There are heroes among us: Garry Hensley of the U.S. Army

TOP PHOTO: In 1968, Garry Hensley quit high school and soon found himself in the middle of the Vietnam War.

By Jim Freeman

LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF) – “You get drafted. You go,” said Vietnam Veteran Garry Hensley. Hensley dropped out of La Follette High School in 1968, and three or four weeks later, he was drafted. By the first of the next year, he was in combat in Vietnam.

I was able to catch up with the 73-year old Hensley late on a Sunday morning, June 26 (2022), for the opportunity to honor him with a story on his service to his country and community. “Tracy, you know Tracy Arnold, don’t you, and I went fishing about 7:00 last night and got back in around 4:00 this morning. We pulled our boat up under Miller Bridge like we often do, but it was a bad night for fishing,” said Hensley.

He let me know right up front that he wasn’t a hero. “Now, there’s a lot that I just cannot talk about,” he pointed out. When asked about his twin brother, Larry who passed away a few years ago, he said that he didn’t get drafted.

Hensley recalls his journey from basic training at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to advance infantry training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. After that, he was on two weeks leave and came back home to marry his sweetheart, Peggy Robbins. “Christmas Day. We got married on Christmas Day,” said Hensley. “I lost her last year,” he sadly adds.

“I flew for the first time on a plane from Knoxville to Fort Lewis, Washington, and then it was on to Guam and Vietnam,” said Hensley. He remembers that as soon as they landed, everyone was automatically assigned a private first class.

Some of the areas where Hensley and his 25th Infantry Division were in year long combat ranged from the Rubber Plantation to Ho Bo Woods to Black Virgin Mountain. To this day, Hensley carries scars on his body where he was shot twice, and he still takes medicine for his flashbacks, nightmares he continues to have all these 53 years later. “Yeah, I wake up screaming some times. Though, the medicine does help, but there are some things you don’t forget,” he notes.

Six months into combat, Hensley caught an AK round in the hip. “It sort of grazed me,” said Hensley. A couple of months later, he suffered from shrapnel wounds to his back. His recovery time was short.

As a result, Hensley was presented with two Purple Hearts for wounds he suffered during the war. “The big man came out into the field of battle and presented the purple hearts to me there,” said Hensley. He was also awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge.

After about nine months of combat, he was able to take some R & R (rest and recuperation). The Army worked it out for Peggy to meet him in Hawaii for his break. “She’d never been out of the county, well, maybe, Knoxville, but this was a first for her to be on a plane at 16 years old,” said Hensley. He said it was quite a reunion.

“We’d stay out in the field of combat for two to three months, and then we’d get a stand down, resupply and go back out,” said Hensley.

Hensley explained that if you had been in Vietnam for at least eight months, you were allowed to attend the Bob Hope Christmas Show. “We’re all walking to the show, and I hear someone shout “hey, Garry, and, like, there are probably a thousand Garrys here, and I don’t turn around. Then he shouts Garry Hensley, and I’m like someone knows me,” said Hensley. It was Charlie Scott from La Follette. Hensley and Scott eventually ended up leaving Vietnam together.

After that first year in combat, Hensley finished his service stateside at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, at Columbia. “Peggy and I would drive back to La Follette on the weekends, and I’d play softball. We’d drive all night on Sundays just in time to get back on post by Monday morning,” said Hensley.

Campbell County Mayor Jack Roy Alexander hired Hensley on at the courthouse when he first came back home out of the Army, and from there, he attended TCAT and then was hired at the La Follette Fire Department. “I was there for 37 years until I retired,” Hensley explains.

In his spare time, he refereed basketball and baseball and also coached. “One of my Junior Pro teams won the state championship in the youngest division. My son, Garry, nephews Brian, Mike Leach and Tommy Willoughby along with Paul Provins played on that team, and I’m leaving out some others that I just can’t recall,” said the former coach. Hensley still has grown men come up to him, many he does not recognize, calling him by name and tell him they remember him calling their games.

Though Hensley is thousands of miles and many decades away from those Vietnam battle fields, the mental and physical scars are right here at home all these years later. Thank you for your service, Garry. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 07/04/2022-6AM)