{"id":21374,"date":"2018-04-13T11:08:33","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T15:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/news\/?p=21374"},"modified":"2018-05-31T12:35:03","modified_gmt":"2018-05-31T16:35:03","slug":"trip-vietnam-educational-eye-opening-tear-inducing-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/news\/2018\/04\/trip-vietnam-educational-eye-opening-tear-inducing-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Trip to Vietnam an educational, eye-opening and tear-inducing experience"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Bill Gauntt holds pieces of his F-4 Phantom Jet, which was shot down over Vietnam in 1971. A Vietnamese man who lived near the crash site as a young boy had gathered the pieces and held onto them for 47 years.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bill Gauntt unzips a small, red pouch and pulls out a triangular shard of clear plastic. Its edges are uneven and the plastic has yellowed with age. But Gauntt knows exactly what it is and where it came from.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is part of my canopy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The canopy from his fighter jet that crashed in Vietnam in 1972; the jet that he and his \u201cbackseater,\u201d Lt. Fran Townsend, ejected from after its tail was sheared off by anti-aircraft fire.<\/p>\n

Both parachuted safely. Gauntt survived but was captured; Townsend was gunned down by North Vietnamese soldiers.<\/p>\n

The plane slammed into the ground near the home of a nine-year-old Vietnamese boy who, 46 years later, gave Gauntt the canopy piece when the former pilot visited the crash site, now a fish pond.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was emotional,\u201d Gauntt says in a seemingly vast understatement.<\/p>\n

The man, named Phong, also said that once a year he holds a ceremony to honor Townsend\u2019s spirit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey honor their ancestors. It\u2019s part of their culture. So they honored his spirit,\u201d he says. \u201cIt gives you a little faith in humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Going back<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In February, a group of 10\u2014including Gauntt and another Vietnam vet, Bill Raines\u2014spent two weeks touring the country, visiting cities, villages and spots like Gauntt\u2019s crash site and the buildings where he spent 18 months as a POW.<\/p>\n

Traveling to Vietnam was \u201can educational experience\u201d for everyone in the group and \u201cexceeded all expectations,” said Robert Dooley, dean of the UTC College of Business and organizer of the trip . He has been to Vietnam many times in the past.<\/p>\n

Returning to sites that held special meaning for Gauntt and Raines was \u201cemotional\u201d for everyone, Dooley says. \u201cThere were a lot of tears from everybody,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a real honor to walk where they walked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dooley, who has been to Vietnam several times in the past, said the recent trip was \u201can educational experience\u201d for everyone in the group.<\/p>\n

Among the stops were the military firebases stretching along the former Demilitarized Zone, a 60-mile swath that once cut the country into North and South Vietnam. The firebases\u2019 purpose was to prevent North Vietnamese soldiers from coming south. As a young captain in 1970-\u201971, Raines was charged with keeping the firebases properly supplied, not only with ammunition, food and health care but also with efficient soldiers to run them and maintain morale.<\/p>\n

Raines, who retired as a U.S. Army major general, wanted to see a few of those bases, including one at the Khe Gio Bridge where Mitchell Stout, a 20-year-old sergeant from Lenoir City, Tenn., earned a U.S. Medal of Honor by picking up a Vietnamese hand grenade tossed into a bunker and using his body as a shield before it exploded. He died but saved several of his fellow soldiers.<\/p>\n

Stout\u2019s death took place three months before Raines took over the supplying of the Khe Gio Bridge firebase, but he wanted to return to the site where Stout sacrificed his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a small hill, very much like Orchard Knob here, that size,\u201d says Raines, who retired as a U.S. Army major general. \u201cWhen I was there, there was all sorts of concertina wire around it, bunkers on top; we had machine guns; we had dusters (anti-aircraft guns). We guarded the bridge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just had to sit there and be quiet, and everyone left me there to soak up this hillside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raines, who retired as a U.S. Army major general, had not been back to Vietnam since his tour of duty ended and was initially hesitant to return. It wasn\u2019t so much the memories he might have to face, he says, but a lingering sense that Americans had failed the Vietnamese people.<\/p>\n

But over the two weeks, his apprehension faded as he witnessed free-market entrepreneurship thriving throughout the country, including Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam during the war and now the capital of the reunited country. At one plaza inside the city, Raines says, he was able to stand in one place and see Popeye\u2019s Chicken, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King and McDonald\u2019s. The building where Gauntt\u2019s POW cell was located is now a string of small businesses run by Vietnamese natives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes out of my recesses the memories of what the country was like when I left,\u201d Raines says, \u201cand replaces it with a dynamic, interactive\u2014except for the name \u2018communism\u2019 as a trademark for the country\u2014it\u2019s got entrepreneurship and it\u2019s freedom that I hope I can see it totally in my life. I saw 90 percent freedom when I was there.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Freedom<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In his office at the Raines Group real estate investment company, Raines pulls out an unopened bottle shaped somewhat like the familiar shape of a beehive. It\u2019s filled with a honey-colored liquid, but what\u2019s floating inside is what catches the eye. In its mouth, a small cobra, hood extended, holds a jet-black scorpion the size of your hand. Yes, they\u2019re real and this is Vietnamese snake wine. And yes, Raines tried some.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty much just sweet wine,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Selling snake wine is not what Americans would generally think of when the word \u201ccapitalism\u201d comes up, but the beverage is indicative of the small businesses that now run the gamut across Vietnam. Whether it\u2019s bike-repair shops, cafes or restaurants serving silkworm or jellyfish stew, the Vietnamese have not only embraced Western business techniques, they\u2019ve embraced Westerners themselves.<\/p>\n

Both Gauntt and Raines say the Vietnamese people show no animosity towards Americans and, in fact, are excited to see them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey welcome us with open arms,\u201d Gauntt says. \u201cThat\u2019s the transition that\u2019s been made by these people. They love Americans; they love tourists. They love capitalism; they love to do business.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may have lost the war, but we have won the hearts and minds of the people, by and large,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

For Raines, the happiness of the Vietnamese people and their utter lack of anger at the U.S. means \u201cour soldiers\u2019 deaths were not in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve really won this war, not on the battlefield where we thought about it, but through the freedoms that I saw emerging. That to me is positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would encourage every Vietnam vet, if they could and if they wanted to, to go back to Vietnam and replace the thoughts, visions and memories that you had 47 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did some good. It was not the way we wanted it to be, but we did some good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bill <\/a>
Bill Gaunnt stands with Phong, a Vietnamese man who, as a young boy, lived near where Gauntt’s jet was shot down in 1972. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Bill <\/a>
Bill Raines, who served in Vietnam from June 1970 until June 1971, crosses a bridge over the former Demilitarized Zone, a 60-mile swath that separated North and South Vietnam. <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A group of 10 visited Vietnam in February. Bill Gauntt, center in blue baseball cap, and Bill Raines, center in red baseball cap, are veterans who served in the country during the Vietnam War in the early 1970s. <\/div> <\/div>
\"Bill <\/a>
Bill Gauntt points to a display of the Hanoi Hilton, a North Vietnamese prison where he was a POW. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"jellyfish\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"In <\/a>
In Vietnam you can find snake wine \u2014 yes, with a real snake in it. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"silkworm\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two Vietnam vets from Chattanooga \u2014 one shot down as an Air Force pilot and held as a POW \u2014 recently took a trip back to the country. One had been there several years ago on a Southeast Asia cruise; the other hadn’t returned since the war.<\/p>\n

Continue Reading <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1105,"featured_media":21385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_slider":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_featurette":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nTrip to Vietnam an educational, eye-opening and tear-inducing experience | UTC News Archive: Jul 2007 - Oct 2025<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two Vietnam vets from Chattanooga \u2014 one shot down as an Air Force pilot and held as a POW \u2014 recently took a trip back to the country. 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