WAYNE — When Lloyd Irland went to war, it was 1968.
Irland, who was at the University of Arizona working on his master’s degree, knew that graduate school deferments were coming to an end and existing deferments were being capped at a single year.
Knowing that he would be drafted shortly, he opted instead to enlist.
Irland, now 70 and president of the Irland Group in Wayne, who has worked as a professor, economist and director of the Maine Bureau of Public Lands, spoke Sunday, the last day of the Veterans Day holiday weekend, recapping his two years with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division in “Soldiering in a Monsoon,” a talk at Cary Memorial Library’s Williams House.
Irland was an artillery fire direction specialist stationed between Da Nang and the demilitarized zone. He first served in the field with the infantry, then at several fire bases with the battery, and finally at the battalion fire director center at the end of his tour.
“I had an easy time compared to a lot of people,” he said. “There was no hero stuff, no PTSD. I just did what I was supposed to do.”
His recollections ranged from the day-to-day life of a soldier in the jungle, carrying a pack weighing 45 pounds and four quarts of water to keep hydrated, to things that take root in memories over decades.
“You lived for your next meal break,” he said. Sometimes a sergeant would scare up an onion to liven up the monotony of C-rations, or someone had Louisiana hot sauce, he said.
Through the years, he has felt a sense of incompleteness, from coming home while other members of his outfit remained behind in Vietnam.
More than 20 years after his return, in May 1991, Irland said he heeded the call of President George H.W. Bush to welcome home the soldiers of the Gulf War, and he decided to march in Wayne’s Memorial Day parade.
Amid the celebration and that day, he said, “That’s the first day I felt I was really home, when I did that parade in Wayne.”
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