By Amanda Estes

Staff Writer

Don Lonsway’s comrades in the First Air Cavalry referred to him as
“Daddy Don.” The average soldier serving in the Vietnam War was barely
19 years old, but drafted four months before his 26th birthday – the
cutoff age for the draft – Lonsway said he was the “old man” of the
bunch.

During an interview at his Eliot home, Lonsway said when he returned
from Vietnam in 1969, images from the war stayed with him. After more
than 30 years of constant nightmares, Lonsway was diagnosed with Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in 2004.

A retired guidance counselor, the 65-year-old Lonsway credits much of
his recovery to his former students at both North Stonington,
Connecticut and South Portland schools. When no one else would let him
talk about the war, the North Stonington senior class of 1970 asked him
to be their graduation speaker. For 17 out of his 21 years at South
Portland schools, Lonsway accompanied the eighth grade class to
Washington, D.C., where he led them on a tour of the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial Wall. During a 2005 trip, Lonsway recalled being overcome with
emotion while searching for the name of a fallen comrade and friend.
Unbeknownst to him, two students found it and presented Lonsway with a
framed rubbing of the name.

Tonight, Lonsway will share his story during a free multi-media
presentation at 7 p.m. in the South Portland High School auditorium.
Lonsway is looking forward to seeing former students, but also hopes
local veterans will attend.

“By educating people about PTSD - perhaps there might be a veteran out
there who might take that step and go to a veteran center and seek
help,” he said.

Lonsway’s PTSD was diagnosed at a VA center in Saco during a previously
scheduled appointment for medical conditions associated with the
herbicide, Agent Orange. He said the diagnosis brought him back from
the edge, as he went into the appointment with his will in order, all
of his bills paid off and thoughts of taking his own
life.       

When Lonsway received a draft notice during the summer of 1967, his
life was, in many ways, just getting started. He had a year of teaching
in Connecticut under his belt and was looking forward to another school
year. He was also “very much in love.”

That relationship ended two months after he returned home.

"She said to me, ‘Don, I don’t know you anymore,’” he said.

Lonsway served as an army trained combat journalist from 1968 to 1969.

“I carried an M-16 and grenades and everything that everybody else
carried except I also carried a pad of paper and a pen,” he said.

Lonsway spent much of his time with the infantry units and began
writing about the soldiers rather than the front lines. He said he
wrote about the soldiers to “make heroes out of them because in my mind
they were heroes.” The stories were sent to the soldiers’ hometown
newspapers and Lonsway recalled soldiers who waved the paper in the air
and said, "Don, look, I made the front page."

While some hometown newspapers had embraced their soldiers at war,
Lonsway said he did not receive a warm welcome home. During a layover
in Chicago, a group of college students called him a baby killer and
spit on his uniform. Lonsway said he went to the restroom and cried.

Back in Connecticut, Lonsway said he “practically begged” history
teachers to let him talk to their students about the war, but they
refused.

Lonsway said he was constantly waking up in the middle of the night
with severe night sweats. He was plagued by a series of nightmares
about events on the ground. In one dream, Lonsway could hear Vietnamese
children screaming in pain from the napalm on their skin following an
air strike on their village. He said the soldiers began wrapping gauze
around the children’s bodies, knowing it wouldn’t help.

In another dream, Lonsway was transported back to the thick jungle,
where he and others had to carry a wounded soldier out on a poncho,
holding their hands over his “sucking chest wound.”

Lonsway said the demons he carried home got in the way of his attempts to pick up the pieces of his life.

“I had two goals in life,” he said. “One was to have a wife and one was to have a family.”

Following his return from combat, Lonsway said he was hypervigilant and
couldn’t stand to be around crowds. He stopped talking to civilian
doctors, who thought he was crazy, and turned to alcohol.

Lonsway said he gave up his dream of a family and instead arrived early
and stayed late at South Portland High School and Mahoney Middle
School. He said the students became the family he couldn’t have.

While Lonsway was diagnosed with PTSD in 2004, his “journey to healing”
really began two years later when he made a return visit to Vietnam.

In March of 2006, Lonsway and four other Vietnam veterans from around
the country traveled from Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, to the
demilitarized zone (DMZ) on a two-week humanitarian and healing mission
through Tours of Peace. As part of their participation in the program,
veterans visit old military sites and help with various projects such
as providing food and supplies to nearby villages.

Lonsway’s group also had the opportunity to sit with an 82-year-old survivor of the Mei Lei Massacre and hear her story.

With only two days remaining on their trip, Lonsway was still searching
for a place that seemed familiar. He remembered an operation with an
armored cavalry unit, when he and his fellow soldiers stripped down
from their uniforms and ran into the South China Sea, spending 20
minutes swimming and laughing “like little kids.”

When the bus arrived at Wunder Beach, Lonsway said he ran to the sand
and dropped to his knees. He said it was as though a giant weight had
been lifted off his shoulders. When he returned home for the second
time, the nightmares and night sweats were gone.  

“I needed to give something back to those people and I needed to see that country at peace,” Lonsway said.

Lonsway plans to take his story on the road around the country and
there doesn’t seem to be anything that will stop him from that goal. In
February, Lonsway was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. He
finished treatment two months ago.

“As far as I’m concerned it’s taken care of,” he said of his cancer.
“I’d love to travel across the country. I think it’s a message that
resonates. I’d like to do it and I will do it.”