Michael H. Adkinson's interview for the Veterans History Project at Atlanta History Center

today is October 20th 2011 my name's Roger soy Seth I'm here with Tony Hilliard at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta Georgia where we are volunteers with us is mr. Mike Atkinson the veteran of Vietnam who was agreed to share his experiences with us during his tours of duty in the US Army this interview is being recorded for the Library of Congress veterans history project to the efforts of the Atlanta Vietnam veterans business association the track consumer would you give us your full name and address please yes Michael Harold was my mental is my middle name Atkinson and my I was born on the 18th of August 1944 my parents were Harold Atkinson and Carolyn Baker Atkinson I was born in Troy Alabama at the hospital is still there and I think of his edge hospital is name of it my father was not present because he was in England at the time because I was born in August 1944 and he was actually in England weather unit getting ready for the d-day invasion and he was participating on that he did participate in that and it was a good day for him but my mother was there in Troy Alabama and that's that was a great thing because the day that I joined the ranks and know my father that was his only military experience was just for to the d-day invasion and he was the he had one brother but he was to military I was he was our military experience of the family other than the couple huncles but it it wouldn't be true to say that we were along they meet a military family so what brought you into the ranks well growing up in South Alabama and I've got to tell you though I had a that was a unique experience and a little agricultural community population six hundred people and I have several times told others who my my kids how lucky I was as in growing up from age up until 16 I can actually walk out of our house across our vegetable garden into one grandparents backyard or go the other direction and cross over to the other grandparents backyard and I distinguished grandparents differentiated them by the food they had leftover from lunch they were both good cooks and I was a good consumer of good chicken so I enjoyed that relationship and having them handy growing up in that environment the easiest thing to do was stay there that's what most people did but there were a few people around who also kept encouraging you to look for me to be aware that there was the world outside of that little agricultural community and I think the most influencing person of that life was my grandfather eating my grandfather Baker and I still count him as probably the most important person I've ever met in my life I'm the most important to me not to the world but to me he he was very influential to me and the lessons that he taught are still with me today and hopefully will always be but he wanted me to just keep seeking a higher level and whatever I did he was an educator I went to school and I grades 1 through 12 we're all in one building yet we still manage to be a very competitive at the state level for basketball and baseball gentlemen to do things that brought attention to us in sports when I was in the tenth grade the next town kind of recruited or enticed my family to come down the loo there because they had a bigger sports program so when I did that I became under the influence or an association with people who had higher visions who wanted to do greater things in the little time I was in I don't think I ever knew anyone who aspired to even go to college will want to move to the larger town that was something that a lot of we're talking about they're going to go to college so that moved me and I ended up getting some assistance for a financial financial assistance for sports at Troy University and I went there for one year and when pretty quickly that I wasn't ready for it really for the academics and I really wasn't cooperated for the sport side of it and there were some flaws with their program and in 1963 there was just a tremendous pressure on the draft if you haven't been in the military you were going to have to pay that bill before any company was going to give you a very good job so I had decided along with a couple of others to go volunteer for the draft go in the army and that was the best thing that I could have done it was a good move I ended up getting being trained as an air traffic controller being assigned to an airfield happened for Ryland Kansas and sitting there on night duty I had one class for several nights I was tremendously influenced by a captain who was on and his name was Claude IV and cloud IV later went on to become more Haiti retired as a lieutenant general but when he was a captain he he really was one of the first ones to convince me that I had potential that I could do whatever I wanted to do that I could be what I wanted to be you know maybe I'd seen those words on a poster somewhere but other than my grandfather who I thought was a bit biased no one that ever really sat me down and looked me straight the face and said that and all of a sudden he was even had me thinking well doctor I can't go do something and I ended up going the infantry OCS and when I graduated from infantry OCS in March of 1963 I think I was the only one in my class who also volunteered or requested to go attend in every one school and become a paratrooper and then you're in the Ranger school and because I was a ranger and when I finished that are when I was finishing that school actually is when President Johnson came on television one day at mizzen I was having lunch with a couple other guys and I remember yet him saying and making this statement that we were going to deploy troops and this Africa in Southeast Asia I walked straight to the phone and called the personnel and said okay put me on that list I'll go and they said no you're on a priority assignment to be a training officer they needed they were really ramping up the basic training camps and so I was that was considered a priority and assignment so I headed off to well not to Missouri Leonard Wood and I was a training officer and I did that for about six or eight months a yes I don't know when I was bored to tears so I would I went in one evening applied for special forces because the only thing I had in Vietnam at the time was the secondary division in Special Forces so it was too late to join that division so I applied for Special Forces and about a week later I got a phone call I'm saying um tips from personnel and I gather they came out gathering the rage came back here to Cal personnel they want to talk to you so I called him and they said we got your application and you've been approved go ahead and tell your commander you can start packing because we want you they're important to it I said great so I'll be at Fort Bragg in two weeks they said no I'm not Fulbright I said well you may have called the wrong desk that are calling wrong lieutenant as I applied for Special Forces and they said yeah but you have 20/20 vision and the army needs helicopter pilots I said no sir he'd have definitely called the wrong number oh no when they said you know are your heels together listen Hipparchus under the island got the pilot and report in the Mineral Wells Texas in two weeks well I didn't think they could do that but welcome to their I mean they could think you they told me I was gonna be our copter father so I decided that better be one I went to Fort Walters Texas and standing in line that's hot March afternoon should process for a room and the view of cue I met a fella named Trent were gentie he was it was what I thought then smile I called him a damn Yankee and he was quite sure that I was the most southern person he'd ever met that was 46 years ago you know a guy and I are still best friends we a fact he called me on the way over here this afternoon we see lives down in Florida now but I was the first southern person he had ever met he was certainly the first that I've ever been caught talking to and we were absolutely amused by our differences and that was a that was a good turn for me because he was a great guy and we've known each other ever since we went through flight school and four months in Texas and then four months at Fort Rucker Alabama we were roommates through both of those places and when we finished the flight school and flight school was a great experience for me because I was back home in South Alabama did you know for Rutgers right done in South a well that's where girl I was like 12 miles from my grandfather's house and three months where we lived when I was going to fun too I could walk to my mother's house so we were I was back home for the four months of white school and that's what it was it was like being back home and my mother I think tried to feed everyone in class at one time or another she was trying to convert them all with butter beans and okra something that worked and it didn't take but we had a good time but what happened there is there is a lot of this relevant to this is when I finished White's ago only our finished white students in November that was the graduation month well every pilot in my class was on orders for Vietnam no exceptions that's where they were going that's why they were there and it was one of those things we just didn't talk much about we just did it and so when class was over when the graduation was over everybody was given 30 days vacation to go back home to see you know be with their family before going to Vietnam well I'd already been home for four months so I just said oh yeah I'll go in and kind of trailer for us so I went down and did that the very memorable moment of buying a ticket one way to San Francisco now there's one thing about knowing here's one you know you're going to war you know located Vietnam you know you're gonna travel about air you don't mind fly the airplanes heckle that so we could even drive them but there's something about buying a one-way ticket that just caused me a lot of grief I just worried about that too much about damnit I want to run I'm trip ticket but the army would only fund a one-way tickets I bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco and I got the couple of days later I arrived in the famous famine of Saigon and right out of the end of that airfield was what we all knew his camp Alpha Kappa Alpha was a attempt village and it was a in processing point for Army have enough Marines and others came in there not but it was an improv Essex station for army and I got in there in early evening personnel tent was already closed them but I went over there anyway the where to find some of the people who work there because the truth talks on the plane going over somewhere you don't want to get the end don't get here this is this place is bad this place is good well ice cave talk to what's bad and what is good at my definition and I thought I don't want to get over that first of all right once why helicopters I wanted to be somewhere where there was something going on if I'm going to be involved of one like a difference so I don't end up you know where find somebody around them put them into VIP flight detachment I'll end up in jail so you made some assignment that's meaningful so when I got there I walked over that personnel tent and there was a couple of sergeants sitting in there playing cards it was hot they were sitting there in their t-shirts and McDonagh tags Damien and smoking their cigarettes and drinking that beer and I went in with my up over my jacket off outside so that I wouldn't end just with my t-shirt on - and I sat down and was able to have some fun and one of the things I learned was I finally got enough friendship with his one of them I said where where's the best place for a pilot together he said best place is then fly along the beach you know get down and do the duty where the pilots fly up and down the beach looking for boats that have capsized there people who are stranded and I said okay what's next and he said well you can he said I know the unit you want to stay out of is the 11th aviation battalion I said why he said because they have they go through pilots like you would not believe they are this constantly requisite requisitioning in power I said okay so the next day I put my jacket I look back and get one and I'm off to the gala surprised to see me standing there's a lieutenant with flight wings and all that they said do you never sign the request and I said yeah when we go they'll ever say should attack if they just started shaking his head Mike what when was this but once that was December of 1966 yeah and so I got to the I got a aircraft for that courier aircraft and I got on the carrier that aircraft went to bid more long that's where the Benoit then well that's where the 11th aviation battalion headquarters located and I did essentially the same thing there I got there after hours and I went and found the personnel sergeant how many companies are in this unit where are they what's going on to them and the cat said you know we've got a unit here to get in and he in there he said took the one over coochie there in the beat stuff every day I said what's going on in kitchen see he said they're over were the 25th division and they just inserted them from about months ago and he said Charlie the VC really had wanted there so they race I love them every day and he said they're just always in deep deep stuff and I said fine so the next day I go back stand in front of his desk and I said I want to go to the 160 over kimchi and he's with you crazy but he's theft is your honor I was into t2 hours later and sure enough that day they were in trouble they lost a gunship they had several aircraft hit it was just long as it didn't happen for him every day but every once a while they type of black fire Overland that was one of those days that night I was the sign there that afternoon I was assigned to buy cotton emulsion and total how many sandbags I needed to fill because they were building bunkers and everybody had to feel 50 sandbags I think it was I didn't and I decided to go over and talk to the commander because I wanted to be in gunships if you're going to be in a helicopter unit there's really two kinds of aircraft there's the lift ships they haul people and supplies and then they're the gun shooters they shoot rockets and machine guns and that's what I wanted to do so I went over and when I talked to the people operations about that they said come back to us in six months they said no one can go into guns so they've been home ground here I've been in the in it for at least six months because you have to have a lot of experience to go and again oh I love lately and I thought about that they would come for some way to justify get them there a little bit early so I decided that he'd never get to talk to the commander and I heard about him his name was Patterson he when he retired he was electric general but at that time he was just a major and he later became the mayor I could Sanibel Island down in Florida but I went in and knocked on the little after door at his tent and he beckoned me to come in and there was so much cigar smoke in that tent I could hardly see but and he was very depressed because it had a really bad day we'd had two aircraft I shot up real bad one pilot killed them so he was and he was writing letters letters defenders that's a sign of fun job I was interrupting that then I told him when I come by to tell him one I was new when I was in the unit I was trying to be there and to that I wanted to be in gunships and he said I thought you said you just got here so that's hit it and he said well less less this is your second tour you're not going in the gun show and I made my case because I noticed that he had a Ranger tab on the jacket that was hanging on the door as well it turned out we were the only two Rangers in that unit and he gave me a lot of credit for that and I said you just lost a good man today you need enough he just wanted to replace him and I'm up to that pass he decided there in that tent to give me a chance so he assigned me to go ride with another pilot that he trusted the next day and I did and I did well on that ride so I was assigned of the gunships immediately the country and I never knew of anyone that had that good luck before our sense of the because in those most unit said that a lot of experience get it well that turned out to be the starting point of a whole new career for me I liked flying guns I felt I was good at fine guns and I did a lot of things to change and to create new tactics for how gun ships were being fun when I got there the gunship didn't yell below a thousand feet unless they had target approved then look at breakfast thousand feet to go down and go into engage target mmm I seem learned I quickly learned from you know growing up in Alabama when we did a lot of hunting of small animals well if you're going to see and have a small animal hunting you get the kid as close to it as you possibly can to get it with the first shot and that same logic prevailed for me and flying gunships I cannot see well enough from a thousand feet that my first shot be effective but if I can get them on the top of the trees and go slow my first shot can be real effect so I started doing that and that made a difference in our effectiveness with the troops that we were supporting and the aircraft that we were protecting as they came in and landed to unload troops now one of the little bits that I got to tell you loop back around and pick up again on my friend Frank began II you know he was from Connecticut and I was from Alabama but when I left there when I left the states I told him that I would ride him and let him know where I was please and any the benefit of any Intel any thing I learned I passed along too so after I've been into chief couple of days and assure that that was the right place I sat down and wrote it in my life and I knew what would appeal to it I told him that there was this place called coochie I didn't know how to ever manage to get there but it was we're surrounded by palm trees and there was two different ways that you could walk from there to get down to the beach which was a desirable place to be because I was a little seafood Hut's were right down by the beach and I said Elektra this is also the Red Cross Training Center so all the Red Cross people coming into the country coming through here and all the best bars and also get seafood this is the place to be so when you get the camp outfit on you want the 11th battalion when you get to the Benoit tell the people who let the tide and you want to go to coochie one said hopefully you won't have a problem well I thought that he would write back challenge that or turn around and ask other veterans who had been over Vietnam or someone who all right maybe he just look at a map to see who she was not on the chose well I didn't hear back from you and then the couple of times but I was busy and I didn't worry about it but a few and over the time I thought well you know he just probably threw that in the trash can well I came in from a mission about a month later and I walked through operations as you're supposed to back for a mission to give me a little you can't well the incident count for the day on what you did what they did and I was flown stuff like that and as I did that and finished it and started to walk out the out sergeant said wait a minute lieutenant he said a new courier aircraft came in the day and they're grown in a new pilot and so the ones here and he's pissed and he wants to talk to get this boy Frank McGee had just taken the bait hook line and sinker and there he was and I went over inside in the business I'm boots and he was sitting there when I walked through the door he turned red in the face but he was so upset and happy cuz we were good friends and he he just wanted to know why he doesn't want an explanation and I said because if we're gonna be here we're gonna make a difference we're not here just a lot of time we're gonna help people and he bought into that I never say never and from that point on even tilt to this day and we laugh about it and tell that story but there was never a moment and some people said well that he should have pulled out a gun and shot me right then and any kid when to let it off but that didn't happen he flew slits he was in the first Platoon the second he flew slits he was hauling one to Wisconsin and my cos I'm the stinger nonsense but you explain the difference between okay yeah the slick is was at that time a uh-1 Huey au h 1d model and then later became h box built by battle helicopter and their own was to they were built with a big cargo area so they would haul people all troops and haul cargo and they have a door gunner m60 machine gun on each side but that was purely a self defense she younger sister the difference when I what I flew was a be modeled and then a C model and then later Hughes I mean Congress but we were built not to hold anyone we didn't have a place for a passenger said all of our cargo compartment was taking that pie crumbs of machine-gun bullets and rockets so we had rocket pods hanging out the side and 40 leaders frog units on the front sometimes and we had uh naquadah m60 machine guns on the side plus we have door together so we had a lot of firepower in fact we had so much firepower and we put on so many rounds in those aircraft that when you talk to fly a helicopter you what you're taught not only way to do it is to what we thought was to pick it straight up you spoke to them a three foot lever then you can notice it over and move on out to you get into translational we left and then you're fine with like the gunships and then that density altitude we put on so many rockets and some machine head we wanted all the emulation that we could possibly get it would not pick up the aircraft would not clear the ground so we would slide it forward we would just slide it until it would it would get going fast enough that it would start to bounce and after about the second bounce you'd hit translational hell and we were we made it now low no you didn't have an engine failure they had shows you could not rotate because it was too heavy but all we care about is getting in the air so we would bounce that thing into the air and get off now Frank was flying slick so he would be in the flight hauling up the troops to put them in an atypical mission done would be the night before we get a briefing of what unit were going to be supporting the next day where they were going and what so it's just it was a everyday it was they they call them combat assaults and that was a good name for it because it was a they were loaded up sometimes if it were going into what was thought to be a truly hostile area they might put in airstrikes and artillery crap the area before we do this come at us off but at least half of the time or more they were depending on stealth they wanted to go in put the troops in without telegraphing in advance where they were going or why that was responding to intelligence missions where through whatever means they had discovered that there may be a cache of weapons or ammunition or supplies we have certain genes support primarily the ones of the 25th division of second is 27th Wolfhounds second the 14th but all the the different I think all three brigades of the 25th at least two of the brigade to the point of that division were there at coochie that's right - I'm work one I was I've gotten in so the but at each brigade had three or four battalions on that three cement floor so we supported their infantryman towers and know every once in a while we would be called off and do other missions we'd get out and support acetals I don't know baby from time to time when we go support the nausea of the Aussies on submissions every once in a while at Junction City in big real big operations where they were going to mass and insert a division we might go up to two Corps three four core we looked down the black Easter down into lung been we draw for big operations but day in and day out we would do come at us officer with 25th division locate so what we would do is go in for a briefing at night and they would tell us here's where we're going and why they give us the coordinates and and generally they would have picked out from Mac reconnaissance a field they were going into a more a particular tree line they wanted to be in certain to know so everybody was to stay out of that area of course that night you wanted to the next one and the command and control ship would go but it would orbit up at altitude where if you're on the ground you couldn't you wouldn't know they were there probably but even if you did see them you had no idea what they were looking at until I got there the gunships would come in and then we were given specifically to find that spot on the ground that intersection of the tree lines that that place with it's now across the the pasture whatever that landmark was and we would go in at 50 feet above the ground identify that spot and then I would give directly Corral because anybody in the trees what's there who's there is there trouble it has just picked like farming they're little people running around and they're black pajamas courage bigot family left and we found something everything sometimes we find kids playing sometimes of fun people's character and picking up their mobile and we had different if it was they were if the fighters were there we just we flipped and went pop we were and we were there work but I'm given the number of the time it was just it was just friendly it looked friendly oh it was nothing at all that was the only one he had to be careful for if there was nothing at all you know who's in the hole or what's going to happen next so I would give directions to the left shift they would fly in the directions that we assigned to them and we would land them into the and if we could but we would pop a smoke to mark where the lead ship touches down and then they would begin their approach and they come in and lead ship flight of 10 aircraft in slicks would land to that smoke and ideally they would touch down at about the same time all the troops get off so that they're providing security for each other by having numbers and then all aircraft could park at one time nine times out of ten that worked just like you'd wanted to work in a textbook for that tenth hour before nine out of ten it was going to be trouble and that was when something bad would go wrong well back to my friend Frank when something goes wrong there's usually some cleanup today and cleanup can be going back in to pick up a crew who's been lost has lost their aircraft because the engine gets shot it's going back in to pick up some some wounded soldiers we've got hurt getting off the aircraft because they get shot it's going back in and taking maybe a special weapon system that they didn't take because they didn't think they needed some Bangalore torpedoes or stuff like that the special ammunition well guess who almost always took that assignment that was my friend Frank because he had more confidence I think well he knew he could do the job and he knew that he was gonna be covered and I knew I was going to cover him and we and the boss do we work together and so they almost always designated him to go back in there to do those kind of assignments and we became a really good team doing those kinds of those kinds of jobs and those kinds of tasks so I stayed doing that flew most days because I became I was promoted from first just an aircraft commander to then I became a team leader that I became the platoon commander and I was a lieutenant and it was a majors command assignment but I ended up in that job because I it was a good fit for me and it was everybody almost every pilot in the unit that time was a Warrant Officer and they accept me and I became the between the commander and we just had a really good team but I've got to love to just write let's show you the world here's a photo of that crew but that was a great group of guys they have influenced me for the rest of my days since then because of their dedication to you know that's where you learn north where I learn about honesty integrity commitment loyalty dependability if if somebody said I'm gonna leave one of those guys said I'll meet you at the rearming point with that part you need you didn't spend one minute wondering will they really be there you didn't spend any time at all darling whether or not they'd show up with what they promised it just they made it happen and they may have run into a lot of problems before it wasn't always easy but they always perform and it was just one of the encounter and I was age I got there age 22 so I guess when I finished that career I'll have that tour I was 23 and should have been coming back home but here's what happened I got near the end of that that year and we had at one of the infantry units and it was long ago found battalions and they got really into deep stuff out there one day they made really hard contact things and what they were doing it was they were crossing a creek or a small river and they got about half the unit on the other side and that's when we got hit by the ambush and Charlie anticipated and they will be hit really hard well we were there and we came in and we looked at this and they were popping smoke on both sides I said which side of the river y'all they said we'll pop smoke they bifocal both sides we knew them they were straddling waterway so we got down there and tried to come in conventionally what we normally do and look for them and then turn around and engage of rockets but because Charlie was right in the middle we couldn't do that we couldn't use our weapon systems very effectively because those Rockets were just not that accurate I mean they were an area weapon system not a man the man weapon system and so I couldn't use the rocket ships they were taking fire from within their circle so I got in there and took the helicopter and went over the little river right where they were and I just sat there until when I'm reported fired and then we could see where it was coming from and I hover it over and we started dropping hand grenades damn in without we had about a case of hanger needs of the Emma gunship my crew chief of gun just started dropping fracture me well we took a lap that's what we had to do that was the way we got them out that day well that's not something that's not conventional gunship tactics to drop a grenade and that unit knew when they got when we got there and they saw and we helped them to realize that they were had that they had the bad guy surrounded they just couldn't see and from because of the train they knew they were in a bad situation and they didn't know they nobody knows for sure how we're going to get out of that but dropping the hand grenades saved the day well that made them very very happy with us I'm getting right there the end of my tour I guess that was his unlikely that was late November and I'm supposed to rotate Iowa about the second week of December and that unit was back at kuchi a few days later and they give few days to rest on the Cupra kids ain't taking a lot of casualties so they reviewing I'm a couple of days to wash everything out and get some replacements a Jeep came down to our unit picked us up pick me up was then that that unit probably cut me a second the 17th Woodlands I think they wanted to see me he wanted singer 96 to come down there and they wanted to give me something well I went in there and they had some parts of the weapon that were giving me the parts of weapon and that what they were really doing was saying thank you they just wanted some sweet thing and the commander introduced being sent a little bit about men that was all nice and I had to say that by the mayor and have a beer and piece of pizza with us and I was about to leave and one of the soldiers came over and he pulled out his life and he showed me pictures strike two lady holding the baby and he said I've never seen this baby but because of you I'm gonna see the baby if you stayed here and help me but though the commander had said the state of 96 his leaving to go back to the third world uncouple is and that trooper came over he said don't go back you got to show your help I could not sleep that night I stayed up thinking about next aid I went to have an extended I stayed six more months and then that dim of it and I stayed six more months I was committed to and so they have my room on my purpose was to serve those soldiers and that's what I was doing speaking did you see them so that was that was what that beer and the pizza that afternoon with that every unit I have sometimes thought about that many times they after that was the most expensive in some ways most and severe although I didn't have to pay far but expect for Garcia who lose the family who showed me his family and he kinda hooked my heart Mike and my willingness to stay in hell and when I extended that time and the deal was if you extended agreed to state six months because there have been needed people I mean they were just the new soldiers many pilots it was they had a lot of jobs so the pilot or anyone else I think agreed to voluntarily stay six more months and then there there was you could have six months I mean you got 30 days of the vacation leave and a round-trip ticket anywhere in the freight world you own together so I said that's okay I'll do that I'll go to Sydney Australia and then it wasn't in our in our centre so I was ahead of the pack that was in the 64 so I went to Sydney Australia and the day I got there I met a guy named Ted mccarran's who was a captain and I was captured by there he was a captain in the Air Force and he and I were both there for 30 days and we stayed in the coogee bay hotel down on Fuji beach in Sydney Australia and December is their their summer so we had a fantastic 30 days of great relaxation and the Australian people liked love Americans and we loved Australians so it just couldn't have been any better in terms of just enjoying ourselves and being away from combat for a month now my mother would not have described it that way because once she did not she start he did agree with me extending and she absolutely had trouble the fact that I had chosen to go to Australia rather than come back to the money but I did I I went back then to the unit and served another six months and by this time I had learned more I was excel mortar where I was the place was becoming real familiar to me if I went out in the morning then everyone I went out I knew if something had been moved I mean it was like my backyard I understood if there were two men boats on the river parked over in the trees somebody was there I was really good at gathering intelligence and noticing change because change is what signal something happened last night up here please these things wouldn't those little nuances would be gone well the unit's appreciated that my boss is appreciated that and I truly was complimented I guess for that and as a result I was also in the thick of it an awful lot of time so I ended up with an awful lot of missions fun an awful lot of medals I have I don't remember how many I think air medals I have 72 clusters um Airmen and that's 25 combat hours for each of those clusters I have silver stars and lots of Distinguished Flying crosses and all that kind of stuff and that was the wife's of the gun was just almost every day I was getting out forgetting in the middle oh well at the end of that six months I knew I was I knew how much I was needed so I didn't have to have an emotional experience to extend I just said yes I'll say another time but I'm going home this time so I took 30 days and went back came back to South Alabama to get the butter beans and they have occurring to be with family which I need to do more than to do but there was something different now when I came home my friends and I would go out and we were go out in social and I noticed that I would be introduced to somebody I didn't know this is and they call me Mitch my nickname growing up in that little town was amazing they did to do here's Mickey he's back from Vietnam or he's on his way back to Vietnam or something like that Vietnam would be in that sentence and the reaction from the people I was being introduced to was just almost like I was I had some kind of disease they didn't want to touch me they didn't want everything to do it they didn't like me they would they would same things negative my friends overlooked the Vietnam stuff because they knew me they liked me I was their friend I was there buddy I was their cousin I was there football former football Roo made their terrible play a teammate but meeting other people they couldn't let go of the fact that if you do if you're connected with Vietnam then you've got to be bad and that was just a real shock to me I just I was disappointed in that I was surprised at that and then I started watching the news every night and I'm better understood why they were upset because the news people were putting it down and I would sit there watch the news and knew that they were not to own the truth they were grossly exaggerating reality that was going on over there and I put up on that for about three weeks I was supposed to stay home for 30 days but after about three weeks I told my family that I made it back and I just packed up my bags and what I'm kind of like a little better and I think that may have been a first to get back in early but I got to took good advantage of that too as soon as I got back my boss said that he needed to fill a quota for somebody to go to the survival school escape-and-evasion pilot Air Force of course of the Philippines and although Liz makes ten days I was chasing around in the jungles of the Philippines trying to keep being comforted by the people they had hired to try to catch you while you escape evade eight snakes of rice but that was under damn I went back you know it was back in the roll who would put me in the Operations Officer position and I did all the things that I needed to be doing and I had a lot of experience and I was I had just the experience of working with people that she knew that you trusted you had confidence in was this probably the still to this date turns out to be one of most satisfying things was it dangerous yeah did you think much about that no what you did was you just enjoyed being a part of a team over you unit that was getting something done you were clear about what you were doing and you took pride in how well you did it then I look back on that and say I wish I could have seen more of that in my roles and environments since then and it was it was like a study of leadership because I work for I had five different commanders during the years that I was in Vietnam and they were to form was among the best commanders that I've ever known and leaders they were just really good leaders of the couple of the ones that I worked for in my army career after Vietnam where Gary luck who retired as a four-star general and he was my boss a couple times and I was the operations officer for Kevin Powell when Colin Powell's the commander of the 2nd brigade of the 100 first Airborne Division and that was a great experience they were good leaders I learned a lot from them and from my military career of 20 years I think the best thing that came from it there are mothers greatest things that came from it that which other young men should have that same opportunity was the training and the exposure to leadership they just don't get that in any other environment that I'm aware of now there are a few corporations in our great country who do have a little bit of erected good reputation for providing training but I've seen those corporations up close and they do not have the same reputation for leadership that the military has so I'm not sitting here making a recruiting tape I'm sitting there telling you my real experiences but if any young men there's about 18 or 19 to 20 ever does look at this and say wonder what I would do well like I said give the military love because it's the best training and the best leadership that's available anywhere and that's if there are good points and bad points about Mike Atkinson and I'll bet there are I'd say that most of the good parts or a developed home and put into pretty good shape by either my grandfather Baker or leaders in the Army because those are the those are the instructive forces probably in terms of physical people I enjoyed that and that's been good now what else would be relevant the army said okay you're back from Vietnam what are we going to do with you you've served they gave me credit for three tours they didn't want to send me back into Vietnam anymore and getting on the backside of that bubble anyway so they started setting them into schools I went to fix one school I went to ball games in school I went to career course they sent me in fact they told me go back to college later Nicole I chosen went to Auburn University got a degree there later years later they sent me for special educational courses at Columbia University in New York some of the army gave me a lots of educational opportunity with the command and General Staff College so lots of schools a lot of opportunities for me to to learn skills and worldly and knowledge it was a little boy are good for me no matter where I was going to be seven it was the military was a good experience the relationships developed there were probably the most meaningful that I have known and it's a part of why I'm still I guess sort of coming around and eating the noodle salad with the Atlanta Vietnam veterans Business Association is not because I've had a lifetime relationship with those particular people it's just sort electrical when I'm there I know they know what I know I know that that they too had experiences similar to what I did in their own world and that there's just a little bit of camaraderie that kind of feels good to go on so that's a that's been my military career I got accident I retired the army was being really good to me they gave me a promotion to the colonel and were encouraging me to keep moving I was selected to be a battalion commander at Fort Hood Texas and I don't know where the end of the track would have been the guys I was sort of peered peer paired with during those years went on to accomplish great things but I was here in Atlanta when my 20-year mark at Fort McPherson I had two daughters and they were running along three and five four and six and to pull them up and move again was I found a little bit of a negative I hated to keep moving them around plus the army wasn't there was nobody to fight them if you remember back 1983 we had the color war killer then there was there was you couldn't pull them out of hangar painting anywhere there was nothing going on and I'm thinking okay the Army is not necessarily the best place not the most adventurous place to be when there's no war going on so I thought and at the time I really couldn't see where another war was gonna come from I listened to the Intel people and there was no we really didn't think the Russians we're ever gonna show up in the East Coast and try to march across the country so I didn't know word in the world I don't think we need a military anymore there's something to fight so I wasn't having retired and that want many years after that that they did finally something to go get in another little skirmish and now they're overloaded with things to do but during those years they were they were just they were getting quiet or spending all that time training and we really didn't have a good scenario we're gonna leave the fight again so to get a little bit more even so how about what would year did you retire 83 Marcin 23 and if you go back to look at the number Combat Assault run them but in 1993 I think the number is zero so it was it was just quiet tons in the air and I needed something a little more exciting so I just came downtown pulled off the uniform put on been about a suit and a white shirt and further until I figured out what to do I started just calling myself a leadership consultant and that worked fine I got in a hidden somewhere unique places and once I got in and I learned a lot about business and I have enjoyed learning and enjoyed being a part of those things here in this community and then others ever since and this is now what I call home Atlanta Georgia and I'm starting to redefine that to say it's more becoming buyers from Georgia because I'm really enjoying the now starting to slow down and be up there in the North Georgia Mountains and every once in a while catching the nice fish I don't like nothing we can put that on the grid and get them are cheap right now but this has been you know as I'm sitting here now I can get to said okay I wanted to tell them I'm storing there's probably lots more little nuances and the incidences there that I could go back and bore you to tears with but there's a nothing just to give you a feel from at least the view that I had and we're I'm them and then when I'm getting toward the last chapter I think I am 67 67 years old I tell people I'm 84 but consistently so that's why I'm a little after stop to think of how I really I adopted the age 84 about five years ago and it works really good for me because that's right that's right I did that accidentally about five years ago a little sales meeting a lady said a young lady she may be twenty four years old she said something that could have been derogatory about the sick people there are 50s and 60s I said big but her 56 is like that front she said I don't know they just don't get it then she said oh my goodness I've offended you evidence no I said I'm 84 years old and I agree with you when I was 50 60 I wouldn't have got him either but I did 84 I get it she said okay and she said you are absolutely the best-looking 84 year old man I've ever seen and I became 84 that day I use it consistently and I get the same results well you sure do look good if I told him the truth if I told him I was just 67 they would be soon but 84 really that's good so at age 8 I'm looking back over my life saying I'm real proud of the opportunity that I've had to grow up and mr. Richard Baker's a chilling backyard and to be his grandson and 20 years in the Army service to the country but I was really serving with a guy that was working with the cockpit with the foxhole will man that's how I had my you remember my story I didn't want to get in flight school so I had to make that adjustment I convinced myself that what the helicopter was was a mobile foxhole and if I treated it it's out of it like a monk foxholes and that's okay I could go back and just getting my mobile foxhole in from day and go to where the war was go out where the combat was and that's what I wanted to do and think that worked for me but I learned a lot I experienced a lot I've been a lot of places I have been to a lots of places in the world and that wouldn't have been available to me at I stayed in South Alabama and I have nothing wrong with South Alabama nothing against South Alabama it's just that I didn't need to stay there and I needed to get out and you do other things and and the military became my way to do it Jim provided me an avenue and an opportunity and exposure to leaders and to give people who have took good care of me and I love this country and a lot of the opportunities that I've had and I appreciate you guys for giving me this opportunity to come sit and tell you about him okay sir was there anything you wanted to say um closing no I don't know I'm not a I'm not thinking of anything that there's an oh boy I thought we'd get on with that one there's a I could talk about kids and grandkids and fishing but but I think what I was going to talk about is me and my experiences and and I'm comfortable bit of that yes sir well thank you very much pleasure there in your story so thank you for your service welcome home thank you

Channel: Atlanta History Center

Views: 11,051

Rating: 4.7721519 out of 5

Keywords: Veterans (Profession), Atlanta History Center (Museum), Library of Congress Veterans History Project

Id: KWtP6Tw58pU

Length: 58min 52sec (3532 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 16 2016