Vietnam veteran recounts a life he wanted to forget
Submitted photo
Pete Orlando, second from right, is pictured at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. with several of the men he served with during his tour in Vietnam. Photo courtesy of Pete Orlando.
In this Polariod image, Pete Oralnd is pictured in Cambodia in 1970. Photo courtesy of Pete Orlando.
Pete Orland is pictured with his scout dog, Hubert, during his tour of duty in Vietnam. Photo courtesy of Pete Orlando.
Pete Orlando holds an undetonated artillery shell that landed near his bunker. Photo courtesy of Pete Orlando.
Vietnam veteran Pete Orlando is pictured with scout dog, Hubert. Photo courtesy of Pete Orlando
Army veteran Pete Orlando served in Vietnam from November 1969 to October 1970.
Photo of Hubert, scout dog, assigned to Pete Orlando during his tour in Vietnam. Photo courtesy of Pete Orlando
Editor’s note: The following story is part of an occasional series of profile articles that highlight the service and sacrifice of those from Fayette County who served during the Vietnam War.
When Pete Orlando returned home from Vietnam, he put all his memories away.
Dozens of albums filled with dozens of photos apiece went into storage. He put away images of friends that died, locked up thoughts of what he did, and buried the days he narrowly survived.
The 70-year-old Dawson man had documented a life he didn’t want to remember. All memory of Staff Sgt. Pete Orlando, leader of the 25th infantry scout dog platoon, sat on the shelf for 12 years. But some memories stayed, burned in his mind like a photograph.
“There’s just some things I’ve never been able to put on the shelf,” he said, sitting in the midst of pages upon pages of photos documenting 11 months in Vietnam, November 1969 to October 1970.
Orlando was born into a military family, the child of Italian immigrants. He was the youngest in a large family that served their new country with gratitude in return for a chance at the American dream. So when he received a draft notice after enrolling in college, he took extra classes to finish early and join the Army in 1968.
He volunteered for scout dog school. German shepherds were trained to search for Vietnamese troops and alert if they caught the enemy’s scent. Every man in Orlando’s 25-member platoon received a dog. In Vietnam, the platoon would scout for three or four days at a time, then return to Bien Hoa where the dogs could recover.
Orlando’s dog, Hubert, was credited with discovering the largest cache of enemy equipment and weapons during the winter offensive in the third corps of Vietnam, where Orlando and his platoon fought. He credits the dog with saving his life many times.
“I’d rather have him with me than another soldier,” he said.
Orlando worked his way up the ranks, later becoming platoon leader. He fought to reverse a rapidly declining morale among his men.
His last day in Vietnam, he returned to work as usual and was ordered home. His lieutenant said a Jeep was leaving for the airport in 10 minutes, and he had to be in it.
“I didn’t understand it. Leaving didn’t make any sense,” he said. “We hadn’t completed our job.”
Hubert was with Orlando for the duration of his tour. When he left, Hubert stayed.
The dog went to Rex Greenwalt, who wrote a letter to Orlando saying Hubert saved his life three times. Hubert died in Vietnam after he was shot by a sniper. Orlando advocates for efforts to bring military dogs home.
“We left the dogs when we pulled out,” he said with sadness. “We knew they’d either be eaten or killed.”
Orlando’s sudden flight home landed him in Oakland, California, in the heart of anti-war protests. A friend told him protesters were throwing bags of feces and urine at the troops arriving home. The friend advised him to put on civilian clothes and try not to look like a veteran.
He complied. Then he took it a step further.
“I was more injured there at the airport in Oakland than I ever could have been in Vietnam,” he said. “I put away everything that reminded me of Vietnam. I talked myself out of even knowing I was there.”
In 1982, at the commemoration ceremony of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., he experienced a camaraderie he hadn’t felt since he arrived in Oakland.
“I thought, ‘This is part of my life. I can’t change it,'” he said. “I’m a veteran until the day I die. I could marry and divorce. I’d no longer be married. I could lose my job, change my profession, but I could never change the fact that I’m a veteran, and I served there, and I’m proud of the men I was with.”
Staff Sgt. Pete Orlando was reborn on the grounds of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.
On the wall was the name of a friend, Pete Pulaski, who he trained with in scout dog school.
They were separated by one letter when training was completed. The men received assignments to units based on alphabetical order. Orlando was assigned to the 1st Cavalry, and Pulaksi was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division.
“We heard in scout dog school that you don’t have a long life expectancy there,” he said.
Pulaski died six weeks later, shot at such a close range he had powder burns on his face.
Orlando bought a book of all the names on the wall. And then he put it on the shelf.
“I had a couple of friends who were killed and I just can’t make myself open it,” he said. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”
He knows he will see the names of friends when he does. But he is not sure if he will see the name of a stranger he carries close on dog tags.
He picked them up on the floor of the supply shed, along with his equipment.
“The fellow says ‘I hope you have better luck than the last guy who had this equipment,” he said.
He received a pack riddled with bullet holes, a faulty M16 crusted in blood, and dog tags that read “Casey D. Jones. Atheist.”
Orlando has plans to open the book and find out the fate of the man who had his equipment first.
“It’s on my bucket list,” he said.
With albums and names stashed on a shelf, there was one photo he could never put away.
Orlando first saw it when his platoon stayed the night in Quan Loi. They were told that the previous night, troops sleeping in one of the buildings had all died. The men set up a defensive perimeter and prepared for the night. Orlando was washing his face when the night suddenly turned bright.
“A trip flare went off and it illuminated the area in our perimeter, and I could see two North Vietnamese soldiers less than 100 feet away coming toward us. It looked like their AK47s were pointed right at my head,” he said.
A blast went off.
“One man fell back and never moved,” he said. “The other man’s legs were nearly blown off from beneath him. He hit the ground and was trying to crawl away. He screamed “‘I surrender!'”
Orlando paused his war story to explain a cultural phrase of the time. “Speed kills” was a phrase referring to amphetamine abuse. But in Orlando’s platoon, it was a literal reference to one of his men, nicknamed “Speed.”
Orlando had his rifle sights on the Vietnamese soldier, assuming the man would die in the next few minutes.
He heard feet coming fast behind him followed by gunfire and a voice screaming “Speed kills!”
Speed did.
And all went quiet. Red phosphorous tracers burned around the bodies. They created an eerie glow.
Lying near the body he saw a photograph of the dead man. He was with his family. A woman stood beside him and a child in front.
“I thought, ‘You don’t know he’s never coming home,'” he said. “It didn’t appear that it affected anyone else. But I still see that photograph a dozen times a day, every day for the last 45 years.”
“It seems like war has become more impersonal with long range weapons. The training that’s given in the military is an attempt to dehumanize the enemy,” he said. “I let it get personal.”
The men returned to where they had left off in their nightly routines, and went to sleep.
“All was well,” he said. “Except for that photo.”
Orlando said despite the criticism and harassment Vietnam veterans received, he believes the war served a purpose.
“I always felt that it possibly prevented a bigger war,” he said. “It let the pressure off and gave adversaries a chance to see that war is not the solution.”
When the U.S. entered the Middle East, he said he entered a state of shock. It was a cold, January day, and he left the house without his coat, unaware of the chill.
He said he believes political leaders should count the cost of war before becoming part of one. But as one who fought, he likes to share a word to the critics of himself and his fellow brothers in arms:
”It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the greats devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
– From “Citizenship in a Republic” delivered by Theodore Roosevelt in Paris, 1910.
Fifty Fayette County veterans died during Vietnam. All of their names will be listed throughout the duration of the project. This article is in memory of the following five:
Charles G Roberts
Army SSG
Brownsville
Born: March 15,1943
Died: Nov. 22, 1967
Samuel Dale Shimek
Army, SP4
Uniontown
Born: Nov. 3,1947
Died: Dec. 9, 1968
John Stanley Staff
Navy, PO3
Point Marion
Born: Feb. 12,1948
Died: July 20, 1968
Wilbur Eugene Swindell
Marine Corps, SSGT
Connellsville
Born: Feb. 6,1941
Died: Sept. 14, 1966
Joseph Julius Valint
Marine Corps, LCPL
Uniontown
Born: Sept. 10, 1945
Died: March 21, 1966