Help a Vet Out: Chris “Shemi” Shemet, USN Vietnam

The summer of 1968 was shaping up just fine for Chris Shemet. He planned to get a job at IHOP, surf his favorite breaks, and get laid.

But his old man had different plans for Shemi, as Chris was known in the Long Island town of Massapequa where he grew up. Before the Army could draft him and ship him off to Vietnam, Shemi’s father — himself a World War II Navy veteran — escorted Shemi to the local Navy recruitment office where he enlisted.

Some months later in 1969, Shemi found himself aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger bound for the Tonkin Gulf. “I remember the day I left the USA for Vietnam,” he recalls. “Everyone was going to Woodstock, and I was going to war.”

On Shemi’s second tour in 1970, he was assigned to Binh Thuy Air Base in the Mekong Delta. As a member of the Black Ponies of Light Attack Squadron Four (VAL-4), Shemi served as a plane captain for the OV-10 Bronco, overseeing aircraft fueling and maintenance and loading ordnance. The Black Ponies supported plane and boat rescues throughout southern Vietnam and Cambodia for the U.S. Army and Navy and the South Vietnamese Army.

After being released from active duty in 1971, Shemi became an operating room surgical nurse, working at hospitals in New York and later in Los Angeles. Needing a break from the medical field, he enrolled in the ArtCenter College of Design with the intention of becoming a commercial advertising photographer.

To support himself while in school, he got a job at Sport Chalet, where he filled scuba tanks, changed o-rings, and learned to dive. “I had a lot of survivor’s guilt,” Shemi says. “I felt like I let my homies down when I left Vietnam. So instead of killing myself, I decided to take up scuba diving, because I still needed the adrenaline rush.”

I met Shemi two decades ago in Santa Barbara when I was working for a scuba diving travel magazine and he was working on the Truth Aquatics dive boats as a deck hand, cook, and safety diver. As a writer, I was looking for stories, and Shemi had stories in spades.

Our paths crossed again recently at a neighborhood dog park, and I noticed that it was painful for him to walk. Like many of his fellow Vietnam veterans, Shemi was exposed to Agent Orange, which caused a number of his current health issues, including cancer. He fought with the VA for years to finally get the cancer treatment and dual hip replacement surgeries he needed.

But now Shemi is unable to convince the VA to cover the cost of a home health aide to help him as he literally tries to get back on his feet after his hip surgeries. “I have to be in a fetal position shitting myself before I can get help from the VA," he says. "I spent more time fighting the VA than I did the Viet Cong."

A big guy with a bigger heart who dotes on his little dogs, Salt and Pepper, Shemi is relentlessly upbeat for all that life has thrown at him, including the recent death of his girlfriend. To help a vet out, I’m calling on my community (especially the Santa Barbara diving community) to contribute to Shemi’s GoFundMe to help with his home health aide costs.

Any amount you can contribute will make a difference to Shemi.