HISTORIC SITE Preserving flour mill eases vet's regrets

The structure, built in 1849, is one of about 50 U.S. mills still standing.
GREENVILLE, Ohio (AP) -- By muffling the echoes of the Vietnam War, a historic flour mill is helping soothe the soul of the man who preserved it.
When its water turbines start turning, the four-story mill vibrates in time to the leather belts and two-ton mill stones, just as it has for the past 156 years.
"This old building comes alive when I turn on the mill," said self-taught master miller Terry Clark as he hopped and ran around the mill, inspecting the moving parts.
Bear's Mill, just east of this western Ohio city, is one of only about 50 mills left in the country, grinding out cornmeal, whole-wheat flour and rye flour.
The mill site was originally deeded by President James Monroe to Maj. George Adams, who established a reputation as an Indian fighter on the Ohio frontier in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Adams built a small mill on the site. The current mill was constructed in 1849.
Family's experience
Clark and his wife, Julie, bought the mill 20 years ago when an amusement park expressed interest in buying and moving the structure.
"We were dumb and young," Julie said in describing the early years when the couple lived rough in a barn on the site. "We had water and electricity, and that's about it."
Clark taught himself to mill using a single page from a dusty reference book.
The mill has never turned a profit. Julie's pottery and Terry's over-the-road trucking and construction work kept the mill and their family afloat until turning the site over to the nonprofit Friends of Bear's Mill.
In saving the mill, Clark decided he was paying off some old debts. He fought in the Vietnam War in 1968 and 1969, a time of some of the heaviest fighting.
"I was 18; I didn't know why I was there, didn't know the language -- I didn't even know where the country was on a map," he said. "I did a lot of destruction that I regret today."
Clark's job was to crawl into tunnels and underground bunkers built by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. Armed with a flashlight and a gun, he went in search of the enemy. Fighting was at close quarters and often hand-to-hand.
"By preserving this mill, it might make me feel better," Clark said. "It might make up for all I destroyed."