News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Sisters veteran recalls leaving Saigon

There's nothing unlucky about Friday the 13th as far as Richard Skupa is concerned.

For the Sisters man, who serves as the treasurer of the Sisters chapter of the veterans' organization Band of Brothers, Friday, October 13, is a very good day indeed. He was reminded of that last Friday.

"It was about 9:30 in the morning when I thought it was October 13, Friday and I thought, 'Whoa! Wait a minute...' and I started doing the math."

Friday, October 13, 2017, was the 50th anniversary of Skupa's departure from Vietnam after a year's tour of duty in-country.

Skupa, now 72, was in the U.S. Navy.

"I joined up," he recalled. "I wanted to see something besides the wheat fields of Kansas."

He completed boot camp in 1966 and shipped out for Vietnam, where he ended up assigned to the Mobile Riverine Force in the Mekong Delta. His job was to help maintain the river patrol boats that were used by the Army's Ninth Infantry Division for amphibious operations against the Viet Cong guerrillas in the area.

Skupa served in the area for his year-long tour. Just two weeks before he was to leave, he was visiting an Army base on the river when it came under a nighttime harassment mortar attack. Sheltering from the incoming mortar rounds, he thought, "I've just got two weeks left! I don't need this!"

Skupa and two other men, one a close friend named Dennis Warren, went to Saigon to ship back to the States.

"I kind of remember it like it was yesterday," he recalled.

The three men were supposed to depart on Monday, but they checked in at the air base early on Friday and were told that there were three seats available on the "Freedom Bird" that evening if they wanted them. They didn't have to think twice.

"Of course, there was a little bit of a cheer when the wheels left the ground," Skupa said.

Richard was glad he got out when he did. The Mekong Delta became a very dangerous place as 1967 rolled into 1968 and the war entered a more intense phase with the Tet Offensive.

"It started going to hell in a hand-basket about two months later," Skupa said. "There was plenty of stuff going on around us then; I can't imagine what was like later. Pretty scary."

Skupa served four years in the Navy. He was a pilot and flew for a living for many years, then became a supervisor in a cast iron plant. His second wife has family ties to Camp Sherman, which brought them to Sisters Country. About 10 years ago, he reconnected with his friend Dennis Warren.

"We came (home) healthy in mind and body," he reflected, 50 years on. "I have a special place in my heart for those that didn't."

 

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