Interview with Peter C. Trefz, Vietnam War Veteran, CCSU Veterans History Project

I'm conflict what was your branch of service United States Army what was your highest rank first lieutenant and what general occasions did you serve I served in three Corps Tanen province through in district it's pretty much on the Western its western side southern western side of three Corps border in the Cambodian border when you were you drafted or did you enlist I was drafted I was a sophomore I was a student at the University of South Florida I had a 2 s deferment unfortunately I dropped the course that I was failing and my deferment went from 2 s the student deferment to 1a that summer that was the spring of my sophomore year that summer I went to New York I found employment on Wall Street and I actually I really loved the work I was doing there and I guess that was in a state of denial because shortly thereafter I received my reclassification to 1a and I said ok and as we proceeded through the summer I was required to report for a physical examination I think it was for Hamilton in Brooklyn New York and very shortly after that probably a couple of months maybe a little after Christmas and this had to be I believe 1967 I was reported ordered to report for induction into the United States Army about your first days in service ok that same day that we went to Fort Hamilton to be inducted I was on an airplane and ended up in Fort Jackson in Columbia South Carolina where I was to begin my basic training part of the orientation before we actually were assigned to a platoon to begin our training the army had us do what we took numerous I were going to call them intelligence test I guess they were trying to determine what we would be best suited for as a result of those tests I was asked I was given two opportunities fired well actually I was in basic training at the time they told me that I qualified for two programs one was Warrant Officer flight training program at Fort Walters Texas you would learn to fly helicopters and become a Warrant Officer not quite a commissioned officer but between enlisted and commissioned officers and the after the training it was required that you would owe Uncle Sam in the military three years of active duty and was told that I would probably spend not one but two tours of duty in Vietnam and I said okay I'll think about that the next opportunity they presented to me was to become a commissioned officer and the the problem there was really no problem with that except that the only branches they were offering a commission in were the combat arms infantry artillery or combat engineers and if I chose to go into one of those programs after training it was only a two-year requirement of service of active duty so wasn't really sure if I wanted to do three full years and that's after training so he's talking about almost a four and a half year commitment I decided to go with the Corps of Engineers and after completing training I had eight weeks of basic training then eight additional week all this was at Fort Jackson South Carolina eight additional weeks of advanced individual training however because I was going to MCS my individual training was an infantry 11b 40 and then after that I went to Fort Belvoir Virginia for six months of Officer Candidate School how is your training it was it with Jackson or Fort Belvoir its inward surgery was miserable the the have to understand the OCS program although it's only six months long is it is pretty much based on the United States Military Academy you're you're going you're basically an underclassmen and you endure all types of harassment and stress situations they basically are trying to weed you out and see if you're capable of handling leadership positions in the military I think overall we graduated probably about only thirty percent of the initial group that attend or that arrived for training and Officer Candidate School the I would say probably fifteen or twenty percent of the candidates that arrived would commit honor violations the very first week because they wanted no part of it it was it was very very difficult I'm talking about meals are eaten on the first six inches of your chair you weight a square meal you answered questions constantly from upperclassmen and your tactical officers and it was very very stressful as you progress through the system you became a junior candidate with a little bit more responsibility you will put into leadership positions along with the very rigorous schooling we went to classes each day for engineering and pretty much engineering and infantry tactics finally you reach the third level of a senior candidate where now you were taking the under the next group of undergraduates that came in and giving them the harassment that you got when you started eventually they after the six months I was commissioned a second lieutenant at the very end of OCS ie I believe it was an Army Major that was commissioned in the Intelligence Corps came to speak to our group and he was saying that not all of us would be commissioned than the Corps of Engineers as there was this new program that the Army was getting involved in called the Phoenix program and that they were looking for people that had an aptitude for intelligence and he was very vague about the Phoenix program at that time but was saying that you know you're going to be military intelligence and he was talking about you know white uniforms in Panama talking about tours of duty and you know Japan and Germany South Korea never once mentioned Vietnam I said well this is for me this is exactly what I want to do and they gave us this test with a fake language to determine our aptitude for learning a new language and I said what the heck is this and I said well okay al we took the tests and myself and several other of my the senior candidates that are with I guess we did quite well on this test and upon commissioning I was told that I would go to Monterey California to the United States Defense Language Institute and I would take 32 weeks of the Mini's language so well there goes Panama in the white uniform can you tell me anything about your instructors why Ocampa and AIT yes my instructors at boot camp and err - were pretty much NCOs that had served at least one tour of duty in Vietnam they were I have to say the training there was excellent I mean again very stressful very tiring we pretty much had a full day from you know probably five o'clock in the mornings or whatever but the physical conditioning was absolutely wonderful I never felt better in my life I could literally run forever and not get tired and I have to say that the training was was appropriate for what was going to happen 90% of the people of course that were being their MOS was going to be 11 be 40 in the infantry and believe me when I tell you the 11 would be 40 in Vietnam had it absolutely the worst the worst conditions you could ever imagine many many days in a row sometimes weeks in the field you know sleeping on the ground every night and in a hole I didn't quite have it that bad but I would have to say the training overall was it was excellent so after you were commissioned you went - yes how was that that was the best door tour of duty you could ever imagine myself and two other lieutenants had a beautiful house right in Pacific Grove California my only weed right on the beach my only military duty was to ten classes five hours a day at the Defense Language Institute to learn the nummies we did have to make a commitment each evening as far as studying time to be prepared for the classes of the next day but if you've never been to the Monterey Peninsula in California it is absolutely gorgeous and it's just a beautiful place with wonderful temperatures the scenery is magnificent you know the the base itself right on was on a hill overlooking the Monterey Bay fishing boats would come in every night it was really wonderful duty I had a terrific time there yes oh yes every weekend's were off oh just a bit down too but Big Sur I bought a motorcycle out there I used to you know every Saturday or Sunday we took a ride on the 17 mile drive around Pebble Beach and yeah it was it was it was wonderful I had a great time there and after I ended up back and once again back on the East Coast at Fort Holabird and Maryland and for eight week intelligence military intelligence course that was something new but it didn't really get involved with the Phoenix program at that point I didn't actually receive Phoenix training until I got to Vietnam and that's a whole nother story we take a little break here just give a simple okay that was an eight-week course after that course I then went back across the country and reported to I think it was Travis Air Force Base to catch a flight to Vietnam what was your first impression on landing as the as has the as the air first of all it's a long long flight and we left Travis San Francisco we went to Honolulu Hawaii we actually stayed there for a while there was some problems with the plane we then flew on to Guam and eventually into tunson Air Base in Vietnam the one thing I noticed is on approach and looking out the window was it was just bomb crater after bomb crater after bomb crater it looked like the moon everything was just one giant bomb crater all the that was indescribable I had no idea what it was going to look like however we did arrive in intention it my first impression was that I had never seen heat like this in my life of course I had to taking my shoes off in the plane which was a big mistake my feet were swollen from sitting for so long and then to walk out on that tarmac and get blessed with that heat was absolutely incredible the first thing we did and I have it someplace here and I'll show it to you is we all went into a room and the army made us send out this postcard telling our family that we arrived safely in a war zone it was a cruel joke I have the postcard here if you want to see it and anyway later that day we then got onto a bus and I noticed the bus had these iron bars all around all the windows I guess to keep people from throwing grenades into the bus and we got on the bus and we continued on to Benoit the another airbase and the headquarters for McVie which is where I was going to be assigned McAfee is a military advisory command Vietnam on the bus ride we passed through the Saigon fish market the smell alone would cut your clothes in half and you know I said wow this is this is really different and we went to Benoit and we were put into barracks and we were there I would think I think it was around two or three days we attended classes in introducing us to the culture the people what to expect what was going to happen before we were assigned to a unit where we would go and and basically Mack these units were advisory teams and eventually I was assigned to advisory team 90 which I told you before was 10 in Provence in three Corps and I started out at the province level in Tay Ninh I was there and and the province level it was pretty secure it was a pretty good sized compound we had Cambodian guards that provided 24-hour day security on the compound we had a regular mess hall with American food and you could pretty much go around the town and the Jeep didn't you I would carry a sidearm I didn't carry a weapon at that time and I was there and it was actually it was quite boring I would review photographs intelligent documents did some interrogating of prisoners and also they had you familiar with the Chujo program the open arms program okay the to hoid program was an open arms program that the government of South Vietnam would offer to the Vietcong if they were tired of doing what they were doing it was called an open arms program where they would be received by the government of South Vietnam and they would be interned in a re-education situate a situation where these people were basically welcomed they were well fed any medical conditions were taken care of but they were required to attend Riaan doctrine ation programs and so that you know into the South Vietnamese government these people were valuable sources of intelligence they weren't always forthcoming with information but a lot of them were they will welcome this new program I also suspect that many of them were there and they were still BC sympathizers and they were eventually going to leave and they were finding out as much about us as we were finding about them while I was at the the province level we then oh and that's right I was then told that I was going to be assigned to the Phoenix program and then I would receive training and it was in a different part of Vietnam it was in a coastal town Vung Tau which is a beautiful seacoast town you know I mean you could look at it and say you know this is the Miami Beach of South Vietnam it was the hotels were a little bit nicer the quarters that we stayed in were a little bit nicer but again once again I was in class I think that program less than about two weeks if I remember and we learned how we were going to gather intelligence develop informants within Hamlet's and villages and then we would run operations to basically intercept and either neutralize or capture some of the political people of the Vietcong infrastructure and these were people like tax collectors recruiters that would come into villages at night proselytize try and get young males to join their cause and they were very persuasive very articulate and again developing these informants and the villages was was difficult because you never knew who was a VC sympathizer or somebody who was truly you know part of the South Vietnamese government at that time and was Pro South Vietnamese government once we would get informants our primary operation was called a cordon and search now at the day I was now at the district level and the district level was much more primitive I have photos of where I lived it was basically it was an old French fort left over from when the French were they're very tiny compound out in the middle of nowhere no roads to speak of and are always pretty much we could be resupplied by helicopter or tracked vehicle and you know although at this particular compound where I lived and we worked at it was my advisory team consisted of myself a senior district advisor was usually a captain or a major it was a medical expert or medic there was a communications expert and a small-arms expert this is pretty much what your team was oh and a Mac team leader Matt was a mobile advisory team who travelled around with the different regional force of popular force companies that would train them the regional force company that was responsible for the security of our compound was a regional force company 861 they were led by a Vietnamese captain captain Don who I became quite close with it was probably one of the bravest men I've ever met in my life and I can attest to that to the two times that our compound was attacked at night I can get into that a little bit later but basically what we would do is I corn on and search what we would do is take one of the RF company usually consisted of anywheres between 120 and 160 soldiers we would cordon off a village or a hamlet by moving in at dusk and we would completely surround the village or the hamlet and at that point no one could leave and nobody could go into the hamlet so whoever was there at the time that was it the next morning after spending the night in the field I would go in with the team usually about I would say probably 8 to 15 soldiers and we would get people to provide us with their ID cards there South Vietnamese ID cards if you didn't have a card you shouldn't be there and you were basically became a prisoner those people who were interrogated some we found to be VC sympathizers who were there they shouldn't have been there another type of operation if we received a intelligence from one of our informants within a village that he happened to know that that night the the VC were going to be sending in a recruiter - or a tax collector or a political person - you know try and get either money or medical equipment or food or a lot of these villages had stashes of ammunition and other arms we would set up ambushes and on those ambushes I would basically go out with a team of maybe a squad squad and a half maybe 10 to 15 people we would set up an l-shaped ambush and if the people that were suspected or received intelligence on were to arrive we would first try to capture them of course to gain additional intelligence through interrogation but a lot of times it didn't work out that way and you ended up in a firefight and we took casualties they took casualties and that was pretty much my my life over there for the well probably I was in the district level for mmm I would say probably eight months out of the time I was there in addition we would come off patrols we would look for weapons caches we would find go into a village and once again the village would be Courtin cordoned off nobody could leave or come into the village or in the hamlet and we would look for weapons caches and we found lots and lots of weapons ammunition medical supplies food all kinds of tons of rice that you know would come down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and they would basically since we were right on the Cambodian border it would move into these villages and do it stored there for when the Vietcong would need these particular items back in our own facility I said it was an old French fort I believe it was and we would it was myself and the five other advisers that I told you about and this one regional forest company that was responsible for basically the security of the compound because I was a Maccabee advisor all my support came from the south vietnamese i was given a stipend each month along with a paycheck that in order for me to procure to procure food for myself i bought all my food on the local economy or from the local economy i had a lot of dry fish and rice balls in those days because occasionally i could score some sea rations from we had a huge american base camp in tay ninh city itself was comprised of elements from the 25th Infantry Division and the first Air Cavalry mobile at this base but when this base was like a city it was probably the size of Horton wall not the Hartford but the size them of our tower here it was huge and there were numerous Aviation battalions there to support the infantry units there were numerous mechanized cavalry tanks or APCs and personnel carriers and things like that so we were able from time to time get fuel for our jeeps we could get food we could get a ham you Nisshin but mostly I had to rely on the Vietnamese and the local economy for my food and other sustenance because we were being very successful the Phoenix program where I was our compound became a target for frequent frequent we would try to be overrun we would take numerous border and rocket attacks several times they actually got into the wire and one particular night I was asleep had to be like maybe Oh 200 oh 300 there were huge explosions and I we had mortar pits within the compound and you could tell the difference between an outgoing more around and something that was coming in and basically the the VC had gotten cut through the wire Dave got inside the compound and they toss these satchel charges into our talk which is our Tactical Operations Center which was the radio communications and basically the command center for the compound the satchel charges of medium killed everybody that was in the compound this captain I spoke to you earlier of captain Han rallied the troops it was very unusual for them to actually get inside the wire but when they did all hell broke loose they were firing RPGs at the rocket-propelled grenades and other small arms fire inside it's very difficult for us because you couldn't you could be shooting inside and shooting a friendly on the other side of the compound you didn't know the people inside the beacon of Vietcong had to be eliminated captain on stood on top of a bunker in clear view of what was going on and rallied the troops and eventually they did eliminate all the people that had gotten into the compound at that point myself the other advisors and the rest of the RF company we went to the bomb line and basically we're fighting off the attack and they would come where they had tried to break through the wire where they had gotten through the wire and got into the compound they continually sent people and things would get quiet for a while and then it would hit another side of the compound it was just a big perimeter I mentioned earlier that there was this huge base camp in tay ninh city and there were numerous fire bases surrounding us we couldn't call in artillery because basically we would be calling it in on ourselves it was that close the next guess was the next best bet would be at that time to see if we can get helicopters airborne from this base camp to at least drop flares and light up the area so we could see where the attacks attacks were coming from and the problem was that there was a very low ceiling that night and the helicopters didn't want to fly at that point it was basically us against them however it was just prior to dawn the helicopters came they dropped flares these are parachute flares that basically started night and today and you could see what was happening basically after that gunships came online and it was it was basically a slaughter it was like shooting fish in a barrel in the morning when I got up I had I think probably 11 or 12 empty magazines around me that's well over 200 rounds I would have probably five pounds of empty brass sitting there were no casualties among the advisors and I believe there were probably about AI well additionally to the first five people that were killed and the Tactical Operations Center I believe we lost the better I think it was another eight or nine Vietnamese soldiers from the regional forces and that happened a couple of times while I was there those was a scary part that was the scary part more so than the ambushes and the court Island search missions but for the most part I'm gonna get to the end of my tour pretty much after when I was had about two weeks left Oh during that period of time I also did manage to take an R&R I went to Taipei China was a great experience and it was a nice rest concern what we've been going through two weeks prior to my derozen going back to the United States they brought the advisory team or the people that were ready to go down to Saigon we were put into a village that had tennis courts swimming pools horseback riding and basically we were once again I guess they were preparing us to go back to the world and start our lives I guess alright through home I left tonsil nut flew to Yokota Japan then to Anchorage Alaska and then on down to Travis Air Force Base in Northern California in the San Francisco area I remember getting off the plane and there was this huge sign you know welcome home soldiers America is proud of you we came in we had it they gave us a big steak dinner and you're talking about a whole Plane full of people's a couple of hundred people and they put us up for the night and got us ready to some of the soldiers still had time left to serve I had completed now my my two years of active duty and at that point was going to be discharged I started the paperwork for processing out of the military and had gone I guess it was we were there a couple of days I purchased some civilian clothes in fact they they told us that they would prefer that once we leave we should wear civilian clothes because of the protesters would probably give us a hard time upon leaving them the only caveat there was that in those days in order for you to fly commercially and receive the military discount you had a fly in uniform I decided that I didn't want to go back to New York right away I needed some time to acclimate myself to what was going on I left Travis Air Force Base I had been discharged I flew to because I was stationed in California I flew to Monterey just to you know spend some time there it was such a beautiful place I did have a girl that I was dating at the time there she was a schoolteacher and she was living at a house with another schoolteacher she said you know you can you know come to stay with us she'd written me in Vietnam just like Eugenie did the whole time and when I got there I had to fly in uniform and she she picked me up from the airport and took me to the house her roommate I was introduced to her roommate her roommate said oh I see you have a lot of ribbons on your on your uniform and I said yeah and she says well how many babies did you kill to get those and as you know I I had I had no idea this was going to happen they tried to prepare us for it but whatever and I also told the girl that I had dated and I said you know it's probably better well and she asked me to leave not the girl but the roommate I said you know what's probably better up that I leave and go away I'll say in hotel we you know go out to dinner or whatever and I stayed there a few days I then made arrangements to go to Southern California the radio told my RTO from Vietnam he was an enlisted person I believe at this point he was an e5 sergeant he had made arrangements to take a 30-day leave and then go back to Vietnam for three months and then he would be given an early out he didn't have to service his entire two years of his draft so he had taken leave at the same time that I had been discharged he lived in Southern California Orange County very conservative people he invited me down to spend some time with him and his family you have to remember I had forgotten all this time I was carrying a war trophy home it was a a Viet congs rifle you know an assault weapon can you imagine walking through airports carrying a weapon maybe that's why the protesters didn't bother me I don't know but I had I had the weapon but I had bought a case to carry it in from a Saigon street vendor was a very very well put together by the time I even got Travis that pretty much disintegrated so here I am walking through airports with this war trophy today just you can't imagine that what happened but I spent a couple of days with his name was Doug you know visited some bars had some good times he introduced me a some of his friends and then that was it I flew home back to New York and pretty much nine and then my career yes I received the Bronze Star the Army Commendation Medal from the South Vietnamese government country I received their Cross of gallantry and their Medal of Honor I have your certificates here to show you what you know you can see all that oh yes oh yes pretty much I did mostly letters but at that time they invented this wonderful thing called a cassette recorder and I would take photos and I would more or less on a cassette recorder narrate what a photo was about I would send those home they were very appreciative to get those because they don't gave kind of a picture of what was going on and of course my wife Eugenie would send me cassettes at that time we had not made any kind of commitment to ourselves at that time but we did correspond for the whole time I was there were there how did you handle the stress of being there did a lot of drinking pretty much stress I guess after a while you just you just learned to get past it you know I mean the very first firefighter I was in I had no idea what it was gonna be like and I survived that and I said well you know I just just gotta be calm you just got to do your job do what you were trained to do stay alive I did well I went back to Wall Street to the brokerage house I'd worked for when I was drafted they were they were wonderful I could get me my own old position back with the significant raise but I knew I wanted to complete my education so very shortly after that I reapplied to continue my education at the University of South Florida I was when I left I was completed enough credits for a sophomore they did accept my 32 weeks of Vietnamese language school and my Officer Candidate School in the School of Engineering and basically between and the engineer School of Engineering and Southeast Asian Studies I received an entire year worth of credits which was which great so all of a sudden now I'm coming back I'm a junior completed and had one additional year to complete my education or my BS degree though I did I did and I know you mentioned that one friends the radio operator yeah did you keep in touch with anyone else yes I have a couple of friends in California have a couple of I have a friend and his wife I believe they now live in Montana another friend in Philadelphia not a lot of them kind of you know when I came home I just kind of wanted to forget about that whole thing you know I'm back in the major university now when you know when when I started there in 1965 you know women had to be in the dorm by 10 o'clock at night during the week midnight on the weekends now you know three years later I'm back people are smoking dope in these large classes dorms are co-ed I mean it was like culture shock in Reverse coming from Vietnam back to how much the university had changed in that period of time and you know I mean if when I started there if you had a beer in the dorm you will automatically expelled then no questions that was it yeah now I come back and you know people are you know had bars in their room you know for crying out loud things were totally different totally different that's a difficult question when I came home I wasn't so you know when you when you're going through training and become indoctrinated you get a little bit gung-ho about things you start to believe in what you're doing you start to really think I'm doing the right thing and everything there's no long here and I'm really I can't wait to get over there and well that all changed and all change you know at that particular time when I was there that you know Nixon had just become president he had started the Vietnamization where we were mainly turning the war back over to the Vietnamese people pacification winning the hearts and minds you got to be kidding me we weren't waiting anybody's hearts and minds that's for sure and now when I came home I basically had done a 180 I wasn't so sure we should have been there I wasn't protesting but one and one of the courses I took while I was there and I believe was a statistics course we were given an assignment to create a boy wouldn't want to say this we were supposed to go out and question students a survey I'm getting a little well if I lose my words every now and then we had a create a survey and statistically analyzed the results of this survey the reserve the survey I chose to do was whoever whenever president was that had offered amnesty so the draft rgeous that went to Canada they were given amnesty and of course they were all brought back you know no questions asked and I put together a survey one question and I basically do you agree or disagree with the the you know giving this free ticket free ride to these people that left the country to become not deserters but draft dodgers and went to Canada and surprisingly the results of the survey I probably talked to I would say 50 60 students females males the results were that most people did not agree with the policy of granting amnesty to these draft dodgers now I'm in a southern school I would tend to believe that they were pretty a little bit more I'm not going to say probe Vietnam but I think a little bit more tolerant of of the war and what was going on there I mean when I returned to the University my for my final year Eugenie and I had gotten married that summer and many of my fraternity brothers from the first two years were now back there will all be at non veterans they were there with their wives and that's the group we chose to hang around with so to speak party with get to know and I think all of them had had a 180 on their feelings for the war what they had done there and you know pretty much at this point they were just being quiet about it I never told anybody that I didn't know that I was a Vietnam veteran never I mean if I people who knew that I was a Vietnam veteran well you know I couldn't very much deny it but as I met new people I never really told anybody that I didn't know no I did not I tried to avoid that is there anything else I think that pretty much covers everything that happened and everything I did I'd like to thank you for your service and also for taking the time to be interviewed today great thank you [Music] you

Channel: ccsuvhp

Views: 9,584

Rating: 4.8425198 out of 5

Keywords: Peter, Trefz, Vietnam, War, Army, Phoenix, Program, MACV, Bien Hoa, Tay Ninh Provence, Phouc Ninh District, Connecticut, Veteran

Id: Mxs-ohjPeaY

Length: 50min 51sec (3051 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 06 2017