727 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/581eab3f0456f5e843234a1f5b785825.mp4 2b140f69bdc7dbaf8056daaecedfc08d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0077ea3343d784fa24765bcf66945fd5.pdf ab521396eb9069bf10bf044e233a4c64 PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW KEN DAVID Born: January 1950, Gerard, Ohio Resides: Niles, Ohio Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, October 26, 2012 Interviewer: Can you start us off with some background on yourself, where and when were you born for instance? I was born in January of 1950 in the small town of Gerard and currently living in Niles. Interviewer: Did you grow up in Gerard? Yes, I grew up in Gerard. Interviewer: What did your family do for a living then? My mom was a housewife, she was a stay home mom, and my dad worked. Interviewer: What kind of a job did he have? He was a machinist Interviewer: Was he working in sort of a factory or repair shop? Yes, in factories, yes Interviewer: How many kids were in the family? I have a brother and two sisters. Interviewer: Did you go to public schools there? Yes, public school and public high school. 1:04 Interviewer: When did you graduate from high school? I graduated in 1968 and got drafted in 1969. Interviewer: What did you do between graduation and when you got drafted? 1 �I was recruited by the state of Ohio Highway Department and I worked in the centrifuge on black top plants, testing black top. Interviewer: How did you wind up with that? They came to the school and they went through certain records and they picked like seven of us and they hired two of us. Interviewer: Now, in your school, did most kids, at that point, not go to college? Most of them went to college. Interviewer: They did go to college. The ones that did not go to college got drafted. Interviewer: At the time that you got drafted, how much did you know about the war in Vietnam or what was going on over there? Nothing—they never talked about it in school. Interviewer: You didn’t see stuff in TV? 2:04 I didn‟t even know where it was. Interviewer: But you were aware of the draft though? Oh yes Interviewer: And were you expecting that sooner or later they would catch up with you? Yes Interviewer: Once you do get drafted then, take us through the process. You get your notice and then what do you do? 2 �I had to go downtown; they put us on a bus and took us to the Cleveland regional office. All day physical and that was the first time, you passed or failed, and we got on the bus and came home and waited for the next notice to come and report. Interviewer: When people went in for the physical, were there people who tried to find ways to beat the system? Yes, there were many, many. Some protested religiously, some wore sheets; some poured actual packets of water in the urine test. 3:10 Some acted up, and they just called the MP‟s, they hauled them across the hall and told them they were Marines and everybody calmed right down. Interviewer: People tried stuff, but it didn’t work? No, soap under the armpits to get their blood pressure up, it was all kinds of things. Interviewer: But you didn’t pull any of that stuff yourself? No, no need to. Interviewer: So, basically you were willing to go, and figured your country calls you have to go? Yes Interviewer: So, how long did you have to wait around before you got your instructions on reporting for basic? Not long Interviewer: Where did they send you for basic training? They sent me to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, for August and September, and from there I went to Fort Polk, Louisiana until January. 4:04 Interviewer: All right, describe what basic training consisted of at Fort Campbell? 3 �They told us from day one that we were all going to a country called Vietnam, and they taught us everything to be able to survive from the basics to the most extreme. Interviewer: So, they were actually teaching you about conditions in Vietnam or trying to? They were, like I told the doctors before, they were programing us. In basic training they broke us down both physically and mentally, so we would react to different commands from our drill sergeants and once they got to that point we were functioning just like a group of, not boys anymore, but people following orders and not thinking about what the orders are, just reacting. 5:07 Interviewer: Now, how easy or how hard was it for you to make the adjustment to that? It was very hard, you come out of high school, you‟re all smiles and happy go lucky and then they‟re trying to get you into an environment that is hostile, if you looked the wrong way you‟re dead, if you act the wrong way, you‟re dead, and they really prepared us mentally. Interviewer: Now, were there—did you push back with the training, or did you just try to work with it the best you could? I did the best I could in whatever they were trying to teach us. Interviewer: Did you have people who were trying to resist, argue or fight back? Yes Interviewer: How does that play out, what kind of things would they do? 6:00 4 �They would recycle them. They would start them off in another training brigade as day one, and those who couldn‟t cope the second time around, most of them got a hardship discharge, unsuitable for the military. Interviewer: What proportion of the guys that you started out training with kind of finished the basic training on schedule? The majority of them Interviewer: Physically what kind of condition were you in when you went in? Nineteen years old. Basic physical health, but after basic training your mind was equipped to take on five Marines and beat them. Interviewer: Did you build up your physical strength or endurance as a trainee? Does the physical training do that or were you in pretty much the shape you needed to be already? No, the guys that were a little bit overweight, they went through more PT training, and for the rest of us, every day was the same routine to build up our endurance. 7:11 Interviewer: Now the guys that were teaching you, were they guys who had been to Vietnam or were they just drill instructors? We had one drill instructor that was in Vietnam, was wounded and came back to be an instructor. The rest of them, they‟re going through training just like the rest of us, in preparation of going over, and they were all sergeants. Interviewer: So they had been through the NCO training at this point and not rotated over yet. Okay, then you go to Fort Polk for AIT, that’s your next stop. Physically what was Fort Polk like or that area like? 5 �As the bus pulled in there were big signs called Tiger Land, and it was more God's country, open. 8:03 More physical training, more weapons training, escape invasion training, they started feeding us a hardboiled egg and a piece of toast for breakfast to shrink our stomachs in preparation for what was coming. Interviewer: Did they have forests or swampy areas around for you to train in? Yes, it was all wetlands, and a lot of times they would take us out and give us degrees and you had to find your way back, and it was all nasty and dirty. Interviewer: Were there problems with alligators or snakes and things like that? I didn‟t see any, no Interviewer: Now, the men who were training you at this level, had more of them been to Vietnam at this point? The same way, some were and some weren‟t. 9:00 Interviewer: Did they try to give you any kind of training in terms of how to deal with civilian populations, or populated areas, or was this just all out in the swamps? It was military vs. military Interviewer: About how long did this last? It was another eight weeks or ten weeks. Interviewer: What kind of MOS did you come out with? Eleven Charlie, which is a mortar, but they also trained us on the M16, the M14, the M60, LAWs, they gave it all to us. My specialty was the mortars, but when we got to Vietnam it was an infantry rifle. 6 �Interviewer: It’s what you’d need when you got there. When you complete AIT, do they let you go homer before sending you overseas, or do you get a post in the states first? 10:04 They asked for those who wanted to go to jump school, they could go to jump school and the other ones could go home for five days before going to California to be shipped out. Interviewer: Which option did you take? I went home for five days. Interviewer: what was it like to go home and know that you’re going off to Vietnam next? My family was sad, but I knew that I had to do what I had to do. Interviewer: Physically, how did they get you out to Vietnam? What was the process? From California they put us on a United commercial jet with stewardesses and meals, and flew us to Hawaii and then to Guam, another island, and then on to Vietnam. Interviewer: What was that atmosphere in the plane going over? Was this a chartered one for the military? Yes Interviewer: What was it like on that plane? 11:02 I passed out and didn‟t wake up until we got to Hawaii. My buddy nest to me said they couldn‟t wake me up, but I was emotionally drained because we were on the plane for twenty three hours and going over in your mind—you don‟t know what to expect. At nineteen years old I had been trained to kill people and am I going to be able to shoot somebody? 7 �Interviewer: What was you first impression of Vietnam when you got off the plane? It was hitting a brick wall as you stepped off the plane because you were so conditioned to the air conditioning on the plane. We landed in January and it was like walking into the twilight zone. Interviewer: Where did you land in Vietnam? 12:00 Bien Hoa Interviewer: You get off the plane and what do they do with you? They just put us in formation, called off the names and assigned you to a company. I remember doing KP, and then they shipped us off to what they call SERTS training for a week. Our instructors wore black hats, we lived in hooches. We were fenced in and during the day they would take us outside the wire on patrols, trying to prep us for when they put us in the real jungle. Interviewer: What kinds of things do they want you to learn, or what sort of preparation are you getting? Follow orders and if they say “stop”, you freeze, no question. Interviewer: Did they teach you how to spot booby traps and things like that? 13:07 Most of that was done in training. There was more that they showed us there that was on the job training more or less. Interviewer: Are they still focusing on just dealing with enemy military forces as opposed to people in civilian areas or things like that? They told us that where they were going to send us was strictly regular NVA army. Interviewer: Did you at this point, know what unit you were going to join? 8 �No Interviewer: But they had some idea? They had it all mapped out. When we finished out search, I remember, they put me and somebody else on a helicopter took us out in the jungle, and that‟s when I met my Lieutenant and graded myself on target. 14:07 Interviewer: What unit did they assign you to? I was in the 2nd platoon, Delta [Company], 1st [Battalion] of the 506th [Regiment]. Interviewer: In the 101st Airborne. 101st Airborne, Air Mobile, Air Assault Interviewer: Where were they based at the time you joined them? At Camp Evans, which was up north in the high country, and the first month we just patrolled the low land. About two months later we hit the A Shau Valley. Interviewer: Let’s talk about that first part first. They take you up—the helicopter—did they take you to Camp Evans or did they take you to a smaller place where your company was or how did that work? From Bien Hoa, from the airport, they put us on a Chinook, there was a bunch of us, and flew us up north, got off at Camp Evans, and from there they assigned. 15:06 Interviewer: Was your company at Camp Evans when you got there? They were in the field. Interviewer: Did you wait for them to come back from the field? No, they took me out. Interviewer: How did you get you out? By Helicopter 9 �Interviewer: So they fly you out, you go in and you join the company. What sort of a reception do you get when you get there? “Your cherry is here, you‟re blood.” Interviewer: Once you joined them, did anybody make an effort to kind of explain to you what was going on or give you any advice on what to do? The ones that I met at that time, they try to help you out, they tell you where to go, and the squad leader points you in more directions. Interviewer: Do you remember going out on patrol with them for the first time? Yes Interviewer: What was that like, or what do you remember about it? 16:00 They kept saying, “This is the real thing”. Interviewer: What was the country like that you were patrolling in? Was it open country or grassland? It was open grassland with little hills on it. Interviewer: When you were moving, were you going just as a squad, or platoon, or whole company? As the 2nd platoon Interviewer: About how many men were in the platoon when you joined it? I don‟t remember that, but there was there were about eighteen or twenty of us when we got shot up the last time. Interviewer: Do you remember how big your squad was when you joined that? I would say we had four squads, and maybe five or six in a squad. 10 �Interviewer: And when you go out, initially, where did they put you in the squad? Did they make you walk point right away, or the rear, or in the middle someplace? 17:04 Just—they had their point men already trained and they just put you in line somewhere. Interviewer: When you move through that open country, how far apart would you be normally? We were five or six feet. Interviewer: Now, were there trails in those places, or would you just walk in the grass or what? Our sergeant—from our sergeant we set off the trails. Trails always end up in an ambush, so we made our own trails. Interviewer: On that first patrol did you have any kind of contact? No contact, we saw them, but we had no contact. Interviewer: Now, when you were at Camp Evans, based at Camp Evans, did you spend time camped out overnight outside of the perimeter, at times, or were you just mostly inside of it at night? 18:03 The whole time I was there I night have slept on a cot three times. It was strictly all jungle. We would go out thirty-five or forty-five days and come back in. Interviewer: How long were you at Camp Evans before you started doing that? From the time I got to Evans and went through, I would guess it a week of KP duty, and a week on certs and then right out in the jungle. Interviewer: You get up there, and talk about SERTS, was this the training we talked about or was this another level of training? 11 �This was training in country, which were the procedures they wanted us to follow in country. Interviewer: Was this specific to the 101st? Yes Interviewer: All right, but once that’s done they’re pretty quickly sending you out into the jungle areas as opposed to—because you’re talking about going through grass and the hills. How long were you doing that? 19:12 I guess maybe a month or a month and a half. Interviewer: While you were doing that were you sleeping out in the field? Oh yes Interviewer: So, at night what would you do? We would set up in a perimeter. There were two guys in a squad and one would sleep and one would stay awake, and then they would shift back and forth all night. Interviewer: When you set up a perimeter, what kind of defenses would you have? We would set up the claymores, and the trip flares in front of us in case something did happen to sneak in. Interviewer: But, they’re not bringing in concertina wire or things like that? No, that was only on the fire support bases. Interviewer: Would you dig in at all? Sometimes we would, and sometimes, if the vegetation was high enough, just--- 20:09 Interviewer: Did the enemy try to probe those perimeters at all, or did they ever shoot mortars at you, or things like that? Yes, many times, like when we were in the valley. Satchel charges, mortars. 12 �Interviewer: But, were they doing it around Evans? No, that was pretty much quiet. Interviewer: Then when they tell you that you’re heading off into the jungle now, and you’re going to head off, did the veteran guys in the unit say, “Ok, this is going to be different or harder, or did you just go? We just went. Interviewer: How did they get you out of there? By helicopter again Interviewer: Were you going to an established firebase or a new LZ, what was it? It could just be an open spot in the jungle. It could be a regular fire support base that was leaving another company. 21:12 They told us very little, they just threw us on and dropped us off. Interviewer: Do you remember sort of going out into the jungle the first time, the first of those trips out, or do they all run together now? They all run together, and once you go to the first one they‟re all the same. Some are hotter, some are quiet. Interviewer: Describe, a little bit, the country you’re operating in now, the jungle terrain, physically what does it look like to you as you’re going through it? Lowlands, there were creeks, wetlands, grass, and our feet were always wet, and at night you always change your socks and put the other ones around your neck until they fried the next day, leaches, and when we got to the mountains, in the valley, the rains were cold at night and you could see your breath. 22:08 The rain lasted a long time and you were just miserable. 13 �Interviewer: Did you have any way to keep yourselves dry? Did you have ponchos? Our policy was, we didn‟t take ponchos because they made too much noise. The dinks would hear the noise and they would come. All we had was tropical blankets. Interviewer: Now, when you would—how long would you be out there on patrol at one time? How long were you away from the base? The first time was thirty some days. We came in for a day, got resupplied, showered and shaved and went back out the next day, and that was forty-five days. We came back in and the last time was--- 23:07 Interviewer: Now was there a sort of routine when you’re out on one of these long patrols out in the jungle, what happens day to day? You try to be quiet; you can hear somebody talking a long, long way away. No noise, no animals, just quiet. I had the answer on the radio as low as it would go, wrapped in a towel, and tied, trying to keep the noise down. Interviewer: So were you working as an RTO then? Yes, when my Lieutenant's radio man went to the Captain to be his radio man, they asked me to walk point or carry the radio. I said, “This is a no brainer, give me the radio”. There again, they gave us radio class training also. Interviewer: How heavy was the radio? Too heavy, and we had trouble with the batteries. 24:04 They made me carry two extra batteries because they would just go dead all of a sudden. Interviewer: Now, were these radios that had big, long antennas on them, or did you have a short antenna? 14 �In the beginning I had a big, long, flimsy antenna, and then I got a better antenna, that they sent me that was shorter. Interviewer: At certain points the RTO’s were targets for snipers, or anybody, and those big long antennas were a giveaway. Yes, I carried mine wrapped down and it was tied on, so I tried to conceal it. Interviewer: So, you were the RTO for your platoon leader then? Yes Interviewer: How early on did you get that assignment? Probably after a month, I‟m guessing. Interviewer: So, basically most of the time you’re walking around in the jungle carrying the radio? Yes, communicating with the other squads and the Captain. 25:09 Interviewer: Alright and when you moved through a jungle area, how would you go about doing that? Would you still stay off the trails or would you have to use them sometimes? We stayed off the trails. The trails were nothing but trouble. Interviewer: Were there other units that were using them and getting into trouble? Ambushes, yes Interviewer: But, if you’re going through jungle, aren’t you having to cut your way through with machetes or something? Sometimes, and sometimes you‟re just pulling and working your way through. If we did a click a day we were happy. 15 �Interviewer: So, in order to keep fairly quiet, you can’t just be chopping away hard on a scale like that? No Interviewer: Would you move by day or by night? By day, and as it was getting dark we always set up for nighttime. Interviewer: When you set up for nighttime, were you setting up as a company or a platoon? 26:08 As a platoon, even though the company was assigned to a certain region, each platoon had its own place to setup for the night and we got those from the Captain. Interviewer: As you prepare to setup for the night, what are the steps you take, or what happens there as you get ready for the overnight? If the ground is pure rock, we dug in the best we could, set our flares and claymores, in preparation for the long night to come. Interviewer: How often did you have contact then, whether by day or by night? Once we got in the valley and the mountains with the regular army, it seemed like every day. 27:03 Interviewer: Would you see much of them during the day or sometimes find them, or mostly at night when they came after you? Sometimes you would see them crossing, if you were high enough in the mountains, and most of the time they came after us at night. Interviewer: Did they have a standard procedure for doing that? They hit us with satchel charges first and then come in. 16 �Interviewer: How big was one of these satchel charges? Did you ever see one that hadn’t blown up? Yes, I was throwing them back at them at one point. Interviewer: How close would they have to be to throw them? The ones that we found, that didn‟t go off, were so big, so square, two inches square, six inches big, they were yellow dynamite with a blasting cap that they pulled that starts the fuse, wrapped in plastic. 28:13 Some of them were more sophisticated, but it would take your arm off or your leg off. Interviewer: Now, they throw those first—were they pretty much sort of throwing those blind in your general direction? Did they target individual foxholes? No, they kind of knew where everybody was setting up for the night, most of the time. Sometimes they would just throw them and get lucky and most of them that came in took somebody out. Interviewer: After they throw the satchel charges, what happens next? By this time we‟re all returning fire, except for the last battle, they just kept coming. Interviewer: The ones before the last battle then, are they just kind of testing you to see what happens? Yes 29:07 Interviewer: Then you fire, and if you’re firing then, can they see your gun flashes or things like that and know where you are? We used tracers going out. Interviewer: It would seem to me if they’re usually getting somebody effectively, were you constantly losing men? 17 �Yes Interviewer: Would you get replacements sent out to you in the field, or would you just keep getting smaller and smaller? We kept getting smaller and smaller and when they got replacements in the rear, they came out in a chopper. Interviewer: How long did it take—by the time you went out into the jungle, did you already feel like you were part of the unit and knew what you were doing, or did you still feel like the new guy at that point? After about thirty days you weren‟t the new guy anymore. 30:01 Interviewer: By the time you’re in the jungle, you’re at least part of the squad or the platoon at this point, and know who those guys are? Yes Interviewer: So, when they do bring in the replacements to your unit, did you have anything to do with them or try to help them? No, once I became the Lieutenant's radio man I stuck with the Lieutenant and the sergeant, we were always in communication. Interviewer: Did you work well with the Lieutenant? Yes, up to a point. When the Captain got ambushed one night the radio man lost his leg and died of a heart attack a couple of days later at the hospital, my Lieutenant, Fletcher, he turned on me, got real cold. We had a confrontation one night and that‟s when he broke down and he said he got real close with his first radio man and it tore him up when he died. 31:05 He didn‟t get close to me and I understood why and I said, “You be what you have to be”. 18 �Interviewer: It wears on the officers as much as anybody. Yes, the stress, I didn‟t care if he was an officer or not, if you have a problem, talk to me. Interviewer: So, you have a period there of several months when you’re spending a lot of time going on these long patrols. Go in, take some losses, get some probing attacks etc. Now, did you, at that time, conduct any operations that seemed to be successful, or doing what they were supposed to be doing? Were you able to ambush them, or make trouble for them? At certain times we go and ambush sites, nothing ever happened. It was always daytime skirmishes, or at nighttime for sure. 32:06 Interviewer: In a daytime skirmish, how would that play out? They would hit and run. We‟d send a little patrol out, they would hit at them, but they would hide. Interviewer: How much to you actually see of them, at least before the final fight? During the day very little except when they would sneak, and they had tunnels everywhere. Interviewer: Did you ever uncover tunnels or bunkers, or find any of those? Yes, we found a—we came around the bottom of a mountain, on a little higher ground, and there was a bunker complex, highly sophisticated for a company of a larger size. They had a latrine all bamboo lashed, but they weren‟t there. 33:12 A lot of, lot of bunkers, and they were setup at a good ambush site to protect the people inside. Interviewer: Except, they weren’t there when you got there? No, they had moved on. 19 �Interviewer: When you find a bunker complex like that, what happens, do you call in somebody to blow it up? We go through all the hooches with what we have, and we didn‟t blow anything up on this one, we just moved in, investigated, and moved out. Interviewer: Now, as the Lieutenant's radio operator, do you have any better idea of what’s going on, or what you’re supposed to be doing, or is it still mostly mysterious? As far as our missions, it was—people in the rear knew what we were doing. 34:06 They would send us out there to patrol the area and we just had to relay what we„d find, and so forth, back. Interviewer: Now, when you did make contact of one kind or another, or come under attack at night, Were you able to call in air support or artillery support? Yes, one time we called in fighters for us and they dropped napalm. Helicopters came out, airships came out, artillery, mortar support, and most of it was all there. I had all the frequencies to go to, to ask for support. Interviewer: Now, when the Vietnamese would attack you, what kind of fire power did they have besides their satchel charges? They would have their AK47‟s, and the last battle they hit us with machine guns, tear gas, they hit us with it all when we come in and landed. 35:11 Interviewer: Now, before you’re in the last battle, you’re going on patrols etc. How are you getting supplies? As we ran low, we called in resupply. I never set numbers on the radio. We had a “nasty shackle”, and a “nasty shackle” was just a dirty word for zero to nine. I would say “nasty 20 �shackle” like “alpha, “bravo”, which gave them a number of what we had left and they would set up a resupply and a helicopter would come out. Interviewer: Would you sometimes make a hole in the canopy for them to come through, or would you have open places for them to land? 36:03 Sometimes they would fly by and drop us cases of C4, det cord, and then we would set up a site big enough and we would blow one charge and the helicopter would come in before the dust settled and either get us out or give us what we needed and move out quick. Interviewer: But, the idea was to do it quickly because there were bad guys in the area. Yes, they would hear the noise and they would come. Interviewer: Now, did you have situations on these patrols where the helicopters were coming under fire anyway? Yes, at one point as the helicopters were coming out, they were getting shot down. Interviewer: Did you have some of those missions that were aborted because of that? Yes, we were already in the jungle, we had low water, low ammo, and finally a helicopter made it through. Interviewer: Were you also getting medevac’s coming in and taking out your wounded as they got hit? Only if the weather was good 37:06 For a night attack, they wouldn‟t come in. We had a guy, he had a big white dot on his helicopter, he was a ghost rider, and he came in, we were in the mountains, we were socked in, and a guy was dying, he had to go, and this guy came out and we talked him in by the side of the mountain, the echo. He came 21 �straight down and you couldn‟t see in front of you from the fog and mist and everything, so he shut her down and he said, “I‟m only shutting her down for ten minutes and if it doesn‟t clear, I‟, out of here. We loaded him up, and he waited, and ten minutes later he fired up and he said, “I‟m going straight up and if the echo doesn‟t sound right let me know”. The guy did survive. 38:06 Interviewer: So, you had some good pilots? Yes, we had some good pilots. We had some pilots that were afraid, but the majority of the pilots were good and that‟s why we‟re here. Interviewer: Now, were there occasions where they could bring you extra supplies or better food, or things like that, or drop in a case of beer, or did that not happen when you were out there? I can remember times when they would resupply us there would be an ammo canister with a plastic bag and it had either hot rice, or maybe spaghetti, but that wasn‟t too often. Interviewer: Occasional hot food, but that’s pretty much it. Yes Interviewer: What do you do for water when you’re out there, do you drink out of streams, or do you just--I‟d carry a quart and a half gallon canteen. 39:00 In the mountains the streams were pure, clean, and we would dump out the water they would send us, it was nasty, and we‟d drink from the streams. Interviewer: What are you doing for food at that point? We had our C rations. Occasionally we‟d get a dehydrated meal, but most of it was C‟s. 22 �Interviewer: When you got back to base camp after being out for a month, or whatever, than what was the process there? We‟d leave our ruck at the pad, take our M16 and walk down to the barber shop, and get a shave and a haircut. Interviewer: Did they use Vietnamese barbers? Yes, we had Vietnamese barbers on base. 40:01 Interviewer: Did you wonder about them at all? I said, “They‟re going to kill me with a straight razor, and they‟re going to do it here or in the jungle”. Interviewer: Would there be a lot of Vietnamese working on the bases during the day? I don‟t know Interviewer: Now there long enough to know? Not there long enough to find out what‟s going on. Interviewer: Would they issue you new fatigues when you go in? We had a bunch of fatigues I our duffle bags and we would just throw the ones we had on away and grab a new set. At one point they actually sent us out clean fatigues, but with different names you know, but they were clean. Interviewer: So, you have a certain kind of regular routine or pattern that you follow at times, but then the last patrol you go out on that’s the one that gets really ugly? Very ugly 23 �Interviewer: Take us through that patrol the best you can. You’re going out and what happens? 41:04 The last battle? Interviewer: Yes, how long are you out there in the field before that battle actually happens this time? We took off from a fire support base. It was a company assault, there were twenty one helicopters, and at least six guys in each helicopter. The helicopter would come in, land, and we would load up and take off. As you kept flying a big circle until we were leaded and we took off for an abandoned fire support base. The gun ships were on the first helicopter and on the way in they fired their rockets just to prep the area, and then the first helicopter landed. The helicopter I was on was the last to land. They started shooting at us, so we would pop red smoke, the other ones detoured away. 42:07 Our medic was on the other side of the helicopter, and he took a chest wound as he was getting off. They hit us with machine guns, tear gas, and it was a very, very hot LZ. The sergeants in charge and the squad leaders, we set up a very fast perimeter, we took care of business and they kind of folded back. The other helicopters came in, we made a big perimeter on top of the old mountain and that night it was quiet. That‟s was on may 5th, and on May 6th I did some patrolling on the bottom. 43:00 The one patrol that Greg was in, they were going up the hill and the dink jumped up. They had no place to go, and Roger, who was on point, he just fell back, and as he rolled back he took an AK in the rump, it wasn‟t a death wound, but it hurt like hell. That night, on May 6th, it was quiet until about two or three o‟clock in the morning and then they hit us. Our 2nd platoon was 24 �the only one on the mountain at this time, the other ones had all moved off, and the mountain top was too big for us to secure, we were spaced that far. 44:01 Interviewer: Were you spaced all around the clearing or just in one end of it? We were in a circle, somewhat, we were spaced that far, not closer like we normally did. The position to the left of me popped a grenade, minutes before I just asked for a sitrep [situation report], and everybody gave me their sitrep. Then I heard the grenade pop, he sat up and then it was the 4th of July. He took a—there was a dink right in front of him and when he sat up he gave away his position. He took a full mag, either AK or M16, the position to the right of me, they were dead, and the position to the right of them, they were already dead. 45:04 They had crawled in and slit their throats. Satchel charges were coming in everywhere and going off, they counted twenty some charges that didn‟t go off around me. At one point I was looking down at the top of the mountain, watching the battle and didn‟t understand what was happening. I kept saying, “I got to get back and help them, I got to get back and help them”. Interviewer: So, where are you relative to the rest of the men in the platoon at this point? You had your circle and part of it got broken into. They came up our side. It was me, sarge, Lieutenant, we were on this part of the mountain here, and we had people to right, people to the left and all the way around the circle. 46:09 it was basically sheer rock coming up this way and sheer rock here, but that‟s the side he decided to come up. Moments after the battle started the sergeant‟s weapon jammed; he grabbed the radio off me, and went to the center of the circle. When I came to, I still had my hand on my weapon. I took care of business, they were close, 25 �they were closer to me than you are right now, whether they were getting ready to pick my body I don‟t know, but I took care of business. Interviewer: So, were you knocked out by concussion from a blast? Probably for the satchel charges at that point, many of them. 47:01 Interviewer: Ok, but did you remember the sergeant taking your radio? No Interviewer: So, basically— When I came to—sarge said, in the hospital, that I was out for a long time. When I came to, my ear drums were gone, I heard nothing. I saw those dinks looking at me every time a charge would go off, and I did what I had to do. At this time I realized the sarge wasn‟t next to me, the lieutenant was lifeless, and every time a flash would go off I‟d see a new face. I had a basic lead M16 with twenty-one magazines and carried an extra seven. Sarge kept yelling, “Go help little David, they‟re all dead”, and I realized I was the only one left of basically on half a perimeter circle. 48:04 Finally Greg, who was the “thumper man”, grenadier, he said, “Got to do something‟, so he came running. As he was running toward sarg, he was running into the dinks. The thumper has to make seven revolutions to be armed on the warhead, and they were going right through the dinks. In the hospital they asked Sims, “What did you do?” He said, “I got dinks up there with holes in them”, well they didn‟t explode, so they went through them. To sarg he got some and from sarg to me he got more. Interviewer: Did they know where you were? You were firing, so they guessed that was you, at that point? Yes. We always made sure where our positions were before the lights went out. 49:03 26 �Interviewer: did you stay in your position then and just fire from there, or did you try to move and get to where the sergeant was? I stayed there because if I would have left, nobody would have made it. Then finally Greg made it to me, a dink jumped up real close, shot an RPG, it went between us, it exploded behind us, we both received shrapnel and as Greg was thumping his thumper he got shot in the side. He went down, but we held that part of the perimeter. Daylight came and the 3rd platoon was at the bottom of the hill on another little knoll, and as they made their way, when the battle started, they got ambushed, so it took them a while to take care of the ambush. 50:05 They finally made their way to us at daylight, and as they came up the backside, over to us, the sergeant came running over to help me my position with Greg. He got shot, I carried him back and that‟s when one of the medics was there and said, “You‟re not going anywhere soldier, stay here”, and that‟s when other people from the 3rd platoon---at one point Greg called in a flare ship, he can‟t hear, his eardrums are bleeding, he‟s screaming for help, and at one point the first flare ship out landed right behind me. I didn‟t even know. I was either out or I was too busy doing what I had to do. 51:00 The intense—when the doc told me I was wounded, that‟s when I said “ouch‟. Up to that point I had no idea I was wounded. The adrenalin was pumping so much that I had no pain. Interviewer: Was this shrapnel from the RPG? From the RPG, yes, and my back was peppered, I‟m sure it looked like a screen. Interviewer: At some point do they medevac you out of there? As everything got secured more, they called in for the medevacs, and they loaded up the guys that were the worst and then on the last helicopter out there was myself, Greg, sarge 27 �we called Greek, and our forward observer who called in the—we finally got a forward observer, he had direct contact with the artillery in the rear for our position, for fire. 52:05 Interviewer: So, were you able to get---how close in do they call for artillery in that situation, practically on top of you? We popped our flares in front of us as the gun ships were coming in, so they wouldn‟t go beyond a certain point. When the flares ran out we lit our C4 and popped it in front of us, so they had some kind idea of how far to come in. Interviewer: Now, were you doing that while you were in your original position at night? Yes, and I would jump from my hole to the sarge‟s hole. It was all rock, so the holes weren‟t that deep, but as the charges would come in I would jump and they would go off. Interviewer: So, you would go back and forth between those and not just stay in one place and wait for them. No Interviewer: While you’re doing all that, how long of time do you think this took, the fire fight you’re in, five hours or not? 53:05 From the time it started, on the Intel report, I think it lasted like three hours. During that time we had no recollection. It wasn‟t, in fact, until I applied for the intelligence reports that we actually knew what happened, and why it happened. The Generals in the rear knew that there was a battalion of NVA in our area where our company was held, but they didn‟t tell us that. 28 �Interviewer: And they targeted, specifically, your platoon, and the ambushed another one. Was there a 3rd platoon in the company out there somewhere? The 3rd platoon was at the bottom of the hill. Interviewer: Right, and what was your platoon? We were the 2nd platoon. Interviewer: Where was the 1st platoon? The 1st platoon, I have no recollection. They were out there somewhere. Interviewer: When you’re in that kind of situation, are you just kind of reacting automatically or do you have some kind of survival sense, and do you not even know why you did what you did? 54:02 You just do what they trained you to do. Interviewer: Now, you survived this, do they take you—do you go back to Evans or where do you go? They took us to an aid station, from the aid station they flew us to—they flew ne to 67 evac, and I met Greg and Greek at the hospital. Interviewer: Where was that? In Nam, close to Camp Evans Interviewer: So, it’s still at that area? That same area, yes Interviewer: How long were you in the hospital? Every day they would, after they stabilized me and did what they had to do, every day they would work me closer to Cam Ranh Bay, which was in the southern part, and I got 29 �shot up on May 7th, and I was home, back in the states for Memorial Day. 55:07 I spent four months in the hospital. Interviewer: What hospital were you in then in the states/ I ended up at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in the veterans hospital. Interviewer: After all of that, do you get discharged, or do you still have time left? I had a year left. They trained me for four months, I was off, I was five months in the hospital, I had a little less than a year to go, well eleven months. When I was discharged from the hospital they told me I was a clerk and they sent me to Fort Dix, New Jersey. Interviewer: Was that where you spent the rest of your time? Yes, the rest of my year. Interviewer: What did you do there? What was life like then in the last year? 56:00 It was hard readjusting from the hospital right back to civilian life. Military life stateside, it was—people around me, they didn‟t want to talk about it or listen about it. You know, I kept everything inside. You still had your quirks from nam, noises, didn‟t trust people, etc. Interviewer: What was the actual work you were doing there? I was in charge of the National Guard, crybabies that wanted to go home before their training was over. Interviewer: Were you just processing their paperwork? Just paperwork and record keeping to make sure their records were up to snuff. Interviewer: Was this just a nine to five sort of job? Basically 30 �Interviewer: Did you live on the base? I lived on the base, still had duties to company, KP, they assigned me to a burial detail. 57:03 They started one up because of the boys coming back. People were requesting military funerals I did five of those and I told the old man, “I can‟t do this anymore”. Interviewer: What proportion of the men around you, that you had been working with, had been to Vietnam already? I would say half. Interviewer: Did you guys talk to each other, or did you just kind of stay in your own? We stayed in our own perimeters. Interviewer: Were there things you could do to blow off steam or relive tension? Did you go into New York, or do anything like that? No, I kind of stayed low and did my time. Interviewer: Were you communicating with family during this time? Yes Interviewer: What were you telling them? What were you saying to them? That everything was fine and don‟t worry. 58: 03 When I got to the hospital they made us write a letter, and when mom got it, it was in a nice clean envelope and she wouldn‟t open it, she thought something happened because all her other mail, guys would give it to me and I would put it in a paper sack, but it was dirty fingerprints on most of the letters. You know, they got dirty. When the helicopter came out, I made sure the mail bag got on the helicopter to go back. 31 �Interviewer: When you were out there in the field, in Vietnam, how often would you write? Once a month Interviewer: Were you getting stuff from home? Occasionally you would get a care package and they would send it out and you would share it with the people with you. Interviewer: Were you able to tell the people at home what to send? Did you send any requests back? Yes, I sent a request back for my dad to send me a sheath knife. They didn‟t give us any knives. 59:06 Salted Pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, anything with salt because the salt pills just weren‟t getting it. They packed stuff in popcorn and if there were no bugs in the popcorn when it got to us, we ate the popcorn, and cookies. Interviewer: Did you cook popcorn out in the field? It was all popped, they used it for packing. Interviewer: Oh, alright. To fill in the spaces Interviewer: Basically you family, at this point, doesn’t have any idea what it was that you were really doing while you were out there? No, they didn‟t Interviewer: So, you just kind of go through those last eleven months at Fort Dix, kind of do the job? 00:02 Just bide my time 32 �Interviewer: So, you get to the end—did anybody make any effort to get you to reenlist or anything like that? No, they had my ceremony thirty days before I got out, and the recruiting officer said, “I know you‟re not going to re-up”, and I said, “You‟re right”. Interviewer: You had your ceremony, what are you referring to? The sarge put me in for the Medal of Honor for that night, I ended up with the Distinguished Service Cross, and they included my award ceremony on base with the retirement ceremony. They had a band and refreshments, my parents came up, and the General presented me, and said that was the highest award he has ever given anybody in his career. 1:03 Interviewer: Now, did that—how did you feel about that at that time? did it mean something to you? I didn‟t even know what it was, the rank of the medal. Interviewer: But they were making all of this show over you. On some level did you appreciate that, or would you rather have been left alone then? At that point I had very mixed emotions. Why are they honoring me for the ones that got killed? Interviewer: Now, we’ve gotten you, in your story here, to the point where you’ve come to the end of your time. You’ve been given the DSC etc., and the army has figured out they are not going to get you to come back, so you get discharged then in 1971. What do you do then once you’re out? 2:08 For a while I did nothing, and then I went back with the highway department. Interviewer: Did you stay with them? 33 �No, I moved on to different jobs. I worked a while and moved on to another job. Interviewer: Were you having just a hard time adjusting to civilian life after all the stuff you went through? Yes, it was hard Interviewer: What kind of—was there any kind of support provided by the VA or anybody else? I knew of no support at all, I was on my own. I kept to myself and what little friends I had, I kept them. Interviewer: Did you have friends who were your friends before you went off and came back to? Yes, dear friends, no Interviewer: Had any of your friends gone to Vietnam too, or just you? 3:07 Just me Interviewer: Was the moving on from job to job just kind of part of it? Were you just restless or impatient with things? I tried to better myself. I got in one place and they laid me off, and I finally landed a job at a construction outfit and did paper work and I was with him for nine years. Interviewer: Did you just kind of stay with construction or did you move on? No, at that point is when I lost it and I went to counseling, and moved on with my life the best I could. Interviewer: How did you wind up involved with the Ripcord Association? 4:02 Doing research and having my brother Greg locate me, and get in touch with me. I found the sarge and the three of us started getting together and answering a lot of questions we 34 �had for forty years, and finding this happened two months after we got shot up, and a lot of people had survived us, and Maureen [the hilltop where the last fight took place was called Maureen, and the rebuilt company fought near Firebase Ripcord in July, 1970] went on Ripcord and it was good getting associated with Ripcord. We all have different stories to tell, different emotions, and met the people that replaced us. Met the people who went from Maureen to Ripcord, and what they went through, and it‟s a good healing process. 5:06 Interviewer: Are you now retired or still working? I‟m still working and planning on retiring in January. Interviewer: What kind of work are you doing now? I‟m in heating, cooking and refrigeration out of our local, back home. Interviewer: To look back on the whole thing, if you had to go through it all again, would you have gone done it, or at least accepted the draft and gone forward with it? I‟d do it tomorrow Interviewer: What do you see as the positive aspect of the experience for you? Are you in some way better or wiser for what you went through? 6:00 I appreciate life, I appreciate friends, I don‟t take things for granted, and a lot of people don‟t accept me for that. Interviewer: At this point do you know who you are? I have a real good idea of who I am, and what I‟m still capable of doing. Interviewer: Well, you have a compelling story and you tell it well, and I want to thank you for taking the time to share it with us. 35 �Thank you sir 6:38 36 � 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 David, Kenneth (Interview transcript and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource David, Kenneth Description An account of the resource Ken David was born in Girard, Ohio in January of 1950. He graduated from high school in 1968 and was drafted a year later. He took basic training at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, and Infantry AIT at Ft. Polk, Louisiana, and was sent to Vietnam in the fall of 1969. He was assigned to the 2nd platoon, D/1/506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. His company patrolled first in the lowlands near the coast south of the DMZ for a month, then spent about six weeks in the A Shau Valley at the end of the year. They then worked in the hill country to the north and west of the A Shau, and in early May the company's perimeter was hit by sappers, who overran the positions of David's platoon. He kept on fighting through the night, and was eventually joined by one of his friends. He was badly wounded in the fight and sent back to the US, and spent the rest of his hitch as a clerk at Fort Dix, New Jersey. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions in his last battle. 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 2011-10-07 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DavidK1276V 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/e9994c7e30fbe19fc9c476d87a8f744b.mp4 62d0be77b534e542e1d4be62c24065b4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/546c04ed563d1780c1439ca09fd84ae3.pdf dace005f7355c38cc09982008ca71bc5 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Karol Darling Interviewer: James Smither Transcribed by Emilee G. Johnson, Western Michigan University Length: 26:55 James Smither: Today we’re talking with Karol Darling of Byron Center, Michigan, the interviewer is James Smither of Grand Valley State University. Mrs. Darling, can you start by telling us just a little about your own background, for instance, where were you born and where did you grow up? Karol Darling: Oh, I was born up in the little thumb of Michigan in a tiny little town called Yale. And I can’t remember just how long I lived there and then we moved. My dad was a pharmacist and so he would get transferred every now and then and the family would move. I was the oldest of 4 children. And I can remember we moved to Detroit and lived in about 3 different houses in Detroit while I was growing up. And I know when I was in the 9th grade, we lived in Muskegon, Michigan, but just for one year. And then we moved— Well, one time we lived in Pontiac, Michigan when I was young. And then when I got older 1:00 we lived in Pontiac again. And that’s where I went to high school. That’s where I lived when I got into the WAVES. James Smither: All right, let’s see, tell us a little bit about those experiences, now, when you were in Muskegon, what do you remember about being there? Because that’s a West Michigan place. Karol Darling: Well I remember fishing on the Muskegon River. My dad would come home from work and my mother’d have a picnic packed and we’d dash out to the river there and the thing I remember about that mostly was, I had this fishing pole, this bamboo pole, and I’d put that in the water and I got a fish right away and I yelled, “I got a fish! I got a fish!” And I scared all the fish away for the rest of the fishermen. And it was a catfish that I had caught. And I remember the sand dunes. Sunday when my dad had off, 2:00 we would go for a ride, and we would frequently end up at the sand dunes and then you could out and you could climb up those big sand dunes and run down. I doubt if you can do that anymore. James Smither: No, most of them are protected now. Karol Darling: That’s what I thought, but we had the fun of doing that when I was growing up. James Smither: And you were also going on the radio? �Karol Darling: Well— James Smither: Singing on the radio? Karol Darling: Yes. From the time we were fairly young, like the time I was in the 9th grade, my dad, who was quite a musician, taught us harmony. And I had a brother and two sisters. And at that time, my brother’s voice hadn’t changed, so it was me and my next youngest sister and my brother, who is just a year younger than I am. And we had this trio. And I don’t remember why, but for some reason, we sang at the radio station in Muskegon, and I think it was a supper club something or other, and we sang there, and they liked it so much, 3:00 that they wanted us to do this every week and my dad said, “No way, you’re not doing that.” So my dad didn’t want us in show business in any way. James Smither: But you’re only there for a year, so they can’t get ahold of you too badly anyway. Karol Darling: No. James Smither: And then you go back to Pontiac, now, in what year did you graduate from high school? Karol Darling: 1939. James Smither: All right. And then, what did you do once you graduated? Karol Darling: I worked at Waite’s Department Store, which is a wonderful store there, owned by Mr. Waite, and I worked in several different departments there, for— I worked there for several years. I worked in cosmetics, and then I worked in jewelry and accessories, and then they promoted me, and I went downstairs and worked with the buyer. I was like an assistant buyer, although I didn’t buy anything. But I had that title. James Smither: Now, 4:00 before Pearl Harbor, do you remember paying much attention to what was going on in the world, were you aware that there was a war going on in Europe and that sort of thing? Karol Darling: Probably vaguely, but not a lot. James Smither: Ok. Karol Darling: My life— The important things in my life probably took precedence over that. James Smither: All right, now, in some point in there, your brother joined the Marine Corps, didn’t he? �Karol Darling: Yeah, he did, when he got out of high school. The only job he could find was driving a truck and he didn’t want to do that, and there wasn’t money for him to go to college, so he joined the Marine Corps. James Smither: Was that in 1940, maybe, if he was a year younger than you, or? Karol Darling: It probably was 1940, yeah. James Smither: Ok. Now with him in the Marine Corps, did you think at all about how you might get into a war and he might get into it, or did that not really occur to you until after Pearl Harbor? Karol Darling: It didn’t occur to me until after. I don’t believe I thought much about it, I just thought it was nice that Keith had this nice uniform and that he could do something that he really wanted to do, but it wasn’t that important 5:00 in my life. James Smither: Right. Now, when Pearl Harbor happens, do you remember how you heard about that, or what you thought at the time? Karol Darling: It was a horrible feeling when that happened. We heard Roosevelt when he announced it, and we knew then that we were in a war, that they had attacked us. And I can remember very strongly hearing about that. And probably, I was at home, and I think it was a Sunday night. James Smither: It was. Karol Darling: Because I was home and I heard it on the radio and of course my brother was in the Marine Corps. We were pretty upset with that. Very upset with that. And life changed from then on too, it really changed. James Smither: What was it, you know, in what ways did life, sort of, in Michigan, in Pontiac, whatever, how did that change for you? What did you notice changing? Karol Darling: Well, all the old boyfriends were 6:00 drafted and went off to war. And I remember when I was working at Wait’s???, there weren’t any boys, and I was of dating age, but there were no boys to date. And I can remember that. So a bunch of us girls who worked at the store, on Saturday nights, we’d find a place to go. And we’d go out, you know, and have this whole table of girls out at different places, wherever you could go at night. I don’t remember much about where we went, other than we went once to have our fortune told. Over near Selfridge Field, which is an air field. James Smither: Right. �Karol Darling: Over there. And I can definitely remember that. Having my fortune told. James Smither: Now were there sort of events organized by the USO or anybody that you might get to go and meet some of the guys at the bases or things like that. Karol Darling: Oh yeah. The USO, I have a letter in my scrapbook thanking me for coming to this, and it was a dance, and we had the strict rules where 7:00 we could go to this dance, and dance with these soldiers, whoever was there. But there were strict rules, you couldn’t go outside with them, you couldn’t leave with them, you had to just go there, dance, and then that was it, and I got this thank you letter for them. And one other thing I remember is, when we, my sisters, at that time, my brother, of course, was gone, when his voice changed was when he was out of the trio and my younger sister was in. And we sang at a USO benefit in Pontiac at the high school. I have an old picture of us standing up there, singing. Our trio. So I remember the USO. James Smither: All right, now, how is it that you wound up joining the WAVES? Karol Darling: Well, I can remember, I had a friend who used to come over to the house and spend the night and we talked a lot about things, and one of the things we talked about was, they’d started the WAVES. 8:00 Thought maybe we should, maybe we should do this. And it ended up that I did do it and she didn’t. James Smither: But when did you sign up? Karol Darling: 1943. 1943. So it wasn’t too long after the war started that I signed up. James Smither: Right. Because it was pretty early in the year, I think, when you started training. Karol Darling: Mmhmm. It was. James Smither: Ok, now once you’d signed up, where did you go and what did they have you do? Karol Darling: The first place I went was Cedar Falls, Iowa. James Smither: That’s the logical place to have the Navy, I guess. Karol Darling: [laughs] Cedar Falls, Iowa! I can remember, I lived in Pontiac, and I can remember my mother and dad driving me to the train station. I had to take a train from there to Chicago, where I would meet up with whoever it was who was going to take us to Cedar Falls, were going to be, like, chaperones, or whatever. James Smither: Right. �Karol Darling: Anyway, that was my first time ever going away from home, my first time on a train. I’d never been on a train before. And I liked the train ride. And it stopped in Jackson, Michigan and picked up some other girls that stopped on the way, and I remember sitting next to this girl and I wrote down her address, her home address. Never used it, but anyway, she was joining the WAVES too. So we got to Chicago, and then there was quite a group of us that ended up in Chicago and they put us on another train, and we took that train to Cedar Falls, Iowa. We were escorted there by the officers in the Navy. And we were escorted there and there we lived, that was a teachers’ college, and we lived in a building called Bartlett Hall. 10:00 And they had us 4 to a room in bunk beds. And that’s where we learned all about the Navy and the history of the Navy and how to make a bed with square corners, and how to keep your room neat, and all the Navy language. And there we were given aptitude tests and intelligence tests and we marched everywhere we went, we learned that. And we were fitted for uniforms, cause when we first were there, we didn’t have them. And the uniforms were designed by Mainbocher???, who probably nobody will remember, but this person was famous in New York as a designer. And this person designed the uniforms. And they had to measured us, we had to go to a certain store, where they measured us, took all the measurements and then after about 2 weeks we had our uniforms. 11:00 And we marched everywhere we went. We had to do the calisthenics, we had to take all these tests, and our life was pretty regimented. James Smither: Who did they have teaching you or training you? Karol Darling: It was always women, that I remember, but women who were officers in the Navy. That’s what I remember about it. James Smither: Ok, where would they have come from? Had the Navy had a limited number of women in it already, do you think, or were they recruited just to do this? Karol Darling: I really don’t know. I just don’t know. They probably were already— Well, only nurses would have been in the Navy. I don’t know. James Smither: So but were these older women, then, or? Karol Darling: Yes, most of them were older. You had to be a college graduate in order to be an officer. So, they evidently got them from somewhere, and trained them. Cause, I don’t remember, I don’t remember any men 12:00 handling us, but my memory might not be quite that good. James Smither: Now how prepared were they—because you were in the first group of WAVES going in, right? �Karol Darling: Yes. Wherever I went we were just the first WAVES there. So it seemed to me, they were probably pretty well prepared, because, at Bartlett Hall, that had, that whole dormitory there, the students weren’t there, they had to put them somewhere else, and we took over that whole dormitory. And so that seemed like it was well-prepared. The uniforms, we had to wait 2 weeks, and I suppose if you joined the Navy later, you got a uniform right away. James Smither: Unless they were actually still measuring people for uniforms. I don’t think they usually did for the men. Karol Darling: I doubt if they were doing that. James Smither: Now, what was life like there, was it very regimented and they were just, all of your time was under their control, or? Karol Darling: It was pretty much regimented, but we did have some time, because I can remember 13:00 going out in the snow. And there were one of the students, some boy there, and I can remember, I think I have a picture of him in my scrap book, I can’t remember anything about him or his name or anything, but I think we walked together. And we did have off-duty time, some of it, where we were not that regimented. We could go for walks, we really didn’t—but I don’t remember going anywhere off that campus then, we pretty much had to stay there, but we did have some time off. I don’t remember exactly what we did on our time off. James Smither: Ok. But how many of you were in this group of WAVES, do you think? Karol Darling: Oh, I think it was over a thousand. James Smither: All at once in that college, or total around the country? Karol Darling: I’m thinking at that college. I think I have somewhere in my scrapbook, I think I have that and the figure 14:00 1,500 comes to my mind, I’m not sure if I’m right, but then…Would there have been that many in that Bartlett Hall building? It was a big building and 4 to a room. James Smither: It’s possible if there were 2 or 3 places where they were doing it, but a lot of you were certainly together there at one time. Karol Darling: Yeah, there were a lot of us were there. James Smither: Now how long do you think you were there? Karol Darling: 6 weeks. �James Smither: Ok. Karol Darling: I think I was there 6 weeks. James Smither: And after those 6 weeks, where did they send you? Karol Darling: Oh, well, during that 6 weeks, we had to take all kinds of tests and they would tell us all the different things that we could learn, so, for what we would do next. And so, I wanted to go into the airplane part of this, and they had link trainers, they had a lot of control tower, and different things that you could go involving planes. And one of them was the link trainer, and they described it, and course, I thought that would be really 15:00 nice, I’d love to do that. So you had to take special tests for that. And one of the tests I remember was going to this big auditorium and there was full of WAVES, and when it came your turn, you had to go up in front and you had a microphone and you had to answer everything, all these questions through a microphone and I think they were checking your voice to see how well it would carry, whether you could handle this. And I did get that. And so when I knew I got that, I was really, really happy. Then I went home. I believe I was home for Christmas, on leave, before I went to Atlanta, and then I left Pontiac and went to Atlanta, Georgia, which is where I trained to be a link trainer. James Smither: Ok, and how long did they have you in Atlanta? Karol Darling: I’m not sure. James Smither: Ok. A couple of months, or? Karol Darling: I think it was about a couple of months. James Smither: Now tell us a little about and what you did. 16:00 what the link trainer was and how it worked Karol Darling: The link trainer is like a small, it looks like a really small airplane. And it’s on a bellows, and it has the nose and the tail and you get in, you climb up and get into this and you have a, there’s a hood you pull the hood over. And then it’s all dark and the only thing you can see in there are the instruments in front of you, that’s all you can see. And someone sits at a desk, the trainer sits at a desk, it’s a pretty big desk and it has this piece of paper and it has what they called a crab, which was I think about that high, and you put it on the paper, and when you turn it on, you instructed the pilot what he was supposed to do, his next maneuver, and the crab then would do exactly, on this piece of paper, would do what 17:00 he did in the plane. Follow the right path or not the right path. And you had to keep �instructing them and you talked with them, on the microphone, into this link trainer. James Smither: Ok. So essentially this was a flight simulator, I guess that’s what we might call it. Karol Darling: That’s exactly what it was, yes. James Smither: And then, you were managing them. Now, did you have, what sort of did you have control over, were you just telling them what to do and the simulator sort of did the rest, or you kept track of it, or? Karol Darling: The crab kept track of exactly what they did in there, and you had to correct them if they were doing something wrong, and they had, I don’t remember what their procedures were, but there were certain procedures that they had to pass and you would probably do a pilot more than one time. I think each flight was probably about an hour, it was quite a while. And then that same pilot might come on another day, and do another hour. 18:00 And there were different procedures they had to do because, the ones I was training, were going to fly the torpedo bomber fires, the TBFs, and they were going to take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier and land, so these were the things that we had to teach them. Special procedures of how they would take off and how they would land. James Smither: Now the people that you were training, were these guys who had not yet had any real flight training, was this the stage before they’d flown airplanes or had they flown planes already? Karol Darling: Oh, they had flown a lot. This was their last train before they went out on an aircraft carrier and went out into the war. They had already done all their training, this was the last thing. James Smither: So they knew how to fly and that sort of thing, but you were kind of preparing them for the special conditions involved in flying off of a carrier and flying this particular type of aircraft. Karol Darling: That’s right. James Smither: Do you think there were also things that simulated torpedo bombing runs and so forth that they did as far as you can tell, or? 19:00 Karol Darling: I think so, and I can remember, I can distinctly remember at one point, during the middle, they came up with this brand new thing we had to teach them, it was very, very important. Now I don’t remember what this was, but it was a certain procedure, something very new that was going to be very helpful. I can remember �everybody was excited about this. But, it’s so long ago, I don’t remember just what it was. James Smither: Now, what kind of accommodations did you have when you were in Atlanta? Where did they put you? Karol Darling: Oh, we lived in the Biltmore Hotel, which sounds luxurious, and it sort of was. They didn’t have barracks for us or anything, because they were already filled with the Navy people. So, but they moved more beds into a room, we would be 3 to a room. And it would be a long hallway, and I can remember at the end of the hallway, there was a desk. And no one could, we had to take turns being on duty. When you were on duty, you sat at that desk, and I think you took a 4-hour duty, 20:00 it was on like, all night. And you had to only let people who were qualified to pass through there, you had to stop anyone else from going down that hallway because it was full of women sleeping. James Smither: The last thing you want is a bunch of Navy guys coming down there. Karol Darling: Yeah. And Army. I met an Army guy while I was there. He came up to me in the hall, I don’t know what he was doing there, but I remember meeting him, and I remember he took me to breakfast in the Biltmore Hotel, I think it was every Sunday morning we had off, he took me to breakfast there. It must’ve been my time off, because while we were there, you had to eat with your group. James Smither: Right. Now, did you get out much and see anything of the city at all, while you were in Atlanta, or? Karol Darling: Yes, you had your day off. I think you had one day a week off. So you could go downtown, you could go to the beach. 21:00 You were pretty much free on your time off to do what you wanted to do. James Smither: Now what was it like living in the South? Were there things different than like in Michigan or Iowa or whatever? Karol Darling: Oh, yes. Atlanta was different. I had never been away from Michigan in all my life. Atlanta was different. It was in Jacksonville that we went to the beach on our day off, not Atlanta. Atlanta, I would go downtown and shop in the stores. I didn’t buy anything because we didn’t have much money. But I would go downtown. Sometimes I’d have a roommate to go, and sometimes I’d just be alone. Just roam through the stores. That was about all I did on my time off. �James Smither: And did it register with you that you were in a segregated society and that there were places where white people went where black people didn’t, or anything like that? Karol Darling: Now that you mention it, I think that did come up. It seems to me that there was a conversation about a great place to each fried chicken. 22:00 Southern fried chicken, which of course, I’d never had. And I can remember someone saying, “Well, don’t go there!” That’s all I remember is being told, “Don’t go there!” So there was, that did come up. It did come up. James Smither: Now, you complete your training in Atlanta, and then they move you on from there to Jacksonville. Now, what sort of place was that? Karol Darling: We lived in a barracks there. On the Navy base. That’s where we lived, 4 to a room. Back in Atlanta, though, I remember, we ate, we didn’t eat at the Biltmore at first, some of us, we ate in different places. Some of us ate, and we always marched to wherever we were going to eat. We ate at a hotel, at first, and the waiter served us, just like 23:00 you were a hotel guest, and I can remember sitting there and looking down, and here was this fish on my plate. There was a whole fish with eyes and the head. I was horrified, all of us, we were pretty horrified with that. But that was where we ate. And then we ate at the Naval base some. And I can remember that was back when smoking was ok. And I can remember eating there and this little tiny guy in a uniform came around hollering, “Philip Morris,” whatever that was, there was something you could see on, you heard on the radio or in the movies or something, where, “Call for Philip Morris.” And he, you know, passed out little packages of cigarettes to everybody. We all got cigarettes. I can’t imagine that now. Then we did eat at the…we ate at Georgia Tech for a while too, with the students. Karol Darling: So those are the 3 places 24:00 I remember then, then when we were moved to Jacksonville, Florida, we lived in the barracks on the Naval base there. They were really ready for us there. James Smither: Ok. And what were you doing in Jacksonville, then? Is that the actual training of pilots now? Karol Darling: Yes, that was where we started. And there were 4 of us to a room. We had bunk beds, and 2 of my roommates taught PBY fliers, the ones that landed on the water. James Smither: Seaplanes, yes. �Karol Darling: And Leah Davis and I taught the TBF pilots, so we, she and I were in the same building, after that training. James Smither: Now, how many pilots do you think you trained? Karol Darling: I don’t remember how many. If I had my log book, I suppose I could look it up and see, but I don’t know. James Smither: Because I noticed in the log book, you seem to have the same names listed in several different sessions. Karol Darling: Yeah, I did have, because they had to have different 25:00—some of them didn’t pass the training. They had to come back and do it again. And there was one, I think that these were all officers that I was teaching, there was one ensign there, he came from a very wealthy family, and I can remember, his mother came—I only heard this, I wasn’t involved in it—his mother came, it was one of them I was teaching, and he wasn’t very good. His mother came, and gave a humungous party for him right there in Jacksonville. I can just definitely remember that. I don’t remember his name, but I remember he didn’t do too well in the link trainer. Some of them did real well, and some of them, it was very difficult for them. They had a hard time passing it. James Smither: What sort of people were they, or what kind of…? Do you remember much at all about them except that they were just young men? Karol Darling: Yeah, they were just nice, 26:00 normal young men. Young men who were in the service. They were in the Navy, so, they had to have enlisted if they were in the Navy cause I don’t believe, I don’t believe they drafted you. James Smither: Draftees go into the Navy, but usually, if you were going to be an officer, commonly you would have enlisted and these men would have been college graduates who had cases too at that point. But most of them would have been enlisted. Karol Darling: Yeah. Funny how some of these memories start coming back! James Smither: Yes, they do. Now, about how long do you think you were based in Jacksonville? Karol Darling: It wasn’t a year. Because then, I’m not exactly sure what happened, but something with my health came up while I was there, and this ensign 27:00 Schwaub, Ensign Schwaub, had put me in the hospital, and I was in the hospital, I was there for I think several weeks, I’m not exactly sure how long. That part has �gone pretty vague, but the thing I remember most was they pulled all my wisdom teeth. I think they were trying to find out what they could do to fix me, they figured something was wrong health-wise, and eventually, there was another WAVE in there. I forget, I don’t know, she had some illness too, and I remember she would always get all these Hershey bars, and she would say, “It’s ok, you can eat all these you want as long as you” she did something, she drank something after she ate those that made it all right, so this was kind of strange. But eventually, then there, they did send me home with a good discharge. So, that ended my Navy career. 28:00 James Smither: Ok. Well let’s go back into it for a little bit. What other particular incidents and things do you remember about the time you spent in Jacksonville? Now, you’re a flight trainer, but you’re based on the ground. Did you ever actually get to go up in an airplane? Karol Darling: Well the only time I got up to go in an airplane, was flying home, of course, when I had to leave, cause I would always fly. And then, the ensign who ran the building that I taught in, he, I believe he wanted to be a flier, but he didn’t make it. So, but he could fly. So, Leah, my roommate and I, both wanted to get in an airplane in the worst way, so he took us one day he had off, he took us out to the airfield, not the Navy airfield, but the real one, and he evidently rented a small plane there, which he flew now and then, and he took each of us, he could only take us one at a time, and he took us each up and he did 29:00 all these fancy maneuvers, flying upside down and what they called a loop-the-loop, flying around and around. We just thought that was great. Didn’t get sick or anything, just loved it. Thought it was wonderful. And I can remember once I flew home one time on leave, I flew home once from there, and it was very foggy and nasty weather outside and I can remember sitting there and I talked with a stewardess, I think that’s what we called them then, and I said, “We flying on instruments?” And she said, “Yes.” I was thrilled. We were flying on instruments. That’s great. James Smither: Just hope the pilot had the right training first. Karol Darling: Yeah! James Smither: Ok, now, what else could you do in Jacksonville? You said you could go to the beach there and that kind of thing, what else was there to do there? Karol Darling: Well, you could go to the beach when you had time off, and we always could get in a bus right there at the base, you had to walk quite a ways, but you got on a bus. And you could go into town or you could go to the 30:00 beach. And, which I did every now and then, and there was some boy there that, someone in �the Army, I think it was, who took me to the beach on my day off now and then. Then you did always have the duty, then you did always have a day off, leave. And then, one time, my roommates, I had Emily Jump, Dorothy McClanahan, Leah Davis, and me, and we all had, I think we had a couple of days off, because Emily, who was from Boston, and she had lived a pretty high life there, with her family, she said we should go to Ponta Viedra Beach???? SPELL and stay in a motel, hotel, or whatever it was. And we did, the four of us, and we didn’t have to wear our uniforms, we had time off. We went there and we stayed overnight. 31:00 And I can remember how wonderful that seemed to me. We stayed in this wonderful place at Ponta Viedra Beach, Florida. James Smither: Now, how many WAVES do you think were on the base in Jacksonville, were there a lot of you or just a handful? Karol Darling: There were quite a lot of us there. Cause, there were, like the building that I taught in, the TBF, there were a lot of us teaching there, and the PBY building had a lot of them there, and I remember the barracks was pretty big. Then there was a mess hall, you know, where we had to go to eat. And you had just certain hours where you ate. We had a wonderful big swimming pool, though. That was one of the best things about it, that we had this swimming pool with diving boards. And the only place I had ever been swimming was in Lake Huron, I grew up in Port Huron and my family had a camp that we set up every summer 32:00 and we all stayed there for weeks in the summer and went swimming in the lake, but I’d never been swimming in a pool before. This was a big pool with a low diving board and a high diving board and I can remember I got so brave that my roommates told me, “Oh, try the high board,” and I even tried the high board. Did a jackknife and did it off the high board. That was a pretty good education in swimming. James Smither: What range of jobs did women have there? There were WAVES doing the flight simulators, but what else were they doing? Karol Darling: I don’t really know. I don’t really know. I know some of them trained in, like, control tower, and then some of them would have been mechanics, airplane mechanics, so there were a lot of different fields you could get into and were there, a lot of them there in Jacksonville. I don’t remember how many buildings we had. That’s kind of a long time ago. James Smither: Now, who’s supervising you 33:00 as you were doing your jobs or in the barracks, things like that, who was in charge of you? �Karol Darling: Well the one, only Ensign Schwaub is the only one I remember being in charge of us in the building. He was the only one. And I can remember we did have to get back in the link trainer and go through and do some more training while we were there, every now and then, we did do that ourselves so that we were more familiar with it, so we knew how to handle that. James Smither: Now back in the barracks, what kind of system did they have for security, and keeping the wrong people out or that sort of thing? Karol Darling: We all had to take turns having the duty. 24 hours a day, everybody there had to take their turn having the duty. James Smither: So, you’re pretty much policing yourselves, in effect? Karol Darling: Mmhmm, yeah, we pretty much did. I think there probably was at least an ensign or some kind of officer in each of the buildings to kind of watch over us. Make sure we did right. James Smither: But it was a little bit different than what is was back out there in Cedar Falls, with women in charge of things 34:00 and in charge of you. And they may have been teachers themselves, professionals in civilian life who could have [garbled] things that are similar. Karol Darling: Yeah, that might’ve been. James Smither: At a college and so forth, a teachers’ college, they may have had some people to draw on for that. Karol Darling: We didn’t question anything, we were there just to do. And we did it. James Smither: How much discipline did they actually have in the WAVES? I mean, they train the men, and so forth, and there’s a lot of “obey orders” and “follow orders” and the whole drill sergeant. Karol Darling: We had the same thing. We drilled all the time, marching, I can remember marching, a huge platoon of us marching through the streets in Atlanta, Georgia. And it was some special event or something, and we were part of the parade, or whatever it was and there were a lot of us there. We had to learn a lot of different marches. And we were very disciplined in that. You had to do everything just right. James Smither: And what happened if you didn’t? �Karol Darling: Well, I don’t remember, cause I think I did it right. 35:00 That’s all I remember. I don’t remember having any discipline, I just did what I was told to do. James Smither: Now, were there people that you were training with, either, in Iowa or Atlanta, that were having a hard time making it, or doing what you were supposed to do or were they pretty consistently successful? Karol Darling: Pretty much successful but there were some exceptions to that. I remember one of the girls didn’t like it and her mother, she got her mother to come and tell them what it was all about and I think she didn’t get an honorable discharge. So, that’s that. James Smither: What do you think morale was like for the WAVES? Were you pretty upbeat and enjoying what you were doing? Karol Darling: It seemed like pretty much that way, and my roommate, I can remember, one of my roommates did not stay in. And two of them did, 36:00 Emily Jump and Leah Davis stayed in. But oh, I remember now, Leah Davis, she met someone, Leah’s family were Jewish, her father was in the cigar-making business in Boston, and I can remember, she met someone, and she just fell head-over-heels. This happened a lot in the Navy. I think people were lonely, and this guy was, I don’t know the Army or the Navy, but she met him there, so it might have been Navy. And I can remember, she ran away, and got time off, and they got married. But it was not a successful marriage, I can remember that. And the other roommate, Dottie, she had a boyfriend, and I think, she just missed him so bad, that she wanted to go home. She wanted him. So, I remember those things, so there were some hurdles 37:00 that a lot of people had to get over. James Smither: Now did they allow married women in the WAVES, or if you got married did you have to leave? Karol Darling: I guess they must’ve allowed it, if Leah married— James Smither: Leah stayed in? Karol Darling: Yeah, she stayed in. Yeah, so it must be that they did allow that. James Smither: What if a woman got pregnant, or did that not come up, so you don’t know about that? Karol Darling: The only thing I know about that is, one of the women who was in my room in Atlanta, there were three of us there. When we went home on leave, she came �back and I know she had an abortion, so I think that’s how she solved her problem. Cause I can remember her being deathly ill, and not wanting anyone to know this, 38:00 but somehow or other they found out, the officers didn’t find out and nobody told on her, but some of them knew she was really ill, cause I’m sure she had that done in Atlanta, illegally. But, I remember she was one of my roommates there. So that was a pretty sad situation there, really, pretty sad. So those things did happen. Being in the service wasn’t all that easy. James Smither: What were the challenges for you, or what made the service difficult for you in certain ways? Or things that you didn’t like about it? Karol Darling: Oh, I think I liked most everything about it, I don’t remember anything I didn’t like. But I’d never been away from home before, and although I was 21 years old, I was probably, I was very unsophisticated, I had lived a very sheltered life at home with big family, and 39:00 I was very lonesome for my family. And my father was a pharmacist, owned a drug store then, and he had a hard time getting help there and I remember wishing that I could go home and help my dad in the drug store. So it was kind of a lonely time in a lot of ways, and I’m sure other people had their problems with this too. Some of the girls were a lot more sophisticated, they had travelled, this was my first time away from home, my first time on a train, you know, just first of a lot of things for me. James Smither: But you did a pretty good job of staying out of trouble there. Karol Darling: I didn’t ever get in trouble. That was one thing. I obeyed, I obeyed. Because I didn’t question it. I can remember my roommate, Emily, saying, “Ours but to do or die,” when we were in Cedar Falls training, our very first training, she was telling us how we had to obey, we had to obey. 40:00 “Ours but to do or die, we have to do this.” So we all shaped up and Emily helped us. James Smither: Are there other things and experiences in service you might have had that stick out or come back to you that you haven’t mentioned to us yet? Karol Darling: Oh, I remember my brother, Keith, who was in the Marine Corps, he was born on my first birthday, so we were just a year apart in age. And he and I had leave at the same time, we went home to our family and had leave together. And there was a big write-up in the paper about us and a picture in the paper and all about how wonderful it was. And we had a lot of pictures there, and of course, and we had two uniforms, we had the Navy uniform and we had a dress uniform, which was all white, so I wore the white uniform for the picture with my brother. 41:00 It was nice. �James Smither: Other things that stand out or kind of come back to you if you think about that time? Karol Darling: I pretty much told you just about everything. Seems like. James Smither: Now you, basically, they decide that you were sick or whatever, and they decide that, they give you the discharge, they send you home, do you remember about when that was? Was it ’44, or? Karol Darling: I think it was late 19-, late 19-, the end of 1943. James Smither: Ok. Karol Darling: Cause I was in for over a year. About that length of time. James Smither: All right. And then what did you do once you got home? Karol Darling: Well, I think I went to work in my father’s drug store. He was happy to have me. I think that was what I did. I went home. James Smither: And then, how long after that did you get married? Karol Darling: I got married in 1944. 42:00 1944. In May of 1944. James Smither: And when did you meet your husband? Karol Darling: Well, I had met him before I went in the Navy, cause he was in school at Michigan State, and he was in the ROTC, so he was allowed to finish his senior year there, graduate, but then went right into the Army after that, cause the war had started. He went into service right after that, in the Army. He was an officer. A lieutenant in the Army. So, I had met him when I was working at Wait’s??? Department Store, and he was in college and then we got married in 1944 when he was home on leave. He called me up on the phone and proposed over the telephone. Then he came home and we got married in May. James Smither: And then 43:00 after the war when you got home, did you continue working or did you just stay home at that point? Karol Darling: I didn’t work after I was married. I didn’t work. He had worked at General Motors as a summer student while he was in college, so when he got out of the service, he went back to General Motors and had a very menial, low-paying job to start with there, but worked his way up very well. But we lived in a, it was very hard to find a place to live back then after the war, you know, the food was rationed, the war years were pretty hard on you. And after the war, the food was still rationed. And they hadn’t built any houses, they hadn’t manufactured any �cars, there were so many things like that that happened. And my brother had a friend whose father 44:00 was in the banking business, maybe it was the mortgage department or something, cause he found us an apartment in Detroit, where my husband was working. Found us this old apartment, we were just thrilled, just to have a place to live, it was just wonderful. So I remember that. James Smither: So how long did it take for things to sort of go back to normal? Because you’re talking about, rationing is going on, after the war. Karol Darling: Yeah, it was. James Smither: Do you have a sense of how long that went on? Karol Darling: I don’t really remember how long it went on. Cause I remember entertaining my in-laws for the first time in my little apartment, and you had to have coupons in order to buy meat, there were a lot of things that you had to have your ration coupons for, and I can remember that. And I don’t think I served them any meat, I think I served them pancakes or something for dinner, 45:00 which was pretty much a disaster, according to my in-laws. But, I didn’t know any better, I guess! It was hard. James Smither: Ok. Then how’d you wind up in West Michigan? Karol Darling: Well, we lived on the other side of the state in a subdivision called Fox Trot, we lived there and raised our boys there. We lived there 27 years. And my husband took an early retirement for health reasons from General Motors, and he just did not want to stay there, so he wanted to move to North Carolina. And we had friends who had done that, moved from where we lived to North Carolina, and he was by then retired from General Motors and wanted to move so we did move to North Carolina and we lived there for 46:00 17 years and our three sons would come and visit us now and then, we decided the house we lived in was too hard to take care of and we should move to a smaller place, we were getting older, so we should move to a smaller place, we were looking for different places in Henderson, North Carolina, where we lived, that were like retirement places. So our boys came down one at a time and they decided, they weren’t building things very well there, they didn’t like the way things were there, and it was too far away and we should come back to Michigan. Because it was too hard for them to come and see us in our old age. So they convinced us we needed to come back to Michigan, and they really worked on us, and that’s why we ended up here. James Smither: Well thank you for taking time to talk with us today. �Karol Darling: Thank you. 46:56 � 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 Darling, Karol (Interview transcript and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Darling, Karol Description An account of the resource Karol Darling was born Michigan in 1921 and joined the Navy in 1931 and trained in the Wave Program. She worked in Georgia and Florida training pilots in the Navy to take off from air craft carriers. Karol was discharged after working in Jacksonville for one year due to an illness. 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. Naval Reserve. Women's Reserve World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Women 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 2008-03-24 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DarlingK 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/6c3291e9a6ad8822dac613f7062dab25.mp4 c0cda1ecbaaf3d9a1b637cb4ef6925be https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/20428d33e3cdadfb1ab937acd574a4a8.pdf 962d3b47547aaedfecb18d9988c640d4 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: Civilian Service Interviewee: Ed Darling Length of Interview: 1hr 6mins Pre-Enlistment (00:12) • Childhood (00:14) o Darling was born in his parents’ farm home in Alpine Township, Michigan, on June 20, 1924. (00:25) o Growing up, Darling lived and worked on his father’s farm until he was old enough to work elsewhere. (00:37) o Once he became of age, the draft board put pressure on him to enlist but he deferred several times to avoid having to serve and yet eventually his time ran out and he had to enlist. (00:57) o Describes what it took to get a deferment. The reason for his deferment was doing farm-type work at the time. (01:20) • Education (01:58) o Stayed in school until 9th Grade but then dropped out because he had gotten sick of it. (02:05) His Jobs (02:18) o Describes what jobs he held and what the responsibilities were of each one. He mentions that on one of his jobs several German POWs worked with him in Sparta picking apples. (02:37) o About the time, Pearl Harbor was attacked Darling was 17. He continued to follow the news of the war. (04:20) Enlistment/Training (05:38) • Where he went (05:41) o Darling joined the armed service on September 15, 1944. From May to September Darling was still in basic training. (05:45) o Got engaged to his wife on May 2, 1945 and was married in 1947. (06:44) o Backs up again, and mentions that after he was drafted he reported to an office building for paperwork in Grand Rapids and then onto to Detroit for a medical physical. (07:30) o 4 weeks afterwards he was sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois for induction. (08:21) • Camp Robinson training (08:42) o From here, he was sent to Camp Robinson near Little Rock, Arkansas. Describes the trip there in some detail. (08:50) o He then describes his experience at Camp Robinson in some detail. Briefly describes what the men he trained with were like. He and his fellow draftees were training here for the invasion of Japan. (09:15) �o His training consisted of bayonet and rifle training. This training also consisted of marching. (11:01) o Briefly describes how the drill sergeants treated draftees. (12:40) o On one specific encounter, Darling describes how a rifle grenade exploded blowing up his ear drum. (14:06) o Reviews the fact that his training lasted from May, to September upon which time he was shuffled around the country to different bases such as Fort Riley, Kansas, Fort Ord, California, Camp Anderson, California, and then overseas. (15:40) • Traveling overseas (17:01) o Left the U.S. aboard a troop transport bound on the northward circular route to Yokohama Bay, Japan. Describes what this experience was like. (17:14) Active Duty (19:01) • Japan (19:03) o Landed in Yokohama, in the dark and from there boarded a train. Describes his o o o o o o train experience aboard an original steam engine. (20:12) Stayed at a supply depot for up to 10 days in a 20-man tent. (20:40) A little later, he was assigned to the 4025th Signal Service Group where he served as a driver shuttling officers to various functions. (21:41) ƒ On one occasion, he drove a captain to a camera ship where the officer bought him a camera. (22:26) As a driver, serving in Tokyo he describes what the city was like and what damage American strategic bombing did to the city buildings. (24:13) Among the buildings not bombed was the Imperial Palace and important buildings up on the hill which were not in located in the industrial area. (26:03) On Christmas Eve, he and a few other piled into a truck to St. Xavier Church where they celebrated Christmas. Describes what the reaction of the civilians was to the soldiers. The service he attended was done all in Japanese. The Japanese he worked with spoke no English so he couldn’t understand what was being said. (27:20) While he was assigned to the 4025th (Mobile) Signal Service Group he and his unit’s job was to respond to any emergencies that broke out around Japan if any occurred with their trucks. (30:42) On a few encounters, his unit witnessed a number of beheadings around the area of Shimbashi, Japan. (31:46) ƒ According to the account of a Japanese soldier, from the northern regions of Hokkaidō he informed Darling of what his service was like while stationed in Manchuria. This Japanese soldier discussed how the Japanese felt towards the Chinese while they occupied the Manchuria region during the war. (32:15) After this time, Darling was reassigned to the 71st Signaling Service Group or the 71st Signal Battalion, a new group which had just been formed to better manage the paperwork. (33:24) ƒ His battalion was stationed 5 miles outside of Tokyo in an abandoned warehouse near Tokyo Bay. His unit was responsible for the distribution �and inventory of supplies to any unit that needed them. Describes this in some detail. (34:23) ƒ Briefly describes what each of his team member’s roles was and where their routes took them. When not doing this, Darling filed and sorted paperwork. (36:29) ƒ Describes what his supply officer was like. (38:03) Sightseeing (40:10) ƒ Briefly describes what a 5-day work week looked like. (40:12) • Among the things he mentions is some of the people he bumped into such as MacArthur’s driver and other officers. (42:21) ƒ On weekends, he and a few friends went sightseeing. On one occasion they climbed Mt. Fuji, aka in Japanese (Fujiyama) (43:45) ƒ Briefly discusses some of the experiences he had with the Japanese people in some detail. Once they realized the U.S. army was there to do a job and not to conquer they felt more at ease with the American soldiers.(44:38) ƒ Briefly describes a visit he had with a few Australians who were in the area during his stay there. (47:20) ƒ On one encounter, he and his unit found a hidden ammunition dump stocked with artillery pieces behind a railroad which they confiscated. This supply of weapons and ammo would have been used against the Americans had they invaded Japan. (48:48) Leaving for Home (52:46) o Darling mentions that he received individual orders on when he could go home; while other soldiers were usually sent home after they had accumulated 120 points. (53:02) o The Japanese Noritake tea set he received from a local Japanese laborer was probably the best thing he said he got out of Japan among the other things he received. (54:54) o Went home aboard a LST called the Marine Swivel, operated by some 1st Marines of the Merchant Marines. Briefly describes what they were like. (56:47) Back in the States (59:14) o Landed at Oakland, CA where he took a day to rest. Afterwards he boarded a Southern Pacific train bound for Fort Sheridan, Illinois where he was soon to be discharged. Was not discharged until Dec. 15th 1946. (1:01:16) After the Service (1:01:47) • Adjusting to Home (1:01:57) o Once home, Darling took a job working in the Medical Arch Pharmacy stocking medicines. Spent 30 years in drug distribution, handling orders for hospitals, and retail. (1:02:36) • Reflection (1:03:45) o Darling describes how the service made him grow up and become an adult. (1:04:01) o While with the Army, he enjoyed the service very much. (1:05:13) �• Interview Ends (1:06:41) � 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 Darling, Ed (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Darling, Ed Description An account of the resource Ed Darling is a World War II veteran who served in the U.S. Army from September 1944 to December 1946. In this account, Darling discusses his pre-enlistment, enlistment and training in the U.S., and his active duty in Japan during the military occupation of their country. Darling takes a depth look of what occupational life in Japan was like for an Army soldier and mentions a number of social encounters with former Japanese soldiers. He briefly describes what his duties consisted of and what the attitude of the Japanese people was like towards the U.S. occupational forces. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type 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 2009-05-21 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DarlingE 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/cf93d3ea31d017714663de671f188ce3.pdf 1f9671dc4ecd8af4c7a1faf8ccb4255e PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Vietnam War Wesley Daniels (15:02) Background Information (00:20)    Served in the Marine Corps (00:20) Wesley joined the Marines after being influenced by many of his school friends who also enlisted. (00:40) Wesley believed he would be drafted if he didn’t first enlist. (1:18) Service (1:30)         He served in Helicopter Squadron 647, which was based just south of Da Nang. (1:42) Wesley served as a squadron clerk. He handled much of the administrative business of his squadron. (1:47) After several months working as a clerk he asked to be transferred to a ground unit so he had a chance to fight. Instead he was told to go on a helicopter flight and then visit the hospital. He changed his mind as a result. (2:55) Wesley felt pretty safe in his area of work. (4:50) He wrote many letters and was once allowed to call home in order to talk with his family. (5:40) The men would often go to China Beach for recreation where the men were able to drink beer and relax. (6:52) Wesley went to Australia for some R&R. For his second R&R he went to Bangkok, Thailand. (7:30) He was able to see fire fights happening at night from the base that he was stationed at. (8:50) End of Service (10:35)      Wesley was excited to leave Vietnam. After being home for a week, he began attending Junior college. He did not experience much protesting when he returned from service. (11:34) He does not believe his military experience affected his life as a civilian too greatly. (12:40) He is a member of veterans' organizations. (13:30) Over all, Wesley was glad to have a chance to serve his country. (14:24) � 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 Daniels, Wesley (Interview outline), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Daniels, Wesley Description An account of the resource Wesley Daniels enlisted in the Marine Corps and served during the Vietnam War. He Served in Helicopter Squadron 647 and worked as a clerk. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Plattner, Spencer (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. Marine Corps Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 2012-02-07 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DanielsW1357V 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 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/993068b141fcb864d2bf77c06ea396e4.mp4 d681d0a64b609d74c43eff6bd28bc74b https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/52b6f30e231ae15983d64c58421beb54.pdf 8b9a8f8a1b4c7e74c8b052c23d5a2f75 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project John Damon (1:07:50) Background information (00:45)            Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1919. (00:49) His father was an Army major and his mother was an Army nurse during World War I. (1:07) His father worked as a stockbroker in the late 20s. He went to prison for embezzlement. After this he never saw his father again while growing up. (1:24) He later was reunited with his father. (2:35) He graduated from Creston High School in approx. 1937. (3:00) He worked in construction for about 1 year before attending junior college. (3:03) While in junior college, John played football and basketball and received an athletic scholarship for The Citadel. (3:25) He attended The Citadel in 1939 and graduated in June 1943. (4:07) After Pearl Harbor, when returning to Citadel after a weekend off, John saw all of the Cadets chanting "Beat Japan!". (4:18) John enlisted in the Navy in early 1942. He did this after he went with one of his football friends to see the Naval Air Force. (5:20) He was offered an opportunity to go back to school and finish before he would be sent into the Navy. (6:42) Life at the Citadel (7:46)            The men went to bed each night at 10 and woke up each morning at 6. (7:55) The men marched to all of their meals together. (8:06) There were room inspections as well as drills ran. (8:51) The first year John spent at the Citadel he was harassed by instructors due to his being from the North. (9:25) Men were made to double time up and down the stairs. There was a high emphasis on discipline, much like a boot camp. (10:23) John was a 4 classman. At this rank he was not allowed to eat unless told to do so at meals. (11:15) Everything folded in the room had to be folded in a particular way and their firearm needed to be constantly leaned though it was never used. (12:03) John became a Lieutenant in his 3 year at the Citadel. He then had a platoon. (13:05) Once a cadet threw a light bulb out his window after taps. Because no man was willing to admit who did this the entire battalion (400 men) was made to march in the dark for 1 hour. (14:00) John was made a battalion commander in his 3 year. (15:20) For 2 months after his graduation John worked as a truck driver. He was then sent to Columbia University in New York City. (16:44) th Life at Columbia (17:20) rd rd �   At Columbia John was given the “awkward Squad” to drill. This was the squad that had the hardest time caring out simple actions such as marching. (17:23) Due to his success with his platoon, John was made a midshipmen battalion commander. (17:50) Most of his training at Columbia was basic Naval information. The training lasted 90 days. (18:20) The USS Alaska (19:14)           John was assigned to the USS Alaska due to honors he had received in training. This ship was not even in commission yet. (19:30) The USS Alaska was a CB1 (essentially a battle cruiser) and was designed to counter the German pocket battleship. It was faster than a battleship, more lightly armored, and had 12inch guns as opposed to 16-inch. (20:24) The Alaska had 9 12-inchguns. (22:04) There were also lighter anti-aircraft guns. (23:50) John’s battle station was in fire direction for 5-inch guns. This area had enough room for 6 men inside. (24:20) The station was 50 feet above the deck. (25:05) The ship was moved to the Philadelphia Naval Yard for finishing touches. During this time the men assigned to the ship lived ashore in barracks. (25:22) He had a shakedown cruise in July of 1944 with the USS Missouri. This cruise was used to test every aspect of the ship. (27:22) The shakedown cruise was carried out at Guantanamo. The ship was returned to Philadelphia after the cruise to correct any problems observed. (29:20) In December of 1944 the ship passed through the Panama Canal on its way to San Francisco. (29:35) Service in the Pacific (30:22)          The ship first stopped in Hawaii where the ship refueled and took supplies. (30:26) The USS Alaska provided cover for carriers and anti aircraft protection. (31:35) The ship's first assignments were escorting aircraft carriers that were attacking Tokyo. Considerate damage was done by the air raids. (32:17) The ship was struck by Kamikaze pilots in spite the Japanese Navy being largely decimated at this time (early-mid 1945). The ship relied on the combat air patrol from the carriers to intercept the Kamikazes. (33:37) When Kamikazes were not intercepted, ships shot anti-aircraft rounds at the pilot. It was hard to tell who actually shot down the plane due to the amount of fire. (34:32) The ship served at Iwo Jima, still escorting carriers. The ship did not fire upon the actual island. (35:35) The ship did go on a sweep of the Chinese coastline. The cruisers found nothing but several Chinese fishing boats. (36:48) The USS Alaska did not encounter any submarines. (37:08) The ship did shore bombardment. However, John does not remember where it was. (37:28) �    The Navy was very impersonal because it was ships firing at ships not men firing at men. The only time men were exposed to damage was if the ship its self was hit. (38:40) As an officer John did little aboard ship besides oversea lower ranking men. These individuals were often assigned to scrap and paint or clean the ship. (39:40) John was given training while on the ship in loading the guns. (40:27) The 12 inch guns that John worked on were surface guns. (41:06) Life aboard the Alaska (42:00)          As a captain John had a room with 2 roommates and a maid who made up the officer’s bed. (42:11) The men also had a private room where they were waited on and ate. Once a week the desert the officers received was baked Alaska. (43:05) There was only one black serviceman aside from the waiter and maids and he worked as a firefighter in the engine room. This was not seen as odd to John because he grew up exposed to primarily white populations. (43:44) When John played football and basketball he played in a Southern Conference and never played against a black man. (44:46) The men aboard the ship knew very little about what was going on in the war. He recalled receiving word that atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The men were happy to hear this. (45:22) When hearing of the atomic bomb, the men were confident that the show of force would surely do something. (47:22) The USS Alaska was assigned to escort the USS Franklin after it had been damaged by kamikazes. While escorting her, a kamikaze attacked the ship but missed. (47:58) After it got far enough into the Pacific, the Franklin was taken by tugboats back to the U.S. (49:10) Typically when kamikazes attacked it was one at a time. (50:11) Japanese Surrender (August 1945) (50:40)        The USS Alaska was getting closer to invading Japan when they heard of the Japanese surrender. (50:41) After the Japanese surrender in August of 1945 the USS Alaska traveled with the occupation forces to Japan. The ship stopped in Tsingtao, China where he stayed for several months. (52:03) John traveled ashore with his friend. While there he met a Chinese family who gave the men food and let them play their piano. (52:26) The man he met in Tsingtao told him that during the Japanese occupation it took a year's salary to buy 100 pounds of flour. (54:52) He and his division held a Chinese banquet and ate with some of the Chinese people. (55:03) At night John could hear the communists up in the hills firing. (56:02) The USS Alaska was in Tsingtao simply to oversea the occupation and ensure that the Japanese soldiers were evacuated. (56:46) �     When the USS Alaska journeyed back to the U.S. it carried with it approx. 1000 men. The ship traveled to the U.S. in late 1945. (57:05) John was assigned to be on watch during the travel to the U.S. He felt unqualified to watch such a large ship. (58:40) The ship landed in Bayonne, New Jersey. Here the ship was taken out of action. (1:01:14) For his last months in the service in early 1946 John had little to do but wait for discharge. (1:01:48) John was approached about reenlisting. But while in the Pacific he had applied for law school at the University of Michigan and was accepted. He did not reenlist. (1:02:26) Life after Service (1:03:07)       He attended law school in the summer of 1946 after his discharge. (1:03:07) After graduating he returned to western Michigan where he worked in the City Attorney’s Office. in Grand Rapids (1:03:24) John then went into private practice after working for the city. (1:03:58) He didn’t learn very much in the Navy. He simply did what he was trained to do. (1:04:14) John enjoyed his service in the Navy and he was thankful for his Citadel background. (1:05:00) He doesn’t feel very heroic for his services because his service was fairly safe and easy. (1:06:03) � 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 Damon, John (Interview outline and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Damon, John Description An account of the resource John Damon was, born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1919. When Pearl Harbor happened, he was a cadet at The Citadel, and immediately enlisted in the Navy. However, he was given the opportunity to complete his degree first, so he went on active duty only in 1943. He went through his officer's basic course at Columbia University, and while there drilled recruits who were having trouble with their training. He was assigned to the USS Alaska, a battle cruiser still under construction, in 1944. He sailed with the Alaska on a shakedown cruise to Guantanamo, and then into the Pacific in early 1945. The ship escorted carriers off of Iwo Jima and Japan, and also did shore bombardments and a sweep of the Chinese coast. After the surrender, they sailed to Japan, and then spent three months in Tsingtao, China, while the Japanese troops there were evacuated. 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 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 2011-10-19 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DamonJ1285V 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/d77abf8105cd5fdd16bc19f06d04972d.mp4 b9e873e119493469430d64945b4ae832 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fca7b4c5eebe6d008dca418c090e7378.pdf 6e91a833642e3c848a402124efa6bdfd PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Nina Daly (29:46) Background Information (1:25) • • • • • • • • • She served in the 2nd WAAC training center. (2:30) Nina was born in Rockingham County, North Carolina, on November 22nd 1918. (6:45) Her mother worked as a school teacher. She had also bore 10 children. (7:00) Served in the Woman’s Auxiliary Army Corps. (WAAC)(7:40) She was registered for the WAACs in Florida but was sent to North Carolina. (9:32) She was serving in the summer of 1943 when the WAAC program was allowed to send women outside of the 48 states. (10:00) She had a sister in the Air Force. (10:20) Nina worked as a truck driver in Florida and an ambulance driver in North Carolina. (10:51) It was not uncommon to have to pick up men at the bar that had been in fights while in North Carolina. (12:00) Overview of Service (12:53) • • • • • • • • • • • • Nina then served at Camp Fearless. (12:54) She was also given the challenge to work in intelligence. (13:58) She and her future husband had decided not to get married until after the war. However after they were separated they decided to get married. (14:27) Nina’s brother worked refueling planes on an air field during the war. On one occasion the air field was set on fire after a plane returned with significant damage to its motors. Nina’s brother climbed under the flames and shut off the gas to stop the fire. He was honored for this action. (16:00) She served from March of 1943-February of 1945. (17:29) WAAC Detachment 1 was all white girls. WAAC Detachment 2 was all African American girls. (18:37) She worked in Florida filling out paperwork for returning injured service men. (20:21) Whiskey was difficult for civilians to get but not for service men if they had their pass. (21:48) She had another brother who served as a combat engineer in the Pacific. (24:43) She had another brother who tried to enlist in every branch of service when he was 17 but would not be taken because of a preexisting condition. When he turned 18 he was drafted. (28:17) One of her brothers stayed in the Navy for 8 years. (26:17) Pictures from Daytona Beach. (28:24) � 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 Daly, Nina (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Daly, Nina Description An account of the resource Nina Daly served in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) from 1943 to February of 1945 during World War II. Though the WAACs were permitted to leave the U.S. after 1943 Nina spent her service in Daytona Beach Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Nina spent her service working as a truck driver and in intelligence gathering. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Davis, Joanie (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. Women’s Army Corps 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 2012-05-24 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DalyNNoId 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/4f82791703b571ed8bfa2dbf4e6241e5.mp4 e83c7ebba43b3f3d1c9d3e6e709e31b2 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9f2d97f2f8a0f359b1fcb99bf1f7be28.pdf 60ca03000984c63f8f21446457e11f75 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Harry Daleure (1:05:07) (00:20) Background Information • • • • • • Harry was born in Salem, Indiana on July 16, 1926 The area had bad weather and lots of snow He lived in a small town of about 5,000 and it was a nice area for him to grow up in Harry’s parents were immigrants from Greece The family actually moved back to Greece for 1.5 years during the Depression Harry grew up on a farm and enjoyed playing basketball (8:55) The Marine Corps • • • • • Harry graduated high school in 1943 and then joined the Marine Corps He took a train to San Diego to meet a very rough Marine Sergeant for basic training During training they got up every day at 4:30am and went through obstacle courses They did their marching and courses two times a day in very hot weather After training they had wanted to send him to take classes, but he told them that he had joined in order to fight and was not interested in classes (13:15) Harry is Shipped Overseas • • Harry arrived on Choiseul Island, about 80 miles from Guadalcanal They had traveled on a large ship across that Pacific for three days (15:40) Okinawa • • • • • • Harry and his men were lead by a “90 day wonder” Their leader lined them up in a large line one day for roll call and 49 men were shot and killed by enemy that had been hiding Speaking of the leader, Harry said that he “got his head blown off too and it wasn’t by the Japanese” When they had first arrived in Okinawa, they did not encounter enemy for days Many American soldiers were buried on the island and their families never got to see them They had to bury the dead right away because the smell was awful in the hot weather (27:50) Harry Becomes a Prisoner of War �• • • • • Harry was caught by the Japanese on the island They forced him to live in a tiny cave with about 15 other men for six weeks They were fed rice once every few days and Harry thought he was going to die in that tunnel After a while the Japanese allowed them to come out at night to stretch and this is when the men finally made their move Many men were shot at and did not make it, but eventually Harry found his way back to his outfit (35:10) Harry is Sent to China • In China, the objective was to disarm the Japanese and to inspect areas in order to clear them out • There were many factories that they had to inspect in Peking • He was in China for a year • Harry had been in charge of the gasoline dump and had an assistant that would sell gas to the Russians • The assistant was sent to prison when he was caught (38:50) The End of His Time in the Pacific • Harry traveled on a LST back to the United States • They stopped in Hawaii for ship repairs when Harry learned that he really did not like Hawaii • They then boarded another ship to San Diego (43:10) Harry is Discharged 1946 • Harry took time off and did not work hard for about two years, but was able to save a lot of money • He got a job in South Bend, Michigan • He had been married for 57 years when his wife was killed in a car accident � 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 Daleure, Harry (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Daleure, Harry Description An account of the resource Harry Daleure joined the Marine Corps shortly after graduating from high school in 1943. Harry went to boot camp in California. After training Harry, was shipped first to a base in the Solomons, and then saw action on Okinawa. While in Okinawa Harry was taken prisoner by the Japanese for six weeks. He barely ate anything during his time as a POW and thought he would die in the small tunnel they forced him to live in. Harry eventually escaped and made his way back to his outfit. He later served in China, disarming the Japanese and protecting American assets in Beijing. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Marine Corps 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 2007-06-29 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DaleureH 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/f7a35d6891ecece63c2fe05afe3c20aa.mp4 9f1b515908622b2c6ac0ffd0eea5cf44 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/437e8320fe20eec634472279e1ae85ce.pdf f1bac0b33417f469f2e6c316af342e75 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Edward Dailey (00:43:04) (00:17) Introduction: • Born in Hazel Park, Michigan in 1932. • He attended grade school in Rochester, Michigan. • Left school in the eighth grade to work for a cement contractor. • He had five brothers. • He had to walk four and a half miles to school every day. • He would hunt with his brothers frequently. • Grew up on five acres of land. (08:55) Enlistment and Basic Training: • Went to Pontiac, Michigan when he was seventeen years old and joined the service in 1949. • Was shipped from Detroit, Michigan to Fort Riley, Kansas for basic training. • Basic training consisted of 14 weeks of training. (00:10:40) Korea: • He was shipped straight from Korea after basic training. • He was stationed in Korea on his 18th birthday. • Served as a member of an infantry unit. • Shortly after he arrived, a hospital outside of Seoul was bombed. • Dailey and other men had to take out the snipers that were targeting the hospital, making it impossible to rescue those trapped, before any rescue missions could be accomplished. • He shot the nose off of a sniper. • After Seoul, he was shipped to the 38th parallel. • The temperatures would reach –39 degrees at night. • Every morning, while serving on the 38th parallel, there would be frozen bodies everywhere. • The army was under constant fire. • He became a sergeant while serving in Korea. • Most of the time, he carried four guns on him. • He shot seven North Korean soldiers at one point. • He remained on the 38th parallel for most of the time. • He and his friend became lost in enemy territory for ten straight days. They ran out of their supplies, to sustain themselves, he would bark and any other vegetation. When he returned to camp, he remembers only wanting a Budweiser and a bowl of chili. • While in enemy territory, he remembers encountering the enemy quite a few times. �• • He received a twenty-six day furlough after serving on the front line for a year. The last two years of his service was spent at Fort Riley. (19:30) Fort Riley, After Korea: • While still serving in Fort Riley, his job was to go after soldiers who went AWOL. • Remembers spending a week in a “whore house” in Seoul. • He obtained the rank of Buck Sergeant while serving. • Drove to Omaha, Nebraska to pick up a man who went AWOL and ended up in a mental institution. • Locked his company commander in the stockade when he returned to the base drunk. (25:45) Korea Continued: • Remembers the firefights as “scary as hell.” • While on the front line, the men would sleep in tents, and take turns guarding their tents. (27:15) After Fort Riley: • After serving in Fort Riley for two years, he left the service in 1952. • He married after he left the service, in 1953. • He had four children with his wife. • He worked as a truck driver for Marathon Petroleum for 35 years. � 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 Dailey, Edward (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dailey, Edward Description An account of the resource Edward Dailey served in the US Army between 1949 and 1954. He served in Korea as an infantryman. He describes engaging enemy snipers while guarding a hospital in Seoul, as well as combat on the front lines near the 38th parallel. He spent his last two years in the army working at Fort Riley, Kansas. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army 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 2007-01-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DaileyE 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/ebbb36ad0adfcc4fc4ef2ee0b4762800.mp4 f376c9a2a90faff5e89a5856e17a04da https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3607f4b10456e21f6f72472296815f9c.pdf 1a79337874e4a7d7fcf5fd74cfa55400 PDF Text Text GVSU Veteran’s History Project Vietnam War Gregory Dahlke Interview Total Time: 50:16  (00:05) Born March 12th, 1948  (00:08) Served in the army during the Vietnam conflict Highest rank achieved was an E5 (00:53) Enlisted in the US Army in 1967 o Training at Ft. Knox o AIT at Ft. Leonard Wood, learned to be an equipment operator (1:13) March 1968, assigned to 20th Engineer Brigade and 588th Engineer Battalion attached to the 25th Infantry Division (1:35) Enlisted because lots of guys that were drafted ended up in the infantry, Mr. Dahlke wanted to choose his job and pursue it as a civilian (2:09) His first tour in Vietnam was in the Tay Ninh Province o War Zone C, 50 miles NW of Saigon (2:40) Because of the influx later, had an option of being transferred to another outfit or extending their tours in Vietnam by 1 month o Extended his tour o Ended up going up north o Spent 9 months in the division that went north (3:40) After his tour was done, he was reassigned to Germany o Didn’t have a job assignment, and got permission to go back to Vietnam (4:25) As an engineer, he worked as a heavy equipment operator o Bulldozers o Lane-clearing, bunker construction, road repair, mines weeps, etc. (5:22) Saw firefights often o Engineers worked strictly in the field (6:30) Met several good friends in the army (8:00) Recalls when a truck ran over a mine (9:16) Wrote letters to family and friends while overseas (10:30) Spent most of the time working in the field; even worked overnight o Guard duty included (11:30) They ate C-rations and similar meals o They couldn’t have alcohol in the field but sometimes they did anyway (12:45) Says that certain wars can be won, and others can’t o               �Believes Vietnam was one of the wars that couldn’t be won; had been going on too long o He says he and the others he served with were aware of this; just “going through the motions” (15:02) Says some of the war movies made about Vietnam were realistic, while others weren’t o Platoon was realistic to him, as well as some parts of Apocalypse Now (16:25) LZ Sunday Punch, a large firebase o Lots of artillery, 100 infantry o He was here for 30-40 days o Recalls a time with the colonel was displeased with how long everyone’s hair had gotten  Sent several barbers over o Mortar rounds hit shortly after the helicopters arrived, the barbers went away (18:10) Senior Heavy Equipment Operator o In charge of 3 bulldozers as an E5 o Didn’t go to E6 because he would be an NCO and couldn’t use bulldozers o Never saw officers; they didn’t come in the field o Often would hear snipers firing while operating heavy equipment (20:50) Recalls a time when he was clearing jungles and saw one of the lights on his bulldozer go out because of sniper rifles o Jumped off the wrong side and almost got shot (21:54) At times it felt like an oven inside of the bulldozer (22:45) It was hard to shower because they didn’t have a lot of access to good water o Sometimes did when the monsoon rains came (23:55) Could get in trouble for missing duty due to sunburn; had to protect themselves (24:15) Mr. Dahlke and the other engineers did their own logistics and called in supplies when needed o Food was limited; hot meals were rare o They couldn’t hunt because the animals were more likely to hunt them o Knew engineers who had snakes fall on their laps o He accidentally knocked over a beehive (27:00) The first time he came back from his first tour was in Ft. Lewis, WA o Didn’t notice any angry protesters o This was in 1971 (29:26) When he came back to the states later, ended up at Ft. Carson, Colorado (31:50) Ended up getting an early release o Went to GRCC for a bit when he returned o            �Got married and worked in a factory (33:30) Says everytime he smells diesel fuel he has a small flashback (34:10) Took a helicopter in Vietnam to go places as often as someone would take a car somewhere (34:20) Talks about other people who reacted to their experience in Vietnam differently (35:56) Learned that they had to do what they had to do, whether or not it was popular with the people (37:00) Shows his father’s uniform o Also showed his own Class A uniform o Logs and journals were shown as well -> situation reports (41:10) Was wounded in the neck; stayed in hospital for several days and went back to the camp o Later their camp was hit by an RPG (43:00) Talked about working with minesweeping teams (44:10) Intended to stay in touch with guys he served with, but it never happened o Says this happened often (46:55) Says he was proud to have served o          � 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 Dahlke, Gregory (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dahlke, Gregory Description An account of the resource Mr. Dahlke served in the US Army as an engineer during the Vietnam War. He received his basic training at Fort Knox, and AIT at Fort Leonard Wood. This is where he learned to be an equipment operator. Much of his job included operating heavy equipment, like bulldozers. He cleared lanes, built bunkers, repaired roads, and did mine sweeps. In Vietnam, he served with the 588th Engineer Battalion, attached to the 25th Division. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Donker, Jordan (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 2009-05-29 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DahlkeG0200V 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/d7d29ad8e63c33c5ed6d627d4c9635bc.mp4 653ba9d01e1507a49f7f411c2ea85551 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/38485e77f3fe824c8c23fb14ce9c8ce3.pdf 8d8aca7ba9e4e402df61cc0c644b19fe PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW RICHARD DAHLEN Born: July 16, 1948 in Minneapolis, Minnesota Resides: New Era, Michigan Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, September 20, 2012 Interviewer: Mr. Dahlen, let’s start with a little bit of your background, where you were born and where you grew up. I was born on July 16th, 1948 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was the oldest of three in the family, and my father was a WWII veteran. He was in the heating and air-conditioning business all of his life, and my mom was stay at home. My grandpa had been a WWI veteran and there was some history there in the family. My childhood was probably quite normal, middle class, out in Mineapolis, lots of friends, lots of outdoor activities and different things, so there was nothing particularly special about that. I had a normal childhood growing up, graduated from high school and headed off to college. After two years I just kind of decided the direction I was heading wasn’t where I wanted to go. 1:03 Interviewer: Where were you going to college at the time? I did a year at the University of Minnesota and was there on a kind of financial aid for track, actually. I didn’t like the size mostly, it was so huge and impersonal, and so I went to a small private college in Grand Rapids for a year. While I was there I just kind of felt this wasn’t the direction I wanted. I just kind of wanted to a little time off and reevaluate. During that time I got married, November 1st of 1968 and, of course, at that point in time if you weren’t in school your draft board got interested in you, which they did. I’d had an 1 �interest in the career of air traffic control, actually I wrote a paper on it in junior high school as a career option. And thought I’d like to give it a try and doing so and the Army was a good way because I only had three years of it and if I didn’t like it, I was done with it, so I decided to enlist for a specific MOS. 2:03 I tested out for that and that’s what I ended up doing in the military. Interviewer: So, did you basically go and enlist then before you got any kind of draft notice? I knew my number was up and I was probably going to be getting a notice within the next month or two, so to circumvent that, I went and enlisted. Interviewer: At that point, how was the army kind of promoting enlistment and recruitment? Can you describe what they were offering you? They were offering me three years with a guaranteed MOS. My training was— Interviewer: What is a MOS? MOS is your Military Occupational Specialty, that’s the job you had in the army. The guarantee, at that point, you did not get any kind of an enlistment bonus or anything like that. Instead of being drafted for two years, you enlisted for three; you were tested out ahead of time and guaranteed training. You were not guaranteed that’s the job you would do once you were out of training. 3:02 So, I was guaranteed that I would be trained as an air traffic controller unless I washed out, and the rates were fairly high, and then it was up to the Army where they wanted to put me, so that was the only guarantee I was given. Interviewer: Describe the process of going into the Army and going through examination and training etc. 2 �Okay, I went through a normal enlistment process, went in and sat down and discussed, with the recruiter, what some of the options were. Then, at that point, they actually tested us out. Air traffic control was one that you had to have very high test scores. It was one of the highest rated in the military. It was at kind of a funny point because Army air traffic controllers had always been trained by the Air Force, but just as I was going in, the army was starting their own school and I, actually, ended up being one of the first classes to go through the army training for air traffic control. 4:02 Interviewer: Did the Army, at this point, have its own airplanes or helicopters? They had their own at that point. Army aviation was growing and this was a point in history where the concept of air mobile troops was conceptualized, but hadn’t been really put into practice. I think the Army, at this point, was looking at expansion of that and trying to see how it would work, so they were transferring a lot of stuff from the Air Force over to their own because it was a little more specialized. There were some different operations than the air force was necessarily doing, so they were just starting that school. I went through the testing and qualified that way for air traffic control, and then I had to, actually, go over to the air force base in Detroit and take my physicals. You had to have flight physicals, special eye exams, and a whole bunch of stuff. 5:01 I had to pass all those prior to my enlistment to make sure I could get into that school. Interviewer: Now, a flight physical, does that mean healthy enough to be in a plane? A controller wouldn’t be a pilot? You don’t have to be a pilot, but even in the civilian sector you have to pass what is called a class two flight physical. There are actually three classes of them. As a private pilot I only have to have a third class, as a commercial pilot you have to have a first. In 3 �between there’s another one that fits with some pilots that aren’t commercial and are flying, for instance, for companies that own their own planes etc., that are doing a lot of IFR, or smaller commuters, and for air traffic control you have to have a class two. So, you have to have a fairly high level physical with a lot of eye, hearing etc. I had to have that the whole time I was in the army and through my civilian career in air traffic. Interviewer: So, they test you out in Detroit, and what do you do next? 6:01 I just waited for the results and then, of course, and in August of 1969 I was inducted, so I was taken back down in the Detroit area, given the final physicals, which you always hear about the twenty guys in a room, that was kind of the last straw, loaded on a bus and taken down to Fort Knox. We got there late in the evening, of course we’re greeted by the DI’s, the drill instructors, and at that time they still used a lot of harassment and intimidation. They came on the bus and started screaming at you, calling you names, and giving you fifteen seconds to get all hundred guys off of the bus and lined up out front. Then I noticed, kind of walking around in little groups meeting, and it seemed to me they were evaluating people, you know, in your first little get together—“This one’s good, this one isn’t, keep an eye him”, seemed to be what was going on. We were taken into a barracks, kind of, for your first night. Went to bed and the next morning, of course, we got up, turned in our civilian clothes, got uniforms, got our heads shaved, and were actually assigned to our companies for our basic training. 7:11 Interviewer: At this point, are the people you’re in there with heading to a bunch of different specializations, so they don’t have your group together? Yes, they got—they do have people from all over the place. It wasn’t just my group from Michigan. We were divided up, so I had guys from Michigan in my basic training outfit, 4 �but also, guys from Kentucky, Tennessee, all over the place, and they were going every direction. Some of them knew what they were going to be doing at that point, but a lot of them didn’t. I was fortunate in a way, I was placed in kind of an experimental basic training company. Everybody in there had two, or more, years of college, so we were a little bit older, most of us at least into our twenties, rather than be seventeen, eighteen, nineteen year olds. We did a lot more classroom stuff and a lot less physical stuff. We still had to pass all the physical things etc., but it was a little bit different going through basic, than a lot of people experienced because of that. 8:10 I got leave a couple of weekends and I was home in the Detroit area one weekend, I happened to call my Dad and he about went crazy because assumed I’d gone over the wire. It took me a long time to convince him that they had actually given me leave and it was okay for me to be home that week-end. When he went through basic, you never got anything like that. Interviewer: Did you have any indication if the guys doing regular training were getting the same opportunities? Was the Army kind of now, being a little bit nicer? They weren’t nice, no, I think the experimentation was to see if we have these people that have done some college, perhaps are slightly more motivated. I think we might have had more that enlisted, than were drafted, if you could handle them a little bit differently, but I didn’t see where we were treated any different than the other people. 9:01 We still had the hundred push-ups, scrubbing the bathroom floors with a toothbrush, dry shaving in the morning and if they found a whisker out of place, and all of the inspections, we still had all of that. What we didn’t have was as much of the physical training, we still did a lot of marching, close order drill, and we did have more classroom. One of them I remember was when they came and got a bunch of us from the company and took us into 5 �a special meeting, and a Captain, as I recall, got up there and talked to us for about an hour, “We need guys of your caliber”, and all of this and that and the other thing. Well, it was signing up for explosive ordnance demolition, and he tried to get us to volunteer for that. I think one hundred percent of us were smart enough to say no that particular day, and we walked out. It was just interesting that we got hit pretty frequently with those types of things. Interviewer: How long does basic training go on? Basic training, at that point, was eight weeks, and at the end of it, of course, we had to pass our physical training test, we had written tests that had to be taken, and we got our orders for training. 10:10 From there I was actually sent down to Mississippi, to the Air Force base, because the Army was just phasing out, and some of the people that went earlier than I did, had not had their physicals and so, they wanted qualified people down there to fill up the last couple of classes if any of these people washed out on their physicals. So, I was down there for about two weeks, in Biloxi, Mississippi, shortly after a hurricane, by the way, which made it extra interesting, and from there I was shipped up to Fort Rucker, Alabama, which is where the home of Army aviation was and that’s where our school was started. We arrived there and we were taken to the company area and hauled over to our barracks. We had to take the condemned signs off of the doors in order to open up our barracks to move in. They were old WWII barracks, way on the backside of the post down there. 11:03 They had coal furnaces, which meant some od us didn’t get Christmas off. Made them unique for living because upstairs, they were two story, the upstairs was so hot you could hardly breath and on the lower floor the butt cans would freeze at night it was so cold, so they were very inefficient, old places, but we did 6 �have a brand new program, some excellent labs, and civilian instructors on the aircraft control field, and I felt an excellent school, done really great job, and when we came out of there we knew our stuff and, of course, with all the training down there of the pilots as well, we had a lot satellite bases we went out to for our hands on training after the classroom, and that gave us some very, very good experience before being shipped out. Interviewer: So, you were actually getting to go out and doing the work that you do as a controller, so you can track the planes on the radar and stuff like that? 12:00 Exactly, yes Interviewer: So, what sort of hands on stuff, that you might actually use, were you getting? Well actually I was trained—there were actually three separate parts of army air traffic control. There was the air traffic control tower, which is what most people are familiar with at airports all over the country. There was also, what’s called an en route portion, which was, basically, between airports controlling airplanes, and then there’s ground controlled approach, which is what I was trained in. The GCA portion is actually a type of radar that when it’s in the search mode looks like normal radar, but when you put it into the mode for taking an aircraft on an approach the antenna that normally sweeps, simply goes back and forth and there’s a second antenna next to it that just goes up and down and they just wiggle like that. What it does is on the radar scope it puts two lines, cursers, one of them is the extended runway center line, and the other is a glide path. 13:07 It’s going at a preset angle out from the airport up, basically, to infinity. So, the purpose of GCA is by using heading and varying the rate of decent and getting an aircraft centered on the course line and the glide path, and you can bring them right down to the 7 �end of the runway and into a safe landing. It is mostly used, of course, when the weather is bad and they’re not able to see the airport. So, In GCA we had first of all , if I recall, about eight weeks of classroom training, and we had to pass the FAA written exams for government air traffic controllers. We had about two weeks of lab, where we were in a simulated radar environment. There was somebody behind the wall putting inputs into what then were very huge computers, and that all came up, so they followed our instructions and made it happen on our radar scopes. 14:05 Once we had passed that, then we were sent out to the airfields all around the Fort Rucker area, where the pilots in training would go out and do their exercises. So, we would be in a small radar building there and actually doing the GCA approaches for student pilots, so both of us were learning the process. We went through that, as I recall, for about two weeks. Interviewer: Were there accidents, or near misses, while you were doing that? No there weren’t, and the students were, basically, only training on VFR days, which means good weather. You can be out there and be seen and there were just a few at a time. They would come throughout the day, but only a few at a time at each little airfield, so it wasn’t any kind of congested activity. Interviewer: So, what’s your next stage of training once you complete that work? Once we finished the lab work we graduated. 15:01 We were sent off on our assignments and most of us were assigned to Vietnam, so at that point I got thirty days leave and then reported to Oakland, California and flew over to Vietnam. I landed at Bien Hoa Air Force Base just outside of Saigon. I waited about two days to get me orders to Cu Chi. 8 �Interviewer: Now, when they’re flying you at this point, are they flying you in military aircraft as opposed to civilian ones? We flew commercially, it was civilian aircraft and we kind of did a hop from California to Hawaii. On ours going over, we got in a holding pattern about two o’clock in the morning going into Honolulu, and we’re scratching our heads and the pilots trying to convince us that it was traffic issues, and no, we don’t think so. We found out later one of the gear lights wasn’t working and they weren’t sure that the landing gear was down, so when we got in we had a bit of a layover while they repaired that problem. We flew on to Manila and from Manila over to Saigon. 16:02 Interviewer: What was your impression, or experience, getting off the plane in Saigon? Oh man, it was very early in the morning, as I recall, one or two o’clock. What I remember most is that as you step through the door of the airplane to the outside, the odor and the heat. They both just kind of hit you like a hammer. It was just such a contrast from the air conditioning comfort of the airplane to the hot humid miserable weather of Vietnam, kind of in that one step just struck you as “wow”. Interviewer: What sort of odor was there? Well, the river that flows through Saigon, if you ever saw it from the air, was this dark brown, there were piles of garbage that went down from the banks of the city to the river, and a lot of the city’s waste was dumped right in there as well. 17:02 Plus the fact, on our bases where we were, most of the human waste was burned. The outhouses had split fifty-five gallon drums in them and everyday a popasan would come and take those out, fill them with diesel fuel and light them, and replace them with the barrels from the day 9 �before. So, on a base camp like Cu Chi, which was the home of the 25th Infantry Division, so it was a fairly large camp, there was a lot of that going on and throughout the entire country, so there was always a certain odor in the air that accompanied that. Interviewer: Ok, you get off the plane with that particular greeting, and what did you do next? Well, we went inside this huge building; I believe it was an old hangar, and we simply sat down and waited, which of course the military is famous for. All of our baggage was taken off the plane, kind of thrown in a corner and after a while some officer came in and welcomed us to Vietnam and told us to go find our stuff. 18:07 Because it was so early in the morning, we were again escorted to a barracks area just for that night, and actually weren’t processed into the country until the next morning, about eight or eight thirty in the morning. We still waited another day before we got orders, and at that point I was assigned to the 1st Aviation Brigade and then the 341st Aviation Detachment Divisional, which was out of Cu Chi. Interviewer: Where is Cu Chi relative to Saigon? Cu Chi was about fifty miles northwest of Saigon, right up the highway, about midway between Saigon and Tay Ninh, which was very close to the Cambodian border. Interviewer: Do you remember anything about the trip up there and how did you get there first of all? Just got there on a UH1, nothing spectacular, just kind of wondering what you were getting into. 19:02 It was really a fairly short flight, as I recall, about twenty minutes by helicopter. Just king of seeing the countryside for the first time and what was out there. The area that I was in had been part of the “iron triangle”, the Bola Woods, which during 10 �Tet, was a very hot area. It had been pretty much defoliated by the time I got there, so the countryside was changed a lot, but you were seeing the rice paddies and the people out working those, and scattered little hamlets, totally different than what you see here when you fly from point A to point B. it wasn’t my first helicopter ride, but it was my first one where I had a gunner on each side behind me, and where you’re actually concerned about what’s happening on the ground, so it was kind from interesting from that standpoint. Interviewer: What had you been told about conditions in Vietnam or this kind of assignment before you got there? Did anyone tell you anything? Not really a whole lot, we did have some NCO’s in the company, down at Fort Rucker, that had been in Vietnam. 20:08 They didn’t really talk a lot. There was such a difference between say I Corps and III Corps where I was, going from mountainous terrain up there near the DMZ. Which was, of course, a lot harder than the area I was in down at the III Corps area where it was mostly flat, hotter, and much wetter, so it depended on where you were going, and so really you didn’t have a whole lot of information as far as what you were getting into. Interviewer: What did you see when you got to Cu Chi? When I got out to Cu Chi I saw a fairly good sized base camp, and it looked fairly civilized. Of course you flew in, over the wire, with the guard towers all around. The airport was fair size and it had just one runway, but we had a myriad of heliports just all around the base, being the 25th Infantry headquarters. 21:01 It was a very, very busy airfield and I don’t know how many people we on, but I know the commanding General of the 25th was there with his staff. A lot of the 25th Infantry, the entire 25th aviation was 11 �on the base camp, so it was a large camp. Our particular company area was right on the burb, we were—it was us, a small road and then the wire going out into the wild country. We were a unique company in that we had not only the air traffic controllers, but also, the refuelers and the rearmament people, which was a little bit unusual, so we had a wide variety of people. Most of the POL and rearm guys were kind of trouble makers that other companies wanted to get rid of and shuttled them over there, so we got along well, and worked well together, but there was quite a contrast on the two sides of the company area, as far as the personnel were concerned. 22:00 The people I worked with, you know, great people, I enjoyed the time with them, very professional in how they did their jobs, and just did a conscientious job and excellent jobs. It was a good place to be, I think, from the standpoint of security, although we did get mortar attacks and, of course, now we know about the Cu Chi tunnels, and some of them, actually, came right under the base. We use to wonder how some of them got on the camp, and they would roam around at night and cause trouble, but now we know some of that. Interviewer: Continue here by describing, sort of, some of the typical thing you had to do in the job. Okay, Cu Chi was a very busy tactical airfield; it was one of the two busiest in country, and theirs some argument about which was the busiest. 23:06 We were twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, so basically we got one day off every two weeks. Both the tower and the dushea were staffed twenty four hours a day. Starting out, of course, it was a matter of learning about the area, what surrounded the base camp, what kind of terrain you were dealing with, what kind of weather we had to deal with, and getting use to running the approaches into our airport with the different types of aircraft we had 12 �around there. So, that was just about a month long training cycle before you were sent off to work on your own. I chose, after I was certified in GCA to cross train over to the tower, just to get that experience, and to enjoy a little bit of diversity. So, actually, after that I worked both. I worked GCA far more and worked tower just enough to stay certified and got current working that. 24:03 But, at Cu Chi, we averaged about fifty eight thousand operations a month, and an operation is either a takeoff or a landing. As I said, we had the one runway, then we had the POL and rearm area, and there were helipads all over the base camp, so you actually be running simultaneous operations going or coming from different directions into different locations on the base camp. The GCA, all you could run them to is the runway, because that’s where we were set up to get them, but from the tower, I remember a lot of walking around and you just—you’re there, you’re going there, you’re there, you’re going there, you’re going out that way, you’re doing this—and as long as you didn’t point two places in a row you were okay. Most everybody kind of worked that way, because, especially during daylight hours, it was relatively hectic. We did get up, during the Cambodian time, when we had several additional helicopter companies on the base camp, to around eighty thousand operations a month. 25:08 One of the things I brought up before was the professionalism, you think these were twenty one, twenty two year old guys controlling twenty one, twenty two, twenty three year old pilots, and in the time the 341st was there, there was never an incident attributable to any of the guys that were air traffic controllers, and I think that’s a pretty good record for a bunch of young hot shots doing a job like that. Interviewer: How much of your business, at least in the tower, had to do with controlling the helicopters? There were a lot more of them than of the other planes. 13 �The vast majority of it on an army base was helicopters. We had companies with what they called the Loaches, the OH-6 and OH-58, which were smaller observational helicopters. They weren’t really gunships or attack helicopters. Of course, a lot of the UH1 Huey was probably the helicopter most associated with Vietnam, and we had loads of those, as well as CH-47 Chinooks, which you still see around today, they’re the ones with the two big rotors, one in the front and one in back. 26:09 We’d get a few Skycranes in there, the CH-54. We didn’t have a station there, but they would come in now and then, but the vast majority, I would say probably seventy to seventy five percent of our operations were helicopters. We did have a company of O-1 Bird Dogs, which was a small tandem two seat aircraft assigned there, as well as a company of Air Force OV-10, which was a twin engine observation aircraft. They generally went out and ran spotting for like F4 drops and things like that. We got a lot of army and air force C-7, C123’s and C-130’s, which were larger cargo aircraft. On occasion, just for grins, we’d get some fighters that would come in and do a little approaches and stuff, and I did a few GCA’s with them. 27:00 That generally upset the General though, because they liked to hit their afterburners and make a loud noise when they went over, and most of the senior staff didn’t like that too much though. We tried to do a minimum of that, but it was a wide variety of aircraft that we worked with, but the majority was helicopters. Interviewer: Were there any problems concerning the approaches to the base with anti-aircraft fire or that sort of thing? A lot of the advisories that we had to give and vectoring that we gave dealt a lot with artillery. We had an artillery company right behind our barracks that shot out, almost straight out the approach to the runway and we had them all around the base camp. 14 �When they were firing, or artillery from other areas going over us, it was up to us to keep the aircraft out of those firing lanes so they weren’t in danger of being hit. Another one too, would be approaches if we knew anyone was out there, quite often the approaches would change to a very high approach and almost dive at the airfield as they came in to land. 28:05 Interviewer: Anyone out there, would that be the Viet Cong or somebody like that might have a—did they have things like shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles or that kind of equipment? They didn’t have that at that time; there was nothing in the shoulder fire. Once they got low enough—and I had a couple of friends that were actually severely injured, and, of course, we had a number killed by small arms fire, because a lot of what the helicopters did was low level. I used to do flying on my days off just because there wasn’t much else to do, so I would go over to one of the companies, since we knew a lot of the pilots, and just give their gunner or their crew chief the day off and fly. You got use to tree top level and if you got into an open area and they could see you coming, you were a pretty open target and some of the missions I went on were the low level sniffer missions, which they actually had a thing in the aircraft that sensed residual heat, a collector that almost looked kind of like a vacuum cleaner hanging out the side of the aircraft, and that had to be low level, so you were down and you were very susceptible to small arms. 29:15 Interviewer: Did you have much occasion to get off the base or did you basically stay there through your tour? I tried to get off as much as I could. Like I say, after you’ve been there for a while you’ve kind of seen it all and done it all, so I would go flying on my days off. I did a 15 �couple of road trips, one to Tay Ninh, which was a very beautiful and interesting area I went one time with a chaplain up there and we went down this road and suddenly he stopped and said, “Get out and keep your weapons with you”, and he pointed up to a line of trees maybe a hundred yards away from us and said, “That’s Cambodia”, and the first words out of my mouth were ,”What are we doing here?” I mean, we were alone, way out there. 30:06 I did get down to the Saigon area on occasion and Saigon city itself was off limits a lot, during the time I was there, simply because so many soldiers were getting into a lot of trouble. I was able to over fly it on numerous occasions and get a lot of pictures and things of the area, so I got to know it a little bit. Interviewer: What did they do to keep the soldiers and people occupied and entertained, at that point, if they’re not sending them into the city? Not much, we did have movies, and we had kind of a club in our company area, and, you know, unfortunately one of the favorite pastimes was to drink when you were off, because there wasn’t much else to do. We did get movies in there, and on occasion we got shows. A lot of them were Korean rock groups that came through. Some of them were pretty good, and some of them not. 31:01 In December of 1970 they had actually—this was during a time when we were taking a lot of the troops out of Vietnam. The 25th Infantry Division had left and Cu Chi was closed. I was transferred, for just a few weeks, down to Bien Hoa, the Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base. I joked about it a little bit because being there was kind of like being in civilization again, but they wanted to reopen the airfield at Cu Chi, so myself and another fellow, who had been a controller, were sent out there to train new troops and reopen the airfield. On Christmas day of 1970 we sent all the new guys down to Saigon to see the Bob Hope show, while we set 16 �up the tower and got everything working. We were both short, we each only had about two months left and figured, “They deserve it, they got a year left”, and we stayed behind and did that while they got to go down and spend Christmas Day down there. Once in a while, Thanksgiving, they did a turkey dinner, and tried to make the meal as special as they could, although it was unique because I think Vietnam’s the only been where the cooks could take bread hot out of the oven and it was already stale. 32:13 So, to call the meal special, that was kind of a relative thing. Christmas, they generally tried to do something special, so there were things they tried to do to make it a little better. It didn’t much matter, you still had to work and do the job, because for the most part, it was just another day. Interviewer: You had mentioned the Vietnamese had infiltrated into the base etc. What were you aware of, or what kind of stuff was going on like that? Well, on several occasions we caught some of the mamasans, who were our hooch maids, pacing off distances between buildings, or between the buildings and the wire. There were several occasions where the papasans that were barbers during the day were back at night with razors and they actually went into some company areas and tried to slit throats and do damage like that. 33:06 So, there were things that went on. We never had any frontal attacks like they used to, and we never had any mass attacks, but of course mortars, but that’s an impersonal—I mean that’s just lobbing something in there and hoping for the best. But most of it was just those little irritating things that caused minor damage, but still, always made you wonder. Interviewer: What sort of Vietnamese presence was there, actually, on the base during the day? 17 �There was quite a bit, actually, a lot of the workers, the papasans that were handling the barber issues, and the human waste issues, and things. We did have a lot of hooch maids that were actually in charge of keeping our hooches clean, doing the laundry, things of that nature. They worked in our kitchen, and the various maintenance issues around the camp, so there was, actually, quite a strong Vietnamese presence on the base camp. 34:03 Interviewer: Did you have any contact with the South Vietnamese Army or Air Force people at all? Yes, we did, we had some South Vietnamese Army troops based at the camp and, of course, as controllers, we did work with the VNAF. That was always a thrill because; although they kind of spoke English and you could almost understand them, I think most of the time they didn’t understand, so when they were coming into the airfield, they kind of did whatever was expedient no matter what you told them to do, so I had several occasions where I had an aircraft, military, coming in from this side, and a VNAF all of a sudden decides he’s going to come in from the other way and their landing head on, or taking off into one coming in, so it made for some real interesting times working with them. When we went back and opened Cu Chi, in December of 1970, we had a company of O1 U.S. pilots there, but everybody else that worked was VNAF. 35:07 Interviewer: What sense did you have, at that point, of the morale, or the attitude of the Vietnamese troops that you were dealing with? At that point it seemed to be good. You get into a funny area here because I guess I always felt that I knew, and I just recently saw a really neat T-shirt that I’ve got to get one of. It shows the Vietnam Service Medal and it says, “When I left we were winning”, 18 �and I think that’s true all the way up to 1972 when the last troops pulled out. At that point in time, by late 1970, even when the Americans were pulling out, things were going well. Because of our support, the South Vietnamese Army was doing pretty well, they were coming on strong, and I think the Easter Offensive, even in 1973, I believe it was, when we gave air support to the South Vietnamese Army, they did okay. Interviewer: It was 1972 36:00 1972, yes, okay—at that point, I think they felt good about themselves, and we felt fairly good about them. And I think they were capable of doing the job, they did not have enough stuff to do the job, and of course, I think that was our promise to them, “We’ll provide the stuff, and you take over the business at hand”. I felt they were capable in a lot of ways. I’d maybe liked to have some Vietnamese controllers with us to kind of deal with some of the issues, but we didn’t have that luxury, so we just dealt with them ourselves the best we could, but I think overall in working, they seemed committed to what they were doing, they seemed to be fairly well trained and I felt we’re doing a good job. Interviewer: Did you wonder what motivated the people that were sneaking around on the base and made trouble for you? No, I don’t think I wondered about it. The thing most of the troops seemed to wonder about—I don’t know that the questions were answered sufficiently for me until within the last few years being able to look back in hindsight and read the writings of some of the people involved. 37:08 Our questions were, “Why exactly are we here? And what difference is it going to make to these people?” I mean, as you traveled around Vietnam and you see these little farming villages and rice paddies and very little civilization as we 19 �would consider it. The question was, “What difference is anything ever going to make?” I think after it fell we realized it made a big difference and still is today. The reasons we were there, at that point, as I say, I don’t think were sufficiently explained for us to ever answer that question while we were there. To do a job, we did our job, I think we did it honorably, that was my feeling the whole time, at least the people I worked with and the vets I know, but we never really understood why. I think today I understand that basically we drew a line in the sand and said, “You’re not expanding any farther”. 38:05 But I don’t think that was ever sufficiently explained to the soldiers or the country at large, at that point in time to understand why. Interviewer: How long was your tour? My tour ended up being eleven and a half months. It was supposed to be a year, but with the drawdown, at that point they were giving people a two week early come home, which was a nice gift at the end of the tour., your short timer calendar all of a sudden got a little shorter and that was nice. Interviewer: You were in for a three year hitch at the point, so how much time did you have left on that? I had a year and a half left after that, so when I returned to the states I had a thirty day leave and then I was assigned to Fritzsche Army Airfield out at Fort Ord in California. Interviewer: What were you doing there? The same, I was a GCA controller and then I cross trained up in the tower there, when I got done. A whole different deal there—kind of the nice thing is we were only a short distance from the Navy base at Salinas and they did not have a GCA facility. 39:05 We got a lot of the Navy aircraft coming over to train with us otherwise it was really, really 20 �slow compared to Vietnam. At that point, actually, I began taking my own flying lessons at a little club there at the airport, so I would go out a lot of times, when we were having a hard time making the numbers we needed to stay current, and I would fly GCA approaches for the other controllers to help them stay current, which was enjoyable for me. It gave me a few hours and it gives you a different perspective being on the other side of the process. Interviewer: What was Fort Ord like at that time? Fort Ord was still a training facility, and that was unique in that I got tapped once to go to PT tests for recruits. Before we could do that we had to take a four hour test in how you relate to the troops. We were doing the PT tests and by that time they had transitioned to the volunteer army, so there were a lot of things that had been done to us in basic training that were no longer allowed. 40:18 Calling them names of certain types, yelling and screaming and a lot of the things, but we were actually trained in what we could and could not do while we were grading the PT tests. I went out and did that. Fort Ord also had a couple of infantry companies and a rather large MP presence there. At that point it was a very big base, but now it’s been closed down completely, but when I was there it was quite different. Interviewer: What options did you have for entertainment there? Well, of course, we made some trips up to San Francisco, that was a fairly short drive and you had a lot of the great scenic places, Carmel, Big Sur, seventeen mile drive and things right in the local area. 41:00 On the camp, not a whole lot, and the airfield was actually kind of separate from the base camp, so we didn’t even have a lot of contact with the base camp. Those that lived on base lived there, but being married, I lived off post, so I was 21 �very rarely on the base camp, but they did have the usual theater, some museums, PX, of course, and commissary. We went on camp for those kinds of things, but otherwise I didn’t have, really, a whole lot to do with it. Interviewer: Did you have kids at that point? No I didn’t Interviewer: What was your wife doing while you were off in Vietnam? She was back home, and she stayed with her parents in the Detroit area and was working at one of the local banks there as a teller, and when we were out at Fort Ord, she also got a job there at a local bank. Interviewer: What did you do, finally, when your three years were up? At the end of my three years the army actually had a program called Project Transition, which was to take soldiers and train them for leaving the military and having a civilian occupation. 42:06 So, I actually went for about six weeks and worked at the Monterey tower, at the civilian airport there in Monterey. At the time, the tower chief tried to get me to get the FAA to hire me and keep me there, which I actually didn’t want. I’d been a year in Vietnam and a year in California and honestly, I missed the seasons. I wanted to get back here and fortunately, at the time, the FAA wasn’t hiring, so that didn’t come through, but then we made—kind of secured this route home. I visited one of my CO’s from Vietnam, who at that time was the commander of the National Guard in Montana, and I stopped and visited my brother in law, and his wife, up at the air force base up in Minot, North Dakota on the way home. Headed back and visited my parents and, actually, in a matter of days found a job, so we moved to Minneapolis and lived there for 22 �several years before moving to Alaska for a little bit, and then down here to West Michigan. 43:05 Interviewer: What then are you doing in West Michigan? Well, right now I work as a mortgage consultant in this area. When we first moved down here I was on staff at a little camp in the upper Silver Lake, Hart area, actually, and I have been in that area ever since. So, for about fifteen years we have been down here, kind of done a variety of things, and right now working in the mortgage industry. Interviewer: So, did you do any air traffic controlling work after you left the military? I did, when I first left the military the FAA was not hiring, so I worked for several years in the finance area and ended up working as a loan officer in a bank. After about three and a half years the FAA began hiring, so I went and tested and was hired in at Minneapolis Center and worked there as an air traffic controller for eight years. Interviewer: How did you wind up in Alaska? Well, after the big air traffic control strike, which I was a part of, was out working and actually heard about a radio station up there, it was a missionary endeavor, and they were looking for announcers and I ended up there as the station manager and kind of the morning guy for five years. 44:14 Interviewer: Ok, so that’s sort of an interesting hop there and so forth. Did you find the period you were going through the service, and so forth, that your faith helped to keep you on a reasonably straight line or deal with some of the stuff that came up? 23 �Absolutely, yeah, it definitely helped and I think it gives you a calmness of mind sometimes that the others might not have. You can relate to some of the things that happen a little bit differently. Being married, I think, kept me out of trouble in some areas as well, because there were a lot of things going around over there that you didn’t want to catch and it kept you from doing some of those things that cause those. Interviewer: How do you think your time in the military, generally, has affected you? How you view things, or what you do in your life? 45:03 I probably think the biggest, and foremost, is appreciation of this country. When you get over to some of those places and realize how blessed we are in this country. We can complain a lot, but my goodness, we’ve got stuff that those people don’t even dream of , so it’s given you just a huge appreciation of all the wonderful things we have here. And appreciation for the people of this country, I think over there, not that you didn’t appreciate them, but life was so different and their struggling for every little thing, it makes you look at life with a whole different eye. I think probably politics made me more conservative, because as I look at things I see signs around that say, “War is not the Answer”, and I think, “It’s not the answer to what?” Sometimes it’s necessary, there’s no two ways about it, it needs to be done. 46:07 I think one of the neat quotes I’ve read recently was Colin Powell was asked one time when we first went to Iraq if this was American expansionism again, and he said, “You know, America sent thousands of men and women around the world for the cause of freedom, and the only ground we’ve ever asked for was to bury those that didn’t come home”. I think that’s true, it’s not for expansionism, it’s been for a principled reason that we’ve done this, and I think at least when I was in Vietnam we felt that and not known exactly what it was, but at least we 24 �felt, “There’s a principle here and a reason for this although I don’t know what it is, I’m here to fulfill whatever that is. My country’s asked me to do this, I’m doing it for that reason” and, like I say, it was honorable service. At lot of times I look back now and I read things and I still hear things about Vietnam that—it’s hard to deal with, and for a long time I didn’t really let people know I’d been in Vietnam, and it was just one of those things that you didn’t talk about. 47:08 It’s really only been in the last three years that I’ve said, “You know something, I can be proud of this and what I did”, but it keeps me on a more conservative plain. I think the whole experience of having been there, it changes your life and I don’t know if it’s easy to say how, but you come back different, you know that. When my daughters unit came back I had sent some communications there and said, “You are not the same person you were when you left”. You change and a lot of people had a hard time living with that, a lot of families had a hard time dealing with it. Fortunately, my wife was good enough to go through that process with me , and probably kept me from having to deal with some of the stronger things. I have some friends who were infantry or Marine people and they had some struggles, and I don’t blame them. 48:02 Some of the things they saw and experienced were difficult. I didn’t go through a lot of those things, but you still come back and your life is affected, and the whole rest of your life is. Sometimes I don’t know that I can exactly say, “This and this”, but I know it made me a different person. Interviewer: You said you did your best to not let people even know that you had been in Vietnam. On occasion some people did find out you had been there and so forth, what kind of response, or reaction, did you get? 25 �Well, it was interesting—a few years ago when I really sat down and started reviewing Vietnam, finding some of the guys that I had served with over there, I got to thinking about when I got home. When I left the base in California after turning in my jungle gear and getting my stateside, I flew to Detroit, in uniform, carrying a duffle bag, and from the airport I took a limousine out to where my wife was living, to a little restaurant, went inside and called her to have her come and pick me up and then waited outside of that restaurant. 49:08 I can only remember two people talking to me. That’s the person that sold me the airline ticket and the person that sold me the ticket on the limousine. Nobody on the limousine, nobody on the airplane, nobody, as I waited outside the restaurant, said a word. I didn’t realize that at the time, I don’t think, but as I thought backwards, I thought, “That’s kind of strange”. Friends that had not been in the service weren’t antagonistic, but it was kind of like they almost didn’t know how to treat you and what to do, so there was a distance. There was a bit of a wall that was there. I don’t know if they were dealing with, “Is this stuff we’re hearing about these guys true”, or if it was just, “You’ve been through something that caused that to be there”. Like I say, I know I wasn’t the same when I came home, but there was something there for a long time, it was just different. 50:08 Most people that you talk to kind of treat you with indifference, even until today I make it a point when I see a guy with a veterans hat, I’ll walk up and say, “Thanks”. If it’s a Vietnam veteran I always say, “Welcome home”, and it’s like old home week. I don’t care where they served, what they did or anything else, it’s like two buddies just got together. The general public, I think they’re still just—there’s something about Vietnam that they don’t know how to deal with. I think there’s a history that—boy, a lot of what’s out there is not true. It’s hard to understand because it’s the first was that 26 �was not a frontal kind of war, the enemy wasn’t there and us here, it was all around you, so how you dealt with that, how the war was fought, some of the results of things were different. 51:03 Unfortunately a lot of the news that came into people’s homes, that was the first one where you were really hearing kind of instantaneous news, and a lot of it was just plain inaccurate. A lot of the commentators, you know, when they tried to make sense of it, were just plain wrong. I’m sorry, but all you can say. A lot of the information that’s been out there for thirty plus years is incorrect and the people—the Vietnam vets haven’t done a good job of changing it, I don’t think. We haven’t communicated well, and so a lot of people just don’t know the difference. I think they still don’t know how to react. I think the country realizes they treated us wrong and their trying to make that up to the current soldier, but they still don’t know what to do about us. Interviewer: Maybe part of what you got going on is that there was always a political dimension to Vietnam and reasons why we were there. There was a lot of stuff going on at a political level that was, in some cases, willfully deceitful and in many ways embarrassing in retrospect. 52:10 There were also a lot of issues that sort of doubted the validity of the South Vietnamese government and how it treated its own people. A lot of the political negativity, a lot of the negativity, really, that is kind of still there in the post era culture, kind of looks at that. If you go to the military side and find, on the whole, military performance rather better than they’ve had credit for, and they were accomplishing with what they had, but there were political issues beyond that, that were not things under their control. Where the politics get into it, into the outsider in these other area, which may have 27 �something to do with it, but what people lose track of is in order to form a democracy in a country, you have to go and do that and how to figure—I think they are trying, and maybe remembering better now, that some of the baggage that you’re carrying is somebody else’s. 53:10 Exactly, and I think another one of the problems that hasn’t been completely corrected, although I think they’re better, is that the government, along with the shenanigans and things that were going on, also had their nose too much in the military side of the war. They were not letting the military fight the war; they were dictating how it was to be fought, which also created some issues that hurt the military and it hurt our relationship with the public. Perhaps the perception was there, “Well you’re just taking this and carrying it out”, well I sat in briefings with soldiers when I flew sometimes where they were told, “You can’t shoot until you’ve been shot at”, which was a directive that came down from congress. Nonsense, you know—well, of course, what was reported back here, “Troops refuse to go out and fight” , well of course you did, who’s going to do that under that, you know, but most of the troops didn’t refuse to go out and fight. 54:06 When you’re told you’re going to be court marshaled if you pull the trigger first, and I saw a soldier ask a question, “You mean to tell me if I see a guy right over there aiming at my chest, I’ve got to wait until he shoots?” And he was told, “Yes’, well bologna. Number one, that’s no way to fight a war, I mean you’re in it or you’re not, and these were some of the thing—well by then we were pulling out. I mean, things were so confusing and so chaotic sometimes that it was hard to know. Then I read an article last week that they were-- some in the main stream media were hoping that Haditha would be the final atrocity of Iraq like My Lai was of Vietnam. I sat there and looked at that and 28 �thought, “Why is an entire war defined by an atrocity?” That’s incorrect, that’s looking for the wrong thing, but I think Vietnam was looked at that way, in a lot of ways , and still is, so there’s just a discomfort and I think what’s happening is the vets are saying, “We’ll just take care of ourselves then”. 55:12 I hope that it doesn’t get to the point where we say, “To heck with the public, we don’t care what you think”. I’d like to see history corrected and the honor given to the two million plus that were over there that they deserve. Interviewer: One other thing I’d like to touch on before we close—something we talked about before we started the interview and that’s this whole pattern of how they rotated the soldiers in and out of the service. How did that work and what sort of effect do you think that had on the people going through it? Boy, when I see what they’re doing today, and I’ve got some firsthand experience because my daughter’s in the National Guard and has been to Iraq. I went over alone; I didn’t know any of the guys on the airplane with me when I flew over. I didn’t know any of them when I came home. When I got there I was a new guy thrust in with a bunch of people I didn’t know. 56:04 I went through my training and once I was certified, I went through my year, and at the end of that year I came home. You knew that was coming up, in fact, the entire time you were there you were checking off days. If you compare it to WWII it really breaks up continuity. You don’t really get proficient in the job I did, probably, in six months or so--where you’re really good, and by then you’re starting to say, “I’m on the downhill side here, I’m heading out, and I’m going to be a little more careful”. When you go up in the tower and look at the bullet holes in the walls, because it was the highest thing around, you start getting this attitude, “Maybe I don’t like being 29 �here so much”. There was a disconnect between the troops, I think, and the new people a lot of times felt like new people. They were outsiders for a period of time, almost like you kind of had to prove yourself a little bit to get into the in crowd. 57:07 Then I kind of had my group of friends and new people that came in had a hard time. They were almost forming another group, and so there was a constant disconnect, a constant outflow of experience and inflow of inexperience that was taking place at all levels, and it was the same with the commanding officers. I had three commanding officers in the year that I was in Vietnam. One of them was there for only two months because his assignment coming into Vietnam was supposed to be something else, and we knew he was temporary when he came in. But, you’ve got that going on at all levels, from the officers to the staff people, to the controllers, to the POL, and even the pilots you’re working with. They got to know you and trust you and work well with you and then they leave, and so there was just a constant state of flux. 58:03 How it affects the outcome, I don’t know if it would have changed anything, but it certainly created tension thought the time you were there. Interviewer: Because you do kind of hear from people coming back from Iraq, and so forth, what keeps them going and how they do it? One thing that develops is the buddies or the people you are with and you have that. The later stages of WWII you had some replacements going to combat units and you got kind of the same thing, but for the most part, until the very end of the war, you were also in for the duration, so if you survived you got along. I think we kind of pulled this together pretty well and at the end we’re running out of tape at the same time. Thank you very much for talking to us. Thank you for having me. 58:45 30 � 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 Dahlen, Richard (Interview transcript and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dahlen, Richard Description An account of the resource Richard Dahlen served in Army between 1969 and 1972, and spent about a year as an air traffic controller for the Army at Cu Chi in Vietnam. He discusses his specialized training for his assignment, his work at Cu Chi, and his impressions of both the American operations that he was involved in and the Vietnamese people he worked with and observed on the base. He also discusses his views of the war itself and comments on common misperceptions of the war and the men who fought it. 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 Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 2007-10-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DahlenR 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/c55f7aeb7291263076141aa4c775faa7.mp4 f410805a58db268915e6581f215f6bbf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/00bdf224fb9d739282bcc2e24955f9f4.pdf c76351428bafbb2a9aea41485531a92d PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Harold Christian (13:14) Background Information (00:05)      Born May 24th 1935 (00:07) Served as a corporal in the Army in the mid to late 1950s. (00:12) He attended high school in Troy, Michigan until he enlisted in the Military. (00:33) He enlisted due to the safety of Korean conflict having just ended and the opportunities the military offered. (00:49) Between his graduation in the spring and his activation in service n September of 1953/1954, Harold worked at a grocery mart. (1:29) Service (1:40)               Military life was very strange. His first week of service was mostly physicals and paperwork. (1:44) After men from the Korean conflict returned, it was hard for young men to get work in the civilian job market. (2:13) Harold served as a quartermaster. (2:35) He served 2 of his 3 years of service in Alaska. (2:50) There was never a threat of danger for Harold. He was afraid of the war stating up again. (3:17) Most men passed time by drinking or playing pickup basket ball games in a gym. (3:44) Harold sent many letters to his sisters. They often sent boxes of cookies back. (4:26) Holidays were very hard to celebrate in the service. Christmas songs were played at the base in Alaska the day after Thanksgiving. (5:05) Some men would even cry because they knew they would not be home to see their family for Christmas. (5:40) On one Thanksgiving, Harold was invited over to a civilian’s house for Thanksgiving. (6:00) Harold believes he wasted his time in the service. He could have taken more classes and learned more while he was in the service. (6:55) He received a tattoo while in the service. He very much regrets it. When he got them in 1954 the coast for 3 was 50 dollars. (7:53) Harold was turned down from 2 jobs due to his tattoos. (8:55) He was told that if any infection occurred as a result of his tattoo than he would have been court martialed. (9:46) Exiting Service   Harold was discharged in Texas. He was tremendously happy the day he left the service. (10:37) He was able to make close friends while in the military. He lost contact with these people after he was discharged. (11:16) Life after Service (12:09) �   Harold worked for Ford Motor Company. He then went to an airline school in Kansas City. (12:11) In 1994 he retired from the airline business. (12:42) He supports the VFW but is not in any veteran’s organization. (12:50) � 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 Christian, Harold (Interview outline and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christian, Harold Description An account of the resource Harold Christian served as a Quartermaster in the U.S. Army from approx 1954-1957 after the Korean Conflict. While in the service, Harold spent two years stationed in Alaska and one year stationed in Texas. After exiting the service he pursued a care as an airline pilot. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Christian, Tessa (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. 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 2011-11-19 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ChristianH1356V 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/e5719330e9f35af8eeabccf0b7806177.mp4 45664778e39e1d8517afcc6b5cfa253b https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8d00ab3cdf45be5eb3ad3fee235781b4.pdf c3ec0785e45e0ca91b0bbdfd5560df39 PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW DAVID CHRISTIAN Born: Muskegon, Michigan Resides: Grand Rapids, Michigan Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, May 30, 2013 Interviewer: Mr. Christian, can you start with a little background on yourself, where and when were you born? I was born in 1946 in Muskegon, Michigan. My family lived in Muskegon Heights, Michigan and I grew up there. We moved when I was five years old, I guess, to the home that I grew up in, the only one that I remember. Interviewer: Was that still in Muskegon? Yes, that was in Muskegon Heights and I went through grade school, junior high and high school, and graduated in 1964. 1:09 Interviewer: What did your family do for a living? My father worked for Tyler Sales, which was Drewry‟s Beer. He was the warehouse manager, so I grew up helping him on Saturday‟s, wash the trucks, loading the trucks, doing that. My mother worked for Stanley Home Products for several years. My dad left that job and worked at Bennett Pumps in Muskegon Heights. They made the pumps for gas stations and he retired from there and they moved on to Florida. I graduated from high school in 1964 and Vietnam was just starting and there wasn‟t much in the papers about it, but a friend and I that graduated together, we decided that we were going to go into the Marine Corps together. 2:10 So, we went in and he couldn‟t get in. 1 �Interviewer: What was your motivation at that point, just a whim? What was attractive about the Marine Corps? No, I knew some guys that had been in the Marine Corps, only older of course, and the uniform, like everybody says, that uniform is a killer. So, I thought that was pretty impressive and I read a lot about the Marine Corps and the things that were going on and what they had done since 1776. I just said, “I‟m not messing around with any other branch of the service, I‟m going for the big guns”. Interviewer: And why go into the service rather than...? Did you have a prospect to go to college, or would you just have gone to work somewhere? I graduated with the general degree and I never had any college thoughts. 3:05 I figured I‟d just work and then I went and talked to the recruiter and decided, “This is where I want to go”, and so we joined. Interviewer: You said your friend didn’t get in. No, he didn‟t get in, but another friend of mine that I graduated with, he did get in, so we went in on the buddy system, and went to San Diego for our recruit training. We got out of San Diego and came home on leave. Interviewer: Now, let’s back up here a little bit. A lot of people nowadays aren’t familiar with what the Marine Corps basic training consisted of , so what kind of reception did you get when you got to San Diego? If you‟ve ever seen anything on TV that‟s it Interviewer: Can you explain that? You get off an airplane, or however you got to California, you get on a cattle car, or a bus and these drill instructors are in your face. 4:11 It‟s dead on, you sit straight, you don‟t 2 �talk, you look straight ahead, you don‟t scratch, you don‟t do anything. If you just turn your eyes, they‟re right there, they watch you and It‟s discipline, discipline, discipline the whole time. You get off the bus and they‟re yelling at you, there‟s five or six that some and swarm you. You get off the bus and they got footprints painted all over and you go jump on the footprints, drop all your stuff, and stand at attention, as best as we knew attention, and they will tell you, they‟ll adjust you until you get it the Marine Corps way. Then for the next ten days, I mean, it‟s nothing but yelling, the whole time they‟re yelling. Drill instructors do not talk, they yell. 5:03 Interviewer: Were you expecting that when you went? Yes, because I had seen some things on TV, my brother-in-law, at the time, was a Marine Corps recruiter in New York, so he kind of clued me in on what was going on. Interviewer: So, you knew these guys were not completely insane and there was a particular thing they were doing? In general, how well did you adjust to the marine way of doing things? I enjoyed it because I‟ve always been kind of—I like discipline, I like things in a certain order, and I liked the discipline, I got to it right away and it never bothered me, because I knew how to take an order. Interviewer: Aside from learning to take orders and so forth, what other kind of training were you getting there at that stage? A lot of physical, of course, you get up in the morning and triple S and you‟re out the door. 6:10 You stand in line and then you start calisthenics for a while and they start out fairly slow to get people adjusted to it, but then a lot of running, a lot of heavy lifting and things. It‟s all to break you down and then build you up mentally and physically. 3 �Interviewer: Were you in pretty good physical shape when you went in? Yeah, I was because I was on the gymnastics team, and the cross country team in high school, so I was in pretty good shape. Interviewer: That and throwing a few beer kegs around probably helped. Well, I did a lot of that too Interviewer: In general, what kinds of people were there along with you? People from every walk of life--we had people from New York, Chicago, California and, of course, they stood out because they were “sunshine boys”, and all glamour guys it seemed. 7:09 A lot from the Midwest, farmers, I mean people that were uneducated and people that had college already, it was amazing. Interviewer: Was there an ethnic mix to it? Were there blacks? Oh yeah, we had black, white, Mexican, I think there were a couple Japanese, it was just a mixture. Interviewer: Did most of them get through the training in one piece, or did people bounce out? Oh, we lost a few and I can‟t remember exactly how many we started out with, but we lost a few through—they couldn‟t take the physical part of it and they‟d fall out. Some of them couldn‟t take the mental part and they‟d fall out. 8:00 Some of them just absolutely didn‟t like it, so they‟d do anything they could to get out. Interviewer: Now, at this stage, was the Marine Corps in a position where they could still be a little bit pickier than they were going to be later? Oh yeah, the Marine Corps back then was an elite group. There were probably less than fifty thousand people in the Marine Corps, so they could be pretty selective at that time. 4 �Interviewer: So, how long is the basic training then? Thirteen weeks, everything in the Marine Corps seems to be thirteen weeks. Interviewer: Now, did you got to an advanced training before you got leave to go home, or did you go home just after the thirteen weeks? After boot camp we went to, it was called ITR, infantry training regiment, in Camp Pendleton, and then we left right from there and went home for a few days. Interviewer: How was the infantry training at Camp Pendleton different from boot camp? 9:01 It‟s a lot more physical, you‟re carrying packs because they‟re getting you set to carry things, plus the rifle, taking instant orders, and acting instantly in bad situations, where somebody‟s shooting at you. Interviewer: At this stage in your career were you still just basically a foot soldier or were you going to get training for more specialized duties? I knew that I had signed up for air wing, which was working on either fixed wing or helicopters, and I knew that schooling was coming, so after ITR, the infantry training, we knew we were going to a different school. Interviewer: But in the meantime, you were getting the same infantry training as everybody else. Oh yes, yes, all marines are riflemen, it doesn‟t matter, clerk, cook, it doesn‟t matter, you‟re all riflemen. 10:04 Interviewer: What kinds of weapons were you training on at that point? 5 �The M-14, at that time, is what we had. We started out carrying the M-1 carbine, but we never did shoot that, you just carry it, but then they switched over, afterwards, to the M14 and we got later into the 45. Interviewer: Did you work with machine guns or mortars or things like that too? We got to shoot each one of those. They just—they give you the basics, if you were, especially the ground troops, if they were going on to infantry, they would give them more training, either on mortars, machine guns, or BAR, whatever they had. Interviewer: The people who were doing the training, were they combat veterans mostly, or just people who had been in the corps in peacetime, or do you not know? 11:00 I really didn‟t know, now there were some that-- the little older guys, who had Korea. Most of them were younger and probably hadn‟t seen any combat because there really wasn‟t anything going on then. Interviewer: Right, we hadn’t been engaged in Vietnam yet, so they’re not coming back from that yet, at this point. There were some that were from Vietnam because Vietnam, we had troops there since like. 1955. Interviewer: Yes, there were some that had been advisors. There were some that had been there, but not in a combat situation. Interviewer: So, was the combat training still geared for fairly conventional warfare at that point? Yes it was, the same thing that, probably, every service went through, it was all the same. 6 �Interviewer: Not geared specifically toward Vietnam or jungle fighting, or that kind of thing yet? No Interviewer: Later on it would be, but not at that stage. So, you go through the infantry training, and what was it like to go back home again after several months in the Corps? 12:04 I walked a little straighter, I walked a little prouder, I probably thought I was a little tougher than what I really was. That was interesting, to see some of my friends that I had competed against in high school. Here I come home in a uniform and Marine Corps, that was—they were impressed. Interviewer: It was still early enough for that response—you could still come home in uniform and it was not a big deal. Then you go—where do you go for your next round of training? After my leave I went back to California, Camp Pendleton, for ITR. We got out of there and I went to Millington, Tennessee, Memphis, for they call it mechfund, mechanical fundamentals, on the jets. 13:04 Interviewer: How long of a training course was that? I really can‟t remember that, but it was probably, at least, three months, because we went through how the aircraft is built and the structures and everything, and there was quite a bit on that, and some hydraulics, some electronics, seeing as how I was an aviation structural mechanic, we got more into the metal facets of it. Interviewer: What was the daily routine like there as opposed to what it had been in the infantry training or something else? 7 �There wasn‟t a whole lot of PT. You might get out and do a half an hour of calisthenics or something, but then it was mainly just a school situation. 14:07 Interviewer: Did you get much hands on work? Oh yeah, after the first couple of weeks then it was your--of course not right on a jet, because that was what I was going into was fixed wing. We‟d have parts to look at. Interviewer: Was the group that you were with a little bit different from the one that you’d been with in the earlier stages of training? Did they have more education or practical experience? Most of them had higher education or at least finished high school. Some of them had some basic metal training. It was just a bunch of nineteen year old kids trying to do something. Interviewer: Once you finished that, what’s the next step for you? 15:00 After that, after the school, then we got to go home on leave again, and then we were assigned a base where we were going to go and learn what was going on all levels of fixed wing aircraft, and like a group situation with hundreds of guys working and doing different jobs. Interviewer: Okay, so where did you get sent then? After Tennessee what’s the next stop/ After Tennessee, I‟ve been trying to think of that and I‟ll tell you it is—my mind—I can‟t remember a lot of the things that went on. I can‟t remember where I went. Interviewer: Was it a long stay or just a couple of months? 16:02 It was fairly short because September, August—September of 1965 I was in California and at El Toro and we got on a ship at Long Beach and went to Vietnam. 8 �Interviewer: What was the ride on the ship like? It was like nothing I had ever seen before in my life. I‟d watch the thing—my father was in WWII and he was in the 8th Army air wing, or Air Corps, and when they came home they came home with their planes and that and it was the first time I had ever seen a ship that big with that many people on it. 17:04 Twenty guys in a room like my bedroom, and you had beds that were this far apart stacked floor to ceiling and bulkhead to bulkhead. It was just—close quarters, very hot, and just chaos to me. Interviewer: Did people get sea sick on top of that? Oh yeah, fortunately I grew up in a fishing family, so that never bothered me and I‟ve been, growing up in Muskegon, I‟ve been on Lake Michigan, and Muskegon Lake, so storms, that never bothered me, but I watched a lot of guys over the rail. Interviewer: About how long did that trip take? Thirty days, we were on the USS Princeton, an LPH-5, which was carrying helicopters and jets. 18:07 I can‟t remember how long the ship is, but you could run around it in about three minutes and we did a lot of that. We ran into a big storm out in the middle of the ocean and it was—we were going up and down sixty feet, and I mean, it was a lot and a lot of people getting sick. Interviewer: Did you stop off anyplace on the way? We stopped in Hawaii, we got in there early in the morning, I can remember coming around, I think that‟s Diamond Head, coming into port in Hawaii and I thought, “This is nice, we‟re going to get some leave in Hawaii, all right”, and they wouldn‟t let us off the base, so we did get to go off the ship and walk around on the docks while they refueled and took on more food. 19:08 We were standing there watching them load the ships 9 �and they were loading on live ammunition, and everybody was saying, “What‟s this for?” They told us that we were going on an exercise and when they started taking on live ammo everybody‟s thinking, “What, what is this?” Of course there are some guys that were smarter than others and they kind of figured that we were going to Vietnam, but they didn‟t tell us that until two days out of Hawaii, and then they told us we were going to Vietnam. Interviewer: Was Vietnam the next stop, or did you stop somewhere else? Vietnam was the next stop. Interviewer: Where did you land? We landed just off of Chu Lai, and we went off the shop in helicopters—bail out of the helicopter and set up what they call a hasty perimeter for defense, because we were all thinking we were going to be getting shot at and all this, you know, nineteen year old kids. 20:07 We jumped off and everybody‟s aiming their rifles and all this. We looked up and here‟s a Seabee sitting on his bulldozer just laughing at us. He‟s out there with no shirt just enjoying the sun and watching these dumb marines coming off the helicopters and thinking they‟re going to be getting into a battle. Interviewer: So there were some people there before you were? Oh yes, we were one of the first air units to go in, probably the first big influx of marines to go into Vietnam. Interviewer: What did you do once you got there? Once we got there, the first thing they did was, once we got everybody off the ship and all our gear and everything, the first thing is you‟ve got to set up a perimeter for guard duty. 21:09 Of course, that‟s the first thing I got, was being on guard duty, because they 10 �didn‟t have anything built yet to start working on aircraft and we only had a few aircraft at that time. We just got in our fire teams, which is four guys. It‟s usually a lance corporal, corporal and then three lesser people to run a fire team, and they‟d set us on a bunker line. We had to build our own bunkers, but fortunately we ran into a Seabee and kind of made friends with this guy and gave him some cigarettes, or something, and he took his big bulldozer and dug us out a hole right on this ridge. 22:00 I mean it was beautiful; we had the best bunker in the whole unit. Interviewer: What kind of building materials were you working with? Was it sandbags or metal sheeting? A lot of sandbags, and we‟d go out and cut down palm trees and use them and just steal what you can. We went in and we got some—it the night we‟d go in and commandeer some martial matting. We‟d put it over the hole and then four or five layers of sandbags. Whatever you could get, that‟s what you‟d use. Guys dug it by hand and used rocks or anything else they could get. Interviewer: Now, did you have things like barbed wire and mines and stuff like that as well? There was that, but we didn‟t get into that because that was more of a specialty and there were guys that were trained in how to use that. They call it concertina wire and it comes in big rolls, but all it is, is barbed wire. 23:02 They went down on the beach and set those up and they‟d put out mines and pop flares and other things for security. Interviewer: So, were there regular marine ground troops there? We had the ground troops, but just a very small unit, just for that reason, to do those things. 11 �Interviewer: Now, the area where you were, was there a civilian population there? There was a village not too far from where we were at Chu Lai. There was some ROK marines, Korean marines that were stationed not too far away. There was a hospital area being built not too far away, a couple of miles, I guess. Interviewer: Did you have much contact with the civilians or the Koreans? 24:02 No, no contact what so ever, we were on one hundred percent alert, because they didn‟t know and nobody knew what was going on right then, so we were on, pretty much, one hundred percent alert all the time and you couldn‟t go anywhere, and there wasn‟t anywhere to go, because there was nothing there. Interviewer: So, there was not really a city or town close to where you were, or anything else like that. No, just the little village Interviewer: Now, did you have any contact with the enemy after you got there? Yeah, we did—of course we had--the probes would come in right away, I mean the first night we had people coming up close to what wire we had out there, and we didn‟t have a lot that first night. I‟m thinking, it was either on the second or third night we were out there, we had some come in and I was on my turn for watch. 25:02 At that time there were just two guys—you had the fire team, but you had two guys in a hole and that was just a foxhole. I was on watch and I was looking out and the enemy shot one round and it hit right in front of me and kicked pebbles and stuff in my face, and cut my face up a little bit, but not bad, and then everybody just unloaded on that one spot that they thought where he was. Then that first night, that was just about it, or second night, then after that it was intermittent mortar attacks and sniping, nothing real serious. 12 �Interviewer: So, you didn’t get sappers trying to come in and blow things up yet or anything like that? No, not then, because there really wasn‟t anything there yet, they hadn‟t even gotten the tents and stuff set up and the runway—the flight line wasn‟t even built yet. 26:06 That was part of our job, during the day we did that and at night we were on guard duty. Interviewer: So, you were actually trying, physically, help build a runway at that point? Yeah, the runway and we used Marshall matting, they call it, and it‟s just big eighteen foot steel sheets and they interlock. Of course the Seabees were out there and they leveled the stuff off and then we went out there put it down and they moved the stuff around for us then. Interviewer: Then how quickly did you get aircraft in? It seems like once we got a big enough section they started bringing stuff in pretty quickly. It was maybe two weeks before we really got the birds coming in. Interviewer: Once the aircraft started coming in did your job switch more to actual maintenance work, or were you still doing a lot of guard duty? I was on guard duty and doing that the whole time I was at Chu Lai, I never did work on any of the planes there. 27:08 They weren‟t flying any operations or anything then. I was there maybe two months and then I got transferred up to Marble Mountain, which was helicopters. Interviewer: Okay, well tell us about that then. First of all where was Marble Mountain? 13 �Marble Mountain is three or four miles, I think, from Da Nang and right on the South China Sea. That base was already set up when I there and they already had the Marshall matting down and there were helicopters there, so I moved in right there, right into the metal shop they call it, and they were doing operations when I got there. Interviewer: How was life there different from what it had been like in Chu Lai? 28:03 It was a little more peaceful and you weren‟t so on edge all the time, at least I wasn‟t. We had a place, a tent, a hardback they call them, we had a place to live, the mess hall was set up, you had three meals a day, and you‟d just get up in the morning and go do your job, it was just pretty much like it was after Vietnam, you get up, go to work and you come home. Interviewer: This was not an area where you were under rocket attack, or mortar attack or things like that? There wasn‟t a lot of that—we did get—we‟d get the probes, of course, and we‟d get people trying to come in through the wire, and once in a while there‟d be two or three mortars come in, but it was never anything serious until like October. 29:08 We got—I think it was October 28th, 29th of 1965, and that‟s when we had quite a few come in and they attacked Marble Mountain, Da Nang, and Chu Lai on the same night. Sappers came in and we lost sixteen aircraft, one corpsman was killed that was sleeping in the aircraft, because he was on standby. I heard later that it was Tab Hunter‟s, the movie star's, brother, and I don‟t know that for a fact. At that time I was on reactionary platoon, so I did my job during the day, and then at night, if anything happened, they‟d call us out. 30:06 After work on the 29th or 28th, whatever it night it was, I went to the club like I 14 �always did because there‟s nothing else to do, so I‟m in there drinking beer and having a good time there and went to bed, and about one o‟clock in the morning they called us out. Mortars were coming in, the siren went off and everybody grabbed their rifle, helmet, and bandolier and you go out and do your job. Interviewer: What happened, or what did you see that night? We had a place we were supposed to meet, and then they told us where to go and there was a group—they told us to go up to the flight line, because we had them coming in through the north wire. 31:00 So, we were heading up there and soon as I got to the flight line I saw several helicopters on fire, of course stuff is still going off, rounds going off, it‟s like watching a John Wayne movie. There were three or four of us running up the flight line going to where we were supposed to go and one of the rockets that was , I don‟t know how it happened, it was either on the bird or in staging, or whatever, but it had lit off and it was shooting down, and I mean, coming at us, We weren‟t in any danger, I didn‟t think because it wasn‟t that close to us, but here comes this rocket shooting down the runway—it was—then I was thinking, “Wow, what is this?” 32:03 Later we were laughing about it, of course. We were running up to our spot and this one corporal that lived in our tent, Corporal Brulet, he was on bunker watch that night and he was yelling at us, “There‟s some over there, there‟s some over there”, and then he opened up with a machine gun and killed three or four of them. We ran up to our flight line to where we were supposed to meet and the VMO squadron was up here, that‟s Huey‟s, I was in 34‟s, H-34‟s, and they said that they were coming, they had been through the wire already, so we got our people out here on bunker watch, but then there‟s people inside the wire and I don‟t know how many they‟d killed then, but they did kill some of the enemy. 15 �33:07 Then we got just grabbed up by somebody else and said, “Were going over here and see what we can see”. Lieutenant Green--Greenway, or something like that anyway, he said, „We‟re going to take some captives, take some alive, so you, you and you setup here”. Well, I jumped—I ran up--we were on the ground and watching in between the tents, and I looked between these two tents and there‟s a VC here and a VC here on the corner of this tent and I pulled up to shoot him and the Lieutenant said, “No, don‟t shoot him, don‟t shoot him”, and about that time I saw a little spark from this guys‟ hand and something hit me in the shoulder. 34:05 It rolled down and I looked and it was a C ration can grenade and it looked to me like a C ration can. They had told us some of the things to expect there, so I yelled, “Grenade”, and rolled over and put my hands over my head. This thing went off and chewed up my right side a little bit, nothing serious, but the pain was unbelievable, but fortunately my rifle took the worst of the hit and it chewed my stock all to pieces, and we were carrying M-14‟s, so that‟s a pretty good stock. It got me in the right side, and it got another guy that was a little ways from me, and he took some in the left arm. Interviewer: Did that finish the fight for you, or did you stay in a while longer? They—I heard somebody yelling for their mother and I was thinking, “What a pansy this guy”, and I found out later it was me. 35:11 I‟d never experienced anything like that, but they did, they dragged me off and the corpsman was right there, and said, “It‟s not serious”, and he threw some bandages on and said, “You stay here”, and about that time the Captain came up and he took my rifle and he went after the guys‟, I guess. Interviewer: As far as you know, did they actually capture any of them? 16 �Yes they did, we did capture two alive, I believe, and they killed--I don‟t know how many were killed, but I was sitting out the rest of the fight pretty much. When it was all over they came, and I got my rifle back and my wounds weren‟t serious, it was—inside the C ration can was flints from a lighter and they were green, so they were Russian flint. 36:10 Plus, there were some other things—I had a few pieces in me, but it was—I could walk and I was still able to move around. Then we were going out, and they sound the all clear and everything was done with. Of course it was daylight then, and they started gathering up the dead and we had four or five wounded, I think, of our guys, and of course the corpsman was killed, but there was a boatload of VC and they were picking them up and putting them on a four by, which is a big truck. Interviewer: How quickly were you back on duty after that? They took me from there, put me on a helicopter and took me to the Charlie med, which was up right near Da Nang. 37:07 They just took out the pieces that they could and bandaged up stuff and said, “Okay, you can go back to your unit”, so it was about three miles, I think, and started walking back to base, there were a couple of us. We got a ride from other units and they just took us back to the base, and when I checked in it was just work as usual. Interviewer: Now, did you have any other incidents, large scale attacks, or was that the one crisis point while you were there? That was the big thing and we did have one later on. I was—like I said before, “All marines are riflemen”. 38:02 So, you do your job during the day, then at night you‟re on guard duty. I was on guard duty, and you get that about every couple months. You get it anywhere from two weeks to thirty days and I was on the listening post every third 17 �night, I think it was. There was another guy, and I can‟t even remember his name, it‟s been a long time, but this was around December, because I remember some people had Christmas trees and things. I used to really enjoy Christmas and after the Christmas of 1965 I never liked it again. I didn‟t want anything to do with Christmas because I really missed being home. 39:00 We were out on the listening post and we had—of course you have a night vision scope and that would take any heat and magnify it. They were nothing like they are today, but back then they called it a Starlight scope and it was quite scientific back then. We had wires out and if any vibration would come on it would light up this board and tell you where movement was. It wouldn‟t tell you what it was, it would just say there was movement, and it had to be—they could put the sensitivity, so they‟d put it like ninety, eighty, ninety pounds, so they figure it would be a human. We had this board and we had a radio that we could radio back with, and one night our board lit up, so we called in and said, “We got possible movement in wire at station---“. I can‟t remember what it was, well then another light went on and pretty soon the whole board lit up. 40:05 I mean, it was lit up and the lights were just flashing, so we knew there was a lot of movement. They lit a flare and there were probably twenty people in the wire, and they had already gotten through the outer wire. Interviewer: The listening post itself, was that inside the wire? That was outside the perimeter of the bunker. Interviewer: But the wire was still beyond— We had two things of wire beyond that, so—but we were the farthest ones out. It lit up and they called us back, of course you‟re whispering you know, and they said, “Keep your head down, they‟re all over out there”, so that‟s what we did and there was shooting 18 �for maybe a half hour or so. 41:00 When it was over they—of course flares are going off the whole time, and if we would have popped our head up it would have been like that little Gopher in those games, pop your head up and somebody is going to stomp on you. Interviewer: So, you just stayed hunkered down? We stayed right down in the bottom because that‟s what they told us to do, so we did that and I can‟t remember how long it was, but it seemed like it took an awful long time, but it probably was no more than ten or fifteen minutes actually. But, then they sounded the all clear and there were a lot of flares going off, when we got up out of the hole they said, “Get up and come back to the bunker line”, and when we did that there was a VC about ten feet from us that had been shot, so he was close to us and fortunately didn‟t see us. They had sapper charges on some of them, but most of them had those old single shot rifles and a couple of them just had sticks. 42:03 But, they dope them up on Opium, or whatever it was and they‟d go at us with anything they had. Interviewer: No, when you were doing your actual maintenance and mechanical work, did you have a lot of battle damage to repair? Did you have a lot of work to do? Yeah, we did, and mainly it was patching bullet holes, because helicopters and 34‟s, they‟re a slow flying thing and ninety five percent of the bullet holes were in the bottom, so what you‟d do is you‟d just drill out that hole and make it bigger and it all depends on where it was on the helicopter, you‟d just put a patch over it, or put a flush patch, which is make the hole bigger, put a piece that fits inside that hole and then put a piece over that and one on the inside and rivet them together. 43:02 19 �Interviewer: Now, were you losing a lot of helicopters shot down, or completely disabled? No, we did, we had a couple that were shot down and lost, but I don‟t think there were that many. You know, after that initial, we lost sixteen helicopters in October and after that I can‟t remember losing, but maybe, one or two that crashed. Interviewer: Did those sixteen get replaced pretty quickly? Yeah, it was just a day or two and we had them come in, because they had them stacked up at Da Nang. Interviewer: Did you get to fly in the helicopters yourself? Once in a while, I‟d just go on like a mail run or a test flight or something, but I was never a crew chief or anything like that, but once in a while we got to fly in them. 44:01 Interviewer: Now, a Marble Mountain, did they have any Vietnamese or civilian personnel there? Yeah, we had quite a few—they worked in the mess hall, they worked in the laundry, the barber shop, we had them doing a lot of things. They‟d work for us during the day and at night some of them were VC sympathizers and they—we did have—our barber cut hair during the day and at night he‟d come in with some others and mark trails. They had little trails through the wire. Interviewer: Now, did he get caught at some point? He was caught and he was shot and killed and he died up in our water tower. They didn‟t find him for two days, but they found he was dead up in the water tower. Then, of course, they had to drain it and clean it and start over again. 45:01 20 �Interviewer: Did they give you much by way of security warnings or tell you what you should or shouldn’t say around the Vietnamese people who came through? We got the Vietnamese etiquette on board ship. They told us that you don‟t touch them on the head, when you‟re sitting you don‟t cross your legs and point the sole of your feet at them, because the sole of your feet is the closest thing to the devil, and if you did that you were, evidently, wishing the devil on them, and if you touched them on the head, the little kids, you weren‟t supposed to do that to little kids, because that was closest to Buddha. Interviewer: In terms of just warning you about some of these people maybe being VC sympathizers, or to be careful what you say around them or anything like that? Yeah, you know that old thing back in WWI or WWII of whatever, you know, “Loose lips sink ships”. 46:07 That old saying, they‟d throw that at us a lot, but you didn‟t know because they all look the same. I mean, we had some that worked for us during the day and we‟d shoot them at night, and that happened, not every night, but that happened a bit. Interviewer: Did you have any Vietnamese military personnel working with you? We did on some of our—we‟d go out on patrols—I got to go on a few patrols. We‟d go down to the orphanage, that was down the beach from us a few miles, and we‟d have a, either South Vietnamese military personnel with us, or a Kit Carson scouts. 47:00 Kit Carson scouts were North Vietnamese, or Vietcong, that had been captured and retrained, repatriotized, or whatever they call it, and they worked for us. A lot of them hated the North Vietnamese. 21 �Interviewer: While you were there, did you have much of a sense of the larger political picture of what was going on, or were you just kind of there to do a job and do what they told you? Pretty much, I was there to do what I was told to do and get back home. Interviewer: What impression did you have of your enemy at that point, what did you think of them? Kill him before he kills us and that was pretty much it. Interviewer: About how long then did you stay at Marble Mountain? I was probably at Marble Mountain about ten months. 48:01 Interviewer: During that time did you get any leave time or R&R, or anything like that? I was—Yeah, I did—I was to—I got my R&R, rest and relaxation, but that‟s not what we called it, we called it I&I. I had picked Hong Kong, so I got to go to Hong Kong for five days and that was inebriation for five days, that‟s what that was. Interviewer: What was it like to go back after that? It‟s like coming back home, you know, I felt comfortable in that combat situation. When we were in Hong Kong, when I would sober up, I was afraid. 49:03 I‟d always look, you know—when I was sober the first thing in the morning I‟d go into a bar, I‟d walk in off the street and immediately go left or right, put my back against the wall, and wait until my eyes adjusted before I went in, and then I would sit against the wall so I could see the doors. Interviewer: So you’d absorbed a certain amount of what you had to do to survive where you were. 22 �Yeah Interviewer: In general, how would you characterize the morale on the base while you were there? We were pretty much “gung ho”, everybody knew they had a job to do and we were told we were saving Vietnam from communism, and the guys were ready to do their job and you would always watch somebody else‟s back. 50:05 That‟s the one thing that I truly loved about the Marine Corps, somebody was always watching your back. That was really instilled in me, just even in that short time that I was in, so far less than a year. Interviewer: Some of the sort of stereotypes about the Vietnam experience includes issues like racial tension, or drug use or other things like that. Was there really much of a discipline problem where you were? Not in the beginning, after a while it got to be—because there was a lot of stuff going on back in the states, racial things were going on, so it got to be that way there also. Of course, you got your cliques—the black guys had their own things and white guys would stay over here and there was a lot of racial tension toward the end of my first tour. 51:15 Interviewer: Now, would that boil over into fights? Oh yeah, there were fights, there were some stabbings, there were shootings on both sides, and I never got into any of it because I was pretty much—I had some—I grew up, went through school, my whole time in school was a mix. Interviewer: Muskegon Heights was one of the first places where you had a large black population in that area. 23 �Yeah, so I grew up in that and I just—I never had any problems. I knew some guys that did, because they came out of the Midwest, or something, that didn‟t have a significant black population and there were some troubles. 52:04 Interviewer: Were their southern whites there as well? Yeah, and they were—they had the rebel flag up and they were told to take it down. They took it down from outside, but they had it up inside and there was a lot of that. Some areas—it‟s like the base—it‟s like a little city, there‟s some places—just like Grand Rapids, there‟s some places a white person doesn‟t want walk and there‟s some places that black people will kind of shy away from, and it was the same there. You didn‟t go into certain sections of the tent unit. Interviewer: How much of an effort did the officers, or leadership, make to deal with this and control it? Oh, they tried, they tried to do a lot of things, but it just never seemed to—nothing ever worked. 53:01 The only way you could do it is you try to figure out the ringleaders, the heads of it, and transfer them out, and that happened quite a bit. Interviewer: Were there problems with things like drug use or was it too early for that yet? I never saw it, but I talked to some people that were there with me, later in years, and then I found out that there was some heavy duty drug use there. I knew some guys that did it, we went—we use to play a lot of cards and we were playing cards and these were in there smoking marijuana. I didn‟t know what it was, it wasn‟t anywhere around when I was in school. I didn‟t know what the stuff was and I didn‟t want anything to do with it. I smoked cigarettes, but I didn‟t want that, but I drank and my big thing was beer, I love 24 �beer. 54:06 I would drink the beer, but you‟d get that contact high in the tent and that was enough for me, but I never did any of the hard stuff, injections, I never would do that. Interviewer: As you got toward the end of your thirteen months there, were you kind of counting down the days to get out at that point? Oh yeah, you get your short timers calendar after—at a hundred days left, and what these are is just a drawing of something. Ninety percent of the time it‟s a naked woman and you color it in the spots, the numbers, starting from ninety nine on down and once you get down to a few days, the shorter you get then you come out with the sayings, “I‟m so short I‟ve got to climb on a ladder to get to the mess hall”, or a lot of silly things. 55:15 Interviewer: One of the things that went on a lot in Vietnam later on when they had a regular system of troop rotation, and guys come and go as individuals, but you had gone in pretty much as a unit initially? Yeah, we went in as a unit, but when we got to Chu Lai then we kind of dispersed and went out to other air stations. Some guys went up to Phu Bai , Marble Mountain and that, so we were leaving at the end of our thirteen months, we were leaving by ourselves and going back home. Interviewer: So you are all on separate schedules and things, not all picking up and going at the same time at that point? Yes Interviewer: Did your duties change at all as you got toward the very end of your tour? Did they pull you off of certain things, or did you just keep doing the same thing the whole time? 56:04 25 �They kept us on the same—we were on the same thing. Some of the guys would say, “I‟ve got five days left, I don‟t need to go out on guard duty”. Well, you‟ve got a limited amount of people, so some guys had to. Two days before I left I had bunker watch and that was just—that was my job, so I did it. Interviewer: Now, were you having new men transferred in while you were there? Yeah, it was constant; there were people going and people coming all the time. Interviewer: Did you have a responsibility to orient the new men and things like that? Was that part of what you did? Not so much, because we—in the metal shop we were a pretty close knit group and all of us had just about the same amount of time, so when one guy left it wasn‟t very long that somebody else would come in and somebody else would leave, so that change, I didn‟t really see that because I was one of the first ones to go. 57:11 Interviewer: Once you do finish that tour, then where do you get sent? They sent me back to the states. I got in California and they said, “You got thirty days leave and then you‟re to report to your next duty station”, and mine was going to be Cherry Point, North Carolina, fixed wing aircraft. So, I went back to Muskegon for my leave and I left early, I didn‟t stay my whole thirty days, I couldn‟t take that undisciplined life, it was too hard on me. 58:00 It was a real shock when I got—when I left California it was beautiful California, short sleeve shirts and I had on my short sleeve uniform, got to Chicago and in the middle of a blizzard. I‟ve got on my green uniform, the wool pants, but just a cotton short sleeved shirt and it is cold, and that‟s about all I really got. Fortunately I had my big heavy horse coat in the bottom of my seabag, so I did dig that out in Chicago. I flew into Muskegon, got off the plane in Muskegon and it‟s not too 26 �bad. It was cold, but didn‟t have a whole lot of snow. It was early in the morning, five o‟clock, or something like that, in the morning and I called a cab to go home. 59:04 I didn‟t want to bother my parents, they didn‟t know I was coming home. I called them when I was in California and said, “I‟ll be home when I get there”, because I was having a hard time adjusting to civilian, or not civilian life, but not in a combat situation. I was having a hard time. I got off the plane, called a cab, and I‟m standing there outside waiting for the cab and he pulled up and I‟m in my uniform and he flipped me “the bird” and drove off, so he was a Vietnam protester. Interviewer: That’s only like 1966. That was 1966, so I said, “Well, I guess I‟ll walk”, so I started walking from--I lived on the north side of Mona Lake and the airport is on the south side of Mona lake, and it‟s maybe three or four miles around, so I just started walking home. 00:12 I walked out to the main road, which is Airport Road and some guy was coming by and stopped and gave me a ride, and took me right to my house. Interviewer: That kind of balanced out the cab driver a little bit. Yeah, it was an older guy and he was going to work, you know. I can‟t even remember now, our conversation or anything, but he took me right to my house and I got out of his car and thanked him for the ride. I walked up and looked up, I was standing in the middle of the road looking at my house and the drapes opened up and there was my mother standing in the window. And of course then it‟s, “Everybody get up, David‟s home”, and that was pretty nice. Interviewer: But you weren’t all that comfortable staying there then once you got home? 27 �No, I loved my family and I missed them the time I was gone, but I also loved my brothers still in Vietnam. 1:13 I didn‟t want to leave them in that situation, so I was having a hard time. I felt guilty about leaving and I‟ve talked to a lot of guys since and a lot of guys had that. They felt guilty about leaving “Nam”. After the first couple of days of seeing family and friends and that, I kind of got back into going to the bar at night. The VFW, of course, you‟d have to go to the club with my dad, he belonged to the Muskegon Heights Eagles, so I had to do that and do that route, and VFW‟s, everybody had things for vets. 2:05 You could go in and get a couple of free beers. I did all that, then I hung around a lot with my friends too and did a lot of drinking and would search out the “Nam” vets, and that‟s the only people that I would really talk to. Of course, you didn‟t say anything to anybody else about anything that happened in “Nam”. They just didn‟t understand it, or they were against what you did, even back then. It was worse the second time I came back. Still in 1966 there were a lot of protesters and “baby killers” talk even then. It got worse in 1968 and 1969, but it was bad enough in 1966. Interviewer: So, you’re not entirely comfortable back in civilian life. Do you still have a lot of the reflexes from being in Vietnam? 3:03 Oh yeah, I did, anywhere we went—I‟d—going from sunlight into a building, I‟d still, I‟d walk in and I‟d go left to right and put my back to the wall and stay there until my eyes adjusted. It didn‟t matter where I went, I did it—my grandparents, my dad‟s folks, lived two blocks from us and I went up to them and when I walked into their garage, I stood in the garage until my eyes adjusted, and my grandma‟s standing up there saying, “What‟s the matter?” I said, “I‟m just waiting for my eyes to adjust grandma”. I had nothing to fear, but in the back of your mind it was there. 28 �Interviewer: So, how early did you wind up going back then? This was 1966, I went to Cherry Point, North Carolina working on—we started out with A-4‟s and after about three or four weeks, then they brought in the A-6‟s to us, which was the new-- 4:11 Interviewer: Ground attack aircraft? Yeah, they were a bomber type aircraft. That was 1966 and I met a girl there and we got—we were married in 1968, and then I reenlisted. She didn‟t want me to, but I said, “Yeah, it‟s a—I love the Marine Corps”, so we reenlisted in 1968 and I got transferred from there—I was hoping to stay at Cherry Point, because I did like North Carolina, because I‟m a big—I love fishing and hunting and there was a lot of fishing there, so I liked that. 5:00 I got transferred to California and we got out to California and we were there, it wasn‟t long, just two or three months and they cut orders that the unit was going back to Vietnam. I was in fixed wing out there and I found out my wife was pregnant and they sent me—I brought her back to North Carolina and I flew back out to California. We loaded the ship up and away we went. Interviewer: Where did they send you to in Vietnam this time? I went right back to Chu Lai. We put all out stuff on board the ship and they left off while I was—they kept three or four of us, they kept us back to finish up packing and stuff. 6:04 We flew over in a “big mac”, big plane, huge plane, we had all our gear and everything in there. Interviewer: Was it a military transport? It was a military transport plane, almost like a C-5 Galaxy, this thing it was big, just might be three quarters the size of C-5, but it was a big plane. There were three or four of 29 �us in there and we flew from California to some other spot on the west coast, I can‟t remember now where it was, but we refueled, or picked up some more stuff, or something, and then we flew to Guam and refueled in Guam. Of course, it was an air force base, so we ate very well, the air force eats good. 7:02 We weren‟t there very long, maybe four or five hours, just long enough to take on fuel or whatever else we had, and we flew from there right into Chu Lai. Interviewer: Now, was Chu Lai a different place this time? Chu Lai was like it was when I came back home to Muskegon after several years. The change was amazing. Here‟s this—it was a metropolis, I mean it looked like a regular— it looked like the Gerald R. Ford Airport, you got a big flight line, big buildings up everywhere, and then behind them then you‟re in the tents, but it was huge coming over it. Of course, I was there before there was anything in 1965, and here I am back there again in 1969 and seeing it from the air I‟m thinking, “Wow, this is amazing, look at all this stuff‟. 8:06 We landed and getting out of the plane--there was some new guys on the plane, I guess we‟d picked up somewhere, three or four new guys, and they got off and of course, if you‟ve ever seen the movie “Platoon”, you see the guys marching out and Charlie Sheen‟s coming in and these other guys that had been there are going out and that thousand yard stare, you know, you see that. The smell, you don‟t forget that smell. I smelled it in 1965 and thought, “What is this?” The whole country smelled like that and it just smelled like garbage. It smelled like a landfill, the whole country smells like that. 9:04 Except probably some of the bigger cities are pretty nice, but that just—when I got off the plane that hit me again and then it was back and it felt okay. The heat and humidity, you take that first breath after that air conditioning and that catches you. These 30 �new guys got off the plane and they‟re all wide eyed looking all around, and there was a rocket attack and it was coming down the runway, and there was two or three rockets that hit and that was old hat, I was a salt, I‟d been there, so it didn‟t bother me, I‟m just standing there watching the rockets and some people are running for the bunkers. I looked up and here‟s the Captain from the Captain from California saying—by then I was a sergeant, and he said, “Sergeant Christian come over here”. 10:09 He had a six pack, so we‟re sitting there drinking beer watching the rocket attack and watching all the other people scurry around, and I‟m just—it happened almost every day, they‟d rocket the runway after a plane would come in or before it would take off, and they hardly ever hit anything. Interviewer: Kind of harassment fire? Yeah, it was harassment and interdiction, they call it. Interviewer: Now, this time around, were your duties just largely working on the aircraft now? Yeah, I was higher in rank, so I was in charge of the metal shop, instead of—I told the people what to do rather than them telling me, but I still had my other duties. I now was a sergeant, so I was in charge of the bunker line instead of just being on watch. 11:03 I‟d do my job during the day and at night I‟d go out to the bunker line and do what I was supposed to do out there. Interviewer: But they’re still using men from the metal shop and other kind of services, they’re still using them on the line? Yes, everybody had not only their main job, but they also had something else. If you weren‟t on mess duty, and that‟s—I don‟t care how long you‟re in the Marine Corps, 31 �you‟re still going to get mess duty, until you get up higher in rank you‟re still going to have other jobs to do. Interviewer: One other thing that gets said a lot about Vietnam is for every guy that’s out there actually in a line unit fighting, you got fifteen or twenty doing other stuff, but the division between the grunts who were out there all the time on the ground and everybody else is not always that simple. If you’re pulling guard duty on a regular basis, you’re manning a perimeter and things like that; you encounter some of the same things. 12:06 Not the physical wear and tear that you get from stomping around in the jungle all the time, but still a fair amount of that stuff comes up. Oh yeah, we‟d go on patrols every now and then, but we did a lot of—they were back in 1969 and 70, they were doing a lot of this—trying to help instead of just flat out trying to kill, and so we‟d go into villages and we‟d go on these medical things where the doctor would go in and help some of the people, but then the ones on patrol, we‟d have to set up the perimeter and we were just like guard duty, but we got to go some things, it was—we never encountered any main line forces or anything. 13:03 We‟d get a little sniper, or something, or going down a trail and finding a booby trap, but it was not like the guys from the bush. I talked to quite a few after I got out of the Marine Corps and joined the Vietnam Veterans of America chapter in Muskegon, and then I got to talk to a lot of guys that their thirteen months was in the bush and I mean--that‟s horrible. “Platoon”, the movie “Platoon” is the closest you‟re ever going to get to being real. That was so close, and since than they‟ve come out with “Saving Private Ryan” and “Full Metal Jacket”, and those are—they‟re close, but “Platoon” was right on. 14:02 32 �Interviewer: The physical conditions and circumstances? The whole everything, the whole aspect of it—“Platoon” was real. They had a special screening for Vietnam vets at the Michigan Theater in Muskegon and some of the guys— I didn‟t see the whole thing, I had to leave, but some of the guys, after the first ten minutes, were gone. I think I lasted about a half hour and I just had to get out of there because all that stuff just came back. Interviewer: It also, was a film with an apparently strong political message and you wind up with the fighting between the sergeants killing each other and all that kind of thing. There are a fair number of Vietnam vets who really don’t like that movie. Oh yeah, oh yeah, there‟s a lot that absolutely refused to see it and probably haven‟t seen it yet today because they were so much against what went on there. 15:00 Interviewer: But, on the other side of it, there are, also, some that think it’s sort of an unfair depiction of the characterization of the soldiers and all the rest of that kind thing, so there’s that side of that as well, but the part of it that you saw, as far as you can tell, they had basically gotten it right? Oh, they got it right, they hit that right on—Oliver Stone got that right on the money. Interviewer: Now, your physical circumstances at Chu Lai, at this point now, are relatively good. Were you living in tents at this point? We had what they call hard back tents. Still the same thing, but they‟d have a metal roof, sides, you had mosquito netting all the way around it, we had—the tent that I was in, we had an old parachute, because we had a mixed group in our tent. 16:00 There were seven or eight of us, corporal, sergeant, some that worked in the paraloft, some that worked in supply, so we had—ours was pretty nice, and we had an old parachute up on 33 �the roof, we had three or four fans, but we had air moving, we had a refrigerator, we had a TV, We went out and requisitioned a bar that was made for the first sergeant, and it was nice burnt wood with Naugahyde rails, we had that in there, we stole that and put that in, as a matter of fact, we had two refrigerators, one was all beer and then the other one was liquor and sodas. So, that was pretty nice, rather than having to go to the club, we just would go to our own tent and watch TV. 17:08 The old reruns of Batman, well, they were not reruns, but Batman. Interviewer: In those days there were not many reruns. So, the armed forces provided television? Armed Forces Radio had the TV and the radio, a lot of programing. Interviewer: I couldn’t think there would be a whole lot of Vietnamese programing to watch. No, I don‟t ever remember watching anything. I don‟t even know if they had anything. Interviewer: By Chu Lai, anyway—now, aside from the fact that the base was just now a lot bigger, what else was different about being at Chu Lai the second time from the first? You’re in a better position than you were and in terms of just what was going on, what kinds of missions were being flown, or anything else like that? They flew a lot of sorties, we were—what was it we had then? 18:04 F-8‟s maybe, I think, F-9‟s, Phantom jets, so they did a lot of bombing runs, you know, all over. Mostly when they‟d come back, they were too damaged for us to mess with, so we‟d get them enough to where they could either fly or crane them out , or whatever there was, aboard ship and they‟d take them somewhere else and have them fixed. We would, I can remember a couple times, putting in new supports for the strut, because when they‟d 34 �come in and land, it would be a hard landing, or something, and that was mainly it. Not a whole lot of bullet holes this time, but when they were, they were big, because of antiaircraft fire, big guns. 19:03 Mainly it would be structural damage, not bullet holes. Interviewer: Did you have—this time did you have more Vietnamese people on the base than you had the first time? Yeah, there were—it was like a little city there. You could go—they had a PX then, you could go in and it was fairly large, with all kinds of stuff that you could buy. There was a little cafeteria all the time and you could go in and get things you wanted, and, of course, there‟s the clubs, so you had beer and you could get whatever you wanted. They had a barber shop, and there was quite a bit. You could walk around in relative safety, and there were some things to do. 20:02 At night you‟d have the outdoor theater. You could get popcorn, just like this, you‟re sitting on the beach all relaxed watching a movie. Interviewer: And you’re not in this phase getting sapper attacks or things like that? Not at Chu Lai that I can remember. It was mainly rockets and mortars, and mainly rockets, because Chu Lai, it was a long way from the mountains, so they used rockets and that was mainly it, but usually it would be four or five rockets and that was it, because it—once they‟d light off the first one, of course we had spotters all around the place and they‟d spot them and then right away you‟d have outgoing fire. They‟d call in support from the South China Sea, plus planes would fly off, and they‟d go out, so they would only do two or three shots and that was it, they quit. 21:02 Interviewer: Now, was the morale situation different than it was before, or was it pretty much like it was when you’d been at Marble Mountain at the end? 35 �Probably pretty much the same, and you still had the cliques, and there was still some racial tension, but on the main part, everybody seemed to get along. Everybody knew you‟re there to do a job and do your time and get out. Interviewer: Was there a sense among most of the personnel whether it was even important to do the job well, or would that vary? That would vary, you know, some guys—I wasn‟t—I‟m not a real political person and I looked at it, “This is my job and I‟m here to do the job as best I can and get out”, and that‟s how I was raised, you do the job the best you can with what you have. 22:04 That‟s what I did, I tried to do the best that I could with what I had, with what time I had left to do it in. There were some guys that were political. They said, “I‟m not picking up a weapon, I don‟t care what they say”, and I‟d say, “What if he‟s got one pointed at you, what are you going to do? Are you going to shoot him or are you going to take it?” “Well, I guess I‟ll get shot”, and I said, “Well I guess you will, because if you‟re that stupid, take it”. I wouldn‟t do that. Interviewer: Would those guys resist doing guard duty, or things like that? Oh yeah, we had guys go to LBJ, Long Binh Jail, for—they‟d refuse to pick up their weapon. Some of them would go on guard duty, but they wouldn‟t pull their post, so whoever‟s in charge—I had to write up a couple guys, so they got busted and sent to jail, but that was part of it. 23:05 Interviewer: Now, did you spend your whole second tour at Chu Lai or did you go anywhere else? We were in Chu Lai for six or seven months and in 1970 they were starting the pull out and we were one of the first air units to go in, so we were one of the first units to leave, 36 �so they sent us up to Iwakuni, Japan as a unit. I was on the forward unit, so I went there, probably, a month before everyone else to help get things set up. Interviewer: What part of Japan is Iwakuni, in? Iwakuni is in Honshu Province? Interviewer: Honshu’s the main island. Honshu‟s the main island and we were south of Hiroshima, probably a hundred miles south, I guess. 24:01 Interviewer: Far south on the island and south of Tokyo and all of that. Yeah Interviewer: What kind of facility was there? It‟s all barracks like any Marine Corps base, you know, it was hardcore barracks, a big cement flight line, a concrete flight line, you had big rooms for the shops that were all set up. It was pretty nice, we had a big metal shop and everything was—everything we needed was there. Interviewer: What kind of work did you have to do there? It was mainly going to be the same thing. We‟d—any planes they couldn‟t fix in Vietnam they‟d send to us and we‟d pull the—do whatever we had to do to get them back over to Vietnam. Interviewer: You were doing things that you couldn’t do back at Chu Lai? Yeah, we had—at Chu Lai we didn‟t have a lot of the big things that we needed to bend the metal. We‟d do it, we had small brakes, they call it, that bend metal. 25:02 In Japan we had three or four different brakes and some hydraulically operated to bend the heavy metals to make struts or frames or whatever it was. 37 �Interviewer: What was it like to be outside of a combat zone again? That took me some adjusting, you know, and the not listening for the warnings. All the time I was in “Nam” I‟d—if you ever watch M.A.S.H., Radar always knew something was going on before anybody else. I knew when something was coming in most of the time before anybody else, just something that I could hear or sense or whatever it was. I was always on alert, always on guard, listening for something. 26:00 Watching, I‟d always look down at my feet when I‟d walk anywhere looking for booby traps, and I never spent that much time in the bush, but when I did, I‟d focus in front of me, so I still had that. Interviewer: Did you, pretty much, spend all your time on the base, or did you get out? Oh no, I‟d—8 to 4:30, whatever time my shift was, I‟d—I don‟t remember that now, but back to the barracks, take a shower and put on civilian clothes and hit the town. Iwakuni, on the—coming out the main gate there‟s bars on both sides of the road and I‟d hit them all until I found one that I really liked and then I started going to that one. I went to, probably every bar in Iwakuni. Interviewer: What kind of a relationship was there between the American servicemen there and the Japanese civilians? On the most part they really enjoyed us being there. 27:06 They were always polite, but there were some that didn‟t want us there. They‟d be outside the gate, or the gate and the fence line with signs, “American Go Home”, but I can‟t ever remember any physical confrontations or anything with the Japanese, they‟re just very gracious people, and I enjoyed it. 38 �Interviewer: Did the marine MP’s make sure the servicemen behaved? Oh yeah, we had MP‟s, had Navy Shore Patrol, plus we‟d have marines—I pulled MP duty a while when I was in Japan. You walk around and you kind of just corral the drunks and make sure they get back to base okay. 28:04 We had to break up a few fights and then there‟s just the regular—we were cops, that‟s all it was, peace keepers mainly. Interviewer: Then how long did you stay in Japan? We were in Japan for the rest of our thirteen months tour, and that was either six or seven months, I can‟t remember exactly, but then we left Japan and that was in 1970 and I went to New River, North Carolina, right next to Jacksonville, Camp Lejeune, I was at the air station there. I worked on—what did we have? 29:01 We had—there were helicopters and fixed wing there. Interviewer: Were you able to make that adjustment fairly easily? Yeah, I did and I got back with—I was married and we had—my son was born when I was in Vietnam, so he wasn‟t quite a year old, almost a year old. I got back and we bought a—instead of living on base we bought a mobile home and lived in that, and then it was just like a nine to five job. I did my job, came home and lived family life. Interviewer: Now was there another group of men on base, working with you, that had all gone to Vietnam by then? 30:01 There weren‟t a lot--there weren‟t a lot of “Nam” vets. There were the older ones that were. I was the sergeant, and my staff sergeant had been to Vietnam, the gunnery sergeant, and first sergeant, they had all been to Vietnam, but a lot of the younger guys 39 �hadn‟t been anywhere yet. Most of them had been in the Marine Corps less than two years, so they hadn‟t been there yet. Interviewer: Did you feel there was kind of a gap or separation between the ones that had been there and the others that hadn’t? Oh yeah, yeah, “Nam” vets knew each other and even today I can walk down the street and I can tell pretty much all the time if somebody‟s been to “Nam” or not, and it‟s just a brotherhood. We know who our brothers are. Interviewer: How long then did you stay there? 31:04 I stayed there until 1972, and then they sent me to drill instructors school down at Parris Island, South Carolina. I went through drill instructors school and made it through that and worked three or four platoons at Parris Island before I was relieved of duty. Interviewer: Was it fine with you, at that point, that you were relieved of duty or did you want to stay in longer? I wanted to stay. I loved drill instructor, I loved it, you got power, and you‟re the boss of everything. That was an experience, you know, and I hated my drill instructor when I was going through boot camp, and he was relieved of duty. 32:04 He got malpractice, he and a couple of them got—for force, so they were relieved. Interviewer: Was it possible for a drill instructor to go over the limit? Oh yeah, I mean, yeah, this was before—you could hit them, you could get in their face and yell at them and call them names, that was all part of it, That‟s the thing, you take somebody out of civilian life and you change them completely, physically and mentally. Of course some of them—when I went in it was mainly high school kids, or hadn‟t finished high school. When I was a drill instructor a lot of the guys were college people. 40 �33:04 So, they knew what was happening, they had things figured out. They knew why the drill instructors were doing some things. Calling them names, yelling, they knew all about it, so they had a heads up on it from when I was a recruit. Interviewer: Were you a kinder, gentler drill sergeant than the ones that you had, or did you do pretty much the same thing they did? No, I was much more physical than ours was. My first platoon that I worked, of course I was a junior drill instructor and we had senior drill instructor and he was a staff sergeant, and he said, “What we‟re going to do is, each of you guys pick out the biggest guy you can see and you beat him down”, and then, I was in great shape and I could. 34:07 I was strong, I knew a lot of things, I could take somebody down, so I picked out the biggest guy—and I was a small person, I wasn‟t big, but I was fit, so I picked that big guy and got in his face a lot until he got to the point where, “I‟m going to fight back”, and when he did, I took him down, and after that I had no problems with anybody, after that. So, that‟s what I was taught—to do that—and that‟s what I did, and I did that in every platoon that I worked. Interviewer: Did that eventually cause problems for you? Yeah, it did, the last platoon that I worked—we graduated two platoons, took them all the way through. 35:00 The third platoon I worked—I can‟t remember now exactly what it was, some situation going on somewhere else where they had to move a couple of us to another platoon, so I got pulled out of that third platoon and started another, and the sergeant that came with me—we had this one recruit, well we had two that were problems right off the bat and we knew they were going to be problems. Private Baker was one of them and I‟ll never forget that kid. He was overweight, slovenly, lazy, a little 41 �mama‟s boy, so we just—we never were physical with him. 36:02 We took this guy from a sane intelligent person and made him nuts. We had him believing he was seeing space ships and, I mean, we just—we had a lot of fun with Private Baker. We made a little Sergeant Spandau, made a little space ship and hooked lights on this thing and I can‟t remember now how we did it, but we had lights hooked on this and we had a wire that went from the top of the barracks, down across our windows in the drill instructors room, and went right down alongside the windows, passed by Baker‟s bunk. We‟d send that thing down lit up and it would be down in there swinging in the breeze and we‟d stop it at Private Baker‟s window and then go and wake him up. 37:04 “Baker, look at that”, and he went nuts. He was in the psych ward for a while and then they released him and gave him a medical discharge. Another one we had, he was from New York, and he was a mouthy kid, so we were physical with him, but he made it through. He was tougher than what we thought and at the end, we were really hard on him, harder than anybody else, but he made it through and at the end he came up and thanked us both and whether he meant it or not, I don‟t know. I think his name was Pardo or something like that, a New York kid. Interviewer: Was that your last group that you worked with? 38:02 Then it wasn‟t long after that, after the Baker incident—I didn‟t get to graduate that platoon, as a matter of fact, our whole company got relieved, but it went from the Captain on down, everybody, our whole company was relieved for mistreatment. We were heavy handed and it caught up with all of us, the whole company was relieved, and for punishment they sent me to work out at the boat basin driving the General‟s boat, which I absolutely loved. A twenty-eight foot boat with two Grady-White diesels on it, it was a 42 �nice machine, so I want fishing every day until I got transferred to Quantico, Virginia and that was my last duty station, at Quantico. 39:05 I was supposed to go the HMX-1, which is the presidential helicopter squadron because back when I was in Vietnam the first time, in 1965, they‟d done a security check on me and I had a final sop secret security clearance for some reason. To this day I don‟t know why I had that clearance. Since I was supposed to go to HMX-1, instead I went to HMM-263, which was right next door and which was CNI helicopters, the twin rotor blades. I went there until September of 1974. Interviewer: At that point, basically, they’re—were they not letting you reenlist, or were you deciding just not to? 40:01 No, I had decided, I wanted to reenlist; I wanted to stay until I died. I absolutely loved the Marine Corps. My wife, at the time, said “If you reenlist again, I‟m gone”, because her father had been in the navy and the army, retired, and had worked at Cherry Point, North Carolina for thirty some years, so she‟s been in Morehead City, North Carolina, and Morehead City is a lot of military, because Cherry Point is sixteen miles away., so she‟d been around the military a lot and she didn‟t want any more of it. So, I said, “Well, okay”, so I got out and went to work for—we stayed in Morehead City, actually near Jacksonville, in between Jacksonville and Morehead City, and I went to work for the Department of Transportation, North Carolina, driving a truck, road maintenance, pretty mundane stuff. 41:10 Interviewer: How long did you stick with that? Well, we were there, maybe, about a year and a guy that I was working with was moving from there to Detroit and I said, “Detroit, Muskegon, two hundred miles”, and I said, “I‟ll 43 �help you move your stuff to Detroit and I‟ll go home”, so I did that, I moved him to Detroit, dropped his stuff off and I came to Muskegon and never left. We were up here, maybe, a week and I said, “I‟m not going back”, so I called my wife and said, “You know, sell the house, we‟re moving up here”, and I drove my truck to Detroit and let this guy take my truck back and he gave it to my wife and I got a job in Muskegon. 42:10 Interviewer: What kind of work were you doing there? I was working at the chemical plant making, modeling anti-freeze windshield washer solvent and thing. I did that for a while until I found a little better job, and I went to work for a company that made display cases for stores, glass display cases. I went to work for them and I worked there, then I went down and got my wife and by then she‟d had another, had a daughter, so we had two kids. We got them and moved them up to Muskegon Heights, and I just worked. 43:07 Interviewer: Stayed in Michigan? I stayed there until 1980, and then I went to work for the post office in Muskegon. I stayed there, I think, in—I think I went to work for the post office in 1978 or 1979, and then we started having marital problems and separated, got a divorce, she moved back to North Carolina and took the kids. I met another lady at the post office and we got married and had a daughter. 44:05 Having post-traumatic stress, I was still having that and I had a lot of flashbacks. I was still doing a lot of drinking and that marriage didn‟t work out either. I got transferred from Muskegon to Grand Rapids and worked at the post office here, divorced, I met a lady there and we got married in—we‟ve been married twenty-one years now. Interviewer: You still got the ring, so that one worked. 44 �That one worked Interviewer: Tell me a little bit about what it was like to be military personnel back in the states in the early seventies. When you got back, to what extent did you encounter anti-war or anti-military sentiments? Oh, there was a lot of that. 45:01 The only safe place you could go was to the VFW, American Legion, or someplace where Nam vets hung out, that was the safest place to go. Otherwise, any other bar that I went to there would be somebody in there—of course then, Vietnam was on TV every night, I mean, every night and a lot of people protesting, and there were some confrontations. I had some problems with that and a couple of times—someone would say something derogatory about what was going on, on TV, and it didn‟t matter if I was the only Nam vet there or if there were two or three of us, it didn‟t matter, we were in the guys face, and there was some police involvement a few times. 46:02 Interviewer: Did you talk to your family at all about this stuff? No, no, the only one I could talk to was my dad, and he‟d never told me a whole lot about his time in the service. He shot down a Japanese Zero. He was a belly gunner on a B-24, I think, and he‟d seen combat and he‟s lost some friends, so he knew a little about combat. He never talked to me much about it and the only time I ever heard anything about his time in the service was when we‟d go see some of his friends that were in and then they‟d have a few drinks and alcohol loosens things up, and, of course, I was always right there. 47:00 I could hear some of the things that happened, and it was probably the same with me, I wouldn‟t tell anybody, I didn‟t tell my parents any of the things I did until in, what was it, 80? I got sent to—I had to go to Battle Creek for a while, PTSD got 45 �a hold of me and my parents came and visited one time and I had—going through that training you had to tell some things to get out. Before, the only times I could tell anybody would be another Nam vet, so they knew, and it was all Nam vets that were in this class, of course the instructors weren‟t, they were civilians. 48:00 It was hard to tell them that, but they keep at you and keep at you, keep at you, so you finally would, so then, finally, I could say some things to non Nam vets. I was telling my folks, one day, some things and my mother started crying and she said, “You never told me that, I didn‟t know”, and I said, “I didn‟t want to tell you that, mom”, and I couldn‟t. Interviewer: Now, you mentioned, before we started the interview, there was an occasion when you actually went back to Muskegon and visited your old high school a few years afterwards? I did, and this was—I can‟t remember, but I think I was home on leave in between one of my duties, and I‟d just gone in to see some of my teachers and, of course, the principal was still there, Mr. Kruizinga. 49:03 He asked me if I‟d talk to the senior class and he said that it was coming up that they were going to have the recruiters come in, and when they did, I went there when the recruiters were there and, of course, they wanted me in my uniform, so I did that, and I went in and I talked to the senior class and then I had some medals and these, and the kids were impressed, they‟re easily impressed. I didn‟t go into any big detail, because I still couldn‟t—that was before I‟d been to Battle Creek, so I couldn‟t say many things, but I told them a little bit. 50:01 The first question they asked was “Did you kill anybody?” I just said, “Well, I shot at somebody, but it wasn‟t confirmed”, and I left it at that. Interviewer: Is that an experience you decided not to repeat? 46 �Yeah, I couldn‟t—I could never really talk about it—we did to other Nam vets, but only after a few beers. I still couldn‟t do it, if I was dead sober, I couldn‟t do it, I couldn‟t say anything about what I had done, but once the beer started flowing a little, and a couple shots, then it gets even easier, and they‟d say the same things, and then it would start with how many were there, “I got two”, “Well I only got one”, so it was like that. 51:03 Interviewer: All right, if you look back at the time you spent in the Marine Corps, and so forth, do you have kind of a balance sheet of kind of the positive and the negative? What kind of effect and you mentioned some of the effects it had on you, and on the whole, was the experience more positive than negative, or how would you characterize it? Oh, it was definitely positive; the Marine Corps made me a man. They wrote an article about me, after I was wounded, in the Muskegon Chronicle and it said, “A boy becomes a man fast at nineteen”, and I did, I grew up quick going from the Midwest, comfortable, no cares, no worries about anything, civilian life, going through boot camp, learning some things and then going to Vietnam when I was nineteen years old and getting shot at, getting hit, it changes you. 52:11 I saw the world in a different perspective. There are people out there that actually want to kill me, so I have to kill them or be killed myself and that‟s just the way it was and it‟s—I carry that yet today. I wouldn‟t hesitate, somebody go to kill me, if I can take him out--I‟m going to. But, I love the Marine Corps, I loved the discipline, I loved the structure, everything in a certain order, I love that and I‟ve tried to do that throughout my life. It worked fairly well with my first wife, but now I‟ve gotten softer in my old age and things are different. 53:05 But, I still—I like to have order. 47 �Interviewer: Are there individuals, or incidents, or things that kind of stand out in your mind that you haven’t mentioned yet that you’re willing to add to the record or have you covered things pretty well as far as you’re concerned? I‟ve covered things pretty well I believe. There‟s some things that I‟ve done that I‟m not proud of that I still won‟t talk about to anybody, I don‟t care who it is, I won‟t, but I think pretty much we covered it. Interviewer: Well, we’ve gone the better part of two hours; you’ve covered quite a bit and done a great job of it, so thank you very much for coming in and talking to us. Well thank you, I certainly enjoyed it. 54:0 48 �49 � 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 Christian, David (Interview transcript and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christian, David Description An account of the resource David Christian was born in 1946 in Muskegon Heights, Michigan. After completing high school there in 194, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. After training in California, David was sent to Chu Lai, Vietnam in 1965. David's first tour was spent at Chu Lai and fixing aircraft at Marble Mountain Air Facility. After returning home and marrying his wife, David reenlisted for a second tour. David was promoted to sergeant and repaired aircraft at Chu Lai until 1970. David also worked at Iwakuni Marine Corps Base for the remaining 6 months of his second tour. David returned to the United States in 1970 where he worked at Camp Lejeune and as a Drill Instructor on Parris Island. 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. Marine Corps 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 2010-07-29 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ChristianD 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/9624108968526b25d03d04bb485173d9.mp4 7c47b775020bd9adad34e675ecd684f7 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/29c161ef2361c50654dda1acecebcd86.pdf 7372a4d5d40f719686f2dc362656ae4b PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Iraq Sherman Christensen (1:21:52) Background information (00:14)             Born in Covington, Kentucky, on February 24, 1988. (00:15) Sherman was adopted. At age six he moved to Utah where he and his family stayed for 10 years. Finally they moved to Petoskey, Michigan. (00:20) His father worked teaching college level courses. (1:00) He attended high school in Petoskey he graduated in 2011. (1:09) On 9/11 he remembers being in the car and having the radio cut with a breaking news announcement. (1:55) He wanted to see what was happening. But his house did not have a television. (2:30) Sherman does not recall the invasion of Iraq as clearly as he does 9/11. (4:03) He was a big fan of history growing up and read many books about iconic early Americans. This inspired him to go into the military. (4:56) Sherman began talking to a Marine recruiter when he was a sophomore in high school. He originally wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force but was unable to because of his eyesight. (5:56) His parents were unsupportive of his choice to go into the military as they were hoping he would serve on a mission for his church. (7:24) His parents were generally unsupportive of his choice throughout the entirety of his military career. (8:28) Sherman signed up for the Marine Corp. reserve in February of 2006. He started training in the summer of that year. (9:21) Training (9:36)           Sherman was first placed in a program to ready the men for basic training. (9:38) Sherman was in this program for six months before being sent to boot camp. (10:22) He was then sent to California for his basic training. Sherman’s training was completed in a three months long stint with basic and advanced training included. (11:20) When he arrived in California, they had to wait at the airport for buses to pick the men up. (12:31) Once the men arrived in the base, the drill sergeants immediately began yelling at the trainees and placing them in platoons. (14:05) The Reserve tried to get the men ready for boot camp but it was inadequate.(15:09) The first week of boot camp involves a lot of paper work, medical checkups, and ends at a basic test. (16:21) When tested for his aptitude he qualified for many specialized jobs, but he wanted to be in the infantry. (18:15) By the end of boot camp men were able to understand how things work in the military but Sherman never entirely was used to it. (19:22) �     Sherman trained only along men. There were some men who were defiantly older as the common recruit which was just out of high school. These older men in their late 20s seemed psychologically stronger than the common recruit. (20:24) For most of the recruits, it seemed common for them to have a history of military service. (22:40) Sherman was able to adapt to boot camp and the military fairly well. (23:40) If a soldier was washed out, they will with be completely discharged or have to start training over again. (25:42) First phase of training is basic learning of physical skills like marching and emphasis on discipline. The second phases is when weapons training and long hikes occur. The third phases consisted of guard duties and the more complex workings of the military. (28:20) Advanced training (30:30)       After boot camp in January of 2007, Sherman was given 10 days on leave. (30:30) Sherman’s infantry training took place at Camp Pendleton and lasted two months. Here is where he got his basic MOS. (30:45) In the first week the men will cross train on various weapons. (31:33) Sherman served as a mortar man. This was still a simple weapon and worked much like it did in the Vietnam era. (33:46) It was odd being in Infantry training because the men were technically marines but also still in school. (35:21) There was a physical element of training that was used in order to teach the trainees particular lessons. They were not deliberately beat up. (37:29) Arrival and in Country Training (38:55)        Sherman was assigned to Bravo Company 124 and was attached to Weapons Company. (38:38) In August of 2007 Sherman was told his unit was headed overseas. They left for Iraq in September of 2007. (40:54) Before being sent into combat, Sherman’s unit had to go through a series of training exercises judged by another unit to see if they were ready for combat. (44:38) Sherman was given basic language for Iraq service. (46:10) When being sent to Ira the unit was flown to Germany then to Kuwait. (49:20) The only thing the men were issued where their personal weapons such as rifles but no ammunition. When they were issued ammunition they were issued one magazine. (49:56) The heavy weapons such as mortar systems, .50 cal machine guns and grenade launchers were exchanged between units. (53:20) In-Country Training (54:30)    For the first several weeks in country the replacement unit is taken out by another to be shown how to carry out patrols and intended tasks. (54:40) The men often encountered small villages while traveling in country. Though the areas were not dangerous, IEDs were very prevalent. (55:46) The Iraqi army and police were frequently in contact with American soldiers. (57:20) �    The 81mm mortar, the weapon that Sherman worked with, was not allowed to be used in country due to the amount of damage it was capable of causing. (59:31) Sherman was assigned on his first time out with an experienced unit he was made the driver of a humvee during a night assignment without any night vision equipment. (1:02:24) M-raps, armored trucks, were used but Sherman never had to drive one. (1:04:35) The purpose of a night mission was to established what the streets looked like at night and how they acted when they ran into U.S. solders. (1:05:17) Service in Iraq (1:06:00)       Most assignments were simply to patrol areas and check for IEDs and weapons caches. (1:06:03) One of the hardest parts about the war was that it was not uncommon to help someone out who would soon shoot at American soldiers or had been shooting at them. (1:07:00) Money was able to get a lot done in Iraq. Paying for information was easy. (1:07:57) Company commanders would occasionally come out to see how particular companies were running. (1:08:47) The unit did have a wanted al-Qaeda list. The men often captured these persons of interest. At times the unit joked that they were police men as much of their duties included policing and arrests. (1:09:27) Snipers did become a problem but not with Sherman’s company. (1:10:26) Life in Iraq (1:11:12)         Sherman was in Iraq for 11 months. (1:11:12) The Marines lived in wood “huts” with bunk beds and no air conditioning. (1:11:15) Lunch and dinner were provided. (1:12:01) Parts of Sherman’s unit worked at an Iraqi police station. (1:13:00) It was understood that marines, particularly those from the reserves, would not be overseas for more than seven months. (1:14:11) Sherman’s unit did have several casualties from IEDs. But for the most part his unit was very lucky and relatively untouched. (1:15:54) More often than not there was an internet station that was available and working for the soldiers. (1:16:45) TQ would have some forms of entertainment. Sherman’s base did not have any amenities. (1:16:52) Life after Iraq (1:17:21)     When the men returned they had accumulated a month of leave. When they returned back in country the men could either take the leave or the military would purchase this time off of them. (1:17:33) Sherman returned to the U.S. and Michigan in August of 2008. At this time he had three and a half years reaming on his service. To finish it he served one week a month and two weeks during the summer. (1:18:10)] He began his major in Psychology at Grand Valley State University. His goal is to go to Law School. (1:19:01) Sherman finds it easy to pick out veterans in his classes. (1:19:55) � He finds that the service had made him much more disciplined and a bit more critical of other individuals. (1:20:34) � 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 Christensen, Sherman (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christensen, Sherman Description An account of the resource Sherman Christensen, born in Covington, Kentucky, in 1988, served in the U.S. Marines and Marine Reserve stating in February 2006 and served 11 months in Iraq in 2007-2008. He joined the Marines out of high school in February of 2006. He trained at San Diego and Camp Pendleton as a mortarman, and was assigned to Bravo Company 1st Battalion, 24th Marines. During his service in Iraq, Sherman mostly patrolled and looked for road side bombs and IEDs. 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. Marine Corps 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 2012-09-27 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ChristensenS1443V 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/8cad4b9c35cd28bb30cee7e92eb88e0a.mp4 c11f0eb07195e0202bbb51a16ba17cdd https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/456a4271ea2d57ecdf9b43053446264e.pdf b66af25b96a668749d9de45e6e5c1278 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Milford Cherington World War II Total Time: 26:06 Pre-War (00:00) • • • Was drafted, but was put on 4F because he had a hernia. He was living at home when he was drafted. He picked the Air Force because he wanted to fly. Training (01:08) • • • Attended basic training, where he learned the general shills needed for the Air Force. After basic training, he ad to go to school to become a gunner on a B-17. He was then transported to Utah to gather a crew, and then to Sioux City, IA for more training, and then to Europe. Active Duty (03:42) • • • • • • • • • Worked on a B-17 stationed in England. They made bombing runs into Germany. (04:30) They crossed the Atlantic Ocean by plane, stopping in Greenland. He worked as a gunner in the bottom of the plane. There were very few injuries on his plane. His bomber was part of the first group to bomb Berlin in the daylight. Stayed in touch with his family by writing letters. They always had ample supplies for their bombing runs. During leave, they would do various activities, including traveling around England. (20:40) He was sent to Texas after the war was over and was discharged there. Post War (21:45) • After the war, worked in Grand Rapids, MI � 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 Cherington, Milford (Interview outline and video), 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cherington, Milford Description An account of the resource Milford Cherington Served in the Air Force during World War II. He joined the Air Corps after being classified 4F by the Army draft board. He wanted to train as a pilot, but wound up as a gunner on a B-17 bomber and flew numerous bombing missions over Germany. He was also part of the first group to bomb Berlin in daylight. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Timmerman, Andrea (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. Air Force 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 2004-04-18 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CheringtonM 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/b3b4d5ba82af9b33b4da9293f2581551.mp4 ecd2fdc8ccae5834d31eec7e38986476 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8b5fa1877d1e276246d1a54d51d19e1d.pdf c57a7f2114c1284ee2a5e2a0a01d58ef PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Vietnam Era David Cheeseman Length of interview (0:01:31 – 1:25:31) *Interview begins at 0:01:33 on screen (0:1:33- 0:03:40) Background         Born in June 1946 and raised in Wixom, Michigan Wixom was a rural area at the time, he served as the town paperboy delivering papers when he was young (0:02:07) Lived in a blue collar community, father began as a farmer then worked as a mechanic Went to Walled Lake High School, graduated in 1964 (0:02:42) Had a part time job running a hunting and fishing store owned by a friend of his mother His employer had served in the Navy, and talked fondly of that, and the local Navy recruiter was a fisherman who visited the store regularly (0:03:30) Wanted to fly airplanes from an early age, he was in the civil air patrol (0:03:34) First real job was as a line boy at a local airport (0:03:40) (0:03:40 -0:19:21) Enlistment Motivation for enlistment (0:03:52- 0:04:41)  Found out that there were few opportunities for enlisted people to fly in the Air Force, so he chose to enlist in the Navy (0:03:52)  The influence of the recruiter and his boss helped to motivate him  Parents supported his decision, despite his father’s wishes that he go to college (0:04:41) Basic Training (0:05:10 – 0:11:00)  After enlistment, took a train from Detroit to Chicago, and completed basic training at Great Lakes Naval Station (0:05:10)  He was a member of Company 507, with about 65-70 men, mostly from the Midwest and New York, and a few “bridge runners” from Virginia (0:05:35)  He knew that the Vietnam conflict had started before his enlistment in 1964 [but not in terms of direct American intervention], but he “wasn’t aware of it” (0:05:55)  While he was in boot camp, the Lieutenant Commander informed them that the U.S. had just started bombing North Vietnam (0:06:18)  He was told that training would be shortened, and they would soon be going to war (0:6:27) �  While he was in high school, the only memory he has of foreign relations was the missile crisis in Cuba during 1962 (0:6:51) Training was not shortened, and he was selected to be an aviation anti-submarine warfare technician (0:07:13) Daily life in boot camp (0:08:00 – 0:11:30)         While in boot camp, did a lot of marching, fooling around with the rifles, very little shooting, and practicing discipline (0:08:12) He also learned military discipline and the structure of the Navy, basic firefighting skills (0:08:43) Speaks of an experience where they had to undergo being gassed while in a room as part of training (0:09:30) Did not experience difficulty while in training, he thought it was very simple, “do what they tell you” (0:9:51) Talked of recruits who had difficulty adapting because they “were always scheming to beat the system, rather than joining the system” (0:10:15) Was given a job while in boot camp of being the education petty officer, in the evenings he would work with guys teaching them to read (0:10:45) Not being able to swim would set a lot of guys back (0:11:10) Finished boot camp in January 1965 (0:11:23) Military Job Training (0:11:30 – 0:13:30)      Sent to military school in Memphis, Tennessee for his training as an aviation anti-submarine warfare technician (0:11:32) Stationed at Naval Air Station in Millington, Tennessee, the world’s largest inland Navy base (0:12:30) The station taught all of the aviation trades (0:12:40) His specific training included aviation electronics, specializing in ASW equipment (0:12:58) He trained for nine months (0:13:09) Daily life during training (0:13:30- 0:19:30) �           Daily life included eight hours in the classroom, where he learned to build radios (0:13:40) Felt he received quite complete training (0:13:59) Evenings consisted of homework or inspections (0:14:00) Spent his time off in Memphis with “someone old enough to buy booze” (0:14:30) Discusses how segregation still existed quietly, and he states that all the black men in his service company were held back because they could not swim (0:15:57) There were very few blacks in training (0:16:08) Became honor man of his class (16:47:18) His first lessons while at the training center involved mathematics studies (0:17:20) Training lasted nine months (0:17:54) Describes military “saltiness”: enlisted men who had been around awhile became “salty”, he describes the nice feeling of being more salty then others by the end of his training (0:18:21) Spent a total of about one year training between basic training and specialization training (0:19:11) (0:19:20 – 1:21:00) Active Duty  Total enlistment was for four years (0:19:21)  After training, went to San Diego (0:19:30)  Went home on leave for 30 days, arrived in San Diego in October (0:20:03)      Took a "nickel snatcher" commercial ferry boat to NAS North Island in the bay (0:21:06) Was stationed at ComFair Diego (Commander Fleet Air of San Diego- Fleet Airwing 14) (0:21:15) Was assigned to ASCAC (Anti-Submarine Classification and Analysis Center) (0:21:20) His first training was as a sonar man (0:22:26) He was then trained to operate equipment used in anti-submarine planes (0:21:47) �   He and his crew were considered to be experts in anti-submarine aircraft electronics; his crew would brief aircraft operators. His job was to sort through data the anti-submarine aircraft retrieved (0:22:28) In 1965, he did not notice much activity off of the coast (0:23:38) Does not recall tracking a real Soviet submarine in all three years of service (0:23:55) Daily life while stationed in San Diego (0:24:00 – 0:29:20)  Lived on the base in 2-story barracks, which “had a Spanish feel to it” (0:24:49)  Got to travel to San Diego and Tijuana (0:25:44)  Felt that the majority of the civilian population was pro-military (0:27:45)   Recognized a large faction of younger people that were anti-military, whom they had run-ins with on a regular basis (0:28:10) Did not know what the Vietnam War was about, but wanted to support his country because his government thought that they should be in it (0:28:50) Ranks (0:29:25 - 0:30:25)    Moved up to Petty Officer quickly, started in October 1964 as an E-1, promoted to E-2 after boot camp, promoted to E-3 airman six months later, did a minimum of year as an E-3, was promoted in January 1966 as E-4 Petty Officer Third Class, in October 1968, promoted to E-5 (0:29:20) Re-upped before the end of his enlistment, took advantage of a program that offered $10,000 bonus to reenlist for 6 years After completing the tour in San Diego, applied for and was accepted to the Advanced Electronics school in Memphis, October 1968 (0:31:50) Reenlistment (0:32:00 – 0:34:30)  Learned about transistor radios while training for nine months (0:32:25)  Had different responsibilities as a Petty Officer, oversaw the barracks (0:32:50)  Married in 1967 (0:33:00) � On the one year anniversary of Martin Luther King’s death, the base shut down, and there was a small uprising (0:33:20) Deployment to Japan (0:34:30- 0:39:00)         At the end of training was sent back to the fleet, then stationed at the Marine Corp Air Station in Iwakuni, Japan, and brought his wife and car with him (0:34:49) Iwakuni was 25 miles from Hiroshima (0:35:30) Was assigned to night watch the first night he arrived in Japan (0:36:00) Supervising Chief asked him to work on a project with him, to localize submarines (0:37:00) Built an electronic circuit in a cigar box, connected it to a Simpson 260 which was the standard military multimeter and this project was able to localize submarines (0:37:25) This later became an ambient noisemaker which was later installed in all P3C aircraft (0:38:25) Did not sleep much in Japan, was common to work for 30 hours straight (0:38:45) His job was to keep track of Soviet submarines (0:39:00) Daily life while in Japan (0:39:30- 0:51:00)  Lived off base for 6 months, and then lived on base (0:40:45)  Lived on a hill in a new house that was built for western style occupants (0:41:00)       Living off base he experienced good relations with Japanese neighbors and business people (0:43:40) Was in Japan for 26 months (0:44:12) Adopted a Japanese baby (0:44:30) Birth mother wanted her child back, and at the end of a simple trial he and his wife were awarded custody. He made plans after that to have his daughter and wife leave the country (0:44:40) There was a lot of racial tension on the base between blacks and whites (0:45:12) Speaking about morale in the Navy, notes how FTN (“Expletive The Navy”) was a common term; “a term that everyone used, all day every day” (0:48:43) � Returned to the United States in October 1971 (0:49:55)  Assigned to a unit and was an aviation anti-submarine warfare technician (0:50:25)  Had made First Class in June 1970 and was offered a First Class job (0:50:38) Tour in San Diego (0:51:00 – 0:56:10)  Stationed again in San Diego for a tour that lasted from 1971- 1975 (0:51:55)  He was a mechanical repairman (0:52:00)   He became supervisor of the repair shop that worked on communications and navigation equipment for 3 ½ years (0:53:25) Experienced difficulty supervising “draft dodgers” who were unreliable for work and used drugs (0:56:09) Experience with women in the Navy (0:56:12 – 1:03:30)  In 1971 or ’72 they opened up naval aviation operations positions for women (0:56:30)        He, along with others struggled with incorporating the women, many women were unprepared for dirty and strenuous jobs (0:56:25) Most women ended up working telephone operator positions, and at times the women did not know how to refer the incoming calls (0:57:05) Was going through a nasty divorce, and his work performance declined (0:58:40) At one point he received a supervisor evaluation. Two of the things he remembers the evaluation stating were that he had difficulty accepting women’s roles in the Navy and that he tended to procrastinate (0:59:00) Felt that after this evaluation he was at the end of his advancement in the Navy (0:59:30) His evaluation was put into his service record (0:59:45) Commander who oversaw his evaluation was a woman, yet she was sympathetic to him and reviewed his record and found it to be perfect (1:01:00) �  She said she was not “going to let the Navy destroy a career over something that everyone deals with” (1:02:30) Was selected as a Chief Petty Officer after this event (1:03:00) Post San Diego tour (Bermuda, Maine, Spain, Iceland) (1:03:30 – 1:11:25)  Went to Naval Air Station in Bermuda (1:03:40)  Homosexuality was a huge problem in the barracks (1:04:30)  Floors were segregated by sexual orientation (1:04:40)         Cites that integration of women became easier over time, as the military adjusted and trained the women more thoroughly (1:05:15) After Bermuda went to a patrol squadron, and was the first patrol squadron to deploy with women, and half of them came back pregnant (1:06:55) The patrol squadron was stationed in Maine, and deployed to Spain and Iceland (1:07:08) Bermuda has only 21 square miles of land, so at times the size was a limitation (1:07:50) AIMD in Bermuda was a P3 facility. He was there for 3 years (1:09:08) Went to Maine afterwards, and deployed to Rota, Spain (1979) (1:09:28) Worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 6 months (1:10:18) By the time he was deployed to Iceland (1981-82), he was a Senior Chief (1:11:25) Last four years of active duty (Memphis) (1:11:40 – 1:17:00)  Spent last 4 years in Memphis, became course supervisor for AVA school (1:11:45)     Had many external activities while in Memphis, bought a home, played in a band (1:12:49) Did not notice any racial tension in the mid 80’s (1:13:01) Left the Navy after 22 years (1:14:20) Was due to retire in 1985, but he was offered a one year extension in Memphis (1:14:40) � Cites it as an enormous mistake, due to a terrible boss (1:14:45)  He asked his boss to fire him (1:15:35)  Was made battalion adjutant, ran the barracks side of the training, in charge of 18 year olds (1:16:20) Thoughts on military service (1:17:00 – 1:21:00)        Incorporating women and having them be useful, productive and proud sailors was one of the biggest changes in the Navy (1:17:30) While the military had become softer, it wasn’t worse (1:18:00) During Desert Storm, he and others thought the U.S. would get their (expletive) kicked, however was impressed with the job of the military (1:18:30) The aspect of respect has stayed the same (1:19:00) The idea that the mission has got to get done has also stayed the same (1:20:00) If he had to do it over, he would have signed up for the Navy again (1:20:22) He feels proud, met a lot of interesting things, got to do a lot of interesting things (1:21:00) (1:21:00 – 1:25:31) Life after the military  Worked at a lumberyard in Greenville, Michigan for two years (1:21:30)  Worked as a carpenter for 5 years doing remodeling (1:22:40)     Attended the Memphis State Technical Institute on the G.I. Bill for building and construction technology, did not graduate (1:22:45) Moved to Interlochen, Michigan (1:23:20) Built houses for nine years, retired in 2005 (1:24:15) Moved to Martin so they could be close to their daughter and granddaughter (1:24:45) End of interview (1:25:31) � 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 Cheeseman, David (Interview outline and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cheeseman, David Description An account of the resource David Cheeseman, of Martin, Michigan served in the Navy for 22 years, rising in ranks throughout his enlistment to become a Chief Officer. He enlisted in 1964, during the beginning of the Vietnam conflict. David trained as an aviation anti-submarine warfare technician in Memphis and spent his first four years in the Navy stationed at the Commander Fleet Air of San Diego. After reenlisting in 1968 with the rank of a Third Class Petty Officer, David spent time in Japan before returning to San Diego as a First Class Petty Officer and completed a tour from 1971-1975 in which he served as a mechanics repair shop supervisor. After being deployed to Bermuda, Spain, and Iceland, David returned to Memphis to spend his last four years in the Navy as an AVA course supervisor. By this time, he had earned the rank of Senior Chief. David shares extensive insights on racial relations in the south, anti-warfare sentiments on the west coast throughout the 1960's, and the integration of women in the Navy in the 1970's. 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 Vietnam War, 1961-1975--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 2011-09-20 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CheesemanD1255V 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/efbe935243dba1254ba1345bd7ce65d6.mp4 5240af0b4ddb3ebd780302b60cc7368c https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/dd2dcb317b9cef8d274fc1a633974ad8.pdf 1c49ea0d967847e571539adaabbd80f9 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview World War II Wayne Charles Total Time – (01:27:59) Background           He was born in Muskegon, Michigan on September 5, 1925 (00:25) o He grew up in Muskegon There were four kids in the family (00:49) o He had two brothers and a sister His father owned a gasoline station (00:56) o His sister was his mother's pride and joy o His father was able to keep his business through the 1930‟s (01:10) o The business went from being part of a major oil company to being independent (01:20)  He called the gas station his gold mine He went to high school at Muskegon High School (01:39) He remembers hearing about Pearl Harbor when he was down at the Michigan Theater (01:48) o When he came out of the movie theater everyone had the local newspaper saying that Pearl Harbor had been bombed Before that, he did not pay much attention to the war that was going on (02:09) o At that point of his life, life was very good and there were not many things that were bothering him (02:26) o He was just sixteen years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed He was not sure if the war would last long enough for him to be a part of it (02:39) o They took the news as it came His father was serious about the war when it was declared (02:47) o He became a block warden (02:52)  The block warden would have drills that he would run He remembers things such as paper and scrap drives going on (03:37) o Gasoline was rationed at gas stations He received his draft notice right when he graduated from high school in June of 1943 (04:03) Enlistment/Training – (04:07) �               When he graduated the boys were asked if they wanted to apply for OTC (Officers Candidate Training) o He decided that he mind as well – it could not do any harm to join (04:23) He was sent to Camp Croft, South Carolina (04:41) o Camp Croft is near Spartanburg, South Carolina (04:50) En route to Camp Croft, he was taken to Chicago, Illinois o From Chicago he was put on a train o The trip took 2-3 days (05:42) o There were a lot of recruits on board o They took a route through the back woods (06:04) When he arrived the soldiers were told where to line up (06:09) o The 1st Sergeant came out and read to them o One of the Sergeants gave him a special reception when he said, “You‟re in the infantry now. You can take that and shove it where the sun don‟t shine!” (06:38) He learned wire communications in Basic Training (07:00) There was a lot of emphasis on order and discipline (07:15) There was a lot of physical training He remembers having to train in different kinds of uniforms o It felt like they put the winter uniform on in the summer because he remembers it being warm outside and the sweat starting to come down his face (07:46) He learned discipline in the military but his dad had already instilled a great deal of it in him (08:18) He did not do wire communications training for the first few months of Basic Training (09:16) o There was Basic Training but then he continued at Camp Croft with specialized training (09:25) As time went on he was able to leave the base o A lot of men wanted to get weekend passes to get out of camp (09:43) o He never saw anything in Spartanburg that he wanted  It was just a bunch of bars and brothels (09:55)  They asked him to go on guard at the theater – he chose not to go At this point he was not assigned to any specific unit but was just part of the regular training group (10:41) o They did not get assigned to a group until later He spent a total of roughly four months in South Carolina (11:09) After he was done with training he was allowed to pack up and go home for leave (11:33) Once he was done with leave, he was shipped to Maryland where they received a weekend pass to New York City, New York (11:41) o The day after he came back they loaded up and shipped out o It was June of 1944 (11:59) �Active Duty – Part I – England/France/Maginot Line – (12:03)            He loaded on the USS Hermitage (12:06) o It was a converted Italian luxury liner o There were roughly 3-4,000 men on it (12:33) o They were very tightly packed on it o Many of the men got seasick (12:40) o The smell of food made him have to go and heave over the side of the boat The weather on the ocean was stormy (13:19) o They seldom had a nice day o The ship zigzagged back and forth to stay away from submarines (13:25) o They were sailing in a convoy He does not recall any U-boat scares when crossing the Atlantic Ocean (13:53) The trip took quite a while – approximately two weeks When they arrived they landed in Liverpool, England (14:35) o They were put on a train and shipped to a small town back in England someplace There was a camp set up with a tents in the countryside (14:53) o He was there for roughly one month (15:29) o They would be forced to march around – they did not want the soldiers to go stir crazy (15:41) o They did enough to keep themselves moving o They were not allowed to leave camp (15:59) Some of the soldiers would go over the hill where the guard could not see and jump over the road and walk into town (16:11) o He went one night and had a chance to taste an English bitter (pale ale) (16:26) o The bathroom was a room that had everything dumping into one hole  He learned to use the facilities at an angle so that you “don‟t splatter back on you.” (16:56) They were getting news of what was happening in Normandy, France The soldiers then have their name called and are loaded up to be sent to a coastal area where they load on an LST (Landing Ship, Tank) (17:34) o They went across the channel and get on a smaller boat o The smaller boat then takes them to the shore (18:01) At this point he does not know what unit he was joining (18:33) When he landed he remember it looking like a beach with a bunch of cross blockers (tetrahedra) (18:58) o The beach was cleaned up pretty well – there were no dead laying around o He could see where there had been some bombing and artillery explosions (19:13) o Some of the embattlements had cans sticking out where artillery was shot from (19:22) o A lot of people did not realize that the destroyers came close to knocking them out on D-Day �           When they landed on the beach they got into trucks and went through Chartres, France (20:26) o The only thing left in Chartres was the cathedral (20:35) He went through Saint-Lo, France as well (21:37) o It was leveled (21:42) En route to Paris, France, he ran into some sniper fire He was on his way help close the Falaise Pocket (22:40) o They never had to actually participate in the fight o If the fight had lasted another day or two they would have been in it (23:01) o His unit then dropped south and went towards the Maginot Line (23:12) He was part of the 8th Infantry Regiment, 4th Division o They were sitting outside of Paris waiting for the French Charles de Gaulle to come in and make his grand entry (23:29) o It bothered the soldiers because one regiment got all of the recognition  It always seemed like they got the short end of the stick (24:04) They would have to cross different rivers throughout France and would sometimes face some firefights there (24:12) o The Germans had no coordinated defense (24:18) His first combat experience was when they were going through a French town in the morning o There was a mist coming up and they could not see very well (24:57) o They were supposed to maintain contact with F Company and go through to see if there were any German stragglers o When they went over to see if the men they saw was F Company, they realized that they were Germans (25:20)  That is when “all hell broke loose” o There was fire going in all directions when they were fighting (25:37) o He was not sure what to do because it was his first combat  He started to just spray his bullets (25:54) o He learned how to survive for himself o When he first started shooting he had already hit the ground (26:31)  The fighting is pandemonium o He would not have known how to prepare for that kind of fighting (26:52) Most of the men in his company were originally from Normandy (27:02) o There were not very many losses on Utah Beach (27:12) o The company was in good strength In the first combat that he faced, the soldiers were on top of a bald hill (27:45) o The Germans had the only cover that was there o The rest of his Company was running while he was shooting (28:20) When he finally got off the hill, he could see the company a half-mile down a country road away – he said that some of the men had “a real head start.” As he was advancing through France and Belgium in August and September of 1944, he saw very little of the civilian populations (29:21) o They were kept away from cities with higher populations o They would go through many little towns (29:31) �Active Duty – Part II – Siegfried Line/Hurtgen Forest – (30:49)          After his first firefight they did not face much opposition as they moved forward – not until they got to the Siegfried Line (30:53) o The first time they went through the Siegfried Line it was like a walk in the park  There were a few sniper fires but that was about all (31:08) o When they got to the other side, the hill was extremely peaceful – it is hard to imagine something so peaceful in a time of war (31:20)  It was almost like something that a painter would paint  The soldiers stood there for about four hours (31:50) o The soldiers are then told to pull back  They were frustrated that they were going to give it back up  They could not be supported with artillery, armor, food, water, etc. (32:21) Once they got the supply situation straightened out they were sent back to the Siegfried Line and fight there way back through (32:31) o He thinks that it is where he got his hearing loss – he lost his hearing for three or four days (32:43) o The second trip through was no walk in the park o They were trying to attack the pillboxes and bunkers (33:00) o The big pillboxes were made of concrete and had big guns sticking out of them  The Germans knew exactly how far it was from the pillbox to anything else (33:18) His unit avoided the mine fields because they still had signs up (33:52) The fields all had dragon‟s teeth to keep the tankers out (34:17) o They would walk through the fields with those When they got into the wooded forest area they had to do the fighting (34:28) o Seldom did they do any fighting in the Siegfried Line where there were buildings around His unit was able to move forward but faced some trouble (34:54) o When soldiers crossed the Siegfried Line, they crossed into Germany (35:04) o The Germans defend their homeland just like anyone else would The Americans were fortunate to have the Russians putting pressure on the Germans on the other front (35:26) o The Germans were not able to have all of their forces defend the west (35:32) o Hitler‟s idea was even to keep everyone off of the beaches o The Americans were not even supposed to get to the Siegfried Line (35:57) The Americans eventually took the Siegfried Line He does not know much about the path they took to get to the Siegfried Line – “As an infantry man, they don‟t tell you anything.” (36:20) �          o The soldiers are also on the ground a lot of the time – they are not up looking around His unit pushed forward and moved into the Hurtgen Forest in Germany (37:07) As they were pushing through the Siegfried Line, the fighting became increasingly worse o There was some open ground between the Siegfried Line and the Hurtgen Forest (37:59)  They were going to have to fight the battle regardless of the terrain Quite a bit of the Hurtgen Forest had been manmade (38:38) o The trees had been harvested, planted, and re-harvested o It was a renewable resource for many of the people (38:55) o When they were fighting they would find some of the poor people gathering twigs and whatever they could for fire to keep warm (39:03) o The trees were laid out in lines o The lower braches die and break off (39:37) o There would be soldiers that would walk beside one another breaking off branches  The soldiers could hear when something was coming but they could not tell who it was, where it was coming from, or exactly how far away it was (39:48)  Only when they were very close, approximately ten feet, they could tell who it was The Germans would usually sit back and wait for the Americans to attack (41:30) o When the Americans took any ground, the Germans would counterattack it right away (41:42) o They fought in a way that made them ready to defend their ground The 1st Lieutenant that arrived was seeing his first combat When they took ground it was very bloody (42:47) o Ground is not given up very easily At one point his lieutenant told them to retreat (43:37) o He later talked to his company commander‟s wife and she told him that the lieutenant was probably the man that had told her husband that he could not do this any more (44:17) o The lieutenant disappeared a day or two after his retreat order A new lieutenant was then sent back out (44:41) The company commander was typically better than the lieutenants (44:55) o He did his job very well o The commissioned officers sometimes “go back to the battalion and they shave and pussy up to the battalion commander” (45:13)  They sometimes get a position while they are there  It was also a way for them to get some rest (45:32)  None of the non-commissioned officers received any of that treatment He had battle fatigue while he was in the Hurtgen Forest (46:03) �      o He had tried to go back for a night so that he could get rest when his commander asked him, “God damn it Charles, Somebody‟s gotta fight this „F-F‟ war!” (46:45) o That was the end of their conversation o He was the only seasoned soldier in their platoon at the time (47:09)  They had been replaced two and a half times while they were in the Hurtgen Forest When he was in the forest, casualties happened in many different ways (47:36) o Artillery was probably the main cause of injuries  The artillery knocks the foliage out of the air (48:15)  The Germans would then go and hide in the foliage and fire at them (48:24) o The rifle fire was probably the next most dangerous form of killing (48:39)  The Germans always had more automatic weapons than the Americans (48:52)  They would always have two machine guns with intersecting lines of fire They had two 60mm mortars and two light machine guns in their company (49:57) o The Germans would have 4-6 automatic weapons per squad (50:06) o The Americans never had nearly the same amount of firepower as the Germans o The Americans also never had smokeless powder (50:28)  They could not tell where the Germans were located  The smoke would give away their positions (50:43) He spent a little over a month in the Hurtgen Forest (51:15) o There was no light at the end of the tunnel o He would go through the same things day after day thinking that he could get wounded or killed in the next second (51:38) o The soldier never knows when or how fast it is going to happen o Soldiers are constantly on the edge (51:49) There was one instance, after an attack on a couple of light tanks, a German machine gunner tore loose a rain coat that he had hanging over his ammo belt o One of the soldiers said, “Charles, you‟re going to kill us all!” (52:35) o As far as he was concerned, they were already dead (52:43)  He had not come to that conclusion yet  There is nothing to be concerned about if you know that you are already dead (52:51) There was no rotation for the men (53:12) o They would send replacements for the men that were killed (53:20) As a platoon leader, it is initial job to get the replacements up to the frontline o They lost a lot of men just getting them to the front (53:35)  There were close to fifty replacements that went in one night  Twenty five of them were hit with artillery and never even made it to their outfit (53:55) �      o They could never count on their replacements being there (54:03) o They would tell the replacements to get on the ground and hug it as tight as you can (54:10) o “Don‟t try to be a hero.” One time a Lieutenant asked if anyone had anything to say and he told them that they should pray a lot and he meant it (54:45) o No one said a word It got extremely cold there – his feet got frostbite on them (55:05) o He still has a hard time keeping his balance (55:14) o He did not have frozen feet – he had frostbitten feet  It took him ten years to get his claim through the VA  He took two trips to Detroit, Michigan to get his claim through When he went to Detroit for his claim, it was a lot like a court room (56:18) o When he walked in, they told him to tell them his claim o He first asked the man, “Have you ever been in combat before?” He said “No.” He replied, “In combat there are some things that happen that you don‟t understand what goes on unless you‟ve been in combat. And that is you have a camaraderie and fellowship with your men. And you don‟t leave them no matter what.” (57:01) o He told him that he was not going to run off from his men for something like frostbitten feet or a temporary loss of hearing o He stayed with his men because they needed him (58:18)  He was the only seasoned man in the outfit at the time o He told him that he had to understand that o His claim eventually went through (59:15) His hearing problems are not simply a problem of volume but of bone conduction (01:00:08) o He does not differentiate between different consonants When he was in the Hurtgen Forest they gained some ground (01:01:08) o They were extremely hard fought battles that were bought with blood o Nothing was free in Hurtgen Forest (01:01:20) There was only one point where they had tanks – the fighting was almost exclusively infantry fighting Active Duty – Part III – Battle of the Bulge/Last Experiences – (01:01:45)   After they were done fighting in the Hurtgen Forest they were moved to Luxembourg (01:02:06) o They were only there for a couple of days before the Battle of the Bulge began (01:02:18) His company and regiment were pretty much a “ragtag outfit” (01:02:43) o They had no cohesion to fight like a 1st class outfit o They put up a hell of a fight (01:02:58) o They did not have seasoned men �            They were supposed to go on R&R when they went to Luxembourg but it did not turn out that way (01:03:16) They were in a position when the Battle of the Bulge started to anchor the bulge (01:03:33) o They kept it from spreading wider o Some replacements were sent to their unit (01:03:46) o They never got to full strength o His unit held its ground during the fighting (01:04:04) The Germans did not put a lot of pressure on his outfit o There were some other outfits that were heavily shelled (01:04:24) When in the front lines, the soldiers are given three K-rations every morning o They are sent up to the front lines by Supply Sergeants (01:04:57) There was one day in Hurtgen Forest when they sent a certain amount of men to bring back rations and water – the figures were not right o They did not have a man to carry the water up – he had to carry the water in each of his hands (01:05:35) o The lieutenant asked him how he got all of the rations up there – he told him that Charles carried two jerrycans (01:06:02)  Each jerrycan held five gallons The lieutenant that he liked was wounded once and gone for a while (01:07:28) o They were there at pretty much the same time o The lieutenant gave him a pass to go to Lyons, France (01:07:48) When he got back from Lyons, the rumor in his platoon was that he was going to be given battlefield commission o It turned out that it was a bureaucratic situation (01:08:31) Once the Battle of the Bulge was over, his unit started moving and attacking towards Germany (01:08:47) There was a picture of his platoon and squad crossing a river on the cover of LIFE magazine (01:09:42) o He was sent a copy of the magazine and he did not remember any of the men He does remember being at a city that was on a river where there was part of a battle line to keep the people from crossing the bridge (01:11:07) o They were there for a few days and then moved on (01:11:31) He does not remember crossing the Rhine River (01:11:47) One day they were unloading trucks and they were facing the woods. They were told that on the other side of the woods is some open ground, more woods, and then a German hospital (01:12:36) o They were told that the military wanted to know if there were armed Germans there or not o They went through the woods first until they got to the open space. They could see the tops of the buildings over the tops of the trees  To him it looked like something a person could want to get sucked into (01:13:35) o He did not want to take his men across and get them killed when the war was so close to being over (01:13:53) �          o He asked the lieutenant to go up to the front so that he could talk with him  He said that if the lieutenant came up and gave him a direct order, he would do it (01:14:32)  They waited and no one came o They eventually pulled out and went further down the road (01:14:57) When he crossed the autobahn, there was a steady line of German prisoners o The prisoners looked like normal men (01:15:39) o Some were younger and some were older o He realized that Hitler‟s army was so big because he had soldiers from all kinds of nations fighting for him (01:16:17) A lot of Hitler‟s army and war effort was run on synthetic petroleum (01:16:52) o They used a lot of slave labor (01:17:09)  The slave labor moved a lot of the male German population out of the industries and into the military They got close to the Austrian border at one time (01:17:47) When the war ended they ran a camp where they held German officials of the war (01:18:15) o There were some ambassadors and generals He remembers going to a museum in Augsburg, Germany and staying there After the war ended, he did not stay in Germany for too long (01:19:42) When they were in the camp where German officials were being held, they were told that they were going to go to Japan (01:20:00) o They were all being shaken down and had all of their things taken from there o There was no hurry to it (01:20:19) o The men were then told that they were going to be leaving for Le Havre, France (01:20:26) They quickly shipped to Le Havre o Many of the men got shipped to the United States for leave before they were supposed to be going to Japan (01:20:42) The war was very different in Japan – they had to have more training in the United States on how to operate in Japan (01:20:51) He was not happy that they were going to be sent to Japan After Europe/After the Service – (01:21:08)      While he was home the Japanese surrendered and they never had to go (01:21:12) When he returned to the United States, he did not travel in a convoy and landed in New York Harbor (01:21:25) He was discharged from Camp Butner, North Carolina o He was discharged in December of 1945 He did not have enough points to go home when he first arrived so he had to stay around Camp Butner for some time (01:21:56) o His last months there were spent being a Supply Sergeant He sent a German flag and helmet home from Camp Butner �    o He had given away German binoculars when he was in the Hurtgen Forest (01:24:22)  He did not want to get caught by the Germans with German goods on him (01:24:39) After he was discharged he went back to his dad and asked if he needed any help with work o They made an agreement to rent out the place next door for help at the gas station He made a career of working gas stations (01:25:55) o He eventually bought the gas station When he looks back at his time of service, he got to know what discipline was o He never really cared for the discipline of the service (01:26:27)  He did not like it because it was like a caste system (01:26:39) He does not think there should be women in the front lines in any kind of confrontation � 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 Charles, Wayne (Interview outline and video), 2013 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Charles, Wayne Description An account of the resource Wayne Charles was born in Muskegon, Michigan, in 1925, and was drafted in 1943. He trained at Camp Croft, South Carolina, in wire communications, but was eventually sent to Europe as an infantry replacement. He shipped out in June, spent about a month in England, and was assigned to the 8th Infantry Regiment, 4th Division, before the liberation of Paris in August. His unit advanced across France and Belgium, and fought through the Siegfried Line and into the Hurtgen Forest, where they saw their heaviest fighting. They were then sent to Luxembourg to refit, and wound up on the south shoulder of the Bulge in December. He then participated in the invasion of Germany and spent some time guarding German prisoners before being sent home and discharged. 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 2013-01-24 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CharlesW1475V 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/7b631b6e08ba9208215af8d1ea82f47e.mp4 dd548a8444302c0b71a88b16b4ee85a8 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d4769364600e9bb4527715b57b921b64.pdf 4e6a113b5342f9332bbcf4122c0be7ba PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Rod Chapman Korean War Total Time: 39:18 Childhood and Pre-Enlistment (00:00) • • • • Born in Connecticut in 1930 Father worked a number of different jobs before they moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan for a job. Had a number of family members in the service during World War II. Did not finish high school and worked a number of jobs before he was drafted in 1951. Training (03:30) • • • Took a train to Fort Sheridan, Illinois, and then to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri where he took basic training and engineer training. Placed a lot of emphasis on Army discipline. (08:14) Learned a number of different tasks in Engineering Training, one of which was building bridges and roads. Active Duty (08:35) • • • • • • • • • • Was shipped to Chicago, then to Fort Lawton where he boarded a ship to Yokohama, Japan. They were shipped over on a marine phoenix ship. The ship was very crowded. (10:25) He attended cook school in Japan for 8 weeks. He learned to cook and use the stoves. (11:05) After this training, he was shipped to Pusan, Korea and then to the Kapyan, where he was attached to the 32nd Infantry Regiment of the 7th Division. He ended up as a rifleman however, and not as a cook. His unit was on Heartbreak Ridge when he joined them. He also remembers his unit not having any real problems with race during his time with them, although there were black soldiers in the unit. (14:10) The line was quiet when he got to the hill. They were eventually pulled off the line and taken for more training. They were subsequently assigned to Henry Hill, which he remembers quite vividly. They were on that specific hill for 6 weeks. For the most part, they were sitting around and watching the Chinese across the ridge. (16:50) They would sometimes participate in a patrol which would try to detect any Chinese movement or penetration. There were around 160 men in his company. �• • • • • • • • (20:07) They were then pulled off the line into a blocking position. After some time in the blocking position, they were moved to the front again as a replacement for another unit. In September, many of the men were up for rotation. (22:02) His company was on Pikes Peak during Triangle. There were many caves that the enemy occupied, making it difficult to make movements. He was hit by artillery, and went to an aid station for this injury. The objective was to take the hill, which took 14 days. They attacked during all hours of the day. The Americans would attack and the Chinese would counterattack, which is why taking the hill took so long. (26:40) They had to carry many of the wounded off the hill by litter, which could be very difficult at times. (29:44) After Triangle Hill, their company had only 66 men left, and they were brought off the line. After this point, he left to go home via Inchon and Tokyo by boat. He landed in Seattle after 15 days crossing the ocean. He was then put on a bus to the airstrip where they were put on a substandard plane for Battle Creek, Michigan. (32:50) They were on leave at Fort Custer, Michigan for 30 days. (33:30) He was Supply Sergeant at Fort Custer for 2 weeks. He was then sent to Colorado Springs, CO for 4 months where he worked as a Supply Sergeant before he was discharged. Post-Service (35:10) • • Worked for RC Allen when he returned home. Also worked for General Motors. � 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 Chapman, Rod (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chapman, Rod Description An account of the resource Rod Chapman was drafted into the US Army in 1951. After training as an engineer at bases in the US and as a cook in Japan, he was assigned to the 7th Division as a rifleman, where he was stationed first in the Heartbreak Ridge sector and then in the Triangle Hill sector. In the fighting at Triangle Hill, his unit suffered heavy casualties and was eventually rotated out of the line, and he was sent home shortly afterward in 1953. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Korean War, 1950-1953--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 2009-06-11 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ChapmanR 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/9b71cf91241e84155cfdfb782e8378ea.mp4 30b65ba472277cdfd11e732112d0df8b https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/98c6a143999398ed300841dec5a84600.pdf e8afd9ebade4a04866cb7d8ec5973224 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Dean Chapman World War II Total Time: 1:02:01 Childhood and Pre-Enlistment (0:00:21) • • • • • Born in Lansing, MI 1922. Father was a credit manager Graduated from Michigan State University in 1943. Participated in ROTC while he was in college. Specifically, they trained in Field Artillery during his time in the ROTC, and they also practiced with a pistol. Upon graduation, was taken to Detroit, MI and sworn in as an officer in the Army. Training (0:23:33) • • • • • • Shipped to WI for advanced infantry training. Was then shipped to Fort Sill, OK and trained in the Field Artillery School. Graduated December 10th, 1943. Upon graduation, was given time for leave and was then shipped to Fort Bragg, NC where he waited until he was assigned orders. At this point, he decided to join the 10th Armored Division and reported to Camp Gordon, GA to receive training. Learned the ins and outs of tanks during his tme there. Was trained as a forward observer in the Baker Battalion, 123rd Armored Artillery Battalion of the 10th Armored Division. Was then shipped out for Europe. Active Duty (0:27:45) • • • • • • • Was taken to Camp Shanks, NY and then to Pier 20 in the harbor. He was transported on a captured German ship. This boat, however, ran aground and so they had to disembark the ship. They then got on to another ship and had to catch up with their convoy. (0:31:54) They thought they saw a submarine on their way across, but it was only a piece of driftwood. Their journey on the boat took them four days. They disembarked in Cherbourg, France and were taken on shore on barges pulled by tugboats. Moved into Paris from Cherbourg, and did some work with the French underground. (0:40:27) They captured Metz after heavy fighting �• • • • • (0:41:40) He was in one of the first divisions to see combat in the Battle of the Bulge. Their division was there hours before the 101st Airborne Division showed up at Bastogne. (0:50:08) His division then pushed across Germany to the Rhine River and then ended up in Austria. At the end of the war, he was in Bavaria. (0:52:45) At the end of the war, he stayed in Europe with General Morris. He mostly reported to the General about the activities of the various lower ranking officers. (0:57:15) He returned to the United States in late 1945 and worked for the Pentagon for two weeks to earn his one point so that he could go home. Post-War (0:59:45) • • He went back to college upon exiting the Army, and worked for a Farmers Co-op, where he broke his leg. He wrote a book about his experiences in the war. � 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 Chapman, Dean (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chapman, Dean Description An account of the resource Dean Chapman was born in Lansing, Michigan in 1922, and served in the Army in World War II. He was in the ROTC in college at Michigan State, and joined the Army shortly after graduating. He worked as a forward observer for the 123rd Battalion of the 10th Armored Division. He was involved in several different campaigns in Europe, serving in the Battle of the Bulge, and in Germany and Austria. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McCauslin, Kelly (Interviewer) Spring Lake District Library (Spring Lake, 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 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 2008-04-26 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ChapmanD 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/4c6b425e31c6079df1d0920693ebdaf7.mp4 7e4debfc3f15cba1268ec50a0bf10856 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/88a4c02cce5d8cf4af8d7f9d375d84a6.pdf 0b00a0a63a35f07b94d948c8018a76dd PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Fred Chambers Length: 47:34 (00:35) Background Information        Fred was born in Orlando, Florida in 1940 His mother did housework and his father was in general labor; he had 2 brothers and 3 sisters Fred went to Jones High School and graduated in June of 1959 It was an all black school and not very many people graduated; his family was not very supportive of him finishing high school Fred played football, basketball, baseball, and ran track He had been offered a football scholarship, but enlisted in the Army instead because he did not think the scholarship was enough for him to further his education Fred volunteered for the draft so that he would be in the service for 2 years rather than 3 (4:10) Training  Fred was sent to Fort Jackson for 8 weeks of basic training and then received 2 weeks leave  Training was very rough and he had never been far away from home before  The drill sergeants were very mean, but never physically harmed anyone  Fred had nightmares while going through basic training and even sleep walked around the base  The base was integrated with men from all over the country  After basic training he went through advanced infantry training where they worked on combat training  They trained with weapons, hiking, grenades, and often worked with Korean War veterans  He went through advanced training for 8 weeks and then volunteered to go through airborne training (7:50) Jump School  Fred was sent to Fort Bragg for jump school with about 1200 other students; only 600 of them graduated  Jump school was rough with much physical training  Fred trained for 6 weeks before he had his first jump and it had been his first time on a plane � It seemed very easy to him the first time, but he later learned the wind conditions were very favorable that day and it is normally more physically demanding  The men all had to jump 5 time before they graduated and received their wings (10:30) Re-enlistment  Fred was assigned to the 187th Infantry Unit after graduating from jump school  They continued training, jumping in drop zones and working in war games  The infantry unit was part of the 82nd Airborne Division of Fort Bragg  Fred’s 2 years of service had come up and he was told that if he did not want to continue with the infantry that he should sign up for a different school for re-enlistment  Fred re-enlisted and was sent to Maryland for training in office administrative work  Once he was finished training he was sent to Fort Bragg again, but began working in administration rather than the infantry  He was later transferred to Fort Aberdeen in Maryland, but then again sent back to Fort Bragg to work with a supply company (14:50) Okinawa  Fred was sent to Okinawa in 1964 to serve as a replacement with the 137th Airborne Brigade  Fred had 2 different tours in Okinawa  They were allowed to leave the base and associate with the civilians  Fred enjoyed working with the civilians and learning about their culture  For his first tour he spent 13 months in Okinawa and left in May of 1965 to go to Vietnam  Fred was part of the first combat unit to go to Vietnam (19:15) Vietnam  Fred was sent to Bien Hoa Air Force Base where they set up tents along the runway  He was told not to shoot anyone or at anything unless he was shot at first � They were guarding the Air Force Base against attack while combat units went out on patrols  Fred also helped transport ammunitions from Saigon to Bien Hoa  It was hard working with the Vietnamese civilians because they could turn on you or work against you during the night  Fred spent 1 year in Vietnam and was then sent to Alabama to work as an ammunitions instructor  Every day in Vietnam seemed the same and Fred was very happy to leave because he had not seen his family in 18 months (24:10) Second Tour of Okinawa  Fred worked in Alabama for 18 months and was then sent back to Okinawa in 1967  He was working more with the civilian population the second time around because he was in a different unit  Fred was working as a staff sergeant, or E7, and had his own private barracks  After spending so much time overseas he assumed that he would not be going back to Vietnam (26:10) Second Tour of Vietnam  After another 18 months in Okinawa Fred was sent to Fort Riley in Kansas where he worked as the first sergeant of an ammunition company  18 months later he received orders that he would be going back to Vietnam  Fred was sent to Seattle, Washington and then took a commercial airline to Vietnam  Fred was assigned as an munitions inspector and had to go around to many different Army units  He was transferred to work in Saigon as an advisor for a Vietnamese unit  They Vietnamese were more laid back then the Americans, but he never really worked with them while in action  His second tour was not very different from his first and he felt that the war was continually being fought the wrong way � The Vietnamese were easily influenced and some of them thought they were still fighting the French  He once flew to Cambodia and many of the people there had never even seen a black man (32:30) Recruiting  In 1972 Fred was sent to Grand Rapids, Michigan to work as an Army recruiter  Many were still enlisting even through the unpopular was almost over  Fred worked as a recruiter in Grand Rapids for 13 years while most recruiters did not last that long or would have been transferred  The quotas were hard to meet after 1975 especially with the positions that required higher levels of education  Many other recruiters were not as successful as Fred because they would get burned out or they were not honest and respectful to their recruits (41:10) Retirement  After recruiting for 13 years Fred retired and set up an interview for a job with All State Insurance  He passed the aptitude tests and then had to take classes with the state to get a license to sell insurance  Fred enjoyed working with all the different people and getting to know them  He did not join any veterans organizations for a while because many of them did not want to associate with Vietnam Veterans  Most of the VFW stations were full of veterans from the Korean War and WWII  The men received very negative responses from civilians when they returned; they were spit on and called “baby killers”  Fred is happy now with the way the troops are being treated from Iraq and Afghanistan � 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 Chambers, Fred (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chambers, Fred Description An account of the resource Fred Chambers was born in Orlando, Florida in 1940 and graduated from Jones High School in 1959. After graduating from high school Fred volunteered for the draft in the Army so that he would serve a term of 2 years instead of 3. He went through basic training for 8 weeks at Fort Jackson and then volunteered for Jump School at Fort Bragg. After his 2 years Fred re-enlisted in the Army and was assigned to the 187th Infantry Brigade, where he served for 2 tours in Okinawa and 2 tours in Vietnam. After serving overseas Fred working as a recruiter for the Army in Grand Rapids, Michigan for 13 years before he retired. 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 2009-11-06 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ChambersF 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/4af8dedbb584401527c93bfabdaa18e2.mp4 bf60c741261e086176d20f8214991acd https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d646b04f63b2c59219dbc52be48a169d.pdf 7206e76d8725a995f6c655bb4a045f8e PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project James Chamberlain (00:52:27) (00:30) Background Information • • • • James was born in Highland Park, MI, on August 16, 1926 His father worked with a realty corporation and his mother was a housewife James went to school in Detroit and remembers wanting to enlist shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked James listened to FDR declare war against Japan on the radio (8:45) Enlistment in the Navy 1943 • • • • James went through training at Great Lakes Naval Academy in Chicago He studied and taught about enemy ships at Fort Pierce in Florida for six months Men needed to be able to identify enemy ships so as not to sink their own ships James then went to San Diego where his duty was to take small boats to shore, transferring men on leave (19:15) From California to Florida • James took an aircraft carrier back to Florida • The carrier was used to refuel planes (22:40) The Philippines • James helped to set up bases along the coasts of the northern and central islands • He was working there for 8 months and the war was already over (26:05) A 90 Day Trip • James traveled to Hong Kong, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Gibraltar, Naples, and Casablanca • They were picking up service men that had enough points to go home • They went back to the US through the Panama Canal • James was done with his service in 1946 • He had been keeping in contact with his family the entire time he spent in the service � 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 Chamberlain, James (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Chamberlain, James Description An account of the resource James Chamberlain enlisted in the Navy in 1943 and trained at Great Lakes Naval Academy in Chicago. James spent almost a year in the Philippines helping to build naval bases along the coasts of different islands. On his trip home in 1946, he traveled to Hong Kong, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Gibraltar, Naples, and Casablanca. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Navy 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 2007-16-07 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ChamberlainJ 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/38084efde2314a4b574bbaa16470dc20.mp4 c706bfd280115cdf9a850139dd41d8d3 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/37aab0e08e5a7fc4d269e06693e73dcf.pdf fe79c3a475f01c0c02b1075d7608e212 PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW PAUL CETON Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project Transcribed by: Rachel Ayers, June 10, 2014 Interviewer: We’re talking today with Paul Ceton of Grand Rapids Michigan, and the interviewer is James Smither, of Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project. Now, Paul, can you start with a little bit of background on yourself, to start with, where and when were you born? Actually born in Muskegon, Michigan, although we lived in Fruitport, little village just southeast of there. Interviewer: And what year was that? 1946. Interviewer: All right, did you grow up in that area? Actually till I was almost four years old when we moved to Grand Rapids. My dad got work in Grand Rapids so we‟re the only part of our family that, all our relatives stayed in Muskegon area but we moved on here and I‟m sure glad we did. Interviewer: All right, and what kind of work did your father do? Actually, a lot of things. He was a minister, he was a farmer, he was a car salesman, and he wound up working at maintenance department at Ferguson hospital, which doesn‟t exist anymore. Interviewer: And did you go through, through school then in Grand Rapids? 1:00 Went to Central High School, actually I went to Fountain Grade School and Central High School and they‟re right on the same block so I never had to walk more than a block away to school. Interviewer: All right. And then what year did you graduate from high school? 1964. Interviewer: Okay. And then at the point when you graduated what did you do? I went to Grand Rapids Junior College, which is community college now, and I was working between thirty-three and like thirty-nine hours a week and still taking a full course at Junior College so it was kinda rough. �Interviewer: Well, what kind of work were you doing? Working at a gas station. Corner of Michigan and Lafayette which of course doesn‟t exist anymore. Interviewer: All right, and did you have plans for what you were gonna do coming out of college or… I didn‟t have any concrete plans. 1:54 One of the things I really wanted to be when I was much younger was a pilot, and back then, I don‟t know what the standards are now, but you had to have perfect eyesight and I had 20/20 in my left eye, 20/60 in my right eye, so I thought, well, forget that, but I was always interested in carpentry. That‟s kinda what I wanted to do. Interviewer: Okay. Now, how did you wind up in the Army? Well, I got drafted. (laughs) And it was October of „66 which was, I believe, the highest draft call since the Korean War. And I was just an average student so I was very vulnerable. I have an identical twin brother who was at Western Michigan at the time and he was pulling all A‟s so I made it in and he didn‟t. Interviewer: All right, so once you’re drafted, then where do you first report and how does that process work? 2:52 Well, we met at -- took off from the bus station here in Grand Rapid and took a bus down to Detroit, and went through a processing center down there, and then we got a on a train and went to Fort Knox, Kentucky, and we only stayed there two or three days because it was jam packed. And so they sent us down to Fort Hood, Texas, which really wasn‟t a basic training site but because of the huge amount of people coming in they opened that up to basic training. Interviewer: All right, how did they get you down to Fort Hood? We flew. Actually I think we flew from Fort Knox to St. Louis, and then down to Dallas, and, I think -- I should remember this but I don‟t. I think we took buses then down to Fort Hood. Interviewer: All right, now, was Fort Hood ready for you? Yeah. I wasn‟t ready for them. Interviewer: All right. Describe a little bit how the basic training process worked for you. Well, it was, course, just culture shock for me. 4:03 I‟d never been anything through that, or like that. Very intense, and looking back on it, you know, they were very, very tough on us and I was sure glad they were. They excellent instructor, instructors down there. They got us ready in, in fact we had AIT after that. Advanced Infantry Training, which was just as intense, then we went through another series, Basic Unit Training after that. In all we spent a year at Fort Hood basically training for Vietnam. �Interviewer: Okay, now describe a little bit the, the physical setup there, what was the base like, how was it laid out, where were you on it? The base was actually, it‟s pretty flat land down there. You‟re just a little bit north of the hill country, north of Austin a little bit. Lot hotter, of course, than it is here. 4:58 And the barracks we had, we were in -- of course, they don‟t have this anymore -- but that, all open. You‟ve got like fifty beds in the open and just showers and bathrooms that are all open, and absolutely no privacy. And after the eight weeks of basic training we wound up going to a different set up barracks which were more modern, and we had a little bit more privacy there. Interviewer: Okay. How much emphasis did they place just on the military discipline, that sort of thing? It was incredible emphasis and… almost to the point of brain washing. But I think that‟s got to be a part of it to make it mentally tough and ready for what you were going into. Interviewer: Okay, now, what kind of physical shape were you in when you went down there? Actually looking at me now, look at me then, are two different people. I was in pretty good shape, I was, actually, I‟ve shrunk a little bit. 6:00 I was 5‟10”, about 145 pounds and they have a physical test -- PT test, they call it -- before you go over, and there‟s five events and it‟s 100 points for each of that. And I wound up with 500 points, so I was in pretty good shape. Interviewer: So that part of it you were pretty much able to handle, or to deal with, or did they push you a little farther than you’d been pushed before physically? Well, it‟s interesting. I, I‟ve always been very competitive in athletics, never a good athlete, but just a great desire to do my best, and I was a cross country runner in high school, and I ran track, I ran the mile, and one, one kid down there pushed me. And you know we, we‟d run a hundredyard-dash, and I couldn‟t come close to him. But he said, “I can beat you in a mile, too,” and he pushed me. And out of our whole company of a hundred-some people I finished first and he was right on my, my rear-end, so. 7:04 Yeah I‟d… very physical atmosphere, and there‟s a lot of guys who just weren‟t cutting it. Every time before we went to breakfast we had to do like ten pull-ups, and I know one guy, he couldn‟t even do two of them, and he was done. But that was fairly easy for most of us. Interviewer: Okay -Not now! Interviewer: If people were kind of falling behind or having trouble, I mean, would they wash out or just keep doing it over and over again? �They really whipped those guys into shape, and, as far as I know, from our platoon, I don‟t think anybody did not make it. They all came out physically much better than what they came in. Interviewer: Okay, now, as you go through your stages and levels of training, what kinds of things get added on to the basic PT and discipline stuff? 7:57 Basically, just, you learn a lot about the enemy, you learn about the habitat, what kind of situations there are in Vietnam. We knew pretty much from the start we‟re all headed to Vietnam, and basically Fort Hood was set up with, of course, a lot of helicopters, we did helicopter training down there, but they had mock-up villages, very well simulated what you actually had in Vietnam. Interviewer: Okay. Did they have any effort to simulate jungle? Yes. Interviewer: Okay, now where would you have jungle at Fort Hood? Basically, there‟s way out -- Fort Hood is actually the largest physical base, so there‟s a lot of terrain changes out there, and of course you couldn‟t really replicate the, the type of trees they had, but did that with the trees that they had, and the huts and everything that they made were, looked actually like you saw in Vietnam. So…. 9:00 Interviewer: And were the people who were training you at that level, had they been to Vietnam? Most of them, yeah. Yeah, in fact, I think every one of our DIs had been there. Interviewer: All right, and this is still ‘66 or are you in ‘67 now for a lot of that or…. 1966, I believe, was October that I wound up down there, yes and then spent a year there. In October „67 we deployed. Interviewer: Okay, yeah, and by the time you’re getting into ‘67 you would be having more guys who were rotating back who had their tours and been there and come out. Right. Interviewer: Yeah. And, interesting you say that because a lot of them were really helpful, gave us a lot of good advice, and then some of them just, they scared us to death, but you know, with what they were saying went over there. Some knew how to prepare us and some really didn‟t. 9:56 �Interviewer: So there were some that were still kind of working out whatever their own issues where and they just happened to be trainers at that point. Yes. Interviewer: All right, now, as this is going forward, what kind of attitude or expectation did you have now for the prospect of going to Vietnam? Was it real to you yet, or was it still just kind of this, this, this challenge or this thing you do or… I don‟t think it was really real until we set foot in, in Vietnam and it was just a day-by-day thing. You know I‟m a man of faith, and, and prayer really helped me get through the situation. Interviewer: Okay. Now you spent a year at Fort Hood. Eventually, do you get liberty, do you get to go off base and do other things and sort of have a rest of a life there or… Yes, most of the time I stayed right on base because I loved to wrestle, and I used to wrestle a lot. We would box. I liked to stay on base and just box, and we‟d play a lot of football, and I tried to save my money. 11:05 A lot of guys, they went to Waco, or Temple, some of the towns around there, Killeen, and spent all their money and got drunk. I wasn‟t a drinker …so I just enjoyed staying on base and just doing physical things. Interviewer: All right, now, did you have a specialized assignment that you were training for or were you just gonna go in, be a rifleman? Rifleman. Actually I trained with the rifle but I got assigned to a grenade launcher when I was over there. Interviewer: Okay, but not while, but not, but you weren’t specifically in that, slotted for that when you were back at Fort Hood though? Yeah, Fort Hood, I‟d basically trained with the M16. Interviewer: And did they do some kind of cross training on the different infantry weapons? Yes. Pretty much everything. We all got to fire the 50s and the 60s and the grenade launchers and of course grenades. 12:00 Yeah, we were all pretty well cross trained. Interviewer: Okay. Then word comes down that you’re actually going to ship out. Now, at this point are you going over there as replacements or are you going over there as an organized unit? We‟re going as an organized unit, Americal Division, which was, I believe the World War II, they were involved in, and then they shut down, then reactivated it for Vietnam. And we were part of 198th Infantry Brigade, and we were going over there to take over for where the 196th brigade was. So, yeah, pretty much we were over there to take over for a lot of other units. �Interviewer: But you’re going over there with a group of men that you’ve trained alongside them so you know each other. Right, and I feel very fortunate that, in that, because -- one thing they tell you, you know, don‟t make friends, you know, because you‟re gonna lose them -- and we did lose a lot of guys, but you cannot not make friends. 13:08 And to this day my best friends are, you know, we‟re scattered all over the country, but they‟re the guys that I fought with. Interviewer: Right. Incredible group of guys, so…. Interviewer: Okay. And were you keeping basically the same junior officers, Sergeants, and so forth too, I mean the whole unit, or were those guys rotating in and out? We stayed pretty much as one unit until three months in when I got hit, I lost my right eye, which is my twenty -- 20/20 eye, I lost my best eye. But we lost a lot of guys that day. One guy killed, and I think there were thirty-two, thirty-three of us out on patrol that day. We were going out on like a five or six day patrol, but this first day ran into a booby trapped area, a mined area, and quite a few out of the thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-three, I think at least eighteen or nineteen got hit. 14:05 Interviewer: That’s jumping ahead a little bit in the story here at this point, so we’ll kind of fill that out a little bit more. Part of it was that sometimes you have people who trained you and then they’d get rotated out of your unit, and new guys or new officers would come in, and that happened even with some units that were formed as units as they were sent over. So if you managed to keep the, pretty much the whole cadre there, that was a little bit of an unusual situation. Right. Up until that point and then that‟s when people started, we got a lot of replacements in. Course, take care of the guys who couldn‟t go back. Interviewer: Right. And up until that point we‟d lost some people but not very many. That was a rough day. Interviewer: Right. And you didn’t have people just rotating out for administrative reasons and being replaced by new guys. No. Interviewer: Right, okay, so we kind of -- so you’ve got your years’ worth of training and working together as a unit in Texas late in ‘67, now the word is to go to Vietnam, do you get to go home before you go overseas? 15:03 �Yeah, we had two week leave. In fact one of the guys, good friend who got killed at that day, got married on that leave. We tried to talk him out of it and, but anyways…. Interviewer: What was -Just as a side note, I went this past Memorial Day, he‟s from Mobley, Michigan, and I went to upland Michigan. I hadn‟t had any contact with his family, you know, or anything, and I went to that, and they did have a little memorial service there, and I talked to one of the speakers afterwards and said, “Do you know of this family?” He says, “You know, over there, that‟s his sister.” And so we talked and we talked for… we went to the cemetery, it was only about a mile away, small town, and we cried, we laughed, took a lot of pictures, and it was just very moving moment for, for them and me, and I‟ve invited her to our next reunion this coming summer in Delaware, and I sure hope she comes. 16:21 Interviewer: All right, now, for you, what was it like to go back home for a couple weeks? You’d been in the army for a year; they’re sending you off to Vietnam…. It‟s bittersweet, you know, I had been dating who is now my wife, and knowing that now I would have just two weeks, you know, to spend with her, and, you know, it was just so awesome to see her, and my family, it was just, came from a great family, and friends, but to leave after that two weeks knowing I might not see anybody again… that was the hardest thing I ever had to do. 17:02 Interviewer: And did you go back from Michigan back to Fort Hood directly, or did you go somewhere else? Right. We went to Fort Hood. And I think within a couple days we boarded a train and train went right to Oakland, California. We got on a ship and left Oakland, California, I think it took eighteen, nineteen days to sail over. Interviewer: All right. What kind of ship were you on? It was an old, like a troop ship. It wasn‟t, it wasn‟t a military boat so-to-speak, like a battleship or anything like that. It was just a troop transport. Interviewer: Okay. And about how many of you were on it do you think? I knew you were gonna ask that. Umm. Well it was a brigade, so … Interviewer: That could be -There were several thousand … Interviewer: Yeah. �… on that boat. Interviewer: Okay, so it’s a big troop ship. Yeah. Interviewer: All right. And had you ever been out to sea before or… just lake Michigan if that? 17:59 Lake Michigan. I had an uncle who loved going on the Milwaukee Clipper. He‟d take us there to Milwaukee from Muskegon, and then there‟s a boat went from Detroit to Cleveland, you know, he‟d take us on that so I‟d been on ships. Interviewer: Okay. So, what was the trip like? That‟s a good question, because before we went certain guys were assigned duties on that ship, like that had to work KP, clean-up crews, different jobs, and they had those jobs the whole way over. Where the rest of us, all we did, we played cards, wrote, just, just had fellowship, and so it was -- I was kind of at peace, in a way. You know, what else could you do, you know? And again your faith is what really sustained you. Interviewer: And what was the weather like on the trip over? 18:58 It was very nice. Nice and warm. We were, I believe, north of Hawaii and way off the distance we saw a typhoon. You know, but where we were was very nice so… Very, very nice. Interviewer: So you didn’t have a lot of rough weather. Did people get sick anyway? Lot of people got sick. In fact the guys assigned to the clean-up crews, they didn‟t do a good job with the latrines and it was a mess pretty much the whole trip over. Interviewer: All right. Did it stop any place on the way to Vietnam or did it just sail right there? Stopped in the Philippines, they took on supplies in Subic Bay, I believe it was. And I‟m not a drinker but I had my first drink ever -- can you believe I‟m twenty years old and I hadn‟t had a drink, but I had one, a Singapore Sling, and I may have been the only sober person going back to that ship. 19:56 Interviewer: Now, were you just drinking, did you have to stay on the base or were they letting you go into town? We had to stay on base, but you couldn‟t go into town. There was a fenced-off area from the base, you couldn‟t get out. �Interviewer: Right. We were stuck there. Interviewer: Okay. That was kind of an interesting area. People who spent more time there have had some stories about that. Yeah. Interviewer: So, they provided a fair amount on base to keep you occupied instead. All right. Then you’ve stopped there and then is it from the Philippines then straight to Vietnam? Yes. Interviewer: Okay, and where did you land in Vietnam? We came in at Da Nang Interviewer: Okay. … and spent a couple days at Da Nang. And then we got shipped down to Chu Lai, which is about forty miles south of there. And then from Chu Lai, we went to a series of villages called the Van Truong Peninsula I believe. And there‟s Van Truong One, Van Truong Two, Three, Four, whatever. 20:55 And we just kind of were out there right by South China Sea, absolutely gorgeous. And we were, just our company was there. The rest of the battalions of the Americal was spread over pretty much that whole area. So we were just a hundred fifty, two hundred men. You know, pretty much on a hill. Interviewer: Okay. What was your first impression of Vietnam when you got there? Absolutely beautiful. We didn‟t have any contact with any of the, you know, the locals, at least right away. And we went to a place actually LZ Paradise it was called. Probably because it was so beautiful. And, but, it‟s interesting, we would have a barber come up, you know, a local Vietnamese, and cut our hair. And we had gals come up and did the laundry and things like that. And after some time, and I don‟t know how this came about, but we found that the barber had a map of our compound. 21:59 So I mean, the stories about, you know, by day they‟re your friends, and by night they‟re gonna kill you, pretty much true because you had no idea, and in the three months I was there, you know, we had the Viet Cong, and you had the north Vietnamese army, where we were, were mostly Viet Cong, but I saw in that three months only one uniformed NVA soldier, and part of that was, you know, they knew where we were all the time. We always felt that they knew where we were, and, and with all the thick vegetation there it was hard to see you know, any distance at all. So…. �Interviewer: Okay. Now. You’re sent down to the Van Truong Peninsula, you’re just company sized unit, you’re a hundred fifty or so men, what were you doing down there? 22:51 Basically, what we did is we‟d stay probably on base two, three days, and then we‟d go out. Sometimes we‟d go on just a one day patrol, which would be just a platoon size. And sometimes we‟d go out with two or three different platoons, and search and destroy missions, you know, you‟d just basically, what you‟re going out to the jungle and I had no idea where we were. Only, you know, certain people had the maps. And it was tough to tell where you were at, but we were to search the enemy and engage them and generally, you know, they engaged us first, of course, because they knew -- and you know, you hear the stories of one guy paring down a whole company? I mean, that happened to us. Several times. You know, you‟d just get a sniper and you‟d hear the shots and you have no idea where it‟s coming from. And then of course every now and then you run into a firefight. Booby traps. And just rough all the way around. Interviewer: Okay. Now, did you have sort of a permanent base camp of some kind or did you just go from place to place? 24:00 We, we pretty much stayed at that -- the three months I was there, we pretty much stayed there. I know that after I shipped out they moved quite a bit. Several different places. Interviewer: Okay. Now what kind of defenses or set up did you actually have in your base? We had concertina wire which is kind of triple barbed wire. And we had claymore mines and a claymore mine is kind of in an arc, so it sprays out, you know, I don‟t know, a hundred twenty degrees or so. And, you know, we had the remote control command detonated, and sometimes the Vietnamese or the Viet Cong would come and they would turn those around. And so, and you wouldn‟t know it, I mean -- crafty people. And fortunately we never had one turned on us, but I‟ve heard that they have and people got killed that way. 25:07 Interviewer: Now, what was the sort of the first contact that you or your unit had with any enemy? I‟d say probably the first time we went out, after we got to that. We had none when we first came into Da Nang, pretty secure area there, but when we got to the hill after just a few days, you know, we went out patrolling, and it was a while, probably a week, two weeks, before we got in a firefight. But we‟d go out and virtually every time we went out you‟d hear the sniper fire. And have no idea where it‟s coming from. Eventually it‟d stop. Interviewer: Now, did you have any South Vietnamese military working with you? Did you have any kind of guides or translators or anything else like that? Not really with us. There were some in, in our company but with our platoon we didn‟t have any. 26:00 �Interviewer: Okay. Now let’s -- was there some sort of routine that you had while you were there? I mean the regular, you talked a little bit, you’d have sort of patrols of a day or two or so. I mean physically how do those work? What happens when you go out on patrol? Well, if it‟s like a, say, just a one day patrol, you just, you know, we‟d go out pretty much single file, and you‟d come back, you know, in seven, eight hours. If you went on a multi-day patrol like we were on when I got hit, you carried a lot of, a lot more ammo, and clothing, and extra socks, even though you didn‟t change much, you know. And it was, it could be thirty, forty extra pounds when, you know, when you got all the, you know, we always carried grenades, and of course the guys, the machine gunners, the ammo bearers, really carried a lot of weight, cause those were also pretty heavy. 27:05 Interviewer: Now, when you were out and you’re patrolling or whatever were you on trails through jungle or just making your own or…. Pretty much on trails, and that‟s a great question, because, you know, the one thing that we prepared for in Texas is you don‟t want to go on trails because they‟re gonna be booby trapped, and of course a lot of times they were, but you had no choice in a lot of areas to get through all that the jungle growth, I mean, other than to chop trails down which we didn‟t take the time to do. We pretty much went on established trails. Interviewer: And how spread out were you as you’re moving along? You said you’re single file. How much distance would you put between men? That‟s a good question because when I look on TV, you know, these guys are one right after another, and that‟s the first thing I thought of, is that‟s exactly what they tell you not to do because we were spread out probably ten yards apart maybe. 28:06 Interviewer: And then when something happens, if you hear a shot or there’s a sniper or something else like that, then what do you do? Basically, if there‟s enough room, you form a perimeter, depends on the foliage and everything, but if there‟s, if it‟s pretty thick, you just get down where you‟re at. The case where I got hit we had enough room that we did form a perimeter and we were taking fire from pretty much everywhere. As well as the booby traps going off. Interviewer: All right. Now in the -- initially, when you said you were just getting sniper here, a sniper there, basically, people just hit the dirt or whatever and wait to see what happens and then get up and go again? Or? In those cases when you’re not being hit by a whole unit or something? 28:56 Yeah. After a while it subsides, you know, because when you‟re getting sniped at it‟s, it‟s not rapid fire, it‟s just a shot, and then a minute later you got another shot, cause it‟s only usually one, maybe two, guys out there. So after a while you just, you know, you get up and go. �Interviewer: Would you make any effort to maneuver against them or try to find them or just…. Yeah. Basically depends on where you were. The guys more towards the front or to wherever the fire was coming from would form a little group, you know, and try to go out but usually, in fact probably never, successful in finding them. Interviewer: All right. Then if you get into a more serious fight, did you, would you walk actually into ambushes or just bump into an enemy unit and start shooting or…. 29:54 Yeah, and again, you have no idea, sometimes, where it‟s coming from, so you try again to form a perimeter as well as you can, but what you‟re doing, you‟re just, we got one guy shooting this way and one guy shooting that way, cause, you know, it‟s hard to, to hear exactly where it‟s coming from, and, in my case I carried what‟s called M79 grenade launcher, and I just fired out, you know, shoot, kind of, have to shoot it kind of high, because I don‟t want to hit anything, any of the foliage around, impede its progress. Interviewer: Now was that a useful weapon to have in a jungle? In most cases no. (laughs) I did feel -- I‟d‟ve felt a lot more secure if I had a M16 but did have, carried a .45 with me. But still. It‟s not like having a automatic rifle. Interviewer: Mm-hmm. But you really don’t have the right kind of targets really for a grenade launcher if you can’t see anything. 30:59 No. You just, you know, you just lob it. I can‟t exactly remember the exact range of that thing but it could do a lot of damage and I have no idea if I hit anybody or not. Interviewer: Now, when you’re doing the day patrols or when you’re not on patrol when you’re in the base camp at night what was that normally like? We‟d, we‟d play cards. We played a lot of cards. There wasn‟t a lot really to do. I think there was a area close to the center of our, you know, where you could watch movies, and we‟re very close to South China Sea, and every now and then we‟d go down to the sea and, you know, take a dip. But there wasn‟t a whole lot to do. Write letters, wrote a lot of letters. That was the, the thing you look forward to the most over there was getting a letter from home. Interviewer: Well, were you getting, would you get fired on at night? Would there be mortar attacks or things like that, or was it pretty quiet? 32:02 Actually, where we were at most of it was during the day, but every now and then you‟d get incoming mortar rounds. Fortunately they weren‟t real good with their aiming. But I remember the scariest time I had over there was not even when I was engaged in combat, but it was when we were called to go, and this was night time, and it was a ways away but we could see all the lasers and everything going on, hear the intense fighting going on, and they said, “Get ready, we gotta go.” And we got all our gear together and for some reason the fighting ceased and we �didn‟t have to go, but to, to, you know, just, to, the thought that you had to go on and into that intense battle that was going on, was scary. 33:02 Interviewer: Cause you hadn’t really had an experience like that you’d just been… No. Interviewer: … this very small scale stuff. Right. Pretty much small scale. Kind of another really scary moment, moment, we‟re all out on patrol, and I was out on LP, Listening Post, and you had to go out maybe -- everything was meters then, I don‟t relate to meters so well -- but maybe fifty yards out, and again, thick foliage, and I didn‟t go out as far as I was supposed to, I mean, you know, you just hear things and that night, probably the middle of the night, I heard a grenade go off and I thought, “Oh, wow, what‟s that?” Cause it was back to, you know, back where the rest of the guys were. That morning, what had happened, my best friend -- in fact, he still is, from Dubuque Iowa -- some Viet Cong tossed something towards his position hoping that he‟d fire his rifle so they‟d see the muzzle flash, and so he thought, “No, I‟ll just throw a grenade.” 34:11 Which I probably wouldn‟t have thought of. And next morning the guy was dead. Interviewer: All right. Describe a little bit what it was like to go out on one of the more extended patrols. You’re not just stomping around in the jungle for a while and going back to the, to the base, you’re staying out there. What was that like? It was, it, very interesting, in that, you know, sometimes you would get loud, you would think, because you‟d go a whole day and not really have any fired on, you kind of relax a little bit, your guard a little bit, and all the sudden you start getting the snipers or little bit more extended smallarms fire coming at you. 34:58 I remember one time, crossing a concrete bridge, and again I think it was forty, fifty yards long, going over some water, and rice paddies, there, there was a little bit more open ground, and when one guy got half-way across that, because we were being fired on -- in small, I mean, just a sniper, not all out -- so when the guy got half-way across, then the next guy started, you know, to keep that distance, and I was probably most scared guy there because when I ran, I was right on the rear end of the guy that was half-way across, and I wasn‟t that fast but I was that scared. Interviewer: All right, and then what would you do at night, if you’re out on patrol? Basically, you just, we just stayed about two guys together around the perimeter, and again, I‟m not sure what the Listening Post where you go out the fifty, sixty yards, whatever it is, probably four or five guys, you know, were around that perimeter, would do that, but you didn‟t do anything, you just, you kept quiet. 36:13 And, you know, hoping that the enemy didn‟t know where you were, but like I said, I think that they always knew where we were. Interviewer: And when you were on a listening post, do you have a radio of some kind, could you communicate back? �Yes. Interviewer: Okay. Yeah. Interviewer: Now, when, did you have the lieutenant commanding the platoon, was that how that worked, or a sergeant or …. We had a lieutenant. Sometimes when we went on a company operation we had the, the captain… Interviewer: Right, right…. … go with us, but basically, it was our lieutenant, and he was, he was good. Very good. We had a, and again I‟m so thankful for that extended training that we had back at Fort Hood. 36:58 Not only for the great training that we had, but I felt very blessed that we knew each other. We were pretty much all friends. It didn‟t care if you were black or white, Latino, we were, we were, we didn‟t see that. We were just friends. And I talked to a lot of veterans who went over like you were talking about before, just replacements, had no idea who these guys were, and so I feel very fortunate, cause, like I say, we have a reunion every three years with these guys. It‟s very, very special. Interviewer: What was the sort of the social or ethnic mix of that unit you were in, the platoon or company? We were mostly Caucasian, and I think between African American and Latino was probably pretty even, but I‟d say maybe fifteen, twenty percent. Interviewer: Mm-hmm. 38:00 I think was higher than that in most units but, and interestingly enough, the perception of the Vietnam soldier is pretty much an uneducated person, we had, most of us guys were draftees, and very, a very large amount were college graduates. I wasn‟t, but, you know, I was in college… Interviewer: Right. … when I got drafted so, lot of misconceptions about who the real Vietnam soldier really is. Interviewer: Sort of a lot more middle class background and … Yes. Interviewer: …not so much just, you know, working class. �Yeah, we had, we were probably mostly middle class; a few that that weren‟t quite middle class but…. Interviewer: All right. So, okay, we again go back again into the, in with your unit out there. When you were out there on those longer patrols, would you get attacked at night or did things stay quiet or…. 38:59 Basically night, night was pretty quiet. At least where we were. Now virtually every night, we could hear fighting going on. And you not only hear it but you‟d see the lasers like every fifth round on weapons. Interviewer: Yes, the tracers. The tracer rounds yeah, yeah, laser, not tracer. Interviewer: Getting too modernized there. Yeah. (laughs) And every now and then, you‟d see the cobra helicopters shooting those rounds, I mean the tracers, they were firing so fast it was like a, just a steady stream of light. And even though we weren‟t really into that it was very scary. Just seeing that, cause you know it could happen any minute to you. Interviewer: Now did you wind up getting yourselves into any kind of larger scale fire fights? The, the biggest one -- we did. 40:00 The biggest one was when I got hit and there were, like I said, thirty to thirty-three of us. Nineteen got hit and most of the, the damage was done by the either land mines or booby traps. But, you know, Michael, the one, the one guy who did get killed, from Mobley, I had heard he took four rounds as well as the shrapnel. He was pretty much gone right there. Interviewer: Did you have any, did you ever have artillery support or air support when you were out there or was -- you just kind of on your own on the ground? Yeah we did have artillery support. In fact, one time, and this was twelve days before I got hit, we were coming to a village where -- another platoon from our company had been to that village the day before, and took quite a few casualties. 41:03 I mean, they lost, I don‟t think anybody got killed, but they, they had a lot of injuries. And we were coming to that village, kind of take care of business, and so before we came in there they called in a artillery, and the artillery was actually coming in on us, so the lieutenant calling it in, Lieutenant Fine said, “Everybody get down.” And he‟s the only one that didn‟t. And he got killed and he‟s the one actually calling the artillery, you know, I don‟t know if he‟s who made the mistake, the guys actually back at the base there, or him, but anyways they got him out of there, and this is the one time I actually volunteered to walk point, to go into to that village. I don‟t know why I did. 41:59 Cause you don‟t volunteer -- you‟re the first one they see and so normally I would be second and where there‟s a little lake on this side and it‟s pretty much all vegetation, jungle, vegetation on this side. �And came into a clearing and the village is over on the side of the lake, pretty small lake, like Fisk Lake here… Interviewer: Yeah. …in Grand Rapids. And when they saw me, they hit a command detonated mine. And by the time they saw me I was past it, and where I would‟ve been second, that guy got killed. And I have no idea, and I believe, you know, that was God‟s intention. Why he saved me or spared me and Casey didn‟t make it, he was gone right there, I‟ll only know that when I meet him in glory. Interviewer: At that point, when that does happen, you’re up front, the mine’s blasted behind you, everyone else is behind you, what happens next? 43:01 Not only did Casey get it, two guys behind him got a little bit, but not bad. They didn‟t have to be medevaced or anything, just Casey. And… but we all, then they started firing at us, in fact, I, course couldn‟t see anything but a bullet went right by my head, and I just, and there was a depression in the ground, they say never go into that because that could be booby trapped, but I thought, it‟s either taking a bullet in the head or, you know, I took my chance, got down, and after a while that firing subsided and we went into the village and I really don‟t remember too much after that, cause I was just pretty much traumatized by what happened to Casey. Interviewer: Did they call in artillery or, or helicopters when you got under fire like that? No. It wasn‟t a long lasting event. Interviewer: Okay. And the only chopper that really came in was to, to take Casey out. 44:02 Interviewer: All right. And the lieutenant who got hit was, that your platoon leader or a different lieutenant who was an observer? Right, he was an observer with the artillery… Interviewer: Okay. …crew. Interviewer: All right. In fact, we didn‟t even know who he was, just his name. Interviewer: All right. Now, you mentioned you’re going into a village, I mean, did you wind up seeing much at all of the local population while you were out there? �Not, not really. The villages were all pretty small, and it‟s, again, you don‟t know if they‟re your enemy or if they‟re your friend, but the thing I remember most is the kids. You know, and you just kind of fell in love with those kids even though you‟re in a country, these are the people you‟re fighting. 44:53 Because you don‟t know, even though we‟re in South Vietnam, which we‟re trying to keep from being a Communist, have a Communist takeover, you just have a love for those kids. In fact, I remember one time, we were in a village, very, right on the edge of the South China Sea there, and I remember this young woman, nineteen, twenty, she was nursing a baby, and I thought, you know, what is going on here? All these people want to do is live in peace. And here we are, we come and we‟ll set their huts on fire and, you know, it‟s just, you just don‟t know, you know, you just, so many things are going through your mind, you don‟t understand it all. And all you, all, at least most of us, we just cared about those people. And that really hit home when I saw that young, young mother nursing her baby and I thought, I just, try to solve this and get some peace. Interviewer: Now would the kids come up to you when you went through villages, or things like that, or did you just see them at a distance or…. 45:57 They‟d come up and they had Coke cans, and so they‟d sell you Coke and stuff. And, you know, America, of course, we‟re all, compared to them, we‟re very, very rich… and they think, also they think, I, actually I learned this going back „95, „96, that if you‟re heavy, or fat like me, you‟re rich. So I was pretty much a millionaire on that trip back. And again on the return trips, you just fell in love with those kids. Just, it‟s awesome. Interviewer: Did you have much of a sense of, of why you were there in the first place? Yeah, kind of alluding back to the training when I talked about brainwashing, and I don‟t really mean that in such a negative term, but that‟s kind of what they almost had to do, is, “They‟re your enemy,” they teach you, “that‟s your enemy,” and, but they also told you, you know, we‟re going over there, you know, to fight to Communism, and that‟s what I believed, and that‟s, you know, you got a thousand different viewpoints or, and, but I truly believe we were over there, despite all the politics and, and the rhetoric that was going on, I really feel that we were doing the right thing. 47:20 And I know that‟s not a real popular opinion, but I just kinda felt, especially when I saw that young lady with that kid, I thought let‟s, let‟s do our best to keep the communists from coming in here. Interviewer: Now in the time when you were there, out in the field, did you feel like you were accomplishing things or getting things done or spinning your wheels or… Spinning -- spinning your wheels. I almost felt like -- we weren‟t there, you know, we weren‟t there to take over territory or anything like that; we were just pretty much going out, search and destroy. And pretty much the same thing all the time, it didn‟t seem like we, we did accomplish a lot. 48:03 And, and I hate to talk in terms of numbers. But we lost between two and -- or fifty-eight thousand men, and I don‟t know how many injured. And nobody knows, but it‟s �between two or three million people they lost. And it just, it seems so futile, you know, and that‟s one of the things that -- and going back to Vietnam in „95 and ‟96, it‟s one of the things that was really on my mind, are they gonna hate us, and it was pretty much universal they‟d forgiven us. I couldn‟t believe it. Interviewer: All right. We’ll go back again into your company there. Out in the field. Now after the incident there by the village where the mine had gone off behind you, and so forth, was the next sort of serious fight you got into the one where you got hurt? 48:59 The next serious fight was when I got hurt and that was twelve days later, January 26, 1968. Interviewer: Okay. Between those nearly two week span there, not much really went on. It was pretty much just the daily sniper fire and the firefights that you could hear off in the distance, but where were we at, we mainly ran into booby traps and sniper fire, and occasionally like I say I was there for three months, we probably only had a half dozen firefights that we were involved in. Interviewer: Okay. Now did you ever actually see any of your enemy? Aside from the one guy who was dead there. That one, and actually, yes. Because a lot of our guys, and I hate to say, say this, would, after a firefight, you know, we‟d, they‟d go on there and just kinda hang them from a tree, or they‟d cut an ear off. I don‟t understand that. 50:16 Interviewer: So people that they’d killed in the fighting. Mm-hmm. Interviewer: Okay. Yep, so after some of the firefights you‟d go on, you‟d see the dead soldiers laying there. Interviewer: Okay, and you mentioned that you did once see a North Vietnamese uniform? Yes. And it was, we‟re coming down in a village, and again the foliage, you know, was taller than us on both sides, we‟re going down a narrow path and he had just crossed a path, and like I‟m third or fourth in line, and the guy in front of me froze and, but I had no line of fire and, of course, carrying a grenade launcher there‟s no way I‟d fire that anyway, cause I hit some of that foliage and, you know, that could come back on us. 51:03 Interviewer: Right. All right, so it was just that, was just a fleeting moment there… Yes �Interviewer: …and nothing else. All right, take us through, if you can, that day when you went out and your unit got hit and you got hit. Well, now we were going out, I don‟t know if it was five days, six day, seven day patrol, so we were, we had a lot of gear with us, though with the ammunition, extra clothing, and pretty much uneventful until about mid-day, and all the sudden we heard a, an explosion and, and then we started hearing some firing and then as we formed a perimeter we‟d hear these booby traps going off. And then the firing, you know, started and all I remember is getting hit, you know, just shrapnel that is still in there, and I‟ve never been hit with a hammer, but that‟s what I would think it felt like, it just knocked me right back. 52:09 And I remember two of my friends giving me first aid right there. I couldn‟t tell you how long it lasted. I don‟t have a lot of memory of it other than I remember they sent five or six medevac choppers in and took us to a field hospital, and I can just remember guys just screaming. It was just like a living hell. And after giving me additional aid right there, they flew me to a hospital ship, The Sanctuary, it was on the South China Sea. Fortunately, it was pretty close to where we were at, and they operated on me that night, air force surgeon. And he told me right then, you know, you lost your eye and, but I remember being in Japan, in a hospital there, I remember this guy‟d lost both his eyes, you know, I‟m pretty fortunate. 53:08 Interviewer: All right. How long did you have to stay in hospitals? After Japan, I stayed in Japan for five days, never got to see it because, of course, I lost my right eye, and with the impact my left eye was pretty much swollen shut, and I could just, I could see light but I couldn‟t really -- and I could see shadowy figures, but I couldn‟t, couldn‟t see any countryside or anything. And after five days they sent me to Illinois, Great Lakes Naval Hospital and I stayed there about two months. I have no idea why I was there two months because the recovery didn‟t take that long. 53:55 But I remember going back home my first time home, sitting in the living room, or I‟m sorry the kitch -- dining room, and I poured a Coke, totally missed the glass. You know, by then I could start seeing a little bit… Interviewer: Right. … but the perception was way off, so, from now even to this day if I pour, usually I drink out of a can but I hold the glass and I put it right close so…. Interviewer: Mm-hmm, yeah. What kind of readjustment process did you have? You come back; did they discharge you after you’re out of the hospital or what happens then? Oh, that‟s a good question. I, like I said, it was about two months that I stayed at the hospital, just maybe ten, fifteen miles south of Great Lakes is, was Fort Sheridan, I think it‟s still there. Interviewer: Mm-hmm. Just the north side of Chicago, and I stayed there… three months maybe? 54:55 And it‟s, they almost treated me like I was a new recruit, and one of the major jobs I had there was, of course, you had in the military, you have a lot of people moving in and out, brass, I remember having to �move the generals or the colonels and some of these places were three stories in all -- I couldn‟t do that today, doing that -- but I remember doing a lot of that, and most of my, most days I didn‟t really do anything. I was never put on KP or anything but, but those days that we had to move the coming or outgoing military brass, those were hard days. But they didn‟t treat you like you were returning vet for some reason. I don‟t know, I just didn‟t feel really appreciated back at Fort Sheridan. Interviewer: What else was going on at Fort Sheridan? Was that, were they using that for training or was it just…. 55:57 No. Fort Sheridan, very small, you know, when I think of Fort Hood and how big that was, Fort Sheridan is very small and I‟m not sure really what they do there, I think it‟s just maybe advanced, more of an officers‟… type of base, I‟m not sure but I think that‟s what it was. Interviewer: All right, and then did you get to go home and back and forth while you were stationed there or…. I went home virtually every weekend. It‟s interesting, while we‟re down there at Fort Hood before I went to „Nam, a lot of, a lot of us were car guys and we all talked about what kind of car we‟re gonna buy when we get out, and I bought a „68 Ford Torino, and I just loved that car. And I raced it, I went down to Martin and I raced quite a bit down there, and souped the engine up a little bit, and, but I‟d take the car home every weekend, pretty much while I was at Fort Sheridan and that was, like I say, three months or somewhere in there, I‟m not sure, and course I was madly in love. 57:05 Still am. And I, I‟d, late Sunday night I‟d take off for Chicago to get back to base, and I remember one time I was so tired I pulled off the side of the expressway there, somewhere around Gary, or Whiting… and dozed off, and next thing I know, there‟s a state cop, you know, “What‟s going on?” He said, “There‟s a rest area not too far away, you know, make it up there and then just get off this highway.” But yeah, I, you know, I always played it to the last minute because I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Connie. Interviewer: All right, and then did they discharge you after that, at the end of that stint at Fort Sheridan, or put you on some other kind of leave, or give you an assignment? No, no other assignments. Yeah, in July. I got hit in January 26, „68, and then July 17th was the date they discharged me. 58:04 Interviewer: All right, and then having done that, what did you do next? Did you get back home? Yeah, I went back home, lived with my parents for a while, and my ultimate goal was get back to the junior college, and again I really didn‟t know exactly what I wanted to do so I got a job, and warehouse work, general warehouse work, and I applied there and interviewed with the owner of the company, a fantastic man, he hired me on the spot, and 41 years later I was still there. And never did go back to college. But I really enjoyed what I did, they really took good care of me and did a lot of different things for that company, including driving truck, which was pretty much my first love...Not driving trucks so much but driving. 59:00 �Interviewer: And how long after you got back home did you get married? I got married May 8th, 1971, so about three years later. Interviewer: Okay. Took a little while. Now after you got home did you pay much attention to, sort of, the news about the Vietnam War or the war, anti-war movement, or any of that kind of stuff? Did you pay attention to that? It was hard not to cause it was, you know, all over the news and everything, but I tried to put as much behind me as I could. And I think it was, wow, I couldn‟t tell exactly how many years it was, but it was, I know, well over ten years before I had contact with anybody that I‟d served with, and again that‟s my buddy from Dubuque, Iowa, called me up, you know, he‟d had five kids by this time and he said, “We gotta get together.” 59:56 That next weekend, he was in Grand Rapids and that, that really helped. And another thing that helped, I was bowling in a bowling league and I came home one night, 9:30 or something like that, my wife is down in the basement watching TV, and I got into this program that she was watch-- I didn‟t know what it was, she didn‟t tell me -- it was in a town in Pennsylvania and I got really into the, the characters and all the sudden, they were going to Vietnam, it was The Deer Hunter. Interviewer: Mm-hmm. And that was the first time, I mean, that many years, later that I was really kind of able to, to face it. And, but 1995 when I went back that was what, what really, really helped me. And put a lot of the flashbacks that I‟d had, pretty much put those to rest. 1:00:58 Interviewer: So when you got home, so you did sort of have flashbacks or things like that, I mean? Yeah, you would wake up in the middle of the night and you were there, I mean. For the first several years, and I don‟t know, I couldn‟t tell you the frequency, three, four times a month at least, and you were there. You were in battle. And all of a sudden I‟d wake up and Connie just, “What‟s wrong, what‟s wrong?” Just sweating. You‟re literally just dripping with sweat. As the years went by, they were more the fact that I was still here stateside but being called back, you know, were the first ones where I was there still in battle, and that kind of evolved, it seems strange, but those were really scary, you know, being called back and having to go back again. 1:01:58 Interviewer: Mm-hmm. Now, tell me how you wound up going over to Vietnam in the ‘90s? I, actually, this is -- I had been praying for some way to get back over there. And all the sudden, you know, after probably, just weeks after I had this desire to go back, I got a call from a guy who was in another platoon over there, but, you know, we got to know each other real well, Cal Backrain. He had a chance to go back to Vietnam and he didn‟t want to, and the guy who was in charge of this, Dave DeVries said, “Do you know anybody that would like to go? Cause we �have another slot.” He says, you know, “Call Paul Ceton.” So Dave DeVries called me, and that was, we went over in conjunction with International Aid. And, wow, it‟s one of the best things I ever did. 1:03:02 Interviewer: What were you going to be doing there? Was actually kind of a work trip, a mission trip. We‟re pretty much a Christian-based group going over there. There were twelve of us. We had a guide, Michael Vu, who was in Howell Mission at the time. He‟s a Vietnam -- was born in Vietnam, and he pretty much set up the itinerary, where we‟re going to stay and everything like that but -- and pretty much, most of us on that trip, the twelve guys we didn‟t know each other, we were, you know, we weren‟t in the same units when we fought in Vietnam, but one of the, the biggest projects we had was painting an orphanage. In a little town called Hoi An. Years and years ago it was the capitol of Vietnam, and at that orphanage each one of, each one of us had like five or six kids that would help us paint. 1:04:07 We‟d be slapping it on, probably got more paint on the ground than we did on the building, but… And of course Vietnam‟s one of the poorest counties in, in the world, and, you know, after we got done, this was the best looking building in that town. But, you know, we just really bonded with these kids, and at night we played ping pong or badminton with the kids, they were good. And next morning we had breakfast and, little more ping pong, and things like that and tidied up the place a little bit. We had actually wound up getting them a new stove in there. Everything they had was pretty crude. But about noon that next day, the twelve of us, you know, got on that bus, and there wasn‟t a dry eye. 1:04:57 I mean, not just us, those kids, the staff. That much love in a day and a half. We didn‟t speak their language, they didn‟t speak ours, but it was just an incredible thing, and I knew right then I did the right thing in going back. Interviewer: Now what else did you see and do while you were over there? We actually started out in Hanoi, we flew into Hanoi and it was pretty scary for most of us cause most of us hadn‟t been back. Dave DeVries had been there before, but -- or back again, and you‟d see these big 23s, you know, that are fighter jets on the tarmac there… Interviewer: Mm-hmm. … and we, we went through customs, and man, they were really, you know, you didn‟t if they‟d let you in or not. Finally did. And I remember taking the bus trip from the airport there at Hanoi and maybe a half an hour, forty minute ride in to our hotel in, in Hanoi, and when I was in the war, I never went in the big cities or anything, it was just small little villages, hamlets, but the poverty I saw, I‟ve never seen anything like that in my life. 1:06:18 Incredible poverty and, and I thought, I don‟t think I should be here. I -- and we got into that hotel and they paired us up, two guys to a room and I was with John Hendricks, who I never knew but now we‟re great friends. And when I went up in, into that room to get dressed for dinner, and cleaned up, I said, “Lord, I think I made a mistake.” I just didn‟t feel good about being there. Then we came down half an hour later or so, and met and one of the guys prayed before we went, we walked to this restaurant, was a very, very old restaurant and on the way there, the people in Hanoi would just smile and, and, “Hi,” they didn‟t really know our language, but they knew “Hi,” or… 1:07:08 �Interviewer: Mm-hmm. … and you started feeling a little bit better. And they just treated you like royalty when we had that meal. And I really don‟t like that Vietnamese food but I ate it. And, you know, after we, we ate, we kind of split up and maybe half of us, you know, like six, six of us went to this, we walked through Hanoi and we walked into this little café, and we were drinking Cokes and eating potato chips and they were playing „60s American music there and then when we walked back, and it‟s kind of late now, it‟s close to midnight, we‟re walking back to our hotel and, probably twenty, twenty-five minute walk, and I felt safer there than I, I, I would‟ve in downtown Grand Rapids that time of night. And when I got my, to hotel and I prayed, “Thank you, Lord, maybe, can we make this a long two weeks?” 1:08:00 Interviewer: All right, and so then from Hanoi, what else did you? Hanoi, we, we took an airplane down to Da Nang, we, we took a bus, you know, on part of the trip further south. I just remember going through some of the most beautiful places I„ve ever seen, little town call Lang Co, and then Hai Vam Pass, I believe they call it, which goes maybe three thousand feet up right off the South China Sea, it was just incredible, and the whole way, you know, whenever we get off that bus and stop somewhere, the Vietnamese were just so friendly to us. And again I go back to the kids and the kids always had something to sell, candy, Coke, something like that. 1:08:57 But, and, again the rich Americans and, and, but, man, I just, I just keep going back to it, but just to love those kids was pretty special to me. And pretty much I remember one time having, we had, we were guests of a veterans‟ group like our American legion, VFW, something like that… Interviewer: Right. We were guests of one of those units, and I was talking to this guy, a Vietnamese, he was a North Vietnamese soldier back then, and he was a colonel and we got -- and he could speak English -- and we got to talking, you know, when were you there, where were you, and all that, and found out that he was pretty much in the same area I was in, and at pretty much the same time I was in, and it could be we were in battle with each other. 1:09:59 I have no idea, but now it was a time of peace and it was just really special moment. And again I always wondered how they, the Vietnamese would react with us coming back, particularly like in Hanoi where we pretty much destroyed that town, and, but they somehow have a real respect for Americans, and they somehow feel second-class, you know, cause we‟re so rich, and we‟re so powerful, and they really have nothing. I can remember these two young college girls, and said, one of them said, “What do you think of us? Do you care for us?” And I said “I love you.” And that just meant so much to her. And so going back you just see so much more than what you read and, and the perceptions that people have, that, that, that just so many kind of misconceptions of what, what, what they‟re actually like over there… but so forgiving, and we just, they just, made us feel just so much at home. We actually wound up in Saigon -- Ho Chi Minh City… 1:11:13 Interviewer: Mm-hmm. �… which they call it, still Saigon to us. Whole lot different down there, while as Hanoi is the old, rich traditional and a lot of French influence up there, Hanoi is a lot more westernized or a lot more -Interviewer: Ho Chi Minh City, or…. Ho Chi Minh City, yeah, sorry, and prostitutes would come up on their motorbikes and proposition you. It was just so different and I can remember, we just had lunch somewhere and in a nice hotel and we‟re going back to our hotel which wasn‟t as nice. And a group of kids came around and this one kid was driving a bicycle and he drove that wheel right into my calf. 1:11:58 It‟s kind of strange. And I carried my wallet in my front pocket, you know, cause pretty much tell if someone takes it there. All the sudden when I, when that bicycle tire hit me, something‟s not right here and I reached for my wallet and it was gone. And I grabbed the kid on that bike, he was, I dunno, a teenager, and, and there‟s quite a crowd around there and I, I said I‟m not letting go till I get my wallet back, and then all a sudden, you know, after three or four people tossed it or handed it they handed it to me, I let that kid go. But that‟s something you wouldn‟t, you wouldn‟t expect up in Hanoi or some of the northern cities but Saigon, like I said, is just so modern, a lot of traffic. A lot of cars. Where basically up in Hanoi you basically have a lot of bicycles and not a lot of cars. 1:13:02 Interviewer: Now, did you make two trips to Vietnam? ‘95 and 6? Yeah I went back in „96. Interviewer: And… Again, we, we didn‟t have any real work projects, I think, but we just kinda wanted do was just interact with the people. I, I can remember, you know, that „95 we, we brought Bibles over, you know, we‟re told, encouraged, to bring them over. In fact, somehow we got some Vietnamese language Bibles for the kids in that orphanage, but then when we went back a year later, we were told not to bring them back because there were, I believe, six pastors had just got arrested for passing out Bibles over there. And it kinda depended where you‟re at. Vietnam is several provinces and pretty much each province is, is a little bit different, and, but where we were going they said you‟d better not better not bring any Bibles. 1:14:05 Well, I didn‟t, but some of the guys did. And it‟s amazing how word gets out that you have them. And a lot of the protestant churches over there are underground and I can remember this old Vietnamese woman, she had made like a two or three hour journey on foot to get one Bible for that whole group that she -- I don‟t know how many people it was, but of course I got five or six at my house and they have one for an entire group. Interviewer: Now, did you, on either of these trips, did you have any problems with the Vietnamese authorities? Yes. I‟m glad you asked that. On the second trip, we went down, there were six of us that got on this little minivan with two Vietnamese guides. 1:15:05 And we made like a two hour trip �and the reason there were [unintelligible] we were going down to an area that we were all pretty much close to when we fought. Interviewer: Mm-hmm. And the first village we went to, I remember Pastor Pat White, he‟s a pastor from Allegan, Michigan, great guy, he was pretty much assigned to that area. And he was, oh what was he, he was, not a doctor but… Interviewer: Just a medic, or…. A medic. Ha, thank you. And in that, the period of time he was there, I don‟t know how long it was, he was in this village, he delivered nine babies, or helped deliver nine babies. 1:15:56 But when he was there he had a guide, and I believe he was nine years old at the time. And you know he could speak Vietnamese and most people back then over there -- or he could speak English, most of them couldn‟t. And after all these years, when we went back there, he wanted to see him. And so he had a picture of him, of course this what, from close to thirty years later. Interviewer: Right. He had a picture of him, and went to hut, to hut, to hut: “Do you know him? Do you know him?” Nobody did. Finally, we went to this very old lady and she says, “I know him. I know him.” And she summoned someone to go and get him. Well, by the time he came back out, a large crowd had gathered, and they saw each other, and he knew Pat right away, and they just hugged, and right then, we got arrested. 1:16:54 And I was a little bit concerned cause we had a couple Bibles in this van and I thought maybe that was it, but it wasn‟t. It was just kind of a young police officer over there, probably trying to make a name for himself, he took all six of us plus the two Vietnamese guys, and they put us in this kind of police station, then they took us to another area and they took everything we had, you know, our passports, our wallets, pretty much everything we had. And it was pretty scary. So they arrested us, and you know, we just prayed, as a group. And after about three hours they finally let us go. And of course we went right back, the two hour journey. And again, two hours, you know, on the roads over there, it‟s, it‟s pretty rough travels… Interviewer: Mm-hmm. … so you don‟t make near as many miles in two hours as you would over here, but, but the bad, the sad thing was Pastor White wasn‟t able to see his friend. 1:18:00 Interviewer: Yeah. Well, that was a Saturday. Sunday morning we‟re out on a patio there at the hotel eating breakfast, and Pastor White prayed before that breakfast he said, “Lord, I‟d like to see him, and his wife, somehow, before we go to Vietnam.” We lifted our eyes from prayer and they were walking up that path. Unbelievable. We didn‟t know how, you know, they could afford it, you know, to, to make that journey, how they got there, but they were there. �Interviewer: Mm-hmm. It was just unbelievable. Interviewer: All right. Now, to think back a bit to the time, particularly the time you spent in Vietnam, or in the army or more generally, are there other things that kind of stand out in memory or kind of come back to you that you haven’t brought into the story here today? 1:18:54 Well. I think first of all, the thing that really got to me was the friendships that we made. And to see, you know, grew up in sheltered West Michigan, and to see people from different parts of the country, how they live, what their values were, I can say I‟m so glad I was brought up here. But I made friends from virtually all over the country and, and they‟re still just great friends of mine. So it was really the, the relationships, and I remember before I got drafted, and I knew I was vulnerable, I wasn‟t doing really that well at junior college, and, and I was dating Connie at the time, and I just prayed. I just prayed for months, I said, “Lord, I don‟t want to get drafted. Please don‟t let me get drafted. Cause I want to live the all American life, I want to marry Connie.” 1:20:06 Interviewer: Mm-hmm After, I don‟t know, two, three months, I don‟t know how long it was, I got that letter. You know, report the October 11th. I thought, “Lord you weren‟t listening, you didn‟t hear me.” And it, just twenty-six years later we were at a reunion at Nashville, Tennessee, I‟ll never forget it. Sergeant Cecil Hall from Mississippi, he came into a room with all of us gathered, I think there were nineteen of us veterans, plus wives and some had their kids there. And he said, “I‟d like to pray.” I thought, “Cecil? Pray?” And I don‟t remember exactly what he said, you know, prayed for those families of those that we lost, and all the sudden you just felt the Holy Spirit move through that room. 1:21:02 And that was a Saturday night. Sunday morning, you know, when we‟re all gonna go back to our homes, nobody wanted to leave. There was just such a bond there, just, just so incredible. When I finally got to my office, at work Monday morning, all a sudden it dawned on me. It was his will and not mine. And I‟m just so grateful, even though I lost a eye, I lost friends, went through some really traumatic and very hard times, for some reason, there was a reason. And I‟m so glad that I got that call to serve. And now it was, it‟s an honor to have served this country. And if it wasn‟t for being drafted I probably, you know, wouldn‟t have served and I‟m just so thankful for that, and I‟m just so thankful for all the guys that we have, the men and women who want to serve this great country. 1:22:08 Interviewer: And you’ve already mostly kind of answered one of the usual closing questions for interview like this. How do you think the experience affected you? I mean ultimately did you wind up growing or becoming a different or better person, do you think? Because you experienced all that? Yeah. I, I really do. I think it, it made me stronger as a person. Made me appreciate what our forefathers went through you know, not, not only just the ones who fought, you know, to make �this country free, I think of the pioneers, the people who went from the east coast to the west coast, the Donner party, you know, how so many people died. 1:22:56 And here we get in the car and we can be to Detroit in two hours or, you know, I can drive to Florida in twenty-some hours, and it, it just, you know, I just think back, the, the roots of this country, and, and I think of the people who fought, I think of the people who wrote our constitution, and we have a lot of problems, we have a lot of flaws, but this is the best place to be in the whole world. Interviewer: All right, well I think that makes a pretty good conclusion, so thanks for coming in and talking to me today. Thank you so much. Interviewer: All right. � 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 Ceton, Paul (Interview transcript and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ceton, Paul Description An account of the resource Paul Ceton was born in 1946 in Muskegon, Michigan, and was drafted in 1966. Following a year of training at Fort Hood in Texas, Ceton deployed to Vietnam as part of the 198th Infantry Brigade of the Americal Division. Ceton fought in Vietnam for three months and while stationed on the Van Truong Peninsula, he received head wounds during a firefight and lost his right eye. After spending time in hospitals in Japan and Illinois, Ceton spent a brief period at Fort Sheridan before receiving his discharge in July 1968, after which he moved back to Michigan. In the 1990s, he made two return trips to Vietnam. 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 2010-09-18 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CetonP 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/af7025e54dacf4f27c1ec88f181bdfca.mp4 64f55b257c22fe54920e01f220f7ce1e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fb0761b97dea8e08f0d4b649e2c78eb1.pdf 72068e9ade6bd739ac2eff91c8ccba8b PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Ray Cebulski (00:26:15) Introduction (00:12) • Cebulski was born in 1944. The oldest of three brothers and a sister, he lived in a multi-ethnic neighborhood in Connecticut. Cekulski attended Georgetown University. Enlistment and Training. (1:30) • Enlisted while at Georgetown because he had a low draft number so that he could pick the branch of service he went into. Chose the Navy because it seemed interesting and challenging. Went in initially as a reserve officer and was trained at Pensacola, FL, then trained in a variety of aircraft in Georgia, Texas, and California before going to the Fleet Replacement Squadron at Whibley Island in Washington for final training in the aircraft he was to fly. Vietnam (3:55) • Served in Air Wing 17 aboard the USS Kittyhawk flying the A-6. Carriers would deploy to Vietnam for one year at a time. Mostly flew night interdiction missions to stop flow of supplies into North Vietnam, looking for trucks, trains, and bridges. • Cebulski describes life on a carrier for a combat pilot, flying two or three sorties a day for 30-50 days at a time. When not flying his responsibilities included being in charge of the avionics technicians for the ship and training on anti-missile aircraft. (5:00) • Didn’t really have time to do anything for fun between flying and other duties. Made lot of good friends in the service, including one of the Challenger pilots and author Stephan Coonts. (7:25) • Flew around 200 combat missions. Had to pick up slack when an A-7 squadron had problems with the bearings in the engines. Talks about flight operations on a carrier and flying at the end of the Tet Offensive. (8:52) • Cebulski was the CTF mining officer. Russians, English, French and Chinese were sending supplies to North Vietnam. When President Nixon ordered the mining of North Vietnamese ports, the admiral in charge didn’t know who the mining officer was, and ended up sending for a more senior officer than Cekulski to draw up the plans (11:33) �• Cebulski talks in detail about night interdiction missions, flying low and evading enemy SAMs and fighters. (13:06) After the War (16:41) • Got a job as a sales representative for a medical supply company in Washington and was sent to Michigan. Cebulski became an executive in that company. Cebulski started his own business in 1986 from which he semi-retired in 1997. In 2005 Cebulski came back to do consulting with his old company. • Cebulski credits his military experiences with giving him the discipline and motivation to succeed in business. When he was in charge of division of avionics technicians, he had officers senior to him report to him. (19:25) • For his last two years of service, Cebulski flew with the Fleet Replacement Squadron training new pilots, which was considered a plum assignment. The commander of his unit would later become the vice-admiral in charge of Navy fliers. (22:45) • Cebulski would reinstate draft or make 2 years of military service compulsory. Compares radical Islamists to the fascists in 1939. Think Americans are ignorant of threats in the world. (24:20) � 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 Cebulski, Raymond (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cebulski, Raymond Description An account of the resource Ray Cebulski served aboard the USS Kittyhawk as an A-6 pilot during the Vietnam War. In this interview Cebulski describes day-to-day life for a bomber pilot aboard a carrier, additional duties he had, night interdiction missions into North Vietnam, and some of the people that he served with. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kammeraad, Colin (Interviewer) Dice, Justin (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Navy 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 2007-06-03 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CebulskiR 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/0646bf48ebc51c51dd859d45accdca6b.mp4 a303a9b4897ebf508c85ca309c54ffda https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/45d319dc53d8ad926b81a5f22807884a.pdf 7ff95f29a1f6dea7b5dc599434fae2af PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Harold Caver (38:24:09) Before The War 00:43:27served in the Marine Corps during WWII, in the Pacific 00:58:03Cavner attended Grand Rapids South High School 01:04:05on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack: he was having Sunday dinner 01:10:18he joined the Marine Corps in 1943; he enlisted, volunteered, to "beat the draft" Boot Camp 02:06:02there were “a lot of wild stories about how rough the boot camp was,” but he did not think it was that rough an he had a “good time” in boot camp; 02:20:25how did he get through it: he kept his "nose clean" 02:39:25he trained in San Diego; then he was sent to the Remington Navy Yard in Bremerton , WA; from there, he went to a navy supply depot in Spokane, WA; from there, to Camp Pendleton, CA; there, he got on a ship and sailed to Hawaii, where he had six months of training In Action 03:27:05he saw combat, and there were many casualties in his unit; he fought on Saipan, Tinian, and Okinawa 04:07:02he was not a POW, and did not win any medals or citations 04:21:28he communicated with his family back home by “V-mail”; "to cut down on the space it took to mail all these letters" they were photographed, and the soldiers received reduced-size pictures of their letters 04:45:25the food was "pretty good most of the time" and they had they had plenty of supplies 05:19:25entertainment: they played cards, played poker 05:30:06was he afraid?: "on occasion" 06:18:23regarding the officers and enlisted men: "most of them were good people" After The War 06:52:29Cavner got a job, went to college—GRJC (GRCC now), and Michigan State University, on the GI Bill 07:15:29he still sees a close friend he made while in the military, who lives in Jackson, MI—he sees him once a year 07:31:19he was in the VFW for a while, and is in the American Legion now [at the time of the interview] 07:49:12he took forestry in college, but did not follow through with it; he went into the lumber business, retail and wholesale 08:12:15his military experience has not influenced his thinking about war, or his thinking about the military in general, in any particular way �08:23:03he has never been to any military reunions 08:31:25how the military has affected his life: "the only big change I got out of it was I went to college"; he never thought about it [the military] after the war More On His Military Experiences 09:05:09how he got to the rank of sergeant: there were a lot reasons that people advanced in the service, one of which was that a lot of people got killed and they had to “make corporals and sergeants” to fill the voids 09:29:29he was one of the occupation troops in Nagasaki, Japan after the war; he patrolled the area looking for gun caches 10:02:15what Cavner would like the students in the audience today [during the interview] and people who will see the interview in the future to remember: “give ‘em a better idea of what happened”; “a lot of people have never heard of those places” [referring to Saipan, Tinian, Okinawa, and Nagasaki] 10:42:03the terrain in Nagasaki after the A-bomb was bombed: flat, around the port where they had landed; an aircraft factory nearby was a "steel skeleton"; people were just coming back into town 11:56:29recently his sons heard somewhere that 2nd Division veterans [Cavner had been in the 2nd Marine Division] were being tested for radiation and “they were getting claims” 12:26:29he was tested over a period of year or longer: he sent “gallons of urine” to a lab ƒ the first test indicated some radiation ƒ “they asked to do it all over again,” and it was then determined that there was not enough radiation in his system to worry about 13:47:04Cavner was on Saipan when the second A-bomb went off [Nagasaki] 15:04:19he rode on an LST carrying amphibious trackers, from Hawaii to Saipan; he returned to Hawaii on an ocean liner; he went to Hawaii the first time on “a little aircraft carrier” 16:48:13no boats he was on were hit by Kamikazes: they were too far away from Japan at the time; they “steamed into Okinawa” during the night and left during the day 17:54:25all the while he was on Saipan they moved forward "all the time" ƒ sometimes they hit the enemy, sometimes they did not; sometimes they did not fire a shot 19:05:10he is sure some of the guys looted corpses—he ended up with a couple of empty wallets 20:12:05he has a Japanese rifle and a Japanese saber he picked up in Nagasaki 21:02:19he hurt his knee, but otherwise never got sick 21:23:29Saipon was all jungle ƒ they went up the middle of that island, all mountains ƒ he did not see any animals in the jungle, though he thinks someone shot a deer one time ƒ going through the jungle, one could see perhaps ten feet in from of oneself; if somebody was waiting for you, "they got a shot at you before you even see 'em" �ƒ he never had the experience of having Japanese suddenly jump out at him 23:55:26after the island had been secured, he thinks it was Saipan, they were out on patrol and at one point he got down on one knee, parted the foliage and saw a Japanese soldier standing there “lookin’ right at me”; Cavner thought he [the Japanese] had a rifle, shot him and killed him—“but he could have shot me” 24:53:08they used to go out patrol at night on Tinian; they set up the patrol, a “series of fox holes” by a road, and “every night they’d [the Japanese] come marching through there”; “we [the Americans] were doin’ the shootin in the dark”—the bullets were going across to where other American units were camped; night after night they set up this patrol and sat there waiting for them—it was along a favorite path of the Japanese 26:37:03in the final battle on Saipan, the Japanese were getting “all drugged up and just charging”; Cavner himself was not involved in any "Banzai" charges; the Japanese just “came charging” at the Americans, who killed most of them 27:21:23he never went through any land mine fields 28:09:20he had a friend in South Carolina that called him on the phone once, they had phone conversations for a couple of years, then lost contact and Cavner thought he had died; he has a friend [mentioned earlier] from Jackson, who now [at the time of the interview] lives in Florida Fighting The Japanese 30:10:08there was a tank battle on Saipan that Cavner was not involved in; the Japanese tanks were "like tin cans compared to what we had" but they “charged the [American] lines with tanks and troops” 31:25:19Cavner thinks he personally killed very few Japanese soldiers during the war 32:08:27earlier in the war, “very few” Japanese soldiers surrendered ƒ on Okinawa, they [the Japanese] "started surrendering" in groups—they preferred suicide to surrender ƒ on Saipan, the [Japanese] troops were “pushed” toward one end of the island, where they jumped over a cliff; women threw their children over and jumped after them; they believed that the Americans were “barbarians” who would torture them 33:22:27Japanese soldiers who surrendered were sent back behind the American lines "somewhere" 33:50:15Cavner never saw anyone [American] shoot Japanese captives 34:08:03on Tinian, he himself was sent over a tall cliff, down a rope ƒ they searched in some caves at the bottom, with navy [American] ships in the water pointed in their direction ƒ "I'm not a mountain climber" All Three Sons In The Military 36:39:06Cavner never talked to his parents about it, but wishes he had, how they had “put up with” three boys in the family all in the service ƒ Cavner and his two brothers were all in the service: one in the navy, one in the marines, one in the air force—they all survived the war ƒ the oldest brother flew sixty-six missions over France and Germany in a �B26 bomber; Cavner’s younger brother was on a small aircraft carrier that had patrol duty where there was “submarine fighting” in the Atlantic; the younger brother was sunk once but survived it Conclusion 38:09:27he asked the two [there may have been a third, on occasion] high school students who were interviewing him what grade they were in: tenth 38:24:09“you’ve probably never heard of South High School,” [Cavner, to his interviewers] in Grand Rapids, on the corner of Jefferson and Hall streets; it is still there, but no longer a school � 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 Cavner, Harold L. (Interview outline and video), 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cavner, Harold L Description An account of the resource Harold Cavner joined the US Marine Corps in 1943. He was on Saipan, Tinian, and Okinawa, and was one of the occupation troops in Nagasaki after the war, after the atomic bomb had been dropped there. Back in the United States, he attended Grand Rapids Junior College (now GRCC) and Michigan State University. His career was in the retail and wholesale lumber business. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. Pierre, Arielle (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Marine Corps 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 2004-12-10 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CavnerH 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/cde1d4cf37236c26072e8d8eddcfc075.mp4 a365ef138a9fe3e3f4d5603fe66386be https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a911a5ac02c5ca00f61f250a3936c452.pdf b499ed77e1b6dd0f3945b3b8afb160a8 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Vietnam War Sidney Cavanaugh 1:13:02 Introduction (00:37)            Sid was born on February 8, 1942 in Wilmington, North Carolina, but his family moved to Jacksonville, Florida when he was six years old. He enjoyed playing sports such as football, baseball and track. His step-father owned a Texaco filling station. Sid graduated from high school in 1961. After high school he tried several attempts at going to college, but kept flunking out. Later, he went to University of Houston where he made the track team, but again flunked out because of his poor academic status. While in Texas, he received his draft notice and had to return home to Jacksonville. When he turned 18, he registered with the Selective Service, and was given his initial physical while still in Florida. His draft notice arrived in December 1963, and he had to report in, in January. (2:18) At that point, Sid did not pay attention to world affairs and had no idea what was happening in Vietnam. He remembers the assassination of President Kennedy and was angry, but knew he couldn‟t do anything about it. Basic Training (3:00)         Sid was processed at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville and was sent to Fort Jackson, South Carolina to begin basic training for the United States Army. The platoon that Sid was in was unique because it consisted of many college guys, versus the average platoon made up of high school dropouts or high school graduates. His Lieutenant in training was Lt. Taylor, son of General [Maxwell] Taylor, both graduates of West Point. Lt. Taylor was very competitive and they won every competition while in basic training. Sid did well in basic and loved it there. He attained the highest rank possible while there and was given all the top choices for schools. When he went to AIT (Advanced Infantry Training) he went to communications school and studied crypto. Shortly after, he become a lifeguard at the Officers club, and also became a waiter, which allowed him to eat better and meet nice girls. While stationed at Fort Chaffee he heard about a Football program started at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and he was given a transfer to go and play. Back in basic training, the discipline was high, because of Lt. Taylor. Sid was also older than most of the other men, he being 21 years old. �   His Executive Officer was an athlete himself, and motivated his men to be the same. Sid learned from him to never leave a man behind. (5:24) Most of the men in his platoon were draftees, with a couple of college graduates who simply wanted to do their two years and go home. They had one black guy, who was a librarian at the Philadelphia Library. Basic training lasted eight weeks. Advanced Infantry Training (6:27)        AIT was at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, which was closed but reopened and given a skeleton crew to run it. While there, they started a Crypto school. He did not make it into the actual language course, but was instead given a security clearance to work in the building as a guard. He also went to Wireman‟s school on the side. Sid was there for 8-10 weeks. AIT was a lot less structured than basic training, and was more like a job. AIT also had very little physical exercise involved when compared to basic training. Fort Chaffee was located in the hills near Fort Smith and was not close to any towns that he could go to while not on duty. Fort Sill (8:00)             Sid was sent to Fort Sill to try out for the football team there. 285 men tried out and Sid was the smallest one there, but he made the team and played first string free safety and „monster man‟ which was a position that just roamed all over and no one knew what he was going to do. When not playing football, Sid was assigned to a 155mm Howitzer unit, and was a radio operator to forward command. He worked with the men training in artillery there, and Sid performed communications jobs involved with the training. It was also at Fort Sill that Sid worked as a lifeguard and waiter at the Officer‟s Club. Sid was there from the fall of 1964 into 1965. (10:52) The football team was disbanded, and the men had to choose different jobs. Only seven enlisted men were on the team. Sid was told to choose three schools he would like to attend, he chose: Special Forces, Rangers and Aviation. He was given Aviation. He was put on a Mojave Helicopter, which was obsolete at that time and was trained to be a crew chief. After the school was over, he was sent home for a fifteen day leave. When he came back to Fort Sill after his leave, they were placed on a train and sent to San Francisco. From there he was placed on the USS Gordon, and 29 days later he arrived in Vietnam. Vietnam (11:53)  When he left the states, he was assigned to the 2/17th Artillery 155 Howitzer, because there was not an aviation unit for him to join. �               The ship voyage was rough and everyone got sick. Sid grew up on the water in Florida, so he was not bothered at all. The USS Gordon was a 1942 troop carrier, designed to hold 5,200 troops with their gear. (13:26) The bunks on the ship were stacked eight high. On the ship, Sid ran into a colonel that he knew from playing football. Sid showed him where he was sleeping and the colonel told him he would try to find a cot for him. He was then moved topside where he had his own bunk for the last fourteen days of the trip. The ship was escorted by two submarines. They arrived at Qui Nhon Bay at 3am, and Sid went out on deck and was hit with a putrid decay smell. He quickly ran downstairs and found some Vicks and put it his nose to hide the smell. (15:29) The smell was from the oil that the locals cook with, which had a rancid smell. Sid and the rest of the 5,200 men on ship climbed down rope ladders into waiting WWII landing craft. They landed without weapons, and when they were passed out the serial numbers were not taken. They were issued M-14‟s with no rounds, but were later issued five rounds each. (18:14) They were all loaded into dump trucks and taken inland. While driving, a pair of P-38 trainers being operated by ARVN pilots flew by and crashed right in front of Sid. When they got to An Khe the men were told to dig in, so they did. They thought it was just them and the VC, but the 101st was already in front of them. At about midnight, one round went off and the rest of the line opened fire. Come morning, they found only a water buffalo that had been killed. (20:00) At the time, Sid knew that the French had been involved in Vietnam, but was not familiar with the politics of the area. Sid just wanted to stop the spread of communism, but once he got there, he wanted to fight for the people. The day after the buffalo shoot, the men were tasked with chopping jungle to make a runway for landing helicopters. They used their entrenching tools until Sid suggested that they go into town and buy machetes. Later the Corps of Engineers brought axes and other tools. The Corps also brought in bulldozers and cleared the area. (22:28) While that work was being done, Sid was picked up by a helicopter and taken back to the 2/17th 155 Howitzer unit to function as a radio operator. They operated on a 24 hour sortie, and every fifteen minutes each of the six guns would fire. It was impossible to sleep. He was then taken back to An Khe and was made a door gunner trainer for the 2/20th Artillery on a Huey Helicopter. (24:22) Initially, the door gunners did not have tethers or harnesses, and had to hold on to whatever they could. After two men were killed from falling out, tethers were issued to the helicopters. 1st Air Cavalry (24:59)  Sid‟s helicopter was called a Hog Ship, which was a shorter version of the Huey that was armed with 24 rockets on each side. The door gunners often sat on the rocket pods while in flight. �          The first mission Sid went on was to fly to a mountain and shoot it. So they did and when they came back they were given their yellow patch which was taken away from the 1st Cavalry in Korea. The patch was later dyed black, so it was not as much as a target as the big yellow patch was. (26:25) Sid physically arrived in Vietnam in August 1965. The first month there he was with the artillery unit, and then he was switched over to the aerial artillery unit. The gunners at that time were not assigned to a particular craft, they floated around. Sid‟s officer, Warrant Officer Weatherspoon, was the pilot that called him most often because he was the oldest gunner there. (28:39) They used to practice firing wire guided rockets, and Sid helped teach pilots how to fly at night by instruments. Weatherspoon had a friend that was British and he liked to drink tea, so the crew would fly and pick up tea and deliver it to him. As soon as Sid was placed with the aerial unit, he was a gunnery instructor. (30:37) The first test that all door gunners were given was to fly the helicopter up to 5,000 feet and then drop it down to test their stomachs. Many men dropped out of the program after that. Door gunners were also given a $50 bonus each month. Occasional ground fire would come in, which would simply sound like a loud pop to the crew. Once, while flying at about 200 feet through a „no-fire‟ zone heading to Play Ku, Sid was watching the hillside and a VC opened a trap door and fired two shots with a .51 caliber machine gun. He returned fire, and the captain yelled to stop shooting because they were in a „no-fire‟ zone. That was Sid‟s first visual contact with the VC. (32:46) NBC came and mounted cameras on the helicopter and they fired their weapons and rockets at a mountain that had already been secured. Later, that footage was placed in a documentary and was made to look like it was actual combat. (34:33) Ia Drang Valley (34:50)      While in An Khe, they were told to hurry to Pleiku. So they loaded up and went over. The ground troops had already landed at Ia Drang, but had not yet been over run. They were requested fire support. When they flew in, Sid could see men running everywhere and they could not tell where the Americans were. Six helicopters flew in and unloaded their weapons, then returned to base, re-armed and re-fueled and went back again. When they got back, night had fallen and they were walked on target by radio. They flew those missions all night. Come morning, bodies were everywhere and Sid flew in a holding pattern circling above the battlefield. (36:31) The attack was regimented, because artillery was coming in, B-52‟s were conducting aerial bombing, the helicopters were coming in, and everything was fairly well orchestrated. One thing they learned while there, was that you could not effectively fire more than two rockets at one time. Firing all 48 rockets at once would cause the aircraft to be sent back about a hundred yards from the force of the rocket engines going off. (38:51) �         As a door gunner, the backlash of the rockets going off was bad, which made them either close the doors before the rockets were launched, or later they were given helmets with blast shields that could be lowered to protect their eyes. Operations lasted there for about twenty to twenty five days. They were constantly operating on four hour shifts and even to this day, Sid can sleep under almost any conditions, which has stayed with him ever since the war. (40:25) While attacking villages or other targets, the helicopter had to slow down and come in at a low altitude, making it vulnerable. The crew chief would fire at targets on the left, while the door gunner would fire to the right. When they took off from the area, both men shot to the back to provide rear security. This was before gun mounts and other things were implemented, Sid and the other men were guinea pigs. When Sid first got to country, the gunners did not have harnesses, once they did get them, they were fourteen feet long. Sid fell out while wearing his harness and was dangling below the skids. It took a few minutes for the rest of the crew to realize he was gone and they pulled him up. (42:19) Later, the tethers were sewed together to shorten them so the men could only go to the skids. After the first day at Ia Drang, Sid‟s helicopter received thirty two shots to the blades and body, none of which were critical. The one target that they worried about on the aircraft was the transmission. Once that got hit, you went down. One day Sid was flying with a crew chief named John who was older than him and they took incoming fire from the ground. John panicked and Sid had to punch him to calm him down. R&R (44:17)       Sid was given a seven day R&R to Saigon because of the combat hours that he had. The city was described as a „big city filled with Vietnamese people‟. At the time, the men were not allowed to carry weapons in Saigon, so Sid concealed a pistol in a holster under his arm because he refused to be unarmed. While there, he met a woman who let them stay at her house because all the hotels were filled. Later, he found out that the area where he was staying was filled with VC tunnels. R&R at Saigon was rare later on, most men were sent to Bangkok or someplace else out of country. Sid too was supposed to go to Bangkok, but they could not get a flight so they stayed in Saigon. (46:20) Shot Down (46:42)   Between Pleiku and Plei Me, they took some ground fire and were going down. Sid grabbed his M-60 and attempted to jump off the skids but misjudged the distance, which threw him up into the door and paralyzed him. The pilots ran up and took out the radios and destroyed the sensitive components. Five or six holes were found in the helicopter later and they found out that a hydraulic line had been hit. �         The hit on Sid‟s back compounded his spinal cord, which sent him to a medical tent for three or four days before he started to get feeling back in his toes. Eventually he regained full strength and was sent to An Khe by Sergeant Henderson to get laid. (48:50) Sid found the prettiest girl that he wanted, and he started screaming while having sexual intercourse. When he ejaculated, the intensity of the muscles would swell around his spinal cord and would paralyze him again for about twenty or thirty seconds. At the doctor, he was given a large bottle of muscle relaxers and only had fifteen days left in country. Sid was told that he did not have to fly anymore if he did not want to. He did want to fly, just not in combat. So, he flew routine supply missions. (50:05) Before he left, he was asked to re-enlist, but he chose to go home. His draft date was up, that is why he did not stay in country the full year like most other draftees. While Sid was with the 2/20th, they only lost two helicopters, including his that was shot down. They were watching helicopters practicing troop drop off maneuvers and saw two aircraft collide and crash. Eight men were killed. As a door gunner with an aerial unit, they were not trained in jungle warfare like the grunts were. So being shot down was very scary because they did not know what to do. (52:50) The stress and fear from the deployment caused Sid‟s hair to turn from black to gray in seven months. The memories of the war are still vivid with him and he wonders why people always say “Why can‟t they just be normal?” Back in the States (55:02)           Sid was loaded into a C-130 as he left, his First Sergeant said, “I hate to lose you”. When he got off the C-130 in Saigon, they were locked in chain-link fence staging areas. They made him feel like a prisoner. The next day the men going home boarded a 707 and were treated terribly. They landed in San Francisco and they were given a debriefing by a lieutenant. Sid stood up and said that he was an American soldier and didn‟t like being treated like a prisoner. He was promptly hauled away by the MP‟s. (57:25) Sid told them that he wanted to go to the hospital, there he told the doctor that he had a bad back and every time he had sex he couldn‟t move. He was told to leave and check in with the VA when he got home. The next day he was given a plane ticket and took a taxi to the San Francisco Airport where flew back to Jacksonville. He made a mistake by wearing his uniform, because of the protestors that hated the war. They took their anger out on the vets coming home. When he got home, he was not able to get help from the VA. (59:20) Sid went to work with the Florida East Coast Railroad. They made him the assistant terminal manager at Cocoa Beach, Florida. After being there for a week, the manager had a heart attack and died. Sid was sent back to Jacksonville and worked as a conductor. After that he got a job with Bristol Meyers. �Looking Back (1:00:54)                  One memory that Sid remembered were all the tunnels in Vietnam, and on one occasion they were flying missions supporting an infantry unit that had to clear them out. Over the days they were there, the „tunnel rats‟ pulled out thousands and thousands of weapons and ammunition out of the tunnels. The mission lasted two days. Another time they discovered an underground hospital. Sid flew over as support while it was dismantled and destroyed. The Vietnamese were very ingenious and inventive and were smart. It amazed him how they could do so much with so little. (1:02:25) Sid is planning a 21 day trip back to Vietnam to see if he can meet any of the people that he knew while there. One person he remembers was a young girl who he discovered was being raped by a black soldier. Sid stuck his M-16 in his ear and told him to get off her. The man said “Aw, come on man, what you talking about, she‟s just a gook” and Sid replied, “No, she‟s a person”. Even today, he has tremendous respect for human life. Sid learned in the service that „nothing lasts forever‟, and also „don‟t trust anybody‟.(1:04:45) Sid also gained a large amount of discipline from his military service. He is also an alcoholic, but has discipline about how he does it. He also has tinnitis in his ears from all of the rockets, machine guns and artillery fire. When he first came home he tried to kill himself twice, luckily it didn‟t work. After therapy, and meeting his wife, he is very happy. Sid has also struggled with authority and has been thrown in jail many times because he felt he was being treated unfairly by police officers. That‟s why he wanted to be rich or else he would have been in prison. (1:07:55) Sid built a janitorial company that hired immigrants, mostly Hispanics. Six years ago, Sid started a service company that fixes floor cleaning machines and is the largest Wal-Mart vendor in the world. Thinking back to the ship ride over to Vietnam, Sid remembers two E-6‟s talking on the deck, and he heard one say “I‟m not coming back”; which made him first realize he did not know what to expect in Vietnam. (1:09:54) Sid was a hustler in the military and he learned how to live well there and took all the bad things and said, “That‟s what I‟m not going to be like.” Today, he refuses to take pills, instead he drinks. Going sober for three days sometimes is hard. He is also on the Agent Orange registry and goes in once a year for a cancer screening. (1:12:09) He feels that the VA has killed many veterans by filling them with pills. � 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 Cavanaugh, Sidney Jr. (Interview outline and video), 2013 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cavanaugh, Sidney Jr. Description An account of the resource Sidney Cavanaugh was born in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1942 and later moved down to Jacksonville, Florida. After graduating from high school in 1961, he tried going to college several times. He was drafted into the United States Army in 1964. He trained as a radio operator for the 2/17th Artillery 155 Howitzer out of Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He also was trained as a crew chief on a Mojave Helicopter. When he was sent to Vietnam, he was made a door gunner on a Huey Hog Ship with the 2/20th artillery, 1st Air Cavalry Division, and participated in the Battle of Ia Drang in November 1965. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-08-15 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CavanaughS1492V 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