Ex-Marines Head Back to Vietnam to End Killing

Frank Noe remembers that cold morning in 1967 when he shipped out of Camp Pendleton bound for combat in Vietnam.

“Nobody had to draft me, I enlisted in the Marine Corps a week after high school,” Noe said. “I didn’t really know why I was going to Vietnam, but I felt it was the right thing to do.”

Nearly 22 years later, Noe is returning to Vietnam. As on his first trip, Noe feels it’s the right thing to do; but this time his mission is entirely different.

Noe and five buddies from the 11th Marine Combat Engineer Battalion are returning to Vietnam for 10 days in January to help the Vietnamese locate some of the estimated 100,000 land mines left buried by the American military.

“The battalion had a reunion in Chicago, and one of the guys said he read that 3,000 people have been killed by those mines since the war ended,” said Noe, 40, a firefighter in Stoughton, Mass. “The idea of innocent kids being killed by those mines we buried bothered a lot of us.”

Gene Spanos, 39, a police lieutenant in Rosemont, Ill., cautioned that the privately financed trip does not mean the six have misgivings about their Vietnam service.

“We’re all very proud that we went to Vietnam as Marines, but the killing from that war has got to stop,” Spanos said. “I looked at a roster of the 200 guys who went through boot camp with me at MCRD in San Diego and realized 75% of them didn’t make it home alive.”

The group, which includes a farmer from Long Island, a maintenance man from Roxbury, Mass., a manager of an electrical sign company from Manchester, Conn., and a retired lieutenant colonel from Davidsville, Md., met Oct. 24 in New York with the Vietnamese representative to the United Nations.

If the trip is successful, Spanos hopes to interest the Army Corps of Engineers in launching a government-sponsored effort to unearth the deadly mines, which averaged five inches in diameter and were used to guard bases and cut off trails.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, the group received documents concerning the number and general location of the mines, although the Pentagon said the actual placement maps have been lost. Under terms of their travel plans approved by the federal government, the six cannot participate in the actual defusing of mines.

“We want to walk the area with our Vietnamese guides to give them an idea of where and how to look,” Spanos said. “Imagine that: former enemies walking over the same battlefield, trying to make sure nobody else dies.”

Plastic Fever Season

To counteract the seductive call of plastic, the San Diego arm of the National Center for Financial Education has developed a warning label for credit cards--”Warning: Overuse Can Be Dangerous!”

“The assault on the consumer by the banks, savings-and-loan institutions and credit card companies is unprecedented,” said NCFE Vice President Paul Richard. “The forces trying to get the consumer to overspend have to be opposed somehow.”

Richard, who was bankrupt at age 25 before becoming a consumer activist, is furious at a plan by Visa U.S.A. to inject a lottery-style fervor into Christmas buying by picking up the tab for 10,000 randomly selected purchases nationwide. The goal is to goad credit card use to new heights.

“It’s shameful what the forces of spending will do to get us in debt,” Richard said. “Someone has to fight them.”

Calling All Barbaras

The Third Annual St. Barbara’s Day Fete is set for Monday at Rainwater’s Restaurant in San Diego, open to all women named Barbara.

“There’s no reason behind it except an opportunity to celebrate who you are,” explained organizer Barbara Lord, who runs her own public relations agency. “I don’t understand it, but somehow there’s something intimate about sharing a name.”

This year’s invited guest of honor (who has yet to RSVP): Barbara Bush. For music, a recording of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann,” naturally.