“I was 11 when it all started,” said Joseph Prusak, thinking back to the early 1960s at the beginning of the Vietnam War. Joe sits motionless in a colorless, simple room inside the Career Link building in Allentown, Pa. Decorated with only a small wooden table and six chairs, his blue button-down shirt and maroon tie stand out and make him seem to be the only important thing in the room. Career Link is a service that provides jobs to interested individuals. It is an office that functions as a self-directed job search system for the people of Pennsylvania, enabling them to make informed choices.
“ My older brother was a delivery boy for a paper route and asked me to fill in for him. The first time I saw the stories about the war and what was happening in Vietnam I was 11. I didn’t automatically want to join the war, but it caught my attention. I started reading about the soldiers and I wondered what it would be like to be one of them,” he said, smiling, his bright blue eyes twinkling. “I was fresh out of high school, right around here, and at 19 I enlisted as a U.S. Marine. I was assigned as a member of the first Marine Division, 3rd Battalion, and 1St Marines Mike Company in Vietnam. It wasn’t that I wanted to go; I just wanted to get it over with. I saw it as the next step in my life, and even though I had to beg my mom to get her to sign the papers it was what I had to do.”
He finds it ironic that he was 11 when the Vietnam War started and now his only son is 11 and, “We again find ourselves faced with war. I fear this war in Iraq is going to be another Vietnam,” he says in his deep throaty voice as he wipes his face with both hands. He knows he has educated his son the best he could on the duties of war and the events he witnessed first-hand.
“ Getting off the helicopter that shipped us there to my base in Vietnam was the first time I realized where I was.” After the short nine months in California where he was stationed at Camp Pendleton, California’s largest Marine Corps base, in the San Mateo area, for boot camp, he went straight into Camp Lejeune, N.C., for guerrilla warfare training. “Everything was rushed because they wanted to get you over there as fast as possible. I was there for eight weeks, when it was supposed to be 12.” The training was nothing compared to the real thing. Along with the reality of war, it was the extreme heat that he was not prepared for.
“ It was so hot, it took your breath away. You don’t really understand poverty until you see the houses, small shacks, really, with no floors. They live in the dirt. Mosquitoes are everywhere. You feel that if the heat didn’t take your breath away, the mosquitoes that followed you in swarms would. I didn’t take a shower until my fourth month. It wasn’t even a shower. It was a pail, or a bucket, filled with cold water. I had to stand there and pour it on my body. No soap, no spigot, just the bucket.” He put his hands out to emphasize the helplessness he felt while over there. It was like nothing he had expected, and it was nothing he wants to experience again.
The weather changed with the seasons and made him think about home. Through the months it grew so cold that he was physically frozen in his resting positions. The monsoons would cover his body with cold rain and his memory would flash back to his family and house. “I was always thinking about if I would arrive home dead or alive. I prayed to God.” At times, he said, he didn’t even know if he wanted to return home. “It is all in God’s plan. I sometimes couldn’t decide if I wanted to make it out alive because of the memories I knew I would never be able to forget.”
Not everyone was fortunate to return home. One specific memory that is a Polaroid image in his mind was a specific night when a new guy joined his platoon at 8 p.m. The young man, blond and of medium height, reported to Prusak’s platoon sergeant and handed him his orders. “He said he was ready to go out for the night patrol. The sergeant said he should just unpack and go to bed,” said Prusak, his eyes intense and wide as he retold the story. About two hours later the bunker they were sleeping in was hit by grenades made out of discharged rocket launchers. He only remembers ducking his head down into the ground. As he did, he saw the new guy to his left lying flat against the floor. He was hit in the side of the head as the grenade blew up. He had been a member of the platoon for less than three hours.
Memories such as that one were not rare. Prusak remembered that relationships between the soldiers were non-existent. He felt like he could never take his guard down. The unspoken consensus between soldiers was to not get close to anyone, not even the leaders. He felt there was just too much death, so if a soldier were to be friends with another, every day it would be uncertain that they would see each other. The day patrols were separated from the night patrols. Friends between the two patrols would most likely be split up. He felt when he was put in the night patrol it separated him from part of the group so separating further to avoid all contact with others was easy for him. He stepped in to replace a machine gunner the first day he arrived and stayed there the rest of his eight months carried.
Being a machine gunner gave him the responsibility of carrying 400 rounds of ammunition. “I created my own devices and covers during my time there. I would hide my huge machine gun under brush so that no one could see it as I lay there,” said Prusak, describing how he spent his long nights. On one specific night, he remembers expecting to be fed, but instead was ambushed with the rest of his troop and was unable to even shoot his gun. “The platoon commander said to turn around two blocks and form a 360 degree circle to protect ourselves. We got about 25 yards and the entire area blew up with bright orange lights and noises so loud it sounded like explosions in my head. I looked backwards and saw only bodies. The platoon leader lying directly next to me was headless. It was the only time I remember not being able to set up my gun,” he says as his face drops and the small wrinkles around his eyes deepen.
His slightly graying hair reflects the neon lights above the table. His hands placed in front of him are crossed and his face barely reflects his 54 years. His age and experience do not seem to match. “War ages an individual immensely,” he comments.
Prusak’s duty in war at the numerous places, DaNang, Hill 55, Charlie Ridge Mountains, Elephant Valley, Hill 37, Anwa, DMZ, North Vietnam and in Loas was cut shorter than planned. He was medically discharged when he realized he had been bitten by a female mosquito that carried malaria. Malaria is a debilitating infectious disease characterized by chills, shaking, and periodic spells of intense fever that is caused by single-celled parasites of the genus Plasmodium. Plasmodium falciparum, the type Prusak was diagnosed with, is the most common species in tropical areas and is transmitted primarily during the rainy season. This species is the most dangerous, accounting for half of all clinical cases of malaria and 90 percent of deaths from the disease.
Prusak said he first experienced cold sweats. He had gone an entire month without knowing he was bitten, but he thinks “it was in a rice paddy that I first got that bite. I always felt weak, and finally, when I started breaking out in chills and shakes, my platoon leader finally Medevaced me out of South Vietnam.” It wasn’t the helicopter ride that scared him the most; it was the rest of the passengers on the way to the hospital.
“ Three dead bodies were covered with a sheet while two other men lay bleeding to death on the thin sheet metal of the bottom of the helicopter. I was physically sick just looking at them. I was laying there next to them as we choppered low over the land of Vietnam and I remember thinking how lucky I was for getting out early,” he said, his hands clasped tight in his lap.
“I ended up being on an IV for a month in various hospitals. I went from Japan, to Alaska, to San Francisco. I had a seizure disorder and don’t remember much of that time, except at McGuire Air Base where I was in a room with three people. The black guy in the center of the table had both legs and arms missing. I just remember standing there trying to boost his morale. He was going to see his family for the first time since he had left for Vietnam. I wanted so bad to have his limbs back. I was sick looking at him and couldn’t eat thinking about it. I lost so much weight while I was sick. I went from 165 pounds to 120. I can’t even imagine what I looked like.”
When Prusak returned to Philadelphia Naval Hospital, his grandmother and mother did not recognize him. He had missed ice cream and the modern conveniences of a free world, but the biggest thing he remembers was the feeling Americans had towards the veterans. He couldn’t believe how little respect people had for the men over there fighting. He just wanted to forget everything he had been through. His civilian clothes felt awkward. It was weird for him because he was home but couldn’t understand what was going on around him.
He first went back to school. He attended Mansfield University and was interested in the criminal justice department. He received free tuition if he maintained a 3.0 GPA, which was not difficult for him. He knew about all kinds of weapons and the probation officer in charge of the department asked him right away if he wanted a job as an assistant. He wasn’t interested in that because he wanted to connect with other veterans. He was hired at Career Link in 1977 and has been there ever since. He enjoys everything he does for others in his position right now.
Prusak feels that his family is the most successful thing in his life. He didn’t have to worry about the past because when he met his wife he had started a new part of his life. A co-ed community volleyball game brought them together and four years later they started a family. He knew what life and love was like because of his experiences and he knew he could give both to others. His son is 11 and his daughter is 8. He and his wife are actively involved to ensure that their kids are happy and healthy.
Prusak’s life now is exactly how he had always dreamed it to be; a successful marriage, great kids, and a job at Career Link, a job that helps veterans in the surrounding communities. He feels that he first acts like a father and then like a counselor. “It is easy for them to feel comfortable with me,” he says, “because I can relate to their experiences.” His favorite parts of helping people are the communications and human relationships he is able to build. They seek support and comfort and Prusak’s first hand experience and expertise in fathering and recovery makes them feel able to start over.
Amy Clair is a junior at Lehigh University. Her hometown
is Telford, Pa.