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PORTLAND, Maine — When U.S. Army Sgt. David Whitten came home from Vietnam, stepping off a Trailways bus at the top of Forest Avenue on Aug. 16, 1969, he saw a former high school classmate waiting to board another bus.
“He was on his way to Woodstock,” Whitten, 78, said this week. “Then his girlfriend spit on me, called me a baby killer. She couldn’t separate the soldier from the war, I guess.”
It wasn’t the welcome home Whitten expected or deserved.
He never got a parade, or the decorations for his service. After coming back to Portland, Whitten spent the next 50-odd years trying to make sense of the violence, misery, guilt and loss he experienced overseas. His decades-long mental health struggles led to family estrangements, a failed marriage and multiple suicide attempts.
But on Friday, Maine finally welcomed Whitten home the right way, with the state’s top general and a sitting U.S. senator thanking him for his service and presenting him with a box of long-overdue medals for valor and a Purple Heart. A tearful Whitten said the belated recognition gave him a measure of closure and, along with his VA councilor, was a comfort in his ongoing battles with his Vietnam experience.
“I prayed for this day for years,” Whitten said. “I could never understand why God spared me and let so many of my friends die. War sucks.”
The solemn ceremony, held at his local VFW post, took place 57 years to the day since Whitten nearly died, being shot twice and stabbed once in the neck as his infantry position was overrun.
After growing up in the Parkside and Libbytown neighborhoods and graduating from Portland High School in 1965, Whitten tried to enlist in the army the following year, but swollen tonsils disqualified him. Still, he was determined and, with help from his father, found a doctor to remove the offending organs.
After training in California and Louisiana, Whitten finally arrived in Vietnam in January 1967, where he was assigned to the 1st Air Cavalry.
The cavalry specialized in using helicopters to transport ground-fighting infantrymen like Whitten into some of the deadliest battles.
“They told me, ‘Go write a letter to mommy and daddy, because you ain’t never going to see them again,’” Whitten said. “They were averaging 150 men getting killed or wounded a month.”
It was hot, grueling, dangerous work.
“We’d be out in the field, fighting, for three to four weeks,” Whitten said, “and then we come in to get new uniforms, new equipment and everything. Then, in 10 days, we’d be right back out there.”
On April 8, Whitten’s best friend, Peter Lamont, died after stepping on a landmine, just a day after learning that his wife had given birth to their first child, a son.
“I escorted his body to the grave digger,” Whitten said, “and from then on, I’m not too proud to admit, I was all about revenge, pure revenge.”
Later, during a firefight in the Que Son Valley on Nov. 15, Whitten’s unit was overrun and he was shot in the leg and chest. Laying there, immobile, an enemy soldier climbed onto his chest and pulled out a knife. Whitten thinks the man wanted to cut off the St. Christopher medal hanging from his dog tag chain. He thought he was going to die.
“But a medic came up and shot him in the head,” Whitten said, “He fell forward and the knife pierced my jugular vein.”
That’s the last thing he remembered for a long time. Whitten woke up days later, with the famous actress Raquel Welch standing over his bed during a hospital tour, wearing a crocheted miniskirt.
“That was a nice treat,” Whitten said.
His physical recovery was long and painful, but his mental and emotional struggles were only just beginning. After returning to Maine, he immediately sought mental health help at the Togus campus of the Department of Veterans Affairs, but the facility was overwhelmed and underfunded. He didn’t find the help he needed.
“I was 22 and they told me, ‘You’re gonna get over it,’ and I said, ‘I hope you’re right, but if you ain’t, what am I going to do?’”
For the next few decades, Whitten watched as fellow war survivors with untreated mental health problems died by suicide or drinking. In his case, he had to go back to Togus after cutting his wrists.
“I’d cut myself to see my own blood, and that would ease the pain of seeing other people get killed,” he said. “I know it doesn’t make sense.”
Eventually, Whitten’s family broke up over his troubles. His ex-wife and children didn’t attend Friday’s ceremony.
“It’s like throwing a pebble in the water,” Whitten said. “The ripples, they affect everyone around you.”
But a few years ago, after making another suicide plan, Whitten met a new councilor, Kristin Ferero, at the VA facility in Portland. He credits Ferero, a U.S. Navy veteran, with saving his life and finally getting him needed help.
“I’m so glad he’s found some comfort,” Ferero said, “But he’s the one that’s put in the work. I’m so proud of him.”
Friday’s ceremony was pulled together by U.S. Senator Angus King’s office and Steven SanPedro at VFW Post 6859. Whitten’s missing medals were just a matter of lost and unfinished paperwork. King noted that most of the work was done by his aid Sarah Graettinger.
As King and Brig. Gen. Diane Dunn, head of Maine’s National Guard, presented Whitten with his medals on Friday, the old soldier beamed and wiped his eyes.
“I finally feel like I’m being welcomed home,” he said.
It’s about time.
