Harry DeBruin: A Prayer Made and Answered

By Al Konieczka, Honor Flight Chicago Veteran Interview Volunteer

Harry DeBruin grew up in a house with a horse stable near Lansing, IL. His family owned 50 horses and they boarded an additional 50 horses. He was the only child in the family. When Harry graduated high school he tried to find work but no one would hire him because he had a low draft number. Harry ended up signing up for a 2 year enlistment for Vietnam. He had no particular reason for joining the Army, it just seemed to make the most sense. 

Harry recalled, “After high school, we had three choices, college, Canada or Vietnam. I wasn’t really college material. I’d never been North of Lansing, so Canada was out, so I decided on Vietnam.”

During high school Harry recalled, “I had a couple of good buddies and the two of them said, let’s take typing. I said, Oh, that’s for girls. My buddies said we’ll be the only guys in there. I said I’m even too shy to talk to a girl. So they took typing and I didn’t. When they enlisted, they ended up being clerk typists in Germany during the war and I went off to Vietnam. I guess I should have taken typing!”

Harry did 8 weeks of basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana as well as his advanced training. He went straight to infantry training after basic. When he left for Vietnam, he flew to Alaska, then Hawaii and Japan before finally getting to Vietnam. Harry remembered the moment he first landed in Vietnam. “We arrived in Cam Ranh Bay at 4 in the morning and when the doors opened, and that humidity hit me. I said to myself, if it’s this humid at 4 in the morning, what’s it going to be like at noon?”

Harry had no idea what to expect. They flew north to Camp Evans and took them to Eagle Beach which Harry recalled as a beautiful place. During his first week in Vietnam, Harry asked, “So is this a platoon? They said no, this is what’s left of the company. We’re fighting the battle of Hamburger Hill right now and that’s why you were moved to the 101st Airborne Division because we need men.”

Harry heard the word Airborne and knew he wasn’t certified to jump or parachute so he asked, “Don’t you guys jump out of planes and parachute and stuff?” The company leader said, we don’t do that here. We put you on helicopters and drop you off and have you find your way back and shoot anybody you see along the way.

The Army was in a hurry to get soldiers out into the field. As more men arrived each day, they soon became a large enough force to be considered a company. So they sent men up north into the mountains along the Laotian border in the A Shau Valley which was where the battle of Hamburger Hill had been fought.

Harry smiled as he told me about receiving the Bronze Star. “Now because everyone who was in that particular unit, got the Bronze Star, I also got the Bronze Star, even though I was never in the battle of Hamburger Hill.”

Harry’s time in Vietnam consisted of being dropped off on top of a mountain and having to chop away all the brush to create a landing zone. They would sleep overnight on the top of that mountain, then in the morning they would hike down the mountain and up the next mountain and chop another new landing zone there and just repeat the process as they made their way back to camp. The Army would send them off then to another mountain top to start the process again. That’s basically what Harry did for 11 solid months while in Vietnam. Once in a while Harry would get a two-day stand down at the base camp where he got clean clothes and maybe saw a USO Show.

Out in the field Harry said they got clean clothes every three weeks whether they needed them or not. Changing clothes was something Harry never forgot about. “We walked through water and streams in the jungle and after weeks your socks got wet and dried and wet and dried and by the time it came to change your socks it was like peeling a banana. When you took off those old socks they just fell apart in your hands. And the smell from having your boots on for three weeks was horrible – but you never took your boots off. You tied them extra tight at night because the leeches would try to get into your boots. The leeches would attach themselves to your leg and suck blood until they burst. There were thousands of leeches in the jungle and they would come at you from every direction. Between the noise from the monkeys and the blood from the leeches, I don’t know which was worse.”

Harry was part of Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry and he moved from squad to squad so he wasn’t with the same people all the time. He was a very skinny young man. He went from 106 pounds on arrival in Vietnam to between 95-100 pounds when he went home. They called Harry “Herkie” which was short for Hercules because he was so skinny. Harry had joined the Army at age 18, arrived in Vietnam at age 19 and came home when he was just 20 years old.

Harry recalled one particular patrol when they were on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and came upon a mound of dirt which was a North Vietnamese position. The unit surrounded it and handed Harry a 45 pistol and said, “You go in there, you’re the skinniest guy here.”  So Harry went down inside and found no one there. However it was cooler underground so he stayed there a while to relax and cool off.

At night in the jungle, Harry had 2 hours of guard duty, 2 hours of sleep, 2 hours of guard duty, 2 hours of sleep, and that was his eight hour shift. He said it was very hard staying awake on guard duty with only two hours of sleep. They slept on the ground using only their poncho.

Harry shared that shortly after arriving in Vietnam and being out in the jungle he said a simple prayer. “I said Lord, the Bible says that all things are possible, but not all things are probable. I’m not the kind of guy who likes to kill people, I have no experience in that field and I don’t want anyone to shoot at me. God honored that prayer because I never saw any combat. I was here, the fighting was there. I went there, the fighting was here.” God honored Harry’s prayer and he never saw any combat while in Vietnam!

It got to the point after months without seeing any combat that Harry actually got cocky. Intelligence would report that there were 1500 confirmed North Vietnamese on a particular mountain and would send Harry’s unit to go get ‘em. The helicopters had no seats and no doors. Harry would actually fall asleep on the ride. The guys in his unit would say, what are you doing falling asleep, we’re gonna face 1500 enemy soldiers. Harry would shake his head and say, “There’s nobody there. I know intelligence says there are 1500 enemy soldiers there, but there won’t be, you’ll see.” When they hit the ground, two guys would go one way, two guys would go the other way and Harry would curl up in the fetal position and go back to sleep. The guys would come back to Harry and say, “You’re right, there’s no one out there.” 

After 11 months in the field, Harry recalls the unit getting a new Captain. The new Captain said, “I’m going to show you I’m a nice guy. He looked at the squad and said, Who’s been out here the longest? I’m going to send him back to base camp and he’s never going to have to come back out here.” The guys in the unit said, we’ve got a guy like that, but we can’t let him go. The Captain said, what do you mean? The other soldiers said, he’s our good luck charm. We get new guys out here and we tell them, if you want to survive, stick by this guy he’s never seen any combat. The Captain said bring him here to me. Harry stood in front of the new Captain and the Captain said, “They tell me you’ve never been in combat even though you’ve been out here 11 months.” Harry responded, “No sir, I’ve never seen combat.” The Captain said, “Look, this is my third tour of duty and no man is in the jungle for 11 months without seeing any combat.” Harry simply shrugged his shoulders and the Captain told him to get on the helicopter and get out of there. Harry dove into the helicopter as fast as he could and went back to the base camp. 

Three weeks later Harry saw the new Captain at the base camp. Harry was sitting in a foxhole along the perimeter drinking a nice cold can of Pepsi. The new Captain walked past Harry and then stopped dead. He recognized Harry and he said, “I’m about this close to believing your bullshit story. Ever since you left we’ve been in combat every week.” Harry shrugged his shoulders again. The Captain looked at Harry and wanted to say more, but realized Harry actually had been a good luck charm. After that, Harry spent the rest of his time in Vietnam at Camp Evans.

The camp had a Company Clerk named Johnson from Montana and he always had a cold pop in his refrigerator. Harry went in one day to get a can of pop and sat down while the clerk was typing away. The clerk told Harry, “Things are going pretty good for you here. I can type up the paperwork right now for you to get out of the Army. You just need another 48 days in country and then you’re out. You land in Washington and you’re done.”

Harry stayed 48 more days at base camp before flying home to Fort Lewis. When Harry got on the plane to fly home, as he left Saigon, it was raining and a typical monsoon type day. Harry shared, “As we got through the clouds and up into the sunshine, I felt as if I’d gone from Hell to Heaven.” When Harry landed in Washington, he took a bus ride to the airport in Seattle, purchased an airline ticket to Chicago and flew to O’Hare. When he got to Chicago he realized he had never called anyone to pick him up. As he waited a few hours for his mom to pick him up he noticed one thing. “No one would make eye contact with me. The media had told the public that the war was a waste of time and we were baby killers and no one would even look at me.”  

For the first six months after he got home, Harry had nightmares of the doorbell ringing and MPs at the door telling him he had to go back. He would wake up sweating and shaking. He lived on a horse ranch and there was a riding arena and a ditch with tall cattails on the other side. “I would sit on the edge of my bed with my elbows on the window ledge watching the cattails for movement until I realized I was back home.”

When Harry first returned home, he didn’t work, other than on the family horse farm. Finally, his dad got him a job working for a construction company. He worked as a general laborer for a few years and then drove a truck for various companies and ended up working for Ozinga delivering cement for 26 years before retiring just one month shy of his 64th birthday.

Harry met his wife Coralee at DogNSudz in Lansing, IL. Harry told me, “I was with a guy and he said, do you want to meet a couple of nice girls? I said, well, I’m still pretty shy, but I’ll give it a shot.” There were two sisters that came over to the car, Mary and Coralee. Harry chose Coralee. They were married on September 7, 1973.  

Harry & Coralee have three grown children, one boy and two girls and five grandchildren. All of the children and grandchildren live close by so they see them often. Harry is an avid reader and likes to sit at coffee shops and visit and laugh with friends. In his past he loved horses and went riding often. He even rode on a horse in a parade in South Holland in 1993.