Vietnam more than a memory for G.I.s, families
Martin W. “Bill” Weleski III was an athlete, somewhat of a prankster, a 1965 Knoch High School graduate and the proud owner of a 1965 Chevy Supersport convertible that he could frequently be seen polishing at his family's home on Winfield Road in Cabot.
But enemy fire in the Quang Tin province of Vietnam on Jan. 9, 1968, meant his kindness, passion for life and mischievous grin would be extinguished from the Earth and the family that cherishes him still.
“Billy was somebody who absolutely loved life and made the most of every moment,” said his sister, Barb Weleski Pflueger of Clinton Township. “He took every day as it came and enjoyed every minute of it.”
Her brother was crazy about baseball, and was a skilled team member for the Saxonburg American Legion, a league in Lyndora and a prep league in Butler. He also was employed by J.C. Penney in Butler.
She said the hole left in the fabric of her family remains more than 50 years after his death and full military interment in the Saxonburg Memorial Church Cemetery, which was held Jan. 22, 1968, one day after his 20th birthday.
Pflueger explained that it took Army personnel until Jan. 15 to retrieve his body because of the raging battle in Quang Tin.“One of the last things he said to me was, 'Don't cry, I'm coming home,'” Pflueger recalled, her voice catching on the words. “I just didn't know what kind of way he was coming home.”She still has the letters her brother wrote to her from Vietnam, which took two to three weeks to send back and forth at that time. She also keeps some of his medals in a special case built by her husband, Bill.“We still talk about him and keep his memory alive,” Pflueger said. “The pain has lessened, but we're still missing a family member.”Pflueger said she was 15 years old when her late parents, Audene and Martin Weleski Jr., and her siblings, Linda, Don and John, found out on a blustery January day that Billy was a casualty of the Vietnam War.“We saw the Army car pull in the driveway,” she said. “Now that I'm older, I know it had to be so hard on my parents. Your firstborn always holds a special place.”Pflueger said she and her siblings still attend local memorial services for the Vietnam War, and visit the traveling wall when it comes through Butler.But she cannot bring herself to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.“It's hard, even after all these years,” Pflueger said. “It's not easy.”
Her brother's military service was honored in Jefferson Township in 1971 when the largest and most heavily used baseball field in Laura J. Doerr Memorial Park was named the Bill Weleski Memorial Field.His brother, John, then age 5, threw out the first pitch at the initial game played at the newly named field.“Baseball was his love,” Pflueger said.John Cyprian, county director of Veteran Services, said there were 40 county residents killed in action in Vietnam.Servicemen and women who returned, Cyprian said, were often treated badly by those protesting the prolonged war in Southeast Asia.War protesters sometimes spit on uniformed veterans returning home from Vietnam and called them derisive names.“Out of all of (the wars), they were the most shunned,” he said. “People called them 'baby killers.'”He said some World War II veterans didn't consider the men who fought in Vietnam veterans of a foreign war because war was never officially declared.
In addition, the 1960s were a tumultuous time in the United States.“There was the 'Make love, not war' protests,” Cyprian said. “The (Vietnam) veterans were the opposite of the hippies.”He said to this day, Vietnam veterans have a special greeting for one another because of their treatment upon returning home.“They say, 'Welcome home, brother,' because society didn't do it,” Cyprian said.Jack Fry of Concord Township, who served in the Army from August 1966 to July 1969, said he could never understand why war protesters turned their vitriol on the soldiers and sailors returning from duty when the government sent them.“I thought they got a raw deal,” said Fry, who worked in an asphalt factory in the Long Binh province during the war, “The protestors were all wrong. I know it was a political war, but they should have been protesting the government and not the soldiers.”Fry said he avoided poor treatment after the war because he remained in the Army after troops were pulled out and served in Georgia and then Germany.Fry often wears a “Vietnam veteran” ball cap, and other veterans of his era never pass him by.“Usually they come to me first before I can get to them,” he said. “They come over and say, 'Welcome home.'”
Fry also has two brothers who served in Vietnam. His older brother served in the Army's 103rd Engineers like himself.“But my younger brother had it pretty rough,” Fry said.All three returned home and survive today.While Fry didn't fight, he worked at a factory that made the asphalt that paved roads for supply transport and medical units.He recalls serving on guard duty one day when three U.S. helicopters flew overhead.The Viet Cong began firing at the choppers, which then split up.“Five minutes later, a jet came and shot napalm into the jungle,” Fry said.Fry said he feels all the strife experienced by military personnel in the 1960s and early 1970s has faded away, and an overall attitude of respect now exists for all veterans.“That treatment wouldn't fly today,” he said.
