Courtesy Photo From left to right, Jaynee Germond, Rich Germond, John Sawyer, and Thelma Sawyer gather for a reunion in Lincoln, 53 years after the men served together in Vietnam.

LINCOLN — When Rich Germond flew home from Vietnam, he felt like he was letting his comrades down.

When he heard from one of those comrades 53 years later, he found out he was not the only one.

In September, Germond, of Lincoln, his fellow combat veteran, John Sawyer, of Indiana, and their wives met for a mini-reunion in Lincoln, a half-century after they’d last seen each other.

“Fifty-three years and two weeks, to the day,” Sawyer said. “I had an old address, so I sent a letter to that address. With luck, this letter was forwarded to Rich’s sister, who forwarded it to Rich.”

Then he got a call from Germond, and they met up on Sunday, Sept. 26.

“You don’t make better friends than in that situation,” said Germond, now 72. “When you have to rely on people, they’re friends for life.”

‘I HAD TEARS IN MY EYES’

Back in the war, Germond and Sawyer had an instant connection, because they were both from Oregon: Germond from Roseburg, and Sawyer from Wallowa Lake.

“I remember saying goodbye to him,” Sawyer recalled. “I got home on the 13th of September. I had tears in my eyes all the way home, because I felt like I had just left my guys, and I shouldn’t have.”

Sawyer was 19 when he enlisted in the U.S. Army as a combat engineer.

“I received my draft notice, and I flew down to the recruitment office because I didn’t want to be infantry,” said Sawyer, now 73 and now living in Kouts, Indiana.

Sawyer has never been a computer whiz, but his children bought him a computer in 2018, and that’s when he started searching for his long-lost friends who served in the 20th Battalion, B Company.

“Over a period of about two to three years, here, I have located 34 men, and 15 of them have passed away,” Sawyer said. “And every one of these guys died from Agent Orange. And, of the rest of us, we all have problems from Agent Orange,” the herbicide used by the military in Vietnam that has been linked to nerve damage, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and more.

Sawyer said most of the men from his battalion are disabled because of Agent Orange.

In 2018, Sawyer began his reunion trek around the U.S. by visiting Vern Mullings in Republic, Washington. He and his wife spent a few days with Mullins and his wife.

“It was quite heartwarming,” Sawyer said of that reunion.

After that, he and his wife drove up in 2019 up to Florence, Wisconsin, to meet with Bob LeFleur and his wife.

“It was like I had just seen him the day before,” Sawyer said.

Since then, Sawyer’s adventure has continued, meeting up with comrades he had lost touch with, including Germond.

“We were real, real close,” Sawyer said. “That’s all we had was one another. And, when the crap hit the fan, we took care of one another. I would’ve died for them, and they would’ve died for me.”

‘IT’S A BLESSING’

“When I left ‘Nam, I felt like I just lost all my friends, right there,” Sawyer said.

He lost track of most of them, except one who lived in Missouri. Sawyer spent his last 18 months of service at Fort Leonardwood, Missouri, so he took a few bus trips the roughly 100 miles to see his friend, Billy Stanford, who lived in Craig, Missouri.

“But he died in 2001,” Sawyer said. “I had kept in contact with him.”

He still keeps in touch with Stanford’s sister.

Sawyer explained why he reached out after all these years.

“Over the years, I wondered what had happened to them, where they were,” he said. “And I had no way of finding them without this computer. It’s a blessing. I can put in a name, and, if it’s not a common name, it pops up. Now, if you’re looking for a Smith or a Jones, you’re in trouble.”

He keeps in touch with all the men he’s located so far.

“I talk to all these guys,” Sawyer said. “I call them at least twice a year.”

He had a bunch of caps made that say “the 20th Battalion” on them, and he gives them out to men with whom he served.

Meeting back up with Germond “was great,” he said.

“I seen him through the window, and I practically ran out the door,” Sawyer recalled. “I had one of those caps in my pocket, and, as soon as I walked up to him, I made him put that cap on. Every time I find a guy, I’m going to give him a cap.”

He recalled there were about 55 guys in his platoon, and roughly 250 guys in the whole company.

‘I HAD NO IDEA’

While in Vietnam, Sawyer was a bulldozer operator and a mechanic. He’s always enjoyed “playing” with heavy machinery, and he wanted to do that when he got back from Vietnam, but there wasn’t exactly a welcome parade when he got home.

“While we were over there, what news we got, we didn’t even know what was going on in the States,” Sawyer said. “I had no idea there were riots going on, and all that. The papers we got were military papers, and they put in there what they wanted us to see.”

So, it was a harsh reality when he set foot back on U.S. soil.

“When I got back to the States, we landed at McCourt Air Force Base,” he recalled. “And they bussed us over to Fort Louis, Washington, so we could get cleaned up, haircuts, and the whole shebang. They fed us, they paid us, and put us on another bus and took us to Seattle Airport, and there was a whole bunch of protesters in there, right by the airport. And, I was, like, the third guy off the bus, and this little blonde gal come over and took an egg and cracked it on my shoulder.”

He was shocked.

“I’m like, ‘What’s this all about?’ I had no idea,” Sawyer said. “I was really mad.”

He said his buddy calmed him down, and, when he boarded the plane to go home, he received much better treatment.

“I got on that plane, and the stewardess met me at the door, and she saw the egg all over my uniform, and she said, ‘Step in the galley.’ So, I stepped in that galley and she tried to clean it off as best she could,” he recalled.

“To this day, I know her name,” he said. “Her name was Arlene Wood, from United Airlines.”

He suspects she may have passed away, because she was in her 30s or 40s at that time, but he will never forget her kindness while so many others spewed hatred toward him for doing his patriotic duty.

“They called us baby killers and all kinds of stuff I can’t repeat,” he added.

As for getting work, that wasn’t easy, either.

“I went to the operating engineers union, and I was told they didn’t want anything to do with military people,” Sawyer said.

He ended up hanging drywall for 31 years, never being able to operate machinery like he wanted.

“I never got to run another machine after that,” he said. “But I got some machines of my own now that I just play with … I’ve got three tractors and two bulldozers.”

‘THEY TAKE REAL GOOD CARE OF ME’

Over the years, treatment of Vietnam veterans has improved, Sawyer said, in addition to medical treatment available for veterans.

“I lost 80% of my hearing in one ear, and 20% in the other, in an explosion over there,” he said.

He didn’t initially pursue any assistance or disability benefits until 2013, when his wife retired and he picked up insurance through Veterans Affairs.

“The service officer for the VA, he told me I should pursue that, and I did,” Sawyer said. “I ended up getting hearing aids and 20% disability for that.”

He also has developed diabetes and neuropathy, and the start of COPD, which he said is because of Agent Orange.

“The VA, their medical treatment is fantastic,” Sawyer said. “They take real good care of me. I’ve got an excellent doctor.”

He belongs to Vietnam Veterans of America.

“It’s quite an organization,” Sawyer said. “We try to help the other veterans as much as we can.”

He wears his 20th Battalion ballcap in public.

“And I’m walking around in Walmart one day, and this little kid, about 5 to 6 years old, comes up to me and wanted to shake my hand and thank me, and it just floored me,” he said. “That’s what they’re teaching these kids in school now, is to respect veterans, evidently. I’ve had so much of that in the last few years.”

In a local dirt car race in Plymouth, Indiana, one of the race car drivers, Frank Marshall, and car owner, Tommy Sutton, donated their winnings of $5,000 to Sawyer to use however he saw fit to benefit veterans, he said.

“I just couldn’t believe the man did that,” Sawyer said. “I gave it to the Vietnam Veterans of America, my chapter, which is the 905. And, we forwarded the money to the Veterans Home in West LaFayette, Indiana.”

Despite the way he was treated upon returning from Vietnam, Sawyer still has faith in humanity.

“There are a bunch of good people out there,” he said. “It’s so good to have people treating us decent, after what they did to us.”

Sawyer added that, at the breakfast where he and Germond reunited, a couple sitting near them overheard their story and paid for their meals, for which they were very thankful.