For more than 45 years, David Beckom wondered about Gil Quevas.
Along with other challenges that came after his 23 months in the Army during the Vietnam War, Beckom spent a lot of time thinking about Quevas, a fellow soldier who was evacuated after an attack by the North Vietnamese Army in February 1971.
“It was about 3 a.m.,” Beckom said recounting the attack. “Gil came running screaming. Then I saw he was on fire while he was yelling.”
“I had this picture of him in my head of getting him on the helicopter and holding his hand. The helicopter starting taking off and I had to turn him around. I looked over at him and thought he was dead.”
Beckom, a North Carolina native who’s lived in Blaine with his wife Gayle for 30 years, was 19 at the time of the attack. Quevas, a New Yorker with Puerto Rican roots, was 18.
Still teenagers when they were drafted, Beckom and Quevas bonded in the Army as they worked in the Bravo Troop unit of about 40 soldiers on the front lines of the controversial conflict.
After returning to the U.S. with shrapnel wounds from the attack, Beckom worked in the cotton mills of North Carolina — even though he had hoped to avoid them — and struggled with alcohol during the 1970s. When he moved to Blaine with Gayle, a Mars Hill native, he went back to college at the University of Maine Presque Isle and worked in communications in illustration. He later took up guitar and songwriting, and said he has found music and writing to be therapeutic.
David Beckom, left, of Blaine reunited with Gil Quevas, of Arizona and New York, at Beckom’s home in summer 2016. The two Vietnam War veterans had not seen each other for 45 years, since Beckhom helped evacuate a badly-injured Quevas from north Vietnam in February 1971.
(Courtesy/David Beckom)
Over the years, though, he tried but could not find any information about Quevas. “There was something that kept telling me he was alive,” Beckom said.
In August 2016, while looking through a Facebook group for Vietnam Army veterans, Beckom confirmed that belief when he saw a photo of Quevas at a reunion. He called the organizer of the group, who called Quevas.
“Gil called 10 minutes later. He was here about 8 hours later,” Beckom said.
The reunion and time spent with Quevas was helpful for dealing with the memories of the conflict, Beckom said.
“Ask any combat vet — a lot of the stuff you’re not really sure if it happened.”
For instance, one of Beckom’s most troubling memories of the war — of he and Quevas almost being caught by members of the North Vietnamese Army — was something he wasn’t sure happened until reuniting with Quevas.
“When Gil came in one of the first things he said was, ‘Do you remember the river?’” Beckom recalled. “I almost started crying because I had told the story so many times and I didn’t think anybody believed me.”
Three weeks before that overnight attack in 1971, Quevas and Beckom were assigned to do an “ambush patrol” in the woods around their mountain outpost, which had already been detected by the North Vietnamese Army.
Shortly before sunrise, Quevas and Beckom were near a river in the forest and were almost discovered. “We heard splash, splash, splash, and there was a platoon of them (the North Vietnamese Army) coming up the river right in front of us.”
Those and other conflict experiences are some of the memories that Beckom has lived with for almost five decades.
“When I’m sleeping, I’m always one little nudge from waking up. It has been exhausting the last 40-some years,” Beckom said. “We were at a parade one time in Mars Hill. Somebody fired a little cannon off and I went down and ate concrete.”
Reuniting and continuing a friendship with Quevas has been important for Beckom’s peace of mind. Quevas has visited twice since they have reconnected and plans to visit every summer, Beckom said.
“Other than my kids and my wife, knowing that he was still alive was one of the most important things that happened to me in my life. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I wasn’t able to find out about Gil.”
