Saving lives in the chaos, A Vietnam veteran looks back 40 years later

Photo By Master Sgt. Caleb Barrieau | Capt. Roger Urbaniak receives the Soldiers Medal, form Adm. Maurice Weisner, commander in Chief Pacific. Urbaniak was cited for his actions in evacuating civilians during the fall of Da Nang in March 1975 (Photo provided by Roger Urbaniak, edited by SSG Barrieau)  

HOHENFELS, BY, GERMANY

02.14.2014

Courtesy Story

Joint Multinational Readiness Center

HOHENFELS, Germany -- Roger Urbaniak is a familiar face to everyone who works at the Joint Multi-National Readiness Center’s Operations Building here.

An employee of Raytheon Corporation, Roger works in the security room helping civilians and soldiers alike through the maze of access badges and security clearances.

It is a job which has kept the Wisconsin native, now 75 years old, in touch with soldiers. Men and women he cares about and has bonded with for over 50 years.

There have been many stops on Roger’s military journey, a trail which took him to the rank of lieutenant colonel, in Special Forces, serving at Fort Devens, Mass., and Fort Bragg, N.C., among other posts.

His career also took him, like hundreds of thousands in his generation, to Vietnam and the horrors of war.

It has been over 40 years now since the United States ended combat operations in Vietnam. For the men and women who served there the memories of those long ago days remain fresh along with the confusion, sometimes bitterness and frustrations that have long surrounded one of America’s most controversial moments.

Over 58,000 Americans died in the conflict which lasted over a decade. The Vietnam Memorial, in the nation’s capitol, stands as a solemn reminder of those bitter days.

Roger does not talk much about those days any more, like most Vietnam Veterans he realizes the war is now a distant memory, “ I can live with it, an interesting part of my life, most of my memories are with my troops, we accomplished a lot, four died, I still think of them often,” he reflected.

Each Vietnam Veteran holds to their memories, in their own way, constantly searching for that one shining moment where they know in their hearts they did the best they could and that they had helped others to live.

For Roger, his first tour in Vietnam, 1969-70, was as a rifle platoon leader in the First Air Cavalry Division. His company would conduct an air assault operation where they captured the Rock Island East Complex, the largest weapons cache of the war.

“The complex was North Vietnamese, on the Ho Chi Minh Trail near the Cambodian border, we were finding weapons we could not find before, we felt good about taking it out,” he said proudly.

But it was on his second tour, that Roger would give a special gift to several Vietnamese families who could have easily perished in the chaos of war.

It was 1974-75, and Roger, now a captain, was working out of the Counsel General’s Office in Da Nang along with three others. A fluent Vietnamese speaker, Roger was mostly accounting for the remains of fallen Americans.

“I worked at the Joint Casualty Resolution Center (JCRC); I found the remains of seven to eight soldiers while I was there. They were normally found in school yards,” explaining that the South Vietnamese buried them there for safety.

Near the end of April 1975, with the fall of Saigon becoming more imminent, Roger was given the task of evacuating the families of three Vietnamese senior commanders in the area of Da Nang.

The first two families were placed on an American Aircraft and flown to safety. “I got them through the checkpoints which were closing fast; the kids were 4 or 5 years old in families of five or six people.” He explained.

It was as he tried to help the third family the airfield was shut down as the chaos of thousands of people, wanting to escape to freedom, were flooding the area. “I could not get on the air base and I was sitting by a river. I managed to contact an Air America helicopter who landed in a remote area, I got the family on to the base and then on an aircraft, I got them up front which was hard as many people were trying to jam their way on,” his recollection of the day still vivid in his mind.

Roger would soon move on to his personal safety, a saga that he still recalls with urgency, the date was April 21, 1975. He would make his way to Thailand and a reunion with his 3 colleagues from the JCRC. He did so on what he called “Bird Air’ which was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) contracted airline.

But a day or two later he was asked if he would go back to Saigon to continue the rescue efforts. Roger agreed and was soon on Bird Air heading back to what would be the final days of the Vietnam War.

On April 30th 1975, Roger Urbaniak was on one of the last helicopters out of Saigon. “I didn’t think we would make it,” he said. Adding, “Rockets were being fired everywhere.”

He said he will always remember his pilot was from Fort Walton Beach, FL, while admitting that time has taken away his name. He remembers, “My last photo of Vietnam (and he has dozens) was of a rocket plume.” It was as if he was describing Charley Sheen in the movie Platoon.

Vietnam veterans are aging into their retirement years now. Today’s younger soldiers will see an occasional baseball cap, sweatshirt or photo of a Vietnam guy normally the age of their grandparents, too young themselves to have lived through the trauma of those years.

One of the most impressive traits of Roger and all his comrades from the Vietnam generation was that no matter what the odds, no matter what the politics surrounding them, they never stopped trying. In each one of their stories there is a life well led and other lives, far from the headlines, who were aided and given that same chance by a U.S. soldier.

“We felt some commitment to the people, in Vietnam, we had bad times but some of the best people I have ever met I knew there, we had a job to do and we did it.” He testified with the mementos of his war days proudly displayed in his cubicle at JMRC.

• Date Taken: 02.14.2014
• Date Posted: 03.25.2014 06:07
• Story ID: 122495
• Location: HOHENFELS, BY, DE