Most Vietnam veterans have fascinating tales about their time within the battle, whether or not they’re tinged with trauma, braveness, hope and disappointment.
However for Marine Corps veteran Frank E. Cius Jr., his story is one in every of captivity and torture, spending over six years stripped of his freedom as a prisoner of battle (POW).
Cius spoke of his time in Vietnam throughout an occasion to honor Nationwide Vietnam Warfare Veterans Day in Buffalo, New York, on Sunday, based on WIVB.com. Cius, who grew up in Buffalo, enlisted within the Marine Corps within the late Sixties and was assigned to the first Marine Plane Wing.
The younger soldier knew his life would change when he obtained orders for Vietnam, however had no concept what was really in retailer for him.
“A lot of the guys in my squadron who came to visit with me have been from our native space,” Cius advised a gaggle of veterans at Buffalo Naval Park.
Like so many different POWs, Cius’s will to outlive saved him going, even by the darkest days.
Enemy Assault, Captivity
Cius will all the time recall June 3, 1967.
That’s the day the helicopter mission he was on didn’t proceed as deliberate.
“On the return mission in, we misplaced three choppers,” Cius mentioned. “Now the mission turns right into a rescue.”
Flying over Laos, his unit’s CH46A helicopter was hit by a barrage of bullets from enemy forces.
“We took the heaviest fireplace I’ve ever encountered in my total life,” Cius, serving as a door gunner, recalled.
The chopper spun uncontrolled, hover-rotated within the sky, earlier than crashing down in a spot Cius and his crew wished no a part of.
“We crashed into the jungle, I believed,” Cius mentioned. “It was the village of the VC.”
The Viet Cong. A gaggle of guerrilla fighters that aided the North Vietnamese Army and different communist forces in South Vietnam. After the plane hit the bottom, all hell broke unfastened.
“They weren’t anticipating a helicopter to land in the course of their village, and what occurred was everybody was capturing, and getting hit, and damage,” Cius mentioned. “I caught one too.”
Wounded from the firefight and injured by the crash, Cius someway prevented seize for a day and a half earlier than his luck ran out. VC troops captured him on June 5, 1967, sending him to the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” in North Vietnam.
Cius’s tiny cell and the 4 partitions that enclosed it could be his residence for the subsequent 2,100 days earlier than being launched on March 5, 1973, throughout Operation Homecoming.
“It’s good to share what I’ve been by with different individuals,” Cius advised reporters after his speech.
Medically retiring from the Marine Corps as a employees sergeant in 1978, Cius obtained each the Prisoner of Warfare and Bronze Star medals for his acts of valor.
Connecting With Different Vietnam Veterans
Cius’s story was one in every of a number of shared by Vietnam veterans at Buffalo Naval Park, commemorating Nationwide Vietnam Veterans Warfare Day. It was additionally a chance to honor the hundreds of troopers killed in motion through the battle.
Buffalo Naval Park volunteer Terry McGuire, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, mentioned Cius’s expertise resonated with lots of the veterans current on Sunday.
“What was particular about that’s how he may relate to the veterans of that period and honor them as a result of we’ve had properly over 58,000 that have been killed in motion,” McGuire mentioned.
Vietnam Veterans Day additionally serves as a time to think about all of the veterans from that period scuffling with post-traumatic stress dysfunction (PTSD) and the various who died by suicide years after the battle.
Courtney Speckman, director of packages and neighborhood engagement with Buffalo Naval Park, mentioned it’s necessary for the nation to honor Vietnam veterans, a declining inhabitants.
“An annual observance to recollect them ensures that this present day is marked whilst Vietnam veterans are getting older and we’re shedding an increasing number of Vietnam veterans daily, yearly,” Speckman mentioned. “It’s necessary for them to know that we do acknowledge their sacrifice and their service.”
