Interview with Ronald P. Wing, a Vietnam Veteran. CCSU VHP

who enlisted I was drafted and main reason I was drafted I had two older brothers who were in the service and they had joined and they told me less is better wait and be drafted and spend two years in the army and after that did you go to boot camp or whatever was tells us that I was shipped from New Haven to Fort Dix New Jersey and spent my basic training it in New Jersey and left New Jersey and headed for Washington State so remember the date you joined the service or roughly yes it was September roughly September 1st and that was 1965 and you tell me a little bit about your experiences in boot camp I certainly can I learned to eat a lot of food that I never ate before they work you so hard and so long that you eat anything they'll put in front of you I remember that most of all other than than that just getting shaved getting your head shaved and being yelled at all the time and another piece of information my brother's told me was never to be first and never to be last always be somewhere in the middle how did they do and again how old were you when you joined I I was 19 when I was a young guy that was the first experience yes anything like first first experience of being away from home oh really yes to remember any of your instructors in boot camp none whatsoever and how did you cope getting through all of that early on as a young man I think they kept you so busy you didn't have any time to really think about anything other than than what you were doing and staying safe and after boot camp where did you head off to headed that was a story in itself because that was in New Jersey and got orders to go to Fort Lewis Washington and the army had us believing that we were going to a very cold the frigid area and Fort Lewis is in the seattle-tacoma area on the coast and climate is quite a bit milder there than it is here on the East Coast in the winter and they had us dressed in heavy overcoats and scarves and mittens and heavy boots and we got off the plane and it was warmer there than it was in New Jersey always left a vivid memory for me what was your assignment when you were in to come with oh when I got reassigned to advanced infantry training at Fort Lewis and it was with the 4th Infantry Division and and that was an eight-week stint and after that I was assigned to a Company 2nd battalion 8th Infantry and we were training they didn't tell us what we were training to go to Vietnam is that something you expected even though they didn't tell you yes we all expected it yeah and that's why the draft was so prevalent back then they took anybody who could walk or talk what were your thoughts about that as you were being assigned to an infantry unit no I I thought that at the time I thought I was doing what my country wanted me to do when I was being you know patriotic individual and and serving do you recall when you left there and where you went next after yes I was there for almost the remainder of the year and shipped out to Vietnam by troop carrier it was a ship John Pope and it was a merchant marine ship and and we were just numbers and we slept on bunks that were I always remembered it being about nine people high and my friends say on a more than any more than five but I remember being and very tight confines on this troop carrier going over to Vietnam we we've kept on being told that you're fortunate because any time you spend on the ship is time and country so you could get to go home sooner and and we ran into a typhoon along the way out in the ocean and we had the circle for three days before the typhoon passed and everybody got seasick and including me that was an experience in itself but it was another three days it wasn't in Vietnam didn't know at the time how fortunate I was but now I do had you ever been to sea before I had never been to been on a ship before no nothing new experience it was definitely a new experience and do you recall when you arrived in Vietnam on that ship yeah where it was yeah we we arrived in Queen on and of course it was a military troop carrier and and they had landing craft typical of what what we had remembered seeing and Normandy and the invasion where the landing craft troops to get on the landing craft and go to shore well we went down the rope ladders typical of what you see the you know in documentaries we got on the landing craft and we had all our gear all our combat gear including our m16 rifles but knowing ammunition and we all envision the front ramp of this troop carrier the LST coming to shore and we had no ammunition and as the ramp came down on the sandy beaches there at quaint on we looked up and there were school buses to pick us up and take us to our next transfer site and it was a shock for all of us a relief - for sure do you remember the day that you arrived there but I don't remember the date that I arrived there can you describe a little bit about your first day in country there yeah we we went as an infantry division the whole fourth division moved got a Fort Lewis Washington together and when we got there we got in these school buses of course they were OD in color they weren't yellow like a typical school bus and and they took us to another staging area where we got on two and a half ton trucks army trucks that have the canvas roofs and seats for the the troops we got on that and then we drove what seemed like hours to this open field in the middle of nowhere and that's where they told us well this is where you're setting up camp but get your pup tents out and start filling sandbags and this is gonna be our home for a while so that was there was no base there when you were lost nothing there whatsoever did you remain there for a while we stayed there until the the perimeter was secure and they had permanent tents and things that and that was going to be the original as camp Benari or the fourth Infantry Division's headquarters we didn't know it at the time but that's what it was what wasn't oh maybe two weeks or so and we get flown out on our first combat mission and you a helicopters picked us up and and of course we're we're going out into the field now and with nothing but our backpacks and maybe three days rations on our back and when our first combat assault was was quite quite an experience the helicopters flew us into toward an open grassy area and they said okay jump well unbeknownst to us we were jumping into elephant grass and although we might have been 2 feet off of the top of the grass there was another 10 feet till we hit the ground and more people were injured in that first combat assault then but by the helicopter jumps then then by enemy contact hmm it was quite an experience for sure what section of Vietnam are you are you basically in then we were in Kanto province which is the Central Highlands it's it's almost the middle of the country and and we're in a mountainous area mountains were somewhere around 1,500 to 3,000 feet tall in that area and we did a lot of humping up and down hills and most of the areas that that were named by numbers not by names they didn't even have names of the mountains do you remember your first contact if you had any I assume you saw combat echo in that area yeah I I can remember one of our platoons going out on one of the first missions and and running into the Vietcong and we dealt not only with the the Vietcong but the regular Vietnamese army and and we even saw some Chinese that were assisting the North Vietnamese troops was that how many days into your you're when you were dropped off by the helicopters was that on the same day the first day that they started doing patrols and we didn't run into large numbers it was sporadic small small numbers the North Vietnamese and we think they were on recon missions and you know we don't know what happens after that that was I was fortunate in one regard I wasn't in one of the platoons I was the executive officers radio operator so all of my work was done with him I took care of resupply of food clothing medical needs and and I did the communications with the helicopters when they came in for a resupply I would and everything was coated and we would tell them what color smoke we were throwing so they'd know they were going in the right area so being on the radio at least there was an out there as a point man and and and having to come face to face with the enemy on a you know just by a chance now another thing that wasn't so good is they had a long high antenna that was a target for them and they always looked for the antennas the snipers and in the enemy do you recall your your platoon leaders or your company commanders name by any chance yeah I do captain sprout was the company commander and the first lieutenant that I worked for was lieutenant Arnold and and I'm still in contact with Lieutenant Arnold and I visited him down in Virginia occasionally that was a fun experience another job of mine was that I was the mail clerk so anytime we got mail in the field I would distribute it to the whole company that was a rewarding time for the men to get letters from home packages was that your primary way of staying in contact with family back home that was a-sayin others no other contact except if you were at base camp every once in a while there was a ham radio operator and they would could patch it through via some electronic method and most of the time was male were you ever able to use the radio to try to communicate Homer no no no only if you were at base camp and you went to this the place that the ham radios operated and then you couldn't talk and I don't think I only did it once my old time and country which was about a year's time how frequently did you receive communication from home or the other way around we were sending letters home as well hey my mom believe it or not tried to send me a package every day but I never got them every day and sometimes never got them at all because of where we were or the mail service was not that great how did the mail get to you out in the field would be dropped from helicopters and if we were lucky enough to be at a landing zone an LZ they could land and bring us hot meals and and then they wouldn't have to drop the male sex and get damaged were there any radios you could listen to like you'd have here I am radios FM radios no none whatsoever so your only method of communication with our only communications with what was happening back home was that and the USO had a newspaper I don't remember the name of it now but we would get a newspaper but I'm sure that was slighted by the government we didn't hear everything that was going on were you ever able to experience the u.s. social like the Bob Hope show I did it was a lottery system and and I was lucky enough to get chosen to go to the Bob Hope show I was out in the field and was at a fire support base which we frequently guarded and and got picked up by a Chinook helicopter and and taken to the base camp and play Pleiku the Benari and I got to see Bob Hope nope that was a special time Martha Raye and and of course he brings an entourage of many of the young girls and that was nice too to see that that was a fun time and it was just one evening just one one evening out of the field and then right back you were mentioning food on occasion being hot rations but what did you typically survive perfectly we ate C rations which were all canned foods and and they had all different kinds of meals spiced beef and lima beans and ham and they even had bread that was canned and it was all World War two vintage it was all from 1945 time and I guess they're using it all up after we left that I think the meals got better they came out with different types of rations and we survived you know the that was certainly nutritious did you need anything from the local environment or not I did I did I did when I went to Japan which I got a chance to go to Japan for hour an hour and I was able to to eat a lot of Japanese which was nice how many months were you in country before you were able to get a bottle I was there about six months before I got to go go out and you only got to go out for one week but it was a treat because we're out in the field and then you you have to get a helicopter ride to a forward base camp where you could get on a truck or sheep and then they take you to base camp and then you get to go to the Air Force Base and then they fly you to and what the camarón Bay which was an Air Force Base and it was just gorgeous it was like being you know vacation someplace the Air Force had at me compared to the army for sure and then we flew from there to Japan and it was on a regular was the United Airlines flight a regular us a civilian plane and to see stewardesses nice round days was it was a tree that was certainly something that was different I'm sure the return trip wasn't quite as exciting oh it wasn't nearly as exciting that's for sure you knew you were going back to the same you've at the same place yeah in Japan the the Japanese thought very highly of the Americans and everywhere I went especially young kids would want my autograph which I thought was but they certainly complied it was it was neat went to Yokohama and Tokyo and and when you flew back to Vietnam then to your unit how many months did you have left and then I in country I had another six months I spent just shy of a year in Vietnam from from what I recall about half the time it was monsoon season and raining and the other half of the time was hot and dusty and very sunny all the time but being in the mountains at least at night we got some relief because it cooled off at night we had to cross rivers sometimes we had this somebody would swim across with a rope so everybody else couldn't hold on to the rope and pull themselves across the rivers and there there weren't a lot of roads where we were and a lot of our trails were all cut with machetes and and by hand one time I can remember crossing the border into Cambodia and and being on the Ho Chi Minh Trail we weren't supposed to be there we weren't supposed to talk about it but was that by plan or by accident oh no it was by plan you know we were sent there and they wanted to see how much traffic was coming from the north to the south via the Ho Chi Minh Trail and we saw places where they were using elephants to transport supplies and the elephants as they walked next to trees wouldn't take the bark right off the sides of the trees hi about ten feet up in the air and it was everybody looked at it in the beginning I wonder what the heck is that and and that's what it turned out to be went into a lot of villages of the indigenous people they call the mountain arts and in some cases we had to move an entire village because there was gonna be a b-52 bomb strike in the area because of heavy North Vietnamese troops and I can remember one time we had to even move oxen and that was a trip I had never had anything to do with large animals like that before and that was how did you accomplish it was all by leading them and a couple of guys behind it and a couple of guys pulling getting them up on to the deuce and a half trucks to ship them out and it was an experience it's probably a better way to doing it but we couldn't converse with the mountain arts that the language was different than the Vietnamese language and I've got some neat pictures and and hopefully they'll tell some of the story about you know what I saw there where the indigenous Mountain yards were they upset having to leave oh yeah they didn't want to leave anytime we went into one of these villages we only saw old men women and young kids and the end men and women we figure we're out working for the North Vietnamese and I think we don't know but we suspected that when you were can you describe a time when you might have seen in direct combat or one mission that sticks in your mind yeah one that sticks in my mind and unfortunately we had a lot of casualties one of our companies with seek company was was on a hill and at night it was getting overrun by North Vietnamese troops and a company which I was in was assigned to go give them help and it was in the middle of the night we couldn't see where we're going we could hear all the shooting and the the mortars and and all that's going on we couldn't see hardly anything where we were walking and when we got there most of see company had been killed but the the captain was still alive and and some of the other guys and we did keep them from getting overrun and we and that was the deadliest they think that I saw and the most disturbing and I remember that vividly they were they were you able to evacuate the wounded from the or are we the North Vietnamese retreated and we were able to the next morning blast an LZ and get the medevac in and and and get the wounded out and then you were you have to go back to where were you weren't we yeah we were at the time watching a fire support base and and after that we went back with the rest of the sea company and then continued on our assignments there but almost every day plutons would go off and little missions just to see what where the activity was what was going on one time we even ran into an was about eight North Vietnamese and they had maps detailed maps of the fire support base that we were watching and they figured that they were taking that information back to their battalion and we're gonna try to take us over so did you capture prisoners of war yeah we we had there's prisoners of war and most of the luckily most of them weren't alive so but we did have some and we did have an interpreter that was with us and we did have some some of the South Vietnamese Army on occasion would be with us and whenever they we would catch somebody they could talk with them try to get information out of them and that was interesting - do you recall any of the missions you'd like to talk about other than that the daily patrols and the sniper fire and and in the it's really nothing more about missions but but halfway through our campaign there we went mechanized and once we got personnel carriers it was much easier for us to get around cover a lot of ground and it was much safer and we had a much better kill ratio when we went mechanized it was much easier to overcome the enemy with the mobility can you describe one of these PC vehicles yeah personnel carrier had tracks like a bulldozer would have except they were and they had a trapdoor in the back for getting in and getting out of and they had an armored plate all around them so it took a lot to stop one um certainly a landmine would stop it but small-arms fire didn't and most of what the north vietnamese had had some rockets and landmines but for the most part we could overpower them with the vehicles and you've had a number of those oh yeah the whole company was outfitted with them nobody had to walk everybody rode after that that was a better time do you feel that was a better time it was definitely safer and we were much more effective and we thought we were doing better in the pcs for sure did you write inside the vehicle yep we did that wasn't that superhot thinner yeah but it was better being hopin to be walking with all the packs and all the equipment if you didn't have you know especially me carrying a radio on top of everything else it was easier to be in the PC and I had ventilation systems but no air conditioning but they had ventilation and and they had a big 50 caliber gun mounted on the top which was nice fire at 4:02 and those could maneuver through the jungle oh yeah describe them before a lot of the you know they'd go right through bamboo and they go up and down the hills like nobody's business they're like a bulldozer that they go across the streams and they'd even float and if you got into a river that was deeper you could still drive across them so no more swimming and no more you know and if it rained you had a shelter with you so that was nice feature can you recall how you might have passed time I mean that every day was probably filled with activity but can you recall how did you cope with every day one thing that's kind of funny is that I did get packages from home and my brother used to take a loaf of Italian bread and and he used to take the the meat part out of the bread and used to put a bottle of brandy in there and then he'd wrap it up with tinfoil and then package it nice and tightly and send me that package so that helped me cope many a night a nice bottle of brandy and and I used to bunk with in a little pup tent with a one of the medics and and he and I sometimes would get a little too jovial and we'd be told that you know shut up but that was a way of coping certainly but other than that being the executive officers radio operator once a month I'd get the opportunity to leave the field either by wheeled vehicle or by helicopter and go back to the base camp and get payroll and of course I I'd be the armed guard for the executive officer so I'd have to go with them so at least once a month I get to go back to base camp spend a night take a nice hot shower and and get clean clothes and and then go back to the field so that that was one good part about being the radio operator how did you receive pay when you're in country was it in cash or yeah it wasn't if you know you had a choice you can either have it sent home by cheque or deposited in your account or cash and most of the GIS Believe It or Not took cash and and that's how they would pass can you recall what you would spend the cash on if you were in the field core well I I think a month's pay was about 125 dollars so it spend a lot of money and I think most people send it home no they sent the cash home that was another thing mail was free we didn't have to pay for any of our mail I think we had to put our p.o box or something on the thing and it would go free so guy send a lot of mail home which was nice and photographs I mean it wasn't hey there was video cameras them but I had a camera most people didn't but I carried a camera and I took lots of pictures I came home with about 300 slides and of course some of them are good some are not so good but I've got some some nice pictures of helicopters and airplanes and some bombing and some some blasting when we were cutting L Z's and I've got some some nice pictures for memories for sure we talked about blasting for how do you how would you how to make no place for the whole numbers Boeing engineers would well when we were in the field and had to had to get evacuated our everybody carried composition for which is plastic explosives and we would use that put around the base of a tree and actually blow the tree up and it just leveled that area and and that's not only did we blow up trees and make landing zones with it we use it to heat our sea rations if you took a little piece of it and lit it it would burn very hot so in a very short time your can of spiced beef or whatever would would be nice and hot so and at night every night when we were walking you'd have to dig a foxhole and and and you'd have to put out claymore mines to protect and protect the perimeter and and you'd have listing listening posts which are just guys that are way out and they're just listening for any noises that happen they're kind of the first line of defense when they hear something they call back via radio and alert everybody else that you know you have incoming they're supposed to run back obviously before the enemy comes in the first time it happened of course we're all jittery didn't know what the heck was going on and they hear a lot of noise in the bushes and sounded like a group of people were you know coming through the woods and the bushes and and of course we hear them shooting and and they're running and they're by the time they get back they're screaming and and out from the woods comes water buffalo that was the first experience of course it's pitch black get it you can hardly see anything it didn't have the nice night-vision stuff you have today and that was pretty scary but it kind of broke the ice and settled us down into you know what was really gonna happen how are you able to identify someone coming back you're you're listening post person well strictly by radio communications and getting the word out to all the the perimeter that you had friendlies coming in and we're without the radios you'd be out of luck for sure you couldn't see it was very darkness a very dark you'd see just figures silhouettes in the dark and if you did have an enemy contact they generally pop these Flair's and it would light up the sky and then it'd be like daylight you could see what you were doing but initially it was darkened and you couldn't see anything with these techniques that you used in Vietnam something you learned back in boot camp in advanced infantry or things that you actually you know created you know they taught us all that back and in advanced infantry training and you know they prepared us for jungle warfare when we were there of course they didn't tell us that's what we were gonna do but everybody knew everybody at that time was going to Vietnam did you feel that you were prepared correctly when you arrived there no I did didn't think we had nearly enough training for what we were up up against but you learn fast I had a grandmother who lived to 107 and and she was around 102 I think when I went over and she gave me some words of wisdom and she told me to keep my head down but keep my chin up meaning keep your spirits up but don't make yourself a big target did you find you were able to keep your spirits up oh yeah I hadn't concrete that I always had a very good outlook on life and and I always tried to to make a joke of whatever hadn't happened because he had to make the best of what you were up against and can you describe some of the friendships who may have had through that camaraderie of combat when you were in countries yeah it's kind of funny because most of the the friends you make there you don't it's not the same as friends you made in school or or after you always had in the back of your mind that this friend might not be going home with you and I don't think the friendships were a long last thing they were very strong and viable while you were there because your your relied on every everybody to take care of you as well as you take care of everybody else but you always had in the back of your mind at least I did I don't know if everybody had that same feeling but where that friend might not be there and unfortunately a lot of them didn't come home I came home without a scratch which was a miracle I think I could you know you've asked earlier about you know missions and things that happen and and one just comes to mind we were being we had a sniper attack and and several several snipers were keeping our company down and we couldn't advance and we called in artillery to to assist us and maybe hit the snipers and the artillery came in on us instead of on the enemy and and won one of the one of the guys that was shot by a sniper we were carrying there were four of us carrying a stretcher he was a big guy in heavy and so four of us were carrying the stretcher and one of our artillery came in and landed right next to the four of us and two of my friends on either diagonal ends of the stretcher were hit by shrapnel man the other fella we didn't get a scratch we both lost their hearing temporarily and he totally couldn't I couldn't talk on the radio anymore I couldn't you know I couldn't talk with anybody because I couldn't hear anything but that was one of those situations where you say boy you know it just wasn't my time I just was lucky and it was luck so you know if the other two survived yeah there's the other to survive they were just trapped no wounds but they were medevacked out also once the snipers were were killed I ran away I don't remember Nick we ended up getting for North Vietnamese troops at that point we had killed and and then we were able to get medevac helicopters in and get our wounded out with the situations like that one someone left on a medevac I would assume they might not have come back to the unit usually I never saw them again so you're having new individuals come to replace yeah yeah so the unit was changing on a probation there's yeah it changed on a daily basis after after about three months I would say a lot of people got injured from not only will the right off the bat I mentioned the helicopter assault and people getting broken arms and legs and from the jump but punji stakes were deployed everywhere and you walking along a trail and guys get punchy stake in the leg and they'd be that we wouldn't see him again can you describe what that is a punji stick was a piece of bamboo sharpened very very sharp and there was always the threat that there was human feces or waste on the punji stake and if it was it could be very deadly so when it it was just a matter of fact that if somebody was wounded with a punji stake they would be evacuated and be treated as if it were treated with their if it had feces on it never saw a lot of the the booby traps and things that we did see some but not to the extent when I got home and did more reading about what was going on in Vietnam and saw the news more and so what was happening we never saw the the pits that had punji stakes in them where you could be walking along and going a hole I was there early in the campaign was you know 66 to 67 and after that I think the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese got a little bit they knew more what was going on and and how they could Wan more servicemen and so I was fortunate net regards to I was early in that campaign I never saw the Tet Offensive and never had our company really never had large people wounded and killed a little I was fortunate I think as you got closer to the time when you were ready to leave did the feeling has changed where you were you sensing you're close to getting o as there's no question about it I was lucky in that regards to but everybody carried what they called a short-timer stick and it had notches on it and you'd not the the days that that you had to leave the country but I was back at base camp matter of fact there was there with the lieutenant and in doing my job the mail and and getting pay and I was good friends with the company clerk and the company clerk came up to me and says hey you want to go home today and I says but I got 14 more days if you know he says well somebody was killed and there's a seat vacant on the plane and he says I can change the paperwork get your name in there and get you out of here and then and all they had to do was get two officers to sign and and that was not difficult I had been working for the officers and they were happy to see that I could leave and they signed my papers and I got on a plane and left was were there any mixed emotions with that was kind of sudden no mixed emotions whatsoever over you know at that point after being wet and cold and and hot and dry I was ready to leave and coming home did you think why did where did you play off through a military plane and it was a c-141 transport and we flew to Clark in the Philippines and then they flew us to Oakland California and believe me I don't know if I went into San Francisco or Oakland but I think it was Oakland I know I mustered out of Oakland and then you recall that homecoming when you first arrived back they feel like and they they told us it'd be a good idea to get out of your military uniform as soon as possible that there were a lot of protesters against the war and if you were a military uniform you might be targeted and how did you feel about them and and I couldn't believe it it was a rude awakening we had no idea of the dissension here in the United States or here at home about the war and and it definitely it was there were mixed emotions they just couldn't believe what was going on but later on I learned more and more the reasons why and you can kind of understand but still when we came home we thought we were going to be treated like like the end of World War two and with fanfare and they and that never happened we saw the protesters and we we were even spit upon coming off but it didn't take us long to get our uniforms off and become civilians again did you have to travel home from the West Coast I did I flew out of San Francisco back to get back in Connecticut it wasn't narrowly as bad as San Francisco and I think the first thing I wanted wanted when I came back was a nice ice-cream cone it's one thing that that didn't get much of when I was there in Vietnam and it's just driving in the driveway and seeing the trees and the flowers and the you know just just being home was a big relief I certainly wouldn't wish war on anybody with your family there to greet you I assume oh yeah they met me at the airport and drove me home of course they took me to an ice cream shop first day if you reflect on it now from at the age where now do you think that the experience of being in Vietnam for that year changed your way of thinking or the way you feel about things no I don't I don't think it changed the person who I am I think I'm the same person going in as coming out of the army it certainly made me more respect to all the servicemen the people that are serving this country and it's been an advocate for veterans and since then and certainly won't let happen to the people who are fighting for us now in Afghanistan and and overseas that happen to the Vietnam vets when we came home but I don't think I'm a different person because of it my family background and and support I think we're beneficial and molding me well can you think of anything else you'd like to add to their recording before we stop for no I think like I pretty much said enough okay well then in closing if I could thank you for your service from a personal level you're welcome okay thank you and welcome home

Channel: ccsuvhp

Views: 2,133

Rating: 4.826087 out of 5

Keywords: Wing, Ronald History CCSU VHP, Veteran (Profession), Vietnam Veteran (Literature Subject), War (Quotation Subject), Interview

Id: 4ecPNuqZdtw

Length: 48min 7sec (2887 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 07 2013