In Service to America, Profile 15: Corporal Peter Bergeron USMC, from Crown Hill to Vietnam and back

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Peter Bergeron grew up in Nashua’s Crown Hill area, spending many hours during the winter months ice skating at Marshal’s Field. In fact, one might say that his passion for ice skating was kismet… leading him to meet his then-future wife, Joyce Manning – also a Crown-Hiller. Unlike Nashua boys of his time, Bergeron did not graduate from Nashua High. His parents wanted him to have a Catholic high school education and so sent him to Bishop Bradley High School in Manchester. He graduated in 1965 (Bishop Bradley became Trinity High School in 1970.)

During this time, then-President Lyndon Johnson was ratcheting-up the troop level in Vietnam. Bergeron explains, “In 1966 I was draft-eligible. When they pulled the numbers, my birthday came up 6th. There was no question where I was headed. I thought it might be better if I enlisted in the Marines so that’s what I did on a delayed deployment plan. I didn’t report for boot camp until April, 1967.”

That fall, after basics, Bergeron got his marching orders – he was headed for Vietnam. “We flew from the U.S. and made a stop-over in Guam,” Bergeron says. “While there I ran into a friend of mine from back home. He was in charge of processing guys through Guam and on to Vietnam. Every time my name came up, he was able to shuffle me to the bottom of the pile. I was able to stay in Guam for a whole week. Not exactly paradise – but at least nobody was shooting at me.”

Bergeron arrived in Vietnam on October 6, 1967. He remembers his first impression, “Stepping off the plane was quite a culture shock. The heat and humidity were terrific. There wouldn’t be any Marshal’s Field skating rinks in Vietnam!”  

Bergeron’s introduction to the enemy was hand-to-hand combat only a few days into his tour. He recalls, “We were in Da Nang. Myself and two other Marines were guarding a fuel depot at night. One of the guys fell asleep. A Viet Cong soldier snuck up on him and cut his throat. The next thing I know, this VC is coming after me with a machete. I was able to fight him until the third Marine came up on us and took out the VC.”

Then it was December – the start of monsoon season where it rained almost 24/7. “We were soaking wet all the time” says Bergeron. “You wouldn’t think that being in Vietnam with the tropical weather you would be cold. But when you’re wet all the time, 75 degrees can be cold. You learn to sleep in the mud. The mud is warm… dry ground, if you could find it, was cold.”

Bergeron got to leave the rain and mud for a while, catching some R&R in Hawaii. Then it was back “in-country” where he joined his company for a “cross-country” sweep. Bergeron explains, “We had about 1,000 guys including tanks. Our job was to start inland and sweep towards the coast flushing out any VC along the way. We went into ‘the bush’ on March 27. On May 12, 1968, we were mired down in a dry rice paddy. One of our tanks was stuck, so we waited for them to get pulled out. While waiting we were ambushed by VC from the tree-line. I was hit five times; two in my leg, two in the gut, and one glanced off my head. Then things just went black.”

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Field medics were able to patch him up temporarily; enough to get him to a field hospital. But the VC weren’t through with Bergeron yet. “When I woke up” says Bergeron, “I was lying on a gurney surrounded by bottles of fluids with hoses running into me. And I could not feel my right side, probably because of the shot I took to my head. The next thing I know, we’re taking mortar fire. All the guys who were ambulatory had to get up and crawl under their gurney. Guys like me who couldn’t move, got covered with some mattresses. Shrapnel still came through the mattresses but fortunately, I wasn’t hit again.”

The field hospital did all they could for Bergeron, then shipped him off to a military hospital in Japan. He was still in tough shape, but at least he was out of the war zone and his hospital wasn’t taking mortar fire. But he would still meet another life-threatening mishap. Bergeron explains, “I was in the hospital in Japan, still strapped to a gurney with tubes and bottles everywhere. I was being transported to another floor and was placed in an elevator. The elevator door closed unexpectedly tipping over my gurney. I went flying along with all the bottles and tubes! What a mess!”

Bergeron had been writing to his girlfriend, Joyce, on a pretty regular basis. After being hit, he wasn’t in any condition to write, or do much else. Joyce began to worry. Then, one day Joyce received a letter from Japan, written by a Red Cross nurse. One of the Red Cross nurses in the Japanese hospital evidently had found Joyces Nashua address and wrote to her saying that Peter was alive and recuperating at a hospital in Japan. Trying to get more information, Joyce contacted NH Senator Thomas McIntyre. His office could only state that Peter was missing-in-action. Already she knew more than the Senator.

Seeing the hospital name on the stationary used by the Red Cross nurse, Joyce was able to track down the location of the hospital and a telephone number; a pretty daunting task in the days before the internet. She made the call and was able to connect with the hospital. It took 20 agonizing (and expensive) minutes to reach Peter but the two were finally able to connect and talk to each other. Everything would be alright.

In August, Bergeron returned to the U.S. to a military hospital in Portsmouth. He hitch-hiked back to Nashua sporting his uniform and supported by a cane. Having a U.S. military uniform, and being hobbled by a cane didn’t get him much respect. He explained how trying that journey was: “At that time, members of the military weren’t held in very high regard. I didn’t get a lot of rides… but I had a lot of stuff thrown at me.”

Returning to Nashua, and not knowing what the future held, Bergeron decided he and Joyce should get married as soon as possible. Peter Bergeron and Joyce Manning were married August 21, 1968 and have remained so to this day.

A doctor in Portsmouth told Bergeron that he was ready to go back to full duty in Vietnam. Bergeron had regained the feeling in his right side and could get around, but he felt he was nowhere near ready to see combat again. He was told to report to a military office in Chelsea, MA, where he could possibly face a court martial if he didn’t return to duty.

In Chelsea, Bergeron discovered that, for whatever reason, this one doctor in Portsmouth was trying to send all of his patients back into combat, no matter their physical or mental condition. Bergeron explains, “I was told by the officer in Chelsea not to worry…and go back to Portsmouth. Paperwork would be waiting for me there. In a few days, I would be discharged.” That is exactly what happened. 

Bergeron left active service on December 22, 1968. He says, “I spent 2 years, 2 months, and 26 days in the service; eight months of that in a hospital.”

Bergeron returned to his job in Nashua at Sanders Associates on Canal Street. He says, “Not only did I get my job back, the company counted my military time as time with the company so I kept my seniority.”

Through the auspices of Dr. Eugene Pitman from the Manchester Veterans Administration Bergeron volunteered for research on military members with PTSD. (Post Dramatic Stress Disorder) It was determined that he did not have PTSD so he served as the standard against which the others were measured.

“One day they took a bunch of us down to Washington, DC, to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We went down and back the same day” explains Bergeron. “That was traumatic. Some of the men couldn’t even approach the wall. They just stood there and cried.”

Peter and Joyce Bergeron now live in Virginia to be close to their family.

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