Buys Was in Vietnam During The Tet Offensive
Pictured: LeRoy received these three medals and a plaque for his service By Jill Fennema –
LeRoy Buys enlisted in the United States Army when he was 20 years old. He signed up to be a clerk/typist in 1965, during the Vietnam War. His parents, John and Johanna Buys of Chandler, were farmers. He was dating a girl named Patsy Vogel. Her family lived near Lake Wilson.
She was a member of the Chandler Christian Reformed Church and he a member of the Chandler Reformed Church. They met up at the Chandler Café, as most of the teens from there did in those days. There were also guys from the Chandler Air Force Station that spent time there.
About two weeks before he left for basic training, on Sept. 10, he proposed to her. She said yes! She had just graduated from high school the previous June and was only 17 years old.
A few days later, LeRoy was settling in at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri. It was late September, and still warm down there. “The training wasn’t too bad for a farm boy,” LeRoy said. He was used to physical work, unlike some of the city guys.
While he was at Ft. Leonard Wood, they were telling soldiers that they would get four days at home before they were shipped off to Vietnam and if they wanted to take care of anything before that happened, they better do it while they were home.
So LeRoy called his parents. Patsy’s parents did not have a telephone. They didn’t even have indoor plumbing.
He told her he wanted them to get married while he was home on leave. She had three weeks to plan a wedding. The couple was married on December 14, 1965, at the Chandler Christian Reformed Church.
The wedding was small. Patsy borrowed the wedding dress of her sister-in-law Dorothy Buys. They each had one attendant.
After the wedding, rather than a beautiful honeymoon trip, LeRoy returned to Missouri and Patsy decided to go visit friends in Grand Rapids, Mich. LeRoy had been told that there would be no Christmas leave that year. But, when Christmas rolled around, he was allowed to go home for a few days.
As mentioned, the Vogel family didn’t have a phone, so he came home without Patsy knowing. Gary Baker’s uncle, Albert, was in Sioux Falls to pick up his son and he gave LeRoy a ride to Chandler. From there, his dad drove him to the Peter and Ellen Vogel farm, where Patsy was living yet. They were not sure if she would be back from Michigan. Thankfully, she was!
Those few days were short and LeRoy returned to base to finish his clerk/typist training. In January 1966, he got his orders to report to Letterman General Hospital at the Presidio Base in San Francisco, Calif. Patsy also moved there.
LeRoy found them an apartment at 645 Leavenworth (they still remember the address). They did not have a car, but relied on public transportation. Patsy took a job as a housekeeper for the Thomas Kennedy family. They were distant relatives of the Washington, D.C. Kennedy family, and were quite well-to-do.
LeRoy was a bit concerned that Patsy would love the hustle and bustle of San Francisco, but he need not have been concerned. She learned quickly how bad the traffic was when she had to drive one of the Kennedy daughters home during rush hour traffic. It took three hours and with no cell phones, everyone was very concerned. The Kennedys drove her home, rather than allowing her to ride the bus late in the evening – that was much too risky, especially with the war protestors that were prevalent in San Francisco.
Even though he was not dealing with being in Vietnam, a fact he was thankful for, LeRoy did see the effects of war at Letterman General. He saw missing limbs and many wounded soldiers. “We saw the after-effects of war and how people suffer,” Patsy said.
They lived in San Francisco from Jan. 1966 to May 1967. Their daughter Brenda was born on May 5, 1967. She had jaundice and had to stay in the hospital longer than Patsy. The day after she came home, they flew to Sioux Falls. They shipped all of their belongings home – in 14 boxes!
In June 1967, LeRoy left for Vietnam.
“It was a scary, lonely feeling,” LeRoy remembers.
