Interview with William J Moser, Vietnam War veteran. CCSU Veterans Hsitory Project

which range of service the United States Marine was a corporal before can you tell me which general locations located in Vietnam were in general in the United States I went to boot camp to Parris Island after that went to after training and Camp Lejeune was deployed to go to Vietnam went to Camp Pendleton but there I was put on hold and ended up going to language school to learn Vietnamese in Monterey California to Defense Language Institute I was there until such time that I graduated and it might weigh to be enough and then in Vietnam I was a third Marine Division third Reconnaissance Battalion located quaint read province in northern I Corps on the DMZ can you tell me how you the service when you grabbed good as a journalist I enlisted from as early as I could remember I remember I was going to be a marine and grew up on that post World War two the day my father was at war too bad you had been in the Army you know but I was always very felt that I needed to serve and I wanted to do it as a Marine wasn't too many John Wayne movies I don't know I just always grumpy as long as I can remember I I think it's my oldest brother some of his friends had been Marines and I just wanted to be part of the best I in Ossining New York was just a can you recall the day you enlisted I went in on February 21st 1968 so once you enlisted did you join mmediately yes parasite of the war was your training what did they teach you what was it like we learned to become a basic Marine was therefore a rock at that time boot camp was like eight weeks or whatever like nine weeks we performing it was very intense to say the least but there are things that I learned there that I guess it's that young age you they can stick with you for the rest I had I had friends a friend who had just returned from Vietnam actually got discharged with Marines who tried to talk me out of it up until the night before I left and he and finding said well if you gotta go these are the things you need to remember and know and when the first drill instructor got on the bus and told us we had 20 seconds to get off if you have any cigarettes put them out any built swallowing you have 20 seconds we get off in five we got everything my friend told me kind of what you got left of a seat in the bus yes I see your drill instructor with staff sergeants to Joe the assistants were sergeant McKinney sergeant Horvitz and near the end we got somebody else sergeant Porter Fitz oh they were all my I guess I because I went to the Catholic Grammar School on high school Saha is used to subjective rigid discipline you know I used to because yeah it was a lot of testing going on not just physically but a lot of things you have learned so I would just so whenever you weren't doing something you had your guidebook to study so I would just trying to commit it to memory and then just district about some of the things that they had said to us and you know like what does that really be if you've ever seen a movie full metal jacket the first like 45 minutes is movie boot camp that is pretty much what it was like except that it was for 16 hours a day every day yes yes my parents came my sister came who is a former Marine herself and her husband in case that was pretty good then because I was infantry I went to camp Lee shoot for advanced infantry training for another eight weeks or so that was less less stress just more training to order your new profession now being in for treatment and yeah dad then he was still had that bootcamp mentality you know not living in fear but just always on the edge but it started becoming the the your NCOs that were in charge weren't the same as drill instructors they wouldn't offend these just talk to you they didn't have to constantly dig in attention and came home I leave for 20 days I guess it was and on July 11th 1968 I love for Camp Pendleton they're going to staging out there to get deployed to Vietnam and then once I arrived there going through staging which was if you were with all your buddies from boot camp it didn't work out well because you just were online and when you got up to the desk they just took your records and it was either first division 3rd dimension 1st division 3rd division 1st division 3rd division night that may be so if you were all alive you ended up going to different divisions for the most part but at that time I was also pulled aside to go to language school in Monterey California I kissed a klutz though because well yeah in high school I did French but that has nothing to do with Vietnamese but in the testing that you took while you were in boot camp there wasn't tests that they gave you of made-up language remember and you had to you know form sentences read you know basically paragraph work so I guess I did well in that and so I was on hold near Pendleton per month or so until they had enough people that were coming through the process that they kept pulling people in and then in August we do I think like 53 or 56 of us we finally went to Monterey California and in the language school was a it was run by the army but it everybody was there was Army Navy Air Force and Marines but the Marines we were just the 50s we were a small group yes we took a short course which was like I think was 12 weeks so was from when you got a class at 8 o'clock or so in the morning and so forth but you have to do that as a tease you were addressed in Vietnamese and spoke Vietnamese eroded all this yeah they had one of our courses there but again they were just trying to push people Paul you had elected you know first you did learn to read right when I was in school I could read and write fairly well but I didn't speak that well then I went to Vietnam country at all I went one time to be an interpreter and a village with one of my friends who had been in a class after me and everyone there that we needed to deal with in speaking well then for a while while in Vietnam I did go I was on a temporary assignment in Danang and at that point I got to deal with more civilians so I would practice with the house girls or whatever the people that worked on the base and so then I could I could speak better but then I lost my completely Areva right because they just wasn't doing well I did have a break one eye just before graduation I broke my ankle so I ended up being on hold for a little while there and then I went to the reed barracks at Treasure Island San Francisco and I was an outpatient at the Oakland Naval Hospital but then from there directly to be about site number came along with that where did you want land in Vietnam in demand your first impression well we left because the flight went from California to Okinawa we were there about it there so there not to be a bother we've left like I don't know three o'clock in the morning and when the pilot said you know we're now over you know we're approaching tonight you know I'm really expected to look out the window and a plane and see nothing but you know flares and stars and person bombs and went down and there were street lights it was traffic because it was a city you know but then what we we landed the airport and they put aside cattle cars to take us to go get processed and we had to go a distance and now it was like seven o'clock in the morning and all of a sudden it was like being in a movie because every you know there was just thousands of people on the street you know with the pointy hats and carrying things on that stick over their shoulder and a different smell smell a smoke and incense and feeling that it was missing was a soundtrack you know it was just like wow a beer and it was hot I actually I got there I finally got there March yeah March is 16 oh no February 69 anywhere yeah once well while I was in the and the Marine Barracks most of the people that were in the barracks there were transients waiting to get discharged visit for medical reasons because they I got wounded in Vietnam and I made friends with a couple of them of one in particular had been written was a recovery so he told me look you're grot your infantry MOS when you get to vietnam you're gonna get there there's going to be a desk and you can go volunteer to be in recon and he said that's do that he said go there he goes people tell you what's no good because reconnaissance that you go with six-man team out into the jungle or whatever and he said it's much better because it's harder to find 60s that if you just go in the infantry you're probably gonna end up in the 9th Marines and they just die and you know the grunts are out there 100 of time everybody knows where they are said you go to recon it's much better meanwhile he would he was too strong so on doing on the flight over I ran into this friend somebody I had become friends with when I was a Holden language school and so I told him hey look when we get there this is what we got to do did I talk to this guy this is a straight school we're gonna volunteer for recon so he's like hey okay so we get there and they took it they kleban everybody's record books and where's this desk that we can go until there is no desk they just took everybody's records and now they came back and they just started in alphabetical order calling out your name and it was you know if you were infantry it would go on a ninth Lawrence 914 4th Marines 3rd Marine sniper knife briefs because they did teach replacements and they were going working away down and then they get to my friend whose name have to be Mo's MOS key so he was right in front of me and they said third recon we wanted nobody else's so all of a sudden he got it and he was like wow and I'm like yeah what are the odds they called my name next and I was third recon - so we were like giddy happy and then we got our water you know they gave us back our waters and told us we needed to get transfer station to dock where to go in the airport to get it and we went there and we were so proud we had a hunter state side utility so everybody knew we just got there and of course we're waiting at the airport to catch this plane and everybody else there is all that we are you know faded out utilities cabins and of course they were all like hey Nick where you going oh we're gonna third redone Jared Rica what are you kidding me I see them bring those guys back out of steak you know and this they start you up to all these horror stories so after a while we're not quite as vocal about where we were going and it is a little emotional just what long a sudden this guy comes up to us kind of little guy he's gone yeah you know just camouflage utilities up he's got like a camouflage neckerchief in sunglasses that he comes up and he goes hang Nick's where you going so we're not quite a different whatever gonna third rebound goes on the dirty cop you're going the right place so we felt a little better and then he just disappeared so well we finally get up to there you know you'll off the plane up there and they're gonna have to take us to climb tree which is out five six miles away and the truck driver says you know we don't normally take fire but if we do it just make sure you get down and someone finally we got to our battalion and we checked in and I just thought innocent because it's so memorable we had need and it was like maybe two o'clock and you have to do so they said yo and B so I said I'll say so okay go over to the chow hall come to give you something to eat and they made this peanut butter and jelly and it's big fat bread but it was really good anyway because all just keeps going on we got assigned to a company of both of us to the same company and well we would over there we were checking in and so they said okay go get some the go get corporal Mandy to take them around and draw their equipment and stuff and lo and behold it's together we've met in demand so anyway he took us around and you know you look back into being such an ass now like we will into the armor to get our rifles and they gave you a rifle and they gave y'all magazines you know your magazines and everything for it and I didn't say anything until we got outside and said you know there's bullets in these magazines because up to that point when you were boot camp or anywhere any ammunition was accounted for you had you know if they gave you ten rounds to fire that you had to bring back ten shell casings you had never allowed that view yeah it just never had it and now all of a sudden they're giving me all these magazines with 20 rounds of m16 and any initiative and it's like what do you think you are he goes this is the hit he goes every place you point that rifle is down ranged now not like before you know but he wasn't it was just like being kind about it like you know it wasn't you know like you're a total idiot it's like duty the word he was from Bronx and he was pretty cool guy named George Randy Randy yes LAN di and that I'm getting killed sometime in June 69 we ended up in different teams we were in today he was in the first foot till I was in third place home so but we got you know what we were back we got to still socialize and stuff but then it was recon you're you're a team the infant just be a squad customs a team so tell me is the description of what a recon team consists of what you do initiative we would go out usually between six and eight man teams and we would be inserted out in the jungle and our main mission was to go out there and try and find gather intelligence find North Vietnamese army groups bunker complex whatever and you know we'd be out for like a week and we would report on whatever we found no but we're constantly feeding information back on the radio so we would they would give us a RC a reconnaissance up of like about four square kilometers and we would work our way through that area toward the week to to see whatever we could find hello normally the patrols were supposed to less like about a week five or six days then you come back and you get a couple of days off and then go back out again sometimes they lasted a day because we get out there we end up getting in contact or something the recon mission was compromised as don't be supposed to know you're there so if they normally if they knew you were there we yeah that would take us back out or if we got shot out sometimes I mean there were times when we were out we were compromised they know we were there so we just feel like we better work you know we we didn't run it but we relocated to somewhere until we could get ya know so yes other the recon mission some of the other ones it wasn't particularly mighty we did help out another team they used to go out plant these listening to mice electronic devices up on the DMZ that couldn't kind of count people walking by and that was a lot of equipment that they had a break so one time I went with them to to help to be security for them [Music] over the course of time probably about ten because some people can some people left so I guess the other thing to go back to the team is that because your family what a figure with your together all the time so even people that don't you know you may not get along and not really careful it's still part of your it's like having that uncle - right it's like in on this little part of the family so you become very down together and then last and you know for some you know some people you had less kind of you know you were better buddies with but it was still part of that yeah well sometimes you did sometimes she did you know there'll be other things I went to school while I was there to learn some other things about demolitions whatever but my actually is my very first patrol and we the team I ended up in my team leaders name was Bob scheindela he was a corporal and he had been there for close to 18 months he had been there done a tour and then signed up for extended another six-month tour and he had brought a lot here in my life think like 48 controls something like that which is really a lot and he had a different attitude than a lot of the other people here so he took his dick because he got me as a new guy and another guy came a couple of days later and he treated us like equals right off the bat it wasn't that you know you're doing it was just you're part of the team now so that since there were people like that attitude than all you do so you know and so we did some more training before I got to go out and then finally we got we had enough guys for a full team we got our marching orders to go out and so the night before because we were going to the A Shau Valley which a lot of people have to know that name does a lot of things happen there you know and he was one of them so like you guys gonna get your cherry bust on this because it's a bad place okay we're Marines so we went out I could give you the funny part first what we got inserted we would use our vo Huey helicopters leg so you could have half the team on one hefty month oh so the senior guys got the sit into doors with their legs hanging out but it I saw the guy we had to sit in the middle because we know so anyway we we get to were there where we're landing but the helicopters couldn't sit down because the elephant grass was probably like 10 feet high so it kind of matted it down with the wash so the first guys are the door big jumped off well I didn't he'll not have an ammunition that helicopter that lost a lot of weight so it went up up so I'll in until you know the helicopters leave the grass goes back up come on Joe ice I can't get up and they're like because they know and I had a broken ankle is your ankle no it's the weight I can't you know because we carry nano food and water and ammunition everything diminished your weeks I have a hood crap on my back so they love those but anyway on the first patrol my initial thing my first night was we would have two men on watch and the it was my first time on watch and you're in the jungle it's totally pitch black except for this little rotting stuff on the floor that kind of flows like you know fire flying kind of thing you see all these little white spots so I'm sitting here listening and all of us that we had with us at Kit Carson Scout it was a Vietnamese basically soldier who worked with us and all of a sudden I feel this hand it was like an avenue Costello and it was to you oh I just want to make sure you're awake don't worry probably so anyway bed but then we went on with the Patrol we were right on the Laotian border and we came across this bunker complex and we were trying to get a fire mission artillery to to blow it up and Bob was it was good about that you know especially for whatever reason we kind of bonded right off the bat or they didn't be able to go again he kept bringing me up to date on what was going on because we set up plugging the 360 was spread out a little bit the jungle area about the size of this room and we were trying to get this fire mission but they kept cutting it off and putting it off so we were sitting there for like hour and a half two hours and they go over there and the first guy that got taken out was Bob so that was that was kind of dramatic you know the does everybody everybody start you know opened up we didn't even go to Elgar shoot map we just knew that it came from there no he was the only one but the so I went to him and making a rookie mistake just bending over somebody else it was featured was like no no no get him out of here which is obvious because obviously somebody shot at you where he was so I dragged him but he was unfortunately there was you know he was dead already so we had to get out of there and this mountain that we had gone down the side of which probably the night before we had been down there my backup probably took it's like 45 minutes to get back to the top we did it like right seems like we did in about five minutes but I ended up weird and dumped it all our gear except for our rifles that I had done up my carriage and back up carried drags with it to get back up so we could get helicopters to get out and get that adrenaline gone got out of there because the other guys we've got one walking the other team members has got red oaks mom he stayed with me as my security I was carrying the other guys will have to try and secure a place that we could get out of there so they finally got in and got us out and you know we don't pile with one helicopter this side but you know we landed back at Van de Graaff combat base which was bad fire bases so larger than others it had kind of replaced caisson and you know they just came we got off the helicopter to Carmen came with a body bag and a stretcher they just pulled up off the helicopter put him in a body bag I've got 100 155 casing full of water just do should be through the helicopter and watch the blood away that was it and you know we went down to our to do assistant team leader one of the other guys they went to get debriefs and the rest of us went to down to the cells needed can L look out the back door copped out you know it was very moving I mean we were crying and you know because recon marine is like the pinnacle of success is very close and we won camouflaged up at that and all these other guys are the Marines they just hate to get emotional they just came you know they came to me they gave us their condolences you know we were just a bunch of kids yeah and stuck with me all these years you know so we finally got back thar compounded by the time we got back they had already removed all his stuff from the hooch yards probably a good thing but as everybody was stunned because he had been here a long time everybody knew he was really well-liked respected so then no we had a there was one other guy it was he yeah it was yeah I was definitely impactive I don't think but anything else like the monotony of the site and we got a new team leader within a week somebody else and didn't just started running more patrols but I mean we had patrols that were we were nowhere but we're out for we could read every day and why wonder then you know things we'd be out imited rain and guys and open up their packs they got their poncho of something but that's one guy to team red oaks that we called him mom because he took care of everybody he would never do it he would just stand there and get wet but that I learned real quickly that it was because when it stopped raining we went to move out again take that poncho of you walk ten feet through the jungle you're soaking wet and now your Poncho's wet so at night because what we set up at night we just basically like more deer or something we just laid on the ground let's sleep I mean I've slept in the rain with a poncho wrapped around me but just laying on the ground there's you know we didn't dig any holes or anything like that so you would just see look like an animal out there because nobody's supposed to know you're there so you can't disturb them so yeah so mom was smart at least his stuff like everybody wanted to go to sleep he can wrap up and it was still dry you know but anyway we weren't about like rained all week long the radios were at work and we had to walk back normally helicopters to come and get us but this time we have a walk to a damn radio relays on tops of mouse so we had to walk back to this place and in the process of doing killing day we had to get down to Southern got a mountain and it was really slippery and one of the idiots who was had been there a while but had looked down upon do guys he he fell except his rifle dug into the ground so he kind of like launched like a little pawel past everybody on the way back which we don't I thought was funny but I don't cuz we're gonna clock out there didn't laugh but we got a blue Honda down and my team leader now is this like fight biker type guys stock Ian Meade and he was walking point and he slipped and fell and I was behind him but he looked at me and I just you know I started laughing and he he you know you're give me the finger and then he just pushed it off and he slid all the way down the hill a bit because we only had to go like from here to over there and we felt kind of safe it's something we all did you know there was like sure this will slip and slide kind of thing everybody's like hey can we go back up do it again you know so it wasn't always bad times out there we had we were set up in a place and we got movement and we all I got I got on the radio and told him that somebody got mad when we come towards us we all got ready and lo and behold it was a rock it was an eight little gun he was coming through the trees came and he stayed with us for a couple hours but he which then that was a good sign is that we doing nobody else was alright because even though we were supposed to be finding stuff sometimes your mind but yeah like when you're on watch at night with a starlight scope you know and your cookie because now you can see in the dark and your brain you don't see any second I think it total is 17 because while I was there I went on a temporary assignment and then in 1969 President Nixon part and deemed him to say we're thermal reader vision was part of the first withdrawal because they have been there longest so what did they pull you off duty to do part me what was your what did what else to do when you were there well I went down to Danang to be basically an MP and in-country Lauren are such the real China Beach not kind of quite as quaint as the TV show but it was very nice why did they pull you in Fe the battalion had gotten a requisition for to send one person down there and my company at the time was the top company so we got the first priority and in the company I was pretty much the top person that met the requirements of rank and everything else and I didn't want to go because again I didn't want to leave the team but my team leader with men there for him you know he was gonna rotate in a couple of months anyway yeah he talked to me he says all right actually wasn't a my team leader anymore nuisance he next door he said don't feel that way because they had split our team love because to mix it put two other teams and some new people so there was experience and he's like look we've already gotten split up once you know himself and like three the other guys they were wanting to rotate so he goes well it'll be the same anyway you know go he said this is an opportunity get out of here I kicked your head you know okay so I went down to de nag to the in-country of R&R Center China Beach wasn't gonna mind group down there there were representatives from all branches of the service and at the time when I had enlisted in the Marines I had talked to one of my friends we'll work it did listed with me on a buddy plan last time I saw it was booked because he hunted his MOS was to be an office worker I was a grunt and so after boot camp we went our separate ways but he was stationed in the net and actually where I had to go to bring my record books of this marine compound is where he works so I got the one couple with him again for a while we got into rap again what China Beach was like I mean it went there he's driving down the road and you went over this crest whole side it was the South China Sea it's beautiful white Beach they're having people who were they on their own tour then we had lifeguards where that was what they did in Vietnam there were no life relies on a beach house so there it was it was interesting because out of all the people that were working there myself and as one of the guy Nelson if he was from 101st airborne we're the only two that it actually fought the war and we thought these other guys were a bunch idiots because they had you know they were complaining about stuff it's like I mean when I came down that first night and was able to get cold milk it was like wow and silverware we went to a mess along the edge and silverware I used to have a can you know and so this is like blue you know so we were there and he that's where I got to use war my vietnamese they would put me on the front gate a lot so i can deal with the civilians and I guess I talked to them because we had house code a lot of people have worked on the base so I would try and talk with them really like two months so what would you do control we had we had this compound on the beach we're in the middle of the shore of Danang I mean on one side was just a village you know the suburbs a day and on the other side it was a Korean Marine RNR Center on the other water but we had guard posts around this and you know one of them you looked at some Philips Electronics was a was a factory he you know I mean it was like it was sending like mean of the world again yeah it was just uh yeah we we would work like you know six to six to twelve twelve to sit you know they have like six hour shifts LC worked out Duty bit because it was a beach and it was an R&R Center so guys were constantly coming there on R&R so they'd be there for three or four days then they believe and then another group would cut so most of any work that you do is because guys would be there and get drunk or something like that or you know I thought guys smoking pot on the beach and who's easy to sneak up on which was stupid on my part and they were like so apparently I was like yeah you just can't do it here you could tell me I'm not gonna arrest you after this you know it's like I mean I grew up in the sixties I had smoked a lot before I went to Vietnam before I joined the Marines you know that's like I'm not gonna put these guys in jail first you know give me a break the only time when I had to arrest somebody was because it was a deserter there that somebody recognized to have been what was there on R&R and said hey I was just down and I saw this guy and he he was an army guy and he had deserted like a month or two ago so he wasn't point him out and adding arrests that's funny time I ever did anything military police lives well while I was there a couple of friends from recon came down and they came to visit me and we ended up getting in trouble in the city of the Nang got arrested yeah exactly my being an MP didn't help so then I was disciplined and sent back north to my unit but at that time we had already started to stand down because they were gonna rotate back to the states and my company a skeleton crew Levin had already left signed it up just being in the headquarters company and I became my commanding officers driver because we had stolen a truck into that and after that he when I came back he goes oh what would you like to do I so hope you don't do your truck driver he's like no but I'm thinking like my driver ever and so that was my adventure they're saying we were there backed up thought and like I said it was starting for us was starting to whine now and then the Thanksgiving of 1969 we wrote we wouldn't last once the less third Marine Division to leave and we sailed to Okinawa and spent the rest of my time there yeah which now is all of a sudden totally different because it basically meant boot camp you know language school where you just hooked on the school every day but you have to be a square with Murray to Vietnam you know not have to shine your shoes or anything and now all the sudden we went back over on a base that had to be starched would work I was still a driver for my my co and ya company this for a while because are we in here he said just over two months yes and then I get separated you it's California bill did you earn any medals or citations just Combat Action Ribbon for me to combat for a Marine that's the same as a combat infantry badge for other than potentially exposure to Agent Orange no I mean I did with nothing that nothing to write home about or that I would clean to Rome yeah I used to write you know I probably wrote the whole probably every day that I could when you're out in the bush you can't but you know what I was back because yeah I know I still owe you know you won't be hearing from me for a while because we got to go out no and I've always played it down though and then you know when I got back then I would write again even if it was we got shot out that day came back at right then I thought how well they posted or something cause I didn't want them to worry oh yeah you could get a surprising you could probably get a letter faster to their that you'd do some places today you know if if my parents went mother wrote the mail did today I probably haven't by Sunday or Monday you know it wasn't that long to take this kind of pride are you there so that was good and then once when I was in Danang had his think Mars qual so that you could call I got a radio kind of thing it was hard to get I did you know of course I'm doing it until uh kitty afternoon over there it's two o'clock in the morning here you know so my mother you can be on that phone ringing in almost preferred eating out of it can I am a lot of the things for some reason I always like them did they accept the ham and eggs chopped you used to be one of my favorites but I had eaten it today Bob got killed so I'd never even again after that it just didn't taste the same Boies to have ham and lima beans well that's so much over there they kind of started getting rid of them they were like leftover from Korea suppose and nobody liked them but I like my movie so I did so I could always trade and get that and then have them that they have you know if somebody had it I said well I'll give you this but you got to get me like you know peaches pound cake or something like that along with it to take it so that was always good when we were back in our compound we had a mess hall but you know at lunch time it was pretty much like slice spam kind of thanks which was sweating from the heat and you know food was just okay I mean I eat I'd have to say I don't even remember it's like it could have been that big a deal except on the Marine Corps Birthday we had turkey and shrimp and data it wasn't big Medicaid so that's a big deal yeah I mean you we were out on the red on the Laotian border like the line was painted in some we're monitoring this trail bringing stuff in the Vietnam and we were sitting in a bushes like like where I am and maybe to that air-conditioned behind you there people were walking by you know so that's kind of like nothing when you're a kid playing hide-and-seek you know and the first time we were sitting there and we were like sitting back to back it was just two of us the rest of the team was away because we were awkward being out there we expound these like clump of bushes kind of think the hide and so this guy he was sitting behind me and he was watching the trail that way and I was watching it the other way and still remember exactly what it looked like it was got a low grass and it went down and in my view probably maybe 200 feet away and then it dropped down the side of the mountain so we were sitting there he's watching watches what kind of whispered to each other you know when I get home I'm gonna go buy a birthday cake I'm like I'm gonna just line don't like it's somebody's birthday just so I get out you know layer cake you know kind of thing you talk about stupid stuff thinking that you don't have work we're going to get a Corvette and then all of a sudden I see these two bushes and again was that a Picasso moment and he's two guys game during NBA you know and they didn't know we were there so they were just like walking along side by side yakking away you know we just let them go by you know observed everything about their uniform look out weapons everything like that reported back so we would ever like a week of doing that you know we kept returning to be here it is and yeah yeah they didn't know we were there that was our job I was and we were marine so we have anything to be afraid of but you know I probably do even because that wasn't stress it was stressful but it was like we still you know I felt like we were in control you know that we had the advantage because we knew they were there if we had a fight and we weren't that wasn't our intention to the wine I put it over here and actually is the last patrol I ran we it was the last night of the patrol we were going to get extracted the next morning and we had gone pretty much the beginning of the patrol we had found a lot of some bunkers cans and stuff but that is it went on we found less and less we didn't have any more contact so we we got a little slack and we did probably some things that contributed to our wealth being in a bad position but I know what we would do at night what we would set up we would go and find a place where we kind of set up and we would know that's gonna be our Harborside is gonna be right here but we would do what they can go and make believe we were in another one staying there for a little while and then just get up and leave and then go to our final place they said you listen make sure that spot so we set up and we were on the edge of the stream line half the team was at the tree line and part of the team was in the elephant kress and also the week you know we had movement around us and then it came with with with searchlights and that was probably the scariest time of my life probably still to this day because they did online sweeps and fortunately they walked by right there and you walk by right there getting real small on the ground and David shine the one time they shined a light right on myself and this other guy and I don't know how they didn't see it I mean we're there I'll beat them to life is on it's plenty I'm here at the edge of the jungle to well maybe maybe they don't want to see this either and so we finally we called in because whenever because like a recon unit y'all are just a couple of guys so they they give you a lot of protection and they always know where we were and they went it was called a polar plot they would set at night they'd set artillery pretty position around you so if you had a colon in they would start firing it from like five hundred yards out and then you would adjust it so that was in place he always had the ability to get airstrikes if you need them so we called into artillery and but we had a colon in on top of this and the first rounds took out the floodlight at the searchlight I don't know if they got it before they just turned them off but that ended them and when we hadn't bring it in on top of it so it was like a lot of shrapnel flying over our heads and I know they fired because I had the radio and the next morning who did get out of there without a scratch the other day we had fired over 200 rounds of ours because we had to be any losers constant and then we would do it like every five minutes and every ten minutes you know until finally you know we we didn't and they know that soon as the Sun came up to be helicopters out there in a coma and sure enough the other was but by the day they had withdrawn oh yeah they were looking for us yeah and it's good we've got a slack we probably were noisy and stuff like cuz we just do that yeah there's nothing happened it was like you know you can't do that that was so that yeah but very very scary time you know because that was it you know they can really only time because you had a lot of time to think you know I mean you got it all you you know you don't want to fire your rifles you got here in grenades out there you got your knife all of this you thinking that you know this is it I'm never going home and we're going to see my family again did switched well you know sometimes somebody survives or Hey well Marines a pal you know doesn't mean you know no no who's in there we didn't so we got out of there but ya know that that was probably the scariest time I had one of my best friends growing up his father gave me the night before I went in Tabriz he may be a silver dollar and a silver lighter which I lost somewhere with a silver dollar actually made two tours of Vietnam with me and was one of my buddies so excited my pocket because I always figured that would be maybe it'll stop a bullet or something you know but yeah that does pretty much it fingers I saw this old valve yeah my friend I gave it to him when he went to Vietnam he came back and get the back to me and and the st. Christopher medal my other friend's mother gave me the darién left you know I never taking about that's even though st. Christopher's not a saint anymore well we were back in in our compound we would get some time to get USO shows we'd come mostly you know Korean or Filipinos sometimes you'd get Americans once in a while Australia we have a movie everyone got to watch The Sound of Music with flares in the background and in pre-visit we read we had our own compound we climb tree combat base which was a pretty big base if you could go over to the main side which wasn't always easy they always have movies like every night that a px there you know you could yeah like I mean in our huge we had electricity we had a refrigerator so we could have soda and stuff you know we came back they cool it which I make it jello but it just wasn't hard enough you know I was scheduled to go on are hard but I I put it all off and when it came time to do one do it all I just I never got to go anywhere so what's your opinion of the officers ah they were all I didn't go anywhere with them and you know my you know one although we were pretty much on our own so we didn't we didn't rely on you know actual officers tell us about to in fact an recon team you're gonna have a corporal would be the team leader and we even had one time we took our platoon commander who was a second lieutenant with us and he was like for the down the line of chain of command because it was the team leader this is the team lead even our corpsman was that it because of experience but he didn't look young he could suggest something but when you win the team the team leader was the man well my for most of my time in Vietnam my commanding officer it was a captain and he he had been as an enlisted man at one time worked his way up and he was he was a pretty piece of guy and my platoon commanders were both tied together once and they were both really people that you would you know inspire you to do whatever get you to be done well like I said to some people personality-wise you may not like them but everybody always worked together never well I can say 99% or if we had 10 guys of you guys would be 90% I would always feel that I could depend on you know one person maybe not but another issue and in time but then we came back as well came back at different times and it you just you know some people I said what I kept in touch with me afterwards and then in 1980 they had the the parade in New York City Anderson's 1980 and and that I met a number I didn't mean anybody that I had but I didn't think one guy was in my company there by then all these other Recon Marines and we had all been in different companies different times whatever but we've formed a friendship and we've kept in touch ever since then in the mid age a couple of guys from third recon they started an association and I guess it was 1986 we got our first reunion in Hilton Head and then the course of the war I think it was like 2,800 guys served a third recon and they had been able to contact like 1700 and out of that 2800 like 300 got killed you know somehow I got a twinkle so they got a big chunk of the town they were able to contact and at the reunion we probably had close to a thousand guys so I saw guys I hadn't seen in like 20 years and it was like it was 20 days you know some people were exactly it is most are exactly the same you know if they were cool there they're so cool at every jerk it's smell our you know and and it was great and in fact one of the guys from my company as well another friend of mine was in his team and I said hey you know what whatever happened at Terry King and he's like oh he's still in the Marines yeah he stayed so I said oh yeah he goes I goes I talk to him every now and then so I don't know six months later my phone rings one Saturday night I answer it like build soon as I heard the voice he's like it's Terry I just got attacked I was deployed to Japan you know he was looking for me with 20 years you know but that when he ended up when he retired from the great glory invited me I went out to camp Mountain for his retirement some other guys from recon which his Marines thought that was wonderful that we would still have that kind of bomb yeah so there's that kind of thing and just oh maybe back in the fall just got it was my team leader I had see him at the Reunion and you know we talked and we kept in touch a little bit after that but then we did so through the association I sent a note outside hey you know anybody Larry sorry is so something sent me his phone number so I called a lot I was stuck in traffic coming over from Manhattan it go up sis house his wife answered he got on the phone you know and I told him I said hey married bill Moser and it was like silence I said you know like Vietnam and he goes I know what's wrong it was like what do you need nothing I'm just calling you but it's still that kind of thing then and he was one of them and I don't know I never really we didn't keep in touch because I always looked up there you know yeah yeah we now know we're talking at least once a month you know I listen West Virginia now and we're going to hook up I have to go to math down Maryland he's gonna need me you know but he's another guy he's a guy that's exactly the same I have I need to go back to my friend Bob getting killed but I guess I do that right this second well Bob got killed he got killed on April 11 1968 and I think I said it's it's something that's still with me today but for the longest times I you know if a day went by that I didn't think about him I felt guilty you know and think about a dream about Vietnam like almost every night I don't he's bad but it was just always there it just wouldn't go away and then one Sunday or an article like in the Nicole a section of paper and somebody just was back in yeah and guess what Becca needs wrote an article about you know how like when people got killed you know what happened to it you never knew what happened that's what happened Bob they took him off to lockup never saw him again it was no weight or anything so they they told you how you could go about trying to track somebody's family down so this was pre-internet so I went and I got the book from the wall because I know there it was everybody and where they came from so I looked nothing like that I had been to the wall already but I got the book and looked him up in there and so I had Hartford Connecticut he was he was from he was more high up I know he was a lot but the things that are for Connecticut so I got ahold of the Hartford card talk to somebody Eric told her what I was trying to do like help I'm being so what it was is because on the wall didn't hear or address there is where you enlisted from not necessarily where you lived so when he got killed it was in the marver car because it actually his father lived somewhere in Connecticut I didn't know at the time that they were with force but so he had enlisted here so the guy from the Harford guard he read me the whole obituary which gave him his name in a funeral home in Ohio go there got the guy Oh Bobby Shinedown yeah I handled him you know like he do - oh yeah - I Dells they look around the road but they moved you know a few years ago you know I told him what I was trying to do and you know he told me where he was buried this stuff so I ended up taking out an advertisement in the local newspaper saying I was looking for his family and it was on the last day of the ad I got a call and it was one of his brothers it was maybe CB was over there at the same time it was live in Georgia now you know anything he was a little suspicious you know like what do you want oh yeah and that I told them and then eventually I was on a business trip to Atlanta and we met and we've stayed friends so it was good for him because he got to find out what happened and it was good for me and all of a sudden it was like weeks later was like wow I haven't thought about him and I haven't had any dreams so at the time I was going for some counseling you know and the doctor said yeah I was like you find you turn to page you know you find he had that itch he put it aside so his brother Dan we still keep in touch and in fact he just a few years ago he attained the Navy or at least the reserves and he retired I kind of invited that retirement says yeah so that was good but so every year on April 11th to our Association how I send out a note remember and this one guy who was the other new guy that was there at the time his two guys like totally out to lunch now he wasn't back down you smell different buddy's leggings telling me you know he he contacted me it came back and it was just like we in the same place you know he they got a person that would know the system but that's just there's no names of walk there but I always had these nightmares of you know running out of ammunition or my rifle wouldn't fire and they'd always like when I do have the occasional still it's the opposite and don't have any problems so being able to defend you know I knew about the people you know protesters and stuff I kind of was expecting that and my buddy and I we ended up getting discharged the other guy I'm listed with we're gonna coconut big El Faro and got this charge together I have to say that I didn't have a bad time when I got when we got to the airport somebody we went we were flying stand by the person that effect our United Airlines was very significant and like just wait over there we did they came over and they give this first-class and then while we were waiting in the airport I wanted to call home so there were these couples sitting there older couples and I said would you do me a favor would you just watch like my seabag they're like oh yeah so when it came back and then we like buddy and I because we have both worked at IBM before we we thought we were talking to these people and hey Linda coca-cola Bottling distributorship in Iowa and they offered its jobs on the spot so for me coming on at that point was okay I got home fine but it was it was nobody to talk to out of all the guys I grew up with that really hung around to get like six of this myself and only one other guy went everybody else and deferments or whatever so it was nobody there to talk to and one time at a mixer at Marymount College I went with my friends and had somebody give me the baby-killer that crap you know I just love you have no idea what you're talking about so just ignore them yeah so I came back I was home about ten days and went back to work yeah yep I'm what a Corvette and I need to think the carbons because my head my my you're my my dream coming back was the hitch-hiker crossed and see America I've been able to start doing that the last few years not hitchhiking but would see more of America buddy I just came right back to work again yep 42 years well I can't because I can I got hired at my high school I started there I was 17 and then in one of the more recent purges back in 2009 I got cut loose so now I work for a small accounting for pence the owners are former IBM Versailles that I worked with years ago so yeah work for them uh yeah well actually I really didn't use the GI Bill because I be a reimbursed tuition so what I came back I started going back to school I actually never did get my degree I just took all the credit side needed for accounting and everything else I never really was gung-ho on schools well the overall take certain things yes I could sit there was it an absorb but for the most part so I do regret that a little bit but not that much well how would you say your military experience influence uh it probably is the same as it was when I was a kid because I grew up on that world war be a Fed World War two I know now from talking to other vets I probably even influenced war because I was a marine and we have a certain when it was that they were supposed to think I guess so we just do think so if I had to do it tomorrow I'd be right back yeah if a kid I mean I'd have to say it and in all honesty if I could go to Afghanistan replace um that go because I look at admit I've already done it and why put somebody else truly I don't want to I really don't want to see anybody else have to go through it but if it has to be done has to be done you know I want people that are I admired most of the military people today because they did volunteer to be there and I guess I'm still kind of that flag-waving kind of person I can't understand why yeah you know I am working with people when 9/11 happened I was actually working in France at the time and had this guy young guy you know you got all this hyped up about it so I told my so some calling list oh well you know where I have one of my friends who recon friends whose son was a marine and he worked for I'm gonna say Price Waterhouse thing and a very decent job and he may have been an officer Tabriz and after 9/11 quit work lebec yeah oh yeah thanks to live he's like a colonel now I don't really yeah he just you know it was like hey I know what I got to do so so it's good to know that that we stopped only recently about ten years ago or so I joined the Marine Corps League here in Denver and I was because I had on the local cable the they were interviewing the person who was gonna be to parade March that year for that before they prayed and he was anyways you love that so today we're gonna go join so I did that's the problem we have today it's not I think there was a lot of the veterans organizations the bulk of them are all of where she passed away now because they're World War two vets because they came back and were so many of them it was easier in Vietnam even I went to veterans organizations when I returned and it wasn't a real open arms kind of welcome you know to BFW that so I just got to blew it all off as a Marine if I'm like every quickly everybody it doesn't make it you know look at it is what war were you when you were just worried but now you have a small pieces of population has served and they had so many other things to do you know life has changed it wasn't like okay were born and raised at Danbury everything happened here and so you could socialize you house people just move around and they don't have that same kind of you know they didn't grow up with all the other guys that all had a common experience so I unfortunately ice it seems like it's it's going away from yeah it's just losing it won't be like one organization maybe someday don't always be some people that are tall but for the most part you know somebody Vietnam vets you don't even know that I'm vet because they just thought it don't have anybody to talk to uh somehow there were no real good organizations you know being on Bevans of america's it's not an organization that I would say represents all Vietnam that's just personal ID you know it happened at a very impressionable time I would end when I was 19 so it kind of form just be being in the military for one part of me and the experience of Vietnam end of the park I mean it I still had that belief that you know you can't give up yeah you got to keep trying whatever no matter what his work or anything else that you know I don't want to probably are but I should have written really things down two years ago me ended the traveling wall was here and I participated in that and you could probably ask the other people that worked out it was it was one of the most rewarding things good lose the first time to have that same kind of teamwork then when it was over it was like hey I'm gonna see again that was good at that time the Dameron Historical Society asked me to speak and I spoke them so that's my only other experience of talking publicly about it you know you can be asked with the guys but but for like I said most of our most of my friends I don't have any war you know no one's are allowed anything in common with them so it's you know they don't ask and I don't tell I mean you know and for a lot for a lot of people you people just unless you've been a you don't understand notes and people will they they understand or yeah I guess somewhat an example there's pictures that float around on the internet all the time and it's like what you were sleeping in your bed you don't they show guys you know sleeping on a tank or this yeah so it goes with the territory that your job you when you're sleeping on the ground you're not thinking all blow show somebody else to sleep with it or bed it's you get you got a job to do that's it's a whole different thought process way of life and unless you've lived it you'll never understand you really like the military and Marines and take it becomes a quickie organization you only know your your tribe

Channel: ccsuvhp

Views: 15,866

Rating: 4.6595745 out of 5

Keywords: Veteran (Profession), Vietnam War (Military Conflict), Vietnam Veteran (Literature Subject), Interview

Id: fRpLnTb0Fj4

Length: 78min 51sec (4731 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 02 2014