Van of Valor

By Dr. Kevin P. Wallace
Van of Valor

BARTELSO, Ill. – The bullet passed clean through an arm-sized tree before it found Chuck Deeters.

That tree—ordinary, unremarkable, growing somewhere in the dense jungle 35 miles north of Saigon—absorbed most of the energy from a 7.62 round fired by an NVA soldier’s automatic weapon. What remained of that bullet buried itself less than half an inch into the back of Chuck’s skull, just below the rim of his helmet. Part of it stuck out. He pulled it out himself.

“I’m one of the luckiest guys you’ll ever meet,” Chuck told me, smiling that infectious smile of his, the same smile that would later greet 950 military children every morning at Scott Air Force Base. “That tree saved my life.”

We were sitting together at the Standin’ Proud Veteran’s Tribute in Bartelso, Illinois, on a warm August afternoon. The Van of Valor was roughly halfway through its mission then—280 consecutive days, 27,000 miles across the entire contiguous United States, further than the circumference of Earth itself. By the time we finished, my wife and partner Lauren Wallace and I, along with a handful of dedicated volunteers, would capture the oral histories of 317 Purple Heart recipients, Gold Star families, and other heroes.

Chuck Deeters became number 117.

The Draft Board’s Decision

Charles “Chuck” Deeters wasn’t supposed to be in Vietnam. He was a full-time college student at Wayne State in Detroit, carrying 16 credit hours, working shifts, doing everything right. But when his classes shifted to night, his draft board delivered a ruling that would change everything: night school didn’t count.

So in 1969, Chuck found himself at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for basic training, followed by infantry training at Fort Lewis, Washington. A commercial 707 flew him into Cam Ranh Bay. The heat hit him like a wall when the doors opened. Off in the distance, he watched helicopter gunships firing into the jungle.

“That was my first impression,” Chuck said. “I thought, ‘What did I get myself into?’”

He was assigned to the 199th Infantry Brigade, operating out of Long Binh and Bien Hoa, about 30 miles north of Saigon. From there, trucks carried him to Firebase Nancy—four 105mm howitzers, high barbed wire, and mud so deep you learned to live in it. He threw together a hooch with sandbags and ponchos, then headed into the jungle.

For the next eight and a half months, Chuck walked point, carried a machine gun, and survived.

Twenty-Five Days in Hell

Patrols lasted 20 to 25 days straight.

Fourteen men, sometimes fewer. Sleeping in hammocks strung between trees. Carrying 40 to 50 pounds of gear through bomb craters thirty feet wide and deep, through creeks swollen with monsoon rain, through elephant grass that could hide a man. They ate sea rations resupplied every eight to ten days by helicopter. They set up ambushes at night and hoped the enemy walked into them instead of the other way around.

At night, they called artillery fire in tight around their positions—defensive “boxes” to keep the NVA at bay. Chuck watched limbs blown off by friendly fire land beside him. He once laid flat as a pancake while more than 80 North Vietnamese soldiers walked within feet of his 14-man team. They never saw him. Radio discipline and well-placed claymores saved them. Later, they learned it was the 33rd North Vietnamese Regiment.

“The two boys,” Chuck called them—enemy soldiers who’d switched sides and demonstrated how easily they could breach Constantino wire using nothing but sticks and satchel charges. Trip flares barely slowed them down.

He stepped on an 18-foot python that had just swallowed an entire deer. The snake moved on. Chuck kept walking.

He watched three Americans die when friendly 105 artillery landed directly on top of his squad.

“He threw away all of his ammo and everything in the bushes,” Chuck recalled of one soldier who shot himself in the foot to avoid missions. “He planned the whole trip. And he’s the guy that I punched. The captain, everybody signed the cast.”

That broken hand came from disciplining a lazy soldier. Chuck’s unit made the self-inflicted wound case march anyway. He didn’t go home.

Charlie Company’s Bunkers

The night before, Charlie Company had been nearly wiped out.

They’d unknowingly set up next to a massive North Vietnamese bunker complex—over 80 bunkers, fortified, camouflaged, waiting. Casualties were catastrophic. Two or three survivors, by Chuck’s recollection.

His company was called in to finish what Charlie Company started.

They cleared those bunkers with C4 at first, blowing them sky-high. Then someone introduced a white powder—when spread on damp bunker floors, it released a gas that made the positions uninhabitable. No masks required. They worked methodically, bunker by bunker, rendering the complex useless.

Then a skirmish broke out. More enemy forces came down a trail. Chuck was looking away when automatic weapons fire erupted.

A bullet passed through a tree—about as thick as a man’s arm—and struck him in the back of the head, just below his helmet.

“I felt it,” he said. “I reached back and felt something sticking out. Pulled it right out.”

Blood poured down his neck. His squad called for a medevac.

A small Loach helicopter dropped into a tiny opening in the jungle. Only later would they discover that opening was surrounded by enemy gun ports—camouflaged, zeroed in, waiting. For reasons Chuck still doesn’t fully understand, the NVA didn’t fire.

“If that had been at night,” he said quietly, “nobody would have made it.”

He was evacuated. Treated. The tree had saved his life.

Fourteen Months and a Purple Heart

Chuck extended his tour to 14 months.

Not because he loved combat. Because he saw a path home. He took over the brigade’s R&R program, running rest and recreation rotations for the 199th. It meant rear-echelon duty, a chance to survive, and a guarantee that he’d rotate straight home instead of being reassigned stateside.

He received his Purple Heart.

But Vietnam didn’t let go easily.

For 15 years after the war, Chuck suffered from jungle rot on his feet—a persistent, painful fungal infection that doctors couldn’t cure. He tried everything. Nothing worked.

Then a fellow Lions Club member—a skin research scientist—made a suggestion.

“Try oregano oil,” the man said.

Chuck applied it nightly, put on socks, and went to bed. Within weeks, the jungle rot that had plagued him for a decade and a half disappeared. He’s recommended it to others ever since.

“You’ve got to smile,” Chuck told me when I asked about his optimism. “Otherwise you cry.”

The Principal of Scott Air Force Base

The GI Bill took Chuck through college after Vietnam. He became a teacher, then a principal after four or five years. For 34 years, he served in education—most notably as principal at Scott Air Force Base, where 950 military children walked his halls every day.

Five classes per grade. Special needs programs. Parents deploying on TDY, gone for months at a time. Children carrying burdens no kid should carry.

Chuck understood.

He made the school a community. He advocated for Month of the Military Child programs. He encouraged relatives of military families to consider enlisting themselves, knowing what service could do for a young person’s maturity. He reached out to the small towns surrounding the base, helping civilians understand what military families actually experience.

“Work together as a team,” Chuck said when I asked what advice he’d give a young person facing the draft today. “Back up your buddies, otherwise infantry won’t be around if you don’t. Back up your buddies and be careful.”

He retired in 2004, then went to work evaluating teachers at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Service never really stopped.

The Van of Valor Rolls On

When Lauren and I sat down with Chuck at the Standin’ Proud Veteran’s Tribute, the Van of Valor was halfway through its national journey. We’d already traveled thousands of miles, and collected dozens of stories. We had no idea then that we’d ultimately log 27,000 miles over 280 consecutive days—farther than the circumference of the Earth—and record 317 oral histories.

But Chuck’s story stayed with me.

Maybe it’s the tree. That ordinary tree, arm-thick, growing in a Vietnamese jungle in 1970, happened to be in the path of a bullet meant for a young infantryman’s head. The tree that absorbed enough force to turn a kill shot into a half-inch wound. The tree that let Chuck Deeters reach up, pull out the bullet fragment, and live to be medevacked out surrounded by enemy guns that never fired.

Maybe it’s the smile. That smile he brought home from war, the one that greeted 950 military kids every morning, the one that told them—without words—that someone understood what they were going through.

Maybe it’s the lesson: “You’ve got to smile, otherwise you cry.”

The Van of Valor has traveled further than the circumference of the Earth. We’ve collected 317 stories and counting. Lauren and I, along with our volunteers, have interviews scheduled well into next year. The mission continues.

But on that August afternoon in Bartelso, Illinois, sitting with a Purple Heart recipient who pulled his own bullet out of his own skull, I was reminded why this work matters.

Because every story deserves to be told.

Because every hero deserves to be welcomed home.

Because a tree saved Chuck Deeters in 1970, and it’s our job to make sure nobody forgets what he did with the years that tree gave him.

This interview was brought to you by Van of Valor, on a mission to meet veterans where they are—one story, one ride at a time.

To read more or support the Van of Valor mission, visit www.HelpVoV.com