Post Vietnam War - Tung Diep

My topic is post Vietnam War, and this is Ha T. Diep and he faced many challenges after the war ended. He is a civilian in South Vietnam and this is the interview of him of telling about his life in Vietnam after the war and what happenned when the Viet Cong came.

Interviewer: Tung Diep
Interviewee: Ha T. Diep
Topic: Postwar Vietnam

How old were you and where did you live?

I was 8 years old and I’m at Saigon, Vietnam.

So tell me what happened after the war ended to you?

I was still a student studying and stop when the war ended. One year later, I continued school. Books and notebooks were really hard to find and expensive. We had to search for old notebooks and looking for blank papers and take it out and make it into a notebook. Every day, I would walk five miles to school. We have no money and depended on the government to help us. They gave us hard bread, red rice, these rice were not perfectly made so it was hard to chew. If you lucky enough, you’ll see meat and vegetable on the market, but it way too expensive at that time. There was no petroleum gas back then, so we sometimes go fetch wood and burn them for fire. The government also distributed a different type of oil, but not a lot to each family only about 2 or 3 liters, not enough to use it every day like cook rice and lamp at night.

It was really hard to find job. Since I was a kid, I used to go to a noodle factory, and help out the people and in return they give me noodle to bring home to eat. Over time, I went for another seven years of school then quit helping with family business. At the age eighteen, I was forced by Viet Cong into go to labor and work there for about three and a half years. Then later came home to help with family business again for two years. Then started the family, and work normally.

What happened when Northern Vietnamese soldier came?

Whoever rich, they came into the house and steal every valuable they have, and then forced them back to their native home to live. Many people resisted to go were forced to go to jail. Go is difficult to survive alone, and if don’t go not only will you go to jail but also get beat up by them, and living in jail is not going to option in life so most people chose to leave. They were made to live in a jungle, people cut wood and make their houses out of that. But this is only temporary. We then planted potatoes, peanuts, and beans for food. Sadly enough, there weren’t enough fertilizer or farm-work materials for it to grow. Some died and grow into their small sizes because the field was very dry, there was not enough water in the soil. We usually take water from the well, and the water from there was dirty and we used that on crops not only it will contaminate the crops but whoever eat it, which we are because we are hungry, resulted in illness. Since we did make enough crops, we sneaked back to Saigon. The reason we can’t go back too soon was because the Viet Cong knew which families go and which didn’t. So I waited for everything in Vietnam to calm, then sneak back. Plus, there were no security or fences to prevent us to go back.

Half of my family went to the jungle and the other half stay and watch the house, because if no one watch it, Viet Cong might think that this house have no owner and take the house.

Taylor Johnson interview #3

Interview # 3

Over email.

1. Were you drafted or did you volunteer for military service?
I first volunteered for the Marines at nineteen (1961), served four years and was discharged (1964).
How old were you?
I volunteered for Vietnam, at age twenty-two (1965), nine months after I was first discharged.
After training, I was sent to Vietnam.
How did your family and friends react to your going into military service?
They were against it. They knew I would be sent to Vietnam.
Me:
Describe your Basic Training. Where, what happened, your feelings and observations. Did it change you in any way? How? Did it prepare you for Vietnam?
I received basic training at Paris Island, S.C., in 1961
The training was meant to bring you to a state of mindlessness, I was drilled physically and bullied mentally and spiritually
Me:
What did you think and feel about the Vietnamese war, the Vietnamese people, and Vietnam at the time when you came on active duty?
At the time I volunteered, I felt the war in Vietnam was no different from any other.
My grandfather fought in World War I, my dad and uncles in World War II, and several uncles fought in Korea.
I wanted to do my part, just like my relatives before me. I knew the Vietnamese were poor, hard-working people.
Vietnam, both North and South, has known little peace since history began. China has always been a presence, followed by the Mongols, the French, and others, all brought down by the indestructibility of the native Vietnamese.

Life in the Vietnam War - Nancy Tran

Introduction:
I interviewed three people who lived in Saigon during the time of the Vietnam War. They were my grandpa, uncle, and mom. Some of their stories intertwine, and they're all about the things they have seen during the war. Here are their stories.

Interview #1: Chieu Tran
Chieu Tran was born in Cambodia, but later moved to Vietnam when he was really young. He was in Vietnam for most of Vietnam’s civil war.
During the time of the war I was at Saigon, Vietnam; the capital city. Most of the fighting of the war was near the 17th parallel; the border between north and South Vietnam. Because of this my family was mostly safe. In the time of the war, I worked for a bike shop. Before I had worked there, workers had dug these hideout holes used to hide from the bombers that flew over. They were similar to tunnels. Each tunnel was really small and fitted about ten people. Whenever a bomber was in sight, sirens in the city would go off telling people that they should go hide. This way the pilots flying the bombers are unable to see the people and bomb them. If we were unlucky, it was possible for the bombers to drop a bomb right on top of the tunnel, and the people in the tunnel would die.
Many people who were unsatisfied with the government in the North would come to South Vietnam. Also, many communists would also come to South Vietnam or communists already in the South would stay in order to disrupt our government. War was fought mostly from north to south. It wasn’t until the Tet Offensive when the war grew worse.
On the day of the Tet Offensive, my wife was sick. We had just gone to the hospital that morning for her to get a checkup. She was released that same day of the Tet Offensive and in order to go home, a bridge had to be crossed. When we left the hospital, everything was closed off. We luckily crossed the bridge before it was closed off, if not we could not have reached our family and the children would’ve been left alone. Later that day, we fled to the hospital in order to stay safe and away from any Viet Cong. If we were near and Viet Cong with South Vietnamese soldiers around, we were sure to be shot and dead. Luckily, we made it safe to the hospital and stay there for three weeks.
At the time when America was still a part of the war we had to mostly stay in the house. We had to watch out bombs. Our house was really close to the bombs, especially since it was near a military base. The place we stayed in was safe, but many other don’t believe the same. The only time where our house would be unsafe was if a Viet Cong had enter the small area in which we had lived in.
Many school children were influenced by the war. Some children were already influenced by the Viet Cong, and they would preach as a Viet Cong. During the school time they would try and peer pressure other students into thinking like a Viet Cong and helping them. Children helped the Viet Cong through propaganda. They handed out fliers to others even though they didn’t really know what they were handing out.
Luckily, I did not have to enter war. This was because if a man had six or more children they did not need to enlist into war. Also, if a family had one adult son, then that son did not have to enlist in the war. If a family had two or more sons, then one of the sons had to enlist in the war while the other son takes care of the family.
This happened to my brother-in law. My wife’s youngest brother was enlisted into the war. Once he had entered the battlefield in 1972, he was quickly killed. It was the night of the war, and he was shot by the enemies in the kidney causing him to die.
Times in Vietnam were rough. The war lasted a really long time, and there wasn’t a long period of peace in Vietnam because there was always war.



Interview #2: Tony Chiem
Tony Chiem was around the age of 20 during the Tet offensive in 1968. He was born in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh), Vietnam. He later immigrated to America in the later 1970s.
The Viet Cong were similar to rats. That’s what we called them. In the day, they would hide in forests or jungles in order to avoid the South Vietnamese soldier. At night they would cause a commotion. When they are hiding, if a South Vietnamese soldier walked by, they would jump out from behind and kill them. At night they were always moving around so they would never get caught. Their goal was to revolutionize the South Vietnamese government, and in order to do so they had tried to disturb the government and ruin it. Nobody could tell the difference between Viet Cong and normal citizens. The Viet Cong people wore normal clothing, so sometimes you could be communicating with them and not know. A large factor as to why the North had won was because of this. The citizens of the South could make friends with anyone. You could meet a guy at a coffee shop and start talking to him. Eventually you may even be friends with him for 10 years. During those 10 years, you could tell him all these secrets you may have, and if you’re a part of the government you could be telling him upcoming plans. Once the North has won and gained control over the South, your friend tells you that he is a Viet Cong. That’s when you’ve realized that you have been trick, and you’ve given out all the secrets.
Communists were really cruel people. Viet Cong people would always inform the North leaders about the secret we had, such as planned attacks and conferences. In the end of the war, the Viet Cong people were never awarded. The leaders of the North would take all of the credit and never gave any power to the Viet Cong. In the end, the Viet Cong were betrayed for they never received anything for their work.
Many people didn’t like the government of North Vietnam, so most of them migrate to South Vietnam and become refugee. Even after North Vietnam gained power in 1975, anti-communists of North Vietnam would migrate to South Vietnam then look for refugee camps outside of Vietnam, such as in Malaysia and Thailand.
On the day of the Tet Offensive I was about 20 years old. Tet was supposed to be a day of happiness. During New Years, it’s part of tradition to set off firecrackers and keep things really simple and happy. The communists took advantage of this. Because there were firecrackers they would set off things to kill people. For example, they would kill people and shoot them. People thought it was firecrackers. During that time, I went to the countryside to visit my family since it was New Years. I didn’t know what was happening. All I remembered was when I was coming back from the countryside; I saw all the roads destroyed. The bridges were broken and everyone was in terror. Everyone looked really sad and quiet that day, and something seemed off. It wasn’t until I asked people about what had happened when I found out.
The point of the Tet Offensive was for the Viet Cong to disrupt the government. By disrupting the government they had hoped to cause South Vietnam to fall and surrender to the North. In the end, the communists were unsuccessful. The South did not fall until 1975. In 1969, the leader of the North, Ho Chi Minh dies. Everyone laughed at him for his unsuccessful attempt at bringing down the Southern government. He looked like a really sad humiliated old man.
From then the war had gotten worse. From 1968 to 1975 was the highlight of the war in the South. After 1968, a small bomb went off in a small town right next to Saigon. All the houses burned there and everyone there had died. The Americans had suspected there were Viet Cong people in the town, and so they decided to bomb it. By bombing it, they had hoped to get rid of all the Viet Cong there.
Every morning I would stand outside and watch the outside of my house. I would just stand in the front staring. Every day I would see far out a bomber flying over a small city or town and dropping a bomb. Then a suddenly explosion would arise and dust would be everywhere. I lived near a place where there were a lot of Viet Cong around. The Viet Cong were never in my block exactly, but they were a few blocked down the road. Sometimes I would see men and women run to my block for safety. There were all kinds of people, from pregnant women to little boys and girls.
Right after 1968 was when I met my wife. She worked for my aunt and helped organized books and documents. Back then she was extremely poor and could not afford a vehicle. Every night I would drive her home. When people found out about this, they would tell me “Are you crazy? I heard there were a lot of Viet Cong people in that area, you could potentially die there.” What they didn’t know was that there were actually no Viet Cong ever there. It was a safe place, but people just assumed that it was dangerous since it was so isolated like the country side. Every night I made it back fine without harm. Eventually a few years later I had married my wife.


Interview #3 : Nu Tran
Nu Tran was born in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh), Vietnam. She was around the age of 10 during the Tet Offensive. She was a normal civilian who remembers her days during the Vietnam war.
During the Tet offensive the North had attacked the most. I was about ten years old at the time. As I was getting water from a faucet using buckets for the family to use, I suddenly saw all these people fleeing away carrying bags. I didn’t know what was happening. So I asked the people around why they were fleeing. People told me “there’s a war! The Viet Cong has arrived!” people were fleeing because they didn’t want to be caught in the middle. If the US soldiers saw a Viet Cong they would automatically shoot at them along with everyone around the scene because it cannot be helped. I quickly ran home with the water because I too did not want to be caught in the middle of the war.
I lived in a small house that was in Saigon. We lived in a little isolated area across a bridge that was really similar to the country side. By our house there was also a US military base. This was why everyone was so afraid to come near our home. If there had a been a Viet Cong in the area of which we had lived in, then I would’ve died. The US would’ve just blew up the place and everyone would die. That day when I went home I had gone to go pack with my family. We had also fled. One of my little brother was only eight months old so we had to carry him on the run. We fled to the hospital like everyone else. It was a really big place there, so everyone felt safe.
We stayed at the hospital for about three weeks and nobody had brought food on their flee. So the Americans had brought food for us. They would have a huge pot of rice and food, and once they were ready to serve they would call everyone up. You tell them the amount of people there are and they give you the right portion of food. If it were for the Americans, then everyone would have starved to death. During the time in the hospital, an old lady wanted to sell coffee for people to drink and for her to make money. She had trouble walking, so my little brother helped out. He sold coffee to all kinds of people, even soldiers. Once he had finished selling what he had, he gave the money to the lady where she would give him something to eat or a bit of the money.
During the Tet Offensive, people of all kinds had died; from people from Thailand to Korea to South Vietnamese citizens to the Viet Cong. It was basically just a massive attack. Those who were unlucky and caught in the middle off the war would just be killed off. There were many deaths in different places. Places that had the most deaths were school; many school children in there had died, and the market place. This was because the Viet Cong would try and hide amongst the people, so soldiers would shoot everyone in order to catch the Viet Cong. When people returned home after hiding out, they would go to the market place in order to buy food. There they saw all these dead bodies of Vietnamese people. All the US soldier’s bodies had already been removed because they were going to be returned home for their families.
Nobody could tell the difference between the Viet Cong and normal people. The only times they could identify them is if they were wearing a red bandana. The Viet Cong also wore mostly black. Yet you could never know if they are around you because anyone could possibly be a Viet Cong. For example, in 1970, at the place I was working, it was a normal day. Then suddenly at 1am two police cars came and called out a name. They arrested this man and he turned out to be a Viet Cong. At his house he was hiding bombs and guns for the Viet Cong. Nobody had known that that man was a Viet Cong.
Once a Viet cong was caught they would torture them into telling the government who was the boss of their clan and who were the members. They were tortured by being electrocuted through the fingers. They clipped on clamps that would electrocute them. Once they lost conscious they would dump water on the Viet Cong and continue to torture them. They would never tell.

Vietnam War Mike Spearman

Interviewed June 5, 2010 Kahn Do is a South Vietnamese immigrant. He runs the tutoring company that I use for math and is 47 years old. I am interviewing him today to talk about his and his father’s thoughts on the war, more specifically their thoughts on the American army and how they handled the war. During the war they were in Vietnam, he was a 13 year old and his dad the general of the South Vietnamese army age 49.

How old are now?
47 years old

What is your profession?
I am a risk analyst for business and run a I tutoring company

When did you come to the US?
15 years ago, in 1996.

How old were you?
13.

Why did you come to the US?
Better education was the main reason. We could not go to college in Vietnam because of how my dad was ranked in (the army). Any offspring could not go to college under the previous regime.

How old is your dad now?
Age 64

Where is he living now?
In Renton

Where were your parents living at the time of the war?
My dad was a General in the Vietnamese army and my mom was living with my grandfather in Da Nang in South Vietnam. Da Nang is south of HoChi Min city (used to be called Saigon).
Did he ever talk to you about the war? He spoke to me a lot about the war. He would tell us war stories and how difficult life was back then – not in a negative tone.

What did he say?
He would talk about how it was to lead an army. Once in a while he would talk about how bad he felt when we lost the war after the US pulled out. Around 1974 the US started pulling out of the war. A lot of people viewed that as a defeat to the North Vietnamese. My dad said it wasn’t a defeat, it was just that the US didn’t want to fight anymore. The US sold us weapons so when they pulled out, we were left with nothing to defend ourselves so after that we sort of collapsed.

What were your dad’s thoughts about the American army?
He never talked to me about that. I don’t believe he held any animosity towards the American army for pulling out. He thought that the US should not have gotten involved in the first place. It was a war between the Vietnamese people – a civil war. They should not have gotten involved and then pulled out. They were trying to get rid of communism and I am all for that. But they should have stayed until the end. The result would have been very different if they had not pulled out. We would have been very different for us in the US. We would not have lost the war and lost our country to the communists. For my family personally, with my dad’s ranking, he would have gone for the presidencyof the country once the war was over. For a lot of the Vietnamese people in the US now, the majority of them were ranked officers in the Vietnamese army. The US had a program where they sponsored high ranking officers in the war to come to the US. That is how we got here and we really appreciated it. A lot of officers when they came to the US, because of the language barrier and new environment, didn’t have skills. They would take jobs like janitors that others didn’t want. Before coming here, they were very powerful and had a lot of authority. The war changed a lot of lives.

What were your dad’s thoughts about the Vietnamese army?
He praised the South Vietnamese army and he absolutely hated the communist army. To me they are all the same, since we are all Vietnamese. I think we should not have relied on the US for support. You should always have option B. My dad feels that way too but he always puts down the communist army. They were more prepared – they fought in the jungle – guerrilla warfare - so it was hard for even high tech armies to fight against.



Judge Ronald Cox is a friend of my fathers and currently 64 years of age. I’m interviewing him on the date of June 3rd, 2010 to see his perspective of the war and what effect it had on him personally. At the time of the war he was 23 years old and serving on the front lines as a captain of an infantry division near the Cambodian border.

I know you spent some time fighting in Vietnam, how old were you?
I went over there at the age of 23 and spent one year there and returned at the age of 24.
What branch?
I was in the US Army.

What was it like at West Point?
I have a book here about it. I was in the class that that book is about. I will say that it was very challenging academically, physically and otherwise. It was a great sense of accomplishment for having successfully completed it. I have friendships to this day with people that I don’t even see anymore, the bond is so strong by going through that common experience.

Why did you decide to go to Vietnam?
It wasn’t my decision. I had to go. I was in the Army and I had to respond to orders. I knew that I was going to go. Every member of my West Point class went for at least one year. Some had to do two tours of duty. It wasn’t a matter of my raising my hand and deciding to go.

Why did you decide to enroll in West Point?
A lot of reasons. It was a great opportunity. Neither of my parents went to college. When the opportunity presented itself for me to win an an appointment and you have to compete for appointment, it was a great honor. I won an appointment from Senator Fong from Hawaii. It was a great challenge and I like challenges.

Did you ever regret doing it?
No.

If you had to go back in time, you would do it again?
Yes. I got a great education. I built relationships with very good friends. Quite frankly it paved the way for other things I have been able to accomplish in life.

Going back to the war, what is one experience that stayed with you?
There was one day where the company that I commanded was out on an operation and the battalion commander above me got shot down by enemy fire and died in a helicopter crash. That made a big impact because he was the only casualty in that whole operation. It just represented to me that those sorts of things happen – it is very arbitrary - that people you get to know sometimes die and the question is how you will handle it.

Did you get any medals?
I have 3 bronze stars and a combat infantryman’s badge and I have some other awards from having been in the war.

How do you get Bronze stars?
One is for heroism in combat. We were attacked and throughout most of a day. I didn’t do anything heroic but I led my command thru a difficult time when we came under enemy fire near the Cambodian border.

Did you ever have to kill anyone?
I never killed anyone personally. But, in fighting during wartime, the company I commanded did kill enemy soldiers either directly or by artillery fire.

Have you ever been back to Vietnam?
No. I don’t want to go back there. It has too many bad memories.

How do you think the Vietnamese felt about you?
30 years after the war, most Vietnamese from then aren’t living now and have no animosity towards Americans. I certainly have no animosity. I think they suffered greatly and are still suffering. War is not a good thing. It is better that it is all behind us. My West Point class had 30 members die in the war. That certainly has a personal impact on me but I don’t harbor any animosity towards the Vietnamese people.

How did they feel about Americans during the war?
There were mixed feelings. My company worked with some Vietnamese. Other Vietnamese s hated the presence of Americans there. You wouldn’t want people coming to your city.

How did you feel after you came back?
I was relieved that I survived without being killed or wounded. One thing I still remember: here in the US we take for granted all we have around us. In a third world country when you see poverty, it can have a lasting effect on you. There is no opportunity for education. They live on very little. It makes you think about assumptions in the US about what normal is.

How were you treated by other Americans after you came back?
I didn’t have any bad experiences but I know others did. There are stories about people who were spat on or harassed because they served in the armed forces during Vietnam. There are very different feelings about the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq now. People now don’t have the same feelings about the troops as they did then.

Did you think the South Vietnamese army was a good ally?
Some were very good and some were very poor soldiers. But that was due to poor leadership for some. If they have good leaders they did well. Americans spent a lot of time and pumped huge amounts of money into the government but after the Americans left, they caved into the North Vietnamese. The North Vietnamese were more disciplined and had far fewer resources yet they won the war. The North had a commitment that the South just didn’t have.

Do you think North Vietnam won?
Yes, they now occupy or run the whole country. That’s a win. There was a discussion between an American soldier and North Vietnamese soldier: the American said that the North Vietnamese never beat the Americans in a major battle. The North Vietnamese soldier said, it doesn’t matter, we still won the war because we now occupy the whole country. So it doesn’t matter if you didn’t win the battle, if you won the war.

What about anti-war protesters?
When I first graduated from West Point, I was stationed in Europe for 18 months. I really didn’t experience protesting. I didn’t have the front row seat. After Vietnam I was offered the opportunity to get an advanced degree and then teach history at West Point. I had to decide if I was going to stay in the army or not. I decided after Vietnam to go to law school and resign from the army.

Why did you decide not to continue in the Army?
I thought about what was going on. Do we really want to spend our lives fighting a war like Vietnam? A lot of members in my class got discouraged and resigned from the Army and decided to do other things. It was a disturbing war that had a big impact on me and other members of my class.

Describe how you got your Bronze stars more in depth.
It was Dec 15, 1968 at 8 am, I was company commander operating near the Cambodian border in Tayniah. The first platoon of my company immediately received automatic weapons fire. In that first exchange, one member of the first platoon was killed immediately. The platoon leader called me and I moved forward to where the shooting was going on and helped direct fire back. This battle went on for 6-7 hours. During that time another person was killed. We were able to gather our people together, return fire and the enemy troops retreated. I moved around and helped direct our response and was awarded the Bronze star for valor.

Would you suggest that someone go to West Point?
Sure, if interested. Just the other day I was at Garfield High School with another judge speaking to a history class about how judges are selected. One student there who I met about a year ago was interested in West Point. He has received an appointment and he will be reporting in July. You have to be motivated to go and be prepared to deal with a heavy academic load and a heavy physical load in terms of physical exercise. I wouldn’t recommend that everyone go there. It depends on your interest. For example, neither my older son or daughter, or my younger son, were interested and I wouldn’t push them.



Tam Bui, interviewed on June 6th, 2010. She’s a Snohomish County district court judge and was in my mother’s book club. I’m interviewing her to understand her perspective as a refugee from South Vietnam.

How old are you?
42

Where did you live in Saigon?
I lived in the city of Saigon in South Vietnam

When did you leave Viet Nam?
I left on August 30, 1975.

How old were you?
I was 7 years old when I left.

Did you come with your family?
On Aug 30th I came with my 7 siblings. My oldest brother was in the airforce and wasn’t with us. Later on we found out he flew a helicopter to our house to pick us up but we weren’t there, we have already left. My parents and siblings were packed into a jeep. Aug 30th was the last day we could leave. The barriers were up. My father was a Major in the VN army. He only spoke a little bit to us about the war. He worked intelligence for the US government. He was very secretive. The only visible sign of him working for the government was that he had a little red phone that only he could touch and pick up whenever it rang. It was a very painful experience for him because his father and grandfather were killed by the communists.

Why did you leave?
We left because the communists were rolling in on August 30th. My father initially didn’t want to leave because Viet Nam was his homeland. If he was going to stay, we were all going to stay. The family structure was such that he was the head of the family. We finally persuaded him to leave. My father was so connected to the politics and he would be taken away by communists and probably be put into a re-education camp and not survive. So we could stay and have a difficult survival or leave and try to establish a life in a different country but not our homeland.

Did you ever encounter the American army?
Because my father worked for the American government,there were a lot of Americans going in and out of our house. There were big Americans with bushy beards. This is from a 7 year old’s perspective.When we escaped and went to the US embassy. We saw a lot of American soldiers guarding the embassy.

What do you mean you escaped?
We got a call on the red phone and were told to go to the embassy. We all got into a jeep. I recall there were roadblocks all around. For some reason, we were following this limousine with someone important inside and the soldiers at the roadblocks assumed we were with the limo and let us pass. I never found out who the occupants were in the limousine but that is how we got through. The US embassy was packed with people trying to get in. We finally got in and we waited in this big room. Then from there we were instructed to go to this area where there was a big barge to transport us to a US ship. It was like an escape because there were so many Vietnamese civilians trying to get out of the country. It was chaotic with lots of people trying to push their way in.

Was there a program for officers in the Vietnamese Army?
Yes. Especially on the last day, it was because our family had a connection due to my father being an officer that we were able to get out.
What was it like when you first came to US?
Nobody knew English. We had to assimilate to the culture and language. We were sponsored by the Emanual Episcopal Church. Before coming to Washington, we stopped along the way at an army base in Guam, Phillipines, Fort Chaffee Arkansas. That was the route we took. The only persons who knew English were my father and oldest brother and oldest sister. We went through ESL. When you are young, you pick up language very easily. We were sponsored by the church and we worked for them in exchange for them providing housing. When you are younger, you don’t know what to expect. You have more tools when you are older. But, at the same time, being younger, it is easier to adapt. My older siblings were very sad to leave VN because they had their established friends and life. I was only 7, so it was not that big of a deal. It was easy for me to assimilate. I still retained my culture at home. I learned Vietnamese at home. We still went to Buddhist temple and festivities. I lived in two separate cultures.

There were a lot of other Vienamese families, right?
Your family wasn’t by itself? No. Lots of families settled on the East coast, California, Louisiana and Texas. My theory is that the Vietnamese liked Louisiana due to being fishermen. California had a lot of immigrant populations. It has one of the biggest Vietnamese populations. The Vietnamese gravitated towards the east coast due to connections in the government.

How do you think other Americans felt towards you when you first came?
I lived in Mercer Island, Bellevue and Redmond. I didn’t have a very negative experience in terms of other Americans. The only negative experience I had was during college (UW)where comments were made about my ethnicity during football games. I have heard stories of others having very negative experiences or traumatic emotional experiences in terms of racist comments. My family and I were very lucky.

How did you feel towards the Americans when you settled here?
I didn’t really view it through those kinds of lenses in terms of ethnicity. I was aware of my ethnicity. But it wasn’t until I got to college when students were more active politically and I took classes in women studies that made me more attentive. Growing up in junior high and high school, I didn’t experience the attitude that she doesn’t look like us or sound like us even though Bellevue was pretty white.

There is a lot of debate about who won the war?
Whenever there is a war, there are really no winners. Militarily who won the war? A person in the military would say it was the US due to sheer power. But in terms of the minds of the people, I think that we Americans came away from the war with more scars.Going in it wasn’t something that the Americans had expected. Any time you go in and occupy a foreign country, you try to strategize militarily based on the culture but you never really know. We Americans didn’t win in the hearts and minds of the people. The same thing can be said of the wars in Afganistan and Irag. We have all the fire power. Winning is more than might. In that sense, Americans did lose. But in losing, we gained a lot of lessons that we could take away and learn from. In terms of being a refugee, I can’t really say that we refugees won. We were ripped away from our homeland. Looking back now, it gave me an opportunity to start my life again. We were given opportunities to have a good living. So personally we won.

How did Vietnamese people feel about US coming in and occupying the country?
You will get different answers from different generations. I recently attended a talk at the Mukileo library. The older people feel more scarred from the experience. The average age in Vietnam is the early 40s. So the majority of viewpoints, they didn’t experience that burden and have a very positive viewpoint about the war.

Where is your dad?
My dad no longer living. He would have been 82. My mom is 80.When we came here, all our documents were destroyed because when we were on the barge being shot at and all the rain, the documents were destroyed.

Vietnam War + Julia Newell

For my topic i chose the Vietnam war. I tried to get 3 very different experiences in the war. I interviewed a woman who left for Canada because she disagreed with the government, and didn't want to risk having her husband drafted, a Vietnam war Veteran, and a Vietnamese boat person. I got a feel for what it was like for Susan, who moved to Canada, and why she felt so strongly against the U.S. Government. In my interview with Charlie, the Vietnam Veteran, i got to know many aspects of his experiences on and off the battlefield, how he felt about the war, especially upon returning home, and what that was like. For my interview with Tan, the Vietnamese boat person, i got a strong impression of what it was like to be forced out of his home for a war that he didn't believe in.


Interview with: Susan Inman, American Citizen who moved to Canada

1. How old were you at the start of the Vietnam War and what were you doing?
I started thinking about the Vietnam War in high school and I remembered that I was going to the events at the University in my city (Albuquerque, N.M.). I was active in my high school student council (President) and I remembered thinking that our high school needed to have a debate. I went to our high school Principal Mr. Crumm, and asked him if this might be possible. This was around 1967, and he did not want the debate, so he put me off. He said instead of debating, the student council should have a fund raiser and buy a good sound system to have a debate. The next year I went to Swarthmore College on the east coast. It was a Quaker school- with a long history of Passivism. By then the anti-war movement was big and dynamic and I began to understand things.
One of the things that shocked me was that in the early years of the Vietnam conflict, Ho Chi Minh-approached the United States for help. However, the United States was really too frightened because he was connected to the USSR and wanted a partly socialist state. However, in the 1950’s he was not a rabid communist. I learned more about the history and the money being made by the US corporations in South Viet Nam, and realized that South Vietnam was like a puppet government and a colonial state. The North and South were at war and the Americans joined in. It felt like it was in our face every day. It was the first war that was televised. There is one iconic photo of a girl running down the road on fire from Napalm. Eventually there was a documentary about her that I know about because she is Canadian. She was badly scarred with napalm. This photograph horrified everyone. Eventually huge numbers of Americans turned against the war. We were all wondered why we were there. It was a war that should not have been happening.

1. What major voices influenced your thinking and decisions during the war?
I was part of a network of people I really liked and respected. I had always felt completely American prior to the war. As I was growing up it always seemed that issues in America seems to be getting better…civil rights etc. My grandparents had been impoverished peasants and immigrated to New York. My dad had been born in Europe but became a doctor, in “The land of opportunity”. Being part of the Vietnam and hippie era made a lot of the values seem questionable. I became alienated on many levels. I was an English major and had read lots of novels with male rogue figures going out and having adventures. This was in the beginning of feminism. I began to think about those ideas. I began to realize I needed to go explore just like these characters in the novel and I was drawn to British Columbia because I had a group of friends there. Once I got there. I liked it and wanted to stay there. I really liked Canada a lot.
Political figure-influences: Dr. Spock and people like that. Tons of people spoke out against the war and were also writing influential works. I was exposed to ongoing critical analysis. I can also say that in particular Richard Nixon influenced me because I thought he was horrible.

2. Could you tell me about your husband Peter’s draft experience?

Peter was two years ahead of me in school. At that point people could get different types of draft deferments. For a while people could avoid draft by graduate school or by jobs. Peter went to teach high school after graduation in a black school. This allowed him to be deferred. We were not married then. He interested in coming to British Columbia, as part of a communal experience. Eventually, there was the lottery and he got a good number. That meant his risk of draft was low so he was freed up to do what he wished. His college roommate got a bad number and so once he crossed the Canadian border and did not respond to draft call he was subject to prison. 100,000 Americans emigrated to Canada during the war. Not all were draft dodgers. 70,000 stayed. Many were just alienated from the American culture and the atrocity of war. Now people are saying the demonstrations that were happening were a key factor in changing our role in Vietnam. Participatory democracy.

3. Did your friends and family support your decision to move to Canada?

My friends were all part of this and so we all went together. I was alienated from my parents when I left home at 17.

4. Was it hard to get permission from the Canadian government to let you remain in the country?
It was not that hard. Given that I was not going to use my degree in English right away, to take jobs away from Canadians it helped. I was a waitress and danced…did not help get immigrant status. I arranged to get married to a Canadian so I could stay in Canada legally-the man I married before I married my current husband. Subsequently there was amnesty for everyone because they really needed people. Canada is a big country and at that time, it was under populated. A lot of the Americans who came were educated and went on to have a big impact on education, social policy and culture in Canada. For awhile Canadian Universities were trying not to hire Americans. Initially you did not have to relinquish American citizenship to be a Canadian. That changed, and my current husband had a hard time becoming Canadian. It became too politically charged to take Canadian jobs without becoming Canadian…but not initially. Originally there was a lot of support for American draft dodgers.

5. What was your connection to other conscientious objectors or to the anti-war movement? How was that connection in Canada?
Originally in college was going to the protests and marches. I was learning in college about that. Once in Canada I did not stay connected to the United States anti-war movement. Within a few years of moving to Canada, the war ended.

6. Do you feel that renouncing your American citizenship and becoming Canadian was the right thing to do? Do you have any regrets?

I did not have to renounce my citizenship. Yes, that would have been hard for me. Eventually I returned to America for a time and went to UCLA graduate school. In Canada, I became a landed immigrant (initially not a citizen and could not vote). When the laws around citizenship loosened and I could keep my citizenship, I became a dual citizen. Both of my daughters have the right to be dual citizens. My older daughter works in NY now and would not be able to do that otherwise.

7. Do you feel that there are any really essential questions that I did not ask? Or do you have anything you want to tell me?

Wonderful questions! My students (I am a junior high school drama teacher) who are immigrants came to Canada from Vietnam via camps. It was a tyrannical experience both for those who stayed in Vietnam and for those who immigrated. Learning about those things was very painful for me. Vietnam became a military regime after the Americans were expelled. Now I see that a lot of ideas about the world in my twenties were naïve. I see there is a lot of ignorance in what we were doing, but I still think it was the right thing to do in trying to end this really terrible war. It was not a war that made sense. But my rigid ideas about what happened were just really naïve. It is all kind of lumped together in my mind.


Interview with Mr. Charlie Payne, Vietnam War Veteran


1. Where are you from and how old are you?

I am 62; I am from a family that moved around a lot because my dad was in the Coast Guard. My dad finally retired in Coos Bay, Oregon, where I went to junior high and high school.

2. When did you join the armed forces?

I joined at 19 years old, in 1966. I went to the University of Oregon on a track scholarship, I was the president of the freshman class and I joined a fraternity. I had a Cheerleader girlfriend that dumped me. I had to be in college with 2.0 or got drafted – and I did not maintain a 2.0-because I was having too much fun, so I joined. I was an “enlisted” man, not drafted.

3. What branch did you get assigned?

I was assigned infantry.

4. Did joining the military disrupt your life plans?

Yeah, it really disrupted my life. My father was a child of depression, and he did not even finish the 6th grade. It was always my father’s dream that his 3 boys would go to universities. After the war I wanted to come back to the Northwest. I did finish graduate school. I went back to Portland, and went to work for a lumber company. I was sent to Vancouver. I bought a home n Deep Cove, near Whistler. I bought a home, where I was approached by a neighbor, also an American who said “are you a veteran?...What part of coming to Canada did you not get?”

5. How did you feel about Vietnam when you joined?

I was pro-war. I was a military brat. Dad was conservative Republican. I heard the call and responded.

6. Who were major political influences?

Barry Goldwater-conservative Arizona government-hawk. My father supported him as well, and then after that I supported Ronald Regan. Since then politically I have become middle of the road.

7. Where did you train?

Basic Training: Fort Lewis (now I grocery shop there). Basic. I was the honor graduate in my battalion. When you go to military you get a lot of tests. I scored really high and I was chosen for officer candidate school. The army lost my orders so I was sent to fort Benjamin Harris and I learned administrative tools. Then I was sent to Fort Benning and Officer Candidate School. Very cerebral and physical. Extreme conditioning. I became a Second lieutenant – in infantry that means you are the queen of battle, the ones up front who do the fighting. I then graduated and went to paratrooper school. Then I went to Ranger school (like navy seals). Then I went to pathfinder school in Fort Benning, Georgia, where I learned how to survive (for example, if I was stranded in bush, I could get into position for airplane rescue). Then I went to Panama, had more training and 30 days break with my family and my wife.
I remember Sgt White –calm cool collected He was the best instructor. “Following instincts and survival” and two sergeants in Ranger school who later joined me in Vietnam, Sgt. Gates and Sgt. Smith – they were career army men and had already had one tour.

8. How did you feel about the war once you arrived in Vietnam?

After I arrived in Viet Nam, I could see the war was very disorganized. Chaos. I was still happy and proud to be there …I was ready to go but the groups were poorly coordinated.
I was assigned to command the first U.S. Rangers to serve in the Highlands-the mountains. I knew before I got there I that that is what I would be doing. There were a lot of casualties –out of 220 men I served with, I lost 87 men. (This was a very emotional statement for Mr. Paine) I was wounded several times. We were all volunteers. That was over the course of 1.5 years. The standard tour of duty was 12 months. I could not leave. I could not leave so I extended my tour for 6 months. The last time was too bad and I had to be evacuated. I had to go to Japan and spend a year in a hospital.

9. What was your most memorable experience?
Some were funny and -some horrific-we were in a firefight. We ambushed a unit. We were good and cocky. Our intelligence was off and the Viet Cong group was 3 times bigger than us. We had only 6 men- their group had over 18 men. Firefights were really loud. There was lots of smoke in the air. Someone on their side fired a mortar. Shrapnel hit me –we always had a medic who stayed by me. It landed in my right testicle. I pulled my pants down and was yelling in pain. Medic had to pull the shrapnel out. My men were howling with laughter.
Other major memory was the first guy I lost. Joe Struesel who was from Detroit. 19 years old. He was the point man (7-10 yards ahead of everyone). He missed an ambush. They let him through…he turned around to come back (no one suppose to-you are suppose to keep going). He ran back. He got shot. I crawled back and I grabbed him and he died with his head in my lap. Especially think about him on Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day. (Very emotional story).
I was so wracked with guilt when I got home…I went to visit the families of some of my men who had died. Some welcomed me, and some were just polite. They did not want to re-live it.
With Joe’s family-he had given me his army ring, and I took ring to parents and flew to Detroit and took ring and Mr. Struesel wanted nothing to do with me. Now I know it was just too painful.

10. How did American troops interact with S. Vietnamese troops?

They were bad soldiers. Nepotism, if you dad had a high rank you did too. Training poor. The leaders were untrained. I had a few S. Vietnamese soldiers and I sent them home. I had one who was interpreter who was good that I trained. Mostly, I did not interact with the people. I was infantry and in the jungle most of the time. They would be known as being either friendly to US or to the North. If they were friendly to North, we had to try and convince the chieftain of the village and that was really the only interaction we had. I did not spend any time in Saigon. I did not have any respect for the U.S. brass. Even in the central highlands, I flew directly back into the army base to debrief my commanding general. I don’t interact with Vietnamese now. One of my daughters is part Vietnamese but I avoid the restaurants and stuff. Too raw for me.

11. I understand you were held captive, can you tell me about it?

We got in a firefight. We were outnumbered. They were a much bigger force. Losing you call for support (howitzers, jets, etc). The enemy knew that so they “hug your belt” so you would have to “blow yourself up”. I knew we were in big trouble. We were in a swampy area and we just dug in. I had called for jets with Napalm…and they dropped it on us. Then we got into another ambush and I was shot in leg and injured with Napalm. I was separated. As commander you have to do everything your men do or they won’t respect you. They sprung the ambush early. I just could not go anywhere and I could not get to (pre-arranged) rendezvous. I was captured and taken into N Vietnam- a 3-day hike (110 miles-hung from a pole strapped arms and legs – no food or water- they carried me). We arrived at a medium size military base. They turned me over to interrogation. They try at first to make friends with you. They would ask about your personal life…Married?…Do you want to go home?…Parents miss you?…yadda, yadda.. Then they asked about troop movements. Mission? Military intelligence. I would not talk. We were not marked as rank. I was a captain then. They shoot the leaders first.
They figured I was at least a sergeant. They had no way of knowing. I would not tell them about my mission. We did 3 types of missions:
1-blew up bridges 2-political snatches 3-poisoned water supplies. They wanted to know this and I would not tell them. Then they started torturing me. They really couldn’t hurt me. Both of my legs were broken. I have a lot of Teflon and titanium now. I was put in a small cage for 6 months and they kept me there and did ugly things to me. Even if I got out, I could not walk. My doctor and two nurses were Chinese (contributed to the “war effort”). . Ironically, I was getting care while in the cage. These Chinese medical people spent one year there--that was their tour of duty. The night that they were going home they set me free. They had food in nap sack and let me out of cage. I crawled and hobbled – and it took me 3 weeks to get back to S Vietnam. At night I navigated by the stars. Rangers never leave a man behind. I knew my men would still be looking for me. They would never have gone back without me. I knew what grid points to go back to. They were sweep grid squares when they could (via kilometers)… and it took 10 days for them to find me. I ate berries, lizards and that type of thing to survive. Unfortunately, I ate the bad kind of mushrooms. I got really sick. My own men finally found me and when they did we all cried like babies. That was the most wonderful moment. They carried me all the way to safety. Then I was transported and transferred to multiple locations for weeks and finally settled in a hospital outside Tokyo for one year. I came home in a jet that stopped in Hawaii, and that is the last time I have ever been there.

12. What was it like to see your family for the first time?

It was difficult to see my parents. I know my dad loved me but we never touched or express affections. I had bitterness that all my dad could do was shake hands. I confronted my dad at 16…with this but he never could. When I came home it was not joyous. No party. People came by …when I flew back to Memphis to see my wife. Best hug ever. At first she did not recognize me…I weighed 117 pounds (was 170 before I left). I was on crutches hobbling.

13. How did other people treat you?

I say the worst black mark in military history –was the way Vietnam vets were treated when they got home. We were spat on, people threw cow’s blood on us and called us “baby killers”. When my plane landed in San Francisco, there were demonstrators were on the tarmac, burning the American flag and throwing water balloons, filled with pig’s blood. A guy threw a balloon at me but it did not break. The guy came after it, and I was in a wheel chair and took my first steps in almost 18 months and fell on my face. Some young woman (also anti-war demonstrator) in the crowd helped me to my feet and put me in chair. She held me and whispered ‘I’m so sorry’. She burst into tears and ran off.

14. What happened when you got home?

I had to go to 4 years of college. My first wife got a PhD at Vanderbilt--She was on the faculty and they let me in “on probation”. I was so ready to study then. I went to school on the GI bill (85$ a month and tuition waver). I was invited to join the honors college- and had a triple major. Chemistry and fun stuff, comparative political theory, and early British and American rhetoric. Then I went to graduate school at the London School of Economics. Finally I returned to Oregon to build my life.

15. What problems do you have now that you attribute to having been in the war?

I have a hard time getting close to people. I see a good psychologist at the VA. The guy gave my life to me. I could not figure out why I had so much anger, or problems getting close. It was because I had so much pain from loosing so many people. It was hard to allow people in to my life again. We thought we could handle these problems by ourselves---but we cannot. I avoided all Vietnam movies. One day, living in Vancouver…I realized I needed to get a grip. So I started by seeing a movie… The Deer Hunter- “terrible mistake”…I was transfixed…it set me back 15 years and I knew I had to get help. There was no help in Canada where I was living. It took me another few years, and I joined a support group in Canada of Vietnam vets, I was the only American. The leader of the group talked me into going to the VA to get help, to see a psychologist. This VA hospital is quite famous for its PTSD clinic. This helped so much, especially seeing other soldiers. I had an opportunity to go to Miami to attend an outreach center. Met a counselor - Ed Calbo from Nicaraugua. He had been in the air force in Vietnam. At my first appointment I cried for one hour, and the next time, the same thing. This was the first time I cried for 25 years since getting back from Vietnam. That was 12 years ago. “Charlie you have a guilt issue, I am going to help you with it, you must be Jewish”. He got me started. I continued with counseling. I still go regularly…I see Scott Michael-a young guy at the VA-regularly. It has been a long journey; I have been really functional for 5-6 years. I cry a lot.

16. How has service in VN helped shape you?

I am-“organized” and I notice everything. I am totally focused. I have had leukemia twice- and survived. I am not so sure I will make it a third time. This was because of my exposure to Agent Orange. I know how lucky I am. I touch and I hug and I kiss people. I have a wonderful wife and 3 daughters ages 26, 34, and 35. They bless me. My youngest daughter (who is adopted) dances with the Kirov ballet in Russia. She is based in Seattle. They are very affectionate. They always soothe me in a crowd. Vietnam has changed my life in good and bad ways. Not so angry anymore. I am still angry with my government for the way we were treated.
Leukemia is from Agent Orange. Dioxin caused the cancer. The government denied liability for a long time. Vets took the government and Monsanto to court and Monsanto to prove the association. It took years and lots of small and large donations but we won, finally. Unfortunately, the damage from Agent Orange skips generations… I constantly worry whether my grandchildren will be ok. Also, I still cannot believe the way we were treated when we got home. Still this is the best country and I know because I travel all over the world.

17. Anything that I did not ask or that you want to say?

Julia, I am so glad that you did not ask, “How many people did you kill?” That is such a terrible and cruel question on so many levels. I just want to say a couple of things. I am just floored that anyone you age cares about Vietnam veterans. It means so much to me.

I also want to say to people that there is a lot you can do as a conscientious objector (teach, work in an administrative position, volunteer, etc). As much as this country does for us, it asks very little. The least we can do when we get called is to answer the call. If you don’t want to fight, then sign up to help in any way you can.






Interview with: Tan Chung, Vietnamese boat person

When were you born-what year and where? What was your native nationality?

I was born in 1957 in a town called Tra Vinh, in Vietnam. I am mostly Vietnamese but I had ancestors in my family, way back in the day.

Where did you spend you childhood and can you describe your family and your ancestral home?

I did not know my family very well at all because, they wanted a better life for me and to get a good education, so I was sent off to the big city of Saigon away from my family, to go to school when I was 6 years old. They also wanted me out of the house because my grandma was an alcoholic and they thought she would be a bad influence on me, and that I would grow up to be unmotivated. I packed all my belongings and went on a bus to Saigon. I lived with my dad’s friend. At first I was very excited to be living with him, but then he started to be very abusive, and would strike me all the time.

What was your education in Vietnam?

In Vietnam, I started school in the first grade at age 6, and went to school until my sophomore year in college. For college, I went to the University of Cantho, and majored in Physics. I wanted to have a good profession, so I worked very hard, I did not socialize very often, and never drank alcohol.

How old were you when the Vietnam War began (the one with the US)?

I was born in 1957, so the war had already been going on before I was born, so I grew up around the war. It became something that seemed normal in my life, I didn’t like it but it was the only thing I knew.

How did you feel about the war?

I thought it was horrible. I was always in fear that something would happen to my family back in Tra Vinh, and I could hear guns and men being killed when I tried to sleep at night because, we lived in a home closer to the jungle areas, where the killing took place. There was no point to the war. I did not want our country to become communist, but killing each other and killing U.S. soldiers would only make everything worse.

Were you in the military?

No I was not. I was very against being in the military because I believe that warfare is wrong, and I always have. It was not a war I supported and I did not want to be a part of it. There was a draft in Vietnam at the time I was still in College, and I almost got drafted. At that time, I was eligible to be drafted, but luckily, my father changed my year of birth on my birth certificate from 1957 to 1958, and that way I did not have to be drafted at the time I was still in school.

How old were you when you left Vietnam, and how did you leave?

I left Vietnam in 1965 after the fall of Saigon. This was when I was finishing my sophomore year in college. I escaped and collected enough money for a spot on a boat going out of Vietnam. I collected everything I had and sold it to be able to pay for a spot on the boat. I left very early in the morning and my friend from school helped me to get to the port safely without being caught.

What was the boat experience like?

It was terrible. Our boat was out at sea for a very long time, almost a month. There were very strong currents, and some there was very little food and water. I was very hungry most of the time and I lost a lot of weight during the trip. Thai pirates robbed us. They took all my money I had left for the destination and all of my food and water. They killed one man on our boat who refused to give up his money and raped a woman and killed her. We were not the only boat they did this to

Did your family come with you?

No we could not afford for everyone to go, it was a struggle just to pay for me to go.

Where did you move? Can you tell me about that experience?

My boat was lucky enough to make it to Malaysia. I lived there for about 10 years, and studied English there. I finally saved up enough money to buy a plane ticket to America and to study at community college, and I traveled to America. I came to Seattle in 1980, to study at Seattle Central Community College. I knew minimal English, but I picked it up as I lived in Seattle. I was very advanced in math and physics because it is the same everywhere. I worked as a cook to pay for expenses, and to save up for more education. I saved up enough and went to UW to major in engineering. It was very hard at first to be in America. I did not understand a lot of the ways of the American people and I could not help but be angry at the people for what they did to my country. It was very hard to get away from the label of being a boat person. I worked hard and became a restaurant owner, and then a real estate investor.

Have you been back to Vietnam?

Yes, two times. I went back once in 1990 and once in 2007. The first time I went back, in 1990, it was very different than in 2007. It was strictly communist and everybody was very poor and there was still a lot of damage from the war. In 2007, it was a lot richer, and less damaged. The economy in 2007 was much improved.

What is your view about the war now that it is over?

I am very glad it is over. I hated every minute of it. Almost everything that happened to me happened because of the War. I would have been able to finish college in Vietnam if I didn’t have to escape, I would have been able to start a family in my home country if it weren’t for the War. And I wouldn’t have lost contact or been separated from the ones I loved.

How do you feel about the way the US government handled the war?

I think that they were very disorganized and did not know how badly they were hurting our country even though they were fighting for South Vietnam. They ruined it for even the ones they were trying to help from communism. I think though that they were really self-interested. They did not want a better Vietnam; they just wanted to make sure no other countries went communist.

Vietnam War by Minh Bao Nguyen

The Vietnam War was a major military conflict that started on November 1, 1955 when United States poured troops into Vietnam and ended on April 30, 1975 when Saigon fell to the communists. This war was fought between the communist North Vietnamese, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The Vietnam War created a huge human cost in terms of fatalities, including about 4 million Vietnamese from both sides, 1.5 to 2 million Laotians and Cambodians, and 58,159 U.S. soldiers. So given the perfect opportunity, I decided to interview my parents and my father’s friend to further my understanding of what it was like being Vietnamese people during the time of war.


Mother--- Lan Huong

I was about eight years old when the war started, when American troops began pouring in. My family and I lived in Bien Hoa district of Saigon, which was the South Vietnamese capital city. People felt relatively safe living there because it would be the last city that the Viet Cong (North Vietnamese communists) would attack. Unlike other wars that I heard about, people in Saigon did not evacuate because we were living on the Southeastern tip of Asia and there were communists everywhere around the region. There was no where to run away to.
My father was lucky enough to be part of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) airforce. We also got the privilege of living inside the military camp with many other high officials’ families. The camp was very spacious, containing loads of tanks, choppers, and battle planes provided by US. It was strictly walled off with huge concrete walls and barb wires. There is only one single gate for entering and exiting the area, guarded with dozens of heavily armed soldiers. People entering and exiting the area had to get their IDs checked to ensure that no Viet Cong could sneak inside. Relative visits became a frustration as we had to go through many steps in order to get them inside. But we did not live wealthy lives, my three sisters and I had to help our mother run a small laundry business to earn a living. We would wash the soldiers’ clothes because they did not have washing machines back then. Luckily my working hours did not intervene much with my education.
I remember Christmas was the best holiday. Every child in the camp received a card and everyone would gather at this big square to exchange those cards for Christmas gifts from the Americans, usually a fuzzy doll. Those were the only presents I’ve ever gotten in my childhood. But never did any of us complain about our conditions, in fact, we were very grateful to be able to live in such a safe place. The schools outside the area taught kids a lot of English so we can be the interpreters for the Vietnamese and American soldiers. My friends and I would wander the streets and greet the American soldiers in hope of getting ten or twenty cents from them, and that was enough to buy a delicious Vietnamese meal.
I remember hearing artillery from the Viet Cong sent into the camp where we lived. They were aiming at the high officials and the American consulates but the artillery often ended up in the houses, killing many innocent civilians. One got really close to our house and we were freaking out, had to move out for a day. Whenever the alerting alarm went off, we were expected to hide under furniture for safety.
During 1968, the Tet Offensive occurred when I was about thirteen years old. I saw Viet Congs in black pajamas climbing the over the fence and into the camp. Of course the guard soldiers were shooting like crazy and we were hiding inside our homes. But that was really my first experience with the war. Hundreds of North Vietnamese were shot down and piled up on the street for people to witness. I started questioning myself of why the same race of people, Vietnamese, was taking away the lives of other people of their own race. That event made it more difficult for people to enter and exit the camp.
Outside the camp where I went to school, I began seeing these Vietnamese women coming from the countryside looking for a living. Many of them developed relationships with American soldiers and had Amerasian babies. Those children were discriminated because of their different skin colors. Amerasians with white blood though, were not as discriminated as the black children. They were very pitiful; many went through schools in Vietnam without any friend because they were different. Most of them don’t know who their daddies are, and some were even abandoned by their Vietnamese mothers.
I had an aunt who was very beautiful at the age of nineteen. She met a young American soldier while she worked as a bartender at a club. They developed a relationship and were soon madly in love. The soldier planned on bringing her to America but when she was about to get on the bus to go meet him, she stepped on a Bouncing Betty (specialized mine) set up by the Viet Cong. The mine was intended to kill soldiers but instead it broke a love story. The soldier mourned for days at her funeral. It was a love story that I used to admire because it shows how true love has no borders. My father died in battle when I was growing up so I had to work much more to help my mother take care of my five younger siblings. It became rough from there on but I’m sure many other Vietnamese people suffered a much greater deal than me.


Father--- Quyen Nguyen

I was nine years old, living in Saigon, when the war started. My family and I lived by a South Vietnamese paratrooper base. My father was a paratrooper in Division 7. There were many protests and demonstrations against the war in Saigon. I myself participated in a few because we learned that the South government is very corrupted. They had a false freedom of speech law, none of the newspapers were able to express their points or disagree with the government. Basically, the South Vietnamese government treated us like trash; all they wanted was to defeat the North. There were also Viet Congs in disguised, sneaking around the city trying to start these protests to disrupt the government. The police threw gas grenades and would beat the protestors to teach them a lesson.
Before the Tet Offensive, the Viet Congs signed the treaty of no attacking during the three days of New Year. But then they broke the treaty by launching attacks on many major cities. They used the advantage of the loud fireworks to enter Saigon when the South Vietnamese were celebrating. Everyone hid in their homes and you could hear series of gun shots going on every minute of those days. The Viet Cong is famous for their brutalities and tricks. We heard stories of North Vietnamese soldiers being forced onto the battlefield to fight or else they would get killed. The North had the advantage of a huge supportive and determined population at getting rid of foreign influences.
Back in school, there was very little talk about the war, everything proceeded normally. But when boys turned seventeen years old, they were drafted into the ARVN. The North even drafted fifteen-year-old boys because their soldiers were dying rapidly. Luckily, I was an only child in the family and my father was already serving in the army so I did not have to be drafted. My father was often gone for battles and I mostly lived my childhood with my mother. She was able to open a small business so again, I was lucky enough to go to school and not have to join the army.
On April 30th, 1975, South Vietnam surrendered and the Viet Congs began marching into Saigon. That previous night, my mother had already paid a fisherman about US $2,000, all she had at the time, to take me to a new place. The Viet Cong was going to take all of the money they found anyway because Vietnam became a communist country. So I came on board with a boatload of people, literally, and we drove out into the open sea, hoping to get rescue and end up in another country. But unfortunately four hours into our trip we were all captured by Viet Cong’s navy. Those next few months I spent in the communist jail was probably the hardest stage of my life. We were expected to stay there for about three to four years unless we fed the officials some money to say that we’ve served enough time in prison. No trials, no regulations, no fairness, no nothing. The prisoners lived together in several big rooms. The room was crowded, stinking, sometimes rotted dead people that the guards would not clear out. Everyday we would get two meals, each containing only a handful of plain rice with some salt. We could only receive exactly nine cups of water for bath. Sick people were left to die. I myself had a major diarrhea, so bad that I was crawling on the ground groaning for help. I was almost dead and they did not even bother to check. The crazy thing is, they had a medicine bag hanging on the wall to show that they were treating their prisoners but they only used it on the officials. I am still very pissed at the Viet Congs for that. My friends in there were able to sneak in some anti-bacteria medicines and my diarrhea went away. That’s why I always say, “Never believe what the Viet Congs say but instead witness what they do.”


Father’s friend--- Chi Van Tran

I lived in Hue, central Vietnam, when the war first started in 1955. I was already a young South Vietnamese soldier fighting North Vietnamese expansion. We heard great news about how the United States was coming to help us. The Viet Cong was using very effective guerilla warfare against our infantry. It was extremely frustrating to spot them in the jungle so we just fell back and defended the province of Hue. We asked that the residences there must tell us anything they know about the Viet Cong but very few agreed to cooperate. They kept questioning why is it that Vietnamese people was fighting one another. We told them that communism is a very crazy form of government and that the South was trying to get rid of the dictators. Many of them claims that if it wasn’t for the communists that fought off the French we would all still be under French colonial rule.
After American forces made their way to Hue, I was sent back to Saigon where I met your family. Soldiers that were always on the move like me couldn’t manage to form a family because it would just be a mess. I did hit up a few women here and there, you know, soldiers like me. The war provided me the opportunity to meet a lot of new friends, most of them soldiers. We would share stories, go into battles together, experience hardships together. I believe it’s really those times of hardship that people are able to find their true best friends.
The Viet Cong launched 122mm rockets, supplied by China, into South Vietnamese residence areas and we soldiers would have to track them down. Usually a dozen of guys were sent just to find one or two Viet Cong. It was a very frustrating process. I have a friend who went into the Battle of An Lao in Binh Ninh. His unit was surrounded by hundreds of Viet Congs armed with AK-47s. Those guns are better than the M-16s that were supplied by the US because AK-47s can cool faster and has a deadlier bullet impact. The North Vietnamese would always try to outnumber their opposing forces because even with effective tactics, they always end up losing more men in every battle. Anyway, my friend somehow managed to run away from the Viet Congs. But unfortunately the American airforce dropped napalm bombs in hope of killing the Viet Congs. It burned parts of the guy’s body and he could no longer go back into battle. I followed through the whole Vietnam War and I got to tell you, it is definitely one of the worst wars known to mankind.

Medicine in Vietnam - Wesley Rostomily

This interview is from a soldier that fought in Vietnam and received aid from injuries. He was a marine soldier that knew the struggles of war.

Questions:
What age were you when you were in the military?
How were wounded soldiers cared for and evacuated?
Do you think that the medical situation was well handled in the field?
Do you have any stories regarding corpsmen and their jobs?
Did you receive medical aid from any injuries while in Vietnam?
How were jungle foot and tiger grass infections dealt with?
How effective was the use of Huey helicopters?
Did malaria and other local diseases give you any problems?
And lastly, how was the general health of an active soldier in Vietnam?

Responses:
After two years in college I answered Kennedy's, "Ask not what your country can do for you; rather ask what you can do for your country." I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1966 and served in Vietnam 1967-1968. If you have studied your history, you know there were more US casualties in a month during this period than the Iraqi and Afghani Wars and their 8+ years combined. I was a squad leader in 3rd Batallion, 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division and spent all my 15 months in the DMZ area. Find on a map: Camp Carroll, Con Thien, Gio Linh, Dong Ha, Khe Sank, Rockpile, Cam Lo...this was my area of operation. 1968, especially, was the bloodiest year of the war. Read about this for some background info and so you have an idea of what it was like. I was 19 when I enlisted and 22 when I received my discharge. During those years, 95% of enlistments were for 2 years. I was wounded twice: once in Con Thien in Sept. 67 by multiple mortar fragment (shrapnel, about 13 pieces through my lower extremities for the most part), and again at Gio Linh in Jan 68. Both times I was treated at the Batallion Aid level (Navy medical personnel support Marines). Only once was I evacuated to the rear for treatment. The Marines have a thing about treat and release to duty. The Marine Corps continues to this day to operate without a lot of the luxuries the Army takes for granted. We did not have any where near the number of helicopters available for medevac, so our wait times were often longer. Also, when the monsoons were severe, helicopters often couldn't fly, so trucks sometimes served to evacuate. Our Navy corpsmen were excellent; they took good care of us. The chain of command in the medical world during war runs: corpsman, company corpsman, battallion corpman, doctors etc.. A lot that we know about trauma today , the medical field owes to this system. Usually helicopter medevac could be arranged; I do know personally, however, Marines who died waiting for that helicopter. The statistics will tell you, however, that 35-40% more wounded survived (with the same injuries) than would have survived during World War 11 and Korean War because of helicopter medical evacuation.
The field care of a Marine by Navy Corpsman (same as Army's medics) was pretty darned good. Again, the problem worsened because of the availability of helicopters for medevacing Marines...we simply didn't have enough helicopters and most of ours were the CH-46 dual rotor model (research this helicopter). The Huey was an amazing helicopter...definitely the first of its kind and the first "dedicated" medevac chopper (the Marine helicopters were transport choppers as well as troop carriers etc,. so this also impacted their availibility and didn't always have corpsmen to treat the wounded). One of the best "Docs" (that's what we called corpsman), was a guy by the name of Doc Nunn. He received a Bronze Star and a battlefield promotion for caring for two men from my squad who had walked into an ambush. All the time he was treating my men he was under fire by the NVA (North Vietnamese Army). (Research the difference between Viet Cong and the NVA). Doc was hit once, but stayed with and treated my men until we could destroy the NVA and get to the three of them. Most Corpsman and Medics are amazingly dedicated to their men!! A good friend of mine was in the Army and had both arms blown off at the shoulders by a rocket propelled grenade. His ground medic started Ivs in both legs, a helicopter (with flight medics) was there within 20 minutes: they added 4 more IVs and were squeeezing them into him to match the amount of blood flowing out, a hospital ship was a quick 10 minute flight. Needless to say they saved him; if he had been a Marine he would not have been as lucky. During WW2 and Korea he definitely would not have survived. The problem is: now we have 75% more paraplegics coming home from the war who have to face PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress) (research this) and years of rehabilitation. Quite a few suicides occurred in this demographic.

Immersion foot (jungle foot) was a severe problem in the monsoon season; we couldn't wear socks and squad leaders really got after the men to get their boots off once inside the wire (perimeter). All of us had our parents sending foot powder to us in the mail all of the time. The problem was that Marines went out on 20-45 day operations; whereas, the Army choppered in and choppered out a couple of days later. So, keeping care of our feet was a lot harder. Jungle rot (tiger grass infections...never heard it called that but...) was a constant problem. I probably have 30-40 jungle rot scars still visible on my body. Black had problems with jungle rot developing when they shaved,besides the kind we all got in the boonies (jungle). Complicating this was the fact that oftern times we went weeks without washing. My personal record was 43 days without soap. We usually had malaria pills, but often times we didn't have enough, so squad leaders, platoon sergeants etc would give their doses to the men and go with out. We had a few malaria medevacs. The other thing that got to a lot of us was amoebic dysentery (research this). This was caused by parasites in the water. Again we had some water treatment pills, but never enough. Amoebic dysentery gives you the worst case of diarreah you will ever have and it doesn't stop. We only had a tiny packet of toilet paper that came with our C-Rations (what we ate, research this) and it was never enough. Because of this we couldn't wear underwear because of resultant sores etc., besides underwear just rotted off our bodies. It took me over a year back in the states being treated by a specialist to finally get over the dysentery. When I went to Viet Nam I weighed 195 and was in Marine Corps shape. When I returned I weighed 158 pounds and I am 6'-2". We never caught colds or had the flu (we were innoculated against all of that). We wore our jungle utilities and our boots until they rotted off. We slept on the ground everynight,sometimes in fighting holes, sometimes not, we usually received mail every two weeks or so ( but never received everything friends and family said they sent), there were no computers, no phone call to loved ones...we were absolutely isolated from the world. As we got close to the end of our tour in Vietnam we talked about returning to "the world".
One thing I forgot to add, our corpsmen ofter had medcaps where we would surround a village and our corpmen would go in and treat the villagers
In 1980 some friends and I started a "rap group of Vietnam vets to help deal with PTSD. I also returned to the military at this time and flew as a flight medic with a National Guard unit. We were sent to Saudi Arabia for 9 months for the 1st Gulf War and flew over 100 combat medevacs, 30 of which were flown into Iraq. I spent 9months sleeping eith in my helicopter or sleeping in tents in the desert. My oldest son Eric (Tom's cousin)was also in the 1st Gulf War and was a crewman on an M1-A1 tank that went into Kuwait to liberate that country from the Iraqis.. After we moved out here, I joined and AirForce Reserve Unit and flew as a flight paramedic on C-141s and was an instructor. After 6 years of that I joined an Army Reserve unit and became an instructor who trained and qualified the units to go to Iraq and Afghanistan. I also spent 6 months training friendly (supposedly) Iraqi policemen. I retired 4 years ago with 24 years, 10 months and 5 days in the military, and retired two years after teaching high school for 37 years. I now work with a veterans resource center working with Iraqi and Afghan vets (as well as some Vietnam Vets, still) who have PTSD (make sure you research this).
I retired as a Master Sergeant and stayed an enlisted man because I loved the field and that was where the action was.


This interview is from a neurosurgeon stationed in Vietnam. He received head trauma patients and also spinal cord injuries mainly from shrapnel. He shares what hospitals were like in the Vietnam War.

What age were you going into the war and how long did you serve?

I entered the US Army in January 1968 at the age of 33. I served for two years (minus one month because I was a good soldier and received an Honorable Discharge in December 1969. the first year was in Viet Nam and the second year was at Fitsimmons Hospital in Denver, CO.

Where were you stationed in Vietnam?

I arrived in Viet Nam in Da Nang after 26 days on a troop ship that sailed from Long Beach, CA. After a week in Da Nang, I was transferred to the 67th Evacuation Hospital in Qui Nhon.

What was being a neurosurgeon like in Vietnam?

I was assigned to a 300 bed hospital that was well equipped and staffed for what we did, which was trauma neurosurgery involving the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves. Sometimes there was another neurosurgeon there with me, sometimes I was the only one in our hospital. Patients usually arrived by helicopter and sometimes arrived in groups of 7-8, which was all that a Huey could carry. A Chinook, however, could bring over 20 wounded at one time. We learned to tell what kind of craft was arriving by the rotor noise. Some days there was no business, other times one operated steadily for two days with only a catnap between cases.

What types of injuries did you treat and what were the most common surgeries?

I treated all types of trauma to the nervous system. Craniotomies for metal fragments in the brain were the most common, spine surgeries were next. There were very few bullet wounds, for the high velocity of M-16 and AK-47 projectiles meant that the body was destroyed by the bullet--no one survived an AK-47 wound to the head or spine. (KE =1/2 MV2 {cannot get superscript 2= squared]) There were a few handgun injuries (usually assault by one of our soldiers on another)

Was infection a major problem in treating wounded soldiers?

No, infection was never a problem. Everyone was young and healthy, all got antibiotics, and they were shipped out to Japan or the Philippines within a few days, so if there was a delayed infection, we never knew it.

I read that the Vietcong attacked hospitals in during the war- were you ever in a situation like this and did you ever feel threatened or come under fire?

During the year that I was in Qui Nhonb, our hospital, which was on a corner of the airfield was never attacked. Two months after I left, the VC overran the palce for a few hours and there were casualties. One always felt threatened, carried a gun whenever off the base and was grateful when one's 365 days in country were up and one got on the airplane home still in one piece.

How was it different performing surgery in Vietnam compared to in the US?

In Viet Nam, I was the only surgeon in the OR. The other people were the anesthesiolgoist, a scrub tech and a circulating nurse who covered several rooms at once. Never in my training or subsequently have I ever been the only surgeon on a case; always had residents and attendings when I was a resdient and always had residents when I was an attending. As we did only trauma in Viet Nam, the equipment was simpler, no power tools and nothing fancy. This was long before CT and MRI were known.

Did you just treat American soldiers?

We treated anyone who got into our receiving area. Mainly it was US military, but we also took care of enemy wounded and divilian wounded, when they got to us.

Was it difficult to get the supplies needed for surgery and how did the surgical equipment and OR personnel compare with what you had in the US?

Our shoptial was well-supplied for what we did. Only rarely was there a shortage of something. The personnel were well trained and did what I told them to do, for I was the ranking officer. Our equipemnt was adequate for what we did in the combat zone.

What was the general process for a solider that faced a head injury and how did this compare with the treatment they would have received stateside?

Soldiers were rapidly evacuated from the area of their injury by helicopter to our facility. The average time from wounding to our receiving department was 40 minutes. It took us only 10 minutes to get into the OR, unless someone was already being operated upon and then the soldier would have to wait his turn. This is much faster to definitive care tahn exists in our country, even today. After a few days of stabilization all of our wounded were evacuated by air to large hospitals in the Philippines or Japan for recuperation before they were shipped home.

How were head injuries triaged in the field and transported to your hospital?Did many soldiers with head injuries survive or return to action?

See above answer. No one survived an AK-47 or M-16 wound to the head. They died before we ever saw them. Other types of wounds were often not fatal. Brain and spine injuries never returned to combat, they were all shipped out once stable.

Where there things that could have been done to improve on the care of the soldiers?

Yes. If our government had not lied to us about the reason for going to war, they could have all stayed home and avoided a combat zone entirely. If the Green Berets had not been so vain and stupid to have worn soft felt hats instead of helmets there would have been fewer brain injures from grenades and claymore mines that the VC turned around on our soldiers. Once the wounded got to our hospital, they received excellent and timely care, every bit as good as that available to civilians in our cities, and much better than that found in rural America at the time.

American Experience of Vietnam War, Collin Evenson

Collin Evenson
NK P3
5/24/10
Introduction

My subject was the Vietnam War, more specifically; the American experience of the Vietnam War. In each interview, I tried to get a feel for the unique experience of each person. Two of my interviewees (both men) served during the war so I obviously targeted the experience and feelings of an American soldier (or navy sailor, which both mine were) during the war. I also interviewed my grandma who is a completely different generation than the other two. In the solider interviews, I wanted to know what serving was like, the duties that serving for US entailed and their feelings about it. for my grandma, I wondered about the general experience of an American citizen. I wanted to know how it affected her and her feelings towards it. Each interview is unique and interesting but there is also overlap with the truths of that era.

Interviews
1. My Grandma (my dad’s mom) Betty Evenson

What do you remember about the general feeling that people had or you had when America first sent troops to Vietnam?
Well, either people were mad or just plain disappointed that it had to be. And I was probably part of each. Partly disgusted and sorry that we had to get so involved.
How did the views of the war differ among you and your friends?
I think everyone felt about the same way as I did, I don’t remember anyone being more vehement, of course if they had family members over in Vietnam, they were very worried. I don’t remember really knowing anybody that had anybody in the war. I’m sure I must’ve known somebody but right now I’m just not remembering.
How did the feelings differ among generations? Kids vs. Middle Age People
Well, anybody that was old enough who lived through World War 2, really hated war and really hated war and younger people could see more reason to fight. Like I say, its hard for me to remember.
Now, how did your feelings change from the start to the end of the war?
Well, the one feeling was it was going on so long and we were losing the boys over there. I guess we all wondered if it was worth it.

Did you ever doubt the presidents that were leading the fight or the other leaders that were the main people pushing for it?
I think the reaction all of us had was we hoped they knew what they were doing. That it wasn’t a shot in the dark or whatever you want to say. It seemed foolish in some ways and in some ways it seemed we had to stand up for what we believed in.
How did the whole thing go about with Don (her son, my uncle) being of draft age?
Well my first concern was that they gave him numbers; he had one that showed that he probably would not be called, so I could relax on that. But had I thought he would be drafted, I would be very concerned.
Now was there any conflict between you and Don over the feelings of the war?
When he was a teenager and a younger man, he pretty much doubted everything that was going on. He was more focused on being an artist. I think I heard him say a couple of times, that if he was called he would go to Canada. I know a lot of the guys said that, I don’t know how many went. I can’t remember anyone that was in active duty over in Vietnam. I’m sure at the time I did but now my memory isn’t so good.
Were your feelings different about Korea, Vietnam, and WW2?
Oh yeah, a lot more doubt about the Vietnam, whether we should be there. The first day of the Korean conflict, my dad died and I remember that more than anything.
Was it just that Vietnam seemed a lot less noble of a cause than WW2 and Korea?
Well probably, because WW2 was completely different.
Kind of just with the general opposition to the war, do you have any specifics as to how strong people felt or what happened in terms of protesting it?
I wasn’t sure the protesting was going to do any good. Particularly when they got really radical about it. I don think anyone in the country really wanted war. They hated it. ‘Cause even though you didn’t know anyone in this war, you probably knew someone in the previous war that lost members of their family. It was a bitter situation.
How did grandpa (my grandpa) feel about it?
He was unhappy that it had to be. He was strongly against it. I mean (her dad) he lost a brother in the First World War Actually, from illness, he died in a ship going over to France. And then my dad had to search for his grave. And that was just from hearsay, I never knew him at all. The man that died. So I would hear this from my dad who had to look for his body.
So even with grandpa being in the military he didn’t have a very different stance, he still felt opposed to it?
Yeah I would guess that was true. He was certainly anti-war if at all possible. I man like things like Pearl Harbor, I mean that changed everyone’s opinion.
Now do you remember much more about how people felt about the presidents? JFK, LBJ and Nixon?
And they were all part o the war at different times. Boy that covered a lot of years. That made the public madder because wounded and killed was just going up by thousands. People wondered when this was ever going to stop.

Do you remember much about the evasiveness and vagueness of the presidents in how they were going to solve it?
I think everyone wondered if he knew what he was doing. We didn’t feel real confident that what was going on had to be going on. We were thinking “was he doing the right thing”?
How much did it affect the life back home in terms of resources?
I don’t remember there was a shortage like there was in the Second World War. Your great grandmother in North Dakota would say, I’m guessing this was earlier she would send food over to relatives in Norway that were short of certain types of foods.

2. Thomas Robinson (Fellow Member of Church)

Were you in the military during the Vietnam War?
Yeah, most definitely. I was in high school I think when the US started really making it public. I got in high school in 1960 and graduated in 1964. In 64 they were really kicking up the arms personnel and equipment. Back in those days it was a draft. It wasn’t volunteer. So everyone was, if you were a young person, in high school mostly. If you were in college you could get away and get out. You didn’t have to go. But in high school you were probably getting some sort of designation to either – unless you had some sort of physical disability. Which sometimes they made you prove it. You didn’t have a disability; you could get 1Y pretty quick. So I had some friends that were getting 1Y designation probably starting around my junior year.
So what is 1Y?
It meant that you were ready to be drafted and entered into the service. They had different levels and I can’t remember all of them. You got a 1Y, it was a done deal. You were headed off unless you decided you weren’t going to go. My mom, my family was poor, I couldn’t, I wanted to go to college, I wanted to go to Circle University of Chicago but we didn’t have any money to do that. And I went to an all boy private high school, so there were some rich families that sent their boys there. I remember hearing that there were some that weren’t going to go. Some had the money to head up to Canada. We didn’t have any money to send me to Canada. I didn’t know anybody in Canada. I didn’t have any way to get there. So I ended up joining the navy, volunteering for the navy.
Was it that you were drafted and then kind of chose the navy or …?
I was close to being drafted. I think I had a 1A designation. I knew that pretty soon I was probably going get some designation and get drafted. I was a senior in high school. I didn’t really have any disabilities. You know so I just kind of figured I better jump, beat them t the punch.
So you figured, you’re joining the army either way, you might as well at least choose what you’ll do?
Yeah exactly. I didn’t want to go into the army; I didn’t want to do the marine thing because it just seemed they were doing their won thing. I had a friend up the street who got drafted in the marines. And I just thought, “eh I don’t want to go into the marines.” ‘Cause I had an uncle that was in the navy for 22 years. You know, that was one of the reasons.
So how close were you to the real action or fighting?
Well the first time, I went over twice. First time I was over on a destroyer. What? It was the Buck DD7 16 of San Diego. And we were supposed to do a West-Pac cruise. And what a West-Pac cruise is a West pacific; it was supposed to be in like 6 month intervals. And we were supposed to head to the 17th parallel about parallel with, just north of Denang. And provide gun support for land troops, the army and marines.
So the 17th parallel, would that be south of the 16th?
Yeah. In fact it would be just east off the coast of Vietnam. And so we were supposed to spend 6 months. And so I had gotten out of boot camp, gone home on leave and then came back and had orders to go to Vietnam. We were supposed to be there 6 months and ended up staying there almost 7 months to 8 months. I saw my first junk, “junk it”. You know a Vietnamese boat that was just transporting food and tuff and at the high seas. So we were boat hopping and searching and doing all that. Also we were firing 16 inch mortar shells over to Vietnam. About 5-10 miles. And 7 whole months. And so the second time we came back to state side, I had 30 days leave. I went home for 30 days. I had a friend in personnel and I kept telling him “man I got to get off this boat.” Cause that 6-7 months had given me a lot of time to meet a lot of guys and these guys had been on the boat 5 years, 6 years, 10 years, 12 years and I thought there is no way I want to stay on this rusty boat. I really wanted do a Mediterranean cruise. I didn’t really want to go wets, I wanted to go east. But because of that all action was going on, I didn’t have a choice. So I had this friend that was in personnel and I said hey- his name was Jim Bauers, I said hey Jim, look, if you get any sort of orders, let me know, there might be something like shore duty that I could maybe do if a fit. And I’ll just put in a transfer and he kept telling, alright nothing’s come through. Everything’s Vietnam, Vietnam- and I’m like I got to get off this boat. And so there was a rumor that we were gonna go back in 2, 3 months, 6 months at the most.
Now would this be going back to Vietnam?
Yeah, this would be doing another 6-7 months and these cruises were a long time. And I thought I don’t want to do that. So he got a hold of m, I went up there and checked on things and he said “I don’t have any things.” And a couple days later he sent word for me, so I run up to his office and he says hey, I got shore duty and I said where, Mediterranean? And I’m getting all excited and he goes no, its Denang, Vietnam and I went “oh my gosh Denang!” (Laughing) So I said man, well so what’s the duty and he says its shore duty, you aint going to be out in the boats and it just, its not the marines or the army. And I go yeah that’s right. Okay I’ll try it. So then I put in for a transfer and got it. So I went back home for two more weeks on leave and my mom was worried when she found out I was going back over there and this time on shore. And so they put us through about 6 weeks training with the marines at camp Pendleton in San Diego which was crazy. And then they flew us over. I forget what the flight was like. I don’t know, 12-14 hour flight, got to Saigon, and stayed in Saigon for about a week. And they put us on a military transport and I thought that thing was going to fall out of the sky and went to Denang. And I was stationed at Camp long in Denang, Vietnam, so I spent a year there…on shore.
So now, what exactly did you do at that (camp)-
Well at that time, these places didn’t get a whole lot of play fr the technical skill jobs and unless your family had money and you got through college and enter that way as an officer. Cause I did meet a couple of black officers. One was the head of communications and the other guy was head of personnel. So I was in Storekeeping. We kept control of all of the goods for military personnel, whether it was food or equipment, what have you. And but the first 6 months, heck we didn’t have the place we were going to work from. It’s called a cold storage area, mainly dealing with food, it wasn’t built yet. So they had military well no, they were civilian Koreans were, they had skills in refrigeration, so they were building this huge area to store all of the food and I wasn’t ready. So we ended up being security for this area for 6 months. We didn’t have any running hot water, we were taking cold showers. We were eating sea rations for food. It was crazy for the first 6 months.
Now were there any real security breaches or anything?
Yeah, a couple. I almost got shot. That’s one time I can say the Lord was really watching out for me. I mean at the time, I was raised Catholic but I didn’t have a personal relationship with Christ. But I feel like the Lord was watching out for me ‘cause one night we were- our bunkers were around d the perimeter of this cold storage area that we were going to subsequently work for. And on one side was a village Hamlet, real thick with tropical plants and you couldn’t see anything except for a few huts. And then on the other side of it was a huge cemetery. So one night we were sitting in the- we had these 12 hour shifts, we went on these shifts at 6 pm and got off at 6 am. And so I don’t know, it must’ve been, I don’t know 10, 11 o’clock at night. And I told the guys that- usually there were three of us to a bunker, so I told the other two guys “I’m gonna go check on the next bunker, make sure they’re not sleeping.” So they said “okay”. So I probably got from here (in my dining room) to the street (he points to the street outside) and all of a sudden shots started firing, automatic weapons and I could hear these bullets flying over my head. So I just kind of fell down in this hole like area. It was an impression into the sand, ‘cause everything was sandy. And we started firing back. We got some return fire. By that time out first Class Officer, who was like a sergeant, Red we called him because he had red hair. But he finally came with reinforcements and shot up flairs and didn’t find anybody but that was one time where it got real close. And then was one other time there was this guy in this Bunker, they called it Suicide Bunker because it was like 3 or 4 feet from the fence. I guess they got overran one night and he got stabbed a couple of times. He survived but they were trying to breach the camp, probably trying o see what they could steal. Those were the couple incidents that were real close to me. Besides guys I knew in the army and marines that were not stationed to a base but where it was rmy and marine personnel could come in and spend a few days and kind of clean up and take hot showers. That was when we finally got hot water. We could get hot food and we could finally give ‘em hot food. And kind of relieve them. But yeah pretty weird though. I saw a lot of kids though. At that time the Vietnamese, the Viet Cong were notorious for doing damage to young kids. I mean you would se e kids with one arm wacked off or both legs wacked off or no arms and no legs. Little tiny ones, no more than 2, 3 years old. That was really kind of heard to see, these young kids, heck they weren’t even 5 years old and they had limbs missing. It was really kind of bad. Besides the parents, you know the older people, -you know ‘cause what would happen is they would overrun a village and if the village elders didn’t want to be partners with them or help them in any way or gibe them what they wanted then they would kind of take it tout on the kids until they could get the adults to kind of comply with what they wanted.
So now in general how did you feel about the war?
I don’t know I if I had a real, I don’t think I really understood why we were really over there. It was kind of out of sight, out of mind kind of thing until I actually got there. I started interacting and meeting with the people and because initially getting there and being emerged in the culture over there, I realized they were some great folk. I mean, every culture has some people that you don’t want to associate with but the majority of the people were just like us. You know, trying to raise a family, trying to you know raise their kids, trying to do what was right in their sight. And yet we had Americans over there who were treating them just really kind of bad. As though they weren’t even human, they would be talking about them and just saying all kinds of crazy things about them. And so whenever I got the opportunity I would just confront people about it and a lot of times they would want to call them gooks, you know derogatory terms like that. I’d always try to make friends with- especially the ones I knew I would be having interaction. If they were just a passerby I would say hi or that kind of thing and you know a lot them felt suspicious, initially if you were friendly you could be seen as suspicious but as they got to know you they would get to see the legitimacy of you wanting to get to know them. And so initially I really didn’t have any thoughts about Vietnam. I knew that we were there, the French had been there. They had fought with the Vietnamese and left. And he we were, and so it wasn’t until later on in the latter part of ’66 before leaving that I realized that there were a lot of people back home unhappy about u being there. Because by that time there were marches against he war, Martin Luther King had spoke by then you know against it. For me, I at least started feeling “why are we really here?” You know what we were told and trained in is that we were trying to keep South Vietnam from being taken over by North Vietnam which were communist. And so I guess, you know you try to justify that with “well okay maybe the South Vietnamese aren’t strong enough to keep the North Vietnamese out of their country. Sort of, kind of, I left with that thinking that we were there for a reason and it was to keep the North Vietnamese yet when we were there we weren’t treating the people way we would be treating them. It was a conflict, like an inner conflict.
How did your parents specifically but overall people you knew feel about the war and the reasons for it? Well I know back in the 60s, the 50s and 60s there was this big thing about the US being guardian of anything that was communist. We just felt like we had to be the ones to mitigate against it. Any sort of country take over or government take over or military whatever, we felt like we needed to be the ones- its almost like today in that the US government officials we feel as if we have to set democracy in place for a lot of countries where countries don’t have democracy at all. So flip the script, if you’re thinking about the 50s and 60s it was this whole communist thing. So my family, for my mom and my grandmother, and my aunt and my uncle that was the going or current thought. That we were there to protect the people and we thought if we weren’t there then the communists would just come in and take over. And I think when Khmer Rouge happened and they killed those million or so people, there was a lot of that “see we should be there because if we were then that wouldn’t have happened.” That kind of thing. It was really kind of bad. But yeah I think they thought we were there for a just cause. Until the colleges, the people in the colleges, were jumping up in arms against the war I think that caused people to go “wait a minute. Are we really there to protect them or is it just there for our own advantage?” It started to cause this questioning.
So was there much talk about the presidents and how they were leading the war?
Well at the time, there was a lot of turmoil back then. I mean Martin Luther King had gotten killed and John Kennedy had gotten killed and his brother had gotten killed. It just seemed like we had this cloud, like the world was coming to an end. There were major things, people were getting killed. There was war going on, there had been that embargo on Cuba going on, it just seemed the world was in this big, huge turmoil and it looked like we weren’t going to be able to get it out. And when president Kennedy got shot and then Martin Luther king got shot and then Kennedy’s brother got killed , it just really kind of, folks just though “wow all of our hope that we thought could get us out of this mess are now gone and who was left to do it, nobody. At least I felt like we were in this lurch kind of where we had anyone at the helm that could maybe steer us out of the muck so to speak.
Was there any real correlation between the president of South Vietnam Diem, I think his last name was and JFK was assassinated soon after that, and what I’ve read is there was a slight thought that the US had something to do with it?
There was that talk going on. By that time, I was in, well when Martin Luther King died by that time I was in North Virginia, well a bunch of us that had been stationed in Denang were now stationed in the North of Virginia so we could continue our friendships and stuff. But to get back to what you said, there was rumor going around that the CIA had had something to do wit it. You know they wanted to put their own person in place. So that person could take orders better, I don’t know. I don’t know for sure if that was really the case, it’s like all the controversy over President Kennedy getting shot in Dallas.
Now what do you remember about the Tet Offensive? Were you in service at the time?
No, I had gotten out in ’68. I didn’t have any friends at that time that were connected to the service at that time. I was living in LA. It was pretty bad. And I remember thinking “man I’m glad I’m not there.” you know there were sniper shots from- well, we called it Monkey Mountain. We were in this old French camp that the US had taken over which was at the base of the se foothills and huge mountain range. We would always get these pock shots down on the camp from above and just remember it would probably be mess if Tet offensive had happened and we were there, it probably would have been much worse. I was just thankful that I wasn’t even over there.
Now so did the camp you were in get attacked?
I believe yeah, by that time the last helicopters flew out of their in ’71 form the embassy in Saigon. Well they had already started shrinking, well if this is Vietnam, this is north and this south (pointing to table for example) they had already- Saigon sits at the south end of it. They had already started shrinking their forces to allow Saigon to be the last stronghold and they kept running overrun and they kept coming form Ho Chi Minh Trail and as well as using Cambodia as a way to get int. and so it was just putting so much stress on US forces that they were pulling out forces out of all these different outposts and focused towards Saigon so Saigon was the final stronghold. Denang had gotten overran, I don’t know that for a fact but I’m pretty sure. ‘Cause it was way north, if Saigon was here (pointing to object for example), Denang was here. And North Vietnam was here. I think it was Camron bay and one large bay between us and the North Vietnam bay, so we were pretty far north.
So overall what did you take away from it, having served in it and being out of it for the end?
I think it wasn’t until later that I had sense of accomplishment or not so accomplishment, but not being ashamed of being there. Because the time of the country the military was there towards the tail end, there was this huge anger towards anyone associated with being there. It’s not like now where everyone is really open arms to Iraq and Iran, the veterans. When we came back, e had people spitting on us and throwing stuff at us. When I got out of the service, discharged in North of Virginia I took the train home and I just tough I would change clothes just so I wouldn’t you know, I didn’t know what to expect. I knew that Chicago was up in arms I mean they were just everywhere, guys were getting attacked and what have you. So I just though, just to keep my wits about me I thought I’d go incognito. I came home in Daishiki and beads and a big head of natural when I finally got to Chicago, and it wasn’t until way later, oh man probably until the 80s before it seemed like the country was saying oh man we never did honor those guys that sacrificed their lives and those that made it home from that time being over there, we never did do anything to celebrate them. It wasn’t about until the early 80s or late 70s that I felt like it was okay to let people know that I had been over there. I had gone over there twice, the second time I had volunteered; I mean show does that, volunteer to go to a war. But I knew I wasn’t gonna have to run around with a gun which I did the first 6 months. It wasn’t way later that I felt like I could tell people “yeah I’m a Vietnam vet”. And it’s okay I’m a Vietnam vet. Initially I’m a Vietnam vet but it’s not okay. You know what I mean, I felt like I didn’t want to, my family and close friends knew that but people who didn’t know me wouldn’t know and I would just say I was in the service and leave it at that.
Just to recap, so how old were you when started and stopped and what years did you serve?
I went in, I volunteered fall of 64 and graduated form high school that June and by that September I was in boot camp. I was in 3 years, 11 months and 22 days and got out in August of ’64. I went in when I had just turned 18 and just had gradated that June. Got out a few days after my 21st birthday.
So (you got out) ’67?
’68. March of, no, August of ’68. At that time, well even now when you are drafted, you term of service is 6 years. So it can be a combination of 4 years active, 2 years inactive or 3 years active, 3 years inactive and at the time when you were being drafted, it was four years active in the service and 2 years inactive. Ad in those 2 years inactive they wanted you to do some 2 weeks of some summer activity in the reserves and just refused to do it. I just said “Hey I did my time; they’ll have to come get me if I’m waltzing off playing navy for two weeks in the summer.” So didn’t even do my two years of active, I mean I was inactive but I didn’t go anywhere or do anything. I think they realized that probably guys had spent time and now were out, they probably weren’t gonna get them to spend too much time.
So what did you do in Virginia? That was your active time, right?
No that was my active time. It was the last of my active time. I spent 18, 19 months in north of Virginia,. So I was a petty officer in storekeepers so we were in charge of equipment that was being shipped out, either shipped in or out so for the entire base. It was a support base, so we had navy and planes and we kept stores for all of them; ammunition, food, clothing, all that stuff.


3. Rudy Renfro (Fellow Member of Church)

Were you in the military during the Vietnam War?
Ok, I was in the military what people call the Dark War, the war was supposed to have been over in 69, 72 but it really didn’t end until about ’78.what happened was the news media pulled off, we call it the victorious push basically, the tide turned, for a long time, they were actually winning and most people don’t know that either. My point is I was in ’74 to ’78. Now technically the war ended around they say 71, 69 but we fought up there and died.
Did you actually serve in Vietnam?
Let me tell you. I was in the navy. And I did what’s called West-Pac, which includes, Vietnam, Guam, Subic Bay (in the) Philippines, china, all the countries along what they called the eastern rim. I did 2 18 month tours and I was stationed in Subic Bay, Philippines and ‘Nam. All total at different times. 8 months, and so I did in country twice, standard patrols so for the 8 months and then my rate, like I said I was in the navy, I was on a cruiser, a guided missile cruiser and then on my rate I used to shoot missiles at the enemy. When I was your age I was doing this so now it’s not so glamorous but back then…
Did you get drafted or did you volunteer?
I actually enlisted, so I guess that would be volunteering, so yeah I enlisted. One of three boys in my family, I went in first and then my older brother went in and they wouldn’t take my younger brother. Back then because so many of us were dying they wouldn’t take, they could never take the last male of any family.
So was this before or after the draft?
The draft was still on.
But you hadn’t been drafted yet?
No. I actually, the story’s interesting, I was walking downtown with a few of my friends and back in those days they had enlistment offices all over because they were trying to recruit young men. So I went into one to see what was going on. And ended up, basically, enlisting. They gave us a physical test and said you’d be good at this, that and next thing I knew they gave me this card that said you meet at this spot, which was interesting because the instant that you agree, they have you come to this spot, literally, like at midnight at night and that would be the last time you were wherever you was from. They’d fly you or take you to wherever your boot camp was and get started. I did 6 months in San Diego boot camp and 6 months in what’s called Beat training, which is basic electricity and electronics training and then I did about a year, a little more in what was called combat training with war heads at Great Lakes, Waukegan Illinois. And then in my first duty station was out of Hawaii. There I met my boat, and then we just, for four years we just sail around on the Eastern Rim, because basically the Pacific fleet was the patrol areas for that and it depended on the task, like in ‘Nam it was really bad so we would go in and do relief; meaning this the cats that got shot up and all that stuff, we would go in and get ‘em. And so we would fight our way back out with them because the point is no man left behind no matter what. So that’s kind of what I did.
What did your parents think about you joining kind of spontaneously like that?
Those were different times, I never knew my dad. My mom she was a great lady you know, she had a lot of kids and it was tough n her. In those days, like I said it was different times, you hear a lot about the anti-war protests but they don’t tell you a lot about the other side. There was a sense of pride with the men that were enlisted who were actually serving you know. Because you don’t ever get the either side or know that North Vietnam and South Vietnam were at war and the North Vietnam had the backing of Russia and literally committing genocide on the South Vietnamese. So we went in , and we all know our main concern was Russia, we didn’t want Russia to get this foothold. So we were concerned about Russia, Russia was using North Vietnamese as their foot soldiers and they would provide them with weapons and all that. So you wanted to protect your country and protect the people that we love here and take care of the people there which we thought was a good thing. As a young man your age I didn’t think this deep or conceptual as I do now and so from that point, that’s where we were at; young man, excited to something for his country protecting his country, getting the bad guy, so yeah.
So overall you were for the war?
I was for being able to be safe because at the time Russia, the Soviet Union were on a rampage, literally they had control of over half of the globe and their threat was o enforce communism on everybody. And so I was for doing something to protect something against that. Most people don’t realize that the war wasn’t even about the poor Vietnamese people who were being used, it was a big war between the two giants. So that’s what I was excited about. You know like, hey I’m stopping that.
So how did you feel about the presidents who were leading the war?
So remember now, I came in the years of Kennedy, who was one of the best presidents that ever lived. I mean we have Obama now but Kennedy was yeah…so of course when he got assassinated, we were devastated. Having said that Kennedy was great, Lyndon B. you know alright, nothing spectacular. But then we had some crooks.
Yeah Nixon?
The only president I know that got busted for a felony and before he left the office he wrote himself a little part of California, he made it, whatever the president owns when they leave office they get to take it with them, so he wrote a land plot of California for himself. So him not so much. We had Apscam, Watergate, it was some interesting times. Holly North, you know and he thought he was doing good, taking drugs from the drug dealer and selling it to trade it to other folks so they could undocumented weapons. And then giving them to the mercenaries like the South Vietnamese
So his name was Holly North?
Yeah that’s what the whole thing was about. Unless you were there it would be easy to drop some research, technically him and the CIA and MIT, of course the big guys kind of faded into the woodwork and they threw all the small guys to the wolves. That’s how they got Holly North, ‘cause he was just a colonel and really just a foot solider and literally George Bush’s dad, George Bush was the head of the CIA at the time and so Holly North and his whole crew was working for these guys and Ronald Reagan remember the famous phrase “I don’t remember. I don’t recall.” They had him answer all these questions and he signed all these documents that actually authorized for you to go get this dope and then sell it and then when they put him on the stand he was like “I don’t recall. I don’t remember.” And he got away with it. im like, how do you do that? We have this document from Holly North with your signature on it saying to get 46 kilos of heroin and then trade them to the Afghans for some Russian weapons; what do you say to that, “I don’t recall.” So there were some interesting times. So what can I tell you about the presidents? I can tell you that Kennedy was my guy. But yeah these cats had agendas, you know. Lyndon B. he was kid of in transition and so he wasn’t so bad but he really wasn’t strong either. But the rest them guys had agendas; they were trying to do something.
Now I’m sure the outlook depended on the war, so there were tons of that didn’t support the war and so they didn’t support the president, right?
Exactly, that was always a unique kind of dynamic because it was tough, you had a war going on so you have this dynamic of leads and people with other positions, and then take the anti-war protesters and remember now we also had racial unrest at that very same time and so this is my personal opinion and then I’ll go back to fact but as a result came the hippie group, the hippie movement. And they said, it’s just too hectic and stressful and we just need to love one another. I was never a hippie but I could kind hear what they were saying because there was a lots of crazy stuff going on. We had just come out of the country, just come out of the 50s where America was golden and ruled and then you went into the 60s and Russia’s trying to take over the world and racial unrest and so the people like Anti-war protesters were definitely not with any of the presidents that were supporting the war.
So now was JFK just as strict and kind of opposed to communism like the others were?
Well like so, what do you mean by strict.
Very opposed to it.
Okay, he actually wasn’t super opposed to it but he was opposed to not working harder and trying to do things so that we don’t drop A-bombs on each other. It wasn’t just an opposition to the war, he was trying to look down the road, his same mindset was on the internals of the country, because on the racial issue where he stood strong with martin Luther King and so his position was the same when it came to the war but like I’m not so much for the war but I’m not for people that are trying to destroy the globe. And so he was kind of called in that conundrum. He was trying to walk that tight rope and that’s what got hi killed.
Now do remember the president Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam and how he got killed right before JFK did?
Kind of interesting huh. Yeah and there’s a whole bunch of rumors going around about that. I wont ray the rumor but if you whittle way a lot of the surface rumors, they’re not that far off. I was there and so I got a chance to…
You mean you were in Vietnam?
Yeah, I was there in Vietnam during that time and if you in country, and on the ground and got your master sergeant, and chief petty officer and there’s almost a direct line up the pipe and so orders, it comes down the pipe and its reflected in the kind of orders we get. So I’m not talking about oh I heard these two talking but the fascination with Kennedy but the kind of orders you get where its like OK, what’s going on? Like saying ok, were gonna pull out now, ok I’m all for pulling out but that’s gonna leave that quadrant all unprotected and there’s a straight pipeline into…you know that kind of stuff. And when he got assassinated, it was a sign of huge weaknesses of what we had already fought for years to establish and all of a sudden in the final push when they literally burnt the American embassy, the entire eastern perimeter that was mighty got deployed. Okay here are your papers and you’re going out of the country. Well okay that’s cool but aren’t bad guys over there (the other way). So when you’re in this, you don’t get t hear them doing the plotting but you’re out their and been doing this long enough, you can be like that’s a stupid move, why would somebody do that? And of course you hear about assassination, burning down of the embassy, of course there’s no protection. There was like 1 platoon, there were 46 platoons, mixtures of jarheads, grunts, seals and squids you know redeployed everybody to guard the embassy. Of course they didn’t stand a chance, it was a wipe out. So when I say yeah I think it was something going on, obviously with the both of them. Because when you’re there, you can say okay you aint been making these stupid mistakes and al of a sudden its like yeah. Then they killed him, my guy too. So I wasn’t going for that. So I thin it was a plot, it wasn’t an accident. I don’t have any proof or anything.
I guess just compared to other people who served, how did you feelings compare? What were their feelings about the war? What was that like?
You had such a tremendous mix of folks that hated it and folks that love it, then you had folks who hated it and good at it and then you had folks who loved it and began to hate it. it was just this tremendous, ‘cause you get there and you see stuff and your psychi has to change. You know there’s just no telling, I used to think its just your nuts and bolts, what put you together. So there were guys like my brother, who was a green beret and he would go for days in another country and his assignment was to kill and he would come back and I watched him go crazy. I haven’t seen him, he just kind went away but when I last saw him he was not all there. it was very scary, even to me. So that’s one kind of perspective and then you have the other side of people who got drafted but didn’t go to Canada and were definitely against the war. I don’t want to kill anything; I’m not going to shoot anything (they would say). And then they would go to a camp and you’d see the remains of where the North Vietnamese had taken children and held them up from a bout 3 feet away from a fire. That way it allows for them to cook really slowly and you see that and suddenly you want to kill every North Vietnamese you can get. Actually anti-war protesters turn into straight military people and I’ve seen these people come in hard and they just, just the human affect is immeasurable. Probably most unimaginable because we sued stuff like napalm, we used to call it sticky fire, and then the North Vietnamese they would make and literally they would make like small bomb but what happens is when you step on it, its not under your feet, its about 5 yards away from you and it rises up, charge goes off and it rises to about head length and then there’s an explosion with all kinds of shrapnel and bits of metal, its not only designed to kill but maim. So these are kinds of things you see, and you go in one way and come out the other way. I don’t know anybody that wasn’t smoking dope, or smoking heroin or opium, you know drinking. The officers out of Officers Candidate School, they got it bad. Thaw as a bad deal, they would go to officer candidate school to be an officer but they had never been in battle, walked the dirt as we called it.
Wait so what school?
Officer’s candidate school you could go in.

Like Westpoint?
Yeah. They had a ton of ‘em. They had it bad. We would literally, leave them hanging out in the wind because they be trying to tell you something but its like dude you can go that route if you want to go but you gonna walk right into this trap. You are sending you man down here and he aint gonna be able to get back. You get into a firefight and they’re trying to tell you stuff out the books? That’s not, what are you talking about? So the dynamic was very interesting. It was hard on people period.
Any last statements?
So what would are you approaching this from or what angle because then I can comment on something?
I’m going at it like I know that the war was very opposed in some cases, but also through these interviews I’ve noticed that like the people who served in it had a little perspective on it, so I’m just trying to see how Americans felt in general and specifically the war experience most because it is first hand?
When you talk Americans, people who served and people who didn’t, and everybody in between. So how did people feel about it? My take on it is there was a lot of fear. Most of what they did was out of fear. That’s how the actual wars effort sustained itself, not because of the anger or technical might, we were afraid, we were afraid because everything was unsure, we were afraid of communism, we were really reacting out of fear, now there were, in my opinion every little facet, every little section; anti-war protesters, hippies, the militants, black militants, the black panthers and every group were that group because that was their way of dealing with the fear and unsureness of the times. Now it’s sure, but then countries were blowing each other up, all of a sudden we had these big bad guys, and of course I hadn’t been to Russia and I didn’t know they were people just lie me. I only knew what I heard about them and what I heard they had done and so they were monsters. So it was fear time. So people dealt with it in different ways, some fought, some disconnected you know. My little take on it is it was a very scary time of unsureness and ignorance, I don’t mean that negatively, just meaning not knowing.
I remember Thomas saying after he got out of the service, he couldn’t tell people because he would be looked at as a bad person, did you experience that too? Could you tell people?
Yeah, that was so scary and so confusing for me. I thought I did a pretty cool thing, I mean hey I pout my life on the line so everyone can be safe and I did my part. And I was the bad guy, the thing that got me was I would tell some people of some of the stuff I saw and its like they wouldn’t hear me, they weren’t real to people. They were focusing on yeah well you killer, you just killed people you monster and I never shot a kid. They get mad because they see a kid getting shot but I know this I’ve watched kids walk into camp with strings of grenades tied around them. I’m sure that they were brainwashed into doing it. they would run right into our camps, which were like mini bases, they were just a place where we would stop and put up stuff and they would literally run in and pull the pin, they would have one pin that would pull them all off. And so we would we see that and we would yell stop and they would keep coming, and we would have to shoot them. Of course the news just shows us shooting the kid not how 14 soldiers have been killed in the last week. It doesn’t make the kids bad but all the point is when I got back they thought I had shot kids. Especially from an African American standpoint because we were already struggling with not having a place in the country and so that was pretty tough. We got to the point where we would only talk to each other. I will say you serve with a cat; your ethnic origin does not matter because you get this bond with them. Most people don’t know about it except for people like you who write about it or learn about it. So yeah I totally experienced it.


Reflections
1. My interviews were not awkward at all. Most of the time they had lots of stuff to say. Also, none of them got emotional. I think it had been a long enough time that people were over it and had really embraced what had happened. For me to interview them, overall it was really interesting. Two of the three people I interviewed had served in the military and they had surprisingly similar stories but it didn’t make it any less interesting. The stories really intrigued me in the military and what that would be like. The people were very relaxed about having served in the military and seeing horrible things. They weren’t choked up about them now, they weren’t they really disturbed or anything. They were completely fine and remembered a lot of little details.
2. What surprised me in these interviews are a couple of things. As I said before; the ease at which they were able to talk about something that it so traumatic for so many people. I hear about Vietnam vets and how messed and crazy they are because of the intense experiences over there but my interviews weren’t like that at all. Also, I was surprised at the answers I got about the perspectives of the war. It seemed that that the anti-war sentiment was less common than I thought. I noticed that both of the guys had served during the war and they both saw a fair amount of reason for being there. They did no have anti-war sentiment like the college kids back home had had.
3. The experience matches what I read by the horrors of the War. They both explained how the Viet Cong were just cruel and committed horrible atrocities. I had read about how they were horrible but there weren’t details like my interviewees gave. A common thing talked about was the attack and killing of children. The differences were the feelings towards the war. In my readings it definitely talked about how no one wanted this war except the president and a select few but that wasn’t true. There were more legitimate reasons for being there and fighting there than they have written about.
4. I would definitely want to talk Vietnamese people. I would do an interview from a communist and a South Vietnamese to get both perspectives. These interviews could even the playing field at which I had already had three Americans interviewed, two of them having served for the Armed forces. To get multiple sides of the story, this would allow a better rounded understanding of what happened and I would form a more educated opinion about the war. Children would also be good to interview in Vietnam because of all of the horrible stories I heard, they would be interesting and be a firsthand experience to the stories.
5. I would want to more people for less time. I got really in-depth which was good but I got sick of writing the stuff from the dame person. So, to hear way more perspectives would be really helpful. Interviewing someone who had participated in all the protests and anti-war commotion would be a compliment to my project. It would bring in an extreme side of the war I don’t have yet. I would have liked to definitely have some more questions; a larger arsenal of questions would’ve helped and made for more interesting interviews. I kind of asked similar questions and so if I had known more about the background of each of my interviewees then I could’ve thought of more in-depth questions specific to that person which would harbor much more diverse and profound results.
6. These interviews obviously give firsthand experience to the general experience of the American public. This shows how there is two sides to everything and gives better details than a textbook or website can. It showed that some of the generalizations of the War in the common information sources are true and others weren’t so much. This sheds light on my topic because of the real experience is provides, the interviewees have things to say that actually happened because of other stuff that undoubtedly happened. It not only deepens the overall Vietnam experience through details, it solidifies most of the info but also shows that some stuff was not true for everyone.