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Veterans Return to Vietnam, Carrying the Spirits of Their Fellow Servicemen

Travelers bike nearly 400 miles across the Central Highlands in 10 days


Video: A Veteran's Heartfelt Return To Vietnam After 55 Years

Two veterans in their 70s embarked on a journey back to Vietnam almost 55 years after serving during the war. Over 10 days, they biked nearly 400 miles to return to their former bases deep in the jungle and visit locations they never saw during their deployment. The long-awaited trip wasn’t solely for their own reflection — it served as a tribute to the lives lost on both sides of the conflict.

“What we hope to do is carry the spirit of all who were with us, and so many of those have already passed,” said Kent Sovern, 75, before leaving on the trip.

He got involved with the expedition after coming across a post online by fellow veteran Marc Gimbel, who turned 77 the last day of the trip, seeking other veterans and bicycle enthusiasts to join him.

The two men served in the same U.S. Army Rangers company, undertaking the same mission at the same time, but they never crossed paths.

Although both are avid cyclers, Gimbel didn’t begin biking until age 50. He started out riding an old bike that was sitting in the back of his garage, eventually working his way up to cycling across multiple states and even Europe.

“He and I are gung ho about this, as we used to say in the Army,” Sovern said.

Personal challenges and resilience

Sovern, a former AARP Iowa state director, had wanted to return to Vietnam since 1998 after watching Vietnam, Long Time Coming, a documentary that followed a group of veterans who biked from northern to southern Vietnam.

Sovern’s plans were interrupted when his wife experienced complications from Parkinson’s disease, requiring him to become her full-time caregiver. He was able to make this trip, his first away from his caregiving duties, thanks to the help of family members who served as interim caretakers.

Health issues also delayed Gimbel: He was diagnosed with prostate cancer, a condition the Army attributed to his exposure to Agent Orange during his military service.

The full biking group consisted of 12 men and women of various ages, with the two veterans leading the pack as the oldest members.

“What I’m most excited about is actually seeing Vietnam. I spent the majority of my time hiding out in the jungle, trying my best not to be captured or killed,” Gimbel said before the trip. “I’ve never been to a restaurant in Vietnam, never held any Vietnam dong [the currency] and never traveled the roads in anything other than a military convoy.”

Revisiting memories

Their itinerary included visiting with locals, kayaking on the Mekong River Delta and biking approximately 392 miles from Hue city, site of a major battle in the Tet Offensive, to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. Sovern printed a short poem from the John O’Donohue book To Bless the Space Between Us, with English on one side and Vietnamese on the other, which he planned to give to the people he met as a means “to express our feelings about friendships and meeting new people.”

Along their route, the group made several stops, including the site of the 1968 My Lai massacre.

Upon reaching the jungles in and around Pleiku, where they served, Sovern and Gimbel had a host of plans and expectations.

  

“The terrain started to come back to me. I started to see the rice paddies, the water buffalo,” Gimbel said. “I actually did go back to the firebase. It’s now overgrown, a jungle.”

He remembers standing in awe alongside Sovern in front of Dragon Mountain, where the 4th Infantry Division was stationed, feeling captivated by the landscape.

“How many times do you ever have a chance to go back to a place that was so important to your life and go back and revisit it with totally different circumstances?” Gimbel said. “Nobody was shooting a gun at me, people were welcoming me into their homes, stopping me on the street to talk to me. I had the time to really look around and see the country that meant so much to me when I was a young man.”

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