- [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by The Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(upbeat music) - Coming to you from Rochester, Minnesota.

R-Town.

Bill Strusinski was a Vietnam combat medic and has spent his life serving others.

With over 40 years of state government lobbying experiences Strusinski has served three governors and received numerous awards recognizing his abilities.

His recent book Care Under Fire is a firsthand account of his time in Vietnam.

Our own producer, Annie Krenik had the opportunity to sit down with him to discuss his new book.

- Care Under Fire is a new book published by Wisdom Editions out of Minneapolis.

The author is Minnesota native Bill Strusinski Mr. Strusinski joins us now here at KSMQ.

Welcome.

- Thank you, and good morning Annie.

- Congratulations on the publication of your book, which is a personal account of your time serving as a front-line medic in the Vietnam war and I just want to start out the interview asking what prompted you to write this book?

- Well, thank you.

That's a good question.

This has been, a few things throughout my life that, I've thought about this quite a bit since my days in Vietnam, but not too long ago, a couple of years ago, I was asked by the Minnesota Ambulance Association to be a keynote speaker for their Stars of Life event, which is where they recognize EMTs and paramedics throughout the state who have performed extraordinary service during that year and they were interested in my story as a combat medic from Vietnam.

So I thought about it and I prepared quite a bit of material and then I delivered my speech and comments, got a wonderful standing ovation, welcome home, and they gave me one of the Stars of Life awards and I was so touched by that and the first time I felt that, welcomed home since I left Vietnam and that just, I had a lot of materials prepared.

So that started the process of me completing my story and getting all of my thoughts on paper, and secondly, I'd done some work with public television in trying to secure some support, funding support from the Minnesota Legislature for the program Minnesota Remembers Vietnam, which was centered around the Ken Burns documentaries and I had a chance to testify quite a bit in front of legislative committees and they seemed interested in my story.

So I think a combination of all of that, I said, oh, maybe I should get it out there so that people understand who I am and understand more about Vietnam veterans and the impact war actually has on all of us.

- Many people would not want to relive terrifying times in their life.

Was it difficult for you to write this book and kind of go through those memories?

- Actually, I found writing the book was very therapeutic for me.

These issues and things, circumstances, wish I could change some of them but I can't.

You reflect upon them every day.

They just never really leave you.

So I found it very therapeutic for me to write the book.

- I hear that Care Under Fire has actually come to some acclaim and you've won some awards.

Can you kind of share what those awards are, and also congratulations.

- Well, thank you very much.

I am so honored about that.

I won, I was one of the four recipients of the Minnesota Humanities Commission Veterans Voices Awards for 2020.

That was inspirational to me because I want to share my message with other veterans particularly combat veterans and then just recently in the last six weeks, I was the recipient of the National Independent Book Publishers Award for best novel, best book, military nonfiction category and then I was a finalist in the category called Memoirs, Overcoming Adversity and Tragedy and these national recognitions have brought me lots of notice and I appreciate that, but I should tell you while that is extremely important to me and really fun in my personal life, the awards actually belong to everybody who has served in uniform.

Particularly everybody who has served their country.

People particularly went to war to Vietnam.

We all have our stories, whether you went to Vietnam or not.

I just happened to write mine down and share them.

So it's their award on behalf of them.

Thank you.

- I know in the intro I said that this is like a newly published book, but this is actually a relatively, like it was published April 2020 and congrats on publishing a book in 2020.

- During the pandemic.

- Yeah, and I can't even imagine like the buildup to that because you had been preparing this book for years before only to find out that it's going on the shelves at a time when all the bookstores are closed.

- Well, Amazon gave it a whole new life, certainly, but what was missing and I had never realized this about the book publishing industry.

I'm a novice, right?

I put my recollections and remembrances on paper, but there's a lot of speaking engagements.

The book tours and libraries and stuff that I never had a chance to really participate in to promote the book, and that's okay.

I am carried in a number of libraries now, which is great.

Even the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One, which I was a part of now sells it in their bookstore as well.

They just did a big feature about it in their society newsletter just two weeks ago.

So I'm just blessed with all of that stuff now starting to happen because again, I want to impact veterans.

I want to help them deal with all these issues to make life better for all of us and I want young people and everybody to realize the importance of freedom and it comes from military service by so many.

I have to tell you this Annie, and I know I'm going on, but people remember those who went to war and never came back.

We have Memorial days and all those kinds of things but we cannot forget the soldiers who went to war, came back, were never the same again.

They were changed forever by their life's experiences that happened at such a young age.

You've got to recognize that in our communities and help these people along.

- Yeah, I definitely appreciate that.

Do you see similarities between your work as a medic and what our nation is going through now with the COVID-19 pandemic?

- Yes, an excellent question, by the way.

I had the good fortune just recently to speak to the Emergency Medical Directors Conference for Minnesota, and these are the ER docs, and these are the people who run the ambulance services and the hospital administrators and I had a chance to thank them because while they're in a war, bullets aren't being shot and bullets aren't being fired at them, but they're in a war just the same as I was.

While the technologies and things are all different and what have you, the heartache is the same.

Making the call, making tough decisions.

I had to do that as a young man at 20 years old.

They do this every day in fighting this pandemic and they're going to deal with these issues throughout the rest of their lives too.

They're developing their own stories and they need an opportunity to process that.

We call it PTSD nowadays, but I can share with them the heartache and help them say, it'll get better if you do a variety of things in your life, to make sure that you heal.

(upbeat music) - Be sure to stick around.

We have much more coming your way on R-Town.

We head to ThaiPop to take a tour of their restaurant and we continue our conversation with author Bill Strusinski.

But up first we chat with Susan Haskamp to learn all about The Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association in this week's art culture segment.

(elegant music) - My name is Susan Haskamp.

I am the advancement manager at Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association.

The acronym is I-M-A-A.

My background, I am Irish and German.

I was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

I was raised in Rochester.

The first event that really, I think just was a big, probably inspiration as far as just my interest in other cultures was my parents sponsored a refugee family from Bosnia in the early 90s and so I was about four or five years old.

I have a memory of standing at the airport with a balloon and a welcome sign as we welcomed them through the gates at the Rochester airport.

My parents have always been very social justice oriented.

So I think for them, it was just, my mom also volunteered at Channel One and I would go there with her.

My dad volunteers at the Dorothy Day House and so I would go volunteer with him and hang out with the guys there.

So I think this was just another opportunity for them to serve in the community, and again, it's just with another group that's experiencing marginalization.

So our mission is building bridges between cultures, by empowering individuals toward a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive community.

We have several different programs in the areas of health access and education, employment and family services, community engagements.

I helped to oversee one of our volunteer programs, which is called the Match Program.

The Match Program matches volunteer community members with refugee and immigrant families.

So these families could be new arrivals that just settled here in Rochester, or they may have, may be living here for several years and just don't feel fully integrated into the community and so we matched the volunteers and families together.

They helped them with a lot of different things, just kind of depends on what the needs are, but typically it's always practicing English, whether it's speaking or reading or writing of some sorts.

If there's kids involved on both sides then usually we try to match similar ages and they might go to the playground or the park and their kids can play together.

They'll, might take them grocery shopping, helping them look through the mail and make sure what's important, what is not important.

To me, I think it's a very, action-oriented part of our mission, which is building bridges between cultures.

Our staff are reflective of the communities that we serve, which I think is very important.

When a client comes through our doors, they often see somebody that looks like them, that speaks the same language, that welcomes them, and so we just try to provide really that community atmosphere where people feel safe and feel welcome, and then we can help them in whatever it is that they might need.

There is a lot of bad and negativity in the world, but I also have a lot of hope.

So I just feel that I need to find a way to walk side by side with these populations and provide that advocacy where I can.

That's where my heart is at, and that's why I'm in this work and doing the work that I do.

- For more information about this story and other R-Town features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, @KSMQ #RTown, or KSMQ.org/rtown.

(upbeat music) - Hello, Rochester.

This is Michael Wojcik with your pumpkin spice flavored R-Town rundown.

It's getting to be fall, and that means the DNR will be updating their fall color map.

A couple of local recommendations that I always have is the beloved Whitewater State Park, but also Great River Bluffs, which overlooks the Mississippi River near La Crescent.

There is fabulous maples there, have tremendous fall colors, and it's maybe not as busy as some of the other fall color parks.

In addition to the fall colors, the school board met recently and they decided on a name for the new middle school.

It's going to be called Dakota.

The Dakota people have been living and continue to live in this part of the state since at least the 1600s.

So it's great to be honoring some of that history with our new school.

Fall Fling is coming up.

This is an annual gala to support the Elder Network and the ticket sales have ended for that.

However, you can still support them through their online option and visit the website below to support that organization.

There are still a few Sidewalk Series left this summer, and you can see who's performing and when at the link below.

Also, I got notice that Trolls Live will be coming to Mayo Civic Center on December 22nd.

Why do we talk about something that's coming on December 22nd?

Well, for those of you that are parents who have tried to buy tickets for these kinds of things, they can get very popular with kids and sell out fairly quickly and adults who love the Trolls, I'm not judging.

So if it's something that you're interested in, maybe take a look at that and it'll be coming the Mayo Civic Center.

There's two performances on December 22nd.

Finally, Always Patsy Cline is in its last weekend of showing at the Rochester Civic Theater.

Once again, an opportunity to get out and support arts in our beautiful downtown.

Thank you for watching and that's just a little bit of what's going on in Rochester this weekend.

(elegant music) - Hello, I'm Danielle Teal with R-Town Walkabout and we're talking to our guests remotely.

I'm at my house and our two guests, Annie and Ryan Balow, hi!

- Hi!

- They are at Thai Pop go restaurant.

- Yeah, so ThaiPop started around seven or eight years ago as a pop-up restaurant.

Our first pop-up was out of the community room in our apartment downtown, and we just invited some friends, some family.

It was just a way to kind of share Thai culture and Thai food.

People really liked it.

Like they came out afterwards and said you guys should have more of these and you guys should be making money.

- Did you imagine that you would have a restaurant downtown now?

- No, not at all!

If I have a restaurant, it's gonna be somewhere not downtown.

It's going to be just a 10 table, a small one.

- Classic Chicken Pad Thai.

- So Annie, are you doing all the cooking?

- Yes, I am.

But not so much anymore.

- What is one unique dish that you offer that people rave about?

- I would say that would be a little bit funny if I say our wings.

Chicken wings.

I know it's not quite Thai, but the flavor that it come with, no one else does that.

The flavor is the one that people really love.

People just can't get enough of that and it's called yum-yum sauce.

When you bite the wing, it's all that sour spicy creamy.

It's just all in one bite.

- Can you share a little bit about the aesthetics?

- We've ordered a lot of our lighting fixtures directly from Thailand, the clothing that we're wearing.

You want to be able to come in and feel like they're in vacation, that they stepped away.

- I'm going to go online and drool over the ThaiPop's menu now.

Thanks.

- Thank you, Danielle.

- Thank you so much.

(upbeat music) - I did have, like, it's not necessarily like best framed as a question, but I wanted to talk about a little bit about like the COVID 19 pandemic, and in your book, you talk about the first person that died under your care and like how you worked with them, but then you weren't there with them when they passed and kind of like the trauma that unfolded from that, and we hear a lot of stories about doctors and nurses and stuff right now that are like holding the hands of people that can't have their family with them while they're dying, and you already made the comparison to war, but it just seems like so, so heartbreaking that there's so many people that are experiencing such great loss and not being able to be there, and I guess just, do you have thoughts on that or do you have anything to say, to share with doctors and nurses?

- Yeah, I do.

I have some thoughts.

That man that died late that night, next morning actually, saved my life just moments before.

We were in an ambush, going into our own ambush patrol to set up a nighttime ambush upon the enemy and he saw a machine gun by a berm and told me to hit it.

The machine gun opened fire and I was right next to him and the burst from the machine gun threw dirt in my face and one of the bullets, the ricochets, hit him and I couldn't believe it.

Such pain and I rendered morphine.

I'd lay on top of him and render morphine to keep him down in the ground so he wouldn't get injured further, but anyhow, I did what I could for him and then we got him out of there, a couple, a few hours later, before we could suppress the enemy fire and then I discovered, I thought, okay, my first major casualty like this, that he'd be fine.

Hear about it, and then the sergeant, my first sergeant told me the next morning that he'd passed away.

He died, and I was just tore up by that really bad.

I didn't know how to process that.

I mean, man I was with him, the guy saved my life and now you're telling me he's dead and what else could I have done?

Could I have done more?

No, upon reflection, I did the absolute best I could.

I did what I was supposed to do, and I just had the lead medical sergeant sat down with me and then Danny says, look, you gotta get over this.

He says, first of all, you didn't shoot him and you did the best you can.

So you've got to process this stuff.

You've got to deal with it, get over it or you're not going to be worth a damn to any other soldier going forward and I'll yank you out of the field.

I said, well, I don't want to do that.

I think I want to continue my tour and I did process that.

I thought about it.

So that's where I developed resilience and go back to have a better plan and do the best you can.

Just do the best you can and that's the message I shared with physicians and nurses and ER docs and ambulance people, EMTs, paramedics yesterday.

That's what it's all about.

You weren't there with them, but you had an impact on life.

Tried to do the best you could, but you've gotta process it.

You'll live with it, but talk about it.

Share it with your peers and colleagues.

Keep that sacred bond amongst you going forward, because the best relief they can have for that family is somebody was there with them who also cares eventually.

- Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for sharing that.

This work in Vietnam was not limited to medical care.

You write in one case about having to create a place to care for the wounded in the jungle, cutting down trees, just to provide basic care.

Can you talk a little bit more about kind of the different aspects of being a medic in Vietnam?

- Certainly, I'll try.

In fact, I will.

I was thinking about how much time do we have?

- Go for it!

- Vietnam was the first time that medics were directly embedded into the infantry.

Prior to that, medics were extremely important.

They wore armbands, red crosses, helmets.

Up near the front, maybe as the battles are occurring and started treating casualties.

But the army had decided to put medics directly into the smallest unit possible so that you can help them survive a situation should the unimaginable happen to them and they get wounded.

So that was really important.

So medics were there all the time.

We were there all of the time, but we also carried M-16s, Claymore mines and hand grenades and stuff.

So we're called combat medics.

So you find yourself in a variety of situations from treating the Vietnamese as you'd go through a village, holding sick call, if you will, and doing some of those things, to major firefights and the incident we talked about in my book is an incident where our battalion commander was actually killed that day.

We had 22 soldiers killed that day in a major battle, and we had to cut down trees just to get the wounded out of there and they had to bring in the helicopters and penetrators.

It's just amazing what you do because the medics right there and the military's commitment to the soldiers, get them out of there into advanced care as soon as possible.

So we did just a variety of things.

And I think one of the other interesting things I did was I acted as a jungle therapist.

Whenever alcohol-induced disagreements existed amongst the men, they were men back then, and whatever people got a dear John letter from home, they always seem to bring their problems to me, the medic, "Doc", as opposed to the first sergeant I suspect and so you render all kinds of advice to these young men and whatever, and listen to their stories, listen to their heartache and help them process all of that stuff.

So it was a very fascinating job and I just loved it.

- I know that the reception to World War II veterans was like very warm when they came home and people were more, were happy that they were back and that there was significantly more contention about the Vietnam war, and a lot of people were very angry, especially towards the end and the reception to soldiers wasn't always the warmest.

So I guess I kind of just want to talk about how can the community support veterans?

- Yeah, there's a couple of things.

First of all, in fact, I had the good pleasure of speaking with before the Daughters of the American Revolution of the Metro area, sometime this past couple of months and that's an organization that's committed to making sure that military civics understanding war, our history, military history, and its contributions to freedoms is taught in schools.

Surprised the organization needs to do that because throughout much of Minnesota, young people aren't exposed to those things and what it really means to be free.

That's a little coin adage, but that's important because it comes from all those kinds of things and so I'm rambling.

I forgot exactly where we're going with all of that.

- How can the community support veterans?

- Oh yeah, I think they are and when you see a veteran, thank the veteran for their service.

When I came back, it wasn't nice.

It wasn't pleasant.

They told us to take our uniforms off in Oakland, California, when you go home, and you faced all these people.

They were throwing eggs at the bus when we get off the tarmac from the airplane, just landed from Vietnam.

When we got around into the public spaces, and it was terrible, terrible treatment.

It got better now that people recognize their problems, their bad attitudes, the impact that had on soldiers in their lives.

That's why none of us talked about it for so many years.

Nobody wanted to hear our stories and we weren't welcome, but troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq have made it easier for all of us.

We fought those battles socially, then that acceptance enabled all of us now to continue to tell our stories.

So that's why you see more renewed interest, I believe in the Vietnam War and certainly more renewed interest in Vietnam veterans talking about their experiences and that's really important.

- Well, thank you so much.

How can people purchase your book?

- Well, thank you for asking that question too Annie.

I have a website, it's called careunderfire.us, and there's more information about, there are some pictures and the video that I had been put together about my story from Vietnam, and there's a link there, or you can go directly to amazon.com and purchase my book.

- All right, thank you so, so much.

Once again, the book is Care Under Fire, Bill Strusinski.

Thank you for your service.

- Thank you Annie, for having me here today.

- Yeah, and thank you for joining us and thank you for joining us here on KSMQ public television.

I'm Annie Krenik.

Thank you for watching.

- Thank you for joining us today for more wonderful content produced right here in Rochester.

Be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter at #RTown.

Be well and stay safe.

I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara for R-Town.

The show about Rochester.

We'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.