36 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/723b9814a67b9b5c7f2bb1cc4b242621.pdf 003e1e835200ba03ec77bfc7bdf8b7be PDF Text Text Speaking Out Western Michigan’s Civil Rights Histories Grand Valley State University Special Collections Interviewee: Anthony Moore Interviewer(s): Brandon Golden Supervising Faculty: Melanie Shell-Weiss Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: October 19, 2011 Runtime: 01:03:04 Biography and Description This is an interview conducted to evaluate the successes, failures, and impact of the civil rights movement at home and abroad; as well as the prospect of how one man wishes to make an impact while serving his community as a future law enforcement office. Transcript BG (Brandon Golden): So first just tell me who you are and just a little bit about yourself. And we will start with that AM (Anthony Moore): My name is Anthony Allen Moore, I’m 36 years old and I am married. I’ve been married for 16 years and have a 12 year old son . I’ve been a resident of Michigan for most of my life and a resident of Grand Rapids, MI for a good portion of my life. I also go by the nicknames Tony, Antonio and some other names that we will get into later. BG: Alright, some conversations that we have had before you have mentioned some of your experiences in Benton Harbor and Chicago could you elaborate on those just a bit? AM: I was born in 1975 in Benton Harbor/Saint Joe area to my mother and father. From there I moved and grew up in Chicago, Benton Harbor, then Grand Rapids. Most of my time spent when I was younger in Benton Harbor then in Chicago. My Dad’s side of the family is from Chicago and my mother’s side is from Benton Harbor. Both me and my twin brother, oh I should say I have a twin, me and my twin brother stayed with our grandparents off and on for most of the years. BG: Ok. Growing up in Benton harbor and Chicago, could you elaborate on some of your experiences with the education system? AM: I didn’t go to any schools in Benton Harbor. I did start my early educational history in Chicago, spent a little time in Chicago. The school system there… we went to school in the same area that we went to projects, we lived in the projects, Alden Gardens in Chicago, and there was a school there. I can’t remember the school name, and I think that is where me and my twin brother started our education. The educational system in Chicago at the time was not a great educational system for African Page 1 �Americans, or inner city, or poverty level people. It was not geared towards that it seemed like, I remember not getting a good educational background there. There is an incident that I remember, when it came to counting, counting from 1 to 100, and we did it with Trix the cereal, and we would, every time you count you would fill the bowel up with a Trix and I could never get up to 100. It was always everyone else would have a full bowel, I would always maybe get up to 30 or 40 or something like that and couldn’t go any further. Um and then not being able to read well, not really doing anything quite well. I remember everyone being able to read if they were, especially if they were not black they usually seemed to have a better education than myself or other folks from the same area that I grew up in. We never got the help that other kids got. Even though the school itself was in or near the Projects, it was a public school so everyone went there, but it just seemed that if you came from the projects or were African American, you never really got the same attention that the other people did. I never got the one on one attention that I saw other students get. I remember kids coming in with backpacks and good school clothes especially again if they were not black or didn’t come from the projects that I came from. You know they had lunch boxes I didn’t have a lunchbox I always had the paper bag. We didn’t have backpacks you know, we just kind of carried you know whatever we had, then we had the same backpack for a couple years or whatever. We didn’t get new clothes every time school year came around or even different seasons we’d start off in the spring and usually you know, I remember having the same pair of the pants all the way through to the end of the school year. You had you know your pants you had during the week and then you had your shoes and your one pair of boots. You had to make them last, you didn’t get that. Me and my twin brother, my mom had to do two of us and she really uh didn’t have money to spare. And actually at that time we were living with my father’s mother during that time and she was not a wealthy woman by any means. So she did what she could, she made pretty much a lot of our clothes, I remember her making our own coats she made some of our shirts. She tried, she did a lot, actually some of our, she would try to help us with our studying. For me, it was not a good time because I didn’t learn, I don’t remember too much anything that I learned then I remember always asking for help and acting out because I never really got that help. I remember my mother was always talking to me about my behavior, or why I wasn’t doing what I supposed to be doing in class. Then I remember my mother always trying to uh find some means of getting me more help, and that really just wasn’t a good fit for me. I have told this to several people as I’m older now, I’ve said that I would never ever go back to Chicago for education nor would I put any of my children in that system. I do admit now that they have some of the best programs in the nation, but so far as their education goes especially high school and some of their academies their specialty schools and private schools and their universities, admittedly they do have some of the best programs, but when I was coming up they just did not have that and it seemed like it was just not geared for us especially if you came from the projects, black and uh you didn’t have money. It seems like whether you were affiliated with certain groups, gangs or whatnot you really wanted… it didn’t seem like you were expected to do much. I didn’t get the attention that every other kid did, especially if they were not black and from the project or especially from the area I grew up in. BG: Gong back a little bit, growing up you had mentioned gang activity could you elaborate on that and some of those experiences Page 2 �AM: Pretty much since I can remember, I’ve been affiliated or had experience with gangs. My family on both sides, my mother and fathers side had experience with gangs in both Chicago and Benton Harbor. Benton Harbor was more of a country, kind of a throw back from the south, where it was a small community and the gangs mostly developed based on family orientation and where you grew up. And we were in the kind of on the country side of Benton Harbor, more of the farm side of Benton Harbor so not a lot of industry going on at the time and they were going downhill losing a lot of industries and a lot of factories so we kind of grew up in the… matter of fact we lived on Main street in Benton Harbor, the main artery into Benton Harbor from the highway and that’s how we was known as far as the gang goes. In that respect my family were known for being in that area, and we had a lot of family members in that gang there a lot of cousins, young young young Uncles and they were all known for being in that area. And we really kind a took care of our own there. And really other than the exception of every now and then getting into it with other folks we really stayed to our own and usually made a living selling some type of narcotic or marijuana. But in Chicago it was more of your typical large scale crimes when it came to gangs. My father was in a gang, he started off before I was born, started in a gang with his brothers in the same projects where I grew up. He belonged to The Black Stone Rangers, who came originally from a mixture of The Bloods and The Black Panthers, they kind of, people who kind of came from both of those two groups and formed their own gang that also did, were involved in some motorcycle clubs as well. Through The Black Stone Rangers, I and my twin brother and I grew up knowing my father’s friends and other gang members and we just kind of grew and up and were automatically were accepted into that life style. Again because a great many of our family were in the gang on my father’s side and we just kind of followed the same path and we really didn’t know any other way. Where we were living was kind of segregated from the rest of society, the way most people were accepted to live so being in the gang made us feel like we had a sense of belonging. We were all poverty stricken, if you will call it, and we felt like being in the gang made us have strength in numbers. So far as the ability to survive when you don’t have a lot of money or a great education. We didn’t rely on those things. We didn’t rely on a job because we weren’t able to get those jobs and our parents weren’t able to get those jobs. That was the way of life. We fought for what we had. At a young age, we learned that where we were was what we had and we had to fight for it. We didn’t have money or jobs or think about moving out of the area that we lived in. To white upper class Americans, we were known to only be the poor Black youth because we had a lot of young mothers, I remember that, we had a lot of single parents and mothers. We did what came easy and that was learning to make a hustle. We learned to make money off out what we had. We did a lot of stealing and drug distribution. Being runners, as we called it. Making sure those other gangs or other groups didn’t harass our neighborhoods or that other gangs didn’t bring drugs into our neighborhood that we weren’t bring in. In the gang world, you are not allowed to bring drugs into another gang’s neighborhood because that violates certain codes within that gang life. You didn’t go to another hood because that would mess with that gang’s ability to live and to make money, the ability to survive so sometimes that would spark off some tensions between gangs in different neighborhoods. You definitely learned that way of life, almost like a hierarchy system, in some cases a militant type attitude you had your generals, your infantry, your foot soldiers. You had your O.G.’s , what you would call infantry, the guys that did what the O.G.’s told them to do. They were the ones that went in and dealt with anyone you had issues with. Then you had your drug runners or scouts for that matter, guys who would just check and see what was going on in the neighborhood. They wouldn’t necessarily get Page 3 �involved in anything. They would tell us if someone was doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing or if someone from another sect was in our neighborhood. We learned a lot of rules growing up especially at an early age. We learned how to negotiate the law and how to get around that and how to keep the law from getting involved in every day dealings. Sometimes it only meant if we got the Cops involved that it would only be harder to conduct business and make money. It was almost more of a danger than the other gangs we had to deal with. It was just a way of life, set in and something you learned at a young age, you know, how to conduct yourself in a gang and your ability to survive. You wanted to out age the statistic of dying before you got to adulthood. It was tough, to say the least, but you either adapted, or you died. BG: How about race relations and segregation. Any personal experiences, experiencing any of that? AM: Yeah. I grew up in three different cities, well one town two cities. In all those areas, there were different levels of segregation. In Benton Harbor, you know, Saint Joe and Benton Harbor are buttoned up right next together they are split by the Grand River right there, I mean Lake Michigan, I’m sorry and they have a, you know, a bridge that goes over one of the quarries and that’s pretty much the separation between the two. And everybody knows if you are from Benton Harbor, you are usually are a poor black African American. There were whites and Hispanics, but mostly poor African Americans. Again, a throw back from the south. There are a lot of southern people in Benton Harbor for some reason, I don’t know the reason, but everybody knows if you are from Benton Harbor you are black and poor. You usually worked in a factory of some sort or you had a farm. You know, you were on the low of the totem pole .If you were from the factory you were usually maintenance or janitorial or something like that. If you lived in Saint Joe, across the river, you, or right across the bridge, you were higher education white, higher income you also would have worked in the factory but as higher production, management, corporate banking, those type of deals. It was understood that not a lot of black people lived in Saint Joe. We were looked at as tourists. A lot of times, we didn’t even go over to that side unless they had a parade that went from Benton Harbor to Saint Joe and went back. Or if you were going to the beach you would go to Saint Joe. That’s pretty much the only time we would go to Saint Joe. It was literally down the street from my grandparent’s house, you go down the street and cross the bridge, but we didn’t go there. You knew, you automatically knew as soon as you crossed the bridge you had the Benton harbor police, right there. They usually made sure you stayed separated. You definitely made sure that you stayed in your own area and I had trouble with that. BG: So what about Chicago then? AM: Chicago, Chicago is interesting as far as segregation goes. It was different. It was within, Chicago being a big city, it was segregated more so not really rather you are black or white or class it had more, if you were Black, everyone was on this side of Chicago. If everyone was Italian they lived on this side of Chicago. If everyone was Irish they lived on this side of Chicago. There was a lot of different social groups in Chicago. If you were to ask anyone where the highest crime area was, they would naturally say the black area. I remember lots of time, where if we went to downtown Chicago in the entertainment district or business district even navy pier we were assumed to cause trouble. WE were assumed to have drugs on us. We were assumed to be looking for a rival gang to be getting into trouble with. As long as we stuck to our own side or our own area and we followed this kind of unwritten rule, especially when it Page 4 �came to law enforcement, if we outside of where we were supposed to be we ran into a lot of opposition whether it was law enforcement or other groups. For instance, Chicago has one of the biggest China town or Asian Americans places in the nation which was not too far from where I lived, but we were not allowed to visit there. If we did it was automatic trouble which involved a lot of fights. To give you an example, I had a martial arts instructor, my father brought me to this school to learn from this Asian American and I was going to learn Karate and I can remember where the school was it was not in Chinatown but close to it and it was also was not in our area of the projects or the gardens. My father took me to the school to train and you could just feel the tension in the room where it wasn’t accepted yet for the two groups to be together it was a monetary thing. It was ok for us to spend money but it wasn’t ok for us to be there without any reason or to socialize in that area. It was very,very interesting. It caused a lot of stress between the two, a lot of tension between the two. You would work or train with an Asian American right next to you and you would spar, but you wouldn’t talk. You would, you know, do all these exercises together but you didn’t say anything to that person and you didn’t say anything before or after. It was very far down the line from what was expected. Even though you had the two groups there you would stick to your own and there was no mingling, there was no hanging out. When we done we went back to our neighborhoods. I didn’t have Asian friends, as a matter of fact, I didn’t have any friends outside of my own race when I was a kid growing up at that time in Chicago. In my area even though there were white individuals in the Projects I grew up in in, it was highly unlikely if there were going to hang out with us. I do know that I had a few, but not many what so ever, very few white and Asian friends. There were not any Hispanics, they kind of just, stayed to themselves. Unless you are accepted as an individual there were no mingling of cultures not like there is now. The society of Chicago was much different when I was growing up there. BG: How about your experiences with law enforcement? AM: My experience with law enforcement, umm, well if there was any experience with law enforcement at the time, it wasn’t good. My experience was very negative. Very, very negative. I did not have a good relationship with them. Because of the fact that I grew up in the gang, the way that I viewed life was based off of, take everything and don’t give anything. Everything in my life was, I was taught to, fear the law, oppose the law, and the law is not my friends and they are not there to support me. Do everything you can to outsmart the law, run faster, be stronger. The law was the boogyman to all of us in Chicago and Benton harbor. They weren’t the protect and serve of law enforcement today. They didn’t care what happened to you, where you came from, how much money you made, your parents. Your life meant nothing to the law, the law, I never once in Chicago or Benton harbor just stop and instead of, just pulling me out of the car and putting me against the wall or always saying hands up first gun out second or excuse me, gun out first and hands up second. I never had a cop once say hey how are you doing today. To this day in Chicago and Benton harbor, never have I walked in the street and they just say Hi and they politely give me a nod. I never grew up asking for help from a cop. I have never once asked for help from a cop. I’ve been thrown on the ground, put up against walls. And knowing what my history was then, some of the choices I made were self- inflicted, but I always wondered why we were always told, why cops were made out to be such a bad guy. Growing up, I never saw that they were good or what they could do for me. My earliest memories of a cop is my mother, I was running the streets at the time, at that point I had good reason to stay away from the cops, my mother her car broke Page 5 �down in the middle of the street and my mother asked a cop if he could help stop traffic or do something to assist her to get the car into the driveway. I remember exactly what the cop had said “No I’m not going to help you, you need to get this out of the road before I write you a citation.” This cop was going to write us a ticket even though we were right by our house. I didn’t see any good come out of that situation with the cop. When I was growing up, the only time the cops came is when they were looking for you. And there have been many times when someone needed help for some reason or another and they never helped or got that. A lot of people were afraid of the cops and were afraid to report crimes they just weren’t there to help. When you only get one idea of what a cop is, especially when you aren’t doing all the right things, it helps to see a cop help. I know that I have done enough running from a cop to understand how to get a cop to chase you and how to get a cop’s attention, but never in a good way. A lot of times in Chicago, Benton Harbor and Grand Rapids you never, I never felt safe. I never felt the cop had my best interest at heart. A lot of times I’ve been walking on my own going to the store, a lot of times, especially in Chicago if I was in an area that was not my own I’ve been pulled over or walked over to and patted down and wasn’t even asked one question. They didn’t ask me one question before they patted me down and that was my experience a lot of the time growing up. In Benton Harbor, you were told by not only your peers, but even my elders, my parents, aunts and uncles, they would always tell you, don’t get pulled over by a cop. If you get pulled over by a cop, you better have money on you. There was a joke in Benton Harbor, if you get pulled over by the cops, you better hope that you go to jail. A lot of times you didn’t make it there. And in Chicago, kind of the same thing went and to this day there are a lot of unsolved crimes where cops have been suspected of abusing, and or and, doing crimes against people that they detained or arrested. And just let go. They would arrest them, drive somewhere and we would see those guys a few days later and they would be all beat up and you would ask them what happened and they would just say “Don’t get pulled over. I’ve gotten pulled over and any time I did something, I had a bad feeling, but you never wanted to get caught by a cop. I’ve crossed highways, ran away, hid in abandoned houses, I did anything not to get caught by a cop. That’s my young life. There’s still things I worry about now as an adult when it comes to the law. It’s abundantly clear that certain things haven’t changed. BG: Now you’re going into law enforcement yourself, you’re going to school for it. How do you hope to effect that? Do you want to make an impact on today’s youth? AM: I really do want to make an impact on today’s youth, I really do. I want law enforcement in general, to be viewed in a different way. I don’t want law enforcement to be viewed the way I viewed it when I was growing up. I have a better understanding of the way things work now than I did when I was younger. I believe, I truly believe, the only thing that keeps our society working is a couple of things. First of all, our parents, I believe they have a great impact or a huge impact on how our society works. Second, is your own beliefs. Third is law enforcement and then the government. I think law enforcement has a huge impact on the way society works. Usually they are our first defense when it comes to crime. I believe they play a bigger role than just crime prevention that they play a huge role in just keeping society safe and serving as a public servant and really just helping society in its day to day life and procedures. What I think could help with that is if law enforcement in itself, can learn to view people as more than just a demographic or an area of society. There are so many different kinds of people out there with different beliefs, religions, colors, etc. and law enforcement just needs to adjust to these Page 6 �different types of groups in today’s society. I see myself getting into law enforcement to change how people view law enforcement and how law enforcement views people. I go into this knowing that I still have a certain judgment of law enforcement and I still have a certain uneasy feeling or distrust of law enforcement, more so a distrust toward law enforcement, it’s not like it just went away. I still have things happen to me on an everyday basis based on my color that makes me, in some ways, still fear law enforcement. I still tell my son, to this day, to fear law enforcement first. Not because they deserve that fear, it’s because there are certain individuals in law enforcement who are not there for the betterment of the individual. I tell him, I teach him how to deal with law enforcement in a way that gives him the best chance of a positive outcome. Not because law enforcement is there to help us in every instance, but because I want him to survive and get himself out of what could become a worse case scenario. I think if we as a people, a lot of African Americans need to get into law enforcement represent us, law enforcement to this day still doesn’t have a good amount of African Americans to represent the community that their in. We don’t have very many black officers, female officers, or black female officers. None of these groups are very available in our communities and we need them in order to help law enforcement understand the background, understand the mindset, understand the cultural differences, the pre conceptions, the notions that African Americans have about law enforcement. I think we can break that and find a way around this gap between trust and fear and not only from the black community to law enforcement, but from law enforcement to the black community. There are a lot of law enforcement officers who assume that every time they pull and African American over, they are going to find drugs. Or when they stop us we are going to have a weapon that’s unregistered or when they get called to a domestic there will always be a case where a black male is beating on either a black female or a black female which is more common now, the white female, who is a target of domestic abuse in the community because there are so many interracial couples in the community. A black male, in my opinion, just based off of experience is still one of the most dangerously viewed encounters that a white officer is going to have, that is the biggest fear. I’ve talked to many white officers, since I’ve been working in this industry, that their biggest fear is the black male. I’ve been a target of that many times. We need to change the theory that if you go into an inner city and run into a black male who stands over 5 foot 7 and happens to be over 200 pounds that you are going to have to do something to them instead of talking things over first. I think the media has played a big role in making that easy. For me, it has made it somewhat harder for law enforcement and the black community to get along. For any positive outcome that has ever come from race relations between African Americans and law enforcement, and there’s some black guy running away from the cops for some reason or it is just assumed that every time there’s a robbery or something bad has happened there is a black guy who is being hunted down. It seems like every time you turn on the television all these crime shows, they are usually after black male. In the movies that come out, the villain is usually a black male. Who plays the pimp? Who plays the thug? Who plays the prostitute? I think the media to this day, still has not done enough and has sometimes helped to instill this notion in these officers about black males that by the time they graduate, they think they already know what they are going to have to deal with as far as African Americans. I know this from experience because as to this day, I’ve been that guy who’s been pulled over and law enforcement assumes that something bad is going to happen. I believe that law enforcement learns, they’ve been taught that, basically to come in with an idea of how to deal with racial tensions and I don’t think their taught well enough yet to think of the individual or to Page 7 �treat people as an individual. Not as a black male or a black female who doesn’t care for themselves enough to get out of an abusive relationship or you know, all these things. I think there has to be more reflection of what the true situation is in the black community. That’s why I think we need more black officers out there, not just of the African American creed, but just white officers who understand the situations being faced by the black community. Not that I believe that all white officers have the same ideas, but I think if we get more people from different backgrounds, we can help to broaden the idea of how to treat the members of the black community. We need to do that. I think that is why I have been so interested in law enforcement for the longest time because we need a different system of safety and enforcement and some sort of service that is there to protect us as a community. Despite my own hesitations or my own judgments on law enforcement, there is no way to make changes without joining the ranks of law enforcement. BG: Looking back, you know, on the way you grew up and the way things were then do you think we’re heading in the right direction or were stagnant or they are improving? AM: I think we are heading in a couple of different directions .I think America in itself has a selfcontained idea of how society works in America. I think that there have been many improvements in relations, but there have also been many setbacks as well. I think that certain individuals with the media, you have to remember the media is so big now, it shapes our ideas of life. The news, television, the internet, all of things have a huge impact on the way people think. In general, there are many people who made changes and improvements on how race relations go. We don’t have Martin Luther Kings, we don’t have, uh, many people. The Kennedys and other people. We don’t have the leadership or people who are willing to say the world needs to change like we had, you know, a couple of generations ago. But I think we do have a new group of people who are willing to step up, some of the younger ones, a new group of people who want to step up to the rest of society and say, you know, enough is enough. We need to get beyond this idea of separation and beyond this idea of who is better than who, uh, religious backgrounds, even based on if people are gay or lesbian. I think the world is trying to say, you know, for all of our differences, that’s what makes us the same. I think, through the media, unfortunately, that when something bad happens it is often publicized way more than all of the good that has been done. There are still many people who believe in that old system who are not willing to take part in change. There are many people who believe they have the power to change or to not make change, based on their beliefs. I think those are the people we have to worry about. I think there are people that are in power now and if they had more, we could go back, we could end in the same situation that we were in during all of the riots and the mass killings and bombings or church burnings or all of those things that made things happen. We could go back. I was just the other night, told a statistic, that is kind of scary where I think it was like 46% of all Mississippi Republicans think that interracial marriages should be banned. That’s a scary thought that, that many people think that race is so much of an issue that they need to put a stop to it. And I think there are many people who still believe things like that. I believe that in this country we still have this internal identity crisis or this internal struggle to identify who we really are as a people. I think it is very evident in race as far as race relationships and sexual orientation. We, as a country, believe in freedom of speech and freedom of how we should live , but we don’t understand that what we believe is our choice to believe and that we cannot contain it to ourselves. We think we need to press that belief onto others and we haven’t gotten beyond this idea of, Page 8 �you know, we are individuals first. We can’t put our beliefs on anyone or force that. That is what this whole country was founded on or was supposed to be founded on. The fact wanted to not be controlled and not be pressed by someone else’s or one individual’s idea. So we come to a different country and you know, we can say that we conquered this country, but in a way we left one country to come to another country to find our own identities and be free of someone else’s. I think we still struggle with that. I think internally we still struggle with that. On a broader scale, on a national scale, I think every other country has looked at us as, because we’re a young country yet, especially given the fact that other countries have been around and their societies have been around longer than America as a fully functional country. The rest of the countries look at us as we are immature, still young and how we perceive our way of life, our culture. We’re not identified as a single culture as other countries are. We’re looked at as many different cultures trying to co-exist. I think we have a long way to go to respect it, to truly respect it not as a military or industrial superpower and we’re not even that really anymore, but as a culture. America has not been defined as a culture yet and I think that’s unfortunate because we do have so many different cultures here and so many possibilities, because of that that we truly haven’t embraced yet. BG: is there anything like last thoughts that you want to add AM: Yeah I think that just for anyone it doesn’t matter what color they are, I think what it boils down to, we talked about race relations as a separate entity as a relationship just between people. I think one of the biggest problems we’ve had in this country is to identify that our culture and our history is based off one of same. We have had an identity crisis for way too long, and I think that we should not still be held up by what religion you are, what color you are, what sex you are, what orientation you are, um… we have to coexist. This country, as well as this world in fact, are not going to improve as making things better or making our lives more fulfilled unless we understand that it takes each other to do that. I want a world where my son, and his children, are going to prosper because everyone wants the same thing. Everyone wants to be prosperous, everyone wants to be fulfilled and healthy in every aspect. I think we are so far behind, we allow money, we allow greed, we allow control, we allow fear to dictate how we treat others. We need to go back to the beginning and understand that the only reason that we are a higher intelligence, on this planet, to this date is because we had to rely on each other. There is no separation when it comes down to it. There is no who’s better than who, there is no cultural difference. We are, in fact, a human species, so therefore there is only one culture in that. We are not a separate species, black, white, red, brown, yellow, we are still a human species. You know, uh, we look at the animal kingdom, we are so fascinated on how all these different types of animals within the same species, we look at cats and there is everything from a cat to a lion. We are amazed by the fact that, you know, there is so many different kinds out there we are amazed by, a parrot to a hawk. And we are fascinated by the fact that they are so diverse in every way. There are so many different kinds of everything out there, so many different colors, so many different sizes, so many different shapes, and we are amazed by the fact that this plant has so much to offer us in variety and we can’t see that same thing in ourselves. And I think once we can understand that there is so much we can gain by allowing ourselves to be one culture. And understand that there are so many gifts out there; there are so many things to learn about ourselves, by learning about each other. That once we get beyond those short comings of why we are different that we will truly then be able to embrace ourselves as a human Page 9 �species and be able to move forward from this point. I think we are stuck, I think we are, for so many different reasons we have not gone forward. Since the invention of the wheel we haven’t found anything other than … the wheel. The wheel is still one of our biggest successes. We haven’t gone beyond that, and medicine, for all these things we’ve done with medicine we still can’t cure the common cold. What’s stopping us from being a better people? What’s stopping us from saying, you know waking up one morning and saying, you know, “I’m not going to let anything stop me from being a better person.” When is the last time we went outside our front door and saw someone of a different color and say, I’m just like that person? That person has the right to live, right to breath, the right to be who he wants to be, he, she, who they want to be. When’s the last time someone has stand next to someone of a different background and said, “That’s ok”. I often wonder at times what we would do if we were all the same, if we were all the cookie cutter copy of one another. Would it be ok? Would we not have war? Would we not have class differences? If we all had the same job what would we do? If everything was a white sheet of paper what would we use as paper? Why do we have pencils and crayons and paints if it wasn’t meant to have an abundance of color? Why have trees that turn color? Why go to a forest, if not to look at all the different things out there? Why do we go to the museum if not to see what’s different? I think we need to understand that we have so many examples of why different is good, we don’t see our own success. We are so afraid of what comes after that. We’re so afraid of what happens if we are willing to give instead of take. I just hope that one day that we can finally come to a plan, and just embrace the fact that we are different, that we are going to be different and enjoy what comes next and not be afraid of it. And that’s pretty much all I have to say about that. BG: Alright well thank you and it was good. Page 10 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d2f8e3b61be44bd940da241d487c5b71.mp3 46a4e8cc387c7a9e64bc411b0331a481 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 Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Civil rights--Michigan--History Personal narratives Oral histories African Americans--Personal narratives Gays--Personal narratives Lesbians--Personal narratives Bisexual people--Personal narratives Transgender people--Personal narratives Veterans--Personal narratives Women--Personal narratives People with disabilities--Personal narratives Muslims--United States--Personal narratives Hispanic Americans--Personal narratives Homophobia Discrimination Islamophobia Stereotypes (Social psychology)--Upper Penninsula (Mich.) Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history recordings documenting the history of civil rights and social justice advocacy in Western Michigan. The collection was created by faculty and students as a project of the LIB 201 (formerly US 201): "Diversity in the U.S." course from 2011-2012. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral History Project (GV248-01) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-05-02 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV248-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1930-2011 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 GV248-01_Moore_Anthony Title A name given to the resource Anthony Moore audio interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Moore, Anthony Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Golden, Brandon Description An account of the resource This is an interview conducted to evaluate the successes, failures, and impact of the civil rights movement at home and abroad; as well as the prospect of how one man wishes to make an impact while serving his community as a future law enforcement office. Subject The topic of the resource Civil rights--Michigan--History Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Relation A related resource Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-10-19 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/35dfc54bb055eac3dab7e7bf9f28df1a.mp4 faa0a6731c093e668d2fa75efd23d072 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ac555f48437e78ac8df34b4c04bf3227.pdf 36c1f6c0f121fc769bc26b6f2d81413a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Oral History Interview Veteran: Frank Anthony Interviewed by James Smither Transcribed by Grace Balog Interviewer: We are talking today with Frank Anthony of Twin Lake, Michigan and the interviewer is James Smither of the Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project. Okay Frank, start us off with some background on yourself and to begin with, where and when were you born? Veteran: I was born February 6th, 1947. Muskegon, Michigan. Went to school in Muskegon. My step-dad had a 6-door repair garage so I went from there to Ferris State College, taking automotive. You asked me earlier how I got into the military. At that time, I was engaged and next 5 years, I’d be able to spend 1 together. Didn’t make any sense. She was at one school, I was at another. If I volunteered for the draft, it was 2 years. If you go sign up, it was a minimum of 3. So, I went into the draft board and put my name at the top of the list, got myself drafted. Of course, you can’t tell her that. Interviewer: Alright. Let’s fill in a little bit around this here. When did you finish high school? Veteran: 1965. Interviewer: Okay. And then you started at Ferris? Veteran: Yes. �Interviewer: Okay. And how long did you attend there? Veteran: The technical program went year-round. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: So, I did a 2-year degree in a year and a half. And so, that would get me out of there in ’67. Interviewer: And is that when you then entered the service? (00:02:09) Veteran: Yeah, I got my draft notice and then went into the military in ’67. At that time, they sent you the draft notice, you went to a collection point somewhere. They checked all your names, you got on board a bus. We went down to Detroit and had our physical. You crack—you passed your physical, you raised your right arm, you were sworn in. That afternoon, we got on a train in Detroit and it traveled down to Fort Knox, Kentucky. Interviewer: Okay. When you were doing the physical, did you notice anybody trying to scam the system or find ways around going in? Veteran: Actually, at that time, I wasn’t even thinking about it. I was just…you know, everything was so unusual, I don’t even remember. Walking around in my underwear and standing in line and…It was…it was really different and weird and I really wasn’t watching. But of course, we talked about maybe wearing someone else’s, you know, wearing ladies’ underwear or something and seeing how that would work or…But no, I wasn’t really looking for anything like that. I was of the mindset that this was my turn to serve my country and someday I would have to face myself in the mirror and when it was my turn, was I willing to go? I mean, it wasn’t that I wanted to. It was just—it fell in there. I knew I was going to go sooner or later. Everybody was �getting drafted. And I was going to go and get it out of the way and come back and…Course you know, at that age if they tell you there’s going to be 2/3 casualties, you look to your left and you look to the right, you think poor sucker. You know, you’re young, you’re invincible. You’re in it and nothing is going to happen. Looking back and knowing then, I was willing to write I guess what you would call a blank check, realizing that things could happen: that I might die, that I might not come back. Well, I never expected to come back the same. My mother said the young lad she sent to war never came back. Physically, I never got injured. And I don’t know what she is referring to because changes happen gradually and slowly. And I don’t know. But I know I saw men die because somewhere in their chain of command, people didn’t stand up and say something. And I got determined I wasn’t going to be one of them. And so, like now, maybe I was a little outspoken. (00:04:57) Interviewer: Alright. Let’s kind of go back now here to your story. So, you go—they take you down to Fort Kno— Veteran: Fort Knox, Kentucky for basic training. Interviewer: Right. Veteran: And that’s a lot like the movies, you know, “What are you doing on my bus?” “I’ve got a 90-year old grandma that can move faster than you do.” “You know, you’re lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut.” “You ain’t going anywhere for 6 out of 8 weeks of training because you are so stupid.” And they literally grind you down, wear you out, and start trying to rebuild you. And you’re learning the basics because everybody in the military has to be a trigger puller at one time or another, or could be. So, you learn the basics: you learn basic first aid, you learn how to put on your gas mask and how to take it off and scream “No, sergeant!” and turn �and put it back on quick. You know, how to use a rifle. Some basic hand to hand physical training. Interviewer: Okay. What about the drill and discipline part? Veteran: Oh yeah, you’re marching everywhere you go. You don’t go any place alone. It wasn’t as bad as later in the NCO academy and in flight school and some other stuff. If there were two of yous going somewhere, one of yous is marching and one of yous is calling cadence. But it wasn’t that bad in basic. But you know, everywhere you are going, you are marching. When you got up further, like in NCO academy or flight school, good share of the time if you were going anywhere you were running. Weather got too bad and the wet was up high enough, you could pull your shirt out, you could unblouse your boots, stuff like that. If it got bad enough, then they didn’t run us but…No, you were running. (00:06:39) Interviewer: Okay. Now what time of year were you at Fort Knox? Veteran: May. Interviewer: Okay. Alright. And when there, you’re talking about sort of the process of breaking people down and building them back up and so forth. What kinds of things would they do to break people down? Veteran: Well, it seems like all the way through training they only tell you about half of what you are supposed to know. So, they would tell you they are going to bounce a quarter off your bed and if it don’t bounce, they are pulling all of the covers off. They come in and tell you everything has got to be evenly spaced in your floor locker and then footlocker and then they come in with a ruler and actually measure it. You don’t have a ruler. Course, this sort of nonsense continued all the way up, only it got more stringent. But they would check and do the �same thing. They would measure every one of your uniforms in your closet, or your wall locker, and measure them across and they got to be equally spaced. And then they start looking at the individual uniforms and if you didn’t button a pocket…You want that button? Here you go, you can have it. Oh, you don’t want it? Okay. Throw it away. Check for threads. Anything and everything. They are making sure that they are being so ridiculous that there is no way you can meet their standards. (00:08:06) Interviewer: Alright. And the point of that is…? Veteran: I am not sure. I know when I got into the NCO academy and flight school, they wanted us to pull together. And we got to a point where we weren’t totally rebellious but if the flight officer—if the TAC officer was messing with one of the troops, you’d hear somebody in the back say, “Fire mission.” And we’d go out and get in our—you know, one guy would get down on all fours and put his arm out and somebody else would be the forward observer and he’d be out there and somebody would be the FDC and they would be yelling back and forth to each other and somebody would play the artillery round that went out to the target and we’d just start harassing them. We’d be marching somewhere and somebody would holler, “Teaberry shuffle! March.” And the whole uniform—the whole formation would start doing this teaberry shuffle. And then he would stop and get all upset with us and make a right face so that we were facing him instead of being in the column to march. “What are you doing?!” You know. I remember in flight school one time we got some kittens. I don’t know where they came from. And we put them in the TAC officer’s drawer of his desk. He found them and everybody fall out. “Who put the kittens in my drawer?” And you hear from the back, “The shadow. He knew.” And we ain’t telling, you know. And so, then he made them all honorary officers. Well, that didn’t sound bad if you were a civilian. But if you are in that kind of training, any time an officer walks down the �hallway, if it’s anywhere near close, you’re at attention, what we call brace the wall, you’re at attention up against the wall just tight as you can get. And as he passes, “Sir, Captain, good afternoon sir.” And if he stands in front of you, you ain’t going anywhere. Well, we had to do the same thing for all of the kittens. Well, it didn’t take long; the kittens disappeared. They want you to start pulling together and somewhat, you know, fighting back so to speak but not…I mean, we filled this room with balloons one day. He opened his door and all the balloons fell out. I mean, we literally filled up glasses of balloons out on—I don’t know how to explain it. The buildings had a long concrete piece going up with kind of like an awning down south so that they shaded things below. Interviewer: Yeah. (00:10:27) Veteran: Well, we stood on that and stuffed the last of the balloons in the windows. And pulled the window closed. So, when he opened the door, the balloons literally fell out. And sergeant TAC officer just looked at that and he didn’t…So, then he got a folding chair and folding table and he went down to the latrine. And he put that in the latrine. When we walked down to use the bathroom, you walk in. “What are you doing in my office?” Out you go. Well, if you went to his office, you had to stand in the doorway, pound on the doorframe, and finally he would say, “Do I hear a termite in my wood?” “Sir, I came to request permission to enter, sir.” “What do you want to enter my officer for, sir?” “Sir, can I—I’d like to use the urinal, sir.” “You want to do what in my office?” Didn’t take us long—we got rid of all the balloons. But they’re trying to get you to pull together as a unit together to function together. The rest of it, to answer your question, was probably attention to detail. My wife tells me that I notice things that I guess nobody ought to notice. Which was interesting, because later while flying in Vietnam, I noticed that there were a series of charcoal kilns. And that the 5th one there, they never lit. I reported it, a patrol went out. �It was full of ammo. We are out another night and you just notice things that, I don’t know, why do you notice them? I just notice them. (00:12:09) Interviewer: Okay. Now, initially you are going in. You are drafted. A draftee normally serves for 2 years. Veteran: And back then it was nice because if you were a draftee, your social security—your military number started with US. And if you signed up, you were RA. Interviewer: Yep. Veteran: And US was really looked down on because you were the scum they had to come get. I mean, that’s kind of the…And at the end of basic, they flew in a helicopter for orientation to how you approach it. Because you never approach a helicopter from the back—you approached it from the side or from the front. The blades can flex so you do want to bend down. Well, you can stand up and get under them most of the time. If you get a gust of wind or something, you may end up getting a little shorter real quick. So, they are teaching us how to get aboard them, how to get off of them, how to approach them. And I noticed that the pilot was not wearing a hat. He’s got a scarf around his neck and he’s wearing sunglasses. And nobody is harassing him, nobody is bothering him, nobody is…And I am thinking huh. And then, I am being trained infantry and I am figuring I am going to be eating out of cans and living out of a hole. And if I was flying that thing, maybe they would put it in a safe place? And you’d get 3 hots and a cot each day? And all of a sudden, maybe life was looking a little better. And all the time through basic, they were talking to me about officer candidate school. I got some college behind me. Testing showed that, for some reason, I was a good candidate for leadership. And they were insistent I was going to go to OCS and I was just insistent I wasn’t. And we were at an impasse. And when I saw this, I �asked about flight school and they started processing a request. And then, the Army doesn’t sit still and they don’t do anything fast. So, out of basic training, I went to advanced infantry school at Fort McClellan, Alabama. Interviewer: Okay. (00:14:17) Veteran: And that was an interesting base because that is also WAC training center and it’s also a chemical warfare school at that time so that was an interesting base to go to. And there they went through…I think they called it fast aptitude test was for flight selection. And…helicopter? Interviewer: Could be an airplane. Veteran: And they did a bunch of those kind of things. And then, somewhere in the rest of my career for quite a while, they sort of lost it. I can make assumptions why. Out of advanced infantry school, they sent me to the NCO academy. Interviewer: Well, to back up again to the infantry school here. You made a comment about you got WAC training there, you got chemical warfare school there. How much of that did you see or were you aware of or effected your experience there? Veteran: Well, first off, when you get there, any school you go to you are going to start at the bottom of the pile. You are lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut. You know, lower than a whale stuck at the bottom of the ocean. Common comments made. You’re not going anywhere for quite a while. I don’t remember whether the school was 8 weeks or 12 weeks. But somewhere in that area. And you’re not going much of any place until the end of it. Last maybe 3-4 weeks, you may be getting passes regularly and you go somewhere. So, really didn’t affect— you didn’t see much of it. You weren’t doing much. You saw what they wanted you to see. I mean, they would set up a mock village there that we would try and cordon in the morning. So, �you learn how to navigate a little bit in the morning. How to link up with other infantry troops in the dark and not shoot each other. How to get up then and slowly move into the community. How to go through the community. And they had people that were civilians from the local area that were functioning as villagers. And so, they tried to make the training as realistic as they could. (00:16:31) Interviewer: Now, was the harassment from the instructors— Veteran: Still kept up. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: Oh yeah. Matter of fact, later my wife gets a big kick out of it. Later I mentioned I went through the NCO academy and then they sent me back to Fort McClellan to teach AIT. So now, I am Barney Bad. And I am the one walking down the middle and pounding on the top of the trash can, telling everybody to get up and hit it in the morning and, you know. The crazy thing about it is if you are the trainee, you don’t realize that your TAC officer went to bed after you did and gets up before you did. And I was trained that if you want to know what your boots looked like, you look at mine. So, you don’t really realize that it’s kind of a reverse thing. You know, you’re always in your own little world and you feel sorry for yourself but it…You know, looking back, it’s easy to see it wasn’t that difficult. When you are going through it to begin with, it turns your world upside down and it’s something like you have never been through before. And then every time you go up through one of the schools, it gets crazier and it gets worse and it gets longer. Interviewer: Okay. I think at that time, AIT was normally 8 weeks and so was basic training. And then more specialized schools then vary or go longer. Veteran: And I don’t remember how long the NCO academy was. (00:18:02) �Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: I do remember that that was a…It wasn’t a volunteer thing. I didn’t ask. And they called it ‘shake and bake.’ That’s what the guys called it. Vietnam was very much a small unit warfare. And they were having trouble getting, finding, promoting, having enough noncommissioned officers that were knowing what they were doing. I mean, it always amazes me; the military, after a war, starts forgetting everything they learned and starts getting rid of all the people that have the most experience and the most training. Probably because they are paying them the most. But there is a reason why. I mean, you take something like special forces I worked with, it takes years and I mean literally—we ain’t talking one year. They go through, if you’re standing in special forces, you go at least through 2 years of school then take a year with a unit and another year to shake up. Probably takes somewhere between 4-5 years before you really start knowing what you are doing and how to do it and you’re performing and independent. And then, they take a look and how many of these guys do we need? And they start cutting back and they start forgetting all the stuff that really made it work. Interviewer: But, basically, in Vietnam, there was this issue—they had built up the Army very quickly as well as the Marine Corps. They needed people to be the squad leaders and do a lot of that kind of stuff and so, they have to create a bunch quickly. Veteran: Yes. Interviewer: So, most of them are picked out of basic training or AIT and said hey, you have leadership material. But in your case, was this a stepping stone to go to flight training? Or a way to just kill time? �Veteran: I don’t think so. I think they…I am one, I fit the criteria, they just took me and put me there. Like I said, I went back and trained AIT. Then after that, they pulled me again and sent me to long range recon school. Because at that time, I didn’t know it at the time, but at that time they were having like 90% casualty rate for the recon patrols that were going over the border into Laos and Cambodia. And they needed people. and that’s where I was when my request for flight school finally caught up to me. And I think it was due to a chaplain that I had went and talked to and says, “You know, somewhere back in basic I requested flight school. They did the testing but it didn’t happen.” And I think it was due to him that they finally nudged around. I found out later that they started…they have a certain wash out rate they expect. And I guess the wash out rate was a lot heavier than they expected. (00:20:53) Veteran: And I don’t think they wanted to let me go. I think they needed numbers. I was one of the numbers. I was evidently successful. And— Interviewer: So, washing out of the ranger training? Veteran: Yeah. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: Well, you say ranger training. It’s difficult to tell who there was doing what because we had special forces, we had rangers, we had CIA, we had some mercs, that were all trained in the school. You can say it was at Fort Benning but we got to Benning, they issued our field gear, and we went to—I think it was a week or so—we went to some classes. And after that, we were in the field. And they never gave us enough map to really know where we are, because we would have walked out. And we are running around out there in the middle of no place. And they’re supposed to drop us supplies. And you get on the radio and you talk to the young 19 bird dog and �he’s coming in. And he tells you to authenticate, you authenticate, then he tells you you’re wrong so he doesn’t drop your supplies. So, the next 2 days you are chasing snakes. And purifying water maybe by boiling it or whatever. And the people that are training you, you have an aggressor force. They already know the whole agenda. They know where you are supposed to be. They know where you are supposed to go. So, we got original. I mean, if we are supposed to go over here, what’s the shortest route? Let’s take the long way. We didn’t want to play their game. But I think that’s too part of what they wanted to teach you. But if you went the straight way, you were going to get caught. And they weren’t nice to you if they caught you. And so, anyway… (00:22:48) Interviewer: Alright. So, at what point then do you finally actually get to flight school? When is it that you start that? Veteran: I was out in long range recon school when a helicopter came in at one point and they called off names and I thought they had a package or something. And I came forward and he says, “Get aboard the bird. The top wants to see you.” First sergeant. So, I got aboard the helicopter and it took me back to main base. And top says, “I got orders. You’re going to flight school.” Well, that was another week or two away so they sent me over to Chapel Hill at Fort Benning and I was Barney Bad at large, harassing a whole bunch of people’s troops. I am not responsible for any of them. I am just harassing a whole bunch of them because I have been trained to do that, you know. So, while you take the guys to the field, I go flip their bunks, I turn their footlockers upside down, I write up all the demerits. I, you know…So, I did that for a couple weeks and then I went over for flight school. Flight school again you are starting at the bottom of the barrel. �Interviewer: Okay, but do you remember roughly when, chronologically, you showed up at flight school? (00:24:01) Veteran: No. Interviewer: Okay. Are we in 1968 now? Veteran: You know, my wife and I were talking and after a while, you realize at the end of your life, you end up with a hole. I’ll hear some music. I’ll watch a great event that happened on tv and I will go wait a minute, when was that? And they will tell you and you’ll go oh, that must have been when I was at Fort Benning or that must have been where I was overseas or something. Because you are so busy, you are not watching the afternoon news. Your schedule is very much they wake you up at 6 o’clock and put you to bed whenever they feel like it. And they may get you up in the middle of the night again. And if you’re back in the barracks, you may be cleaning your rifle, you may be cleaning your field gear. You may be using a toothbrush and cleaning the grout in the shower. I mean, it’s—you’re busy. And they make sure you are busy all the time. And you got a weekend pass, you don’t know a whole lot about the town. You don’t know a whole lot about anything. You pretty generally will leave base because you see enough of that. Interviewer: Alright. But sometimes events do intrude. Do you remember where you were when Martin Luther King was assassinated? Veteran: Oh yeah. At that time, I had been through the NCO academy. I was training troops at Fort McClellan. We were in the field and, all of a sudden, we got orders we were to come back to base. Right in the middle of our field training. Didn’t make any sense. So, we come back to base and first thing I notice is sitting along the side of the barracks is a flatbed truck with two �armored personnel carriers on it. And there is one sitting next to the next barracks. And we come in and Martin Luther King has been assassinated and we are on standby duty for riot control to go to Atlanta. And my guys are then cleaning their guns and getting equipment ready and…Crazier thing too, sideline personal note, I—the gal I volunteered for the service, the day I got the draft notice, her and I broke up. And she didn’t know I volunteered for draft. You ain’t going to tell her because if you get hurt, you don’t want her feeling responsible. But somewhere in there, I dated another gal and we were getting fairly serious. (00:26:34) Veteran: She was in Muskegon. And she’d write me she wants to come down and visit me. And I am not exactly in training. I am training people and there’s two sergeants. So, one sergeant can stay with the guys. I can have every weekend off or half a day off or a day off every week or whatever we want. And she’s going to come down and visit me at the base. And I write her and tell her no and I get from her letters that she ain’t paying attention. So, I wrote her daddy and told her that nice things don’t happen to little girls down at military bases and you got to keep her home. He writes me back as long as I meet her and she’s with me, he doesn’t care and I am going ahhh, no. You ain’t listening. And right in the middle of me getting the guys back and everything is in turmoil, I hear a whole bunch of fox whistles and stuff going on. And I walk out of my room and into the barracks. Well, at that time, I am a sergeant and these guys are in training so they hear, “At ease!” and the place is stone quiet. And look down the middle of the barracks because the bunks are down both sides and the guys don’t even walk in the middle. I mean they—you carried a sock that you had split and you put it over the nose of your shoe and you brought it up and you tied it over the instep so that if you walked in the middle you were polishing it and then when you took that off, it went inside your tunic and you stuffed them on both sides because you kept the floor nice and polished. And I was the sergeant so I walked �down the center. Walked wherever I wanted. Sharon had walked in the barracks on the other end and was walking down the middle of the barracks. That’s what the guys were all hooting and hollering about. And I told her, I says, “You, my room down there. Guys, I appreciate your taste. I think you got other things…” And I hear woooo. “You got stuff to take care of.” And I went back. (00:28:28) Veteran: But we were completely sequestered to the base. I borrowed a vehicle from the chaplain’s assistant and knowing the base, because I am training and out there with the guys everywhere, I went off the back of the base so I didn’t go through the guard shack because we were sequestered, I can’t get off. And I took her out to a hotel and dumped her at the hotel and told her I’d be back the next day if things permitting. And so yeah, I remember real well what happened when Martin Luther King got—because all of a sudden, everything is in the air and I am kind of juggling stuff and it was crazy. Interviewer: Okay. So, that kind of works back to the question I had asked about when you started flight school. So, it’s going to be after all that. Veteran: Oh yeah. Interviewer: And then your ranger/special forces training, whatever that was, after that. So, is flight school still in 1968 when you start that do you think? Veteran: Yes. Interviewer: Okay. But later in the year? Veteran: I got to Vietnam in the middle of ’69. And flight school was 9 months long. Because we always joked the difference between a warrant officer and a hard bar, it—you know, your �lieutenants and that—the OCS, officer candidate school, is 6 months. And flight school for a warrant officer candidate is 9 months. And the extra 3 months burns out our military bearing. Interviewer: Alright. Now, talk a little, just a little, bit about—because a lot of people are not familiar with this kind of thing. What’s the relationship between a warrant officer and a conventional officer? Veteran: A warrant officer is warranted his commission. He’s not a commissioned officer. His job is normally one where he is a specialist or a highly trained technician. He may work in electronics, he may be a pilot, he may be a special supply officer. He may be a personnel warrant. He knows all the rules, the regulations, stuff like that. (00:30:23) Veteran: He does not have troop command. So, there’s your major separation. Difference being is special forces later made a warrant as an executive officer of an A team because they went up so far in the enlisted ranks, going up sergeants and that, they wanted to make a slot to keep some career people. And a captain—a lieutenant or a captain—is normally the leader of an A team. And the executive officer they finally made him warrants. But that’s the only place I know where they have any sort of troop command. And again, that’s a highly trained specialist. He’s not really running a whole lot of troops. He’s… Interviewer: Yeah. And I guess the officers—normally officers move around to different assignments. Veteran: Warrant officers also have a specific branch. Interviewer: So, they may stay there longer? �Veteran: Yeah. And when I was in—well, that’s not true because warrants, they now have a W5. We had W1, 2,3,4, and 5. When I was in, they only went to W4. So, you had plenty of ranks to go up. But it, again, I was responsible for the aircraft. I was responsible for flying it and understanding all that and that’s basically my job. You know, all officers have other assignments. For instance, when I got to Vietnam I was put in charge of the officers’ club. And I told the old man, I says, “Wait a minute, you don’t want me in charge of the officers’ club.” I said, “I’m a Mormon. I don’t drink.” I says, “I don’t know the difference between all your liquors and stuff.” Well, I didn’t end up with the job very long because since I don’t drink, I made sure there were plenty of other pops and things and I guess the sale of liquor went down. So…But he also told me, he says, “You don’t understand.” He says, “I am putting you in charge of the liquor locker because you are the only one we trust with the key.” That didn’t sound real logical to me but anyway. But they all have other jobs. At one point I was in charge of POL: petroleum, oil, and lubricants and parts for the aircraft. (00:32:37) Veteran: At one point I was the safety officer. Then at another point I was made the executive officer of the aviation company. That was again—the old man up at group—during the monsoon so a number of our people got weathered in. Went down through the ranks and it happened to be I was the guy with the standing seniority and so on and so forth. So, I take over. But I had been in NCO. I had trained troops. I had a different way of dealing with things and I guess I got all the work done and everybody was happy and the old man says, “You’re still the executive officer.” And I reminded him there were several officers that outranked me in our aviation outfit. And he says, “Doesn’t matter.” He says, “You’re the executive.” So, I took care of all of the enlisted men, I took care of the maintenance, the parts, the fuels. Some of the same stuff I was doing �before safety. I was supervising all that sort of stuff. But really you talk about troop command yet, I am still not commanding troops per se. Interviewer: Now, we had gotten in your story here to—basically, we have you now starting flight training to become a helicopter pilot. So, how did that—what was that process? Where did you go? What were you doing? (00:34:00) Veteran: Mineral Wells, Texas. It’s south and west of Fort Worth, Dallas. And most forbidden place you’ve seen. I mean, barren, wide-open, hot, dry. But they picked it because the density/altitude of the air they said was going to be similar to Vietnam, the flying. And they had 3 basic helicopters for us to start primary training with. One was a TH-55 by Hughes, one was an OH-13, which is what you see them flying in MASH, and then the other one was a Hiller OH-23 and it looked similar to the one you see in MASH—it had the same plexiglass front but it has an enclosed bottom and tailbone. And they all have piston engines. And you first off try and learn to hover, which is the single most difficult maneuver you are going to do. And if you don’t hover by about 18 hours, if they figure you’ll do it in the next couple hours they’ll keep you, otherwise they will reassign you and you get to start over with a whole other unit and come through and try and learn. But they start off you have classes in aerodynamics. You have classes in, well, you got to learn what all the gauges are supposed to say. Which is—later you learn, they don’t tell you this right away, but later you learn that they actually rotate the gauge so all the needles point upright. And if everything is proper in the aircraft—you look at all the engine instruments—all the needles are straight up and down. You don’t have to read each one of them. But to start with literally you memorize every one. And by the time we got to the Huey—I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a cockpit of one of them—but overhead there’s a panel about ye wide and it’s probably about 2-2.5 feet long. And over half of it is circuit breakers. And you put your hand up like this �and you feel the row and right there and that one. That’s the altitude indicator. And you know where the stuff is. So, you got stuff like that you got to learn. You got to learn the velocity not to exceed V and E, stall speed. A helicopter doesn’t have one. But you have all the characteristics of whatever aircraft you are flying you have to learn. And so, you have an immense amount of bookwork, you have an immense amount of stuff you have to memorize. (00:36:34) Veteran: Plus, all of a sudden you are getting into this aircraft and it’s kind of like trying to learn to ride a bike. The helicopter won’t do anything by itself automatically. Everything is uncoordinated. After you have done it a while, my wife was asking me a question the other day, and I literally had it going. I had to move my other foot and I go oh, it’s that pedal and it’s, you know, because I have done it so much it is automatic now and I don’t even think of it. You got that muscle memory kind of thing going. But you literally learn everything from scratch. And it’s just overload. Plus, you are still living in a barracks where everything is sterile, everything is waxed and polished. We had something about the size of a small tackle box that was our personal box. In there we could keep a second razor so we didn’t have to polish it and clean it absolutely so that the one that was on display was actually decent. That’s where your letters went, your personal stationary, stuff like that because that stuff wasn’t available to be on display. Interesting story about that. I had my scriptures out and I was studying one night and I had to use the restroom real fast and we had 3 guys to a room. And they said they’d watch it and I took off for the bathroom. And I come back: my scriptures are gone. Where are they? Well, the TAC officer came along. So, this is improper display. He picked it up and he took them. So, I went down, I braced in his doorway and I beat on the door. He asked who was there and I told him. “What do you want, sir?” “Sir, I want my scriptures back.” Well, he says it’s going to cost me so �many demerits. I told him I would take double the demerits if he’d keep them and read them. He threw them at me, told me to get out of his office. (00:38:36) Veteran: But you know, they are doing a lot of this stuff to see how you think under pressure, what you’re going to do, how you are going to behave, do you cave under stuff like that. And like I said, they want us to start working together as a group. So, and it doesn’t change. Like I said, in the schools I was in, the further up I went…I am still in training. If I had been a hard bar—a lieutenant—if I come out of OCS and went to flight school, out of officer candidate school I would’ve been going out to work at 8 o’clock in the morning and going home at 3 o’clock at night and probably living off the base or living in the bachelor officer’s quarters. Nobody is messing with me. I got a maid to take care of the place. You know, I do whatever I want to do. But we were warrant officer candidates so this is like officer candidate school. And ours is 9 months long, longer by about 3 months, and we are living in this vacuum besides trying to learn how to fly and do everything else and…So, it’s a…It’s enough to make you sleep well at night. Interviewer: Now, you’ve gone through an awful lot of this process of sort of being, you know, hazed or beaten into shape in each of these places. So, were you used to it by this time? Did you kind of know the drill or the system and just…? (00:40:01) Veteran: There is always a new bend. There is always a new twist. There’s always something that’s different. For instance, in flight school they found a dead fly on a window sill one day while doing an inspection. So, we had all our weekend passes cancelled. We had a dead aviator. We had to have a funeral with all military honors. And we didn’t have guns but guys had to go over there and get down on all fours and raise their arms and we had a 21-gun salute. And I mean, we went through all the nonsense. Everything you can think of. In basic, I don’t �remember. Trying to think…AIT? No. NCO academy they started having something they called taxi time and if you got enough demerits, you not only didn’t get a weekend pass but you had to get your gun out and you went out to a parking lot and there were lines drawn across the parking lot. And if you had so many demerits, you had an hour of taxi time. If you had so many more demerits, you had 2 hours of taxi time. You went out there and you started on the line and you walked to the other end of the parking lot on your line, did an about-face, and you march back and then did an about-face and then you march back and you’ve put in your taxi time. And I remember doing that in the NCO academy. And we had similar kinds of things we had to do at flight school then and so they always got a new little twist, a new way of playing. I don’t remember them following us out and having us low-crawl someplace and then inspecting our uniforms until I was in flight school. I do remember they fell us out middle of the night for a fire drill when we were in the NCO academy. But we got to the point they’d fall us out in the middle of the night and we’d fall out going M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E, Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse. Because you know, we are fighting back. We are doing our thing with them. But there is always one step up, one new little twist. Something different they are doing. Like we didn’t have to brace the walls, good afternoon sir, in the NCO academy or any of that kind of stuff. But in flight school? Yep. (00:42:29) Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And flight school barracks were different. We weren’t in a big wide-open barracks. We were in individual rooms. There were 3 guys to a room. We had lockers. We had drawers built in the wall. Accommodations were nicer. Still wasn’t air conditioned. But was much nicer. Still had to do pull-ups or push-ups or other things to get in the mess hall. I was telling you earlier we had brass that we had on our collars, WOC, because we were warrant officer candidate. Made fun of �you if somebody had the brass on wrong. They’d make them fall out. “What’s this? You’re a cow? C-O-W. You got brass on backwards. So, you’re a cow?” So, they made them run around the barracks saying, “I’m a cow, mooo. I’m a cow, mooo.” Make them run around the formation. I mean, they always come up with something different. And they were always finding unique ways to mess with you. But it was the same old thing. You just…What do I want to say? You can’t get into a groove. They make sure there is no way you can just kind of sluff it off, forget about it, whatever. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: Doesn’t happen. Interviewer: Alright. Now, the flying part itself. How quickly did you kind of get the hang of the helicopter? Veteran: I had trouble. Everybody is different. While I am quite physically fit and athletically well now, I was sort of an ugly duckling growing up and had difficulty. I got re-cycled and even the instructor that got me wasn’t getting there. He went to an older instructor who had flown in Korea and asked him if he’d take me. And he did and under his tutelage, I blossomed. Towards the end of hovering, he literally got me to do something that most pilots can’t do. And—because if you are—what you need to work on is what’s difficult for you, what you don’t do well. (00:44:35) Veteran: Human nature is you practice the things you are good at. But that’s not what you should be practicing. So, he got me out and he’d get me on the runway and they have a line painted down the middle of the runway. And he’d want me to hover down that runway at a steady pace. Then he wanted me to start turning the aircraft around while I am going down that line, keeping �the same movement down that line. Now, it doesn’t sound too bad. I mean, we are sitting here talking about it; it doesn’t sound too shabby. But you got a wind to contend with. So, it means as you bring your tail rotor around into the wind, you have to be playing pedal to that. The minute you get past a certain point, you’re not putting pedal to it anymore, you got to put the other pedal because the wind is going to now try and push you. So, that’s one thing. Secondly, when you’re pulling into the wind, you have to pull more power on so you coast—I can’t even do what I am thinking about. You’re twisting the throttle because you run it—the engine’s got to run it the same RPM all the time. Well, you’re pulling more power so you have to wrap the throttle on. The minute the wind is blowing, you have to wrap the throttle off. And while you are going around like this, it’s interesting because your perspective changes and the cyclic stick here that is controlling my direction. If I am just going down facing it, it’s like this. But as I am going down that line, the stick is basically going around the cockpit entirely to keep me on that line and keep me moving at a steady speed down it. So, it was different. He made me sweat a bit more in the cockpit than most and I don’t think…I know for a fact, most of the pilots I dealt with later never did. I mean, we would get some of them in the aircraft and I am saying, “Well, try this.” They’re, “You’re crazy.” “Well, go ahead and try it.” And they can’t do it. They’re all over the place. And I became a better pilot because I was re-cycled and I was having a hard time with it. And at that time, almost all the pilots we had that were teaching at Mineral Wells were all civilian. (00:46:36) Veteran: They were all ex-military, for the most part. But they were all civilian. And the gentleman that I had and I remember the most, like I said, was a Korean pilot. And he’d flown the OH-13s there. And the OH-13s were old aircraft and they were underpowered and so a lot of things he had me do he wouldn’t let me do in a normal take off. He made me do what they call a �max performance take off and if the helicopter moves forward…Helicopters don’t just take off. If you move forward, when you get 17 knots of relative air over the blades, it’ll start climbing out at 500 feet a minute on its own. You don’t need to give it anymore power. Man, sometimes you need to reduce a little power. But it will actually get that much lift and it will start climbing out all on its own. He had me do stuff like that. All kinds of things because the aircraft was underpowered. And 13 was the most underpowered of all the 3 aircraft they had there. The 55? It had power. I mean, you could hotdog that thing all day long. I am not sure that is teaching you good technique. He put me through the mill. And as a result, I was a much better pilot. Interviewer: Okay. Now that is still at Mineral Wells? That this is going on? Veteran: Mhmm. Interviewer: Okay. But that’s not the end of your training though? Veteran: No. Down there, you learn basic flight maneuvers. You learn some—we were talking about hovering—you learn how to take off, you learn how to land. You learn max performance take off. You learn emergency procedures: how to land it without an engine, how to handle tail rotor failures. You go through all that basic type of stuff then they start doing cross country. And that gets kind of interesting. You get to do that solo. (00:48:26) Veteran: And that was an interesting story. They had us check what we wanted for lunch or dinner that night because you’re going to do a night cross country and you get to check on your little form what you want. And they had porkchop sandwich down there and I checked it. And I am alone in this aircraft and I am doing this formation flying and I go into my bag and get my porkchop sandwich, unwrap it and take a bite and it was a real porkchop sandwich—bone and all. So, you get all kinds of surprises. I mean its… �Interviewer: Okay. Alright. Now you’re—so you have the Mineral Wells and then after that, was Fort Rucker next? Veteran: Fort Rucker, Alabama. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: I don’t remember if we switched at 4 months or 5 months and then we went to the other school. And the other school—they started off…We were flying OH-13 S models which were supercharged, brand new. These things were fully instrument rated. They never bothered to teach us to fly the dumb thing. We got in it, the instructor took it off, we put a hood on our head and we never saw where we were going. We are looking at our flight charts, we are looking at the instruments, and this is all analog which means that these are all instruments with the little dials and the little needlepoint. And this is not the modern day stuff where I am looking at a GPS with a map and a little plane is right here on this course. None of that kind of thing. You’d tune in a radio wave, you’d fly along that radio wave so many minutes at this speed, figuring the winds. And you ought to be at this location. You ain’t looking at your little screen and saying, “Oh, there’s my littler plane. I am right there.” Oh no, no, no, no. And if you keep flying off the radio, you start recomputing and figure out what the wind actually is and it’s never what they forecast. It’s got a habit of changing. (00:50:22) Veteran: I don’t know if you noticed that but it changes. So, you got a—your little wiz wheel, a little circular computer. And you recalculate and then you reset your heading and you re-fly it and recalculate your time to be at your location. And you did instrument school. Then after that, they started transitioning you into the Huey, UH-1s. And there were Alpha, Bravos, Charlies, and Deltas and then hotel models. And we got shuffled through all of them. And the hotel model �was the major one that was flown in Vietnam. Charlie—Alpha, Bravos were all changed to Charlie models. And Charlie models in Vietnam were predominantly used for gunships until the Cobra came along. And I happened to be there when the first of the Cobras showed up at Vietnam, which was interesting. But then with the Hueys, once you are transitioned into them, then they started teaching us formation flying. And different things. I mean, it’s got different characteristics so while you may have learned how to do an auto-rotation, now you are doing one with a Huey. And Huey was, basically, a ¾ ton truck. And really nice. You land it without an engine. It’s got weighted blades and it’s used to having a load and you could literally pick it up and hover it down the runway for a while and set it back on the runway because you had that kind of rotor speed left. It was a lot more fun than flying some of the other aircraft. But it was a total different feel. Huey, when you come off the ground, you really feel the nose come up first and then the other backside comes up and the rear right stays on the ground until the last moment. Then you pick it—so, you literally, if you can’t hover, now you are in trouble. Because like I said, she starts lifting front first and then one of the back heels come off and you’re literally sitting on just one point in the back. You don’t want to try coasting that way. You don’t want to try backing up. You better be staying right where you are. And if the wind is moving 15 miles an hour, that means as you’re coming up, you’re literally flying 15 miles an hour if you’re staying in one place. (00:52:35) Interviewer: Alright. Now, warrant officers who flew helicopters in Vietnam have kind of a general reputation of being kind of a wild bunch of characters. What sort of men were you training with as you were going through the flight schools? Veteran: I don’t know. You don’t think about it. Interviewer: Okay. �Veteran: You know, we were definitely an ingenuitive bunch. I mean, you kind of had to be to stay ahead of the TAC officers with everything that was going on. And I…Let me tell you a different story. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: When I came home from Vietnam between tours—because I extended to stay, it was a hardship tour and they couldn’t make you stay more than a year—when I got back, I went down to the airport and I threw 5 bucks down on the table and Cessna, I had an introductory ride: took you up for an hour and a half for 5 bucks. Now, I went down and I threw down my 5 dollars. And we are walking out to the aircraft with the instructor and I told him, “By the way, don’t tell me its an altitude indicator, don’t tell me this is 9LS and a GCA, I know. I just want to kick the tire, light the fire, and burn a hole in the sky.” He says, “What are you flying?” And I told him. So, I went out and I flew. We come back in and he says, “One more hour of dual time. You can do the rest as solo. I’ll sign you off.” And I go, “No.” He says, “Why?” “Baby’s a homesick brick looking for a place to bury itself.” There’s so much difference between flying a helicopter and flying a fixed wing. A fixed wing will do something for you. I mean, you can trim out everything and it will just maintain. It’s like throwing a paper airplane: it’ll fly. Helicopter won’t do anything. (00:54:20) Veteran: And I think it takes somebody loosely wrapped to fly them and maintain them. And I believe it was Paul Harvey who says that a pilot’s job was to keep 2000 parts flying in formation. If you literally get into aerodynamics, you find out we got counterbalance weights up there and everything else and the whole thing is kind of by centrifugal force kind of trying to tear itself apart and it doesn’t want to do anything it’s supposed to do. And I think it really takes someone that’s kind of loose wired. If you are too stiff or too uptight or whatever, I don’t think you’re �going to…I don’t think you’re going to make it. I don’t know for sure. But I just don’t think so. And Catch 22 and watching all the rest of the movies, I gather the World War 2 pilots weren’t any better. Except there were just more of us in Vietnam. Interviewer: Alright. So, now to kind of go back here to…Roughly, when do you finish flight school then? Or, when do you get to Vietnam, I guess is the…Is there any— Veteran: Well, by the time—funny thing is the way it works out. By the time I get through flight school, I got 2 years in the service. But when I signed up for flight school, I had to agree to fly for 3 years after or have 1-year commitment after flight school if I didn’t make it, if I washed out. So, when you get through with flight school, you have a 3-year obligation. One year is going to be Vietnam. One year is going to be training replacements. And then you’re going to be back to Vietnam because it was a hardship tour. It wasn’t a declared war. If it was a declared war— they were afraid to make it a declared war. We haven’t had a declared war since World War 2. Everything has been a police action or one thing or another. (00:56:13) Veteran: Congress needs to declare war. They are afraid to give the president war powers act and his dictatorial type of powers. So, we have not had a declared war. Vietnam was not a declared war. So, they could only make you stay there a year. And that made it quite difficult for all the Vietnam vets because we went over, we joined a unit that was there, we took the place of somebody that was leaving, we stayed a year and then we left and went home alone. We didn’t go home with the guys we were serving with. Our type of service was quite different. I mean, my dad—my step-dad—he trained with guys from Muskegon. He went over to Europe, landed D-4, D+4, 4 days after D-Day. Walked all the way to Berlin. They came home together on a boat. Had weeks decompressing and talking with each other. Knew the people in the community. Joined the same VFWs and American Foreign Legions and that stuff. They knew each other. And you �form a type of camaraderie in the military that’s nowhere else. Nowhere else. And we went over solo, we came back solo. Remember, we came back real fast. I mean, you board the plane, 24 hours you are back in the states. Whatever time it takes you to go standby to get home and you’re dumped home. And when I got off the plane, they were literally carrying the posters and hollering “Baby killer” and spitting at us and…It was different. And the guy next door could have been in Vietnam and got home the day before you got home, you wouldn’t know it. You weren’t saying anything about it because it wasn’t that popular. In my wife’s family, her brother served 2 tours in Vietnam and was an advisor with the Vietnamese on his second tour. And his sister was demonstrating down in Chicago against the war. And it wasn’t uncommon to have family’s split like that. And World War 2 wasn’t that way. (00:58:29) Veteran: We didn’t even get support from the VFW and the Foreign Legions and stuff like that. I mean, it was… Interviewer: Alright. Kind of go back again here. So, you finished flight school. Do you get a leave home before you go overseas? Or do they just send you away? Veteran: Well, they intended me to. Didn’t turn out that way. I have a series of allergies so when you go through to get the shots, and of course the military is famous for giving shots, and you get in line and you go through and get your shots, they’ll list a series of allergies. If you had any of them, you’d put your hat on backwards. So, I put my hat on backwards and go through the line. So, when I was all through with school, I got these orders to go to Vietnam right away. So, I already know there’s a whole bunch of shots I didn’t have. So, I asked. So, then they go check my records and they go, “We don’t know.” “You don’t know? Well, okay so now what do I do?” “Well, you’re not going anywhere. Your orders are null and void.” Now, a training base doesn’t know what to do with you after your training. So, I am put on temporary duty, or TY, and I am �an officer so I can go get a room in the BOQ. But I am also being paid temporary duty pay and I am going “Wait a minute, I don’t have any assignment?” “Nope.” “I don’t have any duty?” “Nope.” So, I went down to Panama City, Florida, got a room at the Holiday Inn on the beach. And every day at noon, I called the first sergeant: “Got any orders yet? Oh, breaks my heart. Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow.” And I am off and playing. (01:00:13) Veteran: And that went on for, I don’t know, 2-3 weeks. Finally, they got orders for me. But my orders aren’t specific now. Before they knew they had this many pilots going to be coming to Vietnam so they already have a place you’re going, they’re already expecting you. They sent me over to basically a manpower pool. And I got thinking about it. I flew into Cam Ranh Bay. They sent me over to this manpower pool. And they sent me over to first field force in Vietnam, the largest advisory command in Vietnam. They sent me over to first field force artillery. Now, my mind is going…is this aggressive negotiations? What’s advisory doing with artillery? Didn’t ask anything, just do what you’re supposed to do. They send me to 52nd artillery group headquarters located in Pleiku. Now, Pleiku is 2/3 of the way up south Vietnam and it is dead center in the middle of the country. East to west, it’s dead center; 2/3 of the way north, right in the middle of I Corps—or II Corps. I get up there and CIA’s got a rodent office across the road. Special forces a quarter mile down the road. We have a lot of big guns. 175s, 8-inch—they aren’t even in the military anymore. They have been replaced with rockets now. And these guns were placed in special forces camps all up and down the border. Now, when I say border, this was Laos and Cambodia. And they have a sprinkling of light guns: 155s and 105s. What I mean by sprinkling is they don’t have a full battery of guns there. They have 2, maybe 3, maybe 1. And the gun is there to fire mutual support on the other special forces camp further down the border. (01:02:18) �Veteran: The Montagnards were an aboriginal people that prior to World War 2 were pretty well left alone in the highlands. Up in the mountains there, the Vietnamese didn’t go. They stayed down on the delta; raised their rice on the coastal plains. And they weren’t up in the delta to speak of. Due to the Japanese being there, a nice place to hide is in a jungle. Hiding in a rice paddy ain’t a good idea. So, there were more of them in the highlands. And the Montagnards were up there and they were an aboriginal people. And when you go into a village, you could tell if the chaplains had got to them or if the missionaries had been there because then the women were wearing tops. Otherwise they had a cloth wrapped around their waist. The guys wore a breech cloth and that was about it. About the only thing manmade they had was maybe a machete that came from outside their village. But they had a unique machete too that their village people would make. Very unique. They were the Indians, the natives of the country if you will. Fine light infantry. We put them in over the border. Well, I can’t say we did that. I know officially from the radio and tv we have no combat groups in Laos and Cambodia so they got over the border somehow. And they were there doing their patrols and things and it wasn’t unusual we’d lose radio contact with them. And they were being controlled by special forces and CIA. And sometimes a month, 2 months later, they’d come back across the border. Now, they went over the border. Special forces contracted out of Hong Kong and other places to have special uniforms made. And you remember the tiger stripes were a uniform connected with Vietnam. But they were never issued to our troops. They were uniforms that were made for the special forces because the Montagnards were smaller framed, little people. (01:04:20) Veteran: And our uniforms didn’t fit them. They made special rations for them because our C rations were too big and stuff they didn’t eat. So, they made special C rations for them and stuff. They had special packs built for them and everything else. They’d put them across the border �and when they came back, after we had lost contact with them, they came back wearing black pajamas, toting AK-47s, socks with rice balls in them hung around their necks. They literally were in their own world in the jungle. They could have, if they had decided not to be soldiers yet, take their machete and live off the jungle because that’s where they lived. But they carried the war to the enemy yet and came back across the border totally resupplied with the enemy’s supplies and were terrific troops. But since they were Montagnards and they were aboriginal people, they had a hard time figuring out how to fire a cannon to shoot at something they couldn’t see. So, we had the guns there for mutual support. We also had guns in a number of other places. We supported 1st cav, we supported the 4th infantry division. We had guns that were used for hip shoots. Hip shoot was—they’d run a unit down the road and at some place, they would just pull off the road, haul out their own barbed wire and put it around, make a base right on the side of the road. And that would kind of keep the Viet Cong off guard because now you could put a pin in the map and draw a brand new circle and say what couldn’t they support with artillery before that they could support now? Why did they move these guns? What are they doing? And they would do hip shoots. We did all kinds of things. We even had a few big guns, and I don’t know why, down at Phù Cát which is close to Quy Nhơn down on the South China Sea. (01:06:10) Veteran: So, I flew everywhere from the South China Sea to the border. Two weeks in Vietnam, the old man tells me to grab my dress blues; he wants me to fly him down to Saigon for a command party. So, I mean, I was from Saigon all the way up into about half of I Corps, from South China Sea…Well, they—we have a radio in the aircraft they call a transponder. And a transponder puts a coded signal on a radar screen to tell them it’s you. And if you get into trouble, you flip a switch and it literally does ripples like on a pond on somebody’s radar screen. �And they know you’re in trouble and they got your exact location. They set my transponder so I could enter Thailand because it was shorter than coming back. And they told me if I get in trouble, keep going because your nature is to go where you know. So, if you get lost, you backtrack right? And they said na-huh. You get in trouble, you have mechanical difficulties, whatever, keep going, they will recognize you as friendly. You can enter Thailand. So, I don’t know where—I officially know where I wasn’t but I don’t know where I was. Interviewer: Alright. Okay, when you joined the unit, did they know what to do with you? Veteran: Yeah, I am a pilot. I am coming but they couldn’t use me. Well first off, when I get there, they can’t use you at all because you take a week to two weeks to get climatized. And just like in basic and some of the other places, we were down south, we were in a hot, muggy environment, we were doing more physical activity than normal. But Vietnam’s even different. My wife always wants me to tell that when the C-130 landed in Pleiku and it taxied up on the tarmac by the terminal, when you walked down that—the ramp in the back—you step out on that tarmac. That’s like an asphalt paved area. It was like walking into an oven. And you’re smelling the incense and the nuc mam, the fish sauce. You know you ain’t in Kansas anymore, Toto. (01:08:26) Veteran: I mean, it hits you. And I mean, it is stark reality it’s here. This is different. Well, for the first week or two, they want you to climatize. You’re getting salt tablets every time you go down to a meal. They are making sure you get them. We started taking chloroquine, primaquine, and dapsone, which are anti-malarial drugs—suppressant drugs. I got to get a physical. I got to be assigned a weapon. I got to be assigned my flight suits and…You’d think I’d come with that stuff. I came with my helmet. But all the rest of the stuff—and they issued me 4 pair of jungle fatigues. I don’t know what for. But they also issued me a pup tent—a full pup tent—a regular �duffel bag, ground pad, TA-250 gear which is your web gear with your ammo pouches and your first aid kit and your butt pack and all that stuff. I actually signed for an extra duffel bag, stuffed all that junk in the duffel bag because I ain’t going to be using it. And it went in my room, went underneath the bunk. But everybody gets it. So, you got to go through all that sort of stuff. Then when I go down to the aviation section, we didn’t have Hueys. They had OH-23s and OH-6s. I didn’t fly an OH-23 in flight school. OH-6s were a more advanced aircraft by Hughes and a lot of guys know it as a LOH—light observation helicopter. That was more fun to fly. See, they didn’t want to train me to fly that. (01:10:07) Veteran: So, I sat around another week while they sent another pilot to go through instructor school and he come back and they train me to fly a 23 which was another one of the basic ones. And I flew a 23 and for a number of months, I flew a 23. Then our unit got totally replaced with OH-58s. And when the OH-58s come in, I went down to Vung Tau, which is a little south of Pleiku, or Saigon, and got transitioned into the OH-58. And that was done by, again, civilian pilots that were contracted out. But that was interesting because Vung Tau is a different place. All the way through the entire war, even when the French were there, they never fought in Vung Tau. And Vung Tau had a reputation for being and R and R center, a rest and relaxation center. For both the Vietnamese, North and South, the Americans and the French, and you walked down the streets there and you got these huge stone walls—brick walls—with broken glass on the top of it. And some of the glass is all different colors. And then wrought iron gates to go into these fabulous houses and mansions and places. And they took me—and first thing they did was take my gun away. So, they take my gun, they give me a card. That’s never happened before. And they take me down to this hotel. And again, great big walls, iron gates, and there’s two great big sand bag bunkers at the corner. And that didn’t surprise me. But what surprised me was as I got �closer is there’s all these cobwebs in the shooting loops. What? And I go into this hotel and typical old French hotel: wide-open first floor. You got the hotel desk, you got dance floor, you got a bar, you got the restaurant, and then it’s the typical open type of elevator with the…I don’t know what you want to call it? With the accordion type of door that goes across. And you go up and they took me up to my room. And really nice room. I mean, big bed, big mosquito net goes around the whole bed. The room has got a couch in it and a chair and a table. And bath. Interesting things about the bath is it was tepid water but no hot water. (01:12:47) Veteran: You had a veranda or a porch that was off to the side that was all screened in. Just beautiful place. But there is no bunker. And the base I was on, we were getting hit two, three times a week. And we’d scramble to the aircraft so I had my gun all the time. And I am down here and there’s no bunker. And then they tell me the city is on limits all night. Well, where I come from, at dark or before dark they close the gates to the base, they haul out a bunch of— look like saw horses. They got Constantine wire all over them. They put them in the driveway and that and everything is closed up. And if you are going to go anywhere after that, you need orders. And you need at least two vehicles. And you needed a machine gun and a radio and you had to have your flak jacket on and your helmet and…The town is on limits? I literally had to go downtown to see. I mean, I couldn’t believe it. And they literally had part of the market still set up where all the fish were all displayed and the fruit is all laid out and I just…We are in the same country? I mean, it was…Whoa. Just really different. (01:14:10) Interviewer: Okay. Now, that is sort of the exceptional experience. Let’s go back. When you were flying in the first part of that tour, when you are flying the 23s, what kind of missions did you have? �Veteran: Missions stayed the same, all the way through. The group had a table of organized equipment, TOE, that prior to…about 6 months or so before I got there, they had had fixed wings. L-19 Bird Dogs, which was common for artillery units to have fixed wings. And they switched them over to helicopters. And they were authorized 2 aircraft, 2 pilots, 2 mechanics, and 2 toolboxes per battalion. And group was authorized 4. And they put them all together and decided they had an aviation company. Now, that sounds nice but we don’t have anybody to run operations. We don’t have the radio to run the airfield, we don’t have a whole bunch of stuff. So, we were this kind of put together…You know, war is a come as you are affair. Everybody has got an idea of how it ought to be fought and everybody’s got this great idea of how many men ought to be in a platoon but you fight, you go to war with what you have. So, they had 23s and the OH-6s that were here because the Bird Dogs were gone. And OH-23, you straddle the instrument panel and there’s a place for a person here and a person here. And that’s fine. If I am flying a commander out, he wants to go inspect some place, I got the commander. He wants to bring somebody with him? That’s fine, he can come with me. If I am flying the chaplains, there’s 2 chaplains. If I am flying a…USO usually went in the OH-6s or the Hueys. We contracted— contracted—we submitted up above somewhere and we requisitioned one Huey. And usually one, two, rare day we might have three, heavy lift aircraft. Flying cranes or Chinooks. Because we had some bases that were so isolated, like Firebase 6. They brought in a bulldozer, leveled off the top of the mountain, brought in the barbed wire and put in the perimeter, built the bunkers there and we literally landed on a bunker. There was an H in sandbags put on top of this bunker. (01:16:40) Veteran: You landed on top of the bunker at Firebase 6. There was no gate. There was no perimeter. There was no road coming in there. There was no paths going out of there. It was just �there. So, everything they had went in and out by air. So, there would be a water tanker at the end of our field, they’d pick up that water trailer and carry it out to Firebase 6. We had a lot of stuff that went out by air. Of course, Vietnam—one trouble the French made is they limited themselves to the road and the Viet Cong took over control of everything else: the jungle, the small villages, everything. And then in the monsoon season, a lot of those roads were totally impassive. So, the helicopter became airborne, like I said, airborne truck. And I was flying the light pickup. And they would put net 23, wherever they wanted to go. There were times when all I carried was mailbags. And carried mail out to these bases and I’d go to this base and drop off a bag and then I’d go to this base and drop off a bag. I might take the…Doc might go out there and check the mess hall. If they didn’t have a mess hall, he might go out there and check their water. He might go out and check where the latrines are and how things looked and just do a sick call out there. Just see how things are in general. There were all kinds of things that had to go. Such as people that had to repair a gun because guns malfunctioned: the recoil mechanisms on them or hydraulic. They fail. The 175s were notorious. They were a high velocity, long barrel gun. They only fired so many rounds, the barrels had to be replaced. (01:18:24) Veteran: So, all that stuff got out there and got back by aircraft. So, 23s, they got utilized. I might go out by myself and register a gun battery. Technically, a gun ought to fire from here to there and hit a certain spot and they know by math that ought to do that. But that is theoretical. And in a real world, it doesn’t do that. So, you’d have to register the gun battery every so often and you’d have a known point and they’d shoot at it and I’d correct the artillery until they hit it. And then they could make correction for barrel wear and for weather and for who knows what all, with their slide rolls and computers to figure out exactly where they are going to fire so then the next rounds were accurate. So, every so often, the guns had to be registered. And I’d go out and �do that. And I would do that by myself. Well, yes and no. Our crew chiefs didn’t fly. Now, if I was flying a Huey, your crew chief was your door gunner. But we didn’t have the space for them. So, our crew chiefs didn’t generally fly. So, if I was going out to register a gun battery, I had to tell my crew chief, “Want to go?” “Yep.” And those light aircraft had dual controls. Well usually we took them out. He’d put them in. And I’d let him have some stick time and time to fly it. And you let him call the base, use the radio and learn the radio procedures. And you never know, I may go out some time and be covering a convoy with the crew chief and I may get shot up and he may have to fly it back. So, while we weren’t supposed to, we did. Interviewer: Alright. How common was it for you to be in a place where somebody might shoot at you when you were in the air? (01:20:13) Veteran: Real common. Our base, we had what was known as a One Eyed Charlie. One Eyed Charlie was a person that the Viet Cong would press into service, give some dilapidated type of gun, give him a few rounds and tell him to shoot at the Americans. He didn’t want to but if he didn’t, they would come back at night and hurt him, hurt his family, hurt whatever. They would quite often then tell him that if he’d go down by the bridge by the creek out by his field, there’s a little tin can sitting underneath the bridge. There’s two rounds in that can. He’s to put his two empties in there. And he had to put his two empties in there and shoot his two rounds at us. And if you had a One Eyed Charlie, you didn’t shoot back at him. I mean, he didn’t want to shoot at you. So, he just gun over the barracks, over the berm you know, bang bang. And he’d be gone. And ours only hit one aircraft, once, all the while I was there. But you knew he was going to shoot at you some time or other. And he usually shot at us rather than other things. And so, you didn’t return fire. One night we got hit. I scrambled. Got down, got the aircraft. Took off and a helicopter doesn’t really have to take off into the wind. We do for some safety procedures but it’s �pretty well directly making its own wind. It doesn’t much matter. And I took off into the wind, down the runway and as I got to the end of the runway and I am getting ready to go over the bunker line and then the barbed wire starts, out on the rice paddies out there—all of a sudden there went this solid wall of tracers in front of me. And a helicopter is basically a flying disc. The fuel sludge underneath is just airstream going along for the ride. So, I did a pedal turn, which means I just made the back end of the helicopter go to the front end. And I am basically going backwards. And I turned and I just did a pedal turn and just went the other way down the runway. You can’t do that with a fixed wing. If it’d been a fixed wing, I’d have been committed. Probably should have been anyway for different reasons but anyway, I went the other way down the runway. And then, the OH-23 had tube radios. So, I can’t even tell anybody yet because you turn on tubes, you got to wait for them to warm up. (01:22:35) Veteran: And I scrambled. So, they ain’t even working yet so by the time I am clearing the runway and the other side, I am screaming back at the guys, “Hey, tell everybody that gets an aircraft not to go off that end of the runway.” And—but we got shot at. You know, it’s not always in the same place, it’s not always the same way, it’s not always…I was covering a convoy one day and they got hit. And I am readjusting. Down the highways quite often, they would park tanks as part of the road security. And I was repositioning the tanks and directing their fire. I was also calling fire from one of our firebases in. In the meantime, I went on guard frequency and requested that any fast movers going back with ordnance…I am guiding them in and having them drop ordinance along the top of the ridgelines so that the Viet Cong couldn’t escape over the top of the hill. While I am doing all that, the captain that is liaison for me with the convoy calls me and tells me I got tracers going by my tail boom. Alright. I mean, what are you going to do? We flew at 1000 feet above ground level, AGL, because at that place, ground �fire wasn’t effective from small arms because you are outside of effective range. And you were real close that most anti-aircraft fire definitely couldn’t shoot you because you were real close. And if they fired at us and missed us the first time, we’d kick it out of trim, drop all our pitch and be on the tree line before they could get a second burst at us. So, we flew around at about 1000 feet above the ground and if it’s missing me, that’s good. (01:24:16) Veteran: I mean, that—I can’t go across the road because that’s where I am directing all the other fire. I can’t go anywhere. I can’t do anything about it. You just sit there and do your job. I mean…They used to say we were real cold. We had…Well, they—that we just had nerves of ice. And it’s not true. You got to fly the aircraft. If you don’t fly the aircraft, it’s going to crash. It will not maintain forward flight. It won’t do anything on its own. You just got to do. So, well we may look calm and we may look whatever…Ehh. It ain’t so. Interviewer: Alright. Now did the helicopters you’d fly, did they ever get hit? Veteran: I never got a bullet hole. I did a tour and a half. I did that for an early release from service. But I never got a bullet hole. Two of them, I got so slow and low and doing the job that had to be done that they got so full of shrapnel they wouldn’t even look at replacing it, they just gave me another aircraft. And I found out later they stripped the components out of both of those airframes and scrapped the airframe. So yeah, they got hit. I was once—when we got the OH-58s, we had the bell tech rep living with us because they were so new. We had 13 of the 20 of them that came to Vietnam in our unit. Self-centering bearings, didn’t. Self-lubricating bearings, didn’t. Of course, since they are self-lubricating, you don’t put zert fittings on there and you don’t put the little nuts you can take off and put the zert fitting in there and so what are you going to do with them? We had a lot of interesting times to start with them because while the Army had accepted them yet, none of them had seen combat, none of them had been in those �kinds of environments. And we were working out stuff brand-new. I forgot what I was going to tell you. Interviewer: Well, we were talking about being hit and damage or things like that. And did you have accidents with those helicopters or close calls with them while you were learning how to fly them? (01:26:39) Veteran: I had two guys in my unit that cracked them up. One was with an OH-6. OH-6 had a unique character. Every aircraft has a little something about them that is different. OH-6, if you hovered down-wind…down-wind, up-wind, I wasn’t ever checked out in one. The tail rotor would disturb the air enough in that configuration that the tail rotor—the main rotor would disturb the tail rotor enough that it would lose integrity. And while he was going over the barbed wire, he thought he had a tail rotor failure. And in a tail rotor failure, you’re supposed to chop the throttle and then dead-stick it in. Well, he dead-sticked it in the barbed wire. He gets caught, he rolled it up. He got med-evaced out of country. Alive, doing fine. But we had another one who was going to impress people. the aircraft is set up with enough other connections that you can put headsets on and headphones and if you want to, you can give everybody in the aircraft a set of headphones. You can talk to them on intercom. And they were questioning about auto rotation. So, he chopped the throttle and was bringing it in for an engine off landing. And when he got down, I guess around 500 feet, he rolled the throttle back on except the engine had quit. But he went through the procedure to turn the throttle back on. But he obviously wasn’t watching the instruments. (01:28:16) Veteran: And he went to pull pitch and his rotor blade slowed down even further. So, now he’s low and slow and no rotor RPM. And he’s committed. It’s a very forgiving aircraft. He decided to try and make a running landing instead of trying to flare and found a rice paddy dike and took �his skids off the bottom and that broke all the tubes that controlled the aircraft. From there on end, he was going along for the ride instead of flying it. And I have pictures of that aircraft. It— the main body of the aircraft, the fuse box was basically broken in half. Stayed together and landed down there but it got busted up. He ended up with a spinal compression. He…Yeah. I was flying—I know what I was going to tell you. Our OH-58s were so new that nothing really worked the way it was supposed to. And when it didn’t, pilots like to fly. I mean, we got into it for a reason. We don’t like war but we like flying. So, we’d go and fly with some of the lift units, some of the Huey units. And I was flying with a Huey unit and we were going down the la Drang Valley. And I was in flight lead, which means that if you have a V, I am the head goose in the V, flying down there. And all of a sudden on the radio, there’s all kinds of chatter. Chock 2 is going. Chock 3 is breaking off. chock 4 is going overhead. chock 5 is going low. What’s going on? We are getting raked with .50 caliber fire. The only aircraft that didn’t get hit. Over the border one time, went into an LZ. The only aircraft to come back out. I don’t know. I got a guardian angel with ulcers. Owe him an apology someday. Interviewer: Okay. (01:30:14) Veteran: But you do the job. And while the aircraft got banged up and cracked up and shot up, the death rate, the injury rate…The Army lost more pilots in one year—I mentioned we had a three-year obligation, one year was Vietnam, one year was back to the states, then back to Vietnam. They lost more pilots in one year in the states due to motorcycles and cars—alcohol, motorcycles and cars than they did in two years of combat flying. So, you talk about us being loose wired and crazy bunch? I guess. I guess. Interviewer: Well, you were maybe a little bit less so in the sense that you had religious motivations that maybe made you behave better than some of your colleagues. I actually �wanted to kind of transition a little bit over into talking about sort of life on the base in Pleiku. Daily life: what was that like? What would you do day to day? Veteran: Well, most of the time I was there, I was the executive officer of the aviation unit, so I got up early in the morning. I go to the mess hall and eat. Then I’d go on up and sit in the old man’s briefing. The commanding officer didn’t care to do that. So, I am sitting in a full bird colonel group headquarters. I am sitting in his briefing so I am hearing everything going on all over Vietnam. Listening to all the latest intelligence reports, everything else. And after report, how many aircraft do we have available today? How many hours of blade time we have available? He’s telling me that they have guns down at, say, Firebase 6 and Ben Het, and we got to get a mechanic out there to fix those. That kind of got priority. Stuff like that. So, after that is over, I am going down to the base and we finally got a sergeant who is nothing to do with aviation. Doesn’t know anything about it. But we got a staff sergeant, E-6. And he ran our operation for us and took care of paperwork. And you’d come into our building down there and he’d have a whiteboard. And he’d have all the bases and you’d tell him where you want to go, he’d write you on the board and if we had a seat somewhere, he’d put you in the seat because we had this Huey that we got every day. (01:32:37) Veteran: And the Chinooks and cranes and that were always doing sling loads so they weren’t taking anybody. And then we had all the other aircraft: the OH-6s, OH-58s, 23s. We had an extra seat, we’d put you in there, take you out to the base. And he was taking care of stuff like that. He also did flight following for us. So, if I am leaving the base going to Plei Drang, before I land it in Plei Drang, I call him, tell him I am over Plei Drang, mark me down. And he’d flight follow and keep track of us. Things like that. And then I went to work. But our unit, since it was different, they just figured they had so many aircraft and when a full bird colonel tells a battalion �commander what he is going to do, he says, “Yes sir.” So, all the aircraft were put in this pool. And while a battalion commander may want a particular pilot and he may say I need an aircraft today, he got an aircraft today. And there was no argument. No nothing. You made sure he got an aircraft today. And he’d fly and go wherever he wanted to go. So, the group commander decided early I was his pilot. I was a warrant and I had a stay at flight school. I wasn’t partying every night. He didn’t want a hard bar. I was in my mid-twenties. He wanted one that was married; I was single. I was the oldest warrant, which also helped maybe settle me down a little bit. The old man hoped so anyway. So, I became his pilot. So, if he wanted to go somewhere, I was reserved for him. And I waited until he came down and I flew him. But then I’d fly whatever he put high priority to. There was one time I flew a kid that had to repair a bulldozer. I was over there during what they called the Vietnamization section where we were training Vietnam to take over more of the war. And we were destroying some of the bases and a bulldozer was broke. So, I flew this kid out to repair the bulldozer. And the old man said, “He never flew before. He’s scared to death to fly.” He flew here in the big bird but he is scared to fly. So,” he said, “I want you to take him.” (01:34:52) Veteran: And I did. And that was a lot of fun. Matter of fact, I’ve got him so relaxed, I let him fly the aircraft part of the way. And when he was through repairing the bulldozer, he says, “Here. You drive the bulldozer.” And I says, “I don’t know a thing about a bulldozer.” He says, “We are tearing the base down. You ain’t got anything you can hurt.” So, I literally went right through a building with a bulldozer. But you know, it was…It’s not all war. The crazy part about war most people don’t understand, and you ask me about my day, is that a lot of it is hurry up and wait. Always. And I can remember after I had been there, I don’t know, about 4 or 5 months…something like that. When I first got there, we were getting hit 2,3,4 times a week. And �by fourth, fifth month I was there we might get hit once and then not get hit for a couple weeks. And we were sitting around one night thinking about how many people had transitioned in, how many new people we had, what would they do if we got hit, because we don’t—because you’re not dealing with people that have been through this mill. And we were talking about the old days when we scrambled with the shower shoes and a towel wrapped around us because we happened to be in the shower. And you know, comment to Hollywood, you don’t run back to your room and jump into your flight suit and put your socks on and put your boots on and, you know, you don’t do that. I mean, we’d get airborne and then we are talking to each other on the radio because we had a series of aircraft at our field, we’d be talking to everybody on the air once we got airborne and who’s got an aircraft with the time? (01:36:35) Veteran: Okay and who’s in full uniform? And then the rest was to go over to another base and sit on the runway and wait until this thing was over. And you know, if you happened to be in full uniform, you were at the O club and you were in full uniform, fine. If I was in shower shoes and sandals, I am probably sitting over at the Pleiku airbase or over at Camp Holloway on the other side of town waiting for the battle at our base to end. And then I’ll come back. And it was funny; it was just a couple days later I ended up sitting over at Camp Holloway in a towel and flip flops. Nothing looks funnier than a pilot with a helmet on, gloves on, chicken plate survival vest, a Roman type towel wrapped around your waist in flip flops. I mean bare arms. You know, just…And you’d get a lot of comments from ground crews running around on the base doing their thing, you know. Interviewer: Okay. So, now what would you get hit with? Was it rockets or mortars? Or…? �Veteran: Rockets, mortars. We got probed. Second week I was in Vietnam, they shot our barber in the barbed wire. He was sneaking in with satchel charges and not much more than a loin cloth wrapped around his waist and…Which is another interesting story because I ended up flying a Kit Carson scout. They started, shortly before I got to Vietnam, something called Chieu Hoi Project, which I gather means surrender or something similar to that in Vietnamese. But Chieu Hoi. And they would come over and most of the guys at Chieu Hoi were put back in the military but they were put back in the South Vietnamese military. And they knew if they got caught, life wasn’t going to be good for them. So, they ended up being, by and large, the vast percentage of them and ended up being very, very loyal and very, very good soldiers. (01:38:38) Veteran: And we had one that was a sapper. And I flew him, with the commander at times, out to some of these bases. And he’d take a look at the base. And he’d literally strip down to his underwear and he’d get a couple little pieces of bamboo sticks and put them in his…And he’d come through the barbed wire. And he’d come through the barbed wire about as fast as you think you could walk through it. And he’d show them where their weak points were and stuff was bad and stuff like that. And that was a real eye-opener and an eye sight because while the commander would see him at this base, we had 4 and 5 battalions and each battalion has got 4-5 gun batteries and—or 4-5 companies with 4-5 gun batteries in each company. And so, there’s a lot of bases out there. And I got to fly a lot of them and a lot of different commanders. Not only the group commander but battalion commanders and stuff like that. So, I took this little Kit Carson scout to several different bases and stuff. And it was interesting. It was interesting talking with him and finding out a bit about how they lived and how the Viet Cong fought and things and different…Wife mentioned that I hadn’t commented about…There was a hip shoot position at one time. And in the middle of the night, they thought they had movement in the barbed wire. �So, they put a couple flares up and there is nobody. Of course, you can hear the mortar fire of the flare. So, this went on and there is some more movement and…So, they put two flares up but one with a delayed fuse and one with a short burn. So, you fired the flares but one lights, it goes out quick. A short pause and another one lights. Here’s a Viet Cong, standing in the barbed wire, right in front of a duster, about a 40-millimeter anti-aircraft gun. (01:40:35) Veteran: And this thing had been mounted on tracks and was part of the perimeter support for this hip shoot. And they shot him. So, the next day they had—make your intelligence report and stuff and a few days later, they are making a sweep through the area and I am sitting in the old man’s briefing every morning. They found where the guy had left his clothes and his pack and got his journal. And he had come down the Ho Chi Minh Trail with a whole bunch of sappers. And there were like 2 or 3 guys left with him and he—that’s all that was left. And these guys were low morale and he was going to teach them how to do this to get the morale. He was a lieutenant. And I don’t know what happened to the other two but they didn’t attack the perimeter. I think they just decided the war was too much and quit. But interesting side light that, you know, that as I look at the stuff we went through and what I was trained for, I can’t imagine what it was like being on the other side. Down by Saigon they found some places underground that were whole motor pools. I mean, parking area. Mechanic bays. They had tunnels that went clear back underneath the border going into Cambodia that they could literally drive a truck down. And I am going, “What?!” We found one north of Pleiku. If you read the book, The 13th Valley, the guy says that the story is fictitious. I have been in the valley. The big tree that he talks about in the valley is there. I remember the battles that were there. We found tunnels up there. They found the vent hole for the tunnel. And he put, what we call a tunnel rat, down in the valley tunnel. And little guy in your unit, give him a .45, flashlight. He goes down this tunnel. You �don’t know what you’re going to find, you don’t know what’s in there. Could be booby trapped, it could be anything. (01:42:43) Veteran: But how far are you going to follow this trail? And if they got some of these tunnels that are long enough you can drive a truck in it, how far are you going to follow it? Well, he finally gave up and they brought in—we flew in gas generators and generated CS. Now, people think that this is a gas and it’s not. It is a persistent powder and we—persistent means it stays there. It’s there for days. You don’t go back in a week and it’s disseminated, it’s gone. It’s a persistent powder. So, if you go down that tunnel a week later, you’re going to stir up the gas. You’re going to stir up the tear gas and it is going to bother you. They pumped it in and pumped it in and pumped it in and pumped it in along with smoke and couldn’t find any place where it was coming out. When they set the charges and blew it, they had a spot that just sunk. Went for a mile or better. Just plop…dropped down into—crazy stuff. And you wonder how? Underground hospitals the same way. Foot operated section pumps. I don’t know how. You know? I have listened to a lot of people complain about the VA. I have listened to a lot of people complain about our military. And we have got our problems. (01:44:11) Veteran: Still, it’s the finest system in the world. With all of its problems, it still is. And here we complain about it. I don’t know how well they could complain. Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: But I look at how hard we hit the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I look at the teams we put in that were working over the border. Special forces camps that were all up and down the border and literally these Montagnards, this was their backyard. You couldn’t go through without leaving sign you had been there. I don’t know how…I don’t know how the other side ever managed to �fight and keep going. And I was there after Tet. And that’s part of the reason we started getting nervous after several months and we weren’t getting hit as hard. What are they saving this up for? When are we going to get hit with all this stuff? What are they doing? And we did have places that went under siege. Ben Het was up at the tri border area where Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam come together. And it was under siege for months and months and months and months. And when it started, the Viet Cong planned everything out to just immense detail. They showed up with two P-76 tanks. These are the light, amphibious tanks. Of course, that’s kind of dumb because we have artillery there and they just leveled their guns and used their direct fire sights and shot them like shooting any other tank. And it didn’t make anything in the battle. But how do you get them in the jungle to that sight for the battle? And they had went through choreographing this fight to such an extent that when it started, within minutes, there were Viet Cong with satchel charges running around inside the compound. They had dug tunnels underneath the barbed wire and brought them up inside the compound. We didn’t know they were there. How do you do that? I mean, I don’t know. You know, I take a look at…and take my hat off to them. I mean, you want to talk about a soldier. I mean, we referred to them as Chuck. You know, the VC—the Viet Cong. A lot of respect. (01:46:26) Interviewer: Alright. Now, while a place like Ben Het is effectively under siege and so forth, would you go in and out of there? Or…? Veteran: We tried. At one point, they brought a C-130 in and did a low-level extraction because the runway was actually inside the barbed wire at that compound. And they dropped fresh rations because they had a regular mess hall there on the runway. They couldn’t get them off. They couldn’t get it off. The C-130 got so shot off—shot up—the wing fell off trying to go back to the Air Force base. That’s some pretty intense fighting. �Interviewer: And was that a special forces— Veteran: My wife wanted me to tell you about another guy. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And we are talking about Ben Het and his story is entwined with Ben Het. Lieutenants going over to Vietnam to an artillery unit normally spend half their time in the field and half their time in a fire direction center, rear base, running the side sticks or playing with the phadactic desk computer to orient the guns to fire them and stuff like that. And they’re normally at a base stint some place, fairly safe. They’re not in the field anymore. And this one lieutenant they put out in the field. And he was good. But the Viet Cong, or the VC—the South Vietnam, when they got into a battle up where we were at, retreated. My brother-in-law says that the ARVNS down by Saigon were good fighters. And I have no reason to doubt. But up where I am? Most of them up where I was at? The judge gave an opportunity to go to war or go to jail. And they’d go out to the field and they would smoke their pot and do whatever and then wander back in later. I would sit in the old man’s briefings and the Vietnamese would go out and they’d have sporadic contact. Might have found a bloody bandage or something. We’d go out and, in the same area, and we’d collect broken weapons and drag trails and a bunch more blood and numerous contacts. The ROKs would go into the area and you’d have to send the deuce and a halfs in there to carry all the rice out and the weapons and— Interviewer: The ROKs being the Korean soldiers? (01:48:43) Veteran: Koreans, yeah. World of difference. The Vietnamese just, were I was at, were just not into the fight at all. And I could tell you some more stories about that that are just…But every time they got in contact, they’d pull back and our forward observer, this lieutenant, was left out �there alone. And I remember one night sitting up all night. I mean, we tried that first day to get him out and couldn’t. The aircraft got all shot up. But like I said, those aircraft took a lot of beating and came back and usually the crew didn’t get that injure—I mean, they talk about the life expectancy of a pilot but it wasn’t that bad. You’re in combat. Matter of fact, I always felt sorry for the guys on the ground. I mean, I go in, they’re all shooting at me. Yeah, okay. But when I leave, they are all shooting at me and then they go back to doing their fighting. But they are still there. I put up with it for how many minutes? Big deal. And anyway, this lieutenant was in a mortar crater and on the radio. Busy talking for help, directing artillery, trying to stay alive. We got him out. Last time that happened, we didn’t. We found him several days later along the major highway between Pleiku to Kontum. His arms were broken, wrapped backwards around a tree, that way they don’t bend, and nailed to the tree. His privates were cut off and shoved in his mouth. And whether he bled to death or choked to death, I don’t know. But he was a character. (01:50:24) Veteran: And when Ben Het was under siege, he was up there. Now, we talked about being out of contact with the world. You know, back here with everything. But you are out of contact with everything. And again, I was very unique because I am sitting in the old man’s briefings. He’s up at Dak To up there and there’s a staging field not too far from Dak To for the over the border missions. And there were all these supplies piled up. He looked, he said, “What are these things?” “Oh, that’s supplies to go to Ben Het.” “Well, why ain’t it at Ben Het?” “Well, Ben Het’s under siege.” “They’re what?! How long? What’s going on down there?” He said, “Well, they got to have this stuff.” Well, he disappeared. He come back with a jeep. He loaded up a whole bunch of this stuff, sets his M-60 in the jeep, takes off. Drives down the road and drives right down to Ben Het. Now, the fighting down there was so bad, and you were asking about it, �and I didn’t tell you. But the main gate there they had opened up to bring in a tank retriever. Now, a tank retriever has a V-12 continental engine in it. Don’t ask me how many 1000 horsepower. I don’t remember. But it is literally built to grab a tank with the treads off it and drive like a 60-70 ton tank off the battlefield. That’s a significantly built vehicle. And it’s total armaments of 50 caliber machine gun. Well you know, the enemy is going to shoot at this thing. I mean, it’s built robust and heavy. They let it get in the gate and they blew it up in the gate. That’s how intense the fighting was. Well, lieutenant comes driving down the road, drives around this thing in the gate, drops off the supplies. “Well, we will get you a room for the night. You’re going to be staying here.” “I can’t do that. I got to go out on patrol in the morning.” He gets back in the jeep, drives all the way back. Nobody shot at him, nobody—I think it’s one of those things where when you see the courage and you see somebody doing something that is really outstanding, you just sort of…But they never shot at him. They never not—just let him drive all the way down there and all the way back. And I was covering a convoy too that he was my liaison. (01:52:39) Veteran: And he was in the convoy. And he’s in the lead vehicle. I told you it wasn’t wrapped real tight. And all of a sudden, the whole convoy stops. And he jumps out of a vehicle and he runs into the jungle. I know this ain’t the call of nature. I mean, what is going on? And I am busy looking and a short while later he comes back and he throws something in the back of the vehicle and from where I am at, it looks like he’s got a bull whip. I have no idea what is going on. And I asked him and he just gives me a fluff off. Couple days later, and I’ve got pictures of him, he’s standing in front of our mess hall when I am going down there for breakfast. And he’s got his arms like this and this snake is this big around and its head is just barely touching the ground, its tail is barely—the snake was basking on the road and it went into the jungle. So, he went off the �road, in the jungle with his 45, shot it twice behind the head, had to bring the snake back to throw it in the vehicle, gone down the road. I mean…You talk about being loose wired. I think if you don’t get loose wired, I think you crack up. I mean, I have been police and I dealt with fire departments and ambulance crews and I am a wilderness EMT. I’ve been in an ambulance to get my certifications up and I ain’t interested. I don’t think you deal with those things day in, day out and don’t develop some sort of weird sense of humor. And after a while, you get sort of okay, I am getting shot at. So what? You know what, getting shot at don’t hurt. Getting hit is a bitch, but getting shot at don’t hurt. Interviewer Sure. (01:54:26) Veteran: I mean…I mean they ask me every day: shot at? Oh yeah. I get shot at a lot. Matter of fact, normal comment for me when they ask me what I did in Vietnam, I say, “I taught the enemy aerial gunnery.” They says, “What?” “Well yeah, I taught the enemy aerial. They weren’t very good.” But you know, that’s again that levity that you sort of come up with. Matter of fact, mom told me I ought to audition in here for you. I sang in a chorus at flight school, at primary flight school. And we went all over. We sang for the governor’s inaugural address in Texas. And one of the songs we did was a parody on the Green Beret. You remember Barry Sadler and the Green Beret? And it went, “Tennis shoes upon his feet, some people call him sneaky Pete, he sneaks around the woods all day, and wears that funny green beret, now it’s no jungle bore for me, I’ve never seen a rubber tree, 100 men will take the test, while I fly home and take a rest, silver wings upon my chest, I fly my chopper above the best, I can make more dough that way, and I don’t need a green beret.” Now, we had multiple verses to that. And we used to sing it up at the officer’s club and really get them wound up, you know. They finally came up with a parody to our song. And I didn’t get it. I wish I had. And he talks about when the shooting starts and the �mortars come in, we grab our choppers and fly away. And we did. You know I mean, because good humor has got to have a kernel of truth to it, right? And we just sat and laughed our tails off listening to them because they were complaining about us being cowards and running. And you know, anything but the truth. But that’s okay. I mean, that’s just the way things were. (01:56:26) Interviewer: Alright. When you were talking about sort of the Ben Het siege and it dragging on for months, did the base eventually fall? Or did the enemy go away? Veteran: They went away. I can’t remember a single battle that we lost. And yet coming home, I went to the VVA and the third time I was there, one of the guys said, “So, you’re the fellows that can’t win the war?” Oh, I was livid. I grabbed him and literally took him over the bar backwards. Interviewer: You mean VFW, not…VVA is Viet— Veteran: Yeah, VFW. Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: And I literally took him over the bar backwards. Looked him square in the eye and I said he was a dumb SOB. I says, “If we are told to advance, you advance. You’re told to sit down, you sit down. Told to retreat, you retreat. We ain’t ever lost a battle yet. Politicians are giving the war away and you’re blaming us.” And I walked out. Never went back. And I am not the only one that has had that type of experience. Interviewer: No, you are not. Veteran: Of…We didn’t have anybody next door to talk to. We didn’t know anybody else that had been there. Our families were split. It was difficult. I had my church, I had my family, and none of them ever once gave me the indication that I had done anything but what was requested �and honored and what was appropriate. I never had those kind of problems. But yet, I helped run some of the rec groups for the VVA, the Vietnam Veterans Association. Because the guys didn’t feel welcome any place else, we made our own group. And I helped run some of the rec groups for them. And it was enlightening because…I am unique. The Lord has given me a very special opportunity. Every place I have been, I’ve not had the typical view of the business or the job or anything else. I saw everything from Saigon to literally landing out in the middle of the field, resupplying some patrols out there. (01:58:34) Veteran: And everything in between and back and forth. On the police department, I walked the foot beats, 7 out of the 13 years, because I requested it. And I was on special assignment from the chief. When I wasn’t, I wasn’t normally in a regular car, although I got that once in a while, I was normally a back up car. So, it means I ran overlap on everybody else and if you got a bad call, I went along. Of course, if you were busy, I got your call and they’d send somebody from a neighboring district to back me up. But I got all the bad calls. Every place I have been, everything I have ever done has always been that way. So, Vietnam…Very interesting when you talk to guys from there and you deal with the group, what did he do? Was he assigned to a firebase? And he was at this little bitty outpost in the middle of the jungle with a 1000 foot of cleared space to the jungle and he was responsible for taking care of this gun and firing his gun. And he’s eating C rations and basically living in a bunker. Was he infantry and on patrol? My mechanic seldom ever saw anything but the rear base we were at. And yet they sprayed the rear base we were at 6 times with Agent Orange. He found out that through Freedom of Information Act. They fought him and weren’t going to help him. He literally went to a private clinic, had blood samples taken and proved that he had Agent Orange in his fat samples, because that’s where it tends to concentrate. (02:00:10) �Veteran: So, he went back through the Freedom of Information Act and the rear echelon base we were on got sprayed 6 times we were there. And I never had any doubt I was exposed because I am landing outside these firebases. Well, if I take a commander out there, you got this one helipad inside the base. Well, if I shot down and tie up the aircraft there, who else is landing? So, I’d pick up and go outside the base and land by the main gate and then walk back in. Well, you land out there and it’s a brown out. I mean, you look through your chin bubble and find a weed to land to because you lose all orientation. There’s nothing growing out there for 1000 yards. Why does nothing grow in the tropics in a jungle area? For 1000 yards? I mean, it takes somebody that is ding batty not to consider that oh, I have been exposed to a defoliant. Oh…So, yeah. You know, I was heavily exposed and then they are going to say, “Do you think you were?” Duh. Yeah. But everybody sees something different. I mean, I came closest to getting killed in Saigon. Flew the old man down there. Landed at Hotel Delta and he sent a jeep back for me and he told me he wasn’t going to need me until 4 o’clock, do whatever I wanted to do. Well, aircraft is where it is going to be watched. I don’t have to watch it. I am inside a secured area. Interesting term. You know, when they make a secure area, they never tell the enemy it is secure. It’s weird. Anyway, so I went with this PFC and he says, “What do you want to do, sir?” And I says, “Why, I’d like to get something to eat.” And he says to me, “Okay.” And I says, “Let’s go someplace where you can eat.” Well, he didn’t hear me. So, he took me to one of the officer’s clubs and this is a three-story building. And of course, I don’t know where I am at because I don’t know Saigon. And I take one look and I realize it’s an O club. So, I says to him—I says, “It’s an O club. You can’t come in.” I says, “Enter a place you know you can come. I’ll take care of your lunch.” I said, “Take us to a place where we can eat.” He says, “Oh, okay.” So, he drives �around the corner and after we went around the corner, somebody with a push cart had put it up in front of the officer’s club and blew the front end off the officer’s club. (02:02:31) Veteran: If I had been typical officer, I guess “typical officer.” I don’t know what a typical is. But I was raised you take care of your men. And there’ve been times where I landed with a Huey, when I am flying with one of the other units, and says, “I’ll stay with the aircraft.” Because somebody had to stay and let everybody else go get lunch. And I’ll go later. I was trained you take care of your men first. And there’s an interesting phrase they use: RHIP—Rank Has Its Privilege. But I don’t think most enlisted men understand. I flew the commander quite often right through meals. And I could object because I am a pilot and I have military regulation. And unless it’s a life or death combat situation, I am required to have my meals. He can’t fly me through dinner. So, I had arrangements I could go to the mess hall and eat any time I wanted. That sounds really great until you realize that I am skipping meals. Or maybe I don’t get any meal at all because of what’s going on. So, then all of a sudden being able to skip in line or get to the font or whatever ain’t such a big deal. So, a lot of these things where rank has its privilege really ain’t no privilege at all. It’s because of what you’re doing and it’s because of the way things are and…But I learned early: you get in the military, make friends as a supply sergeant and makes friends with the cook. And I flew commanders. So, I’m coming back to base, I’d call and say, “I am bringing the commander in, call his jeep. Tell him to be here. By the way, call over to the mess hall and tell the cook to meet me at, you know, if he wants to go for a ride.” (02:04:25) Veteran: We had on our base a two and a half ton truck with a fuel tank on the back. Now, a Huey burns a gallon of fuel a minute so for fueling hat Huey, and it runs for two hours and fifteen minutes, that’s quite a number of gallons. So, you can…You know, we have half dozen, �dozen smaller aircraft. And you’re going to fuel all these. Well, that tank doesn’t go a long ways. So, you’re refueling it every day, sometimes a couple times during the day. Nah. So, what we would do is we’d fly over to Camp Holloway, over to the Air Force base, we’d refuel over there because they had the big ground bladders and stuff like that and the pumps. Then we’d fly back, put it in the revetment, we’d just top the tank off. Well, if—you mind if I go over and refuel? Well, you take a ride around Pleiku? Nah, you’re going for your carnival ride, right? So, I got trading material left and right. And you know, you’re going to go to the cook, you’re going to go to the supply sergeant, have them take their camera, fly them around their base, fly them around Pleiku. Anything special you want to see? You know, fly them around there. Mom gets a kick out of me talking. You know, the Vietnamese, Orientals, communal showers, baths, stuff like that. It’s quite acceptable in their country. And there was a river junction out there on the rice paddies where they used to go swimming. It was a local bathing hole. And it was on the way if you’re low level and going around town. And the girls would stand up there on the bank and wave at you. They weren’t wearing bikinis. And the guys, “Whoa, whoa, go back and circle that, will you?” If you’re circling, the girls just love it. They’ll sit and wave at you all day long, you know. And the guys would just love stuff like that. But it was very different. (02:06:19) Veteran: So different to the point where you talked about being observant and that…I can remember I am covering out there and there’s a mama’s son. Every evening we’d go around our base and look for anything different. One ship was assigned to do that. And you go out and you go out and you look for anything different. And I’m out on a round one night. There’s this guy and this gal and figure they were a couple. She’s obviously pregnant and they’re working the rice paddies. He come by the next night; she ain’t there. He’s there. Come back the next night: she’s there, he’s there, here’s this little bundle on the rice paddy dike. I mean, you just…It’s like you �get to know some of the people. It’s funny because you see them everywhere. It’s like funny stuff. When the weather is bad, we were trained to fly instruments and that’s IFR, instrumental flight rules. But we didn’t do it. And if it was acceptable at all, we went down the road. Now, you’re 6 inches off the highway and doing 125 miles an hour and just hugging the highway. And you come down the highway like that and here’d be some little guy on his little 90cc moped, right. And he’d look at you and you’re going, “Hey, pay attention to the road paint there.” And he’d be in the ditch. Looked just like laughing. We didn’t win any friends. You know and he— do whatever you want and tell them to watch the road and he’s looking at you and plop, in the ditch. And I’d pick up and go over him. I ain’t going to hit him. But it is one of the things you remember: running down the highway. You know, we here…I was in a college class. Finance. And the guy next to me is a retired engineer. Captain—lieutenant colonel. And they brought up about poor. And I says, “We don’t have any poor.” And the class was 2/3 female and 2/3 black. And they just levitated. And “How can you say such a thing?” And they’re just… (02:08:29) Veteran: “I’ve been in a number of third-world countries and our poor live better than the top 10% in those countries.” I don’t remember in Saigon seeing many cars. Or in Pleiku. But them little mopeds going everywhere. And man, how you get 4 or 5 people on a moped? They got them. And if they got this pig in a basket they’re bringing, he’s on the moped. And how they get that—I don’t know how they do it. But it’s just—it’s a different world. And we just have no concept of how good we got it. Matter of fact, I sat one night on my bunk, thinking it was the first time that everything I owned went into a B4 bag and my briefcase. Interviewer: Alright. Veteran: And I was living well. (02:09:24) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_AnthonyF2140V1 Title A name given to the resource Anthony, Frank (Interview transcript and video, 1 of 2), 2017 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-06-29 Description An account of the resource Frank Anthony was born in Muskegon, Michigan on February 6th, 1947. He attended college at Ferris State University after graduating from high school in 1965. He joined the military in 1967 and attended basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky in May of the same year. He then did advanced infantry training (AIT) at Fort McClellan, Alabama. After completing AIT, he continued on to the Non-Commissioned Officer Academy and became a Warrant Officer. Frank also attended ranger/special forces training at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was participating in long-range recon school when his request to go to flight school was accepted. He went to flight school in 1968, which lasted for 9 months. He arrived in Vietnam in the middle of 1969. In Vietnam, he was the Safety Officer for a short period of time before becoming the Executive Officer of the Aviation Company, all the while working as a helicopter pilot. He was a part of the 52nd artillery division located in Pleiku, Vietnam. He flew a variety of helicopters while stationed in Vietnam. Frank was involved in several different skirmishes during his time in Vietnam, including the incursion into Cambodia. Frank also participated in jungle environmental survival training in Subic Bay, Philippines while on R and R. He completed a tour and a half before he left Vietnam on December 23rd, 1970. While in the military, Frank received numerous awards, including the award of the Red Banana. After leaving the service, Frank worked in law enforcement for many years. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Anthony, Frank A. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Veterans History Project collection, RHC-27 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401. Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ead49d2cc39e68ac1533d3dbbc1a0ca7.mp4 87101269ce1e68edb45f3b6894c3974d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0e888c73385c3cb83b5a6b2f2c0e728b.pdf 86abbda27b8c6a8e7a7c5db13418f19f PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Oral History Interview Veteran: Frank Anthony Interviewed by James Smither Transcribed by Grace Balog Interviewer: We are continuing our conversation with Frank Anthony of Twin Lake, Michigan and the interviewer is James Smither of the Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project. Okay, now Frank, we had talked already in our first round about how you wound up in the military and how you ultimately, after a lot of infantry and more specialized training, wound up becoming a helicopter pilot, a warrant officer, and going to Vietnam. Now, when did you arrive in Vietnam? Veteran: May of ’69. Interviewer: Okay. And then did you stay a full year there? Or longer? Veteran: I stayed a full year. At the end of the year they were going to send me back to a training base. I took one look at the orders and went up to the personnel officer at group headquarters and, at that time…Back up. Vietnam was not a declared war. So, unlike World War 2, once you’re there, they can’t just keep you there. It was a hardship tour. And a hardship tour, they can only keep you in there for 1 year. At that time, they were having trouble keeping enough pilots and they were in the Vietnamization program where they were slowing down the war and trying to turn it over to the Vietnamese. So, they had cut back the number of troops they were making back in the states. So, they didn’t have enough pilots for Vietnam. And they had too many of �them in the states. So, if you extended 6 months to stay over in Vietnam, you could get another 30 day leave and a free R and R. And I was going to do the same thing in another 6 months. And then I’d have one year left and they’d be sending me back to the states and oh, I’d have an attitude. So, I went up there and I requested to put in the extension and then the warrant officer came down one day and he says, “You believe in WOPA?” That’s Warrant Officer Protective Association. I said, “Yeah.” “Let me send in your orders. There is something in the wind.” He says, “You’re no lifer.” I says, “Get out of here.” He says, “Well, there’s something I just want to check out.” And he come back and he put the papers on the desk and he says, “This is for your 6month extension.” And he says, “How’d you like to get out of the service early?” (00:02:45) Veteran: I says, “How early?” He says, “Well, do another 6 months.” I says, “You mean after this 6 months?” He says, “No, no.” He says, “Do this 6-months, you get out a year and a half early.” “What do I have to do?” He said, “Just stay here.” “Do I still get my 30-day leave?” “Yep.” “Do I still get my R and R?” “Yeah.” “Can the president read it without his glasses?” You know, I am signing that baby. So, I then—instead of serving 3 years after flight school, I served a year and a half and it was a year and a half straight in Vietnam, which they couldn’t make you do. But I knew the unit and it was pretty good compared to most jobs over there. Wasn’t partaking in potluck. And I was cutting 6 months off staying there and an extra year in the service. Interviewer: Alright. So, you basically finished in Vietnam towards the end of 1970? Veteran: December 23rd. Interviewer: Right. Okay. Now kind of go back now. Now, when you officially served with several different units in Vietnam. �Veteran: Which was interesting because a lot of times when they do that, it is just a paperwork shuffle. You may not even change barracks. And in my case, I did but I didn’t leave the artillery hill I was on. I didn’t change the people I was working with. My job didn’t change in any way, description or form. But when I first got there, I was assigned to 3rd of the 6th Artillery, which was an interesting unit because they had guns that we no longer had. They had SP-105s, selfpropelled 105s, which looked like a small tank. (00:04:20) Interviewer: Yep. Veteran: And they used them a lot for what we call hip shoots. They take them down the road and they get to a place and they just pull off the side of the highway, circle the guns, and they’d have an armed personnel carrier with them which would be their forward direction center, FDC. And they’d throw barbed wire out that they were carrying on the tanks. They’d throw barbed wire out around them. And they’d sit there and that’d kind of keep the enemy on…I don’t know, a razor’s edge? You’d have to kind of put a dot in the middle; pin in the map and a string and draw a circle and say, “Now what can they cover they couldn’t cover before? What are they going to be doing? Why are they doing this?” And those units used to pull a lot of hip shoots. Interviewer: Okay. Now as a helicopter pilot, did you work with them in some way? Veteran: Oh…Yeah. Our unit was different. I was talking to a friend of mine and he was artillery too. And his artillery unit—some of his pilots were directly dedicated to, like, the intelligence officer. And that’s all he flew for and that’s all he did and…Our unit, prior to us getting there, had had Bird Dogs, L-19 fixed wings. And when we got there, they’re still allocated the same way. There were 4 helicopters assigned to a group, 2 to each battalion. They were allowed a pilot for each aircraft, a mechanic for each aircraft, and a toolbox. That was it. Group put them all �together and decided they had an aviation company that was to support everybody. And we did everything: from flying the commanders to flying…Well, I wrote my mom and told her I was flying ice cream, mail, chaplains, ash and trash. I did. But we also did convoy cover. If we were there, we did the medevacs. We did emergency resupply. Guns had to be repaired or somebody had to be brought back for whatever reason, we went out and got them. (00:06:30) Veteran: If a unit was under attack and stayed that way long enough or we happened to just be in the area, we’d fly over ahead and sometimes we could see what’s going on and we’d redirect artillery or move troops or whatever had to be done. I mean, we were basically just an airborne ¾ ton truck and used for anything and everything. Interviewer: Okay and what type of helicopter did you normally fly? Veteran: Well when I first got there, believe it or not I was flying an OH-23 which was what you see—similar to what you see on MASH. Interviewer: Yeah, with the big bubble where the pilot is? Veteran: Yep. It has a piston air engine. 23 is different than a 13 though. 13, pilot rides on one side, observer rides on the other. 23, pilot rides in the middle straddling the console. A person can ride on both sides. Later, I flew an OH-58, which is a Bell Ranger, similar to what you see in a number of news media people using. I was checked out and trained to fly a Huey and the OH58s were brand new. We had 13 of the 20 of them that came to Vietnam. And the Bell tech rep lived with us. And it was interesting because self-centering bearings didn’t. Self-lubricating bearings didn’t. All kinds of things that the aircraft was supposed to be capable of doing and so and so forth didn’t happen. So, these things were under close scrutiny. So, from time to time, we’d get a twix radio teletype message that all our fleet was grounded. And pilots being pilots, �we like to fly. I mean, we don’t like combat but we like to fly. So, we’d go over then and fly with the lift units and stuff because well, we were checked out to fly them and…So, then we’d go fly Hueys. Our group did requisition, from up above somewhere, at least one Huey a day. And we normally got at least one lift aircraft a day. (00:08:27) Veteran: Sometimes we got 2 or 3 of them and those were normally Chinooks or cranes because we had some bases that were totally inaccessible by ground and everything had to go in by air. I mean, we not only took in food, we took in water tanks, all their ammunition, anything and everything. Interviewer: Yeah. And artillery ammunition, if you are taking that in, it’s pretty substantial. Veteran: Yeah. Interviewer: You can’t take that in with a Huey. Veteran: What most people don’t realize is that while artillery is heavy, they quite often go through more their weight in ammo each day than what the gun weighs. So… Interviewer: Yeah. Okay, so that sort of—and basic—and so essentially, that’s the kind of work that you were doing throughout that year and a half. Now, I want to go back. You— one of the pieces of your story that’s interesting, people wouldn’t know much about, is you had Vietnamese civilians working for you on these bases. So, you’re on a base basically at Pleiku, that area? Veteran: Yes. Interviewer: Alright. And with that first unit, you had—you basically inherited a maid? �Veteran: I came in first day and first day they can’t use you yet. First off, everybody gets climatized so they spend a week or two climatizing you. And the poor infantry are running and doing other things and I can’t fly yet. First off, I haven’t had a check ride. Haven’t had all my equipment issued. I haven’t had my physical. So, there’s a lot of things that have to happen before I could fly. So, they told me, “Just sleep in” and they gave me this room. And basically, the barracks is a pole building on a slab. And the outside siding you can actually inside look out and see the ground outside. You look up through the rafters and you can see this steel roofing. And the room is 8x8 and I got one all by my lonesome and they told me, “When you wake up in the morning, come on down. We’ll get you started. I mean, no sense worrying about getting up early or anything.” So, I am sleeping in and I am a fairly light sleeper anyway. And the door opens and there’s this Vietnamese standing in the doorway. And keep in mind now, my room is like 50-75 yards from the outside perimeter. (00:10:39) Veteran: And I am green as grass; don’t know anything. So, I drew my 45, cocked and locked it and I am aimed right at her. Hollered, “Halt!” And she did. She froze statue style, standing right there. And the two of us are in this Mexican standoff until Doc finally hears her. She starts talking but she’s… (unintelligible sounds) …I have no idea what that said but anyway, Doc looks around the door casing at me and sees me in there and says, “If you shoot her, you’ll have to do your own laundry.” “Oh.” She’d been using the room to, like, put a blanket over a footlocker and iron clothes and stuff like that. And she didn’t know there was somebody in there and I didn’t know she was coming in. She ended up being my maid. That was Mai. And everybody gets a laundry mark. And I have no idea what it means but I was number hocken 10. And they rate everything from 1 to 10. 10 is as bad as you can be and if you’re number 1, that’s super. And I started off being number hocken. She wrote it on the door. I mean not just my �clothes but she wrote it on the door. So, that was my start with her. But it was a—it was a relationship I didn’t forget. I had 2 other maids as I was reassigned. You asked me about it, I was reassigned to 52nd group headquarters and then to 6th of the 14th and both those units were on the hill and both times I got moved to a different barracks. And I ended up with a different maid and I don’t remember much about either one of the other two. Course like I said earlier, you know, we are talking 50 years ago. If you’d asked me earlier, I could probably remember more than that but Mai was the first one. And then there were two captains going home that didn’t pay her. (00:12:32) Veteran: And I cornered them at the O club the night they were due to leave. And I asked if they had paid Mai and they knew they hadn’t. And I asked them to give me the money and we could buy them a box of soap and a can of shoe polish a month. And when I say pay her, she took our laundry out, washed them. During the monsoons, they took out every piece of leather we had, saddle soaped it and polished it so it didn’t grow mold. And if you had a little—one of the rooms had a counter in there with a hot plate and some other stuff. If I left anything, they took it out, cleaned it, brought it back, put it there. The room got swept out. They changed the linen on the bed. I don’t know. But she got $2.50 a month. That was 1000 piastre. That was their money. And we paid them in piastre; they didn’t get paid in U.S., they didn’t get paid in military pay currency. They got paid in piastre. And it was 1000 piastre a month. And we weren’t allowed to pay them more and we weren’t allowed to give them anything else. They were worried about inflating their economy and causing trouble. So, we were limited what we could pay them. They did eat their lunch on the base. And that was provided. But you asked about other personnel…In the mess hall, we had our cooks that were there but nobody pulled KP. Civilians took care of that. The officers were in the front quarter of the mess hall and the back quarter is where they �fixed the meals. The middle section is where all the chairs were where the enlisted personnel and stuff like that ate. (00:14:24) Veteran: We were in the front and there was a small square piece of paper laying at your place. You went to your place, picked up your pencil and checked off what was on the menu that you wanted. They come, picked up the paper, they got the food from the kitchen or went through the line or whatever, I don’t know, and brought the food up to us. And when we were through eating, we just got up and left and everything was cleared and cleaned and that’s the way it was. But officers are a little different too. Our meals aren’t free. After you go through flight school and that, you’re given a certain amount. Well first off, you’re given so much for your uniforms. And that’s a one-time thing. And after that, you’re required to provide your own uniforms. And food? If you go to the mess hall, you could buy it. I am trying to remember what it was at the time. It was something stupid. It was under a buck and a half a day or something. And it was like 35 cents for a meal and they kept track of it. And it was deducted from your pay. So, when you got your pay, it showed how much you paid for meals there. But if you wanted to go to the O club or if you wanted to fix something in your room or buy stuff at the PX, it was up to you because you were—you’re pretty much on your own. But officers again being a different group too, the guys referred to RHIP: Rank Has Its Privilege. And they think it’s cool that you can just cut the corners on a lot of these things. But like, it was the officer—the group commander at 6th of the 14th—when I was first up there, he flew me to where I went right through dinner. And I didn’t make a whole lot of complaints to him. But then later I let him know that military reg says I am to get my meals, because you want to keep blood sugar up. Interviewer: Right. (00:16:15) �Veteran: And that I needed to eat. And he told me to go down to the mess hall. I did. The cook promptly run me out. So, I went up to the…Can’t think of what you call it. I went up to the main office there. And first sergeant top asked me what was wrong. And I told the top. And, “Stay here.” “Hey, I don’t want to get nobody in trouble.” He says, “I’ll take care of it.” Top went down and he come back and he told me, “You go down to the mess hall. He’ll feed you.” I went down to the mess hall and the cook took me back into the back of the kitchen, opened up the great big doors of the refrigerators and says, “What do you want?” I looked at him and I said, “I just want something to eat.” I said, “You got some C rations?” Because they got them by the case and that’s where they’re kept. And I said, “Give me some C rations and some slurps.” He took 2 cans—cases of C rations—put them on the counter. Took a case of slurps and put them on the counter. He says, “Now, what do you want to eat?” And I said, “No, I’ll just take—” “Uh-huh. First sergeant will skin me alive.” He says, “What do you want to eat?” And I says, “What do you got that’s quick and easy?” And you know. I got in good with the cooks and the supply sergeants because having been in the military a bit before flight school, those are two people you really want to know. It will make your life easier. And I’ve got helicopter rides. So, I got adequate trading material, you know. And there’s a number of things we are doing where we can take passengers with us, like we are bringing a VIP, we always call ahead and their jeep comes down to pick them up. We had a tanker truck to fill our aircraft. But if you’re flying a Huey and it burns a gallon of fuel a minute, you can drain your truck fairly fast. So, we’d go over to the Air Force base or we’d go over to the other side where there was an Army aviation base; we’d fill up there, bring our aircraft back and then just top it off. at night, we had a mission: each evening we’d fly around our base and just keep making circles wider and wider out and look for anything changing or different. (00:18:26) �Veteran: And we found a lot of interesting things. But a lot of those times, I’d just take my crew chief with me. Well, OH-23, I still got another seat. “You want to go and bring your camera?” So, we’d do stuff like that. And the guys loved going for rides. So, many a time, I’d go back to my hooch at night and right by the door would be a brown bag and maybe a regular carton of milk. And I’d look in the brown bag and here would be fresh cinnamon rolls because the night baker would leave them for me. So, in a lot of ways, later it turned out to be great. The cook there finally decided he’d start putting meals and put them on top of the baking oven. And I don’t know how many times I come in, he just would take it off, “Oh, you don’t want that. It’s been here too long. What else do you want?” You know. And I am going, “Hey guys, you know I am not trying to make work for you.” But RHIP? I didn’t eat my meals when everybody else did. And I had my share of eating out of cans. And I had my share of missing meals because of a combat situation. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: But they think it’s pretty cool that you just get away with that. Interviewer: Alright. But I suppose this also ties back in with the idea that you had those two captains that didn’t feel like paying the maid. Veteran: Oh. They were going to ditch her. And they weren’t going to pay her. Interviewer: So, did you get the money from them? Veteran: I did and I also got the money for the soap and for the shoe polish and brought it back to her. And she thought that was cool. It—I don’t know how long it took but it wasn’t too long: I became number 1. And my—even on the door, my number got changed: I was number 1 now, you know. And she was…Her and I became close. She came in one day and she says to me, she �says, “You no bombula?” And that’s their word for butterfly. They don’t have a word for playboy but a butterfly goes from flower to flower, sucking nectar, and it means the same thing to them. (00:20:28) Veteran: And I go, “No…” And she says, “You no like boys?” I says, “Get out of here.” She says, “You no marry?” I says, “No.” She says, “You need wife.” I said, “Oh…I couldn’t agree more.” She says, “Boys don’t know how to pick good wife.” She says, “You look with eyeballs.” You know, she says, “Good wife got to know how to cook, got to know how to take care of laundry, got to know how to take care of you. Good wife got to come from good family and be trained proper.” She says, “In Vietnam, family pick wife.” She says, “I get you good wife.” Now what do you say? You know, I got to be thinking quick. I says, “Mai,” I said, “If you get me good wife, my family lose face.” “Oh. Yeah. Okay.” You know? So, she backed off. But then it was strange: a couple months later, she knows I am not this butterfly, she knows I am not a problem. She grabs my arm one night and she says, “You come home with me.” And she’s facing away from me now and she’s pulling me. And she says, “I make you happy. I take care of you tonight.” I got no idea what she’s talking about. But it’s totally out of character. Mai is married, she’s got a couple kids. I don’t know what’s going on. And she’s just pulling me out the door. 4-foot bulldozer. And I yank her back. She turns around and she’s just full of tears. I mean, she is just…And I looked at her and she says to me, she says, “You promise me you sleep in bunker tonight? You stay safe?” It got overcast that night and we took over 40 rockets that night. How she knew? I have no clue. (00:22:13) Veteran: I just don’t know. She came in one morning and she says, “You fly the Mang Yang Pass?” I said, “Yeah.” “Oh, fly high beaucoup VC big gun. Very bad.” So, I am thinking mhmm. I am sitting in the old man’s briefing every morning. Haven’t heard anything about it. So, right �after breakfast, I go over to the intelligence bunker. I mean, I could try to talk to the guy at the mess hall but if he’s doing his job, he ain’t going to say anything. He ain’t going to talk to me. And I mean, we got these Vietnamese girls going in and out of our, you know. He ain’t going to say nothing. So, I went over to the bunker and I went down to the intelligence bunker. They don’t know a thing. Two days later, he cornered me at breakfast and he says, “Before you go up for the briefing, stop by. I want to show you something.” A quiet 50—2 quiet 50s—in the pass and a reinforced company. Took them 48 hours to figure it out. She’s telling me. I don’t know. At one time, they thought maybe she was a spy. At one time—well, 2nd week I was there, they had a bit of a disruption in the barbed wire one night and they shot a sapper coming in. Sapper was normally birthday suit or some sort of loin cloth and dragging satchel charges—explosive charges, already set up. And they know where they are going to put them: set the timers and blow them. They attacked one of our other firebases one night and they destroyed over 85% of the guns and the buildings, the structures—the bunkers and stuff. Didn’t last very long. It was very destroy—and none of the guys…They didn’t figure any of them got off the base. We had enough dead bodies, they didn’t figure they left but…The guy they got in the barbed wire, when we got him out of there dead, he was our barber at 3rd of the 6th. Another Vietnamese that was on base. (00:24:15) Veteran: So, you didn’t really know. And they thought well, maybe Mai was playing both sides towards the middle or something. And I carried what they called an SOI: Signal Operating Instruction. It was on a cord; went around my neck. And, like my dog tags, it went with me everywhere I went. And they gave me a phony one. They wanted me to leave it lay around. And I left it on the bed with my dog tags on purpose and went out to go around because I had to go out of my building around outside into the back and closer to the barbed wire was where our �latrine was. And I went out there to take a shower. I don’t know where Mai was because she wasn’t in my room and I didn’t see her. But I don’t think I got 3 feet away from my door, heading down the pathway, and she’s yelling and hollering at me and she’s got that SOI and dog tags in her hand and I am not sure because my Vietnamese is not that good but I don’t think she was calling me good names. And she told me this was very bad and I no do and I take this. And she was serious about it. So…I don’t know. Interviewer: Yeah. Well, the people were often caught between a rock and a hard place in a lot of cases. It certainly seemed like she was making a point of doing things that actually helped you. Now another side of this, you talked about your not being a butterfly. Now, how common was it for men in your situation to take advantage of the women that worked on the base? Veteran: Well, in some cases you didn’t have to. To give you an example, one night I got called. I was the executive officer of the aviation company and I got called and a couple of my enlisted men had got caught downtown. Now, downtown is off limits and everything closes up about dark and they close the gates, put the barbed wire around. You don’t get out with a couple veh— unless you got a couple vehicles, written orders, machine gun, radios, flak jackets. I mean, it’s a jump through a hoop situation. So, I got a couple guys in the jeeps and all that stuff and went down to the MP station. (00:26:21) Veteran: And sure enough, these are a couple of my enlisted men. And they were down at the brothel, going to stay all night. So, I brought them back and took them down to my air section and I told the guard that we—sounds funny—we had a barbed wire enclosure inside the compound because we don’t need people trying to cut across the runway and things. So, and finally, I got my guys separated from everybody else’s, because they’re coming from all these �different battalions and group, and got them one building. And they all lived in the one building. And they pulled guard duty on our air section. So, if we had a scramble, these guys know what things got to be untied, what—we got a big plug, went in the air intakes, got to come out. They know how to get the aircraft ready for us to go. Also, sometimes when the Viet Cong got on the base, they did things like take a hand grenade and they would, if it was like ours, theirs weren’t but they used ours from time to time, they would wrap them with duct tape, pull the pin. Now, it can’t go off because the hammer is being held down. You know the…They would then take the fuel cap off—and our fuel caps are quite big—and they would put the hand grenade inside and put the fuel cap back. What we did was we would scratch the fuel cap across to the—and you got to find the scratch and then lock it down. Well, our guys would check immediately to see if they were left in the positions they were supposed to be. And so, our guys were on the base and they pulled guard duty on our airfield instead of on normal guard towers. And I came in and I told the guard, he was sitting in the air section which is okay: you can sit their part of the time. I told him to get lost, I want to talk to these two enlisted men. And I told them, I says, “It’s not my standards, my belief and stuff. You know, that’s sacred. This is with your wife. It’s—You don’t go other places.” (00:28:27) Veteran: I told them, I says they “were stupid.” And they’re looking at me kind of funny like and I says, “You know, you go down to”—I forget what they called it. They had a place where…It was like a manpower pool and we could go down there and the Vietnamese were somewhat screened and things and you go down and you talk to them. And I says, “You go down there, find a gal you want for a maid. Talk to her. Tell her what you expect. And If you expect to get laid twice a week, tell her, you know, I am going to get laid twice a week. And if I get sick, if I come up with some strange disease…I mean, you’re getting fired. And you lay down the law to �them and they’re quite open about stuff like that.” I mean, the guys tell me about the—and I don’t know—but a lot of the little whorehouses along one of the roads were little tar paper shacks. I mean, little small places. And they might be separated by about this much. And they’d have windows on the side and they’d tell me about the girls talking to each other while the guys are having sex. They’re going what??? I don’t know. I have to take their word for it. But they were quite open about stuff and they say that some of them felt that if they weren’t emotionally involved, there was nothing wrong with it. I don’t know. I never asked Mai. Never questioned her. But I told these guys, I says, “Talk to your maid. Tell her what you expect, what’s going to happen if things mess up or you get sick or…Getting caught downtown? That’s stupid. That’s just flat stupid.” But it was available. I mean, it was like drugs and other things. I mean, enough stuff was available anywhere that doing some of this stuff crazy was just…And, you know, being that…Well, I’m a Mormon. We don’t drink coffee, we don’t drink tea, we don’t drink alcohol, we don’t smoke. So, when I had the O club for a while, I don’t think the gal that worked behind the counter there by the bar there would have given me a drink if I asked for one. I think I could have threatened her and she wouldn’t have given me a drink. (00:30:41) Interviewer: And why wouldn’t she have given you a drink? Veteran: She knows that’s not my beliefs. Interviewer: Ah, okay so she would have been— Veteran: Yeah, something’s wrong. You know, she…We did have an officer that died over there once and it hit me hard. I don’t remember his name. I went to a mobile wall. You know, the Vietnam Wall. I went to one… one day and I looked him up and he’s not hard to find. And I went to his name and the minute I saw the name on the books, I knew it was him. Usually, an �artillery officer, a young artillery officer, spends first half of his tour in the field. And he’s with the unit and he directs artillery form out in the field. And this guy was so good with his bush skills and that that they kept him with the Vietnamese, South Vietnamese. But every time they got in contact up where we were, these guys would draw back and leave him out there alone. And several times—I remember one night going down and listening to the radio at the air section of him keeping contact with people from a mortar crater. And he was totally surrounded and fighting. And we tried twice before that night to get him out and the aircraft come back like swiss cheese and they couldn’t get to him. And I mean, we are using gunships to try and run interference for him. And we couldn’t get him out. This happened on a couple occasions. He’s the same one, did you want me to— Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: Relay about Ben Het again? Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. (00:32:22) Veteran: He’s the same one that I was up by Dak To and we had a staging field between Dak To and Ben Het for what we called FOB missions: Flights Over the Border. We also had a more colorful term for it. But anyway, we would stage there for going over and Ben Het was right at the tri border area, where Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam come together. And it was a strategic— military strategic—location. He was down by the staging field and he’s looking at all this stuff stacked up. And he asked, “What’s it doing here?” And we says, “Well, it’s supposed to go to Ben Het.” “Well, why isn’t it at Ben Het?” And being out in the field, you’re just disconnected from anything and everything. He didn’t know they had been under siege for months. And they had been under siege to the point to where we couldn’t get anything in or out. We dropped �rations on the runway at one point with a C-130. It got so shot up that the wings fell off it before it got back to base. The rations that were dropped were what we call a low-level extraction. They come across the field, they throw a parachute out, the stuff is dragged out the back and dropped on the runway. They couldn’t get the stuff off the runway. It rotted on the runway. They loaded up a tank retriever and a tank retriever is bigger than a tank and it’s more armored. It’s got a 12cylinder, diesel engine and I forget how much horsepower it’s got but it’s unbelievable. And this thing can fasten to a tank and drag a tank off the battlefield with no treads. (00:34:11) Veteran: Because that’s a common thing to have happen: have a track get blown off a tank. And then it is immobile. It’s a sitting pillbox, if you will. And this thing would go out and fasten to that tank and drag it off a battlefield. It’s a pretty substantial piece of hardware. They let one of them get right in the gate going into Ben Het and then blew it up. Nothing got in or out of that place. Nothing. Well, he takes a look at all these supplies and he says, “Well, we can’t have that.” He wanders off and he comes back later and he got a jeep from somewhere—I have no idea where he got it from. And he just puts a bunch of whole supplies on the jeep: well they need this, they need that, they need this. And all he’s got is his M-16. And it’s leaning against the dahs. And he takes off. He drove all the way down to Ben Het, down the road that goes—one road that goes there—drove down, drove around the tank retriever, into the base, delivers the supplies. And they go, “Well, we will find you a place to stay. You know, we are going to—” “Stay? I’ve got to go on patrol tomorrow.” He jumped back in the jeep and drove all the way back. Nobody even shot at him. Interviewer: Right. �Veteran: And the only thing I can assume is somethings happen in combat…It’s like playing— it’s like counting coup. And they happen from time to time and when you see them, you just sort of stand there and go. Interviewer: Right. Yeah, I think we did have that particular piece of story in the previous round. But let’s—but this is a fellow who would go off and he would go across into Laos or into Cambodia as part of what he would do? Veteran: He was typically working with just the Vietnamese on our side. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And one night, he—again, they left him. And for a while we had a contact and for a while we were trying to get at him but he was in a heavy…Jungle over there can get triple canopy and I don’t know if people here know what I am talking about but the trees will grow up and they’ll make a complete canopy. And then, they will grow up and make another complete canopy. And then they’ll grow up and make another. And they get so thick that we have had aircraft that have had, with extreme difficulty, have landed on top of the canopy and stayed there. (00:36:32) Veteran: I don’t know if you can imagine it. And then they drop 160-foot rope that we sometimes used for the guys to repel out or we would do string jobs across the border to pick people out. And they’ve repelled down and not been able to get to the ground yet. Just amazing. Anyway, he was in one of those kind of areas. We couldn’t fly in to get him. We couldn’t…It was difficult doing anything. Then, battery runs out. You run out of contact with him. I don’t remember now whether it was days or weeks later but they found him alongside the main road and they had broken his arms and bent him around and nailed his arms to the tree. Don’t know if �that was before he was dead or after he was dead. His privates were cut off and they were stuffed in his mouth. Don’t know if he bled to death or suffocated. But he didn’t go easy. And I went down to the bunker that was behind my hooch and threw open the door and it was the first time there wasn’t a bit of liquor in there. And I went up to the officer’s club and I was intent—I was having a hard time with that one. And I came in and I don’t remember the gal who run the bar for me but she popped a knee-high orange and just slid it down the bar. And that sort of shortcircuited me. (00:38:05) Veteran: And she somewhat saved me. Because I was going to tie one on. He was way past his 6-months. Why they kept him out there, I don’t know. I know the commander from that unit. I don’t think he’s the type to hold a grudge. I don’t know if they had nobody else to put out there and he was the best skilled. So, you put him out there figuring he is less likely to get…Don’t know. I mean, I think I told you before I was covering a convoy and the convoy stopped. Interviewer: Yep, yep. Veteran: He ran into the jungle and I am looking, going what?? And I am flying convoy cover. And I am going what’s going on down there? Because he went into the jungle all by his lonesome. And he come out later and he threw something in the back of the jeep and, of course, I am 1000 feet over the top of the convoy. I can’t tell precisely what he did. But he threw something in the back of the jeep. I’ve got pictures at home of him standing in front of the mess hall with the gals you were talking about and he’s got a snake that was about this big around. He’s holding it with both arms like this and the thing is just barely touching the ground on both sides. He’d shot it behind the head twice with his 45 and brought it back and put it in the jeep and brought it back. I don’t know. That was something that was important to him but you get a little loose-wired. I mean, you been in combat long enough. When you first started, you were �scared to death and after a while you just do. And he felt safe enough I guess at the time with the situation, he just went and got the snake. Interviewer: Yep. I know you talked about him staying out in the field, that maybe that he wanted to be in the field. Veteran: I don’t know. If he’d been one of my men and I had the men to spare, I don’t care if he wants to or not; he’d done his time. And you can play the numbers and that’s exactly what I talk about at times. You can play the numbers and if you play them long enough, your number is up. And you can get away with anything for a while. You know, there’s old pilots and there’s bold pilots. But there is no old, bold pilots. (00:40:16) Interviewer: Okay. Now, another dimension of the Vietnam War that was going on while you were there was the incursion into Cambodia. We officially did go in and send substantial numbers of troops. Did that effect what you did? Or what was your connection to that? Veteran: Well yeah, if they are going, the artillery needs to go. And while we got 8-inches and 175s and these are big guns like you’d find on a battleship. And these things were actually mounted on track vehicles. Military didn’t have any more of them anymore. They used rockets in their places. But they were on the border. Now, 8-inch is real accurate but it is not as long. Well, 175 is real long and we used to joke you’re lucky to get two of them in the same grid square. Because the further out you shoot, the more difficult it is to be accurate with them. So yeah, we were moving. We moved some of the 105s, sp-105s, up the border. We brought in some 155s and airlifted them in when we could. But that was during part of the monsoon season and it was bad. And trying to even navigate those roads is bad. And we had a section between Camp Enari, �that was where 4th infantry division was, it was between Pleiku and the border. And then there was a couple other special forces camps. And the end of that road was Plei Drang. And that was an area where they kicked off to go in and a lot of these special forces camps have airstrips and stuff by them left over from the French. And…Well, again, like I said, I had a fairly cushy job. The infantry goes first, the artillery is behind them somewhere, shooting. It would be nice if you had a conventional war where you had a frontline. Because in Vietnam, there is no front lines. And they pop up anywhere and everywhere and there’s really no front line. And that road was known somewhat to be full of ambushes and we were covering it. And I am covering a convoy going. And the weather was bad. (00:42:25) Veteran: I told my crew chief, “Get a machine gun.” And I normally didn’t. I was flying a 58 at the time and it can carry 4 people. And I had an aerial observer in the front and he’d had some stick time. He could get us down in one big chunk, I think, if things required. Crew chief for the back and he normally had a monkey harness and a short strap that went back and clipped into the seatbelts so he couldn’t fall out. And had a machine gun that hung on a bungee cord from the door. Door? No door. Doorway. Doors were off. And then he asked me if his roommate could go because I didn’t ask anybody else. And he says, “You need another gunner.” Okay. But I didn’t normally fly with anybody else. So, we took another gunner and we were flying ahead of the convoy, trying to deliberately draw fire. Low, slow, stupid, whatever. But the weather was so bad, I couldn’t get high anyway. I mean, there were times I couldn’t see my own rotor blades. And I am hugging the treetops. It got so bad for a while, I actually hovered on the convoy. At one point, I heard dust off call off Plei Drang and they were coming south. And I called them on the radio and I said, “You got wheels on that thing?” Because the weather was that bad, you know. And he says, “What are you doing?” And I says, “Well, I am covering a convoy and I am �coming up the other side.” So, I asked him if he was on his side of the road because it was kind of a joke: IFR is Instrument Flight Rules. And in Vietnam, we used to say IFR is I Follow Roads. And in bad weather, we’d get low to the roads and hug the roads. (00:44:17) Veteran: He was coming down, I was going up. I made sure he was on his side, he made sure I was on my side. Normally in combat we flew with the lights off, even at night. So, if you look outside here and you see an aircraft go by and you see the little lights on the outside and you see the rotor rotating beacons? We had them off. We turned them on. And we even turned our marker lights on flash so the lights that are on the outside of the aircraft are flashing. I got two rotating beacons on my aircraft and they are both going. And in that area, right in the middle, was a plantation. I don’t remember now if it was a rubber or a tea plantation. And on one side is the house and on one side was manufacturing and whatever. And they ran a powerline because the generator is only on one side of the road so they ran a powerline across. And that’s kind of rare in the jungles to find powerlines, you know? I mean, Vietnam didn’t have a lot of powerlines. And so, I asked them to call the powerline. He said he would. And we had radio contact and we were on our own sides of the road. And we had all the beacons on and the lights and we both called the powerline at the same time. And we got extra people in the aircraft so it ain’t just me trying to fly and look where I am going and look to see if I can see him and—we had other people. We didn’t see each other. So, that’s what you get. And that was a day when breakfast to dinner was C rations, if I had a chance. Good share of that day, I set the aircraft down, they refueled it running. You had it refueled and right back up and going. And didn’t have any time to stay or do anything or…You got personal business to do, you relieve yourself under the tail boom of the aircraft. Ain’t got time to run any place else. It was a busy day. (00:46:10) �Interviewer: Now, when you were going into Cambodia, was that more dangerous than flying over Vietnam? Or was it basically the same? Veteran: You never know. I mean, I’d like to say yes because the president was stupid enough to tell them we are coming, first off, so they knew what we were going to be doing. But they also then could know we were coming and pull out whatever they want: pull their troops back, go to the jungle and stay put. A lot of times, we would make contact with them and they’d split up into 3-man units and just disappear. There were times where we thought we had them surrounded, literally surrounded, cordoned off in the jungle. You swear they couldn’t go anywhere. And they’d break down into 3-man units and infiltrate right between our lines and be gone. Just evaporate. Before I got there, when they went in and fought at Imperial Palace. I can’t think of the name of the city. The Tet Offensive. Interviewer: Well, that was Huế. Veteran: Yeah, Huế. They were already prepared and fought in the city and they retreated all the way to the Imperial Palace. And you’d swear they were there, they can’t get out, they can’t go anywhere. Next day, they were gone. And that’s one of the big question marks of the war: how did they get out of there? Don’t know. They had them cornered into the Imperial Palace. Place was surrounded. No place out. Next day, they are gone. But the Viet Cong, for the most part, everything was planned out in great detail. They didn’t do many things off the cuff. Or rapid reaction forces? They didn’t have. They planned everything out in great detail, including leaving. And a lot of times, things could be quiet for months and then you could have a battle that lasted 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days and then—just as quiet. (00:48:24) �Veteran: So, you didn’t know. I mean, when I first got to Vietnam, we got shelled 3-4 times a week. Sometimes we were probed, sometimes there were people that actually got on the perimeter. And then I remember after a few months, we went for a month or two and nothing. Absolutely nothing. And we are wondering: what are they saving it all for? What’s going to happen? And then we started thinking: how many of our people—because this was a different war and we didn’t go over as a solid unit, we didn’t go back as a solid unit, people rotated in and rotated out—how many of our people were brand new now? How many of our people hadn’t actually been under fire and been tested? How many of them don’t know what they’re going to do? And it got kind of an eerie feeling because you didn’t know if they were going to have an all out offensive on you. Or if maybe because of Tet, they’d run out of their reserve? And they didn’t have any fuel in the tank to keep fighting with? Or…You just didn’t know. And you’re sitting there. So, your question is a good one because there were times where they popped up like that firebase between Dragon Mountain and Camp Enari. They hit that one and it was one evening. They came through the South Vietnamese section of that base and got into our base and, with charges, disabled 85% of the artillery we had there. Blew up 85% of the bunkers. We were shooting them running around inside the compound. I mentioned Ben Het. Within minutes of them starting the attack, there were people running around with satchel charges inside the base. (00:50:17) Veteran: They tunneled underneath the barbed wire, come—we didn’t know they were even there or done that. And all of a sudden, they are just there and you got to fight. So, you know I had heard soldiers from World War 2 talk about hurry up and wait. And you don’t know when they are going to start a fight. You don’t know when the fight is going to end. You don’t know…In Vietnam, there was no frontline. Leastwise in World War 2, if they came through like �the Battle of the Bulge, when they started it and who they were there, you knew where they— they were moving troops to fight it. Vietnam? You were fighting with what you had for the most part. I mean, you might bring in puff the magic dragon. You might bring in an aerial gunship. Call over to Camp Halloway and get some of our helicopter gunships to come shoot it up if things are getting bad. There were some rapid reaction units we had but most of them were for the field. You get hit and you’re a convoy, you’re fighting your way out of the mess. And normally they wouldn’t stay there long enough for you to bring in reinforcements or do anything. So, my take on was it more dangerous to go into Cambodia? I don’t think so. I think we somewhat caught them off-guard. I don’t think they were prepared or thinking over there offensively. And I don’t think their bases were really set up that offensive. The people we put over the border prior to that were all small patrols, for the most part. LRRP patrols: Long Range Recon patrols. There were not a lot of men. When they encountered a lot of enemy, they used artillery, they used air strikes, they used whatever. They didn’t try and engage them themselves. They just ghosted away into the jungle. (00:52:25) Interviewer: Now, would you go in and get those people? Or would they just get themselves out? Veteran: Yeah. And there were times we went in and got them when they were in contact. And a couple times we did what we call a string job. We—they couldn’t get to an open LZ, landing zone. Found a hole in the jungle, dropped 160-foot rope and hoped it reached the ground. They had a—like a jumpsuit, carabiner on the back, they’d hook you in. The most we could pull with a Huey out was 3. Well, it depends. If they weren’t too high in the mountains and the air wasn’t too hot that day, we could maybe take 4 and bring them straight up out of there and then fly them some place to where we could get to an LZ. And maybe you want to skip the first one; they �might be figuring you might land there. Go to the second one and set them down and then get them in the aircraft. Couple times close to there, we’d seen guys come all the way back to the staging field by Dak To. But most of those guys we were picking up over the border were mercenaries. CIA—fulltime CIA. Or they were, like I said, mercenaries which might be made up of a little bit of everything: Korean, Australian, Americans but not soldiers. Interviewer: And would they also use some of the non-Vietnamese Vietnamese? Like Hmong Chinese or Montagnards or…? Veteran: Yep. Some units were Vietnamese. Some of them functioned with Vietnamese over there. Depending on what they were doing. I mean, if you’re going to take a prisoner, it was nice if you could talk to them. (00:54:10) Veteran: But for the most part, LRRC patrols didn’t take prisoners. What are you going to do with them? And you don’t have that much firepower to begin with and if you got a guy or two watching the prisoner, he’s a guy or two that can’t shoot and everybody has got to be able to. A lot of our medics over there decided after they had been there a while—the Viet Cong didn’t care whether they were medics. Well, medic was a high priority target for them. A lot of them started carrying weapons. Interviewer: Right. Veteran: I know a couple of them decided nope, if things get that bad, there will be enough loose weapons laying around anyway; I don’t need to carry one. Just depends. I mean…Like I said, combat has got a habit of changing you and…At one time, I think, I don’t know if you asked me or I just brought it up, but a hero is something I had been asked after I got back, a lot. What’s a hero? And the more I thought about it, I finally came up with I know what a hero is now. A hero �is a person whose character is so developed that when the situation comes, he doesn’t think. He just knows what’s got to be done and he does it. If you think of a kid in a street, a car is coming, you don’t look at the car and calculate the distance and figure, you know, can I get the kid? You run and grab the kid and if everything goes right, you roll off the other side of the road and you got the kid and it turned out fine. Every one of the guys I know that I would call a hero, whether they got the medals for it or not, all of them have said later, “That’s the dumbest thing I ever did. You know, if I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have done it.” But they just knew it had to be done. They knew they were the person to do it. They were…I always talk about the right place at the wrong time. And they just do it. Combat has got a habit of doing that. You sort of build up a…I don’t know what you’d call it. When you get there, it’s like you’re scared of everything and after a while, you don’t get that feeling of invincibility because you know you’re not. But you sort of build up a tolerance for it. I don’t know how you explain it but you just know. (00:56:27) Veteran: I mean, if you would have told me when I got to Vietnam I’d run through a mortar attack, I’d have laughed at you. Ain’t no way, dude. I am going to stay under my bed against the wall where the sandbags are. I am going down to my bunker. I am going to—Nope. If the stars are out, I can get off the ground. That aircraft is getting airborne. And the sooner I can get airborne, the sooner I can shoot back at what is shooting at us and less people are in danger. You got a job to do and you just go do it. And you don’t think about it. I mean, first time you probably think about it. Second or third time, you don’t give it much thought. I was talking with some guys at a pow-wow, that was sponsored by the Purple Heart Association, a pow-wow by White Cloud this last weekend and we were commenting about stuff like that. And 4th of July, I don’t get along very well with. Bottle rockets go off and I am subconsciously counting how long �I can run before the round impacts in our base. And the thing is, the bottle rockets on the 4th of July never land. And I am just still counting, you know. It’s just… Interviewer: Alright. We got a lot of different stories here to kind of catch up on and plug in, which is actually great. Veteran: You’re going to have to be doing a bunch of editing. Interviewer: Yeah. Well, see I’ll be having—we are creating material, while people may watch this on WKTV, we are primarily making this for the archive and as long as we got it, we are good. Okay. Now, we have a number of other—we have talked some about dealing with the civilian population and the Vietnamese and so forth. And there’s a number of pieces of your story that relate to that that I want to bring in. One of them has to do—some of it has to do with dealing with the Montagnards. I think there was a point when you had to deal with a mother and her baby? What was that story? (00:58:26) Veteran: This was during the monsoons and they had brought a Montagnard woman…I say this but she was maybe 14, with her child into 71st evacc hospital. The child was jaundiced. And they were trying to help. They got it into the hospital and determined there was nothing they could do and the baby was going to die. Montagnard religion teaches that if they die away from home, their spirit wanders forever, trying to find home. Due to the monsoons, they couldn’t get anybody to get her back and taking the road takes a long time. I mean, even during the monsoons, when things get bad enough, the MPs and everything are pulled off the road and she’d have to ride her water buffalo back out there. Since I flew the chaplains and I worked with the chaplains a bunch, I got a call at the aviation section at artillery hill. And they asked me if I could take her back out to her village. And it was at a special forces camp. And I called the Air �Force base and checked with the weather people and there really wasn’t enough time. Now, this was going to sound churchy but this is part of the story, I felt by the Spirit that I could do it. And I just knew. But I was short time on both ends of the window. They told me within plus or minus 5 minutes when they thought the weather would stop and within plus or minus when they thought the weather was going to start again. So, I got an aircraft and I went over 71st Evac and landed on their pad. Of course, I say landed, you know the engine is still running and everything is going and they bring her out and they put her in the…I had taken the controls out and everything on the other side. There was only me in the 58 and they put her in the co-pilot’s seat on the other side. And I said to them, I said, “Does she speak Vietnamese?” They said, “No.” “Does she speak English?” “No.” “Does anybody here speak Montagnard?” “No.” “Does she know where she is going? Does she know what we are doing?” “No.” “Oh…” (01:00:49) Veteran: Now, these people, they’re like our Indians. They live in the jungle. About the only thing you will find in their village that is manmade, maybe outside their village, is a machete. And a lot of them are home grown and made. If the chaplains haven’t got to them, missionaries haven’t been there, the women are bare-chested—they got a piece of cloth wrapped around their waist that goes down to about mid-calf. The guys wear a loin cloth. That’s it. Kids to about age 14 run around naked as a jaybird. And they are very, very moral people. They put her in the front seat and, you got to keep in mind, I am a military pilot and I am in a flight suit and I got long sleeves and gloves and things are velcroed and and velcroed down to my boots and I’ve got sunglasses on and my helmet and visor down and I look like some sort of big bug sitting in the front of this thing. Now, she’s in the front of this and you got all the plexi glass so you can see. And my aircraft does about 120 miles per hour ground speed. (01:02:09) �Veteran: And where we are at, at 71st Evac, I can’t get airborne out of there because we are under the approach path for the Air Force base, which is—usually the hospitals are built right next to the Air Force base for obvious reasons, for evacuation and that. So, I come out of there and I am low-leveling. And I get out of part of Pleiku but I am still on the end of Pleiku air base’s runway. So, I am low-leveling across the rice paddies and stuff out there. And she sees my hand on the collective over here, my left hand, and she looks over there and she grabs it. I guess it looks like something worthwhile holding on to. Well, it controls the pitch in the main rotor blades, it determines basically how high you are and I am about 6 inches off the rice. And she’s holding on to this and I am looking at her and looking at this and looking at her. Of course, now I got my sunglasses on, she can’t see my eyes. And I am trying to let her know that no, no, she got to let go of that. And she finally does and I smile at her. And then I am going out a ways from the base and I notice this sucker hole. And a sucker hole is—in bad weather, if you get into one of them, you start thinking you can go over the top of it and it closes in on you. And I am not worried about it closing in on me because I am instrument rated and I can just jump on the instruments and I know where the tops are so I can come out on top. So, I get in this thing and I corkscrew up to the top and I am over the top and I am looking at this huge cotton field. I can’t see anything for orientation. Absolutely nothing. So, I start calling a few places and I get on their radar. And I am printed on about 3 different radars. And I tell them where I want to go and they’re radar vectoring me. So, I am talking to them and working my way out there and I get over the top of the base where she lives and they tell me I am there. (01:04:11) Veteran: And lo and behold, another sucker hole opens up. And I corkscrew down through and drop her off. And then I come out of there—corkscrew back up—and start heading back. And again, can’t recognize anything, can’t see anything. Of course, it wasn’t raining when I was �down there either so it’s fine but the tops can build real fast. The weather can go down the drain in minutes and I am coming back and now it’s just a matter of time and distance and heading. You just…And as I am going along fat, dumb, and happy, all of a sudden, my FM radio goes beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. And I know I am in a world of trouble. At that time, the guys, the pilots, were getting fuzz busters from the states. And I just got printed by ground defense radar. And it swept me and my FM radio will pop then and that’s what I heard. And then it will come back and pop me again and they narrow it in, they lock on me. And I am expecting to get shot any minute. And instead of just sitting there doing nothing, my first response when I got swept and then got swept again, before they even locked onto me, I jumped on my radio and I told the first radar place, “Mark me on your screen.” And they did with a grease pencil. And I am calling the next one, “Mark me on your screen.” I ain’t telling them why, just telling “Mark me.” And they are marking me on the screen. And then I come back and I tell each one of them as I can, because each one of them is on a different frequency, that I have just been printed by ground defense radar and I am expecting to get shot at. And I don’t get shot at. I don’t know why. I just keep going. The next thing I know, they are telling me that I am over Artillery Hill. That’s 52nd Group headquarters in Pleiku. (01:06:10) Veteran: I can’t see a thing. And I am getting ready to go over to Pleiku and shoot an instrument approach into the Air Force base. And about then, a sucker hole opens up. And I corkscrew right on down through and I manage to end the corkscrew right on the end of our runway. How fortuitous. Right at the end of our runway. And I get on the runway and I am at 3-foot standard and start hovering down the runway and the heavens open up. And I can’t even see to hover down our runway. I look sideways and I can’t even, through the open door on the other side of the aircraft, even see the dividing line down the middle of the runway. I look through the chin �bubble and I can see part of the stones and that and the pentaprime on the asphalt. And I set the aircraft down on the ground. And shut it off and they come out with ground handling equipment. They had to put it in the rear that way. That happened to me on—this is one—but I went out for another guy who had FUO, Fever of Unknown Origin, and this same sort of thing happened. And that one, I was flying towards a wall and you just look at it. Here is this black wall. Ground is 60+ thousand feet. And that may not mean anything to you but over 12,000 we can’t operate for over a half hour without oxygen. What’s Everest? 29,000? Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: So, 60+ thousand feet wall. And I am flying straight towards the wall. And same feeling again. Knew I could get out, knew I could get back. Knew it would be okay. Matter of fact, my crew chief at that time says to me, he was flying with me—I cranked up the aircraft. He says, “Where you going?” I told him. He says, “Well, I am coming with you.” I says, “You’re crazier than a march hare.” He says, “No, no.” He says, “You get in that stuff,” he says, “At least you’ll need somebody to change radios.” He says, “I can read some of the instruments for you, I can help you out in the cockpit, I can cut down your workload.” I says, “You want to—” I am getting goosebumps. I wouldn’t ask him to go. I wouldn’t put him in that situation. And yet I knew I could get there and get back safely and I’d do it for somebody else but I wouldn’t put anybody else’s life in that situation. (01:08:31) Veteran: And he insisted on going with me. And again, we are painted on everybody’s radar. Nothing to do but time, distance, and heading. And he looked at me and he says, “What are you thinking, sir?” I says, “You don’t want to know.” He says, “Yes, I do.” I says, “Well,” I says, “Don’t jump up and shoot me right away, hear me out totally.” He says, “Okay.” “I was thinking it would be a great day to die.” He says, “What??” “Well, you know, I got a t shirt that says ‘you �can’t take this life too seriously, no one gets out alive.’ You got to go. I get into that thing, I am going to be hit like a bug on a—with a flyswatter. You’re not going to know what happened. You’re not going to suffer. You’re not going to go through prolonged pain. You’re not going to…Is there a better way to go? Trying to save a fellow man?” You know. I mean, it was a…and I wasn’t trying to be suicidal. And I wasn’t trying to be a hero. And I just…If it was me out there, I would want somebody to come. If it was my brother, I’d want—and he was my brother. You’d want somebody to come. And I thought I could do it. And we did. But that was another one: I got to the runway and it was like I flew into the ocean. I mean, that’s just what it was like. It was like I was underwater it was raining that—it was raining so hard you could stand on one side of the runway and couldn’t see the other side. (01:10:04) Interviewer: Have you ever experienced physical conditions like that since you got back to the states? I mean, is a really, really bad rainstorm that we might have here similar to that? Or…? Veteran: No. Interviewer: Was that a whole other level? Veteran: No. I have seen clouds at times that looked as menacing and you have to understand, I am a HAM radio operator. I do work with storm watch and we certify the weather before the TV stations and that can give it out to the public. I have been in—well, I haven’t been in the tornado. I’ve been close enough that I think if I had thrown a baseball, it would throw it back at me. But I am also on the downside track of the—it’s past me. I am coming in from the side and going behind it. But no, I have never seen rain like we…I mentioned at one time, one of the stories my wife wants me to tell you, is we had the aircraft grounded for over 21 days. Flying nothing. It �didn’t even go to a drizzle. It just steadily poured for 21 days. And the guys came in that morning and they said, “You read the scriptures?” I said, “Well yeah. A little bit.” “How long did it take the Lord to flood the earth?” I said, “Well, we got a little while. Besides that, he opened up the earth and water flushed out.” And I said, “We got a little bit.” And a little while later that afternoon, an aircraft landed on our field. And it was our sister unit from down in Phù Cát. Well, in Vietnam the country is long and narrow. And when you get by the coast, you have lowlands and you get up in the high lands where you got the highlands and there is two passes to get in there. You got the Mang Yang Pass before you get to An Khê and then you got the An Khê Pass dropping down into the lowlands. And this fool had come up and low-leveled through both passes and then low-leveled the road all the way into us. And we had nothing flying. Neither was the Air Force base. (01:12:14) Veteran: Matter of fact, my guys came in that morning and were placing bets in the back room: was I going to cave? Was I going to give in to these commanders? And I was literally telling them that if they wanted to go someplace, they could take their jeep. Well, remember I told you the MPs didn’t go out and secure the roadway? Well, if he is going to take his jeep, he better take the tanks with him and something else. It was that bad. And I tried talking to this young W-1 and that’s first rank coming off flight school so they got W-1, W-2, W-3, W-4 at that time. And I was a W-2. And he literally told me I was yellow. He literally told me I was an old man and I needed to turn in my wings. And one of my biggest regrets from Vietnam was I didn’t send a mechanic out to disable his aircraft. I told him if he’d stayed, I’d take the flak. I’d say I forbid him to take off; all he’s got to do is say runway is—airport is closed, he couldn’t leave. He wouldn’t listen. I told him at least call Mang Yang Pass to let us know you was there because once he goes through, we can’t maintain radio contact with him. He went out and we didn’t hear anything and �we didn’t hear anything and we didn’t hear anything. Phone rang. Picked it up. Guard post in the pass. There’s an OH-58 tail boom there and a fire. Do we have anything flying? Because we got the 58s. 13 of 20 of them that are in all of Vietnam. I immediately called group headquarters and told the old man there was a 58 down and burning in the Mang Yang Pass. I was going to the crash site. If he wanted to go, be here in 5 minutes. (01:14:14) Veteran: I wasn’t going to wait for him. We readied the aircraft and I left. I flew and landed at the crash site. Later, when we recovered the stuff there, they put everything but the tail boom in 2 bushel baskets. They hit so hard they pulled the seatbelt anchors right out of the floor. Nearest they can tell, they landed at an artillery firebase just before the pass and they picked up some paint there. The aircraft was full. There was the commander, his first sergeant, the pilot, and somebody else they picked up. The people in the pass said they had saw them open the door and throw something out. There was paint on a few of the pieces they picked up and put in. They suspected that somebody may have been smoking and set the paint on fire and he may have thrown the can of paint out the door. Don’t know. But if you think of a river going, a creek or a river, going down through rapids in a rapid area, you know how you see the white water and you see the bubbling and…? The passes are like that. And they suspect that the pilot’s attention was diverted and that he may have been trying to circle in the pass to…and got caught in the down draft. And he just literally flew into the side of the pass. I came up off of there where he had crashed, turned around and was going back and located what looked like another crash site. Reported it and they found a crash site of an OH-6 that had went down a little over a year ago. Identified that by the pistol and by the dog tags. And that one had just disappeared. I was flying back to our base and the group commander with me says, “You’re getting kind of short.” I said, “Yes sir.” He says, “When are you going to quit flying?” I says, “7 days before I am due to �leave, like everybody else.” He says, “No.” He says, “You’re grounded now.” I says, “What??” He says, “You’re grounded now.” I says, “You want to take the controls?” He says, “No, no, we will get to the base.” (01:16:38) Veteran: He wouldn’t even let me start an aircraft up on the pad. He wouldn’t let me do anything. He wouldn’t let me even get near the aviation section. 23 days before I was due to leave. Longest time I spent in Vietnam was the last 23 days. And I mean, I didn’t hang out at the pool, I didn’t…The warrant officer from personnel called me at one point and he says, “Would you like to carry some orders?” I says, “What??” He said, “We got some orders, got to go to a couple bases and that. And,” he says, “they got to be hand carried.” And he says, “You want to hand carry some orders and some intelligence reports and stuff?” “Yeah.” So, I go over to the Air Force base and grab the C-130 and, you know, fly some place and did a little of that before I was due to leave. But long time. Long time. You’d rather work. You’d rather get shot at. You’d rather be doing something. But that’s my biggest regret. That kid… Interviewer: Yep. Veteran: He…Young. Dumb. And I know what happened. The commander talked him into flying. And he didn’t have the brass to stand up to him and say no. I mean I was putting up with it every day. When he landed at our base, our phone went nuts. Every commander on the base was calling me. Anybody with any rank. Company commanders were calling me. “I want to go to—” “We are not flying any.” “I heard an aircraft.” “We’re not flying anything.” You know, I just…And he flew out and…My comment to them all the time was “Who is dying?” (01:18:19) Veteran: And they would say, “What?” “No sense flying and trying to risk death if somebody ain’t dying. This is not the weather to be flying in.” And I’ll fly if somebody is…you know, if �there is a good reason. If there is—combat-wise, like I said, I did that one piece between Plei Drang and Dragon Mountain; opposite sides of the same road and didn’t see the aircraft. Do what’s got to be done. But just to go up there and do an inspection? Or to go jaw-jack with somebody or…Use your radio. Use a voice secure rig. Talk to them. I mean… Interviewer: Okay. Now, in conjunction sort of with that, being stuck places, there was a point when you got stuck in Dak To? How did that happen and what was that? Veteran: I was up north. It was later afternoon. Flying a commander. And Dak To is a provincial headquarters. That’s like saying a township hall. And that’s involving all the local people but besides that, we have what do you want to call them? PR people? That are there that are working with the locals and stuff. Plus, you never know what’s going to be there. But anyway, he had radio contact with them because I have a variety of radios in my aircraft and the commander was using one of them. And was talking to them at Dak To, wanted to know if we couldn’t land at Dak To, he wanted to talk to some people face-to-face. I said, “Okay.” So, it was on the way. I mean, what’s the big deal? So, I landed there. He told me he was going to be, I don’t remember now. Say it’s an hour. So, you don’t keep the aircraft running. You shut it down, you tie down the rotor blades and stuff like that. I was walking away and I probably got 50 feet from the aircraft when the first mortar shell landed in the ammo supply dump next door. (01:20:23) Veteran: And once that happens, it’s a chain reaction. And as I ran back to my aircraft, I heard what sounded like Volkswagen doors flying overhead and, I mean, just huge pieces of metal going through the air and ground shaking. Because you’re talking about, well, an ammo supply dump. I mean, anything and everything you can think of and I told you the staging field was just down the road a little bit for over the border. So, there were—I don’t know what all was in that place but it was going up. I untied the rotor blades and started—tried to start the aircraft—and it �wouldn’t start. Well, once you go through a start-up procedure, your starter is a small motor. They don’t like to build them any bigger than they have to because they’re heavy. So, you’re supposed to let it cool off. I tried burning it up. I made 3 or 4 attempts to start the aircraft without trying to let it cool. Wouldn’t start. Wouldn’t start. So, I left it. Ran over to technical operations center there. And down the bunker. That place cooked off until about 2 in the morning. And from the minute that supply dump was hit, there were Vietnamese—North Vietnamese again— running around inside that base with satchel charges. Throwing them in various bunkers and stuff. So, grabbing the technical operations center probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do. But I knew where that one was. And just being on the ground wasn’t a good deal because normally an explosive, like if you get a mortar coming in, it hits the ground, it detonates. It blows up. So, if you’re on the ground you can be fairly close to it and be fairly safe. Now, this stuff is going off and raining down and going everywhere. So, I sat in the technical operations center with a cock locked 45 watching the door to make sure we didn’t get a satchel charge in that bunker for a good share of the evening. (01:22:36) Veteran: And then they told me, “Well, things calmed down.” And I could still hear everything cooking off but there was no ground activity and stuff. And they says, “We’ll get you a place to sleep.” And so, they took me out and…I think it was a hooch, I don’t think it was a tent. Anyway, everything is sandbagged up about 3 feet and the bunk was on the inside of these sandbags. And sticking in the sandbag is an RPG and it hadn’t gone off. It just stuck in the sandbags. And I am looking at that and the bunk is in the other side and they said something to me and I said, “I can live with it.” And I slept the night with this RPG stuck in the sandbags. Next day, they brought up a maintenance crew from…It’s 52nd aviation headquarters actually at Camp Holloway which is in Pleiku. And they took a look at the bird and it had a hole in the �pilot’s windshield this big around with the piece of shrapnel that made it is all tangled in the seat. And the aircraft is a piece of swiss cheese. The reason it wouldn’t start is there is something called an excitor box. And in the cart, you have a distributor and spark plug wires. Well, a jet engine that these things have, they’re set up in such a way so when you reduce the back blast, and that’s where they have all the stators and veins to pull the power out of it—to power the main rotor blades—but it’s a jet engine nonetheless. Once they are started, you have continuous flame inside. Well, this excitor box gives spark to the spark plug that is there and it starts that fire in your engine. Piece of shrapnel, right in the box. (01:24:24) Veteran: So, they wired one on the cowling or…well, what do you want to call it? It’s like the hood of your car opens up to get to the engine. They wired one on there and rerun the wires so I could fly it. But now this seat is not going to be comfortable and the windshield has got the big old hole in it and this thing is all full of swiss cheese and there’s holes in the rotor blades so when it is flying it’s going (whistling).We put sandbags up in the side of the pilot. One thing you don’t think about is a helicopter is basically just a box underneath the rotor blades. And if it’s not balanced, if it gets off enough, you lose control because the blades only tilt so far. So, the helicopter has to be balanced and if it ain’t in balance, you get up and you’re just flying some way until you crash. So, we had to put sandbags on the pilot’s side because I don’t have enough lead in my pencil sitting on the co-pilot’s side to balance it. And they put it on a one-time red X and I got to fly it back and that was interesting because I walked around that aircraft and wasn’t sure I really wanted to…And the tech rep didn’t want to fly with me. But yeah, that’s getting stuck at Ben Het. That was a— Interviewer: Was that Dak To or…? Veteran: Dak To, yeah. Well, Ben Het was down the road from there but that was Dak To. �Interviewer: Alright. And you were talking about sandbags. Sandbags I guess are ubiquitous in Vietnam. We’ve got some occasion with that. Veteran: I got in trouble. Our aviation unit…Well, about anywhere where you have a helipad, guys in Vietnam would gather. And if you’d been on R and R and you need to go back to your unit, you’d go to a place where you knew the helicopters came in and out of and you’d walk up and ask them if they had a seat and ask them if you could ride with them. (01:26:20) Veteran: Well, our little base—we didn’t have a separate bunker for people that were just hanging around to fly somewhere. And we had to build a separate bunker and we had to build a building down there and that’s because they decided we had an aviation company and of course this is during the Vietnamization Project. So, everything—they weren’t big on building anything. Our actual main building was built out of railroad ties, believe it or not. We drilled holes and put rebar through them and then they made us sandbag it. Wait a minute…This building ain’t—we don’t need sandbags. They made us sandbag it. It was SOP: standing operating procedure. It's got to be sandbagged. So, my guys had filled a lot of sandbags because we had to sandbag this building and then we had to make a bunker and now we got to make a bunker and a special shelter for all the people that are waiting to go somewhere. So, when I was through doing whatever work I had to do that day, I took off my tunic or my shirt and I went out there and I was helping my guys fill sandbags. And one of the commanders come down there and he caught me filling sandbags. And you know, officers I guess ain’t supposed to be doing stuff like that. And he's chewing me out. Well, as we mentioned earlier, I had been through NCO academy and I had been through a bunch of other things and I don’t ask my men to do anything I am not willing to do. And this almost felt like harassment, after a while, filling sandbag after sandbag after sandbag. So, I am filling sandbags with them. If it’s important enough for them to do, it’s �important enough for me to do. Well, I got chewed out and I got chewed out royally. And after the commander went—left—I went back to filling sandbags. (01:28:11) Veteran: A few days later, I am flying this commander and we are going out to this SP unit I was telling you about that does hip shoots. And they like to fill sandbags and put them actually on the armored vehicles to give them more armor and stuff. And anyway, they were filling sandbags out there and they’d been on hip shoots enough that their morale was kind of down. Kind of like my guys. And I’d told this commander what I was doing and got chewed out. Told him I was likely to do it again anyway and got chewed out. Anyway, we are here and he’s noticing their morale is real down and being a warrant officer, I am not in the guys’ troop command and I am not in line with the enlisted men and them in there. So, a lot of the enlisted men will come up and talk to me when they wouldn’t talk to commanders and other things. And I know that their morale was really bad. And the commander come back and I said something, I says, “You know, you are going to have to do something with these guys.” I says, “Their morale is in the tank really bad.” And he looks at me and he says, “You feel like filling sandbags?” I says, “What?” I says, “Sure.” So, he and I went over and helped them fill sandbags for the rest of the afternoon. I mean, we were there…I don’t know, 3-4 hours. And we wanted to take our tunics off to fill sandbags and the enlisted men didn’t want us to. They wanted us holding the sandbag or running the shovel. And cameras came from everywhere. I never saw so many cameras in my life. They’re taking pictures of us filling sandbags. But it helped. And yeah. That’s your sandbag story. Interviewer: Right. Okay. Now, there’s another note here: sandbags, bunkers, something about a camouflaged bunker? Veteran: Every evening we had a mission where we had to go and fly around our base. And we would go out and look and see if anything is going on. To give you an idea of what we were �looking for, I wrote up a report one night that there was a place out there where they made charcoal. And they had like 5 charcoal kilns. And I noticed that the one kiln didn’t ever have a burn. And we are looking for things like that. And this night, I had an aerial observer with me. And they have to be color blind. Now, pilots can’t be color blind. They use light signals from the tower when your radio is out and that. You like to know what color it really is. Interviewer: Yeah. (01:30:41) Veteran: And the aerial observers are color blind because camouflage does not trick their eyes. They see shine, textures, things like that because they don’t see colors. And this was in the dry season. We start right at our base and we fly right around the barbed wire. Remember, we fly right over the top of our bunkers, our guard towers. Fly right over the top of our guard towers. And then we keep doing circles further and further out and further and further out. And we got out far enough, “Look at that! Dumb fools are building a bunker in the middle of the rice paddy.” Well, that time of year, the rice paddies are dry. They’re getting ready to harvest the rice and stuff. And he’s looking out there and he says, “Listen, they’re building a base.” And I am looking and I can’t see anything. I says, “You sure?” He says, “Yeah!” “Have fun.” So, he calls the base and has them shooting. They’re—when you shoot with artillery, it’s a big gun, it’s a big shell. And except for 8 inches, when you get at the edge of the gun fans, they’re not real accurate. So, he’s giving them over and under and left and right because we have adjusted all you normally can and they’re trying to fine tune things. We ain’t hitting anything and we are burning up a good share of ammunition. I finally said to him, I says, “Are you sure?” He says, “Yeah.” “Check the fire. I am going down to take a look.” So, I go down and I am coming across the rice paddy taking a look and I come to a hover. Sure enough, there was a bunker and Charlie is looking out at me and I am looking out at him. (01:32:15) �Veteran: Hard over with the stick and get out of there. And we go upstairs and he takes another firebase now. Because this one we know we are having—so he picks another firebase that’s a…It’s got 8 inches at it but it’s a little further away. And 8 inches are quite accurate. Well, you don’t know where the first round is necessarily going to go. So, he fires the first round and we cleared the rice paddies and we hit the edge of the jungle. We had secondaries to about 3-400 feet in the air. “What is this? Fire a couple more! Same thing.” You know? “Give a little dispersion on it.” And we got a couple more secondaries. Then we came back to shooting at the bunker that was in the middle of the rice paddy field. And, I don’t know, it was like a dozen rounds or something, he finally hit it. We had secondaries to 300 feet. And I don’t know what they had down in there and if it wasn’t for him, we’d have never shot at it. But he’s color blind, he could find it. I couldn’t find it. And people always find that interesting. Aerial observer is color blind? Don’t ask him to look at your map and tell you if it’s a friendly or an enemy position because we mark them in red, you know. Interviewer: Right. Veteran: At night it’s difficult too because we have red lights in the helicopter and it’s difficult to tell where the enemy is if you mark your map that way. And I have taken some guys out at night and no, no: don’t mark your enemy positions in red. You ain’t going to see it in the aircraft. Interviewer: Alright. Another entry we’ve got in here has to do with the kinds of support you would get from the Air Force? Like Puff the Magic Dragon or…? How did that work? Or what did you—or did you see it being used, I guess is the— Veteran: I was pulling guard duty one night when about 13 miles out one of our bases was getting hit and almost like the aurora borealis. I mean, it is just lighting up the sky. And from �time to time, you see tracers going off and going high in the sky. And they put in an arc light out there amongst others. B-52 strike. (01:34:22) Veteran: And you could literally feel the ground shake where we were. And then they, at one point during the night, brought in Puff the Magic Dragon. And when he’d fire, we could hear him. You could see it first and then later you’d hear him. And it was like a garden hose to the ground, reddish orange. But it looked funny because he’s flying around so the hose looks like it’s bent and it can’t be that way but it looks that way from a distance. And he’s shooting at the ground and you see the tracers bounce off and bounce up. That far away. And you wouldn’t think…I mean, many of the times when I am out flying, you’ll hear them come across and as they…This is whatever from 35,000 from the ground impacting you. Grid square blah blah blah from now until such and such. And they’re putting in an arc like strike. And you just can’t fathom what it is. But when you’re 13 miles away and you can hear the 20-millimeter Vulcan cannon on that thing shooting and you can see the tracers and you can feel the ground shake from the arc like…And you wonder how does anybody survive out there? I mean, Ben Het—when I talked about it being under siege—I can remember going back after it wasn’t under siege. Take doc up to investigate the—to check the mess hall, to see it’s clean and all those kinds of things and some of them who made it out of there alive. It looked like moonscape around that place except on the moon, there’s no water in the craters with algae. And there’s nothing out there. I mean, you see World War 2, there is a dead tree in the no man’s zone. I mean, there is nothing out there. And yet, we’d arc light it and as soon as they were through arc lighting, they’re back to fighting. How? (01:36:20) �Veteran: I have no clue. I mean, I have said to you before: I take my hat off to the Vietnamese. I don’t know how the North Vietnamese ever managed to fight, keep up the struggle, resupply their people. Even managed to live in the jungle and—I don’t know how. Interviewer: Yeah. Well, the arc lights did do a lot of damage and so did the mini guns on the—off something. Now, the Puff…was that a propeller plane? Veteran: Usually…Well, when I was there, they had a mix of old DC-3s. Of course, they’ve got a number of different nomenclatures. Those and C-130s. Now, they are all C-130s. Well, it’s not true. The Air Force has some C-20s, or the special forces, have some C-27s now which is a 2engine job that they used for gunships. And it looks like a C-130. But the one I was observing was a C-130 and he was going to town. I mean, if you can imagine the amount of 105s, semiautomatic gun, on the side of that thing and fire it while they are flying around in a circle. I mean, I can’t wrap my brain around it. I can’t. A Vulcan cannon, 20-millimeter Vulcan cannon, fires somewhere around 6000 rounds a minute. I—it’s like our mini gun going off. It sounds like you’re ripping cloth. They mounted one over Camp Holloway. This was the aviation base I was telling you about. Army aviation base on the other side of the hill. They mounted one on top of one of their bunkers, on top of one of their guard towers. When they fired it, the recoil was so bad that the guard tower fell over. Looked like, “Timber!” It just tilled it over. Fell down to the ground. When they first started mounting them on the Cobras when I was there, Cobras were fairly new. (01:38:16) Veteran: We had a lot of Charlie mounted gunships but Cobras were fairly new. And they mounted a couple of these Vulcan cannons on the Cobras. They only fired so many rounds at that point and they were checking the airframes for cracks. And if they fired too many rounds when they were on a gun run, it stopped the aircraft in midair. �Interviewer: Wow. Powerful stuff. Veteran: They’d come down flying because they are on a gun run, they’d fly faster than they’re supposed to. They’d get right up to the V and E, velocity not to exceed, they get right up to the edge of that, fire the gun and that would slow them down. Like popping flaps and putting on your landing gear on a fixed wing. It’d just slow them up. Interviewer: Alright. Now, I know going into this you mentioned being on guard duty at night. How commonly were you on guard duty and how did that work? Veteran: I’d have to guess. Seems to me it was every 2 to 3 months, something like that. Because officers always have additional other duties. The thing about guard duty that amazed me, because you don’t know what everybody else is doing and you don’t know what everybody else’s job is, because I’d scramble and get in my aircraft. I had my gun with me all the time. And I am going out to outer firebases. And these guys got their guns with them all the time because they are out there. Most of the guys that were on the base that I was assigned to, Artillery Hill in Pleiku, didn’t have their gun. They had a card in their billfold to go to the armory and get their gun. And I am going, “What?!” And I never realized that until I am pulling guard duty. And I am talking with the sergeant of the guard, the guy that is going to be assigned with me for the night, finding out a bit about this because if you don’t—if you’re an officer and you don’t use your sergeants, you’re dumber than a box of rocks. (01:40:06) Veteran: And I am checking with him. So, I told him, I says, “Do me a favor: inspect the troops, do what you want to do, go through all your commanding ceremony and then tell the guys to fall out and I want them to gather around.” And he did that and I got them to gather around and I says, “Guys, I know I have been going through the book. I know the SOP.” That’s one of my �first times pulling guard duty. They weren’t to unlock their ammo bunk. They have a footlocker in there with their ammo in it, the detonators for the mines that are out in the barbed wire. They weren’t to unlock that bunker until they were given orders from either the sergeant of the guard or the officer of the guard. Imagine standing guard duty with an empty gun? In Vietnam? And I am going, “No.” Anyway, I just told the guys, “Gather around.” I says, “I know the SOP. I wouldn’t pull guard duty with an empty gun. I don’t expect you to.” I says, “If you fire your gun, there’d better be a blood trail or a body in the wire because I won’t swing alone. Am I clear?” They go, “Yeah.” I go, “Okay.” And I then told them to go ahead and go on up. And I says, “I will be up all night. If you have any trouble, you call me.” Another thing you got down from my wife, I’ll go into now. I turned to the sergeant and because I was an officer, I wasn’t allowed to do maintenance on the vehicles. So, normally the sergeant would be up all night driving the vehicle around. And there was a bunk bed in the command building that I could sleep in. Well, I am a pilot. If I am up all night, they can’t fly me all day the next day unless it’s a combat situation. So, I told the sergeant, I says, “You got one or two choices. You can either stay up all night and drive me or you can give me the keys and use that cot and I’ll know where you are.” He looks at me and he says, “You serious, sir?” I said, “Uh-huh. Tomorrow, you’ll have to go to work. Up all night and have to go to work all day tomorrow. I’ll sleep until noon and then go in.” (01:42:28) Veteran: So, he gave me the keys. And I don’t sneak up in the guys on the perimeter. I tell them I am coming. I’ll be on one perimeter, I’ll call the next guard tower and tell them I am coming. Well, while I was out there, the one tower calls out and they say, “We are having trouble. People are coming out from our side up to the tower where they don’t belong and they’re harassing them and causing difficulty.” I says, “Okay.” I said, “Now, I am going to come and I am going to drive �up to the bunker or to the guard tower next to you. I’ll have my lights off, the whole bit. I am going to walk over to you then. Challenge me, do whatever you want, but I am telling you I am coming. Don’t be shooting me.” They said, “Okay.” So, I come over there and I am on this tower. And I had been there 15-20 minutes and sure enough, somebody came over from the NCO club, that’s where it looked like they came from, over to the tower. And they challenged him and he responded with some blue, I would say, words and turned the air kind of blue. And he ignored them and came over and started to climb up the ladder to the bunker. I cocked and locked my 45. “Halt.” He says, “Who the blankety blank are you?” I said, “I am warrant officer Frank Anthony, officer of the guard, and you will identify yourself or get shot.” And he’s just all of a sudden at a complete halt. Just on the ladder there. “I am sergeant so-and-so.” “Do you want to live?” “Yes, sir.” “I suggest you get the hell off my bunker and don’t come back.” “Yes, sir.” And he got down off the bunker and then come back. I then unloaded my 45, put the round back in the magazine, put it back in my holster. The guys in the bunker say, “You’d have shot him?” I says, “Yep and you should have too.” And they looked at me. But I says, “You didn’t have any ammo, did you?” (01:44:46) Veteran: But that’s the story my wife wanted me to tell you. He’d come out drunk and he just knew they weren’t supposed to have ammo. And I don’t know what he thought he was going to do out there. And I don’t know what he thought he was doing. But there’s three guys on the tower. And if they’re paying more attention to him and what’s going on, you know, he could have been the barber. I mean, it’s dark. This was at night. And there are some people that are still on the base at night. We took them in. I don’t remember what time the O club closed but every once in a while, I would go in with the girls in the deuce and a half and take all of them back to the center of town. And there were a number of Vietnamese that were still on the base until quite �late at night. And we’d take them back after dark. I don’t know who this is. He can tell me he’s a sergeant but I don’t know if…Now, he did have rather impeccable English for Vietnamese. Usually they had a little trouble with it. So, you know, I don’t know if I would have aimed at the center of mass or not but I’d have shot him. No doubt in my mind about that. But… Interviewer: Alright. Now there…You have some of the stuff that happens, I guess, maybe was actually funny? Or at least you had an interesting story. (01:46:04) Veteran: My wife thinks so. One story she likes is I was going up in I Corps. English was a place that wasn’t exactly in the highlands. And it wasn’t exactly in the delta but it was up in I Corps and it was a staging base for a lot of stuff. And they had, from what I could see, I only went there once, and it looked like a hodge-podge of a little bit of everything was in there. And I dropped a commander at a base and he’d been running around. He was going to stay for a while and I told him I was going to go up to English and refuel. Otherwise, he’s got to go with me when I refuel and what have you and he says, “Yeah, okay. Go.” And I am flying this OH-23, piston slapper, wooden blades, slow airspeed, 72 knots. Now, keep in mind you know, the Huey and the 58 I am flying is doing 125 plus and 72 is kind of slow. And we are the slow stuff. C-130s doing like 300 miles an hour and, you know, just about everything flies faster than we do. And I called English, told them I was 5 miles out for straight in. They said, “Okay, record at a quarter mile.” “Roger.” Well, 5 miles at 72 knots takes a little bit of time. They call me back, “You’re sure you’re landing at English?” “Affirmative.” “Be advised: we don’t have you in sight.” “Understand. Roger.” “Report quarter mile. Landing gear down and locked. Guns cold. Roger.” I keep plodding along. Finally, they called me back. “Sundown, this is English. You that egg beater on the deck?” “That’s affirmative. By the way, the skids are down and welded. 45 is on safety and magazine is out.” And I hear them key up the mic and all I can hear is laughing and guffawing. I �am a quarter mile for landing. And I am 72 knot. You doing 72 knots, quarter mile don’t last long. Okay. I can hear them key up the mic again. All I hear is laughing. They’re so broke up they can’t clear me for landing. I finally said, “This is sundown 13. If I am clear for landing, can you break squelch twice?” I hear click, click. (01:48:25) Veteran: They couldn’t talk to me. They were just busted up because…I don’t know what they thought I had but yeah, my landing gear is rather down and welded. The only gun I got is my 45 and my survival vest and magazines out, safety is on. They just cracked up. Another time, I came in and I was landing at Pleiku airbase. And normally we parallel the runway and we don’t even take the taxi way. We go down the grass and alongside the runway and parallel the runway. And down there, they had a wind sock and some other stuff. And if there is traffic coming in and out, they’d have us hold right there. It’s right across the runway from the main terminal. Then they’d have us turn and we basically hover across that to the main terminal to set down. And I had dropped off whatever I came in for and I was calling for clearance to depart. Well, he’s giving me clearance to tail backwards. Instead of telling me to hover back out and go, he’s clearing me to go right over the top of the tower. And this is during the Vietnamization Project. And they’re trying to get the Vietnamese to do all the stuff. So, I ask him to repeat the departure instructions. He gives me the same instructions and then he’s a little brisk with me and he says, “If you can’t make immediate departure, hold flat pitch C-130 on landing row.” “Roger. On the go.” And I made max performance take off, went straight up and went right over the top of the tower. Cleared top of the tower by, I don’t know, 3-4 feet because I am not…And I am not worried about it because right behind them on the Air Force base is 71st Evac and I know how to low level out of there and clear their area and the whole bit. And I no more than cleared the tower �and was getting into 71st evacc’s area and he’s got to clear me for QSYR frequency change. (01:50:23) Veteran: And he comes back and he says, “Sundown, this is Pleiku tower. In the future, if I gave you that instructions, you can disregard.” Another time I was down at Phù Cát and that’s on the coast down by Qui Nhơn. And we had, again, why they were down there I don’t know, but we had down there 2nd of the 72nd and they had 8 inches and 175s, big guns, sitting right on the edge of the Air Force base. And I am going into there but you got to call the Air Force base and tell them because you are under their control zone. I am flying underneath them. And as I am coming in to land, I hear the tower, and this is Vietnamese, clearing L-19 Bird Dog to take off on runway, say 1-8, and he clears the C-130 to take off 3-6. That’s opposite ends of the same runway. So, somebody calls the tower and advises them they had cleared aircraft to take off on the runway, opposite ways. And the tower comes back and goes, “Oh. You all be careful out there. You hear?” So, the C-130 calls the L-19 and says, “You take off.” So, he takes off because his prop wash and that is not going to cause the C-130 any difficulty when he takes off afterwards. But it was funny because just one of those things that happened and… Interviewer: Okay. Now, was Phù Cát, was that—there is a place where there was like an orphanage that you went to? Was that there or Vung Tau? Or…? Veteran: No, there was a…Down at Phù Cát, on the South China Sea, it was south of Phù Cát, there was a leper colony we used to go to with the chaplains. And that was one of those places like Vung Tau that was really strange because you got down there and while we left somebody with the aircraft, we never had to really worry about it. Matter of fact, we took a bathing suit and went swimming in the South China Sea because it was right on the water’s edge and we’d go swimming. (01:52:22) �Veteran: It was run by the Catholic church and it was a place where you could literally eat off the floor. I mean, I never saw a place, before or since, that was as stark or as clean or as sparkly or as whatever. And we went down there, oh maybe 2-3 times a month. I took the chaplains down there. You know, the first time you go down, you’re real skeptical about it because you’re not at a military base and you are kind of in the middle of nowhere and you’re kind of whatever. You got a long ways you can see down the beach. And I mean, it was in a location where you weren’t really worried about getting surprised right away. And they never had any trouble with the Viet Cong and it was a place where yeah, you let down your guard but you don’t want to let down too far. If that makes sense to you? But no, we’d take our bathing suits down there and go swimming and that’s the only place, other than going for church conferences down there, that I remember actually swimming. We actually had a swimming pool that they completed while I was there at 52nd group headquarters. And even in those 23 days when I was just sitting around, I didn’t go swimming. I mean, I don’t know why. But just didn’t. Interviewer: Okay. Church conferences? Was this with the chaplains or you or what was that? Veteran: Well, I’m a Mormon and the church has quite a bit of pull. And we had an in-service conference quarterly and if we wanted to go, they had to let you go. But they’re not—they—your commanders and the people you—aren’t going to tell you. So, the chaplains come back to me and they said, “You’re LDS?” I says, “Yeah, I am LDS.” Latter Day Saint. The name of the church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So, we go by LDS. And he says, “You’re LDS.” I says, “Yeah.” He says, “Here, you might want to see this.” And I took it. “Oh!” And this was down at Cam Ranh Bay. And he says, “You want to go?” “Yeah.” (01:54:31) �Veteran: Well, I let my group leader know and then I had an aircraft at my disposal for one whole day to bring in other LDS I knew that were out at outer bases that wanted to go. Because if they wanted to go, they could go. And I am going out visiting them and I take these commanders out. And matter of fact, the joke was with some of these commanders: if we need him, we know what bunker he is in. Because I would go visit some of the other church members that was out there. And I’d fly them in. We had a C-130 that would fly us down to Cam Ranh Bay, sit on the tarmac and wait for us. And we’d spend that night and the next day and then that evening, we’d come back. And C-130s. They were that respectful. But you got this dual thing going on again because they got to let you go but they don’t want to let you go. I mean, when I was in basic and AIT and all that other stuff, I’d want to go to church services and usually they weren’t on base. And our church, we have sacrament service and then you have Sunday school, and then we have priesthood, so it is 3 hours. And then you got to travel there and you got to travel back and I’d get back and most other Protestant services or Catholic services is maybe an hour. And you got travel time back. So, I can’t prove I got more KP and more guard duty than other people but I have my deep suspicions because they didn’t want to believe me. But not only that, I don’t know if I mentioned to you before but one of my R and Rs I took in conjunction with an area for a serviceman’s conference, which ended up being held at the base of Mount Fuji. (01:56:05) Veteran: And I went there to that conference and then spent the rest of my R and R. That time I went down to Osaka, Japan. The World’s Fair was at Osaka. And it was nice enough to go with a couple other church members so I ain’t worried about some guy trying to bring a gal into our hotel room in the middle of the night. And had that happen before. You know, you share a room with lieutenant so-and-so and in the middle of the night, you got extra company. Didn’t have to �worry about stuff like that. It was kind of nice. So, went down there and did that but again, that was something if you wanted to go, they had to set up your R and Rs and make room for you so you could go. But they weren’t telling you. I mean, you had to know about it. Because I was flying the chaplains, because my guys weren’t interested, I had insight to some of that stuff. Interviewer: Okay. Now, that gets me into a couple other questions. One of them is where would you take the chaplains to or what would they be doing? Veteran: Anything and everything. I mentioned firebase 6 before where we brought in a bulldozer and leveled off the top. Took them up to firebase 6. Matter of fact, that runs into another story down there. That day that I am referring to, one of the guys came out and says, “Can I take the chaplains?” I am looking at him going, “Yeah, what’s up?” “Well, they ain’t got nothing for me to do. I want the flight time.” “Okay.” So, he took my aircraft and he took the chaplains and he went up to firebase 6 with them. And he’s up there for a while and firebase 6 is at the top of this mountain. So, the cottonfield from these clouds ended up below. And he’s looking at the weather and he goes, “This ain’t good.” So, he goes over to the Protestant chaplain and he says to him, he says, “If we don’t leave here before long, you’re going to have a long time to do whatever you want.” He says, “The weather is changing and we got to go.” Protestant chaplain says, “Okay, go start up the aircraft. I will tell Father.” So, he goes over and he starts up the aircraft and the Protestant chaplain comes and they’re waiting and they’re waiting and Father ain’t coming right away. And finally, Father comes and he’s got a shawl over his neck and a chalice under his arm and some other stuff and you can tell he didn’t put everything back in his box he’s got that he travels with. And he’s coming back. He’s sets them down, puts on his headphones, “Let’s go before the Lord finds out what I did to the mass.” (01:58:27) �Veteran: So, they leave and they’re coming back to our base and we had a One-Eyed Charlie. And a One-Eyed Charlie is a guy that the Viet Cong are pressing into service and they would give him some dilapidated gun and they’d give him a couple rounds of ammunition and they tell him, “Shoot it at the Americans.” And they would tell him where to go and he would find an empty can and he’d put his two empty cartridges in there that he fired at the Americans and there’d be two live ones in there and that’s for him to shoot at the next day. And they’d kind of keep an eye on him that way and he’s got to shoot at people. Well, if you got one and you know what he is, you don’t return fire. They might get somebody that can actually shoot. Okay. So, we had a One-Eyed Charlie on our base. And if you get anybody landing, you tell them you got a One-Eyed Charlie and you—you know. And today he hasn’t done his duty. So, you kind of know what’s going on. Well, all the while I was there, the only aircraft you ever hit was the one coming back in with the chaplains. And there’s a mic button on the floor and you have one mic boom. You have a control panel that determines what radios you hear and which ones you transmit on. And for some reason, the mic that the Catholic chaplain had was set on FM or fox mic and he hit the button. Course, everybody in the aircraft were monitoring that so they can hear. But he’s also going to now transmit to the whole world. And the Protestant chaplain keyed up the mic and looked at the Catholic chaplain and he says, “The Lord found out.” They are sitting on the gas tank in the back and they have a bullet proof ceramic plate on top of it. And that’s where the rounds went: into the fuel tank back. Both rounds hit the fuel tank. And it’s a self-sealing tank so it dripped a little bit afterwards but didn’t really leak. Matter of act, they came over there with a crane and a flatbed and picked it up and out it on and took it over to the placed to change the tank and that. But that’s…Now, he just did this over the air on a frequency we use for our lamding field. So, for the next month or two, you get an aircraft coming through �and they’re coming out of Pleiku, and they’re coming up our way and they’d call, “Artillery Hill, this is gunslinger 55. We’ll be coming through your control zone, going up to Con Toon. Are we clear?” (02:00:46) Veteran: “Gunslinger, this is Artillery Hill. Guns are cold and we have nothing on the field. Feel free.” So, we are down, we got no traffic on our airfield. And the guns on top of the hill aren’t shooting anywhere. Do your thing, you know? And then they’d come back, “By the way, what’d the Lord find out?” And we’d get that comment for about a month or two afterwards. Interviewer: Alright. Let’s see…I guess you had some—I guess some more things that sort of have to do with sort of civilians and things. You’ve got one with…Let’s see. Was their kids of the rice paddies? Or…? Veteran: I was going up to Ben Het. And a lot of times when you go into a base, you don’t go in and just land. You’d go up and you’d circle the base first. And then some of the bases, if the place is hot enough or whatever, we’d literally do a little corkscrew in instead of doing a long, shallow landing. And this day I came in and I circled the base and the Montagnard kids were ou on the rice paddies and—well, you know they’re Montagnard kids. First off, nobody else is up there but, you know, not a stitch on and they got these long sticks. And they’re like tapping the rice paddy dikes, like that. And what in the world are they doing? Now, I have seen the little kids before throw a ball into a minefield and have their dog go get the ball and they walk where the dog went. They want to go somewhere and this minefield is in the way. And these kids just grow up with that. (02:02:28) Veteran: And I was thinking, “Mines on the—but they’re too close with the stick…” and everything I could think of wasn’t making any sense. So, what are they doing? And I got in there �and I said something to the special forces that are on this base. And he says, “Oh, they’re hunting for rats.” I says, “They’re what?” He says, “They are hunting for rats.” And he says, “When a rat runs, if they stir up a rat in the rice paddy dike, they’ll beat it with that stick and they’ll pick it up and pull the skin apart at the inside of the back legs and they’ll eat it raw out there on the rice paddy dike. Won’t bring it back.” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He says, “No.” well, I remember another time, before this, I had been on the same base and I was at the mess hall and I am looking out the back door and these Montagnard kids are all standing back there. But they’re a good distance away from the mess hall where there is a walkway. And unlike the kids on the street corner here, they’re not grab assing and fooling around and joking and stuff, they’re just standing there like there is something really special to see at the mess hall. And I keep looking at them like what are they doing? So, finally I said something to the special forces guy in the mess hall. I says, “What’s with the kids? What’s going on?” “Oh, them? Here, I’ll show you.” He walks out the back of the mess hall with me and he said something to them in Montagnard and all you saw was butts and legs sticking out of trash cans. They were sitting there waiting for permission to get into the trash. My wife earlier was talking with us and I made the comment that while rioting through some of the Vietnamese villages and stuff where I went, I—on several occasions—I had my chauffer, for lack of a better term, keep asking me, “You got your watch?” “Yeah.” He’d say, “You got your watch?” “Yeah.” I finally asked him, I said, “What’s with this?” He said, “While you slow down, giving the kids candy,” he says, “they’ll take the watch off your arm.” I go, “Oh, okay.” (02:04:36) Veteran: The Montagnards were just the reverse. We could literally drive a jeep into the middle of one of their villages and leave it. I mean, we’d lose the gas can driving through these Vietnamese villages off the back of the jeep. They used to take the gas can off before we went �through and put it on the inside. Slow down, they’d take the gas can out of the jeep. Anyway, you drive one into a Montagnard village, you could leave it; come back a month later it’s sitting—they may have washed it and polished it. But it’s still sitting there and nothing is removed. You tell them they can have it and before you’re through talking, the thing will be totally disassembled and gone. They know it belongs to somebody. It ain’t theirs, they don’t touch it. I’ve seen them injured and there’s an American sitting next to them and it’s a monsoon and he’s shaking. And I’ve seen injured Montagnards lean up against the American to help keep him warm. Never asked. Never nothing. And they’re hurting. I’ve seen that—I’ve seen aircraft that, well, I mentioned going down to the la Drang Valley one day and I was the lead aircraft, a bunch of them behind me and they got raked with 50 caliber fire. And I followed them all over to the base and that. And we are trying to get guys that are injured off the aircraft and that and there is only…MASH is nice when everybody comes out but when you got 4 or 5 aircraft all trying to land and people on them and you’re trying to get them all off and…One Montagnard, his jaw was broken off. I mean, it’s hanging down like a waddle on a turkey. He ain’t even moaning. And he was more interested in trying to help a couple of his other brothers and…I don’t know. I just…Big difference. (02:06:29) Interviewer: Alright. Well, you’ve also got something in here about a particular boy being interested in your helicopter. Was that a Montagnard or Vietnamese? Veteran: It was a Montagnard kid and where he got a shirt from, I don’t know. And I’ve got a couple pictures of him and I had to crop them because from, you know, waist down he ain’t got a thing on but he’s got a little shirt with short sleeves. An he come out and he started off—he’d walk up to the edge of the helipad—and he’d just sit there and look at the aircraft. And a good share of the time when I went to that one, they wouldn’t have me go outside and that and I’d just �sit on the pad. So, I wouldn’t tie down the rotor blades, I wouldn’t do anything. And I’d normally have a book of scripture or a book I wanted to read in the lower part of my flight suit and I’d pull it out and I’d sit there and read a little bit. And this kid would come out and I’d be watching him because somebody is around the helipad. And I’d watch him. And the same kid and he’d come out and he’d just stand there and watch. Well, I’d come out and he’d just sit and look at the— he’d look at my tail rotor for an hour. I don’t know what…One day, I picked him up and I put him in the aircraft. And he’s sitting right there looking at everything and I put his hand on the stick. He’s looking all over. I never saw anybody with such excitement over so little. Just my— and I’ve got a picture of the boy. Like I said, I had to crop it because waist down, not a stich on, just a shirt. Bare feet, no hat, no nothing. Little ragamuffin. And I don’t know his name. don’t know whatever happened to him. Don’t even know if he survived through, you know, through the siege. (02:08:18) Interviewer: Okay. One other piece here. Let’s see, you—when I guess at Phù Cát or where there was an orphanage, there was also a prison camp? Veteran: Oh, in Pleiku. Interviewer: Oh, well that was in Pleiku. Okay. Veteran: There were a couple orphanages we worked with but there was one in Pleiku. And right next to the orphanage, there was a POW camp. And one night, they attacked the POW camp and tried to get their people freed. Nobody would leave. Couple nights later there was another attack except they mortared the POW camp and we were afraid because we were—you know, you’re at your base and you’re looking out and it’s a couple miles away and thought they were hitting the orphanage. We were afraid they were going to hit—well, when you play with mortars, you �always joke it’s one over, one under, and you bracket it and then you hit it. And it’s crazier than artillery because, well, all the mortars move around. And unless it’s danger close, you don’t normally start way out and walk it in. And they didn’t touch the orphanage. I don’t know how or why or if it was intentional or just flat dumb luck or…But they didn’t touch the orphanage. But that was strange. I mean, they attacked the POW camp, they got inside, and they couldn’t get their own people to run away. So much for prisoner of war camp and your ideas of ‘stuff like that.” They wouldn’t leave. Interviewer: And not necessarily dedicated to the communist revolution either at that point. (02:10:04) Veteran: I don’t know. I—you know, I mentioned earlier that since then I have taken a number of college classes and Far East history and other stuff. And I do believe that our government read the thing entirely wrong. I don’t think it had…Anyway, for the little guy fighting, you know, if you talk to the North and South, the old story is the Northern asks the Southern, “What are you fighting for?” because most of the guys from the South that fought in the Civil War, barefoot and poor, and they didn’t own any slaves. He says, “I am fighting for my rights.” He says, “I’m fighting because you’re down here.” And I think most of the Vietnamese didn’t understand what the war was about any more than the American—I didn’t. And I think most of them were fighting because of home or whatever. I know the Vietnamese that were fighting on the south side that were up where I am at were there predominantly because the judge gave them an opportunity to go to war or go to jail. And I know the ones that my brother-in-law fought with down in around Saigon, they lived down there and family and—we are talking full time soldiers yet, though. And he says they were very good and very—and the ones I was fighting with, you know, that I was dealing with for the most part up around Pleiku were not. Same war, same �people. I think most of the Vietnamese were fighting for unification and they wanted Vietnam together. One Vietnam. They didn’t want French rule, they didn’t want American rule. They didn’t want any help, they wanted self-rule. They wanted—this is our country, leave us alone. And I think that’s what they were—and I think that’s probably part of what went on here. You’re talking about being dedicated to communism? I don’t think they could tell you what a communist was, much less spell it. Interviewer: Right. Okay. Another note here that we have: King Bees and betel nut? Veteran: Well, that’s not all connected but… Interviewer: Two different things. Alright. Veteran: Yeah. We were talking about them not fighting and going out to the field and getting caught, in trouble and that. King Bees was a CH-34 which is—if you think of the old Marine helicopter you see in Vietnam—has a rotating motor down in the corner. It has rounded front piece down. Pilots were way above the cargo compartment. King Bees had 34s and they were Vietnamese. And on several occasions, we had run ins with King Bees and none of them were anything I would want to write home about. And I remember one night, they had—well, it was daytime when they went up—they went up and inserted Vietnamese. (02:12:42) Veteran: Along with our FO, our foreign observer. They put them in and they got into heavy contact and they needed to be extracted. And they were sending a bunch of Hueys up to extract them. And I was heading up that way and I am in my 58 and the Hueys are going up in formation to go out and try to get them out. The King Bees are coming down. And we got this common freq for artillery we talked about. So, they hailed King Bees and King Bees come back on the radio. And they says, “Hey, you’re people are in trouble. Where are you guys going?” “Oh, we �go home. Night time. We go home now.” Their people were in contact and we were going up to snatch South Vietnamese out and these guys are going home. Another time, they were down at Pleiku airbase and I mentioned how we had to cross the runway to get in and out of there, and there was a King Bee sitting on the VIP pad, right in front of the tower. And he called for departure instructions. The tower told him, “Hold flat pitch. C-130 on landing row.” And he says, “My country: I go now.” And he just picked up and went right across the runway. C-130 on—that was landing—he aborted his landing and gunned it and…You know, like a touch and go and went around again and came back. I am going, “Oh, you got to be kidding me.” (02:14:18) Veteran: It was just…Betel nut. You know what betel nut is? Interviewer: I do. Veteran: Yeah, very few people here do. I gather it was a bit addictive. Bit of a mild narcotic, like in Iraq, they have trouble with cot. There were a number in things in Vietnam that were easy to get. None of our guys played with betel nut but every once in a while, you’d get a Mamasan with some and she’d smile at you and her teeth would be all absolutely black. Betel nut would stain their teeth. And they’d chew betel nut and it’s just something that you never see here but if you’re seeing stuff about Vietnam, and you see a group, you’re going to get somebody in there that’s got all them black teeth. And that’s betel nut. That’s… Interviewer: Alright, that was just a…And then you’ve also got something in here about Mamasan and a tiger? Veteran: Yeah. I don’t even remember which base that was. Mamasan…Well, we talk about a housing shortage here that, you know…A big house may be 8-foot square for the Montagnards. �And they built them on stilts. And then you have a ladder you put down. And 8x8 probably was a multi-generational domicile. And one of Mamasan’s duties would be to bring in the ladder at night. And for whatever reason, Mamasan didn’t bring in the ladder. And in the middle of the night, a tiger walked up the ladder and bit Mamasan in the arm and actually bit the arm off. She took the arm out of the tiger’s mouth and pulled it away, beat the tiger off, pulled the ladder in. The next morning, walks 7 miles into a Montagnard village. (02:16:20) Interviewer: Wow. Veteran: Or, into special forces camp from her village. They had me med-evacc her to 71st evacc hospital. Couple days later, they asked me to pick her up and bring her back out to the Montagnard village and I did. She walked then back out to her village and sat there for most of the day. Nobody would talk to her. They thought she was an evil spirit. If you get a scratch in the jungle, like from a rose bush, in an hour it will be a pus trap. And I asked the doctor at 71st evacc hospital, I says, “How come she didn’t just flat bleed to death?” Interviewer: Yeah. Veteran: And he looked at me and he says, “You would. I would.” He says, “They don’t have any fat.” He says, “Her muscles all contracted and then acted like a tourniquet.” And they had to debris it and whatever and put—she walked, it was every other day or every third day, 7 miles back to the special forces camp to have her dressing changed and looked at. Interviewer: Wow. Veteran: And walked back to her village. But that…You talk about differences. You know, people today are complaining about Obamacare and healthcare, you see them parading it’s a right and stuff…I do genealogy and I can tell you that my parents started getting healthcare �because of the unions. And prior to that, nobody had insurance. Doctors did house calls. They did house calls when I was a kid. We have no concept how well we live, how well things are. I was sitting in a master’s class, economics, and the gentleman sitting next to me was a retired colonel. Army engineer. (02:18:17) Veteran: And somebody said something about poor in this country. And he and I said, “We don’t have any poor in this country.” 2/3 of the class was black and 2/3 of the class was female. And the class went ballistic. And the prof came back to the two of us and says, “Two of yous want to explain?” I says, “Yeah. Our poor has transportation. Our poor has housing with electricity, some of them have air conditioning, almost all of them have tvs, they have indoor plumbing, they have…You know, they may not have insurance, they can go to any emergency room to get healthcare.” I says, “They live better than the top 10% do in any third world country I have ever been in. We have relative poor: they’re poor relative to the rest of this. I’ll give you that. But poor? No.” Interviewer: Okay. Now, one other, actually, dimension of this sort of cultural difference and so forth. We talked about R and Rs. You had the one when you went to Japan. Where else did you go? Veteran: I went to the Philippines and that was in conjunction to something else too. And that was early in my stay in Vietnam. I’ve always had an interest in outdoor survival. Backpacking, I mountain climb. I cross country ski. But when I cross country ski, I take my day pack with me and I don’t come back for a couple days. They sent me to the Philippines to go through jungle environmental survival training at Subic Bay. By the way, it’s still there. (02:20:06) �Veteran: Subic Bay isn’t. and if you look up J.E.S.T.—J-E-S-T—Jungle Environmental Survival Training. The same Montagnards are running it. Not the same Montagnards—the same Negritos are running it in the same place. And doing the same thing for civilians and anybody that wants to go. And I found that fascinating. I was doing some research the other day on the computer but…We went there and 3 days and then my R and R followed that so, I don’t know, I ended up with somewhere between 8-10 days they cut my orders for because I had my 5 day R and R in conjunction with jungle school and travel and housing and everything else. So, I went there and that was interesting. We were told to bring $2.50 and we figured that was just for meals. Everybody I ran into was an officer that was going to the school and we got there. They had us meet in Subic Bay. Told us when and where. Got aboard a deuce and a half. They put down the side curtains. And they drove us—and you could tell by the road, they got out of the main base and we were on a gravel road and it wasn’t really well taken care of. And dust started to seep in a little bit. Got where we were going, there was this big Quonset hut and we got out and went in the Quonset hut. And we had really professional presentation for the morning and into part of the afternoon but we never had lunch. And then they finally said, “Anybody hungry?” Duh. So, they had us get back abord the deuce and a half, side curtains down, drove us off. Vehicle stopped and they call off 4 names. Now, I am real suspicious. Deuce and a half is full. Why do they only want 4 of us? They’re going to feed us, right? So, the 4 of us get out and the deuce and a half leaves. And we are looking around and it’s a triple canopy jungle and there’s just this two track. And as the truck finally clears, here is standing a little native. (02:22:21) Veteran: And he’s got 4 bolo machetes in a wooden sheath with about 6-feet of parachute cord on it. And he said, “$2.50, please.” Okay, we cough up $2.50. He shows us how to tie it around our waist and it hangs real nice on one side. He draws his, cuts a piece of dry bamboo, splits it �down, puts a little V in it, takes another piece and starts playing it like a violin. He starts a fire. And he’s got a green joint of bamboo, splits that one off, puts a bamboo leaf over top, takes some rice out of his pocket and puts it in the joint, bamboo leaf, puts it in the fire. In about 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes at the most that we are all—from the time we are dropped off—he’s taking another piece of bamboo and splitting it lengthwise and bamboo has these joints in it, you know, and he’s splitting it sideways and it made like a little trough. And he’s opening up this thing and he’s putting some rice and other stuff and he goes…So, we sit down there and we are eating. Don’t know what we are eating. Rice I know, the rest I don’t know. So, we are eating. And when we get through eating, he goes like this and he says…Then he speaks, guy actually can speak and he speaks English. He says, “What you see?” Well…You know, pilots aren’t usually off heo farm. So, he gets—we are in sambo country. We are in tiger country. He gets some strange answers. And then he looks at us and he points again and he says, “Look again. You stand in world’s largest grocery store. Only reason man starve out here is no read packaging labels.” And for the next three and a half days, everything we wanted was prepared. (02:24:14) Veteran: Everything. We had…At one point—well, the first day, he’s showing us medicine. Second day, he’s showing us water. I got that out of order: first day was medicine or water, second day was plants, third day he is showing us how to catch animals. And then the next day we were picked up early in the morning and taken back to base. And culture differences again. I mean, when we are doing the animals, he’s upset with us that we want to catch them by the neck; they’ll be dead. He says, “Catch them by the leg. Tie them with a string. Give them water. Eat them when you’re ready. Otherwise, famine or feast.” He says, “Dumb. Dumb.” First day, he’s showing us where to find water and medicine. One of the guys picked up a piece of bamboo and he struck it with his machete and it split. And the edge of bamboo, when it splits like that is very �sharp. And he laid the palm of his hand wide open. Well, I am a wilderness EMT and I am looking at that and I am thinking how many stitches. And like I said, a scratch is a pus track. And I am figuring this guy is out of here. Ain’t no way he’s going to perform for the next couple days in the jungle with us with a cut in his palm like that. And I mean, it is clear through the skin. I mean it is a good cut. The Negrito goes over to a little tree and uses the knife down by the hilt and just scrapes it and ends up with what looks like kind of a Brillo pad. Puts it in his hand and says, “Hold it.” And he goes over and he pulls some leaves off another one and it milks up on the end like a milkweed. Takes that little Brillo pad out and he paints it with the sap. I noticed by this time the wound is over ¾ of the way closed. Puts the bark back. He says, “Hold it.” It never opened up, it never got infected. When we got back to base, I went with this guy over to the H station and they’re looking at it, says, “What’s the crap you got in there?” Because by now it is scabbed over some and that. And he says, “Well I don’t know. Negritos did that.” “Oh, you’re with the J.E.S.T. program?” “Yeah.” “They paint it with that white stuff?” We says, “Yeah.” He says, “You know, we are testing that stuff in the lab back here. It’s got the same medicinal effects as iodine. We are trying to figure out how much to use to purify water.” We are going, “What??” (02:26:45) Veteran: He says, “Don’t know what to do with it.” He says, “If it opens up, come back. Anything we do now would be secondary injury.” He says, “it’s closed. It ain’t going to open.” I am going whoa…Okay. Last night we were out, the Negrito got together somehow out there in the middle of nowhere—of course, these guys…I mean, they grew up out there. This is their thing. Come to find out, the guys we were with have got college degrees. But you know, you wouldn’t—I mean, they were wearing fatigues. Jungle fatigues. A couple of them had some sort of footwear on. Some of them were barefoot. If they had anything on their back, it was smaller �than a bookbag. And their machete. And I mean, we went—we didn’t go without anything. I mean, at one point the guys were swimming in a bend in the river and they were commenting how yeah they weren’t dirty but they felt sticky and what…Negrito goes over and he cuts this vine and it was all twisted. And he says, “Get a rock and pound it flat.” So, we get two rocks, pound this thing flat. He says, “Go wash like washrag.” He did the right—and it lathered up like it was detergent. Washed with it, couldn’t—this is wild. Getting all clean. Just…So, the last night all these guys kind of start getting together. And everybody that’s in the class ended up in the same campground. And we found out top of the hill right there is where the deuce and a half had a road again. We went out the next day. (02:28:22) Veteran: But that night, we all got together and they said, “You know, we know you are going back to combat. Anything you guys want to know?” And we says, “Well, yeah. Anything you can’t get for us here?” I mean, we are mesmerized. I mean, the stuff in medicine, where to find water…I mean, they were showing us a number of plants that all we had to do was cut them and water ran out of them. And it’s purified. We were just mesmerized with everything that was going on. And you can’t absorb it fast enough. But a lot of it’s the same. I mean, if you see a dandelion here, it’s a dandelion there. It may be bigger but it’s still a dandelion. So, some of this stuff washes over. And some of that I picked up real easy. Well, we are sitting around this campfire and ask him these things and he says, “Two things no can get.” We says, “Okay.” “No San Miguel tree.” Well, San Miguel is Philippine beer. He is talking about no Coors, no Budweiser, no Falstaff, you know. “No San Miguel tree. And no sex tree.” But other than that, anything and everything we wanted out there. I mean, it was just unbelievable the stuff that if I sit and think about, I’ll think of some more examples of stuff they come up with. But it was just…We wanted for literally nothing. Matter of fact, it was strange. I woke up the morning they �were going to take us out. We had learned to take a piece of bamboo and you hit it with your machete to the outside. You pull that little piece of wood out. Bamboo joints about a third full of water and it’s already purified. And we’d put some fresh water prawns in there and we would put some palm heart in there and some other things and then you put this piece of wood back in, upside down. And you put it in the fire. It acts like a pressure cooker. (02:30:15) Veteran: The water only gets so hot. The little piece of wood comes up and you see some steam come out. And when steam don’t come out anymore, you know everything that is in there is cooked. And I had one of these I had saved. And I woke up and it had rained real hard the night before and we were starting to get into the monsoons. And I had a rock that was probably 5 foot high. And we were near a crick and the crick had come up and completely surrounded my rock but it hadn’t gotten up to the top of me. And I had slept with my legs drawn up in my chest with my poncho over me and I had this joint. When I woke up in the morning, I hit that joint. I flipped it on the side and I am eating a little rice and palm heart and some prawns and thinking life just don’t get any better than this. And they took us back to base and then I realized this is Thanksgiving. So, we went and showered because we had been, you know, several days in the same clothes and that. Showered and changed clothes and went down to the BOQ. And they had table after table after table laid out with roast beef and ham and turkey and chicken and everything you could think of laid out. And I went through and the contrast, again. Talking about poor and talking about the way we live and…Matter of fact, just recently I was listening to a documentary and the guy was making the comment, and I never thought about it at the time and I never thought about it causing a problem, but he says part of the problem our troops had with the Vietnamese that we were working with was the difference in life standards in our culture. And this idea of poor and the way we lived and our housing and their housing and what we ate and �the way they ate. And coming back out of the field and thinking I was living like a king and then walking back for…And a Fourth of July don’t go by that I don’t think about the way the Montagnards lived and the way the Negritos lived and the way the Vietnamese lived. And just so thankful that this country—and we have so much excess that we don’t even think it’s excess. I mean, it just… (02:32:32) Interviewer: Alright. Now, did you have another R and R in there? Or actually, before we get to that actually—so, you go back, you’re at Subic Bay, you have Thanksgiving dinner and so forth but did you then have a few days at Subic Bay before you left? Or…? Veteran: Actually, we flew into Clark. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: And then we were overland to Subic. That was a shocking experience too. You’ve been in the military long enough, especially in combat, you learn to sleep whenever you get a chance to sleep and you learn to eat even if you’re not hungry, even when there is a chance to eat, because we don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know when you’re going to be able to get the next meal or drink of water or whatever. And it was night and we got aboard this bus. Army bus, typical gray-blue kind of looking thing. And they’re going to take us to the next place and of course this is the Philippines and we came out of Vietnam so we don’t have our guns. We don’t have our survival vests. We don’t have anything like that. And you got whatever you’re traveling with, whether it’s a B-4 bag or small duffel or whatever you’re traveling with. And we get aboard the bus and we are traveling and I am asleep. And the bus comes to a stop and I thought oh, we are where we are going. And I look up and there’s guys coming on the bus in �some sort of military uniform. And if I remember right, it was a grayish blue uniform. It wasn’t one of ours. Automatic weapons. And I am feeling for my sidearm. (02:34:07) Veteran: We were at a checkpoint and they vary them and move them around but the Philippines were having trouble with Huks at the time. And they were coming aboard to make sure that these were all Americans on and this hadn’t been a hijacked bus and there weren’t Huks aboard the bus. And they just kind of walked down, looked around, and walked off and we were on our way. But that was a few tense—and I could see it in the eyes of some of the other guys that were there on the bus too. Now, whether they were out of Vietnam or where they were, I don’t know. But yeah, that was different. Yeah, I had 5 days. Subic Bay was interesting. They had a great big officers club and it was divided: sort of an upstairs, downstairs thing. And the upstairs is very formal and it was very semi-circular and it kept going down steps like you have at somebody’s home for a fire place. But everything in front of you is glass and you can see the whole bay. And there was a carrier group in there at that time, amongst other things, and you could see them all out in the bay. And the lights are down so the outside is lit up and all the way at the bottom of this set up—now, these are all tables on these tiers. And at the bottom is a dance floor and a piano and a singer comes out from time to time. And several of us guys would go down close to the piano and sit down there. And we’d request songs. And that was strange. People just weren’t doing that. And we finally got a glass and out it on the piano and started stuffing bills in it. That was strange; nobody was doing that. And we asked the gal there to sing a couple songs. She didn’t know them. And the last night we were there, she knew it was going to be our last night. She got her girlfriend to come over from the NCO club to sing the songs we’d requested that she didn’t know. (02:36:17) �Veteran: And then she said that she wanted to do a dedication and that her brothers were leaving, referring to us. And she started to try and sing her song and got partway through, had to put the mic down. She couldn’t finish. She turned around and collected herself and turned around and tried 3 times. And then just walked away. We never got that response home. Never got it anywhere. But there…I mentioned you had the upstairs/downstairs. And if you went outside and you went down below, this was on the side of a hill, down below they had a stag bar. And just the opposite, there was no glass. It had a quarter inch hardware cloth on the wall and then mosquito netting on the outside of the hardware cloth. And you walk inside and I think there were two tables and I don’t remember how many stools but there couldn’t have been more than 4 stools in the entire place. But there were a couple tables and they were pillar type where you stand up by. And a bar. And down there there was a big open patio and there was a swimming pool out there. And at night nobody was using the swimming pool but there were tracks that came from that bar, went across that patio and went to the swimming pool. And inside they had ‘last chance’—big plaque on the wall—‘last chance’ and there were names on it. And they had this car and it was inside the bar and they’d open this door, slide the curtains back, whatever, and in this car kind of looked like a bullet pointed on both ends. And you could sit in the car and there was this seat and they had a lever and when you pulled the lever, it dropped a hook. And just before the pool there was a cable. And on both sides of the cable, there was a ramp coming up to that cable. (02:38:32) Veteran: You get in the car and they would pump up the air pressure and when the guage read a certain point they would say, “You ready?” “Ready.” They’d fire the car and they’d go down the track and you could drop the hook to catch the cable and if you didn’t, you went in the swimming pool. �Interviewer: Alright, so I guess that answers the question what do you do in Subic Bay if you’re not getting yourself in trouble. Veteran: Well, at that time we had more Army aviators on the ‘last chance’ plaque than the Navy did. So, it was funny. I went out with the guys one night and they wanted me to go into town with them and I knew what they were thinking and I wasn’t really excited. They conned me into going into town and I went into town, we went to a bar. Of course, the girls descend on you then. And “Baby, you’re nice, I like you, I don’t want to marry you.” I don’t know if it was resonating but then somebody else came in the bar and she didn’t really want to be with him but he was buying her drinks. The two guys that were with me, the two gals that were with them, I says, “What’s the deal?” And they said, “Oh, he weirdo. He likes to hurt girls. He burns them with cigarettes and stuff.” And I says, “What?! Well, why doesn’t she just leave him alone?” “Oh, he buys her drinks. She’s got to stay with him.” “What?” “Well, that’s the bar rules. It’s the way things go.” Now, she wasn’t really getting a drink, she was getting tea. (02:40:05) Veteran: It looks like a drink but it is not, you know. And I got to check my drinks because I can order an orange juice and I’ll get a screwdriver. And I got to be real careful what I am getting because I don’t drink. And you tell them what you want but you don’t get it. And so finally I just said, “2” and the bartender looks at me, “2 drinks for her.” So, she had to come over and sit with me. And I kept buying her drinks until he left. And then I just told her, “Sorry babe. You know, I am not interested.” Well, they stayed there until the bar closed and the girls left with us and we are walking down the street and these guys want to take these 2 gals to the hotel and ain’t interested. These two ain’t going to go unless she goes. “Guys…Come on, you’re digging me in. I don’t want this trash.” So, we end up at the hotel. I tried getting two rooms. Can’t get two rooms so I get one room with two beds. Told her, “You stay there, me stay here. Savvy?” She �woke me up in the morning and I run her out. The following day, early in the morning, the room in my BOQ opens up. My maid is letting her in. She just sits there in the chair, watching me. And I am not indicating I am awake, I am just…Finally, I says, “What do you think you are doing?” And she apologizes to me and I didn’t get my money’s worth and she feels bad. And I am going, “What??” And I figured somebody is going to try and take me for a ride. But she ends up being a number one, genuine article. So, I used her for 2 or 3 days. She arranged to pay Mamasan so she is mine, she doesn’t go to work, she doesn’t go anywhere. And she was my guide around Subic Bay. (02:42:23) Veteran: And outside Subic, if you go up to the base, they’d have places where they had felt canvases out where you could buy carvings, you could buy stuff like that. I made some comment to her one time I wanted to buy one of them. She says, “No you don’t.” She says, “They’re crooks. I take you.” So, she got one of the jitneys and the jitney is a jeep over there and they decorate them with all sorts of big reflectors and lights and all kinds of stuff and use them like taxis. And she gets this jitney and she speaks—I don’t know what the language is—but it is not Spanish. And she is speaking to the driver and he takes me somewhere on the way back roads, I don’t know where the devil I am. And I am looking around going okay, so far she is being good to me and I trust her…And she goes in this place. And for five bucks, I bought a carving of the last supper that is this big, in multiple woods. I walked out of there wit three oil paintings and I paid five bucks. Couldn’t believe it. Another night I told her, I says, “Let’s go eat and dance somewhere.” Well, she is thinking I want to take ger back to the officer’s club. Well, they ain’t going to let her in. And so, she says, “I know the place.” And she took me some place again and it’s downstairs. And it’s like old caverns, like you think of in France and that, you know. And I am going oh, shit. And I get in there and we had surf and turf and I don’t remember what else. I �didn’t even spend $7. And I mean, it was just that way. And one day I says to her, I says, “I want to see where you live.” She looks at me funny like. I says, “You tell me you got a child.” I says, “I want to meet your family.” And she looked at me and she started to cry. She says, “I no have family.” I says, “What?” “I no have family.” She says she was a maid on the base and she…there was this specialist there, E-4 that she fell for and he said, “If you love me, you’re going to go to bed with me.” And she believed that he wanted to marry her and… (02:44:47) Veteran: She ended up with a child. And he left and went back to the states and she got left. Her family—real strict, religious—disowned her. Her daddy literally put a stone in the cemetery for her. She ain’t alive. She had this jitney take me and I don’t know where we went but it ended up being 3 or 4 floors and it’s the kind of thing you see on travel logs where you see all the balconies and all the laundry hung from side to side and all over. And we get there and the driver says something to her. And she starts a fight with the driver. And I am ready to crawl under anything to get out of the way. People are coming out on the balconies, they’re coming out on the street. I mean, they are like lining up 5 to 10 deep around this jitney and I am thinking uh-oh. I am in big trouble now, you know. And I have no clue what is going on. And she and he are in a heated yelling match. Finally, she throws some coins at him and at that point, everybody around us and in the balconies just start applauding. And her name was Amy. And I said to Amy, I says, “What’s going on?” “He tried to charge you way much. He crook. I call him crook. He insist I pay or he call police. I told him, call the Army, she didn’t care.” And she had it out with him because, you know, people over there they haggle for everything. (02:46:30) Veteran: And the Americans, the way we are, like at the front gate: I’d have paid probably somewhere between $40-$50 for the stuff I got for $5. “No,” she says, “He got paid fair. He got paid tip. Too much. Him crook.” I go whoa. And I went in this apartment complex and she had a, �I don’t know, 1 or 2-year old. And she was living with 2-3 other girls so they could afford the rent. And that was her life. And she is another person I have often wondered about what happened because Clark Air Force base the volcano took over. And then Subic we pulled out of and there is nothing there. And she has no family. She has no…And are people going to reprisal against her? I wonder about our maids in Pleiku. There was a reprisal against them because they worked for the Americans. I don’t know. Interviewer: Alright. Now, we have been running here for about 3 hours. So, I— Veteran: Do you want me to do it again? Interviewer: Well, you have other—I think what I would like to do here…I mean, we have actually worked pretty well through the list of things that we had out of Vietnam between the first session and this one. We have covered a wide range of experience and things that you had out there. And then you also mentioned that when you finally got short, your commander basically wouldn’t even let you fly. So, you had a kind of quiet time there. Veteran: Well, I think he was worried. I mean, I had done a tour and a half back to back, in country. And everybody else is there for a year, whatever. Special forces do a 6-month tour. They usually do 6-months and rotate it out and then come back and do 6-months and rotate it out. I’d been there for 18 and I had been made the executive officer of the aviation company and making all the briefings. I don’t know if he knew I flew the little girl to the Montagnard village. I don’t care if he does or not. (02:48:47) Veteran: I know he doesn’t know I snapped the LRRP patrol out. They knew something. Because I brought in and showed you they gave me the award of the Red Banana. Doesn’t mean anything to anybody before or after and nobody else will probably know. But artillery colors are �red and bananas grow predominantly in the highlands. And they had come up with this award they gave once a month from the group headquarters to the officer that they thought was the most valuable player. Like a VIP award. And they always gave it to an artillery rated officer. I am a warrant, I am not an artillery rated officer. I am not in the artillery branch. They gave it to me. I mean, I went up to the old man’s briefing like I did every morning and there were times when they gave away—gave away? Good term. They presented medals. And I have a drawer full of them because my mother rescued them out of the trash. And I don’t think anything of any of them I have got. Not a one. The award of the Red Banana? I had no clue it was coming. I had no idea what was going on. Again, it was a typical—everybody stand up, attention to orders, and he started reading it and they ordered me to the front. I had no clue. I think I was awarded it in November. I would have to look at it. (02:50:24) Veteran: But it means something. Those were the guys I worked with. Those were the guys I was accounting to, I guess. But again, it is strange because my sidekick that I mountain climb and backpack and go deer hunting with and that, he served with the First cavalry Division. And he goes to their reunions. And he says to me, “You want to join the Vietnam Helicopters Association?” “I didn’t work with those guys.” Do I go to 52nd Arty groups—or First Field Forces groups? I didn’t really work with them. I mean, I might fly a guy once and never see him again. Some of the commanders I might fly once, twice, three times a week. They might have been there 3-4 months and then they are gone. Because you got that rotation thing going on. I did come home from deer hunting one year and my wife says, “We have got a strange phone call.” Well, I was law enforcement. The only thing I could think of at the time was oh…Time to keep the scatter gun loaded and, you know, make sure the dogs taken care of. And she says, “No, no.” She says, “Told me to tell you it was Sundown 13-Alpha.” And I looked at her and I says, �“Who?” Couldn’t believe my ears. Our mechanics decided to add alpha to the end of our call signs. (02:52:04) Veteran: This was my mechanic. My mechanic again was a misfit. I guess that’s what I was. He…A little heavy. Really nice guy, real nice personality. Just didn’t fit with the other guys and he was the one they’d pick on. And—well, I’d pick on him too but he knew, you know…I mean like, we’d fly. Later on, we got some flight suits that were two-piece. They were like tanker uniforms so you had a tunic and a pair of pants. And we would tuck them in because if you didn’t and you got an aircraft fire, it acted like an entry and it would pull the fire up. And they were teasing him one night about being gay and stuff and I got to the door and I said, “Hey Mick: goodnight.” And you know, talking around. But Mick Wilson and I got along well and he became my mechanic. And I don’t care. I mean, my faith—I’ll talk about gays a minute—my faith, if you’re gay, that’s your problem. That’s the way I look at it. And I think it is. I think you got enough problems of your own. And as long as you’re not predatory and I think that your sexual conquests with the ladies or with your wife or with some other partner is your business and ought to stay your business and doesn’t belong in public. So, I don’t care. None of my business. And I tried to teach Mick to fly. That boy couldn’t get the hang of it. He tried killing me more than the Viet Cong did. And he told my wife, he says, “I extended a stay in Vietnam because your husband was the only one that would let me fly.” And Mick extended his stay—I found out about this after he did it—he extended to stay in Vietnam 6-months because I did. I went to Mick, I said, “What did you just do? It’s dumb!” I mean, he wasn’t going to get sent back that we knew of. Matter of fact, they sent him to Germany when he left there. He never did go back to Vietnam. (02:54:32) �Veteran: I said, “You don’t extend because I do! You don’t live your life the way I do because I am doing it. You’re doing it for you. You do what fits your bill. You do what floats your boat. You don’t…” You know. That bothered me for a while. When I went down to see him in Cleveland, I had talked to him on the phone, we got back together. This was 40 years later. Went down to Cleveland. He’s total disability. He had to get his—he took privately his own fat samples and sent them to a lab to have them analyzed. And he was heavily exposed to Agent Orange. He later went back by the Freedom of Information Act and got verified: they sprayed the hill in Pleiku that we lived on, 6 times while we were there. Forget the free fire zones where nothing grows for 1000 yards where they’d kill it with something. And we’re landing in that. You know, I knew I was exposed. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell me that some reason something isn’t growing out there in a triple canopy jungle. Spray the hill we lived on? I can remember when they did it. It had a sort of a uriney…I don’t know how to explain the smell. And I can remember them spraying and I thought they were spraying for mosquitoes. It just sort of fit. I mean, rice paddies all around our base. And I thought maybe they were spraying for mosquitoes. And they sprayed our hill for some—I have no clue why. To this day, I don’t know why. It doesn’t make any sense. Sounds like I am lying to you. He found in the Freedom of— they sprayed the hill 6 times while we were there. (02:56:23) Interviewer: Alright. Veteran: And yet they’re asking him, “Do you think you were exposed?” Interviewer: Yeah. Alright. We are going to rewind back around here. So, you kind of got…So then, was he there the full time you were there? Or did they send him off after you left? �Veteran: Almost all the time I was there. I don’t recall him not being there. Interviewer: Okay. Veteran: I don’t recall me being there before he was or he being there after…Or me going—you know—he going home and then I go home later. I know he extended after I did so I think he stayed another month. Interviewer: Alright. Veteran: But I can tell you what: he could check out the hitches on both sides of the runway. Because we’d start hovering and he’d end up on both sides of the runway before I took the aircraft away from him. He had fun. Interviewer: Alright. I think we are probably at this point kind of getting to—this is about as far as I can go effectively. I think we are going to close this off here. And if we’ve got more to cover then we get to do another session. Veteran: Well, I will talk with my wife and we will see if she comes up with something. You know, so much of it…I don’t know. I don’t live in the past. I live today. When I was on the police department, there were some guys who their whole life was when they were in high school and played football. And Vietnam was the time that I wouldn’t trade it for a million bucks. You couldn’t get me to do it again for anything. When I came home and I went to the VFW, I was there about the third time and some guy made the crack, “You’re the guys that can’t win the war.” And I grabbed him and bent him over the bar backwards. Told him he was a dumb SOB and I told him, I said, “If we are told to attack, you charge. If you’re told to retreat, you back up. You’re told to sit and hold the ground to the last man, you sit and hold the ground to the �last man. We ain’t ever lost a major battle. Politicians giving the damn war away and you’re blaming us?” And I walked out. Never been back. (02:58:32) Veteran: I went to a pow wow—I went to a pow-wow and it was in conjunction with Purple Heart Association up in White Cloud. And I know a bunch of them. My wife, while I was serving in Vietnam, was serving with Vista and she was helping to organize the American Travel Council. So, we have connections on both sides. We had taken our kids at one time up to Big Bay for a pow wow. Big Bay is north of Marquette and the road literally ends at Big Bay. And before they started the pow-wow. I am going to get choked up. They got on their PA system and they asked for all veterans to please come to the PA. Still small pow-wow. There were more of us European mongrels than Native Americans there. Short while, they came back on the PA and they said, “I didn’t ask for just Native American veterans. I know there is more veterans here. I want all the veterans to come over here.” So, I went over there. They gave me the American flag, gave us some tobacco, told us about their ceremony and why. We went out and danced around and I thought good, this is done. He then asked us to stop and face the outside of the circle. (03:00:22) Veteran: He told them we were the modern-day warriors. We were the ones that protected their freedom and their right to worship, have their pow-wows, they were wanting to thank us that much. Wanted to come out, shake our hands. They also had everybody come out. It would have been easier to fly into a hot LZ. I stood there, just…Solemnly crying. This pow-wow they did almost the same thing except they didn’t have everybody come out and shake our hand. Which is good because I couldn’t have taken it. The guy from the VFW up there was out parading with us and he was in TW stuff: light tan uniform that’s a twill—a tight weave. And I told him it was an impressive uniform. I asked him about it. He says he was with the VFW up there. And I says— �and I grew up running around through White Cloud, Fremont, Newaygo. I went to school at Ferris. I live in Muskegon. So, I dated—matter of fact, the girl I was engaged to lived in White Cloud. That’s how I ended up getting in the service. And he invited me and he told me that they met at the Senior Citizens—I don’t know what you call it—building? So, I went the first Monday of the month there and they were like 12 guys. (03:02:28) Veteran: And their talk, first thing when they got into new business, anybody needs help, they had read the statement from the VFW that we are here to support the troops, to support our vets, to support our widows and our orphans. Does anybody need help? You know, I know from being a medic and being a police officer and served in the military, they are not going to ask for help. And these guys are going down the list of people they know in their own community. There’s like 12 of them and they come up with 6 people that really need help and their group is going to be helping them. And this VFW is meeting and there is no bar. You don’t need a gas mask. There’s a couple of them that are smoking but I mean you don’t need a gas mask. They meet once a month to take care of their own and look after the rest. And this isn’t a bunch sharing old war stories or puffing chests or…Matter of fact, a bunch of them go looking to find out. And I daren’t say half of that group are Purple Hearts. Found a group I can join. Interviewer: Alright. I think that probably gives us a good spot to close this session off. So, again, thank you very much. You have had just a tremendous amount of material to share. And I hope we can arrange to get more of it in the future. But, thank you. Veteran: You’re welcome. (03:04:14) �� 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_AnthonyF2140V2 Title A name given to the resource Anthony, Frank (Interview transcript and video, 2 of 2), 2017 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-06-29 Description An account of the resource Frank Anthony was born in Muskegon, Michigan on February 6th, 1947. He attended college at Ferris State University after graduating from high school in 1965. He joined the military in 1967 and attended basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky in May of the same year. He then did advanced infantry training (AIT) at Fort McClellan, Alabama. After completing AIT, he continued on to the Non-Commissioned Officer Academy and became a Warrant Officer. Frank also attended ranger/special forces training at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was participating in long-range recon school when his request to go to flight school was accepted. He went to flight school in 1968, which lasted for 9 months. He arrived in Vietnam in the middle of 1969. In Vietnam, he was the Safety Officer for a short period of time before becoming the Executive Officer of the Aviation Company, all the while working as a helicopter pilot. He was a part of the 52nd artillery division located in Pleiku, Vietnam. He flew a variety of helicopters while stationed in Vietnam. Frank was involved in several different skirmishes during his time in Vietnam, including the incursion into Cambodia. Frank also participated in jungle environmental survival training in Subic Bay, Philippines while on R and R. He completed a tour and a half before he left Vietnam on December 23rd, 1970. While in the military, Frank received numerous awards, including the award of the Red Banana. After leaving the service, Frank worked in law enforcement for many years. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Anthony, Frank A. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Veterans History Project collection, RHC-27 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401. Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/993ab862ab61fda60146dd6b2ee8dfc4.jpg 7896f771d83c4fbe205618d32cb19393 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 Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s 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. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1990s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> 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 GV012-01_UAPhotos_000625 Title A name given to the resource Anthropology students with Professor Jan Brashler Description An account of the resource Anthropology students with Professor Jan Brashler. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Students Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives color photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/402e3d0311cabae92fd36b80f0fe92f7.jpg fe76970ce4601dd76eb64e1e99a189ac 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 Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s 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. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1970s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> 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 GV012-01_UAPhotos_000040 Title A name given to the resource Anti-Vietnam War demonstrators Description An account of the resource Anti-Vietnam War demonstrators. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Students Events Student movements Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3ec4f4e5e779e21dd14e8eaa6962e40c.jpg 01abb21c011f1c0aec6984355504a857 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 Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s 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. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1970s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> 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 GV012-01_UAPhotos_000799 Title A name given to the resource Anti-Vietnam War demonstrators Description An account of the resource Anti-Vietnam War demonstrators. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Students Events Student movements Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d48f8f232660e8baf2cf7668cc714e1a.jpg 519c5e7c1c2c439ad74e7bf22336c790 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 Robert H. Merrill photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909/1950 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-222 Description An account of the resource Photographs, negatives, and lantern slides digitized from the papers of engineer and archaeologist Robert H. Merrill. A Grand Rapids native, Merrill held an accomplished career as a civil engineer. He founded the company Spooner & Merrill, which held offices in Grand Rapids and Chicago. From 1919-1921, Merrill lived in China, working as Assistant Principal Engineer on a reconstruction of the Grand Canal - the oldest and longest canal system in the world. Merrill became fascinated by archaeology, and among other projects, he traveled to the Uxmal Pyramids in Yucatan, Mexico, with a research expedition from Tulane University. Merrill's photo collection includes images of his travels and projects, friends and family. 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 Merrill_EastmanAlbum_3_1911-1915_037 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1913-08-04 Title A name given to the resource Anticline rocks looking north Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of anticline rocks near Ontario, Canada. Taken by Robert Merrill, looking north across water. Water damage is visible on the image, which was scanned from the negative. Subject The topic of the resource Ontario Rock formations Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) 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/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 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/47a96b1726032d97f0e954f68fa3d942.jpg 1c8d019be7ecfea53ce9cbc96a404c79 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 Naval Recognition Training Slides Subject The topic of the resource Slides Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Description An account of the resource Slides developed during World War II as a training tool, for top-side battle-station personnel on board ship and for all aircraft personnel, by the US Navy. In 1942 a Recognition School was established by the Navy at Ohio State University where the method of identification was developed. In 1943 the school was taken over by the US Navy. The importance of training in visual recognition of ships and aircraft became even more evident during World War II. Mistakes resulting in costly errors and loss of life led to an increased emphasis on recognition as a vital skill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides (RHC-50)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1943-1953 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. Source <a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides, RHC-50</a> 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-50_X651 Title A name given to the resource Antietam, small aircraft carrier Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Description An account of the resource Antietam, US CVS (small aircraft carrier), September 1, 1953. Subject The topic of the resource United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945 Military education Warships--Recognition Slides Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Naval recognition slides (RHC-50) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-09-01 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/518cf3c182d188f8e1b9e03aed8a9c56.jpg 5863b29efc7c31729e0f217f09716126 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 Naval Recognition Training Slides Subject The topic of the resource Slides Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Description An account of the resource Slides developed during World War II as a training tool, for top-side battle-station personnel on board ship and for all aircraft personnel, by the US Navy. In 1942 a Recognition School was established by the Navy at Ohio State University where the method of identification was developed. In 1943 the school was taken over by the US Navy. The importance of training in visual recognition of ships and aircraft became even more evident during World War II. Mistakes resulting in costly errors and loss of life led to an increased emphasis on recognition as a vital skill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides (RHC-50)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1943-1953 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. Source <a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides, RHC-50</a> 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-50_X652 Title A name given to the resource Antietam, small aircraft carrier Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Description An account of the resource Antietam, US CVS (small aircraft carrier), September 1, 1953. Subject The topic of the resource United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945 Military education Warships--Recognition Slides Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Naval recognition slides (RHC-50) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-09-01 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/d116384ad29ae74423a7793bc3302511.jpg 492bbdc0894c21c1f205614a063f3b70 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 Naval Recognition Training Slides Subject The topic of the resource Slides Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Description An account of the resource Slides developed during World War II as a training tool, for top-side battle-station personnel on board ship and for all aircraft personnel, by the US Navy. In 1942 a Recognition School was established by the Navy at Ohio State University where the method of identification was developed. In 1943 the school was taken over by the US Navy. The importance of training in visual recognition of ships and aircraft became even more evident during World War II. Mistakes resulting in costly errors and loss of life led to an increased emphasis on recognition as a vital skill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides (RHC-50)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1943-1953 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. Source <a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides, RHC-50</a> 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-50_X662 Title A name given to the resource Antietam, small aircraft carrier Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Description An account of the resource Antietam, US CVS (small aircraft carrier), September 1, 1953. Subject The topic of the resource United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945 Military education Warships--Recognition Slides Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Naval recognition slides (RHC-50) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-09-01 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/a7e0161e2637d58c1274e969cbf0c6ae.jpg c55e65a031a729bd365103c7bc7cb7bd https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5f49b7cbddaca4598ca632c260269eb1.jpg 3dab3be925492ae43e51ba59ba113fc1 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 Insel-Bücherei Series Description An account of the resource The German publishing company Insel Verlag was founded in 1899 by Anton Kippenberg in Leipzig. In its early years the firm only printed expensive, beautifully-produced volumes, until demand led to the publication of the more modest Insel-Bücherei series in 1912. Relatively inexpensive but with the same careful sense of design and typography, these smaller-format books reprinted shorter works from a variety of German, European, and world authors. The series numbers considerably more than a thousand titles and is still being issued. The Digital Collection contains the scanned covers of 140 titles held by Grand Valley State University Libraries. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1904-1987 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection 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 Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-05 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource ger Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-09-29 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 DC-05_IB0027 Title A name given to the resource Antigone: eine Tragödie des Sophokles Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing 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 Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1912 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-09-29 Description An account of the resource Cover of Antigone: eine Tragödie des Sophokles, by Sophocles, published by Insel-Verlag, 1912. Insel-Bücherei Nr. 27 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books. Insel-Bücherei. Z315.I5 B83 no.27 Language A language of the resource de 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/ef68fcb81f3359095228e61c5ac0000b.jpg 67c202c3addd8cff14d2bad65c78b1d9 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 Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history 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 DC-06_Oceana_Peterson_Marge-007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1936 Title A name given to the resource Anton and Abba Field preparing for trip to Mexico City Description An account of the resource Photo of Anton (right) and Abba (left) Field preparing to leave for a trip to Mexico City. (Anton's father was S. O. Field.) A sweet cherry tree is pictured in the background. A copy of their travel journal from that trip was also donated and scanned as part of this collection. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Peterson, Marjorie (Field) Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers 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/2e2dfa8741f6d3fd64cf1a533b06979f.m4v 8686b85f2792c71f2bf8fb91659b004c https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/48b72adeafa7b1332a18447966d0f79e.pdf 3d2b89cde3ed4ec785c3ec130a9bd17d PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Gust Anton Korean War 1 hour 1 minute 24 seconds (00:00:12) Early Life -Born in Chicago on December 17, 1928 -One of four boys -All of them wound up being in the military -Father owned three restaurants in Chicago -Lost all three of them during the Great Depression in 1934 -Worked for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) for six months -Got a job with Derby Foods, a food manufacturer in Chicago -Lived in a Polish neighborhood -They were the only Greek family in the neighborhood -He was bullied because of his Greek heritage -Played soccer in high school -Worked for B&G Studio making photo prints (00:02:27) World War II -He was on a streetcar going to a movie and he heard snippets of talk about Pearl Harbor -When he got home, he learned that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor -Tried to enlist near the end of the war, but he was turned away -Partly because he had a lazy eye, but also because he was only 16 years old (00:04:30) Getting Drafted -Graduated from high school in 1948 -Continued working for B&G Studio -Had started in high school and moved on to more complex work -Taking photos, developing photos, and enlarging photos for high-end displays -Got married on October 21, 1951 -Got drafted in December 1951 -Hadn’t paid any attention to the Korean War, which had begun in June 1950 -Had to report for basic training in January 1952 -Pushed through the draft physical because the Army needed soldiers (00:06:43) Basic Training -Sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky, for basic training -Platoon sergeant was a black man who had fought in Korea -Had visible bullet wounds -Company commander had fought in Korea and had received a battlefield commission -Did a lot of hiking -Received training with machineguns, bazookas, and rifles -There was a high emphasis on discipline �-Taught that listening well in training led to a higher chance of survival in combat -Had trouble with adjusting to getting up at 3 or 4 a.m. -He didn’t have any trouble with following orders or being around different people -There were some recruits who couldn’t adjust to either -Basic training lasted eight weeks (00:09:47) Mechanic Training -Received eight weeks of mechanic training -Offered a chance to go to Officer Candidate School, but he declined -Would have meant signing up for another two years in the Army -Did his Mechanic Training at Fort Knox -Learned how to work on 2 ½ ton trucks and their engines -Taught how to do quick repairs with minimal tools -Very basic truck maintenance training (00:12:00) Deployment to Korea -Sent home for two weeks of leave then went to Fort Lewis, Washington -Flown out to Washington then had to wait for a ship -Eventually boarded the USNS General Simon B. Buckner -Immediately assigned to kitchen duty -Got special quarters since he had to rise early and work late -Took nine days to reach Camp Drake, Japan -The Buckner carried troops as well as troop-dependents (wives and children bound for Japan) -Had good weather on the crossing because they took the Southern Route -He didn’t have to do the “King Neptune Ceremony” because he was in the kitchen -“King Neptune Ceremony”: Hazing for men crossing the Equator -Got off at Camp Drake and waited a few days for further orders in Korea (00:15:45) Arrival in Korea & Assignment to 84th Engineer Battalion -Sailed over to Korea and went ashore at Inchon in amphibious landing craft -By the time he arrived, the fighting had moved to the 38th Parallel -*Note: 38th Parallel had been the border of North and South Korea -Assigned to the 84th Engineer Battalion on the Imjin River near the 38th Parallel -They were working on the Teal bridge -A week after arriving, American planes strafed them -They were mistaken for North Korean or Chinese troops -There was destruction everywhere -Thousands of children without food, parents, or appropriate shelter -American soldiers gave them whatever they could -Many of them suffered from frostbite -Arrived in Korea in December 1952 -Had spent a few months waiting for a ship at Fort Lewis -Passed the time campaigning for General Eisenhower’s presidency -Hoped he would end the war before they’d have to be deployed -Before landing at Inchon, he saw artillery flashes in the distance -Told that he was being sent where he saw the flashes �-Met with the captain of the 84th Engineer Battalion -Asked Gust why he’d been drafted since he had a lazy eye -He had been sent to them as a tank mechanic, but they needed a photographer -Previous soldier was leaving and Gust had experience with photography (00:23:16) Photography in Korea -Issued a jeep with a broken heater -Had winter gear, but was still cold -Luckily, he was familiar with the portable heater and was able to repair it -Allowed him to use his jeep as a mobile photo studio -Started out by using a camera that used film cartridges -Could take two photographs with each cartridge -Took photos of construction, of battle damage, of dead soldiers, and of wounded soldiers -Felt that he did good work -Also had a 35mm camera -CIA heard that he was a good photographer -They took away the older camera and gave him extra film for the 35mm -He took the pictures and turned over the film to the CIA for development -Much easier camera to operate -Had bought the first 35mm for $10 off a soldier returning to America -Wound up getting rid of it after a while -Bought a 35mm Canon camera at the PX (post-exchange) in Seoul (00:28:33) Combat, Battle of Outpost Vegas, Battle on May 28th -There were Marines based near his unit -They cycled on and off the frontline every three days -Worst picture he ever took was of a dead, young Marine -Prior to March 26, 1953, there was sporadic fighting on the frontline -Patrols running into each other and getting into firefights -On March 26, 1953, the Battle of Outpost Vegas took place -3,500 Chinese and North Korean soldiers hit their position -He was pulled off the line because he was considered too valuable to lose -500 yard from the Teal bridge, the Marines were overrun at Outpost Vegas -Watched from a mile as the Marines and Engineers fought and held the bridge -In the end, 214 Marines were killed, 19 taken prisoner, and 801 wounded -Met one of the wounded Marines in 2009 -Thousands of Chinese soldiers killed -*Note: Estimated 1,351 Chinese killed in that battle -They were sent in a suicidal human wave -Soldiers were issued a rifle with two rounds of ammunition -Every third soldier was given a spear -Expected to pick up rifle after riflemen died -After the battle he found a Russian “burp gun” (PPSh-41) -Turned it over to the CIA for examination -Took photos of the dead and wounded after the battle �-Koreans had to break the arms and legs of dead soldiers to be able to transport them -Things quieted down after March 26 -Air Force hit North Korean and Chinese positions with napalm bombs to deter them -There were minor skirmishes after the Battle of Outpost Vegas -On May 28, 1953, there was another battle with the Chinese -He was pulled off the line again and watched the battle from a distance (00:36:20) Daily Life in Korea & Visiting Seoul -On an ordinary day, the sergeant would give him specific photo orders -Mostly taking pictures of damaged vehicles to account for materiel losses -Mostly took mundane pictures for documentation purposes -Once or twice a month he would drive to the PX in Seoul for supplies -During his time in Seoul, he wound up taking over 500 “human interest” photos -City was destroyed save for a few buildings -North Korean snipers stuck behind enemy lines hid in Seoul -Took potshots at American and U.N. troops in the city -The civilians living in Seoul had a very tough life -Visited a family living in a very simple house -Had an underground fire pit to heat their home (00:40:18) Contact with Korean Soldiers -Worked with KATUSAs (Korean Augmentation to the United States Army) -Korean soldiers that were attached to the U.S. Army -They were hardworking and tough soldiers -Fought for the independence of their country -They remembered Japanese oppression and didn’t want North Korean oppression -Some of their officers had studied in America and were well-educated (00:41:45) Morale & Discipline Problems -They spent most of their time on the frontline, so there was no chance for issues to arise -Able to get some Korean moonshine nicknamed “Lucky 7” -Avoided it since it caused one soldier to go blind -In Seoul, there were English teahouses which served alcohol (00:43:07) Weather -In March, it started to get warmer, but it was still cold -In the summer, it wasn’t hot, but it was more tolerable than the winter (00:43:45) International Troops -Had British and Australian troops stationed near his unit -The British and Australian troops hated each other -Australians detested the British because they felt that the British were arrogant -Gust got along well with the Australian and Canadian troops (00:45:00) Fellow Soldiers -His sergeant taught him how to survive the winter in Korea, specifically avoiding frostbite -He was a career soldier who had been in for most of his life -All the enlisted men were draftees -Some of the officers had been in the Reserve and had been called up for active duty �(00:46:28) Armistice -On July 27, 1953, North and South Korea agreed to an armistice -Company commander sent him to Seoul to look for beer, but couldn’t find any -Went to the Air Force base and asked if they had any -They had 20 cases of Korean beer which they allowed Gust to take with him -Went through 20 cases of two-liter bottles in three days -Despite the armistice, there were still snipers and skirmishes with North Korean troops -Technically, the war never ended allowing for tensions to flare occasionally -For example, the “axe murder incident” on August 18, 1976 (00:49:19) Postwar Duty -With the war “over” he was placed in charge of the company PX -Sold candy, cigarettes, and cameras -Had a very small building to work in -Soldiers wanted cigarettes because they were a barter currency in Seoul -Could trade cigarettes for sex or alcohol -He got the job because his predecessor got caught engaging in the black market (00:51:19) Generator Incident & Change of Command -His unit had a large generator on Teal bridge, and it was lost in the Battle of Outpost Vegas -It was either destroyed or knocked into the Imjin River -The captain couldn’t go home until they recovered it or found evidence of it -Gust went to the Canadians and made a deal with them to take their generator -Allowed the captain to go home and the lieutenant to take command -As of the interview, Gust and that lieutenant are still good friends (00:53:08) Korean Civilians -It was heart wrenching to see the suffering Korean children -Inspired him to become a Shriner and help with the Shriners Children’s Hospital -Abandoned and suffering children were everywhere in Korea -Koreans were so desperate for material, they used parachutes for their homes (00:54:19) Coming Home & End of Service -Knew that he would most likely head back to the United States in December 1953 -Could’ve gotten out earlier, but had to wait an additional 28 days -Returned to America on the USNS General R.L. Howze -Rough seas -Encountered a Merchant Marine ship with a man suffering from appendicitis -Sent a doctor from the Howze over in a lifeboat to treat the man -Repaid with Greek liquor -Landed at San Francisco -Everyone was moved to tears when they saw the Golden Gate Bridge -Sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois, to be discharged -Wanted to be home for Christmas -Discharged on December 25, 1953, with his wife waiting for him at Fort Sheridan (00:57:53) Life after the War -Had a job with Sears repairing washing machines then working in their warehouse �-Had PTSD, but wasn’t diagnosed until 2000 -Didn’t know how to react with people -Had 10 jobs over the course of his working life due to his PTSD -Married for over 50 years until her death -The VA had open enrollment for insurance in Benton Harbor, Michigan -He signed up, got examined, and qualified for help for PTSD -Got terrific help from the VA � 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_AntonG2095V Title A name given to the resource Anton, Gust J (Interview outline and video), 2017 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-01-24 Description An account of the resource Gust Anton was born in Chicago on December 17, 1928. He was drafted in December 1951 and reported for duty in January 1952. He went to Fort Knox, Kentucky, for his basic training and mechanic training, then went to Fort Lewis, Washington, to wait for his deployment to Korea. He sailed to Korea aboard the USNS General Simon B. Buckner, and after a brief stop at Camp Drake, Japan, arrived in Korea at Inchon in early December 1952. Gust was assigned to the 84th Engineer Battalion near the 38th Parallel, and due to prior photography experience was made a photographer in that unit. He not only documented equipment damage, but also photographed the dead and wounded. He witnessed the Battle of Outpost Vegas on March 26, 1953, and another major fight on May 28, 1953. Gust also photographed Seoul and the people living in the city during the war. After the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, he served as the company PX clerk (Army general store) until returning to the United States in December 1953. He was discharged at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, on December 25, 1953. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Anton, Gust J. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/x-m4v application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e0d896bb51c1ab7f6b82f1265ae23986.jpg 039a9a0dbee9a67d1e61cddd67e85ee9 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 GVSU Theatre Photos Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Description An account of the resource Photographs of Grand Valley theater productions from the 1980s to the 2010s. Photos include shots of performances, backstage, casts and crewmembers. Included in the collection are Shakespeare Festival productions and small acts such as Bard to Go and the Greenshow. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright Grand Valley State University Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV058-01 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-2017 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01) Subject The topic of the resource Theater Performances Plays Musicals College Students Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives. Allendale, MI 49401 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg 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 GV058-01_2012W-Antonia-Garcia_005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 Title A name given to the resource Antonia Garcia (theater production), 2012 Description An account of the resource Color photograph of Grand Valley's 2012 production of "Antonia Garcia". There are multiple people in masks and period costumes. There is a man in purple in the middle of the stage clutching his groin area. The people around him are recoiling in shock. Subject The topic of the resource Theater College students Plays Performances Acting Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/754">Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 2012s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e2208ddd9b70cf929d8088bef1a6d908.jpg 2601038837b0ab54336cf79e0b0a0516 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 GVSU Theatre Photos Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Description An account of the resource Photographs of Grand Valley theater productions from the 1980s to the 2010s. Photos include shots of performances, backstage, casts and crewmembers. Included in the collection are Shakespeare Festival productions and small acts such as Bard to Go and the Greenshow. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright Grand Valley State University Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV058-01 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-2017 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01) Subject The topic of the resource Theater Performances Plays Musicals College Students Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives. Allendale, MI 49401 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg 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 GV058-01_2012W-Antonia-Garcia_006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 Title A name given to the resource Antonia Garcia (theater production), 2012 Description An account of the resource Color photograph of Grand Valley's 2012 production of "Antonia Garcia". There is a platform in the middle of the stage with a man and woman looking at each other smiling with flower crowns. There is a woman singing and sitting on the platform. All around there are people gathered around the couple. Subject The topic of the resource Theater College students Plays Performances Acting Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/754">Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 2012s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3dc1cd8577d809835dc7834951af6478.jpg 6860e64f6f6f44d01ccba85487f29696 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 GVSU Theatre Photos Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Description An account of the resource Photographs of Grand Valley theater productions from the 1980s to the 2010s. Photos include shots of performances, backstage, casts and crewmembers. Included in the collection are Shakespeare Festival productions and small acts such as Bard to Go and the Greenshow. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright Grand Valley State University Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV058-01 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-2017 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01) Subject The topic of the resource Theater Performances Plays Musicals College Students Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives. Allendale, MI 49401 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg 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 GV058-01_2012W-Antonia-Garcia_011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 Title A name given to the resource Antonia Garcia (theater production), 2012 Description An account of the resource Color photograph of Grand Valley's 2012 production of "Antonia Garcia". There is a man in the middle looking to the right and gesturing. To the right there are two woman sitting and a couple behind them with flower crowns. To the left there are people in plain neutral clothes. In the background there is a woman with a crown and a man in red and gold. Subject The topic of the resource Theater College students Plays Performances Acting Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/754">Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 2012s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/508d70c6a1fde649b7ce1425e1326be5.jpg a4ff70da7521b1578bf4c8239147c85f 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 GVSU Theatre Photos Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Description An account of the resource Photographs of Grand Valley theater productions from the 1980s to the 2010s. Photos include shots of performances, backstage, casts and crewmembers. Included in the collection are Shakespeare Festival productions and small acts such as Bard to Go and the Greenshow. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright Grand Valley State University Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV058-01 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-2017 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01) Subject The topic of the resource Theater Performances Plays Musicals College Students Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives. Allendale, MI 49401 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg 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 GV058-01_2012W-Antonia-Garcia_012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 Title A name given to the resource Antonia Garcia (theater production), 2012 Description An account of the resource Color photograph of Grand Valley's 2012 production of "Antonia Garcia". There is a young man standing against a black background. He is wearing a brown hat and boots with a layered coat. Subject The topic of the resource Theater College students Plays Performances Acting Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/754">Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 2012s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8659f71e403cc3ca668609344a4d758f.jpg 581a71cd93335cc4732bdc1d0a218451 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 GVSU Theatre Photos Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Description An account of the resource Photographs of Grand Valley theater productions from the 1980s to the 2010s. Photos include shots of performances, backstage, casts and crewmembers. Included in the collection are Shakespeare Festival productions and small acts such as Bard to Go and the Greenshow. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright Grand Valley State University Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV058-01 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-2017 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01) Subject The topic of the resource Theater Performances Plays Musicals College Students Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives. Allendale, MI 49401 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg 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 GV058-01_2012W-Antonia-Garcia_016 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 Title A name given to the resource Antonia Garcia (theater production), 2012 Description An account of the resource Color photograph of Grand Valley's 2012 production of "Antonia Garcia". There is two people kneeling on the floor. To the right the man in giving a thumbs up and winking with his mouth open. The person to the left is looking at him and has a basket next to them. Subject The topic of the resource Theater College students Plays Performances Acting Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/754">Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 2012s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/aa12978bed82984e6046cdc845d9376a.jpg f3a42c6a74c81cf4c5eee69e5a713f6d 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 GVSU Theatre Photos Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Description An account of the resource Photographs of Grand Valley theater productions from the 1980s to the 2010s. Photos include shots of performances, backstage, casts and crewmembers. Included in the collection are Shakespeare Festival productions and small acts such as Bard to Go and the Greenshow. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright Grand Valley State University Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV058-01 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-2017 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01) Subject The topic of the resource Theater Performances Plays Musicals College Students Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives. Allendale, MI 49401 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg 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 GV058-01_2012W-Antonia-Garcia_029 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 Title A name given to the resource Antonia Garcia (theater production), 2012 Description An account of the resource Color photograph of Grand Valley's 2012 production of "Antonia Garcia." There are two knights with swords engaged in a sword fight with another man. This man is fighting with two swords and dressed in purple patterned dress clothes. Subject The topic of the resource Theater College students Plays Performances Acting Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/754">Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 2012s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/627784a8e62bfd0c38ea3d844711e17e.jpg f63387d2519d9d2abf9b47307ec5d25f 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 GVSU Theatre Photos Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Description An account of the resource Photographs of Grand Valley theater productions from the 1980s to the 2010s. Photos include shots of performances, backstage, casts and crewmembers. Included in the collection are Shakespeare Festival productions and small acts such as Bard to Go and the Greenshow. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright Grand Valley State University Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV058-01 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-2017 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01) Subject The topic of the resource Theater Performances Plays Musicals College Students Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives. Allendale, MI 49401 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg 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 GV058-01_2012W-Antonia-Garcia_032 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 Title A name given to the resource Antonia Garcia (theater production), 2012 Description An account of the resource Color photograph of Grand Valley's 2012 production of "Antonia Garcia." There is a woman against a black background. She is in a red layered dress and a crown on her long curly red hair. Subject The topic of the resource Theater College students Plays Performances Acting Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/754">Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 2012s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f6ec44e469dd95a9afc15188f2da05b4.jpg 7e8bc33d28bfe2a0050ff6d27c21e684 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 GVSU Theatre Photos Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Description An account of the resource Photographs of Grand Valley theater productions from the 1980s to the 2010s. Photos include shots of performances, backstage, casts and crewmembers. Included in the collection are Shakespeare Festival productions and small acts such as Bard to Go and the Greenshow. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright Grand Valley State University Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV058-01 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-2017 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01) Subject The topic of the resource Theater Performances Plays Musicals College Students Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives. Allendale, MI 49401 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg 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 GV058-01_2012W-Antonia-Garcia_037 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 Title A name given to the resource Antonia Garcia (theater production), 2012 Description An account of the resource Color photograph of Grand Valleys 2012 production of "Antonia Garcia." There are two men is long white night clothes and caps. They are wearing masks. One man has a long beard to the floor. There is a woman hunched in the background with a guitar wearing a mask Subject The topic of the resource Theater College students Plays Performances Acting Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/754">Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 2012s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9d3ec941eb0719111d2616288dd4d8f8.jpg c4ef8c36c55b2f9dc319a92dc2eb9f1f 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 GVSU Theatre Photos Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Description An account of the resource Photographs of Grand Valley theater productions from the 1980s to the 2010s. Photos include shots of performances, backstage, casts and crewmembers. Included in the collection are Shakespeare Festival productions and small acts such as Bard to Go and the Greenshow. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright Grand Valley State University Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV058-01 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-2017 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01) Subject The topic of the resource Theater Performances Plays Musicals College Students Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives. Allendale, MI 49401 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg 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 GV058-01_2012W-Antonia-Garcia_045 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 Title A name given to the resource Antonia Garcia (theater production), 2012 Description An account of the resource Color photograph of Grand Valley's 2012 production of "Antonia Garcia." There are three knights fighting with swords. There is a man and a woman on a wooden platform with wooden clubs. To the right there is a man whose back is to the camera with a wooden club. Subject The topic of the resource Theater College students Plays Performances Acting Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/754">Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 2012s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e8c72647afb6a40fb7ef37d992def31c.jpg bd2d2dcf88124eec461a2acf0306a407 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 GVSU Theatre Photos Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Description An account of the resource Photographs of Grand Valley theater productions from the 1980s to the 2010s. Photos include shots of performances, backstage, casts and crewmembers. Included in the collection are Shakespeare Festival productions and small acts such as Bard to Go and the Greenshow. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright Grand Valley State University Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV058-01 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-2017 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01) Subject The topic of the resource Theater Performances Plays Musicals College Students Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives. Allendale, MI 49401 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg 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 GV058-01_2012W-Antonia-Garcia_048 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Theatre Department Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 Title A name given to the resource Antonia Garcia (theater production), 2012 Description An account of the resource Color photograph of Grand Valleys 2012 production of "Antonia Garcia." There are two women on the floor. One woman with her mouth open in surprise. The other woman is kneeling behind her and has her in a choke hold and grabbing her hair. Subject The topic of the resource Theater College students Plays Performances Acting Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/754">Theatre Department photographs (GV058-01)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 2012s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/da992deaaef65ddf71e39ad0762d27f0.pdf bdbebc471b4a958d13a1b7a85eb24575 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Antonio (Maloco)” Jiménez Rodríguez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 6/25/2012 Biography and Description Antonio (Maloco) Jiménez Rodríguez has no qualms about admitting that he was the Vice-President of the notorious Hacha Viejas, or Old Hatchets, of the 1950s and 1960s in Chicago, which some believe was the city’s first Puerto Rican gang. It definitely is the most well-known group of that era. The leader, Juan Hacha Vieja, came from Barrio Mula in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico. He was a World War II veteran with a lot of heart. Several witnesses describe one time in 1982 when a Puerto Rican landlord in Wicker Park pulled out a .32 Colt automatic pistol and pointed it directly at Juan “Hacha Vieja”’s face as Hacha Vieja was walking in a small passageway between two garages, approaching his building. The landlord wanted to embarrass Hacha Vieja and make him run, or at least get scared. But Hacha Vieja just stood there and pulled a .38 snub nose revolver from his pocket and, even while the .32 automatic was being pointed to his face, started loading bullets into his gun. Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez also recalls that the Hacha Viejas had no gang colors. In fact, they had no real gang name and bore little resemblance to the groups of today who sell drugs or hang out on street corners. The Hachas Viejas drank mainly beer or rum at the saloons or at the homes of members in places like the Water Hotel or the social clubs that their own members owned. Juan “Hacha Vieja” had been given that nickname when he was just a boy in Barrio Mula of Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico. At the time he was working for Tio Gabriel Jiménez as a farmhand in a mountain farm that also produced coffee. The name was given to him because “he was �very good with the machete at the farm.” When times were bad economically, he and Tio Gabriel’s sons would move from farming to construction or to other farms, doing odds and ends to survive. Hacha Vieja became close friends with Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez and his other brothers and cousins. After World War II, many of them moved to Chicago, mostly to the La Clark and Lincoln Park areas. The more they located meat packing, factory and restaurant and hotel jobs near Wells Street and Chicago Avenue and around downtown, or at the steel mills south towards Indiana, the more they contacted their friends and family from Aguas Buenas and Caguas. Other Puerto Rican families did the same and pulled entire families from their cities and towns, setting them up in Chicago. Juan “Hacha Vieja” was loved, feared and respected all at once. If he liked you he would turn your last name into “Hacha Vieja” -- Pablo became Pablo Hacha Vieja and José would be José Hacha Vieja. On the weekends when they drank at the Clark Street saloons or by Halsted Street and along Madison. Often they would usually get into a brawl and spend the night in jail for disorderly conduct or loitering. By Monday, they would all be back to work. Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez recalls wanting to get along with everyone, but there were other minority gangs that hated the Puerto Ricans with a passion. They had to get their respect or they would be pushed around and slapped or beaten up. He explains that they had no other choice but to fight, and carve out territory; the police did not defend them. And many times the police would join these other gangs against the Puerto Ricans. By the early 1960s there were three taverns that were owned by the Hacha Viejas: one at La Clark close to Grand Avenue, another on Western, about one or two blocks north of Division, and the third by the Hotel Lincoln on Armitage Avenue and Clark Street. One day Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez remembers coming from the west side club on Western Avenue to the Armitage Avenue and Clark Street Tavern. The Italians and Irish were hiding, waiting for he and his friends. A mob converged on the Hachas Viejas and started beating them with chains and bats. He, Hacha Vieja and some others got cut very badly ending up in the hospital for a couple of months. Still on another battle, they also got cut up by a Mexican gang from Taylor Street near Halsted .It also put them in a hospital. But Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez explains that this is how they learned their lessons, the hard way for not paying attention. They needed to be prepared at all times. As time went on they did less fighting and could just socialize and enjoy a good time. It was no longer just them; more Puerto Ricans were moving in. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/df27a23641e7119349dc545ab010bf46.mp4 8dd30633e1da51f1b7a2fa3973818e9e 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 Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Antonio “Maloco” Jiménez Rodríguez vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Idioma español--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Pandillas--Illinois--Chicago Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Veteranos--Relatos personales Pandillas--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> 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-65_Rodriguez_Antonio Title A name given to the resource Antonio “Maloco” Jiménez Rodríguez video interview and biography Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rodríguez, Antonio Description An account of the resource Antonio “Maloco” Jiménez Rodríguez has no qualms about admitting that he was the Vice-President of the notorious Hacha Viejas, or Old Hatchets, of the 1950s and 1960s in Chicago. He was a World War II veteran with a lot of heart. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Spanish language--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Gangs--Illinois--Chicago Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs Veterans--personal narratives Gangs--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource spa 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 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-06-25 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives