Rick Kiley and Patti Kiley

00:01 I'm Patti Kiley. I am 69 years old. Today's date is March 5th 2020. I am in Las Cruces New Mexico actually at New Mexico State University at the moment and my interview partner is Rick Kiley and he is my husband of many many many years.

00:27 Hi, I'm Rick Kiley. I am 74 years old. Today is March 5th 2020. I'm on the campus of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico. My interview partner is my wife patty patty with an i p a t t i and again, she is my wife.

00:50 So

00:53 We've been thinking about this a little bit her Patty we have and I believe that what we're trying to convey today is a story about Love and War and most importantly correspondence.

01:08 Cuz this was long before email and long before any social media It Was Written correspondence. It was snail mail.

01:17 I think what we're going to talk about today as hell too young people want a teenager and the other a little bit older. We were 17 you were and I was 22 and we grew together through writing these letters.

01:32 From the United States over to Vietnam where I was and we formed a bond that has lasted decades take a full week to get from me to you and vice and vice versa and lot of overlap with the letters in that fall of 1967. I was living in a relatively small town Florham Park, New Jersey and you lived in Union New Jersey and there was a brand new mole that everybody was very excited about opening in Short Hills, New Jersey and at the mall was a Bloomingdale's now Bloomingdale's was a big thing cuz it was in New York city. So for one to come out to the suburbs in New Jersey was really really cool. I could only go to work two nights a week and Saturday because I was still going to high school.

02:32 And I worked 4 weeks times in the summer times and we used to have lunch together.

02:43 It's right and like you said you were in high school. I was a college. I was a student at Fairleigh Dickinson University. It was in the night school and I think we said this but I am 5 years older than you well and after that first.

03:01 What would be the first part of 1968 when I graduated from high school? I was set to go to Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania in the fall. And it almost the same time that happened. You got your draft notice cuz we were drafting people back then. What was that like

03:23 Well, that's right. I was drafted into the army and I found out that I had a report on October 1st 1968 and it was actually was a bit frightening and I had mixed emotions about the whole experience for the country with that war. What were your mixed emotions while I wasn't sure if her involvement in the war was right and what I mean by are as the United States and a lot of people

03:59 And a lot of my friends were against the war and found out ways to

04:09 Avoid serving which wasn't that hard if you were white educated.

04:17 I had friends who got deferments for being teachers and things like that.

04:24 I remember I was supporting Bobby Kennedy for president and that was in 1968 before I got drafted and then I was supported Eugene McCarthy after after Bobby was killed and Bobby was killed on June 6th. 1968 Martin Luther King was assassinated in the same year.

04:48 I do want to say that.

04:51 Not only did I understand that. I was legally obligated to go into into the army, but I felt that I had a moral obligation to support my Country Inn and quite honestly, there were a lot of things going on, which maybe we can talk about later, but I thought if I did figure out a way out somebody else would have done in my place and I wasn't feeling very good about that what I'm not sure about is how you're out and central Pennsylvania and I'm in

05:27 Eastern New Jersey and how did you find out that I was stripped?

05:35 There was always a long weekend in October and I usually came home. It was only 3 to 4 hours from home in Jersey and central Pennsylvania. And because I had so many friends of Bloomingdale's I would usually stop in whenever I was home. Even if I wasn't working it was and it was kind of fun cuz we did we actually we both worked in the men's department was kind of cool for me cuz I had two sisters and I'm nothing about men's clothes before I started working there anyway, but I would stop in over a long weekend. And then that was how I found out.

06:15 You and I reconnected again after I finish basic training at which of my basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. It wasn't too far away from home. But that's where I did basic Fort Dix. Yep. We reconnected and we went out together New Year's Eve. Yeah. I asked you out on a date. It was it was my first date our first date night and our boss who was a really good guy a young guy not a whole lot older than we work had a New Year's Eve party.

06:46 +

06:47 It was fun to go with you and it was a fun party.

06:52 There was a lot of drinking though and I drank too much and it was deemed that I couldn't drive and our host had to drive you home.

07:07 And so yeah, I remember that so then we sort of stayed out of touch for a year and

07:18 That's because

07:21 I was ashamed I can understand that what to say to you or how to communicate with you about what happened and

07:34 Also, I was confused about a lot of stuff and I didn't know if I really wanted to start a relationship. I was pretty sure I was going to Vietnam. I was kind of on track, you know, we kind of knew those of us that had been drafted what was happening and

07:53 I was going to be an infantryman and it was around that time around that time at New Years. I had orders to go to Fort Polk Louisiana for advanced infantry training and pretty much everybody that went to Fort Polk Louisiana was going to go to Vietnam. That's pretty much what happened. So for me the way I was thinking to try to start a relationship with you or you know, anybody wasn't really

08:25 What I wanted to do at the time obviously, we'll see later how that that change for me after I went through Fort Polk Advanced infantry training I volunteered for it was accepted at the NCO Academy and Co school noncommissioned officer school at Fort Benning, which is the base for the Infantry and I went to school there and that takes us up to Lake June of 1969. I would happen there was a graduated and I would say he became a sergeant E5 even though I'd only been in the Army like happier.

09:09 And I was sent back to Fort Dix.

09:15 For additional training and also to help train others other soldiers that were Advanced infantry training. So the odd thing about that considering what happened is

09:28 We were both in New Jersey and logically I could have contacted you then and I didn't and I don't know why I guess I do but we already covered that.

09:43 So it kind of brings us up to October of 69 and I arrived in Vietnam in October 1st, and I was assigned to the 2nd battalion of the 327th Infantry of the hundred first Airborne Division and we had a motto. That was no slack.

10:03 Do you know what that means? Absolutely not no slack means that.

10:08 Even though we were in a war zone.

10:14 We always had to keep all our equipment clean and straight. There was no facial hair. We split the beginning we shaved and we really kept her act together. And I think I think that no slack attitude saved a lot of lives. There was a high level of preparedness in that unit. I went to training at the excerpt which was the Screaming Eagle replacement training school. And that was up in Benoit. I landed I started out landed in cam ranh Bay and

10:55 I remember being it certs and I was on guard Duty up there one night and I was a New York Mets fan back then and I remember on guard Duty. We were able to get a radio tuned we listen to the second game of the world series between the Baltimore Orioles and the and the New York Mets and I didn't look it up. I don't know who won. I'm pretty sure the Mets lost the first game, but ultimately they did win that series. There was a lieutenant with me in the bunker that night. We are listening to the game and he was also assigned of the company that I was ultimately assigned to different platoons, but same company and about six weeks after that night. He was killed in action and

11:44 I remember being profoundly sad about that.

11:50 But you knew when you got over there that was killed I think so. Yeah, pretty sure so

11:56 Sober then did you know I was in Vietnam now, it's now. It's like October 69. It's not a question. I got drafted. It's like now I'm over there. It's that long weekend in October and that's how I figured it. That's how I got it was going down there and they tell you had been in contact with the folks at Bloomingdales and you know there you were over in Vietnam.

12:26 Yeah.

12:28 Was strange so anyway, so what were you doing in October or November then?

12:35 So

12:38 First of all

12:42 Mary told you about the the training school then I got assigned to my unit which was up and place called Foo by and nobody could see it but I got a map on the table and that was just below the DMZ below the Miller Ferrari. Yeah, it was south of way, but north of denying the Fool by was where Camp Eagle was and there was there was a glitch for some reason for about the first week 5 weeks. I was there I didn't receive any mail from anybody who when you finally got mail. You probably got a bunch. Who did you get it from I'll get a load of mail and

13:27 Friends my parents my two brothers my sister their families, but I did get a lot of letters from little nieces that I had and

13:41 You got a lot of those I got a lot and he's got a lot of nieces and that was very special to me and

13:50 You know when we got married it was very important for me that those kids got to go to the wedding and go to the wedding reception to remember the hell. Yeah, we had a lot of kids really cool kids are very cute. Now, they're all grown up and actually in the wedding party. So we just I think it was from yeah. It was all the way down to I think the youngest one there was six and there was only one who couldn't come because he just been born.

14:27 Six-month-old you still around a little girls and those nephews they grew up to have children and some of them have grandchildren.

14:38 So, you know you asked me what was October November like it was there no mail and then we talked about the kids that that was so important. You know, I was in the Infantry, right? It's a foot soldier and that's a foot soldier that carries a rifle, you know, it confuses everybody when you tell him what the hundred first Airborne that you were an infantryman there wasn't a lot of jumping out of airplanes over in Vietnam, but the hundred first Airborne we were airmobile we went from one place to another in helicopters. We repeal pulled out of helicopters on ropes. We landed in landing zones on helicopters, but

15:21 The hundred first Airborne ever changed its name as it should not have from Airborne and Air mobile because of their storied history in World War II being part of the D-Day invasion those guys were

15:39 Those guys were something those brought World War Two Guys.

15:46 I started out remember now. I'm a sergeant stripes on the squad leader. And at that time when I first got there I had very good leadership. I had a career Sergeant he was an E7 and you really showed me the ropes as best as we he could and I learned a lot from him in a very short. Of time. We were in the lowlands we called it. We were the South China Sea was off in a little bit in the distance some days. I could see it where I was was primarily it's all agrarian. It was rice patties are highways of railroads trails and I got there was monsoon season and it like rained all the time. It really rained a lot and it rain frequently a lot of what I did was I trained spell occasionally. Anyway, we trained soldiers from the we called them arvin's which I believe was Army of the Republic of Vietnam soldiers.

16:45 During the night. We set up ambushes around Villages where we were and the reason we set up ambushes is cuz the Vietcong the enemy wanted to go into those Villages at night for a variety of reasons. They could get food they could get sex. They could keep their political point of you growing and so forth. And sometimes they would go in and actually assassinated Village Chief if he wasn't in

17:21 You know in alignment with their political views so are our ambushes were very important and they did a lot of that. It was sometimes nothing happened. Then you're going to hear later. I think sometimes things did happen on those ambushes.

17:44 I remember the Vietnamese people being much smaller than I expect him to be they were very friendly to us. Sometimes sort of giggly and childlike of it looking back at it. I'm sure I'm sure that they were scared of us. We were bigger. We carried rifles, who knows maybe what we could have done, but I'll tell you.

18:12 The people I was with and myself we were very nice to those to those villagers and I'm sure some of them hated us. I want to be clear about something in this interview.

18:27 Thought it was always in a combat situation. Sometimes people say well.

18:32 You must have gone to the PX or I didn't know we were always always in combat. Even when I was at our big base camp. Remember I break ankles and we'd go in there and stand down for a couple of reasons one. They wanted to give us rest away from the

18:53 The daily combat, but there was training going on and and all sorts of things. And one thing is I was thinking about this interview.

19:05 Is even when we're back at Camp Eagle, it wasn't straight safe and one night. We were I remember we were watching a movie which was Outdoors. It was sort of like going to a drive-in movie except for that car and we're watching a movie called The Battle of Britain and during the Battle of Britain and Nazis were bomb in a British Airfield and the sound come very realistic during the bombing raid because we were getting mortared.

19:42 It wasn't the first time I saw a real action, but I happen to know the date on on the 19th of November 1969. I was second command of one of these ambushes and we killed an enemy and we captured to assault weapons called AK-47s and I was second in command and for that I received the armor Army Commendation Medal for Valor. I see not at the house yesterday on the wolf is it is

20:14 I first heard from you.

20:18 In early December 1969 and this the sort of started really are restarted everything between you and me and like what caused you to write to me you had sent a Christmas card to the men's department of Bloomingdale's and they when they opened it, they also kept the envelope which had your address on it. So I said to myself this is ridiculous that we're not having any kind of communication at all. So I wrote you a letter.

20:50 And I was I was missing contact. So I wrote you a letter. I don't know if I forget if it was a card slash letter, but it was I think it was probably it was a letter. It was a letter and you're writing started up, but I'm sure you were sort of surprised to hear from me. But it yours was fairly could be intermittent. It wasn't like it was coming all the time. Like there were gaps in writing writing. I didn't know if anybody knew besides me that I was writing to you. And if anything had happened to you nobody was going to know.

21:35 That oh, maybe I would like to know but there was something going on cuz I didn't know and I didn't know anybody to get in contact with I didn't know any of your family or I mean, I'm sure something would have come through to the Department of Bloomingdale's but but you know, I didn't have any real way of getting in touch with anybody. So when it gets me, you know, and this was this was kind of weird the fact that it would take so long to get the letters back and forth and I'll get it is think that it would be faster than a week. But it was it was at least a week to get once you wrote it and stuck it in the mailbox. So it took a week to get to the other end and then maybe to get an answer or a week later or to believe now compared to today.

22:22 And there wasn't fact almost a month's like from that from that first letter and then my second letter to you cuz you save those letters. Thank you, you know for doing that.

22:36 Part of the thing. I remember was I was on a I was on a sniper Mission and that's not as exotic as it might sound. I didn't have a big long sniper rifle with a sight on it. But there were like a good little team of three of us that they sent we are away from everybody else. There was a trail and we were waiting for guys to bad guys to come in there. But after that are rating really picked up I'm in there. Sometimes we're not in review. I'd find out I get three letters from you at a time. I think we were started a right almost daily.

23:12 And you could kind of tell that we were developing. I called it a courtship by mail and we were kind of developing a high level of affection for each other through the letters and I don't know what was going through your mind with that. I started using more affectionate terms with each other. So I was kind of like in that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

23:35 You had a crush on me. Yes. I did. I wasn't that little you were not the little girl that I wasn't that little girl anymore.

23:46 It's for sure and I even had I don't think you know this I even had a countdown calendar on my wall. No, I don't know that this is the first time I've heard that one of the things you did.

23:57 The point out to me that you weren't a little girl anymore. And if I don't know if it was then or later, but you send me this picture of you at the from the Jersey Shore and you're wearing this yellow bikini or two-piece bathing suit, you look pretty grown-up and she's got the picture. So yeah, actually it's on the table between the two of us.

24:24 So in late December through early February the action where I was seem to pick up a lot one night. I was out.

24:34 I think I was the I'm still a squad leader at cuz I know who my my platoon Sergeant was butter. Our platoon leader was wounded and he was like really right next to me. They got shot through the legs and he wasn't with us over there very long, and I didn't know him well, but

24:54 He Yong he made it he got sent back home. I do know that.

24:59 And around New Year's we're up on a railroad track. And this wasn't a Viacom. This was an NVA Soldier and he he had some kind of rank. He was not he was not a small guy in there in their organization and he walked into an ambush that I was in charge of and we captured weapons and also importantly documents from him and for that action. I received the Bronze Star.

25:31 For Valor and

25:34 What was really cool about that for me is my Uncle Eddie was in World War II.

25:40 And he was my mother's little brother her baby brother and he was in the tank. So he was indeed a and he was in all that stuff. He went all the way to Berlin and he got the Bronze Star 2 and she always used to talk about it. So I thought that would I thought that would make her happy and any other infantry badge. It's a CIB and that's that's that's for being.

26:09 That's for being in combat for having been under Fire and you know fighting alongside of other men and helping each other. So I'm proud of you and I think I remember that in February 1970. You got a really bad infection the climate over there are the conditions which we were in we're crazy and we can we see what I mean by that is I spent a lot of time literally in in rice paddies and the water was filthy they use buffalos to plow their fields and so forth to pull their little plows and you know, the water was really dirty with Buffalo feces and things like that and I got an infection in my foot and I had a like a little boy land in the foot and I guess the medic is talked to Lance it and he said it's not a good idea. I said, what's the alternative? He said? I don't know I said well, it's hurting so Lansing.

27:10 And in about a half an hour to an hour my leg ballooned up like four times its size and the captain the company officer. He drove me back to Camp Eagle in a jeep. They got me the hospital in my memory. I was in the hospital for 10 days.

27:27 Around the field for 10 days. But in reality I found out just going through I was actually out like 21 days back there in the hospital and I had a new platoon leader at that time. So Lieutenant he kind of held that against me for being out of the field and it was sort of we didn't get off to a great start and that kind of manifested into something later that actually has bothered me for

27:54 A long time and I've actually worked through that.

28:01 Okay, so let's talk about the importance of music and all this couldn't

28:08 I don't think we could have this conversation with that talked about the music of the day. Right and you and I both love the Beatles right loves the Beatles and my parents sent me the Abbey Road cassette and I had a cassette player I could listen to him cuz you how long until it was done. And the reason I love Here Comes the Sun is because I always felt when I was in these lowlands that at night it was the most dangerous and when the sun came up nobody's going to mess with us. So I loved Here Comes the Sun.

28:46 And that was written by George Harrison and so was something written by George Harrison. Linda McCartney and something you and I dance to at our wedding. It was our wedding songs our first dance at the wedding and then you and I

29:02 Howdy, what is it a privilege and an honor whatever we were lucky enough Fortune enough that we got to walk across the crosswalk in Abbey Road you and I did in 2011 and we wrote A Little Love message on the wall there at the Abbey Road Studios.

29:19 +

29:23 That was cool. And you also sent me the Bridge Over Troubled Waters cassette and and then we went you and I went to the live concert in New York and Central Park 2020 opened up the the capeman.

29:50 Okay, so then an April you got promoted. I got promoted to staff sergeant e-6 and that was that was a big deal and just as a a comment on the times you were Wilson college and I was in Vietnam and I sent you a clipping from Stars and Stripes which is like the Armed Forces newspaper and at your college today protested Mamie Eisenhower Eisenhower.

30:22 It was very very very.

30:25 Difficult for many folks and I actually was not there it was graduation and it wasn't the year that I wasn't going to be graduating. So I didn't stick around. I took my exams and I got out of there but yes, she was protested the picture they sent was not so nice that was in stars and stripes and I felt

30:47 Not into that divided. I mean yes, I could understand the protest but I felt so bad for Mamie Eisenhower. I don't know how old she was then but you know, maybe wasn't the cause right after Kent State. Yeah, it was riding at Kent State. It happened and all that. So what were the most traumatic things that happened to you? The end of June were in the mountains? We had walked a long time. We were looking for enemies and I was on a listening post that night and in the morning, we all three of us were in the listen to post were asleep, and that should not have happened and

31:27 My lieutenant Foo

31:31 Was the guy that wasn't happy that was in the hospital for 3 weeks. He told me that I wasn't going to be the platoon Sergeant any longer and I was going to be transferred to another Duty and that's in fact what happened? I didn't know this but I found out he did the same thing to a friend of mine was also his platoon Sergeant. He he got rid of him. So I don't think it was all me and I don't even know why we all three of us were asleep. I never got to all of that and then ironically amazingly that have been done the morning that night. We had a new guy in the company. He was in a squad. We were in a perimeter position up in the mountains and the new guy

32:21 To relieve himself. He walked outside the perimeter and he triggered one of our Claymore Mine Sandy. He blew his legs off and heat the scream. I can still hear it. I'm sure and I was the one who called in the helicopter to get him out of there and he I remember I said what is his condition and they told me extremely grave and then the next morning I learned that he had died and he was really a kid.

32:52 How high late I guessed you remember that it where I went to R&R. Yeah, you went to Australia. It was a completely different experience. I liked it.

33:10 I think we should probably mention about the drugs and alcohol drugs and alcohol drugs and alcohol were a big part of the Vietnam experience and a lot of people smoke marijuana in Vietnam. I did but very not very much but I drank a lot and

33:30 Yeah, I got I got loaded over there a couple of times. So that's come up behind a couple of times. So I want to say that right now. I haven't had a drink in 19 years and 10 months. I've been sober life better for all who know you and you my daughter is in love never seen me drink. My grandchildren have never seen me drink.

33:53 So toward the end of your tour. I know you were actually even struck by lightning. I was struck by lightning. So that's one of my that's one of the War Stories. I tell cuz it wasn't a bad thing. It's not gruesome. Nobody got hurt, but I had three weeks to go before I was going home and the whole platoon got struck by lightning. It was the loudest noise ever heard Claymore mines one of trees fell down or Medicaid diagnosed himself with a broken leg and he then it turned out he didn't have a broken leg, but the colonel was insistent that we send in all this rain and lightning and thunder that we send a helicopter in there to pull this get out and that was really amazing.

34:39 You know, the last letter I wrote to you is from something for the fire support base and it was on 20 December 1970.

34:51 I guess I want to ask you if

34:55 Well, I called you from Seattle to remember that I got home to Seattle supposed to hit the state of course didn't have cell phones or anything like that back then so I was making sure no one no one no one could be near the Payphone on the end of the Hulk.

35:17 Until I got that phone call and they didn't talk. I I got the phone call. Yes should have been one like 24 hours and it was like 3 days. I want to know where you at any time worried that I I would be killed or be severely wounded all the time all the time all the time. So, okay. So looking back. What do you think about the war in you?

35:52 I think a lot of folks now think we shouldn't have gotten involved at all people that were for the war at that time have changed not everybody. I understand that.

36:03 I think the Ken Burns PBS documentary has changed a lot of people's minds but I really appreciate those that honor me as a Vietnam veteran and respect me and I love living in Las Cruces, New Mexico, which is very veteran-friendly town. I honor all who served we went and we did a heck of a good job. I don't know why the politicians did with David but with the soldiers did was great. And as you know, I was diagnosed with PTSD in it really showed up in 2016, and I've been receiving counseling and treatment from the VA because of that and what do you think about the job you did I think you pretty much said that already did everybody.

36:56 On the ground was did a great job. I think I think they did some people I wasn't a hero. I think I made some mistakes. I think I was confident though. I never really lost a man that may not sound like that from some of the stories. I told you but that I made a couple of friends to a few mom still in contact with

37:21 And then we get to us and you know.

37:26 I I I hope I hope we become serious well, and it didn't happen fast.

37:35 We got together and about a month later. We were engaged and we got married ears misspoke and last year a counselor pointed out to me that you kind of saved me and I talked about the draft and all of that but I think the Army really helped me and I'm at the time the draft notice came. I didn't have a great job. I hadn't finished College. I was living at home. I was dating a girl that I had no future with and I think the Army was really good for me wasn't all that happy how to go to the war with the Army was really good for me and with you

38:15 I finished College. I got an MBA you finish college before I did later on. You got a master's degree. We have two wonderful Sons.

38:28 They each married wonderful women and we have three beautiful grandchildren and that really will happen cuz you wrote me that letter or shine.

38:43 I love you, too. I love you a lot.

38:50 So