When Larry House was attending the University of West Georgia back in the day, he missed a quarter of enrollment. That was all it took for the Calhoun native to lose his college deferment from being drafted through the Selective Service, and he was subsequently given 1-A status — an almost certain ticket to the Vietnam War along with thousands of other American young men.
He and a good friend, Michael Eli King, drove to Rome and an Army recruiting office.
“We wanted to go in and get it over with,” House told me for a Veterans Day feature article in Calhoun Magazine that just came off the press (calhounmagazine-cnhi.newsmemory.com). “Michael was a local boy, too. We grew up together and ran around together.”
House had learned to type in school. While King went into the infantry, House became a personnel specialist and was stationed in Thailand. King, 21, was an aircraft maintenance crewman with the 158th Assault Helo Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division. The helicopter he was flying in on March 5, 1971, was shot down over Laos, according to the Honor States website for Vietnam veterans.
“(King) was the door gunner of a Bell Iroquois Utility Helicopter … on a combat assault mission in Savannakhet Province, Laos,” the website honorstates.org details. “While on final approach to Landing Zone Sophia, the aircraft received anti-aircraft fire, burst into flames and crashed.”
House learned King was missing in action through a letter from his parents.
“He got to come home for Christmas in 1970, because he had volunteered to be a gunner on a helicopter,” House said. “His chopper had gotten shot up before, but they made it back.”
Although he dreaded it, as a good friend and fellow veteran House knew what he had to do when he got back to Calhoun — go to the King household.
“I can still see his mother — that was the worst day, but I had to go see her when I got out … (and) of course, she had pictures of him all over the house,” he said.
King’s remains were recovered almost 20 years later on Jan. 10, 1990, and were positively identified as his later that year in August. Four other crewmen, including the pilot, were killed, and all lie at rest in Arlington National Cemetery.
Why write about another Vietnam veteran, and why isn’t this a Memorial Day column? First, it was the war this writer was most familiar with, having grown up during its grim heyday. As well, many veterans of the Southeast Asian conflict have testified of being treated shamefully when they arrived back in the United States following deployment. A Vietnam veteran who spoke to me recently, Joe Burkhardt, remembers people turning their backs to him when they saw him in his dress Army uniform in an airport.
It’s disgraceful and immoral that so many Americans disrespected these young men who put their lives on the line; many of the soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen went because they felt it was the right thing to do, at least according to what our government told we the citizenry at the time. It should be a case study in how group-think affected those of us who had no idea what it was like being there, for it seemed we prejudged by getting our news through TV sets broadcasting the first war into our living room. The troops got the blame for the gore and reported body counts, when it should have been our politicians.
In the days leading up to Veterans Day, we need to keep in mind that the ones who survived our nation’s wars may not just bear physical wounds, but emotional and mental ones as well. Thousands upon thousands of U.S. veterans have died from post-war substance abuse, the ill effects of Agent Orange and even by taking their own life.
King’s brief life is not forgotten by those who knew him. Following are two heartfelt yet riveting posts found on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Wall of Faces webpage (vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces).
“Michael was a neighbor in Calhoun, nine years older than me. He treated me like a younger brother. I’ll never forget — he came home from Vietnam for Christmas and told me I would never see him again. He returned to Vietnam with full knowledge of the great dangers of being a helicopter gunner. His brother was severely wounded in Vietnam. Obviously, great sacrifice from the King family. He will always be missed.”
— posted by Phil Boston, April 7, 2022
“You died for me … If I wasn’t grounded from being shot down the day before, I would have been the gunner that day. I think of you often and wonder why our fate and lives crossed during such crazy times. I have your name in etchings from The Wall in Washington and the (Vietnam) Traveling (Memorial) Wall. I hope to see you again in heaven.”
— posted by Rick C. Goodin, Jan. 18, 2015
Tell a veteran, especially one who was in combat, you’re thankful they put their life on the line for you. It would be an appropriate gesture, and might help them get through a tough day.
Mark Millican is a former staff writer for the Dalton Daily Citizen.