Ross LeBlanc, Corporal, US Marine Corps, Vietnam War

okay this is an interview with division of military naval affair head airs headquarters life in New York October 31st 2003 approximately 9:30 a.m. interviewers at mic Russert and Wayne Clark what is your full name date of birth and place of birth please my name is Ross LeBlanc I was born in Portland Maine on August 25th 1948 okay what was your educational background prior to entering service I graduated from high school okay did you enlist or redrafted I enlisted why did you select the marine corps friend of mine was being he's going to be drafted into the army like in April of the year I graduated he decided that if he went into marine corps he could delay entry until the summer time in August so when I when summertime arrived I had absolutely no plans as far as my future goes so he said to me why don't we join the Marine Corps going as the buddy plan being naive not having a clue what I wanted to do with my life I said sure I was 17 and I got my mo to sign of papers that's essentially why I went in and why I went in the Marine Corps okay when did you go in August this see the 17th of the 16th of 66 ok where did you go for your basic Parris Island could you tell us about your basic training how long that was eight weeks I knew I was in for a different experience when the bus pulled up to the station drill instructor came on to the bus and his demeanor it was I knew I was in for a different time getting off of the bus seemed like it was early in the morning I can remember smelling the swamps around Parris Island those that was an odd smell but I'm forget bootcamp was was tough I immediately learned to follow orders I probably went into service with a bit of a chip on my shoulder I had a lot of freedom when I was a kid and I was kind of used to doing things my way very quickly within a matter of days I realized that was not the case I found it to be I suppose probably after the first week or so I began to get into a routine that I was comfortable with and a couple of times in boot camp you know you get a little nervous that you're not going to pass certain tests and so you get a little anxious if you will probably my biggest one of the places where I nearly failed at boot camp was when you had to jump into the pool with your fatigues and boots on and you have to tread water for whatever it was five or ten minutes I had a very difficult time with that turns out later on in life I figured out that I have my bones are dense and therefore I sink rather readily so being nervous about flunking that test cuz you know boot camp you don't flunk past I figured out a way to simply get some air go underwater for you know about a foot or so tread water keep coming up and that's how I passed that because I just didn't have the stamina to keep myself afloat twenty years later when I got the scuba diving I figured it out I didn't any weights everybody else needed weights so but graduating from Parris Island made you feel good I must say this the spirit decor however they do it to you it became ingrained and so it was an interesting experience when I went to the advanced training at Camp Lejeune and I can't remember the name of the advanced training location for six weeks that was rougher I think you got a Parris Island figuring that the worst is over just started and I actually I found that the Camp Lejeune training was more difficult they messed with your sleep you're constantly running around going on maneuvers they were training you for Vietnam and I'll tell you even though when I got my orders for Vietnam Parris Island I must say I was stunned I I couldn't believe I was going Nam and yet how naive of me to not realize that but again since I simply joined to be with my buddy on the buddy plan I never even contemplated going overseas I was absolutely floored did you stay with oh no um he I think in the span of shoot after we got a pair of silent we saw each other three days in two years he went into supply and logistics and I became a gun I think I may have Pat when I came home from Lejeune we met we saw each other for three days where he got home sooner we overlapped and then he went back to probably Camp Lejeune and then I went out to Camp Pendleton did he ever go to Vietnam I think he may have been there for a couple of days I think the closest he got was Okinawa and I think during that time we were in his father had died and then his grandfather had died he was only son that may have been a contributing factor to change him from being a grunt into supplies so now the buddy plan was a fallacy in that cases after the June where did you go went home for two three weeks and then I went to Camp Pendleton for jungle training that was interesting it's my first time in California I arrived must have been just before the holidays and I'll never forget it because I expected Southern California because warm and sunny I got to the beach Oceanside and looked out saw everybody surfboarding in wetsuits a little confused about that fear of the hell's going on and it turns out even realized the currents come from Alaska coming down there for as much colder as opposed to Florida going the other way and then so we're at Pendleton and I wasn't too bad it was easier than Camp Lejeune but I must say it was cold we went out on some maneuvers at nights and it was snowing I'm thinking what is going on with the weather in Southern California but it wasn't too bad I felt it easier than Camp Lejeune and so I think we're there about four weeks and then we caught up line two to Okinawa that were you assigned to a unit or did you go as a replacement I turns out as a replacement minute beginning couldn't tell they're kind of hurting you like cattle for you you went into the rotation system anyhow the correct yeah okay when did you arrive probably about I think I was in Okinawa for about three days and then I landed then we took her off and I landed in Danai so that was probably around January 17th of 67 someplace in that time frame then probably a day or two later caught us probably c-130 or c-123 whatever was flying at that time up to feu by and I stayed there for probably a week or ten days I never forget when I landed at Nam I kept looking out the window I'm looking for bullets and mortars and all hell break loose and being in Danang and even at Phu Bai they were big they're big bases especially today and so you had no concept that you were there you know to me it just looked like what a military installation would look like overseas in any part of the world so I think I was at Phu Bai a good two weeks it was like they didn't know what to do with you because I wasn't really doing much of anything you know they put you up in these wooden what did it call with her two-story barrel yeah yeah okay okay yeah and I remember all I can remember was coming out on the steps and had been raining and immediately walking in in mud you know probably halfway up your knees that I remember distinctly but aside from that you know it was kind of usual so many times in the service hurry up and wait and you're bored to tears and it wasn't like I was looking for action but it was boring because it was clear they didn't know what to do it yet so you're just kind of waiting and then finally I got orders for caisson I canti very matter I probably flew yeah I must have we flew in the caisson and when I landed I was put into an attached security platoon and we were attached to Bravo 1/9 1st battalion 9th Marines and I'll never forget my first night when I ride a case on it was like a metal airstrip that they put together and the side of the the base that I was on I remember if there's a foxhole and there was elephant grass two feet in front of me no constitute a warrior absolutely nothing and I think that first night there was no moon and I must say that was a nervous night being over there and knowing that you're guarding a base and yet there's absolutely nothing in front of you and I hadn't I've never heard a caisson so to me it was like okay I've arrived that was how I got to Vietnam and then eventually up to not the case on from there we began to we knew we were security platoon and we were attached to Bravo 1/9 which obviously was a regular outfit there um it was unclear what our role was we were kind of treated as I wouldn't say second-class citizens but we were probably just a hodgepodge group of Marines who were a sign there we began to you know put together defensive positions around the base I can remember putting up Constantine of wire never forgot my days I was doing that I was I had my helmet aloft and it was sunnier in hell and I got the most wicked sunburn I've ever had in my life and needless to say when I had to put that helmet back on it felt like it weighed about a ton and it hurt and everyone just laughed at me he just said you better not take that helmet off you know otherwise dereliction of you know ruled whatever it is so and then I remember we started going on patrols and in the beginning the first couple of months relatively quiet rarely did you see anybody occasionally we would see what turned out to be mounting yard villagers occasional you'd hear some sporadic activity going on with some of the long-range reconnaissance teams that would go out the force recon and I know that must have gone on for maybe a month or two and then sometime around April or May of 67 all of a sudden that began to be some more contacts that were going on I think it was primarily either the forest recon or some of the normal units of Bravo 1 9 I can remember going on a patrol probably a couple a week or so prior to the first Valvo caisson and I remember seeing some villagers though but you could tell they they look like miles but this way they look like civilians because though they add-on was in my mind it looked like loincloths but they were all fairly young you know like 18 to 22 reasonably good shape couple of my remember being about six foot and the more experienced Marines I remember them stopped and them and talked to him and you were carrying some logs on their shoulders so I suppose one would think that perhaps they were building you know in some of the villages and the experienced Marines let them pass then all of a sudden somebody in the squad decided that something wasn't quite right they ran back to where those I'd say six or eight Orientals were carrying those logs the logs had been dropped in the trail and they had they had run away obviously they were as it turns out North Vietnamese regulars and they were probably and who knows it could have had a Chinese adviser with him because they were they were big guys and so obviously they then figured out that they weren't villagers and so you kind of knew something was going on but again no big heavy fighting going on and then maybe a week or two later all hell broke loose there were I don't know what size outfit was out there in Bravo one nine but a squad or platoon they got ambushed probably around either hilly 81 or 861 north/south you know there's a couple of them that were up there and they took a lot of casualties and I can remember the base being mobilized and seeing the regulars of rival 1/9 just take off and go out in the out towards the the hills and the security platoon that i was laughte was left behind and we had to spread thin around the base because we were the only perimeter protection at that point in time within just a few hours I mean you could hear all kinds of fighting going on air strikes mortars artillery you name it and then shortly c-130s began to land and they would land and I remember that I remember the doors opening up with a the see one of the cargo ships they would come down Marines would be running out that back and then running out the gate you know and it must have been ten or twenty of them it seems in the space of a day or two I kept landing the casualties was phenomenal you know I didn't have to go out there thank God because the casualty rate Bravo one nine was it was I don't know sixty seventy eighty percent it was big and I'll never forget and I put this in a context of the recent war in her first part what we lost like one hundred twenty twenty soldiers in Iraq and since then we've lost about 100-120 whether the number is I can remember during those days walking across the airstrip and past this big container and the container was maybe I don't know twenty feet by ten feet deep it was open and all I saw was body bags and I bet I saw more body bags then what we lost in the first part of the Iraq war just right in front of my eyes in space for a couple of days and and of course at that time you know we very lost I don't know how many thousands by that point from sixty seven ten fifteen thousand I don't know what the number was at that point but and now when I think about Iraq and I just remember back it puts body count in a different perspective and so it was so it was eye-opening experience so in any event choppers were landing everywhere I mean the rotor blades were touching one another I mean I remember over our hutch having the blades you know right above my head because he had to park him so close as it turns out I can when I got out of the service and I read up on it they had said that had the caisson is on a plateau and the North Vietnamese what they planned on doing was over running the base and they figured that if they'd had another three to four weeks of of not being found they would have been in the position over on the base so that was the you know I shouldn't be here just from that first round if you will so probably a month or two later you remember then going on more patrols much quieter nothing was really going on then I remember being assigned oh I can't remember it was probably after the initial battles across the Romney Plateau and then it was a big valley and it was a river and he had some high mountains and they had some an observation post on top of that mountain being stationed up there for a week or so it was nice you away from everything was very pretty beautiful looking out no matter if you look into layoffs in North Vietnam and I always remember that because it was so so pretty and then when you look at photographs from after the Second Battle of Khe Sanh when they literally bombed every square inch of that whole area and probably used foley ins it looked like the face of the moon and it was kind of a striking reminder as to what warfare can do to just the beauty of land much less all the people who are killed but so I was probably a caisson for three months then I got transferred to India three three and that was that the Rockpile razorback and also further close to kam low so now this is a regular run outfit I may have been transferred with a couple of guys to I you know to India three three I really can't remember I began to realize even back then don't make close friends because you don't know how long you know people are going to be there but when I got the I 3 3 I did get tight with some people squad leader and settle the guys in my squad at that point I think I was the Lance Corporal now PFC properly and then a lance corporal a few months later I became a and a school was a smaller four guys fire fire team whatever you know fireteam leader or something and initially with India it wasn't too bad we'd go on operations around the Razorback it was different topography it was interesting and I can remember spending time on top of the rock pile apparently they built a helipad on top of it it was kind of like a mini Rock of Gibralter it was interesting because being up there when you're running guard duty you're kind of lackadaisical because you figured nobody could climb up this of course they could but yet like baboons and all kinds of jungle type animals around there was an interesting place went on a number of patrols and not too much activity occasionally some of the different companies would run into some resistance but nothing I felt that dramatic and I began to you know I began to learn a little bit more now as far as how to survive the one thing was very striking to me as to how ill-prepared I was a training when I was in boot camp again I didn't dream black on and on I must say I didn't pay attention but the the training was so quick and so superficial at times probably because they're just trying to get Marines through boot camp as quick as possible and get them overseas when I got there I realized how unprepared I was and I wasn't - I became a squad leader when I really realized how unprepared I was just reading a map and of course years later realizing I have a terrible sense of direction I just had an ax compass and she would be nice to have the GPS systems you have today but again realizing that the training was really not that good I mean at that time in 18 years old and you know starting to influence people's lives and I'm still a kid um and then probably the next big event for me was September 7th of 67 we were we were back in our base camp we had just received a few days beforehand literally you receive the m16 which was interesting because I had seen not only the army with m16s I had seen some Special Forces South Vietnamese soldiers with m16s and we were still carting around m14 that was always interesting to me that okay the Army's got him you can understand the South Vietnamese haven't we don't what's wrong with this picture and I remember when I could when we got the m16 it was such a relief because they could carry twice as much ammo I could carry it you know one arm you know and you could easily maneuver it it was lighter faster the whole bet well needless to say about three days later one of the companies ran into a lot of problem they were being ambushed so they wanted us to come out to help them out so when we left we decided rather than go down route 9 which is a road that eventually would lead you to Khe Sanh we decided not to take the road because we feared would get ambushed so we were going through the boonies through the brush and we were getting no place fast it was hard now cutting through the grass and get cut and you just you're going like tortoises so we said the hell with it let's get out on the road so when we got on the road I was the number two person in a column and maybe we had walked a couple hundred yards and I don't know what happened but the guy who was the point his he said his rifle wasn't working properly which we all heard the rumors about how easily they Jam I don't remember when firing it so I don't know why or how he could recognize that as rifle wasn't working these two say I then became number one person but my heart rate went up about ten thousand percent at that point I figured that pretty soon we're going to run into something and I guess I'm going to get it first so you know we're walking down the road and you stagger I was on to the right of the right-hand side of the road and off to the left there was a big group of bushes there was a big hill that went up and all of a sudden I heard a noise and the bushes I don't know fools a clique who knows ah but I I immediately opened up with my m16 and shortly there afterwards a chai khon was thrown at me and by the time I saw it it was probably a third of the way towards me and so when I looked at it you know I my reaction was well I cannot run it's coming at me so I decided to run at it figure maybe if I get past it before it explodes it literally wentz between my legs and it must have been a dud because there was no explosion now I'm on the same side of the road as the bushes and the and the gooks are on and whether it was nerves whether it was dust but I was having a real hard time getting an ex new round of bullets into that m16 probably unfamiliarity with the weapons since I'd only had a matter of days but it sure wasn't working right finally at what seemed like several minutes probably was many seconds I got it working properly fired off probably another magazine or two and course quit you couldn't see anything and now I was sudden you hear and explosions all around you and then it quieted down I remember pulling back because I was totally exposed where I was you know you had the bushes maybe I don't know 50 feet in front yeah it was absolutely nothing but barren grounds I had nothing to vine so I remember pulling back I remember a tank coming up and just blowing the hell out of those bushes and then the officer-in-charge decided to get us up on a line and we're going to simply go up this big hill figuring that we're going to flush out the which we assumed to be NVA so we started to march up the hill and I Kember the elephant grass being nearly waist high so it was a perfect ambush spot and all of a sudden you know firing stud started up again a good you couldn't see anything it wasn't like I saw saw anybody in particular even when I saw the bushes before when we first got ambushed I mean I could see some flashes but there were concealed I don't a minute or two all of a sudden I got hitting a leg and I went down and of course your initial reaction was there was really no pain but my initial reaction would Rennell is I figure my leg was gone so I didn't want to look but obviously I did and I could see it and yeah I felt it okay but I knew I've been hitting the calf here so then I remember a corpsman coming up Navy corpsman they're their guardian angels they did an awful lot saved a lot of rains good so he threw a bandage on me he said all right I want you get out of here go back to the rear you need to be medevacked out of here so went back downhill and all of a sudden we started getting mortared because on the other side of Route nine going up much bid rails on to the right you could see the the flashes the tubes and the boarders are coming down and of course you're on a flat road again there's no place to hide from those darn mortar so just lay it on the ground prayed and then probably within a few minutes I can remember the Phantom's coming in and made me pom the hell out of it at Hillside and what it made you feel happy for the Air Force of the Navy or whoever the hell is flying the Phantom's and so the mortar stopped and fighting was still going on then it's sort of quieted down then I can remember being put on a we call it a six by one of those big trucks were and those wounded that weren't critical they drove us back eventually to to our base and oh yeah the other thing I can remember just before we got ambushed on route 9 we passed some villagers mountain yards anywhere real Mountain yard you could tell young kids older women the beat on that smile your classic the classic look and we let them go because we just figured now they're not doing anything they certainly weren't like the the urinals we had seen him when I was at Khe Sanh when I was driving back on the 6th I they had detained the villagers probably a half mile down the road and it was one of those times where you can kind of understand and I'm going to rationalize what happened at me why but you can understand why sometimes some of the American forces would shoot civilians because I find it very hard to believe they didn't know what was in store for us on the other hand as I think intellectually now they're between a rock and a hard plate as all civilians are in combat situations across the world and they had no choice but it sure made you wonder at the time but so be it so in any event I went back to the base they patched me up and then the I can remember got real rainy over the next couple of weeks oh I only finished at the that day we lost I don't know probably three or four people in my platoon including my squad leader and it bothered me a lot because I got too close to him and that hurt and I really blew my mind because it was one of those things that he caught a piece of shrapnel in us and kilise tended and he died of shock and intellectually I was so perplexed it made absolutely no sense to me how that could possibly happen when you saw other Marines who wounded so severely who would lived through it and of course at that point of my life I had no idea what shock was I found out later but losing losing Sibley was uh that was a hard loss for me and and I think after he he died I never got that close to anybody again because I didn't I don't want to through that it was too personal so anyway got back to the base patch me up the rains came and the bandages and my wound began to get infected all the time because it was always moist they wouldn't let me go out on patrols not that I really wanted to but kind of boring to sit in a foxhole all the time so when the infection got worse and worse they finally sent me back to he ended up and went to Dong Ha and I went to Phu Bai then I ended up a camera on Bay because we're going to do a skin graft down there and I thought the name was nice when I arrived in country Cam Ranh Bay looked like a resort in the middle of the Caribbean place is beautiful and so they I took did a skin graft I was there for about a week after a few days I got done with the operation and he says we'll give you a week of saltwater treatment which meant go to the beach for a week and that was nice so I would had a wonderful week of just drinking lots of beer and getting nice and sunburned and relaxing having hamburgers and hot dogs and boy it tasted good and so then came came back and probably showed me there afterwards I think I went on our first R&R with the Hong Kong and all I wanted to do is eat drink be merry find some women the typical things that you do when you know you've been in a you know grunt situation came back and made me a squad leader and that's when I really realized that the training I had was poor and I'll never forget when they promoted me I remember he was either a staff sergeant or a gunnery sergeant and I'll never forget his face the first time I saw him after they told me I was going to be a squad leader he just looked at me and shook his head and you know he said he just said to me says Ross it's nothing personal but you don't have a clue what you're going to be doing and you know I looked at him and I didn't disagree with him because the training was just not there and in hindsight now when you look at Iraq the difference in the training now 30 or four years later they finally got their act together and they make sure that you know in the military and if you've got those if you're going to be in combat that you have proper training proper tools it's a big difference so in any event I cam squad leader and then we went on numerous patrols nothing all that big then I remember we we move to up on the dmz places like Con Thien GL in other places that if I heard the names they would bring back memories and there were a three or something I don't know and some of the locations where where they simply bulldoze you know hundreds of yards of Earth so that you know they made that big line across the DMZ and in these big bunkers and we're going on patrols there and and you knew the North Vietnamese are around you could you could smell them because obviously you know they didn't take baths and you know you knew they had just been there or you knew they were within hundreds a few hundred feet of you and they wouldn't do anything but you couldn't find them and occasionally there'd be some ambushes but it'd be sporadic then I can remember being up there the first time we got rocketed if you tell is a quantum leap from orders these things where they were big I mean a lot of noise and they create a quite a crater so we would we don't have relatively miners minor skirmishes I can number once being we ran into an ambush and there were you know trees and then little patches of fields more trees and you know it's kind of a mixture mixed terrain and I remember I was in the middle of that terrain probably we waist-deep now maybe up to my knees grass and a sniper started to shoot and it became apparent after about the third shot that I was one of his targets and very nervous when you don't know where the hell the bullets are coming from and that grass and may had been knee-high but okay I felt like there was nothing there at all and I felt like I was naked finally somebody spotted him and probably blew him out of a tree with a grenade launcher or something but for a while and I I was hoping I was a mole and I could dig a hole what else I can remind I can remember one night don't remember where I was I was probably pretty close to geo Lynn I think and we had a set a perimeter one of the things I liked about being a squad leader was that I didn't have to stay up all night now you could he'd catch some Z's and then you know once or twice during a night you get up you make rounds to make sure everybody's awake and chat with everybody at night I was lazy and I decided not to dig a hole so I found a crater and I'm not sure if the crater was a rocket crater a bomb crater or whatever it was so I decided I was lazy I was tired I was going to spend a night and crater and I did well we got mortar like crazy that night and that crater felt like the Grand Canyon to myself if you lived through this I'm not a real religious person but I must say I did say a few prayers that night I will never jump into a pre-made bomb whole shelter bomb crater again dig your own foxhole it's a lot smaller and therefore the probability of that thing landing on top of you is a lot less unfortunately made it through that night but that was a night of it lasted for many hours and it was the kind of thing where when it wasn't any shells coming in it was very quiet when they hit and they created casualties boy you could hear the screaming and the guys begging for morphine and whatever it would take and at that point for a long time none of the choppers could come in because you know the area was too hot and lost a lot of guys that night but it was really nobody to shoot at because they knew where we were but we didn't have a clue where they were at let's see what else well then it was oh probably run that time I also traveled on cam Lo and I saw where at cam Lowe is one of the three major producing places of marijuana in the country at the time and you could get it bags of the hundred joints for a buck I didn't smoke a lot of the guys did and I quickly learned that you can't control you can't control everybody all the time and I began to realize there was a fine line because if you if you crossed certain rings in a certain way they could they could get even with you you know because they're the word when combats happening who knows who shootin where hate to say it but there are a few rumors of things that took place so it was the kind of thing where I basically said that the guys is listen we're out on patrol don't be stoned we were back in the rear things are quiet you know use your judgment how prevalent was drug drug use at that time not not a lot I think where we're at a lot of grass there was no none of the hard stuff was around on the heroin none of all the ugly stories that you heard a few years later at least where we were at but the grass was very prevalent but to my knowledge the best I could sermon the guys basically they didn't smoke we went on patrol and they were straight and I feel pretty confident on that one let's see I was offered probably about nine months into my tour I was offered to go to be transferred into a CAC position and we called civil action booting were you'd being with the South Vietnamese regulars with some of the villagers and you'd be an advisor type of deal and if I did that go on for 30 days and I'd have to extend for maybe six months and I was only in for two years so um you know I'd only be over there for maybe about five more months I thought about it because I figured fighting it out of the infantry had a grunt outfit and get into CAC your probability of but being blown away and CAC was a lot less I thought about it for a good good couple of days and I decided not to that was another I was a smart decision because when I i left country I left country middle of February of 68 I got back out back to Dong Ha and I'll help broke loose because that's when the Tet Offensive started and it was unbelievable just unbelievable everyplace and now I was being hit simultaneously and I remember we made it down of Danai they had to go from Donna out of the name and our flight got canceled for all outgoings nothing was happening for 24 hours oh my god I'm gonna die now I can't get out of this goddamn place and history unfolded and all those kak outfits they were thoroughly annihilated so there's no question if I had a volunteered for that I wouldn't be here today so it was a happy day getting on that airplane yep it was a real real happy day it was it was a hundred Christmases rolled into one I'm just seeing American Seward is's on a continental airline boy that was nice so it was I guess that's kind of a brief history of being over there where you discharged once you went back to the States or did you have no um when I came back went home for three weeks then they sent me back to Camp Lejeune and so was that guy back they approached me and he said do you want to work in an office and I said why oh well you know you know you're reasonably intelligent and you know you know doing a favor so I thought well what would I be doing if I just stayed where I am as well you'd be doing maneuvers and you know wargames I'm thinking you got to be serious I'm back from Nam and now I'm going to or games for three to four months you got to be kidding me what else we going to do well you have to go around and you know you have to you have to pick up garbage along the streets cigarette butts and I said why he says well we have so many people coming back from Nam and they're going to be out in six months we don't know what to do a jaw sounded interesting as I said I find put me in the office so I was in the office making dog tags probably in about three days I never been so bored in my life and so I went to the sergeant whoever it was and I said listen this is not for me and I said he says well we time I was on board and he said well we pulled strings to get you into this job and I said hey you ask me I mean I wasn't asked for special favors well it turns out I'd know about it but a Silver Star was coming my way and I guess they just felt that ya would give you a little a little something and since they were doing it for me as a favor and and again I had no aspirations of college an absolutely obviously my intelligence wasn't too high or I wouldn't have gone into the Marine Corps not recognized and I was born the Nam so I I said well I I'm bored and they said well if you leave the office we'll send you to Cuba and he said it in a way as punishment so I I said hmm so I asked some of the guys what's going on in Cuba Guantanamo Bay what the hell is that the Naval Base didn't know we have been there since the that the 1890s or some day and time so what do we do down here well you do perimeter guard and then so you're on guard one day you get the next day off I so when I'm off what can I do anything on a skin die you want to go to beach movies beers you name it send me down there so I got down here probably within a few days and had a good time it was fun you know I enjoyed life for once joy the Caribbean I tried to stay the day I get out because I knew came back in North Carolina I'd be doing the same thing so I guess you not only had to come back within 30 days I think I begged and pleaded and I came back with 12 days to go and for those last 12 days I walked around and I picked up cigarette butts and I thought they tried to rehab me I said you got to be kidding me there's no way and if you think I want to go back to Nam not another time now and it was then when I was in Cuba where I decided that I wanted to do something with my life and I took some correspondence courses and decided to go to college and that's what I did when I got back through Hudson Valley in the GI Bill no that was the extent of the service sure the comparison between the m14 6:16 which did you prefer or well if I was if I wanted to hit a target at 500 yards I definitely want the m14 there's no two ways around it but the way I looked at it when you're over there in Christ you really have to shift with it if right feet to a hundred feet so who cares and the fact that it's so light and in the rounds you can carry two times the amount of ammo once they worked out the bugs there was no questioning m16 was the superior weapon although you know it gets dirty easily a jammed god help you if it gets wet you know at that time it was really problematic with the m14 you could throw it in a mud pick it up and it still worked fine but yeah the m16 and that was those good weapon about race relationships relationships within your unit blacks and so on um I went to Gilliland high school to a for blacks in our class one of them was a vice president student council I didn't know what racism was when I was a Guilderland my senior year my parents broke up and I went to Mount Pleasant different different world which is now it's combined into London High School and you know I don't know what the percentage of blacks was but it was high but even there I didn't really experience the racism thing was you know when I was in um I don't know a third seemed like the guys are on were black and I felt I established some pretty good rapport with several of them including one of my fire team leaders when I was a squad leader but two things happened one was I'll never forget when I came back and I would commute when I was at Camp Lejeune this guy would give me a ride from Camp Lejeune to New York I sit at Port Authorities and catch a bus going up and wind it on one of those weekends I saw the fireteam leader he was walking down the street with two other blacks so hey how you doing and he looked at me like I was nothing absolutely nothing and you could have hit me in the face of the two-by-four I got whoa what did I do and then it seems like about a month later Martin Luther King got shot and the bass polarized it was unbelievable and for the first time ever we had to walk in groups and so I did not experience the racial problem when I was in Nam whether you know now in hindsight I wonder just how sincere they were in their relationships with me I'll never know on the other hand when he saw me in New York City he was with his two peers and I'm sure he would have been ostracized if he hadn't interacted with me because God knows that they were veterans who knows so it was um it was a an interesting experience as far as the racial thing but over there with me at that time no problem what were your feelings for the the interwar projectors ah I land in California way to help wheel and I can't remember some el Torro that someplace out there and I think we need an El Toro I can remember going into the terminal getting off the plane and seeing some people with the placards and yelling and stuff I struck me as odd as time went on and the anti-war thing really started to take off when I got back it bothered me ah but because I immediately went into college I I purposely took liberal arts and planning and gone Albany State if I was smart enough and get into international relations because I had one of the things I want to do was find out why Vietnam and I quickly began to realize and also listening to the media I consider myself to be a rather open person they were beginning to be two sides to the story I did not condone some of their actions I will never get over those people who avoided the draft by either having VIPs lying he leave country fine you leave country but that that dual system of the poor and the uneducated are the ones that had to serve and then the others who manipulate the system I will always have a problem with that how do you feel about change I like her I really didn't appreciate her I think when she went to North Vietnam at that point in time I thought the sensitivity that was a bad move um yeah I had a hard problem with her in the beginning for those first year or so as I matured intellectually I had a better understanding but I still don't think going to North Vietnam was a smart move you received a Silver Star was at Fort Lewis September 7th 67 yeah I was given credit for prematurely setting off the ambush which I suppose is true because obviously they usually don't want to nail the point I mean the point usually has no brains no responsibility you want to hit in a core with the officers the radio and everything else is um I was credit for I can't remember three or four kills but to say that I could actually see who I was killing I was working off an instinct in survival and it was all reaction stuff there was no John Wayne that day yeah so I got a primarily for you know setting off the ambush prematurely how you mentioned you did use the GI Joe yes yeah when I Hudson Valley was good they basically said we don't care what your marks were in high school as long as in the second semester if you can prove that you develop some study habits will keep you so I had a rough time in the first semester because I never saved my life all I want to do is party and have a good time and I was in high school if I need to pass a fantastic cream at the end just the way that I was but it got me through and the GI Bill they jerked me around one year I'm gonna forget I can get stuck for like about three months and I had gotten married a year after I got out of the service and I'll never forget calling Sam Stratton to see if he could shake the bureaucracy and I think one made the call it was probably eight days before Christmas in two days the check was released when I was in when I was that case on he came over there and that case on and again that was not exactly a secure location and I have a picture with him where there was four of us he was a always a friend to the military and he was true blue and so not been worried yeah yeah did you do read much about Vietnam based on surrender I read a lot um for the first five ten years um probably too much and part of it also is taking international relations courses at Albany State and and then I stopped for a good if a good movie came out I would watch it would you consider a good movie theater I think the let's see the one that came out about a year or two ago with the A Shau Valley with Mel Gibson yeah platoon was pretty good steel metal jacket was it brought back too many of the members it was too bloody too ugly and but the the Mel Gibson moved me probably brought up the most emotionalism I felt in a long time and I think the embedded reporters with the air activation that brought back a lot because you're right there and it's live and it's I brought back a lot of memories but then I began I've done some internet over the last ten years and it was weird you know one of my the people I worked at the hospital her son interviewed me that's how I ended up here today probably a two weeks after he interviewed me I got a phone call out of the blue from a guy who had tracked me down either through this or some other method he was actually a lookout on one of the hills overlooking route 9 when the ambush started and it was so weird - it was like I was looking at a video recorder if you will - now some was actually looking down and seeing what was going on and it's one comment he was scared to death we're going to force the NBA up towards him and and so in talking with him and I've you know done immune annette more i've saw ID now was that last Saturday night I saw a photograph that my squad leader took that I'm probably in but I can't really make it out because of the graininess these are weird things that have now occurred years later or just today this is very strange have you ever stayed in contact if you stay in contact anyone no probably not close yeah after after Sibley died I I tried to I'm a people person but I recognize that getting too close it's not worth the it's not worth the heartache and so I chose not to I saw a couple guys when I was in Guantanamo they came in on med cruises they were met and Caribbean cruises and they had they were in for like three in four years so we partied hearty when they came in but aside from that now would you think of the rotation system it's better than being here for a duration I'll never forget the Pueblo was captured halfway through my rotation now and for 24 hours we were told basically that if we go to war with North Korea we're here for the duration we were very depressed for 24 hours so I felt that the rotation system made sense but I think from a continuity perspective as far as a fighting force that's not the way you fight a war because I think it breaks up you've always got new people coming in and on the other hand it's better to get the heck out of there too so their pros and cons so from a personal perspective to the rotation system how do you think your time and service changed or affected your life oh I realized that I'm on borrowed time and it's nice I think I appreciate life a lot more I think it's made me a more humane moral person I've grown up it the experience was relatively positive for me but I would not recommend it because I don't think if you're going to join a military and be in war make an informed decision and certainly have better training but hopefully we can resolve things someday through peaceful means rather than shooting one another okay and finally when was that taken hmm that was probably taken hold it up in front of you fools that was probably taken out of boot camp or Parris Island I would imagine okay all right well thank you very much okay very good

Channel: New York State Military Museum

Views: 345,580

Rating: 4.7679791 out of 5

Keywords: Veteran., Military., 3rd Marine Division, Vietnam War, United States Army

Id: LeLZbZ0QkkQ

Length: 59min 39sec (3579 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 16 2015