Kenneth Christy: Still seeing shrapnel

By Al Rodriguez, Honor Flight Chicago Veteran Interview Volunteer

Kenneth ‘Ken’ Christy lived his life as an adrenaline addict, from breaking horses at the age of 15, being awarded a Silver Star in Vietnam after being in country for 19 days and working as a fire fighter in Indiana. He told me: “I’ve always had to have an adrenaline rush.”

Ken was born December 18, 1948, the oldest sibling of the family. His father was a WWII veteran. He attended school in Merrillville, Indiana. When he was a teenager he went to work in his neighbor’s farm helping to break horses in for riding. As he gained the farmer’s confidence, he went from training horses to driving tractors. He also attended Merrillville High School and while there he met Laura, his future wife. They saw each other across the school gym and fell in love. Ken graduated from Merrillville High School in 1966 when he was 17. He went to work for Bell Telephone as an installer and telephone repair man, and then went to work for General Telephone Company. When Bethlehem Steel opened in Burns Harbor he hired in as a machinist millwright. 

He was drafted into the Army in February 1969 and was sent to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri for basic training. He remembers basic being cold with heavy frost when they were out in the field. Ken qualified as an Expert Marksman on the M16. When he completed Basic Training they sent him to Fort Lewis, Washington for Advanced Infantry Training. He enjoyed AIT because not only did he leave the yelling Drill Sergeants behind but the training was more interesting, staging ambushes, escape and evasion and attacking a mock Vietnamese Village. He finished AIT training as a Light Weapons Infantryman and received orders for Vietnam. He went home on leave, and before departing for Vietnam, Laura and he were engaged. 

Ken flew out of Fort Lewis and on July 10th arrived in Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam. He was sent to Di An the base camp for the 1st. Infantry Division, nicknamed the Big Red One. He said “I was sent to Danger Forward University” to teach him The Big Red One’s way of sending its troops into combat, patrolling and working with explosives. After this training he was sent to Firebase Gela at Lai Khe, north of Saigon and assigned to the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry nicknamed the Black Lions, Charlie Company. The first thing they did was furnish him with the ‘right’ equipment for combat. On his first mission they went out for a one-day reconnaissance assignment. They landed near a rice paddy, patrolled the area and didn’t see anyone there. They were picked up and returned to the fire base. He thought to himself, this isn’t bad.

On July 29th they were out on a night search and destroy mission. Ken was point man in one column of his platoon, Hugh, a friend he made in Vietnam, was point man on the other column. There was an explosion, Hugh had stepped on a land mine and Ken saw him go down. He said “after the explosion, all hell broke loose.” They were being fired at from all directions. The platoon leader ordered them to fall back but Ken stayed. Firing his weapon he positioned himself to protect the retreat of the men as they picked up the other injured soldiers. He didn’t leave his position until his C.O. came to get him and told him”get your butt back with the rest of us.” Hugh was still lying out there. Ken didn’t want to leave him out there worried that the enemy would abuse him and said he was going back to get him. The C.O. said yes and got four others to provide cover fire for him. With the enemy still firing at him he climbed a wall to get to Hugh and carried him back to his platoon. He stayed with his body all night until he was air evacuated the next day. He was awarded a Silver Star for putting his life in mortal danger in the defense of others.

The M60 machine gunner was killed in the firefight and Ken was given that responsibility. The next morning Ken said he found that his right pant leg was stuck in his pants. He pulled them off and saw that his leg had bled and saw a small hole it. With everything that happened the night before he didn’t realize that he had been shot. He called the medic who field treated the wound. Ken said he pushed on the swollen area as if he was popping a pimple and the bullet came out. He bandaged it and sent Ken back to his squad. Ken was eligible for a Purple Heart but the paperwork got lost in the confusion and he never pursued it. Ken’s platoon had come across a compound of North Vietnamese Army bunkers. They called in an armored unit and searched the compound that had been hastily abandoned. After some documentation was found they destroyed the compound.

A week later his leg was swollen and showing signs of gangrene and he was sent back to Di An to see the battalion doctor. The doctor looked at the right leg with the inflammation and found shrapnel there but also found shrapnel in his left. After he cut them out, Ken was returned to duty.  Ken says even today little shrapnel pieces still work their way out.

Ken said Vietnam was hot and humid but he got used to it. As well as in the monsoon season after the first couple of days of being wet it didn’t bother him. His platoon would be transported by helicopter out to the field for 20 to 28 days on search and destroy missions. Helicopters would bring their supplies to them or would come when called for medical evacuations. They went back to the fire base for 2 or 3 days to clean weapons and clothes before they went back out. He didn’t get a lot of mail from home, although Laura wrote to him weekly. Ken thought that it was probably being stolen by the locals before it got to him. But he did receive a decorated Christmas tree that she sent him. The platoon was supposed to be flown to a Bob Hope USO show but instead was sent to an area of a recent battle to search for NVA. He missed the show but eventually got R&R and went to Thailand. He made a collect call to Laura from Bangkok. Laura said that the phone bill was astronomical, but worth every penny.

The 1st Infantry Division officially departed Vietnam in April 1970. Ken didn’t have enough points in Vietnam to return to the U.S.  During the Vietnam War they had a points system that determined when a soldier’s tour was completed. He was transferred to the 9th Infantry Division, 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, Bravo Company. When he first arrived he was sent on a couple of reconnaissance missions. The 9th Division provided ground troops to guard the Mobile Riverine Force that operated in the Mekong Delta waterways. Since Ken had combat experience, he was sent to help train new people on setting up night ambush positions and claymore mines. He said anything moving on the river at night was fair game and once an hour someone from one of the bunkers would throw a percussion mine into the river to test for enemy combatants. Once, to rattle the first sergeant, they all threw their percussion grenades at once and it made a tremendous explosion. In the daylight the Mekong River was a different place. They would take air mattresses out on the river to sun and swim. After this duty, he worked as a supply runner on the flight line. They would obtain the ammo, bring it to the flight line, load it into the Chinook helicopter, take it to the drop off point and unload it. At the time they were supplying American troops in Cambodia.  

In July 1970 he finished his tour and flew back to Fort Lewis. Ken went home on a 30 day leave before he had to report to Fort Riley, Kansas. When he arrived at Fort Riley they didn’t have a place for another E-5 Sergeant, so he was assigned to the 984th MP Company at the Fort Carson prison in Colorado.  He said he and three other soldiers rented an apartment in Colorado Springs with a view of Pikes Peak off their balcony. At first he was in charge of the minimum security prisoners picking up trash around the base. Ken became the Assistant Commander of the Guard in the control room. They would communicate with the guards on the floor and verify the roll call of the prisoners. When the Commander of the Guard rotated out, Ken was put in charge until his honorable discharge on February 10, 1971.

Before Ken left Colorado, Laura and he planned their marriage for February 20, 1971. As soon as he returned to Merrillville, Indiana, he started looking for a place for them to live and reported back to his job with Bethlehem Steel.  He was not welcomed with open arms. The General Foreman told him “there are no heroes in this shop.”  Also there was resentment from some of the workers because even though he was gone for two years in the Army he kept his seniority. That was Bethlehem Steel’s military custom for draftees. While Ken was in the Army, his father sold his car and motorcycle, leaving him with an old rust bucket to drive. His father also drained his savings account. Ken said he had to start all over again with a new wife and no assets. Laura’s family was very supportive. 

Laura said the first year of marriage was the toughest. She didn’t recognize the new Ken that came home. He had a sense of humor when he left but he smiled very little when he came home. At first Ken slept on the floor. He had a tough time coping with civilian life and didn’t realize he was suffering from PTSD. When he returned from Vietnam, Ken had physical problems, hearing loss from firing the M60 machine gun, Crohn’s Disease and blisters on the bottom of his feet. Laura also got blisters on the bottom of her feet through contact with Ken. He also developed kidney and pancreatic issues. The V.A. denied that Agent Orange was responsible for these conditions.

On November 25, 1973 Ken and Laura had a baby girl, Elizabeth Anne.  Elizabeth was a ‘blue baby’ born with pneumonia and a deformed foot. She spent two weeks in the Neo Natal ICU. They consulted with two civilian doctors who said that her foot was caused by Ken’s exposure to Agent Orange. The V.A. denied this. Her foot has been repaired.  The same day that Elizabeth was born he was accepted as a volunteer Merrillville fire fighter. He said his daughter grew up in a fire station. He went to Ivy Tech for EMT training and passed the test receiving a National Registry EMT Certification. As his expertise as a fire fighter developed, Ken was promoted to Fire Chief.  Fires are unpredictable. Once while he was inside a building, a wall of water pushed the flames towards him and created a fire flash. He was lucky to get out but when he took his helmet off he found his liner was stuck to the side of his head. The fire had burned his ear, treatable at the local hospital. In 1996 he moved to Hanna, Indiana, and joined the Union Mills Township Fire department again as a volunteer fire fighter/EMT.  With his previous experience, he became the Safety Officer, making sure procedures were followed, firefighters were positioned correctly and ordering the fire fighters out of a burning building when it appeared unstable. 

In a strange twist of fate, Ken was looking for a local family doctor and found a Doctor Robert Wylie in Hobart. While examining his leg the doctor said he remembered treating his leg and asked Ken if he had served with the 1st Battalion in Vietnam. Ken said yes and the doctor took him to his private office to show him pictures and memorabilia from Vietnam, some that Ken recognized. Dr. Wylie not only became his doctor but also a friend. 

Ken and Laura have been married for 54 years and the only time they’ve been apart for any extended time was his two years in the Army. Throughout the years, the family loved to fish, making many trips throughout the Midwest. Ken is an avid hunter with multiple weapons but especially the long bow and rifle. He taught Elizabeth to be proficient with all his weapons. She is so skillful with the long bow that she became a Cabela’s Champion. Elizabeth has two daughters and they’re hoping to teach their granddaughters these skills too.

In 2010, after 42 years Ken retired from Arcelor Mittal, the company that bought Bethlehem Steel. He is a member of American Legion Post 485 and a member of Disabled American Veterans Chapter 102. He has been to three reunions of the 1st.

Ken was in the hospital with a severe pancreatic attack when he received his Honor Flight letter informing him that it would probably be two years before he would fly to D.C. He told his wife that he wouldn’t live to go. He is looking forward to visiting the Vietnam Memorial Wall.