Vietnam veteran finds closure on journey back

“I fought this war every day for the last 54 years. Now I've finally seen for myself that the war is actually over,” says Vietnam veteran Lou Pepi, a part-time Whiting resident who returned last March for an emotional trip back to where he had fought and where his close friends had died. He also helped the Vietnamese locate a mass grave at one of the battles he was in, in order to give back, in a small way, what he and other U.S. soldiers had taken away from Vietnamese families. "It was very emotional, but it was uplifting," he says of the journey back.
During this Memorial Day, a day of remembrance for those who have died in service to the country, Pepi says, "I'll be thinking about the three guys I knew and I lost over there." He volunteers to place flags at the gravestones of veterans in the local cemetery, and this year, during the Memorial Day ceremonies in West Boylston, Mass., he will placing a wreath on the grave of a high school friend who died in Vietnam.
Pepi has written two books about both his experiences in Vietnam during his six-month tour in 1969 and those of others, after he interviewed nearly 125 veterans about what they went through. Since the war, he has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from time to time, and writing the books helped in dealing with his experiences and his emotions. And the trip back also helped him. Of his journey 54 years later to where he fought, he says, "The biggest thing I took away from the trip to Vietnam was that I can let all this go. I came to terms with it."
Last March, Pepi went with a friend who had been in his U.S. Army unit and 14 other veterans for a nearly two-week trip to Vietnam through Vietnam Battlefield Tours. While there he met with a former North Vietnamese Army (NVA) soldier, Ho Dai Dong, who was in the 27th NVA regiment that Pepi's unit had fought. Pepi comments, "Everybody I met over there was genuine and happy to make our acquaintance."
Noting that he had been apprehensive about going back to Vietnam, wondering what the Vietnamese might think of the U.S. soldiers they had been fighting, he says, "They didn't hold us liable for lots of what we did. We defoliated their country with two million gallons of Agent Orange, which is still in the soil and water supply. It produced a lot of birth defects." Also, a great many unexploded mines, laid by both sides, were still in the fields and jungles, and many civilians ended up being injured by them.
As for the countryside, Pepi observes that when he was fighting in Vietnam in 1969 there were the cities and the wilderness, or the jungle. Now, he says, "It's a garden, with rice paddies, coffee, rubber and pine tree plantations and cassava trees," which are used to make tapioca. "It's a very different landscape. It's a beautiful garden today."
Back in the 1970s the North Vietnamese had claimed that they had lost about 10,000 soldiers in the war, with none missing in action, Pepi says. Now, they are admitting that there are about 600,000 North Vietnamese who were missing in action. Nearly half have now been located, and the government has asked the Vietnamese people, if they lost a relative, to provide their DNA, which is then placed in a database. When graves of soldiers are found, the government uses the DNA to try to identify them. "They're not finding bodies, they're finding DNA," he notes.

Finding closure
Pepi's trip back to Vietnam first started in January, when he participated in a Zoom meeting between the U.S. Institute for Peace and the Vietnam Martyrs' Families Support Association, which was formed to recover the remains of missing NVA and Viet Cong soldiers. The partnership between the two groups has established a mission of mutual aid in recovering MIAs from the U.S. and Vietnam, although missing solders from the former South Vietnam Army are not included. Pepi observes, "It is apparent that the present government of Vietnam has no intention to include this third group of missing soldiers, nor does the United States government have the moral will to initiate this inclusion."
During the meeting Pepi provided the coordinates of Hill 88, where his unit had fought in November 1969 and where there was a grave with 224 NVA soldiers that the U.S. soldiers had buried the morning after a night-time fire fight.
Reflecting on his motives for helping to locate the mass grave, Pepi says he wanted to give back a small piece of what he and other U.S. soldiers had taken "from those families who are yet to have final closure for the loss of their loved ones." He notes that at least nine of the NVA soldiers in the grave died at his hand, "directly in front of my position. One of those nine was but 25 feet away -- close enough to gaze into his eyes. I looked squarely into those eyes and killed him. In fact, the number is most likely greater than nine, because there were at least a dozen blood soaked drag marks where wounded and dead had been dragged away by their teammates."
In considering his thoughts about survivor's guilt and remorse, he notes that the NVA soldiers were men "just like me, which I have come to believe that I may have more in common with than some people that I may know in everyday life or those I might nod to and pass by at the local grocery store."
While he was in Vietnam, Pepi met up with the former NVA soldier, Ho Dai Dong, who had been spending years looking for Vietnamese MIAs and led the team in the province where Hill 88 is located. Together, they, along with others -- including archaeologists, engineers, journalists and TV cameramen -- hiked through thick brush to the location of the hill and the grave, where an archaeological dig will be done to locate the remains of the soldiers who were killed in the fire fight.
Another place he visited during his trip to Vietnam was the site of a friendly fire incident during which two of his close friends died. "They both literally died in my arms," he notes. He had the coordinates for the location, which is now a driveway between two houses. Pepi buried a 5th Infantry challenge coin in remembrance of his friends in the driveway. While he was there, a wedding reception was being held at one of the homes, and the bride and groom, along with the people at the reception, asked what was happening. When the groom was told what Pepi was doing, "he came up to me and hugged me, with tears in his eyes because I lost my friends." He adds, "This spot, once a horrific experience, was now becoming a place of love with the possibility of new life. After 53 years of survivor's guilt, there seems now to be a reason to let it go and move on."
All of the soldiers on the trip had stories about their experiences. One of the veterans was a Marine, Delfino Candelaria, formerly from Albuquerque, N.M., who had been in a battle in 1967 during which the Marines he was with were hit by 2,700 NVA soldiers. The soldier in the lead had fallen dead right up against Candelaria. "Del used him for a shield all night long" so that he wouldn't get hit, Pepi notes. A diary slipped out of the breast pocket of the NVA soldier, and Candelaria kept the diary for the past 56 years. In 2020 he had located the only surviving sister of the soldier, since the diary included the man's name, Luu Hong Lam. During the visit this March, Candelaria met with the sister, Madame Lam, and other family members and "presented the diary back to her," Pepi says. "I do not know what was going through Del's mind, but I saw in his reaction that a great load was lifted from him that he had carried for 56 years -- and there was closure -- most surely because I saw forgiveness in Madame Lam. It was a special moment."
Pepi says the visit is among the efforts that are leading to reconciliation between the soldiers and the two countries. "The governments are talking with each other," and he says the people he met, including those from the government of Vietnam, were very friendly. The visit helped "100%" with finding closure.
Pepi comments, "Hill 88 and the friendly fire location have been visual scenes stuck in my mind all these years that I have not been able to shake. Somehow, I was not as emotional as I thought I would be at those two places. I think it was because my mission changed on Hill 88. I was trying to point out a mass grave and the desire to help overshadowed my grief. And at the friendly fire location, the wedding did the same thing. It was like -- life goes on."
He says he was not expecting "all of the other heartfelt stories; everybody had one, and they just blew me away."
He reflects, "I think of the old saying about the boy that went to Vietnam was not the same person that returned home. Here's hoping that we all got a glimpse of that boy that we were, and somehow can coax him to come home -- finally."