Viet vet remembers time in Army
Staff writer
Warren Kreutziger was 20 when he enlisted in the Army.
A Marion native, he spent three years in the service, roughly half in stateside duty and half in Vietnam.
He enlisted instead of waiting to be drafted so he could have a choice about how he would spend his time.
“I was interested in helicopters,” he said.
He served in headquarters company, mainly overseeing what pilots were doing.
“They flew around where there was action going on,” Kreutziger said.
Stateside, Kreutziger served at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and Fort Mead, Maryland.
He then was sent to Da Nang, Vietnam.
One of his memories is when his superior officer woke him in the middle of the night and told him go board a Huey.
“There was so much fog you couldn’t see in the dark,” he said.
He asked what was going on and was told his partner would tell him when the helicopter was out of the fog.
It turned out to be a mission to evacuate a fallen soldier.
“There was a guy badly injured, and there was no medevac that would go,” Kreutziger said.
They flew to the scene and landed in dense fog while under fire.
When they got the solder out, they flew back to the air base, still in dense fog. Their helicopter amazingly had not been hit by any bullets.
At the end of his time in Vietnam, he had only three months left on his enlistment. The Army discharged him early.
Coming home, Kreutziger didn’t experience any hostility from people, as many other soldiers did.
“It’s a small town” he said. “People didn’t act that way.”
Kreutziger said he supposed he would do it again.