Veterans
Blue Mountain Eagle
Flanary mans missile
stations in Germany
during Vietnam
‘There were fun
times, and there were
miserable times’
By Rylan Boggs
Blue Mountain Eagle
John Day resident Vern
Flanary was an Army special-
ist based in Germany in 1968
and 1969.
Stationed in Bamberg, Fla-
nary was responsible for help-
ing keep the fleet of vehicles
at the base running as well
as manning missile stations
during drills. Thankfully, they
never had to use any of the mis-
siles, Flanary said.
“There were fun times, and
there were miserable times,”
Flanary said, remembering biv-
ouacking in the mountainous
Black Forest in Germany “was
not fun.”
While in Germany, he said
there was the constant, loom-
ing possibility they would be
moved to Vietnam.
“I got lucky,” Flanary said.
Even though it’s been nearly
four decades, he can still recite
his serial number, saying it’s
embedded in his brain.
Flanary remembers the
grueling physical training that
was part of basic training al-
most fondly, saying he enjoyed
the regular meals, exercise
and fresh air. He compared
his training to the movie “Full
The Eagle/Rylan Boggs
Vern Flanary poses for
a photo in the John Day
Elks Lodge Wednesday,
Nov. 2.
Metal Jacket,” saying it gave
a good picture of what basic
training had been like.
Despite not serving in Viet-
nam, Flanary says he ran into
the same disrespect Vietnam
vets received when returning
home. He says many veterans
had to go underground and dis-
associate themselves with the
military. Though he is not ac-
tive in veteran affairs, Flanary
says acknowledging and taking
care of veterans is deeply im-
portant to him.
“I honor respect and will
support all of our veterans
here,” he said.
Flanary, who moved to
Grant County from Portland
five years ago, said, “Grant
County is a great place for a
veteran.”
RAY
Continued from Page A1
“They were flying so high,”
Ray said. “They were a gung-
ho outfit. When he left again,
they never came back. They
don’t know what happened to
them.”
At one point, Ray was
given a choice to go on war
patrol.
“One out of four wasn’t
coming back,” he said.
He chose instead to return
to New London. Traveling
on the Skipjack submarine
to Connecticut, his sleeping
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
quarters were in a torpedo
room. In New London, he
taught new students about
submarine service.
“Every day we would take
a load of students out to Long
Island Sound to practice div-
ing and surfacing,” he said.
“It was a perfect place to
train because the water had a
depth of 100 feet.”
He said submarine pay
was good with 50 percent
more base pay and 20 percent
for sea duty.
“Instead of $60, I was paid
$118 a month,” he said. “It
was about as far away as you
can get from logging life.”
TET
Continued from Page A1
He also remembered the constant
mud and ensuing skin disease in the Me-
kong Delta. Besides the one week of rest
and recuperation in Taipei, on which he
declined to give details, Van Voorhis
kept his men busy, either patrolling or
getting ready to patrol with only the oc-
casional break to relax.
He said basic training was grueling,
though not entirely unenjoyable, and
compared it to the movie “Full Metal
Jacket,” saying it was an accurate repre-
sentation of what basic training was like
for them.
In particular, he recalled one-on-one
bayonet training with padded poles ap-
proximating the weight of the rifles they
used. Van Voorhis described it as “orga-
nized chaos.”
He received extensive training, broad
and specialized, for his military occu-
pational specialties, including a crash
course on delivering a baby. This par-
ticular bit of knowledge came in handy
when, in the middle of the Tet Offen-
In March 1946, Ray re-
turned to Oregon. His par-
ents bought a 10,000-acre
ranch east of John Day while
he was in the service, and he
went to work for them as a
ranch hand. He bought a log
truck in 1970, driving until
his retirement at age 62.
In 1991, Ray attended the
50th anniversary of the attack
on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii
with his wife, Evelyn.
“It’s unbelievable how it’s
built up,” he said. “I couldn’t
find the submarine base
where I worked.”
He and Evelyn live at
Valley View Assisted Living
sive, Van Voorhis said he had to help
deliver a baby.
Van Voorhis said, when he returned
from Vietnam in November of 1968,
he was handed a new uniform, pushed
out the door and told “good luck.” Van
Voorhis was shocked by the hostility of
his own generation when he returned.
He said he was spat on, called “baby
killer” and treated with general disre-
spect when he returned home.
“It took me a long time to forgive this
country and my generation for doing
that to me,” he said.
Like many other veterans, he quick-
ly learned to blend in. However, Van
Voorhis said he could always spot oth-
er veterans even in a classroom full of
people. He said there’s something about
the way the military taught them to
carry themselves that he could always
pick out. On class breaks, he said they
would always group together to talk and
smoke.
He said he began to see attitudes
toward veterans change after the First
Gulf War. He said it was the feeling
among Vietnam veterans that “no veter-
an will come back to this country and be
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Facility in John Day. Ray
had two brothers who have
passed on, one who served
in the Army and the other in
the Air Force. One of Ray’s
grandsons made five tours
in Iraq during his 14 years
of service in the Army, and
another grandson is in the
Coast Guard in North Car-
olina.
When asked what he
learned from his time in the
service, Ray said, “You learn
to obey orders without ques-
tion. You learn to respect
your elders. It wouldn’t hurt
anybody to spend a year in the
service.”
treated like we were.”
Today, Van Voorhis is extremely ac-
tive in veteran affairs. He works with
the Veterans Affairs Office and Veterans
Service Office. He is a member of the
American Legion and Veterans of For-
eign Wars. He is the chairman of the
Veterans Committee at the Elks Lodge
and works with the state Elks organiza-
tion.
“I will do anything I can for any vet-
eran in Grant County,” he said. “I don’t
care what branch of the service. I don’t
care what their MOS was. I don’t care
when they served. If there is something
I can do to help them, I will do it.”
He said many veterans don’t get the
recognition they deserve, and regardless
of where they served and in what ca-
pacity, they are veterans and deserve to
be acknowledged and thanked for their
service.
Though Van Voorhis is no longer
able to enlist, he said he would do it all
over again if he could.
“I would go to Vietnam again, even
knowing the outcome,” he said. “I
would do it all over at the drop of a hat
and feel honored to do it.”