Olivet Grad Recounts Vietnam Experience in "Years Later About Vietnam"

By Braeden Jones

OLIVET, Mich. — In the spring of 1968, Ron Fazio graduated from Olivet College and was teaching history at Marlboro High School. By January of 1970, Fazio became a part of history when he was one of 2.2 million young men drafted to serve in the Vietnam War.

“In those days, very few teachers got drafted, but since I did get drafted, I did fight the draft for 18 months,” said Fazio.

Over 50 years ago now, he found himself thousands of miles away in a foreign land, fighting a war he didn’t understand as a mortar man and a combat radio telephone operator (RTO).

As Fazio served in Vietnam, back in the United States the country was divided between those who supported and those who opposed the war, particularly on college campuses.

“During the time that I was a student here, there were students at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and at Michigan State that were physically taking over administration buildings and sometimes setting them on fire and things like that as a protest,” said Mike Fales, a graduate of Olivet in 1975, and current Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies.

“I was actually a political science major here, so in my department, we talked about it all the time, and I think that the campus was pretty divided,” said Fales.

Fazio was in Vietnam from June 1970 to late March 1971, when the war was nearing its end. The United States didn’t officially leave Vietnam until March 28, 1973. When soldiers came home, they weren’t treated as heroes.

“I was in the last seat of the aircraft and was there about five minutes, and here comes the stewardess down the aisle with a guy carrying a briefcase. She got about 10 feet away and said, ‘This man has a ticket, you’ll have to leave,’ and I got up to leave the aircraft, and somebody said, ‘Yeah, good riddance,’ and everybody applauded as I got kicked off the plane,” said Dennis Daugherty, former UO Board of Trustees Member and Vietnam Veteran, when describing his flight home from Vietnam.

When Fazio returned home, he resumed his teaching, this time at Manalapan High School, where he taught for 36 years. In March 2024, Fazio decided to go through his journal that he kept in Vietnam. Soldiers weren’t allowed to keep journals while in combat, but Fazio did, and it gave him the idea to write a book.

“My book, I kept it simple from the journal, and you move right along. You read my book day-by-day, you go through 10 months of Vietnam,” said Fazio.

Fazio had multiple different roles while in Vietnam, and he wanted people to learn what it was like to serve while having different responsibilities.

“My goal is day-by-day, you learn Vietnam, you learn things you never saw in the movies. It’s not fake, it’s true. You learn how real combat soldiers fight, what they do, and how they have to work in other fields. As a mortar man, as a forward observer, a clerk, et cetera,” said Fazio.

Fazio’s book is an example of what can happen when people decide to share their stories and help people understand the truth and not what they want to believe. It helps others learn from a new perspective and expand their horizon in terms of what they believe.