Ken Sullivan, an Army veteran who died in 2021, was part of a special forces unit that was sent to Guyana in 1978 in response to a disaster situation in Jonestown.

These are the stories that you don’t hear about, and these are the stories that haunt these men at night.”

Betty Fournier, sister of the late Ken Sullivan

PORTSMOUTH — Betty Fournier said she couldn’t say much about what her late brother, Ken Sullivan, did as an Army ranger and combat medic.

“I can’t tell you where he served or what he did because his records are blacked out and he wasn’t allowed to talk about it,” Fournier, the secretary of the VFW Auxiliary for Alvaro E. Vieira Post 5390, told a crowd gathered for Monday’s Veterans Day ceremony in Common Fence Point.

There was one story about her brother she did share, however, while admitting she probably wasn’t supposed to know about it.

“If you lived through the ’70s you’ll remember the names Jim Jones, Jonestown, Guyana,” Fournier said. “Jim Jones was a cult leader who packed up his crew and moved from California to the jungles of Guyana, hoping to establish a utopia society. They set up their community. Jones ruled with an iron fist and terrible things were happening there — beatings, rapes, you name it.”

Eventually, people back home caught wind of the activities at Jonestown — formally called the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project — and an investigative committee led by Congressman Leo Ryan Jr. of California traveled to Guyana in November 1978 to visit.

After speaking with Jim Jones and other members of the temple, Ryan and his entourage left the compound.

“When they approached the airport, they were ambushed and several members of their party were shot and killed,” Fournier said. Ryan, 53, was among the casualties.

The rest of the story is well-known: Jim Jones then staged a mass suicide by ordering his followers — some under threat of gunfire — to drink cyanide-laced Flavor Aid. More than 900 people died at or near the settlement.

“At that time a special forces unit was being set up to go in to see what they could do about the situation in Guyana,” said Fournier. Unfortunately, the unit arrived after the mass suicide was over.

There still were signs of life, however.

“My brother, being a medic, stumbled across a pregnant woman who was dying and giving birth at the same time. He managed to deliver the baby; he wasn’t able to save the woman. He took the baby and carried it through the jungle and saved its life,” she said.

Sullivan was just 22 at the time. After his military career he entered the hospitality industry and also became a commercial fisherman. Sullivan was an active member of Post 5390 before passing away unexpectedly over Memorial Day weekend in 2021 at the age of 65. He was laid to rest with full military honors at the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Exeter.

The Jonestown mission is not even listed in his obituary. 

“These are the stories that you don’t hear about, and these are the stories that haunt these men at night,” Fournier said.

Sullivan and Post 5390 Commander Ken Rutter were honored during the ceremony with inscribed ceiling tiles for their service.