Dr. Richard Rosenberger Oral History

we are well Dr Rosenberger why don't we start with you just talking about your background I think you said your family had been in Georgia a long time and why don't you just talk a little bit about your family where you came from originally well my family uh which just my wife Melody and Son Rich grandson have been an aworth but my parents were third generation Californians oh okay and so I was a war baby I was born right at the start of World War II and uh we traveled from Airbase to Airbase to airbase and California New Mexico Texas Arkansas okay so you grew up in California then I grew up in California okay but screw out there did water we did water sports and winter sports and as a family a lot of lot of great experiences there okay now your father was in the military well he was a physician but in the military so I see worked at hospitals okay so you're uh uh you're the second generation to be in the medical field then well the third really the third so your grandfather was also a position well you didn't have any choice did you on what you were going to do well I just grew up interested in in medicine I love science and chemistry MH and physics and I just seem to gravitate toward the biological sciences mhm what what year were you born 41 41 okay and U so right exactly World War II yeah two two months later and say that again uh two months after I was born we were at War oh yeah right so um so your father was uh which which branch was he in the Army aircore okay and so he so you traveled with him to the to the different bases the family travel right okay but talk talk a little bit about what your Recreation that you you mentioning a little bit earlier you like to be out in in The Great Outdoors it I do well uh swimming was was my sport in water poloo and uh the beach we were close to the beach and um surfing um water skiing just boating you know sailing mhm and then we learned to ski as a family and uhhuh and uh we would go with another family travel around different places but yeah a lot of good memories I think I saw that U um you U something that people may may not know about you you were a swimming instructor oh yes sir talk about that well it was it was a lot of fun these little kids that couldn't swim and to get them to swim learning to swim was mhm very rewarding and because they they felt you know super when they could swim mhm yeah and I was a lifeguard at various places so uh so you spent um the 40s and 50s in California all that time mhm and um and um why don't you just talk a little bit about it uh where where you went to school and those kinds of things uh well I attended Stanford University and then University of Southern California school of medicine and I decided to go east and went to the largest Medical Center in the world the Texas Medical Center to do the internship residency mhm and uh from California going to Texas going a change right everything's bigger and better so I was already a doctor when I got to Vietnam yeah and so okay uh so so you go um uh into some special training with the military yes they had a Aviation medicine program okay and it's a little different the aviators have different problems mhm and so we had to go to school to to learn about that and the survival school all that okay but but you're you're in the Army but you're training for Aviation Aviation medicine Aviation medicine it's kind of a specialty in itself I guess okay and is to treat pilots and and um the aviation Community mhm uh the the mechanics and everybody that's at the air base mhm so and which air base was it uh well it was in the Delta mikong Delta on the mikong river yeah and um it was just an Airfield M okay all by itself so so what year are we talking about now that this would be 69 69 that you go to Vietnam right and uh it was right after the tence event yeah so everybody's a little nervous I guess so right and so you're you're in the meong River delta at a that just stood at an air base yes and so you're treating everybody that's there I guess right and even Vietnamese would come to our Clinic they would treat them and what kind of Clinic was it the military's running again how big is it and uh how primitive I guess I should say is it well it was a a building that we had three doctors there mhm and um then we had Medics that were under us we each had five Medics and U they all they would all see patients and we would see patients mm so a lot of Vietnamese would come to our Clinic as well as our army guys yeah so see if we can we would go out to the convents and treat orphans um wow because they had nobody was very sad all these orphans no parents wow and uh so there was a lot of community stuff that we did sure how long were you in Vietnam for a year mhm so even the military it's one year and you're gone right we had a six month thing there was 6 months I was at a mash hospital we did a lot of surgery gunshot wounds oh my goodness and this a AK-47s made these huge Exit Wounds you know mhm so we had our job was to go in and cut out all the dead stuff and you just they'd have a big tunnel through their arm and wow it was really sad I guess so yeah so six months of gunshot wounds yeah six months of gunshot wounds and but you're also dealing uh during your year there with uh the local people and their health problems what kind of health problems um I guess were typical for the the the the people uh we treated the Vicon too they would come in the black pajamas uh we would treat them and then MP would be with them you know so soon as we got done with them the MP would take them away mhm to whatever so they had their Battlefield wounds also right yeah and um the PE the people had a lot of parasites that seemed to be the biggest biggest problem intestinal parasites these are like peasants or Farmers just the regular people yeah yeah well and most people were just regular Regular People rice Farmers mhm mhm W what kind of facilities did you have the modern up-to-date equipment or you just well they were a quan it Huts that's what I was wondering if it was Quan Huts kind of like you know yeah on TV the MH show mhm had little quanset huts and um with o just huge o that's basically what we were mhm and um you know the shanuk would bring in 24 25 casualties and they'd unload them and then we'd be busy for mhm how close were you to the battlefields I know the battlefields were all over creation when you've got a gorilla War taking place but I guess my question is how dangerous was it to be working where you were working the mash hospital was next to an air Air Force Base and the navy base mhm so we saw a lot of the Navy little gunboat fellas mhm would come in and it was pretty safe right around the hospital mhm but the perimeter you know the Viet Kong at night you could see the we get mortared at night M maybe four nights a week mhm so we had sandbags all over our sleeping quarters you know mhm and um so you never quite knew what was what was coming sure um you got a bron the two Bron Stars yes sir talk about that well I don't know what it was for I didn't receive them until I got to Atlanta okay and um so but but for Meritor I didn't really do anything heroic I did volunteer to go on some missions did you really they were pretty exciting up into Cambodia where we weren't supposed to be according to the president no we're not in Cambodia oh but we were these fire bases so loud unbelievably loud yeah it's not long from there until you're in aworth I was um we had the Army hospital we had a facility up here at the lake and so a group of us would come up and water ski and uhuh do boating and and just uh love loved it and I got to know people in aworth I met Dr Cobell and talked to him and he was very welcoming and said sure come on come on up and MH uh when I got out of the military I had to decide whether to go back to California where my family was and where I knew kind of knew the land Cape mhm or stay here and U I'd worked around different cities Conor and M cordal and places in Georgia oh but this area there's something about the people it's so special up here uh and U I joined a eight Man Group in Woodstock because I didn't have enough money to start a practice here but within a few months I had talked him into opening an office in aworth and the Bank building was available so so you're in the Bank building we were in the Bank building Bob Lambert was the other guy that came over uhhuh we'd split the day and go to Woodstock and back to aworth okay so you and Dr Lambert were the two together in practice right he was a surgeon uh did a lot of office surgery uhhuh and um and I got on the staff at WellStar penstone uhhuh and so I split the day about a third of the day here third of the day at kenstone third of the day at Woodstock okay South jerkey County for about 25 years and you were all three places each day every day wow sometimes twice twice that and just stayed here and then between here and fistan so that simplified things quite a bit Yeah Yeah well um you were very much in you've been very much involved in the community over the years what why don't you talk about uh service on the Downtown Development Authority how did that come about well I I became had a little more time and I got more interested in uh things downtown and uh joined the DDA and um it was about it was about the early teens and um we had KSU had done a big study um of the business school uhhuh about what did aworth need yeah and uh they decided we needed events events number one uh and number two Landscaping okay on Main Street so the tree commission was was trying to trying to do that yeah you know who did the study you say in the College of Business you remember you don't know I don't remember the names okay of the individuals but they did a study and um really about how to revive downtown app exactly right it was not quite turned around that M it was sort of like a battleship that was part way around okay um but we needed some more help mhh and the events like the artfest they mentioned downtown we've been having things at the lake love the lake and smoke on the lake yeah uh events downtown we really weren't doing mhm so Taste of aworth turkey Chase all these things October Fest yeah got started and um before before the amphitheater was finished and yeah things started moving to the amphitheater um now uh so the Arts Festival part of that yeah that was that came about um somebody knew uh the splash people that had started the Dunwoody Art Festival mhm and went to them to see if they'd be interested in starting an art festival in aworth mhm so fortunately they did and it's been a big success mhm yeah well what makes Aqua special for you do you think what what's kept you here for 50 plus years well it's the caring giving people here uh most special people and you know it starts with this phenomenal city government we have here the best in Georgia and the great mayor Tommy Alig good and city manager great city council and all the commissions and mhm uh wonderful churches spiritual leaders M the the groups uh ABA and Kanas Optimus rotary all uh and the nonprofits my goodness what a what a community mhm it's unbelievable mhm and U they're all on you know all on the same page it seems like but but there's this caring Spirit where everybody's helping everybody else that I like yeah well what what haven't we talked about that you'd you'd like to to tell us just thank you for the privilege of being here all these years well it's amazing my wife for she was my better half and was with me the whole way yeah yeah well it's amazing all that you've done I think that's it's amazing what you've done well um um appreciate you coming and letting us talk to you today and appreciate all that you do well thank you very much Dr [Music] allop

Channel: Save Acworth History Foundation

Views: 30

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Id: 3aC0m2dzgOA

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 10 2024