FREDERICKTOWN — Marine Corps veteran Tim Penia was a mere 20 years old when he was shot through the chest during the Tet Offensive on June 7, 1968, on Hill No. 10 near Da Nang in Vietnam.
The life-altering experience shaped the man Penia is today: Reserved, dignified, thoughtful. But not without great cost and wounds that were internal as well as external.
“I am very proud of the way this country has changed its attitude toward its veterans,” said Penia, a Florida native who lives on Mount Gilead Road near Fredericktown with his wife, Judy, a retired surgeon. “They called me a baby killer. At Camp Lejeune [the Marine Corps Base in North Carolina] protesters were spitting at the bus. I don’t even have any pictures of myself from that time because I didn’t want anything related to me [that had to do with the war.]”
Penia, whose father was a Marine, and his brothers were raised to believe that they were expected to spend time in the military after high school. He enlisted in September 1967 and arrived in Vietnam in March 1968 as part of the 3rd Battalion 26 Marines.
“When we landed,” he recalled, “I was scared. I had no weapon. They issued me a rifle but no rounds. They wanted to wait until we got to our first station before they gave us rounds. I don’t believe anyone who went over at the same time I did was over 22. Most of us were replacements for those already sent home or body-bagged.”
His first assignment was to pick up dead bodies and pieces that looked like they might have been American.
“But after they had been out there two weeks, you couldn’t tell unless there was a uniform,” he said. “And the Vietnamese were taking our clothes and weapons from the bodies. Plus, there were Aussies and other soldiers there, allies who were helping us. It’s a smell you’ll never forget.”
How did Penia cope?
“You learn to turn yourself off,” he said. “But it’s hard to do that sometimes. I’m a person now who has a hard time laughing. I don’t find many things funny. It takes a lot for me to feel.”
The battalion had traveled to Phu Bi and Khe Sanh, and while in Da Nang got the word to move out to Liberty Bridge with Operation Allenbrook.
“The best I can remember, we were supposed to be going to Hill No. 10,” said Penia. “We walked along the river, then cut over to some heavy growth. We saw movement and held up. They started bombing with 500- and 250-pound bombs and napalm. After about 2 1/2 hours, we started movement with our guns up.”
As an A gunner, Penia’s job was to load machine guns with rounds.
“I got hit in the chest,” he remembered. “I tried to pull myself up but there was a bubbling sensation out of my chest and my right arm went out on me. I crawled backward. Some guys pulled me back to the tree line.”
There was no medic, but, according to Penia, “they put a poncho on my chest so I wouldn’t bleed to death.” A corpsman gave him a transfusion from a can of plasma.
Two fellow Marines took it upon themselves to carry Penia to the trench on the side of the open field.
“I can’t explain it to this day, but I could swear that all rounds stopped firing, like they turned off a switch, until we got to the trench. Then it started again,” said Penia.
The battalion was nearly wiped out; 75 percent of Penia’s comrades were killed that day.
He is unable to remember the names of the Marines who helped him.
“But I do appreciate what they did,” he said. “They tied my hands and feet with their belts and put my hands and feet over their necks and carried me all the way down to the landing zone to the chopper.”
A lieutenant nearby was shot in the hip and fell into Penia, which broke all of his ribs along his sternum. Both he and the lieutenant were flown to Da Nang. Someone offered Penia a cigarette and, he said, “like a dummy, I smoked it. The smoke came out of my chest.”
From Da Nang, he was flown to an Army hospital in Japan; he does not remember the location.
“Look at this,” said Penia’s wife, Judy. She helped Penia pull up his shirt and pointed to several scars, including a particularly angry-looking one.
“That’s a mortuary stitch,” she explained. “The kind of stitch they use for autopsies, using black cotton thread.”
In other words, the medics did not expect him to live, so it hardly mattered if his chest would bear an ugly scar.
But against all odds, Penia survived. He remembered telling himself, “I can’t die now.”
“I wasn’t about to,” he said. “People who want to live tell themselves whether or not they can die because of what it will do to other people. It’s what you think it’s going to do to your family. That’s how you fight death.”
“It’s called ‘will to live,’” added Judy.
“When I got home,” said Penia, “I met the corpsman who gave me the can of plasma. He told me that if he had seen another person who needed that can, he would have given it to them, because he thought I was already dead. I told him ‘I’m glad you gave it to me because there was no way I was going to give up.’”
He was transferred to a hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., where he recovered for two months, then was released. He was placed on light duty, doing clerical work and driving, for the rest of his military service.
Penia was a changed man, struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and anger.
“I kept a low profile,” he said, to avoid the war protesters. “When I went into town, I never went in uniform. I let my hair grow as long as they would allow. I stayed to myself.
“When I married Judy, we really had our ups and downs at first. I busted a lot of walls and a couple of doors. I would never hit her but I did take it out on things. After being shot, you know what pain is and you never wish that on somebody else. But that is not to say if somebody made me mad I couldn’t hurt them.”
The Penias moved to Albuquerque, N.M., where he worked for the postal service as a mail carrier.
According to Judy, work was Penia’s way to cope.
“He worked 10, 12 hours a day,” she said. “He was outside, walking, and he was isolated. He didn’t have to talk to anybody.”
“It wasn’t so bad when I was working. It keeps you occupied and it’s something to do every day,” Penia said.
But he had a reputation, mostly undeserved except for his struggles with anger. Co-workers said he was “spooky.” They knew he was an ex-marine who had been shot in Vietnam. He also collected antique guns and participated in cowboy gunfight re-enactments in historic Albuquerque. In part, the reputation was another means of keeping people at a distance.
“I can look mean, and when I get angry I have a look and I get quiet,” said Penia. “I grit my teeth and I just look at you. People get their own impression and I don’t have to say anything. The truth is, when I get frustrated, I can’t talk.”
His wife, however, knows the truth about him.
“He is a very gentle bear, easily hurt, loving and kind,” she said. “But it has to be a trusting situation. He has to trust you.
“He has come a long way. It’s amazing how far he has come in 27 years of marriage,” she said, adding that Penia was a great father to her son. “He took on that responsibility wholeheartedly. I think playing with Bernie took Tim back to his childhood.”
Penia agreed.
“I went to Vietnam so young,” he said.
Then, after 30 years with the postal service, “they kicked me out,” said Penia, “because of my disability, but they said they couldn’t use me anymore.” He frequently had to be absent from work for visits to the veteran’s hospital. “But the truth is, “they were afraid of me,” he said.
The Penias agreed that fighting to get his job back wasn’t worth the effort, so they moved to Knox County in 2002 to be nearer to Judy’s mother in Mansfield.
Regarding the war in Iraq, Penia said it looks like a no-win situation.
“It may not have a better resolution than Vietnam. I don’t know how we can come out of there and save face,” he said. “You can’t fight a diplomatic war. You either have to go into war with an attitude that it’s a win situation or stay out of it. But even though the war in Iraq is wrong, at least the people are supporting the troops.”
Penia has high praise for the Knox County Veterans Services Office.
“The veterans around here have one of the best veterans services offices around. They are great people,” he said. “I have nothing against our government. I have been taken care of very well by the Veterans Administration. But I am angry that the first thing the government wants to do is cut veteran’s benefits. They don’t cut politicians’ benefits.”
Penia is philosophical about his military experiences.
“I know I shot at people but I will never know for a fact whether I killed anybody,” he said. “I don’t feel bad about that. I have a clear conscience. I know they were trying to kill me, too. I don’t have a bad feeling toward the Vietnamese people, because they were doing the same thing; they were trying to stay alive, too. If they had been over here, it would be the same difference. I was doing my job.”
Penia is a member of the American Legion and serves with its honor guard at veterans’ funerals.
“It’s a way to give back to the veterans,” he said.
“I am a firm believer that, even today, going into the service is not a bad thing. It gives you discipline and advantages that you don’t have otherwise. It builds you morally and gives you self-respect. I’m just glad people treat those soldiers [stationed in Iraq] better than they did with Vietnam.”
He remembers clearly and with sadness being called “baby killer” by two of his own siblings.
“It’s good for people to start thanking the Vietnam veterans,” said Penia, “because they have never had that.”