Thomas Joseph Vanderhorst's interview for the Veterans History Project at Atlanta History Center

this is joe galloway conducting an oral history interview with mr. tom Vanderhorst on thursday march 26th at 1500 hours we are located in the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta Georgia sir before we talk about your experiences in Vietnam I'd like to get a little biographic information about you how old were you when you went to Vietnam I was 23 old man old man what was your family status let's see I was I'm the oldest of four kids at the time my younger brother who's five years younger than me we went into the Navy at the same month so what made Mama not such a happy status at that point it was very difficult obviously yeah beyond that my father and his three brothers all went into the Navy had pretty much the same time so that I'm from st. Mary's Ohio small town so small town farm boy what what year did you well you went through the Naval Academy right no sir I went I was went through officers candidates OCS okay what was your sense of the Vietnam War before you decided to enter the military I was I was a student at the Ohio State University and of course the the war was going on and it was a long way away I didn't even really think much of it you read the news if he had time but it wasn't a big deal and they could keep up with parts of it there was of interest but nothing real personal until it got close to graduation at graduation I was I was there before the lottery so when I graduated I was going to be in the military so at that point I looked at it I was started becoming more interested in it decided I was going to go into the Navy and because that was my family heritage now were you in in ROTC or anything like that in college no no no program so you were gonna enlist I was going since I was finishing graduating I would go into the officers Candidate program which was up at Newport Rhode Island and it was a they used to call it instant instant course there was four months you go from your college you start out and they teach you everything in four months and all at once I are an officer and and that was it now you went to Vietnam as a pilot right listen so tell me about your flight training okay after officers carry school I went down to Pensacola Florida and started I remember as a rainy day but it was warm down there and drove into Pensacola and for a year and a half was in flight Navy flight training with Marines Coast Guard and also some South Vietnamese Air Force they were training on a ones but anyway went through the year-and-a-half program that with including the carrier landings on two different airplanes things like that we're trained in Pensacola whiting field outside in Milton Florida then out in Corpus Christi Texas when when were you assigned to Vietnam I got my orders to Vietnam in let's say I think I had sex I knew before I got my wings which was a year-and-a-half program and I knew before my wings what kind of airplane I'm going to be in and where what squadron I was going to be in I was going to be in a p2 Neptune a p2 v7 Neptune which is a it's an old airplane it was even old back then we had it had two receptor Jets wingtip tanks and a Plexiglas nose and not pressurized no air conditioning so it was it was pretty basic we carried a crew of seven to ten we did patrol you did you were patrolling for submarines or a lot yeah we did we didn't love the min I guess the main what would you call it I mean main thing that the patrol squadrons are supposed to do is generally as submarines but we had different little different situation on that but as I was finishing up once I finished and got my wings they sent me to navigation school because at that time we carried four pilots and the fourth pilot was also the navigator so I had learned a lot of navigation also so I my first tour went over as a pilot sliced it and you were flying patrols off the aircraft carrier no we were all land-based not as it was it was quite big and we would joke we did two kinds of missions we did one was market time we would go between I was like a 8 9 10 hour flight we would have a prescribed course that they would like us to fly the intelligence folks would like us to fly and we would do a like a random search pattern that we would go over hit certain areas and we would look for of course submarines which we couldn't see from the from where we were altitude but what we did we went after ships to see what kind of ships were passing through the area which way they were going what would take we'd go a little level down to 50 feet and get pictures of the air of the cargo the ships now see what kind of car with a head on deck they have people on deck with uniforms on or you know what did they have so we would get that get their course speed and what would happen and we did that through the whole flight and then they would the intelligence folks would take and put that together and see which one of these people were going into Haiphong Harbor they're coming out of there so we know who's resupplying and where they're going or where they're coming from were you also looking for boat smuggling arms into the south or yes that was ships going around to see in the bill to offload that way yes in fact we did we got a call one time and I was our crew was on the ready alert and we got a call they had they had found someone had reported down at the very southern tip of South Vietnam and unbelievably huge ship of with a Chinese flag and it was offloading men and equipment that never forget what the length of it was in South Vietnam and South Vietnam offloading and they'd never seen one that size so ISM and our mission was to take our bullpup qualified and we would I would be flying and the copilot would be taking care of the joystick and our mission was to just eliminate the ship oh you had sub arms on that thing yes and the on the way out there looking for it and we never found that there was obviously nothing there we ever been able to see it but it was the thought of the ramifications if what if there is something there what if we do blow it out of water what what do we cause you know what were we involved in it was not there yeah but then we also did another another mission I can't remember what it was what's the name of it was the tactical name of it but we would take off from camera on bass I spent most of our time in Vietnam and camera in Cam Ranh and that was year but the land base right that's where land base was and what we would do is prior to sunset we would take off to the east and go 60 miles then parallel the coast all the way up to the DMZ and get there just about sunset and it was almost darkness it was it was officially sunset but you can still see some things we would then we had a not a prescribed course but a the fellows up above us for a wax airplanes were controlling everything they were a director you know David give us vectors tell us where to go and what we were they were doing as they would first thing we would go down to 200 feet and we flew at night with darken ship which means return all of our lights off and put put curtains over the windows so nobody can see us they could obviously hear is coming but with we never flew our jets unless we have an emergency and takeoff and landing because it was a heavy airplane and so you know flying on props yeah we'd fly on the to props and we used the the airplane had in the I guess you'd say and as the airplane was built it was a simple airplane to wings to recipt jets and then they started putting electronic gear on it got heavier and heavier well it's let's get some jato bottles jet-assisted takeoff bottles that I put on the back of it and they would take off and once it got in the air they would just drop off the jato bottles and that God they kept adding more equipment so we the bigger jato models I just put two jet engines on their permanent and then we put tip tanks on and so it's good to carry all the fuel Griffin fuel you need it but we use them only for takeoff and landing yeah so we're an emergency so but we would go down to 200 feet this was the most this is where he had to be a young man and pretty much invincible and good kidneys yeah we would we would fly at 200 feet down to 50 feet and we would be looking we would be rigging ships occasionally we would look for a submarine because we had a good radar for submarines for the able to see the snorkel and we also were looking for high speed jumps and the high speed junks they had captured when our squadron had captured one though the year prior but the high speed junks had the two by two Mercury's 300 engines in them this little jump which barely moves and what they were they were they were bombers they were you know they're they would make high speed runs on their attempt and they tried several times high speed runs on one of our carriers and blow this out blow the ship up that was their thing so we would look for those also we also used to used to use us for finding where the fire-control radar was for for the SAMS hmm and as they were building they would what they would typically do was they would give us a vector toward the land go straight toward the land at 50 feet and it was dark we couldn't see anything fortunately had a good radio altimeter which would keep us at that elevation and we didn't have to work that hard on it but we're awful close but and then we'd get within like five miles we'd have us pop up and as we were approaching three miles we'd make a hard right turn or a hard left turn and as soon as we popped up they started lighting yourself with a radar lied jet with the radio him and then we made a turn and they would keep following us and we would just be taking vectors on where it is so we could triangulate find whether or the fire-control radar was send the men that blow him out of the water that's it so where did you come into Vietnam on your first arrival the first arrival I flew initially into Clark Air Base in the Philippines and from there joined the squadron because part of the squadron was in the Philippines and part was in camera on babe you know and I was there for two days and our crew was going heading over and so I went joined the joined the crew met the guys and to glue in on your aircraft right and so fill in our aircraft and that was on a market time so 10 hours over there even though it's not that far what were your first impressions on landing in Vietnam something I'd seen pictures of film artists and runway you know the perforated perforated BSB yes that's right and it's like wow I've never seen that from real yeah a lot of the walkways are made out of that now there's a lot of sand a lot of sandbag bunkers and different hooches and different the all the buildings were the same color of course we run the Navy Navy side there's a Navy Army Air Force and and Marines they're all situated there in different locales so unusual I met a whole bunch of new people I'd been living with for two or three years from then on so sounds I heard things like things were very became very familiar you could tell him a Huey gunship from a phantom any old day and it was like beautiful sounds still can still kick yeah yes if they're behind me and a long way away can still I know what it is raise the hair on the back of your neck just heard as oh mine it's completely what were your initial duties initial duties I was the besides the navigator pilot on my crew when we'd go out every about every year second or third day and because we've gone for eight to 12 hours so as we were going that long and then while we were back at base I was the for example I was the electrician division officer in the maintenance department and worked with the you know I've had 25 20 men under me altogether and they were electricians fixing things no ma morale and laundry that's right also got to know our Tech's quite well Aviation techs and different operators and the crews become very close officer and enlisted are really close and we got a chance to you know doing constant training constant training briefings here's what's going on around the world and more specifically here's what's going on here so we spent a lot of time doing that and of course we come in at 7:30 or 8 o'clock in the morning we did breakfast they had to have crew rest things like that get some sleep get some sleep you and what were your living conditions your quarters like let me put like this I knew I was in the right place because the Army and the Marine Corps came down to Cam Ranh Bay for R&R we actually we were quite in a sense plush we had we had what would called splinter barracks which is of all wooden barracks yeah with bunk beds in them and no air conditioning and no course we had we had actually had bathrooms where he could sit down and you know in a toilet it was like we actually had a flush toilet yeah but it was a pretty uptown that's pretty up dad for Vietnam that right and we had one room we had one air conditioner for the whole squadron and they had brought it over from the Philippines I believe so you put it in the club we put we made one bedroom a club that's right build a bar put the air conditioner in there and we could we're well I just guessed that I know I could hear that coming we were the squadron that we could we were large enough we could bring in drinks and bring in coca-cola's and chow was good yeah so it was decent actually was decent the thing was were Navy always eats better than everybody else I hope so I hope so they said but the only thing about the chatter the worst thing about the Chow and the p2 is we did not have coffee making facilities and we flew all night but we had a big container which we could plug into a plug and it would stay Hut and that coffee came and was that was brewed in the general mess in the morning at 4 o'clock as people were getting that was brewed then and it stayed all day till we lift at night as we were going out of dunt alive in the afternoon take the enamel off your teeth yes and it I used to drink coffee cream and sugar it was worth with cream and sugar than it was with black oh yeah it was what were your impressions of the Vietnamese people if you had much contact with them we had unusual contact which was minimal because see instead of going out and mingling with the folks we are Naval Air Facility was away from the main gate so we didn't go out that way we could if we need to go to Saigon we'd get on the they had a c1 I don't know I was a c3 anyway we'd jump down to Saigon and or somewhere everyone to see something so we had very little contact with the people except the ones that worked on our Naval facility these were people like they did lawn work they did laundry they did the cleaning ages you know you know they did that barber they worked in the in the kitchen no facility and the you know and they were nice they were very friendly and the only other thing we saw of them was one night we had a sapper attack and a sapper attack is well similar to what they have over over and where we're currently having Syria Iraq and Afghanistan and these and these guys these guys would strap on backpacks and front packs and fill them with explosives and they would come home they'd go for they'd go for typically equipment you know airplanes and personnel yeah and but then they got I think this on one attack they shot three of them and they all were working on our facility one was the what was the barber one footstep there always the barber and he's been shaving your neck yeah makes you wonder so that that's really doing that was very limited with the people which I'm sorry didn't get you yeah describe your friendships with and your impressions of your fellow aviators the people enlisted an officer that you spent your days and nights with okay as officers we became really close because officers tend to hang around the thing they call the Oakland and the evenings when there's nothing else going on and we got to get to know each other well we got to know each other's families when we got back where I was actually there on three deployments three six-month deployments so we got to know these guys than their the families wives and kids know and with the enlisted guys we got really close to the ones on our air plant which was like seven full-time from the plane captain this is before flight engineer but the plane captain's second mech and then the different operators radio operator things like that and all good guys we had all kinds of spooky stuff on that plane yeah yeah it's it's out there but yeah that and they still use it and it works very effectively yeah one of the funniest things about one of the enlisted guys he and I became good friends and he was one of the operators had his master's degree long hair didn't seem to care about anything I said what are you doing why don't you become an officer says sir I'm just seven my three years and I'm getting out of this man's Navy ran into him at a squadron party many years later he was I believe he made navy captain in reserve and I know we had to laugh when I was harassing him about it and good guy a lot of really good guys it was a difficult time for something enlisted guys because there was a lot of stuff lack home well back home there's some stuff going on over there they're worse things going on with there's a lot of temptations with drugs out there and most of our guys were pretty clean and against that and but there was things out there there was also a lot of racial things going on at that time there was a thing of this is what year let's say 60 I yeah 60 68 through 71 yeah and that was when at the time of the black power and all in the squadron we were pretty it was pretty calm guys did not harass each other there wasn't a lot of bad blood but when they'd get out other places that was you know it was interesting a good place to stay away from yeah so what did you do for recreation off-duty activities probably the most recreative we did was something we called volleyball with combat rules everybody everybody wore their steel toed boots oh it was there were basically no rules it was a limited role so it was cutthroat volleyball that it was it was everybody loved it I was it was more challenging and we looked for different things Air Force guide told us yesterday I think they had so many casualties from their volleyball games the commander ordered it do you have any specific memories of the popular culture at the time music books film etc yes music music that was you know I was I was not into the pop music at the time and it was the tie-dyed t-shirts and you know Haight Ashbury all that kind of stuff and that wasn't my style of music but now when you hear that to go I know where I heard that from yeah I was back in those days back in those days yes and it was I gotta get out of this place I yes yes it was it was good music and the movies I'm trying to graduate was over there and I think we got introduced to the guy named Clint Eastwood with us and people could not believe some of the you know great movies wives would tell us about can you describe significant actions you witnessed our combat operations in which you and your squadron participated let me think we had right before I got on there a combat operation the deployment before when they captured one of the high speed junks and that's back when we on our airplane we carried 50 Cal 50 caliber machine guns and stop this stop this high-speed junk captured it and had the Navy ships come in and get it probably river boats or something like that anyway other than that we were generally not in the middle of of anything though I think we've got is occasionally the our boss upstairs would tell us when we were up north of the DMZ they would say so and so there's a we've got something going on hit the deck turn to 1 2 0 and go as fast as you can and keep the way that I there then we're launching the mid-cap and off they go so just just keep moving just get out of it somebody we'd been scrambled on which hand every so often yeah I mean we're charging their coast and they claimed 12 miles we claimed that they had three miles so then so they would they were scram was any difference in your second and third tours big difference big difference tell me what that was the major difference is when we were back in the States we had to transfer our transition into a new airplane this was a p3 or the Lockheed Electra so that was four engine turboprops air-conditioning oh there was something Oh Ryan yep that's it that we call it the Orion Airlines called it the Electra and so anyway we did that and it was really wonderful that was you had a longer range you could stay up longer much longer and we can shut down two engines or one to loiter and so we can stay up 12 12 14 hours if we had to that altitude yeah so that was and that was good also a big deal we were we were our secondary base there from Cameron bank as my wife was back in new hakuna Japan which was a Marine Corps Air Base and that you know and evil Cooney I had gotten back there like two days prior to that and I had the duty one evening and she was very pregnant and she a neighbor took her to the we were not allowed to live on base since as a Marine Corps Air Base and thus we had lived in an apartment and so one of our neighbor ladies good friend still took path through the went out and found a taxi and her to the hospital and this hospital the old poster off yeah right so anyway she had the baby there but I could not go in when I when I got off duty I couldn't go in with her because it was unnatural for a husband to be in the widow's wife was having a baby yeah so they had two or three eighteen-year-old corpsman in there instead so maybe so but that was the biggest thing and then the the big big transition from the going from the peaches when we were heading home we used to we had to Island hop instead of the p3 we could go a long distance and with a p2 as we were coming home we lost one of our airplanes and it went down the p2 was supposed to be able to float for days not a problem this one went down we were along side of it for a while and they one engine sat down and they didn't have enough fuel to make it if they turned on the Jets so we left them behind and went on we called the Air Force to Air Force rescue and they came out and we had then turned around and gone back and found them because we heard him they said we're ditching we're ditching we're ditching and I was in the left seat at the time our CEO was in the right seat he was running the radios now because I was planning and he said did you hear that this is because our airplane back there said we're ditching we're ditching we're ditching and that was it they were down at 50 feet did used to a drift down procedure for for making range they would they would turn on your jets and climb to about 2,000 feet turn them off slowly go down on one engine and they did down to 50 feet stabilized start to jets again well what happened to them they got down to 50 feet and they heard the other engines go cloth and quit and they hit the water immediately and they're really offloaded everything all the all the good shopping all their stereo equipment all that was out the door no new golf court new new golf set and everything like that so now we did that we did they did they float well they've got a 14 man life raft and we went back to look for them at a thousand feet and we went right to where they were and we didn't see him we were very we knew we had to be getting close but it was just purely a wag a navigational wag and we came right over the top of them and of the thousand feet the only way we saw them is because they lid off their their smokes and their flare gun yeah had were they not done that as they were going under the nose we would not have seen him they were that small it looked like we went close went around again it looked like one man in a life vest Wow so one of our pilots at that point resigned a couple others said you know no more so resigned his wings yeah and those wings but that changed he did recover the whole truth everybody got out one man went down under our tactical coordinator went under there was pinned under the navigation table and the operations table the radio man took off his life vest went down after him and got him up got he was he was ready passed out on the way up his his worst injury was the his helmet was swinging going around his head rapid speed as he was going up and just kind of scraped his neck up pretty bad yeah you saw his life go before his eyes scared him to death and but he was getting out of the Navy shortly after that so anyway everybody got out fine we had our crew head and that was your last experience of the beat dude yeah that wasn't that was fine so what was your most vivid memory of your three tours in Vietnam what stands out in your mind most how it had changed I think because I was there as things were changing dress - I got there was like this is a real war and we could see it talk to the Air Force guys we talked to the different people around there and the army guys who were coming out they were 22nd replacement battalion right next to us there as they were leaving we we talked to them and see how they're doing and I had a brother-in-law who was there and we tried to touch base with each other we never could find each other but you know we'd find out what's going on in the country with them and things have gone from a real war to a political war I guess you'd say well you know the rules are being called from Washington DC and the things that we can't do this you can't you know the rules of engagement were much different so much so that my last deployment their camera and Naval Air Facility the the seal of the base and Navy captain his wife came and stayed with him for four months and it's like this is kind of unusual we thought but he she'd started making some rules she didn't like you know young officers being in there in fatigues but they should maybe wear a shirt and tie or a barong which was the Filipino dress shared formal shirt so we had to we had to clean up our act and quit looking like someone should drop the dime owner she wasn't supposed to be there for sure yeah it disrupted a lot did that killed morale yeah Gilda real real bad so I would think that up and so another thing at that point Joe we were not allowed to carry guns on our airplanes we could have our survival knives this was where that came from we're not sure we think was you know from the base but we could carry our survival knives which was nothing like Rambo years but yeah and if we wanted to we could check out a a rifle from the armory and carry those on the airplane with us that no personal pistol knows I'd armed none they were not only frowned upon they were outlawed no guy still did it they still took their their piece and put her in the on the bag yeah I hope so yeah that's the sign of what was like toward for us toward the end yeah describe for me the best day you had during your Vietnam tours Wow I guess I should say the last day there but that you know that was no that wasn't it sorry yeah I don't know it was that I had more fun meeting new people I can't think of anyone standing out as far as any one day it was excellent yeah I can my first Christmas in Vietnam made a big impression we were sitting out there we'd been gone wow we've been gone four months five months something like that and they told us all out on Christmas morning the studio and Excel called us out - come on I've never seen his picnic tables and what we did was said we've got some things here for you guys this is Christmas so what we're going to do we had some some people send some little things for you two to have and our wives and the families had sent things over forced mm-hmm and very difficult because they were over there they had to send these things three months early so so they would so they'd get there in time so they they got him over there and I know some of the food I had was well it wasn't meant to be green but it you know had screamed by the time I was there but pictures and memos little just meant a lot one reading material that was good yeah that was probably the best time my mother sent two pounds of pecan divinity it came by ship mail oh we could have dropped it on an O in chemical warfare there you go there we go describe for me the worst day you had during your tours work blood I can't think of a worse thing I like to work so I cannot think I honestly can't think of a worst day there's just days did did you have much contact with our allies by that I mean the Koreans the Aussies the Thais the New Zealanders the Filipinos a little bit someone we went on R&R we would run into each other and the the Koreans were well known they they were our real friends because they would they be our outer perimeter I mean it was an inner perimeter but they kept everyone away yes yeah and everyone feared them yeah they were they were good but we talked very little with him and just because of what we did yeah and the Vietnamese allies do you have anything much to do with the arvin we did in flight training when we were training some of their pilots yeah I've had had contact with him then over there they had their own facilities and we never got near them which was again too bad yeah we don't like to have done those yeah how much contact did you have with your wife and your family back home I think the first deployment I think I wrote her five times and she wrote me more than that and I think she still remembers that that's a but I called probably we had the wats line we could sneak in at night and make a Mars line call yeah and I made a couple calls to her that way and that was really neat that was really something here actually her voice do you write more the second tour no I took her with me I you took her with you I took her with me to Japan and she stayed in Japan while I was doing whatever and brought him brought that was born over there and that was that wasn't it 32 Fleming I was by myself how much news did you receive about the war from home if any we would you know and guys who'd get together when was mail call and we got our mail from the Philippines it came in to the squadron in the Philippines and if we were over at Canberra and they'd bring us over you know every every two or three days whatever and we'd get mailed in every Neversoft in the family would write my wife would write a good bed which was very thoughtful we compared notes we compared hey what'd you find out and you know we knew each other's families back home and we could find out how the kids are doing things like that so that that was really good probably the biggest thing we heard about was one event that happened which was the our airplane rp2 that went down all the people who were on that airplane their hometown newspapers carried different stories by different news agencies and I think every one of them had something somewhat similar and that was they know they threw this p2v seven or a p2v and said we didn't carry any bombs we carry torpedoes and son of boys for submarines we didn't and we didn't carry 50 cals anymore just while we're on certain certain functions but in all of the papers they all seem to have another different version of the thing it said fortunately there were no nuclear weapons on board at the time of the crash well we couldn't carry nuclear weapons if we had to yeah that was that was a big thing for the for the media to put in there so it was fun to compare yeah were you aware of any particular political or social events or movements back in the states during that time it's pretty hard time back there yeah there was is very difficult we were we would find out about it yes we did encounter it when I went to transition Pat and I went both went down to transition to the p3 in the San Francisco area the Moffett Field in Palo Alto they get this college that was called Berkeley and there was a little bit of uprising there yeah it got to the point that we were told don't wear your uniforms on to the base from your home or out when you're going home your car windows would get smashed and things like that and we did so we didn't we kept our uniforms on the base and then would drive on in servation clothes and do that and we you know the the base got overrun by students or demonstrators or whatever so now we did hear a lot of while back there in San Francisco area you know the the the baby-killer the names never got spit on that's good but anyway there was we got to encounter some of that and we read about that as Stars and Stripes keeps a lot of that stuff describe your final return home from your last door that was that was by the most unique thing I got to I was delivered up to Clark Air Base by the by one of our crews because the Parthenon was back in in the Philippines so I got delivered by airplane up to Clark Air Base and there was me and four enlisted guys and who I knew him all quite well so we were got there and mine was getting close I was within ten minutes of check-in time so Mike whiteners said hey let me get your bag you run in and make it I'll see you so one guy got the bag and he got and somebody else got another bag and I took off so I get there in time so I was there about five minutes early and I was there was no getting up there in line yeah I'm okay I'm okay on time and the guy had me took a little longer than unusual but I said hang on just a minute and that got to me and I think I didn't say anything I said put this thing in front of him he didn't look at it I said I said here's mine there's my ticket information just a minute be right with him and most unit he said finally after about a minute or so wait he said okay how can I help you sir yes I said well here's my checking in for the fight which was like four hours five hours ahead he said let me see that no sir I don't see you on that flight really in fact you're late checking in so we'd had to give here see to an enlisted man sir I go oh I know what's going on I said come on can I make this or not I was here ahead of time you knew that sorry sir we gave it away what do I do anything you want these people out there a lot of these enlisted men have been sitting here for two weeks or should I get in behind or one anything you want so that was that and it was hard getting you know space available in there so I figured what's the best resource here so I went and to an office said who's the senior enlisted man on the base and I went and found him he was over in RPS registered pubs and in the courier service so I went and I met him we talked for about 10 minutes they said you know I'm sure didn't come to ask where I'm from and all that kind of stuff got a problem I said I told him the problem he said how's your clearance I said I got it I have a top secret crypto okay you'd be back here at whatever time this evening you go find two enlisted guys who really want to be home badly and you get them and we'll send you home tonight so we did that I went no one found two guys who were desperate you know there was also young and when to go home to see mom so they strapped guns on them and they strapped a briefcase on my arm and we went in the back of a c-141 that a with a whole lot in front to back with pallets full of boxes of registered pubs you know information codes secrets all secret stuff and I had to sign for every box and we bounced from from Clark Air Base to was we have made low made five stops stopping in different different bases and every time we every time we'd stop the airplane would break and I had to I'd have to to get out my list and cross them off and put new ones on and I'll keep this for the rest of your life you know anyway it went and every time we'd stop the crew would go in and the plague or stopping and see what the locals are doing tonight and when they were finished we started back out we did this and bounced across so every place took at least a day and a half every time I'd stop and I'd say would you play it to the RPS the head of them courier there would you call my wife at this friend's number and the whole way across so she should have had six calls we got none none so I got we got to Hawaii and the guy said sorry you guys gotta get off here and take back to uh Travis Air Force Base whoa that was good so we did I called her from there and I told her so it took me about a week longer and she had no idea where I was the squadron had no idea you had no idea where you were exactly but we made it how much contact have you had with the fellow veterans over the years from your squadron quite a bit officer enlisted both of them we get together we're gonna get together this this fall going up - we're meeting at wright-patt Air Force Base those squadron most of the ones still interested get together and we do this you know go back and forth on emails and stuff like that so keep up with each other got a lot of nice planes up there oh yes yeah for sure for sure now did you stay in the Navy I got out I went to windier in the reserves when I moved to Atlanta because and I went to Atlanta and found a house I went I went back in reserves for about a year and they really didn't have anything to do so after one year of just showing up at meetings and things I dropped out and I had one more year of inactive reserve and so I just set that up doing my yard work on Saturdays yeah any difficulty readjusting to life after the war good bit one of the biggest difficulties was personally because I'd be over there my wife would pay the bills she'd do this she ran everything I'd come home and say okay move over here I am I'm gonna take over everything and it was like that was not my smoothest move there's no no and so readjusting like that how do we go from a young couple newly married the longest we were together without a split up of at least a week or so and sometimes six months now that wasn't weren't enough a lot of time so we were just we're still kind of dating you know yeah figuring it out yeah and where's it took a while because we were still like dating and I thought once we're well here I am full-time how do we do this and it was a challenge it was a real challenge so and been adjusting to things I noticed when I would interview I was I was hunting a job when I would interview businesses and looking for all kinds of things there were no Airlines hiring at the time or I would have flown with an airline right away but there were no Airlines hiring and so I would got my resume and this and that and got everything together and interviewing with these guys I had my bachelor's degree and some of these guys had their bachelor's and master's you know an MBA and they and I'm going to I'm fighting these guys and they're young whoa but I was getting more offers than any of them simply because I was in the military I had been in the military I had worked with men didn't have any women at the time I don't think we had an inner squadron and - you were an officer you flew airplanes up and people's mind there may be may have been dissent over here but it stood out in people's mind that this is somebody who's been there they work they really felt good knowing somebody who'd been to Vietnam and actually done and so the amazing thing is I had no trouble finding a job so I did I did a job and in sales which I loved however it was difficult because they still have my military ways I still called yes sir yes ma'am I still do that haven't changed so and that's not something when you grew up in rural Ohio he said yes sir that's kind of a serving way to answer somebody and so you just didn't say yes sir in the north but I did do in the south I was in the South at the time yeah so my parents couldn't grasp that but sir any memory or experience from your time in Vietnam that stayed with you through the years and had a lasting influence on your life could you repeat that that's a pretty big thing for me is there any memory or experience from your time in Vietnam that has stayed with you through the years and had a lasting influence on your life yes and to say specifically what it was I'm not really sure but I know things keep popping up you know I was like and different things not necessarily dangerous in and of themselves but you know what I should have been killed back there why'd you know many many times it's like somebody's got to be looking out after because I'm not this good and the odds are definitely against what's going on and that hangs still hangs in my mind that different things have happened and things have happened since then things that happened before then and things I did in college and working into sometimes and I should not have been in Russia and not a minute to my 25th year I don't believe but I did and that's kind of that kind of hangs with me still did your experience in Vietnam affect the way you think about veterans coming home from combat today completely it's good to see men are coming home after an honorable honorable and there's been some stories things that people have done it's great to see them returning I don't want to see them returning in the the coffins yeah the body bags it's not it's not good I'd like to see him come home anything they need a lot done for them there's a lot I have met a lot of folks recently that were Vietnam vets that have I guess what we we never had back then but they have it around today they have this this disease that you know I'm not thinking right something's wrong and PTSD it's just and talking with one fellow who is a he was a P of W for five years in the Hanoi Hilton and you know we're talking and we were being presented to us about this PTSD was we're working on our committee together about how PTSD is gonna be the latest thing that we're gonna be able to help veterans with and they described what it was going to be doing and this guy goes wait a minute somebody has problems with their with their children they have several children and they got called up to active duty and they don't want to go because none of their husband's wants to take care of the kids it's like and it goes this is not this is self induced stress this is it and and a lot of people don't like to talk about Vietnam maybe I was not involved enough close enough to things that were happened down in the in the foxholes and I was not near any of them and I can see why some people don't want to talk about but I'm really surprised how many people probably have PTSD legally but there wasn't such thing back then we didn't know about it didn't know about it that's right how do you think the Vietnam War is remembered in our society today or is it remembered unfortunately there's not much when you look at the younger generation people don't read history young people don't read history much said to a lot of young people I worked with a lot of younger people under the age of 25 and if they're interested in military they know about Vietnam so many people does not did not know where it was they didn't know what World War two was they didn't know what World War one was Korea and I that's that's a shame Vietnam people my age say to me you know I wish I could have gone I was just a little bit too young I was just a little bit too old but I wish I could have gone I felt like I missed something by not going 3040 years later mm-hmm but and they really I think they really mean it they wish I could have done something because I see something in people who did go so but that's just an impression I see well they're there something like four million people on the last census listed themselves as having served in Vietnam when they didn't know when there's when there's only about a million of us left but four million served yeah I don't know where they were when it was going on a lot of people want to be there have been there yeah there were plenty of vacancies there are there were plenty in the end of what did that war mean to you and your generation our generation to me that means there were people being overrun no freedoms communism communism was the big bad wolf at the time and we have to get these people to be protected from being taken over by the Communists and there were a lot of what we called shy calms at the time Chinese Communists which is lot of their ships and look for their submarines but the well do me a favor restate the question I'd like to answer a little in the end what did that wor mean to you and your generation and also it means we gave our best as we knew we were tried sometimes we didn't know why we were doing things even though we asked being young and invincible we asked to let what's this all about why why should we do that what's it what's it going to accomplish and we didn't always get answers and our superiors didn't get answers there's no to do it got frustrating when you see the things that Washington does I think we gave it our best we have some of the finest young men one thing I learned I learned I grew up something I hadn't done I didn't have to in college didn't have to in high school there's a war going on I better grow up time to time to do something and time to do something for somebody else besides myself because I'm you know like y'all all people were selfish animals we look after ourselves well you look out after yourself but you give yourself up for somebody else if they need have you been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC just what are your impressions when you go there don't like it cry every time the stun hammock I look up certain guys it's just hard for four years I wouldn't go yeah me too so I've seen it yes I'm impressed with it very well done have you heard about the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War commemoration project yes or no what are your thoughts about that no time it was them yeah that sir had wait 15 50 years to say thanks say thanks yeah and yeah I'm all for it I really appreciated hearing about it yeah so tremendous project can't say enough thank you Tom thank you sir appreciate Joe good job you

Channel: Atlanta History Center

Views: 2,775

Rating: 4.652174 out of 5

Keywords: Library of Congress Veterans History Project, Atlanta History Center (museum), Veteran (profession)

Id: H2il-oIXdjs

Length: 64min 17sec (3857 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 14 2020