Jerry Edward Austin, Corporal, US Marine Corps, Vietnam War

today is the 30th of June 2010 we are at the Isaac's see Chris wold library in Whitehall New York my name is Wayne Clark I'm with the New York State Military Museum in Saratoga Springs New York sir for the record would you please state your full name and your date and place of birth place my name's jerry edward austin and i was born february 8 1947 in Ticonderoga New York did you attend school and Fort Ticonderoga no again I attended school in play hall I started out in the district 9 school mm-hmm and from there we went I went through high school and at the old high school and it was the first class to graduate from the new high school and what year did you graduate 1964 at that time did you go to work right after high school or did you go into the service I actually enlisted in the service before I graduated from high school so I was already enlisted in the Marine Corps and then after graduation in November I was I was sworn in and and went to Camp Lejeune North Carolina for basic training ok let me ask you why did you pick the Marine Corps um because they didn't leave their soldiers they didn't leave their their people behind I read some articles um and I just decided that's what I wanted to do did you have any family members that had served in the marine corps or any other branches of the service no no my father was a farmer during World War two and he wasn't they they wouldn't take farmers my grandfather was a engineer on the railroad there were four War one and World War two when they went they want to take engineers either I was so I was the first Austin in the military in a lot of generations mm-hmm and so you took basic at Lejeune that's great and what was basic training like it was tough you the you made the when we first started out we had to learn how to make a bed and it took probably day and a half the fight night they were never made right they tear him down and start all over again and shortly before I joined they had the the problems that what they call ribbon Creek and drill instructor got drunk and marched his platoon out into ribbon Creek and I think they lost eight Marines out of it but they got through so they were cracking down a little bit on that but they were still able to they wanted to each other they hit you it was it was everybody got they got their blows in on everybody mm-hmm at the time I joined there wasn't the Marine Corps wasn't big and they were it was Vietnam was just getting started and so normally you had to drill instructors but because they had they didn't have enough recruits at that time I ended up with four drill instructors so and you had a new program going where they were trying a new physical fitness thing and we were under the old one mm-hmm and drill instructors wanted to make sure the old ones still stuck so they put us through extra extra training and the extra physical fitness just so when we the end of our stay at basic training we could outdo the other ones and we did and was that your first time away from home yes were there any other guys you went to high school with that went into the Marine Corps at that time or were were you down there by yourself I was the only one there was a Robert Gagne from Ticonderoga that enlisted at the same time that I did we went down together we weren't in the same outfit I was in three company three thousand to seven or two three thousand seven company eight but third Battalion I think he went to the second battalion and we both come home on leave at the same time I never got to see him he was killed in an automobile accident while he was on leave so once you completed your basic training where did you go next after basically went infantry group training which was probably I think 30 minutes or so from from Parris Island and there we were familiar with all the different weapons at the military had used in the past and we're using the present and we we actually trained with the m1 garand at that time instead of the m14 even though the m14 was the weapon and we headed that that's what they used on there did they tell you that you probably would be going to Vietnam no not at that time Vietnam well now you finished high school Vietnam was a little skirmish going on and you know he read of all a little bit of it and the paper and stuff like that I actually had orders cut for Hawaii when I finished infantry recruit training and and did my leave at home I was stationed for Hawaii so once you finish that training you went to Hawaii well I went to Camp Pendleton California for staging and they loaded assigned to troop ships I think there was zero three or five thousand Marines and two thousand army regulars on and before we got boy they said the fourth Marines that moved to Okinawa so we will we stayed right on the troop ship and and about for Okinawa now one once that that was April of 65 65 and what was that trip like going on to Okinawa did you get seasick at all I happily run a troop ship that was I think it was a cargo ship at one time and they turned it into a troop ship that was USS John J Breckenridge and you got up in the morning you got in lion ate the ate breakfast you showered and shaved and you got back in line the ate dinner because there was so many the place was it was just loaded with with army personnel that's all it was he stood in line to read a book you stood in line played cards and and guys were I II have a at that time I had a weak stomach anyways as far as motion sickness but I was able to keep it under control for three days but after that I lost it I was down now how did you guys get along with the army well had no problems I was we were all on the same boat you know it was you get along or you don't move and for the most part it was there was no problems okay so what was it like when you got to Okinawa they wouldn't let us off in Hawaii we took on pineapples mm-hmm and Okinawa we just we only got to Okinawa of the army got off and we stayed on oh you didn't get off in Okinawa they didn't let us off the ship at all then we headed right for Vietnam okay what was your impression of Vietnam when you arrived well it was it was scary because we didn't have we didn't have combat gear because we weren't combat gear was assigned to you when you got to your duty station wherever it was so we had basically we had our duffel bags full of Class A uniforms and the utilities that we were given when we only finished boot camp and so we they took us down to July no no where did you land in country in July picture line lot of July and the they got assigned Shore and the first night we they issued us all five hand grenades and that's what we had for for the first night until he could get us some weapons and things and then we got outfitted after that then we started building the airbase down there mm-hm in July is well we were on guard duty yeah how did you have any jungle type fatigues or utilities or were you wearing the stateside we were wearing just some stage sight at that time it was just the regular issue utility uniforms but we were solid green toward the end of my tour over there they come out with a con with the jungle boots and they come up with a lighter green pair of trousers but they weren't they weren't into the camouflage ones at that point no um your job in Vietnam were you with an infantry unit I was with the is assigned at one time to my first on the first operation I was assigned to hotel company - for mm-hmm and that was operation Starlite okay do you want to tell us about that operation I can't tell you much because while I was when we were in staging through them to be helicoptered out the I had a brother that was suffering from cancer back here in the states he was 13 and he he passed away and the Red Cross represented it coming down and we were in staging and he said that he needed I needed to be home mm-hmm and they they said leave your machine gun grab your gear and go with him and that was and so I came I was back to the States for 30 days now let me ask you this did your family know that you were being sent to Vietnam I mean initially you thought you were going to Hawaii and then the next thing you know you're in Vietnam did were you able to I was able to write a letter when we stopped I believe when they when we was either between Hawaii and Okinawa or between Camp Pendleton and Hawaii I was able to get a letter off and of course they took it when they docked they took all the mail and that he said not at all then we weren't we we were told not to tell him where we were going but we were not going to be at our regular duty station at that point and so then so you were home for 30 days right and where did they have your report Oh before I before I got home I went down to chew my ear stripped who catch a plane and at that time the casualties from operations started like we're already coming in and I couldn't get on I couldn't get on a military plane neighbor to they were using them c-130s they were just loading on the casualties finally corpsman asked me if I could hold I be movements on the plane so I was able to get on a plane to Okinawa and pick up another one from Okinawa to Hawaii and another one from Hawaii back to LA International but I can I couldn't get a military plane out of LA International because they were the casualties were coming out of Vietnam so fast and they were sending the hospitals in the United States it was fun but people just had no idea the pipeline of how that was going how did you get home I went down to the Red Cross unit and I am I had I was kind of figuring in my head how much money I need for a civilian ticket and I didn't have any money to halt anything on me so I went down and and toliman I needed $65 to get home and he said well what's your problem and I told women and and he says well he says you don't need that much and he come up with $62.50 so the he gave me $62.50 and I signed a receipt for it and then when I so I was able to get a civilian plane home it only cost $62 the flying it was less than that actually really so after the 30 days because we're speaking you know food and stuff like right off the plane and stuff and by the time I got home the funeral was all over everything so took me four days to get home after that I had orders cup again for Camp Pendleton and I was sure I stood on Treasure Island San Francisco I had orders cut for and I was in what they call ta d which is you're in standby waiting so they can get a plane group together mm-hm get you to the next destination and is there about a month in Treasure Island and after that is another month in Hawaii and then another month in Okinawa and finally I got back to July after that Linda July so did you end up with your same unit in truline all right you know it was were a number of the members for the unit loss and the 12 guys lift okay and do you want to talk about what it was like when you went back for the second time now he's back in headquarters company and that's when I found out that what had happened they actually don't mean it was only for left I was reading an article and is either in American Legion magazine or the VFW magazine hero you're so going it was actually 12 guys left how many and one of the machine gunners I knew and I believe he's he's that survived and he made a career out of the Marine Corps in 89 okay after starlight the well the next operation was Harvest Moon that you went out I want to leave the second one was Harvest Moon it was for that I was on yeah okay and what was it like the first time you were under fire when did that happen well before that because as we were when we started in and chill like we were basically what they call security but what we were doing is we were just driving the Vietcong out of July we had them up in the mountains and of course we had to get him off the mountains because they could mortar into the airbase so yeah I was gonna ask if you were hit with mortars and rockets on a regular base line we were in fire place all the time when we finally got them over on the other side of the mountain that's when then they got a little easier in July because they didn't have any point where they could could look down into the under the airbase Air Base was basically tents with a metal landing strip and then he brought in bladders that they be filled with jet engine fuel and stuff these big bladders so they were there's a base form of a lot of in books I've read since then that guys that have gone back to Vietnam I guess it turned in a real cement complex there was nothing but sand and it's the beautiful country the beach it yeah patrol the beaches I been there you had to do it with sunglasses on because this point is that door is over there just there's no light you know okay now were you fighting strictly Viet Cong or regulars also we thought Vietcong and North Vietnamese regulars mm-hmm we fought them both very few North Vietnamese regulars at that time it was more more Viet Cong mm-hmm a lot of sniper hit-and-run tactics what were they equipped with after one of our firefights I picked up Thompson submachine gun made in Bridgeport Connecticut it was they had everything I mean it was anything in a gun dealer could sell them that's what was over there basically a lot of ak-47s but there was everything that you name it they had whatever they could scrounge up do you think the training you had prepared you for what you faced in Vietnam no we were an infantry recruit training we were we were taught conventional warfare mm-hmm and then we went over there and it was a guerrilla warfare so it was as far as how to handle a rifle lot of Indian combat that kind of stuff but as far as maneuvers we it was a whole whole different situation there was no front there was no lying that you could there might be a line sometimes it was but it was a lot of times it was you didn't know where they were you know they were it could be your side it could be your back yet no idea so it was a different kind of warfare and and what kind of weapon did you carry when I went over I was an egg donor assistant machine gunner and then I just carried a 45 and all the ammunition and the tripod and things the machine gunner I could carry him I was at the m60 machine gun and m60 right within a short period of time II was a machine gunner because he was he was killed mm-hmm and when I got back from that was before operation Starlite even when I got back from operate from the states here there was a army fellow by name a JD Hill that was he was going to do all four branches of the service and he says I should have gone in the Marine Corps first because he says I went in the army and then I had to go through basic training in the Marine Corps he says if I had done basic training in the Marine Corp I could have done all the other RIT branches of the service just by transferring oh but if you're going into the Marine Corps and from Navy or anything else you go through boot camp you you don't just just go in so mm-hmm but he was a machine gunner also and we we worked on the jungle sling and you know we worked on a lot of things that made that m60 more you see user-friendly in the in the jungle now dude did you keep the bipod on the end the tripod all right ya know we we more or less did away with the tripod we can carry more ammunition if we didn't have to there a Gunners victory morning ammunition if we didn't have to carry a tripod a lot of times so I just have just the punch oh and uh in the pack and the backpack was one box of one one metal box of ammunition and whatever they gave us for sea rations on on top of that what about hot food did you get much of that in the field no just what we could cook out of the sea ration containers you could cook it if you had to chance you didn't now where your operations helicopter-borne some of them were helicopter-borne and other ones were we were brought in on six spice operation Harvest Moon I think it was we we went in on six by sixes do you recall when that was approximately no I couldn't okay particularly and how long did Harvest Moon last I think we were probably it was a three-day thing for us you could see the as we got closer you where the firefight was actually going on where it was conflict there was it was just a big cloud of black smoke up over up over the whole thing in it and you know you look like you were headed for help mm-hmm we were driving right into it they and as you got closer than they they got us off the six bodies and then we moved in on maneuvers and worked in two other companies that were there too eliminating the enemy where they dug in pretty well in Bunker Desert at that point no it was more they were they had been dug in and they were a lot of stuff was basically just a salt movin but we had run into some that were that were dug in and we we worked out a way of with a machine gunner of course was the guy they wanted to take out the quickness and they found by trial and error if they moved the automatic rifleman and closer toward the machine gunners instead of having them spread out so far that while we were reloading the the automatic rifles could take some of the pressure off machine gunner and then it kind of confused them because the m14 realm and them the m60 was a 7.62 millimeter round it was the same ammunition so that they couldn't define a difference between the two and then whether they got another machine gun sitting over here so we kind of you know we tried to trick them a little bit so that but they kind of knew he knew where we were was the time snipers was a big problem was you know they would set off to know of the actual firing and just tried to fight where we were and pick us off how effective were they for the most part very effective a lot of guys were lost of the snipers a lot of guys yeah once Harvest Moon was over how long did you stand down for we're didn't you well we'd go back to headquarters and it was back to doing we moved tents all the time we called ourselves the circus because we we spent time tearing down tents putting tents up camouflage netting you had to put up with these centipedes that were almost a foot long and you cut them in half and once a section would go one way in another section and go another way in and we had black scorpions under the pallets and things and you worked all day long in the Sun and you and you went two hours on into hours off every night well the two of us in a hole we just joined up if you had a watch and when we first got over there I had a Timex I dropped on it broke the crystal on and on monsoon season started then the water got into a thing and ruined it but up to that some guys had watches some didn't so he tried to guess on hold you know oh how long you're up for yeah now you mentioned the scorpions but did you did you encounter any problems with snakes or tropical diseases at all or malaria we had there was I think it was pit vipers that we run across we didn't but I had there was a couple of guys that caught malaria while we're there I tried to stay away from the water that you know they did and then they gave you the chlorine tablets for the whatever they were to put my water that made it taste really false oh but I think it was two guys contacted malaria that I knew what was you guys me something else um problems would will mention those things well be aborted it brought up in Whitehall we had black mountain racers and stuff around here we were out enough peanut patch and I had a machine gun and everything was stopping and I know what problem was point guy who was african-american and he wasn't going any farther because it was a pit viper up there in a peanut patch and he wasn't going anywhere near him and so the word was going down the line and and the base Isis well here's somebody take the machine-gun give me a rifle with a bayonet I went up killed it held it up like that and the behead under rifle the guy goes me and he said you're one foolish dude to fool with em things okay any other tropical diseases I know a lot of guys I mean especially in the infantry came down with that jungle Roy a jungle right yeah I had two on my arms and I started to get in on my face some guys had it so bad on her face that they couldn't shave they don't shave I got a little bit and then I just kept working around it and kept putting on the pointman mm-hmm my arms you know we get jungle rot dysentery and you got hit with just about everything there was over there mm-hmm did did you become wounded if at all I got hit in the knee I never got a Purple Heart I didn't I didn't put in for it the time I was there you basically had to have a officer verify that it was actually a woman from conflict and so on so forth and what were you hit with a piece of shrapnel some kind or other caught me in the knee mm-hmm I had one they caught me here in the armpit but it was just surface it was it wasn't any big thing buddy one kind of hurt it did for quite a while it was actually it was I had a little I got a little black spot still there but they they didn't want to fool with it because they said it they it was embedded in a cartilage and just leave it alone and years later I may have a problem and I had it I had problems years later and wasn't bad at all was God who was Steven in the cartilage anymore but the spot where it went in was still still blackened and then your next mission was double eagle was that it iris and when I think double eagle or operation Utah there was all there was horrible mm-hmm were they all basically the same pretty much the same yeah they were it was player fights so you guys were constantly on the offensive going after the when we were sent we knew what wasn't the place security it was definitely offensive we were we were there to do the job what about booby traps any problems with those or the punji pit sir now we had to the we had trouble with the bungee pits with our regular shoes and then when they came out with the with the jungle booth state he was it was like a cattle are insole or something that you slipped into him mm-hmm so but the jungle boots were or cloth sites and so then they have clever little guy he's designed a booby trap where you stepped on it then the spikes come off like this and gunge in the ankles so you had to watch out for those too so but it was we had a lot of tripmines things like that you know it's lookout for bouncing Betties they had them too we had them they they put will be traps together with bamboo tubes and Louden full of stones or bolts or nuts or any kind of metal they could put in them with with whatever they needed to detonate it you name it they they come up with it boo boo this all of it out there piano wire of strong across places drop what are they called dead min or whatever they drop all the drop down from the trip the thing give me my cam log or something yeah did you get any kind of R&R while you were over there because I went home for the funeral they couldn't they were sending guys to like back to Okinawa Australia and stuff I ended up with three days in Saigon what was that like for you that was nice I they had us in a fairly secured area so that you know where you were we stayed in a hotel there and you were able to get some nice food for a change and and it was reminding me a little bit of Albany actually you know it was sort of vacant and it was gift shops and things like that so I bought things that I could send home and I had my picture taken while I was down there at a photography place uh-huh did you have any USO shows at all while you were over there like Bob Hope or I didn't we didn't get to see Bob Hope when Bob Hope was there we were on perimeter so we didn't get any get a chance to see Bob Hope I did see Ian Margaret and Martha Raye was a standard Martha Martha probably did more for Vietnam from the us old thing know any of the other ones out there she was she was always around at different USO shows mm-hmm so did you get to see her I got to see Martha Raye - yeah and when did you finally go home let's see no I can't I can really tell ya okay but but you were there for at least a year I was there for my actual tour of duty in Vietnam time in Vietnam was 13 months 13 months even with a break and everything I that's what we had to spend was 13 months mm-hmm now came back the first time and you and found that so many of the fellows fellow Marines and been lost what about your casualty ratio when you came back did you continue to loose a lot of a lot of memory because that was supposed to be the operation that ended the whole thing then and actually it was the first time that and those were all North Vietnamese regulars and their their main thought was they were gonna show us what it was all about mm-hmm and our mind thought was we were going to put them in a horseshoe pattern and drag them right out into this into the ocean and it's the last time he really fought us as a North Vietnamese regular unit they it was always you know we had the operations too and they were rugged too but they went they wasn't called a big full-scale operation on on a big American operation they thought it was you Lee you know if there was a hundred of us there's at least 300 of them or better like one they wouldn't fight on a one-to-one basis or anything close to it than that and and it was more hitting outpost and things like that they could okay and you didn't end up going back for another tour did you know that when I got back I was assigned to Camp Lejeune and they sent me to guerrilla warfare school with a bunch of boots so the sport was back at the same time now were you there is an instructor not to start but after we run the first group through we ended up finding rifles that they hit that you know they were showing us they were showing them how to clear out fill it or how to find caches and villages and stuff like that we were bringing back we showed them where you know look here look here dot it up mm-hmm and we ended up finding rifles that they hidden didn't even know what it okay they hadn't seen him in a long time you know so they got talking to the four of us and they had us event as guerrilla warfare instructors for a period of time here and then I was that was assigned to the Sixth Fleet and we did a we did a med crews took in France Spain Portugal I must have been quite a change for you well it was but we still went through combat training there they'd say yeah we're taking such and such a place and the beach would be ten feet wide and the rest of it was like a volcano and your Porsche objective it was all us up on the top you know so I got a little old after a while but we trained I trained with the French Legionnaires and parachuted into Corsica while we were over there oh you did it - yeah the fort I was enforcing them with the French Legionnaires had you had any parachute training no pimia no I'm the ruler that know how much training did you get with them about one month and how many jumps did you make just the one and did you jump with a static line yes yep so how was that first jump was it scarier I decided to feel like harness go and grab me it was nothing I wanted to make a career of haha now I forgot to ask you you had been promoted to corporal were you promoted in Vietnam no we were basically staying it in the time I was in Vietnam I was promoted to PFC before I got over there and we just I had taken the test for Lance Corporal twice and passed it and but they never did any promotions and so when I got back to the States I had orders cut for one sector to six second Battalion six Marines and they sent my they sent my service record book two one six so he's down here thirty days the only thing I had was my veteran my veterans service identification card the prove I was even in the service mm-hmm my my utilities my stuff was shipped down ahead of time and those that was lost and so I was out there in civilian clothes I couldn't get a promotion scheme and went and I couldn't get promoted because they didn't have my service record book and finally the I got a letter sent from my parents they sent down a copy they sent down the letter that they got in the mail as saying that uh I was ua and if if I didn't if I didn't report to base within such-and-such a period of time and that had already gone by that I was going to be declared a deserter so I took it into the master gunnery sergeant he said I says all I know where my service record book is now I showed it to him and he says well he says go down and see what they want to do so I walk down the 1:6 he says are you looking for Jerry Austin yes we are Isis I'm him he says he started to reach for the phone and he says for you call the MPS I says call to six I've been down there for a month so he called down there and they talked back and forth and grant didn't he says well where do you want to go they said well I've been down there for a month and I said I know the guy he's down there so he could send my service record book down I appreciate it you couldn't carry it yourself you couldn't have you on the service record book so hey they sent it down there I stayed with two six and how long were you there for until you were discharged til he's discharged oh they come back from the maid cruise and I mean corporal while we were while we're on the mid cruise well I got got back he was I mean Lance Corporal and corporal and when we got back he was I just served for a month as corporal of the guard and basically they kept sending me to different guys to see if they could get me in reading list so there you are for you sergeant curry unless they offered me sergeant - they offered me sergeant and I could go to jet engine mechanic school in Quantico Virginia and then I would they make me a staff sergeant plus the ten thousand dollar bonus where you attempted to take it no no because I knew where I was gonna end up again and once was enough for me okay so you took your discharge and he came home and then what happened did you go to work or well when I was in school I lost like machine shop and I like working them with leads and stuff so I took a machinist course that was offered I could do it through the VA mm-hmm and that was down in Argyle in New York at that time and so I took the course and I became a machinist with a sheepskin and I could blueprints so you use your GI Bill for further than that yeah dude did you use the GI Bill the buy a home or anything no okay and so I worked in a machine shop for a couple of years and he did it mm-hmm you basically tied down the same machine all the time and I went in in the dark and the wintertime I come home in the dark and just watch the rest of the world go by and mm-hmm and I says oh this isn't this isn't boy I want to spend the rest of my life so I had a chance to go to work for a Glee starting out in in their green melon with Granville New York mm-hmm he started started their accountant green bags to start with and making grain and then driving truck and getting my chemical license and doing the spraying for him and then there's and their salesman was in a bad automobile accident so I filled in for him for the period he was out and then the the people from Syracuse head of the sales division interviewed me to for a position in Rutland and Fair Haven his sales person and so I took that and I got the manuals and read up on the Deering lifestyle aspect of it and the crop aspect of it which is the drop one I pretty well know from being in spray in it and so I got so I worked as a as a farm enterprise salesman and then a Deering livestock specialist and with the Deering livestock specialist as a certified crop advisor and I get a lot of the other dairy and livestock specialists who went through college and learned just animal husbandry part of it then and cattle didn't really do the crop end of it so I get phone calls so can you help me out with this what's going on here mm-hmm not a lot of the crop stuff so it was it was a fun I enjoyed it of course the company went bankrupt and I was 57 and so I stayed on with with Cargill for 11 weeks after that just for a transition period and then I took early retirement mm-hmm 57 they didn't stick I went to work for New York Life and I got my insurance license and then I got my securities license and then I got my license for interstate securities though I took up the life insurance exam this series six exam in the series 63 exam and it was a financial service professional for New York Life for four years and everything the economy went self and you were basically I was what I was my own operation so I got all that I worked for fire effects energy for one year and in sales and then retired okay and did you join any veterans organizations I'm a member of the VFW in Grandville post 1653 I a member of the American Legion Post in Grandville pulse 323 mm-hmm right now I'm post adjutant I was commander for seven years and in the same time that seven years I was also Washington County commander the American Legion mm-hmm they're just things I'll remember the Hudson Falls Marine Corps League okay did you stay in contact with anyone you were in the service with no because when I went in it was it's different than what they're doing with the guys like the National Guard from here goes over as a group I think it got after a while over there or I didn't really want to make friends because you lost them so you know especially newbies coming in just didn't wanna I don't even know if any of them are still alive I was over there with you know I know someone I know one came back in the States because he came he transferred back with me he was from Texas mm-hmm but when we come back we just wanted to we want it out of there and we wanted to forget the whole thing well you just wanted to get away from it okay well you brought some memorabilia with with you today oh do you want to show it to us and explain what to have sure well this this is my Marine Corps picture okay let me just zoom in on that and that was taking it blue show that was taking a camp with you okay these are these are pictures of I don't know if you can get them this is some of the this was Operation Utah okay this was a weapons cache a weapons cache a okay this is a russian-made 7.62 millimeter machine gun okay this is a couple of guys with over there Lance Corporal with Jones and PFC Anderson okay this is a laundry we had set up over there with civilians that they check them in and check them all there was a stream over there so they set up up laundry this was eight quarters actually you can hold those photos closer to you okay it's easier for me to zoom in this is a good friend of mine and we just back off from operation double eagle as bill freshmen that was a fellow from Texas okay we were cleaning weapons one day and he says you got any all citizen so what he said you got any all I says what the hell is all this is all but on your weapon hey oil I says no matter you guys Texas don't open he doesn't have a lot of fun with Bill this was one on the on ship this is another friend private swing these these are guys with a nice first over there okay yes this is this is the machine gunner he's telling you vote GD he'll he was the one that was in the army and then join or he was from Ohio he could chew tobacco on one side of his mouth have a cigarette hanging and on the other side of his mouth and drink a beer at the same time the end of scrounged up a guitar from somewhere he's a pretty good I think strum a guitar pretty good this is this is me with a 45 okay there I am with the m60 all right they put that on for show with the belt we didn't carry belts of ammunition on old Russ that just notified him there's one of me in the tent after we got the wooden ones up and he saved but they weren't gonna hold him anymore okay there's a couple other guys is with Ryan Griffith was from Arizona it was a female him in the Houser I don't know exactly where he was from he was a lance corporal a couple more pictures there's a couple of guys Dodson and Pearson from this is one of our camps but you're in ok this is JD Hill Hollen on the ak-47 now after operation Utah all right that's pretty fuzzy this was a club at the they built over there I can't in quickeneth can't get it those were those plagues we had on base no these two you won't be able to get through to the fuzzy this one is on the stands of to live each that's the pictures one of the pictures I had done in Saigon you were able to keep your hair that long in the Marines this was it was actually when I was coming well you could you could at that at that point because a lot of times we couldn't get her hair done yeah we got a guy who did shaves on us foot okay is that a flag or something you have there this was from one of the operations I think it was Utah also and they said it was yeah I picked it up off the ground I asked him what it was and they said it was a Chinese battle banner come on no it had bamboo through it and it was through the holes here okay and he it was like maybe to show more at the vision loss or something I don't know Rick told me it was that intelligence so okay we weren't able to keep weapons and things like that any of that paraphernalia but anything like all right you want to hold up your your dress uniform now what is that top ribbon is that the Marine combat my role dome I think the top ribbon is a good kind of fog tech yellow one wood with the gold around it is a Presidential Unit Citation mm-hmm we were awarded that three times the next one is a combat ribbon the next one is a unit Navy Unit Commendation which was awarded three times good time the next one in is a navy campaign ribbon with sixty on it mm-hmm it's the little scroll the next one is a Vietnam service ribbon which was awarded three times and the last one is a National Defense ribbon okay then your marksmanship medals yeah marksman rifle and 45 okay and let me ask you how do you think your time in the service changed or affected your life it made me a better person for sure not that my parents didn't they they were strict we don't bring in one straight but it made me focus more on doing things more correctly I believe focus on where I should be in what I should be doing and how I should do it discipline it was a big discipline thing really okay good about five minutes you have some questions just very few good good questions did you ever encounter near the tunnel something that development yes I wasn't down in them but we we did encounter some of the tunnels yes you sent people down energy if you just tried they did they did send somebody down in and it was a basically was a it was a hospital underground and they pull help I think it was morphine or heroin they pulled out tremendous amount of it was down in there the South Vietnamese forces we had very little our unit we didn't want a lot with us but we had interpreters that and once a while you get a group together yeah what was your assessment or they're not very good the a lot of times didn't fight with us like I said we only had interpreters with us but the ones that we heard about over there a lot of it was a minute the firing started they threw their weapons on the ground ran so you know so we felt sorry for a lot of the Special Forces you know like Green Beret and stuff like that they give me like 20 Green Beret and 200 Harmon we're supposed to be taking a position or a hole in position it end up with 20 Green Beret doing the fighting and the rest of them are gone yes and we did called on operations like that you know pull them out of there nice question I have read accounts that people said when they go on a night patrol or night ambush they said when you get another canopy so scarce if ever been it is so dark ever magnify did you forgot have any experience don't invite oh yeah patron now it it is it's it's really different when we when we go all through you had to they give us a certain position to go out and out through the concertina wire and you had to come back to that position if you came back anywhere but that position you were probably going to get shot and it was so dark out there that you know it was it was more hairy coming back and it was being out there to us it seemed like it you know because you had to you had to hit the right spot or you're gonna you're gonna be in trouble but a lot of times we go basically we go up and set up ambushes for the night just areas that we thought were going to be real well-traveled or what we got from intelligence they said hey you better be covering this area and stuff like that once in a while we'd run into some stuff but most of the time that was the worst thing was it staying awake and people snoring you know and you know it just it was it was real hairy did you have any napalm attacks no no I was they were a lot of that was north of where we were you mean where I was close by or my clothes up to actually see it oh yes yes yeah I see him yes as far as being you know 20 feet away from me I didn't get in any of that home like I say you know I was with with bigger units so that the ones that were where they were doing a lot of napalm was when they were being surrounded or something then he'd come in and you know like that but yeah there was areas where they just laid it out - in the operation see you know if they hit a big pocket there but normally if we were probably from here to Broadway or better away from that feel the effect of anything like that which was good because that stuff was inaccurate okay thank you very much the five is Dom done which is a five gone and the other is a high muy dong which is 20 okay and they had the coins also this is a 1964 okay oh we're out of film you

Channel: New York State Military Museum

Views: 49,104

Keywords: Veteran., United, States, Military., Vietnam War (Military Conflict), 4th Marine Division

Id: wkG7KqCk29g

Length: 62min 29sec (3749 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2015