Local Vietnam veteran finds closure visiting war memorial for the first time

PITTSBURGH — Each year on Veteran’s Day, the nation salutes the men and women who served and sacrificed for their country. But many veterans live with the effects of war 365 days a year.

Honor Flight Pittsburgh just recognized a group of local veterans. The 50 veterans traveled to Washington, D.C., to see the war memorials.

Many of those veterans, including Dwain McGee of New Kensington, saw the memorials for the first time.

“It was time,” he said. “I didn’t want to go to the Vietnam Memorial. I didn’t feel I was emotionally ready to go see it.”

Dwain McGee is the father of Channel 11 anchor and reporter Jatara McGee. She traveled with him to D.C. for the special trip.

Approximately 2 million American men were drafted during the Vietnam War. In 1970, at age 21, Dwain McGee got his letter letting him know he’d been drafted.

“Your grandfather served in the military. My uncle served in the Korean War, your grandfather was in World War II. And even though I didn’t join, I got drafted. I said I’m going to go ahead and go,” he said.

He was military police and tasked with guarding ammunition and supply depots with his sentry dog, Zabia.

“They would tunnel in and they’d have a briefcase full of dynamite with a timer on it and they would set the timer and then back down a hole and it would blow up our resources,” he said. “Our job was to catch them when they were coming up.”

Growing up, Jatara heard bits and pieces of these stories. But much of what Dwain is sharing now, after the Honor Flight trip, he had kept private.

More than 50 years after leaving Vietnam, he decided it was time to face it again.

“This is a lot of people,” he said as he stood along the Vietnam Memorial wall. “And sometimes you just wonder what it was all for, you know? Because it didn’t end the way we wanted it to end.”

There are more than 58,000 names on that wall.

Dwain explained that Vietnam veterans did not get a hero’s welcome home.

“It was years after I got back before somebody even said ‘thank you for your service in Vietnam,’” he said. “It was a defensive war and a lot of people in America didn’t understand that part of it. So we came back, and it wasn’t any parades. It wasn’t any welcome back. It wasn’t any thanks for your service.”

It was a difficult time in America. The country was divided over issues like the war and also civil rights. Black soldiers had a unique experience, fighting for their country and returning home to that same country barely removed from the Civil Rights Movement and where they often faced discrimination.

“We knew that we had to fight over there. We knew we had to come back and fight over here,” Dwain McGee said. “We knew we had to keep on pushing for equality and pushing for equal rights.”

He said there are a couple of things he will never forget, even if he tried, about Vietnam -- the sound of Medivac helicopters overhead carrying wounded and dead soldiers, the difficult climate filled with monsoon seasons and constant dampness and the camaraderie.

That sense of camaraderie was present during the Honor Flight trip, as veterans bonded over their shared experiences. Many said they felt honored and appreciated for their service.

For Dwain McGee’s service, he would pay a price. He left Vietnam alive, without major injury and with no PTSD. But Vietnam would catch up with him.

He also left the war a changed man. He was saved in Vietnam and came home a Christian.

“It saved me. I came back different. Came back better,” he said.”

Soon after returning home safely, he got married, started a family and worked 44 years in the steel industry. He was a pastor for 20 of them.

One of his toughest battles came in 2010.

“Your mother came in and told me that they called and told her to tell me that I had cancer. She’s the one who broke the news to me,” Dwain McGee said. “It was shocking… I said wow, this is the same age my mother got cancer.”

His diagnosis of prostate cancer was attributed to his exposure to Agent Orange while in Vietnam. Agent Orange is a toxic chemical used to clear trees and plants during the war. It is now linked to many cancers and medical conditions many veterans have been diagnosed with.

“They would take the agent orange and they would spray it. We didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t even know what Agent Orange was until afterwards,” McGee explained.

He is now cancer-free and also feeling a newfound freedom of closure.

“Really made me feel welcomed, that I accomplished something,” he said. “I started to feel good about being over there and being part of what we did.”

There is never a shortage of conversation or a dull moment in the McGee household. But now, there’s even more to talk about.

“It just made you feel like what you did was a good thing,” Dwain McGee said of the trip. “I felt honored because of it.”

If you’d like to learn more about Honor Flight, click here.

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