Friday evening I had just settled down to read the paper, when there was a knock on the door. Linda answered it and said it was a man looking for directions.
The man, who appeared to be about my age, handed me a piece of paper. He had long grey hair, flowing out from underneath a baseball cap, a grey beard, and was wearing glasses. He asked if I knew the guy whose name was on the paper. His voice sounded familiar. I looked at the paper and saw my name and address. When I looked up he was smiling. He asked if I knew who he was. That voice? “My God, is it Doc Tomczak?” “Hey Doc Sherpe, it’s been a long time,” he said. He had that right. It had been 46 years since we had seen each other. What a wonderful surprise.
Robert “Butch” Tomczak and I were in the army together. Butch was from Ashland, Wisconsin. We went through basic training, medical training, and advanced medical training together. Then we spent a year together in Vietnam as medics in the same unit of the 4th Infantry. That’s a lot of togetherness. After Vietnam we went on with our lives and lost touch. It’s sad, but that’s the case with the vast majority of Vietnam vets. Too many of us tried to bury the experience and didn’t tell anyone we had even been there.
Butch said I’m the only friend he’s had any contact with since we left Vietnam. He had been visiting his brother in Ashland and decided to look me up on the Internet. He found my website. After he found me, he decided to drive down and surprise me on his way back to Michigan. We had a wonderful visit for three hours before he had to head to Milwaukee and meet a friend. We caught up on what has been going on in each other’s lives and also rehashed some of our times together in the army.
We were in the same platoon in basic training and I was appointed as the acting platoon sergeant, to be in charge of the platoon when the real sergeants weren’t around. It was a tough position to be in. Some guys didn’t like taking orders from another trainee. Butch reminded me of the night another trainee challenged me and we went out behind the barracks to fight it out. If I had lost, the rest of my time in basic training would have been even more miserable. Luckily I won and didn’t have any more trouble with guys not listening to me after that. No questions were asked by the sergeants the next day when the two of us showed up with cuts and bruises. They knew what had happened.
Tomczak and Sherpe on LA beach - 1966
When we were in advanced medical training together at Ft. Irwin, California, we got a 3-day pass for Memorial Day weekend. We went to Los Angeles and spent it with my uncle and aunt and their family. James Hanson was my mother’s brother. He and Millie gave us a wonderful tour of LA that we both remember. We also remembered the one low spot of the visit. They lived close to the UCLA campus and James thought we’d have fun socializing with some people our age. He dropped us off at a popular campus bar not far from their home. When we walked in it was like Moses parting the waters. You’d have thought a couple of lepers had entered the bar. We knew enough not to wear our uniforms away from our base, but our short hair and military appearance gave us away. No one talked to us and we got a lot of dirty looks. We had one beer and left. We knew then that things had changed for us. It appeared that we were despised by our own generation.
We talked about the night the helicopter crashed while trying to resupply us with a sling load of ammo because we were running out. It came in right over Butch’s bunker but crashed and destroyed it. The chopper began to burn. Butch and his bunker partner managed to drag the wounded crew out and saved them, just as the ammo began to cook off (explode). Everyone buried themselves in the bottom of their bunkers as the explosions and rounds went off in every direction around us. As my friend, Larry Skolos, from Viroqua said afterwards, “That’s the best fireworks we’ll ever see.”
I wanted to know if Butch had ever received the Bronze Star for Valor that he had been put in for. He said he never heard another word about it. Our unit was real stingy at giving out medals unless you were a lifer or an officer. The joke among us draftees was that we didn’t need any medals because we’d either be dead or out of the army in a year.
That was the only war experience we talked about. The rest of the visit was about how we’ve survived these years since those experiences and where we are today. We cheated death in Vietnam, and Butch cheated it again in a very bad snowmobile accident. We’re happy that we’re still above ground, and we agreed that being on that journey together for those two years, created a bond and brotherhood we’ll always share.
Sherpe and Tomczak
Two old Docs, reunited after 46 years - 2013
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