago in Quang Tri province, a hard-fought, bloody piece of ground in Vietnam. Yet he doesn't always choose to use them.

Munk, 64, a truck mechanic from western Kansas, instead spends $2,500 out of his own pocket on a private doctor for such things as hearing tests. It's either that or drive nearly 300 miles to a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Wichita or Denver.

"I can't afford to take two days off," said Munk, who's self-employed. "The VA care is getting cost-prohibitive for people in the rural areas because of the time, and a lot of them can't drive themselves."

Other veterans who live beyond America's cities and suburbs share Munk's dilemma. Long distances and restrictive rules have become obstacles to health care for many of the more than 3 million rural veterans enrolled in the VA health system. They account for 41 percent of enrollees.
But the agency's effort to aid rural veterans has other problems as well. An April internal VA audit found that it couldn't determine whether much of the money spent on rural health care in recent years did any good.

The VA Office of Inspector General, the agency's internal watchdog, concluded that the VA "lacked reasonable assurance" that its use of $273 million of the $533 million in rural health funding it received in 2009 and 2010 had "improved access and quality of care" for veterans.

"We basically couldn't tell how effective each of these projects was because of the lack of project performance measures," said Gary Abe, a director in the inspector general's office who oversaw the audit. "The report's message was the VA couldn't determine if it was money well spent."
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For veterans in rural areas health care can be a battle

Decades later, war's aftermath still is deadly

Decades later, war's aftermath still is deadly

By John MacCormack - Express-News HUE, Vietnam – During the Vietnam War, American bombers dropped millions of tons of ordnance on the country, exceeding the Allied bombardment during World War II.

Artillery units from both sides fired countless rounds of heavy munitions. Massive amounts of other explosives, from land mines to mortar rounds, also were expended in the conflict.

The munitions still haunt Vietnam. Since fighting stopped more than 30 years ago, more than 100,000 Vietnamese have been killed or injured by unexploded ordnance.

“The war has never ended for them. I had no idea of the incredible amount of unexploded ordnance. It was a real eye-opener,” Army veteran George Whitehouse said.

Whitehouse and a group of Americans are on a weeklong tour of Vietnam sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.

On Thursday, they toured Quang Tri Province, which has one of the highest concentrations of unexploded ordnance in the country, with an estimated 80 percent of the land affected.

The delegation, including Spurs chairman Peter Holt and retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, saw firsthand the horrific after-affects of a bloody conflict that for United States combat forces ended in 1973.
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