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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/40ee45d4b98d5bd09b354c7af84743b8.mp4
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ec0cd24b539d9181afda52006f097676.pdf
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Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
Vietnam
Richard Hency
Total Time – (01:58:15)
Background
He was born in Battle Creek, Michigan on July 17, 1949 (00:23)
o He grew up in Battle Creek and graduated from Battle Creek Central High
School
His father was a fabricator and his mother was a waitress until she was forty – she
went back to school and became a schoolteacher (00:36)
He has an older sister and two half brothers
He graduated from high school in 1968 (01:07)
o At this point he knew quite a bit about the Vietnam War
He was taking a course in high school that subscribed to
Newsweek – they had to read it every week (01:34)
While he did not know what the real issues were, he was well
aware of the current events of the situation
He did not know anyone that was in the war (02:16)
The course was only during his senior year of high school
Once he graduated from high school, he went to work where his father worked
(03:06)
o He worked there from June – April of 1969
Enlistment/Training – (03:28)
He had received his draft notice in November of 1968
o He took his physical when he received his notice (03:42)
o His physical was at Fort Wayne in Detroit, Michigan
When he went for the physical it did not seem like they were doing much (04:01)
o There were some that tried to beat the system – they would act weird, do
drugs and then go to the physical, etc. (04:13)
He went to Fort Knox, Kentucky for Basic Training (05:03)
o The soldiers took a bus (05:10)
o He traveled with some of his friends from school
He had no idea what he was getting into when he went to Basic Training
In the first few days the soldiers receive fatigues and he had to do KP duty
(Kitchen Police) (06:20)
�
o His uncles had told him that KP duty is for soldiers that had done
something wrong
After a few days of processing he was assigned for training (07:54)
The training consists of learning how to stand, dress right, line up properly, how
to have your uniform look, and other basic things
There was some physical training – running, obstacle courses, etc. (08:45)
There was one Drill instructor that had been to Vietnam and every time the
soldiers saw him he had a freshly pressed shirt (09:19)
Discipline was highly stressed
o If you were not talked to, you do not talk (10:08)
Many of the men in basic training were from Michigan (10:48)
o There were not too many from the east or the west of the United States
There were some soldiers in basic training that could not salute, do a right turn,
could not keep up, etc. (11:13)
o They almost could not tell right from left
Basic Training lasted for eight weeks (12:00)
At the end of Basic Training the Drill instructor calls your name and tells you
where your AIT (Advanced Individual Training) training would be
o Soldiers knew that if they were sent to Fort Polk, they were going to be in
the infantry (12:29)
He was flown to Fort Polk, Louisiana (12:40)
o He landed during the night
o The soldiers were loaded into trailers that looked like they would be used
for cattle – they were sent to their base (12:48)
AIT training had a lot more physical training
o There was a survival exercise where a team of soldiers were forced to find
their way to a certain place during the night (13:18)
There was a lot more training with weapons
o They trained with a .45 Caliber handgun (13:55)
They learned how to use it, clean it, tear it apart and put it back
together
o They trained on the M16 as well
o He did not train on grenade launchers (14:16)
Most of the Drill instructors were back from Vietnam
o They were trying their hardest to make the soldiers as tough as they could
be (14:48)
o They knew what Vietnam was like
o They would not actually tell the soldiers about their experiences (15:01)
They would sometimes say “you could get killed for that”
There were no Vietnamese villages set up for training (15:26)
On one night patrol he had to go through a swamp – that was the closest activity
to Vietnam that he experienced
AIT training was eight weeks long (16:48)
After AIT, he was sent home on leave for a week
After leave, he went to Fort Lewis, Washington (17:05)
�
o He was there until he received his orders for Vietnam
During his week in Washington he did some sight seeing, drank, played cards,
etc.
Active Duty – Part I – First Experiences – (17:39)
He actually leaves for Vietnam in September of 1969 (17:43)
o En route to Vietnam, they landed and fueled in Alaska before flying
straight to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam
o When he was 10,000 feet in the air he could see a big smoke cloud coming
up (18:21)
When he landed, his first impression was that Vietnam was hot and a lot was
going on (19:00)
When he got off the plane he was assigned to some group (19:33)
o He remembers pulling Guard Duty on an elevated bunker – he had a
weapon and ammo
o He quickly realized that he had nothing to worry about while at Cam Ranh
Bay
He was around Cam Ranh Bay for only three or four days before being assigned
to his unit (20:50)
o He was assigned to the Americal Division (20:57)
After he was assigned he was sent to Chu Lai, Vietnam for orientation (21:14)
o He was sent on a chopper from Cam Ranh Bay to Chu Lai (21:22)
It was a Chinook
The orientation consisted of the rules – how to treat Vietnamese citizens, how to
understand them, what to watch for, what to not do, and other things like that
(21:54)
At this point he was wearing his lightweight jungle fatigues
He is then sent to Duc Pho, Vietnam (Duc Pho is a rural district of Quang Ngai)
where he is loaded up with his M16 (23:02)
o He is also given four claymore mines, six or eight hand grenades, a couple
of bandoliers of M60 ammunition, and a steel pot
o He felt like he was about to blow up at any minute (23:40)
He was taken out to a firebase on a resupply Chinook (24:13)
o The Chinook had a big hole in the bottom because it was a resupply
chopper
o He thought he was going to die before he got to the firebase
When he arrived at the firebase he was taken to his company that was out in the
field (24:44)
o The company took most of the claymore mines, hand grenades and ammo
off of him
o He was then assigned a buddy (25:20)
o They were in an open area during his first night (25:26)
On his first night he received the midnight – 6 A.M. Guard Duty (25:43)
�
o He remembers sitting there and seeing movement that turned out to be
bushes
At that time the firebase had four infantry companies operating around it (27:08)
o Three would be sent into the field for thirty days (27:21)
o There was a rotation
His company set up an ambush against the enemy
o They did a good job (28:12)
o It was the only contact he had the with the enemy during his first time in
the field
o During the ambush, the Americans and Vietnamese soldiers did not know
where each other were (29:08)
The company had roughly 120 men in it when he joined (29:29)
There was not a lot of effort made by the men in the company to meet the new
guys
o They are given the label FNG (Fucking New Guy) (29:46)
o The other soldiers do not want to spend time getting to know the FNG‟s
because they are more apt to get wounded or killed (30:02)
o The new guys watch the older guys to know what to do
Most of the time they operated as a company (30:42)
o They had a mortar platoon that would set up the mortars at night
o The rest were rifle platoons (31:00)
They all had at least one M16
The country that they were operating in was primarily mountainous (31:26)
They had a Kit Carson Scout (Vietnamese scout)
o He believed that the scouts were great (31:58)
o They could communicate with villages
o In one village they found out that there was a man eating tiger nearby
(32:16)
o The scout provided information – some military and some local
information
When he goes in for his first stand down, he returns to the same firebase that he
first landed on (32:58)
o The duties were to supply a perimeter of fire comprised of many infantry
men (33:22)
o The men would receive their care packages while on stand down
o They were able to eat out of a mess hall
o There was an artillery battery on the base (34:33)
The firebase never received very much attention from the enemy (35:01)
o There was one time, when he was not there, when the firebase had a few
rounds dropped on it
The time on the firebase was relatively safe (35:56)
o They were still surrounded by the enemy
When the soldiers were not on perimeter duty they could do almost anything they
wanted (36:30)
o On rare occasions they played movies
There tended to be two types of soldiers in the infantry: the juicers and the heads
�
o The juicers were the guys that drank warm beer (37:13)
o The heads were the guys that smoked cheap dope (37:18)
The men never smoked when they were in the field
One time he was high and he started shooting a Quad .50 just to watch the tracers
(38:09)
When in the field it was not uncommon to pitch a tent at night and to be in a cloud
or above a cloud the next morning
Active Duty – Part II – Terrain/Search & Destroy – (39:38)
His company never had any prolonged firefights (39:47)
o One time they flew into a hot LZ and when they arrived, everything had
settled down
o The fighting usually occurred when the enemy decided they wanted to
shoot (41:15)
o He is still scared of “thump” sounds when he hears them
There was one night when he went on a recon operation and they walked into an
NVA (North Vietnamese Army) company (43:12)
o He had to call artillery strikes in that were close enough to hit the enemy
but not him themselves
o They would not leave their position until daylight (43:43)
The terrain was primarily jungle (44:14)
o Most of the time it was double and triple canopy
o They could never walk on existing trails
They used machetes to clear trails (44:49)
It was rarely open enough in the jungle to walk
o When the terrain was open, they never even walked on the dikes (45:05)
o They would walk through the rice paddies rather than along the dikes– it
was better to get a leech on you than have your foot blown off
In another incident they called in napalm on the enemy (46:01)
o As soon as they made contact with the enemy, they fought and the NVA
disappeared
o When they went back in after the napalm, they did not find any bodies
(46:27)
o The NVA probably went underground or “got the hell out because they
knew what was coming”
The enemy had a lot of bunkers, tunnels and spider holes (46:50)
o They would sometimes find them
His company never had anyone die from a booby trap (47:48)
o He saw a hooch booby trapped
For a while he had a lot of contact with civilians while he was there (48:35)
At one point he was instructed that they were operating in a search and destroy
o This meant that anyone that the soldiers came in contact with was
considered the enemy (49:02)
�
o They moved people to a refugee camp and burned their homes
With some of the locals, they could be “your friend during the day and your
enemy at night” (50:15)
They would sometimes find models of their firebases in Vietnamese villages
o The only way they could do this is by having someone on the firebase
(50:44)
There were some Vietnamese that would work on the firebase during the day
They saw some ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) (51:36)
o During the Vietnamization, some of the Vietnamese soldiers were good
but many were not
With the bad soldiers they thought, “Someone was going to shoot
„em. Might be us!” (52:22)
He did not trust the ARVN soldiers
Active Duty – Part III – Refugee Camps/Cambodia – (53:08)
He was in Duc Pho, Vietnam for some of his stand down time (53:18)
o He would have pull Guard Duty, but he remembers walking down the
street with some other soldiers – they all had uniforms on that were not
there own
They would be resupplied with uniforms that had other soldiers
names on them
He was jealous of the men that did not have to serve in the field (55:19)
At a certain point in his tour he was working to clear out civilian populations and
bringing them to refugee camps (56:01)
o At this point he is allowed to shoot whatever he saw
o He was part of the physical removal of people from the villages – they
would also have to burn their villages (56:14)
o After a while, the soldiers get numb and detached from their assignments
o He knows that the people were not happy with what they were doing
(56:47)
o The American government decided that the only way to manage the areas
was to eliminate the friendly‟s so that the only people out there were the
enemy (57:12)
“The bad guys could no longer hide with the friendlies”
o There were many enemies (57:55)
Most of the enemies were Viet Cong (58:12)
There were some NVA in the are
The Viet Cong were just in rags or normal civilian clothes (58:42)
Their goal was to cause as many casualties through booby
traps, mortars, mines, trip wires, snipers, quick ambushes,
etc.
Within his own unit, there were not many casualties (59:54)
o Things eventually got more busy
�
A few months into his time in the field, his company changed commanders
(01:00:22)
o The first commander was easy-going and seemed to care about his
company
He carried the radio for his commander (01:00:39)
o There was one time during a monsoon when his M16 rusted – his
commander told him that he needed to clean his rifle (01:01:18)
o The soldiers did not get into a lot of trouble with the first commander
(01:02:01)
When he was the radio operator he was in contact with the other battalions
(01:02:06)
o He would call in artillery, air strikes, medevacs, etc.
o A lot of the time his commander took the phone to make the calls
(01:02:22)
o There was only one radio for everyone
o The platoon radios would not call in air strikes (01:03:08)
The first commander rotated out
The second commander was, in his opinion, overweight (01:03:47)
o He was Airborne Ranger and he was commanding a drafted “grunt
company”
He did not get along with his second commander
When they were on the firebase one night getting high, they were pretending to be
chopper pilots (01:04:27)
o He and a couple of guys were making jokes, but the battalion thought they
were serious – he got in trouble and no longer carried the radio
On one evening the commander wanted the men to go to a mountain range and
fight the NVA (01:05:31)
o It was not an actual order – the commander just wanted recognition
o The soldiers told them that if they go, the commander may not come back
(01:06:00)
o The commander eventually left
There was a tension at that stage of the war between some commanders and his
men
Near the end of the war he was carrying an M16 – his helmet had a peace sign on
it (01:07:00)
o He had decided that the war itself had no real objective (01:07:23)
o After three or four months it no longer was about winning the war, but
rather, about going home (01:07:53)
That mentality changes the morale of the soldiers
He does not remember any soldier that went to the field that
believed they were not going to fight (01:08:19)
After some time, there were a lot of soldiers that no longer
wanted to fight (01:08:25)
They tried to maintain roughly 125 men in the company at all times (01:09:18)
There was one time in his experiences where the soldiers were flown to the
Cambodian border before they were supposed to be there
�o They were put on choppers and flown to Cambodia (01:10:07)
o The soldiers got off the choppers and were going to take out an NVA
camp (01:10:24)
When they arrived, the fires were still warm
o They found caches, weapons, food (01:10:45)
There was a lot of supplies and other things that the NVA needed
o They thought they were being set up for an ambush
Active Duty – Part IV – R&R/Injuries/Last Experiences of Service – (01:11:37)
While he was in Vietnam he received an R&R (Rest and Relaxation) – He went to
Bangkok, Thailand (01:11:44)
o He landed in Bangkok and when he got off the plane, there were many
men that had cars that wanted to be a chauffer for the week
He and a few other soldiers picked a guy that had a ‟57 Chevy
(01:12:14)
He bought some gold plated silverware from Bangkok
o It was not very difficult getting back on the plane to go to Vietnam
(01:12:56)
He knew that he did not want to live in Bangkok
o He took the R&R roughly six months into his tour (01:13:27)
The first time he was wounded in Vietnam it was determined that he was injured
by friendly fire
o The medic was going to put him in for a Purple Heart – the captain
decided that it was friendly fire (01:13:51)
He was injured for a second time on a light day patrol
o One of his captains decided that they needed to go on patrol in Horseshoe
Valley (01:14:40)
o They were walking in the open on dry rice paddy field and were opened
up on (01:15:16)
The Americans returned fire
o The NVA try to take out the radio and M16 as quick as possible
(01:15:46)
One of his friends took cover behind a tall dike
He was near the M60 gunner, feeding him ammo
Something blew up in front of them and knocked him out
(01:16:14)
When he realized he had been hit he stood up and screamed
(01:16:36)
Because they were so close to the firebase, the commander's chopper came out
and picked him up
o He was flown to Chu Lai, Vietnam and then over to Saigon, Vietnam
(01:17:35)
�
He rode a bus into Saigon
He stayed at the hospital for a couple of weeks while they took the
shrapnel out (01:17:59)
o He then flew to Tokyo, Japan to be sewn up
He had been hit in the arm (01:18:32)
He still has shrapnel near his heart (01:18:41)
He had shrapnel in both shoulders, on his neck, in between his
eyes, etc.
He was lucky that he was not killed
When he was injured he only had 63 days remaining in Vietnam
(01:19:46)
When he first arrived in Chu Lai, everyone was “just getting after it” (01:20:06)
o They tore his clothes off, found where the wounds were, put an IV in, etc.
o He was conscious for the whole thing (01:20:30)
o He does not remember exactly how he got from Chu Lai to Saigon
When he woke up from his operation in Saigon, he was in a large ward (01:20:57)
o He did not even know if he had a hand because there was a huge wrapping
of gauze over his hand
o The nurses were great (01:21:23)
o He was treated very well
He walked rear security at one point – his job was to make sure that nothing snuck
up behind his company (01:22:19)
o One day they were going from grassland to double canopy
o The company went into the woods and he heard something in the elephant
grass (01:22:57)
o He stopped and the voices got louder
He raised his weapon ready to fire on anything that would come
out of the grass
It was the Viet Cong (01:23:32)
He had to shoot the Viet Cong soldier (01:23:51)
In the moment you do what you have to do, but later it is
more difficult to deal with
He was only 10-15 feet from the Viet Cong soldier
(01:24:43)
The FNG that he was with sat and watched the whole thing happen
(01:25:30)
The funniest thing he ever saw in Vietnam was when he and his best friend were
on the side of a mountain
o A chopper came in to drop off sundries when his friend went running
down to pick them up (01:26:56)
o The blade from the chopper hit his helmet and shot it off (01:27:01)
There was another time when they killed a green snake called a “two-step snake”
o If you got bit by it, you had about two steps before you were falling on the
ground (01:27:38)
You would eventually die from it (01:27:43)
�
o The head of the snake was cut off with a machete – one soldier tied the
head onto his M16 – the snake head began to smell really bad
The ethnic makeup of his company was similar to his hometown of Battle Creek,
Michigan (01:29:01)
o It was 30-40% black
He was made an honorary member of the “brothers” – they gave him a nylon
bracelet to show that he was virtually adopted into their group (01:29:40)
o The bracelet was cut off at Chu Lai
There were some men that would try to come up with reasons to get out of the
field (01:30:27)
o He did not have a lot of respect for those people (01:30:35)
o Intelligently, they were weighing their odds
The black soldiers did that more often than the white soldiers
(01:30:58)
The black men that were in the field were tough fighters (01:31:27)
Heroin had not reached his area before he had left (01:31:46)
o If there was, he did not know of it
o There was a lot of liquid speed
It was popular and highly addictive (01:32:09)
He became addicted to it
He was in Japan for roughly one month (01:32:39)
o He had been wounded on July 24
o He spent two weeks in Saigon before Japan (01:32:57)
He remembers the flight out of Japan being on a cargo plane (01:33:32)
o The soldiers sat on jump seats (01:33:46)
He received a leave – one of his brothers picked him up from Naval Station Great
Lakes in Illinois (01:34:20)
o He went back to Battle Creek (01:34:34)
o It was the first time that he realized that the person in the car was not the
person that went to Vietnam (01:34:51)
It was a weird experience
At one point he thought that the blood transfusions could have
changed him (01:35:08)
There was debriefing time and you are supposed to be the same
person
When he went to Fort Benning, Georgia he started doing drugs to deal with his
problems (01:35:37)
o He was at Fort Benning to finish out his time in the service
o He had to complete his two year commitment (01:35:51)
There was one time when they were given M14‟s with bayonets – they were
practicing crowd control
o He thought, “Do they seriously think that we will lunge at people with
these bayonets? I would probably give them my bayonet.” (01:36:22)
o He was that bitter about everything (01:36:39)
He believed that the soldiers were simply pawns
He spent six months at Fort Benning (01:37:14)
�
o He was left alone for the majority of his time there
o He bought a Triumph Spitfire – he and his friends would go to Columbus,
Georgia (01:37:30)
They would get messed up on hash and LSD
When they would return to their barracks there would be no check
in and no one cared (01:37:48)
There was a roll call every morning
There was one time where he had to participate in a forced march (01:38:38)
o He contracted his second experience of malaria
o He was doing a lot of drugs – this forced him to not eat and sleep
(01:39:04)
o Halfway through the march, he passed out
When he was in Vietnam he was given anti-Malaria drugs (01:39:35)
o The mosquitoes were unbelievable
o They had very good repellent but the soldiers could not hit every spot on
their body (01:40:00)
o Fortunately he contracted the malaria that is not lethal
The soldiers had pills that helped them deal with the sweat and heat, water pills,
malaria pills (01:40:46)
After the Service – PTSD – (01:41:36)
After he finished at Fort Benning, he knew that he was not the same kid he was
when he went into the military (01:41:41)
o He did not do drugs before he went to Vietnam
o A lot of people did not know how to deal with him being different – he did
not either
o He wore an Army coat that he got from Salvation Army (01:42:08)
There was a patch on it that said, “Don‟t tread on me”
He was bitter
He started doing drugs and go to the point where he was no longer eligible for
unemployment (01:42:50)
o He started being a drug dealer
o He would make money by selling and trading (01:43:09)
There was a whole year where he was high every single day
o It was an escape (01:43:37)
Some of the other guys that had gone to Vietnam were dealing with the same
issues (01:43:51)
o They would go to his house and preach to him (01:44:19)
They would aggressively preach
He listened to them (01:44:33)
o They were becoming part of the Jehovah‟s Witness group
He did not become a Jehovah‟s Witness but he started going to
church and the bible studies (01:44:55)
�
He would go to the drug houses where he used to sell with a bible
and try to convert the people
He was zealous about his new faith (01:45:23)
At that point he had tried to go back to the fabricator work (01:46:03)
He eventually got a job delivering shop rags for a cleaning company (01:46:39)
He then got a job at a gas station
o He would pump gas, wash windows, try to sell oil changes, etc.
o The owner had told him that he would get a certain commission (01:47:26)
He never got the commission
Once he left the job at the gas station he became a milk man
o It was 1974 when he took the job (01:48:20)
o He would go door to door and his customers loved him
o He started with the lowest route and ended, after thirty years, with the
largest route (01:48:58)
Holsum Bread Company recruited him to go and work for them (01:49:06)
o He was made a supervisor
o He thought that he no longer struggled with the issues from Vietnam
(01:49:23)
He walked away from his job, wife, home, and happy life
It took him 35 years to accept that he might have an issue with PTSD (PostTraumatic Stress Disorder) (01:50:18)
He joined the Proud Veterans Motorcycle Club (01:50:33)
o They were all veterans – some were from Vietnam
o They asked him how much money he was getting from the VA for his
PTSD (01:50:43)
He would tell them that he did not have PTSD
o He called the VA and talked to five social workers and in one day he was
considered a candidate for someone with PTSD (01:51:22)
o That was the beginning of his recovery
o He was with a group of veterans that were proud of being veterans
o He was being directed in the right direction confront the effects of his
experiences (01:52:18)
He thinks it is great that a veteran does not have to waste 35 years of their life
trying to reconcile who they are with their experiences (01:54:37)
o The VA has stepped up to their responsibility of treating veterans
o The VA is taking responsibility for what is happening to soldiers when
they serve the country (01:55:56)
He has had numerous things diagnosed that he did not know he had
Soldiers today are volunteer (01:56:56)
o When soldiers from Iraqi or Afghanistan thank him he tells them that they
are the real heroes. They were not drafted, but instead, new of the dangers
and volunteered (01:57:11)
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
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RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
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Hency, Richard (Interview outline and video), 2012
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Hency, Richard
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Richard Hency was born in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1949. He received his draft notice in November of 1968 and was then sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky for eight weeks of Basic Training before eight weeks of AIT (Advanced Individual Training) at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Richard flew into Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam in September of 1969. He was initially sent to Duc Pho, Vietnam until he met up with his field unit that primarily operated in jungle terrain. In a Search & Destroy mission, every Vietnamese person that they came into contact with was moved to a refugee camp. Richard was, near the end of his experiences in Vietnam, flown and dropped off inside of Cambodia before American forces were supposed to be there. Richard was wounded on two separate occasions in Vietnam.
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Smither, James (Interviewer)
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United States. Army
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
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eng
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
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2012-11-13
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HencyR1464V
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/202e63b7f08efc99b8528ccee82dc72d.mp4
b23d1bbb8402bcebbd3eec8715f7e8cd
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3c8079565f3e6e43fc0f62d5ac6fa5b8.pdf
40acf0d95534eb88182f866ccaffc3de
PDF Text
Text
Living with PFAS
Interviewee: Abigail Hendershott
Interviewer: Dani DeVasto
Date: August 13, 2021
DD: I’m Dani DeVasto and today, August 13th, 2021 I have the pleasure of chatting with Abby
Hendershott. Hi Abby.
AH: Hi Dani. Nice to be here.
DD: Yes, thank you for being here and talking with me today. Abby, can you tell me about where
you’re from and where you currently live?
AH: I am currently living in Rockford, Michigan though I am from the Bay City area originally, but I
do have a residence up north as well, so I seem to be on the west side of the state quite a bit.
DD: How long have you been in Rockford?
AH: Since 1996, so 20-since 25 years.
DD: Abby, can you tell me a story about your experience with PFAS [per-and polyfluoroalkyl
substances] or with PFAS in your community?
AH: Yeah, so PFAS, for me, folded in a very personal way and we-you know working with-at
the time that PFAS started unfolding with Wolverine it was 2017. I was the assistant district
supervisor for the remediation redevelopment division in the Grand Rapids district office. The
supervisor at the time-the district supervisor at the time, was handling the-starting the project.
Had the-some of the initial meetings-was kind of handling the situation as the initial sampling
and discussions with Wolverine started happening. We were-you know the communityconcerned citizens came to us at the end of January. I was not in that meeting but then in
subsequent meetings as things started to unfold, the health department got a request for a well
permit right next to what was known as the house street dump area, and we didn’t have really
good record on the area, it wasn’t something that was on our radar, it wasn’t something we had
worked on in our division in a couple of decades. So, it wasn’t something that we were
intimately familiar with, but when the well request came in for the health department we thought,
well we’d better take a look at it. Things quickly escalated. The first 8 houses were sampled,
those were okay, but then when the Belmont Armory tested their well as part of a National PFAS
testing for all the armory sites across the state or across the country, they got a PFAS hit that
indicated we needed to go back and resample some more. So, what started as a few houses, I
think the initial sampling was 35 houses, quickly escalated to-and this was July of 2017-we had
staff out there trying to figure out, you know, which houses would be most at risk. We didn’t
have any monitoring well data, we didn’t have any ground water data. And so, it was a very, very
intense time and so once it really started getting kicked off, for myself, I was working as the
Assistant District Supervisor helping to support staff as we were going through this, but then the
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�District Supervisor actually got a promotion and by September of that year, and was in Lansing,
and so I took over as the District Supervisor in the middle of this. So, by, you know, July we had
sampled 35 houses by September we were recommending sampling 300 houses. By December
we were up to 650 houses, and the [laugh] the real kicker was that in addition to the residential
drinking water sampling that-that staff were doing, Wolverine was actually doing it the staff
were actually out in the field with the Wolverine consultants trying to make sure we were talking
with residents, giving them enough information, it was a tremendous strain on-one of the most
intense periods of my entire career because we had so many people calling us and at one point
we didn’t understand that-we didn’t know where else Wolverine would have dumped. We had a
lot of concerns that there were other locations around the county that Wolverine would have
dumped. [coughs] And so this started trickling out into the-into the community, and so we were
getting hundreds of calls from the community about people finding barrels, finding what they
thought were leather scraps, finding all kinds of things, and so we had to basically stand up by
the-by the end of October we had to stand up our instinant command system and have our instant
managers, there were 8 of them that came over and helped us through-through the next six
months to really investigate all of these complaints, help us talk with residents, help us make sure
we were, you know, getting back to the 650 residents that were being sampled, and at that point
then by November we were-I had set up with-with the team and with Wolverine that we would
do daily meetings. So, every day we had a team of, you know, remember we had two staff
working on this in July, and by November we had basically 15 of us working on this daily.
DD: WowAH: It was-it was so intense. Seriously one of the most intense things that we did, and so, at one
point, we are sampling, you know, one of the Rockford Middle Schools, we’re sampling some of
the Elementary Schools to make sure the schools are okay. You know, the Rockford High School
was-was served by municipal water so that was good, but all the way around it had
neighborhoods that were served by the drinking water wells. And so, these constant meetings
and-and, you know it was very stressful for staff, but it was very stressful for the community.
And so, the first meeting that happened in September with the town hall was-was before I kind of
took over as the District Supervisor, but that first meeting was with our-our field staff were up
there to try to kind of explain what was going on and-and as well as Wolverine as well as the
Health Department. And it was, you know, like a four and a half hour meeting with, I don’t
know, probably-there were probably 600 people in the room. It was huge. The next meeting we
had in November we coordinated a little better and had the whole Freshman Center gymnasium
set up, plus we were televising it, so we had, we figure, over a thousand people in person, plus all
the media crews, plus the Sheriff, plus probably another 200 people live streaming from theirfrom their thing. So that was, you know again, that’s still on YouTube if you want to-[laugh] if
you want to go take a look at it. So that was November of-of 2017, and so by, you know, by that
point then we are fully in the midst. People are all on bottled water, people don’t understand
what’s going on. Wolverine is starting to install full house filters but we just don’t know that
we’ve gotten the full extent of that contamination going on, and through this whole thing I’ve got
you know friends of mine who live in the area, people that I go to church with, people that I go
to the gym with, people, you know, stopping me to talk about what’s going on. Are they at risk?
Should they be drinking their water? Should they be, you know, all these questions, and the fear
and anxiety was at a level that I had never really, really experienced before, so-so it was a pretty
2
�intense time. Things shifted by the time we got into 2018, we-the state had established a drinking
water-a groundwater cleanup criteria for the protection of drinking water. So, we had then a-a
regulatory limit for PFOA and PFOS, so, all through 2017, we were having Wolverine go out
and assess these homes, but we had no regulatory authority to-to establish an actual cleanup
limit. So, all we had at that point was a EPA health advisory limit, which they were working
with, but it wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t a regulatory inforcible criteria that we could enforce this
as a state. So, 2018, early on, we got that and we continued then to have Wolverine assess more
and more houses. December-December-beginning of December we got results. So, one particular
story, I’ll tell you about that I think is really-wow it was pretty unnerving, we had had
conversations all through this fall we were doing township meetings, we were doing
neighborhood meetings, we did a lot of after hour meetings trying to just get the information out
to people, but one of them was a neighborhood up in-in the north of Tenmont, in an area we
thought would not be impacted by the house street dump. And, you know, when looking at the
data, all of the groundwater from the house street dump went Southeast. This particular area was
to the Northeast so they should have been out of the range of any contamination. We said, we
don’t really think there’s anything in your neighborhood. You know, we talked to them, we said
it-it’s pretty unlikely, but they-everybody at that point was -there was a lot of people trying to get
their own testing done because they didn’t know what they were finding, so we had people not
only sending us complaints about barrels and leather scraps, but also sending us their private
testing data, and one of those-one of those houses that was close to this particular neighborhood
was-we had been talking to the township or to the Neighborhood Association President for a
while and one of them came back as being a-like a thousand parts per trillion of drinking water.
So, I got Wolverine to-to agree to do the whole neighborhood. They gave them bottled water,
they agreed to do all the testing in the neighborhood. [cough] Three weeks later, we get the
results and it’s a Saturday. I’m seeing the results come in. They-usually, because it was a
laboratory that worked on the West Coast, the results would all come in on a Friday night, late,
like 10 o’clock. So, Saturday morning I’m sitting there looking at these results going oh my god,
there is house after house after house in this neighborhood, in this Wellington rich neighborhood,
that was at eight thousand, 20 thousand, 10 thousand, I mean like, the whole neighborhood was
so severely impacted it was just like oh my god. And again, these are-these are people I know,
and one of the families that I was attending church with, you know, she’s pregnant, she’s got
four little kids. You know, they’ve raised all-all the kids drinking this water, and it was just-it
was heartbreaking. So, for me I think that was one of those pivotal moments where we just go,
wow I can’t believe this, because it was not-it was not something that we would have ever been
able to identify except through his very extraordinary set of circumstances that brought us to this
point-you know in a normal investigation you stick with the area, you know the contamination,
you define it. And, we had the house streets contamination somewhat defined, but this was an
entirely new area, and it was something that, you know, Wolverine said that it didn’t have any
records for. They said they never dumped there. We think that somebody dumped a whole-whole
barrel of scotchgard, whether it was something that somebody took home and just dumped in
their backyard or what happened, it was such a-a high strength source that there’s just no other
way it could have been done. And, unfortunately, where this was dumped at, was at a
topographic high, and it was part of a-a-because the Rogue River goes around the whole area, it
was not only at a topographic high, but it was at like a groundwater divide, and so groundwater
went in five directions. We ended up, from that one source area, having a very strong plume that
went off to the Northwest, some fingers of plumes that went off to the Northeast, another plume
3
�that went to the Southeast, all following the Rogue River but from different locations. And-and
we were guessing at this, completely guessing at this. Had a Geologist working on staff that did a
fabulous job and trying to figure it all out but hours after hours, I mean, the-the staff, you know,
we had literally the Incident Managers work with us from like November to March, but even
after that it was full time for myself, the project manager, the Geologist, another person on staff,
and then all the other resource staff that we needed to keep going for two or three years. And so,
you know, in the end we were able to get some agreement with Wolverine to actually get an
incentive degree written, get the almost 70 million dollars to get municipal water hook-up for a
thousand homes, which we’re very proud of. Plus then they’re going to go back and they have to
access all of these different locations where the groundwater is benting to surface water, because
we know that there is, you know, the groundwater continues to be a source for PFAS, and it is
going to continue to impact the Rogue River for the long term, so that’s something that is moreone of their ongoing obligations. So I’m gonna stop there and see what your next question is.
[laugh]
DD: [laugh] Well I’m just struck by how much PFAS is bringing the personal and the
professional together for you. I’m wondering if this is typical for you in the work that you do, or
if this is kind of a unique or maybe a more intense situation?
AH: Very, very intense, very unique. I mean, we’re always striving to make sure residents know
what we’re doing, and that we talk with residents about their concerns, but this was-you know,
this was a project that was one of those lifetime events. You-we hopefully will never have
another project quite like this. And when I, you know, now I’ve gone from a District Supervisor
in Grand Rapids for the last couple years, and I’m now-have the privilege of being the-the
Executive Director for the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team, so I’ve actually stepped up
to the state level. And when I look at the concentrations that we’re finding around the rest of the
state. When I look at the magnitude of what is at other sites, this is still the worst. This is by far
the first-the worst of the contamination, the worst of the impacts to residents, the-the-just the
amount of contam-the high strength of the contamination as well as the-the distribution of how
far that it has gone. It’s probably got a full 23, 24 miles-square miles of contamination of
groundwater, surface water. Soils, of course, not so much but definitely have an ongoing source.
So, this is one that I think will, you know, I think somebody will-it’ll somehow end up in a story
in some way, so it’ll be your story but the-but it’s really a very unique situation. We just don’t
have that-we will have other sites that will, yes, we’ll have to do town meetings, and yes, we’ll
meet people, and we’ll try to get them clean water. You may find one or two houses, you may
find a couple of houses, but you’re not going to find this. So, we’ve got other sites where we’ve
sampled, you know, a couple hundred homes, but we’ve not found concentrations like this. And
as you know from talking with people who have been impacted, you know, we had one house
that topped over a hundred thousand parts per trillion drinking water well. That’s probably the
highest one in the country I would-I would guess.
DD: Just sounds overwhelming. [laughs]
AH: It was overwhelming. It was overwhelming. Our team did a great job, but I can’t, you know,
as with everything we had a physical breaking point where it was just-it was-you just sat there
and cried. Because, you know, I had people in my office talk to us one-on-one and it’s, you
4
�know, you’re sitting there after hours talking with these people, and they’re just crying their
hearts out. So, it was not just a job at that point, it was really everything we could do to try to
make it-and then you’re balancing it with the constant, constant media requests. The trying to
balance the-the narrative that’s coming out of the media, and the narrative that’s coming out of
Wolverine, and the narrative that we’re trying to promote, that, you know, we’re trying to do the
best job we can. It was overwhelming, and there’s no doubt about it, so, that job was much
harder than this job that I’ve got now. [laughs] Which seems weird, but it really was.
DD: [laughs] Can-would you say more about the work that you did with communicating with the
community. I mean I know you said that the whole situation was more intense, but it seems like,
especially like the community engagement communication part was also kind of a really key part
of your work and just, maybe unique to this situation.
AH: For sure and I think this-this really, you know, started paving the way for how we do
community engagement now for MPART overall. As things started to unfold, you know the firstthe first townhall was in September of 2017. It was-it was an eye opener for us. We figured
people would be a little upset, we figured that yes, you’d get people to come but the visceral
anger and a lot of it was pointed at Plainfield township. Which we didn’t expect, we didn’t
understand that there was already this residual tension between the residents and township which
is something that we had not even expected or understood.
And-and then, you know, at that point they-they didn’t really understand the whole wolverine
thing so much, so, you know, they didn’t take their anger out on them. But that was a real eye
opener for us and so at that point we started getting [coughs] requests from some of the
townships, Algoma township specifically, that they wanted to have some neighborhood
meetings. And I said, you know I think that's a good idea.
So, we started meeting with some small, you know, small subdivisions basically. We had
probably, I want to say in between 2017, 2018, we probably did 20, 25 neighborhood meetings in
addition to the September town hall, the November town hall. We had a, I want to say there was
another one in there as well as all the media stuff. So we were trying to kind of attack it at all of
the different levels, not only to try to get the word out to the media, who's kind of controlling the
narrative, but try to reach to the Township, make sure that they were supported because they
were just as overwhelmed as we were trying to answer resident calls and questions and then
getting in there and-and really talking to people one on one, I think, is where we were able to
turn that narrative around.
Me, you know this-I think, personally, despite all of the contamination, despite all of the-the
anxiety, there’s some-one of the things I think that became very evident was that there is a very
much that seven stages of grief that goes with finding out that, you know, if it's a death in the
family or some major trauma or some major shock, that's what these people were going through
was you had the whole-they were very angry, then they were very sad, then they were very
resigned and then-. And it probably took a full-it probably took a full 18 months for some of
these people to work through those [clearing throat] those stages. And it was very obvious that it
was easy to blame, you know, Eagle. It was easy to blame Wolverine at the time. [clearing
throat] And obviously, you know, the contamination did come from them. So that was justified.
5
�But they didn't get the response that they wanted from Wolverine. They didn't get any kind of
personal connection. [clearing throat] They didn't get a way to talk to them because they were so
insulated with lawyers that they-they had no connection.
So, we provided that ability for them to, you know, ask us the questions, try to give some sort of
feedback to help them feel justified or- in what they were doing. You know, I think over the-the
timeframe from like September to November, December, I think we ended up with, like, 600
calls that went to our environmental Assistance Center. When they couldn't get one of us, they
would call our 800 number.
And so, you know, it was crazy trying to deal with it. But I think the best way you deal with it is
on that personal contact, that one on one contact where you're really sitting down and talking to
people. And we did. We went into people's homes. We had-we went into if any of the
neighborhood Association invited us, we went in and talk to them. We did a ton of night
meetings and that really is what changed the attitude and changed this. And so, despite this being
the worst of what I see in the state, I think it's the best example of a good response, a great
response from not only Eagle, but all of our partners as we work through this. You know, we
worked daily at these daily meetings with Eagle or DEQ at that point was not only all of our
staff, but we had local health Department, Kent county health Department there every day. We
had Plainfield Township there just about every day. We had the state health Department,
Department of Health and Human Services was there with us every day. And so, you know we
had 20 people. Plus, we had Wolverine there every day. Plus, we had their consultant there every
day. We soon hired our own consultant to-to help take samples.
And by December-December, January of 2018 is when EPA showed up and they started meeting
with us every day. And so, these team meetings were big, but it was the only way to keep the
wheels on the bus. And it was the only way to keep the coordination and the communication
going. And so, I think because we forced that model and we forced everybody to come together
every day, it really turned out to be hugely successful in the way it was implemented. Not to say
there weren't bumps. There was always bumps. But considering how long some of the other
litigations can go on, how little the-the, you know, actual residents can get out of these things, I
think we did pretty well in trying to negotiate a response for, you know, municipal water hook up
for 1000 homes, plus some sort of a capping for House Street, as well as a investigation for all of
the groundwater getting into surface water and those kinds of natural resource damage stuff so- I
think we'll leave-I’ll leave that one there then.
DD: Okay. What concerns do you have about PFAS contamination moving forward at this
point?
AH: You know, that's a great question. I worry about what we don't know. I worry about what
we're not looking for that five years, ten years down the road. We wish we would have known
when we're doing our investigations now. I worry about the other types of PFAS light chemicals
that are out there in our world that we aren't paying enough attention to. But yet they're
pervasive-they’re, you know, PFAS is unique in that it has- [clearing throat] it's not only a
persistent biocumulative toxin, it’s-we're finding it everywhere. We're finding it in our soils and
6
�our groundwater, in our air, in our-in our bodies. And without a full worldwide response to this
and the fact that we are already, you know, consuming so much of this, we expect these-we
expect the luxury of our first world country, which includes the use of a ton of PPAS chemicals.
How do we turn that expectation around to-to be able to eliminate some of this stuff? And I think
that's going to take a long time. And I fear that-[laughs] that the long-term ramifications of what
we've allowed to happen in the last 60 years will take, you know, the next 180 years to rectify,
because that's-that’s really the big piece. We started using this stuff in the 50s, and it's now 2021,
and we're just starting to get our hands around it, and we still don't have federal standards, and
we still don't have a national response to this. So those are the kinds of things that-that I worry
about.
And unfortunately, so far, PFAS has not become-it's a political thing, but it's still getting
bipartisan support, which was one thing that, when we started off, when MPART was first
established in the fall- in November of 2017, really indirect response to what was happening at
Wolverine. Governor Snyder at the time saw what was happening at Wolverine, saw us go from
50 houses to 200 houses to 600 houses and said, okay, we can't have that happening again, set
this up. And he kind of threw this MPART structure at us, which, you know, we didn't even, we
didn’t realize was coming at the time, it’s all being done at the governor’s level. But it is really
what has shaped us.
And so, one of the things that we were pretty careful about doing when we were going out and
doing neighborhood meetings, when we were going out and doing town halls, was we included
all of the legislators because, you know, Senator McGregor at the time, Peter McGregor, was,
again, very involved because this was his neighborhood. These were his people. These were his
neighbors as well. As well as Kevin Green, who is Algoma supervisor again, very-very involved.
And so, that kind of-that kind of legislative personal stories was taken back to the legislature and
was really the reason that we were able to get some of the first pots of dedicated PFAS money
for response.
And so that next year, then in 2018, the legislature actually gave the state, you know, 25 million
to handle some of the PFAS response. We were able to go out and do statewide drinking water
sampling for all the municipal systems, which is huge. Nobody ese-I don't think anyone else in
that some of the other States are just starting to do that. But we were the only one, and I think we
still are the only one that has consistently gone through and done all of our municipal water
supplies. We've done all of our daycares. We've done all of our schools, we’ve done-you know
we're working on all the type twos and type three water supplies. And so that was huge step
forward in what Michigan-so we've taken the situation that started with Wolverine, started with
this one community. It's expanded now to making MPART really be at the forefront of what's
going on for PFAS across the whole country.
So now we're getting-we’re getting asked, how do you do this? How do you make this happen?
And for me, MPART is one of those things that I think again is a once in a lifetime opportunity
because we have an opportunity to be collaborative with and cut off all of the normal chain of
command type of situations that you have with state government or you have with any
7
�government and really go to the experts in each of the departments. So, we have seven different
departments that are all participating in MPART. Eagle, Department of Health and Human
Services, DNR, our Department of Military Veterans Affair for all their bases. We have our fire
Marshal, we have our Department of Transportation who handles all the airports, and I'm
missing one. There's one more. [laughs]
Anyway, we bring all of that team together, and we meet with them weekly. We're all in the
same room together, at least weekly, talking about things because, you know, has become very
evident. As with our airports, PFAS is much used in all of our firefighting foam, which the
airports have to use for airplane crash and rescue. And so, they trained with it. So, we've got
large parts of the state with pretty high concentrations from what we call AAFES. But that
coordination has to happen with everybody because you got people out there taking surface
water samples, taking groundwater samples. DOT actually regulates the airport themselves.
You've got Eagle regulating all the media contamination.
But you’ve got-in some cases, you've got DNR who may have migratory birds that end up on the
airport. You know, they end up in their holding ponds. There's all these weird connections that
go in there. But the thing that's so successful about it is that collaboration, that communication,
that coordination happens in a structure that is set on top of-it’s like an umbrella that sits on top
of the state government and allows us to do and leverage really great work at an exponential rate
beyond what we would normally be able to do. If you have to work through a normal chain of
command, you can't have those conversations. So, it's almost like what we did in Wolverine with
actually getting into the neighborhood, talking to the people one on one, only flipped and
reversed.
So now we're getting into those agencies and talking one on one with, what do we need to do
with Peacocks? What do we need to do? What's our next steps? Where do we need to go as a
state, as a country, as a world?
And so, I'm very proud of the fact that we're going to continue those personal conversations and
keep those things going on. One of the things that we're doing this winter is having our second
PFA- Great Lakes PFAS conference. So last year, we were able to have about 1600 participants,
all online, but we had three different countries, 35 different States. We had presenter from
Germany, we had presenters from Australia, and it was a way to have that conversation about
what's going on with KBAs. What do we know? What don't we know?
So, this year, same thing. We're going to do another virtual conference in December, and my
hopes are that-that we can continue that conversation about where do we need to go with PFAS?
I think some of the big unknowns are still, what does it mean to have PFAS concentrations in
soil? If-if it's an okay concentration for soil, that it won't Leach to groundwater, is it an okay
concentration that it can't be taken up into plants, or that it can't be taken up into the silage for the
cows, and then it doesn't get into the milk.
So, there's a whole lot more that we don't know. I mean, I think we've just hit the tip of the
iceberg for what we do know about PFAS. And so, when I think about what's to come, we've still
got a long, long ways. But I think we've at least at the state level, I'm very proud of the work that
8
�we've been able to do. And the [laughs] you know how you-the old expression is, you never get
more than you can handle. God doesn't allow you to handle more than he-he thinks you can
handle. So what-what was allowed, what we went through for that whole experience with
Wolverine has really shaped not only our state responses, but also the way that hopefully we can
go forward, because I think the best thing that we can do for PFAS, the best thing we can do for
our state, and for our Great Lake States, especially is to make sure that we continue to have those
conversations around collaboration of data, collaboration of responses. What do we know, you
know, what's truly a fluorine free foam? We've got a lot more conversations that are going on
behind the scenes.
DD: Absolutely. Before we wrap up, is there anything else that you would like to add that we
haven't touched on today or anything you'd like to go back to and say more about?
AH: You know, I don't know that there's anything in particular that sticks out. I think that this
will this particular experience with Wolverine will always be one of those special experiences in
a lot of different ways. But I think-what, you know, for me, it's not just been a project. It's about
the people. I’m very much a people person. And so, when I think about getting to know the
people around the area who have been most impact, I think of Sandy Windstalt and I think of
Jenny Kearney, and we've gotten to know the people on our Community Advisory group or the
Wolverine [keg?] very well. A lot of those people then stepped up and are not just concerned
about Wolverine but their also now actually participating on our statewide citizens advisory
work group, that I’m now chairing as well. So, they’re the people that are great voices in the
room to be able to provide perspective.
9
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Living with PFAS Interviews
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Devasto, Danielle
Description
An account of the resource
Beginning in 2021, the Living with PFAS interviews were recorded to gather the personal stories of individuals impacted by PFAS contamination. PFAS, or per- and polyflourinated substances, are a large group of human-made chemicals used widely since the 1940s to make coatings and products resistant to heat, oil, stains, grease, and water. They can be found in countless household items, including food packaging, non-stick cookware, stain-resistant furniture, and water-resistant clothing. These chemicals are often called “forever chemicals” because they do not break down easily, can move through soils and contaminate drinking water sources, and build up in animals, plants, and people. PFAS have been linked to increased incidences of various cancers, increased cholesterol, decreased fertility, birth defects, kidney and liver disease, and immune system suppression, and thyroid dysfunction. It is estimated that PFAS are in the drinking water of more than 200 million Americans (Andrews & Naidenko, 2020). In Michigan alone, over 280 sites have PFAS contamination exceeding maximum contamination levels for groundwater (MPART, 2024).
Date
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2021
Source
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Living with PFAS (project)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Personal narrative
PFAs (Perfluorinated chemicals)
Groundwater--Pollution
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Identifier
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DC-11
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video/mp4
application/pdf
audio/mp3
Type
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Motion Picture
Text
Sound
Language
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eng
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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PFAS0025
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Hendershott, Abigail
Date
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2021-08-13
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Abigail Hendershott, 2021 (Interview video and transcript)
Description
An account of the resource
Abby Hendershott is originally from Bay City, Michigan and now lives in Rockford, Michigan. In this interview, Abby discusses her work as a District Supervisor in relation to the PFAS water contamination at former Wolverine dumping sites.
Contributor
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DeVasto, Danielle (interviewer)
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Oral history
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PFAs (Perfluorinated chemicals)
Groundwater--Pollution
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Living with PFAS (project)
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In copyright</a>
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video/mp4
application/pdf
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eng
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9d5272cc2a8bdd156662fdcf74c6d9bf.mp4
661ba34cf083a3d11e7f2663fcb48326
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a65390414257ae455963769a52f4df91.pdf
39ed359071f223b6a171be905808a2f9
PDF Text
Text
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
Ed Henk
Born: June 21, 1944 Grand Rapids, Michigan
Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project,
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, May 28, 2012
Interviewer: Now Ed, can you start us off with some basic background? Where
and when were you born?
I was born in Grand Rapids on June 21st, the first day of summer in 1944, on the West
side of Grand Rapids. I graduated in 1962 from Union High School, and right afterwards
I went to Grand Rapids Junior College. I spent about three semesters there realizing,
even at that time that a two year degree wasn‘t going to be enough, so I transferred up to
Ferris. At that time I was getting into what they called data processing. Basically, I was
going to be a systems analyst, and at that time there was really only two places in west
Michigan that really had anything to do with it on a four year degree, Michigan State
University and Ferris, so Michigan State had more of an engineering and scientific, and I
wanted more of a business and that‘s why I ended up basically at Ferris. 1:12
Interviewer: To back up a little bit, what did your family do for a living while you
were growing up?
My dad was a salesman for a butcher supply and eventually went into what they call—he did the
spices like that, but it was custom and bulk. He worked for—sold to places like what was it,
Farmer Peet's, processing plants, Kroger, did everything in carloads or tank loads. His territory
was pretty much all of the Midwest from—he did all of Michigan down to Indiana and Ohio.
Being German, he worked with a lot of the German sausage makers and stuff like that
1
�Interviewer: had he been in the service?
Yes, he was in WWII. He happened to be in Germany and my grandparents came from
Germany, and my grandfather worked as a foreman in the twenties and thirties in the
furniture industry. He brought my grandmother in from Germany, and up until—even
until she passed away-- she was in her nineties and still had a real broken German accent.
2:18 It was one hundred percent German on that side of the family. He ended up in the
Aleutian Islands and when he finished with that he ended up in an airborne unit. He was
an instructor in Fort Benning, and that‘s one reason I went to fort Benning for OCS. We
both kind of relate to what he was back there then too.
Interviewer: In the period there where you’re going to college, did you have much
awareness of what was going on in Vietnam?
Oh yeah, at Union High School I was in the ROTC for three years, so I was very familiar
with what was going on at that time. 3:00
Interviewer: During your ROTC training, did you give any thought to enlisting?
Yes I did, I thought that—the draft was going on, and that has always been my idea
because we had talked before that, and I was always kind of thinking ahead what it‘s
going to be like. I knew anybody that was going to get drafted, the first place they‘re
going to go is Vietnam, and so I wanted to be prepared. I was probably that good Boy
Scout and I wanted to make sure I had my bases covered, so I was at Union for my
sophomore and junior year, and senior year, so basically I had three years in the ROTC.
Basically that was basic training because I had all the—I knew how to march, I was on
the rifle team, I was on the drill team, and did some color guard work at the basketball
games and that kind of thing. 4:00 So, I was pretty much aware of what the military
2
�was at the time. But, that was one reason I wanted to go to college, first get my four year
degree because I figured that once I was drafted and came back home—with the people
coming back and what the situation was at the time, I‘d never finish up. I wanted to get
my four year degree in, so basically I went in and got my exemption for college, and
that‘s when I got drafted out of college. I was actually a junior, in my third year at Ferris.
Interviewer: So, how was it that you could get drafted while you’re still in school?
They give you four years to get a four year degree.
Interviewer: Ok, because you switched?
I transferred, and when you transfer, and I was in a two year and I was taking technical
English, so I didn‘t have enough regular English, and that was kind of funny because I
did finish up when I came back in November of 1968, and in February I was back up to
Ferris for the winter term. 5:04 I was—in 1968 when they had all the race riots, I was
up in the Starr Education Building taking a humanities class because they didn‘t have it at
the—at the time they didn‘t have it at JC, and when I was going up to Ferris I was going
into data processing, Business Administration, majoring in data processing. At that time
it was so small that you took Data Processing 101 in the fall, you took Data Processing
102 in the winter term and in the spring term you took Data Processing 103. You
couldn‘t take it in the spring because you couldn‘t take Data Processing 101 at that time,
so you had to be taking a certain area at that time, so I had to give up a lot of the
freshman classes, and when I reached my senior year, in order to graduate, I had to have
humanities and all my social studies classes, so I ended up being twenty-two years old in
a freshman class, in 1968, in the Starr Education Building, on one of the nights they had
the race riots there. 6:12
3
�Interviewer: All right, so that’s after you’re back from Vietnam. I was going to
back up to the other end of it, so basically you’ve had your four year deferment and
that was, as far as the Army, done?
Your draft board said, ―You‘ve had four years to get a four year degree‖, and that ended
up being, probably, September of 1966, and I was drafted in December of 1966.
Interviewer: Take us then through the process at that point. You get the draft
notice and what’s the sequence of events in terms of induction and testing and all
that stuff?
Well, I knew pretty much what I was doing at that time, I was just doing—I was working
at the Spartan Stores in the warehouse, and it was just more of a part time job, we were
just loading trucks, and actually it was just a normal type thing and I just went home—we
quit one night and I went home. 7:11 I packed my bags and my mother took me down
to the bus station, and the Salvation Army gave me a little New Testament Bible, got on
the bus, went to Detroit, did all my, whatever they do, the physical and everything, and
we took a train down to—actually it was St. Louis, and we took a bus down to Fort
Leonard Wood. I took my basic training down there, did everything for basic training
there, I was thinking I was going to be there for two years and decided what I was going
to do. I was down there in basic training and I saw all these guys coming back from
Vietnam, and I thought the vast majority of them were pretty messed up. 8:02 There
was no psychological evaluation for these guys or anything. Once they got their orders
they just went and stuck them into some kind of basic training unit and the guys didn‘t
know what to do with them, so they pretty much sat off to the side and they were pretty
much sitting around day after day doing nothing. No one would have anything to do with
4
�them, so they pretty much sat off to the side, and they sat around day after day doing
nothing, sitting around the day room or whatever and we were doing our training. We
came back and I would maybe talk to some of the guys and getting some really pretty
good advice from them. One guy I got a kick out of, he said, ―whatever you do, always
take your field jacket‖. This was the wintertime when I was down there and everything,
and he said, ―When you go to Vietnam they don‘t give you a field jacket. Everybody
thinks its a hundred and twenty degrees, and sometimes it gets down to fifty degrees, and
you think it‘s fifty degrees in Vietnam, you think it‘s going to snow‖, so I brought—that
was one of the things I always brought with me. It‘s the best thing, especially in the
monsoon season when at night it gets really, really cold and it gets awfully, awfully damp
there. 9:04
Interviewer: Basically these were men who completed their two years, they had
been drafted or whatever, they spent their year in Vietnam, and now they have to
park them someplace for the last few months of their term?
They‘re in there for two years, so you‘re spending eight weeks in basic training, another
eight weeks in in the IT, they ship you to Vietnam, by the time you come back you got,
probably, another four or five months to go, so what are they going to do with them. You
couldn‘t put them in a regular unit for only three or four months, so what they were doing
at that time was putting them in, like with training units. Well, you had a lot of company
commanders, all they were was National Guard, and they didn‘t know how to deal with
these guys. There was no way—like they process today, you go through probably two
months of some type of therapy. For me, when I came back and went up to Ferris, the
best thing for me was, we had a vets club up there, and there were about two hundred
5
�vets. 10:06 We got to talk and that and one guy said, ―I have these strange dreams and
everything like that‖, and someone else would say ―you think those are strange, you
ought to see what mine are like‖, and someone would say, ―that‘s nothing, you ought to
see what I‘m having‖, and I‘m thinking, ―oh, we must be normal‖, because everybody
was having these weird dreams, but it was post-traumatic stress, and at that time nobody
knew what that was, or wouldn‘t tell you what it was. I think they knew, but wouldn‘t
say.
Interviewer: The military had been aware, even in WWII they were aware, that
there were various kinds of effects. They weren’t quite sure what to do with it, and
called it combat fatigue and so forth. They didn’t know what to do with it and there
wasn’t much of any kind of a system for engaging it, they had to kind of figure it out
as they went.
Right, they just threw you out into the general public.
Interviewer: To go back into your story, describe what life was like at Leonard
Wood. 11:03
It was different because when we were down, Leonard was in the southern part of
Missouri, and when I graduated from basic I stayed down there for combat engineering
school. I wanted to get into demolition work, and when I was in basic I decided to go
into OCS. I had this three or four month period I wanted to use up, so instead of using it
on the back side, I‘ll go into Vietnam and instead I‘ll use it on the front side, so I thought,
―I‘ll go to OCS‖ because at the time you could sign up for it. The thing I wanted—I said,
―Can I quit anytime‖? If I signed up for it I‘d want to be—they said, ―Oh, no problem, as
long as you‘ll sign up, you‘re still in for two years by the time you‘ve graduated, once
6
�you graduate you have to re- up for four more years‖. 12:01 ―That‘s no problem on
that‖, so I figured I‘d go—and one the reason I wanted to go in there is you‘re trained by
Rangers in patrolling and guerrilla tactics, you fire every weapon in infantry inventory, I
could call in artillery, I could call in air strikes, the whole nine yards, so that‘s what I
wanted to do. So, I passed the test and you had to have and infantry MOS, so I was
already down in Fort Leonard Wood, so I said, ―Can‘t I just go into Combat
Engineering?‖ That was no problem really, and even down there we were getting a lot of
people from the hills of Kentucky and Tennessee, and you have to remember this is 1968
and it was for me really a culture shock, because coming from the West Side of Grand
Rapids, and in 1968 we were having all these race riots, that was bad enough. 13:04
1966,1967 and 1968 they were all in-- and people-- and that was another thing, some of
my best friends, even in Vietnam were black and I came home and all these people said
they were having race riots in Vietnam and I said, ―no‖, and that was really throwing me
off when I came back because people were looking at the news and said they knew what
was going on from the five o‘clock news, and they didn‘t know anything, it was
completely the opposite. I don‘t know who was feeding these various news media or
where they were coming up with this.
Interviewer: So, you were training alongside people from all parts of the country,
and there were black soldiers etc. there. Were there white southerners there as
well?
Oh, very much
Interviewer: What kind of dynamic was there between the southerners and the
black soldiers? 14:01
7
�Actually it wasn‘t that bad. There was to a certain extent, and I think it was more—I
don‘t know if it was more with the southerners, they—I don‘t know how to explain it on
that, it was different. There was a tension between them more than anything else. There
was no aggression like, ―I hate you‖, or that. I think what everybody did—we all trained
together and when we went back to the barracks everybody went in their own groups, and
it actually ended up more like cliques. You had the black clique, you had the southern
clique, and you had us with the northern white clique basically, that‘s how it ended up.
Interviewer: Did the drill instructors just treat everybody the same or was there a
difference?
Pretty much the same, I never had that much in both basic and AIT, but the thing is, we
were so busy you rarely ran into problems. 15:04 It was not so much at night because
everybody was tired because they ran you eight to ten hours a day and more was on
week-ends especially towards the end of the program. They give you more time to go off
base, so everybody left, they couldn‘t wait, so everybody just left and came back on
Sunday night, so even at that I didn‘t have that much of a problem in the barracks or
anything like that at that time.
Interviewer: If you went off base, out of Leonard Wood, what was there?
There was nothing in Leonard Wood. It‘s nothing like if you had to go up to St. Louis or
something, that would probably be a little different, but there wasn‘t really that much
going on around there. That‘s what they call ―lost in the woods‖ because there‘s nothing
down there.
Interviewer: Like Joplin or something? 16:00
8
�Yeah, in fact one time we—one of the guys in our unit was, and I can‘t think of it, just a
little town down there and we went down there, and we‘re northerners and we‘re going
down to these southern people, and they just welcomed us. We were eating all this
southern food and I didn‘t know what it was. Some of it was Opossum and Raccoon, and
I said, ―This is better than the food we had there at camp‖. My idea of a diet is a see-food
diet. I see the food and I eat it, so I wasn‘t that fussy about what I had to eat, I was
having a good time down there.
Interviewer: So you have the basic now. Was the basic training fairly easy for you
to adjust to?
Yes, because I had three years in ROTC. That was just—that was nothing. I was in a
drill team, I had the rifle team and everything, and in fact, I went in in December and
they gave us leave for Christmas for about ten days, but by the time we came back it was
almost two weeks or well into January. 17:03 When we came back everybody forgot
what they were taught the couple weeks before that, so I helped the drill sergeant out with
that. These guys from—a lot of these southern guys didn‘t know how to drill; they didn‘t
know their left from their right. You‘re supposed to start out with your left foot and
they‘re starting out with their right foot, so what I did, and they would come up and ask
me because I knew my drill, ―Would I take a couple?‖ Most of the guys in the unit, and
there were about thirty of us in there, and there were about five or six that just weren‘t
getting it. In fact, they had to learn how to do their left and their right by taking a
garbage can cover and putting it in their right hand and telling them, ―This is your right,
you start out with your left foot and do this, and then you go to your right where the
garbage can cover is‖. So, when we came back, we were getting so far behind with what
9
�they had to have to graduate, they gave me some time to work with some of these
southerners. 18:06 I knew some of these drill things, and actually, once we got going
on it there, they were kind of smart and picked up on it. I looked around and said, ―We
got some time to kill around here‖, so I taught them some of these drill movements like
the drill team used and instead of taking the right shoulder arm we take it and rotate it and
throw it up on there, so we went out there a couple times and they said, ―What did you
teach these guys?‖
Interviewer: Your Advanced Individual Training, did you do that at Leonard
Wood also?
Yes, Combat Engineering
Interviewer: That was the engineering part?
Yes
Interviewer: So, what are they actually teaching you then at that stage?
Actually a little bit of everything because Combat Engineer is pretty much of a broad
thing, almost like an infantry thing, and you learn everything from—in infantry you got,
you know, learning how to run a machine gun, individual weapons, 45‘s and that type of
thing. 19:04 Well, we did a lot of bridge building and that, that‘s what they do. We
make a lot of—our main job was up in, even in Vietnam, we opened up the landing
zones, built all the security, what we call the green lines, put out all the barbed wire, all
the mines, we used a lot of Claymore mines, put out all the foo gas and this type of thing
out there. So, we learned a lot of that, and while I was waiting for my orders for OCS
they had a class just on demolitions and mines, and they had an area on trip wires and
10
�how to find trip wires and deactivate the mines and everything, so that was a specialty
there.
Interviewer: Now, were they gearing this very much towards the things that you
would be doing in Vietnam?
Yes, very much, a hundred percent.
Interviewer: Were you being taught by people who had been there or not yet?
20:04
Well, these were older NCO‘s and a lot of them were from Korea and that type of thing.
Interviewer: So, you complete this and as part of the master plan to not go to
Vietnam right away. Now you go from AIT into OCS?
Infantry officer school
Interviewer: And where do they send you for that?
Fort Benning, Georgia, on that, that was the infantry school down there.
Interviewer: Was the base basically the same kind of place as Leonard Wood?
No, this was a whole different ball game. The bigger town of Columbus down there in
Georgia had—it was a whole different thing down there. It was the airborne school, they
had the ranger school there and it was probably ten times bigger than what Leonard
Wood was. Actually, it was quite small, like I said Fort Lawson was out in the middle of
nowhere.
Interviewer: What was the actual curriculum like, what were you doing? 21:03
Well, you were—the first twelve weeks it was just basic and twelve to eighteen weeks
you were intermediate and then after eighteen to twenty-one weeks you were a senior,
and that‘s when you wore a kind of infantry blue thing and walked everything. You were
11
�basically like a 3rd Lieutenant, and that‘s when you had to learn to be an officer.
Everything from basic—intermediate was strictly—you learned how to fire every weapon
in the infantry inventory, you called mortars—fired—called in air strikes, called in
different artillery and that‘s all I concentrated on. All this other harassment, especially in
basic, they—we were running everywhere, and in Georgia the summer of 1967 it‘s eighty
degrees out there with eighty or ninety percent humidity and all the marches and all.
22:08 They ran us all pretty good there the first sixteen or eighteen weeks we were
there.
Interviewer: So, this was more intense than what your basic had been?
Yes, very much
Interviewer: At that stage were you being trained by people who had been to
Vietnam?
No, like I said, my tac officer, his name was Lieutenant Hughes, they called him ―Hughes
horrible‖, and he wasn‘t in Vietnam, but he had just finished his Ranger and airborne
training and he was a 1st Lieutenant. The company commander was actually from
Germany. He came to the United States and enlisted or whatever and we never found out
how much training he had. 23:07 He had a lot of infantry training in Germany. I don‘t
know what his career credentials were or anything like that. The other officers, I think
two of them had just graduated themselves from OCS and they were waiting to go into
Ranger training, so we never had anybody, at that time, in our unit that had been to
Vietnam.
Interviewer: Now, in the training itself, did they try to simulate situations you
would encounter in Vietnam?
12
�Where we got the training, where I enjoyed it, we were trained by Rangers, and that‘s
where we got the nitty gritty, it was the training. They took us a couple times to the
southern part of Georgia where the swamps and the low parts are. 24:02 They put you
down there probably for about two or three—I think one was about ten days down there,
the big training down there. They had what they call lane graders and every once in a
while you would look around and it was a different guy, and what the idea was, you
could see them, but they couldn‘t talk to you or converse with you, they were just there to
observe. You ended up with a radio and some mortars and there were different exercises
that you had to do. Then for re-supply they tell you to go to a certain area and that‘s
where you got your water, your food, additional information, and then you got orders for
the next exercise and what to do, and what the next mission was going to be. Once in a
while what they do is they booby trap it, he‘s dead, he‘s dead and that type of thing, so
we got kind of tired of that. 25:00 Being a demolition specialist, I just came through
that class there, not that I had any big explosions or anything, I just had small ones from
anti-lift devices that went bang and that type of thing, so I kind of looked around and
found an anti-lift device is just like a mouse trap, you pick the thing up, the thing goes up
and goes bang on it. If you stick a wire down through that thing you keep it from going
up, so we just picked up the thing we wanted to go out and I reset the booby traps and
booby trapped the guys that picked up on it, so we just put another box in and pulled the
wire out.
Interviewer: So, in general, how long did you actually stay in officer training?
About fifteen or sixteen--the idea when I first went in there was I was only going to be in
there about eight to ten weeks and then leave, but the longer I was there I figured this
13
�might not be too bad. I had my uniform and everything all ordered and about the
sixteenth or seventeenth week I woke up and thought, ―What am I doing? The bottom
line is I was going to be here four years‖. 26:10 I was still interested in going back to
school and finishing up and I didn‘t want to make the military a career, but I was in the
top five percent of my class and they didn‘t want you to go. If you were on the bottom
five percent they were glad to get rid of you because by the eighteenth week they had
weeded out a lot of people. I would say a good twenty-five to thirty percent of our class
was gone by the eighteenth week. I put my letter of resignation in and of course they
were giving me all kinds of a hard time, talking to the battalion commander and
everything and the only way I got out of it was, I went to the company commander one
night and I just basically told him, I said, ―Sir, basically going through all of this I finally
realized the difference is between the Boy Scouts of America and the United States
Army‖, and he said, ―What‘s that?‖ I said, ―At least the Boy Scouts of America has adult
leadership‖, and that little German turned into a real German. 27:09 His Captain's bars
there turned into SS‘s, and he said, ―out‖, and I ran out the door, went past my--all the
people around there, up the stairs and I was gone bag and baggage the next morning out
there. I ended up in an airborne holding company to wait for my orders and that took
about two weeks, I had about a two week leave and then I went to Vietnam.
Interviewer: How do they physically get you out to Vietnam?
Well, I met a friend of mine, John Tegmeyer, he was in New York, so I spent—I had two
weeks, so I spent a week home, a little more than that, and I went with him for a weekend and we went out of New Jersey. 28:05 What‘s that one in New Jersey? I can‘t
remember the name right now.
14
�Interviewer: Do you mean the airport?
No, no, the base
Interviewer: Fort Dix?
No, that‘s in California
Interviewer: Fort Dix is in New Jersey. Fort Ord is in California.
Ok, it was Fort Dix then, and we got on a plane there and went up to Anchorage, Alaska,
went over Yokohama, and then over to Bien Hoa.
Interviewer: Now, were these all military aircraft?
No, this was civilian; I think it was charter, Tiger Airline we went over on.
Interviewer: What was you first impression of Vietnam when you landed there?
Oh, the smell. We walked off there and it was November of 1967 and the heat and
humidity and just the smell. The guys were telling us, one of the guys I was going over
there with was a Korean War vet and he was a medic and said he had been in Korea, and
he has been in Japan and this was his second tour in Vietnam. 29:11 he said, ―This is
the dirtiest country I have ever been in‖. We walked out and even just everything
smelled like everything was decaying. That was my first impression of it.
Interviewer: Now, you get off the airplane and what happens to you?
We got on these buses, and it was kind of interesting, they were just regular buses, but
they were all OD and they had barbed wire, not barbed wire, but all the windows were all
fenced off. Then we went into a holding company and we were there about a week or so
just to acclimate ourselves because in November up north it was pretty cold there at Fort
Dix. 30:01 We just did a bunch of little odd ball things like we would collect things
15
�from a supply unit, pick-up things and take them to different PX‘s, picked up food and
took it to the different mess halls and that type of thing.
Interviewer: Was there any kind of specialized gear or equipment they were issuing
to you, or just the regular stuff?
No, pretty much everything I had. I thought I was going to have it pretty much made. I
was supposed to go originally to the artillery unit south of Saigon, so I figured being a
combat engineer there isn‘t that much to do in those areas, and I figured I would just be
filling sandbags and working around the area just doing things like that. I didn‘t think
that would be too bad and maybe I could get into Saigon a few times like that. Well, that
didn‘t last long. I was waiting for my orders then and that‘s when I found out—they cut
my orders to go to the 1st Cavalry, and I said, ―Where‘s the 1st Cav?‖ 31:05 They said,
―Well, that‘s up in the Central Highlands and that‘s where all the action is‖, and I
thought, ―Oh, brother, you might know‖.
Interviewer: Where did you actually then go?
From Bien Hoa I went to An Khe and that‘s where the 8th Engineers headquarters were.
They had what they called a charm school and being in the 1st Cav everything was done
by helicopters and that‘s where we learned how to rappel out of helicopters. They had a
big tower on that and they sent you out for a day or a night. You would go out and there
were about twelve of us in a unit and we would stay out overnight. We set out our trip
flares and everything like that and came back. That lasted about a week or so, and then
shipped out to Bong Son, up to Camp Evans. 32:05
Interviewer: Where in Vietnam is Camp Evans located? On a map, where would it
be?
16
�It‘s right along the east—the northern part of the Central Highlands. More along the east
side, we were right off QL-1.
Interviewer: Is that then where you were based out of?
For that portion of the time, I ended up in the headquarters company and they put me out
in another unit, I think it was B Company and it was working with the 173rd Airborne
[Brigade], and that‘s where I ended up in a little bit of trouble. Like we were talking
before--up until that point they were drafting people-- they were drafting people out of
the ghetto and everybody they could get. 33:06 By the time myself and everybody else,
that‘s when I found out while I was in my holding company at Fort Benning, I thought I
was the only one doing this. Well, there were about twelve of us in the unit that felt the
same way, everybody quit and was ready to get their orders for Vietnam. Unlike today,
and that‘s why I don‘t think they‘ll have another draft. There are many reasons why they
don‘t have a draft today and I‘m one of them, just one of them. I went into the unit and I
went up to the platoon sergeant and the platoon leader, and the platoon leader at that time
was a 2nd lieutenant and he came out of Fort Belvedere, and he‘s strictly an engineer.
34:06 I came out of Fort Leonard Wood, so I knew a lot more than he did, so I came up
to him and to put it nicely, I said, ―Don‘t mess up because I will take over‖.
Interviewer: You told him that?
I told him that
Interviewer: And you’re a private at this point.
Yeah, I‘m an E-3on him, and we were having a—it wasn‘t really going over that great,
and a couple days later, in the company area, a unit of the 173nd, a platoon, was like a
lost platoon and they were getting hit pretty hard. They didn‘t have anybody that was
17
�close enough to get in there. They wanted somebody—the 1st Cav, and we had to rappel
in there because it was a double and triple canopy jungle in there. 35:03 So, the way
they—I forgot what unit it was—they took the platoon leader, the platoon sergeant,
myself and three or four other guys. I had never been on—this was my first combat thing
and I didn‘t have a clue to what was going on. Everybody else was pretty well seasoned.
To make a long story short, we were coming in and we had to rappel in. The idea for us
to get in there we needed some combat engineers to blow out an area, a landing zone, to
get the wounded and everything out. We‘re coming in there and we had to make two
trips and there‘s usually about five or six choppers in there, and when you rappel out only
four people can go out, and there are eight or ten people in there. When you rappel all
four have to go off at the same time because the plane is going up and down. 36:05 so, I
didn‘t realize it, but when you--they had it all planned out, but I‘m coming in on a second
thought on this thing here. I was sitting in the doorway, they give the thumbs up to get
ready, we had a Swiss seat on with a D-ring and I hook up, I‘m out on a line and
everybody is kind of looking at me like, ―What are you doing?‖ They give the signal to
go, so I go down. Well, I didn‘t realize it that they were going to make another pass and
they want the infantry to go down first, clear out the area and everything and come in.
We were considered what they call a log ship, usually your second or third back in the
line and that‘s why they had the four extra guys and they wanted in. We were supposed
to go around and then the company engineers are supposed to go down in it, and they
were supposed to have it all cleared out. 37:01 Well, I went down there and fortunately
I ended up in a little valley and I had my pack and my M-16 and all I saw were green
tracers just going over my nose and that. This Lieutenant said, ―Ok trooper, don‘t move‖,
18
�and I thought, ―oh, I‘m not moving out of this thing, not here‖. The next thing, they
came in with ARA and gunships and they were just literally thirty feet off the ground, in
fact, when the ARA goes the 2.75 rocket‘s about equivalent to a 105 round. Well, every
time one of those rounds are going off the ground would shake, and I‘m going up and
down and these tracers are going over the top of me. They finally got them pretty much
cleared and the tracers all stopped, so everybody had to get up and go on it. So, they‘re
taking this little hill, positions where the NVA were in there, 38:09 and the sergeant,
platoon sergeant, told me, he said, ―Ed, stay behind me on that‖, once they went through
there we had to basically clean up and make sure nobody was around there or anything
like that. I said, ―What?‖ He said, ―We don‘t take any prisoners here‖, because we
didn‘t have enough time to go back, because we had to go back to the 173rd and clear out
an area. So, I‘m going and making sure no one is there and right afterwards he comes up
to me and he said, ―you‘re just wasting ammunition‖, and I said, ―what do you mean?‖
He said, ―That severed head there that you were shooting at‖, and I said, ―Well, yeah‖,
and he said, ―That was just a waste of ammunition‖. I thought he was just kidding and
after a while I—because while we were going up there I saw this severed head and the
eyes were open, and at that time the only dead person I ever saw was in a funeral home
with their eyes closed. 39:04 So, you had to make a split decision like that, so I‘m
going like that bang, bang, bang.
Interviewer: You saw a head and didn’t think about the fact that there was nothing
attached to it.
Yeah, so I just blew it away and kept right on going, and all of a sudden this thing
started—and I‘m on my down spiral pretty much from then on. That‘s why after a while
19
�you get to a point where life doesn‘t really mean that much and everything. You have to
remember we had a lot of the mini guns, we had 227 and everything, well they‘re going
out at three or four hundred rounds a minute, well, do you know what a body, what it
looks like when it gets hit with a hundred rounds in one second? It turns into a red mist.
Interviewer: You really hadn’t had any exposure to any of this kind of stuff and
there it was, just all of a sudden?
Just like that and all of a sudden I‘m being chewed out for shooting a severed head.
40:05 ―You‘re wasting ammunition‖
Interviewer: Did you get to what you were actually supposed to do? Did you get to
be an engineer at that point?
That was the other thing on it, 1st Lieutenant said, ―Well you‘re the engineer aren‘t you,
eh, trooper?‖ They called us troopers, and he grabbed me and he said, ―I want the
landing zone right over there‖, and I had the det cord and some of the blasting caps and
everything so I started—what you do on that is, it was real thin trees and you wrap det
cord, C4, only in cord, and you put it around and wherever you wrap it the second time is
where it blows off and that‘s where the tree falls, so you can control on it. I‘m going
around and in the meantime the other engineers were coming down there and they had to
come to me to find out what was going on. Well, here‘s the platoon sergeant and the 1st
Lieutenant come to me and I‘m telling them exactly what to do. 41:05 Well, that didn‘t
go over very good, so a couple of days later, bag and baggage I went back to
headquarters, to the company at Camp Evans.
Interviewer: So, they felt like you were showing them up?
20
�Well, I—yeah, I guess. They just didn‘t go over that well on it, and see you have to
remember too that draftees were basically a second class set, you ain't going to have—
these were regular army officers on it and they aren‘t going to have some draftee, an E3,
telling them what to do.
Interviewer: Even though you had been assigned to go do it, right?
Yeah, well—you know, but it‘s not—we didn‘t have a confrontation at the time. I told
them what to do and when I found out later I talked to the company commander and
everything, so he said, ―You‘re not going to work out here too well‖, so I said, ―Don‘t
mess up because I‘m going to stay in corps‖, so that‘s basically what we did. 42:02 At
another time we went out, we‘re usually one of the first ones out in the area, especially if
we‘re making landing zones, we‘re engineers. Like on D-Day, actually combat engineers
were the first to land on the thing to take out all the obstacles. In Vietnam, especially in
the air cav‘s, especially in the landing zones, we were the first ones in, and we blew out
the area, or cleaned it out and put in oppositions for whatever, the artillery or the mortars
and everything and then we set up the perimeters and everything. The first one, when I
had my own demolition team, was the Lieutenant came in there and we got on the ground
and everything and with—everybody has to work, because--like at the time I was E-4 or
if somebody‘s E-5. 43:07
That‘s what I liked about the 1st Cav, or actually being in the
U.S. Army and everything, rank really didn‘t—when it gets to a point like that it really
doesn‘t matter. We went out and we were a team and everybody had their own job and
we had demolition people, but usually what you did was you only want one or two people
doing demolition work because there‘s only certain ways—and you don‘t have too many
chances to make mistakes, you only have one chance at making one mistake, or
21
�something like that and you don‘t want to do that. So, generally, and especially the teams
that I had, there was just two people that did the demolition work and we did everything
else to clean the area out. When we set up the C-4 we had different—we had kinds, we
had linear charges and we had regular C-4 bricks and usually det cord that was C-4, just
depending on what the situation was and what you wanted for how big it was. 44:11 To
set it all off we used ten cap blasting machines. We never used fuses or anything like that
because we wanted something that if it didn‘t work right away we could go and check it.
If you used fuses you had to usually wait like an hour or forty-five minutes and go and
check the thing out, so everything was all—what we did was work off ten caps blasting
machines. To make the blasting caps—they came in a little box about that big and came
all wrapped up with wire and it took time because you had to take each individual one
out, take it apart, and it only took about a half of an anth to blow a cap up, so what you
had to do is put the wires together and basically shorten it out. 45:01 So, the lieutenant
would usually work on that and that‘s when he told me, ―Well, I‘m an officer and I don‘t
have to work‖. I said, ―I wouldn‘t be sitting around here‖. He was just out of OCS and I
said, ―Sir, you‘re going to have to‖, and I said, ―Ok, there‘s a tree over there, just sit
down‖. Well, up there we had all kinds—the biggest thing of all up there was snipers,
and if you‘re a sniper and you‘re up in a tree and you see all these guys running around
working and you see somebody sitting off to the side, who‘s going to be your first target?
You figure it‘s going to be that officer. 46:00 We‘re working and the way I treated
snipers, I learned this in—that‘s one of the reasons I wanted to go to OCS—it‘s what they
call the ―crack and thud method‖.
Interviewer: Which is?
22
�This is the first time you hear—you never hear—I‘ve always used this and everybody
I‘ve tried to explain this to never heard this thing on it. Anyway, the first thing you hear
is the crack of the bullet going overhead, the second sound is the rifle going off. You put
the two together it gives you the direction. Then you take a quick count, you go 1,
2,3,4,5 and that tells you how many hundreds of yards, or in this case, how many
hundreds of meters, it‘s a different sound. So, you try to train your guys because you
have to count it really fast. We were out maybe two hundred meters or something like
that, or three hundred and that will tell you the direction and everything on it. 47:01
Then when we did our pre-op of the area, I worked with the artillery. When I was in
OCS I had a seeker security and I could go with the division artillery and I could set up
different targets, 1,2,3,4,5 and we used variable time, that‘s what they call ―Victor
Tango‖ variable time. That‘s where a round goes off about three feet in the air. Did you
watch the Band of Brothers when they were in the Ardennes Forest with those rounds
going off, those air bursts? Well, can you imagine being a sniper? That‘s how we got rid
of our snipers.
Interviewer: Basically, you figured out where they were, estimate a distance and
direction, and then you can call in artillery?
Yeah, we can call in artillery, and we had two M-60 machine guns, we always carried
two M-60 machine guns and everybody gets to---when we hear the shot, everybody‘s
making the quick count. 48:08 I‘ve got two and a half, I‘ve got three, so were figuring
two and a half to three hundred meters out and usually that‘s where they were anyway.
Then I get on the horn for the artillery and the way I worked was that the battery, I like to
use a three tube battery and I say, target five, one round or one tube, target five, second
23
�round, one click to the left and the third round, maybe another up one, so we kind of
cover with three rounds in there. Usually ninety nine percent of the time it gets most of
them because it will blow them right out of the trees. They come down and you take an
M-60 machine gun, one on each side, keep it eighteen inches off the ground because
usually they bounce and we didn‘t even have to go and clean them up. 49:04
Interviewer: A highly specialized technique.
I know, we used this all the time and nobody on it, so by the time you‘re all done and
headed back home, you bring him back in a body bag. You got a 2nd Lieutenant with a
bullet in the head.
Interviewer: Let’s try to go and put together your sequence here. Initially, you’re
sent out and you’re assigned to 1st Cav with the 8th Engineer Battalion, and you’re
assigned to support the 173rd Brigade, and that’s where you don’t fit in. Then
you’re back to Headquarters Company?
I came back to headquarters and the way the 8th Engineers are is with the 1st Cav, we
didn‘t have a brigade, because a lot of times they‘ll have three battalions to a brigade and
the brigade goes in. We were the only engineering unit in the 1st Cav that was a
Battalion. 50:06 We had three maneuvering companies with the three brigades.
Company A went with the 1st Brigade, Company B went with the 2nd Brigade and
Company C went with the 3rd Brigade, and then we had headquarters and Headquarter s
Company was in support of the whole division. So, I ended up coming back and
basically they didn‘t know what to do with me and the only nice saving grace was when I
was going to college I was doing some computer programing. At that time we had eighty
column cards. Well, the only way you could get an eighty column card was by knowing
24
�how to type, so I had to take a typing class. Well, in 1968 and there‘s no women in the
unit and nobody knew how to type. Here I had all this training and everything, so I ended
up basically in personnel. Basically it was personnel in S3, supply, and I did a lot of
clerk typing. 51:06 Here again we were in general support of the division, so I kind of
went out when they had to have a specialty for whatever reason. Go out when they
needed something right away and that‘s why I like to say I ended up being like a janitor.
They had a job or something to clean-up that‘s what I usually ended up doing, depending
on what they had to do. I did little small jobs like that.
Interviewer: What kind of job assignments would that be?
Basically starting out in—well, most of my time was right after the Tet Offensive, we
were up at the DMZ up there, and actually in the summer of 1968 we had—a lot of
people don‘t realize it, but we had it fairly easy—once the Tet Offensive and Khe Sanh
was over, our main job was to watch the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 52:01 Like I say, after the
Tet Offensive people don‘t realize, we actually won the war, and in fact, the mentality at
that time was it was just a matter of cleaning this thing up because after the Tet Offensive
you never heard of the Viet Cong, we basically wiped them off the face of the earth.
Most of the big units ended up like small guerilla units, and it took them pretty many four
years to even mount another large attack like that again. So, our main job was just to
keep—well, we had long range recon patrol, rangers going out checking out the—along
the ocean port and everything. Once in a while we‘d get called—one time they called
and it was a suspected prison holding POW‘s in it. 53.02 We had to go and clean them
out, or on it, and they usually did their own demo work, but they didn‘t have enough
people, so I, it was like one of those last minute jobs, went out there and helped them. It
25
�was just a small village and we just cleaned that out and made sure everything was—got
all the intel they wanted out of it and I just kind of booby trapped it, like on a door, put a
shaped charge about head high and when flipped it would take a head off. I took a lot
of—one I liked doing was, because they always used fireplaces again, I took a C4 in a
chimney off to the side and run det cord and used a little fuse down below, and when they
started a fire that thing would go up there and blow the hooch up.
Interviewer: You’re basically going to places the enemy had used for bases and that
kind of thing, and they run away when you show up? 54:05
Yeah, yeah, and they had this incredible intelligence that American POW‘s were in there
and they said they needed some volunteers and I said, ―Well, I‘ll do that one‖.
Interviewer: Did they find any Americans?
No, as far as I know they didn‘t. By the time I was always there, I talked to the guys they
said they thought they took them out. This was right after the Tet Offensive and there
were a lot of POW‖s and they were figuring they were trying to work them out and back
up to-Interviewer: Move them out of the area. Let’s back up to the Tet Offensive itself.
The time that happened, where are you and what are you doing when that starts?
So, it’s early 1968, Khe Sanh is already going at that point.
Yeah, that‘s another thing; I never knew where Khe Sanh was. When we were in Camp
Evans the whole division was going to pick up and go up to the DMZ. About twelve
thousand guys, we just picked up and all headed up north. 55:00 We were going land,
sea and air, so I was with the Headquarters Company at the time and we took a convoy
down to Qui Nhon, which was about thirty five miles south of us. Went down there and
26
�got onto a LST, they loaded us onto one of those big LST‘s, took the LST up to Da Nang,
got off at Da Nang, took a convoy—we were going to go—the unit I was on, we were
going to go up to Camp Evans, that‘s thirty eight miles from the DMZ, it was an old
Marine base camp. Well, on the way up we had to go through Hue. We went through
Hue and we stopped just north of it and we were told by the battalion commander there
was another convoy coming up in a day or two and they needed some guys to help them
with conexes because they had to ship them or put them on trailers or use different-Interviewer: What is a conex? 56:03
Conex are basically big storage units, metal storage units just like they put on ships only
smaller.
Interviewer: Small metal containers.
Yes, metal containers, they call them conex. There was myself and I think there were
three equipment operators; we had a battalion barber, a couple clerks on that. So, they got
us on a Jeep and went back to the MACV compound and that was the night before the Tet
Offensive. We‘re lying around and, in fact, I was going on guard duty and that‘s
basically when the Tet Offensive started on that.
Interviewer: Now, the headquarters that you’re with, is that in the city of Hue?
No, that was—there‘s two parts of Hue, the older part where the citadel and everything
else was the old city and just south of the Perfume River is basically what they call the
new Hue. 57:10
Interviewer: Is that where you were?
That‘s where I was. The MACV compound is the Military Advisory Command and it
was almost like an Embassy. In Hue, and I found out later on that, was very lightly
27
�defended because they always said—the old Hue was centuries old, and from what I
understand there was a mutual agreement that Hue was going to try to keep that intact.
There was very little, I think there was only one unit, one unit, ARVN unit, that was
really in charge of the area. MACV compound was more of a—like an Embassy, it had a
wall around it and it had a couple of buildings for offices and dormitories. 58:06 Even
Australians used that for their play in there and the only saving grace was that they had
an armory in there. The used that for their base of operations when they were up in—I
never worked with them, but I know—when we were there we didn‘t even see any
Australian officers or unit, but that was their headquarters.
Interviewer: So, basically what happens at the point when the attack starts?
Well, I was going on guard duty and there was three captains for the Air Force, they flew
reconnaissance planes, and in the old city, the airport there, they had their base. They
were reconnaissance and they were stationed out of there and they stayed in the MACV
compound. Like I said, there were dormitories and mess halls and everything like that.
Interviewer: So, you’re on guard duty and what happens? 59:06
Basically hell breaks loose and everything. One of the captains, he knocks out one of the
VC that was coming in and you have to remember it was the MACV compound and we
had a set of officers, intelligence officers and that type of thing, a lot of clerks and myself
and a couple of heavy equipment operators and that was the only thing that ever saw any
combat. So, that night we got everybody all together, surrounded what we could. We got
into the armory, or the Australian armory in there, and got whatever weapons we could
and surrounded the whole thing and we basically held the thing for that night. 00:01
28
�Interviewer: What kind of physical defenses did you have? The compound had a
wall?
It was just a small wall; you could look over the top of it. It wasn‘t to hold anything; it
was more of a decorative wall than anything else.
Interviewer: Did you have barbed wire or anything around you? It was just a
wall?
It was just a wall and you‘re hanging and in order to sit on it, there were no guard posts,
we were just—you had to kneel down and put—and you didn‘t want to look over the wall
that much.
Interviewer: About how many people were attacking you initially?
At the time we didn‘t know. Actually, like we were talking about before, I knew war was
bad, but until afterwards, I didn‘t really know how bad it was. The people we had on it,
they had sapper units and everything around there.
Interviewer: So I guess basically you—what was the initial indication something
was happening?
Oh yeah, one of the gunnery sergeants went up to take a look around to see what was
going on and he got a bullet in the head. 1:11 It didn‘t take too long to figure things
were going—you have to remember, at that time we knew something might happen,
because even at Christmas we were in Bong Son, we were on guard duty, and they
doubled the guards because they knew something was—like they say credible
intelligence, something big was going to happen. In Bong Son, I remember, on
Christmas Eve I was sitting behind an M60 machine gun listening to—they had a chopper
up there with Christmas carols.
29
�Interviewer: So the sergeant gets shot, or whatever, and was that the first warning?
Pretty much, yeah—the first night we—actually the first wave came in and we pushed
them back and then there was kind of a lull. 2:10 Over in the old city you could hear, I
mean we could hear what was going on, that was—they weren‘t all just coming for us, it
was in the whole city and mainly in the old city, and you could hear all the civilians
yelling and screaming, all the gunfire and everything going on over there, but we didn‘t
know what was going on exactly at that time. The next morning I talked to one of the
gunnery sergeants, Marine gunnery sergeants, and he was kind of white and he was—I
think he knew more of what was going on because they had the communications at that
time, and I think they knew by eight or nine o‘clock that next morning, I think they had a
pretty good idea, but they weren‘t sending anything on that to us. 3:03 I was talking to
one gunnery sergeant and I said, ―Well, how bad is it? What‘s going on?‖ He said,
―Well, were going to have to defend the area and were going to have to go where the
buildings are down there‖, because that‘s where the snipers, or NVA and VC were going.
He said, ―To protect ourselves we‘re going to have to go and clear these areas out‖.
Interviewer: So, what kind of force did you have to go and do that with?
I told you, there were about two hundred of us and nobody had that kind of combat
experience and nobody had street fighting or urban experience on that, so we had to do it
by anyway we could. So, by that time I was an E3, I think I just got to E4, anyway, they
put one of the heavy equipment operators, and he was an E5, no E6. 4:02
―Sergeant
James you‘re an E6, you‘re in charge, I want to see you to go out and clear that building
out‖ and he goes ―I don‘t have—I‘m an equipment operator‖, and he was a black guy and
he just went white. I told the sergeant, ―Don‘t worry about it‖. When I was in OCS one
30
�of the things they gave us was a short—one of the things we had to go through was how
to take a fortified position, and the only thing I remember back then is they gave it to us
like in WWII. You never went through a door and you never went through a window.
Like if you‘re going to kick a door down or something and there is going to be a guy with
a machine gun on the back end of it. These were like two stories with big, flat windows
on it. Well, I went into the armory there and fortunately they had some Claymore mines
and some grenades, and they also had 12 gauge sawed off shotguns with military loads.
5:04 Sixteen‘s, I realized, weren‘t—because if a sniper or NVA come out and you were
there and I shoot him or they come between us, I could also hit you. That‘s why I said,
―Let‘s grab these 12 Gauge shotguns‖. I didn‘t know what a 12 gauge with military load
was. I shot shotguns before, but I didn‘t know how powerful these were until I started
using it. They started kicking down doors and everything. Marines took one side and we
took the other side of the street. I said, ―We‘re not going to start kicking down doors‖, so
what I did was we went up to the top, to the roof, and we took grenades and Claymores,
bored a hole in the roof and jumped down there, or made a hole and dropped the grenade
down there and then dropped down there and cleaned out the room there and took the
shotgun and blew a hole inside the walls to the other side and threw a grenade and kind of
worked our way down. 6:02 Actually, it worked out really well. It worked out really
well because they didn‘t know what we were going to do and it really surprised them
because. From what I understand later on, they were training to do this. The Vietcong,
months before, they had everything, all the equipment, all the stuff and they were
training, and waiting for us to come in. So, we ended up putting M60‘s on each side and
as we were jumping out the windows there, and that‘s how we cleaned them out. So,
31
�after the first day we came back and the Marines, they were all shot up and everything
and I never lost a guy. Then we came back from there and we got it cleaned out again.
Then the trouble is, then we came back in, we had to stand guard again, so everybody
was on the walls all night long.
Interviewer: Did they try to attack the compound?
No, not really, we got—the problem here again was with the snipers. Basically we
owned the area at daytime and at night we came out.
Interviewer: They weren’t bringing in a large unit trying to storm the place? 7:04
No, I didn‘t get the thing on there, I think what they were more interested in—I think, in
retrospect, they thought they could run us over the first night and they couldn‘t.
Interviewer: So, there was no plan B?
No plan B, and you have to remember, and what I always found about the NVA, they
were very, very regimented. They did this, they did that, even when they went to attack
an outpost, they practiced it, and practiced it, and practiced it, and this is the way—they
went into a form, or a V or whatever, and that‘s why I found out if you could break that
formation up, whatever they were doing, that‘s where you could get your edge from, and
I think that‘s what we did that night, or the next couple days, because it took, before we
were relieved, I think it was three or four days. Before a regular Marine unit came up and
relieved us, so we did this for about three days. 8:08
Interviewer: Basically you’re attacked at night, the next day you go out; you chase
them out of the building, you go after—but then after do you go out again to do the
same thing?
Yes, only this time we didn‘t have to blow the wall out.
32
�Interviewer: So, you’re trying to clear out the area?
We didn‘t have enough force to hold them, so we had to go back to MACV compound
and they said, to just hold them until we get some relief and reinforcements. Well,
everybody else from Da Nang all the way up—in my unit its self, I found out later, they
went up to Camp Evans, and at Camp Evans they were just out in a big field. They didn‘t
even have any wire out at the time the Tet Offensive started. The only fortunate thing for
them was that the NVA didn‘t realize what was happening at the time. 9:03 But, that‘s
what happened with Quang Tri and they were trying to get with Khe Sanh, and that was a
different scenario, but basically at the same time.
Interviewer: When you do get relieved, who shows up first?
The Marines and it‘s kind of funny because they always took credit for everything up
there anyway, so we might as well give them credit.
Interviewer: Once that’s over, do you get to go back to your battalion?
No, we fought our way out of there because you have to remember that lasted about three
weeks. About three or four days into it, we‘re still doing this, even with the Marines in
there. We were just kind of backing them up a little bit, and they said, ―You take this
area‖, and that. 10:01 Sergeant James and I, one time we were—we got in this one
building, went through the roof and everything on that and after a while they were, the
NVA, were kind of getting an idea of what we were doing by coming through the roof
and everything on that, and especially the hard part, we could always clear the top, but
the second floor, we were throwing grenades down the steps and you could hear the metal
grenade going down, so the grenade would go off and they would wait and then they
would jump out. We were playing these cat and mouse games and everything, and this
33
�one house, it was a two story house and we went down through it, we were cleaning out,
got two of the guys, two VC, and we found them in a closet and that‘s what I liked about
the shot guns and everything—we cleaned out the closet pretty good with all the clothes
and everything in it. 11:02 Some were down stairs and I said, ―Well, you don‘t want to
throw a grenade down there, you can tell if someone is walking down a stairway‖. If you
throw a grenade down you could hear the grenade coming down, so we got one of these
dead ―gooks‖, and I said, ―I‘ll just throw him down there and we‘ll follow him down‖.
Since I had a grenade—this was one of the biggest mistakes I made, I made a lot of
mistakes in my life and this is probably one of the biggest ones, so I opened up the
bottom of his pajamas and put the grenade in there and threw him down the steps. We
cleaned it up, and we were—we found out too, things about a twelve gauge shotgun,
they‘re hard to load with four or five rounds. You have to do it individually instead of
putting a clip in there. So, by the time we got down to the bottom we were out of
ammunition and we had to do hand to hand fighting. 12:01 Sergeant James was
probably a little bigger than I was, and he would pick them up and he would slam them
down and what I would do was I kicked their bottom jaw up into their sinuses and took
my heel and pushed the nose back into it. We were covered with blood and body fluids
and everything and the guys on the outside just couldn‘t believe what was going on. We
heard about it later and we said, ―Why didn‘t you guys come in and help us?‖ They said,
―We never knew where you were, you were fighting up on top and all of a sudden you‘re
down stairs‖. We heard the grenades going off‖, and we just sat around and all we could
do was just start laughing. There was no way to get cleaned up either; we had to go back
to the MACV compound even to take showers and everything. We looked at each other
34
�and I said, ―We have to get ourselves out of here‖. There was, at that time, only one way
out and it was through the Perfume River. They had these LCU‘s; they‘re a little landing
craft. 13:03 They are a little bit bigger than the landing craft they used in Vietnam for
landing on it, but they were smaller than the big LST‘s with the brink on them and they
had two 20mm cannons on each side and for the longest time that was the only way out
because you couldn‘t—that was another thing we did while we were at the MACV
compound just south of—like I said the 8th Engineers opened up landing zones and
everything. We couldn‘t get the wounded out and like I said they controlled the area.
We did it in the daytime, but at night we had to go back in there and we were just out by
this Perfume River, just south of there and we opened up a little landing zone. You
couldn‘t bring in—they had anti-aircraft all the way around it, so they couldn‘t bring in
Chinooks and it was just enough to bring in a Huey. 14:05 So, they could bring some
supplies in, and that‘s how we got most of the wounded out at the time. So, the LCU‘s
would be coming in and they had a ramp on there and that‘s how we would get supplies
in and out and basically we‘d literally have to fire our way. We got ourselves into, our
whole unit into a LCU that was going out and we had two boats that were going out and
on each side with weapons, M16‘s or M60‘s or everything on that and literally went out
and ended up on the Perfume River and docked up at Dong Ha by the DMZ, there was a
port up there and that was north of Quang Tri and then we had to come down to Q-01 and
that‘s how I got back into Camp Evans.
Interviewer: In order to do that, basically, did you have to get permission from the
MACV commanders or something like that or did you just decide you were going to
go? 15:09
35
�We just looked at each other and said, ―We‘re getting ourselves out of here‖.
Interviewer: So, you just walked right out?
No, once we got to the landing zone and everything, we just said, ―We got to get on‖.
Interviewer: So, you had done whatever job an engineer could do at that point?
Pretty much, yeah, we didn‘t get permission, they knew we were going. Well, like I said,
we had three Air Force Captains, they were with us and they had their reconnaissance
plane. Well, they knew they couldn‘t get to their thing and they had to get back to their
flight, so they had to get out, they were trying to get up to Da Nang, back to Da Nang, so
we were basically the only way out. By that time more Marines were coming in, so they
really didn‘t need us as a unit. In fact, I don‘t think the wanted us being in a unit anyway.
like I said the first three or four days—until they got relief in columns up in there. 16:08
That‘s when we really started finding out that things were really bad. More at night
because when we were sitting there you could hear all the fighting that was going on and
later we found out that they were actually executing all the counter revolutionaries. I
found out later they were finding graves and we could hear all that going on, but we
didn‘t know exactly what was going on. You can sit behind that wall and know what was
going on, but you couldn‘t do anything about it.
Interviewer: Did the Marines who came into the compound... did they tell you what
they saw on the way in?
Yeah, we had one that came in from more to the south and different villages and he said
it was just bizarre. He said there were so many severed heads when they came down
through this one village; they had kids in there ten and twelve years old kicking them
around like they were soccer balls. 17:09 People around here worry about a little thing,
36
�but can you imagine kids ten or twelve years old doing that? And they were— whole
families, decent families and everything and they were just taking those small villages
and just wiping them right out.
Interviewer: One of the things one loses track of sometimes is that the communists
were not very nice people and they had very, very harsh policies.
No they weren‘t and that‘s why I always say if you ever saw that movie ―We were
Soldiers‖, that first scene, not only was that the enemy we were facing at the time,
because anybody that was coming into that valley wasn‘t coming out alive, and we‘re
finding out that was the same thing with us with the MACV compound, because we had a
sapper battalion, a couple of sapper battalions out there and nobody was going to come
out alive.
Interviewer: They weren’t kidding. Now, finally you make it back to your unit, and
did you get any particular kind of reception or was it just, “ok, you’re back now”?
18:14
It was kind of interesting. When we went back the third brigade was going back to
relieve. They were on the west side of Hue at the time, so the other guys that were with
me and everything, they went back to their own unit, they‘re heavy equipment operators
and supply clerks. We went to Technical Operations because we were being debriefed in
there, so their idea was, well, you know what Hue is like and everything on that, so I end
up with a 5th and 7th Cav I was supposed to talk to. They had an intelligence guy there
and everything, so I went back to Hue, they were west of there and we were—they
thought I knew everything about Hue and everything and I didn‘t know anything. 19:15
I didn‘t know anything, show me a map and I know maybe a couple of blocks on that,
37
�and they thought I was more expert at it than what they were, so I went in on kind of an
advisory type of thing. They were trying to find out a different—a place to figure out a
place to put a landing zone, and more fire bases in there, and I was there—I worked
around with them a couple days and everything and we ended up on one of the gates on
the northwest side and that was kind of another interesting thing. We were bringing in
artillery because at that time it was towards the end, this was the late—I would say the
20th or so of February. 20:10 We couldn‘t get any artillery support and one of the guys,
somehow, got ahold of some naval artillery, a coordinator, and at that time the NVA were
chaining all their people to their posts. There was—they had these small alleyways like I
said, there were these two big tall buildings, two story buildings, and we called in for one
round for spotting at the time—when you call it in the last thing you hear is ―shot out‖
and that means the shot is on the way. So, we‘re sitting there waiting, and waiting, for
twenty seconds, ―Are you sure he said shot out?‖ We heard a thump, thump, thump
thump, and here it comes, and we said, ―What is that? I never heard anything like that‖,
well it came around the roof of one building and we heard a crunch, crunch, crack, and it
came out and landed between the alleyways. 21:18 By the time the explosion both
buildings were just flattened. I said, ―Boy this is good‖, and we were cleaning out,
basically, this block there and we had this Marine Major come up and he was talking—
we saw him come up and talk to the battalion commander and all of a sudden he‘s
yelling, ―Stop, put a hold on it‖, and I said, ―What do you mean, you don‘t want it?‖ The
Lieutenant I was working with at the time there, we were trying to coordinate this all
together, and this Marine Major said we have to stop everything we were doing in there.
This was the way, it was the agency of Indochina at the time and we were destroying it
38
�and we can‘t do that anymore. 22:08 I said, ―What do you mean?‖ They were
chaining—on that, so they had to get them all together and I basically had to show them,
―This is what we did‖. Like I said, nobody knew how to do any street fighting at the
time.
Interviewer: Basically, the idea was, they were under orders not to destroy the
buildings?
They didn‘t care what we did with them, because by that time we were in the ancient city,
the old city, and we were getting near the citadel and everything and they wanted to keep
that in tact as much as possible. This was, like I said, around the 20th of February and
they were still trying to save the city, and by that time it was just a disaster. And that‘s
what I was kind of getting—I‘ve been kind of researching it for this interview and like I
said, the only way we were getting any supplies in safely was from these LCU‘s going up
and down the Perfume River. 23:08 You couldn‘t use the airstrip. There were all kinds
of anti-aircraft around it, and they mined the roads every night, Highway 1 with mines
and everything. So, when Walter Cronkite was supposed to make his famous thing, you
know, the thing in Hue, and I‘ve been trying to get it on the internet, U-Tube, and I can‘t
find it. I only saw it one time and, of course being in Hue, I was always looking in the
back of the picture on there, and I thought, ―I wonder where he was in Hue, if he was in
the old part or the new part?‖ I could never recognize it and like I said, the only way to
go in was in these LCU‘s, the only safe way in. I was always thinking, ―There‘s no way
they‘re going to let Walter Cronkite go up and down that Perfume River in an LCU. I
don‘t think he ever was in Hue at that time. 24:06
39
�Interviewer: I guess he was—I heard of him being in Saigon, but not necessarily in
Hue.
I think he was in Hue, but in what they call ―Hue Phu Bao‖, because they always said he
was in Hue, but if you really look at it—and there was really no safe way in for a civilian
to get in there. I gave you that PowerPoint presentation. I found on U-Tube—there was
a British film crew that was the only way, I found out, that was the only way they could
get in there. It was showing them shooting twin twenties, and everything, on there, and I
said, ―There‘s no way he could get in there at that time‖, and it‘s really bizarre. 25:10
Interviewer: You really kind of got in the middle of everything there.
It got even worse than that after--when we finished and switched to the 7th we finally got
a convoy and convoyed up to Camp Evans and that‘s when the A Shau Valley started,
they wanted to clean that out. Well, since I did all this other thing, they wanted me to be
the first one in. Well, let‘s call Signal Hill to go in—they said April 1st was the perfect
time to get into the A Shau Valley and everything. You have to get with the 13th Signal
Battalion and they set up—they wanted to set up communications and everything. Well,
by time we were coming in there the fog was coming in too, and it was the middle of the
monsoon season. It was towards the end, but it was still the monsoon season, so I got
caught in that too a little bit. 26:04 Then we finally got into the floor of the valley, and
there was just a bombed out airstrip and everything. We found two Russian bulldozers
and we worked on them. We cannibalized one and got the other one going, and there
were a couple trucks in there, I think they were Russian trucks, and we got those and we
were able to use that. We were just starting to get the airstrip up and they brought in
replacements, a fresher group for the group that was in there, a platoon in there. They
40
�took us back out and I was back in Nha Toc again and at this time Khe Sanh was still
pretty much going on and that‘s when-- I think it was operation Pegasus that was starting
up. They wanted me to go to this place called LZ Peanuts, and just south and west of
Khe Sanh. 27:09 I had never even heard of Khe Sanh at this time or anything, and this
was a Marine artillery base. They had credible intelligence that the thing was going to be
overrun and they were almost overrun a couple of other times. Apparently there was a
Special Forces unit or a village around the area that was overrun prior to that.
Interviewer: There was one outside of Khe Sanh that did fall, yes.
LZ Peanuts was just west of there and they needed some help there. At that time it was a
Marine thing and eventually, I think the Cav took it over while another unit took it over
anyway. So, we got in there and I went to the gunnery sergeant, and this thing sits on
kind of a hill and I said, ―This is a piss poor place to put a thing. Usually we like it flat so
you can set your fields of fire and that type of thing‖. 28:10 He said, ―Well, we're a fire
support base for Khe Sanh‖, and I said, ―What the hell is Khe Sanh?‖ I never knew, even
with all this going on you don‘t know all that‘s going on—I was in my little-Interviewer: You had been a little bit busy.
With all that going on I didn‘t know Khe Sanh was going on, so when he said, ―We‘re
fire support‖, it didn‘t mean that much to me anyway. So, we had to re-do what we
called the ―green zone‖, security for the base, and Marines always like—they use these
―bouncing betty‘s‖ where they go up and I always like to use Claymore mines. They
strung their barbed wire, or whatever you want to call it, with everything in straight lines.
Well, I never liked to that because I always said these guys like to go and break up a
formation. 29:05 They either come in a V or on. There were three, four sapper
41
�battalions out there, and the makeup of a sapper battalion is basically, I think they call
them cells, I call them waves. The first one is the penetrator, and sapper is basically just
a suicide mission, a Kamikaze type of operation, and all they are is, they just dressed up
in—they put black soot over them because they‘re coming at night, and they have on
little boxer shorts and little helmets on and the first wave was what they call the
penetrator and they came in with Bangalore Torpedoes to blow the wire and everything
up and the next couple waves were the attack waves and they usually carry a side arm
with them, usually an AK47 or a RPG round, and they had probably eight pounds of
satchel charges, one on each side, and we were trying to stop them and the fourth wave,
fortunately we never got to it, it was the back and they came in with the heavy machine
guns and the mortars and everything to take over the base camp or whatever they are
going to take over. 30:19 Usually when they come in they come in either a V shape or
head on depending on how they do it, and also, they practice these things until they get it
down perfect. My idea was to break it up a little bit, so what I did, instead of making the
barbed wire fences in a straight line, I funnel them in. Then I put my Claymore mines
basically like an ambush, either in an L shape or you put it on one side and you put two
or three of them right in front, so basically you stop them in front and you blow the sides
on them, and get them on the side. 31:07 What we did is we set those up and we
camouflaged them with old sandbags that had the color and everything on it and we
would break those up and put them on the sides, put them on a rock with these sandbags,
so when they came in we funneled them all in, so basically they were up in a straight line.
Well, they came in a straight line and we fired the ambush off, and what we would do
was I‘d shoot the first one off in the front and that would stand them up on it, and you
42
�have to remember that C4 blasted 25,000 feet per second, that‘s five miles in one second,
and you got these Claymores that have centers with ball bearings that big, so you‘re
getting somebody that‘s—if you ever seen somebody after a Claymore goes off, when we
go to clean them up, all that‘s usually is just the front shell because the round is going in
that big and it‘s coming out this big. 32:08 You can flip them over and the whole back
side is just gone, so the idea was to—we‘d put a delay on one, about a tenth of a second,
and that would stand them up and the other one would just blow them out, so you got
those body fluids and everything going up. We made our own fougas, Napalm, and I put
them in fifty-five gallon drums, and we mixed jet fuel with stuff like Knox gelatin, and
blow that off at the same time, so that would set them up on that and then we would have
the foo gas come over on top of them, and I got that on that PowerPoint presentation.
You can see where the areas were all burned off. Basically you didn‘t have to clean up
afterwards. Can you imagine all that body fluid and everything? 33:06 That was why, I
like to say, when Robert Duvall said he like the smell of Napalm in the morning, well we
liked the smell of burning bodies at night because then that meant we could go to sleep at
night.
Interviewer: How long did you stay out there at this LZ Peanuts place?
Not very long
Interviewer: Long enough to do the job?
Yeah, that was basically that‘s what we did and then went back home. I forgot that our
artillery unit would come in and take over.
Interviewer: After that were you kind of—you get to the phase where things have
quieted down a little? You were saying that eventually they did.
43
�Yeah, the summer of, I would say from about May on, was actually pretty easy because
our main, like I said, from then on was to stop the traffic coming down the Ho Chi Minh
Trail. 34:05 Which was, like I say, after the Tet Offensive there everybody thought the
war was pretty much over with. You never heard of a Viet Cong unit or anything
because we basically wiped them off the face of the earth. Any other big NVA units
were basically, what was left, was nothing more than a guerilla unit. There were still a
lot of—they were trying to re-supply coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I went out,
basically, like I said, I was like a janitor and anything they had to clean up, I would go do
and everything. I had my own demo team and we would go up and do basically whatever
we had to do. We would re-work a landing zone if they wanted to make it bigger or
whatever, and even around camp its self because Camp Evens, even at the time, was
relatively small, then it was division headquarters and it was basically getting bigger and
bigger. 35:06 Our areas, the airfield had to be re-worked, the perimeters had to be
expanded, and we did a lot of that work and a lot of landing zone work. We‘d usually go
out for an operation and that was what was nice about the 1st Cav because you would
have a landing zone going up, but the guys would usually have three or four fire bases
that were supporting them, so we were building up all these things. A lot of times we‘d
go in there and it would only last two or three days, you clean it all up and you go
someplace else, a landing zone or anything, bring in four tubes of artillery or mortars,
they‘re there a week or two and close it up. Actually we were quite successful, I was
talking to one of our intelligence, S2, there and this is probably towards the end of—
probably August or September there and they said the operation was going. 36:09 They
were figuring for every thousand troops that were coming down the Ho chi Minh Trail,
44
�especially in the I Corps area, they were figuring eight hundred were dead within thirty
days. The other two hundred or so wished they were, so it was really quite successful.
Like I said, it took them three or four years just to come back, and anything to bring a big
enough force down, I don‘t know what kind of forces they were bringing down. I don‘t
know if they were more of a VC unit or if they were—they were NVA units, but I don‘t
know what kind of units they were.
Interviewer: Well, they were rebuilding in different parts of the country, so they
would operate in various areas and it was difficult for people, but they were not
launching the large scale operations. 37:07
No, we didn‘t have anything like the Tet Offensive or anything like that. Everything was
really, really small time.
Interviewer: During the time you were over there, did you ever have any leave time
or R&R?
Yes, to Bangkok, once on that.
Interviewer: How did they organize that or work that?
For us that was basically we were allocated—that‘s why I got kind of involved with that,
because I worked with S1 because I knew how to type, so I ended up more-- when I
wasn‘t working out in the field I came back to the area and I helped them type up orders
and did that. One of the things we did was R&R type of things and making rosters.
Basically we got an allocation every month for places Kuala Lampur, Singapore,
Australia, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and I forget.
Interviewer: Hawaii 38:00
45
�Yeah, Hawaii, for Hawaii it was usually for anybody that was married that went back to
Hawaii. Nobody that was single went to Hawaii; it was anybody that was married went
back to Hawaii.
Interviewer: Their wives could come out to Hawaii.
Yeah, they would fly them in and everything else. All the singles, which was probably
about ninety percent, all went elsewhere. I went to Bangkok, and you had one in country
R&R for about three or four days. That ended up, by the time you took the R&R and
travel time it added up to ten days to two weeks. You needed to play it to get two weeks
out of it. What would happen is, you get an allocation every month and it went basically
by seniority, not so much by rank, but by seniority on that. You signed up and you‘re
basically kept on that list.
Interviewer: So, what did it feel like to get out of Vietnam for a few days?
Oh, that was bizarre, especially in Bangkok that was just—we‘d go out. 39:08 The first
thing we did, in fact, I went with Sergeant James, he was the guy I was with in Hue and
he wanted to go together. You have to remember that this was in 1968 and he‘s black. A
white and a black guy were buddy, buddies, going—we didn‘t room together, we each
had a room. We went to the movies, we went to different places, different tourist things
around and we did all that together. We went out to dinner a couple of times to these
fancy restaurants and that was really bizarre. What I got a kick out of, they have these
food vendors going around and all we had were C rations and Spam. We had Spam every
which way you could think of, breaded, boiled, and barbecued, you name it. 40:04 And
we‘re going around eating off all these things and the guys that are with us were saying,
―That might be monkey meat or something‖, but we didn‘t care, it was beef or something
46
�on that. What I liked was the fresh fruit. We went around and got pineapple, and their
regular sugar was real coarse, but it had a little bit of cinnamon and you dipped that in
there and oh, it was vine ripened and we thought we were in seventh heaven. Then you,
we went to the movies and they had beer, cold beer, even at these theaters. They had
regular theaters and American movies there at the time and you could buy the Thai beer
and they sold it by the quart, ice cold and I forgot, but it was really high proof, it was like
12, 13, or 14 percent. Like I said, when we first went in there, in our hotel, we hired
ourselves a—for a couple bucks a day or like ten or twenty bucks a day you can get a cab
driver 41:10 We had our own cab driver take us all over the place.
Interviewer: And then you have to go back.
Actually that was pretty—because when I went on R&R it was towards the end of May
and that was when everything was just kind of going down and I stayed primarily, at that
time, in the summertime, with S1. I did a lot of oddball things on that and in fact, one of
the things was kind interesting, and we never go to use it, was—because I had a secret
security clearance. I was working in S1 and S2, well the Tactical Operation Center; the
division was making contingency plans for invading the north at Hanoi. 42:06 The
object of all that, I think, was the Cav, the 1st Marine Division, and I think the backup
was going to be the 101st Airborne Division, but the idea was, they wanted 100% air
superiority. That means we had to knock out every SAM missile site between the DMZ
and Hanoi. So, we were getting pictures of their—how they set up these SAM missile
sites. That was one of the things they did was they sent in a –they wanted to—there‘s a
rail system that they had, they had a radar system that they had set up, they had a place
for their barracks and they had their mess halls and everything. 43:11 They had it all
47
�pretty well set up, but the idea was for the SAM missile site, they had them on rail
systems, so they slid up to the launchers on there. Well, they wanted to know how to
destroy them. Well, you can‘t go in and bomb them because then you need bomb
assistance going on. Our idea is if we went in there, one demolition team had to knock
out two SAM missile sites the first day. So, they wanted to get an idea how these things
were developed, or how they‘re made and everything, because the idea is, you wanted to
blow the welded seams. If you blow anything that‘s bolted together, these guys take a
little file and they hand make their own, and try to put the thing back together again.
44:06 I got a Ranger unit and another, I can‘t remember, they had all different special—
their assignments basically is what they amounted to. So, they found one of the closer
SAM missile sites and they went in there and destroyed that thing, and took a bunch of
pictures. We came back in there and we made mock ups.
Interviewer: So, they went into North Vietnamese territory to go and attack them?
That‘s one of the things that are never supposed to happen. They weren‘t supposed to go
over the DMZ. The only way really to find out is to actually destroy one, so they had to
go in and they took the pictures and we ended up building a mock up and everything to
figure out how to do it. 45:06 We were basically—and that‘s why we thought, ―If
they‘re going to do that, this could be the end of the war‖. By the time you knock out
Haiphong Harbor you got in Hanoi and everything on it. The idea was we were supposed
to knock out all the SAM missile sites that gave you 100% air superiority and the 1st
ARVN division can just walk in and basically take it over. Well, that never really came
to—it was the end of October in 1968, that‘s when Johnson stopped bombing the north
and I think that—see, this is what happened with Walter Cronkite, all this—we didn‘t
48
�know all this stuff was going back in there and that was the presidential elections and the
whole nine yards. I don‘t think we even knew that Johnson wasn‘t going to run again
because we didn‘t get that much information back, even from the states at the time.
46:09 We were all ready—the war‘s going to end, we‘ll go take the north and by
Christmas time we could all be going home type of thing. All of a sudden Johnson
decided to stop the bombing and then we got orders that we were heading south. They
took the whole division, the whole 1st Air Cav, and headed south down to Phouc Vinh,
south of, or down by Saigon, we were going to be a buffer between Saigon and
Cambodia.
Interviewer: Not too long after that you’re tour is up?
That was November then.
Interviewer: Did you do much when you got down south?
No, because I went out about the 15th of November, I think, and the 20th or so of October
we were all getting ready to head back. 47:09 It took us a couple days and then the
101st came in and took our area over, the 1st Cav was down by Phouc Vinh. I was down
there—that was really strange too because when we were up at Camp Evans we were in
the middle of nowhere. If you looked, I have some pictures of Camp Evans, you don‘t
see any guard towers and that was a pretty good size camp at the time. We go down to
Phouc Vinh and there‘s roads around the place, fences, guard towers and for whatever
reason, they had a mine field going between Phouc Vinh and there and I‘m thinking,
―Why would you cut yourself off?‖ That was one of the first things when the Cav went
in it; they took out that mine field. 48:04 Here I‘m watching all these people running
around. We never had, like most units, I realized this afterwards, most units had a lot of
49
�civilians, and we never did out in the middle of nowhere, even when we were in Bong
Son we never had civilian help. We‘d bring them in to help with the roads and some of
those things, but we‘d pack them up we basically shipped them all out. We never—when
we were in An Khe, that was more of a fortified position, they were using some, but
when we were out in the field we never had civilian—well basically, in my demo teams,
we never, that‘s what I learned in Hue, you never took prisoners. Standing orders were
that if you took a prisoner, you took care of it. 49:05 If it escaped, you had to go after
it. They know who you are, what you are doing, and how many there are, and like I said,
with what kind of weapons or not, if we had that kind of information with a VA unit at
least you know something to do with it —we never took any prisoners and number two,
we has nobody to take care of them either, especially during the Tet Offensive. You were
outnumbered and you have to figure that if you‘re outnumbered eight to one, you have to
remember to waste the first four or five people because you got more people coming right
behind them.
Interviewer: Now, were you ever in a setting where you had a civilian population
around you?
That was the first time basically—well, when in An Khe, and when we were in An Khe,
that was always considered a rear area, and when I was in English we had that. That was
still the first time. 50:02 That was kind of, for us, we were kind of on-- the 8th
Engineers was on the outside of the perimeter and we had some of the civilians do our
laundry. We had the big concertina wire, we had our bags and everything and we‘d wrap
it up and throw it over the thing, and they‘d come back the next day with it and we‘d put
the money in a stone and throw it over and they would throw the laundry back over to us.
50
�There were no laundry facilities or anything on that, we just wore the stuff until it rotted
off and went to the supply and got new clothes on.
Interviewer: At what point do you get the orders telling you to go home?
I was in Phouc Vinh and they call—I was working in S1, so I didn‘t have any problem
there. In fact, I cut my own orders to go back.
Interviewer: Once you got back to the states, did you get discharged right away or
did you go to a base or what happened? 51:02
I went back to Fort Lewis, I went back to—I went to Cam Rhan Bay and then flew to
Fort Lewis. This was in November of 1968 and it was seven or eight o‘clock at night and
they told us, well, we could wait until the next morning, they work twenty-four hours a
day, or you guys can start processing our right away. Hey, we had been sleeping for
twenty-four hours; we‘re ready to go, so I was out pretty much the next day. We didn‘t
have—like I said, by the time we went through processing and got out checks, through
finance and everything, we pretty much got our orders to go.. In fact, they made a whole
set of class A uniforms in less than twenty-four hours and everything. We were in our
class A‘s, had our orders, and took us by bus right to the airport. 52.05
Interviewer: All right, we’ve gotten to the point where you get sent back to the
states. Before we go further with that, are there other particular things about the
time you spent in Vietnam, any experiences that you haven’t brought into the story
yet?
Oh well, there was—one of the things we had to do that I thought was—I got a call one
time on pacification, they were taking villages and trying to relocate them. This is more
when I was down in English in the Bong Son area, and it was one of the last things we
51
�were doing before we moved. I got a call from headquarters there, got a call from a
bunch of MP‘s. 53:07 They were taking down a village, or basically relocating them
and what they do is they take them in helicopters and drop them off to a point and we had
to, because there were VC in there, we had to separate out VC, and basically not bringing
in any weapons or anything and then they move them to another place like that. Well,
they were bringing in—they had a squad of eight to ten MP‘s., well, they thought it was
just a small village, just a little bigger than what they had, well; they were overwhelmed
with all these people. Of course, they‘re extremely hostile and you have to search each
individual person and basically pat them down. You think it‘s bad getting on an airplane
today and getting strip searched, just trying to get on an airplane with x-ray, we had
physically search them, men, women, children, everybody. 54:02 So, they called us up
and said they needed some help on it. There was nobody else around and so they took
me and a bunch of other guys and what we did was we took some concertina wire, we put
them in the concertina, the rolled wire, just to hold them and we took Claymore mines,
because they were having problems, they were trying to rush them and they didn‘t want
to shoot them, they were civilians, but they didn‘t know is a civilian and who isn‘t. That
was the problem in Vietnam, you didn‘t know who was who until they kind of search
them out a little bit. That‘s what I found out with MP‘s, they profile really well, they
knew how—they were trained at what to look for and who the VC was.
Interviewer: Did they have any Vietnamese military assisting them?
No
Interviewer: They were just doing this on their own?
52
�At this time we were just on our own. They tried to get some and they had an interpreter,
but usually it was our own interpreters that were in there. 55:02 Basically they didn‘t
trust them, even the ones from intelligence, they wouldn‘t trust those guys, so we had our
own, and each battalion had their own interpreters. They had our own interpreters; they
had medics, because some people were having health issues and that type of thing. There
were so many people and you‘re trying to have them stay back because you didn‘t want
to get overwhelmed, so we brought in the concertina wire and just made a circle. They
had, we call them pens, but sections, they roll it up and they had gates in it, and it was
just a temporary one just to hold them because they had to check them all, they gave them
clothes, food and everything and then they segregate them in whatever way they wanted.
These were the VC, or maybe possible, and that type of thing, these are the ones that are
going to be shipped out. 56:07 They brought the Chinooks in and took these people.
The ARVN pretty much controlled that, but we were bringing them in and we wanted to
do that pretty much ourselves on that, so what we did was just put a big circle and put
them in there and we put Claymore mines, because they knew what Claymore mines
were , we put them around. We brought them in through a gate and one or two of the
MP‘s would strip down to their—because they would grab onto anything they could on
you, if you had a weapon or anything to grab. So, we‘d get the bigger MP‘s and strip
them down to the waist and they would go around and check them and you‘d be surprised
what we found and where we found it. I asked them, ―How do you know what‘s VC and
what‘s not, and basically that‘s where you‘ve got to do a little bit of profiling. You just
watch them and look in their eyes. 57:07
You tell them you would like to talk to them
and we have an interpreter over here, and that‘s when the MP‘s would kind of do an
53
�initial interrogation. A lot times, when I was there it was kind of interesting—a guy came
up, pointed at another guy and said, ―VC, VC‖. The MP said, ―You have to kind of
watch it because these groups, they‘re neighbors, but a lot of times they‘re a family in the
group and they don‘t like each other and just because one guy says he‘s a VC, you don‘t
yank them out or anything unless someone else says they‘re VC, and then they
interrogate them. There were quite a few VC in there. There was one time—they put
them in the pens and everything, and we had the MP‘s and everything, and there was a
big commotion going off in one area on that. 58:08 He goes over there and he said—
they had sanitary packs with a lot of toiletries, soaps, tooth brushes and that type of thing,
and he said, ―Go over to the sanitary pack and get a bunch of these Kotexes‖, and he
throws them in. I said, ―What‘s going on?‖ He said, ―They tell me one of these gals was
bleeding over there‖, well, she was having a---- and I said, ―Do they actually know how
to use those things?‖ He said, ―Are you going to go in there and show them?‖ I said,
―That‘s not my‖, and he said, ―Don‘t worry they know how to use them‖. So, you end up
with interesting things like that.
Interviewer: But that’s sort of a strange kind of contact to have with the civilian
population. 59:00
But actually when I was in the Central Highlands and that, I think that‘s where I‘m a little
bit different. My experience is more out in the field. When we were up in the I Corps
area we were out by ourselves.
Interviewer: Right, there were not a whole lot of civilians out there anyway.
When we went out in an area it was a free fire zone, basically anything that was moving
because we were watching everything coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Ho chi
54
�Minh Trail, basically, ninety-nine percent was a free fire. That‘s why I was kind of glad I
could do it that way rather than be back. I was glad I went with the 1st Cav rather than
staying down south around Saigon. I can see where you could run into a lot more
complicated problems, yeah.
Interviewer: You get back to the states, it’s the end of 1968, you get to go home, and
you mentioned that you started back up in school pretty quickly.
Yeah, I was drafted in my junior year. 00:08 I came back in November of 1968 and
Ferris had tri-semesters, so I was up there in the winter. I went back right away on there
and I was back in January of 1969.
Interviewer: You had mentioned earlier kind of, it was your—back at the beginning
of your story you were talking about the race riots.
Yeah, that‘s when they had the race riots up in Big Rapids, up on campus—I was taking a
night class up at the Starr Education Building and I was in there with another Marine.
Here I was, I was a junior or a senior, and I was—because transferring from junior
college, going to Ferris, I didn‘t have a lot of freshman classes, so in order to graduate I
had to take these freshman classes, and here I was twenty-one or twenty-two, and I‘m a
Vietnam vet sitting in a class with forty or fifty freshman. 1:08 there was myself and
another Marine vet there.
Interviewer: Then what happened?
Well, this was when we were taking a humanities class and it was from 6 to 8 o‘clock on
Tuesday and Thursday night and this must have been Tuesday they had all these race
riots. These guys came into the Starr Educational building and they were locking up all
the doors and everything around eight o‘clock because the class was just leaving. This
55
�other guy and I were talking to the professor when we were leaving and a couple colored
guys were—they said, ―You‘re locked in for the night‖, and we looked at each other and
said, ―No way‖, and we kind of pushed our way through, grabbed one guy myself, on one
shoulder and he on the other shoulder, dragged them all the way down the stairway, we
kicked the door open, and these young—―open up the doors‖, so they opened up the
doors and kind of let us go out. 2:10 We went to the commons down there where you
meet up with other guys there and the next thing you knew they had state police there, the
Sheriff and everything. About an hour or so later there was a school bus, chanting and
everything and bouncing back and forth.
Interviewer: What was it like to come back to the U.S. in 1968?
It was different.
Interviewer: How did you—what kind of a reception did you get when you got
back?
It wasn‘t too bad coming back to West Michigan. We got a lot of—I don‘t want to
criticize, but there was a lot of debate and that kind of thing, but at Ferris at that time, we
had the vets club and there were about two hundred people and that was probably one of
the biggest organizations on campus at that time. 3:04
Interviewer: So that wasn’t a place where there was a lot of hostility?
No, even if there was we didn‘t care. Like I was saying before, for me, that was a lot of
therapeutic—we were, not bonding, but working with other vets and everybody was
saying PTSD and nobody knew what that was at the time. Everybody was saying, ―At
night I get these weird dreams‖, and they kind of explain the weird dream and another
guy said, ―If you think that‘s bad, you ought to see what my weird dream is‖, and another
56
�guy said, ―That‘s nothing, I had a worse one than that one‖, and after a while everybody‘s
telling about having weird dreams‖, so we‘re kind of doing our own therapy together.
That really worked out well and that was the best thing we did.
Interviewer: Now, once that you’re back are you paying much attention to the news
and things like that. The way the war was being covered? 4:01
Oh, yeah, that‘s what I said before, after the Tet Offensive we thought the thing was over.
That‘s one reason, I think, that a lot of guys voted for Nixon at the time, because we did
absentee ballots and everything. At the time, I think the mass majority, other than regular
army guy—regular army guys, officers and everything, were all voting for Humphrey,
and all of the others were voting for Nixon. We were thinking, ―He‘s going to end the
war and everything and we‘re going to be marching out of here‖. Well, he just extended
it and probably made it worse than anything else.
Interviewer: Well, the politics behind it were, both before and after that, were just
enormously complicated.
Oh yeah, and it was nothing relative to what we were doing at the time. We‘re coming
back here and it was on the television, you could see everything and it was nothing, just
propaganda.
Interviewer: Or the way journalists will do things, you get an isolated snapshot of
something and then they make up the rest of story.
Yeah, well, the thing that got me, and I think about it more now, was Walter Cronkite.
5:10 Like we were talking before. Well, he‘s going in—well it was a stalemate—there
was no stalemate. Well, I realized it was political, there was really two reasons for war,
either economic or political and this was strictly political. There‘s no oil, or no fighting
57
�for oil like we are now. This was strictly a political was, so how can you win a political
war?
Interviewer: Yeah, and that ultimately was the larger problem.
Now, another little story or quip, was when I was up north I had a chance to take a—there
was a two star General and he was in charge of the I Corps out of the engineers and they
wanted me to take him back, when we were up at Camp Evans, to go back to Saigon. We
had a few minutes, so I was sitting in with him in a Jeep and I said, ‗Sir, what‘s going on
with the war? What do we consider—how do we win this thing?‖ 6:07
―What‘s going
to happen once we leave?‖ What‘s the end game with this thing here?‖ He said,
―Basically it‘s going to end up being like the old west. The idea was to have places like
Hue, Da Nang, and Qui Nhon, everything being like we have now, big base camps. Like
the forts out west, when things were good the civilians would go out and do their farming
or whatever, and when things went bad, bring everybody back in the gates and if they
need some reinforcements, bring them up from Saigon or Hue or you know, Da Nang and
everything and go out—basically that‘s what it was going to be, just like the old west‖,
and I said, ―That‘s it? That‘s the best hope we could get?‖ 7:04 They weren‘t trying to
control anything, they were just trying to keep the DMZ. I thought maybe they were
trying to take over the north, or that, but they were just happy—just like Korea. Korea
was basically a blueprint.
Interviewer: Except Korea was a peninsula and Vietnam wasn’t.
Yeah, that was the kicker on it and that‘s why you got into Cambodia and everything else
on that.
58
�Interviewer: Now, for you, you go and you get your degree and then what do you do
after that? You get out of school.
That was another trip because I had all my background, I had my own demo teams and
everything, I didn‘t graduate, but I was in OCS and everything, I was going back and I
got my degree, a BS degree in business administration, so I thought, ―Well, I had it made
in the shade‖, so we had—when I was graduating in my senior year, I had my resume and
everything, we had people from Caterpillar, and everything, come in on campus to do the
interviews and everything on that. 8:10 They didn‘t want anything to do with us on
that. I would go in there, they would look at my resume and say, ―Well, that‘s not
exactly what we were looking for, we‘re thinking of going in a little bit different
direction‖, so I kind of found out and within about six months I took all my experience
off of Vietnam and everything and I just put-Military-U.S. Army, duty area, Vietnam.
That‘s all I put on there. I didn‘t put anything else or any explanations on that.
Interviewer: Did that help?
No, because it was more of a network. I got a job at Lear Siegler at the time as a data
coordinator and it‘s not what I know, and I had the background and everything, but I
knew a couple of people that worked in there. 9:02 From there—I was laid off, because
this was back in the 1970‘s, and off course of you know anything about the economic
conditions of the seventies, that was the world‘s worst time, you couldn‘t find anything.
Economic conditions were bad enough, back then you had inflation, double digits,
unemployment, double digits, and the whole nine yards.
Interviewer: Not a great time.
59
�No it wasn‘t‘, so that wasn‘t a good time at all economically. I was just married, in fact, I
met my wife the day I got, almost the day I got out of Vietnam and that was November of
1968 and we were married in September of 1970. I was going—my last year up at school
and I had a semester to go and I was driving back and forth with a couple of guys up to
Ferris. I worked at, like I said, Lear Siegler, and then I got laid off because I was the last
one in and the first one out. 10:02 A neighbor of mine worked for Clark Equipment
and it was on Richmond and Leonard, metal fabrication. He said, ―Well, do you know
how to do grinders and stuff?‖ We need people like that‖, and I said, ―I‘m not that
fussy‖, and I didn‘t know how long I was going to be laid off, so I went with them and
had an interview and they didn‘t care what kind of background I had, they didn‘t hardly
even look at my resume. They took me out on the shop floor and they were showing me
these grinders and said, ―Can you do this?‖ I said, ―Well sure‖, and then I was working
there a couple weeks and I had to join the union, so I joined the union and they put the
job posting up, so I go—they had a job for a welder, with set-up and everything, so I sign
for that on there and nobody else wanted to do it, so I ended up—I never had a welding
hood on in my life. 11:07 So, it was on the job training, so for a week or so I was
learning how to do some link welding and they said, ―Well we got a job‖, and one thing
leads to another and about six or eight months down the line I get a call back from Lear
Siegler and they wanted me to come back to work. I‘m going—I said, ―Sorry bob, I
don‘t think I can do that, I‘m making too much money now‖, and he said, ―No, no, I want
to talk to you‖. So, I sat down there and what It was doing was working a ton of
overtime, and he said, ―Well, you don‘t want to be in a union anyway‖, and even with
Lear Sieger they had a union, but I was in the administration end of it on that and he said,
60
�―You have to pay all those union dues‖, and I said, ―I don‘t worry about it‖, because I
actually ended up with better health benefits than they did. I had dental and vision with
it. We were working so much overtime, and couldn‘t get enough people in there. 12:02
What I was doing was I was working a double shift on Friday nights and everything was
piece rate, was rated, and I knew the jobs we were doing. In the first eight hours I could
make up enough, so when I was working the second shift, we were working on third shift
and all I had to do was work four or five hours and I could have two or three hours off
because the supervisor said, ―If you can make a hundred percent, you can‘t do any more‖,
so I had it made in the shade and everything. Then we were working Saturdays and
Sundays, with time and a half for Saturday and Double time for Sundays. We were going
down there and he said, ―You‘re making more money than I was as a supervisor at Lear
Siegler‖, and everything on that. After that, I was there for about a year, no eighteen
months, they took the whole plant and moved it up to Tennessee and they wouldn‘t let
anybody move down there with them. 13:06 That is when everybody was starting to
outsource and everything on that. So, my wife was an LPN and she worked for a doctor
and he was doing some work with Steelcase, so I worked there for about a year at
Steelcase, this was 1979 to about 1980, 1981 there, and I walked in there the first time
and I—everybody thought it was the greatest place to work and they had some piece
work there but it worked out to just be back pay, and they had the day rate, and second
shift all you were doing was cleaning up these schedules and everything on there and at
the end of the week, I basically had just enough money to pay my bills, had enough
money to put in my pocket to use for gas money and I had to have the bonus and
everything just to pay the house payment. I had to pay the house payments three or
61
�four—then I just moved out to Coopersville when they were still building the
Coopersville plant. 14:12 So, I thought I would try to get into GM out there. They
were running a jobs fair at, I think it was, the Army Reserve out there on Michigan Street
and College, out in that area, so the first couple days you couldn‘t even get near the place,
especially in and around that area, they were—Wednesday and Thursday was—and my
wife said, ‗Why don‘t you give it another try?‖ So I went and there was nobody around
there, I just drove up to the Army, walked in there, gave them my resume, filled out the
paperwork and they said, ―See those two guys over there, go and talk to them‖. There
were two guys from Coopersville over there and I talked to them for a while and told
them I lived out there and they said, ―Oh, that‘s good‖, and they were all nice and smiles
and they just put the thing on a pile. 15:07 I thought I would never hear from them
again and about a couple weeks later, this was around February. It was the first of
March, I was out raking my lawn, this was on a Saturday morning, and my wife comes
out and said, ―There is a guy from General Motors that wants to talk to you‖, and I said,
―At nine o‘clock on Saturday morning?‖ and I thought it was Arnie down there, down on
the corner and he‘s kidding around with me, so I‘m going to—I was kidding around with
him on the phone and started talking to him, you know and realize that this guy is for
real. So, here again, I went down there and did an interview and at that time the only
thing that helped was my Vietnam experience. They were more interested in giving
Vietnam vets preferential treatment. It wasn‘t anything I did and that‘s how I ended up
working for General Motors. 16:06 I tried to get into Coopersville, but it was still being
completed, it was still under construction, so I worked in the Burlingame plant for a
while in that. You had to be in the union and after ninety days then you could transfer
62
�out. Well, I didn‘t even make it to ninety days and I got laid off and ended up on 36th
Street and I was there for twenty-eight years until they closed the plant. I ended up, I was
working production at the time and myself and a neighbor and I, we went back and forth
and traded off driving, did our own carpooling and everything, and we looked at each
other and said, ―We‘re not going to be doing this for thirty years‖, because I was thirtysix at the time, when I went in. 17:03 ―I‘m going to be sixty-six when I get out. If I
stay here for thirty years, I‘m going to be sixty-six, and there is no way I‘m going to be
able to do this production‖. I ended up taking pre-apprentice classes and when I finished
up this, I ended up being a welder. I liked the welding portion of it and they tried to talk
me into doing the tool and die and that type of thing and I decided not to, so that‘s when I
took the Millwright Welder classification and everybody said, ―Well, with all your
background and everything‖, and I said—here again I did the same thing as—I didn‘t
realize, but that‘s part of my PTSD type of thing. I didn‘t like anybody in management,
so here again—it was probably a good thing I was in a union shop and everything on that.
But the same thing with me is what they call steel stores and that‘s where they bring in
the coils and everything and this kind of put me as the only Millwright on first shift.
18:11
Interviewer: They kind of left you alone.
They let me do my thing. I worked with the set-up guys and everything and the idea was
that they wanted somebody in maintenance, if something went wrong right away, to get
out there and figure out what was wrong with it and analyze on it. Well, you had a lot of
free time in-between and I don‘t sit around too well, so I worked with some of the set-up
guys and we would walk and see the different operators and the different set-up and
63
�everything on that. I ended up doing a lot of the ergonomics and safety thing. You have
a lot of safety inspections and things that have to be done, things of that type, so I ended
up doing a lot of that work, and a lot of small stuff.
Interviewer: Now, to look back at the whole thing, you mentioned some of the
effects of your time in the service had on you. You notice that you did take a certain
amount of PTSD with you and there are certain memories and things like that. How
else do you think your time in the service wound up affecting you, either positively
or negatively? 19:07
Oh yeah, positively or negatively, I don‘t ever really try to look on the negative ends of it.
I try always to be positive because people always say, ―well with your background in data
processing or business administration and everything, how did you end up doing welding
and stuff like that?‖ But working as an engineer, I wasn‘t that mechanically inclined. I
always try to kind of look ahead because I couldn‘t design a car or a motor, but try to put
a car together; you know all the nuts and bolts and that type of thing. The same thing
with ergonomics, that‘s how I got involved in ergonomics and safety, because if you get
an engineer he would try to analyze it too much, and being a combat engineer, we used
everything we had around us. I didn‘t care too much about ordering parts, I just kind of
looked around and if we needed some safety rail, I wouldn‘t order the pipe and
everything, I would go out in the back pipe, or go to our—whatever was available. 20:17
That‘s what a combat engineer did. I explained to you too, when we were in English and
Bong Son there we were making hooches and places to live, well, we didn‘t have lumber,
two by fours, two by sixes or twelve, we would take ammo cases, and in this case the
cases they were using for 2.5 rockets for gunships and there were hundreds of these
64
�things laying around. We would literally take them apart; we would build our own
hooch‘s and everything. We would put sandbags in like about six feet high and put them
all the way up and put a flat roof and these cases, they had asphalt and plastic and we
made our own water proof roofs and used, they had a name for it, it was kind of like
fortified asphalt we put on top of it. 21:12 Then we had walls between each one. Well,
the case would open up, so we put it sideways, so when you opened it up you had a place
for storage and you had a lid, so you could put it up and lock it up. So, we had that and
we even had an indoor shower and everything. We put a big gas tank an old fuel tank
from a jet plane, or fighter, and fill that full of water and put it up on top of the roof. We
made our own support and used the sun to heat it up in the daytime and that was our hot
water at night.
Interviewer: So, you learned how to make things work.
Yeah
Interviewer: Well, it makes for a good story.
Basically we were jacks of all trades and a master of none.
Interviewer: Well, thanks for coming in and telling me about it today. 21:58
I hope you learned something.
Interviewer: I certainly did.
65
�66
�
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
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1914-
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
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RHC-27
Language
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eng
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Henk, Edward (Interview transcript and video), 2011
Creator
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Henk, Edward
Description
An account of the resource
Ed Henk was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on June 21st, 1944. After graduating from high school, Henk attended Grand Rapids Junior College for three semesters before transferring to Ferris State University to study data processing. However, in 1966, the middle of his junior year at Ferris State, Henk received his draft notice. Following basic training and Advanced Individual Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri for combat engineering, Henk attended OCS at Fort Benning, Georgia for sixteen weeks, although he never completed the school. After leaving OCS, Henk deployed to Vietnam in 1967 and served with the 1st Air Cavalry Division. While in Vietnam, Henk fought through the Tet Offensive, including the defense of the MACV compound in Hue. Following the completion of his tour, Henk returned to the United States and received his discharge.
Contributor
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Smither, James (Interviewer)
WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army
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eng
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Moving Image
Text
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
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2011-03-03
Identifier
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HenkE
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Format
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application/pdf
video/mp4
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cfebfecc45a575dbc9fa4e59e778e20c.mp4
fd719438581a0f8eeed37d7f77d218bc
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/46902beb2d99d6394fa3f7d2dace6a5e.pdf
8c80cee37ffabec7596445a35c807d5c
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
Charles Hennesen
World War II
Total Time: ~1:27:00
Childhood and Pre-Enlistment (00:00:00)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Born in Fort Erie, Canada on August 27th, 1920
Born to an American mother from Buffalo
Grew up in Buffalo, NY
Attended Buffalo Polytechnic High School
Attended Canisius College in New York
Tried to get into the Air Force [Army Air Corps] when the war broke out, but
eyesight was to poor. (00:01:50)
Was in the Reserve Corps during his time in College.
Training (00:02:46)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
When he was moved to Active Duty from the Army Reserve, he was transferred
to Fort Niagara in New York. Was there for a couple of weeks.
Got sick from a Typhoid shot and was in the hospital for several weeks.
Became a Platoon Sergeant and stayed at Fort Niagara until it was closed.
Transferred to a Camp in Macon, GA. Did not enjoy this experience. Recalled
how hot and clammy it was.
Applied for officer school.
Deployed from Camp Shanks in December 1943.
(00:09:00) While in GA, was trained to be a replacement for units which had lost
men and needed to be brought up to full strength.
Active Duty (00:09:30)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Elizabeth with 15,000 other troops. The ship
was alone but was escorted by submarines.
Landed in Glasgow, Scotland and was railroaded to England. This was at the end
of 1943.
(00:10:46)Assigned to the 39th Regiment during his time in England. Some of the
men in the company were veterans of campaigns in North Africa and Sicily.
(00:13:20) Spent some time helping to clean up London after the blitz.
(00:15:48) Shipped out from Southampton, England June 9th 1944.
(00:16:25) Landed on June 10th in Normandy. Landed in water that was too deep
and several of the men drowned. Landed under some German fire. Stayed with
the landing force once they landed.
The Germans had flooded the farmland so they had to stay on the roads. Tried to
wade across the canals.
�•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
(00:19:50) Moved inland and towards Fort Octeville [Quinéville}. He was one of
the first people into the fort after his team took it.
After Octeville moved to Cherbourg and then on Cape De La Hogue. Had four
day leave there.
Most of the troops that they fought in this are were troops from Nazi satellite
states.
(00:29:08) After leave, was sent to Le Désert. This was where his unit got a
Presidential citation. Recalls firing his bazooka at a tank for the first time.
Knocked the track off of the tank.
(00:31:54) Moved on to Saint Lô. American bombers attacked the town, but hit
many of their own men.
(00:32:50) Moved from St. Lô to Mortain. His company was ahead of the others
and got attacked. One of his Lieutenants got hit in the torso by a mortar and
thought he was dead, however the man lived.
Over the campaign in Normandy, their company took around 50% casualties.
Company took on replacements at Saint Lô. While in Sainte Lô, was in a Jeep that
hit a mine. He was thrown in the air in and landed in his spine. Only he and
another man survived the episode.
(00:39:50) After Mortain, his unit moved to Versailles, and then moved into Paris.
They then moved into Belgium and on to Philippeville, where he shot a tank.
(00:43:35) After Philippeville, moved on to the Meuse River, where German
resistance prevented their crossing for a time. Then they moved on to Theaux,
where they meet a civilian that feed them eggs. Described the different forms of
resistance the Germans gave them, especially in the Hurtgen Forest. He
remembered the fighting here to be very heavy and casualties were very high.
From Hurtganen Forest, moved into Germany.
(00:54:45) He was wounded while advancing on Aachen. He was sent to break up
a German roadblock and was fortifying a bivouac position after the attack, when
he was hit in the hip by a German railroad gun. He had a wristwatch in his pocket
which he still has some of in his body. The watch likely saved his leg. He had a
hole about the size of his head in his hip. He denied the medic’s offer of
morphine. He had emergency surgery on his leg, where they removed the
shrapnel. He spent a year and a half in the hospital. Put in a body cast and then in
traction.
(1:01:30) Made the trip home on the Queen Elizabeth one bunk over from the
bunk on the trip over. Made it back to the states in January 1945. Spent time in
hospitals in the United States until November 1945. Lost his gluteus maximus and
medius.
Post-Enlistment (1:05:55)
•
•
Took a job coaching football at Canisius and then worked in the printing business
in New York. Then worked at the VA hospital in Geneva, NY. Also worked in
Real Estate, and as a Manufacturing Agent.
Has recently had surgery on his hip to replace it.
�•
Sees his experience in the military as a good one, however he would not do it over
again.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Hennesen, Charles (Interview outline and video), 2008
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hennesen, Charles
Description
An account of the resource
Charles Hennesen was born in Fort Erie, Ontario and grew up in Buffalo, New York. He joined the Army Reserves while in college and was then called into Active Duty upon graduation. He served in 39th Regiment, 9th Division, in the European Theatre, specifically in Normandy, Northern France, Belgium, and Germany. He was wounded in the hip during an assault on the town of Aachen, and spent around a year and a half in hospitals in both Europe and the United States.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
United States. Army
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2008-08-26
Identifier
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HennesienC
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Format
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application/pdf
video/mp4
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7732fed5a64c6608ce06485bf842a92a.mp4
bec3257f037a4f140b1321a5d47fd1ef
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e873bb8d5458dd399169283f7f1272b5.pdf
5aa64e6feccc819a4d5d7476ed01f31f
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
Vietnam War
Michael Hennessy
1:21:47
Introduction (00:20)
Mike was born January 6, 1949 in Savannah, Georgia.
His father was a World War II veteran who served in the artillery as a second lieutenant.
After the war, he went to business school and joined the Georgia National Guard; he
retired from the Army Reserves in 1973 a full colonel.
His mother was from Savannah, and was a registered nurse but she stayed home with
Mike and his two siblings, a brother and sister.
When he was in high school, he attended Benedictine Military School and graduated in
1967. (02:43)
Since it was a military school, it was also an ROTC. His senior year he was the cadet
colonel and commanded the cadet brigade.
After high school, Mike went to the University of Georgia for a while but returned home
and went to the Armstrong State College. At the end of 1968, he was getting tired of
school.
During his sophomore year of college, Mike decided to enlist in the United States Army.
Military Training (04:03)
Mike went to basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina and then attended Airborne
AIT (Advanced Infantry Training) at Fort Gordon, Georgia and then went to OCS
(Officer Candidates School) at Fort Benning, Georgia aka Benning School for Boys.
(04:23)
He spent 22 of the 24 weeks at OCS, when he decided that he did not want to go to
Vietnam as a second lieutenant, so he turned down his commission and was assigned to
be a eleven bravo ten (light weapons infantryman).
Mike was given thirty days leave and then reported to Fort Lewis, Washington and flew
out on May 15, 1970.
Vietnam (05:48)
He arrived in Vietnam through Cam Ranh Bay, and after being processed he was
assigned to the 101st Airborne. Mike attended SERTS (Screaming Eagle Replacement
Training School) when he first arrived at the 101st. After that, he was assigned to Delta
Company, 1/506th Infantry at Camp Evans. Evans was located north of the city of Hue.
Mike joined the company around the 29th of May with several other new men that were
also assigned to the 101st, including Lieutenant John Smith who became Mike‟s platoon
leader. (07:08)
He was flown out to Firebase Katherine, and it was there that he finally met up with his
company. Mike was sent to the 2nd Platoon, 2nd Squad.
�
Life on Katherine was boring, but they had a place to sleep, and they got at least one hot
meal a day. They were there a couple of weeks and during that time he was able to get to
know the men he was serving with and they got to know him.
When they left Katherine in June, they went to Firebase Ripcord. It was quiet on
Ripcord. They knew the enemy was outside the wire, but they did not engage them.
The unit was then sent to Firebase Bastogne, down in the southern part of the 101st AO
(Area of Operation).
Around that firebase, they conducted patrols through the jungle, but were shortly after
sent back to Ripcord. Due to inclement weather, they were detoured to Camp Evans and
had a short stand down that resulted in a party with steaks and lots of drinking. (09:53)
The next day when they flew out of Evans, the majority of the company was hung over.
They arrived on July 18 and landed on a hilltop near Ripcord. That same afternoon, a
Chinook helicopter crashed on Ripcord, which could be seen in the distance. The
helicopter landed on the 105mm Howitzer Battery that was stationed there and it also
destroyed the ammo dump.
On July 19, Mike was sent on a reconnaissance patrol that walked down into a valley and
discovered a cave that had about a dozen dead NVA soldiers that had been there for a
while. (12:08)
After searching the bodies, they brought back some documents that were written in
Vietnamese. The climb back up the hill was difficult. Since he had not been in combat,
he and the other new guys were very jumpy.
When they were dropped in a hot LZ, Mike was riding in the helicopter and he saw what
looked like Christmas lights coming out of the jungle, which turned out to be people
shooting at him. One of the choppers was hit going in but made it back to Camp Evans.
On the side of the LZ were large trees followed by the tree line. They were instructed to
get to the wood line and he had to hurdle downed trees to make it there. (15:37)
1st and 2nd platoons set up a defensive position on the right side of the LZ and then broke
for lunch.
As Mike was eating his c-rations, the machine gunner that was watching a nearby trail
jumped up and yelled “Chieu Hoi Mother Fucker” and began firing. There were three
NVA soldiers coming down the trail just talking and jabbering because they had no idea
that Delta Company was there. (17:06)
They later learned that the three NVA were on a work detail digging what seemed to be a
mortar pit.
That night, Mike and some others were sent out from their NDP (Nighttime Defensive
Position) and set up an LP (Listening Post) to monitor enemy activity. They spent the
whole night listening to the NVA moving and talking all around them. The next morning
around 6 am, they pulled back in and joined the company. Shortly after that, Mike heard
incoming mortar rounds and soon realized that they were being hit with CS gas. (19:30)
Thirty seconds after the gas attack, they were hit with a whole slew of HE (High
Explosive) mortar rounds. During the attack, Mike was hit in the butt with some
shrapnel.
They fell back to the LZ and Mike was told to get in a foxhole with their Kit Carson
Scout. (23:15)
�
The NVA tried to come up the hill and push them out, but once they got to the LZ and
dug in, they were able to hold the hill. As Mike stood in his hole, he saw an American
baseball grenade coming at him. He claims that he could read the yellow writing on the
green grenade. However, it was overthrown and went off behind him. Next, a satchel
charge was thrown at him and it fell short and exploded just in front of the hole. Mike
was firing at the tree he knew the NVA was hiding behind on full auto, and when he saw
the man‟s arm come around the tree with another grenade, he shot it off with his M-16.
(26:31)
This all happened on July 21st. Because they were using so much ammo and taking so
many casualties, there was an almost constant supply of choppers coming in and
dropping off ammo and supplies and medevacs coming in and taking the wounded. Once
they broke contact, Mike and several others were tasked with going out and getting the
ammo and bringing it back. Mike told the sergeant that it was best to lead from the front,
and that when he ran out there to get some ammo, they would too. So the sergeant ran
out and grabbed some and the rest of the men followed. (28:15)
Things were quiet for that morning with some mortar rounds. Later in the day a
helicopter was shot down.
After the last supply chopper left, someone yelled “That‟s it till morning”. That was as
lonely as Mike has ever felt. He was sure that they would be overrun during the night.
(31:57)
Mike was tasked with some others to go back to their NDP from the night before to
gather weapons and ammunition and some of the bodies of the men killed. Mike
functioned as the radioman for the patrol.
They received word that Delta Company, 2/506th had landed on a LZ two clicks up the
hill past the NDP to help secure their position and provide reinforcements. At that point,
Delta Company, 1/506th had about 20 men, while Delta 2/506th had about 80-90. (35:10)
About 3:30pm that afternoon a message came through telling the men to get ready
because they were being extracted. As a squad radio operator, Mike had one of two
working radios in the entire company.
Once they were extracted, the men were brought back to Camp Evans. (37:50)
Out of the two birds that arrived at Camp Evans, only eight men had made it back. The
third bird leaving the LZ was for Captain Workman and the remaining men, however,
mortars came in near the chopper and the rotor blade came down and either decapitated
him or just cut him in half, either way he was dead with only twenty two days left in
country. Everyone in the company thought the world of Captain Workman. His
replacement was already in country, but he chose to stay with the men because he didn‟t
trust the new guy to bring out his men. (39:55)
When the chopper that killed Captain Workman crashed, the door gunner was thrown out
and had the skid of the helicopter land across his legs. James Fowler, a man from East
St. Louis, Illinois ran out and lifted the skid while taking mortar fire and freed the door
gunner. Jim Fowler was later awarded the Silver Star for that act of bravery. (41:30)
The next day during muster, they had 15 men left in the company. It was July 22. The
company was put on stand down until August when they received enough replacements
to refill the company‟s ranks.
Before the 15th of August they were able to be combat effective again and returned to the
field. When they returned to the field, Mike did not want to be radioman anymore so he
�
passed it off to one of the new guys. Mike choose to become the point man for the 2nd
Platoon, he did this until two weeks before he left in April. (44:10)
They had to cross a river that was 75 yards wide, and someone asked if anyone was a
lifeguard, and Mike said that he was. He striped down, tied a rope around his waist and
began to swim across. When he was about half way through, he looked up and saw some
Vietnamese on the other shore. They turned out to be ARVN soldiers. He got across and
tied the rope off and the rest of the men and Mike‟s gear were brought over. (48:03)
In November, Mike was able to go on a three day in-country R&R to China Beach. He
had been in the bush since May, and had more field time than anyone else in the
company. He had a great time and was able to sleep on clean sheets, plus they served
beer with breakfast. He began talking to one of the lifeguards there and he told him about
his lifeguarding and water safety training and experience. He was told to go and talk to
the NCOIC (Non Commissioned Officer In Charge) about getting a job as a lifeguard.
Mike was told that if he would extend for six months, he would be given a job as a
lifeguard there in China Beach. He decided not to go through with it. (50:18)
Once he was too short to be in the field, he quit walking point.
On one mission they were conducting a patrol south of Camp Evans when they began
taking rifle fire from a hedge of trees ahead. Mike was at the end of the patrol and he
grabbed a couple guys and tried to flank them. He threw a hand grenade that resulted in
three explosions. The remaining enemy ran away. (52:20)
When Mike had left the field, he was attending an award ceremony. He was standing in
formation with a filthy uniform and an Irish flag in his helmet sweat band. The Division
Sergeant Major began to yell at Mike because of his uniform and he told him to take off
the flag. Mike told him „no‟. After explaining some history to the Sergeant Major and
that he had the same last name as the Division Commander, the Sergeant Major gave up
and stormed away. (54:54)
Mike was at Division Headquarters being processed out of country on Easter 1971. After
a little Easter party, he ended up sleeping in the post office on bags of mail. Mike had
gone through SERTS with the mail clerk.
Back in the States (55:35)
Mike left Vietnam at 6:15am on the morning of April 15, 1971. He flew back to Seattle,
and arrived at 6:10am the morning of April 15, 1971. He arrived in the states five
minutes before he left. The next day he made it back home to Savannah, Georgia.
(56:28)
On the plane from Atlanta, he sat in the front of coach so that he would be the first one
off the plane, shortly after he fell asleep. Sometime later he was shaken awake by
someone asking if he was going to get off the plane, he looked around and he was the
only person left on board.
After returning home, he still had some time in service so he was assigned to the 1st
Infantry Division, Alpha Company, 1/2nd Infantry. He was there until January 1972.
Mike carried two books in his rucksack the entire time he was in Vietnam, Norton‟s
Anthology of Poetry and The Complete Works of William Butler Yeats. (58:53)
The day he got home, he was awake for 48 hours. That afternoon, a friend that he had
known since the 7th grade came over to visit. While there, she asked Mike how many
�
babies he killed over there. He told her to get up and get out or he was going to throw her
out. (1:00:33)
When he went to the 1/2nd Infantry, he was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas. Mike was
given a job as the Battalion Finance NCO. He addressed complaints and set up
allotments for people in the unit. It was an 8-5, Monday through Friday job with no
formations, extra duty or PT. (1:02:30)
In October 1971 he flew to Germany with the whole Division, picked up some equipment
and did some maneuvers for about a week of the four weeks that he was there. He had a
blast. They were able to go into the villages and try the beer and food.
Mike was given an early out January 5, 1972 because he had been accepted to go back to
school. He arrived home the next day, which was his birthday.
National Guard (1:04:40)
Mike went back to Armstrong State College in Savannah. He found a job as a lab tech at
a quality control lab.
In September, he thought that maybe he should join the National Guard. He went over
and signed up with a field artillery unit.
Mike went to OCS and served one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer. He
received his commission as a second lieutenant in August 1974. He never went to Fort
Sill for his basic field artillery course; instead he took them all by correspondence.
(1:06:40)
After spending some time as an observer, he was then transferred to a firing battery and
went in as the FDO (Fire Direction Officer) with a 155mm Self Propelled gun unit. Mike
went to Charlie Battery, 1/230th; which was the unit that his father was the battery
commander for in 1951. Mike became the executive officer of that battery. He was there
until 1980. He was asked to leave because he could not make the weight standards.
(1:08:42)
He went back into the Reserves and made his commission as captain. In 1985 he came
back in after he got his weight down.
In 1989, he was hard up against the move to major. January 1990, Mike resigned his
commission and enlisted in the Georgia National Guard as an E-5. He was there when
his unit was mobilized for Desert Storm. (1:11:06)
He was at summer camp when Kuwait was invaded. The rumor was that they were going
to go from summer camp straight to the Middle East. They were mobilized in November
1990; after going to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin they were deemed not to
be combat ready. They were never sent overseas, and were processed out of the Army in
April. (1:14:53)
Mike retired from the National Guard in January 1994.
In 2009, he started receiving his retirement benefits which include a check each month,
plus medical and travel benefits. (1:17:42)
His father retired from the National Guard and the IRS and he was living very well, so
Mike wanted to stay in the Guard until he too qualified for retirement benefits.
If he had to go back and do it again, he would have stayed active duty and finished OCS
and served his time there.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Hennessy, Michael (Interview outline and video), 2013
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hennessy, Michael
Description
An account of the resource
Mike was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1949. He graduated from the Benedictine Military School in 1967 and started college at the University of Georgia. Eventually Mike tired of school and enlisted in the United States Army in 1968. He started OCS but later dropped out. He went to Vietnam in May 1970 and was assigned to Delta Company, 1/506th, 101st Airborne. Mike operated around Camp Evans and Firebase Ripcord. He left Vietnam in 1971 after spending a year in country. After he got out of the regular army, Mike joined the National Guard as an officer. After resigning his commission, he retired from the Georgia National Guard as an enlisted man in January 1994.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
McGregor, Michael (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army
United States. National Guard
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-10-11
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
HennessyM1535V
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Format
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application/pdf
video/mp4
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/dee9dd70596bb7acb4201bc107561bf6.pdf
6e10585408f22f84077dd5c62ded0080
PDF Text
Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Incunabula
Description
An account of the resource
The term incunabula refers to books printed between 1450 and 1500, approximately the first fifty years following the invention, by Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, of printing from moveable type. Our collection includes over 200 volumes and numerous unbound leaves from books printed during this period.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1450/1500
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Incunabula Collection (DC-03)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United </a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Incunabula
Printing 1450-1500
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Language
A language of the resource
eng
it
la
nl
de
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Summa super titulis Decretalium [folium 64]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-03_064Segusio1477
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Henricus, de Segusio, Cardinal, approximately 1200-1271
Description
An account of the resource
One leaf of Summa super titulis Decretalium by Henricus de Segusio. Printed in Augsburg by Ludwig Hohenwang in 1477. Illustrated with red rubricated initials. [GW 12232; ISTC ih00043000]
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Augsburg: Ludwig Hohenwang
Subject
The topic of the resource
Incunabula
Printing 1450-1500
Henricus, de Segusio, Cardinal, approximately 1200-1271
Language
A language of the resource
la
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a>
Format
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application/pdf
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1477
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Seidman Rare Books Collection
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e3b0b04cdcd973debf90a207dd8de9f7.pdf
e987750cee0a91059ab1db24cbd8b528
PDF Text
Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Incunabula
Description
An account of the resource
The term incunabula refers to books printed between 1450 and 1500, approximately the first fifty years following the invention, by Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, of printing from moveable type. Our collection includes over 200 volumes and numerous unbound leaves from books printed during this period.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1450/1500
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Incunabula Collection (DC-03)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United </a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Incunabula
Printing 1450-1500
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Language
A language of the resource
eng
it
la
nl
de
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Summa super titulis Decretalium [folium 144]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-03_144Segusio1478
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Henricus, de Segusio, Cardinal, approximately 1200-1271
Description
An account of the resource
One leaf from Summa super titulis Decretalium by Henricus de Segusio. Printed in Strassburg by the Printer of Henricus Ariminesis (Georg Reyser) in 1478-1479. Illustrated with red rubricated initals. [GW 12233; ISTC ih00044000]
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Strassburg: Printer of Henricus Ariminensis (Georg Reyser)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Incunabula
Printing 1450-1500
Language
A language of the resource
la
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1478/1479
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Seidman Rare Books Collection
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/83b2554bc73f39523d44476a7a7e4562.m4v
e6c610d796d72cb473d8f72c24c63855
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fab0d0fcc75611c53237f7e97fa72a2a.pdf
99ac32fc6cbb39a843b7b3b311c6fced
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans’ History Project
Earl O. Henry Jr.
Cold War – Vietnam Era
1 hour 5 minutes 6 seconds
Note: Earl is also telling the story of his father, Earl O. Henry, who died on the USS Indianapolis.
(00:00:40) Earl Jr.’s Early Life
-Born in Mayfield, Kentucky, on June 19, 1945
-Lived there until he was 8 years old
-Father died on the USS Indianapolis when Earl was only six weeks old
-Moved to Nashville, Tennessee
-Lived there for the rest of his life save for time in college and the Army
-Mother grew up in Mayfield and attended Western Kentucky State Teachers College
-Taught in Tennessee and met Earl’s father in Tennessee
-Had a fairly normal childhood
-Grandfather and uncle became father figures for him
-Uncle took him to baseball games, on fishing trips, and effectively acted as his father
(00:03:30) College & Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps
-Attended Vanderbilt University and majored in business
-Went to University of Washington for graduate school
-Got his Masters of Business Administration
-Joined the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) in college
-Went to ROTC summer camp in 1965
-Received six weeks of basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky
-The same as regular basic training just without biological or chemical warfare training
-Went on the infiltration course
-Crawling under barbed wire while live rounds are shot over your head
-Ran on Heartbreak, Misery, and Agony Hill
-Became an officer in the Army upon completion of college and ROTC training
-Note: Most likely a 2nd lieutenant
(00:05:30) Service as a Quartermaster Officer
-Sent to Fort Lee, Virginia, for Quartermaster and Officer Basic Training
-Received training on how to manage non-commissioned officers’ clubs and officers’ clubs
-Remembers scandals in the NCO and officers’ clubs at the time
-Army wanted men with accounting and business knowledge to handle the clubs
-Assigned to the officers’ club at Fort Knox
-Worked with non-commissioned officers, officers, and civilian workers
-Nontraditional position for an officer
-Spent nearly two years in the Army
-Discharged six weeks earlier than planned date due to spending cuts
-Doesn’t regret forgoing a career in the Army, because it wasn’t for him
-1969 to 1971 was not an ideal time to be in the Army
-Poor morale and bad esprit de corps
-Fortunately, he never experienced any harassment from people for being in the military
(00:09:41) Earl Sr.’s Early Life
-Born in Clinton, Tennessee, in 1911 and grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee
�-Attended and graduated from Knoxville High School
-Collected bird cards from Arm & Hammer (similar to baseball cards)
-Joined the Bird Club and became an amateur ornithologist
-Had good eyesight, good hearing, and the ability to imitate bird calls
-Led to him recording bird calls at the Naval Academy in January 1944
-Proficient with taxidermy
-Allowed to collect one male and one female bird of each species for taxidermy
-Mounted 88 birds and donated them to the Ijams Nature Center
-Mother kept three mounted ducks as a memory of him
-Father attended the University of Tennessee to study dentistry
-Graduated from there in 1935
(00:15:17) Naval Service – Stateside
-Came to Knoxville to practice dentistry
-Went on Navy active duty with America’s entry into World War II
-He and Earl’s mother got married in October 1941
-Earl’s parents were at a party on December 7, 1941
-When the last guest arrived they said that Pearl Harbor had been bombed
-Ordered to report to Parris Island, South Carolina
-Earl’s mother was able to join him in South Carolina
-They rented a cottage in Beaufort
-Stayed there for a year
-Earl’s father received orders to report to the Naval Academy to join the Dental Corps
-Parents moved to Annapolis, Maryland
(00:19:57) Service on the USS Indianapolis
-In 1944 he volunteered for sea duty and was assigned to the USS Indianapolis
-Earl Sr. felt he should take his turn at sea like other men
-Service on the Indianapolis was considered a prime assignment
-Joined the USS Indianapolis at Saipan on July 25, 1944
-Flown out to Saipan
-Father painted a war poster in August 1944
-Bald eagle defending the US flag, clutching a bleeding snake with a Rising Sun around its tail
-USS Indianapolis returned to Mare Island in San Francisco in November 1944 for repairs
-Earl’s mother came out to meet him there
-Spent Thanksgiving 1944 together
-Stayed there for six weeks
-Visited relatives in Fresno
-Mother returned home after that visit
-USS Indianapolis took part in the invasion of Iwo Jima in February 1945
-At the time the Indianapolis was Admiral Spruance’s flagship
-Assisted during the battle of Okinawa
-On March 31, 1945, the day before troops hit the island a kamikaze hit the Indianapolis
-Nine men were killed as a result
-Admiral Spruance transferred to a different ship
-Returned to Mare Island for reapirs
-Got a three week leave to Mayfield
-Earl (Jr.) was not expected until the end of July
-Grandparents visited for a week while he was in Mayfield
-Visited the naval facilities in Memphis as a possible postwar duty station
-Had dinner with Earl Jr.’s mother and had their picture taken
�-Only family photo (since Earl’s mother was pregnant)
-Earl Sr.’s leave ended and he returned to Mare Island to board the USS Indianapolis
-Received news that Earl Jr. had been born six weeks early
-If Earl Sr. had known, he could have gotten an extension of leave, and lived
(00:30:13) Secret Mission & Sinking of the USS Indianapolis
-Indianapolis received orders for a secret mission
-Note: Mission was to deliver the atomic bomb components to Tinian
-Stopped at Guam en route to Tinian and received baby photos of Earl Jr.
-Sent a short note to Earl Jr., last communication before dying
-Note: At 12:14 a.m. on July 30 the I-58 torpedoed and sank the USS Indianapolis
-300 crewmen went down with the ship, among them Earl O. Henry Sr.
-Earl Jr.’s mother received news of Earl Sr.’s death on the same day Japan surrendered
-A few weeks later, Earl’s mother went to a movie and saw a newsreel featuring the I-58
-Ran out of the theater crying
-She contacted Captain McVay III (captain of the Indianapolis) to ask about Earl Sr.
-Told her that Earl Sr. was a proud father and showed the crew pictures of Earl Jr.
(00:41:00) USS Indianapolis Reunions & Other Events
-Earl Jr. and his mother went to the 25th survivors’ reunion in 1970
-Painful experience
-Always assumed Earl Sr. went down with the ship, and other crewmen confirmed it
-Glad he got to talk with other survivors including his father’s closest friends
-Went to the dedication of the national memorial in Indianapolis (coincided with 50th reunion)
-Made prints of his father’s war poster (with the eagle) to distribute at the event
-In 2005 he finally got the chance to present his father’s story at that year’s reunion
-In 2005 he began speaking at middle schools about the sinking of the ship and his father’s story
-In 2005, the American Legion magazine ran an article about Earl Sr.
-He was interviewed for Sara Vladic’s documentary about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis
-Participated in presentation about the sinking at a community college
-Saw the Enola Gay (B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb) with two other Indianapolis survivors
-Note: The Enola Gay dropped the Little Boy atom bomb delivered by the Indianapolis
-Also visited the World War II Memorial with those same survivors
(00:52:44) Media about the USS Indianapolis Pt. 1
-Sara Vladic, a director, started the Indianapolis Legacy Project
-The Indianapolis Legacy Project: 10 year long project interviewing survivors and families
-Way of documenting the experiences of the crewmen, both living and dead
-Directed a documentary, USS Indianapolis: The Legacy, about the sinking of the ship
-Abandon Ship!, published in 1958, was the first major book dealing with the sinking
-Later books, such as Only 317 Survived and In Harm’s Way, include new information from the Navy
(00:56:30) Opinion of Captain McVay III
-Knows that his father deeply respected Captain McVay III
-Earl Jr. feels that Captain McVay shouldn’t have been court-martialed for losing the ship
-Note: Only captain to be tried and found guilty for losing a ship in wartime.
Later committed suicide in 1968 over the guilt.
-Feels the Navy unfairly treated Captain McVay
-Sees him as a victim just like the other crewmen
(00:58:28) Media about the USS Indianapolis Pt. 2
-USS Indianapolis is receiving more exposure
-Believes the film, Jaws, helped introduce more people to the story of the sinking
-Note: One of the characters in the film survived the sinking
�(00:59:55) Public Knowledge about the Sinking
-Strange that schools tend to not talk about World War II, with no attention given to the Indianapolis
-Even the World War II Museum (in New Orleans) only has a small plaque about the ship
-Interviewer, as of 2016, is working on erecting a memorial in Lansing, Michigan
-Commemorating the Michigan crewmen
-Hopefully, more memorials will lead to more people learning about the Indianapolis
-New book, Indianapolis, has a planned release date of Memorial Day 2017
(01:03:05) Connection with Other Survivors
-In 2012, he visited one of the survivors who served as one of the ship’s doctors
-The doctor, Earl Sr. and the ship’s chaplain tried to look after the other crewmen on leave
-Watched over them and kept them safe
-The chaplain, Father Thomas Conway, survived the sinking but died before rescue
-There is memorial for Father Conway in Waterbury, Connecticut
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
HenryE1945V
Title
A name given to the resource
Henry, Earl O. Jr (Interview outline and video), 2016
Description
An account of the resource
Earl O. Henry Jr. was born in Mayfield, Kentucky, on June 19, 1945. He attended Vanderbilt University and the University of Washington, and while in college was in the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. After graduation he was commissioned as an officer in the Army and received Quartermaster and Officer Basic Training at Fort Lee, Virginia. He was assigned to manage the officers’ club at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He served from 1969 to 1971. Earl’s father, Earl O. Henry Sr., was born in Clinton, Tennessee, in 1911. He served as an officer and a dentist in the Navy. With America’s entry into World War II, he served at Parris Island, South Carolina then joined the Dental Corps at the Naval Academy. In 1944 he volunteered for sea duty and was assigned to the USS Indianapolis. He joined the ship on July 25, 1944 at Saipan. He participated in the invasion of Iwo Jima and survived the kamikaze attack near Okinawa on March 31, 1945. Earl Sr. was aboard the USS Indianapolis when it delivered the atomic bomb components to Tinian, and was killed in action when the I-58 sank the Indianapolis on July 30, 1945.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Henry, Earl O Jr
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Hammond, Steve (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-23
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application/pdf
video/mp4
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b4f40ddf2708b3d1cfa50a0310946a45.pdf
09d04cc5e30d431cfb3c094e992da47b
PDF Text
Text
I
--
/
•
•
•
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�
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Title
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Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club collection
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Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club
Description
An account of the resource
Scrapbooks of newsclippings, photographs, postcards, and ephemera of the Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club. Photos were taken at regattas on Reeds Lake; the Grand River; Peoria, Illinois; and in Chicago of club members, and events. Historical articles, reports of regatta events, and articles featuring members Charles McQuewan and Jack Corbett are included. Programs include the First Grand Regatta on Great Salt Lake 1888, and Peoria Rowing Festival, and banquet and music programs and the GR Log, a publication of the Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club. Materials from the Central States Amater Rowing Association, and the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen are also included.
Date
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circa 1980s to 1940s
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/481">Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club scrapbooks, (RHC-54)</a>
Subject
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Grand Rapids (Mich.)
Outdoor recreation
Boats and boating
Racing shells
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Grand Valley State University Libraries
Identifier
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RHC-54
Text
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RHC-54_Ephemera-GRRC_F101
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Herb Conlon
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no date
Title
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Note from Herb Conlon to Russ
Description
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Note written in blue ink: "Russ, am cleaning out my desk and these pictures have been around a long time - I also have some home in attic and some day I'll locate them and give to you. Kindest Regards, Herb Conlon."
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Grand Rapids Rowing Club
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Grand Rapids (Mich.)
Outdoor recreation
Boats and boating
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/481">Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club scrapbooks (RHC-54)</a>
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/">No Known Copyright</a>
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Text
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application/pdf
Language
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eng
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fb36423bafb608528ed87b3edc049789.pdf
8bb8102fad436d3dee31d287bf8e56c1
PDF Text
Text
Young Lords
In Lincoln Park
Interviewee: David Hernández
Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez
Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Date: 3/29/2012
Biography and Description
David Hernández was born in Cidra, Puerto Rico and arrived in Chicago in 1955. He has volunteered with
the Young Lords in many activities and events. But his primary community work has been with La Gente,
an organization he founded that worked with Latinos and the poor of Lakeview. Originally the group was
called the Latin Eagles Organization because he was working the Commission of Youth Welfare for the
City of Chicago and the Latin Eagles were a serious presence in the neighborhood where he was
assigned. Like the Young Lords, La Gente also had a Breakfast for Children Program. The group stood
with the Young Lords for affordable housing and against Mayor Richard J. Daley’s displacement of
Puerto Ricans from the lakefront and near downtown areas of the city. Mr. Hernández has been called
the unofficial, “Poet Laureate of Chicago.” He blends folk, jazz, and Afro – Latin music that chronicles the
pedestrian walking down Chicago’s streets. One of his famous poems is called “La Armitage” and
features the neighborhood of Lincoln Park and several prominent Young Lords. For several years he ran
El Taller, a community based workshop. He also founded Street Sounds in 1971. Mr. Hernández
performed at Harold Washington’s mayoral inauguration in 1977 and at his funeral. He also performed
in Humboldt Park for the Young Lords and at their 40th Anniversary in 2008. Mr. Hernández has taught
poetry workshops for the Uptown Community Clinic, the Chicago Public Schools, and community arts
programs like Gallery Humboldt Park. His first books of poetry, Despertando/Waking Up and Rooftop
�Piper were published in 1971. He followed with Collected Words for Dirty Shelf (1973), Satin City Lullaby
(1989), and Elvis is Dead but at Least He Isn’t Gaining Any Weight (1995), and The Urban Poems (2004).
Mr. Hernández also starred in a movie, “David Hernandez and Street Sounds” and recorded an album by
the same name. His poem, “Immigrants/Liquid Thoughts” was included on the audio anthology, “A
Snake in the Heart: Poems and Music by Chicago Spoken Word Performers” (1994). Today, David
Hernández lives in Wicker Park, continues to be active in the community, and to collaborate with the
Young Lords.
�Transcript
JOSE JIMENEZ:
Okay, so if you can give me your name, and where you were born,
and your date of birth, and that -- (inaudible). (laughter)
DAVID HERNÁNDEZ:
Yeah, my name is David Hernández, and I was born on May
1, 1946 that means that I’m 65 years old. I came to Chicago from Puerto Rico, a
little town called Cidra, back in 1955. And my parents came over here because
there were a lot of job offers at that time. A lot of these little factories in Chicago,
a lot of jobs for Puerto Ricans, and specifically they wanted Puerto Ricans over
here. So my whole family, uncles, and aunts, and all of that, they all worked in
these small factories. So that was back in 1955, and I was nine years old when I
came here.
JJ:
Now, do you remember what part of the city you came from at the time [00:01:00]
or to first?
DH:
That I came to? Yeah, I lived on Armitage Street. Yeah, Clark and Armitage at
that time. And then we moved a little further --
JJ:
Do you remember what street or anything like that?
DH:
Well, it’s Clark and Armitage. There’s a big high rise building right there now.
And that was right next to the park, Lincoln Park. And so a lot of Puerto Ricans
lived in that whole area right there. And what they call Old Town, at that time, I
lived on Clark and Wisconsin which was what they call Old Town right now. So
we were all over the place around there, the Old Town area and the Lincoln Park
area.
1
�JJ:
So you’re saying you remember at nine years old -- you should remember some
of it.
DH:
Oh, yeah.
JJ:
What was it like at that time? I mean what type of --
DH:
[00:02:00] It was a working, poor-class neighborhood. The apartment that I lived
in, I lived in what’s known a cold water flat at first. It was in the basement.
(laughter) My family was -- there were four --
JJ:
Why did they call it cold water flat in our neighborhood? Why did they call it that?
DH:
’Cause there was no heated water, (laughter) so they called it cold water flat. It
was cheap. And we had to take baths by heating up water, so I remember that.
And it was really small. What was going on is that a lot of these buildings around
there were being subdivided, and they were cramming as many Puerto Rican
families as they could in these places. Really small. Tiny.
JJ:
[00:03:00] So when they’re subdivided, what do you mean?
DH:
At one time, these apartments used to be really big. Subdivided is that they
would put a wall in the middle somewhere and fix it up so that there were two
entrances. And then where there used to be one family, now they could fit two
families, sometimes three families. So these were cramped, small places that we
lived in at the very beginning. And so, you know, it was --
JJ:
Was your family big, like how many?
DH:
I have three brothers and one sister, so there were six of us living in an area that
was maybe what they call a studio apartment today. All of us lived there. We
used to sleep in the same -- you know, two to a bed. The little one used to sleep
2
�on a mattress on the floor every night. [00:04:00] So this was the kind of thing
that was going -- that we lived on. My uncles and aunts were in the same
situation. Everybody around there lived in small places. They were roachinfested, a lot of rats and all of that. The landlords never came around, they just
primarily left us. They didn’t fix anything. Everything had to be fixed by us or
else it wouldn’t get done. At that point, we didn’t know, but everything was
painted with that lead paint. So later on, as kids were being born and all that,
some of them were mentally -- they were retarded, basically, because of those
paint chips, and the fumes, and everything that was going on -- the dust that was
coming in. So it was way different than what it is now, [00:05:00] that whole
area. A lot of old buildings, red brick buildings, and no stores hardly around
there. It was just one big long street with a lot of buildings. That’s what I
remember. The hallways were always dark. And that’s how my parents lived for
a long time. I always wondered why my parents were always tired, and part of
the reason was that they would stay up night so they could flick the cockroaches
off our faces as we were sleeping. They had to go to work, and then at night
they have to be night guards against the cucarachas. (laughter)
JJ:
A lot of roaches.
DH:
Yeah, a lot. But we were a community, and a lot of families really stuck together
-- my aunts, and my uncles, [00:06:00] and all of that. And so there was a
lightness to it. I mean we had these big parties and --
JJ:
So were other Puerto Rican families bringing their families, too? So your family
came with a lot of other aunts, and uncles, and all that?
3
�DH:
Right. Right.
JJ:
And it was also happening in that area?
DH:
Yeah.
JJ:
’Cause you said (inaudible) --
DH:
My grandmother was the first who came, and she lived on Halsted and Armitage
in that big corner building which is still there. And you can’t touch it today. I don’t
know, it’s a condo thing. But that’s where they used to live because that place
was really full of our people. My grandmother was the first one to come. She
came, I think, in ’48. Yeah, 1948. She lived there for a long time.
JJ:
Why did she come from Puerto Rico?
DH:
Better life. The small factories weren’t just cutting sheet metal and all that, they
also had a lot sewing factories, and so she was a [00:07:00] seamstress, making
baby clothes in a baby factory. So that’s why she came.
JJ:
She was a seamstress in Puerto Rico, too, then?
DH:
Yeah, right.
JJ:
So she actually knew a skill.
DH:
Right. Yeah, she brought that skill over here back in ’48. So she came first, and
then a few of my uncles.
JJ:
And she came to Armitage and Halsted or to another place?
DH:
Straight to Halsted and Armitage.
JJ:
Straight to Halsted and Armitage in ’48.
DH:
Nineteen forty-eight, there were already Puerto Ricans here. (laughter)
JJ:
On Halsted and Armitage, okay. (inaudible)
4
�DH:
Yeah, right. So that whole area was there. Then my uncles settled in -- and they
came in the ’50s, and we were -- I think my family was about the last one to
come in into Chicago and that was in ’55. So there was a big family. [00:08:00]
My grandmother had like, I don’t know, 10 kids because at that time, you had big
families. My friend, [George Perez?], he has 17 brothers and sisters ’cause they
were big families. (laughs)
JJ:
Where did he live?
DH:
He lived right next door to me. (laughs)
JJ:
(inaudible) apartments.
DH:
Right. And his apartment was bigger because they had to hold 17 people in
there. So somehow or other there was a sense of that community. And the
church was around, the Catholic church was around. We weren’t Catholic, we
went to the Protestant church.
JJ:
What denomination?
DH:
I think it was Methodist.
JJ:
Methodist?
DH:
Yeah, Methodist ’cause they were doing a lot of outreach work and all of that.
JJ:
(inaudible).
DH:
So we were pretty active in that in those [00:09:00] -- we were like --
JJ:
You were pretty active? What do you mean active?
DH:
The church, at that time, was changing because the neighborhood -- it used to be
like there was a lot of Germans and Italians around there, and some African
Americans, but not too much. I think it was probably the main ethnics which had
5
�German, Irish, and Italians, you know? Italiano. And so they were in the process
of being moved out or moving out. And so -JJ:
Was it a natural movement out or they decided to move out?
DH:
They were already moving out of the city, basically. They had improved their lot.
I’m quite sure that they went through a lot of stuff, too, but they were already
[00:10:00] in a place where they could do that, they could afford to move out.
They were the ones that owned some of the stores around there. So they were
moving out to the burbs, or starting to move out to the burbs, because the
suburban explosion was happening. So some of them moved out there. The
church that we started going to, we were the first of the Latino families to come
in.
JJ:
You remember where that was at?
DH:
I can’t remember.
JJ:
’Cause I know they had some Methodist on Larrabee and something.
DH:
It was around Larrabee. The Ideal Theatre was around there. The Ideal Theater
was --
JJ:
I remember (inaudible). Close to (inaudible).
DH:
Yeah. So that whole area was, of course, like that, you know? Yeah, so that’s
what happened. [00:11:00] The churches were changing because the Latino
families were coming in and all that. That’s what was going on. So the services
started being in Spanish and all that.
JJ:
In the Methodist and the Catholic?
6
�DH:
Yeah, the Catholic, too. Yeah, the Catholic, too. And you could see that
because of the other -- as I said, the other ethnics were moving out. So that
population in the churches was changing. But that became our social thing.
JJ:
What do you mean? What kind (inaudible)?
DH:
Well, that’s where a lot of families, that’s where they met. There wasn’t any
place for them to go. My family and a lot of the families just worked, and they
were tired all day, and then they would go to services at night or whatever was
going on in the church. They had dinners and all that. But the churches were
also helping us because we were poor. We were the poor people. [00:12:00] I
remember during Christmas that I would get Christmas packages, and it didn’t
have my name on it, it would just say, “Boy, 9.” “Girl, 12.” “Oh, I’m boy.” I
remember that real vividly. Then they would come to me later, they were all,
“These were donated by the richer parishioners.” (laughs) So that’s what I grew
up with, all these things. We were poor and all that, pero como Puerto Rican
there was a sense of tightness of community that was really going on. I’ll give
you an example. When somebody died, everybody would chip in for the funeral
expenses. For the holidays and all of that, everybody would have these big
parties, and we even [00:13:00] cooked a pig in the bathtub. (laughter) We didn’t
know. I remember a lot of my uncles drinking all this Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.
All the adults drank Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. When they started making a little
money, they would buy a new car every year that they could -- Studebakers.
That’s what they had in those days. And I went to school. My older brother went
to Waller High School which is now called Lincoln Park High School, it’s a real
7
�fancy school now. And I went Arnold School which was a little grammar school
right next door.
JJ:
How was Arnold at that time? What do you remember of Arnold?
DH:
Arnold and [LaSalle?]?
JJ:
[00:14:00] And LaSalle School you went to?
DH:
Yeah, LaSalle School. At that time, when I was going in there, it was kind of
diverse. You still had the German kids, and the Italian, and the Irish, and all that.
You had those, and it wasn’t too bad. Although there was tension, you know -- I
ran a lot, I got chased a lot. (laughter) If you went by the Italian neighborhood,
forget it. You know you’re going to get your ass kicked or you know that you
were gonna to get chased, so I knew how to run and I knew -- you know, we
learned what our boundaries were, you know what I’m saying? We knew that if
you went this way, it might be dangerous, so you had to be careful which way
you crossed and all of that.
JJ:
And this is when you were living near the park?
DH:
By the park, right.
JJ:
[00:15:00] Was there white gangs or just white youth?
DH:
Yeah, white gangs.
JJ:
They were chasing the Latinos?
DH:
Right because the thing about us is that --
JJ:
And you weren’t in a gang at that time?
DH:
No.
JJ:
You were just Puerto Rican, and they were just chasing you.
8
�DH:
They were just chasing us. Right. There wasn’t a gang at that time. The gangs
came later on, and it was kind of, I think, for protection. It was really protecting
ourselves and all of that. We were getting chased a lot. Part of the thing was the
racism that existed. The ethnics and all that, like I said, the Irish, the Italians, and
the Germans, and whatever -- and the Italians were the ones that would first
called spic. It wasn’t us, [00:16:00] but we inherited that word. These were lightskinned Europeans most of them, but the Italians were a little darker, and it took
them a long time to get accepted. But when we came, we had this African
Caribbean look to us and all that, and they didn’t know what the hell to make of
us because we were darker-skinned and so forth, and really mixed, it confused
the hell of out of them ’cause some of us were real light-skinned. Like I got
cousins that were red-haired and freckled face, and I have cousins that had really
(Spanish) kinky hair like I had and all that. So that’s when we were introduced to
racism and all that. [00:17:00] I couldn’t get a haircut at a regular barber shop
because they said, “We don’t do your type of hair.” I remember that. So we had
to go and get our hair cut by [Don Benjamin?] who was our community barber
shop. He didn’t have a license, but he did it in his basement or whatever -- in the
back, somewhat of a garage. We learned to survive with that. That was our
sense of neighborhood. The little stores, and there was [Vicente’s?] store which
was really like a bodega, he was one of the first ones to own a store.
JJ:
Do you know where that was located or no?
9
�DH:
That was around Larrabee. Larrabee and Webster. Webster and Lincoln and
Larrabee, right there. That whole area was -- it’s where we lived. Some of my
uncles moved further [00:18:00] west.
JJ:
When did they start moving west?
DH:
About a couple of years later.
JJ:
Fifty-seven?
DH:
Yeah, ’57 and all that. But they had been here already, so they were making a
little bit more money, so they were able to afford -- what we did was we moved to
626 West Webster. That’s by what they call Oz Park now. And that was all
Puerto Ricans around there. It used to be a Swedish neighborhood ’cause they
still had the Swedish hall or whatever it was.
JJ:
When you say all Puerto Rican, 60 percent?
DH:
I would say about 70 percent. Again, families, big families, and we all kind of
knew each other. I’ll give you an example. A few of my aunts, we all lived in the
same -- there was a house here -- [00:19:00] because we were able to afford a
little bit more -- and it was these old wooden houses. So they were bigger and all
that. So we took up about three or four of those houses with just my family -cousins, and uncles, and all that -- and friends like George Perez and all that.
And a couple of friends who were -- I had a friend whose name was [Randy,
yeah?], he was German. And he had blond hair, blue eyes, and he was a good
kid. His family accepted what was going on and all that. So it wasn’t total -- you
know, just being alienated by everybody. But we were all basically in the same
boat. It was like a class thing at that time, you know? Struggling to make it
10
�better and so forth. So this was on Webster Street, 626 West Webster,
[00:20:00] and my grandmother still lived on Halsted. She lived there all of her
life, Halsted and Armitage, in that same building. She lived there from ’48 until, I
don’t know, sixty-something when she went back to Puerto Rico.
JJ:
What was her name?
DH:
Her name was Juana, [Tonya?] Juana everybody called her. And she liked to
have a shot of rum every morning, and she smoked a cigar -- handmade cigar
from -- they used to bring them in and [Don Filomeno?] used to make them [right
there?]. Illegally, but --
JJ:
Did they make cigars in Cidra? Was that a tobacco area?
DH:
Yeah, Cidra, my hometown. I remember some of the things that were in Cidra.
And [Don Filomeno?] was the guy who made the cigars. And he lived right next
door, and he had this little -- ’cause in my hometown, there were three things
[00:21:00] that were around there in terms of agriculture: sugar cane, tobacco,
and -- what’s the last one? Coffee. Coffee, they used to grow coffee. Those
were the three main products that were coming out of Cidra at that time.
JJ:
Did people own farms there or did they work on the farms?
DH:
My grandfather and a lot of my family, when they were in Puerto Rico, they were
agriculture. My dad worked in the cane fields and all that. He was a truck driver,
he would bring in the cane and all that. But what happened was that the
factories basically took over everything, so everything got industrialized, so there
were no jobs for people that had an agricultural background. It was changing. I
11
�think that was when [00:22:00] Operation Bootstrap came in where the factories JJ:
The ’40s.
DH:
Right, yeah. Well, the factories came in, and they were tax-free for seven years
or whatever, and so they industrialized everything including (inaudible) aspect of
it. Where my uncles and my family used to have little cane fields or growing
coffee and all of that, these were taken over by the big corporations, and so then
you had to work for them. So there were no jobs. It got harder and harder. And
the cities didn’t have any jobs. Everything was being industrialized. So that’s
why there was this big migration to Chicago -- specifically Chicago -- and they
were encouraging the workers here -- the factory owners here and everybody
was encouraging for Puerto Ricans to come over here. I mean there were ads in
Puerto Rico, [00:23:00] in [el periódico?], in the newspapers in Puerto Rico
talking about that they would pay your fare over here, set you up in an apartment
and all of that. And those apartments that were in the ads, they looked really
nice, but when we came here, (laughter) man, they didn’t look so good. But it
was being encouraged because they had a lot of unskilled labor jobs at that time,
what they called. And these were dangerous jobs. I had two of my uncles
whose fingers were cut off. So you see a lot of old Puerto Ricans missing one
finger and you know that they worked for these small factories and all that.
Stewart-Warner was a big employer. This place right here, where I live now
which is a loft space, these are old factories. Two of my uncles worked here.
(laughs)
12
�JJ:
What is the name of this factory?
DH:
I forgot what the name of it was. [00:24:00] Hein something -- or Hendrickson.
All of these things that you see are called loft spaces today are really old
factories. That’s how small they were, but a lot of Puerto Ricans worked in these
places.
JJ:
You said there were like poetry people, or art -- culture people.
DH:
What we did is we bought three factories, old factories, these. There’s three of
them in this complex, and we renovated them. Every one us, and it’s only artists.
What we did is every one of us, we chipped in. This was around 10 years ago.
We chipped in $3,000 each, and we bought them because we got tired -- not only
as a Puerto Rican being moved out and gentrified, but as an artist, the same
thing. [00:25:00] Artists go where it’s cheap, where the rent is cheap and all that,
and then what follows is we make it pretty or attractive, and we do shows and
that attracts, and boom, before you know it, we get moved out because the realty
people come and that’s a prime area right now. I saw this happen in Old Town
when we were there. I saw artists moving in and all that, and I saw a little theater
space going up there called Second City. (laughs) I saw the storefront. I used to
get coffee for those guys, they would send me to go get coffee for them. And so
I saw that, and a few years later, boom. Got commercialized. And everybody,
including the artists, got moved out. So not only did I get moved out as a Puerto
Rican, low-income and all that, but I got moved out also as an artist. So this
place here is a result of gentrification. [00:26:00] What they call Wicker Park now
13
�on Milwaukee and Damen North Avenue, that used to be artists a few years ago,
and then it got commercialized because -JJ:
Wasn’t that also a Puerto Rican community, too?
DH:
Yeah, before that, it used to be a Puerto Rican community. The whole thing
around here was Puerto Ricans. Again, a few of my cousins lived over there on
Damen North and all that. And so I remember my friends, [Eddie?], (inaudible),
and some of them, we all grew up there, they all grew up around there. So they
got moved out. At first, they were living well with the artists who could afford it in
the little storefront. The artists were encouraged to move over there. That was a
real conscious thing done by the realty people, bring in the artists. Then in a few
years, boom. It got gentrified. You go over there now, you can’t touch that area.
[00:27:00] You cannot touch it rent-wise. So we got moved out not only as
Puerto Ricans, but as artists, also. That’s been the history of artists. We move
into a neighborhood, and then we get commercialized out and gentrified. We got
this building here with the idea that we were not going to get moved out again.
So we all chipped in, bought the building, and we got the city to subsidize us.
Our argument was that we are low-income to moderate-income people and
therefore we should get subsidized, and they did. They subsidized the hell out of
it. So we bought the building, we prettied it up, Mayor Daley came by, at that
time, and he loved it. [00:28:00] We were a case study. (laughs) But here’s the
idea. We all own our own units, and they’re beautiful. We had an architect come
in and all that. We all own our own units, and we got them cheap. But the thing
is we can’t sell at the market price. In other words, we can’t buy here and then
14
�make a killing and then -- sell it and make a killing on it. We can only sell a little
bit more for the improvements -- whatever improvements we got, not to make a
lot of money. And if we sell, we have to sell it to another artist or a family that’s
low to moderate income. That way we don’t we get gentrified. That way we’re
not going to have a lot of rich realty people coming here and trying to buy us out.
JJ:
So that concept came because when you were younger you were also [00:29:00]
involved in organizing, too, with -- what was the name of the organization that
you had?
DH:
The name of the organization that I had was called La Gente which means The
People. And this is when I was younger.
JJ:
They were located where?
DH:
They were on Halsted and Roscoe. Halsted and Roscoe Street just a little north
of Lincoln Park area. Just a little north of there. Lincoln Park was around
Halsted and Armitage, Halsted and Lincoln Avenue, that whole area. We were
just a little north of there. But they called it Lakeview area. But the same thing,
that whole area was being gentrified.
JJ:
What was that area like in terms of population? Were there a lot of Puerto
Ricans there, too?
DH:
Yeah. When we got moved out of Old Town and that whole area around there,
some of us went west as far as Humboldt Park. [00:30:00] Some of us went
north in the Lakeview and Uptown area, and that’s where we went to, we moved
to the Lakeview area right around Belmont, Halsted. Yeah, that’s basically kind
of like the dividing line that I remember. So from there --
15
�JJ:
Clark Street is also there, too.
DH:
Right. Clark Street.
JJ:
You were following Clark.
DH:
Right. Going up north on Clark Street. Thank God we didn’t go east because
now we’d be at the lake drowned by now. (laughter) So that’s what happened.
And it was a pattern -- boom, boom, boom, boom. We kept getting moved out.
But part of the reason was -- one thing was that some of the adults, some of our
parents and all that, always had the idea of going back to Puerto Rico. They
were going to make money here and move back. [00:31:00] Twenty years in,
they’re still waiting, (laughter) and they got stuck here. So they didn’t really
invest in terms of buying. So they were at the mercy of these landlords and
realty, and that’s why we kept moving around. That’s why I went to one, two,
three, about four different schools because one apartment, the rent would go up
and we had to move out again, you know, keep going. So that was the issue.
So when I was living around Halsted and Roscoe in the Lakeview area, there
was -- this was ’60s, so I learned -- Saul Alinksy, the organizer, he had a lot of
influence on a lot of us. And so I learned how to organize. A whole bunch of us
young people learned how to organize and how to create tenant’s unions to help
our people and the people in that area, [00:32:00] meaning that hold back the
rent because a slum lord didn’t fix the pipes, or didn’t give us heat in the winter
because we couldn’t afford the rent that month or whatever, so they would cut off
the heat or didn’t fix things. And again, roach and rat infested and all that. They
just didn’t give a damn. And so we learned how to organize, and form tenant’s
16
�unions, and go in there and hold the rent until things got fixed. And we learned
how to do the publicity game. Bring in the newspapers, bring in whatever just to
shame these landlords. So it became a big issue.
JJ:
So La Gente was doing this?
DH:
Yeah. What happened was this -- I used to be a youth worker [00:33:00] at that
time. I had graduated from Lake View High School and I was going to Wright
City College, and so I got a part-time job as a youth worker, and I worked for
Jane Addams Center. So I was supposed to work with the gangs. At that time,
the gangs were like the Eagles, the Latin Eagles and all that. In that area, there
was the Aristocrats which was the last stronghold of the Irish. (laughter) And so I
used to do that. And so with the Latin Eagles and all that. And we really did a
great job at keeping things cool and all that because we’re close to them, we’re
from the streets. We knew how to identify with them and they trusted us and that
was the thing. But a lot of changes were going on. These were the ’60s, so
things were getting politicized more. [00:34:00] People’s consciousness was
being raised. And so south of us in the Lincoln Park area, there’s a group called
the Young Lords. They started an organization, they started organizing there,
and that influenced us. A little further up north, the same thing. It was trickling
up. Again, the sense of community.
JJ:
What sort of things influenced the --
DH:
The way that they were working with the community, the way that they were
organizing. As a model, I think they used the Black Panther Party and all of that.
And in terms of setting up free food pantries, the free breakfast programs and all
17
�of that, these were models that we also used. Advocating for poor people in the
welfare office, we learned how to do that from the Young Lords. [00:35:00] We
learned the people at the welfare office, they have to be there all day, so we
would go over there with pots of rice and beans and feed the people (laughter)
and advocate for the welfare people because they were -- the people on welfare
that were there because these welfare offices, they were abusive. They made
everybody that needed money or needed help, they made them feel bad. They
made them wait all day there, and shame them. And these workers, they just
treated them bad, and so that’s why. And at the same time, we learned that you
could form unions, organize for the welfare recipients. So the welfare recipients
started learning [00:36:00] all of that. They became advocates. And so that’s
what we were doing. Doing tenant’s unions, forming tenant’s unions around
there. Basically the same thing because, again, this community organizing
became a real thing for me.
JJ:
Who were some of the people that were working with you at that time? What
were some of their names? I remember [Americo?] or something like that. Was
it --
DH:
Americo. Americo Rodriguez was there. (inaudible) Ramirez was there. [Elba?]
-- I forgot her last name. There was a whole bunch of us. A couple of priests,
Father [Lizek?] and I forgot the other one. They were pretty radical. And so they
all worked with us. [Sally Contreras?] was another one. She took on the
telephone [00:37:00] company.
JJ:
What was that? What did she do?
18
�DH:
Well, what she did is that they weren’t hiring enough Latinos, Puerto Ricans in
the telephone company. So she did some research and found out that a lot of
Puerto Ricans were making long distance phone calls all the way to Puerto Rico
and that they were making money off of us. So she threatened them with
boycott. They started saying, “If you don’t hire more people, we’re going to
boycott you.” And I’ll be damned if it didn’t work. And she brought a whole group
of people.
JJ:
Sally Contreras?
DH:
Sally Contreras. She brought a whole bunch of people to the telephone
company and said, “If you don’t hire us, more Latinos, more Puerto Ricans, we
will boycott.” And that was a threat, and it worked. It really worked. More
Latinos started [00:38:00] being hired and all that.
JJ:
Did you work with any other groups in Lakeview?
DH:
What happened with me was that I was working with the Eagles. And the police
thought that I was teaching them -- well, I was -- but what happened was that the
Civil Liberties Union, they had a little booklet about your rights. And at the
playground, the Eagles and some of the other street clubs, I gave them copies of
this, little manuals on learning their rights if they were arrested and all that. And
I’ll be damned, they picked it up. That’s what was going on.
JJ:
So if they were arrested not to say anything and --
DH:
Right. Say, “Why are you arresting me?” And they would ask why. And the
police didn’t like this. So they thought that I was some kind of a radical. So they
set it up so that I [00:39:00] would get beaten get up by them. They wanted to kill
19
�me. They set it up, they made an arrest and all of that the night I went out there
to see what I could do. Before I know it, I was surrounded by police.
JJ:
You were beaten up?
DH:
Yeah, I was beaten up, they were trying to open my hand and put a gun in it. I
knew what time what was. That was a [drop?] gun, and one of them was gonna
do me fatal (laughs) injury. But I didn’t open. But after that, I was so upset that I
quit. I quit working and I just became an organizer. So the Latin Eagles became
the Latin Eagle Organization. Again, using the Young Lords as an example.
And it was called LEO, but then we changed our name to La Gente because we
wanted to like -- that whole neighborhood was -- although it was primarily Puerto
Rican, it also had some African American and some poor white people that lived
in that area. [00:40:00] Because just north of us was Uptown, and there was a
lot of poor white up there. Southern Appalachians, they used to work the mines
and now were living up there. And it was pretty bad. So we changed our name
to be inclusive of everybody in that neighborhood. It represented what we had.
So it was called La Gente, and it was -- the model that we used was the model
that the Young Lords had set up just south of us. And the same issues -- getting
moved out, being gentrified. The same problems. So we set that up. And if you
look at it, at Lincoln Park, you had the Young Lords, the Lakeview area had La
Gente, and then north of us was the Young Patriots. So that whole area around
there was influenced by the Young Lords [00:41:00] in terms of what was going
on. And in turn, I think it was the Black Panther Party and some of the other
groups that influenced all of us. So we were learning from the Civil Rights
20
�Movement, everything that was going on at that time. So our consciousness was
raised, and so that’s what came about. That’s what came about. So that’s
where La Gente came into being. And we organized, we did, like I said, free
pantry which is now still in existence, it’s called the Lake View Free Food Pantry.
It’s still going on. It’s still going on. So some things lasted. So that was the
dynamics that were happening at that time.
JJ:
So there was some connection not only in the -- in terms of the ideology, but I
mean there was [00:42:00] actually good communication with the Young Lords at
the time and vice versa?
DH:
Oh, yeah. We supported each other, you know?
JJ:
What do you remember that we did together?
DH:
I remember whenever the Young Lords or the Young Patriots or whatever,
whenever there was a big event or a march that was going on, we would
participate in that. Here’s the thing is that I had friends in the Young Lords that I
grew up with who went to high school with me and who I had known since we
were little. So even though they were a Young Lords member, we were still
together. (laughs) So it was like -- you know what I’m saying? It was our familia.
You know, [Carlos Flores?], [Alfredo?], all of these guys I’ve known.
JJ:
And, actually, there was no initiation or anything, you just started working.
DH:
Right, we just started working. We just started coming and doing it.
JJ:
’Cause I remember being at a lot of your events, not just one or two.
DH:
Right, [00:43:00] a lot of events that we were --
JJ:
But I always knew that you were also the head of La Gente.
21
�DH:
Right. Yeah.
JJ:
So the Young Lords were political, but they were also from the street. So I mean
did you actually hang out with any of the Young Lords?
DH:
Yeah, and I hung out --
JJ:
What do you remember about that? I mean what type of people? How were
they?
DH:
I remember we used to party a lot. (laughs) I used to hang out --
JJ:
When you say party, what do you mean?
DH:
Partying. We would go to parties together, (Spanish) [00:43:46] and all of that
stuff.
JJ:
Dancing?
DH:
Yeah, dances.
JJ:
(inaudible).
DH:
Yeah, yeah.
JJ:
I’m talking about this is before they became political or --
DH:
Yeah.
JJ:
Okay, so you knew them [00:44:00] before they became political.
DH:
Right.
JJ:
How were they before they became political, the Young Lords? I mean what do
you remember? You said the parties and --
DH:
That’s basically about it. There were fights once in a while and all that stuff, but,
again, it was because, basically, we had to defend ourselves from the white boys
22
�-- from the white gangs around there. They used to try to beat the shit out of us.
So there was this territorial thing that happened. So I remember some of that -JJ:
So there wasn’t that [gang of?] today? I mean there was a difference or -- I
mean at that time, that was the early part of the gangs, but today -- but it was
more territorial. Can you describe what that means? The difference?
DH:
There was a sense of protection. [00:45:00] We had to protect -- the Young
Lords, what I saw, and I remember some of the other gangs and all that, even
though once in a while they would fight amongst each other, it was primarily
protecting themselves from some of the -- you know, Lo Italiano and some of the
Irish gangs and all of that. I think it was born out of protecting ourselves and
protecting the neighborhood ’cause even though -- they didn’t call themselves
gangs. We used to call them street clubs. (laughs) So these street clubs weren’t
just -- a lot of people were not afraid of them because these were their sons and
daughters and all of that that were a part of it. And they used to hang out
together so they could go to the boys’ club or whatever and feel safe. [00:46:00]
But, also, they used to do things like, again, when [Donia Josefa?] died or
something like that, these clubs would make a collective. They would go around
and make a collection and so they could have a proper burial for her or ship her
back to Puerto Rico where they would buried and all of that. So there was thing
of helping out the community. They never really attacked their own community.
Never. I never saw that. Never saw that. So we used to hang out, and that’s
about it. Just hang out and talk about what was going on.
23
�JJ:
Do you remember there was a big incident that happened and it was about a
week long. [00:47:00] It was on Halsted near Belmont by California Terrace.
There was a place called --
DH:
Oh, yeah.
JJ:
What do you remember about that?
DH:
I remember there was --
JJ:
What was that about?
DH:
I had two friends that lived in that.
JJ:
What year was that around? Basically it was like sixty --
DH:
Sixty-five maybe. Yeah, around ’65, ’66.
JJ:
This was at California Terrace by Barry.
DH:
By Barry, right over there. Right.
JJ:
Was that Lincoln or Clark?
DH:
Halsted. It was Halsted, Barry, and Clark. California Terrace. A lot of Puerto
Ricans lived there, and that was a slum. I mean really bad. My friend, [Jimmy
Morales?], lived there. What happened is that it got -- it got so bad that I think it
was Father Lizek and maybe [Father Charlie?], [00:48:00] real activists -- and a
lot of Puerto Ricans there went to their church which was -- I forgot the name of
that church on Wellington. Anyway --
JJ:
(inaudible).
DH:
Yeah, right. And so they organized the people there --
JJ:
But there was an incident. I believe the Aristocrats had to jump somebody from
there or -- were you involved?
24
�DH:
No.
JJ:
I know that a lot of people from Halsted & Dickens and the Eagles --
DH:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. Eagles.
JJ:
-- came here to fight with the Aristocrats.
DH:
The Outcast Angels. (laughs)
JJ:
Yeah, the Angels.
DH:
Well, they used to be called the Angels.
JJ:
They had a whole week of -- gang-banging for a whole week.
DH:
Yeah.
JJ:
(inaudible).
DH:
Yeah, against the Aristocrats.
JJ:
Were you involved? Were you a part?
DH:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
JJ:
What do you remember of that, of that era? ’Cause other people have
mentioned that, also.
DH:
What I remember is that we were really -- I was really pissed off [00:49:00] at
what happened. And Jimmy Morales and some of the other people, we wanted
to exact some vengeance on what happened because they really -- I think what
they did is they beat up a kid or tried to rape one -- I think they tried to rape one
of the girls. What was her name? I can’t remember her name. I want to say
[Ava?]. But they really roughed her up pretty bad. So that’s what did it. That’s
what lit the fuel. And so the Eagles, Outcast Angels -- who else was there?
JJ:
I know Halsted & Dickens, all the different gangs -- clubs, all the different clubs.
25
�DH:
Yeah, clubs, all the clubs around there.
JJ:
And Halsted & Dickens came up there. There were two or three hundred people
out there (laughs) for a week. For a whole week.
DH:
For a whole week, yeah. And driving around. They used to drive [00:50:00]
around looking for the -- and I think that was about the last -- that’s what really
did the Aristocrats in. I think they were never powerful (laughs) after that. They
lost. So it was a statement that was being made. So the Aristocrats, they
understood what was going on, so they chilled out. After that, they were no
longer that powerful. But I remember that. The thing I’m talking about is in
California Terrace -- there’s two. A few years later -- yeah, it was a few years
later. You know, that place was so bad that they organized, and they -everybody there, all the tenants, they organized and they held their rent back in
escrow. And then they had an opening, [00:51:00] a house -- what do you call
that? A house-warming party or whatever, and they invited the press, the invited
the public to come and see what it was really like in there. And they had in little
baggies or something, they had a cockroach, a dead mouse in there, and they
were giving it to people just to show how bad it was. And it worked. It worked.
The city got on their case over there, the inspectors came and really -- because
the inspectors were on the take. So, of course, all these slum lords, they could
just pay off and nothing would be done about it.
JJ:
So what do you mean on the take? I mean inspectors.
DH:
The take means that a lot of inspectors, they’re supposed to come in and inspect,
and if they see things that are bad or wrong, they’re supposed to report it back to
26
�the city and force the landlord to make repairs, basically to improve the building.
And a lot of them [00:52:00] were on the take, that means that they were bribed.
That means that the landlords, once a month or whatever, he would pay them off.
So much was set aside just to pay off the inspectors not to come in there. And
I’m talking about electrical work, I’m talking about just things that really needed to
be done. A lot of fires occurred in these buildings ’cause of the bad wiring that
happened, and the electrical inspector and all that was supposed to come, and
he would take a bribe and just leave it as is and say everything’s perfect. So
that’s what happened.
JJ:
What else do you think we should add to the interview that we haven’t touched
upon? I know we didn’t go into other events that you participated in.
DH:
So much to say. One of the things I want to say is [00:53:00] that at that time -all of us were young, we were the ones who were really leading a lot of this stuff,
and organizing, and doing really great stuff not just in our community, but in
terms of nationwide. The anti-war movement, that influenced us. The hippies,
(laughs) the Yippies, the Youth International Party -- all of these things. The
Black Panther Party, all of the -- SDS, all of these. We were all basically together
on all of this. So that’s what I remember. It’s all connected. This is not an
isolated factor, this was going on nationwide, [00:54:00] and so that influenced
us. One of the things, also, that happened was that I’m a poet, I’ve been a poet
since I was 11 years old. And so me and other artists, we organized. Got
Gamaliel Ramírez, some musicians, artists, and all that, we started doing a lot of
things together. And out of that outcome we created El Taller which means The
27
�Workshop. And what we did is that all of us artists got together and formed this
organization to deal with community, and we recruited a lot of kids, and we work
primarily with kids, to come and help us do art. So the graffiti that was being
painted up there by some of the kids on the street, some of the gang bangers if
you want to call them, some of them really have talent. (laughs) [00:55:00] So
Gamaliel and other artists took them in and showed them how to do murals. So
out of that graffiti experience came these beautiful murals that are out there
today, you see? So we had an influence to a lot of these kids. Some of them are
really talented. They knew how to play bongo, and congas, and music and all
that. So we steered them that way, and it worked. It worked. I was part of the
whole cultural movement that we created.
JJ:
And on that same topic (inaudible) campaign, the aldermanic campaign. You did
a thing with Bob Gibson or -- do you recall that?
DH:
Yeah. That’s when Cha-Cha Jiménez was running for alderman. (laughter)
JJ:
Do you remember any of those verses or anything?
DH:
And together. And together we can make it. [00:56:00] Turn around and we
shape it. That’s how I remember that. That was a great song that Bob Gibson
and I wrote together for --
JJ:
For the aldermanic campaign.
DH:
-- for the aldermanic campaign of Cha-Cha Jiménez and the Young Lords.
JJ:
Bob Gibson is a folk singer and (inaudible).
DH:
Bob Gibson was really well -- I mean he made it big at one time. He was the
ultimate folk singer.
28
�JJ:
Well, you’re well-known, too, (inaudible). (laughter) So you did a few things like
this, some events, in terms of supporting the Young Lords through the years.
DH:
In ’71, I published my first book. So then unbeknownst to me, I became the first
Latino poet to be published in the state of Illinois. So that’s been an honor that I
created, but I didn’t know that at that time. [00:57:00] In terms of the arts and the
cultural aspect of it, it’s been a movement. It’s been a part of the movement for a
long time. I’m part of that movement that was influenced by the Young Lords. I
was influenced by the Black Panther Party, I was influenced by a lot of what was
going on at that time. I’m a product of that. At that time, I had an afro. I’m baldheaded now, but I was 6’2” with that damn afro because I used to pick that
sucker up. (laugher) I used to wear dashikis and all of that stuff. And, plus, the
connection to Puerto Rico, that was important. Puerto Rico Libre, you know,
tengo Puerto Rico en mi corazon. That was an influence from the Young Lords
’cause they were the ones that really brought that aspect into the Puerto Rican
community here. Free Puerto Rico [00:58:00] about the colonial status of Puerto
Rico and all of that, all of that was taught to us by the Young Lords. I know there
are other people now that are trying to revise history and say, “Well, we’re the
ones” -- no. No, it was the Young Lords. Cha-Cha Jiménez and that group over
there that really raised our consciousness in terms of connecting back to our
culture because we were losing it here in some ways, so we got acculturated. If
it wasn’t for the Young Lords, there wouldn’t be this Puerto Rican pride that we
have today that still exists. I think it was (inaudible) that wrote something about
the identity crises that we suffered because when we came here everything was
29
�in terms of Black or white, but we were both. We’re multicultural, multiracial, and
all of that. [00:59:00] And so the Young Lords, again, were the ones that really
instigated that whole concept of being proud of who were, and learning about our
culture, learning about our roots. That’s important. Really important, you know?
And so that’s what rooted us together. If it wasn’t for all those lessons taught -because, see, the Young Lords were not just an organization, they became the
teachers. Simple.
END OF VIDEO FILE
30
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f830d6aab9659211fea61a0b5bd0fefe.mp4
a722e34654698b20c1842a63b07199a3
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Description
An account of the resource
Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives.
The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-25
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
spa
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-65
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
2012-2017
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Título
Spanish language Title entry
David Hernández vídeo entrevista y biografía
Sujetos
Spanish language Subject terms
Young Lords (Organización)
Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos
Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales
Justicia social
Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago
Artes, Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago
Renovación urbana--Illinois--Chicago
Juventud--Illinois--Chicago
Discriminación en la vivienda--Illinois--Chicago
Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia
Viviendas--Illinois--Chicago
Source
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-65_Hernandez_David
Title
A name given to the resource
David Hernández video interview and transcript
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hernández, David
Description
An account of the resource
David Hernández was born in Cidra, Puerto Rico and arrived in Chicago in 1955. He has volunteered with the Young Lords in many activities and events. But his primary community work has been with La Gente, an organization he founded that worked with Latinos and the poor of Lakeview. Originally the group was called the Latin Eagles Organization. Like the Young Lords, La Gente also had a Breakfast for Children Program. The group stood with the Young Lords for affordable housing and against Mayor Richard J. Daley’s displacement of Puerto Ricans from the lakefront and near downtown areas of the city. Mr. Hernández has been called the unofficial, “Poet Laureate of Chicago.” He blends folk, jazz, and Afro-Latin music that chronicles the pedestrian walking down Chicago’s streets. One of his famous poems is called “La Armitage” and features the neighborhood of Lincoln Park and several prominent Young Lords. Mr. Hernández performed at Harold Washington’s mayoral inauguration in 1977 and at his funeral. He also performed in Humboldt Park for the Young Lords and at their 40th Anniversary in 2008. Today, David Hernández lives in Wicker Park, continues to be active in the community, and to collaborate with the Young Lords.
Contributor
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Jiménez, José, 1948-
Subject
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Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Arts, Puerto Rican--Illinois--Chicago
Urban renewal--Illinois--Chicago
Youth--Illinois--Chicago
Discrimination in housing--Illinois--Chicago
Civil Rights--United States--History
Housing--Illinois--Chicago
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eng
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Moving Image
Text
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Date
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2012-03-29
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6f9963969fed44d074cddb5153f62759.pdf
a280183ab9d48ff495031d4dcc5c3e2a
PDF Text
Text
Young Lords
In Lincoln Park
Interviewee: Rosa Meria Hernández
Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez
Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Date: 3/28/2012
Biography and Description
Rosa M. Hernández grew up on Orchard Street, just down from Waller High School. Like many of the
Puerto Rican women of that era, she grew up sheltered, kept inside while boys were free to stay out late
and roam the streets. So Ms. Hernández was glad to be the neighborhood store errand girl because it
was a way to be free and visit with her friends and neighbors, and to see boys. There were other reasons
why Ms. Hernández’s family tried to keep her inside in the evenings. Right down the street at Burling
and Armitage, the Black Eagles, Paragons, Flaming Arrows, Imperial Aces, Continentals, Trojans and
Young Lords would hang out daily until the early hours of the morning, drinking and talking. Even they
would not bring their women, though occasionally they would drive around with them in their soupedup cars and stop briefly to chat. Several of these groups also had auxiliary women’s groups, like the
Imperial Queens and Young Lordettes, who would be seen during the day. Ms. Hernández knew
everyone of importance in the neighborhood from youth to adults, including Eugenia Rodríguez who
attended the same churches as Ms. Hernández and her parents. She recalls how everyone in the
neighborhood watched out for each other and that even the alleged gangs were polite and courteous to
their neighbors. Her oral history provides much insight into everyday life in Lincoln Park during that
significant era in the early to mis-1960s for the Puerto Rican community.
�Transcript
JOSE JIMENEZ:
Okay, and whenever you want to start --
ROSA HERNANDEZ:
Okay.
JJ:
-- just start with your name and, you know, like that.
RH:
Okay.
JJ:
Okay?
RH:
All right. My name is Rosa Meria Hernández. The age of 12, I went by the name
[as Rosalind?]. I didn’t want to combine my Spanish name, so I put Rosalind,
like Rosalind Russell. But I was born here in Chicago on June 12, 1957, Cook
County Hospital. My mother was 20 years old. Her name was [Margarita
González?]. She came from San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico. She came here to
Chicago at the age of 15, married, and my father --
JJ:
You know what part of San Lorenzo, or --?
RH:
Huh?
JJ:
You know what part of San Lorenzo?
RH:
Barriada Roosevelt.
JJ:
Roosevelt, okay.
RH:
Yeah, from [Lo Arzuaga, Rosales?]. [00:01:00] My father’s from Caguas. His
name is [Ramón?] Hernández. He was 24 years old.
JJ:
You know what part of Caguas? The country or the city?
RH:
The pueblo that my father is from was, I think, Santiago.
JJ:
San Salvador or --?
1
�RH:
San Salvador. Yes. San Salvador. I know it goes like San. You know, San
Salvador.
JJ:
(inaudible).
RH:
Where he’s from there. My grandfather is from there also, was from there also,
from San Salvador. (Spanish) [00:01:39] [Damian Garai Perez?], (Spanish)
[00:01:45].
JJ:
(inaudible)
RH:
(Spanish) [00:02:00] [Felicita Hernández Trinidad?] or Trinidad Hernández. I
was born in Chicago in 1957.
JJ:
Okay, but when did your parents come here?
RH:
My father came here in 1952.
JJ:
’52.
RH:
Yes. My father came here at the age of 17.
JJ:
And what did he come for? I mean, what (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)?
RH:
He came here to work. He started working washing dishes at the Palmer House
Hotel, and he had family here, a lot of cousins, male cousins with their families
that lived here, so --
JJ:
Do you remember some of them?
RH:
-- we lived in the Lincoln Park area.
JJ:
Do you remember some of the male cousins [here?]?
RH:
Yes. [Manolo?] -- last name -- I [00:03:00] forgot the last name. Maloco,
[Juancho?] --
JJ:
Actually, Maloco was Jiménez.
2
�RH:
Jiménez, (Spanish) [00:03:08] a lot of old-timers. You know, there was a lot of
old-timers in the neighborhood --
JJ:
(overlapping dialogue; inaudible).
RH:
-- especially in the Lincoln Park area.
JJ:
Maloco was part of this group they had in [Aguas Buenas?], Hacha Vieja.
RH:
La Hacha Vieja.
JJ:
Do you remember them? (inaudible)?
RH:
Yes. Yes. I remember them because my father had a jacket, a leather jacket,
and I used to put it on, and he used to tell me to go hang it back up, and I used to
laugh at -- you know, make fun of my dad because I said he was in a motorcycle
gang. Some movie that I watched. But we lived in the Lincoln Park area. The
first time I remember was that I lived on Orchard and Armitage with a family that
my mom [00:04:00] had baptized one of the sons that was near my age. I was
three, and I was left with the family, and something happened. My mom left me,
and she never came back. So, I remember the first place where my -- even
though I remember before, Clark and Barry, memories of my mother, of where
we lived because I was little. I have a good memory, but -- was on Armitage and
Orchard, 653 --
JJ:
You said Clark and Barry, ’cause that’s [up north?].
RH:
Yes, Clark and Barry that -- my mom lived there because Clark and Barry -- my
mom and my dad, when they first got together, we lived on Belden, or -- when
they first got together, when I was born, they lived on Cleveland and Armitage
and Lincoln, by the [Old President Hotel?]. Remember [00:05:00] the Old
3
�President Hotel in the Lincoln Park area that had the medicine cabinet to the
other apartment? Did you remember that?
JJ:
Oh, I didn’t know that. (inaudible).
RH:
Yeah. You shared the medicine cabinets together in the President Hotel. There
were a lot of families --
JJ:
So, you could see right through to the other apartment?
RH:
You could see in the bathroom. You shared the same medicine cabinet back in
the Old President Hotel, and that was on Lincoln and Cleveland -- Sedgwick.
Lincoln and Sedgwick. Yes. And, at that time --
JJ:
So, you guys lived in that hotel, or --?
RH:
-- was when Vitin bought El Coco Loco. Vitin Santiago bought the Coco Loco,
and my uncle at that time had the old 1800 Club on Halsted and Willow, which is
[Rafa?]. Rafa [Rivera?].
JJ:
Rafa Rivera.
RH:
Rafael Rivera (Spanish) [00:05:55] Turin Acevedo, you know, with the long
[00:06:00] hair. That’s how Turin Acevedo [want, like, copied?] that from my
uncle, [Padrino?] (Spanish) [00:06:06]. Rafael Rivera.
JJ:
Rivera. Were they related to [Mario Rivera?], the [store?]?
RH:
No, no. No Mario Rivera. [El Campo?]?
JJ:
Yeah.
RH:
No, no, no.
JJ:
[They weren’t?]?
RH:
They were not related, no. I knew Mario.
4
�JJ:
So, this was a different Rivera.
RH:
Yeah, [Del Campo?].
JJ:
(Spanish) [00:06:23] So, his club was called what?
RH:
The 1800 Club.
JJ:
The 1800 Club.
RH:
He was partners with someone else. I can’t recall -- (Spanish) [00:06:33]
because (Spanish) [00:06:43] -- they had a lot of problems, and it was real
domestic. She was a beautiful woman, and she [stood?] with us for a while, and
he left, I think to Cleveland. Something [00:07:00] happened where he left to
Cleveland. And so, my father went into business with my uncle and the 1800
Club, only for a few months. This was on 1800 North Halsted and Willow Street.
JJ:
On Halsted and Willow? (inaudible) ’cause the Campo was right there too. They
had (overlapping dialogue; inaudible).
RH:
Yes, right across the street.
JJ:
So, you had a couple businesses [there?].
RH:
Right. So, my father was located -- he lived on Lincoln and Larrabee, right in
front of Grant Hospital.
JJ:
Ramón Garai.
RH:
Ramón Garai Hernández, my father, and the husband of the -- I called her my
aunt, my mom’s comadre, found my father living at that address. At that time, my
father had remarried, and I had a six-month-old sister and a six-year-old
stepbrother.
JJ:
Okay. And we’re talking about [00:08:00] what year?
5
�RH:
In 1964.
JJ:
’64, okay.
RH:
’63, ’64. I’ve tried to go back with my mom about things, but my mom did not
really like to talk about anything, you know. My dad --
JJ:
Why is that? I mean, why --?
RH:
Because my mom -- at the time, on 1900 North Bissell and Wisconsin, my father
mutilated my mother’s face in that bar. That’s one of the dark --
JJ:
In the 1800 Club?
RH:
No, no, no. This was on Bissell and Wisconsin.
JJ:
It was a different bar? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)
RH:
When I was two. I think I was two. They don’t like talking about stuff like that,
you know.
JJ:
So, mutilated meaning that he cut her --
RH:
He mutilated my mother in the face. He found her in the bar. I was in the
[00:09:00] car, and she was looking for my dad, so I can vouch for that. They
don’t talk about stuff like that, but I remember. I was two. From that, my mother
totally disappeared from Chicago, and, at two and a half to three years old, I was
left in the care of my mother’s godsister, comadre, and, after a while -- I’d say
maybe, like, 10 months -- my father was located ’cause my father was nowhere
to be found either. I guess, in that time, in that area, things happened. He went - I don’t know where. I think he went to Philadelphia, New Jersey, but, you know,
my mom totally just abandoned me. So, I went to live with my dad, and his wife,
and my sister, my baby sister, and my stepbrother, [00:10:00] and I grew up on
6
�Lincoln and Larrabee. I think it was 2758 or 2157 -- I can’t remember the
address -- on North Lincoln, and it had the porches. It was in an [angle?], and
there was the old Stand-JJ:
So, this is more like around Belmont or [somewhere?] --
RH:
No, no, no. This was on Lincoln, Webster --
JJ:
Webster.
RH:
-- and Larrabee.
JJ:
And Larrabee.
RH:
And there was the old Standard Oil station right there. Remember? And the
building that we lived in used to be a hall. I don’t know if it was a theater or a
banquet, but I remember that they had front gates with chains on it. The building
was real big, and it had four floors, and it was combined with -- you know. We
used to have a burglar in the neighborhood called [El Gato?], and he used to go
and rob in this [00:11:00] building, so -- and we all had our [heads up with?] El
Gato. And, from our porch, we could see Larrabee Street and the store there on
Larrabee, and Lincoln, and --
JJ:
Was it a Spanish store or no, just a --?
RH:
It was a candy -- they had a lot of candy.
JJ:
A candy store.
RH:
I’m a candy fanatic. Me and my brother. My brother and I, we were candy -- we
grew up right there. We went to Lincoln School. We went to Lincoln School, and
we lived right in front of Grant Hospital.
JJ:
Where was Lincoln School? Where was Lincoln School?
7
�RH:
Lincoln School’s on Geneva, [Terrence?], and Grant Street. Right there.
[Belden?] and [Eugenie?].
JJ:
By Grant Hospital, right there.
RH:
Grant Hospital, yes. Grant Hospital is right in front. And that area there -- I used
to [00:12:00] go walk to the Carnival grocery store, and, for a couple of years, my
grandfather would pick up his granddaughters -- my aunt’s granddaughters -- and
there used to be a [Bernardine Ballet School?], and, on Saturdays, my
grandfather would pick us up, and take us to do ballet, and read a paper in front
while we practiced ballet, my grandfather. Those are one of my most cherished
memories.
JJ:
So, he was really into ballet, or he just [liked it?]?
RH:
We were into ballet.
JJ:
I mean, he was into it too, then.
RH:
My grandfather wanted to keep us busy because we were so many girls in the
family. My aunt had, like, seven girls, and my other aunt had, like -- at that time,
at my age, she had little boys. The boys started coming --
JJ:
Were they all living in the same area?
RH:
And we all lived in the same area. My aunt --
JJ:
Was that a common thing, [00:13:00] for families to --?
RH:
Yes, we all lived around together, and --
JJ:
In Lincoln Park. So, it was common to have --
RH:
It was common.
JJ:
-- [different families?].
8
�RH:
We had family -- we all moved together. We all lived together, and we went trickor-treating together. We went to school together. When we moved from Lincoln,
we moved back to that building that I lived in, where my mother left me, which is
Orchard and Armitage. I lived 653 West Armitage, and we moved to 657. And
then, my aunt, [Heidi?], moved to the second floor, and we lived on the third floor,
in front of Robert Waller High School and Arnold Upper Grade Center.
JJ:
Right in front of the school, right there.
RH:
Right in front. Armitage and Orchard. Right there. But my most memories are
really [00:14:00] Lincoln Avenue, the Biograph Theater. We went every Sunday.
JJ:
So, if you were with a lot of family [and that?], you actually hung out outside, not
like some other women that are sheltered. You were more, like, outside.
RH:
No. See, we grew up on a porch.
JJ:
(overlapping dialogue; inaudible).
RH:
We grew up on a porch, but --
JJ:
Okay. What does that --?
RH:
-- I was the store girl --
JJ:
The store girl.
RH:
-- you see. My stepmother was the kind -- if she wanted to eat a piece of gum,
she sent me to the store to get it, so I was always out, you know? I’d go to the
store, and I put down my stuff, and I buy me candy, and I swing on the swing. I
used to take hours coming back from the store, but I used to go to the store, like,
four, five, six times a day in the winter, the blizzard, and the rain, and the cold. It
was a freedom for me because we were not allowed -- the only time that we were
9
�allowed, any of the kids in [00:15:00] that neighborhood -- we were not kids that
roamed the streets. We were not children -- because there are families in that
neighborhood that had nine, like the [Betinas?] had nine, and the [Nieveses?]
had eleven.
JJ:
So, these were big, huge families.
RH:
Huge families. My aunt had eight.
JJ:
And not only did they have eleven, but they had other relatives --
RH:
And they had other relatives. So --
JJ:
-- living in the same neighborhood.
RH:
So, we all went to school together, so we --
JJ:
So, what year are we talking about (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)?
RH:
I’m talking about -- we moved out of Lincoln Avenue in 1960-- right after the
blizzard, ’67. We moved --
JJ:
’67.
RH:
-- there in ’68.
JJ:
’68.
RH:
Yeah. We moved there.
JJ:
So, at that time, there were a lot of Latinos still living there, in 1968.
RH:
The buildings were still there, and the gas station was -- when we moved, you
know, because I used to go to the Carnival grocery store. So, from [00:16:00]
Armitage and Orchard, I had cut through. Remember, there used to be a
playground on Larrabee and Armitage, so I used to cut through the playground
10
�and cut through Dickens into Carnival ’cause Carnival was on Lincoln and
Dickens. Now, I was, like -- ’67, I was 11 years old, so I had shortcuts.
JJ:
Now, going back, now, is that were your father came to live first when he came -?
RH:
My father first came to live -- was on Belden and Clark.
JJ:
Belden and Clark.
RH:
Belden and Clark by Augustana Hospital and that area.
JJ:
And what year was that?
RH:
My father came in 1952 to Chicago.
JJ:
So, he didn’t --
RH:
He was 17.
JJ:
-- live on Chicago Avenue (inaudible).
RH:
No. He never lived on Chicago Avenue.
JJ:
But he lived on Belden and Clark.
RH:
We lived right there, on Belden and Clark.
JJ:
Okay, so --
RH:
He [00:17:00] lived right by the warehouse where they had the St. Valentine’s
Massacre.
JJ:
Right, (overlapping dialogue; inaudible).
RH:
Because he would show us.
JJ:
Right.
RH:
He used to take us on a tour on Sundays of the neighborhood. My father taught
me Chicago history, which I now --
11
�JJ:
So, were there more Puerto Ricans living there [on Belden at that time?]
(overlapping dialogue; inaudible)?
RH:
Yes, at that time, yes. Really, everybody started settling --
JJ:
In ’52? 1952?
RH:
1952. Everybody started settling into the President Hotel. That’s where
everybody was a couple.
JJ:
Now, there was a Lincoln Hotel. Was it the President Hotel or the Lincoln Hotel?
RH:
Was it the Lincoln Hotel?
JJ:
Maybe it was the Lincoln Hotel.
RH:
But then, it was changed to the President Hotel.
JJ:
Maybe it was called President Hotel too.
RH:
It was changed to the President Hotel.
JJ:
(overlapping dialogue; inaudible) there was --
RH:
Because there was a candy store right across the street.
JJ:
I just want (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) --
RH:
The same area, same hotel.
JJ:
Oh, same hotel, [just changed name?].
RH:
So, everybody that started coming into -- [that lived?] because we had the old
Harrison Gents on Halsted [00:18:00] South, you know, Halsted past Elston.
Was it? Past Elston? Halsted?
JJ:
Over by Division, by --?
RH:
Right. Right. That’s where there were families from there, like -- oh, God.
There’s some families that came from that way, but the brothers started coming
12
�from the families, and the sisters. Everybody married into people from the
neighborhood, so everybody that married went to live at the Lincoln Hotel,
President Hotel. They all went to live there. And then, once they had children,
they couldn’t have their kids there.
JJ:
And this was a hotel where the --
RH:
On Sedgwick, Lincoln --
JJ:
Right, but, I mean, it had the --
RH:
-- and Cleveland.
JJ:
What else? What other features did it have besides the --
RH:
Oh, okay.
JJ:
-- medicine cabinet that --?
RH:
The [00:19:00] other feature about the Lincoln Hotel was --
JJ:
[Just try to?] describe what it looked like.
RH:
It was tall. It was a tall building. I think it was, like, seven stories high. Think it
was seven stories high because it had a old elevator. I used to be scared of that
elevator, and my father --
JJ:
But was it apartments or -- I mean --
RH:
Yes, there were rooms. It was a hotel, so, apparently, there were rooms. It had
close to 80-something rooms.
JJ:
So, a whole family lived in one room?
RH:
No, no, no, no. No. Certain couples, you know, from the families. Like, one
family would have a brother, or they would have a sister, or two brothers, and,
once they met women from other of our families, they would go live there before
13
�they rent an apartment, you see. But I know that there were no kids there. You
could have the babies, but you [would have?] no kids because there were some
families in [00:20:00] that hotel that snuck children in, and they would fall out the
window. That’s why they closed the hotel, ’cause too many kids were falling out
the window.
JJ:
Oh, there were kids that were falling out the window?
RH:
So, that’s why it was closed down.
JJ:
Okay. So, that did happen (overlapping dialogue; inaudible).
RH:
That did happen, yes. It did happen. So, we never [intervened?] with the West
Side, like to Humboldt Park area. We didn’t know anything. We mainly kept in
the Lincoln Park area because we had the lake right there, and we had the zoo,
and we had -- the zoo wasn’t built -- we had the zoo, but we didn’t have the farm
yet. The farm was built in ’70, around that time.
JJ:
The Lincoln Park Zoo farm?
RH:
The farm, when the brought --
JJ:
The farm.
RH:
-- the cows and all that stuff.
JJ:
But you had the lagoon?
RH:
Where our parents used to drag us to the dairy, where they -- and it stunk.
JJ:
[00:21:00] Were you involved in any organization? Was your family involved in
any organization?
RH:
Yes. My family came from North Avenue and Western, [Los Hijos de Caguas
Sociedad?]. Los Hijos de Caguas.
14
�JJ:
On North Avenue --
RH:
That’s where we had all our weddings, all our baptism parties, all our cotillions,
all our -- we were members of that hall. That’s where I started meeting kids from
the West Side, like the [Suchet?] family, [Raymond Suchet?], and a lot of -- the
[Cruzes?] from Division, [George?] Cruz. I started meeting them because I knew
them when I was little from this club that -- you know, where everybody would get
together for weddings and events. We would see the [Condes?], Lily y Su Gran
Trio come. At that [00:22:00] time, a lot of singers -- because, see, my mother’s
related to [González?] from La Rosa del Monte moving company. Forgot his
name.
JJ:
Not [Ramos Movers?]. Not them.
RH:
No, not Ramos. Not (inaudible). No.
JJ:
[The González movers?].
RH:
No. González.
JJ:
González.
RH:
Yeah, he was from San Lorenzo Express, and then he opened his own. I this it
was La Rosa del -- no, he worked for La Rosa del Monte Movers, and then he
opened San Lorenzo Express. That was my mother’s cousin, [El González de?]
San Lorenzo. They’re from San Lorenzo. So, we, growing up --
JJ:
Were there a lot of people at that club, or -- I mean --
RH:
Yes, there was a lot of [00:23:00] members because my uncle, my godfather,
Rafael Rivera, was one of the -- like a [shrine?]. They had banners. He was a --
JJ:
[In the club?]?
15
�RH:
-- loyal members.
JJ:
So, these were, like, lodges today, what they call --
RH:
Right. So, he was a loyal member, my uncle, and he --
JJ:
I didn’t know they got that elaborate, that fancy, with the club.
RH:
Yes, they used to have -- that was our hall.
JJ:
They had officers and all that stuff?
RH:
Yeah. [La Sociedad?] Hijos de Caguas.
JJ:
Okay. Society. Society.
RH:
Yes, it was a society. Yes. And so, my uncle was one of the true members, loyal
--
JJ:
And he had a uniform?
RH:
No. He had a suit, but they would wear, like, this big banner thing.
JJ:
[Oh, I see?].
RH:
Like, president banner, but, you know, they didn’t have no funny hats like the
Shrine brothers.
JJ:
Okay. And then, they would be part of the parade or something?
RH:
Yes, they used to --
JJ:
[They would participate?]?
RH:
-- be part of the parade. And, [00:24:00] at that time, we were mainly -- a lot of
the families, the children were kept indoors at the time because there was no
gangs. There were no gangs.
JJ:
There were no gangs?
RH:
The boys -- no.
16
�JJ:
In Lincoln Park?
RH:
No. No. Now, Lincoln Park, there was -- [as?] growing up, they started to
become gangs.
JJ:
But, in the beginning, there were --
RH:
But, in the beginning, we’d never seen any gangs. All we knew about was the
Harrison Gents, you know, and, as we started growing into -- the only first really
society of organization was the Young Lords.
JJ:
Okay. That was later.
RH:
That was, yes, later. That history there, for me, was the heart of my
neighborhood.
JJ:
Can you explain that, or -- I mean, we can go back to it later too.
RH:
Because, at that time, see, we lived in that neighborhood. We were behind
[00:25:00] Cabrini-Greens. We had Cabrini-Greens on Division and Halsted. We
had them close. There was a way you could get to Cabrini-Greens. Even
though there were Spanish families that lived in Cabrini-Greens, like the
[Negrons?], Quiñonez family, you know, Adolfo Quiñonez, the breakdancer -- for
breakdancing. Yes, he came from Cabrini-Greens, and a lot of -- there were
some families that were Latinos that lived in Cabrini-Greens, so we did a lot of
going into Cabrini-Greens when I was a little girl, like, maybe five, six years old.
JJ:
To visit the families, or --?
RH:
To visit families. See, my father was a chef later on, international chef, and he
drove a taxi in the day, and he delivered bread for the Gonnella bread company.
[00:26:00] My father had three jobs. So, you know, he delivered bread from four
17
�in the morning until ten o’clock, come home, take a nap, get up at twelve, one
o’clock, drive a taxi ’til four o’clock, get home, eat, and then go to the restaurant
from six to two. My father was a master chef on Lake Shore Drive.
JJ:
You said he did work at the Palmer House.
RH:
Yeah, but -- when he was younger, he washed dishes. [When? What year?]?
You know, when he washed dishes -- he originated working in the job in a
restaurant in a hotel, my father. My father started to learn -- he mainly became a
dishwasher, my father, and I guess he learned in the restaurant, you know, the
area, the cooks and that. So, my father became a chef on [00:27:00] Lake Shore
Drive, 1400 North Lake Shore Drive, called [Le Coq Au Vin?], and, at that time,
the owner’s sister or mother lived in the apartment next -- we moved in in that
apartment because I remember it was all furnished. See, that apartment was
furnished because, you know, there were the Nancy Drew books, the Trixie
Belden books, the Hardy Boy books. See, when we were growing up in
Newberry and Lincoln School, my father didn’t want us to speak Spanish. He
wanted us to learn English the right way. He wanted us to learn Spanish. He put
us in TESL, which was Teaching English in the Spanish Language, but we were
already English because we would speak [00:28:00] English, and we spoke
Spanish to our parents, but our parents wanted us to make sure we were fluent
in writing and reading, so he made us go to the classes, and, in certain areas --
JJ:
How was his English?
RH:
Huh?
JJ:
How was his English?
18
�RH:
That was easy. That --
JJ:
I mean, how was his English?
RH:
His English was broken up, but, you know, my father talks English, but he has
the Puerto Rican accent. My father, and my mom too. They know how to defend
themselves in English.
JJ:
But do you think that was a reason that --
RH:
That we -- yeah. They learned from us.
JJ:
That he wanted you to speak perfect English.
RH:
Yes, to teach -- what happened was it was a interchangeable thing for -- we were
teaching them English too. They paid attention because, see, they had to keep
up with us, you see. [00:29:00] My brother would say, “Hurry up. Let’s finish up
your chores, and we’re gonna go to the show.” And, you know, my dad would
pop out. “What do you mean, ’the show?’ Why are you gonna go to the show?”
And we go, “Dad, Dad, we’re gonna go to the Biograph. We want to see the
Beatles movie, or we want to see Godzilla.” “Oh, well, I don’t know. How long is
that gonna be? How long?” “We’re gonna come back at 10 o’clock.” I
remember we used to come back, walk on Lincoln Avenue. This is Lincoln
Avenue.
JJ:
You went to the Biograph?
RH:
The Biograph. Our --
JJ:
Was that the neighborhood show?
RH:
That was our neighborhood show.
JJ:
So, were there a lot of Spanish people that went to that --?
19
�RH:
Not really because --
JJ:
(overlapping dialogue; inaudible).
RH:
-- my brother and I grew up very interested in history. We were movies. We
were always in front of a TV, my brother and I. We watched everything. We
were housebound children, you know, except for me. I was always in the store.
Sometimes, I’d run and get [00:30:00] some [homework?], or sometimes I’d run
to my aunt and see if she needed anything from the store. See, I made my
candy money. I would make candy money, which, later on, turned into cigarette
money.
JJ:
Candy to cigarettes.
RH:
Because I was very nervous girl. A lot of Latinos in that time were very hard,
disciplinary people, you know. We didn’t get the time out and the little
punishment. We got whupped. We got our butts --
JJ:
No time out, no.
RH:
-- kicked. They’d beat us like a man. Oh, and don’t swear. They’re swearing all
over the place, and, if you say one swear word, you’re dead. I used to tell my
dad, “Why are you hitting me? You swear.” He goes, “Yeah, but I’m a big man.
I [00:31:00] work hard.”
JJ:
But how did he feel later? I mean --
RH:
After that, we --
JJ:
But was that a common thing? I mean --
RH:
No. We grew up with --
JJ:
Was that only your father, or were --
20
�RH:
Everybody.
JJ:
In the neighborhood? Everybody?
RH:
Oh, yeah. Everybody had strict fathers. See, we came from a household, that
neighborhood came from a house -- every household had a mother and a father.
JJ:
Okay. So, they had a mother and a father.
RH:
And, now, as we’re older, we found out the father had women too. The men in
that neighborhood handled two families at a time. Sometimes three. They had
kids somewhere else.
JJ:
You found that out later?
RH:
And we found it out later. You know, once we got started going into high school,
you meet a girl that’s [Linda Hernández?], and I told my dad, “Dad, there’s a
Linda Hernández in my school,” and my father goes, “Oh, that’s your sister.”
“What? I have a sister?” Like nothing [00:32:00] because they never talked.
They never came to visit. [I didn’t have any?] brothers and sisters, you know?
JJ:
So, it was common for men to have mistresses.
RH:
Yes, mistresses. They pass them as their cousins.
JJ:
And what about their wives? What did they think about that?
RH:
Their wives were too busy taking care of the kids, and cooking, and cleaning, and
giving us lunch. You know, we didn’t eat lunch at school. They had to cook us
three meals a day. Our favorite was coffee and corn flakes growing up.
JJ:
So, there was no lunch program or breakfast?
RH:
There was no lunch program. There were times that kids used to get hit by a car.
They’d see ’em in the morning and, “Hey, what happened to So-and-so?” “Oh,
21
�did you hear? He got hit by a car.” “What?” You know, we all had to run home
to see Bozo. We had to run home and see [00:33:00] Bozo, so our lunch was
Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs and white rice, or guanimes, with
habichuelas.
JJ:
What is guanimes? What is that?
RH:
That’s flour -- like dumplings --
JJ:
Dumplings, okay.
RH:
-- that my stepmother would make these long -- they looked like icicles, long
ones, and then she’d make them, and boil them, and boil them, and she used to
bake them, and, by the time we came for lunch, we had beans and guanimes,
and sometimes eggs, papas fritas, French fries, and amarillos. That was our
lunch. Then, we go, ten to one --
JJ:
Amarillos are what? What --?
RH:
Soft plantain, yellow plantain. Bananas. Plantain. Platanos. That was our
lunch. That’s what we grew up on. [00:34:00] We did have a milkman. We did
have a milkman. I remember my stepmother’s sister’s husband [Joe?] used to
be the driver, the milkman, and it was run by the Home Juice Company, and they
were gallons that you would leave out on the porch, and he would pick them up
and leave the milk. I remember that. But, see, I had to go buy the milk myself
’cause my stepmother -- she didn’t invest in none of that, but I used to remember
him driving the little truck and the bottles clanging in there. And, in the summer,
everybody was an ice cream driver. See? My dad tried it one summer. He
went, and he got an ice cream truck, and he put everything in there. Ice cream,
22
�nuts, bananas, cherries, [00:35:00] pineapple, and he stuffed it up, and he went
to take a nap because, see, these men loved naps. And this is in the Halsted
and Armitage area. I’m still talking about Halsted and Armitage.
JJ:
It sounds like there’s a lot of Spanish people living there.
RH:
A lot. It was everybody. You know, the baker was Puerto Rican. The cleaners
were -- they were Cuban. They were always [there, Cubans?]. That was the
cleaners, our cleaners. They became mega-rich with us because, then, after the
’90s, the yuppies moved in. They’re still there. They still own that cleaners. My
godfather was (Spanish) [00:35:48]. He upholstered furniture. [Charlie?].
Charlie -- forgot his name. He was like my godfather of water, and he
upholstered. He was the upholsterer. [00:36:00] He had a shop on Halsted and
Armitage, and he would upholster green, and yellow, and blue, and white vinyl on
the couches.
JJ:
So, you had the godfather of water. What do you mean? Was that confirmation
or baptism?
RH:
Yeah. Okay. Back in the days, coming from Puerto Rico, they all were families,
and friends, and cousins, and stuff. What happens is, when they’re best friends,
and they’re in a party, and the wife’s having a baby, you know, the men are like,
“Oh, I want you to be my kid’s -- put water on my baby.” You know, before you
get baptized, they put water on you.
JJ:
So, they would baptize you first.
23
�RH:
Yeah. So, I have four godfathers. I have Charlie, the one that put water on me.
I have Rafael Rivera, the one that bought my dress. [00:37:00] I have another
godfather that drove us to the church, and then I have my real godfather.
JJ:
You said your real godfather?
RH:
My real godfather.
JJ:
Why is he the real one?
RH:
He’s the one that baptized me. He’s the one that baptized --
JJ:
So, the other ones were --
RH:
The other ones --
JJ:
-- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible).
RH:
-- were just friends.
JJ:
But in case you got sick before you got baptized.
RH:
Right. In case, like me, when I busted my chin on the porch.
JJ:
In case you passed away. Then, you already were baptized.
RH:
I was two, and I remember, and I know my father was with my mother at that
time.
JJ:
So, these were Catholics, then? So --
RH:
We were all Catholic.
JJ:
Were most of the people in the community Catholic, the Latinos?
RH:
Yes. We were all Catholic, yes.
JJ:
So, where did you go to church?
RH:
We went to church at St. Michael’s. We were all baptized at St. Michael’s in the
Lincoln Park area. [00:38:00] Father Kathrein was very busy.
24
�JJ:
Father Kathrein. (inaudible).
RH:
Yeah. He was very busy. He did all the baptisms, all the weddings, and there
weren’t too many sweet 15s. You know why? Because we were all -- there were
struggling families. There were families -- like, my uncle worked in the day and
then worked on the Turin Acevedo Show, and my other uncle, his brother
[Pedro?] that lived on Howe Street, he worked at the gas station, the Gas for
Less, right there on Armitage and Sedgwick. That was my uncle, [Tío Pedrito?].
JJ:
That’s when gas was 50 cents.
RH:
Right, right, right. That’s when we used to put air in our -- well, see, we didn’t
ride bikes, but, you know, my brother and I, we used to go with -- my brother
never went outside since [00:39:00] Lincoln Avenue. My brother [Josi?] -- that’s
my stepmother’s son. That’s my brother.
JJ:
What do you mean, “never went outside?”
RH:
Huh?
JJ:
Never went outside?
RH:
We never rode bikes.
JJ:
Oh, I see what you’re saying.
RH:
We weren’t allowed to jump rope because I was always clumsy. I was always
getting hurt, so I never played gym. A lot of the fathers never let the girls in that
neighborhood play gym. Okay? But, when we got affiliated with the
neighborhood, affiliated, we got to know people in the neighborhood because we
used to see the guys with the berets on, the purple berets, you know, which --
JJ:
The Young Lords.
25
�RH:
Yeah, and we said, “Wow, what is that?” And my brother said, “I’m gonna be
one. I’m gonna be one of those.” And I go, “They don’t even know you. You
never go outside. You got to be outside.” Plus, you know, we were terrified of
my mom, his mother, but she [00:40:00] just protected us. She was
overprotective.
JJ:
Now, you said that you saw the purple berets, and were they big? You said they
were big in the neighborhood, or what do you mean?
RH:
They were mainly everywhere. They remind me of the Guardian Angels at first,
like the Guardian Angels are at first, because there was a lot of -- a lot of crime
started happening after Martin Luther King got assassinated. We started having
a lot of [hostile?]. The neighborhood started getting dangerous, or bad, or not
safe at night. A lot of poetry was written about the L on Sheffield and Willow.
There’s a poem. “Under the L”, it’s called. There were certain areas you couldn’t
go at night. I did a lot of babysitting, [00:41:00] mainly a lot in Magnolia, and
Racine, and Lakewood, as I got older. When I was in eighth grade, I was walking
dogs in the neighborhood. I was making money every Saturday because, you
know, I grew up deprived of -- no clothes. I wore clothes from the second-hand
store. By the time I went to eighth grade, I had everything paid. I paid everything
myself. I left home at 12. I went to live with my mom. When I met my mom, she
lived on Halsted and Webster, and I went to live with her and her boyfriend that
was living with us, and I had already been to school. I was pretty good in school.
I just was not happy at my stepmother, even though [00:42:00] my brother and
my sister -- leaving them behind, but, at that age, 12, I learned a lot of
26
�perspectives things, important things, being a Hispanic. I used to pick up your
newspapers and read them.
JJ:
When you say you -- the Young Lords?
RH:
The Young Lords’ newspapers. I used to even take some to school with me. I
used to --
JJ:
Why would you -- so --
RH:
Because I wanted my friends to read stuff that -- you know, we were kept in the
dark about things because our family really -- we didn’t have no history of the
neighborhood. A lot of people now, they come, and they know I know my history
because I know every building [has its?] history, and I was privileged [00:43:00]
to have the English language put in us because we were -- some of us ended up
in summer school, lot of us, and it wasn’t because we weren’t smart. It was
because it was open. There were teachers in there, so we had to go. That was
the summer. A lot of us were in summer school. So, you know, as we got into
older, we weren’t into -- the teenage pregnancy came out in the neighborhood,
and I got caught into it at 15, but I was responsible. I don’t have a police record.
I never stole. I never --
JJ:
So, were they trying to make that, like, criminal, or --?
RH:
Yeah. The neighborhood was mainly [00:44:00] falling --
JJ:
What do you mean?
RH:
-- apart.
JJ:
What do you mean, falling apart?
27
�RH:
Like, falling apart -- as I was growing up, some mothers that had single children
had to go work because they were separated, but, you know, some had -- as we
got older, the fathers were there when we were little, and I was (inaudible)
growing up and wondering. I was the wonder girl. I wondered, like, wow. I knew
my mother’s name. I remembered her face, and I was, like, on a hunt, so, when I
met my mother at 12 years old on the corner of Halsted and Armitage, I knew
who she was. I had memories of her, and I left my dad. That was the --
JJ:
All of a sudden, she appeared there [00:45:00] on Halsted and --?
RH:
She appeared. She lived on Halsted and Webster. She lived in the
neighborhood. She had came back in the neighborhood. She was around. She
was around because my stepmother used to let her come in when I was little.
She was around. It’s just that I was -- my dad kinda protected me from that, but,
growing up, you know, you make something in school for Mother’s Day, and I
wasn’t really -- I felt I wasn’t my stepmother’s child. I was just a kid that she was
taking care of, but, for mother’s day, I always brought my father something.
Anything I made in school was for my dad because my dad was all I had. You
see? My dad was all I had, even though I had cousins, and his sister, and my
uncle’s brothers, their family, and [00:46:00] I kind of grew up [by myself, really?],
but my brother, he protected my childhood, you see. As we got older, my brother
would be in the yard, playing with the friends downstairs. I had to go upstairs.
My brother wouldn’t let me be out there with his friends.
JJ:
This was your older brother?
RH:
This is my stepbrother.
28
�JJ:
Stepbrother.
RH:
And, you know, my father didn’t like us sitting on nobody’s lap. The only person
we could sit -- at a certain age because Abuelo was like that too. Once you’re
seven years old, you’re off the lap. We weren’t --
JJ:
So, you had rules like that.
RH:
Yeah.
JJ:
Don’t sit on nobody’s lap.
RH:
Don’t sit on no man’s lap.
JJ:
Any other rules like that, or --?
RH:
Yeah. That’s --
JJ:
Any other type of rules?
RH:
Yeah. When people came over, like my dad’s friends and their wives, the wives
would be with my stepmother in the kitchen, and they would come with kids. We
weren’t running around the house. We were in our [00:47:00] room, and I was
the waiter. [Papi?] called me (Spanish) [00:47:06] because I would bring the
beer and light the cigarette. That’s how I started smoking. He’d say, “Here, go
light the cigarette for me.” And I’d go, and I’d light the cigarette, and I’d smoke it
and bring it back, and he’s like, “What happened?” I go, “I had to walk down the
hallway.” That’s how I started smoking. I was, like, eight.
JJ:
So, when visitors came, you were the waitress.
RH:
Yeah, I would serve them. I’d be around. I won’t be in their way, but I knew the
timing. See? I’d bring ’em new beers and empty the ash tray. You see? I was
the waitress, so Papi always called me (Spanish) [00:47:48]. “(Spanish)
29
�[00:47:48].” I was the waiter, and I still do. I do that because I have a problem -I have to be on a [00:48:00] track. A pattern. I have a pattern. I suffer from, like,
OCD. I’m always -- like, if I’m talking to you, and you have something here, it has
to come off your face.
JJ:
OCD stands for what?
RH:
I forget the name of it. I have it. It’s written down. I just got diagnosed with it, so
-- it’s where you’re perfectly -- everything has to be perfect. If you have a carpet
with fringe on it, you got to make sure they’re straight. Like, if I see that dirty, that
plant, I have to clean it. I was real bad, but, now, I don’t think about it, but, when
I was little, I was like that, but I never knew I was like that, and I was a reader.
[00:49:00] I always had a book in front of me. I read all Nancy Drew, all those big
books that were in that library. See, I have a library. I have books everywhere.
This is all me. All these books, everything, that’s what I cherish. That’s what I
learned in school. I didn’t carry books going home. I stole them. I’d steal a
book, and leave it at home, and mark down my homework, and I didn’t have to
carry books coming from school. I’d just go home. Sometimes, my dad would
have to pay for a missing book that I would keep, but I have books that my father
gave me when I was little. I still have ’em.
JJ:
Now, this was a community, then, when you were growing up.
RH:
This was a community. We all went to the library together. [00:50:00] We were
not troublemakers. There was music everywhere. See, I loved music. I always
had a transistor radio, or I had -- my grandfather would buy me all types of
things. My grandfather bought me the record player that you carried. My
30
�grandfather had us radios. He had us watches. I had a good upbringing. I had a
good upbringing. We weren’t poor. We weren’t that poor because my dad had
three jobs. My dad was a moneymaker. My stepmother, (Spanish) [00:50:40].
She used to make things for tables, towels, which I hated, with the [doll’s?] faces
on them. Oh, my God, I hate those. Or the toilet tissue covers. My stepmother
sewed everything. My stepmother made everything. But, you know -JJ:
Were there other [00:51:00] people in the neighborhood like her, that --?
RH:
Yeah, there were people that were selling clothes, like the Negron. [Josephine?],
[Josefina?], she used to sew (Spanish) [00:51:11]. There was another --
JJ:
And this was house-to-house that she sold them?
RH:
There was another man with -- (inaudible) sold a lot of the (Spanish) [00:51:19]
and the curtains, but we weren’t into curtains. We grew up with the plastic
curtains. Remember the plastic curtains? My stepmother did not like curtains,
so, now, you’ll see, I don’t like curtains either.
JJ:
(inaudible).
RH:
She hated the dust. It drove her [nuts?], my stepmother, so I grew up with no
curtains. I only have ’em in my bedroom. That’s why I will not -- and I’ve got --
JJ:
But you decorated [and everything looks good?].
RH:
Yeah. I don’t like curtains. I think they’re messy. I like the light. I like [00:52:00]
the light because I grew up with brightness, you know. We grew up mainly -Chicago area. We grew up in a neighborhood where we had to learn how to sit.
We go to somebody’s house. We had to sit down. We couldn’t jump around.
31
�We had to sit there. We were asleep while everybody played dominoes at one,
two in the morning, but we’re still sittin’ there.
JJ:
The kids just sat in the living room.
RH:
Yeah. Our father’d sit us there, and there you sat. There, we would play, and
throw things, and stick our tongues out, and me and your sister, we used to jump
everywhere. We drove your mom crazy. I remember. I think you had yellow and
green sofas.
JJ:
In my house? In our house? You got a better [00:53:00] memory than I do.
RH:
Yellow and green, ’cause we would jump from one sofa to here. Not jumping.
Just playing, me and Daisy. We were always playing, and my Papi would be in
the kitchen.
JJ:
Daisy, my sister.
RH:
Uh-huh, your sister Daisy. And I remember your sofas were so cute ’cause they
had little leaves on ’em.
JJ:
[That’s right?].
RH:
And I don’t know if they had plastic. I think they had plastic later on.
JJ:
I think we did.
RH:
Yeah. Yeah. But we were always playing, me and Daisy, and she was blonde.
She was blonde.
JJ:
I think she dyes her hair.
RH:
Yeah, but she was blonde when she was little.
JJ:
Well, that might have been -- I think [Myrna?] had more blondish --
RH:
Uh-huh, more blonde, but they were light. They had pretty eyes and everything.
32
�JJ:
Yeah. Daisy’s hair is more dark [now?].
RH:
Uh-huh.
JJ:
(overlapping dialogue; inaudible) but she dyes it, though. (inaudible).
RH:
Mm-hmm, and we used to play together, me and her, and she was fun. She was
--
JJ:
Yeah, you were telling me (inaudible).
RH:
She’s fun. I’ll never forget that. I still can see her playing.
JJ:
[00:54:00] Was this on Bissell, when we lived on Bissell, or --?
RH:
You know, I think when you lived on Bissell.
JJ:
Okay. So, you lived on Bissell too.
RH:
No, I had [Pilar?]. Remember Pilar, that lady? She had her husband, and then
he died.
JJ:
Oh, okay. You were babysitting?
RH:
She lived on the first floor. (Spanish) [00:54:17]. She was a friend of my family.
She knew all the families, and she had no children, so she used to pick me up for
the weekend, and I remember playing on Bissell and Wisconsin. Remember,
where the train track? But you couldn’t go through the other side. It was closed.
You could only go through under by --
JJ:
Right, they had that tunnel.
RH:
-- Mulligan.
JJ:
They had the tunnel by Mulligan.
RH:
The tunnel, but not there. Not on that part, on Wisconsin. It was just closed up,
and there were two buildings. One on the corner, the bar, the 1800 bar right
33
�there, and then, there was the red brick building ’cause that’s where she lived,
[00:55:00] [Tía Pilar?], and she used to pick me up for the weekend, and I used
to go and play with the kids in the neighborhood. That’s when Dad would come
and get me, and we’d go to your house, like, on a Sunday afternoon.
JJ:
I know my mother did a lot of work with Father Kathrein too, so maybe your
family were connected [in that way?]?
RH:
Is she still alive?
JJ:
Yeah, my mother is (inaudible).
RH:
Wow. God bless her. I remember her house. I still remember it.
JJ:
And the leaves on the furniture.
RH:
The furniture.
JJ:
With leaves.
RH:
With leaves. I never seen sofas with leaves in my life, and it was a sectional. It
was a weird sofa. It had the table already or something on there.
JJ:
In the middle, yeah.
RH:
In the middle. It had it in the middle --
JJ:
[I remember that?].
RH:
-- or something. It was --
JJ:
(inaudible).
RH:
I know we would jump from -- we would go like this on our [00:56:00] arms, like
jump, you know, like, twist our legs around. We were little, and I know we would
hit it, and turn around, and hit the other -- we would do that, me and Daisy, and
your mom used to be yelling, “(Spanish) [00:56:12].” And then, Papi’d stick his
34
�head out, and I used to sit down. My Papi’s like, “You better not be jumping,”
and I -- “We’re not jumping,” and Daisy’d go, “We’re not jumping. We’re playing.”
And so, growing up, once we got to junior high, which was Arnold, sixth, seventh,
and eighth -- when I came out of Newberry, it was only fifth grade, and I came
into Newberry at third grade because I was at Lincoln School from kindergarten
’til that summer we moved to Armitage and Orchard from Lincoln Avenue, and
we went to Newberry, and I went in third grade. [00:57:00] And, from third grade,
we went up to fifth. My brother went first to Arnold. I [was still in?] fifth grade. I
was the last one [to stay?] that year, but I walked down Orchard Street, straight
down, and my brother went to Arnold. Then, when I went, sixth grade, to Arnold,
my brother was already in seventh or eighth grade, and I did sixth grade, and I
was very quiet in school. I was very quiet. I did all my work. I had good grades.
My father said I had good grades, but, when I got to Arnold, I started getting a
little funny, you know, tell jokes and stories, and I felt -- I was a friendly person. I
didn’t look trouble for nobody. [00:58:00] I wasn’t a bully. I wasn’t scared of
bullies. I wasn’t scared of anybody because I had a grandfather that talked to us,
a father that warned us, and I had a brother that was there for me, even though I
didn’t need nobody beat up. I was friends with everybody. I had no enemies.
The only enemies I had was how I lived with my stepmother, and it wasn’t an
enemy. It was a thing that she went through, and I endured it, but I overcame
that myself. I started reading very young. We all started reading very young.
We read everything. We were taught everything in the school. We paid
35
�attention. We never ditched school. It was impossible to ditch school, [00:59:00]
to play hooky, because we lived right there, in the neighborhood.
JJ:
You lived right in front of the school.
RH:
I lived across the street. My [friends were like?], “Come on. Let’s ditch school.”
I’m like, “[Girl, are you?] crazy? I live across the street. My father’s a cab driver.
My grandfather’s out there. My uncle. I’ll be dead by the time --”
JJ:
(inaudible).
RH:
We could not ditch school.
JJ:
The teacher wouldn’t catch you. Your father would catch you in the cab.
RH:
Everybody. Even if somebody in the neighborhood said, “(Spanish) [00:59:31],
Ramón, I saw your daughter.” He goes, “Oh, my God.”
JJ:
So, the neighborhood kinda watched out for everybody.
RH:
Everybody, yeah.
JJ:
Everybody’s kids.
RH:
Mm-hmm, and the girls, my friends, they had, like, six, seven brothers. I met my
brothers when I was 12. I had, like, five. I found out I had more brothers with my
last name, my sister and my three brothers, and I was [01:00:00] jubilant. I had
brothers. So, their brothers became my brothers, so, altogether, I had 11
brothers.
JJ:
Big family. (inaudible).
RH:
So, I used to say, “I’m gonna bring my brother.” But everybody, you know -- so, I
think it was -- when I came into Arnold, eighth grade, I changed my name. Rosa
was gone. She was dead. I was like, “I hate that name.” [My father’s like?],
36
�“That’s your name. That’s the name you’re gonna stay with. That’s the name
that’s gonna go on your tombstone.” And, “I hate that name.” Rosa, ’cause
everybody used to say, “Rosa posa, Rosa posa,” and I remember, third grade in
Lincoln School, before second grade, when I started reading about Rosa, the
little Mexican girl in the potato sack dress, everybody would make fun [01:01:00]
of me because of that book, and do you know, José, that I still have that book? I
stole it. I said, “Ain’t nobody’s gonna read this book ever again,” and I still have
it, and it’s a book that said “Rosa.” The book is Rosa, and it’s the little Mexican
girl in a potato sack dress, and I hated that book, and everybody’s like, “Oh,
Rosa, Rosa,” and I’m like, “Oh, why --” So, one day, I stole that book. I took it
with me, and I still have it. I still have that book. I said, “Nobody’s gonna ever
read this book again, ever again.” So, when I got into Arnold, I took my sister’s
name. I met my sister, [Linda?], so I said, “You know what? I like Rosalind
Russell. I like that name, so I’m gonna put myself Rosalind.” [01:02:00] And,
every time I would put my homework or my (inaudible), my teachers would
scratch it out with a red pen, and I still would write it, and still would write it, and
still would write it until, legally, I kept it. So, now, it’s my alias now. I can’t use it,
like, in a bank account or sign checks, but I went to school under that name, so
that’s what’s -- Rosalind Hernández. And so, when I came back from eighth
grade, when I went to eighth grade, I was Rosalind, and Rosa was gone. She
was gone. People’d say, “Do you have a sister named Rosa?” I’m like, “Yeah.
I’m her sister, Rosalind.” People thought I was two people ’cause we had
imaginary -- we were [full?]. We had imaginations and stuff. So, the
37
�neighborhood, like you said, started getting really [01:03:00] [caution?]. We
started going into high school and that, junior high and high school. The
neighborhood was getting -- it wasn’t falling apart, but it was getting kind of -things you hear, you know. Things you hear.
JJ:
So, there was more crime, or --?
RH:
It was starting to get more crime.
JJ:
So, in the beginning, it wasn’t that -- there weren’t that many gangs?
RH:
You could walk anywhere. Anywhere. You could walk anywhere, but --
JJ:
And this was when there were a lot of Latinos there.
RH:
A lot of Latinos.
JJ:
Like, you could walk anywhere.
RH:
And, mainly, it wasn’t that bad because, like I said, most of the friends that I had,
they had a lot of brothers. So, when I would go to see my friend on Fremont
Street to pick her up for school, [Olga?], Olga [Santos?], she had, like, four
brothers, or Nieves, [01:04:00] they had, like, eight brothers. So, everywhere you
walked, they would go, “Hey, what are you doin’ over here?” And we used to
say, “None of your business.” And they’d go, “Hey, don’t talk to me like that, you
little shrimp.” They used to call us shrimps. “You little shrimps.” And I’m like, “I
don’t care. You’re not my brother. You’re not my brother.” And then, their sister,
I had to be nice to them because they wouldn’t want me hanging with their sister.
So, the brothers were protective of all the girls, of their friends, their sisters. So,
you know --
JJ:
So, there was just a common respect at that time --
38
�RH:
A respect, yes.
JJ:
-- for --
RH:
Like, we didn’t get in nobody’s car we didn’t know. We didn’t do that.
JJ:
And everybody knew each other.
RH:
We all knew each other, but my father was a person that raised us on our guard.
JJ:
So, when did it start going down? About what year? Do you [remember?]?
RH:
Excuse me?
JJ:
About what year did it start going down?
RH:
[01:05:00] 1976, ’77.
JJ:
Around that time is when it down completely, the neighborhood?
RH:
People started movin’ out of the neighborhood. They wanted to take their -- I
don’t know. They all moved west. I lived on Sheffield and Armitage until 1978.
JJ:
’78?
RH:
1978. By then, I had three children. I had them in a youth center. Across the
street, there was a Chicago Youth Center on Sheffield. 1930. I lived 1930 North
Sheffield, and there was a youth center across the street, so I had my kids in the
youth center, and I went to DePaul. I took the train, and then I’d go to school,
and then I’d come back.
JJ:
So, you went to school at DePaul.
RH:
I went to Truman [01:06:00] in 1978, and then I went to DePaul in 1979.
JJ:
This is the college, DePaul University?
RH:
Yes, right there. DePaul University. Lincoln Park campus.
JJ:
Now, did you --?
39
�RH:
I had one class in the Lewis and Clark.
JJ:
Oh, the Lewis and Clark.
RH:
Yeah.
JJ:
[But then?] you graduated?
RH:
No, I was an undergraduate.
JJ:
An undergraduate.
RH:
I just went for liberal arts, and I went for -- I took undergraduate. I was starting
already to go -- but I was accepted into DePaul University, and, even though I
came out with Cs, but I tried because I had three kids, and I didn’t have a nursery
for them at the time, until I did move on Sheffield at the end. But, you know, I got
(inaudible) said you get your credits together. You do something, and you stop,
and I went back, and I got all my stuff, what I needed. [I just have?], like, four
and a half credits. That’s all, but it was just a term [01:07:00] that I went. I went
the winter and spring. I went two terms.
JJ:
Okay, two terms.
RH:
I went two terms, which was 1,100 dollars apiece. And then, I had my books. I
still have my books. I got my books still. I went liberal arts [skills?]. Liberal arts,
I went to [skills, behavior skills?]. I took philosophy and religion, and I had
Psychology 101. No, I had it in Truman, Psychology 101. I was taking
Psychology 102 at DePaul. That was to help me raise my kids. I didn’t raise my
kids beating my children. Well, they said I was Hitler, but, you know, I was like -I did the same rearing my father did on me. There was no [01:08:00] beating.
My kids didn’t suffer. My girls, I raised my kids because of the rearing -- the
40
�neighborhood that I come from. I get insulted when people tell me, “Oh, you’re
from Humboldt Park.” I get upset. I’m not from Humboldt Park. “Oh, but you’re
Puerto Rican. You don’t have the Puerto Rican [flag?].” I’m like, “No, no, no, no,
no. I’m not from Humboldt Park. I come from the Lincoln Park area.” It’s
different, you know. We have a difference. I can tell by the manners, the way
they speak. See, we don’t speak like that. We don’t speak like that. You see
how I speak? You see, there’s no division, culture, in me because I can tell, the
way they were educated, that area. I speak -- [01:09:00] that’s how we all speak.
JJ:
Okay. [Community type?] at that time. Yeah, that community came later.
Humboldt Park came later.
RH:
Yeah. The neighborhood wasn’t bad at all because, like I said, we had the
Young Lords. Then, later on, we had the Kings. I was sent to a boarding school,
you see, ’cause my father didn’t want me falling in the hands -- the wrong places.
My father saw I was a little exploring thing. I just smoke. I never drank. I didn’t
drink ’til I was 24. I didn’t take drugs, but I had something in me that I was just
not -- I wanted a freedom. And so, I was sent to a boarding [01:10:00] school in
Omaha, Nebraska for almost two years. When I graduated from eighth grade, I
left that same weekend. I came back. I started junior high. I started junior high.
I lived with this lady that -- I befriended her because I did a lot of babysitting and
walking dogs, and she became like my foster mother, so I lived with her on
Burling, right in front of Arnold, and she did a lot of community too. Her name
was [Mamie Govilla?]. You remember Mamie Govilla?
JJ:
I don’t (inaudible).
41
�RH:
She worked for [Danny O’Brian?]. She was his secretary.
JJ:
(inaudible).
RH:
The alderman. I lived with her. And, there, I learned antiques. She was an
antique collector, [01:11:00] and I wrote a lot of stuff. I did a lot of stuff in Waller
that -- you know, I used to go down and smoke cigarettes with Mr. [Cusack?] and
Mr. [Tamika?] ’cause they were good friends.
JJ:
I remember them. I remember them, yeah.
RH:
Me and Mr. Tamika. On a break, I used to go see Mr. Tamika, and we used to
smoke cigarettes, puffing. Then, we quit. We tried everything. Me and Mr.
Tamika, you know. We tried everything to quit. It was so funny. I went down
from Tareytons, to Viceroys, to [True Blue?]. Those were my cigarettes, True
Blue, the ones you couldn’t smoke nothing. You think you’re smoking, and you
don’t smoke nothing. Well, yeah. I was a smoker. I was a (inaudible) girl. I
didn’t fight. I didn’t like nobody touching me. [01:12:00] I grew up a little
promiscuous. I started being a little promiscuous at the age of, you know, 15, but
that was my first love, [Nick Reyes?], and I ended up having a daughter by him.
He went in the Army, 1973. That was it. That’s what happened to me. But, you
know --
JJ:
Any last thoughts that -- you know, so we can kind of --
RH:
Yeah.
JJ:
What about the community? How did you feel that it’s changed completely? I
mean --
42
�RH:
It has changed, but, coming from that neighborhood, going down the streets, if
[01:13:00] you have a memory instilled in your mind, and you can still close your
eyes and remember how it looked before. That’s the way I see it. I could never
go there when I had my kids because I didn’t really talk too much about my kids,
how I grew up. I only talked about my brother and my dad. There was no little
sister. I excluded them, and there was no stepmother. I left her out. So, as my
kids were growing up, I would go in the neighborhood, and, right when we turned
on from Clybourn into Racine into Armitage, I used to feel like a pit in my
stomach, like I was gonna be so emotional [01:14:00] just driving on the bus or
driving down the street and looking at every story in the neighborhood. At first, I
was very emotional going down there, but, now, my daughter’s lived in that
neighborhood, so, now, I’ve -- since she was 20, my daughter. She lived on
Larrabee and Armitage, and she loved the neighborhood. She comes from that
neighborhood, and I got used to it. When [Lolly?], my granddaughter, started
Newberry school and I had to go pick her up, I was a mess in the school because
I still pictured Ms. [Peterson?] banging somebody against the locker, someone
throwing up in the hall, and they put that [01:15:00] [pieces in there?], whatever
that was. That made it even more disgusting. And I can still see myself walking
in the hallway in Newberry, and my granddaughter would say, “That’s okay,
Grandma. You’ll be okay.” I’m like, “Sorry. I just can’t go in there. I just can’t.
You don’t know. It’s very emotional for me.” She goes, “I know, Grandma.” And,
when she graduated, I was in the hall, see, because my granddaughter’s
Alderman Robert Shaw’s granddaughter [with?] the alderman. Robert Shaw’s.
43
�That’s my son-in-law, [John?], (Spanish) [01:15:44] in the South Side 13 years
ago.
JJ:
He’s pretty well known, Robert Shaw, in Chicago.
RH:
Robert, yeah. That’s my granddaughter’s grandfather. So, we went to
graduation, and they said, “Can someone stand up from [01:16:00] those -- do
we have any Newberry alumnis?” And my daughter and my grand-- looked at
me, and I’m like -- I felt so proud. But, yeah, it was kinda funny because I’d go
pick up Lolly, and, “I just can’t go in there. Just come out.” [And, sometimes?],
it’d be cold, or they’re in the assembly, or something, and, “Oh, I have to go in
there.” Because I would come out overwhelmed. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe it.
Look it, Lolly. This was the assembly that I used to sing in the choir,” ’cause I
was in the Newberry Choir. I was -- original Newberry Choir. “Yes, I know,
Grandma. I know. You told me that, Grandma.” (inaudible). The gymnasium
was our [01:17:00] lunch room, but we never ate lunch, so we had to go home.
And that’s when things started happening, around that time. Kids would get hit
by cars. We had some girl get abducted one time from that neighborhood. I
know the Young Lords were looking for her too, and I remember that, and the
time that Martin Luther King -- we were in school. I was in Newberry. ’68, I was
in Newberry School, and, when Martin Luther King got shot, it was gettin’ really
smoky. I remember it was very smoky.
JJ:
[I think it ran out?].
RH:
But --
JJ:
(inaudible).
44
�RH:
Did I talk too much?
JJ:
No, no, no, no. You did fine, but I think it’s -- I was supposed to stop anyway.
RH:
Okay.
JJ:
(inaudible).
RH:
But, no, you want to talk more, [01:18:00] I got more stuff. It’s just, like I said,
you know, I have --
JJ:
For sure, we got to get the --
END OF VIDEO FILE
45
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9da818a4fef9dde24258818d62b48e43.mp4
e500520bf8a0826da54f5f08386816ba
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Description
An account of the resource
Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives.
The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
spa
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-65
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
2012-2017
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Título
Spanish language Title entry
Rosa Meria Hernández vídeo entrevista y biografía
Sujetos
Spanish language Subject terms
Young Lords (Organización)
Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos
Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales
Justicia social
Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago
Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres
Source
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-65_Hernandez_Rosa
Title
A name given to the resource
Rosa Meria Hernández video interview and transcript
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hernández, Rosa
Description
An account of the resource
Rosa M. Hernández grew up on Orchard Street in Chicago. Like many of the Puerto Rican women of that era, she grew up sheltered while boys were free to stay out late and roam the streets. Ms. Hernández was the neighborhood store errand girl, it was a way to be free and visit with her friends and neighbors. Down the street at Burling and Armitage, the Black Eagles, Paragons, Flaming Arrows, Imperial Aces, Continentals, Trojans and Young Lords would hang out daily until the early hours of the morning, drinking and talking. Ms. Hernández knew everyone of importance in the neighborhood from youth to adults. She recalls how everyone in the neighborhood watched out for each other and that even the alleged gangs were polite and courteous to their neighbors. Her oral history provides much insight into everyday life in Lincoln Park during that significant era in the early to mid-1960s for the Puerto Rican community.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
Subject
The topic of the resource
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
application/pdf
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-03-28
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4a20b5be0e790dbb0bea9dcb772fc225.pdf
01b813b6a06d7dc95d4b15959666f878
PDF Text
Text
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Civil War and Slavery Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865
Slavery--United States
African Americans
United States--Politics and government--19th century
Description
An account of the resource
A selection of correspondence, diaries, official documents, photographs related to the American Civil War and to the institution of slavery, collected by Harvey E. Lemmen. The collection includes a selection of documents from ten states related to the ownership of slaves and abolition, correspondence and documents of soldiers who fought in the war and from family members and officials, diaries and letters of individuals, and a collection of mailing envelopes decorated with patriotic imagery.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lemmen, Harvey E.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/472">Civil War and Slavery Collection (RHC-45)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/470">John Bennitt Diaries and Correspondence (RHC-43)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/471">Nathan Sargent Papers (RHC-44)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/478">Theodore Peticolas Diary (RHC-51)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/476">Civil War Patriotic Envelopes Collection (RHC-51)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/479">Whitely Read Diary (RHC-52)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1804-1897
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
image/jpg; application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Image; Text
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1804-1897
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-45_CW-0178
Title
A name given to the resource
William H. Herndon, law partner of Abraham Lincoln, photo and note
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1861-02-13
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Herndon, William Henry, 1818-1891
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865
Herndon, William Henry, 1818-1891
Description
An account of the resource
William H. Herndon, law partner of Abraham Lincoln from 1848 until Lincoln's death. Photo of Herndon and note to clerk concerning Ambrose Barrett, Feb. 13, 1861.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Civil War and slavery collection (RHC-45): http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/472
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e11a7208e2f9dd78a0550864821e3379.pdf
9808b6a8c186b4379e97a74663502011
PDF Text
Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Incunabula
Description
An account of the resource
The term incunabula refers to books printed between 1450 and 1500, approximately the first fifty years following the invention, by Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, of printing from moveable type. Our collection includes over 200 volumes and numerous unbound leaves from books printed during this period.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1450/1500
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Incunabula Collection (DC-03)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United </a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Incunabula
Printing 1450-1500
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Language
A language of the resource
eng
it
la
nl
de
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Sermones Discipuli de tempore et de sanctis cum promptuario exemplorum et miraculis Beatae Mariae Virginis [folium 51]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-03_051Herolt1496
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Herolt, Johann
Description
An account of the resource
One leaf of Sermones Discipuli de tempore et de sanctis cum promptuario exemplorum et miraculis Beatae Mariae Virginis by Johannes Herolt. Printed in Nuremberg by Anton Koberger in 1494. Illustrated with red rubricated initials. [GW 12378; ISTC ih00119000]
Publisher
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Nuremberg: Anton Koberger
Subject
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Incunabula
Printing 1450-1500
Herolt, Johann
Language
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la
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a>
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application/pdf
Date
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1494
Source
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Incunabula Collection (DC-03)
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d6ad0a0cbb9bf49fc7238327bc5a2107.pdf
834f3decc4bf1c38ed37c11fa1da5926
PDF Text
Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Incunabula
Description
An account of the resource
The term incunabula refers to books printed between 1450 and 1500, approximately the first fifty years following the invention, by Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, of printing from moveable type. Our collection includes over 200 volumes and numerous unbound leaves from books printed during this period.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1450/1500
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Incunabula Collection (DC-03)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United </a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Incunabula
Printing 1450-1500
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Language
A language of the resource
eng
it
la
nl
de
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Liber Discipuli de eruditione Christifidelium [folium 155]
Identifier
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DC-03_155Herolt1483
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Herolt, Johann
Description
An account of the resource
One leaf from Liber Discipuli de eruditione Christifidelium by Johannes Herolt. Printed in Strassburg by Jacob Eber circa 1483. Illustrated with red rubricated initals. [GW 12328; ISTC ih00093000]
Publisher
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Strassburg: Jacob Eber
Subject
The topic of the resource
Incunabula
Printing 1450-1500
Language
A language of the resource
la
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a>
Format
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application/pdf
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1483
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Seidman Rare Books Collection
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f2e11dd2d0dcf5cd2b9dd99218bc07df.pdf
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PDF Text
Text
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Incunabula
Description
An account of the resource
The term incunabula refers to books printed between 1450 and 1500, approximately the first fifty years following the invention, by Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, of printing from moveable type. Our collection includes over 200 volumes and numerous unbound leaves from books printed during this period.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1450/1500
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Incunabula Collection (DC-03)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United </a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Incunabula
Printing 1450-1500
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Language
A language of the resource
eng
it
la
nl
de
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Sermones Discipuli de tempore et de sanctis cum promptuario exemplorum et miraculis Beatae Mariae Virginis [folium 173]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-03_173Herolt1494
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Herolt, Johann
Description
An account of the resource
One leaf from Sermones Discipuli de tempore et de sanctis cum promptuario exemplorum et miraculis Beatae Mariae Virginis by Johannes Herolt. Printed in Nuremberg by Anton Koberger in 1494. [GW 12378; ISTC ih00119000]
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Nuremberg: Anton Koberger
Subject
The topic of the resource
Incunabula
Printing 1450-1500
Language
A language of the resource
la
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1494
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Seidman Rare Books Collection
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b43d2e98c5571e97508e4ef929acc3df.m4v
f1c9031bb1b66541c1a00143551b69f2
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1e2744ebef1bdc64f5496c44a84c7246
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
Name of War: Vietnam
Interviewee: James Herrick
Length of Interview: 00:46:10
Background:
Born May 21, 1947 in Kentucky
Served in Army, highest rank sergeant
Born in Kentucky, he was the front end of the baby boomers.
Both his father and his father-in-law served in WWII.
His dad worked as a retail clerk for Sears his whole life and his mother was a housewife.
He is the oldest of four siblings.
Before he entered the service he had graduated high school and had taken one semester of
college. He dropped out due to financial issues.
The pay that would come from the Army was very tempting, even though America was in
the middle of the Vietnam War.
Because of the school he wanted to attend college on the GI bill, he decided to enter the
Army. He was a volunteer, though the draft was very much in effect at the time.
He joined the Army because they had the lowest contract of time that he would have to
served, at three years. The Army would also guarantee his education at the school of
electronics, for radar.
Training: (4:30)
The Army had two types of training: basic training and Advanced Infantry Training, or
AIT.
His basic training was at Fort Knox.
When he trained there, Fort Knox was still focusing on training armored troops, so he
would often see tanks and heavy weapons being used. It would often shake him up and
distract him from his training.
His AIT focused on combat engineering. It was cool for him because he got to blow stuff
up.
He worked with many different types of mines and plastic explosives while he was there.
After his AIT training, he would then spend 8 months of electronics training at the Army
Signal School at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
As a volunteer in the Army he would spend a year in training that would later help him to
get a job, and had two years left. Draftees had to serve two years. So even though he
would spend as much time out in the field as draftees, he would have a year of training,
which he found very beneficial.
When he entered the Army at 19, he at first thought of it as an overgrown Boy Scout
camp, so he found it very easy to adapt to military life.
�
He said that because he knew when his end date was, it was easy enough to tolerate just
about anything.
One time while he was in basic training, his commanding officer had told him to “give
him ten” which he would reply with a smart alack comment and had to give his CO 20
instead. It would be then that he would earn his “candy stripes” as a sergeant.
Adapting to the food and barracks was never a problem for him either. In fact, he would
have a certain appreciation for whatever he was given to eat and the bunk in the barracks
was no different from his twin bed at home.
Post Training: (9:55)
Before he had even joined the Army, he was engaged. The wedding plans were then
wrapped around when he would be out of training. He would be married after his
training at Fort Monmouth.
His social life did not suffer so much. Although he did miss people back home, there
were letters to keep in touch and he would make new friends in the Army.
The first time he flew in a plane was during his basic training. At first he had taken a jet,
which was smooth sailing, and then he had to transfer over to a prop plane, which was a
completely different experience.
When it was time to go to Vietnam, he would take the longest plane ride he had ever
experienced, stopping at many places because there was not a big enough plane to get one
halfway round the world at the time.
Active Duty (12:55)
He arrived in Vietnam on New Year’s Eve.
When he had first got off the plane, he thought to himself ‘Well time to pack up and go
home, because it is too hot here.’
He then began looking for experienced soldiers who had been there a while to learn more
about the area and what had been happening thus far.
When they handed him an M-16, he had no idea what it was. He had trained with an M14 and a Carbine, but definitely not anything like this.
When he went to practice with is new weapon, it would be the first time he would shoot a
fully-automated weapon. He really enjoyed it.
He would arrive in Vietnam the year of the Tet Offensive [1968]. Staying in the Saigon
region, he considered himself relatively safe.
As a trained radar technician, he would use search radar. He had to learn a little bit about
the new radar gun, which was relatively small compared to earlier years.
Some of the guys he had worked with lived differently than he had. He considers himself
sheltered compared to some of the others.
Some of the guys, especially the draftees, around him had trouble being away from home,
or just being alone in general. These were hardships that never had bothered him, most
likely because he was a volunteer.
While he was there, he would also replace a technician who was supposed to test,
calibrate and fix any of the equipment that needed attending too. Although this was not
�
the job he trained for, he had the most electronics training and his commander asked him
to do this job as well. (19:00)
The job itself was fairly simple enough to figure out and he had no trouble adjusting to
his new job. The military manuals would be a great help.
They worked relatively long days and with a two hour break after chow time that night.
Usually they would play volleyball because of the confined space. After that they would
go back to work for a couple of hours more.
He would return from Vietnam early, near Christmas time.
He would work in a machine tool company that creates control tools for different
machines. It was a good job.
Not long after his return he would have a baby.
He would also go back to school for an engineering degree, which was about 9 months
after he got back.
Although he was in Vietnam for the Tet Offensive, he did not see any actual combat.
The mortars however were always annoying.
Cu Chi, the base camp where he would stay for most of his service. It was a very large
base camp containing a small airstrip. The camp would contain battalion level
maintenance.
The camp itself was in a relatively safe area, maybe 25-30 miles away from Saigon. In
fact, it would probably have been safe enough to travel without a rifle. (26:05)
The night that the combat did start he was on bunker duty on the other side of camp, so
he never really experienced it.
Whenever he did get close to combat it would be the Viet Cong throwing mortars at
them. Just when things would start to settle down, they would have more mortars thrown
at them. Eventually, he would just sleep in the bunkers.
When one of the firebases would need something fixed, he was always given a choice if
he wanted to go out there or not. Usually he had the equipment brought to him, though a
couple times he did go out there.
For the most part it, the chances of being in actual combat were relatively low, unless you
volunteered specifically for that. He recalls the ratio of 7 or 8 support units for every
combat unit.
While he was over there, he would make friends with some of the other electrical
engineers, but did not make any lasting friendships. While there was some
communication after he got back, there was very little.
Communication with the people back home was kind of a joke for him. By the time the
letter he sent had gotten back to his loved ones, and they get back to him, he could not
really remember what he had written them.
Because of the time between giving and receiving letters, it was useless to talk about
problems because they were either so bad, there was nothing you could do, or they were
solved. Instead it was easier to talk about things like the weather or future plans
Receiving letters from home made him feel closer to home.
For fun, there were mainly the volleyball games, but there were also card games. But
after Tet, they were under a sort of lockdown. To escape the 5 mile camp walls he would
volunteer to drive convoy into Saigon.
�
On one of those rides, the vehicle in front of him blew up. They thought it was the
Vietnamese, but it turned out to be a bad claymore in the trailer itself. (32:30)
While he was there he had very little free time. When he did he would read a bit and
there would be free time for chapel on Sunday.
One of the things he remembers, is on the way to a firebase, his group passed by some
Vietnamese working in the rice patties. They weren’t waving like normal so he was
worried. Turned out there has been a fight there between the North Vietnamese and the
South Vietnamese the day before.
When they got to the base, they were not allowed to drive out of there, so they had one of
the big helicopters fly the truck out of there instead.
He considers himself lucky because he has mostly good memories.
The only odd jobs he did were in training, like blowing stuff up. He never would use that
skill in the field though.
Post War: (38:40)
When the war ended he was already out of the service. He had three kids by then and had
other things to worry about. The war had become a thing of the past.
His end date was a transition for him.
Things are different now when it comes to the soldiers who came home from the war.
Now they are appreciated for what they have done. Then the soldiers who came home
were despised. There was a tremendous amount of racial strife due to the civil changes
occurring in the States.
It was not the reception that the guys get now. The family would celebrate, but the public
opinion was quite different.
Adapting back to civilian life was easy for him too. He got a job right away and things
went fairly smoothly.
The only problem he had was one night when a neighbor’s truck backfired and he hit the
floor. It was embarrassing, but it never happened again.
He does not maintain any veteran membership.
He considered his military life a very positive aspect of his life. He provided him
training and money to get him into a school and a job.
Like civilian life, there are some things he did not want to do, but you had to do it
anyway.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Herrick, James (Interview outline and video), 2010
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Herrick, James
Description
An account of the resource
James Herrick volunteered for the Army in 1967. He trained as an electronics technician and spent much of his time away from combat, on the base at Cu Chi. He was there through most of 1968, including during the Tet Offensive, but his base received mostly harassment fire, and he did not see combat.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Hop, Dylan (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
United States. Army
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2010-04-07
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
HerrickJ1066V
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
video/mp4
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2e313e1b25df81ccc9306036309b3d4c.mp4
3256d00907c05a802539a39590fbcf9c
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d51577222e23d8c67e1e877a3d29cfb7.pdf
5ceef65ddb311694906694823a01b50d
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project
Todd Herrick
(32:59)
(00:35) Army Reserve
•
•
•
•
•
Todd was born on January 19, 1971 and enlisted in the Army Reserve in 1989
He started as a Private E-1 training in Jackson, SC
He was promoted to Sergeant First Class E-7
Todd got his Masters Degree at the University of Notre Dame and then became a
commissioned officer
He took command of the 855th Quartermaster Company in August of 2002
(1:15) Training
•
•
•
•
•
•
Todd went to basic officer training in Virginia
He was the detachment commander of an oil platoon
He took over the quartermaster position after that
They were mobilized January 23, 2003 and began their MOS training
Many men trained in marksmanship, survival skill, communications, and first-aid
It was different and unique being in command; Todd felt more comfortable and confident
(3:20) Iraq
• The Army had initially prepared to enter the country through Turkey, but Turkey’s
government had changed their mind
• The Army re-routed their operation to go through Kuwait, but the country had not been
equipped for that amount of land traffic
• They spent a lot of time on the road and Todd spent much time keeping track of supplies
• He made many good friends, especially with the platoon leaders, but had to also keep a
professional distance from the younger soldiers
• The base camp was not yet well developed and communication was difficult, but it was
running very smoothly after one year
(8:15) Similarities between Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom
• Both conflicts were different in the way that that civilian population interacted with the
soldiers, the landscape and architecture did not change much
• The second time Todd went much farther into Iraq and saw a lot more of the country
• He had lots more responsibilities and freedom of movement
• Memories from his second time seem to be much more vivid
�(10:33) Conditions in Iraq
• Many of the civilians were living in poor conditions that we would consider uncivilized
• The breaking down of vehicles was always scary, even during the day
• They were never lacking in fuel, water or food, but did not always have the best
equipment
(13:40) Desert Storm
• Desert Storm started with Desert Shield, which was a long logistical build up within
Saudi Arabia
• Todd was in college waiting for his reserve company to be mobilized
• He got a call while home on Christmas break asking if he would join a different company
in Tennessee that was short on men
• Todd volunteered to join the 346th MP Detachment, leaving the 478th Engineering
Battalion
• The transfer was hard for Todd because he was inexperienced and naïve
• He became a supply sergeant and had to learn his duties very quickly
(19:20) Beginning of Desert Storm
• There had been disputes regarding the oil reserves near Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia
• Iraq had annexed Kuwait and there was much anxiety that they would move on South
into Saudi Arabia
• US troops entered into Saudi Arabia on August 10, 1990 and continued to build up for 7
months
• The UN demanded that Iraq recognize the sovereignty of Kuwait and later authorized
other organizations and states to use military force against Iraq
• Iraq was out of Kuwait by January, with the operation barely lasting one month
• Todd had arrived in Iraq at midnight and it was well over one hundred degrees and was
later attacked within a few hours after arriving
• He had been the youngest soldier in his group and therefore had the default assignment of
driving and maintaining the vehicles
(25:10) Closing of Desert Storm
• Todd had been working with the support unit of the 800 MP Brigade, processing
prisoners
• The prisoners were later sent back to Iraq or left in the hands of the Saudi government
and they no longer had much to do in the area
• Todd had arrived in the area on January 27th and was already out by May
• Upon arrival in the US, there was much excitement, euphoria, and patriotism
• On the way home, the airline gave them everything and anything they wanted to eat and
drink
�•
His parents threw him a big party and he had a great time
(30:15) Reflection
• Todd had been in the Army Reserve for 19 years and would soon be retiring
• Looking back, he would not change a thing regarding his military experience
• He has had great success, together with huge losses
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Herrick, Todd (Interview outline and video), 2008
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Herrick, Todd
Description
An account of the resource
Todd Herrick was born on January 19, 1971 and joined the Army Reserve in 1989. He served in transportation and military police units, and went on active duty and served in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq during the Gulf War of 1991 and again during the Iraq war in 2003.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Herrick, Taryn (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
United States. Army Reserve
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
Iraq War, 2003-2011--Personal narratives, American
Video recordings
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eng
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
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2008-05-24
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HerrickT
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
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application/pdf
video/mp4
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c48785360080c11f12e5b8860e49c30d.m4v
ea254e3d4539a01341488bb7eae8660d
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a007693bb58dcc5914a3a01e8e3affd5.m4v
7d743b1e1935bab9346333cfb6b7747e
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ddd5b38e6c2203c6a31b1d8658df82c1.pdf
517e5d9de74ef28429c67c5913144944
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans' History Project
Kyle Herring
War in Afghanistan
Part 1 – 48 minutes 52 seconds
(00:00:17) Early Life
-Born in Frederick, Maryland on October 11, 1987
-Lived there for one or two years
-Moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan
-Parents were originally from Maryland
-Lived on the southeast side of the city near Kalamazoo Avenue
-Moved to Kentwood, Michigan when he was in middle school
-Suburb of Grand Rapids
-Attended East Kentwood High School
-Last class to graduate early
-Graduated in February 2006
-Father worked as an aerospace engineer for General Electric
-Mother worked in healthcare for Spectrum Healthcare
(00:01:20) September 11th Attacks & Start of the War on Terror
-He was in eighth grade when the September 11th attacks happened in 2001
-Didn't have TVs on in the morning
-Teachers came in around 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. and told the students the U.S. had been attacked
-Rest of the day watched the news reports coming in from New York and Washington D.C.
-Aware of the severity of the attacks
-Possibly more aware than other students because his family served in the military
-Father served in the Marines and mother served in the Army
-Father had fought in the Gulf War
-Thought the U.S. would be invaded following the attacks
(00:03:39) Enlisting in the National Guard
-September 11th attacks contributed to his decision to join the military
-Had always wanted to be a soldier
-Wanted to serve in the Marines like his father
-Father advised against it
-Felt that Kyle would get more out of a different branch of the military
-Wanted to do something with technology
-When he was 16 years old he started talking with Marine recruiters
-When he turned 17 the recruiters asked him to sign the paperwork
-Kyle wanted to be an aircraft controller
-Recruiters told him he could be in the infantry or the engineers
-Friend enlisted in the Michigan National Guard
-Got the job he wanted and an enlistment bonus
-Talked to a National Guard recruiter and watched some different videos about technology jobs
-Decided he wanted to be a multichannel transmission systems operator-maintainer
-Military Occupational Specialty code: 25 Quebec
-Enlisted in the spring of 2005
(00:05:40) Drilling with the National Guard
-Able to start drilling with the National Guard before completing basic training
�-In the summer of 2005 he visited Europe and saw London, Paris, and Barcelona
-When he returned from the Europe trip he started doing drills with the National Guard
-One weekend a month through the summer and his senior year
(00:06:35) Basic Training
-Sent to Fort Benning, Georgia on January 1, 2006 for basic training
-Left Lansing, Michigan early in the morning
-Landed at Atlanta and told to go to the clock tower in the airport and wait for a bus
-At 9 p.m. a woman came to the tower and told him to follow him if he was a recruit
-Very informal greeting
-There with 100 or 200 other recruits
-Pulled up to Fort Benning and drill sergeant boarded the bus
-Told if they listened to him they would be fine
-Went through processing at 10 or 11 p.m.
-Given sweatshirts and sweatpants and ordered to change into them
-Didn't sleep much the first night there
-First week was spent processing
-Basic training wasn't too difficult
-Expected it to be like the basic training in the film, Full Metal Jacket
-Disappointed that it wasn't tough
-Felt prepared from hearing about his parents' experiences in the military
-Graduated from basic training in April 2006
-Drill sergeants yelled at them, but not to an extreme degree
-Spent most days exercising, sleeping, or going to classes
-Remembers one exercise called “belly, back, and feet”
-Push-ups, flutter kicks, and jogging in place
-Had to change exercises when the drill sergeant commanded
-A few men had trouble adjusting to the military
-Trained with other slightly older recruits
-Only three or four men didn't pass basic training
-One of his bunk mates had to be medically discharged due to heart problems
-Remembers a group of Ohioans didn't adjust well to the discipline, but they made it through
-Sundays were cleaning day
-One of the Ohioan recruits hid in a wall locker and slept all day on Sundays
-Did a lot of weapons training, physical training, and marches with full packs
-Basic infantry training
-Firing a rifle, digging a foxhole, basic first aid, and using a radio
(00:14:08) Signal Training
-Sent to Fort Gordon, Georgia for Signal Training
-Lasted 21 weeks
-Trained with truck-mounted radios and satellite radios
-Trained with old technology and new technology
-Radios used by the French in the 1990s
-French radios were set to OCONUS
-Overseas radio setting, and permanent unless rewired
-Learned how to rewire those radios to be used in the United States
-Second part of training consisted of satellite communications
(00:16:21) Joining the 156th Signal Battalion
-Returned to Grand Rapids and was assigned to C Company of the 156th Signal Battalion
-Stationed at Grand Valley Armory in Wyoming, Michigan (suburb of Grand Rapids)
�-Did drills one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer
-Attended Grand Rapids Community College while not drilling with the National Guard
-Did the basic weekend/month and two weeks/summer schedule for two years
-Enjoyed drilling in the National Guard
-Bond forming and team building
-Everyone worked well together and did a good job together
(00:17:48) Medic Training
-Discovered that he didn't enjoy communications work
-In early 2008 the 156th Signal Battalion became part of the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team
-This resulted in the creation of a combat medic position
-He wanted to become a medic, requested the position, and got it
-Sent to Parks Reserve Forces Training Area (Camp Parks), California in the summer of 2008
-Base was situated in the middle of a wealthy area
-Close enough to San Francisco that they could take a train there
-Medic training usually took six months, but they did it in three months
-14 hours of training for a while
-Studied a chapter in class and read the next chapter at night
-The next day took a test on the material they studied in class
-Took the National Registry of EMTs Exam and half of the trainees failed it on the first attempt
-Second time they took the test three quarters of them passed
-Got practical training
-Trained with practice mannequins, learned how to give shots, and place IVs
-Rode in a civilian ambulance in Oakland, California
-Treated an old woman, a homeless man, an infant, and responded to a car accident
-Did that all in one, eight hour shift
-Resuscitated a man in the emergency room and pronounced an infant dead an hour later
-Doing practical work like that gave him confidence he hadn't had before
-First half of medic training focused on basic EMT skills
-Second half of medic training focused on Army medicine
-For example: properly using tourniquets and moving litters
-Did field exercises in the desert
-Remembers on one exercise he didn't drink water until 5 p.m.
-Acting squad leader and made sure the other soldiers stayed hydrated
-He just forgot to do the same for himself
(00:24:19 Pre-Deployment Training & Preparation
-Returned to Grand Valley Armory
-Alerted for mobilization
-In early 2009 they received equipment and started their training
-Went to Vermont for mountaineer training with the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team
-Fun
-Learned how to walk horizontally across a steep grade
-Did a 20 foot rappel
-On the first rappel he was carrying a 50 pound aid bag
-Had to do his first rappel with the pound bag
-Did a 150 foot rappel down a cliff face
-Returned to Michigan after mountaineer training in Vermont
-Started dating his future wife
-Dated a few months and decide to try for a long term, long distance, relationship
-Sent to Fort Polk, Louisiana for combat training
�-Three weeks
-Ran practice convoys
-Worked in an aid station
-Did that in September 2009
-On December 3, 2009 they received their federal orders
-Bused to Camp Atterbury, Indiana
-Did three or four days of processing
-Vaccinations and various physical tests
-Land navigation training and a brief introduction of what to expect in Afghanistan
-Medics received Brigade Combat Tactical Training
-One week of intense medical training
-Trained by special forces medics and surgeons
-Learned about what IEDs could do to a person
-By 2009 the Army knew more about IEDs and damage potential
-Learned that they had to go back to Fort Polk because they missed a training step
-Three more weeks of combat training
-He was originally assigned to a Military Police platoon with brigade headquarters
-Platoon got reassigned to the 1st Squadron of the 172nd Cavalry Regiment
-Part of the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team
-Did field exercises in the woods in Fort Polk
-Taught the Rules of Land Warfare
-What a soldier can/cannot do in combat
-At Fort Polk they had fake enemies and fake civilians
-Lived and operated in a fake Afghan city
-Had Afghan nationals and fake reporters
-Rifles with blank rounds, fake bombs, and helicopters
-Pre-deployment training was worse than the actual tour in Afghanistan
(00:33:23) Deployment to Afghanistan
-Received orders to fly directly from Fort Polk to Afghanistan
-Given 24 hours of leave
-He and the other men went to Bourbon Street in New Orleans
-Last time they could drink before being deployed to Afghanistan
-Stayed at Fort Polk for a few days then flew out of Louisiana at 3 a.m.
-Flew to Afghanistan on a chartered civilian flight
-Stopped in Canada, Iceland, Ireland, and Germany to refuel
-Allowed to get off the plane in Germany
-Place for soldiers to eat, stretch their legs, and buy souvenirs
-There were political issues with Russia which altered their flight path to Afghanistan
-Flown to Kyrgyzstan
-Landed at a Soviet-era airport
-Beautiful and cold country
-Bought an Iranian cell phone that worked in the Middle East
-Boarded a C-130 and flew to Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan
(00:36:20) Arrival in Afghanistan
-Received two days of training at Bagram Air Base
-Boarded another C-130 and flew to Sharana, Afghanistan to get to Ghazni
-Had to do a combat landing at night because the base took fire on a regular basis
-Plane corkscrewed down to the runway
-C-130 dropped the ramp and they were ordered to march off the plane
�-Only had 15-20 rounds of ammunition and it was pitch black
-Told to go to a reception area at the other end of the runway
-Went into a transient tent
-Disgusting and one of the worst places he had to stay
-Contacted the unit they were replacing in Ghazni
-Needed more ammunition before they they moved
-In RC-East (NATO designation for eastern portion of Afghanistan)
-Unit they were replacing came to pick them up from Sharana
-Traveled in Cougar Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored transports
-Brought them a trailer full of ammunition
-Told to watch out for IEDs en route to Ghazni
(00:39:45) First Contact with Enemy Troops
-Reached a place called Four Corners en route to Ghazni
-Afghan police were taking fire and the American forces were ordered to assist them
-Got out of the MRAP and went to the left of the road
-Told to watch out for a man riding a red moped
-Afghan forces were taking fire on the right side of the road
-Walked forward 100 or 200 yards
-The red moped showed up
-Everyone pointed their rifles at the man and he quickly turned around
-Not the target
-Took cover behind a berm and returned fire
-He was ordered to stay down and hold his fire
-If he, the medic, got wounded then who would take care of him?
-Taking small arms fire
-After 10 or 15 minutes the militants scattered and they proceeded toward Ghazni
(00:42:25) Stationed in Ghazni
-Final destination was Forward Operating Base (FOB) Vulcan in Ghazni
-Ghazni is the capital of Ghazni Province
-There was another FOB, called FOB Ghazni in the city
-Provincial reconstruction, helicopter base, and a forward surgical team
-FOB Vulcan was a former Soviet base from the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s
-Shared it with an Afghan battalion
-Minimal enemy contact
-FOB Ghazni got hit by mortars and rockets on a regular basis
-FOB Vulcan wasn't a large base
-150 Americans stationed there
-Shared the base with Polish forces
-NATO commander was Polish and had a Polish 155mm artillery unit
(00:44:20) Patrols in Afghanistan
-Started their mission after a week of being at FOB Vulcan
-Mission was to train Afghan police in the area
-Went to the towns of Waghaz and Qarabagh
-First time at Waghaz they took mortar fire from the mountains
-Established contact with the town chieftain
-Moved to Qarabagh after patrols in Waghaz
-Stayed there for a few nights
-Lived on Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) and trained the Afghan police
-Pulled security at night
�-Set up a post on top of an old prison
-If they saw movement they had orders to retreat
-Had only 20 men at Qarabagh and couldn't taken on an enemy force
-Arrived in Afghanistan in March 2010 and started conducting patrols soon
-Had Thursdays off because Friday is the Muslim holy day
(00:46:50) Fighting around Waghaz
-The second time they went into Waghaz they took mortar fire, again
-Brought a TOW missile launcher and a forward observer to call in artillery support
-Fired the TOW at the enemy position and it flew into a group of trees
-Mortars were landing around the compound
-Knew the militants were bad shots, but they could eventually get a direct hit
-Called in Polish artillery to knock out the mortar position
-Lieutenant was fairly incompetent
-Called in the wrong coordinates
-Resulted in the artillery hitting 1,000 yards off target
Part 2 – 45 minutes 39 seconds
Note: Separate DVD, but time code continues
(00:49:33) Fighting around Waghaz
-Polish artillery was off the mark
-United States artillery procedure is to fire to the right of the impact area
-Polish artillery procedure is to fire to the left of the impact area
-Shot again and were even more off the mark than the first time
-Decided to get into MRAPs and go into the hills to find the mortars
-Had F-16 fighter aircraft providing air support
-Went up to a little bridge in the hills
-Good chance there would be IEDs
-He was in the third vehicle in line
-Two of the MRAPs got across the bridge without incident
-His MRAP shifted to the right and hit an IED
-It was two antitank mines stacked on top of each other
-Blew off a tire
-Militants had been planning an ambush on the convoy
-Disable a vehicle then attack with machine guns and rockets
-F-16s scared them off
-No one in his vehicle was injured
-A few men sustained minor concussions
-Recovery vehicles took forever to reach them
-Traveling at one kilometer/hour (or a little over ½ mile/hour)
-F-16s ran out of gas and had to leave the area
-B-1 strategic bomber came to provide air support
-Stayed there for a while
-Pilot radioed the recovery convoy and told them to go faster
-Getting bored and wanted to leave
-Finally got picked up and his MRAP was repaired within a few days
(00:53:30) Leaving Ghazni
-Spent three months in Ghazni
�-Only American forces in the area, and they were a small force
-Got replaced by a larger American force
-Ghazni hadn't been a bad place to be stationed
-Had internet, hot food, showers, and civilians did their laundry
(00:54:15) Ambushed outside of Qarabagh
-Wanted to go to Qarabagh to say good bye to the Afghan police chief
-Bitter and nervous that the Americans would leave and not be replaced
-Stayed overnight in Qarabagh and ate breakfast with the police the next day
-Left Qarabagh and he was in the last vehicle in the convoy
-MRAP in front of him hit a 500 pound IED
-Blast threw vehicle into the air and flipped it over
-Gunner survived because he bent down to pick up a bottle of a water
-Felt the shock wave in his truck
-The gunner in his MRAP returned fire with machine gun and grenade launcher
-His truck took three rocket propelled grenades
-After each blast the gunner got back up and returned fire
-MRAP caught fire and had to be evacuated
-Made his way to the destroyed MRAP
-Half of the vehicles in the convoy were damaged or immobilized
-Ran through the blast zone and the IED produced a crater in the highway
-Everyone in the destroyed MRAP was out of the truck and were wounded
-Six wounded
-Inside of that MRAP was covered in blood
-Started treating the wounded
-One soldier had internal bleeding
-Told the platoon sergeant they needed to get the wounded out of the area
-Other soldiers went off the road to hunt down the militants
-Polish sent in helicopters to pick up the wounded
-He didn't know the Polish were sending in helicopters
-Saw a Mi-24 Hind fly overhead
-Same helicopter used by the Russians
-Astounded at the sight and didn't know what to expect next
-Militants retreated
-Helicopter pilot saw the blast crater and decided to land in the adjacent field
-Helped get the wounded to the helicopter
-Told the flight medic about the situation
-Another helicopter showed up
-Thought there were six litter wounded, not ambulatory
-Polish armored vehicles came to support them
-Patrolled the area and found a few weapons
-Got into a new convoy and went to FOB Ghazni
-Ate and got cleaned up
-Visited the wounded
-Let him put three of the more severely wounded into a helicopter
-One of the men went to Germany and two went to Bagram Air Base
(01:04:55) Stationed at FOB Lightning
-Flown to FOB Lightning in Gardez
-Spent two weeks at FOB Lightning
-Worked with the 82nd Airborne Division
�-Did patrols and went on a convoy to a FOB near Pakistan
-FOB Lightning was a larger base
-Had a mess hall open at all times with iced coffee and a panini machine
-Had internet access
-Could contact his family and his fiancee
(01:06:20) Stationed at Charikar
-Sent to Bagram Air Base for one week to await further orders
-101st Airborne Division replaced them
-Sent to the city of Charikar near Bagram
-Worked with United Arab Emirates soldiers
-Stationed at the police station in Charikar
-Shared the barracks with Afghan police
-Went on two foot patrols each day
-Did two, three hour shifts of guard duty
-One of his jobs was to bleach the water used for showering
-Built up area
-Civilians were allowed to go into the police station
-Medium-sized city with three-story buildings
-Able to send the interpreter into town to get local food
-Had french fries and kebabs
-American dollar was very strong
-Avoided eating cold food and dairy products
-Spent six months in Charikar out of a total of nine months in Afghanistan
-Did the same routine every day
-Brought a firearm with him everywhere he went
-Got comfortable carrying a firearm with him
-Never fired his rifle in anger
-Medic shouldn't have to return fire in a combat situation
(01:12:30) Enemy Contact in Charikar
-One night they were sleeping and someone fired a rocket propelled grenade at the station
-Local that angry about a political decision made by the U.S. military
-No wounded and no killed
-Pulled guard duty at night because he enjoyed the coolness of the evening
-One night he heard fire on Route 1
-Went into the tactical operations center (TOC)
-Told NATO Macedonian forces had been attacked
-Being sent to Charikar
-When the Macedonians arrived they were on edge
-Jumped out of the trucks and pointing their rifles
-An American unit near them hit an IED and lost their medic
(01:14:52) U.S. Ambassador visit to Charikar
-U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan came to Charikar to visit the provincial governor
-Had jets, layers of security, and Secretary of State security forces
-Afghan police were on the road in front of the governor's compound
-Remembers a blue tanker truck coming up to the compound
-Afghan police let it go through the roadblock
-Secretary of State security thought it was a suicide truck
-Turned out to be fine
-Ready for it to explode and deal with the consequences
�(01:16:52) United Nations Presence
-United Nations World Food Program operated in the area
-Used white vans and SUVs with no armor
-Drove around Charikar
-Never made sense to him why they'd use civilian vehicles
-Never got attacked
(01:17:50) Contact with Afghan Civilians
-A lot of contact with Afghan civilians
-Patrolled the markets in Charikar
-There was a canal next to the police compound
-Threw candy to children who stood on the other side of the canal
-A sucker hit a little girl in the head
-Brought her and her father over to the compound
-Gave her another sucker, and a stuffed animal, and bandages
-Father was happy and understood that it was an accident
-Afghans knew that he was a medic and less intimidating than the other soldiers
-Thought he had magic pills that could treat anything
-Remembers in Qarabagh a man approached him and said his leg hurt
-Couldn't give him pain pills because he could be allergic
-Gave him a red Tic-Tac
-Man came back a week later complaining of leg pain again
-Gave him a yellow Tic-Tac and the man requested a red one
-There was a blind man in Charikar that asked to be healed
-Couldn't grasp that Kyle wasn't a doctor or a miracle worker
-Apologized to the man and gave him some American money for his trouble
-Treated one Afghan policeman with an infected ankle from wearing his boots wrong
-Took a picture together
-Trusted the Afghan interpreter because he was in just as much danger as they were
-Gave him a first aid kit and a shotgun or an AK-47 rifle if they had a spare
(01:22:50) Mystery Weapons Cache
-He was on guard duty one night and an Afghan police cargo truck came into the compound
-Truck was filled with crates of rifles, ammunition, rocket launchers, and rockets
-Helped the Afghan police unload the truck
-Went into a basement on the compound and it was filled with weapons and ammunition
-Didn't know it existed
-Had no idea why the Afghan police had it
-Radioed 86th Brigade headquarters and told them about the weapons cache
-They didn't know it existed either
-Piles of Chinese, Egyptian, Soviet, and unmarked weapons
(01:25:37) End of Deployment & Coming Home
-Deployment ended in December 2010
-Stayed at Bagram Air Base for one week
-in Thanksgiving 2010 President Obama came to Bagram Air Base
-Delayed coming home
-Out processed at Camp Atterbury, Indiana
-Came home to Grand Rapids and was greeted by the community
-Stopped at Kyrgyzstan en route to the United States
-One soldier broke his ankle walking out to the plane
�-Had two choices: fly home with a broken ankle, or stay behind for treatment
-Decided to fly home with the broken ankle
-Took a year to get his ankle fixed
(01:27:02) Assignment to the 126th Cavalry Regiment & Current National Guard Service
-While on his deployment he was promoted to the rank of sergeant (E-5)
-Spent three more months with C Company of the 156th Signal Battalion
-Moved across the hall at Grand Valley Armory and was reassigned to 126th Cavalry Regiment
-Placed on full-time orders for a couple years then became Active Guard Reserve (AGR, career)
-Worked for eight months as a National Guard recruiter at Grand Valley Armory
-Went back to work as medical readiness sergeant with the 126th Cavalry Regiment
-Job as of time of interview
-Managing medical documents
-Overseeing a platoon of medics
-Administering flu shots
-Medical exams
-General healthcare of soldiers
(01:28:15) Reflections on Service
-Made him a calmer individual
-More confident
-More to life
-Drinks less after his deployment
-Appreciates life more
-Spent nine months without TV, cell phone, and limited internet
-Misses the order and routine of Afghanistan
-Still maintains a routine as a civilian
(01:29:46) Wounded in Ghazni
-In Ghazni after the 500 pound IED explosion
-He was in the mess hall and the FOB started taking rocket fire
-Ran toward bunkers and a rocket exploded in front of him
-Attack happened near Easter 2010
-Doesn't remember the blast, but remembers getting up from the ground
-Saw a man lying in the middle of the road
-Acted without thinking
-Base was still taking rocket fire
-Wounded man was a Navy corpsman
-Entire right side was peppered with shrapnel
-Polish ambulance came to help treat the corpsman
-Helped the Polish soldiers treat the man
-Reunited with his platoon
-One week later he found the corpsman survived and was being treated in Germany
-Spent three months in therapy due to sustaining a traumatic brain injury
-Didn't qualify for a Purple Heart
-Placed on rest for two days and ordered to relax
-Still has ringing in his ears and memory problems
-Works with a lot of soldiers that have traumatic brain injuries
-Is able to relate with them
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
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RHC-27
Language
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eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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HerringK1933V
Title
A name given to the resource
Herring, Kyle (Interview outline and video), 2016
Description
An account of the resource
Kyle Herring was born in Frederick, Maryland on October 11, 1987, but grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He enlisted in the Michigan National Guard when he was 17 years old in spring 2005 and drilled during his senior year. In January 2006 he received basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia then went to Fort Gordon, Georgia for signal training. He joined C Company of the 156th Signal Battalion at the Grand Valley Armory in Wyoming, Michigan. In early 2008 a medic slot opened and he volunteered for it. He received medic training at Parks Reserve Forces Training Area, California. In early 2009 they received deployment orders and spent most of 2009 training in Vermont; Camp Atterbury, Indiana; and Fort Polk, Louisiana. He was attached to 1st Squadron of the 172nd Cavalry Regiment of the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. They deployed to Afghanistan in March 2010 and he was stationed at Forward Operating Base Vulcan (Ghazni) for three months working with local police in Waghaz and Qarabagh. He suffered a concussive injury in Ghazni. He was also stationed at FOB Lighting (Gardez) and at the police station in Charikar for six months. In December 2010 the deployment ended and he returned home. After three months he joined the 126th Cavalry Regiment and went on full-time, active duty as the medical readiness non-commissioned officer.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Herring, Kyle
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jones, Adam (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
United States. National Guard
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-17
Format
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application/pdf
video/mp4
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9a9bb5e27591dccd2bf7c643d9b1d92c.m4v
ea254e3d4539a01341488bb7eae8660d
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/345e391257c8cc97dc6543cbb991ba8b.m4v
7d743b1e1935bab9346333cfb6b7747e
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/24228e225e062e173fad8ded1b031296.pdf
517e5d9de74ef28429c67c5913144944
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans' History Project
Kyle Herring
War in Afghanistan
Part 1 – 48 minutes 52 seconds
(00:00:17) Early Life
-Born in Frederick, Maryland on October 11, 1987
-Lived there for one or two years
-Moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan
-Parents were originally from Maryland
-Lived on the southeast side of the city near Kalamazoo Avenue
-Moved to Kentwood, Michigan when he was in middle school
-Suburb of Grand Rapids
-Attended East Kentwood High School
-Last class to graduate early
-Graduated in February 2006
-Father worked as an aerospace engineer for General Electric
-Mother worked in healthcare for Spectrum Healthcare
(00:01:20) September 11th Attacks & Start of the War on Terror
-He was in eighth grade when the September 11th attacks happened in 2001
-Didn't have TVs on in the morning
-Teachers came in around 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. and told the students the U.S. had been attacked
-Rest of the day watched the news reports coming in from New York and Washington D.C.
-Aware of the severity of the attacks
-Possibly more aware than other students because his family served in the military
-Father served in the Marines and mother served in the Army
-Father had fought in the Gulf War
-Thought the U.S. would be invaded following the attacks
(00:03:39) Enlisting in the National Guard
-September 11th attacks contributed to his decision to join the military
-Had always wanted to be a soldier
-Wanted to serve in the Marines like his father
-Father advised against it
-Felt that Kyle would get more out of a different branch of the military
-Wanted to do something with technology
-When he was 16 years old he started talking with Marine recruiters
-When he turned 17 the recruiters asked him to sign the paperwork
-Kyle wanted to be an aircraft controller
-Recruiters told him he could be in the infantry or the engineers
-Friend enlisted in the Michigan National Guard
-Got the job he wanted and an enlistment bonus
-Talked to a National Guard recruiter and watched some different videos about technology jobs
-Decided he wanted to be a multichannel transmission systems operator-maintainer
-Military Occupational Specialty code: 25 Quebec
-Enlisted in the spring of 2005
(00:05:40) Drilling with the National Guard
-Able to start drilling with the National Guard before completing basic training
�-In the summer of 2005 he visited Europe and saw London, Paris, and Barcelona
-When he returned from the Europe trip he started doing drills with the National Guard
-One weekend a month through the summer and his senior year
(00:06:35) Basic Training
-Sent to Fort Benning, Georgia on January 1, 2006 for basic training
-Left Lansing, Michigan early in the morning
-Landed at Atlanta and told to go to the clock tower in the airport and wait for a bus
-At 9 p.m. a woman came to the tower and told him to follow him if he was a recruit
-Very informal greeting
-There with 100 or 200 other recruits
-Pulled up to Fort Benning and drill sergeant boarded the bus
-Told if they listened to him they would be fine
-Went through processing at 10 or 11 p.m.
-Given sweatshirts and sweatpants and ordered to change into them
-Didn't sleep much the first night there
-First week was spent processing
-Basic training wasn't too difficult
-Expected it to be like the basic training in the film, Full Metal Jacket
-Disappointed that it wasn't tough
-Felt prepared from hearing about his parents' experiences in the military
-Graduated from basic training in April 2006
-Drill sergeants yelled at them, but not to an extreme degree
-Spent most days exercising, sleeping, or going to classes
-Remembers one exercise called “belly, back, and feet”
-Push-ups, flutter kicks, and jogging in place
-Had to change exercises when the drill sergeant commanded
-A few men had trouble adjusting to the military
-Trained with other slightly older recruits
-Only three or four men didn't pass basic training
-One of his bunk mates had to be medically discharged due to heart problems
-Remembers a group of Ohioans didn't adjust well to the discipline, but they made it through
-Sundays were cleaning day
-One of the Ohioan recruits hid in a wall locker and slept all day on Sundays
-Did a lot of weapons training, physical training, and marches with full packs
-Basic infantry training
-Firing a rifle, digging a foxhole, basic first aid, and using a radio
(00:14:08) Signal Training
-Sent to Fort Gordon, Georgia for Signal Training
-Lasted 21 weeks
-Trained with truck-mounted radios and satellite radios
-Trained with old technology and new technology
-Radios used by the French in the 1990s
-French radios were set to OCONUS
-Overseas radio setting, and permanent unless rewired
-Learned how to rewire those radios to be used in the United States
-Second part of training consisted of satellite communications
(00:16:21) Joining the 156th Signal Battalion
-Returned to Grand Rapids and was assigned to C Company of the 156th Signal Battalion
-Stationed at Grand Valley Armory in Wyoming, Michigan (suburb of Grand Rapids)
�-Did drills one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer
-Attended Grand Rapids Community College while not drilling with the National Guard
-Did the basic weekend/month and two weeks/summer schedule for two years
-Enjoyed drilling in the National Guard
-Bond forming and team building
-Everyone worked well together and did a good job together
(00:17:48) Medic Training
-Discovered that he didn't enjoy communications work
-In early 2008 the 156th Signal Battalion became part of the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team
-This resulted in the creation of a combat medic position
-He wanted to become a medic, requested the position, and got it
-Sent to Parks Reserve Forces Training Area (Camp Parks), California in the summer of 2008
-Base was situated in the middle of a wealthy area
-Close enough to San Francisco that they could take a train there
-Medic training usually took six months, but they did it in three months
-14 hours of training for a while
-Studied a chapter in class and read the next chapter at night
-The next day took a test on the material they studied in class
-Took the National Registry of EMTs Exam and half of the trainees failed it on the first attempt
-Second time they took the test three quarters of them passed
-Got practical training
-Trained with practice mannequins, learned how to give shots, and place IVs
-Rode in a civilian ambulance in Oakland, California
-Treated an old woman, a homeless man, an infant, and responded to a car accident
-Did that all in one, eight hour shift
-Resuscitated a man in the emergency room and pronounced an infant dead an hour later
-Doing practical work like that gave him confidence he hadn't had before
-First half of medic training focused on basic EMT skills
-Second half of medic training focused on Army medicine
-For example: properly using tourniquets and moving litters
-Did field exercises in the desert
-Remembers on one exercise he didn't drink water until 5 p.m.
-Acting squad leader and made sure the other soldiers stayed hydrated
-He just forgot to do the same for himself
(00:24:19 Pre-Deployment Training & Preparation
-Returned to Grand Valley Armory
-Alerted for mobilization
-In early 2009 they received equipment and started their training
-Went to Vermont for mountaineer training with the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team
-Fun
-Learned how to walk horizontally across a steep grade
-Did a 20 foot rappel
-On the first rappel he was carrying a 50 pound aid bag
-Had to do his first rappel with the pound bag
-Did a 150 foot rappel down a cliff face
-Returned to Michigan after mountaineer training in Vermont
-Started dating his future wife
-Dated a few months and decide to try for a long term, long distance, relationship
-Sent to Fort Polk, Louisiana for combat training
�-Three weeks
-Ran practice convoys
-Worked in an aid station
-Did that in September 2009
-On December 3, 2009 they received their federal orders
-Bused to Camp Atterbury, Indiana
-Did three or four days of processing
-Vaccinations and various physical tests
-Land navigation training and a brief introduction of what to expect in Afghanistan
-Medics received Brigade Combat Tactical Training
-One week of intense medical training
-Trained by special forces medics and surgeons
-Learned about what IEDs could do to a person
-By 2009 the Army knew more about IEDs and damage potential
-Learned that they had to go back to Fort Polk because they missed a training step
-Three more weeks of combat training
-He was originally assigned to a Military Police platoon with brigade headquarters
-Platoon got reassigned to the 1st Squadron of the 172nd Cavalry Regiment
-Part of the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team
-Did field exercises in the woods in Fort Polk
-Taught the Rules of Land Warfare
-What a soldier can/cannot do in combat
-At Fort Polk they had fake enemies and fake civilians
-Lived and operated in a fake Afghan city
-Had Afghan nationals and fake reporters
-Rifles with blank rounds, fake bombs, and helicopters
-Pre-deployment training was worse than the actual tour in Afghanistan
(00:33:23) Deployment to Afghanistan
-Received orders to fly directly from Fort Polk to Afghanistan
-Given 24 hours of leave
-He and the other men went to Bourbon Street in New Orleans
-Last time they could drink before being deployed to Afghanistan
-Stayed at Fort Polk for a few days then flew out of Louisiana at 3 a.m.
-Flew to Afghanistan on a chartered civilian flight
-Stopped in Canada, Iceland, Ireland, and Germany to refuel
-Allowed to get off the plane in Germany
-Place for soldiers to eat, stretch their legs, and buy souvenirs
-There were political issues with Russia which altered their flight path to Afghanistan
-Flown to Kyrgyzstan
-Landed at a Soviet-era airport
-Beautiful and cold country
-Bought an Iranian cell phone that worked in the Middle East
-Boarded a C-130 and flew to Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan
(00:36:20) Arrival in Afghanistan
-Received two days of training at Bagram Air Base
-Boarded another C-130 and flew to Sharana, Afghanistan to get to Ghazni
-Had to do a combat landing at night because the base took fire on a regular basis
-Plane corkscrewed down to the runway
-C-130 dropped the ramp and they were ordered to march off the plane
�-Only had 15-20 rounds of ammunition and it was pitch black
-Told to go to a reception area at the other end of the runway
-Went into a transient tent
-Disgusting and one of the worst places he had to stay
-Contacted the unit they were replacing in Ghazni
-Needed more ammunition before they they moved
-In RC-East (NATO designation for eastern portion of Afghanistan)
-Unit they were replacing came to pick them up from Sharana
-Traveled in Cougar Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored transports
-Brought them a trailer full of ammunition
-Told to watch out for IEDs en route to Ghazni
(00:39:45) First Contact with Enemy Troops
-Reached a place called Four Corners en route to Ghazni
-Afghan police were taking fire and the American forces were ordered to assist them
-Got out of the MRAP and went to the left of the road
-Told to watch out for a man riding a red moped
-Afghan forces were taking fire on the right side of the road
-Walked forward 100 or 200 yards
-The red moped showed up
-Everyone pointed their rifles at the man and he quickly turned around
-Not the target
-Took cover behind a berm and returned fire
-He was ordered to stay down and hold his fire
-If he, the medic, got wounded then who would take care of him?
-Taking small arms fire
-After 10 or 15 minutes the militants scattered and they proceeded toward Ghazni
(00:42:25) Stationed in Ghazni
-Final destination was Forward Operating Base (FOB) Vulcan in Ghazni
-Ghazni is the capital of Ghazni Province
-There was another FOB, called FOB Ghazni in the city
-Provincial reconstruction, helicopter base, and a forward surgical team
-FOB Vulcan was a former Soviet base from the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s
-Shared it with an Afghan battalion
-Minimal enemy contact
-FOB Ghazni got hit by mortars and rockets on a regular basis
-FOB Vulcan wasn't a large base
-150 Americans stationed there
-Shared the base with Polish forces
-NATO commander was Polish and had a Polish 155mm artillery unit
(00:44:20) Patrols in Afghanistan
-Started their mission after a week of being at FOB Vulcan
-Mission was to train Afghan police in the area
-Went to the towns of Waghaz and Qarabagh
-First time at Waghaz they took mortar fire from the mountains
-Established contact with the town chieftain
-Moved to Qarabagh after patrols in Waghaz
-Stayed there for a few nights
-Lived on Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) and trained the Afghan police
-Pulled security at night
�-Set up a post on top of an old prison
-If they saw movement they had orders to retreat
-Had only 20 men at Qarabagh and couldn't taken on an enemy force
-Arrived in Afghanistan in March 2010 and started conducting patrols soon
-Had Thursdays off because Friday is the Muslim holy day
(00:46:50) Fighting around Waghaz
-The second time they went into Waghaz they took mortar fire, again
-Brought a TOW missile launcher and a forward observer to call in artillery support
-Fired the TOW at the enemy position and it flew into a group of trees
-Mortars were landing around the compound
-Knew the militants were bad shots, but they could eventually get a direct hit
-Called in Polish artillery to knock out the mortar position
-Lieutenant was fairly incompetent
-Called in the wrong coordinates
-Resulted in the artillery hitting 1,000 yards off target
Part 2 – 45 minutes 39 seconds
Note: Separate DVD, but time code continues
(00:49:33) Fighting around Waghaz
-Polish artillery was off the mark
-United States artillery procedure is to fire to the right of the impact area
-Polish artillery procedure is to fire to the left of the impact area
-Shot again and were even more off the mark than the first time
-Decided to get into MRAPs and go into the hills to find the mortars
-Had F-16 fighter aircraft providing air support
-Went up to a little bridge in the hills
-Good chance there would be IEDs
-He was in the third vehicle in line
-Two of the MRAPs got across the bridge without incident
-His MRAP shifted to the right and hit an IED
-It was two antitank mines stacked on top of each other
-Blew off a tire
-Militants had been planning an ambush on the convoy
-Disable a vehicle then attack with machine guns and rockets
-F-16s scared them off
-No one in his vehicle was injured
-A few men sustained minor concussions
-Recovery vehicles took forever to reach them
-Traveling at one kilometer/hour (or a little over ½ mile/hour)
-F-16s ran out of gas and had to leave the area
-B-1 strategic bomber came to provide air support
-Stayed there for a while
-Pilot radioed the recovery convoy and told them to go faster
-Getting bored and wanted to leave
-Finally got picked up and his MRAP was repaired within a few days
(00:53:30) Leaving Ghazni
-Spent three months in Ghazni
�-Only American forces in the area, and they were a small force
-Got replaced by a larger American force
-Ghazni hadn't been a bad place to be stationed
-Had internet, hot food, showers, and civilians did their laundry
(00:54:15) Ambushed outside of Qarabagh
-Wanted to go to Qarabagh to say good bye to the Afghan police chief
-Bitter and nervous that the Americans would leave and not be replaced
-Stayed overnight in Qarabagh and ate breakfast with the police the next day
-Left Qarabagh and he was in the last vehicle in the convoy
-MRAP in front of him hit a 500 pound IED
-Blast threw vehicle into the air and flipped it over
-Gunner survived because he bent down to pick up a bottle of a water
-Felt the shock wave in his truck
-The gunner in his MRAP returned fire with machine gun and grenade launcher
-His truck took three rocket propelled grenades
-After each blast the gunner got back up and returned fire
-MRAP caught fire and had to be evacuated
-Made his way to the destroyed MRAP
-Half of the vehicles in the convoy were damaged or immobilized
-Ran through the blast zone and the IED produced a crater in the highway
-Everyone in the destroyed MRAP was out of the truck and were wounded
-Six wounded
-Inside of that MRAP was covered in blood
-Started treating the wounded
-One soldier had internal bleeding
-Told the platoon sergeant they needed to get the wounded out of the area
-Other soldiers went off the road to hunt down the militants
-Polish sent in helicopters to pick up the wounded
-He didn't know the Polish were sending in helicopters
-Saw a Mi-24 Hind fly overhead
-Same helicopter used by the Russians
-Astounded at the sight and didn't know what to expect next
-Militants retreated
-Helicopter pilot saw the blast crater and decided to land in the adjacent field
-Helped get the wounded to the helicopter
-Told the flight medic about the situation
-Another helicopter showed up
-Thought there were six litter wounded, not ambulatory
-Polish armored vehicles came to support them
-Patrolled the area and found a few weapons
-Got into a new convoy and went to FOB Ghazni
-Ate and got cleaned up
-Visited the wounded
-Let him put three of the more severely wounded into a helicopter
-One of the men went to Germany and two went to Bagram Air Base
(01:04:55) Stationed at FOB Lightning
-Flown to FOB Lightning in Gardez
-Spent two weeks at FOB Lightning
-Worked with the 82nd Airborne Division
�-Did patrols and went on a convoy to a FOB near Pakistan
-FOB Lightning was a larger base
-Had a mess hall open at all times with iced coffee and a panini machine
-Had internet access
-Could contact his family and his fiancee
(01:06:20) Stationed at Charikar
-Sent to Bagram Air Base for one week to await further orders
-101st Airborne Division replaced them
-Sent to the city of Charikar near Bagram
-Worked with United Arab Emirates soldiers
-Stationed at the police station in Charikar
-Shared the barracks with Afghan police
-Went on two foot patrols each day
-Did two, three hour shifts of guard duty
-One of his jobs was to bleach the water used for showering
-Built up area
-Civilians were allowed to go into the police station
-Medium-sized city with three-story buildings
-Able to send the interpreter into town to get local food
-Had french fries and kebabs
-American dollar was very strong
-Avoided eating cold food and dairy products
-Spent six months in Charikar out of a total of nine months in Afghanistan
-Did the same routine every day
-Brought a firearm with him everywhere he went
-Got comfortable carrying a firearm with him
-Never fired his rifle in anger
-Medic shouldn't have to return fire in a combat situation
(01:12:30) Enemy Contact in Charikar
-One night they were sleeping and someone fired a rocket propelled grenade at the station
-Local that angry about a political decision made by the U.S. military
-No wounded and no killed
-Pulled guard duty at night because he enjoyed the coolness of the evening
-One night he heard fire on Route 1
-Went into the tactical operations center (TOC)
-Told NATO Macedonian forces had been attacked
-Being sent to Charikar
-When the Macedonians arrived they were on edge
-Jumped out of the trucks and pointing their rifles
-An American unit near them hit an IED and lost their medic
(01:14:52) U.S. Ambassador visit to Charikar
-U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan came to Charikar to visit the provincial governor
-Had jets, layers of security, and Secretary of State security forces
-Afghan police were on the road in front of the governor's compound
-Remembers a blue tanker truck coming up to the compound
-Afghan police let it go through the roadblock
-Secretary of State security thought it was a suicide truck
-Turned out to be fine
-Ready for it to explode and deal with the consequences
�(01:16:52) United Nations Presence
-United Nations World Food Program operated in the area
-Used white vans and SUVs with no armor
-Drove around Charikar
-Never made sense to him why they'd use civilian vehicles
-Never got attacked
(01:17:50) Contact with Afghan Civilians
-A lot of contact with Afghan civilians
-Patrolled the markets in Charikar
-There was a canal next to the police compound
-Threw candy to children who stood on the other side of the canal
-A sucker hit a little girl in the head
-Brought her and her father over to the compound
-Gave her another sucker, and a stuffed animal, and bandages
-Father was happy and understood that it was an accident
-Afghans knew that he was a medic and less intimidating than the other soldiers
-Thought he had magic pills that could treat anything
-Remembers in Qarabagh a man approached him and said his leg hurt
-Couldn't give him pain pills because he could be allergic
-Gave him a red Tic-Tac
-Man came back a week later complaining of leg pain again
-Gave him a yellow Tic-Tac and the man requested a red one
-There was a blind man in Charikar that asked to be healed
-Couldn't grasp that Kyle wasn't a doctor or a miracle worker
-Apologized to the man and gave him some American money for his trouble
-Treated one Afghan policeman with an infected ankle from wearing his boots wrong
-Took a picture together
-Trusted the Afghan interpreter because he was in just as much danger as they were
-Gave him a first aid kit and a shotgun or an AK-47 rifle if they had a spare
(01:22:50) Mystery Weapons Cache
-He was on guard duty one night and an Afghan police cargo truck came into the compound
-Truck was filled with crates of rifles, ammunition, rocket launchers, and rockets
-Helped the Afghan police unload the truck
-Went into a basement on the compound and it was filled with weapons and ammunition
-Didn't know it existed
-Had no idea why the Afghan police had it
-Radioed 86th Brigade headquarters and told them about the weapons cache
-They didn't know it existed either
-Piles of Chinese, Egyptian, Soviet, and unmarked weapons
(01:25:37) End of Deployment & Coming Home
-Deployment ended in December 2010
-Stayed at Bagram Air Base for one week
-in Thanksgiving 2010 President Obama came to Bagram Air Base
-Delayed coming home
-Out processed at Camp Atterbury, Indiana
-Came home to Grand Rapids and was greeted by the community
-Stopped at Kyrgyzstan en route to the United States
-One soldier broke his ankle walking out to the plane
�-Had two choices: fly home with a broken ankle, or stay behind for treatment
-Decided to fly home with the broken ankle
-Took a year to get his ankle fixed
(01:27:02) Assignment to the 126th Cavalry Regiment & Current National Guard Service
-While on his deployment he was promoted to the rank of sergeant (E-5)
-Spent three more months with C Company of the 156th Signal Battalion
-Moved across the hall at Grand Valley Armory and was reassigned to 126th Cavalry Regiment
-Placed on full-time orders for a couple years then became Active Guard Reserve (AGR, career)
-Worked for eight months as a National Guard recruiter at Grand Valley Armory
-Went back to work as medical readiness sergeant with the 126th Cavalry Regiment
-Job as of time of interview
-Managing medical documents
-Overseeing a platoon of medics
-Administering flu shots
-Medical exams
-General healthcare of soldiers
(01:28:15) Reflections on Service
-Made him a calmer individual
-More confident
-More to life
-Drinks less after his deployment
-Appreciates life more
-Spent nine months without TV, cell phone, and limited internet
-Misses the order and routine of Afghanistan
-Still maintains a routine as a civilian
(01:29:46) Wounded in Ghazni
-In Ghazni after the 500 pound IED explosion
-He was in the mess hall and the FOB started taking rocket fire
-Ran toward bunkers and a rocket exploded in front of him
-Attack happened near Easter 2010
-Doesn't remember the blast, but remembers getting up from the ground
-Saw a man lying in the middle of the road
-Acted without thinking
-Base was still taking rocket fire
-Wounded man was a Navy corpsman
-Entire right side was peppered with shrapnel
-Polish ambulance came to help treat the corpsman
-Helped the Polish soldiers treat the man
-Reunited with his platoon
-One week later he found the corpsman survived and was being treated in Germany
-Spent three months in therapy due to sustaining a traumatic brain injury
-Didn't qualify for a Purple Heart
-Placed on rest for two days and ordered to relax
-Still has ringing in his ears and memory problems
-Works with a lot of soldiers that have traumatic brain injuries
-Is able to relate with them
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
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RHC-27
Language
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eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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RHC-27_HerringK1933V
Title
A name given to the resource
Herring, Kyle (Interview outline and video), 2016
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-17
Description
An account of the resource
Kyle Herring was born in Frederick, Maryland on October 11, 1987, but grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He enlisted in the Michigan National Guard when he was 17 years old in spring 2005 and drilled during his senior year. In January 2006 he received basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia then went to Fort Gordon, Georgia for signal training. He joined C Company of the 156th Signal Battalion at the Grand Valley Armory in Wyoming, Michigan. In early 2008 a medic slot opened and he volunteered for it. He received medic training at Parks Reserve Forces Training Area, California. In early 2009 they received deployment orders and spent most of 2009 training in Vermont
Camp Atterbury, Indiana
and Fort Polk, Louisiana. He was attached to 1st Squadron of the 172nd Cavalry Regiment of the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. They deployed to Afghanistan in March 2010 and he was stationed at Forward Operating Base Vulcan (Ghazni) for three months working with local police in Waghaz and Qarabagh. He suffered a concussive injury in Ghazni. He was also stationed at FOB Lighting (Gardez) and at the police station in Charikar for six months. In December 2010 the deployment ended and he returned home. After three months he joined the 126th Cavalry Regiment and went on full-time, active duty as the medical readiness non-commissioned officer.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Herring, Kyle
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jones, Adam (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
United States. National Guard
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a>
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a>
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Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Format
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video/x-m4v
application/pdf
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2492be08e25e71838d4eb3d7164feff7.mp4
5d9dd03d262e78f8368d974d31c2e41c
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7b179babdf1b7d1e8033cdaf33c9dd14
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
Vietnam War
James Heyn
94 minutes
(00:00:15) Pre-Enlistment
Born in St. Joseph, Michigan, raised near downtown
o Never allowed a gun as a kid, was a pacifist as a kid
o Wasn’t exactly proud to be German after World War II
Worked at a toy store from 12-16 as a stock boy
Lived a great, quiet childhood, pretty independent child
Father was an accountant, Mother was a housekeeper
o Mother took in laundry, ironing, and raised a few additional kids
Finished high school in June 1965
Got a job from the father of one of the children his mother looked after, worked as
stock boy for Heath Company until he got drafted Christmas Eve 1965
Didn’t know a whole lot about Vietnam at the time, knew what was on TV
Being a pacifist, James was intimidated, but duty called
(00:04:00) Basic Training
Reported to local YMCA, James was transported to Detroit, where he got to see his
first strip show
o Got a physical here and was inducted into the Army
o Walked on Windsor Bridge and contemplated being a conscientious
observer, decided against it
o Only saw a few people go back home
Boarded a train to St. Louis, took a caravan to Ft. Leonard Wood, MO
o Processed in and got shots in 107 degree weather
Went from here to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, home of the 101st Airborne Division
James’ group was the first basic training at the base
o They were housed in barracks from World War II, had to be refurbished and
repainted, this took up most of the first week of training
o All other Basic Training bases were probably full at this point
o Many of James’ group from St. Joseph had dispersed at Ft. Leonard Wood
Basic training was regular routine, got gassed
o James was sitting in a field and saw a troop jumping out of an airplane,
whose parachute didn’t open, first eye-opening experience of what was to
come
o James was a skinny kid, was in fantastic shape after basic training
o Often ran from five in the morning to ten at night
�
o
o
o
o
One of the troops was a senator’s kid, complained and got it
shortened to nine at night
Overall James found it pretty tough, knew it was going to help in the field
Discipline was heavily emphasized, many officers were Vietnam vets
People who messed up got sent home, 3-5 didn’t make it
Only occasional minor misconducts, discipline was pushups, dry
shaving
Adjusting to life in the Army was pretty easy because of the discipline
Basic Training lasted about 11 weeks including finishing the barracks
(00:14:15) Aviation School
Finished Basic Training in September, sent to Ft. Rucker, Alabama
o Father was very crafty, James had knowledge with tools and mechanics,
aptitude test sent him to basic aviation school
Basic Aviation school was basic aircraft maintenance, how planes fly, engines,
general aviation knowledge
o About 80% classroom learning, 20% hands on
Had much better housing here, much more learning, less Physical Training, college
atmosphere
o Was good friends with his roommate, enjoyed the school
o Ran into singer-songwriter Bobby Goldsboro at the Dauphine Airport
Spent five weeks here, Moved on to Light Observation Helicopter school
o Operated Hiller OH1 and Bell helicopters for five weeks
o Learned much more about helicopter operations and maintenance
Moved to Light Utility Helicopter School
o Was trained using a CH34 Choctaw, an old Korean War model
Graduated, went home for Christmas, was called to Ft. Carson, Colorado in 1967
Noticed the southern hospitality, had a friend from Atlanta he would go home with
No racial animosity among troops, Didn’t really see a racial divide in the area but
didn’t spend much time off base
(00:22:50) 92nd Infantry Division [check bio sheet or interview for correct unit]
Was called to the newly revived 92nd Infantry Division
o Only a few people there when James arrives, first month or so is light on
duties, keeping barracks clean, building the unit
o Had built up enough people around March to start training, got new UH1H
helicopters
Equipped with homing rockets and better engines
Most training was taking apart, maintaining, and learning about the new
helicopters, test flights and training the brand new pilots
o Pilots were officers and warrant officers
o James had never touched a helicopter during aviation training, team
received training from representatives from the manufacturers
o New Helicopters were about $250,000 a piece
�
The helicopters the men were assigned here they took into Vietnam
James chopper was called to respond to reports of smoke, found a downed
helicopter that had hit a wire, everyone on board was killed
o First time James had seen bodies up close
Most helicopter teams were made up of:
o A crew chief who was also a gunner
o A gunner, who took care of armaments,
o A pilot and copilot
o Could carry 11 soldiers or up to 20 Vietnamese
Trained with combat troops
o Practiced insertions and extractions, flight training
o Had a very close call with a low flying jet
Only a few accidents during training
Had officers who had flown helicopters in Vietnam
(00:31:20) Deployment to Vietnam
Went from Colorado to Albuquerque, NM, to a small base in Arizona, flew across
the Painted Desert, flew down middle of the strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, then to
Stockton, CA, where he went on leave for a short time, which was cut short
James and many other people hitchhiked north to Vale and to Colorado, he
hitchhiked to San Francisco during Halloween
o Encountered many hippies, Grateful Dead and John Lennon were
performing
o Was pulled into grand opening of an artist’s studio
o Tried to look as common, non-Army as they could, never wore uniform
Helicopters were loaded onto the USS Kula Gulf, an aircraft carrier with wooden
decks, a merchant marine from World War II
o James and a friend built a kite that flew the whole journey to Vietnam
o Did not make any stops along the way
o Everybody had a duty, James was put on Kitchen Patrol duty (KP)
o James enjoyed the trip, got to read a lot
o Ship skirted a typhoon, one soldier was seasick the entire trip, weather was
pretty good otherwise
o Slept in three tier bunks, only a couple feet between tiers
Sailed into Vũng Tàu, the R&R center in Vietnam, in middle of November, flew to
10th Aviation Battalion in Dong Ba Thin
o Was only helicopter unit here
o Had to fill sandbags and build bunkers for first week
o Was a pretty safe area
James felt sorry for the people, first time he had seen those in a third world country,
was a rude awakening, felt compassion for them, felt the Vietnamese were decent
people
o Had a couple dozen Vietnamese working for them, did laundry, cleaned
living quarters and latrines
�
Had just over 200 men in his company, most enlisted men stayed together after
training
Started doing flight missions after Thanksgiving
o First mission was Dusk Patrol, simple patrol mission, one of the pilots had
flown his helicopter into the ground, killing four men
James was crew chief in the command helicopter for this mission
Many of his unit’s missions were “taxi” missions, escorting and supporting ground
forces, moving personnel around from base to base
Operated all over II Corps area, and in Cambodia where US involvement would be
disavowed if they were shot down
Only occasionally would do combat insertions, and even then only part of the
company
Performed a rescue mission, helping some Vietnamese soldiers evacuate the area,
had to hover in one spot for about half an hour while people are hauled up, took
about 3-4 minutes per person
To his knowledge, James never came under fire in his time in Vietnam
Life at the base was pretty good, had latrines and hot showers, could go to Cam
Ranh Bay to get lobster or a hamburger
Spent up to 5-6 hours a day flying
(00:55:50) Tet Offensive
Woke up to mortar fire on early morning January 31, two saboteurs had snuck
through the Korean perimeter and rigged helicopters to explode with satchel
charges
o Watched a mortar round hit a fuel dump across Cam Ranh Bay, spectacular
explosion
o Watchmen who fell asleep were locked in a metal box with no windows,
one was killed
Troop organized a grid of men and swept the base, lost three aircraft total, James’
was in maintenance
James’ team was chosen to fly the II Corps commander around Vietnam to see all
the damages of the Tet Offensive, visited every base that was hit, this lasted a week
to ten days
o Went to Saigon and stayed a few days, not too much action going on
o Saw serious damage all over, worst was at Khe Sanh, only stayed two or
three hours, watched the intense gunfight like a movie
After this mission, went on a mission called Klamath Falls, supported the forward
base at Bau Lach, drove a truck of supplies through Vietnam escorted by helicopters
along very narrow roads, was not attacked
James often had to eat fast during the monsoon season, before his food washed out
of his tray
James helped build Bau Lach from scratch before the Tet Offensive
Continued to fly all over Vietnam, performing all types of missions, got much busier
in after the Tet Offensive
�o
Was in a helicopter that got its tail rotor shot out, had to perform a landing
at 60 knots, everyone on board was fine
Participated in direct support of the 101st Airborne Division, flew convoy cover for
the 1st Calvary Division, supported different areas of operation all over Vietnam
Decided he wanted to go home in June, gave up his helicopter to become a truck
driver in Dong Ba Thin, drove supplies and Vietnamese workers
James’ weapon of issue in Vietnam was a Smith and Wesson revolver, one of his
friends bought a Western style holster and ended up shooting himself in the leg
Smooth sailing as a truck driver, flew from Cam Ranh Bay to Tokyo, then to Seattle,
WA, and from there back home to St. Joseph, MI
Vietnam becomes a distant memory for more than thirty years
(01:17:36) Cambodia
Supported Montagnards in the Laos/Cambodia Mountains
o People were primitive but sincere
Only flew 8-10 missions there, usually quick missions to drop in special forces to
observe enemy movements there, did decoy drops to cover their tracks
Saved a group of guys who had been dropped off next a Viet Cong force on
Christmas
Impression of Koreans in Vietnam was short, stocky, and beat each other up just for
fun, they thought some were crazy
Deployed from the States with troops that had only a month left in their enlistment
Morale of the troops was generally pretty high, sustained 22 casualties and a few
injuries
There were soldiers who partied and drank, but most seemed to be focused on
keeping helicopters in tip top shape, No units ever failed to show, performance level
was always high
James and a friend designed the patch for the 92nd Airborne Division [?]
(01:25:00) Going Home
James was warned of the antiwar sentiments, flew home in uniform, didn’t have any
trouble but took it off right away, didn’t think about since
Classifies himself as a reluctant veteran, he opposed the war
Had saved some money in the service, went back to work for Heath Company when
he got home
Ended up going into maintenance, dabbled in sales, became an entrepreneur and
made his own photography business
Discovered a website about his unit that brought all his memories back, started
connecting with the men in his unit, attended a reunion
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
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RHC-27
Language
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eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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HeynJ1908V
Title
A name given to the resource
Heyn, James (Interview outline and video), 2015
Description
An account of the resource
James Heyn was born in St. Joseph, MI and lived a quiet, independent life. He was largely a pacifist before he was drafted in 1965, but reluctantly accepted his duty to his country. James was in the first group of soldiers to attend basic training in Ft. Campbell, KY. He then attended Aviation school in Ft. Rucker, AL, and upon graduating was assigned to the newly reformed 92nd Assault Helicopter Company. James was then deployed to Vietnam, where he operated with the 10th Aviation Battalion in Dong Ba Thin. He operated all over II Corps before the Tet Offensive, including a few operations in Cambodia and building the base at Bau Lach from scratch. James survived a sabotage attempt during the Tet Offensive, and flew the II Corps commander to survey the damages after the first night. He even stopped in Khe Sanh during the bloody siege. Continued to support units all over Vietnam until he gave up his helicopter so he could return home.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Heyn, James
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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eng
Date
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2015-12-08
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Format
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application/pdf
video/mp4
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e6db6f3f9f9248df2432092036687175.mp4
0f9ac118eb0e9b9509f94d39d7b9e9fe
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/564cdf62834accd5a2dc8f405a3761bd.pdf
a282db51d703db4e02f12bf0789f09cc
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project
Steve Hickel
(00:30:26)
(00:10) Background Information
•
•
•
•
•
Steve was born in Cleveland, OH in 1956
He attended Duquesne University, Notre Dame University, and another university
overseas
Steve was able to receive a student deferment during the Vietnam War
He attempted to become an officer in the Coast Guard but they weren’t accepting many at
the time
On June 6, 1975 Steve joined the Navy as a Sonar Technician
(02:15) Boot Camp and Training
•
•
•
Steve was on Recruit and Training Command in San Diego, CA for 16 weeks
He was in charge of liberty passes and paperwork
After boot camp Steve went to a sonar basic school called Fleet Anti-Submarine Warfare
Training Pacific Fleet
•
(05:05) Active Duty
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
After sonar basic Steve made 3rd class Petty Officer (E4)
Steve then boarded a submarine in Groton, CT called the USS Whale SSN 638 which
was a fast attack nuclear sub
The submarine traveled went to La Molina, Italy and deployed to the Mediterranean Sea
They conducted under water operations and went to various ports, such as Naples, Italy
The sub then returned to the US at Portsmouth, NH, a repair station for subs
The goal for a fast attack sub was to find enemy subs, monitor them and if necessary
blow them up
The best defense against a sub was another sub
(09:35) 2nd Deployment
•
•
The Submarine traveled to many other areas throughout the Pacific
The only casualty was on a sub docked next to theirs when a topside watch fell overboard
at night and drowned
(11:30) Memorable Experiences
�•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Steve enjoyed eating different food when on leave in different countries
On leave he went to Perth, Australia, Guam, Naples, and Subic Bay in the Philippines
He also traveled to New Zealand with his wife
They did emergency blows, where they would blow the subs ballast tanks and shoot up
out of the water
Sometimes they were able to listen to whales with the sonar
They often attempted to listen to and record enemy subs and identify them
He spent a lot of time overseas and became qualified for Sub Enlisted, Sub Officer and
then Supply Officer
(14:50) Medals
•
•
•
•
Steve received a Navy Commendation Medal in Philadelphia for services as a
Transportation Officer and a Traffic Manager for the base
As a reservist working for the Defense and Finance Accounting Service, he got the
Defense Meritorious Service medal
He was called up to be a Commander in 1995 working for Admiral Smith who was in
charge of Bosnia
He put in computer systems in 4 or 5 different countries for foreign currencies so they
could pay their bills and received another Meritorious Service Medal
(16:25) Keeping in Touch with Family
•
•
•
Steve called his wife once on a phone attached to a buoy from 200 feet under water
His wife had an accident and when they surfaced he received a radio transmission of the
news
In Europe he could use phone, Email and fax
(18:05) Food
•
•
•
When Steve was the Supply Officer he had to make sure the galley ran and the crew got
fed
They had steak and lobster occasionally
The subs got more money for food so they had better quality and variety
(19:45) Stress
•
•
Steve had to oversee many qualifications, learn the systems, order parts, manage the
budget, make sure the food was served on time, deal with personnel problems, stand
watch and get ready for inspections
He did not get a lot of sleep; he sometimes had to go 18 hours without sleep
�•
They sometimes went through secret drills meant to train people to act in stressful
situations with little sleep
(21:45) Entertainment
•
•
•
•
•
Everyone smoked but the sub had an air filtration system
He ate a lot and watched films in the evening after dinner
They would go to bars and discotheques and drink sometimes
There were drug issues and one third of his crew got kicked off for smoking marijuana
He took some pictures that he still has many of
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Hickel, Steve (Interview outline and video), 2005
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hickel, Steve
Description
An account of the resource
Steve Hickel was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1956. He attended several colleges and then enlisted in the Navy on June 6, 1975. He started out as a Sonar Technician on a nuclear fast attack submarine. Their mission was to find enemy subs, monitor and record them and if necessary destroy them during the Cold War. He was first sent to the Mediterranean Sea where he became an officer and then traveled around on the Pacific Ocean. Steve was called back as a Commander in 1995 and went to Europe to install computer systems.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Gascho, Luke (Interviewer)
Caledonia High School (Caledonia, Mich.)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
United States. Navy
Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American
Video recordings
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2005-05-29
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
HickelS
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
video/mp4
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cb983248322404a5d9b5a54f3d9ff170.mp4
a198cbddd4e57758bd312c89b9d90da8
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d7a5b892b306ecb002931ff83d090151.pdf
cce50073698c7906c73a317c29fe4075
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
Kenneth Hicks
(1:11:21)
(00:05) Background Information
•
•
•
•
•
•
Kenneth had always wanted to fly when he was a little boy
He built model airplanes with his father
After high school he went to Michigan State University and trained in the ROTC
He took classes in mechanical engineering, but they were boring
That October he volunteered for the Air Force in Lansing
He received his acceptance letter in February
(2:20) Air Force Cadet
•
•
•
•
Kenneth took a train from Detroit to Miami beach and stayed in a hotel right on the beach
He only went through basic training for a short while and then was sent to Slippery Rock,
Pennsylvania
There they tested the men’s intelligence to see if they would be able to fly well
Kenneth made the top twenty percent
(4:20) Tennessee
•
•
•
•
Kenneth went to Nashville, Tennessee for classification
They stayed on an Army base that had been hastily thrown together
They went through physical training and testing
They also had depth perception testing
(6:00) Alabama
•
•
•
•
He was then sent to the Maxwell Air Force base in Montgomery, Alabama
They had a class system and all the new guys were on the very bottom
The inspections were rough and people were de-merited for a penalty
They went through more physical training, took classes, went through more testing, and
worked on plane identification
(8:25) First Primary Flying School
•
Here they had civilian instructors who knew many different languages
�•
•
•
They were attempted to teach each many to fly solo within 8 hours of actual flight
training
Kenneth did not get along well with his flight instructor, but was able to learn the
techniques within the 8 hours
They only spent 60 hours in flying school altogether
(10:40) Basic Training
•
•
•
•
Kenneth worked with BT-13s and BT-15s; the 13s had the best engines
He had an oil leak once and had to call the control center for help and ended up landing
in the grass next to the run way
They practiced night flying and he got vertigo; then he learned it was always best to just
trust what the plane instruments are reading
Another time flying he got stuck in a spin at 4,000 feet in the air and was diving right
towards the ground
(14:15) Arkansas
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Kenneth went through advanced training in Arkansas
He was able to fly a AT-10 twin engine, which was very light
While flying he got stuck in 70 mile winds and could not land; he had to fly in circles for
a long amount of time
They received their wings and were now “real pilots”
Then they had to decide whether they wanted to be a fighter pilot or work with multiengine bombers
Kenneth went to Sebring, Florida for transitional training to work on multi-engine
bombers
They worked with old planes, but they had very good instructors
(19:20) Avon Park, Florida
• In Florida his crew was being formed with a bomber, navigator, co-pilot, etc…
• There were ten people in a crew, with six enlisted men
• His crew was then sent to Savannah, Georgia to an air base
• They received a new B-17 straight from the factory and had to calibrate all the
instruments
• They were ordered to fly the plane to England
(22:45) The Flight to England
• They had to stop in Maine first for a few days due to the weather
• Then they stopped in Labrador and then stayed in Greenland for a week
• They went to Iceland and then to Wales and England
�(27:30) The 447th Bomb Group of the 3rd Division
• They took a train across England and arrived at an air base
• All their assigned missions were hung up in the barracks
• At the time London was being bombed by Germans, but the Germans were running low
on oil
• They started on some practice missions and the crew was divided in half
• Kenneth did not like being divided, and then they decided to always fly as a whole crew
(38:55) German Fighting
• Most of the German fighters were gone and they mostly just faced flak
• The Germans had started out with 88 mm guns, then went to 105 mm guns, and had 150
mm guns at the end of the war
• There was no heat in the planes and they wore suits that plugged into the planes
(52:00) His Premonition
• Kenneth felt that he would die on the next mission that was assigned to him
• He wrote his mother a letter asking her to propose to his girlfriend for him; she did not
• Strangely his next mission was cancelled due to bad weather
(55:00) Florida
• Kenneth went to see a fortune teller in Orlando
• She told him that he would come back safely and that his highest rank would be captain;
she was right
• On his second tour, Kenneth became an operations manager
• He remembers his last mission well because it was so long; more than 9 hours
• He had to pick up twenty men and bring them out of Germany
• At the airport, someone stole his 45-automatic
(1:01:45) Back in the US
• Kenneth was worried that he would not be able to find a job because he viewed pilots as a
“dime a dozen”
• He got married and has been with his wife Virginia for sixty years
(1:03:50) Selecting Targets
• They were told of their route during briefing where they would be given their targets
• The whole crew went to the briefing to be told their separate duties
• A lead ship would drop a smoke bomb near the target to mark it
• Sometimes the head ship would drop bombs in the wrong spot
�•
They also had to occasionally drop down leaflets to German citizens
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
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1914-
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
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RHC-27
Language
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eng
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Hicks, Kenneth (Interview outline and video), 2007
Creator
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Hicks, Kenneth
Description
An account of the resource
Kenneth Hicks served in the 8th Air Force as a B-17 pilot based in England in 1944-45. He provides extensive descriptions of the training process and his experience with bombing missions in the later stages of the war.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
United States. Air Force
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Video recordings
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eng
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Moving Image
Text
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
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2007-07-02
Identifier
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HicksK
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a>
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application/pdf
video/mp4
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5569db19b1d2ecc565dd2dc160d84819.mp4
c0456c423b83c3b2be1ac6ff4a12d9d3
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7037b6acd882745e168f3735f9bc50a5.pdf
2a6d9b634a80275bac813c241c78e935
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project
Oral History Interview
Veteran: Ulf Hierlwimmer
Interviewed by James Smither
Transcribed by Grace Balog
Interviewer: We’re talking today with Dr. Ulf Rainer Hierlwimmer of Holland, Michigan. I
guess you go by Ulli most of the time?
Veteran: Ulli is what friends call me.
Interviewer: Alright. So Ulli, start us off with some background about yourself, and you’ve
got an interesting background, and so where and when were you born?
Veteran: I was born May 31st, 1945 in what was the Soviet occupied zone of Germany, namely
the Eastern Zone. And before we proceed, I will take off my cover, and we will go through my
life history as through how I established my Navy career. On May 31st, 1945 there were very few
doctors left to deliver me, but an old time OB-GYN gentleman delivered me. I have never met
him; I heard his name from mama but never went back - so far - to my birthplace. But, about a
year later my mother, as all moms are, very guarding of life, walked with me in a baby carriage, I
was in the baby carriage, at age one approximately, to the safety of the West to Augsburg,
Bavaria, Western Zone, or West Germany.
Interviewer: And did she tell you how she was able to get out of East Germany?
(00:02:07)
Veteran: She walked.
Interviewer: But, I mean, did the Soviets let her out?
�Veteran: She ran across a platoon of Soviet soldiers, and they did not harm her, and they didn’t
harm me. So, there is an element of compassion even with sometimes so-called “enemies.” And
we have to remember that not all people are bad. But she walked about 232 miles and she would
stay with farmers and so on along the way, who she didn’t know, but she asked for refuge for the
night.
Interviewer: Did she tell you how long it took?
Veteran: She said it took about 12 to 14 days. She would walk very fast. Pushing me.
Interviewer: That’s a reasonable clip to go at. Now where was you father at this time?
(00:03:05)
Veteran: My father was being released by the Americans in Livorno, Italy because he had been
drafted into the German Army as an enlisted person first, and then he was promoted because he
had one year of the equivalency of a junior college, and he was going to become a lens crafter for
Bausch & Lomb. And well, the German government at that time, the Führer’s government at that
time said, “No no, no no no, you are going to be drafted.” And he was drafted as a young man,
and he became a Second Lieutenant. And then in 1944 he was promoted to First Lieutenant and
he was sent to Italy, northern Italy, and he was captured outside of Florence and taken by
convoy. And many other German soldiers were captured, without firing a shot I might add, In
1945. And thank God he did, and he was taken to Livorno which is now Camp Radley for NATO
in Livorno. And he could speak some English, and so what the commanding officer was
interested in, some of these German soldiers that could speak English, because they needed
German translators to set up some stability in the Western Zone. Especially in Bavaria, where
my father hails from. Anyway, with a letter of recommendation after he was released after nine
�months in the POW camp, he went back to his home city of Augsburg, where there was a huge
U.S. Army base.
Interviewer: Couple questions here, one of them is, he’s from Augsburg in Bavaria, why
were you born in East Germany?
Veteran: Yes, he and my mother met when he was retreating out of Russia. They met, and they
met in her home area, which was Gotha, Thuringian.
Interviewer: So they meet after he was in the Army, then?
Veteran: Yes, he was in the Army. Right.
Interviewer: So anyway, so that was her home area, since he’s not there, she’s not going to
be where he is. Okay that makes sense. Alright. When did he get back to Augsburg?
(00:06:03)
Veteran: He got back to Augsburg in 1946 in January or February of 1946, and he let somehow
be known through the Americans that he was a translator at the U.S. Army base back in
Augsburg and that he was safe and “Can you try to join me?” through channels which I don’t
really know about. He got that message through to mama. Which is amazing.
Interviewer: Legally she should have been able to go, but the Soviet and East German
authorities were not always interested in that.
Veteran: No, no. That’s the interesting thing about the German personality. The German
personality is which way does the flag blow; you know? Which way does the wind blow? I hate
to say it that way, but it’s true. The East Germans became better communists with their doctrine
�than even the Soviets. And so, the Soviets always had to keep a firm handle in overseeing the
East German authorities because they were a little bit tenacious, very tenacious.
Interviewer: Alright. So basically, she’s able to come and she can join your father, he’s
already there, he’s got a job.
Veteran: He’s got a job as a translator.
Interviewer: Alright, and then how long did they wind up staying in Germany?
(00:07:39)
Veteran: In Germany til April, late April 1953, my father was able to get to - he met a major in
the U.S. Army that he had translated for. This major said, “I have parents in Virginia, and they
live in Falls Church, but they have a 100-acre farm near Warrenton, Virginia, and they need an
overseer” and also a worker of course, and my father said “Oh, okay.” And I’m an only child, so
it wasn’t a problem of immigrating, and through the Americans he did get a visa for the three of
us and starting May 2nd we traveled by train, late April to the ship in Rotterdam, the M.S.
Noordam, which was part of the Holland-America line and I have the original suitcase. I brought
my paraphernalia, which I’m so proud of, future generations of Hierlwimmers will I know.
Interviewer: Hold that up here.
Veteran: That’s the original suitcase.
Interviewer: Got the original luggage tag on it.
Veteran: Starting May 2nd, 1953. And we were supposed to go for a 9-day journey to the port city
of New York. Well, all the berths were filled up, so we had to go to up the Hudson to Hoboken,
New Jersey. To that same center, which was the port where that train accident just recently
�occurred. I recognized the gates, I said to my wife of 48 years, I said “Patty, I remember those
gates.” and I didn’t understand it as an 8-year-old child. And I said, “Why these big gates?”
Well, we had to go through customs of course and we had to show the - papa had to show the
visas and so on. But I might add, my most historic moment of the voyage was short of New York
harbor. That’s the very first time I heard the Star-Spangled Banner being played, as we went past
the Statue of Liberty, and different dialects trying to sing the song. I didn’t know the words
because I really didn’t speak much English, but I remember that. And to this day when I see the
statue in person, I get tears, because America to me is represented one hundred percent by that
statue and that’s what we Americans have to think about. All this other thing that’s going on
presently just remember the statue and remember who gave it to us as a gift, France. France!
Liberty, justice for all, and welcoming, welcoming immigrants. Or welcoming people to this
country of ours, this great country of ours.
(00:11:12)
Interviewer: Why did your parents want to come to the U.S. in the first place?
Veteran: More opportunities. 1952, 1953 were bad years in Germany. The Berlin uprising was
occurring, Poland was uprising a little bit, Hungary was starting Interviewer: Not yet, but soon.
Veteran: Soon. In ‘56 the Hungarians finally did have the uprising and slowly but surely
Czechoslovakia and so on, but Berlin started it and the Soviets punished them severely.
Interviewer: And it took a little while longer before you get the full economic recovery in
West Germany which does eventually happen in the ‘50s.
�Veteran: Yes.
Interviewer: Okay. And he’s got-- your father speaks English, he’s got good American
connections. So now-Veteran: Before we go on, my father’s-- in 1946 there was no West German currency yet, there
was no West German Deutsche Mark. So, my father is paid by the Americans - they could not
pay him in U.S. dollars. They paid him in cigarettes. Two cartons of Lucky Strikes per month for
translating, and then in ‘47 when the Deutsche Mark came along, he got paid in Deutsche Marks.
Interviewer: Okay. So now you actually, you get to Hoboken, get off the ship, go through
customs. Now what do you do?
Veteran: Then we were picked up in Hoboken by our sponsors, Mr. and Mrs. Chew and-- very
nice people, very nice people-- and they drove us from Hoboken, New Jersey. It was probably
around noontime and we drove in a big Buick - I had never seen a car like that. And naturally as
a young child I was in the back seat, and I almost sank out of appearance you know, in the back
seat. And I'm going “My goodness, this is something.” And you drove us to the farm, and the
next day papa was not only the overseer of one other worker, but also a worker, he was on the
tractor already the next day, on May 12th, 1953. And he was getting paid 25 cents an hour, but it
was a start.
Interviewer: And he had a place to live.
Veteran: And he had a place to live. Mama took care of the farmhouse.
(00:13:50)
�Interviewer: Alright, so now, what was life like for you there? Is this where you grew up or
did you move?
Veteran: Oh no no, we moved about nine to ten months later from the farm because the
minimum wage, slowly but surely we came to find out, was 75 cents an hour. And I attended
Warrenton Public Schools, but I might add this is now 1953, and I attended the white school on
top of the hill in Warrenton, Virginia. And the African American school was at the bottom of the
hill surrounded by a big fence and so on. And I was put back into first grade. I had been in first
grade and second grade in German public school in Augsburg, but make a long story short, one
day I got jeered by the first graders, first grade boys, and it was an old World War II thing,
“Hotsie, totsie, another newborn Nazi.” So, I got a little bit upset, so I decided to run down to the
African American school. The white teacher and the white principal started chasing me and
saying, “You cannot play with those folks.” And I asked, “Why not?”, and I knew how to
pronounce the W’s. Rather than “Vy not?”, “Why not?” and no answer. And worse yet, the
closer I got-- I could run very fast, especially downhill-- the closer I got to the African American
school, they waved me off. The teachers and the students on the playground they said, “White
boy, we cannot play with you.” And I asked again, “Why not?” and no answer came. And I
remember that vividly, and that was, that has been imprinted in my brain for life. The
discrimination, the attitude of discrimination hurts everybody, and we must not forget that we
cannot divide peoples. Look at what happened in Germany when you isolated groups, and the
genocide and what not. But anyway, mama being a tough lady, she tries to find work in
Warrenton, Virginia. So, she went first to the white business owners in Warrenton and they
would not hire her because it was eight years after World War II. And so, she marched herself
into the black, or the African American, “ghetto” part of Warrenton. The first snack bar she came
�to, she walked in as a white woman and said, “I need a job.” And the owner said, “Ma’am I can
hire you, but do you know what you’re doing?” And she said, “I don’t care.” And he said
“Really? You want to work as a waitress?” and she says “Yeah, I need a job.” He hired her on
the spot for 50 cents an hour, so they made the minimum wage of 75 cents an hour.
Interviewer: I take it this didn’t last too long.
(00:17:36)
Veteran: No. Like I said, nine to ten months. And my parents accumulated enough savings, they
paid for the entire trip. Which was at that time, $500. And that was a lot. That was a lot for the
three of us to come over from Germany, or Holland, you know, Rotterdam, to America. And the
sponsor insisted, he said, “No, no, no, you keep that money.” My father said no. “Nein.” Not
going to do it. So, then he had tied up with a G.I. friend of his that he knew from Augsburg, who
lived in Connecticut, near Westport, Connecticut. And this friend helped us get to Connecticut
through the Y.M.C.A. in Westport, Connecticut, to a botany professor named Dr. Ken
Henderson, who was a botany professor at Yale. But his sideline business was raising 30,000
orchid plants in his private greenhouses, right across the street from Long Island Sound. And my
mother became the maid in the household of the Hendersons, and we had a free apartment there,
and my father was the orchid tenderer. He and another worker tended 30,000 orchid plants. And
we stayed in Westport, Connecticut or Westport area - Fairfield, Connecticut - about two years,
because then a recession hit. And he had another G.I. friend in Buffalo, New York. The network
of Americans that my father had because of his job as a translator.
(00:19:38)
Interviewer: So when do you go to Buffalo?
�Veteran: Buffalo, 1955. Summer of ‘55 and I started public school there, Public School Number
37, inner-city Buffalo, and we had an apartment at first in Buffalo, near downtown Buffalo. And
then one day I was walking to school, I had to walk to P.S. 37. It was about a mile away, and I
pass past a house on Elm Street in Buffalo just south of Roswell Park, memorial it was called,
Roswell Park Memorial Hospital for Cancer. And I saw this house for sale you know, and I told
my parents, this was 1956, I told my parents when I got home and they looked at the house and
they said “I think we can afford this house” you know, and that was our first American house
that my parents bought. And then after Public School 37-- and I won the sons of the American
Revolution medal in eighth grade at Public School 37, I still have it at home here, my children
will probably, you know-- but the high school then I started attending was Hutchinson Central
Technical High School in Buffalo, but then my father's job with Remington Rand, he was in the
microfilm business, because like I said a way long time ago in the interview, that he was a lens
crafter so he loved photography, and so microfilm was the data storage system for all businesses,
etcetera. Remington Rand transferred him from Buffalo to Detroit. And in Detroit, what was
very interesting, this was now 1959, I went to Cass Tech High School, transferred there in
electrical electronics, but make a long story short, at age 13 my family doctor became Dr. Raul
Torres, who I did not mention until now. Dr. Raul Torres was a captain, medical corps U.S.
Army, stationed in Augsburg. When I came along with mom, with mama, my father took me in
his arms to aboard the U.S. Army base to Dr. Raul Torres, who he had been translating for also,
and said “Can you help my son?” because we had very little nutrition under the Soviets and
historically or politically, I can understand it. The Soviets lost ten percent of their population in
that horrible war. Revenge was on their minds. Babies were useless, senior citizens were
absolutely useless too, and I was sustained, besides God's love and mama’s love, by flour, water,
�occasionally some milk, carrots, pureed carrots, carrot juice. A blessing that I’m here. But he
looked at me and he had my father explain, “Where has this kid been?” You know. He says,
“Well we have to help him.” Age one. And he says “I’m going to plug him into an I.V., he’s
dehydrated,” and plugs me into an American I.V. His wife, Dr. Estelle Torres, they were the first
married couple to graduate from Wayne State University Medical School in Detroit in 1943, but
he had been drafted into the Army, he calls her long distance to Detroit, took him 30 minutes as
the history goes, and he says “Estelle, you’ve got to send formula and vitamins for this German
infant,” and naturally she’s thinking “What the heck are you doing with a German infant?” And
he explained it and he says, “We’ve got to help this infant.” And by God, she would send the
materials over to his A.P.O. box. Anyway, slowly but surely, and he left the Army in ‘47 and he
and his wife set up a practice in Hamtramck, because she was Polish, he was from Grandville
actually, and his father was a family doctor in Grandville.
(00:26:06)
Interviewer: So, they’re there in the Detroit area.
Veteran: Age 13, he becomes my family doctor. At age 16 he pulls me into his private office,
and he says to me “you owe” and I thought, you know, the monetary thing. He says, “No no no
no no, you owe society.” He didn’t say society, but he says, “You owe” and I said “Okay.” He
says, “We’re going to get you into medical school one way or another,” and I said “You are? But
I like electrical electronics as Cass Tech High School!” He says, “That’s okay, that’s okay,
you’re going to be an engineer for people.” I said “I am? Okay, oh my goodness!” I listened. I
listened. Who helped me get into medical school? Dr. Raul Torres. Because his own father was a
D.O. His own brother was a D.O. His brother-in-law was a D.O. And the father was deceased, of
Dr. Raul Torres, but the two other gentlemen and Dr. Raul Torres, even though he was an M.D.,
�wrote me nice letters of recommendation and I did get accepted to Chicago College of
Osteopathic Medicine.
(00:26:35)
Interviewer: Okay. Now where had you gone to college for undergrad?
Veteran: Wayne State University.
Interviewer: Okay. And were you still living at home while you were doing that or were
you living on campus?
Veteran: No, my parents-- my father’s job, he was hired by a competitor named Kodak at that
time and they were really big into microfilming, and so what happened, my parents-- my father
was transferred to Toronto, Canada, Ontario, Canada, and as a microfilm salesperson and
microfilm systems setup in 1965, and it was about that time that the banks were moving out of
Montreal, because of the Quebec Separatists Movement, banks would get scared, rightfully so, of
little revolutions you know, and so he became sort of the microfilm specialist for the banks and
so on. He did very, very, well, my dad.
Interviewer: But in the meantime, you’re back here in college.
(00:27:44)
Veteran: But I started living with friends and so on and then I finally wound up at a fraternity
house off-campus at Wayne State University, near the art museum. It was an adventure. It was a
medical fraternity, but they rented to pre-med also. So I got the scoop about medical school from
them too besides Dr. Raul Torres of course and so on, and so make a long story short, in 1968 I
had the interview but from 1967 to 1968 I student taught and taught general science in the inner
�city of Detroit, 8th grade, okay, and it was Sherrard Junior High School, and then evening school,
I taught at Ford High School, math, because I love math, it's almost a German trait, you know. I
made enough money and so on, and in the meantime I had met my future wife in the organic
chemistry lab at Wayne State University-- and she was not my lab partner, but I looked at her
very eyeing-ly, and I said “Jeez, this lady is on the ball! Pretty and everything, you know. And
so, I didn’t have the gumption, you know, the courage to ask her out for a date, but we bumped
just serendipitously into each other and I asked her out for a date, and the rest is history, and we
got married in 1968 just before medical school started in September.
Interviewer: At this point of course, the Vietnam war is in full swing, and the draft is there
and you’re certainly eligible for this. Now while you’re in college as an undergraduate it’s a
four year deferment, so that’s going to be running out, but you’re heading to medical
school. So how did that work?
Veteran: That was a draft deferment too.
Interviewer: Okay. But was there a catch to that? If you were going to medical school and
not being drafted, did Uncle Sam expect you to go into the military?
(00:30:06)
Veteran: After graduation, yes. Absolutely. They had a program where you could join during
medical school, and I did. I did. I joined just before the start of my senior year in medical school
as a full commissioned ensign, which would be second lieutenant equivalency, full time. No
uniform, just go to school, keep up your grades and then you owe us time.
Interviewer: Okay. So when you signed up-- why did you sign up for that? Did you figure
you were going to get drafted anyway so you might as well do this?
�Veteran: Exactly. Exactly. And I said “I owe this country. I owe this country.” And my wife was
in full support of my Navy application and everything and she actually helped fill in the-- she’s
much better at filling in applications. I’m the astronaut, and she’s Houston Space Center.
Interviewer: So why did you choose the Navy?
(00:31:13)
Veteran: Because my father-in-law was a chief petty officer during World War II in the Navy,
and he got me in touch with Senator Philip Hart and also with his commanding officer who was a
rear admiral by that time in Detroit and had been retired of course, and both of those gentlemen
wrote me beautiful letters of recommendation to the Navy and my father-in-law helped instigate
that. He was a great man.
Interviewer: This was kind of a—this is a program that you just don’t sign up for and walk
into, you have to be recommended?
Veteran: No, you have to be recommended.
Interviewer: Ah, okay. Now, when you first go in, before that first year, do they give you
any kind of Navy training, or does that come after you graduate from medical school?
(00:32:06)
Veteran: I hate to say this, there was no Navy training. All I had to do is, the paperwork was
done for me at the-- in Chicago itself at the “afee” station, there was the recruiting office
upstairs. They filled in all the paperwork, sent it to Great Lakes because that was my
“theoretical” duty station. But no, at that time no training other than we did receive a manual in
�the mail saying the, you know, the regulations and so on, and thirty days of leave during that
senior year pay, full pay, full benefits, even insurance. Health insurance, and life insurance.
Interviewer: Well, you were a Navy officer at that point so okay. Alright, so that-- you do
that. So that’s your last year, you finish medical school, now what happens to you?
(00:33:14)
Veteran: Right. Then, I was accepted into Bethesda Naval Hospital because I applied for the
internship there and I’ll never forget, I had to be interviewed on a Saturday morning by the
internship director who was Captain van Houten, God rest his soul, and I come to find out his
brother was a D.O. in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. So, I came to find that out later, he told me later.
But he interviewed me. He was chief of anesthesiology, he interviewed me on a Saturday
morning because I had to call him long distance because I was on a senior student rotation in
Detroit at a hospital, and the program director of us medical students, he said “ No, no, you have
to stay Friday night,” I mean up to Friday night. I said, “But I have an interview!” So, guess what
this young buck and my wife did. I mean we drove through the night, and we changed clothing
and so on to appear well in appearance, you know. No uniform, I had no uniform, and he
interviews me, and he says, “Yes, you’re accepted, you're accepted to the internship program.”
And I took the old-fashioned internship because I really didn’t know what specialty or whatever
I wanted to do. I was more family practice oriented initially.
Interviewer: Did you do your internship at Great Lakes or elsewhere?
(00:34:52)
Veteran: Nope, at Bethesda Naval Hospital. And that’s when he told me, "You know who was
the best doctor in our family?” and I said, “I don’t know.” He says, “My brother, who was a D.O.
�family doctor in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.” I said, “Oh,” and he says, “Well, congratulations,
you'll be one of two D.O. interns here at Bethesda.
(00:35:20)
Interviewer: And just for people who aren’t really aware, D.O. is Doctor of Osteopathic,
it’s a different program from the standard M.D. Medical Doctor although you get
essentially most of the same training just a little bit different approach but traditionally
there had been some prejudice against D.O.’s from the M.D.’s?
Veteran: Yes there was, yes there was. The last state to give us practice rights was Mississippi,
not surprisingly—oh, excuse me. But, the military gave us the opportunities of a lifetime. And
that was one of the other reasons I said, “I want to apply to the military.” Because their graduate
programs are recognized by both and that’s the main thing, you have to be recognized by
credentialing bodies and certification bodies in any field, in any profession, and at that time, the
military, and to this present day, the military is wide open for all qualified people. And I was just
fortunate enough, after that internship year, I was the first D.O. resident to be accepted to a
pediatric residency program at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
(00:36:45)
Interviewer: Talk a little bit about that first year at Bethesda as an intern.
Veteran: It was very interesting. The most biased service was the surgical program, because at
that time, D.O.’s were not accepted to M.D. surgical residencies, or even rotations. And it
brought back the memories of Warrenton, Virginia, in my own mind, and I got to feel the
empathy for people who get discriminated against. For no reason. For no reason. Not even
willing to give you a chance to show your abilities, and that’s evil. In my estimation, that’s the
�most evil concept I know of because you can destroy people much easier than you can uplift
people. And it’s so easy to discriminate. It’s so easy. Am I good at not discriminating? No, there
are times where I catch myself and I say, “Ulli, don’t judge. Do not judge. You're a mere mortal
being, like the rest.”
(00:38:16)
Interviewer: Okay, so as you’re--In principle as an intern, you would kind of rotate
through all the different specialties.
Veteran: All the different services. And I rotated through pediatrics--that was one of my first
rotations. I loved it because of my own background at age one. I said “This is it! This is it.”
Because pediatrics is the future of the society. If you can’t deal with children, I mean, your
generation is going to die out.
Interviewer: I think of a naval hospital as treating servicemen who tend to be older than
needing a pediatrician.
Veteran: Yes, but the dependents. You have to treat the whole family. You just have to. And on
the grocery bags at the commissaries, the most difficult job is being a Navy wife. At that time it
was predominantly male dominated, you know. But, so, the wives would go shopping at the
commissary and so on, and at the PX’s but on the grocery bags, yeah they had: “The most
difficult job is being a Navy wife.” And, it’s true! I mean, they support the family while you're
on missions or whatever, and it’s a team effort, and it’s a difficult effort at times.
(00:39:40)
�Interviewer: Okay. Now of course, at that point, that first year you're right there at
Bethesda, so you get to go home at night, or at least whenever you’re off your shifts.
Veteran: Right.
Interviewer: Now, after that, your internship-Veteran: The residency, it’s the same thing, you got to go home after your shifts, usually, for
three years.
Interviewer: So, what did you do after the first year?
(00:39:59)
Veteran: After the first year, I got accepted to that pediatric residency for three years. And then
after the pediatric residency I was supposed to go to Great Lakes. I had orders in hand to go to
Great Lakes, because we wanted to go back home to Michigan and so on, and all of a sudden, I
was actually taking a very sick infant from Bethesda Naval Hospital to Oakland Naval Hospital
via AirEvac, medical air evacuation out of Andrews Air Force Base, at that time it was called
Andrews Air Force Base, and it took us twenty-four hours to get to Oakland because they stop it
at all types of bases to pick up the ill, the sick people. And the reason this baby had to be
transferred is because both parents were active duty Navy on special projects that I never knew
about-- and I don’t want to know about it. They wanted to see their baby and it was a very
critically ill patient and there was no pediatric nurse with me, so I took care of the infant and so
on, and we got that infant safely to Oakland Naval Hospital late at night their time, and the
parents were there and they just hugged, and, you know. They knew too that it was a terminal
type of deformity or malformation, but at least they got to see their child, their son. Then my
orders while I was aboard the plane, the copilot comes back to me and says, “Your orders for
�Great Lakes have been rescinded, I just got this message,” and I said, “It did?” And he says,
“Yes, you’re going to Annapolis to the Naval Academy. You’re going to be Chief of Pediatrics
there.” I said, “I am? How come?” I mean, how? “Well you know, that’s a nicer duty station than
Great Lakes,” and I said, “I know, I know, but my wife was already out looking for apartments”
or homes or whatever, because her sister lives right near Great Lakes and her brother-in-law
lived right near, or lives still, right near Great Lakes. So, make a long story short, I called her as
soon as I landed you know and I said, “Patty, we’re going to Annapolis.” “Annapolis? But I’m
looking at houses here in the Great Lakes area.” And I said, “Well, forget it. The Navy has its
own methods and I am going to follow my orders of course.” And she says, “yeah, you have to.”
So, we moved up to Annapolis. It was wonderful.
(00:43:17)
Interviewer: Okay. Now, what years were you there?
Veteran: From July ’76, bicentennial year, and I left there December 30th. And December 31st
started my fellowship in allergy, immunology, and asthma between Georgetown and Bethesda
Naval Hospital, and that lasted 2 years. And it was great! Great training. And right across the
street from Bethesda Naval Hospital are the National Institutes of Health. All of the different
institutes. And one of the institutes is the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and Allergy.
Well, every Thursday afternoon, we got to go as trainees on rounds and lectures at the National
Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. And so it just broadened my horizons, even then.
And then in January of 1980, I became Chief of Allergy at Bethesda Naval Hospital. And I had
an assistant, another physician who was an allergist, a wonderful allergist, and the two of us ran
that department. But I came up with the idea through my previous Chief of Allergy, to make
visits to the outlying facilities to save the government money. Because for a patient visit to our
�clinic at Bethesda, is usually—was usually in the neighborhood of oh, $2000 or $3000 per
member. Because they had to cut orders, they had to get per diem and they had to stay in an
expensive area of Washington. So, he told me, he says “Ulli, just keep up your visits to the
outlying facilities.” That was the best advice I ever had. So where would we go? I loved
submarines. Don’t psychoanalyze me. And submarines were the main weapon I think that won
the Cold War. I really believe that to my dying day. And I had the pleasure and honor, when I
was a lowly intern in August of 1972, of hearing all this commotion outside of my emergency
room that was my emergency room on rotation that whole month. I hear this commotion outside.
It’s Admiral Zumwalt who was the Chief of Naval Operations. Literally dragging in Admiral
Hyman Rickover, and I am the doctor on duty. And I have several corpsmen, or medics as they
are called in the Navy, corpsmen and corpswaves. And he says to me, “Young doctor, I think, I
think Admiral Rickover is having a heart attack.” And I said, “Oh my god, yes.” You could tell,
just the, the—it was awful. We got the gurney, I mean everything worked like clockwork and
everything just went super well. And I respected Admiral Zumwalt, first of all, before even
getting to meet him, as a realm human being. And he did reform the Navy as far as some of the
standards and so on. Which is great, which is great. You have to sometimes think outside of the
box, as a leader. And—but you do it peacefully, slowly. You have to do it slow. And anyway, he
stayed right at the bedside with Admiral Rickover, and Rickover said, “I don’t want to stay here,
you are all over-reacting.” And I said, “No sir, we are not over-reacting. You’ve had a massive
heart attack, and we are going to get you into the coronary care unit, and we are going to
transport you there with the help of people.” And Zumwalt stayed that night with him. He helped
us pull, push the gurney and everything. And he says, “Can I do something?” You know. And I
think he carried the IV bag and everything. I mean, that’s how down to earth these German were.
�But he, Admiral Rickover, is shouting, you know, “I don’t want to stay here, I don’t think I need
to stay here, I feel better.” So we got him into the coronary care unit and everything was
wonderful. And he remembered my name, years later. Because, in 1983, shortly before I left the
active Navy, he was outside of our allergy clinic because we gave all the vaccines for
mobilization. Well, he had been invited by the Chinese to inspect their nuclear Navy. They were
going to honor him. And he said, “I don’t need those vaccines. I am not going to get those
vaccines.” And I heard the commotion. I went out there. His second wife, who was the nurse for
the first wife who had passed on, his second wife was a little bit younger. And she said to him,
“Heimie, listen to this young doctor.” Me! And I said, “Admiral, I don’t think you remember me,
but—” And I had a badge on. “But,” I said, “that August night in 1972 when the Admiral
Zumwalt brought you in for that heart attack, we got you through that with the help of God, and
this time, you do need vaccines. Because we need many vaccines. I don’t want you to get sick
over there.” And he wasn’t going for about two weeks anyway, three weeks, so it would have
had time for the vaccines to really work. He says, “But I hear they make you sick.” And I said,
“Yes, they do. That’s why you have time to rest a little bit.” “I can’t rest!” But the wife calmed
him down, and said, “Listen to him, listen to this young doctor.” And that’s my famous story
about Admiral Rickover.
(0:50:30)
Interviewer: Alright, now I am going to back up a little bit. So we kind of covered the sort
of full time you had in active duty. Early on in that first year, did you ever get any kind of
Navy training in terms of how to march and salute and that kind of thing?
Veteran: Yes, it was about a week before the internship started.
�Interviewer: Okay.
Veteran: At Bethesda.
Interviewer: And how seriously did they take that?
Veteran: I would say moderately seriously. They said, basically, you have inspections and those
you have to take seriously. The uniform has to be crisp and clean. And this is still my uniform. I
still fit in it, God bless. People get jealous, they say “How can you fit in this uniform from
1993?” And I said, oh—
(00:51:32)
Interviewer: Well it is from 1993 rather than 1973 so you were given a little bit of help
there.
Veteran: Yeah, that’s right. I had an older uniform but that’s gone.
Interviewer: So you stayed in the reserves until 1993?
Veteran: Yes.
Interviewer: Alright, so now you think that you learned—
Veteran: Yeah, we learned to march during that week and so on. And it was who to salute, who
you don’t have to salute first or anything like that. And you can salute just out of respect, I mean.
And the medical department in any of the military branches are unique. And some of the active
duty military people felt at that time that you weren’t really in the real military. But, in 1984, I
got selected to go for combat casualty simulation down to Texas. And then I learned more there
about the real military. And that’s when I aligned myself with the marines in battlefield
simulation. Because I was older and not so, well, I was physically active of course but not of, not
�like the marines. They made me the radio man. And they had three marine guards around me at
all times in the battlefield, or on the periphery of the battlefield. So I would call in for airstrikes
against the enemy.
(00:53:03)
Interviewer: So you got like, because the Navy corpsmen get training with the marines for
sort of a combat field training—
Veteran: Yes, yes they are excellent.
Interviewer: And so they do—so in a way you were getting the doctor’s equivalent of that,
at least the reserve doctor’s equivalent of that, on a limited scale?
Veteran: Yes, on a limited scale.
Interviewer: So they’re showing you a little bit about what the marines do in the field?
Veteran: Mhmm. Even helicopter rides down in Texas. And nighttime simulation. I felt an M16
in my back, and I had the armband, the Red Cross arm band. And I said “What about Geneva
Convention?” “What convention?” Boom-boom. And in Vietnam, to tell the truth, I’ve known, I
knew corpsmen. And one in particular, he became a Captain. He went—he was a mustanger, he
went through. He was my administrative duty officer, John Auchorn, wonderful person. He’s
still with us, thank God. Wonderful, wonderful person. And he told me about the horrors of
Vietnam when he was a corpsman. They initially had to wear the helmet with the Red Cross on
it. That was the perfect target for the Viet Cong. And finally, an order came down: you don’t
have to wear that helmet. Because they want to kill off the medics, the radio people…
(00:54:47)
�Interviewer: Yeah, the officers, the machine gunners, yeah the—
Veteran: Exactly. Disenfranchise the whole unit, you know.
Interviewer: And the various places where you might wind up in an armed conflict from
the 80s, or certainly more recently, may well be places where they have no particular
interests in things like the Geneva conventions.
Veteran: Yes, that’s right. I have a wonderful buddy currently, he’s a physician’s assistant at
Cherry Street. His name is Larry Brewer, and he is wonderful. He was in the Air Force initially,
in Vietnam during the Tet offensive. One of his friends in the distance was blown apart by a
shell. After that, he went into the Army, became a nurse and then a physician’s assistant. And
he’s still a physician’s assistant at the Cherry Street Healthcare System after 30-some years. And
I used to volunteer there, that’s how I got to meet him.
(00:55:49)
Interviewer: Now during the time when you were in the Navy, I mean did you notice any
kind of echoes or reverberations from Vietnam or responses to the war? Things like that,
or how did that effect you?
Veteran: I saw some of the returning POWs, we all did, and they had the Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder totally. I mean, it was so tragic. And some of the doctors didn’t recognize it completely,
because it was relatively new.
(00:56:30)
Interviewer: That was like in 1970, 3 or 4, in there. Yeah.
�Veteran: Exactly, exactly. And it was, that was talked about. And we knew—we started noticing
problems already then about the defoliant, slowly but surely.
Interviewer: Yep, Agent Orange. Right.
Veteran: Agent Orange. And ironically, it was Admiral Zumwalt that recommended that it be
used along the Mekong River to defoliate the hiding places for the Viet Cong, because we were
losing soldiers along the Mekong every day. Every day, the casualty rate was really bad. So. And
he was reassured by Dow Chemical that it’s safe: “it’s not safe for plants, but it’s safe for
humans.” Well, we know better now. And I have seen Agent Orange diseases. I have seen them
personally, and it’s horrific. It’s horrific. And it should all teach us a lesson that chemicals do
hurt the immune system, first of all, and they can cause many problems with different organ
systems, including the immune system. Admiral Zumwalt’s son—Admiral Zumwalt went into a
depression because his own son volunteered for Vietnam, along the Mekong River, so he was
constantly exposed to Agent Orange. He dies of lymphoma. Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. That’s
one of the diseases. Anything that alters the immune system is going to cause trouble for us. Any
chemical. I don’t care what it is.
(00:58:29)
Interviewer: Alright, now, another side of the whole Vietnam thing is essentially—it’s
political but it’s also a transformation of the military, becomes all volunteer. There’s
various responses to the anti-war movement and then there is a congress at times that is
going to be less inclined to provide funding. Now within the Navy itself, at least the part of
it that you’re dealing with, did that effect—did any of that sort of stuff effect the morale of
the people in the service? Or did you still have people who were pretty much the same?
�Veteran: With some of the enlisted, it did. And I must be honest, some of the officers too. I was
initially for the Vietnam war, but when the Tet Offensive occurred, because we had been told
that we have this thing under control. But, a guerilla movement, ISIS for example now. It’s
difficult to control militarily, standard military operations, against a guerilla movement. The
British couldn’t do it in 1776. Or in 1775 at Lexington and Concord. The kind of—I mean the
militia, minute men, were guerillas, figuratively.
(00:59:48)
Interviewer: At least when they fought that way, that was most successful.
Veteran: Sure. And the British said “this is no gentlemanly way of waging war.” And I am going,
“my God, what is gentlemanly?” What defeated the Germans in the Soviet Union? Partisans,
primarily.
Interviewer: Well, not, maybe not primarily. But they were part of it.
Veteran: But they were part of the Red Army. And history is…
Interviewer: Yeah. But basically, it became a lot more complicated than it was supposed to
be. Yeah, okay.
Veteran: And surrounding Leningrad, the Russians should take a lesson from that, what they are
doing in Aleppo. It’s their Leningrad—I mean, it’s the reverse of, well, the Nazis did Leningrad,
the Russians are doing Aleppo. I mean, it never ends. It never ends. Inhumanity.
(1:00:40)
Interviewer: Alright. Now, to think back on the period when you are on your active duty in
the Navy, are there other memories that kind of stand out for you? From that period?
�Veteran: Yes, the people at the top during my active duty years of 12, well 11 active duty years
on and off at Bethesda and at Annapolis too, the higher ups—if you were willing to work, if your
morale was—if you were uplifting to people, they loved you. It was that simple. And treat each
person with respect, which they deserve. The Golden Rule. Follow the Golden Rule and you will
succeed in America. If you don’t want to follow the Golden Rule and you think you’re the
hotshot of everything…Guess what? People will…If they see you are trying and if they see that
you are really struggling, but you are trying, they will give you a lending hand. We are the most
generous nation on the planet. Who supports the United Nations, for the most part? Who
supports NATO, for the most part? Who supports SEATO, for the most part? I mean you know,
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.
(1:02:26)
Interviewer: Yep. All that was there.
Veteran: Yeah. I mean, it’s America. And with manpower and supplies and everything.
Interviewer: Right. Now how was time in the Naval Academy? How was that a different
job?
Veteran: Wonderful. It was wonderful, but I came to find out that the midshipmen were students.
Students first. Yes, they had some family traditions to uphold. And several of them came to me,
confidentially, after the first year, okay? Freshman year, they call it the fourth year or something
like that. And they say to me, “I don’t want to stop here, I want to go further.” And I said,
“Listen, chances are—” “Well my father was in the Navy, my grandfather was in the Navy…”
and so on. I said, “That’s wonderful. Wonderful for history. And you. That’s history. You’ve got
your own life. And it comes time, sooner or later, you’ve got to make your own decision about it.
�About your own lifestyle, your own style of living. And if you drop out before the sophomore
year—I mean if you drop out before the end of the sophomore year, you owe no obligated time.”
At that time, that was the thing. So several did drop out, but most stayed in. And they were—
they were very good. Very good, upstanding citizens. And I think they are going to be, or they
are, good leaders. Good leaders. And they invited me to the lunches at Bancroft Hall where they
eat up to 6000 calories, because they are constantly exercising and everything else. 6000
calories. And they kept looking at me, “You’re not eating enough.” I said, “I am eating enough
for an adult.” But they were good, they were good. And we sponsored several midshipmen. And
they all have been wonderful and we keep in touch with them, and they’re successful in industry.
(1:04:54)
Interviewer: What does it mean to sponsor them?
Veteran: Oh, when they are freshmen especially, they look for sponsors in the community. We
stayed in Annapolis from ’76 to ’83. We decided not to move out of Annapolis. And we were
from Michigan, so we sponsored 3 Michiganders, midshipmen, freshmen midshipmen, and they
couldn’t get over the fact that I didn’t know some of the rules, you know. And so they taught me,
very privately, very nonthreatening, you know. Some of the rules and so on, which was helpful
to me. Especially as chief of a department, you know.
(1:05:39)
Interviewer: Maybe you ought to know those things.
Veteran: But they were good, they were good. I think America can be proud of its military
academies. They’re not the type that would push the button, you know? Let’s say it that way.
And the wonderful thing about our U.S. Constitution is always, always, there is civilian control
�over the military. And that was—that’s what helped us, has saved us, a countless number of
times. If you can fire the Commander in Chief, like Nixon, my goodness! That’s unheard of.
(1:06:25)
Interviewer: Well, you can also fire a guy in the Army, like a MacArthur, if he makes too
much trouble.
Veteran: Right! When he refuses to salute the Commander in Chief.
Interviewer: Okay. Now what kind of other things that kind of stand out for you, I mean
like in your active duty period? Or have we hit kind of most of the main points of that
now?
Veteran: Most of the main points.
Interviewer: Okay. Now you stay in the reserves for some time and they do have a variety
that—
Veteran: Yes, nine and a half years.
Interviewer: You have, and you had mentioned already, training with the Marines in ’84—
Veteran: Yes.
Interviewer: Did you get other training stints or other things while in the reserves?
Veteran: Well, what I did, I was commanding officer of the medical unit in Grand Rapids, and
then in Muskegon, and then they closed Muskegon on us, so I went back to Grand Rapids as
commanding officer of the medical unit. And what we did, we had the different corpsman and
the different officers, we had several nurses, we had an anesthesiologist, we had a neurologist to
�give lectures to the other units to just get them up to date on CPR, to get them up to date on
what’s happening in medicine for their own care, too. And who knows? Like the Seabees, they
see medical emergencies a lot when they are on—when they are doing construction work, oh my
goodness. And one of my best friends to this day yet was a chief in the Seabees in Grand Rapids,
and he and I stay in touch you know. And great, great person. And he took over the CPR training
from our medical unit for the Seabees. So we worked—we have to work as teams. No person is
an island. Especially in the medical field. And that is what I used to tell the corpsman, “I don’t
care what your rank is, that’s manmade. That’s manmade. But when we have a patient in front of
us, or an emergency in front of us, I don’t care what your rank is.” Like I won’t ask my plumber,
“Did you got to college or didn’t you?” Or my electrician. You know, I am not interested in that!
I am sorry. I don’t—
(1:08:38)
Interviewer: As long as you know they are licensed.
Veteran: Yeah! Can you do the job? You know? And that’s all I ask of people: are you qualified?
Can you do the job for me? And if you do a good job, believe me, I will give you good reports
yearly. And you will get promoted. And I can almost guarantee it: you will get promoted. I’ve
only had one corpsman in all of my career that said, “I could have gone to medical school, you
know.” And I said, “Okay? Why didn’t you?” And one of the answers he gave was, “My wife
didn’t want me to go.” I said, “Can I call up your wife?” “Ah, no, I have to go somewhere else
right now.” And I am going…No, don’t lie. You know? And don’t get jealous. Look at what
jealously did to Germany. The jealousy yields hate, and hate yields the worst things in us.
(1:09:49)
�Interviewer: Alright. Now, it’s pretty clear here from our conversation that your time in
the Navy was a very positive experience for you.
Veteran: Very positive for me. I was lucky.
Interviewer: If you wanted to kind of sum up what it is that you learned from it or took out
of it, what would that be?
(1:10:05)
Veteran: Camaraderie. Respect. And getting respect in turn. And being humble, and making you
realize that you’re just a mere mortal that has to go through a journey that we all have to go
through. And the great equilibrator is: you are born naked, and guess what? You’re going to go
naked. Either way. But that—important lessons. And teamwork. And I still miss that teamwork.
That, we don’t have as much in the civilian sector of medicine. And especially now, these are
difficult times for American medicine because it’s transition time. So many changes have come
down the road. I still work part time as an allergist in my old office. And the changes are
overwhelming. And my generation is at fault, and I blame my generation, because during
medical school, most of us said, “We really don’t want to know much about the business of
medicine. We want to see patients, we want to help a little bit each patient, and so on. But leave
the business up to someone else.” Well, oh boy! It was like a tsunami, coming down the road.
The insurance industry said, “Oh, we’ll help you.” The business community said, “Oh, we’ll help
you. We’ll help you organize.” And now…
(1:12:02)
Interviewer: Now you’ve got the government too.
�Veteran: Now you’ve got the government on top of us. And supposedly, in 2018, all of these
software systems for electronic records are supposed to interface, so that if you get stuck in
California, they can access your medical record in California into our system. And they claim it’s
going to be hack-proof. And I’m going, “Okay...”
Interviewer: Yeah, okay. Well, just don’t tell the Russians.
Veteran: The Russians are chess players. We forget that.
Interviewer: Alright. Anyway, your own journey here has been a pretty remarkable one, so
I’d just like to close here by thanking you for taking the time to share it today.
Veteran: Thank you for having me.
(1:12:53)
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27_HierlwimmerU1965V
Title
A name given to the resource
Hierlwimmer, Ulf (Interview transcript and video), 2016
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-13
Description
An account of the resource
Dr. Ulf “Ulie” Hierlwimmer was born on May 31 st in 1945, in the Soviet occupied zone of Germany. When he was around one year old, his mother moved their family to the safety of West Germany while his father was in the German Army. After his discharge, Hierlwimmer's family moved to the United States and settled into Detroit, Michigan, in 1953. Hierlwimmer pursued his ujndergraduate degree at Wayne State University before he was accepted to Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine. During the Vietnam War, he joined the Navy to continue his studies and became a pediatrician at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Maryland. After completing a fellowship in allergies, immunology, and asthma, worked as an active Navy doctor from 1972-1983, and then for nine and a half years in the reserves.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hierlwimmer, Ulf Rainer
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American
United States. Navy. Naval Reserve
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Veterans History Project collection, RHC-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401.
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Language
A language of the resource
eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/16fdeb2f1a968dccc46e6a1483993ba8.pdf
892b5c528aee975df9b29b726931c3b7
PDF Text
Text
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Incunabula
Description
An account of the resource
The term incunabula refers to books printed between 1450 and 1500, approximately the first fifty years following the invention, by Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, of printing from moveable type. Our collection includes over 200 volumes and numerous unbound leaves from books printed during this period.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1450/1500
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Incunabula Collection (DC-03)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United </a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Incunabula
Printing 1450-1500
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Language
A language of the resource
eng
it
la
nl
de
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Epistolae [folium 90]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
DC-03_090Hieronymus1497
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hieronymous
Description
An account of the resource
One leaf of Epistolae by Hieronymus and edited by Theodorus Laelius. Printed in Basel by Nicolaus Kesler on February 28, 1497. [GW 12436; ISTC ih00176000]
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Basel: Nicolaus Kesler
Subject
The topic of the resource
Incunabula
Printing 1450-1500
Language
A language of the resource
la
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1497
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Seidman Rare Books Collection
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Laelius, Theodorus (editor)
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text