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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 2016
A RETURN TO
VIETNAM
Former Marine interpreter takes emotional journey
An abrupt ending
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
I
n his mind, Skip Nichols often returned to
Vietnam.
Sometimes memories sidled into his con-
sciousness. Other times they reached out, grabbed
him and plunged him back into the thick of the
war. He tried banishing them to the basement of
his psyche. When that didn’t work, he worked
with a counselor to bring the memories out into the
open as a way to diminish their power. But noth-
ing, it seemed, could totally silence the voices of
Vietnam.
So, he decided to go back.
Nichols and his wife Paula took a battleield
tour called Return to Vietnam. The Walla Walla,
Washington, couple lew to Hanoi in March and
joined a group of Vietnam veterans who were
intent on returning to the country that had affected
them so much. The 12 veterans determined the
itinerary for the two-week tour. Each chose a few
locations where they had experienced something
profound and often disturbing. Also along on the
trip was the daughter of a soldier who had died in
Vietnam.
Almost ive decades had rushed by since Nich-
ols had last set foot on Vietnam soil. In the interim,
he met Paula on a blind date in Texas, fell in love,
married and raised two daughters. He carved out a
successful career in journalism, retiring in 2013 as
managing editor of the East Oregonian. Through
the years, the impact of his Vietnam experience
simmered behind his easygoing disposition.
E.J. Harris/East Oregonian
Former Marine interpreter Skip Nichols holds a piece of shrapnel from a North Vietnamese
rocket that killed a fellow Marine right next to him during the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War.
The buddy plan
Nichols’ Vietnam journey started at 18 when he
and a friend joined the military on the buddy plan
after a Marine recruiter dropped into high school
study hall to chat. After graduation in 1967, Nich-
ols attended boot camp, went to radio school and
learned Vietnamese. Soon he was landing at an air-
ield in Da Nang. He received his orders, a lak
jacket, helmet, weapons and ammunition. He took
another light and a long ride in a cargo truck to
an artillery base called Camp Carroll, which was
south of the Demilitarized Zone and home to the
3rd Marine Regiment. Arriving at Camp Carroll is
still vivid in his memory.
“We threw our sea bags off the truck to the
ground,” he said. “They sank into the mud.”
As a radio man, he and other Marines patrolled
dangerous ground. He got used to frequent
ambushes.
“It was a pretty hot area,” Nichols said. “That
was home for ive months.”
Other memories are tougher for Nichols.
One day at the Quang Tri base in central Viet-
nam, Nichols remembers standing in line for the
showers after coming back from patrol. He stepped
into an outdoor shower stall, his lak jacket, hel-
met and weapon close by. The shower came to an
abrupt halt as the base came under attack.
“Rockets and mortars started coming in,” Nich-
ols recalled. “The alarm sounded over speakers. I
remember running to the perimeter and thinking,
‘I don’t want to die naked.’”
As he and another Marine ran side-by-side, a
rocket exploded “10 meters behind us.” Nichols,
knocked out for a short while, awoke to see the
other man dead only yards away. Later, after med-
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In 1968, Nichols’ time in Vietnam ended so
abruptly that he’d never said a proper goodbye.
The young Marine was called home to Texas
when it appeared his mother was dying from an
aneurysm. When his mom recovered, he got ready
to return to the war. Waiting for his light, how-
ever, he got word his father had suffered a stroke.
Nichols never made it back to Vietnam. Later, he
learned many of the men in his unit had died in an
artillery attack.
“Honestly, I have always felt guilty,” Nichols
said. “It still eats at me. Maybe I could have made
a difference.”
Probably not, though, he admitted. He likely
would have come home in a cofin just as they had.
Nichols’ wife, Paula, experienced her own
awakening during the Vietnam tour. At irst, Skip
hadn’t wanted her to come along to a place that
had caused him so much pain. But she insisted.
She didn’t want him to face it alone. Plus her hus-
band didn’t like to talk about Vietnam and she
needed to know more.
“It made me more understanding,” Paula said.
“I found out more in two weeks than in 46 years
of marriage.”
Nichols is glad she insisted on coming.
“It made an important connection for us,” he
said.
Together, they visited such places as the High-
way of Horror, the Tu Duc Tombs, Hamburger
Hill and the Vinh Moc Tunnels, a complex of pas-
sageways dug by locals to evade U.S. bombing.
They took a dragon boat cruise and walked on
China Beach.
Nichols said he loves the country and the peo-
ple, despite Vietnam being the site of so much vio-
lence. During the trip, he felt amazed by the peo-
ple’s warmth.
“They didn’t seem to hold any animosity,”
Nichols said. “They were warm and welcoming.”
“Everyone wanted to talk,” Paula said. “We’d
draw a crowd. They wanted to practice their
English.”
Impossible to really go back
Skip Nichols/Submitted Photo
A fishing boat on the beach at Cua Viet on the South China Sea.
ics had taken the soldier away, Nichols noticed a
jagged and bloody piece of shrapnel embedded
nearby. He removed the chunk of metal and still
has it, a poignant reminder of the brutality of war
and the randomness of who died and who didn’t.
A boy on a water buffalo
Other memories haunt Nichols, too. He
remembers a boy riding a water buffalo toward
the perimeter of Camp Carroll. Though warned
to turn around, the boy kept on coming. An ofi-
cer ordered Nichols and other Marines that if the
rider came any farther, they were to shoot him. He
crossed the perimeter and, in seconds, the boy and
the water buffalo lay dead.
“Later, we learned he was retarded,” Nichols
said. “He loved the chocolates the Americans gave
out. That’s why he had come.”
The experiences kept coming. More often
than not, Nichols admitted he “was pretty damn
scared” in Vietnam.
This is tough stuff. Every veteran has their own
searing memories. On the tour bus, the veterans
told their stories over a microphone to the others,
usually just before arriving at a destination signif-
icant to the speaker. Many of the stops brought
strong emotion.
The group hiked with one of their members
to the spot where her father had died. She carried
photos, lowers, medals, a letter he had written to
her shortly before his death and a poem she had
penned in his honor. She read the letter and the
poem. The veterans saluted as “Taps” wafted from
a recorder.
They accompanied a fellow veteran to a vil-
lage where he had spent time. He met a woman
who he gave medicine to when she was a 15-year-
old girl. She rode up on a motorcycle, and both of
their faces lit up with recognition. She invited the
American veteran to her home.
Nichols said even though he returned to
Vietnam, he realizes now that it wasn’t pos-
sible to really go back. The Vietnam he knew
doesn’t really exist anymore. Take Da Nang, for
example.
“I didn’t even recognize it,” Nichols said. “I
had thought of it as my 18-year-old self, but it has
changed.”
Nichols remembered two-story buildings,
shacks and Quonset huts near the airport. He and
Paula found skyscrapers, golf courses, luxury
hotels, private villas, resorts and even a Dragon
Bridge that breathes ireworks and spouts water.
But, standing back on that red Vietnamese
soil, he felt some of his demons loosening their
grip. Visiting his own list of signiicant places
and those of others brought some of Nichols’
murky memories into focus. After seeing Camp
Carroll, Quang Tri and other spots and talking to
fellow veterans, he can now ill in some of the
gaps.
“Before, I would try and put the pieces together
into a giant puzzle where I didn’t even know what
the picture was,” Nichols said. “This trip allowed
me to add my pieces to others’.”
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