Fifty-one years ago, Joseph Maes jumped into a helicopter on his first day in Vietnam.
It was a supply drop. But before long, Maes, sitting in the back of the chopper, could hear his fellow soldiers yelling, “HOT LZ!” before he was unexpectedly dropped off into what he describes as a hot zone, surrounded by bomb craters, explosions and dead bodies.
This was his introduction to the Vietnam War.
“That’s how I got introduced to my company,” Maes said. “I still have my nightmares; they’re never going away.”
Maes said he was a part of the 27th Infantry Regiment, known as the “Wolfhounds,” which served in Vietnam from 1966 to 1971, and operated out of the Cu Chi Base Camp. According to Maes, their primary mission was defending Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, now known as Ho Chi Minh City.
While running defense, the Wolfhounds had to establish the camp and conduct search-and-destroy missions in the surrounding region containing high levels of enemy activity.
“The world wasn’t supposed to know we were helping Saigon. The media wasn’t supposed to cover it for political reasons,” Maes said. “We spent 73 straight days fighting and lost 31 troops, not including the wounded.”
Maes described to a crowd gathered for Stockton’s Vietnam Remembrance on March 29 how hard it was to come home from war and not be welcomed in his city anymore. He and his fellow soldiers would have even preferred not to wear their military uniforms on the journey back, but that would have meant no discount for the flight home.
“The younger generations were against the war, so we were an easy target,” Maes said, standing at a podium in Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza across the street from Stockton City Hall.
“We were called all sorts of things.”
It was the end of April 1969, and Maes, neglected by his own community, had nothing except for his PTSD to keep him company. He’d attempted to join organizations for former military members, such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion.
“The war or whatever was happening in Vietnam was not over, so they rejected me,” Maes said. “All the organizations rejected me.”
After facing constant rejection, Maes said he created a grief circle for incoming Vietnam veterans called the Central Valley Vietnam Veteran Group.
“We started talking amongst each other as therapists,” Maes said. “We started talking about what we did in the war. But the issues we had, we couldn’t solve them all.”
Maes described being a soldier at war as a reality many may never have experienced.
“I went in alone, and I came home alone,” Maes said.