Countywide : A Reunion to Distance the ‘Shame’

Larry (Bear) D. Hughes watched his friend Ralph Harter go down in a hail of enemy gunfire while fighting in the jungles of Vietnam 24 years ago.

“He got shot up pretty bad,” Hughes said. “He was a mess when I carried him to the helicopter that took him to Japan for medical treatment, and I never heard from him again. I didn’t know if he lived or died.”

But in 1991, at the third annual Vietnam Veterans Reunion, Hughes saw Harter, who had been living in Canton, Ohio. It was a touching moment as the two army buddies embraced and talked about the past 22 years of their lives.

“We talked for hours and we held on to each other until we squeezed the breath out of each other,” Hughes, 45, said. “You got to remember, I thought he was dead.”

On Sunday, the fifth reunion, sponsored by the Brothers of Vietnam, will take place at El Centro Park in La Habra. Hughes, who founded Brothers of Vietnam a decade ago, said he expects about 5,000 people to show up. Last year’s event attracted more than 3,000 veterans and their families.

The all-day gathering will feature a USO show, a memorial service in remembrance of all those who died in the war, prisoners of the war and those missing in action. The park will be converted into a base camp, complete with military vehicles and camouflage. About a dozen Vietnamese organizations have also been invited to the reunion.

Hughes said the event is being held to give the soldiers, who were greeted with “boos” and insults when they returned from the Vietnam War, a chance to shed their feelings of shame and replace them with feelings of pride.

His eyes welled up as he recalled painful memories from 1967 to 1969 when he carried out his missions as a member of the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol.

“Our job was to sneak in where the enemy was and take care of business,” Hughes said. “We would search and destroy.”

But destruction wasn’t everything his team focused on. The Fullerton resident remembered the time when he helped deliver a baby. The mother had been raped by a Viet Cong soldier and was abandoned by her family, he said.

“Her village people were taking her far away to get rid of her and all of a sudden, she goes into hard labor,” he said. “She had the baby at the Mekong Delta as gunfire was erupting above the bank and then I sent her to a Navy refuge to be taken care of.”

Though Hughes received a Bronze Star for that and many other awards--including five Purple Hearts, several Silver Stars and the Distinguished Service Cross--he said he felt less than worthy because he faced hostility on his return.

Nineteen years of counseling later, Hughes, who works at Knott’s Berry Farm in the entertainment department, decided to organize the annual reunions as a way to offer hope and support.

“Many Vietnam veterans have a lot of problems because they’ve had to put up a wall covering their shame because we were spit on and constantly told we were losers and failures in society,” he said. “The reunion helps us come out of hiding and say, ‘Hey, I’m a Vietnam vet and I’m proud of it.’ It’s time the Vietnam veterans get some respect.”