"We did our job and I'm here to talk about it:" Veteran talks about his Vietnam experience
MILWAUKEE -- Over the past few years, we have seen remarkable and deserved "welcome home" ceremonies for troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the past few weeks, FOX6's Ted Perry sat down with a number of Vietnam veterans who never saw such celebrations.
On Milwaukee's north side, masters of a martial art work out under the watchful eye of Charles Warren. He teaches "Kempo Goju," a discipline with a specific teaching -- don't fight if you don't have to. What's ironic about that is that Warren did not have to fight in Vietnam, but he did.
"I had to do something worthy and all my friends were there," said Warren. "We all graduated together and decided to go into the military."
Not long after that, the 20-year-old Rufus King High School graduate found himself in southeast Asia -- and he knew on day one what was at stake.
"When we first got there, they took us to the morgue and said, 'This is what happens to guys and gals who get sent home...either in a bag or you can walk home,'" said Warren.
The Air Force MP knew right then, he had one goal -- get back to Milwaukee alive. Many did not.
Charles Warren
As Warren looks at old pictures, he sees men who served next to him one day and were killed the next. There is also a picture of a bomb that would have surely taken his life, but it never detonated.
"I'm kind of stunned and I'm looking around as the dust settles. Here's a rocket that never went off about 20 feet from me," Warren said.
Charles Warren
It was the moment that changed the way Warren looked at life.
"That was it for me. The man upstairs spared my butt for some reason. I said, 'I'm gonna change things,'" Warren said.
Warren came home, became a police officer, then a state trooper and started his Kempo Goju studios. He has one in Palmyra too.
Warren rarely talks about Vietnam even though it changed his life. He saw too much suffering. But he knows that bomb did not go off for a reason. He's proud of his kids, proud of the people he's taught, proud of the time he spent in law enforcement.
Warren never really got a thank you for serving -- thinks it might be too late now anyway.
"For the public now, it's too late, they have no clue. Everything is about Iraq and Afghanistan. The only people who will appreciate us are those who were there at the time -- the younger generation, they couldn't care less," said Warren.
But Warren is fiercely protective of those who served with him in a war that many chose not to.
"The men and women who served in Vietnam, we did our job and I'm here to talk about it because many could not. And for anyone to think any less of us is disrespectful. I put my time in," said Warren.