724 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/17ba9771c488c59052c4b8d55b17808b.mp4 9906731bc2ad979031e222045aca2cca https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/df32bad8be88a3d09c2ad9131798ecc3.pdf 376bf31760a142c7d2f7242948fc17df PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW DEREK FLACK Born: Detroit, Michigan Resides: Byron Center, Michigan Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, February 7, 2013 Interviewer: Mr. Flack, can you begin by telling us a little bit about your own personal background? For instance, where and when were you born? I was born in Detroit, Michigan July 5, 1948. Interviewer: Did you grow up there? I grew up, born and bred there my whole life. Interviewer: What did your family do, your father do? My dad worked for Ford Motor Company and he was an automotive engineer and we had the typical lower middle class and it was great. Growing up in—I had a brother and two sisters at the time and I had a late sister later on, but yeah, we had a great life. Interviewer: Did you live in the city? I lived in Detroit, right. Interviewer: Did you go to the public schools? Public schools for most of the time and then my dad sent my sister Gwen and myself, being the two oldest, to a parochial school for the last two years. 1:05 Then back to a public school later on when we moved from Detroit to Dearborn and that‘s where I graduated from in 1966. Interviewer: Okay, what did you do upon graduation? 1 �Actually, prior to graduation my family life, at least from an eighteen year olds point of view, kind of was going downhill, you know. So, what I did, and Vietnam was roaring, and I was gung ho about the Marine Corps, so I went down to the recruiter and signed the papers when I was seventeen. Of course I went home and told my parents and my mother was absolutely shocked. My dad, he was stunned, he‘d been in WWII see, so he kind of understood a little bit about it you know, although he didn‘t like Vietnam. 2:03 My mom didn‘t like Vietnam, and little did I know that later on no one would like Vietnam, but that‘s neither here nor there at that time, so they wouldn‘t sign for me to go in early even though I graduated in June and I was turning eighteen in July. They said, ―No, you have to wait until you‘re eighteen and you can do it. So two days after my eighteenth birthday, on the 7th of July, I went to downtown Detroit and they swore me in, and I said, ―I do‖, and I did, and they whisked me off to San Diego, California for training. Interviewer: Was that Camp Pendleton? San Diego, there is a Marine corps recruit depot in San Diego, only two in the country, San Diego, California and Parris Island, South Carolina. Interviewer: Is that where you had your basic training then? Basic training, right Interviewer: Describe basic training in 1968? Well, 1966, yeah 1966, well we flew to L.A. and caught another flight down to San Diego. 3:09 We get out of the plane and into the terminal and the drill instructors, or DI‘s, are there waiting for us, and of course they‘re out in the public, so they usher out into these school busses with no seats, so you‘re standing. The base is right next to the airport, so then they get on the bus and they are screaming at you. From that point on 2 �they are screaming at you and they‘re calling you every name you ever thought of and then some. Interviewer: Did you know they were going to do that when you went in? No, no, I didn‘t think it was going to be easy, but I didn‘t think it would start off like that. So it‘s the shock value that they‘re going for and they shock you right away. Some people in our group, who would become part of our platoon, had fathers who had been in the Marine Corps, so they knew what to expect. 4:04 My dad was in the Army Air Corps in WWII, so there was nothing like that. Anyway, I stood there and I‘m grabbing onto one of the poles as they‘re taking off and thinking, ―What did I get myself into? So, they go around to the front of the base, they come in and they‘re screaming at you all the way, you stop and they actually push you off the bus, they‘re pushing you know. There‘s these two big sets of yellow foot prints and they yell, ―Get in the footprints‖, and they‘re like you‘re standing at attention the way they‘re painted on the asphalt, and we‘re all in one section, there was only enough of us for one, and they‘re yelling at us and this is by the barber shop. 5:01 They have a group of six guys run in there, they‘re yelling at you the whole time, running up the steps, into the chairs, the barber‘s there, zipp, zipp, zipp zipp, and you‘re out. I mean you went in there with whatever hair you had and you came out with absolutely nothing and I remember it was just, ―Wow‖. Finally after everyone gets shorn of their hair, then they sort of march you, because you‘re not—you don‘t know diddly squat about marching at this point, over to one of the receiving barracks‘ where you pick up your gear. You‘re going through and they‘re throwing it into a box or sea bag, you get a sea bag, and just dump it in there, just keep dumping, dumping, and finally they run you over to the showers. 6:04 Everybody gets a shower and then you put on 3 �your—we had yellow sweat shirts, which said U.S. M. C., had the emblem and the whole thing and we had a cover we put on, we had on our utility pants, tennis shoes and socks and that was it. Then they march us across the base, about two O‘clock in the morning, yelling and screaming at us, and it‘s like a herd moving down the street. These Quonset Huts that they had at the time and they put so many in a Quonset Hut, and what happens, you have these metal racks with mattresses on them and then you have something you put over them called a ―fart sack‖, that‘s what they called it, so those of us that at least figured that out, we‘re trying to get that over the mattress and the DI‘s would yell, ―Stop, you‘re not going to do that right now, you‘re going to go to sleep and that‘s it‖. 7:00 So, we stopped, we stopped right where we were and then he said, ―You will now lay down‖, and we were laying there at attention, you know and then he turns off the lights and says, ―You are now asleep‖, and slams the door. I remember this quite distinctly. Interviewer: Then how early did they wake you up the next morning? This was the morning. How many hours later? Interviewer: Yes I would say maybe about three, three hours later and everybody‘s in their clothes still, some of us were smart enough to say, ―We‘re going to stay in our clothes‖. So, we jumped up and then what happens is we fall out in some sort of formation and they‘re trying to get us by height or whatever they do, you know—oh geez, and as time went on at boot camp we got better and better and better at doing these things. You got all squared away and you‘re marching and you can do your manual of arms and all kinds of good stuff you know. 8:01 I mean, and you‘re going through your basics, which could 4 �be an obstacle course or you‘re going to classroom on the history of the Marine Corps, or first aid, or all kinds of good stuff. Actually that lasted—we were there for nine weeks. Interviewer: As you were there, did you adjust to that reasonably well? I mean did you learn the routine and mostly stay out of trouble, or how did you do? Ha, ha, if you didn‘t you were crazy, you really were. I adjusted pretty darn well to it. I accepted that, ―Hey, I‘m stuck for four years‖, and I wasn‘t drafted, see they had few draftees in the Marine Corps at that time. Most of them were enlistees and so anyway, we just—you adjusted and you learned. You learned to stay out of a lot of sight, you know, you just—you‘re the mouse in the corner, you know. 9:00 You‘re going to get along because we saw a guy who didn‘t—we had some guys who were injured, naturally. One guy broke his leg and he had to go back through the system again after his leg was healed up and so on, but there were some guys—back then what they use to do is, these recruiter needed numbers back home to fill their quotas, and there were guys in there who should never have been in there, who you could tell should never have been allowed to enlist, they would never make it. Interviewer: Just physically not strong enough or mentally they were not right? Everything, everything, and the recruiters didn‘t care because it‘s numbers for them. That became a real big deal after Vietnam. Anyway, what happened is that they would weed out those individuals right then and there and they would be sent home because they‘re unacceptable, or unfit for military service. 10:00 We were down to about, our platoon, to about seventy five, seventy four, seventy three guys eventually. Interviewer: Out of how many? 5 �Out of close to eighty, and I‘d come out of high school and I thought I was in pretty good shape, but no—I got in shape though and it was quite an experience, boot camp because they‘re screaming at you all the time and as time goes on, during the nine weeks, they‘re screaming less, and less, and less, until finally at the very end you‘re almost buddy, buddy with them. I mean they‘re nice to you because you do what you have to be doing. A good example was, during the end of our time at boot camp we got to marching in cadence real easy. We‘d be marching down one of the streets and we could see one of the new recruit platoons coming towards us with the tee shirts on. 11:07 By that time you‘ve shed all that new stuff and you‘re in your regular uniforms. Anyway, we could see them coming and the DI that was with us, we had three for our platoon, didn‘t have to say a word, not a word, we all saw what was coming and we began hitting the pavement with our heels, bang, bang, bang, and we were loud, we were all in cadence and it was beautiful. We‘re going by these guys, and it screwed them all up, you know, and the DI that was with us, he was chuckling and the DI from the other platoon, he was really—he said, ―What‘s the matter with you girls? What are you doing? You can‘t let them screw you up like this‖. He knew what was going on and after we passed by we went down to a normal march and you didn‘t have to tell anybody anything because it happened to us. 12:05 You do that, you know, and it‘s sort of a, I guess, a rite of passage when you can all do that without anybody telling you when you‘re doing it in unison correctly and rookies are just going by and their all screwed up, I mean we could hear them fumbling around. It reminded us of what we‘d been not too many weeks earlier. 6 �Interviewer: Now, while you were there at boot camp, were they figuring out what kind of specializations you’d go into and what kind of advanced training you would get? Yes, and what would happen was, you went through a battery of tests to determine—first of all when you enlisted you had a contract, not that any of us knew what contracts were about, some of them like me, I‘d asked to go into intelligence and I didn‘t make that. I probably wasn‘t smart enough, I don‘t know. 13:00 Anyway, we had twelve batteries of tests and in those test they began seeing what you‘re good at, you know. If you had a guaranteed contract, which some people did, then those batteries of test would be geared toward whatever that guarantee was, and there were very few guarantees. So, what would happen was that we would go through and take the test ad after a while there would be a break, we‘d go outside and if you smoked you could smoke and you still couldn‘t do too much because you‘re still in boot camp. Then you go back inside and do some more tests and then they would say, ―Okay‖, and call out names, and my name was one of them that was going to stay for another battery of tests. I thought, ―Whoa, what in the world‘s going on?‖ Well, little did I know that they thought I‘d be a good communicator, so I took the test and at the end of boot camp I got my assignment. 14:06 Of course we all went up to Pendleton for ITR, everyone does that, and if you‘re a grunt you had four weeks of ITR, if you weren‘t a grunt, you got two weeks of ITR. Interviewer: What does ITR stand for? Infantry Training Regiment, everybody gets that and then the grunts get more because they‘re going to be infantry and eventually down the road beyond that, whereas someone like me, they gave me the first two weeks only to familiarize me with a lot of stuff that 7 �turned out to be pretty useless, but nevertheless. I found out at boot camp that I was going back to San Diego for training because I was going to be in communications. Do you remember the old Gomer Pyle series? Remember the arcade and the whole thing? That‘s where what used to be what‘s called Communications Electronics Battalion, used to be and now it‘s moved out of there up north. 15:00 Anyway, that‘s where it was, right along that old arcade were all barracks back there and that‘s where I was sent, back there for communications school, and I was going to be what was called a Radio Telegraph Operator. You‘d go through the school and you‘d learn the radios, you learned Morse Code, you learned to get quicker, and quicker, and quicker at sending and receiving and that became useless because we never used it again, everything was voice. Interviewer: Were they using telephones and things like that? No, it was radios, radios that you carry on your back. There‘s no more Morse Code, although we had a couple gung ho NCO‘s later on and in another outfit who wanted to set up a communications net to practice in when we‘re in Vietnam. The guy had a death wish I swear he did, because in a combat zone you don‘t screw with people like that, you don‘t hassle them. 16:00 When they‘re there, they‘re there for combat and you let them be while they‘re back at base camp and then they go out again, you know. Anyway that‘s an old, old story. Interviewer: Describe a little bit, please, the certain equipment you’re trained on and particularly the stuff you wind up using. We learned all the radios. Some were huge radios, some were mounted on vehicles, and some were mounted permanently in installations. Actually it was the same radio, it just had a different designation where it was mounted, believe it or not, I swear to God. 8 �Anyway, we learned all that stuff and we learned how to use it, we learned, oh geez, of course, the Morse Code, like I said and spent eighteen weeks doing that, which was a waste of eighteen weeks as far as the Morse code went, and I never used it again. 17:01 I never ever, ever, used it again Interviewer: Did you learn anything about the maintenance of the equipment, repair of it or anything? Well, no repairs, you learn—of course when you have the equipment you keep it clean naturally, but you just use it and if it needs repair you send it over to a tech who--that‘s his job, so you don‘t worry about that. I never had to worry about that kind of stuff. Interviewer: Now, while you were training to use this equipment and this kind of thing and learning the Morse Code, were they still keeping up with the conditioning exercises and marches and stuff like that? No—well, yes and no—what would happen, after a while you would—once in a while you would get someone who would say, ―Well, we need to get your people out there and run around the base‖, and we would do that once in a while. Not as often as we should have and you have to understand something—back then it was different than it is now. Now, they stress a lot of that stuff and that‘s good. 18:00 Back then they didn‘t and we played pickup sports among our groups and that was great, but we didn‘t do a lot of organized calisthenics like we had back at ITR or boot camp. I now look back at it and I wish I had because it would have helped with the next unit that I went to after that, but I got back into it right away with the next unit, so that wasn‘t any problem. Interviewer: Now, this period where you’re training for this radio work in San Diego, were you getting time to get off base and do things and so forth? 9 �Yes Interviewer: What kind of stuff did you do when you weren’t on duty? Well, San Diego at that time wasn‘t nearly as big as it is right now, and we use to walk down Rosecrans Boulevard, I remember that name, I‘ll never forget that, it goes right down town. They use to have things downtown, they had a naval base right next to us where they had the naval recruits. 19:05 We got to get off base in civilian clothes and they had to wear uniforms and you could see the navy guys, these little white Dixie cups bobbing in the crowd and know that‘s the navy. We use to go down there and there were all kinds of stuff. They had this town square in the middle and I don‘t know if it‘s still there or not, and on Sunday mornings they had a preacher on every corner, I remember that and it was kind of cool, you know. And then there were things like the San Diego Zoo, and that was a great place to go, especially for picking up girls, and they had the bars down there. Because there were two classes every day in communications school, and this is the part that didn‘t hit me until later on, why they would have two classes a day for communications while the Marine Corps was no nearly as huge as the army, why would they need that many communicators? 20:07 Well, I was to find out later on – anyway usually what we‘d do is we‘d hop a bus down to Tijuana, Mexico. Now, Tijuana, Mexico back in 1966 was one jumping place. There were all kinds of things you ever imagine down there, I mean all kinds. We‘d get out of school about ten or ten thirty at night and we‘d be on liberty until seven o‘clock the next morning and we had guys rolling in there drunk as a skunk, you know. Then we‘d get in there and we‘d have to clean up the barracks and do that in a stupor, you know, clean the barracks up somehow and then we got free time, so next to the barracks, usually, was a little grassy lot and the 10 �guys would sack out there for I don‘t know how many hours sleeping it off. 21:02 This is the honest to God truth. Then we‘d have to get ready and head for formation for school and we‘d stand for formation down farther in the arcade in the back part there was another area. We‘d stand there for whatever things they wanted to tell us and then we‘d go into the classrooms and we‘d put on the headphones and we‘d start the Morse code thing and do that for hours on end. Interviewer: After a week's time you’d need to go back to Tijuana. That‘s right, exactly; it‘s time to go to Tijuana. Interviewer: Where did they send you after San Diego? I went back to Pendleton and there had been a unit authorized to be called the 5th Marine Division, which had not been organized since WWII. The 5th Marine division was made up of a number of units and one of those units is the 28th Marine Regiment, so I was assigned to them, to the 3rd Battalion 28th Marines at that time. 22:01 We got up there—I got up there with a bunch of the guys who were with me, we went to school together and we‘re in the same—we‘re all spread throughout the 28th, but those of us in the 3rd Battalion, you know, we stuck together and there was no one there. There was no one up there, maybe two or three guys in 3rd Battalion and that was it, it was us and them. I mean we had free run of everything, we could do what we wanted to do. It was great because there was no one there, the unit was just forming, and as time went on more and more people came into the unit and formed the units and so on, and then we got into a regular routine, which sort of sucked because we liked being free, you know. Then after a while the 28th Marines became a regular outfit and we all wondered when we were going to Vietnam because one regiment, the 26th Regiment had already made it to 11 �Vietnam along with attached units. 23:00 They were over there and the 27th Marines, which is the 3rd Regiment in the division was at Pendleton also. So, we just figured, ―When are we going to go?‖ We hear what‘s going on in Vietnam, we watch all this stuff and we‘re thinking ―Geez‖, and then, of course, the Pueblo thing happened the end of 1967 the beginning of 1968, and we thought, ―Oh my God, we‘re going to Korea‖, and we didn‘t want to go to Korea, it‘s cold there and I said, ―I‘m going to Vietnam, it‘s warmer‖, and I kid you not that‘s what I said. ―I don‘t want to go to Korea‖, I said, ―I‘ve read the stories of the guys in Korea. I want to go to Vietnam, if I have a choice, Vietnam, it‘s warmer‖, and now that didn‘t happen, as you know. It sort of was resolved or whatever, and that whole year of 1967 we were training, you know, and doing really useless stuff, I swear. 24:00 You would think, going through the training that we went through, that you were going to fight Europe in WWII, that‘s the kind of training we got. I‘m thinking, ―I know Vietnam‘s not like this even though I haven‘t been there. I‘ve talked to enough guys who have come back, it‘s not like that, and I don‘t understand all this stuff, you know‖. Interviewer: Were there officers or noncoms assigned to your unit as they were building it who’d been in Vietnam already? Yeah, some had and some weren‘t, some who were in a long time had been In Korea. At boot camp I even had a guy who, a gun and gunnery sergeant who was on Guadalcanal, but that was boot camp and that‘s different. But, in the regular outfit some people just hadn‘t been in contact with that, but they‘re just doing what they‘re ordered to do and that‘s the whole thing. But, I thought to myself, ―This sounds more like the reading I‘ve read about WWII and what they did there, and how it was. People I‘ve talked to who 12 �were in WWII—this isn‘t even like the Pacific in WWII. 25:02 I‘m thinking, ―Something‘s wrong here‖, and I didn‘t understand what was going on. So, comes the end of the year, Pueblo, and then into 1968, and Vietnam is heating up, and we‘re thinking, ―Okay, another year‖, and then it rolls around, around Valentine‘s Day, this time of the year 1968. I had duty that night. I was corporal of the guard and the officer of the day, he and I used to—the duty was to patrol at night during the week-ends, just the barracks, walk them, come back and write your log in ―All okay‘, or whatever, you know. No big deal. Anyway, we were sitting there, we had just gotten back off a practice operation on ship, and those were fun 26:08 Interviewer: Were those practice landing operations? Yeah, we use to come on shore on these landing craft you see in WWII where the ramps drop, and I‘m thinking, ―If this happens in Vietnam, we‘re all going to get killed, because where are you going to go?‖ Or the other where you‘re going to be on an Amtrack, and on the Amtrack you would go from the troop ship over to an LSD and you would go on board this LSD and the Amtrack‘s below and the big door in the back would open up and they would roll out and they would go through the water about that high above the water with maybe ten of you in this Amtrack and they roll up on the beach. These Amtrack‘s, unlike the WWII Amtracks, unlike the WWII Amtracks, or the ones they have now, dropped in the front. So, I‘m thinking, ―If this happens we‘re going to get killed, where you are going to go? You can‘t hide anyplace, and at least if it drops in the back, you got a place to hide‖. 27:02 I‘m thinking, ―Oh god‖, and we all those kinds of things. We would climb up those nets and that was a joy, let me tell you, climbing up and down those nets, especially when you have a whole lot of gear on. 13 �Interviewer: That’s what you’re using to get into the landing craft or whatever you’re using? In and out, yeah, and one time they had me loaded down with over a hundred pounds of gear on this backboard, plus my personal gear and everything, you know. We were motored out to the ship, the nets were down, and you grad onto the vertical ropes and you climb up and it‘s tough. You got your helmet on , buckled, because you can‘t lose it, you‘ve got this heavy M14, which was a great rifle, I‘ll tell ya, a great rifle, slung across you, I had this backboard on me and I had a huge radio on top of that and below that I had my own gear, so I‘m loaded down. 28:00 So, you get up to the top, the railing, and you‘re tired, and what you do is you just reach over the top, you swing a leg over and you just roll and you hit the deck. That‘s what you do, you hit the deck, you lay there and you get up on your knees and then you stand up and you‘re leaning forward because you have so much weight on your back. Interviewer: So, you’ve done one of those exercises and you’re back at camp with the offer of the day and what takes place? So, what happens, all of a sudden sirens go off and I‘m thinking, ―What in the world is going on?‖ Lights are going on, I run back to the company office and the OD‘s there and I said, ―Sir, what is happening?‖ He said, ―We‘re having a recall, everybody who‘s off base is being recalled.‖ He said, ―Those people who are away on leave, even as far away from California as you can get, are being recalled‖. 29:00 California‘s west coast and people are from all over the country and if they‘re on the east coast they‘ve got to get back now. I thought, ―Whoa‖, and he said, ―Also we‘re having what‘s called a ―mout out‖ where you get all your gear ready and you go‖, and I thought, ―Oh, come on now‖, 14 �and I said, ―Are we going to Vietnam?‖ He said, ―I have no idea where we‘re going‖. This is just after Pueblo and North Korea and I‘m thinking, ―Oh geese, I hope it‘s warm‖. Here I‘m from Michigan and I‘ve been in Michigan my whole life and I want a warm climate and I should move to a warm climate anyway. Anyway, everybody came in, even some of the people you never see after—see at 16:30, which is 4:30 in the afternoon, is when liberty starts and when you see some of the lifer NCO‘s coming back in, you know that something is up because they don‘t come in for nothing. 30:01 So, here they‘re coming in and the regular office staff comes in, so I‘m relieved of my corporal of the guard duty and the whole thing, and I hook back up with my communications platoon and our comm chief, he was a pretty good guy, said, ―Okay, everybody down to the comm shack‖, and he said, ―You, you, and you dial the motor pool and get the comm sheets ready‖, so we ran down to the comm shack and we had these mount out pallets, which were huge stacks of individual boxes, which were banded together and you throw your stuff in there and nail the top on it and then the next one, the next one, and the next one. He said, ―Okay, what I want you to do is I want you to start busting apart the pallets‖, so we bust apart the pallets and we took each individual box and we had our radios up on shelves on the wall s all the radios, and he said, ―Start putting the radios in boxes and get everything ready to go‖. 31:03 We worked there, we were doing this all the way until four o‘clock, five o‘clock in the morning, we didn‘t stop, you know. Of course when you‘re nineteen you can do anything, I swear, and I wish I was nineteen again, God. Anyway, we got all this stuff ready and we brought it outside to a truck and they shipped it away and we‘re standing there with nothing to do. We said, ―We‘re done‖, and this communications chief we had was a first sergeant, he had been to 15 �Vietnam, so he said, ―Get over to the mess hall and get some chow‖. He said, ―They‘re keeping it open all day long for all of you people‖, so I said, ―Okay‖, so we went over and got some chow and went back to the barracks with nothing to do, so we started playing cards, which was a way we killed time. 32:04 We played Pinochle, Casino, we played Poker, we played everything, so we‘re just sitting in there all day long doing nothing and wondering, ―What in the world is going on?‖ Finally someone comes in and says, ―Okay, go down to the‖---across from us was another building, which was supply, and he said, ―Okay, go down to supply and draw a seabag‖, and I thought, ―Well, I got a seabag‖, and he said, ―Well draw another seabag‖, so we went down and we each drew another seabag. These were those heavy canvas things they used to have, they were heavy and then you fill them up and they‘re even heavier. Anyway, we came back and he said, ―I want you to start putting things in that seabag you want to send home‖, and they had these big boxes you could then put the seabag in the box, address it, and it would be sent out, and we kept the original seabag. 33:00 We thought, ―Oh boy, something‘s happening‖, so we all got that done, we‘re out in formation , it was at night, evening I should say, and we‘re standing around and our CO says, ―Okay, in the morning you‘ll be transferred to the 27th Marines, which is our sister regiment, still in the states. We said, ―Okay‖, so we went back in squared up the rest of our stuff, cleaned up the barracks and that was it. You couldn‘t get off base, nothing. I called my parents at that point and said, ―I think we‘re going to Vietnam‖, so I gave them all kinds of—I said, ―I got $10,000 insurance‖, that‘s all that I had at the time, and I said, ―if something happens to me, split it up among Marty, Gwen and Gloria‖. Christine wasn‘t there at that time. 34:02 Anyway, I said, ―Okay, I think we‘re going ―, and the next morning trucks 16 �arrived in the back of the barracks. We had a big huge parking area back there and we all jumped on trucks and downed us, Camp Margarita at Camp Pendleton where the 27th Marines was. We got down there and it was chaos, absolute chaos. Here we had our stateside utilities on, we had to wear our flak jackets and our helmets, our M14s, everything. Where were we going to go? And our packs, we‘re ready to go. We get down there and we‘re assigned to units and I was assigned to the 2nd Battalion of the 27th Marines, and they said, ―Well, draw boots, jungle boots‖, and that told me Vietnam, no Korea, Vietnam, because if we were going to Korea we‘d be keeping our leather boots, so that was cool, I‘d rather go there. 35:02 Anyway, I drew boots, they didn‘t have my size, I drew a size too small because that‘s all they had and I eventually gave those away. I went back to the old leathers and then we got all the 27th Marines gear on trucks and went up to El Toro Airbase and maybe you saw that in the movie ―Independence Day‖ when they had that fighter squadron, that‘s the base that we flew out of. We got up there and we‘re sitting over by one of the hangers on the tarmac and we‘re just sitting there with our gear with nothing to do, not even a PX nearby. So, I found a phone and made one last phone call to my parents and told them, ―I think we‘re going‖. Sure enough, it was later on that day, one of those big C-141‘s came in and our gears on a big metal pallet all strapped down and we file in. 36:00 We got on our flak jackets, our helmets, our M14‘s and we‘re sitting on this plane all in rows, gears in the back, and they take off for Hawaii. We landed at Hickam for an hour for refueling and that was the first time I had been to Hawaii. Then they took off and flew to Wake. Have you ever been to Wake? Interviewer: No 17 �Nothing there, I mean nothing there, we landed and it was hot, I mean this place is hot in February, I mean it was like in the summer. Anyway, you land and all you see is water around you, there‘s nothing there. There‘s a lot of FAA personnel that man the island now, or back then, but still, you look around, water, they‘re only about that far above sea level. So, we go into the terminal, the air conditioning, where we can just stretch our legs and we walked around and found a couple of old WWII emplacements that were still there, we refueled and off we go again. 37:04 Headed for the Philippines, and we landed at Clark, which doesn‘t exist anymore because Mount Pinatubo destroyed that. Landed at Clark, a big base, and we file off the plane with flak jackets, helmet, M14‘s, and we start walking around the base. Air Force is really nervous; here you‘ve got all these planes landing with all these marines with rifles. They weren‘t loaded, didn‘t have any ammunition, but they were nervous, I kid you not. They hadn‘t seen anything like this, maybe ever, and finally they told us in the terminal, stack arms and we could have our run of the base, which was neat. Air Force lives like kings let me tell you, they really do. 38:00 So, we went over to a group of barracks, each barracks has their own little EM club, we walked in there and we began pounding down San Miguel beer, ten cents a bottle. San Miguel is one of those beers that goes right through you, I mean there‘s no stopping along the way, it goes in and goes through, and we pounded down a bunch of those and when we got back to the terminal, we were there about five hours, and we took off for Vietnam. We landed in Vietnam and we stayed the first night in Da Nang, and from there our unit went out to a LZ right below Da Nang and the LZ was a one battalion LZ. Well, there was already one battalion there, so our battalion kind of crowded—it got kind of crowded you know. 18 �Interviewer: What is a LZ, a landing zone? A landing zone, yeah, and we got down there and of course, all these guys are from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines who had been there a while. 39:00 We‘re all new guys and they got jungle utilities, jungle boots, jungle this and jungle that, and M16s you know, and here we are walking around in stateside utilities and a lot of us had on the leather boots because they didn‘t have the jungle boots and all that kind of stuff, so you stood out. So, we had to pitch pup tents because there wasn‘t enough for two battalions on the base, so we pitched pup tents and we stayed like that for maybe a week or so and then the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines left. They just had an assignment and they were gone, and it was all ours, and we were there alone. We had gone out on patrols with them. We used to walk down the roads on patrols and you have one side, guys from 3/5, that‘s what Robby called them, 3/5, and guys over here from 2/27. 40:02 You could tell the difference, it was a sharp difference, but we were learning as we were going. This was a smart move on their part, learn, learn, OJT. I cannot stress to anyone who—about any war that they‘re viewing, whether it‘s the two wars going on now or any war in the past or any war in the future, OJT, if you can survive OJT you got it. Interviewer: Now, was this area one where there was a lot of enemy activity? This was during Tet, we landed during Tet. That‘s why we went over there, because apparently it was so bad that they needed extra troops quick and we were part of the extra troops for Tet, we landed during Tet. Yeah, we use to get hit and so on and we learned, you learn and if you don‘t you die. Interviewer: Were you dealing with snipers and mortars and things like that? Everything 19 �Interviewer: Did you have larger units? No, smaller units, snipers, mortars, rockets they were actually in large units, thank God, at that point. 41:10 Later on we would with another outfit, but still—yeah, we‘re learning. The idea is to learn because number one, no matter what anybody tells you, your number one job in combat, I don‘t care what anybody tells you, is to stay alive. If you don‘t stay alive you can‘t do anything else, number one job. Interviewer: What kind of tricks or techniques were you able to learn that was going to help you stay alive while doing these patrols? Don‘t touch anything, don‘t touch, that‘s what got me eventually, somebody touched something and I paid the consequence. But, don‘t touch anything--we had people— unless you know what you‘re doing don‘t touch, because everything is booby trapped and you just don‘t touch it. When you‘re on patrols always spread out when you‘re going on these patrols. 42:07 You got about twenty yards between individuals contrary to what you see on TV. You have a large space in there, let me tell you, because the larger the space the fewer guys are going to get hit or killed. Interviewer: When you were doing this were you going single file spacing that way or were you spread out? No, single file down—like road sweeps, and you walk down the road and you‘re looking all around you, you‘re looking this way, that way, every which way, yeah. You have people—of course I was in infantry, I was—they made me infantry for a short time like that believe it or not. I was a radio operator, but they made me infantry for a very short time and this is what the infantry did, and you have an assignment, or a mission to go out to a certain point and you don‘t talk, you don‘t smoke, don‘t talk unless you have to 20 �because your noise carries. 43:08 You‘re making noise anyway, a group of guys and yeah, you‘re just going down the road and you‘re looking around and it‘s boring, believe it or not, war is boring for the most part. One thing you notice is the guy in front of you, in his back pocket, usually has a little paperback book and what he‘ll do when he gets time to sit down and rest, and he might not have to be out on perimeter, he‘ll sit down and read a few pages of the book, and that‘s the way it was. Interviewer: As you were going on these patrols, I mean was there every anything actually to see or did shots come at you while walking? Yeah, once in a while you get a sniper shooting at you, which is you know, hopefully you‘re not going to get hit. Sometimes there‘s a unit out, there‘s the enemy and they have a mortar and they drop mortars in on you. 44:03 Mortars you can hear coming and the closer they‘re going to hit the less you hear, but still you get a little chance and you hit the ground and you flatten out right away, it‘s just what you do. From there you do what you‘re going to do, you know. That was with the 2/27, I was with them for—after that little infantry stint I got in communications finally, and I was doing communications with them, and actually what happened was that what I had done in the states for the 28th Marines, I did with the 27th Marines, and later on with the other outfits. I was part of what‘s called the tactical air control party, TAC party, and that‘s where you go out in the field and you‘re the guy who‘s responsible—you‘re the communicator and the officer who‘s supposed to be with you, key word is supposed to, is the person who calls in the air strikes and resupplies medevac‘s. 45:07 Anyway, you carried the radio for the guy, well I got news for you, we had very few officers and very few pilots, and it usually 21 �wound up that it was just me and that was it. I was with this outfit and I had the job of all this stuff by myself, no one else, just me and that‘s what happened after a while. Interviewer: So if you got into a situation where you needed air support what did you do? I would talk to the officer in charge out there. I‘d say, ―Skipper, what do you need? Can I help you?‖ He says, ―What do you have on station?‖ You have nothing on station and I said, ―I got nothing on station right now, but I can make a call and see what we can get out here‖. 46:00 He has the forward observer for the artillery and he can call in a fire mission, maybe, so it depends, it just depends if I can get somebody out there to help us out if we need that help. What I would do—you see it in the documentaries, the guy standing up with the radio on his back out in the middle of—―Shoot at me‖, that was me. I‘d do that and bullets flying around me all time and I never got hit with a bullet, never got hit, whizzing over my head, dropping next to me, you never know, and I‘m calling in the air strikes, or whatever, and it‘s scary business. That was when I began to realize why they had so many communications schools going through there. It was a job where you didn‘t last too long usually, and you keep replacing communicators. Yeah, that was with the 27th Marines and from there I left for the 7th Marines. 47:07 As I understand later on, the 27th Marines was only going to stay there until the fall of 1968, and then all the short timers were going to go into the 27th Marines and all the 27th Marines were going back to the states as a unit. Interviewer: You were a four year man, so they were going to assign you to something that was going to stay out there longer? 22 �Well, I was surprised they didn‘t grab me earlier. Anyway, I went to the 7th Marines and I wound up at the 7th Marines regimental headquarters, cushy job, I should have stayed there, but guess what? I‘m not real bright see, and I was there for a while, communications, and I did what I had to do. Interviewer: Were you manning one of the big radios? We had the small radios in the command bunker and whatever I was doing I was using the small—the big radios didn‘t really—they were in Da Nang out in battalion [division?] level, but in regimental level you didn‘t have hardly any of that stuff. 48:09 Anyway, we‘re sitting there and we got the small radios, which are adequate, and are called PRC25‘s, small radios, carrying them on your back if you want. Anyway, I was there with the 7th Marines for a while, and like I said, I wasn‘t real bright, and I kept saying, ―I want to get out of this place, I want to get out of this place, nothing‘s happening here‖. Little did I know, so anyway, finally my company commander—see, when you‘re in communication you‘re always part of headquarters support in the communications platoon, and your NCO, the comm chief, they finally got sick of me and they transferred me down to the 3rd Battalion 7th Marines, my last outfit. 49:01 I get down there and I‘ll tell ya, I didn‘t know I stepped in it. Boy, I get down there and I was busy. Interviewer: Where were they stationed? Okay now, the LZ for 2/27 was right below Da Nang and the 7th Marines was over on Hill 55, which is a little bit west. Interviewer: is that Central Highlands country? No, we were up at I Corps. Interviewer: So, up in the northern part. 23 �Yeah, up at I Corps, and then a little southwest of Hill 55 was Hill 37 where the 3rd battalion was and that‘s where I went to eventually. That was about, geez I‘m trying to think, June 1, 1968, that I got to the 3rd Battalion 7th Marines. I get down there and I didn‘t get a greeting like I got at the 7th Marine headquarters. My first night there they rocketed us, oh my god, the first time I had these huge rockets coming at me, unbelievable. 50:04 I mean we were crawling in the dirt trying to get away from where they were hitting, you know. But anyway, I get down to the 3rd battalion and I check in and there aren‘t many of us. Now, here you got four companies, four grunt companies, four infantry companies in a battalion, and normally the way it‘s set up, when I learned it in the states was a TAC party unit going out was an officer and two communicators. As I learned with the 2/27, we didn‘t have enough people, and at regimental, regimental didn‘t have to worry about that, Now, 3rd Battalion 7th Marines we didn‘t have enough people, we had even less than 2/27 had, so what happens is that, I got to get back in to calling in stuff like I used to , so I went out with another guy a couple times just to check me out and to be sure that I knew what I was doing, and I did. 51:06 After that it was just a grunt company and me. I‘d be assigned something and I‘d be going out and maybe it would be Lima company, L Company, I‘d go out with them for a while, however long it was and do what I do, airstrikes, resupplies, medevac‘s, the whole thing, and come back in, just come back in just in time to do what we called the three s‘s, shit, shower and shave, maybe catch some chow, and go back out again. The next company, maybe it‘s M company, Mike, and you‘re back out again with them doing something. Interviewer: So, do you think you were out in the field more than the regular infantry guys? 24 �Yeah, the grunts Interviewer: They got longer breaks between, but there weren’t enough of you guys. Yeah, they get longer breaks and we just had to keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it, so the odds keep going down on me. 52:00 Interviewer: What kind of fighting was going on here? Were you engaging sort of North Vietnamese forces as far as you can tell? Usually Vietcong— well, Vietcong during Tet had been pretty much wiped out and NVA, North Vietnamese forces, were moving in, and yeah, we would engage them. You hardly ever find any bodies, they were good at picking up their bodies and going, they really were, and yeah, there was a lot of that. Interviewer: Were these mostly small scale fire fights? Small scales, yeah, yeah, we did—the one—a couple of times we‘d assault the tree lines, there was a large unit in there and we don‘t know how many we killed. All I know is that we found three bodies and when we reported to Stars and Stripes, they came out and said we‘d killed three hundred—propaganda, I swear, god it was horrible, we‘d read the Stars and Stripes and just laugh. 53:02 When they talk about something you were involved in and you knew it was different, we‘d say, ―Geez‖. Interviewer: So, if you’re doing a fight like that you assume they had an actual target to attack? Oh yeah Interviewer: They bring in artillery, airpower, and then send you guys in? 25 �Oh yeah, in fact when we hit the tree line, we hit it with artillery for two days straight, we hit it with airstrikes two days straight and we went in behind flame tanks after that, oh yeah. Interviewer: There couldn’t be anybody left after that. You‘d be surprised, you‘d be surprised, those suckers were tough and they were well dug in and they were tough, oh yeah. We go to the tree line and we go behind the tanks with the flames and we do what‘s called recon by fire. You put your M-16 on automatic and you‘re spraying, and it‘s called recon by fire, and we‘d do that. Unbelievable, and we went to the tree line and we stopped for the night and someone, I don‘t know what happened, but someone didn‘t—I got separated from the CO, I don‘t know why, I don‘t know how. 54:10 I kept walking and finally I get up to a point and I realize there‘s no one going by me anymore. I look around and I don‘t see anybody and I‘m thinking, ―Oh shit, what did I do?‖ And here I‘m out in the middle of nowhere. So, there was a ditch and it had just rained, so I slid down the ditch and lay on the one muddy wall. I‘m lying there with my file in my hand and my radio on my back and I‘m thinking, ―Oh God, what the hell did I do? I got to stay here until daylight at least‖, so I‘m there until daylight. Daylight comes around and I‘m awake because you‘re scared. 55:00 I peeked my head up and I don‘t see anything and I thought, ―Oh, geez‖. I could call on the radio, I could do that, but during the night you don‘t want to do that. In the daytime it‘s different because it‘s a little different anyway. So, I peek my head up farther and I see a guy sitting about thirty yards away, one of our guys. I thought, ―Oh God thanks‖, so I made my way over to him and I said, ―Where the hell are we?‖ He said, ―Who the hell are you?‖ I said, ―I‘m the forward air controller, I got separated from the CO‖, and he said, 26 �―The CO is back there, a hundred yards‖ , and I thought, ―Oh shit‖, and I said, ―Okay, okay‖. He said, ―Just—we got guys all along here, just make your way back‖. I‘ll tell ya, talk about stupid. 56:04 I told you I wasn‘t real bright, you know. Anyway, that was one time, and another time I was attached to India Company, I Company, and India Company, at that time, had a CO, how can I describe him? He was not well thought of, put it that way, and he lived up to that expectation, he did. He was a Captain and he used to, when he was with our battalion, he was given jobs that were easy jobs, relatively speaking, road sweeps and stuff like that, which you can get into trouble, but your odds of getting into huge trouble are diminished. 57:01 He used to be given those kind of jobs because the battalion CO didn‘t think that he was—I don‘t know for a fact that he thought this, but with the actions, and easy jobs is a reason why, and also, he was a very important person, this Captain, he had political clout, yes, big political clout. So, the idea was not to let him get into too much trouble. Anyway, needless to say, India was doing a road sweep between the hills—one of the platoons of India was on Hill 37 and the rest of it was over on Hill 65, and the idea was for me, as forward air controller, to go with this platoon over to this Hill 65, meet up with the rest of the company that is going to do the road sweep, over to Hill 52 and drop off a convoy for the army. 58:02 Now, at this time, what happens is that—every battalion has an air officer, a pilot, and we had an F-4 pilot that was the air officer and had never been out in the field, a great guy, pilots are fabulous people, I mean they really are great. I loved them and that‘s why I loved the job that I had, I could deal with pilots, you know. They were fabulous people, I loved the pilot. So anyway, they decided we were going to do a regular setup this time where we have an officer and two communicators, which was ―wow‖, just like the book says. So, 27 �Lieutenant Ferguson, the pilot, everybody called him ―Fergie‖, he was going to go out for the first time , otherwise he stayed in the battalion the whole time, he didn‘t go anyplace, but he would—he hooked up with then, with Jim Logan and myself and I was carrying one radio and Jim was carrying another radio and Fergie was just himself. 59:02 I‘m assuming that Fergie was so nervous about going out in the field that he got drunker than a skunk the night before, typical, and I mean he was wasted. So, we got him over to the platoon and we hooked up and went over to Hill 65. There, they had tanks, Amtracks, and six by‘s, and this was all going to be part of a convoy going out to Hill 52 to meet with the army who‘s coming in from Thuong Duc to pick up their supplies. Thuong Duc was also, one of the areas where we would go to rescue if they got hit. Anyway, so were going out there and Fergie is so drunk –we‘re on top of the Amtrack and in the back of the back of the Amtrack is the ventilator or the ―dog house‘ and he‘s back there sleeping off his hangover. 00:03 Jim and I are up in front and we‘re going down the road, we got a tank in front of us, we got tanks behind us and you got six by‘s and Amtracks you know. Interviewer: So, you got your lieutenant and your Captain arguing about what to do. Yeah, so finally the Captain says, ―This is a direct order Lieutenant, get your people on top of these two vehicles and we‘re going back‖, but he climbs on top of two vehicles. I‘m on the first Amtrack and I‘m sitting right behind the driver, who is down in his hole, and I‘m sitting there and next to me is the Lieutenant in charge of the Amtracks. He‘s sitting there with a sand bagged air cooled 30 caliber and next to him is Jim Logan, my buddy and then behind me is a mass of humanity and Fergie‘s still back in the ―dog 28 �house‖ still sleeping it off. He tied one on, so anyway, we‘re going down the road and pick up the guys we dropped off, and the tank treads are about that wide and Amtrack treads are about this wide, so the driver is putting his treads in their tracks. 1:10 He figures, if there‘s a mine out there he‘s going to get it, not us, a smart guy. So, we‘re going down the road picking up guys and we‘re to almost where we started from and once we do that ―pow‖, we put the pedal to the metal and we‘re out of there. Well, sitting over in the bushes, as we always called him, ―Luke the Gook‖ with a detonator in his hand. That means if you run over the mine it won‘t go off until he pushes the plunger, so I‘m sure when he was our Amtrack with so many guys on top, he‘s saying, ―Oh my God, what a target‖. The tank rolls over, nothing happens, our Amtrack rolls over and right when the back of the Amtrack where the engines at, he pushes it and ―wham‖. 2:01 This Amtrack weighs about sixty two tons. Interviewer: This is one of those— Amphibious vehicles and you also use them on land too; they used them in Iraq that way too, on land. Anyway, he blows it and this thing weighs about sixty two tons, not including the people on top, their gear, the fuel, the ammunition, whatever gear is inside, so who knows how much this sucker weighs. This whole thing goes up almost on nose, imagine that? Here I am right in the very front and I‘m looking at the dirt in the road all of a sudden in front of my face. It happened so fast, you cannot believe, and if that thing had gone all the way over, I wouldn‘t be sitting here today, we‘d all have been dead except the ones that were blown off. Anyway, I‘m sitting there and I‘m thinking, ―uh, oh‖, and the road is in front of my face and I‘m stunned because, ―What in the world?‖ 3:01 The thing drops back down on what‘s left of its tracks. Well these things are 29 �maybe eight feet in the air, tops, and I jump off, hit the ground running and there‘s some barbed wire next to the road, busted right through that, down through the bushes, into a dry rice paddy. I‘m lying there; I‘m flat on my face, lying there, I‘m just lying there waiting for the assault. My rifle was gone, my radio was gone, I didn‘t know where anybody else was, guys were around me, I could see that, and nothing. I thought, ―Oh geez‖, and I wait, and I wait, and I wait, nothing, nothing happens, so I get up and I walk back up the embankment and there‘s the Amtrack burning. The driver‘s still in the hole and there‘s a guy laying on top burning. The driver jumps out of his hole, throws him off the top onto the ground and they smother the fire, but the guy eventually died. 4:05 there was no one else on top of the Amtrack, so I walk around and I‘m looking for Jim. I find him, and I said, ―Where‘s Fergie?‖ He said, ―I don‘t know, I don‘t know‖, and I said, ―Geez, we got to find him‖, so we walked around and seventy five yards away here‘s Fergie lying on a mound, burned about the face, the hands, the neck, all the exposed areas. His clothes were burned, he was right over the explosion and he got thrown seventy five yards away. What happened, I didn‘t have my radio and there was a grunt infantry walking around dazed and I said, ―Come here, you‘re mine, kneel down‖, and I dialed in my frequency and I called in the medevac‘s. 5:00 Fortunately, what happened was our area was being partially being taken over by the 1st Battalion 5th Marines and all there choppers were going back and forth bringing their people and when I called in the medevac‘s they diverted them. I medevaced seventeen guys out of that mess and then we brought thirteen back with us with all the rest of the vehicles, yeah. I never saw Lieutenant Moore again—he was—I don‘t know whatever happened to him. I know the Captain wasn‘t on the Amtrack and I saw him on TV this past weekend while I 30 �was snowmobiling up in Kalkaska. It was something going on in Washington and he was in the audience, never forget a face, never forget a face, even though it‘s thirty some years later. 6:02 Interviewer: Who was this fella anyway? Captain Charles Robb Interviewer: Oh my You know who he was? Interviewer: Naturally, the son-in-law of Lynden Johnson, right? Exactly, he married Lynden Johnson‘s—it was Linda Bird and he became a US Senator from Virginia. Yeah, well after that, Captain Robb got transferred up to division G-4, which is transportation and supply and I never heard from him again, how‘s that? Interviewer: Now, how much longer did you stay with this unit? I was just attached to them, I was with the 3rd of the 7th Marines and I did other operations. Like I say, we went out one time and we were going through a woods and the enemy saw us and they dropped mortars in on us and one mortar dropped on a group of guys and right in the center. Whew, knocked them all down, a couple guys got chopped up pretty good from the shrapnel. 7:02 I was about thirty yards away, the concussion knocked me over, I mean it‘s that much. It depended, just doing different things with different outfits and what happened, in the summer of 1968, this is before this Amtrack thing, every regiment has four infantry, grunt companies, and one night Lima and Kilo were out on a sweep and I was with Mike. Mike came back in, so I came back to base camp and I got my three ess‘s and a little more and it was great. All of a sudden we heard that Lima and Kilo had run into a reinforced North Vietnamese Army force, a 31 �reinforced battalion or something, and there was a hell of a fight going on, and that Kilo had gotten hit bad, real bad. 8:02 So, I was assigned back to Mike again and we went back out there and linked up with Lima. We got out there and the company commander and of, of course, sat down and we sent our guys out and we set up a perimeter. What happened is that Lima was licking it‘s wounds, they weren‘t hit so bad, but Kilo got wiped out. I mean our company guys, we were never full strength, no one was full strength over there, so we‘re talking over a hundred guys easily, maybe a hundred and fifty guys, and I don‘t know how many got killed, but a ton of them. So, we had these big Chinook choppers, so what happened, every guy out there, who was available, one would grab the arms and one would grab the legs, they would walk to the back of the chopper and drop the body off, out the side, come back around, grab another body and around and so on and so forth. 9:04 I don‘t know how many choppers of dead I medevaced out of Kilo, just they wiped out that company something fierce. So, we went with Lima sweeping for that battalion and never found them, made it back to base camp and we were, all of a sudden, a three company battalion. We operated that way until September when what was left of Kilo they formed a whole new company around them. Now, you got to understand this, when they‘re forming a whole new company around— these are mostly new guys from the states who don‘t know their ass from a hole in the ground, they really don‘t, like me once. Again, I‘m not too bright, and I should have been more cognizant of that fact. 10:02 I went out with them on their second or third time out and you‘re going through ojt at this point for them, so we went out in a blocking force, which is a pretty easy job, you set in and you block while somebody pushes the enemy toward you and you pick them off. It gets kind of hairy because bullets are flying 32 �all over the place and you never know, you know. Anyway, so we‘re out there and finally the 2nd Battalion 7th Marines had been the pushing force. They pushed toward us, got up to us, and that was it. Then we all went our separate ways, and a long story short, we went someplace, they went someplace, and we were where we were for a day or so and then we went back to this place where they were and they went someplace else, and that‘s where the end of the world happened. We landed there and I was out with a guy named Holcomb, a new guy, showing him the ropes. 11:08 I told him how to do this, and this, and this, and I said, ―This is how we‘re going to do it‖, and so on. The first thing I had written down was how to do a medevac, the very first thing. I said, ―This is how you do a medevac‖. I wrote it down for him in a little booklet and I said, ―Just watch what I do and you learn, and that‘s the way you learn‘, so anyway, he was there and we walked around the whole area looking for a place to stay for the night, someplace to lay down and so on, you know. Here were all these grunts in the area and they picked all the good spots first, so we got back to where we started from. So, I said, ―Nah, let‘s just take the poncho‖, and there was a big berm of dirt, ―We‘ll stake it up on top, stretch it across and stake it at the bottom. We‘ll sleep underneath and we‘re done‖, so that‘s what we did. 12:04 There was a pathway through the berm to a dyke going across this ditch. The company CO was on the other side and I thought, ―We‘re okay, no big deal‖, so that night we sat in and that was it. The next morning I get up , and being the senior person for the air control, I figure, ―I‘m going to go over and talk to the CO and see what he‘s going to do that day and if he needs anything on station, and what does he need‖, it was part of my job. So again, not real bright, I get up, it was about seven o‘clock in the morning as I remember correctly, and I walk through that opening in the berm, start 33 �walking across this dyke, there was a guy standing there and he was pulling on this tree and I didn‘t pay any attention to it and I should have. 13:02 ‗Don‘t touch anything‖, I learned that, ―Don‘t touch anything unless you know what you‘re doing‖, well, these guys didn‘t know anything. I get about eight feet past this guy and the world blew up, just unbelievable, I just, you can‘t imagine, everything just ―whoo‖. I was standing there and I had lit up, I smoked at the time and had a cigarette in I don‘t know which one of these two hand, I forgot which one. I had this hand out in front of me and I saw this finger go and this is all in a few seconds. I turned it toward me and it was cut right off straight and I thought, ―If that‘s all there is, I‘m lucky‖, because I‘d seen enough guys getting blown up and shot up and I knew how bad it could get, and then the concussion knocks you over. I hit the ground and I‘m lying there and I look around and everything is red and I thought, ―Oh God‖, and a few other things. 14:10 So then what I did, I rolled over and I looked down at my feet because being in the job I was in I knew a lot of guys who ran into land mine, I knew it was a land mine automatically, lost their feet, so I looked down at my feet to see if they were still there. I looked down and they were still there and I thought, ―If I roll on my stomach, will they come with me?‖ No joke, I rolled and they came with me and I thought, ―Yeah, I made it‖. I rolled over and got up on my elbows and I began screaming for a corpsman, and the corpsman was real close by, but I think it took him five years to get there, I swear to god, just the time lapse. He gets over there, reaches down and rolls me back over on my back and began cutting clothes off of me. 15:05 I‘m sure he hit me with morphine, I don‘t know for a fact, they bandaged me up like a mummy, I didn‘t know what was wrong with me, all I knew is when I rolled, ―Do not bend your knees‖. If there‘s shrapnel in there you don‘t want to—that was my 34 �thinking anyway, so he rolled me back and I‘m lying there and I looked over to my left and I had a watch on this hand that‘s the scar, it was still on, it was inside the wrist, and I thought, ―Whoa‖, the face was all blown out, the band was broken in half, so I twisted my wrist over and each side could flop either way, but it stayed inside my wrist, you know. 16:00 So, I shook my wrist and it fell out, and I‘m thinking the whole time, I don‘t feel any pain, maybe because of a shot, maybe morphine, I don‘t know. Anyway, I‘m lying there and they cut the clothes off me, and let me tell you something, when you‘re lying naked out in the field, in the morning after it rains, it‘s cold, I mean it‘s cold. They threw me into a poncho, and that‘s cold, let me tell you, that‘s cold, it really is. It‘s just like being on an operating table without any blankets on there and it‘s cold in that operating room, so I‘m out there in the middle of the field, totally naked now, all bandaged up, and it‘s cold. I‘m thinking, ―Awe geez‖, so they, good old Holcomb, calls in the medevac just like I taught him. He did a good job and he was all alone out there. just like I used to be, all alone. 17:02 Then from there I flew into Da Nang, and the Marine Corps use to use these old H-34 Choctaws from the Korean War. You could run faster than they could fly. They had the big door on the side and the big bulbous nose and the wheels were fixed down all the time, so they came out, it was early in the morning, emergency medevac, flew me into Da Nang, and I got in there and we landed. They rushed out to grab me and rushed me into the emergency. I‘m lying there and all these IV poles are all around me and I‘m thinking, ―What in the world is all this stuff?‖ Then I passed out, I had lost so much blood. Interviewer: Were you hit in the body as well? 35 �Well, what it did , it blew off—it was on the left side, I was in mid step when it went off, it blew off about a third of the left calf, it pulverized the entire left leg going up to the left buttocks. 18:07 I got it in the left arm, inside of the right leg, which means both knees got it, and I just got a knee replacement by the way, which was after all these years it finally wore out. Then I got something in the left eye and didn‘t know it, little pieces that I found out later on. I lost so much blood that I had cardiac arrest, I guess it was an embolism had formed in one of my veins and it broke loose and went to my heart and I was dead. The last think they recorded, according to the records, was four and a half minutes of no activity, so I was gone to the other side. What‘s really weird is somehow the doctor got me back, obviously, I‘m sitting here today. 19:04 I told you about the books that you read and war is boring except for the times you‘re out in the field and something happens, but that doesn‘t happen all the time, it really doesn‘t, it‘s just the normal patrols and routine and it‘s boring, but you‘ve got to be alert, and if you get a chance you sit down and you read something, whatever you can do, you know. Something they show on TV, of guys when they sit down and they‘re playing cards a little bit, or whatever, well that happens, that happens. I‘m an avid reader and you read whatever you can get ahold of, in Vietnam not a whole lot to read, let me tell ya. So, I had read this one—I had read two books, no a bunch of books, but one book I remember especially, the last one, about the Marines in WWI. That‘s all there was to read, so I read it. 20:00 So anyway, so here I am and I‘m out, okay? My mind is somewhere and I‘m fighting Vietnam in my mind, and I‘m also fighting WWI in my mind. Mix those two together and that‘s a trip. When I finally came to I was disoriented, I knew I was in a hospital, but other than that—I had amnesia, couldn‘t remember who I was, nothing, and 36 �I had—in fact it was so bad, I found out from a buddy of mine who was a crew chief on a Chinook, he told me , because he was there when I was there and he got hit about the time I got hit, and he told me, he said, ―Yeah, we used to do these medevac‘s and go out to the USS Sanctuary, which is a hospital ship, or was a hospital ship at that time‖. 21:03 I said, ―Yeah, I was out there for a while. I remember quite distinctly being out there. They used to put me in a wheelchair, strap me in so I wouldn‘t fall out and wheel me out on the deck for fresh air, it was great‖. ―Yeah‖, he said, ―People we brought out to the Sanctuary were scheduled to die‖. I said, ―Really‖, Gordy, he was the crew chief and he said, ―Yeah, they were scheduled to die, the ones we brought out there‖. I said, ―Whoa, no one told me that, if I‘d gotten orders I‘d have done that, but I didn‘t, so what can I say?‖ So, I made it off the Sanctuary, and through the system back to the states, and wound up in Great Lakes over here by Chicago, and then, of course, recovery after that. I went to college, got a degree and became a teacher, God help me. 22:02 I stayed with that a few years and realized that was not for me. Interviewer: What level were you teaching? Junior high and high and the people who hired me loved me, I was good, they loved me, but I just couldn‘t—it wasn‘t for me. So, then I did something else and something else, and back during the seventies jobs were bad, not as bad as they are now, but they were bad back then, and you take what you can get. Finally I got a job working for the Disabled American Veterans, a service organization. The perfect job for me and I worked there for twenty-one years, and fortunately they were into state retirement, the same way my teaching was. I worked for the State of Michigan a while, that was state retirement and it was beautiful, it all bundled together. I worked for the veterans for 37 �twenty-one years and I was a service officer. 23:00 I‘d do the claims, I‘d counsel them, I‘d do this, that, and everything, you know and I retired and I‘m happy. Really, that‘s been my life more or less. Interviewer: A couple of basic questions, and one of them is, as you really got into things in Vietnam, the routine, patrolling, and the different assignments you were getting, and stuff was kind of blowing up around you, and that kind of thing, were you wondering why you were there, did you have some understanding? No, no, no, I put that all out of my mind. It was a job I had to do and I was sort of numb to that. Interviewer: Where you thinking kind of day to day? Day to day Interviewer: Were you counting how long— Was I counting the days? You betcha, I had a calendar, a plain white calendar back at base camp and I‘d be marking off the days, you know, although I have to be honest about it, I planned on extending. 24:01 I had a younger brother coming up behind me and at the time, the word was, it wasn‘t official, was that if you were in service and you were in Vietnam and you had a sibling who, say got drafted or whatever, they couldn‘t be sent to Vietnam while you were there. So, even though Marty was six years younger than me, I had no idea what was going to happen and I thought, ―I‘m going to stay here forever if I have to, if I have to‖, just so Marty wouldn‘t have to do it and whoo, it was scary. Interviewer: To look back at the whole thing now, how do you think that whole experience affected you as a person? 38 �It‘s amazing, it took me thirteen years after I go home—see I was retired out medically from the Marine Corps, It was that bad. 25:01 It took me thirteen years after that to fully come to grips with what happened. I was just going through life, I‘d gotten married, then kids and all—it wasn‘t kids yet, I‘d gotten married and waited for kids, and it was about thirteen years, and I never really thought about it. I used to talk about it a lot, like I do now, I can do that now easily again, but I used to do that, but It never really hit me right there. I could see myself every day how badly chopped up I was, and I knew it was going to get worse, which it has, I‘ll tell you that, it really does, old age plus all this stuff, it‘s not a lot of fun, I‘ll tell ya. I didn‘t—I ignored it and then one day I was doing a claim at the VA, I worked with the Disabled American Veterans, and I was doing my own claim. 26:04 I knew my parents had received telegrams after I had been hit, from the Marine Corps, tell how bad I was and what my status was, and they were not great, let me tell you, they were not great. They were saying, basically, this kid ought to die, he probably will die, so be prepared, that‘s what the sum of the whole thing is, it was that bad. I remember, when I got home I looked at those, my mom had them, I read them and it still didn‘t hit me, even reading the telegrams and I was through it. Finally, thirteen years later I was doing a claim at the VA, trying to get an extra benefit here or there, or whatever, you know, and I called my mom, and I was married at the time, and I said to her, I said, ―Mom, I‘m doing a claim with the VA and I need to use those telegrams‖. 27:04 ―Well‖, she said, ―I don‘t really want to give them, even though they‘re about you, I don‘t want to give them out. Why don‘t I have your father make copies of them at work?‖ My father was an automotive engineer and he could go in to work, to the copy machine, and do anything he wanted to do, you know. So, my mom gathered up the 39 �telegrams and gave them to my dad, he went into work and made copies, and then came back and the copies were waiting for me at home, or at my parents‘ house. I said to my wife, ―I‘m going to go over and get the copies later on‖, and what happened was, we were moving out here. I‘d just gotten the job here, and we were over by Detroit, so our apartment was all chaos. We had a bar stool sitting in the middle of the floor, so I‘m sitting on the bar stool with the phone there. 28:05 I‘m sitting there and the phone rings, my wife gives me the phone, and I‘m sitting on the bar stool talking to my mom. I said, ―Yeah mom‖, and she said, ―Your father called and said that he had made the copies and he‘ll bring them home‖, and I said, ―Great, I‘ll be over later on‖, but she said, ―I just realized I had forgotten to give him one of the telegrams‖, and I said, ―Well‖, I said, ―Gee, I don‘t know if it‘s important or not, why don‘t you read it to me and I‘ll see if It‘s important‖. A stupid thing to do, God that was so stupid I couldn‘t believe I said that, I wasn‘t thinking. So, anyway, she reads the telegram to me over the phone, and I‘m sitting there and I‘m thinking about it and it hits me, the first time in thirteen years, the first time. 29:00 I went nuts, my wife is just getting ready to go to work, and I‘m sitting there, I take the phone over my head and slam it into the floor, and my wife is saying, ―What the hell is going on?‖ I started crying uncontrollably, I went to the door, up against the door, and I‘m pounding on the door, and I‘m thinking, ―Oh my God‖, it gets me going a little right now, you know, and I‘m thinking, ‗What the hell happened?‖ It was me, and so my wife picks up the phone and she says, ―Mom‖, she says, and my mom is going crazy on the other end of the phone, and she says, ―Mom I‘ll get back to you later, something is wrong with Derek‖, and finally she got me calmed down. I sat down and I just—it was horrible, I just cried and I told her, I said, ―Geez, that was me‖. 30:00 40 �So, finally I got it together the end of the day, went over to see my parents and we sat down and we talked at the kitchen table and we cried, God we cried and ever since then it‘s been better, but I‘ll tell you, traumatic. Interviewer: What kind of support were you able to get from the Veterans Administration, or anybody else? I‘m your typical vet, I‘m in denial, you know, I really am, I‘m in denial, I always was, but not anymore, I don‘t deny anything anymore, I just don‘t do it, it‘s not worth it. I went to the VA, of course I had medical problems and dealing with the VA, I went to them a lot. 31:07 My wife would go with me once in a while and she got disgusted with it, you know, because it was a crazy system. It got better, but still it never—I never went for anything emotional, and I never dealt with it and I should have, I should have and I didn‘t do that until the very end, after I got divorced years later, but then I had already come to grips with it myself and I was well past that. They had group for people who had PTSD and everybody who‘s in combat has PTSD, I don‘t care what anybody tells you, everybody‘s got it to some degree and how you deal with it then is something else too. I used to—in the very beginning I had nightmares, but I got over that. 32:03 All the stuff that I saw, I was able to internalize and handle that, and being in the job that I was in, working for the DAV, that was the greatest counseling in the world. Here I am talking to people like me, I don‘t care what war they‘re in, we can relate and it‘s therapy. I don‘t care what anybody tells you, it‘s therapy. We could talk about thing, or different places we were at, or wars, or whatever, or how things were, and it was great. I get my job done and they walk out and I always had a goal and that was, anybody that walked in my office would walk out receiving more than they ever expected to, that was my goal all the 41 �years that I worked, and I lived up to that. I figured, I want to give them everything, and I did that. 33:02 I did a pretty good job too, all the years that I worked. Like I say, it‘s one of those things—the VA, as far as the system, the bureaucracy—one thing I always, and I almost got fired for this, I always—I told my boss this, the hierarch of the DAV, of course they‘re invested in the VA, my boss was one of them at the time, at least one of the bosses I had, and I‘d say, ―Mike, this is stupid‖. I said, ―Here we are veterans and the system is now that you have to go to the clinic here in town, which doesn‘t have a whole lot of capabilities‖, but they handle basic stuff. If you need more you have to go to a veteran‘s hospital. How far away is that? 34:01 In this case, not Battle Creek because that‘s the best Psychiatric unit, and maybe I should have wound up there, I don‘t know, but you go to Ann Arbor, or Detroit, or Allen park at the time. Yet anybody here in town, and this was one of the big things, anyone on Medicaid could go locally for anything they wanted. I said, ―They treat us like second class citizens‖. I used to be rather vociferous about that and almost got fired, but I didn‘t though. Even though Mike sympathized with me, he never went to the VA, he was the boss, so he made more money, he had good health insurance like we did, but he would go privately for all that stuff and so did everybody else who could do that. That‘s what I do now, my insurance is fabulous now, I don‘t go to the VA for anything, because I can get it locally, everything I can get locally and then all I have to do is wait for the end of the year on my medical, if I have any prescriptions, I take it off my taxes. 35:07 I have to wait a year for it and with the VA you get it right now. So, you have to wait or go through the hassle, and that was always the problem with the VA, I just—when I had my hip done two years ago, my hip wore out because of limping on my left leg for thirty-five plus 42 �years, the right hop wore out, it never got hit. I had that done locally and if I had the VA do it, I‘d have to go over to Ann Arbor or Detroit, come on now. Interviewer: A different kind of question. When you got back from Vietnam and you’re out of the hospital, did you talk to people much about being in Vietnam and did people ask you stuff? Remember, I was in denial, so it was easy. I didn‘t get emotional about it and it was very easy to do that. You find people like you who had been there and you talk about it over a couple of beers, or whatever, good old times, you know, and you do that. 36:07 Interviewer: Did people who hadn’t been there want to know anything about it, or did you get treated oddly because you had been there? At that point it wasn‘t like it was in the sixties, okay. Now, I understand, people had told me that in the sixties when they came back that they were spit on and called baby killers, I don‘t remember that because I went through the hospital system on the way back, so I never—and then when I was in college, I don‘t—there was none of that stuff when I was in college. People would talk to me about it and that was in the seventies, the early seventies, 71, 72, 73, and whatever, you know. Yeah, but no, there wasn‘t any of that stuff, I don‘t remember any of that, and I don‘t know if it ever happened, to tell you the truth. I know people who didn‘t like the war, and that‘s fine, and I don‘t blame them. I didn‘t like it and I was there. 37:00 It‘s one of those things, yeah, that you—I didn‘t get any of that. Interviewer: As a final thing, if you were going to give any advice, maybe to military families now, people who’ve got relatives, maybe, over I Iraq or 43 �Afghanistan, or anything like that, about how to support the family members, and so forth, who are there, what can you tell them? Well, it‘s a little different now; unfortunately we have a very small group now bearing the burden. Not like when I was there, we had a large group bearing the burden. That‘s unfortunate, the war is unfortunate, let‘s put it that way, but you have to, if you‘re a military family, or a friend of a military family, when these people come home, both men and women now, when I was there you didn‘t have women in combat, all men, and the only women you saw in uniform were the nurses, basically that was about it. 38:06 You have to treat them with a lot of respect, you really do, because they‘re bearing a burden now that even we weren‘t asked to bear, even when I was in Vietnam. Now they have these ungodly tours, now you have a total obligation that you always sign up for and you enact part of that obligation you signed up for and the rest is inactive. That‘s what we were under and they‘re still under that now, except there‘s so few troops they‘re going for the entire obligation and they‘re keeping you in, I mean, that‘s what they‘ve been doing. I‘s tough, it‘s duration without saying duration like in WWII. In WW II at least they‘d say duration and even then though these guys in combat in WWII would go into combat for whatever short time, they‘d be pulled back and they would go in again, and pulled back. 39:04 You would go back in and be pulled back, now in Iraq and Afghanistan you‘re never pulled back, you‘re there all the time, and if the tour is even longer and you have more tours, no wonder you got a higher PTSD rate going on right now, no wonder, talk about abusing people, that‘s what it‘s doing. Again, it depends on the individual, some individuals can take a lot, some individuals can‘t, some individuals see more, some individuals don‘t, it‘s a whole mix of things. If you‘re a friend of a 44 �family you have to give them consideration, you really do, and we didn‘t have that back in Vietnam. In WWI I guess they all hung together because they were all together and it was different. Interviewer: And there were a lot of them. 40:01 Korea was treated much—and Vietnam were very similar in that way, you didn‘t really hang together as much as you did in WWII, even though it was a short time after WWII. Vietnam was that much later and you didn‘t hang together and that‘s the problem it‘s— and then you see a lot of spouses on TV talking about the VA system. I‘m not talking about the Walter Reed thing they had, that‘s part of DOD still, except you can get out of that and it‘s run by the VA now and it‘s a hassle. While you in, medical care is beautiful, it‘s fabulous, and then when you get to the outpatient, while you‘re still in the service and when you‘re not actually in the hospital ward all the time , it‘s a little better, except for this thing out at Walter Reed where someone screwed up there royal, and the VA, you get out and you‘re on your own. Unless somebody tells you what‘s going on, you‘re picking up little bits of information here and there and everywhere, you don‘t know. 41:08 That‘s where people like me come in with our jobs. We spread the word, not that we did a great job, we did what we could, and yeah, it‘s a tough time. When both these wars started I had my misgivings, I did, I really did, I had misgivings about it. They were saying in and out real quick , well we can do that, with a great military you can do that, but afterward, that‘s where the hassle comes in and it‘s a mess. Interviewer: We do what we can to provide whatever support we can. That‘s right, it‘s—you really have to support these people, it‘s—I have a lot of friends of mine that are Vietnam vets an, of course, after Desert Storm and guys came back from 45 �that very short thing they had going and they got the parades and the accolade‘s and that. 42:03 The guys my age were saying, ―We didn‘t get any of that stuff‘. We got nothing, we got ignored and I used to say, ―Hey that‘s just the way it is, you can‘t change it‖, and now with the guys coming back there‘s—again they‘re getting accolade‘s, thanks and the whole thing, you know, and that‘s great, you should do that, but still some of the guys my age, we‘re hanging together and we didn‘t get any of that stuff Interviewer: That’s in part because of what happened with you guys. They began to realize, after Korea, that it was not fair. Exactly, that‘s exactly, Korea wasn‘t fair, same thing that happened in Korea happened in Vietnam. Interviewer: You have to separate the politics from it, and at least part of that lesson seems to have sunk in. You really do—the guy across the street from me, Marine Corps reserve, spent a tour in Iraq, he came home and I went over and talked to him right away. He knew I retired, you know, I mean, I understand, I understand. 43:07 I told him, I said, ―You‘re back, you weren‘t hurt, thank God‖, and we talked a bit and then another guy across the street, Larry, he was in the service during Vietnam, did make it to Vietnam, but he was in, and his son is in the Marine Corps and fortunately for him, his son is in a specialty that he‘ll never go to Iraq or Afghanistan, it‘s one of those jobs, you know, he‘s—so he‘s lucky, yeah, lucky, and we‘ve talked and I tell him, I say, ―Jeff, geese, you‘re lucky, you‘re not missing anything, believe me‖. He sees me hobbling around and I do what I do, I‘m on motorcycles, I just got through snowmobiling, so I do things, but I say, ―Hey, it‘s tough, it‘s tough‖. I‘m going to be sixty in July, come on sixty. 44:05 I want to be sixty real 46 �bad, I really do. The decade of my fifties was not great. Three major operations, my forth minor operation is coming up next month, I retired, got divorced, all in ten years, how‘s that? Interviewer: Well, let’s hope for a better decade. Now, let‘s go for the sixties, huh? Interviewer: Thank you very much for talking to us. 47 � 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 FlackD Title A name given to the resource Flack, Derek (Interview transcript and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Flack, Derek Description An account of the resource Derek Flack is a Vietnam veteran who served in the U.S. Marine Corps from July, 1966 to April, 1969. Flack provides detailed discussions of training in California and service in Vietnam during and after the Tet Offensive. Flack was wounded in action and eventually sent back to the US, where he has worked extensively with veterans' organizations. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army. Medical Corps Vietnam War, 1961-1975--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 2008-01-29 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/41930243c464f8ee578e0db60a156e3b.mp4 6a6c66f2a31a9a9971a7e8db201540b6 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cb4b92034b7e2a36084d9177549d7594.pdf fe4eb31d3d7d5996530d9b7c424ad080 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Projects Charles Fisher (1:49:00) Background information (00:27)  He was born in Irish Hills, Michigan in 1921. (00:32)  His dad died of a heart attack when he was 2 in 1923. (00:59)  When he was 4 in 1925 his family moved to Wyandot, Michigan. (1:07)  While living in Wyandot he often shot rats and snakes for entertainment. This is what led to him being such a good shot in his military service. (1:40)  His mother remarried but kept his real father’s last name. (2:01)  He had 4 brothers and sisters. (2:41)  He stayed in school through the 8th grade (approx. 1935). He attended a catholic school called St. Patrick’s. (3:18)  At age 16 (1937) he managed gas stations. After that, he worked in a metal shop factory. (4:04)  Before the age of 18 he was skilled in the trades of die setting and machine repair.  He was a floor man of production machine shop when Pearl Harbor happened in December of 1941. (6:35)  Because he was married and had a 2 year old daughter he didn’t have to go into service but he decided to volunteer. (8:20)  He enlisted in approx. 1943. (9:20)  His job offered him a deferment if he wanted it (9:40)  He enlisted in Flat Rock, Michigan. (10:00)  He was next sent to Great Lakes Naval Base (10:46) Basic training (11:00)  His basic training took place in Arkansas but he did not recall what base. (11:10)  Basic training included a lot of training with fire arms as well as physical training such as crawling under barbed wire with machine guns firing overhead and lots of marching. (11:30)  There was a lot of emphasis placed on discipline and following orders during basic training. (13:05)  He did not think it was too difficult to adjust to military life. (13:30)  The first thing the men had to do when arriving for basic training was scrubbing pots and pans. (14:41)  He was about 3 years older than the other men he trained with. Because of this, men tended to look up to him. (15:15)  One of his friends he had form his unit recounted that he was seen as a leader. (17:00)  After his basic training was complete he was given 10 days leave during which he went home. (17:46) �        Next he was sent to Camp Butner North Carolina. Here he was placed in the 89th devotion (18:09) Here the men were kept busy (18:58) He spent about 15-26 days in North Carolina. (20:26) After being assigned deviations, he was sent to Boston to sail to New York and then Europe. (20:58) He sailed on a victory ship. (21:34) The voyage over in the winter of 1944 was fairly calm, however coming back was rough. (22:48) While on the voyage he saw a U.S. destroyer and he heard depth charges deployed when below deck. (23:50) The food was horrible. Salt water was used for much of the cooking. (24:30) Arrival in France (25:20)  Once in France he was placed in a camp. While there his food accidentally went to England so the men were given toast and gravy till food could be sent to them. (25:26)  While here he was made to dig foxholes in wet terrain and get in it to prepare them for battle. (26:00)  He left the base to go inland in a blizzard; he saw a truck driving that had 8 bodies in its back stacked on top of one another. (26:40)  He moved inland in trucks. (27:40) Action in Europe (28:00)  He is moving in post the Battle of the Bulge. (post January 1945) (28:03)  When he reached the area where the Battle of the Bulge took place his unit was just helping clean up. Most of the heavy fighting was over. (28:35)  When he left North Carolina he was made 1st Scout. (28:50)  Because of his 1st Scout rank, he was at times asked to do special things like check bridges and lead his men when going into hostile territory. (29:20)  His time in action overlaps and runs together. He does not remember his first action. (30:30)  He didn’t have a way of telling when there were Germans besides sight. (31:35)  He was put on assignment once to go capture a German, but he surrendered so the task was fairly simple. (32:06)  He was assigned to check bridges for security approx. 6 times. (32:38)  His movement took him through Luxemburg, Belgium, Germany and Hungary. (32:50)  The countryside was dotted with many bombed out buildings. (33:23)  He fought in mostly farm land. This he liked better than traveling in cities. (34:02)  Because he was point man often, he also had to look for mines. When a man found a mine, he placed a handkerchief on it to mark it. (35:15) �       He and his unit fought mostly infantry. (36:30) He did not experience very many encounters with artillery or aircraft aside for one encounter when he was in a house and heard a germen jet fly overhead. (32:03) He thought the German soldiers were well trained and intelligent. However near the end of the war, the Germans turned to old men and boys and they were less skilled. (37:59) He did encounter SS troops. These soldiers were much more disciplined (39:20) The closest he got to an SS soldier was when he was the first American soldier into a concentration camp. (40:00) Seeing the concentration camp made him angry. The day after Americans entered, General Eisenhower made every individual in the town come out and look at what the Germans were doing. (41:10) He knew nothing of these camps before he discovered one himself. (42:11) Encounters with civilians (42:30)  Most of the civilians stayed in their homes when he and his unit passed through. (42:40)  On one occasion he approached a door to a house and heard children screaming. This made him think of his daughter. (43:00)  One of the civilians was used to signal the approach of oncoming American soldiers. (43:20)  On this occasion the Germans did not attack but rather retreated to the other side of the town. But while they were escaping he shot one of the men attempting to escape on a bicycle. (44:20)  He himself never got injured in ombat. (46:25)  He went through 2 rifles. One he broke attempting to break his fall. (46:48) Specific memories (47:10)  He had to cross the Moselle River 3 times. (47:20)  When reaching the top of a hill overlooking the river he realized how easy a target he and his unit were when crossing. (48:20)  They crossed the Moselle River in rafts. (48:40)  On one occasion one of his friends was killed by a grenade. (52:40)  Another one of the men was killed by a grenade that detonated while on his belt. (43:38)  When Germans surrendered they would put their hands up and at the same time knock their helmets off and put their hands on their head. (54:20)  His unit crossed the Rhine River in DUKWs (an amphibious vehicle.) (55:42)  He crossed the Rhine River at 3 AM with no resistance. (56:17) Post German surrender April 1945 (56:30)  He remembered being told to stop and let the Russians take Berlin when outside the city. (56:50) �       The Russians where mostly big people and they had a bullish personality. (57:20) After the German surrender there was a group of Germans he encountered who wanted to keep fighting. (58:59) This encounter resulted in the death of a machine gun operator in his unit. (1:00:30) There was a little town he encountered were some Germans were holding out. He and some other men were sent in. (1:02:17) The Germans fired upon him and his unit. He took cover. (1:03:36) The unit pulled out. But Charles was not informed his unit had left. So he shot rounds along a creek where the fire was coming from. Using the suppressing fire he successful escaped. (1:04:49) This encounter was the last active combat he was in. (1:06:08) The Occupation of Germany, Germany post April 1945. (1:06:22)  He and his unit were sent to France thinking they were going home. However the war was still occurring with the U.S. and Japan. (1:06:31)  He was made a truck driver who delivered fuel. (1:07:09)  One day he was smoking a cigar he almost caused an ignition of the gasoline. (1:09:08)  He disliked truck drivers in the army because they didn’t fight, stole rations, and had sex with French girls. (1:10:19)  He didn’t have enough points to go home so he was sent to Innsbruck, Austria. (1:12:28)  He was stationed at an Austrian cavalry barracks. (1:13:06)  He built a sign while there for his division and regiment. (1:13:40)  He also painted all the states on the windows of their mess hall. (1:15:02)  While painting he was provided with several German artists who were prisoners of war to aid in his project. (1:17:34)  Most of the prisoners where the same age as the U.S. soldiers. (1:18:35)  He was in Austria from (approx. June of 1945-December 1946)(1:19:41)  He recalls Russian soldiers getting drunk on another side of the river and shooting at the U.S. solders. (1:20:00)  Once while on patrol the Russians opened fire on him. (1:21:01)  There was a bar and a dance hall near the cleverly base for entertainment. (1:22:04)  Girls were aloud in to dance with. (1:22:45)  He learned a little bit of the German language as well as the French language. (1:23:30)  When coming back from checking a bridge to see if it was booby trapped, he visited the Colonels who had a nice feather bed and a hot meal. (1:24:27)  He went to one of the houses he was stationed in and asked for bread and wine. He was invited in and was given a full dinner. (1:26:15)  This house that offered food was in a very rural area. (1:28:40) �Leaving Germany (1:29:40)  The men were sent home individually rather than his entire unit as a time. (1:29:50)  He went home on a victory ship. It took 10 days. (1:29:45)  Some of the victory ships broke in half due to the conditions. (1:30:34)  The weather on the trip back was bad and he did not believe he would make it home. (1:31:00)  He landed on (Staten Island) New York. (1:31:13)  Once here he was placed on a train and sent back to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. (1:31:50)  At Camp McCoy he was given a brief discharge as part of his discharge. (1:32:23)  There was no encouragement for him to join the reserves. (1:32:58)  He went back to Jackson Michigan(1:33:35)  When he was out of the army he worked in supervision in factories due to his floor experience before the war. (1:33:44)  At age 27 he was superintended of 2 factories and at age 35 he was general manager of a factory. (1:33:52)  He quit the job after his wages where cut and the factory was sold. (1:34:16)  He ran another business after quitting his factory management job. (1:36:20)  In the recession of 1957 he worked in fabrications and stamping of metal. (1:37:50)  He then decided to sell his factory and become a Freelance sales representative. (1:39:10)  In 1957 he bought a home on the shore of Lake Michigan for 37,000$ (1:40:00)  His wife died in 1993. (1:41:20) Effects of Service (1:42:30)  It was a great experience he would not want to trade for anything but he would not want to do it over either. (1:42:40)  He used to have nightmares about encounters he had in the service. (1:43:05)  He still dreams of it but in a positive way. (1:43:30)  When he returned for service he was a very jealous man and easily angered. This led experts to believe that he may have had PTSD. (1:43:50)  A lot of this anger originated from the absence of help readjusting to society. (1:44:17)  His military experience did make him want to strive to obtain a higher degree of proficiency in his work. (1:46:23)  On one occasion he made his wife go to the unemployment agency because he was too embarrassed to go there himself. (1:46:59) �Charles Fisher Home Movie (1:00:09) *Note: Because this is a different interview the time coding starts over. Also because information is repeated from the first interview some information is spoken but not rewritten on the outline. Home movie (post April 1945) (00:10)  The men are traveling from France to Austria. (1946). (00:14)  The Danube River is depicted. (00:55)  Typical towns had clock towers. (1:08)  The Austrian cleverly barracks. (1:22)  Here there was a Russian American Check point. (2:00)  He before the war in 1943. He had his tooth kicked out. (4:30) Beginning of interview (6:20)  People were very supportive of the war when it began in late 1942. (7:17)  Some men thought if they got a job making military parts they wouldn’t have to go into the service. (7:45)  His child was 2 years old when he left in 1943 and 4 when he got back in 1945. (8:00)  His wife was not too unhappy he enlisted. She frequently visited him in basic training. (8:30)  The more extensive training (I and R) was training to capture German soldiers. He was also trained on how to operate all vehicles even some German ones such as a motorcycle. (9:54)  He was given the choice of being a scout or a sniper after training. (10:40)  He chose not to be a sniper. (11:40)  1st Scouts had a high mortality rate. (12:05)  He was in the 89th infantry division, 353rd Regiment in Patton’s 3rd Army. (13:12)  He ate primarily K rations. They included typically, among other things, a packet of coffee and a solid piece of chocolate. (14:40)  He was supposed to be issued rations however being in the front lines he was often not able to get any and had to ask civilians for bread. (17:49)  He also had difficulty receiving mail while in combat. (19:20)  When he returned to HQ after checking if a bridge was booby trapped, he was told that he could sleep in the HQ building for the night and he would not be woken up until he was done sleeping. (23:08)  He was issued a small book that gave useful information on languages he might encounter such as German and French. (24:40)  While traveling he often encountered dead cattle and livestock in the country side. (26:29) �       The men typically slept in foxholes. If the men knew they would be staying in it for an extended period they would often add things such as shelves for food or a place to make coffee. (27:00) If it was raining or snowing he would use fur branches to make a shelter over his foxhole. (28:20) On one occasion he tackled one of his fellow soldiers for being an “army bully” and stealing some of the candy he had received from home. (31:06) He did not receive discipline for this action however he did for giving some French civilians cigarettes. (32:28) He captured a German soldier only to have him later be shot by his Sergeant. (33:00) One night while in the foxhole, the man he was with was so afraid his teeth were chattering. (35:35) Latter, the man who was beside him in the foxhole was made a hero after an entire unit of German soldiers surrendered to him near the end of the war. (36:34) Encounter with the concentration camp. (37:45)  He had no knowledge of the genocide of the Jews but saw slander of the Jews in towns he passed. (38:50)  Once in the camps, the prisoners were often robbed of their valuables including gold teeth. (39:30)  The town’s people near the camp claimed to know nothing of what was going on inside the camps. (40:26) End of the war (April 1945) (41:00)  He was still required to go on night patrols even after the end of the war in April of 1945. (42:27)  One a night patrol after the German surrender, a Sergeant was killed on a night patrol. (45:00) The return home. (47:12)  He came home by train to Detroit. (47:40)  The army gave him a lot of spam to eat. Because of this, he never wanted to eat it again. (48:40)  When he came home the hilarity of the war being over had subsided. (49:50)  He stayed with his sister in Jackson Michigan after finding a job as a die setter. (51:00) � 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 FisherC1118V Title A name given to the resource Fisher, Charles (Interview outline and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Fisher, Charles Description An account of the resource Charles Fisher served as a 1st scout in the 89th infantry division 353rd regiment of Patton's 3rd Army. During this interview Charles Fisher's recounts action during his service from 1943 to 1946 including one occasion in which he was the first American solider to enter a concentration camp. He also touches briefly on is home life including his employment and management of factories. This interview includes a supplemental video with some home movie footage that he shot in Europe after the war and an earlier interview recorded by his daughters. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Camp, Suzanne (Interviewer) Rightmire, Joan (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2011-06-07 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/0172a3062d99f398fe9d50ff85b609b2.mp4 47193585c128ed708a6a9b8adb3709a1 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c054b3817ef2220ab3d9fb19c8bc0a84.pdf c488c9f2b653536c0f2819fdfed5c4f0 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: Vietnam Interviewee: Mike Fields Length of Interview: 01:03:44 Background:             He was born of 1939 in Seattle, Washington. He was only there a month or so before he mom moved back to southern California to be with his dad. They lived in different cities around Los Angeles until he was 7 years old, and then they moved to Oregon. His father worked at a defense plant, building planes. After he moved to Oregon, his father worked as a mechanic. He would attend high school then. Back then you were subject to the draft when you turned 18 and he didn’t want to be in the Army and march everywhere, nor did he want to be in the Navy and get sea sick. And he always liked planes. He thought they had they had the best looking uniform, except for the Marine Corps blues. He decided to join the Air Force because he grew up in a small farming community and there were really no other talents to learn besides farming and he didn’t really want to do that. So the military looked like a good option. Originally he intended to make it a career. He would enlist in 1957, right after high school, but there was a waiting list. He would be officially inducted on July 17th. He would be sent to Lackland Air Force Base, in Texas. It is now the only Air Force Basic Training Camp open today. They used to have two more, one in California and one in New York, but now they have consolidated everything. Training (3:40)       The training consisted of some classroom time. An hour was spent on military courtesies and how to recognize the different ranks and the different services. There was also drilling. They also had 3 days of survival training, where at the end they would have to qualify to receive their weapon. You have to qualify once a year to make sure that you keep up with it. He thinks everyone has problems adjusting to basic training. It’s a very big culture shock. After the first week or so though there were no problems. Discipline and obeying orders was a huge part of their training. They had to call anyone above their own rand sir, which was normally reserved for the commissioned officers. �              If it was above 90 degrees, all outside training was suspended. So they spent the afternoon training inside one day, and they practiced saluting. Training lasted 12 weeks. After that he ended up going to Airborne Radio Repair School, which was located at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. The facility there was much more relaxed. The buildings were very old and they had to use coal for heating. Each person had to have their fair share of firing duty. They all had to march to class in formation, they had to address all their instructors as sir even though some of them were civilians and some of them were females. They taught them about 6 weeks of basic electronic theory. After learning about it, they would have to put back together some things that their instructors had taken apart. They had about 6 or 7 different sets to fix. They radios that the crew used and some of the navigation stuff that was used as well. He would pass doing well enough. While he was there he would have a Class A liberty pass. You carry it with you and whenever you’re not on duty you can leave the post. There were dances or movies they could do for fun. They were neighbors with the people of that community and they tried to treat them with respect. Anyone who caused trouble was dealt with harshly. There’s always guys going off and getting drunk. Since Scott was federally owned property things cannot be dealt with there by the local police. There was one time when this guy was being chased by the cops, for what, he doesn’t know. And he drove through the main gate and the guard at the gate stopped the cop, because he was not allowed in there. After he completed the radio training he was sent to Portland, Oregon for his first assignment. Active Duty (9:40)        He would live 90 miles from home. He would be assigned to the 460th Fighter Interceptor Group at the Air Defense Command. Today, ADC doesn’t exist as it was taken over by Strategic Air Command because they tend to run both tactical and intercept missions. Originally, when he got there they had Korean vintage F-89’s, Scorpions. A good aircraft but not a loved one. Usually if you lost one engine, you went down. Shortly after he got there they transitioned to F-102’s which were top-of-the-line at the time. They were the first plane that could go faster than the speed of sound at level flight. He would work as an aircraft radio repairman. They had more non-coms than ordinary enlisted men. There were so many WWII and Korean veterans there, killing time until retirement, that there was no room for advancement. So he was cross-trained to be an administrative clerk, which was the only place you could earn rank because there was no retention. �                  He had to give up the stripes to become a clerk, but he got his stripes back on minimum time and grade. He would spend about a year as a radio repairman. While working in that position he would check the planes before they went out and checked them when they came back. In between then, you studied what the Air Force called technical orders, or TO’s, and they were all manuals about the aircraft. You just make yourself as familiar with the planes as you could. And when you got gone with them, you would look through the TO’s of the equipment. Every piece of equipment had its own TO, right down to the spare tire on the jeep. You would get tested periodically for your skill levels. The Air Force has skill levels at 1,3,5,7, and 9. And you can only go to a certain rank at each skill level. Once you’ve achieved that level, you start practicing for the next level. Each year you are tested at that skill level. He believes that is smart. It makes sure people haven’t been goofing off and losing their skills, forgetting things. When he was there, the Cold War was going on. He had two instances of where he thought a war with Russia might break out. The first one was when he was sent to Labrador. And while he was up there, they had the Berlin Wall crisis. They had all of the military services on alert. A lot of reserves had been called into action in Europe. The second time he was transferred to K.I. Sawyer Base, near Marquette, Michigan. And while he was up there, the Cuban Missile Crisis at the time. His brother was in the Navy at the time, assigned to an old WWII liberty ship in the Philippines. They made a record of going from the Philippines, through the Panama Canal and up to Cuba, with a load of ready Marines. Living Portland, it sort of felt like a regular job, but they also had regular tests, tactical evaluations and operation readiness evaluations. During these, a siren would go off in the early morning hours, and the base would be run exactly as if you were in war, for a couple of days at least. Normally, when the siren goes off, you grab your nearest clothes and get to your station. Then as soon as things calm down, the non-commissioned officer will go around and send people to the barracks to change their clothes and then to the mess hall, to get something to eat. And then they would come back, and resume normal duties. When he became a clerk, during simulated wartime conditions, non-essential personnel are put on other duties. So he was placed on a turnaround crew. When the F-102’s came in, you would have to basically prepare them for another mission. And this is stuff you’re not initially trained for. And the chief officer usually wasn’t there. Instead there would be one of the crew who was there who told you what to do. While he was working as a clerk, he worked for the chief of maintenance. His office was in the hanger and he was in charge of maintenance of all the aircraft there. They had maintenance orders, maintenance directives to type up all the time. Letters needed to be typed. Fortunately, he had two semester of typing in high school. He would live on base at that time, but would go off base with his liberty pass. (18:30) Eventually, he would get transferred to Labrador. These would be a routine transfer that occurred every couple of years. �Labrador (18:50)  He wanted to go to Germany or Japan, but everybody did. He got lucky.  They worst part about being in Labrador was that he was supposed to serve a year of duty and he was sent back a month early. 3 weeks before Bob Hope came up.  They were on a mountain top, 10 miles from the main base. He worked at a radar sight.  They had a “bus”, a 2-ton truck with a house built on the back of it, to take people to and from the radar sight.  There, they made him the squadron mail clerk, and he was also the courier. He would have a truck to use to go and get mail. He was not allowed to let anyone ride in the cab with him, but he could bring people in the back.  The weather there is very much like the U.P. The lakes were great fishing, according to some.  There were about 300-400 people working at the radar station. They had their own storage, mess hall, and everything.  It would be the same as working on the base except for the time of duty. On the base, you had to serve 18 months while at the radar station you only had to serve a year.  They had easy access to the base, but had to make sure they could be back in time to attend to their duties.  They even had their own radio station up there. He was a volunteer DJ up there. The Canadian government would not let them put up an antenna. But they found another way to get their station not only out to eastern Canada, but also up to Greenland.  They played a little bit of everything on the station.  The base primarily a fighter base. They did have refueling aircraft there. They also had modified B-29’s.  Occasionally, it would be a place for planes to stop by in transit to and from the Atlantic, but more often those went to New Finland. Politically, Labrador is part of Newfoundland.  There were some natives there who worked for them. Apparently they paid better than the Canadian Air Force.  There was a village not too far from where they were at called Happy Valley.  There was a bar there, where occasionally some of the boys would get liquored. One time, one decided that he wanted to take on a few Mounties. Minimum requirements for Mounties at the time were 6’6” and 250 lbs. And this guy was pretty average. It really shows courage out of the bottle.  At the time of the Berlin Wall Crisis, they were going about their normal duties. The base was being used as a midway stop for all military aircraft.  Later on, he was working there and someone, they don’t know who it was, only that they were military, blew up a couple of radio towers in the desert in Utah. It caused so much of a panic that they were given their weapons with live ammunition; the first time since basic training they had live ammo.  Come to find out, it was the work of the IRA, in 1960 when they were still really active.  The second line of defense looked for soviet aircraft. He never heard anything if there were any aircraft because it was a strictly a need to know basis.  Back when he was in Portland, the ADC and the Canadian Air Defense got together and created NORAD. They would have one of their fighters go out to the Bering Sea and �  turn off their identification. The point of the exercise was to see how far he got before they could identify it. He got a bit into Alaska, but never made it to Canada. While in Labrador, if they had any unidentified bogeys they would send fighters up to try and identify the craft as well. He would then be transferred to K.I. Sawyer K.I. Sawyer (28:25)                 It’s near Marquette, Michigan. That part of the U.P. is populated with people from Finland, or at least their descendants. They were good people, but when you got in town and they did not like military people. You would have to wait 20-30 minutes before getting a glass of water. He doesn’t really understand the hostility other than other branches of the service, who don’t try to get along with the locals. There again, when they were up there they got to go off base and visit the cities. While he was there, they had $2 pay days. This is where they would try to give out as much pay as they could in $2 bills. This is supposed to bring attention to the locals just how much military is there. No other action was taken. And of course, everybody gets the day off. It didn’t do any good. The only good he can think of with the locals was when they said they were going to close K.I. Sawyer. Suddenly they were very “buddy-buddy” He served with all kinds of people from all different walks of life. He didn’t feel like there were any cultural or racial tensions while he was on base. He saw tension within ethnic groups, but never between ethnic groups. Of the 70 men that he trained with about half were African American. They were good guys. Some of them were from the streets and needed some polishing, but they were good guys. They were a little defensive, but if he had lived their life, he probably would have been too. As long as you could pass the physical, the Air Force would take pretty much anybody. He did know a man who was inducted in Portland and he got down to Lackland and when they had him do all of the testing, they had to send him home because he was slightly retarded. A wonderful person who wanted to help and contribute. Morale was pretty good most of the time on the bases that he served. The Air Force tried to make it that way as much as they could. First of all the food was great. He was in 6 years and 4 months and he only had 2 meals where they were iffy. They had steak every Sunday dinner, served on china. Every Friday some kind of seafood. They had lobster tails once in a while. The Air Force keeps morale up with goodies, like good food and pride in their professionalism. If you don’t keep up with the professional standards, you will be involuntarily cross-trained or you will be reclassified to a civilian. Depending on what you did decided if you were discharged with honor, dishonorably or less than honorably conditions. The Air Force tends to be lenient with people in that regard. �               When he was at KI Sawyer, he was on the Standardization Board. It was his job to make sure crews maintained efficiency at their jobs. A lot of it was top secret, so he can’t say a whole lot about it, but these were full crews with gunner, teaching gunners and tanker crews. Then he was pulled out of there and moved to the alert facility and things there were very relaxed, unless the alarm goes off. When they have nuclear weapons on a plane, they are not allowed to board alone; they have to have someone else with them. It’s called a two-man policy. Well, one day something had happened and everybody was in a scramble and one man tried to board a plane by himself. He was stopped by a security guard and would later complain to his boss that he was stopped. But the boss didn’t do anything for the man, saying that the man did what he was trained to do, and if he hadn’t he would be on his way out of the Air Force. (39:30) That young lieutenant learned a lesson that day. He honestly thought he was doing the right thing, but he learned. He was up there for when the Cuban Missile Crisis happened. But he was stuck underground from when Kennedy made his speech until December 22, so he didn’t get to see a whole lot of what was happening in the world. They had a lot to do; otherwise the men on duty would go bonkers. So they were kept pretty busy. The intensity level was pretty much the same and they were already ready. He remembers Kennedy saying that they were to respect Khrushchev as a peace seeker. He would be in the Air Force for another year after this happened. He considered reenlisting, but he was getting really bored. The only thing they offered him was a position as a general’s orderly. It’s not a bad duty, but he just didn’t want to do that. He had no idea what he wanted to do, even when he got that. It was probably the dumbest thing he ever did, leaving the Air Force. But if he had not gotten out then he probably would never have met his wife. So, he believes things happen for a reason. Post Duty (45:45)        After he got out of the Air Force, he went and lived with his mother in Illinois and got a job at a bookstore down there. He became engaged to a girl who lived in Grand Rapids and moved up here to live near here. The engagement, however, did not work out. He stayed in Grand Rapids anyway and worked as a bookkeeper for an oil company. Then he worked as an aircraft instrument calibrator for a company that is now closed. He would spend most of his adult life doing electrical work, mostly with vending machines. For the last 3 or 4 years he worked as a PC Engineer. The Air Force gave him a lot of self-confidence. He learned that he could do a lot more than he thought he could do. He found out in Lackland that his IQ was 125. �            He believes that people should join the armed forces to give themselves a sense of worth and self-confidence. He also believes that they should do away with the requirement of a high school diploma to get kids off the street and something to do. He believes it will give them a purpose. One time in basic training, one man went AWOL. Then next day, they found out he was AWOL in the Marine Corps. So he would be in double trouble when they catch him. He extended his enlistment by 4 months so he could go to Europe, England for a temporary duty there. He enjoyed thoroughly. He still did clerical work while he was there for USAFE, United States Air Force Europe. He got into Cambridge quite frequently, but he got into London once. He got to a theater and saw the opening of James Bond: From Russia with Love. The English were very friendly to him and he really enjoyed his time over there. While he was over there, there was a problem with men taking women into their tents to have “personal time”. They were not allowed to be in the tents. So that personal time was spent in the neighboring fields instead. But, if the girl didn’t say “yes” then you would be forced to marry her. (58:30) He would also have his first experience with traffic circles, or roundabouts over there. Their electrical system there is all underground from the years of the blitz. Even though there were no more blitzes, it’s useful because they don’t have the outages like we do here. It’s very expensive to own a car over there, so they make them last. He really wanted to spend some time touring Ireland and Scotland, but he didn’t have the time. When he was in Portland, he used to ride up with some of the men driving the WWII transports. � 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 FieldsM Title A name given to the resource Fields, Mike (Interview outline and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Fields, Mike Description An account of the resource Mike Fields served in the United States Air Force from 1957 to 1963. He trained as an aircraft radio technician, but wound up performing a wide assortment of duties on air bases in Oregon, Labrador and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Most of his assignments were with units involved in defense against possible attacks from the Soviet Union. 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 Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Air Force 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 2010-07-27 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/53d38664ac4729fae1a3bb7cd93b405e.mp4 ea0a8b59b5a8f174087d5e5743d14a1a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3f0b63f5631c1a86616fb681956869d1.pdf fd9d865a208f95ed0dd073afd847d57a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Leonard Feerick Jr. (00:53:00) Introduction (00:10) Family and Friend (00:15) • • Born in Sparta, MI on February 8, 1925 in his home, delivered by a midwife. Feerick Jr. mentioned that he attended K-12 in a very small room which has long since been demolished. (04:12) Pre-enlistment (05:34) • Feerick describes the shock and dismay that people had when Pearl Harbor was attacked. What followed were feelings of hatred towards Japanese Americans. He mentions the resentment Americans had towards them. (06:04) Enlistment and Basic training (07:34) • Feerick Jr. mentions that he didn’t want to join the navy. While he was in line at the recruitment station in Detroit the navy representative took everyone who was in line up to a certain point and those people joined the navy. (07:34) • Afterwards, he went to the reception center in Fort Custer, MI to take tests to help the armored forces determine where to best place him. They saw that he had mechanic skills and so they placed him in the army air corps. (08:37) • Went to Miami Beach, FL for basic training. Unlike many trainees who had to train in the dust, he trained on the beach. (09:35) Stayed in Palmer House and describes his living arrangements. Had previously picked up his uniform at Fort Custer. • Typical days usually consisted of waking up; reporting for roll call, cleaning their hotel rooms, and drilling. Briefly mentions that while marching they were expected to sing. (15:36) Conducted close-ordered drills at a golf course. His training was nothing as difficult as what the typical marine or infantryman went through. • Spent 6 weeks there. (17:32) Afterwards, went to Gulfport, Mississippi where he went to mechanical training school. Feerick Jr. learned about hydraulics, physics, etc. (19:37) Frequently listened to the radio of news of the war abroad. �• At one point, he and a few other soldiers were taken out of mechanical school before graduating and sent on ships to England. While waiting for a ship to take them to England they did nothing. (22:47) • From there, he went to Camp Kilmer, NJ but on the way spent a few days in Greensboro, NC where a few of the men came down with measles and were quarantined for a few weeks. (24:16) The Crossing (24:31) • From Camp Kilmer, NJ they boarded a French cruise ship, recently converted into a passenger ship, and were crowded in it by the thousands. (24:31) • Briefly describes the regular emergency drills that they had while aboard ship during the crossing and that many came down with sea sickness. England (27:14) • Landed in Liverpool, England and was there a few days. He than went to an airfield where a combination of British-American fighter pilots were stationed. While there, Feerick Jr. briefly mentions the small barracks he shared with a small group of Canadians and colonials. (27:14) • From there, he went to Sudbury, England where he was supposed to be trained in how to handle bombers but wasn’t. (28:35) Instead, he had various responsibilities in the officer’s mess hall and cafeteria. (30:40) • Feerick Jr. briefly mentions various exercises done by Mustang fighters over the base as they would fight mock battles. (33:14) Mentions that one pilot always buzzed by the house of the superior officer who transferred him off the base. • Describes the atmosphere of living on the base. (35:23) He mentions that often when he went to bed his bunkmates played cards. (37:33) • At around the time of the Battle of the Bulge, he was transferred to Tinsworth, England where he underwent infantry training. Tells of a particular sergeant who had psychological problems because of his time in a bunker when a shell exploded near his position. (39:22) • It was soldiers like this that trained Feerick Jr. and others how to shoot a gun, crawl through trenches, and drill. He mentions that he crawled under chicken wire. Shares his personal thoughts. (41:14) • On one occasion, an instructor pulled a rip cord on a hand grenade and threw it. Feerick Jr. mentions diving for cover as the grenade exploded scattering �guns and men alike. (42:32) The point of the exercise was to see how the trainees reacted. France and Germany (46:05) • After training in England, the war in Europe came to an end. Feerick Jr. mentions that he was then sent to France where he went to clerk-typist school in preparation for working for the military government in Berlin, Germany. • Worked in Berlin, Germany on the Russians-side of the Berlin Wall. Briefly describes traveling the Autobahn and shares his thoughts on that. • Briefly describes a few encounters with German people and their feelings of Allied occupation. (46:05) He further describes the hostility that the Russians had towards Americans on their side of the wall. In one encounter, he was touring East Berlin on a tour bus and wanted to get off to see the sights but wasn’t allowed to. Describes what the average Russian was like. Going Home (48:56) • Feerick Jr. was discharged at Camp Atterbury in December 1945. Describes how civilians were more than willing to entertain troops and the heartfelt welcome of a grateful nation at their return. After the War (50:11) • Took a train from Camp Atterbury to Grand Rapids, MI. From there got a ride from a gentleman to Sparta. Shared his thoughts about how united the country was behind the troops. (51:08) Briefly mentions his thoughts on New York people. (53:51) � 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 FeerickL Title A name given to the resource Feerick, Jr, Leonard (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Feerick, Leonard Description An account of the resource Leonard Feerick, Jr. served in the US Army Air Corps during World War II. He trained in Miami, Florida, and Gulfport, Mississippi, and was eventually stationed in England where he worked in ground support on an airbase. Toward the end of the war, he was transferred to the infantry, and eventually served with the Army of Occupation in Berlin. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans World War, 1939-1945--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 2009-02-11 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/b800e9f7115a82a8683367f73b6e04b9.mp4 9b32c375788795637af81737c2390ea7 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/88cc6ccf6a89fe0d7590bcd147e95380.pdf 93b62ae096e3d237987cb6fb4b9b3600 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Operation Iraqi Freedom Dennis Falcon (1:18:23) Introduction – Pre-Enlistment (00:30)         Dennis was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on January 19, 1981 He moved around and lived in Phoenix for the majority of his life Dennis attended high school in Muskegon, Michigan He lived with his Aunt and Uncle, his Uncle was a factory worker and his Aunt was a homemaker. Graduated high school on June 6, 1999. After high school he decided to join the Navy on June 9, 1999. (01:28) Dennis decided on the Navy because of the career and technical training that it offered, which would enable him to learn a skill he could use later on in life. He wanted to avoid an infantry/direct combat role. He had eight or nine from his graduating class that joined the military and he was influenced to join the Navy by his cousin who joined a year prior. Training (2:43)           He was sent to Recruit Training Command, in Great Lakes, Illinois. Upon arrival, they waited for enough people to create an entire division, which took about eleven days. This time was filled with busy work, and was a supply and admin time. The training transition is a three month process which teaches military tradition, heritage and lifestyle. (4:12) Punishments were dealt with on a physical and mental level and involved sleep depravation and ingraining the fact that you are the lowest person on the ladder of authority. They establish that they have complete control of your life. Dennis was in the Delayed Entry Program which is designed to help adapt and prepare for people waiting to graduate high school to military life. Although because he was going to school and working at McDonald’s he did not study too much before he went in. The physical aspect was not as tough as Dennis thought it would be, more mental like classes and dealing with stress. His group was called a naval ship and it was an all-male group consisting of about sixty men. (7:05) Adjusting to military life was hard at first, but once he figured out what the instructors wanted it made it easier. Later on he understood the logic behind the training, and respected the techniques that made men out of the young boys. The instructors were fair and treated everyone equally bad. �    The background of the men that were in his ship was very diverse and included people from all over the country. The age limit was 35, but most people were in their twenties, some of which had some college. (08:53) After first three months of basic training, each man is sent to their specific technical school. Jobs are chosen by contract when you first enlist. The ASVAB helps determine what job you are qualified for and the Navy would also tell you what they needed. Dennis chose to be a diesel mechanic. (11:12) Technical School (11:17)      Located at Great Lakes, the technical school was an additional three months of training. The atmosphere is much more relaxed in tech school. There he learned the fundamentals of diesel engines and the different components of what they controlled on the ship such as the anchors and the direction of the ship. Swim training was also required, which was done in Lake Michigan. (13:19) Dennis graduated from tech school on December 7, 1999. He was given a two week leave before he received orders for his duty assignment. USS Ashland (13:56)                The ship was a LSD Class Amphibious Assault Ship. The ship’s main mission is to transport Marines for battle. The ship would haul both troops and vehicles and equipment. There were often more Marines onboard than Navy sailors. When Dennis joined the ship, it was located in Little Creek, Virginia. (15:22) December 21, was when he first arrived, being around Christmas time, the ship stayed in port for about six months. This time was for learning the ship, his work station and getting to know his fellow crewmembers. Being the junior member of his team, Dennis was tasked with the jobs that the senior men did not want to do. His first sea time was on a trip to Baltimore. This trip was designed to break-in the several new members of the crew. (17:12) The crew was granted shore leave, which many men did. They were able to rent a car, travel and stay out in town. The civilian populace was very receptive and proud to have the sailors around and for the most part appreciative of their presence. Little Creek is located just outside of Norfolk, Virginia, which is the largest naval base in the United States. (18:42) His overall experience with the locals was pleasant and he did not have any problems. Dennis did not have a car, and was forced to walk everywhere. The MWR, the military recreation facility tried to keep people busy with activities. To break the monotony of base life, going to sea was often a welcomed experience. (20:42) �      The first time they left port and left the United States was to go to the Virgin Islands in February or March. St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix were visited. The locals were amazing. The trip was a training exercise, such as fire-fighting, terrorist attacks, and the crew consisted of mainly naval personnel and not Marines. (22:25) Sea sickness was an issue for many people on ship, but Dennis never had a problem. His duty location was under the deck in the engine room. Some cases of sea sickness were extreme. And each man is issued a sea sickness pill that he is required to take 24 hours prior to going to sea. (23:53) The ship made several smaller sea trips such as to Puerto Rico as a preparation for the large cruise scheduled for Europe that left in early 2000. European Tour (24:23)                 The trip took about 2 weeks; the ship was built for torque not speed. The ship had some Marines on board, but mostly the navy crew. His first port of call was Palma, Spain, an island off the coast of the mainland. The ship was broken down into duty sections, 3 sections. One third of the ship had to be on duty at a time. Once completed, they were allowed to go to shore and see the city. Dennis was on restriction because he had gotten into some trouble and was not able to go ashore the first day. (25:52) They would stay in port for a few days to a week. Some of the other ships with them were in France, the Mediterranean and down to the Horn of Africa. During this time they qualified on the deck guns and other training. The cruise lasted a little over six months. Ports of call for this cruise included: Palma, Almeria, and Rota in Spain, Livorno and Trieste in Italy, Rijeka, Croatia, Greece and the Island of Crete. (27:40) They had plenty of opportunities to go on tours throughout the regions they visited and he was able to see the Leaning Tower, the Coliseum and tried local cuisine and draft beers. Some towns were more hospitable than others. Because of the Geneva Convention, the sailors were required to follow all the laws and rules of that country. (29:04) In Spain, he was welcomed there, and since he speaks Spanish he was able to effectively communicate with the locals. In Croatia, the reception was a little less friendly and they did not like the American presence. Greece was a very nice place, rich with history and beautiful beaches and scenery. At first, he did not appreciate the history he was seeing, but after going to his first museum there, he found a new appreciation for history and the artifacts he was seeing. (30:55) So far, Dennis thought that he was still a little immature but was adjusting well to military life. Communication at sea was not that dependable. Internet was not readily accessible and the phone centers were only open from time to time. During the attack of the USS Cole in late 2000, Dennis was in the Atlantic, towards the Mediterranean. Around that time, they were approached late at night by a small vessel that was not responding to the ship and they followed the rules of engagement and manned their battle stations. Nothing ended up happening. October 12, the USS Cole was attacked. (33:17) � Dennis served with a man who was a survivor on the Cole and he described the attack. A small ship came with Muslims on board, and as it approached, three of them saluted, the ship was wired with explosives. This was done off the coast of Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed in this attack. Due to the crew's training, the ship was saved and is now back in commission. (34:23) Back in the States (34:27)                The first cruise came back to the United States around December. Each month, you earn leave days, which Dennis had accumulated. Around Christmas time, Dennis went home for about 2 weeks. He stayed with his mother in Grand Rapids, but visited his friends in Muskegon. The time with his friends made him realize that he had matured much more than his peers had. The incident on the USS Cole helped him see the role the Navy plays around the world and for the United States. After putting so many hours on their diesel engines, they require replacement. While in dry dock, they replaced components of the engine and other mechanical items that needed maintenance. (36:34) The engines were about the size of a Volkswagen and had to be craned out of the ship. Navy crewman and civilian contractors were used for this. The ship was laid in around 1989. So it was a relatively new ship. They remained in port for awhile, but when September 11th happened the process was quickened. On September 11th, Dennis was in the Portsmouth, Virginia shipyards that day. He was in the engine room, and he was getting something to eat, when he saw the planes hit on CNN. He thought it was a movie. Many people were crying and several people were calling home to New York. (39:31) The shipyard was put on lockdown and they were required to stay aboard. He had met a beautiful girl and supposed to go out that night, but had to cancel. The crew worked very diligently to finish the ship as soon as possible. During this time, he learned more about how the ship worked and was configured, such as the steam process, the distillation of salt water to fresh water and other skills that he did not know. (41:50) These processes were learned just because he wanted to know as much as he could. Six to eight weeks later they went directly to the Middle East Middle East Tour (42:26)    On their way to the Middle East they sailed east through the Straits of Gibraltar, into the Suez Canal into the Red Sea and came into the Persian Gulf. Dennis was able to stay up on deck as they passed through the canal. The canal had many guards as they passed through Egypt. (44:00) The water temperature and current were very different in the Persian Gulf, which made their equipment operate differently. �         After dropping off the Marines which totaled about 900, they ran tests on their fuel supplies. There were several conflicts between the Navy and the Marine Corps at this time. Sharing the facilities such as the workout room was difficult. (46:41) Once the Marine force was deployed, the ship headed for Bahrain. The base in Bahrain was about as much fun as it was on ship. Dennis re-enlisted in March 2002, and was sent to Japan. (48:24) He was flown home commercially to Virginia, rented a car and was given one month leave before shipping out to Japan. While still in Bahrain, Dennis had to stay at the Al Shafira Hotel, which was expensive, approximately $120 a night. Dennis liked to watch TV there and found it funny to watch McDonald’s commercials and witnessed western globalization at work. He was deployed for six to eight months during this time. Re-enlistment/ New Duty Station (50:52)                  When he re-enlisted he was an E-4, Engineman 3rd Class. He applied for jobs around the Navy. He re-enlisted to go to Japan for three and a half years. This duty station was completely different than any place he had previously been. His new ship was a Cruiser which was armed with guided missiles. He was assigned to the Pacific 7th Fleet, and the Air Craft Carrier his ship was protecting was the USS Kitty Hawk. His Cruiser was the USS Chancellorsville CG 62. (52:41) When he arrived, he had a sponsor that came and picked him up at the airport and brought him to the base. With the new duty station, Dennis was now an experienced sailor and had rank to back his experience. There was some rivalry but he bonded with his new crew. His new ship was gas turbine powered, which was much faster than his old ship.(54:42) His new assignment was to control the auxiliaries such as the transformation from salt water to fresh water, anchor drive, steering gears and fuel purification. He still acted as an engineer, but his duties were easier. Dennis was able to surpass his fellow sailors by taking the time to learn more about his job than was necessary, such as he did while on the Ashland. He also became certified to land helicopters (56:18); the training took six months and was taught in San Diego. He had family in San Diego that he was also able to visit while there. Dennis became the supervisor for his work place (58:05) Helicopters were flying in and out constantly, delivering parts, mail, etc... Dennis successfully landed over 800 helicopters. He was awarded four Navy Achievement Medals, Junior Sailor of the Quarter in 2004, and the Junior Sailor of the Year 2004. When deployed, he went to Singapore, it is considered a ‘fine’ country, because you get fines for many things such as spitting gum, spitting on the ground, which could result in caning(1:00:00). During this time, he was able to work with foreign navies such as the Australians. �        He also went to Hong Kong, Darwin, Australia, Thailand, South Korea and several others. His ship responded to conflicts in Taiwan and in Malaysia which has high populations of Muslims and have Al-Qaeda ties. The threat conditions warranted how late and what you could do on shore leave.(1:03:10) Dennis was able to see many different exotic animals both on land and sea. The ships MWR organized many activities such as jungle treks, elephant rides, and he was scared by signs that warned about king cobras while mountain climbing in Brunei. The snake charming and alligator wrestling fascinated him. He remained with the Chancellorsville until 2005. (1:04:48) Around this time, Dennis was diagnosed with cancer and was sent back to the states and worked as a recruiter’s assistant at the Naval Recruiting District Michigan. The remaining time he spent in the Navy was there, while he was dealing with his cancer treatment. Today, he is recovering well from his treatment. Recruiters Assistance (1:06:00)      He was sent to recruiter’s school and had to learn how to ‘sell war to kids’. Dennis saw many different kinds of kids that wanted to join the Navy. The requirement was for a high school diploma, they no longer accept GED’s. (1:08:04) As a recruiter, he signed up around twenty his first year. He offered many different programs and helped candidates choose a job based on their physical and mental testing scores, as well as their ASVB score. (1:10:24)  Dennis traveled all over the region; he went to Ludington, Grand Haven, Muskegon and Holland.  Because of his condition, the Navy retired him.  If cancer had not been an issue, Dennis would still be in the Navy. Looking Back to Japan (1:10:00)  Looking back, he enjoyed VBSS, which is manning other vessels that may have been smuggling drugs or other contraband into the United States. He did this while serving aboard the Chancellorsville. (1:12:43)  They were working with the Japanese Navy during this time.  Ships are restricted as far as there energy and fuel and Japan would not allow any nuclear powered ships in their area, until conflicts with North Korea changed their minds. (1:14:32) Civilian Life (1:16:07)     He went from working 16-18 hour days, to not being able to drive a car. Dennis didn’t feel that he fit into society and really missed the Navy. Since then, he has tried to blend in and go to community college. Now, he is studying International Relations with a minor in History at Grand Valley State University. � 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 FalconD1478V Title A name given to the resource Falcon, Dennis (Interview outline and video), 2013 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Falcon, Dennis Description An account of the resource Dennis was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on January 19, 1981. After graduating high school, he joined the Navy and trained to be a diesel mechanic. He was stationed on the USS Ashland for his first tour. He traveled to Europe and went to Spain, Italy, Greece and Croatia. After September 11th, he was sent to the Middle East where he later re-enlisted and was sent to Japan and stationed on the USS Chancellorsville as a part of the Pacific 7th Fleet. While there, he was able to go to South Korea, Thailand, Brunei, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. 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. Navy Iraq War, 2003-2011--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--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 2013-02-01 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/04b66d686d84ce37ddfbbfb56e1aa69d.mp4 a9e19a307e9ee5fe337868e9a8d45ac7 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/539302a9c0c96763e8c1e81eb1bc1287.pdf a65b2d468a68952c1245cafa50c022e9 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: World War II Interviewee name: Carl Leo Fairfield Length of Interview: 36 minutes • Pre-Enlistment (00:27) o Childhood (00:56) ƒ Born on May 3rd, 1927 at Hackley Hospital in Muskegon, Michigan. (01:07) o Family (01:41) ƒ His father worked as a foundry worker making machine components while his mother was a homemaker. Also grew up with 10 siblings. (02:28) o Education (03:26) ƒ Attended Grammar School in Muskegon. (03:43) ƒ Discussed his various extracurricular activities and teachers in some depth. (05:29) ƒ Living through the Depression he relates how his father worked for the city digging up city piping and describes their tough conditions during that time. (06:33) ƒ He mentions that his mother canned and stored a lot of extra food in their cellar. (07:26) o His Job (08:20) ƒ While he attended high school, he worked as a clerk at an electronics store selling TVs [radios?]. (08:40) ƒ Mentions what branches of the service his 4 brothers joined when they were drafted. (09:02) ƒ The day Pearl Harbor was attacked, Fairfield mentions that he was at home tuning into the recent news on the radio. (09:44) The mentality of that day for everyone was one of preparation to get ready for war. (10:02) Enlistment/Basic Training (11:03) �o Why he joined (11:07) ƒ Fairfield was drafted into the U.S. Army and reported to Chicago, Illinois on August 17th, 1945 where he underwent a round of physical exams. (11:44) ƒ Background info. (12:16) • From there he went to Fort Sheridan, Illinois. (12:24) • Before starting basic training there, he went home for 18 days. (12:26) o Where he trained and what company he served with (13:00) ƒ Boarded a troop train to Fort Sheridan, Illinois from Muskegon, Michigan. (13:10) Describes his time aboard the train. (13:52) ƒ Describes his 1st impressions of Fort Sheridan and what life was like during basic training. (13:58) o Living conditions during basic training (14:19) ƒ A regular day consisted of waking up at 7am, breakfast, marching part of the day and doing daily calisthenics. (14:59) ƒ After basic training, he was on furlough for 14 days of which he spent on the speech. (15:09) ƒ Afterwards, he went to the West Coast by Washington and boarded a ship for the Philippines. (15:34) Active Duty (15:37) o The Philippines (15:40) ƒ By the time he had arrived in the Philippines the war was over. (16:07) ƒ Fairfield’s responsibilities included predicting the weather to determine when pilots should take off. (16:35) ƒ Discusses in some detail how they determined the weather back then while working at the weather station. (18:27) ƒ Was stationed in the Philippines for three months. From there he went to Okinawa. (18:35) �o Okinawa (18:36) ƒ While stationed here he was in charge of keeping tracking of 50 B-29s. (19:06) After this experience he went on to Japan. (19:10) o Japan (19:11) ƒ While he was stationed in Japan he mentions what souvenirs he picked up while there and left over from the war. (19:18) ƒ Also mentions that it was part of his job to round up all the sake and then would go ahead and sell it. (20:12) ƒ Fairfield briefly describes what his duties were during Japanese occupation. (20:47) ƒ • Mentions that the cities that had been bombed by the A-bomb were off-limits to American soldiers. (21:22) • While visiting Tokyo and Osaka he relates how the Japanese people acted and how Japanese women were responsible for much of the rebuilding of Japan. (21:43) Stayed in Japan for one year. (22:16) o Returning Home (22:24) ƒ Fairfield was discharged in February 1947. The day he was discharged he went to the bulletin board list of soldiers returning home and he was elated to learn he was one of them. (22:44) Left Toyoake by train to Tokyo where he went by ship back to the U.S. (23:45) ƒ Describes the return journey home briefly. (24:03) ƒ Took a plane from Washington to Chicago and upon arriving took a train from there to Muskegon. (25:30) Was met by his brother and sister. (25:52) ƒ Briefly relates in some detail some of the wartime experiences of his other brothers in Europe and the Pacific. (26:11) After the Service (29:06) • Adjusting to home (29:10) o Fairfield discusses his career pursuits in great depth. (29:55) �o Further discusses how the breakup with his girlfriend led to his mental breakdown and ultimately his journey eventually to the Grand Rapids Veteran’s Home which he has been there for 6 months. (31:33) o He wraps up his interview by reflecting on the types occupations his parents had held. (33:28) � 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 FairfieldC Title A name given to the resource Fairfield, Carl (Interview outline and video), 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Fairfield, Carl Description An account of the resource Carl Fairfield grew up in Muskegon, MI, and was drafted into the army in 1945. He arrived in the Philippines after the war had ended, and then served on Okinawa and in Japan. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (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 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 2006-08-14 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/bbd21235ab50f1496f752f5654645bd8.mp4 acdc8f665abac9014075e055a7d9f51e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b4e4684e17e1f93c1973b7dbed67af45.pdf 032c2e1d8334e07eb72cd77b9f1cbe17 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Steven Faine (1:30:28) Background Information (00:30) • • • • • • • • • Born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 16th 1947. (00:31) He moved to Farmington Hills, Michigan when he was 10. (00:39) His father was a commercial artist and his mother was a stay at home mom. (00:55) Steven graduated from high school in 1965. (1:24) After high school, Steven attended Michigan State University. He was not the best student. (1:30) After 2 years of college he had a .69 GPA. He heard form the draft board which gave him the option of what branch to get into if he enlisted. He enlisted in September of 1967. (2:05) There were a few people who were enlisting in the Army as a result of being given the choice: army or prison. These people scared Steven. (3:51) There were quite a few black men who were enlisting in Detroit. (4:37) He was then sent by bus to Fort Knox, Kentucky. (5:00) Basic Training (5:10) • • • • • • • When the men stepped off the bus, discipline was immediately applied. (5:20) There was testing of soldiers the first several days to assess their aptitudes. (5:54) Before breakfast the men had to complete an obstacle course and run. (6:30) A blanket fight would happen if a man got mad at another. This was when a man was beat up with a towel over their head so they could not identify their attacker. (7:34) Most of the people where poorly educated and, he believes, mostly from Michigan. (8:34) The drill sergeants where fairly typical. (9:10) He knew very little about Vietnam or the war at this time. (10:00) Medical Training (10:05) • • • • • • After 8 weeks at Fort Knox, he was then sent to fort Sam Houston, Texas where he would go to learn to be a medic. (10:05) He was trained in parts of OCS school. (11:20) The trained lasted 8 weeks. The men were taught how to identify illnesses and first aid. Much information was applicable to a combat situation. (13:00) At this time the training was not geared toward Vietnam but rather just general toward combat. (14:02) In Sam Huston the men were allowed to go off base at night. (14:33) After his training he was sent to the program 91 Charlie at Letterman Hospital in San Francisco. The training was the equivalent of nursing school. (16:04) Service at Letterman Hospital (16:40) �• • • • • • • The men stayed in a barracks with very few men. The only responsibility the men had was to go to class at the hospital. (16:47) The training was excellent. Seven even partook in surgeries. (17:11) He was taught to identify all the various drugs. He was the first army class to ever receive a civilian certification upon graduation of his MOS. They received a national license to pass medications. (18:00) Unlike a nurse, an RNS did not have to be officer status. (18:49) Steven arrived in San Francisco in early 1969. He saw much of the city while there. (19:52) A new Letterman Hospital was constructed while Steven served there. He was required to help move patients from one hospital to another. (20:46) Steven did not believe that he would go to Vietnam and if he did he would serve in a hospital. (22:15) Service in Indianapolis (22:30) • • • • • • • • After 40 weeks in San Francisco Steven went to serve for 1 year in Indianapolis at the base hospital at Fort Benjamin Harrison. (22:32) Steven served as a Ward Master and served as a sort of hospital administrator. (22:52) He was given full responsibility over his patients. (23:38) Steven served over the ER. He was in charge of all the medics that worked in the ER. (24:00) Because Saturday was “GI party day” he would go visit his girlfriend in Ann Arbor. (25:05) After reporting to his captain, Steven received orders to go to Vietnam. (26:48) He didn’t meet anyone who had served in Vietnam until just before he was to venture there. (27:22) After soldiers were aware they were going to Vietnam they were hard to keep control over. This was due in part to the fact that there was no worse place that the military could have placed them in.(28:30) Service in Vietnam (28:50) • • • • • • • • • When he stepped off the plane he was taken aback by the heat. He arrived in Vietnam in May of 1970. (29:26) Steven was flown to Camp Evans and then was dropped off at the 1st battalion 506th infantry med station. (30:36) Because he thought he was supposed to be in a hospital he thought his assignment was a mistake. (31:30) The company had a dog. The dog was Steven’s best companion. (33:02) The men would often drive to a Marine base that had wine and would steal some. (34:22) At Camp Evans the area was very bare and looked like a typical combat zone area. (34:35) Steven spent much of his time being rotated to fire bases to assist medics and be sure that the colonel had enough medical aid. (35:53) In his first stay at Firebase Katherine he was told that 2 out of three medical personal who visit the base would die. 2 men that Steven was with were killed by a booby trapped fox hole. (36:41) The booby trap was believed to have been made by one of the Vietnamese men that were working at the base. The men were taken to Camp Evans for questioning. Steven was later told that these men were not questioned but simply thrown out of the helicopter. (38:12) �• • • • • • • • • • Steven administered vaccinations or serious wounds when units came to Camp Evans. (39:47) (39:47) If the men had a prescription, the medics often doubled the prescription because they knew the men would not take the pill often. (41:28) Fire Base Katharine was a bald mountain top. At one end was a gun placement and the other was a helipad. (43:07) Fire Base Katharine was often rocketed. (44:00) The base was a target but not as much as Ripcord. (45:36) When Vietnamese worked on a base it often increased the chance that it would be attacked. Steven had no contact with these civilians. They were seen to be dangerous by the servicemen. (47:09) He did do medcap assignments for the Vietnamese civilians. This is where medics went into villages and distributed vitamins and fixed wounds. (48:29) The civilians in the villages were a bit easier for servicemen to trust. (50:14) A helicopter had crashed on a firebase and rolled down the mountain. The pilot stayed with Steven for the night. He was paranoid and tried to shoot rats that were in the barracks. (52:10) The men were surrounded by the 8th Vietnam Regiment. The men were told to blow up bunkers as they left the barracks if overrun. (53:38) Life in Vietnam (55:20) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Steven’s aid stationed was blown up 3 times. (55:28) While he was at Camp Evans, some puppies ate some rat poison. He then drove through the night to get to a vet tech to save them. They did survive. His previous dog companion died from eating rat poison. (56:00) He knew a lot about the drug situation. One of his medics was a drug addict and stole morphine. There were also a lot of racial issues. (57:33) When an order for a stand down came there was lots of drinking and drug use. (59:10) He understood that there were a lot of fights on Evans as opposed to Katharine because there were less people on Katherine than on Evans. (1:00:46) He did go to 1 USO show. He did also travel to see 1 Bob Hope USO show. (1:01:54) Steven hitchhiked too Eagle Beach to see a USO show. (1:03:15) Steven was promoted to E6 near the end of his service in Vietnam. (1:04:35) There was a lieutenant that the men saw often. Other than this the sighting of officers was rare. (1:05:00) Steven sent letters and cassette tapes in order to communicate to one another. (1:06:01) He had to go to a psychiatrist for 2 sessions after 9/11. It was recommended for all Vietnam Vets who had PTSD. (1:07:07) Mostly on his letters in tapes he was emphasizing that he was all right and safe. (1:08:17) Delta Company moved in to Steven’s area during Ripcord. He helped many casualties form the unit (at the end of the Ripcord operation in July). (1:09:26) One of the first men from Delta Company he had to serve had his face almost entirely shot off by a rocket attack. (1:11:23) He was very angry, particularly towards the officers, at Operation Ripcord. (1:12:15) He believes that a lot about Operation Ripcord was hidden. (1:13:24) Leaving Vietnam (1:14:14) �• • • • • • • • • He was very paranoid for his last week. He never left his bunker. (1:14:14) What happened in a relatively short time he realizes was stretched out over a very long period of time. (1:15:32) After Steven was told to leave he left everything at the base. He took maybe 2 uniforms. (1:17:41) His plane did land in Japan but he was not allowed to get off the aircraft. (1:18:29) When he got back in Seattle Washington at 3AM the men were given a steak dinner. The men were told that they didn’t have to do inactive reserves or serve at a fort because they were seen as too emotionally unstable to be wanted by a military employer. (1:19:00) He got back to the U.S. and was discharged on January 19th 1971. 5 days later he began classes at Eastern Michigan University. (1:20:18) He had begun working full time as a nurse in the burn unit at University of Michigan Hospital. (1:20:48) He was married soon after arriving in the U.S. he moved into a career of hospital administration. (1:21:38) He began going to the University of Michigan and took classes to be trained as a Hospital administrator. (1:22:13) Effects of Service (1:23:27) • • • • • He believes that the military forced him to mature. (1:23:49) He isn’t as afraid of things as he would have been if he hadn’t been in the military. (1:24:30) Steven did not think he had much negative reception form civilians when he came home. (1:26:00) Steven paid closer attention to the war and antiwar movement once returning home. He was damaged when he came back and was overly aggressive. He didn’t realize this at the time. (1:26:22) He accredits his wife’s attitude toward Steven to helping him get over his psychological problems from the war. (1:28:25) � 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 FaineS1438V Title A name given to the resource Faine, Steven (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Faine, Steven Description An account of the resource Steven Faine, born in Detroit in 1947, enlisted in the Army in 1967 to avoid being drafted and choose his specialization. He took basic training at Fort Knox and then went to Fort Sam Houston to train as a medic. From there, he got into a new program run at Letterman Hospital in San Francisco, where army medics received the equivalent of nursing school. After completing this program, he worked at the base hospital at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, and was sent to Vietnam in early 1970. Once there, he went to Camp Evans to join the 1st Battalion, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. He worked at the battalion aid station, but also went out to several firebases at different times. During the first half of his tour, he had to deal with a fair number of casualties, especially toward the end of the Ripcord operation in July, when one of the companies in the battalion took heavy losses. He also observed the drug and racial problems in the rear areas. 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 Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2012-09-28 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/6575618260456cbfde14061f9fc04b3d.m4v eb96c9f305c6f3ec3f31de286a7cdd41 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/76edc7d7182ae9ae6f0b29133010b121.pdf 8c2694d7617299e0936e040a6b4f185d PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Vietnam War/Cold War Interviewee’s Name: Arlen Dove Length of Interview: 55 minutes Pre-Enlistment (00:10)  Childhood (00:15) o Dove was born in El Pena, Michigan in 1949. Lived there until he joined the armed service. (00:23)  Family (00:27) o His father was a kiln burner, while his mother was a house wife. Also, grew up with two brothers and a sister. (00:35)  His early jobs (00:44) o Upon graduating from high school, he worked at Sherwin Williams for a time before being receiving a draft notice. (00:58) Enlistment/Basic Training (01:08)  Why he enlisted (01:10) o Enlisted ahead of others in about 1968 because then he could pick which career he wanted in the military which ended up being military police, whereas if he were drafted he would have been given a rifle and sent to Vietnam. (01:17)  Background (01:43) o By about this time draftees were being rushed into the armed forces to get ready to be shipped to Vietnam. (01:46)  Where he went (01:48) o Fort Knox, Kentucky basic training in January, 1969 (01:52)  Briefly describes what living conditions in their WWII barracks were like. (02:03) � While in basic training, he remembers the agonizing marching conditions he endured from January to March time frame going up and down what they called Agony and Misery hills. (02:10)  Also, mentions what marching was like in winter/muddy conditions were like. Also, describes what infiltration life-fire exercise was like being trained under experienced infantrymen who had been to Vietnam. (03:01)  The people he was with were college graduates and enlistees fresh out of high school. Was here for a period of 10 weeks after getting his shots. (03:51) o Fort Gordon, GA (04:35)  Describes what his police school training included there. (04:37)  Part of his hands-on training dealt with him working on a .45 gun. (04:45)  All his training geared towards preparing for Vietnam. Part of his 10-week training involved simulated training environments to simulate the situations they would encounter in Vietnam. (05:35)  For a short period of 20 days he went home and after this deployed to Germany. (05:55)  On his first deployment, he was stationed at a place called Pirmasens, Germany. (06:17) Active Duty (06:20)  Germany (06:22) o Dove’s deployment to Pirmasens, Germany was short-lived upon which time he was redeployed to Dahn, Germany. (06:27)  While here, Dove describes what his experience was like as a Boy Scout’s Counselor. (06:30)  During his three year stay in Germany, the country faced many race riots and also mentions that he saw a lot of beer fights where he lived. (07:25)  Dove describes what a typical day looked like as a camp couselor and what programs he helped run. Spent 32 months doing this. (08:12)  Other duties included serving in rogue patrol. (09:21) � Underwent controlled exercises in which Allied soldiers like himself had to anticipate a Soviet invasion if it occurred, practicing. Was deployed for a brief time on these lines. (09:41) o Duties on the Maginot /Siegfried Lines (09:57)   While there, he and his companions would always be finding unexploded landmines, detonators for bouncing Betties, etc. (10:10)  Describes what the old bunkers and old hospitals were like along this line were like. (10:34)  After his first tour in Germany, he left the Army in January. (11:03) After the Service (11:05) o Background (11:23)  When he got out, he hoped to be a policeman but instead became an insurance agent in 1971 and then spent some time in the National Guard in Lansing because he had not finished his service time. (11:28)  Found himself at Camp Grayling by July. (11:41) o Service time later on (11:45)  Starting in 1974, Dove served as a recruiter in the U.S. Army upon which he moved to Fort Campbell, Kentucky where he was assigned to the 101st Airborne for two years doing road duty and some special projects. (12:28)  Briefly describes what places he was deployed he liked the most. (13:14)  Stuttgart, Germany (13:20)  He was soon redeployed back to Germany, but before going trained other soldiers to be customs’ inspectors and taught them what was required of them with some law enforcement background and experience. (13:39)  While in Germany, the biggest problems he faced were black market issues and drug usage in which he used the domino effect to interrogate 113 people. (15:42)  Was doing this from 1976 to 1978 and then returned again in 1979. (16:39) �    On one encounter he was stopped in one town and asked if he had been helping prisoners to escape since often there were escape attempts made by prisoners. (18:07)  On his 2nd tour of Germany, he got married and was then transferred to the Army Guard soon after his service time in Germany. Spent 6 months doing this. (18:30)  During this time, he filed the paperwork to go full-time in the army. He worked on motor pool and supply duties in an infantry unit. Lasted about a year and then six months in the National Guard. (19:15) Fort Sill, OK (21:01)  Dove rejoined the U.S. Army in September, 1978 and made it his career. Was retrained in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. (21:03)  While here, he became the fire direction training specialist with the artillery. (21:19) Fort Stewart, GA (21:24)  Served here from February to July in an artillery unit, upon which afterwards he was reclassified back to law enforcement. (21:30)  During this time, the Army placed him where they needed him most. Was soon assigned to a MP company and then soon afterwards to a criminal prevention unit. (21:51)  Briefly describes what his living arrangements and what crime solving investigations were like. Describes this in some detail. (22:31) Grand Rapids, MI (24:05)  Was stationed here from 1980 to 1984 when he left. Describes his daily responsibilities profiling potential recruits fresh out of high school with a diploma or certificate. (24:11)  Many of these potential draftees volunteered for the service. (25:36)  Describes what sort of problems he faced as a recruiter—problems such as alcohol and drugs are included in this. (25:53) �  Fort McClellan, AL (26:53)  After spending a brief period in Grand Rapids, Michigan he was transferred to Fort McClellan, Alabama, which during WWII was the WAC training center. This is where he underwent military police corps training. Describes what the difference in Army MP and Infantry MP Training involved. (27:17)  Was here for 16 weeks of training and spent 2 years here. During year of his time here, describes what his responsibilities in road patrol were like. Afterwards, he worked in a commandant’s office as the keeper of the flags. Also, Dealt with intelligence gathering, supply distribution, and other duties taken on by a noncommissioned officer. (28:48)  Was ordered to Panama for a four month tour but before he even left his orders were cancelled. (30:46)  Instead, his commandant informed him that he was going to Korea. (30:52) Korea (31:01)  Background (31:05) o In Korea, he worked doing crime prevention. He describes what this entailed. For him to do his job he needed to know what supplies the local stores had so that he could keep a list of what supplies needed to be rationed. (31:34) o All military personnel he was with had ration cards for supplies, while some officers like him dealt with black market activities. (32:18)  Seoul, Korea in place called Yongsan (33:20) o Background (33:22)  Gives his personal impressions of the countryside surrounding the city and the city itself. (33:28)  His first night there, he stayed with an MP in a local hotel. The next morning, he went out on the town, knowing full well there was a military curfew and �ended up at a local coffee shop where he ended up spending the night there. (33:58)   Spent only 30 days here, when he got word that his wife and child were staying in the Philippines and he wanted to go see them. (35:04)  A month later, the Filipino Government demanded the seizure of his family’s supplies because his wife claimed to be a U.S. citizen even though she was also a natural Filipino with citizenship. Her situation dictated that she needed a sponsor to stay with her in the Philippines. (35:57)  Meanwhile in Korea, the President has been assassinated so the local police were running around without guns since they had been disarmed, while military personnel were the only ones allowed to carry weapons since the new president was afraid of being killed. The atmosphere afterwards stabilized and became more peaceful. (36:50) The Philippines (37:48) o Manila, The Philippines (37:53)  Heard of the news of the revolution when Corazon Aquino became President. Also mentions a party he attended. (38:08)  Describes who he met and what was discussed at a party with well-connected individuals. (38:45)  As an American soldier, recently transferred to the Philippines he witnessed the events of the revolution led against Dictator Ferdinand Marcos. (40:24)  One night, a Filipino rebel threw a grenade into a place where a Filipino soldier was supposed to have been stationed but since he wasn’t there he was not wounded. (41:40) � Shortly afterwards, another person threw a grenade near a gas tank which came close to exploding but didn’t. (42:03)  Briefly discusses, how at about this time, the number of American troops stationed in the Philippines was decreasing, and how he was there when the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo occurred. Was in the Philippines for 5 ½ months. (42:45)  Before going on to Korea, a typhoon hit in the summer city of Baguio, the Philippines. (43:rt)  Dove eventually had to be air-lifted to Clark, but during his brief stay in Baguio, he stayed at Camp John Hay which grew to a camp with over 100 families living nearby and describes in some detail. (44:07)  Asked Korea for an extension, of which he received another 15 days if he wanted them, but instead decided to go with his family instead. (44:45)  Left the Philippines after 5 ½ months even though he had recently completed his special papers to stay. The move was very hard on his kids and wife, when he was reassigned to Fort McClellan, Alabama again. (45:10) o Back to Fort McClellan, Alabama (46:05)  Checked in with the sergeant-major in the commandant’s office, however due to a conflicting situation a group of army officers wanted him at Fort, Hood, Texas where he was soon stationed next. (46:30) o Fort Hood, TX (47:32)  While here, he was in charge of the largest crime prevention unit in the military. (48:25) �  Worked with groups such as the 1st Cavalry, 2nd Armored, 89th P-Brigade and the 720-50 Brigade. (49:01)  Each year, he mentions working with different units. Gave classes, set up programs, and would conduct 8-hour house watches. (49:26)  Also, once a week he spent with his kids. (49:34)  Worked with one lady who used sign-language and would then interact with the kids. (50:25)  During his time here, Dove mentions that he was a member of the Central Texas Criminal Prevention Association in which on occasion would help out with their rodeo days. (51:22)  On one such occasion, a Texas Ranger was killed and extra MPs were brought in to handle the situation. (51:49)  Was briefly in Brady, Texas attending this man’s funeral. This Texas Ranger’s family was so impressed that they threw a party for the police force he was a part of. (53:01) After this military service (53:10) o Upon being medically retired by the army, Dove describes his career activities and how he became a chaplain and what this involved. (53:18)  Reflection (54:36) o Wraps by mentioning how his military service helped him to grow as a person, especially in the capacity he served as a chaplain to other military men. (55:20)  Interview Completed (55:47) � 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 Dove, Arlen (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dove, Arlen Description An account of the resource Arlen Dove is a Vietnam and Cold War Era veteran who served with the Military Police Corps in the U.S. Army, in which he served in active service from 1968 to 1971. In this account, Dove discusses his pre-enlistment, enlistment and training in the U.S. and abroad. He began his active service when he enlisted training to go to Vietnam but ended up serving his first tour in Germany instead. Upon returning to the U.S. in 1971, Dove left the U.S. Army to pursue other career activities. Was soon called back to serve in the National Guard in various places around Michigan and upon his return to the regular U.S. Army which he made his career as an MP he served in Germany, Korea, the Philippines, and various military bases in the U.S. before he was declared medically retired from the military service sometime in the late 1980s. Dove concludes by sharing some of his thoughts about his time in the service and how his time there led him to pursue a career as a chaplain. 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 Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2009-05-27 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DoveA 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/27dddbf8406ed6da402d2ee2a0394543.m4v ff1fee98292b821a43340f6bd1a3fe3e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7d27c600347939ac47ec6f0a6f92e173.pdf 639ba631e5281c8730db40a886a1df4a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Vietnam War James Dykstra Time (01:37:20) Background (00:09)        Born in Grand Rapids Michigan in 1947 (00:09) Family owned a wholesale distributorship (00:19) Had 4 siblings (00:53) Went to Seymour Elementary and Grand Rapids Christian High School (01:06) Graduated high school in 1965 (01:21) Went to Grand Rapids Junior College (02:11) Heard about the Vietnam conflict in 1967 but did not think it was as big as it was (04:30) Draft/Training (05:02)         Showed up for draft because it was his duty to serve (05:02) He was 6 foot 6 inches so he thought he would be too tall, but they raised the height limit (05:28) Took a bus to Detroit then a train to Fort Knox, Kentucky (06:11) Was in a platoon of college educated men from the Grand Rapids area (07:16) Hardest part about Boot Camp was the physical training (07:48) Being disciplined and following orders was not a hard thing to do (09:25) Was in Basic Training for 8 to 10 weeks(10:35) Was told he was to go to Military Police training at Fort Gordon, Georgia (11:39) Military Police School (12:21)       Does not remember much of Military Police School other than it was easy (12:21) Stayed in WWII era barracks which were heated by coal (13:55) Was in Military Police School for 8 weeks (15:25) Was sent to White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico (15:31) Was assigned to Rhodes Canyon, New Mexico (15:53) Lived in a ranch home with 7 other men as a security force (16:13) �    Guarded a top security site near where the atom bombs were tested (16:37) Stood guard in small “phone booths” as checkpoints near the proving grounds (17:24) Worked 12 hour shifts 7 days a week (18:00) Shot at targets in spare time (18:43) Active Duty (21:39)                        Was called to report to the Lieutenant who told him he was ordered to go to Vietnam (21:40) Flew from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Fort Lewis, Washington (22:34) Flew from Fort Lewis to Alaska then to Japan and finally to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam (23:09) Remembers the heat as being “oppressive” (23:54) Boarded a C-130 aircraft which brought him to Long Binh, Vietnam (24:24) From Long Binh was sent to Bien Hoa, Vietnam (24:54) Was not impressed by the local countryside and villages (25:39) Never before encountered a Third World country (26:30) Was sent from Bien Hoa to the 90th Replacement Depot (27:25) Joined up with a Military Police company in Long Binh (27:54) Was ordered to help as a military prison guard (28:12) Military prison was a stockade with double fences and guard towers (30:05) o Military prison had recently had a riot and some building were burnt to the ground (31:05) Military prison held around 700 people but it was built for 300 (31:38) Riot had started over race conflicts among inmates (31:54) Nonviolent prisoners were given work detail of burning waste and sandbagging and lived in tents (32:48) Dangerous and violent prisoners were left to live off the land and run wild within their confine (33:43) o Guards were ordered not to enter, but throw their food over the fence (34:32) Was ordered to round up the violent prisoners in riot gear and gassed them out (38:16) Threw the violent prisoners in cells made of shipping containers (39:50) Military prisoners were imprisoned for murder, cowardice, fraternization with the enemy, deserting, and going AWOL (41:02) Guards were always in a state of fear, ready for anything (48:41) While taking incoming fire from the Viet Cong, prisoners were kept in the bunker while guards stood outside (49:48) Guarded 12 hours a day 7 days a week at the stockade (50:48) Was put in charge of maximum security because he had taken a psychology 101 class in college (51:15) �              After returning from Rest and Recreation trip, was assigned to road patrol of Bien Hoa, Vietnam (52:47) Went to Hong Kong for R&R with a fellow Grand Rapids citizen (53:03) o Spent “wads” of Hong Kong dollars on new clothes and a nice hotel (53:36) Did not make any personal relationships with the inmates (55:42) Did not want to go on work detail because it was hot and humid, and he did not want to have to shoot a man for trying to run (56:22) Witnessed how “cheap” life is in a Third World country (59:18) o Hit and run victims were left at the side of the road for days (59:26) Main job in Bien Hoa was to make sure military supply trucks kept moving (01:00:21) At night patrolled the red light district for military men hiring prostitutes (01:01:21) Had the help of QCs or Vietnamese military police as interpreters (01:04:53) o The QC military police had lax discipline- they often did not show up for duty (01:05:44) Could not tell who was enemy Viet Cong and who was your friend (01:06:06) Knew he was in the armed forces for patriotism and to serve his country but did not know what the U.S’s reason was for involvement (01:07:23) Thinks the Vietnam war was a war for the high ranking individuals (01:08:17) o High ranking officers “lived like kings” in massive chateaus (01:08:25) Also ran convoy security for airplanes landing and unloading in Long Binh (01:11:20) Sometimes received sniper fire while running convoys (01:12:50) One time had to escort two women from Long Binh to Saigon at night (01:16:13) After Military Service (01:18:36)         The smell of a freshly oiled road brings back flashbacks of Vietnam (01:18:36) The smell of burning diesel fuel also brings back flashbacks (01:19:31) Flew out of Vietnam to San Francisco, California (01:23:39) Was handed his final military pay check on July 4, 1969 (01:23:49) Was called names and harassed by passersby in San Francisco while he was wearing his uniform (01:25:06) Dad brought him back to work the day after he returned from Vietnam (01:27:13) Went back to class at Grand Rapids Junior College but did not understand the student’s attitudes (01:27:53) Stopped going to class and worked at the family business instead (01:28:36) Influences from the Military (01:29:07)   Understood how fortunate he was to have grown up in a safe place like Grand Rapids, Michigan (01:29:07) Enjoyed traveling about the country more (01:29:47) �   Only talks about his experience in Vietnam with fellow veterans because others would not understand (01:30:25) Did not follow what was happening in Vietnam after he left (01:33:08) Was never approached by anti-war protesters directly back home (01:34:51) � 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 Dykstra, James (Interview outline and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dykstra, James Description An account of the resource Jim Dykstra was born in Grand Rapids in 1947 and was attending Grand Rapids Junior College when he was drafted for military service in 1967. Jim was sent to Military Police School where he guarded a proving ground in New Mexico. Jim was then sent to Vietnam where he served as a guard at the military prison in Long Binh where convicted U.S. service men were kept. Because he had a little more education than the other guards, he was put in charge of the maximum security section of the prison, but he eventually changed jobs and took over the road patrol outside of the prison 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 Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2010-09-09 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DykstraJ 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/4963137e8fcca7d0b4c59bb3c902f95e.mp4 0938b62329c7bdff3e8223a967c7f318 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f06bf5a59f0922f0197cb25d52e86471.pdf 835a38d8cb11c0661e2f7bbf7ff390b1 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview World War II Milton DeVries, Albert Lobbezoo and Andrew Dykstra 53:58 Introduction (00:42)    Milton DeVries, is from Wyoming, Michigan and was in the 32nd Division, 127th Regiment, Company F. While in he served as a sergeant. Albert Lobbezoo is from Caledonia, Michigan. He was drafted on April 16th 1941, and served in the 126th Infantry and finished his service in the 32nd Division Signal Corps. Andrew Dykstra was born in Kellogsville, Michigan and served with the 32nd Division. Andrew was in Company F, 127th Infantry, and held the rank of sergeant. Before the Military (02:28)        Milton, was working at General Motors in 1941 and he was drafted into the Army on April 16, 1941. When they were drafted, they started out in Bigelow Field in Wyoming, and they went to Kalamazoo the first night. The next day they were brought to Fort Custer, Michigan and they were inducted into the Army on April 17. Before Andrew was drafted, he worked for several years on a farm. Albert also worked on a farm prior to his military service. On October 13, 1940, all men from age 21-29 had to register for the draft. Albert and Andrew knew each other before the war had begun. Military Service (05:20)         The men spent about two weeks at Fort Custer once they were inducted. They pulled targets at the firing range. Then they were sent to Camp Livingston, Louisiana and were put into the 127th Infantry. At basic training, the climate was hot. That summer, one of the largest military maneuvers in our nation’s history was held in North Carolina. It lasted for six weeks. The only equipment that they had was their rifles. The uniform that they wore was from World War I and the rifle was also a WWI issued 23. (07:27) In May, they were still wearing wool uniforms. When Pearl Harbor happened, the men were in Louisiana. Albert was coming home from church and he heard about it on the radio in the car. Every morning the men were told to pack everything they had in their barracks bag because they did not know when they would leave. The 125th Infantry was sent to the coast to guard the United States. They left Louisiana in February 1942. The Division was slated to go to Europe, but they were needed in New Guinea. (09:27) �    Albert drove a Carry-All, which is like a Suburban, from Louisiana to Massachusetts. From there they boarded a train and five nights and six days later they arrived in San Francisco. They did not get off the train very often, each man had a bunk, and the only time they left their car was for lunch and dinner, and to walk around a little bit. When they arrived in San Francisco, they went to Fort Ord. About a month later, they boarded a ship on April 16, 1942. The first night was very stormy, and the men remember passing Alcatraz and the storm picked up right away. (11:49) The Pacific (12:00)         While on ship, Albert was on the ‘poop deck’ playing cards and the attitude of the men was that they would not be gone very long because they would quickly whip the Japanese and then go home. The men did not know where they were going, but they made landfall first in Australia. When in Australia, the infantry was moved far away from the towns. They were in an Australian Army training camp which only had tents and a mess hall. The camp was called Woodside and it was just Americans there, no Australians. The Australians were very happy to have the Americans there. Especially the women. At the camp, they did some drill and a few war exercises. They moved to Camp Cable outside of Brisbane where they were given jungle training. (14:20) At this point, they still had no contact with the Australian Army. By that time, they had been issued M-1 rifles and summer uniforms. New Guinea (16:00)        Milton and Andy took a Kaiser built Liberty Ship from Brisbane to New Guinea. Barrels of gas made the below decks smell, so Milton and a friend managed to stay top side for most of the journey. They land at Port Moresby, New Guinea. The men were sent out in a field near the airfield and were told to dig in. (18:03) Part of the 126th walked over the Owen Stanley Mountains and the others flew over. All three men were able to fly. When they landed on the other side of the mountain, it was many days walk to Buna. Andy remembers flying to the airfield at Dobodura and walking north to Buna. On Christmas Day, 1942, they began the battle. (20:47) The men saw plenty of Japanese snipers, and many American soldiers were killed from them. A man named Yeutter in Weapons Platoon was the first one to be wounded, and afterwards, Milton got his tommy gun (Thompson sub-machine gun). Communications were poor, but Albert worked the switchboard at the 32nd Division Headquarters, which was pretty well protected. (22:26) �                    Andy remembers one time while they were on the front lines, they heard what sounded like firecrackers behind them, which turned out to be Japanese soldiers shooting explosive shells. When they first went into combat, they did not know where the Japanese were. They crawled along and when someone fired at them, they fired back. (24:41) There was no front line, because the Japanese were everywhere. In their company, 223 men went over the mountains in several planes. Once the battle was over and they returned to Australia, only twenty three remained. Not all were killed, but there were many casualties. They could usually smell the Japanese because they were so close. (26:15) Around Christmas Eve, Milton and another soldier named Pete, got into a boat and went out to a peninsula, and for three days they were surrounded by the Japanese. Thirty or forty men formed a circle and just waited for them to come. The Australians were approaching from the south with tanks, but the tanks could not effectively operate, so everything had to be done hand to hand. Andy stayed back with the supplies, so he was able to avoid most of the heavy combat. But one day he was walking down a trail and a mortar shell fell right between him and another man, but it was a dud and it failed to explode. Organization was non-existent because artillery and mortars were flying everywhere, and many casualties were a result of friendly fire. (28:33) Andy was in charge of the runners because he was a sergeant. He remembers that everyone was on their own. Nobody knew where anybody else was. At night, the Japanese would approach their positions and throw stones to try to get them to shoot and reveal their location. (30:13) Milton and his men were there for three days, pushing forward and fighting at Buna Mission. He was shot on January 2nd at Buna Mission. In the middle of the night, sometimes friendly fire would occur because people would be coming and going all the time, it was hard to tell friend from foe. During a beach landing, Al was coming ashore and he saw General MacArthur smoking a pipe coming up beside him. (32:02) The three men believe that MacArthur was one of the greatest leaders and generals that the United States has ever had. After the men were done digging their foxholes, they would be filled with water. The changing of the tides caused the ground water to rise as well. The food that they were eating was c-rations. Some planes were dropping supplies, but they were often shot at by the Japanese. Andy remembers that the first Japanese he saw were dead bodies on the beach, which was after Buna. (34:18) Most of the men had malaria, dengue fever and yellow jaundice. Al had jaundice so bad the medic thought he was dead. He was flown to a med-center to be treated. The men also had jungle rot on their feet, with the temperature up to 130 degrees and it rained everyday. (36:00) When Milton was shot at Buna Mission, he was sent back to an aid station, sewed up and put in a medical tent for ten days before he could be moved back to Port Moresby. �  Al made it through the entire war and went to the Philippines. When he came home, his unit was preparing to invade Japan, and only two original members of the 32nd remained; Al being one of them. The men fought in blue jeans, and the personnel on the boats taking people back and forth all wore combat uniforms. After Buna, they had k-rations for food, and they also had other supplies that they needed. After Buna (38:42)             Once fighting in Buna was over, the men were sent back to Australia to regroup because they had lost so many men. They stopped at a nice beach, Coolangatta, so they could swim. While swimming, a soldier was hit by a wave, taken out to sea and drown. The men remained there for about two weeks. After they got enough men to head back they went to Finschaefen. That is where Andy got enough points and was sent home. He left through Milne Bay. (40:27) Al went from Australia to the Philippines and was at the Battle of Leyte. (43:35) This battle was very tough, on the way up a mountain to establish a communication station; they looked down and could see the Japanese and tell them from the Americans by their shoes. Reports say that there was between twenty and thirty thousand Japanese there. They had one prisoner; he was skin and bones and scared stiff. If the Japanese knew he was still alive and was caught, they would have killed him. At a Japanese hospital, they saw that they killed their own wounded that couldn’t be moved so they would not be captured by the Americans. (45:35) From Leyte, they made a landing at Luzon. From there Al ended up in Baguio which was a nice resort. At that point, Al and the other member of the 32nd were able to go home. They left from Manila and boarded a captured German ship. The captain was also German, and he did not know how to navigate or read a map because it took them thirty two days to get home. (47:14) Thinking back to the battle, Andy remembers one of his runners was heading back from the front and he ran into General Eichelberger, who asked him how things were going. The runner offered to take him up to the battle to see for himself, he said that he wanted too, but they wouldn’t let him because of his rank. He was a good general. Al remembers back in Brisbane seeing MacArthur and his wife with their son walking to church one morning. After the War (49:18)     After Milton was wounded, he was shipped back to California and eventually sent back to Battle Creek, Michigan. He was there from May till August 16, then was discharged. Milton was given an office job at General Motors and stayed there for thirty five years. Andy went back to working on the farm for Westman Brothers for twenty five years. Al also went back to the farm. Bell Telephone offered him a job right away due to his signal corps and communications experience in the war. He turned them down. �   Then he went to Reynolds Metal for a while, built trailers, and eventually got a job at General Motors. Even though he worked for GM, he always drove a Ford, and when asked about it, he said he knew what a GM car was made of. (52:15) After the war experience, the men feel that people should not take for granted the freedoms that they have. � 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 DeVries, Milton; Lobbezoo, Albert; and Dykstra, Andrew (Interview outline and video), 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource DeVries, Milton Dykstra, Andrew Lobbezoo, Albert Description An account of the resource Milton was born in Wyoming, Michigan and worked at General Motors until he was drafted. Albert was from Caledonia, Michigan and he worked on a farm. Andrew grew up in Kellogsville and he too was a farm hand for many years. Like Milton and Albert, he was drafted on April 16, 1941. All three men served with the 32nd Division and were sent to New Guinea and participated in the Buna campaign. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV 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 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 2004-10-04 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DykstraA0266V 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/82ef85a8bedf2f2392579586084ae6c5.m4v 1bfcd697458ec5d24f71fd99099b2eb7 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8635af1528d542c2c8f315a5e4e89720.pdf 41abcc56f1ee28d0e596bedefb60f371 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Glenn Dells (Length 14:19) Vietnam Veteran 1966-70 (00:19) Pre-enlistment: • He lived in the north end of Grand Rapids where he finished high school • Decided to enlist so that he could choose which branch of the military he serve in • He actually enlisted before he was done with high school (01:30) Enlistment: • Served in Florida before he went to Vietnam • Served in Phan Rang while in Vietnam • He spent two years serving in Alpena, Michigan after he got back from Vietnam (01:52) Military Occupational Service (MOS): • He was a munitions specialist • As a munitions specialist he would handle, build, deliver, blow up, and disarm bombs • Sometimes he would have to go on patrol and would at times be shot at (02:49) Good and Bad Memories: • Meet a lot of friends • He went to Vietnam right after his son was born and missed a year of his life • His father died while he was over in Vietnam • He remembers how he and other soldiers were treated terribly for serving their country during Vietnam (04:16) Casualties/Fear: • His unit did not have many casualties • He knew other units where only one guy survived • He would wonder why it was not him who died instead • He was fearful when bullets were flying by, but it was also exciting • “Young people went to war because old people couldn’t do it” (05:17) Food: • They had cooks and mess tent, but sometimes the quality of food depended on the time of season or how much combat was going on around their camp • During periods where their camp was being attacked a lot they would have to eat sea rations, cans of beans, and other foods like that �(05:47) Free Time: • They would drink a lot and do other things to try to forget what went on • Sometimes they could go to the nearby villages • They sat around, listened to music, and would go to the club where they would have entertainment • Got to see the Bob Hope show that held at his camp • Mostly they worked and slept because they worked 12 hour days (06:36) Vietnam Civilians: • A lot of Vietnamese worked at their base • He had a Vietnamese maid that ended up getting killed when she was taking part in an attack on their base • He was almost killed by a 75 year old women, and by a group of 6 children ages between 7-10 years old • No one knew who was friend or foe (08:01) Keeping in Touch: • Mainly letters were the only form communicate with those back home • They got to make a three minute phone call once during Christmas • The phone call was made through HAM operators, so he never got to hear the voice of the person he was trying to talk to (08:53) Holidays: • He might have gotten a box of cookies or something like that, but for the most part there was no celebration (09:14) Skills/Lessons Learned: • He learned to take orders, and how to do the job right • He learned how take pride in doing your job, and how to take pride in yourself • His skill in handling bombs was not of much help after the war • He also learned how to cope with tragedy and success • Learned how to be a better citizen (10:15) After the War: • Left Alpena with his family and headed back to Grand Rapids • He was a medical technician at a VA hospital • He worked with veterans that had many different problems • He is now a maintenance man (11:52) Thoughts on Military Service: • Every man should spend some time in the military because it is their obligation • He thinks that if we had to fight a war at home that people would thik differently about military service • We are lucky to live in this country were we have many rights others around the world do not have �(13:12) Military Organizations: • He is a member of the VFW and the American Legion (13:24) Pictures: • Him standing in military gear • Him standing next to bombs • Digging and filling sand bags • Him after the war in a nice car • His lighter from Vietnam (front and back) • What looks like a picture of him coming back from Vietnam � 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 Dells, Glen (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dells, Glen Description An account of the resource Glenn Dells served in the United States Air Force during the Vietnam War from 1966 to1970. His military occupational service (MOS) during Vietnam was munitions specialist; which meant that he built, delivered, blew up, and disarmed bombs. He was stationed in Phan Rang when he served his time in Vietnam. He talks about his experiences with the Vietnamese population, and how it was difficult for him to distinguish friend from foe. He discusses some of the regrets he had about serving in Vietnam; like missing a year of his son's life. He talks about what he and others would do when they had some free time, and how they got to see the Bob Hope show at their base. He tells about how they would normally communicate with those back home, and how they were allowed to make a 3 minute phone call via HAM operators on Christmas. He talks about what he had learned from serving in the military during Vietnam. Some of what he learned was how to take orders, how take pride in doing your job, and how to take pride in yourself. He also talks about how he feels on the subject of serving in the military today. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Vanwyck, Kayla (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 Vietnam War, 1961-1975--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 2007-06-01 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DellsG 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/787da269f88be88bf3b8898fc58ef5f0.m4v 08621cc2f04cd9c639092fc76c4c36ee https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fd3582d6cee632a92f294fbe3e33fb09.pdf 87afc4b36db43713979a65872818cb07 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Afghanistan and Iraq Jeff DeLange Length of Interview (00:21:10) Background Born in Grand Rapids, MI; attended Caledonia High School Father worked at Steelcase and mother was a real estate agent; has two older sisters First family member to serve in the military Was called by a recruiter and thought it was a good idea; went into the Army (00:01:05) Didn’t consider any other branches after being called Would have considered the Air Force due to their higher quality of life while deployed Basic training was a lot of work and little sleep (00:02:50)  Very difficult at the beginning, homesick; did basic training in Georgia (3-4 months)  Trained in Fort Benning, Infantry Training  Infantry, 11-Bravo  Had to adapt, no choice  Joined when he was 18, was quiet  Saw plenty of people get in trouble (mostly because of cell phones and cigarettes)  Not too much of a social life; had to be tough  Food was never good o Every day had the same thing for breakfast: eggs, biscuit and gravy, sausage or bacon, cereal; had very little time to eat (10 minutes for the last person in line) o Lunch and dinner would change; half the time it was chicken o Would drink water, no pop (not recommended) �Afghanistan/Iraq Served in Afghanistan March 2006-November 2006; in Iraq November 2007-January 2009 (00:06:15) Worst feeling was the week before thinking about where he was going; one year of no break Trip was a 24 hour flight, total; not a good feeling The weather in Afghanistan (March) was still cool and rainy; stayed in one FOB (base) with no showers and go every 2-3 weeks to another place eight hours away to take showers  End of May, had to leave the FOB, hotter temperatures  Remembers going on patrols during summer, would up to 100 degrees; had to wear a lot of gear  End of November (2006), began raining a lot, got to mid 40’s  Iraq in November (2007) was the same way; even snowed one day (00:08:50)  Summer was painful heat In Afghanistan, had a chow hall, less structured schedule; Iraq had more strict schedule (00:09:30)  In Iraq, his patrols were scheduled from 4PM-12AM, always missed dinner  Would eat local food sometimes in Iraq, not in Afghanistan Civilians he met in Iraq were often beggars (00:10:50)  Afghanistan was a less developed country, but didn’t have as many people begging Never used his gun in Iraq; once in Afghanistan (00:11:40)  Thought they were going home in July (Afghanistan), but was extended another 3 months; before then, went on patrol in Mid-July (10th)  Were going through a mountain valley next to a river before being attacked; went on for seven days o Had gone through the area a month before and had been attacked  Lost one of the men there  Was a 10-day mission called Operation Perth � Thought they would be going back to America; one week later, stay was extended for three more months During combat, have to keep one’s head down and shoot; comrades are counting on you, as you are counting on them (00:13:15) Met a lot of friends (his best friend had just been deployed one week before this interview)  Stays in touch with a lot of his friends from the Army In Afghanistan, didn’t have as much opportunity to contact his family; Iraq wasn’t as difficult, would call every night  Longer missions during Afghanistan  Remembers calling his father about the extension Played a lot of cards in Afghanistan, and watched DVDs (00:15:25)  Didn’t want to do too much (especially because of the heat) after patrols, during preparations, cleaning gear, sleeping  Remembers 4th of July, had basketball courts set up, but didn’t have enough time use any of them Afghanistan/Iraq: Re-Deployment (00:16:20) Re-deployed in November; opened up a FOB called FOB Warrior (Battalion he was in called Warrior) His platoon was one of the last to leave; had to teach the new people coming in, patrols Iraq: JSS (Joint Security Station), turning Iraq over to the Iraqi people Working with Iraqi National Police and Iraq National Army; showed them what they did Flown back afterwards, 22-26 hour flight (00:18:05) Remembers coming home from Afghanistan, had friends he celebrated with Didn’t have too much difficulty readjusting back to civilian life Has about 10 friends from the Army he still keeps in touch with The Army taught him independence, how to work hard, teamwork, how to be adaptable (00:19:45) �Doesn’t regret joining the Army; learned and experienced lot, made a lot of great friends; it was hard, but has no regrets � 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 DeLange, Jeff (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource DeLange, Jeff Description An account of the resource Jeff DeLange served in the Army for a total of five years as an infantryman and toured in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2006 and 2009 where he conducted patrols and later helped with the turnover of operations to the Iraqis. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Miller, Hayden (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 Video recordings Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iraq War, 2003-2011--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2009-11-01 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DeLangeJ 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/ec770ac8f1eae8378d77841c15d1183e.m4v 3b3f5da81ddaad724a0368cde32d00cd https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/aa86be62e0ac7d4f07ae2c8e83c4b4d1.pdf adc9949687df758aae3b3955339b8036 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Vietnam War Richard De Young Interview Length: (00:05:10:00) Pre-enlistment / Training (00:00:31:00)  Born on September 2, 1944 in Petoskey, Michigan (00:00:31:00) o De Young’s father was in the WPA and then served as a cop for thirty-two years and his mother was a legal secretary (00:00:37:00)  Before joining the service, De Young worked for a record company distributing records in the early part of the 1960s (00:00:56:00)  De Young enlisted in the service straight out of high school in 1963 (00:01:07:00)  De Young’s brother served in the Army for two years and his father served in World War II and was recalled to fight in the Korean War (00:01:19:00)  He chose the Air Force because he had a cousin who was a brigadier general in the Air Force and De Young thought that that fact would help him (00:01:37:00)  De Young loved his training; he trained at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas; because he was in shape then, the training was not a problem (00:01:48:00) o He only learned the basics at Lackland, including how to follow directions, something that he did not do well before enlisting (00:02:07:00) o The food was fantastic, the barracks were no big deal, the rules were a little rough to exists to at first but everybody went through the same thing (00:02:31:00)  After Lackland, he went to Amarillo, Texas for computer training; from Amarillo, he went Omaha, Nebraska and Offutt Air Force Base, SAC (Strategic Air Command) headquarters (00:02:57:00) Deployment (00:03:15:00)  De Young served totally behind the scenes; he volunteered for Vietnam twice and the Air Force turned him down both times (00:03:15:00) o The denials were partially due to the fact that by this point, De Young had a topsecret level clearance, which meant that the FBI had gone through his life with a fine-tooth comb (00:03:23:00) o At the time, De Young’s staff sergeant recommended the clearance for him and De Young did not know about the process until it was complete (00:03:44:00)  He made some friends but over the course of the years, they have lost touch; he did lose some friends who went over to Vietnam (00:04:06:00)  He kept in contact with his family through letters and by calling them; he tired to stay in touch but some times it became difficult (00:04:28:00)  For recreation, De Young played football for an Air Force team; not the Air Force Academy team (00:04:53:00) � 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 De Young, Richard (Interview outline and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource De Young, Richard Description An account of the resource Richard De Young was born on September 2, 1944 in Petoskey, Michigan. He volunteered for the Air Force because he had a cousin who was a brigadier general and De Young assumed that that fact would somehow benefit him. After basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, De Young received computer training in Amarillo, Texas. Once his training was complete, he served at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, home of Strategic Air Command. Although he twice requested permission to go to Vietnam, the Air Force denied both requests, partly because De Young had a top-secret clearance. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Cronick, Evan (Interviewer) Hartzel, Joshua (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. Air Force 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 2010-03-04 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DeYoungR 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/d1ca38184a1a16169861f447bc4bd40a.m4v 629d472c862111f446d35ead07c4849f https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3ebcc34082271933f74ac37b1e2bb3df.pdf 57fa3812309135a6834a2b2f4ac90813 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project World War II Harvey De Vries Length of Interview (00:58:20) Background Born July 13, 1922 in McBain, Michigan Family were farmers, grew up on the farm Went into service at the age of nineteen Grew acres of corn, oats, wheat, etc. One older brother, seven younger sisters Stayed in school until eighth grade, left to help the family on the farm Worked in Grand Rapids for two winters; plating plant, National Brass, and a warehouse Wasn’t paying attention to the war going on in Europe Learned about Pearl Harbor (December 7) over the radio (00:02:25) Draft was already going on, at the time, didn’t think about joining After being drafted, in July, given a deferment until after harvest, December 1942 Still didn’t pay as much attention about the war, was excited to be in the service Basic Training (00:03:45) Went to Fort Custer (Battle Creek), MI and sent to Fort Robinson, Arkansas  Six weeks of basic training Went by train to Arkansas, doesn’t remember much about the trip Camp Robinson was very new and interesting Did well with discipline (had a strict father); very tall, so always ahead of his class Enjoyed training; in good physical condition  Many others were not used to physical exertion, hard for them to keep up �Most of the men training there were from the Eastern part of the country Did basic training with discipline, physical conditioning, rifle training  Became a sharpshooter there; very familiar with guns o Shotgun at age of 12, 30-30 when he was 15  Also trained with mortars and machine guns Sent to Fort Louis, Washington after basic for Tank Destroyers (00:06:30)  Training on open top turret M-10 Tank Destroyer; had a 16 ft, 3 in gun  Trained as a gunner Didn’t train there for long (February to March), then went to several other camps to train Paratrooper Training (00:07:50) Volunteered as a Paratrooper, instead, with 17 other men Sent from Portland, Oregon to Fort Benning, Georgia by train  Had a private car; first night stopped in Denver, went out on the town, also did this in Nashville, Tennessee  No supervising officer, very unusual Began training in December (00:09:20)  Learned how to tumble (used towers and cables)  Were told, “Don’t spit the sawdust,” as discipline training; sawdust was used to show landing sites Took only a couple weeks before they did actual jumps; taken up on a B-47  Sweat-sheds: area where men waited to board the plane, given pep talks there  Chutes have a main chute and reserve chute. If neither opens, at least the truck to take you to the barracks will be there, etc. First Jump (00:12:00)  Sixteen in a squad � Waiting for the green light, couldn’t stop if you wanted to  Doesn’t remember the actual jump, but remembers seeing the lights of the cities after pulling the chute  Only about 12,000 ft above ground, not a very high  Wasn’t too different from simulations Also did night jumps, more frightening; just had to be ready Heard a story about a guy who got caught in an updraft (00:14:35) Went through Class 82 Training took about four weeks to complete Sent to Camp McCall, North Carolina (00:15:40) Hurt his knee during training, given a referral to recuperate; first time he met his future wife Overseas, Europe (00:16:20) Waited three to four weeks, shipped out with a different outfit (May) Sailed out on the Queen Elizabeth; no convoy, too fast a ship  Three days to reach England  A smooth voyage; 18,000 troops there, about 2,000-3,000 paratroopers Arrived just before D-day; stopped in Liverpool, then went to Swindon by truck Saw the planes taking off for D-day, “Sky was black with them.” Put in 506th Parachute Regiment, didn’t get to know anyone well (00:19:00)  Corporal, Machine Gunner  I Company, 3rd Battalion, 506th Regiment; joined them just after D-day Stayed in camp, or went out for small hikes, during the weeks waiting to be assigned (JuneDecember) Visited London, there for one night �On base, no civilian interaction; stationed in a castle, Little Cote Followed news about other paratroopers and large campaigns, briefed by the Lieutenant (00:21:15) Was treated well when they joined their new company, heard a lot of stories 1st Mission: Holland (00:22:45) Landed in Zon (Son), just outside of Eindhoven; had to guard a bridge over a canal and chase the Germans out of Eindhoven As they ran into the town, was under machine gun fire; De Vries stayed along the fence for cover while the lieutenant took over the machine gun Doesn’t remember much about the flight over and the actual jump; knows there were soldiers 30 minutes ahead of them Plane was being fired upon during the flight over; one of the planes had been shot down  The pilot was the last to jump out and only had 75ft of air left; managed to pull his shoot before he hit, bounced four to five feet off the ground; wasn’t injured Landed in the correct zone (during the day) Went straight into the town (Eindhoven) (00:27:35)  Provided cover against the German machine gunner; fired while walking Civilians were still in their homes Chased the Germans out of the town; were to receive help from the British De Vries’s Company, along with C Company, patrolled areas around the bridge Spent a day or two there Went on the Veghel, then Uden (had to crawl through a jam factory there), headed over to Overijssel (00:30:20) Overijssel had two canals going through it, stationed there Was put out on guard with two other men; stayed in the ditches near the farms (00:31:50) Had to watch for Germans trying to escape (Rotterdam to Amsterdam), very quiet early morning �Later, De Vries came out of the ditch and walked toward the tree for better vigil; was then shot by a sniper near the collar bone and out from between the shoulder blades Told the two others to go back to camp and get help; one of them was injured on the way Was shot at 9:30AM, didn’t get help until around 3PM; was stripped of his wallet and valuables and left for dead by the Germans Remembers waking and gaining the attention of the others by jiggling the telephone lines near him; was dragged half a mile to a jeep and taken to the first aid station Flown to England from the station  Had to draw fluid out of his lung (a few pints) as the bullet had went through the top of his long  Was hit by an armor-piercing bullet, went through cleanly Battle of the Bulge (00:35:20) Stayed in hospital for a couple of weeks  Visited by the surgeon often; also had his tonsils taken out Hit in October 5 and into the middle of December (during the Battle of the Bulge) was called back to Holland  Put into S2: Intelligence section Had to investigate calls and check for traps (marching in Germany); five to six men for each check (00:37:10) Joined his company in a town near Bastogne Part of the Battle of the Bulge; not surrounded [yet] by the Germans, yet; remembers being ignored by two German soldiers walking by his fox-hole Went back to the town of Foy Wasn’t assigned a position at this time; there for about a week before Patton’s army arrived Outfit sent to Reims, France for rest camp (00:39:20) At rest camp for a week, then taken through Cologne and south �The Battle of the Bulge had been bitter cold (00:40:20)  Couldn’t even have a fire to keep warm; sat under what cover one could  Had to be in positions where one could see the other; given instruction by signal The company was moving forward and capturing German soldiers; would send them to camps (00:41:50) A lot of tunnels in Northeastern borders of France for escaping German soldiers; remembers coming upon a still warm dinner in one of these tunnels Went to Austria next; stationed there for a while Remembers watching a movie there and going to get coffee at the Red Cross; twisted his knee when dropping eight feet from a fence Didn’t do any fighting afterwards Never went back to his outfit The soldiers they were capturing were just regular people, some were older (part of the older army); SS troops are the ones that drove them (00:43:50) Took some SS troops prisoner; were smart-alecks most of the time Recalls an incident with SS troops being killed instead of being taken back to a camp; only heard the shooting Didn’t hear stories about SS soldiers committing atrocities to American soldiers (00:45:15) Some of the soldiers they captured were only 16 or 17 years old Didn’t see much of the civilian population; stayed in some houses, very hospitable After injuring his knee, he hopped from one hospital station to another; from Cherbourg, put on a hospital ship: Santa Rosa  Sailed into Newport, Virginia Was a bed patient, but could still walk around on the deck �Discharge (00:47:15) Landed in Virginia and went to the hospital there Was discharged in Fort Custer (Battle Creek, MI) on February 15, 1946  Had spent nine months in the hospital; most of the time was waiting for his discharge Had been sending letters regularly to his wife; she kept them all (00:48:40)  Father hadn’t known he was wounded, until later Mail usually took a while to get to him Was married in March 15, 1946 (00:50:35) Took a job as a herder in Long Island, New York; went into milk delivery a year later; eventually bought a farm and cows (40 of them) Eventually upkeep became too expensive and sold his cows; bought out his uncle and went into the clam business Stayed in business for 27 years and came back to MI in 1987, retired The military taught him patience, forethought, and leadership (00:55:10)  Never stayed in one place long enough to be promoted; PFC In Holland, would check for booby-traps under bridges; had learned to dismantle many explosives o Remembers using the page of a book to stop a spark o Never had to do it under fire, except maybe sniper fire � 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 De Vries, Harvey (Interview outline and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource De Vries, Harvey Description An account of the resource Harvey De Vries was born on a farm in Michigan in 1922. He was drafted in 1943 started training as a tank destroyer gunner, but then switched to the paratroops. He arrived in England immediately before D-Day and did not take part in that action, but joined the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division as a replacement. He fought with them in Holland and was wounded in that campaign, but returned to the division in time to participate in the defense of Bastogne and stayed with them through the rest 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 Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2010-01-12 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DeVriesH 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/49170d41af0307e7be77dbc26191e204.m4v 2daed67ee56681b7abd88c75fec3cede https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/11041e2d1bf9e294b7d072a1e046fd35.pdf 03877cccdac16141baa25e9ce12bdd74 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Air Force Shaun Davis Length of Interview (00:07:45) Background Born in 1960 Father was a salesmen and mother was a homemaker Has four sisters and one brother Younger brother served in the Army Enlisted into the Air Force at the age of 18  Family had a long history of veterans  Felt it was a good opportunity to move forward and also travel Enjoyed flying, very different being alone (no alone time with a family of eight) It was hard to adapt to the lifestyle, had been very undisciplined Went to San Antonio for basic training, then Wichita for training (00:02:45) Served on Travis Air Force Base, near Sacramento, California Met a lot of people from different cultures; still in contact with a few of them, from all over the country  Tend to drift apart after serving During free-time, would explore California and also party Stayed in touch with his family through phone calls and letters Reserves (00:04:40) Working at a medical center at the time; had a choice to go to Berkley or see his family  Had to make the choice six months before leaving; chose to go home In some ways it was difficult to readjust, still didn’t consider himself as a civilian �Military was an excellent experience; had a lot of jobs and responsibility Had originally planned to be a Hospital Administrator, given the position after a captain left  Very challenging and rewarding Learned that people need to go into the service realizing it is not just a job; found out what it was like to be alone; discipline was helpful � 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 Davis, Shaun (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davis, Shaun Description An account of the resource Shaun Davis served in the U.S. Air Force. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Schipper, Isaac (Interviewer) Schipper, Isaac (Interviewer) Schipper, Isaac (Interviewer) Schipper, Isaac (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Air Force 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 2009-06-04 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DavisS 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/8ad400fe621362e97a0f4a4e6be097e7.m4v 738c864323bf5e614d40e365eb26cbc1 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/53e104d4a83cacf9e427dba0850b95b9.pdf 341ba1a9356d87df1089c9ea423abe61 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Cold War Mike Davis Length of Interview (20:08:15) Background (00:00:00) Born February 8, 1950 Served in the Air Force and Air International Guard; served during Cold War Highest rank: Lieutenant Colonel Born in El Paso Texas, Father was in Active Duty Air Force Moved numerous times: California, Virginia, England, Ohio, finally settled in California (when his father retired) Used to moving around, a normal way of life Father was a large influence in his decision to join the Air Force ROTC in College (California) four-year program; graduated and commissioned in 1973 (00:01:12) Has two older siblings, sister and brother, neither went into service Played a lot of baseball when he was younger, football September 1968, height of Vietnam War A lot of protests during that time Could always tell when there would be larger protests on campus because of college bumper stickers Fairly small college, in Southern California Active Duty (00:02:44) Drove to Phoenix, Arizona where his first assignment was Very competitive, all had initial training in college Previously in a Flight Instruction Program, had 35 to 40 hours of flying light or propeller-type aircraft �Some had more (50-60 hours) Initially went into T-37 training; twin engine, two seat side-by-side aircraft; January through June (including ground training) Then T-38 for about six months, “White Rocket” Extremely difficult training, competitive 30% of original class was gone due to: self-induced elimination, flying violation boards, etc. Selection Night (graduated in December); very high ranked officers from the unit there (Full Colonel, Colonel, Majors) (00:04:45)  Had missions written on the board (1-55, graded and ranked); number one guy would go first and choose, then down the line  Lucky enough to get a T-38 assignment as an instructor pilot Training (00:05:50) In the ROTC program, had 2 years of voluntary service (marching, protocol, etc.) Last two years, went to ROTC Camp for four weeks to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Tinker Air Force Base  Lived in barracks; more marching, survival training, etc. Had tan uniforms, blue hats and belts, black shoes Required to take sports, played baseball; was injured when playing shortstop,  Next day, when standing in formation, the wound began seeping through the tan pants  Ended up getting demerits for it Had great instructors; full-time ROTC instructors at the camp, their duty As student pilot would have a short cross-country flight, fly from Williams (home base) to another base Then Long Navigation Flights with an instructor (two hops); ended up in March Air Force base then Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada Instructor Pilots did four hop flights �1975 or ‘76, Strategic Air Command (flew the bombers and tankers) found some of their pilots were not able to maintain their professions and contacted Davis’s base to borrow planes (00:08:20)  End of Vietnam War, not as much flying being done, still had a lot of planes  Worked for them, went to Dios, Texas for a couple weeks  Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska for two weeks, as well  Got to fly with pilots instead of student pilots International Guard (00:09:30) With the International Guard, flew out of the country Fighter Group in Battle Creek, flying in the “Warthog” or “Thunderbolt II” (A-10)  Deployed over to Aviano, Italy; operation-at-night flight  NATO was attempting to work a solution between the Serbs and other foreign national groups formerly part of Yugoslavia  No combat, at the time; turned into combat in 1999, the group went over  Three groups (would often be split into three groups when deployed in this way); combat operation stopped after the first group went over A-10 his favorite to fly; a very opposing aircraft, easy to fly, wider range of weapons, felt the most secure Wrote a lot of letters to his family, phone calls; on active duty while he was married (00:11:15) Made good friends in the Air Force, meets up with them often  A shared experience between officers Off Duty: would play sports, watched games; used to run, 75 mile clubs; read a lot of history books, spent time with his children Never had any serious mishaps when flying; burner blow out in the “White Rocket,” radio problems, couple of weapons problems with the A-10 2300 hours of flying, very fortunate to have not lost an engine, etc. Two distinctive times of service: 1970’s and International Guard �After retiring from the International Guard, gave a speech  First Oil Embargo, gas went from 25 cents to 75 cents; then in ’79 another Oil Embargo occurred, and another rise in oil when he left in 2000; wasn’t his fault the gas went up whenever he left Had a good retirement party Promotions (00:15:20) Lieutenant Colonel  Went in as a 2nd Lieutenant, then 1st in two years, then Captain in another two; left active duty as a captain  When joining the International Guard, received credit for all his time in service and after a year and a half, promoted to Major, the Lieutenant Colonel (1994)  Had some command positions: Flight commander, operation support fight in Battle Creek 23 years of total service time After Service (00:16:35) Got a job with airlines after active duty; did both International Guard and airline jobs Very busy months A part of the American Airlines, very pro-Air Force Had a very supportive family, very understanding Still a pilot today A large appreciation for his work (00:17:45) Still gets sad during Veterans Day, lost quite a few friends in crashes Appreciates men and women going into the service today SAC front lines during the Cold War; had some friends that flew in many of the conflicts (one friend sank two Cambodian gunships; couple of friends flew in Desert Storm - 1991, etc.) Young men and women today face many more different and difficult problems than when Davis was flying � 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 Davis, Mike (Interview outline and video), 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davis, Mike Description An account of the resource Mike Davis joined the Air Force in 1973 after completing the 4-year ROTC program in college. He served in Active Duty as a Pilot Instructor and later went into the Air National Guard during the Cold War. He retired from the Guard in 2000 but still flies for American Airlines today. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Forton, Stacey (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 Video recordings Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Air Force 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 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 2006-06-02 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DavisM 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/eed96d4fd8c1ab45533f9a3845ac107c.mp4 d7814a4d0d2fa6aa5d7dc640d1cabee0 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/aa7ca0a860af44cd0f451b4da371b699.pdf e4908d07c3027413e17be325c9ae6265 PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW RON DYKSTRA Born: Holland, MI July 6, 1948 Resides: Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, June 20, 2013 Interviewer: Ron, can you start off with some background on yourself? Where and when were you born? I was born in Holland, Michigan of July 6th of 1948. Interviewer: Now, did you grow up in Holland? No, my mother happened to be vacationing on the beach in Holland and my twin brother and I decided to come early, so we always lived in Grandville, but I was born in the Holland hospital. Interviewer: What did your family do for a living at that time? My father was a salesman for Wolverine World Wide. Interviewer: Did your mother stay at home, or did she have a job? Yes, she stayed home the whole time with the kids, there were five of us, at the end there were five of us. Interviewer: So, you went to high school in Grandville then? Yes Interviewer: What did you do after you graduated? Well, I graduated from Grandville and decided it was—I went off to Ferris State College and took a two year commercial art course. 1:14 It took two straight years because I wanted to make my senior year a little easier and I could focus on my portfolio work, so I 1 �went two straight years and didn’t take the summer off, and when I did take the summer off I got drafted. Interviewer: Had you not registered for fall? I did not register for fall quarter and I should have. I should have been smarter than I was at that time and I was drafted. Interviewer: What did you know about Vietnam at that point? The time I was in school—I graduated in 1966 and there was awareness if you weren’t in college and didn’t have a deferment there was a good chance you were going to be drafted. When I finished my college, two years, it was 1968. 2:00 And by that time one of my best friends, who lived only a block away came home in a box and right away I knew that I was in trouble here, because of that, and my best friend, my best friend, had just come back, because he graduated in 1966 and he was drafted and he was gone. He had just come back from Vietnam, and he didn’t say much, he didn’t talk much. He was a different person when he came back, so I knew that I was in trouble once I got that draft notice that I was going to be a goner. Interviewer: Did you have much of a sense of what the war was supposed to be about? Yeah, I did, coming from Grandville, Michigan, you know everybody—―We’re going to fight communists and keep communists off our shores‖, I mean that’s what it was all about. My father, my grandfather had all served, and everybody said, ―Well, if it happens, it happens, you’re going to serve your country, you’re going to do—―, and we did, I mean, that’s one of those things that I knew that, but I didn’t like what that solutions was that was going to happen. 3:05 2 �Interviewer: When did you actually have to report for duty? I reported for duty on March 3rd, 1969. It was, literally, about nine months after I got my draft notice I was gone, I mean, it was—I got the draft notice—well it was less than that, I got the draft notice in 1968, let’s say, roughly, August, September of 1968, and I was gone by March 3rd. Interviewer: So, why was there a time lag in between? Did they just tell you when to report? Right, they basically said—well, first of all you had to go and get a physical to make sure that you were up to their standards. And I went—281 was the draft board in Grand Rapids and they bused you to Detroit to go through your physical and then you’d come home and say, ―Yeah, you’re ready‖ , and then they would give you a certain time when you would have to report, and then you were done. 4:02 So, then again, you would go into Detroit, they would do a final physical to make sure everything was all right and they would send you off to where you’re going to be having your basic training. Interviewer: Now, going in, were their people who were trying to find ways to beat the physical? Not to the level that I understood. In 1968-69, I didn’t see that as much as I did in 1970 when I came out. I saw more and more, and heard more and more of the drinking a case of coke, or eating a bunch of bananas, or trying to beat the physical thing; I didn’t hear that until I came back in 1970. Interviewer: Where did they send you for basic training? I went to Fort Knox, Kentucky and basic, just like everybody else’s training, went down there and thought I was in pretty good shape, I wasn’t a four letter athlete, but I did some 3 �athletic things and thought I was in pretty good shape, but boy, they tear you down, there’s no doubt about it. 5:08 The nice thing for me is when I got down there, and it was one of those things that was frustrating for me is that you get there, they’ve taken you away from your family, they’ve shaved your head, they lined me up in this big formation and they said, there were like two hundred of us in this formation, and they said, ―Anybody that’s had a felony fall out, anybody that’s had this fall out‖, and before you know it there was like twenty of us standing in this formation and I’m saying, ―What is going on here?‖ and there was a small little church that was right in front of us and they said, ―the rest of you guys fall out for two hours, and you twenty I want to go in this church‖, and, basically, what it was is that we were the type of people they wanted and in the building there were like five or six stations and they said, ―Would you like to volunteer for ―green beret‖, would you like to volunteer for warrant flight officer, would you like to volunteer for OCS?‖ 6:10 Every one of these you had to extend another year on your service, and all of us are saying, ―You got to be crazy‖. Well, hindsight is, I should have taken one of those opportunities, because it would have been instead of just being another grunt, gone into Vietnam and come back, you had the opportunity, but the potential of spending the minimum of a year to two years in Vietnam was a little bit daunting when, like I said, they have just taken you from your family and shaved your head, and now they’re offering you this great deal? It didn’t sound like a good deal to me at that time. Interviewer: Some of those jobs can be pretty dangerous too. Yes, they should have, chopper pilot or like I said, ―green beret‖, OCS you’re going to be in charge of a company, as an officer, so yes, they would have been on difficult—but, 4 �they had selected the best, they knew they had picked the people they wanted to offer this to. 7:02 I was one of them and I said, ―Naw, enough is enough guys, I’m going to stick with what I got‖. Interviewer: How did they handle that, did they just accept that and let you go on? Yup, they just said, ―Okay, fall out‖, and you know, you walk through and you had to sit at each station and you had to listen to their speal and after you’ve done all of them, you had to make a decision before you left the room. They said, ―Okay, you’ve got to make a decision if you’re going to accept one of these opportunities, and if not, you can fall back out with the rest of them‖, and that’s what I did. Interviewer: As you were going through basic training, how easy, or hard, was it for you to adjust to military life and military discipline? I wasn’t hard for me because my upbringing was to respect and ―Yes sir, no sir‖, that sort of thing, so for me it was an easy transition. You had to—you didn’t make waves, and I didn’t make waves, I said, ―Yes sir, no sir‖, and I did what I had to make it as easy as I could for myself. 8:05 It was tough, it was—it wasn’t fun, but it was one of those things, I made it as easy as I could for myself, so for me it wasn’t an easy thing to do, it was hard. Interviewer: Now, the people around you, how did they respond to it? A lot of them would—we had people who just went crazy type of thing, literally, and fought it the whole way. ―I’m not going to do this; I’m not going to do that‖, where I said, ―If that’s what you say, I’m going to do that‖. So, there were a lot of them that had a hard time and they were doing more push-ups and they were getting in more trouble for 5 �the things they were doing, because they weren’t, as we say, following the leader. I didn’t want to make waves; I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. 9:00 Interviewer: What proportion of them made it through that process? I would say that we probably had—I’m going to say ninety percent. You’d lose a few and they would be shipped off and brought back to another basic training unit, but it was—they beat you all down, but most of them were enough where they would say, ―Hey, we’ll make it‖. And before you know it we all looked alike, we all acted alike, because they had done what they were supposed to do, treat us as one person, you know. Interviewer: How long was the basic training, at that point? I think basic training was thirteen weeks from start to finish, and then we graduated from basic training. Interviewer: What was the next step? You’d get—they’d call—you’d have a big formation and then you’d be given your orders, and they would call out people’s names and where you were going. The minute they said where you were going and what was happening. I was called out and it was Fort Polk, Louisiana jungle training, done deal, I wasn’t going to be a cook, I wasn’t going to be a clerk, I knew what I was going to be going to do. 10:04 My best friend that went in, from Grandville, graduated with me, and went in with me, he was made a clerk and he was a clerk in Fort Knox for his two years. I was unlucky and ended up being in the infantry. Well, going to Fort Polk for jungle training. Interviewer: So, what was the facility at Fort Polk like? The facilities weren’t much different than the facilities at Fort Knox, because we were in the old wood barracks at Fort Knox that had a half an inch of paint on them, because 6 �every time a new unit came in you had to paint the barracks. They were fire traps. Fort Polk was very similar, but Fort Polk had the heat, the humidity that Fort Knox did not have. Fort Knox was Michigan climate, that type, and we didn’t have as much of a problem. You got down to Fort Polk and it was hot and wet, and it was nasty. 11:01 Interviewer: Well, now you’re in Louisiana in the summer too. Yeah, and I’m in the summer in Louisiana, exactly right, so it was snakes and scorpions and all that kind of monkey business. One of the incidents I had was we were on bivouac, which was seven days of being in—it’s in the woods there, it’s not the jungle, but it was trying to create the same effect. My one—they paired you up in pairs and then you had to go through this bivouac, which was seven days of trying to stay alive in the jungle, or in the woods. Well, he was a smoker and it was hot and it was nasty, and what we had to do is we had to dig a foxhole, and it had to be shoulder height to the tallest person, so he was probably eight or nine inches shorter than me, so he had to put a little step in there for himself, because it had to be shoulder height so he could fire his weapon. It was hot and he said, ―I got to have a cigarette‖, so he went to jump down in this foxhole that we had dug the previous day, well a rattlesnake had burrowed its self into the wall of the foxhole and when he jumped in there he came out faster than he went in. 12:12 We didn’t have weapons that had live ammo, we had a flash pressure on the end, so we had to call somebody over and they dug this rattlesnake out and it was a big long rattlesnake, and they shot and killed the rattlesnake, and I’m saying, ―This is ridiculous‖. Every morning when we got up you had to shake out your boots and check your clothes because scorpions would get into your boots and you slide your foot in. We had one man, he was exhausted after a long hike with a pack and he just fell down and didn’t look 7 �where he was setting and sat right on a scorpion. Then we had to do a compass course where you had to triangulate a compass course, my partner with me, he’d been breaking brush for probably two third s of it and he said, ―Okay, will you take over?‖ The minute I took over we walk into this swampy area and here’s this big old water moccasin six or eight feet in front of us and we said, ―We’re going to change and we’re not going to go where it tells us to go‖. 13:07 We got what we were supposed to get, but another one of those incidences where it wasn’t as easy as people think it might have been, it was tough, it was real tough. Interviewer: What sorts of people did they have training you? People that had come back from Vietnam, and that’s something that I took and I learned from, because they had been there, they had survived, and they came back to train us, and they knew very well what you were going to be going through. They knew where you were going, because they knew where you had been stationed for your AIT training. Interviewer: Where there particular tricks, or pieces of advice they gave you? Things they told you that wound up being useful? I didn’t pick up on any, I got more in the first ten days in Vietnam than I ever got from them. I just—I had gotten my body in shape because of the heat and humidity. 14:05 There wasn’t an ounce of fat on my body at that time, because you couldn’t have it, so I did that, and I learned that you had to be observant, had to be observant of every little thing, and that’s what we learned in the compass course and everything we did. You had to be observant of what you were doing at all times, it wasn’t just go out and do it and come back, you had to be observant of every aspect of it. 8 �Interviewer: But there were just the specifics of surviving in a particular area of Vietnam you got to that was going to be dependent on what you saw there. Right, when you got to say, Cam Ranh Bay, they would give you a basic understanding of what was going to go in in Vietnam, but when you got to your unit, now you’re getting specifics about what territory and what the unit is facing, so every little thing, you had to be sharp and pick up on it, and make sure you remembered what they said, and that’s the only way you were going to come home alive in my opinion. 15:09 Interviewer: So, you get through the AIT, and was that about thirteen weeks? That was ten weeks. Interviewer: so, at this point do you get to go home before they ship you over? Yeah, you get a thirty day leave. When you graduate from AIT you’ve got your orders and my orders were to Vietnam, so once you got those orders you got, say, a thirty day pass where I got to go home. That was a tough thirty days any way you look at it. When you know you’re going into where you may never come home and you’ve got thirty days with your family, with your friends, or whatever, it’s a tough time, I mean, it’s a tough thirty days. For me, I was an old person at that time. I’m twenty-one years old and most guys that were going through that experience were nineteen by the time they were going over. But it was still tough; it was still a tough thing to go through. 16:05 And you live fast and hard and whatever you can do for that month and then that last day, man, it’s over. Interviewer: Now, do you have to get yourself out to the point of embarkation? Yeah, like I said, I had somebody take me to the airport. Basically, you were given orders where and given a ticket and the time when you have to leave. 9 �Interviewer: So, where did you ship out of? I shipped—basically what happened is I flew out of Grand Rapids and went into, had to report to Seattle, and right out of Seattle is where you got your orders and everything was—they gave you everything you needed to go overseas. Interviewer: Then do you go out of Fort Lewis or out of the Seattle airport? The Seattle airport, Fort Lewis, yeah, because it was a military transport and we flew in—from Fort Lewis and basically they did—they were supposed to do a complete check of you at Fort Lewis and make sure you’re ready for in country. 17:09 Then they loaded you on a transport, and basically it was a commercial plane, Flying Tiger, or whatever it was called, it normally would fly cargo, but they turned them into—to get people over and it wasn’t TWA or Pan Am, it was a Flying Tiger, some transport line. Interviewer: Did they give you all of the preparation and stuff, before you left, that they were supposed to? No, basically, when I left Fort Polk, Louisiana they gave us a month’s supply of malaria pills. You were supposed to take a white pill six days a week and an orange pill one day a week. The orange pill gave you the runs and, basically, what you were supposed to do is your body was supposed to be getting you ready for what you were going to be in Vietnam and that’s the potential for malaria. 18:03 When you landed in Seattle, they were supposed to do a blood—draw blood and look at it and make sure that your body had taken and accepted that malaria pill. They didn’t do that, they may have taken the blood, they didn’t review it and look at it enough because my body was rejecting the malaria pills, and I never should have been sent to Vietnam. They should have found that 10 �in Seattle and said, ―You can’t go because your body is rejecting the malaria pill‖, and sent me back home, but that was not done. Interviewer: Then they fly you to Vietnam, and did they fly you directly from Fort Lewis to Vietnam? No, we flew into Guam and they landed on the runway and all you saw in Guam was B52s on the runway, and they told us to get off at the hangar and we could go in and use the restrooms in the hangar. Then they refueled the plane and then we flew into Yokota Air Force Base in Japan and landed. 19:03 The same thing, we flew into Japan and you could see all the bright lights and all that, and they let us go into this hangar and get a candy bar or go to the bathroom and they refueled, and then we went from Yokota Air Force Base in Japan right into Cam Ranh Bay. Interviewer: Do you remember what time of day you got in? It was, from what I can remember, we left Tokyo late, it was dark, so we got in early, early in the morning in Vietnam. Interviewer: What was your first impression of Vietnam when you got off the plane? Flying in you couldn’t see much because it’s not like a big lit city. Cam Ranh Bay was a lit city and it looked just like a regular air base, you know, when we flew in. The first sense was the heat and humidity when we got off the plane. It was nothing like what I had experienced in Louisiana, just nothing, it was just that much more heat and humidity. Other than that--that was the first thing I remember. 20:00 I think then the real anxiety set in, ―Were in trouble now‖, we knew where we were at and I knew exactly what was 11 �happening and I said, ―Boy, this is going to be a long year‖, and for me it the start of a long year for a young person. I mean, even at twenty-one, I was still young. Interviewer: What did they do with you once you got off the plane? They basically—they give you the information to what you—make sure your papers and orders are right, and then they , for two or three days, they go through some—they show you what a claymore mine is going to do, and how a booby trap is going to set up, yada, yada, and all these kinds of things, just basic training of Vietnam, heat humidity and what you may have to—what you may be confronted with. 21:00 They also talk about drugs, they talk about those kind of things, but then it’s a matter of—you’re probably there three, four , or five days at the most. Interviewer: Did they also talk to you about how to deal with the civilian population or anything like that? They may have, but I—it was the furthest thing from my mind. The most important thing was just to get home safe, so four or five days of that and they sent you to your unit, basically. They would divide up and once they got five or six guys they—whether it was a plane, a C-130, or a helicopter, it depended on how far you were going and they would fly you to your new unit. Interviewer: What unit do you get assigned to? I was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division, or as everybody knows, ―The Big Red One‖. Interviewer: And what particular unit within it were you assigned to? I was assigned to Alpha Company of the 21st Infantry and we were out of Dok Chang. 22:02 And basically, the area of operations for that unit was south east and north east of Saigon, and what terrain we were in would be rice paddies, Michelin rubber plantation 12 �[this was west of Saigon], which was the largest rubber plantation and the Saigon River, was, basically, what we worked out of, or what terrain we saw. Interviewer: Now was your company, when you joined your company, was it on a firebase, was it on a hill, or what? What happens is you go into your unit's firebase and you set there, you might be there two or three days getting acclimated, getting your gear, because at this point with everything you’ve done, you have not got a weapon, you don’t have your backpack, you don’t have anything you need to survive in the jungle, so they’ve given you all that stuff and then you go out on a resupply chopper, with the units. 23:03 Sometimes your unit would be coming back into the firebase and you’d join the unit then and sometimes you’d go out in a chopper, and I went in a chopper, a resupply chopper. Basically, every three or four days they’d get resupplied with C rations, and water, so you’d go out on a resupply chopper, and that’s what I did. I was a new guy in a new uniform getting off that chopper out in the jungle. Interviewer: Do you remember anything about that chopper ride? I was scary, it was scary because you knew what you were going into, but you didn’t know what you were going into. You knew that you were going to be that new guy that you hope will be alive the next day, let alone for a year. But, basically, got off the chopper and the unit, at the time, you know, a typical unit of about sixty five men and they were in a perimeter formation and I was assigned to November platoon. 24:00 I went over there, met the lieutenant and the first sergeant, and then I was assigned to a squad that I was going to be a member of. 13 �Interviewer: About how many men were in a platoon and a squad when you joined them? The platoon was probably about twenty or twenty-five men, so each squad was about a five man squad, five or six man squad. It was a small—there were only three platoons in a company and each company had, like I said, sixty-five or seventy men, so it was about a twenty, or twenty-five man platoon. Interviewer: Those are sort of-- significantly below paper strength for those units, which should have been a lot larger. Yeah, typically, that’s what we were—every unit I was ever with was about that strength and for me, that was just the way we operated, but as the new guy you were always pushed out in front, because the old guys didn’t want to take chances, so they always push you out in front, but it was a real learning experience, no doubt about it. Interviewer: Now, How long was it before you actually went out? Did you join them in the field at that point? 25:00 Yeah, I joined them later in the field, and typically the missions that we worked on in the 1st Infantry Division were seven to ten day missions. We’d go out and do search and destroy and, basically, looking for the enemy. We would move anywhere from two to four miles a day in the heat and humidity. Our pack was—a normal infantry pack weighed fifty pounds and that is because you had to carry claymore mines, hand grenades, five or six hand grenades, a couple claymore mines, I—typically the 1st Infantry Division we had to carry ten eighteen round magazines for our M-16, everybody had to carry at least one smoke grenade, besides all your food, a shovel, because we dug foxholes every night, so we had a shovel and trenching tool, and then some personal 14 �items. 26:01 You could carry letter writing stuff, or I carried a camera, I had letter writing things and not much personal. Anything you had to have in your pack, if it didn’t—if it wasn’t waterproof, you had to wrap it in plastic otherwise it was gone instantly. I remember going over there and my folks had gotten me a Bulova watch for graduation from high school and I wore my Bulova watch over there, and it was a beautiful watch, I loved the watch, water resistant watch, and it was ruined in less than a month. The humidity, it just ruined that watch, but other than that, that’s your thing, you had this pack you had to carry. We got up every morning, you made your meal, you packed your pack and then we’d move out for another mission, and basically we were given missions where we wanted to check out another trail or another—and you’d have to move two to four miles. 27:00 Some of it was canopy jungle where you were breaking brush just trying to get through and other times it was a little more open and you could move quicker, but because you never knew where there were booby traps and all those other dangers, you couldn’t move fast, so we didn’t move very fast, but we still had to cover a lot of distance. Interviewer: Now, when you moved, did you do it normally kind of single file spread out, or did you go across? The 1st Infantry Division was an organized unit; they’d already been in country, probably, five or six years. The 1st Infantry Division never walked on a trail, a hard trail, we all walked a file on each side of that trail, is how we moved into the jungle. One of those incidents where--I had problems with animals in Vietnam--we were breaking brush and a deer was spooked in between the two columns. It was close to where I was and it came running across and then it came up to another man, turned around, and had a full head of 15 �stream back at me, because we were probably fifty feet apart. 28:05 Well, it hit me and deer over there are about the size of a good size Collie, well, it hit me below the knees and I’ve got a weapon and a fifty pound pack, and it flipped me right over, the weapon went flying, and I could not believe how hard that deer had hit me, but it wanted to get out. So, that’s the way the 1st Infantry did, we just worked on either side of a trail, never on a trail, because we knew the trails were always booby trapped, we just knew they were booby trapped. Interviewer: Would there be booby traps, also in the jungle? Not, not as often, because a lot of units used the trails. We got to a point in the 1st Infantry Division where, even then, we’d hit some booby traps and we started getting frustrated, so we started setting our own booby traps. People don’t realize if you get frustrated enough losing men, losing legs and that, you’re going to do something to stop that. 29:04 So, we started setting out our own booby traps, and what we did was take a Claymore mine, a battery from one of our radios, we took a clothespin with a spring on it, we took the plastic straight part of a spoon and cut off the spoon part, and, basically, run trip wire into that plastic spoon, we put the Claymores facing the trail, you could put two claymores on one battery, you’d hitch them and run it to the battery. The battery would have a wire coming off, the wire would go on either side of the clothespin, then you’d put the plastic spoon between it, the clothespin would be tied to the tree and the other part of the trip wire would be tied to the tree and the minute that trip wire was pulled the claymores would blow. So, what we were doing, we’d send out a five man ambush position every night. 30:02 The CP, the company area would set up in a perimeter and they’d send out these five man ambush positions, and what we would do then, we’d put 16 �booby traps on either side of the trail that we were ambushing, and we’d set the booby traps. The friendlies could move from dusk to dawn, so the minute it got dark we knew we could set our booby traps out, but we had to retrieve them in the morning before it got light. We were very successful with them and I can guarantee it saved a lot of army guys lives, because we weren’t walking into theirs and they started getting frustrated with the 1st Infantry Division because we were blowing a lot of them away with our own booby traps. Interviewer: So, they were using the trails at night? They used them at night, yes. See, again, the Vietnamese, the VC and the NVA, they moved at night. We were afraid of the night, we didn’t move at night, we didn’t do anything at night, you didn’t move at night, and that’s what it was all about. 31:02 Interviewer: Now, when you were encamped at night would they attack you one way or another? Yes, yes, like, if, if, like I said—previously we had times where we weren’t setting out booby traps, they would walk into our kill zone, because every night we’d dig foxholes. Our five man ambush position, we would dig three foxholes facing the trail, putting out our Claymore mines, and then we would normally have one man in a foxhole, awake, at all times, and basically, if they walked into the kill zone we’d blow them away. Like I said, I was lucky enough to have a successful unit. We had a five man squad that I was part of. We’d set up on a trail that was coming right out of the Cambodian border, it was a hard packed trail and we had a five man squad, dug out foxholes, set up, had ten NVA, which NVA , they're just as equipped as we are. 32:02 If they walked into our kill zone we blew our claymores, every man fired an eighteen round magazine, our machine 17 �gunner ran a fifty round belt, and we threw thirty-five hand grenades before we went out to the kill zone, and we never took a round in. When we went out to the kill zone we had ten dead NVA. We needed a resupply of ammunition and Claymores, and hand grenades, so we were surprised to see a Major come in his little Loch to bring our resupplies and he was just dumbfounded. He said, ―My God you guys are great, this is wonderful‖, yada, yada, yada, gave us our hand grenades and ammo and then what we did, we threw the bodies in our foxholes and covered them up with a little dirt, and moved down the trail another fifty or a hundred feet. The next night we didn’t have anything happen, but the following night we had twelve of them walk into the kill zone, and we blew all twelve of them away and never took a round. Then again, the same thing happened, the Major came down to resupply us and he said, ―I don’t know what else to say, this is out— you guys, in three days killed twenty-two NVA‖, and we said, ―Well, that’s our job‖, you know. 33:10 But it’s one of those things that—I was in a great unit and I learned to be a great infantry guy because of that, If I’d been with another unit ―pff‖, too many others had poor structure. Interviewer: Were the other platoons in the company pretty good as far as you could tell? They all were, they all were, every one of them was—we just happened to be on the right trail at the right time and we happened to be doing the right thing here and there, but the whole unit was a good unit. I was lucky enough to be with a great, great bunch of guys and we didn’t lose a lot of men. Yeah, we had guys wounded and hurt, but we didn’t lose a lot of men, we lost some, but we didn’t lose a lot. 18 �Interviewer: When you joined the unit did anybody make any effort to kind of explain to you kind of how things worked and what you were going to have to do? 34:03 Yeah, you did, but typically somebody would feel sorry for you because you were the new guy staring off into no man’s land not knowing what you were doing, and somebody would take you under their wing and say, you gotta do this and you gotta do that, don’t do this, don’t do that. I had an issue one time where I had a dive watch on and toward the end I realized the only thing that’s going to survive the rain and being wet all the time was a dive watch. Well, I bought a dive watch at the PX and didn’t realize that the illumination was pretty bright, and I was moving my arm around and one of the guys said to me, ―You better put your hand—or cover that up , because somebody could see that and know where you’re at‖, so –but no, the guys were—they tried to help you along and it didn’t take long, it didn’t take a couple of months in the field and you were a seasoned veteran as they say. 35:00 Interviewer: You also mentioned that when you got there, there was a tendency to take the new guy and put him out in the front. Oh yeah, point squad, you’d be in point squad, no doubt. Interviewer: But, would you actually walk point in the point squad when you started? You wouldn’t walk point, maybe that first week, but you’d be on the point squad and the point squad—there were guys out there going to get—if anything’s going to happen, they’re the ones that are going to get it. 19 �Interviewer: Now, that period when you’re with the 1st Infantry Division, what kind of enemy activity was going on? Was it just the small patrol stuff? Yeah, we had a lot of VC patrols. The Michelin Rubber Plantation location was, basically, the straw hat, black pajama VC’s and we had a lot of them, and we were setting up ambushes all over the Michelin Rubber Plantation. They knew that they weren’t supposed to be moving at night and that’s when we were doing our best, and we were taking a lot of enemy kills. We were just, we were good at it, there was no doubt about it, and we knew how to set up a good position, so it was one of—from my perspective the terrain was as good as it could be for what you were doing. 36:10 There was some other terrain that you couldn’t imagine that no way you could see the enemy, but we were in areas where you could see them pretty well. One person always had a starlight scope in our platoon, so we could see the movement—you could hear the movement, you know, you, basically, pull guard two or three times a night, two hours a shift, and you wouldn’t get—you might get three hours of sleep, and trust me it wasn’t sound sleep. You were— even a twig breaking and you were wide awake, your senses were so honed in the jungle that I came back, I couldn’t believe how quick, a fire alarm could go off and I wouldn’t wake up, but over there, any little sound and you were awake instantly, and that’s just because your body knew what it had to do and man, you got sharp, you got real sharp. 37:10 Interviewer: Now, were there a lot of civilians and things in the area you were patrolling? Yeah, there were, and during the day, so—and we knew that at night they were telling the VC where we were at. We just knew that was happening, because during the day they 20 �were your friends and at night they weren’t, it was just one of those issues that—you knew that, you’d see them, when you were walking you’d see them, but you knew that was—you just knew that. The kids, the adults, you knew that somebody was coming in their house and threatening their family and they’re going to tell them where the unit is, so there’s no doubt about it. But, I had some, we had—I was one of these—come from this little west Michigan area and brought up in a strong Christian Reform background, and I had so many things happen to me that let me know that there was a reason that I survived Vietnam. 38:13 There was a reason that I came home, there was a reason for all of that, because on one incident—every time we came into the fire support base, we came in for three days, two to three days, come in and get a hot meal, clean shower, and go out. In the field they would resupply us every three or four days with C rations and water, mainly, and then they’d bring out mail. The clothes would come in a—they would bring out three duffle bags of clothes for each platoon. The platoon leader—each squad would send over a man to pick up five shirts, five pants, five pair of socks and underwear. It didn’t matter what size, you just grabbed five of each and you gave them to your guys. 39:01 It didn’t matter if it was an extra-large or a small, it didn’t matter, and that’s what you grabbed out of that bag. It wasn’t very stylish, but it was clean from that perspective, every three or four days you’d at least get some clean clothes, because you were sweating so bad in the heat and humidity, and then you’d move in the—you’d do your thing for seven to ten days, so you might get resupplied only once. Once in a while they would bring out a hot meal from the rear. If not a hot meal, we learned that C rations, they were nasty, so what we had to do was, we had to spice them up, so a lot of guys used Tobasco sauce and other things, but we learned to heat them because some of them—I found one 21 �that was packed in 1959, and I was there in 1969, so that had been in a can for ten years. We, basically, used C-4 plastic explosives to heat our C rations and what we did is, every guy got a chunk of plastic explosive and, basically, you’d pinch off a piece and you’d roll it into about a half inch ball and you’d light it. 40:10 It would heat your food instantly and really hot. You’d use it for your cocoa in the mornings, because seventyfive degrees in the morning was cold, you were cold and you wanted something warm, and your meal, like I said, you could heat your meals with a C-4, and that was one of the things, at least you had a meal that was a little bit warm. One of those items that they would bring out, and the water, you had to use a purification tablet in all of your canteens. I was a sweater, so I carried nine one quart canteens on my back, that’s a lot of weight, but I needed that to move, I needed that for two or three days of moving. You had to use purification tablets in your canteens and they made it taste like shit, I don’t care what anybody says, it—they were terrible. 41:04 So, what I did, I had said, in my letters home, I’d said, ―look guys, can you send me packs of Kool Aid, every letter you write me send me Kool Aid‖, so what I was doing, I was putting Kool Aid in my canteens, and at least it would take some of that nasty taste of the purification tablet away, but you had to do what you had to do. So, from that perspective, like I say, we’d eat, we’d move, then some missions lasted longer, we’d go into the rear, we’d get a hot meal, clean clothes, shower, we could go to the mess hall and get meals, they had movies, you could have beer, and then they would call out another mission and you’d go out in the field. Basically, we would—normally we would come—they would bring us from the airstrip to the basecamp again in a deuce and a half truck, which is a two and a half ton army military truck, they’d load ten or twelve guys in the back of the truck, bring 22 �them to the basecamp and then you’d get cleaned up. 42:04 The barracks there in the base camp, fire support base, whatever you call it, were basically, wood side half way up, elevated off the ground, the top half would be screens and they would have a metal roof. Inside would be cots, and when you’d come in for your two or three days of stand down, is what we called it, you’d , basically, throw your gear at a cot and that’s what you’d sleep on, would be a cot, and then, like I said, you’d get resupplied. They would resupply us, they’d bring a pallet of C rations and say, ―Okay guys, we’re going on a mission and you better pack three or four days of meals, make sure you have your grenades, and make sure you have ammo‖. One time we were standing around a fifty-five gallon drum, we had, we were burning—C rations come in a cardboard box and they have a lot of wrappers and papers around some of the stuff and you’d throw them—so, we had this fifty-five gallon drum, it was burning, we were throwing our trash in it, it was cold, it was—getting ready for a mission, so it was early in the morning. 43:10 We’re all standing around it getting warm, like I said, seventy-five degrees is cold, anybody tell you that it’s not, they’re crazy. When it’s a hundred and ten during the day, the forty degree temperature drop, your body has a hard time adjusting. There were thirteen of us standing around that trash can, we don’t know for sure whether somebody had thrown some C ration cans, we didn’t know if somebody in one of these boxes, one of their hand grenades had gotten in a box, but it went in the drum. Well, all of a sudden the drum exploded and this fifty-five gallon drum turned into shrapnel. Of the thirteen guys that were getting ready to go out in the field on a new mission, there were only eleven of us that went out that day; no, two of us that went out, eleven of them didn’t go out that day. The guys on both sides of me were bleeding out of their ears and had shrapnel all over 23 �them. 44:00 Another guy across from us had nothing. Me and him, we checked our uniforms and I said, ―No, I didn’t get a scratch‖, and I knew somebody was watching out for me. So, of that day, there were only two of us that went out of thirteen guys. Interviewer: Now, were you going with the rest of the company? Yeah, we just blended in with another unit until these guys, whether they came back or whether their wounds were healed, most of them were just shrapnel and bleeding out of the ears from the concussion of this fifty-five gallon drum exploding, but it wasn’t just the enemy that we were fighting, it was all these other things that you had to be aware of. We would load up on the deuce and a half, after resupply, after getting ready for a new mission, we’d go out on the airstrip and typically they would dump us on the airstrip, we would set on our packs until the choppers came in, the choppers would come in on, typically, four or five choppers per lift is what we called them and each lift would hold, roughly, a platoon. 45:01 At the time we were loading the choppers our artillery at the fire support base was supporting—was already firing our LZ, our landing zone. Typically, the chopper pilots would have been given directions saying, ―When you take off from the airbase you have to bank left, and then do a big circle and by the time you get there the LZ will have stopped firing‖. I was on the first lift this time, our chopper pilot took off, banked right, banked right in front of our artillery, and the guns were firing. We heard a round go by the chopper, it was so close we swore we almost got shot down by our own artillery, the chopper pilot turned, landed on the airstrip and walked away from that chopper. He knew that he almost got himself, his co-pilot, the two door gunners and a five man crew almost shot himself down, so we had to get on another 24 �chopper and go out in the field that time. 46:01 So, you had to—everything was against you, it wasn’t that everything was working for you. Interviewer: You mentioned when you were with the 1st Division there were different environments you worked in. You were talking about the rubber plantation, and what was it—when you were on the Saigon River, what were you doing there? Well, the Saigon River was—some of them moved on these little sampans and little boats, so we had to keep an eye on the river, so we would ambush along—typically along the side of the bank of a river there’s a trail and some of them would move real close to the river and some would move on the river, so we had to set up on the river. But, the problem of being set up on the river, the Saigon River or any river in a wet humid climate, the mosquitoes were horrendous. I was on an ambush position one night where I’m supposed to be alert, listening and looking for the enemy, and the mosquitoes were just driving me crazy buzzing around my ears was just so bad. 47:02 I put my poncho on, tightened the poncho around my face, I stuck cigarette butts in my ears, I light a cigarette and was blowing the smoke around, you couldn’t see the lit cigarette because I was cupping it and I was blowing smoke around trying to keep these mosquitoes from driving me crazy. I’m on guard duty and I’m supposed to be alert, so, you know, and that’s when I came down, I know that’s when I came down with malaria for the first time was the operation around the Saigon River, they were just so thick, the mosquitoes. Interviewer: You didn’t have insect repellent or did you have it and it didn’t work? I think they liked it, I think they liked the insect repellent, and that’s why a lot of the guys—you’d always see them in the movies; the guys have insect repellent in the band on 25 �their helmets. We used it, but I just didn’t—I think they understood what it was and they didn’t care. They were bad, the mosquitoes, but it was one of those things and I know that’s when I got malaria the first time. 48:00 Interviewer: How much effect did the malaria have on you during that time in Vietnam? For me it was, again like I said, I should have never gone to Vietnam, but when I was dusted off the first time by the medevac chopper and taken to the 25th Evac Hospital they packed me in ice for almost twelve hours to get my temperature down. It was over a hundred and four for almost twenty four hours and they—the doctor came to see me and they had an intravenous bottle in me for four days and I went through twelve bottles and I had a scar on my arm for years after where that bottle had been in there for so long. When the doctor came to talk to me he said, ―Well, your body didn’t have this malaria in it like it should have, but now that you got it we’re just going to keep you here‖, and that’s another one of those army tricks, let’s keep you here, you’ve already done it, let’s do it, but that’s just what it was and it was a tough one. 49:04 Typically, for me the first bout of malaria, I was in the hospital for just over a week and probably lost five or six pounds, I mean, you just sweat it off, it’s just what it is. Interviewer: Now, could they control it after that, did they give you any treatment for it? No, no, after that, once it’s in your body it stays in your body the rest of your life I’ve been told and you can have reoccurrences at any time. I’ve been very lucky and I’ve only had one when I came home, but I had other incidences in Vietnam that affected me, because I had malaria four times and the last time I had it, I had two different kinds of 26 �malaria at the same time. They evacuated me to Cam Ranh Bay , to the hospital and I spent twenty-one days in the hospital and lost twenty pounds, so it’s just one of those issues, you just—again, the enemy isn’t the only thing that you got to get home. 50:04 Interviewer: You were also doing some of your patrolling in the rice paddies. Did you do things differently in the rice paddies? Well, the problem with the rice paddies is, you knew you had to walk on the rice paddies dykes, or berms, whatever you want to call them and you knew that the enemy was going to booby trap them, and to walk in the rice paddies—you’re wet enough, I mean, typically—when I first got there I wore socks in my boots and like everybody else at the time, nobody told me anything different, but your feet are wet so much that you get sores between the wrinkles. You know how, when your skin gets wrinkly and your feet are wrinkly so much that they develop sores between the wrinkles and you can just start pulling the skin off, it’s wet so much. So, what I found that worked for me was I just didn’t wear socks when I was moving through, most of the time during the day, and I would put the socks on at night. 51:00 Then the water would run in the boots and drain out quicker, it wouldn’t hold the moisture into your boots and your feet get nasty. That’s just another one of those—you can be a casualty that way, your feet get so bad that—or bamboo poisoning, everything we were breaking brush was bamboo. We had one of our guys that—typically in the 1st Infantry Division we couldn’t roll our sleeves up, they didn’t want us to and this guy rolled his sleeves up. Well, he got scratches from bamboo poisoning and all of a sudden his arms just swelled up and they were just weeping of this pus from the bamboo poisoning, just from the leaves of the bamboo tree. Each person is different, like in the 1st Infantry Division you had to wear steel pot and you had to keep 27 �your sleeves down. Other units that I saw, they were wearing booty caps, they would roll their sleeves up and things were different, it was just one of those years and the unit I was with. Interviewer: Overall the unit you were with, and that company, had pretty good morale and discipline and so forth? 52:00 Yeah, the whole time I was with the 1st Infantry Division it was phenomenal, and this was the late sixties, because we were looking from October—September 15th is when I got to Vietnam, so September 15th until into May I was with the 1st Infantry Division and they were a phenomenal unit. They had a great area, knew what they were doing and didn’t cut corners, didn’t cut corners, never—we had an operation where they told us one time, like I said, you don’t move at night. The enemy moves at night and we were scared of the night. We had an operation, we’d set up, we were all set and ready to go, and they called in a—we had orders to move two miles and it was dark. So, what they did, they called in a C-130 gunship, ―Puff the Magic Dragon‖, whatever they want to call it. 53:02 Well, it was popping illumination flares as the unit moved, but we had to move, like I said, about two miles and it took us, oh shoot, it took us over two hours, two and a half hours, to move the whole unit. We just got ready to—and how we moved is we had a guy, I wouldn’t have done it, we had a guy put a strobe light, tape it to the top of his weapon, and he had to hold the weapons, so he had to stay in the center of the unit so the gunship knew where to fly. Nobody does dumb things, but that’s what we had to do, so we get ready, we’ve got to the position they want us to ambush and we’re just getting ready to call the gunship off station and we took a green tracer into our perimeter. Well, green tracers, the enemies had green tracers, we had red tracers, and we took a green 28 �tracer. Well, the pilot had seen the green tracer too, or his crew, or somebody, and said, ―I’ll bed you down for the night‖. 54:00 Well, the mini-guns that they use were those electric mini-guns and they had three of them on this gunship. Well, typically there’s a tracer, four rounds and another tracer, well, these guns put out six thousand rounds a minute. He made two revolutions around us and never let up and all we had was these three red streaks coming into the ground. It was deafening, you had to cover your ears the noise was so loud, but we didn’t have any problems with the enemy that night, because it was just—it was the best thing that ever happened. You knew that you were going to be safe that night. They knew, because we were set up, we were able to set up, we went out the next morning and it looked like somebody had just taken and shredded the jungle like a donut around us and that was impressive, it was thoroughly impressive. Interviewer: Now, when you were doing these patrols with the 1st Infantry Division, did you ever run into any kind of significant amount of opposition? Did you get into any big fire fights? 55:03 We got pinned down one time and the unit was moving in a forward motion and the enemy had like a horseshoe shape and they pinned us in pretty good. This is another one of those—we knew we were I trouble, we knew we needed help, so we called in an F-4 for support. Well, the F-4 has a 50 caliber machine gun, a huge round, and basically, the pilot was on station and he said, ―Hey, pop smoke to show us where the front of the line is‖, we popped smoke, he did a couple of revolutions and he could see where we were located, so he made himself a mental picture of where we were and said, ―Okay, pop smoke where you want me to bring in the rounds‖, so somebody threw a smoke grenade way into where the enemy was. The problem was, the only way he could get in—we 29 �were in an area where he had to come over our heads to get the enemy. 56:01 Well, that’s not the right way to do it, you should come in from the side, but he couldn’t do that. So, we popped the smoke and he came in, and all we could hear on his radio, because I’m monitoring the radio, is ―Oh shit‖. He brought in the rounds too soon, not to the level where anybody got hurt, but somebody could have got hurt. He made his sweep in and he annihilated the enemy, literally. I don’t care what you say, he did what he was supposed to do and now we weren’t pinned down and we were able to move out of there. The shells are coming out of those guns so fast that I had a shell casing hit me on the arm and it burnt right through instantly, third degree burns instantly right on there. I couldn’t fling it off and it just stuck, but I knew, hey guys, that those guys out there had the other end of that round going at them. It was one of those issues that you say, ―Hey, I like what we got working with these F-4 jets‖, and this and that and the other thing. 57:00 We were able to move out of there without—and then get into a better position where we could take the enemy, and we moved them out, but they had set up on us and we walked into it. It was one of those things that we didn’t—nobody was wounded or killed, but we had guys get wounded. Nobody got anything from this F-4, but we had gotten some wounded from the enemy when they threw the ambush on us. I got that shell round and the medic wanted to put me in for a purple heart and I said, ―Don’t even go there, don’t even go there guys, come on‖. Interviewer: When you ran into them, were they just mostly using small arms? Yeah, most of the stuff we hit was RPG rocket launchers or AK-47’s, because the 1st Infantry Division, the majority of the units we hit were VC and a lot of times the VC had one weapon for three guys, they didn’t all have weapons. The NVA, now that’s a 30 �different story, the NVA were just as well equipped as we were, they had all the same— every man carried a weapon. 58:00 The VC didn’t do that, they might have one weapon for every three, or one weapon for every two. One guy falls and one guy picks it up and—but, they can still do a lot of damage, a lot of harassment, a lot of this, a lot of that, it’s one of those things that—what they used to do, we’d be moving, they would fire on us, we’d sit down and that would slow us up and then we’d get up and move again, then they’d fire on us again, and just harassment and that’s what we knew they were doing. That was slowing us down from our goal and that’s what they did. Interviewer: Now, you’re with the 1st Division for over half of your year in Vietnam. Over the course of that time, how much turnover was there in company and in the platoon? Typically, typically—when I got there you’d lose two or three guys, let’s say every week or every other week, whether back to the hospital or their time was up, because we weren’t like—everybody didn’t go over at one time. 59:06 I flew in, so there was always somebody leaving and there was always somebody coming in, at all times. It just seemed like there was always a new man and there was always somebody getting ready to be, as we called them, ―short‖. Interviewer: Did your officers also rotate out? The officers only had to have a six month tour, they weren’t a one year tour, so yeah, they were in and out quite often and that’s why, a lot of times, guys in the unit and sergeants were a lot better at knowing what was going on than this new officer that came in every six months. There were officers that were doing stupid things because the OCS had trained them one way, but it wasn’t the way the jungle allowed it to be, so a lot of 31 �times the first sergeant, the platoon sergeant, he was running the damn place, trust me, it wasn’t the Lieutenant a lot of times. The Lieutenant was normally—if he was a new guy he didn’t’ know what was going on. 00:00 He would have to go to his sergeant and way, ―What do we do there, what do we need to do there?‖ Interviewer: Was that what the smart ones did? Oh yeah, the smart ones did that and the dumb ones came over with that, ―I’m better than the rest of them‖, and they’re the ones that always go home in a bag, because that isn’t the way it is. You got to learn from the guys that have been there, from the guys on the ground. Interviewer: You weren’t taking a whole lot of casualties, so did the replacement system, basically, work for you? Yeah Interviewer: You come in individually; you get oriented and get experience. Yeah, typically, like I said, somebody would take you under their wing and try to help you get through that first week, first month, or whatever, so you could start counting those days down, and it worked well. I was that type, it worked for me, and I wanted to make it work for the next person that came in to me, so—but, it was—we worked, and we were hitting a lot of—we started hitting a lot of basecamps, and what a basecamp is, is just a whole bunker complex, and we started to hit a lot of those. 1:01 What they did is, they wanted somebody to be trained on a flamethrower, so they took me and said, ―Hey, we want you to be trained on the flamethrower. ―Great, wonderful, just what I want to do‖, so they took me in the rear, gave me a flamethrower and said, ―Okay’. Well, then the training officer said, he said, ―Look, you have, the first lever shoots the foam out 32 �there, and then the back lever is the igniter, that ignites it‖. He said, ―Now, it’s got a kick, so you gotta lean into it‖. Well, I’d been there a couple of months and I thought I was a ―bad ass‖, ―What is he talking about, I can do this’, and when I fired that doggone thing on the range for the first time, it went up on a forty-five degree angle and burnt all the hair off my arms, and I thought, ―Well, I should have leaned into it like he said‖, and I didn’t. What they did then, every time we’d hit a base camp, a bunker complex, if it was a smaller one, somebody would throw hand grenades in it and then I would torch it with the flame thrower before somebody would go in the bunker. 2:02 I didn’t want to go in the bunker, but I would do that. It was one of those things, I liked what we had, the flame thrower, and we had one of them where we were moving into an area and we walked into a battalion size base camp, it was a huge base camp and one of the biggest base camps they’d ever found in the area of operation we were in. We backed off and we called in a B-52 bomb strike and said, ―Let’s do this one up right‖. They brought in a hundred thousand-pounders on two different runs, so basically, the bomber would drop two hundred thousand-pound rounds, so we thought, ―Okay, this is going to be good‖. We backed off; I’m going to guess, about three quarters of a mile. Now, our artillery FO said, ―We’re way too close‖. He said, ―I want you guys to get down on your bellies, I want you pack on your back, I want your helmet on your head, and get behind something that won’t move, a tree or whatever you can find‖. 3:07 I got behind this six foot ant hill and I thought, ―Cool, no problem‖, well, when that bomber made its—I was on the radio, so I could hear the bomber say, ―Bombs away‖. When the ground started to shake the vibration from those first bombs was unbelievable, it just bounced and when they stopped I was about twenty feet from the ant hill, so I bounced across the ground with 33 �this fifty pound pack on my back and this cloud of dust had just come over me, covered us. The bomber made a second run and did the same thing. I said, ―I might as well get behind the ant hill, it’s all I can do‖, it was the same thing, and when we went to check that area, we walked into craters that were fifty feet across, twenty feet deep and were already filled up with water, and there was nothing, it looked like the surface of the moon, not triple canopy jungle. 4:04 I mean, it just shredded it, and see, there again, I’m glad I’m on the U.S. side when they got bombers like that, that was really cool. Interviewer: When you would run into these base camps were they mostly not occupied? Oh no, you’d normally—if we were doing our thing right, which we did a lot of, when we moved in we could smell the rice cooking. So, we knew they were there and if they stayed to fight, fine, but a lot of times they would go out the back end, and then all we would do is blow up all the bunkers, seize the rice, or whatever and try to get rid of anything we could. Other times we found caches of weapon and ammo in the bunkers and we would just take them and have them flown back to the basecamp. Interviewer: Now, at a certain point in your tour you switch units. It wasn’t really that I wanted to switch units. 5:00 What happened is the 1st Infantry Division was one of the first units, in 1970, that Nixon said, ―Oh, I’m going to bring some people home‖, and they brought a flag and a few people home, but the 1st Infantry Division was one of the units that pulled out because they had been there the longest. Because I had six months left in country—most tours of duty were twelve months, and I got almost thirteen months, but we won’t talk about that. So, I had been with the 1st Infantry Division about seven months and now I only had six months left, so I was 34 �transferred to the 23rd Infantry Division, or the Americal. Now, I went to their base unit and the unit was already in the field, so they said, ―We’re going to fly you out to where the unit is working‖, and I said, ―Fine, that’s not a problem‖. I’d been in country seven months and I was a seasoned country veteran and I knew what I was doing. I flew in to where they were at and as soon as I get off the chopper, everybody, all these guys are yelling, ―New meat, new meat‖, because they thought you were just a new guy coming in from the states. 6:08 Well, the sergeant there, he knew better and he said, ―Guys, he’s got more time in country than any one of us‖. What happened, within about a month I was made sergeant, which means, now I’m in charge of a bunch, but the problem with the Americal Division—they walk down a hard trail single file, all the men, right down that trail and they’re walking into booby traps every day, every day. I couldn’t understand why they would pull out a unit that is such a great unit and had their shit in order, to throw in this unit that is so bad. So, I got there and once I made sergeant I said, ―Guys, we’re doing this wrong, we ought to be setting up our own booby traps‖, so then I started training guys to set up booby traps, we started doing that, so we weren’t walking into them all the time. 7:01 But, as a division, they were terrible. Before we even started to set up the booby traps, one of the second , or third, missions that I was on we were on— we’d been working—Americal was up in the central highlands, most of the op was in mountainous areas and that, but there were some rice paddies, and we’d been working in the lower lands and they wanted us to move up to the top of this mountain, and then they were going to take us off the top of the mountain and take us back to the basecamp for a three day stand down. We’re going up the mountain and we hit two booby traps. Three guys were wounded, so when we got to the top of the mountain we pretty much knew that 35 �everything up there, we better be careful because it’s—whether it’s in the trail or in the bushes, you better be careful because it’s going to be booby trapped. 8:00 We set up a perimeter where we set up guys around the perimeter. We didn’t have to dig foxholes because we knew we weren’t going to stay. They were just going to bring in choppers and take us off, but they put up guards around the outside of this mountain, so now you got sixty-five guys—I had been in the middle of the unit and we’d set up the mortar platoon and set their mortars, and some guy had an M-79 grenade vest that had, probably, twenty-five hand grenades, grenades that he shoots from his little gun, on the vest very close to where my pack was setting. Well, I’d been setting in my pack reading some letters and just, you know, and my squad was in the guard position. Choppers were coming in, let’s say, within an hour, and one of my guys came up to me and said, ―Ron, I’d like to read my letter from home and I’d like to have a cigarette‖, because you couldn’t have a cigarette on the outside, so I said, ―Fine, I’ll go to the bunker‖, and I no sooner got over the crest of the ridge when the whole mountain blew up. 9:02 When that happened we had fourteen killed and thirty-two wounded off one booby trap. It was the largest booby trap that was ever tripped in Vietnam at the time. What had happened, some guy had walked through one of the bushes, he shouldn’t have, and they had booby trapped one of our artillery rounds and it was in one of the bushes. The bush was very close to the mortar platoon, all the mortars, and this grenade vest. When it went off, it went off as one big explosion; it wasn’t a series of explosions. When the dust cleared, I came up to where my pack was and the man was that setting on the pack took a piece of shrapnel in the chest, it went right straight through him and because there were so many wounded, he bled to death on this pack. 10:02 This guy had just showed me his 36 �girlfriend’s picture, just said, ―Hey, I want to read my letter and write a letter, but I want to have a cigarette‖, and I had said, ―Fine‖. Those are the things that you know should have never happened. They took fifteen of us off the top of that mountain and they put us in an area in the center of the base camp that had, I would guess, a fifteen foot high chain link fence around these three or four barracks. They put the fifteen of us in there and said, ―We’re going to bring beer in there ―, because they knew we all had some major problems because of what we’d just seen. So, they brought in—they gave us a meal, we had beer, we just didn’t have to do anything. What they were doing is, they took five or ten men from each other unit in the battalion brought them into that area and then they brought us back up to company strength and they we became another company going back out in the field. 11:02 Again, by this time I was a sergeant, I’d made sergeant then and they said, ―Okay‖, so now I was starting to train guys to set up booby traps and do this and that and the other thing. The unit became a better unit, but it still would never match up to what I had come from. We had some—they did things differently and it wasn’t an exciting time for me. Interviewer: Did that unit have, sort of, morale or discipline issues that were different from the 1st? Yeah, a lot of them, a lot of guys would ―sham‖, as we would call it, where they would say, ―I don’t feel good‖, at sick call and this and that. A lot of guys smoked dope and smoking—the first night in the field I literally wanted to break my weapon over the head of a guy, because he was supposed to be on guard duty and he’d been smoking pot and he fell asleep. I said, ―Guys, you just don’t do that, you just don’t do that‖. 12:02 The first time I went out as squad leader, I said, I said, ―Look, you’re going to carry extra flares 37 �and you’re going to carry this and you’re going to carry that, and I want you to carry an extra battery, because you’ve got to be in communication at all times. If you get ambushed, you need good communication‖, so we’re on our three, or four, or five days out on a mission and we get fired upon. I want to be able to call artillery and bring it in to where it’s supposed to be, so I want to put a new battery in. I asked this guy for the new battery and he said, ―Oh, I threw that out a couple of days ago, it was too heavy‖. Now, that’s when you say to this guy, ―I don’t want you in my platoon again, or my squad, or whatever, I don’t want you in this field‖, so a lot of that kind of stuff started to happen with –these guys were just—they wanted to get out of the field, they didn’t want to be part of what was going on, so it was not a unit where you got out there, you were proud to be in that unit. 13:04 All these guys wanted to do was get to the rear, ―I’ve got a cut, I’ve got to get to a medic‖, and that was just wrong. I could see that because I had come from a unit that everybody wanted to be there and wanted to help get the other guy home, but they didn’t care. I think that had a lot to do with the amount of drugs, later on in the war, that I happened to be there at the time when it was just starting to really take off. I never smoked a day in my life, I could smell it from a mile away, I knew when they were doing it in a bunker, I’d get them in the next morning and I’d say, ―Guys, it’s not what you’re supposed to be doing, I’ll tell the lieutenant, or I’ll tell the Captain, but I’m going tell them if you keep it up , you do that when you’re in the rear, you don’t do it in the field‖, and that was a real struggle, when it wasn’t that you were just fighting the enemy, now you’ve got guys in your unit that are supposed to be there to help you. 14:01 Interviewer: Did you eventually establish a certain amount of rapport, or credibility? 38 �You did, but I never felt comfortable with that in the unit. I don’t know if it was the training, I don’t know if it was just the way, the lackadaisical way they were , there’s no way I could ever feel totally comfortable with that. I got comfortable with a few and that was what I liked, but they were a strange bunch, and it was the whole mentality of the whole unit, and maybe it was because of the chain of command, I just don’t know, I just—I’ve never figured out why that unit was such a bad unit. Like I said, when that bomb went off I was dumbfounded, I was devastated, because at that point in time, you know, life had changed, because it was—I had been working the whole nine months, nine months, at this time, to stay alive, and I said, ―Now, I gotta get out of this place‖. 15:06 ―This place is going to get me if I don’t‖. I was lucky, I’d trained a five man squad to set the ambushes and set the booby traps and they got to be really good, because after ten months in country, ten months of fighting them, I got a job as a battalion draftsman and chief driver for a Major. Within a week of me getting that job, my five man squad got credit for thirteen kills on an ambush and booby traps, so I know that I did something right. But, as a battalion chief, you know, draftsman, and chief driver for this Major, basically, we had a bunker on top of our fire support base with a big chain link fence around it, and that’s was his headquarters and there was a huge map of our area of operation and it was covered in plastic and I had, I think, five different colored pencils that I used and I had to plot each unit where they were. 16:08 I had to plot temperatures, hills, anything that the Major might have to tell a General when he came up for a briefing, so that was my job, everyday keeping up with that. Across from this was my bunker that I lived in. Well, one of the first nights in the bunker, now I got this great job, I got hot meals every day, a clean uniform every day; I’m not dodging bullets and all 39 �that. So, I’m sleeping on my cot, in the bunker, and it was a pretty nice bunker because it had been there for a few years and the guys had really made it nice. I fell asleep and normally I sleep on my stomach, so I fell asleep that night and I had a sensation that there was something wet on my finger, so I woke up and I saw this rat taking off, and this rat had been licking me. 17:03 This rat was a pretty good size rat, and I thought, ―Oh, boy‖, so from that point on whenever I was in my bunker, I slept on my back and had my arms crossed on my chest, because I didn’t want that to happen again. But, as a Jeep driver, I had to drive the Major from firebase to firebase, where he would give briefings, or he would get briefings, as the Major for the unit. On one of these incidents, we were going in between two mountain ridges, we went right in the middle of them, and all we heard was this AK-47 open up on us, and it went AKKKK, I mean it was just—you could hear it and this Major said to me, ―Kick it in the ass Dykstra‖, and man, I nailed that Jeep and away we went. We knew the rounds were close and he did too, and he said, when we got back to our basecamp, he said, ―I want you to check the Jeep over, because I know those rounds were close‖. 18:01 Well, the Jeep I drove, originally they had a name on the front of it, well, the kids were telling the VC what the name was and they were shooting at it because they knew there was a Major in there, so we had—when I got there they had already started painting over names, because they knew that was a bad thing to do. Behind the seats, on the Jeep, was a radio, and the radio was—it was a good size radio and the bottom of the antenna was probably a two and a half or three inch diameter antenna and the antenna was probably twelve feet tall and it had one on each side. So, I get back to the basecamp and I check the Jeep over and the antenna on my side has taken a round right through the base, and that antenna is no more than two feet behind me. 40 �Now, I know, if that VC had led, as we call it, led you further, but he didn’t lead us right for the speed of the vehicle, so he opened up on us at the antenna instead of opening up on us at the driver, that’s how close that one was. 19:03 I said, ―My God‖, my Jeep, I had, because I was short, I had ten months in country and I knew—I doubled—most guys put sandbags behind the seat, down the center and one sandbag under your feet, well, I had double of everything, my Jeep squatted, it was just—because I just didn’t want anything to come up from the bottom, so that was another one of those close incidents. So, once again I know that there was a reason that I was able to accomplish my task and come home safely. Interviewer: Now, while you were assigned to that Major, you’re now living on a base camp, did they have Vietnamese civilians working on the base camp? Yeah, the civilians would clean, a lot of them, they would use them for cleaning and some of them they would even use them for doing the dishes and cleaning, so you didn’t have to pull KP and things like that. They were around there all the time and the civilians, you just didn’t trust them. 20:00 When I was driving the Jeep we had somebody in our battalion where a little kid had taken a hand grenade, he wrapped the hand grenade with rubber bands, really, really tight, and he pulled the pin and he opened the gas cap on a Jeep and he shoved the grenade in the gas tank and shut the gas cap. Well, it took a while, but the gas ate away that rubber band and blew the jeep sky high. Now, this was a seven, eight or nine year old kid that did this. We had kids that we found with these little homemade weapons, and what they were doing, they would take a block of wood, they would take an M-14 [round], which was a sniper round, they’d take an M14 and they would rubber band that on top of this block of wood, they’d cut off the back 41 �of that M-14. Now, our M-16 round will fit right inside that , they would put a smoke grenade trigger on the back of it and all they would do was pull back and they popped, and these little kids were using them as little guns. 21:03 You just didn’t know, you didn’t know who was friendly and who was foe. Interviewer: Now, would they get all the Vietnamese off the base at night? Yeah, they would have to leave. They would normally leave about an hour-- they would start to leave about an hour before it got dark. They would have to be in their homes, and then anything that moved was free game, anything that moved you’d shoot on it, and that’s what it was. Interviewer: Was there a town or a village in the area close by? Yes, typically when you had a fire support base you had a couple of villages, one on each side of it, or something like that, because that was just the way it was set up, that’s just the way it was. In every one of my incidents, that’s how it was set up. Interviewer: Would the men go into the villages during the day or that kind of thing? During the day they could, if they were off they could go into the villages and buy souvenirs. I had a portrait down of me by this Vietnamese artist and the guy was a phenomenal artist and I had a portrait done, oh, eleven by fourteen and a gorgeous portrait. 22:01 It’s something I’ll always remember, just because you got that young face in that portrait, young, innocent face in the portrait, but you could do that , you could buy souvenirs. I bought my photo album from there; there were just any odds and ends that you could use. Interviewer: Were there issues with crime or prostitution, or things like that? 42 �Oh yeah, but I hear about it and I see it in movies. I never was in the big cities, I never saw that. Interviewer: It wasn’t going on in those villages? Yeah, it was but, from my perspective I was always in the jungle or something, but yeah, at lot of times if you were—if you were pulling road security on Highway One, in The Big Red One, it was the main highway that runs through Vietnam form north to south, if you were pulling road security, and a lot of guys would do it on these amphibious type of vehicle, or track vehicle, and basically, a track vehicle would pull off on the shoulder and the infantry would set a position out there. 23:06 Typically, the prostitutes would come up in little Honda 50s, they’d have somebody driving the little Honda 50, they’d get off the back and they’d go service the guys out in the bush or in the tank, and that’s just the way it was, that’s just the way it was. Interviewer: Now, another one of the standard issues or things that were brought up about Vietnam is the racial issues. Did you see much tension? Yeah, well, I had some experiences that—I had—and I hate to use the term, but I’m going to use it the way I use to use it. I had some black guys in my unit that were the worst guys and I just couldn’t get them out of the unit fast enough, and I had other guys in my unit that I could depend my life on, but the percentage of those that you could depend your life on, in my experience was pretty small, pretty small, most of them were in the rear smoking dope, heroin, or whatever. 24:04 That’s all I ever saw, I didn’t—but they always used them as—that’s what I saw. The ones in the field, we had them, there was no doubt about it they were great, wonderful, but a lot of them like the guy that threw the battery away, he was black, and I just—those are the type of things that can get 43 �people killed and I’m not going to put up with that, and I didn’t. I didn’t want to, but if you’re forced to have them in your unit there’s nothing you can do about it. You do the best you can, but the problem is, you find them sleeping on guard, you find them doing those things and you say, ―This is going to get somebody killed‖, so it was—I saw them more in the rear, blacks in the rear, that was drugs, and drugs, and drugs, and drugs, and that’s just the way it was. Maybe I was blinded to the rest of it. Interviewer: Was that kind of situation worse in Americal than it was in the 1st Division? Yeah, I saw it in the 1st Infantry Division, but it was worse in Americal. 25:05 One of the guys in the Americal, they did an article in Time magazine in like seventy—mid seventies, and here he is standing there in front of one of these places smoking it, and he was with me in the unit. Time magazine, so yeah, I remember that one well, I remember well and what that was, but from, and again, I spent virtually ten months in the jungle and then I spent two months as a Jeep driver for a Major, with a nice bunker, I had my own music and I did my own thing and I didn’t get involved with the other. It happened, and it happened in the bunker—I didn’t have any part of that, I just stayed away from it. I didn’t come from Detroit or Chicago where they were doing it before they got there, and they were going to do it when they got back. 26:02 Grandville did do that, it just didn’t happen in the Grandville area. Interviewer: The statistics that I’m seen showed, essentially, that you had about the same rate of drug use at home as you had in Vietnam. But it was so evident there that—here you didn’t notice it as much, but there, it—little kids were selling you the damn dope for nothing, I mean, it didn’t cost you nothing. 44 �When we came in from the field , and this is the honest to God truth, even in the 1st Infantry Division, when we came in from the field, there would be, say, ten or twelve of us in the back of a deuce and a half, and they would get three or four joints going around the back of the duce and a half as we were going in, these guys were taking the edge off, because now they said they could take the edge off, and they would pass it around and anybody could take a hit off of it, going into the basecamp, and that’s just the way it was. And you could do that, you could do that for two or three days, you could drink beer if you wanted to do that for two or three days, but that’s all because you have to be right back in that—you just had to be so sharp from that point on, afterwards though. 27:08 Interviewer: During the course of your tour there, did you get R&R at any point, or leave time? Yeah, I took R&R in Hawaii and it was—again, I had just a little over nine months, I took seven days of R&R in Hawaii, had a great time, the weather was wonderful, but I knew what I was going back to. I hadn’t gotten my rear job yet as the driver for the Major, so I knew I was going back in the field, so you try to live and do as much as you can in seven days in Hawaii, knowing that may be the last days that you’re going to see that type of thing, you may never come home, so you spend a lot of money, it costs you a fortune, costs you, as infantry guy combat pay, the whole shoot’n match was two hundred and eighty seven dollars a month. 28:02 Now, you think about who wants to put their life on the line, every day, for two hundred and eighty seven dollars a month? I don’t think so. So, go to Hawaii, it costs you a fortune, costs you a thousand dollars between the hotel and the flight and all the rest of—getting somebody there, it didn’t cost you to get there, but it cost somebody else to get there, so all that, it was an expensive thing, but 45 �it was worthwhile. You get rejuvenated and made sure you had a good idea of what you were fighting for, what you wanted to go home to, and that’s what it was all about, so I had a great seven days, came back and in literally a month, I got my job as a Jeep driver. Interviewer: You mentioned that you were supposed to be there for twelve months and you wound up being there closer to thirteen. How did that work? What happened is, about the time I got my job in the rear—well, a little before that, again I found out that the army was offering a five drop of you came back from Vietnam with less than a hundred and fifty days on your tour. 29:04 So, I had—if I extended twentyone days, I’d come back and land in Seattle with a hundred and forty nine days left in country, my tour of duty. So, I thought, ―I don’t want to be‖—I knew what I was going to be doing, I knew they were going to take me and take me to Fort Polk or Fort Knox and they were going to want me to yell and scream at these young eighteen and nineteen year old kids, and I knew where they were going and I didn’t want to do that. I knew I was good, I could help them, but I just didn’t want to do that. So, I extended for twentyone days and I was, in the big picture, I was lucky, I didn’t realize it, I was lucky, I had twelve months in country, and I came down with malaria for the fourth time. The fourth time, I had two different malarias at the same time. I went to Cam Ranh Bay and I lost twenty pounds or twenty-one pounds in twenty days. 30:01 in the hospital they wanted to send me to Tokyo and then send me home, but I knew that if I went to Tolko, I’d spend a month in Tokyo and then they’d send me to a hospital in the states and I’d spend a month there and by then I’d been home a long time ago. I called the Major , I’d been in the hospital, at this time, about seventeen days, I called the Major and I said, ―Guys, you gotta get me outta here. They’re going to send me to Tokyo and I’ve only got ten days 46 �left on my tour, why don’t you just see of you can get the papers and have them send me back to the company area?‖ The Major did, I was sent back to the company area, when I got back I had seven days left in country. The guys in the bunker wanted to celebrate that I’d come back and they knew I was leaving, so they mixed me up rum and coke in a glass about this big. Now, I was not a drinker until I came back from Vietnam, there I wasn’t, I could smell it that far away. 31:03 Now, I drank two of those and when I woke up I had five days left in country. Now, I’d lost two days of my life, but I knew—the Major came down and said, ―Dykstra, it’s good to see you up and around, we thought we lost you there‖, and I said, ―Yeah‖. He said, ―I don’t want you to leave this bunker, I’ll have all the meals brought in to you, and you start getting your paperwork in order so you can get out of here. I’ll have my Jeep take you to the airstrip and get you home safe‖, and I said, ―Okay‖. The Major was cool in the bigger picture and how I knew that from the time I worked with him, he was an enlisted man that had been in the army for seven, eight, nine years and decided, ―Hey, I’m going to make this a career‖. He went to OCS, so he’s been down in the—with the grunts, he’s been down with the PFC’s and the rest of them, he knew it, so he was a cool Major. He wasn’t one of these Majors that had their nose in the air, he was a cool guy. 32:00 I like him for that and he treated me great, so it took me more time than I thought to get my papers and get—you’ve got to get everything in order, you gotta get your, everything, you gotta have your uniform halfway decent, you gotta this that and the other thing. You gotta have your papers, you gotta have a haircut, and you gotta do all those things. The company, they’re going to control some of it. They don’t want you looking like a rag bag leaving, they don’t want that, they’re not going to let that happen, so you did all those things. Well, the problem I had was the last 47 �two or three days before I was supposed to leave country the monsoon rains started again, because I’d gone through the monsoons in the 1st Infantry, now I’m going through the monsoons at the end of this tour and it was terrible, everything is socked in, nothing can fly, no choppers can fly. Well, the only way I was getting from my fire support base to Can Ranh Bay, or wherever I was going, was by chopper or C-130. 33:00 Well, nothing was flying. So, they decided that there were so many of us that had to get out of there that they put us in a deuce and a half and they sandbagged the duce and a half, they reissued us weapons, they had a gunship, a Cobra gunship, go over us and they took this truck and we trucked all the way to Cam Ranh Bay, because they had to get us out of there, which was wonderful. So, we get to Cam Ranh Bay, we get on that plane and that’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you in your life, when you’re going to leave. You hate to say it, because you’ve left all these other people, but I was lucky enough to leave some guys that knew what they were doing and they all came home safe, and they got credit for these kills and they were all great guys. So, I land in Seattle, now in Seattle they’re backed up because nobody could fly out of Vietnam for two or three days. Now, they’ve set themselves a goal to get everybody out in one day. Now, you get into Seattle, they’ve got to make sure your papers are in order, you gotta get orders cut to whereever, whether you’re going to be re-stationed to another unit in the states. 34:01 You get haircuts, they do a physical, they have to fit you in dress greens, fitted, with all the ribbons and badges and all the bells and whistles on it, and then you can go. Well, by the time they got done sending us to the Seattle Tacoma Airport for our flight home it was late, so I was able to make the last flight to Chicago, but I was going to miss the last flight to Grand Rapids. In Seattle I called my parents and I said, ―Here’s what’s 48 �happening, I’m home, I’m getting ready to fly out of Seattle, but I’m going to have to spend the first night in Chicago, in the airport, because I can’t get that last flight to Grand Rapids. I’ll see you the next morning‖, and they said, ―Fine‖. I didn’t realize at the time that my grandmother was visiting my aunt in Valparaiso and forty –five minutes from the airport. 35:06 Well, I’ve got two little cousins that I was sending illumination parachutes, hand grenade pins, I’d been sending them for the whole time I was over there, every letter I would send my aunt. My uncle was a professor at Valparaiso, so he’s the one I used to tell him what the war was about and what was happening. The real truth, what I was seeing in the jungle and what he was hearing about what was happening. So, I was always sending my cousins, these little kids, I was always sending them things in my letters. So, I get off the airplane, expecting just to walk to my gate and then I was going to sleep in the airport, and here’s my two little cousins holding up this little sign, ―WELCOME HOME RON‖. Holy mackerel and it was about ten or ten thirtyish when I got there. Now, these kids, at the time, were probably, I’m going to guess, six and eight, just little kids. 36:01 So, we—we sat there and we all cried—we sat there and we talked, and talked, and talked and it was almost two in the morning when I said to my aunt and my grandmother, ―You gotta get the little kids home. In another four or five hours I’m going to be getting a plane, you go do your thing‖, so, they left and then I sat in the airport with this—just excited, because now I know—got on the plane the next morning at seven thirty in the morning, landed in Grand Rapids, because there’s an hour difference, I landed about nine thirty in Grand Rapids. I got off and my whole family was there. I hadn’t driven a car in thirteen months and I said, ―Hey, I want to drive home‖, and they said, ―Fine‖, so I drive home and I’m about a half a mile from home, I 49 �get off the highway and I make a left-hand turn, and I get pulled over by a Grand Rapids cop. 37:00 Now, when I left, I could legally make a left- hand turn going up the hill, Michigan Street Hill, you could make a left going up that hill. Now, while I was gone, they had made that an illegal turn. Now, this was a young cop and he pulled me over and he can see I’m still in my uniform, and I tried to explain that to him, that I—I said, ―Look, this was a legal turn, I’m sorry, I just got back a half hour ago from Vietnam‖. He didn’t care, wrote me a ticket and said, ―If you don’t agree with it you can fight it‖. Now, this is my first day home, you know, and I thought, ―this isn’t the way it’s going to end‖, so three or four weeks later I went to court and the judge asked me to explain why I was there and I said, ―I got this ticket for making an illegal left turn‖, and I explained the story the it was legal, the guy pulled me over, I tried to explain to him, I’m in uniform and I’d just got back from Vietnam. 38:01 This judge just went ballistic on this officer. He said to the officer, ―I want to see you in my chambers after court‖, and he said, ―Mr. Dykstra I want to thank you and I feel so sorry that this has happened to you, I want to thank you for your service to our country and for our freedom‖, and yada, yada, and he said, ―I just don’t know what else to say to you, ―court dismissed‖’. I thought, ―Now the war’s over finally‖, but that’s just—it wasn’t an easy thing, from day one until the last day, it was a struggle the whole—in my opinion, for mine, it was a struggle for nineteen months, and thirteen of it happened to be in Vietnam. It was a long road, and when I came home I was a different person. Like I said, I have an identical twin brother that literally, the first time I was medevaced out of the field, my twin brother was crying in the basement. 39:07 My mother came down and said, ―What’s wrong?‖ And my twin brother said, ―Something is wrong with Ron‖. Well they got a call from the Red Cross 50 �that I’d been medevaced out, nothing major, but they got the call. Now, I’m in the field one day and my leg is just killing me, and the medic’s saying, ―What did you do? How did you hurt yourself?‖ I said, ―I don’t know, it’s just driving me crazy‖. Well, I find out from a letter, that my twin brother had gotten third degree burns from a grease fire, on his leg. Oh, this is weird stuff--I’m in the Seattle airport, I buy a pair of sunglasses and I think, ―Yeah, these are great‖, and I get off the plane in Grand Rapids, and he’s got on the exact same pair of glasses, so I know that him and I are identical, but from that point on we have not been identical. 40:02 Before that we were, every thought, when I’d start to say something, he’s going to say the same thing, but it didn’t happen after that, his life went one way and mine went the other, and it’s got to do with—it may not have to do with the military, but it had to do with Vietnam, I can guarantee that, it changed my life. Interviewer: How do you characterize that change? I had-- to go to the faucet and turn on a glass of water, to flush a toilet, I had, I had seen third world poverty. I just loved what I had and what was here for me, it was like—you just respect—I respected everything about the U.S. Grandville, stupid little Grandville, I respected it because it was a lot better than where I’d been, what I had seen, I mean, I’ll tell you it was. 41:01 From my perspective, yeah, it was totally, totally—and that’s what I think changed me. It wasn’t the war as much as what I appreciated and what I , you know, simpler things in life that mean more to me than they did before I went—I took them for granted. Interviewer: How easy, or hard, was the readjustment to civilian life? It was, it was—for me, at first, it was a little difficult, not a lot, but it was a little difficult. My language was terrible, everything I said was a swear word. I mean, it was—I had to 51 �watch what I said, because I was still—I came back and was living at home, and at that point it was a strange, strange thing. 42:00 I had an incident where my roommate in college, at Ferris, he was my roommate for two years and lived in Detroit, and I’d been home about a couple of weeks and I made arrangements to go and visit him. I decided to take the bus, because I didn’t want to drive that long trip, so I took the Greyhound to Detroit. His fiancée picked me up, and he and I were close for two years, really close, and I wrote him letters while I was in Vietnam too. We went out to celebrate that first night back with him, and we went to this little bar. He brought his fiancée with us, because we wanted her as the designated driver, and all she was drinking was an orange drink, and he and I were drinking pitchers of beer. I got--well, we both had a great time because I was telling him the stories and just enjoying life and being back with him and seeing him again. 43:07 So, we go out to the parking lot and the only thing we can think is that the bar had called, because there was a policeman across the street—we didn’t notice it when we got in our car, but he was across the street and watched us leave the bar. I was sitting in the front seat and my roommate was in the back seat and his fiancée was driving. We get to the first red light and the cop pulls up next to us and says, ―I want you to pull over when the light turns green, and you, (he’s pointing right at me) you, stay in the car‖. ―What did I do?‖ I know I was drunk, but still—so, we pull over, he comes up to the car, he opens the door, he yanks me out and takes me fifteen or twenty feet out into the middle of this field, and he—young cop, there’s a young and an older cop, and he’s yelling and screaming, and my roommate tries to get out of the car and he goes, ―You, stay in that car‖. 44:06 Well, the older cop finally came over and I’m saying, ―Yes, sir, no sir, I don’t understand why you pulled us over‖, I said, ―I just got 52 �back from Vietnam not too long ago and I just saw my roommate for the first time in a long time. We’ve brought his fiancée along so she could drive, what did we do?‖ Well, he thought I gave him an obscene gesture when I got out of the bar, he thought I flipped him off. Well, I hadn’t, and the older cop—the younger cop was egging me on because he wants to throw me in jail, and the older cop finally says, ―Fine’, and he could see that I wasn’t going to go there. I was still being very, ―Yes sir, no sir, I didn’t do that sir, I don’t understand this‖, and that’s the way I was and they finally let me go, but again, the adjustment, it was a little tougher. My best friend in Vietnam, a young guy that I trained three months before I left, he came back in about January or February and I got back on October 7th, 45:12 he was going to get married to his high school sweetheart, so I’d gotten a letter and I’d written to him while he was there. So, I went to his wedding and it was so great to see him, just to see what had happened and how he had done, and how the rest of the guys had done, but I lost touch with that young man, you always do, you always say you’re gonna, but you never stay in touch with them. But, you finally say, ―Hey, I’m home‖, and you’re home, he’s home and you say it’s over, but it’s never over. I got married about—I got married in 1973, so just about three years after I got back and I would have the nightmares and my wife would find herself on the floor in the bedroom and not know why she’s gotten there and not know anything about it, but that’s just what it was. 46:03 I used to have them a lot, but I don’t have them anymore, but it was one of those things—back then I never knew what was—everybody says, ―Oh, these fireworks are going to set you off “, and I went for years, and years, and years, and never had it. One time the fireworks went off, I got a whiff of that, it sounded like artillery, and dog gone it, if it—you just never know. But, I’ve been—I’ve got a great family and I 53 �made the best of what I could make. I tried to make myself a better person from what I had seen and the people I came in contact with, and the people that were—like I said, there were people that didn’t make it back and I got involved with just wanting to make—I didn’t want all veterans to be made out to be the homeless, down and out’s and beards and all this, I didn’t want that, I tried to do what I could do as a professional. 47:03 And to put a best foot forward and say, ―They aren’t all like that, there are a lot of us that are really part of this community, part of this whatever‖, and that’s what’s top in my opinion, to this day, and why I wanted to do this is just because of that, for my kids, for the future of these kids, and for everybody else. I enjoyed, like I told you earlier, I enjoyed, when I was giving presentations to high school and college kids about the war, letting them know that guys—it wasn’t a war, but it was a war. There were a lot of people and here’s how it affected these people, here’s what they went through and here’s how they went through it, and that, to me, meant a lot, because at the time the book didn’t have a lot about Vietnam, a paragraph, a page, maybe. Interviewer: At this point, you brought along and made a kind of outline for yourself. Check your notes there. I tried to cover everything. 48:03 It’s one of those things, I’m going to keep this for myself just because of that. I’ve never written it down before in my life and to know this was coming, I said, ―I want to make sure I cover everything. I don’t want to forget something that’s an important part‖. In the hospital, every time, you could sign up to make a MARS call, and a MARS call was, basically, from ham operator to ham operator. So, the first time I was in the hospital, I was able, in a letter, tell them, ―I’m going to be making a MARS call on this date at this time‖, so I made the MARS call, and what a 54 �MARS call is, is I’d have to say, ―Hello, how’s everybody doing? Over‖, and then they would know that they could speak, because somebody in four different locations throughout the United States would have to flip a switch and let the other person talk. I had a grandmother, at the time that was — had never driven a car; she was my favorite, lived in Grandville, had the oldest house in Grandville and lived there her whole life. 49:02 She was part of a church group and prayers and all that. Well, she couldn’t be at the phone, so I sent a Panasonic tape player home, I had one, and I’d make tapes and then my grandma—but a lot of time, my younger brother, who’s ten years younger than me, he would tape the phone calls, so he could take them over to my grandmother’s and my grandmother could listen to the tapes and it would just cheer her up, you know how that goes. But, the MARS call was a neat thing and you could do them in base camp too, you could call back if you could set up a time, but you had to get on a list and you’d have to be there, and they’d give you say, fifteen minutes to make a phone call home. I was made the radio operator for the Lieutenant in the infantry, with the 1st Infantry Division, about a month or a month and a half after I got to the unit, so I was still just new, but I was made the RTO, which means radio operator, which was great. 50:03 But, that meant I had to carry an extra twenty-five pound radio on my back. I had to carry smoke grenades, illumination flares, and you had to be on the first chopper into every LZ. And every LZ, you didn’t know if it was going to be a hot LZ or not, but you had—normally you could be on the third lift, so it would be a secure LZ, but being the radio operator I had to be on the first lift of choppers going in, every time. Interviewer: RTOs were often targets weren’t they? 55 �Oh yeah, because they had that big antennae banging around, not a good thing, I did it with passion, I called in this, I called in that, and I made sure when he told me, gave me grid coordinates, I knew that I was given the right one, because I didn’t want call in artillery on our own zones, you know. This was interesting—I told you I had problems with animals. 51:01 Well, the deer was one, but the other one I had was—I had a five man squad that we’d—at the time I was part of a five man squad and we’d set up an ambush position away from the company area. We’d just set up and it sounded like the whole NVA army coming down the damn trail. I mean, it sounded—and I’m saying, ―Just—get ready, get ready, let’s blow our Claymores and fire‖. Well, just about the time we started firing our weapons after blowing the Claymores, we could hear the squealing of pigs. We’d blown a family of wild boars away, mama, papa, and five little ones. Blew them—but now that we’ve blown our ambush, the enemy knows where we are, we can’t reset up our ambush, so the whole night we had to stay awake, the whole night because we couldn’t—the next morning the company, the Captain and the Lieutenants from the other—they came up there and they put the pig between a pole, carried the pig back to the LZ where they were going to get resupplied, and the pig went back to basecamp and everybody had pig. We didn’t get it, but they had it. 52:03 One other time, set up in an ambush position, in the foxhole, I had just come off guard, which means I was laying behind the foxhole and all I could see were these green eyes, in the jungle, coming at me. I didn’t want to blow the ambush and I said, ― Quiet, quiet‖, and all of a sudden ―pppttt‖ , it was a black panther, a black panther went right over my back, so I say, ―Animals and me didn’t work real well, you know‖. We had fifteen missions in a row, in the 1st Infantry Division, where we’d come from wearing—coming in from the 56 �rear we’d had clean clothes and dry feet, and we had fifteen LZ’s in a row where it was wet, the choppers couldn’t set down, we had to jump out of the choppers, our feet were wet instantly, up to here or further, and you start out with wet feet, and we had fifteen of them in a row, because the ground over there was always wet, just always, always wet. 53:01 Had a time on the airstrip, we were going out—this one here is one you don’t want to hear about, but it happens. Two guys, high school buddies, drafted the same time, went to basic together, went to AIT together, went to Vietnam together, and they were assigned to the same unit, best of friends. We’d been resupplied, setting on the airstrip like we always do, setting on our packs just waiting for the choppers to come in. Their playing cowboys and Indians and one of them shot the other one right through the heart and he died instantly. The guy grabs his heart and he dies, and the other guy literally went insane. He just killed his best friend, but the M-16 became like a comb in your pocket, you took it for granted, it was there, it was loaded, it was always loaded, you didn’t—and that’s what happens, it was an accident. 54:01 Accidental shootings and deaths happened a lot in Vietnam, happened a lot, and while I happened to have the opportunity to see one ten feet away when it happened, because I watched the guy grab his heart and he just died, he died. You know, it’s—you just never know when your time is going to come. We came in for Christmas; we came in for Christmas on Christmas Eve and we were in for three or four days, we were lucky enough to be in, and a lot of times they don’t send your care packages out to the field to you, you open them when you get back to the basecamp. My grandmother had sent a case, a case of Jiffy Pop popcorn-Christmas Eve, so we had Christmas dinner in the mess hall, so Christmas day I gave everybody Jiffy Pop. 55:00 That night, the company air smelled like a popcorn factory 57 �and I thought, ―This is cool, this is so cool‖, and it—I love popcorn and it brought me back to—for almost minute, I could say, ―I’m in my living room having popcorn‖, you know. It just was a great thing and my grandmother did something so simple, but it meant so much to me and I’m sure to a lot of other people. I know I’ve covered most of it and I just want—there’s so—oh, we—when I was with the Americal Division, I was up in the mountainous area and we were up on top of a mountain and down in the valley we could see the VC, or the NVA, moving around, so we knew they were moving. We could see the South China Sea coastline from the top of our mountain. We heard there was a destroyer off station, so we called back to the rear and we said, ―Hey, can you contact the destroyer and see if they would like to fire their guns to help us clear this position?‖ 56:08 They came back to us and said, ―Yeah, the destroyers would love to test fire their guns‖, so we give them the grid coordinates and we want them to, basically, annihilate that grid. Now, we could not see the destroyer, but when the destroyer fired its guns, we could see the flash, and I go, ―Oh, this is cool‖, and when that round went over the top to go down in that valley, I swear to God they were throwing a Volkswagen through air, I mean it was just ―Crrrrrrr‖, again, B-52’s, destroyers, ―Puff the Magic Dragon‖, we had all the good stuff, there’s no reason to monkey around as long as we did. When you see it, you were right, it’s an impressive thing, it’s an impressive thing. 57:01 From my perspective, I’ve covered everything that in my notes I put down. Interviewer: There’s one other thing that kind of occurred to me. You were going to sort of talk about morale issues and that kind of stuff and another issue that comes up kind of late in the war, is the issue of fragging officers and that kind of stuff. 58 �We had a bad incident and it was the unit, 1st Infantry Division. I got there, and within about a month to a month and a half after I got there. The first sergeant, all the guy did was sit and read, he never came out in the field, he always had his clean and pressed clothes, so we came in and got off a deuce and a half from a ten, twelve, fourteen day mission, and he’d line us up in a formation and he’d say, ―I want all you guys to take a shower and get clean clothes and I want you all to get a haircut‖, and he was just, just brutal about that. 58:03 These guys, the next mission they come home dead, so somebody fragged him, they rolled one underneath, because again, these barracks that we were staying in were just raised off the ground a foot and a half, wood floors, wood sides with screens, and aluminum roof, and somebody just rolled a hand grenade underneath that and lucky it didn’t kill him, but at least it wounded him enough where he went back to the states and the guys didn’t have to put up with it. Don’t know who did it and nobody cared, because we didn’t need that kind of harassment, we didn’t need that kind of harassment. Interviewer: Was the guy a lifer, was he a long term service guy? Yeah, he’d already been in the military fifteen or eighteen years and this was probably his second or, maybe, his third tour, you just never knew, but he was just—he pushed the wrong button. You don’t mess with the guys that are keeping you in the rear, making the same money we’re making out in the jungle, and you’ve got a cot, you’ve got electricity, and you’ve got hot meals, you can go and get a beer every night, watch movies, and you’re going to mess with us? 59:08 That’s what happens, I mean, that’s what happens, and it was one of those incidents that I’d heard about them, but I remember that one, because it happened and luckily nobody was killed. At least it got him out of there. 59 �Guys would let their hair grow, and if they want to put up with that steel pot and that heat and humidity, let them grow their hair if that’s what they want, let them go, let them do their own thing. Interviewer: That’s a small thing. Did you shave when you were out in the field? Yeah, yeah, between brushing your teeth and shaving, you aint going to waste the water, guy, trust me, water’s too precious to you to do that, so, I mean—but I was twenty one and I didn’t have to shave until I was twenty five, or so, because nothing ever showed up anyway, you know, but other guys, yeah, I had one guy that could shave in the morning and by noon it looked like he needed a shave, but he carried the machine gun, so nobody messed with him. 00:04 Interviewer: Well, it makes for a very good story and you’ve done a very good job with it and I’d just like to close out here by thanking you for coming in and talking to me today. Like I said, it’s an important story, an important part of the story, just one of a small number of people and the big issue that I always look at is that one in every ten Vietnam veterans was combat infantry. Nine of those other guys that are Vietnam veterans, they were in the rear, they had great jobs, but they still made the same money, they still—and that’s one of those things that people say, ―Well, there were five million people that served in the war‖, yes, but there were only five hundred thousand that were Vietnam— that were infantry, the numbers are small guys that actually got CIB, the Combat Infantry Badge, a small number of the big picture. We all were there to do a job, we all did, and we were—yeah, it didn’t end like we wanted it to, but we did our best to make sure it ended right, so thank you very much. 1:09 60 � 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 Dykstra, Ronald (Interview transcript and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dykstra, Ronald Description An account of the resource Ron Dykstra was born on July 6th, 1948 in Holland, Michigan. Following graduation from high school in Grandville, Michigan, Dykstra received his draft notice in 1968 and reported in 1969. After completing his basic training at Fort Knox in Kentucky and his AIT at Fort Polk in Louisiana, Dykstra deployed to Vietnam. Originally, Dykstra fought in Vietnam as a member of the 1st Infantry Division. However, when the 1st Infantry returned to the United States as part of President Nixon's downsizing, Dykstra still had time let on his tour, so he transferred to the Americal Division, where he served for the remainder of his tour. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Kentwood Historic Preservation Commission (Kentwood, Mich.) WKTV 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 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 2011-03-17 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DykstraR 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/02d5a858cc845d10c5342732d745b1d9.m4v 53ab8ebb760737b6709f0642dc5cd65c https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b481090488d57d44e307cd63690412bd.pdf 13b44ca9fb2c437c9740f29761516ab7 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Korean War Glenn Dykstra Interview Length: (01:07:01:00) Pre-Enlistment / Training (00:00:30:00)  Born in Wautonga, Oklahoma in 1932 during the Dust Bowl days (00:00:30:00)  His father had just got out of the service when he married Dykstra’s mother and he worked at a cotton farmer (00:00:45:00) o His family had to move because of the Dust Bowl, so they moved to Michigan when Dykstra was four (00:01:06:00) o Dykstra remembers while in Oklahoma that his mother would cover them up with wet curtains at night so that they could breathe (00:01:23:00)  When they moved to Michigan, Dykstra’s father got a job working in Grand Rapids (00:01:49:00) o There was an uncle and aunt that lived in Grand Rapids (00:01:58:00) o His father worked in a cement block factory in Grand Rapids as well as farming part-time (00:02:17:00)  Dykstra was in high school for four years; he nearly graduated but it came along that he could join the Air Force at the age of seventeen, so Dykstra joined the Air Force and finished his schooling there (00:02:46:00) o He wanted to join the Air Force because he was sick of farming; while in high school, he did some farming and raised pigs by himself as part of the FFA (Future Farmers of America) (00:03:14:00) o Dykstra thought that being in the Air Force would be the magic thing to get away from the farm (00:03:37:00)  At the time, the Air Force had a recruitment center in Allegan, Michigan, so he went down there one day after school and joined the Air Force (00:03:51:00) o Dykstra’s father had served for ten years, including during World War I, and was wounded, but both he and Dykstra’s mother were okay with Dykstra joining the Air Force (00:04:13:00)  The Korean war had not started when Dykstra first enlisted in the military (00:04:35:00)  After Dykstra joined the Air Force, a man came to his house, picked him up and took him to Detroit, where he had to get his different medical tests done (00:05:11:00) o The military gave shots to all the newly enlisted men and threw some clothes at them, although none of the clothes fit (00:05:32:00) o All the new recruits were not upset by the way they were treated; they had been brought up in situations similar to Dykstra, meaning their families were not rich (00:05:44:00)  From Detroit, a load of about thirty recruits got onto a steam-engine train and went down to San Antonio, Texas and Lackland Air Force Base (00:06:10:00) �  o It was a twelve or fourteen day journey from Detroit to San Antonio and on occasion, the train would stop and beside the tracks were animals and cowboys would start loading the animals into cattle cars (00:06:43:00) o It was cold in Michigan and a lot of times, the men did not have heat in the train (00:07:18:00) o On the journey, the engineer would stop in a town and the men could get off to buy food, normally canned foods (00:07:58:00) o The first thing that the Air Force did once the men got to Lackland was took the men into a large building and started throwing more clothes at them (00:08:35:00)  The men had nowhere to sleep on the train, so they were tired but when they got down to Lackland, the first sergeant came into the barracks just after the men had fallen asleep and told them to get up (00:08:55:00)  The first sergeant told the men it was cold outside and to put their clothes on; some of the men complied and put on their overcoats which were twice as big as what they needed to be (00:09:39:00)  Then, at nine or ten o’clock, it started getting hot out, so the first sergeant told the men to go back inside and get on their jock straps but keep their overcoats on, just to keep them miserable (00:09:47:00) o Basic training was mostly handling guns and ammunition, just like the Army; the men also went to class but the classes were simply, just about maintenance and similar things (00:10:15:00) From Lackland, Dykstra went through several different schools (00:10:41:00) o At Rantoul, Illinois, he taught aircraft hydraulic school as well as aircraft and engines for propeller aircraft (00:10:55:00) Eventually, the Korean War began and Dykstra wanted to get out of teaching and go overseas, so he volunteered (00:11:24:00) o Once he finally got flying status overseas, Dykstra taught how to be a flight engineer; he did not have schooling in the subject but an older man taught him (00:11:48:00) o After that, Dykstra taught how to be a weight and balance technician, a job that involved figure the correct amount of armaments a plane could handle; while he was doing this, Dykstra was still at Rantoul (00:12:13:00) o Dykstra stayed at Rantoul for a few years as an instructor before he left and went overseas (00:13:37:00) Deployment (00:14:11:00)  When he went overseas, Dykstra went to Japan first, something everyone in the Air Force did; ironically, the Air Force personnel went overseas on a ship and the Army personnel flew overseas (00:14:11:00)  When he went overseas, Dykstra sailed on a troop carrier (00:14:32:00) o During the trip over, a lot of the men got seasick if they were not used to it and even some of the men who were used to it ended up getting seasick; Dykstra did not get seasick until after about a week or so (00:14:56:00) o The journey was a three week trip from San Francisco to Japan (00:15:21:00) �    o When the men slept on the troop carrier, they slept in bunks, sometimes six tall and when they started going back and forth, the men had to get out, lest they get seasick (00:15:37:00) o They had good food to eat on the ship, mostly beans and franks, but one time Dykstra was waiting in line with his aluminum tray (00:16:06:00)  There was a store on the ship where the men could buy crackers and stuff (00:16:48:00)  Anyway, another person’s tray slid past Dykstra full of vomit and that was the end of it for him; he lived on crackers for the rest of the journey (00:16:58:00) In Japan, the men stayed at what became Tokyo International Airport (00:17:20:00) o While in Japan, Dykstra was on flying status and started taking trips into Korea on B-17 bombers and C-47 cargo planes (00:17:45:00) o Dykstra did not go on bombing missions too much, although he did go on a few; if they had VIP personnel, then he flew with them on B-17s (00:18:20:00) o At the time, Dykstra worked as a flight engineer or crew chief; he swung back and forth between each job and received wings for both (00:18:44:00) As the Korean War got worse, it was then mostly Korean K-sites, locations to land the plane in Korea; in principle, these sites were secure, that was not always the case, and they sometimes took small arms fire (00:18:57:00) One time, Dykstra felt sorry for a man in the reserves who did not have the right type of training and had been shot at, which made quite a difference; the man was flying the plane, with Dykstra as his flight engineer and another man as co-pilot (00:19:49:00) o At a certain point, the plane had to go through a pass to get to the second K-site; the pass was just big enough to fit a plane through (00:20:21:00) o They got about halfway through the pass when they lost an engine and both the pilot and co-pilot did not know what to do, so Dykstra told them the feather the prop because it was dragging them down (00:20:42:00)  The pilots asked Dykstra how to feather the prop and he showed them how; they pressed a button and the prop feathered itself, which meant that it stopped running and turning (00:21:13:00) o The reserve pilot had never been through that before and when Dykstra looked at him, he was ringed with sweat; Dykstra told him that he was doing okay and to just steer and Dykstra would do the rest (00:21:38:00) o When they got to the end of the pass, they saw the runway but when the pilot requested permission to land, the control tower said that they could not land (00:22:44:00)  Dykstra deduced that the runway was jammed with aircraft and he told the pilot it was no problem, they would just land in grass on the other side of the field (00:23:11:00) o Once the plane stopped, the pilot jumped out and ran right for the tower; Dykstra could hear him yelling all the way out in the field and when he came back to the plane, Dykstra told him that that was the way it had to be, they could not land when another plane was on the runway (00:23:45:00) Dykstra ended up flying around several famous people, including Bob Hope and Marilyn Monroe for USO shows (00:24:27:00) �     o They also flew around Eisenhower and Nixon when they were running for President; he liked Nixon well enough, but thought Eisenhower was "too army". (00:25:24:00)  One time, they told Dykstra that they would be back to the plane at a certain time because they had a schedule to keep; an hour or two went by and Dykstra told another man that he would start the engines and have them running, then call the tower and tell them that the plane was running (00:25:53:00)  However, there was no one to stand fire guard and Dykstra went out to stand guard; when he got back to the base, Eisenhower wrote him up for not wearing his hat (00:26:46:00)  Later, Dykstra told a commanding officer that no one was able to stand fire guard, which was why Dykstra did what he did (00:27:30:00) The bombing missions he went on were actually practice missions (00:28:05:00) He also went out to the wrecks of several bombers because at that time, the jet bombers were coming out and they were "throwing labs"; if the plane got going real fast, real low and tried to abruptly pull up, they threw the labs off the front of the plane (00:28:16:00) o "Labs" were bombs bombs (00:29:11:00) o The pilots did this on purpose because it was a way to bomb the enemy without blowing themselves up, a tactic that the pilots used quite a bit (00:29:22:00) o The men practiced with the labs in the States (00:29:49:00) o On time, there was a crash, Dykstra and another man had to go out, inspect the damages and pay for whatever was damaged (00:30:03:00)  The crash occurred where a farmer was raising fifty acres of sweet potatoes and the plane had crashed in the middle (00:30:19:00)  When the two men got to the scene, they found a man to clear a path back to the plane and when he did, the men found that the plane had all of its wings; they smelled jet fuel and because it had been three days, when they started looking around, no one was there (00:31:03:00)  The pilots had blown the canopy, which was in the woods, and after looking around some more, Dykstra noticed smoke coming from the base of a tree; the two men in the plane had burned themselves up when ejecting (00:31:57:00)  The other man said it was just a parachute but sure enough, when Dykstra kicked it, there was a person in it (00:32:41:00) During the incident with the reserve pilot, the plane was hit several times with small arms fire (00:33:27:00) o They had to keep low because if they got up high, the anti-aircraft guns would get them (00:33:37:00) On occasion, when the sheet-metal people got a hold of the plane, they stapled beer cans to cover the holes up; they were short of all supplies, even ammunition (00:33:54:00) Dykstra was not stationed at K-2 [one of the K-sites], he just flew into there a couple of times (00:34:26:00) �    o During another time he flew there, the men told him to not take his clothes off and to leave his shoes on because "Bed Check Charlie" was going to be there (00:34:33:00) o Dykstra did not know what Be Check Charlie was but sure enough, when it got dark out, Bedcheck Charlie came; it was just a light plane and the pilot would throw hand-bombs out of the plane (00:34:49:00)  The bombs were enough to keep the people at K-2 busy (00:35:05:00) o One commander finally heard about the situation, got into a light plane himself and shot the North Korean plane out of the air (00:35:12:00) Dykstra would land in Korea on occasion, such as when he lost an engine; he was not stationed in Korea but he flew in and out a lot (00:35:50:00) o Sometimes the people on R&R in Japan would see the plane and want a ride back to their units in Korea (00:36:08:00) Korea was not a very organized place to be stationed (00:37:01:00) o The television show M*A*S*H was a pretty accurate portrayal (00:37:36:00) o There was poverty in the country and the Koreans had a bad situation with crops; Americans would end up bombing the crops (00:37:50:00) o However, the Koreans seemed to make it pretty good (00:38:12:00) o When the Chinese finally joined the Koreans, then a lot more Americans soldiers were killed (00:38:18:00) o If the average Korean knew what the Americans were fighting for, then they treated the soldiers okay (00:38:38:00)  The Koreans that Dykstra met seemed okay and he ended up fighting along side some of them if he happened to be in the area (00:38:51:00) The base in Japan was originally a Japanese base but when the war broke out in Korea, the Americans took the base over (00:39:41:00) o The Americans had quite a few fights at the time and it was dangerous getting out of the base (00:40:01:00) o One time, a friend of Dykstra woke him up at about three in the morning and said that he saw Dykstra had a flight going out of the base to China (00:40:23:00)  When Dykstra asked if he did, the friend said that the commander had put Dykstra’s name up there for the flight; the friend asked if he could have it, Dykstra said that he could and that was the last that Dykstra heard of the friend (00:40:44:00)  They lost some planes flying over China although they were not supposed to be flying over China (00:41:20:00) The Japanese people had a culture all their own (00:42:38:00) o If a soldier saw someone hit by a car on the street, he could not help them because if he did help them, then he owned them (00:42:42:00) o There were a lot of bombings in Tokyo; both damage from World War II and people setting off bombs; every once in awhile, people would set off bombs in the city just to make trouble (00:43:16:00) o When he first went overseas, the Japanese treated the American soldiers well but as things got worse, McArthur went over to manage the situation (00:44:57:00)  A lot of the Japanese people liked McArthur liked him and a lot of people did not but he was building himself up to be a king (00:46:01:00) �  o Dykstra actually lived with Japanese people for about six months (00:46:28:00) o Most of the houses were bombed out when Dykstra got over there and he ended up picking a Japanese dictionary from a bombed out building (00:44:44:00) o Dykstra stayed with people who worked on the base (00:47:21:00) o When the Japanese started flying planes, they did not know how to handle them properly (00:47:51:00)  One time, Dykstra was flying over the sea of Japan and all at once, the men were looking out the windshield and a plane went by with the tail markings of Japanese Airlines (00:48:09:00)  The Japanese plane only missed Dykstra’s plane by less than one hundred feet; any closer and they would have crashed (00:48:36:00) o There were earthquakes all the time in Japan (00:48:57:00)  One time, Dykstra had a man working for him and they had a big earthquake and the cement rolled up like a wave, although it did not break (00:49:03:00)  Dykstra went out to the plane to tell the other man to get out of the plane, but the other man said that he would stay and talk with the tower (00:49:22:00) o The men had to watch their steps in Tokyo (00:50:25:00)  A lot of men went back to Japan for their R&R and the Army had marked out where they could go; still, Dykstra ended up going to some of the places that he was not supposed to go into (00:50:37:00) o Anything the men wanted was in Japan and they did not have to walk too far to get it (00:51:09:00) o There were kids begging the soldiers for candy, but that was not a unique situation (00:51:28:00) o The Japanese had just started to get the fast trains when Dykstra was there (00:51:48:00) One time, Dykstra had a new guy working on the ramp who was supposed to be gassing the planes (00:52:46:00) o Dykstra had a bunch of VIPs that he was taking out that morning and they had just started taking off and all at once, Dykstra looked out the window and the gas was spraying all over the place (00:53:01:00) o The new man had forgot to lock the gas fillers down and the gas was spraying all over the plane (00:53:24:00) o Dykstra told everyone to remain calm and not make any sparks while they powered the plane down; the base commander ended up yelling at the man working with the gasoline (00:53:40:00) Another time, a soldier from Michigan wanted to fly above a tsunami; Dykstra said that it was pretty high waves and the fly high (00:54:15:00) o The man told Dykstra that he was going with him and Dykstra told him that the winds were very high in the storm and could change at any time (00:54:35:00) o The man was adamant to go and take some pictures, but he told Dykstra that Japanese were living out there already and taming the land once the storm had passed (00:54:44:00) � o As the men got out there, a large black cloud came closer and closer; the cloud turned out to be a wave and when Dykstra suggested that they pull out, the other man said that it was just a rain cloud (00:55:11:00) o They got out to the point that the wave was real tall and all of the sudden, a volcano came up and started spurting fire (00:55:43:00) The tower connections were not too good at the time (00:56:48:00) o One time, a man in the tower was watching a flock of geese instead of Dykstra’s plane (00:57:03:00) o The man kept saying that they were just about ready to make touchdown but when the plane did land, it was only about fifteen feet from a brick wall; if they had hit the brick wall, they would have blown up (00:57:18:00) Return to the United States / Post-Military Life (00:57:47:00)  Dykstra spent four years overseas, including time after the war was over; eventually, he came back and joined the bomb squad at Langley Air Force Base (00:57:47:00) o He still worked as a flight engineer and crew chief and several planes and ended up spending a total of eight years in the Air Force (00:58:23:00) o When he finally did leave, Dykstra thought that he could do better outside the military, which he did (00:58:36:00)  After leaving the Air Force, Dykstra went into electro-plating in California (00:58:49:00) o Over time, his kids grew up; however, California was a rough place back then for kids to grow up and Dykstra decided that he did not want his kids to grow up like that (00:59:14:00) o He owned a farm back in Michigan, so his family moved back (00:59:46:00) o When they got back to the farm, Dykstra’s family started raising asparagus; they had thirty acres of the crop and they would ship the crops to an canary in Fennville (00:59:53:00)  Growing asparagus was better than raising animals because he was married to the animals; he could not go any place, he had to feed them, etc. (01:00:29:00)  Dykstra learned a lot in the Air Force, including aircraft maintenance and mathematics and he still uses the mathematics to this day (01:00:53:00) o Dykstra believes that the Air Force is a good place to go and learn something because they do not take anything away from the men; they could keep going to school as long as they were doing well (01:01:49:00) o Out of the six years he spent in the Air Force, Dykstra spent six years in school (01:02:16:00)  Seeing the plane crashes is one of the things that Dykstra would like to forget (01:03:47:00)  The soldiers had it much harder than Dykstra did (01:04:07:00)  Whenever they would get shot at, they men could hear the bullets going through the plane; a lot of the pilots and people riding in the planes sent notes saying that they would the Koreans what they needed if they would stop fighting (01:04:14:00) o It eventually got to the point that the planes were being shot through the canopy and they had to change that out; they had to put heavy steel where people sat to shield them from the bullets and it worked out well (01:04:59:00) �o There were people in the plane who threw the notes out the open door, which drew a lot of small-arms fire (01:05:47:00) o They used mainly C-47s to deliver the notes (01:06:32:00) � 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 Dykstra, Glenn (Interview outline and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dykstra, Glenn Description An account of the resource Glenn Dykstra was born in Oklahoma in 1932. However, because of the effects of the Dust Bowl, his family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dykstra joined the Air Force when he was seventeen and finished his school while in the service. After training at Lackland Air Force base, Dykstra taught at several bases around the country. Eventually, he shipped out to Japan and flew both bombing and cargo missions into Korea during the Korean War. He also flew VIPs around, including Eisenhower, Nixon, Bob Hope and Marilyn Monroe. Dykstra spent a total of four years deployed overseas, including time after the conflict in Korea had concluded. 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 Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American United States. Air Force 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 2010-03-23 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DykstraG 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/19c763a6f51b3df254bd24cbd18baac6.mp4 4f48f83188519bf278d63246f48048d8 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/16aeb2e7bc1a7204e4e995821222b50b.pdf a7306ad654c28352889adb5cf0197afe PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: Iraq War, 2003Interviewee name: Eric James Dykgraaf Length of Interview: 58 minutes Pre-Enlistment (00:30) • Childhood (00:35) o Eric James Dykgraaf served in the U.S. Navy as an E-5 and his station was in San Diego, California. (01:07) o He backs up and mentions that he was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (01:21) • Education (01:26) o Graduated from Caledonia High and went onto attend Grand Rapids Community College before joining the Navy. (01:33) Enlistment/Training (01:39) • Background (01:40) o Dykgraaf joined the Navy on May 25th, 2000. (01:43) • Why he joined (01:46) o He joined with the prospects of going on after his military experience to join the FBI or do something criminal justice related. (02:02) Another reason for him was that he was influenced by a friend who was already serving in the armed forces. (02:30) • Living conditions (02:40) o In his first couple of weeks doing boot camp he mentions what it entailed from learning how to march, performing different maneuvers, to mastering the rules and regulations expected of a military man. (03:31) Mentions that he was in boot camp for 3 months. (03:37) • Where he went and what company he was with (03:58) �o Dykgraaf mentions that after boot camp he went to Pensacola, Florida where he attended air crew school. (03:58) Spent a month there learning about the fundamentals of how to escape from a submerged aircraft. (04:18) o After that he took a course in search and rescue for a month. (04:29) Was an Aviation System Warfare field operator whose job it was to hunt subs. In a nutshell, it was to identify submarines. (05:04) o Following this training, Dykgraaf and a bunch of guys went on to do AS-10 training where they learned the functions of a helicopter operator. (05:27) This period in his training was a chance for him to refine what he had already learned. (06:03) o October 2001, Dykgraaf joined the fleet. (06:15) In joining, he mentions that he kept an open mind. (06:23) Mentions that he spent 5 years in the Navy. (06:36) Active Duty (06:47) • Background (07:15) o Starting May 23rd, 2002 he started his last deployment lasting 5-months starting at Anchorage, Alaska. (07:19) During this time he describes the foreign food he had and their tastes. (07:58) o Mentioned that in his most recent deployment he went started in San Diego, and went to Anchorage, Hawaii, Malaysia, the Straits of Malacca, Perth, Australia and back home again. (08:52) • The Persian Gulf War/Operation Iraqi Freedom (10:05) o Gives a general rundown of the places he was deployed and the length of time that he was deployed in and around the Gulf and the greater Indian Ocean during his 1st deployment. (10:11) o Goes on to mention that when they would port in Hawaii, Japan, Hawaii, Malaysia, Perth, or Bahrain they would practice aviation exercises or unwind from being at sea for long periods of time. (11:57) Also, mentions that the longest time they spent at sea was 110 days. (12:18) o Spent Christmas 2001/2002 in Perth Australia on his first deployment. (12:50) o For certain military skills he acquired he had to keep training so he wouldn’t grow rusty. (13:23) Also had to make sure that they had enough equipment. (13:59) �o For many of his deployments he and his unit were stationed in and around Kuwait training. (14:41) Could not mention what he did there because it was strictly a military secret. (14:47) o Living conditions (15:02) ƒ While stationed in Bahrain he went to the market place and buy what souvenirs he wanted. As an American soldier there, he often wondered what the attitude of the local Iraqis was towards the Americans being there. (15:28) ƒ Further mentions that they worked with a local interpreter who would help them wheel and deal the inflated prices that venders and taxi cab drivers charged for their American visitors. (16:38) ƒ Dykgraaf mentions that he kept up with his family on a regular basis by buying a phone card and using a pay phone or his cell phone to call his family on the various deployments he was on. (17:02) ƒ Goes on to mention that it was easy to lose track of time in the Middle East because of the change in time zones. (19:05) After the Service (19:52) o Mentions that a day before he came to his oral interview that he was discharged but that he has 3 years of inactive duty with the National Reserves remaining. (19:57) o Goes on to mention that his experience over there has opened his eyes to how he sees the world. Now he takes things more seriously and lives every day to the fullest. (20:09) Just being in the military he said has affected his perceptions and supports it 110% despite the pros and cons that come with it. (23:25) o To a younger generation he encourages them to take life more seriously and to have fun with whatever they do. (24:35) • Q & A Time (25:07) o During this time he mentions that he flew with Black Hawks. (25:27) o Mentions that he had 11 different jobs while in the service. One day he could be shooting a 50-caliber machine gun in the desert, and another listening to subs to stay up-to-date with his military skills. (26:11) �o Dykgraaf discusses what vertical replenishment entailed and tells some interesting stories regarding it. (26:58) ƒ Entails one incident where one guy lost a $50,000 missile of ammo. (31:13) o Also mentions that with his involvement with various members of the Army, Army Rangers, Navy, Marines, Navy Seals, and the Israeli Air Force that he had a lot of respect for them. (32:04) • ƒ Mentions that on his 1st deployment he was aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. (33:32) ƒ On his 2nd deployment, he was abroad the John C. Status. (33:46) Also mentions other ships he was aboard but does not distinguish which one he was aboard on which deployment. For instance he was aboard the [Nemis,] (33:48), the Reagan (33:51), the Lake Chaplain (33:58), and the Shiloh (33:59) Living conditions (34:38) o During his free time, Dykgraaf spent his time playing Xbox and Playstation. (35:42), and exploring the ports that his ship would stop. (37:18) o Also tells some stories of what it was like to be out on the high seas. (38:11) o His squadron, the HS-4 never had a chance to go on swim calls which was quite typical on long-term cruises. (40:32) Also, mentions that his relationships and friendships were different with different groups. (42:01) • Perceptions by Foreigners of America (43:41) o While stationed in Japan, U.S. troops like Dykgraaf were well received but with limited access to the harbor and the port because they were aboard a nuclear carrier. (43:58) Were often met by huge protestors because of carrying nuclear stuff. (44:23) o Also describes what other foreigners’ perceptions of Americans were elsewhere. (44:35) • Discussion about Geneva Convention rights (46:17) o Dykgraaf also discusses how he understood after training how he should be treated according to his Geneva Convention rights. (47:08) �o While training he had been put through hypothetical situations up to the breaking point. (47:19) o Briefly discusses what he would do if he was put in a situation that was against his morals versus his Geneva rights. (48:45) o Discusses in depth, his week-long experience in the desert. (49:38) • Personal Reflection (51:35) o Dykgraaf mentions that his experience was a good one. He says that he still has not figured out how what he has learned will connect with his life now. o Recommended, the Coast Guard and/or the Air Force to future soldiers. (52:44) o Out of this experience, he gained a sense of honor, greater courage, and commitment. (53:24) o Discusses what the pay rate was for men in his military position. (55:28) o Further discusses that military men were not taxed in the Gulf because it was an area that was a tax-free zone. (58:54) � 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 DyKgraaf, Eric (Interview outline and video), 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource DyKgraaf, Eric Description An account of the resource Eric J. DyKgraaf is a recent Iraqi War veteran who served in the U.S. Navy as an E-5 from May 2000 to May 2005. In this account, DyKgraaf discusses his pre-enlistment, enlistment and training, and active duty abroad. Among the interesting things DyKgraaf highlights is his naval experiences and expertise while stationed in and around the Persian Gulf, aboard ship, or stops along the way. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ingle, Sara (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 Video recordings United States. Navy Iraq War, 2003-2011--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 2005-05-25 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DykgraafE 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/450a1343562c281016aae4d0dc059e2c.mp4 6b23239ae2c7b6de26ea7f39ed06e2ca https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1ce6f90ed0f43b16ce4c79d3e38bb3f4.pdf 445ecc4df065e69b1c8430035d127aa7 PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW LES DYKEMA Born: July 18, 1949 Grand Rapids, Michigan Resides: Interviewed by: James Smither PhD GVSU Veterans History Project, Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, March 13, 2014 Interviewer: Les, can you start us off with some background on yourself. To begin with, where and when were you born? I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1949, July 18th. Interviewer: Where did yo grow up? In Hudsonville, I spent my life there. Interviewer: What did your family do for a living? My dad was a truck driver and my mom was a maid. We did a little bit of farming. I went to the Christian high school and then spent a year in junior college because Calvin wouldn’t take me. I’m surprised that JC did, and after the first year I had a 1.5 grade point and my two friends had a 1.3 and a 1.2, so we weren’t coming back. The Vietnam War was heating up at that time. Interviewer: What year was this? This was in 1968 Interviewer: It was pretty hot by then. Yeah it was heating up really, really well. 1:01 We figured we would all go in together, because they were going to get drafted and I didn’t want to go by myself, so we went into the Military Police Corps. Interviewer: When did you actually go and sign up? 1 �We signed up on the six month delay program, okay, which means we could have six months to do what we wanted to and then we had to go in and that was November 15th of 1968, when we had to report. Then we went on to Fort Knox and on to Fort Gordon Interviewer: Talk a little bit about the experience at Fort Knox. First of all, you had to go for a physical at some point right? Yeah, that was in Detroit, and when we got to Fort Knox I volunteered for three years, I was not drafted and I knew I’d made a huge mistake—I hated it, absolutely hated it. Then I got called into the office, and I was probably three weeks into training, and my commander called me in and said that my dad had died in a car accident. 2:06 He said that I was going to go home and that I had to be the man of the family, take care of business and come back. So, I did, I left and went home and got home and was coming into the—we grew up in an old farmhouse, and my dad was there and I about crapped my pants, but it turns out that it was my aunt Charlotte that had died in a car accident, and somehow they got it all screwed up. So, I was there and I was a pallbearer for my aunt Charlotte and three or four days went by and my dad said, “Well, don’t you think you should be going back?” I said, “Hmm, I’m in no hurry”. 3:00 Well, a week went by and I got a call from one of my friends I enlisted with and he said, “You better get back here, because I talked to the commander and I let him know it was your aunt and not your dad, and he’s very upset”. So, my dad was a truck driver and he loves to drive, so he drove me back to Fort Knox and it wasn’t good, okay, it wasn’t good. He was very, very angry, so after training, me and there were a few others, we’d have to get our brooms and we’d march out to the tank training areas and sweep the sand to get the tracks—you 2 �know, it was a harassment thing, and then we’d come back and we did this for a while, it wasn’t pleasant, but I made it through and then we went to Fort Gordon. Interviewer: Did you have to restart the training cycle after being off just a week? No Interviewer: So, you just went back and joined in. I went right back and joined in. Interviewer: Were the drill sergeants any better than the commander, or was it all pretty much the same? 4:03 The sergeants were a whole different breed. I think I embarrassed my commander, you know, I think he looked like an idiot and that did not bode well for me. Interviewer: Did you have any trouble physically with the training and couldn’t handle that? No, I was nineteen years old, it wasn’t bad, I just didn’t like it and it was cold. Winter in Fort Knox is cold, it’s cold. Interviewer: Were you still in an old WWII barracks, or did they have better ones/ WWII barracks, and the same way at Fort Gordon when we got down there, now they’re all gone, but they had to be heated with coal and in military police training they get you up very, very early, they don’t give you a lot of sleep and you wait in line to eat, in formations. It’s constantly at parade rest, straight, two steps forward, parade rest, and it can take an hour, or an hour and a half before you can get in and get any chow. 5:03 Then you only have minutes to eat it and you’re back in formation. Well, it’s dark at four thirty in the morning and me and a friend—being that they were WWII barracks, there was an opening underneath the buildings like this and then it went where the steps would 3 �come in. Well, underneath the steps it’s somewhat secluded, so I thought it would be a good idea--we have an alarm clock, it’s dark, nobody would notice us gone, “let’s just go on in there, set the alarm and sleep another hour , hour and a half and then get back in line and have breakfast”, and you know, this worked so well, so well for about two weeks. We’d crawl out, nobody would see us crawl out in there, alarm, and then one day I heard steps and I could look up through the slots, and they were really polished boots, and just about that time the alarm went off. 6:00 It was four, or five, drill sergeants, they came right around and we were busted, we got busted. My job there, until the end, was to remove coal from a big coal bin over here to one over there in a wheelbarrow. So, that type of punishment and they didn’t care for what I did, but, you know, I got a lot of rest and you gotta do what you gotta do. Interviewer: You got a couple more weeks of sleep. What does the MP training actually consist of? Lack of sleep, a lot of discipline, a lot of discipline, never knowing—they do stuff, they come in with a white glove, they look around and they find any dirt, everything had to be GI—they come in the middle of the night and wake you up with pots and pans, you get up and make a formation, they check your boots, everything had to be perfect. 7:02 Everything had to be just exactly perfect. Interviewer: Were they teaching yo anything yo would use on the job? Well, you go through the typical stuff, you’re train with your forty-five, okay, you train how to deal with people, what’s expected, what not to do and it’s hard to say, you know, a lot of it is classroom stuff and I don’t even remember what they talked about to be honest with you. 4 �Interviewer: Military law maybe, what the rules are? Yeah, yup, what’s expected and so, you know, it went through its eight weeks and I hardly had any sleep, but I’ll tell you, at the end of that eight weeks, I think that any one of us, they could have put us on the roof of a building and said, “Jump”, and we would have done it, we would have done it. The training, it breaks you down and then it builds you up and then here’s the product, but I’ve never liked authority. 8:02 I’ve always had a problem with authority and I still do today, and it has not fit me well. Interviewer: But, you managed to get through that round of training without getting yourself kicked out, or sent back to the infantry, or something like that? No, I would have loved to have myself kicked out, but that wasn’t going to happen at that time. Interviewer: You got into the MP’s in the first place, because you were willing to sign up for three years, was that part of the deal? My dad was a MP, so father like son, I guess, I didn’t know what I wanted. I knew I didn’t want to do what Mike did, I didn’t want to go into the infantry, that was dangerous, you know. Interviewer: But, they were giving you the option, that when you enlisted you were able to pick at that point, and was that an exchange for going for three years? Yes Interviewer: You still have that—different people have different levels of control over what they do at different phases of Vietnam, so that places you where you want to be. If we were drafted we probably would have ended up in the infantry. 5 �Interviewer: Yes 9:00 If we go another year, maybe we can pick something that, you know, stay out of that area. Interviewer: So, when did you finish. Let’s see, it was November, December and January 15th we headed to Georgia and February, March, about the end of March. Interviewer: Okay, and what did they do with you at that point? We got orders and I remember my friend-- and I looked when he came running up and he said, “Hey we got orders, we know where we’re going”, and I said, “Where are we going?” He got quiet and he said, “I’m going to Alaska and Jimmy D is going to Alaska, but you’re not going there, you’re staying here”, and I said, “Okay, I like Georgia”, but that was only temporary, because anybody who could stay there was sent and after six months I was the longest there before they sent me to—which was fine with me, because Jamie was going to hook me up, which didn’t happen. 10:03 Interviewer: So, you basically spend six months on active duty at Fort Gordon after training. What were you doing there? I was fortunate enough to be stationed at a military recreation area and it had three large connecting lakes, one for officers, one for sergeants and one for the public and regular GI’s. It was a wonderful period of duty and we had patrol boats, you know, we lived on the compound, in the woods; I mean it was a very, very nice tour of duty. Interviewer: Now, you’re living in Georgia at that time and were you aware at all of any kind of civil rights things that were going on? Did that affect life at the camp at all? 6 �I heard about the riots in Detroit and that was about it--that was about it. 11:00 There was one situation where we went swimming and the sergeants area in the lake and they had a dock and we had one black guy that lived with us. We swam out to the dock and he was not a good swimmer and we came in, he dove down and he just kind of went to the bottom, which was, maybe, only ten feet to the bottom. I came after him and I went down there and here he was doing one of these numbers, he was going to drown and I took him by the legs and I kept pushing him up so he could get air and another guy came and we brought him in. What was interesting about that was everybody in that house that we lived in , there were about six of us who lived in there, everybody had gotten something stolen, everybody except me. 12:00 I think I know who was doing the stealing and I think I know why I’m the only guy that didn’t get anything stolen from him, but other than that, no it was—I never noticed any of that. Interviewer: Did you get to go off the base much? Yeah, we lived off the base and you could—it’s like a job, once you’re done with training you can go, yeah. Interviewer: While you’re there are other people getting called and being sent off to Vietnam, or other places? Yes and new guys are always coming in, and yeah, I got my orders and you have to take a bunch of shots and I had the dry heaves for about two days and it’s terrible, but then you’re ready to go. I went home and then I went over. Interviewer: Alright, you’re sent—and once you go home then from home do you go to the point of debarkation and where did you go out of? Yes and where did I fly out of? I think I flew out of Oakland, California. 13:04 7 �Interviewer: Did yo fly out of the airport or there’s an air force base there, Travis? I don’t remember, I know it was Oakland. We left there and stopped to refuel, I believe it was Anchorage and we went across and I think we stopped at Wake Island and refueled, and then went on. I’ve been over twice and the one time we flew over we stopped in Japan to refuel. Interviewer: Probably the normal route would have been Anchorage and then just Vietnam, because Wake would have been kind of out of the way. If you go by Hawaii you might stop at Wake. Maybe it was Japan and there was an island the second time, there’s an island there someplace where we stopped, a real small little dinky place with one building on it. Interviewer: Yeah, Wake and Midway are both like that and they’re both small. Yeah, really small and they had a thing to the Marines there. Interviewer: Yeah, it was probably Wake Island, because they defended Wake at the beginning of WWII. 14:01 Yeah, I’d go nuts if I was stationed there. It’s beautiful, but you’re in the middle of nowhere. Interviewer: So, when did yo actually arrive in Vietnam for the first time? About three o’clock Interviewer: In terms of the date? In terms of the date, I got there in October of 1969. Interviewer: At three o’clock in the morning? Yup, you see the Vietnam coast and you know everybody in the aircraft, because we’re all eighteen, nineteen, twenty year olds, and we’re all curious, you know, everybody’s 8 �peering out and trying to see what—it’s going to be a new experience and some of you guys aren’t coming back, so everybody’s pretty curious and pretty quiet and, yeah, it looked like a normal coast all lit up and stuff. We got down and at three o’clock we were all assigned. Interviewer: Where did you land? We landed, I believe at Tan Son Nhut Air Base. Interviewer: Near Saigon? Yes, right outside Saigon Interviewer: You land at three o’clock in the morning. Now, what was supposed to happen, what was your plan at that point in terms of your assignment? 15:05 I just assumed that Jamie would have my name set aside, you know, that I would be called and he would be there, take me aside and assign me some cushy job somewhere. Interviewer: So, who was Jamie? Jamie Kernmeier was a friend before I went in the service and we did a lot of hunting together. He was a great guy, but it didn’t work out that way, you know, he was sleeping when I got there. Interviewer: What was his job there? He assigned all new incoming police to their units throughout the country, there out of Saigon. Whoever needed what, he just assigned it, so he was going to assign me next to Saigon and that would have worked out well, but it didn’t. Interviewer: So, what happened with that? There was somebody else that worked that shift that night and they assigned me to the 1st Cav and they assigned me to a place called Phuoc Vinh. 16:03 9 �Interviewer: Now, did you stay at Tan Son Nhut for a while, or did you stay around that area, or did you go straight out to your unit? You didn’t stay long, you got something to eat, you know, and then you got into different lines, they put you in different lines and took you form there—a bus comes and picks you up and gets you to your new units. Interviewer: How did you get out to Phuoc Vinh then, was that on a helicopter, or truck? No, it was just a bus type thing, and the bus drops us off. Of course the commander comes out and introduces himself and told us the sergeant will take you and show you your cot and here’s your spot and here’s chow, you have to be up at this time and give you your duties sometime today, or tomorrow and show you what you’re going to do. 17:00 Interviewer: Did they give you any—the combat—guys coming for infantry, artillery, and things like that joined the 1st Cav at this time, they went through what they called the “first team academy”, and a welcome to Vietnam course. Did you get something like that? A little bit, but I think that’s mainly for infantry, you know, because they’re the guys that are going to be humping out there, but I don’t remember much of it other than you got a “welcome to Vietnam” and just go over stuff that you need to know. Interviewer: What were your first duties once you’re there? They assigned me to a gate. I had a check all trucks coming in and out of that area and did a pretty good job, but I did notice that this moped would come in and this interpreter and he’d leave and just go by me and wave. This went on for about four, or five, days 10 �and I stopped him and wondered what was in the bag and it turned out to be military food, canned, and he was probably selling it in the village and making money. 18:02 I stopped him and he said—I was taking somebody else’s, and I could get a little bit too, so there was a ‘black market” thing going on and I refused, because I was trying to be a good soldier. I’m glad I had my M-16, because he started putting his hand on his fortyfive and I brought my sixteen up and radioed and they brought some more MP’s and the confiscated it and they took him away. I thought, “Wow, I did a good thing”, but then the commander brought me in and instead of saying, “Hey, you did a good thing”, he said, “I want to ask you something, do you know how hard it is to get good Vietnamese interpreters?” So, I was taken off the gate at that point. That started that downward trend in that Military Police Corps for me. 19:00 One thing led to the other and I got sick of burning shit, got sick of it, got sick of getting up in the morning, I got sick of being harassed by this sergeant, and I woke up one morning and decided, “I’ve had it”. I went outside the area and it was pretty early, six o’clock, and the infantry unit next door was in the field and they had a picnic table there, so I lay down on that picnic table and went to sleep. It gets hot, and it wasn’t long, a couple of hours, two or three hours, and it was pretty hot and I got up and went back into the military police compound and went back to my cot, and here comes this sergeant just spitting angry, just irate, enraged and started yelling at me and screaming at me. 20:00 Interviewer: Why was he mad at you? Because I didn’t show up for reveille and he had been harassing me, and I’m not conforming and I’d just had it. What are they going to do, they’re not going to shoot me, what are they going to do? The screaming and yelling was not that great, but then it’s 11 �like I didn’t hear him anymore, it’s like I could hear him, but my mind just shut off. I grabbed my M-16 rifle and I loaded it and as I was turning around, he was already running like hell out of the building, and I go right behind him. I’m not going to kill him; I have no intention of killing him. This man has fucked with me for quite a while and now I’m going to fuck with him, and I did. He’d run between these tents with these lines and he’d trip over these lines and every time he turned around and looked at me his eyes were about this damn big. 21:03 Every time he did I’d put that rifle on him and he’d and he’d squeal like a little girl, crawl and start running again and I chased him. I wasn’t going to kill him; I just wanted to really fuck him over. He went into the command bunker and then I retreated into an inter-perimeter bunker, unloaded it, set the rifle here and the ammunition there and maybe that much water at the bottom of the area, and I’m sitting there. It wasn’t going to be good; I was going to be going to LBJ, Long Binh Jail. Most of that are black troops and I’m nineteen, a military police kid, I ain’t going to stand a chance in Long Binh Jail, ain’t going to stand a chance, so you try to figure out your way, “What are you going to do now?” I stood up and I looked out the firing holes and I’m surrounded with other MP’s with rifles. 22:01 I’m not going anywhere; I sat back and said, “Okay, they obviously know where I’m at. If I come out of here with this rifle and get stupid, they’re going to shoot me. If I don’t do something soon they’re going to gas me out of here, just simply throw in a CS gas container and they’re going to gas my ass out of here”. Then this sergeant Jackson appears at the top of these steps going down, as the sun was behind him, so he cast a shadow down these steps. A M-16 when you take it out and pull it back it discharges a round—you put this—it’s got a button where you can hit it and it will chamber another round, but there was no clip in it, but it was ready to 12 �do that. He starts coming in and he starts saying, “I’m coming down and I’m going to take that rifle away and you’re coming out of here with me”, which would have been perfect for me. 23:03 Just let him play the hero, but I reached—I watched the light come up to about the middle of his back and I reached over to the M-16 and hit that button. He heard it chambering, but it wasn’t chambering a round, he just thought it was, and I’ve never seen a guy turn around, fall on his knees and crawl out of there so fast in my life. I’m thinking, “there was your opportunity, there was your opportunity”, and then I heard from my commander, he says, “Private Dykema, may I enter?” I said, “Yes sir”, and he came on down and he seen the rifle and the clips and I’m sitting there and he sits down next to me, “What’s the problem?” I said, “I’ve had enough harassment, I’ve had enough, I’m not going to do it anymore”. 24:00 He said, “Well, what if— sometimes when somebody like you and some of my sergeants don’t get along, would you like to leave the unit and go further to the front?” I said, “I would, I would”, and he said, “We’ll make that happen”, and he leaves. I peek out and I’m not surrounded by anybody and I take my rifle and clips and I walk out hoping I don’t get hit in the back of the head, or anything, you know, and I go in and I sit down on my cot, and nothing, like it never happened. About a week went by and I found the commander and that E-7 Jackson and I said, “Sir, you were saying that I was going to go, get out of here”, and he said, “Well, we’ve talked and you’re a problem and we’re not going to give another commander our problems, so you’re going to spend your year with me and E-7 Jackson here and he’s going to have a full duty for you”, and that’s where I started to have to burn shit again. 25:01 Then they finally kicked me out. The commanders list for toilet paper pretty well did it. 13 �Interviewer: Can you explain that, because you explained it off camera, but not on, and basically you had a process by which you got yourself moved out, so what did you do? Well, you know, my job was as a punishment was to what they call burn shit, and it was a half a barrel and you put these big gloves on and you pull it out and you go to a vat and you pour it in there and then you pour diesel fuel in there and stir it around like a witches brew and light it on fire. Not difficult, you got to me careful though when you move that, because it tends to get out of control—you learn real quickly, and you burn it twice a day. After I wasn’t going to be leaving, I started my own little thing where I would harass them. 26:04 I’d go in and I’d take my glove and I’d take out a turd, for a better word, that’s what it was and during the day when E-7 was there—the first time I put it under his pillow and got it all set, the way he made his bed, and put it under his pillow and the next morning he had found it. Irate, I mean irate—I was suspect, but anybody could have been doing it and I never told anybody I did that, so even when they offered a vacation at Vung Tau for three days, you know, anybody who gives this a name, and even the commander, at three o’clock, when I went into his command bunker and sat behind his desk and put his hat on, I opened the drawer and saw a list of problem soldiers and I’m in the top three. Interviewer: You went into his office? Yeah, he’s sleeping, he’s not in that area, he’s sleeping. 27:00 He never heard, its three o’clock in the morning and nobody’s up. Interviewer: So, you went in, sat at his desk and put his hat on. 14 �I put his hat on and looked around, opened his desk drawers and stuff, looking around, hey, what are they going to do to me, I’m already burning shit, okay, leave it to me. I found this list and I went into his private john and used it as toilet paper and left it there for him to find. Interviewer: So, this was a list of what? There were the top three and all three of us ended up being removed at the same time. One gentleman was on there because he had two grenades, one with E-7 Jackson’s name on it and one with the commander’s name on it and they found them in his foot locker, so obviously he was going to be gone. There was one other one that just came and started shooting—didn’t hit anybody, just shooting up between the tents. 28:00 So, there’s the three of us, there’s two incidents, I would have been the third, and I think that’s what saved me from going to Long Binh Jail, because the unit would have been investigated at that time. Yup, he came in one day and said, “Pack your stuff up, you’re out of here”, so I did and went to headquarters and there’s the other two guys on the list with their stuff and you know, you throw your stuff out and they go through your shoes looking for drugs, or whatever, stepping all on your clothes with dirt and you put it all back in and they go through the same thing with the other two. They’re right on ya, you know, they—they’re intimidating, they’re intimidating, they always are. They dropped me off at a combat engineers unit and that commander told me I wasn’t going to be any problem for him and showed me my job with the generators, eight generators, a little milk stool, and that’s where you sit. 29:00 “Stop, fill it up, check the oil, fill it up with fuel, start it, do you think you can do that?” “Yeah, I can do that”. Well, you sit on a milk stool 15 �between eight generators all day with a tin roof over you, you go nuts. I sabotaged two of them. I put dirt in the gas container and they died. Interviewer: How long had you put up with it before you did that? A week, a week was enough, I’m not going to have my sanity back, I’d had it and it’s time to change the dynamics of the situation. That would have done it, and it did it and a couple of sections went black and they needed those generators and obviously, I’m the obvious suspect, obviously. So, Bowman took me and it was twelve hours on and twelve hours off, seven to seven went in this underground, like a tube, and it had a switchboard and someplace to sit and then it had a door and it lit down there. 30:07 I thought, “Hey this is really cool”, and they said, “Well, we figure that while we’re sleeping you’ll be awake and while were awake you’ll be sleeping. You’ll be down here from seven in the evening until seven in the morning”. “Okay, this is cool, this is fine for a couple nights”, so at three thirty I go in there and I wake up the cooks, and at four o’clock I wake up the commander, and everybody had a set schedule that I had to wake up. Other than that— you don’t get a lot of calls in Vietnam, okay, it’s dead, no books, and oh my God, after three days, “Whew, boring”. After a week that changed the dynamics again, okay, and I figured, “I’ll let the cook sleep in and I’ll get the commander up at three o’clock”. 31:02 “I’ll get that first sergeant up at quarter to three”. I just screwed up their whole schedule and then waited for the thing to change, which it did. Bang, he came and pulled me in his office with two other sergeants and said, “Get your shit together, you’re going to Song Be”, and I said, “To do what?” He said, “You’re going to be part of a demolition team”, and I said, “No I’m not, I don’t have a MOS for that”, and he said, “You’ll learn on the job, chopper will be here shortly”. It did and it flew me out to Song Be, 16 �introduced me to my new unit and I should have just stayed comfortable burning shit, but that’s when I started working with them. Interviewer: Now, the demolition team, what kind of work were you actually doing with them? We were—you know I never wanted to be part of the infantry. We were attached to the infantry. 32:00 We were attached to tank units for mine sweeping in front of them. We did go into tunnels, but we didn’t find the tunnels like they found in the central highlands. You know, most of the tunnels we found were empty. They still made you go in and I never worried about finding anybody there. I was more worried about snakes, because it’s down—it’s cool down there and even to go in one, you know—I was a hundred and sixty-five pounds at that time, six two and everybody says only the short guys do it, but if you’re part of a team they’re going to get real sick of you saying, “Oh, I’d go in that tunnel Jeff, but you’re shorter than I am, you go every time”. No, you draw straws and the short straw goes in. Then you have a dilemma, if I draw right away there’s a one in ten chance that I draw the short, or I can wait and there’s a good chance that somebody else is going to draw it before I do. 33:00 But then, as they draw these long straws out, your odds get bigger and bigger until there’s two straws left. Eeny meeny miney moe, and how we always did it was, we took a flashlight and a forty-five, and it’s dark, and we would hold onto each other’s legs like this and I would always, first, take the flashlight and do this, because, obviously, anybody who’s in there knows they’re not going to get out alive, probably quick to shoot, shoot my hand, and in this case I took my forty-five and I slowly move through where I was going to put my face and chest and see if anything moved on it. When nothing moved, no shot, then you slowly lower yourself in 17 �and, you know, you look around, the ceiling is only about this high, you can’t stand up, and then you see another dark hole from about here to that wall. 34:00 There’s some things there, bandages and different stuff, but nothing of much value, and then again, you crawl in and you don’t get in front of the hole and do this, shine the light in, you get next door and put you flashlight on again and see if anybody shoots you. If not, you crawl through there and up and you can see there’s an opening on the other side and you crawl out there and nothing is in there and you blow it up, take munitions and we blow it up, collapse it. Interviewer: These are not big complexes and things, just little spider holes that might have a little tunnel and a couple exits? There were tunnels that other soldiers found that hospitals and all that stuff, but we never—where we were we never found any of that stuff, thank God. Okay, we do a lot of wiring; we do a lot of Bangalore torpedoes, but when they bring in—usually what we would do when they were going to start a new LZ and they needed an area for choppers to get in, our unit would rappel down with a C4 and we’d blow an area quickly while the other birds were just circling, waiting to drop their troops in. 35:11 We did that, and once we did that, we had to clear an area once we had security, and then we’d put in the wire, set up a perimeter, and we’d do the Bangalore torpedoes. Now, a Bangalore torpedoes probably an eight foot piece of pipe that fits into each other and we’d wire that with det cord and they’d blow, okay. It cleans everything level and gives you a field of fire. Interviewer: is that clearing out the brush, or whatever’s around outside the perimeter? 18 �Yeah, wherever, and we’d hook a bunch of these in, so they’d be long lines and then two feet over, again, and again, and again and then we’d wire them up. At that time we used electrical blasting caps and you’re supposed to have crimpers. 36:02 A crimpers is a little piece of equipment that you take the electrical blasting cap and you put the det cord in and you crimp it down. We didn’t have crimpers, so we used our teeth, which looking back was really stupid to do with electrical blasting caps, but nobody—nothing happened, but we were really, really, lucky. We had this all wired up and I’m sitting among it with two of my friends and we’re getting ready to blow it, everything’s set, and the infantry loved this shit, because they loved the fire, they loved to see this. I said, “I’m thirsty, I’m going to go up the hill and get some water”, we had water up there. So, I left and I walked about fifty yards and right over the trees you could hear this thump, thump, thump, and a helicopter came in and came right over the top of us, and the gunner had lashed himself in and was hanging out like this giving the peace signal as they came through and buzzed us. 37:01 I don’t know if that’s what—how it happened, but it triggered our munitions. Somebody said it was the AC/DC batteries in the aircraft and I don’t know if that’s possible or not, but electrical—it went and munitions goes very fast. You don’t really have time to—it’s just “whoosh”, and it just—and through the dust my two friends, they come out like they’re dazed and they looked okay, and then all of a sudden you look at their pants and they’d be starting to turn dark red, red, so you could see something was bleeding and their shirts started bleeding and their face was starting to bleed and just backs and everything. They came out and collapsed and medevac came and got them out. I don’t know if they survived or not. 38:00 Very fine shrapnel and I have no idea what damage it caused, but it wasn’t pretty, and I started thinking that a lot 19 �of these types of accidents happen and it was probably a week later where a chopper came in and they were looking for door gunners, volunteers, for Charlie Company 2/27 Ghost Riders Helicopter Battalion, so I talked to my—at that time there was another minor accident that we lost two more guys and we’re down to, maybe, six and we’ve only been doing this two months. We got a lot of time and I looked at that and I went, “I’m going to volunteer”, and they all said, “Are you nuts?” and I said, “Are you nuts? Do you like sleeping out here? Do you like doing this?” So, I put my name in and I didn’t hear much, and then we were sent out to a place called LZ Defiance. 39:00 The tank units were there and every so many yards was another tank. It was a small area and we were sent there to mine sweep as they patrolled. And, yeah, we find a lot of mines, they weren’t hard to find. They buried them at night, so in the daylight you could see where the ground had been disturbed and we never missed one. They were round, about like so, round with a big nipple on the top for anti-tanks. We’d dig them out and put them in an APC behind us, and we always cleaned them out, we never hit them, and we’d sweep and I hated sweeping. I wasn’t too afraid of an ambush, because those are tanks. That goofy guy up there on top of that tank, on that fifth, they wear that big—you know, are you going to ambush a tank column for Christ sake? I wasn’t worried about that; it was just the heat, and the sweeping. 40:02 There were three of us and every so many feet—one guy went in with an M-16, and another guy out further with an M-16, and a guy out further with a headset sweeping, sweeping for mines and we’d rotate every fifteen minutes. LZ Defiance, it was just right on the border and a lot of B-52’s would come through there, and it was part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, you know, and a lot of their markers, where they check, had been blown up, so you could hear activity, and they 20 �started to do what we call “mad minutes’. During the period, sometime in the evening you’ll get a call and the chain commander, “only fifty” and they’ll just in one minute fire into the dark. It might be M-60, it might be M-79’s, it might be the M-6 machine gun, you know, something, M-79 grenade launchers. There would only be one weapon, indiscriminately, “mad minute”, keep the enemy off balance. 41:03 It must have been about three o’clock in the morning and I’m awake, I can’t sleep, and I was talking to a friend and it’s a quiet night, and pitch, pitch black, there’s no light, and all of a sudden we heard a “pheew” and we looked, and probably fifty yards out a NVA soldier had hit our trip flares. It lit here and it lit here and it just lit them off and it was like slow—it was surreal, because we all seen him and he was like stunned. He was realizing what had happened, he had bumped into our line and he was totally lit up. 42:00 It was like we all shot about the same time, and it probably happened like this fast, but it didn’t seem like it, and the man was dead before he hit the ground, and then they hiss, go out, and everything gets pitch black again. “We’ll wait for the sun to come up again and we’ll go out there and see what we got”, and yeah, he was definitely dead. He didn’t have anything on him and we figured he must have gotten lost. He didn’t have a rifle on him, he was stumbling around and he didn’t even have a rifle, and was probably out trying to find his unit. Then a chopper came in to pick up our guys and take us back to Song Be. I was glad to get out of LZ Defiance, glad to get out of there. During the day where the B52’s—it was still smoldering and it was hot, you could see the heat waves and the smoke, it was like a trip to hell. 43:00 Interviewer: Could you hear, or feel, the blasts from the B-52’s when they bombed the area? 21 �Oh yeah--- well, if they’re far enough away you could hear the bum, bum, bum, bum. The B-52 is pretty awesome and I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end. They sent us back to Song Be and we wondered why we’re here and our Major said, “Well, the water truck goes down about three miles to this bend in this river and they’re pumping water out and distilling it, so we have water and somebody’s taking pot shots at them up in that ridge. They don’t want to go unless they get some protection”, so they drew our guys back and said, “Tomorrow morning go on up there and get up in that ridge and catch that guy coming in, and if you can take care of it”. Well, that was better than LZ Defiance, so we get up there and it’s getting light, we cross this little river, in the bend, and head up in the ridge. 44:03 One guy drops off and another guy drops off and it was kind of an open meadow area coming up and I looked, and I’m a deer hunter, and I could see something had come up there, probably an animal, but I wasn’t sure. It teed where this huge tree had been struck by lightning years ago and had a big old hollow area inside, and all the big leaves had grown over it. I took my rifle and I looked in, so I crawled in there, figuring I had the best spot and I was just all geeked, man, I was just really geeked, I had just the right spot, I’m going to watch him come up, he’s never going to see me, I’ll wait until he’s ten feet away, I’ll put two rounds in his chest and claiming that rifle, I was all geeked and thought, “This is all going to work out really well, I’ve got the best spot”. Then nine o’clock came, ten o’clock came and it got hot, eleven o’clock the bugs are on me from inside the tree and I’m picking them off me all the time. 45:02 I’m listening and the birds are chirping, you know, and I’m thinking, “Nobody’s out there, he’s onto us and he ain’t coming, he’s not that stupid, probably some doofus from that village down there” , and about two o’clock it got so miserably hot—and when we 22 �first got there I noticed this old tree with the roots going into the bend in the river and it kind of hung over, and there was a long rope there. I figured the village kids must get up on that ridge and swim. Boy, that sounded pretty good, I peek out and I see nothing, I step out and I see nothing, and I went and got the guys to see if they wanted to go for a swim. They all agreed, so we all went out there and went up on this ridge, got this rope and stripped butt naked. I was the first one, and there was a big knot on the end that you’d sit on. 46:00 I sat on it and leaped and it was a good ride, but there was a rock that came up and you had to lift your ass up or you’d hit the rock and you went out to the river and I let myself go. Shhh, it felt great, a little muddy, but it felt really great. I’d swim and crawl up the big roots of this tree and go up and the next guy, and the next guy would go. Then it’s my turn again and just as it was too late to stop, my eyes on the far bank picked up movement. My brain wasn’t seeing a figure of a man, but there was movement there, but it wasn’t picking up what it was, but there—I’d see movement, but it was too late and I’m going down and I’m looking at that far bank, and I’m lifting my ass up so I didn’t hit the rock and as I went out and just got ready to let go I seen it. It was like the huge body of a large anaconda and a big old black point went “bloop”, into the water. 47:04 Pretty soon I’m like this, swinging back and forth, and the water was about this far below my feet and they’re up there calling, “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” I said, “There’s a great big fucking snake”, and they start laughing and said, “We’ll throw a concussion grenade, don’t worry about it”. You know, some had three second fuses, they’re supposed to have five and you do a quick—you do the math, you’re up there—1-2-3-ehh, ehh, ehh, “No, no, don’t throw nothing”, and then they’re laughing and said, “Well swim for it and we’ll cover ya”, and about that time I look below my feet 23 �and the water starts to move and I see this big head come up. 48:00 Its mouth was going wide open and closed and I saw the teeth, and I looked into those eyes, those yellow eyes and there’s a difference between terror and fear—I felt terror go up my back. That snake might have a brain only like this, but he communicated to me very clearly what the deal was, very clearly. In fact, so clearly, I almost lost my grip on the rope, and then the big head went down and everything in my being says, “climb”, and I reached as high as I could and I yanked myself up and this thing came out of the water where my legs would have been and his mouth snapped about two, or three, inches underneath my ass and “whoom”, he want back in. I looked up on the ridge and they were all standing there with their mouths open. 49:00 I climbed straight up down there and by the time I got down they had their boots and everything on and we went back up on that ridge until close to dark and came back. I guess my point of that story is that it doesn’t take the enemy to kill you. You can die from your own stupidity, and it’s an environment that you’re not necessarily on top of the food chain and that’s tough. Song Be was our little area where we’d come back and where we operated out of and I remember Sunday morning, we came back and I was going to build this thing where we could shave, you know, I got some wood and stuff. It was Sunday morning, about ten o’clock and I had the Stars and Stripes military magazine, you know, telling us how we’re winning the war, and I went in the shitter and there were about eight holes cut there and I was in there about a half an hour, did it stink, yeah, but there’s nothing to do. 50:02 So, I’m reading and reading and I got done and I walked out, I walked out of the shitter and I walked maybe two steps down and walk up here about as far as that wall and I look up and I see these soldiers just dropping like they’ve been hit with nerve gas, “wham”, 24 �hitting the floor and things seemed to slow again, they slow, and you realize that they’re hearing something that I’m not and you realize it was probably one of these Russian 122’s they constantly harassed us with. You know, Cambodia was six miles away, rockets have ranges of eight miles, and they tried always to hit the fuel depot right next to where we lived, or that little air strip. You can’t pick—my eyes never picked—but I knew it was between them and me and I wasn’t hearing it and just about that time the shitter blew up to pieces behind me. 51:03 I think—the concussion landed—I fell flat on my ass and I wasn’t hurt, because the—I was lucky, because the 122 Russian rocket, when it hits and blows, and if that had been a 120 mortar it would have been a different thing. I’ve got slides of it—I turned around and I was amazed that it was just—and they must have had fuel lines that ran underneath it, because that also started on fire. You know, you think that if you spent another frickin' ten seconds in there, fifteen seconds, they’d be picking the shit out of your remains and sent home. You think, “Wow, these little weird things didn’t happen”, and then about that time, the same thing, about the time, about a week later, Phouc Vinh was getting some— and there was a village and every once it would be popping in there, so they sent the infantry in there. 52:04 The South Vietnamese they held up in their area, they were not interested in seeking anything out, and the 1st Cav went in there and we got called, because they started hitting booby traps. There was an old French rubber plantation, old French homes, and so, our squad was sent in there to take care of the booby traps. You’re careful, and we always carried these little half pound blocks of TNT for that, and we don’t use C-4 on that, just these little blocks of TNT and it worked pretty effectively. We spent three days there, and first we brought a bulldozer in, because as we got into this old French rubber plantation that’s 25 �where the infantry started hitting stuff as they went, so they brought in the bulldozer and he took his blade down and we were following that in, until we could get into this meadow. 53:04 Legs started coming up and arms and stuff and it turned out to be a pauper’s grave where they were buried there, so the bulldozer backed up and covered them up and sat down and we marched in ourselves. Yeah, ya had to look, if you’re not looking for it, that’s when you don’t see it and if you’re looking for it you can see the stuff they’re doing. It must have been noon, we had covered a section of this rubber plantation here and we’re in the shade and we’re cooking some food and stuff and behind us, where we just came from, we hear this “bang”. “What the hell was that?” So, we ran—we had a couple of tanks that gave us support and cover so we’re not exposed, ran back there and you could look in there and I heard this moaning and we went in there and my Lieutenant, me and a Kit Carson Scout. 54:03 A Kit Carson Scout is a North Vietnamese soldier, a Vietcong that now works for us. They know a lot about booby traps, and it’s nice to have a Kit Carson Scout with you. We went in there and here’s this old Vietnamese farmer tapping these trees that haven’t been tapped in a while, because of the war. He’s trying to etch out a living and he hit an anti-personnel mine and he was moaning and he was bleeding badly. It had blown off the back of his heel and part of his foot, it had blown off, so the Lieutenant said, “We got to get him out of here, stamp down this stuff”, which is the stupidest thing he ever said. So, we’re stamping down and I hear a “click” and everybody—the Kit Carson Scout started jabbering and he took off. Lieutenant--they got the guy out and they took off. 55:00 They said, “What are you going to do?” I said, “I don’t know”, the first time I started to cry and I started to cry, I couldn’t believe it that this scenario had happened. They called for a medevac and I was 26 �waiting for the medivac before I lifted up my leg. I was going to wait until they had the meds there, right there, because I fully believed I was going to lose my life, or I was certainly going to lose one, or both of my legs, and uh, uh, I cried. Then they were maybe fifty yards away, you know, and the rest of my group, they’re just standing there staring, the Lieutenant’s just standing there staring. The Kit Carson Scout is just staring at me while they’re waiting for me to make a decision, when this is going to happen. You know, I’m twenty and I can’t believe this is going to happen and then, sure enough, I knew that decision time was coming close because I could hear this thump, thump, thump, of the helicopter coming. 56:07 As it got closer I could look up and see that it was the medevac and they came and set down, kept it running, and they’re looking at me. I said to myself, “Okay, take a big breath and I’m going to count down from ten to one and I’m going to do this”. Ten, nine, my heart is just pounding and I’m sweating, and I got to one and I couldn’t do it. “Come on, come on”, they’re not hassling me about it, they’re just waiting. 57:00 I thought, “I’m going to try it again, try it again, and I’ll get down to one and do it”. Your mouth is dry-- and I count down to five and I leap to one side and it didn’t go off. We found it and it was—I wouldn’t have lasted if it had gone off, it was that large. I took a little block of TNT and put it on there and blew it and it left a hole this round and this deep. So, even there, you think everything is under control and it’s not. Then we went into Cambodia, when the U.S. invaded Cambodia, and I think it was early March [May] of 1970. 58:05 Our units, we were ready to go in and I remember that day. I got up early, hit this big area, and there were just a ton of helicopters come in just—and it was like the more helicopters and they slowly started to rise with troops and prior to that too, a lot of new ammunition came in and all that kind of 27 �stuff was starting to get stockpiled. We thought we were going into Cambodia, into their sanctuaries, but we weren’t sure, but we thought so, but as we got—you could look behind the aircraft and you could see this long line, like geese, and they got higher and higher. They got about five, six, thousand feet in the air and started to head toward the coast. Well, we’re not going to Cambodia; we’re heading towards the coast. Then they got above this cloud bank and then you could look out front, and the lead ship started to turn, and we’re going to Cambodia, in their sanctuary. 59:06 Then when we got there we were not the first line in. When we got there a chopper took us in, dropped us off on this little hill and I remember looking and there was like eight body bags with GI’s that had been killed. The bags weren’t dark, they were green, but they were kind of see through and you could tell if it was a black man, or a white man. Being on a hill their body fluids were moving to the end of the bag and as we got off—and I noticed when we got on it looked like there was blood and stuff on the—but you sit down and go, let’s do this. Then as we got off they were piling bodies on. Their radio operator had been killed and they had no radio operator for a squad, so the infantry grabbed me and took me. 00:01 They got this big old thing hanging above there and it’s not a good thing to have there, antenna up there, you know, it just “here I am”, but you do what you’re told and as we went into this twilight under the jungle, in the middle of the day it’s twilight, and I see this firs NVA body and he was lying face down, and I wanted his shoes, his Ho Chi Minh shoes. I went to the body and I grabbed his foot to take his shoes and the lieutenant came up and said, “Don’t touch that body, anything on that body is mine”, and he went again. I came back , didn’t take the shoes, but I flipped him over and he had been shot in the back and he had bled a perfect heart on his chest. 1:01 28 So, I flipped him over and I took that �ammo carrier and put it in my pack and we moved on. It started getting dark and my team—we didn’t stay together and I don’t have to go on patrol and I don’t have to do ambushes, I’m not in the infantry, I’ll be your radio operator. It’s night time now, so I got back with my squad and we found this pretty level area covered by kind of bushes, but it was kind of a clearing and he said that this would be a good place for us to sleep tonight. So, we went in there and there was another dead NVA lying in there. It’s getting dark, everybody gets, “That’s bad luck man, that’s bad luck, we can’t sleep with a dead man, come on man what are we going to do with him, drag him out?’ Other GI’s saying, “What the fuck you doing man? We got shovels, just bury him, bury him here”, so we did, not very deep, but we dug in and covered the guy up. 2:04 Then everybody felt more comfortable going to sleep. I used the guy as a pillow, I know, we different and you got to understand that you change, it’s different, you can’t apply the values, because there aren’t any. Everything you’ve been taught is right is wrong and the thing that’s wrong now is right. It was amazing this cache, the size of garages with tarps on them and we’d rip them open and we got our—I got a SKS still packed in Cosmoline, I got a CKS Chinese semi bolt action, I got shit at home that I got out of that cache, and we’d just clean them out, clean them out, and then we’d withdraw to a perimeter again and you could hear them having trucks turning on trying to get this stuff out. 3:02 I think it was the third day we started to find these holsters for 9mm’s, so we knew we were close to 9mm’s and that was a thing that I’d want. That third day, we’re coming back and there’s this opening, kind of a meadow, and they had—it looked like six nice new Chinese green deuce and a half trucks. We went over there and we just shot the shit out of them, just shot the shit out of them. In a war you can actually be a top vandalism and you never 29 �have to worry about it, and we just shot the shit out of them and then retired and it started getting dark and like I said, we didn’t have to do any perimeter. They picked us up and before they moved us to these three roads that came in and we’re going to set up a perimeter there. 4:03 The Air Force had knocked the shit out of all the buildings in there, so we set up there and it was nice, it was pleasant. I was sitting there one night—I never did get the pistol—and we’re sitting there one night and about three o’clock in the morning this light went “whoof, whoof, whoof” , a guy took a camera shot and about an hour later the same thing and the next day the choppers came in and they started kicking off sandbags and stuff and more ammunition and stuff that we needed, because what that was, was a picture of the land and then an hour later of the same land and then they had analyzed it and they found a large North Vietnamese army unit is moving towards one of the three of us. 5:00 It could be LZ Lee, LZ Betty, or our LZ, because we covered each other with our artillery. But definitely—and they had artillery pieces with them, so they said, “You guys can’t sleep on the ground anymore. Dig in and build yourself a bunker, this is what’s going on “, so we did and there were enough buildings blown up, so we took the wood and stuff and brought bunkers—well, sandbags up to here and put sandbags on and there was room for three of us to fit in there. We were waiting, we knew they were in the area and we’re waiting. Where our unit was, that part of the perimeter, some valleys came in and it wasn’t too far for them to go. We had a lot of wire out, we had fougas, and we had claymores all set up. I’m sitting there and I hear a whistle and “wham” the first round came in from our artillery. 6:05 What they do is, they figure if they’re going to get attacked they’re going to attack here, so they zero their guns in just over us. It makes you feel terrible, because why do I have to be in this 30 �particular section and then it’s just dark and they shut their guns off. So, if we need them and they’re coming through all they have to do is fire and they’ll be right on target. So, the first night I’m nervous, I got the starlight scope, I’m young, and I remember thinking, “Now there’s a stump there between that and—it’s just a stump. Well, I had ten to twelve and the guys were pretty well sleeping in their little areas and I keep turning it on and the starlight scope, it wasn’t the best technology, but you can see shadows and then fog comes in. the fog came in. 7:00 The fog comes in and then I can’t—I can’t—what a perfect night for it and I swear to God that stump was getting closer, and it wasn’t, but your mind starts playing tricks on you. Finally at midnight I woke up the next guy, he went and I crawled in on an air mattress kind of on a hill and it started to rain, it started to pour and pretty soon, being on a hill of course, the back of our little bunker started filling up with water, so your feet’s doing this. There was a Mexican further down and he started cussing in Mexican and I took my flashlight and looked and water was coming through and hitting him and then it hit me, but once you’re wet you’re wet and you go to sleep. I went sound to sleep and I never knew what hit me. It felt like somebody came up and hit me with a ball bat across the head and kind of pushed me out of the bunker, but my arms—I couldn’t get off and I’m tasting a lot of blood. 8:06 Everybody’s hustling to the perimeter and I’m afraid of we get overrun all they’re going to just shoot me in the head and I’m screaming, “Help me, help me”, and this soldier came and everybody’s got to get on that perimeter. He came over and he flashed his light and said, “Oh, God”, and left, which didn’t make feel very good and I figured half my head went, but that wasn’t the case. Head wounds bleed, it doesn’t mean they’re bad, they bleed, and I couldn’t see out of my right eye and I saw sparkles everywhere and just tons of 31 �blood. It was like an ice pick in my head, because it was raining and it was just hitting. They didn’t hit us, they hit—what it was, they hit LZ Brown and the dumbest thing they ever did, because LZ Brown was totally flat and they just fricking slaughtered them suckers. 9:00 They got me and they medevaced me out. Interviewer: What hit you? Was it a mortar? You know, I don’t know if it was a round that came in, all I know is that whole thing collapsed and hit me in the head. I don’t know, I was sound asleep and I don’t have a good idea what that was. I assumed it was, but I don’t know. So, I ended up being medevaced out, but not right away. We had dug down underground and we had a med station. When they took me, and I wasn’t the only one in there, there was like two other guys as well, and they had us on these cots that were about this high and the water was about this high, filling up with rain. The doctor came around and his eyes were like this big and he looked like he had lost it, literal. I looked at him and his eyes were that big and he puts a dobby-do in my arm and tapes it and goes to the next guy it’s raining and now it’s light raining and it’s in the middle of the night. 10:05 God bless these medevacs, god bless them and I hear this “whoom. whoom, whoom,” medevac in the mountains, in the middle of the night, in a rainstorm, come down. Now, they put me and these other two guys on the floor of the chopper and it started to rise and I’m thinking, “Go, go, get it”, because we were vulnerable and if somebody had a B-40 they’d blow us out of there. “Go, go, climb, climb”, and climb, climb, and pretty soon we popped out on top of the cloud bank and it was a beautiful starry night, and we headed towards Vietnam. The first way station was there and they brought us off there and they looked at it. Of course, he had missed my vein, so my arm was all puffed up and they put one in here and 32 �sent me to the hospital there outside of Saigon. 11:00 I think I might have had, maybe a nervous—I don’t know what it was, but I was in there and I still had my boots and stuff on and I was lying in this bed and I had a knife in my boot and it looked like the nursing staff looked like Vietnamese and I took my knife out and the next thing I know, these four gorillas in white come around and he disarms me like I’m a “pussy”. Grabs me and throws me on my stomach, holds me down, rips my pants off, gives me a shot and I’m fighting it, he does it one more time and I was asleep. I woke up and I was in this nut ward and I’m thinking, “This is bizarre”. I was getting ready to be shipped to Japan to the 249th general hospital. 12:00 So, I went to Japan and I got there and they gave me a cot and I looked around and it was different. Nothing was loose, everything was firmly attached and I asked if I could have my shaver and they gave it to me and I went into the bathroom and I thought, “Wow, this is going easy”, I never cut anything and they took the razorblade out. “Okay, I think I know where I’m at”. I came out and initially I could not speak, I tried, but I couldn’t speak, it just wasn’t coming, it was the weirdest thing I ever experienced, I could not speak. But, there was this guy from the 101st Airborne and he had his pajamas on and bloused combat boots and he had this record called Leapy Lee "Little Arrows”, and he would play it, and he would play it, and he’d play it. 13:02 I’m thinking, “I’m going to lose my mind, I’m either going to stuff that up your ass, or that’s not going to play anymore”, so I look it and I broke it and dropped it on the floor. I waited to see what he was going to do. You know, he didn’t come after me, but he started chirping and jumping up and down on his cot and I got up and I was going to hit the fucker in the face and here are these guys again, they grab me and “boom” take me away and we talked. At that time I had gotten my voice back and I said, “I don’t belong 33 �here” and they said, “Well, you’re going back to the states”, “Good, great”, and then the Army doctors came down and they said, “You look like you’re fit for duty” and I said, “No, I’m going back to the states”, and they said, “You go back to the states, you got thirteen months, we’ll re-levy you for another year, or this is what we can do. 14:02 We’ll let you go home for a month and see your family, we’ll let you out five months early, and you can get any unit you want”. Okay, I did that, I went home for a month, fell in love, I went to my doctor to have him take out my tonsils and that got me another month. Then I went back to him and said, “Take out my appendix”, and he said, “I’m not going to do that, your tonsils needed to be taken out and your appendix doesn’t. I’ve done everything I can for you”, so I ended up going back and when I got back I was arrested for being AWOL, because I never got the doc’s the instructions for that extra month, and then they just shopped me out to my old unit. Well, my old unit was back in the field and my old commander—I got back there, but first I was at Tan Son Nhut Airbase waiting for a helicopter ride, and here’s the old supply sergeant. 15:00 I said, “Hey, how you doing? You were supposed to pack my shit up and send it home”, and instead he said, “Wow, we never thought you’d be back”, and I said, “Yeah”, and he said, “Look at some of this stuff “ and the doofus pulls out this ammo carrier that I’d taken off that dead NVA with the perfect heart. He said, “Look at this shit”, and I said, “That’s my shit, you fucker”. I didn’t care about that and I said, “I want my rifles”, and I said, “Where are my rifles?” He said, “Your rifles? Uh, I think the commander took those rifles and gave them to some higher ranking people in Saigon. We never figured you’d be back”. “Boom”, I get up there and I said, “You know, my unit, I picked the 2/27 Charlie Company, that was the deal, that’s why I’m back here. I’m going to be a door 34 �and I’m not going on the ground anymore”, and he said, “Listen, we lost some people, you draw your pack, you draw a rifle and you be on the fricking heli pad tomorrow morning”. 16:02 “You’re going down to a place called LZ ---“, and God I forget what it was, so they took me in there and these guys were digging in, in the side of the hill, they were doing strafing below the hill and working with Bangalore torpedoes, in the bottom of the hill fires had started, so they’re working there was up towards the torpedoes. It was a bad situation, none of those guys liked it, it wasn’t an area I wanted to stay in, and this is not the deal I made. Then just before dark I see this chopper coming in really fast and as he came in I dropped everything. As they were kicking mail and stuff off the one side, I crawled in on the other side. The gunners looked at me and I said, “They don’t give a fuck” and the pilot never said anything to anybody. They went back and they had to stop in Song Be, my old unit, to refuel. So, when they stopped I slid off and went into the perimeter and fell asleep on top of a bunker. 17:03 I had two grenades here and I woke up in the morning and the grenades had rolled off, but there was a big rat curled up and sleeping on me, and these rats, if you left them alone it’s almost like, “Oh, you getting up now?” He got up and walked away. I waited to get the next ride, I kept asking, “Where you going, where you going?” “Saigon,”, “Can I get a ride?” “Yeah, get on”. I went to, I think he’s called the Adjutant General, he represents--he takes care of us. I didn’t go to my commander, I went--I didn’t use the chain of command, I went right to the Adjutant General and I explained, told him the whole story, and he said, “you go back to your unit and I’ll look into this”. “Yeah, right”, so I go back to the unit and of course my commander is irate that I went over his head, absolutely irate and he said, “Draw a pack, draw a rifle, and be on the helipad”. He brought me up to a mountain 35 �called Mui Ba Ra and the NVA had dressed themselves as South Vietnamese. 18:00 There was only one way—it was a communication center up there with one way there, otherwise it was a sheer dropoff and there was--a couple of GI’s were killed and I was one of their replacements and the NVA did not get up there, but there were some casualties, and it was good duty. We went up there and we’re at the top of the mountain and you could see the jets go at eye level and clouds would drift by and there on son Bay underneath there and we could see the Russian 122 rockets coming at night. They had this little tail hit that airstrip and we’re safe up here. It was about two weeks and it was nice. Then “boom” the chopper came in and asked for me and I got on the aircraft and it’s just leveled on this ledge and it just tilted and the helicopter just fell and I almost craped my pants. “Whoosh” right on back there and sat down and I went into my commanders unit. 19:01 He said, “Apparently, I can’t go home until you’re satisfied”, and he said, “What’s going to make you satisfied?” I said, “I had a Russian SKS still packed in Cosmoline that you gave away to some sucking ass in Saigon”, and he tried to intimidate me, he’s the commander. “Just stop it, just fucking stop it”, and he said, “What’s going to make you happy? I said, “That 9mm you got out of Cambodia will make me happy”, and he said, “I’m not going to give you that fucking revolver, I’m not going to do it”, and I said, “Then you ain’t going home are ya? What’s going to make me happy is that 9mm there. You gave away my two rifles; I want your 9mm”. 20:00 Then he got real quiet and real nice, and he said, “Listen, I just want to go home and I don’t want to give you the 9mm, but I’ll tell you what I can do. I’ve got a British 303 that was taken, will you accept that?” We sat there and stared at each other and I said, “Yes”, he gave it to me and he said, “You’re also leaving here and you’re going to 2/27 36 �Charlie Company, Ghost Rider, good luck”. I went there and when I got there—you know, I’ve been in country a long time man and it like a net because these gunners are like real close and when I first got there they looked at me and said, “Do you smoke or drink?” Trick question? Smoke? Flight One, which were all potheads and Flight Two, which were all drinkers. So I went in there and they said, “Listen, you’re going to have to sleep down at the end on this four by eight plywood that’s up off the ground and we’ll get you all settled tomorrow, okay?” 21:04 “Okay”, so I met these guys and we talk and getting to know each other and about two, or two thirty in the morning—I took my boots of, I never wore socks, or underwear, and the boots were real soft and even in the field I’d use them as a pillow. So, I took my boots off and wrapped one of my tee shirts around them and I crawled up on this four by eight piece of plywood. I’m sitting there and I looked up and I see in the rafters, I see rats, I see rats, and I started to go to sleep and I feel something on my toes. I took my flashlight and here are these three rats chewing on my toenails. It freaked me out, it just freaked me out and I hit it and ehh, they screamed and hustled away and they kept coming all night long. I got my insect repellent and I’d wait until they got to my toes and I’d spray them in the eyes, and they’d scream and this went on all night. 22:02 Well, it was an initiation, and this is where they put some marijuana and stuff to keep the rats on that side of the building. The rats were simply coming to their feeding area, is all they were doing. “Very funny guys, very funny”, and they said, “You’re in the first room on the right”. “Okay, alright”, so I walk in there and there’s a bunk bed, but it’s painted white and it’s got these black fists on it and it had some very nasty things about white people on it. I’m thinking, “Who’s my new roommate?” Then I meet him, he comes in and he’s a big guy, bigger than me, he 37 �was a big black guy, and he really never said much. He hated me, because I was white and now he had to live with me. He said, “Listen, I’m sleeping low, you’re sleeping high”, that’s all he said, so I went up there. 23:01 The problem with him was he had this eight track of Marvin Gaye and I can’t stand the song today, “I Heard It on the Grapevine”, and with an eight track back then, you put it in and it just plays, and plays, and plays, and plays. Well then this thing started between us, you know, and every time he got up before I did he put it in and I’d get up and pull it out, and at night before he’d go to bed, he’d put it in, and I’d climb down and pull it out. This went on for about a week—we’ve got to change the dynamic here, I’m sick of this. He left one morning, I pull it out and I took my boot and I smashed it on the cement floor and left, went out to my aircraft. I’m sitting in the gunners well, M-60’s not loaded, sitting in the gunner's well, and I look and here comes this dude around the building and he has found Marvin Gaye. I am the obvious suspect and he is pissed off. 24:00 He stated coming towards me and as he came towards me he pulled a knife out of his boot. I’m thinking, “You dumb mother fucker”, and I put the round of ammunition in my M-60 and I loaded that sucker. I brought that barrel down on his chest and every M-60, the pressure point to firing is different and you get to know you weapon, okay? Some fire right away and some you’ve got to pull back and then they fire, okay? Mine, you had to kind of pull back a little bit, and how I liked it set, and I started squeezing that trigger and he got, probably, from here to that wall away and it was right there—I would have killed him--he would have killed me, the guy’s too powerful, he’d kill me, and I wasn’t going to take a chance, I would have killed him. It was right there and I decided, “I’m going to do this’, and he stops, he looks at me, he knew that I would do this. 25:02 38 He takes the knife �and he puts it back in his boot and he gives me a smile and says, “You gotta sleep sometime”, and walks away. I’m thinking, “You dumb fuck, why didn’t you just leave the Marvin Gaye thing alone. Why didn’t you just leave his fricking Marvin Gaye thing alone?” For the rest of the day I’m always looking behind me and stuff. “Where is this sucker? Am I going to go around the building saying, “Hey pal, how you doing?” But, he’s right I can sleep, you know, he’ll cut my throat in the night. “What do you do? I wish I would have thought of this before. Now what do you do?” I went to my commander and just told him what happened. I said, “I’m scared for my life”, and what they did—nobody wanted to live with this guy, this guy intimidated the door gunners for crying out loud, he intimidated them all. 26:00 This was one nasty mother fucker, okay? I told him what’s going to happen and “boom”, they went and took him out, got his stuff, put him on an aircraft and he was gone. Then I got this room all to myself. I was a new gunner with a room all to himself. I did a little redecorating and painting, and that’s how I started being a door gunner. As the time went by I remember one morning, it was a Sunday morning, that the U.S. Army had heard—and I knew this after the fact, that the NVA had put in a large military unit and where would somebody hide that many men and equipment? The jungle, okay, but this rubber plantation called the “Chup Plantation”, it’s a French rubber plantation, you can’t see it from the top and it’s clear on the bottom. 27:06 The perfect place to bivouac lots of men at high light. So they figured that being—we were in a triangle, we patrol the triangle and that’s where the Ho Chi Minh Trail mouth came in, and that the “Chup” might be the spot. I didn’t know this, because the pilots didn’t say, “Hey, it’s a beautiful Sunday morning, let’s go see if we can find some trouble”, they just didn’t tell me what we were going to do. So, we 39 �lifted off, we went up and headed towards the Cambodian border, which wasn’t unusual. But, then we started gaining altitude, a lot of altitude, five thousand feet, we’re use to five thousand feet, eighty-five knots, which is about a hundred and five miles an hour, cruising. That’s what we did. It might look like that helicopter’s stationery, but we’re moving, and that’s why most of the shots go way behind our tail. Five thousand feet’s pretty safe, small arms fire, forget it. 28:02 Anything bigger, watch out. But, we kept going higher and it got cold. I remember, it got so cold and I was the right side gummer and I looked out, because we took our doors off and stuff, I looked and in the distance I could see this beautiful green area, like God had a yard and it was a manicured, a beautiful shimmering green that Sunday morning. We kept getting higher and I’m thinking, “Why are we going so high? We never go this high, it’s cold”, and we kept climbing as we got towards the “Chup” rubber plantation, kept climbing higher, and higher. I thought, “Well, everything’s pretty safe”, so I dialed into Saigon with my headset, there’s only one radio station in Saigon, so there wasn’t a lot of choice, but it was a good “rock ‘n roll” station and I dial in and it’s Led Zeppelin and “Stairway to Heaven”, so I crank that sucker up and I lean back in my gunner's well and we’re way up in the air. 29:06 Just where that guitar pick starts I hear this “beep”, and I never heard it before, never, “beep”. Well, if I’d have known what was happening, I would have had a seat belt on, and what is was, was that we’d been picked up, we found them and they have an anti-aircraft gun and we’ve been locked on. By the third “beep” they’ll blow you out of the air and you got to be falling, they shut the aircraft off, and all of a sudden it was just—there was no gravity, and that bird slowly went on it’s side, my side, and I floated to the ceiling. I had a 50 caliber; I could have engaged that 51, but I couldn’t get 40 �down to the gun. 30:03 It was an invisible hand, there was no gravity, I was plastered right there just going down towards the ground. Oh yeah, I could see where it was in those trees, oh yeah, because there was these clumps of green going whoosh, whoosh, just missed us. That gun, we’re falling and here’s that gun trying to catch us and I’m thinking, “You know, the ground’s coming up”, and I’m thinking to myself, “Mom, I’m so sorry, so sorry”, and I thought, “Well, you won’t feel a thing, you won’t feel a thing, you won’t feel a thing, and if they slow the aircraft we’re fucked, and if they don’t slow the aircraft we’re fucked”, and it was okay, it was okay. Then an amazing thing happened. As we’re getting closer to the horizon, the tops of those trees looked like God took a lawn mower and went errrr, because they just started splintering everywhere. 31:00 I’m watching and I’m thinking, “Shit”, and eek it stopped, because now they were just shooting the tops of the trees and not at us anymore. The pilots, when they righted the aircraft, I fell hard, I mean--I fell on this piece of steel plate and I was amazed how, when they went like that, how hard I hit, and I fell back like this and that’s the only time it had to happen, because I don’t know what caliber, but it came right through the floor, right between my legs, through the top, and hit a blade. I didn’t even know it until laterthe army-I’ll tell you later, but the blades were going “kerwhack, kerwack”, and I’m thinking, “We’re going to tear the blades, we’re going to”, and I could feel the aircraft starting to slow. Those noises, that M-8, “kerwhack”, those blades were taking stress, and I’m thinking, “They’re going to rip, they’re going to rip”. 32:01 Then I looked down and I’ve never seen so many NVA in my life and they’re all like this, shooting at us. I’m thinking, “Holy shit”, and I looked at the steel plate underneath me and It is moving, but I’m looking at the floor of the aircraft and an amazing thing, it’s like holes 41 �just materialized. They were hitting us all over the place and thought, “Well”, and I started to scream, I got on that 50 and I just started firing , and I’m screaming and I’m firing, and I’m screaming, and I’m not even aiming at anything. It was target rich and I figured I had to hit something, and I’m just a screaming and I’m firing, and I’m screaming and I’m firing and I hear the other gunner doing the same thing, firing, firing, and they spun our aircraft up. A ways away the South Vietnamese were moving up to engage at that time. We set that aircraft down, I got out, got the pilots out, because they can’t get out without your help. Unsnapped his door, unsnapped his harness, and took the steel plate, so he could get out. 33:01 We’re all sitting there and we’re looking and the bird is just shot up. Both pilots were fine, I was fine, the other gunner was fine. Of course, he should have been, because he was facing God, and I was facing down during that time, so I hang on for dear life, or you float out of the aircraft, and that was in the “Stars and Stripes”. A bird came in to pick up our air crew and another bird came in to lift it, because they didn’t dare fly it, and took it back to Phuoc Vinh. I went into my place where I sleep and I’m sitting on my bed and my hands just shaking, just shaking, just shaking, and he came in and he said, “Did you see your gunner's well?” I said, “Why?” He said, “Come out here and take a look at this”, and they had this lead wire that they put up where the bullet came and through where, and there was the hole above my head, and out where it hit the blade, and if I had been anywhere on that gun, it would have killed me instantly. 34:05 The only time I wasn’t was when they righted, because sideways it’s not going to hit the floor, it had to right. I said, “The only time that could have happened without killing me was when we hit hard and I fell back, because after that I was on the gun”, and I think that millisecond righting was good luck, it’s just good 42 �luck, good luck, and that was in the “Stars and Stripes”, in fact. That aircraft shot full of holes, they had a picture of it. We got a different aircraft and it wasn’t that long after that, and we had to bring a black Lieutenant into the mountains to an infantry unit. Interviewer: I’m going to take a break here for a moment. So you were talking about having to take a black Lieutenant someplace? Yes, and you know we did a lot of these types of missions, but before—I want to go back, because we were always told as door gunners, “Guys, if you’re taken prisoner, because you’re gunners, they’re going to fucking shoot your ass”. 35:07 “You know, just like they would a sniper, and you’re not going to make it. Only pilots are taken prisoner”. I had come up with a plan B and the plan B was to put warrant officer pins, I got from one of the pilots, put them in my pocket, and the idea was, if we’re shot down, I can take those pins out and I’m going to snap them on my collar and I will just become an officer, and maybe get by those front line troops that have been waiting so long to get their hands around my throat. But, I also thought, typical army, they’re going to spend this bull shit, “You fight to the death, because you don’t want to be executed”. Ah, that’s a bunch of bull shit, and we’re on patrol one time and we hear this “Fook, fook, mayday, mayday, fook”, and the radio starts to crackle and I’m listening to what’s going on and they directed our ship where it last went down—go over there. 36:03 “Here we go”, and we fuel the aircraft, we change direction, and went as fast as we could, but it took time to get there and when we sat down we could see the aircraft, it had been shot down, and it had been shot up really bad. I think they shot it up after it was on the ground and wiped shit all over it. They just fucked it up real good, and nobody was there. We’re looking around and first you go and make the circle, you want to make the circle, you 43 �don’t want to land, you just want to make this circle. You look, and as the door gunner-you’re right above the trees and I can see everything. I can see everything that moves, man, and anything that fucking moves is going to get a hole in it. You tighten and tighten until you’re comfortable setting down and the pilots were gone, and I looked and there were these two lumps in the field. 37:05 So, I ran over there and sure enough, there was these two gunners and they had their hands, not tied, but wired, behind them and it looked like they were set on their knees and shot in the back of the head, both of them were face down. So, we recovered those bodies and left and after that I always had the pins, because I didn’t want to go like that, but then some nightmares started too, I started having nightmares—“Bang”, they shoot the other gunner, and I feel those footsteps behind me and I wake up, it was just stupid shit like that, just stupid shit. Anyway, I need to take this black Lieutenant and we have to leave in the morning, because the monsoon season is starting. 38:00 The monsoon season—you see a could bank in the distance, it will be there and it’s gone, it’s there and it’s gone, there and gone, and then it’s over you and it rains like hell. Where we were going the monsoon was starting and we had to leave in the morning before the cloud bank came up over the mountains, that’s how we lose air crews, the mountains, it’s not from the enemy, it’s from colliding with shit. Sure enough the fucking guy gets there like a two o’clock in the afternoon and I can already see—this doesn’t feel right, I get this really bad feeling about this whole thing and I was getting pretty superstitious at that point, I’d been there a long time and I was getting superstitious. Our aircraft, which was a good aircraft, 428, was a strong aircraft. We lifted off with this guy, and when we went up--we usually looked for what we call the “Stairway to Heaven”, big lights coming through the clouds and a big one was like God’s 44 �golden and the pilot flew up into it. 39:04 I’m looking over the edge and I could see everything just close and as far as you could see was nothing but white cotton batten, as far as the eye could see. We started in that direction and we probably were about twenty minutes into the flight and I look and, amazing, there was this “Alice in Wonderland” mushroom cap as big as buildings above us and the storm below. Huge, and some of these stems were the size of holes, and big caps, and we were like that small. I’m going-I had my camera and I never took a picture. We’re maneuvering through and I’m looking and I just felt so small, but I was amazed at the beauty of this. He’d go right through a stem and you couldn’t see your hand, and we’d pop out the other side and keep going, it was amazing, and then that forest of mushrooms was behind us. 40:00 “Yeah, hey, that was pretty cool, that’s why I’m here, just to experience that right there”. Another twenty minutes, or so, and I’m looking over the side of the aircraft, they don’t look good, I don’t know where the mountains are, I have no idea how these pilots are going to know where the mountains are, and I’m figuring, “We’ll turn around and come back with this “jerk off” tomorrow and let’s not do anything stupid”. Then my headset starts to crackle and I’m listening, we made contact, and they are sown below us somewhere, but where? “We’ll come back tomorrow”, and the pilots come on and say, “Hang on, we’re going down”. “Going down? Are you out of your fucking mind?” Are you out of your fucking mind?” “I’m along for the ride”. “Mom, beam me out of here will ya?” “You can’t, you’re along--this is it man, you’re totally out of control of what’s going to happen, and considering that you got two pilots that are probably twenty-one years old”. 41:00 So, they started to circle, and we started to circle and I’m watching this this thick pea soup come up and I can’t see my hand ,a down we’re down and can’t see nothin', it’s like pea 45 �soup, and I’m getting like, “We’re going to fucking die, we’re going to fucking die, where are the mountains, where are we?” We’re moving down, we’re moving down, and all of a sudden—what had happened is, the mountain was here and we’re coming down and a wind shear grabbed our blades, and it turned the helicopter, my face down, and just hurled us towards the ground. No gravity—“bang’, I went up to the ceiling again and all I could see is this gray puss hitting me in the face. I’m thinking, “Keep your eyes open, keep your eyes open it won’t hurt, it will be quick, it will be quick”, and I’m waiting for my death. 42:03 Meanwhile, the black guy, he’s just screaming his head off, he’s just screaming and screaming and I remember thinking, “Shut up, just die like a man, just shut up”, and he’s screaming, and I’m waiting, and I’m waiting, and the pilots got back in control and we popped out of that cloud bank, but we were level, and the ground was really close, and “boom” we hit it level and those blades went “vooooo” then ‘whaaaaa, whaaaaa”, and I got out immediately, opened the door, unsnapped his harness, moved the steel plate away, so he could get out. The other gunner does the same and we’re sitting in front of the aircraft, all of us, and one of the pilots has his hands on the nose of the aircraft saying, “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ”, and he just kept saying this over and over, “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ”, so I knew it was close. 43:00 then I look and I see this poor black guy, he’s full of barf, barf all over himself, barfed on the other gunner, because the wind blew it, and he gets up. He tries to walk, he can’t walk, he’s so terrorized his legs give out and he falls. Then I see movement in the trees and my heart starts to race. I reach in my pocket for the pins. I had a 50 and I rushed back to get the 50 and it was US troops and they just blended right out of the jungle. Came up and picked up this poor fucker—which was still having a hard time walking. I wish I’d 46 �gotten his name and number, because I’d love to call him today, I would love to call him today and say, ”Hey Jerry”, “Don’t ever call me again, hey”, one of those deals, and they came in and they’d see our aircraft come in and was talking to their Lieutenant, I guess. 44:02 They said, “We’ve got to move you, come with us now or leave”. The pilots got back in the aircraft and we snapped them in and stuff and they brought the aircraft up about this high off the ground and we’re just sitting outside on the skid and the aircraft seemed okay, you know, just floating, floating, floating, set it back down and I hear the command, “We’re leaving”, and they did what they call a “Hammer head”. A “Hammer head”, you’re not supposed to—it’s very hard on the aircraft, but what it is, is they get that blade so it’s really, really, moving and they take the collective and they pull it up, which immediately grabs air and you just fly. “Hang on, hang on”, and I could see what they were going to do and that this was going to be a fun ride. I leaned back in my gunner’s mode and sure enough, we shot off that ground and we just went through this pea soup, I mean, it was a great ride, man, it was a great ride. 45:07 We “boom” popped out of the top and went, maybe, a couple thousand yards up in the air and then the aircraft started to choke, and started to fall. The pilots are, “chi, chi, chi”, and they got it running again it just settled in a little bit and we went home. I would have loved to have known that black guy--today, I’d like to call him. The only other thing, as I was getting close, they moved our units to the coast, from the triangle, and that’s when the US was moving out, so we took over for another helicopter unit that went north to the DMZ, so we took over their area. I was getting short at that time and I, maybe, had two more months left, and I was finally going home. My nerves were shot, and at that time we’re doing a lot of heroin, the gunners were, they’re doing a lot of heroin. 46:03 I remember 47 �coming out of this room and everybody’d take a pee right there, a little two foot size, everybody would pee there and I came out of the room and it’s like—I passed out, I black, face down in the stuff. I don’t know how long I was there, it couldn’t have been too long--somebody would have found me. I woke up, took a shower, and we had these big container barrels that would heat up, the sun would heat up in the morning and during the day. I washed up, and I had never blacked out before, and I didn’t worry about it too much—two months to go, two months to go, and then one day we had to go—they took out bird 428, and said, “You got to go a place called Dalat. Go up there”, and I didn’t’ know why we were going to Dalat, the pilots didn’t let us know we were going Dalat, it was up in the mountains and the only way to get there was through, what we called the Suk Ve [sp?] pass. 47:00 They said, “This is the only way we can get up through here, so stay on your toes, we’re leaving”, so we left and we took off and we started to gain some altitude and I’m looking in front of the bird, and sure enough it kind of opened up and that must be the pass, and it was. We went up and they went “whoof”, and we went up, and we were going and you could look down and way down there you could see a little blue ribbon, which was a river. We came past this sheer mountain, it’s like God took a saw and cut this mountain sheer and it was black. This beautiful black, so close, and of course, there’s a lot of turbulence that comes up next to that, and it seemed like we’re from here to that wall away, the blades, like I could almost—it was so massive and we were so high, like I could almost touch it. 48:00 I’m thinking to myself and the aircraft is moving back and forth, and I’m thinking, “Get the fuck away from the side of the mountain dudes, you don’t have to fly this—we got plenty of sky”, and I’m thinking this to myself. I’m sitting back and it’s like everything went black, not right away, I seen 48 �these balls and then everything went black. I fell forward and I went outside the aircraft, and I went into the gun and the trigger caught me underneath my chin and as soon as I broke that barrier, that high, it was cold and the wind was great and like when I hit, “bang” my arms went around, but I was awake and I hung on, or it would have been a long way down when you stop to think about it. I’m hanging on for dear life, communication snapped, I’m screaming, and the pilots can’t hear me, they’re just-- back of their heads, just bouncing and they don’t hear me. 49:06 The other gunner’s on the other side of that turbine and he don’t hear me. I’m screaming and screaming, I’m looking down and my legs are flying in the air, it’s a hundred and five miles an hour and I’m hanging on for dear life and I’m looking and it’s so far down. About that time I see the cotter pin that holds the gun in its mount, doing this, coming out and all I can think is “This goes and me and the gun are going to watch the bottom of that aircraft get smaller and smaller, and smaller. “What will they think happened? “He went nuts, took the gun and killed himself”. That wasn’t the truth, and they would never really know the truth, I’m hanging on and the typical barrel there’s a piece of steel for a firing pin, and my boot was able to get on that and I grabbed and I was able to swing back in. I put the seat belt on right away. It’s cold up there and I’m sweating and I’m just shaking, just shaking, and then we finally got to Dalat. 50:07 It was beautiful, it’s like a university town, we couldn’t believe it. We came up over the trees and I’m looking at all these red brick buildings and these ponds, and greens, and sidewalks, and it’s like, “Is this the twilight zone?” It’s totally unscratched by the war, it’s a beautiful university town, Dalat, and it was gorgeous. They set down and they said, “We’re going to have a good time tonight boys”, and I said, “I’m not interested”, and I told them what happened and they laughed 49 �about it. I said, “Okay, do what you want to do, I’m staying here with the bird”, and they said, “Okay, stay with the bird”. I slept on the floor of the bird and it’s not a comfortable sleep. The floor of the bird has all of these steel nipples and they’re not comfortable to sleep on and neither is that chair, or that—I slept there that night and then they came back. They were treated very well and we lifted off. 51:00 We went back through the Suk Ve pass, but this time I kept my seatbelt on and I was very scared that was going to happen again and if it does I’m not going to be so lucky, I will not be so lucky. As soon as I got back to the unit, we set the bird down, my job as the right side gunner was to take the two M-60 machine guns, break them down, clean them up, and oil them for the next day. The crew chief—and I had to keep the glass underneath the pilots feet clean too, so they could see how close the ground was when we’re landing. That was really all I had to do. Charlie—or the crew chief, each have to take oil samples from underneath to see if there’s fine metal shavings, because they don’t want the transmission to seize up , and go over certain safety thing on the aircraft every time. So, my job was pretty easy, taking the M-60’s, breaking them down, and putting them back together, and get ready for the next day. I went to the doctor, Cooper. 52:00 Well, Cooper and I were good friends, and we smoked a lot of pot together. He made a bowl out of surgical equipment, okay, and when they moved us to the coast we were part of the Korean White Horse Division at that time, and they were going a hundred and fifty. They treated us like we were special. For the first time the Koreans had helicopters to get their unit out. Helicopters would just bring them in, and they were a good troop. I went to Coop and I said, “This is what’s happened. Two months and I’m out of here and if this happens again I won’t be so lucky. My nerves are shot, I’ve done my part”. He said, “You know what, I think you got 50 �mono”, and I said, “I do, I do”, and he said, “I’m going to take you off flight status”. We all contributed a couple bucks each, three hundred bucks total, and we rented out own little whore house in a town called Ninh Hoa. 53:00 Well “doc’ had to go there almost every day to check the girls and he put me in the back of his—the same car that you see on “MASH”, the ambulance, the same type of car, he put me in the back, and then we’d go through these Korean checkpoints. Then I’d come up in the front and we’d be smoking marijuana all the way down to the Ninh Hoa whore house. They let us in, closed the gate, and it had tall walls, and barbed wire all the way around the compound. The house was in there, and we’d go in there and I’d always enjoy being with this French Vietnamese, very pretty, and I always just took her and it was five bucks, and I thought the price was pretty reasonable. We’d go there together and, basically, what I did—but, even as a door gunner--here I was, ten months I was a door gunner, I think we were unique in a the respect that our commander allowed women into us. Cooks didn’t get these privileges, mechanics didn’t get these privileges, and nobody did, but gunners and pilots. 54:04 That was four pilots, but there was never more than four pilots and four gunners and four pilots, at any point, not flying. One was on standby in case we needed him, the other one was down and he didn’t have to fly, so you always had those two birds down. You had four gunners, we’d play cards, we had girls down there and it was okay. There were a lot of pilots, they were married and they had wanted nothing to do with it. There were others, “I’m not going to do that, I’m married”, and I was one that said, “I’m good with this”, so that was kind of a special thing. So, anyway, I started going there with him all the time and things started to disappear. I had some stuff stolen and you don’t want to do that with gunners, you just don’t want to do that. I remember, and it was 51 �a black guy, and we would smoke it and we would snort it, but we would never use needles. 55:01 He was using needles and I remember—we’d be sitting in the group and what was his name? I don’t remember, but he would literally be sitting there, and he’d be drooling on himself and he pissed his pants and we’d say, “Jesus come on”, like we’re better than that, right, okay? You’re no better than that, he’s just hard core. What he was doing, he was stealing from the gunners to feed his habit. It wasn’t hard to find, the stuff, and they found out about it and he barricaded himself in a room and he wouldn’t come out. There were gunners that would have certainly killed him and they went up to the door all the time and say, “Jerry, Jerry, come on out, we want to talk to you, come on out man”, and harass this man. Three days he didn’t come out, four days he didn’t come out, and I passed his door one time and I could hear inside, him moaning, like he’s in a lot of pain. 56:00 Something had to—the dynamic had to change and so, unbeknown to any of the guys that I live with, I went up on the hill there and talked to the doctor. I said, “Coop, I don’t know what’s going on, but he’s moaning, and something is going on, and if he goes out, these guys are going to kill him, or they’re going to hurt him so bad, you know, they’re pissed. Do something”. So, he came down with a couple officers and pilots and knocked on the door and the guy let him in and they took up to the med station up where his little areas there was. I know, because I was watching some of those gunners and they were just staring at him as he walked by. “See you later”, and that type of stuff, and later—they wouldn’t let him come back down, they took him, and they had these houses on the coast for drug addicts and they took him down there to get him cleaned up before he goes home. 57:03 Coop talked to me later and said, “Thanks a lot for that Les, do you know what I had to do?” “No”, “Well the man was impacted. 52 �He hadn’t taken a crap in so long, he became impacted and now he couldn’t, and he could have died”, and I said, “What did you do?” He said, “I had to take a glove and I had to dig it out”. That’s our Coop. Interviewer: Were the men of the unit hostile toward him, because he sort of crossed a line? He crossed the line and it wasn’t used to be that way, but once you find a thief among you, especially with these guys, they’re a different breed of cat, these gunners are, a different breed of cat. Ken Hoff was my crew chief, the other gunner on the left side and a consummate worrier. 58:01 Every mission before we would leave, he would throw a duffle bag on the floor of the aircraft that had a couple revolvers in it, had some pin flares and it had a radio, had food, it had ammunition, it had bandages, he was a consummate worrier. He also loved killing, and he was the best there was. He had balls so big— they’d give you this stuff that I would just not do. We had a new, what we call “Charlie pop”, new, not the aircraft commander, but they break these new guys coming in and that was the right seat. You know, Ken comes around and he crawls on the outside of the aircraft and we’re flying a thousand feet in the air and there’s these things to get up on there and he crawls up, he’s underneath the blade and he crawls and he looks down at the “Charlie pop” and smiles, and crawls back. I wouldn’t dare do that, I wouldn’t dare do that. 59:00 But Ken, even when we get—I’ll give you an example--there was a French rubber plantation and this is before we went to the coast, and after Cambodia we do what they call “purple teams”, and that was a Cobra and then us, we had to pick up any survivors, and then the low bird. Low bird was a little two man aircraft, a gunner, and our job was to make sure he recovered them, or engage if the situation was right, but that 53 �guy up there’s going to cover you. We’re on a typical patrol and we go and it’s inside Cambodia, and here’s this French compound. As we come over, I’m looking and I don’t see anything different and I look up and I see it. At the second level of this French veranda there was this machine gun there and we’re heading right toward it. 60:00 I love these guys—this Cobra pilot seen it and it was just like out of Hollywood, two missiles and it just exploded and blew those guys through those big doors, just blew them through. Then all shit started to go. There were generally green troops and it was chaos, it was where I got my first air medal, actually. We were shooting, it was pretty target rich, and there was this one NVA soldier, had his pack and his rifle, and we came around and I seen him and I was going to come and the low bird got in front of me, so I didn’t fire. I’m watching this and we’re kind of—the low birds here and we’re just kind of doing this and the Cobra’s doing his thing, and it must have been a kid, he throws his rifle down and runs, he throws pack down and he’s running and he keeps looking at the low bird and the gunner is shooting behind him and just terrorizing him. He’s running and his eyes are about this big and he runs to this big tree and he does the old squirrel thing. 1:02 He’s trying to keep the tree between him and that guy. I’m watching this and I’m thinking to myself, “Just end this, you don’t need to do this”, you know, they’re fucking with him, they’re going around, they’re just laughing and having a good time. “Just stop this stuff”, and he finally got to the top of the tree and it’s “rat-tat, rat-tat”-- down. No sooner did he do that and here comes a moped with another one on it taking off out of there, and the low bird gets behind him and shoots and there’s a right degree turn in the road, and he doesn’t want to slow up, can’t slow up, he’s not going to make that turn. Just before the turn they brought that machine gun up and hit him, and again, just like 54 �Hollywood that moped went end over end and into a field. 2:01 We go back and we’re going around, the low bird, going around this section of woods and there was this grass hut. I didn’t know it was there yet, I did in a few minutes, but we’re following the low bird, too low, but we’re fooling them, and the low bird, and all of a sudden the low bird blows up and fire is just—he got hit by something and we’re coming around, and I didn’t know what he got hit by, but he got hit by, inside this little grass hut thing they had a machine gun set up. So, when the low bird came around they just blasted them. Now, we’re coming behind that and the same way, on my side—I wouldn’t have noticed that, we would have gone there and we would have got blasted. Just, I still didn’t, my mind--I still didn’t know what was happening and all of a sudden this grass hut just blows to pieces and we fly through this mud and straw. That boy up there seen it, he seen everything, and he also seen us coming around and that would have ended my life there. 3:06 They would have caught me with my pants down and I would never have known until it was too late. But, that boy up there saved my life and saved our lives. The low craft hit, went up and landed in a field and we flew right behind it and set down. We ran and I grabbed this guy and he screams and the other guy grabbed and said, “We gotta get outa here man, we gotta get outa here, we can’t be on the ground like this”, so we just grab him and he’s screaming and we put him on the floor of the aircraft, and the other guy, instead of coming with us, he crawls on this missile pod on the Cobra and hangs on. “Let’s go”, and so, we’re lifting off and there’s this guy hanging on for dear life on this missile pod. This guy—what happened was, as soon as soon as we got him back—we helped him, we cut his nomex, because he had to wear a nomex and I noticed on his sleeves, it was like somebody had taken a white cloth, on both hands. 4:08 55 What it �was, was inside the nomex the skin had cooked and it was all skin that just peeled down and it looked like that. I assume that when we grabbed him by the leg, probably the same thing had happened. I don’t know what his back and stuff looked like, I doubt whether he survived those kinds of burns. The other guy wasn’t hurt nearly as bad, because he was hanging onto this rocket pod and we went back. That was it, the bird was down and it was just like Hollywood, but it was the real thing. Interviewer: Is it a very strange experience to go from being in sort of the relative comforts of home, you get up in the morning, you’re on a base with a regular schedule and then you can be, suddenly in a situation where all of this stuff is blowing up around you? 5:03 You know, you get—war is something you love, war is something you hate, war is something that scares the fucking shit out of you, but at the same time it gives you adrenalin. It’s a hard thing to say, it’s a love hate relationship, because you’re playing the ultimate game, man hunting another man, it’s the ultimate game and if you lose, you lose your life, and all the emotions that pair with that are involved. When I first came home it was weird. I’d come home, my folks picked me up at the airport in Kent County and I’d been gone a long time, and my family came and picked me up and took me home. I remember sitting in the car and seeing the buildings go by, but you’re not here, you’re there, if that makes any sense. 6:02 I moved in with my parents temporarily and then had some of the dreams. You know, your hands are wired behind you and Ken Hoff, he’d be on his knees over there and I’d be on my knees over here and we’d be waiting and you could see somebody behind him, all of a sudden in front of his forehead, and “pow”, he’d go down and I’d feel that same guy behind me and then I’d wake up, 56 �and my dad would wake me up, he’d come in and say, “Les, Les, wake up, wake up”, and the only other—you have dreams and the dream is---here I am in my underwear, in my bed, upstairs in this old farm house, and I know it’s hallucinations, but I look towards the floor and I see the tops of trees flying by. I’m thinking there’s a machine gun, a M-60, on my mattress, and I’m thinking to myself, “This is hallucinating, there is no M-60 on your fricking mattress and those are not trees”. 7:04 It’s so real and I’d get up on the gun and start shooting and the next thing I know my dad’s grabbing me, “Les, Les, wake up, wake up”, so I had to get out of there, so I went and got myself a place, and I haven’t been home since, and that’s my story. Interviewer: I would like to, if I can, to go back and follow up on a few more dimensions of this. When you were serving as a door gunner, what kind of physical facilities did you have? I mean, you had-- there was—the door gunners slept together and you divided into individual groups and so forth. What else was on the base? You know, you had your chow area, for instance, my job as a door gunner---I was up at, probably, five o’clock and I’d go out, bring the guns, go out to the aircraft, snap them on and wait there for what we called the ammo chief. 8:04 The ammo chief, he would come along, stop ask, “What do you need?” Well, I need so many rounds of this, some smokes on this, you tell him what you need and “bang” you got it. If we need smokes they get it and everything is set and ready to go. I wait, and it starts getting light and the pilots come and they get in the aircraft, you untie the blade. You’ve got to tie the blades down, and where you park these aircraft is like two walls maybe eight feet high, just straight, open at both ends and you put the aircraft in there. We bed it down there and 57 �then tie down with a snap on the blades, so the wind can’t damage it. You wait for the pilots to come on out and they get in and we just stand on the skid outside and they bring it up, check the dial, maybe bring it up and hover about so, hover back and forth, and side to side, then they set it down and we go get breakfast. 9:02 We’d go down to the chow house and the eggs, it’s always the dehydrated eggs , cold toast, greasy bacon, it tastes wonderful, coffee-- good deal, and then we go back and start up and whatever mission we’re on, we back that aircraft up like a car and then you go through what they call “transition” and there’s as you cut through the wind, there’s a shaking as it goes where it has to go and they call it “transition”. I remember, I had a little bag of marijuana, just really light and it was –because I’d smoke a lot in the area and the smoke’s gone, “pfffff”, who cares, and it relaxed me and it never interfered, it just relaxed me and I wouldn’t get so hyper. We went through “transition” and the next thing I know that little bag of marijuana floats up like this and it went through and dropped between the two pilots. 10:08 They picked it up and said, “This yours?” “Thank you sir”, and you know, a lot of the pilots smoked, a lot of them, they were kids. We looked up to these guys, because our lives were in their hands and they would say their lives were in our hands , so you did, you became very close, because you’re going to live, or die together period. We’re all in this thing together, and we’re not going anywhere. Prior to that, also, a new dynamic started to change the situation in Vietnam and that was probably four months before I was going to go. They introduced, I think it was, a Chinese shoulder fired rocket that would be a little bit heat seeking, and they’d fire it after the chopper went by, on your big turbine. 11:01 The unit that we took their place here was moved up there and they were just getting slaughtered. They were losing aircraft, so 58 �they were starting to strip our units to take their places, you know. Every day you wonder where you’re going to go. You talk to each other and they say, “428 is going north”, that’s our bird, “You’re going north”, “I don’t want to go north, I’ll stick—“, and you see what birds have to go there and take their place and do the job, get troops in, get ammo in, whatever it was. That really started to wear on me, because everything was seeming to come that I wasn’t ever going to get home. I was lucky falling out of the aircraft, very lucky, I was lucky in these other things, very lucky, and now this shoulder rocket, I could just taste fate, and so, Cooper did me a real favor. 12:00 I finally went on a R&R and when I came back it was time to go home. Interviewer: Where did you go on the R&R? Bangkok, Thailand, a wonderful place--me and Jimmy Parker, the youngest door gunner in the 1st Cav, he was like seventeen; lied—and he never had any luck. His dad was killed early, his mother was murdered by his step father, and his step father almost beat him to death, so his “granny” raised him. Jimmy and I were good friends, but Jimmy had become a heroin addict. I had tickets to Australia and all that was left was Bangkok, so I gave up the ticket to Australia and I went to Bangkok with Jimmy. We get into our hotel, and it’s just like a nice hotel here, and we check into our rooms, and I wasn’t in my room three minutes and there was a knock on the door and the hotel manager comes in with six girls and says, “You pick, they’ll take good care of you, you pick”. 13:00 “No, we’re going down to the “happy, happy””, because the troops said to go down to the “Happy, Happy” there’s girls down there. They went out and then “knock, knock, knock”, the same thing, so we rented a taxi for the week and he was always on call. He took us down to the “Happy, Happy” and we go in there and behind us there’s a couple GI’s who met 59 �their wives there, and that’s very cool you know. We’re sitting at the big bar and I’m looking through a mirror and I can see into this next room and there were some of the most beautiful women I have ever seen and they had little numbers, and I’m wondering what’s going on, so I called the taxi cab driver and said, “I want one that likes to smoke pot “, and he tells the bartender. So, instead of being discreet they get on this loud microphone and call, “Number 50”. 14:06 I turn around and look and these women are just staring at me. I feel like saying, “What, your husband is in the motor pool in Saigon, give me a break, leave me alone”. So, she comes out and she speaks fairly good English, we got talking and she shows me her medical card and she says, “It’s twenty-five dollars first day and fifteen dollars every day. I’ll take good care of you and show you a good time”, so we agreed. Then we get back to the hotel later and, you know, she’s about this high and I’m—Mutt and Jeff, and I’m checking in there and I feel like these daggers are pointing at my back and I turn around and here’s these same two couples sitting there in the lobby staring at me. I think, “Come on, give me a break”, you know, “Come on, what do you think I’m going to do, go and meet my mother in Hawaii? Come on, leave me alone, just leave me alone, and don’t try to guilt me on this, okay?” 15:02 She did, she did her job, it was wonderful, the best five days ever, and she actually had me thinking she cared, but of course they don’t, but that’s what a professional she was, it was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, reprieve. In fact, I ran out of money after three days. I got into a poker game before I went to Saigon and got skinned out of about three hundred bucks, so I was low on cash when I got there, so she picked up the tab. Then I thought, “This woman, I’m in love”, and then the aircraft is waiting to go back to Vietnam and I’m at the window and I’m waving to her. We wait there for a while and I 60 �look again and she’s hustling a couple other guys just getting off the plane, and I said, “Good job, you gave me the best time of my life and you actually made me feel like I was special and that’s just what you should have done. You loved me to pieces, you took care of me, God bless you, it’s time to go”. 16:02 When I got back and in two days I was used to flying, I was a flyboy, and then it was time to go home and say goodbye, and it was one of the hardest things I ever did, was to say goodbye to those guys, it was. A low bird came in and picked me up and I didn’t want to leave. At that moment if somebody had said, “Do you want to extend your tour?” I probably would have done it, that was my life, and that was my home. Home was a long time ago, this was my family and, “I’m going to miss this”, you don’t think so but, “I’m going to miss this”, you could also die, but we were family, man and you could see that leaving, and I seen that with other guys that left, that it was a hard choice. The low bird picked me up and I said, “Goodbye”, and they flew around again everybody’s waving and saying, “Goodbye, good luck”, and left. 17:06 Before we left though, there was another group that came in and wanted to know, since I was going home, Jimmy Parker was going home, Louis P. Dudas from Detroit was going home too, all three of us, if we were interested in being door gunners out of Bangkok, into Laos for a hundred bucks a day. It sounded pretty good for a hundred bucks a day. I’d been doing this in the triangle for three hundred and sixty five bucks a month. A hundred bucks a day, that’s three grand a month, you know, if I could last a year and what’s Laos compared to the fricking Ho Chi Minh, NVA army? If I could do a year, there’s, thirty six thousand dollars, and I can go home. We talked about it and so when we got back, ya, I went and got my passport, Louis P. Dudas went and got his and Jimmy Parker got his. 18:02 We got all set to go back and Jimmy Parker was 61 �killed in Galena, Illinois. You know, where a bus has to stop at a railroad track? He wasn’t even driving and they pull in this pickup truck and they couldn’t see and they came—went across and got hit by a freight train and both of them were killed instantly. Me, I bought a motorcycle and trying to elude the police, I hit a pole and ended up going out into a field. They didn’t know where I went, they went to the low part and came out and I was gone. I thought I was going to die out there and the wheat and stuff was this high and I could taste the blood. Lots of blood in my mouth, lots of blood, and I’m thinking, “You stupid fuck, you cracked your ribs and they punctured your lungs, you’re going to drown in your own blood, real good Les, real good, you come home and this is what happens, real good, real good”. 19:01 So, I laid back, I lay down, there was nothing you could do, it’s two thirty in the morning. I could see through the grass this barn and house over there with a mercury light that was lit. Lots of blood, I was coughing up a lot of blood and my arm hurt every time I’d move it, and that leg was really hurting, every time I moved it, so I laid back and waited. I waited, and waited, five minutes goes by and I’m thinking, “I should be dead by now, maybe I’m not”. So, I had one good arm and one good leg and I kicked my way to this farm house, the only farm house that didn’t have a phone, and banged my helmet on the door. Thank God they came and takes off and almost rode me over in the driveway to get an ambulance called and the ambulance came and picked me up. The bike was gone and my helmet had a gouge on it and thank God I had a helmet on, or I would have killed me instantly, and I ended up in the hospital for a while. 20:01 I cracked my spine, I almost lost a kidney, some cracked ribs, no broken ribs, I was just fucking screwed up, and that’s where I met my first wife, she was a nurse. 62 �Interviewer: That kind of put a finish to the plan to go off to Laos. It did, because I didn’t have medical insurance and what I did have left, I had to use to pay on my medical bills, I was broke. Jimmy Parker was dead and Louis P. Dudas ended up going to the UP, and to this day doesn’t talk to anybody. I tried to reach him, he is married, my second wife tried to contact him and finally found him, you know, and she talked to his wife. She says, “He won’t talk about it either, he doesn’t want to talk to anybody, doesn’t want to see anybody, he just wants to be left alone”. “Okay, so be it, no big deal”. I don’t think he did enough to go be a hermit somewhere, not like he survived from a death camp, you know, you can’t deal with things. 21:02 Interviewer: Well, it’s a pretty intense experience, doing what you guys did and It’s got to play out in different ways in how they deal with it. It does, you know, I can’t seem to attach to anybody as far as normal feelings, I just don’t. I’ve been married twice and divorced twice, I tend to self-medicate, I used to have a quick temper and I don’t anymore, not much anyway. Sometimes I talk to my brother and thinking, “Jeez, what would I be like if I’d never gone in the service?” I grew up in Hudsonville and went to church every day, or Sundays twice, graduated from a good high school, had a job at Spoelstra Pool Company, and I probably would have married somebody from my high school. 22:01 I’d probably work for John Spoelstra, I probably—I never drank; I never was affiliated with any kind of drugs, or anything all through high school. I probably would have been a totally different person. I probably would have bought my little house in Wyoming, Spoelstra Pool Company, cement working with good pay, I don’t know who my wife would have been, she would probably work too, raising kids, whoever they might be, and yeah, it would have been different. 63 �Now, I don’t go to church, I don’t like being in church, because it gives me the creeps and I don’t know why. Interviewer: Well, it does make for a remarkable story, I’ll tell you that. You know, my good friend Mike says that it’s unique and I don’t know if it’s so unique as me putting myself in situations that should never have happened, you know, but then surviving it too. 23:01 A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about it and I am truly sick of that, I truly am. I’m sick of listening to music; I’m listening to music and them memories come flashing back, you know, I’m, sick of it. I’m sick of thinking about it before I go to bed and when I get up, during the day for no reason, and this has been going on for a long time. It’s like my uncle Chet said, he’s passed away, but he lost his whole—he was in the army in WWII fighting the Germans, and his whole unit was wiped out by an 88 mm flak gun. He had dysentery, so he wasn’t there at the time. I talked to him and he said, “You know what Les, to this day, I can hear what a tank with that 88mm flak gun sounds like when they put it into gear”. 24:04 You know what a riding lawn mower with a stick sounds like, only much shriller? He said, “I remember that like yesterday yet and I always will, the fear of the sound of it”. You know, anything with high impact, like I tell my brother Lee, if you were in an accident and five bad automobile crashes, guess what, every time you get in a car you’re going to think about that stuff. Every time you hear a horn, or the screeching of a tire, you’re going to think about that stuff and this is really no different. My brother Lee, he had a freak accident when he was forty one at the Gus Macker, a tree branch—a storm came and it crushed his back and I said, “You don’t think about that every day?” Because it’s high impact, and when its high impact it seats itself in the sub-conscious and it doesn’t go away, it doesn’t 64 �go away. That’s fine, I’m proud of my duty and I’d do it again. I met some really great guys. 25:01 I had some very interesting experiences that I survived--stuff that I’d never have had if I had grown up and lived in Hudsonville and worked for John Spoolstra. Interviewer: Well, thank you very much for coming in and telling your story. Thanks for taking the time. 65 �66 � 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 Dykema, Leslie (Interview transcript and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dykema, Leslie Description An account of the resource Les Dykema was born in 1949 and few up in Hudsonville, Michigan. He tried college, but did not do well in his first year and in 1968 went ahead and enlisted in the Army and get some choice of assignment rather than wait to be drafted. In basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, he found that he did not much like the Army, and got into some trouble, but made it through and went on to Fort Gordon, Georgia, for military police training. Despite a few more run-ins with authority, he completed the training and spent several months there working at a recreation area on the base before going to Vietnam in 1969. He was assigned to an MP unit, and soon got into trouble with his sergeant and captain, and was eventually reassigned to a combat engineer unit in the field. He worked with a demolition squad for some time, including the period of the Cambodian incursion in 1970, before being wounded and sent to Japan to recuperate. He agreed to extend his Vietnam tour in exchange for a month at home and 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 Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2011-02-03 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DykemaL1011V 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/41975ed171d3020ad9340aac6f2648f7.mp4 41fff71f77a8b183b85ce56380d1d6ca https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/97561c88b769b0e54893e5ef19f66293.pdf d97b76deb1f96de000b41decb24e9a0a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Chester Dykema (00:22:00) Background: Dykema was born in 1927 Dykema entered the Navy in May 1945 and served until July of 1946, exiting as a 3rd class motor machinist. Did basic training at Camp Schumacher in California in August of 1945. (0:50) Enlistment: Dykema enlisted when he was 17 since he knew he would be drafted when he was 18 and the Navy offered clean linens and better food. (0:06) Towards the end of the war boot camp was cut down from 12-16 weeks to 6. Dykema recalls all the men there being 17 or 18. During basic the men were marched, fired arms and learned Morse code. (0:45) Hawaii: Just before the war ended Dykema was sent from California to Hawaii aboard an LST with 100 other men. War ended while en route to Hawaii. When he arrived he was assigned to Mobile Explosive Inventory Unit 4. Some of the unit was sent to Japan. (2:50) While on the LST going to Hawaii. Dykstra recalls being relaxed and not worrying about enemy submarines. While in Hawaii stayed in Quonset huts with a beer hall nearby. Dykema talks about the point system used to discharge men and being one of the last to leave. (4:20) Dykemaa sometimes ran the liberty boat from the West Lock to fleet landing. During the morning his unit would detonate Japanese and American ordinance in the hills and then have the afternoon off and sometimes hunted pigs in the hills (6:14) Dykema talks about the mail service and censors during his time in the service. Also had good and plentiful food, especially for holidays. (9:06) Mornings would begin at 7:00, and Dykema would often go to the beer hall in the afternoon where he recalled drinking a beer from Pennsylvania. On December 6, 1945 the Army and Navy reenacted the attack on Pearl Harbor. (11:14) �48 hour leaves were available. When on leave usually went to Honolulu, and dances at Schofield barracks with the nurses. (12:35) Dykema was amazed at the amount of knowledge and education the people around him had. Some in the navy were in their 40’s (14:03) Life after the service: After he was discharged he was met by his sisters in Chicago and rode back to Grand Rapids. Dykema attended GRJC on the GI Bill, worked for Life Savers setting up displays for 3 years, then started doing heating and cooling work from which he retired in 1985. (18:28) Dykema feels that the military teaches respect, physical fitness, and getting along with others, and is proud to have served. (20:00) � 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 Dykema, Chester (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dykema, Chester Description An account of the resource Chester Dykema joined the Navy during WW II in July 1945 and served until 1946. Dykema tells of life in Hawaii after the war during which the military was demobilizing, and about his life upon returning home. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Paggi, Daniel (Interviewer) Forest Hills Eastern High School (Ada, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Veterans 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 2007-06-02 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DykemaC 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/0bd05e3e262085c76a252a3a9ad123db.mp4 affd9252ed137c9d11360456ebf29ac1 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d4f2070af0076e5af5c9e2a5baceb274.pdf 6451e834e8aec096d8b906d03dd28c2f PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Robert Durham (1:02:07) Background information (00:18)           Lived in California at the time of the interview (2012). (00:18) Born in Connecticut in 1975. (00:30) His father was a Vietnam veteran who attended a medical school in Mexico. (00:35) He graduated from high school in Globe Arizona in 1993. He then attended Arizona State University. He then transferred to a school in Kansas where he majored in History. He graduated in 2001. (00:58) He taught the 4th grade for one year from 2001-2002. (1:58) Robert remembers having to work on 9/11 and how his class asked many questions he did not know how to answer. (3:00) He enjoyed teaching but he did not enjoy teaching all subjects. In 2005 Robert joined the Army. (3:29) Before enlisting, he worked as an academic advisor at a community college from 2003-2004. (4:35) Robert’s father encouraged him to serve in the military. In 2005 he believed the conditions were right for Robert to serve. He did follow the news and the conditions in the Middle East. (5:15) After enlisting, it was determined weather of not Robert was qualified for service, then it was determined what he job he would be best suited for. (6:40) Basic Training (7:30)         Robert attended basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. He thought this experience was annoying due to the amount of discipline that was emphasized. (7:32) The Drill Sergeants were mostly E6s and E7s. They loved being in the Army and some had community college experience. (8:38) The physical training was not as bad as imagined if one was in shape before starting training. (9:20) Robert was the eldest in his training unit and the only man he could recall with a college degree. (9:48) The men that Robert trained alongside were form all across the country. (10:48) The only access outside of Fort Benning was mail. Each night the men were given a half hour to an hour to read and write letters. (11:10) While some training was general, most of it was geared toward serving in the Middle East with mock setups. (11:42) Robert graduated in December of 2005. He was then assigned to Fort Lewis, Washington as his duty station. (12:48) Service at Fort Lewis (12:52)  Robert was assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division, 1st Battalion, 23rd Regiment, Charlie Company. The unit had already been deployed to Iraq in 2003 and 2004. (13:02) �     Robert trained for 6 months of Iraq at Fort Lewis. He was assigned to be a light machine gunner. (13:38) Robert’s unit was known as a “striker” this was a self sustaining unit that could offer medical supplies or mortar strikes. In his training, Robert was taught additional first aid and how to call in mortar strikes. (14:09) The men work up at 5:30. They then did physical training for an hour or an hour and a half. The men then ate and began a scheduled training exercised afterword’s. (16:02) During down time men were able to go out to bars or use some enmities on the base such as movie theaters. (16:51) The men received their papers to be deployed in May of 2006. The men were given leave before being sent off to Iraq. (18:00) Travel to Iraq (20:00)       The military chartered a civilian plane that took the soldiers to Maine. Then they were flown to Germany and then to Kuwait. (20:02) The men spent two weeks to a month in Kuwait where they did more combat and tactical training. (20:44) The men would put on body armor and walk around in the desert with their weapons just to get used to the heat and environment. (21:20) The men lived in walled tents. The tents did have small air conditioners. (21:53) Soldiers often got inpatient while waiting on Kuwait. The men were flown to Baghdad. (22:50) Aside from all of the military activities, such as the moment of vehicles. There was little to suggest it was a war zone. (22:53) Service in Iraq (24:44)           The men were assigned to patrol streets and search a few houses on Roberts first day. He did not experience any action. (25:22) The men were briefed on the treats of insurgents and snipers. They were also told about the general conflicts that occurred in the urban areas. (26:04) One of the platoons entered a house on an assignment and the house exploded resulting in half the squad’s death. (27:17) Some days the solders just patrolled the streets, others they had to take a house, clear miles of homes, or raid a location. (27:55) The Iraqis did not like the soldier’s presences. The Iraqis hated that U.S. soldiers often invaded their house. (28:50) Sometimes the men had translators. This resource was often in short supply. (29:57) Robert rarely looked at the big picture in Iraq. He purely finished on his mission or assignment. (31:29) There were a few casualties caused by snipers, motors, and explosives set off by vehicles. More men were injured and survived than actually died. (32:15) The taking of casualties often just made the unit mad and did not affect moral to a great degree. The numbers of the platoon varied based on how casualties were replaced. (33:48) Knowing the men in a unit was very important. (34:33) Life in Iraq (34:50) �     TVs and a gym were available for entertainment. (34:54) The chow hall did very well and had steaks and ice cream on occasion. There was a Burger King on Robert’s base. (35:29) A truck with pay phones inside was available for the solder’s use. (36:37) He was attached to another unit after they had lost several of their men. They were patrolling farm land. This was very open and left the men feeling venerable. (37:28) Robert had night vision and the striker had technology used to locate targets at great distances. (39:10) Insurgency in 2007 (40:00)         In 2007 when the surge strategies began, Robert noticed little difference in the activities he and his unit conducted. (40:25) While the soldiers were given orders on how to enter and clear a house, the men learned to use particular strategies over time to improve how Iraqis reacted to them entering the house. (41:43) If a female soldier was with the unit, she would be used to search any women in the house. (42:53) There were more fire fights during the middle and end of Robert’s time in Iraq. (43:44) Nicknames were given to certain areas of the city to help the soldiers navigate the area. (44:50) Robert was in Iraq for a year and three months (2006-2007). (46:23) If and when a base was being mortared, there was a system to triangulate the location of the mortar. (48:16) The Iraq area reminded him a lot of Mexico. Many of the civilians did not like the Americans there. (48:55) End of Service in Iraq (50:40)      The men didn’t count their days before going home, but rather, counted their missions. (50:48) Robert was made an assistant gunner and then a heavy machine gunner after arriving in Iraq. (51:55) The men were flown from Baghdad to Kuwait where they stayed for two weeks. Then they were flown to Ireland, Main, and then Fort Lewis. (53:27) Robert reenlisted while overseas and was not up to be discharged until 2009/2010. (54:00) Robert was assigned to recruiting school in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. (54:54) Recruiting School (54:57)      Robert found this experience to be boring. It involved a lot of in class work. (54:59) The program lasted 8 weeks. (55:40) After completing his training, Robert was sent to Salinas,California. The area involved many who were unqualified for military service through gang influence and low education. (56:10) The assignment was three years. This meant that he needed to extend his service by three months. But because he was used to working a 9-5 day, he decided to get out and start a regular career. (58:15) Robert received a master’s degree in diplomacy and terrorism from Norwich University in Vermont. (59:20) �Life after Service (59:57)    Robert began working for an oil and gas company negotiating contracts after finishing his military service. (1:00:00) The military tough Robert to be thankful for little things that are available in life In the U.S. (1:00:38) Robert also pays closer attention to the news and world events as a result of his service. (1:01:40) � 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 Durham, Robert (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Durham, Robert Description An account of the resource Robert Durham, born in Connecticut in 1975, served in the U.S army from approx 2005-2010 In the War in Iraq and during the insurgency in 2007. Robert graduated from college with a teaching degree and taught the 4th grade prior to enlisting in the military in 2006. He then attended basic at fort Benning Georgia before being assigned to the 2nd ID first of the 23rd Charlie Company in Fort Lewis Washington. In many of 2006, Robert was sent to Iraq. Here he cleared and secured blacks of urban area. in 2008 Robert returned from Iraq and became an Army Recruiter in California. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Kentwood Historic Preservation Commission (Kentwood, Mich.) WKTV 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 United States. Army Iraq War, 2003-2011--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 2012-08-25 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DurhamR1442V 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/303df619bf94bb1a7d67aa59c4b419b0.m4v 4a7e48a5efecc6d18f86129329a8915d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a765c2363a012be5358107471c85bed5.pdf 0bebfab2af441469220e10ebf464ca49 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Korean War Paul Dunning Length of Interview (00:23:37) Background Paul Dunning, born January 16, 1932 Served in the Korean War, 7th Division Signal Corps  Corporal- Dunning’s highest rank Born in Holland, Michigan Had one sister Father was a press operator for the local newspaper, mother had a glider job during the war, but was otherwise a stay-at-home mother Service (00:01:01) Registered when he was eighteen, just out of high school, worked at a furniture company Was drafted, went to Fort Custer, Michigan after physical examinations (00:01:40) Went to Arkansas  8 weeks of physical training and 8 weeks of technical training as a Field Wireman  Food wasn’t too bad there, Korea they had C-rations, had to usually stand up while eating o In reserve camp had assigned time Was given a furlough and went back to Michigan, flew out of Chicago, went on a troop ship called the “Marine Adder” (00:03:20)  Took 17 days to get to Japan  Issued clothing for combat  Got on a ship to Korea, had to take a landing barge in, no combat  Went through the Korean Trades then Chowon Valley (North of Seoul) past the 38th Parallel � Assigned 7th Division Signal Corps  Detached down to TDS (Temporary Detached Service), 3 regiments Korea (00:05:18) When sailing over to Japan and Korea, the ships were very crowded, had to sleep in canvas hammocks  Were three decks down, must have been 800-1000 people on the ship  Hadn’t been assigned to his company yet  Had a rotation system in Korea, 36 points (00:06:20) o 4 points a month when in combat zones; certain zones were more than others, combat zones = 4 points (per month), danger zones = 3 points, 2-point and 1-point zones  When the Armistice was signed, Dunning moved to a 1-point zone, had 4 points left (32 total)  Ended up being in Korea for 11 months  Rotated out and took a sister ship out of Korea; a lot better than going into Korea Was a field wireman so he laid down lines from the command post to the outposts (00:07:50)  Had WE-8 Phones, laid a lot of wire  Eventually put up telephone poles, when the Armistice was signed, buried some to protect from mortars and artillery A lot of mortars in Korea, usually in the hills; was shot at often (00:09:18) Did form friendships, but not like in soldiers did in WWII where their group stayed together (00:09:50) Wrote letters to his family, got to call every once in a while, few times from Japan (00:10:25)  People in Japan were very friendly, went to Tokyo and saw the Emperor’s Palace, markets, and monuments Recreation = getting to the showers ASAP; never got your clothes back, they just cleaned what was given and handed back whatever fit (00:11:20) �After the Armistice, Dunning got to be a truck driver; drove a jeep, three-quarter ton Truck hauling troops (00:12:00)  Sometimes drove Korean work crews out; also got water, worked with a little Korean boy  Sometimes handed out payrolls  Saw a little more of Korea, near Seoul  In Korea a total of 8 months in the war and 4 months afterwards, total of about 11-12 months Going Home (00:13:14) Got out of the Army and was transported back to Fort Sheridan, Illinois  Wouldn’t let him out until he had served for 21 months, had 19 months under his belt  Went back and forth to Fort Sheridan, pretty lenient so he could finish up his time Was in Korea during the Armistice, North of the 38th Parallel, the end of the Korean War (00:14:00)  Armistice: Korea was never really a war, considered a Police Action; had a cease-fire  Carried a rifle in Korea, fired it Citizens didn’t react harshly towards the veterans; Dunning did what he had to do (00:15:06) After Korea, worked at a place that built boats, also was married shortly after  Jobs scarce at that time, had several jobs before his first child (25 years old) Didn’t stay in touch with the veterans he served with, dispersed throughout the country (00:16:25) Lessons from the Army (00:16:47) The Army is something every young man should register just to learn how to adapt to world situations better  Learned how to survive  Learned independence and perseverance �Had a friend named Don Small, named his son after him, took NCO training; went to Korea and was killed on the last day of the Korean War (00:18:00)  Was guarding prisoners on an island Kogi-do and was hit by artillery fire; buried in Illinois 38th Parallel was a stationary front unlike in other wars (WWII and Vietnam) (00:19:20)  Still had to lay down new lines due to shrapnel and mortar fire  Went through some minefields to get the job done  Fought with the South Koreans against the North  Weren’t any villages around Dunning’s post; knew a little refugee camp called “Little Chicago”  Often saw helicopters, but no fighter planes, no “dog fights”  Mostly had mortar and artillery fire directed at him � 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 Dunning, Paul (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dunning, Paul Description An account of the resource Paul Dunning served during the Korean War after being drafted into the Army. He served as a Field Wireman north of the 38th Parallel for eight months until the Armistice was signed, which he then served as a truck driver transporting Korean work crews. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Swift, Jordan (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 Video recordings Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2009-05-30 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DunningP 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/f984020c70b3d6b0971da4f66e2d0d8f.m4v 815520a468ece51c46b046a6e04878ed https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/53fed3dca765b37e1efe8e51249a3e01.pdf 6f4ad8796fe0dcb132ffe77d4736c79a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Vietnam War Patrick Lee Duncan Length of Interview (0:59:48) Background: (0:00:08)  Born May 23rd, 1947 in Mayville, Michigan  Graduated from high school in 1965, played all four major sports  Enrolled at Ferris State University, supposed to begin classes in September of 1966  Was drafted August 30th, but could not go to school instead because he was not already beginning college  He had a brother and a sister, his brother was married at the time (0:01:49) o Brother was upset that Duncan was going because he was the youngest Enlistment: Training: (0:02:03)  Reported to Fort Wayne in Detroit o Took a train, remembers it being very long because of a train wreck up ahead, to Fort Knox, Kentucky o Was on the train for 4 hours, with no air conditioning, remembers it being hot o When they got to Kentucky, they were told it was full, and they were going to have to go to Fort Lewis, Washington (0:02:32) o Boarded a plane and flew to Washington for basic training  The company, mostly from Michigan, was never given any leave because they were so far from home  Remembers being severely harassed by the drill instructors, who were airborne o Wanted to make sure Echo company would be the best company ever o Did end up coming in first place o They were the “Echo Rattlers, strike hard, strike fast, kill”  Was talked into another year of the military instead of doing anything else before he even began basic training o Was in for 3 years and 12 days (0:03:55)  Went into Helicopters, trained in Aircraft Armament  Drill Instructors would look at the serial number, his was RA5 o He was told he had a life expectancy of about 10 seconds  After basic training he went to AIT (0:04:53) o It was too close to Christmas to get leave, so they were sent off to AIT training instead o AIT stands for Advanced Individual Training o Went to Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland  While in Aberdeen, learned all about arming an aircraft and helicopters  Vietnam had just started, and the new Cobra gunships were not over there yet o The Delta model (0:05:23)  Needed a gunner and a crew-chief, along with a pilot and co-pilot o Learned how to wire a system on a helicopter �   o Were taught advanced knowledge in case they were ever put into a situation where they needed to work on advanced machinery  Did come in handy later in the war o 5 months at AIT  Liked to party, and had a good time Transferred to Fort Bragg in North Carolina (0:06:01) o Assigned to the 18th or 13th Airborne division o Right next door to the “Golden Knights” o Attached to an air support group  Worked more on advanced helicopters o Spent the summer down in Fort Bragg o Got special orders from Washington to be sent immediately to Fort Lewis, Washington  Wanted leave, had only had a short Christmas leave, so they processed him in 2 days  Got 7 shots in one day, then was given pills for a fever he would get from the shots (0:07:19)  Got a 13 day leave after being processed Got a plane out to Washington o Put on KP while at the processing center there, worked with the guys who were coming back from Vietnam o Made a few good friends, left Fort Lewis on a 17 hour flight to Japan  Landed in Cam Ranh Bay  While at the processing center had KP and guard duty  At that point was a PFC, and so got stuck with a lot of chores  Remembers being scared to death his first guard duty Next day got orders to go to Chu Lai o Remembers thinking it looked like a nice place, not too bad o Assigned to the 14th Aviation Battalion, part of the 1st Aviation Brigade Enlistment: Vietnam: (0:09:44)  First night in Chu Lai, was involved in combat o Mortar attack o The next morning they were told they were lucky, they were going to Duc Pho  His commander told him it was considered the only “Field Helicopters” base in Vietnam  Asked if it was like Chu Lai, and was told it was nothing like Chu Lai o Got on a helicopter and flew to Duc Pho  The total perimeter in Duc Pho was only a mile in circumference o Supporting the 4th infantry brigade (0:10:37) o Took care of all the helicopters on the flight line  4 gunships, called the Sharks  Gunships explained  Missions were throughout the day, at least one mission a day (0:13:25) o Flew rarely, only when gunships were scrambled  Sleeping arrangements were all tents �             o Wood floors, wood showers (0:14:22) Built “Hooches”; explained Duc Pho was hit quite a lot by mortars o 3-4 times a week at night, not usually during the day Near a small native village o Go to the orphanage and give the kids some candy February of that year, there were a lot of peace talks o Couldn’t shoot on the helicopters that were spotted o Started getting hit all the time, but mostly the villages surrounding (0:18:43) o Supported the group that committedd the My Lai Massacre o Had both North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces in their area Went to some of the small villages and killed over 500 enemies (0:22:45) o Does not know if that was considered a massacre o Afterwards things got a little quieter For entertainment, occasionally a band from the Philippines would play o Would play cards and drink Went 30 days one time eating only beef and rice because the flight line was cut off o Took him 25 years before he could eat rice again One day they were scrambled and he had to fly (0:27:12) o Went up north, still south of Da Nang o Opened up on a dark spot on the hill and chaos broke loose o Called in Marine air support o Got hit, the ship jarred, fuel was pouring out o Stopped the pilot from shooting off rockets so they wouldn’t blow up o The helicopter was later in a museum in Kalamazoo Talks about improvising a heat device to warm up the armaments shack (0:32:55) o The monsoon season lasted a month or so Talks about the North Vietnamese propaganda lady Was in Duc Pho a total of 366 days (0:36:45) Had his R&R in Japan, was treated extremely well (0:37:22) One in-country R&R (0:38:38) o Very peaceful there Enlistment: Discharge (0:39:49)  Was talk of extending his stay  His mother knew the congressman and that prevented his stay  Went back to Cam Ranh Bay o Threw everything away  Arrived at Fort Lewis, Washington  Stayed in Tacoma until everything was ready  Flew to Detroit and was picked up by his friends o They told him he couldn’t wear his uniform around there o His parents didn’t know he was flying o Surprised his parents when he returned home  Went back to work at General Motors �o Decided to go back to college after a year o Went to community college in Ann Arbor After Discharge: (0:44:04)  Joined the Veterans club at Eastern Michigan University o A friend of his, a Navy SEAL, during campus threats o Had Artillery Simulators in his trunk o Sound like a real artillery round, and the police never figured it out  Glad to be home, was individual rotation, so had a lot of friends still over there  Many years before he made any contact with them  Story about a medic (0:46:52) o Fell out of the ambulance and was run over, wasn’t hurt  Looking back, it was a great experience but one he doesn’t want to see again o Thinks every man should serve in the military o Felt really old when he came back compared to the ones going in  Supports the military, even if not the president o Believes the military should handle it, not the government o Believes the military won Vietnam, the government lost it  Got a college degree o Became a respiratory therapist  Expands on the flight line attack that left them without supplies (0:52:35)  Talks about the ships that were shot down (0:55:45)  Remarks about the role of the media in combat zones (0:59:03) � 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 Duncan, Patrick (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Duncan, Patrick Description An account of the resource Patrick Lee Duncan served in Vietnam in Duc Pho, working with aircraft armament. He was drafted because he had waited a year to attend college. After being discharged he went to college and became a respiratory therapist. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Brock, Rosemarie (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 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 2009-11-03 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DuncanP 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