NJ Vietnam Vet Opens Up About Service After Years Of Silence

BERLIN TOWNSHIP, NJ — James Jordan was visiting the Traveling Tribute Wall in Mount Laurel when he came across three veterans dressed in their gear. They asked him if he fought in Vietnam, and he said he had, the first Marine Division. The vets laughed, high-fived, and talked about meeting “someone else who wanted to pretend they were in the first Marine Division.”

That moment cut through Jordan. It hurt that they didn’t believe he served in Vietnam; that they didn’t believe he served in the 2nd Battalion, First Marine Division. Because he had.

“When they said that to me, it tore me up,” Jordan said from his home in South Jersey. “It got me sick. … Now, I wish I could buy those guys a cup of coffee. After that, I really came out of my shell.”

Before that, though, the Philadelphia native who now lives in Berlin went home and did some heavy drinking for the next four days. He had never spoken about his time in Vietnam. He worked in the Post Office for 36 years, and no one he worked with even knew he had served.

He hadn’t even been wearing anything indicating he was a vet during that day at the Traveling Tribute Wall in 2006. There was no reason for the vets to believe he had served. It was because of that day that Jordan decided he would no longer be quiet about his service to the country.

He would no longer be quiet about the 200 patrols he had been on by the time he was 18 years old. Or his time as a squad leader, or that as squad leader, he was told casualties had gone way down. Or the moment a priest delivered last rites to him, and he lived to tell the tale.

His story became the subject of the “Voices of Vietnam” musical. His memoir, “Over and Out,” is now available on Amazon, with all proceeds going to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation. He even opened up during a two-hour interview as part of Central Connecticut State University’s Veterans History Project.

Jordan will be among a number of vets who are honored during four days of events in Camden County that will take place in early September. Read more here: 4-Day Event Commemorates Vietnam War In Camden County

Jordan grew up in Philadelphia in the 1960s. He was never interested in school, and people were talking about Vietnam and fighting communism all over the place. His father served in World War II, and his older brother, Jack, was in the Marine Corps Reserve.

He wanted to follow in their footsteps, but his mother was solidly against it. She had lost her cousin in the attack on Pearl Harbor, and her brother was injured while fighting in Italy. Eventually, she gave in and Jordan was off to Vietnam. He arrived in 1968, and would serve for 13 months, stationed 11 miles west of Da Nang.

During his time there, he began as a radio man and became squad leader after eight months. He was involved in firefights and helped capture a Chinese soldier alive by happenstance. He watched his squad’s point man get vaporized on his first patrol, but called a night in which he waited in a hole all night for action only to have nothing happen “the worst night of his life.”

On June 30, 1969, he led a group of eight marines out on patrol when they came across what he described as a double booby trap.

“Five of us were wounded,” Jordan said. “Three guys had to carry us to a place where a chopper could pick us up.”

Jordan was hit in the back of the head, his arm and his leg. He was also the only one who could use the radio in the group, so he called in their injuries. They were in a place populated with a lot of trees, so it was difficult for a helicopter to land. Three guys, including his best friend Lee “The Bull” Bollinger, carried five guys 100 yards to a spot where the helicopter could land.

Jordan would spend more than a month in the hospital, but at first, he didn’t think he was going to make it.

“I had lost a lot of blood,” Jordan said. “The nurse called in a priest, and the priest delivered last rites. I thought that was it. I woke up a day and a half later, and I was in the hospital for 35 days. I will never forget that.”

He earned a Purple Heart that day.

Jordan returned to active duty after getting out of the hospital, even though he was apprehensive. He still had a hole in his leg, and didn’t want it to get infected by Agent Orange. Years later, in 2000, an MRI would reveal he still had a lot of metal in his leg from that incident.

In September 1969, he went home. He returned to Philadelphia, and the first person he wanted to see was his mother. He went up into her room, where she was praying. When she realized her son had come home, she turned around and sobbed into his chest. She then returned to praying.

His mother had written him a letter every day he was in Vietnam, and those letters were later used in the “Voices of Vietnam” musical, performed in Connecticut. In the show, the letters were read, and then a song was performed about each one. Afterwards, Jordan was called up on stage to be recognized by the crowd.

Jordan’s silence on his experiences in Vietnam are not unusual.

“No one could understand what we did there,” Jordan said. “We thought we were doing the right thing. We went over there to fight communism. When we got there, we found out we were on our own. No one was going to help us. Our squad didn’t want any more Marines coming over because they didn’t know what they were getting into.”

Once he decided to break his silence, he began going to reunions every year. He also started looking up the guys he served with, and has found 14 as of 2019.

“I found the guy who carried me to the helicopter,” Jordan said. “He’s living in Missouri now. I went out there to see him, and I said thank you. I’m going back to see him in September.”

There’s one member of his unit who lives in Ohio that Jordan was set to go see. He packed up a box of things for him, and was ready to go visit.

“That day, he called me and said, ‘I can’t face you,’” Jordan said. “He spent a lot of time burying his experiences in Vietnam, and he didn’t want to relive it. That kind of hurt, but I understood.”

His neighbor’s brother died in Vietnam. Eddie Secrest was one of 10 men killed in an ambush by the North Vietnamese, eight miles from where Jordan was stationed. Jordan never knew anything about that incident until years later.

In 2017, Jordan went back to Vietnam with some of his squad. They toured the country, and shared a few drinks with some of the North Vietnamese who fought against them. Although that made him uncomfortable, Jordan said Vietnam is different now.

“They like us,” he said. “I had kids surrounding me. I looked over and another guy had about 10 kids surrounding him.”

They felt like heroes. Jordan told this story as he sat in his den adorned with memories from the war, and from his father’s service. It’s a den he set up just a few years ago in the home he's lived in since 1973.

The Traveling Tribute Wall returns to South Jersey, to Cooper River Park, on Friday, Sept. 6, for a candlelight remembrance vigil to honor those Vietnam veterans who never returned home. Jordan will get another chance to tell his story.

See related: After 3 Tours In Vietnam, Collingswood HS Grad Still Helping Vets

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