by Ulf "Ron" Heller, RVN Jul 68 - Jan 70
Copyright 1999

A SHORT BIOGRAPHICAL LOOK AT RON HELLER

I am an attorney in private practice in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. I am an early "baby boomer" with two sons, Eric, who was graduated from Yale in May 97 and Mark, a film-making major at the University of Oklahoma.

I recently hung up the "green suit" after many years in the U.S. Army (includes Viet Nam Memoirs) and the USAR and relish the chance to smoke, joke and tell lies with former comrades in arms. My hobbies are varied and include travel, reading military history and SCUBA diving.

As I sit down to reminisce about events that happened almost three decades ago, I find that my recollections are like looking at a photo album -- a series of images. As more and more of these images stream into my consciousness and as I arrange them into chronological order, they coalesce into the framework of these memoirs.

For you, that were not there, beware the ramblings of those who profess to tell you what it was like in "the Nam." Keep in mind that all they can do is to tell you what it was like in their unit, in their few square kilometers of Southeast Asia at the time they were there. That is all I can attempt to do. The word "my" in the title is meant to limit my comments in area and in time. I do not know what the Vietnam War was like, only my little piece if it.

Although my Vietnam service was a high point in my life, I am not what I call a professional veteran. I have only been to a handful of veteran's gatherings, where I have seen too many vets whose lives seemed to have ended with their service. I was lucky and make no apology for it.

I came out of the war more or less physically and mentally intact. A reader of what follows will see that I did not endure the terrible combat such as befell Hal Moore and the 7th Cav at LZ-Ray or the Marines in Hue. I arrived at rather a good time for survival -- after Tet '68 and left before the Cambodian incursion in 1970. I was geographically as well as chronologically blessed. I was too far south to get involved at Fire Support Bases Rita, Julie and Dot and the Fishhook, yet too far north to get involved in nastiness in the Delta. To those expecting tales of blood and guts, sorry 'bout that.

On the other hand, lest you think by reading my stories that the war was much like Hogan's Heroes, it was not. It was nasty, hot, sweaty, mind-numbing work, punctuated with occasional brief periods of intense fear, all under laid by constant, ever-present tension. Human nature forces us to forget much of that and concentrate on the lighter side of our time in the barrel.

These stories are all true, at least as I remember them. I can only hope that I an not relating things as I wished them to be. I have always admired and perhaps suspected those who seem to remember everybody they ever met and everything they ever did. I am ashamed and embarrassed that I can remember the names of so few of my comrades in arms, those young men for whom I was responsible and upon whom I depended.

I dedicate this work to my two sons, Eric and Mark, in the firm knowledge that they would acquit themselves well if their country needed their service and in the fervent hope that they will never be called on to do so. Although I dedicate it to them, I wrote it for me and for all those who for whatever reason fought in Vietnam.

 

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