'This government harmed us'

More than 13,000 military veterans reside in Kootenai County, so it should be quite easy to thank a few for their service this Memorial Day.

If former Marine Sgt. Stan Spain had it his way, that praise would go to those who didn’t make it back home.

“People always tell me, ‘Thank you for your service,’ but the real thank you should go to those men who sacrificed their lives,” Spain said. “And it was a sacrifice.”

Spain, 72, served two tours in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968. However, he learned about the horrors of war before he ever shipped out.

In June 1965, a military plane carrying 72 Marines from El Toro Marine Air Station in Orange County, Calif., to Vietnam crashed into a mountain shortly after takeoff.

All 84 passengers died instantly, making it the deadliest air disaster in California history at the time.

Spain, also stationed at El Toro, was one of the men sent to Vietnam in their place.

“When you have to replace those individuals as one of the people in the new unit, it’s something that you live with almost every day,” Spain said.

Now, 53 years later, the Coeur d’Alene resident wants to ensure their legacy is remembered.

“I want them to be honored on a day like Memorial Day,” Spain said. “They didn’t get to Vietnam, and I’m not sure if they’re on the [Vietnam Veterans Memorial] Wall, but they deserve to be there. They were willing to go, and they gave their lives.”

After research done by The Press, the names of the 72 men who died in the crash could not be matched to the Memorial Wall online database.

But these are not the only veterans who Spain believes have been forgotten.

After his honorable discharge in 1968, Spain — like so many other vets — began to struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder, then defined by the military as “shell shock” and “combat fatigue.”

“My mother could not come into my room. She had to yell at me at the door,” Spain recalled. “If you touched me on the shoulder, brother, you were in trouble.”

Tragically, according to Spain, his mother felt like he had become a completely different person.

“My mother said to me, ‘You’re not the same person. I just don’t recognize you anymore. You’ve changed so much,’” he said.

Spain was forced to wait until 1986 for an official Veterans Affairs diagnosis of PTSD. In the meantime, he attempted suicide twice and became disconnected from his family.

“They [VA officials and doctors] said you have to prove a stressor,” Spain said. “Well, let me show you a stressor: tomorrow, we’re sending you to Iraq, and we’re going to put you right on the front line. Now, tell me that you aren’t stressed out about it, thinking that you’re going to die.”

Spain attributed much of these lingering symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression to the lack of efforts to reintegrate combat veterans into society.

“We were taught to do one thing: kill the enemy,” he said. “We were not de-programmed.”

These episodes of extreme stress were not just happening inside veterans’ minds, though, as Spain can attest.

“I was in Seattle at the [Pike Street] Market waiting for a bus when this car engine backfired, and I just came back to Vietnam,” he said. “I was on the ground in the firing position so fast it was incredible.”

He also shared how his dogs stopped him from making a devastating choice years ago.

“I remember one time I was sitting on the end of the bed and I was having some bad thoughts,” Spain said. “I was probably 30 seconds, maybe a minute, away from doing something really stupid, and my two dogs came in and started bugging the hell out of me. It got to a point where I started laughing, and I started hugging them, and the thoughts went away.”

Spain was quick to note that this issue extends well beyond himself.

“Many vets have died, and many more are still having nightmares about the things that happened, the things they said, and the things they had to do in the name of democracy, supposedly,” Spain said.

He referenced the impact veteran PTSD and suicide rates have on families — in the U.S., one veteran dies by suicide about every hour, according to recent VA reports.

“I’m not only thinking about myself,” Spain said. “I’m trying to let people know that this government harmed us. They sent us to do ungodly things and when we came back, they didn’t help us.”

Spain said he’s getting along better now than in the years immediately following his return to America, but admitted that some days present more challenges than others.

“I have a hard time going to funerals because they bring back so many memories,” he said. “Death has been around me for so many years, and I can’t put into words what that does to your mind.”

Ultimately, Spain hopes that people appreciate veterans for their service on Memorial Day and every day, but stop short of deifying them.

“I’m not a hero,” Spain said. “I just tried to stay alive. I’m ashamed of the things that I did, saw, and had to do in the name of staying alive.”

Most importantly, he hopes that the country and citizens who veterans fought to protect will return that respect to them — whether they’re struggling to deal with trauma today or died en route to combat decades earlier, like his El Toro predecessors.

“My main concern is that the veterans of this country are taken care of,” Spain said. “I pray to God that He intervenes in this and gets them the help they need.”