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ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. (AP) — When Dan Tonietti first spoke to students nearly 20 years ago about his experience in the Vietnam War, he was a reluctant participant.
It took some convincing from Tonietti's friend Mike Kinney, a Hardin County Schools teacher then and now a board member, to get him into Kinney's classroom at then-East Hardin High School to share his story.
Almost two decades later, Tonietti still is making appearances to bring history to life for students. He recently spoke to all of North Hardin High School's junior U.S. history students.
"It took me a while to say yes to him," Tonietti told the students.
But Tonietti found speaking was a way of coping with the traumatic effects of war.
"It's a good release for me to talk to kids," he said after his presentation in the school's library. "I can talk to the Lord all the time, but the kids look at me. They ask questions."
In his presentation, which included personal pictures, his uniform, dog tags and other items from Tonietti's time in service, he answered student questions about his experiences with the draft, what it was like living in a war zone, death and how his family coped.
Because he had no ambition to attend college, Tonietti was drafted after high school and served 13 months in Vietnam as a fuel and electrical systems repairman for the U.S. Army.
"I wasn't ready for that," he said about college. "I had no direction. I wasn't mature enough."
About the draft, Tonietti said his father took the news hard. A World War II veteran, his father didn't envision a time when his son would have to go to war. But Tonietti said his mother, who saw her husband go to war and now her son, took the news the hardest.
"My dad told me, 'Dan, I don't want you to volunteer for anything,'" he said. "We were not asked to go there. We were ordered to go there."
Tonietti said after he passed his physical, he was sent to basic training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. There, he and his second cousin went through training together. It would be the last time he saw him.
"We made plans to meet up when it was over," he said. "This would never happen."
Although not in the infantry, Tonietti told the students he did have some similar experiences to those on the front lines.
"I was not a combat soldier, but I did use my weapon," he said. "I did fire my weapon."
Tonietti told the students of the two climates he experienced in Vietnam while there — rainy and cool and hot and steamy — and compared it to scenes from the movie "Forrest Gump." He was surprised many students said they had seen the film.
Tonietti also said a full night's sleep was a rarity because that's when many of the attacks occurred.
"It was unreal if you got eight hours of sleep," he said.
In transitioning home, Tonietti said sleeping in a home with no noise was the most difficult part of adjusting.
"Sleeping was the hardest thing to overcome," he said, adding he would sleep during the day while his mother worked about the house and made noise in the process. "It was hard to adjust."
On his return stateside, Tonietti didn't share any stories of being mistreated by other Americans, but one of relief seeing his family at the airport.
"It was a pleasure coming home," he said. "It was a pleasure to see your own flesh and blood."
He ended his presentation with a poem he wrote many years later, recapping his experiences of Vietnam. Once he finished, students surrounded him to ask more questions and to see personal artifacts from his service.
After the presentation, Madison Teeter said it brought a piece of history alive for her and fellow students.
"We can read out of a textbook all day, but we can't get the emotion of a speaker who's been there," she said, calling the presentation "heavy." ''You can tell how much it takes for him to talk about it."
The personal story was what brought home Tonietti's message for Calen Black.
"It gave us a real-life experience," he said.
That experience is what brought teacher Alison Langley to invite Tonietti to share his story with students.
"We can talk to the students, show them presentations and PowerPoints, but to have a veteran here to actually give a first-hand experience is much more powerful than anything we can do to help the students learn," she said.
Langley said for the students to be able to see a veteran's personal pictures and touch their uniform and dog tags, which some students may have never seen, is more impactful than holding their textbooks.
"It has a big impact from taking away that real-life learning," she said.
Tonietti, who retired from working with the school system, said that is the reason he continues to bring his story to students.
"History is so important," he said. "For those students that get into government, they need to know what we have done well and what we don't need to do again. They don't get enough in textbooks."
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