John Brent Feikema was born to Frank and Irene Feikema in 1949. With several family members sharing the name John, he was known as Brent. Frank and Irene farmed near Leota. They had four children: Brent, Mary Beth, Milo, and Colin.

Sergeant John Brent Feikema

His draft orders told him to report to the National Guard Armory in Worthington, which he did on April 24, 1969. From there a bus took him to Sioux Falls, after stopping to pick up more draftees in Luverne. From Sioux Falls they were flown to Ft. Lewis, Washington, where he had eight weeks of basic training. He was put into the 11 Bravo Infantry Unit. He did not know anyone else in the group, but would come to know them over the next weeks.

In the army, Brent was known as John. That was the army way and even if he had explained that everyone called him Brent, it would not have mattered at all.

Being a farm boy and accustomed to hard work, basic training was not a big deal to Brent. “There were a lot of long marches,” he recalls. In his memory it seemed to rain a lot and the rain in Washington was always cold.

After basic training, he stayed at Ft. Lewis an additional eight weeks for advanced infantry training. This training involved becoming familiar with more weapons and learning to read maps.

“These were not like a road map here,” Brent explained. They were topographical maps that showed where the hills, valleys, and rivers were. “There were no roads there (in Vietnam). It was all jungle,” he said.

After 16 weeks of training, Brent had 10 days at home and then he was sent to Ft. Banning, Georgia, for Non-Commissioned Officer’s (NCO) training. When he finished with that training he was an E5 Sergeant. Then the army sent him back to Ft. Lewis for on-the-job training for another eight weeks. He was put in charge of 8 or 10 guys. “I did not mind that,” Brent said. “I got along well with the guys. But I was the one who was responsible.”

After another quick 10 days home, he was deployed to Vietnam in April 1970. He had spent a year of his service in training in the United States.

His trip overseas began at Travis AFB in California and included a stop in Anchorage, Alaska, where he was surprised by “shirt-sleeve” weather. From there they flew to Guam and then to Yokota AFB in Japan. From Japan they flew to Da Nang, South Vietnam.

“I remember when we got there it was awful hot. We could hear the banging and the booming,” Brent recalls. He got used to that sound. For the first ten days there they had more training. “They showed us what to look for – mines, booby traps, how weapons were camouflaged, and so on,” he said.

Brent, or John, as he was always known in the army, was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division which was sent north of there by Hue (pronounced “Way”). They operated between Hue and A Sau Valley, Vietnam. That was where the Tet offensive occurred (a major United States/South Vietnam victory) in 1968. “It was all hills and jungle,” Brent said. “You could not see 10 feet in front of you a lot of the time.”

When in the field, each soldier would carry 75 to 85 pounds of gear. They wore a pistol belt around their waist. On the pistol belt was a canteen of water, two hand grenades, and some smoke bombs. They also carried a ruck-sack, which contained no less than 15 c-rations (meals), a poncho, and a poncho linter. They also carried no less than three gallons of water and up to five gallons of water.

They each also carried three bandoliers of ammo for their M-16. Each bandolier had six magazines and each magazine contained 20 rounds. Four or five of the guys would strap on a box of ammo for the machine gun. Some carried extra batteries for the Radio Telephone Operator (RTO). Everyone also carried a bottle of saline. This was used by the medic if a soldier was wounded and losing blood.

Each solder also carried an ammo box full of personal items such as writing material, toothpaste, etc. They also carried extra socks because their feet often got wet.

Brent and his men took turns walking point. They had to use a machete to cut their way through the jungle. Sometimes they would walk on an old trail that was already made for them, but that could be very dangerous because it would be easier for the enemy to see them. Brent and his unit were engaged in combat seven or eight times that he recalls. They lost men.

There is one particular event that stands out in his mind. He and a lieutenant did not get along very well. “He could not read a map,” Brent said. “I told him he was going to get people killed if he kept it up.” Brent’s captain spoke with him about it and in the end, Brent took a demotion (he lost one stripe) because he would not serve under that lieutenant. He was moved to a different unit.

On Christmas Eve of 1970, that lieutenant found himself in need of heavy artillery and he called it in. But he did not know his correct location and when the heavy artillery came in, it hit him and his men instead of the enemy, killing and wounding many. Brent was with the group that quickly went to assist the wounded and then he was asked by the captain to guard the bodies of the dead that night. “That was a tough night,” he recalls.

Brent said that the Bible verse that carried him through all the tough times when he was in Vietnam was Romans 14:8, which says, “If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”

Mail call, which came in with the supply drop, was a welcome event. Brent wrote letters and received letters from his family back home. His parents also sent care packages from time to time.

Brent (middle, front) with some of his men. You can see the affects of Agent Orange on the jungle behind them.