Vietnam veteran still serving fellow soldiers with honor guard

Manhattan — If families of Chicago-area veterans want their deceased loved ones to have military honors at their funeral and a cemetery is unable to provide them, John Kestel and his fellow members of the American Legion Post 935 are pleased to help.

“We’re an unusual post in Manhattan. We’re tiny, but we’re like that old show ‘Have Gun, Will Travel,” said Kestel, the 78-year-old leader of the post’s honor guard group. “We’ll go where we’re needed. Not many posts will do that, but we’ve done funerals from the South Side of Chicago down to Kankakee. If anyone needs an honor guard, we’ll be there.”

Kestel, who served in the Army from 1965 to 1967, said he has been running the honor guard for Post 935 for more than 20 years as a way of giving back to his fellow troops.

“I had it awful easy in Vietnam,” he said. “I feel like I never paid my dues.”

Kestel’s unit, the Army 20th Brigade 36th Engineer Battalion, was delayed for months shipping out from California and did not have its tour extended. After 91 days in action, the unit returned to the U.S. at 5 a.m. on Christmas Eve 1967. Three days later, Kestel was able to file his paperwork to leave the service.

After finishing his paperwork, Kestel said he had another life-changing experience.

“On my way home, I stopped by my friend’s house. We did 4-H together growing up,” Kestel said. “He asked me what I was doing that night and told me his cousin and her friend were coming over. He said, ‘You’re going to take my cousin Barbara out, we’re going on a double date.’ And she’s still here,” Kestel said. “We got married two years later. That’ll be 55 years ago on Dec. 27.”

The timing allowed Kestel’s father to retire and for John to take over his responsibilities on the family farm after New Year’s Day.

Kestel said although he has dealt with mental and physical health issues as a result of his time in Vietnam, he still feels that his experience was much easier than those of his fellow veterans, and he has dedicated years to veterans’ organizations since he retired from the Army.

In addition to his ongoing honor guard work, Kestel served as commander of the Manhattan American Legion Post and worked with the Will County Veterans Assistance Commission, even serving as chairman for several years, an experience he said led to one of the proudest achievements of his life.

“Since I did so much with the VAC, a lot of people had my number, and I had a lot of people call me for different things,” Kestel said. “One night, I had a guy call me late who was thinking of ending his life. He asked me if I could call the police so that they could come find him instead of his family. I stayed on the phone with him for a long time, trying to talk him through everything until he wouldn’t go through with it. And he never did. It was one of the highlights of my life. That happened twice over the years, and neither of them ever did it. I was tickled pink. It made me feel so good to know I made that difference.”

Kestel said that in the days after the Vietnam War, there was less of an understanding of trauma and mental health issues in veterans, but it has improved over the years.

“They didn’t talk a lot about PTSD back then,” Kestel said. “They gave 18- and 19-year-old kids guns and told us to kill people and just expected us to come back and be normal, but that wasn’t easy.”

Kestel said he appreciates the resources that are available to veterans for health care, especially at the Hines VA Medical Center, where he has received extended treatment over the years, including for issues resulting from his exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam.

“You’ll never hear me say a bad thing about them. If it wasn’t for them, I couldn’t have afforded the care I needed, and I wouldn’t be here today,” he said.

Although he retired from the VAC board and post commander positions for health reasons, Kestel said he still enjoys his involvement with the American Legion and the honor guard.

“We have a good post,” he said. “I can’t say enough nice things about my crew,” acknowledging the 16 fellow veterans who perform honor guard duties with him in two squads.

“I’m awfully lucky, and I’m awfully blessed,” Kestel said. “I could call my crew at 2 a.m. and tell them we needed to be at a funeral at 6, and they might not be happy with me, but they’d be there ready in the morning.”

In addition to their traveling honor guard services, the Manhattan Post squads perform services at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery on holidays and fill in when other squads are busy or unable to attend.

Kestel said he believes it is an important service to provide military honors for veterans who die, and encouraged former service members to let their families know where their DD214 discharge papers are or to keep them in an easy-to-find place, to make sure their loved ones can arrange those honors when they are making funeral arrangements.

“It’s an honor to perform those services,” Kestel said. “I’ve had a really fulfilling time with all of this over the years.”