Being in the military during the 60s was hard. In a period of free love, drugs, and “flower power,” Ronald Frechette, who joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1967 shortly after his 19th birthday, remembers the spitting, the protests, and the country’s overall distaste with the war in Vietnam. At the time, Frechette was just a young man looking to do his duty for his country, enlisting of his own free will, rather than waiting to be drafted.

“I figured it was my duty – to do something for my country,” says Frechette. He spent 13 weeks of infantry training in North Carolina’s Camp Geiger, and then four weeks advanced infantry training at Camp LeJeune.

“People were being moved out fast because of the war,” explained Frechette. “There were 80 men in our platoon. Of the 80, 95% went to Vietnam and the rest remained stateside.”

Following his time at Camp LeJeune, Frechette flew to California and Camp Pendleton where he received training for staging battalion. His first MOS, military occupational specialty, was 1381 Shore Party.

“And it wasn’t a party. We, a three man team, resupplied the troops with whatever they needed. We would call the rear [for supplies] and direct choppers in to make the deliveries of ammunition, water, ratios. Sometimes we served as the radio men. If it was a ‘hot’ landing zone [where fighting was taking place], they wouldn’t drop the supplies, but would come back at a later time.”

From California, his group flew to Hawaii and then on to Okinawa. “We waited and waited and waited,” said Frechette. “None of us knew where we were going. Finally, Continental Airway flew us to the airbase in Da Nang in South Vietnam.”

“In the beginning, there was fear,” he recalled, when asked how he felt going to war as a young man. “After six months, sometimes less, you didn’t care whether you lived or died. People did crazy, reckless things.” Frechette recounted the time a chopper came in with supplies and he allowed it to land on his chest. “I got in trouble for that. I could have been electrocuted.”

The day Frechette learned that his buddy from boot camp was killed in a Napalm attack was a turning point for him. “What I had left was taken out of me,” he admitted. “I coped with everything through a lot of adrenaline and drinking, though never when I was on guard duty. Drugs and marijuana were a real problem over there. Guys used them to forget what was going on.” He continued, “It [Vietnam] was not like other wars. There were no trenches, no front lines. The V.C. hid in holes and would pop up everywhere. They had tunnels, whole medical units underground. You never knew what might be a “booby” trap. Civilians were used as infiltrators and spies. ‘Charlie’ was everywhere. There had been fighting in that country years before we got there. They were pretty smart.”

Frechette said that though his first MOS was 1381 Shore Party and his second was Combat Engineer, his training took a back seat to the needs of the war. He, as is true for all Marines then and today, was first and always an 0311 – a rifleman. Regardless of your education and training, if you were needed in the fight, you were going. As a Marine, you learned to shoot a rifle.

Frechette confirmed he participated in three operations on three different troop carriers: the USS Tripoli, the USS Valley Forge, and the USS Monticello. Out “on the bush,” he participated in Operation Allen Brook I, named after a then-deceased Marine. The specifics of certain operations are still not available to the public as the government has not released the information. Although his son works as a historian for the U.S. Army, Frechette has had a difficult time gathering information about the time he served in Vietnam.

Whether he ever killed anyone, Frechette doesn’t know. “Someone shot at you and you shot back,” he stated matter-of-factly. “There was a lot of retaliation fighting. They did this to us, so we did it back to them. Sometimes we would be caught in a ‘no fire zone’ where there were civilians and the V.C. could fire at us, but we could not fire at them.” To this day, he simply cannot relay stories of the gore and all that he saw.

Frechette kept a diary during his time in Vietnam. At one point, before being sent home, he spent time in the Newport Naval Hospital in Rhode Island. While there, he had pages of his diary mysteriously disappear, neatly cut away from his journal. His personal account of his experience in Vietnam was gone. Frechette feels badly for those people who participated in secretive missions without documentation or “Blackout Operations” because without documentation, it is as though these operations never occurred. Soldiers cannot “prove” their involvement in such operations, thus making them, in some cases, unable to access military benefits.

The hardest part about coming home from Vietnam was the lack of support from family, neighborhoods, and communities. Frechette saw no effort made by the community to try to understand what he and other veterans had experienced in Vietnam. That, according to Frechette, is why some men never transitioned back successfully. “When we came back, we were considered the ‘crazies’” he admitted. “There was no such thing as post traumatic stress syndrome.”

Both Frechette and his wife, Samantha, a certified nurse’s aide who has worked with Vietnam vets, agree that coming back was hard. Even today, anything can trigger flashbacks. The smell of rice, a car back-firing, loud sounds, and nightmares can transport veterans back to the bush.

It took Frechette a very long time before he could even go to a Chinese restaurant. He still cannot tolerate crowds and prefers to work for himself or at jobs requiring only one-to-one interaction. His nightmares once resulted in his wife’s broken ribs. He continues to wage war with his “ghosts” even today.

Still, Frechette finds his solace with his wife of 18 years, in walking his puppy, Bullet, and in his hobby of baking from scratch. He confessed it is very therapeutic. “I just love it!” he said, his eyes twinkling as he cut a pan of freshly-made brownies.

Though he has packed away his military documents and photographs as he and his wife anticipate a move to Pennsylvania to be nearer family, he reflected on Vietnam and the importance of remembering that war as part of American history.

“Particularly for young adults, it is important that the Vietnam war be presented along with all the other wars and battles that have formed this nation. I leave my flag out until December 7 because that was the day of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. 9/ll was a terrible, terrible day in the history of our nation, but it was not the first time our country was attacked.”

We must remember. We cannot forget.