1026 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8af1b6074057e81a84a0e4372b2b77eb.jpg ea592b7190deb647090e073806838d9f 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 VanSteelandRonald_Photo04 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Van Steeland, Ronald Description An account of the resource Ronald Van Steeland, Vice President Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/45029fe533737ea8c75046e92e646307.jpg 2a3a93e8082d88751abc18328375809f 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 VanSteelandRonald_Photo05 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Van Steeland, Ronald Description An account of the resource Ronald Van Steeland, Vice President Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9996e6b492f0aa8d1b1f5a0accd26760.jpg 878cdcbf192e3fcf487e33f206a5d699 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 VanSteelandRonald_Photo06 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Van Steeland, Ronald Description An account of the resource Ronald Van Steeland, Vice President Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c4e9c8adc36ac70e06ed58865f4eb679.jpg ed54ad761edceb9a82e9c71203796663 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 VanSteelandRonald_Photo07 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Van Steeland, Ronald Description An account of the resource Ronald Van Steeland, Vice President Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1c837064b68f25695f41f083c5784759.mp4 8ae8c1e3faa15e6b438664a3211d4933 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/268ecd674107b2f0cdea807557aa0f1c.pdf dd6fb2af6a1978093a24df73c136d378 PDF Text Text Robert Van Strien (29:00) (00:18) Background Information • Robert was born in Grand Rapids, MI and moved to Byron Center, MI when he was 10 • His dad was a cashier at Byron Center Bank • He graduated from Byron Center High School in 1945 • Robert joined the Navy with three of his friends after high school (1:42) Training • Robert went to Virginia for basic training in late September for 3 months • He got to go home for one week during training • Robert then went to the west coast and boarded a ship to Japan (4:18) Occupation of Japan • Robert was assigned to be a typist for a commander on the USS Columbus • The war was over and there was not much work to do • He was on a radar machine at one time and got to watch them plot out the ship’s route • Robert helped type part of the ship’s news letter • They went to Kobe, Japan where the Japanese had a submarine base and took about a dozen or two subs out to sea and blew them up • He got assigned to do work on the USS Chicago which had more than 3 thousand people on board (11:45) Leave • Robert and other men had time on leave to go to Tokyo and go shopping • He would trade his cigarettes for things because he didn’t smoke • Robert went to Nagasaki to see where the Atom Bomb had been dropped • A lot of guys went to the bars • Prostitution was a problem and many of the men on the ships had STDs �(15:38) Impression of Japan • A lot of Japan was “bombed out flat” • The mountain sides were full of caves • He mostly ate on board the ship and didn’t eat Japanese food • Robert would visit friends on an Army base near by (20:30) Discharge • He went to the California and then to the Great Lakes Naval Academy where he was discharged in 1946 • Robert used the GI Bill to learn how to fly • He has owned 3 different planes • After his discharge he bought a truck and hauled milk for 25 years • He got a deferment from the Korean War because he was married and had a baby • Robert appreciates living in the United States after being in Japan • He belongs to the American Legion � 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 VanStrienR Title A name given to the resource Van Strien, Robert (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Van Strien, Robert Description An account of the resource Robert Van Strien was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and graduated from Byron Center High School in 1945. After high school he and three of his friends joined the Navy. After basic training he was assigned to be a typist for a Commander aboard the USS Columbus. He served after the war during the Occupation of Japan and typed part of the ships newsletter. After his discharge in 1946 he used his GI bill money to learn how to fly and has owned three planes. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Moore, Debra (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. Navy Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-08-15 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e3de56afeaa6e478589e5d14f2e2e654.jpg 7d0285c5daae8fe7f44e989cd9a00537 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 VanSyocJere Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Van Syoc, Jere Description An account of the resource Jere Van Syoc, Thomas Jefferson College Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/631c14ed004bcf6d1b6d50e961aa4d1c.mp4 d09a99d2f237a1a80311bc2771935c02 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e2cd1524237be100deb91ce37c42437a.pdf 4a8ff27c8b186e1e753cb0bb94c8a60b PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Korean War LeRoy Van Vleet Length of interview (42:49) (00:17) Family Background       Birthday May 11, 1931 (00:29) Grew up in Ottawa County, Michigan (00:39) Father worked for the WPA during the Great Depression. He also worked for Brass Company out of Grand Haven, Michigan and spent time as a class A machinist. (00:48) Completed 3 years of high school before enlisting in the Air Force in 1951. (01:27) He had family that were service members, his cousins were paratroopers and marines. He remembered the attack on Pearl Harbor. (02:12) Did odd jobs before his enlistment. (01:59) (02:52) Enlistment and Basic Training    Joined Air Force to avoid being drafted into another branch of service. (03:34) Lackland Air Force Base in Texas was the site of basic training and it was held for 14 weeks. (03:49) Problems adjusting to military discipline. (04:25) (5:08) First Active Duty Station  One month of service at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Generally, assisted engineers with the building of pontoon bridges and attended plumbing school.(05:20) (07:15) Deployment to Alaska   After a 15 day furlough was sent to a disembarking and processing station at Camp Stoneman in California. (07:18) Troop ship took men to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska and then were taken by plane to Thornborough Air Force Base. (08:00) (09:12) Cold Bay Alaska    Le Roy was stationed at Thornborough Air Force Base at the tip of the Aleutian Peninsula, which was also known as Cold Bay Alaska for roughly 13 months. The camp accommodations for the enlisted service members were crude. Cold and barren environment. �           Bears and wolves present in the area which required service members to arm themselves when outside. (10:00) Food supply and rations. (11:25) Major function of base was to refuel planes and tankers. (12:58) Duties included POL (patrol, oil, and liquids), guard duty, refueling planes and tanks, and taking care of the water supply. (13:18) Discussion of weather conditions which affected planes, runways, equipment storage and the type of clothing and gear utilized. (16:00) Received specific survival training for conditions in Alaska along with instructions to follow if base were attacked. (19:30) There were not many civilians present at the base; however hunters and trappers were in the area at times. (20:36) Comrades (23:00) Le Roy’s off-Time activities included reading, completing his high school education and numerous outdoor activities. (24:56) Major Events (27:00) o Submarine spotted in bay. (26:57) o Fire at Radar Installation. (27:10) Time at Cold Bay Ends (28:00) o Taken from Thornborough to Anchorage to Kodiak Naval Base and then to the mainland. (28:33) (29:00) Stationed at Eglin Air Force Base in Valparaiso, Florida           Eglin was a large base with a climate hangar and 10 auxiliary fields. Worked on planes doing aerial spraying of swampland. (30:15) Many civilians worked at Eglin. Le Roy participated in fueling and loading planes along with civilians. (30:37) Was part of an Emergency crew responsible for preparing base during events such as a hurricane. (31:00) Eglin was close to cities such as Panama City which allowed LeRoy to participate in social outings. (32:00) Integrated Base. (34:00) Test Hangar was 3 acres large and could recreate weather conditions from one extreme to another. (34:30) o Was used by all services. (35:00) Chemicals used for aerial spraying included DDT and Kerosene. The scope of their effects were not known at this time. (36:15) Le Roy received offers to reenlist but they did not appeal to him. (38:39) Le Roy was discharged in January 1955. (39:04) (39:13) Life After Service Went back to Michigan and worked in machining, construction, at a power plant, and on barges. (39:49) �Influence of service throughout life. (41:36) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context VanVleetL Title A name given to the resource Van Vleet, Leroy (Interview outline and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Van Vleet, Leroy Description An account of the resource LeRoy Van Vleet was born in Michigan in 1931. He enlisted in the Air Force in 1931, and received training as a specialist in fuels and lubricants. He was assigned to a refueling base in the Aleutian Islands for thirteen months, and then spent the rest of his time in the service at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American United States. Air Force Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-12-15 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/af5710a407a7d85373b14643e5b0c280.mp4 161520d6c9fa63b97c5dfab8753c0085 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e644942e1377305d1567a4c51cdbbb39.pdf ac24c2f3bb2b3a5dfb575790ec463e1a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Gordon Van Wylen (01:01:00) (0:17) Background • Grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan • Graduated from Ottawa Hills High School in 1937 o During the Depression years, had little money (0:22) • He was the first in his family to go to college (0:36) • Attended Calvin College, he was within walking distance from the College • 3 years at Calvin and 2 years at U of M o Received an AAB degree from Calvin and an Engineering degree from U of M after a 5 year program (0:45) • 1940 he went to U of M and was due to graduate in 1942 (1:00) • Pearl Harbor happened in his Senior year at U of M (1:11) • Took a job with Dupont o Easily got the job due to his engineering degree and the demand for skilled labor in the military industries (1:45) • Wanted to join the service in stead of his job with Dupont o His heart was not in the engineering job (1:54) • Signed up for the B7 program with the Navy o A 4 month program (2:11) • Went to the B7 program in Columbia (2:41) • He did not know that he would be living in battleship Illinois o He was sent here because he had an engineering degree (2:47) • Had to march from 137th to 116th street to participate in the program and other leisure activities offered by the program directors o I.E. Saturday parades o Said the only hardship of the program was living on the battleship (3:32) • Had a compulsory Church service on Sunday o Had to march to get there (3:46) • Joined the Church choir o A protestant church (4:06) • When Pearl Harbor occurred, him and other students at U of M were glued to the radio awaiting more news o He knew that this would change America and his life in some way (4:26) • Shocked that the Japanese could attack the US with surprise o He was informed of world events and knew what was going on in the war  Everything really hit home when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor (5:03) • Joined Navy B7 program o February 1943 – June 1943 o They had no choice where they would be sent after they completed the program (5:39) �• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Could volunteer, because he was an engineer, to be on a submarine duty o This was because he had an engineer degree and he had good marks in the program, giving him the ability to have a choice in where he was sent (6:07) He choose submarine duty because he didn’t want to go to Navy school and wanted a sea experience (6:14) Had to visit a psychologist and take a physical to be sure he was up to submarine duty (6:30) He was accepted into the submarine program o Went in as an officer because he had a college degree (6:36) He was sent to Key West, Florida with 25 reserve officers (7:27) The base used WWI R-boats It was a sound school, trained officers to detect submarines o Used the R-boats as tests because they were not fit for combat (7:46) Communicated with each other through sound waves, short and long wave o They wouldn’t be able to use radio waves in combat so they had to learn how to do it by sound (8:39) Took the sound course in Key West for 3 months then went to submarine school in New London (9:09) Not aware of how dangerous It would be, until later o He wanted to go to sea on a small ship • He didn’t want to be stuck in a motor room of a battleship o Motivated to be a deck officer on a submarine (9:20) 8 week program in New London (10:01) Choose a submarine called the Hardhead o Which was still being built in Manitowoc, Wisconsin (10:56) He was sent to Manitowoc with the rest of the crew while it was being finished o It was completed in April 1943 (11:19) It was tested in Lake Michigan o It was the first submarine to be tested at a 400 foot depth • They had to make sure everything was working properly before it was sent out to sea (11:30) With his engineering background he was familiar with the principles of the submarines machinery (12:43) The submarine had 8 officers including the captain and 6 other officers o 3 officers were reserve and the other 3 were academy graduates (13:42) Each Officer had various jobs assigned to them o Engineering officer, communications officer, etc (14:41) He was a commissary officer in charge of food o Had 85 men on board o Had to make sure there was enough food to feed all of them for their trips (14:50) After testing was done, the crew was sent to Chicago on the submarine and went down a river/canal to a dry dock lift that put the submarine into the Mississippi and pulled by tub boats to New Orleans Went through the Panama Canal (16:12) �• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Went to the Pearl Islands and trained for warfare combat o The sub was assigned a destroyer (16:19) Spent 7 days in the Pearl Islands, all sorts of exercises o Night routines, gun firing, tracking (16:40) Practiced a submerge attack (17:47) Explains the torpedo and how it works in all its various aspects o Very complex in relation to the submarine and other ships (18:17) Learned to make a submarine attack o He was assigned to mechanically measuring distance and estimate range to compare with a computer o He would fire the torpedoes when ordered too (20:30) Early part of the war, the torpedoes did not function properly o The original theory was to fire the torpedo under the ship and the ship’s magnetic field would trigger the bomb  This did not work very well (22:02) They shifted to actually hitting the side of the ship o It took awhile to engineer this, as well as more time to get correct estimates and range to fire (22:35) Left Manitowoc in May 1944 and went to Pearl Harbor after his training in the Pearl Islands (23:01) Went on patrol in 1944 o He helped patrol the east side of the Philippines (23:14) He made his first attack after a week of patrol (23:33) Discusses how the submarines communicate o Submarines were forbidden to use radio waves o They were never to broadcast to their base in Australia unless it was very important (23:49) His submarine was sent top secret information on location and patrol routes of Japanese ships (24:35) They tracked a ship until they had a course o They attacked once the ship’s course was confirmed (25:27) Submarines go a good 21 knots on the water surface 3 to 8 knots submerged o 21 knots is roughly 5 miles an hour  12 days to get to the Philippines from Pearl Harbor (25:50) The Japanese got better at attacking submarines as the war progressed o The US had around 42 submarines in the area o They were always mindful of a Japanese attack  From ship or air assaults (26:45) They sank a destroyer o They did not sink the smaller ships that were with it (27:55) He only felt threatened by the Japanese 2 or 3 times (29:09) On his second war patrol off the west coast of the Philippines in a wolf pack (29:23) o 3 submarines working together One submarine picked up a signal on the radar (30:05) �• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • They got around the destroyers protecting a carrier They fired at it and the ship exploded o They learned after that it was carrying aviation fuel After the explosion the ships protecting it started to drop death charges (30:55) His submarine got away unscathed o The submarine that first detected the radar signal was destroyed o The third submarine was chased and attacked, but survived after 16 hours (31:36) o His submarine got a reward for sinking the carrier with minimal damage to the submarine (32:10) His submarine was based in Perth, Australia on the western coast They went through the Indian Ocean and Indonesia, through narrow passages to get to the base (32:45) The Japanese knew that US ships were using the narrow passages near Indonesia so they tried to patrol them (33:23) They ran into a few destroyers They tried to outrun the Japanese ships o They both fired on each other, formed a stalemate and got away (33:30) There was a good cohesion among the officers and crew on the submarine o Not much distinction between ranked officers and the crew  They wore much the same outfits, and ate the same food, slept in the same places o Everyone was very friendly and got to know each other (34:22) Older officers were more knowledgeable about the world and what was going on o They focused on their orders and duties o The younger officers did not have that much to do outside of the basic duties and had more time to think about the danger they were in (35:33) Everyone felt tense when they were being shot at or right before an attack (37:41) He had a good sense that the US would win the war (39:02) His submarine finished its 6th war patrol when the war was over (39:15) He wonders why the Japanese did not quit the war before the atomic bomb was dropped, since the Japanese knew that the war was lost (39:40) He did not know anything about the bomb before it was dropped (40:20) Before the bomb was dropped he felt a land invasion of Japan was going to be necessary to end the war in the Pacific (41:14) As the war went on the threat level felt the same even after the was ended o Many Japanese still held out in certain areas (42:07) The submarines stayed on the surface of the water unless it was in sight of land o The surface ships, such as destroyers, were faster and the submarines couldn’t outrun them even above water (43:06) He felt relief when Japan surrendered (45:02) He said he had a good experience in the Navy (45:41) He was done and more than ready to go home when his time to serve was up They could communicate with sound to other submarines when submerged o They could not use long distance radio contact (47:29) �• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Submarines kept logs of incoming messages about other submarines and what the base in Australia was sending them (48:43) He was a part of the Southwest Navy patrol o Based in Perth, Australia o The Pacific Navy patrol was based in Pearl Harbor (49:18) He left 2-3 weeks after the war was over o He was in San Francisco for 4 months o Discharged on February 1946 (49:28) He went to graduate school at Michigan State University o Went for MIT He stayed in the reserves for a few years (49:50) Many people didn’t talk about their experience in the war o He told his family many stories about his experience o He said it was probably because he never witnessed any atrocities of war compared to many other soldiers (50:11) He was never a part of a veteran’s program (51:28) Met a woman in college and got married and had 5 children He is very involved in his church Life is always busy o These are reasons why he did not join a veterans group (51:43) Doesn’t think his war experience was the biggest thing in his life (52:19) Only kept in touch with a few of his fellow officers He went to a reunion in Manitowoc (53:40) Found out there were many soldiers that survived the ship that his submarine first sank o He wrote to the officer that helped organize the escape (55:17) He helped publish the Japanese officer’s book in the US o Published in 1994 (55:38) Met up with the officer in Norfolk, Virginia as part of a world tour with WWII Japanese destroyers (58:22) Went to Japan for a ceremony celebrating the book and its success o The ceremony brought him feelings of reconciliation, and the experience was extraordinary (01:01:00) � 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 VanWylenG Title A name given to the resource Van Wylen, Gordon (Interview outline and video), 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Van Wylen, Gordon Description An account of the resource Gordon Van Wylen left his job as an engineer for Dupont in 1943 and joined the US Navy. He entered an officer training program, but then transferred into submarine school. He served on the submarine USS Hardhead in 1944-45 and went on six patrols in the Pacific. His boat sank several Japanese warships, including an aircraft carrier, and after the war he contacted and befriended some of the Japanese sailors who survived the sinking of this ship. 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.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004-10-22 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/a379a60135c82e4565311d6e13f7cdac.jpg a7878a33f6dc7b6b627c40d1f105ba02 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 Van'tHofBarbara_Photo01 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Van'tHof, Barbara Description An account of the resource Barbara Van'tHof, Board of Trustees 1981-1986 Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d446dfcaf26625e5d5c59d6c161d46ee.jpg 2c186e2895bdde1a6679c378751d4700 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 Van'tHofBarbara_Photo02 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Van'tHof, Barbara Description An account of the resource Barbara Van'tHof, Board of Trustees 1981-1986 Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3421676f837312d051495f6b5476aec0.jpg cf2835bcf5e03b653cd4dc51b2c6d3d9 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 Van'tHofBarbara_Photo03 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Van'tHof, Barbara Description An account of the resource Barbara Van'tHof, Board of Trustees 1981-1986 Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/13688bfdf8feefb64af03f77d42bca06.jpg 1be613f37dac05aa6d285dbe85713ce2 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 Van'tHofBarbara_Photo04 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Van'tHof, Barbara Description An account of the resource Barbara Van'tHof, Board of Trustees 1981-1986 Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/112df998678f995017c104a9c31bdad0.pdf 303b77da600f20e862b1e3c47a603000 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project World War II Richard VanAllsburg (22:51) Background Information (00:53) • • • • • Born on February 17th 1921. (1:00) Richard was in the U.S. Navy and retired as a Commander. (1:25) He served in Ohio, Washington, California, Texas, Florida, and the Hawaiian islands. (1:40) Richard lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He enlisted in the Navy (in approx 1943). (2:27) Richard was trained to fly at the age of 19. When he enlisted he was told that Navy flight training would be easier to get into. (2:58) Training (3:12) • • • • Richard was sent to Buchman College in Ohio where he sent half his day in athletics and half in the class room. This lasted 6 months. (3:23) He was then sent to St. Mary’s College in California. This was the first part of training that was like a real boot camp. (4:00) Many men who enlisted came from homes that were still in poor states from The Depression. Training was the first time many had nutritious food and regular physical conditioning. (5:13) Approx. every 3 months Richard was moved for training. (6:03) Active Duty (6:20) • • • • • • Richard spent much of his active duty during a 9 month stretch in Hawaii. He worked in a utilities shed. (6:22) Richard volunteered to be sent to the Pacific. He had become board with the training in California. (6:45) Richard shipped out of San Diego, California, on an aircraft carrier. (7:27) Richard’s job was to tow targets for any man who needed shooting practice. He also calibrated radar. (7:46) In Hawaii Richard flew 9 different kinds of aircraft. This he very much enjoyed. (8:29) While flying, Richard flew too close to the ground and scared people off a float during a parade. (10:00) Life in Hawaii (10:40) • • • • • In Hawaii Richard spent most of his time chasing women. (10:48) Letters were the primarily way that Richard stayed in contact with home. (11:23) The food was not bad. (11:25) Richard doesn’t recall being too stressed. He loved flying so much that work was not seen as work. (11:42) Occasionally there were dances held. Nurses often came from the hospital to dance. (12:33) �• Overall Richard enjoyed his time in the service. He wouldn’t have left the Navy if his dad did not want him home to work for him. (13:24) Life after Service (14:30) • • • • Richard asked for an early discharge so that he could go home and help his dad with his dairy business. (14:35) Richard did not make many close relationships during active duty. He did make close relationships while in the Reserve. (15:20) Richard attended Michigan State University with a degree in agriculture and Dairy Manufacturing. (16:08) Richard processed and sold milk and ice cream. (16:20) Thoughts on Service (16:50) • • He enjoyed the service and would encourage anyone to enter. (16:54) Richard remained in the reserve for 27 years after being discharged in 1945. This affected his life more than his military service. (17:34) The Reserve and Return to Service (17:50) • • • • • Richard reentered the service from the reserve in 1962. (17:55) While in The Reserve, Richard would train a weekend a month and do 2 weeks of active duty a year. Richard served at naval stations in Cuba and San Diego. (18:05) He flew dive bombers while in The Reserve. (18:50) Richard was sent to South Langland for his active duty. Here the men flew reconnaissance missions that keep track of electronic reconnaissance boats that were 300 miles off shore. (20:11) Richard flew the 2nd highest number of hours while in service in South Langland. (21:16) � 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 VanAllsburgR0850V Title A name given to the resource VanAllsberg, Richard (Interview outline), 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource VanAllsberg, Richard Description An account of the resource Richard VanAllsburg, born on February 17th 1921 in Grand Rapids Michigan, served in the U.S. Navy from approximately 1943-1945 as a pilot during World War II. Richard spent his first year of service in various training locations and active duty on bases. He soon volunteered to be sent to the Pacific in order to fly more. Richard was sent to Hawaii where he pulled targets for shooting practice. After being discharged in 1945 Richard joined the Naval Reserve. He was called back into duty in 1962 to carry out reconnaissance missions in the Caribbean for approximately 1 year. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Vandersyde, Seth (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 World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource 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 2005-06-06 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e86ce1494e8b61ef6aa73109c8c24e88.jpg 580dd0a3183a4f67f4af797192e2df87 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 VanceDouglas_Photo01 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Vance, Douglas Description An account of the resource Douglas Vance, Director of Grand Valley Center in Grand Rapids Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4c9ae7402453583c2f9065833124d647.jpg 4f8b67cd3b5412b1a24772152b65b1ff 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 VanceDouglas_Photo02 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Vance, Douglas Description An account of the resource Douglas Vance, Director of Grand Valley Center in Grand Rapids Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/77f26d6582338d37ed13c98ebf21ff1b.jpg b6f708c4f4eb02a39bd02135a99c70e7 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 VanceDouglas_Photo03 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Vance, Douglas Description An account of the resource Douglas Vance, Director of Grand Valley Center in Grand Rapids Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a00540c85b4155e8306956d1319f38a3.mp4 4e0255bb61fcaa08e86d7b987ab044ac https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/75532c80b18770e1923840df55fb8ed7.pdf 559e5adfac523c24e933f6d8b559a7fb PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Name of War: World War II Interviewee’s Name: Christine and Henry Vande Kerk Length of Interview: 45 minutes Christine’s Interview Pre-Enlistment (02:09)   Childhood and Background (02:03) o Christine was born on September 10, 1912 in Washington. She was a member of the U.S. Army. (02:06) o Grew up with two brothers, one who died in 1980 and the other one is 80. Her father was a pastor at a Christian Reformed Church. (03:12) Her Job (04:10) o Before joining the armed service she was in the public health nursing sector in Grand Rapids. (04:12) o Briefly mentions which siblings joined the war effort and died. (07:01) Enlistment/Basic Training (07:38)  Where she went (09:01) o Went to Atlantic City, New Jersey to wait to go to England. (09:07) o Had no specialist training as a nurse going overseas. Also describes the type of food she had on the holidays. (09:23) Active Duty (10:12)   Where she served (10:34) o Served in England and mentions which hospital she served at and then returned home in 1944. (10:41) o Describes in detail what the journey to England was like aboard the RMS Queen Mary. (11:12) England (11:59) �o Christine mentions that she kept very busy with patients coming all the time. Describes that they often spent their weekends touring Scotland. (12:03) o She describes how she felt about witnessing all the carnage and casualties. (13:10)  Also, mentions who she developed good friendships with. (13:40) o Came out of the war with the ambition of going into mission work in Europe. Before moving on with mission work, she decided to go back to school which was paid for by the GI Bill. Went first to the University of Michigan to get her BA degree and then went for her Master’s degree at Compton University and the University of Colorado. (14:31) o After five years, she enrolled at a maternity center to be a midwife. Finished up taking Master’s classes at Columbia University in New York. (15:43) o Had no communication with family or friends during her time overseas. (16:30) After the Service (19:53)  Missionary Work (19:55) o When World War II ended, Christine was involved in mission work from 1951 to 1957 in Iraq as a nurse with the Reformed Church of America. (19:56)   Backs up and describes her journey home aboard the RMS Queen Elizabeth from England. Also mentions what type of reception they received when they got home. (21:17) o  When she got to Iraq, she found herself in the midst of an uprising in the region. She was forced to leave the country and leave for Jordan where she spent a year in a Palestinian refugee camp. On one occasion, she had a personal audience with King Hussein. (20:24) Readjusting to Home (21:43)  For her, it was not hard to adjust to civilian life. When she was discharged, she went into the mission field. But before then she attended Wheaton College. (21:57)  Before attending Wheaton College she had gotten her Bachelor of Arts Degree at the University of Michigan. (22:45) Reflection (23:05) �o Did not maintain regular contact with any veterans. (23:08) o Her WWII experience helped her pursue her BA degree to then move into the mission field. (24:02) o Christine moves forward once more and discusses her mission work in some detail. (27:29) o   Briefly served in Amarah, Iraq, during which time she maintained a regular correspondence with Queen Noor of Jordan. (29:13)  Briefly discusses what she talked about with King Hussein of Jordan. Among the topics they talked about was her hospital work. (30:22) At this point, Christine shows various pictures and letters from her Army Book. (32:35)  Shows pictures of what the RMS Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth looked like. (32:52)  Also shows pictures from England and discusses them in depth during the war and afterwards. Further shows pictures of her forays into Scotland. (34:27)  Briefly tells a few stories along with showing her Scotland pictures also. (36:54)  Also shows a certificate service in which read, “Army Service Forces Transportation Corps Army of the United States. New York, port of Embarkation. (42:13)  Also shows what embalms/dog tags she wore on her uniform. (42:25)  Further shows a letter received from Harry Truman thanking her for answering the call of her country. (43:53) Interview Ends (44:56) Henry’s Interview Pre-Enlistment (01:55)  Childhood (02:01) o Henry was born on May 23, 1912 in Rock Valley, Iowa. (02:03) �o Grew up with 10 siblings, 2 are still alive. (02:20) o His parents were both farmers. (03:07)  His Job (04:26) o Before he joined up, he was a civilian flight instructor working at the University of Iowa. (04:20) o During the 1930s, FDR established the Civil Pilot Training Program for college students. Once the war broke out it phased out the program became known as war training service, specifically focused for military training. Was working at Iowa City, when he heard that flight instructors were needed. He transferred from the University of Iowa. (05:03) o He was a reservist during this time. When he was made active he was sent to New Orleans, LA and then to Ames, Iowa to train navy recruits. (06:12) o Mentions that he had a younger brother in the U.S. Army. (06:39) Enlistment/Basic Training (07:38)  Why he went (07:52) o Henry did not choose the Navy to begin with but was just there when the opportunity presented itself. (07:55)  Where he went (08:10) o Once made active, Henry went through basic training at Dallas, Texas where he attended a cadets’ primary flight training school. From there he was transferred to the School for Navy Flight Instructors in New Orleans where he attended Navy School for Cadets flight training and then transferred to Ames, Iowa afterwards where he instructed. (08:21) o Describes how he adapted to military life. (09:45) Active Duty (10:12)  Where he served (10:19) o Was stationed at Ames Naval Station, Iowa. Was never sent overseas but served his whole time as a land-based flying instructor. When the war ended he was still stationed here. (16:47) After the Service (16:56) �o Readjusting to Home (16:58)  Upon being discharged, Henry operated a small airport in W. Iowa for two years. Mentions the other career endeavors he was involved with. Eventually, he moved to Denver, CO. (16:59)  While in Denver, he worked as a printing pressman for 30 years. Also kept up his pilot’s license until he retired in 1977. (17:06)  Discussed what a typical day was like being a primary instructor. On average, he was assigned to five to six students for a period of five weeks. Mentions that often he taught his students about the primary functions of the plane before going on to primary flight school in Iowa City, from which they would go on to pursue advanced training in the areas of bomber duty, fighter duty, or transport duty. (17:39)  Mentions that he stayed in contact with other instructors. (23:20) o Reflection (24:05)  Henry looked at his WWII experience as more of a job. His mission was just to teach students. His military experience taught the fundamentals of discipline to go on to become a printer. (24:47)  Henry briefly mentions how he met Christine his wife. Describes this in some depth. (25:46) � 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 VandeKerkCH Title A name given to the resource Vande Kerk, Christine and Henry (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vande Kerk, Christine Vande Kerk, Henry Description An account of the resource Christine and Henry Vande Kerk are both World War II veterans who served their country in different capacities during the course of World War II. Christine Vande Kerk briefly discusses her pre-enlistment, enlistment as a nurse into the armed services, and her nursing experience while serving in England until 1944. She then discusses her missionary work in Iraq and Jordan in some detail. Henry Vande Kerk briefly discusses his pre-enlistment, enlistment and basic training in the U.S. and then his goes into some detail about his days as a U.S. Navy Air Force civilian flight instructor working in the training of pilots in the basic procedures of aviation mechanics before they went on to pursue advanced training in bomber, fighter, and transport plane dynamics. Henry then briefly describes his thoughts on his wartime and what he learned from it. They both wrap up their interviews by showing some pictures and documents from Christine's Army and Missionary Books. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Rodriguez, Kyle (Interviewer) Petz, Alyssa (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 World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy 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 2008-06-01 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/c25432f3ec3ea22014754a046d91cd1f.mp4 98e6461317735267ec7baccabecabe1e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e9ad1e10158f31f7687bf355519c3ec0.pdf a7ece26d0f667c719311f86813d426c5 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Allen Vande Vusse Vietnam War Interview Length: (01:29:54:00) Pre-enlistment / Training (00:00:14:00) · Vande Vusse was born and raised in Holland, Michigan and lived for the majority of his younger life, graduating from Holland High School in 1962; while Vande Vusse was growing up, his father worked as a butcher (00:00:14:00) · After Vande Vusse finished high school, he got a job working for a company called Municipal Foresters, where he worked at clearing trees away from powers; Vande Vusse stayed at the job until he joined the Marine Corps (00:00:32:00) o Vande Vusse married in 1963 and although he and his wife had twin daughters, they ended up getting divorced in 1968; both Vande Vusse and his wife were just too young to get married (00:00:43:00) · Once Vande Vusse’s divorce was final, his draft status went from 3A to 1A, so when he was twenty-four years old, Vande Vusse received his draft notice to join the Army (00:01:02:00) o Vande Vusse’s father had served in both World War II and the Korean War as a Navy corpsman assigned to the Marines (00:01:16:00) o In 1967/1968, in Vande Vusse’s opinion, a lot men were being drafted into the Army, sent through basic and advanced training, deployed to Vietnam, and ended up returning home in a wooden box in less than a year because they did not have enough training (00:01:35:00) § Given his experience serving with the Marines, Vande Vusse’s father told Vande Vusse that if he wanted to keep his act together, Vande Vusse should enlist in the Marines instead of waiting to be drafted by the Army (00:01:52:00) · The Marines offered a ninety-day delayed enlistment program, so Vande Vusse ended up official joining the Marines at the beginning of February 1969 (00:02:43:00) o Vande Vusse ended up getting married for a second time two weeks before he left to join the Marines (00:02:54:00) § When Vande Vusse got married for a second time, his new wife knew that he had to serve his time in the service (00:03:02:00) o Initially, Vande Vusse went to Detroit, where he went through a physical and took a series of tests for his intelligence level (00:03:18:00) § While in Detroit, Vande Vusse was in a group of recruits to consisted of both draftees and enlistees; from what Vande Vusse saw and mostly overheard, the draftees tried all sorts of tricks to try and get out of serving (00:03:46:00) · Even while Vande Vusse was in boot camp, other recruits would claim all sorts of problems to get out of serving (00:04:49:00) · Once the day finally came, Vande Vusse and four other recruits flew from Detroit to San Diego for boot camp; because he had been part of the delayed-enlistment program, Vande �Vusse was placed in-charge of the records for all five of the recruits (00:05:34:00) o When the group arrived at the airport in San Diego, they found a Marines sergeant, who ordered them onto a bus; the sergeant did not actually start shouting until the bus had reached the recruitment depot in San Diego (00:05:43:00) § Once at the depot, the sergeant gave the men thirty seconds to get off the bus and stand on a series of yellow foot prints painted on the ground outside the bus (00:06:07:00) § Before Vande Vusse had left home, his father told him that the Marines were going to be tough on him (00:06:26:00) · However, Vande Vusse was in good physical shape from cutting down the trees, so he did quite well in the physical aspects of the training (00:06:33:00) o Whereas Vande Vusse was nearly twenty-four years old, most of the other recruits were only seventeen- or eighteen-year-olds (00:06:48:00) · At the beginning of the training, the instructors basically brain-washed the recruits, stating that there were three ways to do everything: the right way, the wrong way, and the Marine Corps way, and the Marine Corps way was always right (00:07:21:00) o There was some physical abuse by the instructors but ultimately, the abuse made the recruits tougher (00:07:39:00) § There was a sign above the gate leading into boot camp that read “the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war” and in Vande Vusse’s experience, that was true (00:07:50:00) § Nevertheless, until the day he dies, Vande Vusse will always be proud of having been a United States Marine (00:08:01:00) o Each of the different branches in the military were trained to fill different roles and the Marines were trained as shock troops, which put them at a disadvantage while serving in Vietnam (00:08:12:00) § For the most part, the Marines were not trained for doing long-term warfare, which was more in-line with the Army’s job (00:08:23:00) o During boot camp, Vande Vusse and the other recruits would wake up at five o’clock in the morning and go to bed a nine o’clock at night (00:08:41:00) o The training consisted of a lot of discipline and a lot of physical training; after the recruits had only been there two or three weeks, they were already running three miles in platoon formation (00:08:47:00) § By the end of boot camp, the recruits were running three miles several times a day (00:08:57:00) o As part of the training, the recruits spent two weeks at nearby Camp Pendleton to train on the rifle range (00:09:14:00) § One of the big things that the Marine Corps believed in was marksmanship and everyone was trained in the Marines to be an infantryman, regardless of what their specialty would end up being (00:09:23:00) § In boot camp, Vande Vusse and the other recruits trained using M-14 rifles; Vande Vusse did not see his first M-16 rifle until he got to Vietnam (00:09:46:00) · Although the M-14 was a much more accurate weapon, especially at long range, the men serving in Vietnam found out that most of �the fighting there occurred at close range and they wanted the firepower of the M-16 (00:09:53:00) o All three of Vande Vusse’s drill instructors were Vietnam veterans, one as an infantryman, one as part of an air wing, and one as a clerk/typist (00:10:26:00) § The drill instructors made it clear to the recruits that if they did not follow the instructor’s lessons, then they were going to deploy to Vietnam and they were going to die (00:10:47:00) § In a way, the drill instructors made the recruits into robots, so that the recruits instantly responded to commands (00:10:53:00) · When the recruits first arrived at boot camp, the purpose of their first haircut was not only for health reasons but to degrade the recruits (00:11:02:00) · The drill instructors took recruits from every part of American society and made them all equal; the recruits were not individuals anymore but were part of a team (00:11:09:00) o Vande Vusse would figure that 90% of the recruits he trained with were white, with half-a-dozen black, half-a-dozen Hispanics, and one American Indian (00:11:36:00) § All three of Vande Vusse’s drill instructors were white (00:12:10:00) · At one point, boot camp lasted for twelve weeks but by the time Vande Vusse went through, the duration had been reduced to ten weeks, including the two weeks spent at Camp Pendleton on the rifle range (00:12:17:00) o The two weeks on the rifle range came about two-thirds of the way into training, after which they returned to boot camp and spent the remaining time preparing for graduation and final inspection (00:12:29:00) o Just before the graduation ceremony, the senior drill instructor came out with a list and read down, alphabetically, what each recruit would be doing once he left boot camp (00:12:44:00) § When the drill instructor reached Vande Vusse’s name, he said “2500”, which was radio communications (00:12:57:00) o All the recruits went through a graduation ceremony and the older brother of one of Vande Vusse’s friends who was stationed in San Diego ended up coming to the graduation (00:13:02:00) · After graduation, the men were given four hours of liberty before being packed on a bus and taken up to Camp Pendleton for thirty days in an ITR (Infantry Training Regiment), the same thing as Advanced Infantry Training in the Army (00:13:15:00) o Everyone received the initially four weeks of time in an ITR and if a recruit was to be an infantryman, he would stay longer (00:13:36:00) o When Vande Vusse first enlisted, he was only given two choices for his assignment “ground” or “air” (00:13:56:00) § Because he scored above a 120 on the General Military Subjects test, a standardized test everyone in every branch of the military had to take, Vande Vusse was assigned to a more technical field (00:14:07:00) § Vande Vusse actually took the General Military Subjects test before he enlisted and he knew his score before he enlisted (00:14:42:00) · Originally, when he was going to be drafted into the Army, Vande �Vusse went to Grand Haven, Michigan and enlisted in the Marines (00:14:56:00) · When Vande Vusse got to Detroit, the gunnery sergeant in-charge of the Marine section said that Vande Vusse had really good test scores and if he only enlisted for two years, he would go into the infantry; however, if Vande Vusse enlisted for four years, then he would probably be assigned to a school (00:15:13:00) · Therefore, Vande Vusse ended up enlisting for four years instead of the normal two years (00:15:36:00) o Vande Vusse was eventually assigned to be a radio operator, which he would later find out was a prime target for the enemy to attack; without a radio, a unit could not be re-supplied, could not call in air or artillery support, could not call in for medi-vacs, etc. (00:15:54:00) § Typically in the Marine Corps, only one out of every eight Marines was in the infantry; it took everyone else working in the rear and behind the scenes to support that single infantryman (00:16:26:00) o The four weeks in the ITR consisted of a lot of forced marches and the recruits were taught about all the different heavy weapons (00:16:42:00) § At one point, during a night, a soldier half-a-mile away from the recruits lit up a cigarette, just to show the recruits the importance of maintaining light discipline (00:17:02:00) § There was also a jungle warfare section set up, where the recruits were shown the different types of booby-traps the enemy used (00:17:24:00) § All the instructors were Vietnam veterans and most were infantry veterans (00:17:40:00) · After finishing the four weeks in the ITR, Vande Vusse returned home on a ten-day leave before returning to San Diego to go through a twelve-week radio school (00:18:46:00) o In the radio school, Vande Vusse learned how to operate all the different communications equipment, including radios and telegraphs, how to operate a switch-board, Morse Code, etc. (00:18:58:00) § With Morse Code, Vande Vusse and the other recruits had to eventually reach the point that they could receive forty words a minute and send out thirty words a minute (00:19:21:00) · There were some men who could not make those thresholds and ended up washing out of the program (00:19:36:00) o Vande Vusse ended up graduating at the top of his class at the end of the program and he and all the other recruits were supposed to receive promotion to lance corporal (00:19:40:00) § However, the weekend before graduation, Vande Vusse was visiting an aunt and uncle who lived in Long Beach, California and while he was gone, unbeknownst to him, there was a racially-motivated fight in his squad bay (00:19:48:00) § As a result of the fight, his entire class was blackballed, none of the men received their promotion to lance corporal, and all the men received orders for Vietnam (00:20:04:00) · Although there was not visible racial tension in the radio school, �given that it was the latter part of the 1960s, there was racial tension in all of the branches (00:20:25:00) · Looking back, Vande Vusse attributes a large portion of the racial tension to the “Project 100,000” started by Senator Eugene McCarthy (00:20:37:00) o During “Project 100,000”, the military lowered the test score requirements, so that people who would have normally failed the test pasted instead and were allowed into the military (00:20:49:00) o It took until the mid-1970s for the problem to be resolved, once the fighting in Vietnam was over (00:21:37:00) o Most of the personnel who came in as part of the project had problems, which meant they would often get into trouble and get bad conduct discharges (00:21:45:00) · Once Vande Vusse had his orders for Vietnam, he returned home on another leave and on the day he had to leave for Camp Pendleton and his staging battalion, Vande Vusse’s oldest daughter was born (00:22:14:00) o Vande Vusse was able to hold his daughter for about five minutes before having to go to Grand Rapids for the flight to California (00:22:37:00) o As it turned out, Vande Vusse’s entire class from radio school ended up in the same staging battalion (00:22:51:00) o All the men from the radio school arrived on a Friday and on Sunday, they were told to board a bus that would take them to Twenty-Nine Palms, which was a town in the Mojave desert that was home to a Marine Corps air station; apparently, there were enough radio operators in Vietnam at the time (00:22:56:00) § The Marine Corps base at Twenty-Nine Palms was the largest Marine Corps base in the country and consisted of nine-hundred-and-forty-seven miles of desert divided between bombing ranges for aircraft from the Naval Air Station at Miramar outside of San Diego and artillery ranges for the three artillery units stationed on the base (00:23:24:00) § Once he was at Twenty-Nine Palms, Vande Vusse worked as a radio operator for the 9th Communications Battalion for about six months (00:24:18:00) · Vande Vusse and the other Marines in the unit would go on maneuvers in the desert, setting up radio relays and way-stations (00:24:28:00) · As well, every month, a couple of Marines would take a radio jeep, drive into the desert to track down civilians who had accidentally wandered onto the base (00:24:33:00) § While Vande Vusse was stationed at Twenty-Nine Palms, his wife and daughter moved out to California and the family was living in a trailer park off the base (00:24:59:00) · When their daughter was about three months old, Vande Vusse and his wife found out she had a defect where one of her hips had not calcified properly (00:25:08:00) �· Vande Vusse and his wife had to take their daughter to Camp Pendleton, where she was placed in a brace for her hip to her knee with a support in between and every month, the couple had to return to Camp Pendleton to have the brace changed (00:25:15:00) · A Chief Warrant Officer in Vande Vusse’s section realized Vande Vusse and his wife were having problems with their daughter, so when a commanding general’s orderly’s enlistment ended, the Chief Warrant Officer sent Vande Vusse to be the replacement, so the Chief Warrant Officer could remove Vande Vusse’s name from the rotation board to Vietnam (00:25:28:00) § Vande Vusse ended up spending six months as an orderly for the general, which resulted in a promotion from Lance Corporal to Corporal (00:26:09:00) · However, despite his name not being on the board, Vande Vusse still ended up going to Vietnam because there was a specific need for a radio operator (00:26:17:00) · While Vande Vusse was an orderly, every morning, just before the general arrived at his offices, Vande Vusse would run the general’s one-star flag up the flag pole outside (00:26:31:00) · During the day, Vande Vusse would take care of the general’s laundry and be the field driver for the general; the general had a staff sergeant who drove him around while on base but whenever he went into the field, Vande Vusse was his driver (00:26:44:00) · The general, Brigadier General Carl Hoffman, was an awesome gentleman to work for; the general ended up retiring as a Major General and was a veteran of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War (00:27:12:00) o The general’s sergeant major had served as a tail gunner aboard a TBF torpedo bomber in the South Pacific during World War II (00:27:28:00) · Vande Vusse received orders for Vietnam around October 1970, after which he was given thirty days leave, which he used to move his wife and daughter back to Holland (00:27:40:00) o After the leave was over, Vande Vusse returned to Camp Pendleton and joined at staging battalion, which took a month to go through (00:28:00:00) § While in the staging battalion, Vande Vusse got all the shots he would need for overseas deployment, filled out a will, went through jungle school again, and learned additional information and tactics for fighting in the jungle (00:28:08:00) § Vande Vusse was a corporal at the time and at one point, the commanders decided they needed two corporals to be in-charge of a group of soldiers assigned to mess duty for a month; Vande Vusse and another corporal were assigned the job, which meant another month of being in the staging battalion (00:28:28:00) o Vande Vusse eventually made it to Okinawa like everyone else, where he exchanged his clothes for jungle fatigues (00:28:51:00) �§ § § As it turned out, someone had forgotten to give Vande Vusse a shot at Camp Pendleton but getting the shot on Okinawa required Vande Vusse to be quarantined for ten days (00:29:06:00) It ended up being January of 1971 before Vande Vusse actually made it over to Vietnam (00:29:21:00) To get to Okinawa, Vande Vusse flew out of Travis Air Force Base near San Francisco aboard a civilian airliner; from Okinawa to Da Nang, Vande Vusse again flew aboard a civilian airliner (00:29:29:00) Vietnam Deployment (00:30:03:00) · As Vande Vusse’s airliner was on the approach to the airport in Da Nang, Vande Vusse noticed a series of black spots on the runway, which turned out to be patches from where rockets had hit the runway (00:30:03:00) · One of the first things Vande Vusse remembers was that standing in the doorway of the airliner, it was extremely hot and humid (00:30:16:00) o Having landed during the day, Vande Vusse and the other men could see F-4 Phantoms and gunships lined up along the runway and another group of soldiers who were boarding another airliner to go home, who were making cat-calls back towards Vande Vusse’s group (00:30:36:00) o After arriving, Vande Vusse and the other men went to a large barracks building, where they were then assigned to various units (00:31:06:00) § When they got to Vande Vusse, he was told to sit off to the side and that in an hour-and-a-half, a truck was going to come pick him up to take him to the 1st Med. (00:31:27:00) § By then, Vande Vusse had been in the Marines for nearly two years and had never heard of a Marine medical battalion; however, he later found out that every Marine division had a medical battalion consisting of seventy-five to eighty percent Navy personnel plus a Marine communications section, a motor section, and a supply section (00:31:39:00) · The Navy personnel were further divided into doctors, corpsmen, and nurses (00:32:08:00) · Some of the doctors were actually in the unit voluntarily, with one doctor volunteering for the Navy and to go to Vietnam just for the practical experience (00:32:17:00) · When Vande Vusse joined the unit, the 1st Medical Battalion was located about halfway between the Da Nang Air Force base and the 1st Marine Division headquarters (00:32:52:00) o The battalion was stationed in a typical compound with six guard towers and barbed wire surrounding the entire compound (00:33:01:00) § The compound had an outer LZ (landing zone), then a taxi-way to an inner LZ, which was surrounded by a revetment to protect any helicopters on the LZ (00:33:10:00) § An opening on one side of the inner LZ led to the emergency room while an opening on the other side led to the communications bunker where Vande Vusse worked (00:33:32:00) �o When Vande Vusse arrived at the compound, the first thing he did was talk with a sailor, who told Vande Vusse he was being assigned to the communications section and subsequently took Vande Vusse to meet the sergeant in-charge of the communications section (00:33:44:00) § The sergeant was grinning from ear-to-ear when Vande Vusse arrived because Vande Vusse was his ticket home; Vande Vusse had been sent to the unit as a replacement for the sergeant (00:33:58:00) § Before he left, the sergeant showed Vande Vusse where the communications section’s hooch was, where the communications bunker was located (00:34:26:00) § The morning after Vande Vusse arrived, a lance corporal was showing the techniques and lingo that the Marines used with the radios when an Army helicopter called in saying he had wounded (00:35:41:00) · The lance corporal answered, took down the types of wounded and then called the emergency room so the doctors and corpsmen would be ready when the helicopter landed (00:35:32:00) · A few minutes later, the helicopter called back and said to change on of the wounds, a head shot, to a permanent routine; when Vande Vusse asked what that was, the lance corporal explained that the wounded soldier had died (00:35:55:00) o The lance corporal then had to call the motor pool for an ambulance to the LZ to pick up the body bag (00:36:10:00) · Even through the walls of the bunker, Vande Vusse and the lance corporal could hear the helicopter coming in and Vande Vusse, being curious, walked outside and watched as the helicopter landed, a corpsman pulled the two wounded off, who were then immediately taken to the emergency room (00:36:21:00) · Two more men then pulled off a dark green bag and laid it along side the LZ, after which the helicopter took off (00:36:38:00) · Vande Vusse walked over, looked at the body bag, and to this days, question how he was lucky enough to be assigned to the rear, in Da Nang (00:36:51:00) · Vande Vusse’s official assignment was to be in-charge of the communications section, which involved assigning the eight or nine radio operators to different work periods, which were normally four to six hour shifts (00:37:33:00) o Someone needed to constantly be on the radio because the men never knew when a medevac would be coming in (00:37:45:00) o Because he was a corporal and there were only a couple of other sergeants in the motor pool, around every third night, Vande Vusse would be sergeant of the guard (00:37:53:00) § During those nights, Vande Vusse would have to go around every hour on the hour to the various foxholes and bunkers on the perimeter to make sure none of the personnel on guard duty had fallen asleep (00:38:08:00) o The main road leading from the Da Nang Air Force base went past the compound and continued past Freedom Hill and the 1st Marine Division headquarters before curving back around to China Beach, which was the headquarters of the Force �Logistics Command (00:38:34:00) § Once every couple of weeks, the Marines would have to go onto a ridgeline beyond the road and do perimeter duty up there (00:38:49:00) § To one side of the battalion compound was an Army SkyCrane unit and just to the south was a South Vietnamese Army compound (00:39:07:00) · Vande Vusse arrived in Vietnam rather late in the war in 1971 and around that time, President Nixon was winding down the war (00:39:41:00) o Nevertheless, there were still casualties from mines, booby-traps, sniper fire, etc.; the personnel in the battalion had no way of knowing when something was going to happen (00:39:50:00) § It might go two or three days of nothing happening then all of the sudden, there would be two or three helicopters (00:39:57:00) § One time, a CH-53 Sea Stallion came into the LZ and Vande Vusse remembers that the helicopters was on the LZ for an extra half-a-day because of a mechanical problem (00:40:03:00) · As well, the was some concern over the proximity of the revetments, given that the CH-53 was larger than the helicopters that normally landed at the LZ (00:40:03:00) · The typical helicopter used by the Marines was the CH-46 Sea Knights, which was a close cousin to the CH-47 Chinooks used by the Army (00:40:33:00) · A couple of times a month, the compound would send out “med-caps”, which usually consisted of two or three corpsmen plus half-a-dozen Marines, including a radio operator, and sometimes, some South Vietnamese soldiers (00:41:20:00) o The groups would visit small villages around the Da Nang area and the corpsmen would treat any wounds of the local villagers (00:41:41:00) o The med-caps were one of the good things that the Marines did while in Vietnam; the Marine commanders were constantly arguing with General Westmoreland about the needed to win hearts and minds, something the Marines recognized as important for a long time (00:42:08:00) § However, from Vande Vusse’s perspective, the Army philosophy was to treat the situation like a conventional war in Europe, which did not work in jungle warfare (00:42:32:00) o In the compound, there were Vietnamese civilians who would show up in the morning and leave in the afternoon and they would do the men’s laundry, worked in the mess hall, etc. (00:42:58:00) § The one girl who worked in Vande Vusse’s hooch was a nice, young Catholic girl (00:43:12:00) o Out in the villages, the villagers were happy to get the shots and treatment from the corpsmen (00:43:46:00) § Nevertheless, a large portion of the villagers had been re-located from smaller villages, which upset them; the villagers wanted to be left by their little piece of land and to live their life (00:43:59:00) · Part of the dominant religion of Vietnam, Buddhism, is the idea of ancestor worship and for the most part, the grandparents, greatgrandparents, and even great-great-grandparents of the villagers �were buried on that little plot of land (00:44:12:00) · The re-located villagers settled into tar-paper shacks surrounding the various military bases (00:44:32:00) · Vande Vusse saw a little bit of the drug use / insubordination / prostitution / lack of discipline that is often attributed to soldiers in the rear area; two separate incidents stand out the most in his mind (00:45:25:00) o One night, Vande Vusse was walking as sergeant-of-the-guard and was walking past the Graves Registration, which prepared dead bodies for shipment home for funerals, and the staff sergeant in-charge of the section noticed Vande Vusse walking past and invited him in for a sandwich (00:45:37:00) § The staff sergeant opened up the storage building, one of the few air conditioned on the base, and the staff sergeant had stored all his food inside one of the storage containers (00:46:02:00) § The two men were eating their sandwiches when the staff sergeant told Vande Vusse there was something he needed to see; the staff sergeant then stood, pulled open another storage container and inside was a dead body (00:46:28:00) § The staff sergeant turned the body’s head and on the back side was a massive hole packed full of gauze; the man had been a corpsman with a drug problem and had committed suicide by shooting himself with a .45caliber pistol (00:46:46:00) o A couple of months later, Vande Vusse was sergeant-of-the-guard during the day when someone came running up from the other side of the compound and said that someone was shooting up the area with an M-16 (00:47:17:00) § Vande Vusse loaded his .45 and started running in that direction; he came around one corner and there was a young black Marine shooting up the area with the M-16 (00:47:34:00) § As Vande Vusse came around the corner of the building, a round hit about three feet above his head, so he ducked back behind the building (00:47:53:00) § It turned out that the Marine was high on drugs and as Vande Vusse leaned back around the corner, he leveled his pistol to shoot the Marine in the leg (00:48:06:00) § At about the same time, a doctor grabbed Vande Vusse’s shoulder to stop him from shooting and the Marine ran out of ammunition; as the Marine fumbled getting the clip out of the rifle, the doctor ran up and tackled him to the ground (00:49:42:00) § MPs handcuffed the Marine, took him away, and he was never seen in the unit again (00:50:09:00) o Whenever Vande Vusse was sergeant-of-the-guard, the lieutenant who was incharge would always come around midnight and the two men would then go around together to check all the positions, as well as go into any of the un-used bunkers, trying to catch other men doing drugs (00:50:28:00) o For the most part, Vande Vusse believes it was more the sailors in the compound who were using drugs than the Marines (00:50:57:00) § Although it was fairly easy to get a hold of drugs, Vande Vusse himself �never used drugs while in Vietnam (00:51:11:00) o Within Vande Vusse’s unit, there were never any racial issues (00:50:28:00) § For the most part, the medical personnel in the unit were white, with a handful of black personnel (00:52:31:00) § Nevertheless, as Vande Vusse’s tour continued, more racial tension did start to creep into the unit (00:53:06:00) · For example, the men would be standing in line in the mess hall and the black men would start rapping their hands on the table; the white men would then make up their own sequence just to counter the black men (00:53:09:00) · The racial problems amongst Marines ended up being worse once Vande Vusse returned home from Vietnam (00:53:23:00) End of Vietnam Deployment / 10th Marine Artillery / Recruiter (00:53:34:00) · Vande Vusse ended up deploying to Vietnam for four-and-a-half months (00:53:34:00) o At the end of May 1971, the 1st Marine Division stood down and returned to the United States; all the Marines who had been in-country for less than five or six months were farmed out to the smaller units that remained behind (00:53:40:00) o One day, the girl who cleaned his hooch brought Vande Vusse some local fruits and even though the corpsmen had warned the men not to eat any local produce, Vande Vusse did not pay attention and ate both fruits (00:53:58:00) § Vande Vusse ended up with terrible bowel problems, to the point he was bleeding internally (00:54:21:00) o Vande Vusse’s condition eventually reached the point that he had to be evacuated back to Okinawa for surgery (00:54:31:00) o After he spent ten days on Okinawa, an Army doctor looked at Vande Vusse’s chart and before he knew it, he was on a series of flights back to the United States, before ending up at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital in Chicago (00:54:38:00) o By the time he got out of the Great Lakes Naval Hospital, the vast majority of the Marine forces were no longer in Vietnam, so he did not have to go back to Vietnam; Vande Vusse was at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital for two-and-a-half months, first recovering from surgery then serving as part of the Marine Corps detachment at the hospital (00:55:04:00) § One of Vande Vusse’s duties in the Marine Corps detachment was driving a truck to O’Hare Airport in Chicago with a couple of other men to pick up any deserters, who were then shipped to either Camp Pendleton or Camp Lejuene for court-martials (00:55:31:00) · Finally, Vande Vusse’s new orders came through and he transferred to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina to serve with the 10th Marine Artillery Regiment (00:55:51:00) o When he joined the regiment, Vande Vusse figured he would be getting back into communications; however, because he was able to type forty words a minute, after three weeks, Vande Vusse was transferred to be a battery correspondence clerk (00:56:01:00) o In a way, being a correspondence clerk was nice because Vande Vusse never had to serve any duties, such as KP or guard duty; first, his captain always wanted �Vande Vusse around and second, Vande Vusse was the person who made up the rosters for those duties (00:56:34:00) § While working as the clerk, Vande Vusse kept quasi-normal business hours, from eight o’clock in the morning until five o’clock in the afternoon; as well, ever so often, working in the barracks to check liberty passes for Marines leaving the base on weekends (00:57:02:00) o It was at Camp Lejuene where the racial tensions amongst the Marines really started heating up (00:57:31:00) § On several different occasions, there were armed white guards who were severally beaten by black men (00:57:35:00) § However, in the middle part of the 1970s, the problems with racial tension somewhat subsided because the primary agitators had been discharged from the military (00:58:01:00) o Marines stationed on the base used drugs frequently, with nearly fifty percent of the drug usage by minorities (00:58:16:00) o When Vande Vusse first arrived at Camp Lejuene, it was still early enough that there were still draftees in the various units (00:58:55:00) o While Vande Vusse was stationed at Camp Lejuene, his family was not living with him (00:59:52:00) § Because the camp was in the South, a lot of people did not realized that the Civil War was over; from what Vande Vusse saw, whites in the South liked black people more than they liked northern Whites (00:59:55:00) · Therefore, Vande Vusse’s family stayed in Holland and Vande Vusse himself lived on the base (01:00:31:00) · The environment on the base was fine; it was once the soldiers were off the base that problems arose (01:00:45:00) · During his third year in the service, Vande Vusse decided to re-enlist and according to the military regulations, if a person has passed three years and one day in their four-year enlistment and re-enlists, the final year is dropped and four fresh years are added from the date of re-enlistment (01:01:12:00) o When he re-enlisted, Vande Vusse was promoted to the rank of sergeant, although he could change MOSs (Military Occupational Specialty), because he was in a specialty that was considered critical (01:01:28:00) o Instead, Vande Vusse was given the chance to choose his duty station for a year and he chose to go back to Twenty-Nine Palms because he and his wife loved living out there (01:01:38:00) o Once they were back at Twenty-Nine Palms, Vande Vusse and his wife lived in the same trailer park they had lived in the first time Vande Vusse had been assigned to the base (01:01:53:00) § Vande Vusse loved working at the base because in the summer, he only worked from seven o’clock in the morning until noon because of the heat (01:02:02:00) o Vande Vusse was originally supposed to return to the 9th Communications Battalion as the leader of a communications section but along the way, someone looked at his files and saw he had a secondary specialty of administrative clerk and was a good typist, so he was instead assigned to headquarters company �(01:02:17:00) § The headquarters company was in the same place where Vande Vusse had worked as the clerk for the general, only this time, Vande Vusse was incharge of “Force Troop, Central Files” (01:02:46:00) § Vande Vusse’s job was keeping track of the records for all the Marines stationed on the base as well as store all the manuals for the various training classes (01:02:51:00) o Vande Vusse was supposed to work in the headquarters company for a year but during the tenth month, the company commander, who disliked Vande Vusse and the other sergeants because they were exempt from field duties, called Vande Vusse into his office (01:02:58:00) § Vande Vusse walked into the office, where the captain had a big grin on his face and he told Vande Vusse that he had orders for Vande Vusse to go to San Diego for drill instructor school (01:03:30:00) § Vande Vusse said he did not want to be a drill instructor and when the captain said he did not have a choice, Vande Vusse told the captain the captain to flip through Vande Vusse’s records to his re-enlistment, which guaranteed Vande Vusse would be at a duty-station of his choice for a minimum of one year (01:03:43:00) § The captain kicked Vande Vusse out of his office and Vande Vusse returned to being a clerk (01:04:28:00) § About a month and a half later, Vande Vusse was called into the captain’s office again and told he was going to San Diego for recruiter school and he had to report two days after his one year was over (01:04:33:00) · During recruiter school, all the Marines had to be able to type at least forty words a minute and if a Marine could not type that fast, he had to go through forty hours of typing training; Vande Vusse himself passed the test on the first try, which meant he had forty hours free during the training (01:05:13:00) o Vande Vusse and the other Marines in the school had a lot of classes on the history and traditions of the Marine Corps, in the event that the Rotary Club or some other organization asked the recruiters to come and speak (01:05:28:00) o As well, all the men had to give both five- and ten-minute speeches, which were video-taped (01:05:40:00) § There were some men who did not want to be recruiters and they would often act stiff as boards during their speeches (01:05:55:00) · Vande Vusse distinctly remembers the instructors getting after a master sergeant for not using his hands enough when he talked; after that, the master sergeant would stand at attention during his speeches and every so often, one of his hands would fly up (01:06:14:00) § After each person finished giving their speech, the video tape would be shown to the entire class and everyone else would critique how the person had done (01:06:36:00) o At one point, professionals from the phone company were brought in to teach the men how to make cold phone calls and within a span of two minutes, convince a young man to visit the recruitment office (01:06:47:00) �o One of the tricks the men were taught was finding former Marines working at high schools and trying to get a copies of senior class lists with name, address, and phone number; some schools would voluntarily give up the lists and others did not (01:07:10:00) § At one of the Catholic prep high school in Buffalo, New York, the priest in-charge of the school was hesitant to let Vande Vusse speak with the students at the school (01:07:28:00) · Vande Vusse finished the recruiter school in 1973 and was assigned to Buffalo, New York, where he was then assigned to the recruiting station in Amherst, New York (01:07:55:00) o Vande Vusse spent forty-six months as a recruiter and was extremely good at doing the job (01:08:16:00) § Vande Vusse’s quota was to enlist five people per month and for forty-two of the forty-six months, he managed to reach the quota (01:08:31:00) § Vande Vusse worked off the idea that he should not lie to the potential recruits; he would tell them the truth about what could be guaranteed, what could be not (01:08:40:00) § Vande Vusse found out that just like in sales, his best asset was a satisfied customer (01:08:50:00) o There were always those recruiters who wanted to be Marines but right after Vietnam, both the Marines and the Army had difficult times reaching their recruit quotas (01:09:23:00) o When Vande Vusse first returned home from Vietnam, there were a lot of instances of veterans getting spit on, harassed, etc. (01:10:16:00) § However, because Vande Vusse came home and went straight to a military facility, the Great Lakes Naval Hospital, he never experienced that; as well, because Vande Vusse stayed in the Marine Corps, this meant he did not experience as much of the anti-war protests as the men who got out of the service a few days after the returned to the United States (01:10:33:00) § When he worked as a recruiter, Vande Vusse and the other recruiters did run into anti-military sentiments at some of the high schools, mostly amongst the principals and school administrators (01:10:53:00) · However, because most were public schools, they were required to allow the recruiters in at least once a month (01:11:06:00) · One of the high schools in Buffalo specifically taught students to work in nearby airplane factories and one of the teachers was a former Marine who had served in the air wing (01:11:18:00) o Through the teacher, Vande Vusse got the senior class list and he managed to recruit around six students from that teachers class alone (01:11:51:00) o At one point, Vande Vusse enlisted an all-state football player; because of the football player’s enlistment, Vande Vusse managed to get enlistments from a group of nine other young men (01:12:41:00) § One of the other young men was so skinny that when Vande Vusse took him for his physical, the young man had to eat what seemed like five pounds of bananas and made the necessary weight by one pound �(01:13:13:00) § The entire group went off to boot camp together and Vande Vusse was afraid that the skinny kid was not going to make it (01:13:28:00) § About three or four weeks later, Vande Vusse was sitting in his office and the football player walked in; when Vande Vusse asked what happened, the football player said the instructors threw him out (01:13:33:00) · The young man broke down and cried as he described how the instructors yelled at him (01:13:51:00) § Five weeks later, the skinny kid walked in wearing dress blues, which was a mark of distinction for recruits (01:13:55:00) o After Vietnam, seventy-five percent of all the recruits had to be at least high school graduates; if a recruit was not a high school graduate, then he needed to get higher test scores (01:14:46:00) o The day someone finished recruiter school, he had to at minimum thirty-six month remaining in his enlistment; this meant Vande Vusse had to extend his enlistment for another year and two months (01:15:26:00) End of Enlistment / Post-Military Life / Reflections (01:15:46:00) · When his extension ended, Vande Vusse seriously considered staying in the Marine Corps because he had made staff sergeant while working as a recruiter (01:15:46:00) o Being either a recruiter or drill instructor was considered one of the toughest assignments in the Marine Corps, which meant as soon as someone reached the minimum time in-grade necessary for promotion, they automatically went to the top of the list for the promotion (01:15:54:00) § Had Vande Vusse extended his enlistment, at nine years, he would have been promoted to gunnery sergeant (01:16:18:00) o However, being a recruiter after Vietnam was tough for Vande Vusse and the other recruiters (01:16:30:00) § They were often working six days a week, ten, twelve, or fourteen hour days just to make their quotas (01:16:44:00) § As well, although they did not realize it at the time, most of the recruiters had some sort of mental problem as a result of their experiences in Vietnam (01:17:08:00) § However, the recruiters were “tough” Marines, so their solution was to go to a local bar three or four times a week, which was not good for the men or for their marriages (01:17:17:00) · Vande Vusse figures if he had decided to re-enlist, he would not still be married (01:17:35:00) § Being a recruiter was a “damned if you do/damned if you don’t” situation; if someone did good as a recruiter, he stayed as a recruiter and Vande Vusse did not want another four years of being a recruiter (01:17:59:00) · Nevertheless, when he left the military, Vande Vusse went to work for the post office, which allowed him to keep paying into his retirement fund, so that when he actually did retire, he had a pension for thirty-nine years (01:18:36:00) · For a long time after he got out of the Marines, Vande Vusse did not talk about his experiences in Vietnam (01:19:10:00) �o Although Holland was a very patriotic city, with thousands of people showing up the annual Memorial Day parade, Vietnam veterans were ostracized, even at a lot of VFW and American Legion posts (01:19:41:00) o One year, a group of Vietnam veterans started a Vietnam Veterans Association chapter in Holland and Vande Vusse remembers watching them march in the Memorial Day parade behind the World War II veterans (01:20:15:00) § One of the veterans noticed Vande Vusse, who was leaning against a tree wearing his Marine uniform and although he motioned for Vande Vusse to join them, Vande Vusse did not (01:20:27:00) § After the parade, Vande Vusse watched the memorial ceremonies and as he reminisced about his experiences, he began to cry and a photographer for the local paper managed to take a picture as a tear rolled down Vande Vusse’s face; the picture was on the front page of the newspaper the following day (01:20:41:00) · Right after getting out of the service, Vande Vusse went back to work cutting down trees, then worked as both a bartender and a bar manager before eventually working for the post office (01:21:11:00) o After that, Vande Vusse got involved with the Vietnam Veterans chapter in Holland as well as the Holland VFW (01:21:26:00) o While he was with the post office, Vande Vusse still had the habit of going out once or twice a week to get drunk, not realizing that the problems were coming from his experiences in Vietnam (01:21:47:00) o Vande Vusse’s problems continued but he always kept them hidden, especially during the last fourteen years at the post office, when he was working as a manager in Muskegon, MI (01:22:38:00) · About two years after Vande Vusse retired, he started having nightmares and finally, his wife suggested go to see a VA psychologist (01:22:55:00) o However, Vande Vusse did not go but when he was talking with another group of veterans, one of them suggested he go see a psychologist and this convinced Vande Vusse he should go (01:23:09:00) o After Vande Vusse saw the psychologist, the psychologist said that government gave seven valid reasons for someone to have PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and Vande Vusse had five of the reasons (01:23:28:00) o There was a psychologist who traveled from Grand Rapids, MI to Muskegon and for four months, Vande Vusse met with him once a week for an hour (01:24:08:00) § Although the psychologist did not cure any of Vande Vusse’s problems outright, he helped Vande Vusse solve them himself (01:24:23:00) o After about two months of seeing the psychologist, the psychologist said that he had done as much as he could for Vande Vusse and that if Vande Vusse wanted to continue, he needed help from somewhere else, namely in the form of God (01:25:19:00) § However, before then, it was difficult for Vande Vusse to equate God with what he had witnessed in Vietnam; nevertheless, Vande Vusse followed the advice and it helped his situation immensely, both internal and externally, in his relationship with his family (01:26:56:00) �· The VA benefits for returning soldiers are better now than they had been after Vietnam (01:27:52:00) o After getting out of the service, Vande Vusse was not able to go to college because all the VA paid for was tuition; however, by that time, Vande Vusse already had a wife an two children to take care of (01:27:59:00) § Now, the VA pays not only tuition but also room and board, so Vande Vusse recommends that any returning veterans go to school, even if it is only a junior college or technical school (01:28:05:00) o As well, Vande Vusse recommends any returning veterans who are having problems seek help from the VA or any veteran organization (01:28:34:00) § The veterans cannot ever fully forget their memories but the personnel at the VA can help the veterans to manage the memories (01:29:09:00) � 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 VandeVusseA1381V Title A name given to the resource Vande Vusse, Alan (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vande Vusse, Alan Description An account of the resource Allen Vande Vusse was born and raised in Holland, Michigan, and graduated from high school there in 1962. He married and got a job shortly afterward, and his marriage gave him a draft deferment, which he lost after getting divorced in 1968. Upon receiving his draft notice, he enlisted in the Marine Corps so as to stay out of the Army, joining in early 1969. He scored well on the aptitude tests and took specialized training in communications and took a four-year enlistment, which meant that he stayed in the US until January, 1971, when he was sent to Vietnam so serve as a radio operator for the 1st Marine Medical Battalion at Da Nang, where he communicated with helicopters bringing in wounded soldiers and the teams that met them upon landing. He served there for the better part of a year, but his tour was cut short by a serious intestinal problems which required hospitalization. He was sent to Great Lakes Naval hospital, and from there to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He extended his enlistment, and was able to move to California, where he trained as a drill instructor and eventually wound up as a recruiter in Buffalo, New York. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Kentwood Historic Preservation Commission (Kentwood, Mich.) WKTV WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. 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 2012-05-16 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/7ee00b9103001e3a6b61d094818491bc.mp4 5bcdb6a5b17d2465bcf23713612eb8f4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5227d4dc811205bd6d9e632c914b1f19.pdf 010778e74438462f1d32963de67c12c1 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Jim Vanden Hout Vietnam War 1 hour 35 minutes 26 seconds (00:00:13) Early Life -Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on February 7, 1942 -Born in a “birthing home” not a hospital -Parents were laborers -His father worked on the railroad -His parents divorced when he was young -His mother went to work at a furniture factory -He was one of four children -He grew up in Lowell, Michigan -Played on the rivers there -It was a good town to just run around in and use your imagination -Had the Showboat and the 4H Fair for entertainment -Attended Lowell High School and graduated from there in 1960 (00:02:36) Adult Life -Tried college for one semester -Lost interest in college and left after that semester -He worked for his brother in law, Gurney Hahn, at Hahn Hardware Store -He got married and moved to Arizona with his wife where he worked for Continental Airlines -Moved back to Michigan and found work at Old Kent Bank (00:03:53) The Cold War -Remembers President Kennedy getting assassinated more than the Cuban Missile Crisis -He was living in Grand Rapids during the Cuban Missile Crisis -He remembers his step-father being on the Civil Air Patrol -Involved going to a shed with a telephone and watching the skies for planes -Report back the planes that you saw and where they were -Part of it was to look for Soviet aircraft -The other part was to just keep track of what planes were in the air -He did air raid drills in school -Remembers that the atomic bombs were still a fresh memory in the minds of average citizens -Remembers that during the Crisis there was the feeling that nuclear war could break out -He remembers the Kennedy assassination well -Everyone was shocked and upset by it -For two, or three, days businesses were shut down -Everyone stayed home and mourned the death of the president (00:09:02) Awareness of the Vietnam War -He initially didn’t pay a lot of attention to the Vietnam War -Americans had been in Vietnam aiding France for a while -So a U.S. presence wasn’t that surprising or newsworthy -Most people didn’t pay attention to Vietnam before it escalated in the 1960s �-Remembers hearing about the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954) when France surrendered -Remembers that things didn’t get serious until the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964 (00:11:44) Getting Drafted -He got divorced which made him eligible for the draft -Got drafted on January 22, 1968 -The Vietnam War had dramatically escalated by this time -He had been exempt because he had had a wife and children -He didn’t care that he was drafted -Felt adrift after losing his family -Wanted to do something new with his life -On February 7, 1968 he would have been twenty six years old -This would have made him ineligible for the draft -He boarded a bus in Grand Rapids on January 22 and went down to Detroit -Received an Army physical -Took an oath to defend the Constitution -He didn’t notice anyone trying to get out of being drafted at the time -Noticed some men in basic training that wanted to get out though (00:16:40) Basic Training -From Detroit he went directly to Fort Dix, New Jersey for basic training -They had to wear heavy clothes during training because it was still cold -It didn’t feel like preparation for Vietnam -He found basic training to be interesting -He had a brother that served in the Marines so he had an idea of what to prepare for -Being twenty five he was more willing to accept discipline and instruction -The focus in basic training was to work as a unit and to respond as a unit to orders -Given hygiene training and first aid training -Given rifle training with the M14 rifle -The physical training was designed to get everyone in shape together -The fat lost weight and the skinny gained weight -After completing basic training you felt a little cocky -Some of the recruits from Detroit decided to leave, and they were never caught -Also did some mental testing to see what his aptitude was -Most men were going to wind up in the infantry -His testing showed that he would be placed into a mortar crew -Not the infantry, but almost the same -The drill instructors in his training company had not been to Vietnam -Some of the other instructors had been though -Those that had automatically commanded respect -Basic training lasted ten weeks (00:23:47) Advanced Individual Training (AIT) -After basic training he was not given a leave home -He was sent to Fort Polk, Louisiana for AIT -Called “Little Vietnam” because of the climate and the focus of the training -If you went to Fort Polk you were going to go to Vietnam -He arrived at Fort Polk in mid-March 1968 -Went from winter to summer in an instant �-It was humid, there was a lot of vegetation, and there were a lot of hills -Very similar to Vietnam -The barracks and training facilities were old, wooden, and had been built in World War II -The mortar training was interesting -Not allowed to fire the mortars during training -Trained on how to set up, aim, and prepare a round to be fired -The aiming process involved a scope on the tripod of the mortar -Firing involved attaching a charge to a round to propel it out of the tube -The more charges you attached the farther the round will go -Almost all of the instructors had been to Vietnam -There were mock villages set up for training exercises -Taught how to conduct house searches and what to look for -Realistic training -He was exposed to the M60 machinegun, M79 grenade launcher, and the M16 assault rifle -The M16 is what he would use in Vietnam as opposed to the M14 -AIT lasted eight (to ten) weeks (00:31:00) Deployment to Vietnam -Given twenty days of leave including travel time before deploying to Vietnam -After about four months of being gone it didn’t feel like that much time -He went to Oakland Replacement Depot, California -You took all of your gear with you and then handed it over to the Army for shipping -Confined to a building called a “shipping shed” (similar to an auditorium) -Full of bunk beds and soldiers waiting to get deployed -Stayed in it for a few das waiting for his orders to deploy -Spent most of the days sleeping or getting something to eat -Not allowed to leave the shipping shed -He made a phone call home before leaving -Found people that he knew from AIT to talk to -Flew over to Vietnam on a chartered commercial airliner -En route stopped in Hawaii and Okinawa to refuel (00:35:38) Arrival in Vietnam -Arrived in Bien Hoa Airbase, Vietnam in May 1968 -Remembers that his first impression of Vietnam was that it was hot and humid -The hostesses were the last American women you would see for a while -Before leaving the plane men would give them various service pins and ribbons -The idea was that they would hold onto those things until the men came home -He went to another replacement station in Bien Hoa -Stayed there for four (or five days) -Waiting for his orders to join a unit (00:38:03) Joining the Americal Division (23rd Infantry Division) -From Bien Hoa he was flown up to Chu Lai to join the Americal Division (23rd Infantry) -The division had been formed on the island of New Caledonia during World War II -The men he joined had all trained together on Hawaii and went over to Vietnam as a unit -He started off in the mortar platoon of Echo Company, 4th Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment -Echo Company also had the recon platoon and the radar platoon -Upon arrival he learned that the mortars they used were the 4.2 inch mortars �-Stationary because they were too heavy to carry -Dug into an emplacement on a base and manned by a crew there -This meant he wouldn’t have to go into the field too often, if at all -Also meant getting to sleep in a bed and eating hot food (00:43:45) Joining the Recon Platoon -Upon arrival his 1st Sergeant told him that the recon platoon was better than mortars -You didn’t have to fill sandbags or do other labor on the base -You were largely left alone on the base and in the field -No one had been killed or hurt yet -There was a good officer leading the platoon -He decided that the best thing to do would be to join the recon platoon so he did -When he joined the recon platoon he was considered the “FNG” -He hadn’t proven himself in combat yet -He was not welcomed with open arms -But because he had volunteered he wasn’t completely shunned either -He went out and joined his unit in the field where a firebase was being built -He helped dig bunkers and fill sandbags (00:46:40) Mission and Living Conditions in the Recon Platoon -Lived out of his backpack while in the field -Stayed in the field for extended periods of time and moved on foot -The mission for the recon platoon was to gather intelligence and report it back to the battalion -The objective was to do this without being seen by the enemy -They would fly into an area by helicopter -After leaving the landing zone they would patrol that area for two or three days -Afterwards one of two things would happen: -Half the time they would get picked up by a helicopter -Other half of the time they would be ordered to walk to a new area and patrol it -At the start of each day they would find a place to leave their backpack and conduct patrols -At night they would come back to that spot and pick up their backpack -They were operating north of Chu Lai and south of Da Nang (00:51:12) Enemy Contact -When they had contact with enemy soldiers it was mostly North Vietnamese and not Viet Cong -They were operating closer to the demilitarized zone (border of North Vietnam) -The Viet Cong had been effectively wiped out during the Tet Offensive -Remembers that their first contact was probably an ambush at a river crossing -Didn’t see the enemy every day -Part of this was because as a recon platoon their job was to avoid enemy contact -They would occasionally get sniped at by Viet Cong soldiers -His platoon was never in a major fight -Mostly small and quick firefights (00:53:55) Interactions with Vietnamese Civilians and Armed Forces -They would run into members of the South Vietnamese Popular Force -Pro-American militiamen that guarded local bridges and their villages -Never encountered South Vietnamese Army units in the field -The militias were primarily just defending the areas that they lived in -The Popular Force was worthless as a fighting force �-They were operating in an area inhabited by the Montagnard people -Never made direct contact with them -Only saw where they had made camp -The Montagnards mostly kept to themselves -They weren’t enemies of either party -Probably weren’t aware of what the war was even about (00:56:40) Downtime in the Rear -Very rarely got back to a rear area -Most soldiers in Vietnam spent upwards of ninety days in the field without a break -They would occasionally go to a base in the rear for a stand down -It was a chance to clean up -Chance to drink beer, eat steak, there was plenty of marijuana, music, and movies -Stand downs only lasted about two or three days (00:58:25) Racial Tensions, Drug Use, and Morale Problems -There were only two black soldiers in his unit -One was in the recon platoon and he knew him from advanced individual training -The other one worked on the firebase in supply -They were both good men -Remembers that everything in his unit was friendly between black and white soldiers -Most problems came up in the rear, or were worse in the rear -The enemy did not discriminate, they shot at everyone equally -As a result, soldiers in the field worked together regardless of race to survive -Drugs weren’t a major problem in the recon platoon -Marijuana was widely available in the country -You could buy a pack of marijuana cigarettes for $1 -It grew everywhere -Men didn’t smoke it in the field, or if they did it wasn’t often -Officers turned a blind eye to marijuana use in the rear -Remembers that the beer drinkers were loud and aggressive -It was more relaxing to be with the men that were smoking marijuana -He smoked once in the field and never did it again -It made him feel tired and helpless -Only smoked it two or three times while in the rear -He never enjoyed alcohol because it tended to make him sick -Never heard of “fragging” in his battalion -Fragging: intentional killing of an inept or overbearing superior officer -After their original lieutenant left the new lieutenant was not received well by some men -There was talk of “dealing with him” but nothing ever came of it (01:08:05) R&R to Malaysia -He went to Penang, Malaysia for his R&R -It was not a popular place to go like Japan, Australia, or Hawaii -He went with his platoon’s medic -Stopped in Thailand -It only lasted four or five days -It was chance to get some good food, sleep in a good bed, play golf, drink, and see women -On returning from R&R he had a feeling that he was going to die in Vietnam �-He took the R&R in December 1968 -Missed the Bob Hope Christmas Show (01:11:28) Bronze Star -A bronze star was awarded for either meritorious service or for valor -He was awarded a bronze star for meritorious service -The commendation was based on good work in a combat zone -Because he was a sergeant he was awarded the bronze star -If he was a lower rank he would have received the Army Commendation Medal (01:13:44) Getting Wounded -Prior to getting wounded his platoon had been operating near the Laotian border -They were completely alone and outside of artillery support -They were monitoring the Ho Chi Minh Trail -They had been dropped into a landing zone that was covered in elephant grass -Had to walk through triple canopy jungle -Found a hardened dirt trail that went through the jungle -Not a good sign because it was a sign that the area was used by somebody -Once they got to a clearing they were picked up and taken to a firebase -They were placed on bunker security to guard the perimeter of the firebase -While he was there a major engagement occurred just beyond the firebase -Remembers seeing wounded and dead soldiers carried back to the base -After a few days the fighting died down -His recon platoon was charged with going out and tracking down the remaining enemy troops -On the patrol they came to a rice paddy that had a dike -It was easier to walk on the dike, but more dangerous to -The first squad made it through without incident -Second squad (his squad) did not -The man in front of him tripped an explosive booby trap which severely wounded Jim -He was taken by medevac to the firebase and stabilized there -From there he was taken to a surgical hospital in Chu Lai -He was conscious through the whole thing -He had been peppered with shrapnel and his corroded artery had been nicked as well (01:21:04) Evacuation and Recovery -After being stabilized he was sent to a surgical hospital in Japan -He was wounded on January 23, 1969 -He spent a week in Japan -From Japan he was sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington D.C. -Stayed there for a few weeks and was able to get a leave home (01:22:05) End of Service -After recovering he was sent to Fort Carson, Colorado to the 10th Mechanized Infantry -He still had ten months left to serve -He was afraid that he would get sent back to Vietnam to complete his tour there -Fortunately he was no longer considered fit to be in a combat zone -He initially worked in the motor pool then became the company armorer -Repairing the various weapons for the company -He was discharged from the Army on January 22, 1970 �(01:24:05) Coming Home & Life after the War -He returned to Grand Rapids and continued to work at Old Kent Bank -Upon returning home he wasn’t harassed by protestors -He didn’t have problems readjusting to civilian life -Credits this to being older and to being able to go back to his old job -Most of his coworkers were interested to hear about Vietnam (01:28:17) Veterans’ Groups and Associations -Upon returning home he wasn’t welcomed home by the VFW or American Legion -Felt that was tasteless considering they were supposed to support returning veterans -Member of the Disabled American Veterans -He has had no problems with the Veterans’ Administration -They have been helpful getting him any necessary medication -Part of that may be attributed to the fact that he is considered 40% disabled -Remembers when he first visited they measured his scars -Part of seeing what he qualified for in terms of assistance (01:31:54) Reflections on Service -Vietnam was a profound life moment that couldn’t be duplicated -He wouldn’t volunteer to do it, but he was glad that he didn’t miss the experience -Feels that new veterans have a more difficult time -Due to the fact that they have to get redeployed multiple times as opposed to once -Doesn’t feel that he has any major psychological scars from his wartime experience -He didn’t see any close friends killed in front of him -Believes that because he was older he was better off than the younger men -For some of them it was their first major life experience and it scarred them � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_VandenHoutJ1731V Title A name given to the resource Vanden Hout, James (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-02-12 Description An account of the resource Jim Vanden Hout is a Vietnam War veteran who was born on February 7, 1942 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. When he was twenty five he was drafted into the Army on January 22, 1968. He received training at Fort Dix, New Jersey and Fort Polk, Louisiana before being deployed to Vietnam in May 1968. He was sent to Chu Lai where he was assigned to Echo Company of the 4th Battalion of the 21st Infantry Regiment of the Americal Division (23rd Infantry Division). He momentarily served with the mortar platoon before volunteering to join the recon platoon. He conducted numerous patrols in the area between Chu Lai and Da Nang and near the Laotian border. On January 23, 1969 he was wounded in combat and was ultimately evacuated to the United States. He finished his service at Fort Carson, Colorado and was discharged on January 22, 1970. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vanden Hout, James Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jones, Adam (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/81a33108e57260dc349a3b9ed4979e13.jpg c647cc317f5b9305346d057ae8b5a434 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 VandenWyngaard_Julianne_Photo02 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Vanden Wyngaard, Julianne Description An account of the resource Julianne Vanden Wyngaard, Music Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b41cedf820a8c97a72a243db8927478d.jpg 031dc46e83b346b393cb59bd192ccfbb 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 VandenWyngaard_Julianne_Photo03 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Vanden Wyngaard, Julianne Description An account of the resource Julianne Vanden Wyngaard, Music Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7e78c062fb6c66404a68af70f2eba8d8.jpg 603cc237fdcbad4319b44f850d0d3b5e 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 VandenWyngaard_Julianne_Photo04 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Vanden Wyngaard, Julianne Description An account of the resource Julianne Vanden Wyngaard, Music Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f95eaccd6f47cc900a639cf381039639.jpg b1c813536b56f374b0a062038ddda48b 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 VandenWyngaard_Julianne_Photo05 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Vanden Wyngaard, Julianne Description An account of the resource Julianne Vanden Wyngaard, Music Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4a72834146f5fdcaeff908c58a2edb2f.jpg c7bf8a37a620a8cef865dadd01f004a9 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 Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 VandenWyngaard_Julianne_Photo06 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Vanden Wyngaard, Julianne Description An account of the resource Julianne Vanden Wyngaard, Music Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng