SAN JUAN BAUTISTA
– After 35 years, two Vietnam veterans recently reunited for the
first time since they served together in one of the most
controversial and bloody wars in American history.
SAN JUAN BAUTISTA – After 35 years, two Vietnam veterans recently reunited for the first time since they served together in one of the most controversial and bloody wars in American history.
San Juan Bautista native Refugio “Cooks” Chavez and New Mexico resident Roger Blanco, who became close friends while serving in the Army in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968, saw one another several months ago for the first time since they were separated in an ambush Jan. 3, 1968.
“I was a barber in Gilroy when I got drafted,” Chavez said. “We started out with advanced infantry training in Fort Polk, La. That’s where I met (Blanco) – we were in the same barracks.”
Chavez and Blanco arrived in Vietnam in late August 1967 and were assigned to the First Calvary Division before being sent to the front lines.
After several months of fighting, the men were stationed at a landing zone in the Que Son Valley, about 360 miles northeast of Saigon called LZ Leslie.
The figure-8 shaped zone was a secured area in the jungle at the top of a hill, where the troops slept and kept ammunition and food.
“That’s where we got overran. Out of 48, there were like 15 of us left,” Blanco said. “That was a nightmare. That’s where Cooks got wounded.”
The midnight attack ambushed Chavez’s bunker, which was positioned at the top of the landing zone. Blanco was positioned farther down the hill and heard what he knew was a satchel charge (a number of blocks of explosives taped to a board that is fitted with a rope for carrying) being thrown into the bunker, he said.
“It blew everything up,” Blanco said. “When we heard the satchel charge, they started calling on the radio that we need help up here.”
Blanco grabbed his rifle and began trying to make his way up the hill in the pitch black night. He knew if he used any kind of light to illuminate the path, he could be shot down with sniper fire.
“When I got up there, there was nobody. I started calling for (other soldiers) and nobody would answer,” he said.
Blanco finally found a soldier who had been badly wounded. He tried to explain what had happened.
“He said, ‘I don’t know what hit us, but everyone’s dead.’ So I thought (Chavez) was dead,” Blanco said. “We were talking real quiet, but then they started shooting at us so I started firing back.”
Blanco ran up and down the hill four times during the night, getting more ammunition, he said, trying to defend himself against an attacker he could not see.
“We were just hoping we wouldn’t be hit with sniper bullets,” he said. “The next day we got new reinforcements, and I never saw Cooks again.”
When the satchel charge hit Chavez’s bunker, he was thrown into the jungle. His memory doesn’t include any part of the attack, but begins on a plane to a hospital in Japan.
“When I woke up and I opened my eyes, one of my buddies, Don Johnson, said, you made it,” Chavez said. “I looked up and said, ‘What are you talking about?’ And he said, ‘You made it. You’re
alive.’
Several months after Chavez was rescued, a soldier named Porky Johnson, who had gone to school with Chavez, approached Blanco with a clipping on Chavez, Blanco said.
Blanco expected it to be the obituary of Chavez and was startled when he read the article that appeared in the Free Lance on Jan. 18, 1968.
“He handed it to me, and I said, ‘He made it, he’s alive,'” Blanco said. “Then this spring I was thinking a lot about him, and I had a friend in New Mexico and asked him, do you have those computers nowadays where you can find people?”
The search was successful, and after a little more investigating Blanco called the Chavez residence and spoke to Chavez’s wife, Espie.
He told her who he was and asked that when Chavez return home from work that she tell him to call this number, but not who it was he was calling.
“Cooks called me when he got off work and said, my wife says to call, but I don’t even know who I’m talking to,” Blanco said. “I said, Cooks, I need a haircut.”
While in Vietnam, Chavez would utilize his barber skills and give his fellow soldiers haircuts. There was an instance during the war when Chavez was giving Blanco a haircut and they fell under attack, Chavez said.
“Everybody ran to the fox hole and (Blanco) yells, ‘Hey Cooks, when these stupid guys stop shooting at us do you think you can finish my haircut?'” Chavez said. “This guy was the heart of the company – you can hear rounds going off and he yells, ‘anybody else need a haircut?’ ”
When Blanco asked Chavez for his long-overdo haircut, Chavez responded he didn’t do that anymore; he now works for PG&E.
But Blanco insisted that he needed a mohawk, a style Chavez fashioned for Blanco during their tour.
“He said, ‘Who is this?’ and I said, ‘You were in Nam in
’67?’ ” Blanco said. “He started naming off a bunch of guys and finally I said no, it’s Blanco.”
Chavez was so excited that Blanco had to hold the phone away from his ear, he said.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Chavez said. “It was awesome, I knew I had a friend for life – we’re like brothers.”
After reuniting for the first time in New Mexico in September, Chavez invited Blanco to visit him in his hometown of San Juan Bautista. Blanco made the trip to Chavez’s home in late October. He met Chavez’s family – his life far from the jungles of Vietnam.
Being part of the Vietnam war was an experience that changed both men drastically. Neither one has any regrets, though.
“When you’re young, you don’t really stop to think,” Blanco said. “You say, well I got drafted, I’ll see the world. You have to do it for your country – it’s the best country in the world.”
