A bout with malaria likely saved Frank Connors’ life in Vietnam. He was in a hospital recovering when the rest of his unit was killed in battle.

On Jan. 31, on the first night of the Bowdoinham Ice and Smelt Festival, four Vietnam War veterans — Brent Zachau, Gene McKenna, Ryan Jennings and Connors — shared stories about their experiences fighting overseas in one of America’s most unpopular wars.

Connors shared the story of Alpha Company, where he was a paratrooper sergeant in the 173rd Airborne Brigade. The other members of Alpha Company were all killed in action while Connor was in a hospital bed.

At the event, he read from a collection of letters he wrote to family members called “A Year in Vietnam,” which is available at Bowdoinham Public Library. An audio recording of the veteran’s story is available on the Bowdoinham Public Library’s website.

Connors’ story is well known locally, but the Bowdoinham event gave other veterans a chance to share their Vietnam experiences as well.

Zachau dropped out of college, where he had been studying forestry and wildlife management, just before Christmas in December 1967. He worked at Riverbend Camps for the rest of the winter.

“It was hard to be a good student during the middle of all that,” Zachau said of the Vietnam era.

Before the smelt season was over, Zachau answered the draft call into the Army at age 20, and like a lot of military service members, there was a culture shock going into Vietnam.

In March 1968, he went to Fort Dix, then transferred to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There, he met his friend Larry from Rutland, Vermont. They both enjoyed hunting in the New England wilderness.

Zachau and Larry signed on to be medics, completing 10 weeks of medic training at Fort Sam Houston in Texas before shipping off to Vietnam after some short leave time at home.

Brent Zachau shares the story of his time volunteering in a Vietnam village during the Vietnam War at Merrymeeting Hall in Bowdoinham. Paul Bagnall / The Times Record

“I remember sitting on a cement slab there [in Vietnam], and we each had our duffle bag, and all the sights, sounds and smells were alien,” Zachau said. “I didn’t know what I had gotten myself into, honestly.”

Zachau and Larry were sent to the central highlands of Vietnam near Pleiku as part of a recon platoon for the Fourth Infantry Division. Zachau was in D Troop 1st of the 10th Cavalry, nicknamed the “Buffalo Soldiers.”

Zachau’s regiment did recon missions for about nine months; if someone got shot down, they would have to find them and bring them back. Around the time when soldiers were in rotation to go home, Zachau got malaria and had to recover at Cam Ranh Bay. He had lost 20 pounds in 11 days and recounted being packed in ice with fans turned on him to keep his fever down.

McKenna, a Bowdoinham resident for 32 years, got drafted in 1968 after flunking out of college. He received his draft notice while working in the local supermarket’s produce department.

McKenna went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and lost 66 pounds in eight weeks during his training. He went to Fort Polk, Louisiana, where he saw his first minigun and recalled the ribbon of flame and the sound it made while firing.

When McKenna turned 19, he entered Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and became a second lieutenant. After attending special forces school at Fort Bragg, he joined the 10th Special Forces Group at Fort Devens, Massachusetts.

Gene McKenna shares his time training and serving in the Special Forces for the U.S. Army during Vietnam on the first night of the Ice and Smelt Festival in Bowdoinham. Paul Bagnall / The Times Record

While McKenna was at Fort Bragg, the Army had him jumping out of C-141 Starlifters, and he remembers one guy who broke his collar bone by hitting the fuselage during a jump.

McKenna had orders to go to the Fifth Special Forces group, and he would hear stories of people in the group getting shot once or multiple times or killed.

McKenna got sent to Anchorage, Alaska, with two planes loaded with ground infantry soldiers. He recalls the first plane load crashed on the runway, with everyone dying on the plane. Two bulldozers had to take the wreckage away and load up the second plane McKenna ended up being on.

McKenna was an infantry platoon leader in the Mekong Delta in 1971.

“We had a lot of problems with booby traps,” McKenna said. “I had the Vietnamese walk point so they would find the booby traps.”

The common thread of each Vietnam veteran who told their stories was they didn’t do well in school before being sent to fight.

Jennings was trained at the largest military base, Fort Dix, and then went to Fort Knox for tank training. While serving in Germany, Jennings decided to volunteer for Vietnam. In 1967, he served in the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and was in an unfamiliar place surrounded by people who did not like him being in Vietnam.

Jennings said that during his service in Vietnam, he thought this would be the way he would live his life and discussed his daily routine of getting up every day to get shot at.