U.S. Army Europe warrant officer retiring as one of last active Soldiers with Vietnam service

By Spc. Glenn M. AndersonJuly 14, 2014

Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jack Van Zanten holds a photo of himself taken in Vietnam in 1972
1 / 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jack Van Zanten, the U.S. Army Europe senior food advisor and a native of Chester, Va., holds a photo of himself taken in Vietnam in 1972. When he retires from the Army this year, he will be one of the last Soldiers to leave t... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
shows Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jack Van Zanten celebrating his 20th birthday just days before he shipped out to Vietnam in 1972
2 / 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption – A 1972 photo shows Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jack Van Zanten, then an enlisted Soldier, celebrating his 20th birthday just days before he shipped out to Vietnam in 1972. When he retires from the Army this year, Van Zanten, U.S. Army Europe's senior foo... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jack Van Zanten with Legion of Merit
3 / 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption – U.S. Army Europe commander Lt. Gen. Donald M. Campbell Jr. (left) awards Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jack Van Zanten, the USAREUR senior food advisor and a native of Chester, Va., with the Legion of Merit at Van Zanten's retirement ceremony here, July 9.... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

A foreign view out the window as a Pan Am flight touches down. Richard Nixon's voice crackling from a radio. Olive drab uniforms. War correspondents on TV in black and white. The pungent odors of jet fuel and jungle penetrating the dense humid air. A blue bus waiting on a hot tarmac, its windows caged to keep grenades out of passengers' laps.

Jack Van Zanten remembers these things - and more. When Chief Warrant Officer 5 Van Zanten retires from the Army in November, he will be one of the last Soldiers to leave the active ranks who served in Vietnam.

In April officials at the Army's Human Resources Command said there are still dozens of Soldiers on active duty whose service dates are earlier than May 7, 1975 -- the recognized end date of the Vietnam conflict -- but only Van Zanten and four others have been recognized as having served there.

Van Zanten, a native of Chester, Va., was 19 when he joined the military in 1971. He was assigned to the Army Security Agency and trained for 35 weeks to be a teletype repairman -- a 31J in Army nomenclature. From school it was straight to Southeast Asia.

"In 1972, the war in Vietnam was winding down and most everyone was getting orders for Korea, Thailand or Germany," he said. "There were 10 of us in my graduating class from Advanced Individual Training, and we all came down on orders for Vietnam."

Late that year Van Zanten found himself in a small camp outside Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital, with the 509th Radio Research Field Station.

Van Zanten still recalls most of the assignments he tackled during his several months in country.

"Our first mission was to go to Da Nang and help build a communication center for the Vietnamese army," he said. He remembers the flight there, his first in an Air Force C-130; his team chief, a seasoned sergeant first class from Iowa then on his fifth tour in Vietnam; the winter monsoons that brought cool weather and more rainy days than he'd seen in his entire life. And, of course, the war.

"At night there would be occasional rocket attacks from outside the perimeter," he said. "There were some AC-119 Fairchilds based in Da Nang that would fly patrols at night, and you could see the tracer rounds as they engaged targets."

It was during this time that Van Zanten started corresponding with Connie, a girl he'd met on a double date to a high school dance. His date was Connie's friend; hers was the friend's brother. Later, when Jack went to Vietnam, she says the friend's mother asked her to write him.

"Back then, all we had was 'snail mail,' and you would get no letters for days or weeks, and then you'd get three to eight letters at a time. We started writing the dates on the back of the envelopes so we would know in what order to read them," she recalled.

Correspondence led to marriage. In September the Van Zantens will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.

Shortly after New Year's 1973, Van Zanten was sent back to Saigon. When he got there he heard he had orders for Augsburg, Germany, but because he couldn't be located the orders were cancelled. Instead he went to Vint Hill Farms Station in Virginia.

In 1975 he was discharged from the Army, but he returned to uniformed service -- this time with the Army Reserve -- in 1978. He trained as a food service specialist and climbed the ranks to sergeant first class before he began to consider becoming a warrant officer.

Connie says that when Jack shared the idea, she volunteered to put together his application, tackling the mass of paperwork with a typewriter and carbon paper.

"I cannot tell you how many times the packet came back with red ink and I would have to re-type all the paperwork," she said.

In 1987, Van Zanten was accepted into the warrant officer program. He finished a year later. The following year he entered the Active Guard and Reserve program, and served at several duty stations before being selected for active duty in the Regular Army in 1996.

Since then Van Zanten has deployed twice more to a combat zone, to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 and 2004. Connie said those times have been hard, but they have been lucky -- and grateful.

"Separation is very stressful … and I thank God that Jack has always come home in one piece," she said. "There are too many families that have suffered either great injury to their loved ones, or worse, lost their loved ones."

Nearing retirement, Van Zanten says he's proud to be where he is today. As U.S Army Europe's senior food advisor, he is responsible for 19 dining facilities across the USAREUR footprint.

It's plain that Connie is proud of him, too. She's quick to brag on his achievements: promotion to Chief Warrant Officer 5, being named Army Food Advisor, and earning his master's degree 36 years to the day after his high school graduation.

"Jack never gives up," Connie said. "He is an inspiration to so many younger Soldiers and civilians…and he tells them to never give up, that it is never too late."

"He is my hero," she said.

"Van Zanten is a legend in the food service community," said 1st Sgt. Irving E. Cockrell of USAREUR's Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion Operations Company. "I read about him many years ago, and when I realized that we would be working together, I was honored."

"I look up to Van Zanten as an Army father," Cockrell added. "He motivates me by doing everything that the Army asks of him and he emulates the Army's values, which has inspired me in my duties as a first sergeant."

As Van Zanten prepares for retirement after 40-plus years, he says he knows that whatever the future holds for him, he is a better person because of his long stint in the Army.

"It's a different Army today than it was in 1972," he said. "From the haircuts to the uniforms, it has all changed. But I would not have missed it for the world."

NOTE: The Library of Congress's Veterans History Project has a collection on Van Zanten's Vietnam experience that includes a recorded oral history interview, photographs and documents. Information on that collection can be found at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/bib/62027