Adrian Hedden
Artesia Daily Press
Steve Pearce’s memories of warfare unfolded as he drew nearer to Vietnam in the spring of 2016.
He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1970 until 1976, through the final years of the Vietnam War, and recalled how he and other veterans returned home only to be greeted with disregard or even disrespect, never receiving the honor and support accorded those who served in earlier wars.
Forty years later, Pearce was a fixture in New Mexico politics, representing the state’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He left Congress in 2019, at the end of his seventh two-year term, then served as chair of the New Mexico Republican Party until December 2024.
Last month, President Donald Trump nominated Pearce to serve as director of the federal Bureau of Land Management. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Pearce would be in charge of the agency that manages government-owned land, and at the center of the ongoing debate about the oil and gas industry’s use of public land for energy development in New Mexico.
But that’s the future. On March 27, 2016, during a break in the action in Washington, D.C., Pearce left his life in politics to revisit the past, taking off from Las Vegas, Nevada, for what he called a “pilgrimage” around the globe.
His plan was to return to some of the places the war took him and fellow service members, drawing attention to the valor he said was overlooked amid the politics of the 1970s.
He flew alone for 186 flight hours, making 26 fueling stops to cover 26,000 miles in his single-engine private aircraft, a four-seat 1998 Mooney M20M Bravo. The trip ended back in Las Vegas on June 3, 2016.
Pearce’s journey took him back to Southeast Asia where his strongest memories of the war were created, in places such as Chittagong, Bangladesh and U-Tapao, Thailand, which was used as a main transportation hub throughout the war.
He also flew to war-torn regions in India and Oman, reflecting on the courageous service of surviving veterans and those who never made it home.
The trip and Pearce’s thoughts on military sacrifice are key themes of his book, “You Had a Good Home, But You Left…”
The book, released in November by boutique publisher E.P. House, recounts the flight and his reflections along the way.
The Artesia Daily Press caught up with Pearce during a book signing in Artesia to talk about the book and his thoughts on military service.
What inspired you to write this book?
“When I got home from Vietnam, I noticed the kids that were home but never quite made it back. Things had affected them. Then, of course, we had the friends who didn’t come back at all, in coffins and things. That stuff just percolated through the years. I always felt bad that kids that got injured and were forced out of the military.
“I get in Congress, and that’s still weighing on my mind. We had the opportunity to meet several soldiers who were wounded egregiously, amputations. I kept hearing the same question: Does anybody know or care what their freedom cost me? That began to weigh on me. I began to ask myself: How come I wasn’t doing more?”
How do you describe the themes of the book?
“This flight was to honor the veterans who didn’t make it home, and those that made it home without making it home. Home is a really huge piece of this.
“Initially, “You Had a Good Home, but You Left,” was just a comment I made in the book … referring to the value of cadence in our lives. In anything, you don’t need life to get ahead of you, and you start being behind your problems. Cadence has been a big deal to me my entire life.
“It also speaks to the veterans that left good, stable lives to either volunteer or accept induction when they didn’t volunteer.”
What were some of the emotions that came back during the flight?
“I had never thought of pilgrimage in my whole life, but the further along I got, the more I realized I am headed back to the warriors. I began to unpack a lot of things that I folded away and put in the closet and just thought it was all good. Just the loss of valiant soldiers because of political ineptness and military bad decisions. So, I write quite frankly about that.
“I write about the stresses to our marriage. Just, the service in D.C. was very stressful. It was a lot of stress and a lot of missed family time, and this trip was a tremendous stress.”
How did you attempt to right the wrongs of Vietnam while in Congress?
“The first speech I gave on the House floor was I don’t care if we’re in we’re in Iraq, Afghanistan or we’re out. That’s a decision to be made. But if we got soldiers there, God help us if we cut the funding off because they cut our funding off in Vietnam. Put pressure on the administration. That was my job, to be a voice. We documented things that were going wrong at the VA (Department of Veterans Affairs).
“We passed $10 billion for letting people (VA clients) see local doctors instead of having to drive to Albuquerque. Those things really got a lot of attention when I was there, and we became a voice for the military and acting correctly toward our soldiers but also towards our veterans.”
Managing Editor Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, or @AdrianHedden on the social media platform X.
