Some Vietnam veterans put their wartime experiences behind them and moved on.

Others were not able to break away.

One of those was Vietnam veteran Michael P. Kelley, one of the more esteemed veterans in the Sacramento region.

News of the the 65-year-old Kelley's Dec. 24 suicide deeply shocked the Vietnam veteran community, which regarded him as a tireless advocate – and one who campaigned strongly against the notion that Vietnam veterans commit suicide at a higher rate than the general population.

"I'm devastated," said Jim Swit, who lives in Chicago but got on a plane to Sacramento when he heard about Kelley's death.

Swit will be one of several Vietnam veterans to speak Sunday at a noontime memorial service for Kelley at the California Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Capitol Park. It will be a fitting tribute for Kelley since he was crucial in getting the memorial built in the late 1980s. It will be only the second time an individual memorial service has been allowed there.

Kelley not only was a prime force in a five-year advocacy to get the memorial built, he also penned the definitive compendium of Vietnam War battles: "Where We Were in Vietnam."

And he was an invaluable resource for veterans in their quest to make long-lost connections.

"Mike helped me find the mother of the soldier that died carrying me to safety when I was wounded in Vietnam," said Swit. "I had looked for her for 17 years and couldn't find her, and Mike did it."

Both Kelley and Swit served as infantrymen in the 101st Airborne. Their lives were saved by the same medic, although they did not cross paths until Kelley was trying to get the memorial built.

"I moved on from the war to a certain degree, but there are fellas like Mike where the war stays with you and it is hard to move on," Swit said. "Vietnam must have been his calling."

Many of the scars that marked Kelley were caused by a land mine triggered by a fellow platoon member on Sept. 16, 1970. Kelley lost a lung, had massive neck injuries and ended up with a gaping shrapnel wound in his chest. He spent eight bedridden months recovering at then-Letterman Army Medical Center in San Francisco.

For Kelley, 1971 brought the end of Army duty and the beginning of another Vietnam – the one he kept alive back home. Many health and personal challenges followed, all played out against a constant focus on Vietnam, said his daughter Erin Kelley.

"The Vietnam War impacted his interpersonal relationships because being a veteran is consumptive," she said. "It became the prime narrative of his life."

Indeed, the war became an invasive thread in his family life.

"I can tell you what it feels to have leeches in your boots, and to have shrapnel in your forehead," Erin Kelley said. "But if I asked my dad if he remembers me walking or talking for the first time, he'd say he didn't remember."

Born in Van Nuys, Kelley grew up in Montreal, the son of William Kelley, a decorated World War II colonel and marksman. He spent his latter teens in Sacramento and attended California State University, Sacramento, where he earned a degree in fine art. His talent is readily evident in the many pen and pencil drawings he sold, as well as those that grace his home. Most of them depict images relating to the Vietnam War. Soon after his college graduation, Kelley opted to be drafted instead of taking a college deferment while contemplating a master's program at CSUS.

"He was a difficult and complicated man, but he had this amazing gentle side," said Erin Kelley. "He was a humanitarian. He was giving and very generous."

In his later years, Mike Kelley began to realize the importance of family, and regret followed as he began to realize he had deeply misplaced his focus, Erin Kelley said.

"My father didn't take his life because he was a Vietnam veteran, she said. "In fact, in his mind, it was his greatest success."

One factor in his emotional downfall was his bipolar syndrome. He had not been keeping up with his lithium medication. Erin Kelley said that and a soured relationship with his wife created a perfect storm.

"Emotions were a big factor in his life," said Vietnam vet Doug Durham, who worked with Kelley on the commission to get the memorial built, and organizer of his memorial service.

Durham believes the state Vietnam memorial would not exist had it not been for Kelley.

"The veteran community has lost a very wise and well-spoken veterans advocate," said Durham.

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