THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608040108
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WENDY GROSSMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 89 lines
Artillery rained from wet trees. Soldiers leapt from the woods and attacked an enemy village. They surveyed the bodies laying beside bamboo huts and freed POWS. Red smoke filled the air as they waited for a chopper that never came.
The re-enactment at Camp Pendleton on Saturday morning was part of the 9th annual ``Vietnam Revisited'' day, sponsored by the Vietnam War Education Team.
In the event's first year, only a handful of veterans came and sat around with some guns, said Randy O'Neal, president of the Vietnam War Education Team. But it has grown a lot.
This year, there are jeeps, trucks and weapons that were used in Vietnam, and a 45-foot rappelling tower made of three telephone poles.
Conway Goodman drove his Boy Scout troop 200 miles from Vernon Hill, Va. Beverly Mayer came to see what her friends went through. Woodrow Stamper brought his granddaughters.
They all stood out in the rain watching the black-clothed bodies drop.
``I wanted my children to witness the stuff these guys really went through,'' said Cynthia Schilling, 41, of Virginia Beach. Her cousin died in Vietnam. ``I don't want them to see war glorified on TV - they need to see what these guys really go through.''
Sgt. Bill Battle, 48, a Vietnam vet, led the way through ``Nam Land,'' a trail scattered with mock booby traps, trip wires, explosive mines and bamboo whips.
``This here's a lot like Vietnam,'' Battle said.
``The humidity's high. Everything's wet. The only thing missing is the leeches.''
Howard McGourty, another Vietnam vet, agreed. He and his family were heading back to Blackstone, Mass., when they saw signs for the event and decided to stay an extra half-day.
``In a matter of 20 minutes, they showed you what an infantryman lived through in a year of his life,'' McGourty said, reflecting on something else Battle said about Vietnam:
``When you got there you knew nothing. And the more you learned, the longer you stayed alive.''
``It's amazing anyone came home alive,'' his wife, Betty, said.
Children, spouses, brothers, sisters and friends came to experience what soldiers went through.
``Our goal is to educate. We're not actors,'' Battle said, his voice hoarse and his forearms scraped from setting up the booby traps. ``We're just telling it the way we know it happened - not the way Hollywood tells it.''
Since many soldiers won't talk about what they saw, families come here to learn about their experiences.
``There's nobody to talk to,'' said Pete Peterson, a Green Beret in Vietnam. ``Who's going to understand?''
Sitting in a wheelchair, he has pins in his leg because of an injury he got in Vietnam.
Today, his wife let him trade his wedding band for his gold Green Beret ring.
``She asks a lot of questions about Vietnam,'' he said. ``This is for her to see.''
But she's never asked him what it feels like to kill someone. Because that's something he won't tell her. Or anyone.
And she doesn't ask how many people he killed. Because he stopped counting.
Peterson was a soldier for 20 years. He walked away from Vietnam as just another job - he never has flashbacks or nightmares, he said.
But Woodrow Stamper, 54, of Chesapeake does.
After he watched the 30-minute play ``Carved in Stone,'' his gray-green eyes clouded into ``the Vietnam stare.''
He saw faces. The faces of women and children in burning bamboo huts. He saw himself slithering through the jungle on his belly like a snake. He saw shells raining from daylight to dark. He saw his buddy set a foot on a shoeshine box and have his legs blown off. He saw bullets rip through his friends from boot camp. He saw blood.
As he wiped his eyes Saturday, he still saw it.
``That kid up there said, `I was a leader - why didn't I die?' '' Stamper said after the play, pressing his lips together. ``That was my problem. I was a leader and watched others die.''
He was a sniper scout. A gunnery sergeant. A Marine. He served three tours in Vietnam and was in the first military unit to arrive.
Jack Daniels was his best friend. He drank a fifth a day and two on Sunday. But he never could relax.
``I didn't know,'' his wife, Mary, said after seeing the event. ``I thought I did.''
She went to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington and found the name of her classmate who died in Vietnam.
Stamper hasn't gone to the memorial. He knows too many names. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
VICKI CRONIS/The Virginian-Pilot
A member of the Vietnam War Education Team comes out of hiding after
firing on an enemy camp in a re-enactment at ``Vietnam Revisited,''
held Saturday at Camp Pendleton in Virginia Beach. The event
continues today. by CNB