Bryant man took Honor Flight

Paul Copeland recalls his squad being overwhelmed at the demilitarized zone between North Vietnam and South Vietnam in March 1969.

The attack wiped out nearly the whole group of United States soldiers except for himself and two others. He remembers calling for help on the radio and lighting his shirt on fire to signal their location.

Now the Purple Heart veteran has a new memory relating to his time in the service.

Copeland and 102 other veterans who received the Purple Heart — it goes to those wounded or killed in military service — took a trip Monday to Washington, D.C., through Honor Flight Northeast Indiana. The organization coordinates flights for veterans to visit the nation’s capital and memorials built in their honor. Honor Flight Northeast Indiana coordinated the flight on National Purple Heart Day, which is recognized annually on Aug. 7. Honor Flight Northeast Indiana also hosted a banquet Sunday for the veterans at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne. The trip was paid for by more than $207,000 in donations.

Copeland, 75, graduated in 1966 from Portland High School. As a part of the Diversified Cooperative Education program — it allowed students to attend a half day at school and half day at work — he worked at appliance store Klopfenstein’s. That’s how he met his wife Diane, whom he wed on Dec. 9, 1967. 

Three months later, Copeland was drafted.

Copeland served two years in the U.S. Army. He attended basic training at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, advanced infantry training at Fort Benning, Georgia — it has since been renamed to Fort Moore — and non-commissioned officer training at Fort Polk, Louisiana.

“I had the idea that they were going to send me to Vietnam, and I wanted to be in somewhat control, so I chose to become as proficient as I could with anything pertaining to the army,” he said.

Diane recalled when her husband tried to purchase his own gun in Louisiana to go hunting.

“He was too young to buy it,” she said.

“Proficient in just about anything to do with the war, and couldn’t buy a gun,” added Paul Copeland.

In January 1969, Copeland was deployed to Vietnam with the First Cavalry Division. 

“We did a lot of work out of helicopters,” he said. “I say work because it was not fun.”

His job consisted of resupplying units for those who had been wounded as well as deploying in enemy hotspots and securing the area.

After all the training, he said, 20-year-old Paul Copeland thought he was indestructible.

During his first day on patrol, a sniper shot the man standing next to him.

“Wake up-point,” he said. “(I) realized right then that this was no longer fun and games. This was serious stuff.”

Each time they went on patrol, someone had to be in the front. Copeland noted he saw a lot of soldiers get killed that way.

“I was scared every minute I was there,” he said.

At night, the Vietcong would attack their camps. Copeland recalled it was often hard to tell during the day who was a member of the Vietcong.

“During the day, they could be friendly to you, during the nighttime, they could be shooting at you,” he said.

In early March 1969, Copeland’s patrol engaged in a firefight in which they were victorious. (He noted they constantly engaged the North Vietnamese forces, almost on a daily basis.) On March 9, they set up a company sized unit — it consists of between 130 and 150 soldiers — near the demilitarized zone. They had information the North Vietnamese were going to resupply soldiers in the south and tried to stop them. About 3 a.m., the battle started.

“There were just too many of them, we were basically overrun,” said Copeland.

After the initial attack, everyone in his squad had been killed except himself and two other men. Copeland took over the radio and called in the artillery.

The helicopter had difficulties finding them. Most of the folks with radios were either dead or incapacitated. To get the rescue team’s attention, Copeland took off his T-shirt, soaked it in mosquito repellant and lit it on fire with a cigarette lighter.

“(It) probably saved my life,” he said.

He was rescued by helicopter and taken to a base camp.

“I was bloody from head to foot,” recalled Copeland. “The nurse asked me if I could take a shower and get cleaned up so we could find out where all the wounds were. And I said, ‘Sure I can,’ so I stepped in the shower and turned on the water, and that’s the last thing I remember.”

He woke up in a hospital in Okinawa, Japan.

Copeland sustained various injuries from shrapnel, most of which was removed. He still has a piece in his neck that couldn’t be taken out safely, as well as scars on his back.

After 30 days in the hospital, 30 days in the recuperation unit and another month of transitional work, he was sent to a base in Hawaii. Diane joined him, and they stayed in the area while he finished his term.

“We finally had our honeymoon,” she said.

Copeland was awarded a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star and an air medal for his service. (He later joined the National Guard around the time of the Gulf War.)

But after his time in the Army, Copeland returned to Klopfenstein’s. He served as an electrician at one point and worked in a few different positions over his lifetime, including a telephone company. He retired from Ohio Valley Gas about 20 years ago. The Copelands also served as landlords for many years. But in recent times, they’ve been selling their properties and taking trips around the world. They’ve visited Israel, Greece, Turkey, Alaska and the Caribbean.

Copeland expressed his gratitude for making it out of the war without post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or lingering effects from exposure to Agent Orange.

Thinking about the honor flight and what it means to him, Copeland recalled how the media had portrayed U.S. soldiers in Vietnam as the villains.

“I still get emotional about it,” he said. “(I appreciate) just the honor of being recognized for the service we did.”