By Zach Jensen,
Seventy-seven-year-old John Juve of Decorah answered Uncle Sam’s call to Vietnam on Nov. 27, 1967, and by May of 1968, as one of the newer members of the United States Army’s 25th Infantry Division, he was searching the Viet Cong’s famous underground tunnels at Cu Chi — 30 miles north of Saigon — with nothing but a pistol and a flashlight.
The 25th’s basecamp at Cu Chi was located south of the Viet Cong stronghold known as the Iron Triangle and was near — and in some cases above — the Cu Chi tunnels.
“Going down into those tunnels is horrifying,” Juve said. “I carried a .45 pistol and a flashlight, and after the second or third time down there, I put the flashlight out on the end of a stick, and when I’d come to a corner, I’d stick that flashlight out there and wiggle it around a little to see if anything happened.”
Juve never encountered an enemy soldier in those tunnels, but that didn’t necessarily make searching them any less exhausting.
“You’re just so nervous down there that you don’t even have time to pray,” he said. “And, you never had room to turn around either. It was awful.”
But Juve, a 1967 Decorah High School graduate and farmer’s son, wasn’t a tunnel rat. Rather, his time in the tunnels was simply the 25th’s way of hazing new members, and he soon assumed his regular duties as a radio operator — first for a platoon and then for his company commander.
“I carried a 45-pound radio on my back and everything else soldiers carried, so it got pretty heavy,” Juve said. “It was 110 degrees in the shade, and the mosquito is the national bird over there. They were huge. I didn’t really think things could be as bad as they were — hot, sticky. You can’t see far in the jungle. The enemy could be walking right beside you, and you couldn’t see them. But, it rained at 4 o’clock every day, which was like getting a hot shower — with all your clothes and gear on. One good thing was the jungle boots we were issued. They were canvas boots with hard toes and heels, and every time you stepped down, they pumped the water out of them. But, we were in water all the time, so we had to get new boots about every two to three weeks. It was rice patties and jungle where we were, and we really had to take good care of our feet.”
Members of the 25th also took care of one another, as Juve found out while crossing a river one day.
“The radio I carried had two antennas,” Juve said. “The tall one was for open country, and the other was for in the jungle. We were crossing a river, and one of the things we always did was, when you’re crossing a river, you walk where the guy in front of you walked. I started crossing, and I must have stepped one way a little too far, and I went down with all that weight on my back, and I don’t like water. So, I was underwater trying to unhook my radio, and all of a sudden, they yanked me up by my antenna.”
During his tour of duty in Vietnam, Juve earned two Bronze Stars — the first of which he earned during his first month with the 25th.
“We were in our night position, and we got attacked,” Juve said. “A mortar landed between a couple guys and screwed them up real bad. So, I carried one of them out to get him out of the firefight. It’s just something you do. You don’t think about it — just do it.”
Juve called for a dust-off, slang for a medevac helicopter, but the wounded soldier he was carrying — like countless others — didn’t survive.
“The first person I saw killed was a good friend of mine,” said Juve. “He was from South Dakota. After that, I didn’t get close to anyone, because when you lose them … It just doesn’t work.”
Juve earned his second Bronze Star in April of 1969, when his company came under enemy fire. His company commander ran for cover one way, while Juve took cover in the other direction. But, Juve knew he needed to get near his company commander to call in coordinates for mortar and shelling targets. Knowing the risk he was taking while under fire, Juve ran across a wide clearing in the brush to reconnect with his company commander. While running across that clearing, an enemy bullet actually struck Juve’s rifle but left him unscathed.
But, on another occasion, Juve wasn’t as lucky. As his platoon hunkered down for the night, they were attacked again.
“We were in our night position again, and we got mortared again,” he said. “I dove into a bunker, and my back got in, but my legs didn’t. So, I got shelled in the back of my legs.”
Juve’s injuries weren’t very serious, but they were bad enough to earn him a Purple Heart and a hospital bed for a couple weeks, during which time he happened to cross paths with a fellow Decorah area resident Jim Ehrie.
“I went to the mess hall, and I looked over and said ‘Gee, I know that guy,’” he said.
Juve’s company mostly patrolled the lowlands of Vietnam, and it rarely encountered hills or mountains, except one which stands out in Juve’s memory — the Black Virgin Mountain, which is about 40 miles northwest of Cu Chi and just off the heavily-contested Ho Chi Minh Trail.
“We had some problems with it,” Juve said. “They did fly us into the area around the mountain once or twice. They’d shoot at us as we were going up the hill, and they’d shoot at us when we reached the top because of all the tunnels. It didn’t really work too well.”
But, Juve said his first and only tour of duty in Vietnam was more exhausting than anything else.
“When we’d go out in the jungle, we’d be gone for a week,” he said. “By the end of that week, we were pretty well worn out, and when we’d come back, we might get a couple days rest, and we might not. That was my job. I was a ground pounder.”
Juve’s tour of duty was nearing its end by May of 1969, when he received an unforgettable call over the radio. A member of the 25th was to go back to the United States early due to a family emergency — and Juve was shocked to find out who the message was for.
“We’re out in the bush,” he said, “and I got a call on the radio from the command post saying one of our sergeants got an emergency leave, and they started spelling my name, not knowing they were talking to me. ‘How long till he’s ready to go?’ and I said, ‘He’s ready now!’”
Juve’s brother-in-law David Gavle had died in a car accident just two days before the end of Juve’s tour. The radio operator arrived back home the day after his brother-in-law’s funeral. After that, Juve was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, until his honorable discharge in November.
He married his wife Nancy in June 1970, and together they have two children and two grandchildren. For the rest of his career, John worked in the beer business and eventually retired from Budweiser in West Union.
Today, John and Nancy live a serene life together. John, a member of VFW Post 1977 enjoys working as a handyman from time to time, and as a hobby, he builds wooden toys and goes fishing. He rarely thinks about Vietnam, and in fact, he said he might even go back one day.
“Years ago, some guys that were in Vietnam and I said if we ever win the Powerball, we were all going to go back to Vietnam,” said Juve. “But, nobody’s won the Powerball yet.”
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My uncle was there with big red one 1967 and68 said it was hell but he made it and thank God for people like u guys.