26 24 1541 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b20e1f68e056a86f509481a1d5432528.mp4 29b634fe393834c51866420abc717433 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eb7aaf08fad28cbbddd1f3a1e31a0004.pdf 719920e1f69a592953b19969326c9dd7 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Walter Stecker (52:43) (00:20) Background Information • • • • • • • • Walter was born in Southfield township in Michigan, on a farm in 1920 His father died in 1925 when he was only five years old His family then moved to their summer home near Lake Michigan They also lived in Detroit for a while Walter spent most of the time growing up in Birmingham, Michigan He went to Cranbrook School there for four years and graduated in 1939; he then went to the Cranbrook Art Academy This school dealt mostly with post-graduate students Walter worked with Marshall Fredericks, who has work in Fredrick Meijer Gardens in Michigan (3:10) Post Graduate Work in Las Angeles • • • • • • The school he went to today produces a lot of automotive designers Walter studied Industrial Design In December of 1941 the Aircraft Industry needed help assembling aircraft Walter was asked to help instruct classes He got a job at Douglas doing aircraft work in 1942 He was deferred from the draft because of his education, but he had been expecting to be drafted and after a while they could no longer defer him (6:35) Drafted into the Navy • Walter went to boot camp in Idaho • He got sick for a while and had to switch to a different company because he was behind in training • He was quickly sent to Washington DC to the Naval Barracks • Walter went to the main Navy building with six other men, all of whom were illustrators • He got chosen to illustrate, but had to have a background check for six whole months before he could start working on the secret project (12:30) Publication • His job was to predict how many plains will be near certain islands at certain times • Only the Secretary of the State, a top admiral, and a few captains were able to see the publication • Walter was the last one to get discharged of all those who he had worked with �• He even provided presentations regarding plane locations to US Senators (15:00) Walter was Discharged on June 17th, 1946 (15:25) Work in Douglas • Here he worked with about twenty other men • They worked on technical production illustrations regarding the sub-assembly of airplanes • Walter also worked on illustrating front-landing gear • He also illustrated for Navy Fighter Dive-Bombs, or B51s • He learned a lot from architectural blue-prints (19:55) Los Angeles During the War • Walter had an apartment with two other men from school • There was not much money for food because they only made 75 cents/hour • The men worked lots of over-time; sometimes from 7:30am to 8:00pm (22:10) Military Draft Deferments • Those with more education were able to get deferred longer • Walter was finally drafted on September 24th and stated that “I was lucky to get into the Navy.” (24:05) Army Camp in Idaho • “That was a horrible place,” because it was so damp and cold • Yet while Walter was in Idaho he did meet some good friends • They had to go through a fire simulation on a ship and wear gas masks • There was also a lake with lots of row boats • Some guys were pathetic and not coordinated enough to even row boats (27:40) The Train Ride to Washington • The train made many stops along the way, probably picking up other Navy personnel • The floors got flooded somehow with some black, oily substance • Walter volunteered to serve food in the dining room, but it was a hard job with oily mess all over the floors • He was pretty sure that they never changed the dish water and refused to eat any of the food himself (31:12) Working in Naval Headquarters in Washington • Here there were many officers all over the place • There were many different departments working together • Walter ran into friends from Detroit that he had went to school with (33:25) After Being Discharged • The Navy wanted him to stay and continue to work with service men, but he went back to Michigan �• • • • He got a job in a new industrial design department at Dow Chemical Before he started working there, he met his wife in California to get married They had known each other from previously living in Birmingham They had many friends in California so they got married there instead of Michigan (43:05) A Recession in 1947 • Walter then went back to California to look for a new job • There he did free-lance work for Max Factor • He also worked for Sears • He then worked for a newspaper over-seeing art and adds; he stayed in California for 9 years (48:00) Boot camp • People came from all over and some had never even been swimming • There were many different endurance tests that involved swimming   � 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 SteckerW Title A name given to the resource Stecker, Walter (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stecker, Walter Description An account of the resource Walter Stecker was able to avoid being drafted into the services during the beginning of World War II because of his work for the aircraft industry in industrial design. He was eventually drafted into the Navy and worked on illustrations for the assembly of aircraft, blue-prints, and maps. He worked on top-secret projects and even presented some of his findings to the US Senate. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-07-02 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9caa667a2ad1b8ab9ff8005969635a2b.mp4 51154a9aa9fbff634a53fb7fab8d1b53 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/716493846c5566e4f8c0ed8d69cf41d2.pdf 3ded9dbb827eb0d00962ebc1acf33e9d PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Phillip Stebbins Jr. Peacetime Duty & Evacuation of Diplomats from Albania 44 minutes NOTE: The interview was not Time coded in a chronological order (13:10)Inspiration for Enlistment -Had worked for a pizzeria throughout high school -Decided to join the Marines after high school -Military background in the family -Father served in the military -Grandfather (who raised him) was a Marine in WWII and fought at Palau -Cousins and uncles were also in the Marines, or the Navy, or the Army (14:30)Young Marines -Was in the Young Marines (a part of the Marine Corps League organization for retired Marines) -Young Marine from the age of 8 to 18 -Won Young Marine of the Year award -Attained the rank of Sergeant Major in the Young Marines -Highest rank possible for a Young Marine -National Commander discharged him -From there went to recruiter to join the Marine Corps -Prepared by studying -History, traditions and customs, physical and mental standards (16:45)More on Pre Enlistment -Joined the Marines out of a family tradition -Dad died when he was young -Grandpa raised him -Grandpa was a Marine -Would meet with recruiter regularly -Go on runs -Go over classes -Discuss what the guidebook had in it -Learned that not everyone enters boot camp at the same level -Preparedness was based on emotional investment (19:05)Specialization -First joined as Infantry 0351 MOS -Carried 83mm rocket launcher for clearing bunkers and destroying tanks -Sub category of that is demolitions (tank busting, clearing areas) (20:05)Reenlistment -Wanted to be involved with helicopters -Applied for repair job with helicopters -Also applied for MWR (morale, welfare, and recreation) -Coordinates with civilian positions on base -Assigned to MWR �-Got to go to Greece as part of job -Helped to establish a Marine base store from scratch -Returned from Greece -Told to choose between recruiter, security, or drill instructor -Chose recruiter -Sent to San Diego for recruiter school -Deployed to New York -Witnessed the September 11th attack -Stayed on until 2002 when he was discharged (24:10)Recruit Training -Just doing what you’re told for thirteen weeks -Fleet Marines are seen as elite -Attached to 2nd Battalion 4th Marines who had just gotten back from Panama -Initially struggled to be integrated with unit -Eventually formed a lasting bond (26:30)Base Duty -Served at Camp Pendleton as a guard with 2nd Battalion 4th Marines -6 months of downtime -6 months of getting ready for deployment -6 months overseas -Cycle has been extended for Iraq and Afghanistan -Was going to go to the Naval Academy but was turned down because of tattoos -Got married and started a family -Attached to 2nd Battalion 2nd Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina on the East Coast (28:50)Serving in Albania -Boarded U.S.S. Austin in mid-1998 -Deployed to the Mediterranean Sea -Saw Spain, Italy, Turkey, Romania, Ukraine, and Russia -August of 1998 al Qaeda bombs the U.S. embassy in Kenya -Battle group splits in half -Half sent to Africa -His half is sent to Macedonia -Job was to build airstrip and secure route to U.S. embassy in Albania -Secured American diplomats’ housing -Extract Americans safely as well as defend American diplomatic territory -Albanian coup d’état was happening at this time -Condition 1: Weapons loaded and ready -Told not to retaliate or engage in combat so as to prevent escalation -American ambassador wanted to stay behind to insure diplomatic ties were maintained -Had to dig in and hope for the best (35:00)Marine Bonding -Bonds remain even in civilian life -Chose not to remain in contact with unit and regrets that -Still has bond with other marines in the civilian world -Massive social network exists composed of marines (37:05)Personal Communication While Abroad �-Stayed in touch with family and friends -Letters written -Some video tapes were sent back and forth -AT&T and the USO set up telephone network at certain areas -Internet was only rarely allowed for educational purposes -Remembers one soldier tried to pass an email through and got in trouble over it -Sundays were the days for letter writing (41:10)Recreation -Basically do the same things you would do at home (in his case skateboard) -In high risk areas you wanted to have at least a few other marines around just in case -Mostly tried food in the new countries he visited -Ice cream in Italy -Baklava in Greece -Mostly wanted to be exposed to the food and the culture (00:28)Coming Home -Family emergency as soon as they reached the theatre of operations -Flown to Heathrow airport then New York -Driven to Michigan -Afterwards went to North Carolina -Left when son was three months old, son was nine months old when he returned (03:40) Post Service-Emotionally Coping and Readjusting -Suffered anxiety upon returning home -Questioned whether relationships would be the same after being gone for so long -Hyper vigilant and over analytical -Excited to be home -Received well by the community -Lived on a Marine Corps base -Readjustment to civilian life -Sold cars for 7 years -It was easy to be a civilian because of being used to “overclocking” yourself -Day to day life changes, but mentality remains the same -Look for entrances and exits -Scope out crowds to look for suspicious activity -Knowing your terrain -There is a recurrence of vigilance and nightmares (08:25)Post Service-Working with other Veterans -Good experience meeting with other veterans -Best friend died at thirty years old -Served in several combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan as a combat medic -Participates in peer to peer support group -Benefits being brought to veterans -Support across all branches (10:20)Post Service Involvement -Wants to have a positive impact on other veterans -Part of the Marine Corps League �-Involvement in community for personal strength (11:10)More on Coping -Wartime experiences have drastically affected life -For the better and for the worse -Some things take time to get through -Learned that coping is about relearning and reframing your life -Learned important life lessons from military -Self-confidence, courage, and commitment � 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 StebbinsP1522V Title A name given to the resource Stebbins Jr, Phillip (Interview outline and video), 2013 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stebbins Jr, Phillip Description An account of the resource Phillip Stebbins Jr. is a United States Marine Corps veteran living in Michigan who served during peacetime as a demolitions expert and recruiter as well as during an evacuation of American diplomats from Albania in 1998 after a terror threat, and during unrest in Albania. He was involved with the Marines at a young age through the Young Marines and is still heavily involved with the Marines community today through involvement in the Marine Corps League. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Bouwens, Katelyn Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Marine Corps Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-05-23 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/740f72b2afd595f42fd1af5231e5dc2a.m4v a9e7a4fa83e49229d4b0acc3101b8630 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e8a1f1ac12b2aa8d47cd68365a043ad2.pdf 6fae09fa282a0f7195e56ac81fdded8b PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Flate Staples Length: 33:43 (00:15) Background Information      Flate was born on September 4, 1924 in Mississippi and moved to Michigan in 1931 His mother worked as a seamstress and had found a better job in Michigan Flate went to school through the 11th grade when he began receiving notices from the military He did not want to be drafted, so he enlisted in the Marine Corps in May of 1943 Before enlisting Flate had been working at an automobile manufacturing plant (3:00) Boot Camp  The military was segregated and Flate first noticed when he was sent to Detroit  All the Caucasian men stayed in a hotel and the black men stayed in a boarding house  Flate had gone to an integrated school in Muskegon and was not used to the discrimination  They took a train to North Carolina where they began training  They spent time doing physical work, hand-to-hand combat, weapons training, bayonet training, and going on 30 mile hikes  Flate really did not like boot camp and really hated all of his drill sergeants (6:50) Overseas  Flate left North Carolina and went to New Orleans on a Pullman train  He had only been in North Carolina for 6 weeks and in New Orleans shortly before receiving word that they would be going to the South Pacific  They left for New York and boarded and LST for a 39 day trip through the Panama Canal and to the South Pacific  They stopped in Panama for 6 days and were traveling in a convoy with Navy destroyer ships  For the trip they had nice weather through the Pacific and peaceful sailing  They also stopped in Cuba for some unknown reason, but the men were not allowed to get off of the ship (11:40) New Caledonia  Flate spent about 1 year in New Caledonia; the French had previously sent all their criminals to the island  They did not have much contact with the civilian population �  Flate got up every day at about 4 in the morning, had breakfast, and then worked on supplying the front lines He worked with the 9th Marines Platoon and got along well with most of the men there (14:10) Guadalcanal  After about a year working in New Caledonia Flate was sent to Guadalcanal  Many men were getting sick with malaria, different diseases, and having psychological problems  They had to take a lot of preventative medicine before going near the line to prevent diseases  Flate had never seen anything like the Kamikaze attacks before in his life  They were coming in from all over the place and it was hard for the Americans to even get ashore when they first arrived [more likely at Okinawa than Guadalcanal]  Flate continued working on the supplies for the front line  They never heard much news about the actual happenings on the battlefield (18:25) Okinawa  Flate was transferred to Okinawa after the bombs were dropped and the Japanese had surrendered  He worked with the Army of Occupation for 3 months and then received notice that he would be going home  It was a very beautiful island and they had some time off for swimming, recreation, baseball, and USO shows  Flate was sent back to the US on an aircraft carrier and the trip was much quicker than the original (21:30) End of Service  Overall Flate had a good experience in the Marines, but was very glad to be back in the US  He continued to face discrimination when he returned, but it was not so bad as in the deep south  Flate believes that every young man should join the service to learn respect and discipline  He had made it up to Corporal and had 20 men working under him; he reported to a sergeant  Flate got along well with the majority of the men in the service (25:50) Pacific Islands  Flate did not really face any discrimination while over in the Pacific  The Americans were not allowed to talk to or get close to the civilians �  There were not many instances of men sneaking off from camp at night because there was nothing to do and nowhere to go They were mostly remote islands without any towns to visit � 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 StaplesF Title A name given to the resource Staples, Flate (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Staples, Flate Description An account of the resource Flate Staples was born on September 4, 1924 in Mississippi and moved to Michigan in 1931 because his mother had found a better job there. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in May of 1943 when he was 18 years old and went through boot camp in North Carolina. Flate trained for only 6 weeks before he was shipped to New Caledonia on an LST. He worked on supplying the front lines in New Caledonia for about a year and was then sent to Guadalcanal to do the same. At the end of the war he was sent to Okinawa and worked with the Army of Occupation for about 3 months before he was sent back to the Unites States. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--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 2008-11-18 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/55d30aa673e2e6f555681959012b2756.pdf 58c6a5551df801e2ceae5faf434a3238 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Vietnam Era Christal Stanton (17:45) Background Information (00:30) • • • • • Born in Battle Creek, Michigan, on October 2nd 1954. (00:33) She was raised on a farm and had a little brother. (00:40) Christal was enrolled in community college before going to service. (00:55) She was interested in serving in the military because she wished to make the world a better place. (1:13) She enlisted in the Army. (1:40) Overview of Service (1:50) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • She enlisted in October of 1974. She was then sent to Alabama for 2 months of basic training. (1:53) Christal worked as a typist under a first Sergeant. (2:47) Additional training to work with mail was also given to Christal. She worked at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. (3:21) Basic training consisted of waking up at 4 AM and emphasis on following orders and discipline. (4:00) At AIT (Advanced Individual Training) the women were allowed weekend passes. (5:00) The men and the women on base were thoroughly separated. (5:45) She was assigned to Colorado Springs where she worked as a typist. She enjoyed working with officers more than the standard enlisted men. (6:41) Christal did not like the Vietnam War. (7:50) She failed to make and retain close friends in the service. (8:40) Pay phones and writing letters were the two primary forms of communication. Occasionally members of her family would visit Christal. (10:12) Te amount of communication with friends and family during basic was limited in order to sever the dependency members had on their family and friends. (11:27) Sightseeing and hiking was a common free time activity. (12:07) When the war ended there was not a lot of respect for the returning veterans. (12:56) Because she wasn’t in combat, she was received well by her family and friends. (13:28) Life after Service (15:00) • • • After her service Christal did receive her college degree. (15:04) It was evident that Christal was changed as result of her service. This made it difficult to assimilate back to her former life. (15:40) She highly valued seeing the world and the effects this had on her. (17:34) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context StantonC1398V Title A name given to the resource Stanton, Christal Gayle (Interview outline), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stanton, Christal Description An account of the resource Christal Stanton served in the U.S. Army from approximately 1974-1976 as a typist. She attended basic training in Alabama and served most of her time in the army as a typist on a base in Colorado. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Cardwell, Bailey (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-25 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/95a914b4908079138d815fe8df22c4af.mp4 aa27d4f0a2534cbe4e542bc768acab44 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/dc54fae39aafc19b066a803026de8447.pdf 1f1ecece6b17dd9416478001cb58e703 PDF Text Text Raymond Stafford (1:41:38) (00:01) Background Information • Raymond was born in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan in 1937 • His father worked at the Sault Locks and for a dredge company • Raymond is about one third Chippewa Indian and they were discriminated against where they lived • He spent a year in a hospital in Marquette, Michigan with polio when he was young • They moved to Hart, MI and his father worked at Norge in Muskegon, Michigan • Raymond had two older brothers that were in the Navy • He enlisted in the Navy in 1954 and was sent to Great Lakes Naval Academy (07: 50) Training • Raymond did a lot of marching and took classes during basic training • It was easy for him to adjust to the Navy • The majority of his company had enlisted • He got sent to Charleston, SC and was assigned to do experimental mine sweeping • Raymond was on a mine craft boat that was 30 feet long with a crew of 3 • It was very cold and the salt water was frozen on the piers • They lived on a different ship and just trained on the mine sweeper • It was too cold for him, so he put in a transfer to go to the Panama Canal Zone (18:07) Panama • Raymond got assigned to the 15th Naval HQ base • On the way down to Panama in 1955 he went to Havana, Cuba • His job on the base was on the security force and he would escort visitors • President Eisenhower came down to tour the base and Donald was a honor guard for him • Before he got down there the president of Panama was assassinated �• When he didn’t have anything to do he did maintenance and cleaned • He stayed here for a year and then moved to a base across the canal called Coco Solo • At Coco Solo he was assigned to water security • He had to check the boats going through the canal and if they were foreign, the marines had to board them • He was here for about a year and then reenlisted (26:30) SS Iowa • Raymond got sent to Norfolk, Virginia and was put on the battleship USS Iowa • A hurricane came and they had to move, but they still got hit • They didn’t lose any ships in the hurricane, but water was coming up onto the battleship • Raymond was assigned to a Personnel Officer • They went to San Juan, Puerto Rico to fire their 16 inch guns at an island • He had to help unload the ship of all its ammo in Norfolk so that it could be sent to Philadelphia to get decommissioned • While the ship was being closed down they sealed the compartments, but they did not know that Raymond and others were sleeping, so they spent half a day banging on the hatch until someone heard them (34:08) SS Galveston • Raymond was then assigned to the SS Galveston that was being built a couple piers down • The Galveston was a guided missile light cruiser built for the Talus missile • They took the ship back down to Puerto Rico for training • The crew was able to watch from the deck while the Talus missile was being fired • After the missile was fired it started to come back towards the ship, so they had to detonate it and pieces hit the deck • Raymond spent a year and a half on the Galveston (36:40) Base Duty �• He was assigned to a base in Little Creek, Virginia, where his brother was also stationed • Raymond ran a carpenter shop • When he was aboard the Galveston he went to school and made petty officer 3rd class • At Little Creek he made petty officer 2nd class (41:07) Repair Ships • Raymond was sent to be on the USS Sierra, a destroyer repair ship • He went to Guantanamo Bay in 1962 and ended up having to be on the line of ships for the Cuban Missile Crisis • Castro turned off the water to Guantanamo Bay but he did not realize they had their own water • He was then put on the USS Holland, a sub repair ship • JFK visited to watch a missile demonstration • They went to Spain on the Holland and hit a storm that lasted for 5 days • During the storm the crane cables stretched and they almost had to blow the crane off the ship with explosives to save the ship from sinking • He was in charge of the forward anchors • Raymond spent two and a half years on the Holland (52:22) Plane Guard • He was then sent to a guided missile destroyer • They did plane guard duty on the shores of Florida • One of their jobs was to help the pilots that crashed into the water while learning to take off from an air craft carrier • On their way back down to Florida they got a call to use top speed to get to New York because one of the people that was on the ship had Tuberculosis • When they got to New York they were quarantined and spent a month getting checked out • Raymond reenlisted on the Richard E. Berg and made 1st class petty officer �• He then requested to be on shore duty (58:07) Shore Duty • Raymond got transferred to the USS Orion repair ship • In 1968 he was sent to Columbus, Ohio and made Chief petty officer • It was his job to move the training center in Columbus to a new location • They trained recruits for active duty • Raymond had received a test that he had to take from DC and wasn’t told what it was, then he got news he passed and was going to be transferred (1:06:06) Training for Vietnam • He was sent to Monterey, California for a 15 week course at the Defense Language Institutes to learn Vietnamese • Raymond said the language was very hard to learn because the pitch changes in their voice • He was then sent to Camp Pendleton for survival school • Raymond was assigned with 55 other people to Survival, Evasion, and Resistance Escape school or SERE • They trained on the beach, in the mountains and in a fake POW camp • He then went to San Diego, CA to finish up his classes (1:15:14) Vietnam • Raymond was sent to Hawaii, Guam and then Saigon • He was put in charge of 35 Vietnamese and 15 Americans on a Patrol River Boat (PBR) unit • It was their job to maintain and repair the PBRs • They were put on full alert when a Vietnamese cargo boat came down the river on fire • Raymond was there in 1971 and 1972 • His father had cancer and Raymond was sent home �• He was then sent to Norfolk, Virginia for Commander of Amphibious operations Training Command (1:29:43) Retirement • Raymond had taken the test to become a chief warrant officer a couple times and passed it, but they wouldn’t accept him • He put in for his retirement from the Navy and then heard he was being considered for the chief warrant officer • Raymond tried to cancel his retirement but they said it was final; he retired in July of 73 • Raymond then started a painting repair business in Virginia where he worked until 1975 • He then moved to the Grand Rapids, Michigan area with his wife and four children • In Byron Center, Michigan he opened a rental store and continued working there for 20 years • Raymond loved the Navy and felt that it made him a stronger person � 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 StaffordR Title A name given to the resource Stafford, Raymond (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stafford, Raymond Description An account of the resource Raymond Stafford was born in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan in 1937. He enlisted in the Navy and was assigned to a mine sweep boat, but later moved down to the Panama Canal Zone to be on the security force. After that he went on the SS Iowa, the SS Galveston and the USS Sierra battleships and trained on the east coast. While he was on the USS Sierra he took part in the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1968 Raymond was sent to Columbus, Ohio and made chief petty officer. He went through the survival, evasion, resistance, and escape program and was sent to Vietnam to be in charge of a patrol boat river unit. Raymond spent 2 years in Vietnam and was sent back to the US. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-01-22 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a2e3f95bbbd7821871f4c78f00670cc4.mp4 300287ef860bea19361a1d22fdac4202 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a52bff953f5a09f84822fcf2a6694698.pdf 4900c2c72133c5d084f4cf589b8fab32 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Notes Length: 1:07:20 Darwin “Gabby” Stafford WWII Veteran United States Army; January 1945 to June 1946 Mechanized Calvary (0:00) Early years • Born in Bridgeport (by Saginaw, MI) on Oct. 1, 1917 • 7 kids in the family; 2 older, 4 younger • Mom died when Gabby was 8 years old (1:19) Before grade school • Had a Model T Ford Coupe. • Dad had vegetable stand where sold tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. (2:47) Grade school • Went to Hess school (about 1.5 miles from home) then went to Oriole, which was 2 miles away • Hess school o 1 room school house, K-8 o Stayed only 1 year and then went to Oriole school (started Oriole in 2nd grade) • Oriole school o 2 room school house • One time for Christmas, Gabby and his brothers got BB guns. While one of the neighbor girls (whom they were good friends with) was using the outhouse, Gabby and his brothers tried to hit her by aiming through the cracks in the outhouse walls. Gabby’s dad found out and broke the BB guns. (6:55) First job • When 10 years old, Dad got him a job on Frank James’ farm • Often was kept out of school to do farm work • Only went through 7th grade (9:30) Second job • At 16 years old, ran away • Got job on Gordon Reid’s farm (Farmer Frank James’ father-in-law) • Farms operated on horse power, not tractors • Worked at Reid’s for 2 years for $15/month (10:50) How got the name Gabby • At 18, went to work in Saginaw in a factory called Lufkin Rule • During his first few days while working on the press, Gabby and his co-workers got to talking • The boss chewed him out for talking but the boss didn’t know Gabby’s name (since Gabby was a new worker) and so boss called him “Gabby.” The name has stuck ever since �• Worked at Lufkin Rule for 5 years (15:54) Model A Ford Coupe • Brother backed up into ditch right in front of the house • Gabby learned to drive at 17 • Never had a tractor when growing up; all horse power (17:39) Marriage • Got married to Luella May Ward in June 1940 • Luella was one of 7 siblings • Met her in church; wife was quite religious (18:46) The pig • Shares a story about butchering a pig • Used a big black kettle, 3 feet in diameter. Would lay pig on a platform and slide the pig into the kettle (20:27) More about marriage • Luella and Gabby dated for 7 months and then got married • Had first baby May 1941 (21:40) News stories • Didn’t read too much about the current events • Remembers when Social Security began o Took money from paycheck ƒ Didn’t take much from him though because was working at Lufkin Rule for 32 cents/hour • Began working for Eaton Manufacturing in Saginaw (for 90 cents/hour) o A defense plant o Worked there for 3 years o Because worked at this plant, Gabby was deferred from the Army for a little while o Worked on a punch press, which made a valve for right airplane motors ƒ Discusses the process of making the parts (27:11) Family • In 1941 had a baby girl, in 1943 had a boy(27:24) Pearl Harbor • Working at Lufkin Rule at the time • Drafted in 1945, wife was pregnant with 3rd child • Could have gotten out of draft but duty to join army because all 5 brothers were in the service o Lost 1 brother in the war (30:40) Drafted • Drafted in 1945 • Went to Detroit and then sent to Fort Sheridan, IL • Then went to Fort Riley, KN (31:50) Fort Riley • Arrived on a troop train in uniform and began basic training • Used to go to church while at camp; one day when leaving church, saw a billfold on the sidewalk with $2 in it. Called the phone number found in the billfold and the man who answered the phone said it was his daughters who had lost it when �leaving Sunday school. When arrived at the church to retrieve the billfold, saw that Gabby was a soldier and the man invited Gabby for dinner. The man was a chicken farmer and Gabby had the best dinner: chicken with strawberry shortcake for dessert. (33:54) Basic training and the train ride to Fort Riley • Had friend (David Ross) from Birch Run; tried to stick together but Ross ended up in the Horse Calvary and Gabby ended up in Mechanized Calvary o Mechanized Calvary ƒ Did a lot of marching, drove armored cars, practiced shooting, etc. • On way to Fort Riley from Fort Sheridan, Gabby and 3 buddies were playing euchre on the train. A Sergeant came in and asked for 4 volunteers. No one in the car volunteered and so the Sergeant volunteered Gabby and his 3 buddies. Ended up being was one of the best situations because got to work in the kitchen. • Trains were from WWI ; steam powered o Tunnels were very dirty to ride through (39:23) California • Sent to Fort Ord for 2 days then sent to Camp Cook o His outfit was preparing to go to Japan • In between the Fort Ord and Camp Cook, got a 10 day leave o On Gabby’s way home, Japan surrendered o Very glad to see wife and family (40:58) Service • When drafted, Gabby’s dad died and so used up emergency leave to go to the funeral; because of this, was unable to make it home for his third child’s birth o All kids are 2 years apart (41:29) The end of WWII • Had to go back to CA for discharge papers o Told a fib; said that had transportation to get home from CA because the US government would pay 5 cents/mile to get back home if the soldier had his own transportation; Gabby actually hitchhiked home • When in the service, Gabby’s wife moved in with her sister; his wife bought the groceries and her sister furnished the house • Grocery bill totaled $300 o Gabby told the grocery man that if his wife needed anything to let her have it; Gabby said that he would pay the bill when he got out of the service; Gabby used his pay from the service and his travel pay to pay for the grocery bill • Went back to work for Eaton for 3 months and then was laid off • Went back for another year, then laid off again • Swept the streets of Birch Run for a dollar a day, put siding on houses • 1946 was a hard time because the factories were all switching back to civilian production • Worked for Buick on and off • Bought a John Deere tractor and used it for his 5 acres of land • Lived in Birch Run for 45 years �(47:20) Buick • All together he worked there for 30 years • Started at $1.25/hour and when retired made $12/ hour • Became a millwright o Responsible for working/ moving equipment after production hours (53:31) Fishing story • Built a pond on property; stocked it with fish • One time when fishing with his son, caught an 18 inch catfish • Put him in the cooler with water because Gabby wanted to put the fish in his pond. Ended up driving pretty fast; police pulled him over for speeding. Gabby showed the officer his live catfish in the cooler and explained that he was trying to get home to put it in his pond. The officer let him go. (55:40) Masonry • Was deer hunting with a bunch of guys who were Masons o Asked how to become a Mason and he was given an application • Became a Mason in January 1953; became a master in 1963 • In 2003, he was a Mason for 50 years o Can still do all 3 degrees o He is also a Shriner • One of his sons is also a Mason (1:03:45) Reflection on life • Very blessed • Had a good wife who raised 5 sons and 1 daughter • Has 17 grandchildren, 32 great-grandchildren, and 1 great-great grandchild • Lives in Masonic Lodge • Still goes to church every Sunday � 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 StaffordD Title A name given to the resource Stafford, Darwin F. (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stafford, Darwin F. Description An account of the resource Darwin "Gabby" Stafford served in the United States Army during WW II in the Mechanized Calvary from January 1945 to June 1946 in Kansas and California. In this interview, Gabby discusses life on a farm during the Depression and the first time Social Security was introduced. He shares stories of his time in the Army including one about being treated to dinner at a chicken farm as a reward for returning a wallet, and being "volunteered" for kitchen duty while on the train to Fort Riles, Kansas. Gabby was a Mason for over 50 years. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) Video recordings United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-05-15 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d30367acc1e1accace678338ebdf45e6.mp4 21875791cd4ff69a996e7d98bcc0c32e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8b17ae8540aaddf80fe57709c690ffb9.pdf 082809c69619a007802ac8be428fbe70 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Vietnam Wayne Spruill Total Time – (01:09:55) Background • • • • • He was born in Cleveland, Mississippi on August 13, 1949 (00:28) His father worked on a farm and his mother worked in a factory (00:42) He graduated from a county high school in Mississippi After he graduated, he worked on a farm for two years (01:04) o He decided that farming is not what he wanted to do, so he joined the Army He would watch the news and decided that enlisting was the right thing to do (01:20) Enlistment/Training – (01:26) • • • • • • • • • • • • He went to basic training and AIT [advanced individual training] in Fort Polk, Louisiana (01:28) When he joined the Army, he believed it looked good on television (01:48) Before he decided to enlist, he did not know anyone that had been in the war o His knowledge was based off of the television He was unsatisfied with life before he joined (02:43) His father was a World War II veteran o His father did not want him to go to Vietnam He enlisted for two years (03:19) In Fort Polk, his first impression was that it was hell (03:48) o He was wondering why he joined (03:55) Basic training lasted eight weeks long o In basic, soldiers learned the techniques of map reading, breaking down guns, a lot of physical training, etc. (04:27) o The physical training was not much of a problem for him His platoon was from all over the country (05:11) Nearly everyone in his platoon were draftees (05:31) o They griped and complained – but they got through training None of the men in his group had to leave training He was assigned his MOS at graduation (Military Occupational Specialty) (06:11) �• • • • • • • • • • • • o He was designated to be in the 11 Bravo (Infantry) (06:18) He had wanted to be in the infantry (07:13) Many of the drill instructors in training were Vietnam veterans (07:47) o They would tell the soldiers that they need to learn all that they can very fast When he graduated from basic training, he was taken to Tigerland [the area of Fort Polk that included a simulated Vietnam environment] (08:19) In Tigerland, he received his AIT training Many of the soldiers in his AIT training were from different basic training bases (09:06) There were roughly twenty-five soldiers in every platoon o There were more in the training platoons than there were in the platoons in Vietnam AIT was more relaxed and they were given more freedom (09:49) The training was nearly the same as basic training o There was more emphasis on weapons training (10:15) o He trained on the M14, M16, and M79 (10:26) o They trained on machine guns as well o He got to throw one hand grenade in AIT (11:05) He spent nearly two weeks on field maneuvers (11:24) o There were land navigation courses as well o The soldiers spent some time training on radios (11:45) AIT training lasted from April-June of 1969 After AIT, he received his orders for Vietnam (13:03) o He was given two weeks of leave time before being sent out o His parents did not like him going off to war (13:20) He shipped out from Oakland, California (13:49) o He experienced some anti-war protests when he was there  He did not know that they were protesting the war – they did not have those kinds of things where he was from o He was at the replacement center in Oakland for two days (14:30) Active Duty – Delta Company – Firebase Jack - (15:00) • • • • He took a plane from Travis Air Force Base, California to Bien Hoa, Vietnam (15:05) o The plane stopped in Hawaii and Japan (15:20) When he landed in Bien Hoa, it was the middle of the afternoon (16:19) o The smell was extremely strong o As soon as they landed, there was a harassment shot near the air field Once he got off the plane, he was in a group of soldiers that were picked to go up north (17:46) They were given orders to go up north to the 101st Airborne Division �• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • o Before they left, they received more training and also received their jungle uniforms (18:25) He did not realize that the 101st was a unit that did not get many breaks when they were out in the field (19:29) He left Bien Hoa in a C130 and went to Camp Evans (20:08) At Camp Evans, the soldiers were grouped together and talked to They were then issued their weapons – he received an M16 with a grenade launcher attachment (21:02) o He was not used to walking with the bag of ammunition The first night they were sent out, they got into a firefight o After a couple of minutes, a Cobra came in and shot for nearly thirty minutes (22:44) The PT (Police Training) that he received in Bien Hoa consisted of learning booby traps, to not be a hero, etc. o He was assigned to Delta Company 2nd Battalion, 506 Regiment (24:30) When he was in the field he carried his M16 with a grenade launcher, some machine gun bullets, and ammunition rounds o He would also carry a poncho liner, toothpaste, shaving accessories, Crations, and some other personal items (26:16)  They would carry three to five days worth of C-rations o He carried roughly 80lbs. in total (27:06) He was around Camp Evans for one month in the lowlands around the camp (27:44) o His job was to patrol the area around the perimeter o He was around Camp Evans for August and September of 1969 (28:20) He redeployed into the mountains to Firebase Jack (28:50) o They stayed on Firebase Jack for roughly two weeks (29:09) The majority of troop movement came at night when they were in the lowlands In the mountains, soldiers would secure an area and do regular activities His second firefight was roughly a month after his first (30:13) When they were sent out on patrol, they would often work in platoons o They would be broken up into squads (30:41) He encountered civilians when he was in the lowland o He did not think much about them When he was in the mountains, his platoon did not make a lot of contact with the enemy (31:24) o None of the contact was very intense o The soldiers would stumble upon Vietnamese soldiers o They saw many signs of enemy activity (31:04) o They would find enemy bunker complexes (31:11) In late 1969, Delta Company found bunkers with a lot of supplies o It was a weapons cache (32:43)  The weapons would get backhauled out In the field, his squad would be resupplied once a week (33:03) �• • • o There were some days when they would have to go to one meal for the entire day o The monsoons made it difficult for helicopters to come in (33:37) o The resupplies were generally C-rations, soft drinks, toothpaste, cigarettes, soap, etc. o The soldiers would get their mail at every resupply (34:23)  He would get an average amount of mail He was with Delta Company for roughly six months The soldiers would get taken back out of the field to resupply their weapons and stand down (35:51) o The stand downs would last for one night (35:32)  Soldiers would go to get new clothes, shower, get anything fixed, etc. (35:48) When he was in the hills he did not have many experiences with the wildlife (36:33) o Leeches were a big problem for the soldiers (36:59)  The leeches would get to the size of a hotdog Active Duty – Echo Company – Firebase Ripcord – (37:43) • • • • • • • • • • After Delta Company, he was sent to Echo Company (37:52) o There were four rifle companies o Echo company consisted of heavy weapons, mortars, recon, and snipers (38:14) He made the E-5 while he was in Delta Company o When he was in Echo Company he had the same rank In order to be in Echo Company, he was sent to sniper school at Camp Evans (40:07) o Sniper school was a twenty-one day school  He did it in six days (40:19) o He shot an XM21 (41:04)  It was an experimental model of the M14 (41:09) o Sniper training was primarily marksmanship o They were also trained in camouflage and evasion (41:57) There were eleven snipers in Echo Company (42:58) o They would go out in two man teams o There was a shooter and a spotter (43:06) The pairs of men would join a company The sniper teams would work with one of the squads (44:26) When a squad would set up an ambush, the snipers would go ahead and set up The sniper teams would operate in the hills more than the lowlands (45:28) The shooting distances would be up to six hundred meters All of the soldiers would have an ammo pouch that carried two magazines for the snipers (46:38) �• • • • • • • • • • • • • • Snipers would sometimes have to use tracers to show air support where to fire The snipers would tote around a radio (48:45) He remembers having to shoot a Vietnamese soldier (49:56) o It was the first soldier that he had to shoot o He shot him in his lower half The majority of the time the snipers would have to participate in the firefights like every other soldier (50:55) o He was in very few firefights o He was off of Firebase Ripcord on July 12, 1970 – roughly two weeks before it was overrun (51:21) He worked with Delta and Alpha Company around the base of Firebase Ripcord (51:44) o He only remembers going to Ripcord two times o He was there in May and June (52:10)  The soldiers would go there to get resupplied He noticed signs of increasing amounts of enemy movements At one point, he was on a helicopter that put them down in the wrong area (54:40) o Army pilots were sent to pick the soldiers up  When the helicopters arrived, the first chopper hit a dead tree  He was going to jump out of the chopper (55:24)  The chopper landed on the skids o The soldiers had to walk back to the area again to be picked up o He was sent with a squad to go back and fix the chopper to take back to the base (57:20)  When he went back, he was given medical attention for his broken ribs from the helicopter crash (57:56) o A couple of days later, he was sick and medevaced to Da Nang, Vietnam (58:20) From Da Nang, he was transferred to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam where he stayed for two weeks (58:29) o He was then sent to the [hospital ship] USS Repose (58:37)  He stayed on the USS Repose for two weeks He lost roughly forty-five lbs. while in Vietnam (59:49) After being in the hospital, he was sent back out into the field to continue his service (01:00:00) He rejoined his company for the remaining three months (01:00:59) When Ripcord began getting bad, a lot of the soldiers got sent back into the field (01:01:44) o He stayed in the rear doing duty around Camp Evans He saw a lot of drug abuse at Camp Evans (01:02:38) o There were some that used drugs in the field (01:03:00) o Some would use drugs on ambushes Camp Evans had many racial problems (01:03:54) o The whites and blacks were polarized o One of his best friends in Delta Company was a black man  He was shot and killed two months before Ripcord (01:04:55) �• • • • • o There was not a lot going on around the camp o Mortars would sometimes hit around the camp (01:05:19) He remembers being able to hear on the radio what was going on at Firebase Ripcord (01:05:48) o He cannot imagine what it was like to actually be there The aid station was overcrowded (01:07:10) He left the field and went home through Cam Ranh Bay (01:07:49) o From Cam Ranh Bay, he went through Guam, Hawaii, and Washington o He arrived in Fort Lewis, Washington o His two years were not done (01:08:15) He finished his service at Colorado Springs, Colorado After he got out of the military he went back to Mississippi and has lived there the rest of his life (01:08:37) � 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 SpruillW1455V Title A name given to the resource Spruill, Wayne (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Spruill, Wayne Description An account of the resource Wayne Spruill was born in Cleveland, Mississippi, in 1949. He finished high school, worked for a while and then decided to enlist in the Army, and wanted to be in the infantry. He trained at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and went to Vietnam in 1969. He spent his first six months of his tour with D Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Regiment, in the 101st Airborne Division, which was operating out of Camp Evans in the northern part of South Vietnam. He then went to sniper school and was reassigned to the sniper unit in E Company of the same battalion, and spent the next several months working as a sniper attached to different companies of the battalion operating around Firebase Ripcord. He was transferred to the rear shortly before the base was abandoned and eventually rotated home and completed his enlistment in Colorado. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McGregor, Michael (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-10-04 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/03ba507f9b531a71673a933703021a04.mp4 8df0a742f24e35251e1b0bc7a98ae352 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/22ecf9b1b07a10980ea098175d756a9f.pdf 7b433ce2ce90f29f543896f2ec698eea PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Norman Spring (47:05:10) Early Life • (00:18:13)Spring was born in 1932 in Ann Arbor, MI • (00:25:21)both of his parents emigrated from Germany, both were deceased by the time of this interview; they came to the United States in the late 1920s • (00:48:26)his father was a watchmaker in an Ann Arbor jewelry store; he started his own business and worked at it for a number of years • (01:13:27)he graduated from high school in 1950, at the age of seventeen • (01:26:09)the day after graduation, he hitchhiked out West and worked at "miscellaneous" jobs during that summer • (01:35:17)he returned to Michigan by hitchhiking and got a job in a factory that may not be in business anymore [as of the time of the interview] Joining The Military • (01:47:14)the Korean War had started while he was out west; people would listen on their car radios at the overnight stop where he was working, in Browning, Montana; "you could tell there was an invasion" • (02:21:09)he went into the service in February of 1951 • (02:31:26)he had really wanted to get into the Marines, but he would have had to be in for the duration of the war, perhaps five or ten years, and he did not want that; the navy and the air force required a four-year enlistment period, and the army was three years, so he joined the army • (03:11:01)he was in the 11th Airborne Division, and went through basic training at Fort Campbell in Kentucky • (03:23:26)he was almost finished with "jump school" when his father visited him and talked him out of airborne: “once you get in you can't get out of it"; Spring quit airborne and volunteered for combat duty overseas, which required "intensive" training In Japan • (04:08:16)on the way to Korea, they stopped in Japan and thirty of them were taken off the plane and put into the military police; he spent a year and a half in Tokyo as an MP • (04:32:25)but he really wanted to go to Korea, and volunteered again and his wish was granted; he asked for a seven-day furlough before leaving, and this wish was also granted, which was out of the ordinary because they were "tight for men" • (05:10:27)he arranged to live with a Japanese family in the country so he could hunt pheasants; they spoke little English and he spoke little Japanese, but they got along well and they hired a hunting guide with "a couple of bird dogs" �On To Korea • (05:40:17)after furlough he went back to camp and got transferred to a "repo depo outfit"; the next day he was shipped to Korea • at Inch’on [South Korea] he was put into the military police again, and was there for a month • 906:34:23)he then was sent to another “repo depo,” where "you change from one place to another," and they tried to talk him out of combat, as he was an only son; but Spring insisted that he wanted to go to the front line, and he was "there that night" • he was with the Seventh Infantry, the 31st Infantry Division, as a foot soldier • he became a squad leader, and they ran night patrols • he was in the "iron triangle" area, around "Old Baldy" and "Pork Chop Hill"; this was the "main line of resistance," they were "trenched in," and they had bunkers • the enemy attacked them and they attacked the enemy • (07:51:05)the Pork Chop Hill invasion during the summer of 1953 was one of "last great battles" of the war • the 32nd Infantry Division bore the brunt of it; the 31st was next to them and got some of the "residue" (they were attacked, but not as much as the 32nd Division); the battle lasted a week • between the "moon beams ( lights on from behind) shining on ridges and mountainsides and flares from airplanes being dropped, one could read the newspaper at night The War Ends • (09:10:11)Spring thinks it was on July 25th [1953] when the commander of the outfit informed them that a truce had been signed but "they" [the North Koreans] were going to fire ammunition at the Americans all day long, and they would have to take cover • shells were fired at the Americans all day and "they just emptied their guns" • he was sitting on a mountainside with another man when a shell exploded nearby, wounding the other guy in the leg • (10:02:25)Spring himself was lucky, but he nearly got shot "numerous times," and actually was hit by shrapnel a number of times • (10:16:20)at 10 p.m. everything stopped, as if water was suddenly turned off; "lights went on on both sides of the lines," and the North Koreans talked "in American" over loudspeakers, inviting the Americans over for a party; some Americans accepted the invitation but they were court-martialed for "fraternizing with the enemy" • Coming Home (11:04:24)because they had lost so many men, transfers were delayed; Spring had thought he was going to go home immediately, and he gave away his air mattress to a friend—he had to remain there another month and a half—“sleepin’ on the ground”— before he was sent back to the US by ship �the ship was named the Marine Adder; they carried 250 repatriated American war prisoners released by North Korea back to the States � it took seventeen days to reach the US; they "went through the Golden Gate Bridge in that area" � the water was very rough and it was very hot down near the Tropic of Cancer—"everybody was sick on board," but he stayed "out of the way," on the bow [of the ship] � • (12:34:26)he was flown to Chicago and was assigned to Fort Sheridan, Illinois for still another transfer, but they lost his records, and he spent the fall there; finally he went to one of the commanders, it may have been in November, and they let him out of the service Hitchhiking Around The United States • (13:41:29)when Spring was in high school he did not hear a lot of talk, or he does not “recall it,” about a conflict with the Russians that was looming: "kids are kids, "they are doing their own thing and they really don't pay much attention to what else is going on" • (13:56:10)when he was seventeen, he took a hundred dollars and a little suitcase and hitchhiked out west— "back in those days it was okay to hitchhike" � he got to Montana in three days and worked there for a while; then he hitchhiked to Yellowstone Park with another family, but the husband and wife "bickered too much" and he caught another ride back to Lake Michigan and crossed the lake on the Milwaukee Clipper ferry • (14:53:29)next, he hitchhiked in the Upper Peninsula and stayed with a friend of his whose parent's had a place on Mackinaw Island; then he went back home Basic Training • (15:44:07)he went through basic training at Fort Campbell Kentucky, not far from Nashville--he hitchhiked to Nashville in his free time and he slept on the capitol lawn because he had no money • (16:29:19)on the first day he was there [at Fort Campbell], a major took them out to the [parachute] drop zone, and they stood and watched � guys jumping out [of a plane] were a "stick": eighteen guys on one side and eighteen on the other side of the plane, each side was a “stick” � one guy got caught on the static cord that opens the parachute as the person jumps out; he “was banging on the side of the plane” and they managed to extricate him from his situation � from the next plane the chute came down in a "Roman candle," wrapped around itself ; the guy pulled his "emergency," which came “from the front,” and it broke his back and killed him the guy landed, but he was dead • (18:26:02)the trainers were veterans "from some time" � they were "hillbillies" from the South with "deep" accents � they were dumb as crap but physically fit � Spring did not want to be "living with and working for people like that" �he had not planned on going to college, but his experience with the trainers “forced” him to change his mind; he did go to college after serving in the army, getting a BA, an MA, and "just short of a doctorate" (19:49:23)after quitting "jump school" and the 11th Airborne: infantry training was "hand to hand combat", involving the use of weapons � • Sent Into Action • (20:08:02)he took a train from Fort Campbell out to California; from there they flew to Japan, stopping at Wake Island and Hawaii to refuel � at that time, they were trying to get people "over there in a hurry" so they flew them (instead of sending them by ship) • (22:27:10)he was assigned to the Eighth Army stockade in Japan; it used to be a Japanese prison, taken over by the US during the occupation; there were Japanese war criminals in there as well as American prisoners • (22:58:03)Spring was a "prison chaser": when prisoners were transferred to "some legal situation" or to the hospital, spring escorted them, handcuffed to his left hand and he also carried a 45 pistol on his right side; transfers were made by bus or car, a chauffeured car; if a prisoner needed an operation, Spring got “dressed up” and watched the operation � the American prisoners were "our guys" who had committed crimes, including murder (24:32:07)about the [Japanese] war prisoners/criminals: "in fact a lot of them spoke English"; a Japanese vice admiral did not understand why he was considered a criminal because every time he sent a ship out it got sunk [by the Allies] • (26:22:25)how Spring got along with the Japanese, in general: he made contact with a family he stayed with for a week (see the “In Japan” section, earlier) through one of the Japanese barbers on base—he asked the barber if he could “fix” him up with a place to go hunting � the husband in the family was a WWII veteran and was “real good” to Spring (28:46:22)he traveled "quite a bit" around Japan, and he saw the bombed [in World War Two] areas; he "made a point” of traveling as much as he could, and combined it with his hunting and fishing trips; "they had rebuilt quite well" since WWII (29:26:20)Mount Fujiamo, in the middle of Japan, had a golf course on its base and only the Americans could golf on it during the occupation; he himself golfed on it once, and he had a "little freckle-faced Japanese caddy" • • • From Japan To Korea • (30:38:03)he went to an NCO club on New Year's Eve and left the next day, New Year's Day of 1953, for Korea; he was there until September or October of that year • (31:17:01)[as a squad leader] Spring took patrols out, and monitored the guys guarding the physicians in the trenches—these guys had machine guns in �• • • • • • • • • • • "apertures, bunkers," and he had to check to make sure that everything was okay and that nobody was in the trenches that was not supposed to be there; he walked around with a 45 in his hand (32:01:08)on patrol: they went out on "ambush patrols, always at nighttime"; they also had "listening patrols where they carried radios, and if the enemy came at them they would throw grenades and run back up the hill toward their bunker (32:50:04)they used communication wires "to get to their phone," and they ran a new line from the main bunker to the listening post; a "regular path" was created as a result, the enemy figured this out and shelled them with mortars � they saw the Chinese and shot at them, especially when Pork Chop Hill was attacked; one couldn't tell at nighttime who was who, between the Chinese and North Koreans, according to Spring, but they were told there were many Chinese in action against them (33:57:02)the Americans had superior weapons—Spring brought home a North Korean bolt-action rifle—the Americans had automatics; the rifle he brought back had a hammer and sickle stamped into it (35:38:17)he knew they were fighting against Russian weapons, but did not believe that the Americans would have to fight the Russians themselves (36:15:21)sometimes a big container of hot coffee was brought to the men on the front line, and they "would just dip into it" (36:37:27)their food on the front line was sea rations that "came in a box"— crackers, cans of stuff like pork and beans, cigarettes—which he gave away because he did not smoke—sometimes crackers with jam; sometimes the food was stale, of course � how they heated the canned goods: the cans had small white "heat tabs" that they lighted, three heat tabs were set down and a can put on top of them, with the lid open; they ate the food cold when the cans had no heat tabs (37:48:02)sometimes they gave the soldiers R & R--rest and recuperation: they were sent to the back of the line, they could sleep and eat as much as they wanted to, they even had ice cream to eat there (38:32:21)they were interested in what was happening "collectively"; they got the Stars & Stripes newspaper "once in a while"; Spring has some articles left from Stars & Stripes about battles they were involved in (39:28:02)during the month and a half after the war ended: they cleaned up and had "normal patrols," cleaned up the trenches (40:09:11)the ship that carried them home was the Marine Adder, a merchant marine ship not designed to be a troop ship; there were 250 repatriated American prisoners of war on the ship, but "everybody was so sick" they really did not want to talk [regarding how they had been treated, the POWs in particular]; the ship docked in California, and from there Spring came back across the country, to Illinois (41:22:07)he started college at Ypsilanti Normal now Eastern Michigan University, then transferred to Michigan State and finished there � he met his wife at Michigan State �he started out majoring in veterinary medicine, and eventually ended up in education � he got his masters wherever he “could take night classes”—he was working in Oxford (Michigan); he went back to MSU in the summers � he spent thirty-three years teaching in Michigan (42:50:06)he went to a Seventh Division reunion at Fort Mitchell in Kentucky "last June," driving down with his wife; he knew no one there, but the people there had had similar experiences � • In Retrospect • (43:23:13)he is glad he “got through it all," and thinks it was "good experience" but would not recommend it to "anybody" On The Possible Reinstatement Of The Draft In The Present [Iraq] War • (43:43:07)in Spring's opinion "they're gonna have to probably because they're just running out of men" (at the time of the interview) and "I don't think you can pay people enough to do that kind of stuff"—they have to be forced • (44:01:19)he believes that the draft can be a "good thing" if people are offered a choice of the type of service, to accommodate those who do not want to fight: there are "all kinds of service jobs" and only one out of fifty "go to the front line" • (44:40:01)he thinks that everyone, out of appreciation for their country, should spend two years in the military; he brought up the fact that there are countries in Europe that do that, also Israel Korean War Movies He Likes • (45:18:11)he watched Pork Chop Hill and thinks it was a good movie and fair; he has a paperback version of the original book, and he himself went through much of what is in there • (46:14:09)he liked the original M*A*S*H movie best: "it was so close to reality that it was unbelievable"; the one-liners made the TV series, in his opinion For The Record • (47:05:10)he went to Washington DC, where he has a friend in the Secret Service, and they [Spring and his wife] stayed at his house; the friend took them sightseeing: they saw the Korean War Memorial and went to Monticello �2003 50 t h Anniversary Korean Truce Remembered Today Norm Spring, 70, is a retired teacher from the Grand Haven school system who enjoys hunting, fishing and his family. But on July 27, 1953, he was huddled on the back side of a hill in Korea waiting an agonizing 12 hours for the truce to go into effect so the shelling would stop. I'd been on the front line in Korea since January 1, 1953. On July 27, we heard from the company commander that a truce had been signed that morning at 10 a.m. I was in the 31 s t Infantry Regiment of the 7t h Division called the Bayonet Division, and we were repairing trenches in an area adjacent to Old Baldy and Pork Chop Hill in the Iron Triangle area. Our commander came and warned us that the next 12 hours would probably be dangerous since the North Koreans might throw their remaining ammunition at us befryre the truce went into effect. He told us this had happened in the last hours of World War II. Our division moved back to a blocking posit~on approximately a quarter of a mile from the front .'line trenches. We sat on the back side of a steep hill. As predicted, shelling went on all day. Someone sitting right next to me got shrapnel in his leg ;from a cannon shell. No one in our company fired back. We just sat waiting. Finally at 10 that night the firing stopped ,as if someone had turned off a water tap. Then we saw lights coming on on both sides of the front line-truck iights, flashlights, candles and lanterns. It was a strange experience because we had worked in the dark for so many months. �· . Then some of us were surprised when we looked at the North Koreans; we hadn't known the size of their army until we sawall those lights come on. It was big. North Korean loudspeakers invited our soldiers to cross the line and join in a party. A few of our men did go over. They came back, but were court martialed afterward for fraternizing with the enemy. I thought we'd be sent home right away so I gave away my air mattress. It was an unlucky choice; it was not until the end of August that I was able to leave. The loss of men just three days prior to the 27 t h had been so heavy there was a shortage of man power. 'However, I was happy to celebrate my 21 s t birthday in the United States. Now, 50 years later, a statement I made to my hometown newspaper, the Ann Arbor News, after my return to the states seems in a way prophetic. :A reporter had asked me why there wasn't more rejoicing after the truce was signed. I told him that the settlement had been expected for a long time and besides, we feared that the fighting in Korea was not over yet. For many it didn't seem as if war had ended. � 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 SpringN Title A name given to the resource Spring, Norman A. (Interview outline, video, and papers), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Spring, Norman A. Description An account of the resource Norman Spring served in the US Army during the Korean War. He enlisted in 1951, and spent much of his time as an MP, first in Japan and then in Korea, before persuading his superiors to assign him to a combat unit. In Japan, he served as a prison guard and dealt with both American servicemen who had committed crimes while overseas and with Japanese war criminals from World War II. In Korea, he eventually joined the 31st Infantry Division and was involved in fighting near Pork Chop Hill. Normans fifty anniversary speech appended to outline. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McCauslin, Kelly (Interviewer) Spring Lake District Library (Spring Lake, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army 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 2008-01-28 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5c4e57a7e2f61788ee27b2360d47fd72.mp4 ba328e6c9050d0c5c7459305f5e9a967 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fca3dbcd03d82e9f8a1d61faebb3ff62.pdf 012ea5fc7242c1cf644cbde57c114a9d PDF Text Text Phillip Spoelstra (1:15:30) (00:05) Background Information • Phillip was born in Wyoming, Michigan in 1923 • His family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1939 • Phillip’s father was a camera man in the printing trade • He graduated from high school in 1941 and went to work with his father • In 1942 Phillip went to the armory and signed up for the Air Corps (5:30) Training • He went to Detroit, MI and then to Miami Beach, FL where he received his basic training • Phillip was then sent to Union College in Alliance, Ohio • He spent half the day at school and the other half flying • Phillip went to Yukon, Oklahoma for pilot training • He flew the BT-13, which was an open cockpit mono plane • Phillip trained for about 2 months and then decided to go into bombers instead of fighters • He was sent to Frederick, Oklahoma, where he graduated and got his wings after about 6 months • While in Frederick he had weekends off and could go into town • There were some training accidents including one death by pilot error • Phillip then went to Lincoln, NE and was assigned to a B-17 • He had to be co-pilot for testing planes that had been fixed • Phillip was moved into a combat crew in the summer of 1944 • They sent him to Norfolk, Virginia and he boarded a liberty ship for Naples, Italy (19:26) Deployment • When Phillip got to Naples it was busy and didn’t have much damage �• He was sent to Bari, Italy and then Foggia, Italy with the 5th wing of the 15th Air Force with the 97th bomb group in September of 1944 • The airstrip was dirt and would get muddy, but then they brought in steel mats • The planes that took off first had to circle and wait for everyone else to get into formation, but it evened out because the planes in the back used more gas by speeding up and slowing down to stay in formation (25:47) Missions • His first mission above Vienna had a lot of anti-aircraft fire • He flew missions to Vienna, Munich, Linz, Austria, Yugoslavia, Northern Italy, and Czechoslovakia • In March of 1945 he took a couple days off and when he got back he was told that they were going to fly an unusually long mission to hit Berlin • Phillip barely made it back from Berlin and a lot of other guys didn’t make it back at all • On one mission they dropped smaller bombs on German infantry in Northern Italy • Sometimes the Germans would fix up American planes that had crashed and use them to give away the American bombers’ location to the anti-aircraft guns • Later in the war they went on night missions to buzz towns to keep them awake and annoy them • The job of the bombers was to bomb strategic places like oilfields and railways • Some of the fighters got their guns taken off and had to do photo recon to see what the bombers hit • At the base they hired people from Foggia to help them out • Phillip took his R & R in the Isle of Capri • He was in Italy about 7 or 8 months total and the missions got easier towards the end • They didn’t get heated suits until right before the end of the war (1:02:30) War Ends • Phillip spent another month in Foggia after the war ended and there wasn’t much to do • He received a distinguished flying cross for the Berlin mission �• Phillip got transferred and knew he was going home because he had enough points • They sent him to Bari and his unit was split up • He was then sent to Casablanca and then Newfoundland • After Newfoundland they flew to Bradley Airfield, Connecticut (1:09:15) Back Home • Phillip was sent to Fort Miles Standish, MA then to Fort Campbell, Illinois • He was then sent home and found out the war in Japan had ended • Phillip went back into the printing business • He received a Bachelor’s Degree in business at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan � 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 SpoelstraP Title A name given to the resource Spoelstra, Phillip (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Spoelstra, Phillip Description An account of the resource Phillip Spoelstra was born in Wyoming, Michigan in 1923 and moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1939. He graduated high school in 1941 and joined the Air Corps in 1942. Phillip trained mostly in Oklahoma and became part of a bombers unit. He was deployed to Foggia, Italy and assigned to the 5th wing of the 15th Air Force in the 97th bomb group in September of 1944. It was their job to strategically bomb German supplies and transportation. He was in Foggia until the end of the war and then was sent home. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army. Air 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 2008 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e30158d29a3c4b79bb98208fa1c3964b.mp4 fcda23aa500e7659627cf4766cf00e22 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e7295689a2e2b3ed8ac4b4d768c51361.pdf 99cae3833528828deec412361e0f98a3 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Tanjore Splan Korean War Total Time: 1:05:00 Pre-Enlistment (0:00:40) • • • • • • • Born in September 1929 in St. Ignace, Michigan. Lived in a children’s home from age 4 until he was 11, and then went to work on a farm. Attended High School in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan. He then worked in shipping and ferries on the Great Lakes. Joined the Army at age 17. Recalls the numerous ways that the US government and Army protected the locks in Sault Ste Marie during World War II. He had his mother give her permission for him to sign up for the Army, specifically field artillery, when he was in Detroit, Michigan. Enlistment and Training (0:07:34) • • • • • • • • Was shipped from Detroit to Fort Sheridan, Illinois for induction (0:07:48) Was then sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina for basic training for 16 weeks. During basic, he was taught the fundamentals of small field artillery. During basic training, they trained for all of the jobs on the gun. (0:12:20) After basic, he joined the 82nd Airborne and was shipped to field artillery school in field artillery mechanics. He was taking classes and learning maintenance procedures for field artillery while he was there. (0:15:30) Was then shipped back to Fort Bragg where he took more training, including jump school. They trained on gliders while they were at Fort Bragg. He stayed at Fort Bragg the whole time he was in the service. Active Duty (0:21:28) • • • • (0:21:28) He was able to participate in President Truman’s Inauguration and General Pershing’s Funeral and some other events in an official capacity. They dropped bundles packed with howitzer equipment from planes for them to use. They also carried the 105mm Howitzer in gliders. They also experimented with dropping the 105mm from an airplane. Enlisted for three years, and after these years went back to finish high school. After he graduated he moved to Detroit and worked in the Auto Industry. He re-enlisted in the Army at the start of the Korean War. �• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • (0:26:20) Was inducted at Fort Knox, Kentucky and then took a train to Seattle where he loaded on a truck and rode to Vancouver, British Columbia or Washington, he was not told which, and then got on an airplane to Anchorage, Alaska. After Anchorage, he stopped over at a small air base on the Aleutians named Shemya, and then went on to Tokyo, Japan where he spent 4 days. (0:28:50) In Tokyo, they were issued field equipment and a rifle. He was assigned to C Battery of the 555th Field Artillery of the 5th Regimental Combat Team. (0:31:00) He was then loaded on a ship and sent to Korea. (0:32:10) He arrived around the same time as the Marines invaded Inchon, which gave the area he was in, the Pusan Perimeter, some relief. (0:32:48) His unit was up on the line firing and fighting. He was initially assigned as a loader. (0:34:15) He was then sent by train from Pusan to Taegu right when he landed. His unit was sent diagonally across the peninsula to Seoul, the up to Pyongyang. (0:37:08) He thought the war would be over soon when the reached the Yalu River. They reached the western end of the river, and became engaged with the Chinese. After they met the Chinese they began to retreat while firing on their pursuers. They retreated back through Pyongyang to 75 miles south of Seoul where they spent the winter. Remembers the winter being very cold. (0:45:15) They began moving up and attacking the Chinese until April, when the Chinese began their spring push. Their infantry units took the heaviest losses during this timeframe. At one point, they were attacked by the Chinese while they were in a convoy and lost 11 of their 18 howitzers. Their unit of 1300 men took around 400 casualties. (0:55:30) He was in Korea a total of 13 months and was rotated out. His unit was stationed in Hawaii before the war, and thus there were many Hawaiians in the unit. (0:58:00) To go home, he was sent on an airplane to Japan, and spent 5 days there. He was then loaded on a ship for a 21 day ship with a 1 day stopover in Hawaii. He still had time on his enlistment when he got back, so he was sent to Fort Custer, Michigan and allowed to go on leave. After leave, he was sent to Fort Lewis, Washington to train new recruits on field artillery. (1:03:40) Applied to instruct ROTC but was assigned to train National Guard troops in Alameda, California instead. He spent a year there and was then discharged. Post-Service (1:04:20) • He worked with the National Guard for 2 years after he got out, and then applied for several different law enforcement agencies. Was accepted for a position at the Alameda County Sherriff’s Department. � 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 SplanT Title A name given to the resource Splan, Tanjore (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Splan, Tanjore Description An account of the resource Tanjore Splan was born in St. Ignace, Michigan and grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He served in the Korean War. He joined the Army at age 17, and decided to specialize in filed artillery. He trained at Fort Bragg, NC where he trained for the airborne and was then shipped to Korea, where he served with the 5th Regimental Combat Team in operations against the Chinese and North Koreans throughout the Korean Peninsula from Pusan into North Korea and back in 1950 and 1951. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-06-04 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ac3b10f09f502d4104cec8bbab987f16.mp4 a3053111e16f8bd8e7af4f0a3a318524 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/14f0c0d5accf064fbf8a547bb075b340.pdf a688ebf9d09b426fc7d17828aabddb68 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Fred Spencer (01:18:48) (00:15) Background Information • • • • • • • Fred was born in Iowa in 1924 and then moved to Kalamazoo, MI in 1935 His father worked for Standard Oil, but lost his job during the Depression so they had to go on welfare In 1940, when he was 16, a lot of his friends joined the National Guard because they were expecting us to get into the war Fred enlisted in October of 1940 and after two weeks went to an old army camp in Louisiana When he joined the National Guard had not yet been mobilized It was a small training camp, they lived in tents, had no helmets, a limited amount of rifles, and some sparred with sticks They used old .30 caliber WW1 riffles, had limited vehicles, and the artillery was being used by another company (05:05) Training in Louisiana • • • • • • • • Fred had to get up very early in the morning and train in the fields Finally they began to build a permanent facility for their company at Camp Livingston, Louisiana He was in C company who were mostly from Kalamazoo and no one was over twenty years old Camp Livingston was much nicer with heated barracks, showers, kitchen, mess hall, beds, more weapons and more equipment They had M-1 rifles, mortars, machine guns and they practiced on a weapons range He served as a light machine gunner and was the squad leader in charge of machine guns and mortars All of the men in his platoon were National Guard from Kalamazoo The older men from the National guard were discharged when war was declared (11:40) Louisiana • • They were able to get off base and visit New Orleans Some friends of his bought motorcycles and they would take others with them to town �• • While in New Orleans they visited the capitol building and went to USO shows and dances The civilians were very nice and often bought them drinks at the bars (13:55) Pearl Harbor Attacked • • • • • • Fred was at Camp Livingston when the announcement was made that Pearl Harbor had been attacked It surprised him that the US got involved in the war so quickly One month later he was sent to Fort Devens in Massachusetts and assumed he would be leaving for Europe shortly He continued training in Massachusetts for a few more weeks The troops boarded a train for a five day trip to San Francisco They had to sleep in a barn [at the Cow Palace] but got to see the city (17:15) Overseas • • • • • • The troops boarded the ship USS Lurline, a converted luxury liner The ship was large with bunks and pretty good food There were also US navy passengers aboard They traveled in a convoy but went separate ways after a few days The ship went on a zig-zag course to avoid enemy submarines Many of the men were seasick for the majority of the trip (21:40) Australia • • • • • • They landed in Adelaide, Southern Australia He volunteered to help unload the ship and got to stay in town for two more weeks while the rest of the troops continued on to the city of Ipswich Fred thought the Australians were nice and they are his favorite foreign people The Australians were very tough fighters and were worried about a Japanese invasion He took a train to Brisbane and then continued training, learning about jungle survival, how to get along with the natives, and how to bribe them with tobacco He did not learn any new techniques for fighting the Japanese (26:50) New Guinea • • • They boarded the a liberty ship in October and headed for New Guinea They stayed in small two man tents near the airstrip at Port Moresby The troops dug foxholes and trenches to prepare for a possible Japanese invasion �• • • • • The hand digging was in rocky, clay ground At night they were bombed by the Japanese and many were injured but no one in his company was killed He volunteered to help load the plane that delivered rations to other units on the island Fred learned about some of the planes and got to ride in a DC-3, a small two engine plane They flew from Port Moresby over the mountains to a small airstrip (32:00) Buna • • • • • • • They hiked through the jungle and into the mountains The nights were cold, there was tons of mosquitoes, constant rain, and they didn’t have the right clothes for the weather They all got jungle rot in their feet and his took years to go away He ate coconut, sugarcane, rations, and mutton Fred gave all of his cigarettes to the natives and they helped him build a hut The troops arrived at Buna near the ocean where they built foxholes while under mortar fire They met the Australians in the jungle while they were lost and were given directions to help them avoid the Japanese while on their way back to camp (42:20) Shot by a Japanese Sniper • Fred was shot by a sniper in the trees and his friends shot the sniper after he was hit • The sniper was alone and tied to a tree which made it hard to tell where you shot them and hard to go through their things • He was shot near the right lung and the bullet came out near the his shoulder blade • Fred was brought to a make shift aid station made of bamboo sticks • There were many other men on stretchers that were dead and they thought he was dead also • When they realized he was alive they brought him to the hospital at Fort Moresby where they drained his lung • He was in the hospital for one year recuperating, which included physical therapy (50:20) Back to Australia • • • Fred was sent to a field hospital in Ipswich, Australia It was a nice hospital with many nurses, where he was able to play volleyball He contracted malaria and the medication made his skin turn yellow �• • The malaria caused him to have a high fever with shakes at the same point in the evening every day He spent one year at the hospital in Australia (52:15) Back to US • • • • He got shipped to Panama where he stayed at another hospital After one month in Panama he went to San Francisco’s 42nd general hospital for 2 months Fred then went to another veterans hospital in Wilmot, Texas Next he went to Fort Hood to work with a tank destroyer outfit and worked with the military police for three months (56:35) German POW Camp • • • • • • • • For one year Fred volunteered to guard German POWs in New Mexico He was a lieutenant in charge of one of the POW camps that had 150 prisoners 90 percent of the prisoners got along well with the American soldiers and only 10 percent caused trouble All of them were in their twenties and most worked well in the fields There were watchtowers and high barb wire fences, so no one ever tried to escape He had enough points at the end of the war to leave the POW camp Many of the Germans spoke English and he made friends with some of them He still speaks with some of the prisoners that remained in the US (01:10:50) Discharged • After his discharge Fred got married and took a train from Texas to Chicago and then Kalamazoo • He got a job working the night shift at Eaton Manufacturing repairing belts on machines for 75 cents an hour • He then joined the union and made more money and got more training • Fred was vice president of the union for eight years • He went to Western Michigan University for a few years and then went back to work • In Brazil, near San Paolo, he helped set up another manufacturing plant � 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 SpencerF Title A name given to the resource Spencer, Fred S. (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Spencer, Fred S. Description An account of the resource Fred Spencer joined the Michigan National Guard in 1940, and served in Company C, 126th Infantry Regiment, 32nd (Red Arrow) Division. His unit was mobilized in October, 1940, and he went with them to train in Louisiana. From there he was shipped to Australia and then to New Guinea in 1942. Fred was wounded by a sniper at Buna, New Guinea, and spent over a year recovering first from the wound and then from malaria. He was finally sent back to the US, where he completed his service guarding German POWs in the southwest. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-10-28 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cc9edc20a3feb7395870141a47cfe11e.mp4 4e159ae99a3d4dd502fbb785521fd490 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4c7fc194f9950a4be9221d067a391222.pdf 9c4684ea4e728af9376bd4cd0fa81f97 PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW FRED SPAULDING Born: Indianapolis, Indiana April, 1940 Resides: Indianapolis, Indiana Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project, Transcribed by: Joan Raymer, July 6, 2013 Interviewer: Can you start us off with some background on yourself? To begin with, where and when were you born? I was born In Indianapolis, Indiana in April of 1940. Interviewer: Did you grow up in Indianapolis? I was born and raised her and I‘ll probably die here. Interviewer: What kind of schools did you go to? I went to grade school at PS 78, located at Sherman Drive and Vermont Street and we called it Mini Hartman High, but then I went to Tech for two and a half years, high school, and then they changed the boundary. Originally, my house sat on the boundary line, so when they changed the boundary, then I had to go to another school, which was Howe High School, and Howe was closer anyway. I went to Howe and finished up there and graduated in 1957. 1:02 Interviewer: Now while you were growing up, what did your family do for a living? My dad was a printer and worked for the Indianapolis Star and Indianapolis Times and my mother was a housewife. Interviewer: What did you do once you finished high school? I worked for about a year and then I went in the service. I went to enlist in June of 1958 and I went to the Marine Corps where my uncle was serving in WWII. I went in to see 1 �the recruiter and he was on the telephone, sitting back with his feet up on the desk. He asked me what I wanted, I told him, and he said something like, ―Get out of here, you‘re not big enough to be a Marine. You‘re nothing but a piss ass—blah, blah, blah‖, which I didn‘t think he was serious, but he was. I went down the hall, rather to catch him around the corner, and I was walking down the hallway of the Federal building there and there was this big old master sergeant, Army, and he evidently, he had enough stripes on his arm there and must had been in WWI, WWII, and Korea. 2:08 He‘d been in all of them, and he asked me what happened and I told him and he said, ―Out there you looked like a fine specimen of manhood to me. Step right in here‖. I went in and he had all these posters all over the wall, and the one poster that jumped out was these guys coming down in parachutes and on the ground they were running and they had a very determined look on their face, and knives stuck in their boot, and their Thompson sub-machine guns. The proper thing to grab an eighteen year olds attention, you see, and he asked, ―What can I do for you?‖ I said, ―I want to be that right there‖, and across the bottom it said, ―Rangers Lead the Way‖, and he said, ―That‘s pretty good‖, so he looked at the poster and he looked back at me and he said, ―This poster right here?‖ 3:02 I said, ―Yes‖, he looked me up and down again and said, ―Wow, we have our work cut out for us now, don‘t we?‖ I had no idea what he was talking about, but years later when I retired, about six months after I retired, I received all of my files. They‘d put them on microfiche and sent me all the originals. Well, my original physical was in there. I was five foot five and weighed a hundred and twenty eight pounds. I guess I was a piss ass about that time, but anyway, it was a very good life. I went Fort Knox, Kentucky for basic training and then on down to Fort Benning, Georgia for advanced individual training, infantry. Then 2 �from there, I got on a bus with a hundred and twenty six other guys and we went to Fort Bragg. I was going to be, originally, assigned in the 504 and be a replacement because they were rotating to Germany at that time. 4:03 However, we got there late and they had already gone, so I was reassigned to 325 and we went to jump school right there, and it was five weeks long in those days. Interviewer: Now, was 325, if you go back to WWII days, was that the glider regiment? It was the glider regiment for the 82nd. Interviewer: But at this point you all get jump training? Yes, because everything was parachutes. They did away with glider, I think, in the late forties; I‘m not really sure about the dates, but sometime around there. It had something to do when the air force became, instead of Air Corps, it became the United States Air Force in September of 1947, so gliders, fixed wing-- they were kind of gone. But I was with the 325, the 1st Airborne Battle Group, Echo Company of the 1/325, and my company commander was a 1st Lieutenant by the name of Fiesher, Peter J. Fisher, which I ran into years later in Vietnam and he was a Lt. Colonel. 5:02 I was a Captain, so it was ―what goes around, comes around‖, I guess, but, anyway I had three years there. Interviewer: I’d like to go back a little bit. You said when you enlisted the man said you had the work cut out for you. What was your experience like in the various training you got, boot camp, AIT, jump school, what was that like? There‘s one thing I‘ve never been able to understand with the Army. All the skinny guys gain weight and all the fat guys lose weight and we all eat the same thing, I‘ve never been able to understand that. With my bunch there were four of us or five of us, I can‘t 3 �remember now, that they would get us up at one o‘clock in the morning, down to the mess hall and we would either eat a bowl of bananas and milk or a bowl of—those old brown plastic bowls, of mashed potatoes and milk, cold. 6:03 I got this aversion to eating mashed potatoes to this day since then. But anyway, I picked up twenty or thirty pounds. I came out of basic and going to Fort Benning, at about a hundred and forty five pounds, and when I got out of Benning and going to Fort Bragg, I was about a hundred and fifty five or a hundred and sixty pounds. Interviewer: Now, did they also put you—try to give you any extra PT, or effort to build you up, or did that just come naturally? No, that just came, it just came with it. Now, it was kind of—when I got to Bragg I was still kind of the smallest one, so I got the M-19-A, air cooled, gas operated machine gun. Interviewer: So, you got the biggest weapon? I got the biggest one, so I had to tote that baby around for when we went on jump-ins and everything else. 7:00 Being in 325 was a fortunate thing, because—it was a very fortunate thing for me because when I first went in, in the 50‘s, in the late 50‘s there was all the personnel we had in the Echo Company, all the sergeants and all the officers had already been in combat, every one of them. All my squad leaders, my platoon sergeant, first sergeant, they‘d all been to WWII and Korea. Well, some of the squad leaders hadn‘t been to WWII, but they all had been to Korea. The officers we had were all WWII. The company commander was WWII and then later on the XO, I think, he was an enlisted man in WWII and got a direct commission and went to Korea and maybe got a direct commission there, I don‘t know, but they were all combat oriented, and that‘s the way they trained you. None of this, ―Don‘t worry about it, we‘ll get it tomorrow‖, you 4 �do it right the first time. 8:01 In those days, when we went on a training exercise, it was like thirty days in the field, thirty days on maintenance, and thirty days on post support, guard duty or whatever. During those thirty days training you‘d get all your gear, go down to a green ramp, get on an airplane and fly off to places like Fort Gordon, Georgia, jump in and walk back to Fort Bragg. Take every hill, cross every stream, even if there‘s a bridge right down there, you had to cross the stream here, and like Charlie Thrasher, he was the biggest complainer we had, a great guy, everybody loved him, and they said we couldn‘t use the bridge, we had to cross over here and Charlie said, ―What do you mean we can‘t use the bridge it‘s sitting right there?‖ And he‘d walk out and jump on it, ―There‘s nothing wrong with this bridge‖, and then he‘d mumble to himself about the Army and blah, blah, blah, but anyway, he kept everybody‘s morale up with this. We had pretty good training in those days. 9:02 The sergeants would call you up to the front and give you the map and say, ―We are here because of, this or that‖ , and they would point it out and they said, ―I want to go here‖, which is three or four miles up the road, they give you the map and you had to get there. The biggest thing in the military then, well, one of the biggest things, was map reading, land navigation, if you couldn‘t get from point A to point B, you‘re not going to complete your mission, so training was quite extensive in classroom. Then you‘ve got to go out on practical application phase of it and it got to the point where even the lowest PFC could read that map, just like that, no problem, which came out years later to be very advantageous for us. 10:00 But, 325 was great, 1961 I started to get out, I came home to see what the prospects were and all my high school buddies were working at Western Electric and the Ford plant. The big thing with them was getting a six pack of beer and riding around on Friday night, and I 5 �was thinking, ―We did that in high school, what‘s the big thing here?‖ So, I went back and reenlisted and went to Korea. By this time I was a staff sergeant and I was with the 1st Cav in Korea. First off, when I got off the boat, which was a long-Interviewer: What kind of a ship did they have you on? The Barrister, the USS Barrister, it was a troop ship. I think it was designed for, like four hundred and it had eighteen hundred on it, or something, I don‘t know. 11:00 But, this old master sergeant grabbed me when we were first getting g on it said, ―You‘re going to be my sergeant of the guard for the ship‖, so that got us up here rather than down on the hold with everybody else. Interviewer: Had you actually made sergeant by this time? Yeah, I was a staff sergeant. Interviewer: Okay Yeah, anyway, we got to Korea, got off the boat and everybody of a certain height and certain weight goes over here, and this one Captain came through and first sergeant and said, ―You, I‘ll have you, and you‖ and we had no idea what it was, but what it was, we got on trucks and wound up over in Seoul at Yongsan compound and we had just become part of the United Nations Honor Guard, and did that for, gosh, two or three months. 12:00 Then we were shipped up to the 1st Cav as honor guard at Camp Harold, I believe that was. They wanted to start their honor guard so they took the youngest ones we had up there. We got up to camp and started the 1st Cavalry Division Honor Guard. Interviewer: What duties did the 1st Cavalry Honor Guard have to perform in these places? 6 �Oh well, each time we had a visiting dignitary, well, in the United Nations Honor Guard, every Friday night we had to lower the flag and fire the canon, march past in review and also there, the United Nations Honor Guard, 8th Army headquarters was right across the street and they had all the dignitaries in the world coming in and out of there, and every time there was we had a big parade, and we‘d have two or three a day sometimes, but you had to change uniforms every time, every time. 13:05 With the 1st Cav we didn‘t have much to do except on Friday nights they had the ceremony for retreat and review. Every time we had the visiting 8th Army commander come out there than we had to do the same thing again, but myself and, gosh I can‘t remember his name, but one other guy, were pulled out of there and we had orders to report to the 8th Army G3. We went down there and we had orders for Vietnam, and nobody had ever heard of Vietnam then. So, this was like November or December of 1962 and then they finally found it on the map. The map they had said Indochina, it didn‘t say anything about Vietnam. 14:00 Anyway, we finally got there and were assigned to the 42nd ARVN Ranger Parachute Battalion out of Vung Tau, and we went all night on five or six little excursions toward the Cambodian border and in the Parrot's Beak area, what they call the Parrot's Beak. If you take off from Vung Tau and go just north of Saigon and you‘re heading due west, the river runs like a horseshoe right there, and that was where we always flew over and passed one way or the other, that was like a reference point to which way they‘re going to go and if we went this way we knew we were going to be in a firefight somewhere, and if we went this way we were just going to be out walking and looking. They were all down over here, but anyway we got in several pretty good firefights. 7 �Interviewer: I want to again kind of stop and fill in a little bit. The time you spent up in Korea, would you preferred to have had an assignment other than the honor guard, or were you not even thinking about that? 15:08 I wasn‘t really thinking about it at that time, because I figured if I was staying in I was going to have plenty of opportunity to be on the line. Like I told the honor guard thing, I really would prefer to be at the DMZ, because in the infantry this is what we‘re supposed to be doing. They said, ‗Well, we want you here‖, blah, blah, blah, and like a couple of these older NCO‘s would tell me, ―You‘re going to get plenty of opportunity, don‘t you worry about that, but right now we need you here‖. Just like, set the example for the young ones and all. Interviewer: Did you learn things while being with the honor guard, in terms of how the army worked, or other things worked, or political stuff, a lot of it being useful? It was very useful because we were around the headquarters. 16:00 One of our main functions, other than the honor guard routines, were the various ceremonies you had to do. We were the body guard for the commanding General and the headquarters that was our main function up there. The same way with the United Nations Honor Guard and we were the guard that sat outside the door of the commanding General, the staff and all the headquarters there. We had to take care of all that. Interviewer: So, you basically--you got to meet people and learn something about how they operated? Oh yeah, when you‘re standing out as a guard, standing outside the door, you can hear everything that‘s going on behind you. A lot of times I was thinking, ―My God, how did 8 �he get three stars?‖ But anyway, it was very enlightening for a young man to be standing there listening to all this, because they‘re discussing war policies and everything, especially there in Korea. There were a couple times when they had the various United Nations officers in from different countries. 17:07 In the war room we‘d have to be inside the war room and outside the war room, we had guards on both sides and a lot of times I got to be inside, and that was interesting watching the maps and looking at how they‘re doing all this, and it came in pretty handy later. Interviewer: Now, when you got down to Vietnam, describe a little bit, or characterize the ARVN battalion that you were serving with. It was the 42nd ARVN Ranger Parachute Battalion and they were some tough little people. They‘d already been in combat for I don‘t know how long. Some of these guys we had, they fought against the Japanese in WWII and they had been fighting against the Vietminh, which later became the Vietcong. Interviewer: So I bet some of them served alongside the French when the French were still trying to hang on. 18:00 These we tough guys, they were little, but they were tough. But, I had 1st company and we went on this one big operation. In those days you could not be really assigned there. We were TDY from Korea, okay, we still wore out 1st Cav patches, we didn‘t wear the KMAC bag, or the VMAC patch. Our orders said TDY for a hundred and seventy nine days and the reason, the way I understood it was that, if you were assigned there, like for a year, then this strength level would go up. If you‘re there TDY the strength level would not go up, so therefore, you really, in a sense, didn‘t count against the strength level, because you‘re just TDY. 9 �Interviewer: TDY was just temporary duty or detached duty? Yeah, temporary duty, but we went on this last operation, there were five or six operations we went on. 19:03 Two of them were nothing and a couple of them were pretty good firefights, which is you‘re still learning all this, this is what your job is, and then the last one we went on, it was just a full-fledged ―ball buster‖, mainly. They had everything going, the entire battalion was out and they had another battalion somewhere, a mile or two up the road, up that way, but the bulk of my battalion was here and my 1st company was out here and there was 2nd company, 3,4, and five, and the headquarters was landed out there. Well, they went to the wrong place, I think, because they were getting hit with everything and then 2nd company went to help and they were blocking this side. 1st company, we went up this way and the tree line, the way the tree line was— I was thinking that somebody should have peppered that tree line before we went in because that‘s where all the firing was coming from. 20:09 My company went this way and we got on line, a skirmish line, and started going through. The enemy, that day, must have been asleep because they had no flank security out and we just rolled them right up. Interviewer: Now the—did you, basically, recommend the maneuver to the company commander, or did he come up with that himself? Well, yes and no, I had the radio and was talking to the battalion advisor and I‘m on the frequency and I‘m listening to all the different advisors what‘s going on where. I knew where the fire was coming from; I could see it and hear it also. I‘m thinking, ―Our best bet is to go over this way and then come this way, because if we come up this way, we‘re going to be getting fire from our own people. We need to come up this way and hit them 10 �from this flank‖. 21:01 Any time you can flank somebody and hit them with enfilade fire, that‘s the best way to go. Interviewer: I’m basically asking how command process works, because, officially, you’re just there in an advisory capacity and it’s going to be the Vietnamese officers who are giving the orders? Right Interviewer: How does that dynamic actually work? Well, I recommend pfffff, over here, but at the same time you‘re recommending you‘re pointing over and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then the interpreters firing it through. The captain and I, we could speak pretty good English, so we had no problem, so anyway, we got on line, swept through and I had our flanks out on the left just to make sure, and ―bang‘, we walked right up behind them, not a one of them was looking our way, and we just ―pffew‖. Interviewer: Now, what kind of troops were you fighting? Who were these people? Viet Minh, which, like I said, later became Viet Cong. 22:00 They had no, at that time, in the early 1960‘s, they had no hard core NVA units there, it was all Viet Minh, well, Viet Cong. Anyway, we rolled them up wherein, they were totally ineffective, and then the battalion advisor, after that, he recommended myself and the guy from the 2nd company, I never can remember his name for some reason, he recommended us for direct battle commission, which I turned down. In those days officers were held to very high esteem and I did not feel I had the education to be an officer, so when we went back in and did the after action report and the briefing, and blah, blah, blah and everything, and about a week later I‘m heading back to Korea. 23:00 I get back and back to my old 11 �duties and that kind of stuff, which I volunteered at that time to go up to the DMZ to get in rifle squad or a platoon. They said, ―No, right now we got this coming, blah, blah, blah, back and forth, and all this other stuff‖, so I got back in time for a commendation for noncommissioned officer of the year, and I went to that, which, being with the United Nations Honor Guard and hearing all the stuff that was going on, and then being in Vietnam with advisory staff and listening to how they planned all this stuff, when I got in front of the board for the NCO of the year, everything just kind of fell into place, and I was designated NCO of the year for the 1st Cavalry Division, 1963. 24:00 Anyway, after that I came back to the states and back to the 82nd. The offers back there--after about three or four months all this stuff starts catching up with you paperwork wise. They were pushing me to go to OCS, take a direct commission and all this kind of stuff and I didn‘t do that, so when I mentioned the education thing to-- the company commander called me in and asked me, ―What is the problem? You‘ve already demonstrated you know what you‘re doing on the battlefield‖, and I told him, ―I don‘t have the education‖, and he said, ―That‘s simple, go to night school‖, so I started going to night school. That was working pretty well, and after about two months the—I used to go in about a half hour to an hour early every night just to go over everything and make sure I had everything ready. Well, I went in early one evening and the professor was in there early and he said, ―I‘m glad you‘re here Sergeant Spaulding, I need to talk with you‖. 25:04 I said, ―Okay, what did I do?‖ He said, ―I think you‘re wasting your time‖, and I guess the look on my face was just—because I thought, ―My God am I that bad?‖ Anyway, he said, ―NO, no, it‘s quite obvious you‘re very well read. What I want to do is, I just want to test you out. We‘re going to give you this for two or three weeks and then 12 �we‘re going to test you out‖, so that‘s what we did and I got out of there in about seven or eight months and had my degree and applied to OCS, had my E7 orders in one hand and OCS orders in the other. If I take the OCS orders and not the E7 orders, than by buddy Tom Thornton gets the E7 stripe, which he was married and had kids and I wasn‘t, so he could have that I‘ll take this, and I went to OCS. 26:06 I graduated in June of 1967, class 3667. Interviewer: Where did you do the OCS? What did I do? Interviewer: Where did you do it? At Fort Benning Interviewer: Okay And very lucky, either that or I irritated a lot of people, or wanted to. They had a thing called Student Council President, you‘re like the acting company, you work in countenance with the tactical officers and the company commander, and I was elected Student council President, which I had no idea how to do it and I had enough problems just keeping up with the classes. Six months later I was still the Student Council President, which was, the regimental commander told us that was the first time he‘d ever seen the same person is the Student Council President in the beginning and in the end. 27:03 Most of the time they get fired or they drop out or they get kicked out or whatever, but anyway, that worked out pretty good. The 55th company class, today, we have reunions which started about three years ago, reunions all the time. One of the guys, gosh, Mike, he lives in Friday Harbor, Washington, it begins with an H, I can‘t think of his last name, but anyway, he got together with the rest of the guys when he 13 �found out that I was alive and they nominated me for the Infantry OC S Hall of Fame, so I went into the Infantry OCS Hall of Fame in 2007, I believe it was, and pretty exciting. 28:00 Interviewer: What did they emphasize or focus on in the OCS training? What were the main things? It was a lot different than it is now, back then it was infantry, and you were taught Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, Company Commander, which you get out of that and you go to infantry officers advanced course and that‘s when you learn how to be a Major and move from staff officer, plus you‘re learning like an S3 battalion, brigade, and you‘re learning all the maps and plans and your right flank is in Berlin and your left flank is in— what is that up there, somewhere in Holland? Amsterdam and then ―pfffff‖ you‘re going this way. You learn a lot of logistics, writing up orders, a lot of that, plus it‘s a tactics thing and then after that it‘s commanding staff and that‘s when you learn division at army level, and then you go to War College and you‘re looking at more of the world. 29:00 Interviewer: But at this point, this original Infantry OCS, this is sort of how to lead a platoon or how to lead a company. Platoon company mainly, but now, and that was twenty six weeks long, now days, I think, it‘s eight weeks long or ten weeks long and it‘s branch and material. You just learn how to be an officer, that‘s what it is and then you go to your branch training, like if you‘re going to go infantry, you go to the infantry basic course, if you‘re going to sea you go Fort Mott, New Jersey to seaman school, and armor you go to where ever, well actually, it‘s going to be at Fort Benning now, artillery you go somewhere else. Anyway, it‘s all basically there 14 �Interviewer: So, it’s really a pretty extended course at the time that you took it? At the time when I took it, it was twenty six weeks long and you go through various phases. You start off and you‘re basic, you get two thirds of the way through and you turn blue, there‘s black in there somewhere—you turn blue and then you graduate. 30:11 Interviewer: So, when did you graduate? 22 June, 1967, can‘t get away from this June, you know. Interviewer: Now, by this time things have heated up a lot in Vietnam, it’s no longer just some advisors and the ARVN now does a lot. Over the course of the time that you were kind of back in the states doing different assignments, did you feel like you wanted to go back and get into that? I wanted a rifle company. I wanted to be company commander of a rifle company, but backing up, before I got to OCS, I think in 1965, the 82nd Airborne Division went into the Dominican Republic. It was the second time the 82nd, as a division, went into combat since WWII. 31:00 We took the airfield and then we go down to the Duarte Bridge, go across the Duarte Bridge, took the city in half and link up with Marines who were guarding the embassy and I was selected to be the point man to go that night, because for the last year and a half I had been the senior instructor at the 82nd Airborne‘s Raider Detachment School. Which is a mini ranger course and that‘s what we taught, patrolling. So, when we got up there the 508 was supposed to be the first element across. The 508 had no one in their unit that had any combat experience, so the called the 325 up. Colonel McDonald was a first sergeant in Korea and got a battlefield commission, and he‘s now our battalion commander. He already had battlefield experience, WWII, Korea, so they made our battalion the lead battalion. 32:00 He was asking, he said, ―Who do 15 �we have?‖ And he said, ―Well, sir, we got Sergeant Spaulding, he‘s a ranger, ranger instructor, we got Sergeant Williams, he just got out of ranger school two weeks ago, we got Sergeant Blizzard, he‘s ranger qualified‖. Our company had four rangers, which is just unheard of; usually you‘re lucky if you get one per a company. So, he said, ―Alright, bring them forward‖, so we moved our company up, which is Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion 325. Had the Jeep on our end of the bridge, not a light on anywhere in the city, shooting going on everywhere, and anyway, he gave us a briefing on the bridge, ―This is the map, this is where I want you to go, this way, that way, if you come to this there‘s a fountain, turn right, etc.‖ I‘m thinking, ―Oh boy, this is going to be good‖, so when he finished the briefing he said, ―Are there any questions?‖ I said, ―Yes sir, I got one, are there any friendlies on the other side of that bridge?‖ 33:02 He said, ―No‖, and then he turned around and looked and then we turned around and looked to see, because he looked this way, and there was General York, General of the 82nd Airborne Division and the chief of Staff and the Deputy Commander. They kind of conferred and they said, ―No, there are no friendlies on the other side of the bridge, to which, and I‘ve always wanted to say this because it is the trademark of the Rangers, I said, ―Okay Williams, let‘s go‖. I said, ―Rangers lead the way. I‘ll be on the right, you stay thirty yards behind me on the left, and don‘t you dare fire across to my side of the bridge‖. So anyway, going across, Blizzard was the contact man and he was keeping his eye on Williams, and the rest of the platoon was another thirty or forty yards back behind him. We had radios and I was talking back and forth. I got one little historical fact. Like I said earlier, that was the first time that the 82nd Airborne Division went into combat since WWII. 34:06 I was the first man across the bridge, the first one through the city as an enlisted man, the 16 �very first officer was our platoon leader coming across there, it was Barry R. McCaffrey, four stars, that was four stars. Anyway, we got through the city, this way, that way, and we were coming up out of the warehouse area where there‘s no doors, no windows, all walls and we‘re kind of caught in a tunnel like here, and here‘s all this hollering going on, and here‘s about forty or fifty rebels marching, not marching, but coming across in a big mob and they were chanting all kinds of stuff and everything and I‘m getting ready to give my burst and five or six, eleven or twelve year old kids with them, and not all of them had weapons and none of the kids had weapons. 35:00 I‘m thinking, ―if we start spraying, it‘s dark, and the flash, you‘re going to get blinded and you‘re just going to spray everybody, and I was going to hit one of those kids‖. I don‘t mind shooting somebody that‘s got a weapon, but I‘m not going to shoot a kid, so I didn‘t fire, and they walked right on by. They kept looking at me and, hell, I wasn‘t fifteen feet from them. They just kept looking at me, I‘m standing there pointed right at them, and if they‘d have fired, I‘d have fired, but they didn‘t fire, they just kept looking back like, ―Is that somebody standing there?‖ They kept on going, but anyway, we went on down, across this way and that way and wound up where we were supposed to go and Colonel Mac was happy. Interviewer: So, this group kind of went past the rest of your unit presumably and kept going? No, no, they were going this way and we were going this way. Interviewer: They were going somewhere else, and you were crossing paths? Yeah, by that junction there, but, I radioed back, you know, and they only went down a couple blocks, then I radioed that in too. 36:04 Anyway, we went this way and 17 �everybody got to where we were supposed to go, and then four months, five months, something like that, we got—our company got on planes and flew back to fort Bragg. Interviewer: So, how did you spend your time over the next several months? On rooftops, sitting with 50 caliber machine guns on rooftops guarding different junctions, highways and stuff. We had to block off the city where—we pushed them in and we had the river behind them and we just kind of blocked them and then pushed them, now they‘re all trapped in there and can‘t come out. A General Camano, I believe was the rebel commander. Interviewer: Did they finally surrender? Yeah Interviewer: Was there much actual fighting? Yeah, we lost twelve. I think we had something like a hundred and fifteen, sixteen wounded, shot. 37:06 They had like a little tank, more like an armored thing and they came wheeling around and they blew that thing to pieces with a 106 and that was a bit of overkill. They had like a big gun boat going up and down the river out there firing at us, so we took a 106 round at that thing and it just disappeared, ―whoosh‖. They had a sniper up in the church steeple and we took him out and we had several on the street that we took out. Interviewer: Now, once you had essentially taken over, what was sort of the mood of the population as far as you could tell? Well, at first there were several of them that didn‘t particularly care to have us around, but once we were there, they found out that we weren‘t the villains they had been led to believe. 38:03 We gave candy to kids, we set up medics, we set up health clinics and 18 �stuff, and our doctors just started checking all the people. If you can win the kids, the parents will follow. We weren‘t there to hurt them. Interviewer: In the meantime you maintained discipline, so you were not acting like some other police, or military might have? Well, we had formations and strict platoon formations and people were watching, so the recognized that they were a highly trained, well disciplined group and not just a bunch of yo yo‘s running around shooting their guns off, so that went over fairly well. We got back and got back to being an instructor down at Ranger school and went in front of the E7 board and got that. 39:00 I went to OCS. Interviewer: Now, did you do your original Ranger training back in your first hitch when you were at Fort Bragg? Yeah, I went to Fort Benning, Georgia for Ranger school. Interviewer: That was before you had gone to Korea and Vietnam, or was it after you got back from those places? When I got back from Korea in 1963, I went straight to Ranger school. Interviewer: Okay, let’s put that into the sequence in the right place. Okay, so now you get out of OCS in like August of 1967. I went to Special Forces, I was assigned to Special Forces, well, I was assigned to Special Forces TDY in route to Okinawa. TDY to Monterey Peninsula language school, DLIWC, Defense Language Institute West Coast, and I went in there and took Korean. 40:00 I thought, ―This is going to be something, I‘m going to have to go to school to learn how to speak English‖, because Korean was a hundred percent grammatically correct and nobody I know speaks English that is grammatically correct. So, I had a lot 19 �of trouble with Korean, and we had tests every day, every week and every month during that period, and then quarterly, and all that. Then when it came down to the end of the year, you had a whole big thing, audio and video, you know, you read it write, sit there and listen and write it out, what it is. All through till the end of the year, all my tests were poor and failing, poor and failing, and I thought, ―I‘m never going to get through this thing‖, and it kind of hurt because every school I‘d ever been to, I‘d always been first or second, always. 41:01 Every military school that I‘d been to, but that was more of a physical knowledgeable thing, and this is sitting behind a desk and it just wasn‘t my day. I finally got through and just before, about a week—we‘re going to graduate in a week, but we‘re going to be taking the test, I think it was on a Thursday or Friday and then you had a long weekend to pack and clear post and all the other stuff, and then graduate the following week. Well, my father passed away, I had to hop on a plane, run home, attend the funeral and everything and then by the time I came back everybody‘s already gone, and then I‘ve got to sit down and take the test. That was a lot of fun, but when I come through, after I finished the test and I think I only missed like four or five questions on the audio and only like three or four questions on the video. 42:02 I told them, I said, ―That can‘t be right, I just‖, and he said, ―Well, no, this is the way of our way of thinking, it‘s in there somewhere, you just hit it bang, bang and it gets there‖, so anyway, I cleared the post, packed my stuff and went back to Fort Bragg and then went to SFOC, advanced Special Forces Officer Course, and then went back to Indianapolis, dropped my car off, got on a plane and went to Okinawa. I got to Okinawa and made Captain on the way. I had orders for a buddy that was in my OCS class, they already knew I was coming ,so when I got off the plane and here he is. 43:00 20 I got his order to Captain and he‘s still �standing there with his 1st Lieutenant bars on and I thought, ―This is going to be a lot of fun‖, so anyway, he said, ―My God, Captain orders, my god‖, and I said, ―I got served, pick up my bag‖, and we had a blast with him, Tom Rashcott, a wonderful guy, wonderful guy and a hell of a soldier too. Anyway, we get in the Jeep and go to headquarters and when we got there I gave his orders to the S1 and he said, ―Captain, there‘s a Colonel waiting to see you‖, so I walked in and gave him a copy of the orders and he said, ―I got your folder here‖, meaning I got your file, and he said, ―Very impressive, very impressive, I‘m going to be keeping you pretty busy‖. 44:02 We had a nice little conversation, about ten minutes and he said, ―Anything-- officers call Friday‖, blah, blah, blah, that might be a very good time for this‖, reads it and said, ― Oh, my God, the army, once again they committed a boo boo, they‘re promoting Rashcott?‖ I said, ―He‘s on the same orders as me and he was my OCS buddy at OCS‖, and he said, ―Oh my God, we‘ll make some hay with this‖, so at officers call on Friday night the officers and their wives are there and after a little socializing and all the colonel made a little speech about there had to be some changes made and certain things would not be tolerated any longer and he just—the Adjutant knew, and I knew, and I don‘t think anybody else did, but anyway, he called Tom Rashcott up. 45:03 Now, Tom has always been a little bit of a problem with his weight and the Colonel got to doing this and that with him and he said, ―Actually, Lieutenant Rashcott, you‘re just not the caliber of Lieutenants that I want in my organization‖, and he reached up and took his bars off and I thought Tom was going to die, he just watered up and choked up. He was a lifer, a career man; he was in there for life. He took his bars off and he turned around and the Adjutant hands him the Captain's bars and he said, ―I think these will work a little bit better‖, and 21 �when he put the Captain bars on Rashcott looked dead at me and said, ―You son of a bitch, I‘ll get even with you one of these days‖, but anyway, Tom was married to a really nice gal and she got sick. 46:05 I think she passed away about four years, maybe five years, after that, I‘m not sure, but he now, he‘s in a wheelchair in Blue Ridge, Virginia near Roanoke somewhere, in a small town, a wonderful guy and a hell of a soldier. On Okinawa I‘m running back and forth on ―Operation Snakebite‖, back and forth to Vietnam. Some of the guys I operated with are Bob Howard, Medal of Honor, and other great soldiers, just great guys. Finished up there and--Interviewer: What kind of work were you doing? You were going back and forth, are you just taking orders? No, we‘re going into Vietnam and Laos, back and forth across the border. 47:00 they had a thing in Da Nang, CCN, Command and Control North, and they would leave Da Nang and go in on mission. They would be in less than an hour or they would get hit when they landed, everybody knew when they were coming, so they had a spy somewhere, so they came to Okinawa and explained the situation. They asked for volunteers, so naturally, we all stepped forward. In those types of situation, the majority of times, not always, but the majority of the times, it was the single guys that would get the mission, so I was running back and forth. We would go in—we would go into Da Nang on a C130, hop over and get the last minute little briefing thing, the last intel going for that area, hop in a chopper and boom, we‘d be in at the crack of dawn. We‘d be in and the chopper would be out, and of course, the chopper would make half a dozen stops trying to confuse whoever. 48:05 We would get in, complete the mission, call for pick up and be out. There were several times—finally when they knew they had a spy in there 22 �was—we were sitting right here and we‘re looking right down the highway here, coming up this way, and we radioed in, ―such and such ready for extraction, grid coordinates such and such‖, and we sat back and waited, sat there waiting and in less than an hour here comes trucks, so there had to be a spy sitting there in that headquarters, and they kept narrowing it down, narrowing it down as to which section, which group and finally they nailed it down to who, and that‘s where I think Colonel Rowe got replaced, sent home and relieved. 49:03 About the double agent thing where they took him out in a chopper to the South China Sea and dropped him, they found him and they pfffff. Interviewer: So basically, the work you were doing in that territory was all in finding who the spy was, or did you have other missions? No, no, we were still running missions. Interviewer: Were those missions mostly reconnaissance, just trying to find out who was where? Right, reconnaissance missions, now one of the biggest things and the most stupid thing I‘s ever seen was, VMAC, General Westmoreland, it wasn‘t Westmoreland then though it was somebody else [presumably Creighton Abrams], a four star sitting down there, his staff—we went in drew it on a map--there‘s a highway down there underneath the trees and this is where it goes and the guys said, ―It‘s impossible, there‘s no road out there‖, and blah, blah, blah. 50:00 So, we went back out on another mission somewhere else, but we came back the long way and went down there, stood in the middle of the road and took pictures. While I was standing on the road I could see how big it was, taking pictures. This is facing north, this is facing south, and this is the road that doesn‘t exist, and we drew the line again on the map, and we—this time we went right down that thing 23 �taking pictures and x-ing the map where those pictures were taken. Came back, put it in an envelope and made sure the intel people got it and sent it to the General or the Colonel, whoever it was that said the road wasn‘t there, and I never heard another word about it. However, we also marked on there where the locations were that could be used for truck parks. An area was cleared out and it had to be for something. 51:00 They put them in there and later on is when bombs were dropped. Interviewer: So, we’re talking about what later came to be known as the Ho Chi Minh trail? Well, it was part of the trail, yeah. The Ho Chi Minh trail was a trail with a road, and was an egress from north to south to get them in. This is an extended version of it now, but what made it interesting is that it was Cubans that built that road, Cuban engineers. They had equipment setting there, pictures, Spanish, I don‘t know if the NVA speaks Spanish, so we got that in there and left there, ―Oh, god, let‘s see‖---we got back to Okinawa and myself and Bill Walsh, we were, ―Gotta get back to the states‖, and I thought, ―We do?‖. 52:04 Anyway, we cleared Okinawa, got a plane and flew back to Fort Benning, Georgia. What it was, Interviewer: How dangerous was the duty that you were doing, going in and out of Vietnam with the Special Forces? People get killed and people get captured. Interviewer: How close—did you have close calls yourself? Oh yeah, it goes with the territory though. Anyway, I got back to Bragg, horsed around for three or four weeks and went back to Benning and they gave us our certificates showing we completed the course and by that time I‘m going back to Bragg, I have no new orders cut, so I‘m going back to Bragg, JFK Center waiting for orders, and I‘m there 24 �eight or nine months and then I get orders from the Pentagon saying that I‘m going to Vietnam. 54:05 I said, ―I just got back‖, so I called Mrs. Alexander. Now Mrs. Alexander has to be a saint, I‘ve never met the lady personally, but I‘ve talked to her on the phone and I said, ―Mrs. Alexander what are you doing to me?‖ She said, ―Nothing, you need to get to your regular unit‖. I said, ―I was in Vietnam in 1962, 63‖, and she said, ―Honey, you were an enlisted man then and it didn‘t count‖, and I said, ―Didn‘t count?‖, ―Didn‘t count‖, and I said, ―Okay‖. I said, ―I just came back. I was with the 1st going in and out‖, and she said, ―That‘s Special Forces and that didn‘t count‖, ―That didn‘t count?‖ It was getting so comical with the "didn‘t count" routine, you know, and I said, ―Okay‖, and she said, ―You have to have, in order for your career, you need to get company command time‖, and I said, ―Yeah, you‘re right, I got the orders and I‘ll go‖. 55:03 Interviewer: Who was Mrs. Alexander? She handled officer‘s assignments depending on the Pentagon, a lovely lady and I‘d love to meet her someday, but anyway, went over and I went in to see General Flanagan and I said, ―Sir, I can‘t go on that mission that you wanted me to go on because I got my orders to go to Vietnam‖. He picked them up and looked at them and said, ―Big Red One?‖ I said, ―That‘s what it says‖, and he said, ―No, you‘re not going to Big Red One‖, and he twixed somebody, I don‘t know, but when I got to Vietnam two or three weeks later they had a little guy standing out there with my name on a card, you know, and I went over, we hopped in a Jeep, drove down to the end of the runway and there was this chopper. He woke the guys up; we got in the chopper and took off. I‘m beginning to think, ―This army‘s all right, and this is okay for a Captain, this isn‘t too bad‖. 56:03 So, we get 25 �down there and I knew where the 1st Division was, but we‘re still going. We‘d stop down, refuel, and get up and go again, and I thought, ―Where in the hell are we going? The next stop up, there‘s not too many more‖, so we banked in and when I looked down there‘s a big Screaming Eagle sitting out there, so down we go, he got in another Jeep and brought me over to the headquarters and we go in there and the G-1 says, ―Captain, the chief of staff wants to see you‘re to go report to him when you got in‖, and I said, ―Okay‖, so I walked in, knocked, and went in, he looked up and ―bingo‖, the Chief of Staff of the 101st Airborne Division was Colonel Hugh A. McDonald. He was the guy that kicked me in the butt back at Bragg to get me to go to OCS. 57:00 There he was, and he was an old friend with Flanagan, General Flanagan, so anyway, he said, ―I‘ve been expecting you‖, so anyway, we got assigned and he said, ―You‘re going to go down to the 1st Brigade, 327‖, and I said, ―Okay‖, and he said, ―They got problems down there and you‘ll have to beef them up because the company commander‘s coming in‖, and I said, ―Okay." Interviewer: Now, when was this in terms of date? It was 1969, the early part of 1969. Interviewer: Okay Anyway, I went in there and got a little bit of a briefing on what‘s going on in the G3 shop and the AO, hopped in a helicopter, went down to the 1st Brigade, walked in. 58:00 there were three or four officers that were going in all about the same time, so I was the last to get into the group there. One of them went in, and we had the door open and we could hear, and he‘s reporting to the battalion commander and he said, ―Sir, my major was English, I‘d be a great S1 for you‖, and the next guy went in and he said, ―Sir, you 26 �know I did a lot with stock level assignments and I could be a great S4 for you‖, and I‘m thinking, ―We‘re all in country, why aren‘t we going in the field to lead the troops?‘ So, the next guy, he did his, I don‘t know what he got out of, motor pool or something, and I walked in and, ―Sir, Captain Spaulding , company commander in Vietnam, give me the worst company you got‖. He just looked at me and said, ―A man from heaven, my god, finally we got somebody‖, and he did give me the worst company, he gave me the worst company, but I had them about four or five months, got them straightened out and we were kicking some butt out there. 59:07 Interviewer: Can you describe a little bit what made that company the worst company, or unit, and what kind of problems did they have? Lack of NCO leadership, a lot of the NCO‘s were afraid, some of the platoon leaders were afraid to bring any discipline on the troops and give them orders, or demand things be done, because of all the fragging incidents that were going on at that time. Interviewer: How common was that? Pretty common, from what I hear, didn‘t have to mind. The fellow ahead of me, I got two or three weeks of training him myself. I had him on the rifle range, I had him running this way and that way outside the wire patrolling and this and that. When they starting finding that I was sitting right over the top of the guy walking point and a couple of times I took point and said, ―You‘re doing it wrong, you‘re going to get killed‖. 00:14 Listen to what you‘re doing, and then they found out that I was nine years enlisted, that I didn‘t just get off the boat with a couple of Captain bars on, it made it a little bit different and the troop started responding, and then we went out and started kicking some butt. I found out the guys before me, they would be like on the last, or the next to the last 27 �chopper in, well, I was always on the first chopper in. The best allies, the best asset, a company commander has is his radio operator, because his radio operator is right there with him and he sees everything the Captain does, he hears everything the Captain does, and he is the best grapevine back to the troops, he‘s going to tell everybody what the Captain‘s doing, and that‘s how you win them over. 1:06 So, in a firefight you‘re not running around hiding behind trees and shit, you‘re up there kicking butt, getting them to do their job. Interviewer: Did you have a good RTO then? I had a great RTO, had a great RTO. When you want to get something done, like going on a firefight— Interviewer: Our tape is running out here, so we’ll pause for a minute while we change the tape. Interviewer: So, we’ve gotten you back into Vietnam, you’ve gotten yourself a company command, you’ve taken over a company and gotten that one into shape after several months and then what happens with you next? Well, ordinarily you had six months of command time, but in that incidence there my main purpose was to go in, according to the battalion commander, he wanted me to go in and get the company shaped up and get them out of their doldrums, or whatever it was, which I did that. 2:03 After four months he pulled me out of that and gave me another company to straighten—to work on. I had that for three or four months, that was 1st battalion, 2nd battalion was having problems, so the battalion commander requested I go over there, which I did go over there, and I had Alpha Company, I think it was Alpha Company 2nd /327, and they had, at that time they had no body count what so ever and yet, the village, the bridge they were supposed to be protecting, there was rice being 28 �taken out of the village, people being killed in the village and all kinds of stuff. So, I went out and set that up, and started sending patrols out, LPOP‘s, listening posts observation posts, and requested a motor section come down by the bridge, and put them in, and that way I got my own little artillery now if I get somebody out there that get in contact, I‘ll be able to pop them with mortar rounds. 3:09 We started doing that and started getting body counts. We tool on what they call the Phu Lac Armed Battalion, which was nothing more than about a hundred little jokers that ran around in shorts and we took care of them in short order with no problem. I had that company for, oh gosh, about six or seven months. Interviewer: Where were you operating? Was it kind of a lowland area? It was on the lowlands, all low and flat and off the highway. We were protecting the highway and the Highway Bridge and Railroad Bridge. So anyway, I got pulled out of that and got thanks for a great job and blah, blah, blah, and I got sent up to Division G3, as staff. 4:07 Me, and I don‘t know how many other Captains, it looked like a warehouse, just row after row of desks and no partitions, just wide open, there it was. I got there , I forget what day it was, but it was in the afternoon, and then the next morning Colonel McDonald had me in, chief of staff, and he said, ―I need some company grade officers, 3rd Brigade got hit last night and just about got annihilated‖, and I said, ―I‘ll go‖, and he said, ―No, you‘ve been out there too much already‖, so this other guy and it ,really, in a way it was very disheartening. We‘re officers, we‘re career oriented, and these guys every time Colonel Mac walked down—―Sir, I‘ve got these reports I just have to get these done for Colonel so and so, blah, blah, blah‖, and another guy, ―Oh sir‖, and every time Colonel Mac would turn around I wouldn‘t say anything, I just kind of waved. 29 �5:09 He was so disgusted, he came walking up, turned around and said, ―Spaulding, grab your gear, you don‘t deserve to be in here with them‖. I left, grabbed my gear, reported over, had a chopper waiting, went down to 3rd Brigade—3rd Brigade was the farthest brigade north up there and it was up to Quang Tri, Hue, Dong Ha, that I Corps area. It used to be a three division AO was now a one brigade AO. One battalion per division area, pretty bad, but anyway, I went up there and Bravo Company and I think it was Charlie Company, I‘m not sure, within contact and they were about two or three hundred yards apart, somewhere in here. 6:03 Interviewer: Which battalion? 2/506-okay, so I went in and married them up, got them squared away, had artillery all around them all night long, sort of much like baby sitting with them where the choppers come in the next day with reinforcements and we got all these guys on choppers, loaded the dead, and got out of there. I‘m thinking, ―Is this going to be my company?‖ So we get over to curry ben and the first sergeant says, ―Sir, we got a chopper for you, Colonel Bradley, the Brigade Commander wants to see you‖, so I went over to the brigade, the chopper went back to the brigade, and that‘s where I left my bags and stuff. I walked in and Major Turner says, ―Colonel‘s got something he wants to brag about‖, so we went in there and Major Turner said, ―Sir, this is Captain Spaulding‖, and he said, ―Great job, great job‖. 7:05 I said, ―Well sir‖, and we talked for a little bit and I said, ―If there‘s nothing else sir, I‘d like to get back to my company‖. He said, ―No‖, he said, ―You‘re going to be on my staff‖, and I‘m not a staff officer. So, I told him, ―Sir, I‘d rather have a company‖, and he said, ―Well, I realize that, but up here at brigade, if you‘re working in my threesome [S3?], you‘re going to have fifteen or sixteen companies out there‖. I 30 �thought, ―Hmm, that‘s a pretty good argument there‖, and he said, ―At brigade level you could make the changes, you could make things happen‖. I explained to him that I had no staff time, and no staff experience whatsoever, and he said, ―Well, this is a good place to learn‖. 8:00 Colonel Bradley was a West Point of 1950 and went straight into the Korean War, a hell of a man, really a great guy. Anyway, he had me understand the assistant S3 was under Major Turner and everything was going great, but we were losing guys rotation wise, they were going home and as they‘re leaving we‘re not getting and replacements, so I‘m taking up their slots too. Sonny Archangel, Captain Archangel, was the S3 and he got his orders, so he went home, so I took over as the S3 and I‘m still the assistant S3 and then I‘m giving briefings at night to the briefing officers and taking care of the TOC and make sure it‘s running right, and then fire support, because if I‘m moving aircraft I got to coordinate all the artillery, because helicopter pilots get just a little bit upset if there‘s no fire line in front of them, so we had to get all that done. 9:00 This was a great experience for me and I didn‘t realize it at first, but as we got to functioning I thought, ―Man, this is fantastic, this is the way to operate‖. Interviewer: Now, at what point did you go out of brigade staff, in terms of time, when was it? That was February, right around St. Valentine‘s Day. Interviewer: 1970 then? 1970, because the big firefight where they lost so many officers, that was a fluke the way that happened, and evidently a couple rockets came in and they were all standing and ―woop‖, but anyway, that was right around St. Valentine‘s Day, which somebody labeled ―St. Valentine‘s Day Massacre‖. Right after that we had several contacts and that‘s when 31 �the orders came down, ―Okay, we‘re going to go out and we‘re going put up a firebase, and we‘re going open that firebase up, so the 1st ARVN Division can come out and take on the NVA and the Coc Muen Warehouse area‖. 10:06 So we went in on March the 12th and blew the first on. A helicopter came in, flared, and blew the first one out of the sky. George Westerfeldt was on that aircraft and it blew him right out of the side. Several other guys were on there and a couple of them got killed and George got wounded. George Westerfeldt, you‘ll probably never be able to talk to him, he‘s a recluse and lives up in northern New York in a little shack, no electricity, no running water, and he walks about a mile and a half or two miles down to the general store on the highway, that‘s where he gets his mail and that‘s where you got to call, the general store, and leave a message and he‘ll get back to you in two or three days. But anyway, a wonderful guy, a hell of a soldier, a great man, but we couldn‘t get there in the 12th; we couldn‘t get on the 13th or the 14th, so we kind of pulled back a little bit. 11:04 Then we were looking around and we kept trying every now and then, but also, a lot of times we got out there and the weather was socked in and we couldn‘t get the choppers in. Interviewer: Still monsoon? Right, in and out, yeah, the weather changed so badly all the time, but finally we put troops in over here and on the ridgeline, the 902, and we walked them up the ridgeline right into it. Interviewer: Now, you were talking about—was the LZ you were trying to set up, was that going to be Ripcord, or was this a different one? No, that wasn‘t an LZ, it was a firebase. We landed over here, and landed over here, and walked the troops up to the firebase and we took it that way. Once we got troops up there 32 �and secured the area, what we did, we brought in the mini dozers and all that and started leveling it and flattening it and whatever. 12:00 Sandbags by the thousands, hundreds of thousands came in, VSP bunkers, brought the engineers in and started drilling. We got the firebase up, brought the artillery in and then here comes the 1st ARVN Division. They came out and they were out there three, four, five days, a week, right around that and they pull out and go back and we‘re still sitting down there, so then we decided, ―We‘ll just stay here, that‘s our orders, so we‘ll stay‖. Now, in order to hold Ripcord, we pretty much had to hold 1000, 805, 902, well we never did get 1000 and they were looking right down our throats and we found out later that was regimental headquarters. Interviewer: What was the elevation of Ripcord? 935 Interviewer: So, 1000, that’s a taller hill and there’s taller ones behind that too. Yeah, their looking right down your throat--with 51 Cal, they could fire right at you directly and that‘s how close it was, machine gun fire, that‘s what they fired. 13:06 That‘s when the battle started, April, May, June, July and all through April we had sporadic contact, and what I mean by sporadic is, every two day, three day, something like that. May is when all hell broke loose. May 3rd and 4th was Henderson, firebase Henderson was overrun, hill 805 on May 5th and 6th was overrun, hill 902 was in June [July 1-2] and we lost a lot of guys on that. But Henderson, we put a company on there and gave them all the wire, gave them claymores, and gave them everything else and Colonel Bradley and Major Turner had been out there, I don‘t know how many times. 14:02 They were telling this company commander, ―Put a squad on the ridge, get your wire up, put the claymores up, get an OP over there, get an LP out over there, and when 33 �the artillery comes in, help the artillery people break up the pallets and get that out and get the artillery ammunition stored‖. Well, the company commander figured well, number one, he was infantry, he wasn‘t artillery, the artillery rounds wasn‘t his problem, so when the Chinooks start coming in and putting all the pallets down and ordering artillery, then their bringing in the gasoline blivits. No place to put them, so they put them on top of the artillery ammunition pallets. Now, we gave this guy the recon platoon attached to it was there on the backside in the trenches, a good place for recon, in a trench, that‘s really great, but anyway, the enemy came through, zappers, came running through and they split the gasoline blivets. 15:08 Then thought the fighting and all that, then they ―boom‖ they ignited that sucker and the whole half of the mountain blew, ―pow‖, and there went the recon platoon. During the run through they were shooting everybody and most of the troops weren‘t fighting back or something, I don‘t really know, I wasn‘t on it at that time. But, I do know we lost a hell of a lot of troops on that hill. Colonel Bradley went out there the very next morning with Turner and Command Sergeant Major Long and they landed about 7:15 AM and the mortar rounds are still coming in. They were running up to the TOC and a mortar round landed right behind him and blew him right through the door. Sergeant Major Long took a tailfin of a mortar round in his back and he later died. 16:03 Bradley and Turner were scuffed up going through the doorway of the TOC. They grabbed Sergeant Major Long, called for his chopper and the chopper came spun right around and came right back in. They came running out, put him on and off they went. Sergeant Major Long died in route back to evac. Bradley and Turner go back into TOC, blood all over, and just mad as hornets, and he said, ―Get that individual in here‖, so I said, ―I‘ll go get him‖, and Captain Jenkins 34 �said, ―I‘ll go with you‖. Captain Jenkins was a huge black guy that played for the University of Alabama, right tackle, right guard, somebody, I mean he was big. We get out there and took a Loach, a little H-6 helicopter and we‘re flying out there. We landed, went over to the TOC and told the RTO, ―Get your company commander out here‖. 17:10 He hollered back in and I didn‘t hear what was said, but anyway, the kid turned around and said, ―He ain't coming out sir‖, and I said, ―Okay‖, so I started to go in and Jenkins said, ―Wait, I‘ll take this‖. Jenkins went in and it wasn‘t thirty seconds after and the guy came flying out of there. Jenkins was pretty upset and everybody was that knew Sergeant Major Long, a tremendous individual, just a tremendous individual. And for this guy not to have the troops out like he was told to do, have the wire up like he was told to do, that would have slowed them down anyway and they would have had time to react, and not move the artillery ammunition, which killed another thirty or forty when that blew. But anyway, we started to get back in the helicopter, the Loach, Jenkins as big as he was, that Captain, me and the pilot, that plane, there was no way in hell that helicopter was going to go anywhere. 18:09 The RTO, I told him, I says, ―Contact one of your Lieutenants and tell them they‘re now in charge‖. He looked dead at me and he said, ―Sir, we have no officers left‖, and I thought, ―Oops that aint good‖, and I said to Jenkins, ―You run him on back and tell Colonel Bradley and I‘ll stay out here‖. I went over and I started talking to the kid and I said, ―Where‘s all your—where‘s this, where‘s that—where‘s your—get the medic, where‘s the medic at?‖ the medic came out and he‘d been wounded, but he didn‘t leave, so the medic and I went around the firebase, Henderson, picking up the dead, picking up the wounded, and I could not believe that the company commander had not already evacuated these guys. 35 �Interviewer: There were still wounded there that hadn’t been taken out? Yeah, so anyway, we—the medic had patched them up, he just didn‘t call for medevac. 19:06 So anyway, we brought them up to the pad and called for medevac to get these guys out of there, brought the dead up and lined them up, and God, there were twenty or thirty of them, I forget the count, but I took pictures of it because I figured there was going to be an investigation about this later on. But anyway, I was talking with the medic and he explained to me what all transpired and all that, so I‘m calling back to brigade and I said, ―We need to get another company out here‖. I didn‘t want to set it in the clear, but they didn‘t have anybody to hold the hill. All the artillery pieces were blown, blown up. Anyway, we‘re still taking fire. Interviewer: How many men do you have left that can still fight? Thirty, somewhere around that, but anyway, the way it came around was, we‘re still taking fire, direct fire, which means they‘re pretty close, and indirect fire, mortar rounds. 20:10 So, I got on the radio, took one of the radios, changed the frequency, I knew what the frequency was so I called the FAC, the air force FAC, and I called him up, Major Brown, told him, I said, ―Skipper, I need at FAC out here‖ and he said, ―On the way‖, and bang pretty soon he‘s circling around up there. I said, ―I‘m taking mortar fire, and when we‘d hit a mortar round I‘d run out and shoot back at it, and it‘s got to be right down across that ridge out there, about the third one down‖. I said, ―There‘s three trees on that ridgeline‖, and while I‘m talking to the FAC--because the dumbest thing in the world, I flashes off of this here, and what it was, it had to be, was the NVA guy with his binoculars, the sun‘s behind me and sun‘s reflecting off those binoculars, it had to be. 21:02 And I told him, I said, ―Yeah, I see the flashing, let me go and see what I can 36 �find‖. He went out there and he had a couple of A6‘s on station, and he flew in, fired a couple of rockets, pulled out and ―Woof‖ there they went. We got, I don‘t know how many secondary explosions off of that, it was just pow, pow, pow, so we took care of that, and then I had to go to My Lac to send a chopper phone, we had the 2-501 coming and put them in the AO. So, I explained what was going on with the firebase and the AO and we went back and we put them back in and we had to put company‘s down through the stream bed, we put one company on the hill and I walked that company around the perimeter and when we got to where the troops were, I had the troops go right back down the same way to the helicopter pad, get back on the choppers and get out of there. 22:01 So, we got the new company in Colonel Livingston was the TAC battery, brought in staff and he said, ―Captain Spaulding, are you going to stay with us?‖ I said, ―Sure, I don‘t care‖, and he said, ―Fine‖, and I said, ―You‘ve got to notify brigade though and let them know I‘m here‖ and he said, ―Alright‖, so about ten minutes later he—I‘m standing there with the company commander explaining to him—I said, ―You need to get a squad on that ridge over there, that‘s where they came from‖, and I said, ―You need to get a squad on this ridge down here, that‘s where the other side came from‖. I said, ―As far as that little cut back out there, you need to put some claymores in there‖. So anyway, he and I were discussing all of this and he was getting these sergeants out to take care of it, and here come Colonel Livingston mad as a hornet. He said, ―Your chopper‘s on the way, Colonel Bradley wants you back at brigade‖. I got back to brigade and Colonel Bradley said, ―Good Job Fred ―, and I said, ―Well sir, Colonel Livingston needed me out there too‖, and he said, ―No, I need you here‖. 23:03 I never did understand what that was all about, if there was a little argument between them two or not, I don‘t know, or really 37 �care. May—yeah, that was May 3rd and 4th, May 5th and 6th, 805, Hill 805 [this was on the site of an abandoned firebase, Maureen, rather than Hill 805 near Firebase Ripcord], and we put Delta 1-506 on there and we had, gosh I forget how many casualties we had , but I know we had seventeen left at the end of the night, or the end of the battle, three days, three day battle. Then June it was Hill 902 and we had a company in there. We had 3rd platoon of Charlie Company 2-506 on that hill, and—no, we had a company on there minus one platoon. Interviewer: A Company or C Company? Charlie Company, Charlie Company 2-506 on the hill and one platoon, and I don‘t know what platoon it was. 24:07 Burkey‘s, Paul Burkey‘s platoon, sergeant, he was platoon sergeant and Jim Campbell, they were up on the rim and Doc Cafferty was the medic, but we had—anyway, we had several different people and we put them in around the thing, gave them orders, gave the company commander his orders and all and he pretty much ignored it, and he paid for it, he got killed. But Mike Mueller was down on the end and I told him, ―You‘re the fight, you‘re the end, don‘t let them past you‖, and he said, ―Okay‖. Now, Mike was from Alaska, a hell of a shot and he stuttered when he got excited, but that night the shit hit the fan. 25:04 I mean, it was pretty bad. I‘m not in the chopper— infrared—I‘m calling in airstrikes all over the place. I‘m calling In artillery all over the place, trying to keep them off of them, but they‘re already on them. But anyway, the next morning, hit there, we brought in more troops the next morning, and went up on the hill and went running up and down the line, where‘s everybody at? Who‘s what and that and here‘s Mike Mueller sitting down on the end and he‘s got holes in him all over the place. I don‘t know how many bodies he‘s got out around him, but there was a bunch, eleven, 38 �twelve, fifteen, I don‘t know, there was a bunch of them. He‘s had, maybe, only four or five rounds left and like I say he was hit up the legs, back, he was hit everywhere. He was—I came running up there and he said, ―Sir, sir, I, I didn‘t let them through‖. 26:04 I thought, ―Jesus Christ where do we find guys like this?‖ So I said, ―Okay Mike, you did a great job and we‘re getting you out of here‖, but, they had guys all over the place, grabbing them and running, but we got him out and Mike today, is living in Alaska, he‘s been in a wheelchair for about the last fifteen years, but a hell of a guy. Doc Cafferty, a wonderful guy, it was just so much for him—he was dragging wounded up to the CP, the Captain got blown in half with a RPG right next to him and scattered him with everything. But Cafferty was dragging the wounded up to the CP as best he could and then with a pistol standing there keeping the NVA off of them and he got a Silver Star. 27:00 Mike Mueller got a Silver Star, and we had one guy—gosh, years go by and you forget names—you can still see their faces, but anyway, he was Smoker, Bob Smoker, and he is now a minister and has been for many years. It was such a traumatic thing to him, that when he got out he went into the ministry as a way to save himself, I guess. A wonderful man, Doc Cafferty went to work for the post office and became somewhat of an alcoholic, but he‘s dried out now, but a hell of a man, hell of a man. That was June, and then July started and 1 to 23 was considered the siege. 28:00 Now, in between these major encounters, every day, or every other day, we people in contact regardless of where we were at out there. At one time, we not only had the 3rd, 3rd Battalion of the 187th , 2nd Battalion of the 506, 1-506, we had opcon to us 1-501, 2-501, 1-502, 2-502, there‘s only nine battalions in a division and we had seven. 39 �Interviewer: Now, those are not all operating immediately, on or right next to Ripcord? Parts of several different battalions are there along with the 506, but not all at the same time. We got 'em in the area; they‘re all in the 3rd Brigade. They‘re all there in support—what we‘re trying to do is take care of Ripcord. We had to protect Ripcord. Interviewer: There were a string of firebases around that that would provide support fire. 29:02 Yes, Granite, Gladiator, O'Reilly, Kathryn, those were the names, and we woke up Shepherd up north. This is when we were explaining to division that, ―Hey, we got more than a damn division out there‖ and of course, it reminded me so much of MacArthur and China, ―Oh, there are no more‖, and that‘s what we‘re getting from division, ―Oh, there‘s only one division out there, one NVA [formation?]‖... can‘t be, so what we found out later, years later, we had four divisions out there against us: 324-B, whose main function in life was to destroy Ripcord and everybody on it, that was their main function. The 805, I believe it was, the 325 and then we had a sixth independent regiment with nine battalions and I had never heard of nine battalions in a regiment, but they were all like ranger battalions, sapper battalions and stuff like that. 30:00 Interviewer: What kind of strength levels did you have in your own battalions at this point? You‘re supposed to have a hundred and seventy six men in a rifle company, four rifle companies per battalion. Out of the hundred and seventy six men, if you had sixty men in your rifle company, you were big. The majority of them had between thirty to forty men. 40 �Interviewer: Now at Ripcord some of them were getting down to fifteen or something like that. Fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, is what we wound up with, if you had fifteen men---but, General Berry could not understand why we can‘t take Alpha and Bravo Company and take that hill. I‘m thinking, ―Well, Alpha and Bravo Company combined won‘t even make one platoon‖. In my estimation the worst officer we could ever had in charge of that operation was General Berry. 31:02 To me he was a complete idiot, but-Interviewer: In the Keith Nolan book about Ripcord, he presents him as somebody who eventually comes to recognize that he doesn’t have the strength to do what he wants to do. He was initially giving the orders that they had to keep going and moving the units like little marks on a map and then getting down and seeing it an then changing his mind. How close is that to how you see things? Well, what happened was, General Berry was there for the briefing, General Berry had all the officers from the brigade, Colonel Harrison, they go through the briefing, this and this, this is this, and that‘s it, and General Berry, he was very theatrical. He stood up, ―Oh, that is key terrain, we must have key terrain‖. 32:02 I‘m thinking, ―Jesus Christ, somebody must be filming this or otherwise he wouldn‘t be doing this. Colonel Lucas, Lieutenant Colonel Lucas, jumps up like a little jack in the box, ―Oh sir, Currahee, my men can take that hill sir‖, and I‘m thinking, ―Jesus, these guys can‘t see‖, and I said, ―Excuse me, these are the numbers I got from your S1, right here, you don‘t have enough men to take that hill, sir‖. Anyway, they decided the next morning they were going to take the hill. 41 �Interviewer: Now, where does Colonel Harrison come into the picture? You haven’t introduced him yet in your account. Colonel Harrison came in on 20 June, okay, Colonel Bradley went home 20 June, and Colonel Harrison took over on 20 June. We had a change of command ceremony. Colonel Bradley walked off this way to get on a helicopter to go that way to division headquarters, clear and go home. 33:01 Colonel Harrison got up, went this way, got on his helicopter that way after the A Shau valley. It was just, ―Hello‖, boom, bang, boom, and that was it. His first day on the job, he didn‘t come in that evening until late, because he was out there, not only assessing the situation, but while we were doing the change of command ceremony, the flag went around faster than you could ever see, we had people in contact. We had three or four elements in contact. Every day we had two, three, four, elements in contact. Nobody else in Vietnam was having any contact, we were having it all up here, but what it was, once you started assessing it, and analyzing it, we figured it out years later what the thing was, we were sitting right on the main route for their planned attack to take Saigon, and years later, 1975, that‘s exactly the way they came. 34:07 Right through there and right down the highway, and we were sitting on their route of advance and they had to move us, and we weren‘t about to be moved. The 22nd of July, after the briefing, and were asked if there were any questions, we requested five more battalions and we could go in there and really kick some butt. General Berry said, ―No, you‘re not getting your five battalions‖, and Col. Harrison said, ―Well, that‘s it‖, and then he said, ―We‘ll pull them out. I‘m not going to sacrifice anymore of my men‖, so he said, ―That‘s it Fred, take them out‖, and I said, ―Yes sir‖, and I‘m heading out the door to put it all into play. 35:01 General Berry stops me and says, ―You mean to tell 42 �me that you‘re going to put together an operations plan‖, and he talked very exaggerated, ―That‘s going to withdraw, and under fire?‖ There were a lot of times when everything I do is not just to bust a gut and laugh right in his face. I despised the guy because he was so pompous and arrogant. Everything, the exact opposite of me, an officer is supposed to be. But anyway, ―You mean to tell me you‘re going to put together an operations plan and withdraw, under fire, from four different locations, while under fire?‖ I said, ―Yes sir‖, and he said, ―Impossible, it can‘t be done‖, and I said, ―Yes sir‖, and turned to leave. Colonel Harrison and it‘s the first time he ever did, he said, ―Fred‖, he never called me that before, and I turned around and said, ―Yes sir‖. 36:06 He said, ―Can you do it?‖ I said, ―Yes sir, we can do it, we can do it‖, because see, you always have to be planning ahead, what if, what if? So, we already had a plan to take those five battalions, choppers loaded, in, come out empty. With all the fire support, when I go empty, come out loaded, same damn thing and I still got all my fire support going. So, I cranked up all the aviators, had them down there and we had a briefing that night, this is what we‘re going to do and what guys, and blah, blah, blah. So, zero six hundred hours the next morning, I‘m in my chopper and we‘re heading west. The South China Sea‘s behind us, the sun‘s coming up and looking out there it‘s all black. The sun‘s coming up behind you and the top of the mountains are lighting up and turning purple and it‘s coming down. 37:05 It really was pretty, Vietnam could be a beautiful place if it wasn‘t shooting everybody. About this time, and I‘m about half asleep, I hadn‘t had any sleep in two, three, four days and hardly anything to eat. I had four radios down here and two on the dash and the radios start popping with our call numbers. I look south and just as far as you could see was helicopters On the outside were the little Loaches and then row after row of Cobras, 43 �gunships and then inside that was a row of ARA Cobras and inside that was two or three rows of Hughes. Now, ordinarily, this is not that great a deal, but with the sun coming up, the sun reflected off of those Plexiglases and it looked like ten thousand flash bulbs going off. 38:10 And by this time all the radios are going, everybody‘s checking in and I said, ―Rodger that, Rodger that‖, and I‘m looking down there and I‘m thinking, ―What an Armada, what an awesome spectacle, and I‘m a part of it‖. I t made you so damn proud to be a soldier, and that‘s when I gave them the order. I said, ―Roger, vector out‖, and everybody turned out to every which way they were supposed to be going. We went out there and started kicking butt. We had an entire anti-aircraft battalion of 51 caliber machine guns, which were purposely designed to blow an aircraft out of the sky, which they did pretty good. 39:00 We had about every ridge and every hilltop. We can‘t get in until we sight our c‘s—so, we bring in our ARA‘s, the pink team, Cobras, gunships, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When these guys are all through and getting ready to head back and get some fuel, I got me twenty some jets sitting up there and a KC135 refueling. While these guys are going back were bringing in the five hundred pounders and the napalm, and we kicked some butt that day. We got Charlie Company out the day before; we got Delta Company out that morning, first thing before they knew what was going on. By this time, the enemy, they‘re not dumb, they know with all this activity that something is going on, and they‘re thinking, ―Oh my God, they‘re pulling them out, so we‘ve got to annihilate them before they pull them out‖. Well, we went in to get Alpha Company and the guy, the pilot, he set in the ground and he picked up and left without them. 40:08 He called me and he sounded like he was almost in tears, and he said, ―We can‘t get out, the company out‖, and said, ―What‘s the problem‖, and he said, ―They‘re all hit and 44 �nobody can get up to get on the chopper‖. And evidently when he set that down he just saw them laying everywhere. So, he pulls out, and I go back and I get ahold of Gabe Rollison, Captain Rollison , Delta 2-506 and one of the finest officers this country‘s ever produced. He –I told him, I said, ―We‘ve gotta find a way to get Alpha Company out. I know I just pulled you guys out, but you‘re all I got‖. Interviewer: Now, was Alpha Company on Ripcord or one of the other hills? Alpha Company‘s over here in the valley, Bravo‘s on the hill. Interviewer: Right So, he gets them out and most of these guys, you know, got bandages all over them, wounded and shit. 41:03 He said, ―Now, Alpha Company‘s trapped, we gotta go back in and get them out, who wants to go with me?‖ He said, ―Captain Spaulding and I are going to get them out, who wants to go with me?‖ Hell, they all started stepping up, now Rollison had to tell five or six, ―No, you‘re not going, you‘re already hit too bad. You guys these are your brothers out there‖, so we booked up about fifty guys, fifty or sixty guys and Freddy Gilbert, Staff Sergeant Gilbert was the point man and he was going home in two or three weeks and his wife was having a baby, and he was a hell of a guy. But anyway, he was going to be the point man, and when they started to put them in they couldn‘t get him in on account of .51 rounds, so they pulled back out and called me and I went running back in again and we blew them all out of there, them back in and Gilbert, Freddy Gilbert, you might want to talk to him. 42:04 He said when he went back in there were just pieces of machine guns and bodies everywhere. We just blew the hell out of them, so he takes off. Now, the enemy is not dumb, when we got troops going this way, they‘re trying to get in between them and block them from getting to Alpha 45 �Company and then annihilate both of them, so I‘m dropping grenades and trying to keep them separated, I‘m bringing ARA through, just having a heck of a time. We link them up, we‘re bringing the choppers in, picking Alpha Company up, throwing them on the choppers and getting them out of there, and then we get Delta Company out of there. We got that taken care of, ―bang‖, Ripcord, got that taken care of. Now, I always thought we got Ripcord last, but we might have got Ripcord first and then come back over and got these guys, I‘ve always gotten that backwards. Interviewer: That can be looked up in after action reports. I‘m not really positive which one we got out first, but anyway, I went over to get to firebase and they were already in the water, back at the firebase and we had to blow them out of there. 43:10 We started bringing in choppers to get B Company out and we got them all out and got them back and everybody was pretty happy. But them we had arc lights coming in that night and that‘s one of the reasons we had to get them all out of there. Now, these aircraft had already taken off from Guam, Okinawa, Saipan, the Philippines, wherever. They were already en route and we had to clear the area. At thirty eight thousand feet, I‘ve been told, that a one aircraft dropping two hundred and fifty pounders or whatever, one mile wide and three miles long and we had somewhere in the neighborhood of fourteen or fifteen aircraft. Interviewer: Were these B-52’s? 44:00 B-52‘s, I mean they just—it was a hell of a spectacle out there. We could get the shock wave back here, but we wrapped that one and up everything quieted down and then we went into Barnet Area in August and then I was assigned down to 3rd Battalion 187 as the assistant S3, Harrison wanted me to go down there and help them out and I came home in 46 �January, February of 1972 and I was in Special Forces, 1975 I went to the infantry officer advance course. I got riffed in 1973, I think it was. 45:00 Interviewer: Just to review, you have—you’re back to the states in 71, or 72? February of 1971 Interviewer: Then you’re back there— Back to Special Forces, and I was there for about 5 months, 6 months, 7 months, somewhere along in there, and got my orders for infantry officer advance course, which you had to have that for a career thing. Also, about that time, I got order for Korea again. There was a buildup on the DMZ and they were requesting company grade officers to Korea, and they were reactivating the 32nd Infantry or something like that out of the 2nd Infantry Division. 46:01 And my speaking Korean, company grade, combat time, so ―bingo‖. Interviewer: You’d mentioned earlier, you referred to being riffed, does that mean you’re reduced in rank? Yeah, but that‘s after, that‘s after I degraded. Interviewer: Were you a Major at this time? No, still Captain, still Captain. After the war you had some of the longest timing grade Captains in the world, so anyway-Interviewer: You go to Korea. Well, I get to the infantry officers advanced course, get my orders to Korea, and I asked General Flanagan, ―Which way should I go?‖ He said, ―You always just go to the sound of the guns. The school‘s not going to change; it will always be there, go over and get more combat time‖. So, I go over and I had Charlie Company 1st of the 32nd Infantry. 47 �47:02 And we had to literally take the boards off the Quonset huts, and then we had to get the place cleaned up, and then we had three or four buses pull up and this was my company, they got them out of the stockade, really nice. This was back when they had all these race riots and everything going on and about ninety percent of my company was black. That was a really big mess, but anyway, the M.P., when they got them off the bus, had to sign for them and they gave me this big pick ax handle and said, ―Here, you might need this‖. I thought, ―God, I hope not‖, well anyway, got them all squared away, got them bedded down, and the best way to get through to troops is to show them that you can do the same thing they can, if not better. That you‘re not going to sit behind the desk and lead from there. 48:04 So, the very next morning I had them out for PT, I gave them PT, I gave them all the calisthenics, I‘m up on the stand---and they started knowing that I knew what I was supposed to be doing here, giving various commands and all this kind of stuff. Then I took them on a run and I ran them until they dropped, and they all looked like a bunch of—it was terrible, but anyway, I got them going and for the first three or four weeks it took to get them half way in shape. Then I had T shirts made, you know, and I ordered all the army PT shorts. Back in those days it was khaki with little strip on it. I had all these shirts come out and I had on them a black cougar, and I know that C Company was supposed to be Charlie, but I called ours Cougar Company. I put a big billboard right across our street entrance and it said, ―Welcome to Cougar Country‖. 49:07 And it had a great big panther-like cougar, well it was a panther, but we told them it was a cougar. Interviewer: You couldn’t call them black panthers for obvious reasons. 48 �Well anyway, I had pocket patches made, like a jungle expert patch, round, and I‘d already been to battalion, brigade, and division and got approval, and I wrote up something like an EIB test and if they passed this test then they get this cougar patch. One of them was a PT test, they had to max it and then I went through, got permission, and explained to the commanding general and the brigade commander, that I was going to be running my troops by their quarters in the morning, shouting and carrying on and blah, blah, blah, and I would appreciate it greatly if they would come storming out and say, ―What the hell‘s going on?‖ 50:00 They went along with it and that was no problem, so I gave them all their T shirts and they looked pretty sharp with, ―Cougar Company, 3rd platoon, 2nd platoon‖, etc., and after we did our calisthenics we went for a little run around there and I had them going good and sounding good. I got them around that corner and I said, ―Alright you guys, the commanding general's quarters up ahead, I want you to sound like you got something‖. We got up there, ‗bang‖, I mean they were screaming. The commanding General kicked that screen door and said, ―What the hell‘s going on? Who in the hell are you?‖ I said, ―Who are you?‖ All these kids that ordinarily, probably, would have gotten dishonorable discharges and stuff—out of, gosh I had two hundred and thirty or forty of them, I don‘t know, I only couldn‘t get through to three. 51:01 I had to transfer them out and they went back in the stockade. The rest of them shaped up and I got them all promoted to PFC‘s, bang, right off the bat, had the brigade commander, battalion commander, division commander, come down and pin them. I had some of them step forward and made corporals out of them , I had some that had been in it long enough and gave them back their sergeant stripes and after that we could do no wrong, we could do no wrong, it was just fantastic. Then I got my KATUSA 49 �contingent in with them. Katusa is Korean Army Training United States Army and all and all total, I think we had, roughly, about two hundred and seventy or two hundred and eighty men in the company. Of course we had our own 50 caliber machine guns, mortars, we had all that. 52:00 Our section of the DMZ was to hold, to allow the other side to come through and back. We hold and then we fall back, something like that, but we had enough fire power that we could hold them. About that time is when I got my riff notice and I went to my battalion—well battalion called me and I went up there and I said, ―Yeah, what?‖ and he said, ―Well, we need to go over this, something‘s come up and we need to talk about it‖, and I said, ―Sure‖, and that‘s when he dropped this on me and I said, ―Is this some kind of a joke?‖ He said, ―No Fred, I wish it was‖, and we went through it again, and I said, ―I don‘t quite understand. Every time there‘s been the shit hitting the fan they call me, every time they need to plug the gap they call my company. Every time they want something done they call me and now I‘m not good enough to serve the army anymore?‖ 53:10 I said, ―You asked me to be an officer, I didn‘t ask to be an officer‖, and we went up to the brigade commander and up to the division commander and the division commander got on the horn and twixed back to the Pentagon, ―Have you completely lost your mind? This can‘t be, you got a mistake somewhere‖. Colonel Bradley was getting ready to retire, colonel Ellison, my battalion commander had been in and out of the Pentagon a long time and knew everybody back there. Bradley was going home, Ellison, out of his own pocket, went back to the Pentagon to find out what the hell this is and get it stopped. 54:00 he came back about two and a half or three weeks later and we sat down with the commanding General, him and the chief of staff and he said, ―Fred, I don‘t know, I couldn‘t get it stopped. I don‘t 50 �know what the hell the deal is‖, and we‘re sitting there talking back and forth and he said, ―Just nothing made sense‖, and I said, ―I don‘t know what to do‖, and he said, ―Do you know an officer by the name of Berry?‖ I said, ―Oh‖, and I came right out at that time and I said, ―Aw, shit‖, and I said, ―Yeah, that explains it all‖, and I said, ―What‘s he doing?‖ He said, ―He just went up to West Point, he‘s been the deputy chief of staff at the Pentagon Officer Branch‖, and I said, ―That explains it‖, and I told him what happened with me and Berry and all that. 55:00 One thing about Berry was, back when he was in Vietnam, when I‘m getting ready to train these Lieutenants on how to be a briefer in a brigade, Berry was sitting there and the first one out and blah, blah, blah, and Berry just chewed him alive. The next guy went out and he made a mistake and Berry ate him up, and the third guy went out and blah, blah, blah, he said, ―Get out, get out‖, and he turned to Harrison—Berry was onto Harrison, just about every day he chewed him out for anything. Berry wanted to relieve Harrison so he could put his fair haired boy, Lucas, in. Lucas was West Point, Harrison wasn‘t and anyway, the kid came out, Berry said, ―Harrison, don‘t you have anybody that can brief?‖ I took that pointer and went right back out there, and all this is Plexiglas and this is metal, like a little whipping rod. 56:00 Berry was facing them, not me and everybody could see what I was doing and ―wham‖, I hit that thing and it was just like a shot going off. Berry jumped three feet, he turned around and I said, ―Good evening sir, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,‖, I closed the pointer and said, ―That concludes the briefing do you have any questions?‖ Berry sat there and said, ―Now, that by God was a brief, that‘s the way they do it at the Point‖, and he said, ―I can spot an academy man a mile away‖. He said, ‗What class were you, Captain?‖ I said, ―The class of ―67‖ sir‖, and he said, ―I knew it‖, and two or three days 51 �later I get off the helicopter and I‘d been picking up wounded and shit and I got bloody all over the place, and I‘m walking through and he‘s over there getting on Harrison and I said, ―Good afternoon sir‖, and he turned around, didn‘t salute back, didn‘t return the salute, Harrison did, and Berry just stared at me, just all the way, a hateful stare, so anyway, I just kept going. 57:02 But, years later, I did a little research with all the officers from Ripcord and everybody that didn‘t get out on their own, that was not West Point, was Riffed. Ben Peters got Riffed, off the hill, I got Riffed, five or six others got Riffed---Berry. Berry stood in the 3rd Brigade TOC when we had all the officers there for this briefing, briefing, or I don‘t know what it was called, and made a statement that the only really true officer was those that stood on the Plain, meaning West Point , all the others are temporary hire, and I‘m looking around and I‘m thinking, ― I can see about five, we had about five West Point while everybody else‖—we had about sixty officers in there, and I‘m thinking, ―Everybody else is ROTC, OCS, direct commission, and I only see about five or six West Points‖. 58:03 To me that‘s how much of a stupid idiot he was, but anyway, I got Riffed in 1973, Ellison tried to stop it and it couldn‘t happen, so I still, the way the orders run, now, I‘ve got something like two and a half months before I can go home. That‘s the way they cut it and why they did it that way, I don‘t know, but anyway, I got a call about two days after that to go back to the division. So, I went up to the division and in the meantime they‘re scrambling around trying to find a Captain to take over this company. So, I went up to the division and at this time is when they had all of this fire team leader, squad leader type training that they wanted to put out to everybody, small unit leadership training. 59:04 They had sent, I think it‘s 2765, data card and they run them through the machines and ―golly gee‖, mine pops out, and they 52 �wanted to know the experience I had and I said, ―Yes, I was with 82nd Airborne Division and we started the raider detachment and we built blah, blah, blah,‖, and they said, ―Well, we want the same thing here, can you do it?‖ I‘m looking at the chief of staff and I‘m thinking, ―He outranks you, there‘s not really a whole hell of a lot you can do, we‘re already Riffed, we‘re out of the army‖, and he said, ―Why don‘t you come to dinner tonight‖, so I went to dinner that night with the commanding General, my battalion commander, brigade commander was up there, and the division commander said that it‘s a very unique situation, a problem that we have. 00:08 ―Ordinarily I wouldn‘t even think about this‖, he said, ―but I need your help, Fred. You got the experience, you got this—now, I know that anybody else, anyone, would tell me to go to hell. We need to get this up and running and we need this, blah, blah, blah‖, and I said, ―Okay, I‘ll do it‖. I sat in and I wrote down I don‘t know, I guess it was two or three hundred hours of lesson plans, but hell, I could do most of it from memory from back then. I got a hold of the engineers, told them exactly what we needed, how blah, blah, blah, I said, ―You‘ll find it in FF 2150, or whatever it is in the Ranger manuals‖, and back and forth on the obstacles and stuff, and they had that thing up and running in about three weeks. 1:10 Then we got the first class in there, I‘m trying to remember what the date was, but anyway, gave them all, ―Here‘s your lesson plans‖, handpicked all the NCO‘s to be the instructors, handpicked the officers for TAC and stuff and turned it all over to CG and he wrote me a glowing letter, for all the good it did, and filed it, and that was it. I went home, I got Riffed—I had my choice of reverting back and they would give me master sergeant 8 and I said, ―No, I worked too hard for these‖, so I went home and went down to the National Guard. 2:05 At first I didn‘t want anything to do with the Army ever again. ―You 53 �screwed me, I did everything you ever asked me, I did it‖, and just brokenhearted really, but I went home and on the way home I was thinking about—so, when I got home I went down to the National Guard, gave them my papers and ―boom‖, as soon as their CO seen it they called me down when they met, staff met on Wednesday nights, and I went down there to see what the deal was and he offered me a full time job right on the spot. He said, ―I got a Ranger company up in Muncie that nobody knows what the hell to do with.‖ He said, ―Would you take them over?‖ 3:09 I said, ―What would it entail?‖ He said, ―On paper you‘d be the operations officer‖, and I said, ―That‘s no problem, I‘ve been doing that for years‖, and he said, ―And it‘s a full time job‖, and I thought, ―Well, I don‘t have to go out and look for a job‖, so I said, ―I‘ll take it‖. Well, also what that entails is with a full time position in the National Guard, or the Army Reserve, I‘m not going to lose any active federal time . Interviewer: We’ve been following your military career and now we’ve moved you all the way back to Indiana again, and you’ve been offered a position now, with the National Guard with a Ranger company. Company D-151 Ranger company was in Vietnam, but now it‘s pretty much disbanded and has fallen apart, and they asked me to go in as the operations officer , a full time position, and get it back up to strength, and all that. 4:06 So, we did, or I did, and had that and now comes due where I‘m due for a promotion to Major. Well, there was no Major slot in the National Guard for me to go to, so they worked a deal with the headquarters 123rd ARCON, Indianapolis, for me to transfer over to them in a Major slot, which I became headquarters commandant of the 123rd ARCON, and through that, they worked a deal there to make me the full time recruiting officer, which is full time duty 54 �again. A regular full time job organizing recruiting throughout the state, all the teams they had, going back again, which once again I wasn‘t losing any active duty time, which all this comes into play later, which I thought was very ironic. 5:03 But anyway, I‘m there and I‘m overdue for IAOC, Infantry Advanced Officer Course, which remember I mentioned that a few minutes before? Interviewer: Right But anyway, we worked it out and they cut orders, I went to Fort Benning, Georgia for IOAC and as it turned out it was the last nine months course of IOAC. We had guys that started after us and finished before us because they eliminated a lot of the curriculum and I‘m thinking, ―Well, what else is gonna—if I stay here long enough, nothing new, stay here long enough everybody gets dumped on‖, but anyway, I went through that and come out, honor grad, the guy who had, and this was in 1975, the guy we had as guest speaker was a Three Star general by the name of—gosh, I almost had it. 6:05 He was the Defense Intelligence Agency commanding officer, he was our guest speaker, and he was going to talk about the needs of the Army and the officers that we need for the Army of the future. So, we‘re all sitting there in Class A‘s, it‘s graduation, he went through all this stuff and everything and said, ―Fine, now we got the honor graduates, distinguished graduates‖, and all this. He said the names and called off the graduates and he said, Captain Fred Spaulding, so I get up to the stag and walk across there, and he turned and looked and looked again and said, ―Now this, ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly the officer, the type I‘m talking about‖, and I had on all my ―golly gee, nice to have been there‖ stuff on there, and I‘m walking across and he said, ―Where you going from here Captain Spaulding?‖ I said, ―I‘m going back to Indianapolis sir, Fort Harrison‖, and he 55 �said, ―Fort Harrison, that‘s finance‖, he said, ―You‘re a combat officer‖. 7:02 I said, ―No sir, I got Riffed three years, four years ago‖, I said, ―I‘m going back, I‘m in the reserves‖. He just set, kind of made a notation to his aide, I walked over that way going off the stage and the aide said, ―You‘ll have dinner with us and the General tonight at the officers club at nineteen hundred hours‖, blah, blah, blah, so I got in there and he asked me what the deal was during dinner and I told him, ―General Berry‖, and he said, ―Oh hell, I know Sid‖, and I thought, ―Uh‖, so anyway, back and forth and the gist of it was that he took my name and address and I gave him a copy of my orders so it wouldn‘t be that difficult to figure out and all that. Nothing, four, five, six months, I hear nothing and then I get a letter from the Department of The Army to go take a physical, so I‘m up there at Fort Harrison, so I go take a physical and I mail them back. 8:01 I don‘t hear nothin' for five, six, seven months and all of a sudden ―boom‖ I get orders, well by this time I‘m promoted to Major, the orders are for Captain, so I write them all out and send them back, and nothing for four, five six months. Now, we‘re looking at a couple years here already, so bang here comes another set of orders to Major, report to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And I‘m going back to special forces, so I get back there and there‘s just no way in hell that I can keep up with eighteen, nineteen, twenty year kids anymore, I‘d been sitting behind a desk too long. I tried to stay in halfway decent shape, so anyway, the way it worked out was the special forces, at that time, was expanding and they were enlarging the National Guard and reserve special forces units and they needed guys to go out there that A. Spoke a foreign language, B. Special forces qualified, C. combat tested, or whatever. 9:15 Well, I had a couple A teams, special forces, and company commander, so they had me, Charlie Acock, and I don‘t know how many others. Charlie 56 �and I go to the 1st Battalion of the 12th Special Forces in Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base, Kansas, which is just south of Kansas City, and we had that battalion forever. I mean we really squared them away. Charlie was on the admin side and I was the operation training side. We had seven different locations in five states that we were responsible for. Interviewer: So, when were you doing this in terms of years? This was 1978, 79, 80, yeah, and then I sent my paperwork in and got my twenty. 10:06 I said time to get out, quoted Title X and blah, blah, blah, and about a month later I get this nasty gram back saying, ―We are well aware of what Title X says, we will tell you when you have your twenty, you do not tell us when you have your twenty‖, and I thought, ―My god has everybody gone nuts? This is ridiculous‖. ―This is 1980 and I went in in 1958, I got more than twenty, what‘s going on here?‖ But anyway, it gets better, so I get this thing, ―Your assignment is over with here, where do you want to go?‖ I said, ―Get me back as close to Indianapolis as possible, what have you got?‖ By this time I‘m already labeled into advisory capacity, so they fire me this thing and the other side of it is I‘m ready for Lieutenant Colonel, well, I‘ve got to get the advance course, I‘m sorry, I‘ve got to get the Commanding General Staff course. 11:07 I‘m sitting at Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base and fort Leavenworth is thirty miles away, so I‘m driving back and forth picking up the correspondence. The three year correspondence thing I did in about eight months. Very seldom, ever, did I pick up a book and look, I just took the test. But anyway, I got all that done and got eligible promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and then there were not that many slots open, but they did have one 05 slot open in Camp Atterbury, Indiana. The Colonel called me back to tell me and I said, ―I know 57 �exactly where that is, that will be fine‖, so I go home, which my wife was very happy about that. I was the senior advisor to the 70th Division, 3rd Brigade, I believe it was and boy, they were screwed up. 12:05 But anyway, sitting down there 1981, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, retired in June of 87 about February, I believe, or March. I‘m with the brigade commander and he was in a sense, defrauding the government. He would have orders cut, if it went through me, I wouldn‘t cut them, but he was going around behind me and I didn‘t even know what was happening. So finally this one little clerk came to tell me, ―his is what‘s going on‖, because he would be putting himself on active duty days and would not be in uniform, working in the center. 13:02 He would be in his office down town in civvies drawing full pay, and then he‘s go cut orders for three weeks annual training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina where we‘re rotating troops through. We‘d had an element there every week rotating and they overlapped. But anyway, he was only there for one week, because the other two weeks he be down at Myrtle Beach, and drawing pay. Well anyway, all this came out later and I was in his stuff about it, ―The guy did this, the guy did that‖, and he brought me up on charges for something, I forget what it was, insubordination or something, probably more, but then about this time, I get this nasty gram that I was defrauding the government because I have been more than twenty years in the army. Under Title ten, you‘re only authorized twenty years active service unless you‘re a 06 or above, which I was only a 05. 14:08 I thought, ―Boy, they got some real idiots running things now days‖, but anyway, I wrote back and I said, ―Fine, no problem‖, and I picked up the phone and tried to call them and I said, ―Whatever you want to do‖, but I kept the paperwork that I notified them and I kept the paperwork of their response and then I put this one in there. Now, I get a call from the 5th 58 �Army IG, and Colonel Travis, he put all kinds of weird stuff in there. Anyway, we had to go up to the Commanding General, 5th Army, at Fort Sheridan. I refused to ride in the same car with him; I drove my own car and didn‘t care what he took. 15:00 But anyway, we got up there and Beth and I next morning went in there and he went in first and there was the JAG officer, the chief of staff, the deputy commanding General and the commanding General and one or two others in there. But anyway, he went in and he laid all of it out, you know, and all that, and then they called me in, so I went in saluted and all that and he said, ―Have a seat‖, and I sat, commanding General, four stars, and he‘s sitting there and he says, ―Hmm‖, and Colonel Travis is sitting there looking like, ―Fine, we got you now, hm‖, and I‘m thinking, ―Boy this is—how do people like this get promoted?‖ I mean, they wonder why, sometimes, the reserve units are screwed up; well this is a very good example, right there. 16:01 But anyway, General Boylan looked up and he said, ―Well Fred, it looks like you got yourself in a wringer again, doesn‘t it?‖ I said, ―Yes sir, it looks that way‖, and he says, ―What the hell am I going to do with you?‖ I said, ―I don‘t know sir, you should probably just discharge me‖, and we sat there and he kind smiled and I‘m sitting there. When General Boylan was the brigade commander in the 82nd Airborne Division, I was his S3, old home week. He got his first star in approximately a year after that he got his second star, and then, within fourteen months, fifteen months, he had his other two, he was four stars just like that, bam, bam, bam, just like that and there he was—17:05 He leaned back in his chair and by this time Travis is looking around like, ―What the hell, what was that about?‖ General Boylan, he‘s talking to his staff, he had the IG, chief of staff and others, and he said, ―Gentlemen, remember the other day at lunch we were discussing, I was telling you about this young officer that 59 �I knew that was really something, a real go getter, blah, blah, blah‖, and he went on and he said, ―This is him, he‘s one of the finest officers I‘ve ever known‖. He turned around and he looked at Travis, and he said, ―Fred, don‘t worry about this discharge thing, just when do you want to get discharged?‖ This was in April and I said, ―Well sir, I came in on twenty five, June and I‘d like to go out in June‖, and he said, ―Consider it, thirty June‖, and he looked over at whoever and he said, ―See to it‖, and he said, ―Yes sir, I got it done‖. 18:04 he looked over at Travis and he said, ―Colonel Travis, your retirement date will be thirty-one July‖, and he said, ―But sir, I hadn‘t planned on it‖, and he said, ―Plan on it, you‘re out‖. I went home and got all my paperwork done, got all that squared away, went out to Fort Harrison and took the last two weeks as terminal leave and went out to Fort Harrison to make sure all my paperwork and everything was done. They do an audit of your of your records, your finance records, to make sure everything, your pay is up to date, which I found they owed me a bunch on vacation days and a couple other things, leave time and stuff, but it was kind of like poetic justice in some ways, but in other ways---19:00 There‘s many different things in the military, a lot of things that I did that others got credit for, took credit for, but I always figured that as long as you be true to yourself, and true to the men that you‘re responsible for, things will work out. It might not always be in your favor, but eventually it will come around, and now, the way it sits, a year and a half ago staff sergeant Gilbert put in an eye witness statement, staff sergeant Esposito put in an eye witness statement, General Harrison wrote a two page letter of recommendation for the Distinguished Flying Cross that I got on twenty three, July to be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. We got paperwork back from the Pentagon and all this, stating yes they had it and were processing it under title whatever. 20:03 60 �Here about a month ago I got a letter from the Secretary of the Army stating that the recommendation had passed the Military Awards Board, had passed the Senior Military Review board and got to his desk and he, after looking at everything, he personally downgraded it to the Distinguished Service Cross. He never said, one time, as to why he downgraded it, I have no idea, I have no idea. But when you get to elements that high, second place isn‘t that bad, you know. But, since that time I‘ve been inducted into the Infantry OCS Hall of Fame, I‘ve been inducted into the distinguished member of the Regiment of the 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment, this coming April I‘m being inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame. I‘ve got the paper; I haven‘t gotten the whole thing yet. 21:00 There was something else—it really makes no difference to me about awards and shit. It‘s always a great thing to be recognized for your efforts, but the biggest thing to a professional soldier is not all the medals that you bet, because they‘re nice pretty colored ribbons, they‘re nice and all that, but they fade with age. One thing that never fades with age and the greatest award you can ever get is the accolade you receive from those that you served with. Interviewer: Now, what I’d like to do to kind of close this out and sort of turn the tables around on you a little. The American public often has a lot of misconceptions about American soldiers in Vietnam, who they were, how they acted, etc. 22:03 From your perspective, what’s your view of the men, especially the enlisted men, or the citizen soldier officer types who served under you in Vietnam? How would you characterize them as a group? Well, the majority of them that went over there were eighteen, nineteen, twenty year olds, and physically, they all looked like baby Tarzans out there. Mentally they were not 61 �prepared to see what they were going to see and that‘s why you have so much of this Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, that‘s why you have so much of the Alcoholism, because they don‘t see it anymore when they‘re drunk. Some guys can handle it, some guys don‘t and we all have to handle it in a different way. I keep explaining to them, ―You don‘t dwell on it, don‘t think about it, it‘s over with, you can‘t bring it back, you can‘t change anything, you have no say so, whatsoever, in what transpired. 23:07 The only thing you‘ve got any control over is what‘s going to happen tomorrow, and the best thing to do there is don‘t think about what happened yesterday, go this way and build your own life again‖. Interviewer: What do you thing the term is for how well or how poorly they performed when they were in the field? What now? Interviewer: What determines how well they performed when they were in the field, or how well generally do you think they did? Discipline, faith in your leaders, as a company commander, as a leader, you got to show them that you‘re not going to hide behind your Captain bars, you‘re not going to be hiding behind— you guys go out here and do this, do that, you got to go out there and show them how to do it. As long as they know you‘re there with them, taking the same crap that they‘re taking, the same danger and all, facing the same dangers, they‘ll follow you anywhere. 24:08 If they care about you, and that comes under the same thing, they know you care about them, then they will follow you anywhere. Like when you‘re going in on a combat assault and you tell them, ―Okay guys, when you get here, I‘ll be on the 62 �ground waiting for you. I will be on the first chopper in, be on the last one out, I leave no one behind‖, it‘s just that simple. Interviewer: All right, well it’s been a remarkable story and I just want to close by thanking you for telling it today. No problem what so ever. 24:44 63 �64 � 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 SpauldingF1268V Title A name given to the resource Spaulding, Fred (Interview transcript and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Spaulding, Fred Description An account of the resource Fred Spaulding was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in April 1940. After high school, Spaulding waited a year before enlisting. Initially rejected by his first choice, the Marine Corps, Spaulding enlisted in the Army and went to Fort Knox, Kentucky for basic training then to Fort Benning, Georgia for advanced training. Once his initial enlistment ended, Spaulding left the Army but soon returned and received a deployment to Korea to serve first as part of the U.N. honor guard in Seoul then as part of the newly-formed 8th Army honor guard. While with the 8th Army honor guard, Spaulding spent in brief period in Vietnam as an advisor. Following Korea, Spaulding returned to the United States and joined the 82nd Airborne Division. While with the 82nd Airborne, Spaulding participated in the invasion and occupation of the Dominican Republic. Eventually, Spaulding attended OCS at Fort Benning, graduating in 1967, after which he joined the Special Forces and attended language school in Monterey, California before joining a Special Forces group based on Okinawa. While on Okinawa, Spaulding took part in several missions to Vietnam. Following Okinawa, in order for Spaulding to advance up the career ladder, he needed a company-level command, so he received an assignment to the 101st Airborne. Once he finished his time as a company commander, Spaulding first moved to S-3 at the battalion level then S-3 at the brigade level. While at the brigade level, Spaulding participated in the operations in and around Firebase Ripcord, including oversea the evacuation of the firebase. Once his tour in Vietnam ended, Spaulding returned to the United States expecting to continue up the career ladder. However, because he a disagreement with the officer in-charge of officer personnel at the Pentagon, who happened to be the commander of the 101st Airborne, Spaulding instead received discharge papers. After spending several years in the National Guard and Army Reserves, Spaulding eventually rejoined the Regular Army, finally retiring in June 1987. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-10-07 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f0d72dabe8bd81556eadabd81c9f0cbd.mp4 0665e4de7f68fe62fa53478c51fac876 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ab0c8e563bd8291b7fca14bdd15afc1b.pdf 2ff2eeb0cc705661baecd82f540f906a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Bradford Sutherland (00:32:40) (00:00:00) Background • Born on 29 June 1936 at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, MI • Lived in a trailer in back of his grandmother’s farm o Two siblings and his parents o Land that he lived on is now owned by Michigan State University • Moved to Clemens St., across from Potter Park Zoo • Later moved back to the country, which he liked better than the city • Discovered a gift for painting • Went to Diamondale High School o Was an unruly student o Later went to Charlotte High School, to increase his chances of getting into college • Worked for the Knights of Columbus from 10th through 12th grade o Intensive labor o Prepared him for factory work • Worked for Oldsmobile after high school • 1956-1957 – attended Michigan State University as an art major o Required to do officer’s training o Decided to try a career in the Air Force � Stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas • Went through tech school • Went through basic training � Later stationed outside of Spokane, WA • Fought fires • Went to church each Sunday • Made ceramics at a hobby shop that was run by a Sergeant’s wife (00:07:58) England • Chose to go to England for overseas duty o Did not want to go to a country where the language was different o “Wanted to see England.” • Stopped in Michigan, before going overseas, to get engaged • His captain flew B-52s o While the captain was on leave, his crew hit a mountain and died o Stopped flying immediately after that incident • Worked in the munitions squadron o Originally had a “dull” job on the base o Job in the munitions squadron left him isolated �Wanted to go back to college after the service, but never did o Did not do much painting while in the service • Saw a lot of Europe o Traveled during his leave time • Drove a Volkswagen that he bought for $1143 (00:12:12) Leaving the military • Came home in 1963, the same year JFK was assassinated • Stayed in bunkers during Cuban Missile Crisis • Flew on a 707 back to McGuire Air Force Base o His family went back to Michigan o Drove two men back to Grand Rapids before returning to Lansing • Lived in an apartment in Lansing o Got a job at a post office � Hurt his back on the job � Had a hard time finding a job after his injury o The government sent him to drafting school, and did some drafting jobs • Went through a period of doing temporary jobs • Moved to Grand Rapids o Always wanted to live in Grand Rapids o Lived in a trailer park o Held a job as an inspector � Held the job for thirteen years � A heart operation caused him to quit the job • Did not have much insurance • The military paid for the operation • (00:17:55) Moving into the Veterans’ home • Moved in due to health and money problems • Started painting again o Mostly with acrylics � Acrylic paint dries faster than oil-based paints � Allows him to work faster o Discusses his uncle � World War II Marine � Was a designer for General Motors, and introduced him to acrylic paints • His mother is 90 years old o In perfect health o Never smoked or drank • Describes doing portraits and other types of painting that he enjoys o Once did a portrait of a friend, who later drowned o Did not do portraits for a long time afterward (00:23:35) Marriage • Got married overseas �• • • Divorced in 1975 Has two daughters o One lives in Byron Center, MI o The other moved to Florida His ex-wife is on her fourth marriage (00:26:25) Back surgery • Was told that he could not work overtime • Had a 35 lbs. lifting limitation • Did not prosecute the Post Office o No union there to help him o Did not seek worker’s comp. • Went to a psychologist, who referred him to a lawyer o The lawyer was unwilling to help him o The injury caused him to lose all of his money, because he could not get a job • • • • • • (00:29:26) “Anything you want to mention to your daughters?” Does not know what to say to them He is grateful that he never “laid a hand” on them Is proud that they married good men o Refers to them as “good Christians” o Shows extreme fondness for the son-in-law that lives in Florida Is glad that he is in the Veterans’ home, so that he is not a burden on his children Recommends the Air Force to anyone End (00:32:40) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SoutherlandB Title A name given to the resource Southerland, Bradford (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Southerland, Bradford Description An account of the resource Bradford Sutherland is an Air Force veteran who entered the military after completing two years at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI as an art student. His introduction to the military was through an officer's training course that was required by the university, causing him to take an interest in having a career with the Air Force. He spent his time in the US Air Force at bases in Texas, Washington, and in England. In this interview, Sutherland describes his experiences in the service, including the time that he spent traveling throughout Europe. Sutherland also describes many of the hardships that veterans endure once their time in the service has expired. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Warren, Alvin (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Air Force Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-06-29 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/750bc5626b3c78e16d5b804ab481a6e9.mp4 ca2f3c15595dd0b78b0dad8a9ccbd43f https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2e7ded924a41819f985e40576dd26ba9.pdf e2fc4abcdc461658565e1c7058734c74 PDF Text Text Grand Valley Sate University Veterans History Project Dominic Patrick Sondy (01:28:00) Introduction (00:13) Family and Friends (00:26) • Born and raised in Detroit in 1922. He mentions that his parents were originally from Italy and Sicily before they immigrated to the U.S. His dad painted roads before joining the army. • He gives a detailed description of his dad’s experiences in the 32nd Division, 126th Inf. Regiment during World War I. • Sondy mentions an encounter of his dad shooting down a 3-winged German plane from the trenches with a Springfield. rifle. (02:47) Also mentions an encounter in which his father and a friend about being pinned down by a German machine gun and getting 16 burn marks to his back. Further mentions an encounter in which a German 75-millimeter shell bounces off his father’s helmet and takes a piece of his hair off. (05:57) • Briefly mentions that his dad used the GI Bill [not passed yet?—ed.] to get an education and make a start in the Detroit motion picture industry. • Also describes the difficulties that his family faced during the Depression while living at their farm near 6-mile North, Detroit right across the street from the University of Detroit. Pre-enlistment (10:58) • Graduated high school in 1941. Sondy mentions the reservations that he had about joining the armed services because his father was against even though many of his friends had already joined in 1942. • Before joining the armed forces, Sondy mentions working in a variety of capacities in machine shops, drafting, and photography. Enlistment and Training (12:33) • Upon getting drafted in April, 1943, Sondy mentions having an interview with a man from the draft board in some detail. Describes how he was sent to Camp Roberts, CA for field artillery training. �• While there, Sondy mentions that he learned a great deal about fire direction and the importance of math and trigonometry in field artillery. • Also mentions in some detail his time with the Army Specialist Training Program (ASTP). While doing this, he and another named Andrew Tomo were chosen out of a group of 52 men to study at Stanford for three months in AREA study. This was preparation for the invasion of Sicily and Italy but instead was used as preparation for the invasion of France which was on July 6th, 1944. (00:17:34) Shares some of his personal thoughts on the train ride from San Francisco to Seattle on Christmas Eve. (00:18:00) • Upon arrival in Seattle, WA he boarded a truck which took him to Fort Lewis, a camp of 50,000 people. While there, he trained with an 8-inch howitzer outfit firing 8-inch guns. • Mentions that while at Camp Roberts they also received desert training because it was believed that they would go to Africa, but instead went to Wales. • Sondy describes in some detail a 2 ½ correspondence with a girl named Jenny who he met at that camp while going to a film shop. He mentions that he continued his correspondence with her during his time in France and Germany. Later on he found out that his mother had withheld a few of Jenny’s letters from him. (00:22:31) Combat Experiences in Europe • Sondy mentions an encounter in which a buddy of his brought in White Russian prisoners-of-war from a province between Russia and China who had originally worked in a factory. Further describes how a little girl gave him a 100-year old ring. Later on, when these people were journeying home they threw a celebration and were all killed after drinking wood alcohol. (01:14:44) • Briefly mentions the conditions of the Nazi Army at the end of the war. • Sondy discusses in some detail how General Patton pushed his division dog ragged for 20 to 25 miles a day. He mentions that within 93 km of Berlin FDR halted their advance and redirected down the Autobahn so that the Russians could get to Berlin before the Americans. They were sent to Bavaria along the autobahn to Linz, Austria. Briefly highlights Russian brutality of the German people. Further mentions that that the Germans suffered 1,000,000 causalities. • Sondy describes in some detail an encounter on Palm Sunday where an allied P-47 fired on their position. He tells of how a Chicago outfit shot down this P47 with a 50 caliber machine gun and forcing the pilot to bail out. Also �mentions that while the pilot was parachuting down the unit continued firing at his parachute. Consequently, the wind took the pilot’s parachute directly down in front of this unit’s gun emplacements where he landed dead. What follows is a brief exchange of words between this unit and its liaison. (00:41:37) • Sondy also briefly mentions having various discussions with a fellow officer about his photography expertise from middle school, while serving as a truck radio operator. • Describes in some detail his service while fighting in the Battle of the Bulge. Briefly mentions a story about a group of 450 men who went patrolling in the woods and were wiped out as a result. Afterwards, his company was redirected north to the Bulge. • Describes an encounter in mid-April [August?] 1944 in which he saved his regiment. He mentions that he was part of an advanced party whose job it was to scout ahead for better gun placements. About 30 feet from a German position he noticed that the air smelled of cabbage and ordered a halt because he knew Germans usually liked to cook cabbage. His superior officers: Capt. Beersdorn and Colonel Lock-it commended him for his quick thinking and recommended him for a medal. (00:51:19) Unfortunately, both of them were killed in the Bulge and were unable to file the necessary paperwork for him to get his medal. • Sondy describes his time in the German province of Bavaria in a town called Bad Ebling, 30 miles east of Munich. Spent the reminder of his service there. He mentions that about July 4th he went and paid a visit to Hitler’s fortress and King Ludwig’s Castle. While there, he grabbed a few tiles from the floor as war souvenirs. Going Home (55:45) • Sondy discusses that a week after the surrender of Germany that since he wasn’t eligible for a pass that the colonel informed him that he was going to be shipped home, even though he earnestly wanted to stay and take officer training. • Afterwards, he boarded a boxcar train to Le Havre, France, where he was to be shipped out. On the way, he mentions in some detail an encounter with an Italian family who believed him to be a native Italian deserting the army and going to America. He mentions that this took place in Mannheim. (01:00:17) • From the train station, he boarded a ship and went back to the states to be trained for the Japanese war. The Japanese war ended in August. He was sent to Camp Grant in Rockford, Illinois where he stayed from Sept. 1945 to �January 1946. (1:04:32) When he got his 50 discharge points he was out on Jan. 19th. After the war (01:19:01) • Upon being discharged, Sondy mentions that he went to Wayne College for a Bachelors and Masters in teaching. He taught art and photography in public schools around Michigan for 32 years. In 1960, he took a leave of absence to work with a friend on setting up a photography lab. He quit after having disagreements with his friend and goes back to work in the school system in Warren, MI. Shares his personal thoughts about the war and how lucky he was. (01:28:03) �INDUCTION INTO ARMY During the year 1940 war was going on in Europe and in the Far East on land as well as on the seas. The United States was supportingthe Allieswith some supplies. The United States was not prepared for war as to personneland weapons. The Congressvoted to start a draft of men for a year of military training. The draft sign-up tookplace in October. Since I was in the age bracketto be drafted, I signed for the draft at Angell Schoolalong with my friends. My draft numberwas drawn so that I wouldprobably be drafted during the first year. Since Ruth and I were engagedand she wouldbe graduatingfrom Calvin Collegein June of 1941,we decided that I would volunteer to go into the anny to get in my one year of militarytraining with the group that was going to be inducted in January 1941. I was workingat Accuralite a division of SealedPower Corp. at 55centsper- hour. I got the job to play softball for them in 1941. The January group was the second group to be inductedfrom the Muskegonarea. My departure date was January21st. Ruth and I went to a hockeygame at the Mart the 17th• Our group left Muskegon by train from Western Avenuestationbound for Kalamazoo. They put US up in the Burdick Hotel in downtown Kalamazoo. During the day of the 21st at the Kalamazoo Armory,we went througha completephysical from head to toe. That evening we were sworn into the U. S. Army at $ 21.00 per month. Then we were put on a train for Fort Custer. We were assignedto barracks. We got our first taste of Army mess and were issued Army clothing (some clothingwas WW I style). Friday I worked in clothingsupplyin recordinga record of clothing issuedto individuals. We also had to take a multiple­ choice test. It was an IQtest althoughwe didn't know it at the time. A fellowfrom Muskegonwanted to hitch bike home for Saturdayand Sundayand asked if I wouldgo with him. I said I would go as far as Grand Rapids (I wantedto see Ruth). At the time I didn't know how I would get back to Fort Custer. When I got to GrandRapidsI calledmy folks asked if they could take me back to Fort Custer. They said they would and Ruth went with them. WhenI got back to Fort Custer Sundaynight, I was told we were shipping out the first thing Mondaymorning by train to the State of Washington. Someof the men that were inductedat the same time were going to Upper Michigan (they ended up with the 5th Infantry Division and were sent to Iceland.). We arrived at Chicago and were met with other inducteesgoing to the Stateof Washington Our train was the Great Northerntaking the northern route to the city of Seattle. The cars were Pullmancars and I had an upper berth. On the train we had a few non-commissioned officersfrom the units to which we were going to be assigned. A very interestingride as I had never been further west than Chicago. We made a few stops in route and saw mountainsfor the first time. We went through an eight-miletunnel (snowingat east-endand raining and no snow at the west-end). At Seattlewe were put aboardferryboats for a ferry ride up Puget Sound to Fort Worden �FORT WORDEN - WASHINGTON We arrived at the pier of Fort Worden ill late January 1941. Fort Worden was the headquarters post for the defenseof the entrance to Puget Sound We left the ferryboat with our luggage andhadto walk up to the barracks. We passed a number of barracks - they were all occupied. We ended up in some old CCC barracks on the west -side of the camp. The buildings were one story, potbellystoves for beat and the streets were dirt. We had a central building for toilets and showers. We were told that the quarters were temporary for a few months. My cot was in the middle of the building near the potbellystove - so I was either too hot or too cold Our battery was "G" battery of the 14th Coast Artillery. We were told that we would get our basic training here and that we would remain with the 14th Coast Artilleryin Puget Sound The men of our battery were from western Michigan,across the State to Detroit area, and a number from the Chicago area. On Fort Wordenwere housed the second battalion (batteriesD, E, F) ofthe 14th Coast Artillery. Batteries A, B, C were located at Fort Casey. Fort Flagler was going to have batteries G, H, I. The barracks at Fort Flagler were not finishedyet. Alsoat Fort Worden was the 24Sth Coast Artillery. It was the NationalGuard for the State of Washington (they had been called to active duty the last few months of 1940). Captain Clark was our battery commander (a West Point graduate still in his twenties). He was a very good officer and commander. He didn't stay with us very long. The other officerswere ROTC officers who had been called to active duty. Our l" Sgt, was Sam Milder (regulararmy). He was in World War L We had our basic training at Fort Worden. There were a few ball players in the battery so we formed a softball team. We had some good players from Grand Rapids - Detroit- Chicago, and I was the only one from the Muskegon area. We had a good team and we beat the other batteries most of the time. I played 3rd base and was consideredone of the better players. The meals were very good - we had a regular anny mess Sgt. ­ Chinese. Port Townsend was within walking distance - so had a town near by The 24Sth Coast Artillery occupiedall the new barracks on post. Post commanderwas Colonel James Cunningham- he was also the regimental commanderof the 14th CAC He was regular army. The 248th CAC manned the guns at Fort Worden with the 2nd battalion of the 14th CAe. Our assignment was to be at Fort Flagler. From time to time we would send a work detail to Fort Flagler by truck About the end of March, I was paid $ 30.00 per month and we were ready for Fort Flagler. �FORTFLAGLER March 1941- May 1,1942 Fort Flagler is locatedat the North tip of Marrowstone Island - a little over 800 acresof land Indian Island was directly west of Marrowstone Island. When the tide is out the islands are one island - when the tideis in theyare two islands. The only way off the islandsin 41 - 42 was by boat or by a little old ferry that operated near the southwest comer of Indian Island The ferry could hold a truck or two or a few cars. From the north end of Marrowstone Island to.PortTownsendwas about four miles but by road it was about twenty miles. In thosedays we had a boat at Fort Wordenwhichbroughtin suppliesto Fort Flagler and Fort Caseyit also transportedarmy personnel, one trip every one or two days. Fort Casey was on WhidbeyIsland which was East of Marrowstone Island - about five miles across. WhidbeyIsland is the second largestisland withinthe continentallimits of the United States. In late 1940 and early 1941 the governmentbuilt about 24 newbuildingson Fort Flagler whichincluded nine barracks, three mess halls, and variousother buildings- this was enough to take care of a battalion. This battalionwas the third battalionof the 141h CAe. In 1941 the Island was a very run down place- few housessome occupiedsome empty. The Islandhad one general store - that store was the only town on the Island- it wascalled Nordland The store was about a mile plus from the Fort Flagler entrance gate. Fort Flagler had nine gun emplacements plus a battery of anti-aircraft guns. Guns were from three inch to twelve inch. For about three months "G" Batterypersonnel were the only militaryon post. The buildingswere not even painted when we arrived We had nice quarters -:furnace heat - toilets andshowersin all of the barracks. We did manydifferent things - cut fire trails in the woods- we were the fire detachment (hose cart) - guard duty (there were very few outdoor lights) - we worked on conditioningthe big guns - we put fuses in ammunitionfor the big twelve inch mortars- fired our rifles on the rifle range - we were oriented on all the armamenton post (to include the three search­ lights). We also were able to carryon with our ball teams. We were champsfor softballin early season. I played third-base. We had to play our games at Fort Worden. Later in the season we playedbaseball. We had to changesome positions. Some fellows play softball but not baseballand some the other way around All our gameswere playedat Fort Wordenor in a small town on the mainland Our final game for championship was at Fort Casey (we won 1- 0). Our pitcherpitched a one-hit game their pitcherpitcheda three-hit game - their pitcher was a minor league pitcher - ours a regulararmy sergeant). I was the . catcherfor our team. Our team playedan all-star high school team from the city of Seattleat Fort Flagler. Webeat them 3 - 2. I had a triple that day. Our secondpitcherwas a pitcher who pitched for the University of Texas. He had a no-hit game pitching for Texas. I also played with a team that bad players from all three forts (three or four of us were on that team). That team played the 42th Division team fromFort Lewis.They beat us.14~ CACteam or members of that team plus the 24Sth .esc playerswent to Sdttle"to play in an all servicementournament, We lost in the finals to Everett Air Force base. I think they had a couple major or minor leagueplayers. I played in part of that final game. I was a littleyoung and inexperiencedto competebut I held my own I didn't strike out at bat I played in the outfieldwhen I played. We went to Seattle by truck and ferry and stayed at the YMCA On one Saturday's inspection by the now Brigadier GeneralCunningham he stopped in front of me, "You are the best looking soldier I have seen today". It was announcedin the Harbor DefenseDaily Bulletin. "G" Battery assignmentat Fort Flagler was to man the three-inch Guns (BatteryDowns andBatteryWansboro) and the under-water listening station. The officers had the personnelin various assigmnents. I ended up with the group manningthe underwater listeningstation. By that timeI was also promotedto Private first class. Also some ofthe older men (over 39 years) were sent home subjectto recall ifwe got into a war. Also about this time Fort Flagler got personnel to fill the other barracks. They became H Batteryand I Battery and we received some personnel from K Batteryto man the three searchlightswe had on the Island H Battery was assigned the twelve-inch Mortars and I Battery was assignedthe Anti-Aircraft Guns. The personnel manning the underwaterlisteningstation were formed into four teams. Withfour teams we could man the station twenty-four hours a day. It wasn't necessaryto man the station that often at that time. During AugustI had a fifteen-dayfurlough on which I came home and got married. Ruth had graduatedfrom Calvin and hada teachingpositionin Indiana. So the first part of Septembershe started teaching and I went back to Fort Flagler. During the summermonthsI went with a fellow who was from Grand Rapids on pass to Oak Harbor. Peoplefrom the ChristianReformed Churchin Oak Harborbad invited us for the week­ end We went there two or three times. There were many Dutch people in that part of the State of Washington. About this time I was promotedto Corporal. In September the personnel manningthe underwaterlisteningstationwere transferredto a new battery designatedas COL" Battery. There are no "J" batteries or companies in the army. "G" Battery remainedin barracks A and B while "L" Battery was housed in barracks C. Being a small number of people"L" Battery's personnel continuedto have their meals with "G" Battery. We had aboutforty people in "L" Battery. We had four shifts for manningthe station. It probably was the most importantunit in the Harbor DefensesofPuget Sound as Puget Sound was a very important waterway. Ships were going back and forth all the time. Passenger liners, freighters, and navy ships were the main vessels. Bremerton Navy Yard was locatedjust west of Seattle.The UnderwaterListening Station tracked ships both under andabove water. The only other underwaterlistening station on the west - coast was located in San Francisco. We had a few men across the Sound �government owned Indian Island and all the old houses were vacant. We even put up a fake outhouse. We dug an under ground shelter about 15 feet down and covered it with logs. The ground was all clay and we had to use dynamite to remove much of the clay. We trained in the use of 50 cal. Machine guns. We had to take them apart and then back together blindfolded. We had three or four on mounts around the fenced in area. In November we made plans to go home for the Christmas holidays (first a half of the unit and then the other half). Whenthe 1st of December came, all plans were put on hold We were told we were going on 24-hour alert until further orders. All Christmasplans were then canceled. Our four shifts were already to go - we knew our assigrunents- but we could not get off the island without special permission, What's going on here? We took our shifts as scheduled. Saturday - December 6 our shift was on the mid-night to 7 AM shift. We had our breakfast and went to bed. We got up at noon and were told that Pearl Harbor had been bombed by the Japanese. We were already on 24 hour alert so not much of a change. We continued working on our barn. We did man our machine guns at night and we were told to shoot anything that flew. That week General Cunninghamcame over to our island and spoke to us about the Philippines as he had served there fora period of time. One day when our shift was on duty, I receivedcoded message by radio from the Navy. We were told that the Navy was bringing in a number of ships through Puget Sound to the Bremerton Navy Yard for repair. The group included an aircraft carrier, a battleship, three destroyers and about six airplanes above the ships. You could see that some of them really needed repairs. It was quite a sight. Our turn of duty was extended for the duration of the war. Our 39 years old men were ordered back to their units. Our duty was pretty well set - this was a defense situation for how long? Was this what we wanted to do possibly for the duration? The Army had put notices out that they wanted men to go to officers' school to be commissioned as officers. You had to have scored at lest 110 on your IQ test to apply. I had scored 132and one of my friends had scored even higher - he had quite a bit of college, I didn't have any college - I had been working with a correspondence school studying accountingand was near the end of the course. So we put in our applications. We had interviewswith our battery commander and other officers. We had to take physicals at Fort Worden. George Haddad my friend was the head plotter on our shift and I worked across from him on the other side of the plotting board George applied for Chemical Warfare School and I applied for Coast Artillery School. I found out that a fellow from ."H'~ Battery had also applied.for Coast Artillery School.. The fellow from "If'. Battery and! were ordered to report to Officer Candidate Schoolthe first part of May. He was assigned to Coast Artillery School at Fort Monroe, Virginia and I was assigned to the Anti-Aircraft School at Camp Davis, North Carolina. I found out that George went to Chemical Warfare School a little later. The fellow from "If' Battery and I took a bus from Port Townsend to Seattle. We stayed overnight in a hotel in Seattle with reservations for a plane to Chicago that left at 8 0' clock in the mortling. We left from Boeing Field for Chicago. This was my first time up in an airplane and of course I got sick (this was in 1942). We made six stops starting with Spokane and landing at the Midway Airport in Chicago at midnight. Ruth and her uncle and aunt met me. I visited her school, had a few days together, and back to Muskegon. Then I was on my way to Camp Davis by train to Washington, D.C. and then on the Atlantic Coast Line traitfto'Wilmington, North Carolina. I was brought the rest of the way by bus to Camp Davis locatedjust outside the little town of Holly Ridge. The camp was built on a swamp. I hoped I would be here through the first week of August 1942. �CAMP DAVIS- NORTH CAROLINA-May 6 - August7,1942 1 Camp Davis is located about 30 miles NNW of Wilmington on highway 17 near the town of Holly Ridge which is 5 miles from the Ocean. The camp was built upon a swamp. During World War I the airplane was not a very importantfactor. But World War II combat was fought on land, on the sea and in the air. There were very few anti-aircraftartilleryofficers at the beginning of World War II. Anti-Aircraftdefensewas given to the Coast ArtilleryCorps rather than to the Field Artillery. They considered Anti-AircraftArtillerydefensiveweapons. Camp Davis was built to train candidatesto becomeanti-aircraft artilleryofficers and ROTC commissionedofficers to complete a refreshercourse to become anti-aircraftartillery officers. The ROTC officers were mainlyLieutenants, Captains and Majors who had been recalled to active duty. Upon completion of the course the ROTC officers were assignedto new activated Anti-AircraftArtillerybattalions. The officer candidate 9O-day course was for enlisted personnel - which upon completion of the course they wouldbe given a commisssionas a second lieutenant. The buildings at CampDavis were similar to the new buildings we had at Fort Flagler. When I arrived in Wilmington, I joined a group which was going to be transported to Camp Davis. Upon arriving at the camp, the group was taken directly to our new home. We hoped the barracks would be home for the next ninety days. Not all personnelof our group would be graduating in ninety days. We were assigned to a cot in one of the four barracks. We had to remove all stripes -and unit designation from out uniforms, We were- can:didatesforcotnliiission- Class # 18. Our eqUipment and clothing were checkedto see if we had all of the items we were required to have. I was short summer uniforms, We did not need summer uniformsat Fort Flagler - it never got that warm. So I was issued my summer uniforms and any other items I was short and a rifle. The men came from all over the USA Someof the candidates were young (just recentlyin the army), some with a year or more in the anny, others were from the regular army with many years in the army. We were paid accordingto rank we held prior to becoming a candidate for a commissionas a Second Lieutenant We were now a companycommanded by a Captain Smith. We had platoon commanders. They would be acting more as evaluatorsthan commanders. Each week we had different candidates acting as officers within the company. We were continuously being evaluated. Candidateswere evaluated in various areas -leadership, military bearing, classroom instruction,attentionto orders, and discipline. The living quarters were inspectedtwice a day. Bedding had to be foldedjust so or you would find your cot up over the heating duct. Clothingon your clothing rack had to be buttoned. Field equipmentmust be placed in the right order. Barracks inspectionsresulted in most of all the demerits we received. Everyone had demerits of some sort. The inspectorswould unbutton a shirt or blouse. We had better check it before the next inspection. We had inspection in ranks every Saturdaymorning. The first four weeks the inspectionswere with rifles. Many of those inspections were in the hot sun. We wore brass name badges - if you touched them they would tarnish. We marched to class at attention - we did not turn your head to the right or left - eyes stmight ahead. We had about NO--150 in our class. A little over half graduated with the basic group. Some dto.Qped out - some were asked to leave - others were dropped back a few weeks especially if they were weak in classroomsubjects. The ones that left went back to their previous unit or were assigned elsewhere. I made friends with a few of the fellows. Two of those friendships lasted for years - the last one died in January 1999. He was four years older than I was. DonaldMcClelland had the cot next to me- he was from "K" Battery -14th CACand was stationed at Fort Casey. I did not know him before our meeting at Camp Davis. Larry Blaisdell's cot was across the barracks from us. (More about these two friends later). Our classroomswere hot ­ our shirts were wet from sweatjust sittingin the classrooms. We received good training for the thirteen weeks allotted to tl~ prior to being commissionedas officers. We got to know the basics of anti-aircraftartillery. We trucked to the Ocean beach one-day to receive orientation on the 90rnm- 37mm- the new 40mm guns. The 40mm gun was so new that the instructor could not put it back together after he had taken it apart. We also were trucked to Fort Fisher (a Civil War Fort) located near Wilmingtonto view an anti-tank range for anti-aircraft guns. We did not have any range firing at Camp Davis. All tile candidates should have had rifle firing at their previous unit I weightedabout 150 pounds at that time and during that thirteen weeks I lost weight We were under stressand tile weather was hot. The last week was usedto buy new uniforms, Officersbuy their own uniforms- howeverthey do receive a cash uniform allowance. A day or two before gmduation we assembledin a theater building to choosewhere or be told where we were going to be assigned as officers. On a big board in front contained where we could be assigned. The three of us (Don, Larry and I) saw that they needed twelve officers at Camp Haan, California We signaled each other to choose Camp Haan. Well we made it - Don got the twelfth opening.. We were able to chooseaccording to our rank in the class. Some of the regular army candidatesreceivedspecial assignments- one went to West Point to be a gun instructor- another to a fort on Long Island - an so on.. Saturdaymorning was graduationday in our new uniforms, A group of the graduateshad chartered a bus to take us to Washington, D.C. on our way to our assignments. Don McClelland was from Cheboygan,Michigan. So we boarded a train for Harrisburg, PA On our way to Harrisburg we decided to get a plane to Detroit. We got the plane after a little wait After arriving in Detroit, I called Ruth in Grand Rapids that I was in Detroit and I would be flying to Grand Rapids. Ruth and her sister Gertrude met me at the Grand Rapids airport. I had a few days of leave in Michigan. Ruth and I were go~ leavefor California that coming Saturday. I had Den's telephonenumber. � 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 SondyD Title A name given to the resource Sondy, Dominic Patrick (Interview outline, video, and papers), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sondy, Dominic Patrick Description An account of the resource Dominic P. Sondy served in the U.S. Army with the 662nd Field Artillery from April 1943 to January 1946 during World War II. In this account, Sondy discusses his pre-enlistment, enlistment and training in the U.S., and his combat experiences in France and Germany. Personal narrative is appended to the interview outline. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McCauslin, Kelly (Interviewer) Spring Lake District Library (Spring Lake, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-01-26 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/de1ace9295a35a01d5fc32854fa9f770.mp4 731624cb2a842cabc8b45da37a3bc884 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8fe827a7b050dd4c3868d3f6cc93de5c.pdf 7d564b63263822ea87ddac827be95580 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Buzz Sodeman 1:55:37 Back Ground information (00:09)                   Born in Saginaw Michigan at Saginaw March 3rd at Saginaw Osteopathic Hospital in 1947 (00:15) He lived in the Saginaw area till the middle of his first grade year, when his parents moved to a different neighborhood (00:23) He graduated from Saginaw Saint Mary’s High School (approx. 1965) (00:48) His father was the regional sales and service manager for the Whirlpool corporation and his mother was a nurse(00:50) There were three children in his family, a younger brother, a younger sister and himself. (1:10) After high school he attended Central Michigan University for 1 year. He went from being a nation honor society student to flunking out of college. (1:23) After one year at Central Michigan University he had a 1.9 GPA (1:38) At this time (approx 1966) men with 4.0 GPAs were being drafted. (1:40) He applied for the 120 Day delay program (1:55) When he applied for this portion the military had still been screening people. (2:09) He was told after a physical examination that he would never have to worry about going to Vietnam because his eyesight was so poor that if he lost his glasses he would have to worry about shooting his own people. (2:20) In the 120 day period between when he enlisted in the military and boot camp, he married his first wife. (2:30) His father served during World War II in the Philippines. (2:53) His father asked him, “do you want to sleep in a dirty foxhole or do you want to sleep in clean sheets?” Wanting clean sheets, Buzz was left with the Navy or the Air Force (3:01) He enlisted in the Navy (3:20) He had heard primarily poor things about the Vietnam War when he enlisted (3:30) He considered evading the draft but ultimately decided against it. (3:45) When doing the physical examination he did not see anyone overtly attempting to fail the exams to evade the draft. (4:20) Basic Training (5:17)   He reported to Great Lakes Naval Station in January of 1967 (5:20) He was placed on a bus that went from Detroit to Chicago and then on a train from Chicago to Great Lakes Naval Base. (5:35) �                  When they arrived they immediately met their company commander and were placed in a barracks. (5:43) They soon found out this was the wrong barracks and had to move to another. This happened during a horrid snow storm (the Great Chicago Blizzard of 1967). When they arrived in their barracks they simply sat on the floor with no light, no heat, and no food. (6:00) Due to frigid conditions, much of the physical training had been done inside a hanger. (7:20) His training consisted on certain classes such as Navy proper etiquette and knot tying. And even basic aspects such as how to wash clothes (7:41) To wash sheets, the men would plug the drains with the cloth, sprinkle soap on them and then tag team wrestle on top of them to get them clean. (8:10) Some skills form his training had carried over, such as he still keeps his cloths in the same order he had been trained in his dresser, or dressing in military alignment. (8:50) He never thought of himself a great acceptor of the authority in the Military. (9:17) The authority had been emphasized quite a bit during his basic training. (9:25) Basic training ended in April of 1967 (10:15) After this he underwent a battery of tests to determine what he should be in the navy. (10:20) His exam determined that he should be a bomb sight which is not a position he desired. (10:42) When he got to the Lemore California Naval Base he decided to pursue something else. (10:48) As a result of scoring highly on particular exam he was asked if he would like to go to language school. (11:34) He had his choice between Russian and Vietnamese. (11:53) He failed to take either one of these languages. (12:12) He prepared barracks for other men in VA 113 (12:42) He immediately became a plane captain of an A4 (this particular A4 was the aircraft flown by the squadron commander.) (12:50) He was then sent to Memphis, Tennessee for aircraft maintenance (ACE) school (13:31) Service in Ace School (13:40)      ACE School consisted of 8 to 10 weeks of training. (13:42) This training encompassed everything including engine repair and ejection seat operation. (14:02) He spends 4-5 months in California before going to Tennessee. (14:12) A plane captain position entailed maintenance of the planes and directed pilots when they took off. (14:23) He had no men working under him (15:03) �                     He had worked in the San Joaquin Valley in California. (15:20) When temperatures were reported over 100 degrees flights were often grounded. (15:30) VA 113 was not a training outfit (16:11) While in this position he did not want to be moved onto a flight deck location as he did not desire that work environment. (17:04) In his barracks there had been a 6 o’clock curfew that was enforced. (17:40) He recalls that most if not all his class was white. (18:32) He graduated in the top third of his class (18:40) After Graduated from AMEA School he was granted a 30 day leave before going into service. (19:18) He volunteered to serve in a base in New Jersey (19:34) Instead, he was moved to a new flight outfit in San Diego as a result of this he moved himself, his wife and his daughter out to San Diego without a home. (19:48) They stayed in a motel until a duplex was found they could stay in. (20:10) The military pay was not too bad, but goods that were available through the base were often overpriced. (20:38) He served as a plane captain on an F4 Phantom jet. (21:07) He served on the base for 6 to 8 weeks and no one on the base had an idea who he was. As a result of this he would often check in at the base in the morning and then leave with his wife and daughter to go to the beach. (21:17) Once they did figure out who he was and evaluated his experience, they soon rushed him through plane captain certification. (22:00) Soon after this, he was placed back in the shop to work on ejection seats. (23:00) Because they were a training outfit he got the opportunity to train men on how to operate and take apart the ejection seat. (23:11) He hoped he could serve the rest of his tour in the California. (24:14) While he was visiting his parents in Frankenmuth, Michigan, his mother got the orders that he was going to be sent to South Vietnam. His mother took this new very hard. (25:01) His orders dictated that due to this position he was going to need survival school training. (25:21) By knowing particulates personnel men really well, he was able to know what time to leave and what time to return in order to take 30 days leave without the navy ever knowing. (26:14) Survival School training (1969) (24:54)   Survival school consisted of 4 weeks of how to survive in very harsh condition (24:54) Part of the exercise was to be taken up on a bus to Silver Springs, California, where the men would be dropped and left to survive for 3 days. (27:44) �          The men were weighted before and after having gone on this survival expedition. Most men lost weight (28:15) Because he was headed down to “the Delta” (the Mekong Delta) he was given 100 percent class room work. (30:00) Instructors had said that there was no front line in Vietnam but only hot zones and cold zones. (30:29) He was given all his necessary shots, the worst being Bacilli. He believes that this experience gave him a very great phobia of needles. (30:43) The logic of being given antibiotics and what disease they would be exposed to had been explained to the men (31:52) The men had also been trained in Vietnamese customs (32:20) However these classes were unable to prepare him and the men for what they actually encountered. (32:40) His wife and daughter moved back to Michigan after he left for Vietnam. (32:56) When leaving from Vietnam the plane he was carried on stopped once to refuel in Hawaii. (32:13) He did not believe he would ever come back. (33:25) Service in Vietnam (33:35)              He Arrived in Vietnam in September of 1969 (33:36) He had heard a lot about the war before being sent there and he heard from men who had served in the Tonkin Gulf that numbers had been inflated and the U.S. forces were not going as well as the paper made it sound. (33:48) There was culture shock he experienced when landing in Vietnam.(34:36) He Flew out of San Francisco international Airport, stopped once in Hawaii and then landed in the Philippines. (34:58) He had arrived during the monsoon. (35:34) The flight was only for military personnel, however stewardesses were on the flight as well. (35:50) Before arriving in Vietnam all the men on the plane where sprayed with an insecticide. (36:04) His first impression of Vietnam was that it was very dirty and very congested. (36:36) Once he landed he took a bus from the tarmac to the Hotel Saigon. Wwhen on the bus he was told that the life expectancy of Marines who leave the tarmac was 15 seconds. And when they were driving if a man on a motorcycle comes by and throws a grenade at the fencing in the window he had to hit it off. (37:13) The Hotel Saigon was an actual hotel converted for military use. (38:22) He had often been called to stand watch at this hotel and when he did he was given a helmet, a flak jacket, on shotgun shell, a shotgun and a whistle. (39:00) His job was to stop men from standing in front of the hotel. (39:20) He believed that the Saigon Hotel housed all Navy personnel (40:48) �                      After staying at the Hotel Saigon for 3 days he was put on a C130 and was flown to Binh Thuy. (41:24) During his transportation he was not told a lot about Vietnam but others did not “sugar coat” any questions they asked (42:05) When he arrived at the base he was one of the first people there (a plank owner) (42:43) There was no running water but the army provided a water buffalo for drinking water (what looked like a fuel truck but filled with water. Toilets and showers however were provided. (42:49) If you were dirty and you took a shower you came out dirtier then you went in. (43:31) At one point the sewage backed up and the toilets where surrounded with near knee high sewage. (43:36) They had a bak chi (a Vietnamese term for a doctor) who instructed that he chew on charcoal briquettes to rid him of diarrhea. (44:04) Once there, he found that the planes flying from the base used a different ejection seat from the one he had trained on, so he was made into a parachute rigger. (45:13) The shop he worked in was eventually given walls and air conditioning in order to protect the parachute fabric. (45:47) He actually never worked on a parachute. He ended up working primarily on life vests and helmets. (46:20) While working on a helmet he noticed that the sunglasses portion of it had a small hole in it (a bullet hole) after further inspection he found that the helmet had the top of someone’s head in it. This helmet was then thrown away. (47:20) Surrounding the base were a concrete factory, a civilian road and an air field. (48:12) The country he described as being fairly flat. (49:34) While standing watch at the base one was able to see firefights in the forest approx. 200 yards away. (50:00) On the road next to the base he saw Vietnamese prisoners being marched down the road who were used for labor. (50:34) His base was under red alert twice when he was there. (51:12) A week after he left the base he heard of the base being breached through its front gate. (52:33) He had served watch several times while there. He was given a machine gun, an M16, a flak jacket and a helmet in a 30 foot metal tower. These watches were four hours at a time. (32:56) Underwear was a hard commodity to keep in Vietnam because if a soldier had a Vietnamese women do his laundry they would often steal underwear. (55:10) Often times clothes dry rotted fairly quickly (55:22) He had very little contact with the Vietnamese military, however he had more so with civilians. (56:22) While in Vietnam he visited an orphanage quite often and considered adopting one of the children. If he did he wanted one that looked French as opposed to �      Vietnamese because he did not want that child to grow up with children whose dad might be dead due to that war. (57:30) He would also attend some celebrations of villages where he would eat odd food such as “jungle dog” (58:30) He had only been to a bar once in Can Tho. (59:43) Once at a restaurant he ate, what seemed to be a Vietnamese’s delicacy, Pigeon Brain. (1:00:00) If a G.I. bought tea (a sort of root beer) at a bar it entitled them to sit with a bar girl. (1:01:06) The one occasion he did go to a bar he and his army friend had brought their own alcohol. However once there they had been approached by a Vietnamese prostitute who came to them completely naked. The men turned down this offer. In response the prostitute attempted to burn the men with a lit newspaper. (1:01:40) In an effort to get back to base safely, they hitched a ride on an armored personnel carrier that was passing through the town. (1:03:37) He did go into town one other time, when he was invited to breakfast by a woman who worked on the base in the mess hall. When he went there, she told him to have someone write a letter to his wife and tell her he had been killed so that he could stay with her and order her things out of the Sears catalog. (1:03:55) Entertainment at the base (1:05:00)             G.I.s where forbidden from purchasing Coca Cola, as the VC has a means of putting ground glass in the cans. (1:06:11) People and planes going in and out was fairly common however operations where ceased at night. (1:06:40) Some men on the base had large snakes. Because of this when he came back he did keep large snakes. (1:07:26) The USO came through several times while he was there. On one occasion they brought girls from Playboy and several professional football players. (1:08:25) The Miss America girls also came through via the USO. He met Miss Michigan, who was not very friendly. (1:09:04) On a weekly basis Filipino bands would come in and play at the base. (1:10:07) A steady showing of films was also provided. (1:10:32) Although he never took any sort of drug, anything a G.I. wanted he could get. (1:11:11) One of the men needed to be escorted to Long Binh prison due to his drug use. (1:11:26) Drug abuse appeared to be more prevalent among the African American Navy personnel. (1:12:12) Alcohol was very prevalent on the base and consumed by most of its occupants. (1:12:23) Drinking was more common at the beginning of one’s service than near the end. (1:13:12) �                 During Christmas the base had a tree, chocolates, and Kahlua. (1:14:00) Although he did not firsthand witness it, drugs must have affected the performance of men somewhat. (1:14:35) He was labeled a racist after a black service member told him to do his laundry and he said, “No, I’m not your nigger.” (1:15:09) In 1969 he went flying and got lost over a stretch of forest. During this flight they picked up a wounded soldier and a Vietnamese woman who was pregnant (1:16:00) Morale, particularly with in the paraloft, had been fairly high. (1:17:08) In order to scare an officer who had stated he missed his wife but then lived with a Vietnamese hooker, Buzz placed a smoke grenade under his jeep so that when he started it he would be frightened. (1:17:55) This officer kept his hooker on the base. (1:18:54) Change in personal was quite common as service there was fairly short (approx. 365 days) (1:15:09) For his final 4 weeks there he ate of a palate of LRPS (long range patrol meals) as he feared the food made by some Vietnamese woman in the mess hall would be poisoned. (1:20:09) The Jack Staff news paper gave an accurate account to men as to military progress. (1:21:30) Action had been evolved around him. The Brown-water Navy had visited his base server times. (1:22:23) While soliciting a prostitute a G.I. had his genitals severed by a Vietnamese hooker. The following morning a military force followed the blood trail the man left back to the bar and burned it to the ground. (1:24:28) Most native people as a whole appeared glad that the military was there. (1:25:03) G.I.s were to watch children because often times they would place razor blades in their hands so that they could cut GIs clothes to get their money(1:25:17) There were about 900 kids in the orphanage he visited. (1:27:44) The only phone call he was allowed to make while on base was that to ask his father for the washers and dryers for the orphanage. (1:28:08) Some men on his base had taken Vietnamese wives. But not many. (1:29:40) Post service. (1:30:00)     It took a whole year out of his life, and while its effects had not been known while there once he returned home the effects of his service had been evident. (1:30:10) He left on schedule to return home (September 1970)(1:30:30) When attempting to travel back he was forced to wait on the plane for approx. 1 hour. He feared the plane was going to be attacked during this time. Once it lifted off, the flight took 18 hours to San Francisco California. (1:31:24) Immediately upon deplaning he went into a bathroom and changed into civilian clothes. (1:32:36) �   His orders directed him to go to Chicago. However he had a four hour layover. (1:33:38) When he met his father and first wife after his service they failed to even recognize him due to the amount of weight he had lost and the amount his skin had tanned. (1:34:17) The navy offered him his second class petty officers stripes and then offered him 10,000 dollars tax free to reenlist in the navy. He chose not to due to his lack of interest and the fact that he had a family. (1:35:18) Effects of his service (1:36:00)        His return was very difficult with his family as he found he had missed so much growth (especially with his child) and they he had disrupted their routine. This ultimately resulted in them growing apart. (1:36:22) After at the beginning of his second marriage his new wife suggested that he might have PTSD. Initially, he was told that he did not (1:37:34) He was diagnosed with prostate cancer and treated. The VA covered the coast of part of this treatment. (1:38:00) After this diagnoses he went to see another psychologist and it was confirmed that he did in fact have PTSD, some mild anger issues and perhaps some survival guilt. (1:39:30) He was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.(approx. 2010) (1:40:24) He was diagnosed with Baric Esophagus (believed to be due to the dust from the cement factory he was next to.) (1:40:40) The medical effects that he noticed during this year has left him angry with the military and the VA (1:41:26) Physiological effects and PTSD (1:41:40)      His anger has been known to get the best of him in situation such as sports games. (1:41:50) At one occasion when he had been at a Yankees game he began to hyperventilate due to the about of strangers who had been there. (1:44:00) He thinks that much of these problems had been as result of the lack of trust of both the civilians and Navy personnel in Vietnam as well as the constant threat of being under attack(1:45:00) He finds a bond with the veterans around him however he would not ever call them brothers. (1:46:11) His initial dream was to graduate college, become a history or biology teacher and perhaps even coach football. But his experiences in Vietnam crushed these dreams (1:47:43) �        His way to cope with conditions that he didn’t know he had for 20 years was to stay busy. He wrote 4 books that were published as well as worked for a hockey team (1:48:00) After a while he did not put Vietnam veteran down on any job applications as it often lead employers to assume that he was a druggy or that he had killed babies.(1:49:22) The first symptoms he noticed were night sweats. (1:50:16) He finds that he is always very attentive to his surrounding when in public due to his lack of trust of people. (1:51:15) The things that bother him the most are Taps and God Bless America but not the 4th of July. (1:51:47) Because of his time spent there, it was ruled that he was exposed to Agent Orange.(1:53:03) He supports the troops however he does not support the governmental evolvement in Iraq. (1:53:40) He dislikes the commercials in which the service men come home and are rewarded with tickets and gratitude as no one had done that for him. (1:54:37) � 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 SodemanB1331V Title A name given to the resource Sodeman, Harold "Buzz" (Interview outline and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sodeman, Harold "Buzz" Description An account of the resource Buzz Sodeman served in the U.S. Navy from 1967 to 1970. After serving for several months as ground crew on a Naval Air Station in California, he was sent to Memphis, Tennessee, to train on ejection seats. From there, he went to San Diego, where he maintained aircraft and trained other personnel on ejection seats. He was sent to Vietnam in 1969, and served his tour at the Naval base at Binh Thuy in the Mekong Delta, where he worked as a parachute rigger. He describes daily life there in some detail, and also discusses some of the physical and psychological issues that he had after his return. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy 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 2011-12-06 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4ff149228344cbe863d47c61275d0ca6.mp4 364f61f522c603de4c953e1914b6ad64 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2f8c75c5a5fcaa49d0bc1616b4f28cc6.pdf ec6999ce4ab82c222631ff196672e1a7 PDF Text Text Harry Sobotka (1:01:36) (00:03) Background Information • Harry was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1918 • His father worked at a furniture company and died when Harry was very young • Harry’s step father worked in the mines • He graduated from high school in 1936 and worked at W.B. Jarvis as a material handler (2:09) Training • Harry joined the National Guard in 1936 • His ROTC training helped because he moved up to Private First Class • He was in the Howitzer Company in the National Guard • Harry spent one summer camp with them and then they were disbanded • He was put into the Heavy Weapons Company • They trained once a month for 2 hours and went to Camp Grayling in the summers • Harry was called up to deal with a strike at GM in Flint, Michigan in 1937 • After flint he went on extended maneuvers and was introduced to the new 2.5 ton truck • They had to fight fires at Camp Grayling (9:12) Nationalized • In October of 1940 Harry gets called up for active duty • He was sent to Camp Beauregard, Louisiana • They were there for 3 months living in tents and using WWI equipment • Harry was then sent to Camp Livingston, Louisiana • They had better tents that were off the ground • He went to New Orleans on leave • Harry was a sergeant in charge of 4 crews in the mortar platoon �• He heard about Pearl Harbor on the radio and they got better equipment shortly after the attack • When his unit was sent to Fort Devens he went to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, GA • He was in the 17th class of OCS and lived in barracks • Harry worked with infantry weapons and tactics • After OCS he got 2 weeks on leave and went home • He flew to Camp Roberts, CA in a DC-3, which was rare at the time • Harry wasn’t there long and then was moved to Camp Swift, Texas near Austin • He became part of the newly formed 95th division and received the recruits • They gave him a commendation for knowing how to receive the recruits • Harry was there for about a year and he got married on September 19, 1942 while his wife was living outside of the base • He was sent to Ft Sam Houston, Texas for desert training • After that he was sent to the east coast for deployment (29:15) Deployment • Harry was sent overseas on a converted luxury ship in August of 1944 • He went to Fort Winchester in England and then crossed the English Channel • They landed on Omaha Red Beach on a LST boat • Harry went towards Alsace-Lorraine and Metz • General Patton had a meeting with all of the officers and told them they would lose a lot of people • He was in charge of the cannon company that used 105mm Howitzers • Harry was the executive officer in charge of the HQ and handled 3 platoons • It was his job to decide some of the missions and keep everything supplied • They were about 1 to 2 miles away from the front lines �• After they helped take Metz they went into the town (39:50) Battle of the Bulge • They crossed a river and held their line until the Battle of the Bulge got bad and then went up to help • The weather was horrible but he had warm clothes to wear • They stayed in civilian houses and sometimes the people were still there • Being off the front lines they didn’t get shot at much and there weren’t many German planes • He had to go to Paris to make sure the enlisted men stayed out of trouble • Harry gave the men captured German money in to spend in Paris • They slept in converted hotels • He went to the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame Cathedral (47:15) Transfer • Harry was transferred to rebuild part of the 106th Division Cannon Company • Some men that were transferred had been sent in from other units that did not want to deal with them anymore • Harry was ordered to go to England and reconstitute people from the 550th Anti-Aircraft Battalion to go to Japan • He never crossed the Rhine River • Before getting sent home Harry went to Camp Barton Stacey (52:40) Back to the US • Harry went home on a small boat in December of 1945; the trip took 2 weeks • He was processed at Fort Indiantown Gap • On the train to Detroit, Harry got his briefcase stolen • From Detroit he took a bus home �• It had been about a year since the last time he saw his wife • Harry rejoined the National Guard • He went to work for GM for 3 months • Then Harry became a time keeper for Grand Rapids Metal Craft • He went from being the chief time keeper to a foreman • The National Guard then hired him for their technical program and he retired in January of 1975 • While in the National Guard he went to the Detroit riots in the 1960s • Harry enjoyed being the commander of the group he had first joined as a private before the war • He helped to get a new armory in Grand Rapids instead of building an expensive wall for the new highway that was going in � 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 SobotkaH Title A name given to the resource Sobotka, Harry (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sobotka, Harry Description An account of the resource Harry Sobotka was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1918. After graduating from high school he joined the National Guard. In October of 1940 Harry got called up for active duty and went to Louisiana for training. He became a sergeant and commanded 4 mortar crews. After training in Louisiana he went to Officer Candidate School. Harry was deployed to England and then landed on Omaha Beach in the fall of 1944. He went towards Alsace-Lorraine and helped capture the town of Metz. He was the executive officer in charge of the HQ and handled 3 Howitzer Platoons. Harry helped out at the Battle of the Bulge after Metz. He was sent home and discharged in December of 1945. Harry accepted a job with the technical program in the National Guard and retired in January of 1975. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army United States--National Guard Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-09-09 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d72fe4d099910c7d8bc6e049634a6b68.mp4 c9aa77fab21e0025e9833b4f2d796dbf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c0b3ac7c8fae2965b3c92cbc936e35cc.pdf 1c776c57d6197bc101faf8fd44a4f17b PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Dave Snyder Vietnam War Interview Length: (01:11:36:00) Pre-enlistment / Training (00:00:08:00)  Snyder was born January 16, 1949 in Painesville, Ohio and grew up in Painesville, where his father worked as a delivery driver and his mother stayed at home (00:00:08:00)  Snyder graduated from high school in 1967 and went through a series of jobs, including working at a gas station and an auto parts store; Snyder had just gotten a job working at a factory in Euclid, Ohio when he received his draft notice (00:00:30:00) o During his time in high school and the period before receiving his draft notice, Snyder was only slightly aware of what was happening in Vietnam; he did not pay really close attention to the war until one of his friends received his own draft notice in 2967 (00:01:14:00)  Once he was out of high school, Snyder figured he would eventually be drafted before the conflict was over (00:01:27:00)  Snyder ended up going to Fort Campbell, Kentucky for his basic training and then to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for artillery school (00:01:40:00) o At the very beginning, Snyder went through the Army’s induction center in Cleveland, Ohio (00:01:48:00)  While Snyder was at the induction center, other men who had received their draft notice were trying to get out of serving; the one man Snyder remembers the most was a man who had gotten out of serving once and was brought to the induction center in handcuffs (00:02:02:00) o When Snyder and the other men arrived at Fort Campbell, they spent roughly a week at the base’s induction center for an introduction course before the actual basic training began (00:02:25:00)  While in the induction center, Snyder had no idea what his MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) was going to be; the only time he figured it would be a combat MOS was when the instructors singled out roughly 100-150 men, which included Snyder, to take training on the M-16 rifle (00:02:40:00)  The bulk of the men did not have to take the M-16 training and sure enough, the group that did go through the training ended up receiving combat MOSs (00:02:56:00) o Snyder’s training company was a mixture of both enlistees and draftees, as well as a small number of National Guard; draftees made up the largest percentage of the company, followed by enlistees, then the National Guard soldiers (00:03:07:00)  Not even everyone in Snyder’s training company had to go through the M16 training; a friend of Snyder’s from Ohio went through basic training with Snyder, did not go through M-16 training, was assigned an MP (Military Police) MOS, and never left the country (00:03:34:00) �  The normal weapon the men in the company trained with was the older M14 rifle (00:03:55:00)  Once the group was selected out for the M-16 training, they were briefly singled out from the other men and taken to qualify with the M-16, a process that lasted about three or four days (00:04:02:00)  The men who trained with the M-16, including Snyder, qualified with both the M-14 and the M-16 (00:04:17:00)  At the time, Snyder liked the M-16 over the M-14 because the former was much lighter, although the latter had more power and more kick (00:04:31:00) o For the most part, the training for Snyder at Fort Campbell was the standard type of basic training that all the soldiers received (00:05:02:00) o It was not until the very end of basic training that Snyder and the other men received their orders for advanced training (00:06:27:00)  Snyder did not really know what field artillery involved, so he asked one of his drill sergeants and the drill sergeant said that the artillery was mounted on tracks and Snyder would always stay in the rear; to Snyder, that did not sound right and as it turned out, it was not (00:06:36:00) Once he received his orders for Fort Sill, Snyder had a short leave, no more than ten days, before reporting to the base (00:06:52:00) o Snyder liked being at Fort Sill because it was a different atmosphere than had been at Fort Campbell (00:07:08:00)  As well, he began enjoying training with the artillery because he had always enjoyed working with machines (00:07:14:00) o It did not take long, only a couple of days, and a lot of push-ups, for Snyder to learn that there were not artillery companies but artillery batteries (00:07:32:00) o The training at Fort Sill consisted of a lot of schooling, learning about the various guns and their parts, and hands-on training with the guns; as well, the men would do bivouacs, where they would go into the field for a day or two, set up and fire the guns, the return to the training area (00:07:44:00)  Snyder and the other men trained with the 105mm, split-tail howitzer (00:08:09:00)  The men were required to do all the maintenance on the guns as well as clean them (00:08:16:00)  During the training, the men rotated around the various jobs working with the guns (00:08:27:00) o The advanced training lasted roughly the same time as the basic training, about eight weeks total, with the first week again acting as an introduction week for the men (00:08:38:00) o Again, Snyder’s training battery had a small portion of National Guard but the vast majority of the men were either draftees or enlistees (00:09:05:00)  At times, during both basic training and advanced training, the men in the National Guard received some of the worst abuse; however, the other men received their fair share as well (00:09:32:00) �  o Towards the sixth week of the advanced training, officers came around asking, if any of the men were interested in going to NCO school and many of the men did; for Snyder, NCO was just another new part of the experience (00:10:33:00)  While in NCO school, the men trained with all the artillery guns, which was something Snyder wanted to do (00:10:54:00)  Snyder cannot remember exactly how long the NCO school at Fort Sill lasted (00:11:13:00)  The school was a mixture of training, a little bit of everything for the men; mostly the training involved learning all the positions on the gun, with an emphasis on the gunner’s position and the section chief’s duties (00:11:17:00)  The instructors emphasized making sure that the men knew exactly what the gun was going to do at all times (00:11:35:00)  Part of the gunner’s job was: making sure the gun was dug in and positioned correctly, maintaining the gun’s sight, sighting the gun’s elevation and horizontal movement before firing, and maintaining the gun’s bore sight (00:11:48:00) o When the gunners sighted the gun, they either used aiming stakes, a column meter, or a distant aiming point, where the gunner would pick a certain spot in the distance and aim the gun relative to that particular spot (00:12:29:00)  The men also trained in how to properly lay out the batteries; although there were other men whose sole responsibility as laying out the battery, any of the NCOs could do the job if needed (00:12:45:00)  The men even trained with self-propelled artillery, everything from maintaining the engine to changing the tracks (00:13:04:00)  Going into the NCO training, all the men were promoted to corporal and when the training ended, they were promoted to sergeant (00:13:35:00) Once he finished NCO training, Snyder transferred to the 2nd (Battalion) of the 2nd Artillery (Regiment), a training battalion stationed at Fort Sill (00:13:49:00) o The battalion was responsible for doing the majority of the firepower demonstrations on the base (00:14:13:00)  One of the “trick shots” the batteries would do was fire a timed, highangle shot into the air, then crank the guns down and fire a direct-fire shot, so that the two rounds impacted at the same time (00:14:17:00) o The way things were going, Snyder vaguely thought he might stay with the battalion but that was not how things worked out (00:14:41:00) o Snyder stayed with the battalion for four or five months working as a gunner on a 105mm howitzer (00:14:47:00) Snyder eventually received orders shortly after New Years 1970, ordering him to deploy to Vietnam (00:15:09:00) o After he received the orders for Vietnam, Snyder briefly returned home before deploying to Vietnam in February 1970 (00:15:22:00) o Prior to Snyder leaving Fort Sill, there was some training related to Vietnam but the training was not intensive (00:15:43:00) �  The Vietnamese training involved teaching the men the local Vietnamese customs, training them about the different types of enemy booby-traps the might encounter, etc. (00:15:49:00)  For the most part, the training was off and on throughout the entire process at Fort Sill, with only a week being fully dedicated to it (00:16:18:00) Snyder’s orders were for Cam Ranh Bay and once he arrived in Cam Ranh Bay, that was when he was assigned to a unit (00:16:33:00) o Once his short leave was over, Snyder first went from Ohio to Fort Lewis, Washington and from Fort Lewis, processed over to Vietnam (00:16:48:00)  On the section from Fort Lewis to Vietnam, Snyder flew with other soldiers on a commercial jetliner (00:17:21:00) Vietnam (00:18:11:00)  Once he arrived at Cam Ranh Bay, Snyder’s first impression of the country was the smell and the heat, especially compared to Ohio and Washington in February (00:18:11:00)  Snyder and the other soldiers on the plane largely stayed together as a group through the in-country processing, after which, manifests were read that divided the men up into the various units; Snyder ended up with the 101st Airborne Division (00:18:43:00) o Snyder and another soldier initially questioned their assignment to the 101st, having never been through jump school (00:19:10:00)  The two men talked with a sergeant, saying they had not been through jump school, and the sergeant merely said that they were in the 101st now and to “enjoy it” (00:19:35:00)  After leaving Cam Ranh Bay, Snyder and the other men assigned to the 101st Airborne wound up at Camp Evans (00:19:57:00) o Once they were at Camp Evans, Snyder and the other men were put in a classroom and given an orientation to Vietnam; as well, the men went through medevac training, including a medevac demonstration on a landing pad just outside the classroom (00:20:46:00) o During the time in the classroom, Snyder kept looking at plaques lining the walls of the room and were the unit crests of the various units in the division; he saw one crest, the 2nd of the 11th, and he told a friend that was the unit they wanted to avoid because another of Snyder’s friends had served in the unit and the unit was armed with the massive 155mm howitzer (00:21:07:00)  Once the classroom orientation was over, all the men loaded onto a truck and drove around to the various units in the division (00:21:33:00) o As the truck drove around, Snyder kept seeing the 105mms that he had trained with (00:21:56:00) o When the truck arrived at the 2nd of the 11th’s position, Snyder saw that the unit was indeed using 155mm guns and although he told his friend to hope that was not the unit they were assigned to, Snyder’s name was the only one called to join the unit (00:22:05:00)  The 2nd of the 11th’s area at Camp Evans was the rear area for the battalion, with only a single battery stationed there (00:22:38:00) �  Snyder spent part of the day at the battalion’s area in the camp before boarding a truck to join his battery on Firebase Jack, which was located just outside Camp Evans (00:22:51:00) o Once at Firebase Jack, Snyder joined his battery, Alpha Battery, 2nd (Battalion) of the 11th Field Artillery Regiment (00:23:16:00)  As it turned out, a soldier who Snyder had gone through AIT with was assigned to one of the other guns in the battery, which meant Snyder at least knew someone in the battery (00:23:21:00)  Although the other soldier also attended NCO school, he dropped out after a few weeks, which explains why he arrived in Vietnam before Snyder did (00:23:27:00)  When Snyder first arrived at the firebase, he did not think it could be too bad if the firebase had an outdoor volleyball court (00:23:49:00)  The battery stayed at Jack for only a couple of weeks after Snyder arrived before moving out (00:24:02:00)  When he arrived at the battery, Snyder was assigned to the third section as a gunner (00:24:13:00)  For the most part, each gun section in the battery consisted of roughly eight or nine soldiers, who were broken down into a section chief, a gunner, an assistant gunner, two men on a trey to load the gun, a rammer, a radio man, and one or two men working with the ammunition (00:24:19:00) o The gunner’s job was to set both the quadrant and deflection for the gun; because the 155mm used separateloading ammo, the individual round was loaded first, followed by the powder and a primer in a firing lock, the assistant gunner’s job was to open the breach, prime a firing lock and close the breach once the round and powder were loaded (00:25:05:00)  At the most, it took the gun sections a couple of minutes to load the guns (00:25:43:00) o The expected rate of fire from each gun was six or seven rounds per minute and the gun crews were operating well over that rate, almost double (00:25:50:00)  There were always six guns assigned to a battery (00:26:08:00)  For the most part, when he arrived, Snyder was accepted by the rest of his section; although there were a couple of men who initially did not get along with Snyder, he ended up becoming friends with pretty much all the men in the section (00:26:26:00) Whenever the battery moved, it was by helicopter, with a CH-47 Chinook carrying each gun and other Chinooks carrying the ammunition (00:26:53:00) o For the most part, when the battery moved, the men traveled to their new position via Huey, although when the battery left Firebase Jack, some of the men rode in a Chinook (00:27:20:00) o Normally, before the battery would move, a senior member of the battery would go into the position first to oversee the placements of the guns (00:27:59:00) �  o Once they arrived at a new position, the first thing the gun sections had to do was open the two trails on the gun and situation the gun so that if necessary, the gun could be fired (00:28:13:00)  Next, the soldiers jacked the gun up off the ground, then swung the gun in a 360º circle with the trails extended; the tails traced a circle on the ground, which gave the men an idea where the parapets for the trails needed to be dug out (00:28:21:00)  Once the parapets were dug in, the men would raise the gun up higher using stacks of old ammunition pallets nailed together; the higher the gun was in the air, the higher elevations gun could fire at (00:28:53:00)  Although the gun would shake pretty good when it was jacked up, the whole weight of the gun was pressing down on the pallets, which offered some stability (00:29:24:00)  After the men had set up the gun, they would dig bunkers for ammunition storage that were protected by sandbags, then they would dig out their living quarters (00:29:45:00) o Whenever the gun would fire, the men would toss any excess powder into a nearby pit they had dug to be burned later; however, if the situation became too hectic, then the excess powder would just be sitting around (00:30:08:00)  Surprisingly, Snyder’s section never had any accidents from the excess powder; the men knew there was excess powder and any excess powder was always tossed away from the gun and into an area the men were not using if it could not go into the burn pt (00:30:27:00) The number of fire missions that the section would have in a day varied; there were days when the missions were pretty constant and other days when it was quiet (00:30:58:00) o The number of fire missions in a given day always depended on what going on around the firebase; if there was a “contact” fire mission, then the mission lasted until the infantry units had disengaged (00:31:06:00) o Sometimes, a fire mission called for the entire battery to be used and other times, it was only a couple of guns (00:31:18:00) The HE (High Explosive) rounds for the 155mm weighed 97lbs apiece and the “firecracker” rounds weighed 107lbs apiece (00:31:58:00) o For the HE rounds, there were a selection of different fuses available, including a time-delay fuse, the standard point-detonating, a timed fuse, and a VT fuse, which went off based on distance traveled (00:31:15:00) o The “firecracker” round contained a large number of small grenades that the men would set a time fuse to and launch at high angles with a low charge to keep the round close to their base’s perimeter (00:32:48:00)  The launch from the gun would knock the bottom base plate off the round, allowing the small grenades to fall out, ala a cluster bomb (00:33:03:00) o Apart from the HE and “firecracker” rounds, the guns also fired WP (White Phosphorus) and smoke rounds (00:33:28:00)  During a normal fire mission, the first round fired was either a WP or smoke round, unless the crew had preloaded the gun with another type of round (00:33:42:00) �   Although the hope was for there to be nine men assigned to each gun, at times, it reached the point where there were only three or four men to a gun (00:34:01:00) o During those times, volunteers were asked to come to the front from the rear area and men from the 105mm batteries were reassigned to the 155mms (00:34:15:00) o It was interesting how the men in the different sections always seemed to pull together; if Snyder’s gun was not doing anything and another section was short men, men from Snyder’s section would help the other section (00:34:32:00) Once the battery left Firebase Jack, it bounced around to several different firebases, several of which Snyder cannot remember (00:34:48:00) o For the most part, the firebases where the battery was assigned tended to be quiet; the guns did a lot of fire missions but that was about the extent of their operations; it was not until the battery arrived at Firebase Granite at the end of April, beginning of May 1970 that things started changing (00:34:56:00)  By the time Snyder’s battery arrived at Granite, a 105mm battery was already positioned on the firebase (00:35:03:00)  The battery stayed at Granite until June, when they were evacuated out and moved to Firebase Ripcord (00:35:54:00)  One night while stationed at Granite, the firebase came under attack by enemy sappers (00:36:04:00)  During that night, the artillery was firing illumination and “firecracker” rounds (00:36:17:00)  Granite was located on a cleared hilltop, with jungle closer to the bottom and the majority of the artillery fire was concentrated in the cleared area, closer to the firebase (00:36:33:00)  Normally during an enemy attack at night, one gun was strictly used for firing illumination rounds; multiple guns were used for the illumination rounds if the enemy was attacking from multiple directions (00:36:50:00)  Apart from the artillery guns, each gun section was armed with an M-60 machine gun and an M-79 grenade launcher; during an attack, soldiers would man the perimeter of the section with armed with those weapons (00:37:11:00) o During one attack, the M-60 used by infantry unit stationed lower of the hill than Snyder’s gun section broke and Snyder’s gun section ended up loaning their M-60 to the infantry unit (00:37:33:00)  During a typical night, the gun section would post a guard who would patrol around their section of the perimeter (00:38:48:00)  On most nights, the men did not fall asleep until ten or eleven o’clock at night to begin with and those who did manage to fall asleep never slept through the night (00:38:51:00) o It was almost a guarantee that at some point, there was going to be a fire mission for the section (00:39:02:00)  Even during the night fire missions, most of the entire gun section needed to be working (00:39:13:00) The range of the 155mm was about fifteen miles; however, most of the fire missions were closer to the firebase and were often lobbed onto a position (00:39:41:00) �Firebase Ripcord / End of Tour / Reflections (00:40:07:00)  Snyder’s battery eventually left Firebase Granite and arrived at Firebase Ripcord in June 1970 (00:40:07:00) o Ripcord had been established for quite a while by the time Snyder’s battery arrived on it; the soldiers in the battery had been doing fire missions in the direction of Ripcord as early as March and April of 1970 (00:40:13:00) o Apart from Snyder’s battery of 155mms, there was also a battery of 105mms stationed on the firebase (00:40:43:00) o When Snyder first arrived at Ripcord, he thought that the firebase offered a pretty view of the surrounding area (00:41:13:00)  On some days, the winds blowing across the firebase were so powerful that the men were unable to stand (00:41:38:00) o The number of rounds Snyder’s section fired in a day was usually less than one hundred rounds, which constituted a busy day, with a normal day being somewhere between twenty-five and forty-five rounds (00:42:08:00)  A lot of times, it was even less that twenty-five rounds; it all depended on what was happening around the firebase (00:42:37:00)  All the ammunition used by the guns was helicopter to the firebase and the gun crews had to haul the ammunition to the gun pits from the helicopter landing pad, which were lower on the hill (00:42:46:00)  The first time Snyder’s gun came under fire while the battery was stationed at Ripcord was after his and two other guns were sent on a mission to a smaller firebase north of Ripcord, code-named “Shepherd” (00:43:44:00) o Although Snyder did not know why the guns had moved to Shepherd then, later on, he talked with another soldier and the other soldier explained that Shepard was within firing range of an area used by the NVA to mobilize (00:43:56:00) o The three guns were moved to Shepherd with the intention of launching a quick, one-day strike against the staging area (00:44:17:00)  The three guns arrived at Shepherd in the afternoon, the gun crews set the guns up, and fired through the night (00:44:28:00)  The next day, helicopters came in, picked up the guns and the gun crews, and flew them back to Ripcord (00:44:34:00)  The mission to Shepherd happened only a couple of weeks before the situation at Ripcord began to really heat up (00:44:47:00) o When the enemy launched their attack at Ripcord, they used a combination of mortars and 122mm rockets (00:45:07:00)  Some of the mortar rounds fired onto the firebase were gas rounds and although looking back now it was funny, at the time, none of the men could find their gas masks, which were crammed into the bottoms of their duffle bags (00:45:23:00)  The gas was similar to mace, so those men who could not find their gas masks just pulled their shirts over their mouths (00:45:47:00)  Although the gas was in the open and could dissipate, there was still enough to tear the men up (00:45:56:00)  The men could see where the gas rounds were coming from, a mountain a short distance away from Ripcord, and although the �o o o o o most effective way to destroy to mortar as a direct shot, the commanders insisted on using only lobbed shots to try and destroy the mortars (00:46:07:00) o Trying to make the shot was like trying to do a long court basketball shot; the men kept trying to adjust their shot, the target was so far away that the adjustments did not make too much of a different (00:47:11:00)  Over the course of the day and more information was available, the guns were able to hone in on specific targets (00:48:26:00) After the attack on the first day, the enemy attacks continued and kept snowballing, getting more violent and causing more injuries (00:49:19:00)  It was during these days that the guns came close to firing one hundred rounds per day (00:49:55:00)  Keeping all the guns supplied with enough ammunition increasingly became a problem because the re-supply helicopters carrying the ammunition kept getting shot down (00:50:05:00)  It eventually reached the point that unless it was a close-in fire mission, each gun had a quota of rounds it could fire during any given day (00:50:09:00)  Once the quotas were in place, almost all the harassment missions were stopped and unless it was a confirmed contact mission, the gun crews tried to conserve ammunition (00:50:32:00) o A lot of the harassment missions were passed to batteries stationed on other firebases (00:50:49:00)  At one point, there were less than thirty HE rounds in the bunker for Snyder’s gun (00:51:14:00)  However, the battery was eventually re-supplied and by the time the battery left Ripcord, it had a fairly substantial amount of ammunition stored in the bunkers (00:51:21:00) Once the siege began and the men had to move ammunition from the landing pad to the bunker, they had to do so under enemy fire (00:51:48:00) The siege of the firebase ended up lasting for twenty-three days (00:52:01:00) During Snyder’s time on Ripcord, the soldiers stationed on the firebase did not always have an adequate amount of supplies necessary for them to do their jobs effectively (00:52:19:00)  However, this was largely due to the situation, which made it impossible to keep the firebase supplied (00:52:23:00) For the most part, the daily routine on the firebase did not change for the twentythree days the siege lasted; however, the soldiers had to often adjust on the fly to changing circumstances, depending on the situation (00:52:49:00)  When a helicopter was shot down on July 18th, the orders were for the men to hunker down and when it was over, collect whatever ammunition had been moved during the explosion from the helicopter crash (00:53:01:00)  The gun crews spent the 19th policing up any spare ammunition inbetween fire missions (00:53:34:00) �On the 20th, the men were told that on a nearby hill, the enemy was using a pack howitzer to launch rounds onto the firebase (00:53:43:00)  Snyder’s gun crew could see the rounds from the pack howitzer flying over their gun and another gun, which happened to be pointed in that direction; without permission from his section chief or anyone else, Snyder lowered his gun and ordered for an HE round (00:53:54:00) o In front of Snyder’s gun, another gun in the battery was doing the exact same thing (00:54:20:00) o Both guns fired at exactly the same time and managed to destroy the enemy position on the other hill (00:54:24:00)  Apart from the engagement on the 20th, there was only one other time when Snyder’s gun used direct-fire, when there was a large battle occurring on a nearby hill (00:54:48:00)  Snyder’s gun just happened to be in a position between two bunkers where, if it was taken off the ammunition pallets and set on the tires, it could direct-fire against the other hill (00:55:03:00) o Snyder’s gun, plus a nearby 105mm and a quad-.50 caliber, were the only guns on Ripcord in a position to depress low enough to direct fire on the other hill, so the whole night, the three guns fired on the hill (00:55:38:00)  During the night, Snyder remembers watching as tracer rounds went back and forth between the two sides (00:55:56:00)  At first, the three guns were firing behind the enemy position to prevent new enemy forces from joining the fight; however, once data became available, the guns could be aimed at specific pockets of enemy forces (00:56:36:00)  The top priority of the gun crews were contact missions; if there was ever a fire mission that was a contact mission, then all the men in the gun crews hustled and double-checked to make sure everything was correct, lest they hit American forces (00:57:44:00)  Sometimes during the danger close missions, the section chief would check Snyder’s measurements; however, the section chief was not always around, so Snyder had one of the other men with some experience check it for him (00:58:13:00)  Snyder never had any trouble with the men who would give him fire information over the radio; the men would read Snyder the coordinates and he would repeat them, a process that the other soldiers in the section used for their various assignments (00:58:47:00) o The battery lost several soldiers while stationed in Ripcord, including a lieutenant (Bob Kalsu, who had played football for the Buffalo Bills) whom Snyder greatly admired (00:59:42:00)  The lieutenant would get into competitions with another soldier to see who could carry to most powder canisters; whereas most of the soldiers carried one canister in each arm and possible one on their back, the lieutenant and  �    the other soldier carried six, one canister in each arm and a pyramid of four canister on their back (01:00:21:00)  Unfortunately, both the lieutenant and the other soldier were killed by the same incoming round (01:01:14:00) o By the time it was the 23rd, Snyder could not wait to get off of the firebase; at the same time, in the back of his mind was the question of why the Army did not allow the men stationed on the firebase to finish the fight (01:02:22:00)  During the night before the 23rd, Snyder’s gun was firing at low angles the entire night; the gun fired the entire night to use up as much ammunition as possible, both so the men would not have to haul spare ammunition around and to keep the ammunition out of enemy hands (01:02:52:00) o Once the battery was finally off Ripcord, Snyder could not believe that he was still standing up (01:03:37:00)  When the helicopter arrived back at Camp Evans, it landed at the helicopter pad where the medi-vac demonstrations were given and there just happened to be a class receiving a demonstration when the helicopter landed (01:03:37:00)  Snyder and the other men piled out of the helicopter and Snyder sat on the ground, leaning against his M-16; after a moment, he looked up and saw the men in the class had eyes as wide as dinner plates (01:04:07:00) The battery returned to Evans for little over a week then back to Firebase Jack for a brief period, before finally arriving at Firebase Rakkasan, which was a hotel compared to Ripcord (01:04:43:00) o Snyder stayed at Rakkasan from when the battery moved there at the end of August until he rotated out of the country (01:05:12:00) o Although there were still fire missions going on, the days were not quite as crazy as they had been during the summer (01:05:42:00)  There were never any significant attacks against the firebase itself; Snyder cannot even recall a mortar strike against the position (01:05:56:00) When his tour ended, Snyder returned to the United States via Cam Ranh Bay and Japan before arriving at Fort Lewis, where he processed out (01:07:14:00) o Snyder returned home to Ohio very early in the morning, managing to find room on a stand-by flight around three o’clock in the morning (01:07:32:00)  Snyder’s girlfriend’s brother picked him up at the airport because Snyder wanted to surprise his parents; however, his parents received some letters that had been sent back before he arrived, so they sort of knew Snyder was coming home (01:07:41:00) o Although the Army asked if Snyder wanted to re-enlist, he politely declined to accept the offer (01:08:03:00) For the most part, Snyder observed that most of the drug use by soldiers was confined to the rear areas, with not too much on the actual firebases (01:08:15:00) o Drugs use was more policed out on the firebases, especially given the situation; soldiers did not want to work with other soldiers on drugs (01:08:32:00) Snyder’s section was a fairly good mixture of ethnicities, including black and whites, as well as some Latinos (01:09:08:00) �  o Although other soldiers kept trying to play up racial issues, Snyder’s section did not fall for it; everyone in the section had their own job to do and that was the extent of it (01:09:23:00) o If there was any tension, it was between individual soldiers, not entire racial groups (01:09:38:00) The individual gun sections became extremely close knit and it was not too often soldiers in one section actually went out and visited soldiers in another section (01:09:56:00) Although the moral of the soldiers in Snyder’s gun section was sometimes okay, for the most part, it was not because the soldiers did not really see an end to what they were doing; it was always the same thing every day (01:10:19:00) � 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 SnyderD1274V Title A name given to the resource Snyder, David (Interview outline and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Snyder, David Description An account of the resource Dave Snyder was born in 1949 in Painesville, Ohio. After graduating from high school in 1967, Snyder held a series of jobs before receiving his draft notice in 1969. After processing into the military in nearby Cleveland, Snyder went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky for his basic training. From Fort Campbell, Snyder moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for advanced training in field artillery then attended Non-Commissioned Officer School, also at Fort Sill. Once he finished NCO school, Snyder spent a few months in a training battalion stationed at Fort Sill before deploying to Vietnam. Once in Vietnam, Snyder received an assignment to Alpha Battery of the 2nd of the 11th Field Artillery of the 101st Airborne Division. The main weapon of the 2nd of the 11th was the 155mm artillery gun and once in his gun section, Snyder received the position of gunner. After Snyder arrived, his battery moved to several different hilltop firebases before finally arriving at Firebase Ripcord. While stationed on Ripcord, the battery participated in the weeks-long siege of the firebase by enemy forces. Once the siege ended, the battery moved to another firebase, where it was when Snyder's tour ended and he rotated back to the United States. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McGregor, Michael (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-09-07 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/320a9840070f571dcb1c3ae768f6409f.mp4 3430d086a51660a4dbd8ebd072aaa71b https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a3811576b3eb25a9b839155a3cea163e.pdf a6f71fb54544ec42d6fbcd513ea48935 PDF Text Text Lloyd Snowdeal (1:17:30) (00:07) Background Information • Lloyd was born in Rockland, Maine in 1927 • His father was a skilled laborer • He went to high school and worked • One of his teachers was interested in world events so, he knew what was going on with the war • He applied for the Navy’s electronic engineering program, but it was dropped so they told him to go to the Maritime Commission (15:44) Training • Lloyd went to boot camp and then radio school • In December of 1944 he received commission to become an officer • He went to a school on Hoffman Island in the New York Harbor • They taught him Morse Code and he became a Radio Officer • Lloyd then went to Virginia to wait for an assignment (27:05) Deployment • His job aboard the ship was to repeat course changes to the rest of the ships in the convoy • Their first convoy went to Algiers • Lloyd didn’t like to go to shore very much • He went to Le Havre, France and Bari, Italy which had a lot of ships sunk in its port • Lloyd went to the Pacific Ocean after the war in Europe was over and was the Chief Operator in the radio room on the USS Victory • Their job was to take a load of GIs to Japan as replacements • Once they got to Japan Lloyd went on an Italian ship that was in the same port and was offered the job of being in charge of the radio room, but declined because the ship had rats and Italian radios �(41:40) Discharge • Lloyd went to work on a mail ship in the Black Diamond line of ships • He was on the commander ship that went from the east coast to Le Havre, France, Belgium, and Rotterdam • Lloyd then worked for Standard Oil out of New Jersey on a WWI tanker • He worked for 3 months and then got 1 month off paid (49:15) Air Force • Lloyd joined the Air Force on February 23, 1950 • He went to basic training and became a Bypass Specialist assigned to a B-29 squadron • Lloyd worked with Q-24 radar (57:00) 2nd Deployment • He was sent to England, but became ill while he was there • Lloyd was sent to a hospital in Frankfurt and diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis • He spent 8 months in the Walter Reed hospital and was sent back to New York • In December of 1952 he volunteered to go to South Korea • Lloyd was assigned to a service and repair depot in Seoul, Korea (1:14:47) Back to the US • He was sent home and served the rest of his time close to home in Bangor, Maine � 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 SnowdealL Title A name given to the resource Snowdeal, Lloyd (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Snowdeal, Lloyd Description An account of the resource Lloyd Snowdeal was born in Rockland, Maine in 1927. After graduating from high school he enlisted in the Navy. Lloyd went to radio school after training and became a Radio Officer. Lloyd went on trips across the Pacific in a large convoy on a repeater ship. His job was to repeat changes in the course from the commander ship to all of the other ships in the convoy. After the war was over in the Europe, he brought replacements across the Pacific to Japan. Lloyd was discharged and then on February 23, 1950 he enlisted in the Air Force for the Korean War. He became a Bypass Specialist and was assigned to a B-29 squadron. Lloyd became sick and went home, but later volunteered to go back overseas. He was stationed at a service and repair depot and then spent the rest of his time in the Air Force close to home in Bangor, Maine. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Merchant mariner Merchant marine--United States Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-05-20 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/47bc1a8e5425c33c66c48fe57c5a5943.mp4 662c6efa05430013ec4c47db41d5b579 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/46866d3a931b98b746cbd5afcc88ff94.pdf 80fc66e8de1cb25ab2697bc74f6b7532 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Lloyd and Grace Smock World War II Total Time: 1:06:30 Early Childhood and Birth (0:00:17) • • • • • • • • • • Grace Morley (now Smock) was born in Wyandot, Michigan in 1925. (00:31) Lloyd Smock was born in Wyandot, Michigan in 1921. Grace had one brother and attended High School in Wyandot. Lloyd attended High School in Wyandot and his father worked as an accountant. Grace’s father worked as a pipefitter, and her mother worked as a homemaker. Grace and Lloyd attended high school in Wyandot. (0:10:30) Grace graduated high school in 1943 and Lloyd graduated in 1939. Lloyd attended Western Michigan College, and he was there when Pearl Harbor was attacked. (0:12:00) Lloyd joined up with the Air Force in February 1942, but he was not called up to active duty until February 1943. He was sworn into the inactive reserve in July, 1942. (0:13:40) Grace had tried to visit a Naval Station on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked. She was not let in, and then heard about the attack on the radio. Training (0:15:30) • • • • • • • Lloyd took his basic training in Fresno, California. (0:17:17) He then attended on-the-site pilot training in Reno, Nevada at the University of Nevada. He had an instructor who was an Alaskan bush pilot. (0:18:28) He was then sent to Santa Ana, California where he took intense coursework. However, shortly before he was to graduate, he was eliminated from the program due to high altitude night blindness. (0:19:08) He was then sent to Amarillo Air Force Base, Texas, where he was approached about he Army Specialized Training Program. He applied and was accepted. (0:19:43) He was subsequently sent to Oklahoma A&M and then to Lehigh University for training. The training program sent two people to work on the Manhattan Project. He was not sent, however, and was assigned to the Signal Corp, specifically the 56th Signal Repair Company, with whom he worked on a base in Texas. (0:22:01) The main compliment of the 56th was a National Guard company from Minnesota. (0:22:29) Was then sent to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where he remained until the Battle of the Bulge broke out in Europe. The base was closed and all of the men were sent to Fort Polk, Louisiana for intensive infantry training. �• • • • • • • • • • (0:23:10) Half of the men at the camp were sent to Europe as replacements for the men lost at the Battle of the Bulge. The other half were reorganized and sent to TX and then to Boston where they were shipped to Europe as the 56th Signal Repair Company. Lloyd was in the latter group. (0:24:36) They shipped out of Boston, Massachusetts April 16, 1945 for Le Havre, France. He was sent on the USS Washington. They didn’t encounter any danger on the crossing. (0:26:05) They moved inland to Rouen, France once they landed, to Camp Lucky Strike. VE Day occurred while they were at the camp. Their main objective was to help attended to the American POWs that were being released from German prison camps. They did not deal with the hospital casualties, however. They worked primarily logistical support for the effort. (0:28:45) They also did some work destroying German stockpiles of electronics in Belgium. (0:30:50) Grace worked in personnel at a factory from 1943-1947, and she left the company when she was expecting her first child. (0:33:29) Lloyd was given orders to report to Marseilles, France where he boarded a ship to Manila, Philippines. (0:34:55) They sailed through the Panama Canal, and was around 600 miles south of Hawaii when the ship got word about VJ Day. Their ship circled for some time before they were given orders to continue sailing for the Philippines because they had many doctors and nurses on board to assist with POWs coming out of Japanese prison camps. (0:35:38) He was sent to a camp in San Fernando, north of Manila. There, he helped with warehouse sorting and helping to root out a couple of Japanese soldiers that were still hold up in the hills. (0:37:08) His unit was going to be part of the invasion of Japan if it would have occurred. (0:38:40) They were in the Philippines for 7 months, leaving in March 1946. They were shipped to Oakland, California and sent to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin by train for discharge. Post-War (39:13) • Lloyd was well received upon his return home. • (40:10) He was able to get work at Chicago and Southern Airlines in Detroit, Michigan, however he eventually went back to working at Wyandot Chemicals. • Lloyd and Grace met at a dance in 1946 and married in 1947. • Lloyd eventually got a job at a bank. • Grace worked in the legal business until 1976 when she began caring for her parents • (0:53:43) Lloyd joined the Masons in 1955 and Grace joined Eastern Star in 1954. � 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 SmockLG Title A name given to the resource Smock, Lloyd and Grace (Interview outline and video), 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smock, Lloyd Smock, Grace Description An account of the resource Lloyd and Grace Smock were both born in Wyandot, Michigan. Lloyd served in the Army during World War II. He served in the 56th Signal Repair Battalion. His unit was initially sent to France and Belgium, however after VE day they were sent to the Philippines. Generally, they spent their time destroying enemy electronics stockpiles and equipment. When Lloyd returned, he met and married Grace. Lloyd worked at a bank and Grace worked in the legal business. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American 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 2005-12-30 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3e57527ff82a4fbc80a5c65a405ca23f.mp4 b45be928e1c3d123ebdff4b23dc381ee https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5de7522d2483383b7f5131f23f3e2aaa.pdf 91338b10feb636bb25130316f27e2455 PDF Text Text ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW ZENA SMITH Born: 1926 in Birmingham, England Resides: Grand Rapids, Michigan Interviewed by: James Smither PhD, GVSU Veterans History Project Transcribed by: Claire Herhold, January 14, 2013 Interviewer: Can you start with some background on yourself? To begin with, where and when were you born? Well, I was born in 1926 in Birmingham, England and I was just thirteen years of age when the war started in 1939. Interviewer: At this time, what did your family do for a living? My father was a licensed victualler. Now that is a big term that he ran a public house, a big term for cook. Mother helped him, and we lived there…I lived there from the time I was about eight until I got married at nineteen. 1:03 Interviewer: And how many children were in the family? I have one sister and one brother, yes. I’m the only one left of the family. Interviewer: At that time, did your father make a good enough living to be able to keep his business and so you had enough food and all that kind of thing? Yes, yes, he was paid by a brewery, a big brewery in England, had several pubs. Interviewer: Before the war actually started, before Hitler invades Poland, you’re pretty young. Were you paying any attention to the news of the world? Had you heard about Germany or the Nazis? Of course, of course, yes. We knew that…I remember when our Prime Minister of the time was Neville Chamberlain. 2:01 He was a Birmingham man, and he went over to talk to Hitler. This was the year before. Well, we knew war was on the horizon and when he came back, I always �remember his speech. In his speech he said, “out of the nettle, we have plucked the nettle danger.” And still being in school, we had to write an essay on that. That’s how I remember. Interviewer: Do you remember what the popular reaction to that was? Or your parents’ reaction? No, we knew it was just a time to prepare. Interviewer: So he said he had established peace in our time, but you didn’t believe him? No one did. No, we started, you know, preparing for war. 3:01 Interviewer: Once war actually started, did that change at all the way you were living or what people in your community were doing? Certainly, yes, because as soon as the war started, I’m from Birmingham, which is very industrial, and we got the first raids, so naturally everything changed. We were all issued a gas mask and had to carry it at all times, and we all got an ID number. I still remember mine, QBDE584. Now, the 4 was because I was the fourth one in the family. Do you remember your ID number, Dora? Dora, offscreen: Yes, WEKN4…I can’t remember, I’ve got it written down. 4:06 Interviewer: Did you have a lot of men from the community now joining the military and leaving, or were a lot of the men already? Yes, you know, they called them up right away, the eligible ones. Because I was thirteen at the time and still in school, I do remember that I had a friend who had an auntie in Canada and she offered to take her niece and her friend for the duration of the war. Well, I was going to be evacuated to Canada. However, just before we went to go, the Germans torpedoed a hospital ship, and they weren’t supposed to, so that put an end to that, you know. 5:02 That was something. �Interviewer: Do you remember following the news at the beginning of the war? Because the Germans go into Norway and then they go into France and Belgium and the Netherlands, then the British are involved. They didn’t hold out like we did. Interviewer: As General de Gaulle put it, you had a very nice anti-tank ditch. We always thought France let us down, at least that’s my opinion or what I heard, I mean. Interviewer: That’s what people thought at the time, or how you thought about it? Yes. Interviewer: Did you follow, were you paying attention when the Dunkirk evacuation went on? Was that something that was in the news? Oh yes, certainly we knew. Yes. That was very sad, really. Interviewer: Did you expect that the Germans would just come and try to invade after that? 6:00 Yes, and I was very scared because the Germans wanted to, they said they’d get all the English girls with fair skin and blue eyes. Right? Well, my friend had red hair and brown eyes and she’d always lord that over me, you know. However, that never happened. So that was something. Interviewer: Can you talk a little bit about the German bombing raids and so forth? What do you remember about those? I remember so much about it, but I remember one night in particular. It was 1942 and I was in hospital with diphtheria, and they didn’t know whether to put me in the children’s ward or the grown-ups’. Well, I went into the adult ward. 7:01 And this particular night all we had, when you have diphtheria, you have to be a flat patient, lay down, and we had our gas masks at the side of the bed, and we weren’t supposed to move. Well, anyway, being an isolation hospital, it �was on its own grounds and a bomb fell, probably, well, just outside. The windows went, shrapnel all over the bed, and it was a terrible night. Panic, screaming, and that’s what I…that was my worst night of the air raids. It might not have been the worst air raid, but it was for me. Interviewer: That was the closest you got to being hit? Yes. Interviewer: Did you get hurt by the flying glass at all? 8:01 No, we got under our blankets and prayed. That was it. Interviewer: They didn’t try to move you down into a cellar or anything like that? Oh no, no. We were there, and next morning…I don’t know why I never took any shrapnel with me, because my bed was full of it, and you know, for a sixteen year old, that was bad. Interviewer: How long were you in the hospital? I was in eight weeks. The thing of it was, I’d just started dating a young boy. I worked in an office at sixteen, and he did too, and I caught diphtheria off him, because he went to hospital and my mother didn’t know who I was going out with or what at that age. Well, anyway, one of the ladies from the office came to visit my mother, and she said, “you know, your Zena’s been going out with a boy who’s been taken to hospital with diphtheria.” 9:13 My mum said, “that’s funny, Zena’s not well. She’s in bed with a bad throat. And the doctor’s coming tomorrow.” Well, when he came he said, “it’s diphth, you’ve got to go away.” And I said, I don’t want to go to hospital. And I’ll always remember what he said and I think it was disgusting. He said, “if you don’t go, you’ll be dead by Saturday.” What kind of a professional was he? ‘Cause I’ve never forgotten it. Interviewer: Not very good bedside manner by modern standards. �Doctor Kirk was his name, I remember. So anyway, I was in eight weeks, but my friend was in ten weeks. 10:00 Interviewer: Did they actually have medication for it? Was there real treatment they could give you? All I remember is they gave me shot in the rear end and they said, “don’t move.” And I didn’t move for about a week, and, no, there wasn’t anything. And then after six weeks I was allowed a pillow and could sit up in bed, and then at seven weeks…and I got out in eight weeks, and after a month at home I went back to the office. Interviewer: How long a period do you think it was that bombing raids would happen? Was it just for a few months or was it over a couple years? Oh no, it was more than that, because Birmingham got, I think, by 1940 we had our first raid. ’41, ’42, ’43. Maybe. 11:03 Interviewer: When you were at home, as opposed to the hospital, what would you do if the air raid sirens went off? Well, at first we’d go down the cellar, and then if you were in bed, of course, you’d go down the cellar. But in the end, you were so used to them, you’d carry on. And I remember once we had a daylight raid, and I was at work, and we always kept our files down below. We thought it was great, actually. We all went down, our whole office went down in the basement. And it was our first daylight raid, actually. So that was another experience. 12:01 But, you know, working in an office and being that age, you were in a dance craze, and we used to dance. We used to pretend we’d go to go look up a file, and we’d be practicing our dance steps down the stairs, you know. Interviewer: How long did you go to school, then? �Well, at that time, you graduated from a public school at fourteen and went to work. Well, higher education…my granddad wanted to put me to a trade, but the war stopped everything, you know, and I went to work in an office and I took up typing and shorthand. Interviewer: What kind of office was it? What business were they? Oh well, now that’s another story. 13:00 We made tanks for the North African desert war, and at that time, Vice - I don’t know what he is now, but General Montgomery came because he was involved, and Churchill came, and we had lots of excitement. And then during our lunch hours, once a week, we had a dance put on, we had entertainment, we had a church service another day, so it was kind of fun in a way, you know. And you just got used to it. Interviewer: Was this in the downtown, center of the city, or was this outside of the city, the factory? No, it was right in Birmingham itself. 14:00 We were a few miles from the center of the city. You had to take a tram. And once we heard…now I’d never seen a black person, and I was seventeen, and we heard that a black contingent of black Americans were going to be on parade in Birmingham. Well, everybody went uptown to see them and we were cheering. We thought it was great seeing all these black people, you know. So I never grew up with prejudice like here, and I had my thoughts on that when I came over, because there was still a lot of prejudice in 1946. Interviewer: Do you remember when the first Americans came to town, did that attract any attention? Yes, my father said, “I better not catch you going out with the Yankees.” 15:05 But who listens to your parents at that age? �Interviewer: Tell me a little bit about the daily life there during the war. This was a period where you had rationing and various kinds of restrictions and things. Oh yes. We had very hard rationing. One egg a month at one time. And was it two ounces of sugar? Two ounces of sugar, and butter, and of course meat. My mother catered to lunches, though, for the factories around. We had several businessmen who would come for a lunch, and she did get extra coupons, so we weren’t as bad as the average English person. 16:00 Interviewer: Did your father’s public house, did they serve food there too, or just beer? We always served bread and cheese, and pickled onions, and my mother put on the lunches for the five days a week. Interviewer: So you had at least a little bit more access to supplies and food than a regular family would. Yes, exactly. Exactly, yes. Interviewer: Was there any kind of black market trade going on at the time? Could one get things if you knew the right people? Yeah, they used to come to us for brandy and whiskey ‘cause we were limited and, in exchange for maybe eggs or something, you know. Interviewer: And was this just regular people you knew in the neighborhood? You’d just trade what you had? Oh yes. And when I was in hospital the local people would get eggs and I was lucky, I would get nearly an egg a day in hospital and then the Sister said, “Zena, how would you like to share your eggs?” 17:09 I said, “sure.” You know, so there you go. Interviewer: How was it that you wound up meeting your future husband? Beg pardon? �Interviewer: How did you meet your husband? Well, let me see. I had a date the night before with another American and he never showed up. So his, I can’t remember his last name, but I liked him because he had a nice accent because he was from North Carolina, name of Bruce. Well, he was at the camp, the estate, and my sister and I, we went riding. I said, “Let’s go up to Packington.” 18:00 Well we got on the outside of the camp, and there was my husband, Ken, sorting through a bunch of bicycles, bicycles, bicycles. And so, we said hello, and I said “do you know of this Bruce?” and he said, “Oh, they shipped out this morning and we shipped in.” And so I said, “Oh that was the reason.” Anyway, he said “where am I?” I said, “Well, you’re between Birmingham and Coventry.” I said, “where have you come from?” He said, “Norwich.” And, he said “Well, what’s the nearest village?” And I told him, Coleshill. He said, “Do you mind if I cycle back with you and see where I am?” you know. So he did, and then he asked me for a date. And then I said, “Well, I only go out in a foursome.” 19:04 I didn’t really, but I said that. And I took a friend and we had a foursome. And that’s how it started. I dated him for a year before we were married. Interviewer: What did your parents think of all this? They didn’t like it. They did not like it. They met Ken and he wasn’t used to the life I was used to, people all around and concerts at the weekend at the pub and dog shows at the pub and barmaids and barmen and everything and Ken was a teetotaler. Just a little Michigan country boy. But anyway, they would say, “he’s too quiet for you.” But he wasn’t in the end. 20:02 We had a nice life. Interviewer: I suppose on the positive side he didn’t bring in any bad habits. He didn’t? Interviewer: Yeah. �No, no, no. Interviewer: It could have been worse. Yeah. Interviewer: What kind of assignment did he have? What was his job in the war? Well, he didn’t talk too much about it, but I do know that he was an assistant when they did autopsies on the bodies, and they’d weigh the parts, and…that was it. And checking the soldiers in and out and stocking. Interviewer: Tell us a little bit about the facility where he was working, because you told me about that off-camera, but where was he working? Well, he was working on the estate. 21:03 It was a hospital. Interviewer: Right, but you had explained that to me off-camera, but for somebody watching the interview right now is not going to know what you’re talking about, so what was the name of the estate? What was it like? The estate was called Packington Park. And it became a hospital and after the war it became a convention and country club and a golf course. I have been there since many times. Interviewer: So it’s basically one of these old noblemen’s country estates? Do you have any idea of how old it was or when it was built? Oh no. It was old. Interviewer: Are there particular things that happened during the course of the war that kind of stand out in your memory? Can you think back to what it was like to live back there in those days? What do you think about? 22:06 Well, I think we all agree that it wasn’t as bad as we thought, you know, because you’re young and you’re dating and you go to the pictures a lot and in the end, when the siren went you’d just �stay there. You didn’t rush, you know. We missed out on a lot, like here you go to formals and dances and get dressed up. We had none of that because of the rationing, and when I got married I had no coupons. Nobody in the family did, but some girl I didn’t even know, she was the neighbor of a friend, she loaned me her dress, and then I thought, “well, what kind of shoes? I’ve got no coupons.” 23:07 It’s kind of funny, but I had a pair of red tap shoes. So what did I do? I painted them, I bought ribbons for the laces, and I walked down the aisle in my tap shoes. And then I thought, “I wonder if when I kneel down, if they’ll see the taps?” I never knew, but that’s how I got married, and you’ll see on that picture I have. Well, anyway. Interviewer: Did you have things like a wedding cake? Or the kinds of things Americans do? Oh yes, the camp. I had a double wedding. My friend, she married an American. Unfortunately, he was a rotter. But anyway, she never did come here. But the camp made us a great big cake. 24:00 We were all delighted because we were rationed, and they brought the cake to the reception, and it had butter frosting I remember. It was great. Interviewer: When was it exactly that you got married? I got married August 1st, 1945, just before the end of the war. But all my teenage years, 13 to 19 was wartime. Interviewer: How long did you say you dated your husband before you got married? A year. Interviewer: That was a year. During that time, was he able to kind of bring anything to give to your family? Stuff that Americans could get that English couldn’t? I got lots of candy, some I liked, some I didn’t. No, he didn’t bring much foodstuff. Interviewer: He probably didn’t have the right job for that. �Probably not, no. 25:00 Interviewer: How long did you stay in England after you got married? Well, we got married in August and Ken left three weeks later, and then I came over in the March of ’46, March the 20th. Interviewer: What kind of process did you have to go through to be able to come over as a war bride? Well, in order to get married we had to go and see the captain of the base, and then the paperwork started, and then to our surprise, we got a check every month which was nice, from the government. And they made all the arrangements, and I was due to come over on a small ship, the Argentina. 26:03 However, I don’t know what happened, but they transferred me to the Queen Mary. And when we left England in March, I mean it was green and spring was almost there, and the lambs were born. And I couldn’t believe my eyes when we got to New York, they put us on a train to Michigan. There was no green, there was no thatched cottages, there was no lambs in the field, and we were all…we thought we were coming to the same type of scenery, you know. And it was kind of a shock. Interviewer: What was the trip on the Queen Mary like? I was sick every day. It was a terrible March, and they had to put a … they had to stabilize it afterwards and put a girder on the one side to stabilize it, but all…Everybody was bad. 27:15 Couldn’t enjoy it. We lived on apples and crackers, so that was that. But since then I was on the Mary a couple of times and saw the beauty of it. Interviewer: I’m sure it’s much nicer in better weather. Yes, yes. Interviewer: Was this boat full of war brides or was it just a regular passenger trip? �No, it was all war brides, war brides. And before we boarded the ship at Southampton, we had to go to a camp for a few days, and I hated that. And our first meal was creamed corn, which we’d never had, and a wiener, which we all hated it. 28:06 I mean to say. And ew, we couldn’t eat it. But anyway. Interviewer: American military chow, that’s what they call that. I remember that. None of the girls enjoyed that, but I like creamed corn now and I love hot dogs, so you get used to things. Interviewer: Sure. What was it like, when you actually got out to Michigan and you realized you were in the Arctic or some place, but then you met your husband’s family? How did that go? Well, I came to Lansing. That’s where I had to come. But his folks lived in Boyne City, so it was a week or so that we went to meet them, and it was not what I expected. 29:03 They were very nice and Ken had put on sixty pounds from the time I’d last saw him in England to over here. And I saw him in not a uniform, I’d never seen him in civilian clothes. Well, anyway, we eventually found an apartment, and I got a job and Ken was working at the Oldsmobile and then he went to school on the GI Bill in the fall, and then that’s where he got his education, from Michigan State. Interviewer: And what kind of work did he go into? He’s a…he was a microbiologist, yes. 30:00 Interviewer: And did he work for a chemical company or a university? No, he worked for the State of Michigan. And also, though, he was a pharmaceutical rep at one point because they made more money, but then the state paid better. Interviewer: What was the hardest thing about making a life for yourself here in the U.S.? �It was a big adjustment, and we didn’t have children for a long time. Well, all I could think about was going home and saving to go home. And I was lucky I went home within two years, because I got in at the Oldsmobile in the office and had a good job, and so I went home in ’48. 31:07 And I’ve been one of the lucky ones, I had 31 visits home. Ken went home. He loved England and he loved history. And our children have been and now Christopher has been and taken his boys. They’ve seen the bluebell woods and our life there. Yes, but then once…let me see, I’m trying to think…In 1968 we were all went back, we sold up and went back. Ken was offered a job and we went. However, it lasted 6, 7 months and we were back to Grand Rapids. 32:04 And his old boss, Dr. Eldering, she was a famous lady. You mean you…? Interviewer: I know who she is. Well, she invented pertussis for whooping cough. Well, she got Ken…she didn’t have anything there, but she got Ken in at Blodgett, and he had a job to come back to. But then when there was a job open at the state, he went back for them. Interviewer: Did the job in England just not work out or…? Well, he liked the job. We loved where we lived on the South coast, but we were living off our savings and we had a ten year old son who was very unhappy, crying and he couldn’t adjust. 33:01 My five year old, he didn’t care and anyway… I think Ken thought he wasn’t going to work as hard, but they had him teaching in Exeter once or twice a week. They had him on call, and little pay. But then when we came back, all the hospital workers went on strike and they doubled the wages and we went back and visited the hospital the next time we went. And when Ken was interviewed for this job, there was a gentleman from Oxford that was interviewed with him and two others, but he got the job, and he said, “Ken you should never have left. We’re �making beaucoup money now.” 34:00 But we came back and I was finally happy and satisfied and life was good. Interviewer: Now probably after I turn off the camera you will think of some other thing you remember particularly about life there during the war, but… I probably shall, yes. Interviewer: But that is how it works, so in the meantime I’ll just thank you for taking the time to tell me your story today. You’re welcome. � 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 SmithZ1342V Title A name given to the resource Smith, Zena (Interview transcript and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Zena Description An account of the resource Zena Smith was born in 1926 in Birmingham, England. As a teenager, she experienced the effects of war on her community. She had a job at an office after completing public school that made tanks for the North African Desert War. There were often sirens heard throughout her community to warn them about air raids. She contracted diphtheria at one point and had to stay in a hospital for eight weeks and was there when a bomb hit her hospital. She took a job with a defense plant and saw Winston Churchill and General Montgomery when they visited it. Mrs. Smith met her husband, Ken Smith, in 1944 and dated a year before marrying. Her husband worked at Packington Park and was an assistant during autopsies. After getting married and at the end of the war, she traveled on the Queen Mary to the United States. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-02-01 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5c08ccce7b9db397fae67c20ad10861f.mp4 2035b544ee8ae297d017966dd084898a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8b5423e948a47f625bee283fe5e6dc32.pdf 02967b0f8cd7e8cd5d1ee5fd6b8d31a0 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of Interviewee: Richard LaVern Smith Name of War: Other veterans & civilians Length of Interview: (00:09:23) Interview Notes Pre-Enlistment -Richard Smith, born in Hilliards, MI (0:20) -Enlisted just after high school (0:40) - Decided to in to the Army, did not think about any other branch of service (1:00) - Served between the Korean and Vietnam wars (3:15) Training - Fort Leonard Wood, MO by train (1:30) Issued clothes, took tests (1:40) Then went to basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, as well (1:55) Lots of hiking and discipline, learned hand to hand combat and how to shoot a rifle (2:15) Trained in the motor pool, did a lot of driving and mechanical work (2:50) Enlistment - Stationed at Fort Leonard Wood MO; Fort Eustis, VA; and a fort in Kansas (3:30) Mostly did mechanical work and drove troops to their various activities (3:45) Was released from the service in 1957, was placed into Active Reserves for four years (4:15) Married while in Active reserves (5:30) Made many friends in the Army, but did not keep up with them after discharged (5:50) Kept in contact with loved ones with letters (6:15) Post-Enlisment - Saw a lot of demonstrators demonstrating against the Vietnam war (5:00) - Everyone should support the troops, even if they don’t support the reason they are in service (7:00) - Young people should learn discipline, and can get that and education in the military (7:30) - Learned good work habits in the military, and that stayed with Richard throughout his life (8:55) � 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 SmithR Title A name given to the resource Smith, Richard LaVern (Interview outline and video), 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Richard LaVern Description An account of the resource Richard Smith enlisted in the United States Army shortly after he graduated from high school. He served in the motor pool at various bases throughout the United States, including Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and Fort Eustis in Virginia. Upon his release from the Army in 1957, he continued his service by way of the active reserves until he was released from that service. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Oatmen, Brad A. (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005-05-30 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b1149edba19926cfacd2dd72fe0686e0.mp4 ae0aa6b54db8c78fb606f16f932dde25 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b174a25de53ed2eab030c41bbe91320c.pdf a34db2c8b2e12c97fc3097d3e1beec52 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project War/Era: WWII Era Name: Mabelle "Barry" Vincent Smith Interviewer: Elaine Schneider Interview Length: (00:52:05:00) Early Life (00:00:20:00)  Smith was born in Syracuse, New York on April 23rd, 1920. (00:00:22:00)  Smith had two brothers, both of whom were pilots in World War I. (00:00:28:00)  Smith’s mother was a full- time housewife and her father worked in an office until the Great Depression caused him to lose his job. (00:00:50:00) o The family moved to Chittenango, New York where Smith’s father began a new job as a milk deliverer. (00:01:05:00)  Smith attended school in Chittenango until she was a freshman in High School until her family relocated again, this time to Houston, Texas. (00:01:30:00) o She was sad to leave her home in Chittenango, which was a farmhouse with a barn on 4 acres of land. The family’s self- sufficient farming lifestyle made it so that “the depression didn’t affect us too much”. (00:01:50:00) o The family moved to Houston to search for a better work opportunity for Smith’s father, but he didn’t find anything so they returned to Chittenango. (00:02:20:00)  Smith graduated from Central High School in Syracuse. (00:02:45:00)  Within a year of graduating high school, Smith got an office job at a telephone company. She remained there for two and a half years. (00:03:00:00) Training (00:03:15:00)  Smith’s brother was a pilot in the Air Force prior to the attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1942 and strongly encouraged his sister to join. (00:03:38:00) o Her brother wrote to her while deployed and told her that a woman needed 35 hours of flying time to be considered by the Air Force. Smith immediately began making phone calls to figure out who could teach her to fly. (00:03:50:00)  Smith received flying instruction from Amboy Airport, located in Syracuse. She was able to fund her own lessons because she had a steady job. (00:03:50:00)  Smith flew two- seater aircraft during her training. (00:05:00:00)  After logging 8 hours of flying time, she went to Canastota, New York to seek further flying instruction. (00:05:05:00)  Smith had to hitchhike or walk to all of her flying lessons because she had no personal mode of transportation. (00:05:30:00)  Smith was offered a job testing radar by flying around for 2-3 hour periods. This was a dual- benefit for her because she was able to get her last 15 hours of flying time in and she was getting paid. (00:05:45:00)  Smith says that the demand for women pilots can be explained by the lessened availability of men who were being drafted and sent overseas. Being a pilot required more training and American men simply did not have time for that. (00:08:05:00) �   25,000 women were interviewed by the United States Air Force for piloting positions. Only 1,830 were interviewed and 1,074 actually became pilots. These women came to be known as the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots or “WASP”. (00:08:30:00) o Once accepted, the women had to log 30 hours in each of three planes: “The Stearman”, the BT- 13 Valiant, and the AT-6 Texan. (00:09:00:00) o Smith was sent to Avenger Field, located in Sweetwater, Texas. (00:09:30:00) Smith was asked to wear a white shirt and khaki pants when required to “dress- up”. Other than such occasions, members of WASP did not have an official uniform. This was so because up until that point in time, only men had been in the Air Force and there was no dress code created for women. (00:09:35:00) There were three types of training that members of WASP received: primary, basic, and advanced. (00:10:45:00) o Smith used the Stearman and various other small airplanes in both solo and dual flying lessons. This comprised her “primary training” and her “basic training”. (00:11:00:00) o After flying the smaller planes, Smith was introduced to the AT-6 jets. She was told that “if you can fly an AT-6, you can fly any plane”. This was her “basic training”. (00:12:00:00) o Intertwined in the primary, basic, and advanced training Smith received calisthenics as well. Each day she awoke at 6 A.M. and completed 4 hours of flight training, 1 hour of exercise, and 1 hour of marching along with three scheduled meals. (00:13:10:00) Active WASP Membership (00:14:10:00)  After Smith got her “wings” at Avenger Field, she traveled to Waco, Texas. (00:14:00:00) o All WASP members were given official winter and summer uniforms made by Bergdorf Goodman after getting their “wings”. (00:14:45:00) o She was stationed at Lackland Army Air Field as a test pilot for her first assignment. This base was home to hundreds of male cadets who were learning to fly in combat. Smith was in charge of test- driving Beechcraft AT-10 Wichita planes. (00:15:45:00) o The test- drives started with a 3- hour ride followed by a meeting with the mechanics for additional input on the specific plane’s functionality. (00:18:10:00)  Smith remembers that the barracks at Lackland were very nice. Each WASP had her own room within the barracks, which were shared with the army nurses. (00:18:48:00)  Smith also had to test UC-78’s, which were twin- engine advanced trainer aircrafts. Many of these aircraft were thought to be obsolete when they were brought to Lackland. (00:20:40:00)  There were 38 WASPS killed during the two years and two months that WASP was part of the Army Air Corps. Smith was a WASP for one year. (00:21:48:00) o Although she only spent a very short time as a WASP, Smith wanted to spend her entire life there. (00:23:22:00) WASP Retirement (00:23:30:00)  WASP was disbanded on December 20th, 1944. (00:23:38:00) �         On December 19th, 1944- the day before WASP was disbanded- Smith was asked to fly to Columbus, Ohio as Sergeant right away. (00:24:41:00) o Smith stopped in Memphis, Tennessee to get fuel and arrived in Columbus at 9 or 10 P.M. (00:25:00:00) o She slept overnight in the plane and then went to the operations office first thing the next morning. A young man was waiting to be taken to Memphis and it was Smith’s duty to escort him there. (00:25:20:00) Smith arrived again in Memphis but was not permitted to retreat back to Texas until the plane she was flying had a 100- mile check. She was stuck there for three days, until December 23rd. (00:26:10:00) o Because WASP was disbanded on the 20th, Smith was the last one to return home. (00:26:40:00) Smith had trouble looking for a job after WASP was disaffiliated because women weren’t typically hired for the jobs that she most wanted to do, such as commercial piloting or flying instruction. (00:28:20:00) Smith decided to take a bus to Sebring, Florida to spend some time on her mother’s cattle ranch while she tried to make the next life decision. (00:28:30:00) o She reunited with Lester; a Marine that she met when she was working in Texas. He was permitted a 10- day leave and spent it with her in Florida He asked Smith to marry him before he returned to service. (00:28::00) After Lester returned to duty, Smith went back to her hometown of Chittenango. (00:31:11:00) o On her way back, she decided to stop in Williamsburg, Virginia to see her fiance, who was stationed there. When she got off the bus, Lester was waiting for her. The couple decided to marry right then and there instead of waiting for his retirement. They went to the local Presbyterian Church and made their marriage official. (00:31:25:00) Smith decided to stay in Virginia and seek work there. She was able to get a job at a local air base as a secretary. (00:33:05:00) o Each day, she met with her husband at 5:00 P.M. at the local USO and they walked together to the room that they were renting out of a nearby house. (00:33:20:00) In July of 1945, Smith was forced to move back Syracuse because her husband had to start training to invade Japan. (00:33:50:00) o She got a job at a local jewelry store. (00:33:57:00) Lester finally came home on September 1st, 1945. (00:34:12:00) o His uncle worked for a typewriter company and he decided that he would take two months off before starting work. (00:34:30:00) o Les and Smith spent the two- month vacation at Smith’s family ranch. (00:34:43:00) When Smith and Lester returned home, they lived in Lester’s family home. (00:37:10:00) o The couple remained in Chittenango for 6 years and had two children. (00:37:20:00) o Lester was later transferred to Indianapolis, Indiana as branch manager of his uncle’s typewriter company. (00:37:22:00) �      o Later, the couple had another two children. They stayed in Indianapolis from 1950 to 1985, until Lester finally retired. (00:37:30:00) After Lester retired, the family moved down to Smith’s mother’s ranch again. (00:37:42:00) One of their children went into the 101st Airborne Division in the Korean War, another became a Pan Am flight attendant, another went to Medical School in Indiana for nursing, and another went to Purdue to become a pilot and eventually went into the Air Force. (00:38:38:00) In 1977, Smith was officially recognized as a veteran of the United States Air Force. (00:41:46:00) Smith received the Congressional Gold Medal for her participation in WASP. (00:42:00:00) Smith is often invited to air shows and to give speeches in light of her accomplishments. (00:49:00:00) Smith notes that being a WASP was “the most wonderful experience a woman could have”. (00:51:02:00) � 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 SmithM1560V Title A name given to the resource Smith, Mabelle Vincent (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Mabelle Vincent Description An account of the resource Mabelle "Barry" Vincent Smith was born in Syracuse, New York in 1920. Her two older brothers were pilots during World War I, and encouraged her to learn to fly. She took flying lessons, and then enlisted in the WASP program during World War II, primarily as a flight instructor at Lackland Army Air Force base in San Antonio, and served with it for a year until it disbanded late in 1944. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Snyder, Elaine (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Air Forces Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-04-10 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a4751c1a6bd03092df6b6116e36f69ba.mp4 b6fb64df3d07912336e72f066051c0cc https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e12515709deec605b3a4764634835c83.pdf 7bb8d497ff99652569c43ebea599ff2d PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Jason Smith (17:05) Overview of Service (00:30) • • • • • • • • • • Awards and various citations. (3:21) Operation Iraqi Freedom document and picture. (4:20) Promotion papers. (5:39) He had 2 close friends who died while serving in Iraq. One lived for 6 days in the field hospital, however due to the lack of proper medical care available in the field, he passed away. (6:29) Jason lived with his mom and his sister. His parents were divorced. He joined the military in a search to become a man. (8:53) He still has several mementos from his service. He uses them to remind himself not to take what he has for granted. (10:00) He interacted with the civilians often while serving n Iraq. He recalls seeing a man travel with a cart with car tires on it being pulled by a donkey. He also recalls children regularly begging for food. (11:27) After returning home from service he was angry for some time however he now tries to stay positive. (13:00) He believes that the service that the Army has done in Iraq was good for the people of Iraq. (13:30) Part of him wishes that a 2 year service in the military was mandatory. He believes the assistance and teaching of discipline the military provides is very useful. (15:00) � 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 SmithJ0986V Title A name given to the resource Smith, Jason (Interview outline), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Jason Description An account of the resource Jason Smith served in the U.S. Army during operation Iraqi Freedom in the early 2000s. He interacted often with civilians and believes that his service has lead him to appreciate what he has in his own life. He discusses losing close friends while serving. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Dion, Sam (Interviewer), Caledonia High School (Caledonia, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Iraq War, 2003-2011--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 2010-02-06 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/beb15f2a3ea86f3692dca916841d7f04.mp4 85b0b423a8bacf79f8550ea4701b3aa1 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/25fd3afab44808ba10fa281c11b4785c.pdf 5c464687ffaaddf3f944a132b1e140b0 PDF Text Text George Smith (16:36) (00:10) Background Information • George was born on April 28, 1922 in Coopersville, Michigan • His parents farmed • He went to South Evergreen School through 8th grade • George stopped going to school to help on the farm and was drafted into the Army in 1942 when he was 20 years old (2:10) Training • George trained at Fort Benning, Georgia • They hiked, shot guns, and shot artillery • He was assigned to 105th Artillery Division (Battalion?) • George went through maneuvers in Tennessee in the summer of 1943 • He then went to Camp Gordon, Georgia (3:45) Deployment • He left from New York and spent about two weeks at sea • George got seasick on the way over • They landed in France and stayed there for about a month • He moved up to a Corporal and was a Gunner • Their job was to support the infantry with artillery • When they first landed they lived in tents and then slept in their tanks • They pulled off the front lines in Germany to go help at Bastogne, Belgium because the Germans were pushing through and taking the town • His unit was set up outside of the city (7:45) Wounded • They were hit with a mortar and one of the men was killed while three of them were injured �• George was hit in the leg • He was brought to a makeshift hospital but it was full so they took him down the street to a house • During the night the Germans bombed the town • The house he was staying in had all of the windows blown out • The hospital that he had been diverted from received a direct hit, killing everyone except one nurse • George was then taken to horse arena that had been converted to a hospital and everyone got gas gangrene • He lost his left leg below the knee and his big toe on his right foot • George only saw elderly civilians still living in the towns • He ended up in England and then was flown to Glasgow, Scotland • George took a ship called the Queen Mary to New York • He received a Purple Heart, a Sharpshooter’s Badge, a WWII victory medal and a Presidential Citation • He didn’t really know what was going on with the war while he was overseas • The Battle of the Bulge was a bad experience with 80,000 Allied deaths (12:17) Back Home • George was sent to a hospital in Texas where he spent 13 months • When he returned home he worked at a shop, but was laid off • He got a job with the Post Office in Spring Lake, Michigan • George retired from the post office after 25 years • He thinks Saving Private Ryan was a good depiction of WWII • George also thinks people should go into the Military for 2 years • He didn’t regret going into the Military and enjoyed the experience � 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 SmithG Title A name given to the resource Smith, George (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, George Description An account of the resource George Smith was born in Coopersville, Michigan on April 28, 1922. George was drafted into the Army when he was 20 years old. He was assigned to the 105th Artillery and mostly trained in Georgia. George landed in France and moved into Germany where his job was to support the infantry with artillery. His unit was pulled off the front lines in Germany to help out in Bastone, Belgium where he was wounded by a mortar. George was put in a horse arena that was converted into a hospital and got gas gangrene. He lost his left leg and his big toe on his right foot. George was sent home and spent over a year at a hospital in Texas. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McCauslin, Kelly Spring Lake District Area Library (Spring Lake, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-05-21 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives