This page is referenced by:

• 1 media/Magnussen, Memorial Wall, Peace.jpg media/Magnusen VVAW, Wall.jpg 2023-09-19T17:45:23+00:00 The Life and Death of Dennis Magnussen 111 image_header 20 2025-08-09T18:30:47+00:00

  The Life and Death of Dennis Magnusen

  A note from the project director

  In the Spring of 2022, I posted to a Facebook group of Vietnam veterans, asking if anyone would be interested in talking to students in my Vietnam War class at Virginia Tech. We were planning to begin recording oral history interviews in April. 
  
  "I would love to share my story,” a Vietnam vet messaged me, “but I don't expect to survive until April." 
  
  Dennis Magnusen had been on hospice care. For years, he had battled cancer related to exposure to Agent Orange. Now he had resolved that the end of his struggle was close.
  
  Mr. Magnusen had once been a beloved high school teacher. As his body deteriorated, he made the most difficult decision of his life—to leave the classroom. In our fateful encounter, this oral history project provided the opportunity to impart a teacher’s final lesson to future generations of students.
  
  "I could interview you tomorrow," I quickly responded, realizing the urgency of the moment. But little did I know how powerful Magnusen's story would be or how often I still think about his life and death. In passing from this world, may he finally be at peace. 
  
  On April 4, 2022, Dennis Magnusen died less than a month after our interview. But his message endures. 
  
  "He is free," a pinned Facebook post states. "Denny wanted to be known as a songwriter, a surfer, a mentor teacher, and a man of PEACE." 

  First Learning about Vietnam

  I remember when it was senior year in high school. Time Magazine came out with a big article about Vietnam. I looked at that. I knew that meant something to me. I didn't know what, and I knew I did not want to be a soldier running through the jungles, killing people. When I was younger before I got into high school, I got into a lot of fights. That's because I was just an unhappy kid from my household stuff, but it wasn't until surfing that I stopped fighting. I just didn't want to fight anymore...
  I just didn't want to kill people.

  
  Then Came the Draft Notice...

  Emotionally, I was shaking. I did not want to do this. It just didn't feel right to me. I didn't understand the full ramifications of the war. I didn't understand what Ken Burns was going to tell us years later. I didn't understand any of that stuff. I just knew that I did not want to be involved in that— that was not me. I was just a surfer kid. . . . 
  
  Higgins: Did you ever consider resisting the draft?
  
  Magnusen: No. . . . my grandparents have done it, my grandfather has done it. Both of my grandparents have done it. My dad has done it. It's my time. It's my duty. I'm going to go over. I went over feeling like it was my duty.
  
  It wasn't until I got there, that things changed in my mind.

  Introduction to Cannabis at Fort Hood

  I got to Texas, and I was there for 13 months, and eventually I got orders.... That's when I had some friends there who had already come back from Vietnam, and said, 'Dennis, you're going to need to know how to smoke cannabis.' Right before I left Fort Hood, Texas, they indoctrinated me into the art of smoking cannabis.
  
  It's been a life saver ever since. It even got me off of the opiates—that's another story that the VA had me on. . . .
  
  In Vietnam, there was only a few ways that I could see that people got through Vietnam. Number 1: getting drunk every night. Number 2: there was a Bible group. . . . Then there was us—quite a few anti-war people smoked cannabis.
  
  Smoking every night and being able to relax with my guitar, and I'll tell you about that it's a different story. It took me away from the war, even though it was right outside my door, knocking as hard as it could.
  
  ....I have a dear friend, along with myself, we're both members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He's been there since '68, and he tells me that when somebody says to him, ‘thank you for your service,’ his reply is—‘if you only knew what I did, you wouldn't be thanking me.’

  "Music Saved My Life"

  Bob Dylan opened my eyes. I started off just as a basic guitar guy and then Dylan opened my eyes to the social scene. When I was in Texas, I used to start tapping my foot to the country music as well. But Dylan was where my heart was....
  
  The first day in Vietnam, the first night, I was stuck at Tan Son Nhut Air Base. The next day, they put us on a truck and they drove us into town to a personnel office where a guy would assign us to a different unit. We were supposed to sleep there in that building that night, and tomorrow, the next day, we'd be shipped off to the units.
  
  The guy looked at me with my guitar and says, 'Damn. Do you want to stay at my place tonight? We can play guitar together?' He happened to be a folk guitar guy from Boston. Incredible guy. I say, 'I'm with you, brother.' 
  
  ...I'm there that night in his place with the war going on because it's in the middle of the Tet Offensive, 'boom, boom, boom.' He turns me on to this new record that he just got from a friend in the mainland, Janis Joplin, Big Brother and the Holding company.

  The Street Execution of a Viet Cong Prisoner

  The first week was rather eventful. . . . they drove me back into town, me and a few other guys in a Deuce and a Half [two and a half ton truck]. I was the last guy sitting in the Deuce and a Half, which means I had a clear view of whatever was going on outside. . . . 
  
  I look across, and I see this guy being assassinated right in the street. He was a military police, Vietnamese, had a 45, stuck it up to the guy's head, and pulled the trigger and blew him away. I looked around, no one else saw it. I’m thinking, damn, did I just see what I saw? I couldn't believe it.
   

  Turning Against the War

  One important thing happened at the Econ Compound, and it was my conversion point.

  Right outside the compound was the Vietnamese hospital, a tents hospital. Every day they would line up casualties in stretchers dying, the dead, the wounded, that deal. There would be like 15 or 20 of them. Every time I would see them. Every time I would leave the compound and come back in—it finally got to the point where I couldn't just walk past them.

  I was walking into the compound, and I just stopped. I walked over towards them. I didn't care if they were Vietnamese or whatever. I sat down with each one of them, offered them a cigarette if they wanted, offering them just at least my eyeballs to know that I cared about them. I could not pass by this moment, but I could not just pass them by any longer, I had to recognize them....
  
  Higgins: By recognizing the humanity of these wounded Vietnamese people, how did that start to change how you understood your role in the war or even America's role in the war?
  
  Magnusen: I became very much against it, and I started to act out against it.... A lot of people bought those peace symbols and they were wearing them all around the place. I would wear them. The girls would come to work every day, they'd give me flowers. I'd tape them onto my uniform. I would wear sea shell necklaces. I had rose-colored glasses. In fact, on my last month there, I was hitch-hiking. Some general picks me up, looks at me very casually and goes, 'what unit are you in, son?' He wanted to court martial me for being out of uniform.
  

  "I am a Vietnam Vet. And I am Against the War"

  When I did fly back to California, I realized how strong the anti-war movement was, and I probably would have done this anyway. But I just let my hair grow long. I just wanted to blend in, I wanted to disappear I didn't want to be that Vietnam vet. I just wanted to be some local kid with a guitar.
  
  Higgins: How long did it take before you associated yourself as a veteran?
  
  Magnusen: That was actually a one point after I got back shortly after that I actually forgot that I was a veteran. I pushed I threw all my clothes away. Anything military I threw it away. I forgot all about that I was a vet. Then the one day, I'm watching TV, and the news is on, and it talks about all these these vets from Chicago, Vietnam vets against the War. They had a parade. They had banners going all the way across the street. I looked at that and I goes that's what I am. I'm a Vietnam vet, and I am against the war.
  

  Teaching Underprivileged Youth

  People are afraid of Hawaiian Gardens because everybody lives in terrible houses. They're dirty, maybe. They don't have enough clothes. They don't have a jacket to wear on cold days. This and that. They have Mexican names.... It's just unfounded prejudices. Those kids I just can't tell you how much I loved them....
  
  Higgins: Do you think that your experiences as a Vietnam veteran shaped how you interacted with students in the classroom. Is there a connection there?
  
  Magnusen: Well, if it wasn't for Vietnam. I don't think I would have been successful in Hawaiian Gardens. Vietnam prepared me for how ugly things can be. I could relate better because of that to my kids in the Gardens. My kids in the Gardens lived terrible lives. If it wasn't for Vietnam I know I would not have been as successful. Vietnam opened me up to other races as well.
  
  I came to the Hawaiian Gardens, all I saw were kids.

  Retiring from Teaching was the Saddest Day of My Life

  I never had an issue with the kids at school. It was quite the opposite. I understand that years later, I heard just a few years ago that a lot of the kids considered me to be, which is quite humbling, a father figure to them. They considered me to be their father figure.
  
  That's why it was one of the saddest days of my life to put everything in a cardboard box and walk off campus. I couldn't just do it. I had to sit down for a while and just look around. I just couldn't leave, because I loved coming to work. While other people would maybe dread it, I loved it. It was enriching to me. It was a big plus.
  
  Higgins: What led to that decision?
  
  Magnusen: Agent Orange. I couldn't get up anymore. I had to lay down in between breaks. I couldn't do things with the kids at lunch anymore. I was in so much pain. I had a hard time even leaving the house in the morning, and getting dressed and going to work. It was just too difficult.
  
  And so finally, I told the office that I had to quit. It was halfway through the year, that semester break, which I really didn't want to do. I loved what I was doing, but it's something that I had to do.
  
  Higgins: How long ago?
  
  Magnusen: It had to be [19]90.

  Being Bedridden for 10 Years

  Higgins: You've been dealing with these physical health problems for 30 years now. I didn't realize that you had been struggling for so long.
  
  Magnusen: I think because I've been in bed for the last 10. I'm usually a very active guy. I like to get up and do stuff.
  
  When Katherine I first got together in 1990, she told me that she didn't like being around sick people. But now she's got one she has to wait on hands and foot. She has to wheel me in a wheelchair to the bathroom so I can take a bath. I lay here in bed, and she brings everything to me.
  
  Higgins: Does that promote the sense of guilt?
  
  Magnusen: On my part? Yes. Look how much time I'm occupying from her life where she should be spending being an artist. She did a portrait of me in 2008 for the Schaefer portrait and toured the state for well over almost a year. She is one of the top artists in the State of Hawaii. She's an amazing artist. She's even better at doing sculpting.
  
  Our house is set up. Downstairs there's mostly easels and canvases and paints and stuff, in the kitchen area where you paints, in the garage we have racks and racks of paintings. We have a kiln where she can fire herself up. This place is set up for her.
  
  She was getting to be in such a sad state that eventually, I got lucky. I wanted to get her a dog. I thought that maybe that would help her be a little happier.
  

  In Peace

  I want to be known as a songwriter. I don't know if that's possible. I'm starting at it late in my life here, but I would like to be known. Music has carried me throughout my entire lifetime.
  -Dennis Gene Magnusen
  (November 18, 1946-April 4, 2022)
   

  Explore Additional Moments from the Interview or View the Full Interview Below.