Oliver G. Halle's interview for the Veterans History Project at Atlanta History Center

today's November 14th 2016 we're at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta Georgia my name is Joe Bruckner I'm a volunteer at the History Center and with me is Toni Hilliard who's also a volunteer at the History Center we're honored to have with us today mr. Oliver Harley Holly I'm Sally that's hey Hallie and he is a veteran of the United States Navy and was a participant in the war in Vietnam and has kindly agreed to come and talk to us about his experience as both his experiences in life and his experiences particularly in the Navy and also so particularly in Vietnam this is part of the Library of Congress veterans history project and mr. Holly story will be put on file at the Atlanta History Center as well as the Library of Congress and we're very honored to have you here today and thank you for participating well I'm honored to be here to be honest with you thank you could you give us your full name and the city and state where you currently live Oliver Grant alley I was born in Delhi New York and I live now in Marietta Georgia okay what is your birth date February 17 1946 okay tell us a little bit about your upbringing on okay I grew up in a small family my mother and father were only children so I had no aunts no uncle's no cousins I had two brothers my older brother who died in 2009 he's two years older than my younger brother who's almost two years younger than I am he still lives in New York my father and his family emigrated from Nazi Germany in 1935 so and my mother was born in Brooklyn but her father was born and raised in Germany and came here as a young man and my mother's mother was born in Brooklyn as well and we moved to Brooklyn when I was a baby so I have no memory of where I was born whatsoever my first memories begin in Brooklyn and then we moved to stat now and when I was seven and that's where I grew up - my father and mother built a legend around our family again I knew that my father and his family had moved from emigrated from Nazi Germany but they built a legend around that and the legend had to do with that his father my grandfather who I didn't know he was killed in a car accident in 1939 I did know that and he was a prominent surgeon in New York and the legend was that they resisted the Third Reich my father was a nun in an underground movement and it was all very romantic and that was the story that I grew up with but I had no aunts no uncle's no cousins nobody that I know I never met my grandfather never met my grandmother the only relative I ever knew was my mother's father my maternal grandfather and he died when I was 8 in 1954 what's he in the state sword it was his doing he was here he actually lived with us he was an educator in New York City but that's the only relative I knew outside of my parents and I'm gonna get more later as we get into this interview there's much more to this that pertains to Vietnam what were the circumstances under which you went into the military when I was growing up everybody went into military that was just the way it was a lot of people don't know that the draft began in June of 1940 and it didn't end until I think roughly 1975 so even during the peacetime between the Korean War in Vietnam people were being drafted in my high school you know people either volunteer to win into the military and it was acceptable nobody even thought about avoiding it if they got if they didn't want to join they were drafted and they didn't complain that's just the way it was and I grew up in that environment that post-world War two you see a lot of veterans from World War two during parades it was always a big deal and it was a it's just what you did that it was your turn to step up when it came time so there was never any doubt in my mind I would go in the service and growing up in New York and seeing the ships in New York Harbor I was attracted to the Navy just it was just there was never any that that's where I wanted to go so you enlisted I I was enlisted in reserves briefly I applied for an officer program and it was called rock rock / OCS where you did OCS at newport rhode island in two different summers so I went through OCS two nine week periods first one in the summer of 1966 a June 18th 1966 August 17th 1966 and then I went back and I think it was probably August 17th or 18th 1967 and was commissioned on October 20th 1967 tell us about your military career just your training where you were where you were signed what you did officer training officer candidate school was at Newport Rhode Island and it was very academic military - but very academic a lot of costs as they crammed a lot of information into you in a short period of time after OCS I was assigned briefly to Brunswick Georgia to enable a station they had a CIC school that's combat Information Center and then from there I went to the USS Springfield which was the flagship of the second fleet in Norfolk and I reported onboard the Springfield on January 5th 1968 I was on the Springfield from January of 68 until I think is roughly June 20th roughly 1969 and a Springfield I was the operations electronics Oh II division officer we had I think 41 enlisted people and there was a chief warrant officer who also and a chief petty officer it was a big division big responsibility to maintain the radar equipment on board the ship and again we would have flagship for the second fleet so we carried an admiral and his staff plus the ship's company probably the Springfield ranks as one of the most shaping one of the most shaping experiences of my entire life we had an executive officer named Warren C ham he was a commander and I was 22 years old when I reported on board that I was yeah 22 I think when I reported on the Springfield yeah and commander ham was about as close as you could come to a captain bligh I mean I you know everybody was just like wow this guy is as tough as nails and his expectations were so high I mean a slightest infractions okay could cause you problems say the least and I couldn't wait to get away from this man as most on believe me it wasn't just me and when I left the Springfield in June of 69 is because I had orders then for Swift Boat training in Mare Island California but I just want to say briefly what happened with regard to command a ham years in 1977 I happen to be reading a newspaper and I saw that commander ham was a Rear Admiral now because President Jimmy caught an ain't and we replaced General John sing law as the chief negotiator in Korea Pam and John I had no idea what happened and I was like wow he made Admiral and has this presidential position a real responsible position so was someone impressed but as the years went by in my career and I'll talk more about that later I began to realize that Admiral Hamm had it right this guy really understood leadership and I was just too young to know that I didn't know and he had a real profound effect on my life in the sense that I again understand what real leadership was now he wasn't the only great leader I met but he certainly one of the most important in my life in 2003 I made an effort to try and find him I didn't even know if he was alive and I did find him he was living in st. Albans Vermont he'd retired from navy in 1987 and I reached that to him I wrote him a letter told him what a profound effect he had on my life that I realized as time went by he had a right and and I had it wrong and that I learned so much from him throughout the rest of my career in life well you built a relationship with it I did and then he invited me to come up and my wife and I went up in February of 2007 and we spent four or five days at his home and I have a speaking program in addition to another business now and he had me speak to a couple of groups up there in st. Albans Vermont and he was still the same old tough Admiral at this point in his early 80s at that point I think he's close to 90 now and I was at the Life will visit he told me to call him warm I said is not a chance in a million years I could call you Warren yeah your Admiral and and I still call him Admiral and we still communicate we still communicate by email same tough guy kind of guy if you go into war that's who you want to go with well that had to mean a lot to him to hear from somebody that was in your position at the time he told me it did mean a lot and one of my very close friends from the Springfield who I also went to Vietnam with on Swift boats a fellow officer he he just went up there in late August to see Admiral ham for the first time too as a result of my visit finally after all these years he went up there too so yeah I think Admiral ham really appreciates this he knew he was a tough guy he knew he was loved but he was respected and I'd rather have the respect and the love it right and you're a military guy you can appreciate that so when you went to Swift Boat training where was that they had just moved it from San Diego to Mare Island California which was in you know base in Vallejo California 27 miles north of San Francisco they just moved it I was a second class my friend Kenny the one I just mentioned visited Admiral Hamlin he was in the first class that had moved up from San Diego so it was 11 weeks of training at Maryland with one week though it would be out in Washington for survival school and then we did I think we did another week at at Camp Roberts an army base for day and night time firearms and weapons training did you volunteer for Swift Boat I did interesting enough I'd never even heard of a swift boat and when I was on the Springfield the trend was that every officer had two tours of duty to do in three years and that most of the officers were rotating in Vietnam on this second tour so my friend Canty the same guy I don't I don't remember where but somewhere he heard about Swift boats and I said what's a swift boat and he described it as best he could and I said I'm gonna volunteer for that I said well you know what I'll volunteer with you and we figured you know eight if we're going to Vietnam I well do something that you know is meaningful so we volunteered for Swift boats and it took the endorsement of the commanding officer and the commanding officer at the time was captain Lando Zek he retired as a vice admiral and chief of naval personnel tremendous human being another guy different style of leadership and Admiral Ham but just a guy that I had the utmost respect voice the things that I saw him do on the Springfield so these are leadership things that I took with me for the rest of my life between Admiral ham Zack and then some other officers I could go on and on but you know so that's how it happened at I volunteered for Swift boats talk about that training and what that involved I the training was you know everyday I lived in an apartment off the base with three other guys one of them was this guy Kenny and the other two are on PBRs patrol boat river they were 233 foot five less boats so they were training separately on the same base and the training you know began early in the morning a lot of classroom training communications seamanship the engineering of the boat it was not rigorous training not it wasn't anything like OCS and some of the other schools I went to think they pretty much you know there it was more of a familiarization and the last week of Swift Boat training was a week where we did day and night time patrolling and they simulated firefights they had ambushes set up for us and you know and try to train you on how to react what to do you know and the boat a lot of people don't know this but on the boat we had twin 50 caliber machine guns up forward in what we call a gun tub and then back after we had a 50 caliber machine gun mounted over an 81 millimeter mortar and the 81-millimeter mortar could be fired like a rifle literally had a trigger and and then of course indirect fire so we we trained on all of that over the eleven week period and then in September I know we arrived in Vietnam on September 27th 1969 I you know the International change in time I guess we left I'm not sure the day what we might have left on the 26th because we left out of Tacoma Air Force Base in Washington I remember that and then we took the flight and it stopped in Anchorage and I think it made one other stop might have been an Oakland alwah and then we landed in Vietnam what was your first impression when you got off the plane what do you remember the thing that I remember best that instant of leaving the plane instant was two things that happen exactly the same time they just converged the heat and the stench both hit you in the face at the same time it was like oh I mean just overpowering the heat and the stench and when we got off the plane you see all these sandbags and we landed in Cam Ranh Bay Oh Cam Ranh Bay was one of the Swift Boat bases and it was the headquarters for coastal squadron one and then from there we were going to be from that to one of five coastal divisions and I remember seeing the sandbags and seeing you know you say wow we we are definitely in a war zone when you saw that you saw everybody in fatigues and yet army there and a navy and air force and there's oh yeah this is the real deal so that was my impression well starting from that first day talk about your experiences in Vietnam from I think it was in Cam Ranh Bay two or three days and I was sent to coastal division 12 in Danang and I remember getting up to the Nang and they didn't have transportation for us to get from the airport in Danang to the base and i was I remember I was with a little put out by that and we had some staff officers who seemed to be indifferent about it so for me that didn't set a good tone but anyway we somehow got a somebody came in a truck finally and picked us up and took us to the base and I had a roommate in the BOQ Bachelor officers quarters nice guy that guy named Sonny barber and Sonny had been in one hellacious firefight and I remember you know you knew and say you're scared you're already thinking you know what am I in for and here here was Sonny and a few others they had been ambushed on the couid I River one of the rivers that our Swift Boat would be patrolling and they were ambushed they were hit with a b40 rocket Sonny was knocked over the side and he swam to shore and still remembered telling a story the Vietcong we'll look inform they they had seen him they had seen him swimming and they came looking for him and he's hiding under the water and then reads and he was there all night until the next day when Vietnamese junk I think they call him your Buddha's came by and and they were gonna take him under fire for I remember correctly I mean it's a long time ago but somehow I was able to like you know Americana and they rescued him but you know it was a terrifying incident you can imagine you know you can hear the Vietcong all around you as they're looking for the guy that they saw a swim over there so that was my introduction to what I could you know maybe face in the year to come we began coastal patrols when I got there I was doing coastal patrols at first and the thing that I've told a lot of people is more terrifying so many times than going into the rivers was coastal patrol not because you were going to be shot at but because of the weather and right after I got to Danang we got into the monsoons and it rained and rained and rained I've never seen rain like that in my life and the seas were high a lot of times we couldn't get out of the dining hall but the Seas was just too high and you you're always afraid of you know the weather you could lose your boat and in fact before I got to be it several Swift boats were lost and all of the coast north of denying in some operation and I think some people drown again I preceded my time but everybody knew the story and these boats had a pretty high top sail so they you know they weren't designed for that kind of weather so that was always scary and then then we began doing the riverine operations in the Kodai River and I was in Danang for I think a month and they assigned me to go to Chile south of Danang and Chu Lai was part of the coastal squadron 12 Chu Lai was the best Duty I had in a while I was in Vietnam that was nice had a huge that I shared with another officer had a Vietnamese woman who cleaned who chat every day it was good we did nothing with coastal patrols and you know there was no real risk of getting killed but what put a real damper on it was one day the word came down that some boats had been in a firefight up in Danang in the Kutai River and one of the officers I had met him only one time when I got to Vietnam I met him one time Ken Norton and Ken Norton was one of two boats that came under fire and and he took an ache a it went through his vest apparently it caught him on the side where there was a little opening and it killed him so that was my that was that put a real damper on on things Santa and I forgot to mention something really important I surprised I forgot it you asked early about first day in the division the very day I got to Cameron Bay when we landed the very day there was a tragic occurrence in Danang where I was going and what had happened was one of the boats had returned from an operation and they weren't enough boats for every crew so they would rotate you know this crew had it then the next crew had it but you the returning crew was responsible for cleaning up the boat making sure it was rearm that all the mortar box the motor box was full all the ammunition everything was full and that the machine guns and all other weapons were you know you even have any rounds in them well on this day the first day in Vietnam while I mean Cam Ranh Bay a teletype came down that they had been an accident and what had happened was the crew coming in they had turned over to both to another crew well the crew coming in had been skippered by Elmo Zumwalt Admiral Zumwalt son and I had known Elmo not well I had met him stateside when I was on a spring field he was friends with a guy in the spring field there and if I forget remind me to talk more about Elmo later ok if I yet I hadn't thought about this until now anyway what had happened was the boat came in so the class ahead of me the Swift Boat class ahead of me my friend Kenny there were two officers three officers in that class I was one of two in my class anyway another officer not my friend Kenny but one of his classmates John Hagee he was getting ready to take that boat out and the there was an experienced officer who was breaking in John Hagee Hagee's hey keya Hagee's crew breaking him in and he was standing on the mortar box and he was explaining you know this is this or whatever he was trying to get across and the machine gun back aft was pointed you know at Point Point always pointed back aft and the mortar box was behind the barrel and this officer I know his name and I'm just drawing a blank I never met him and he was standing on the box just so he could look down and everybody could hear him and the this Gunner's Mate I was getting ready to you know I guess clean the machine gun whatever he was gonna do who knows and he pulled the operating-room ride all the way back slammed it forward and he pulled the trigger you know thinking it was empty but it was around in it it was one round in it and it caught that officer in the groin - caught him writing Ryan and again I was not there but certainly heard the stories and I knew John Hagee at the time John was standing just to the side of the front of the barrel he caught the the muzzle blast his face when I saw him in denying it looked like he had freckles but it was just bloody little tiny bloody spots from the muzzle blast he was that close and he rammed his knee into the groin of this officer to try and stop the bleeding but he was dead and within less than 24 hours what I what I understand so that was my first day in Vietnam if you don't think that won't put a damper on things first day and it put a real damper on Elmo Zumwalt he transferred out of the division and went down to coastal evasion 11 immediately and there was an investigation and you know nothing that I recall really came out of the investigation obviously there was some negligence said a gun should have been shouldn't have been loaded but it was I felt very badly for Mizzou malt and I got to know him better later because Elmo and I and I've gone to the University of North Carolina law school we were there at the same time he was the class at me because he got out of Vietnam before I did and Ella and I talked about a lot of this stuff he died of cancer in 1988 kind of sad he and I corresponded toward the end and I was kind of sad I felt bad for the guy he was a decent guy just sometimes things don't fall right and they'll know just even in the book my father my son which Elmo the to zum wohl stroke and even in there he talked about just seeing who he had been born with a black cloud hanging over his head so welcome to Vietnam that and then a few weeks later can not and getting killed and it's like whoa it's gonna be a long year yeah so I left I was only in July for month because we closed the base they were shutting it down the the Navy part not least the Swift Boat I should narrow that down went back to the Nang resumed patrols up there and the couid i river on the coast what would you describe as the mission of the swift boat on the coast it was pretty much the same you had it was part of what was called market time and that was an operation where you had a barrier three layer barrier vessels to interdict firearms and contraband coming down from the north so on the outer perimeter you had your large warships I couldn't tell you how many miles they wrought I mean I'd be guessing if I said 25 50 or 100 I don't know but they were out of sight they were pretty far out and then in the middle barrier you had smaller vessels the Coast Guard WP bees even Coast Guard cutters and then in the inner barrier was the Swift boats you know when I say in a barrier probably five to ten miles out at the most and you would stop and search these vessels these San Pan's junks whatever came then you know you you stopped them search see if they had anything I never did find a single one that had any contraband I'll jump ahead just since we're on that topic later when I was transferred and spent the rest of my time in Vietnam 9 9 out of 12 months in coastal evasion 11 down in the southern end tip of yet had an interesting experience I've told a lot of people this this story because they you know when we talk about firearms and talking about police shootings you know what goes through your head this particular night it was I was late at night 10 a lot 10 11 12 o'clock I don't remember but it was late and I remember that it was dark of course and there was this sampan and seemed to be you know drifting by itself so we came up on the sampan and we had searchlights on a boat put the lights on the boat to play to try and blind the people so that they couldn't see you but you could see them a safety measure there was a man a woman and several children and just lots of stuff laid out in a sampan I had a Vietnamese sailor on board who was really a good good crew member I wish I know where he was tremendous crew member so my responsibility was I would check all the papers their identification they can't cook their identification card look at the papers and he would give orders to them to lift things up so we could see what was in him you know they had canisters and you know suitcases whatever they had but he would he would talk to him Vietnamese to do everything so I was looking at the documents and I carried when we did coastal patrol I carried a revolver I didn't do that in the river but on the coast patrol carried a revolver and you'd have your crew members one usually had a shotgun another one one or two more might have had an m16 and you know but these were kind of low-key things yeah you aren't tensed they they were so routine and that's the danger anytime kind of like a police stop when they become routine that's when you get a problem so this particular night routine I'm looking at the idea and all of a sudden the Vietnamese sailor he screamed I heard this blood-curdling he just yeah and he does a headfirst dive into the pilot house and this is happening so quickly and I look over at his name was on I look over it on and he had literally jumped into the pilot house screaming and I looked down and all this is happening quickly I look down and I see this man this Vietnamese man and he's holding what looks like a German Luger I mean my heart sank I mean I'm thinking oh I I couldn't get my revolver out fast enough I I just couldn't get it out fast enough and and moving as fast as I can but no matter how fast you go it's just not fast enough and I'm trying to get it out and I got it down on him and I'm ready to pull a hammer and he screamed they this feeling me he screamed and he dropped the gun it was a water gun oh it was a water guy was a black plastic chairman Luger brought a gun I mean that's the kind of thing that you know that could have got me killed and I could have gotten him killed and you know but that's the kind of thing you faced you know and I told people you know as a cop if you're a cop you have to make a quick decision and you see something you don't have time to figure out if it's a water gun you don't have time and if he hadn't if if he had been one second later and dropping that that gun that water gun I mean I would have pulled pulled the trigger and I'm so glad it didn't have that ending you know I mean but well that's that taught me a lot I mean to this day so anyway back up to denying patrols he had the you know in addiction stopping these vessels it was pretty boring to be honest it really was and you know that even if the seeds weren't really rough you're still taking a pounding you know these boats would they just want to design for that the river patrols it depending on which which river you were in as to what the mission was so they were all different I was and I was on while I was in Vietnam I only was on three different rivers the couid i the bois de Dan and all the way in the camo Peninsula and then the one up at ha TN which is on the Cambodian border and I don't remember the name of that River I don't know why but for some reason I don't I'm good with dates maybe face I have fun with that with people but I don't remember the name of that particular River at huh TN but in December December 23rd 1969 we were called in a number of the officers were coastal vision 12 were called in and said that there were five new Swift boats being brought in from the United States brand-new they were the mock threes the latest version and they needed volunteers he needed five officers and five crews to take them to coastal evasion 13 katlow now here's the rest of the story coastal region 12 was going to be shut down within months that wasn't a rumor that was a fact they were shutting down all of the divisions over about a year and a half maybe and turning him over to the Vietnamese Navy so we were going to be transferred no matter what somewhere and coach coastal division 11 down in the southern tip of Vietnam actually the headquarters for coastal division 11 was a non propelled barrack ship and it was anchored alongside a repair ship off the island of anti 40 miles south of the Kama Peninsula it was all by itself 40 miles south that was I headquarters for coastal evasion 11 that's where all the action was at this point Vietnam all that you know anytime there was some firefight or somebody got wounded or killed it was coming out of eleven so my friend Kenny and I and all the other guys yeah we don't need to go too closely Asian 11 you know we we don't need that let's volunteer for the fittest since we know they're gonna Catlow coastal region 13 and Catlow was next to vung tau and you might remember that I was an in-country are in our base so he said hey this could be good duty so we volunteered and five of us volunteered to take these boats down there and spend the rest of our nine nine out of 12 months down a cat low so on Christmas Eve date it's December 24th I think it was a c-130 fluo static at low and the boats were already there and we were happy I mean this is as good as it gets we dodged a bullet not having to go to 11 so we get there and I remember we was sleeping that night in katlow and some barracks and I remember the next morning just I guess it was before the you know the truce went in or what the Christmas truce went in effect but it was my first introduction to a b-52 bombing somewhere in the area I don't know exactly where but I mean it was incredible I I couldn't believe how the ground was shake and you know honestly whoa I mean it you know I hadn't experienced that in Danang in Danang you know saw a lot of I guess was the c-130s where they Puff the Magic Dragon did see them work and watch them work at night time especially pretty impressive stuff but this was the first b-52 strike again I don't know where it was but it was somewhere in the area on Christmas Day Roma started to fly that these new boats were not gonna stay in katlow they were going down to coastal evasion 11 and toy now it's a further south much further and I'm like oh no this can't be true so I went to the ops officer we were in the officer's club it's his Christmas Day and he said hey there's rumors that he's we're not staying here that the boats are going down coastal region 11 he said let's talk about it tomorrow he said I don't want to you know ruin anybody's Christmas we'll have a meeting tomorrow so on the 26th he the ops boy is called a meeting and he said that the boats the new boats were going to be going for 30 days on a special coastal patrol and an toy and the coastal patrol would be in the Gulf of Thailand not on the Pacific Ocean side but on the Gulf of Thailand side that there for whatever reason I don't know or remember the operational reason but they wanted they wanted a coastal patrol there to do basically what we had done up and denied and chulai any other divisions so we're like okay well at least that's probably pretty safe and I still remember the ops boss's words he said I promise to have you back in 30 days I promise you that and I said okay we're good well I was the most senior of the five officers not by much not by much when you're a lieutenant JG and that's very senior to anybody but you know even if it's one day you're the guy so I was responsible for bringing the five boats down to transiting down to an toy I should know but I don't remember how many miles it was it was a good it was a good trip it could have been a hundred miles could have been more now my curiosity's piqued so I'm gonna find out but but it was a good trip and you know we're doing it at night I think we started during today was about a 24-hour ride that I remember that and when at night time came you know we're using our radar we had a radar trying pilot figure out where we are but the but we had rough weather it was rough and it was scary and then trying to keep track of all the other boats and you know so we were on the radios throughout the night you know where are you you know and as best we could track them on radar to try to keep up positions hopefully nobody would fall behind anybody have any problems and one of the problems and I forgot to mention this with the other boats in particular the older boats it was not uncommon for the exhaust boots they were rubber where the exhaust would come out of your engines and we had to 12 East 71 detroit diesel engines and so where the exhaust would come out these booths sometimes burned out and if they burned out you took on water and that happened at a number time happened to me twice at least twice and one was a scary time again I'm kind of digress I'm back in jipang now sure and we were going back to base and it was nighttime and I had an engine man who came up and he said mr. Haly said we're taking out water one of our boots is burning now we're taking our water and I said I hope you got the pumps going and he said I do but we're taking out more water than the pumps can handle and I said oh so we had to get the buckets out and I'm looking at the chart and where we are and the nearest land is this barrier island which is a hundred percent vietcong occupied and it was no way in the world I was going to make a land run and meanwhile this Sanji man I had two main engine while I was in Vietnam and one of them I'll single out by name Bob Bennett he was not the engine in this census was fantastic we had a good relationship he was just as good as they get this particular guy he was good but he was he was a nervous type guy and I remember he came back up to the pilothouse mr. Haly head for land were going down and I said there's no way they said we're gonna have to you know we'll swim before we do that so we Gann bailing out and I remember I sent the communication and we had two different radios we had the PRC 77 and then we had the and I forget the nomenclature the radio but it was a lower frequency that went out to the seventh fleet the entire seventh fleet and I remember I sent that a message to the seventh fleet that we were taking our water hoping to make make it back to base but I wanted to them to have our position in case we had to be rescued we did make it back so is the guy panicked but and and I don't fault them for that we could have you know who knows how could've ended but these are the types of stressful situations that you had to deal with and and they were very stressful people think of Swift boats as something that you know you ain't waterskiing on but there was always something engines breaking them taking on water rough seas and we never mind being shot at that that's a shitty target universe certainly in the rivers so anyway getting back ahead to Anne Tuohy coastal vision 11 with transiting and I remember when we were briefed at katlow about making that transit I remember specifically told if you miss Anne Tuohy at the island or I actually was called Phu Quoc Island Anne Tuohy I think was like the town of something but it still was a small allen if you miss it you're gonna be in the open seas you are gonna be in the open seas so make damn sure you know where you are how close will you to the shore if I had a guess I guess three to five miles out that'd be my guess because sometimes again I'm so rusty it's been almost half a century but you know you had different you know we had charts which show hazards to navigation could be rocks it could be you know it could be anything so you want it to be far enough out where you weren't gonna run into anything and that and that was a problem some guys did not not in this particular instance but sometimes boats did they did run up in rocks and shoals and things not a good thing so we were making a transit and problem with the radar was that with all that when a sea is a heavy you have all this clutter and it's hard to distinguish sometimes you know whether that's a vessel up there or is that land or is that clutter from the from the heavy seas so it was tense but we did make it to answer and I remember still remember on the barracks ship all these people are Manning the rails because they wanted to see the new Swift boats you know so we got there and tied up and from there we we never did get our get back after 30 days I never saw the ops boss again we spent nine months and at first they told us you're gonna be doing nothing but coastal patrol and that all changed with in about 30 days we're in the rivets with everybody else so before we continue yeah a couple of details one is the boat that is pictured on your shirt that is a swift that is a swift line and what was the composition of the crew you mentioned that there was a Vietnamese on the crew it was there always Vietnamese now it was the size of the crew we had a Vietnamese sailor on board during my time probably 50% at a time but the crew is one officer five enlisted okay well we began doing the riverine operations first at sea float that an operation that Admiral Zumwalt had put together and these were floating pontoons in the river they were anchored and it was a base literally a base but it was these floating pontoons that were anchored and it was supposed to be a temporary base and they were building the land base called solid anchor while we were there and it was finished shortly after I left Vietnam but in beginning I was the whole time I was there we were on the pontoons called sea float and sea float had other different boats I'm a little rusty on this weather the army had some of their boats there they may have had their tango boats and other nomenclature boats certainly the Navy its we had our Swift boats there were PVR's there Navy SEALs operated from there Army Special Forces operated from sea float and we were their two main missions were one was the tugboats had to bring in barges from the Pacific Ocean to bring in gravel and other material for the new Navy of the new solid anchor base so they were constantly going in and out with gravel and whatever else they needed for it to build it you should know this that the river this river was not really a river it was like the East River in New York it was a saltwater estuary and you came in the Pacific Ocean and then came out on a very very southern tip of yet on the cow a peninsula which is where the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Thailand come together so that's where sea flow is the boat a river went in one and not the other and they were brutal brutal tides Tai Chan jiz and I'll share one story with you about those tide changes we had inserted myself and a fellow of st. Pete wolston we inserted some special forces as I recall our army green beret Special Forces this particular night we inserted them and then we dropped we tied up with grappling hooks to the beach not really Beach be sure hey don't think of it as a beach it was is really growth a lot of growth there so we use a grappling hook to hold us in place and our mission was you know drop these guys off whatever their mission was I don't I don't remember you know because we did this all the time it could have been a kidnapping mission of some Viet Cong it could have been a you know and a soil type mission it could have been a reconnoitering I I don't remember again these were very common so Pete and I we were tied up a boats were tied up it was late at night and we weren't gonna pull you know get these guys until the next day and we were there for gun for our support if they needed us an emergency extraction and just out of nowhere I remember Pete saying oh my god he said we don't have any water under us and and what had happened is the tide began to go out and it went out quickly and all of a sudden Pete's boat is he's mostly high and dry and his boat was starting it capsized so I had I don't remember exactly the situation but I had water under me and I was able to move my boat alongside his and we tied up the two boats tied up together so basically he wouldn't tip over and we put some guys on a shore hate these award show because it's not really a show we put him on land that's probably better for we had these sensors so a lot of times if you were on some kind of night operation where you had it tie up to land you'd put out these sensors they were small a little you know like a little radio box and you put these senses in the ground that way if you know the Viet Cong or NVA is somebody out there you know and you were monitoring them from the boat if there was any movement you might hear it so we put out these senses and we put out some and I hated doing this because you know we weren't trained to be on land you know they can be booby traps they could be mines who knows and we weren't trained for that and you know we had you know my boat some of the guys they always wanted to go on land they wanted to be soul Jesus and I just would always say no I mean we're not trained for that why would you you know risk somebody's life unless it was an operational reason well we had one in this particular night we put some guys out you know maybe 100 yards out you know basically fall in a perimeter in case because we were sitting ducks we couldn't move I mean we would add till the tide came in we weren't going anywhere so we got through that and it was a big lesson for us about the saltwater estuary and the tidal movement it was it was scary another really I mean there's too many stories you could tell but I'll just share this one other that comes to mind we were we had inserted these two army green berets and a few other there were several of them at but these two and I'm gonna use their race because it's part of the story they were black guys - - Army Special Forces black black men and a couple other guys and and they had a mission they were going to we were going to insert them where they they had a little boat that we carried and they were going up this canal and they were setting up to ambush any of you at Kong that might come down and our mission was to stay in the main river again with a grappling hook and pull him out if there was an emergency or lend gunfire support if they needed it you know I was pretty routine stuff it wasn't a kind of thing to get you all get your blood pressure worked out so I was late in the afternoon it's still daylight I bet we hadn't been sitting there for more than half an hour an hour you know thinking about our dinner plans with us events and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose we hear you know automatic weapons fire grenades going off and like whoa what's going on here you know and it's obvious from the guys he screamed berets I'm trying to get him on the radio I can't get anything and and then the gunfire stop and I'm trying desperately get him on the radiator you need help do we need to come in I'm thinking huh this is not gonna be good and if I can't get them yeah what does that mean right and you know there's no question we were gonna have to go up that canal and try and find him and get him out of that dead or alive so finally they came puttering down in their little boat and we pulled them up and said what happened man well it turned out a Vietcong one or two Viet congs and pans had come down and they killed everybody they killed everybody in these Sam pants and then they took whatever you know was a value of intelligence with him but I get back to the fact that these were two black guys this was 1970 early 1970 and I remember one of them said today I they said you think we've earned the right to vote now in Alabama remember we said that when we said that to the other guy see you think we earn the right to vote in Alabama Wow that's why I said that yeah it was pretty powerful and you know to hear that so spent the good part of my time there and then hot en was a village on a river and along the in the Gulf of Thailand near the Cambodian border spent a fair amount of time in that river as well that was a hotbed too interesting about that particular River when we were at Anne Tuohy our base he and 40 miles have when you got near hottie in some guys found out the hard way that they were serious there's a term in a Navy called a range and what a range is you have two markers and when you navigate those two markers have to be perfectly in line and you follow that that alignment because the mouth of that River it was shore water on both sides and it was very narrow very narrow to get in there safely so you always looking for that range trying to line your boat up so you could follow get into the mouth of the river I never had any problems with that but you know sometimes some people did especially at nighttime it could be could be a difficulty but again that's just a day-to-day routine type thing that was no big deal but you know people who don't know what we did would have no idea that there's a lot more to it than just cranking up the engine and going out there like you're you know in a yacht of some kind a lot more we know the image of a swift boat in the river is as I said earlier sitting duck and you've got land all those nut may be solid land on either side and you're just going down the river how did you handle it when you ever did you ever get attacked from one side of the other while you're in the river and you got the Vietcong taking fire on you you're taking fire from them and I the answer is yes the first time in when we were then when we were at sea float it was a nighttime operation we were taking a tugboat back out escorting it you know you know we would the you know in case they came under attack you know that was on mission say you had one boat in front one behind once they got out into the Pacific Ocean you turned around and went and I remember we were coming back and it was at nighttime and it wasn't really a firefight but took a beef where we didn't get hit but a beat Vietcong fire to be 40 rocket at us I remember hearing the blast by bloom seeing a flash and the guy in the gun tub and the guy back after on the machine guns I mean they let loose you know who knows what happened but yeah you were kind of a sitting duck but at nighttime there's a lot harder to see you and and I remember when we reported it you know report you know I got on the radio said hey taking fire here and and that's right we did set up for mortar that was one of the things we were trying to do we get past the zone he pull in and set up from water and glob some mortar rounds in but that was the first nighttime attack and it occurred from what they had told us at the time I wanted a scary at moments you know and again to talk about you know people people's image of Swift wildlife versus reality we weren't on the fire every day I've heard some people talk about being on the fire all the time well if that's the case it was my experience in it and it wasn't the experience of other people that I was with during that year that they were under this daily fire it's just not not the case they certainly again not during my year but I remember this particular operation again down and see float and we had two Army Special Forces officers and fewer their enlisted guys and we were carrying these sand pans on a boat and we were taking him up a canal and this was a canal that boats hadn't gone up in a long time for I think because they were pretty dangerous they knew that it was a heavily occupied Vietcong further up so the the tension the stress you know like okay we're going up this canal you know several miles up this canal and the canal is narrower than the length of your boat so if you're gonna turn around you have to do a K turn and so yeah it was pretty tense so we're going up this canal and I was the lead boat I was a senior guy again again has seniority among j-jesus there was an old expression I remember seniority among JD's and incidences like what virtue among women or some crazy thing but yeah but anyway I was lead boat and all of a sudden I hear these two explosions right off of our boat I mean right there at the bank and I saw the blast of one of them and while we were going up that canal I never I never was behind the helm of the boat ever I mean had a guy doing that and my my job was to make sure I knew where we were at all time so I had it shot it was on a table had a plastic covering and a grease pencil so when we're going up a river like this or a canal you know I'm keeping track and checking off with a grease pencil exactly where we are in case something happens I can call for help instantly and know where we are so I'm keeping track of all of that and this this blast occurs and you know I hate to admit it but it is what it is I mean I had the radio with the mic in my one hand and the grease pencil in the other just in case but I you know I didn't know what was going to happen maybe nothing and I literally lost my voice for a couple seconds I'm trying to get on the radio I remember saying you know you know we're under attack and I couldn't get anything out I mean my my vocal cords tightened up with something you know I only was a few seconds but still it was just you know to show you the the stress the tension of those few seconds it was incredible but you know I got it out and said we came on you know came out attacked up but there was no follow up with automatic weapons I would have thought they would have been the best we could figure out was that these be 40s were in launches that we're in place and somebody remotely had somehow set him off and then you know disappeared just in case any boats ever came up the biggest fear of course was now going back out if we dropped these guys off now we have to come back at and it's like oh boy it worked out we didn't come on the fire but that was the biggest fear that we could really come under attack coming out so again there are lots of stories I think the overall impression I'm trying to leave you with is that the day-to-day stress day-to-day anxiety it's not a yacht club you never knew what was going to happen ever every day was different and even though things could be routine I'm not trying to suggest that you always have heightened alert but but you can you never know he just didn't know I would think just the visibility of the Swift Boat where you were there was really no concealment now your would cause stress right there no there isn't but we had air support if we needed it when we were at hot TN that place that River along the Cambodian border we came on the fire one time and I was carrying Vietnamese inventory on the boy on the boat there was another boat with me and we were carrying Vietnamese sentry I don't remember what we were gonna do it we're gonna you know drop him off it was daytime this wasn't a night I remember we were gonna drop them off to something we came under fire small arms fire you know automatic weapons no rockets and immediately pulled into the land of Trent and I'm trying to tell these soldiers you know they're officer you know get out there you know trying to get him off the boat and get out there and chase down whoever it is and they wouldn't get off the boat and then at the same time I called for help from one of the LSTs that had the Seawolves these were helicopter gunships so I called fair they were anchored off the Gulf of Thailand David they were kind of as support as an aside they were kind of a support for us we could get you know food from them we could get any kind of help I tell you I can't say enough about how much I love the US Navy and the Coast Guard when it came to helping us you know whatever you needed they always they were so can do and so willing to help so willing to give up whatever they could to help you so i radioed in for sea wolf we're under attack here request sea wolves I I cannot tell you how quickly those helicopters those sea wolves arrived it was unbelievable now they they had an alarm system on the ship and they had guys ready to respond 24/7 because I was on that very LST you know I mean when we go out there tie up sometimes to get supplies and they responded so quickly I it was it couldn't have been more than a minute or two on the first chopper pilot radioed me and said can you mark the area with smoke and we did you know we had smoke I think we I know we had smoke grenades and I'm trying to l and we had did we have smoke in the m79 so you might remember better than me it's been so long I'm rusty on that part we may have even had a smoke and the mortar I just don't remember but I remember we had smoke capability and you know like red or whatever color was you know the appropriate we we mark the area and two or three sea wolves came in and with 2.75 inch rockets I mean just saturated the area with rockets and m60 s from there you know Chiapas and it was pretty impressive how they but what was impressive is the quick response that they would add a help they would have I mean that's a tremendous feeling when you know that you're not gonna be left stranded that's gotta be and that that yeah so that's why I said nothing but good feelings about the you know these guys during your time in Vietnam did you have much opportunity to interact with the Vietnamese people whether either the troops that you served with on the Swift boat or in the towns or yeah I guess that's a relative term how much but the answer is yes and then to explain in Danang probably the most contact would be in the officer's club all of the people who work there were Vietnamese Vietnamese women so you you know and interacted with them of course in in the for corps in Ha Tien I remember getting a haircut and by a Vietnamese Bob I still laugh at this you know several of us went in to get a haircut and I'm thinking you know am I gonna get my throat and you know thoughts run through your head and and I remember there was a town whole en which was on the banks of the river a Kutai River up and denying Hoi An was a nice City but I've seen pictures of what it looks like today and it's just unbelievable doesn't resemble back then sandbags and Constantine a wire everywhere but yeah I got you know reacted you know re interacted with people that sometimes go into restaurants get something to eat certainly work with some of their soldiers you know I had forgotten this incident speaking of working with different soldiers this was not a fun pleasant experience we worked in Danang just you know you probably well certainly Tony would know Marines operated out of Eickhoff where we were that's it and we did work some with the US Marines up in I Corps along the cold I River this particular day again I don't remember why but we would transporting Korean Marines these rocks so Hoi An I don't remember you know what you know why all I know is somebody giving her an order you know take pick these rocks up take them the high-end few miles up the river so there was a sergeant and probably you know maybe 10 or 12 of these Crane Marines and we had on board we had searched a couple of sand pants in a river and I remember vaguely I remember that we took several women prisoners because they didn't have paperwork and they may have had some contraband no weapons but they may have had contraband I I don't remember why it's not particularly important all I remember is we took him on board and handcuffed them because they had done something and we were going to turn him over to Navy intelligence in Hawaii so we had these Korean Marines on board - needs to be young Vietnamese women and I was in the pilot house where that's where I normally stayed when we were moving I'm in a pilot house except I cause Patrol I didn't you know I wasn't a most time but not as importantly so I'm up and pilots one of my you know crew members came up to me said mr. Haly said that we got a problem he said these Korean Marines they want to rate these women I said what'd they say so they're eyeing him over an appointment and you know and they make emotions and all this I said whoa so I went back after and I went up to the sergeant he the senior petty officer not petty officer senior ranking guy enlisted yeah there was no officer I'm trying to speak to him in English I say and I'm pointing to say you women you know touch no touch you know and you know no English no English you know no no touch no touch and the other guys the other man listen I can see they're getting angry now they getting a misogynist trying to you know even though he didn't speak English he understood what I was trying to say now he's getting confrontational so I told my crew members I said put the weapons on put a monomer and it was tense it was very tense they they would determine they were going to have their way and I was a terminate warrant and we made it to Hyannis and I told the sergeant I said you know you you touch women I said your captain he it out you talk it out your captain he caught it I kept saying that you know how could I you and sorry we've got the high end and as soon as we got there I reported these you know the sergeant his troops to you know the our intelligence people and they you know reported wherever went I have no idea what happened after that but fortunately these women you know we're not assaulted and turn them over to naval intelligence the Annihilus naval intelligence liaison offices and you know they who knows what they were involved in but you know what they did the right thing and you gotta be proud of that because some wouldn't have done that i it would have been impossible to let that have happened just some things you just can't do you know I mean it's not our American values it really isn't I mean even at that age I understood that much that's not who we are as Americans we don't do that and when did you leave Vietnam I think the date was September 20 yes September 23rd 1970 we could take a short break yes when I hit the bathroom real quick Tony we're going to take a short break to illustrate again how every day was different and how the Swift Boat was not a yacht we were assigned again back up in Danang area there was a Sperry or island and it was a hundred percent Vietcong occupier there's the same one I think earlier I mentioned when we would take Nam water that I did not want to go to and we were assigned to do what's called psyops you may have done that yourself in the Army and that is we were gonna go up and down and with a Vietnamese sailor in Vietnamese he would tell them the US Navy is now going to be patrolling this area if we call you out if you're a sampan or a junk and we call you out do not resist you know approach the boat and follow all commands that was in effect well we were operating very close to the shoreline and I would say no more than you know a couple hundred yards off the shoreline and we were all wearing battle gear you know the flak jackets flak pants helmets everything I was sitting on the combing of the boat the combing is that raised portion of a door so with it you know if you're going and you have to step over this they call it the combing I was sitting on a call me with binoculars watching the shore and my helmsman you know he was trying to man you know keep a steady course and then we had all the guns amande not only the 50 calibers but we had a guy with an m60 machine gun and what's called a peak tank which is all the way up forward on a boat up here okay and this much of his body is above the deck of the boat his feet and everything below and he had the m60 so everything's pointed at the shore while the vietnamese is on a microphone yelling out you know we're here and whatnot so I'm sitting there on the combing and I'm watching the shoreline just to see if there's any kind of you know movement any Vietcong anybody trying to come out at anybody you know whatever I could see all of a sudden the helmsman yelled out screamed out look out and it I immediately I had no idea what was going on I immediately jumped up and I had about two seconds if that to see what he was talking about somehow our boat had gotten inside the surf line and here comes this massive wave it was breaking over and I you know the futility at work here I screamed that you know hard ride you know to head into it we took that wave broadside I had enough time we had handles by the die I grabbed the two handles the boat starts going over and I literally thought this was it it's over the boat is capsizing I'm holding these handles to this day I do not know how he came back up I don't know I can only guess I guess all I can do is guess that maybe some house you know water got underneath this and somehow right it is I don't really know all I know is as the boat was going over I could see the water coming up to my face and I'm thinking you know am I gonna live am I gonna drown it's a book on a you know collapse on me yeah million thoughts go through your head in a moment like this we came back up and I immediately screamed that head out to sea you know just head out we did a head count everybody was on board we lost several weapons that went overboard the the impact was so strong we had a refrigerator on board early actually blew the door open we had you know we had a like a dozen eggs they were scattered all over the deck of the boat but we lost weapons we lost but we didn't lose anybody and that was a good news that that was a terrifying moment and a few years ago I found some of my crewmen I'd lost touch with him at the end I found my enjoyment a guy I told you it's a really great guy he lives in Florida one of the very first things he asked me is do you remember that incident one of the very first things he asked it's one of those things you just could never forget and that and had we capsized I mean first of all no telling who would have drowned including myself anybody who made it to shore that was all Vietcong occupied you know all of it so it would have been a bad situation but I tell you this again and I've said this over and over this wasn't like a yacht this wasn't a day at the beach every day was different and you just didn't know what what could happen now to segue into something a little bit amusing I'm back down again in the coastal region 11 you know down there in the Gulf of Thailand and the Pacific Ocean area and my Commodore Lieutenant Commander Bill Martin he called me in I was hot wherever I was he called me in to headquarters immediately so I go back I had no idea what was going on and he says he hands me a teletype and I read this teletype my hearts ache and it his best I recall I wish I had a copy of it it said something like this from commander in chief Pacific - you know command a coastal squadron one Coast elevation 11 boom boom subject of presidential interest Umberto's words of presidential interest and I'm paraphrasing and it goes on to say as follows Ruth Hallie Gorman the mother of lieutenant JG Oliver G Hallie Staten Island New York has written to the President of the United States Richard M Nixon that her son is not getting his mail and the president has ordered an immediate inquiry to determine why he isn't getting his mail and and I was flawed because I had never complained to my mother I wasn't getting my mail that didn't happen I never said a word that I wasn't getting my mail nothing I was getting my mail it wasn't a problem so like I'm speechless and embarrassed I mean this thing went out to the entire seventh Fleet miscommunication of presidential interest so the Commodore was very sympathetic and he said well we have to respond to this immediately what do you suggest I civil Commodore I'm getting my mail I mean I don't know where my mother's coming from I can't pick up a phone to call her and ask her what's going on and so I remember we responded that I had been in transit and had been moving around and apparently the mail hadn't kept up but there was no problem be assured that there was no problem everything's fine and it's okay so when I got home I have a copy somewhere in a box I know that of a letter from a general in the Pentagon how that works you know since I'm in a Navy but who knows but anyway I remember it was a general in the Pentagon who had written my mother that on behalf of the President or something like that they were looking into why I wasn't getting my mail and that generated that teletype we know that's impressive that they spent that much time concerned about a trooper in the field that is true it's impressive I gotta say that probably wouldn't happen in the Soviet military well the Third Reich but that is impressive but anyway that's my like I say it was a very embarrassing thing to me but and I asked my mother when I got home almost a year later I said why did you do that I said I was scared my mail why did you do that and oh I remember her saying is you won't get you mail okay you don't want to argue with mom [Laughter] where would you like me to segue nest because I say wait next I do have you know something that is very critical to Who I am and and all of that let's go there okay back in the 1930s my maternal grandparents had a correspondence with a woman in Australia named Hester buck Esther buck was a teacher in Australia and she communicated our road letters I could say they correspond her only by mail and we're all the same roughly the same age you remember back then in the 70s I'm talking about 60s and 70s you had the that paper you bought it at the post office I think they call it fly paper because it was so light and you would write a letter and then you would fold it remember that you would fold it over and put a stamp on it but it was so light and you'd send it by airmail because it was cheaper back then if you remember they were ml rates versus first class whereas today there's no distinction okay so this correspondence might my grandfather my mother's father and her mother they were both educators as was my mother in New York and they had this correspondence they got through the park a pen company it was just one of those professional things and over the years they got to know each other only by mail they'd never spoken so when my grandfather became too sick my mother picked up the correspondence so we're talking probably about the late 1940s early 1950s so my mother beat protesta buck and they corresponding you know maybe once a month once every couple months and I remember Miss buck that's what I called her she would send us little trinkets for Christmas that kind of thing but again they never spoke all of this was by mail all these years so now I'm in Vietnam and it was arranged that I would meet Miss buck on R&R and I was lucky I got to are in ours first one was in June of 1970 I went to Hong Kong and then the second one the Camaro was really generous about that went to Sydney so my mother arranged by mail for me to meet her so I was pretty excited to it this is a big deal and the way it was gonna work as I was gonna meet her at her home and then my mother was gonna call while I was there now again we're all of the same age these young people have no idea but when you called internationally back then you had to call the overseas operator remember that you could maybe you know cuz if you never made an international call it wasn't very common it was expensive but you call the International operator and you'd say I'd like to place this call to Sydney Australia and the International operator would tell you that it might be an hour might be two might be three depending on the traffic before they could get a line so the plan was hopefully it would all fall into place while I was there my mother would be calling in the date was September 8th 1970 and I've written a book but it pertains to this business I have is speaking business and I have a chapter in the book called life changing versus life shaping experiences September 8th 1970 my life forever forever I don't know why I'm getting emotional but I think about it I told you earlier in this interview in the beginning that my mother and father were only children I had no relatives and my father's side in particular a lot of mysteries that had never knew the answers to my father had committed suicide on Martin on May the 9th 1966 I was in college I was 20 years old I was a junior in college at the time and in that book that I wrote I put in there that you know he just couldn't outrun the demons that had chased him from the Third Reich and he as I said earlier he had built up the sledge and he was in his German underground movement and they got in their street fights and all of that well it turned out that's all true that part is all true what never made sense to me as I got older was why would a wealthy family because my father came from a wealthy family he was an only child his father was a very prominent surgeon and I didn't know until I sent you the story from New York Times I didn't know until this year until this year February of this year that he had actually been a physician for Kaiser Wilhelm and Czar Nicholas of Russia I didn't know that until this year from the ID Suhasini be sorry to new york times 1939 when he was killed in a car accident so anyway he had committed suicide four years earlier and I'm sitting with Miss buck and she had never married she was a woman probably in the 70s at the time and she was so excited to see me I mean oh she was just fluttering here from there I am so excited to finally meet somebody from the Holly family after all these years I was so happy finally you know this is wonderful and I can't wait for your mother to call you know I just so looking forward to that and then she said as follows she said and I don't remember her exact words I was too stunned and so I'm close but this these are not the exact words I just don't remember what they were I wish I did but I don't she said something like this did your mother ever reconcile with her father for marrying outside the faith and I looked at Miss buck and I said Miss buck I don't understand your question my mother and father you know were Protestants I don't know what you mean by marrying outside the faith and she said no no no she said your mother was Jewish she married your father but I said my mother's not Jewish I said of course she is and and she's my head at that moment exploded yeah I you know how you get shocking news whatever it is really shocking is that's what happened to me it was like that because I experienced anti-semitism growing up I grew up a Methodist but I experienced a lot of anti-semitism I don't kid anybody you know that I don't know I looked you okay I mean there is a stereotype and and I'm one of them my head exploded I couldn't believe what I was hearing so she saw the look on my face and she stopped short she says oh my god I hope I didn't say anything I shouldn't have said I said no I said I'm glad you did but she didn't say another word well my mother called in and we all had a very nice chat didn't bring in eat us up and miss buck was so excited to finally talk to my mother and I left Vietnam I think September 23rd so it was a couple of weeks or so later and got to San Francisco add a little bit of an experience at the airport nobody spit on me or anything like that well if you register I'll tell you that later and I out processed from active duty to the reserves it took I think five days I was a treasure island you know about an hour they you know did administrative stuff and they cut you loose so at the end of the week I flew from San Francisco to New York friend of mine picked me up and I went to my mother's house to like if I had a place to live a couple weeks later and I'm unpacking my seabag and this has just really been weighing on my mind and as I'm unpacking my seabag I said to my mother why didn't you tell us we were Jewish and she said what where did you get that nonsense from those are her words and I said miss buck told me and my mother very uncharacteristically she was very polished very educated very uncharacteristically she said miss buck is a liar I shouldn't talk that way I said no I said miss buck told the truth and very uncharacteristically my mother completely broke down I mean really broke down crying and she said please don't tell your brothers and I said I have to well as the years went by I would try and talk to my mother about this she shot at that she'd act like I wasn't even in a room I just want to change the subject she looked up and talking about it she wouldn't talk about it absolutely refused so I never learned anything for my mother nothing and she and my father had destroyed a lot of documents so over the years would take me too long to tell her that doesn't fit in with the Vietnam part of the story so I'll just kind of synopsize it real quickly I learned a lot on my own through reading books and then when the internet came into being learned a little bit and so the bottom line is this my grandfather on my father's side was Jewish for sure a hundred percent I have the records to support that he was Jewish and my maternal I'm my paternal grandmother was Lutheran my father was raised Lutheran so in the Jewish faith you know the bloodline carries on the mother's side not the father's side so even though my father was half Jewish he's he wouldn't be recognized as Jewish by Jewish people so that that comment about that you might never reconcile with her father in fact my mother married outside the faith even though my father was half Jewish so my father and his mother were estranged I don't know why to this day that's a secret that'll go to the grave I will never know the answer to that it kills me not to know but but I'll never know I do not know my father would write her letters she lived in Queens when we lived on Staten Island my father would write her letters and I still see this in my mind's eye they would come back unopened and there would be a stamp you know this kind of stamp on the envelope and it would be of a hand pointing this like this and it would say return to sender refused with check mark refused and she died in February 1959 but I never met her and thought to this day I don't know why they were strange had no idea so that day changed my life forever and you find that you there's more to your past and it's very different than you were brought up to believe it that has a profound effect so that's a life changing experience life shaping without question was my time in the Navy and certainly in Vietnam I went over to Vietnam I was 23 years old as an officer in charge of a swift boat I came home I was 24 and to have that kind of responsibility at that young age if that won't shape you nothing will so I want to go back again relate back I should say relate back because I mentioned them to begin and I'm gonna relate back some things when I talked about Admiral Hamm when he was commander when he was executive officer dick Springfield after Vietnam I spent a year trying to get into law school but working this odd job I had had when I was in high school just a mock time I got into law school I began in August of 1971 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and I went through the went through law school knowing that my career plan was to become an FBI agent there was never any doubt that's what I wanted to do I had formed that plan years earlier when I knew I was gonna be Chief of Naval Operations and I figured that out in high school by the way in high school so my career in the FBI you have two tracks you know the investigative side and then you can choose to go into management it's not like the military you know it's mandatory promotion so you're right you know people choose in the FBI if they want to go into management and I I know I just sent it after having the experience that I had a Navy particularly in Vietnam I figured nothing could rival that nothing nothing not even close and then and I love the FBI my career I had 28 years it was a free ticket to a show I loved it but to be kind the best leadership I saw was in the Navy and I kept going back to Admiral Hamm I kept going back to him how he ran a Springfield why it was such a good ship why it was so efficient why things got on why things worked I kept going back to him all as years you know went by and more years would go by and I always went back to Admiral Ham and so when I reached out to him to 2003 that's what I had in mind mmm that's what I had in mind that this is a man who really had a profound impact on my life but I had no idea he would when I left the Springfield in June of 69 all I knew is I wanted to get away from him had no idea so is that just how the that took hold took hold of me stayed with us up till now right through today I want to ask you about one thing that you had mentioned and written about a little bit you apparently were exposed to Agent Orange and have a disability you want to talk about that at all yeah I'm a health nut I have been for most of my life I'm I work out every day seven days a week have most of my life at least since consistently since I was in my start of my third year of law school so that would have been in August 1973 workout I try and eat healthy live a good lifestyle don't smoke rarely drink I did smoke a long time ago but that was a long time ago in on the weekend of May Memorial Day weekend 2005 I had this I had bronchitis and I went to a walk-in doctor you know doc in a box and they doctor prescribed an antibiotic for me okay I was on a Saturday on Monday I had to fly out to California on this I have an investigative business - I have two businesses and I had to fly at the California and this investigative case I brought my workout gear with me and but I'm so busy out there was one of those you know two or three days a year miss well I missed when I was in California I just didn't have time we would go a day and night and I got back I think on a Wednesday evening Thursday was my swim day I do different things on different days so this is a swim day at the YMCA in East Cobb I got in the pool and as I got a aerobic you know started stroke and as I got a aerobic I had this burning sensation not a pain but a burn in my chest so I was thinking it was the bronchitis had come back it's all I could think of so i toughed it out finished doing my laps and I felt okay afterwards but it wasn't my comfortable bar over the next three weeks every time I ate a jog or swam didn't bother me lifting weights I don't know why it but it didn't but when I jogged the swam that burned with kicking and it was starting to kick in sooner on this particular Sunday I started the jog and the burn was so bad that I had to stop I couldn't run through it it was unbelievable so I just walks up so on Monday I went to the Y and I was a weightlifting morning and again some reason didn't bother me lifting weights but I called my doctor when I got home from the Y and I said I don't know what's going on maybe I need an antibiotic so I was lucky he got me into three o'clock in the afternoon and you know when you go in they do your weight they do your blood pressure your pulse well everything was wrong and nothing was right everything did an EKG on top of that and it showed some kind of abnormalities so he sent me for a nucleus stress test that was done on a Wednesday and on Friday he called me and he said this was in July he called me that I would have been July the first I guess he called me to say the only words I remember were insufficient blood to the heart stressed he said you need to see a cardiologist you probably have a coronary blockage like whoa he got my attention with that I'm thinking how could that be so the following week I saw a coroner cardiologist so I'm on a Thursday he looked at the report from the nuclear stress test he said I'm guessing you have a blockage can you come in tomorrow we're gonna have to do a catheter so I came in Friday morning he did a catheter and he said you have a 90% closure in the el-ad artery of lower anterior descending that's the Widowmaker artery and I was speechless I'm thinking how could that happen to me I mean you know I'm the mr. health so anyway he did an angioplasty and stent and while I was at st. Joseph's Hospital I call different people and I still remember my CPA a woman she since moved out but I called her to tell her that what happened and because this is a I guess a family value station here I can't use the expletive that she used when I told her but it began with Holi and she said if that happened to yield and there's no hope for the rest of us I said so anyway I went on with my life I was 2005 and then there were all these Agent Orange claims and they were backed up to kingdom come and the VA required you had to prove there was a nexus between various conditions and Agent Orange and nobody could prove it how you gonna do that it was you know nobody could prove it and it was General Eric Shinseki when he was head of VA said effective immediately if you have one of these list conditions a lot of cancers and heart disease related if you have one of these list conditions and you can prove you're in Vietnam it's an automatic they didn't tell you the percentage but it was an automatic so I I wasn't gonna apply I said absolutely not I'm not gonna do that I figured I'm healthy that's that's a ripoff well the guy that talked me into it probably a couple of years went by the guy that talked me into a tremendous person I hope you know his name if you live in Cobb County you definitely know his name Mike Boise Mike Boise and I are friends I met him probably 12 years ago and Mike was want to talk me into applying for to be a disability and Mike does a lot of volunteer work with the VA and he takes people there and he took me down there along with several other people navigated us through the system I applied and I remember on one of the forms I had to fill out it said describe what expose you you may have had it wasn't necessary to describe it but they wanted to know and I gotta tell you the Swift Boat guys we had heavy exposure particularly down in tenon for core because we washed our clothes in that river water we bathed in that river water and all that Agent Orange runoff from the banks where they spread it to knock knock the foliage down a push to potential ambushes further back that was water we bathed then wash their clothes in probably you know inhaled you know who knows so yeah and fairly fair amount of it can I tell you that cause my coronary condition I can't tell you that I have no idea I'll leave that up to medical science and they don't know the answer yet they're collecting information on Vietnam veterans who have the disability they're collecting it and they the the plan is and the years to come they'll have enough information in the system that scientists can sit down and try and sort through it and figure it out so I got it ended up with a 30% disability as a result of that you know Wow well there's no doubt you were exposed to what you were talking have not the slightest now no but by the way nobody in my family has a there's no coronary history of heart disease of my family by anybody no cancer in my family I mean we pretty good DNA I guess but sob is the only one well speak in a family before we end I want you to talk about your family to whatever extent you would like to children or I started late in life with children I'm married to Molly Johnson Halle she's from Charleston South Carolina she met her in New York she was an FBI agent as well and she was chief division counsel for the FBI office in Atlanta for most of her career but we met in New York and I was just short of 41 when my oldest daughter Caitlin was born just short of 42 when my second daughter Victoria was born their Irish twins they're twelve days short of a year apart and both she and Victoria Caitlin Victoria right now as I speak our net 12 day gap they're both 29 as I speak Caitlin will be 30 on Wednesday so they're both the same and then Tyler is 27 Caitlin is an anesthesiologist assistant and the University of Colorado Medical Center in Denver that's a two-year postgraduate profession and loosely analogous to a physician's assistant Victoria is a pediatric nurse at the Children's Hospital of Colorado and Kayla I was married to a CPA Victoria is married to a an ear-nose-throat surgeon who just finished his five years of residency and is now finally working hey well he was working before but now finally you know really working and then my son is in his fourth year of medical school at Emory and as we speak this very moment he is in Birmingham Alabama for his very first interview four residences he's got a lot of interviews ahead of him and he plans to become an ear-nose-throat surgeon as well and this is only a coincidence and Sue knows it's only a coincidence it was not playing this way but my son Tyler is following in the footsteps of his grandfather who was an ear-nose-throat surgeon Josh and that's coincidence he didn't do it for that reason he didn't even really know about it until recently so that's something well you've got a superstar bunch of kids they have made life easy for me I look back and I've told a million times that's why I was happy to do the education believe me sometimes say I say it's a gift to the giver to be able to give it really is I'd rather be on the giving end and it's a gift and they've given me a lot so you've given them a lot too I will take what they've given me soon you were Tony have any questions I want to give you a chance before we stop to say anything you'd like to say any message you want to convey or anything you'd like to say before we finish I'd like to close with this and it goes back to you a very opening question when you asked what led you to go into the Navy one of the things that my father did when we lived in Brooklyn and I was a young boy and I remembered so vividly on a lot of weekends he would go in and and he was volunteer for church world service in church world service even to this day I think sponsors immigrants and my father went down there you can pick you this these ships coming in from Europe with thousands of refugees coming to New York yeah at organizations like Church World Service sponsored these people people who had nowhere to go no homes lost families another very profound effect on me if you read the words and I know you have of amaryllis heiress on the Statue of Liberty me a poor your wretched your teeming masses however and my father and his family before I was born obviously coming to New York don't imagine what they thought when they saw the Statue of Liberty so he volunteered his time to help refugees and one of them came to live with us for several years surrogates Hill Huck off he was a Russian he'd been a veterinarian and in the Russian army and Russian cavalry I don't remember whether he was captured or what happened but either way he ended up in a refugee camp in Europe after the war he was on one of his ships what I remember is he was coming off the ship and people being processed my father I remember the stories saying you know he's one of mine he came with him and he lived with us for several years and then for health reasons he both to Miami but we stayed in touch and I last saw him when I was in a Navy ship was in Fort Lauderdale and I called him and I spent the night with him a wonderful man wonderful man he loved this country what he gave him he lost everything in the war I'd lost his family everything I think of my father and all of that and you say how can you not give back you know how can you not do that this country gave my father and his family a home when they were evicted from this was the Vietnam War one of those Wars like World War two that you know you're fighting to defend your country I I can't say that it was and I won't but but that's not the point point was that military service was something that came to be expected and people of my generation not everybody obviously we had a lot of people who didn't share my view but a lot did you know we we did our time we came back from Vietnam and that was one thing I forgot to bring up like you and tell me people say well you know the people spit on you or anything no no nobody cared when I get back nobody cared you were Vietnam veteran so what in law school in my class we probably had 10 to 15 Vietnam veterans you know we would talk Casey we'll probably you know we weren't all close friends but we got along very well we could at least if there's anything about the war was still going on we could talk about it you didn't talk about it with other people they didn't care it was irrelevant it meant it was just they couldn't relate to it it was only when Ronald Reagan dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to the Vietnam Missy and I watched it on TV live I don't know if you guys saw that but it was powerful oh my god that was powerful and Ronald Reagan made it okay to be Vietnam better and he was that was the first it was okay then I could wear a t-shirt you know Vietnam better I never did before that never didn't talk about it not I didn't talk about it because you know oh I can't talk about it I bad memories of pts no nothing to do with that nobody cared nobody cared so that was the reason I did forget I did mention it when I was in California getting ready to come home I was at the airport waiting for my plane to go to New York when I went to Vietnam the only uniforms that we brought were are the ones issued to us washed khakis and the jungle greens that's it your navy blue is your whites all of that that stayed home so I was in the San Francisco Airport I was in a coffee shop waiting for my plane and I was wearing washed tackies wash khakis what you wear aboard a ship or the base you know as a working uniform - working uniform but it's not when you go out in public with khaki pants khaki button shirt open collar and a combination had or what they call a piss cutter you know so I had the watch khakis and a combination hat oh the Eagle this man not much older than I was well yeah it probably was thinking back now maybe ten years old who knows fifteen he was with his daughter who was probably about 17 or 18 and he came over to me and he said you a naval officer said yesterday he said you're a disgrace to the Navy okay he said I was in the Navy he said neat we would never have been allowed to you know go out in public where any you know you know a whole uniform like that so okay I said well I just got back from Vietnam I'm heading home I've been separated from active duty I'm heading home and I said this is the only uniforms we brought to Vietnam I said we didn't have navy blues or our whites or any other you know uniform you'd wear in public so and to his credit he apologized he did he said sorry I didn't know he bought me a cup of coffee no was it but that was it that was the only experience I had and that wasn't even all that bad it was just he really wasn't and that was kind of the other side he wasn't war protest which is fine I had you know I didn't disrespect them that's what I love about America it's well for everybody's opinion yeah but yeah that was it so I went on with my life and life was good my FBI career was fantastic he was a free ticket to show I traveled all over the world toward the end you know with the FBI and I was very lucky in my in my life I really was lucky probably I got a few lucky breaks along the way didn't have to but I did and I'm grateful for them and I've got some plans in my head for what I'm gonna do about paying it forward so well you know people make their own luck in a lot of cases and you've obviously made made yours you your father set a great example for you and you've obviously followed up on what your father talk to you about caring for others and you served your country and as you said there was no doubt you were just going to go in because that people did but some people didn't and you did and you served it honorably you've got an incredible family which I'm sure they will all tell you is because in great part because of you and you've supported them emotionally in every other way and I mean you tell it you tell the story so well and you should really be proud of not just your military service but your whole life and past current and future I appreciate that Joe and I and I almost forgot in closing you you said it the very beginning I think the three of you said that there'll be a DVD and I said there's a reason why that's important to me and I think you've probably figured it out now yes and my mother and father didn't leave historical legacy they left nothing virtually nothing I found a box with has some interesting documents but virtually nothing and this DVD will be part of what I hope to leave behind so that I don't have any grandchildren yet but if and when I do under my own kids and on that hopefully they won't be any mysteries they'll know things that even now as I sit here that they don't know yeah they don't know they don't know hardly any of this they know I was in Vietnam I swear post but they couldn't tell you anything beyond that well that's a great message to end this discussion on and hopefully when your children and grandchildren see it they'll realize how to tell their story too down through the years and hopefully they will too they should well thank you for being here and thank you for your service no thank you having me here your service too and your service like I said you guys teed it up too so thank you so if we hadn't met I wouldn't be here so thank you very much to you guys too

Channel: Atlanta History Center

Views: 29,965

Rating: 4.6141481 out of 5

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

Id: mtVdq5ZzaoI

Length: 119min 48sec (7188 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 19 2018