Oct 15, 2014 By David Singer 2 min read

Vietnam veteran Carl Charnesky said the war sure wasn’t a Boy Scout outing.

“Once you landed, you had to be ready to go. You get your gun, your clothes and then you’re out on the battlefield before you know it,” the 71-year-old Army veteran said.

At an Oct. 14 ceremony at the Bethel Park American Legion, Congressman Tim Murphy (R-Upper St. Clair) presented Charnesky his Purple Heart medal, the National Defense Service medal, Vietnam Service medal, the Republic of Vietnam Campaign ribbon (1960) and the Bronze Star, after the Army corporal served two years and was deployed 11 months and 26 days in Vietnam.

“It happens unfortunately too much. A lot of Vietnam vets came home … and because they were sometimes greeted in airports by hostile people, they threw away their uniforms, didn’t get their medals, nor did they want their medals,” Murphy said.

For Charnesky, it was about being drafted into a war he didn’t want to be a part of any more than he had to.

“They approached me (at the end my tour) thinking I was already staying. And they handed me papers (to re-enlist), and I asked, ‘What’s the guarantee I won’t go back to Vietnam?’ and they said, ‘There is none.’ So I told them, ‘I’m leaving.'”

“Pretty smart for a soldier,” Murphy quipped.

Murphy, a Lt. Commander in the Navy Reserves, said he wants to help make sure veterans are not only welcomed home, but that they have their full supply of medals they rightfully earned.

“It wasn’t easy. It was a long road. Anyone who comes home from war, from battle – they deserve everything they got, believe-you-me,” Charnesky said. “And if anyone has trouble tracking down their medals, Congressman Murphy got mine in less than two months after I called him.”

Charnesky recounted how he earned his Purple Heart.

“It was two o’clock in the morning, pouring down rain. We had several platoons with and around us. All of a sudden, we came under fire. We lost a lot of soldiers because it was night, and there was no helicopter evac coming yet. And that’s when I got hit. It doesn’t leave you.”

“The hot weather; you lived in swamp waters. It was no life. When you got back, you really appreciated American soil.”