Local Vietnam vets reunite after 50 years

Nov. 10—KENNESAW — It took a long-forgotten picture and some online sleuthing for Gerald Flinchum to locate Gene Price in August.

Both men had served in the Vietnam War as communications specialists at Da Nang Air Base beginning in 1971. After returning stateside in 1972, they lost touch. Fifty years later, the brothers-in-arms found out they lived a mere eight miles apart.

Different reasons, same destination

It started when Price received an email with a picture attachment, he explained as the two men sat side by side in the lobby of the Kennesaw State University Center, where Flinchum now teaches continuing education courses in history.

"I saw it said something about 37th Signal Battalion," Price, who lives in Marietta, said of the email. "And I had forgotten Jerry's name. I forgot a lot."

"We both did," Flinchum, who now lives in Woodstock, added with a laugh.

Price and Flinchum served together in the 37th Signal Battalion in Da Nang, where they were stationed throughout their deployments supporting the 101st Airborne Division in tactical communications.

Price could tell the picture in the email was old, and when he clicked on it, he knew immediately that it was him, holding onto another person while pointing at something.

"I wrote back and said, 'Where in this whole wide world did you find that picture of me?'" Price said.

Flinchum had kept a box of polaroid photos for 30 years, and while going through them with his son, who serves in the U.S. Army stationed in Germany, he came upon the picture of Price and recalled he was one of the few Atlanta-area people in the same unit.

Price voluntarily joined the Army at 17 to rebel against his father, a Navy veteran. Prior to basic training and deployment to Vietnam, Price graduated from Marietta High School in 1970.

Flinchum was 22 when he went overseas. He volunteered for the service before he was officially drafted.

Flinchum went through the draft physical at 19, and after returning home from working downtown at Southern Bell one day (he dropped out of Kennesaw Junior College in 1969), he went to the mailbox to check for a draft notice. When a piece of government mail was there for him one day in April 1970, he knew it was either an income tax refund or the draft notice — Flinchum was number 85 in the 1969 draft lottery.

"So, I tossed it back in the mailbox and drove to Decatur," Flinchum, who lived in Dunwoody at the time, said. "I went into the recruiting office and said, 'I'm here to join up!'"

The men met in Vietnam; Price trained at Fort Gordon and was deployed from March 1971 to January 1972, while Flinchum trained at the U.S. Army Signal School at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, before deploying from July 1971 to April 1972. Price finished his service at Fort Bragg. Flinchum, meanwhile, joined the National Guard in Marietta.

Live to tell

Sitting together in the KSU Center lobby, the men looked through more of Flinchum's old polaroids, reminiscing on their days in Vietnam. They recalled ruthless drill instructors ("look through 'em," Flinchum's dad told him), breaks in the Vietnamese countryside, killing snakes around the base and close calls with rockets next to their barracks.

When they returned from the war — Price said he saw more field action at Fort Bragg than in his entire time in Vietnam — both men went to work at Southern Bell, now AT&T. Price eventually went to Southern Polytechnic State University, now part of KSU, on the G.I. Bill. They each married, had kids and became professional engineers.

Though they waxed nostalgic on their time overseas, neither Price nor Flinchum overlooked the complicated legacy of Vietnam, including the fact that it was an unsuccessful effort. Price acknowledged many if not most of the Vietnamese civilians were on the Viet Cong's side, and he recalled the Army turning over old equipment to the South Vietnamese, equipment that would not win the war.

"Our expectations of winning the war, winning the conflict, were very low by the time we got over there and had been there a few months," Flinchum said.

No matter the outcome, a friendship 50 years in the making was forged in Da Nang, Vietnam. Now, the men meet for lunch and look through old pictures to move it forward.

Flinchum plans to bring Price to his class about the war, covering 1970-1975, this coming January. Flinchum is also an author, and his self-published book, "Journey Through a Land of Ghosts: Voices From the Vietnam War 1955-1975," is a collection of stories about Vietnam as told by men who served. Flinchum began working on the book in 1977 and published it in June.

Price and Flinchum said there were close calls that made them believe in something bigger than any war. For Price, it was a piece of shrapnel from a rocket that just missed him as it flew through the window of his bunk one night.

"I'm not into spooky stuff or anything like that, but I believe God was speaking to me," Price said.

Flinchum and Price said they were both raised in religious families but lost their faith when they joined the Army. In Vietnam, Flinchum said, that could change in an instant.

"While I was over there, you become a believer real quick," Flinchum said. "You can have certain experiences and say, 'Hey there's somebody looking out after me,' and once I figured that out, I said, 'Hey don't worry about it. You're taken care of. You're going to go home.'"