43 24 1541 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6c2e35ac81897b521aa4bf1f91b3e201.pdf 63ed62fcb62c800851573fd9a4ea2ba4 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Vietnam Era Richard Kranenberg (16:11) Background Information (00:23)       Born on January 6th 1944 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (00:25) He has a brother and two sisters. (00:45) He was the first in his family to serve in the military. (00:50) Richard enlisted in the military because he was soon to be drafted. He picked the Navy as his branch of service. (1:33) Richard served in ROTC in high school and did not like marching. Because of this, he was pushed toward the Navy. (2:30) He enlisted on August 27th 1962. (2:55) Miitary life (3:30)     Life was very structured and had a high emphasis on discipline. (4:00) The food came as a shock to Richard. The men ate oatmeal and tomato sandwiches in the Navy. (4:27) The Navy placed a lot of emphasis on being clean and well organized. This was to prepare men for ship life. (5:20) The men did their laundry by hand. (6:22) Overview of Service (7:15)         When he left Basic at Great Lakes Naval Base, he was sent to Patuxent River, Maryland where he managed supplies. (7:15) Richard was reassigned to San Francisco. From there he served 1 year on the USS Midway (an aircraft carrier). (8:12) During their first cruise, the men sailed toward Japan, Korea, China and Vietnam. (8:46)] Richard Served on the first task force in Vietnam. (9:20) The Midway was decommissioned. He was then placed on the USS Enterprise. (9:33) There was one radio station, one television station, and poor beds aboard the USS Midway. The USS Enterprise was much nicer and had air-conditioning. (10:11) Richard wrote lots of letters while in the service. (10:55) The amount of parting that the men had to do while in the service made it hard to hold close friends. (11:47) Thoughts on Service (12:16)     He did not have a difficult time in the service because he never saw combat. (12:22) His service was extended for several months. He returned home in September of 1966. (13:07) Adjusting back to home life was fairly simple. (14:08) The military was a great positive impact on Richard’s life. (14:40) � His family was proud that he had served. (15:50) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KranenbergR1426V Title A name given to the resource Kranenberg, Richard (Interview outline), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kranenberg, Richard Description An account of the resource Richard Kranenberg, born on January 6th 1944 in Grand Rapids Michigan, served in the U.S. Navy as a supply man between 1962 and 1966. Richard served in ROTC in high school which prepared him for service. Throughout the course of his service, Richard served aboard the USS Midway as well as the USS Enterprise. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nitzche, Nicole (Interviewer) Caledonia High School (Caledonia, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Navy Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-25 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/b5d52f7e559114220208b1f67d52ba9a.mp4 4de4ce94c37644a09b67eadf625f209e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4b6e5e3463f1a50ba0eed24d00952dd9.pdf 4fdab58bac2154fc1cfe5fdeae21d7d6 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview WWII Louis Kramer Length of interview (1:00:07) Pre-Enlistment • Kramer was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in December 1925. (00:09) • He attended Grand Rapids Public Schools until 9th grade then moved to Cedar Springs, Michigan where he finished high school. (00:30) • His father worked for a furniture maker as a shipping clerk. (00:44) • His family lived o a farm in Cedar Springs, Michigan so they could subsistence farm. • Mr. Kramer heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor while he was at school. (1:30) • He remarked about his expectations and exposure to media during the war. (2:00) • June 1st 1944 he graduated high school. (2:40) • June 2nd he is assigned to the United States Army. (3:55) Enlistment • Kramer was assigned to Fort Sheridan, Illinois for induction. (4:30) • From induction he proceeded to Camp Blanding, Florida for Basic Training. (4:35) His cousin trained at Camp Blanding as well. (5:00) He also worked at the message center on post. (5:30) • From June through August he was part of a rifle company. (5:50) • He received training for messaging and then was transferred to a new group. (6:20) Further, he comments on receiving basic weapons training at this post. (7:05) 1st Duty Station • In October 1944 Kramer is 18 years old and is sent to Camp Gruber, Oklahoma where he joins the 22nd Infantry Regiment, 42nd “Rainbow” Division; he serves at this location for 3 weeks. (7:52) • Comments that the Rainbow Division was named by General MacArthur. (9:00) • Learns that his rifle company is being shipped overseas, and he will not be serving as a support unit. (9:25) • He is transferred to Camp Kilmer New Jersey where he boards the USS Alexander. (10:12) 2nd Duty Station/Overseas Transport • The USS Alexander joins a convoy with liberty ships destined for France. (10:40) • He discusses the ship and the food on board. (11:04) • Comments on the Thanksgiving meal. (11:35) He mentions the preponderance of seasickness and the overall good weather. (11:55) • He recalls the accommodations on the ship. (12:55) Additionally, he speaks of the men on board. (14:05) His journey on the ship took 15 days. (14:40) 3rd Duty Station �• Kramer lands at Marseilles, France. He describes the condition of the city as he arrives. (15:00) • In December, Kramer was transferred to CP2, where he camped in tents. (16:00) On the 15th or 16th of December he was transferred to a new location on boxcars. (16:30) • Talks of the Maginot Line and Strasbourg, France, where he spends Christmas. (17:11) He describes the pillboxes on the Maginot Line. (17:30) • He joins the 7th Army and is assigned to a unit called Task Force Linden. (18:00) He further discusses the movement and replacements of other divisions. (19:00) • He recounts arriving to the front on the 15th of December as the Battle of the Bulge is happening. (19:48) They are moved at night. (20:15) He guarded an electric generating station. (20:41) He discusses combat. (20:56) He mentions spending New Years guarding General Linden’s headquarters. (21:13) 4th Duty Station • Kramer speaks of the conditions in Strausberg, Germany including field hospitals. (21:48) He also mentions the civilian population. (22:27) • He discusses Operation Nordwind on the 4th and 5th of January. (22:57) 5th Duty Station • On January 21st, the line was pulled back and he volunteered to stay behind; he had just turned 19 years old. (23:26) He rode a truck to company B’s area and recovered his field packs. (24:50) He arrives beyond at prominent river. (25:28) • On the 24th of January the Germans attack Neuburg and at Schwetzingen (?). (25:51) The Germans get through the American lines. (26:30) • He stays in a barn while on march. (27:13) He described combat in the woods at night. (27:44) He ‘hits the ground’ in the snow. (28:50) 3 German machine guns fire. (29:30) He described casualties and yelling (30:00) he started shooting and his gun malfunctioned (30:41) Mortar artillery is missing its target and he yells for them to change their position (31:44) • Germans are yelling, “comrade,” and George Jackson kills the German machine gunners. (32:54) • Kramer returns to town. (33:55) Losses from combat are counted. (34:15) Many Germans try to surrender during the fire fight. (35:00) Dead German soldiers are carried out of the field. (35:40) By January 25th there are 237 casualties. (36:45) Kramer’s unit receives a citation. (37:05) 6th Duty Station • He is taken off the line and is waiting for the rest of the division. (36:47) While waiting he receives more training. (37:05) • On the 14th of March, a ‘push’ is ordered. (37:20) Company B is sent to the front on March 15th. (37:50) Kramer says Dean Finley is shot in the stomach. (38:35) 1st Platoon moves. (39:13) • He describes his assignment to carry a BAR. (39:40) He discusses his field gear. (40:36) Kramer is shot and BAR stops all but one bullet. (41:03) He mentions his attempts at first aid with his knife. (41:50) The north side of the hill is attacked. (42:35) �• Kramer talks about his experience at the aid station. (42:56) While at the aid station he recalls yelling at General Linden without knowing who he was. (43:20) Mr. Kramer talks about German POWs carrying him out of the aid station. (44:05) He remembers meeting a German who lived in Chicago, Illinois for 5 years. (45:00) He talks about an ambulance ride. (45:26) th 7 Duty Station • He moved to the 11th Field Hospital (MASH). (45:38) He had a surgery. (46:20) He received a new kind of procedure and talks about a chaplain. (47:48) He talks about his recovery and his wounds reopening. (49:37) His wounds became infected and required further treatment. (50:34) Kramer mentions being moved to the 36th General Hospital in Dijon, France. (51:40) He remained at the 11th General Hospital from the 25th of April until the 15th of March. (52:00) 8th Duty Station • He is moved to Paris, France by C-47 and remains at an evacuation hospital for 3 days. (52:09) He discusses his route back to the United States in a C-54. (53:00) He describes being at the Schick General Veterans Hospital for 2 to 3 weeks. (53:29) th 9 Duty Station • He is transferred to Fort Custer in Battle Creek, Michigan until October. (54:00) th 10 Duty Station • Mr. Kramer was transferred to San Antonio, Texas. (54:20) • He describes his duties on base and his search for a new assignment. (54:30) He mentions his job at a bowling alley as a pin setter. (55:51) He is sent to Brook General Hospital in April. (56:14) He is assigned to the section 8 ward. (56:50) He is sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois where he is discharged. (57:26) Post-Enlistment • He described using the G.I. Bill to attend Western Michigan University to study United States history and science. (57:50) He retired at age 65. (58:30) • He discusses the effects of his time in the service. (58:55) He explained that his experience caused him to become an adult over night with many responsibilities. (59:26) He was married in 1949 and had children. (59:32) � 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 KramerL Title A name given to the resource Kramer, Louis (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kramer, Louis Description An account of the resource Louis Kramer served in the 42nd Infantry Division in the US Army during World War II. His unit was shipped to France late in 1944, and joined the 7th Army in Alsace. Kramer's unit fought near Strasbourg during the Battle of the Bulge and Operation Nordwind, and participated in the counterattacks that followed and in the campaign into Germany. Kramer was wounded in March 1945, and out of action for the rest of the war. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-03-04 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/40ea23c8ac1c1a1dcf538dce6e6d6093.mp4 cf2e91fb7071a73f5badb4608b2d63b3 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7619aebb282c6095414385dd22280a45.pdf a1aa785ea3fa23c5d56893a831842179 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Name of Interviewee: Donald M. Kramer Name of War: Vietnam War 2 of 2 Interview Length Disc #3: (00:40:35) Interview Length Disc #4: (01:28:40) Disk 3 (00:40:25) (00:05:04) Vietnam The First Day in Vietnam  The plane landed at an air base and they were already under attack when getting off the plane  The advisors were shown maps of areas of the country and told where not to go Don worked in the Southern tip blocking supplies and transportation  Don was ordered to stop transportation of supplies through the water ways  He worked with many Vietnamese on this project and was always worried that some of them would turn on him  He took language classes to learn the dialect, but also worked with interpreters (00:07:06)  Fire-fights occurred along rivers often and unexpectedly (00:09:55) Fire Fights  There were many times when they had to beach their boats and chase the enemy into the jungle  They sometimes ran into farming areas, but usually the enemy would hide in underground tunnels and they would throw grenades in them (00:17:18) Water Taxis  Transportation along rivers was often stopped and searched  He once had to interrogate some people and had to shoot a young pregnant woman because he thought she was reaching for a weapon. (00:18:34)  They found two grenades strapped to her legs  He cut open her stomach and delivered the baby, whom he gave to a local villager (00:22:41) The Base is Attacked  Don was near the water when their base was attacked by heavy fire  There were many men around him that were shot and died  It was hard working with the Vietnamese because they were always changing sides  Don got a 15-caliber machine gun and killed everyone swimming away in the water (00:26:58) Ambush �      Don was going to prepare an ambush, but did not have enough men He got some help from the Army, but one of the men was high Don told his sergeant that they could not work with the man, but the sergeant did not do anything The man on drugs kept following them around trying to go on the operation with them Don told the man that he could not go and the man pointed an M-16 in Don’s face Don pulled out his 45 and shot the man in the leg, shattering his femur bone (00:30:12) Army SOS in the Forest  The Army called for help and because it was under heavy attack  They took a boat upriver to assist and the Vietnamese did not hear or see them coming  Some of the boats had twin engines and could go up to 70 mph  They ran their boats alongside the Army boats and attacked the Vietnamese, surprising them while the others escaped  They got about 60 bullet holes in their boat and one of his gunners was wounded (00:37:11) The New Doctor  They had been under attack and the new doctor was not properly trained  Seeing all the bodies devastated him  Don had to help the doctor work with all the bodies from the attack (00:40:25) Shows Items obtained from Vietnam Disc Four (1:28:40) (00:40:58) Operations in Thailand and Laos  Don was hand-picked for a special operation in the area  He was presented with a jade cigarette case in 1972 for being an instructor of guerilla war tactics from the Royal Navy Force  He also received gifts from the Laotian government for his help (00:43:00) Another Attack in Vietnam  A little Vietnamese boy had lost a leg in an attack  The bleeding would not stop, so Don put gun powder on the wound and cauterized it  Don was older than most of the men he worked with and was viewed as a father figure (00:48:25) A Call from Saigon  Don thought he was being sent home, but he was asked to take part in a special operation  He worked with 6 other Naval Advisors  They were all brought into a room full of maps and pictures and told to memorize everything  They were sent to Thailand and Laos when the war had started slowing down (00:50:11) Bangkok  Don met the other Naval Advisors in Bangkok �    They needed to help build a Navy for Laos because they had no protection along their coast Don worked secretly at night and bought many things off the black market They worked with the elite from the Laotian Army This area was much less dangerous than in Vietnam and he could actually sleep at night (1:01:03) The Trip to Vietnam  Don had to leave half way through his mission in Laos and go back to Vietnam  A mortar round had come in and hit a wood structure near him and he was wounded  He now has 4 pins in his lower spine from his injuries and he had broken both his wrists  Don has braces on both his legs and has extensive nerve and muscle damage (1:05:01) Back to the US  After the war veterans were treated bad; they were spit on, yelled at, and beaten  Don spent about 2 years in military hospitals for therapy on his spine and legs (1:08:50)  In 1974 Don moved to Michigan, but there were no jobs  Don said that fathers were competing with their sons for jobs pumping gas  He began working for a brass polishing shop  Don was denied retirement and pushed out of the Navy on medical leave 6 months before he was supposed to retire (01:15:20) The Post Office  Don got a job at the Post Office and for the first couple of years there, many people would not associate with him because they thought he was a crazy veteran  They all got along better after a few years (01:17:03) Retirement  Don got associated with the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans and Military Order of the Purple Heart  In February of 2005 he retired to spend more time at the Veterans Home  Don speaks in a lot of schools about Vietnam and Veterans affairs  Don has 4 children and 10 grandchildren � 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 KramerD2 Title A name given to the resource Kramer, Donald M. (Interview outline and video, 2 of 2), 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kramer, Donald M. Description An account of the resource Don Kramer was born in Gary, Indiana on April 3, 1943. Don got his GED when he was 17, got married, and also joined the Navy. Don worked in the Caribbean, Europe, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. Don was involved in many fire fights while in Vietnam and was often under heavy attack. After being badly wounded in a mortar attack in 1972, Don was discharged from the Navy 6 months short of retirement and spent 2 years in military hospitals receiving physical therapy. He retired from his job in 2005 and now spends most of his time at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans. 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 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 2006-12-04 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/e30dfb72a4f3a44e609dc4a2a9883066.mp4 fa83d1fa836d1eb7d9e3609bae0ecfee https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/116397846dbf3885556398fe62f737a3.pdf 86cfbf6c352f4009bcb850395eec8950 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Name of Interviewee: Donald M. Kramer Name of War: Vietnam War Interview Length Disc #1: (01:06:30) Interview Length Disc#2: (01:51:40) Interview Length Disc #3: (00:40:35) Interview Length Disc #4: (01:28:40) Disc One (01:11:41) (00:00:25) Background Information        Don was born in Gary, Indiana on April 3, 1943 His family was very close when he was young and he has many good memories They were a lower-middle class family and his parents had to work a lot His father worked in Gary Steel Mills and his mother worked for Amco Window Washing (02:55) He went to a Catholic elementary school that was very hard for him and he got in many fights. Further discusses the good times of his childhood—dancing & family. Don got his first real job when he was 9 years old at a grocery store When he was 12 he got a paper route and had to deliver 110 papers every day before school (13:12) (00:14:30) High School  There were many race issues at Don’s high school  Don could not afford to take a bus to school and had to walk every day  He started playing basketball and made many new friends, yet he still did not like school and got bad grades  Don joined the Navy before his senior year and got his GED when he was 17 (16:58)  His dad was in the Army during World War Two and had told him that the Navy would be a better choice than the Army (00:19:25) Joining the Navy 1960  (019:45) Was recruited out of Gary, Indiana.  Don went through basic training at Great Lakes Naval Academy in Illinois  There was no draft at the time because so many people were volunteering for the service  The drill sergeant was a giant and told them that they were going to be miserable  Don stated that the “service is the biggest individual change you could make in your whole life.”  Don had to get all of his hair cut off and the men had to wash their clothes on their hands and knees in the shower (25:03)  The men had lots of pressure about completing their class work (00:29:34) Norfolk, Virginia �      Don was sent on an Attack Transport ship with 1000 marines to Virginia There were many giant ships in the area and Don had never seen anything like it His MOS was radar school, but he found it very boring (31:08) He began working on ships instead and really liked being able to work outside Don also enjoyed being out on the ocean when everything was calm They saw many sharks and shot all of them; they even ate some of them (00:40:44) The Deck Department  Don was working on maintaining the ship, which was a luxury liner that had been converted in World War Two  Many dolphins would jump through the engine parts and get hurt, also damaging the ship.  Don learned about nautical knots, different types of ships, and worked on painting and repairs (00:45:10) Don’s Wife  Don was married and had one daughter when he joined the Navy  He met his wife in Gary and did not get along well with her parents  They got married when they were only 17 and they had his daughter when he was 18  They were living in Navy housing  Don was gone on average of 6 months a year and worked on the port for about 3 months a year  They had 4 children together and they were all born premature (59:52) (01:01:25) The Caribbean  They took a ship through the Caribbean for six months, but had stopped in Charleston, North Carolina to pick up about 1,000 Marines to be transported there. Went around the Caribean—West Indies & other places to show the U.S. was there to help and not solely a war monger.  Don worked on shore helping to build infrastructure  He was always excited to get back home and see his family Disc Two (1:51:40) (01:06:31) Attack Transport Ships  Don served on 3 different ships while in the Navy  Each ship carried up to 1,000 Marines and cargo; the ship maintained a fleet that was ready to go to war at any time (01:09:03) The Bay of Pigs  They were on a ship and moved up along the Cuban coast while the US was trying to overthrow Castro  Don had been working on the USS Rockbridge and was then transferred on to the Fremont for 5 years (1:09:58) (01:13:15) Europe �      Don headed to Europe on the Fremont They traveled through the Mediterranean and he went on many tours of Europe Don traveled to Italy, Spain, France, the Dutch West Indies, and Africa (1:14:25) He got involved in boxing matches while on the Fremont Don got into 21 fights and only lost 1 to a Marine He also worked on the USS Monrovia, which was the smallest attack transport ship (01:19:15) (01:22:53) Italy  The Italians had once been nice to the US because of the help received during and after World War Two  Yet when men from the Navy went there on leave, they were attacked by Italians and there were also many Russians there influencing them (01:27:09) Back to the US  Don had 10 days on leave to spend with his family and then he had to go back to working on the ship  His wife was always very sad when he had to leave again  They always left for the Caribbean or Europe to make sure that the areas were always ready for war (1:27:31)  (01:28:54) His admiral diverted his squadron and steamed back to the Mediterranean to replace another squadron.. Tried to come to the aid of the Puebla’s crew however circumstances prevented them from rescuing them from torture. As a result of this instance, many officers lost their commands.  (01:32:01) The Cuban Missile Crisis o  Don was on board the Command ship for 7 days  They prevented a Russian sub from entering Cuban waters  Castro had cut off the power and water supply to Guantanamo Bay  The Navy Seabees went in to build a water distilling plant and a power plant (01:32:14) The USS Intrepid  Don was working on safety operations on the ship while plains were landing on the carrier  There were many accidents that happened during peace-time (01:35:00) Assassination of JFK  Don had been on board a ship headed to Europe when he heard the news  Every US military installation in the world was on red alert because they thought the Russians had killed the president (01:36:16) Shore Duty in Meridian, Mississippi  Don had to escort someone from the ship that was court marshaled for grand larceny (01:37:41)  His whole family went with him to Mississippi �   There was a very large air station and Don was put in an office working with a disaster control team (01:39:23) He was in charge of restructuring the entire program from 1400 to 1600 employees because a lot of positions were repetitive Don was then working with the military police and the state police in a variety of capacities. (01:41:19) (01:43:22) Training for Vietnam  Don volunteered to be part of a Naval Advisory Group  It was an elite group that went through difficult training called Sierra training for survival, resistance, and escape (1:44:30)  1/3 of the men could not make it through the training  They went through the types of torture that was used on POWs in Vietnam  It was very rough and his jaw almost broke (1:49:25)  The training was to see who would be able to survive if captured  They had to eat blind-folded; it was like they were in a concentration camp Disk 3 (00:40:25) (00:05:04) Vietnam The First Day in Vietnam  The plane landed at an air base and they were already under attack when getting off the plane  The advisors were shown maps of areas of the country and told where not to go Don worked in the Southern tip blocking supplies and transportation  Don was ordered to stop transportation of supplies through the water ways  He worked with many Vietnamese on this project and was always worried that some of them would turn on him  He took language classes to learn the dialect, but also worked with interpreters (00:07:06)  Fire-fights occurred along rivers often and unexpectedly (00:09:55) Fire Fights  There were many times when they had to beach their boats and chase the enemy into the jungle  They sometimes ran into farming areas, but usually the enemy would hide in underground tunnels and they would throw grenades in them (00:17:18) Water Taxis  Transportation along rivers was often stopped and searched  He once had to interrogate some people and had to shoot a young pregnant woman because he thought she was reaching for a weapon. (00:18:34)  They found two grenades strapped to her legs  He cut open her stomach and delivered the baby, whom he gave to a local villager �(00:22:41) The Base is Attacked  Don was near the water when their base was attacked by heavy fire  There were many men around him that were shot and died  It was hard working with the Vietnamese because they were always changing sides  Don got a 15-caliber machine gun and killed everyone swimming away in the water (00:26:58) Ambush  Don was going to prepare an ambush, but did not have enough men  He got some help from the Army, but one of the men was high  Don told his sergeant that they could not work with the man, but the sergeant did not do anything  The man on drugs kept following them around trying to go on the operation with them  Don told the man that he could not go and the man pointed an M-16 in Don’s face  Don pulled out his 45 and shot the man in the leg, shattering his femur bone (00:30:12) Army SOS in the Forest  The Army called for help and because it was under heavy attack  They took a boat upriver to assist and the Vietnamese did not hear or see them coming  Some of the boats had twin engines and could go up to 70 mph  They ran their boats alongside the Army boats and attacked the Vietnamese, surprising them while the others escaped  They got about 60 bullet holes in their boat and one of his gunners was wounded (00:37:11) The New Doctor  They had been under attack and the new doctor was not properly trained  Seeing all the bodies devastated him  Don had to help the doctor work with all the bodies from the attack (00:40:25) Shows Items obtained from Vietnam Disc Four (1:28:40) (00:40:58) Operations in Thailand and Laos  Don was hand-picked for a special operation in the area  He was presented with a jade cigarette case in 1972 for being an instructor of guerilla war tactics from the Royal Navy Force  He also received gifts from the Laotian government for his help (00:43:00) Another Attack in Vietnam  A little Vietnamese boy had lost a leg in an attack  The bleeding would not stop, so Don put gun powder on the wound and cauterized it  Don was older than most of the men he worked with and was viewed as a father figure (00:48:25) A Call from Saigon  Don thought he was being sent home, but he was asked to take part in a special operation �   He worked with 6 other Naval Advisors They were all brought into a room full of maps and pictures and told to memorize everything They were sent to Thailand and Laos when the war had started slowing down (00:50:11) Bangkok  Don met the other Naval Advisors in Bangkok  They needed to help build a Navy for Laos because they had no protection along their coast  Don worked secretly at night and bought many things off the black market  They worked with the elite from the Laotian Army  This area was much less dangerous than in Vietnam and he could actually sleep at night (1:01:03) The Trip to Vietnam  Don had to leave half way through his mission in Laos and go back to Vietnam  A mortar round had come in and hit a wood structure near him and he was wounded  He now has 4 pins in his lower spine from his injuries and he had broken both his wrists  Don has braces on both his legs and has extensive nerve and muscle damage (1:05:01) Back to the US  After the war veterans were treated bad; they were spit on, yelled at, and beaten  Don spent about 2 years in military hospitals for therapy on his spine and legs (1:08:50)  In 1974 Don moved to Michigan, but there were no jobs  Don said that fathers were competing with their sons for jobs pumping gas  He began working for a brass polishing shop  Don was denied retirement and pushed out of the Navy on medical leave 6 months before he was supposed to retire (01:15:20) The Post Office  Don got a job at the Post Office and for the first couple of years there, many people would not associate with him because they thought he was a crazy veteran  They all got along better after a few years (01:17:03) Retirement  Don got associated with the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans and Military Order of the Purple Heart  In February of 2005 he retired to spend more time at the Veterans Home  Don speaks in a lot of schools about Vietnam and Veterans affairs  Don has 4 children and 10 grandchildren � 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 KramerD Title A name given to the resource Kramer, Donald M. (Interview outline and video, 1 of 2), 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kramer, Donald M. Description An account of the resource Don Kramer was born in Gary, Indiana on April 3, 1943. Don got his GED when he was 17, got married, and also joined the Navy. Don worked in the Caribbean, Europe, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. Don was involved in many fire fights while in Vietnam and was often under heavy attack. After being badly wounded in a mortar attack in 1972, Don was discharged from the Navy 6 months short of retirement and spent 2 years in military hospitals receiving physical therapy. He retired from his job in 2005 and now spends most of his time at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans. 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 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 2006-12-04 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/acd038172e18bcd1123cb0a3c648fbac.mp4 257387d169c3b9900616c49f4e25307f https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7202d58e1f1676eabcbf4fe062f83b61.pdf 78e9be9ee2cda2a54f2bdc968fb1b282 PDF Text Text Bernard Kraai United States Army World War II – European Theatre 1:17:00 00:07 Introduction: - Born in Grand Haven, Michigan in 1919. - Graduated from high school in 1936. - His father worked at a piano factory. - During the depression, his father lost his job, so his mother assisted financially by baking bread and taking in the wash. - He worked for Western Union while in high school. - He also worked in a shipping department of a factory right out of high school until 1942. - He worked at Keller Tool Company making pneumatic tools for the war efforts. - There was a major gender shift in the workforce during the war, including in the factory at Keller Tool. - He felt pressure to enlist in the military before he was drafted. - He does not remember any of the women having any problems while working in the factory. - Single and married women worked in the factory. - Received his draft notice in March 1944. - Had to go to Detroit, Michigan for his physical. - There were many men who did not pass the physical. 06:10 Basic Training: - Received his notice to report in June 1944. - Went to Fort Sheridan, Illinois to receive clothing and equipment. - He remained at Fort Sheridan for 4-5 days. - He was then sent to Camp Croft, South Carolina by train. - The train ride took 2 days. - The drill instructors were good to the men. - Half of the training period was sent in one battalion, and then sent to another to finish the training. - Basic training consisted of a lot of exercise as well as weapons training. - He was trained on an M-1 Rifle. - He had no problem with the training, he felt the food was good and the officers were polite. - Spent 17 weeks in South Carolina. 10:30 Voyage Overseas: - After basic, he had a 10-day furlough. - He was then sent to Fort Meade, Maryland, for processing. - He was then sent to New York to load the Queen Elizabeth to go overseas. - The ship did not need an escort across the ocean. There was an air escort for one day out of New York and one day before England. �- The voyage took four days. He landed in Scotland. They could only have two meals a day because there were so many troops aboard. He crossed the ocean in November. Once they arrived, they took a train to Glasgow, and then to Southampton England. They remained in Southampton in four days. 14:50 Moving to the 80th Division: - Was part of a replacement unit in France. - Took a train to the 80th division. - The 80th division was in the south of France and was supposed to go to the East to Germany. - The replacements trained for a few days with the troops before heading out. - The division had taken many losses at the battle at the Moselle River. - The company had been replaced over six times, since they made their way into France, until the end of the war. - He joined a mortar unit. - He was the gunner in his unit, with a 60 millimeter mortar that weighed 42 lbs. He had to carry the entire mortar through France. 18:45 Battle of the Bulge: - Did not know exactly what was about to happen. - The weather was not bad when they began to move towards the battle. - The men traveled to a small town in Luxembourg and stayed in the homes of residents. - They walked from Luxembourg onward. - Made first contact with the enemy a day or two before Christmas. - The Germans fired one shell in the troops’ direction; this is when he realized this was really war. - On Christmas Eve, the men could hear Silent Night being played over a loudspeaker. - On Christmas, they started to move into position. - The day after Christmas, they began their move towards Bastogne. - They began taking mortar fire from the Germans. - At one point, he got down into a depression from a tank. - He was hit in the head by a piece of shrapnel, it missed his helmet and went into the side of his head, and it did not penetrate his skull. - He was unconscious, and had a concussion. - A medic came to him, bandaged his head and he was sent to the aid station a couple of miles away. - The field hospital was set up in tents. - He was laid up for 8 or 9 days due to his wounds. - He went straight to his unit after being released from the hospital. - On the way back to the front, he received a 1903 rifle, which was more accurate than the M-1. �- More replacements had joined his division while he was in the hospital, due to heavy losses during the attacks. 30:00 Movement through France and Second Injury: - While moving through France, Luxembourg and Belgium, the towns were basically deserted. - The men spent many nights outside in the snow. - To keep warm, the men would wear two pair of long underwear, two sweaters, field jackets, and overcoats to sleep. - There were very few times that the men could bathe or wash their clothes. - The food was scarce while moving, they would live on K rations and C rations. - The men would eat the chickens left in the towns to eat. - While the men were beginning their push toward the Rhine, the men traveled through pitch-black conditions. The men began crossing a swamp and came to a fence. Once the men cut the fence, a parachute flare erupted. - Nothing happened after the flare erupted. - They came across a group of German troops, who didn’t fire at the men at all. The Germans were then taken prisoner. - They came into contact with more Germans, who shot large mortars at the allies. He took a piece of shrapnel in the arm after a mortar exploded after hitting a tree. - His injury required surgery due to the amount of debris in the wound. - He took a plane to Paris and remained in the hospital for seven weeks, until the end of the war. - Recalls the hospital being very modern at the time. - Toward the end of his hospitalization, he took part in physical exercises to maintain his fitness. - The mobile injured would sneak out of the hospital to go to downtown Paris. - There were also organized trips for the troops, including a trip to the Notre Dame Cathedral. - The relationship between the Parisians and soldiers; many of the soldiers did not speak French. - The soldiers were told not to mix with the civilians. - He was in uptown Paris on the day the war ended in Europe. - There were many people walking around with a bottle of wine on V-E day, but not a large celebration that he saw. 47:00 Germany and Yugoslavia: - Returned to his division soon after the end of the war. - His division was on the Italian border in Austria. - They were ready to move into Yugoslavia in case of attack by Tito. - The German Fourth Army came up from Italy and surrendered their equipment to the 80th division. - Many of the men in the 80th division took many weapons from a large pile of equipment in a field. - The German military was still in full uniform, and were of regular military age. �- - There were rumors of German SS troops in the mountains surrounding the 80th division ready to shoot the allied troops. They moved into Germany after Austria. They were supposed to guard the Radio City Rockettes for two days while they were in Germany entertaining the troops. They were stationed in middle Germany for about two weeks, and then moved into Bavaria for occupation duty. He was placed into a civilian home with another soldier that could speak German. The son of the homeowners came home from the Russian front and was given the job of town policeman. The people he stayed with were very nice, and they would do favors for them in return for their kindness. They found out about the atom bomb from the German civilians. At first, the soldiers didn’t fully believe it until they heard the news from military men. He tried out for a choir with a chaplain, and moved daily from town to town to perform. Once the chaplain left, the chorus disbanded, but division headquarters wanted entertainment for the troops so they got back together again. They then lived in hotels while they traveled and performed. At one point, they performed for Generals Eisenhower and Patton. While traveling, he was able to tour castles in Bavaria and traveled into Czechoslovakia. 1:00:30 Czechoslovakia: - There were no fears of Soviet occupation while he was in Czechoslovakia. - He lived very well in the area, they lived in a hotel, and had a barber cut their hair once a week and shave them every day. - He found out that he had word be sent home on a emergency return. He had no idea why he was being sent home at the time. - Once he went to the division headquarters, he was told to head home. - He wanted to go to Munich to the 3rd army headquarters to find out why he was being sent home. They had no more information than anyone else. - He took a train to Paris, contacted the Air Corps to see if he could take a plane home, however it would have taken over a week. - He met with another soldier who was trying to get home, they went to the coast and got aboard a ship to head home. - Once he arrived in the states, he found that his father was dying of cancer. - Because his father was not going to die imminently, he waited for a week to be discharged. - Once he was discharged, he received a travel ticket that was supposed to pay his way home, but once they arrived in Indianapolis, they found Greyhound was on strike. - They took a small bus to South Bend, Indiana, and another to Benton Harbor, Michigan. - The five guys heading for Michigan started hitchhiking. - They flagged down a taxi that brought the men north to Muskegon. �1:08:00 Returning Home and other memories: - He returned to work at Keller Tool Company. - He divorced his first wife, and married his second, who he is still with. - He became a supervisor at Keller and remained there until he retired. - Many of the German soldiers would wear American uniforms during combat. - The company that he worked for gave all of the men who served a large book to record their military memories in. - He has served on the honor guard for 25 years. ����������������������������������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KraaiB Title A name given to the resource Kraai, Bernard (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kraai, Bernard Description An account of the resource Bernard Kraai was drafted into the US Army in 1944, and served in Europe with the 80th Division in late 1944 and 1945. His unit participated in the Battle of the Bulge and the advance into Germany. He was wounded twice, but rejoined his unit each time, and at the end of the war his unit marched into Austria, to the Yugoslav frontier, and eventually into Czechoslovakia. After the war ended, he joined a choir recruited from his unit and toured the region with them until he was discharged. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) WKTV (Kentwood, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-06-30 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/a498043ee4b6ef6f075ca9075f19afb3.mp4 3115c2663e480a6c5b9c877a3ae4475b https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/97b26097aa6649c22a20c9b0897c1f8f.pdf ad8441662756e52ad81a9aff83e866af PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Nickoli Kotchka (00: 29:25) (0:45) The early years (West Virginia) • Born July 26, 1915 • Lived in East Gulf, West Virginia which was a coal mining town o Father was a coal miner • Attended school in a two-story building that had a total of 8 classrooms • Moved from West Virginia to a farm in Michigan o Attended 7th grade in Michigan (3:35) The Michigan farm • 40 acre farm • 2-3 cows and some chickens, pigs, horses o Sold the cream and eggs in town o Horses were used to pull the plows—there were no tractors back then! (5:30) Life in Michigan • Mom had cancer so Nick dropped out of school to help his dad take care of the farm and his mom • Used to go to the 7th Street Drug Store in Grand Rapids for medicine for his mom o A Polish family ran the store which is why Nick’s family went there (since they were Polish too) o The adults would often talk in Polish ƒ Nick spoke both English and Polish (7:15) The Depression • Lived off the farm and vegetable gardens (8:35) Jobs • Worked at Grand Rapids Brass for 2 years and then went to war (9:05) Pearl Harbor • Heard about it on the news and heard FDR’s speech o Nick always listened to the news (9:45) Draft • Drafted into the Army in 1942 • Went to Africa and then on to Sicily • Basic Training took place at Camp Horner, Texas (11:15) Italy • Germans were staked out in the mountains • Nick’s division went around behind the Germans • Nick’s division did not suffer too many casualties • From Italy went to France and then on to Austria (15:35) The end of the war (Austria) • Stopped in Austria because the war was over �• • In Austria, Kotchka saw lots of German soldiers marching and surrendering Did not see any fighting in Austria since the war was over but did see fighting in Italy and France o Did not see any fighting while in Africa either • Kotchka never was injured, “never got a scratch” (18:37) After the war • Stayed in Europe all summer • Did not have to do anything o Did a little bit of sight seeing but mostly slept (19:40) The ship ride home • Traveled home by ship o Kotchka never got sea sick but he was one of the lucky few. He saw practically everyone else on his ship get sick. (20:20) Home • Worked at Sparta Foundry for 30 years o Making piston rings, etc. (21:25) Marriage • Got married in 1947 o Kotchka knew her family growing up however they did not start dating or taking interest in one another until after Kotchka returned from war • Had 3 sons – Bill, Tom, and Joe o One set of twins and then another boy • Plane Crash involving Joe o Joe was going to Florida for a bowling tournament with a friend o Left Sparta Airport at 8 am but while flying over Tennessee, they encounter a terrible storm o While flying at 200 feet, the storm flipped the plane over and the plane crashed o Both Joe and the friend lost their lives in the crash (24:50) Grandchildren • Has 7 grandchildren o 6 girls and 1 boy (25:40) How the Army Impacted his Life • Kotchka felt the service was like a vacation since he never got a scratch while serving (although there were a few close calls). (26:28) Food in the Army • Food was pretty good o Lots of spam (27:50) Letters from home • Received quite a few letters from home during the war • Still has some of the letters � 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 KotchkaN Title A name given to the resource Kotchka, Nickoli (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kotchka, Nickoli Description An account of the resource Nickoli Kotchka is a World War II Veteran who served in the United States Army from 1942 to 1945 in Africa, Italy, France, and Austria as a member of the 15th Infantry 3rd Division. Soon after Pearl Harbor, Kotchka was drafted into the Army and sent to Europe. Kotchka discusses his time in Europe and some of the fighting in Italy, as well as his life after the war. 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 Veterans United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-06-25 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 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/9021a04ec1ec2c1bcf81cb8165f71d6c.mp4 eb4057df76ce50dc047b0e323c3a4eb7 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f295b995b9051fe61575462a6bd8fa88.pdf 99983daec1f4b19dab3a9407a5f96dd6 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Duane Koshork (43:12) (00:08) Background Information • • • • Duane was born in Wisconsin in 1925 His family moved to Chicago, IL when he was a baby Duane’s father was a machinist He enlisted in the Army Air Corps (02:35) Training • • • • • • • Duane did basic training at Jefferson Parish, Missouri in 1943 He signed up to be a cadet but was denied because of high blood pressure Duane was assigned to be a sheet metal worker He went to San Antonio, TX to do fundamental sheet metal training After that he was sent to Akron, OH for supplemental training on fuel cell repair Basic training lasted 3 months; he was in Texas for 6 months and Ohio for 1 month Duane was sent to Riverside, CA for deployment (07:18) Deployment • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • They loaded onto a troopship and crossed the Pacific Ocean in 30 days Along the way they stopped once for a day in Melbourne, Australia The ship landed at Bombay, India There were 10,000 troops on the ship and they sailed alone Duane’s first day on the ship he did kp duty, but was too sea sick to do it the rest of the time At Bombay they boarded a train and went across India for a week He was stationed outside of Calcutta, India so he would go there on his days off The people of Calcutta were nice They stayed outside of Calcutta for about a month They loaded all of the trucks onto a train and headed to Ledo Road, which was connected to the Burma Road Duane was a rider in the truck and had to do kp and guard duty His unit was divided into 3 convoys and they would stop to camps at night to sleep They went through the jungle and didn’t see anything but a tea plantation Their destination was Kunming, China and it took them about a month to travel 1,079 miles The convoys hauled gas for planes �• One night they heard shooting and found out it was American GIs shooting to celebrate VE Day • On the trip they saw the aftermath of an air drop bombing (21:48) Kung Ming and Shanghai • • • • • • • • • • They reached Kunming and were put into barracks Kunming’s population was about 500,000 at the time Duane was put into a radiator repair shop and fixed C-46, C-47, P-40, and P-51 planes The living arrangements were nice There were USO plays and movies He spent almost a year in Kunming Duane visited the Western Hills Temple on leave When they heard about the atom bombs being dropped, they didn’t believe it at first and then they were glad that the war was ending Duane was moved to Shanghai and was assigned to be a MP from December until April, 1946 They could go into Shanghai and go to the race track to play golf or ride horses (31:48) Discharge • • • • • • • • There were less people on the way home and it took less time The ship landed in San Francisco and they unloaded Duane was discharged in May, 1946 He stayed with his parents for a while and then got married Duane went to Northern Illinois State Teachers College for 3 years He then went to Michigan State University for a masters degree in therapeutic recreation In 1989 he retired Now that he is retired he reads, plays golf, travels, and attends WWII reunions (37:25) Old Memories • • • On one of his first nights in India he went on guard duty and saw eyes coming from the jungle, when he yelled halt he found out it was civilians going back to their villages with lights on sticks for seeing snakes A friend of his went to the latrine at night and they heard him yell so they went to check on him, they found him frozen with fear because there was a giant python above him Another night when he was going on guard duty he heard a noise in the kitchen and asked the guard who was getting off duty what it was; the guard said it was a gorilla, so they went to check on it and it was a spider monkey banging pots together �DUANE W. KOSHORK. was born on May 6. 1925 at Pardeeville. WI. His family resided in Chi­ cago. IL where he at­ tended South Shore High School. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943. received basic training at Jefferson Bar­ racks. MO and ground crew training at Chanute Field. IL and Kelly Field. TX . Koshork was a mem­ ber of the 69th Depot Repair Sqdn, of the 30 Ist Air Depot Group assigned to the China Theater. He was based in Kunming. China after traveling across India and the Ledo-Burma Road . In 1945 he was transferred to Shanghai where he served in the mili­ tary police. Upon discharge in 1946. he attended Northern lllinois University. receiving a &emf} $4pIIl. degree in education. followed by an MA degree from Michi­ gan State University. During this period he married Gloria and they have three children: Barbara. David and Lori. Koshork was employed by the Veterans Admin­ istration as a corrective therapist; was State Director of Day Treatment Centers for the severely mentally handicapped; served as adjunctive therapy director and held administrative and executive positions with the Michigan Dept. of Mental Health. He retired in 1989. and he and Gloria reside in Grand Haven. MI. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KoshorkD Title A name given to the resource Koshork, Duane (Interview outline, video, and papers), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Koshork, Duane Description An account of the resource Duane Koshork was born in Wisconsin in 1925 and grew up in Chicago, Illinois. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1943 and did sheet metal training. After about 10 months of training in the US Duane went to Bombay, India on a troopship and then travelled by train across India. They got to Calcutta, India and loaded their trucks on to a train. Then they unloaded their trucks and hauled plane fuel from the Ledo Road to the Burma Road. Duane ended up in Kung Ming, China where he worked at a radiator repair shop on an airbase until the war was over. He was then sent to Shanghai to be a MP and sent home in April, 1946 to be discharged. Newspaper clipping about Koshork is appended to 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.) Video recordings United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Air Force World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-11-28 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/b1581814a0c99c679db02245dcc9ca78.mp4 0dc8b8725ff44d0986165aa7aec461d2 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a99e81c2b1f62fb2092382ec2c024c5b.pdf 7998fe448d55827fbf91968b3247ed95 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview PTSD Awareness and Veteran’s Programs Catherine Kooyers 1:17:05 Introduction (00:20)              Catherine was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She comes from a family of military veterans, with her father and uncles having served in World War II and cousins that were in Korea, Vietnam and Desert Storm. After she married, she moved to Toledo, Ohio and that is where she learned about the need to help veterans. Her main focus was PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). She remembers when she was sixteen years old the boy across the street was killed in Vietnam. While in Toledo, a woman Catherine met had a son that was a POW/MIA, and she helped with raising awareness. (02:45) Catherine graduated from high school in 1969 at Forest Hills. She attended several different colleges: Stotsenberg University in Toledo and she took courses in writing and business at the University of Toledo. (04:23) She did not go to college right after high school; she worked as a telephone operator at Bell Telephone, and then moved up to the motor vehicle department. Catherine was mentored by Dick DeVos when she was younger. (06:10) She was not paying as much attention to Vietnam as she should have. The 70‟s were a time of partying and having fun. (08:00) People distanced themselves from the veterans when they came home. One group that came home would always wear their uniforms and carry guns and knives. This group was also very vocal and intimidating, which caused most people to fear them. While at a county fair, she met some members from this group and Catherine learned about them and who they were. The person that motivated her the most was a POW who had an injured leg and could not be seen for six months. (10:30) Catherine called the VA clinic and tried to appeal for the veteran. This sparked her interest and caused the situation to snowball and she began to fight for their rights. Working for Veterans (12:00)    Catherine began working with this veterans group and showed them how to set up a rolodex, print out a newsletter and start to get organized. Several veterans groups started at this time, but the Vietnam Veterans of America was the only real survivor of these groups and they took the lead. One veteran, Mike Flowers, was instrumental in the making of VVA. He would travel to Washington D.C. at his own expense to discuss veteran‟s rights and the organization. (14:00) �          PTSD was the main cause they focused on. Between 1978 -1979 the need for PTSD treatment came to light. Catherine‟s group formed a PTSD committee, but she was not allowed to act as chair because she was not a veteran, so she was made an honorary co-chair. They began collecting and distributing information about PTSD treatment and received more calls for help than anything. (16:46) At the time, each veterans outreach center had a specialty such as drugs, suicide and finding jobs. No one was addressing PTSD. They decided to open a veteran‟s outreach center in Toledo that focused on PTSD. Catherine also began to learn more about what PTSD was and how it could be treated. As she reached out to the medical community of psychologists, they simply told them to “send your guys to us”. (18:30) They began to create and distribute PTSD monthly newsletters. The next year at the Lucas County Fair, they had a brochure they handed out that talked about PTSD as they had learned about it and how they perceived it to be. Catherine noted a difference between shell shock and PTSD the former being more combat and battle related while the latter is the result from a traumatic event, not necessarily war or combat related. (20:15) Moving Forward – National Recognition (22:06)         VVA chapter 35 was the original committee that helped boost the PTSD awareness campaign. In 1982, the government decided to expand the program for two years. Once that time had expired in 1984, they were allowed to present testimony to Congress. While there, Catherine was able to meet Sonny Montgomery, the creator of the Montgomery G.I. Bill. When they were presenting to the VA and to Congress, they learned quickly not to disclose their sources because those were often times closed after wards. (24:55) At a meeting at the VA, each veterans group (i.e. VFW, American Legion, Disabled American Veterans, etc…) did not get along. It was at this meeting that Mike Flowers stood up and said “If we don‟t start working together as veterans, it is going to be the downfall of all of us.” That day they formed what Catherine calls the first „Veterans Coalition‟. (26:36) They also began promoting job fairs, in order to clean up their image, find a job, have a successful interview and drug counseling. 1984-1985 was the year of the big push for veteran‟s rights, and things really started to take off then. (28:43) With the anniversary of the fall of Saigon, in 1985, public support steadily rose and more awareness also grew. Around that time Catherine helped bring the mother of a soldier killed in Vietnam to the memorial wall in Washington D.C. Everything was donated for her to go including a new dress and the plane tickets. When they arrived, a television camera crew showed up to film and take pictures of her there, but the park rangers told them no shooting was allowed. They did it anyway and the pictures were used to close out the broadcast day. (32:27) �Looking Back Over the Past Forty Years (33:29)            A lot has happened that was good for veterans, but much more is still needed. The veterans outreach center that Catherine had been fighting for since 1984 in Toledo was finally built in 2008. (34:04) One veteran she met at the wall was cracking jokes and was very nervous. She could tell that he didn‟t think it was funny, it was nervous laughter. He was a Vietnam veteran whose wife wanted him to see it. After talking with him, he told her that he wasn‟t prepared for that, and he started to cry. (36:50) He related his story to Catherine, and he lost 38 soldiers in Vietnam and he was the only survivor from his unit. Even though she cares about veterans, the program needs veterans to be involved as well for it to work. (38:20) Today, some veterans either deny they have PTSD or are unaware of the fact that they may have a problem. (43:30) Each case is very different and personal. One thing that Catherine can do for veterans is to help them take care of things like beginning college and doing everyday things that they may need help with. (47:20) There is a difference between World War II vets and others, when asked they will just say they did what they had to do. They also live more frugal lives and save and go without because of their memories from the Depression. (49:20) The Korean Veterans that Catherine encounters feel like they were forgotten; stuck between the heroes of WWII and the vocal veterans from Vietnam. Patriot Guard, which is present at fellow veteran‟s funerals, helps to reach the veterans that seem unreachable because it is something that they can connect too. (51:31) Veterans’ Divisions (55:06)         Vietnam veterans are very diverse: Whites, Blacks, Native Americans and Asians. Each of these groups stayed away from each other for a long time. They don‟t know how they fit together, but Catherine has told them that they each had a similar experience and that they should get along. (57:08) Once at one of these meetings, the group was fighting and she made the mistake to try to stop it. She ended up being shoved against the wall with scissors held to her throat. Education is the key, we need to inform the public and teach our children about veterans and the struggles they went through. (59:50) Most of the people getting involved are the children and grandchildren of veterans who want to learn about their experiences and how they can help them. (1:01:24) A large amount of the veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan listen to older veterans, because they know in their mind something is not right. Some have survivor‟s guilt because they made it home while others did not. (1:04:30) Cross guilt also exists in veterans who did not go into combat because they feel that they didn‟t do as much. Getting veterans to events like Landing Zone Michigan and veterans functions at Grand Valley State University is a huge step in reaching them. (1:06:42) �       Computers have made a big impact on information and being better educated. These resources have helped veterans connect to others and become affiliated with veteran‟s organizations. (1:08:20) One concern that Catherine has is the suicide rate amongst veterans. The rate is not measured by day, but by minute. (1:10:20) She used to work on suicide watches that would rush out to veterans that were thinking about suicide and would talk them out of it. Education is the best way to deal with these issues. Legislation also needs to be pursued to make sure that veterans are represented and spoken for. (1:12:30) Cleaning themselves up and maintaining a healthy, reputable image to make them more respected. Catherine‟s historical timeline of veterans history is the 60‟s when everybody was torn apart, the 70‟s was a time when things were happening but we weren‟t sure what, the 80‟s were the critical turning point, where Congress became involved and the VA starting looking forward. (1:15:37) She thinks that the Vietnam Veterans of America really stand out because they were the ones that really started the movements that Catherine has worked so hard for over these years. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KooyersC1432V Title A name given to the resource Kooyers, Catherine (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kooyers, Catherine Description An account of the resource Catherine Kooyers was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and comes from a family of veterans. After she got married, she was working at a local fair when she first encountered Vietnam veterans. From her experiences, Catherine quickly realized that work needed to be done in veteran organizations and that work needed to be done in the field of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Catherine was part of a PTSD committee that formed and fought for the VA (Veterans Affairs) to provide services to veterans that they had not previously received. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Kentwood Historic Preservation Commission (Kentwood, Mich.) WKTV WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American 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 2012-08-02 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/82e93c6aa22b12224abe83bfa7c5f4ae.m4v 3a0f8d1a4ac2727564525dd860a92b1b https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0dc95f4bf3f7d9e2a3863a3a169f12d1.pdf c336506f4976e68db916b21ca1ef0b29 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: World War II Interviewee: Bill Koetje Length of Interview: 02:01:59 Background              He was born in Kalamazoo, MI in December 18, 1921. He father worked in a paper mill and his mom was a stay at home wife. He is the oldest of 5 children. He graduated high school in 1940. Once he graduated, he would work in a grocery store, in all different positions. He still lived with his parents at the time. He knew a lot about what was going on in the war at the time. In fact, his military career would start in 1937 or ’38 when he joined the CMTC, or the Civilian Military Training Corps. The government put up this program. He was out at Camp Custer for ten weeks. He would get out of school and go there for training. They didn’t get paid, but had a regular military life. They drilled all morning. In the afternoon, they would do classwork. The first thing they learned about was military regulations. He was supposed to go four summers and graduate from the program. This would automatically make them a 2nd Lieutenant. Then they had to spend 16 years either in regular service or the reserves. Then the draft started. In 1940, he was expecting a war, especially with all the things that Hitler was doing. He enlisted in the Marines in 1941, but they rejected him because of his feet, they had too high arches or something. 30 days later he would receive his draft notice. He had two weeks to get his things in order. From there he went right out to Fort Custer and he was inducted into the service. While he was there he had to take an IQ test. When he was finished he was put on a train to Fort McClellan, Alabama Training (6:40)     The farther south he went, the hotter it got. Otherwise he did not remember much. He had to stay on the train the whole trip. The camp itself was a nice place. It was not like other camps, in the sense that it did not have barracks and such. Instead the men lived in huts. When he got down there, he was sitting on the curb, waiting to get his uniform. There was a big guy there who was being a bully, stepping on their toes and such. He warned the man to stop, but he did not. �                     So, he started hitting the guy. When his captain saw him, he ran out to them and grabbed him off the man. The captain held him at arm’s length, when he told his captain to let him go. He said “You can order me around but you can’t man-handle me”. The captain informed him that they would speak later. He would finally get his clothes and get his bed ready along with everything else. He would report back to the captain who started asking him questions about where he learned his military knowledge. He was not cooperative, and told the captain that his records from the day he was born until that moment were with the military and he would tell him when he was ready to ship out. That would put him in quite a spot, though he did not get any sort of punishment. He would spend 6 weeks in basic training. When he was offered the option to stay there as a cadre, he said no. He had made too many enemies with the current cadres there and did not want to fight them all the time. They sent him out to Fort Benning, Georgia. He would join the 101st Airborne Division. He was 20 years old. He would go through all their training at jump school. When you were there you did not walk anywhere, you would have to run to every place you went in order to help harden you up. Then they would start calisthenics; push-ups, push-ups and more push-ups. They were not rough on the soldiers, but it was rough training. He would also learn how to pack his own chutes. When he was getting ready to make his first jump on the airplane, a jeep pulled up and called his name. He was ordered to come with them. When he reported to the colonel, he was asked old he was. He was 20. The colonel was relieved that he did not make that jump. In order to do jump school he had to be 21 or have parent’s consent. At that point he was sent to Camp Butner, North Carolina and joined the 78th Infantry Division. They had just activated the division and he was the first one there. Troops would slowly join them. When they had enough, they would begin training. At this point he was still a private. That was the one thing he could not stand about the Army, it was the poorest paying job in the world. He got to North Carolina in November 1942 and stayed there until the following September or October. He was accustomed to living military life. He wasn’t homesick or anxious about things. He was able to leave base and go into town. He wasn’t always a good boy. After the passes were signed and stamped he would take 10 or 12 of them. When the coast was clear, he would go to town. (18:10) While he went to town, he would spend a lot of weekends with a guy he knew, who owned a big house. He called him Doc. Doc would almost figure out that he was sneaking passes. He had a lot of fun out there during the weekends. In fact, he would have picture of him and some other guys who were also from other areas of Michigan. He would go home to visit for Christmas before being transferred to Fort Meade, Maryland. �                He was made a sergeant after he got there. He would work processing soldiers before they went overseas. He would work in that job for about a year. So far, he had spent two years in the military in the US. He was still at Fort Meade when D-Day happened. This made the men more worried about going overseas. It was right after supper one night, and suddenly the guy upstairs came running down to his room and told him that there was a guy with a pistol warning that he’d shoot anyone who would come near him. He thought about it for a few minutes and he went up alone. The man had crawled into his bed and under the sheets. He would go up to the man and demand the pistol, butt first. At first the man did not comply, but eventually he gave up the pistol. He emptied the gun and took the man to the orderly room. They called the hospital and had the man taken to the hospital. The man resisted and would only go if he went with him. So he did. When they got to the hospital, he told one of the ambulance drivers to go get a straitjacket. They got him in the jacket and they took him off. He doesn’t know what happened to him from then on. There was another incident when an Indian stabbed the guy in the bunk next to him. I caused a lot of commotion. (25:35) He went to the hospital with the man who ended up getting 4 or 5 pints of blood. He would stay with him there for a couple of days. Eventually the guy got better. There was yet another incident when a man threatened to jump off a balcony in order not to go overseas. He ended up pushing the guy who fell and was fine. He told him to stop with the funny business or next time he would push him down head first. The man did not give him any more trouble. He would have to deal with men like this all the time, because they got into a mood. Otherwise he had a great time while he was there. The men who worked under him would often ask for passes to go to New York, Boston or any other areas around there. He would look over the charts and see who had KP or guard duty. If you did not have either of those, he told you to disappear. He did not want to see you until Sunday evening around 7, when you needed to get checked in again. The men really appreciated it. He would visit Washington D.C. It was a free city, where you did not have to salute, transportation was free and the Pepsi company would have a big building set aside for entertainment for the soldiers. The town itself was interesting. He went to a lot of different places there and saw a lot of things. This would all come to an end when he was ordered to go overseas. His namewais at the top of the list. A colonel that he knew would find his name on the list and would order him to go home to Kalamazoo for a couple days and come back when they were ready to ship out. Europe (31:30) �                   He would ship out of Fort Dix, New Jersey, on the Queen Elizabeth. Since he was on one of the fastest ships on the ocean, the ship would go without an escort. Because he was a sergeant, he had to stay in the “white” area. 12 hours he spent with the 13 other guys in the room and the other 12 he was rotated out onto the deck, where he would take his blanket and sleep. The weather was good, and that ship could handle anything. There was one time when the soldiers were very lax. You were supposed to carry a life preserver wherever you when on the ship, but they did that very half-hearted. When they got to Scotland, someone started shooting and it scared the daylights out of them. They really scrambled for their life vests then. There was not a problem with seasickness on the way over there, but on the way back, it was huge. The ship anchored off of Scotland and had to take smaller boats to get to shore because the ship was so huge. They couldn’t go straight to the English Channel because the Germans would have sunk them He was then sent by train to Liverpool. From there he was sent right away by boat, across the English Channel. He landed in La Havre, France, where he would stay about a day and half. He was taken right up almost to the front lines, where he joined the 100th Infantry Division as a replacement, just outside of Dijon, France. His first experience under fire was quite a different experience than he was used to. He was scared to death. When he got off the train and started marching out to the front lines, he would have American fire going over his head. They were all scared that it was incoming fire. When they got to the front lines, he learned quickly which outgoing fire was and which was incoming; you can tell by the sound of the shells. His division was assigned to the 7th Army, which had come up from Southern France. They were supposed to join with France’s 1st Army. When he joined them, he went to his captain. The captain asked if he could handle a machine gun; he said yes, and was assigned to carry ammunition. He was too scared to tell him that he was a sergeant, so he did as he was told. He would carry ammunition for a couple of days when a runner would come up to him and tell him that the old man wanted to see him. He went back and he was assigned to take over a section, two machine guns. (40:00) His buddy, Gordon Roberts, would be assigned to the mortar section, but they did not use mortars a whole lot because of the Germans heavy fortifications. Instead they would use other stuff. His unit was always on the go. They had the Germans on the run, which he liked because their back to them, which means they wouldn’t shoot at them. Whenever they took over a town, they would fortify the town and fool around a bit. A lot of the civilian population would hide in the basements. One time a woman came screaming out of a basement. She didn’t speak English, but he understood “baby.” One of the women down there was having a baby, and he pointed her toward the medics. The Germans would counterattack a lot. One night, the counterattack was absolutely wicked. You couldn’t get out of the hole, and you didn’t know where they were at. �                    He just had his guns keep shooting all night. The Germans were coming at them with foot soldiers. The next day one of the soldiers had hung up his rain coat on some nearby brush. It was always wet there and it was in the middle of winter. So he hung his coat up and when it started getting dark, someone started shooting the coat, thinking it was an enemy. When they finally got the guy to stop shooting, the coat was all torn up. He sure didn’t miss his target. It was the winter of 1944-1945. It was difficult for them to get food. The people who were supposed to bring food to them on the front lines were reluctant to get close. So instead, he had to send a couple of guys at a time back to them to get some chow. They would come back and he would send the next two, etc. (46:00) They would try to get C rations, but sometimes they would get K. If they ate K rations they would often times get sick. He would have a lot of trouble with men getting sick from trench foot and frostbite. It was 17 degrees on the front line and all they had was wool coats and standard boots to keep them warm. He wore 3 pairs of OD’s on, 3 shirts and a field jacket just trying to stay warm. His hands were so cold that he could hardly fire his rifle. He had been fighting real well there and pushing the Germans back until he hit Biche, France and hit the Siegfried Line. They also fought in what had been the Maginot Line. The little pillboxes there would give them a lot of trouble. It was difficult to take them out. They tried bombing one once. They bomb skipped over it and exploded near them and he got a concussion. They were there for 2 days when they got self-propelled cannons. They started hammering on the side of these things, like at the side of a mountain. This would work. They finally blew a hole in the thing in the morning. They would then get orders to attack. He would run point on the mission that day. He would work with a full-blooded Indian, a good soldier, who would cover him. He would work his way up to the newly blown hole when he would run into two men with pole charges; explosives at the end of a pole. They would make it up to the wall where the Germans couldn’t get them. They were having trouble reaching to where the charge needed to go, so he would help them set up the charges. He would get the charge into the hole and BOOM! He would then do the same with the second pole charge. He would get a bronze star for bravery in this event. When he got back to his line, the medic would notice a really bad limp. He didn’t notice anything, but when the boot came off, his foot swelled right up. So he was tagged and sent back. Once they got into one of the pillboxes, which were all connected, they would blow their way through the rest of them. He was then brought up to the First Aid Station. He was there a little while. Not much excitement then. �                    He was in Sarrebourg, France, a little town. There was a French Garrison there. They cleaned out some stables and put cots in there. Army beds were brought up around Christmas time. They felt very special at the time. They would also clean him up a bit. He did not have time to shave, so they shaved him. He told them to just cut his clothes off. He got different clothing. The nurses were singing Christmas Hymns and they turned off the lights and enjoyed the moment. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place. A twin engine bomber flew over and dropped two bombs, hitting the barracks and the stables. Only 4 people lived that day. He would finally come to in Paris, when he realized he was alive. He was in the hospital for 4 months recovering from frostbite and a concussion from the last bombing. He doesn’t know how he was alive. He felt like he was hit by a 10 ton truck. He remembers grabbing the mattress and covering himself in a corner. It was probably what saved his life that day. When he was in Paris, the Battle of the Bulge had started. When he came to, there were 4 doctors trying to decide what to do with him. One wanted to send him back to the States, the other three said that he wouldn’t make the trip. So he was sent to a hospital in England instead. During that time, he was stuck in bed the whole time. While he was there he got himself into some trouble with a Lieutenant who had called for attention. He had learned in school that a soldier in the hospital was not a soldier, but a patient, so he didn’t pay any attention. The Lieutenant was very upset by this. They exchanged a few words and the guy left. He would return. Before the Lieutenant got back he found a hand grenade. He took the powder out to make it harmless. When the guy came back he handed him a supposed ready-to-blow hand grenade. He never saw someone turn so white. That stirred up a big fuss in the hospital. He wanted to see a Chaplain, but the nurse was ordered by the guy not to get one. She was eventually convinced otherwise by him. He was then visited by a large man, a colonel who would inform them that he was not in trouble and would be transported to another hospital by the end of the day. While he was in England, he would go to a pub and had some good times. (1:00:00) He would end up almost being court martialed while creating some trouble at the pub. He had another ordeal there before he could go back. Soldiers had to fire a rifle and mortar before they were seen fit enough to go back overseas. When he got to the rifle range, a $20 bill was offered for the best score on the rifle range. He won that money. The officer who offered the 20 wanted to know how he knew he was going to get the money. He said that he spent 3 weeks in a rifle program, where you had to score between 95 and 100 points. He had quit the program because he shoulder hurt so much, he could hardly hold his rifle anymore. Shortly after that, he got on the boat and went into France. He went back to his unit that was now in Germany. His regiment had new orders to stop a German unit that was trying to come through Italy. �     On his way there he was shot at. When he shot back, a man came running out of a house. He did not last very long. At that point, most of the Germans were surrendering to the Americans whenever they caught up with them. As they were getting farther into Germany, the civilian population would hide in their wine cellars. They would stay out of sight of the Americans as much as they could. After the war had ended they were ordered not to fraternize with any of the Germans, civilian or otherwise. There was a $50 fine for disobeying the orders. They ended the war in Urbach, Germany near the foot of the Alps. After the War (1:18:00)                 They would patrol a long highway between two of the towns. The Americans that were there would go through everything. One kid found a motorcycle and wanted to ride it so bad that he did. He didn’t know how to stop so he crashed and broke his ankle. There was one time when someone started to shout warnings and the whole village went absolutely chaotic. He and the others spent almost 2 days trying to calm the people down and get things back to normal. They stayed there about a month. When he first got there, he did not see in civilians. After they had set up a cooking station, he was sitting on the curb eating his food when two little girls showed up. Suddenly he could not eat. He had such a big lump in his throat, he just had to give them his food. They would show up while he was eating for about the next for days. He didn’t eat so they could. One day they had formation and while he was there he toppled right over. Out like a light. They couldn’t wake him up right away, so he was taken to a hospital. When he came to, a captain started yelling at him for drinking too much. Luckily, his men were there to inform the captain that he didn’t drink. They believed that the captain owed him an apology. When he got back, the report told his superiors that it was malnutrition. So he had to be supervised when he ate. When he would go get seconds, he would give it to the little girls the food and tell them to eat at home. When it was time for him to leave, the girls heard about it. They found him and gave him two little dolls. He still has them today. The worst part about the whole thing was that the territory was being turned over to the Russians, who were ruthless. They then went to Kemen, outside of Stuttgart. He had a nice time there and made some nice friends. The autobahn went right through the city, so they had to police the autobahn. They would stay the Burgomaster’s house. The house was emptied before he was allowed in it. But when he got in there he found a gold watch. He would return it to the lady of the house and she was very grateful. He was treated like a king. While they were there, the townsfolk had a dedication ceremony. Where there was a Swastika flag, there would then hang an American flag. During the ceremony he was �                     called forward to receive a special honor. A little girl, dressed in her Sunday best would put a ring of flowers around his neck. There wasn’t a dry eye there. (1:29:30) He was there about 3 days for a quartering party when the troops came in. While he was there, a guy came up to him screaming “Come to my house!” It was against the rules to go and they would be fined for disobeying the command, but they were willing to do it. He got to the house and they wanted to give him wine. They ended up leaving, but didn’t know what he wanted. They got themselves a German-English Dictionary to figure it out. It turns out that he had captured this guy and treated him decently and had even brought him to the American medics. He said that he wanted to pay him back. The man ended up giving him gold handled sword that he would send home. He would stay in the army until February. He would move around and ended up staying at Esslingen from August or September until February. They would live in a school building, using the cots of the Army Garrison there. There was a lot to do there. There is much chaos after the war and millions of people displaced, and none of them knew where to go or what to do. Many of them were starving too. It was chaos. These people were from all over Europe. It was rough dealing with the Russians there. He was on police duty 24 hours a day, trying to keep the peace. They got buses running and got coal brought in for hot water and coal. They got reorganized there and were scheduled to go to Japan. As they were ready and on the train to go when a colonel got on the train and told them good news: the war in Japan was over and bad news: they were staying there. So they had to get off the train and unpack everything and went back to the school house until February. In the middle of the city there was a big pool that they got working and would go down there all the time. They would even hire a masseuse once in a while. They were living like kings. The lives of the Germans were slowly getting back to normal, especially when they found out the American soldiers were not mean or anything like that. He would also have to shake up the houses, which means they would go from house to house and search for weapons. They found some too. (1:42:00) Some of the Germans did not like the American soldiers and would attempt to separate the soldiers from the group. While they were there, they were ordered to turn in their live ammunition. It went on for a while until a colonel was walking in the street and was attacked by a couple of kids in the streets. He went to help the guy and eventually live ammunition was brought back. Once day while he was out he spotted some kids trying to corner him. He clipped one in the butt and took off. Later 11 of them were rounded up and taken to interrogation. He was finally allowed to go home in late January. He would go home on an old grain boat. While he was at the school house, a captain and another soldier hat gotten into it. He broke it up and got in trouble with the captain because he had spoken out of turn. He was � then assigned to guard the other solder in the fight the whole way home, which was under arrest. While he was staying in Marseilles his gun was stolen and he had to go and get it back Going Home (1:52:50)      The trip back was awful. A motor stopped working and they had to use the compass to tell where they were going to land when they hit land. When they were taking roll call on the ship, the guy taking it suddenly got confused of which one was the prisoner and which one was the guard, because the other guy was holding the gun. The man was worried about the prisoner running away, but he convinced him otherwise. When he got home he had no ammunition left, he had shot them off. He had to pay 35 cents per round. He told them to go jump in a lake. They would be assigned to a barracks and get cleaned up. He would then get to call home to talk to his family. Two days later he was on a train to Atterbury, Indiana where he was discharged. He was given $300 and a kick on the butt goodbye. Post Duty (1:55:45)          Looking back, he lived through the depression, went into the service and he was a kid who wasn’t anything. Going into the army would change his life. He learned to get along with people. He went from having nothing to $50, clothes and it was amazing. CMTC changed his life as well. He learned discipline and how to live with people. It was a big adjustment. He came home and it was a big letdown. He spent 42 months in the service. He had to sleep in a bed by himself and it was very different. He didn’t have a job. He did eventually get one, but it was very poor pay. He felt like he was going backwards instead of forward. He would also go to school for a year at Central Michigan University. He got a 4.0 average. Uncle Sam has really treated him good since then. They take care of his health and medical bills. � 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 KoetjeB Title A name given to the resource Koetje, Bill (Interview outline and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Koetje, Bill Description An account of the resource Bill Koetje served in the Army during World War II. He was drafted in 1942 and initially trained as a paratrooper, but was not yet 21 and was transferred to an infantry unit, where he did well enough to stay on as a trainer rather than ship out with his unit. He was then assigned to Fort Meade, Maryland, to supervise recruits who were about to be sent overseas. He finally shipped out himself in the fall of 1944, and was assigned to the 100th Division in northeastern France. He led a machine gun section and was involved in heavy fighting against German fortifications, and was wounded and evacuated. The aid station that he was sent to was bombed, and he was sent to England. He rejoined his unit in the spring of 1945, and served with the Army of Occupation in Germany until the end of the year. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-04-26 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/403f8b82f3eb268e1be15d85d47d7fe6.mp4 529de23af154d2e9d46a241ccd907925 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e3df6684853f99fed74927c775e12a47.pdf 642cd80816b589b7729d147ad3097134 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview World War II - WAV Merle Knight Length of Interview: 13:38 (00:10) BS: My name is Brittany Steffans and I’ll be the interviewer and recording is Holly Strong. Mrs. Knight is 81 years old, having been born on April 14, 1923. (00:33) BS: Please state for the recording what war and branch of service you served in. What was your rank and where did you serve? MK: I took my boot camp at New York City, at Hunter College. I lived on about the sixth floor. I have to tell you something a little bit funny. I never ate breakfast, so when I got there, I wasn’t going to eat breakfast either. That’s not the way it works. You march to breakfast, whether you eat or not. Now I forgot the next question. After that, I went to Cecil Field, in Florida. And later on I went to Banana River, also in Florida. There both south of Jacksonville. BS: Umm, what war and branch of service did you serve in? MK: That was World War II and I was a Navy WAV. BS: Can you state what WAV means? (01:30) MK: Women Accepted for Voluntary Service. BS: What was your rank? MK: I ended up Seaman First Class. BS: Were you drafted or did you enlist? MK: I enlisted. BS: Why did you join? MK: Oh…they took my husband. To-be husband, was drafted. My brother was gone. Maybe I had to find myself. BS: Why did you pick the service branch you joined? MK: Navy blue. (laughs) I didn’t like the WACs color. �BS: Oh, okay. Do you have any experiences from boot camp that you remember? Or training? Other than the breakfast. (02:32) MK: Oh, we got to go into New York City and see things. I’d never been to New York before. Statue of Liberty, all those kind of things. And then before I was sent down to Florida, I got to work in the Officer’s mess hall and I thought that was kind of interesting. BS: What was your job assignment? MK: That’s what this little book is sitting here for. (Picks up hardback book.) When I went to Cecile Field, umm, I logged in pilot flight time. And every pilot had one of these. And when they came to our office, they had to tell us what plane they were taking and we had to log in what time it was. And then they took the plane, and when they come back, they had to come back to our office and log back out. And there were some that didn’t come back. And that’s how we knew. I don’t have flight time in mine, so I ended up using mine as a joke book. I have a little bit of flight time in there. I got to fly. I didn’t fly the plane. (04:04) BS: Oh. Can you tell me a couple of your most memorable experiences during the war? MK: Belonging to the Fast-Bit softball team, probably was my most fun. BS: Were you awarded any medals or salutations? MK: After playing ball, I was awarded a silver baseball. It’s hanging up there. (Points) From Admiral Kincaid. BS: How’d you get it? MK: Well, that was from playing baseball. BS: Did you stay in touch with your family while you were in Florida? MK: Writing letters. I never made phone calls. (05:01) BS: What was the food like, while you were there? MK: (shrugs) It must have been all right. I gained a few pounds. BS: Did you feel any pressure or stress while you were in the service? MK: I don’t think so. �BS: How did you entertain yourself? Other than baseball. What did you do for fun? MK: Well, I was in a room with about ten girls. And it wasn’t hard to find entertainment with ten girls back there. (laughs) You could go off base, if you had liberty. And we used to go out and run an obstacle course. BS: Do you recall anything humorous or unusual events that happened? MK: Well, I went off base once, without liberty. I got caught. And I had to clean…I cleaned the biggest linen closet you’ve ever seen. (laughs) That was my punishment. But, you know, I’ve always remembered that. (06:35) BS: Did you and your friends ever pull pranks on others? MK: On April Fool’s Day, I did. I got them all up too early. Told ‘em it was six o’clock and it was five o’clock. And…they threw me in the shower. (Laughs) BS: Can you show us what some of your photographs are here? MK: (Holds up class photo) This was taken, I think, right after we got to New York. And this one (holds up another photo or women lined up) was at Cecile Field. And it was, I think, most of those girls I roomed with, in one room. BS: How big was the room? Was it… (07:24) MK: It was big. (Looks at photo) Some of them left and went to smaller rooms, which they were allowed to do. BS: What about this one? (Hands MK a photo) MK: This was taken just when we went on liberty, in Jacksonville, Florida. We went to St. Augustine, a few other places. BS: What did you think of officers’ or your fellow soldiers? MK: Well, the only trouble I ever got into was when I went off base and I wasn’t supposed to. (laughs) BS: Do you recall the day of your service ending? (08:20) MK: Hmmm. Well, I was discharged at Miami, Florida. That’s probably all I remember. And then I got on a train. You know, we didn’t get to fly on a plane. We had to ride the train. And I guess I came home. �BS: What did you do in the days and weeks afterwards, after you were out of the service? MK: Probably went back to roller-skating. We roller-skated at North Lake. That has since burned down. And then tried to find a job. BS: Did you make any close friendships while you were in the service? MK: Yes. I still write to four or five of the girls. Of course, some of them have died. (09:24) BS: Did you join a veterans organization? MK: No, I never did that. BS: What did you go on to do as a career after the war? MK: I got married the same…a few months after I got home. My career was five kids. BS: Did your military experience influence your thinking about the war in general? (10:24) MK: This war right now. We’re both against it. BS: Do you attend any reunions? MK: No. I don’t know why…I don’t know why our outfit never got together. BS: How did your service and experience affect your life? MK: I learned discipline. Probably helped me a lot in training my kids. (11:11) BS: Is there anything you’d like to add that we didn’t cover in the interview? MK: I was thinking about this a lot before you came, but you gave me some questions there I wasn’t thinking on. (laughs) BS: So how old were you when you enlisted? MK: I was twenty-one. BS: And you weren’t married at the time, right? MK: No. �BS: Your husband was drafted, correct? MK: Yeah, he was drafted. BS: So you didn’t see each other. MK: No. We never saw each other for nearly three years. BS: Was that hard? (11:53) MK: It was probably harder on him than me, because where I was a little more fun. And no fighting. BS: So you didn’t see any combat while you were in the service? MK: No. No. BS: How long were you in? MK: I was in a year and a half. I would have stayed in longer. A bunch of us girls were going up for assignments, and we were going to take one more assignment and then we were going to go to Pearl Harbor. And then the war ended. And we would have had to stay in at least another six months. So we all gave up on that. Since then, maybe I’ve regretted that a little bit. (Laughs) (12:43) BS: So how long was it between when your husband to be was drafted and the point when you decided to enlist? MK: That was probably a year and a half. BS: So if you had the opportunity to enlist back then, would you have done it? Gone back to war. MK: Yes. I would have recommended it to most girls. Unless they have to go over there and fight, like what’s going on now. That I don’t agree with. BS: Is there anything you’d like to add that we have not covered? MK: Not that I can think of. But those were nice, fun days that I had. And I enjoyed it. BS: Thank you. (13:38) � 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 KnightM Title A name given to the resource Knight, Merle (Interview transcript and video), 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Knight, Merle Description An account of the resource Merle Knight served in the Navy WAVES during World War II. She was a volunteer who spent all her time on the East Coast of the US, primarily at a naval air station. Although she wanted to go to serve in Pearl Harbor, she would change her mind due to the war ending Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Steffens, Brittney (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. Naval Reserve. Women's Reserve Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004-04-12 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/26d01b52dc93c1ede03af442eb9b194f.m4v 5376e47b68d39280d8f44548c5031923 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0c3c45d4403629824954a5649f9c12f4.pdf 292e19f0e51fbf84a5d2205d6cbf0db7 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Terry Knapp (01:00:03)  Background (00:00)  Born in Carson City Hospital (01:00)  Father was a farmer (02:00)  His parents went into baking (03:15)  He had one brother and two sisters (03:30)  He played hide and seek as a child (05:20)  He played football and ran track in high school (06:00)  After graduating high school he worked on a line at Oldsmobile for about six weeks (11:30)  Lived in Lansing (11:45)  Got married and moved back to the bakery (11:50)  Dad died in 1975 (12:45)  Military Experience (14:00)  Went to Fort Leonard Wood Missouri for basic training (14:35)  Fort Polk Louisiana for advanced training (14:40)  Married on April 27, 1967 (16:45)  Description of Vietnam: hot, smelled like rotten vegetation, there were leeches and the troops had to take quinine tablets at every meal to avoid malaria (17:30)  During the Tet offensive, there were firefights nearly every other day (19:30)  Worked with Vietnamese during the day and fought them during the night (19:45)  Had to watch out for traps and ambushes (19:55) � He witnessed some individuals killed or wounded by traps (20:10)  Sometimes they were overrun and had to fight hand to hand combat (20:20)  He was offered the Purple Heart (22:30)  They would set up sentries around their perimeter to spot enemy patrols closing in on them (23:10)  Three APCs that he rode on were destroyed or damaged while he was in Vietnam (24:30)  They had to wait for clearance, to determine no friendlies were in the area, before they could spray it (24:55)  He was in charge of the radio on the command track, and he had to communicate with the CO and other officers (26:00)  His unit suffered a lot of casualties (26:40)  When he first arrived in Vietnam the 11th Cavalry had a n entire troop wiped out (27:00)  He was a replacement (27:10)  Blaine Landers was killed after taking over his patrol (27:50)  That same night his unit lost six APCs to RPG fire (28:10)  They would normally set up trip flares and claymores around their position (29:00)  They would fight the Chinese that crossed over into Vietnam (29:40)  Long Distance Recon Patrol wore black beret and worked with Green beret units (30:50)  He was in a unit with tank and APC support (31:40)  He got out of the army in 1968 (35:20)  His unit once pursued a fleeing enemy unit but had to turn around because they had crossed into Cambodia (36:00)  He was mostly out in the field except for about a month at base camp re-arming (38:00)  Flew to Hawaii on R&R (38:50)  He had two children, one son and one daughter who died at the age of thirty one from breast cancer, but was survived by two children (39:40) � He was in Vietnam during Tet (40:40)  He will never forget his experience in Vietnam (41:30)  He suffered from post traumatic stress, a lot of soldiers did after fighting the war (45:20)  He had flash backs and still does occasionally (46:56)  His unit would pick up dead Vietnamese and return the bodies to their villages to be buried (49:10)  In his opinion he did his duty and did it well (51:05)  After the war he returned to work at his family bakery (51:27) � 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 KnappT Title A name given to the resource Knapp, Terry (Interview outline and video), 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Knapp, Terry Description An account of the resource Terry Knapp joined the army in 1967. He served in Vietnam with the 11th Calvary. His unit served during the Tet Offensive and suffered heavy casualties. He received a purple heart and was discharged at the end of 1968. After the war he returned to work at his family bakery in Lansing, Michigan. 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 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 2006-12-06 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/a61ec092a4eecb2b954b087eaef0d49e.mp4 02f3a6711f656dab552d73cbb52b612a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/41a9a06482c5ff812bd7e968bb9f7c96.pdf b2e818ae8089004765c7f882a44588c8 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Jim Kloosterman (00:26:29) (08:45) Introduction • Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan 1946. • Attended elementary school in Allendale and Coopersville High School. (09:29) Enlistment • Joined the United States Naval Reserve at seventeen years old. • During his initial check up, the doctors found a cyst that would have prevented him from joining the military. His parents paid for surgery. • During Christmas break of his senior year of high school he attended training at Great Lakes Naval Training for boot camp. (10:27) Boot Camp • Describes Boot Camp as “eye opening.” • He remembers being treated like dirt by the commanding officers. (11:48) Deployment • Began his two years of active duty the January after he graduated from high school. • He went to Norfolk, Virginia at the naval base. • He was then assigned to the aircraft carrier, USS Independence • Kloosterman worked in the communications radio division. • His ship was then deployed to Vietnam. (12:23) Why he joined the Navy • He joined the Navy to see the world. • After his deployment to Vietnam, he was then sent to the Mediterranean Sea. (12:41) Active Duty • Describes his first days of active duty as confusing. • His first choice was to work on an aircraft carrier. (13:30) Aboard the USS Independence • While on the ship, they sailed the South China Sea. • The aircraft would fly missions off of the ship. • He would communicate with other bases about missions while on the carrier. • He also worked as a cryptographer on the ship. • Flights of MIG’s attempted to attack the ship, but were turned away by the United States aircraft. • Several planes were lost during his time in Vietnam. • His ship was awarded the Navy Unit Commendation for Merit us Service. • He communicated with his family mainly through letters. • Describes the food as fairly good. • To entertain themselves, the men would play cards, read, or write letters. • He would try to sight see as much as possible when on leave. �Remembers taking a new man to the mess hall and vomiting when he saw the men take a bite out of a cooked cockroach. • The men would pull minor pranks, such as setting watches ahead to wake men up earlier than they needed to, to help curb the boredom. (20:48) Photographs (21:24) Opinion of others he served with • Most of his officers were decent people. • He liked most of the men he served with. (21:53) Discharge • Stationed in the Mediterranean. • He was transferred from one base to another before flying back to the United States. (22:18) Life After Service • The first few days were like a vacation in order to become re acclimated to civilian life • Worked at Bell Telephone Co. after returning home. • Remains very good friends with a couple of men he served with. • He joined the VFW. • He is still working in communications to this day. • Describes his military experience as an overall positive experience. • He also feels that his military experience made him grow up and mature quickly. • � 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 KloostermanJ Title A name given to the resource Kloosterman, Jim (Interview outline and video), 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kloosterman, Jim Description An account of the resource Jim Kloosterman served in the US Navy in 1965 and 1966. He served as a radioman on the carrier USS Independence, spending much of his time decrypting Soviet radio traffic. During his tour, his ship saw action off the coast of Vietnam, and then served in the Mediterranean. 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 Veterans United States. Navy 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 2005-02-01 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/562e7572edb4523c9c0f81f4cd113d77.mp4 1053e202b5dff44e094bfd5a1cab8efe https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/33cf9c099bc4c698b5402b6ea53f9a9b.pdf c0d59bfce82777e64cee93a44f8ef3bd PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Ron Kloet part 3 Vietnam War Interview Length: (02:10:14:00) Recap / Fourth Vietnam Tour (00:00:29:00)  Prior to deploying for his fourth tour, Kloet attended a captain’s officer course and after completing that, rather than returning to Fort Bragg for re-assignment, Kloet decided he wanted something else (00:00:29:00) o Instead, Kloet decided to volunteer for the Phoenix Program, which, due to the on-going Vietnamization efforts, had been changed to the Vietnamese name for “phoenix”, Phung Hoang (00:01:00:00)  Once he joined the program, Kloet went to the Special Forces section of Fort Bragg for a military advisor course to study how to work in a combined center with the Phung Hoang program (00:01:22:00) o The Phung Hoang program was targeted against the enemy infrastructure, specifically individuals who were working for the Viet Cong (00:01:47:00) o During the advisor training, Kloet learned how to properly interact with his Vietnamese counterparts, how to acquire information and develop the information into dossiers, and how to execute plans to neutralize the Viet Cong infrastructure (00:02:01:00 o Although he had already in Vietnam for three previous tours, the Army also sent Kloet to a Vietnamese language course (00:02:21:00)  The course was every morning and consisted of only a small group of soldiers and an instructor going through each chapter of Vietnamese vocabulary (00:02:30:00)  However, the Vietnamese vocabulary that the soldiers learned was strictly related to the terms they would need to work with their Vietnamese counter-parts in the Phung Hoang program (00:02:47:00)  After completing the advisor program at Fort Bragg and having a short leave, Kloet deployed to Vietnam, arriving in Saigon, where he went through another orientation course given by the civilian side of the MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam), which was what the Phoenix Program was under (00:03:13:00) o During the orientation, Kloet and the other new members of the program were told how exactly they were supposed to report information (00:03:39:00) o Part of the course was also learning about one specific report, the Big MAC; all the soldiers were given books that showed the infrastructure of the Viet Cong, including where they were located, and Kloet took all the books with him when he reported to his unit (00:04:19:00)  From Saigon, Kloet went to the Binh Son province and the III Corps, where he received another orientation geared specifically for the region (00:04:39:00) o Kloet originally went to the Phuoc Long province and was assigned to a district in the south-east corner of the province, next to the neighboring II Corps area; once �   in the district, Kloet went through additional training to prepare him to take over for the departing Phoenix Program officer in the district (00:05:15:00) o By the time Kloet arrived in Phouc Long, the 1st Air Cav. Division, which had previously occupied the region, was gone (00:06:24:00) o During this time, the Army was consolidating its presence within Vietnam, so Kloet moved up to the province capital to replace an out-going major; this was the first time Kloet was able to spend more than a day with the soldier he was sent to replace, which meant Kloet could learn the ins and outs of the assignment and get feed-back from the major on how things were going (00:06:41:00) Once he finally took over for the major, the first thing Kloet discovered as that there was nothing going on in the province; Kloet and his soldiers would consolidate what information did come in into different reports (00:07:30:00) o At the time, Kloet had a Vietnamese interpreter assigned to him to help with Kloet’s Vietnamese counterpart, who spoke English but not the technical terminology (00:08:03:00)  The Vietnamese counterpart was of both Vietnamese and Chinese descent, thus making him less liked by pure, ethnic Vietnamese, who did not trust people with mixed blood (00:08:19:00)  Kloet’s interpreter was the son-in-law of the provincial leader, a colonel also of Vietnamese and Chinese ancestry (00:08:44:00)  Kloet’s Vietnamese counterpart was part of the South Vietnamese Special Police, which was equivalent to the American FBI and he eventually told Kloet that Kloet would never get anything done (00:09:18:00)  According to the counterpart, the military sector who controlled the province for the provincial leader would not allow any operations due to the operations being compromised (00:09:37:00)  Therefore, the only thing Kloet could do was work on different reports; as well, Kloet got intelligence clearance for his entire team because the previous intelligence officer had left and Kloet had received his job, which meant Kloet was then also working on intelligence (00:10:10:00)  For the intelligence work, Kloet had a specialist assigned to the group who took care of all the documentation (00:10:36:00) When Kloet first arrived for the tour, his unit’s living quarters and other rooms were housed in underground bunkers in the northern part of the compound (00:11:09:00) o The living quarters were very secure because some years before, during the Tet Offensive, the enemy had attacked the capital and destroyed everything, so Army engineers came in and built the bunkers (00:11:36:00)  During the time when Kloet first arrived at the unit, the unit was consolidating, moving down to a total of fifteen personnel (00:12:29:00) o Kloet himself moved in with an advisor to the regular South Vietnamese street police, a retired NYPD lieutenant (00:12:46:00) o When he first arrived, Kloet went through a daily routine of sitting in committees and going through paperwork, which was boring because Kloet had gone through the necessary training and he wanted to see something happen (00:13:13:00) While in training, Kloet had received warnings about the possibility of corruption amongst the South Vietnamese (00:13:32:00) �  o Kloet believes that the Americans were naïve in believing that all people were good when in reality, nothing happened unless “the skids were greased”, a situation common throughout the third world (00:13:35:00) o Once, during Kloet’s second tour, a local Vietnamese leader wanted to sell rice back to the Montagnards when the rice had been seized from the Viet Cong, who had stolen the rice from the Montagnards in the first place (00:14:04:00) When the unit’s S-2 eventually departed, Kloet took over those responsibilities as well, so he was working two jobs, although there was very little going on (00:14:32:00) o The majority of the people who Kloet dealt with were Montagnards, a simple people who were more anti-Vietnamese then strictly anti-Communist because the Vietnamese had treated them like dirt for centuries (00:14:52:00) o Over time, Kloet and his personnel did the things that were necessary for their assignment, although on occasion, there were some incidents where Kloet needed to go out and verify the bodies of enemy soldiers (00:15:16:00)  One time, the Vietnamese PRU (Province Recon Unit) came into contact with the enemy east of the province capital, so Kloet had to visit the location with his two interpreters, one who had been assigned to Kloet straight away and one Kloet gained when the S-2 departed (00:15:27:00)  Once at the location, Kloet had to take pictures of all the dead bodies (00:16:14:00)  The PRU did not receive any payment unless the dead enemy were verified to be Viet Cong (00:16:26:00)  Another time, there was an incident at another district headquarters where soldiers had killed another five enemy (00:16:36:00)  By the time Kloet arrived to inspect the bodies, it was the middle of the day and the bodies had been laying in the hot sun in a pile since sun-up and they stunk (00:17:01:00) The frustration of not being able to get anything done eventually caused Kloet to fire his interpreter from the Phoenix Program because Kloet thought the interpreter was a snitch for the enemy (00:17:23:00) o Everything planning to be done eventually reached the interpreter’s father-in-law, the provincial chief, and if the chief did not like it, then the plan did not go forward (00:17:41:00)  The province chief was not openly supporting the Viet Cong but was instead playing both sides, the Americans and the Viet Cong, against the middle (00:18:12:00)  Because of the province’s proximity to Cambodia, there was also politics involved in the decision-making; the province was far enough away from Saigon that there was some political leeway while there was also a strong presence of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong coming in from Cambodia (00:18:18:00)  The government did not want to remove the province chief because he managed to keep everything in the province in line (00:18:49:00) �   None of the Vietnamese who Kloet talked to particularly liked the province chief nor did they trust him but the chief was in charge and that was the way things went (00:19:05:00) When Kloet fired the interpreter, it upset the province chief, which meant nothing go done until the beginning of April 1972, when the North Vietnamese began their Easter Offensive (00:19:10:00) o When the offensive began, the enemy attacked in the next province over and managed to cut the road from Kloet’s province to Saigon, which meant no food or supplies were coming in (00:19:43:00) o Once the offensive began, the province chief and his staff began arresting people in the province who had possible Viet Cong or North Vietnamese Army connections and throwing them in jail (00:20:09:00)  The prisoners were placed into holding areas that looked like chicken coops (00:20:25:00) o Eventually, Kloet received a phone call from the representative of the Pacification Security Group for that particular area of III Corps asking on whose authority the province chief and his staff had been using to arrest those people (00:20:54:00)  Kloet talked with his counterpart about the questions and the counterpart showed Kloet a document; when Kloet asked if he could have one, the counterpart said he could (00:21:43:00)  The document dated from 1968 and stated that the province chief could arrest whomever he wanted (00:22:17:00)  The document had existed since 1968 but because of the US Army’s rotation policy, the Americans had forgotten about it (00:22:25:00) o The province chief tended not to act on intelligence because he did not want to stir up trouble with the enemy; instead, he padded his list of available suspects and once the fight began, then he could make arrests (00:22:53:00) o All the interrogations of the prisoners was handled by the South Vietnamese and Kloet does not know how they did it because the South Vietnamese never brought in Kloet or his men (00:23:12:00)  At the time, there was a South Vietnamese fire support base alongside a highway to the south and all of the sudden, the police arrested the captain in charge of the base and brought him back to the province capital but Kloet never knew where the captain went (00:23:24:00)  The South Vietnamese police acted under the guise that the prisoners had relatives in either the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese Army (00:24:05:00) o In some ways, Kloet was happy that the offensive finally did come because it offered him and his men the opportunity to do real work trying to find out what was going to happen in their province (00:24:23:00)  Once the enemy cut the roads into the province, Kloet got more approvals for operations, including a B-52 strike in the north (00:24:50:00) During the offensive, Kloet received intel from the local intelligence unit about enemy movements as well as the locations of enemy supply caches (00:25:08:00) �    However, from his experience during his first tour, Kloet could tell that must of the information was inaccurate and he had no way to substantiate the intel (00:25:32:00)  After the Easter Offensive finished, someone from the Pacification Security Group visited Kloet asking for targets for a group of defectors the man was running who went out and attacked enemy targets (00:26:09:00)  Kloet decided to use the request as a test to substantiate the claims made by the intelligence unit; it turned out that every single piece of intelligence from the unit was bogus (00:26:52:00) While still gathering intelligence for the other units, Kloet’s commanders also wanted him to still file his month reports (00:27:27:00) o The MAC report was an infrastructure report detail individual villages and locations where the enemy was located, what was their strength, etc.; however, there was no way to get all that information, so Kloet just submitted the information from the previous month (00:27:37:00) At the beginning of the Easter Offensive, there had been a South Vietnamese unit stationed along the border but when the enemy began bringing in tanks, the unit retreated, leaving the Montagnards behind (00:28:24:00) o When the Montagnards eventually made it back, the province chief decided to give them the old Air Cav. base, which was still standing (00:28:39:00) On July 1st, all hell broke loose in Kloet’s province (00:28:53:00) o The enemy had a 152mm artillery gun that was firing towards the capital; Kloet had to do crater analysis, which was how they managed to find out the caliber of the gun (00:29:03:00) o Before the enemy managed to cut the road from the district headquarters to the province capital, the Americans had issued M-72 LAWs (00:29:27:00) o At one point, a single platoon defended a triangular position against an entire enemy battalion (00:30:01:00) o Eventually, the enemy attempted to take the mountain located next to the town, where the South Vietnamese had a radio-intercept position (00:30:32:00)  Kloet’s South Vietnamese counter-part gave Kloet intelligence about communications between North Vietnamese tanks; Kloet showed the information to his commanding officer, who wondered why the American intelligence could not tell that there were tanks out there (00:30:50:00)  The commanding officer, a colonel, asked up the chain-of-command about why there was no intelligence from the Americans (00:31:23:00)  Before the offensive began, Kloet’s unit received an electronic box that when turned out, sent out an electronic beacon, to be used in case the unit was about to be overrun (00:31:32:00)  Once a unit turned on the beacon, the Air Force deployed a Spectre gunship, an AC-130 mounted with Gatling guns (00:31:46:00)  As the fighting for the mountain continued, the Air Force continuously launched air strikes against enemy positions along the side of the mountain, making it so the enemy never managed to take the top of the mountain (00:32:03:00) � o Although Air Force air strikes continued around the district capital, the road leading into the town was still cut; after about a week of fighting, the Americans mounted an armed convoy to retake the road and re-establish contact with the district capital (00:32:20:00)  Kloet traveled with the convoy and watched as the Air Force continued dropping bombs on enemy positions (00:32:43:00)  The ground around the district capital was all torn up with craters from where the Air Force had dropped their bombs (00:33:09:00)  The airfield for the district capital had taken several mortar strikes and Kloet was ordered to determine what caliber the mortar rounds were (00:33:27:00)  While measuring the mortar strikes at the airfield, Kloet heard the whistle of incoming mortar rounds, so he ran to a small shack that served as the airfield’s control tower (00:33:43:00)  Flights did not come into the airfield every day because the Air America re-supply flights landed on an old two-lane road near the province capital (00:34:01:00)  When the mortar rounds started coming in, Kloet ran to a nearby trench and hopped in, although the South Vietnamese had been throwing their garbage in the trench (00:34:35:00)  From the district capital, the South Vietnamese took vehicles captured from the North Vietnamese, all of which turned out to be American-made, and towed them back to the province capital to display (00:35:05:00)  All the destruction done to the vehicles happened from South Vietnamese soldiers armed with LAWs (00:35:43:00)  One of the vehicles had been hauling ammunition and when the LAW round hit, it was like someone took a can opener to the side of the vehicle (00:35:48:00) o During the offensive, the regular South Vietnamese Army units assigned to Kloet’s province actually fought in the neighboring province, which was where the thrust of the enemy attack was; although the South Vietnamese forces fought very well, there were two things that helped the South Vietnamese (00:36:16:00)  First, an American Air Cav. brigade from the 1st Air Cav. division was still in the province and second, there was a tremendous amount of air power, both from a Marine air wing and an Air Force air wing (00:36:51:00)  The fighting was still tough because the enemy attacked toward the capital with tanks, who’s crews had been chained inside their tanks; the crews were not stupid and they knew that driving tanks into cities was a bad idea, especially if the enemy had anti-tank weapons (00:37:17:00) In Kloet’s province, the Vietnamese forces divided into three groups: the regular South Vietnamese army, which consisted of only South Vietnamese, and the Regional Forces (RFs) and Popular Forces (PFs), which consisted of Montagnard soldiers (00:38:01:00) o The PFs were used for local defense around the various villages and they fought very well while the RFs were a mixture of both South Vietnamese and Montagnard soldiers and were under the direct command of the sector commanders, acting as a sort of Ready Reaction Force (00:38:14:00) � o From what Kloet saw, the South Vietnamese treated the Montagnards at a level that the Vietnamese would treat a dog (00:39:13:00) By the time Kloet’s tour wound down to an end in 1972, the situation had stabilized, with the North Vietnamese having pulled back into Cambodia (00:40:41:00) o In Kloet’s mind, had the United States continued to offer military support at a level akin to that of 1972, the end of the war would have turned out differently for South Vietnam (00:41:08:00) o Kloet, and as he believes, many of the Vietnamese and other veterans, feels that President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger sold out the soldiers in order to get a deal passed that allowed the United States to get out of the conflict without any more casualties; according to Kloet, had Nixon not jeopardized his political standing with Watergate, the United States could have pulled out of the war while still maintaining a high level of logistical support to South Vietnam (00:41:38:00)  The South Vietnamese forces had learned how to operation and how to fight as how the Americans would (00:42:41:00) Germany (00:43:43:00)  Once his tour finished in September 1972, to preclude having to go back to Fort Bragg, Kloet took an ITT (Inter-Theater Transfer) test for Germany (00:43:43:00)  After completing the test, Kloet was assigned to the G-2 section for a headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany; however, because his security clearance from 1966 had expired, Kloet needed to get it updated (00:44:05:00) o However, the Army did not want to wait for Kloet to get his security clearance, so the Army amended his orders, sending him to the Third Infantry Division in Wurzburg, where he was assigned to work as the surveillance officer in the G-2 (00:44:46:00)  The soldier commanding Kloet’s new unit was a major, eventually promoted to colonel, while Kloet’s particular section consisted of himself and two enlisted personnel, a lieutenant and master sergeant (00:45:17:00)  Because the division was operating in “peacetime”, Kloet’s section was responsible for keeping the map library for the division, establishing map policies, and establishing policies for using ground-surveillance equipment within the division (00:45:55:00)  The section’s training consisted of going into the field with the rest of the G-2 and setting up a desk inside the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) to help with surveillance requests (00:46:44:00)  Kloet arrived at the division in November 1972 and the first thing he noticed was the temperature was very cold (00:47:48:00) o Kloet went to do the standard things necessary to be issued his field gear but when he went, the supply unit did not have any of the equipment, so Kloet was told to come back the following week (00:47:57:00) o However, before Kloet could go back to get the gear, a field exercise was scheduled, so the commanding officer told Kloet he could stay behind and maintain the office, taking down incoming messages (00:48:14:00)  Halfway through the week, Kloet received a phone call from one of the other officers in the G-2 saying that the colonel wanted to see Kloet; �  however, Kloet stated that the only way he was going out was if he had some field gear because there was snow outside (00:48:47:00)  Kloet managed to get some field gear although when he was going out to the field, it was in an open-top jeep and Kloet was still cold, despite all the clothing (00:49:19:00)  Once Kloet arrived at the G-2’s position, he waited and waited and waited, until it was finally two or three in the morning before Kloet asked one of the other officers what was going on (00:49:32:00)  Someone eventually went to ask the G-2 what Kloet needed to do because he did not have a tent or any other equipment and Kloet was told just to go back (00:50:16:00)  The experience with the G-2 during the exercise did not leave a good taste in Kloet’s mouth (00:50:40:00) Most of the time, Kloet’s new job was boring because the only time he really did anything was in the field (00:50:45:00) o Kloet had an additional duty, serving as part of a two-officer team who had the responsibility of launching nuclear weapons if that time ever came (00:50:50:00)  During his career course, Kloet had received training on nuclear weapons, such as which area to drop a bomb in order to receive the largest amount of destruction, where not to drop bombs, the security of the bombs, what their guard forces were, etc. (00:51:29:00)  Kloet did this job during the day with another officer who had been given access (00:51:57:00) o At one point, Kloet received an assignment to take photographs of the division’s entire forward area of operations, running from the mountains on the division’s right flank to the city on the division’s left flank (00:52:39:00)  It took several days, during which Kloet and an assistant took Kloet’s personal vehicle and drove with camera equipment to the main areas, moving from the left flank to the right flank (00:53:20:00)  The pictures were panoramic, so Kloet and his assistant had to climb hills and mountains (00:53:44:00)  When Kloet finally came back with all the photographs, he took the division’s “general defense plan” and some maps to equate each set of images to a location on the map (00:54:06:00)  After organizing each panoramic with a map, Kloet took another picture of both the map and the panoramic, which he then organized into a slide show, first showing the picture of both the map and the panoramic then just the panoramic (00:54:52:00)  Although Kloet had been promised reimbursement for all the money he spent on gasoline and food, he never received anything (00:55:20:00) In early May, the 3rd division underwent a review, where all the officers in the division had to go to the division headquarters in Wurzburg to go through interviews with OfficerPersonnel (OP) officers (00:55:37:00) o During the interview, the OP officer reviewed Kloet’s entire record and commented on all the training Kloet had received (00:56:16:00) � o At the end of May, Kloet received word that the colonel wanted all the officers serving in the G-2 to report to his office (00:57:26:00)  Once all the officers had gathered, the colonel individually handed out letters, most of which were discharge orders (00:57:47:00)  The criteria for discharge was that if an officer had made captain between January 1st, 1968 and June 30th, 1969, then he was discharged (00:58:51:00)  After the colonel handed out the discharge letters, the only officer left in the G-2 was a counter-intelligence officer who was Regular Army (00:59:26:00)  After receiving their letters, Kloet and the other officers had ninety days before their discharge papers became official (00:59:52:00)  Kloet and the other officers also received top priority when going through out-processing, so Kloet decided to just go home, although the G-2 tried to get Kloet to stay (01:00:23:00) An issue Kloet had with the colonel in charge of the G-2 was that the colonel would order maps from Kloet for every unit in the division, not just the division headquarters (01:00:50:00) o Kloet knew the S-2s in the various brigades in the division and they all laughed at the colonel (01:01:21:00) o It eventually reached the point that Kloet had an entire storage room in the basement of the division headquarters just filled with maps for operations that nobody ever used (01:02:03:00) o Whenever the G-2 section went into the field as part of an exercise, Kloet had all the maps the section would need already rolled up and separate so that all the soldiers had to do was pick up the container, throw it into the back of the truck and go; however, the colonel did not like this (01:02:18:00) o When Kloet received his discharge orders and decided to go home immediately, the colonel was bent out of shape, so Kloet never received the reimbursement for the photography assignment and he had to go all the way to the Department of the Army to receive the colonel’s final efficiency report for Kloet (01:02:47:00) o At one point, instead of doing it himself, the colonel ordered Kloet to write a letter of reprimand against the officer in-charge of the M-I (Military-Intelligence) section of the G-2 (01:03:32:00) o During another period, Kloet and his section spent four months working on a report about ground radar, only for the report not to be published (01:04:01:00)  In those four months, Kloet gathered input from all the units who would be using the radar and incorporated the useful information into the report; however, the colonel did not accept some of the information, so Kloet had to write back to some of the units and formally explain why he was not using their information in the report (01:04:04:00)  Once he finished, Kloet put the entire report in the colonel’s in-out box and left it there (01:05:07:00) o One of the largest faults of the colonel was that in reaching that rank, he never learned how to effectively communicate with subordinates (01:05:37:00) �  At the time Kloet was in Germany, most of the lower-ranking officers, such as captains, were combat veterans, including the M-I officers (01:06:16:00) o Kloet himself was one of the first officers to go to a M-I specific officer training course, in 1964; prior to 1964, M-I officers went to infantry training first and M-I training second (01:06:40:00) o On the other hand, the colonel had always served in military intelligence and to Kloet, it seemed like the colonel was always trying to one-up someone else (01:06:59:00)  One time, the colonel threw a large, very nice, Christmas party and of the sixty-eight people invited, the only ones who showed up were the colonel’s wife, an unfit sergeant-major, and the officers; the other sixty or so soldiers had a choice of whether or not to show up (01:07:09:00)  The colonel was livid that none of the soldiers showed up but the colonel never understood why (01:07:48:00)  After receiving his discharge, Kloet followed the colonel’s career and the colonel eventually ended up at the DIA as an O-6 colonel (01:07:59:00) When Kloet returned to the United States in June 1972, he went to Fort Meade, Maryland to serve in the management office for the base (01:08:46:00) o Kloet served under a major in the management office but the first thing the major did when Kloet arrived was go to a training course in Miami (01:09:03:00) o Kloet’s job was to gather any money collected the previous night from the various officer and enlisted clubs, organize and document the money, then take it to the management office (01:09:17:00)  Kloet also inspected the clubs, listened to any problems or complaints and tried to fix the problems within the limit capacity he had (01:09:36:00) Post-Active Duty Service (01:10:10:00)  Once Kloet finally left the Army, he went to graduate school at Michigan State University to earn a master’s degree in history (01:10:10:00) o The program was divided into two tracks, A and B, with the A tract consisting of a thesis and intended for students going onto a doctorate; Kloet himself took the B track because he had no intention of going on for a PhD (01:10:30:00) o During the course, Kloet wrote roughly a paper a week while also taking classes in historiography (01:10:44:00)  Kloet ended up paying a woman who was a typist to type up all of his papers for him (01:11:06:00) o The majority of Kloet’s involved Eastern Europe and Russia, including ancient Russian history and Soviet history, along with classes about European and American history (01:11:24:00) o To fulfill his language requirements, Kloet took a Russian language refresher course, which was a great experience because Kloet had not used the language since 1965 (01:12:07:00)  Apart from the master’s degree in History, Kloet also got a teaching certificate, although he now considers that to be a waste of his time (01:12:56:00) o As part of the teaching certificate, Kloet did some student-teaching at a high school in Warren, Michigan, where he taught a couple of World History courses �o o o o o o o and a Russian History course because of the large amount of people with Slavic backgrounds living in Warren (01:13:16:00) While teaching the Russian History course, Kloet contacted his professor at Michigan State asking for a book recommendation to use as the text for the students (01:13:56:00)  The World History classes did not actually have textbooks but rather, a series of brochures (01:14:58:00) While teaching the World History courses, Kloet decided to give the students a mid-term exam, although the only thing he could do was lecture using the brochures (01:15:24:00) Most of the students in Kloet’s courses did not have any discipline (01:16:11:00) After giving the mid-term exam, which Kloet comprised of multiple choice questions taken verbatim from the texts, the highest grade was a 72% and the lowest was in the thirties (01:16:35:00)  Kloet ended up taking the average of the scores and making it the highest of the class and he still was only able to pass a couple more of the students (01:17:03:00)  Kloet individually took each student into the hall to explain their grade and what was going to be sent home, which caused many of the students to become upset (01:17:13:00) On the other hand, the Russian History course was good because the students were motivated, Type-A people going to college (01:17:38:00)  Because the school did not approve of Kloet’s textbook selection, he had to lecture for the most part, so in one weekend, Kloet outlined the entire book (01:17:53:00)  One of the students wanted to do a paper on the Russian Orthodox Church and one day, Kloet received a phone call that the mother of the student wanted to talk with Kloet (01:18:36:00)  Kloet called the mother to see what the problem was and she said that the student was consumed with working on the paper, doing nothing else (01:19:26:00) Apart from the student teaching, Kloet also had to take a courses at the Michigan Department of Education on how to properly manage a classroom (01:20:24:00)  Kloet’s advisor, PhD candidate, had never actually taught in a classroom while Kloet had taught while in the Army, which meant he knew how to operate the equipment in a classroom, so the advisor said Kloet did not have to take the course (01:20:41:00) At different times, Kloet and the other students had to go to sessions where they were supposed to “bare their souls to the others” (01:21:16:00)  Kloet was the oldest person in the group by far and he had had classes with some of the other members, including a girl whose habits annoyed Kloet (01:21:30:00)  As he closed in on finishing the teacher certification program, Kloet had to go to a final interview with his advisor, where Kloet talked about the role he played in the group seminars (01:22:15:00) �     When the advisors asked about the role, Kloet explained that he was older than all the other members and he did not see the benefit of going over his own experiences (01:22:44:00) After he neared the end of the history program at Michigan State and obtained his teacher certification, Kloet went to the employment office at Michigan State and was told to what to put down to create an effective resume (01:23:26:00) o Kloet sent the resume out to ever school district he could find in the employment office and although he obtained some interviews, by and large, Kloet received rejection letters (01:23:57:00)  The common thread amongst the rejection letters was that Kloet had too much experience and the school districts could not hire him; Kloet’s experience as at the level of Master’s Degree +, which was too high for an entry-level teaching position (01:24:22:00)  Kloet also looked at private schools and he thought he had found one opening, at a military school, but the teacher who was planning to retire decided not to retire (01:24:42:00) After graduating, Kloet tried to substitute teach, which he did not like because the school districts would call him early in the morning and on most occasions, there was never a lesson plan that Kloet was supposed to follow for that day (01:25:05:00) Eventually, Kloet decided to work on his active-duty position and began teaching summers at the various Army schools, eventually going to the Command and General Staff College for almost a year, where he eventually worked his way up to commandant of the entire college (01:25:32:00) o Although Kloet had retired, by teaching at the Army schools, he increased the amount of time he had on active duty, with the intention of reaching twenty years on active duty; when Kloet first started teaching at the Army schools, he had fourteen years of active duty and slowly added onto that amount (01:26:10:00) o Working at the Command and General Staff college was really good assignment for Kloet (01:26:52:00) o Kloet also worked at the 5th Army headquarters at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas (01:27:16:00) o Overall, the best assignment Kloet had was when Kloet was the commander of the intelligence school at Fort Sam Houston, where Kloet sent out various instructors to different reserve units to give the reservists MOS qualifications (01:27:35:00) From March 1983 until June 1995, Kloet worked as part of U.S. Army Foreign Intelligence Activity (FIA), directing the Collection/Management division (01:28:34:00) o When he joined the FIA, Kloet worked in the Collection/Management branch, which involved organizing the collection of information, so that the intelligence services would only gather the intelligence they needed to gather (01:29:20:00)  As part of this, there were collection plans listing what information needed to be collected and how to collect it, based on a certain set of requirements, such as geographic areas, technical areas, etc. (01:29:51:00)  Kloet’s Collection/Management Division was organized to go worldwide coverage to collect human intelligence (HUMINT) (01:30:10:00) �  “Worldwide” did not mean every country in the world but rather focused on specific countries relative to the master HUMINT collection plan, which was controlled by the CIA (01:30:23:00)  Apart from the Army FIA, there were also intelligence collection units in the Navy, Air Force, and Marines, although Army intelligence became the largest and most important of the units (01:30:45:00) o Army intelligence eventually became the only collection unit to use actual operations, not just debriefings and overt collections (01:30:53:00)  The other collection units had soldiers trained in this and many of those individuals were eventually absorbed into Army intelligence (01:31:29:00)  Apart from performing operations, Army intelligence also had several detachments of overt de-briefers to work with foreign personnel and technical personnel, such as American businessmen and embassy employees (01:31:46:00)  Kloet’s section worked primarily with reporting on operations that Army intelligence was performing (01:32:08:00)  Whenever a specific American group would request information on a specific area, Army intelligence would submit a capabilities statement outline what Army intelligence could do (01:32:49:00)  If a specific area or situation arose that would require long-term observation, such as the Middle East, Russia or China, then Army intelligence could develop a source (01:33:11:00)  The other side of collection/management was to publish the information to came from the various operations (01:34:11:00) o Kloet’s job was to sort through the information that came through and organize it for publishing, as well as check to make sure the initial questions that they were searching for were answered (01:34:24:00) o The period leading up to the first Gulf War was very intriguing, specifically the conflict occurring between Iraq and Iran (01:35:56:00) o Army intelligence was divided into branches, with a branch devoted to each of the Army’s commands (01:35:44:00) o The first Gulf War did not really change how Army intelligence operated (01:36:39:00)  Operations tended to develop over time and as the processes were done correctly, more information became available; if something happened to change the progression, modifications might be needed but the personnel in Army intelligence continued the operation regardless (01:36:51:00) Kloet worked for Army intelligence until 1995 as a civilian employee, at which point his unit was absorbed into a newly-formed organization; in large part, Kloet’s unit was largely a victim of its own success (01:38:05:00) �o At the time, the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) convinced members of Congress that consolidation of all the intelligence services’ collection units under one unit, the DIA, was more efficient and cost-effective (01:38:48:00) o After the DIA made their suggestions, units across all the services were either absorbed into the DIA or deactivated; part of the agreement was that all members of the FIA would receive positions within the new organization (01:39:14:00) o The new organization was labeled “Defense Human Service” and was technically headed by an Army Brigadier General; the organization’s first commander was Kloet’s former commanding officer when Kloet first joined the Air Cavalry in Vietnam (01:39:40:00)  When the general saw what was happening within the new organization, he told Kloet that he was going to try and leave because he did not like the situation (01:40:07:00)  After the first general retired, another brigadier took command of the organizations; however, because he still wanted to advance his career the general began spending most of his time at the White House, acting as a representative for the organization (01:40:23:00) o Within the new organization, Kloet worked as a desk officer in the Eurasian division, focusing specifically on the former Soviet Islamic republics in Central Asia (01:41:01:00)  For the five countries, Kloet had one attaché while military representatives covered the others (01:41:40:00)  The military representatives were often students trained at a former Soviet military academy that specialized in training soldiers to work within the Islamic republics (01:41:54:00)  Although there was no specific assignment for his section, the work was still interesting for Kloet because he was able to meet people and because he gained insight into why the situations within the five republics were not working properly (01:42:22:00)  Kloet’s job involved gathering information from each source about the situation within a specific republic and there were several ways of communicating back and forth (01:42:51:00)  There was the traditional encrypted communications but in one case, the counter-part in one of the republics would not bother encrypting the report (01:43:01:00)  Whenever a military advisor was scheduled to go to one of the republics, they would first talk with Kloet to become oriented with the area (01:43:42:00)  The biggest problem Kloet ran into was logistically supporting all the representatives, although there was an entirely separate section within the organization for logistics (01:44:26:00) o However, the logistics section had to take care of logistics for representatives from all over the world, not just Kloet’s (01:45:01:00) o When Kloet first joined the organization, he checked what was needed so he could eventually get out, so he talked with the woman in charge of retirements, � who said that although Kloet could retire at sixty, he did not have a large amount of civil service credit (01:45:51:00)  Kloet could get to the thirty years necessary if he converted some of his active-duty military years, which entailed paying six percent of his base salary for every year in the military that needed conversion, which totaled 13+ years (01:46:20:00)  Kloet paid for the years to be converted and that brought him up to the years needed (01:47:18:00)  Eventually, it reached the point that the continuous rigors of the job, such as waking up at 3:30 a.m. to get the train, took their toll on Kloet and he decided to put in his retirement paperwork (01:47:36:00)  When discussing retirement, Kloet asked whether it mattered if he did not fully reached thirty years and when the woman told him it would only cost a dollar a month, Kloet decided to retire (01:49:07:00) Once Kloet finally retired, he returned to Michigan to live in a house he had bought for his mother in the 1960s, although his mother had passed away in 1992 (01:49:32:00) o At the end of September 2001, Kloet received a phone call from a former subordinate from Vietnam asking if Kloet wanted to come back to work; when Kloet said he did, the soldier said Kloet need to update his clearance level (01:49:57:00) o After finishing the necessary paperwork, Kloet sent it back in and waited for a reply; eventually, in March, he received a telephone call telling him that everything was okay and he could begin working (01:50:38:00) o Kloet needed a place to live near Washington, so he contacted a friend whose wife was a real estate agent and she helped Kloet find a place (01:51:27:00) o Once he got back to work, Kloet was working in counter-terrorist operations group within the Defense HUMINT service (01:52:20:00)  Kloet enjoyed doing the work because it gave him an opportunity to teach younger soldiers (01:53:37:00)  Kloet’s section was led by a Navy Commander and she did not like the job because it was somewhat out of her comfort zone (01:53:50:00)  Pacific Command was Kloet’s area of interest and he eventually became involved in writing reports for the DIA to act in countries where the analysts thought there were credible operations (01:54:22:00)  This was the first time that Kloet saw the politics that went into the operations and he saw the large number of successful operations that went unnoticed (01:54:54:00) o Although he enjoyed doing the job, Kloet did not actually make any money because of the expenses that he incurred (01:56:12:00) o Once the time came for Kloet to extend his contract, the DIA fooled around with it and Kloet decided to just go home (01:56:59:00) o The only downside of doing the work was Kloet had to interact with analysts at the CIA and they often made it so they were the center of everything that was happening and would fight with Kloet tooth and nail (01:57:07:00) �  o At one point, the chief CIA analyst wanted a meeting with the DIA analyst and based on his previous work experience with the CIA, Kloet ventured a guess as to what type of person the analyst was (01:58:20:00)  Sure enough, when the meeting happened, the chief was a bureaucrat and it was because of him that the majority of the work Kloet and the others did was met with opposition (01:58:31:00) In Kloet’s mind, one of the positives to come out of the 9/11 attacks was the establishment of the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) (01:59:33:00) o Prior to the attacks, there was a large amount of cooperation amongst the various intelligence agencies at the ground level; problems developed around the bureaucrats, each of whom had vested interests in maintaining their authority (01:59:56:00)  Whenever there were conflicts, it was often agency versus agency, never individual versus individual (02:00:20:00) o In a macro sense, Kloet believes that the NIO (National Intelligence Office) was very difficult to control without controlling the agency’s budget and he believes the CIA still trying to hold onto its position as the top dog of all the American intelligence agencies (02:00:56:00)  From Kloet’s perspective, it has reached the point that regardless of what the situation is, it will always be resolved how the CIA wants it to be resolved (02:01:47:00)  The dominance of the CIA amongst the intelligence agencies has led to a reduction in the multiplicity of sources; the CIA has fought tooth and nail since the formation of the different service intelligence units because the CIA wanted to control everything (02:02:27:00) o When President Bush wanted to reorganize and expand the TSA (Transportation Safety Administration), he wanted to hire outside contractors until enough personnel were trained; however, the bureaucrats in charge of the intelligence agencies forced him to take personnel from the current ranks of the agencies, so Kloet knows people who advanced several ranks by doing so (02:03:54:00) o At the local level, there is mutual cooperation between the different organizations; it is with the higher-ranking bureaucrats where the problems begin to arise (02:06:16:00) Looking back on his career, when he first joined the service, Kloet enjoyed it because he was young and his brain was full of the stories his uncles had told him about serving in World War II (02:07:09:00) o When he first enlisted, Kloet’s goal was to eventually be an officer, although he was not sure about make the military a career (02:07:41:00) o Being placed in the Air Force signals intelligence was enjoyable for Kloet and it pushed him towards going to college for degrees in Russian language and literature (02:07:54:00) o After completing his degrees, Kloet realized that his chances of finding a job as a civilian were small, so he began looking at working for different government agencies (02:08:23:00) �o Kloet always wanted a career in the military, just never a career in a specific field in the military; although he enjoyed the intelligence work, Kloet also enjoyed just being busy (02:09:03:00) o Kloet would serve again, although he would make some changes, such as keeping his mouth shut a little bit more because he irritated some people (02:09:58:00) � 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 KloetR1071V3 Title A name given to the resource Kloet, Ronald (Interview outline and video, 3 of 3), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kloet, Ronald Description An account of the resource Prior to beginning his fourth tour in Vietnam, Ron Kloet initially went through officers training with the Army intending to give him an assignment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Kloet, wanting something else, instead volunteered to serve in the Phoenix program, a specialized program in Vietnam. After finished the fourth tour, Kloet transferred from Vietnam to Germany to work as an intelligence officer. Following his tour in Germany, Kloet's military service ended and he attended Michigan State University, attaining master degrees in Russian history and Russian literature. However, Kloet found his work at graduation unsatisfying, so he began working to complete enough active-duty service time to retire with a pension. Eventually, Kloet began working for the U.S. Army Foreign Intelligence Activity (FIA) as a civilian employee. In 1995, the FIA and other intelligence agencies reorganized and Kloet, not liking his new roll, eventually retired. Then, in Sept. 2001, he received a phone call from a former colleague asking Kloet to return to work. Kloet did return for six months before retiring for good. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army United States. Air Force Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-02-24 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/2011e4452200dc8c97cc962ee042e48d.mp4 1a5d98eb5acf3ff0b2f4457a68337aef https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/55d2598b8261bfbb7043af898c54e4fe.pdf 5d5eddaf65932f7d87db791e1ebe6946 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Ron Kloet part 2 Vietnam War Interview Length: (02:37:28:00) Recap / Third Vietnam Tour (00:00:57:00)  During his first tour in Vietnam, Kloet worked in the combined intelligence center in Saigon, which included both Vietnam and American personnel and personnel from all the service branches and had the assignment of creating “orders of battle” about the different enemy forces (00:00:57:00) o During his second tour in Vietnam, Kloet again worked with the Vietnamese in the Central Highlands region as an S-2 advisor to a Vietnamese captain who collected intelligence regarding enemy activity in the local province (00:01:19:00) o After returning from his first tour in March 1968, Kloet had a gap until his next assignment in June 1968 because he was in school (00:01:59:00) o When his second tour ended in June 1969, Kloet received a thirty-day leave in order to go home because he had re-upped for another tour (00:02:20:00)  After the thirty-day leave, Kloet returned to Vietnam in July and served from July 1969 until July 1970 (00:02:34:00) o During the third tour, Kloet served with the 1st Air Cavalry Division, which was where he specifically wanted to go when he re-upped (00:02:47:00) o Whereas the second tour had been peaks and valleys of action and in-action, the third tour was constant peaks, which meant Kloet was always busy (00:02:57:00)  When he arrived at the 1st Air Cav., Kloet received orders to replace a captain and two lieutenants as a battle section chief, all of whom left the following day; however, Kloet had done the work before, so he did not necessarily need help except for a short briefing on how the three officers had been running the operation previously (00:03:11:00) o Kloet meet with the assistant to the unit’s G-2, a major, and the major said that the G-2, a colonel, wanted Kloet to clean the section up regarding twenty-four, seven operation with a systematic organization (00:03:35:00) o Kloet had to come up with a proposal of how many people it would take to run two twelve-hour shifts with officer supervision and an NCOIC (NonCommissioned Officer In Charge) for all the enlisted personnel (00:04:04:00)  The design of the section was to cover all possibilities relating to enemy activity in the 1st Air Cav.’s area, from local enemy activity such as the Viet Cong, up to entire NVA divisions and echelons above divisions, as well as enemy infiltration (00:04:47:00)  At the time, the 1st Air Cav. was stationed in the “3rd Military Region” (the III Corps), which included Saigon; the actual base camp for the division was Phuoc Vinh in the Phuoc Long province, which was north of the Binh Xuyen River, north and west of Saigon (00:05:11:00) o The terrain in the region was flat and consisting of rice paddies and jungle, although to the south was some jungle, which had the designation of “war zone �   D” and extended south into the next province; to the north, there were the rice paddies that locals farmed as well as more jungle (00:05:46:00)  The locals used water buffalo for farming and one night, the buffalo herd went down a trail another unit was monitoring with electronic surveillance; to the soldiers monitoring the trail, the herd looked like enemy soldiers, so they had the artillery fire their 8 in. guns (00:06:48:00)  The next morning, the locals were angry because the artillery had destroyed twenty-eight of their water buffalo (00:07:49:00)  Part of the area where the division had it’s base camp was a rubber plantation and the buildings that the Military Intelligence (MI) company, amongst others, occupied were on the plantation (00:08:15:00) Under the concept of a military intelligence company, the unit was only supposed to be a detachment assigned to the G-2 but over time, the unit expanded to a company-sized unit configured to support the G-2 section of the division (00:08:58:00) o The G-2 was the chief intelligence officer within the division and was normally a lieutenant colonel who could also have an assistant (00:09:14:00) When Kloet arrived at the division, he “jumped into the frying pan” (00:09:44:00) o In early August 1969, the enemy conducted a major offensive in Military Region 3; at the time, Kloet’s division had the responsibility of the province from the Cambodian border to the II Corps’ boundary (00:09:50:00)  The offensive started in the Binh Long province by the 9th Viet Cong Division while other units attacked both the division base camp and a brigade base camp further to the north (00:10:29:00)  Eventually, an entire task force, code-named SHOEMAKER, was sent north in order to coordinate the activities of both the Cav. and an armored unit that was also in the area (00:11:01:00)  They took someone from Kloet’s unit to be in the task force and Kloet was thankful that he was not chosen because he wanted to “get his feet under him” before going on a mission (00:11:18:00)  The task force and soldiers went through some extremely tough fighting, with the enemy almost overrunning the base camp (00:11:39:00) o After the offensive in the north subsided, another enemy infiltration came north from War Zone D Phuoc Long province orchestrated by the 5th Viet Cong division (00:11:45:00) o Enemy activity continued through October, November and December because the division covered such a large geographic area in III Corps (00:12:12:00) When he had served as a de facto S-2 during his second tour in II Corps, Kloet talked with one company commander and his deputy and both said that they normally had around seventy-six soldiers fit for duty at any one time whereas the company had an authorized strength of around one-hundred-and-forty soldiers (00:12:34:00) o At one point, Kloet met with General Hal Moore, famous from the Battle of Ia Drang Valley and the subsequent book We Were Soldiers, and according to General Moore, when the division deployed to Vietnam, it consisted of roughly seventy percent of the soldiers who had started in training (00:13:49:00)  That amount stayed consistent until individual replacement soldiers began being feed into openings (00:14:19:00) �  With R&R’s, wounded soldiers, and other situations where a soldier was gone but still “on the books”, it was difficult to get any continuity in estimates regarding troop strength in the division (00:14:26:00) o Overall, the entire division was spread too thin, which was exhausting for the soldiers; however, the one advantage companies in the division had over regular line companies was access to a large number of helicopters (00:14:42:00)  In theory, the division could air assault an entire brigade at one time if necessary to any target area; on the other hand, line companies had to take trucks and could only travel in smaller elements (00:15:05:00)  With their air mobility, the division was able to cover a larger amount of territory which upset the abilities of the enemy; because the division could get troops to a given location rather quickly, the enemy could not plan large, intricate operations (00:15:29:00) Once he had successfully re-organized the section, Kloet began performing a day-to-day process (00:16:07:00) o At the time, Kloet’s unit had an agreement with a documentation center in Saigon so that all the paperwork Kloet’s unit obtained on one day would be taken to Saigon by liaison and returned the following day with cursory translations as to what each document contained, although if the center believed a document to be of extreme importance, they translated the entire document (00:16:16:00) o The problem for Kloet was he was dealing with an entirely new staff of soldiers who, although they were good soldiers, did not fully understand what needed to be done; therefore, Kloet himself screened the entire stack of translated documents, deciding which were important and which were not (00:16:55:00) o Initially, Kloet had two lieutenants working for him, one to command the day shift and the other to command the night shift; however, one of the lieutenants had gone through Airborne and Ranger training, considered the assignment beneath him, and decided to transfer (00:17:34:00)  When the one lieutenant transferred out, Kloet decided that he would maintain the day shift and the remaining lieutenant would command the night shift (00:18:14:00)  The arrangement did not work from the beginning because the other lieutenant, although a good soldier, did not know what exactly he was supposed to do (00:18:30:00)  Although Kloet was supposed to mentor the lieutenant in the job, it was still a war zone (00:18:51:00)  Nevertheless, Kloet believed the lieutenant could handle to job because Kloet thought back to his own experiences as a 2nd lieutenant when he just dove into his assignment because he realized that he would be held responsible for the work; however, the lieutenant never picked up on that (00:19:32:00) o Every study that went out from the section needed Kloet’s approval, which was a major job at first because in addition to teaching the new soldiers how to do their jobs, Kloet needed to proofread all their work to make sure it met the criteria for the G-2 (00:19:51:00) �  The G-2 would send out specific requirements for information, which Kloet relayed to the NCOIC, a sergeant, who told the other soldiers the requirements (00:20:22:00)  The sergeant was a benefit to Kloet because he too had worked in military intelligence before and would pick up on what needed to be done (00:20:36:00) o Every night by midnight, there was supposed to a report sent out electronically that reported on all activities that had occurred in the division’s area for the day, intelligence included, and Kloet’s unit had the assignment of putting notes on the intelligence information (00:21:06:00)  Part of the lieutenant’s job was synthesizing all the information; however, the lieutenant would take the information up and the G-2 staff would immediately call Kloet (00:21:41:00) o Kloet would go in the morning, usually around six in the morning, and would not get to bed until around ten-thirty or eleven o’clock at night, which did not include waking up from incoming enemy fire (00:21:56:00) o The lieutenant did not know how to properly synthesize the information and although he had gone through his officers basic course, it seemed to Kloet that the lieutenant had not learned anything (00:22:20:00) o Eventually, it reached the point that Kloet was staying up until the report was sent to press (00:23:04:00) o Kloet does not believe he could have handled all the work he had to do without help from the NCOIC sergeant, who took care of the enlisted men (00:23:24:00)  One time, there was a soldier who complained about not liking his job and would “disappear” from time to time; eventually, the others found him in the men’s room reading comic books and the sergeant ended up having a long discussion with the soldier (00:23:45:00) The soldiers had bunkers built behind their “hooch” and Kloet’s personal sleeping area consisted of a cot next to the back door covered by mosquito netting, a small foot locker, and a fan he bought at the PX (00:24:42:00) o Kloet believes he got the fan illegally because he did not have permission from the officer in-charge of electricity; the entire base ran off a power grid supplied by generators, so there was limited electronic power available and soldiers needed permission to have a fan (00:25:18:00)  One time, Kloet and a friend went into the PX to get the fan and because Kloet talked so quickly, the E-4 working in the PX did not know what to do, so he forgot to ask whether Kloet had permission (00:25:43:00) o The fan sat on Kloet’s foot locker and was a blessing because the temperature was hot (00:26:16:00) o There was a road behind the hooch with a huge bunker next to it; each hooch had an individual bunker assigned to it (00:26:26:00)  Kloet never once went into the bunker assigned to his hooch, even when the base came under mortar and rocket attacks (00:26:49:00)  First, Kloet had already been in Vietnam for three years and the attacks no longer seemed to phase him and he came to the � conclusion that if he heard a round and it landed, then he was still alive (00:27:11:00)  Secondly, there were snakes that loved the bunkers because the bunkers were dry (00:27:38:00) In February 1970, Kloet was involved in a “fragging” incident because for a period in December and January, the unit did not have a commander; the commander had gone home on an emergency leave because his sole surviving parent, his mother, had had a physical problem (00:28:28:00) o In companies that worked in a base camp and not in the fields as actually companies but as attachments to various sections, they could get along without having a commander (00:29:28:00)  In normal, peace-time situations, someone would temporarily sit-in for the departed commander (00:30:16:00) o However, because there was no commander, chaos very slowly began creeping into the entire unit (00:30:36:00) o At the end of January and beginning of February, the unit went through an IG inspection; however, the inspection was not like those in the United States, where everything needed to be polished and put in the right place (00:30:46:00)  This inspection was only intended to check how everything was going in the unit (00:31:09:00)  However, everything in the unit was not going well; the sandbags surrounding the bunkers were deteriorating and other things were just falling apart, something the inspectors did not like (00:31:14:00)  Once they completed their inspection, the inspectors would inform the G-2 that the area was either good or needed improvement; if the later occurred, the G-2 needed someone to take care of the problem, so the G-2 appointed a major to become the interim company commander (00:31:48:00)  However, the major did not like receiving the assignment as the company commander because he had dreams of glory and bigger and better things (00:32:17:00)  Instead of actually working at the company’s position, the major spent his time at the G-2, which meant he was not able to supervise what was happening in the company (00:32:36:00)  Instead, the major delegated tasks to the company first sergeant, who delegated the tasks to another sergeant, with orders that as men came off a shift, they were supposed to take care of the problems (00:33:11:00) o The new orders did not go over well and as a result, the soldiers would talk to Kloet; the soldiers picked up on the arrogance of the major and Kloet learned that they were blaming him for all the problems and the extra work (00:33:30:00) o Kloet had a choice: either talk to the major or not; however, the major was not apt to listen to Kloet, so Kloet went to his actual commanding officer, another major, and explained the problems with the major (00:34:13:00)  Kloet’s commanding officer told Kloet to keep track of the situation and in late February was when soldiers began throwing rocks onto the top of Kloet’s hooch because the rocks sounded like grenades (00:34:49:00) �o One night, Kloet got off work at 10:30, which was relatively early, and went to the showers before going back to his hooch and going to bed; whenever he went to bed, it took little time for Kloet to fall asleep because he knew that he was getting up the next day (00:35:07:00)  All the soldiers had developed a habit of listening with one ear while they slept and as he slept, Kloet heard the “clink, clink” on the roof, which had been going on for a while; however, the next thing Kloet knew, there was a large explosion (00:36:03:00)  The first thing Kloet did was look over and saw that his fan had been knocked to the ground and was off (00:36:35:00)  Within the hooch, Kloet’s bunk and foot looker were directly against one of the walls and near one of the doors; the rest of the hooch consisted of major’s area, which was in the center and covered with sandbags, a small common area, and the area for the interrogation section (00:36:51:00)  Following the explosion, Kloet was looking through the dust and could see pieces of wood lying about; eventually, he managed to get untangled from the mosquito net, which had collapsed on the bed (00:37:43:00)  As he got out of the bed, Kloet accidentally stepped on a board with a nail in it, which went into Kloet’s foot; after pulling the board out, Kloet saw the captain in charge of the interrogation section (00:38:07:00)  When he first heard the clicking, the captain had stepped out off his office and during the explosion, a piece of wood with three nails in it flew past the captain, scratching his face, before imbedding itself in a piece of plywood (00:38:19:00)  Eventually, the military police came around to investigate what had happened; when Kloet explained it had been grenades, the MPs said that grenades did not have fingerprints and the MPs ended up not asking many pertinent questions (00:38:52:00)  Luckily, no one was seriously wounded in the explosion; the major was in his own little bunker, while the one captain was scratched by the nails, which caused him to have a mental breakdown (00:39:38:00) o The major reacted to the “fragging” attempt by placing guards around the hooch, including one on the bunker behind the hooch and roaming patrols throughout the company area (00:39:55:00)  However, apart from their regular shifts, the soldiers were now also expected to go on guard duty, which also did not go over very well with the soldiers (00:40:35:00) o Kloet eventually found out that the soldier who committed the “fragging” was in Kloet’s unit because some of the other soldiers told him (00:40:48:00)  The soldier was a transfer from the aviation battalion, which set off a red flag in Kloet’s mind because the Army did not transfer a soldier in-country unless there was a problem in the soldier’s previous unit (00:41:14:00)  Kloet learned that prior to the “fragging” incident, the transferred soldier had pulled his pistol on another of Kloet’s soldiers; however, other soldiers suspected he might do this, so they took the magazine out of the pistol (00:42:31:00) � Eventually, the soldier ended up leaving the unit as part of the normal rotation of soldiers (00:43:47:00) Cambodia / Information Gathering (00:44:10:00)  For the most part, the intensity of the action stayed the same during the tour, with the only lull coming around December; however, following the new year, the unit began studies into new areas as other units began moving into those areas (00:44:10:00) o One soldier had made a study about a specific region and had given the study to Kloet so that Kloet could brief the commanding officers; however, Kloet had taken the position with the requirement that the soldiers who developed the studies would be part of the briefings (00:44:38:00) o Following the new year, the unit moved into Tay Ninh to set up interdiction operations to stop enemy movements from Cambodia into southern Vietnam, specifically into Region 4 (00:45:22:00) o During this time was when American soldiers were performing operations inside of Cambodia (00:45:48:00)  While the units were preparing for the operations in Cambodia, Kloet and another soldier visited fire bases around Tay Ninh as well as a special forces base near the border (00:46:02:00)  While at the special forces base, the other soldier accidentally walked into an active minefield (00:46:28:00) o Kloet himself went into Cambodia at the beginning of June (00:47:24:00)  One morning, Kloet was woken up and was told that the G-2 wanted to go to Cambodia because there had been a sapper attack on a camp that was on the border (00:47:42:00)  As Kloet and another soldier boarded a helicopter, it was foggy outside and as the helicopter climbed into the foothills of the mountains, the fog became heavier (00:48:09:00)  Eventually, the helicopter arrived at the base and the soldiers onboard got off on went through the gate into the base, where the G-2 met the commanding officer, a colonel (00:48:41:00)  While the G-2 talked with the colonel, who was his friend, he told Kloet to count the number of wounded and try to get an intelligence (00:49:15:00)  Kloet and the other soldier walked along the perimeter where the sapper attack occurred and based on the bodies, Kloet did not believe that any sappers actually made it into the base; instead, he and the other soldier counted twenty-eight bodies (00:49:27:00)  The soldiers had set out claymores around the camp with fougasses in front of the claymores; the fougases were filled with soap so that as both the fougases and claymores exploded, the burning soap particles would stick to the ball-bearings from the claymores causing the ball-bearings to burn (00:49:51:00)  In one area, an NVA soldier had been carrying a pack with RPG rounds when he was hit with the burning ball-bearings, and the lower part of his torso was in one area while the other part was several feet away (00:50:35:00) �  As Kloet and the other soldier gathered information, the found out that the majority of the NVA attackers were armed with AK-47 rifles and RPGs (Rocket Propelled Grenades) (00:51:01:00)  At the entrance to the base was a .50 caliber machine gun and the soldier manning it happened to kill an enemy officer; the officer had been carrying a Luger-type pistol, which Kloet tried to con the soldier out of (00:51:19:00)  As the helicopter had flown up to the camp, the soldiers saw where B-52 bombers had flown and decimated the area; Kloet figures the bombing attacks must have been recent because no moisture had gathered in the craters (00:52:10:00)  There had only been one injury to an American soldier from the sapper attack on the base that Kloet and the G-2 visited (00:52:31:00)  A lieutenant who had been a helicopter pilot who had been shot down ten times, which meant he was grounded, had been assigned as the air liaison officer for the brigade (00:52:37:00)  During the attack, a claymore exploded near the lieutenant and some fragmentation went into the lieutenant’s head; because of the severity of the wounds, the lieutenants was medi-vaced out (00:54:00:00) During his first tour, Kloet found very few enemy documents that needed translation but as various units had more successful contact with enemy forces, more and more documents came in (00:55:01:00) o The Air Cav. in particular, especially in Cambodia, recovered so many documents that Kloet did not have enough soldiers to go through them (00:55:18:00) o By the time it was 1970, Kloet was receiving stacks of translations and summaries of enemy documents (00:55:25:00)  One of the more valuable soldiers in any unit was the personnel officer who kept a record of all the soldiers in the unit and on some occasions, the Americans would kill an NVA personnel officer who had his information in a book in his pack (00:55:39:00)  Information in the book was valuable to Kloet and his men because it told what NVA unit and what the soldiers did (00:56:07:00)  On the other hand, the soldiers would get maps off dead NVA officers that told what other NVA units were going to do (00:56:15:00)  If the Americans attacked an NVA base camp, the enemy often fled before they were unable to get rid of all their information, which the Americans were then able to capture (00:56:19:00) o The majority of the information that Kloet and his soldiers examined came from the NVA because the Viet Cong were part of the community (00:56:40:00)  By 1970, Kloet and the other soldiers believed that all the enemy divisions were NVA, although some still carried the moniker of being Viet Cong (00:57:10:00) o Captured documents gave the analysts and idea of what enemy units were where, what the units’ strengths were, who the commanders were, etc. (00:57:26:00) �o As time when on and more documents were discovered, the soldiers made several discoveries about the enemy (00:57:43:00)  First, the soldiers found out that the enemy was working more and more in what Kloet labeled as “task forces”, where companies from different units would join together so that if the individual companies were destroyed, an entire unit was not destroyed as well (00:57:52:00)  Second, the soldiers discovered that the enemy was cutting back on the automatic weapons issued to their soldiers and had returned to issuing semi-automatic weapons (00:58:40:00)  The AK-47 was fully automatic and soldiers tended to fire their entire allotment of ammunition quickly; however, the enemy was having ammunition supply problems because the Americans were successfully performing interdiction operations (00:58:55:00) o When they went into Cambodia, the soldiers found positions where the enemy had back-loaded thousands of rifles, machine-guns, and ammunition (00:59:40:00) o Through the intelligence, the Americans learned the combat effectiveness of the NVA forces and became less afraid of them (01:00:06:00) o The best pieces of intelligence, apart from ordinary body counts and captured documents, were prisoners who could often give information (01:00:21:00)  On some occasions, an enemy soldier decided that he had had enough of being shot at and decided to surrender (01:00:43:00)  Once, an enemy reconnaissance lieutenant surrendered and told the Americans exactly where the enemy units were, which units were going to move where, and which units were going to attack which American positions (01:01:07:00) o After a while, Kloet and his soldiers had built an impressive database that was filled with good information (01:01:20:00) o In regards to prisoners, the MPs controlled the POW camps and the interrogation section had a responsibility to finish gathering any information from the prisoners quickly, before the prisoners were shipped back (01:01:37:00)  Any priority prisoners needed to identified quickly, although that was not always the case (01:01:57:00)  The division base camp was labeled as the AOT and it’s defense fell under the command of the division artillery commander, with different battalions rotating every six months as the guard units (01:02:11:00) o Once, a battalion on AOT defense captured a prisoner and without telling anyone, used the prisoner as a point man on further operations (01:02:43:00)  Normally, if an enemy soldier declared himself as a refugee, then he was not supposed to be used in any further combat operations (01:03:02:00)  Another time, soldiers captured an Vietnamese who was listening to helicopter communications (01:03:28:00) �   o Because the soldier was signals intelligence, the interrogation section of Kloet’s company began working on him; however, once word got out that the Americans had captured a signals intelligence soldier, higher-ranking government agencies wanted interrogate him and they just sent people to take him (01:04:06:00) o Normally, the interrogators were supposed to report that they had captured a signals intelligence soldier immediately but they did not because the soldier was giving them good information (01:04:54:00)  During the Cambodian operations, there were more people available to interrogate and debrief any prisoners; there was a flood of prisoners and most gave good information (01:05:18:00) Within the division headquarters base camp, there were USO girls who ran small clubs for the soldiers; however, the girls did not date the ordinary soldiers (01:06:08:00) o Normally, it was the helicopter pilots who dated the USO girls (01:06:44:00) o Kloet’s unit’s first sergeant lived with a Vietnamese woman on the base camp, but that was a highly unusually situation because civilians were normally not supposed to be in a tactical zone on a base camp (01:07:07:00) There were not Vietnamese working on the base camp during the day (01:07:24:00) To Kloet, morale was a relative term in the sense that each unit determined their own morale and there was not an over-arching moral that applied to all the soldiers and all the units (01:07:38:00) o Most of the time, the overall moral in Kloet’s unit was good, except the time with the interim commanding officer (01:07:51:00)  Kloet had four or five soldiers extend their tours once their first tour ended because they did not want to go back to the United States (01:08:03:00) o However, in the units rotating in for the base camp guard duty, there was less positive moral because the soldiers were taken out of combat and given what amounted to house-keeping duties (01:08:16:00)  At the time, Kloet was a junior officer, which meant he ate in the junior officers' mess hall; one of the other officers was a lieutenant with the headquarters company, which was in charge of the guard forces (01:08:52:00)  However, the dislike was so bad that the officers did not sleep with the company so that the guard soldiers could not find them (01:09:13:00)  The one lieutenant in particular was glad to leave the base camp, even if it meant going to an ammunition supply point along the Cambodian border (01:09:22:00)  Soldiers coming out of combat were often squirrelly (01:10:13:00)  It was difficult to diagnose stress problems unless someone had already been stressed (01:10:36:00)  Kloet does not know how much of an issue drugs were on the base camp, although he does know it was a little more difficult to get drugs on the camp (01:11:27:00) �  o The soldiers were not allowed to go into the village but helicopters pilots were able to fly around, giving them the ability to get drugs and bring them back (01:11:32:00) o When Kloet was working in II Corps, he saw more open drug usage (01:11:42:00) o Overall, Kloet did not see much in the way of racial tension amongst the soldiers, although during his final tour in Germany, Kloet definitely saw more racial tension (01:11:52:00) Apart from doing his regular work within his section, Kloet also had to do administrative duties as soldiers began rotating in and out of the unit (01:12:48:00) o One soldier did not look the job that Kloet had assigned him to, so the soldier volunteered for Ranger school; however, to get into the school, any prospective soldiers had to go through a one-week course (01:13:01:00)  Kloet knew the Ranger commander because Ranger units in the field received orders to collect any intelligence (01:14:07:00)  Kloet could not stop the soldier from going to the school and when the soldier went, but before he went, Kloet talked with the Ranger commander and told the commander to put the soldier through the same routine that any other soldier went through (01:14:28:00)  Two days later, the soldier is back and says that he wants to be a helicopter door-gunner, so he submitted the paperwork again and receives the re-assignment; however, within a month, the soldier was killed (01:15:41:00) During his first tour, Kloet went to Japan for R&R and during his second tour, he went to Australia; however, during the third tour, Kloet received two R&Rs because the Air Cav. gave R&Rs based in six-month intervals (01:16:17:00) o During one of the R&Rs, Kloet went to Taipei and during the other, he went to Hong Kong (01:16:40:00) o When he got off the plane in Taipei, local pimps were practically on the bus with Kloet; when he got to a hotel run by the R&R centers, the pimps were able to go right into the hotel (01:17:15:00)  There was a lot of culture shock for Kloet in Taipei, including the different foods he could eat (01:17:50:00)  Kloet and some other soldiers went to the Presidential Palace and upset the palace guards by taking pictures (01:18:11:00) o In Hong Kong, Kloet stayed in a large hotel and shared a room with a Marine officer (01:18:30:00)  Going on tours throughout the city as well as just walking around was all enjoyable for Kloet (01:19:01:00)  The ability to get clean water and showers was fantastic (01:19:21:00)  By the time he went to Australia during the second tour, Kloet had a permanent black mark on his forearm because the soldiers never received enough hot water to shower and properly clean themselves (01:19:27:00) �o Kloet had been in Sydney when the Australians were constructing the famous opera house, so Kloet and some others were able to get a tour of the area (01:20:10:00)  The military encouraged soldiers to meet up with an Australian family, so Kloet decided to do so and received the family of barrister, which equated to an American lawyer (01:20:47:00)  Kloet arrived at the family’s home around six o’clock in the evening believing that he and the family were going to eat dinner; however, unbeknownst to him, the family usually did not eat until later and they preferred to drink before dinner (01:21:20:00)  When Kloet arrived, the family patriarch brought him a large, dark beer, which Kloet drank, but by the time dinner came at eight o’clock, he was tipsy (01:21:30:00) o When Kloet twice went to Bangkok for R&R, he found the city to be very crowded (01:22:11:00)  One of the most interesting incidents in Bangkok was when Kloet was walking through a reptile house at a local zoo (01:22:56:00)  As Kloet was walking, a sign said “World’s Largest Sea Crocodile”, so Kloet began walking in that direction (01:23:07:00)  However, as he walked past one of the other boxes, a massive King Cobra struck the glass, scaring Kloet (01:23:27:00) o All the R&Rs Kloet went on were educational, especially with the history of the areas and because Kloet was a history buff, he enjoyed that (01:23:49:00) o During his time in Australia, Kloet had a slight physical problem that he had to deal with (01:24:02:00)  During the tour, Kloet had a slight bout of dysentery, a problem compounded by the need for Kloet to take malaria pills; as well, Kloet also had a carbuncle on one of his legs (01:24:18:00)  When Kloet arrived in Australia, one of the first things he wanted as a good meal, so he went to a restaurant (01:25:03:00)  Kloet got through about half the steak he ordered before needed to go to the bathroom (01:25:19:00) Post-Cambodian Operations (01:25:43:00)  Everything was anti-climatic once the soldiers returned from the operations in Cambodia, with the commanders trying to make work for the soldiers (01:25:43:00) o Eventually, the old G-2 left and a new colonel came in to take over the position; however, the colonel had the personality that he was better than the junior officers and they should not talk to him (01:25:51:00) o Kloet had not talked too much with the other G-2s he had served with except to brief them on what his section was doing but the new G-2 (01:26:12:00)  Eventually, Kloet’s company commander came down to warn Kloet about confronting the new G-2; instead, Kloet watched for a month period as the G-2 took the helicopter he shared with the G-3, the colonel in-charge of operations, and left (01:27:07:00) �  One day, the G-3 came into the TAC where Kloet was, asking if anyone knew where the G-2 was because he needed to use the helicopter (01:28:27:00) o One of the soldiers in the room had been screwed over by the G-2 and although he knew where the G-2 was, when asked, the soldier said he did not know (01:28:47:00) o When the G-2 came back with the helicopter, he was barred from ever using it again and instead had to go to the division headquarters and ask permission to take out a helicopter (01:29:14:00)  Because he occasionally briefed the division commander, Kloet could talk with the soldier in-charge of allotments for helicopters and the two became friendly to the point that the soldier would willing grant Kloet use of a helicopter whenever Kloet needed to go out to one of the brigade headquarters (01:30:28:00)  One time, the G-2 went to get a helicopter and managed to get an armed observation helicopter (01:30:57:00) o The G-2 was a short man and as he was climbing into the helicopter, he grabbed the handle of a machine gun but accidentally grabbed the trigger and shot a round through his foot (01:31:39:00) As much as his commanders would allow, Kloet would travel out to the different bases, including once going on a reconnaissance mission (01:32:27:00) o One thing Kloet liked about the Cav. was that none of the soldiers had to pretend that they were perfect; all the soldiers could give their all to their jobs because even though they were going to make mistakes, as long as the soldiers did not make mistakes that got other soldiers killed, it was acceptable (01:32:36:00) o One day, Kloet asked the G-2 how helicopters pilots could see a group of Viet Cong walking down a trail when the pilots were flying past (01:33:05:00)  Kloet did not realize it but the colonel had arranged for Kloet to go on a reconnaissance mission with a “Pink Team”, which was a Little Bird helicopter with Cobra gunships for coverage (01:34:02:00)  Kloet was ordered to pick up a weapon and report to a nearby unit, the 1st of the 9th (01:34:35:00)  During the flight, Kloet was in the left seat of the helicopter with an M-16 but because he is left-handed, firing the rifle out of window was awkward for him (01:34:51:00)  Once they left the 1st of the 9th, the trio of helicopters flew south, with both Cobras above the Little Bird (01:35:18:00)  All of the sudden, the Little Bird began to dive, eventually ending up below the tree line; Kloet then realized how the pilots were able to see enemy soldiers, because the helicopters was flying only ten or so feet off of the ground (01:35:28:00)  As the Little Bird is flying, the helicopter crew chief is sticking explosives into used ordinance and dropping it out the side of the helicopter; �   meanwhile, the pilot is talking with Kloet through headphones, which caused him to loss his concentration (01:36:03:00)  All of the sudden, the pilot swore and an explosion from one of the ordinances pushed the helicopter forward (01:36:50:00) o Apart from the reconnaissance mission, Kloet would also fly to the different bases in the area; as well, he once acted as a liaison with the 1st Infantry Division to coordinate intelligence sharing (01:37:17:00) While working as the liaison officer, Kloet saw that his own intelligence unit was much better than that of the 1st Infantry because his unit was better organized in the sense that the 1st Infantry either placed too much responsibility on the younger, less experienced soldiers or not enough responsibility (01:37:42:00) o Kloet viewed his unit as having a nice mix of senior supervision, including a couple of officers who rotated in and a couple of senior of NCOs (01:38:10:00)  The problem with the original lieutenant Kloet had was the lieutenant did not try and Kloet did not have time to take the lieutenant under his wing and teach him everything that needed to be done (01:39:11:00) o When Kloet first joined the Air Cav., he developed a plan with a small group of other soldiers as to what would be a good mix for the unit before talking with the G-2, who gave his approval to the plan (01:40:01:00) When Kloet first arrived at the Air Cav., the G-2 who was in the unit was a short-timer, so Kloet did not interact with him and the colonel who replaced the outgoing G-2 did not last long because the colonel was not “Cav-standard” (01:40:53:00) o One time, during the daily five o’clock briefing given by the G-2, the colonel had briefing cards with him and as he would reading each card, he would use a pointer in his other hand to point out the location on a board (01:41:17:00)  Kloet was standing near the entrance to the tent and the division’s commander officer was seated in front of the colonel along with his chief of staff and the division G-3 (01:42:04:00)  The board the colonel was using was also used by the G-3, which placed all the units in their areas along with their statuses and what their operations were; however, as the G-2’s pointer moved down the board, it pulled out all the push-pins that the G-3 had used (01:42:34:00)  Kloet looked at the G-3 and saw the G-3 was incensed; although Kloet does not know exactly what happened after that, the G-2 was eventually transferred from the unit (01:43:11:00) After the G-2 departed came another colonel who had served in the cavalry already and was a straightforward soldier who wanted the soldiers to tell it like it was (01:43:42:00) o The general staff would normally eat together, often with better accoutrements than that of the regular soldiers (01:44:16:00) o One day, the G-2 sent someone to get Kloet with orders for an overlay of all the enemy infiltration corridors in the division’s area of operations, which was a major project (01:44:41:00)  The project involved splicing together sheets of acetate in order to cover an entire wall then placing pieces of different colored tape to represent the different infiltration corridors (01:45:19:00) �   Once the soldiers finished, they rolled the entire project up and placed it behind the G-2’s desk in his office (01:45:52:00)  A couple of weeks later, the soldiers came to Kloet saying that they were running out of the acetate, which they used to make overlays on individual units’ areas of operation and everything that was going on within that specific area (01:46:10:00)  The soldiers asked permission to get back the project they had made fro the G-2 because it was a lot of acetate, so Kloet walked to the G-2’s office and asked the colonel if they could get the project because they were running low on acetate (01:46:32:00)  The colonel confessed that he could not remember why the roll of acetate was there (01:46:57:00) In early 1970, the Air Cav. was running interdiction operations in war zone three because the enemy was running from Cambodia, through what was labeled as the “elephant sphere” and into the southern area (01:47:27:00) o The Americans placed bases in order to stop the movement of enemy soldiers and the enemy wanted to destroy those bases (01:48:01:00) o One time, Kloet and some other soldiers were listening on the radio as the division talked with a battalion about enemy activity when the enemy began lobbing 122 mm mortars onto the base; because it was hot, the G-2 had been lying on top of the battalion command bunker when a mortar round landed nearby and took off one of his legs and one of his arms (01:48:05:00)  The enemy charged the base although a lot of them did not have any weapons; the enemy would drug their soldiers in order to get them to attack without weapons (01:48:50:00) o Over time, the fighting intensified and once the Cav. came back from Cambodia, Kloet and his soldiers were asked to make studies using captured enemy weaponry and equipment (01:49:23:00) At some points in the tour, Kloet became very out-of-shape because all he did was sleep, ride in a jeep up to his job, sit in a chair, and walk only short distances (01:50:08:00) Post-third Tour / The Phoenix Program (01:50:48:00)  Kloet ended his third tour in 1970 and headed towards the “career course”, a captain level course to train the captains in how to be a company commander and do more complicated intelligence functions at Fort Holabird in Baltimore, Maryland (01:50:48:00) o Kloet spent time in the career course, which Kloet believed precluded an assignment back to Fort Bragg; however, when Kloet officially received the assignment to Fort Bragg, he scoffed at it and requested assignment back to Vietnam as part of the Phoenix Program (01:51:21:00)  Kloet had previously served at Fort Bragg as a headquarters company commander, which involved, amongst other things, organizing the motor pool and billets for all the soldiers in the headquarters (01:52:22:00) o However, the headquarters company was drained due to the war, so when he came into the unit, Kloet was the senior company grade officer in the entire battalion; the only people higher ranking than Kloet were a major, who was the �o o o o o battalion XO and the battalion commander, while the personnel officer was a lieutenant (01:53:08:00) When he arrived, the first thing Kloet had to do was an inventory for the unit and when he first opened the desk in his office, he found a draw full of half-empty bottles of Maalox (01:54:01:00) After he arrived, Kloet received his orders from the battalion commander and although there were orders of what Kloet needed to do, there was no mention of where he could get soldiers to do it; however, the commander told Kloet to just use everyone in the headquarters (01:54:36:00) Once inventory was finished, Kloet asked if he and the company first sergeant were responsible for making sure every soldier kept his sleeping area in order; instead, Kloet suggested using a group of NCOs to monitor the soldiers’ living quarters (01:55:16:00)  Although the battalion commander accepted the idea, the NCOs who received the assignment grumbled and disagreed with it; the NCOs had often already served in Vietnam and were nearing the ends of their enlistments (01:56:18:00) After the living quarters were organized, Kloet needed to organize the motor pool, so he suggested developing a list of all non-critical personnel (E-5 and below) and they would work in the motor pool doing vehicle inspections (01:57:28:00)  Eventually, one of the sergeants came up and told Kloet that the soldiers in the motor pool were working for the maintenance officer, so Kloet sent another sergeant to supervise the activity in the motor pool (01:57:56:00)  However, the maintenance officer complained to the battalion S-4, who in turn, went to a higher ranking officer instead of Kloet (01:58:48:00) Kloet went into the hospital the day after Christmas, 1968 with what the doctors believed to be dengue fever, although there were no reported cases of dingy fever in the entire country (01:59:56:00)  Kloet went into the hospital for two weeks and when he returned to his unit, the battalion commander had left and his supply sergeant had rotated to Germany; however, Kloet had to do another inventory for the unit, so he received another sergeant to be the supply sergeant (02:00:14:00)  The sergeant started to do the inventory but returned to Kloet and explained that items were missing (02:00:58:00)  When Kloet asked how long it would take to fix everything, the sergeant said he could take care of it because he had “connections” with other soldiers (02:01:11:00)  The battalion commander warned Kloet against using soldiers from other units to take care of the problems but the new supply sergeant had friends in a basic training unit and was able to get soldiers to help with the inventory (02:01:40:00)  Part of the reason soldiers wanted to work for Kloet was because they received a meal from Kloet’s mess hall, which was very well organized: Kloet had been a mess officer in Germany and he knew how to make sure a mess hall ran properly (02:02:15:00) �    The supply sergeant squared everything away for the inventory and the unit ended up with only six items missing, all OD watches, and the reason they were missing was the previous supply sergeant had used them as trade items (02:02:45:00)  While the inventory was going on, Kloet filed paperwork for reassignment to Vietnam and although the battalion commander could not stop him from going, he delayed Kloet by saying Kloet needed to do an investigation into the missing watches (02:03:38:00)  After the investigation was complete, it went up the chain of command and over to Germany, where the old supply sergeant had to pay for all six watches (02:03:59:00) Kloet first went to Fort Bragg in 1966 and joined a unit preparing to deploy to Vietnam, although few of the officers or enlisted men knew exactly what they were going to be getting into (02:04:18:00) o Then, when he came back from his tour, Kloet went back to Fort Bragg before going back to Vietnam for his second tour (02:04:54:00) o Before Kloet rotated from Vietnam for his second tour, he received an assignment back to Fort Bragg (02:06:03:00) Between August 1970 and September 1971, Kloet attended two different schools, the career course and a MASA (Military Assistance Security Advisory) course (02:06:00:00) o The career course consisted of teaching intelligence officers how to be captains while maintain their intelligence skill and the MASA course trained Kloet to take part in the Phoenix program (02:06:43:00)  During the MASA course, courses included Vietnamese language classes, how to organize reports, etc. (02:07:01:00) The Phoenix program was a program designed to neutralize the communist infrastructure within Vietnam and consisted of both district- and province-sized committees made up of police and American advisors, although originally, the advisors were CIA operatives and Special Forces officers (02:07:28:00) o The committee’s jobs were to coordinate with any other organization in that area, such as the census or grievance bureaus, that might have information on Viet Cong routes, villages, or communist individuals, with the intention of neutralizing these threats (02:08:20:00) o In Kloet’s case, he was at the district level and had the assignment of gathering all the gathered intelligence and placing it into a single report, named the “Big Mac”, which listed all the communist villages and what was the status of the Viet Cong infrastructure (02:08:48:00)  Kloet also scheduled operations to maintain what was known as “the black book”, which were files and dossiers kept on a suspected person (02:09:22:00)  Once the committees had enough vetted, reliable information within one dossier, the person went onto the black list and if more reliable information came in, then the soldiers could conduct an operation to neutralize the person (02:09:53:00)  Ideally, the soldiers would neutralize a threat by arresting the suspected person (02:10:38:00) �  In Kloet’s committee, his Vietnamese counterpart was part of the Vietnamese special police (akin to the American FBI) and he warned Kloet when he first arrived that Kloet would not be able to get any operations within the sector (02:10:48:00)  The provincial leader was a military commander and there were leaks within the commander’s staff; if any operation was launched, then Kloet would not find anything (02:11:53:00)  During the training, Kloet and the others were warned that this might happen (02:12:14:00)  In order to effectively perform operations, the soldiers needed the assistance of the Vietnamese government, which was the military, and in Kloet’s case, his province was on the VietnameseCambodian border (02:12:19:00) o The consensus amongst the Americans within the province was that the provincial leader was play both sides against one another (02:12:43:00)  Kloet recognized this when his first interpreters was the son-in-law of the provincial leader and turned out to be a snitch, telling the leader everything Kloet and the others worked on (02:13:04:00)  Kloet removed the interpreter and this caused a rift with the provincial leader (02:13:46:00) o Over time, Kloet and the others were getting more neutralizations by way of killing the suspect as opposed to arresting them (02:14:00:00) o The soldiers were conducting operations within the villages and at night, there were explosions where the soldiers had set up ambushes for the enemy; after the ambushes, the soldiers would find intelligence on the enemy that Kloet and the others used (02:14:34:00) o One time, Kloet went to a district near where he had served with the 1st Air Cav. because soldiers had killed five suspected enemy personnel (02:15:04:00)  Originally, pictures were taken of dead Viet Cong or communists as verification; however, headquarters found out that in some cases, the “enemy” were paid to act dead, so Kloet was told he needed to verify any suspected enemy KIA (02:15:39:00)  When he traveled to the district, Kloet could not arrive early in the morning because the district was covered in fog, so that when he did arrive, the bodies had been laying out in the sun (02:16:40:00) o The Vietnamese were the ones conducting operations and ambushes against the enemy, not Americans (02:17:56:00) Kloet only spent about six months working in the Phoenix Program because when the Easter offensive began in Spring 1972, all hell broke loose (02:18:50:00) o Most of the fighting during the offensive took place in a province next to where Kloet was stationed but the enemy still managed to cut the roads leading out of Kloet’s province, which meant no supplies could come in (02:19:03:00) �o As well, the S-2 in Kloet’s unit had left and Kloet had to also fill that role (02:19:13:00) o Prior the offensive, Kloet’s unit received regular intelligence unrelated to the Phoenix program that said enemy tanks were to the north, just across the Cambodian border (02:19:33:00)  A lieutenant who was part of the Phoenix program was in the area and Kloet told the lieutenant that he needed to verify the intelligence; the lieutenant tried to find intelligence on the tanks and found nothing but the following day, the enemy offensive began, with tanks rolling into the neighboring province (02:19:48:00)  The enemy used a nearby bridge over the Song Be river to run tanks, so Kloet’s unit organized an air strike to destroy the bridge (02:20:22:00) o Once the offensive began, Kloet’s attention shifted to more military-centered work and keeping an eye on what was happening in the neighboring province; the work continued through April, May, and June and in July, the enemy pulled back due to the large amount of damage they had taken (02:21:01:00)  However, as the enemy pulled back, they sent a unit to attack a district in Kloet’s province and managed to cut the road; some of the Vietnamese asked permission to retreat to Saigon but a CIA officer in Bien Hoa told Kloet not to allow it (02:21:54:00)  Kloet’s interpreter told Kloet that the Vietnamese were planning to kill Kloet if he did not let them leave; Kloet reported this to his superior and his superior went to the Vietnamese leaders, saying that if they heard another word, the Vietnamese were going into the jail (02:22:52:00)  During the first part of the attack, the enemy bombarded Kloet’s area with 152 mm artillery and RPGs, so Kloet had to go out with a jeep and do crater analysis, both to determine what exactly the enemy were shelling them with and where the shellings were coming from (02:23:33:00)  Once Kloet plotted the artillery’s location, he told the provincial chief, who said he would send some soldiers out; the Vietnamese soldiers did go out and found the artillery were Kloet said it would be but there was roughly a battalion-sized force of enemy soldiers guarding it (02:24:47:00) o During offensive, a friend of Kloet had been stationed in the province where the bulk of the fighting occurred (02:25:34:00) o By July 1st, 1972, there was talk of reducing the size of Kloet’s unit, so the unit was moved out of the bunkers that the Army had built a couple of years earlier and into a couple of civilian trailers (02:26:22:00)  Kloet shared a trailer with a retired New York City cop and on the night of July 1st, when the enemy fired RPGs into the unit’s compound, the cop went crazy, grabbing a M-3 “grease gun” (02:26:51:00)  Kloet managed to get the cop into a nearby bunker and because he had been in Vietnam for four years, Kloet knew what to do, so he took his time and did everything right (02:27:43:00) �  In the morning, Kloet went out to do his crater analysis, which involved measure which directions each round came from; where all the lines intersected was where the enemy artillery was located (02:28:13:00)  Eventually, the Army managed to clear the road out of the district and the unit left via an armed convoy (02:28:49:00) o When the offensive began, the Vietnamese soldiers in the province left their equipment behind as well as some Montagnard tribesmen who were fighting with them (02:29:19:00)  Eventually, Kloet went with a CIA-owned Air America helicopter and watched as a C-130 Spectre gunship destroyed the left-behind artillery and ammunition dumps (02:29:34:00)  The Montagnards eventually made it through the jungle and were sent into an old Air Cav. base (02:29:55:00) o During the operation to clear the road, there were endless craters on both sides of the road from Air Force bombings, with very few buildings left standing, except for a pagoda that the Vietnamese then considered haunted (02:30:08:00)  The Air Force was still dropping bombs as the soldiers advanced down the road, so the soldiers would occasionally stand underneath the awnings of any remaining buildings (02:31:24:00) o From their compound, Kloet and the other soldiers could see Nui Ba Ra¸ which was a large nearby mountain with Vietnamese intercept facility on it and during the offensive, the Vietnamese reported tanks near the facility (02:31:47:00)  Kloet’s commanding officer asked why he and the other soldiers were not receiving that information from American sources and was told that he did not have high enough clearance, which upset the colonel (02:32:12:00)  During the offensive, some of the soldiers with Kloet managed to capture a couple of American-made APCs that the NVA had captured when the American forces in the area abandoned them (02:32:48:00) o After July 1st, a small Montagnard platoon occupied as small, triangular compound constructed by the Americans just to the west of Kloet’s position and the Montagnards defended that compound so fiercely that the enemy were not able to overrun it (02:33:55:00) When the offensive began in April, the Air Force talked with the soldiers and told them what types of ordinance were available, including smaller versions of gas bombs used to attack caves that had never been used in Vietnam (02:34:44:00) o The Air Force also provided a transponder so that if things ever got dicey, the soldiers could flip the switch, notifying the Air Force that they needed support while simultaneously telling the Air Force exactly where the soldiers were positioned (02:35:21:00) o After July 1st, the soldiers turned on the transponder and the Air Force sent a Spectre gunship, which was an awesome sight to see (02:35:42:00)  Instead of firing the heavy artillery aboard the aircraft, the crew mostly fired 20 mm miniguns, which looked like a laser going from the aircraft to the ground (02:35:55:00)  The Air Force also dropped a few of the gas bombs, which released a heavy gas that over-pressurized and killed anyone in the gas (02:36:22:00) � 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 KloetR1071V2 Title A name given to the resource Kloet, Ronald (Interview outline and video, 2 of 3), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kloet, Ronald Description An account of the resource In July 1969, Ron Kloet returned to Vietnam for a third tour of duty. During this tour, he served as part of the intelligence section for the 1st Air Cavalry Division in the Phuoc Long Province. While with the 1st Air Cav., Kloet took part in operations within neighboring Cambodia. Once his tour with the Air Cav. ended, Kloet's original orders called for him to go to a career course at Fort Bragg. However, recalling previous time spent at Fort Bragg, Kloet instead requested going back to Vietnam for a fourth tour, which he received. Therefore, after receiving training in another career course and in a MASA (Military Assistance Security Advisory) course, Kloet deployed to Vietnam for a fourth time. During the fourth tour, Kloet served as part of the Phoenix program, a joint Vietnamese-American effort to neutralize the Viet Cong and communists at a local level. Also during his time with the Phoenix program, Kloet took part in the NVA's 1972 Easter Offensive, which occurred in a neighboring province. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army United States. Air Force Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-02-24 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/5aaee66ac7347e72ff90b9ce115fa8d7.mp4 c69431f02424aa8e86645eb6ca0d1cff https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1ba680797f32296c85ecd5ef1c510a3a.pdf db560ea5fc38cb45ad94fd7e5e97f910 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project The Cold War Ron Kloet Interview Length: (01:59:46:00) Pre-enlistment / Training (00:00:18:00)  Kloet was born of Aug. 8th, 1936, on the west side of Grand Rapids, Michigan; as Kloet grew up, his family moved around, from apartments to one house then another, two-story house that was only two blocks away from their old house (00:00:18:00) o Kloet attended Christian school for K-9th grade and took a single year of Christian high school but did not like it because he did not know anyone and the high school was so far away from his home that Kloet had to ride a city bus, which was inconvenient, especially when the bus workers went on strike (00:00:58:00) o Instead, Kloet convinced his parents to allow him to attend Union High School and Kloet graduated from there in 1954 (00:01:20:00)  Up until the start of World War II, Kloet’s mother was a housewife and his father worked as a photo engraver for a company, making plates for newspapers, a job that last for forty years (00:01:37:00) o However, while Kloet and siblings were in school, their mother got a part-time job working at a grocery store; after the war, Kloet’s mother took a job working at a brass company (00:02:06:00)  After graduating from high school, Kloet left home and enlisted in the Air Force in January, 1955 (00:02:39:00) o Kloet had been raised the old-fashioned way, that children were expected to leave the nest, and when he graduated from high school, a lot of people suggested Kloet go to college to get a practical degree (00:03:07:00)  Therefore, Kloet briefly attended Davenport University for a semester but because he had to pay rent, Kloet needed income, so he took a job, attending classes in the morning and working in the evening (00:03:30:00)  Kloet was also not happy with the school; not that he could not handle it, he just did not like it (00:03:56:00) o Kloet was restless and wanted to get away, so he decided to enlist and join the service (00:04:01:00)  When he first enlisted, Kloet took entrance tests at the induction center and scored high (00:04:08:00)  Kloet did not want to be drafted because friends of his who had graduated from high school in 1954 were drafted and went to Korea [the armistice had been signed in 1953, but the Americans maintained a strong presence there] (00:04:18:00) o Because Kloet scored high on the tests, the military chose to send Kloet to the Air Force; when he enlisted, Kloet did not chose a specific branch to join but the military chose to send him to the Air Force security services (00:04:41:00) �  Kloet went for his basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas and that marked the first time Kloet had ever been to Texas (00:05:12:00) o Kloet spent January through April at Lackland to complete the twelve-week basic training course (00:05:26:00) o The basic training was typical of the time: going to the rifle range, physical training, a lot of marching, and some classroom work (00:05:38:00) o It was not hard for Kloet to make the adjustment from a civilian lifestyle to a military lifestyle; physically, it was a little more challenging because Kloet had never been athletic, liking to read books instead (00:06:01:00) o A beautiful part of basic training was the Kloet met a cross-section of American society; before, Kloet had only known the Poles and Dutch living on the west side of Grand Rapids and not much outside of that (00:06:18:00)  When Kloet had been going to grade school, his uncle who had served during World War II lived with Kloet’s family both before and after his service and he filled Kloet’s head with stories of his experiences while serving in the Navy (00:06:52:00)  Kloet had other uncles who had served as well and they told their stories to Kloet, so Kloet was always interested in life outside of Grand Rapids (00:07:18:00)  During basic training, there were some African-American and Latino recruits but a lot of the recruits were from the South, a demographic that supplied a large amount of enlistees for the entire military (00:07:31:00)  When he first enlisted, Kloet went from Grand Rapids to Detroit, where more the recruits were picked up and some of them were African-American (00:07:50:00)  Kloet was not too knowledgeable about the race issue because he had grown up in Grand Rapids and the issue really hit home when the recruits were taking the train down to Texas (00:07:59:00) o The train stopped at a small town in Texas where the recruits were allowed to get off to get some food, as there was none on the train (00:08:13:00) o However, the African-Americans were barred from entering a restaurant (00:08:24:00)  The majority of the drill instructors were from the South, but they did not treat the African-American soldiers any differently and yelled at everybody (00:08:45:00) After the first twelve weeks, Kloet received orders for his training school at Kelly Air Force Base, which was only a few miles away from Lackland (00:09:03:00) o After the twelve weeks, Kloet received leave, so he bought a plane ticket and flew back to Grand Rapids before returning to Kelly to go through what the Air Force had termed as “technical school” (00:09:18:00)  Kelly attended the headquarters and training school for the Air Force Security service (00:09:43:00) o Kloet’s training at Kelly consisted of learning how to analyze traffic from intercepted communications using codes, which was similar to doing crossword puzzles (00:09:53:00) �  Another big part of the training was pattern analysis and Kloet worked as a signals analyst, working with collected material; his full job title was “radio intercept traffic analyst” (00:10:22:00) o Kloet’s training at Kelly lasted for another four months, from April through August (00:10:49:00) o During the training, Kloet was allowed to go off-base and into San Antonio, as well as going once to Padre Island on the Gulf of Mexico with other airmen who lived in the barracks with Kloet, if only to walk along the beach (00:11:02:00)  Kloet would go into San Antonio, which had a nice theater and several nice restaurants, although it was hot in the summer (00:11:18:00)  San Antonio was somewhat unique because there had always been Air Force bases there; there were more bases around San Antonio than any other place in the country (00:11:34:00)  There was Brooks Air Force Base, Randolph Air Force Base, Kelly Air Force Base, Lackland Air Force Base and one other one, plus the Army had Fort Sam Houston (00:10:45:00)  There was a lot of military presence in San Antonio, which made for a friendly atmosphere towards the military (00:12:03:00) After completing the training at Kelly, Kloet was to ship overseas, so he was given a thirty-day leave and he went home before reporting to Travis Air Force Base, which was north of San Francisco (00:12:22:00) o Eventually, Kloet and the others who were deploying were placed aboard a ship, the Mitchell, and taken from San Francisco to Japan, a two-week voyage that ended when the soldier arrived in Yokohama, Japan (00:12:53:00)  The Mitchell was a troop transport that was terrible, especially during any rough weather; the ship would bounce all over the place during rough weather and people would get sick (00:13:30:00)  The people onboard the Mitchell were a mix of servicemen who were all being re-assigned (00:14:00:00) o When he first deployed, Kloet did not know which specific unit he was supposed to join, be it a group, wing, or squadron; Kloet knew where to go but not which unit to go to (00:14:09:00) Deployment (00:14:30:00)  Kloet’s first impression of Japan happened when the Mitchell was getting close to the islands; as the ship got closer to the islands, the servicemen sniffed the air and asked what the smell was (00:14:30:00) o It was October and that was the time that the Japanese farmers put fertilizer on their soil; however, the fertilizer the Japanese used was night soil, which roughly translated as human excrement (00:14:50:00) o The farmers would put the fertilizer on the soil and the heat from the sun would make it so the people on the ship out at sea could smell the fertilizer before they even reached land (00:15:21:00)  After the ship landed in Yokohama, Kloet was assigned to 6902nd Special Communications Group, which was stationed at Shiroi Air Force Base, which was to the northeast of Tokyo (00:15:38:00) �   o At the time, there were several larger Air Force bases in Tokyo but Shiroi was supposedly “off the radar” and nobody outside a select group was supposed to know where it was (00:16:15:00) o As Kloet rode to the base, he looked out the windows and watched the countryside of Japan, which was pretty (00:16:38:00) o All the units at Shiroi were intelligence; there was a wing and a group, while the group had several smaller elements but they were all intelligence (00:16:49:00) While at Shiroi, Kloet did his analyst work in a building with no windows or central air, all to make sure that no signals could get out (00:17:09:00) o The work consisted of analyzing the paperwork that Kloet receive and placing the results on sheets that could be feed into an early computer (00:17:52:00)  Each analyst covered a specific area, Kloet covered the Soviet Union, and after the information came out of the computer, Kloet went over the form again to make any corrections that needed to be made (00:18:23:00)  The forms then went out by messenger to a higher headquarters but Kloet did not know anything about that (00:18:46:00) o Intelligence, and signals intelligence in particular, amounted to a 365-day-a-year job (00:19:01:00)  One of the benefits of being in intelligence was that Kloet was working at a job, not training; the only time Kloet participated in any extent to what could be described as training, was when he was with the 3rd Infantry Division in Germany between 1972 and 1973, although it was not a live mission (00:19:14:00)  On all the other assignments, there was a live, 365-day-a-year, 24/7 mission and Kloet worked a part of that mission, which helped keep his interest in the mission because he was doing something (00:19:48:00)  Kloet had to keep track of whoever the bad guys were at the time, be it the Soviets or the Chinese (00:20:13:00) The analysts operated on a daily schedule, although nobody woke them up in the morning and there were no formations; instead, the analysts had a normal work schedule where they had to be working by seven-thirty in the morning (00:20:31:00) o The personnel on the base lived in barracks, with two men to a room, although the NCOs and officers had better rooms (00:20:44:00) o After getting up, Kloet would go to the mess hall, eat, return to his room to clean up then go to work (00:20:57:00) o To get to where he worked, Kloet had to go through a guarded gate and anyone who wanted to get through the gate needed a badge with their name and picture; after the guard checked each person out, the person went through the gate, into the building and to their office (00:21:15:00) o The analysts needed to be to their jobs by eight o’clock and would be supervised by a sergeant and an officer, in Kloet’s case, a 1st Lieutenant (00:21:32:00) o A standard shift for the analysts was eight working hours plus a meal break squeezed in at some point (00:21:59:00) While Kloet was stationed at the base, he was able to leave and travel around Japan in order to see the sights (00:22:13:00) �    o The base had a bus that took personnel to a train station in the nearby town of Goko, where the personnel road on a small train down to the town of Mazado; from Mazado, the personnel took a train into Tokyo (00:22:16:00)  In total, it took roughly an hour to get from Goko into Tokyo; the trains were nice, comfortable, and always on time (00:22:40:00) o Downtown Tokyo at that time was still not the city Kloet saw when he went back to Japan in 1986, and still had open sewers running through the town (00:22:50:00)  Nevertheless, the main part of the city had some nice jewelry stores and restaurants (00:23:16:00) At the time, although there were no major conflicts in the world, things were still happening, such as the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and troubles in the Middle East (00:23:23:00) o The Hungarian Revolution was a major event and it reached the point that the personnel on the base thought they were going to go to war; the personnel had to have their duffel bags ready because the thinking was that if it went, the personnel would be shipped to Germany and operate there (00:23:40:00)  The Hungarian Revolution made Kloet’s job exciting because for a while, the Hungarians were beating back the Russians (00:24:01:00)  The strategic problem was whether the President of the United States would go to war but given the time period and the equipment available to the Americans, who had disarmed after the end of World War II, Kloet believes that the Russian could have run the Americans over just by sheer numbers (00:24:23:00) o Another crisis was when an American aircraft was shot down near the Russianheld Kurile Islands but again, nothing came of it; nevertheless, it kept the job interesting for Kloet (00:25:54:00) On one of his trips, Kloet received a three-day R&R and went to the small town of Nikko, which was a Buddhist/Shinto temple complex; Kloet ended up taking numerous photos of the temples, which were beautiful (00:25:14:00) Kloet also liked the food that was available, including a Hungarian restaurant in Tokyo run by a woman who had escaped from Hungary; it was at the restaurant that Kloet received his first introduction to real Hungarian goulash (00:26:41:00) o There were Japanese workers on the base doing a lot of support functions and there was a kiosk built on the base for Japanese food; the food at the kiosk was good and eventually, all the GIs were eating there, leaving nothing for the Japanese workers (00:27:08:00) o Although the GIs were eventually forbidden to eat at the kiosk, Kloet still went to Japanese restaurants in Tokyo and at one restaurant, tried sukiyaki made from Kobe beef, which, because the dollar was worth more than the yen at the time, was not that big of a thing for the soldiers (00:27:37:00) Kloet spent two years and two months in Japan, having extended his tour by two months over the standard two years (00:28:21:00) o If a soldier was unaccompanied, his deployment lasted two years and if a soldier was accompanied [by family], the deployment was three years, although there were not a lot of accompanied tours at the time (00:28:20:00) �  o At the time, a person’s promotion depended on which command he was in; Kloet was in the Security Command, where the promotions were terrible, although the general tests score for the personnel in the command were much higher than personnel in Strategic Air Command or Tactical Air Command (00:28:40:00)  Kloet scored extremely well in all the tests but the promotions still went to either SAC and TAC (00:29:13:00)  Kloet chose to extend his deployment because it appeared that a promotion would be coming for him with the next set of orders because he had climbed through the chain of command (00:29:28:00)  However, about a month before Kloet was to receive his promotion, a bunch of other personnel from came outside Security Command who had more seniority than Kloet and he was pushed back down the ladder (00:29:42:00) o When he was pushed back down the ladder, Kloet decided that his deployment was done after the two-month extension and he was done with the Air Force because he saw no future in remaining (00:29:56:00)  In the same time period, Kloet had applied for Officer Training School but was told he was too young and to apply the following year, which just acted like frosting on the cake for why he should get out (00:30:04:00) After Japan, Kloet returned to San Antonio but continued doing the same type of work, in the same type of buildings, although the buildings were air-conditioned (00:30:24:00) o Eventually, Kloet requested a drop from the Air Force so he could attend Michigan State University; Kloet applied for an early out and was accepted by Michigan State, so he got out in December 1958 (00:30:39:00) Once he was out of the military, Kloet packed his car and drove continually until he was out of Texas before stopping; Kloet returned home to drop his uniforms off before heading to Michigan State, which was on the quarter system at the time (00:31:09:00) o Kloet began at Michigan State as a “non-specific” student and did not have a major but was interested in Russia because of the work he had done in the Air Force; although he never learned the language, he knew some words and was interested in Russian geography and culture (00:31:32:00)  Kloet started off taking Russian language and literature before signing up for history courses and eventually declaring his major as Russian; Kloet took Russian history, Russian political science, and Soviet economics, as well as a German minor for his final two years (00:31:54:00) o When Kloet finished his degree, he thought about immediately continuing on to a Master’s Program and actually started the Master’s Program when he found out his Russian was intellectual (00:33:09:00)  Kloet had spent four years memorizing words, structure, and knowing how to put the right words in the right order yet when he started the Master’s Program, it was about the phonology of the language, which Kloet had not studied (00:33:20:00) o Going into the Master’s Program was actually Kloet’s plan “B” because he had applied for jobs, although the job pool for someone with a Russian degree and a background in signal’s intelligence was small, so Kloet applied to the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency (00:33:54:00) �  Kloet ended up with interviewing with the CIA at the University of Michigan but he heard nothing from either the CIA or NSA after that and because summer was coming, Kloet was getting anxious, so he applied for the Master’s Program, which took him in (00:34:31:00) Kloet did not even have to take an aptitude test for the Master’s Program because he had just completed four years and although the literature aspect of the program was fine, when they started discussing the phonology, he was completely out of it (00:35:29:00) The Central Intelligence Agency (00:36:01:00)  As he was going through grad school, Kloet was hating it but all of a sudden, he received a call from the CIA, who wanted Kloet to come down for an interview because they wanted to hire him (00:36:01:00) o By this time, things were getting financially tight for Kloet because he was paying for the graduate school and although he had had a small GI bill, it did not count towards anything (00:36:36:00)  Kloet agreed to the CIA’s offer and the CIA said they were going to send tickets to him via priority mail (00:36:50:00) o Kloet received the CIA offer on Monday and by Wednesday, he had the tickets, although he also received a call from the NSA, saying that they wanted to hire Kloet as well; however, Kloet decided to go with the CIA (00:37:02:00) o When they called, the CIA asked how much time would Kloet need to get there, so Kloet loaded all his possessions into a Volkswagen Beetle his father had helped him purchase and drove to Washington D.C., where the CIA paid for a hotel room in downtown (00:37:35:00) o The CIA sent Kloet and several others to school in downtown Washington for training for several months; at the same time, Kloet and the others were scheduled for polygraph tests (00:38:30:00)  That was Kloet’s first time with a polygraph test and although he has gone through several others, this was the only one where the questions were personal, asking about Kloet’s life (00:39:20:00)  There were two types of polygraphs, counter-intelligence and lifestyle; lifestyle tests covered every facet of someone’s personality, associations, feelings, and to make sure someone was not crazy (00:39:44:00) o As soon as someone passed their polygraph test, they went to a psychological evaluation and were then given a job (00:40:07:00)  Kloet passed all the tests and received a job working in the main CIA building, where he worked from January 1963 through August 1964 before he quit (00:40:23:00) o Kloet was considered a temporary employee, which meant he was only going to work at the CIA for two years, during which time he was evaluated (00:40:41:00)  At the time, the CIA had several missions and Kloet’s job was working in the Human Intelligence section; there were several support jobs in the section, such as editing paperwork, and that was where Kloet worked and it was a boring job (00:41:04:00) o Most of the workers with Kloet were in a test period and the only permanent employees were the supervisors and above; the work was simple but the supervisors were watching the workers at all times (00:41:20:00) �    o The work Kloet did was boring and the people who were the supervisors had either worked in the field but were declared persona non grata in whatever country they were stationed or the people had quirks or were divorcees or had some sort of physical or mental problem (00:41:48:00) o Kloet did not see any progress because he was not being trained for anything that he would do in the future (00:42:20:00)  Kloet would occasionally make contact with a person in another section but that was usually because there was a problem that needed to be rectified (00:42:29:00)  However, whenever Kloet would go someplace, he had to tell his supervisor because she was afraid he would try to get out of the job or was getting too smart and trying to take her job (00:42:41:00)  The other supervisor Kloet worked under was physically injured and needed mechanical assistance but always wanted to his workers were he could see them (00:42:54:00) Kloet did not like the work he did at the CIA and he eventually talked with a co-worker who was frustrated as well; the co-worker said that he was an officer in the National Guard and asked if Kloet had ever considered join the Army Reserves and getting a commission (00:43:11:00) o Kloet asked what he needed to do and the co-worker said Kloet needed to take a test and go before an officers’ review board that would evaluate him (00:43:31:00) o Kloet decided that he would try it, so he filled out the application, did all the things he was supposed to do, went before the review board, and the next thing he knew, Kloet was approved, so he was sworn into the Reserves, although he continued working at the CIA (00:43:47:00) Apart from being treated like he did not know anything, Kloet did not like working in an environment like that (00:44:21:00) o Eventually, the CIA told Kloet what their future plans were for him but he was not the type to go sneaking around, but he was told to take the offer or leave it; Kloet did not like the idea of being a spy and preferred bring in signals intelligence and doing that type of work (00:44:38:00) o Kloet’s commission into the Reserves was in the Army Intelligence Security, which was signals intelligence, which the CIA was not happy about; however, the CIA could not control the Department of the Army and which branch they gave Kloet a commission in (00:44:13:00) Due to all the frustration from his job at the CIA, Kloet eventually submitted a form requesting active duty, which was approved and he was told to report to Fort Devens, Massachusetts (00:45:37:00) o Kloet went into the CIA about a month before he was supposed to report to Fort Devens and said he was resigning, upon which the CIA immediately transferred him to another menial job within the same division, which just reinforced Kloet’s decision (00:46:00:00) When he went on active duty, Kloet went to train at Fort Devens, which used to be the home of the U.S. Army Security Service training school (00:46:25:00) �U.S. Army Security Service (00:46:46:00)  Kloet reported to Fort Devens in September 1964 and went through schooling there, which was enjoyable; Kloet stayed until December 5th then received orders to deploy over to Europe to join the U.S. Army Security Service Europe (USASE) (00:46:46:00) o Once he received the orders, Kloet returned home and dropped his car off with his father while also giving his father the power of attorney to sell the car (00:47:32:00)  After his leave, Kloet went to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, where the Air Force flew him and several others first to Gander, Newfoundland, then to Ireland and finally to Frankfurt, Germany (00:48:04:00)  When Kloet arrived in Frankfurt, there was a driver and an officer waiting in a sedan to pick him up and take him to the headquarters for processing, although Kloet did not know yet what his specific assignment was going to be (00:48:54:00) o During the processing, the Army placed Kloet in a building across the street from the headquarters and after he was processed, Kloet received orders to go to Berlin to be assigned to the security unit there (00:49:20:00) o Kloet was told that when he went to Berlin, he was to wear civilian clothing and would be considered a civilian; however, Kloet had his hair cut in a military fashion and only had a single civilian outfit, so he had to rush and find civilian clothes because the duty train for Berlin was leaving within a week (00:50:08:00)  Kloet also needed a passport, a civilian I.D. card, and several other items, so the Army had someone escort him around the expedite the entire process (00:50:30:00) o Once Kloet got onto the duty train, he had his passport with him and once the train crossed the border at Helmstadt, it went straight into Berlin; at Helmstadt, Russians came aboard the train and Kloet gave them his passport, although he does not know what the Russians did with it before returning (00:50:46:00)  Once Kloet made it to Berlin, he was met by members of the security team he was going to be a member of; in Berlin, Kloet was housed in bachelor officers’ quarters (BOQs) near the headquarters for the Berlin Brigade; between the BOQs and the Berlin Brigade Headquarters was a PX and a sports stadium (00:51:20:00) o The room Kloet was assigned was nice, with large windows, a kitchen, a bathroom and a cleaning person assigned to him who, for twenty bucks a month, would clean, wash dishes, and iron Kloet’s clothes (00:52:11:00)  Kloet also bought an old Volkswagen Beetle from a soldier who was leaving (00:52:43:00) o Kloet worked in Berlin from December 1964 until August 1965, when he received orders to report back to Frankfurt because his slot in the unit was vacated and no longer needed to be filled because of budgetary reasons (00:53:06:00)  After returning to Frankfurt, Kloet was assigned to a service company, but joined a detachment of the company based near the main train station in Frankfurt (00:54:11:00) o After arriving at the detachment, Kloet received the de-facto position of being the detachment commander; the previous detachment commander had rotated home, so the Army gave Kloet the position without officially slotting him into it (00:54:42:00) � o In Kloet’s particular specialty, if the Army wanted to keep a soldier, then they could keep the soldier, not matter how much the soldier fought against it; the only way someone could get out at the time was to volunteer for Vietnam (00:55:06:00) o Kloet wanted to do the work he had been doing while in Berlin, which was where his Russian and German were the most beneficial; however, Kloet did such a good job, the Army decided to keep him with the detachment (00:55:22:00) o Nevertheless, despite living like a king with the detachment, that was not how Kloet wanted to spend the rest of his deployment in Europe, doing management tasks, such as: assigning KP duty, promotions boards, and inspections (00:56:06:00) Eventually, Kloet put in a volunteer request to deploy to Vietnam and although his commanders did not like the decision, they could not stop him, so Kloet left Germany in June 1966 for Fort Bragg, North Carolina to process for overseas replacement into a combat zone (00:56:42:00) o At Fort Bragg, Kloet and the other replacements went through gas chambers, uniform replacement, and firing weapons (00:57:09:00) o The training was for roughly three months, from June until September, before Kloet left to deploy to Vietnam (00:57:34:00) Vietnam Deployment (00:58:11:00)  When he deployed to Vietnam, Kloet thought he would be flying to Vietnam; initially, Kloet and other soldiers flew from Pope Air Force Base, south of Fort Bragg, on a chartered airliner to Travis Air Force Base in California (00:58:11:00) o The next thing he knew, Kloet and the other soldiers were loaded on a boat at the Oakland Army terminal, a two-stack troop transport (00:58:54:00) o The transport sailed from Oakland to Tacoma, Washington to pick up artillery soldiers from Fort Lewis, Washington; Kloet was part of a specific “packet” of roughly fifty soldiers, officers included, deploying to Saigon (00:59:19:00) o Once the transport got out into the ocean, a few things happened: first, one of the men in the packet developed severe asthma and although there was a doctor on the transport, he did not have the drugs to take care of the asthma (00:59:50:00)  Worried about whether the soldier would survive, the crew diverted the transport close enough to Okinawa that an amphibious aircraft could fly out and pick up the soldier (01:00:48:00) o The transport continued on its course and landed in Okinawa, where everyone was given an overnight liberty; the next day, drunk soldiers were coming back to the ship and some were purposely diving over the rails of the ship and into the water (01:01:18:00) o Once everyone got back aboard the transport and had made it a good way to Vietnam, the soldiers were told that the order of debarkation had to be changed because of an enemy offensive in the northern part of the country (01:01:46:00)  The change in debarkation meant the soldiers landed in Nha Trang, in the northern part of South Vietnam (01:02:04:00) o The entire voyage took thirty-one days, so it was getting into October by the time the soldiers left the transport (01:02:12:00) �   o Apart from the soldiers on the ship, there were also supplies for the soldiers; however, because the debarkation order had changed, all the supplies were in the order for all the units as the transport sailed up the coast (01:02:20:00)  Instead, the supplies were placed on floating barges in the Bay of Nha Trang while the transport was off-loaded and re-loaded in the new order for the voyage down the coast (01:02:43:00) o In Na Trang, some soldiers off-loaded who were supposed to head north because of the enemy offensive; after Nha Trang, the transport sailed to Qui Nhon and Cam Ranh Bay before finally arriving in Vung Tau (01:02:54:00) Once at Vung Tau, the remaining soldiers off-loaded from the troop transport to a smaller landing craft, which took them to the shore (01:03:48:00) o Near where soldiers, including some tankers who were joining the 11th Cavalry, were waiting was an airstrip made from metal, PSP strips (01:03:52:00) o Eventually, C-123s picked up Kloet and sixty-three other soldiers and took them all to Bien Hoa Air Force Base, which the airplanes were not supposed to do (01:04:20:00) o When the soldiers arrived at Bien Hoa, the packet commander, a captain, went into operations with the packet’s shipping orders but the personnel in operations told the captain the packet as supposed to be in Saigon, so the personnel said that they would make contact to move the soldiers (01:04:53:00)  The soldiers waited at Bien Hoa before buses and a couple of trucks finally came up; the soldiers loaded on the buses and their equipment went onto the back of the trucks (01:05:29:00)  The temperature was extremely hot and on the bus, the windows were kept up with screening over the front of them for grenades to bounce off of (01:05:46:00) o Once aboard the buses, the soldiers rode to a compound in a district of Saigon; although the permanent enlisted quarters were already in the compound, the officers were given temporary quarters in a hotel across the street (01:06:10:00) When they arrived, the soldiers were assigned to work at the Combined Intelligence Center, which was in a temporary structure while their permanent structure was being built at the time (01:06:38:00) o After receiving their quarters at a hotel in downtown Saigon, the officers were bused to where their soldiers were stay, in an old Air Force hanger on Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base that had been partitioned into a two-floor structure (01:06:54:00) o As the soldiers started settling in, Kloet had still not adapted to the heat; it was the “dry” season, so the temperatures were elevated (01:07:22:00) Eventually, the soldiers were moved into the permanent structure on Tan Son Nhut and most of them were assigned to work in the Ground Order Battle section (01:07:36:00) o Within the section, there were teams that corresponded to the different sections of Vietnam: I Corps, II Corps, III Corps, IV Corps, Laos / Cambodia, and North Vietnam, and the sections were all headed by officers and a warrant officer, (01:07:55:00) �Kloet was a 1st Lieutenant assigned to the 1st team, which covered I Corps and worked as the night branch chief with a lieutenant colonel was the night commander (01:08:22:00) o Eventually, Kloet took over command of the Ground Order Battle section because he received a promotion; the position basically involved writing efficiency reports, supervising production, receiving distribution and controlling an incidents team (01:08:41:00)  The incidents team worked out of Kloet’s office and took the data produced by the section teams and processed the information into a computer database (01:09:12:00) The section did studies on both the South Vietnamese Army and enemy infiltrations, such as the size and weaponry of the enemy unit (01:09:49:00) o Initially, the section relied heavily on the Vietnamese data, although they were having the same problems as the Americans, an overall lack of intelligence (01:10:16:00) o In 1966, the section was using a lot of “agent reports”, which were reports write by a military intelligence group that Kloet’s battalion was a part of (01:10:36:00)  The military intelligence group had battalions that collected intelligence in the form of agent reports; however, it was very difficult to verify any information that was in the reports (01:11:00:00) o Nobody gave the agent reports much credence; the only reports that received credence, apart from reports received from the Vietnamese, was information captured by American soldiers, such as enemy orders (01:11:22:00)  There was a document translation center in the same compound as Kloet’s unit where they translated any captured enemy information (01:11:39:00)  The section did not receive any signals intelligence because nobody within the section was cleared for that (01:11:55:00) o When an American unit made contact with the enemy at specific coordinates, the information was feed into the computer and basic map was printed out with dots and numbers correlating to every incident in the country, although the numbers did not differentiate between whether a report was real or fake (01:12:31:00)  However, in the more heavily contested areas, there were large concentrations of dots and finding a pattern became difficult; nevertheless, the information from each incident was stored in a database and with program, could be extracted (01:13:19:00)  Using the information from the printouts and the database, the soldiers in the section were able to create studies (01:13:38:00) o Kloet worked in the section for a year and in that time, the soldiers made several important studies, such as the actually number of NVA (01:13:49:00) At one point, a lieutenant colonel from the production division of MACV came to the unit; the production division was a major part of J-2 and worked to print the intelligence reports (01:14:16:00) o The lieutenant colonel came down after the section did a study about the number of enemy soldiers in country (the total strength of both NVA and VC units in South Vietnam) and came up with a figure around 300,000 (01:14:44:00)    �  MACV disagreed, believing that the figure was too large, although CIA intelligence supported the section’s study (01:15:02:00) o There was to be a large conference using the section’s study, which the soldiers had meticulously created using the information from their database and the commanders wanted to make sure the information was accurate (01:15:20:00) o The section had an adding machine and one of the incidents team members was very good with it but the lieutenant colonel insisted that an officer do it, so Kloet had the lieutenant in charge of the incidents team run the machine (01:16:08:00)  When the figures were run again and they came back to what the section had first reported, so they were given to a colonel whom the soldiers in the section thought understood the information (01:16:47:00)  However, like a lot of people who thought promotions were more important than doing what was right, the colonel went to the conference, where the study, which the entire section had spent a large amount of time work on, was thrown out (01:17:05:00) o The section had compiled the report on enemy troop strength in the spring and in August 1967, a Colonel Graham, later general, came along and became the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (01:17:34:00)  Graham was a soldier whose star appeared to be on the rise and when the Army wanted a study done about the ability of the enemy to perform offensives in the South, Kloet’s section reported that the enemy could conduct divisional-sized offensives and attacks (01:18:26:00) o The section’s original reports were thrown out at the conference because Sec. Of Defense McNamara was fighting with the director of the CIA (01:19:14:00) Colonel Graham eventually left and Kloet rotated out and back to Fort Bragg; however, in January 1968, the Tet Offensive occurred, with the enemy operating in divisions and making attacks throughout South Vietnam (01:20:20:00) Inter-deployment (01:21:17:00)  Kloet stayed at Fort Bragg until March 1968 before volunteering to leave; while at Fort Bragg, Kloet managed to miss the Tet Offensive (01:21:17:00) o While at Fort Bragg, Kloet was a commander in the headquarters service company; within service units, there was a headquarters company and Kloet was the company commander (01:21:33:00)  Kloet had responsibility for all the barracks, the motor pool, and supplies for the battalion headquarters (01:21:53:00) o The battalion Kloet joined was aerial reconnaissance support, which used planes to take photographs and imagery interpreters to analyze the pictures (01:22:09:00)  However, because of the war, none of the units were at full strength; the headquarters company alone was larger than the rest of the detachments in the battalion (01:22:32:00) o There would be problems with supply or the motor pool and it did not seem to be getting any better, whereas in Vietnam, Kloet at least knew where the enemy was; nevertheless, Kloet managed to get the unit organized (01:22:57:00) �  In December, Kloet came down with an illness and spent two weeks in a hospital; although he had not thought about going back to Vietnam, while he was in the hospital, the battalion commander allowed Kloet’s supply sergeant to get an early drop and deploy to Germany (01:23:25:00) o The deployment of the supply sergeant should have taken place while Kloet was there because when Kloet returned to the company, he was given a supply sergeant who came in and told Kloet that they were in trouble because some things, such as sheets, pillowcases, and blankets, were missing (01:24:04:00)  At the time, a lot of the major equipment was moved around so much that most people did not know where it was but because they were large items, they were squared away quickly; however, the missing sheets and pillowcases indicated that some trading had been going on (01:24:34:00) o The supply sergeant was a good trader, so he went to friends who were assigned to a basic training brigade and was able to get some trainees help him with the inventories (01:24:48:00) o After new supply sergeant did the inventories, the unit wound up missing six watches, which at the time, had individual serial numbers that were kept in the property book as property of the arm (01:25:13:00)  The boxes were on the shelves but the watches were not in the boxes, so they sent a letter to Germany and the deployed former supply sergeant had to pay money for the watches (01:25:32:00) As Kloet was getting everything organized the way that the battalion commander wanted, Kloet felt that nothing looked like it was going to last (01:25:56:00) o When he first got the job, Kloet opened his desk and inside were two full and a handful of partially full bottles of Maalox; Kloet never met his predecessor but after going through the process of organizing everything, Kloet understood why his predecessor drank the Maalox (01:26:16:00) o Expect for the commander, who was a colonel, and his deputy, who was a major, Kloet was the senior officer on the battalion staff, although he was only a captain, which was not typical of battalion staffs (01:26:42:00)  As part of the battalion staff, Kloet had: a terminal infantry officer incharge of supply who was close to getting out and did nothing; a warrant officer in charge of the motor pool who, although he was in maintenance, was in artillery maintenance, which had nothing to do with working with vehicles; no personnel officer apart from a 2nd Lieutenant; and no operations officer (01:27:16:00) o Once, there was to be an inspection of the motor pool, so Kloet was ordered to get the motor pool ready, so he had sent a detail from the headquarters company to go down and maintain the vehicles; however, the soldiers in detail were misused by warrant officer, who wanted the soldiers to take care of paperwork (01:28:04:00)  Because unit would get in trouble because of the motor pool, Kloet told his first sergeant that they needed to place another sergeant in charge of the detail to supervise the vehicle maintenance (01:28:52:00)  However, the warrant officer did not go to Kloet but went to the major or the colonel and complained that Kloet was interfering with what the �   warrant officer was doing, so Kloet had to go up to explained himself and the colonel agreed with him (01:29:08:00) The situations within the battalion were making Vietnam look good, so in January 1968, Kloet put in a request to volunteer for Vietnam (01:29:39:00) o After the request, the Army sent him to Fort Holabird, Maryland, to receive training to be tactical intelligence staff officer, which was the first course the Army had done that; the Army realized they needed trained company-level captains and below in the battalions if the battalions were going to accomplish anything (01:30:05:00)  The battalions were not able to just go into the jungle, manage to bump into the enemy, and expect to be successful (01:30:28:00)  Kloet ended up being the class leader and stayed from March until the end of May (01:30:38:00) Once he completed the course at the end of May, Kloet received a leave then flew to Saigon, where he went through the Long Binh Army Replacement Depot (01:30:52:00) o From Long Binh, Kloet traveled to Cam Ranh Bay and Nha Trang; Kloet had to go to the different bases because the airlines did not fly directly to the corps headquarters in Na Traing (01:31:21:00) o From Na Traing, Kloet went to Pleiku then to the division area at Ban Me Thuot before finally joining his team (01:31:48:00) A problem Kloet and his soldiers faced at the time was determining correct figure numbers for enemy troop strength (01:32:31:00) o Many times when units would go into the field and make contact with the enemy, they did not have time to make a correct count of every enemy soldier who was killed in that particular contact; as well, it was difficult to count specific casualties if a bomb was dropped on an area (01:32:39:00) o The Army had developed a formula and although Kloet does not remember the exact parameters, for every one dead enemy on the ground that the soldiers counted, there was an assumption that so many enemy soldiers were carried away because the enemy tended to carry their wounded and killed away (01:33:03:00)  The Army also applied the formula to wounded enemy soldiers, as the soldiers would see blood trails and could make assumptions about the number of wounded (01:33:43:00) o The soldiers also managed to capture information from the enemy and as time went on, they captured more paper intelligence which helped form enemy unit structures (01:33:59:00)  For example, if soldiers captured an enemy or found a piece of paper saying the enemy was from a specific unit within a larger unit, depending of the structure, Kloet and the other soldiers might not know anything about the soldier’s unit beyond the soldier’s platoon (01:34:26:00)  However, Kloet and the soldiers were able to marry different pieces of information and come to conclusions about the enemy units (01:34:38:00) o According to the information that the Vietnamese provided would say that an NVA division had “x” number of soldiers as its strength (01:34:47:00) �o Nevertheless, following large engagements, Kloet and others had no way of comparing how the actual casualty numbers compared to the strength of the enemy unit, which was were the formulas came from (01:35:07:00)  At the time, when someone would ask for information about a specific enemy unit, Kloet and his soldiers would provide a six-month history of the unit, stating the number of engagements they had been involved in and the number of casualties, which where then subtracted from the overall enemy unit’s strength (01:35:15:00)  However, the soldiers did not know the number of replacements that the unit received in that time, although the studies on infiltration helped somewhat (01:35:52:00)  Still, the infiltration studies only gave figures once the enemy forces entered Vietnam because the Americans had been pounding the forces all the way down the Ho Chi Minh trail (01:36:04:00) o As time went on, up until 1967 and 1968, there was not a good handle on the information about the combat effectiveness of the unit, especially in the southern areas; in the northern areas, there were a lot of big contacts (01:36:21:00) o The formulas the Army developed only supplied Kloet and the other soldiers with an approximate enemy strength but the fact that the figures Kloet and the others were getting was close to what the CIA provided them made the soldiers feel like they were on the right track; however, those figures did not match up with the figures that people in the Pentagon had (01:36:45:00)  For example, if something happened in Saigon, a report had to be at the Pentagon as soon as possible and the people in the Pentagon were making decisions based on what they were given directly (01:37:07:00)  Kloet recalls one time, during his second tour, when there was a contact with the enemy; that night, Kloet was in the bunker as the staff dutyofficer and the enemy was firing mortar shells that were landing on the roof of the bunker (01:37:32:00)  Kloet received a call from the higher headquarters in Nha Trang because they were receiving reports from other units and the headquarters wanted to know what direction the mortars were coming from (01:37:59:00)  Although he wanted to go off, Kloet said he did not know, ending the conversation; Kloet then talked with his colonel, telling him that the higher-ups wanted to know the direction of the mortar fire but the colonel told Kloet not to worry about it (01:38:21:00) o Much has been written about the micro-management of the Johnson Administration and Kloet always felt that although he disagreed with Kennedy, he had a handle on the Pentagon and could control those people, whereas Johnson seemed to let the McNamara and the others control the war while Johnson focused on his social agenda (01:39:00:00)  Therefore, Kloet feels that Johnson would react to a situation instead of making policy (01:39:47:00) �  o At Kloet’s level, he and his soldiers took whatever information they had and tried to stick it into some sort of order; nevertheless, Kloet and his soldiers were not privy to the high-level signals intelligence (01:40:38:00)  The Vietnamese general in charge of intelligence would talk with the Vietnamese working with Kloet and also sat in with the higher-level American intelligence officers; often, when the American’s presented information, the general said that the Vietnamese knew the information months before (01:40:54:00) Every day during his first tour, Kloet had contact with the Vietnamese intelligence because the Vietnamese and Americans worked as a combined unit (01:41:45:00) o However, whereas the Americans rotated soldiers in and out of the unit, the Vietnamese soldiers were permanent and many of the Vietnamese soldiers were bright but they never received recognition for being bright (01:42:07:00) o For whatever reason, the decision was made to allow a coup d’etat against the ruling Vietnamese administration and the decision was made that the Americans would run the war and get it to the point that they could turn the war over to the Vietnamese (01:42:56:00)  After the decision, the fighting went from counter-insurgency to an almost full-scale, linear war with divisions against divisions and battalions against battalions (01:43:18:00)  Nevertheless, Kloet feels that the decision exacerbated the problem because the more the Americans built up, the more forces the enemy sent in (01:43:30:00) While Kloet was in Saigon from 1966 to 1967, there was not fighting within the city, although there were incidents, particularly involving Saigon Annie (01:43:50:00) o Saigon Annie was a Viet Cong who rode on the back of a motorcycle and shooting at Americans who were at bus stops (01:43:57:00)  Stories about the shootings appeared in Stars & Stripes but Annie made a mistake when, one time, she approached the bus stop just outside an American base (01:44:10:00)  One of the Air Force police was at the bus stop and was armed with a shotgun; when he saw what the happening, the officer fired his shotgun, destroying Annie, the motorcycle driver and the motorcycle (01:44:41:00) o There were several nice restaurants in the city that the soldiers were able to visit, including a restaurant that served better French onion soup than what Kloet ate while in Europe (01:45:33:00)  A friend of Kloet’s, whom Kloet had attended college with, was also assigned to Saigon as part of a transportation unit and the two would get together at various times to go to dinner (01:45:36:00) o Eventually, the Army moved Kloet and the others into Cholon, which was the Chinese section of the city, although according to the map the soldiers had, their new location was close to an enemy company (01:46:01:00)  The Army then decided it was too dangerous for the officers, so they moved the officers again and Kloet was sent to a location along the road into Cholon, where he stayed for the remainder of his tour (01:46:21:00) �  o When the soldiers moved throughout the city, they did not take their weapons; the only major threat had been Saigon Annie and she was dead (01:47:10:00)  Nevertheless, there were some locations, such as Cholon, where the soldiers were advised not to go (01:47:21:00) Once Kloet got back to Fort Bragg, although there were a lot of military people around because it was a large base, they had been considered second-class citizens for a long time up until that point, especially with the war going on (01:47:53:00) o Several times, Kloet received letters from jewelry stores saying that a soldier had purchased a diamond ring but was not paying; Kloet would go to his commanding officer to ask if the Army had become a collection agency and the officer told Kloet to the store that they would do everything the could to get the soldier to pay his bills (01:48:30:00)  Kloet would ended up writing a letter saying that the Army would trying to get the soldier to pay his bills but that was it (01:48:59:00) o In Fayetteville, outside of the base, the soldiers were considered intruders although the base had been there for a long time (01:49:28:00)  The issue never became important until there were discussions about closing the base down, which caused changes in the attitudes towards the soldiers (01:49:37:00) During his second tour, Kloet worked as the intelligence advisor to the Vietnamese intelligence officer at the province capital (01:51:05:00) o There were also district levels and they had intelligence but the Americans did not have advisors at the district level; there was one but after he left, the Army did not fill the position (01:51:16:00) o Kloet dealt with a Vietnamese captain and Kloet’s job with the captain was Kloet had funds to pay for intelligence while the captain had to provide monthly receipts for what he had spent the funds on, such as paying his sources or buying equipment for his soldiers (01:52:10:00)  Kloet then had to report and turn in the receipts before getting more money (01:52:46:00) o As well, Kloet kept a journal, the only time he was able to do so; using cryptic abbreviations, Kloet reported what happened during any given day (01:52:58:00) o Every day, Kloet and his two workers had to write an intelligence report and send it to higher headquarters via telegraph but because of the programs with the telegraphs, he would often need to make copies of the reports and send them by courier (01:53:48:00)  Other times, such as the incident with the mortars, information went out as a spot report about what had happened (01:54:30:00) o Kloet also gave briefings to visiting personnel, including current Senator John McCain’s father, an admiral (01:54:58:00)  When Admiral McCain visited, the soldiers rehearsed their presentations, including overlays and markers for enemy and friendly positions (01:55:20:00)  The soldiers had a defined timeframe for the briefing before the Admiral had to leave so Kloet began the briefing but during the briefing, the Admiral came onto the platform (01:56:29:00) �  However, Kloet was given fifteen minutes maximum for his briefing and as he got to the end of it, the Admiral came up and began asking for explanations, so Kloet was not explaining his briefing but also explaining what had happened within the last month (01:58:29:00) Kloet began talking about past operations and activities, which lasted for about half an hour (01:58:57:00) � 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 KloetR1071V1 Title A name given to the resource Kloet, Ronald (Interview outline and video, 1 of 3), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kloet, Ronald Description An account of the resource Ron Kloet was born on August 8th, 1936 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After graduating from high school and briefly attending Davenport University, Kloet enlisted in the Air Force in 1955. After completing his basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, Kloet transferred to nearby Kelly Air Force Base for "radio intercept traffic analyst" training. Once he completed the training at Kelly, Kloet deployed to Shiroi Air Force Base in Japan. Because advancement in his branch was difficult, once his two-year deployment was complete, Kloet chose to get out of the Air Force and enrolled at Michigan State University to study for a Russian degree. After completing his Bachelor's Degree, Kloet briefly thought about continuing for a Master's Degree but instead decided to take a job working for the CIA. However, the job was not what Kloet had expected, so he eventually re-enlisted in the Army and after leaving the CIA and receiving additional training at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, Kloet deployed to Germany. Kloet moved around several units in Germany, eventually ending up as the de facto leader of a detachment in a town outside of Frankfurt. However, that was not the work Kloet expected to do, so he put in a transfer request to Vietnam and after training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, deployed to Vietnam. Once in Vietnam, Kloet stayed in Saigon working as part of the intelligence services, creating reports about enemy infiltration rates and troop strengths. After his tour, Kloet returned to Fort Bragg in March 1968, missing the Tet Offensive before deploying for a second tour as an intelligence advisor at a province capital. (see parts 2 and 3 for rest of career) Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army United States. Air Force Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-02-24 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/9f7e6a09460306f0857d8914dd4d4801.mp4 f62af69128f319771fbae86365874c06 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9b056235a30093d3939a0ea142923815.pdf e0f20ee03f8e8a02642e3c2f141d1746 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Thaddeus Kling (43:17) (00:01) Background Information • • • • • Ted worked at Brunswick in Muskegon, MI before the war He finished the 8th grade and then went to work on a farm Ted plowed for 30 cents an hour on a dairy farm They didn’t hear much news so he didn’t know what was going on overseas He heard about Pearl Harbor from a newspaper when he went into town (06:22) Training • • • • • • • Ted was drafted in Muskegon and sent to Fort Custer, MI After basic training he was sent to Fort Sill, OK They sent him there because he had a high IQ He taught people how to drive and work on cars When he was in basic training he thought it was fun and was used to a lot of exercise After a year he was promoted up to a first class sergeant He helped run C Battery [308th Field Artillery, attached to the 78th Division] (14:04) Deployment • • • • • • • • • • • • • • They landed in Bournemouth, England It took them 3 days to cross the English Channel because of the bombings and U-Boats They landed in Le Havre, France towards the end of 1943 [1944] Ted fought in the Hurtgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge, and Remagen Bridge Their first combat was in October 1943 [1944] They were hit with friendly fire when they first got into Germany by the Air Corps His unit fired 105mm and 155mm guns The observers went ahead and then came back to direct the fire up to 6 miles away Each gun had a leader and 5 helpers They were never fired upon Ted was at the Bulge for 3 months and couldn’t clean or change clothes He went forward observing occasionally After the Bulge they went to Remagen on the Rhine They fired constantly for three days and nights (33:44) War Ends • The war ended the day after they captured 5,000 soldiers �• • They got ready to go to Japan through Russia, but the war ended Ted was glad to get out of the Army � 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 KlingT Title A name given to the resource Kling, Thaddeus (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kling, Thaddeus Description An account of the resource Thaddeus Kling grew up working on a farm in Muskegon, Michigan. He was drafted and trained in Oklahoma where he made first class sergeant and helped run the C Battery of the 308th Field Artillery. He fought at the Hurtgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge, and at Remagen Bridge. At Remagen Bridge they fired constantly for 3 days and 3 nights. The day before the war was over they captured 5,000 Germans. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Montagna, Douglas (Interviewer) Great Lakes Naval Memorial & Museum (Muskegon, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) Video recordings United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 2008-06-30 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 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text 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/dbd65a6ea740300e489dbac9ffe89166.mp4 6fa780ad9d2f9b4417edd8f6e56920c9 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/865eedf4b4fd4eeca8bcf8f0af184365.pdf 961295df66a775fd09d2d6b645fa7d0a PDF Text Text Morris Kleiman (2:12:51) (00:05) Background Information • • • • • • • • • Morris was born in Grand Rapids and he grew up there as well His grandfather had moved to Boston before World War One His family opened up their own cleaning and pressing business His grandfather had previously been a miller, working with farmers They eventually moved to Grand Rapids, MI, where his father met his mother Morris’ parents got married right before World War One Morris graduated in 1941 from South High School He had been in the ROTC from 10th-12th grade where he was an officer His family was Jewish, but he did not have a clear picture of what was going on in Germany until after the war (08:35) News of Events in Europe • • • • Morris kept a scrapbook while in high school and closely followed the beginning of the war He used to collect foreign stamps and knew a lot about other foreign countries; he was also interested in politics Morris thought that he would eventually be drafted, but he attempted to get through as much college as possible before that happened He went to Grand Rapids Junior College for one year and to the University of Michigan for a few semesters after that (13:05) Training • • • • • • • • Morris was first sent to Fort Custer, in Battle Creek, MI The men had to take written exams to determine where they would be placed The exams were very simple for Morris and he got a high score, so more was expected of him Morris was sent to Minnesota where he stayed for three weeks He was then sent to Atlantic City because he had a broken nose, so he was put on limited service in a wait station He went to Mississippi for special training school to be a supply clerk Then to Louisiana to an Air Base to work with another supply group His job was to check air planes to make sure that they were properly supplied to travel overseas (16:40) Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) �• • • • • • • • Morris started the ASTP in June of 1944, where there were many other college-educated men They trained here in Texas for three months The Army had been in need of infantry men and took the whole ASTP engineering program to fill the positions Morris then began infantry training, but none of the others liked him and the men from the engineering program because they were the “smart college boys” Looking back, Morris is now glad that he got the infantry experience They received little training and were sent overseas in September While in the South, Morris did not feel that he got to experience any real Southern culture because he had been alienated inside the training camp He also felt that the Germans had better training and weapons than the Americans (28:00) Barracks in England • • • Morris remembered a small brick barracks that only held three squads While they were staying there, their lieutenant had told them to get ready because they would be meeting their enemy in 24 hours After that, everyone was scared and wrote what they thought was their final letters to their family (31:15) The Trip Overseas • • • During the trip Morris was sick most of the time, but helped with paperwork when he was feeling better They only had a few U-Boat scares, in which they went into “quiet time” They traveled in a large convoy, leaving in September of 1944 and it took them 2 weeks to reach their destination (33:20) England • • • • • • They based near Portsmouth, which was very foggy, but had a beautiful country side The local people here were very friendly They marched everyday on the country roads Morris and others had to watch World War One movies to help train, but they did not help because they portrayed lots of hand-to-hand combat; whereas the Germans he fought were always at least 200 yards away They eventually met with some infantry landing craft boats on the beach Then the men were loaded up on trucks and sent to Belgium (38:20) Belgium • Morris and others moved to the front lines to take over �• • • • • • • • The men were all spread out and dug fox holes It was very cold and there was barbed wire fencing and tanks all around The Germans were better off because they were staying in bunkers Many of his superiors had little or no experience and they were only in their early thirties Morris was in the front line from October through December, until the Battle of the Bulge It snowed every day for 5 weeks and they were only given one hot meal per week Morris’ squad had 12 men, the company platoon had 40; there were 3 platoons and 1 platoon per barrack The men were spread out over a stretch of three miles, but in other areas they were stretched out over eight miles (46:30) Reconnaissance • Morris went out on reconnaissance missions once a week at night time • They had to cut through barb wire fences and get very close to German forces • Morris set up automatic rifles and helped to cover who ever might be in front of him • The Germans were less spread out and not so much in the open field • The Germans would freely light cigarettes at night because they were not worried about the Americans seeing them (51:15) Retreat • The men had been told that they had to get out of the line quickly • It ended up a big mess and no one knew what was going on • They found themselves in an open field with lots of tanks burning and carnage • Many just slept there in the field because they were too tired to go on any further • Morris woke up every morning to artillery fire (54:40) The Hospital • Morris was sick in the hospital when he heard the news that someone had tried to kill Eisenhower • Many of the men around Morris were very sad during Christmas time • Morris was sent to a different hospital in France that was very nice • He was then put in the Paris Grand Hotel, but he had been too sick to enjoy it • They crossed the channel to another hospital in England (58:00) The States • Morris was never completely healthy again until he had got home and been married for a while • He went back to Fort Custer and was married in less than a year • His wife had done office work at Fort Custer �• • • • • • Morris did not enjoy the military and could not like to get back to civilian life The Army made him appreciate everything else and be more positive; it was a necessary evil for him Morris had been receiving unemployment checks and wanted to go back to school He went back to the University of Michigan from 1946-47 and got his BBA, majoring in accounting He eventually took over his family business where he worked for 25 years, and then sold the company He has spent the rest of his life in Grand Rapids, MI working with the Jewish community � 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 KleimanM Title A name given to the resource Kleiman, Morris (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kleiman, Morris Description An account of the resource Morris Kleiman was drafted into the Army for WW II and started his training at Fort Custer in Battle Creek, Michigan. He had closely followed the events in Europe prior to being drafted and was also attending college at the University of Michigan. Morris had fought on the front lines against the Germans in Belgium and had done some reconnaissance work. He eventually got very sick and was sent back to the United States. After his time in the service, Morris finished his degree in accounting and took over his family business. 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.) Video recordings United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans 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 2007-11-29 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/eada55c0165e29ba6e22b432193ff6ff.mp4 82b8929a1ed247d1aedf5babd7b6f6ec https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/565e6b629ab2d44656baa7b568048b2d.pdf f39c38a4ad9e84a06643793a0fa8028c PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Ben Kleiman (46:55) Background Information (00:35)                Born on July 17th 1918 in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. (00:38) His family ran a clothing store in Grand Rapids, Michigan (00:45) Both of Ben’s parents were born in Russia. (1:06) He grew up and attended school in Grand Rapids. (2:00) Due to poor economic climate, Ben’s family was forced to sell their house and move to another part of Grand Rapids. (3:00) He graduated from high school in 1936.(3:20) In 1937 Ben attended junior college. (3:40) Due to lack of money, Ben did not stay in college. (3:50) On Ben’s first attempt to enlist in the army after Pearl Harbor, he was turned down, so he went ahead and got married. (4:10) He was then drafted in 1943 and listed as qualified for limited service. (4:22) He was unable to register for the draft prior to 1943 due to poor eye sight. (4:49) From 1940-1943 before being drafted, Ben worked as a shoe salesman. (5:05) Ben was visiting friends when he heard the news of the Pearl Harbor attack. (6:06) Before this, he had been paying attention to what was going on in the world. (6:35) After receiving his draft notice, Ben was sent to Battle Creek, Michigan, where he received interviews and was inducted into the U.S. Army. (7:05) Basic Training (7:25)   He took basic training at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin (7:30) Basic was short, lasting only 6 weeks. (7:47) Service at Camp Reynolds (7:50)         After Basic training he was sent to Camp Reynolds in Pennsylvania and was assigned to work in an office where the soldiers were processed to be sent overseas. (7:50) Ben received an office job due to his ability to type and his experience with dealing with paper work. (8:25)] Basic training was mostly physical work. (9:12) Ben was older (at age 25 than) the other soldiers. (9:50) Camp Reynolds was close to several small towns. (10:20) Camp Reynolds was a replacement depot. Often soldiers had gone AWOL from this camp. (10:57) 70-80% of the soldiers that went AWOL from Ben’s camp were found. (12:00) Because he was married, Ben was allowed to live off base with his wife. He worked an 8-4:30 day 5 days a week. (12:35) �   Television, movies, and radio were available at Fort Reynolds for the soldiers' entertainment. (13:30) Every person in Ben’s office had a specific job. The office was well supplied. (14:59) Ben’s commanding officer kept a “tight ship.” (16:00) Service in Alaska (17:00)           The men were interviewed to replace typists at another location. The men were not told were they would be sent. (17:10) The men were not aware of where they were traveling until they arrived at a camp in Vancouver, Canada. (18:09) The men were moved to Alaska in the fall of 1944. (18:45) The men were sent to Alaska via a cruise ship. There were civilians on the ship. (19:15) He was sent to Camp Richardson near Anchorage, Alaska. (20:27) When he arrived Ben was placed in G1 (personnel) and made head of the Awards and Casualties department. He reported suicides and fatal accidents that occurred overseas. (20:33) Men were required to make, at times, 17 copies of documents to be sent to filing cabinets, Washington D.C. and newspapers. (22:27) Aside from awards and casualties, Ben was passed for top secret and worked on were particular soldiers were placed. (23:56) The headquarters in Alaska was not connected to forces in the Aleutian islands. (25:10) Ben and other office workers assigned soldiers to particular maintenance position around the base such as cooks. (25:45) Life at Camp Richardson (26:00)          His wife did not move with Ben to Alaska. (26:20) Ben lived in a barracks. (27:00) For entertainment, the men would commonly go skiing or go swimming in a lake. (29:09) There were enclosed walk ways at the camp. (30:06) There was a lot of snow at the camp but not so much that the men were unable to walk. (30:34) The men were required to work night duty. This meant that one office worker would have to sleep in the office one night to guard the paperwork. (32:54) There were a number of suicides at the base (perhaps due to weather conditions). (34:30) Ben thought himself very lucky for receiving overseas pay without being in a war zone. (35:44) The officers were “demanding and understanding.”(36:22) End of Service (37:40)     Ben was discharged earlier than his points dictated due to an invitation to his brother's wedding. (37:52) While Ben was in Alaska his wife worked for a retailer in Grand Rapids. (39:27) He was discharged in February of 1946. (39:55) Ben was given enough money to fly home to Michigan. However due to his inability to get a flight, Ben needed to take a train part way to Chicago. (40:00) �    Ben was offered a job by the shoe retailer that he originally worked for. He was soon transferred to Detroit, Michigan, and offered the chance to manage a store in Kentucky. He turned the offer down. (41:03) He operated an Army and Navy Surplus store until 1952. (42:00) He became an auctioneer after several business attempts from 1964-2011. (43:02) His career as an auctioneer involved a lot of document keeping. (44:09) Effects of Service (44:34)   Being drafted makes Ben feel that he had done his part. (44:50) He doesn’t think he learned anything in the service that he didn’t already know. (45:50) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KleimanB1252V Title A name given to the resource Kleiman, Benjamin (Interview outline and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kleiman, Benjamin Description An account of the resource Ben Kleiman was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1918. He tried to enlist in the Army after Pearl Harbor, but was rejected due to poor eyesight. He was eventually drafted in 1943 and put on limited duty. He worked as a clerk at Camp Reynolds, Pennsylvania, keeping track of soldiers who had gone AWOL, and was eventually reassigned to Camp Richardson, Alaska, outside of Anchorage, where he worked as a personnel clerk until discharged in 1946. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-06-05 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/580f1b63d93788dde92adc76f7e81103.mp4 757d7491cc08e0d76f6d5b344bf31c4c https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a54d07e655b86143eafd67d188336b25.pdf 7f2058a92efafa34393e0fe5ceabc2c9 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Dale Kissinger Vietnam War Total Time: 1:19:00 Childhood and Pre-Enlistment (0:00:0) • • • • • • Born in Gary, Indiana in 1948. Attended High School in Valparaiso, Indiana. Father worked in a steel mill, and he paid his way through college the same way. Attended Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois. Joined the Air Force in 1972. He was motivated to join the Air Force because his draft number was low and recruiters came to him with the option of joining pilot school. Training (0:02:10) • • • • • • He was given the option to go into helicopter pilot training school. Attended basic helicopter pilot training at Fort Walters, Texas. They would practice maneuvers including takeoff and landing, and the basics of field landings. From there, he went to Fort Rucker, Alabama where he took Advanced Helicopter Training and learned difficult maneuvers. (0:04:30) After flight training, he attended several different survival schools, including the Water Survival School in Homestead, Florida and then did Land Survival in Washington. His wife travelled with him during this time. Was taught his specific aircraft, The UH-1 Huey, at Hill Air Force Base. His assignment was initially to go to Andrews Air Force Base. However he ended up at Indian Springs, NV. Active Duty (0:06:50) • At Indian Springs, his job was to fly over the underground nuclear test program and monitor the activity around the site. Mostly worked in a support role. • Had some experience setting up an Air Force test program which allowed him some high altitude flying experience • His base was very small, and there were around 11 or 12 men in the unit. They were around 100 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada. • (0:10:25) He was stationed there for 4 years. • (0:11:05) Was then transferred to Howard Air Force Base in Panama in 1977, where he was stationed there for 4 years. While he was there for 3 years. • While they were in Panama, he worked in the Canal Zone. • He worked as an instructor for a time for the Panamanian Air Force. �• (0:14:20) Was part of the helicopter squadron that moved the Shah of Iran around when he was in Panama. He also had to be put on alert and fly to a carrier when the Sandistas took over Nicaragua. • (0:19:00) Also did some work in Panama as a Rescue pilot. He won an award at one point by doing some hazardous mountain flying to attempt to save a stranded mountain climber. • (0:20:58) From Panama, moved to Shepherd Air Force Base, Texas where he was taught to fly fixed wing aircraft. He was qualified to fly fighter pilots, but did not fly because of his age. He instead became an instructor at Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock, Texas. • (0:24:50) Left Lubbock in 1984 to go to Scott Air Force Base, IL and did desk work. While he was there he got his Masters Degree in International Relations. Worked in the Air Rescue Coordination office. • Any search that the FAA took to the federal level, their office would get involved and coordinate the rescue efforts. • (0:29:30) They were responsible for the search and rescue efforts for the Space Shuttle Challenger crash. • (0:34:05) From there, went to Hurlburt Field, Florida in 1987, which was the base for the Special Operations forces of the Air Force, where he worked as the flight examiner. He was sent to many different bases around the world. • (0:37:02) Was promoted to the position of Flight Operations Officer in Naval Air Station Keflavik, Iceland in 1989. • They did many different things, including more rescue operations, while in Iceland. • (0:43:05) In 1992, was transferred to the Pentagon in Washington, DC in a program called Reserve Operations. He worked budgeting programs and defending these programs in hearings. • (0:44:40) Got promoted out of the Pentagon position in 1994 and was moved to Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico with the 58th Special Operations Wing. They trained these men, and their main goal was to create crews for aircraft. Got to be group commander while he was there. • (0:53:25) Transferred from there to Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina in 1997. He ran the C-141 Special Operations Program. He was very tightly connected to the base because the importance of their planes to operations. Therefore, he was always on alert. • (0:54:45) Was moved to McCord Air Force Base, Washington in 1999 to be Vice Wing Commander of the C-71 battalion. Worked in the logistical transition from the C-141 to the C-17. • (0:56:40) Was at the base on September 11, 2001. Remembers shutting down the base and moved to DEFCON 3. • Flew into Afghanistan during the war. Flew from McCord, Washington to Europe in the C-141 and then a C-17 the rest of the way to Afghanistan. Landed in Kandahar and worked dropping Meal Ready to Eat packs to the civilians in Afghanistan. �• (0:58:40) Also worked in Bosnia during his time at Charleston AFB. He was the 437th Air Expeditionary Force Commander during a month and a half of this operation. He would both bring food and military hardware during this time. • He retired in 2002 after 30 years in the Air Force as a Colonel Post Service (1:08:50) • When he retired from the Air Force, he moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan and worked in the Avionics industry. After that, he started working for militaryavenue.com, which was started by his children. This site helps military families who move around a lot get acclimated to their surroundings. � 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 KissingerD Title A name given to the resource Kissinger, Dale (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kissinger, Dale Description An account of the resource Dale Kissinger was born in Gary, IN in 1948 and served in the Air Force between 1972 and 2002. He decided to join the Air Force upon completion of high school and attended training to become a helicopter pilot, and later trained in fixed wing aircraft as well. He worked in Nevada, Panama, Texas, South Carolina, New Mexico, Iceland, Bosnia and Afghanistan. He did a number of different jobs, including pilot, flight instructor, and management. He retired from the Air Force in 2002, and works for a website which helps military families during their transitions from base to base. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Kentwood Historic Preservation Commission (Kentwood, Mich.) WKTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Air Force Afghan War, 2001---Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-05-22 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/c0989ba2096bc1d77b6dcc9bc6ee7c6b.mp4 ed6b6ca424e0c3fb37cb1346bae387c0 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1a58ed980e06b943baa84a4f1581f36d.pdf 0794ceef190406e3ee742f39d484ce5c PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Gunther Kirschner (42:20) Background information (00:11)               Born in October of 1948 in Germany. (00:14) His mother was German but his father was an American Soldier who fought in WWII. (00:30) He arrived in the U.S. in 1952. (1:11) He settled in McKinney Texas. They resided there because his mother was required to have a sponsor to immigrate to the U.S. and his mother’s sponsor lived in Texas. (1:19) His mother wanted to come to the U.S. primarily for the economic environment. (2:00) He resided in Texas for about a year then moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1953. (2:11) He attended Forest Hills High School. (2:40) He was an only child. (2:48) He graduated college in 1968. (2:55) After he graduated he worked in the warehouse for Amway until he was drafted in February of 1969. (3:00) At the time he was drafted he knew very little about the Vietnam War. (3:17) He had very little dramatic reaction to his draft notice. (3:46) He was required to go to Detroit for a physical before being sworn in. (4:12) He failed to notice any blatant tempts by other soldiers to evade the draft. However, he did notice the wide variety of attitudes the men had toward the conflict. (4:33) Basic training (4:50)              Attended basic in Fort Knox Kentucky (4:55) He thought basic training was a very difficult and intimidating experience. (5:00) Men from across the country were at Fort Knox. (5:33) He believed that the drill sergeants were fair. (6:11) The physical training was fairly difficult and included many physical exercises. At the time he joined he was small and thin. (6:44) Basic lasted approx. 2-2.5 months. (7:18) During basic, men were given aptitude tests. Gunther tested highly in mechanics. (7:30) He received advanced infantry training and was not given any sort of engineer or mechanical training. (7:58) He did his AIT at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Here the base was hot and humid and it rained almost every day. (8:08) He recalls being prepared fairly heavily for combat in Vietnam including increased firing range training as well as some jungle training. (8:50) Most of the sergeants had served in Vietnam already. However they never spoke about there experience. (9:00) The men trained on the M60, M16, and M14. Upon the completion of AIT, he was given a week leave to return home. After words he would report to Oakland California. (10:11) �Arrival in Vietnam (11:00)         He flew from Grand Rapids to Oakland and then from Oakland to Vietnam in Uniform. He recalls having been treated kindly. (10:30) The ship landed in Guam before arriving in Vietnam. The men were allowed to get of the plane. (11:24) The men landed in Bien Hoa Vietnam in August of 1969. He recalls the country having a very odd scent. (11:55) Upon landing the men were given more training on jungle terrain for approx 1 week. This training was fairly applicable in the field. (12:40) He was then sent to Camp Evans. (13:40) He was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, 2nd Battalion, 506th Regiment, D Company. (14:15) When he joined, his unit he didn’t think morale was too low but he did know that they were in combat fairly recently. (15:19) The men stayed in bunkers and barracks. (15:38) Service in Vietnam (16:00)               He recalls going out on patrols with his company soon after being assigned to it. (16:26) Whenever out on patrol, the men were delivered to their destination via helicopter. They often patrolled on hilly terrain. (17:43) The patrols often lasted a few days. (18:30) He did theses patrols often during his entire service in Vietnam. He never had to go into a hot landing zone. (19:05) The patrolling operations could be platoon or company sized however most often it was platoon sized. (19:50) There were approx. 8 men in his squad. (20:02) The men would sometimes utilize trails. (20:44) The unit did run into booby traps during patrols but this did not result in any casualties. (21:00) The unit set up an ambush but were never ambushed themselves. (21:16) Though he did not see any intense combat, he often heard of units engaging in heavy fire only a few kilometers away. (22:08) At night the men in the unit took turns being guards and booby traps were set up to warn of approaching North Vietnamese. They were never attacked at night. (22:30) The more experienced members had told stories of combat they saw. They were very happy that they hadn’t seen much combat after Gunther’s arrival in August of 1969. (23:05) The men were well equipped and supplied. (23:30) He stayed at Firebase Jack which was a smaller part of the larger Camp Evans. (24:42) Life in Vietnam (25:00)   He witnessed drug use while in service both in the field and during camp. (25:20) Men most often smoked marijuana. It was not uncommon for men to smoke in the field near sergeants in spite it being a court-martial offence. (25:35) �        He managed to make close friends during his service in his unit. (26:00) He accepted that he was in Vietnam and had a sense of pride about being in the armed forces. (26:54) He recalls two instances when he was very afraid for his life. One was when his unit was shelled the other was in the DNZ and he was shelled again by U.S. artillery. (27:19) There was some turnover in his unit. (28:08) He had trouble with jungle infections. When he was infected it took him a very long time to get out of the field due to it being the monsoon season. (28:30) He was flown to a hospital ship off the coast of Vietnam. Here the infection was controlled. (29:40) After having healed he was given a choice to stay in Vietnam or return to the U.S. he choose to return home. (30:52) He was then sent to a hospital in Japan before being sent to Walter Reed Medical Center.(30:58) Service in the U.S. (31:00)             After leaving Walter Reed, he was sent to Fort Meade, Maryland. Here he was made a tank driver and trained to control riots in Washington D.C. (31:30) He was never called upon to control a riot. He was however mad a bus driver for the base (32:00) He was an E4 in Vietnam and an E5 in the U.S. (32:40) He doesn’t believe drug use in the platoon caused problems in the field. (33:00) He did not witness racial tensions within his own company. (33:10) He didn’t notice any racial self-segregation on the base in Vietnam. (34:43) The officers performed their tasks and were competent. (35:08) While he served in the 101st, the company was banned from villages due to the bad reputation they had built up prior to his arrival. (35:45) Vietnamese worked on the bases and often preformed KP duty. (37:07) There were other companies at Camp Evans who saw combat and took heavy casualties. (37:40) He received in country R&R while in Vietnam in a beach area near the China Sea. He received the opportunity to go out of country but it was during a period in which we was medevaced. (38:02) When I the U.S. he did understand that the military was attempting to scale back. (40:00) Life after service (post February 1971)(40:25)     He returned to the Amway after his discharge in 1971 to work. (40:30) He used his GI bill for truck driver training. (40:35) He began his painting career in 1984.(40:50) The service left positive effects on him and he was proud to have served his country. He valued the discipline and emphases on team work the military provides. (41:15) � 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 KirschnerG1328V Title A name given to the resource Kirschner, Gunther (Interview outline and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kirschner, Gunther Description An account of the resource Gunther Kirschner, born in October of 1948 in Germany, moved to the U.S. at a young age and lived near Grand Rapids Michigan. After completing high school he was drafted into the U.S. Army. Gunther served from August of 1969 to February of 1971, spending several months as a rifleman in the 101st Airborne Diviision during the Vietnam Conflict. While he was with his unit, his company was not heavily engaged, although other units in his battalion and brigade were. His tour was cut short by infections, and he was sent home for treatment, and completed his service in the U.S. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings 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 2011-12-01 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/ba8ce7d8bbc356a6df340cba1d81784f.mp4 a8e29ca5802f5ccb357191e6399f29b8 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f7bfdd0b881f0bcb3cb415f837cfb5c9.pdf b1c7ef04ae9595e9d5ed55bf60089e24 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State Univeristy Veterans History Project MarthaJane Kirby (00:55:47) (00:25) Background Information • Martha was born in Kansas City, Missouri on November 4, 1927 • Her father had worked for the local newspaper and played instruments in bands on the side • Her mother died when she was ten years old • She enjoyed school and remembered being a freshman in high school when Pearl Harbor was attacked • Her high school years were surrounded by the war effort and many young people she knew were being drafted into the service • Martha graduated from high school on D Day • She recalled the rationing of meat, coffee, sugar, tires, and women’s nylons • She went through mandatory ROTC training in school • After school Martha began working as a file clerk and also began doing a little modeling (07:15) Jack and Stan • Martha had been dating a young man named Jack and he was in Iwo Jima with his friend Stan. Jack and Stan agreed to start writing to each other’s girlfriends so that if something happened to one of them, the other could communicate with his girlfriend. • Jack was killed in battle and Stan and Martha started a regular correspondence • They wrote each other for eighteen months and fell in love through the process, aided by a photograph of Martha that a professional photographer had taken that she had sent originally to Jack [picture is in this collection] • Stan came back to Kansas City to visit on June 19, 1946 (12:20) Life after the War • Stan began taking classes at MSU and it was hard for him to adjust to civilian life • Martha and Stan got married the next summer after he returned from service • Martha passed the civil service exam and began working as a secretary for the highway department • Stan got his degree is art and began working for a radio station and later began working in printing sales and graphic arts (18:20) High School during the War • Martha dated many men from high school while they were visiting on leave, but would only go out with each of them once because she did not want to get too attached • She often went to the movies, dances, and sports games • She had wanted to take classes at the University of Missouri �• She paid very close attention to news of the war because she knew so many people that were overseas, including her brother (30:05) War Movies • Many movies about World War Two are historically wrong and do not correctly represent the war • Stan was pretty upset when Letters From Iwo Jima came out (31:30) Hard Times during the War • Martha’s family had to drive far out of the way just to get gas • Martha made all of her own clothes when she could actually get her hands on some material • Shoes were also hard to come by • During the war Martha was very lonely with her brother and many friends overseas while she lived with only her dad and grandma • It took her husband fifty years to write his memoirs of Iwo Jima because it was such a horrible experience [these are in this collection] (40:05) Iwo Jima • Stan remembered seeing lifeless marines all over the place in bits and pieces • The smell was horrible from all the dead bodies • There were many Japanese bodies floating in the water (41:40) Marriage • Martha was very glad that she got married to Stan and not Jack • They were married for 57 years, had two kids, and one grandson �r "LOVE LETTERS· Preface The following pages contain excerpts from some of Stan's letters to me along with a few that are longer in length. With more than 200 to sort thru it's difficult in more ways than one to write them down. My husband was Cpl. Stanley D. Kirby, born in Lansing, Michigan; joined the United States Marine Corps on April 4,1944; trained in San Diego CA and also Camp Pendleton, CA, deployed to Oahu and Maui late '44 and served in combat on Iwo Jima February 19, 1945 to March 31, 1945. Returned to Maui Rest Camp and Oahu until returned to the States and arrived in Kansas City, MO, my home town, June 19,1946. I was his wife for 57 wonderful and happy years from 1947 to 2004. My name is Marthajane (nee Farrington) Kirby, from Kansas City, MO. ' .. Stan died January 16,2004 and is buried in the cemetery at Saranac MI where our graves, eventually, will be together. He was honored January 24, 2004 by the 24th Division Marine Corps Honor Guard from Grand Rapids, MI with full military honors, this being the division of the Corps he represented. This was a beautiful ceremony with 7 Marines in full dress uniforms who saluted him with rifle fire, gave me his U.S. flag and played "Taps" .... which I felt at that time ... "This is the last time you willhear this played, Stan. Know that I willlove you forever. " -- Your Janie ++++++ i0,.,; .· Saranac, MI 48881 j L._ '~t~~~:l~~KirbY . .~_._. �, ·LOVELETTERS' Some of my friends have asked me to reveal Stan's letters to me during World War Two. I feel they were written just for me ... my eyes ... my love for him. It's a feeling that envelops me as it seems that's all I have left of him at this time of my life. They are so personal, so precious I can't bear to part with them. However, I willcopy here from his letters those that are either funny, or not too personal Peoplehave to remember that during a war, no Marine can divulge his daily life, where he goes, what's possibly on the horizon (i.e. more combat) what he does every day regarding his work with the Marine Corps. He did however say which island he was on ... Maui, the USMCrest camp between campaigns. Only by the grace ofGod did he escape going to more combat on Okinawa as he had not been in rest camp long enough. ++++ Let's begin with the beginning. While at Camp Pendleton in CA, Stan met my highschool ·steady· and they fast became good friends and went on liberty together. Stan had a ·steady" too back in Michigan while 'Jack' was from Missouri, my home state. They decided to write each other's girlfriend in order to keep tabs on what was going on and where. Jack's first letter to me about Stan: 9-18-44.....I didn't get to answer your letter last night as a guy named Kirby and I went on liberty to Santa Monica. • 11-7-44", -Kirby wants to tell you 'hello'... (had his writing there) Everytime I start to write to you he says to tell you that. He likes your picture and says he willcall you up if he evergets to KansasCity.• ,11-9-44 .... Tm sorry I didn't know about your birthday. Kirby asked mewhen it was and I told him you already hadyour birthday! He really laughed at me about that when I told him I got your letter and you already had celebrated your birthday! " Mr. Stanley Kirby 8468 Macarthur Rd. Saranac, MI 48881-9517 , ,,' . • �12-7-44.... "Igot my first letter from you since being overseas and it was wonderful to hear from you. Youprobably have the letter Stan wrote to you last night. He saidhe wanted to write and tellyou how sweet he thought you were. Stan wants me to write to hisgirl and if I ever finish writing to everyone else I'm going to. Aren't you jealous? Answer his letterif you ever get time. I11get to read it anyway, so don't try to change boyfriends. (Just kidding, darling.) Note from JK ... not only ·changed" but married!" 12-26-44 .... ·Well, Kirby went into the 24th Marines but at least we are still in the Fourth Division. It ++++ On February 19, 1945 Jack and Stan headed for combat on 1wo Jima. They were on different ships so had no direct contact. Jack was killed on 1wo the second day of the invasion ... February 20, 1945. ++++ . - My first letter from Stan .... Dec. 6, 1944. • ·Hi Martha: I am writing this just to establish a friendship as Jack and I are great pals and we have a lot of time to discuss ourgirlfriends back home. He is really in love with you, Martha. After the war, Jack and you and mygirl and I are going to meet in Chicago andgo to the Trianon or Aragon and dance and tear Chicago apart! I hope this happens. Don't ever worry about Jack as Tm sure nothing willhappen to such a greatguy!" 1-21-45 .:"1 am writing to inquire about Jack as we are on different ships now and I can't possibly get in touch with him. Would you please send me his mailing address? Thonksl" 2-15-45.... -r doubt if you received my last letter but I'd sure like to have Jack's address.. �3-21-45 ... "Dear Martha: I hope this poor excuse for a letter finds you well and happy. I can't remember if I answered your swell letter or not. I'm all fouled up anyway. "Iwo"had quite a few effects on me! I lost some very close friends there, and I guess most everyone did. Beingmy first combat experience I wish I couldhave been "broken in"a little easier!' I wish I hadyour letter here but it's packed awayat the present. Oh well! Jack and I were split up a little while after we came overseas. Ineversaw him again and IguessI never WIll Isure think the world ofhim. He was the best pal a guy could ever have. We were such close friends. We talked about each other'sgirls all the time and I guess that's why I feel I have known you for years. I wish I were back in the States now. I alwaysloved March. The smell of the woodsgets me. Mygirlfriend and I always felt t h e . same way about those things. We alwayshad a lot ofhikes and picnics. I · . alwayslike to remember those things, but she changed and I don't find myself writing to her about those memories. She might just as wellhave written me a "Dear John" letter as that's what it was. JK note: Stan's letter arrived a week before the War Dep't telegram to Jack's Mother. 4-8-45 .... "About Jack: I want you to know I'dgive my right arm to have him back I loved thatguy like a brother. It's needless to say more 'cause you know how I feel I tried to let you know in my last letter, but due to censoring I couldn't come right out and tell you tho. We are at a wonderful rest camp nowand we were given a wonderful reception when our ship docked. It reallygave me a lump in my throat. They gave us coffee, donuts, and candy. before we left the docks.. The band was playingand everyone was cheering. Being the first time I'd ever experienced such a thing it reallygave me an emotional thrill I really appreciate it and the same goes for the other fella's. I'll never forget it. Thanks for the nice compliment about my nice letters to you. Do you like Glenn Miller'smusic? I love all the slow, beautiful music. And I love sports, especially tennis. " Mart~ajane Kirby' 8468 MacArthur Rd. • . Saranac, MI 48881 �(Several letters in between these) 4-11-45 .... Just saw the movie 'National Velvet' ... a very good film. But it sure made me lonely at times. Everytime I see a movie like that it's just like I was back home again. Then I look around and shrink! I need to close now as my mind is playing tricks on me. • 4-14-45 .... "Tt's rathergloomy around here tonight. Just the type of night to stay in and fiddle around. I wonder what you are doing tonight? 4-15-45 .... 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'is playing here tomorrow night, with the originalplaywritellstarring in it. Taps is playingnowso I have to stop here. Love, Stan· 4-19-45 .... Just a few lines. I hope you don't mind my calling you 'Jane'. If you do, say so! Last night at the theater, I saw 'The Man Who Came To Dinner'... it was the real thing with Moss Hart playing the leading role. It was reallygood. Six beautifulgirls also starred in it! Youknow Jane, I wonder what you are like. Til bet you go for sports, more or less. Doyou like tennis? I should like to meet y~u someday. Doyou think that can be arranged? Of course, God only knows when Tm comingback to the states. Unless I'm wounded or something similar. Til have to put at least 20 months in over here. If I ever do get back I'm going to make a special effort to see you! OK?· Several more letters the weeks following. 4-22-45 .... Dear Jane: I've been listening to records tonight and itgot me so lonesome, I'd likely cracked up. So I just had to write to you. When I listen to music I get so, oh, I don't know, sorta moody I guess. If I were smart I'd stay away from those sweet records! Another paragraph follows: "Pooey, I can't write anymore. My imagination gets the best ofme. So Til close. Please write soon .:. until then, bye nowand take care ofyourself. Love, sran" 4-25-45 ....Please send me a picture ofyou as I onlyhad a few shortglances at the wonderfulpicture ofyou that Jack had. Janie, Tve made up my mind! �I am coming to Kansas City to meet you when I get back! And I pray I do, and you do the same!" I sure wish I could see you sooner than what I will /:i.? able to. I don't have to tell you about the people here. I have no anxiety whatsoever to search for a nice girl, even tho she might be white! I have just as much fun on liberties playing tennis, taking pictures, etc. I hope you don't think Tm a habitual drinker either. It's a waste of money, Let's talk about you ... I'm sure you don't drink or smoke. To me a girl that drinks has lost everything she could ever have hoped to have as far as respect, etc.I know you are everything a guy could ask for. I don't know why, but I can just tell I hope you'll never change, Janie. If 4-28-45 .... "Justgot 3 letters fromsn: today and the picture. I was surprisedbut even more. glad. I like the picture very well! You know, from what you tell me about where you work, you must be a designer. About the magazines your picture is featured on the cover, they have not arrived yet but when they do I'll probably rip them to pieces to get to them! I guess we're pretty much alike in all things ....music and all Get -I Dream of You"as you come to mind whenever I hear it. -Youknow, you're kinda crazy in a very likeable way! I thought I wouldsplit when you wrote about the cake and safety towels:-..(Diapers) I got the biggest bang out of that! What a girl! (JK: I took care of my cousin on occasion when my Aunt had to work late.) "Please write soon again, Janie. I can'tget enough ofyour letters ... they are wonderful p.5. NO ... I come from Lansing, Michigan!! 4-29-45 .... "Went to church services this morning ... it was a nice service but I think about home too much at such a time. Very discouraging. Janie, I believe I can tell you now about Jack. He was killed instantly with no pain whatsoever. He was sitting in a foxhole with two officers on the front lines when a large shell fell in the hole. When I saw him? he lookedjust as usual, like he was sleeping. Tm sorry for bringing it up aga/n, Janie. He was a good Marine, and I know you are proud ofhim. Youhave all my sympathies and please let me know if I can do anything for you. Begood, and God Bless You. Love always, Stan If ... . . '. • . .Martt"!ajane Kirby' 8468 MacArthur Rd. . Saranac, MI 48881 t{ �5-1-45 .... "This is the present and I don't like to think ahead too much. Do you think you'd like to see me at the end of one and a halfyears? But this is the present and I know I want to meet you now. In my position I don't like to think or promise into the future. Know what I mean?There's something on my mind tho, and I know you can't help but to have thought about it also. Briefly, my writing to you and etc. I want you to know I couldn't, nor wouldI ever try to, take Jack's place. I know how much you loved him and what he meant to you. It puts me in a very mean position and I don't know how you're going to feel about it. Tm hopingyou willhelp me out, Janie. Please say exactly how you feel As it is, I enjoy writing you very much and I'm hoping to meet you someday. Love, Stan" 5-4-45 ... This letter is in response to a photo I sent him that' I had used to enter a national contest, and won it too! But I didn't tell Stan at that point. "Janie, I love the picture you sent me. It's just perfect. Thanksa million. Tm gazing at it right now. The fella's in my tent here think you're very beautiful, but I think you're more than just beautiful! You expressedyourselfbetter in this letter than"!: did in my last one. You see, I wrote something on the same order. Tm gladyou feel the way you do about God having a hand in things. I feel the very same way. It does seem as if it was meant to be and not wrongat all Yet I still feelguilty when I write you as if I had no business to occupy any ofyour time, or accept your swell letters as greedily as I do, because of Jack. rll tell you nowjust exactly how I feel because I don't believe anymore in keeping my thoughts back. Even tho Tve never seen you or been with you, I know that if I were to look for the person, I wouldpick you. I canjust tell from your letters that you're the type anyguy could hope for. This is just not flattery or roses, it's just the God's truth. I appreciate your saying you hope nothing happens to me and that you are praying for me. Itgives me a solid feeling inside to know that it matters. Etc. .......AII my love, Stan" �5-6-45 .... "Two wonderful letters from you .... etc. Your records sound swell to me. I wish I could be there with you listening to them right now. Tm lonely as hell tonight. Somehow I got into this mood on liberty today. Very discouraging! I imagine lot of things ... maybe classified under dreaming. I do have one trouble tho, that I get very jealous sometimes. I always was that way but I think I'm getting over that now, more or less. However when I wrote that letter I was picturing us together ... etc. Please don't worry about some of the things I say but I believe that whatever Pve written you is the God's truth and I hope it's the same with you. Somehow I miss you, how I can without ever knowingyou I can't figure out, but it's so. Must close, Janie. With all my love, Stan" Note from JK. I'm skipping thru lots of letters because this next one is so important. 5-16-45 ... You have a wonderful way ofexplaining things, Janie, and I can understand everything you write. I know how you fee~ and if I didn't feel the same, I wouldn't understandso easily. There's something tho we both must consider before itgets too late, and that is, we've both had tough luck I lost mygirl andyou lost Jack We both are »ccustomed to someone to love and receiving accordable letters. What Tm driving at it's that we've both been in love before and now, Jack's gone, I haven't seen mygirl for a long time and it's sorta like I'm your "Jack" and you are my "girl" Don'tget me wrong tho, I could never make a go of it with her again because I now know her true selfand I found it very easy to forget her. " JK ... skipping letters again. -Yes, the picture yougot was the one I was waiting for from CA. Tm glad you like it, tho it's a little flattering. You don't know how much Tm looking forward to being with you. I think about comingback so much I almostgo crazy sometimes or at least it seems I build lots of dreams and then I realize I'll be over a long time yet, and then there's the chance rll neverget back but I try not to let it bother me too much. Which boils down to the fact that if something ever happened to me, I'dwant you to know that writing to you, and the friendship we've built has meant the world to me. It must be real and it must work out. I hope you are waiting for me when I return. And, Janie, I am so glad you want to wait for me! All my love, Stan" M~rthajane ' . Kirby' 8468 MacArthur Rd. '!P. Saranac, MI 48881 .. �6-4-45 .... (skipping here) ... "Just saw a wonderful show so I'll finish my letter now. Saw Gypsy Rose Lee in -Bel;'of the Yukon.' Yeow!* The show was wonderful and they played a great song: T Love You But I Don't Know Why I do. N Very fitting, isn't it? I sure wish this war was over and I could be on my way to you. This waiting and waiting is slowly driving me insane. You wait to fight, and ifyou're lucky you wait to fight again. Nothing to look forward to except of course going home someday. I guess that's what keeps mostguysgoing over here, and that's the faint prayer way down deep that you'llget back Sounds kinda 'down' doesn't it? AIImy love, StanN 6-6-45 ... I'm sorry about how you felt on Memorial Day. I wish I could have been there to comfort you in some way. Keep your chin up, honey and try to look on the better side of life. I don't want to encourage your forgetting Jack even ifit was possible. I want to play square with you, something I didn't do with mygirl She lied to me and I lied to her and we were always Gotta go, All my bucking against each other. It isn't any good that way. Love, StanN -6-9-45 ..... The tent is vacant and there's some siteet music coming from far down the way and it makes it easier to write a nice letter to you. Tonight I listened to Hit Parade and heard -Laura N... that piece I love. It's a haunting melody. Sometimes it's hard to visualize you and to impress upon myself that I know you when I don't, but everything seems so perfect, so right, that I can't help but love you now. It seems so easy to write, that I think so much ofyou and I hope I don't change my mind when we're finally together. I think the world ofyour letters and when somedays I don't hear from you for a day or two, I feel rather funny, kinda lost I guess.... Thanks a million for the pictures. I like them very much. Only every picture you sendjust doubles my desire to be with you. When I get them it seems I am right there with you..... Please write soon again ..... All my love, Stan N �b­ 1-14-45 ... ·Hi, how's mygirl? Tonight I really feel fine. I just came back from the post office where I picked up the pictures you sent in the folder (contest ones, but he didn't know that then) Janie, they're super!! The new one.llike best of all. I think the world of them and the folder is just the right size. Thanks so much for sending them. You'll never know how much it means to me. You're just naturally the most wonderfulperson in the world! Today we had a parade for some fella's that were getting medals. Boy, am I tired! Imagine standing with your feet in the same spots for 2 and a half hours! Then we paraded around again and shoved off. What a life, But the boys sure looked nice with their "silver"and "bronze" stars! The only medals I want are my dog-tags, right around my neck! ..... etc. Well, it'sgetting late so Til shove off. Til be dreaming ofyou, with all my love ... Your Stan •• V N 6-15-45.... Hello Darling ... justgot in from liberty and I sure wasglad to see 2 letters from you! I have your pictures propped up in the lid of my locker trunk and I'm thinking nice things ofyou! They're just wonderfulpictures and I wouldn'tpart with them for anything. More people who have never been in our tent before come in and gaze at your pictures and drool! You asked me to tell you how I feel and I will. I told you before but I'll try again. We'll start with mygirl. I went with her for.. 4 years and itgot so I worshipped her. I was a fool and didn't know it. It took what finally happened to snap me out ofit. Yousee, Darling, mine is a case of 'lovedand lost' because I was too stupid to realize the part I played in her life, which was damn little! When she got engaged I lost all faith ingirls ... it's not just my case, it's dozens ofotherguys whogot the same deal so it can't be said it happened as "just one of those things. " I know that your letters and knowing you how I do has changed me a lot. It gave me something to live for, something to look forward to. Your letters so often, the pictures now and then have meant a lot, Janie. In a way Tm terribly in love with you. And I hope you can understand what I've tried to explain. Gottago ... 'Taps'is sounding. So till later Darling, I'll be thinking ofyou with all my love, Your Stan N . .~. .. . Marthajane Kirby' 8468 MacArthur Rd. Saranac, MI 48881 '1 �The following are parts of my ·very special" love letters from Stan from the years '44 to '46. His letters averaged from 2 pages to more than 12; some days he wrote twice . 8-6-45 ..'iUy Darling: "Received your wonderful letter just now. That kiss (lipstick print I had sent in my letter) really thrilled me, Honey. How about some more of them? Andyou say you'll do better when I'm there?" "I can't exactly put a kiss down in print here, but you can bet I'm really tryingr "It's rainingagain, darnit! Last night I stoodguard duty for four hours in this mud and rain. I thought a great deal about you at that time. I dream of being in a convertible with you, and sitting in the rain with you to love while some beautiful music is playing." "But I can't help it, with this life I am leading one has to have a hope, or a prayer ofhis own that someday he hopes willcome true, in order that he may continue every day without losing his mind completely. That's the way I feel about you, Janie. You're my hope. You are that 'ray ofsunshine' I need so much in this life, being overseas and all I think so much ofyou, I respect your manne"', your ways, your-: faithfulness and commonsense. I want to be with you and laugh and talk with you. In a way I'm deeply in love with you, considering the fact we've never really known each other.................... Well, Darling I guess rll close for tonight. I love you, Janie, so be good and wait for me. I miss you with ... All my love, Stan. 8-10-45 ....JAPANSURRENDERS!! "My Darling: This is a wonderful day, I guess you know! I got the news about four AM. Guys were running around yelling and shouting. I couldn't quite collect myself and then someone yelled that "Japansarrenderedll" I fast about fell off my cot. Of course it isn't officialyet but close enough to be happy about it. I hope and pray that the armistice is signed soon. What time did you hear about it and how did you feel? That's a silly question . 'cause I know how you must have felt. The people back there must begoing wild. The radio said that in London it was worse than V-E Day! Td better hear from you today Darling (and he did) 'cause that wouldmake the day lO �really perfect!" Til close for now hoping to see you and love you soon, with all my love, " Stan 9-18-45 ... ·My Darling: Receivedyour letter and the swell picture of Jack Honey, you'll never know how much that picture means to me and Til keep it always. Thanks so much for sending it. Tonight Tm onguard duty at our communications storeroom. It's kinda desolate here ... everything is crated up andprepared to be laoded aboard ship. But the radio is playing beautiful music and Tm thinking of you so the desolation doesn't phaze me much. I hope MacArthur wasn't wrong when he said only 200,000 men over. here. That statement ofhis sure caused a lot ofexcitement among the men ... the ·big guns" in politics that is! The radio this AM said the 2nd division and the 5th Marine divsions are slated for occupation in Japan. That's 40,000 men right there and Tm sure the Army has enough men over here to make up the balance. Damn, I wish I knew just what was going to happen ... and when! I really want that "contest" picture ofyours-but I'm afraid I might be transferred soon so just keep it until Lm sure where I'll be? You haven't told me what the contest was but that you won$5OO! Tm SO anxious to know ... a beauty contest or what? Come on, Jani&, tell me!!!" They just played ·Laura"on some station. That piece gets me. There's something mystical about the melody, and I get chills every time I hear it. Did you see the movie ·Laura"? Well, like the guy in the movie, I too fell in love with a picture ... a picture ofyou. I guess that's why I love that piece so. Did you know that "way back" when Jack and I were at Camp Pendleton, that when he showed me your picture then, I seemed to know you, altho we'd never met. Well, Darling time grows short and they are about to douse the lights, so I'll secure this... Keep loving me, as I do you, always. All my love, Your Stan. " ' " !!P .. Ma,rthajane Kirby' 8468 MacArthur Rd. Saranac, MI 48881 If �11-14-45 ..... HDarling Janie: I received a vel)' sweet letter from you and I was so glad to hear from you. Apparently our mail from all of October and a lot of November has been delayed because the Army won't carl)' Navy mail! So you probably have received some ofyour letters to me back to you! No, I haven't received the letters with the photos and clippingsin them and it makes me so GD mad because I want them so much! Honey, Tve been watching the LihLmagazines weekly but so far your picture has not been on the cover!... Janie, I was never so sure of anything in my life as I am of the fact that I am the closest thing to being in love with you. I realized that before and was sure of that when I missedyour letters so much! I want you to know that I could love you vel)' much and all I need is to get back there and ifit isn't pretty soon, I'/Igo crazy just wantingyou! Whatever it ts, it has me going around in square circles/ I don't know why ... (my girl) wrote me but if it's for the reason you wrote (like she wanted him back?) ... well that's tough 'cause I wouldn't have anything to do with her if she were knee deep in Hell. If she's crawling~ she's crawlingin the wrong directionl" Jame, no one could ever be more faithful to me tnltn you ... when you wrote ·Semper Fidelis" at the end ofyour letter you described yourselfperfectly. I don't think there ever could be anyone more faithful to a guy than yourself, and if it should happen that someday you should love me, I'd consider myself the luckiestguy in the world. If, as you've written before Tm the onlyguy you couldget serious over at this time, I wouldn't care how many swobbies; Marines or Doggies you went out with as long as you stJ11 felt the same about mel Because even tho I've never seen you or felt your love, r m content to forget any woman over here. I don't believe in this lying and pretending .. I had enough of that with my 'last romance.' Maybe people can't fall in love thru letters, but I believe I have. I have told you I lovedyou as it seems it was written because I wanted to love you so much. It seemed like I not only felt your thoughts thru letters. but also thru some strong~ unexplainable force. Some power tl]llt only two people in love can feel and utilize. Well Janie I'm up to page 11 and running out ofstationery. Please tell me you feel the same about me and that you love me. Those things I long to hear I love you, Janie. Allmy love, Your Stan H p.. �11-24-45.... -HiHoney: I just finished developing and printing some pictures which I'm enclosing. I'm just learning, so bear with me! I know you said your "darkroom technique wasgreat .... Wow! (OK, so that's not what you meantl) Anyway, here they are..... So, you liked my song I wrote? I love to write lyrics and wish I could do that all my life. I'll sing it to you softly some night when we are together. ..... I remember you saying in one ofyour last two letters that you 'tried to make me happy' and Janie, you have. Since I've been writing you Tve been a different person. We've helped each other out so much. We helped each other to forget the kicks in the face we got. Fl! always think the world ofyou for making me forget all of it. You brought me out of a nasty rut, and made me sure that life was worth livingagain. But my trouble was nothing; you lost your love and he'll never be able to live again. I'm sorry for writing that, but you see, when you said that I made you laugh andbe happy againI feel that I have done something God would want done. And I wanted so much for you to smlle and live again; what's happened in the past has happened and it can't begone over like a play. Andyou must look for happiness in the future. That's a cold way ofsaying it, Darling, but it's God's will, I'm sure. So let's look to the future Janie and try our best to be happy andmake our friendship a lovely Godsend -I want to continue loving you with All my love, Stan H H H ' .. 1-2-46 ... -My Darling Rosebud... After about a week I finally received a letter from you and it was so good to hear from you. My morale lifted 100% when I saw your letter! Christmas on Oahu was not verygood ... no Christmas tree, lights, not even a rain to make it feel like "home.' .... It really tickles me how you write 'Hubba Hubba'in your letters. I really laughed over that. I like that characteristic about you so much ... that you're funny. Oh, Honey we'llhave so much fun together. You'rejust the kind ofgirl I like, with a sense of humor. I love to laugh and have a good time and when Tm in the proper place at the proper time I like to be serious and be loved..... I know exactly how you felt on Christmas Eve. I felt like bustin' out crying myself when the choir sang carols in our chapel here. I think they're beautiful It touched me deeply, Darling, when you said you prayed for my return and makes me love you so much more, if that's at all possibte. When you say things like that I get kinda warm all over and I feel so close to you. You'll never know how much those little things mean to me. I guess it's the little things that keep a true love aglow. Agreed? Time for some winks, so rll say: I love you, I love you, I love you, Please write me lots ofsweet letters. All my love, Stan' . Marth.!ajane Kirby' 8468 MacArthur Rd. .• . . Saranac, MI 48881 �Note: (from JK) This is page 13-A .... I got interrupted and didn't start back where I left off! 12-23-45 .... uHi Darling: Got a letter from you about 30 minutes ago. At present I'm down at the Navy Yard where I work I was asleep before we came down and someone woke me up and threw your letter at me, which when I saw who it was from, made me happy. All day long I wanted to hear from you! Tm still chuckling from reading that letter! I got a big honk out of it Honey. But before I go into that I want to congratulate you on the contest, knowing now what kind if was, but you won the "hps"contest with me the first time I saw your picture, in fact the most beautiful lips I have ever had the pleasure of drooling over.! The snow and winter scene you describe and the atmosphere sounds wonderful I sure miss the snow and cold weather. Christmas isn't real with me unless there's snow. As far as the "half-sleepy"peaceful evening, I do know what you mean! It's the kind of feeling you-get after you've been out skating . or tobogganing and then you come in out of the cold and snow and settle around the fireplace. Mmmmm, I do know what you mean, Darling. Yeh, just try'n wash my face with snow!! Til trim yer ears! (The rest of the letter contained a questionnaire we both had given our answers to ..... way too long (8 pages) to copy here.....JK) Well, I'd better close and look around for some work to do before they make me a "private"again! 'Bye love, and write often. I love you dearly. Yours always, Stan" �12-15-45.... Darling Janie: I have to go to chow soon and to work as I have the midnight shift. But I just finished reading three letters from you and it was so good to hear from you. Before I go any further I'll tell you I also received the registered letter from you with the LD. bracelet enclosed and I think it's swell It couldn't have been a more perfectgift, Darling, but you shouldn't have done it! Thank you so much, Janie. I can't repay you with a gift before Christmas but I'll be sure to make up for it later. It was so sweet ofyou to send me something. I wish I could kiss you for it and I will" someday!! Thanks again. (More problems with the USMCmail reaching the troops ... Army problem again!) .....Honey, I'm sorry you have strep throat and please keep special care ofyourself... for me. 1-8-46 ....Hi sweet ... here I am again, Rosebud. There's some sweet music floating thru the tents right now and it makes me in the mood for a kiss from you ... maybe more than one! Say, Honey, do you have any 'Tabu' perfume right now? If so wouldyou please put a drop of it on your next letter? I love the smell of it. (note from JK: not on your life, that wasyour girl's favorite!) I didn'tget to write you last night as we have a whole different schedule now... on 8 hours, off 8 hours, on again, each week until we have worked all shifts. I do lose a little sleep ~ it's impossible to sleep in the daytime here. The latest news here is that I might not be able to come back until late July or August, Janie. It's a long time to ask you to wait for me, but it wouldmean everything to me ifyou could. You'll never have to worry about me and girls over here. I just don't fool around with women. I never was the type to chase after them anyway. I can very easily wait until I have you to love. To me, you are worth waiting for, for years if necessary. Me again.... 'Tis nowgoing on 0700 and boy, am I tired. I don't think Tl! eat chow this morning... guess rll just hit the sack and sleep and sleep and when I'm tired of that I'll start over. Gottaget my mosquito net up, so I'll be closin' here Honey. All my love, Your Stan" �1-11-46 .... My Rosebud: I just received 14 letters from you and it was so good to hear from you finally! I am in myglory when I readyour sweet letters and I've read each and every one at least 3 times!.... About the tinted (contest) picture honey, please send it to me here if you can. I want to have it with me. Tm going to hang it up here and show you off! And, I think I'll write 'Stan's girl' right underneath it! Yes, send it to me, Honey, please!!....Now, the perfume!!!!!!! Marthajane. do you realize you almost caused a revolution here in the barracks with that elegant odor? When they brought the mail in, I knew I had a letter from you! Everyone wanted to sniffmy letter and then they'd drool! That's really a fine perfume and I love it. You said it was Tntoxication'??? You'll probably smell it on this letter too as I put the little piece of cotton in my stationery box. When I smell something like that I just want to cuddle up to it. You'll find out I really go for perfumes, Darling! Tm getting sleepy so I'll close for now but I'll say, I love you, oh so much and want to be near you terribly, so be good and wait faithfully for me and someday soon I hope to give you...... All my Love, Your Stan" (note from JK...above letter I hadgiven him advice about his camera problem and he was happy to know how to fix it.llj 1-11-46.....Hi there Rosebud: Pm down at the offi~ ....I forgot to mention in my letter last night that I received the pictures you sent. I like each one very much. They're very nice pictures ofyou. Youseem to be more beautiful in every picture you send, and Tm wondering if I deserve such a gorgeous creature? I have both of them right under my stationery box so I'll pull you out now and drool over you! Did you know that your hair is something out of this world? It's beautifuL.. There, that's done ... I finally got this messed up Zippo lighter to work (Note from JK: I bought Stan a beautiful Ronson lighter, which he dearly wanted. I told him about it but we decided to wait until he came home to give it to hlm.) Marthajane Kirby' • ... 8468 MacArthur Rd. . Saranac, MI 48881 �1-13-46 ...Hello my Darling: I have a few minutes before the lightsgo out so I'll drop you a line or two then Til write you again tonite at the office, if there's not too much work ..... There's something I want to talk about before anything else, and that is about when Til be coming back., You see, I only have 32 points which isn't a lot. Well, anyway I saw some orders the other day ....but here's the point -- I'm pretty sure ofbeing eligible to come back the 1st of A1f¢. Being eligible then Td probably be back sometime in June, if this plan takes effect. And Darling, June isn't too far away. To DH:.just the thought of being sure ofgoing home in a few months kinda makes my heart flutter andgives me something to look forward to..... not only you and us, but home and my family again. I know it seems long to you because your life as far as routine hasn't changed much ....I know you understand because you love me, and I know we see things thru the same eyes ....My only worry is you, Janie..... you've got to wait for me and notget involved with anyone else. If you were to find someone else I would feel that I'd have been robbed of someone that might have been meant to be my wife someday.... and then Fd feel that there was just no medium in faith and courage. Tm sure you understandhow I feel I guess it's just another way ofsaying I love you so darn much and needyou even more. Well, Darling, time for lights out ....I love you, Janie ~ -------- Please don't ever leave me, Janie. " --- Your Stan 1-18-46 Just came back from the movie I just received a beautiful letter from you and it made me feel so good. It was so darn sweet where you wrote about staying home alone while it snowed and playingyour records while you were writing me and thinking ofme so much. It was written so beautifully Darling that if I had any tears in me I wouldhave shed them over your sweetness. But right nowTve got to get some sleep ... back later, Honey. I lied to you, Honey! I didn't really sleep at all like I said I planned to. I couldn't ... I kept thinking ofyou in a way I never expected to. Thingsand places raced thru my mind like wildfire and I don't quite understand it. I felt shaky and alert, just like times on Iwo when I was so mixed up with fear and anxiety and ignorance of what wouldhappen that I wanted to get out of my foxhole and run, and never stop. Td better stop crying on your shoulder ... let's see, where were we . �1-18-46 .... later, at the office ..... "Sometimes I just sit and stare at your pictures and sortaget a lump in my throat when I think ·she's mygirl" .., She waits for me and no one else. She may step out once in awhile with a friend, but her heart belongs to me. " About the grass skirt ... I can buy one for you ifyou promise you willsend me the pictures when they are finished! Don't worry about paying me for it Honey; I can afford it. I want to give you all the help you need with your modeling career you have your heart set on. You are so beautiful, Janie I never tire oflookingat you." .....AIImy love, Your Stan. p.5. Is Dan (photographer) married????" 2-2-46 ....Receivedanother letter from you. Yes, I thought about that -­ about writing to you for a year. III bet I thought ofit before you did .., when the new year started I knew that along with January came something I'll never forget ...when I started writing to you. We'll call it our "Postal Anniversary" Darling! Til bet very few people ever had one! Well, we have, so on "oor anniversary" III say in the past year you have brought me dreams of happiness that I needed badly and I'll remember it the rest ofmy life. " We'llbe together soon Darling and we willlive a lifetime in that first few weeks and if things work out we'llspend the rest of our lives together. " 2-5-46 .... (The funnies) jk .....Hi there Rosebud! Smitty just came in and wants to write a few lines to you. 'Stanley is proving to be somewhat of a problem in the barracks. He has a beautiful young siren's picture displayed in a rather unique way. We didn't mind the neon lights around it which are lit all night and so is Stanley, but when he put in the whistle, which blows on the hour, that is too much! As it is we could have done without the whistle as there is enough of that done by the wolves in the barracks, of which I'm proud to say that I'm not! Wipe that sneer offyour face. ,It ••••••• Smitty 2-8-46 "Hi Rosebud: Tm so tired I can hardly see straight. These all nite shifts are killin'me! Yesterday I sent you a Valentine (flowers with a card from a HI floristl--and a Valentine card from Stan:::(Whenever I hear beautiful music I just lean back and pretend I am with you, in your arms. I never knew dreaming could be so consoling. I stillpinch myself when I look at your picture to see if Tm dreaming. I can hardly believe I could have someone like you ... it's an act ofGoel, I believe, Darling. Write and tell me you love me lots of times. " AIImy love, Stan" • Marthajane Kirby' 8468 MacArthur Rd. Saranac, MI 48881 �2-28-46 ..... Viis letter refers to the movie "Love Letters" ... and is 12 pages long so I'll condense it for now. "My Darling Janie: I'm down at the office now and I'm going to write you from here. Before I came on duty I saw "Love Letters".... I thought it was a wonderful movie and as you wanted me to, I paidparticular attention to the plot, scheme, etc. You know, Darling, even tho our case isn't a whole lot like the movie, still it seems to me there is a similarity here and there. Especially the idea of falling in love with a person thru letters. I've fallen in love with you in such a way, not to mention the fact that I fell in love with your picture long ago, before you'd realize. But you know, this movie, "Love Letters" holds a lot of food for thought. I've thought ofyou constantly since the show was over. It made me think of the suffering, mentally tid f' physically that you've had to go thru, since you know when ... it made me think of a lot of little things that must have tortured you, that I never thought about before and when I think of all these things, I can't help but admire you for your braveness and courage and stamina, and self-control I guess that's part of why I love you so ... the remaining reasons why I love y'/J so are hard to explain... Like you say, I believe there is something stronger than either of us, pulling us together, closer and closer. I thought once I knew the theory oflove, but this love we have fQr each other is real love. It's strong and deep and beautiful -- it's everything life is --- gay, romantic, tender, and in me, it seems to be inrooted -- part of my very soul I never want it to change, Janie, ever. I want it to continue endlessly, into eternity. Please help it be this way always. Pulling together, for each other, we can't lose and we have all the happiness andgoodness in the world to gain.....I can see nothing but happiness ahead for us, Janie. I love you much, Janie you won't realize how much until I can show you without words. I can hardly wait until that moment when I can press your lips to mine, over and over then you'llknow. Don't you forget Tm to be the first young man to caress those famous lips ofyours! Please! It's been 16 months since Tve kissed a girl and the first time you kiss me I'l/go up higher than a kiter All my love, Your Stan. 3-10-46 ... ·My Darling ....I received 3 wonderful letter from you and twelve beautifulpictures and they make me love you and want you so! You're really gorgeous in the grass skirt and luscious too! Can I have you for Christmas? Please!!! I love them all and Tm going to tack them up all around my sack so you can surround me. What a wonderful idea! Thaakyou so much, Honey. So, /...ikmagazine has the neg of the contest winner photo ofyou? �,... Be sure to let me know, Darling, if and when it appears in the magazine. I can hardly wait to see it!... Gotta go. All my love, Your StanN 3-12-46 ....Hey, Shorty! I love you. Today I received another sweet letter from you! I Ike the two pictures of the flowers ve", much, Honey. You are a fine photographer! (Valentine pictures of the flowers)... "About love Letters'.... it was sort of an education to me too, in a way: I know how you feel about not having anyone around that understands how you feel sometimes. .... You asked what particular things made me 'think' ... well, that picture even tho it was just a movie makes me sure now that it's possible to fall deeply in love thru letters. Of course, I fell in love with your picture, primarily. I remember the large coloredpicture you sent Jack, distinctly, because even then, when I first saw you, there was something about you that struck me mysteriously. .... I love you, Janie. All my love, Your Stan H --- +++++ 5-15-46 My Darling, Hello, Janie. Geez, I could hardly wait to write you tonight ... I love you so much. I received a ver, nice letter from you today which completed my day: Everything has progressedperfectly for me today! In the first place Tm leaving this damn camp Monday, the 20th. I was informed officially this afternoon. Thre is no 'probably: 'if' or 'maybe' about this! This is it and rve waited for a long time for this, and it's finally .taking shape. It all means rll be with you soon, and that means everything to me, Darling. Tm so happy I could bust! The only thing that matters to me is we'll be together soon now. Oh, Honey, Tm so anxious to hold you in my arms and tell you how much I love you. Finallyall our dreams are slowly coming true. It has been a long time, Janie but eve", second of it was well worth waiting, 'cuz I have sau. to come home to! Ive thought about you all day, Darling... and it was so pleasant. We have so much to be thankful for, I think ... I know, rm ve", lucky that I have a swellgirl like you to be coming back to. Not eve",guy has it that way. You make me terribly happy --- just think if you can make me feel this way jUst thru letters, why, rll probably bust out cryin' with joy when Fm with you. Yes Darling Tm sure this is really love. I seem to miss you and want you so ... I think ofyou constantly. Yes, Janie, this is real AII my love, Your StanN • •. Marthajane Kirby' 8468 MacArthur Rd. Saranac, MI 48881 ."l �3-18-46 .... Hi Hon, this is the third time I've written you today but I received the tinted picture and the other two at this evening's moil call, so I hod to write and tell you how much I liked them, especially the tinted one, and also that I hod received them. Darling, that tinted one is out of this world!I love it! I think you performed a beautiful bit of tinting on it. It's wonderful and Tm going to get a real nice frame to put it in, one of those with silver around the edge you'lllike being surrounded by silver I know! I also liked the party pictures everyone looked like they were having such fun. And you, you must have hod a -laughing jog" on! In both snaps you were beaming just as bright as could be! Ha! You must be a lot of fun and I can hardly wait to see you. Do you laugh terribly easy? I donit mean are you silly, but more, a good sense ofhumor? Geez. I can't get over that tinted picture! I sure like it. Thanks so much for sendingit. I'llgive you a 'special kiss' for sending it; a little thing I cooked up myself! I'm sure you'lllike it ... very original!! Every time I look at that picture, I think ahead to the time when we'llbe together, and I keep thinking, -Ifshe looks up at me, like in the picture, I'll kiss her every time 'cuz she's so beautiful" Plan to do that willyou Honey?... I found out today that when I get out of this lash-up, I'll rate four full years of college. I wont to toke the full four years ifI can keep mygrades up. Which brings up a problem cOl1&erning us which I want to talk with you about at some later dote, if we click together. Tm sure you understand. Well, my Darling, I only have 2 stomps with me and it'll toke both of those and maybe more to moil this, so Tl! be ctosin'.... Hope I see you soon, Honey, be good and love me lots. Bye .... Your Stan" �•• V 5-19-46 ..... My Darling Janie ... Well, Honey, time isgrowing short and by this time next week I should have my feet on Californiasoil. I'll be thrilled then, but not half as much as I willbe when I kiss you at the station. Til be walking on clouds after yourgreen eyes have cast their spell on me! Mmmm, just to write about it tortures me to the soul, and I'm not kidding either! .....Darling, I want to see you so badly it'sgetting me down. All I seem to be capable of is thinking of you all day long. I see your face before me, I see you smiling and laughing. I dream all kinds of dreams about us, the fun we'llhave and the love we'llshare. We just can't lose, Honey 'cause there seems to be a strong bondbetween us. We think the same, react the same. We see things thru the same eyes. I needyou terribly Janie ...having you would complete all I ever hoped for. I love you so much that it almost worries me. I never dreamed I could want someone so badly, that I've never actually met. Well, honey, soon we'llbe together, thank God. Remember 'til then I'm Your Stan ... I love you, I needyou, I want to hold you in my arms. All my love, Your StanN From Janie: This completes a lot of letters from S1'on, and these were my most precious. During the Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter of 1945 Stan wrote me almost daily and since that means more than 100 more, I can't type them all. This gives the reader a positive image of our love, which endured for more than 57 years. The Hand of God ... all those long long months of waiting for each other. ++++++ • There is one remaining sad fact from Jack. His Mother had saved all the letters I wrote to him (and I have no idea why she did this) and gave them to my Father, and ended up with us later on. (Stan and I after we were married.) One letter I wrote him before he went into combat was a sorta pep-talk, assuring him that I loved him and his Mom and Sister loved him too and we would be praying every day for his safety. This letter, all beat up, stained, bent, almost illegible writing of mine on the envelope, was found in his helmet when he died. I wish I had never seen it. He was only 18 when he gave his life for his country. "Semper Fi, NJack Mj Mar~hajane • Kirby' 8468 MacArthur Rd Saranac, MI 48881 . �II Mr. Stanley Kirby 8468 Macarthur Rd. Saranac, MI 48881-9517 MILITARY STATS 2-16-46..... "The Marine Corps point drop" .....Dearest Janie: I'm so exhausted I can hardly keep my eyes open.... "undoubtedly you read about the recent Marine Corps point drop, to 42! Damn decent of them. At such a rate I'll never get back. It all puts me in a nasty mood ---it just blasts hell out of my hopes of being home in May. No telling now, just exactly when I'll be back. Yes, you're right, it is very disappointing. Oh well, rough! As it is all over." "Well honey, can't think of anything t-write about, Darling, even if! were in the mood, so I'll secure this. I still love you..will always be ... Your Stan" 2-21-46 "Hi Rosebud: Yes, the machine 1 used was a code machine usedfor copying code by radio. 1 will probably write you on it occasionally as sometimes 1 don't have stationery down here. Yes, I know how you feel about the Marine demobilization and you're right, I can't stand it, but I can't do a damn thing about it, Honey. I doubt if that 'protest' they put up here willeverget to Truman. Three. of the fellas's that planned it were 'busted' and put in the brig. Busted from sergeants to privates -- quite a drop. A guy doe~'t dare open his mouth about it (the discharge program) anymore -- and still they insist we're living in a democracy. It's really quite funny. (And Tm glad I'm not involved in any way) The sooner I'm out of this lash-up the happier Til be, in more than one way At least Til be able to call my life my own again. Til close here Darling and write later tonite from work With all my love, Your Stan" ++++++ -Godand Faith " . 6-23-45 .... Darling: Got two swell letters from you. Yes, I have the larger pictures ofyou that you sent recently. Tm admiring them right now ... I wouldn't trade you for anyone! I do know what you mean about faith and God, Darling, and it's a wonderful thing to have faith in God, but sometimes fate doesn't worry about God . You'drealize more clearly what I mean ifyou ever sawguys killed, like I have, and had faith in God, and never harmed another person physically or mentally in their life and where are they now? �"If anything ever happened to me I'd want you to love and be loved by someone, Td want some person as wonderful as you to realize jUst how wonderful you are. Janie, life is what a person makes of it, and no matter how tough the road may be with deaths and disappointments, always strive to make the grade. I guess I'm writing all this because I1JI1L in love with you and I know it sounds mixed up but please try to understand me. Maybe r m different but it's just the way I am.... Please think over what rve written and tell me what you think~ all over again? Goodnite Honey and take care of you. All my love, Stan" 7-22-45 .... "Darling Janie: I have a few minutes before going to work so I'll write a few lines. Did you read about the Navy discharge plan in the paper? It's really quite a system. Basically it's for 'thinning out' the older men, but that's OK, but those 'older men'probably never saw combat, and what about these guys that have seen four or five battles. and have been over here for 16 to 25 months, they can't raise enough points to prick a balloonl.... Damn/ I wish this #%$% war was over so I couldgo back and live a civilized life~ like any normal human being deserves Enough of this!" Say, did you everget that Fourth Divisionpatch sewn on your headscarf? I'm anxious to see it on you .... soon! Take realgorJdcare ofyou andbe careful of the sailors and soldiers! Write soon Honey." All my love, Your Stan" A ++++++ 'VJDAYFOR THEMARINES I!! 8-15-45 ....Hi there Honey. You should feel fine and happy cause the war is over and I know you do. rm really happy, I guess you know. What a day yesterday was. I was just coming in from liberty when the news broke and it was raining like mad. My morale was low, having to walk in the rain with my clean khaki on but when I heard the good news I didn't care if it was raining pies! I listened to some broadcasts from the States from some of the cities and I guess you people really raised hell back there/ Well, rll be home sooner than I expected. Which won't be next week or next month Tm sore, but at least I don't have to worry aboutgetting knocked offanymore. I want so much to be with you, Darling~ and to love you. I wish I couldhave been with you yesterday or vice-versa, as long as we were together. We could have celebrated together and torn K.c. apart! �. Mr. Stanley Kirby ..... 8468 Macarthur Rd. .:.. Saranac, M' .....'-9517 • 8-15-45 ... continued.... Well, Tm going to church ... believe it or not! I figure I have plenty to be thankful for, Darling. Were havinga parade here today --- one battalion ofMarines participating. They are going to present the 'Battle Streamers' to the Division and units therein will fly their respective colors. It willprobably be quite an affair. I suppose you will.have a big parade there too. (In KC it was a HUGEparade on August 14, the VJ day in the States, but with the Marines their celebration was the date of this letter.) JK I wish I couldsee the smile on your face now. Smile for me!! Thanks! Janie, go ahead and open that little package I sent you and don't wait for your birthday after all! Just think of me and how much I love you. All my love, Your Stan (In a book about the Fourth Division in WW2, by Carl W. Proehl,re- printed by Nashville Press, (1988) this celebration is mentioned on page 121.) --JK It 9i-45 ... -My Darling: Well, today is V-J Day for me and the rest of the Fourth. However there's not much to say about it except we have the whole day "off" to do what we want. I slept 'til noon, had chow and slept again this afternoon! This morning I met up with a guy from.~nsas City and he told me all about the big city! He said he didn't know you, but wished he did! I was surprised, given your popularity with your modeling career! I'm glad he didn't know you ...you are mine, remember? Ha. All my love, Your Stan" ******* This ends my letters from Stan ... those I could share anyway. ************** "Some people work an entire life and wonder if they made a difference in the world.!" MARINES DON'T HAVE THAT PROBLEM! SemperFi Love forever, Stan ... Your Janie . •• Mart~ajane Kirby' 8468 MacArthur Rd. Saranac, MI 48881 , �-----r--­ ( M. Farrington 1483 East 76th Karis s s' City, Mo. VIA AIR MAIL �,r t~ '~ . ~ ) ~~t.•~.~.' ~~.i :ktt~. t l ~ 1.r o ~'"<, ~ t . . ~. j~t t " f ~..:c . ~ ,~ t ~ b ~ . .... ·.·'.. . i . "* ,~ 0""_ .~~ ~,~ ~ ~ r . t ~" \-L"{ '~ r_~' ~ ~ t ~ f' r'" &~l.~~,,~;':;" ~l y,~,.,,+ ,,'~;iQ~ / ����, ... 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" , ~ ' ' ;J , .•. , • , 1:: �~ ~ I • , J '. -. o ;".A..~ V ~-G'<- ~. ~~~~ ./ I' .....,.?--L-~. ~ ~ / .4 --e ~tZ.- ~~~ .... ­ ��'.r p My Darling Martlla: If I don't come backfrom my tour ofduty I wam you to marry someone who will love you as much as I do; who will take care ofyou like I would; would laugh wltb you like I have; will comfort you like I would; would enjoy life wlth' you /ike I wanted to •.•.....•.... Please remember me always ......I love youl Jack Wesley Layton June 17, 1944 (From my Diary. June 17. 1944 Martbajane Farrington (1-1r.;" ( f~ t Co 2{) ~'f ~ fl PS I 11 - r: w, �"CHRISTMAS, G.I., 1945" TIS' A MONTH BEFORE CHRISTMAS AND ALL THROUGH· THE SERVICE NOT A DAMN MAN IS MOVING AND WE'RE ALL GETTING NERVOUS GREAT PLANS AND NEW SYSTEMS ARE DEVISED EVERY DAY RELEASING THREE MEN: MAKING TWO MILLION STAY. FOR GEORGIE THE "MARSHALL" WITH HIS NAUTICAL MATE ARE DEFENDING "PEARL HARBOR" JUST FOUR YEARS TOO LATE OUR HEADQUARTERS HERE IS NO LONGER LONELY FOR THE "PINEAPPLE PENTAGON" HAS STANDING ROOM ONLY. MACARTHUR THE MIGHTY GREW PURPLE WITH WRATH SCREAMED HE, GENERAL, THEY'RE MOVING TOO FAST THERE MUST BE SOME WAY TO MAKE MOST OF THEM STAY SO GOD WITH FIVE STARS TOOK OUR SHIPPING AWAY. FOR A WHILE PUBLIC PROTESTS WERE GETTING TOO LOUD SO THE POWERS TOOK ACTION TO QUIET THE CROWD SAID A GENERAL (THEN A COLONEL) ,WHY, WHAT COULD BE FINER THAN TO START JUST A TINY REBELLION IN CHINA. OF COURSE THEY HAVE REASONS TO KEEP US ALL HERE FOR AS LONG AS WE STAY THEY WON'T HAVE TO FEAR THAT THEY'LL LOSE ONE OR TWO OF THEIR SO PRECIOUS STARS OR THEIR EAGLES AND OAK LEAVES REVERT TO GOLD BARS. NOW JOE DOAKES, THE WELDER, IS FILLED WITH DELIGHT FOR JOE'S TWENTY-SIX AND "TOO OLD TO FIGHT" THUS TO DRAfT THIS OLD MAN WOULD BE QUITE A CRIME SO HE MARCHES ALL DAY IN A LONG PICKET LINE. OUR TONY PASOOTA HAS JUMPED ON A PLANE (TONY PLAYS FOOTBALL AND HAS A BIG NAME) BUT POOR BROWN, THE PRIVATE, WILL JUST HAVE TO WAIT HE'S ONLY A FATHER AND CAN'T DRAW A GATE. • Mr. Stanley Kirby . -. 8468 MacArthur Rd. ... Saranac, MI 48881-9517 �FOR ALL GOOD LITTLE OFFICERS WHO POLISH THEIR BARS SANTA'S NOT WEARING WHISKERS, BUT THREE SILVER STARS, THE RECRUITS ARE SCREAMING LET US GO AND FIGHT AND TO ALL WHO WILL LISTEN, I SAY BARNUM WAS RIGHT. USMC Base, Oahu, Hawaii PFC Stanley D. Kirby Base Comm, Signal Bn FMF PAC c/o FPO San Francisco, California December 24, 1945 IJ f .. Mr. Stanley Kirby 8468 MacArthur Rd. . Saranac, MI 48881-9517 �)---/f-~ d- ~/ ~~p-O~~ ~.,£/r·~·/ ~ ~ ~ ~ . ~~~~~~~r ~.~~~~q -: ~~~~~.~~~ ~r~~~~~'/ ~~y~~~~ ~~~.~/;:t3~~~ / ~ ~ ocf}~r' ~J7~ ~~~~~/~~~. ~~~~.c:LJ~s. ~ tY '7~~. y~~~.L~ ~~~./~57~~ ~~~~~~/ ~ r" ~~~a-L~ /~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~J?~/ ~ .s«: ~ . -91/ N~~~~~~// ~/~~~r~/ ~~~ ~ /7~~~ ." (~~ ~~-~7a:: / ,s/.') �Marthaj ane (nee Farrington) Kirby October 1945 Winner, second place: $500 for "Loveliest Lips in the Land " Ju dge: Gary Cooper, Actor Contest by Clara Har r is Cosmetics ��Mr. Stanley Kirby 8468 Macarthur Rd. Saranac Ml 48881-9517 .~ Service Rerileritbrances - World War II Stanley D. Kirby Private First Class I Co;e. p()~ IIL- 11C6 Headquarters Company 3rd BattalioQ,~24th Marines Fourth Marine Division (United States Marine Corps Reserve) . The War had already been going for two or three years when the Marines and Stanley got hooked up. Both of my older brothers were in the Air Force and I entertained the thought of also being a "fly-boy"! Things were not to be that way however, as I was turned down by both the Army Air Corps and the Naval Air Service. Strangely enough, for conflicting reasons: I passed the Army mental test (Detroit) and flunked the "physical" as the person said I needed two or three teeth filled. I immediately went to the Navy Air Corps headquarters and applied - there I was told I passed the physical but flunked the mental test. So, in disappointment, I said to me, "ta hell with you guys, I'll go home and wait to be drafted." That was in the fall of 1943 (I believe). In April of 1944 I received my call to duty and asked to serve in the Navy. They said "fine" and put me in a room with some others. Shortly a guy came and asked us all to stand, With a very deliberate finger he pointed to a few guys, including me, and stated, "okay, you guys are going into the Marines". That's how the whole thing started. We left immediately for San Diego, California (Marine Base) and I never even made it back to Lansing. So I called home and told "Mom" - she was concerned but not shaken. I can't recall, but I'm sure I was anxious and apprehensive about the new adventure but then so were the other guys - so I had company. The Marine base in San Diego was vast, with a tremendous parade and training area - (asphalt) and scads of barracks and little buildings. As I recall the arrival was shortly after lunch and the first thing we did was to shed the "civies" and don the Marine garb, including those lovely field shoes which were stiff as a board when new. About this time we were getting accustomed to being ordered around and it was somewhat annoying, but it would have been more annoying if orders weren't followed. o The real initiation into "Marine ways" (especially recruits) came at dinner time­ from here on in to be known as "Chow" time. With the issued mess kit firmly in hand we were standing in line when a less than gorgeous Sergeant came dashing around yelling: ­ "You stupid people keep yourself in line for the Chow hall ..." "You guys are no-bodys and don't forget it - we are going to make 1 �Service Remembrances - World War IT somebody out of you if you're gutsy enuf..." "You are nothing, zilch, no body, but we will make something of you..: etc., etc..." This was difficult to swallow but since there were 50 or 60 other guys in the same boat it was livable. Our frame of mine ("attitude") was being structured and somehow I felt it would all work out O.K. "Boot" training was 90 days and it was a pre-determined combination of physical exercise and mental re-building. Our battalion was invited to march in the 4th of July parade in Los Angeles. This was one ofthe proudest times of my life. Our parade uniform was summer khakis, dress shirt, tie, leggings, cartridge belt (with canteen and sulfa packet) and overseas cap, instead of helmet. Our platoon was really snappy and heels were hitting the pavement with extreme precision. People were six to eight deep on the sidewalks and they were clapping, yelling and screaming beautiful things. At that moment I felt a bonding with the populous that was indescribable. What a super experience. The "boot-camp" experience was a real neat thing. Yes, lots of physical exercise, mental exercise and sore muscles. But, in looking back I guess I enjoyed it in a way. I accept the fact now that I am a "team player" - with great satisfaction in being part of a group where all are reaching for the same goals. The bonding and camaraderie were extremely enjoyable and character building. Everything-was structured and precisely scheduled. up @ 5:45, breakfast ("chow") at 6"15, calisthenics @ 8:00, 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. was shave, shower, clean up time - check gear and clean rifle. Calisthenics were generally 45 minutes to one hour. The first few weeks always had "close-order drill" in the schedule, 40-50 men in three columns learning to march as one. And we did. Boot camp was basically 90 days and I know that after the first few weeks I was beginning to feel super - mentally and physically - vibrant, alive, responsive. The aim of the U.S.M.C. One ofthe guys in our platoon was a German-Polish person from New Jersey. He turned 36 years old shortly after being in the Marines. At this stage of the war in 1945 they were still drafting men up to the age of 36, (but not over 36). He came to me one day and said, "I've told these people (superiors) that my shoes don't fit but they won't do anything about it." Three or four days later he approached me again, removed his socks and said, "look at my feet, I can't take it anymore!" Both of his feet were coveted with blood from open blisters. I told him to get down to Sick Bay (field hospital) and get them treated. He did and I never saw him again. I'm sure they mustered him out and sent him home. () In July of 1944 our outfit boarded ship for Hawaii. Having never been on the ocean before there was some trepidation, but once underway I realized it was kinda neat. Having spent many hours on boats in inland lakes, and liking the water, I adjusted well to ocean movement. Many cases of "sea-sickness" cropped up which the Naval Corpsmen 2 .. �Service Remembrances - World War IT tended to effectively. I never got sick, but rather enjoyed the ships movements, (that is until some real rough seas, which I'll get to later.) As we neared Pearl Harbor, the sunshine and balmy breeze made one feel somewhat like they were on vacation. Nearing the isle of Oahu porpoises were threading in and out of the water about 400 or 500 feet from the ship - going along in parallel- as if to welcome us to the islands. At the Marine Base in Pearl Harbor we were further organized into our combat units and shortly thereafter boarded ship again for the island of Maui for advanced training. The bunk areas where we slept contained what we shall call "racks" - they were about 24" wide and about 6 1/2 feet long and were stacked three to four high. Steel piping, rounded at comers, with canvas stretched in middle. Not very comfortable and the space between you and the guy above or below was only about 30". The aisles were narrow and you can imagine how easily the air got stale with 100 or two men in the same compartment. \~) Since we had no lockers or anyplace we could safely stow our gear, we had to keep our limited possessions in our field pack which we secured to the end of our assigned "rack". Once, while I went to take a shower, I left my watch lying on the rack and upon returning found it stolen. However, several days later I saw it on the wrist of another Marine. I located the Officer of the Day and led him to the person and we retrieved the watch as I had positive identification. I had saved the sales slip. " " On a ship at sea is a profound experience. One seems to be surrounded with a brightness and freshness that's really impressive. Boredom, - yes there was boredom but not too much as we spent many days and hours in "class". We studied maps ofIwo lima and were advised of the terrain and important topographical features which would be encountered. We passed the island (in the middle of the Pacific) where one of the early A-Bombs was detonated - I believe it was BIKINI - and there was nothing left there but a large sand bar. We stopped at Midway for awhile and then went on to Guam. The purpose at Guam was to re-fuel for the jaunt to Iwo. It was at Guam at twilight where I witnessed a most (one-of-a-kind) unusual happening. Our ship was anchored a short distance off the island of Guam and the nearest ship to us was a submarine. It was about 200 feet off the port (left) rear of our troopship and was still in the water as we were. Since our ship was pointed mostly away from the island, we who wanted to study the submarine, were gathered at the rear of our ship along the raiL (]'"" .. ' \0.,." One of the guys said, "Hey, look!" and 10 and behold another ship was on a course to go straight behind us and heading right for the submarine. It was about 600 feet away and moving very slow - but, it kept right on coming. It was only moving about 2 or 3 3 �Service Remembrances - World War IT mph. when it passed the rear of our ship and it was quite clear there was going to be a collision. About this time the sailors aboard the sub began pouring out of the hatch and anxiously watching the approaching ship. It was obvious to them the ship was going to strike the sub so the sailors all lined up on the opposite side of the sub so when the collision arrived they would use the "bump" of the errant ship to propel them in the air and away from the sub. Well, it struck and the crewmen sort of flew through the air, landed in the wet and swam swiftly clear of the situation. By the time the ship struck the sub it was barely moving and it eased up over the top of the sub about 20 feet. When all the necessary people got their brains together they put the ship in reverse and several minutes later backed off the sub. There was no apparent serious damage except perhaps to someone's ego. All sailors returned and we learned there were no injuries. While enroute from Midway Island to Guam, aboard ship I was chosen (ordered) to do guard duty in one of the storage "holds" which were crammed with war equipment. The location I drew was the "3rd hold" - three levels below the normal "top-side" deck. You had to go down 3 narrow steep metal stairs in order to get there. Since we were on a specific battle mission "war" regulations were the order of the day - therefore I was required to wear steel helmet and carry carbine and ammunition (on cartridge belt). I was escorted to my post by the officer of the day who happened to be a fresh exponent of Marine Officers' Training. He was an impressive physical specimen. And why not --- he was fresh from playing regular Guard on U.S.C. football team! Upon being settled at my guard duty post I was adtIisedof my responsibilities by the O.D. and he disappeared up the stairway and through the hold. (no doors!). As I looked around there were heavily leafed magazines and news-papers. So, I figured that you look at the printed material while keeping your eyes and ears open. I took off my helmet and leaned my carbine up against a Jeep. In the middle of a ReadersDigest a voice from above rang out - "Attention! I" It was the O.D. (Officer ofthe Day) and the Company Sergeant. I straightened up but didn't have time to get myself in order. The O.D. said "Private Kirby, you are in gross violation ofthe Guard Duty regulations. You are out of uniform and are not in command of your post." To which I said, "Well, it looks like everyone who had guard duty here did the same thing." This didn't impress him. I was ordered to put my helmet on and shoulder my carbine. I was advised I would be replaced very shortly. Upon replacement I was lead to the Brig (jail cell). At this point I realized that all of this was not a joke or fun and games! The O.D. said upon leaving, "You will stand in front of the Commanding Officer aboard ship tomorrow to be sentenced." About this time I fully realized the error of my ways. C) The "Commanding Officer" was a Major General and the ceremony was disgustinglyshort. I was the recipient of a "Field Court Martial" and sentenced to 10 days bread and water. I could only leave the cell with an armed escort, so going to the 4 �... ~ Service Remembrances - World War II restroom I always had company. I lost ten pounds and really learned how good bread could taste. My ration three times daily: 1 glass of water and two slices of bread. Surprisingly how good bread can taste after a day or two! Fortunately, "Field Court Martials" are never put in your military records. However, I assure you the above is true. Change of pace story. After "boot-leave" and back in California - we were to go on a long hike with full field pack and battle apparel. This meant a back pack (fully stuffed with clean clothes) blanket, rifle, and poncho that weighed a good 60 pounds. The "hike" was on asphalt pavement. We were never told how far we were going - and, of course, the officers and higher NCO's rode in jeeps - After 8 miles we were all dismissed from loose formation and were allowed to rest. Two or three poor souls couldn't hack it and had to be put in following 6 x 6 trucks. After the "rest" we walked another 11 miles! (How does that grab ya!) I guess you'd have to say we were in excellent physical condition. We left Guam the following day (after "Sub" fiasco) and headed for Iwo Jima. We arrived at Iwo at night and upon getting on deck the next morning I beheld the astonishing sight of dozens of ships. There were troopships, supply ships, hospital ships, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships to name what I can remembe1gMost likely there were many other types also. This was astounding - amazing to a'" year old kid. This was at sunrise and firepower of the ships was bombarding the island fiercely along with light bombers and P51 Mustang fighters. What a fantastic and startling sight. Landing boats were already circling and organizing for the first wave to attack the beaches. Biggest display of fireworks I ever saw! Fire, Smoke, noise and..ilctivity. Anxiety - yes - but we were extremely well prepared mentally. There was ajob to do. Fortunately our unit wasn't scheduled to load (and go ashore) until 3 p.m. in the afternoon. When the time arrived we had to climb down a rope-mesh ladder and jump into a Landing Craft Infantry, (LCI). This was "touch and go" as the LCI was bouncing up and down due to windy conditions. It would drop away and move 2-3 feet from troopship and then rise abruptly 2-3 feet and bang against the side of the ship. It would have been easy if all we were clad in were bathing suits but with 60 lb. field pack, heavy cartridge belt and 91b. rifle it was testy. While heading for the island the silence in the LCI was head-banging. Concerned faces prevailed and as we were nearing the beach the noise was something else. Explosive sounds of all dimensions and magnitude. As the "gate" of the LCI dropped down at the beach and we bounded out we immediately noted the vast array of stalled and damaged equipment - mainly due to the volcanic sand which was like wading through 12" of marbles. Navy medics were busy tending to the wounded and here and there were lifeless Marines. Unbelievable scenes. : ~-)~."" \. ..•.. In two or three hours we were able to advance about 100 yards. The first waves of infantry were already a few hundred yards inland. Mortar fire was the order of the day 5 �I .. Service Remembrances - World War II and these explosions were all around. I must admit I was plenty scared and did some serious reading of the 23rd Psalm while being pinned down by mortar fire. It was about this time something banged against my steel helmet and bounced a few feet away - it was an empty 50 mm brass machine gun shell from the P-51's which were straffing overhead. I learned later that one of the P-51 's was piloted by a high school friend of mine. I still have the shell casing among my mementos. The heavy mortar fire continued all night long. Although we (one Sergeant, one Corporal and myself) were taking shelter in a bomb crater about 20 feet wide, we were still subject to harm in case of a direct hit. Extremely heavy mortar fire started about 10 p.m. and I got to shaking so bad the Sergeant said "It's okay kid, you're gonna be fine. " When the mortar fire died down so did my shakes. The fear tends to build up because you're in a helpless position. The next morning, - after about 2 hours sleep - I raised up and noticed a piece of shrapnel about 1" x 3" had hit the stock of my rifle and caused a gouge about 1/4" deep by 2" long. This occurred about 8" from my head. You see, I was sleeping with my rifle under my head as I lay face down in the sand. The second day we moved to a safer shell crater and it was this place of refuge where a partial bomb casing about 4" wide and 15" long lay near me no more than 2 feet away when I awoke on the 3rd day. Again I thanked the "man upstairs." -, Before I forget I want to mention an incident that happened while on route to Iwo. One bright afternoon the sailors on board decided to have some target practice. They threw overboard an empty 60 gallon oil drum and let it get about 100 yards away. Then they opened fire on it with 20mm "pom-poms". They must have used 50-75 rounds and still couldn't sink it. A Marine asked permission to fire at it. Permission was granted and in two shots he sank it. (J-"\ ~ Back to the conflict. Between the 3rd and 10th day we moved several times. The mortar fire had diminished and only rifle and machine gun fire could be heard (nearby). The forward ground forces were squeezing the enemy back successfully. At night it was necessary to form a perimeter security ring. One night, - on my 4 hour shift - I heard what sounded like a cat meowing. It would be repeated and then it sounded like another cat somewhere else nearby. I could not talk or yell at my comrades so I threw a stone at my Sergeant to wake him. I whispered carefully what I had heard. Without a word he slipped away and I continued my "watch". A few minutes later several other Marines (from somewhere!) slowly edged themselves into position nearby, facing the direction of the "meows." In the early hour of day light the following morning, the infantry men who so carefully joined me crawled carefully forward and all of a sudden all hell broke loose with grenades, machine gun and rifle fire. When the noise had ceased I crawled out of my security trench and soon saw what the commotion was all about. About 25-30 yards in front of me was a bomb crater full of dead Japs (about seven). A grizzly site - some ~ 6 Gt<.tSL f �Service Remembrances - World War II ~, ) with sides offace missing, shoulders blown off, etc. A real bloody mess. It was then I learned that these particular Japanese were infiltrators and used the cat sounds to keep track of each other as they moved through our lines. Another night while on security duty my job was to guard an area in front of me that was essentially a corridor formed by rock walls on both sides about 12 - 20' feet high. I heard footsteps which seemed to be 75-100' feet away. Since no friendly forces were to be in this "corridor" I shouted "halt, and give me the password". There was a shuflling of feet and then the sounds of running. I could just barely see the outline of the infiltrator and fired a short burst from my carbine. When I asked for the password two other Marines came up beside me and they also fired. There were no further footsteps. The rifles the Jap had is the one I now have on the wall at home. It was retrieved by the two Marines who supported me when they secured the body at daybreak. Fortunately, it is not known whose bullets brought the infiltrator down. Throughout these first few days I observed war sites one never forgets: bloated Japanese bodies, dismembered bodies and the stench was almost unbearable. Another unnerving site was the day G-2 Marines ("Intelligence" squad) were bringing a prisoner into the command post area and his dungarees were ripped clear up to his crotch - out of his left upper thigh protruded a fractured bone. He was in shock but still he was hopping along on one leg. Late in the campaign the Sergeant yelled at me one day saying "hey, Kirby you wanna see the flag go up?" He handed me his binoculajs and pointed to Mount Suribachi. Sure enough, there were five or six Marines pushing up a pole upon which was the Stars and Stripes. This scene of course became the famous photo of World War n. We were 1 or 2 miles from the mountain but got a real good view. The United States needed Iwo Jima and it's two air-strips because ifheavy bombers left their base to bomb the island of Japan it was possible they may run short of gas upon trying to return. I was lucky enough to see the first B-29 land on the captured air-strip - one landing gear inoperative and it skidded to a stop at the end of runway. Myself and several "buddies" cheered - realizing and underlining the value of what the Marines had done. In this operation I was a "runner". Responsible to run messages between command posts because to use radio or telephone would be dangerous if the information fell into enemy hands. I was part of a team of 4 - Sergeant in charge, Radio Operator Corporal, another runner and myself. We worked close with the Battalion officers to articulate necessary communications. I was trained in three different methods of Code as well as semaphore flags. C) During the final stages of the battle I recall being asked to volunteer to help string telephone wire up at the front lines. My job would be to ride on the passenger side of a Jeep and hold a spool of telephone wire and let it string out while the driver charted the 7 �Service Remembrances - World War II course. This activity wasn't part of my "M.0." - I looked at the Sergeant and he said, "you don't have to do that". So, I didn't volunteer. If! would have I would not be writing these notes. The volunteer that did go was killed and the driver badly shot in the back. Another silent prayer was called for. An interesting part of the Marine communications agenda were the Navajo "Talkers". These Native Americans had a language foreign to the Japanese and were used to talk on the portable radios for the purpose of military messages - rather than use mechanical or written codes. Although I never had the chance to sit and talk with them (they conversed in English as well) they were a congenial group even though they chose to be by themselves. As the battle of Iwo drew to a close and the din of mortars and small weapons fire diminished we Marines gained more freedom to roam and relax - and it was great when it was finally and officially announced that the island was completely secured you could hear the applause and yelling all over the island. And then, as a complete surprise, within an hour or two, all Marines were treated to a celebration drink! Not very sophisticated, but a fifth of whiskey was given to every group of men - and I mean every group of four-five. (You never read that in the paper did you!!). C) The voyage ~ to Hawaii was more enjoyable although it was sad that many of our ranks were missing. Back at Pearl Harbor we were in limbo waiting for further orders or whatever. While at Pearl (Honolulu) a friend of mine decided he wanted a car, so he had "daddy" back home send him enough money to suy a 1931 Ford (Model A). We had lots of fun with it - but one night we were riding through mid-town Honolulu and were stopped by Police for not having any tail-lights. My friend Jim, who was driving, was going to get married in a week or so he quickly talked me out of my military ill card to hand to the Officer. How stupid I was. The Officer wrote the ticket up in my name, reported it to the Marine Base and I got two weeks restriction out of the deal and had to "sign-in" at the company office every two hours - Whoops! Finally we headed for California and home. As luck would have it when we reached the mouth of San Francisco Bay I was assigned to Guard duty at the very rear of the ship. It was windy that day and the ship was rolling and pitching. As I was rising up and down (like on a merry-go-round horse!) I was studying the lovely sight ofthe Bay bridge. How nice to be back. (~) Shortly after leaving by train to come home (I think maybe around Sante Fe) my jaw began to feel tender and I developed an abscessed tooth with high temperature in addition. It got so bad entering Nebraska that I lost consciousness. Some medics on board treated me temporarily and they put me off the train at Lincoln, Nebraska where I was picked up by Jeep and taken to the Air Base there. They put me in the Sick Bay (Hospital) for a few days, lowered the fever, filled me with antibiotics and eventually pulled the bad tooth. I was treated like some war hero (or something) and it was a wonder I didn't completely blowout my ego!! Whenever I went to the mess hall they 8 �· . Service Remembrances - World War n said, "Whattaya want? - we'll fix anything you want." I enjoyed lots of steak, eggs and pie! I will always be in debt 10 a first Lieutenant who, when I mustered out, said "do yourself a big favor and go on to college, you've got the G.!. Bill to help you." I did and will always be glad I did so. Other Memories' One time while in basic training someone in our barracks said they saw our drill Sergeant playing poker in the early evening. Somehow this information got to the higher ranks and the Drill Sgt. was severely chastised. (No poker playing was allowed in training area). And, "somehow" the Drill Sgt. found out it was someone in our barracks who squealed! For punishment our entire platoon had to scrub our barracks floor with toothbrushes! Oh yes, another time I was caught with sand in my bayonet scabbard. For punishment I was forced to "dry-shave" my face (~shaved before!) Upon completion they (Company Sgt. and Cpl.) splashed my face with shaving lotion. Wow! Bum, Bum, Burn. Have been shaving ever since. () Shortly after arriving on Maui (in Hawaii) a Navajo was assigned to our Message Center squad. It was said one day that he stole someone's jacket. The following day they found his body in a nearby ravine - a knife sunk deep in ~ back. Never heard any more about it. Another weird story - while in early boot camp at San Diego we had a guy from one of the Southern U. S. states get called to the Company Office. (This was an unusual thing, during training exercises). When I saw him later in the day packing his belongings I asked what "they" wanted him for - he said, "oh, I shot a nigger back home". I asked why. He said, "Well, he was walking across the grass in front of our house." I didn't press questions any further. /'''"\ \J Another scenario - the wife of my friend who got married had a girlfriend who I dated two or three times (always platonjc). One night when I was going to her house I had to take a bus and transfer to another bus - while waiting at the transfer point - which was a rather large area with a roof over it - I was standing somewhat apart from the others (mostly native Hawaiians and Orientals) when four Hawaii guys came up to me. I would guess they were in their 20's - two got in front of me and two behind me. One of those in front of me said, "Aren't you the Marine who we saw with an 'island' girl last week?" I said, "well, yes, I dropped her off here many days ago!" The speaker said further "We don't like you Marines taking out our Hawaiian girls." At this point he was about 12" from my nose and I said "She asked me to come to her house." Obviously the message was that I should refrain from dating this girl. I repeated my case that it was she who invited me and that seemed to satisfy them. The bus arrived and I pushed my way 9 �,, Service Remembrances - World War II through them and their dirty looks. I guess I took solace in the fact that it took four of them to one of me. Personally I wasn't anxious to tussle with four husky Hawaiian boys! Shortly after wwn started both of my older brothers joined the Air Force. Bob (the older) eventually became an aircraft mechanic and received notoriety for being the first Air Corps Mechanic to actually fly with the pilot to analyze the engine problems in a P-38. Next oldest brother Don became somewhat of a special envoy who's job it was to deliver specific and classified data to command posts in various parts of the war theaters. He traveled a great deal by plane. However, in his later tenure in the Air Force he somehow got on a burial detail and spent time in Northern Africa burying bodies. This duty left a severe emotional mark on him and he never really did get over it. o Once while aboard ship I was walking around the deck and I saw a guy pounding on something with a spoon. He was sitting on the steel deck and kind of hunched over ­ holding something in his left hand and pounding it with a spoon (G.!. Issue!) in his right hand. Quizzingly I asked what he was doing. He explained he was making a ring. How? He detailed that he started with a silver dollar. First step was to drill a 1/4" hole in the center - then placing the silver piece on a 1[4" piece of steel rod and striking the edge with a spoon until it flattened out (all the way around) strangely enough the hole in the center gets bigger (to ring size) and the outside gets wider and flatter. God only knows how many strokes it takes, but the result is a neat silver band about 1/4" wide. Finishing with fine steel wool and polishing on hard surface with cloth finished the ring beautifully. Did I make one? I sure did! Between Iwo and Hawaii I made one. (Got the silver dollar from Navy finance officer!). Where is it now! Probably 200 or 300 feet out in the Pacific Ocean off the northern shore of the island of Oahu. You see, a fellow Marine and I decided to go to the beach to soak up some sun. The surf was "up" - I would say 8' - 10' waves. We didn't dare go out in surfas the undertow was terribly wicked. But, the water was cold and shrunk my ring finger a little and the ring went off into the boiling undertow sand. I did take a deep breath and raked the bottom around my feet a little but a large wave knocked me over and it took eyea' bit of my leg strength to break loose of the undertow. But I managed to stand upright and I got the heck out of that surf One day at the camp on Oahu I received a message that my brother was at the airfield at Pearl Harbor - Hickam Field. I hadn't seen him for almost 2 years and was excited to hear from him. Bob was older than I by five years and a vastly different personality. He was a lover of night life, a womanizer and had heavy bouts with alcohol ­ and as handsome as any Tom Cruise or Robert Redford. (..-) After I finally got him on the phone (at his barracks) we met out on the concrete apron and I was elated to see him and I walked fast to shake a hand and give a hug. He could have cared less and was about as excited as a four year old in a room full of adults! Anyway, we went to his barracks and talked for while and that was the last time I saw of him for a couple more years. One always admires their older brothers and I was no 10 �. , '' I " Service Remembrances - World War Il exception. But, I was somewhat crushed by his lack of emotion, especially after not seeing him for such a long time. Speaking of being crushed how well I recall the day I arrived in Lansing after being gone for over two years. I had called ahead and advised of my arrival time by Greyhound bus. A whole car load of folks had come to the station but the only one to meet me as the bus was unloading was my mother. Maybe I expected too much - but on the other hand there was my Dad, my favorite Uncle and another Aunt and Uncle. I guess the problem lie in the fact they had all been drinking - apparently ~ heavily. I felt bad about this meeting. .' And then, to add a little more vinegar to the dressing, when we got home I discovered my other brother had worn out all my clothes and shoes while I was gone. What a bummer. "The other brother" was Mom's favorite so she probably waxed him into it. Stan began writing his remembrances 8/26/96. KIRBYWPS . - 11 (1­ �., ~ The following inserts are out ofsequence since I did not find them until recently ....February 2004. Stan had written them in longhandand put them with his USMCmemoirs originallypenned in 1996. These were written at that time too. They still contain many facts about his Marine Corps life .... Andare not hard to place with the other writings. Stan's wife: Marthajane (Janie) Kirby " �· ,... '/' "Will wonders ever ceaser Just recently, en e-mQiI friend of ours from PennsylvQniQ, Qfter reQding my nQme on the World War Two MemoriQI page (memoriQI being built in DC. expected to open yet this year 2003) wrote to me to express his QppreciQtion for the "MQrines" on Iwo JimQ who helped SQve his DQd. Qn Air Force tQiI gunner. 20th Air Force. nth Air Bomber Group. on Q B-29. Their crew WQS unQble to IQnd Qt TiniQn Qnd hQd to IQnd Qt Iwo JimQ due to flak dQmQge from bombing run on JQpan. "Due to the Marines. my fQther was given Q ehenee to live Qnd rQise Q fQmily Qnd I wish to hear from every Marine thQt fought there. My fQther hed difficulties putting into words whQt he SQW Qnd I guess did not WQnt to remember but WQS proud of the Itarines Qnd QlwQYs prQised them QS the best fighting men. Books are good for leQrning but the best educQtion is listening to the person who went through life Qnd lived it." '7­ (.'.\) ~-&I The miracle of this story: page. of my story talks Qbout the first B-29 landing on Iwo that I witnessedl THIS IS THE SAME -." PlANE my e-mail friend's fQther was 0", How (:Qn one ever explQin whQt hQppens in our lives? StQn Kirby ��--') pretty good protection against nearby hits of mortars and rifle fire. They were (trenches) of course temporary as we were on constant moves inland. Since Iwo was a volcanic island heat from underground disturbances came close to the surface and this provided warmth during the cool nights. Sometimes you could even see steam rising from the ground. INSERTBD """'\ ~~.J Many guys had to pull Bguard duty" (as they referred to it) and I was one of them. I had to do it twice between Hawaii and Iwo, and once on my way back. Somewhere (between Midway and Guam) I had to do some guard duty on the ship's deck, at the wee hours of the AM. My post was the very rear of the ship -- which was called the Bfan tail." .I did not have to stand still but could walk around under orders not to leave the area. After the last "bulkhead" (wall) of the super structure, the deck went uphill for about 30 feet. Not a severe rise but enough drain water. Naturally there was a railing -- solid steel from hand level to the deck about 4' high. It was a very windy night and the "seas" were rough! There was a bright moon, however, and as I went to the very end of the ship I witnessed how rough the sea can get. We were in swells that raised at1~ lowered the fan tail 20-30 feet!! Fantastic, I thought! And the movement did not make me ill. The last guard duty I pulled was when we got back to California on the way home. We were anchored just off San Francisco and my "post' was on the main deck. I never experienced such turbulent waters. The ship was pitching and yawing and just bouncing around wierdly. One of the sailors advised me, upon my asking, that the problem was caused by the juncture of two currents. Apparently one going one way and one the other. I can't substantiate that, but that is what I was told. INSERT BE" ;o~.-·· , . One thing the Marines stressed to recruits was orderliness and neatness. When we would have area inspections the foot locker, sea bag, rifle and other belongings had a specific place. They were to be in their place or you might endure doing push-ups (lots) or running around the parade ground until your legs ached. A favorite of the inspecting officer was flipping a coin over your made-up cot. It it didn't bound\, you were advised your blanket wasn't IL �:.~ tight enough. This was kind of a often. tongue-in~cheek thing as wasn't done too I don't know how it ever started but the Marines at that time (40's) were known for the "spit shine" on their dress shoes (oxfords.) This was achieved by applying coat after coat of polish in between which you spit on the area and rubbed the moisture in until it disappeared. Generally it would take six or seven coats of polish. Eventually one achieved a glass-like finish. The dress oxfords (Marine issue) were to be worn on leave and when you left camp for weekend pass. In those days (40's) you would never see a Marine whose shoes were unshined. It was part of the Marine dress code. INSERT-f" It was not unusual to have equipment inspection on a moment's notice. This . meant your rifle and bayonet had better be spotless and dustless. We would line up on the parade ground in parade formation. Neat and orderly and at "cttention." The inspecting Sergeant or Officer would very mechanically go from one recruit to another and select one at random for rifle and bayonet inspection. Unfortunately, he stopped at me and!rabbed my rifle. Nothing was found wrong and the rifle was handed back. He then asked for my bayonet (which I had cleaned immaculately.) He said: "There's dirt on the handle," see me in the Company office after inspection." Someone behind me had thrown a pinch of dirt on it I figured. Never found out who. My punishment was something they would never allow today: I had to -dry shave" in the presence of the Company Sergeant (they provided the razor.) At that age, and perhaps due to generic reasons, I didn't have much on my face except peach fuzz. It was scratchy and painful to say the least. To top if off, they splashed shaving lotion on my face and the -sting" was nasty. Why didn't I resist? Because in Marine Recruitment Training in those days you took your punishment and kept your mouth shut. If not, you might find yourself on -Iatri ne duty" for a couple of weeks. Self-control was part of the Marine training. INSERT-Gil One day aboard ship (on the way to Iwo) I noticed a fellow Marine hitting something on his shoe with a mess spoon. The scenario was this: in one hand (7 3 �,. "~ tight enough. This was kind of a often. tongue-in~cheek thing as wasn't done too I don't know how it ever started but the Marines at that time (40's) were known for the "spit shine"on their dress shoes (oxfords.) This was achieved by applying coat after coat of polish in between which you spit on the area and rubbed the moisture in until it disappeared. Generally it would take six or seven coats of polish. Eventually one achieved a glass-like finish. The dress oxfords (Marine issue) were to be worn on leave and when you left camp for weekend pass. In those days (40's) you would never see a Marine whose shoes were unshined. It was part of the Marine dress code. INSERT-F" ,,~) It was not unusual to have equipment inspection on a moment's notice. This ' meant your rifle and bayonet had better be spotless and dustless. We would line up on the parade ground in parade formation. Neat and orderly and at "cttention." The inspecting Sergeant or Officer would very mechanicallygo from one recruit to another and select one at random for rifle and bayonet inspection. Unfortunately, he stopped at me and~rabbed my rifle. Nothing was found wrong and the rifle was handed back. He then asked for my bayonet (which I had cleaned immaculately.) He said: "There's dirt on the handle," see me in the Company office after inspection." Someone behind me had thrown a pinch of dirt on it I figured. Never found out who. My punishment was something they would never allow today: I had to -dry shave" in the presence of the Company Sergeant (they provided the razor.) At that age, and perhaps due to generic reasons, I didn't have much on my face except peach fuzz. It was scratchy and painful to say the least. To top if off, they splashed shaving lotion on my face and the -sting" was nasty. Why didn't I resist:> Because in Marine Recruitment Training in those days you took your punishment and kept your mouth shut. If not, you might find yourself on "latrine duty" for a couple of weeks. Self-control was part of the Marine training. INSERT-G" () One day aboard ship (on the way to Iwo) I noticed a fellow Marine hitting something on his shoe with a mess spoon. The scenario was this: in one hand t7 3 �·, .~ I he had a round object -- about 1" in diameter and was holding it against the side of the heel of his shoe. This he was doing fast and repeatedly. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was making a ring~ This struck my curiosity and sought further info. He proceeded to tell me you take a silver dollar and drill a hole (about 1/4") in the center. Then, after holding it on the shaft of a screwdriver, you kept hitting the silver dollar until the edges knurl back and the hole in the center gets larger. Silver dollars.ace. malleable. After several hours you develop a band-like ring. Fine sandpaper and steel wool finish the job. A long and tedious undertaking? Yes!! But I decided I would try it. My ring turned out smooth and true after fine sandpapering and steel wool. I even rubbed it with wool to get a lovely shine! It actually ended up a hair larger than I desired but it stayed on my ring finger fairly well. I was proud of my efforts. However, I lost it! Some buddies and I went to the north shore of Oahu to experience the huge breaking waves (after returning from Iwo.) We donned our swim trunks and messed around in the breaki~ waves. The water was cold and I guess it shrunk my skin a little on my hand and the ring slipped off into the surf. Couldn't find it. Don't tell Uncle Sam I mutilated a U.S. coin) INSERT"H" In order to get to the troopship into the LeI's (Landing Craft Infantry) it was necessary to climb down these "nets," I'll call them. They were made of like 1" manila rope and the open spaces were about 10" square. With the LCI bouncing around and the troopship moving up and down it was difficult and tricky climbing down. Especially with rifle, field pack, ammo belt, full canteen and Sulpha pack. When you got to the bottom where the LCI was gyrating two or three buddies helped you get off. o One poor soul got a real banged-up leg when his foot slipped and his leg got jammed between the troopship and the top edge of the LCI (gunwhales.) On the spot analysis indicated a broken leg. I don't believe he went ashore. �INSERT-I" 'ht::VElLL£'\ . Recruit training usually was made up of a day that started at 5:45~reville) and ended at 10 PM C-Taps".) After reville the first responsibility was "roll call" (gotta make sure everybody is still therel) After roll call it was back to the tent (or barracks) to get mess gear and go to the mess hall for ·chow: Food was placed on your tray (compartmented) and after you were through you had to scrape off the leftovers into provided containers and be on your way back to the barracks. •Muster" (assembly) was generaIf around SAM as I recall and from there it was marching (close order drill, rifle training, bayonet training, field classes in combat readiness, and various military instruction.) Besides the M-l (Garand) training we had to also become familiar with the M-l carbine and Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR). The first several weeks of Recruit training were restricted primarily to the Recruit Depot. In my case it was San Diego Marine Base. After awhile we were moved north to Camp Pendleton which was just inland from Oceanside, CA. We got more advanced training and exercises (precise rifle training and practice and bivouacs.) One part of the rifle training was composed of simply practicing squeezing the trigger (rather than pulling!) You would line up the target in your sight and squeeze. After the "click" of the firing pin going forward, another Recruit would hit the bolt handle with the base of his palm to simulate recoil. This part of the training lasted several days. Along with the above we would go on long hikes -- usually with full field packs (40-50 pounds) and rifles. The mode of dress was the same as you would have on going into combat; fatigues, steel helmet and liner, leggings, cartridge belt. One of these hikes was 19 miles and even tho there was a 15 minute rest at the 10 mile mark it was still a very tiresome trek. During this particular stretch of training we also had to climb a 10 foot wooden wall, crawl on our bellies about 25 yds. underneath barbed wire and machine gun fire (with rifle cradled in forearms). jumping from 30 ft. tower into water. (This was to acquaint one with possible necessity of having to jump from the deck of the ship.) Insert .... II [f, fL..E S/-I/ttCP SltOdTEI( During rifle training while in Boot Camp, I earned the ·M(lfksl!\ar~hip"medal (3.+ 1.)(;1£' If by hitti ng 7 out of S bulls eyes at 500 yards. . �(~ / There were a few other exercises we were exposed to, but I can't exactly recall them right now. Finally, 90 days later, we ended our "boot" training and got our leave to go home. I thi nk it was 2 weeks. A chance to show off our Marine "greens" and nice tan. It was also an opportunity to see friends and to unite with family. I don't recall dwelling on it at the time, but of course, the fact existed that I might never see them again. After the home leave I reported to Camp Pendleton, CA where we were made ready to go overseas. INSERT"J" ..t,e.,.,lWe Iff'California at San Francisco in gorgeous sunshine and blue sky, heading for Honolulu. Never having been on the ocean before there was some trepidation but I was never afraid of the water. The seas were kinda calm and the breeze was fresh. After a day or so the seas got kinda rolling, and we did experience some pitching and dipping as well as yawing and rolling. A few guys got sick from the motion and contaminated the ocean over the side rails! What to do aboard ship for several days? The biggest recreation was reading. (The ship's store sold magaZines.) N~ to reading came card games. Beyond that there was sun-tanning and bull sessions. The approach to Honolulu and the isle of Oahu was a beautiful sight. Once again the sun was bright and the sky was cloudless. As we were going past the islands of Lanai and Maui there were perpetses threading in and out of the water -- paralleling the ship's course about 75 yards off to the starboard (righthand) side of the ship. This was fascinating and lasted about an hour. Upon docking in Pearl Harbor we were herded into -- what was called -- 6x6's and taken to the Marine Camp to await further orders. We had previously been issued a supply of clothes in California and these things (plus some personal items) were in our sea bags which we were told not to unpack except for change of "skiwies" and undershirt because we would be leaving for Maui the next dayl So be it! �t-~ '-' 1 .I Arriving at Maui we were loaded in 6x6's and taken to the Marine Camp up on the mountainside. Haleakala, by name, which was about 10,000 ft. high. The ride to the camp was fascinating as the many kinds of flowers and vines came right up to the road (asphalt.) The entire trip (about 20 miles or so) was beautiful. The camp was almost entirely a tent city. Company Headquarters rated a wooden building however. It rained upon arrival and rained quite often after that. The tents were about 24'x24' and bunked about 6 men. Because of the frequent rain and mud was a common phenomenon and wooden walkways (boardwalks) were everywhere. Reville was at 5:45AM and "Taps" at 10PM. Taps meant ·'ights out" and they did enforce that rule! Candles were taboo, but if you really had to finish that letter to home you could use a flashlight. ~) We went on a bivouac up Mt. Haleakala one time with full field pack. We went almost to the peak and made camp. It think it was Sept. or Oct. and it was cool and cloudy. This is where we learned how toatake our ponchos and fold them into a waterproof "sack." One did sleep well after that long trek --, i.n tdhe mOdrhning'de~erything around had a green cast. It may have been the a titu e an uml Ity. -.. Incidentally, in the field there was always a latrine to relieive yourself. Generally a slit trench with burlap ·walls· around it. For sit-down events there would be a small 109, elevated a little on both ends. Naturally it was adjacent to the trench. The Marines always fed well and the "cook" division (or platoon) would always arrange an effective field kitchen. Up on Haleakala,however, we were allowed only ·C" rations. This to get used to combat-type situations where there would be no "mess hall.· ·C" rations were meals 'in a can. Generally beef stew, but occasionally pork and beans. Instant coffee was provided in small tin containers which was one small ration of coffee. Just add hot water! We were provided with little can openers that folded down to about the size of a quarter. One wing was kinda oblong and flat while the other was triangle shaped with one sharp edge. You had to strongly hold the oblong side with thumb and index finger while piercing the can with the unfolded sharp edge. Actually it was a rather unique device. ~I �./ .~ ~. While on Maui we had bayonet practice em drills as well as intense physical conditioning. We were in good shape! I ~ Weekend passes were a blessing. We would don our "summer tens" 0JlI go down to Wailuku or Kahaliieu for whatever fun there was to be had. At Kahalieu they had a real nice swimming pool and they would open it to the servicemen during certain hours. When it was open to the military no females were allowed. However,one time an oriental gal did enter somehow and caused quite a ruckus. In her street clothes she ran to the diving board, sat on the end, pulled up her skirt and said, "come and get itW' The water boiled with. • sailors and Marines. Some records may have been broken doing the 20 yards! (I like to swim, but not tho1.bad! Risky for sure, for a disease you wouldn't want to get!!!) There were many things you could do on a weekend pass. It seems like half (or more) of the guys would hit the nearest bar. I thought that was a waste of time so I would go to the beach and hunt shells, go in and out of the little shops, go to the airbase and look at the P-51's and P-38's, or maybe to the usa and have a talk with a hostess and listen to some music while having a cold one. Always there were MP's to keep order..... mentioned, there was a small airfield on Maui and one time I went there with a buddy who had a brother stationed there. We were allowed on the field and the brother took us out to look over a P-51 Mustang. It was really neat and he even let me sit in the cockpit and start the engine! Man, what a thrill! You started the engine with what looked like a shotgun shell. An unforgettable experience. As In late November or early December of '44 we packed our gear and boarded ship for points unknown. We didn't know where we were headed. -- I guess for security reasons. We just tooled across the ocean waters day after day. We passed by Wake Island and the Bikini's (where atomic bomb was set off.) There was nothing left of Bikini except a pile of sand -- no trees, bushes, or anything. Many days later we arrived at Guam. We anchored offshore and took on fuel. There were manyships of varying descriptions all around. We stayed at Guam for two or three days as I recall and then took off �.... (' ' j again. Again, I say, we didn't know where we were going but after several days out at sea it was let known we were going to Iwo Jima, south of Japan. From that moment on we had several little seminars about the island -- its typography, climate, number of troops (assumed, from 63), location of pill boxes, and other military sites. It was rather amazing to us neophyte soldiers that they knew so much about the island. They (instructive officers) had a large draWing of the island which showed the two airstrips, location of bunkers, Mt. Surabachi, and other military targets. Whi le we were enroute and for weeks previous the island was bombed day after day for 75 days. It was later learned that even with all that bombing little damage was incurred to the bunkers and the mass of troops that were safely hiding in the vast network of underground tunnels and caves. INSERT·L" When I was sent to Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, CA, I met up with another Marine; Jack Layton, from Kansas City, MO. We fast became good friends and often went on liberty together. .~ Jack had a girlfriend back in KC, and I too had a girlfriend, my high school •steady" in Lansing, MI. When Jack showed me the picture of Janie (Marthajane) I looked at that beautiful face and immediately fell in love with her! (Didn't breat~a word of my feelings to Jack, however!) I felt, when looking at her, some ·mystical" . sensation, like I had already known her all my life Jack and I decided we would each write the other's girlfriend, to keep tabs on both ~ us, not knowing then where we were going. I think I wrote about 3 letters to) Janie which Jack "censored" while I was writing! I think he wrote Ji II, not sure. We headed off for combat, and found out it was going to be Iwo Jima. Jack and I were in the same outfit but going over were on different ships. We arrived at Iwo on February 19, 1945. Unfortunately, Jack was killed the second day of the invasion. I found out about it immediately and was sick at �) Heart. I wrote to Janie just after Iwo was secured, to tell her: -I haven't seen Jack for quite awhile and I probably never will.- I knew she would know what that meant! Because of censoring, I was unable to say what had happened. My letter reached her just a week before Jack's Mom received the awful telegram from the War Department. Just after I returned from Iwo Jima combat, I was sent to Maui, the USMC rest camp. After arriving, I received a letter from my girlfriend in Michigan telling me: 'Tm engaged and expect to get married soon" Well, what a blow that was!! Here we were, Janie and Stan, brought together somehow by God. I continued to write her and she did too. We fell in love with each other in a matter of weeks. She wrote me such wonderful, caring, loving letters. And I responded as well with so much love for her. I wrote her, during a period of 18 months, 200 letters. She sent me a lot of photos (wow» which I appreciated tremendously (as did the guys in my tent!) I asked her to wait for me and she did. All that time we waited for each other, having never met before. We knew it was a chance we were taki ng but we were both so sure of our love for each other. We both felt Gtremendous power bringing us together and never knew exactly what that sensation was. It was not infatuation, a pipe dream, etc.....It was, J. am sure, the Hand of God. Once before Jack died, I wrote her and said: -After the war you and I and Jack and Jill are going to meet in Chicago at the Trianon baJlroom, and tear Chicago apart! "WeJl, after returning stateside and meeting Janie in Chicago (having met her previously in KC in '46 and were madly in love) we went to the Trianon. When we were dancing, I said: -Do you know what's missing here?­ And she said: "ves, Jack and J'ill." It was painful to be so far apart and when I started college at MSC, it became more painful. We already decided we would get married, but when? I gave her my engagement ring on New Year's Eve in 1946 in K.C. We didn't think we would get married very soon. But by the end of January 1947, we couldn't stand being apart any longed So before my sophomore year at State, we got married June 27, 1947. We were so happy we were delirious! 16 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KirbyM Title A name given to the resource Kirby, Marthajane (Interview transcript and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kirby, Marthajane Description An account of the resource Marthajane Kirby was born on November 4, 1927 in Kansas City, Missouri. When her high school sweetheart joined the Marines, she wrote to him regularly until he was killed. His friend, Stanley Kirby, then took up the correspondence, and when he finally returned to the US, the two were married. See other interview record for papers. 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.) Video recordings United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--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 2008-04-23 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/3fbffba61c1630e77bf5e9ed365db0ad.mp4 fdd106cc08064bbd7c68172a090e1452 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a94faae28837cf20ad8a1e2e60b06811.pdf c62733aa78ea5d2ac2d96b11112eac34 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Interviewee’s Name: Don King Name of War: Other veterans and civilians/Persian Gulf War Length of Interview: (00:12:09) Childhood and Pre-Enlistment (00:05)  Born in Albion, NY in 1963 Graduated High School and enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1980 at age 17.  Joined the Marine Corps because his father and grandfather were Marines Training (01:23)  Attended Boot Camp at Parris Island, SC and then to Camp Lejeune, NC for further training Active Duty (02:43)         After training, was sent to Twenty-Nine Palms, CA, the Philippines, Japan, and several other bases in the US. He was reactivated as a reserve in 1990, and sent to fight in the Gulf War. They were shipped over, and they were sent to a staging area. (05:18) They were able to return to the United States with all but one of their original members. (05:40) Life on the base was very much regimented. In their free time, they would train physically, but they rarely got off the base. The food was OK, and served buffet style. (07:07) He made a number of friends while in the service. He was able to stay in touch by mostly letters, but also the occasional phone call. (08:30) They were sent to Japan and then the Philippines to help evacuate bases. They were then shipped to California and then Michigan. (11:32) They trained with the Japanese in cold weather during his time in Japan. Post-Service (9:00)   He attended therapy after the war to help him readjust to civilian life. His career in Real Estate was not influenced by his time in the military. � 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 KingD Title A name given to the resource King, Donald, Jr. (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource King, Jr., Donald Description An account of the resource Don King served in the Marine Corps during the Cold War and Gulf War years. He served overseas in the Philippines and Japan during his original tour in the early 1980s, as well as in the U.S. He joined the reserves and was mobilized for the Gulf War and sent to Iraq in 1991. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource King, Morgan (Interviewer) Crist, Sofie (Interviewer) Forest Hills Eastern High School (Ada, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Persian Gulf War, 1991--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 2009-06-08 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/0ea7da36f4a4fd6221e75f9a95dec5c9.mp4 7d23f986f083912f51b25e74c3eee8fa https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ed759e3e78f486e7bb871158ec2ba835.pdf fd5678392bcbab1784ac5f710a1b5d93 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Carl King World War II Total Time: 54:33 Childhood and Pre-Enlistment (00:00) • • • • • • • Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1924. (00:45) Father was a furniture maker before the depression and then became a farmer until 1936, when he went back to the furniture business. Attended High School and graduated in 1942. He knew about the war in Europe before Pearl Harbor, but it didn’t really affect him. He remembers them announcing the Pearl Harbor attack in church Many of the people that he worked with were drafted. (04:05) He went to the draft board and requested to be drafted into the Navy the next time the draft came up. (04:45) He had a physical in Kalamazoo, Michigan and then had a week at home before he was sent to Great Lakes Naval Station in Chicago, Illinois. Training (05:54) • • • • • • • • • He took basic training at Great Lakes Naval Station, where they were taught basic procedures and marching. He was able to stay out of trouble, as did most of the people there. (07:15) Many of the men in his company were from Tennessee and Kentucky. (08:07) Boot camp took 12 weeks. (08:20) He signed up for Machinist Mates Service School after boot camp. (09:15) They were taught to run basic machinery at the school, which took place at Great Lakes as well. He was assigned extra duties during service school because of his prior knowledge of machines. (10:25) He got liberty every other weekend while he was in service school. He spent liberty at home because he was able to make the trip to Grand Rapids in 1 day. (12:04) After Service School, he was able to choose where he would be assigned. He signed up for PT Service School. (12:45) They had to wait in a warehouse in Boston for PT Training. After the wait, he attended PT School in Bellville, Rhode Island. There, they lived in Quonset huts and spent a lot of time on PT boats in the Narragansett Bay and the North Atlantic. They spent very little time in the classroom. �Active Duty (15:30) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • He was assigned to the PT Training Squadron as an instructor. He did not enjoy this very much. He began this job in late 1943. (16:48) He was then transferred to a squadron in Miami, Florida where he was assigned to work the base force, which worked on the boats while they were at base. (18:30) He spent 2 weeks in Miami, and was assigned to the base force. He was then sent to an island off of the Pacific end of the Panama Canal. There, they continued training and waited to be shipped west. (20:15) He then boarded an LST and eventually reached the New Hebrides islands in the South Pacific. They were just passengers on the ship, however he was able to talk his way into engine room duty to alleviate the boredom. The trip took around 4 weeks. (22:50) They were based on a coconut plantation in the New Hebrides, and were housed in Quonset huts. (24:15) He met very few people who were involved in PT before training. He was acquainted with John F. Kennedy during his training, but he did not get along with him. (25:35) He was in the New Hebrides as a waiting point before being sent to Guadalcanal. He eventually flew to Guadalcanal, only to find out that his squadron had shipped to the Treasury Islands just a few days before. (26:15) He was loaded onto an LST in Guadalcanal and shipped to the Treasury Islands. (27:34) They were then assigned to a tender, which carried all of the supplies for the PT boats, so he was no longer on shore. (28:20) They were then shipped to Palau, where they participated in a number of different activities, including protecting a fleet anchorage. They were there for a couple of weeks. (31:00) At one point, a minisub was detected in the fleet anchorage, but they were never able to find it. (31:48) A Japanese soldier was swimming towards the USS Yorktown with a floating mine, but the mine was hit by rifle fire and exploded before he could get close. (32:20) They were then sent to the Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, and arrived there 2 days after the invasion. When they arrived, there were still many Navy ships in the gulf. (33:45) They were allowed liberty in the Philippines a number of times. They often went to a small village of around 1500 people. (35:35) They were then loaded into LST’s and taken to Okinawa. (38:50) Most of their work on Okinawa consisted of rescuing downed airmen whose planes were too damaged to land. They were stationed in a small harbor that had served as a Japanese submarine base. It was located on the northern side of the island. They had very little trouble with the ground based Japanese troops, but were attacked by Japanese aircraft. �• • • • • • • (40:50) They saw a kamikaze attack on one of their supply ships. (42:25) They occasionally shot at Japanese aircraft, and he believes that they were able to destroy 3 fighter aircraft. (44:10) They were stationed at Okinawa when the war ended. He remembers hearing about the dropping of the atomic bomb while he was there. (45:20) He had been in the South Pacific for 2 years by the time the war had ended. They did a number of things during their time off, including playing sports and listening to the radio. (46:53) They were again sent to the Leyte Gulf a couple of weeks after the war ended. They scrapped their PT boats while they were there. They were only there for a short time. (50:15) He then boarded a boat which took them near the Aleutian Islands and then down to Seattle, Washington. They were loaded on railcars in Seattle and shipped to Great Lakes Naval Station where he was discharged in February 23rd, 1946. Post-Service (51:50) • • After his discharge, he came back to his job at the General Motors plant in Grand Rapids. He retired from General Motors in 1982. � 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 KingC Title A name given to the resource King, Carl (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource King, Carl Description An account of the resource Carl King was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1924 and served in the Navy during World War II. He was drafted into the Navy upon his request, and attended training at Great Lakes Naval Station. He joined the PT corps and worked as a machinist throughout his time in the service. He spent most of his time in the service in the Pacific theatre, serving in the New Hebrides, Guadalcanal, the Philippines, and Okinawa. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-01-06 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/c4dc9660c140b041f1f0ec2388efb7b9.mp4 78ef562682b3364ab4a50a5dc169d7ec https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/80523c3cb27c8a3eb5db615793e76377.pdf fb68aeb0943d6561199f72f5c0556b4d PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Vietnam Elaine Kines Total Time – (40:42:18) Background · She was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1954 (00:48) · Went to Byron Center High School (00:58) · Her mother was a homemaker and her father drove a truck o There were 5 members in her family · She graduated in 1972 (01:15) · She paid a lot of attention to the war - remembers moratoriums and wearing black bands (01:38) o Didn’t understand the politics of the war, but it was popular to be against it · Her oldest sister had many friends that went to fight in Vietnam · After high school, she worked at the Meijer warehouse (02:12) · Tried to go to school and work full time – was not able to do it (02:20) Enlistment & Training – (02:29) · Was always interested in the Air Force o The Air Force was not actively pursuing women who wanted to join (03:07) · Recruiters did not know what to do with her until she tested (03:28) · She went to the recruiters office at Rogers Plaza and told them she wanted to sign up · Was sent to Detroit, Michigan, for testing and to get a physical (04:06) o She hand carried the test results back to the recruiter and waited to see where she was best fit (04:40) · The recruiter told her that she would be good with electronics (05:03) · She was smoothly moved to be excited about weather equipment repair (05:24) · She was sent to the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for basic training (05:41) o There were roughly 2 separate barracks for women for basic training · She was flown down to the base (06:10) · Was part of a “flight” – 30 individuals in a “flight” o Group that she trained with – all women (07:08) · Basic training was not very difficult (07:29) o There were different standards for men and women § Men’s push-ups vs. women’s push-ups �· · · · · · · § Men run 3 miles and the women would run 2 Learned about the Air Force in course work (08:05) Did a lot of marching and paperwork in training She was required to sign a pre-printed postcard to family (08:39) Discipline was highly stressed o Inspections were very important There was no kind of hazing throughout training She had a male and female instructor (09:43) Basic training lasted six weeks – until they received orders of their MOS (10:15) Active Duty – (10:18) · She received orders for Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois (10:28) o For weather equipment repair and weather observation · Flew on a commercial airplane to the Chanute Air Force Base o Chanute was much smaller than Lackland (11:16) o Now in a co-ed class of nearly 15 (11:45) · Stayed in a women’s barracks for all of the Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force women (12:10) · Many of the other women were very young (12:32) o There were African Americans among other sorts of diverse women · The electronics training program was six months long · Worked with cloud height measuring equipment, radar, wind gauges, and many others (14:22) o Did not gain much “hands-on” work – did a lot of book work (14:55) · She had to wake up very early every morning · Went to school with Iranian technicians that were there to learn weather equipment (15:50) · Free time was spent doing laundry, taking walks, hanging out together (16:19) · She believes that the smaller environment helped the men to see her as just another classmate (17:58) · After the six month training, her job responsibilities were still wide open (18:17) · Her first assignment was in Minot, North Dakota (19:00) o She did not want to go there because it was the headquarters (19:10) · She met her future husband at Chanute and was able to get a join spouse assignment, which moved her to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina (19:50) · She got an entry level job as a weather maintenance person (20:17) o There was a good deal of OJT · The reception was that the males did not know how to handle a woman (21:04) o They changed the way they talked and did certain things o They were always polite and treated her kindly · She did a lot of preventive maintenance – strict with how the equipment was �· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · taken care of (21:46) o Worked on the flight line at this point Worked at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base for just over 3 years (22:45) She believes that the members of the Air Force truly wanted to be there (23:06) The Air Force treated her as an Airman and extremely equal (23:25) o She was sometimes referred to as “babe” (25:07) § She had to tell them to stop and they would She lived off base with her husband (25:59) They were all required to be wearing a full dressed uniform, off base, if they were to be in uniform (26:27) o She was allowed to wear her fatigues if she was traveling to and from work (26:49) She worked for a man that had been involved in the Vietnam war (27:55) o He did not talk of the war – He said that it was awful, hot, and nasty (28:10) Many of her comrades were there to make a career out of the Air Force (28:30) It was extremely challenging being a female o Was “hit on” all of the time (29:10) o The woman’s presence in the Air Force was sometimes misunderstood There were some men that resented having women on base (30:00) Being married helped her status among the men (30:45) There were many administrative women, but very few maintenance working women (31:45) Believes that it is brilliant to have women in the service (32:30) o If men are to be drafted, women should be able to be drafted as well The women felt as though they had more to prove (33:30) Recalls a story of a young man that jumped to his death because he had re-thought his entry into the service (34:40) She had terrible homesickness when she was there (36:14) After the Service – (36:27) · She left the service because her husband had been discharged and it was not practical to stay in (36:40) o In hindsight, she regrets not doing “20 and out” · After the service, she worked and her husband went to school (36:55) o She drove a hi-lo for Meijer (37:02) o If you served in the military, you were granted the same position, superiority, etc. when you returned · She had a daughter who served in the National Guard (37:49) · She sees that the situation of having women in the service has opened up o Women no longer have to explain why they are there (38:33) · Encourages women to join the military because of the many opportunities and that �they expect excellence (39:36) · Her military experience gave her a greater sense of self and she accomplished things that she could have never dreamed of doing (40:15) o Set her on a trajectory for her life – brought order and a sense of accomplishment � 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 KinesE1371V Title A name given to the resource Kines, Elaine (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kines, Elaine Description An account of the resource Elaine Kines was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1954. She graduated from high school in 1972, and continued on to become a college student and full time employee at the local Meijer warehouse. Unable to maintain her employment and schooling, she decided to join the Air Force. After passing her testing and physical examinations in Detroit, she was sent to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for basic training. She received her orders after the six-week basic training, and reported to Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois where she worked in maintenance for weather equipment repair and weather observation. She was able to evade her first assignment to Minot, North Dakota by gaining a join spouse agreement. This agreement allowed her to be re-assigned to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina where she worked for over three years. She remembers both the hardships and benefits of being a woman in the service and left the Air Force once her husband was discharged. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Air Force 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 2012-04-11 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives