My father, Joseph F. Stavangi was with the 101st Airborne during WWII and participated in D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge. He was a Staff Sergeant and never spoke of his wartime experiences.
Dad is in shown holding the 45 pistol in the top right photo with his platoon in Germany. I was in the Military Police and shown bottom right with a convoy and again on the bottom left in the dark uniform to the far right. We were flying over Cambodia. You can see in the photo that some are Americans and some of the paratroopers are Vietnamese. It was Special Operations.
My son Jason shown on the top left served in the U.S. Army a year or so after high school and was stationed upstate in the New York Mountain Division. The picture of Jason was taken during the Haiti crisis. My second MOS was a 31 D in Germany and in the States.
While in Vietnam, I was stationed around Saigon and was assigned to protect the embassy and go out and retrieve AWOL soldiers or escort convoys. Convoys could be used for different reasons such as troop movement and supplies. We would be the leader of the pack (convoy). As for the soldiers that went AWOL, sometimes they might drink too much. My other MOS was C.I.D. (Criminal Investigation Division), but that was in Germany and the States.
A lot of soldiers in Vietnam were drafted and that was the last place they wanted to be. I have not talked about my past. It has just been the last maybe three years I started to. I still do not like talking about certain things from Vietnam. There are things that I prefer not to talk about some of my wartime experience, as there are things that I see in my memories every day. I took the photo of soldiers walking on one of our daily patrols. The chopper image shows a regular supply drop of ammo and rations. My cousin Joseph was a Major and a chopper pilot who sprayed Agent Orange. He died at 49 years of age.
I made a lot of friends during my time in Vietnam. But sometimes being an MP and being in the Criminal Investigation Division, you would have enemies on both sides. It’s funny right? But that is what I wanted to do. I don’t have any regrets. The war experience changed me mentally for sure and there are subjects that I will not talk about except with those who have been to war and witnessed its atrocities.
As the news continually changes throughout the world today, I see a lot of things going wrong. I feel for my Dad, my Son and for myself and ask, “What was it all for’? My family and friends were happy to see me return home. But they noticed a change in me. When I returned home, I was told to wear civilian clothes, so I would not stand out as a soldier, and I was a warrant officer!
When the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam, I was at Fort Jackson, S.C. at the time and was upset.
Now all wars are political to me.
~ Joe Stavangi, Vietnam Veteran
STORY LINK: medium.com/@SoldiersWhisper/the-war-experience-changed-me-mentally-33ec6509132d#.oyl77llqh
We thank Joe for his service and for sharing his story and invite you to share your veteran story with us on Comes A Soldier’s Whisper www.facebook.com/ComesASoldiersWhisper where we are all connected.
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