Gary Cranor and David Cranor

Recorded October 7, 2012 Archived October 11, 2012 01:00:41
0:00 / 0:00
Id: SCK003049

Description

Talked about my father's time in Vietnam

Subject Log / Time Code

David Cranor and his father Gary Cranor introduce themselves.
David suggests they begin with Gary’s time in Vietnam. He asks when Gary first heard about it. Gary says 1965.
At that point, they were moving in select forces to train the South Vietnamese to take care of themselves. He was 25 years old. Gary never thought he’d be involved, because he was in college.
David asks when it became clear that Gary would become involved. Gary says 1964, and realizes he got his dates confused. He first heard about it in 1962, and in ’64 he realized he’d probably go, even though he was in college and had a wife and two kids.
External reasons for Gary going: First, his father never went to World War II, and beat himself up about it his whole life, and was ribbed by his family about it.
Second, Gary didn’t believe the rhetoric he was hearing about it, so he wanted to go see for himself what it was all about. David asks whether it was like an adventure.** Gary says it was more curiosity than adventure.
David clarifies that Gary volunteered, and Gary says he fought to be there. He was in the ROTC, so he could go directly to the Army as an officer. Previously, he’d used the ROTC to stay out of the war, when he entered college in ’58. He finished college in ’65, and took a commission in the military.
After he got his commission, he had to go to Virginia to get his commission. He’d been an engineer, so he became a combat engineer. He didn’t have much say in it.
From Fort Belmore, he went to Fort Polk, LA, where he had more say in what he’d get to do, limiting his assignments to the South. David asks what G did in Ft. Polk; he was in charge of the firing ranges, teaching people to shoot their weapons and so on, while he was waiting to go to Vietnam. They wouldn’t take officers until they had a year of experience under their belts.
Then he went to Vietnam. He sent his wife up to Chicago so she could be close to her family, found a place for the family in Zion, IL, and then he shipped out to Vietnam from Zion. David asks how the war was going at that time, and G says they were “ramping up” in ’67. That was the time of the “first big go-around in Tet.”
David asks how Gary felt about the war at that point. Gary says you can’t be scared. You have to believe “nothing’s going to happen to me.”** His job was to help build a highway to Hanoi, as they had no roads, so his group was doing some good, but it wasn’t easy; they were being “messed with.”
G had a survey crew and an EOD (explosive demolition) team. Every morning they’d go out into the road and dig up a bunch of #10 cans in order to find a “bouncing Betty” grenade, because they’d plant decoys. They’d spend 2 hours every morning with bayonets trying to locate the grenades.
D asks what G’s thoughts were about the war before he got into it. G says he had doubts about what the US was there to accomplish, and doubts about why, when he was fired on, he had to call headquarters to see whether he could fire back. Then he found out that the villages they “were fooling with” were harboring “friendlies.” But at night they let the “non-friendlies” come in and plant the bouncing Betties.
It was explained to G by some higher-ups that they were fighting a defensive, not an offensive war. “They didn’t want to do Japan all over again,” where they’d destroy it and then have to rebuild the entire infrastructure. They thought if they fought a defensive war, they could walk away at the end of a few years, and that made sense to G.
D asks whether G was in favor of the war, and G says he was neutral. He wasn’t sure he believed the anti-Communist talk.
D asks G’s first memory, walking off the plane in Vietnam. G says it was just like getting off any other plane, but on the bus to the compound, he thought everyone was wearing black pajamas, and he was very nervous because he had no weapon.
D asks about the flight. G says he flew from Chicago to San Francisco, where they “mustered up,” then flew to Guam, and then to Vietnam. The entry was like a 90 degree drop, because they were getting shot at.*
D asks what else G remembers about acclimating to Vietnam. G says it looked similar to what they’d built to simulate Vietnam in training in the US. One “big lesson” that they tried to teach everyone when they came back was that they didn’t really know each other. He didn’t know his fellow soldiers, because he hadn’t trained with them. He points out that with all the movements in Iraq and the Gulf War, they listened to the Vietnam vets and sent the groups together.
D asks what G remembers of his original introduction to the country. G says he was counting down the days. He describes his calendar with the naked woman on it.
D asks how the war changed him. G says he has to think about that. D asks if G can recall times he was afraid or happy, and times when he felt he had accomplished something. G says they exceeded their goals.
He found out during Tet that an enemy battalion surrounded his company, but then realized that they had napalm all around the outside of their company. They ran a heard of elephants through their company, and they burned all of the elephants up, along with a bunch of the soldiers.* They knew if they tried to run a battalion through, they’d suffer damages.
D asks G to characterize what napalm is, exactly, and he explains. G says he wasn’t concerned for his life, but he did realize what it was like to be thirsty. They’d consumed all of their drinking water. One cup a day, half a cup of water a day, and it was hot. They got so thirsty that they put together a convoy to get out of the camp to fetch fresh drinking water. So they loaded up 3 Jeeps and a 50 Caliber, and they got to Camron Bay and back safely.
D asks when G was most afraid. G says his first three days. His company was bombed every night. D asks whether it was the most dangerous or if he was just new to it. G says because he was new to it. After his third day, he realized he had to decide nothing was going to happen to him.*
D asks what else G did besides build roads. G says the worst part of his job was negotiating with each village. He’d have to go meet with a village chief and tell him what they were planning on doing: building roads by tearing down villages. They’d negotiate sacks of cements and sheets of sheet metal and 2x4s with each one, and then at the end of it, you’d have to eat dinner with the village chief, and G hated that food, but he didn’t want to offend the village chief and his wife. He ate seconds.
D asks what an average day in Vietnam would have been life. G says he’d work on the road with the EOD team, acting like a regular soldier so he wouldn’t stand out as a leader, so he wouldn’t be singled out and shot. Then they’d eat breakfast at 6 am, and then he’d have meetings or conversations with Special Forces—who didn’t provide much protection but definitely provided entertainment, and with whom his company traded for whiskey and meat and so on.
Then they’d have lunch, and go back out and work on the road. They spent a lot of time looking for gravel. They didn’t have any gravel in Vietnam, but they would look for it, going out to the mountains and doing soil samples to find a base material. They ended up barging in gravel from Korea and hauling it in from Camron Bay. Most of it was shale, and he doesn’t understand why, because to his knowledge no one was drilling for oil in Vietnam. But he still suspects the war was about oil, in part.
D asks where they ate lunch, and G says they set up a tent 20 miles up the road. 10 miles up was a construction company with a rock crusher. They mined rock, and brought it to the rock crusher to make gravel for asphalt.
One side product of Vietnam was charcoal manufacturing. They cut a 55-gallon drum in half and made hooch. His officer’s hooch was a ConEx container that he set in a shallow part of the ground and covered it with dirt and stuff like a cave, with dirt on three sides and a top, with a door and a window. There were other hideouts around built of other materials, in a circle. So they’d take a 55-gallon drum and grill meat on it every night.
Daytime was working. G tells a surveying story. There was one friendly village that negotiated not to be torn down, so they had to detour around it. So they’re surveying around it, when lo and behold they run into three CBs (Navy guys). They’d built a 175-foot bridge out of concrete. They’d been there three years building a bridge, waiting for them to get there with their road. They hadn’t had a clue what they’d do when they got to the river; they thought they’d run a cover pipe. But they’d built a 175-foot concrete bridge.
D asks whether G worked the whole time on that one road. G says yes, they built 12 miles of road the size of an interstate highway. D asks whether G had any chance to travel, and G says they had an opportunity for R&R, but he didn’t want to have to see his wife and then go back to war.
He went in the doctor’s office one day to see him about rashes on his hands, and mentioned he also had a knot on his chest that itched. The doctor said, “Oh my God, you got cancer,” and shipped him away. 2 days later, G was on a plane to Japan. It turned out it was benign, probably a knot of fat that grew around an infection. But while he was in Japan he got to ride the bullet train, to visit Hiroshima.
It was flattened then, but in the process of becoming a major metropolitan area. There was a kid there who’d gotten locked in (?) who’d called in an air strike on his own position because he couldn’t take it anymore. He had to have the bullet holes in his chest scraped out every day, which was excruciatingly painful. So G and his friends brought the kid to the officers’ club. G brings up Nurse Ramirez, who used to wear red underwear under her uniform and then “thump” any patient who got an erection.
It was on Nurse Ramirez’s watch that they took this guy Lewis to the NCO club and got him drunk and had a good time. The doctors came in and didn’t see any patients, and so Ramirez got in trouble.
The other bad thing was watching television, which they couldn’t understand because it was all in Japanese, so they watched baseball. He also remembers a John Wayne movie. G imitates the Japanese voiceover for John Wayne.
D asks whether it was common for people to go to Hawaii. G says yes, but they also used to go to another place. D asks whether, outside G’s time in Tokyo, he took any other R&R time.
G says his doctor said he could go home if he wanted to, but his tour wouldn’t count, because he wasn’t there long enough. But G opted to go back to Vietnam and finish his three months.
D asks how much in contact G was with D’s mother, G’s wife. G says they wrote letters every day and sometimes taped messages on a cassette recorder every three or four days. They only spoke on the phone once, when G found out he didn’t have cancer. “And she was madder’n hell about that.”* He didn’t have any opportunity to talk to her any other place. “She was just dumbstruck,” because he’d always said he wouldn’t call. “Just one of the weird ones, I guess.”*
D asks about G visiting Hawaii, and he talks about it for a moment.
D asks about G’s friends. G says he made good friends, and only lost one. D asks what lessons G takes from that. G says the treatment he got when he got home, is you try to teach people to love the warrior even though you hate the war.** He also realized that his main talent was dealing with people, not things, unlike most engineers.
He learned it at Fort Polk. The stockade was next to the range office, and he was shorthanded, so he went to the colonel and asked for the guys who were hanging out at the stockade. The colonel wouldn’t let him, because those guys were there because they were AWOL. G said he wouldn’t let them run, because he’d tell them he’d “shoot their ass.” He found out then that most of those guys were there because they “couldn’t handle authority,” so he told them they were in charge, and to call him if they needed something, but that they were in charge. They took charge, and were glad for the authority. When he went to Vietnam he did the same thing, took guys out of the stockade and gave them responsibility and told them he’d shoot them if they left. “And it worked, every time.
D asks what areas G went to while he was there. G says he came into Camron Bay, and then was assigned the old capitol. Then he worked 15-20 miles north of there on highway. He’d go to Qinyan to get his hair cut because he didn’t trust the other guys. Vietnamese cut hair with a straight razor, and he didn’t like the idea of getting his throat cut during a hairdo.
Side story: G used to pick on a priest in Texas because he was Vietnamese. G put two and two together and brought up these kids he used to see begging on the streets of Quinyan, whom he’d give little gifts. G realized this priest was about 10 years old during that time, and G realized he was actually one of those kids on the street. Qinan is as far north as G got.
D asks about the Special Forces G listened to on the radio and what kind of crazy things they were doing. G says they were killing people, and that they all had nicknames. It was entertaining to listen to them give updates about their positions, and use their names. You could hear them shooting, and then you’d hear them ask for someone to come pick up the corpses. They used piano wire to pop off the heads of these men, and then hang them upside-down in the villages to warn the rest.
If they had a big enough crew, they’d call in “Spooky,” the helicopters that didn’t make noise, and they’d pour down tracer bullets. “Looked like somebody pissing out of a big old plane.” “That was visual entertainment.” They dragged all the dead out of the jungle and hung them on fences in the villages. When the body counts came up, you could verify them.
D asks what G remembers about leaving Vietnam. G remembers having a few friends who had three more days, so he stayed three days with them so they could leave together. Al Coltrane was one, and Wayne Jones was another.
When they got on the plane, they went 90 degrees straight up because they were getting shot at. The hostesses had on miniskirts, and they handed out Playboy magazines, and some of them had snuck on some Jack Daniels. D asks whether G felt he’d accomplished anything, and G says yes. The road’s still there. People have been back.
They use the compound G helped build as a training facility. They won’t let you in. But they did feel they’d accomplished something, and brought back advice for what never to do again.*
D asks whether G feels the war ended badly, and G says yes, “because the politicians ended it, and we didn’t.” It was “a bloodbath,” but when G left in ’68, it was 7 years before it would be over, but even so the military wasn’t ready for it to be shut down. They would have needed 3 more years.
G never wants to go back. It was a “nightmare.” D asks how the war changed G. G says he realized he didn’t want to be an engineer, he wanted to manage people. So that meant a career change. And he’d imagined being in the military forever, but a few officers were unkind to his wife. “You can’t get to be a general without politics being involved,” and he didn’t want to “play their game.”

Participants

  • Gary Cranor
  • David Cranor

Venue / Recording Kit

Keywords


Transcript

StoryCorps uses Google Cloud Speech-to-Text and Natural Language API to provide machine-generated transcripts. Transcripts have not been checked for accuracy and may contain errors. Learn more about our FAQs through our Help Center or do not hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions.

00:01 Hey, my name is David Crainer. And I am 40 years old and this is October 7th 2012 in Washington DC and I'm interviewing my father and he will give his name and information.

00:16 My name is Gary Crainer.

00:19 My name is Gary Criner Midas 72.

00:25 Date of birth is 52140 the date of today is

00:33 October 7th, nineteen 2012 location of Washington DC and relationship is the father.

00:50 Okay. So let's start with your time in Vietnam. And let's start with the first time you remember hearing of Vietnam. When was the do you remember the first I'm hearing about it on the news or whatever that that this was something that people your age were going to or something 1965. And then what were you what were you hearing about it? Then? What were your thoughts about it? Well, they were just moving select forces in there to help train the South Vietnamese to kind of take care of themselves and I thought it was just a military action in time and you were I didn't know you were 25 then.

01:35 Yes, yes.

01:38 And how long after that did you start to think that this was something you might end up being involved in?

01:45 Well, I really didn't think I'd wind up being involved in it. But cuz I was in college and had to ask the firm it and all I kind of stuff so I didn't think I'd want to be in there.

01:58 But that at some point and it became apparent that you were going to be there. What mine was that? I was in 1964. I mean skews me in 19.

02:11 May 12th 1964 I guess.

02:17 I realize that I got my dates kind of mixed up. I guess I heard about it before 64 our I-65 I heard about in 62 I guess is my 1964 that I decided. It was probably going to wind up going to Vietnam even though I had was in college in and I was

02:42 I had a wife and two kids and I could not be drafted. I would not be drafted from that standpoint, but I was still probably going to go because of some external make me reasons. I guess what were those external reasons? I had two of them one. My father never went to the second world war and he beat himself up about that for all these life that I knew a man and his uncles and all them always kidded him and give him a hard time about that. And so I thought well, I don't want to go through that the rest of my life. This thing is developing into a full-blown war and I'm not going to want to

03:31 Beat myself up from my life. So I'm going to go and see what it's all about. And number two being a college-age student. I didn't believe a lot of the rhetoric that I was hearing about it. Then I really want to go go just to see for myself what it was all about what we really over there for and what we were trying to accomplish and all that kind of stuff. No. No, I couldn't do it listening to what people were saying Stateside. So it's kind of like an adventure in your mind seeing it was more of a curiosity about the the politics of it or what happened. I think it was more curiosity than anything else just to make sure that what we were over there for that. It was what we was all over there for

04:17 And so you so you volunteered to go to tell you ended up going you didn't you weren't drafted or anyting absolutely volunteer about to get to go and so how did you end up? Did you choose the army or the Darby choose you how does that work? I was in the Army ROTC at college. So I just went in the Army. I graduate I graduated and I got a commission in the service. So I was only smart way to go as an officer.

04:53 So you so when did you join ROTC? I guess then I used ROTC to stay out of college. I stay out of the war. So I immediately when I went to college I sign up for ROTC and what year was that event? That was 58? Okay. And so when you're done with college and what year was at? 1965? Okay. So then two then you took your commission in the military. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. Okay. And so by the time you knew that you'd be going to Vietnam because he be an officer and then that's what happened for it much course I had after I got my commission. I had to go to Fort Belvoir Virginia to be trying as an engineer officer. That wasn't anything really set whenever you actually got your commission. You can go as an fir tree or or anyting else and I went up course being an engineer.

05:53 They were about half smart and sent me the engineer training yet, so I can be a combat engineer. So today to tell Tony I don't I don't remember having much say in it than the fact that it was just kind of a foregone conclusion that since I had a degree in engineering. Be going in and core engineers.

06:19 And so you see what the Fort Belvoir in you tattoo training and then where did you go next then from there? I went to Fort Polk Louisiana and I did have some saying that cuz I've had limited my assignments to some place in the South and that's that's that's why I wound up to the armpit of the United States Army and sell what you do there in Fort Polk. What was your role? I was post range officer. I was in charge of the firing ranges in training the people in shooting or weapons and that kind of stuff and

07:03 That's basically what I did for the whole year and I was at the time while you were basically waiting to ship out to be an omnivore or a why would be after training that they would send you to me like that. I guess they weren't really taking officers until they had about a year under their belt and service of they were scared to have them over there more of a liability than anywhere of a positive effect on their what they were doing. So they got you going to sign up for about a year. Okay and tell them from Fort Polk. Where did you go next door sign went to Vietnam Vietnam set my wife up to

07:49 Chicago to be close to her family and we went up there and found a place for them to living and and wax in Zion, Illinois where they went and I shipped out riding directly from Zion to I

08:06 The Vietnam

08:08 Enter the time between the time that you took a commission and you shipped out. How is the war going at that point in time? And what were your thoughts about it during that time. Open up in in 67. That's where mine a hitting up bicycles are high point numbers of people over in Vietnam. And I was also the first big go around and Ted everybody hears the famous. That was 67. That was the one where they made the charge it at Saigon and all over the country from my standpoint. And what were your thoughts about though the war at in any way like where you or scared where you play more in favor of it more posed to it, but you can't be scared, but about the first 3 days and after that you have to settle on the factor that ain't going to happen to me. Nothing's going to happen to me. And otherwise you can't live with yourself you your

09:08 Donut to her and I saw some people do that, but beyond that our job was to build a highway from actually from cam ranh Bay, which was a major port that we had built in there to all the way to annoy if we could eventually and they didn't have any any kind of role that we were we were busy building a row. So we were doing something in behalf of the Vietnamese people riding. It was something my group was but we had a lot of Hang-Ups with doing that a lot of interference has and you know, I never did understand why they were messing with us when we were trying to do something that was of a big advantage to a minute. We would leave it and I'll be gone with it. We got my one of my job. I had a survey Crews sauce testing crew and I

10:08 EOD team explosive Ordnance demolition team and every morning we had to go out on the road and would dig up maybe a hundred number 10 cans and and hard to find one Bouncing Betty that they put in. What about somebody a grenade type object 430 by the ground when it when you hit it at spring loaded Bounce About 4 ft above ground explodes and what the heck is a number 10 can that has like a big old can of orange juicer or something like that from its animal 2 hours in the morning and everything. It wouldn't have the fancy equipment at that time that you can sonar there anything. So we had to do it with a ban. It's ready to go out there with me and answer a team about 12.

11:09 What's that that's in country when you were in the States before you left and at that time of year in Fort Belvoir and Fort Polk. What were your thoughts about the war before you were in you in the in the middle of it? I didn't really have any other thoughts in that had before I had serious doubts about what we were there to complish and

11:34 I had a lot of doubts even and Country except after I started the question and then why when I was fired a phone that I had to call in the Battalion headquarters and find out if I can fire back and at that point in time, I found out that a lot of The Villages that we were fooling with that but had built up on side of the road and we had to go through the negotiate with him and and in order to tear down their shots and stuff and build them back off the side of the road some that they had Friendly's in there, but they would act as non Friendly's to the other side. Let them come in at night and set up a bouncing betties to dig the holes Ogawa stuff to actually fire rockets on us to do all those kind of things it I didn't understand.

12:34 Why they were doing it first place. Like I said before cuz we were providing something of value to them that we would wind up walking off and leaving and I bet that it was explained to me that that some higher-ups at what we were doing was fighting a defensive War over that way. We're not fighting an offensive War. I was going to go in there a couple days take everything out and being charged for everything but they didn't want to do Japan all over again. They went in there and and nuked Japan and then they went up for 25 years and 25 billion dollars later building the other infrastructure backbone or highways getting their pounds back together and getting

13:29 Leadership and everything in there in a minute and trained and democracy. So I was speaking and that's exactly what they did not want to do in Vietnam. They thought that if we fought a defensive War there for about about six or seven years that we could walk away. They would be strong enough to take care of himself and we would have built enough stuff. They have fun with their infrastructure and all I got was having that kind of made sense to me at that point in time.

14:00 Enough before you left for the war would you said you were in favor of the war effort or opposed to it? Or you or neutral neutral. Why didn't I didn't believe what I was hearing? I wasn't sure what I was hearing. So what were you hearing anti-communism and that's what we were doing. We're trying to keep them from turning into communism and communist overtaking them and all that kind of stuff so that the Domino Theory and I didn't see it. I just didn't see it.

14:41 Can I give me a father?

14:45 Okay. So what was your first memory with in Vietnam and walking off the plane or whatever you're the toys that a big moment in the movie, you know that first moment not off the plane and bomb is just like any other getting off any other plane, but when I got on the bus and going to the compound

15:06 All the training I've had all the adversaries were wearing black pajamas. Well everybody up and down. The street is wearing black Jones. I don't have no weapons. I was very nervous. All right, darling. Sorry every time I see somebody they were in Black pajamas and they were that you know, they were the aggressor are as you were saying all kind of training and for the flight over some of that real quick. We left from Fort Polk and and with it because not direct flight or something, but why was that the whole trip itself from Chicago to San Francisco just a regular ticket and then at San Francisco's were we mustered up and we flew from San Francisco to Guam then on into Vietnam an entry in Vietnam was like a 90-degree. It looks like the plane died. It just was flying along and also boom just dropped.

16:06 Vietnam cuz I didn't want to shoot at that point in time.

16:11 And so what else what other brother thought about near the scissor by your first time in your country though so different than United States. What else do you remember from that bus trip there like a culture shock moment?

16:25 No, cuz it looks very much similar to The Villages and everything that they had built over here in the United States the Train on in Vietnam. I mean at Fort Polk and other places that so it was a very familiar surrounding to us at that point in time. When you say you must have did you know these guys beforehand the people you were going with or would be able to go on with you when you can't be with and Country? No, that was the big one of the big lessons that we tried to teach everybody when we came back. We all went over there individually didn't know anybody came back individual new very few people when we came back and we said that just done work cuz when they come over and eventually you don't know you don't trust them. You don't know anything about him. You don't know where they got your back or not and it takes a good while over there two or three months before you really feel comfortable with a new new guy comes in country.

17:25 If you've trained with him for 6 months and you all go together as a group, you know, who's going to take you back? You know, who you trust know, you don't trust and if you'll notice all the movements in the Rye call the movements in the Gulf War all the movements and they they listen to us. They did what we said. They send them over in a group. They bring them back in the group and replace them with another group and there's a lot more comfort in that in that situation lot more trust and

18:01 That's the only way to really do it. When you think of going to Vietnam. What what is a woman. The thought of that moment of that original introduction to the country?

18:13 I got 365 more days.

18:17 Did you did you keep track of days if you always know how many more days you had over that that drive you crazy. If you try to do that. Yeah, but short-timers calendar and use it's a naked woman and you're just drawing and coloring in Parts on her take it, you know, he gets down to 363 65th.

18:42 How did the world change you?

18:46 That's a tough question.

18:51 I don't know I think about that for him. He'll come back to that one service. Can you recall?

18:59 Times I got that one of your strongest memories of time that you were afraid times that you were happy or touch. You got to get a compass something. Well, we're a lot of goals as far as building a road in Wix seated almost all those goals every time I turned around if you know so many miles are Highway laid in and doing those things and we were expected to get to just south of whiskey mountain when her we went. Well, we went past with him out and we even moved another group up on top of whiskey Mountain to take over for us whenever we left and so from that standpoint, we had a lot of lot of good things. I think I found out during tet. We were surrounded during tet. There was a more than a battalion and when were on that company

19:52 Battalion is four times the size of a company surrounded us where we were located on after on the road and they were on their way to the train and they want to make make a lot of damage in training and they were just going to overrun us and then they realized from the Insiders that they had and I can't we we had people working in our camp from the Insiders in there. They knew what are outside perimeters look like we had Napalm all over there are outside and they to try to come in and what they did try to come in once late they run a herd of elephants.

20:34 Through in front of the the company or so about a company size. It was coming running a herd of elephants in her. We burn them all up in a bunch of a bunch of the Vietcong long with him and Aunt course, we replace that and they know if they ran to try to run up Italian through us that they were going to suffer some severe damages. You know, when you say at Napalm set up, I mean to be like in bags or I had I don't know how that works out of his life was like a bomb strapped to the planes and all that kind of stuff and we'd is trigger guy. Who is that a trigger mechanism or we blew them up and hang out with a guy and we could do that even remotely if we if we needed to wear Engineers. Do you know it was at the time you were most concerned for your life or no? I'm not very concerned my life. That's the first time I really realized what it was like to be thirsty. We ran out of drinking water.

21:34 Set alarm for 22 days and consumed all of our drinking water to have a drink of water and it got real life and you get into the rationing and doing all that kind of stuff and one cup and a half a cup of day and it's hot. It's hot and muggy said you really realize what it's like to be thirsty. And we got so thirsty that we put together a convoy to go out of it to go back down to Cameron by and get fresh drinking water and for something man. We loaded up three Jeeps with 50 calibers and in the deuce and a half with a 50 caliber on it and took off like a striper day saved, you know, and I didn't touch this.

22:25 Contrast and until you guys got more water and that's how it got down to camera. We got down to cam ranh Bay and load it up and came back that well.

22:37 Here we go. You know it was a mess today that I missed your chance coming out the other rip us a good friend come in and touches that never tried us. They just they were they were their number one objective was to go in the train and make serious damages in a triangle a just couldn't afford to lose any more people so they didn't pay they left us alone. They finally went way around and went into the crying at the train pretty heavy. So well, when was the time that you recall being most afraid you're concerned.

23:11 The first three days in country and we've got bombs down at at at cam ranh Bay is where I came in and we got bombs down there and every night you think was the most dangerous time or just cuz you were so new to it in your imagination was running. So no to another I've got a how can you live for a year or less? You know, there's no way this is going to going to work out.

23:37 It wasn't that bad. That's what I say about my third day. And I think I talked a lot of other people is about 3 or 4 days for all them before we realize that we have to settle on fact nothing going to happen to me. I would just go home and take care of business and nothing's going to happen to me. And so what you go out and so you don't roads or did you do more? Is there more to your job and just to fully realize that what you did was like one of the worst parts of my job was I got assigned as a negotiator for each Village Inn, and me and Vietnamese interpreter would go on to the village in a couple of months. All surveyors went in there with me and just messing around but we have to go from what would go meet with Village Chieftain tell him what we were about and we'll go on Belair Road to his village and that we're going to have to destroy all the coaches know everything was on the side road that about a 10ft road that went through there.

24:37 And we were going to turned into 22 foot roll while they were built. Everything was built right on the edge of the road. So obviously we're going to tear up tear them all down. So we go to learn a h h individual with negotiate so many sacks of cement so many sheets of sheet metal and and some two-by-fours and that kind of stuff in there going to go stay with each one of them exactly what he was going to get anyone write it down and at the end of the thing he had to go to eat dinner.

25:16 God awful. I got off with an course the biggest insult you could do The Chieftains wifer or anything like that was to

25:25 Not eat anybody not eat something, you know and not eat seconds. That was that was another thing. So even if you suffered through the horrible tasting whatever it was, you know, I had to do it again. Now, you know what it's going to taste like

25:49 Nobody else wanted to do and I got stuck with it until what was that we stay at your average. Do you think that your average day in Vietnam? What was that like walk us through Loudonville what happened on an average day to get up in the morning and early in the morning by 4 and we'll go out on the road and then and they work with aod team and I was just went was one of the guys wait. It was not good to be an officer.

26:17 Because you were the first one that snipers would cheat and

26:23 Like they take out the leadership, but sorry you always work with you man. Just like you were one of them, you know, it was hard to hard to tell who's offshore was also I'm out there my band had this like they are going down the road trying to find out freshly dug little holes and and try to determine what's another number 10 can or are bouncing betty or something in or something worse.

26:55 And then we get done with that about 6 go back 8 breakfast got to go eat breakfast. And then I've been awhile. I had meetings Christopher had to go up the road and talk to Special Forces guys are alright cuz we are there was always seem like it's a group of Special Forces guys close by on us and they they didn't really provide security for us, but they certainly provided entertainment at night cuz we could hone in on the radio to listen to what they were doing. They were crazy, but we were always doing trade for them that they had all the whiskey and all the meeting everything else you could ever want and that we had all the lumber and cementing sheet metal anybody there want so we were always trading with them one way or another for good food and good booze and and all that kind of stuff and we tried them seed mailing and stuff so I can be able to just with and stuff.

27:55 And that was kind of my job. Also. I was S3 officer satellite it off of a battalion company. So I was really assigned to that company. So I caught a lot of crap details cuz I wasn't one of those company officers those company offers are busy with building the road and so they couldn't be someplace else could couldn't go off in negotiate with these other guys are doing his other think so that's why I got stuck with doing a lot of it.

28:29 And so that we can have lunch and then when we go to lunch and then go back out there on the road and then of course we're and we spent a lot of time looking for grab my sauce testing team. We need gravel over there and we back up on the mountains all by herself looking for grab and we figured Charlie leave us alone, you know, and we didn't get wet and get under Fire morning to three times when I was in Vietnam, but it was almost a daily routine going up on the side of heel nerve ain't doing so all samples try to find some kind of Base material put-downs my finger so bad we wound up barging gravel in from Korea.

29:17 And then then then pounded up the road from cam ranh Bay when it come into the portal camera on Bay and I'll get up the road and put it on the road then because we just couldn't find it. But you can find a place the real trick was it most of it was shell?

29:35 And that send a signal to me that all but you know, we've never been over a drilling nobody's there and 40 years ago, but it's been over a drill and now you not even sure that there's one or two attempts to drill offshore, but nobody onshore and I still don't understand that.

29:56 I still believe it was partially about all.

30:01 That's interesting. I thought you said you'd come back to eat lunch. What did you guys have a moving the tent that would move with you as you move down the road. We set up a base camp about 20 miles up the road from the Triangular the Battalion was and

30:17 A company was down about 10 miles south of trying they were the asphalt company ever make an asphalt all the time and and they had a rock Crusher if we had any Rock and might matter fact, we did have an island out often the train about

30:37 August about 4km Entre Island in and we mind that sucker's much as we could. We was a rock off of it bring it back to the Rock Crusher there and and crushing Rock to make crab on the most of it. They crush it down like it size what to make asphalt with it. And so that we were the only two that were two companies that we're out there that point I'm rest somewhere back at the Battalion area and

31:07 So we had a cook cook crew and everything else. I look quick story on that is is one of the side products Vietnam made with charcoal.

31:23 Happy bride charcoal pits everywhere, you know all of them down until you get charcoal for nothing and the way cut a 55 gallon drum in half. Did have an ulcer smooches and my office is hooch consisted of a Conex container has like a little shipping containers at the ship across the seas that somebody had brought up there and and and I just said it in the shallow part of the ground up there and then we cover it with my boys are covered it with the dirt and stuff. This made it like a cave and so I had dirt on on on all three sides and the top four Charlie was shooting rocket set aside probably survive that

32:18 Then what one does that a door in the window out there out the other side of us are going out see in app. That was my boots. Anyway had served while I'm around someone were built out of woods sandbags and all kind of stuff but

32:36 Then we had a little about a little circle. I guess I'll wait for you. We texted 5-gallon drama. Whatever meat we had we grill it on charcoal pit everyday every every night.

32:50 And it it nighttime or daytime was working on the road or are looking searching for searching for gravel are looking up Advanced surveying app front make sure that we run into things we had I can tell one serving story.

33:11 This one Village at obviously was friendly and known as friendly and it negotiated not to be torn down. So we had to detour and we run around out through a triple canopy jungle.

33:24 And we're serving away falling the coordinates and everything that we've been given and low and behold. Camillus jungle. We run across a group of three CDs.

33:38 And Friendly Village workers and they had built a bridge over this River by 275 Footbridge over this River concrete. They've been there for three years building a stupid Bridge wait for us to get there with the road and you believe that with a Seabee Navy and that they were there they're kind of Civilian Navy guys on other what kind of what kind of weird ranking stuff but they've been there for three years ago on this stupid concrete bridge and we busted right up the middle and you know, where was the center line. Where at where we were going with it with me? So happy to see us and so you to use their free determine, you know way way before we ever got there, you know the weight we didn't have a clue and always has the same way.

34:34 Rainbow Block in the river put-in culvert pipe and stuff underneath of it. You know, like we did everything else the other every other debts. We had we had plenty of culvert pipe, you know, so we just a cup covered 5 on it and a coverlet over with dirt grab them while you go with the road, you know, I've been here like it was a nice 175 foot concrete bread and they built it with my massage with number 10 cans Rick shocks wood sticks across your back and two cans on a chart that goes all that concrete up there and dump it out in a number 10. Can that's a big big orange juice cans. What you talking about?

35:17 I got a question to go back to the camera what it was now also, did you work the whole time on this one road is that basically it and if so how many miles we put in 12 miles supposed to do, and then 11 months hours after on the road we put in 12 miles without that was a lot of my life of an interstate highway.

35:45 All right.

35:48 Did you travel while you were there? And we did you got time off to go places and you do you have good times what you had a experience but I told your mom that I didn't really want to meet her like in Hawaii like a lot of guys were doing does.

36:08 I don't want to meet her and then have to go back again and I had other places I had thought that I might go by myself, but

36:18 I wound up.

36:21 Going into doctor's office one day at the Battalion after Battalion meeting and I had had these rashes on my hand kind of arrest so I didn't see about these rashes and he says I where I put them is Savon her, you know, and and I said, I also got us a knot on my chest that itches to get on. He says he took with that. He took one look at Denny's and all my Gods and Men you got cancer you have cancer all up in your armpit and lymph nodes stuff. You going to dial me over here? He said no. No. No, I ain't having a good day ice over here on me. I'm a ship. You should be out here two days later. I was on a plane to Japan.

37:08 And I went over there and had the exploratory surgery course it was benign and they said it's probably something back lick. I took whenever I got playing football in fat bruised and then fat girl around it and that's what what tonight was going on, but had some experiences that work and got loose from the camp a couple times got to ride the hundred miles an hour trying to talk to go to Hiroshima.

37:40 So you like that it wouldn't believe Hiroshima what it looks like now and

37:47 What it was like then well, I mean you're with a flattened it down and now it's major Metropolitan City at the time. Was it still 20 years later still building, you know, they were still building but today at the skyscrapers already and all that kind of stuff is just unbelievable.

38:07 Enough

38:10 I guess my only experience early had this one kid that got that was a forward Observer, but he got locked in.

38:18 Anna

38:22 I hate is another one that called and are striking on his own position cuz he's being overrun. But only thing that happened Tuesday got ripped across the stomach with 50 caliber machine gun and

38:37 So they were they wanted that they want. Hey, it had some surgeries and everything that they are forcing is it that they really hadn't hit any major organs unbelievably but they want it all at the heal from the inside out. So they go in and scrape them hoes out everyday and on the excruciating pain from scrape them out and then put it in the oven stuffing all they wanted everything to grow heal from the inside out. So he wasn't allowed to go anywhere. So right before we got out of there. We we took him over to the office is closed. Where does Warren Arizona never forget? Her name was Ramirez.

39:19 And she was bad actor. She would wear red bras and underwear underneath your white uniform so you can see everything and then she ripped through the through the ward and thump everybody that had a erection. You know, I was her big think so she said she was a bad actress on her shift. We took Louis hat of the

39:48 Ward took him over to the NCO Club.

39:53 Instead of the Officers Club cuz they would come to the Officers Club looking for us. We weren't there. We were at the NCO Club and we got him all drunked up and had a good Alice got drunk and we had all had a good time in Ohio nursery Parrish FL of the courses doctors come in where are all the cats got her in trouble after all her Renegade stuff. So that was fun time and in and Japan the other bad thing was watching tell with television, but you couldn't understand everything is all the Japanese and only thing we really enjoyed was watching baseball games because we could tell what was happening and of course the rabbit baseball players, you know, what baseball games are we can tell what was happening, but then we didn't need to listen to the commentary.

40:46 And the only other thing I really remember from that experience is John Waite a John Wayne movie on one time and that and instead of having somebody with a deep gravelly voice like John Wayne had had his hi bich. Japanese guys are ever thought of John Wayne. What's bigger a hard town? It's a good Ally guys. Go to Hawaii when it was at a very common thing like one time yet to go to wire something usually take a week if they got a week in Hawaii.

41:25 If they'd if they weren't married stuff that used to go to vung Tau which was in-country, but it was a

41:35 They made a movie about doing tile.

41:41 But I forget now what it what the name of it was but it wasn't an Country Resort. Where they could go and relax and get out of the mainstream and be more like being in America. You know, what other than your time in Tokyo wear in Japan. You were pretty much working. I mean the only I was only R&R unfortunately, right? It was only our. I took I want to go in there and I thought I wasn't enough that was another piece of it when I went to Japan. The doctor came in and told me so I got good news for you and bad news for you said that you can go home.

42:20 If you want to let your tour.. Bad news is your tour doesn't count cuz you're 8 months and then 15 days into your tour and you had to be there for 9 minutes for the camp and I'm an officer and I'm staying for another year so I can see going right back to Vietnam for another year. So I opted to go back to finish my 3 months and I how much contact did you have with Mom while you were there. Did you get to talk on the phone or just letters and how often we had to to system one, we both of us wrote letters pretty much daily. And and I bought a o

43:04 Tape recorder and we would take messages and send them backwards and forwards, but those were

43:13 One of those you get one of those every 4 days or something like that. So but you didn't pick up. You didn't never talk on the phone or her or gave them they barely talk to you after I was in Japan and found out that everything was alright.

43:32 And she's mad as hell about that cuz you didn't want to talk to her cuz I be too hard for you have any opportunity to do it any other place? You know, I didn't want to get her worried about it after it when I when I got there I could have told her I was there but I waited until after I'd had the surgery and everything else and she was just dumb dumb struck. She didn't even tell me she love me. She was so down the truck that I call cuz I said I don't never call you. I never called not going to come and see you my do my time and I'm going to come home cuz I'm one of the weird ones I guess.

44:11 A lot of guys they all went for a Wii and a white what the heck and I'm sure why not now with my client.

44:20 When you go to Hawaii, even though I know a couple times to send you go there and think about that at all basketball fans why we've been there for the basketball tournament Atlanta. So we just go there and Bleed Blue.

44:40 Did you lose good friends during the war? Did you make good friends anymore good friends and

44:47 Only lost one.

44:50 I lost one.

44:52 What lessons did you take from that that you carry on in your life?

45:04 Well, of course, like I said, we wait we learn more lessons at that belong to the military, you know, I guess straightener. We got woman came home.

45:19 Is

45:22 You learn to try to teach the people in there doing it. Now the love the warrior even though you hate the war.

45:29 And the other the other main thing was bringing the troops in and out. I guess I solidified one thing that probably in my efforts over there that

45:42 My main Forte was in dealing with people and not things and engineer bills things does things but I wasn't really building anything or done anything from that standpoint over. I was actually directing the efforts of people.

46:01 And I learned it about kind of learned it at Fort Polk. When I was a range officer for poke. Our Stockade was right next door to arrange them guys are lounging around over there smoking cigarettes. And you know, I'm not doing much of anything and I was shorthanded. I needed people after on the ranges and so I went to the colonel and said that I may have some in gas out of stockade, you know, he said where you can't take those guys out there all in there because they're able to run again. I said, no, they won't run again. So I'm going to tell him right up front. I'm going to shoot their ass if they run out of my have everybody out there shoot them.

46:49 I don't think they'll run you know and

46:54 So alive.

46:56 Taking the bad boys after I really work out that haven't really found out most of them. Yeah, they were a walk but most of them are in there because it couldn't handle Authority couldn't help somebody telling them what to do how to do it early that kind of stuff. And so I just tell him hey, this is your right. Okay, you are in charge of this right? I want it to work. If you need something call me and I'll but I'm not going to be here and in and he's other guys. They don't have any authority over you you are in charge of this Ranger running this rain. So in anytime you need help. Give me a holler. I'll be happy to come help you but

47:37 It's yours your baby and they took charge of it, man. And then why are they going on? That's my rainbow Vietnam. I did the same by and took guys I was talking to either but I'm out here on the road with me, you know and told him same thing you ride. We're going to shoot you. I'm going to tell everybody everybody in a company shoot your ass and it worked overtime.

48:10 I live where were you where were the cities that you went to while you were there? Where did you land in you? What kind of wood beer map of the country is where you track where you went through? A lot of guys got all over the place, but I came into the cam ranh Bay.

48:31 Good news shortly. After that I was assigned the Battalion. They can't get me in the Jeep and call me up to in the train what used to be the old capital of Vietnam. The train was held captive in. It's just a little bit north of Cam ranh Bay and I left from there and worked.

48:50 About 15-20 miles north of there on the highway and then probably how I went to Quinn Yan. I used to go to Quinn Yan get my haircut and cuz I'm just a gas South and up north that they didn't have any experience with military much so they were just

49:12 Non indoctrinated people anyway what your way so I would go up right after know that Vietnamese when I cut hair that cut hair with a straight razor razor cut in the thought of him sitting there with a straight razor and behind you and your throat getting cut is pretty vivid. You know, it makes you nervous for dinner sides go up there and I look quick stories on Sideline Story. We have a priest in Beaumont Texas that has a father play.

49:49 And I used to pick on him all the time cuz it's Vietnamese and I put two and two together. Let it slip that he was prom queen yard.

50:00 And I put two and two together about his age and how old he was and I told him to store a couple times about every time I went to Quinn Yan. There's always kids on the corner down there Holland stop stop GI, which means give me something and I'll give me can deer or and it's money, you know, any laying there begging didn't take much bacon cuz we were always the kids were always friendly the kids in and

50:29 I've appended down. He was about 10 years old when I was in Vietnam. So I said, you know more I look at you the more I reckon that you want him kids on a corn stalks. I'll talk to you and the look on his he's a priest. Okay, and the look on his face. Like I've been caught, you know, it was worth $1000000 to me. I just put small world moment. Oh, yeah. Well, it was really having been up north like that in that kind of situation. So that's about as far as I went to the North End. Of course, we were at we were building two sets of roles. We were doing side road going to buy me to it. And that's south of Queen yarn in about 15 miles.

51:22 East of Courtyard in the middle of in the middle of Vietnam

51:34 I got to go back to the special forces were always do you listen to my radio and they're always there crazy there was doing crazy things like what kind of things were they doing? But this one guy out there in the middle of the Jungle someplace and I don't have nicknames I went by

51:56 And you know, you just said on the radio and list them and say wow. Okay. I'm okay. I'm in position. Now. This is you know, that's a yellow belly and all I'm sitting out here in the North Trail and he said I got to shut down now. I got some boys coming you.

52:17 And in a few minutes, you can hear them shoot, you know that we're close enough for the here. I'm shooting out there need some I need somebody to come over to pick up six of these guys, you know.

52:30 Vienna

52:32 Florida man killed without him shooting at all that stuff and they pop their head off and they take home down to the village and hang them upside down on fence out front of the building. So everybody can see you these guys were out running around in the jungle and that's what happens to you tonight the best thing he did stay in the village.

53:00 All right. I was counting your time before they got a big enough crew. They call him spooky spooky was.

53:11 Was the helicopters that then go pop up up up up up, but they are, you know Tracer bullets like gangbusters look like you look like somebody pissing out of her big Eau pleine, you're up north and they take them all over the place that so that was a joint retirement when they call in spooky white see where they were going to go and how many didn't wind up killing coz

53:45 After the gun shooting after they got on cheating on him than that. I come and Report. You know, how many they got to come pick up later and leave any amount in the jungle. Never happen. They dragged him all out of the Jungle item on the fence at the Village every time so it's really are you by counts? We're genuine that were not made up later that I know what somebody inflated them up above. I don't know when it came up on the body counts came out. You can go out there on the fence and look at them.

54:19 What do you mean about leaving Vietnam? What was that experience like?

54:26 Leaving Vietnam. Well for one thing I had a couple of good friends over three days behind me. So I opted to stay for 3 days and your mother's probably never forgiven me for that, but I didn't want to go I want to didn't want to go back like I don't came over with not knowing anybody. So I waited 3 days for those these guys to get the roast app.

54:52 And that means reassigned.

54:56 And how coltrane's what up me? I think you that you've heard me speak about Coltrane before baby.

55:03 He was one of them in Wayne Jones was another.

55:07 And I when we got on the plane.

55:12 Unfortunately, Charlie was still shooting a time. So they took off in a vertical position is like going in a rocket ship. Imagine what we're rocking chairs like going to 90u00b0 up in all straight up and hostesses head on mini skirts that Playboy magazines and some others may sneak on Jack Daniels whiskey and Tequila can accomplish anything to your time there. Are you just taking care of Rhodes still there? I've seen pictures of it, you know, it's still there. They built my lawnmower hooch's on the side of it.

56:08 All I can stop at people have been back even though even they use the compound that we had built.

56:18 And they're trying as a training facility and they will not let you in there. But cause a couple of guys tried to try to work their way and go look at the kind of just go over to the first Hooch on the right cuz that's where I was and I don't know he can't can't do that. Can you clear it out? Let me can you clear it out? Let us go in or not. I can't do that.

56:42 So what are we we feel like we accomplished something in the way, she felt like that we had good information to bring home to never do it again and that kind of stuff and

56:54 12 Miles Road, and it did you think of that time that the war would end badly or or do you like the war ended badly?

57:05 I assumed they were going to go on for 7 years and then and then have them trained up good enough. And yeah, it ended badly cuz politicians ended it in there. We didn't we we were not.

57:20 The military was not ready not fully did not have the people fully trained and everything that they want to do consequently. They went down the tube is a bloodbath, but you didn't think that was why I was going to go when you are leaving our laughter.

57:35 What do you want to holler at 268th and they shut it down and 75?

57:42 And yeah, that's supposedly the seven years, you know that they talked about but

57:51 Still yet. The military was not ready for them to shut it down. They didn't have them trained and and we didn't have the stuff built and everything else that we wanted to they probably need three more year.

58:05 Be my guest and I was gone back. If you ever thought about going back. Would you ever want to go back? I don't want to go back. This nightmare is I'm in the back of the damn Jeep going back up to the compound now. I'm trying to figure out why I'm going again, and I said just one question to go back to you on this subject. How did the war change you?

58:32 Well I said it's solidified that I really didn't want to be an engineer that I'm I wanted to manage people.

58:40 So I

58:42 I guess that was the biggest thing of it is but made a career change for me and I and I had visions of staying in the military up until the time. I got reassigned to Fort Sheridan, Illinois for the last three years and I had some bad experiences there.

58:59 With the officers wives were wearing in their husbands rank.

59:05 And abused kind of abused mom a wife your mother and a few as to that said we had occurred last night's and I'm not a career officer. I'm not a play this politics game.

59:19 And in the military in the officers in Florida politics

59:23 You can you can get to bed.

59:26 You get to be a bird colonel on your proficiencies on your ability to do stuff, but you can't get to be a general without politics being involved. It's be a political thing. Then at that point. And I wasn't playing their game that I would have. I would have been a single thing for me to have broken through and I don't think I would have ever made it.

59:53 Cuz I'm just not going to suck up the people, you know, right? I got to do that.

59:58 If there's anything else you want to say about your the Vietnam about being a soldier.

01:00:05 Not really. What was that question? We wait we Skype, I think it did directed me in my career where I where I wanted to go. I want to go or be with work with people. I work with things anymore, you know.

01:00:32 OK Google pause here and maybe maybe we'll come back here. Maybe we won't we'll see how they feel. Okay?