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By Al Zdon
Dick Bergling says he tends to see things in black and white.
And one of the clearest of those clear opinions is that Vietnam veterans were not treated well by their nation when
they came home.
When Bergling began to experience some dramatic psychological aftershocks of his own, many years after the war, it led him to get involved in veterans activities, particularly in the
Vietnam Veterans of America. He has held state and national offices in the VVA, and he is a member of the Anoka VVA honor guard, one of the most respected in the state.
"The VVA for me was a way to
channel my anger," Bergling said in an interview at his Anoka home. "It was a constructive way, through activism. If you cut me, I bleed red, white and blue. There were issues that needed to be
addressed."
Those issues included Agent Orange, POWs and MIAs, and getting Vietnam veterans active in their community. Along the way, his activism led to a close friendship with Sen. Paul Wellstone,
who earned a reputation as a champion of veterans rights before his death.
Bergling was born in Minneapolis and is a 1965 graduate of Anoka High School. "The high school years were the best years of
my life. I loved high school. You don't have the responsibilities like you do later in life. It's a free period in your life."
As Bergling's high school career wound to a close, his career in the
United States Navy took over. In fact, one week after graduation, Bergling was in boot camp at San Diego.
By the end of the year, he was in Virginia going through fire fighting, boat coxswain, cargo
handling and other schools. In November of 1965, he was assigned to the USS Okinawa, part of Uncle Sam's amphibious Navy. The ship was a landing platform for helicopters, and it contained a large
contingent of Marines.
Bergling's goal was to get into engineering, a rate in the Navy often referred to as a "snipe." He wanted to work on the engines that drove the ships. Instead he was assigned to
the boiler room.
"I was not a happy camper, but it was my first duty station. I didn't make a big stink. I did my job."
He learned his boiler technician duties as the ship finished a drydock
rehabilitation, and then set to sea. The first long voyage showed Bergling how good the Navy could be. "We were all over the place – Panama, Venezuela, Trinidad, Barbadoes, Guantanamo, St. John's
Martinique, Aruba. It was a beautiful cruise, and the weather was perfect."
In mid-January, 1966, Okinawa set sail for the western Pacific, passing through the Panama Canal on its way. When the ship
got to Okinawa, it was cause for a major celebration as the island and its namesake were reunited. "It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. It was hard to believe that 20 years
earlier it was the scene of a lot of dying."
The ship was deployed to Yankee Station, off the coast of Vietnam, and spent most of its time cruising between Da Nang and the DMZ. The ship was part of
Phibron 5, a group of ships designed to bring the Marines quickly to where they were needed.
"I was doing maintenance on the boilers, and working in the fire room as a fireman. It was so hot down
there that they'd send sailors down there for punishment. I asked the chief one time, 'What did we do wrong to get sent here?' He just laughed and said, 'I hear you.'"
Sometimes the Marines would all
fly in on the choppers and be gone, and then they would reappear. "We'd have no idea where they went. They just went where all Marines go."
By July, Bergling had had enough of the boiler room. "I
volunteered for in-country service. I really don't think I knew what I was asking for, but I knew I wanted to do something different. I thought it might be an opportunity to get into engineering."
He
was flown into Da Nang, but only long enough to catch a plane back to the United States for 30 days leave. "My parents were surprised to see me. I hesitated to tell them what I'd volunteered for. I
wasn't so sure myself."
Bergling reported back to California for survival training and Marine Corps boot camp, including small arms training. Was he apprehensive about his new duty? "I wasn't
terrified. I didn't feel that."
After training, he got another short leave back in Minnesota before heading west. "I came downstairs on Thanksgiving morning, and the turkey was already in the oven. I
put my seabag by the door. My mother took one look at me in uniform and started crying.
"Twenty-two hours later, I stepped off a plane in Saigon in 120 degree heat. I could still smell that turkey
cooking in the oven."
"It was the beginning of a journey I'm glad I lived. It made me the person I am today."
He went through Navy processing at Ton Son Nhut airbase, but was told not to even
unpack his seabag. "I was just glad to get out of my blues and into some fatigues. I got some chow and they issued me a helmet, rifle and flak jacket."
Bergling was laying in his rack, trying to
sleep, when he saw something quickly run over the chest of the man in the next bed. I said, " 'Ye gods, what the heck was that?' The man didn't move a muscle, but he said, 'Don't worry about it. They
keep them fed.'"
It was a rat. At 3 in the morning, there was a mortar attack on the base. Again, his bunkmate, without moving, said, "Don't worry, they're walking away from us."
Welcome to
Vietnam. "I said to myself, 'Well, Bergling, you did it this time. Maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all.'"
He flew in a Caribou over the treetops to Dong Tam, an Army and Navy base located on
the Mekong River south of Saigon. "We banged down on the tarmac, got to the end of the runway, they threw my seabag off, and I jumped off, and they were gone. I was standing in the middle of the runway,
all by myself."
After about five minutes a jeep picked him up and took him to the Navy side of the base where he was assigned to a hootch. The Navy had converted a rice paddy into a harbor at the
base, and it was full of boats that patrolled the river. His unit was part of the Riverine Force.
Much to his dismay, Bergling was again assigned to a boiler on the base. "I never complained in the
Navy. I just did what I was supposed to do."
The boiler job, however, only lasted a month when the Navy hired a Korean civilian contractor to run the boiler. This freed Bergling up for other duties
including base security, bunker duty, working at the repair facility for the river boats, and going out with the boats. "We didn't travel far, maybe two or three miles. We'd bring the patrols out, and
we'd bring them back."
And he got to do engineering on the boats, finally doing the work he had been chasing for half a world.
Bergling was at the base during the communist's Tet Offensive in 1968.
"Tet changed my life. It didn't change my political beliefs, but it changed the way I looked at the world. Everything became more black and white, with fewer shades of gray. I wouldn't want to live
through it again, but I wouldn't give it up for anything. I remember praying at the time, 'Lord, don't make me a coward."
The base was surrounded by an earth berm. "They were silt embankments. For six
months a year, they were powdery, and for the other six months they were like wet cement. At night, they glowed incandescent. You could see a gnat crawling over it."
On that night of Jan. 30, 1968, it
was the Viet Cong coming over the embankment. "That was the first time in my life that I ever fired a rifle at a human being. You come to realization that it's the right thing to do. You either live or
die by the decision you make.
"You find that life is all about taking care of your buddies. You find that you're involved in something bigger than yourself. It changed my perspective on what it's all
about. Are you willing to die for that issue?"
In the morning, there were 200 enemy bodies at the foot of the embankment. "And that was just the beginning of Tet. I later came to have great respect
for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. They were also willing to die for what they believed in."
Bergling's tour of duty after Tet was less intense, and not one man in his unit was killed.
The boats were shot at many times, but not in a concerted way. Occasionally, the patrols would lose a soldier to a booby trap or ambush.
"Once a patrol came back with some Viet Cong suspects. They
brought back one of their own wrapped in a poncho. The people were very quiet. We went about doing our work. Nobody inquired. It was none of our business.
"Everybody looked at that body lying there,
and knew it could be them. It raises that spectre of mortality."
Bergling's tour ended in January of 1969, and he headed home. If he expected a welcome, he was wrong. "We were fighting a war for those
people. I wondered what in the world's going on with my country." Bergling said he knew comrades who changed into civilian clothes at airports on their way home because they felt safer that way.
"It
was what started my internal anger at my own country. As I saw more vets treated with open hostility when they came home, over time I became more and more angry."
Bergling said he went into the VFW
club in Anoka, and was told to leave. "We don't serve your kind," someone said.
"I tried getting on with my life, yet it was hard. There was something inside me eating away at me. I had a tough time
living in this multi-colored world when I saw everything in black and white."
As the years went by, Bergling's interior battles did not subside. It all culminated one day when he had a major blow-out
with his in-laws. "My marriage was on shaky ground anyway. All this stuff came pouring out of me. I couldn't stop. I had held it back all those years.
"My wife told me to get help or we were all
done."
Bergling found his way to the Vets Center on University Avenue in St. Paul, where they offer free counseling to veterans. "They identified some things for me, but they also opened a can of
worms. I had more issues coming out than I did going in."
What was helpful for Bergling was his exposure to other Vietnam veterans. "I hadn't been around that many veterans. I was surprised to find
that other people felt the same way I did. I wasn't as distorted as I thought I was."
That connection with fellow veterans led him to the Vietnam Veterans of America. "Most guys are too independent,
and there's no way they'd trust an organization. But I needed to channel some of the anger. I needed a constructive outlet. It's no slam on the big three veterans organizations, but in 1986, the VVA was
the only one addressing Vietnam veterans issues.
Bergling got involved in a big way, forming a chapter of the organization in Anoka. "We had to get 35 guys to sign up to get our charter in 1989. It
wasn't easy, but we did it."
By 1990, he was president of the state council for the VVA, serving two terms. The organization expanded from eight to 14 chapters during his terms. By 1997, he served as
director on the National Board of Directors of the VVA.
In the first meeting of his new Anoka chapter, he told his comrades, "This chapter is yours. Do what you want."
"But I wanted the chapter to
be a force in the north Metro area. I thought it was time the Vietnam vets got off their rear ends and started doing something positive."
The chapter worked on food shelves and other community
projects. The chapter did Adopt a Highway, and work on MIA/POW awareness, and did symbolic walks to bring attention to missing children. Soon the chapter had grown to 80 members. "It's a looser
organization, not as structured as the Legion or VFW. It's part of the rebellious side of us."
He eventually also joined the VFW, and when he helped them move their equipment. the post rewarded him
with a life membership. "It's funny. They wouldn't serve me in 1969, but in 1989, they bought me a life membership."
As head of the VVA, Bergling served on the Commander's Task Force with other state
veterans group commanders, including Dan Ludwig of the American Legion. He got to know many in the veterans community. Bergling said he learned softer ways to get Vietnam veterans issues discussed. "It
worked a lot better than just telling somebody they were full of crap."
Along the way, he arranged a short meeting with Sen. Paul Wellstone to discuss veterans needs. The meeting lasted for two hours,
and he and Wellstone became friends.
When Wellstone stood in front of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington to make a political statement at the beginning of his term, Bergling called him. "I told
him, 'I might make a political statement, but I wouldn't do it in front of your Wailing Wall. The vets fought for your right to express yourself, but don't do it on our sacred ground.'"
Wellstone
apologized, and vowed to make it right with veterans. "We held his feet to the fire and made sure he did."
In recent years, Bergling turned his attention to his church, serving as chairman of the
elder's board and chairman of the church council. "During those bad years, I was mad at God too. I've since repented for that sin."
And now things are coming full circle. This month, he will once
again take over as president of the Anoka VVA Chapter.
One of his proudest accomplishments was in 1997 when he and others at the chapter formed an honor guard to work at funerals.
The color unit
started slowly, but has become a sought-after honor team at funerals in the Twin Cities. Last year, they did 227 funerals.
"We started out in blue jeans, but we changed to fatigues and ball caps. We
have special hats for wintertime."
His work in the VVA has changed Bergling's life. "It was more than I ever envisioned. I'm very proud of it, even though pride is a sin. It's beyond my wildest
dreams."
His black and white world still doesn't understand some of the finer distinctions other people might find. "I see Vietnam as the price we are willing to pay for our way of life. America lives
in a bubble, and the government does a good job of keeping us in the bubble. Two-thirds of the world wants what we have. They want that bubble."
America, he said, must be willing to fight for its
survival. "When it comes time to step up to the plate, we'd better have people who are willing to step up to the plate. Or it's all gone."
Bergling is a toolmaker at Tooling Science in Anoka. He and
his wife, Mary, have two children, Johanna and Erik.
This past year, he organized a special veterans ceremony at his class of 1965 40th reunion. Each Vietnam veteran came up and was presented with
honors by the school principal. Bergling said he hoped the ceremony helped to heal the differences between those who served and those who protested the war from his class.
"Never again should we have
troops come home and have to sneak into our country. I hope that's a lesson we learned well from Vietnam."
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