PFC JERRY MCNELLY, 1st Air Cavalry, Vietnam, 1967-1968

[Music] pfc jerry mcnelly united states army vietnam jerry was drafted at the age of 19 and served in vietnam during 1967 in 1968 with d company of the 2nd battalion 12th cav first air cavalry division jerry was assigned to a line platoon although he was trained in mortars and he carried a rifle through his entire time in vietnam and he's got one of the most gripping stories of all the vietnam stories i've recorded and jerry is one of my heroes thank you brandon glidden for making it possible for others to hear jerry's story thank you for your commitment to our country and for helping sponsor all of these important stories folks with every page of history lost these stories become more precious and valuable so brandon thank you it's my great pleasure now to bring to you my complete interview with jerry mcnelly july 14 2006 in phoenix arizona on the voices of history channel thank you for watching and sharing and god bless you [Music] [Applause] [Music] in vietnam um i went to vietnam december 23rd 1967 and i was i was then transported to on k where i went through some in-country training and then on january 2nd of 1968 i was flown by helicopter to the quaison valley to a landing zone or lz identified as lz leslie and about four o'clock in the afternoon and i was dropped off or helicoptered in and that's where i joined d company 2nd battalion 12th cab first air cab division okay how old were you when you went to vietnam 19 okay what what were your feelings before you went in were you drafted yes okay what what were your peers thinking in uh about vietnam i mean what were you hearing and thinking were you feeling like you wanted to go serve your country or is yes i did and i thought it would be an honor my father served in in the pacific and then in korea and as my as my grandfather served and it was just that if you're going to live in this country and you like it the way it is and that's what you do isn't that the truth and and so i knew i was doing the right thing and i knew that the that even though the war was unpopular i believed and history will prove if someone takes the time to research it as they have done and but it doesn't get much publicity if you notice the communist chinese stopped in vietnam it did not progress any further from there and that's because of the young men and women that served in vietnam so you're 19 years old going into the service do you remember when you first stepped off the airplane in country what you felt what you smelled what you saw can you tell me well coming from phoenix arizona when the commercial aircraft flown by military people landed in cameron bay and i got off of the aircraft it was like being in phoenix it was just hot only it was humid not as humid as it would as i discovered later as it was in the central highlands further north i fully expected to get off of the aircraft and have to run for cover because of what the media had shown and that's they only show the the worst of the worst and so i really thought that was going to happen but i got off the aircraft and here was a military base that was enormous and people driving around in civilian cars and and it wasn't bad at all i was very comfortable in cameron bay so what was your mos rifleman i was actually trained for mortars and um and i can't recall it's an 11 that's okay something i don't remember what it was but i was actually trained for mortars but that never happened when i arrived at lz leslie i was actually assigned to a lime platoon of d company and went to a bunker that was that i was assigned to that was on the perimeter of lz leslie and and i carried a rifle the entire time that i was in the field in your rank at that time i had achieved the lofty rank of pfc i was at the bottom of the barrel my need to know is stand here shoot that way now you're you're part of the first air cab yes um just give me a little bit of history i mean that was the air mobile division yes okay so you were obviously working with the huey helicopters in some sort you were involved with them well they transported us that and then they had gunships that supported us and that's i had two feelings when i saw the helicopters they i knew when i got on one that i was going out somewhere and this may be the last ride of my life or they picked me up and i was going back to a camp somewhere and i and it was like a mom giving you a hug and bringing you home it was uh it was a good feeling when we were on the choppers and flying back to a lz jain or camp evans or one of the larger bases because you knew you're going to be relatively safe so the huey was used for a lot of different purposes in vietnam many it was a medical evac ship it was a gunship it was a transport ship for troops and supplies can you tell me maybe the first time or one of the missions that you went on a combat assault or whatever you were involved with the procedure to pick you up to take you in flight and then into an lz and who's on board okay uh those were called combat air assaults that's when a a a number of infantry or combat units from a small team to a large group would be transported by the huey helicopters and we would be flown out at low altitude to our particular lz where we were going to do the landing or what they called a combat air assault the area where the helicopters are going to land would be pounded for several minutes by artillery and it would stop within seconds of our arrival and we would come in at low altitude the dust hadn't even settled and we would land in all of this dust and the helicopters would come in so fast that if you didn't jump off as it was just barely skimming the ground it would take off especially when you landed in what's called the hot lz you were being shot at at the time that you landed and if you if you didn't get off the helicopter leave and you'd still be on it but all your buddies would be on the ground so yeah and you didn't want that to happen so you made sure that you got off so that you could be with your buddies and um when you're when you're on the way out to the location of course you're you you know what to expect and you have some some a level of fear but it is it's it's dampened by the the the thoughts that go through your mind as to what you're going to do when you hit the ground and try to prepare for for the coming event so did you feel invincible at night uh 19 years of age did you say well i did until my first night in the field baptism under fire tell me what happened um well as i said i landed at elsie leslie at four o'clock in the afternoon and i was assigned to a bunker that was on the perimeter and this was called a forward firebase there were three 105 hallister artillery weapons on the hilltop and i was assigned to a bunker that was in a ravine and so anyway i'm down at this bunker and i'm told that at one o'clock in the morning i was to go up to the command post on the top of the hill and learn how to and to monitor the radio for an hour well i was awakened and i went up to the hill it wanted up to the cp at one o'clock and there were a couple of guys there that were short timers meaning they had very little time left in country and they told me that they could not sleep and that i was going to need my rest and just and they would stay up just go on back to the bunker and get some rest so i went back to the bunker and uh and in this bunker was a guy that was that was called a machine gunner he had an m60 machine gun and he had an assistant that was with him and i was in this bunker with these guys and i was sleeping outside the bunker and sometime shortly after i returned i fell asleep i don't know how long i was asleep it may have been a few minutes it may have been a couple hours i just don't know but all at once the earth exploded with with violence there was incoming rockets mortars we were taking b-40 rockets from all the way around the perimeter the entire perimeter was being attacked and i of course immediately jumped into the bunker and i looked down this ravine and there was a human wave attack coming at us and and my mind was overwhelmed or shocked by what was going on and i remember retreating back into the corner i was so struck in with fear for a few seconds that i i could not seem to make myself do what needed to be done as i watched the machine gunner fire non-stop until the barrel began to glow red and at that point in time i knew that i needed to do something and i i broke out of this shell of just shock or complete fear i mean i couldn't do anything for several minutes or seconds i i have no idea wasn't very long but the barrel started to glow red and it actually sagged from the from the heat and so i i joined the fight and now i'm fighting out the side of the bunker because the enemy had already run over the top of us and at that point in time they were in the camp i'm shooting out the entrance to the back to the rear uh as the enemy are going by us and um the bunkers on both sides of us had been blown up uh with what are called satchel charges i was watching b-40 rockets come straight at us but for some reason they'd go right over the top of us they didn't hit the bunker and then as the enemy breached the wire and got over the top of our bunker and i was looking out the back of the bunker and shooting the enemy as they were moving up the hill one of those 105 hallisters shot point blank right over the top of our bunker with some kind of round that just wiped everybody out for an instant and of course i couldn't hear anything at that point for a few minutes because the concussion was so great coming out of the end of that artillery round or that artillery gun the at that point i'd run out of ammunition and and and i don't know in the chaos what was going on i just knew that i needed to get to the guys that were still alive and i got out of the bunker and i tried to make it up the hill further to where there were other americans and and i was so i was in hand to hand a little bit um and but i couldn't get there there were just too many enemy and i and i so i retreated back to the bunker that i was in even though i knew that they were going to blow it up it was the only thing i had the only place that was it was all that i had so just as i got to the opening of the bunker and got ready to jump back in the bunker i saw an nva with a satchel charge and i knew what it was it's a bag full of explosives and i saw him through the explosions going around you could see his image in this light as he ran into the ammo bunker and at that time the ammo bunker exploded blowing part of the top of the hill off and it knocked me into this bunker that i was in and and i i i couldn't hear anything and i remember putting my face down and that my eyes had come out of my head and i had pushed them in and i don't remember what happened after that i don't know how long it lasted i don't know i just don't remember i know that the next morning that um [Music] at first light their helicopters came in with other cav guys and they took the hill back and then i was able to get out of the bunker but i i was brand new i didn't know anybody nobody knew me i i didn't i was i was one of the old i was the only guy on my side of the line that didn't get killed or wounded um i i don't know it was just uh it's a tough way to start um and uh so that day we got some new guys in and um or no i'm sorry we didn't get new guys that day we had this unit that came in this other cav unit and i'm not sure whether it was the first of the fifth or the second or the fifth there's some conflicting information in that and never been able to find out but we we got this additional support we were there for a couple of days then we were taken back to lz ross which was three or four miles away and rejoined the rest of the battalion and then for the next week or two weeks we did a number of sweeps through the valley and we were involved in a number of large uh and up close and personal engagements uh with a superior enemy uh unit uh superior to our battalion side north vietnamese nba and and then from uh then from there uh they they put us on helicopters our battalion and they took us up to a place called quang tree where we went which is up on the dmz the demilitarized zone and then from there we went by truck down to a place called the camp evans and we were at camp evans a few days and then they took our unit down to a place called way the city of way and our unit the second battalion 12th cav was to move in and cut off the supply line and and that didn't work well we had we were surrounded by the enemy and because of weather we couldn't get uh air support uh because of a chain of command screw-ups we had no artillery support and it was just our battalion and about 2 000 enemy and there were about 390 to 400 of us and there's a book written about it and it shows where we were surrounded and they had us the battalion commander received information from military intelligence or chain of command or wherever he gets his information from that that that we were on our own there was no help coming and that they had received enemy chatter they had intercepted enemy communications and that the next morning they were going to overrun our position and wipe us out because of our location outside the city of way and it was preventing supplies from getting into the city or it was preventing the enemy troops that were in the city away from getting out and so they needed to eliminate us so that they could achieve the goal of trying to to hold way uh which they were unable to do yeah you said you were a rifleman thank you yes you're in country a couple weeks now at this time when you're in this encounter is this two months into your tour that was uh what i've shared with you right now is about 30 days maybe three weeks i i think was about three weeks but maybe 30 days are you different now than you were day one or is it just uh another day obviously it wasn't a routine now i couldn't see how it could be routine but how are you feeling about things i mean they're are you considered a newbie still is that what they call you when you come in country or it's an fng funny new guy maybe the military didn't use that term but something like that by that time i was pretty battle hardened we had replaced a lot of guys at that point i i became i was afraid but i had become calloused to what was going on uh i just almost indifferent i'd seen so many enemy and so many of our own guys killed or wounded that it was just another day in the field and the way experience was very bad we lost a lot of people that way and our battalion out of 398 guys in our battalion starting january 2nd of 1968 with 398 kids 40 days later 305 were casualties we had seen some combat in that 40-day period then for graduation from way i got to go to caisson and then after caisson we went to the oshawa valley and for your viewers that are vietnam veterans they know what all those were hamburger hill and then after that i ended up with a with uh with a recon team and i i did uh reconnaissance uh for a little while i don't know if you can remember before you went to vietnam but i mean your ideas of combat and then actually being in combat and then it being over with was combat what you had thought it was or was it completely different and were you trained for what you experienced the training you received for combat is the best that you can receive but it does not scratch the surface of the insanity of the actual encounter it's um once it starts all of the plans all of the organization is doesn't mean anything because you you don't know what areas of the line are going to hold and which areas are not so you it you need good leadership and you need brave kids that in my time they were these these kids to to do what needed to be done in order to save your life and achieve whatever goal it was that the chain of command felt we were supposed to achieve did you ever ask yourself what am i doing here did you feel a strong sense of purpose and duty to god and country over there yes i did and i i knew that even though i didn't know the names of these guys who were around me i knew that i couldn't let them die and so i did whatever i needed to do i've been decorated and i never even got the decorations because i don't even know what it was i did i didn't do anything special i didn't do anything different than anyone else that was there we did what we needed to do in order to survive and and and accomplish the goal whatever that goal may have been like i said i was a pfc my my orders were to stand here and shoot that way so that was about it can you as you're comfortable to tell me can you take me into a situation away or the asheville valley or caisson where you were involved in combat maybe what was happening you know just give me a little bit well again because i didn't know what the objective was i just was one of the line members um and what i was doing was just a repeat of what i'd done the day before or what i expected to do the next day we with the exception of the city of way we would move in units out through the jungle until we would encounter the enemy and then we would try to wipe them out and we were always moving some direction for some purpose whether it would be to cut off an enemy unit or to engage an enemy unit that was that military intelligence believed that was on their way somewhere and we were to engage them before they got there or um you know i my memory is blocked with a lot of that i i would love to know what happened i would love to be able to talk to guys who can remember but i i had become i'd become an animal really i i didn't have feelings i when you have so many around you that are killed you don't have time to mourn for them you don't have time to worry about them you can't think about them and this could be somebody that you just had sea rations with an hour earlier and now they're gone and and if you don't stay focused on what you need to do you're going to die too and you just and aft and it happened so much in such a short period of time that i i had no feelings towards it i really had become dead inside so once you were helicoptered in then it was basically moving within the units you're not being helicoptered from this place through the jungle you're going to the jungle you you got machetes cutting grass or you tell me about the the landscape uh i was in the central highlands which is primarily hilly jungle mountainous areas and sometimes we were in what was called three canopy jungle which are three layers of vegetation it was very thick and we would use machetes in in when we were in that type of vegetation generally we tried to get around that vegetation because it was so hard to go through um the we would when we would move through the jungle you'd have what was called a point man the point man would be the guy that was out front first guy to get killed and what he would do is he would move along and try to of course find the enemy before they found us but he would also try to find a path that we could move that was in the direction we needed to go that would be a path of least resistance and yet still provide the the protection necessary in the event that we did have a firefight or an encounter and um i was uh generally uh well that's not true in uh in one of the engagements in the city of way we believe there were going to be tanks and i carried what was called a 90 recoilless rifle which has an anti-tank rocket in it and it's heavy and i carried that thing for a couple of days until it got shot up when we walked into an ambush and the the the recoilless rifle actually took some hits and we couldn't use it anymore um uh i carried an m60 machine gun for a couple of days when the gunner got i i don't know it was a couple of days or a couple weeks i just don't remember but i carried that for a while that was kind of heavy weighs 26 pounds empty and then you put a 40 pound pack on your back and a and some ammunition and you walk in 110 degree temperatures with 95 or 100 humidity and and you're going up and down this jungle with this thing and it's it's hot you notice it that was but you know apart from all that on a side note one of the things that i i i was in awe of was how beautiful the jungle was it was such a beaut i could not believe that how pristine the leaves and the plants and the flowers it was just surreal it was so beautiful and i and i remember clearly thinking how can all of this sanity insanity happen in all of this beauty just didn't make sense to me and what was the purpose you know why why are we doing this what is it if we're not going to win this then why are we doing this i mean why don't we go out and and and save all of this beauty and apparently someone else higher up the rank of pfc had a different opinion so we uh i remember one morning uh with the recon team we were walking along the side of a hill and we were looking down into a valley and it was early in the morning and there was a mist down the valley and it was beautiful jungle all the way around this valley with grass down below and there was a army unit that was uh packing up and getting ready to move out and we could see them down below and i just it to me it looked like a a hollywood film i mean it just it just didn't even look like it could be real it was it was the conflict of the two were so different to have this war these men ready for war in the middle of all that beauty it was very pretty i enjoyed the wildlife that was in the jungle they didn't know who we were they didn't know what we were and it was not uncommon for gorillas or little antelope or different things to come up to us and just see what we were and then and i i i so i enjoyed that that was uh that was my vacation while i was in this insanity what a contrast what a contrast so you're let me ask you a question about the valley is that where what was called hamburger hill the battle there is that that's i think that's incorrect but i don't know that for a fact the 173rd airborne is the one that did hamburger hill and that hap i i think i'm not positive and that happened at a different time that was uh i think that was in 67 and i'm not positive that whether or not it was in the oshawa valley i just i don't know i was very fortunate in the oshawa in that i was up on a i was up on a hill above kind of all the stuff that was going down in the valleys and so i didn't have a large number of heavy engagements that so many did so well are you guys i'm in my mind i'm thinking i've talked to the world war ii guys the korea guys and now the vietnam veterans and you know i'm thinking okay you're walking in the jungles you know maybe it's quiet i mean you've got your point man you encounter the enemy and then there's all hell break loose and you're all in a line are you scattered you're in a group what are you doing i mean well you're in a in somewhat of a straight line or uh some or a little bit of a broken line as you're moving along and once the engagement begins then the first thing that happens of course is everybody gets down you don't want to be a standing target while the the whoever's in charge whether it be a small unit with a sergeant in charge or whether it be a a platoon or company with an officer the first thing we do is try to assess the location of the enemy and and how large a unit they have and then the commanders would move us around and flank them the enemy or move us from wherever they needed to move us and the guys that were in front that made the engage that had the initial engagement would stay there and they would move into like a line if you will and and fight from that position and of course a bunch of the guys would go up and help them and then the those that were in the middle or towards the rear would move around and try to flank the enemy and uh and on one or two sides and that would be the the traditional engagement we would either all move to the line and then move forward with or we would move around to the side and and try to hit them from two sides so are you firing m16 i was yes it's called an ar-15 how much ammo do you have on you you get resupplied how do you do that who resupplies you glad you would ask that i'll start at the beginning when you first arrive in country you have all of these thoughts that you need letter writing material and shaving equipment and all these great things that you carry around with you after your first firefight all that stuff goes away you fill your pack with ammunition water ammunition food and ammunition because when you're engaged there's a lot of times it takes them a long time to get you to get the wounded guys out sometimes two or three hours can go by and if you're in heavy engagement you're going through the ammunition pretty pretty fast and so it could be a while before you get ammunition so you replace all of those comfort items with and those those the basics that you need to survive in the encounter and because i had had so many encounters in such a short period of time riding home or or shaving or brushing my teeth that had no wasn't relevant to anything what was relevant was surviving these encounters and making sure i didn't run out of ammunition because i did that my first night that was not good how could you ration your ammo if you're in a heavy engagement you really can't can you i mean no you just make sure that when you fire well for when when you first encounter the enemy you lay out a field of fire to try to to that's greater than what the enemy is giving you and then after that initial violent burst of ammunition and and and m-79s and everything else that we fire at them then the shooting tailors off a little bit and then you get a little more specific about what you're shooting at you don't want to just shoot at trees and bushes you want to try to make sure that there's a target there because you don't know how long the engagement's going to last and you don't know if you're going to be hit from the back or the side you don't know where the enemy are and and so after that initial violence you you get a little more particular about where you're going to fire and what you're going to fire at it doesn't stop it you just you become more focused and you try to figure out you look for flashes because you can't see the enemy so you watch for muzzle flashes and you shoot into the flashes were there times where you had to take the ammo off maybe a wounded one of your wounded soldiers or a dead soldier i mean many times especially at way that's part of the survival because you have to have the animal i mean you gotta have the ammo and they're not gonna need it anymore so you just take it um yes so when you're in combat um are you looking for direction all the time are you on your own for a while and then the sergeant or the platoon leader says let's move out or i mean are you just kind of in a check mode you know what are you just does that make sense yes when it first starts you know that's a great question when it first starts the initial explosion of violence the first thing you do is you try to protect yourself you get down and the next thing you try to do is figure out where it's coming from and where you your guys are relevant to that attack where's the where's the what side of the line or where is that attack coming from and then you try to move to that position but you move to that position with the guys that you're with you don't go by yourself as a rule there are times that that happens but not as a rule and so my squad or and and platoon would move into a combat position to engage the enemy wherever it was needed but the the the goal was always to set up a perimeter uh so if your encounter was to the side well the guys that were on that side of the line would of course engage the enemy and several people would join them but the others would set up a perimeter so that if we were attacked from another side we would be prepared for it so to say that there was one specific way it happened it was relevant to the encounter whether we just lined up and charged forward or we set up a perimeter or or we flanked them i mean it was just it was always a commander's call are you talking with each other are you saying keep your head down look out or cover me or i mean is it you know um and then if you're on the ground initially when they when it starts you don't shoot from the ground probably so how do you find a position to start shooting or do you find something to hide behind or what well when you're on the ground you you it doesn't take you long to figure out where the firing is coming from and you fire in that direction you just make sure you're not hitting your own guys and then after that first few seconds especially when you've when you've had an opportunity to have experience it just comes natural you know what to do and and and where you need to be in order to be most effective uh so you would um when the encounter would begin if if if it were on my side of the line or in my area of the we would move towards that firing and even though we would be down we would move towards that firing until we reached a point where we were able to have a lot of guys that were on that on that line if you will uh while the other troops were either preparing to to flank or or set up a perimeter depending on the type of engagement so so you've got small arms fire coming in or artillery or no the only time we had artillery that i'm aware of is when we were in caisson and uh sure feel sorry for the guys that are on the receiving end of that on a continuous basis that's that's really insane uh you can hear the artillery in the distance but you don't know where they're shooting until it comes in and we were hit with artillery several times in case on and in fact all night long one night our position was hit and it's it's it's pretty exciting stuff are they using ak-47s thompson's what are they using the nba uh most of my engagements uh well that's not right either in operations in the central highlands in when we were moving out and engaging the enemy in the jungle it was primarily ak-47s and ak-50 machine guns if they had other weapons i was not familiar with it sometimes they would have a small mortars that they would use depending on the size of the enemy element that we had encountered um when we were at in in larger firefights battalion or larger firefights it was not uncommon for the enemy to have rockets they used a lot of b40 rockets which is a shoulder held rocket fortunately they're not very accurate but they do cause a lot of damage or at least they weren't accurate in that day they i'm sure by now they've improved on them um we would uh enlarge and when we were in large encounters we would have a lot of rockets and mortars would hit us ak-47s machine guns and often they would be close enough that they would throw grenades at us tell me about the hueys and you're assisting possibly with the wounded as medevacs would come in or as gunships or whoever had to evacuate the wounded tell me what you remember about helping with any of that again depending on where you were in the perimeter of an engagement the helicopters would come in on that side of the perimeter that was not receiving fire and if i happen to be on that side of the perimeter in which the medevac chopper came in then i would help put the wounded on the on the ship that happened a lot with you or just a couple times or um remember helping out you know i i kind of blocked that out i mean i know that i did it but i i kind of blocked that out have you seen a movie that has come close to what you experienced there we were soldiers is the closest to my experience and what part of the movie particularly maybe was realistic there was not anything in that movie that i have not seen or experienced everything in that movie i have experienced including having the enemy stand right on top of you in the middle of the night i've experienced that as well that was your first day with the bunker no they overran us that time but uh i was out in the jungles and the enemy walked over us and i i wish i could tell you when it was i just can't remember it all kind of runs together i'm really looking forward to to discovering the chain of events and when we were where we wherever we were i just started looking up some guys that were with my unit and to get their recollection on what happened i came home and i i don't know if it's a preservation mechanism i'm not sure what it is but i i tried not to and to remember it was too much i think how do you think vietnam changed you jerry i mean obviously did it give you a better perspective of life did you get cynical when you came home or now so many years later you're dealing with post-traumatic stress or just give me a little bit about that i was happy to come home i was glad it was over i thought a lot about the guys that were still there my experience was such that i wasn't going to go back just wasn't going to go back but i understand why guys do [Music] they i came i came home from vietnam and i was happy all the time i laughed a lot i smiled a lot i didn't get mad about anything there just wasn't anything on america to be mad about um i'm still that way i mean it isn't that i don't have the feelings of anger because that's a natural emotion but you know i i look at everything that happens to me and and and i compare it to what i experienced and there just isn't anything that happens here that's has such significance that it's worth being upset about um transitioning from combat one moment and then a civilian life i mean was there a transition there i was very very fortunate i was very fortunate in july of 1968 i was taken out of the jungle and i was moved down to a place called fan ring so i only spent six months in the jungle and then i went down to an r r beach called fan rang and i spent the the rest of my tour on this r r beach where i had a lot of uh in the story of how that happened is very important i think i'll share that with you in a second uh well where i was on the beach i met people who had not been in combat i met air force guys and and and others who had no idea what common that was about so i had several months to socialize and kind of uh adjust to what it would be like being in a social atmosphere so i i know there are guys who were in combat one day and in the streets of phoenix a week later in phoenix of america a week later and that's not a good transition my biological father uh had been in korea and i'm sorry he'd been in in the pacific in world war ii and then korea and he came home with uh something that people didn't understand at that time and it was post-traumatic stress disorder but nobody knew what it was and he was violent and drank and my mother did something i was five years old at this time or six maybe six but my mother did something that was unacceptable behavior at that time she divorced him for the safety of herself and her two little children myself and my younger brother i had not seen my father in about 15 years my grandmother my biological father's mom found out that i was in vietnam in harm's way and a father i had not seen for 15 years re-enlisted in the service filled out all the paperwork put himself in harm's way in vietnam to get me out of the field and i just found out about that about four years ago and that was kind of the beginning of my need to find out what goes on what happened there where was i i mean these kinds if my son were there i would go back in a second and i understand that but i hadn't seen this man in 15 years and i saw him about two years ago and he said it was the only thing he had to give me he had nothing else for me because he's not a rich man uh he's he doesn't have anything he's a he was he's a he's a he's an american throwaway thank you for your heroism now leave us alone and he lives alone out in oklahoma and it's sad sad but that's what he did for me and that's why i ended up getting out of the jungle nobody knew why i got out of the field i didn't know why i got out i was out on an operation with a recon team helicopter came out and got me i thought that something bad had happened stateside because there were you know i'm you know what could you do wrong in the jungle to go to jail for i wasn't being arrested so i thought the i know that when a parent dies or something that they would take the guys out of the red cross and take you out of the field and you would come home for 30 days to be here for the funeral and whatever was happening stateside and that's what i believed happened but once i ended up down in uh in cameron bay and was reassigned to another unit and that's when i knew i wasn't going home but no one knew why i had been no no one knew why i had been reassigned kind of a side note here you were asking me about my feelings and what had happened to me i had a helicopter pick me up in the field in the jungle in the central highlands it took me back to lz jane at elsie jane there was a chinook that's a helicopter with two blades a bigger cargo type and it flew me down to fubai at fubai i got on an airplane oh each time i got off when i got off of the helicopter that brought me from the jungle back to lc jane there was an officer and he told me i was to get on that helicopter so i went over and got on the helicopter i got off of the helicopter in fubai and there was another officer standing there and he said there's a plane waiting for you so i went over i went over and got on this plane and it took off and i landed in cameron bay when i got in cameron bay there was a jeep with two mps sitting on it and they were waiting for me so i now i still have all my cam i have my backpack i'm ready for battle i mean i haven't turned anything in or given anybody anything i'm ready for battle and the mps put me in the jeep and said let's get something to eat we'll take you over to the c to the command to the company commander after a while so i went to a mess hall this is the first time in six months that i'd had hot food on a table and i went through and this was the time that i knew i was not well this was that defining moment that i knew that i had turned into an animal i went through this line with all my combat stuff on watch it as these guys would scoop this food out and put it on my plate everybody in the place was spit shine and polished it was an mp unit they were all looking good except me and i remember looking at the guy who had put some mashed potatoes on my plate and when i he told me he put this spoonful on my plate and told me to move on and i remember when i looked at him he didn't say anything he just picked up the spoon and gave me some more and he said do you want more i didn't have to say anything to him i don't know what was in my eyes but it i i visibly saw him scared now i'm at a table and i have every cold drink they make i have kool-aid and milk and cold water and and sodas and i had everything in front of me and i had this giant plate of food these three mps came and sat with me and i found myself holding my arm around my food down and i remember this so well i had a chicken leg and i was scooping mashed potatoes with my fingers into my mouth and there was nobody in this place talking they were all staring at me and that was the time i said i thought to myself what has happened to me what has happened to me and i pushed the food away and a guy said come on we'll go get you some clean clothes the mess hall is open all day so he took me over to the shower place and he went and got some clean clothes for me and i showered and i used the entire bar of soap and i washed my hair and all the shampoo i used all the shampoo and i had hot water and i just stood there trying to rationalize what has happened to me and i got some clean clothes and i went back to the mess hall and i tried to be a little more civil i put my stuff down i never let go of my weapon though i there wasn't anybody in there armed but me and there no one was taking my weapon as much as i was trying to rationalize the fact that i'm in an environment that i don't need this i was not going to let it go and so anyway i went through the chow line and i ate and they took me and introduced me to the company commander and i was reassigned to a security unit down in by fan rang air base at a r r center and i spent the rest of my time eating in a mess hall and sleeping in a bed and had air conditioning and i was the same rank as i was in the jungle and got the same pay i just had it made it was it was great it was a wonderful part of the tour and i i met lots and lots of civilians and in fact the place was so safe that senior officers at camron bay would put on civilian clothes and come down there with girlfriends and see them down there all the time it was uh it was a very different uh it was hard to believe i was still in vietnam it was so different jerry what does vietnam mean to you today um does it have any significance in your life what you went through i mean i know it does but just as a war as an event i mean what does it mean to you today vietnam is a point in history that was necessary from from a communist expansion standpoint it was unnecessary because of the way it was handled vietnam taught this country lots of lessons the vietnam veteran has done more for this country than any internally politically for the veterans than any other generation before us we've accomplished more for the vet to have the government help the veterans than anyone else has if you look at the statistical data of the vietnam veteran that via the vietnam veteran community has a larger percentage of of of individuals that own their own companies that have been financially successful that have moved forward in this country to achieve great things on a percentage basis than any other group in the history of the of the nation and we continue to do so and one of our big efforts right now is to forward a project to forward the ptsd assistance the post-traumatic stress assistance for the returning vets those that are fighting for our safety now our freedom now so that they can get that help when they come home not two or three divorces later not after who knows what what happens and and and so we're trying to change that paradigm and we're having success but it's not happening fast enough it should have happened yesterday but it won't because you have people's personalities and their desire for power or the amount of money they have to throw at it is they'd rather spend it on something else and and and it's sad it's sad this um i wished i know who who made the quote but the country that forgets its soldiers are the is the country that itself was its veterans the count the country that remember that forgets its veterans will itself soon be forgotten and you watch the things that are going on in this country and you wonder are we at that point and it's it's heartbreaking to see what's going on i know the vietnam veteran is the group that stands up and tells all of these tree huggers you spit on these kids and you're gonna hear from us that's a guarantee we're not gonna when i came home after my experience i was spit on i was called a baby killer i didn't kill any babies i wasn't even around where babies were and and i don't i don't know anybody that did i mean i just i i it was insane like to come back to that environment we're not going to let that happen again it's just not going to happen jerry what does the american flag mean and represent to you the american flag is the only symbol on this planet that represents the opportunity for any human being who plays by the rules to achieve anything on planet earth they want to achieve you can be the greatest artist you can get as rich as you want to be you can be the greatest teacher you can research and do anything you want when that flag is what you pledge yourself to and there isn't anywhere else on the planet where that flag means that where their flag means that that's why they don't like our flag too much freedom the insanity of the people today they're gonna kill the goose that lays the golden egg that's how stupid they are tell me about freedom what does freedom mean or what is what is freedom to you jerry the ability to do as long as i'm not hurting anyone else the ability to do anything i want to do whenever i want and i can tell you there aren't very many countries in the world where you can do that i can watch in this country you can watch not me i would never take this position but in this country you can watch people chastise a war they don't understand and you couldn't do that in any other country you can in this country you can stand and preach communism and the downfall of this country because you have the right to do that when it comes right down to it we're not going to let that happen but you have the right to do that if you want to that's that's what freedom is freedom is the ability of you to be able to do this interview whenever and wherever you want and it's only restricted by your desire to set the program up the government isn't going to come in and dictate what you ask us or or what our answers are they're not going to see the video and and edit out those things they don't want the public to hear that's freedom what would you say to a young person today about the price of freedom uh you saw men die wounded on the battlefield what would you say tell me about the price of freedom the price of freedom is written on the vietnam memorial wall the price of freedom is arlington memorial price of freedom are those that are willing to lay down for someone their life for someone they never met so that that person that they never met would have the right to do whatever it is they want to do that's what freedom is and that's why these young that's why i have such great admiration for the our young soldiers doing what they're doing and the sad part is the media doesn't tell you the hundreds of thousands or millions of things that go on over there day in and day out that are good for that country that those people want us there and you see when you get when you go online and on the computer and you you get information from these groups individually or collectively these military units are over there and you see the families they're feeding and the houses they're building and the schools and the hospitals and all of the things that are happening and then you see some nut that runs out there and blows it all up i mean how hard is it to make a choice when that's happening and then after these soldiers build this hospital they don't keep it and say it's ours they give it to those people and say here's an opportunity for you to be better to have a better life amazing wonderful kids have you been back to the wall then it sounds like you've been at the wall or have you ever been um every year i do what is called run for the wall it's a motorcycle ride it's a 10 day motorcycle ride from ontario california to washington dc and the ride ends at the wall and first time i went back i thought it would be very hard but i've been there three times now and i find i have no i'm dead inside i see the names on the wall but i'm just dead inside i i i'm unable to reach the emotion to let me deal with that issue but i'm so glad that i'm there to help others that are because that's what the motorcycle ride is about is to help these guys that have come home and to forward the powmia issue and to keep america aware that the veterans in this country are why we speak english and why we have the schools and why we have everything we have and and we've been pretty successful at doing that it gets bigger every year we have thousands of writers that go and it's amazing to watch the face of america as we move across america it's uh it's wonderful i want to talk to you more about that after the interview we're almost done but um are you proud that you're a vietnam veteran very very proud and i would go to iraq if i could and if i had to sit in a rack and type at a typewriter to allow the young soldiers who are physically capable to to go out and do or i would go there and work in whatever i needed to work in i would go help i would do it in a heartbeat people thank you for your service to our country starting three years ago was the first time i'd been thanked uh maybe it was four years ago three or four years ago it's the first time i'd been thanked my uh i've been married a couple of times and my last ex-wife used to tell me forget it nobody cares they don't even want to hear about it and i was dealing with things i couldn't understand emotions i couldn't understand and i understand why she moved on and if if i were naive to all of that i might have done the same but it didn't leave me feeling abandoned i just had a thought i think as we're just about out of time here but i've heard when the space shuttle astronauts or when people would go to the moon the first few times and they'd come back to the earth they got really depressed they just had nothing to look forward to they they'd achieved the ultimate now i guess they train them to have set big goals for when you get back you know but it almost reminds me of maybe what some of you guys experienced you went through this horrendous tragic traumatic thing in your life you became an animal you come back to society and then years later it hits you and you go through these emotions it's like you went through this thing and now what's happening to me i mean is that not a great way to describe it but it almost seems like there's a similarity in what you've experienced and i think it's amazing for you to you know i think there is a mechanism for you to stay sane i guess you just can't remember everything i mean come on you know i talk to people who can give you dates and times and names and places and i look at the men on how can you remember that how do you know of course they weren't out in the field with us these are other people that were in base camps or support people and believe me their jobs were important without them we wouldn't have survived but it's amazing to me how clear the memories are of some and how garbled they are of those of us that was out there in [Music] in the yeah meeting the enemy up close and personal what should what do you want people to or what should people remember about vietnam wow that's a great question could i have a few weeks to think about an answer now i think there's you've referred to some things but uh you personally i mean what do you want us to remember about vietnam what i want the america to know the most important thing in my mind at this point in time without having an opportunity to think it through and i'd probably come up with the same conclusion those kids that went over there and fought for this country are every bit as important as any soldier that ever went to any war for this country from the civil war on there's they're just they're they're they're their commitment to this country they're every aspect of it they're every single one of them are heroes just like they were in every other war and it's unfortunate that took so many years for america to recognize that can you do one more thing for me from where you're seated i asked the veterans to do this i would ask that you give a salute into the camera when i tell you is that you're comfortable with that yeah do you want me to stand up rather because of the microphone and stuff let's just stay right there but i've asked everybody to do it okay right into the camera great thank stay right there i mean i'm gonna take a picture of us okay [Music] you

Channel: Voices of History

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Id: ZJsGnThj7-k

Length: 61min 31sec (3691 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 12 2022