Kym Klapperich and Roger Thompson

00:04 Hi, my name is Kym klapperich. I'm 57 years old. Today is Monday. April 19th, 2021. I am recording and Travelers Rest, South Carolina with my friend, Rodger Thompson, at his beautiful home.

00:23 Thank you. Hi, my name is Rodger Thompson. I am 72 years. Old. Today is Monday. April 19th 2021 on recorder. Recording from our residents and travelers rest of my good friend Kym klapperich.

00:41 Roger, I appreciate you talking to me today. I, I heard on the radio that they were recording military voices, for story car. And we've been friends for a long time, and I've been able to hear a lot of your story.

00:59 And I think it's a really important story and it really matters and it impacts people and I hope we can talk about it today to whatever, you know, you feel comfortable. I thought maybe you could just start by telling us, you know, even though you said that the first part but you know, your birthday and where you were born and where you grew up and okay and Decatur, Alabama, 72 years old.

01:34 Our family for the biggest part up until the time I was in the first grade or sharecroppers and then my father got his job. It's a good year mil indicator and we moved into town Elementary School Junior, High School. Their true freshman and sophomore years in San Bernardino, California and graduate from high school in Decatur, Alabama. After graduation. I enlisted in the military and there's so much of your life and I love to have other storycorps conversations about about growing up where you did and your experiences and with the civil rights movement and all of those incredible stories, and I'm maybe we'll be able to do that on a different story, But I'm I want to start with the military bases. That's that's the focus of this one. So I didn't know for sure if you had enlisted or if you were drafted. So was anyone else in your family?

02:34 Military or what made you decide to enlist?

02:40 My older brother. Paul was already in the military. My father had served in World War II and my grandfather had served before him. So it was the type thing that

02:53 Where I grew up and the way I grew up, we had an obligation to support our country you in the best way that we could. And I felt that military training would be good for me. Most in this this friend aspect and in the leadership aspect because I was a wild kid in high school.

03:16 Yeah, and examples of that.

03:21 Yeah, I work with another family, and I'm not going to mention their name on here. NASCAR people. They do a lot of all the racing, but at that particular. Time, we were running moonshine, from Decatur, Alabama up into Tennessee. Decatur was a dry county Morgan County. And so we had three calls out in the woods where he would make the Moonshine. And then we were loaded in the car and driving to Tennessee. And most of our troops were done at 2 or 3 in the morning. So yeah, it was it was interesting option for you. When did you?

04:07 Unless it was it right out of high school, high school 67, and I join the military in December 1967 and I will ship to Fort Benning Georgia from my basic training. At that point. You know, remember the timeline in history exactly, but in 1967, you said, so was the conflict in Vietnam. We already have soldiers in Vietnam. We had we had soldiers in Vietnam. The vast majority of troops in Vietnam from what I remember or moved and to Vietnam in 66 and 67. We had a basic group they're from

05:02 61 up until that point. But the, the real American involvement in truth before my to Vietnam, I believe, stories 1965. Did you have a pretty good idea that you do end up in Vietnam are in Southeast Asia.

05:21 When you enlisted, I had a feeling that that I would wind up in Vietnam that would wind up in a combat area and I just fell at that time.

05:34 All because of my family that that was what I was supposed to do.

05:41 So how long after you enlisted was it until you were deployed or explosive Ordnance training and or heavy equipment training and I left there and

06:03 March processed out through Oakland, California, and arrived in Vietnam in March, and you are 18 years old. And where did you arrive? Then wire base? I saw the sign on and that's where we processed in at that point.

06:35 I do remember.

06:38 Thinking.

06:39 When we arrive in Vietnam, what a beautiful country it was from the air because it's all these leaks everywhere. I saw weeks, and on, arrival to the airport. And only when I got down close to the ground. I realize that they were not actual legs, but they were craters made from water fire and and moms that picture with water in the rice paddies. So it was off.

07:11 It was an Awakening moment for me and imagine. There's no general questions. I can ask and we only have about 40 minutes. So I I want to leave it to you really? If that's okay telling us, you know, the things you want people to know about what happened to you and Vietnam and what's important in my life that matters there was

07:42 I think people need to know.

07:46 At that time that I went there, there was not as much Rebellion against the Vietnam conflict at your was in later years when I arrive there.

08:02 War. The first duties, I had

08:05 Was they asked for volunteers to help load a military plane, a C-130 transport that was going back to United States and so me and some other guy has volunteered to love this airplane and we got the airplane and the ramp in the back was open. So we could load the cargo and the cargo that we loaded that day was

08:31 All in black plastic bags, and they were fairly heavy, but they weren't bad. So we started carrying a black plastic bags up. We figured it was sold, your supplies and equipment was being sent home and we loaded about a hundred and fifty those bags.

08:48 And then this Sergeant showed up.

08:52 Welcome to the ramp and went inside. And

08:59 Looked at the tags on the bag. I have not paid any attention to the tags.

09:04 Each one of those tags, had a man's name on it.

09:11 These were not their possessions and we're going home.

09:16 These were the men themselves and everybody backs.

09:21 And that was, that was my introduction to that country.

09:26 There are processed in and was deployed to them long Vietnam down in the Delta, the same group that you arrived with or were you reassigned to a new group of these, all new people that you were meeting? I did not know.

09:50 I became friends with two or three as a gas on the flight, over once I arrived in Saigon and him processed.

10:01 I was transported by helicopter to been long and no I did not know anyone at that point and then long was a the base. So I was at I was an engineering outfit and I was excited. I was

10:18 An explosive Ordnance talk later. So my job once I got there once, do you go on patrol or go out with the engineering groups that were processing, roads are clearing land, and my job was to seek out. Booby traps and disarm you

10:35 Wow, so did you feel like you're training prepared you for that?

10:41 I think my train prepare me for.

10:45 For being able to take apart.

10:48 The.

10:51 The ordinance that I found, I think my training prepared me for Judy said I needed to do but there's no amount of training that can teach you or inform you of what life in a foreign country is about and having talked with several veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan. The training is one thing actually being in the country where the people of the country

11:18 And it was,

11:22 Are the biggest fart from my time there?

11:25 I love the Vietnamese people, they were.

11:29 There were great. I have no problems with them at all. How long were you in Vietnam? Altogether in March 68 and ended in January of 69?

11:49 That time they were starting demonstrations and stuff and I could not walk around in the uniform without somebody call me a bad name. So I went back to Vietnam and I was enchanted off my second tour.

12:06 During a patrol, we were ambushed. And I was captured, and I was a prisoner for about 19 months. So I actually came home from Vietnam.

12:19 71 - 71,

12:23 So, how long was it before you were captured on your second tour?

12:29 6 days. 6 days, just got back from country and just got signed my new unit and on her first Patrol and you were captured with how many people can you tell us about that? But you know, how that went.

12:51 I was indeed company first, but then I mean, yeah, and we had Easter bun. Have four sections. We were told by Journey about 30 minutes to an hour. But to me that's time. She was twelve me and every Patrol together and in the Ambush tools for chapter dress repeal.

13:20 I know you had some good friends in that group. Some people you felt close to your, I develop some friendships. I developed a strong friendship with Rowan name, Joseph.

13:41 Joseph was the first Jewish man had ever met and

13:48 The people in our outfit in our company, we're mostly from Midwest New York and Chicago and St. Louis, and not really fond of Jewish people.

14:03 And me being a redneck from South, Alabama.

14:07 They were not really fond of me either. So he and I became good friends. We had a lot of conversations in a lot of

14:18 Loss talks about the differences in his faith is a Jew and my face is a Christian and these conversations eventually live me many years later the conversion to the Jewish face because I liked it so much.

14:35 Can you tell us anything about him? And, and your friendship?

14:41 He was one of these guys at.

14:46 I guess I would say different because he did not go out and in the evenings to the office close to the NCO Club or any place and get drinks and get drunk with the guys. I think you just kind of stayed to himself.

15:02 And his conversations with me about faith and

15:07 Is life as a Jew or not many Jews in in the Vietnam conflict, our discussions with us to a close friendship and he was reared in the fact that he had these crazy dreams, and he would tell me about. And he was kabbalistic from me and you came to me one day and he said,

15:35 I had a dream last night. I'll talk with my grandfather. That good fortune would befall us.

15:42 And I told him, I said, yeah, we've been here for three months and the last two weeks. We lost 14, man, and good. Fortune is going to befall us. See how this is. Just freaking great ski covid-19 warning information. We had a CB base next to us.

15:58 And helicopter took off my CB base and we will rock formation and the swing, underneath the helicopter broke.

16:10 We had about 40 cases of beer and a bunch of C rations and food and everything fall almost on top of us. So from my standpoint in the standpoint of quality guys are good. Fortune had befallen us. So it was great.

16:31 And then it was about two weeks later that he's telling me that it had another dream in discussion with his grandpa and Dad.

16:43 We are going on a journey.

16:46 And I said, where are we going? We are in debt, along Vietnam. We're kind of stuck here. So I walked into the orderly room to talk to other tenant.

17:01 And I told him about the crazy dreams ski at had.

17:07 You said?

17:09 That's weird. We just got orders. We're going to Thailand. We're going to Bangkok for a week for rest and recuperation. So you're always we all live on a plane with Bangkok and had a good week there and came back and people were looking at this young man will differently than they were can get him before.

17:32 And then you had another dream that you said, we were.

17:36 Going on another Journey.

17:40 The dream was that for some reason this journey had to be delayed. Well.

17:49 I went back into the order room, the next morning to report them before going on duty.

17:55 The captain's Got The Beacham. I told I was talking with my attorney about this.

18:03 Walking through the citric, being deployed to Kanto.

18:07 Which is 60 miles from here.

18:09 Through with your recon rebuild, the bridge was destroyed.

18:15 And then Lucia, I told the captain what I said, you said that's just strange. You said, yeah, we are going.

18:26 Well, the next morning we were getting ready to move out with the rest of our company.

18:30 And the two trucks that the opportune used, we're not start. We don't know why they wouldn't start, but they would not start. So the company went ahead and well, we found a dark truck started and started out of the compound and received a radio message that a company had run into an ambush on the highway at that. They had suffered some casualties.

18:58 But because our journey was delayed.

19:02 We had no casualties not an opportune.

19:12 He was going home, even though it wasn't used to go home for 3 months and that night during a mortar attack.

19:23 Peanut reaches the ground.

19:27 Belding MI,

19:29 And the shrapnel from the mortar shells killed him. And I said a lot.

19:34 I'm also.

19:37 It was something I will never forget, obviously your life, but it's back was traded.

20:01 What do you think, he would, how would he react? Or what are you would have thought? If he knew several years later, you converted to Judaism and that was partially from his influence in relationship with you. I think that with my conversion to Judaism and my studies.

20:24 For me and the Jewish faith. There is no condemnation.

20:28 No one is condemned everything that God created is equal. And every thing that God created depends on everything else to survive. So,

20:42 I know that he is proud of me because I still talk to him, not conversation with us, but just like my father and my mother and everyone else.

20:57 Had in my life. I love your had a friendship with.

21:02 They still exist and they they don't, they're not here. But for me, they still exist and they always will.

21:10 Thanks for telling us about him. And it was really special. I want to take you back to another time there and as a prisoner of war.

21:22 Can you tell us a little bit? But that was like day today or one or two things that stand out during the Ambush and

21:39 I don't remember much about the first two days because my leg was bleeding so bad, but it hadn't got rapped. We never, we never made it into North Vietnam.

21:52 As far as being a p, o w, we had to go through a trail through Cambodia and Thailand to get to there. So it was

22:06 Many, many nights of being broke and change gather. The other guys were recaptured. And

22:15 Not actually being able.

22:18 You will do for me or what was going on. And we were very fortunate that a Special Forces Group. Are you too?

22:29 Stop playing at saw some moving down, the trail through Cambodia and has got a hold, some Special Forces Group and they came in and

22:40 And Frieda's. So I never was anime account in North Vietnam and Cambodia.

22:49 How do you think you were able to cope with so much? What happened to you there?

22:55 How did you get by everyday?

23:03 Every one of us is going through the same thing. So we had each others who depend on where he had his druthers that we trust again.

23:16 But it wasn't just that clear. It was even though we depend on each other. There was a large segregation between black and white and some outfits. There was a large separation in people of religion for each other.

23:43 The interesting thing about that, that people look at Vietnam, it look at the man who went over there. They don't realize they don't understand that of all the men who served in Vietnam.

23:56 Over 70% of the people that serve or volunteers.

24:01 Lesson 7, lesson 30% were actually graphic. So we were all people that had agreed to go over there for the big Sport and yeah, there were some differences, but

24:13 We work through them, and I think everybody's pretty much salts things the way the person next to them something.

24:21 I want to have some time to talk about your experience after Vietnam. And and I think that's been a big part of your life and impacted you and other people. But before that, I wanted to ask you, if you can talk about one more thing in Vietnam, and that is the little boy, your son there. I want, I want people to know about him.

24:44 We are.

24:47 Have done an ambush outside of been long. There was a village and the government.

24:55 The Vietnamese government over the village.

25:00 Every day for two weeks dropping flyers on the village, telling the people that we were going to be coming into the village to get rid of the Vietcong. And

25:13 So at the time, we went to the Village.

25:16 I thought we had, I was in B company. We would all the fraud. See you in a few company from the flanks and a company was in the reader and after trapping Village from the air here. We walked into the others.

25:51 All we could hear was screaming.

25:54 And he said, he had taken the people of the village.

26:00 Moved in after 1.

26:03 Bamboo structure.

26:08 I took the people and movements that Hutch and waiting with our father.

26:17 Weird kid, opal.

26:19 495 people in that Village.

26:24 Not knowing that they were there. And I think that's one of the reasons we were called baby killers because

26:33 The screaming was competing in the village and and they took the girl to a Convent Good Shepherd Convent outside of being alone.

26:54 So next time off of Duty up and down at the convent to check on Google and see how she's doing and I met sisters in Barrie.

27:08 And it was all. So, so

27:14 The one girl was obviously very upset, but she was doing okay. And I saw the kids. Got me think about my childhood. So

27:27 I went back to the base. I'll talk to Captain Miller.

27:31 And he said that.

27:34 They have been doing some work at the convent. Several volunteers from Engineering Group to going down there during the week and on the weekends, but they're all busy or not on a troll repair things, Delta sister cell.

27:49 So I agreed to do that involve two of them and

27:53 Once I got to the Village, I met this little boy and I went, oh, was 5 years old.

27:59 And went over became my best friend, cuz every time I showed up, he would not leave me alone all the time. I was there. He would cry when I left in you.

28:16 So after many visits to the convent of the next 3 months,

28:23 I have filed adoption papers and I had adopted renter. We call him winner.

28:30 I had a doctor's window and I went down to the convent.

28:34 To fix your doctor papers that have been filled out to the sisters.

28:42 The night before.

28:45 We had some penetrations into the compound in and around the convent. So we had to go out and disarmed, all the weapons, all the bombs, everything and were walking to that Convent that morning.

28:58 The past Convent when saw me and he

29:06 He came running across the field.

29:10 And stuck on one of the flan mines lobbyist.

29:19 Starboy.

29:23 And so, that was

29:27 It's still hard today and always will be.

29:32 You been able to tell us or tell me, and, and others that were friends with a lot about him over the years.

29:42 The outcome of that, mostly because of ski.

29:48 What's the fact that he told me, he said, even though you've lost your son?

29:54 There's something you will gain from that.

29:57 And I could not figure out what he was talkin about till I came home, I can booty.

30:04 Mary's Jewish girl 1973.

30:11 I thought it started teaching Sunday School.

30:17 Let's,

30:19 Wow.

30:21 38 years and these kids every time I see them, I have

30:27 I have my boy back.

30:30 I have someone I can talk to and someone that hugs me and someone at

30:35 It cares.

30:38 Keep his memory alive and and allow you to have the people to talk to about him there. So many more stories about what happened in Vietnam, but I want people to also know.

30:53 What happened when you got back, if you feel comfortable, you know about what it's like to have PTSD and what you've done in our community and for veterans when we came home.

31:09 I came home because I was a prisoner processing through, Walter Reed, Army hospital.

31:17 From Walter Reed, I'd been there for about, I was there for about 3 weeks, I think.

31:25 Remember exactly, but I do remember coming home.

31:30 And finding my father in the house, who would died.

31:36 Very bad fight for it back.

31:46 25 minutes after.

31:48 45 30 minutes to my dad after I found my father, my mother came home.

31:54 She saw the ambulance had died.

32:04 I am so glad she got home in time seek to make up with him and say goodbye to him before he died.

32:17 Are you walk? Joe house? And he had he had obviously just recently died.

32:27 The outcome of that. Is that what the last?

32:34 I've always been a lot of my time being a carpenter by trade helping other people, but I work with American Legion of work with Warriors Solutions in Greenville, South Carolina, but my big get back to the military has been

32:52 Artwork with purple, heart homes of the upstate and Golden Corner, chapters Purple Heart homes for America.

33:02 Services veterans are disabled by building handicap ramps and remodeling their bathrooms and remodeling the kitchen and make me a safe for the veteran. And so I have been able to do that and in doing. So I have been able to meet other veterans and, and get them to open up a little bit about what they went through, both in Vietnam, and Korea, and Iraq and Afghanistan. Because some most veterans will not talk about what they went through their. It's a closed or no, no one will understand.

33:41 And I decided that I need to just talk about it. So other veterans could understand that there were people that supported them and I knew what they were feeling.

33:56 Solo.

33:58 That's why I do it.

34:00 I know you've helped so many people and I would never have

34:06 Even the faintest idea what an experience is like that you went through without you sharing, and it's just so helpful to know to have to have some kind of insight even though I could never really understand.

34:24 Before we wrap up. Is there anything else that you would want people to know about anything about being a veteran or your service?

34:36 April today.

34:39 See me with my veterans hat on, which I wear a lot because I want other veterans to know. They see my hat. They know that I'm a veteran just like they are, we can talk. If people say thank you for your service. That's very,, I'm very proud of that and I think that Vietnam

35:03 Andy.

35:05 Social justice system and the date for Richard Africa, Vietnam.

35:11 Call Zach. I think it costed because people no longer Hayes Soldier. Steve. No, I don't think you ever really hate him. I think it was just the fact that they didn't understand.

35:24 I think that now.

35:27 Saying, thank you for your service for veteran, mean, something to that veteran. You're not think they hate from Vietnam brought that about.

35:37 Everyone, so maybe don't from the way they treated Vietnam soldiers. I don't know. But I'm glad that they do it and I am absolutely thrilled that we are pulling out of Afghanistan this year. And every veteran that I've talked to has agreed with me, including the ones are still service. We do not need to be there.

36:02 Thank you, Rodger you for sharing?

36:07 Okay, Francesca, thankful will wrap up.