Back in 1969, two years after he was graduated from Iola High School, Leon Long spent 10 months in Vietnam, living in “a crap hole like an animal.”
Though memories of distressing living conditions and constantly being in harm’s way still are easily recalled, Long said he would “do it again in a minute. I’m a Marine — there are no ex-Marines — and a patriot. I never regretted going to Vietnam.
“When the Gulf War was on, if they’d have taken me, I would have gone.”
Thursday is Veterans Day, set aside to honor all who have served in the nation’s Armed Forces. Saturday, public recognition will occur in downtown Iola.
THE DAY he arrived at a fire base in the jungle of northern South Vietnam, enemy snipers were plunking away, sending round after round into sand bags around fortified bunkers.
The Marines’ mission was to interrupt and slow the infiltration of fighters from North Vietnam, often in firefights during which little more was seen than wisps of enemy soldiers.
“They harassed the base every now and then,” Long said, “but it never was like what you see in the John Wayne movies. We never had any big attacks,” and there was no hand-to-hand fighting on the perimeter.
Good reason: For about 100 yards in every direction, Agent Orange and the Marines had made the ground barren as a parking lot and laced with booby traps and Claymore anti-personnel mines.
A movie that does portray Vietnam fire bases in a realistic manner, Long said, is “Platoon,” written by Oliver Stone and based on his experiences as U.S. infantryman in Vietnam. “That’s what it really was like,” Long said — no overt heroics and life-and-death engagements over concertina wire at the camp’s edges.
“The jungle was so thick you couldn’t see much,” Long said, even with frequent applications of the Agent Orange defoliant.
Although “they were slippery and persistent little guys,” in the jungle, Long said the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars were no match for superior U.S. detection and firepower when they came into the open.
Long and others in his squad of 10, accompanied by a Navy corpsman, went into the jungle once a week or so to flush the enemy and eliminate those they found. Unlike protocols in place now for American forces in the Middle East, “If you saw one (enemy soldier), you fired,” Long said. “Our only thought was to eliminate them.”
Long noted, “The resistance usually was pretty light but we had a lot of fire fights.” On occasions when resistance was greater, F-4 Phantoms were called in for bomb runs, or gunships and Huey helicopters were summoned to add devastating firepower.
LONG and others in his squad quickly became fast friends.
“We had to depend on one each other,” he said.
Although spared, Long said that “lots in our company were killed and wounded from shrapnel and (rifle) fire.”
Troops at the fire base lived in primitive conditions that most Iolans would have trouble relating to, Long said. Meals and personal hygiene came on the fly.
Dry, dusty conditions turned to a quagmire when sub-tropic rains arrived.
“The rain came down by the bucketful,” Long said. “You’d say wet for days. We had ponchos, but they didn’t help much.
Through it all, the men were under frequent fire. Yet Long said he “never was afraid.”
“There were times I guess you’d say I was a little anxious,” — the worse being when “you could see a lot of movement in the jungle, but couldn’t see anyone,” he said.
When his deployment came to an end, Long went to Okinawa, where he spent six months in conditions that were better, but still trying because of the crush of Marines and soldiers on the island.
“That’s when (President) Nixon was cutting back” on the occupation of Vietnam “and there were so many of us on Okinawa it overwhelmed the facilities,” he said. “It was like an exodus.”
After serving 10 months in Vietnam, Long was given a seven-month early-out.
He returned to Iola, took it easy for a while and then worked a few months with a brother-in-law at a service station in Garnett.
Next came stints at Walton Foundry and FEEM, both long-defunct companies. For the past 35 years he has been employed by Gates Corporation at its hose manufacturing plant at the south edge of Iola.
He and wife Vicki — “I’m very proud of him for his service,” she said — will be in downtown Iola Saturday to take in the annual Veterans Day celebration, but Long said he defers from participation.
While he has every reason to be front and center in a celebration to recognize the contributions of those who have served, Long said he prefers to remain in the background and “just watch the others.”
