Mount Prospect pays tribute to Vietnam veterans with village hall ceremony

"To those who are no longer here."

With that toast, the men gathered around the table on the upper floor of Station 34 restaurant in downtown Mount Prospect lifted their glasses and began sharing personal thoughts about battles, wounds and the way their service was viewed at the time of the Vietnam War and how it is seen today.

Just minutes before, they had been across the street at Mount Prospect's village hall, where Mayor Arlene Juracek and the village board issued a proclamation for National Vietnam Veterans Day. It contained the names of three Mount Prospect servicemen who were among the 58,000 who made the ultimate sacrifice: William Daley, Frank F. Gagliano and David William Skibbe.

"I'm proud to read this as the wife of a Vietnam vet and the sister-in-law of a Vietnam vet," Juracek said, choking up as she read the proclamation. "I'm thinking of the brothers of some of my classmates who were among the 58,000."

The group at the restaurant included Arlington Heights resident Paul Fadz, who served from 1966 through 1968 and received a Purple Heart. He enlisted to be a helicopter mechanic, but wound up flying combat missions as a crew chief/door gunner on a helicopter gunship in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. As a flying mechanic, he knew how to repair the helicopter if it were shot down.

"We were the first guys in and the last guys out. We would take troops into a landing zone, extract everybody (and then) put them back in again. Back and forth. Back and forth," he said. "It was almost like somebody couldn't get their act together."

On the first day of the Tet offensive, a surprise attack during Chinese New Year, Fadz said the North Vietnamese shot off his helicopter's tail rotor and filled part of the aircraft full of bullet holes. The helicopter spun to the ground.

"So what saved us, we went through three canopies of trees before we hit the ground. That's what saved our lives," he said.

Wounded in both legs, Fadz was told he had a sprained ankle and could walk it off. Eventually, he had the ankle replaced.

Army E4 Ralph Puralewski, a Mount Prospect resident who was drafted in 1969, served in Chu Lai and returned home feeling neglected and demoralized. "We were just forgotten as far as I'm concerned," he said.

Years later when Vietnam veterans received more recognition, "I would not attend stuff like that, because as far as I was concerned, that should have been done many years ago."

As for the war itself, he doesn't mince words. "Our politicians were corrupt here. The South Vietnamese politicians were insanely corrupt. And the whole government was corrupt, but at that time, we didn't know all of that."

Today, he said he enjoys "really outstanding" VA benefits he needs to address "very bad hearing" and neuropathy that may be associated with exposure to Agent Orange.

Ron Willer served in the Army Corps of Engineers during the Tet offensive in 1968.

"That's when the American public realized that we weren't doing as well as we were reported to be doing," he said.

Another nail in the coffin, he said, was the My Lai Massacre, which occurred shortly afterward. "I remember when I was home on leave, I did wear my uniform to church, and I heard somebody mumble, 'baby killer.' It was a rough time."

For Mount Prospect resident Robert Hluchy, a Marine sergeant who served in West Germany in 1968 when Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia and in the Middle East during the time of the Israel-Egypt conflict in 1967, enlisting carried on a family tradition. His brother, Paul, served in Vietnam, his father served in France in World War II, and his grandfather served in France during World War I, fighting in Verdun.

Ret. U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. John "Dutch" DeGroot, who was a door gunner and a military policeman in the Army, said it was a privilege to serve. DeGroot said members of the VFW talk to local schools and work at Harper College with Student Veterans of America. "I personally help widows and veterans get their claims from the VA," he said.

Les Durov, a Des Plaines resident and commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1337, also has more positive memories. He was an E5 in the Navy and served on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.

"I've got no regrets. I wanted to be on a carrier, and I wanted to work with the aircraft," he said.