Two words

Welcome home.

Those two words hold the most meaning to a Vietnam veteran, said Frederick DeWitt.

Everyone he meets who fought in Vietnam with him has always made the two-word exchange.

“They are all that needs to be said,” DeWitt said.

DeWitt, a retired Army captain and middle and high school teacher of 21 years, still does substitute teaching because he couldn’t bear being away from today’s youth.

“Some people told me that I wouldn’t ever want to see the kids again, but I wanted to almost immediately,” DeWitt said of retirement. “People can say what they want about the younger generation, but they have my admiration.”

DeWitt taught history, economics and psychology at three schools — Chatfield High School, Deer Creek Middle School and Summit Ridge Middle School.

DeWitt’s wife, Phyllis, said the couple has met former students all across the country by happenstance.

Although he suffered great loss while in the war, both a limb and friends’ deaths, he said he is grateful for every moment of life and the faces seen in classrooms and at home.

Sitting on his brown couch across the living room from his wife, who sits in a rocking chair, DeWitt, who was 27 when he went to Vietnam in 1965, calmly straightened his posture, crossed his legs and asked, “OK, so what do you want to know about the war?”

He began by explaining that the country of Vietnam is beautiful, a place he would have liked to return one day under different circumstances.

The idea of the villagers and countryside made him chuckle, but the smile dropped as another memory came to him, which produced only two words from his lips.

“Sgt. Johnson,” he murmured. “Sgt. Johnson was the only guy I lost.”

His eyes swelled and he said, “Have you ever fallen and hit your knee on the ground and the skin didn’t break, but there were red marks, indentions? Well, Sgt. Johnson stepped on a landmine and had those marks on his entire body, but there was no blood.”

While waiting for a chopper to transport Johnson, DeWitt repeatedly told his friend he would pull through the injury. He knew Johnson was shocked that it had happened and badly hurt, but he didn’t think that would be the last time the two would ever speak.

“He died. They worked on him for a few moments I was told, but he died,” he recalled.

A piece of metal, a third the size of a dime, pierced the sergeant’s chest catching the corner of his heart, causing it to hemorrhage, he explained.

Loss and inspiration

While in his kitchen he looked over papers on the counter before heading to the fridge.

“I hope you don’t mind if I have a mixed drink,” he joked, mixing water and limeade in a blue glass filled to the brim with ice.

Making his way back to the documents, he pulled one from the pile with his prosthetic hand and smiled.

“One of my students wrote this about me for a college scholarship. It was supposed to be about a person in her life who inspired her,” he said.

The title of the piece is “The Most Influential Person In My Life,” by Madison Kockeaver.

After setting the scene of her life before meeting DeWitt, Kockeaver wrote, “I used to wonder how old he really was and how someone could pack so much in one lifetime.”

Middle school life for Kockeaver got off to a rough start. However, it was her history teacher’s stories, compassion and the fact that, “Mr. DeWitt didn’t care about what anyone else thought. He still marched to the beat of his own drum,” that enabled her to be inspired for life’s journey.

He set the letter down by some photos of himself in Vietnam, leaned against the counter, put his left hand and right prosthetic in his pockets and said, “I tried to do as much for all of them as I could.”

There is no hesitation when asked how he lost his arm.

While in combat, DeWitt lost his right arm in friendly fire when an air burst from a 155-millimeter howitzer in a chopper targeted the trees over his platoon.

“I was the one who was injured the worst,” he said.

The story didn’t seem difficult for DeWitt to tell. Yes, his life changed that day, but there was no self-pity, hate or anger after the incident, just a talk with his wife while in the hospital.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say anything bitter about Vietnam or the president (Lyndon Johnson),” Phyllis DeWitt interjected.

While back in the living room, trying not to belabor the point, he leaned forward in his seat, and said losing his arm never hurt, ever.

“ … and maybe that’s why I never had a hard time with it.”

Neither the loss of limb or the hearing loss he suffered that day have ever been an obstacle or a reason for DeWitt to hold back from life.

“I do everything I want to do, always have,” DeWitt said.

Tales of the war are something the retired captain will share if asked, but his students and family are the topics forefront on his mind.

“I helped get another student of mine a job at The Fort, you know that restaurant? Real nice place,” he said.

Chris Sears was that student and said words can’t explain the amount of gratitude and respect he has for his friend and former teacher.

“He is just an amazing individual who has played such a large role in my life,” Sears said.

The two met in 1987 when Sears was in a class taught by DeWitt intended to prevent at-risk teens from dropping out of school.

Since that time Sears rose through the ranks at the establishment, becoming manager, but also met his wife there, with whom he has two children.

“The man has a following of students who are grateful for having met him,” Sears said.

Another side of service

Before he became a teacher and after he had been injured in combat, DeWitt was a survival assistance officer in the Army.

“I drove my own car and would go to homes of men who had been killed in action and inform the family of the loss. I still have the speech memorized,” DeWitt said in a tone, which suggested he wished he could forget it.

Medals and citations were presented to families, and he accompanied them to identify the bodies.

“You learn so much about the family and the soldier, but they know nothing about you,” he said. “It was so sad.”

For a moment no one said anything.

The silence was broken by Phyllis DeWitt, “I think it helped those families a little to have the news come from Fred. They could see that he had lost something in the war too,” she said.

Yet, as with every other section of his life, DeWitt had stories from this time that make him smile.

While evaluating National Guardsmen, another job description of the SAO, DeWitt and another captain encountered two young boys on bicycles.

“They asked us what we were doing while we waited for the convoy to pass by. I told them we were waiting for them and where had they been,” he said laughing, looking down to the floor as though the boys were in the room.

The older boy asked DeWitt what had happened to his arm while the younger was speaking with the other captain.

“I told him I chewed my fingernails, and sometimes I did it in my sleep. One day I woke up and had chewed them up to my arm,” he says as he looks back to the place where the child would stand. “I asked him if he chewed his, and he put his hands behind his back and said, ‘Not anymore.’”

The decision

Deciding that he had gone as far as he wanted in his armed forces career, DeWitt said he was young enough to make a life change.

“It was either going to be law school or get a teaching degree. I knew teaching would be more meaningful to me,” DeWitt said.

Now he needed to tell his wife, if he could work up the nerve, he said.

“I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn’t tell her for three weeks because I wasn’t sure what she would think of it,” he said.

One of the most meaningful and overwhelming moments of his life was telling Phyllis his decision.

“She said, ‘We’ll go with you. Wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do.’ Can you imagine the trust and the pressure I felt by my choice changing all of our lives?” he asked.

Back in the kitchen now, once again looking over photos and documents, DeWitt said he has cancer.

Anyone not paying attention to the statement may not have caught the last word, it’s said in such a nonchalant manner.

While in Vietnam, DeWitt was exposed to Agent Orange, a powerful herbicide and defoliant used by the military, which caused chronic lymphocytic leukemia cancer, he said.

“As far as cancers go, I always said I got the best one,” he said in a lighthearted fashion.

According to DeWitt, due to CLL, he has a very poor immune system.

“If I get a cold or something, my white blood count goes up substantially,” he said.

DeWitt takes measures to stay as healthy as possible and has a checkup every six months.

Giving personal perspective to the matter he says he has eight children, 16 grandchildren and five great-grand children, all more important to him than any plight he could encounter.

A gift

In a second story room of his home, DeWitt has an American flag, presented to him by his students at his retirement.

“It’s one of the most meaningful surprises of my life,” he said, as the reflection of his eyes can be seen on the glass while he touches the frame of the display.

For all the moments of his life he has shared, he never said anything was truly tough for him, until now.

The flag, present by his Summit Ridge students in 2005, was flown over the USS Arizona Memorial at the exact date and time DeWitt lost his arm in Vietnam.

“When they presented it to me … ,” he said trailing off. He doesn’t seem at a loss for words, but rather none exist to express the moment.

“It was a tough time for me, it really was,” he said as he looks from the display to the people in the room.

“Pretty heavy, huh?” he said.

Although he is grateful for the life he has lived, he says he doesn’t recommend anything to anyone when asked.

“My experiences are my own, and I don’t want people doing something because of my choices,” he says of students who ask him if the military is right for them.

“I always tell people two things: I will always tell you the truth and you can ask me anything you wish. If there is something I can do to help you, I will.”