Award offers respect to Vietnam War vets
In early 1974, Larry Augustine had heard all of the negative hubbub about America's military involvement in Vietnam.
And he didn't care.
At 18 years old, Augustine didn't pay much attention to politics anyway.
So he joined the Navy.
Because of that admittedly impetuous decision 34 years ago, Augustine became the first local veteran Monday to be presented with Missouri's Vietnam War Veteran's commemorative medal.
He applied for the award after learning of its availability in a weekly newspaper column by Neosho area state Rep. Kevin Wilson. It was Wilson who presented Augustine his award at Show-Me Real Estate, where the latter has worked as an agent for a number of years.
According to Wilson, the honor became available just a year or two ago. He said while there were already state commemorative medals for World War II and Korean vets, the Vietnam vets were left in the cold - just like three decades before.
"When they came back from the war, they weren't treated with the respect we now treat our veterans, or with the respect that we treated our previous veterans," Wilson said.
"For some reason, that was a very unpopular war. And the veterans that came back, some of them were spat upon, called 'baby-killers' - you name it. They were verbally and sometimes physically abused by our citizens. That was just a disgrace. And I think looking back on that, people now realize how disgraceful that was.
"So a lot of the Vietnam veterans feel they were never properly recognized for the sacrifices they made," Wilson continued. "So this (award) is just one small way of doing that. One small token of appreciation to say 'you know, this will never make up for the way you were treated when you came back, but we want you to know, we do appreciate your service.' "
Wilson is personally promoting the medal, he said, because he wants more Vietnam veterans to know it's out there. He added he would also assist in the application process if needed.
Meanwhile, Augustine said he wanted the medal as a keepsake to pass down to his children. He wants them to know a little about their father.
Even before enlisting, the military wasn't all that foreign to the young Augustine. He graduated in 1973 from what until his sophomore year had been a boys military academy in Hays, Kan.
That's where he met his best friend, Vic Munch. The two were close. They hunted and fished, Augustine said, and pretty much just "hung around each other all the time."
After graduation, Augustine won a baseball scholarship and went to college.
Vic didn't.
After one semester playing pitcher, Augustine had what was to be a life-changing conversation with his long-time friend. Today, he doesn't remember the exact words spoken. But he agreed the gist of it went something like "to heck with it - let's just join the Navy."
And that's what they did, enlisting under what was then called the "buddy system," a loose promise that two friends who joined up together wouldn't be split apart during their service.
"I pretty much joined on a whim," Augustine said. "I don't know if I was bored, I just wanted a little more adventure."
The Navy honored the buddy system enticement, and Augustine and Vic stuck close throughout boot camp and were assigned to the same ship - the U.S.S. Prairie, a destroyer tender vessel operating in the western Pacific.
Before the Navy, Augustine had never been farther away than Kansas City. Now he was floating atop the biggest ocean in the world.
But he doesn't recall being really scared. Even when his ship was anchored off the coast of Japan and was suddenly swept by a winter storm, producing waves that reached as high as the second deck, Augustine remembered staying relatively calm. It must have been a monster of a storm, though, as a "man overboard" alarm was raised at least once (but turned out to be false).
As a third-class boatswain's (pronounced "bosun's") mate, Augustine served as a supply and training officer all the time he was aboard the Prairie - which turned out to be his entire enlistment.
Augustine entered the service just as the U.S. was pulling out of Vietnam. Just before the fall of Saigon in 1975, he and his shipmates helped rescue more than 1,000 South Vietnamese from the beleaguered city. For seven days, the refugees lived topside on the Prairie, while the ship sailed to safety at Grande Island, off the Philippines coast. A tent city was set up on the island, and for the next six months, the exiles were processed out. Toward the end of that time, Augustine drew shore duty and helped with the paperwork.
"It's almost like it didn't happen," he said, thinking back on those days. "It just seems so long ago."
Back then, Augustine said he never paid attention to the politics of the war, though he knew it was unpopular at home.
"You just do your job," he said. "It's not like I was in combat, but it's kind of like you just do what you got to do. Once you're there, you just do what you got to do…I'm proud to have served and I wish more people would join. I think it's a good tool to grow up - it made me grow up - and it helps you mature. I think it also makes you a little more patriotic. I'm not naïve enough to think we, as America, ever got here without people sacrificing their lives in the all the wars we've been involved in - including Vietnam."
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Vietnam War era veterans who wish to apply for Missouri's Vietnam War Veterans award, can visit www.moguard.com and click on the veterans' awards link under the programs tab. For any other questions, call Wilson at 451-3228 or 573-751-9781.