MISHICOT, Wis. (WFRV) – Vietnam veteran Ken Vos survived the war and then saved a life back home in Wisconsin.
He told Local 5 News he has always been compelled to serve.
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“Right out of high school, I enlisted in the Marine Corps,” he recalled.
It was 1968, during the Vietnam War.
“It was still going on, but I just thought it was the right thing to do.”
Everywhere you turn in his Mishicot home, there are signs of Marine Corps pride.
“I made sergeant, and I requested to go to Vietnam, and bingo, that’s where I went. It was alright—I got all my limbs.”
Hometown Heroes correspondent Michele McCormack is a Blue Star Mother who never presses veterans for details if they don’t want to share their full experience.
“I was with the guns, the big guns,” Vos told her.
He searched for some old photographs, which he looked over with his fiancée, who lost her husband—a Marine as well—who struggled with health issues after being exposed to Agent Orange during Vietnam.
While looking over those photos, memories came back, including his objection to President Richard Nixon’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces and no longer face the North Vietnamese Army.
“Because we had the war won,” Vos insisted. “He decided to pull us out and turn things over to the South Vietnamese, and as soon as the NVA turned up, they threw down their weapons, so we lost. Not a good day.”
Vos said an Honor Flight, with his son, Ben, as an escort to visit the military monuments in Washington, D.C., helped him come to terms with his service. It was Ben’s wife who let Local 5 News know about how Vos continued to serve after learning about a medical crisis involving the stepdaughter of a fellow Marine.
“She was on dialysis and needed a kidney,” Vos explained. “I tested really good. They thought we were related, but we’re not.”
That was 17 years ago. The organ recipient, Angela Raatz, is now a substitute teacher and mother in Wausau.
“To be honest, I didn’t think I would live this long with it,” Raatz admitted. “But according to all my lab results and everything, all my labs are doing really good. The best part is Kenny saved my life. But he also let me have a daughter, too. I wasn’t supposed to get pregnant, but because my body is doing so well, I have a nine-year-old daughter. He is my hero.”
Vos just laughs when he hears that kind of praise.
“Had to be done. I figured if she could live with one, I could.”
