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PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans’ History Project
Richard Alkema
World War II
52 minutes 33 seconds
(00:00:10) Early Life
-Born in 1926 in Detroit, Michigan.
-Located very near to the Detroit River.
-Father was an engineer on the Wabash Railroad.
-Has a history of railroad workers in the family.
-Able to keep busy with work throughout the Depression.
-Attended South Western High School in Detroit.
-Graduated 1944.
-Sold newspapers as a teenager.
-Likely heard about Pearl Harbor from the papers.
-Father was from the Netherlands.
(00:05:00)
-Decided to enlist in the Navy after high school.
-Received permission from a Federal judge in order to enlist.
-His mother very hesitantly signed for his enlistment.
-The fact that certain family members were in the military helped to influence him toward
joining the Navy.
-Two brothers in law that were involved in the military in Italy, and later Germany.
-Another relative that was in the Navy.
Training and Locomotive Engine Delivery to Europe
-Sent to Great Lakes, Illinois for basic training.
(00:10:00)
-Next, sent via train to Norfolk, Virginia for gunnery training.
-Boarded the Seatrain Texas ship.
-At that point he had about a week of basic training, and a week of gunnery training.
-Upon leaving there was a 100 ship convoy.
-Left from New York Harbor.
-Destined for England.
-England was in need of locomotives.
-While crossing the Atlantic, the ship was shot at but the torpedo went underneath their ship.
(00:15:00)
-However the ship was damaged.
-Docked at the Falmouth, England.
-Delivered two locomotive engines.
-Next, crossed the Mediterranean and went to Naples, Italy.
-Delivered two locomotive engines.
-Baldwin engines made in Pennsylvania.
-Finally the last two engines were delivered to Marseille, France.
�-They knew how to use the anti-aircraft guns, however there wasn’t extensive instruction given.
Pacific and Transporting Japanese Civilians
-Next headed to the Panama Canal with a destination for Japan.
-Travelled with some other ships to Panama.
(00:20:00)
-Left the Seatrain Texas ship to board the LST 801 headed for Japan.
-The goal was to pick up Japanese that were remaining from the War.
-Japan had surrendered by this point.
-Many of them were women.
-Eventually the boarded Japanese were to be repatriated back to Japan.
-Picked them up at Okinawa.
(00:25:00)
-Usually on guard duty.
-Took up laundry duty as well during certain times.
-Refused to swim in the ocean because of the dangerous sharks etc.
-Guards with guns would keep watch for sharks while other crew members swam in the
ocean.
-Experienced some bad storms on the LST.
-Sea sickness amongst the crew was common.
-Threw their trash overboard from meals etc.
(00:30:00)
-Situations to fire anti-aircraft guns to attack were seldom at that point.
-During their time at Falmouth they were able to go into town.
-Did not have transportation to get around.
-English citizens were welcoming to them.
-Did not go into town at Naples or Marseille.
-At Okinawa they were able to go ashore to town.
-However it was not common.
-In Japan they were unwelcome to go into town.
(00:35:00)
-The trip from Okinawa to Japan was short.
-So the interaction between the crew and Japanese being transported was limited.
-Communication to the US at home was not very feasible.
-Sent mail to their base.
-Socialized with his fellow guard members.
-Only one person was a closer friend of his.
-His duration in the Navy lasted about two and a half years.
-Discharged in 1946.
Post War Life and Misc.
-Relieved to be sent home when the War was ended.
(00:40:00)
-Certain ships would have the luxury of a shower stall while others did not.
-LST vehicles were extremely cramped.
-A lot of movies to watch to keep the crew entertained.
�-LST featured showers with desalinators.
-Priority was to use the pure water for laundry and drinking not bathing.
-After leaving the military he worked with his father on the trains.
-Made good money.
-At that time their family was using one car amongst them.
(00:45:00)
-His work with the railroads lasted about 10 ~ 12 years.
-Took flying lessons to be certified to fly a plane.
-Didn’t continue on to fly as a habit or as a pilot.
-Some of his friends were casualties that never returned from War.
-Didn’t enroll in college after being discharged.
-Became a police officer as well as working security jobs.
-Worked for about 12 ~ 15 years.
(00:50:00)
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27_AlkemaR1905V
Title
A name given to the resource
Alkema, Richard (Interview outline and video), 2015
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-12-03
Description
An account of the resource
Richard Alkema was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1926. After graduating high school in 1944 he enlisted to the Navy. For his brief basic training he was sent to Great Lakes, Illinois. In Norfolk, Virginia he was trained to use the anti-aircraft guns to be a guardsman. Thereafter he traveled aboard the Seatrain Texas ship to Falmouth England, Naples Italy, and Marseille France to deliver locomotive engines. The ship next passed through the Panama Canal to Pearl Harbor where Richard boarded LST 801. Their next destination would be Okinawa where they transported Japanese to the mainland in the aftermath of the War. His time in the military lasted two and a half years and he was discharged in 1946.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Alkema, Richard
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
United States. Navy
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Moving Image
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a>
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/x-m4v
application/pdf
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46bb33549ac3a5912aa2071ca405ffac
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54d5a17006848bf23721f5c8d37a6ddd
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veteran's History Project
US Navy
Paul Allen
Total Time (01:23:00)
Introduction (00:00:19)
Paul was born in 1926 in South Boston; his heritage includes some Irish and English (00:00:34)
His father served in WWI for the US Navy where he met his future wife in Belfast, Ireland
(00:00:46)
Paul graduated from high school on February 1st, 1942; he was only 15 when he graduated as he
skipped a couple of grades (00:02:19)
◦ He mentions that in middle school and high school that he was aware of what was going on
in the world due to the Boston school system (00:04:15)
◦ Although he wanted to go to Harvard, Paul knew he would eventually end up in the military
so he became a welder until then (00:05:42)
▪ Paul took the naval aviation exam and passed it- from there he went to Dartmouth
College for mechanical engineering (00:07:00)
▪ Due to a small color blindness issue, Paul was sent to the Supply Corps by 1945; he
went to school in New Jersey by the time the war was just ending (00:08:56)
▪ After he graduated from that school, he was stationed to the battleship New Jersey as the
dispersing officer (00:09:07)
While he was at Dartmouth, Paul received naval and military training; in addition he
took 15 hours of classes each semester (00:10:29)
Paul was the youngest officer on the New Jersey at the age of 19 (00:11:11)
◦ As a supply and dispersing officer, Paul arrived in San Diego to a pretty bad
situation which he had to resolve which involved getting cash, equipment, food,
and clothing for the men on board- they were headed to China for four months
(00:15:08)
Overseas & Beyond (00:15:08)
On the way, Paul mentions they had to refuel at Hawaii and Japan for several weeks; he
mentions the trip was cold and torturous (00:16:40)
Paul said that he was almost killed while in China when it was Chiang Kai Shek's birthday but
his rickshaw driver talked the men who held them up out of it (00:19:23)
◦ He didn't decide to make a career out of the Navy at that point as he mentions he was quite
fed up with his captain at the time (00:22:00)
◦ Once he got back to San Diego, Paul decided to put in his papers; the Navy guaranteed he
would get a masters degree out of it if he stayed on so he changed his mind; this was in
1947 (00:23:43)
▪ His next assignment was to join a destroyer based out of his hometown of Boston
(00:24:05)
▪ At this time Paul held the rank of Lieutenant, which took him eight years to do
(00:25:45)
▪ He was stationed on the USS Power at the time (00:26:13)
Paul trained at Guantanamo Bay for six months while he held the positions of supply
�
and dispersing officer (00:26:58)
He was on the USS Power for a year and a half; after Guantanamo, Paul says they
did fleet exercises after that (00:28:22)
In 1948 after the USS Power, Paul was asked where he would like to go next and
told them he wanted to be stationed at a shipyard in Boston (00:28:49)
Korean War & Beyond (00:31:06)
Paul arrived to the Eastern theater during the Korean War the day the United States invaded
Inchon, South Korea on September 15th, 1950 (00:31:06)
He was primarily based out of Yokusuka, Japan at this time (00:32:05)
◦ Paul's future partner was one of a few hundred nurses that was flown over to Yokusuka; this
was during the last week of November in 1950 (00:35:03)
◦ He mentions that the military was downsized considerably from World War II to the Korean
War and says that there were only a few divisions from the Army and Marines as these
divisions would be sent back to combat even after you were injured or received purple
hearts if you were healthy enough to return to combat (00:37:52)
▪ Paul's brother joined the National Guard in Minnesota and was sent to fight in the
Korean War; his brother lost seven platoon leaders in three months and became the
sergeant major of the battalion at the age of 23- he passed away at the age of 59 from
cancer due to the effects of contracting malaria while in South Korea (00:40:39)
Back Home & Eastern Theater (00:41:35)
Paul became the deputy chief of petroleum logistics for the Navy while he worked in the
Pentagon (00:41:35)
He served in the Pentagon for two years; he helped set up fueling stations throughout the rest of
the world in case of another war breaking out (00:43:35)
Paul served on the USS Essex from June 1954 til 1956 as the aviation supply officer (00:44:53)
◦ After being stationed near Taiwan, Paul and the crew of the USS Essex were sent to
Thailand as he mentioned it being a very touchy place; most of the missions were
diplomatic and he mentions the natives of Thailand liked them being there (00:47:27)
◦ Between training and deployment, Paul says they lost 13 aircrafts and five pilots (00:49:40)
▪ After the Essex, Paul was the logistics and planning officer for the naval air force pacific
fleet; he was stationed in San Diego, California (00:52:18)
▪ At this time, he made the rank of Lieutenant Commander (00:52:37)
Paul was stationed on Subic Bay in the Philippines; his wife and three of his children
were there as well- he was stationed there from 1959 til 1961 (00:53:42)
He went to Monterey Bay Naval Postgraduate School; from there he went to the
aviation supply office in Philadelphia- he did this from 1962 til 1964 (00:55:37)
◦ Paul mentions that when the Vietnam conflict finally came along he realized it
was a big mistake (00:58:46)
◦ He made rank of captain and had a small staff of about 20; four of them were
commanders and the rest were high ranking civilians (01:02:10)
◦ Even after Paul aired concerns about overspending on supplies in one event, the
military went ahead and did it anyways (01:08:30)
▪ After one of Paul's flights to Da Nang, Vietnam was cancelled, a gentlemen
at the hotel bar offered Paul up a seat on his flight (01:11:37)
▪ Paul's impression of Vietnam at that point was that the people were very
�unhappy; people were getting killed for no reason over there (01:13:22)
Back Home Again (01:13:50)
After Vietnam, Paul decided to leave the Navy and came back to the states to head the
international logistics at the supply systems command as a primarily diplomatic job (01:14:18)
Paul looked for a civilian job and was hired as the head of information systems and became the
chief deputy of social services for the state of Michigan (01:15:14)
◦ Paul's time in the service made him a person with integrity, honesty, and it gave him a great
education (01:18:49)
◦ The service also taught him to ignore extraneous things and turn the other cheek (01:19:26)
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27_AllenP1652V
Title
A name given to the resource
Allen, Paul (Interview outline and video), 2014
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-06-23
Description
An account of the resource
Paul Allen was born in 1926 in South Boston. His father served in World War I for the US Navy. Paul graduated high school at the age of 15 in 1942. Although he wanted to go to Harvard, Paul knew he would end up in the military
he wound up being stationed to the battleship New Jersey as a dispersing officer where he would be the youngest officer on the ship at age 19. After a few years on a few different ships, Paul would arrive to the Eastern theater during the Korean War as he was primarily based out of Yokusuka Japan in late 1950. He later served assignments at the Pentagon and aboard the carrier USS Essex (1954-56), and later had assignments in the Philippines and at the naval base in Da Nang during the Vietnam War.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Allen, Paul
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
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
United States. Navy
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Moving Image
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/x-m4v
application/pdf
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ace1c97f7a623577a06847c044ec3393.mp4
e9c2f779bfa0ce4277bfe0cfec52180a
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b20c0d1194421a86635f06211496b641.pdf
337008469bf0b78652b4ffeb51cdbdf1
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans’ History Project
Ronald Allen
Vietnam War
24 minutes 45 seconds
(00:00:01) Overview of Service and Training
-In the Air Force from 1970 to 1974
-Worked with the Airborne Air Rescue Recovery Service
-Better known as Air Force Pararescue
-Worked as a crew chief on the Sikorsky HH53 helicopter
-Started off with the 1550th Combat Crew Training Wing in Ogden, Utah
-Spent his first year there
(00:00:36) Deployment to Vietnam
-In April 1972 he was assigned to the 37th Air Rescue Recovery Squadron
-Stationed at Da Nang Air Base, Vietnam
-Joined the squadron just after a rescue crew was lost during Bat 21 rescue attempt
-Also joined prior to a major operation carried out at Quang Tri
-Massive evacuation of South Vietnamese Rangers and Americans
(00:02:18) Daily Life at Da Nang
-Rocket and mortar strikes were a common occurrence
-Lived on the north side of the base in the old Marine compound
-Heavily fortified position that also had a hospital
-Allowed them to get to the helicopters and to launch quickly
-Had to wear body armor at all times for the most part
-Ate mostly C rations even while on base
-Worked in conjunction with the other maintenance teams
-Insured that the helicopters and other aircraft were working properly
-Formed a deep bond with each other
-Worked with two Coast Guard pilots that were stationed at Da Nang
-Being involved in the missions made him feel like he was playing a major part
-Day to day life could be boring
-Weather was always hot and humid both during the day and at night
-Mosquitos were also a constant annoyance that he just had to get used to
-Involved in a large number of missions
(00:06:49) Involvement with the Army
-Worked with the Army on occasion
-Got invited to fly in a Cobra attack helicopter once
-Took the opportunity to fly along the South China Sea coast and got target practice
-Upon landing he was severely reprimanded by a superior officer
-He was definitely not allowed to ride along in a Cobra
(00:08:54) Enemy Attacks
-Remembers on August 19, 1972 the base was hit by a sapper and rocket attack
-Happened at night
-Blew the doors off the hut where he slept
�-The next morning, August 20, they were hit again
-Attack happened at 6:30 in the morning
-120mm Vietnamese rocket made a direct hit on the helicopter he worked on
-Destroyed the helicopter
-He was uninjured though
(00:09:58) End of the War Pt. 1
-His unit was deactivated in December 1972
-He was flown out of Da Nang by the Utah National Guard
-Remembers flying over the Ho Chi Minh trail as they left
(00:10:36) Typhoons
-During his time in Vietnam he was a part of two typhoon evacuations
-Once to Saigon
-Once to Thailand
-Considered to be somewhat of an R&R period
-Chance to rest for a couple days while the storm blew through
(00:11:32) End of the War Pt. 2
-War was winding down when he was deployed to Vietnam
-Army was being withdrawn
-Firebases in the north were being overrun by Vietnamese forces
(00:11:52) Involvement with Other Aircraft
-Bombing missions were being flown out of Da Nang on a daily basis
-He could feel the ground shake when the bombs were dropped in the distance
-Search and rescue teams from his unit would follow the pilots out
-Circled the area of operation in case a jet was shot down
-Always a celebratory event when a pilot was recovered and returned to base successfully
-Saw a B52 bomber land at Da Nang
-SAM (surface to air missile) was stuck, unexploded in the wing
-Vietnamese pilots would come into Da Nang and have to make crash landings
-Remembers a rocket attack that destroyed several Marine F4 Phantoms
-Marines suffered losses because of that
(00:15:49) End of the War Pt. 3
-Towards the end of the war a large amount of soldiers were being moved to different positions
-He and his unit were pulled out of Da Nang because of eroding security in the area
-Also part of the political maneuvering that occurred
-He was transferred to the 40th Air Rescue Recovery Squadron in Thailand
-Worked with them for a few months
-Remembers a large number of B52s flying out for bombing runs
-Remembers one that crash landed upon its return
-The crew ejected safely
-In February 1972 he was pulled off the base in Thailand
-Given twelve hours to pack and get ready to leave
-Part of the Paris Peace Accords of 1972
-Flew out of Bangkok, Thailand back to the United States
-Returned to the 1550th Combat Crew Training Wing in Ogden, Utah
�(00:18:52) Enlisting in the Air Force
-Enlisted in the Air Force to avoid getting drafted into the Army
-He had a low lottery number which meant he had a high chance of getting drafted
-He had a fascination with aircraft and the Air Force since a young age
-This also played a major part in influencing him to join the Air Force
-Had to travel from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Indianapolis, Indiana for his induction
(00:19:49) Mascots of the 37th Air Rescue Recovery Squadron
-The pararescue unit’s mascot was a boa constrictor named “Stretch”
-It was a real boa constrictor that had been taken out of the jungle
-Fifteen feet long
-His maintenance crew’s mascot was a dog named “Dash”
-He got hurt by shrapnel from a Vietnamese rocket attack once
-Pararescue soldiers gave him stitches and brought him back to health
-Dash received the Purple Heart for his wounds at an on base bar
-They lost track of him during the evacuation of Da Nang
-Never knew what happened to him
-Stretch was taken with the unit to Thailand and released back into the wild
(00:22:52) Reflections on Service
-He felt that the war was an important part of shaping himself and his generation
-It was difficult being a soldier or a veteran during the war
-Despite the negative aspects of service he is glad that he was a part of the war
-Feels that it was worth it because he was able to help save some lives
�
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
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Title
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Allen, Ronald (Interview outline and video), 2013
Creator
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Allen, Ronald
Description
An account of the resource
Ronald Allen served in the Air Force from 1970 to 1974. He enlisted in the Air Force to avoid getting drafted into the Army and had a deeper interest in serving with the Air Force and working with aircraft. After travelling from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Indianapolis, Indiana he was inducted into the Air Force and was sent to basic training. He was deployed to Da Nang Air Base, Vietnam in April 1972 where he served with the 37th Air Rescue Recovery Squadron after he trained with the 1550th Combat Crew Training Wing in Ogden, Utah. During his time in Vietnam he was involved in a large number of rescue missions and had multiple incidents involving enemy artillery fire. In December 1972 his unit was deactivated and he was flown out of Da Nang by the Utah National Guard and attached to the 40th Air Rescue Recovery Squadron stationed in Thailand. In February 1972 he returned home and continued to work with the 1550th Combat Crew Training Wing in Ogden, Utah.
Contributor
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Cullison, Jennifer (Interviewer)
Caledonia High School (Caledonia, Mich.)
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
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Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
United States. Air Force
Language
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eng
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Relation
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Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
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2013-05-21
Identifier
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AllenR1495V
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Format
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4b9c0673624e7551151b2582120bfcd7.m4v
ab9f70b804b73ea01d411e40b5db451a
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0eb17cea2f38fd5949739fb3be6929cf.pdf
319b31f43aed03c593c87b36fea8c510
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans' History Project
Don Alsbro
Cold War, Vietnam War, Peacetime
(00:00:11) Early Life
-Born in Detroit, Michigan on May 20, 1940
-Moved to Plymouth, Michigan in 1944
-Grew up there
-Father was a travelling claims adjuster for the Pere Marquette Railway
-Went to the scene of train wrecks for insurance purposes
-Family was allowed to travel with him
-Got to see New York City and San Francisco
-Father died suddenly in 1949
-Traumatic experience for Don
-Fortunately, the railroad had a retirement fund set up
-Father had also purchased a small apartment complex in Detroit to rent
out
-Fund and income from rent made it so his mother didn't have to
work
-Spent summers at the family cottage on Whitmore Lake
-Graduated from high school in 1958
(00:02:55) ROTC at Western Michigan University
-Went to Western Michigan University
-Encouraged by his machine shop teacher/track coach to do something he loved
doing
-Inspired him to go into teaching
-Had been accepted by the University of Michigan and Michigan State University
-Chose Western because it had the best teaching program in the state
-There was a two year requirement of phyiscal education or Reserve Officer Training
Corps
-There were 1500 ROTC cadets at Western
-Decided to be in the ROTC
-Only had to wear his uniform once a week for drill
-Had to apply, and be accepted, for two extra years of ROTC
-Encouraged to sign up for the extra two years
-Told he would only have to do six months active duty
-Also told he would be commissioned as an officer in the Army
-Due to the Cuban Missile Crisis the six months of active duty was extended to two years
-Took a semester off to deliver a car to Phoenix, Arizona
-Allowed to return to Western and continue with the ROTC
-Received orders to go to West Germany for three years at the end of ROTC training
-Drove to Phoenix in spring 1961
-Commissioned and graduated in January 1963
(00:11:33) Teaching and Infantry Basic Training
-Went to Infantry Basic Training from June through August 1963 before going to
�Germany
-Did some substitute teaching in Kalamazoo, Michigan before Infantry Basic Training
-Trained for 10 weeks at Fort Benning, Georgia
-Learned how to be an infantry officer
-Summer was bad in Georgia
-Wound up at Martin Army Hospital due to heat exhaustion
-Had gotten married in May 1963
-If he took an extra year of service he could bring his wife and stepdaughter to Germany
-In December 1965 he got an invitation to teach at Comstock Park, Michigan
-Requested release from the Army
-Could only leave early if he served a tour in Vietnam
(00:15:42) Stationed in West Germany Pt. 1
-Served at Larson Barracks in Kitzingen, Germany with the 3rd Infantry Division
-Became the athletics and recreation (A&R) officer for the 3rd Infantry Division
-Coached the 3rd Infantry Division baseball team
-Coached the brigade basketball team
-Assistant coach for the brigade football team
-Played against teams from all over Europe
-Army wanted soldiers to play sports to avoid getting into trouble
-Offered a chance to stay in the Army and work as a coach
(00:18:06) Deployment to Vietnam Pt. 1
-Received orders for Vietnam in February 1966
-Once he was done he could leave the Army
-Didn't know much about Vietnam
(00:19:10) Stationed in West Germany Pt. 2
-Germany was a good place for American servicemen and their families
-Not always enjoyable, but good for the most part
-Baseball team played a championship game in Nuremberg
-Same stadium where Jesse Owens ran in the 1936 Summer Olympics
-Note: Most likely played in Berlin, not Nuremberg, or was at Nuremberg stadium
used for famous Nazi rally in film Triumph of the Will
-Basketball team played the Air Force teams
(00:20:19) Deployment to Vietnam Pt. 2
-For 90 days he was attached to the 15th Infantry Regiment for infantry training
-Allowed to return to the U.S. in July 1966
-Assigned to be the Civil Affairs Officer in the 11th Aviation Group in the 1st Cavalry
Division
-More helicopters in the 1st Cavalry Division than trucks or jeeps
-Sent a welcome letter by the 1st Cavalry Division
(00:22:32) Arrival in Vietnam Pt. 1
-Spent two days in Saigon being processed
-Took a helicopter to An Khe
-Would spend a year in An Khe working as the Civil Affairs Officer
(00:23:17) Deployment to Vietnam Pt. 3
-Spent 30 days of leave in the U.S.
-Received 15 days of Jungle Training at Fort Sherman in the Panama Canal Zone
�-Taught how to rappel and cross rivers
-Tremendous experience
-Spent one week in the barracks and one week in the field
-Taught how to build shelters and identify poisonous snakes
-Returned to Charleston, South Carolina
-Had to get to California on his own
-Returned to Michigan to spend a few days with his wife and stepdaughter
-Went to Chicago O'Hare International Airport
-Boarded an Air National Guard C-130 at O'Hare Air Reserve Station
-Took him five or six days to get to California
-Landed in California and was processed in Oakland
-Flew out of Travis Air Force Base
-Flew between Travis AFB and Vietnam aboard a C-130 six times
-24 hour trip one way
-Stopped at Clark Air Base, Philippines to refuel
-Went to Vietnam as an individual soldier, not as part of a unit
(00:29:54) Arrival in Vietnam Pt. 2
-Landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon
-Received three days of orientation in Saigon
-Not a lot of training for officers
-Learned about the country
-Culture and geography
-Traveled in a school bus with grates on the windows to stop grenades
(00:31:26) Stationed in An Khe with 1st Cavalry Division
-Flew to An Khe
-Near Highway 19, in II Corps, and inland
-Arrived in June 1966 along with soldiers from South Korea
-Stationed at Camp Radcliff and took a bus to his unit
-Didn't get to meet the officer he was replacing
-Had a sergeant serving under him that had been shot down seven times
-There were 400 helicopters in the 1st Cavalry Division
-Had a South Vietnamese interpreter
-Spoke excellent English and was college educated
-He was part of a Civic Action Team
-Medic, sergeant, interpreter, and himself
-Worked from 9 AM to 10 or 11 PM in the village inside Camp Radcliff
-Villagers were moved one mile away to a place near a river
-Each villager was paid $300 to move
-Enough money to build a permanent house with bricks
-Moved off base for security reasons
-Had a medic in his Civic Action Team who treated civilians six days a week
-Very primitive area
-No running water, no electricity, and no sewers
-Had a hospital in An Khe that they could use
(00:41:57) Interactions with Vietnamese Civilians
-Worked with the village chief, the two hamlet chiefs, and the local police chief
�-Set up a shower system to deal with the rampant impetigo in the area
-Built a basketball court, volleyball court, softball diamond, and playground with
engineers
-Played games with the villagers
-On Friday night showed movies to the villagers
-Showed them footage from space
-On Monday nights had English classes for the children
-20 to 50 children came on average
-On Wednesday nights they provided math classes to the children
-On Christmas they brought gifts to each household in the village
-Got so comfortable with the villagers that he didn't carry a rifle
-Never had a problem in the entire year that he was there
-Brought the village 18 piglets to bolster their economy
-By June 1967 the village had 150 pigs
-Gave the girls dolls for Christmas and boys sports gears
-One soldier dressed up like Santa Claus
(00:49:21) Working with South Korean Soldiers
-South Korean soldiers put on a tae kwon do show for the villagers
-Chopped bricks in half with their bare hands
-For a few weeks after they treated a lot of children with broken hands
-They had tried to emulate the South Korean soldiers
-Showed the Vietnamese that the Koreans were formidable soldiers
-By extension, it also meant the Americans were formidable as
well
-Prior to June 1966 a lot of American soldiers were killed on Highway 19
-He routinely traveled between An Khe and Qui Nhon to get supplies
-Never had a problem thanks to the South Korean soldiers
(00:53:06) Reenlisting in the Army
-Initially planned on getting out of the Army after his tour in Vietnam
-In October 1966 he decided to stay in the Army
-Wife supported the decision
-Requested transfer to the Adjutant General Corps
-He was accepted and would be sent to the Adjutant General School after June
1967
(00:55:50) Travel
-Went to Saigon a couple times for paperwork
-Went to Qui Nhon
-Went to Hawaii for R&R in February 1967 and got to see his wife
-Went to Tokyo near the end of his tour in 1967
(00:57:05) Getting Shot Down
-Experienced getting shot down while on a Caribou transport
-Went to a leprosarium (leper colony) run by the Catholic Church to deliver presents
-Incredibly clean
-Ate dinner with the priests and nuns
-Boarded the Caribou with his interpreter and sat down in a seat near a window
-Heard a voice from nowhere say, "Don't sit there"
�-Moved to a different seat and the plane took off
-Shortly after take off he heard a "ping"
-Gunshot had gone through the plane and hit the plane's hydraulic line
-Looked out a window and saw the ground coming up fast
-Saw his life flash before his eyes
-Able to land back on the runway, but it was a rough landing
-Learned that a .51 caliber round had gone through his original seat and hit the hydraulic
line
-Spent a night in the field
-Didn't sleep well that night, but they didn't get attacked
-The next day a plane came in and they were able to leave
(01:04:17) Building a High School
-The 1st Cavalry Division donated $9000 to build a high school for the villagers in An
Khe
-Villagers could only get a 6th grade education before the high school was built
-High school had 12 rooms and two stories
-Supposed to get two cement mixers to build the school
-Only received one
-Went to Da Nang to ask about the other mixer
-Learned that the mixer had been moved to the Monkey Mountain Facility
-Note: Located at the peak of Son Tra Mountain
-Went to the Marine signal unit stationed there to ask about the
mixer
-Found it and was able to move it down the mountain
-A week later they got the mixer to An Khe and proceeded with construction
(01:09:38) Adjutant General Corps
-Returned to the U.S. and was sent to Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana
-Took the Adjutant General Career Course
-Seven month course
-Adjutant General Corps was in charge of paperwork in the Army
-Mail, personnel action reports, punchcard processing, and court martial
processing
-Sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois for Adjutant General duty
-Headquarters for the 5th Army
-Took care of 50 colleges in that area with ROTC
-Processed commissions and ROTC paperwork for one year at Fort
Sheridan
-Had a lot of say in whether or not someone was qualified
-Didn't run into a lot of anti-war problems
-Lived in Zion, Illinois
-Near Great Lakes Naval Station
-Almost in Wisconsin
-Enjoyable time living in Illinois
-His second year at Fort Sheridan he ran a printing plant
-Had 40 civilians and 10 or 15 soldiers working for him
-Had presses and cameras
�-Responsible for book binding
-When former president Eisenhower died they dealt with press for his funeral
(01:17:15) Redeployment to Vietnam
-Didn't anticipate having to return to Vietnam
-Told he had to do a tour as a member of the Adjutant General Corps in Vietnam
-Returned to Vietnam in August 1970
(01:18:10) Stationed in An Khe with the 4th Infantry Division
-Assigned to the 4th Infantry Division in An Khe
-When he returned to An Khe in 1970 he was not allowed to leave the base without
protection
-This was as opposed to being able to go into the village without a rifle
-Didn't return to the village of An Khe
-Wasn't allowed to and didn't want to see what had become of it anyway
-Processed paperwork as the 4th Infantry Division prepared to return to the U.S.
-Processed paperwork sent to senators and representatives from soldiers
-Issues and complaints
-Every issue from the trivial to the serious
-Usually took a month for an issue to be addressed and dealt with
-Processed paperwork concerning men that went on leave and didn't return for duty
-Men that went on leave in the U.S. and decided not to return for service
(01:24:55) Stationed in Chu Lai with the 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division
-Sent to the Americal Division/23rd Infantry Division in Chu Lai
-Unit strength: 22,000 men
-Worked with them for eight months
-Worked as the Special Actions Officer
-Cut orders for men going home on emergency leave or on R&R
-Processed special orders
-On one occasion he received a top secret message that had 150 copies
-149 were accounted for, but one had gone missing in Da Nang
-He went to Da Nang to the South Vietnamese headquarters there
-Successfully found it and had it signed for
-Responsible for producing the daily bulletin for the division
(01:29:52) Morale & Drug Use
-Morale changed during his second tour
-Didn't see any evidence of drug use on his first tour in Vietnam
-On his second tour he saw evidence of drug use
-Soldiers still did their jobs without resistance on his second tour
(01:31:39) End of the War
-Remembers sitting in the chapel on Easter Sunday 1971
-Heard that Firebase Mary Ann had been overrun by the Viet Cong
-Marines were pulled out in spring 1971
-Didn't think too much about what would happen to South Vietnam after the U.S. left
(01:33:11) Interactions with Army of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam)
-Had positive encounters with soldiers from South Vietnam
-Felt that South Vietnam had been left to be conquered at the end of the war
-Didn't have proper funding from the U.S. to defend itself after U.S. troops left
�-Friends with a South Vietnamese colonel
-Had fought alongside the French forces in the First Indochina War
-Able to get out of South Vietnam via Saigon in April 1975
-Left on the last helicopter out of Saigon with his family
-Resettled in Corpus Christi, Texas
-All 10 of his children made it out South Vietnam before it fell
(01:38:42) End of Active Duty
-At the end of his second tour in Vietnam he was ready to go home
-Had orders for Fort Bliss, Texas
-Drove to Texas with his family
-Spent seven or eight months in Texas
-In February 1972 he received a letter saying Army was reducing in size
-Meant that his active duty was coming to an end
-Active duty ended in April 1972
(01:39:53) Army Reserve
-Drilled with an Army Reserve unit in Kalamazoo starting in May 1972
-Spent five years with the hospital unit there
-Worked as an executive officer for seven years at Fort Sheridan
-Part of the 149th Medical Detachment
-Went on active duty in the summers
-Did four summers at Camp Ripley, Minnesota
-Did four summers at Camp Grayling, Michigan
-Got promoted to the rank of colonel
-Spent 31 years in the Army (active duty and reserve)
(01:41:22) Civilian Work
-Had teaching jobs while he was in the Army Reserve
-Owned a horse farm in Niles, Michigan
-Raised horses and went to shows
-Got his doctorate in teaching
-Coached a track team at Lake Michigan College and worked as their athletics director
-Developed "Dump Your Plump," an international weight loss program
-Team based, goal oriented, competitive program
(01:43:38) Lest We Forget
-Part of Lest We Forget
-Patriotic organization
-Collects the stories of veterans
-Have collected the stories of 300 to 350 veterans
-Educates people about American military engagements
-Conducts war reenactments for World War Two, Korean War, and Vietnam 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
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eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27_AlsbroD1899V
Title
A name given to the resource
Alsbro, Donald E (Interview outline and video), 2015
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-17
Description
An account of the resource
Don Alsbro was born on May 20, 1940 in Detroit, Michigan. In 1958 he attended Western Michigan University and enrolled in the Reserve Officer Training Corps, received his commission in January 1963 and graduated in June 1963. He received Infantry Basic Training at Fort Benning, Georgia and was stationed at Larson Barracks in Kitzingen, Germany from 1963 to 1966 working as the athletics and recreation officer of the 3rd Infantry Division. In February 1966 he received orders for Vietnam and in summer 1966 he deployed to Vietnam. He served as the Civil Affairs Officer in the 11th Aviation Group of the 1st Cavalry Division at An Khe promoting the welfare of the Vietnamese civilians in the area. He left Vietnam in June 1967 and received Adjutant General training at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana and served at Fort Sheridan, Illinois for two years. In August 1970 he returned to Vietnam for a second tour where he served with the 4th Infantry Division at An Khe and the Americal Division at Chu Lai. He returned to the U.S. and served at Fort Bliss, Texas until his active duty ended in April 1972. He continued to serve in the Army Reserve in Kalamazoo, Michigan
Fort Sheridan, Illinois
Camp Ripley, Minnesota
and Camp Grayling, Michigan. Don served for 30 years and attained the rank of colonel.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Alsbro, Donald E.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Moving Image
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a>
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan
Format
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video/x-m4v
application/pdf
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d477cace4c921d4510e4efadbd528cda.mp4
3e5ddfe5e742e923d514965f803035fb
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bce3383305a62b5fcf9e0bcc37987aca.pdf
bd2cb2d49f8b6915351d41814a15ba1e
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
All American Girls Professional Baseball League
Veterans History Project
Interviewee’s Name: Isabel (Lefty) Alvarez
Length of Interview: (00:37:11)
Interviewed by: James Smither,
Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, June 30, 2010
Interviewer: “Can you begin to tell us a little bit about your background? To start
with, where and when were you born?”
I was born on October 31, 1933 in Havana, Cuba.
Interviewer: “What did your father do for a living or what did your family do?”
Well, my father was in the marines and then in the police force for fifty years.
Interviewer: “So he had a regular job. How many children were in your family?”
My brother and myself only
Interviewer: “When did you start playing baseball?”
I think very—my mother was all sport orientated and she knew it was healthy, so baseball
they played in the street you know and she let me do the sports, but she didn’t let me do
any other things. 1:14
Interviewer: “What other sports did you play besides baseball?”
Fencing, soccer and baseball most of all
Interviewer: “Now, when you played these games, were you mostly playing with
boys or were there a lot of girls too?”
In the fencing there was women, it was well organized and directing the fencing was
people from the government.
Interviewer: “Did you have fencing tournaments and did you travel around?”
At the time, in fifty-- it was the time, I can’t remember the exact day, but we were going
to go to Europe for fencing and I had to make up my mind if I wanted to go to Europe or
come to the United States to play baseball, so I decided to come here and I would like to
know the date, I can’t remember. 2:09
Interviewer: “Well, when did you first have contact with American baseball?
When did you start playing either with or against American teams?”
1
�In 1947 when they went to spring training and we had an exhibition game and to let you
know, I pitched that one game.
Interviewer: “How old were you when you pitched in this exhibition game?”
I was fourteen years old. In 1947, now I figure it out.
Interviewer: “If it was in the spring of 1947, you were probably thirteen.”
Thirteen, I can’t imagine.
Interviewer: “How did you do?”
I did very well, that’s what my mother told me. She was at the game and that’s the first
time my mother saw me play. 2:54
Interviewer: “How did they get the team together? How did you wind up on the
team?”
The owner of our Cuban team was a—he was the owner of a wine distillery and he had a
lot of connects with tourists and how he get to know Max Carey and the commissioners
of the league, I don’t have any idea, but he had a lot of good connections and a lot of
money and we had a place to go and train. I love it you know because we even stayed on
weekends and had food and everything. 3:33
Interviewer: “And do you remember at all what happened in that game that you
pitched against the Americans? Your mother told you, you did well.”
Well that’s when they decided they were going to bring four Cubans to the United States
and the President came to my house to my mother and said I wasn’t old enough to come
to the United States, you had to be fifteen, so I waited until 1949, I was fifteen then.
Interviewer: “You really knew from 1947, that you wanted to go.”
Yeah, the manager said, the Cuban manager, “you’re going to be next”, so I knew and it
was anxiety you know. 4:16
Interviewer: “So then when it gets to 1949 and you’re going to go to America, how
did they get you over to the states and where did you go first? Do you remember
about going over?”
The first time I step here in the United States to go to play for—it was Chicago and I—
coming fresh from Cuba at that age, I didn’t even know I was in Chicago.
Interviewer: “How did you get from Cuba up to Chicago?”
By—how did I get over there? A plane to Miami and then drive to Chicago.
Interviewer: “You drove to Chicago?”
2
�No, I didn’t drive—how did I get over there? That’s a funny thing, how did I get to
Chicago?” 5:08 We fly, we had to fly. We flew yes.
Interviewer: “Now, were you all by yourself when you did this or did you have
someone with you?”
There were three Cubans with me.
Interviewer: “So, a group of four Cubans go together?”
Yes, together, that’s how we first started in 1949.
Interviewer: “So, the time you came to the United States did you speak any English
yet?”
Not very much, my mother was tutoring me with words and works and everything
because my mother was right, to learn English. There was a professor in Cuba, a
neighbor, he was supposed to learn, to teach English and my mother sent me to him for a
week . He thought I could learn English in a week. I don’t know, so then my brother,
when I came over here he said, “well you knew English when you came to the United
States”, and I said, “I did not know the English much in a week”. 6:09
Interviewer: “What happened once you got to Chicago? What did they do with you
then? What did you do?”
They assigned us to a team and I was assigned to the Chicago Colleens.
Interviewer: “Did the team make any provision to help—were you the only Cuban
player they had or did all of you go together?”
No, there were four of us.
Interviewer: “All four of you to one team?”
Yes, two, there were two teams, the Chicago Colleens and the Springfield Sallies.
Interviewer: “So two went to each team?”
Yes. 6:45
Interviewer: “You had somebody else there from Cuba.”
Yes, those years, Madelia, the older one. She was the one who helped a lot with the
language because she knew pretty good English when she came.
Interviewer: “How well did you get along with the other players on the team?”
3
�I had no problem with getting along because I was happy to be here and I knew that I had
to get along because my mother was right there and she wanted me here in the United
States, so I better—I don’t know, it was something natural. I was trained to like the
United States from my mother and I think it’s good. 7:36
Interviewer: “At this point you were a pitcher?”
Yes
Interviewer: “Primarily pitching, all right, now was the game you were playing
here any different from the game you played in Cuba in terms of the style of play or
the equipment used or anything like that?”
The ball was a little bigger, but I don’t really—I got adjusted so well, I feel, that I don’t
have any knowledge about it that I had trouble because I was here to play ball and that’s
what my mother wanted me to do.
Interviewer: “Ok, and how successful were you as a player at that point? Did you
Pitch well and win games?”
Well, I don’t –all those years back, they got some scores—I got some baseball cards, but
my records, they don’t show that I was a real, real great ball player. 8:41 I don’t
consider myself that great.
Interviewer: “How long did you play in the American baseball league?”
Six years.
Interviewer: “Six years, you stayed in the league all that time?”
Yeah
Interviewer: “So you were apparently good enough to do that?”
Right, and I had the chance when the Colleens folded, I had a chance to go to Fort
Wayne, they picked me up to go to Fort Wayne and that’s the biggest opportunity I had.
Interviewer: “Did you like playing in Fort Wayne better than Chicago or was it
about the same?”
Well, we were in a group and we would ride the bus all together, everything was all
together, but when I went to Fort Wayne I was just on my own and it took me a little
longer time to start getting use to it, but it wasn’t anything that I disliked. You’re just in
a strange place all by yourself. After coming from a group and going to Fort Wayne you
didn’t know anybody and they were older. The girls in Fort Wayne that were playing,
they were older than I was. 9:59 I got along and I think I did very well.
4
�Interviewer: “Tell me a little bit about the experience of just kind of traveling
around with these teams. When you’re going to play how did you get from one
game to another? What did they do? Did they put you on busses or trains?”
Yes, busses and oh yeah, we had more fun and I sat in the front, in the front seat, so I
could have the big window in the bus and then I can read the signs where we were going
and the manager was sitting in the other side and he was a mixed Cuban. I would read a
sign and he helped me to pronounce it better. 10:46
Interviewer: “Who was your manager at this time? What was his mane?”
Mitch Skupien, I might not be pronouncing it right, but he was really, really nice.
Interviewer: “When you were playing at these games, did you get a lot of fans who
would come to the games in Fort Wayne or Chicago?”
Yes, and I always had a lot of good—a lot of fans, they liked me, but everybody was
always nice. I have a lot of respect for the people here, but I was brought up that way.
Interviewer: “The league had a lot of rules for how the players were to dress and
act and all that kind of thing, was it easy for you to follow those rules or did it not
make any sense to you?” 11:48
No, No, it was because I was raised differently. My mother you know, different, and I
didn’t, my mother always pampered me a lot with lipstick and combing my hair and my
dress, she just couldn’t let me out of the house without being dressed nice. I didn’t go to
school there because the schooling was in 1943 and by 1949 they didn’t have those strict
rules. 12:26
Interviewer: “So it wasn’t quite the same as it was when the league started by the
time you got there?”
It was different it was just different.
Interviewer: “Were there particular friends you had on these teams or people you
got to know really well and stand out in your memory?”
Yes, I had a—it was more they get close to the Cubans you know and we always had that,
the players being very, very nice. I had pretty good luck in that and we had fun because
my English was broken and they laughed and I laughed with them because it was funny.
13:13
Interviewer: “Ok now, when you think back about the time that you spent in this
league playing these games, are there particular events or things that kind of stand
out in your mind or that come back to you a lot, good things that happened to you at
certain points along the way?”
5
�On the touring or on the whole?
Interviewer: “Anything about that whether it’s on the tour or in a game or off the
field.”
Well, I mean what—I’ve been lucky, I don’t know if it’s the right word because—
Interviewer: “If you hadn’t had the opportunity to come to the United States to
play baseball, what do you think you might have done over that period of six years
instead?”
You mean in Cuba?
Interviewer: “If you were back in Cuba, yes.”
Oh my dear, I don’t know, my mother would have been crying, but she would cry
because that was her ideal, the baseball, she loved baseball. She use to—in our house she
was one of those little old ladies and she would sit there and listen to the Cubans baseball
playing. She was, there was a team names Allemandes, their blue, and she would light a
little candle, she loved baseball. 14:38
Interviewer: “That really was her dream, that you go and do this?”
Exactly, she probably would have liked to play ball herself.
Interviewer: “Did she ever come up to the United States to see you play?”
Never
Interviewer: “Did anyone from your family come up at any point?”
No, they never could because at the time it was hard to sponsor anybody. I couldn’t
sponsor anybody, so it was rough.
Interviewer: “So there were immigration rules and things that made it difficult to
come up?”
You had to have a sponsor and I was very lucky in 1953 when Mr. And Mrs. Blee,
they—I met them through their daughter at a ball game. I met them, they took me home,
to their home, they gave me a room and then, because they knew I was a Daisy then you
see, and anybody who was a Daisy player, they had to be good people, and more or less
from Cuba. 15:37
Interviewer: “So, what kind of living—did you normally live with people’s families
in their home?”
Yes
Interviewer: “Did you do that in Chicago too?”
No, we stayed in hotels.
6
�Interviewer: “So, when you got to Fort Wayne you would go and live in people’s
houses?”
Yes
Interviewer: “So these people essentially sponsored you so you could stay in the
states?”
No, this was after the first year when I went to Fort Wayne in 1951. I already knew who
I was going to live with, I think the league set it up. The fans would take ball players in,
so I went to—with them, and this time in 1951 and in 1954 I went back to Fort Wayne
and where was I staying in 1954? 16:24
Interviewer: “I was asking, how did you wind up staying in the United States?”
Oh, yes
Interviewer: “You talked about people sponsoring you.”
In 1951, when I came on, I was rooming there for doing baseball and then in—I met
someone at a ball game for some reason. It’s a long story and I don’t know if you want
to hear that?
Interviewer: “We’re interested, yes.”
I was at the ball park watching some—I wasn’t playing ball, and there were some kids
playing softball and I went to the ball park to watch them, so I was sitting there, I was
very fresh from Cuba and I even had a little pocket with money that my mother always
said to put it in between your bra, and for some reason, I have some pictures, and I knew
I was a Daisy, so then that time I had some pictures with me and the kids were all crazy
about looking at my pictures and suddenly I don’t know where everything was. 17:31
My money, the money that I had, I must have—I don’t know and the pictures, I couldn’t
find nothing I was—so one of the girls from the ball team, she was the one that helped
me, she called the FBI and we were going to call the police to see if these kids have taken
the money and run, and guess what? That morning that was finding the police, the FBI
she said and I went to the ballpark and you know I found everything, the pictures and the
money, that little pocket. Somebody get scared and throw it around and I was very lucky
because I had about a hundred dollars and then she took me home to meet her mom and
dad and that was it. They give me a home and they applied for citizenship in 1953
because they knew I was—I was kind of lost really that year, it was in 1952. 18:47 I
went there and I stayed with them and became friends and this friend, it wasn’t a friend,
she was the one who helped me, she went into college and I stayed with her mom and dad
and I was sleeping in her room upstairs while she was in college, so I never saw this
friend, I never saw her very much. 19:16
Interviewer: “Now, the league shuts down after the 1954 season, so when that came
to an end what did you do at that point?”
7
�See, in 1953, Mr. and Mrs. Blee, I applied for citizenship paper, so in 1954 I had my
residence, so I didn’t go back home.
Interviewer: “What did you do for a living at that point?”
They give me a job I was a carhop. They call in the drive-in and he says, “I got a girl
here from Cuba and she don’t speak English, but she needs a job”, and Don Holt said,
“bring her over “, so they drove me in there and they give me a job and I could hardly
even speak English, but they were helping me. I use to go and take the orders you know
you put a tray in and sometimes I miss the tray drops and sometimes kids they laugh at
you. 20:25 I go inside, take the order and go inside and call it and the manager he saw
me coming and he grabbed my slip and said, “I can read it faster than you can call it”, but
you know what, I never got mad at him, I thought he was great, he was a good manager.
20:50
Interviewer: “How long did you wind up working there?”
I don’t know how many years, but I worked quite a bit until. Right, and then I went to—I
worked on the 401 Tailoring Co. also, so I really worked all through my whole after
baseball. I worked and I always had a job. Years ago you know they helped me to go
and get a job, they aren’t going to support you.
Interviewer: “If you look over that whole experience you had playing baseball etc.
How do you think that wound up affecting you? You talked a little bit about how,
and obviously your life was different because you came to America and stayed, did
it change you as a person? Did you otherwise?” 21:44
No, it probably made me better because I was raised that America was a good country
and you had that in your mind to respect.
Interviewer: “Have you paid much attention to what has happened with women’s
sports in this country over the past fifty years? You see more women on television
doing different things, basketball and that kind of thing.”
It is great and I think your mother and father have a lot to do with getting their son’s and
daughters to start playing sports and supporting them, but the mother has to have the
incentive like my mother did otherwise I wouldn’t be here because my dad said, “why are
you going to go over there where it’s cold?” It would have broke my heart if they would
never take me to come to the United States. 22:53
Interviewer: “Aside from just being on your own, were there aspects of just
adjusting to living in the states that were a problem? Did the cold bother you or
anything like that?”
No, I never did complain about the weather. As a matter of fact, I didn’t complain about
much of anything because I was here best and complain, ‘holly cow”. I never was that
type either, but I made a lot of friendships and that’s one thing and I don’t know I’m just
8
�myself, but my friends have made my world. In Fort Wayne too, I don’t have no enemies
I don’t think so. 23:53
Interviewer: “I can see why you wouldn’t. Do you have anything else that you
would like to put on the record here before we close out the interview? Anything
that you would like to say about the league itself or playing?”
Well, I am so thankful and I have been very lucky because of all the Cubans that came. I
believe that I—let me see how I’m going to say it, I just, the appreciation that I have
being here. 24:48
Interviewer: “Now, were their other Cubans that came and joined the league after
you did? Did you meet anybody new or were you the last group?”
Yes, and there were some that came before earlier.
Interviewer: “Alright, there is something I did want to get in here and ask you a
little and that’s, did you normally have a spring training session of some kind?
What did you do to prepare for a season from one year to the next?”
When I use to go back home or here?
Interviewer: “No, from one year to the next, while you were playing baseball, did
you go home in the winter?”
Yes
Interviewer: “Ok, you go home in the winter and then you?”
From 1949 until 1953 I use to go back home.
Interviewer: “When you came back, did you do spring training games before the
regular season?” 25:53
Yes, just a spring training practicing.
Interviewer: “Where did you do the practicing? Was that wherever your team was
based?”
Yes, and when I was in Chicago, in the morning we use to practice and on tour, the
touring team, we practiced the same and it’s a mostly in the morning we did our
practicing.
Interviewer: “Was it 1949 and 1950 that your team was touring?”
Right, we did a lot of practice.
Interviewer: “When you were touring would you play just any local teams from any
community you went to?”
9
�We had two teams, the Springfield Sallies and Chicago.
Interviewer: “They just toured together and played in different places.”
Yes, and they would advertise in the paper that we were in town and we had the tryouts
for the one, just like in the movie you know. 26:50
Interviewer: “As you were touring, how far away from Chicago did you get when
you were traveling? Did you just stay in the Midwest mostly?”
Yes, let me see, about—I had that written down how many places we went. I had a map
and right now I just can’t tell you because I—sorry.
Interviewer: “But there were a lot of different towns, not just two or three places?”
Oh yes
Interviewer: “Were they in a few hours of each other or did you have really long
trips sometimes?”
We played and we also left that same night sometimes. The traveling was heavy you
know and the many towns in the states; we had quite a few, close to fifty, fifty-six I think.
27:54
Interviewer: “You said you would hold tryouts when you went to these different
places?”
Yes and there was one lady, one of the girls, she’s in our team and she’s here today. We
pick her up in Cuba for Arkansas and she was a good pitcher and she came with us and
she had to leave home and she was--said English and we became friends because she was
sitting in the same seat. Can you imagine what she thought, I can’t speak English and she
was from Arkansas. We got along fine and we’re still good friends now and she stayed in
the league and she is really the only one we picked up that I can remember.
Interviewer: “Did they recruit women to play? At some point they had to through
junior teams or things like that. Did they recruit people for those teams or just—“
To play for us, yeah they had three and they had to be pretty good and she was, she was a
good pitcher and we always need pitchers.
Interviewer: “As far as your own playing career goes, you were a pitcher. Now,
were you a starting pitcher or were you a relief pitcher or both?” 29:32
I was a starter and relief both ways.
Interviewer: “And did you play any other positions?”
Outfielder.
10
�Interviewer: “So it wasn’t like the baseball teams today where the pitcher only
pitches and is sitting on the bench the rest of the time?”
No, no and also, the pitcher never get in hitting practice very much. I can’t imagine that,
so supposedly when you run the bases then they bring you your coat and that was real.
The pitcher was given great care and the chaperone would message your arm. 30:24
Interviewer: “So they did try to do what they could at that point to make sure you
didn’t blow out your arm or anything else like that?”
Right, they were very, very good.
Interviewer: “Now, did you ever get hurt while you were playing? Did you ever
have an injury that kept you out of the games?”
Yes, in 1954 in Fort Wayne.
Interviewer: “What happened?”
Trying to second base and I twisted my leg, so that was it. I went to the hospital and they
put me in traction and they left me in traction for one month, can you imagine this?
Interviewer: “That’s what they did back in those days.”
I lay there and I didn’t know nothing you know, so I never went back in the game
because I had to have surgery. 31:10
Interviewer: “Now, when you heard about the league shutting down, were you sad
about that or were you planning on going back?”
No, I wasn’t going back, I was just here, I was glad I had my residence. If I never would
have met those people I would be back in Cuba yet. My mother would cry then, but I’m
so thankful, you just can’t imagine how lucky I’ve been. I think I have been, of all the
Cubans and I’m not bragging, I have been the lucky one.
Interviewer: “It certainly sounds like you had a good time and you tell good stories
and thank you for coming in and talking to me today.”
Thank you thank you. 32:05
11
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was started by Philip Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, during World War II to fill the void left by the departure of most of the best male baseball players for military service. Players were recruited from across the country, and the league was successful enough to be able to continue on after the war. The league had teams based in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, and operated between 1943 and 1954. The 1954 season ended with only the Fort Wayne, South Bend, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Rockford teams remaining. The League gave over 600 women athletes the opportunity to play professional baseball. Many of the players went on to successful careers, and the league itself provided an important precedent for later efforts to promote women's sports.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a>
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sports for women
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives
Oral history
Baseball players--Minnesota
Baseball players--Indiana
Baseball players--Wisconsin
Baseball players--Michigan
Baseball players--Illinois
Baseball for women--United States
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401
Identifier
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RHC-58
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Language
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eng
Date
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2017-10-02
Contributor
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Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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RHC-58_IAlvarez
Title
A name given to the resource
Alvarez, Isabel "Lefty" (Interview transcript and video), 2009
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Alvarez, Isabel
Description
An account of the resource
Isabel Alvarez was born in Havana, Cuba in 1933. She grew up in Havana and played baseball with the neighborhood kids and was also involved with other sports. In 1947, she pitched her first exhibition game in American baseball and was picked by the All American League and sponsored to come to the United States with three other Cubans to play baseball in 1949. She played pitcher for the Chicago Colleens from 1949 through the 1950 season. When the Chicago Colleens folded, she went on to play for the Fort Wayne Daisies during the 1951 and 1954 seasons. Upon getting her citizenship in 1953 she stayed in the United States permanently. During her six-year baseball career she also played utility outfielder and also played briefly with the Battle Creek Belles (1951); Kalamazoo Lassies (1953); and the Grand Rapids Chicks (1954).
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Video recordings
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives
Baseball for women--United States
Baseball
Sports for women
Baseball players--Illinois
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Baseball players--Indiana
Baseball players--Michigan
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
2009-09-26
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-55)</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8669d4646ceaf826380b8a24f3d48267.m4v
49155b33c4b2a588fc1cf1aa117ff10b
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e1a4ebebbc5e7959cb84604c1d6f1053.pdf
7d64c85d056e8d02c2ae70bda670a9d1
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans’ History Project
Willard "Bill" Alverson
Korean War & Vietnam War
1 hour 55 minutes
(00:00:43) Early Life
-Born in 1929 in Olympia, Washington
-Grew up in Olympia
-Planned on living in Olympia for the rest of his life
-His father worked in saw mills
-His mother was a housewife
-He had one brother
-His father didn’t have steady work during the Great Depression
-They had food and a house though, so he didn’t pay much attention to it
(00:01:44) World War II
-He was chopping wood when he heard the news that Pearl Harbor had been bombed
-Immediately after the start of the war everyone in Washington was anxious
-Believed that Japan would mount an invasion of the West Coast
-Civilian Defense groups were formed
-He was a bicycle messenger and took part in the drills
-Remembers a Japanese family that he was close with being interned during the war
-Never saw, or heard from them again
-He hoped that the war would go on long enough for him to be able to fight in it
-Felt that he owed something to his country
(00:04:17) College & Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC)
-Went on to attend college at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington
-It was a Land Grant School which meant he had to take at least two years of ROTC
-Received leadership training and map reading courses
-There was a six week summer camp that consisted of basic military training
-A milder form of basic training
-Received weapons training with rifles, pistols, machine guns, and mortars
-This summer camp took place between his junior and senior year
-There were 2500 ROTC cadets at the camp
-Took place at Fort Lewis, Washington
-Graduated from college in June 1951
(00:06:27) Becoming an Officer
-After college he was offered a commission to become an officer in the Army
-Initially declined because he just wanted to get out of the Army
-He was eventually convinced to accept the commission
-Told that he would be on a fast track to getting promoted
-Went to Fort Benning, Georgia for an officers’ training course
-Lasted four months
-Consisted of more weapons training, leadership training, and navigation training
-Introduced to the discipline and physical conditioning of the Army
�-He tried to go to jump school (paratrooper training), but was declined
(00:08:20) Deployment to Korea Pt. 1
-Left the United States in January 1952
-En route stopped in Yokohama, Japan
(00:08:44) Assignment in Japan Pt. 1
-Before going to Korea new second lieutenants were assigned to a unit in Japan
-Six months of learning how to command a unit before going to Korea
-It was a chance to get introduced to being an officer
-His assignment was on the island of Hokkaido, Japan
-Attached to the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division
-The commander was tough, but a good and fair man
-He had served in WWII and during the 1950 march into North Korea
-Focused on squad (10 soldiers) and platoon (40 soldiers) tactics
-Most of the enlisted men he commanded had already seen combat
-The sergeants under him taught him how to be a good and effective officer
(00:11:14) Deployment to Korea Pt. 2
-In Korea he was assigned to Easy Company 15th Infantry Regiment 3rd Infantry Division
-When he arrived in Korea he had a rifle, but was not given any ammunition for it
(00:11:58) Assignment in Japan Pt. 2
-While he was in Japan there was a lot of training and very little downtime
-Trained near the town of Sapporo, Japan
-Only went into the town once while on duty
-Part of courtesy patrol to pick up unruly soldiers and bring them back to base
-He had little, to no contact with the Japanese civilians
(00:12:49) Deployment to Korea Pt. 3
-When he arrived in Korea he saw firsthand the devastation
-Poverty, poor sanitation, and pitiful people were everywhere
-He was sent up to the frontline in August 1952
-Stationed near a little town called Cheorwan south of the 38th Parallel
-Located in a valley about fifty to sixty miles from the coast
(00:14:31) Conditions in Korea and Unit Organization
-Originally there wasn’t any action when he arrived
-The most fighting happened during patrols or when communist forces charged their line
-Lived in foxholes and bunkers
-The bunkers were sturdy and well-defended by barbed wire and landmines
-Easy Company was understrength
-His platoon consisted of three different groups of soldiers
-Regular American GIs
-South Korean soldiers
-Puerto Rican soldiers from the 65th Regiment
-He had an outstanding platoon sergeant while in Korea
(00:17:31) Enemy Contact and Fighting in Korea
-Went on patrols about once, or twice, a week
-Most patrols were conducted at night
-More difficult and dangerous than the daytime patrols
-Objective was to gather intelligence and put pressure on the North Koreans
�-Patrols were generally quite costly
-A few men were taken prisoner, killed, or wounded during them
-Mostly went up against Chinese soldiers
-Noticed that North Korean soldiers were far more aggressive when they fought
-Enemy activity increased as the war went on
-Both sides were jockeying to establish the best defensive positions before the war ended
-There were battles at Outpost Harry, Jackson Heights and White Horse
-During fighting they held their position and the communists held their position
-There was one point during the fighting where they were taking at least one casualty a day
-He had access to artillery and air support
-The artillery support was excellent
-The air support was a little lacking especially in the area of accuracy
-Chinese troops would attack in waves
-The first wave had weapons, and the second wave would pick up the dropped rifles
-Used a lot of fanfare while charging (whistles and trumpets)
-They were persistent, dogged soldiers
-They were never able to break through the American perimeter
(00:23:16) End of Deployment and Miscellaneous Details
-Left Korea on May 1, 1953
-A friend of his was killed, saving his life, in Korea
-There was a high turnover of U.S. troops coming and going
-He eventually got to know the South Koreans that he served with
-Felt bad for them because they couldn’t really leave the fighting
-It was their country and they were stuck there
-He had a South Korean assistant machine gunner who was a good man
-He called him John
-During the Chinese charges they would sometimes run out of ammunition
(00:26:40) Rear Duty and R&R in Korea
-Generally didn’t want to go to the rear for duty
-Being in the rear meant not getting combat pay
-Also meant doing menial tasks like digging ditches
-They would get rotated off the line occasionally
-Command tried to give everyone somewhat of a break around Christmas
-He got an R&R to Japan
-Given three minutes to call his wife and his family
-Went up to a resort near Mount Fuji
-Got a chance to have some drinks and relax
-He had the chance to get a few more days of R&R
-Wound up declining because the regiment needed him
(00:29:33) Making a Career out of the Army
-His initial commitment to the Army was for three years
-He fully intended to resign after his third year of service
-Eventually decided to stay in and make a career out of it though
-Started to think about leading soldiers as being similar to being a football coach
-Before serving he had originally wanted to be a high school football coach
-He began to enjoy being in the Army and wanted to strive to be a fair leader
�(00:31:33) Stateside Army Career
-His first assignment after coming back from Korea was at Fort Lewis, Washington
-Three year assignment
-Served as a rifle company commander there
-He got selected to be the regimental football coach
-The draft was still on while he was at Fort Lewis
-They were mostly just ordinary men
-Some of the draftees had been convicted of various crimes
-Serving in the Army was their way out of jail
-Men from a variety of backgrounds were being drafted
-Learned that the key to successful leadership was having mutual respect
-His next assignment was at Fort Benning, Georgia
-Took the Infantry Officer Course there
-Nine month course
-Coincided with the normal school schedule
-Allowed for his children to not get pulled out of school in the middle of it
-Part of the process of getting promoted from a captain to a major
-There was a lot of competition between the officers to be the best
-Mostly consisted of classroom training
-Also received some more weapons training and navigation training
-He completed the course and went to jump school (paratrooper school)
-His next assignment was being a trainer for the ROTC at Washington State University
-Requested that assignment to be close to his family
-His father was dying of cancer and he wanted to be near him
-Three year assignment
-The hours were terrible
-Felt strange to be on an 8 – 5 schedule
-Completed that assignment in 1960
(00:36:02) Army Ranger School
-After the ROTC assignment he went to the Army Ranger School
-The training was difficult
-It was the only course where he was an honor graduate
-Started at Fort Benning, Georgia then went into the mountains, then to swamps in Florida
-Each area consisted of three weeks of training
-Learned how to go on patrols in the mountains and in the swamps
-Only allowed to have seven hours of sleep per week
-Some men would fall asleep standing up and then fall over
-Started with 225 men and only 83 men completed the course
-If they were hurt, or washed out, they could not recycle and try again
-Most didn’t want to try again anyway
-The training required a lot of physical and mental stamina
-Graduated from the Army Ranger School in the fall of 1960
(00:38:52) Assignment to Germany
-Sent to Frankfurt, Germany to serve with the 3rd Armored Division
-Three year assignment
-Defending against a possible Soviet invasion of West Germany
�-Served as a rifle company commander
-Became the operations officer of one of the brigades of the division
-His unit had good morale
-Led by General Creighton Abrams
-They were immediately put on alert during the various Cold War crises that developed
-His wife and children were in Berlin when the Soviets put up the Berlin Wall
-They were able to be evacuated out of Berlin without incident
-His unit and the West German government reacted immediately
-If there was an invasion he knew that they wouldn’t be able to hold out for long
-Even with tactical nuclear weapons available to them
(00:42:27) Interactions with German Civilians
-The Germans held various opinions of Americans
-Some were pro-American, others were not
-Germans knew that American had money and spent it, which they liked
-He rented a house from a German man and his wife
-He and his wife got to be good friends with the couple
-No German man wanted to admit that he had been in the German Army during WWII
-He was just curious to see what it had been like
(00:44:00) Cuban Missile Crisis and Other Alerts
-The Cuban Missile Crisis was a very big deal in Germany when it happened
-Checked their equipment and immediately went on alert
-Some units were sent to an assembly area to prepare for a counterattack
-They were better prepared than they had been during the Berlin Wall Crisis
-There was not as much tension as the Berlin Wall either
-For about two to three weeks they were ready for a Soviet attack
-After about a month they relaxed and the routine returned to normal
-They had monthly drills to check their preparedness
-Always made sure to treat each drill as if it was the real thing
-In a way he always kind of thought that World War III wouldn’t happen
-Knew that even if it did his unit would be prepared
(00:47:05) Attending the Command General Staff College
-His time in Germany ended in June 1963
-He left the day that President Kennedy came to Germany
-He was sent to attend the Command General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
-It was the best family assignment
-Had his nights and weekends off
-It was a nine month course
-He was in class when President Kennedy was assassinated
-Classes were cancelled and the college was shut down
-Everyone behaved appropriately
-Everyone was shocked that it had happened
-Any planned festivities for the weekend were cancelled
-No matter what a person’s political orientation was, they mourned the loss
-While at the College he paid attention to the situation developing in Vietnam
-Some of his classmates had already been to Vietnam
-Completed the Command General Staff College in 1964
�(00:50:45) 6th Army Headquarters
-Sent to 6th Army Headquarters in San Francisco, California
-It was first and only time that he couldn’t get along with his boss
-He worked there for a year as a staff officer
-In charge of inspecting the division and evaluating them
-Wound up failing them
-There were politics involved and he was told to reassess and pass them
-He refused which hurt his career
(00:51:47) Volunteering for Vietnam
-He volunteered to go to Vietnam
-He was initially assigned to be a staff officer in Vietnam
-Once he arrived he requested a change of assignment and was granted it
-Became a Ranger Commander for a South Vietnamese Ranger unit
-Went to the Military Assistance Training Advisors Course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina
-Learned about the culture, language, and climate of Vietnam
-Also learned about the organization of the South Vietnamese military
-The MATA Course only lasted one month
-He was sent to the Army Language School
-Learned at least enough Vietnamese to be able to give orders in Vietnamese
-It was a six week rudimentary course
(00:54:40) Arrival in Vietnam
-He landed at Tan Son Nhut Airbase in Saigon, South Vietnam
-Tried to talk to the Vietnamese bus driver in Vietnamese
-Bus driver told him, in perfect English, that he had a Hanoi accent
-Hanoi being the capitol of communist North Vietnam
-He flew over to Vietnam on a military aircraft
-Arrived in Vietnam in early January 1966
-Kept in a hotel while he was being processed
-His initial assignment was as a staff officer in Saigon before becoming the Ranger Commander
-Assignment lasted three weeks
-He was sent up to Pleiku to join a South Vietnamese Ranger unit there
-Flew up there via helicopter
-In Pleiku his job was to serve as an American advisor
-This gave him access to artillery and aerial support
(00:58:30) Working with the South Vietnamese and Going on Raids
-They normally didn’t have time to prepare for an operation
-They would just have to get up and go
-The South Vietnamese officers were generally incompetent
-Used their authority to abuse their power
-Conducted raids against the Viet Cong
-Mostly targeted Viet Cong supply depots
-Also went out on missions to kill Viet Cong soldiers, or take prisoners
-Operated in mountainous terrain and in some of the lowland areas
-Preferred to work in the mountains and not in the swampy lowlands
-Enlisted (non-officer) South Vietnamese soldiers had to provide their own food
-Even in hospitals their families had to come to take care of them
�-Remembers seeing in one hospital two Vietnamese soldiers in one bed
-Went on raids about once a month
-Spent a lot of his time trying to convince officers that they needed to constantly train
-Sometimes they would be helicoptered into the mission area, other times they had to walk
-Vietnamese helicopter pilots would take breaks
-Even if there was a wounded man needing evacuation they wouldn’t go
-American helicopter pilots would react immediately if the situation presented itself
-He saw more combat than he thought he would
-Remembers once during a village clearing mission they ran into an ambush
-Ultimately able to maneuver out of the situation
-Some of the South Vietnamese were excellent soldiers, while others weren’t
-There was always the suspicion that they were Viet Cong
-If you got to know South Vietnamese soldiers they were ultimately trustworthy
-He wasn’t close, but was at least cordial, with the South Vietnamese Ranger Commander
-There were a few close calls while he was in Vietnam
-Once was during the village clearing mission
-Another time was when the enemy attacked their position at Pleiku
-The enemy ran out of ammunition and he had access to heavier firepower
-There was resentment between the U.S. and South Vietnamese troops
-The South Vietnamese wanted better equipment
-Americans wanted the South Vietnamese to be better soldiers
-He spent the majority of his time on the base at Pleiku
-The South Vietnamese soldiers were allowed to bring their families to the base
-They were also allowed to bring them with them on patrols
-The Viet Cong would use that to their advantage and attack through the civilians
-Prevented the South Vietnamese from returning fire
(01:10:13) Opinion of War during Deployment
-Felt that the American media’s portrayal of the war was grossly inaccurate
-There were allegations that U.S. troops were wantonly killing civilians
-Civilians did die, but they were not being specifically targeted by U.S. troops
-At the time he honestly thought that the U.S. was winning the war
-Didn’t know when it would end, but knew it would eventually come to an end
-He feels that the politics involved is what caused the war to be lost
-On the ground it seemed like the U.S. was going to push through to absolute victory
(01:11:52) R&R to Hawaii
-During his time in Vietnam he was given an R&R to Hawaii
-Spent five days with his wife in Hawaii
-Going back to Vietnam after that R&R was terrible for him
-Remembers on the return trip flying across Vietnam when the airplane began to have trouble
-Eventually made it back to the base at Pleiku without incident
(01:13:34) Assignment to Command General Staff College
-After Vietnam he was initially given a new assignment to the 11th Brigade in Hawaii
-His orders were changed and he became a staff member at Command General Staff College
-His specialization was to advise on how to fight in Vietnam
-Three year assignment
-Trained officers on how to fight in Vietnam
�-Most had already been to Vietnam and offered their own input as well
-At the time he was frustrated by the leadership and the country as a whole during the war
-No one knew exactly what they wanted to do; fight the war, or don’t fight the war
-Wondered why we stopped the bombing campaign when it was weakening North Vietnam
-He wound up speaking out against the indecisiveness of the American leadership
-He was promptly advised not to do that
-Thought that Nixon was a good leader, but was a dishonest man
-Felt that one of his redeeming qualities was his expertise of foreign policy
-Felt that Abrams replacing Westmoreland was a good move
-Felt that Westmoreland’s competence was deteriorating along with the war
-It was interesting to discuss Vietnam with the men who had also served there
-Especially those who had seen the worst years of the war
-Offered different perspectives
(01:20:23) Working with a Volunteer Army
-There was always the expectation that he’d go back to Vietnam for a second tour
-Before returning he was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina
-Working as a trainer for a Special Forces Battalion
-Stayed at Fort Bragg for one year
-Felt that a volunteer based Army was going to have lesser quality
- The Army was trying to make itself appealing for volunteers thus lowering standards
-Felt that high standards should be maintained no matter what
-The reason the Army lowered its standards was because volunteering was unpopular
-The soldiers he worked with at Fort Bragg were more motivated than the average soldier
-Felt that if anything was going to keep high standards it was the Special Forces
(01:24:30) Redeployment to Vietnam
-He was on the list to become a colonel
-He hadn’t received an assignment when he should have
-This led to him going to graduate school at Washington State University
-Went into guidance counseling and graduated from that course
-After finishing graduate school he was selected to be a logistician in Vienam
-Assigned to be the Army Airbase Commander at Can Tho in the Mekong Delta
-As the logistician he handled all the supplies for the base (gas, food, clothing, etc.)
-Also oversaw the transportation of supplies and troops
-On the base had access to propeller aircraft, helicopters, and classified recon aircraft
-He got most of his information about the war from the recon pilots
-Base was located on the edge of the city of Can Tho
-The base had perimeter lights which he felt was a strategically bad idea
-Allowed for the enemy to know exactly where they were
-There was one incident where South Vietnamese Rangers hacked into the American generators
-They were drawing electricity from the generators to feed Can Tho
-He (Bill) invited the provincial chief to the base and brought him to a rooftop
-Showed him that the U.S. still controlled the electricity
-Did this by completely powering down, then restarting, Can Tho
-Arrived in Vietnam in August 1972
-At the time of his arrival had an Air Cavalry Squadron and a South Vietnamese Division
�(01:32:25) End of Vietnam War
-By January 1973 more U.S. troops left as part of the drawdown
-By February 1973 most of the base’s barracks were empty
-One problem was that there weren’t enough troops to patrol the perimeter
-Had to hire local people to maintain security
-Didn’t even have South Vietnamese troops to protect the base
-Troops had stripped the base of its electrical and plumbing components
-As a result the South Vietnamese commander refused to take over the base
-Said that the U.S. was trying to give him an incomplete base
-Bill threatened to burn down the base if the commander wouldn’t take it
-The commander eventually cooperated
-Remembers when the Four Powers Peace Commission came in for negotiations
-There were Canadians and Indonesians representing the U.S. and South Vietnam
-There were Hungarians and Poles representing North Vietnam
-One of his jobs was to set up housing for the officers from those countries
-The Hungarians and Poles had to get approval from the Soviet Union
-Remembers arm wrestling with the communist Hungarian colonel
-At the end of the war there was very little enemy activity
-They would receive a mortar round from time to time
-The last mortar fired on their base was a dud
-The Air Cavalry would still go out on missions to support U.S. troops in the field
(01:37:24) Discipline and Morale Problems
-He didn’t see any drug problems during his second tour in Vietnam
-Knew that it was more of a problem for support units, not for combat units
-Combat units just simply didn’t have the time to get high
-The soldiers knew that the end was near which caused some problems
-The primary focus became getting home and not so much the war
-Only had to court martial one officer for dereliction of duty though
-Soldiers still followed the orders they were given
(01:39:35) Ceasefire Incident
-During the ceasefire a U.S. helicopter was shot down
-Resulted in seventeen U.S. servicemen being killed in action
-He was responsible for getting a team together to go out and recover the bodies
-He had trouble getting the necessary personnel organized
-Simply didn’t have enough of the right people to do the job
-Once they were out there they started receiving fire from an enemy ground force
-Led to having to send out troops to protect the recovery personnel
-Ran into a reporter on the base that had written a false article about the incident
-Said that U.S. troops were refusing to follow orders and recover dead soldiers
-Had the reporter thrown off the base
(01:42:52) Race Relations in the Army
-In Can Tho there was a mixed population on the base
-Never saw any major race problems
-Knew that if there were issues they were on a small level and dealt with
-One of the finest soldiers he served with was a black soldier in Korea
-Most men just wanted to work with each other to have the war end on a decent note
�(01:45:10) Leaving Vietnam
-When it came time to leave he had to make sure that all U.S. personnel were accounted for
-Had a head count every day
-By the last day there were only thirty three U.S. troops left on the base
-They all flew up together to Saigon
-When they arrived Saigon was chaotic as U.S. troops collected in the city
-He still has the last U.S. flag to fly over the base at Can Tho
-The evacuation went smoother than he thought it would
-Left Vietnam in 1973
(01:47:04) End of Army Career
-Stayed in the Army for five more years
-During those last five years he was promoted to the rank of colonel
-He was offered three assignments:
-Work at the Pentagon, command Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, or ROTC duty
-He chose the ROTC duty
-He wanted to have a positive effect on young, new officers
-Sent to Pocatello, Idaho to serve at Idaho State University
-There was a large anti-war movement there
-Resulted in not having enough ROTC volunteers
-There were good junior officers that had a great work ethic in the ROTC there
-While at Idaho State University had a run-in with a hippie
-He was accused of killing civilians and words were exchanged
-Always embarrassed for having even engaged the protestor
-The ROTC cadets did face some harassment from protestors
-It was an overall enjoyable assignment though
-After completing his duty at Idaho State University he retired from the Army
(01:50:57) Life after the Army
-He drove a school bus
-First time that someone talked back to him which was a surprise after being a colonel
-Sold light airplanes for a while
-Worked for a credit company based out of Denver, Colorado
-Helped establish credit collection bureaus in small towns
-Became a team chief and worked with his wife
-He was eventually placed in charge of maintenance for a school district in Olympia, WA
-One of his sons got married to a girl in Michigan, had two children, then retired
-Bill and his wife moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan to be closer to the grandchildren
(01:53:15) Reflections on Service
-Feels that his service in the Army made him more conservative than when he began
-Made him appreciate some of the problems that politicians have to deal with
-In a way it made him a more tolerant person
-Taught him how to work with people, especially young people
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27_AlversonW1675V
Title
A name given to the resource
Alverson, Willard (Interview outline and video), 2014
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-10-02
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Alverson was born in 1929 in Olympia, Washington and grew up there. He completed ROTC training in college and was commissioned in the Army in 1951. He went to Japan in January, 1952 and trained for service in Korea. He served as a platoon leader in E Company, 15th Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division in Korea during the last year of the war. He left Korea on May 1, 1953 and began a career in the Army serving at Fort Lewis, Washington
Fort Benning, Georgia
completing paratrooper training, being a trainer for the ROTC at Washington State University, and completing Army Ranger School in the fall of 1960. He served in Germany during the time of the Berlin Wall and Cuban Missile crises and studied at the Command General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1965 he volunteered to go to Vietnam and was sent over in January 1966 to be an Army Ranger advisor for the South Vietnamese Rangers in Pleiku, South Vietnam. He helped carry out raids against the Viet Cong during his time there. After his deployment to Vietnam he returned to the United States and served at the Command General Staff College and at Fort Bragg, North Carolina helping train Special Forces. In 1972 he was redeployed to Vietnam and arrived there in August 1972. He was assigned to the Army Airbase near Can Tho in the Mekong Delta commanding the Air Cavalry Squadron and South Vietnamese Division there. The second tour ended in March 1973. He returned to the U.S. and served as an ROTC instructor at Idaho State University until his retirement in 1978 retiring with the rank of colonel.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Alverson, Willard
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Moving Image
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/x-m4v
application/pdf
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b46df14b4b13d4523402b92406294764.mp4
2d13c540054f3cdd7e2d00df9f75eced
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/08818f8aa62e7ae9d3f6d1a82b774eb4.pdf
0a91e2a98ca64eb36da350fb9bf780f9
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project
Title: Ambrose, Thomas (Interview outline and video), 2010
Subject: Korean War, 1950-1953-–Personal narratives, American; United States.
Marine Corps
Description:
Thomas Ambrose joined the Navy in 1948. He trained for the Medical Corps, and
initially did hospital duty, but then transferred to the Marines and was sent to Korea to
serve as a corpsman with a line company. His unit fought a series of engagements on the
Imjin River and in the Punchbowl. He learned to use field radios and transferred to a
signal company, and at the end of his tour he served near Panmunjom.
Creator: Ambrose, Thomas
Contributor (Interviewer/Affiliation): Montney, Bobby (Interviewer); Caledonia
High School (Caledonia, Mich.)
Date: 2010-06-05
Digital Identification: TAmbrose
�
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
Ambrose, Thomas (Interview outline and video), 2010
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ambrose, Thomas
Description
An account of the resource
Thomas Ambrose joined the Navy in 1948. He trained for the Medical Corps, and initially did hospital duty, but then transferred to the Marines and was sent to Korea to serve as a corpsman with a line company. His unit fought a series of engagements on the Imjin River and in the Punchbowl. He learned to use field radios and transferred to a signal company, and at the end of his tour he served near Panmunjom.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Montney, Bobby (Interviewer)
Caledonia High School (Caledonia, Mich.)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
United States. 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
2010-06-05
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AmbroseT
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
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9791825c9f4d33c809d504735184521a.mp4
4f33d3a87181a932d68234f4a43553de
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6312dfd72f5f38d472a64189b9922835.pdf
e85d2fdc3d683db146c22b8ce957b222
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project
Name of Interviewee: Mitch Amlotte
Name of War: Vietnam
Length of Interview: (00:39:18)
(00:21) Alpena Michigan
Born July 13 1950
Hillman is his hometown. His grandfather settled the town
He played in the woods as a kid. He remembers as a kid, stripping a girl naked and
painting her red with barn paint
(2:22) His first day at school his teacher was a large lady and she spent most of the
day pulling his ears. It was a one room school that use to be a garage. There was about
18-19 kindergarteners in the building.
Mitch says he was the class clown. He was in trouble a lot. He used to sneak critters
into school. One time he fell backwards and hit his head on a chair and got stitches.
He went to a new school built for K-12th grade.
He walked to school
(5:30) Remembers having a crush on his teacher
Figures he didn’t ask for studies so he didn’t care for them
He was the first person in his family to graduate from high school
(7:30) Mitch started playing percussion in sixth grade thru high school
Was involved in sports during school. Baseball, Basketball, and football
Went to U of M for games and played there
His father worked for Besser’s in a factory and mother was a homemaker and
eventually went to work in a factory when Mitch was in fifth grade
He has two older brother, younger brother and a sister
(10:13) Mitch had no plans after school so since other guys were getting drafted he
figured he would too so he volunteered for the Army
Visited a recruiter with his cousin on the buddy plan. Wanted to join the military
police and was told they qualified. Signed up for 4 year hitches
(11:17) Fort Wayne Michigan to Fort Knox Kentucky
Basic training
When it came time to get their AIT orders he went to Fort Polk, Louisiana, which was
the gateway to Vietnam. A military personnel seen he was guaranteed MP upon entry
into the military so instead of sending him to Fort Polk, they sent him to Fort
Benjamin Harrison Indiana to postal school. Graduated and was sent to Germany
�
During training he was hit with a Pugal stick and blew his eardrum out. Pugal sticks
look like big Q-tips used to practice for bayonet training
Went to Louisville on a weekend pass and slept in a hotel for two days and two
nights. It was his first contact with black people and he was scared and tired.
(14:50) Said he could never live in a big city.
He said his company was not happy that he was back and looked at him as a coward.
He said he had no problems going but send him to MP school first and then send him
to Vietnam
(16:40) Germany-Rheine-Main Airbase
He flew over there. It was his first time on an airplane. He was brave at one point
and looked out over Ireland and said it was beautiful. Flew over to Rhein-Main
Airbase
Two guys met him there in the middle of the night and took him to Heidelberg to the
4th Base Post Office
Heidelberg 4th Base Post Office
Was here for a year
He sorted mail and payroll checks for all of the European theatre
On off time he bar hopped
Went to Frankfurt and was offered a chance to go to Rome, Italy. Went to the
Catholic Chaplain and got administrative leave and nobody could countermand it
except for the Attorney General of the Military. Mitch took 120 days of
administrative leave. He would take children of military personnel on field trips.
(20:00) He got to travel quite a bit and two weeks at a time. Went to Czechoslovakia,
Scandinavia, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Switzerland
Met two girls while in Czechoslovakia who were in an AFC club and wanted to go
home and see their parents. The guys took them to the border and hid the car and
walked 4 ½ miles to her home town. On the way back they were being tracked and
ran 1 mile and outran their pursuers.
Mitch said he didn’t chase women too much. He likes history so he spent time at
Museums and seeing castles while he was overseas.
He went to Neuschwanstein Castle. Walt Disney designed his castle after this. He
went to Hindenburg Castle
(22:45) Went to France trying to do a family tree. Found names but never met any of
the people
Mitch said civilians were very standoffish. The men he found hated them and he lost
rank a few times for getting into physical fights with them. He ended up in German
jails for fighting
Mitch said Commanding Officers just wanted to know if he won or not. Took a stripe
�
away and told him he would get it back shortly that it was just a formality.
(24:40) Mitch spent a little over 2 years in Germany
His enlistment was cut from 4 years to 3 years since they didn’t get to go into MP’s
(25:00)Came Home
Mitch thought about re-enlisting in the military but Dad talked him out of it seeing
that his next tour of duty would be Vietnam
His father promised to get him a job at the factory he worked at and since it was the
best paying job in the town he thought that was a good idea
His dad never got him the job
Mitch went on a drunk binge for a few months
His dad died at 93 and his mom at 76. They died one year apart from each other.
(28:00) He married an old friend. Went from job to job. He had two kids and
Divorced in 1988
Married a new girl. Had custody of his kids at this time. Married for 12 years this
time.
January last year he talked to a friend and was asked how he was handling the news
of getting divorced. He had no idea he was getting divorce. Both his kids were grown
at this time.
He found out he was suffering from severe depression dating back to his first
marriage
He packed up and headed to Philadelphia where his daughter lived. She eventually
kicked her husband out and separated so in May he headed back up to Michigan to
live with his sister
(33:09) Moved to Farwell to live with sister
Mitch had nowhere to go when he sister told him his time was up and nobody else
would let him live with them.
August he moved to the Veterans Home in Grand Rapids. He does not like being
there and feels they don’t treat him well but with his medical problems he can’t get a
job
He says that the military made a man out of him but it was thrown away when he got
out and couldn’t get a job. He states in the interview that his second biggest regret
was not staying in the military.
He is being treated for depression and says he rarely sees his family
�
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
Amlotte, Mitch (Interview outline and video), 2007
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Amlotte, Mitch
Description
An account of the resource
Mitch Amlotte volunteered for the Army in 1968 to escape a bad home life. He was sent to postal school and then to Germany. He volunteered to travel with the children of military men on field trips and spent much of his time seeing different countries. He was released from the military after 3 years would have re-enlisted except that he did not want to go to Vietnam. He encountered an assortment of personal and medical problems after his discharge, which he discusses at some length.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer)
Collins, Carol (Interviewer)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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
2007-05-22
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AmlotteM
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
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cd711cb60f7e8157cd7b380938aa9a34.mp4
0bbd396564ad211c58d437df9308775c
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3d175a673b21fdfe5c871f5b7613ff19.pdf
4e585cc78507f74a13ae3c29edd41f95
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
Doug Anderson
Length: 26:55
(00:25) Naval Training
•
Doug was in high school when WWII started and the Navy had been offering a special
officer training program
•
He enlisted in the Navy and began training one month after graduating from high school
in July of 1943
•
Doug was sent to Oakland College in Ohio for an accelerated college program
•
He was then sent to midshipman school at Long Island Sound in New York
•
Doug was later transferred to a supply corps school in Boston
•
The war ended while he was still in school
•
He went through further training in salvage and preservation; there had been a lot of
equipment left over in the Pacific after the war and it needed to go into storage
(4:30) Salvage and Preservation
•
Doug was sent to Guam in the Pacific where he worked at the spare parts distribution
center
•
They set up a sort of assembly line where they would dip parts in a conservative
compound and then pack them away for storage
•
He stayed there working in Guam for the extent of his service
•
The crew he worked with continued to shrink every month or so while he was there and
he was discharged in August of 1946
(6:20) Navy
•
Doug had chosen the Navy because he said he had always been intrigued with the ocean
and wanted to serve his time on a ship
•
He grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan and went to Union High School
�•
During his time in the service Doug traveled to Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, New
Jersey, and Guam
•
While training he did a lot of marching and drilling while also working on signaling,
gunnery, and seamanship
•
Midshipman school was the hardest because they had a lot of classes and went on cruises
in small naval craft
(10:20) Guam
•
On the island they lived in Quonset huts and had decent food; Doug did not have any
“horror stories”
•
He got along well with everyone and had an enjoyable experience
•
There had still been a few Japanese soldiers hiding out in the jungle and mountains that
did not know the war was over
•
They would sometimes come out at night and raid the garbage dumps
•
Doug also helped with orders from ships that were in need of new equipment
•
He served under a regular Navy Commander in charge of the base and Doug was the
Executive Officer
�
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
Anderson, Doug (Interview outline and video), 2004
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Doug
Description
An account of the resource
Doug Anderson was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan and graduated from Union High School in 1943. He enlisted in the Navy and began training one month after graduation. Doug went through accelerated college courses at Oakland College in Ohio and was then sent to mid-shipman school in New York. After going through training, the war was already over and Doug was sent to work in salvage and preservation in Guam. Doug spent the extent of his service in Guam and eventually became an Executive Officer when he was only 19 years old.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mangione, Nathaniel (Interviewer)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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
2004-05-03
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AndersonD
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
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b24cf9936319b54edaab6f1a108ce48c.mp4
eb4f271493fa0c374a3715f2729bd38a
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/abae5647a61b7899dfde087dd6a49fc4.pdf
6c8312bf28a791ab08916bf6413b7389
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project
George Anderson
(00:25:37)
Background
• George Anderson
• Born February 5, 1931
• Coopersville, Michigan (00:09)
• He enlisted into the navy (00:29)
• Grew up on Garfield Street not to far from where he lives now (00:44)
• Wanted to do something for his country to help out in the Korean War (01:00)
Enlistment/Training
• Signed up in Muskegon
• Sent to Chicago for training
o Great Lakes training camp
� Spent three months learning to be a sailor (01:16)
• Sent to Newport, Rhode Island, for four months
o For torpedo school (01:42)
• Went to San Francisco, California and set out on the USS Curtis in November
(01:56)
• First day of service he was 20 years old scared
o They cut all of his hair off, which he didn’t like at all (02:20)
• Enjoyed his time in the service (03:34)
• Officer in charge of boot camp was bitter about being called back to duty from
retirement
o Did a lot of marching, inspections, firefighting drills
• Took his training a day at a time to get by (03:29)
• Set sail from San Francisco
• Went up and down the coast
• Target drills, last from one hour to several days (04:50)
• Was a telephone operator for a gunnery officer (05:36)
• Shore patrol around Pearl Harbor
Acapulco, Mexico
• Acapulco Mexico, good will tour basically
• All along the west coast
o Training and having fun (06:24)
• Worked in the armory of the ship, because they didn’t use the torpedoes
• Kept things up
o Worked for a first class aviation ordinance man (07:03)
• Did not see any combat (07:56)
• Watched a Hydrogen bomb go off
�•
o Cant look directly at it for the first three seconds
Brighter then the sun when it explodes
o Very beautiful (08:08)
Reflections on Service
• Got a Korean war medal, because he served during that time period, and he
received a good conduct medal (09:25)
• Wrote letters home to family
o Wrote letters every week, as the months went on he started to write only
once a month
� His family wrote to him a lot (09:53)
• Lots of good food, good rations masters, and good cooks.
o Plenty of supplies (10:43)
• Got a package of cigarettes for eighteen cents (11:26)
• Never felt pressured or stress while in the army (11:43)
• Was a mail delivery person from ship to ship
o Motor whale boat
� Hard to get in and out of it
� Didn’t want to fall into the ocean (12:50)
� Had recreation: beers, swimming, nap for entertainment (13:58)
� In Pearl Harbor hula girls came onto the ships to entertain the men
� Had movies sometimes(14:38)
� On leave he would go home and see his family (15:33)
� Doesn’t recall taking part in any pranks (16:00)
� Shows a series of photos (16:24)
Post Service Life
� Discharged honorably April 4, 1955 (17:09)
� Still showing pictures, cant see them very well, explains some of them (18:34)
� Given papers of dis charge in San Diego (20:05)
� Mother and sister came to visit him when he was discharged, they drove home to
Michigan cross country (20:31)
� He got a job in construction that October did it the rest of his life (21:03)
� Never took advantage of the G.I. bill (21:17)
� Part of a convention with people from his ship (21:51)
� Forced to retire, he didn’t want to retire (22:36)
� Military experience shaped him and his thought process towards life
o He keeps up with world affairs (22:48)
� Part of a war organization, doesn’t participate in them very much now (23:20)
� You have to get along with people, associate with different things, lots of travel
(23:36)
� Wanted to see combat (24:40)
� Sad to leave the service, happy to see his family and be back home (24:48)
� Brothers were in various branches of the war in the military (25:16)
�
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
Anderson, George (Interview outline and video), 2005
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, George
Description
An account of the resource
George Anderson was born on February 5, 1931 in Coopersville, Michigan. He enlisted in the Navy in 1951. He was sent to the Great Lakes training center in Chicago, and then transferred to Newport, Rhode Island, where he took torpedo training. He was sent to San Francisco and assigned to the USS Curtis. He did not see any combat, but he went through patrols that took him all across the country and to Pearl Harbor. He worked in the armory of the ship.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer)
Collins, Carol (Interviewer)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
United States. Navy
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Video recordings
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2005-02-01
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AndersonG
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
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0a0bf0abf7bf128b8986c63856896b3a.mp4
7709e5cec0d9b3da8c0a486c812651a2
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a4eb2cafbe1f9e5d18c5e1acec928f02.pdf
56751491af6bc460ef0bddb84a5aca05
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veterans History Project Interview
Afghanistan
Nick Anderson
Total Time – (01:16:38)
Background
He was born in Minnesota in 1989 (00:25)
o He lived there for a year until his family moved to Grand Haven,
Michigan (00:30)
His father is an automotive engineer and his mother stayed at home with the kids
o There are four kids in the family (00:43)
He went to Freedom Baptist High School in Hudsonville, Michigan
He remembers being in 8th grade band class when he heard about 9/11 (01:01)
The news came over the loudspeakers – everyone was shocked
o There was a TV in his science class and they all gathered around and
watched it there (01:25)
The event stayed with him and was part of the reason he joined the military
Before 9/11 he had given thought to the service (01:49)
Movies helped make him want to join the military
He graduated high school in 2007 (02:14)
Enlistment/Training – (02:18)
He had decided midway through his senior year of high school that he wanted to
be a Marine (02:24)
o He chose the Marine Corps because he believed that they were the best
He based that on word of mouth and old veterans (02:41)
After signing up there were optional work-outs and class sessions on Wednesdays
at the recruiting station (03:12)
o The military expected the soldiers to know a lot of different acronyms and
general orders
He did not have any sense of what he was getting into before he was sent to Boot
Camp (04:03)
He was sent to San Diego, California for Boot Camp (04:12)
Before getting to California, he was sent to Lansing, Michigan to swear in (04:26)
o He is then sent to the airport to fly out
o Before they get on the plane, the soldiers were greeted by an angry guy
(Drill Instructor)
o He landed late at night (04:56)
�
On the bus ride to the recruiting depot, the recruits had to look down the entire
time (05:14)
When he got off the bus he was made to stand on yellow footprints, they yell at
you, shave your head, make them put their possessions in a box, give them all the
same things (05:29)
It took roughly a day or two for them to get put into their Boot Camp platoons
(05:52)
The only aptitude test he had to take was the ASVAB (Army Services Vocational
Aptitude Battery) (06:16)
o He had done it in high school
He was offered a variety of jobs but he only wanted to be infantry
Boot Camp was meant to break the soldiers down to nothing and then build them
back up (07:23)
o After that, he had to go to the School of Infantry where he learned all of
the basic infantry skills
Patrolling, shooting, etc. (07:38)
He was then sent to the 3rd Battalion 5th Marines (07:45)
o He went through little mandatory classes such as suicide prevention
He was able to call himself a Marine as soon as he was done with Boot Camp
(08:02)
Boot Camp was thirteen weeks long (08:07)
When they break the soldiers down, there are three phases that the they do it by
o The first phase is when “everybody is just like garbage” (08:21)
They are just learning the basic things – they could not do basic
things that Marines could
They could not roll up their sleeves, blouse military boots,
etc. (08:28)
The soldiers learn how to march
o They start of simple and then get more difficult (08:52)
It was not that difficult to adjust to the military life – he was used to get yelled at
– “I got yelled at a lot because I was stupid in high school.” (09:14)
It was all mind games
There were “a lot of stupid people that wanted to be Marines. If they’re getting
yelled at and I’m not, it’s fine with me.” (09:37)
Boot Camp has all kinds of recruits in it
o Some are fat, skinny, goofy looking, some say stupid things and get yelled
at, etc. (09:55)
o For some people, the military was an easy job
Some did it for school as well (10:21)
o One of the major reasons that many of the men were in the military was to
serve the country (10:44)
There are other perks that are factors as well
o There were men from all over the country (10:59)
When people messed up in Boot Camp they get yelled at in front of everyone
They had pre-pressed camis and boots that do not need to be shined (11:48)
�
There were a lot of Irish pendants that needed to be clipped on
The Drill Instructors came from all over the place
o To be a Drill Instructor you have to be crazy (12:36)
He was normally associated with a platoon with three instructors associated to it
(12:50)
o There was a senior, one that was specialized in drills, and one specialized
in knowledge
o The Senior Drill Instructor was like a father figure (13:19)
If they had problems they could go to him and he would not
usually scream at them as much (13:23)
After Boot Camp he was sent to Camp Pendleton, California for Infantry Training
(13:32)
Camp Pendleton was basically an addition to Boot Camp
o They soldiers are still getting yelled at but technically they are all Marines
(13:47)
o They give you more responsibility
They trained on the M16, M249 SAW (Squad Automatic
Weapon), explosive rounds, etc.
o They did not train on many heavy weapons (14:40)
o He did a lot of patrolling training (14:54)
When he first arrived to the fleet, he was joining a battalion that had already been
in Iraq (15:17)
At Camp Pendleton, some of the soldiers had already been to Iraq – they picked
on the new guys
After Camp Pendleton, his job was to join the unit and join their training schedule
(16:00)
o He got to his unit in March of 2008 and they went on their first
deployment in January of 2009 (16:17)
The environment was a lot more relaxed
o He had some more time to himself (16:40)
o When they were in the rear or stateside, unless they are on duty or
training, they have normal working hours (16:45)
o He did not got off the base very much because he did not have a car and
the base is in the middle of nowhere
He had a cell phone while he was there that allowed him to stay in contact with
others back home (17:14)
o There was a building in each part of the base that had free internet
In Boot Camp they tried to disconnect the soldiers from the world (17:31)
o He received one phone call in Boot Camp
Active Duty – Part I - MEU/Pacific Cruise – (17:49)
His first deployment was on a MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) (17:54)
o It is virtually a show of strength to the world if something happens they
are right there to take care of it (17:58)
�
o He went to Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Thailand, and Australia
They took unit transports to the different locations
They flew on a 747 to Okinawa (18:29)
o The ship that he took was an LPD-9 (18:37)
The backs open up and they let the amphibious vehicles out
He started out of South Korea
In most of the countries that they went to they trained with the actual armies of
those countries (19:00)
o They did house room clearing
o He got he impression that the South Koreans had tight restrictions on what
they could and could not do (19:23)
They had nets on their guns that collected the brass after they shot
He heard that they had a high suicide rate (19:36)
The Marines are fed by eating MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat) (20:01)
o They come in little brown bags
o Some of them are good but some of them are nasty (20:06)
o When they were on the ships they ate very well – they ate Navy food
After Korea, he went to the Philippines, Australia, and Thailand (20:24)
o They did not get a good reception when they went to Australia (20:33)
o There were girls there that were trying to make fun of the Americans
accents
It was funny to the soldiers even though the girls did not mean for
it to be funny (20:44)
o The Philippines was the most receptive of the countries they went to
When they go to shore they are given the normal rules – “if you’re gonna drink,
don’t get stupid.” (21:07)
o Incidents in other countries are difficult to deal with
o Alcohol was usually involved in the misbehaving of soldiers (21:23)
Usually the soldiers did alright
o He stayed away from the drinking for the most part (21:37)
Having gone to a Baptist school helped him in the military (21:42)
o It gave him a good foundation to stick to
o He met a couple of married men in the service that wanted to remain
faithful so he hung out with them (21:48)
They usually got a couple of days in each country to go and hang out (22:12)
o They had to stay in groups of no less than four in case they got in trouble
or got lost
The cruising lasts for about eight months (22:37)
Day to day life on ship did not have much for Marines to do
o The higher-ups would get made at them for being lazy and sleeping all day
(22:56)
They made it mandatory that they got out of bed
The Navy men had to work and the Marines were in there way
(23:10)
They then stayed in their beds all day to stay out of the
Navy’s way
�
The Senior Battalion Commander and Sergeant Major were probably in their 50’s
(23:38)
o The Company Commander was probably 30 years old and the Platoon
Commander was probably 24 or 25 years old (23:52)
o All of the Officers had college degrees (24:04)
He had a sense that promotion was fairly slow
o It was dependent on what job the soldier has
o The military did not need a lot of promotions for infantry soldiers (24:33)
The soldiers that had been in Iraq did not talk about it very much (24:47)
o By that time Iraq had slowed down quite a bit
There were some of his seniors that had been in Fallujah, Iraq in the deployment
before the major deployments (25:12)
At this point he never expected his military experience to get bad
o He figured that he may have to go to Afghanistan but never thought it
would get too bad (25:43)
He then returned to the United States from his cruise in August of 2009
At this stage he was figuring that a four year stint would probably make him go
on two different deployments (26:43)
o He was thinking that he would not reenlist
o He had been open to the idea of staying in for longer (27:01)
When he was in his return, he was in the middle of seniority – he was more senior
than the new guys but less senior than the higher ups
Active Duty – Part II – Camp Leatherneck/Sangin/IED – (28:00)
He stayed at Camp Pendleton for roughly one year (28:03)
In January of 2010, they went to Bridgeport, California for mountain warfare
training (28:10)
o The first week they were there it snowed 6-10 feet
They would train in different extremes – they would go to the dessert in the
summer for training (28:20)
In the process of all of his training he received amphibious landing training
(28:37)
o They would get on an amphibious assault vehicle and would shoot off of
the back of a ship
He learned that he was going to go to Afghanistan three months before they were
going to leave (29:17)
o They were all thinking that it was not going to be fun but more exciting
than what they had been doing (29:30)
o Once it gets closer to it they hear about what is going on where they are
going
They did not receive much specialized training for Afghanistan before they left
(29:51)
Most of the training they did before they went they did not use because they did
not know what to expect in Afghanistan
o The training they had was based more on Iraq than Afghanistan (30:12)
�
o Where they were in Afghanistan they had to walk in single file lines
because of IED’s (Improvised Explosive Device) (30:25)
Typically soldiers will not walk in single file line in case the
enemy has a machine gun – they could mow down all of the
soldiers
When the time comes to leave, they flew on a plane to Maine and then to
Kurdistan (30:51)
o They stayed at an Air Force Base in Kurdistan for a couple of nights
before flying in to Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
They stayed in Camp Leatherneck for a week while they were briefed (31:13)
o They then flew in to Sangin, Afghanistan where they took over (31:19)
They were in the Helmand Province (31:32)
His first impression is that everything is made of dirt and the people are dirty
There was a river that ran right next to the town that was green on both sides –
there were pomegranate trees and other vegetation (32:01)
Across from the main road there was just a desert where nothing grew
o They were in the desert part for the majority of the time (32:25)
The guys that they were taking over for told them that they should not go for the
Taliban flags, do not go in to abandoned compounds, and follow in the footsteps
of the soldier in front of you (32:40)
The properties in Sangin had twelve foot high mud walls surrounding their land
with a compound on the inside (33:17)
o They had outhouses
o Their own property was enclosed in the walls (33:36)
o The compounds often shared the same walls
There were narrow streets and allies (33:58)
He was a part of Lima Company (34:16)
o Their area of operations was to the south of the city
o The different companies split up to the different parts of the town (34:26)
It was a big town
Their basic mission was to cut off supply routes and kill the Taliban (34:39)
He was not sure how the Taliban moved supplies around
o They would do vehicle and personnel checks
o They had rules of engagement that were pretty relaxed at the beginning
(35:03)
Anyone that had a walkie talkie or a cell phone could be shot
(35:09)
The local population was scared of the American soldiers (35:15)
o They were once told that they believed they were going to kidnap the
women and children and cut their heads off
o One lady told them that the Taliban was only in her town because the
Americans were. If the Americans would leave, the Taliban would leave
as well (35:31)
o Little kids would throw rocks at them when they would drive by
Each company was broken down into four platoons (35:59)
o There were three patrol bases where the platoons would split up
�
o From each patrol base, one squad would be sent out each day (36:13)
o There were typically 12-15 men in each squad
They would typically go out and patrol – they found a lot of IED’s
(36:31)
They found a lot of weapons caches (36:37)
The IED’s were found by either seeing them with their eyes or by metal detectors
(36:50)
o IED’s are made of plastic jugs with chemicals, a lamp cord, 3 9 volt
batteries to complete the circuit, and a pressure plate made of wood
o The metal detectors could only pick up on the batteries (37:18)
They were very careful with any unsettled dirt
Each patrol was led by an engineer with a valence (metal detector) (37:53)
There was one day when they only moved 50 feet and it took them two hours to
clear the area (37:58)
Clearing out IED’s was very slow
When they find the IED they call up the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal)
(38:10)
o They drive up in their truck and dig at the IED to see if it is – if it is they
blow it up (38:20)
o The EOD were awesome at their job
o There was one patrol where the EOD helped them with sixteen IED’s
(38:52)
The patrol bases were typically abandoned buildings
o Their patrol base was a cement building – they would joke that a drug lord
had owned it (39:14)
o They would put sandbags all around the top of the building
He started to run into trouble about a week after he was there (39:56)
o The first day there was a three hour long gun fight
It was kind of fun because no one got hit (40:06)
It was like “all guns blazin”
o They were up on a hill being shot at (40:32)
o They were only 200 feet away from their patrol base
o They called in an A10 Warthog to go in and unload their main firepower
(40:50)
The A10 Warthog worked
They wanted to hide after that (41:11)
After the first firefight, the enemy got the idea that it was not a good idea to fight
them (41:19)
o The Americans had way more firepower than the enemy could imagine
o The enemy would sometimes take a couple of pot shots but that was about
all (41:31)
The biggest threat was the IED’s (41:39)
The IED’s were typically just the pressure plates
o There were sometimes some manually triggered IED’s (41:59)
They came across a lot of the abandoned manual IED’s
�
The next day after the first firefight was when they discovered an IED that was
very close to them
o An Afghani soldier stepped on an IED and blew it up (43:07)
o The dust from the IED takes roughly 2-3 minutes before it clears
o They could hear screaming in English (43:27)
Their lieutenant had been hit as well
o They saw the Afghani soldier rolling around and yelling (43:37)
He bled out in front of them (43:44)
After the IED exploded, no one really wanted to walk around anymore
o They had to get to the body and take care of it
o It took a while because they were all trying to be very careful (44:03)
o A helicopter came and took the body and the American to a hospital
(44:17)
They were supposed to take the Afghans on every patrol so that they could train
and learn how to do everything on their own (44:30)
o He does not see that every happening
They would never lead the patrol and would wait for the
Americans to lead (44:36)
o The Afghans were not any better than the Americans at spotting IED’s
Typically, when an IED would be spotted, the Afghan soldiers
would sit on the ground with their gun over their laps (44:51)
Active Duty – Part III – Patrols/Taliban Flags/ Weapon Caches – (45:01)
There was at least one interpreter on every patrol (45:07)
o The interpreters were Afghans
o The Americans liked the interpreters because they spoke English and
would go out without guns (45:31)
Most of the interpreters wanted to eventually go to America (44:44)
They were primarily recruited by the government to work as
interpreters
It was very dangerous working with the Afghan soldiers (46:26)
o One of his best friends was blown up when they were going down an alley
way and one of the Afghani soldiers went off on his own and stepped on
an IED
o The enemy typically fires at the Americans when the bombs go off
because it is very hard to see anything (47:08)
He was deployed in Afghanistan for seven months
o In that time he carried an M249 saw when he was there (47:46)
He kept a diary for a large portion of the time that he was there (47:52)
Usually the rooftops of the compounds did not have walls – everyone was able to
see them but they could hardly see anything (48:18)
When they were on the ground they could only see 15-20 feet away because of
the walls
When they were patrolling and had to go into a compound they would typically
have the interpreter knock on the door and ask to let the Americans in (48:53)
�
o If the compound was not occupied, they would rarely go through the
doorway
One of his other best friends was blown up and killed because he
walked in an empty doorway that had an IED on the other side
(49:14)
o They would take ladders and go over the wall
o They eventually just started blowing holes in the sides of walls (49:29)
It made a lot of the Afghans upset
About three months in, his unit moved farther into the country so that they could
secure the whole area (50:04)
o They had to make their own new patrol base (50:16)
There were a lot of sandbags to be filled
The men in his squad were mostly kids (50:35)
He has one friend from Hawaii that he still talks to
One of his friends that stepped on an IED was from Minnesota (51:03)
He also maintains contact with many of the guys out in California (51:11)
They were not supposed to get “buddy buddy” with the sergeants because they
were higher ups (51:30)
o He liked most of them and did not agree with the decisions of some of
them
o One of the sergeants was a short guy and felt like he owed someone
something
His mindset was that since he had been in Iraq he wanted to do a
lot of the things that were not supposed to be done in Afghanistan
(52:12)
He wanted to get the Taliban flags, find IED’s, etc.
He was only put in charge of them because he was a higher rank
than them (52:27)
He was the squad leader
The Taliban flags were typically in abandoned compounds that have IED’s
planted inside (52:46)
o Their mindset is that the Americans will want to go get the flags. That is
why they booby trap the building that they are in (52:59)
o They eventually learned to not go and get the flags (53:08)
The weapons caches were also in abandoned compounds (53:27)
o They would sometimes get tipped off on where to look for them
o There was a big tower with a camera on top where they could look for
hostile movement
o One time they saw a man with a long barreled weapon that he should not
have
They called it in and had him “blown to pieces” (53:59)
o Sometimes they would see people moving in and out of abandoned
compounds – they would then have to go and check it out (54:08)
The rules of engagement changed over time
o When they arrived there was hardly anyone traveling the streets (54:27)
Near the end there were families going down the streets
�
o On some level, the American presence was working (54:45)
The Afghani’s probably felt safe because there were Americans
everywhere with guns
o Toward the end there was a lot less gunfights (55:03)
The trucks and mine rollers that they would use were essentially big trucks
(55:30)
o Most of them have a v-shaped hole
o The humvees are being used less because of their flat bottoms (55:44)
o They would sometimes use an MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected)
truck (55:55)
o The mine plows were extensions of the truck that had solid rubber tires
with weights on top that will set off the IED before it gets under the truck
(56:28)
When driving around on the mine plow he had a lot of problems with the tires
A typical day when not on patrol was being put on post (57:45)
o If he was not on post he would be on an unloading party – they would
unload water bottles, food, or filling sandbags
Active Duty – Part IV – Miscellaneous Info./Last Experiences in Afghanistan –
(58:13)
He had more down time at the beginning than at the end (58:19)
When someone in the unit would get hit and taken out, the rest of the men stayed
back and continued fighting (58:36)
o They would always have to push through it
In the beginning they did not patrol as much because of the IED threat (58:55)
o The would have spades tournaments
It was typically too cold to take showers – they would sometimes take solar
showers but it was still often too cold (59:32)
o It was three months before he got his first running water shower
o The soldiers would have to put the same dirty clothes back on (59:51)
They were expected to shave and keep their hair short (01:00:00)
o They had generators that were brought in
At first they could only shave
o The generators had outlets where they could plug in and shave their hair
(01:00:22)
The seven months that he was in Afghanistan was spent with the same group
o After guys were killed or hurt they would receive combat replacements
(01:00:45)
For a while they liked to believe that they were the best squad
o There was not much of a difference between the units (01:01:44)
The night vision goggles were sometimes beneficial
o He had a pair that was blurry and he could not fix it (01:02:06)
o He had another pair that would randomly shut off
If a soldier received a good pair, he could see fine (01:02:17)
o There has to be a little bit of light for them to work well
�
The larger strategy against the Taliban was working to some degree (01:03:01)
Once the Americans got into the trucks, they would sometimes still have the
Afghans alongside them
o When they were on the patrols, the Afghani soldiers would remain with
them (01:03:22)
They were not really able to see improvement with the Afghani
soldiers when they were on patrols
He rarely had to deal with the Afghani soldiers
o One of his friends had a Star of David tattoo – when he took his shirt off
an Afghani soldier pointed his rifle at him (01:03:55)
There were only eight Americans and twenty Afghani soldiers
o Two of his friends were murdered by Afghanis (01:04:17)
He never saw any suicide bombers
o He would see them set off bombs and then run away (01:04:36)
o They never wanted to become complacent and believe that there were not
suicide bombers so they still checked everyone (01:04:52)
When they had the generator with electrical outlets they would charge their iPods
or other devices
o One time they all gathered around an iPod and watched Aladdin
(01:05:32)
o There was one guy that had a laptop and care packages would sometimes
have DVDs in them (01:05:44)
He was able to stay in communication with his family roughly once every month
o The married men usually had first dibs
o There was a seventeen hour time difference between Afghanistan and
Michigan (01:06:13)
The best time to call was in the middle of the night in Afghanistan
because it was the middle of the day in Michigan (01:06:23)
o He got care packages – he had requested Monster drinks and Swedish Fish
(01:07:02)
o They would get so much candy that they did not know what to do with it
They would give some out to the kids when they would go out on
patrol (01:07:25)
The kids would like the soldiers when they were giving them
things
When he went into Afghanistan he did not think about how long his deployment
was going to last (01:08:03)
o He was more worried about knowing if he was going to die, etc.
When he was in Afghanistan he knew a month or two ahead of time that he was
going to be leaving
o They would do something called Ripping (Relieving In Place) (01:08:43)
o They would train the replacements by going on patrols with them
o The Afghanis knew that they were sending replacements and that “new
blood was coming in” (01:08:53)
The second patrol that they were on with the new guys an engineer stepped on a
bomb and lost both of his legs
�
o He later found out later that one of the other engineers in the unit was
killed and the other had his leg blown off (01:09:19)
Over the course of his time there, there were twenty-five that were killed and
almost two hundred wounded – there were only eight hundred soldiers there on
patrols
The most that any soldier ever had to use was a tourniquet (01:10:16)
o The doctors would use IVs to keep the soldiers out of shock
There were times when soldiers would step on bombs that were only a couple feet
away from him (01:10:37)
o There were a couple of times where he was almost shot
o After one explosion his nose started bleeding (01:11:06)
o He was never hit by shrapnel
o One time he had to pick flesh of other soldiers off of his neck (01:11:20)
He had, by that time, decided that four years in the military was enough
He returned to America in April or May and was discharged in August (01:11:47)
Once he was back from Afghanistan he had to turn in his gear, make sure his
medical information is up to date, took classes, etc.
The military gave TAP (Transition Assistance Program) classes to soldiers that
were about to head home (01:12:39)
o He cannot remember if anything that they taught him was useful
o The courses were extremely boring
He believes that if he would have gone straight to college he would not have done
nearly as well as he is (01:13:27)
o He probably would not have gone very far because he was a horrible
student
o Problems in America are not as big as they seemed before his military
experience
His first class was three days after returning from the Marine Corps. (01:14:19)
o It was nice because no one was yelling at him and no one was in his face
about anything
o Whenever he walks across the GVSU bridge he imagines someone
grabbing a kid and throwing them off (01:15:02)
He studies Criminal Justice at Grand Valley State University
All of his checkups at the VA (Veteran’s Association) are free
�
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
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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
Anderson, Nicholas "Nick" (Interview outline and video), 2013
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Nicholas
Description
An account of the resource
Nick Anderson was born in Minnesota in 1989 and moved to Grand Haven, Michigan three years later. He had given thought to joining the military before 9/11 and, during his senior year of high school, decided that he wanted to be a Marine. Nick swore into the military in Lansing, Michigan and then went to San Diego, California for Basic Training. He was then sent to Camp Pendleton, California for Infantry Training. His first deployment was on an MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) until he returned to America for Mountain Warfare Training. Nick was then deployed to Afghanistan and landed at Camp Leatherneck. His unit served in Sangin where there was a constant threat of IED's. He remembers his experiences on patrols and the routines of finding abandoned compounds.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
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
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Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
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2013-01-18
Identifier
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AndersonN1473V
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a>
Format
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application/pdf
video/mp4
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/500d3eb5307224fe8950a824bb9ad373.mp4
eaed1cca096c3ae173c090db7f0c68af
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f3051aa91efc605e250c63dc615d12fd.pdf
07be9bf523fee507ecbd049b15b63eed
PDF Text
Text
Grand Valley State University
Veteran’s History Project
Vietnam War
Bob Anderson
Interview Length: (02:41:51:00)
Pre-enlistment / Training (00:00:08:00)
Anderson was born in August 1948 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where his family lived for a
few years before Anderson’s father decided to go back into the Air Force; Anderson’s
father had served as a pilot during World War II and had grown tired of civilian life, so
he applied for, and the Air Force granted, re-entry into the service (00:00:08:00)
o When Anderson’s father re-enlisted, it was towards the end of the Korean War,
and he served not a combat pilot but a personnel transport pilot (00:00:59:00)
o Anderson’s family ended up living in several different places, including
Charleston, South Carolina, and Florida as Anderson’s father trained with
different types of aircraft (00:01:21:00)
o For the majority of the time before Anderson himself joined the service, his father
was stationed at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, where Anderson received
the majority of his schooling and graduated from high school (00:01:32:00)
Anderson graduated in 1966 and proceeded to attend junior college; during that time,
Anderson ended up living with his uncle in the Gulf Coast region of Mississippi, where
the uncle was a professor at one of the local colleges (00:01:46:00)
o After a year, Anderson transferred from the junior college to Michigan State
University in Fall 1967 (00:02:12:00)
o While in college, Anderson felt that he did not know how to study properly; he
would read the necessary texts for hours but he could not translate the reading to
re-gurgitation on tests and as a result, Anderson ended up being academically
dismissed from the university in Spring 1968 (00:02:23:00)
o While at Michigan State, if there were protest movements on the campus,
Anderson was unaware of them; he was insulated growing up and although his
parents allowed him to do what he wanted, Anderson grew up oblivious to world
events (00:03:07:00)
After Anderson was forced out of Michigan State, he packed all his belongings up and
moved back to Maryland to live with his parents, while feeling like he had failed
something because he had done well in the junior college (00:03:38:00)
o Although he could have gone to junior college again in Maryland, something in
the back of Anderson’s mind told him that he was not ready to try again yet; he
talked with his father and his father thought it might be a good idea for Anderson
to join the service (00:03:57:00)
If he joined the service, Anderson would receive free training and when he
got out of the service, if Anderson did not want to go back to college, then
he would at least have training for a trade (00:04:18:00)
�
o Anderson’s father suggested refrigeration equipment repair because people used
air conditioners and everybody had a refrigerator, so Anderson enlisted in the
Army to be a refrigeration equipment repairman (00:04:36:00)
Anderson ended up enlisting in the Army on his mother’s birthday: May 6th, 1968
(00:05:12:00)
o When he enlisted, Anderson had a guaranteed enlistment for the school that he
wanted, which happened to be at Fort Belvoir, an Army base just over the
Potomac River and ten miles away from Anderson’s home (00:05:32:00)
Anderson did his basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia; had he gone to the refrigeration
repair school, Anderson would have then gone to Fort Belvoir but during the reception
period, Anderson scored high enough on the tests to be considered for Officer Candidate
School (OCS) (00:06:04:00)
o For two years before he enlisted, the Vietnam War was an un-event for Anderson;
even though the division he would serve with, the 1st Air Cavalry, had fought in
the Ia Drang valley, that was Anderson’s senior year in high school and he was
still oblivious (00:06:48:00)
o Anderson had the choice of going to OCS because he qualified and once he said
yes, his waive his guaranteed right to go to refrigeration equipment repairman
school (00:07:10:00)
Therefore, after completing his basic training, Anderson went to Fort Dix,
New Jersey (00:07:20:00)
o Anderson feels that the basic premise behind basic training was the instructors
wanted to tear the men down and expunge any thoughts of the civilian word so
they could re-make the men as soldiers (00:07:33:00)
Therefore, there was a lot of physical torment by the instructors, who were
allowed to yell profusely at the soldiers; although the instructors are still
allowed to yell today, they have a limit on what they are allowed to call
the soldiers (00:07:50:00)
During Anderson’s training, the soldiers had no recourse but to say “yes
drill sergeant” and do whatever the instructor wanted (00:08:03:00)
o The soldiers learned how to drill and march, as well as the manual of arms for the
M-14 and rifle marksmanship (00:08:16:00)
o Not everyone who went through basic training ended up with a combat unit; there
were many soldiers ended up going to specialized schools, such as refrigeration
equipment repair or welding (00:08:32:00)
That being said, the training was oriented towards infantry tactics, such as
target detection, night division, escape & evasion, etc. (00:09:15:00)
o For the most part, Anderson’s adjustment to military life was fairly easy,
primarily because his father was career Air Force and from afar, Anderson had
some understand of what he had to do, mainly not arguing with everybody and
doing whatever he was ordered to do (00:09:34:00)
o In basic training, if someone told you to get down and do a bunch of push-ups,
then you got down and did as many as you could (00:10:04:00)
There was no debate with the drill sergeants; if they said stand on one foot
in the corner, the soldiers said “yes drill sergeant” then went and stood on
one foot in the corner (00:10:21:00)
�
Nevertheless, there were a few soldiers who could not be broken or did not
want to be broken and Anderson suspects that most of those soldiers were
draftees; they had been doing whatever they were doing when Uncle Sam
knocked on their door and said they would report (00:10:41:00)
Anderson suspects the draftees were rebellious because they did
not want to be there, whereas his situation was different because he
had enlisted; although his feelings might be similar to theirs,
Anderson kept his head down and his mouth shut (00:11:05:00)
o When he enlisted, Anderson was in better physical shape, so the physical aspects
of the training, such as running, were not an issue; the only thing Anderson really
had trouble with were the monkey bars, which the soldiers had to do every day
before they could eat breakfast (00:11:34:00)
Anderson was not very good at first because he did not have much upper
body strength but eventually, he learned how to do them (00:12:01:00)
o Anderson’s basic training lasted for eight or nine weeks, after which he went to
Fort Dix, New Jersey for his Advanced Individual Training (AIT) (00:12:13:00)
In a lot of ways, AIT was similar to basic training, although the training was much more
geared towards the infantry, including more weapons training, radio procedure, field
exercises, tactical training and less drill and ceremony; by this time, most of the soldiers
knew where they were going (00:12:26:00)
o While in basic training, the drill sergeants for the most part had served in Vietnam
but in AIT, some of the instructors, such as the training company commander, had
not served a tour; Anderson vaguely recalls the platoon sergeant in AIT had
served in Vietnam but he cannot be sure (00:13:07:00)
o During AIT, the instructors tried to simulate what the soldiers would experience
in Vietnam as best they could, although they could not replicate the physical
aspects, such as the terrain, humidity, and monsoons or the jungle (00:13:54:00)
o As part of the overall training, the soldiers went through two or three days of
training in how to interact with the civilian population, although Anderson does
not remember it taking place in a mock Vietnamese village; he knows some of the
other AIT locations, such as Fort Polk, had them (00:14:24:00)
After completing AIT, Anderson had a couple of days before he had to report back to
Fort Benning for OCS, which he did in the middle of September 1968 (00:15:14:00)
o There were about one hundred and twenty other soldiers who started the course
with Anderson, which was designed to turn them all into the lieutenants for the
infantry (00:15:34:00)
o The class days were long and although the academics were hard for some,
Anderson did not have any trouble with that nor with the physicality of the
training (00:15:51:00)
o In his platoon of twenty soldiers, Anderson figures that around half were college
graduates and the other half were like Anderson, with a couple of years college
schooling (00:16:43:00)
A large number of the soldiers in Anderson’s platoon were also married,
around thirty percent; any of the soldiers who had a degree and were
married were draftees because they would not willingly enlist if they
already had a four-year degree and a family (00:17:28:00)
�
Many of the soldiers brought their wives with them and Anderson assumes
it was difficult for the soldiers to have their wives five miles off-post but
have to be stuck with one hundred other guys (00:17:58:00)
o The training the soldiers received tended to be similar to what they had already
received, only more intense; there was a lot of map reading, artillery firing and
learning how to adjust fire, etc. (00:18:26:00)
There was also a lot of classroom work, such as a film which the
instructors would stop suddenly, say the company commander had been
killed and ask Anderson what he would do; when this happened, hopefully
Anderson was awake enough to give a good answer and after he did so,
the instructors analyzed his decision-making before continuing the film to
see if what Anderson had said was correct (00:18:53:00)
It was always “go, go, go” from reveille until the end of the day,
the soldiers ran everywhere, it was hot, etc. and when the soldiers
got into an air conditioned building, it seemed like as soon as they
sat down, they went to sleep (00:19:42:00)
The instructors had ways to deal with the sleeping soldiers and
sometimes, they were humorous; the instructors would tell
everyone who was awake to ignore the next command, then they
would yell out, “on your feet” (00:20:16:00)
o The soldiers were conditioned to respond to that command
even if they were half asleep, so when half the class stood
up, they were chastised by the instructor (00:20:35:00)
o OCS lasted for twenty-three weeks; although it was not like the World War II
model of the “ninety-dya wonder”, the soldiers who completed the course still
received that moniker (00:20:52:00)
After the soldiers completed the OCS course and their orders came down, some stayed at
Fort Benning to go into the tactical unit, while others, like Anderson, stayed to go into a
basic training unit; however, each soldiers received a furlough for about a week or two
before they had to report to their new assignment (00:21:14:00)
o Anderson graduated from OCS on March 29th, 1970 and reported back to Fort
Benning in mid-April, where he stayed for three months before receiving his
orders to go to Vietnam (00:21:38:00)
o The role of a 2nd Lieutenant in a basic training company was “to be seen and not
heard”; they were “gentlemen” by an act of Congress but many new lieutenants
were unsure of themselves and since the drill sergeant cadre knew what they were
doing, if a 2nd Lieutenant was smart, he got out of their way to let them do their
thing while watching to learn, which Anderson tried to do (00:22:04:00)
They had a good training company commander who had served with the
101st Airborne Division while the company first sergeant was a two-tour
Vietnam veteran, as well as Korea (00:22:51:00)
All of the other drill sergeants had been to Vietnam, they knew what they
were doing, and they did not need Anderson telling them what to do, so he
tried to stay out of their way (00:23:05:00)
�
All that being said, the lieutenants still received a lot of responsibilities,
such as being the mess officer, the Army emergency relief officer, the
blood-drive officer, etc. (00:23:26:00)
They were trying to give the lieutenants some responsibility, not
necessarily to build up their self-esteem but to make them feel
comfortable with the idea of giving orders; unless they had worked
in a previous job as a supervisor, most of the lieutenants had never
told people to do things (00:24:02:00)
They tried to make break the lieutenants in and make them feel
comfortable in a uniform that said eighty percent of the people on
the base had to salute them (00:24:38:00)
o Once he said that he was not going to go to be a refrigeration repairman,
Anderson knew his path was chosen and there was not question in his mind that
he would ultimately end up in Vietnam (00:25:14:00)
However, Anderson did not dwell on that fact; it was what it was, he had
raised his hand to volunteer and if the Army kept him at Fort Benning for
two years, then so be it (00:25:32:00)
The senior lieutenant in the training company had gone through
that; when he graduated from Armor OCS, he stayed at Fort
Benning for two years, but Anderson did not have any grand
illusions that the same thing would happen to him (00:25:50:00)
Anderson did the best he could as a 2nd Lieutenant and if the time
came, then he would go on to the next step and do as best he could
then too (00:26:12:00)
When his orders finally did come down, Anderson was naturally apprehensive; unlike
being a civilian, Anderson received news from the Army every week about the war and
he was able to see who had been killed and how many were officers (00:26:30:00)
o In some ways, Anderson was glad; he was almost certain he would eventually go,
he had been at Fort Benning long enough to get the assignments down pat, so it
was time to go do what Anderson had been trained to do (00:26:53:00)
Deployment (00:27:20:00)
Once the orders finally arrived, Anderson had to report to Travis Air Force Base in
California, although he does not remember how exactly he got to Vietnam itself
(00:27:20:00)
Anderson does remember arriving in Vietnam and while most soldiers remember it being
smelly or hot, Anderson does not recall the smell; the soldiers arrived in Vietnam at
night, meaning it was dark, and Anderson does remember the bus ride to the 90th
Replacement Battalion (00:28:01:00)
o On the bus ride, all the windows on the bus were open but were covered in a wire
mesh and when one of the soldiers asked what the mesh was for, the bus driver
said it was to keep the VC or somebody else from throwing a hand grenade into
the bus (00:28:20:00)
o That was the first indication that the soldiers were in a real situation; they were
riding in screened-in buses so people could not throw grenades inside and kill
them (00:28:44:00)
�
The soldiers arrived in Bien Hoa and went to the 90th Replacement Battalion, which was
the unit that every newly-arrived soldier went to and from there, the soldiers were
assigned to different units throughout the country (00:28:57:00)
o Anderson spent three days at the replacement battalion, received his uniforms,
although he did not know where he would be assigned, and after a couple of days,
orders came down that he was assigned to the 1st Air Cavalry Division
(00:29:16:00)
While in OCS, the officers listed the three locations where they would like
the serve and Anderson ended up listing Vietnam number three and maybe
Germany as number one (00:29:42:00)
However, when he arrived at the First Team Academy (FTA), they asked
Anderson which unit in particular he would like to join, although he did
not know units from anything (00:29:59:00)
Some officers who had been indoctrinated longer, mainly West
Pointers, chose specific units, such as Custer’s regiment or another
unit, to go to (00:30:34:00)
They had a map of the area and Anderson remembers looking at
the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry regimental area and seeing that
their headquarters was surrounded by a bunch of firebases, figured
it would be a safe location, so his first choice was to join the 2nd of
the 7th (00:30:50:00)
However, the Army had already decided where Anderson would
go and instead of going to the 2nd of the 7th, he went to the 1st of
the 7th, but that was not big deal to him (00:31:11:00)
The soldiers were at the First Team Academy for about three days, where
they received a weapons familiarization course, did some repelling, etc.;
more than anything, Anderson believes the academy was designed to get
the soldiers acclimated to the heat (00:31:34:00)
o After the three or four days at the FTA, Anderson received orders for the 1st of the
7th; the Army led him by hand because “there is nothing dumber than a 2nd
Lieutenant”, so when Anderson asked how to get to the 1st of the 7th, the Army
said they would take him back to Bien Hoa and tell him right where he needed to
go (00:31:54:00)
At the time, the 1st of the 7th was stationed in III Corps, to the north and west of Saigon,
fifteen miles from the Cambodian border (00:32:37:00)
o Immediately around the base camp, it was in the middle of a rubber plantation but
the further out the soldiers got, to the individual fire bases, it was double and
triple canopy jungle with bamboo and clearings interspersed and for the most part,
the terrain was flat (00:32:58:00)
Initially, Anderson took a C-7 Caribou ride to Quan Loi, where someone knew he was
coming because when he got off the C-7, a sergeant was waiting for him (00:33:32:00)
o When he first arrived in Quan Loi, it seemed like Anderson had been transported
to the moon; there was not anybody he knew and Anderson had orders to get on
the C-7 and when he arrived in Quan Loi, there would be someone there to meet
him (00:33:56:00)
�
o When he arrived, Anderson was walking around with his eyes wide, wondering
what he had gotten himself into, and someone called to him, asked if was going to
the 1st of the 7th and told him to jump in the jeep, which took him to the battalion
headquarters (00:34:15:00)
o After Anderson reported to the headquarters, the other officers told him to go
through a set of doors so that he could talk with the colonel commanding the
battalion (00:34:42:00)
The sequence of Anderson meeting the colonel was similar to the scene in
film Apocalypse Now when Martin Sheen’s character first meets Marlon
Brando’s character (00:35:05:00)
Anderson and the colonel talked for a few minutes, during which the
colonel gave Anderson a Garreyowen crest, which was the regimental
crest for the 7th Cavalry, and told Anderson he was being assigned to
Alpha Company and who the company commander was (00:35:40:00)
o When he arrived at Alpha Company’s rear area, the first sergeant was there and
he knew Anderson was coming; Anderson spent no more than two days getting
his equipment, including his rifle, helmet, poncho, pack, etc. (00:36:31:00)
o Then, on either the second or third day, the company in the field was being resupplied, so they told Anderson the day before that when they went out to resupply, Anderson could go and join the company (00:36:57:00)
The next morning, Anderson gathered all his equipment and boarded the Command and
Control helicopter flying out to the company on Firebase Wescott (00:37:15:00)
o When Anderson jumped off the helicopter with the rest of the soldiers, he asked
what he had to do and was told to wait until the re-supply helicopter arrived; the
company was in the field and they would be moving to a re-supply site where
Anderson would go an meet them (00:37:44:00)
o It seemed like a couple of hours passed before the re-supply helicopter arrived at
the firebase and when it did arrive, Anderson hopped aboard and the helicopter
took him to where the company was (00:38:18:00)
o It was an interesting helicopter ride to the company; Anderson believes the
helicopter crew chief saw he was a newly-arrive lieutenant, so he radioed the pilot
that information and suggested giving Anderson a ride to see if they could make
him throw up (00:38:47:00)
As the helicopter flew out to the company, the pilot made the helicopter
bob and weave, flew along the knap of the earth, etc. but Anderson
thought the flight was great and similar to a roller coaster (00:39:12:00)
During the flight, Anderson sat on a crate with his feet spread apart so he
would not fall out and after awhile, the helicopter crew tired of the erratic
flying, figuring they could to make Anderson vomit (00:39:26:00)
On the other hand, every other helicopter ride that Anderson had was not
as erratic and wild as that first flight (00:39:40:00)
o They eventually dropped Anderson off with the company and when he asked to
speak with the company commander, the other soldiers pointed him out, so
Anderson when to talk with him, who welcomed him to Alpha Company and
assigned Anderson to be the mortar platoon leader, which Anderson did not think
was a good idea (00:39:55:00)
�
Although he had familiarization and knew about mortars, being mortar
platoon leader was not exactly what Anderson wanted to do; still, he held
his tongue and asked where the mortars were (00:40:51:00)
At that time, the soldiers in the platoon were carrying the 81 mm mortars
in the field; the base plate alone weighed eighty-one pounds and the
soldiers also had to carry to launch tube, tripod, aiming sticks, as well as
two rounds of ammunition apiece (00:41:06:00)
Anderson stayed the mortar platoon leader until the next re-supply and
believes the company commander placed him in charge of the mortar
platoon as part of his acclimation; Anderson was wearing his rucksack,
carrying his equipment, and was far enough away from the fighting that he
could see what was going on but not be involved in it (00:41:25:00)
o At the next re-supply, the 2nd platoon lieutenant moved up to be the company
executive officer and Anderson was his replacement (00:42:04:00)
o In the time Anderson was the mortar platoon leader, the soldiers fired the mortars
a couple of times, if only to get ride of some of the weight, although they never
fired them with permission from the company commander (00:42:22:00)
On some occasions, other soldiers in the platoon would go into an area but
before they did, the mortar platoon would launch several rounds into the
area; the soldiers in the platoon knew what they had to do and Anderson
never had to check to make sure everything was ready (00:42:39:00)
When Anderson joined the company, they stayed in that location
overnight and the next morning, a patrol was going out and the captain
wanted some mortar rounds into that vicinity (00:43:52:00)
When Anderson joined the platoon, he had two E-6s, the platoon sergeant and the man
training to be the platoon sergeant; the lieutenant Anderson was replacing moved right
out of the platoon when Anderson arrived (00:44:26:00)
On the first morning Anderson was in charge of the platoon, the captain told him he was
going to be leading a thousand meter patrol and the soldiers were going light, meaning
they were only taking their weapons and ammunition while they left their rucksacks
stayed behind with the company (00:45:21:00)
o The company had a scout dog with them and the captain told Anderson to take the
dog with him; Anderson gathered his sergeants and told them the platoon had to
do a thousand meter patrol and then return to the company (00:45:42:00)
o The sergeants said okay and after tell them the platoon would leave in ten
minutes, Anderson talked with the dog handler to explain what the plan was, who
said okay as well because the handler knew why he was the there and what the
dog’s job was (00:46:12:00)
o Anderson does not recall if this was the patrol where he started walking where he
normally would but if not, then it was shortly thereafter (00:47:09:00)
During a normal patrol, the column would have a point man, a slack man
to cover the point man, then a squad leader and then Anderson himself;
Anderson could not run anything if he was at the rear of the column and
he could not know exactly what was going on (00:47:24:00)
Anderson also had a radio operator and he ended up walking
directly behind Anderson in the column (00:47:58:00)
�
o The patrol had gone around seven hundred meters when the point dog alerted;
although Anderson did not know what was going on, soldiers who had worked
with dogs before did and they told Anderson that the dog had sensed something
near the patrol (00:48:08:00)
o Anderson began to ask in his mind what he had to do next because it was not like
OCS when they would stop the film and ask him; Anderson called one of his
sergeants, asking him to come to the front of the column and when the sergeant
asked why, Anderson said the point dog had alerted, which was a none event for
the sergeant because he had been in-country for six months (00:49:06:00)
When Anderson asked the sergeant what he should do, the sergeant said
they would normally recon by fire, a term Anderson was not familiar with;
the sergeant explained what to do but suggested Anderson radio back to
the company beforehand and tell them what they were planning to do,
otherwise, the men back at the company would hear the gunfire and
assume the patrol had made contact with the enemy (00:49:39:00)
o Anderson radioed back to the company, saying the point dog was alerted and they
were planning to recon by fire; the soldiers did the recon by fire but received no
enemy return fire, so they continued the patrol, performed their sweep and
returned to the company (00:50:16:00)
o Years later, other soldiers in platoon said they could not believe Anderson made
them go through the entire patrol; whenever they went before on a long patrol, the
lieutenant before Anderson would lead the soldiers out about five hundred meters,
where they would sit and relax before going back to the company (00:50:45:00)
o Nothing happened on the first patrol and Anderson is thankful for that because he
was still a green lieutenant (00:51:19:00)
After about three weeks, the company moved from Firebase Wescott to Firebase Jerry in
the middle of November (00:51:42:00)
o The company was picked up in the field and then air assaulted into a new area of
operations, Firebase Jerry; it was late in the day and Anderson’s platoon was the
last platoon into the area (00:52:18:00)
o Just as the platoon was dropped off outside the firebase, they came under mortar
attack; all of the mortar rounds hit up front, wounding several soldiers severely
(00:52:33:00)
The attack was only a few mortar rounds, after which the platoon made it
inside the firebase, where a doctor tended to their wounded (00:53:12:00)
o In the field, the company had around one hundred and ten soldiers and Anderson
had around twenty-five soldiers in his platoon; the most soldiers Anderson had in
the field at one time was twenty-five and the fewest was seventeen (00:53:43:00)
o After the soldiers left the firebase, they set up for the night, although nothing
happened that night (00:54:12:00)
The next morning, the entire company was moving; Anderson’s platoon was not on point
when a couple of NVA ran along a little trail coming from the right and although the
point element fired towards them, the soldiers did not hit anyone (00:54:28:00)
o The captain wanted to see where the NVA had come from, so the point element
walked up the trail for about thirty or forty meters before someone ordered them
to get further away from the trail (00:54:42:00)
�
o The soldiers had just seen an enemy on the trail and the enemy most certainly
knew the soldiers were there because the soldiers had fired on them, so the
company moved off the trail (00:55:05:00)
o When his platoon reached the trail, Anderson looked at the trail itself, which was
hard packed from numerous people walking on it; then, as he looked up the trail,
Anderson figured it would be a good spot for the enemy to fire on them and no
sooner had he said that then the enemy started firing (00:55:24:00)
As quite often happened, there was gunfire but the bullets were going
everywhere because the enemy was not taking the time to aim properly;
the initial firing might be aimed but the response was not (00:56:06:00)
o Again, it was late in the day and the captain said the company was going to set up
a defensive position for the night; as the soldiers began preparing the position, the
captain called Anderson over and said he wanted Anderson to go parallel to the
trail for four or five hundred meters so he could ambush the enemy (00:56:28:00)
o Anderson said okay, so he and his men found the trail, set up their claymore
mines and then backed off to wait for somebody to stumble down the trail; it
rained that night and the mosquitoes came out but fortunately, nobody came down
the trail but the soldiers could hear chopping in the distance as the enemy chopped
down trees to make bunkers (00:57:01:00)
The soldiers could also hear laughter, which makes Anderson believe the
soldiers on the ambush were within a couple of hundred meters of the
enemy’s position (00:57:58:00)
In the morning, the soldiers picked up their equipment and back tracked to
the company (00:58:15:00)
o Trails crisscrossed the whole area and the soldiers could see where the enemy had
rested in the daytime and nighttime from the debris of cooking fires (00:58:22:00)
o Every two or three days, the soldiers either would be fired on or would fire on the
enemy, although they did not take many casualties (00:58:52:00)
After about a week in the new area of operation, the company got involved in a large
firefight lasting for about five or six hours (00:59:06:00)
o Again, Anderson was somewhat lucky because his platoon was walking last that
particular day and it was mostly the front of the column that received the brunt of
the attack (00:59:17:00)
o Two platoons really got into it with the enemy and although there was nobody
killed, there were sixteen or seventeen wounded soldiers who needed to be medivaced out (00:59:26:00)
o It was a longer day for Anderson because he was not under the direct fire; he and
his men were merely sitting guard, acting as a company reserve, although
Anderson did have to send his machine guns up because the other platoon’s
machine guns malfunctioned (00:59:41:00)
Anderson’s machine gunners were not happy about having to go into the
fight because they had already been in the field for six or seven months
and had seen a lot of action, but they still went up and Anderson believes
the two machine gunners were a key piece of the battle (01:00:17:00)
Both gunners were meticulous about keeping not only their machine guns
but their ammunition clean, while other gunners were not (01:00:42:00)
�
o The soldiers also had to pass ammunition from Anderson’s platoon to the other
platoons because they were in the jungle and the platoons could not be re-supplied
with ammunition from the air (01:00:58:00)
It eventually became nerve-wracking because not only did the two
platoons in the fight not have much ammunition, but neither did
Anderson’s platoon (01:01:08:00)
o The fight continued until late in the afternoon before the soldiers had to set up a
base camp (01:01:24:00)
o The next morning, Anderson’s platoon was the least beat up, so they had to lead
the company back to the firebase, which was nerve-wracking as well because the
area had been so well worked over by artillery and air strikes that it looked like a
tornado had moved through; intermixed with the destroyed jungle were human
body parts and bloody bandages (01:01:38:00)
Although the soldiers were hit bad, Anderson believes the enemy was hit
worse and they were now gone, of course (01:02:49:00)
The purpose of that particular mission was to move into the area and assess what the
attacks had done and they ended up getting ambushed (01:03:24:00)
o Overall, the company’s mission was to aggressively and actively patrol to find the
enemy, and if successful, destroy him (01:03:56:00)
o When they were in the area, the company was fortunate because there was not a
system of enemy tunnels; there were bunkers and the major battle was against a
small series of bunkers (01:04:21:00)
o The North Vietnamese were excellent soldiers and had been fighting for twenty
years, meaning their camouflaging ability was excellent; there were times the
soldiers would step, look down, and they would be standing directly in front of a
bunker, which happened to Anderson a couple of different times (01:04:57:00)
Anderson would be fourth in the column when he found the bunker, which
meant three other soldiers did not see it and in those situations, the bunker
was not occupied (01:05:19:00)
o By the time of the six hour fight, Anderson had been in country for three weeks
and he had a much better understanding of what was going on (01:05:43:00)
Eventually, another new lieutenant joined the company and Anderson was
happy to see him because it meant Anderson was no longer the dumbest
lieutenant in the company (01:05:53:00)
However, the lieutenant had only been in the company for a couple of
weeks before the fight began but he still did a marvelous job in handling
the situation; Anderson wonders what would have happened if the roles
were reversed and he had been in the fight (01:06:07:00)
The lieutenant’s point man spotted the NVA claymore and was able to
alert the lieutenant, who in turn alerted the captain so that by the time the
enemy detonated the claymore, there was no one around to be seriously
wounded in the explosion (01:06:19:00)
The most powerful weapons in the platoon were the M-60 machine guns and when the
soldiers found an enemy bunker, if it was occupied, then they tried to get as much
firepower against it was they could (01:06:58:00)
�
o Once the soldiers managed the suppress whatever the enemy was trying to do to
them, if they could, then they wanted to pull back so they could use explosives
against the bunker (01:07:18:00)
o If they were using artillery against a bunker, under normal circumstances, the
soldiers were working with another group of soldiers, normally a forward
observer for the artillery unit, and as Anderson recalls, the soldiers could not get
artillery fire closer than six hundred meters unless they were in direct contact;
then, the fire had to be danger close rules (01:07:38:00)
However, the vast majority of engagements were twenty-five meters or
less and although he had great confidence in the artillery, Anderson would
never call artillery fire that close unless it was a last resort (01:08:10:00)
There were situations that called for fire that close but only as the last
resort for the soldiers (01:08:43:00)
Anderson was a platoon leader from October 1969 until the middle of February 1970,
after which he was removed from the field and given a rear job as a reward for doing
good work in the field (01:08:51:00)
o The rear job Anderson received out the be the most miserable job Anderson ever
had in his life; while in the base camp, Anderson was in charge of one quarter of
the base camp’s defense (01:09:29:00)
At the time, Anderson was still as lieutenant while the three other men in
charge of the other sections were all captains (01:09:42:00)
They gave Anderson two other soldiers to work with and all three ended
up working what seemed twenty-one hours a day; the three had to make
sure the trip flares were out, all the defenses were set, etc. and they did not
have any help (01:09:50:00)
To make it worse, Anderson had to report to the most obnoxious
lieutenant colonel that ever wore a silver oak leaf (01:10:13:00)
Anderson and his men had to report to the lieutenant colonel every
day and he wanted to know all the minute details of what the
defenses were and it eventually reached the point that it was too
much for Anderson (01:10:26:00)
Anderson worked extremely hard every day but the work did not seem to
make any large contribution; if he needed supplies, Anderson did not
know where to go or what to do while the captains, who had many more
years of service, knew what to do and where to go (01:10:40:00)
o The job lasted for about three weeks before Anderson was called to the battalion
headquarters to talk with the battalion XO, a major, who said he had both good
news and bad news for Anderson (01:11:07:00)
The major said that he knew Anderson and the lieutenant colonel were not
getting along although Anderson was working hard, so Anderson was
going back into the field (01:11:42:00)
Anderson said that he only had one question and when the major asked
what it was, Anderson asked if this was going to negatively affect his
officer efficiency report and the major said no (01:12:18:00)
The major also said Anderson was not going back to Alpha Company but
was going to Charlie Company, something Anderson was not enthused
�
about; when Anderson asked if he had to go to Charlie Company, the
major said he did (01:12:38:00)
o When he received the news, part of Anderson felt good he was out of the job in
the rear but part felt bad because he had to go to Charlie Company and begin the
process of training soldiers all over again (01:13:27:00)
The next day, Anderson reported to the firebase where Charlie Company was stationed
and when he arrived, the company CO was in the medical bunker being worked on by a
visiting dentist (01:13:52:00)
o Anderson went into the bunker to report and the CO asked if Anderson had ever
been in the field before; Anderson replied that he had been in the field with Alpha
Company for four months (01:14:11:00)
The CO assigned Anderson to lead the 3rd Platoon and after the CO told
him where the platoon was located on the fire base, Anderson went to the
platoon and introduced himself (01:14:30:00)
o When Anderson arrived, the old 3rd Platoon leader left and went back to the
battalion rear area to take over Anderson’s old job (01:15:16:00)
o After a couple of days in the field, it became clear that the CO did not fully
understand what he was doing; although he was an armor officer, he was not from
the same mold as Anderson’s CO in Alpha Company but Anderson did the best
that he could with the cards he had been dealt (01:15:43:00)
o The terrain Charlie Company operated in was similar to the terrain that Alpha
Company had operated in, with a lot of bamboo and things like that (01:16:10:00)
o There were only two times when Anderson took his boots off in the jungle, with
the first time was the night before Alpha Company had the large contact with the
enemy in November (01:16:21:00)
Firebases had what where labeled “mad minutes”, although they seldom
lasted a minute, and their purpose was to not only use up any bad
ammunition, but to also just fire around the base to try and hit anyone
trying to sneak up on the base (01:16:36:00)
That night, the company was so close to Jerry that the bullets were flying
past the men; Anderson jumped into a foxhole that happened to be full of
termites and within a matter of seconds, they were biting his feet, causing
him to jump out of the hole (01:17:10:00)
o The second time Anderson took his boots off was when he was with Charlie
Company; it was pitch black outside, Anderson took his boots off and around ten
or eleven o’clock, he heard one of his M-60s start firing (01:17:41:00)
Anderson stumbled around trying to find his boots and his glasses before
eventually making his way over the foxhole where the M-60 machine
gunner was located (01:18:15:00)
When Anderson asked what was going on, the gunner said he thought he
saw something, which caused Anderson to berate the gunner for firing the
M-60 and giving away the heavy-firepower position (01:18:22:00)
Then, a voice in the darkness said he had ordered the machine gunner to
fire and that turned out to be the company CO; Anderson told him it was a
bad idea because they were going to have to move the gun in the dark,
which was going to make a lot of noise (01:18:46:00)
�
The CO countered that there had been something, and Anderson
looked out and asked where, the CO fired his pistol, with tracer
rounds, where he thought there was a dead NVA (01:19:05:00)
Anderson could not see the body but he suggested shooting an M79 round out, so Anderson got his platoon’s M-79 grenadier, fired
a round out and said that if there was anything there, it was either
gone completely or dead from the M-79 round (01:19:43:00)
However, the CO said someone needed to go out to check, although
Anderson questioned the order because the soldiers did not know what
was out there; there might actually be someone out there, he might only be
wounded, and the CO wanted them to crawl out there (01:20:10:00)
The 1st Platoon leader, who was a friend of Anderson, eventually came up
and asked what was going on, so Anderson explained that the CO believed
there were NVA outside the perimeter, which was why the machine gun
fired, the CO wanted to go out and check if there were any bodies, and
Anderson was going to go with the CO (01:21:03:00)
The 1st Platoon leader said he would go out as well, so it was the
CO and two lieutenants who should have known better crawling
outside the perimeter, although they had let the perimeter know not
to shoot if the soldiers heard anything (01:21:45:00)
From where the gunner was to where the CO thought the enemy soldier
was located was about thirty meters but being in front of a rifle company,
there was always the possibility somebody did not receive the message
and when they heard movement outside the perimeter, they fired;
moreover, all it took was one guy shooting before the entire company
began shooting (01:22:26:00)
Eventually, Anderson told the CO it was a bad idea for the three
men to be outside the perimeter; they should return to the
perimeter and check the location in the morning (01:22:52:00)
The CO must have agreed with Anderson because the three
officers crawled back to the perimeter and when they checked the
next morning, there was no evidence of any NVA being where the
CO thought he was (01:23:28:00)
The incident with the M-60 gunner occurred in early April and on April 26th, the
company became involved in a hugely horrific firefight (01:23:54:00)
o The 1st Platoon was performing a “cloverleaf” patrol while Anderson’s third
platoon had been left behind as an ambush; however, while performing the patrol,
the 1st platoon was ambushed themselves (01:24:14:00)
o As Anderson was moving through the company’s position, the CO hurried past
him, told Anderson to take command of the perimeter because he, the CO, was
going out to kill an enemy with his knife, and Anderson said okay (01:24:23:00)
Anderson did not question what the CO was going to do because the
bravado was part of his persona and that was the last time Anderson saw
the CO alive (01:24:49:00)
�o The CO went out with the 2nd Platoon while Anderson sat in the perimeter
listening to the sounds of the enemy firing their weapons, intermittently mixed the
sounds of the 1st Platoon firing back (01:25:16:00)
o While he was commanding the perimeter, Anderson was able to hear with the CO
and the 2nd Platoon were doing but not the 1st Platoon because both their radios
had been shot (01:26:04:00)
o Eventually, there was a call from the CO and 2nd Platoon telling Anderson to
bring the 3rd Platoon out because the 2nd Platoon was pinned down; Anderson
acknowledged, saying the platoon would be out there momentarily (01:26:22:00)
Anderson yelled over to his platoon sergeant, a newly-arrived E-5, to get
the soldiers ready to move out to do what they could do (01:26:40:00)
o When the 3rd Platoon left, the final platoon in the company, 4th Platoon, stayed
behind to guard the perimeter; however, at the time, they were not a complete rifle
platoon, which was why they were staying back to guard the perimeter and they
were only to assist the rest of the company as a last resort (01:27:14:00)
o As Anderson stood up to get ready to move out, an enemy B-40 or RPG round hit
near the platoon, knocking down three or four of Anderson’s soldiers; although
the round did not knock Anderson down, a piece still hit him (01:27:41:00)
Looking around, everyone in the platoon except for five soldiers stood up,
so they got the medics over to the wounded soldiers, then proceeded to
move out and assist the other platoons, although there were then only
around fifteen soldiers in the platoon; Anderson was wounded as well but
it was a miniscule wound compared to regular wounds (01:28:01:00)
o It was easy to follow the trail the CO and the 2nd Platoon had made, although the
soldiers did not know where anyone, friendly or enemy was; however, following
the trail was the most expedient way Anderson had of finding the friendly forces
that were under attack (01:28:27:00)
o The platoon did not go very far, only around one hundred meters, and as always
happened, there was a lot of firing and then there was nothing; by the time
Anderson made it up to where the headquarters section was, the firing had
somewhat stopped (01:28:45:00)
Anderson remembers the company’s forward observer, a large man
nicknamed “Bull”, hugging the ground and looking up at Anderson, telling
him to get down; although Anderson had heard all the firing, there was
nothing happening at the moment (01:29:18:00)
o Off to Anderson’s left was a large termite mound, behind which was the radio
operator talking with the battalion, who was screaming into the radio that all the
soldiers were going to be killed; meanwhile, off to Anderson’s right, he could see
medics working on a soldier (01:29:50:00)
o Anderson then went over to the termite mound and grabbed the radio away from
the hysterical soldier; Anderson reported that he had just arrived and would
update the battalion when he figured out what was going on (01:30:29:00)
The battalion commander eventually got onto the radio and told Anderson
to update him as soon as Anderson knew anything; Anderson handed the
radio back to the soldier and ordered him to not talk on the radio or answer
any calls (01:31:10:00)
�o Then, Anderson asked the soldier where the CO was, but the soldier did not
know; Anderson thought it was weird that both the radio operator for the battalion
and the company radio operator, who was nearby, were not with the company CO,
although it was not the time to berate them (01:31:41:00)
Anderson then asked if they had any communication with the 1st Platoon
and by the amount of firing that had gone on, Anderson figured the
platoon had been wiped out (01:32:07:00)
o Anderson placed a gun team on the other side of where the medics were working,
kept the other team close to him, and told his radio operator to wait nearby while
he, Anderson, went up to find out what was going on, although in retrospect, it
was dumb because he did not take the radio operator with him (01:32:23:00)
o Anderson began crawling but he had not gotten more than ten feet when the
fighting started up again and it was more personal for Anderson because it
seemed like everyone was shooting at him (01:32:53:00)
Although he realized it was not a good situation, Anderson kept crawling,
even though he might be the only soldier out there and the enemy all
might be able to see him, as they were all shooting at him (01:33:20:00)
o Eventually, the 2nd Platoon leader low-crawled past Anderson as fast as he could;
the 2nd Platoon leader said the company CO was dead and when Anderson asked
where his platoon was, said that he did not have any idea (01:33:50:00)
When Anderson asked if he was sure the CO was dead, the platoon leader
said he had crawled right past the body (01:34:10:00)
o The platoon leader had not stopped crawling past Anderson as he told him the
news and Anderson, realizing he could not leave the platoon leader to get back
and get on the radios to report, turned around, crawled back to the termite mound
and called the battalion commander, saying they had a situation and Anderson did
not really know what was going on (01:34:26:00)
Anderson reported that the company CO was dead and as he made the
report, Anderson watched the medics work on a soldier with a sucking
chest wound, who, despite the effort of the medics, ended up dying while
Anderson was watching (01:34:38:00)
The battalion commander continued question Anderson for information
about the fight that Anderson did not know because by then, the brigade
commander had become involved (01:35:07:00)
Finally, Anderson heard the brigade commander come over the radio and
order the battalion commander to stop pressuring Anderson and allow him
to develop an understanding of the situation; the battalion commander
acknowledged and Anderson never had any more trouble from him after
that (01:35:34:00)
o As they were sitting there, one of Anderson’s machine gun teams asks if they had
any people out there; Anderson said that he did not think so and the gunner said
there was somebody running away (01:36:16:00)
Not knowing if they were friendlies or not, Anderson told the machine
gunner to watch them; then, they heard sound off to the left and it turned
out to be the remnants of the 1st Platoon, which had somehow managed to
disengage the enemy and retreat (01:36:41:00)
�
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Anderson asked the platoon leader if he had all his soldiers with him and if
there were any from the 2nd Platoon; when the platoon leader said he had
all his soldiers and the soldiers from 2nd Platoon were behind him,
Anderson told him machine gunners to fire at anything outside the
perimeter because they were the enemy (01:37:00:00)
Anderson called the battalion commander back, saying the 1st and 2nd platoons
had made it back, they had a large number of casualties, and he still did not know
the status of the company CO but he would find out (01:37:22:00)
The 1st Platoon leader was sitting behind the termite mound, huffing and puffing
because he had taken over one of his M-60 machine guns when the gunner was
wounded until the gun was destroyed (01:37:49:00)
Anderson went up and said the 2nd Platoon leader had said the CO was
dead; the platoon leader agreed and when Anderson said that they could
not leave the body out there, the platoon leader said he was not going to go
back out there (01:38:11:00)
Anderson could recover the body but the platoon leader said he
was not going out there, so Anderson said okay (01:38:42:00)
By then, the firing had stopped because what Anderson’s M-60 gunner had seen
was the enemy having enough and retreating back because by then, Anderson had
been calling in air strikes and additional support (01:38:52:00)
The 11th Armored Cavalry had been moving through the area with their
APCs and tanks and the NVA had built bunkers near to where the armor
had moved, thinking that if the soldiers went through once, then maybe
they would go through again and they could attack them (01:39:18:00)
Anderson grabbed another soldier and said they were going to check things out;
the soldier was new enough that he said okay as opposed to asking if Anderson
was nuts (01:39:47:00)
Anderson and the soldier went out about twenty-five meters and found the
body of the CO, who had been shot in the forehead; there was not any
horror to seeing the dead body but Anderson questioned where the CO’s
glasses were (01:40:03:00)
The other soldier grabbed the CO’s arms while Anderson grabbed his legs
and they carried the body back to the termite mound, where Anderson
radioed the battalion commander that they had recovered the CO’s body
and everyone was moving back to the original perimeter (01:40:43:00)
The CO had weighed around one hundred and fifty pounds, so Anderson ordered
one of the M-60 teams to give him their gun while they carried the body back to
the perimeter (01:41:24:00)
Although there was no incoming fire, there already having been lulls in
the fighting and the soldiers did not know for sure that the fighting was
over (01:42:00:00)
All the soldiers eventually made it back to the perimeter and they started the
process of medevacing the wounded out (01:42:22:00)
After the battle, the “B” Company commander had heard Anderson’s company
commander had been killed, so he grabbed his rucksack and led the company for
the rest of time the company was in Cambodia (01:43:19:00)
�
o Anderson remembers telling one of the other officers who was there that he would
never see another day like that and it was the worst day he would ever see,
although when the company arrived in Cambodia, that day would be a good day
compared to what they experienced in Cambodia (01:43:53:00)
Three days after the major firefight, when Charlie Company was back on the firebase,
Anderson’s former company, Alpha Company, got involved in similar fight, probably
with the same group of enemies, and had a lieutenant and sergeant killed (01:44:25:00)
o Typically, when a company was be beat-up, they would come back to the fire
base to “decompress” and Charlie Company was in the middle of
“decompressing” when Alpha Company got beat-up (01:44:53:00)
o They could not leave Alpha Company in the field, so they brought them back to
the firebase and told Anderson he was transferring back to Alpha Company to be
the executive officer (XO) (01:45:07:00)
The Alpha Company commander who had led the company while Anderson was there
had left in March and moved up to the battalion S-4 (01:45:30:00)
Alpha Company XO / Into Cambodia (01:46:17:00)
The job of an XO was really to just take over command of the company in a situation
where the company commander has been killed (01:46:17:00)
o The XO also had to sign to property book accounting for all the weapons and
equipment in the company; whenever Stateside, the company commander signed
for it but in a combat environment, the XO signed for it (01:46:30:00)
Whenever the company was on a firebase, Anderson would travel out to the company
every day then return to the battalion headquarters at night; it was mostly administrative
work because the company 1st Sergeant really ran the rear area and if they had a good 1st
Sergeant, then they let him do his job (01:47:06:00)
o Anderson would not necessarily call the job a promotion for good work but
someone could be a bad XO, so long as they had a good 1st Sergeant; however, if
someone was a bad XO and the had a bad 1st Sergeant, then the soldiers in the
field did not get what they needed (01:47:43:00)
o It was Anderson’s job to run interference if the 1st Sergeant ever had any issues,
although he rarely did because even lieutenants would defer to a 1st Sergeant until
the lieutenant found out if the 1st Sergeant was good or not (01:48:12:00)
The company eventually moved into Cambodia but Anderson would only go into field in
Cambodia every three days, when the company was being re-supplied (01:48:43:00)
o When the company moved into Cambodia, the brigade headquarters stayed at
their original base camp and the battalion had a tactical operations center at a
firebase in Cambodia, which was where the battalion commander would be
stationed (01:48:55:00)
o Similar to when Anderson first arrived, he would wait at the firebase until a resupply helicopter showed up, fly with it out to the company, take care of any
business he had with the company commander, then fly out when the last resupply helicopter left (01:49:25:00)
Anderson is not aware of any times a helicopter was shot at while flying
either to or from the company’s location; still, the only way to know was
if they heard a round impact or the door gunner saw tracers (01:50:02:00)
�
Anderson was fortunate because he never had to land in a “hot LZ”, when
the helicopter flew to the landing zone like an assault and the enemy was
at the LZ and engaging the soldiers (01:50:23:00)
It happened to the XOs after Anderson and the XOs before
Anderson, but never to Anderson (01:50:39:00)
o Like most people at the time, Anderson believed the discussions about the domino
theory of Communism and part of the reason the Americans went into Cambodia
was along those lines, to help the South Vietnamese in their fight against the
Communist North Vietnamese (01:51:08:00)
o All the soldiers had heard both the president and individual stories of how the
enemy would engage American soldiers then retreat across the Cambodian
border, where the Americans could, theoretically, not follow them (01:52:09:00)
After the April 26th engagement but before he rejoined Alpha Company,
Anderson was in a briefing where the officers were informed they would
be going into Cambodia, although no more than thirty miles, would stay
there for sixty days in an effort to find enemy supplies and disrupt enemy
activities and they did not know what the soldiers would find once in
Cambodia, only that they could get the soldiers on the ground and get
them out (01:52:41:00)
Charlie Company was actually supposed to be the first company to go in,
but the fight involving Alpha Company occurred and Anderson joined
them, so going into Cambodia did not affect him (01:53:22:00)
o The plan originally called to load the ARVN (South Vietnamese) forces, fly them
out to a firebase, then pick-up the American forces to flying into Cambodia;
however, someone figured the ARVN forces would run away after they reached
the firebase, so the plan was scrapped (01:53:38:00)
Instead, they took the ARVN forces into Cambodia first and the
Americans in second (01:54:01:00)
o The 1st of the 7th ended up taking a large number of casualties when they went
into Cambodia; they were definitely the hardest hit battalion in the Air Cav. and
possibly the hardest hit battalion out of all the units (01:54:11:00)
There were one hundred and fifty American soldiers killed over all the
units and Charlie Company alone lost sixteen soldiers, in just forty-five
days of combat (01:54:32:00)
o Anderson stayed as Alpha Company XO the entire time the company deployed
into Cambodia, working on administrative aspects for the company (01:54:53:00)
o The fighting the soldiers encountered in Cambodia was brutal; as determined as
the NVA forces were in South Vietnam, it seemed like they were more serious
when fighting in Cambodia because they had more to defend (01:55:09:00)
Nevertheless, while the Americans took casualties, the NVA were beaten
up pretty well in Cambodia as well (01:55:34:00)
In the years since he served, Anderson has read books about the war which have made
him more disenchanted with the war, such as a book about a former National Security
Advisor suggesting President Kennedy was considering the removal of the military
advisors from Vietnam when he was assassinated in 1963s (01:55:39:00)
�
o There was a group of soldiers that Anderson knew who died in Vietnam and it
leaves him with a sense of sadness, not only for the American soldiers who died
but also for the North Vietnamese who died; somewhere among the dead might
have been the cure for cancer and Anderson is not naïve enough to believe it
would only be an American who could come up with a cure (01:56:31:00)
Before leaving Vietnam, Anderson spent two weeks as the acting company commander
because the company commander had gone on R&R (01:57:15:00)
o A new company commander took over following the end of the Cambodian
campaign and by that time, Anderson was short time, with only about a month left
in Vietnam until he could go home (01:57:35:00)
o One time when he was out at the firebase, the company CO told Anderson that the
next time he brought supplies, bring all his equipment as well and when Anderson
asked what he meant, the company CO said he was going on R&R (01:57:50:00)
o The CO went on his R&R, Anderson was back in the field for two weeks and
within those two weeks, the company was involved in three different firefights,
although they did not have anyone wounded (01:58:01:00)
o By this time, the colonel who Anderson had had trouble with while working base
defense was now the battalion commander (01:58:21:00)
Anderson recalls doing an aerial recon with the colonel, who pointed out
where Anderson’s company would go, what they would do, and where he
wanted them to end up when they were finished (01:58:44:00)
The company operated in the field for the two weeks and on the day they
were supposed to be extracted, Anderson had the company at the spot the
colonel had drawn on his map (01:59:06:00)
The colonel eventually called Anderson to say he was circling the
location in a helicopter and to tell Anderson to pop smoke;
Anderson said the company was where the colonel had drawn on
the map and they did not hear any helicopters (01:59:13:00)
The exchange between the two went back and forth before the
colonel told Anderson to cut an LZ where he was and report to the
colonel when he got back to the base (01:59:31:00)
The company cut the LZ, extracted everyone a single helicopter at
a time and once Anderson got back to the base, he reported,
expecting the colonel to rip his head off (01:59:50:00)
However, the colonel commended Anderson on doing what the
colonel described as a perfect extraction of a rifle team from the
field (02:00:07:00)
It turned out the colonel had drawn the wrong location on Anderson’s map
but apart from saying he was at the location on his map, there was not
much Anderson could do (02:00:31:00)
A similar situation happened when Anderson had served with Alpha
Company the first time; the company CO said Anderson was in one place,
when in truth, he was in another and the two officers debated for awhile
before the CO said he would shoot a marking round (02:00:54:00)
�
The round went off right over Anderson’s head and when the CO
asked if Anderson was able to get a reading from it, Anderson said
his compass did not work when pointed straight up (02:01:14:00)
For Anderson, the jungle school he went through in Panama was useful only in that he
knew what jungle was like; the school consisted of mostly classroom training, with some
field exercises, including a night course (02:01:51:00)
o There were four lieutenants in the night course, Anderson including, and he
maintains he had neither the compass or the map but the four got horribly lost and
were out all night with mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds (02:02:12:00)
One of the lieutenants ended up losing his watch and the entire situation
was like the Four Stooges (02:02:31:00)
The next day, it seemed like the instructors had a helicopter flying
overhead calling out for the lieutenants and finally, the lieutenants
managed to make it back (02:02:40:00)
o The school helped Anderson because the weather was extremely hot, which
helped prepare him for the weather in Vietnam, although Vietnam was hotter than
Panama, and see what the terrain was like (02:02:54:00)
o The other great thing about the school was it counted against the soldiers time in
the service, so Anderson did not have to spend a full year in Vietnam, only around
eleven months (02:03:16:00)
While in-country, Anderson had very little contact with the Vietnamese (02:03:52:00)
o They did have some former North Vietnamese soldiers who had surrendered,
gone through an indoctrination program, then returned various units to serve as
Kit Carson scouts or interpreters (02:03:56:00)
Early on, when Anderson was with Alpha Company, they had one Kit
Carson scout, who ended up being wounded in the major firefight in
November, after which the company received another (02:04:32:00)
The rehabilitated scouts could have been either officers or enlisted
personnel and served in either the Viet Cong infrastructure or in the
regular NVA (02:04:51:00)
o When Anderson was the Alpha Company XO and serving in the rear, they had
Vietnamese who worked on the base, such as cleaning hooches (02:05:01:00)
o However, while Anderson was out in the field, anyone they ran across was either
trying to avoid bullets or was firing at the soldiers (02:05:16:00)
At the time, Anderson’s unit was not in a populated area but before he got
there, the company was operating in an area with a large number of
indigenous people and there was more interaction then (02:05:29:00)
o Anderson did not have much of an opinion regarding the Kit Carson scouts but it
was not so much a matter of trust (02:06:01:00)
Anderson and a scout could look at the same trail and although Anderson
would see nothing, the scout would see some indication of a large amount
of NVA movement (02:06:13:00)
Anderson did not speak Vietnamese and the soldiers did not speak fluently
English but they managed to let their feelings about the different soldiers
come through clearly (02:06:34:00)
�
The scouts were not part of the ARVNs, so he does not want to
characterize them, except to say the scouts were there and when the
soldiers found a trail, they were able to interpret how many enemy had
passed, although that told the soldiers nothing (02:06:46:00)
o On occasion, the soldiers would capture enemy intelligence and if the scout was
Vietnamese, he could generally read the documents (02:07:18:00)
On occasion, it was not always ugly for the soldiers (02:08:05:00)
o The soldiers would come back from a mission into the firebase and their 1st
Sergeant, who had been a major during the Korean War but was caught in a force
reduction following the war, have steaks for them (02:08:09:00)
One time, the company CO said Anderson was in charge of cooking the
potatoes Anderson had no idea how to cook the potatoes, other than
remembering that on occasion, his mother would boil potatoes in water
(02:08:31:00)
Anderson got a big metal canister from the artillery soldiers, cleaned it
out, filled it with water, and boiled the potatoes; it worked and Anderson
did not get yelled at by the CO (02:08:54:00)
Whenever Anderson was with Alpha Company, the morale was good throughout all three
platoons (02:09:41:00)
o Anderson believes a company’s moral was a function of several different things:
if the company had a good commander, good platoon leaders, good squad leaders
and good platoon sergeants (02:09:53:00)
If any of those were out of whack, then Anderson believes that a
company’s morale will suffer (02:10:10:00)
o When he initially got to Charlie Company, Anderson already had a preconceived
notion about the company CO and he had to try hard to keep his guard up and
only let his true emotions be know to a very small group of people, namely the
leader of the 1st Platoon (02:10:21:00)
Both men had to be careful because if the men saw that the lieutenants did
not have any respect for the company commander, then that would upset
the situation (02:10:48:00)
Another humorous incident occurred when Anderson was stationed on Firebase Compton
with Charlie Company and one day, when he was having bad bowel issues, the company
CO ordered Anderson to take his platoon on a recon patrol (02:11:11:00)
o The firebase was located at the end of an old airfield in the middle of a rubber
plantation and the soldiers could see six hundred meters in almost every direction,
so Anderson thought it would be a good opportunity to let one of his squad
leaders take the platoon out and receive some training (02:11:30:00)
The soldiers never knew when a fight might occur in which the lieutenant
and platoon sergeant were killed and one of the squad leaders would have
to take over command (02:12:09:00)
o Anderson did not receive any argument from the soldiers, although if he had, he
would have figured something else out, because they were not necessarily
concerned about the area (02:12:22:00)
o The platoon started going out and began calling in situation reports, which
Anderson monitored; the next thing Anderson knew, the CO called, asking where
�
Anderson was and when he told him, the CO said to wait and he would be right
there (02:12:37:00)
o The CO showed up a couple of minutes later and began berating Anderson, who
was trying not to throw up; when Anderson tried to explain himself, the CO said
he had ordered Anderson to lead the patrol and to get out there, so Anderson
threw the radio over his back, slung two bandoliers of ammunition over his
shoulders and began walking to where the platoon was, who he had ordered to sit
tight and set up security (02:13:04:00)
o As Anderson was walking, the platoon sergeant ran up, asking what Anderson
was doing, and when Anderson explained it, the sergeant said Anderson could not
go out there by himself (02:13:37:00)
Anderson as the platoon sergeant if he was coming with him and the
platoon sergeant said yes, so Anderson told him to get his equipment
because he was leaving (02:13:56:00)
o The two men walked out of the firebase to the platoon and when he got there,
Anderson radioed back that he had joined the platoon; the CO radioed back to
have Anderson let him know how the patrol went but the platoon ended up
staying where they were for the rest of the day (02:14:03:00)
While Anderson was in Vietnam, his father’s duty station was at Clark Air Force Base in
the Philippines, so Anderson took the R&R he received in the Philippines (02:14:52:00)
o Anderson’s father was then a lieutenant colonel and in charge of scheduling all
planes into and out of the base; he flew over on the R&R plane to Vietnam, where
Anderson and seven or eight other soldiers got on (02:15:05:00)
o The plane landed at an airfield in Manila where the other soldiers got off but
Anderson stayed on while he and his father continued to Clark, where he re-united
with his mother and sister (02:15:36:00)
Everyone else going to the Philippines did their R&R in Manila while
Clark stayed at Clark with his family (02:15:58:00)
While at the base, Anderson played golf a couple of times and went to
Subic Bay with his family (02:16:04:00)
o The R&R flight back to Vietnam from the Philippines originated at Clark, so
Anderson was able to get on there (02:16:12:00)
Post-Vietnam Service / Post-Military Life / Reflections (02:16:37:00)
Anderson left Vietnam in the middle of September 1970 and his enlist ran until March of
the following year; however, there was a slight problem in the orders he received when
he left Vietnam (02:16:37:00)
o Anderson was assigned to Fort Knox, Kentucky and the report date was Sept. 31st
but he knew he would miss that date, so he mailed a copy of the orders to his
father; his father mailed back, saying there was no Sept. 31st, so Anderson went
down to the personnel office, who changed the date to Oct. 31st (02:16:54:00)
After leaving Vietnam, Anderson went back to Kalamazoo, where his grandparents were
living, and stayed there until renting a car and driving down to Fort Knox, where he was
sent to the reception station (02:17:53:00)
o Anderson felt like a fish out of water from the beginning because he was an
infantryman at an armor base and on top of that, Anderson viewed it as they had
�
the audacity to send him to the reception station; he was at least hoping to go to a
basic training unit to teach someone else the lessons he had learned (02:18:18:00)
o Nevertheless, Anderson reported to the lieutenant colonel in charge while wearing
his uniform and all the medals he had earned, including his CIB (Combat
Infantryman Badge); however, Anderson did not have the armor school insignia
on the uniform (02:18:51:00)
Anderson stood at attention as the lieutenant colonel looked him over
before he began berating Anderson for being out of uniform and having
neither an armor or cavalry patch; the lieutenant colonel told Anderson to
have them the following Monday and be ready to work (02:19:33:00)
o Anderson saluted him and ended up driving back home to Kalamazoo; he had
gotten a hat when he was coming that had the cavalry patch on it and when he got
home, asked his grandmother if she would sew that patch and the armor insignia
on his dress uniform (02:20:11:00)
Anderson’s grandmother sewed both patches on so when Anderson
reported on Monday morning, he was in the proper uniform (02:20:46:00)
o They made Anderson a training and operations officer and a friend from OCS was
also stationed on the base, so Anderson was living with him (02:21:06:00)
o Anderson’s friend kept asking if Anderson was going to go back to school when
he got out of the service and when Anderson said he was, the friend asked if he
was not going to stay in the Army; when Anderson said he was not, the friend
suggested Anderson apply for an early out from the service so he could start his
schooling again in January (02:21:35:00)
o Anderson filled out all the necessary paperwork to get an early out from the
military, which the Army accepted; once they realized Anderson would be leaving
at the end of December, they sent him to headquarters company, where he worked
as XO, counting paper clips for the last two weeks of his enlistment (02:22:05:00)
When Anderson had graduated from OCS, he received a letter from a colonel in the
Department of the Army saying the colonel had talked with Anderson’s battalion
commander, Anderson was the type of person the Army needed, they would send him
anywhere he wanted to go etc.; all of which sounded great to Anderson because he had
only been an officer for a couple of months (02:22:50:00)
o All Anderson needed to do was say “yes” to an interview with the brigade
commander, which he did; however, the commander was busy that day, so
Anderson interviewed with the brigade XO (02:23:26:00)
o However, Anderson had not given much thought to re-enlisting until the time for
him to get out of the Army, at which point he figured that he still did not have a
college education and staying in the Army might not work for him (02:23:53:00)
Once Anderson left the military, he went right back to his education; his official last day
in the Army was Dec. 31st and they allowed him two days to travel from Fort Knox to
Kalamazoo (02:24:24:00)
o Anderson signed out of the military and went to his grandparents, while school
started either the next week or the week after, at which point Anderson went back
to Michigan State (02:24:40:00)
To get an early out, Anderson had to be accepted to some university, so he
re-applied to Michigan State while he was still in the Army (02:25:01:00)
�
o When he returned to school, Anderson had a different outlook on the idea of
studying; prior to his service, Anderson would put in the time but he was not able
to express what he had learned on test and although he did not fail any tests, he
had two consecutive terms of a 1.0 GPA (02:25:09:00)
o Anderson was re-accepted to the university unconditionally but he still had the 1.0
GPA and it took him some time to bring the GPA up to a better level
(02:25:57:00)
Going back to school for Anderson was a lot easier, partially because he
was much more mature (02:26:47:00)
o Anderson remembers there being protests in the 1970s, although Anderson does
not remember what they were protesting; Anderson remembers he and some other
students going to watch and he remembers that he and his roommate told the cops
to roll up to windows of the police cruisers where the protesters were held to
make them sweat (02:27:21:00)
o Anderson assumes people knew he was in the service because he continued
wearing his old fatigues, although he did not receive any trouble from people
about his time in the service (02:28:39:00)
o Anderson’s undergraduate degree was in General Business with an emphasis in
Management, while his masters degree was in Personnel Management
(02:29:01:00)
When he graduated with his masters degree, it was 1976, which was not a great year to
try and find a job (02:29:22:00)
o Anderson had been married for a couple of years by then and it even got to the
point that Anderson considered doing what his father had done and re-enlisting in
the military; Anderson had stayed in the IRR (Individual Readiness Reserve),
although he never had to go to meetings (02:29:37:00)
o Anderson eventually wrote to a general, saying he was ready to go back onto
active duty but he never heard back from him (02:30:10:00)
Finally, Anderson got a job with Continental Can Company; he spent a year in New
Jersey before transferring back to Grand Rapids, Michigan when the company opened a
factory there (02:30:36:00)
o Anderson stayed with the company before eventually being laid off, after which
he joined another small company in Grand Rapids, then another small company in
Zeeland, Michigan (02:30:42:00)
o Finally, Anderson joined a packaging company in Holland, Michigan but was
eventually let go from there as well (02:31:12:00)
Following his time in the service, Anderson had a lot of anger issues but until he got into
therapy, he did not know why; he always seemed to have trouble with bosses who he
viewed as incompetent and it did not take too long for a therapist to say that Anderson
was dragging around his experiences from the war and was looking at his bosses, who
may or may not have been incompetent, and comparing him to the officers Anderson had
served under (02:31:26:00)
o However, by the time he learned this, Anderson had stopped work but he wishes
he had known it long before (02:32:28:00)
�
o Many of the people who were diagnosed with PTSD were able to function
because they stuffed the PTSD down; however, the symptoms tended to rear their
heads at inopportune times (02:32:41:00)
o Anderson has been married for over thirty years, he and his wife have one child,
he never did drugs, drank, or any of the typical things associated with people who
had PTSD, although he did have the symptom of being a workaholic; as well, the
idea of telling his child what to do was imprinted on the child and that caused
some drama (02:33:14:00)
o A new concept that Anderson recently heard of in his therapy group is the concept
of Post-Traumatic Growth (02:34:27:00)
o Anderson thinks that all of the training and exposure made him a good supervisor,
although it did not make him a great employee (02:34:50:00)
Anderson was tough on his subordinates and he when has run into several
during his therapy, Anderson has apologized to them; however, almost
universally, they have said the Anderson was not as hard as Anderson
believed he was and once the soldiers figured out he had been in the
situation before, they tended to see that he was right (02:35:13:00)
Ultimately, Anderson would not trade the experience (02:36:31:00)
Anderson has been able to go to the Walter Reed Medical Center on several occasions to
see veterans of the current wars and although on some levels it makes Anderson angry
that they are putting the kids through that but it makes him sometimes feel that he is
unworthy of the benefits he is receiving from the government because not only are those
veterans going to have PTSD but they are also going to have to continue their life with a
disability (02:36:36:00)
Anderson avoided the idea of therapy for a long time because he knew there were people
who went to therapy who faked the experiences that they had; however, one day, it
dawned on him that he not only had to do the therapy for himself but he could not help
anyone else if he was only sitting on the sidelines (02:37:42:00)
o Anderson jokingly says he decided to do therapy because he wanted to stop being
a jackass and over the six years, he has seen some changes from therapy
(02:38:29:00)
Anderson is involved in a chapter for the 1st Air Cav. Association; the members meet
every month, do work out of the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans, including running
bingo on every fifth Sunday in a month (02:39:12:00)
o If the members see a veteran on the street, they stop and thank them because in a
lot of ways, the current group of veterans has it much harder because they
continue having to go back to fight (02:40:03:00)
Because Anderson has been through the benefit system and he is able to help other
veterans with the system, including men from his old company (02:40:33:00)
Anderson would not change anything from the military experience and the only thing he
would change if he could would be to understand what PTSD was thirty-five years before
(02:41:24:00)
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Veterans History Project
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. History Department
Description
An account of the resource
The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1914-
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American
Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Michigan--History, Military
Oral history
Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American
United States--History, Military
United States. Air Force
United States. Army
United States. Navy
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James
Boring, Frank
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Anderson, Bob (Interview transcript and video), 2011
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anderson, Robert
Description
An account of the resource
Bob Anderson was born in August 1948 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. While growing up, his father re-enlisted in the military, meaning Anderson and his family moved constantly, although Anderson's father stayed at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland long enough for Anderson to attend school and graduate. After graduating, Anderson attended a junior college in Mississippi and went to Michigan State University for a year before the university kicked him out for low grades. Once he left Michigan State, Anderson received his draft notice and following completion of basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia and AIT at Fort Dix, New Jersey, Anderson went back to Fort Benning to attend OCS. After completing OCS, Anderson deployed to Vietnam and joined the 1st Air Cavalry Division as a platoon leader. During his tour, Anderson served as a platoon leader, worked as part of base defense for a position and as a company executive officer. Once his tour in Vietnam ended, Anderson returned to the United States and went back to Michigan State.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Kentwood Historic Preservation Commission (Kentwood, Mich.)
WKTV
WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
United States--History, Military
Michigan--History, Military
Veterans
Video recordings
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
United States. Army
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Relation
A related resource
Veterans History Project (U.S.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-02-17
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AndersonB
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