E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Send E-mail
Reprint story
Journal North: Home | Sports | Opinion | Obits | Entertainment
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Ex-POW in Washington for Visit to Vietnam Memorial
By Jessica Dyer
Journal Staff Writer
Sylvia Jacquez doesn't know what to expect when they finally stand before the shiny black granite wall.
Silence?
Tears?
Sylvia's husband, Juan, has talked for years about traveling from their Santa Fe home to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and seeing the famed wall.
Now Juan Jacquez, a retired veteran who spent four years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, is finally making the journey.
Juan, 62, flew to Washington Saturday with Sylvia, the couple's daughter and son-in-law. The plan is to visit "The Wall" — etched with the names of more than 58,000 American servicemen who died or who went missing in action during the Vietnam War — today.
"It's just something he needs to do — go to the wall. I think that will help him," Sylvia said. "It's going to be hard. I can already sense it's going to be very, very hard when he does, but I think it's important."
Sylvia was so determined to get Juan to Washington that she reached out to the community, writing letters to various organizations and seeking financial help for the trip. An anonymous donor is footing the bill.
Juan said on Friday that he's always planned to visit the memorial but has mixed feelings now that the day has come. He knows the wall could stir memories of a time he's spent decades trying to forget.
"I don't want to go back there (to that time in his life) anymore. I don't want to relive the memories," he said. "I want to push forward, but I do want to see this wall."
He said it's his way to show respect for the military personnel who, unlike him, never made it home.
"Just (to) show that they're not forgotten," said Juan, who served as a staff sergeant in the Army. "Hopefully, it will make me feel better. Probably. But I won't know until I get there."
Four lost years
The room above the garage in the Jacquez home is a sort of tribute to Juan's service. His many military medals — including a Purple Heart and Bronze Star — hang in a frame above the couch, along with a smattering of plaques and certificates.
"They're there and I'm proud of them, but I don't pay any attention to them," Juan said. "I just let it be."
In the same room, Juan also stores a small metal cup. It's the dish from which he ate his meals while imprisoned.
Juan spent four years as a POW, living over that time in four different camps in Cambodia and North Vietnam.
The pain he endured — both mental and physical — sticks with him today.
Juan still deals with post-traumatic stress disorder, often quietly.
Sylvia said Juan has been reluctant to talk much about his Vietnam experience, even with her. But after 36 years of marriage, she's all too familiar with his internal struggle.
"He blocks it out, but it comes right back. He lost four years of his life, and that's the way he's always said it.... The way they treated him was horrible, and it's just not humane for them to do what they did to him," she said.
There are other recurring problems, too. Juan said his liver has been so weakened that an organ transplant was once considered. Doctors, Juan said, suspect the culprit is Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant used by the American military during the Vietnam War.
He also suffered three ruptured discs during the march between one prison camp and the next. He said he was marching with his hands tied behind his back when he was pushed into a ravine, landing chest-first. His back hasn't been the same since, although he resists taking pain medication for the condition.
"If there's something I hate, it's being dependent on pain pills and muscle relaxers," he said. "I don't believe in that."
Slyvia said declining health and increasing age made her even more determined to get Juan to Washington.
"I thought it would be wonderful if we could go before he gets older," she said.
Sadness and relief
Sylvia said Juan was emotional when he learned the trip would finally happen thanks to an anonymous donor.
The news, she said, brought tears to his eyes.
But he's been pensive about it ever since.
Sylvia thinks it's nerves, but Juan said that's not quite how he'd describe it.
"At times I get the feeling that I really want to go, and then an hour later, I really don't want to go, so I wouldn't call it nervous. I'd probably call it uncertain," he said.
Juan said that he's been talking about this visit for too long, and it's time it finally happened.
"I'm going to do it. I've been putting it off for years. Every year I say for Veteran's Day I'm going to D.C., and I don't do it. ... Thanks to my daughter, she arranged it so I can't back out on it this time," he said of daughter Danell, who has helped coordinate the trip.
Juan's not looking for any specific names on the wall and, in fact, hopes he doesn't recognize any when he gets there.
This journey is about respect, not remembering.
But Sylvia wasn't the only one who left New Mexico wondering what the memorial visit would be like. Juan said he couldn't predict his emotions either.
"I have no idea what's going to happen. Right now, I have put everything on the back burner and I've been living like that. If things don't come back, it will be all right," he said.
Sylvia said she hoped Juan could start anew after seeing the wall — that the experience would "relieve" him of some of the sadness still inside.
She expects it to be emotional in the moment but an experience that will ultimately soothe her husband.
"It's going to be bad and maybe one of the saddest days of his life, to go and look at the wall," she said. "It's going to be better for him after.
"Afterward, it's going to be a relief that he did go and did see all of this and (he'll think), 'Thank God I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm here.'"
You also can send comments via our comment form
|
|
