Gov. Newsom pardons Petaluma Vietnam War hero for drug offenses committed after returning home
On Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a posthumous pardon to a North Bay Vietnam War hero for drug offenses committed after returning home.
The park overlooking downtown Petaluma is named for Richard Allen Penry, a man who has come to symbolize those who fought in Vietnam, both for their courage and for what they had to endure when they came home.
Now, it appears, there is finally some understanding that you can't judge one without considering the other.
It was during Vietnam that they created the POW/MIA flag to remember those who were left behind. In some ways, it even represents those who came back.
Sgt. Penry, known by most as "Butch" was, by any account, a major hero. One evening in 1970, his platoon was ambushed and virtually all of his buddies were seriously wounded.
All night, he alone held off enemy fighters and when dawn broke, he carried 18 men to safety, for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military honor.
But then he returned to the United States, where people hated the war but took it out on the soldiers. Duane Wilson, who served in 1969, remembered what that was like.
"You come home and every time you turn around, there's someone either spitting on you or throwing stuff at you or calling you names," he said. "In your brain, you're like, I'm proud I served my country, I've done this. But by the time you got back, and what you saw, you start to question. And a lot of that generation either self-medicated with alcohol or drugs."
Penry was in the grips of PTSD and turned to drugs to try to deal with it. He was arrested in 1973 for trying to sell $950 worth of cocaine.
He served seven months in jail and it looked like that would be his legacy when he died in 1994 at age 45. But years later, other veterans who heard his story took up his cause, led by retired Major Andrew LeMarQuand, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I started to reach out to a lot of people I served with," said LeMarQuand, "and it's very well known now that war trauma causes PTSD, and that PTSD is leading to suicide and high rates of drug addiction and whatever people choose to cope in my generation. And then it became very clear to me that Sgt. Penry never stood a chance."
But now, after decades of red tape, Newsom has pardoned Penry. While that comes too late to give Butch any solace, it means a lot to the people, like Wilson, who worked to make it happen.
"When I got the text that the Governor had approved it, I...I just, 'Yes.' You know, we've helped a brother even have his name restored," he said.
While it was done in Penry's name, Wilson said it's also for all the other guys who came home only to suffer in silence and are still suffering to this day. But he says at least the country has stopped blaming its warriors and is doing what it can to get them help.
"If he had the services then that they have now, it would have been a life-changer, said Wilson. "He may still be alive today."
Like a lot of others, Penry never really made it home from Vietnam. But now, at least his country is beginning to understand the price he paid for going there.
