Home Front: Rich Cournoyer

It broke my heart with my mom, because she really looked older because of the worry.

“Up to fourth grade, I lived in Marshfield, and then my dad worked for a county park, so he wanted to be closer to work. So, we moved out to County (Road) A, which is south of Marshfield by North Wood County Park, or at that time was called Richfield Park,” he recalled.

Cournoyer had 10 siblings — three brothers and seven sisters — and at 12 years old, he began working in concession stands, including one at North Wood County Park.

By the age of 15, he was working in cranberry marshes during the summer.
He was employed at a Nekoosa paper mill when he got drafted into the U.S. Army in 1969.

“The lottery system was going on, so (they took your) birth date and then they drew just like they do bingo. I was No. 19 birthday, and back in 1969, the Vietnam War was going full-blown, so they needed a lot of manpower,” he explained.

Then Cournoyer received the letter from then-President Richard Nixon.
“Well, the letter was: ‘Greetings from the President of the United States. You are hereby ordered to report for induction on’ — I forget what data was —but it was ‘you had a report to Milwaukee.’

“Back then, you left from the Wisconsin Rapids Post Office, and they took me on a bus ride to Milwaukee.

From there, Cournoyer flew to basic training at Fort Campbell.

“I’m sure my mom and dad were not too crazy about anybody going. I was the only one in my family that went. My younger brother — he’s like two years younger than I — he never had to go. One reason was that he got married, and they could get a deferment if you were married back then. But yeah, I was the only one in my family that went to the military at that time,” he added.
Cournoyer was assigned an MOS — Military Occupational Specialty — in infantry and light vehicle at that time.

“Then I went to Fort Stewart, Ga. At Fort Stewart, I was scheduled to go to Vietnam and then I was doing prep work to go to Vietnam, like you had to qualify with the rifles and hand grenades and all that stuff. During that time, I had to go home for a funeral. My grandfather had passed away, so then I went home for that funeral. After that funeral, which I had a week’s leave, from there I had to fly out of Wausau Airport to Fort Dix, and then from there I got shipped over to Vietnam,” Cournoyer said.

“When I got over to Vietnam, I was like ‘Radar’ (from the series MASH) — a company clerk-type — I took care of mail, I made sure records were kept on people coming and going. I delivered water because they purified the river water back then.

“We had a mountain that we were at the base of the mountain — at a mountain to be like Powers Bluff — on top, that’s where they put the artillery, and we’re on the bottom. So, they could shoot off up top of that, and we were protecting down below; we had concertina wire all the way around the bottom, so nobody could come in.”

Concertina wire was spiraling coils of razor-sharp wire that were set up around the perimeters of field camps, bases and checkpoints.

“Back there, everybody’s in combat, and I didn’t per se go out to ‘the bush,’” he explained.

“We pulled our duty; we were shooting preventive, yet open, fire at night.
“So, once in a while during the night, they would call ‘open fire,’ so everybody would open fire into the wire, so we were firing M16s and M30s — which is like a grenade — into the wire.

“We got rocketed a couple times.”

Cournoyer came back with post-traumatic stress — a normal response to a traumatic event.

“I was not a very nice person, it changes your life; but also, you know, I appreciate what I got now, and I love my country. I always make sure that I vote, and I always tell everybody that,” he explained.

During his time in Vietnam, Cournoyer wrote a lot of letters home and enjoyed the banana-flavored popsicles when he could.

“You made the best of things while you were there,” he said.

Cournoyer got out of Vietnam in 1971.

“You don’t go home as a group. In World War II, they came back as a unit. If you had so many days in service, you could go home when orders came down. In my company, you left individually. You came in individually, then they replaced you one at a time, so that when you left, you left one at a time until the war ended,” he recalled.

He flew out of Saigon, with a stop in Okinawa, Japan, before landing in Fort Lewis, Wash., where he then flew to Mosinee.

“I was home when they pulled everybody out of Vietnam,” he added.
“When I got home, my mother looked old. She aged because she worried… I remember that to this day.

“It broke my heart with my mom, because she really looked older because of the worry.”

Cournoyer went back to mill work for a short time before getting a plumbing apprenticeship and becoming a service plumber.
Cournoyer said that while in the service, he made friends and they protected each other.

“The guys that serve in the military, they form this bond. They depend on one another, and that carries on in life, too,” he stated.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Joren Anderson and the students of Auburndale High School for making these veterans columns possible.