The Derby Line veteran was
little more than a boy when he left for combat in
Vietnam. When this photo was taken, war for Beauchesne
was only a concept, something he had trained for but had
never experienced. However, he soon learned the horrors
of war.
Disembarking from the airplane in
Burlington on the last leg of a long journey home, Dennis
Beauchesne of Derby Line walked proudly into the airport.
He couldn’t wait to see his parents, or wait to get back
to his boyhood stomping grounds and pick up his life where
he’d left off in 1969 when he went to serve his country.
Now, October 1972, it had been so many months, months in
which he had feared for his life, months in which his
parents feared that dreaded knock at the door with the
news that their son would never again walk among
Vermont’s Green Mountains.
Spotting his parents, Harvey and
Theresa Beauchesne of Derby Line, Dennis waved at them and
stepped up his pace. A happy homecoming? Not quite.
Accosted by a ragtag group of protesters who separated him
from his parents, nothing prepared him for what would come
next. The homecoming suddenly became a lifetime of hurt, a
hurt that runs so deep that he struggles with it to this
day, a hurt that stretches his willingness to forgive.
“They called us baby killers,” Beauchesne said, his
voice still raw with emotion thinking about that first
encounter on Vermont soil. “They spat right in my face.
That bothered me, but what bothered me most is that my
parents saw that. That didn’t set well with them.”
They had been through enough, they didn’t have to see
that, Beauchesne said, noting that not a night had passed
without his parents watching the news in an attempt to
gather any clues about the well-being of their son, one of
three children. Then they had to see him spit on by his
fellow Americans.
“A lot of people don’t realize we
were 18-year-old kids,” Beauchesne said. “We were wet
behind the ears. We were just kids and we grew up to be
men in Vietnam. They attacked the wrong people.”
The Derby Line man refused to fight
with, or debate with, the protesters. No matter what, he
was happy that he was home in Vermont, and he wasn’t
going to let this group steal all of his happiness away.
“I just wiped the spit off my face and told my parents,
‘Let’s go.’”
While he was able to ignore the slurs and wipe the spit
off of his face, those words and actions cut deep into his
soul, reshaping his life forever. What was it that
solicited such reprehensible action from the protesters?
He had sacrificed two years of his life for his country,
one of them serving in the combat zone of Vietnam.
Although he was a battle-hardened, well-trained soldier,
nothing prepared Beauchesne for the treatment he received
when he returned to a country that seemed to hate its
Vietnam veterans, or at least wanted to forget them and
the war that they represented.
“We came home proud,” Beauchesne
said, still obviously proud of his service to his country.
“We had served our country. In return we got nothing.
People wanted to forget us.”
Dennis Beauchesne of Derby Line served in the Vietnam
War, but for him the war isn’t over. Now as commander of
the VFW Post No. 798 in Newport, he fights for the rights
and recognition of all veterans, of all wars.
Now 56 years old, Beauchesne said that
more than three decades after returning home from the war,
he is slowly coming to terms with his tour of duty in
Vietnam and his subsequent treatment. The nightmares and
flashbacks that once filled his nights, sending his mind
racing back to the horrors he experienced in that
Southeast Asian country, are all but gone.
Trained as a flight engineer, Beauchesne was stationed
for much of his two tours in Cantho, Vietnam, located on
the Mekong Delta.
“We lost a lot of men and women over
there,” Beauchesne said. About 58,000 American men and
women died in the war.
In this time of war, he said he thinks it more important
than ever to recognize the sacrifices of America’s
veterans, especially those now returning home.
“I watch the soldiers coming home from Iraq and I
love the fact that people are being so supportive of
them,” Beauchesne said. “They deserve it.”
Now in his second term as commander of the VFW Post No.
798 in Newport, the plumbing and heating specialist works
relentlessly for veterans, making sure their service to
their country isn’t forgotten.
“I just want every veteran to be
remembered,” he said. “This post and myself will work
for any veteran to be remembered. I don’t care what war
they fought.”
His most recent and very public endeavor is his
mission to relocate the World War I monument in Derby just
up the road to the Civil War monument grounds. “We need
to respect all of our veterans who fought in all wars,”
Beauchesne insisted. “They are the ones who gave up
their lives for our freedom. They should be recognized and
not stuffed somewhere.” He leaves no doubt that his
advocacy for the veterans whose names are etched on the
monument comes in part from his experience as a Vietnam
War veteran.
“Those names are people,” he said. “They are my
brothers although I never have met them. Every veteran is
my brother as far as I’m concerned whether they fought
in Korea, Iraq, World War I, World War II, or the Civil
War. They are my family.” He praised the members of the
Derby Select Board and the community for their support for
this project.
He explained that he first started contemplating
moving the World War I monument six years ago when he
first learned of its existence. What bothered him most is
that he learned that he wasn’t alone in not knowing the
significance of the monument that had stood in front of
the school since 1941.
“I went to Derby Academy and I
didn’t even know what it was,” he said. “Most of the
people I talked to didn’t know it existed. Others
didn’t know what it was. They thought it had something
to do with the academy or the Dailey library.”
A chain smoker, a habit that he picked up while in
Vietnam, thanks to a military policy that distributed free
cigarettes to the troops, Beauchesne said during the
interview for this article that he had never publicly
shared his memories of the war, partly out of fear of
conjuring up memories that he had long ago buried. He
seldom even talked about the war with his family.
Beauchesne flew a CH-47 Chinook while in Vietnam. Here
he is seen working on his aircraft.
“There are some things about Vietnam
I can talk about,” he said, “but most of it I can’t.
It just brings up too much.” Throughout the interview,
he occasionally struggled with his emotions as he tried to
share his memories. But when the interview was done, the
combat veteran said it felt good to finally feel
comfortable enough to share his memories with the world.
So why after so many years would a veteran who has
struggled to find peace with the war share his memories
and hurts so publicly? Although it wasn’t an easy
decision, Beauchesne said he knows it is the right one.
Besides proving therapeutic for himself, he said he thinks
that it’s time that Vietnam War veterans such as himself
come to grips with their war experiences and stop
punishing themselves with silence that was forced on them
by people who refused to appreciate or acknowledge their
sacrifices when they returned home decades ago. He added
that it is time that veterans, including himself, take
pride in their service to their country, the same way that
veterans of other wars have been able to do from the day
they arrived home.
“In almost 40 years this is the
first time to say that I’m a Vietnam veteran and I’m
damn proud of it,” he said enthusiastically. He recently
put a sticker on his truck signifying that he is a
“Vietnam veteran,” something he would never have done
in earlier years. Beauchesne said he knows that his
undying support of veterans is rooted in Vietnam and the
reception he received when he returned home.
“I think that is the reason I fight so hard. I fought a
hard war in Vietnam and I’m home and I’m still
fighting a hard war. I shouldn’t feel that way. I know a
lot of other veterans feel that way. A lot of us never
came back from Vietnam. It has affected our lives forever.
And these young kids who are fighting the war in Iraq,
it’s going to affect their lives forever. Some of us
Vietnam veterans had enough gumption to pull ourselves out
of it. There are a lot of veterans who can’t pull
themselves out of it.”
By the time Beauchesne, a 1969 graduate of Derby Academy,
was a senior in high school, he had little doubt that his
future would most likely involve military service. The war
in Vietnam was raging, and he had a draft number of four.
It wasn’t if the draft would come for him, it
was when. In hopes of having somewhat of a choice
of military occupations, he enlisted in the Army instead
of waiting for the draft to come to him. He wasn’t
enlisting to stay out of Vietnam. For that matter, while
other people were trying to avoid going to Vietnam, some
of them dodging the draft, that’s just what the recent
high school graduate wanted to do, to serve his country.
He got his wish that he doesn’t regret to this day.
“I’ll do anything for my country,” he said. “If I
was asked to go over there again for my country, I’d do
it in a heartbeat.”
Thousands of Americans perished in the jungles of
Vietnam.
Following training, Beauchesne was
temporarily stationed in Doctam, Vietnam, north of Saigon.
“When we landed it was 110 degrees,” he recalled.
“All I could hear is bullet fire and mortar rounds. For
about a month I didn’t want to be there. I just wanted
to go hide somewhere. But I got use to it. You did what
you had to do to survive because I wanted to come home.”
Doctam proved only a temporary stopover for Beauchesne.
From there he went to Cantho in the Mekong Delta, assigned
to the Army 271 Aviation Company. Within two weeks of
landing in Cantho, the Derby Line man learned how close
he’d come to dying. “I was lucky because two weeks
after I left Doctam, it was overrun. No one survived.”
Beauchesne was trained as a flight engineer, but because
of a lack of pilots in one of the war’s most risky
professions, he soon found himself piloting a huge CH-47
Chinook helicopter. These helicopters are not the speedy
type of helicopters used to get in and out of hot
situations. They were slow moving transport helicopters
able to carry large loads of military equipment or up to
50 servicemen.
“We were an easy target,” he said.
The young man who only a year or so
earlier had graduated from high school in rural Vermont
soon found himself transporting equipment, supplies,
ammunition, and troops into the combat zone. He also
ferried injured soldiers out of harm’s way to get
medical treatment. Unlike other wars, Beauchesne said
there were no “front lines” in Vietnam. Virtually the
entire country was a front line.
His luck almost ran out during an ammunition run. Hit by
enemy fire, Beauchesne struggled to land his aircraft.
“Things were happening so fast,” he said, reliving the
deadly plunge. “It happened so fast. I knew that as long
as those blades kept turning you’d crash, you’d hit
hard, but you should survive. I was just trying to save my
helicopter and my crew.” His crew chief was killed in
the crash when the propeller penetrated the cabin of the
helicopter.
Once on the ground the fight had only just begun. “When
we were down we were taking wicked fire power. We were
being shot at left and right but the gunships came in and
took care of that and they got us out of there.”
Most South Vietnamese were happy to have their
American protectors in their country during the war,
Beauchesne said. He often wonders what happened to some of
his South Vietnamese friends following the American
pullout in 1975.
For his actions he was
awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service. The
following is an excerpt from his award: The Bronze
Star Medal is presented to Specialist Four Dennis R.
Beauchesne who distinguished himself by meritorious
service in connection with military operations against a
hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam.
People say that the helicopter crews had a dangerous job,
but Beauchesne said that he thinks he had it far easier
than the ground troops, the men who had to literally hack
their way through the dense juggle in search of an
illusive enemy. He recounted the time that he volunteered
for his one and only foot patrol in the jungle.
“That was stupid, I’ll never do that again, I’d
rather be in the air,” he said. “It was so hot and so
filled with mosquitoes.”
Meanwhile, back at home the United
States was being rocked by anti-war protests. Protesters
poured into the streets of many of the major urban
centers. Protests shut down college campuses from coast to
coast. Even Vermont wasn’t immune from these protests
gone wild.
“The only thing I heard about the protest was through
word of mouth,” Beauchesne said. “When my parents
wrote me they didn’t tell me because they didn’t want
to upset me. I’m glad they didn’t tell me.”
With two tours in Vietnam under his belt, the now seasoned
pilot decided not to press his luck by signing up to a
third tour of duty. “I figured there was another strike
out there for me, and I didn’t want to strike out. I
wanted to go home.”
After the incident at the airport in Burlington, and
subsequent incidents, Beauchesne said he learned what many
other Vietnam War veterans also learned—to bury the
memories and try to forget that they ever served their
country in Vietnam.
“We didn’t even dare say that we fought in Vietnam,”
he said. “We got called baby killers. We got spit on. We
didn’t have the support when we came home. I will not
allow another veteran to be treated the way we were
treated when we came home.”
Beauchesne is bluntly honest about the personal struggles
that he has faced since coming home from the war. “The
first few years after I came back I didn’t know if I was
going to make it or not,” he said. “I didn’t
know where I was going. I didn’t know what I wanted to
do. I was almost like a lost soul. I think I was like a
lot of veterans. While they are here physically in the
U.S. their minds are still in Vietnam.” While he was
eventually able to pick up the pieces of his life, he said
some of his fellow Vietnam veterans were never able to
move on with their lives. They were trapped in the
memories of the war and they had nobody to turn to.
“I’m not the same person I was, and
I never will be,” Beauchesne said. “I just can’t
explain it. Anybody who went there, or who fought in any
war, will tell you the same thing. People who have never
been in a war will never understand. Thank God for my
kids. And my wife, Anita, has stood by me all the way.”
If anything positive came out of the protest movement of
the Vietnam era, it was how not to protest a war,
Beauchesne said. Instead of protesting government
policies, the protesters focused too much of their anger
and discontent on the returning servicemen. “They
attacked the wrong people,” an impassioned Beauchesne
said. “We were just kids.” He blames the protesters
for creating emotional turmoil in many returning veterans,
a turmoil that some of them can’t escape.
Although he doesn’t support the current anti-war
protests against the war in Iraq, he respects their right
to peacefully and respectfully protest. From what he
can see, he believes that this generation of protesters
has learned a lot from the harm created by their brethren
during the Vietnam War. Most of today’s protesters are
focusing on the war and their discontent with the
government, but they are not taking out their anger on the
troops as they return home.
Beauchesne has a bit of advice for people who feel it
necessary to protest the current war. “Regardless if you
like the war or not, stick with the people who fought in
it. You have got to remember that they are kids. They need
our support. And you have to remember that if it weren’t
for the veterans you wouldn’t have the freedom of
speech. You wouldn’t be able to express your
opinions.”
Although he has long ago forgiven his
former enemies in Vietnam, he struggles to this day to
find forgiveness for his fellow Americans who chastised
and spit on him and fellow veterans after they had
sacrificed so much for their country.
“I believe that every one of those protesters owe us
veterans an apology because they took it out on the wrong
people,” Beauchesne said. “I don’t mind them
protesting the war but the way they treated us was wrong.
They owe me an apology.”
As for what he would say to the protesters who spit on him
that October day in 1972, a day that should have been
filled with happiness, “I’d say, ‘why?’”
Beauchesne said. “What did you not understand? I was a
young kid. I know that you were angry about the war, but
you took it out on the wrong people. You embarrassed
yourself, you embarrassed my parents, and you embarrassed
your country.”
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