Gary Wayne Rodd, Sergeant, US Marine Corps, Vietnam War

today is the 11th of January 2012 my name is Wayne Clark I'm with the New York State Military Museum in Saratoga Springs New York today we are in Whitehall New York at the Isaac Griswold library sir for the record would you please state your full name and date and place of birth place yes Gary Wayne rod born in Amsterdam New York and six 2848 did you attend school in Amsterdam yes I graduated in 1966 from Woolridge Lynch High School when you graduated from high school did you go to work or did you go on to college or enter the service I wasn't actually that was the no delayed enlistment I think I joined April of 1966 but then went in August but I was working with mohawk carpets for a brief period of time and then I got a State job mm-hmm because back then employment was really unemployment rather I took a State job just I'm sure they had some kind of job even back to everything was discharged now you enlisted in the Marine Corps yes why did you pick the Marine Corps because I knew that that was going to give me to Vietnam that was my sole intention mm-hmm bought into the evening news the whole patriotic fervor was really believing that I could go over and make a difference so you were anxious to go to Vietnam oh yes yes okay now where did you attend basic training Parris Island and for young boot camp and then advanced infantry training in North Carolina camp they call it camp Stone Bay which is outside of Gregory up it was and how long was that school for when in August and was finished by the time mid December as I came home for vacation mm-hmm and then when Vietnam from there so technically I was in boot camp in August and I was in combat January how did your parents or family feel about your desire to go to Vietnam they they were very much against it as a matter of fact I didn't tell them I was going to Vietnam until my last day of being I'll leave no because it was I was really my father was really upset mm-hmm all right now where did you report to once you left home from your leave time where did you have to report to Camp Pendleton Pendleton for a more you know advanced infantry training for Oh Lord okay and how long did that training last approximately about two weeks because I was in Vietnam in January mid January and how did you get to Vietnam flew over to Okinawa station Okinawa I was staying over in Okinawa for five days prior to the Marine Corps you stopped off at Okinawa dropped off all your civilian gear you had all your gear with you so you dropped off your civilian gear and you took your combat gear with you into Vietnam so the tough thing was both being in Okinawa was I was on a detail that we offloaded all the killed in action and wounded in action see bags from the Marines would didn't make it back to over now mm-hmm to go on leave for home so that was a kind of eye-opener people getting killed or wounded here I always leave an area how long were you in Okinawa for high days five days you know and when you went to Vietnam how did you go was it a commercial flight or it was a commercial flying tiger Airlines as a matter of fact brought me into the name and from the banging to know from the name fool body and then in the case on and how did you get up to full by from from demand was by helicopter no by actually a small commercial jet okay we go there's a Chinese guy a marine that you know marine of Chinese heritage and I were on a plane for the only two military was all civilians I'm going to poo bye yes people don't realize is there you know there's life outside the war and true bio was well the funny thing when I got the food I was walking around looking for my regiment right because there it there was a marine installation right right there at the airport correct yep actually was marine installation at the name and then I know not to get too far ahead I was a replacement mmm-hmm I was just an individual that was given orders from denying the report to caisson for actually the reports of 26 Marine Regiment and fool by yep so when I got the full body that's walk around and nobody knew were 226 Marines working about statistic really silly and I got pulled over for having my ID tags on too tight by a sergeant he was reaming me out he says who are you with hippie free he called me hippie because I had my ID tags on short and I said well I'm supposed to report to Golf Company 26 Marines says they're at Khe Sanh I said hurts days I have no idea so um you know I had to be flown in the caisson mm-hmm and a friend of mine flew in that the day before me and he comes back and it doesn't have his rifle he's nothing so they leave everything behind so protect you talk about he said they were under fire under siege over there and so I'm going out the next same thing good boys this is yeah it doesn't bode well for me mm-hmm and we flew well no c-123 very old cargo plane and there's about ten of US Marines in there yep on top of the cargo because there was no seating room and as we're coming into case on the plane all of a sudden takes a drop fast you know like drops straight down and I thought were shot you know the plane was being shot down and there was a dog and then with us the dogs flipping over with his he's peeing over everybody and we laid up next to Carl in that like that because that's what kept us from the pilot happening here plane landed taxi down the runway and as he's taxiing down there telling us throw everything off the plane so I'm loading all the cargo and the plane you know slowly turns around starts gaining speed and once again that's gonna happen they say jump so be able to jump off the back of this malanez well because there's our Tillery runs where more neurons are chasing the plane down the runway so that was my introduction in the caisson so I didn't have any time to worry about what it was gonna be like did you weapon at that point yes thank God I didn't throw my weapon off first that's what happened to my friend the day before they said throw everything off so you threw his you know his combat gear and his weapon right off the plane mm-hmm with any chance to jump off the plane so I don't know if it was good or bad we jumped off the plane all right you're on the ground what happened next well of course it you know nobody told us what to expect and all this no we're just looking to run for cover and I remember diving into what I thought was a normal depth of trench mm-hmm you know they're normally four feet or something these things were almost nine feet deep and I almost broke my neck diving in there because I didn't think it was that deep but if you know we just you know when the attack ended with the mortar attack ended then we just got up walked Rome collected our gear and help them you know move the cargo off the runway and then you know I was I still my unit still wasn't that case on face oh no I was at Khe Sanh base mm-hmm where the airstrip was which is when it just experienced my unit was Elton jungles and it was eight 558 and we get out there they said well we're gonna have you it'll be a tank or truck on that tank truck convoy taking me out there my elbows it was considered an outpost as they called it mm-hmm so I got out there a couple days later now what was your first night like the caisson were you rocketed or mortared no I was given because Marines are taught to use all kinds of equipment and they gave me a machine gun position and they said to me if at all during a night to get any kind of incoming will give you orders to start firing here's your field of fire mm-hmm it was very specific then nothing happened it was very foggy that night kind of scary were you with somebody else yes with some other replacements but we didn't know each other nobody hurt yeah actually had any background with each other mm-hmm so just come morning I hear voices there's a road that I was overlooking with money on my field of fire I heard laughing and talking and I heard fires being you know you could see far as being started and I said is it sergeant you know in charge of as I said who's over there the enemy you said no those are our allies South Vietnamese he said if we get any kind of incoming they go with him you know we shoot them as well as we do any enemy so that was really that was really kind of tough to take so like I said I was never given a break from the day I hit Khe Sanh it was just mad sprint to the very end now what was it like when you got to your unit how are you accepted as a replacement well besides being the new guy yeah well and I actually was the only new guy I mean I didn't know what this was the experience up there was all jungle grass and bamboo and the grandeur from your grass can be that tall is eight to ten feet tall so you never really got to see a clear view of anything he's always going through this dense grass and I was brought out I don't remember who came to see me but the first thing they said to me oh you're here you've got to break into being a radio man I said I wasn't operate a radio I said well you're that's your assignment plus you're gonna be a Grenadier ok I know what a Grenadier is you know you shoot grenades from yep so so were you gonna learn it fastest especially as a radio man he's leaving a couple hours he's catching his flight out so that's and I basically taught myself and also would walk up and down the perimeter talking another radio operators about what do you do so I taught myself quite a bit quite proud of it mm-hmm but also we're an early warning devices there were you know wires ran out to the sensors and we had a real crude form of radar was like a square box you just you know came out into the perimeter outside the perimeter pick up different sounds especially engine sounds what we're really interested mm-hmm so I got those assignments you know with only having a rifleman MOS military occupational standard that's what I was trained to be it's a rifle how long was it before you were sent outside the wire it actually was we we could go outside the wire we couldn't go on any more patrols when I got there and shortly after they lost the platoon of men never never heard shots or anything so they said we can't afford to lose him many people in one club so these suspended all you know patrols but we had called listening post where we used to go outside our perimeter and lay up you know lay down there at night it's just a real quiet and listened for enemy movement which was a rather scary now you were on a listening post just you or somebody you know would be three or four of us okay well and you know one would man the radio mm-hmm and the rest would sleep basically since you had two or two hours on and the rest you could sleep so that's why they had be dead three or four guys mm-hmm but you know you weren't allowed to shoot anything or or anything like that just listen for movement and did you hear any movement out there no it's amazing what's the grass at night you know all these little birds running around I mean everything was scaring the hell out of you yeah cuz you don't expect to hear of no snakes going through the grass and other small animals so did you have a starlight scope yes I think there were worthless mm-hmm we used to sit on Yelp well because I was a radio man I had a bunker to myself as a matter of fact nobody wanted to be around a radio man because they you know we were prime targets machine gunners and radio men were prime targets for the enemy the lob either grenades or shoot mortar rounds or rockets at us but I forget where I'm going with this with the great being out in the perimeter yep listening post The Listening Post but there was something else no my mind is going ahead of myself on this but the listing okay the eliciting pulse we go out you know every night instantly and also we would go out on water runs that's we didn't having you know source of water within our perimeter so we would go up through this river I think was a perfume river and you know set up perimeter defense around there well guys are filling up these big five gallon containers and we use everything we could and deep rocket shells and canisters more advanced ters anything that could hold water we could fill that up with and then come back now was that water purified at all no you guys didn't drink that picture yes yes we wondered why it was frothy some guys came down with dysentery yeah and they started doing some investigation is you know after this happening so wait a minute we've got to coordinate these water runs this platoon was on the river at this point in time this platoon was down here at this time and that time they started thinking that we're drinking each other's bathwater mm-hmm which was why it was frothy so but I've already didn't dysentery at that time but every day was well I would volunteer I only have a shirt a pair of pants this is a little while into it you know being a case on a hill 558 and the elbows we didn't get food we couldn't get supplies and of course clothing was not high in the list so if I end up having no underwear no socks one shirt one pair of pants and I would volunteer and take the other radio operators turns to go outside the perimeter just like I think I could I was that way to bathe everyday in that so in that race or anything like that but just to keep clean and needs to say the other guys were happy that I would take their water runs but they thought it was nuts it's just about every time you went out as a perimeter you drew fire the NBA so it was a constant shooting back and forth wasn't rifle fire you were getting mostly or machine gun because they had some pretty good kind of complicated about doing the green outpost there do you that case on base itself with the airstrip and they had know about six different outposts all around the base number 558 there's 950 and 15 861 and something to the south but I couldn't remember so we were basically out there to offer protection from any assault by the NVA onto the base itself which theoretically you know we were like service out there we can stop any NVA movement now you mentioned you didn't have food were you talking about fresh food or we're eating sea rations okay what's why I jump ahead yourself we had then she had a mess hall at the end of the runway and I remember having up one or two meals there before I was shipped out to my elbows and shortly after I wish it felt there the one of these c-130s got shot got damaged and it slid addicted mess break nothing down mm-hm swept that all the way killed the mess sergeant and you know crewing there and that was the last of anybody getting fresh food and from that point on because we couldn't get out that they'll post we couldn't get supplied that easily because of either fog you know whether or the enemy was shooting at our planes and there have been little copters and the helicopters would think okay that's too dangerous we'll come back in another time because every time we were to get supplied they call the flying circus it was the big chopper Zeo stage 46 yes yes a night sir Chinook Chinooks is what they call them this rate they would be way up in the air circling around of course the Jets have come in and straight the aerial bomb and napalm and then one by one the chop start to come down and drop off in a pre-designated area ill our supplies and so because it started getting so tight in the weather you know we're getting into monsoon you know you could only get to see ration meals a day and one of the biggest problems they had was you know kind of a breakdown before about discipline guys just do low crawls into the supply area and low crawl back out with a case of C rations on their back very hungry were you involved in any of the heavy combat where with direct combat with the NBA yeah at the time I was wounded that's what ended my april's why I have it as April 6 they have it as a April 7th and I think it's because of the date you know the date change mm-hmm but it was palm palm sunday was when I was wounded we were weird to be the first company out of the perimeter to test you know the NBA's you know strengths out there mm-hmm and so was Good Friday the French priests because when I think of an idea of what we had out there even though we're a combat base airstrip and all the outposts there was a French coffee plantation in that area and they had a little French community and a priest came up and gave us services that was on Holy Friday and then Saturday was our first venture outside the perimeter and we took in quite a few casualties that first day because we didn't know what we're running into mm-hmm and it was a we didn't know if it's a company or battalion or regiment of NVA upon know what what size unit did you go out with we went open a company okay which is very unusual mmm-hmm when you look back those the person who made the decision to send us out was to realize that the NVA was very much aware of size unit that was going out there if you're sending a company out you're not out scouting we're looking to attack somebody so they were very well entrenched and very you know I mean we didn't broad daylight so by the time we hit the top of hill and I was very lucky we were leapfrogging the tune or you know platoon at a time of through and my my unit was next to go up over the top they said well you guys hold it here and then the next platoon will you know come through you mm-hmm and set in at the top of the hill well as soon as they came through us all hell broke loose that's when you know their machine gunner in the NBA opened fire and our our troops of machine gunners and we lost quite a few Marines in that platoon and we realized that we didn't have enough to continue with the assault so we set in and keep the NBA from now counter attacking and coming through us mm-hmm we had you know napalm Jets coming and providing napalm and and bombing runs get the NVA away from us so we could retreat back off the hill mm-hmm so first day of fighting we lost I don't know was it much less laughable to me I know they had to leave five Marines back you know it must have been killed because if we don't have enough help to get retrieve their bodies so we're just focused on getting the wounded off the mountain you know mm-hmm chopper Dolph you know off the mountain medevac and so then they ship you know we had to withdraw from the mountain went back to our perimeter you kind of thought there'd be somebody reckon give you some us hot food and stuff in there there was nothing so we had to make do whatever we had because we had to go back out the following morning and leave our perimeter at four o'clock we assault that hill and then they had brought another weird golf company and they had brought Foxtrot company from 861 it's kind of funny we're fit 558 we had Vitalik our company Marines on 861 and the NVA were on 861 alpha so and and they were there all that whole time we just could never dislodge them with shrapnel and I'm talking serious bombing runs just never just you know just engage those guys so the second day we you know we're working towards very hot you know we're certainly you lose people through heat exhaustion heat stroke so by the time we got to make a get online for our charge out of 33 Marines in my platoon there was like 13 of us left and they gave the order we got a charge is no let me just interrupt you for a second were you carrying a full map of field pack well I was carrying a radio pack an extra mortar rounds for an extra machine-gun rounds in addition to my own you know I always carried 400 rounds of ammunition on me and so I was pretty heavily weighed down so that when we got online to charge the NBA was not only you know shooting you know engaging us but Fox trap was coming across a ridge line from 861 to 861 alpha again the enemy was on the 861 alpha there 861 so they're coming across a ridge line the NVA were mortaring behind them and they had been ambushed on both sides of the ridgeline so they said you've got to make a move you've got to knock out that machine gun and mortar position that's wreaking havoc on Foxtrot well obviously we didn't make it I was up I was shot three times with a machine gun but thank God only one round went through the other two I had doubled over flak jacket I was real scheme back in those days and I had an extra large flak jacket and I had to tie it to me because it was so big flop all over the place mm-hmm I used to complain all the time about that flak jacket I didn't know that there was gonna save my life because the second round that she broke my m16 right in half and then the third round of course got me so you took two rounds to the stomach yeah I had broken ribs where they hit but no no penetration thank God just big giant bruises mm-hmm but the third round which ironic isn't it was an armored piercing around and I had my radio pack on begad your big buckles coming over the shoulder it hit the buckle blew the buckle through me and out my scapula yes and I have the complete bullet here to think they took out of me but that was that better but and I thought that that was all I had no idea I was shot there's just no it's like smoking and blood was spurting I'm thinking what a mess I got grazed by something and you know the machine gun and gun fire was just unbelievable so I'm crawling around looking for some place to go and I see this fighting old I mean your your weapon was useless totally useless got all this ammo on me no way to protect myself and as a as a radio operator you were supposed to have a sidearm a 45 caliber with any other kind of stuff so I tried I crawled over the fighting pole and remember and our training don't go into fighting bulls because they're booby-trapped I looked and I saw this natal color the natal blue grenade land it was like the old pineapple thing I'm thinking well it looks just like a training grenade thing you know when these things are cooking up happening of course I'm kind of like loopy from being shot then this grenade laying is about 10 feet from me I'm looking thinking geez not smoking because I'm thinking like like a training grenade that the smoke coming out you know it just pops and hisses and I said I better not take a chance and as soon as I drop down and I thought I looked at the grenade and exploded of course got me all across my floor right back from my life right leg disarmed in my cheek and some other parts of you know you know cauterized so I said it was a try come grenade no it was actual it was a I think would have been a NATO grenade from World War two or not but like in the 50s okay but it was NATO blue then of course I found out the NVA had a lot of NATO equipment that they got from other encounters and probably the machine gun it was shotgun machine and there was shot which was probably a needle issue because they got it from the Chinese or however they came about didn't use us all communists made weapons so when that grenade went off I know I thought that was the end of me you know but they finally got me out of there they maintain radio contact when I was in there in the hole and kept hearing these gigantic explosions all around me and I thought they were the enemy using some kind of big guns or whatever those are require less rifle in our position that was trying to drive the NBA back person had no idea where any of us were as you couldn't see us in the open visually spot us and I remember the telling well the serious situation I was in with my Italian a radio operator called out and I responded he says to me he says you got out of there there's nobody left so I you know I couldn't you know I only could use my left arm so after a while I was bleeding so bad here and it was very upsetting because something you know I got to stop this bleeding somehow I just kept putting dirt in there packing in because what I don't see is not gonna bother me I do idea pleading battled the back but when we finally got you know reinforcements coming this how it was I was saved and one other funny thing you know how you always fight against certain things I fought against having my antenna stick up I had to whip antenna on the first day of fighting my lieutenant had dysentery my lieutenant was very nervous about going out so the first day he didn't come with us and that lieutenant allowed me to have a tape antenna so I wouldn't be advertising that I'm a radio man well my lieutenant the second day says you're carrying a whip antenna I remember seeing him well you might as well put a flag on that - why not advertise more than a radio man but what's ironic is if I didn't have that whip antenna sticking out of the hole they probably would have never found me you know so it was a weird you know the weird combination of a flak jacket being doubled over because it was too big that saved my life and the whip antenna sticking up out of the hole did you lose consciousness at all no no it's matter of fact after they you know carried me out of there and they you know they strip you naked they threw me on a helicopter just totally naked and they put an a on my forehead for being alive they put together a or D mm-hmm so you know act quickly when they're all floating into bodies and I remember being in the bottom that chopper thinking I can't pass out I don't take a chance that they might decide well he's dead yeah so I just didn't wanna be throwing the dead ball so no I stayed conscious the whole time very painful that it would have been easy to you know slip into mm-hmm this matter of fact I don't know how I didn't go in the shop I did neither of those stay awake until he took me into the operating room so they brought did they bring you directly to caisson that's what happens when he they flew me down to the combat base mm-hmm Hospital there I mean I was like an unbelievable pain I can't believe anything like the great the grenade caused more pain than a bullet and but I was flipping around thinking you know give me something for pain this is really hurting and they said maybe we can't because there's trappler wounds through your spine they didn't know if it went into my organs or whatnot so they couldn't give me paint you I mean that was a rationale did you feeling in your legs and no I thought I lost my legs I mean I they were still there but cushon from that grenade going off was some paralysis for however long I can't remember but the there's a guy in a stretcher next to me and they were giving him last rites its stomach resolve full apartment I'm saying myself you know I think I'm gonna live this guy obviously doesn't so I kind of calm me down and say you know just deal with it deal with the pain you know pain sooner or later gonna be operative so they choppered me out of there to a hospital in Phu Bai mm-hmm and that's where they did the operation along bring in flew by for what a short period of time because I remember it may have been a couple days of an interesting thing they were putting me on the chopper again it was the bit Niall isn't the little I was never very good with the smaller it was a Korean vintage chopper like a little medevac chopper they through go through us all in there there was no stretch you know you weren't put on stretcher you just thrown in naked or whatever else was in there and so they put me on a stretcher to be taken up the full body to be operated on and they were stacking us in the side of the chopper like record would first I mean they're just trying to do as many people on the chopper to get him out of there and I remember as the you know they put me in there and the helicopters take it off the door slides open and the machine gun and start shooting I think you'll right here in this stretcher but that's what I did pass out the chopper and when I came to it was like some kind of real weird movie I heard some sucking sound to the right of me in a look and as a Vietnamese person I'm in a hospital ward the Vietnamese person a guide to my right on some kind of a ventilator or you know something real wild sucking sound it was causing him to bend and with each condemned contraction or whatever mm-hmm and looked a lot to me and here's this get meas woman naked from the waist up on the bed next we don't thinking I got shot I'm in an NBA hospital I was like my heart's racing I'm crazy thing here and then I see this corpsman walking towards me with a washbowl and washcloths and said I think you're American but am I in an MVA Hospital he doesn't know you're in the overflow wing yeah at boo-boo and he said you know there's so many they're less civilian casualties are going out the same time as there were military casualties so they just not have enough to remember when the military award to put me mm-hmm a couple days later but then I was flown down to Cam Ranh Bay hospital a big Air Force Base and that's where I spent a month before my condition went worse and then they sent me home because there in case I was gonna die from the infections no you said your condition got worse what happened yeah well part of the this may or may not been attributing factor but when I was packing the Durden it's you know the entry wound I got the bone infection through the scapula which wasn't too far back in there first like I said I had packed an awful lot of dirt in there but I had staph infection and bone infection and even though you know I had a fractured scapula from the gunshot wound that had quite a few holes and my back right leg there was the infection that was gonna kill me itself I was I was in very bad condition for almost six months hmm just from you you know again not from the wound so much as the infections so ever you're a Cam'ron Bay for about a month camera bay for roughly a month yes and then how did you go back to the States on a hospital ship or a plane an airplane yep not actual just stubborn lifters I think is what they call them they converted them into flying hospitals mm-hmm so we went from Vietnam that Japan to Alaska to Andrews Air Force Base yeah things dangerous Air Force bases stayed at hospital there and then I was shipped over to st. Albans Naval Hospital and Brooklyn are outside of Brooklyn okay I think there's a in Queens scene over this Naval Hospital they spent you know roughly five months there before being discharged back to active duty well but when I was in the Air Force Hospital all the nurses were officers and this one woman she was of probably of course I was 1920 so she was like middle aged and she kept she was like a lieutenant colonel and I used to got a kick out of saluting adults because I couldn't use my right arm and also I'd slew my left hand of course they'd snap to look back to me and I didn't dare tell him that you know like I shouldn't be saluting them left-handed but there was just my little inside joke and mushy so she was a lieutenant-colonel she said I mean they're gonna offer you a medical discharge but I recommend you don't take it they stay in and I took her advice I could have been did she say why she felt it would be a detriment to me for any you know career I wanted to get into nicely because of the so-called stigma of being disabled yep even you know even though it's combat disabled if you would be disabled that would as a matter of fact it probably would have prevented me from what a [ __ ] as his parole officer so he took her advice and stuck it out so you spent five months in the hospital you went through a rehab program I today I mean I don't want to you know dam the Navy but I mean you had one nurse who was administrator and then you had a couple Foreman it would take care of all these seriously wounded Marines and sailors and soldiers but was there any sort of therapy because of your shoulder and you just had to let it naturally heal yes as a matter of fact because my infection the sutures that they gave me they had to cut loose and let me heal from the inside out they went back through I guess they figured World War one technology medical treatment yeah kept me high on the antibiotics and high-end painkillers do but so as a consequence my scars are probably bigger than he would have been had it not been infected now while you were stateside did you get in in the hospital that you get to go home at all on weekends at all or yes every other weekend I could go home on convalescent leave mm-hmm but I had to be what's funny is I had to be healthy enough to go and leave so you know you had passed certain you know urine test ones in a bathroom that kind of thing of course they did blood tests on you and I'm at fault for my first time out on leave I should have probably returned back to the hospital my my thigh started swelling on me and I said this is so good being home of course you know had a girlfriend at the time dating and you know trying to get back to you know regular life although you know they had no clue that's another old story but now they they just like the pongo somebody you know all right he's walking around with a limp and he's got scars all over action or all over the wounds mm-hmm and so when I should have gone back I didn't I waited for my last day and they had to do emergency operation on my right because the infection had traveled up and up to my thigh really you know I had to cut my utility trawler Charles in order to get my fans on that's how bad my leg got so and the other thing at a court-martial any for that they said you were in an awful lot of pain you shouldnt back here sooner I said what can you blame me you gave me 14 days I thought was gonna take all 14 days and he should have come back maybe in seven oh this is healthy you know they did this operation I've got this big drain coming out and I'm high I'm darvon or purpose that already they would give us for pain control and I said you've got to clean your own room we don't have enough people take care of you I remember taking all this packing all the stuff taking a q-tip but I'm hitting it thinking this stuff doesn't want to come out and I guess it was my bone oh my god but that still it was but that's the kind of treatment got because they were shorts to have is you think of most of the military you know the corpsman and nurses and whatnot would be over in Vietnam so I don't miss my way things I think that's why there was such a shortage of medical staff in the stateside hospitals but there was a good way to if you love staying high it was really a good place to be because it's much easier to take care of patients who are high and deal with their pain that way then under normal circumstances once you're discharged from the hospital wordage or did they send you next well hey I had two choices that could have gone to California but because I was dating a girl in signal who's gonna marry her I decided stay in Brooklyn so they assigned me to the third naval district Correctional Center also known as a break so I went from being a patient one day to being I'm twelve hours standing duty a day working in the break was up there was no easing you back into an assignment full duty you know six months that was really really a tough adjustment cuz they they they didn't so you're you're cleared to come back full duty so we're not gonna have you you can't stand you know writers no such thing as light duty right so I went back to full duty and what kind of quarters did you have were you living in civilian quarters or no actually we had you know there's a wing there set aside just for the brig centuries and of course we're in a naval base and of course the Marines were isolated and the resolved you know there's a lot of animosity back in those days between Marines and and the Navy and there's I could never buy into it the guys want to get off the Marines one you also don't want to play with some sailors in a bar and stuff like that and they say to me what's the scene in your paycheck it doesn't say United States Marine Corps versus Department of the Navy I said these people are paying us I don't feel here what a fight what people are paying me so that was my attitude my approach to it mm-hmm how long were you there for October to September October of 68 to September of 69 and I was blessed with some really unusual experiences being in both astronaut parades they landed on the moon it was January when they they had a ticker-tape parade for them when he landed on the moon and then July 69 one day I'm sorry they orbited the moon so the ticker tape parade was in January and then when they landed on the moon was in July so we went we're out there in our dress blue so we went from freezing to death because and dress blues I get is a t-shirt underneath that jacket so freezing to death in January of course in July brought their sweating to death and the dress poses because they drew such heat yeah being in both ticker tape parades was quite an experience so I had some very not only did we run the break but we were the kernels crack parade unit and also we did a lot of burial details too it was quite interesting some of it was disturbing especially the burial details when the brains were always kind of neat you know when you're off duty and here's how they they never gave much thought you get in sleep you were on six hours off six hours on six hours during the day the six hours off you either somehow got something to some parade detail funeral detail and plus you had to relieve the on-duty guys to go off and have their lunch time for a supper time break thinking of it so you never ever even a six-hour stretch where you could sleep you may never get to six hours so the guys didn't like it very much a lot we had a lot of fun guys go AWOL mm-hmm Marine Corps when you go AWOL they really really treat you bad I had to supervise some of the guys that I was assigned to the barracks with so that was tough sharing meals with a week ago when a wall and is now back in the Bradys a prisoner now when you were in the hospital did you encounter anyone that had been under fire with you when you were wounded no that's see oh there was I ran across a guy he years later as a matter of fact before we started this I told you about a guy in my unit that went back to Vietnam he was from the other day before I was he was wounded on that Saturday I was older than Sunday and a good friend of mine was killed on that Sunday or not sorry on that Saturday and he went back and got some soil souvenir soil for me and anybody else that was still alive from elite 61 alpha mm-hmm and no actually spending time with anybody it was so experiencing that no there may have been a few guys when I was in short period of time at Phu Bai mm-hmm but after that when he went down to Cameron Cameron Hospital I was with sailors soldiers and Marines down there so they had all of you different branches of service at that Hospital so just like going over to Vietnam I was by myself when I was in hospital by myself as far as like not you know being with anybody served with so you were discharged from that last duty station yes nut because my time was up the Marines were being pulled out of Vietnam in 69 and they had all this old salts like you know 70% of the Marines and my barracks were you know Purple Heart recipients mm-hmm you know Silver Stars Bronze Stars you know all kinds of you know awards for valor so we're a very kind of say too salty unit to we're but I think another year to go because it was really tough duty or colonel was a real tough disciplinarian and he'd know if he thought you had a uniform like something on your ribbon was not quite right he'd say guide promote Jews sorry yes sir I'm demoting you report to my office that kind of thing so he's a real tough colonel and everybody and you know you had to play basketball with him he was a real dirty player but it was just and that's that's where he operated mm-hmm and I remember getting called in by the warn officer I gunnery sergeant people in charge of oh I became sergeant in charge of the break because I was one of few guys that messed up and I kept saying I signed up for the Marine Corps for 33 years and I'm not gonna give him a day more especially I had to do towards Marine Corps started changing you know what the breaking in Brooklyn and I get called in my gunnery sergeant and I were closed and my the Warrant Officer those two were close with me because they like they like to where they were in the break and they said Gary with some good news and bad news for you I said well what's the good news he said don't hear that first says well we're gonna allow you to re-enlist you're gonna go home soon I said well I'm gonna go home they said the reason why we want you in here or we call it you in here is we want you to reenlist and become an officer record I got so much respect for you guys but I've seen the way the colonel has disrespected you I want nothing more this morning boy because they were two combat vets awesome I don't remember the Colonel's history was but the treatment of his officers is enlisted ranks you know I'm saying officer ranks above e5 was very poor so that's what only for the convenience of was for the convenience of the government that's how I got my district so I served 20 just under 26 months now once you were discharged you came back back home yes and did you go to work or go to school or on what straight back to my state job is mail and supply clerk and in the interim I had taken a correction officer example because when I was working in the break I we also took continuing education courses nothing to bring in so I got into Corrections and correction officer was paying like eighty six hundred dollars a year I was making forty seven hundred so I said this is a no-brainer of course little done I realized after going into I figured like I got discharged of September I was back at my job as mail and supply clerk had taken a correction officer exam and they wanted me to report for duty February 1970 and of course I sure don't think it was an interview I didn't realize that they wanted me to work that day so I started March 5th act actually certain day as a correction officer whereabouts in Green Haven Correctional Facility so it was like going from the almost from frying pan into the fire because then adequate jumped off that year to 1970 so there was like no Green Haven wasn't a tough prisoner workout that was mostly lifers down there and they they they followed the rules so that they wouldn't get transferred out for bad behavior because the number one assignment down at Green Haven was visiting missing out first whether the visiting room was constantly packed seven days a week but coming up the Comstock that was six months after I started at Green Haven I won at the Comstock a great medal was quite a tough reputation you know I was in the Marine Corps so I could handle that and wasn't like I was a civilian going in that kind of environment mm-hmm how long were you a correctional officer for I think four years then I was a corrections sergeant and I became a personal administrator then it became a correction counselor and my last 15 years I moved over into parole it was a parole officer for retiring in 2003 now did you have any college with that or was it all okay no when I came back from the Marine Corps that Great Meadow I started Empire Cornell I took it to your leave of absence that's right they gave my associate degree through at around their Community College which is now SUNY Adirondack um and then I got my bachelor's degree through Empire State College and it's pretty much in its infancy mm-hmm so yep I got my bachelor's and applied science criminal justice being my my major now in a nutshell and when did you retire December 2003 and I know it's a total film what people say to me was military time - you got I said yeah I think of how many people how these about the military time it was quite a bit different I have no regrets everything happened to me the service I look at this way I survived it and I benefited from it mm-hmm kind of kept me a little different from my peers when you have those kind and they're gonna find that out Morris these Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans come back that that Bowl can't we're gonna reopen itself because the population has no idea what these people really encountered and that was my problem also I couldn't relate to anybody I remember going back as a melon supply clerk and obviously I have changed behavior I had she had the nerve to say to me Gary back I think he died late he's horrible now this is the new guy because I went from being a kid yeah being sergeant the Marine Corps mm-hmm so of course I didn't know I changed but they really made me aware of that I changed and there they were actually part of the reason why I was in such a hurry to get away from that office scenario because that was the little darling I was the only you know at that time was an only 18 year old and that office complex of 400 women and you know all these male supervisors and whatnot and they used to send me packages and it was your OS our harem US Army Neos a president's office and harem I mean they adored me and but they adored only this little 18 year old they came back they were like Oh shocked at my behavior so then so they actually the way that they received me just push me into corrections that quick have you had any ongoing medical problem from being wounded down would you know the arts of your bit things that come on with age that's going to be the problem but I stay very active and I feel sorry I shouldn't do you know the Albany VA they called me in they revile you ate your periodically mm-hmm and I slept shrapnel in my shoulder and all these doctors coming up with different ways to let's go through his chest the Scotto the shrapnel that's underneath the scapula and let's do this and let's do that and I call up and said is chief of surgeons I just saw two doctors and they have totally different diagnosis it was pick the one that you think is best I said thank God I don't need this but you had to be careful because if you refused an operation they would say oh then we're gonna take this disability away from you because I was receiving compensation for and that's another thing there's people misunderstand disability is different than compensation I was compensated for the gunshot wound and the fragmentation went to my lower back directly so I was actually receiving compensation for three different injuries wounds have you suffered from post-traumatic stress at all yeah okay sure all right um I'm actually getting low on film now so I'd like to put in another cassette and we can look at some of the artifacts your head yes okay do you have any questions I've had a couple minutes left it was a matter of fact we never thought we could keep it we knew they were badly all numbers so I'll answer questions we were surprised that we knew we could stay there as long as we did but we also realized the only thing kept us there was the air support if we don't have the air support we would have gone out like the French didn't Kate case on was known as DM being food with the French that's when John seems to say I don't want another damn den been food is to call it you know he didn't want case on the fall like it did with the French was your estimation of the fighting abilities not just the Armand I never got the experience much with them other than maybe shooting them if we got hit that night but the NVA I had a lot of respect for them really well disciplined they knew all of our names perimeter because they always come down and listen to us at night bullshitting and even during the daytime so a lot of times you know hey Gary and it's not in the perimeter it's them down there I mean they they had tunnels dug right up along our trench lines or in your period you know periodically some bombing runs would come close and would collapse their tunnels outside of our perimeter then they start thinking we under run some bombing runs close periodically just to collapse all those tunnels because our big fear is they're gonna come and tunnel off into our premier all right let me let me stop it all right I'm gonna continue with your question Oh actually it all you know you didn't realize how much animosity there was towards you know the war and of course that would be vented at us especially I'll see Marines only because my experiences in Brooklyn break we had part of her details with parades and funerals I forgot to mention also we had riot control and we wouldn't go out with of course all of us Marines were combat vets and we knew all the formations and stuff but they would intersperse every other man was a sailor these poor guys were really on edge nervous when we had to face demonstrators who were throwing stuff at us intimidating us and but you know we knew you know the Marines know that I mean we were gonna you know we had to use our batons we're gonna definitely use them and the sailors didn't have that kind of background so it just I gave no thought to what we had to do until I was you know in line with these sailors who had no combat experience and they're really kind of nervous about it I got it I got it just don't talk about things in a perimeter at Khe Sanh bill 558 one of your duties was to listens for tunneling and what they do is you draw these rods into the ground you just stand there for periods of time just listening for any kind of tunneling going through so yes we actually we set that you know that procedural after we've realized that they had tunneled outside of our perimeter I didn't I know we say hear them at night time talking to each other and one of the scariest things is getting a human wave attack and the way they set them up it's just again you think you're like in a movie if this isn't real you'd see flashlights out there you see lights and you realize their flashlights and then there was somebody with a drum beating signals for them how to get online of course before they charge they unloaded their artillery on us they're trying to blow out our our barbed wire and detonate our minefields so and I only had one of those it was bad enough versus I think everybody pooped and peed their pants because it was just outrageous but were you on caisson whenever a hill up 558 yes mm-hmm and that was I have the state of party most scared it was ever in my life because you never if you realize you never have enough in a man issue but the only thing that saved us was it was actually it was naval artillery fire you know came in or it was maybe was from Camp Carroll where they had the big guns we had 105 in our perimeter and they had 159 fights and the NVA had I think the equivalent 175 and so I it was that night was that's right it was the from camp Carolyn surrounds a lot of we're falling short and landing behind us was you were making chicken shed and it craters and thank I nobody go nobody got wounded in our perimeter from that but I just went if things were quiet you'd hear from our combat base over the airstrip was because we had we had a 106 that was the biggest weapon we had in our perimeter and they had 105 and combat base a me here poom poom and there is shooting at the NVA physicians to get draw out their fire and I hear is from our end in your boom boom from that into nice if something guys what's wrong with this picture well we don't have anything like that well what they were doing was trying to get positions on where those cannon worth so they could get them in an arc light which is they saturate you know completely bomb of a grid on a map from the air I mean it would completely blow away whole section of territory never cut him on the open that's what they're hoping for mm-hmm they would coordinate it so that when they shot out towards the end it's the NBA and they were coming out with their guns returned fire that's when their arc like they were hoping that was off for days so they could catch him off me over because they had come out of the tunnels to shoot those those candidate of course I never saw pictures of them but I just know if they sounded like I know what it felt like they did you know get some rounds at us I got a problem with my new lieutenant because of that it's matter of fact I mentioned another radio operator 20 pepper while hearing tanks and of course they brought that up first because he was up further on the perimeter than I was and he's coming down the rear legs because that was all over at perimeter I was like the mayor of the perimeter - so I was talking and said I keep hearing things that night up this way who do you get he says well I got them - plus we see headlights and so I started coordinating with him the times that we would hear this and the you know trying to get information together presented it to my lieutenant he says intelligence says there's nothing up there there's no tanks and all the NVA have because of the mountainous area they're gonna get him there there's no roads up that way I mean this is what he told me and I couldn't go any further with that information but the there's a green and gray outpost not too far outside of us and it was manned with the green beret and the Peru which were the native Vietnamese the French called the mountain yards melton people and their perimeter got overrun that was in a view late February and I remember hearing the transmission from the Green Beret radio operator saying we've got to get the hell out of here there's tanks coming into our perimeter and it was 5:00 and VA tanks over in that perimeter but again there was not according to our intelligence so yes there were I believe there were tanks I've heard a minute I'm sure there was probably more than that - system just you know from the area that where I was I'm sure there's other our Gilmer and I have to share with know if they're ever run across guys over on Hill 1015 and 950 I have to salute them because they have much tougher time that we did because they couldn't get food of Terry Hall because they were so high up in the mountains in there up on these very narrow mountaintops and they would have only platoon and the whole perimeter of there and they were left the MBA would periodically assault them just to try to lodge them off there or dis large dislodge them so little support guys you know even though we saw daily action where there was bombing snipers you know machine-gun fire coming in at us they had every night thing it was almost like a battle to the end and I don't even know how the heck we've got enough equipment up out there for them to even survive any kind of assault so again it goes back to as bad as you think you have it there's other people who get a worse yes this is the actual Wow this is a little display case that char and I put together which you know has picture of me in my perimeter actually if you can tilt that towards me a little more I'm getting glare that's perfectly just like that and and that's my m16 that was shot apart the day I was wounded here's the armor-piercing thirty caliber round that got me and the irony is if that didn't hit my buckle I would had a pretty clean wound but it hit my buckle and of course it mushroomed like crazy you can still see the core of the jacket that almost round circle thing here is the actual tip of the bullet hmm and I'm sure there's probably some other pieces that are either still in the ER had gone through but that bullet was taken out 1978 no babies 86 86 mm actually the only thing I had was the core a corpsman had cut that you said the corpsman would practice on sewing you up and cutting things out and stuff I should say it was an air force that was in a corner it was an air force nurse he took that out for me and Cam'ron Bay and somehow I'm I don't know if I sent it home I don't know how he managed to eat that without losing it in 1986 these additional pieces came out because I had a tumor development on the exit hole scar of course this is a typical picture taken and advanced infantry training in North Carolina these are you know you know standard-issue you know from here over at the Purple Heart National Defense metal Vietnam campaign Vietnam service and service and end campaign this is something uh I got this medal was thrown on the table by the at that time the veterans counselor along with the death time was ROC governor Rockefeller there's a conspicuous service Melvin stayed in New York and the little extra cross on there is that you got that if you were in combat and then if you got one did you get an extra little identifying thing it's not an oak leaf cluster or anything else like that what after I was discharged and came up with issuing these medals to us jarvez oh you take this is a fissile continuous story this is my Purple Heart certificate and on their estates of April 7th 8th I was wounded and date of the receipt of Purple Heart was quite interesting as October 21st day of October 1968 so either they had one hell of a backlog hmm where there was not that much interest in issuing Purple Heart any specific I remember being still a patient in hospital no I got a Purple Heart when I was a patient in hospital so then they're just a must of this should a certificate separate from the Purple Heart itself what happens with Marine Corps they had to have this is this represents this little ribbon up here well actually there was a naval of the kimono kal I know I said commemorate put down Gill to recognize the Golf Company 26 Marines and actually the 26th Marine Regiment for what they did in Vietnam we had the president Presidential Unit Citation which they didn't have a ribbon for back in those days you just have a little ribbon given to you and there's the Combat Action Ribbon and the naval unit citation Presidential Unit Citation which I thought I found this out after I got discharged mm-hmm and okay this is the Combat Action Ribbon for metal they didn't have a ribbon per se so now only like a commemorative one that's all you had with your uniform this would go over this mutant did you get well I was in okay that's okay so that's there's a difference there but also because there's another ribbon I bet you I forgot that one the one by your foot your left foot oh no oh yes okay well here's my other purple know the actual gave me a Purple Heart the where with my uniform they also had you know this actual that this Purple Heart was presented to me with that certificate and I also got this this is what the Purple Heart really looked like like when George Washington initiative okay that's it that's just merit and I think was you worn a left sleeve if I remember from that's probably where you got your heart on your sleeve from that guy today huh but also we got the Vietnamese Cross of gallantry unit medal which I didn't receive when I was in service this came about after or maybe 69 or 70 issue those things so that's there was CIA yeah it's funny that you mention that it was um was actually for help protecting the civilians and the coffee plantation and the village itself I think it was called the civil action honor yes I got okay also but at that time I mean none that stuff was nothing there was no deal made of anything and just like I said when I got the conspicuous service medal from the stay in New York signed by Governor Rockefeller when I was a counselor at Mount McGregor we were issued we ran a veteran's program up there and of course I was in charge of the program because of my experience they had caught on to the fact that mama had an awful lot of Vietnam veterans that working there was correction officers and so they had a ceremony just for us and I got for some reason they they felt I should be reissued a conspicuous service medal because the ceremony wasn't performed when it gave it to me it was just you know the novel tossed across the table so Governor Cuomo signed my second one which I thought was and and then of course I found out it was eligible for the extra cross application did you note that that's you know not only was the end service B was wounded in service so it was it's quite an educational program in itself and just I have to share this because I don't think many people know but and we used to run the stats all the time with Vietnam vets and or the whole Vietnam War in total of all the millions that served ten percent actually saw combat five percent were wounded one percent were killed so when you have that big a disparity of people serving as opposed to people we're actually in combat I have a Purple Heart plate and the reason why I wondered that Purple Heart plate you know when they offered it said be a great way for me to run across fellow veterans mm-hmm once in a while somebody drives by and salutes me or I run across them but itself it was shocking how few people I run across with combat experience so and then when I started going into the stats I think that's also in the stats that the war that had the highest number of gunshot wounds was so much of the fighting was close in whereas world war ii world war 1 korea there's a lot plumber artillery injuries I thought when I saw that at first about the stats of gunshot wounds I would thought like maybe Civil War or even maybe World War two yeah yes because so much of it was small unit engagements this North Vietnamese were not stupid they would never attack attack a company of Marines they attack a platoon I'm sure that they would have success you know you have a sizable number of Marines out there and then of course the earth support that comes in increases the likelihood that they were going to succeed in their attack but they were very very smart very tough people as a matter of fact I think because they could survive on so much or so much less food than us I would say that we were all that much better than they were it's just circumstances I couldn't imagine if they had air power what the hell are we have been like for us or the in that naval gunfire like what we used to experience they call them flying boxcars when the naval support came in of course we're almost always the clouds and from the shock waves you can actually follow the naval round going through like it's just incredible of course the accuracy from being you know those guns shooting from the ocean mm-hmm over das over and actually pretty good thank God none of those wrongs ever fell short because I don't know how many hundreds of pounds those things were it was bad enough to be on the receiving end of 175 millimeters I couldn't imagine I think I mentioned it you know at one point you almost Oh yep there's many chances you don't think it's real you think you're in war production because a lot of you are really you're you know until it you know you're actually getting either shrapnel or machine-gun fire or rocket runs were the biggest you Wow Nate Palmer look bills they're dropping 500-pounders or when they did an arc lighting you know we got the thousand-pound bombs coming in saturating which were you know it was so surreal so a lot of that you're almost like detached until you got into the real nitty-gritty but uh yeah it was day to day basis so it was still it was pretty pretty edgy everything I don't think we ever went by a day where there was a low either we were drawing fire from them or of course we had we had orders now mind you if you shot your weapon especially if something was in the barbed wire our captain I don't know why we ran across such hard-ass and Colonel down them to breagan my captain that case on he said if you look if you discharged your weapon there better be blood it's not theirs it but there'd be yours because you're gonna get an ass woman because you know they just didn't want anybody just shooting willy-nilly and they give you an idea what happens we had lack of communication the guy in a listening post you know so we thought there's a guy coming in from a listening post because some guy just trotting up good as rightful like this came right through the three rules of barbed wire fences so we knew he knew the path he guess if there were lieutenant's office or bunker is unloads his his weapon at the bunker nobody realized this in North Vietnamese soldier and runs back helped through the perimeter the whole site opened up on him and nobody hit him that's when the captain said there better be one it's gonna have to be yours if there isn't any out there so yeah I mean so most people think he'll when the [ __ ] hits the fan that's you know stuff really going down things get crazy like machine-gunners of they had to watch it under it with that human wave assault guys cook the barrels on the gun because they got so caught up that they forgot to switch to barrels over who's your only good for I think I'm on a 500 rounds per barrel or something like that I don't remember a thing that's why you got the a gunner with the asbestos gloves I mean you switching those barrels around but also 200 rounds of ammunition like when I used to carry and that was a lot a lot of guys only carried a hundred 150 your gun shoots up an awful lot more than that you know I hurry up that cyclic rate of fire is 450 rounds a minute or something like that or some you know bizarre so technically you could shoot up all the ammunition you haven't less than two minutes per minute so that was also hammered home you don't put it on automatic for anything that's for the movies the real life is semi-automatic I could you know Wayne a fight I had to think about what because it was shot today know when I remembered missing my step going over a stream going up to attack an assault to Hill I think it was usually at least 60 pounds I would have to say well yeah yeah well you feel we had to PR Sony PR 25 they're called a prick 25 because they were pricked Akari we had the old you know they had to PR tens I think were the newer ones or something a lighter weight this was a big old box moves misdeeds probably but that also probably helped save me when the grenade went off it blew off most of the radio but that damn things still worked with the battery hanging off of and everything but yeah I couldn't I think if I had to think about what weight went on there cuz when I saw him putting the mortar rounds I'm thinking oh my god and then extra machine gun ammo went up on there and so yeah I could I couldn't imagine what that was Caribbean but when you're 19 you know give much thought to probably have a good shot of these you know stateside that's six months after you could still see my teeth through my cheeks I think I weighed about 160 going in now it's just under 140 I went from a size 30 waist under size 26 but oh the thing about poorly equipped I hit stateside boots on when I got over there and that was before they realized it came up with a Vietnam combat boots you know the ones that the clay didn't stick to as much so my soles had rotted off and I had to tie you know whatever I get string or whatnot tie my souls to the top of my boot flop all over the place and when I was wounded I remember telling him one thing because I just got my stateside for my combat boots I said then I want don't let anybody get my combat boots up you know and take everything else you won't break I want my combat boots so I remember when they carted me into food by hospital where are you going with your boots they're going home with me I go through all that time in Vietnam for those goddamn stateside boots now I want my combat boots level ironically no you know it was crazies up with you after a period of time you cut everything loose except where I do you know like I mentioned earlier I still have my dress blues now did you stay in contact with some of the people you were in service with well yes on a loose basis I had this this guy Robert crab crab had just sent me the soil no meat at 61 l phone and he sent me this guy I mean I actually got to talk to him you know by telephone not that long ago is I've got this CD a couple CDs and a bag of dirt and no letter and he doesn't have a phone number Sony was char and I especially sharp worked and we backtracked it and got his phone number when it was addressing him and he was really shocked they were talking about you know the differences and are taken what happened and the perimeter and all that and he didn't remember me loaning his him hit my poncho liner we were giving so little stuff I didn't have a rain poncho or anything I just things that had the shirt and pants and my boots that was it in my helmet but I would loan him the poncho liner when I was on duty so that he could sleep and stay warm of course he never went and took a shower bath and it used to smell quite ripe I don't want to tell him that that's I remember it well because that stunk but he once went down with me on a water run now here this guy and he sounds like a really nice guy had a lot of fun with him in a perimeter he goes sounds in a water wrong no I'm thinking every day I'm bathing this guy has the whole time Newman didn't bathe leans down in the water and washes his mustache and so are you gonna do but so that's why my poncho Langer you know he remembers having a poncho line or somebody loaning it to him and said that was me but then you know he remembered you know things were a little different take he he was in I think he was a machine gunner because machines are or mortars one of those too but he he didn't want to hang out with me does he felt I was dangerous enough you know just being a radio operator there but he you know he was like I said he was wounded the day before and my good buddy was killed that day but we took in we had easily fifty percent casualties out of those two days of fighting but the static I wish I'd thought to bring that the stats for casualties are caissons really really quite high you know you're dealing the thousands but that's over of course a time that wasn't just a two days I was involved now did you join any veterans organizations at all I get a request from at VFW I do belong to the American Legion up here in Whitehall because my ancestor Salomon rod Civil War joined the ger which became the American Legion Post there so we've got his signatures and he said well he preferred Rankin there at the same time you know the same place I was having a beer with the guys and stuff so I joined that late but I am a life member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart and American Legion or a disabled american veterans mm-hmm I joined the VFW when I first came out of the service the first thing they wanted to do was oh yeah that dress blues we're gonna put you in the Pearl Harbor Day Parade so and I'm the only one showed up with dress uniforms everybody's showing off their usual hodgepodge you know it's not together thing and I felt a little uncomfortable about that but they wanted me like the poster poster child and so I went through the first I didn't know what a smoker was so here I am young Vietnam vet in there you got all these older guys in beer and cigarettes and watching porn flicks I come here to sit with these old-timers and watch porn flicks so I was in one meeting and help is if I didn't join anything up until the American Legion oh I did Jordan purple Miller order purple artists I thought that that would be an active unit but not in New York as a matter of fact they assigned me to our hometown chapter 118 it's non-existent there's nobody there so the DAV I didn't I didn't bother going on with him either so I felt at least it was you know I joined a membership I just was not active but now with the American Legion up here I think you mentioned I had some that's anybody ever keep track well see the true test of anybody being a veteran you just got see there dd-214 yeah that tells everything and a lot of them the administration wanted bodies in the program then it cared about so-called legitimate vets and so they got it's a whole bunch of inmates shipped to me I started going through Isadora do you wear dg2 for teens you said this is at Auburn I think you were transferred into this my program said oh they don't require that at all burnin because we want to protect our rights what if we're trained to be a sniper or something we don't want Corrections knowing about that I said well if you don't produce the dd-214 you're not in the program because you're not a real veteran if you can't show me that you're in because I I get to know they've been in country and the different operations that were on and stuff like that it's all there and so I was throwing out a lot of them that were not in country veterans especially like what they had claimed mm-hmm but I was also told to lighten up I remember the statement was I said to my senior counselor what do you want window dressing he goes yes and I want recognition for it I said well I'll give you the biggest display you ever wanted see that's what you want you're gonna get it what am I gonna do become a martyr fight them a lot of the veterans I used to run an end country counseling group inmate veterans in country very very very very sad what they did over there and I understood why they became criminals because they were in the shooting you know civilians and all this other stuff committed quite a few atrocities which and I could see when I was in Vietnam when I was at Khe Sanh I started paying attention to these guys wearing strings of what I like mushrooms I said their ears ears I said yeah every NVA it kill it cut an ear off him I'm thinking find a better way souvenir than years especially over in that environment you know I Iowa's a firm believer even if I was to be around you know killed NVA why would you you know defile yourself to do something know of that nature to it the enemy I didn't hate that thing they were doing their job just like I was doing my job but I can understand people get caught up in the passion at the time or not no no you know my friend sent me these CDs he just went crazy he went all over the place over there but he was back up at Hill 865 58 which they had different numbers now they've we're still 558 and 560 but he'll 861 861 elf oh it's all reverted back to jungle and I don't even think there's a coffee plantation there anymore but no I I often thought that you wouldn't be able to tell anyway and that's what he said you know good deal no I think that was a 40 43 years ago every time you pick up a Travel Magazine today well you know something thank you welcome well let me tell you something even though I was in Kannada I remember flying into it was coming over Khe Sanh base before it you know all hell broke loose down there you know the greens incredible you I mean you're talking to hundreds of shades of green and everything else and of course the caisson means red clay and the soil looked almost like it's bleeding it's so red especially when it's damp anybody could you know if you were back contemptible back to the hospital I didn't have to say uh some case on look at my eyes I still have all the pink you know there was like dyed pink in here and yet the red pigmentations in your skin you got to get a mirror you know be able to understand oh that's nothing I never had a mirror the whole time was over there and I used to what am I I used to volunteer to do many things and one of them was give haircuts and thank God nobody had mirrors because some people would kick my saw and actually in this shot here or somebody got back at me I have one of the worst hairline compressor it's chopped here and then drops the only bad so and we don't have any scissors we just had a hand clipper it's not gonna give me air cuts out there yeah I mean and there was a lot of fun you know funny things that what I mean and you know if you're fine they have a sense of humor your creative sense of humor there's a lot of funny things that went down as men if I couldn't think they became more funny because you're under such stress every day I remember horse at full by on my way you know my friend Johnny rivers told me you know he lost his weapon II lost all his equipment because yeah Chuck Neil couldn't jump off the plane or getting it off the plane and I'm in an outhouse and I read this something this guy wrote on there this is my last day in this blanking hell nothing oh [ __ ] this is my first couple piece here my god and of course it was like I feel lucky that I didn't have any time to sit back and say man this sucks this is awful everyday it was rock and roll night time there's a lot of fireworks and all kinds of you know flares being dropped and puffs coming over we scuffle with your call the mini guns it was like and those were every six round that was coming out of them and looked like one is solid around just a sound from them and everything but I oh my I was exposed to Agent Orange because that night I'm a soul high and run around naked seven we had a luxury toilet we had a barrel half with a 2x4 so you can actually sit and go to bathroom a lot of guys didn't even have the 2x4 I mean that's how tough it was the good stuff and I remember you know hearing a plane flying over and smelling stuff like apple blossoms yeah I got completely saturated sprayed with Agent Orange and I was treated in the field but we didn't tighten it wouldn't it what anybody Agent Orange I didn't realize that it was expect-- exposed to Agent Orange until I ran the veterans program at Mount McGregor specialists come up Agent Orange exposure for the inmates not really staff they wouldn't admit it I did I had this crater here Upton his giant craters all over my body and that's kind of like a Nova's coincidentally that was kind of woozy that was when you were over there yes I was at Khe Sanh itself and uh yeah when I was out doing that you know my nature call and stark naked completely covered and I was completely was all woozy you know craters like yellowish clear yellowish stuff coming out of him and they treated me in the field for it but again nothing was said about that and there was no real push for Agent Orange and told maybe 10 20 years ago when it's running the program is when they're coming up and I remember her name rosemary Duncan she was a really really knowledgeable person I said rosemary right there if I tell you what happened to me can you tell me if this was a classic symptom or anything she goes yes and I said I told her about there's no being sprayed and told her about that the lesions all over me she was yes it's classic Agent Orange nothing make a little mental issue but nothing of an that I should okay I figured age 63 about it there was one thing they they did scare me Oh ten years ago they called me down and said if you er transfuse you're still not out of the woods for Hepatitis tuberculosis was a more sign here I had received all that loss of blood I received a lot of quite a few units of blood for transfusion and we were sitting there thinking I'm still not woods for these diseases so they they ran a test time I feel very blessed I'm a really healthy individual that's it well thank you for your interview I think you're very welcome

Channel: New York State Military Museum

Views: 263,596

Keywords: Veteran., Military., United States, United States Marine Corps, Vietnam War, 26th Marines

Id: JfsJFZeCS00

Length: 103min 6sec (6186 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 28 2016