Local vet knows high price of freedom

MONTEZUMA - "Freedom is not free," decorated veteran Jerome "Jerry" Heimkreiter said in a gruff voice inside his Montezuma home while recounting details of his two tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Navy.

"You know the sad thing is the guys that died are not the guys who started the war," the Cincinnati native who'll turn 72 in August reflected. "You lose a lot of good kids."

Grabbing his oxygen tank, Heimkreiter slowly made his way outside on an overcast Saturday morning to a tan 1984 Dodge van he's turned into a veterans' memorial on wheels. One side features a Vietnam-era Army-Navy River Rats emblem. Underneath, Heimkreiter has painted the phrase "ALL GAVE SOME, SOME GAVE ALL."

Major U.S. wars, battles and operations are painted in black near the rear of the van. On the back passenger door is a black cannon - the outline of which Heimkreiter painted over a pattern - and on the front door two stickers: "OLD" and "VET."

On the other side of the van is a life-sized silhouette of a solider down on one knee, head downcast, near a cross-marked grave. He used a pattern to paint the profile of this rendering, too. Under the grave plot are the words "WELCOME HOME."

"They didn't really get a homecoming, the veterans, you know, especially the 'Nam veterans," Heimkreiter said, his mind in two places at once. In fact, the sight of local lake channels and blood, and the smell of diesel or burning hair evoke his war memories.

Heimkreiter plans to display the van at this weekend's Freedom Days Picnic, a three-day event put on by the Celina American Legion, Eagles, Moose Lodge and VFW in Celina's Lakeshore Park.

If he's having difficulty breathing, though, his friend Harry Vantilburg may attend in his place. Vantilburg acquired the van from a cousin and decided to use it for the fishing trips Heimkreiter and he take nearly every Friday night.

Heimkreiter then set out to make it a moving memorial for all military veterans.

"None of this really should be about me," he said. "It's about the brothers I lost."

Heimkreiter was 19 when he was deployed to Vietnam.

"I joined the Navy thinking I'm going to get a good rack and three squares. It didn't work out for me. I spent the time in the rivers mostly," he said, pointing out he had been among the first River Rats.

On his first tour in 1966, Heimkreiter was a gunner on an amphibious assault craft with the USS Pickaway that carried out operations within the Viet Cong-held Vam Sat and Rach La rivers of the Rung Sat Special Zone, providing cover fire for other vessels dropping off U.S. Marines.

"The command boat went in behind the Vietnamese mine sweepers … and ours was to protect the trooper carrier boats. That was my first operation," he said. "It was like these old channels out here (Montezuma). They just drop it on the bush. They have to climb over the top."

The command boat, he said, consisted of a five-man crew - port and starboard gunners, a coxswain (driver), an officer and a radioman.

"What they do, they come in with the Air Force and they bomb both sides of the channel with napalm and (the enemy) would crawl right back out of the hole after," he said. "They all lived in tunnels."

A convoy made up of mine sweepers, patrol craft and assault craft a few days later would then proceed down the channels. Heimkreiter, who participated in six major operations in his first tour, said he saw many Marines go down, though he was able to emerge from the ordeals largely unscathed physically. Yet the insidious effects of emotional trauma and exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange would later take a toll.

Heimkreiter was recognized "for outstanding achievement in the superior performance of his duties," by U.S. Navy Vice Admiral F.J. Blouin in what would be the first of three letters of commendation.

"In these first river combat operations involving U.S. Naval Forces since the Civil War, U.S. Marines were landed in the face of the enemy opposition and thereafter proceeded valiantly to achieve their assigned objectives and be successfully withdrawn," Blouin wrote. "The success of this historic operation was in large measure a result of the heroic actions, professional competence and devotion to duty of Seaman Apprentice Heimkreiter in the face of enemy fire … Heimkreiter's conduct throughout was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service."

Heimkreiter, who was known as "Bones" because of a slim frame, would return for a second tour in 1968, this time as a coxswain as part of the USS Whitfield County, also teaching other coxswains how to navigate the rivers.

Asked about his view of the war at the time, Heimkreiter said he was guided by President John F. Kennedy's quote of "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

"Boy, it'd be nice if some of these people today would, wouldn't it?" he asked.

One way in which Heimkreiter distracted himself from the horrors of combat was boxing.

"I boxed in the service. Tried to get out of 'Nam by boxing," he said with laugh.

He said he thought of himself as a "fair" pugilist until the day one of his sparring partners knocked the daylights out of him.

"He hit me so hard I looked like the exorcist and that was the end of that. I hung up the trunks and the shoes," he said.

When his trek in Vietnam was all said and done, Heimkreiter received three letters of commendation, the National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Navy/USCG Unit Commendation Ribbon, Meritorious Unit Commendation Ribbon, Combat Action Ribbon, Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal and Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation.

The accolades are framed on his wall alongside pictures of himself as a 19-year-old U.S. Navy Seaman in 1966 and his father, who had served in the Army in World War II.

Today, Heimkreiter lives with his wife, Andrea. The two were married in 2007 and moved north from the Cincinnati area to Montezuma, where Heimkreiter had spent time enjoying Grand Lake on the weekends. Together, they have six children and 17 grandchildren, with one on the way.

"They're all doing good. I couldn't be prouder," he said.

Heimkreiter, however, is limited in what he can do now as he struggles to breathe as a result of ischemic heart disease, which is linked to exposure to Agent Orange used in the course of the Vietnam War.

"Even the guy that gives you the test, he said, 'You were in 'Nam, weren't you?' and I said, 'Yeah,' and he said, 'it's normal,' " Heimkreiter said. "This is progressive. This is going to take me. And that's OK. Seventy-two ain't too bad, after all you've been through. Born and raised in a saloon, you know. You can't expect a whole lot, can you?"

Still, the affable Heimkreiter maintains a positive attitude.

"Could be worse. Could be no legs, no arms," he said. "If you don't slow down, God will slow you down."