Vietnam Veterans: Full Interview with Dennis Elliot

tell me Dennis how did you were you drafted or did you join her how'd you wind up well I graduated here in Pampa in 1968 and spent the summer working on grandpa's farm and my parents really wanted me to go to West Texas State and try that so I went there for one semester and lived in a dorm with Eugene mercury Morris if you know him yeah he was a character you want to just take those off no that's fine I just didn't want to hear that Keys jingle yeah well I hear you and so after one semester I didn't like it at all and I dropped out of college and went to see the army recruiter and signed up enlisted okay that would be January of 69 is when I enlisted okay and you were how old 18 Wow you seemed just a baby yeah so what do six now yeah so where'd you go after enlisting I went to Fort Bliss for basic training and after eight weeks of basic training I went to Fort Huachuca for see my dad told me when I enlisted he told me to enlist as a mechanic you know where you could stay in the rear with the gear there's a story about that I'll tell you in a minute okay and so I enlisted as a mechanic and they sent me for Chicot two wheeled vehicle maintenance course and after eight weeks of that I went to Fort Sill Oklahoma to track vehicle maintenance course TV MC and became a track mechanic to work on tanks and APCs and anything with tracks then I got 30 days leave to go home before I went to Vietnam and during that 30 days when I was home on leave you know you know Armstrong stepped foot on the moon and I watched that get at Grandma's with a little black-and-white TV and it occurred to me how ironic that we're stepping foot on the moon and we're still Conal across the world to kill people you know that just scene in Congress to me but you know I was raised watching combat in the gallant men and John Wayne all time and I thought it was my duty to go do my duty and so I did and when I got there it was something else or a real different biscuit over there my first night in country was the worst really yeah flannel 707 that was the most modern airliner at the time with stewardesses and everything you know and we landed at Cam Ranh Bay and they said okay boys this is Cameron baby this is the biggest American base in South Vietnam it's the safest place we got it'll be Jay himself was here that's it okay they said go on go to bed in these barracks and you'll be safe tonight you don't need a weapon tonight nothing's going to happen so I'm on the second floor of these we call them hooches that's why we lived in with hooches in base camp and the wall only goes up halfway and then it's screen because you don't need insulation it never gets cold I was on the second floor of this huge I'm laying there in my cot in my brand-new green underwear and I can't sleep because it's so hot and it stinks and I'm scared and and I hear what I think is thunder off in the distance and it keeps getting louder and closer ready not figured it out finally that's not thunder its rockets and mortars so the first night I get to Vietnam Charlie the enemy mr. Charles the Vietcong decide that they're going to attack Cameron Bay and they did they detect it big time and by the time I figured it out all these other new guys had figured that before I did and they ran out there and got in the bunker we had these bunkers were where you'd get in there to not get shrapnel from the rockets and mortars flying around and all these new guys these replacements are all in there you know like sardines and there's no room for me to get in at all I mean the last ones are docked hanging out the door so I'm looking around and the ammo dumps blowing up and everything is just going sky-high and I said my goodness if this is the safest place they got I'll never make it a year and so all I could do was get them they had these sandbag walls around the hooches never bet this high and I jumped down behind that sandbag Wallman and ate dirt and gave my soul up to Jesus it's it said Jesus just get me through this but I'll be your man and a sappers you know what sappers our sappers they they stripped down to a breach cloth and that's all they're wearing and they're carrying these canvas bags full of plastic explosive and they run up down the street throwing those plastic explosive charges the end of buildings and stuff and blowing them up and they and they thought it was so safe at Cameron Bay that the sentries didn't even have ammunition further m-14s they were carrying four teens are which was the older main battle rifle they didn't have him 16s but anyway did any bullets at all no cartridges because he thought was so safe they was just for show they have that rifle so they couldn't shoot the sappers they couldn't do anything they were like me they were helpless they blew up a hospital little ways over and those guys were laying in there they couldn't jump up and run out and and save themselves or get away or anything they I think they killed like 33 in that hospital but that was the worst not the first night was the worst night in the next day they flew me up to Pleiku in Central Highlands to the fourth Infantry Division and I get to the fourth engineers and I'm a track mechanic and I go down to the battalion maintenance office which is a big motor pool thing and I'm walking up there with my duffel bag and this buck sergeant he's tough tough looking this thing could be mean-looking he was waiting for me he knew I was coming his name was Gibbs sergeant Gibbs and I he said oh you're a trap McKinney kind I said yeah he said well you see that tank right there get on it and let's go so for a year I was a tanker not a track mechanic they didn't need anymore chat mechanics they had plenty of older lifer types to do the track mechanic work in the safe area in the base camp they needed me to be a crewman on that tank and head on out to Indian country so that's what we did Wow yeah so I got an m16 and a 45 pistol and a tank with four big machine guns on it I felt a lot better the second day because I can shoot back shoot back instead of just being a sitting duck help us but that's that's that's what I was telling you about my dad said to be McKenna you didn't work out didn't know so you're you're a tank your microphone cord I'm not jumping around too much no you're okay because this makes people nervous to be on TV yeah makes her makes me nervous but you're a veteran you're used to you don't know I'm not really that much I'd rather I'd rather be going up Manning pass right now than doing this oh really likes you don't know what magnet passes in the central highlands there's mountains it's a away from the like Saigon where's all lowlands and steamy humid no mountains and rice paddies you know well up in the central highlands they have triple-canopy jungle on these mountains no rice paddies well a few here and there and it's a lot cooler and drier in Ming any pass is the main well it's on highway 19 how he 19 runs from quinion on the coast red Beach South China Sea from queenie'll on the coast all the way to the Cambodian border and that's where we operate it and Mangesh was the main pass on that highway where you get ambushed if you went through mangok pass and it was uphill both directions you were going to have contact if you know what contact is you can get shot at you can't call the ambush because you knew it's heaven that uh I'd rather be going up Manning past or through it right now the other main pass was on K pass on K passes between quinion and on K and banging passes between on K and play K Pleiku and I came to work two biggest forts I like to call them forts they call them base camps it was these fire support bases their forts you know because Charlie he owned all the country all the country was Indian country and not you didn't want to be out there in Indian country because Charlie ruled it not we ruled in the daytime because we had the firepower you've heard that motto of peace through superior firepower well it worked in the daytime but at night your barber might be Charlie you know the people working in the mess hall might be Charlie in there crawling around at night hoping you'd come out of your fort you get ambushed and we'd like to stay behind the wire because all the forts had a lot of wire around them all kinds of different wire concertina double apron trip wires and everything claymore mines bunkers fortifications emplacements machine guns I only spent one night outside the wire and that was a little South Vietnamese fort where my tank wouldn't go through there see the entries the roads into the fort's would go like this instead of going straight in they would go like this and why was everywhere and the tank was too big it wouldn't go down that little path into the fire no we couldn't get in so we had to spin the night sideways outside the wire with all four machine guns facing out and we were risked some engineers I was in the fourth combat engineers and we were with some engineers that day that night and they could have got in because they had dump trucks and scoop letters and bulldozers and all that equipment would go through that maze but the tank wouldn't so they stayed out there with us you know it's not good it's not a good feeling to have Charlie on one side and you're supposed to analyze the Arvin's the army of the Republic of Vietnam to your back you know because they might just open up and get you in the crossfire you know that was bad night but nothing happened there the guys on my career they went down to the village and had a good time I stayed with the tank behind machine that's where I stayed most of the time was behind machine really yeah that one that one ma deuce okay browning m2 heavy barrel the world champion for over 100 years now well right at a hundred years I think it came in service in 1918 it was developed by John Browning John Moses Browning for World War one but it didn't get into production in time they'd missed that war time I was bringing it was the greatest farms inventor of all Tommy you know the 1911 pistol the BA are the mob deuce m2 heavy barrel browning the machine the 30 caliber browning machine good just all kinds the browning 85 automatic shotgun in the first automation socket John Moses Browning we kind of Saint John Moses Browning because he's the greatest farmers are interval time so I mean I'm looking at that and you're still exposed we didn't write inside the tank you never write inside the tank you ride on top of the tank and on the top of the APC I'm a person accurate nobody rides inside just ammo and equipment are inside and there's a very good reason for that because if you're inside and that'd be 40 ground goes through the side be 40 as a rocket-propelled grenade RPG I think it was RPG 7 was to be 40 and it wouldn't make a whole about this big on the outside with a little slag around the edge like somebody took a great big cutting torch and just blew a hole in it well that was just the entry but on the inside when he went off there was nothing if you were inside there you became pink fog we didn't want to be pink fog we'd rather be on top or we maybe take a bullet whereby one would have a body to bury because you can't bury peek fog you can't even gather it up so nobody wrote inside well the driver had to write inside half way you know he has most of his buddies they could outside you know but to reach the pedals he had to be somewhat inside the tank but other than that no we wrote on the top we squatted up on top by machine guns we were minesweepers we had these tanks with mine rollers mounted in front called combat engineering vehicle boosters the tank didn't modify for minesweeping CD combat engineer vehicle and that was our job to go out every morning and sweep the highway for the mines that they plan all night long and we'd run over them blow them up so that they didn't destroy trucks and jeeps and stuff that were less armored that would be destroyed or kill some people you know and he was okay as long as you were just running over the that he came home made bones the basket mines we just keep rolling but if they had a Soviet anti-tank mine or even a choc hump and I think man that was not good never mess up your whole day you're at least gonna lose some rollers and maybe blow off a track there's a track that's nope it's no fun when you lose the track it's a lot of work to put one back on and it might either wound or kill your driver because he's right down there he's gonna be buttoned up when he's minesweeping but still he's right there behind the minesweeper and I'm Soviet in a tank man is really heavy-duty you know fortunately they didn't have too many of those mostly it was just a little improvised devices that we ran over blood I can't imagine what you've seen though in that position we saw a lot of things yeah yeah it's not a lot of them explosions firefights ambushes dead people some of your straight leg armoured units in cavalry units they had tanks and APCs they would be so mad and enraged that they would take the dead enemies and wrap him up in concertina wire and drag him around behind their tanks for a couple days till I started stinking me cut him loose and he lays his face to her forehead you know what they display it it's the death card I mean he's very superstitious about it so the bicycle playing card company sent us cases of decks of cards and the only card in that the whole deck would be the ace of spades I'm really not 54 ace of spades in that dad they just sell them to us for free and everywhere he went we'd be throwing a match you know psychological warfare because I hate to tell you what they did to us okay you wanna you wanna hear yes okay they would kill you slowly torture you to death cut off your head and your genitals and they would have your genitals sticking out of your mouth and your head on that pole the rest of your body they would feed to the pigs nobody ever hears that but that's that's what happened did you see that yeah it was like you're not supposed to take pictures of that stuff and they confiscated all my pictures on the way back I should have mailed them home instead of trying to carry him but I never imagined that they're become skating my personal black-and-white pictures but they did because they didn't want the American public to see things like that it wouldn't be gonna be good for our we're the good guys yeah theme yeah yeah there are no good guys you know deal like that it's just dog-eat-dog take no prisoners no quarter all-out war the Geneva Convention didn't apply at all whatsoever we theoretically gave lip service to going by it obeying it we didn't not in the field because in the field it was mostly just young guys because all your big shots your officers and stuff your higher-level NCOs they didn't come out there where we were they stayed back in base camp rivers safe we call them base camp commandos there's another term but I can't say that we like to stay it plays a ring mostly that was the end of the line it's right by the Cambodian border and those officers were not going out there so we stayed there because nobody messed with us out there the colonel would forget that we existed until they needed this in any culinary hey I need you to go here do this okay but if we could be stayed there because there was nothing there but a fort it was a green beret for it all right on the camera maybe four klicks from the Cambodian border there was nothing there but a detachment of Green Berets and a battery of 175 millimeter Hauser's that's the biggest cannon Army's got or had at the time I don't know what they had not but he received like 20 miles and the round weight about as much as a Volkswagen but there was three of those a green beret detachment and a whole bunch of mine yards ruff puffs reasonable forces popular forces kind of like the militia they were not in the Arvin army of the code you know but they were allied with us they hated the Vietnamese the miners and the Vietnamese been fighting for 5000 years the mountain yards were pretty much done aged primitive people and they look more Polynesian actually than oriental and I think Mountain yard means something like Negro and Vietnamese or something like that anyway we came along and we gave all the money ARDS an m16 so instead of their little crossbows to kill Vietnamese if they had a native 16 they loved us they're our friends and we didn't we abandon them when we left they just got left behind and and Massacre genocide the North Vietnamese have been they conquered the south they tried to pretty much exterminate the mon yards for revenge for 5000 years of warfare it said you know it almost gives you the lesson that it's sometimes pretty deadly to be a ally the United States to be a friend the United States because we just pulled out and left them holding the back you know and and they did the same thing with the regular Army's Congress cut off all their supplies no ammunition no bombs no more helicopters no more AP C's they had no chance after the Congress did that it was a foregone conclusion I mean when I was there we pretty much had the war one you know we were win it when I left it was pacified pretty much do you think you could have won if they were to turn us loose because they kept us on a tight leash all time they've turned us loose we'd have been in Hanoi in two weeks if they let us keep going we've been in Peking in six weeks because we had we had all the overwhelming superior firepower and and equipment b-52s everything you know if they would have wanted to do that but they don't do that they just wanted it to be fought down to a Mexican standoff I guess you'd say like Korea is you know and leave it North eating I'm 79 well the North wasn't going to do that and we had the north on the ropes really bad out of general Diep he said if we two bombed Han only one more date they're ready to capitulate signed peace trillion and the word would be over but for some reason Nixon stopped the bombing and they decided well we might as well keep on with the struggle and they eventually went but we were all gone by then long last ground troops left in 73 and Saigon fell two years later when your that's all I can make you stay is one year you can extend if you want I could have stayed there another three years easy but I didn't want to right I I was ready to come back to the world we call this the world the land of the big px you know what pay taxes mm-hmm yeah I was ready to come back home because those guys were trying to kill me you know a year was enough I wanted to go and I was happy to go but I wasn't too happy that first night when I got there scared like that again oh all the time anybody that's in combat that says they're not scared just lying either that is a completely completely berserker you know because but the thing about Americans is they might be scared they don't show it they're very brave in combat as long as Americans can keep their legs protected that's the thing and we always sometimes we'd have our legs didn't think but as long as your legs are protected you're pretty much ten foot tall and bulletproof you think you're Superman you're pretty much fearless but still afraid at the same time because you never know when a bullet is going to come out of the bush and puts you in a body bag you know I remember one day we were going to make me pass and we had an American flag on the radio hit on the area didn't want to stay on there it kept coming off and I was take him in her at that time and I took the flag down and hooked it with a safety pin around my neck like Superman's cape and here we're going up banging past I'd like to add a little movie of that you know exchange it contact with a flagger in your net crazy Americans are crazy and there's only for us on the thing and sometimes we'd go places by ourselves you know for guys against the whole NVA battalions you know because we're not that bright huh we were like we're crazy bulletproof all the ones that dragged band I mean how do you explain that to people is there just something that kind of snaps and makes you do those sorts of things well I told you what they did does ya know I know we didn't do as bad as they did yeah and it was like an eye for an eye and the grunts you know what they ever do the infantry oh let me tell you what I take her where we were dads okay dat capital D capital a capital D to amass tankers we called grunts crunchies you don't understand this annoys that maybe when you run over infantry is a crunchies to tankers or Treasuries that's what Patton called him yeah gallows humor yeah yeah there is such a thing and I guess it helps what were you talking about dragging people behind the tank it wasn't all that common because you know even even it's hardened and hardcore everywhere that was still a little a little bit over the top you know and if you got caught doing that you'd be you know BJ you didn't do that anywhere close to her there were like reporters or brass you know lifers brass people in command you know and did it at all because he'd be an LBJ along be in jail anyone go there it was a bad place to be yeah yeah so did you lose people over there did you get shot I mean did you get fortunately on my tank sergeant Gibbs he's my first tank commander and it was me and starting Gibbs and two other guys Christi he was from Michigan and Lorraine he was an armored a farmer from Iowa and that was the crew for the first little while and then sergeant Gibbs he lives in North Carolina now I'm gonna have to see him someday cuz cuz when I first met him when he said you track mechanic get on that taking let's go he was like he was like a stone-cold killer he'd be in there almost a year he didn't play around 0:08 he told me he said you know there's a lot of doping and there's four of us on this tank you're you're on this crew now and if we catch you messing with that dope will shoot you ourselves and your mama won't know that vehicon didn't kill you because your our lives are in your hands just like yours is at our hands and we're not gonna put up with it instead of enough for me but he liked to drink beer we all did because you could not drink the water and usually the beer was hot because we named the ice mamasan she'd say a little chunk ice like that like this for 50 cents and in 1969 the enough you sense like probably $50 right here right now but we take that little chunk of ice and put it down in the bottom of a jury can you want jury Canada it's insulated no it's not a canteen it's insulated like ice just sort of made out of steel or aluminum with a lid with latches and you'd put you'd stack that beer in there and latch it down because it had a rubber o-ring and you'd wait just as long as you possibly could before you'd open it back up so maybe most of that beer would not be hot anywhere I'd be lukewarm because all that has to be evaporated a little pea-sized to be evaporated we never found a fire extinction over there because as soon as anybody got a fire extinguisher they would line the beer out on the ground and spray it with the fire extinguisher just cool it off because we didn't care about putting out fires or as far as overall time I was gonna say something I forgot oh it's hardened Gibbs he rotated and so I think Christi was next up so he became spec 5 he was already picked for I was that's PFC when I got there as soon as I got there I became spec 4 which is the same as a corporal for pay purposes a corporal can give orders to expect four but even though they make the same pay because army tradition I guess anyway the colonel world always tank commanders to be buck sergeant so Christi became acting Zack buck sergeant stripes that he's actually just suspect I will just say pay and every time somebody rotated the next whenever to get the Bucks earn I did the same and I became buck sergeant acting jack and so when it came time for me to come home to rotate the colonel Kingdom and he said look you know you're doing a great job and I don't really have any time anybody to replace you with and if you'll just extend for six months I give you those straps permanent well I said I don't think so colonel I'm going home so it many of some add everybody else when they rotated they were automatically promoted to spec five from spec for and he canceled my spec five because of men who so mad that I wouldn't extend I didn't care you know but you know if hadn't known then what I know now I would stay but I wouldn't extend it with him I went to recon dose go became a real badass probably got killed you know what IRA condo is recon doe schools where they teach you how to be alert the real badasses you know what alert is yeah long-range reconnaissance patrol four guys go out there snooping and pooping by their cells their job is did not make contact at all just observe you know is that the scariest thing there is over there to be out there in the jungle just four guys on the ground hopefully your radio keeps working yeah I would think so yeah but in a tank you can't you can't you can't sneak up on me buddy view coming from five miles away you know yeah I like being a tanker but I don't know it was not the same as its what herps did you know that was the rule if I could've did that I'd have bragging rights you know you don't think you do well I do sort of kind of sort it you know but but that would have been not a wise decision to make but I often wonder what would've been like to stay another year or two or even three I could have stayed three more years when I got there there was a sergeant 87 that had been there already six years he was on his seventh tour so he got their back when JFK was still president you know but he was he was a base camp commando stuff he had an easy what happened when he came home when I came home I got on my dirt back and I was out there in Northcrest here in town you don't know where that is it was fairly new subdivision and there was a field out there and I was racing my little dirt back through this mud puddle and I hit this mud hole and the bike stopped and I just kept flying through the air I broke my collarbone so that's how I spent my 30 days home from you know was trying to take it easy on my collarbone then I had to go to Germany for a year and a half because I enlisted for three years and I spent the first six months stateside getting trained and then a year in Vietnam and that's just 18 months I still it a team us to do so I went to Germany the third Armored Division stayed stayed in engineers 23rd combat engineers but I didn't stay there because I was a spec for and they put me on the same tank I was on it you know the same kind of tank I was on the anointment and they were just getting room 16s in Germany and I'd be shooting him 16 for a year I knew how it worked so we all went out to qualify and I made the man which which means I qualified the best of everybody the whole company and so the colonel he came to me he said I'm starting a rifle team and you're on it and so I never worked as a tanker again the whole year and a half I was there in Germany all I did was I started that on the twenty thirty engineer Alpha Team went to the third Armored Division off a team into the userroutine you just saw me in Europe team and then I got into an AME Army marksmanship unit and my job everyday was just to shoot the m16 what we trained for months for one michone match once she'd match the sento match you remember sento Central Treaty Organization it no longer exists it's defunct it was the United States Great Britain Iran and Turkey that queena Iran was ran by the Shah and they were our allies you know well the Brits they were the Queen's Own Hollanders you know with their kilts and their back pops and their big black bear skin hats and that came marching in at them at the match when they arrived they came arson and they look good they stand to give their bagpipes nur and their drums and everything and we were just ready tag dog faces you know just barely could March and so the Brits were picked coming first and the Turks and Iranians they had national match m1 Garands which is the rifle we won world war two with you know probably the most accurate of all the rifles they were in the match and the Brits used their SLR the same as the FN FAL 308 main battle rifle we had to use the m16 because each team had to used the rifle that their country was using at the time so nobody had any respect for that Mattel toy m16 but we cheated we shimmed him up lathe down the front side lighting the triggers as a lot of legal and trained and trained and trained every day and so at the end of the match because the Turks and Iranians I don't know what was wrong with those guys they can hit the broadside of a barn with the National Match in when your hands they were just I don't know not well-trained but the Brits they were real training they thought they had it in the bag they were picked come in first and we were picked to come in last fourth out of four well we beat them we bit them all we came in first all the Brits couldn't stand it they could not believe that that these ragtag Americans with the Mattel plastic m16 would beat them like that but we did this is funny so if you were in Germany what did you know about the protest going on in the US nothing not one thing didn't care I did not care about anything except getting through that year and a half that I had to spend over there and we were off-duty we hung out downtown with with the Germans and the German girls and drinking the German beer your head German beer mm-hmm it's very strong and the Germans they drink beer all the time their kids go to school in kindergarten with a thermos of beer in their lunchbox every town has its own brewery there like beer crazy so did you ever feel the protests when you got back no there were no protests around here this is the Texas Panhandle we didn't allow that there is nothing like that here I didn't remember anybody or protesting around here I was supposed to spend three years in the army but they gave me a month early out for Christmas so I got out instead of in January I got out right around Christmas Day night and I came home I got home on Christmas Eve night flew in Demerol in my class I uniform in a duffle bag and I was gonna hitchhike um to Pavel but nobody would give me a ride and it was cold too and I'm standing up there on the highway freezing to death and finally this guy on this woman in a pickup pulled over and said I could ride in the back so I rode all the way from Emerald to Papp in the back of a pickup knock her down on my duffel bag freezing to death and I got home up here on Serie Street it's the Christmas Eve I know this song the rest of kids are still home other three kids are still alone I stabbed my key to the house so I let myself in everybody's snoring you know so I've come in and I laid down on the couch went to sleep and you know Christmas morning mom gets up really early you know she come in there about probably five o'clock in the morning and there's some gatling in her on her couch you know she liked to had a heart attack no no though she recognized me pretty quick okay yeah she knew it was pretty quick but still you come out of your bedroom and walk down the hall and turn into Lou there's some guy laying on your casa wasn't there when you're into bit you know freaked you out have you seen the Vietnam Memorial Wall in DC I can't go to DC can't go to DC you know can't take Betsey which is my pistol I do not go anywhere that Betsy's not working well I can because I'm a retired deputy chair and I can take it anywhere in the United States it's a federal law now it took us like 25 years the law enforcement alliance of America took us 25 years to get that federal law passed to where New York City and Chicago and Hawaii and Washington DC can't tell us that we can't bring our guns with us because even retired cops are still cops you know 24/7 once you become a cop and you become into that lifestyle of being a cop you never quit being a cop and and hardly being a cop is you leave the house your pistols on you it's just how it is because it's an emergency threat management tools what it is you don't know when you're gonna need it and it's better than needed it better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it so I don't like the politics and DC I don't I don't want to go there plus you have to fly I don't fly I do not fly the last time I flew my sister send the plane ticket on Southwest Airlines in 1987 because they're having a big Vietnam reunion in March and they had the traveling wall there so she sent me a plane ticket said you need to come to this so I had a free ticket and she wanted me to so I did that's the last time I flew 1987 because you know what had what everybody that's been killed in the plane crash was thinking right before they got killed in that plane crash hmm every person I always hadn't got on this plane if you don't get it playing on a plane you're not gonna get killing the plane crash sorry so what do you think of the traveling wall when you saw it I was mood really can we take a timeout I think my girlfriend is becoming vexed we're supposed to go to Staunton and get a couple of piglet Oh ping be pigs you know pet pigs and she's all excited and it's not even time to go yet the caddy 19:19 gonna be home until 6:00 we leave at 5:00 I'll be planning here but she's antsy she sent me four texts I don't know the last doesn't never mind okay I'm good we're worried about the wall what your impression of it when you saw the traveling one there's several of them you know mm-hmm there's have one here there's like there's like a half a dozen you mean memoral yeah that was the first time I saw it was down there in Houston and I wasn't too impressed in but the one that came here I was real impressed with that operation it was really nice really good and that's been like almost maybe eight years ago now did you look for anybody in particular no because I was gonna tell you while we go Gibbs didn't get killed and he rotated Krista didn't get killed he wrote a low-ranking it killed he wrote that in and really he gives us the guy behind me the fourth one after sergeant Gibbs left that was our crew Kristi the rank me and we'll see for months and months that the crew stayed the same no but none of us are that killed or even wounded why we got a teeny little Nick's and stuff I got blowed off the tank once but no big deal we could have all got a Purple Heart just from technicalities but I couldn't see it and we didn't bother with it but I did see a lot of people get killed but they were nameless people you know they were not my friends or close close buddies yeah because the tank crew it's for guys and and you're like really tight if one of us really I kill that still be a lot bothered about it of it I'm a lot bothered about a lot of things and a lot of what I saw and those guys that got killed but there's a difference between your buddy getting shut off the tank killed and and you seeing River bags and you know what's in them you know but you're not attached to her you can you can emotionally detach yourself from from all that you know when I got home after I got to the other army and I got home and I went up and got a job and everything and lived a normal life I did not have a conscious thought about the war for ten years probably ten years before and I don't remember any subconscious thoughts about it it was just like I suppressed it I guess that's my way of dealing with the PTSD and stuff cause I just didn't think about it didn't I didn't have nightmares about it or anything and nobody nobody talked about it it was just like and then when I started thinking about it again because I was a bad alcoholic well but I never drank before I got off work but as soon as I got off work I was drinking until I went to sleep at night from the time I got off work until I laid down and went to sleep I was drinking and that's how I dealt with it too was but not thinking about it and drinking all the time and my which one was it my second wife and I met on a Barstow she was sitting on a barstool got me to quit drinking and that's I guess when I started thinking about it more quite a bit more early in early in the 1980s very earlier than nineteen eighties Danny Martin he's he's you talk to him he's our commander did he have to be here we were not welcome at the end day you know they didn't want us because we were like on TV all your Vietnam veterans were crazy you know psychopaths they had to call SWAT on them you know it was like stereotype Hollywood stereotype so the world war two guys that ran them he has definitely want us so we start our own just called the top of Texas Vietnam Veterans organization and it didn't last long but that's when we first started talking to each other about it and dealing with it and finally a lot of the older viateur Roberto guys the hardcore was died off and and we decided we just take over the VFW thing we did so now the VFW is pretty much mostly Vietnam veterans we run it there's very few very very few World War 2 guys left at all I think we lost our last one a couple years ago in this post my dad's still alive but he was done clearing it he's not even woman he MacArthur helped him quit the Japs in World War two you know Wow okay yeah MacArthur needed his help yeah I mean he needed MacArthur said I don't forget how he says it [Laughter] well I appreciate you talking to us thank you you bet that's proud to do it I'd do it again you didn't even ask about Asia it's killing us it's killing us killed our junior mask commander last week he's only 64 oh yeah I was everywhere there's no escape from it it was everywhere everywhere we were in the combat engineers well Americans we'd like to take a shower every day that's what Americans like to do other places I don't know how can they take a shower in France maybe once a year I don't know but but it's not common anywhere else but in America so in Vietnam the combat engineers everywhere we went as soon as we'd built a place we'd make a shower and the biggest shower you put these 55-gallon drums up on a platform with a diesel burner to heat the water pipe it and everything and you can take a shower hot shower well you couldn't use oil drums you know so we used as Nordstrom's if the Agent Orange notice cuz they were cleaned or they look clean it was everywhere it was everywhere in the water we didn't we didn't drink the water mostly anyway because it was it said potable on a little water trailer which means drinking water because it had to be treated isn't the st yeah so we mostly just drank beer we drank beer just to hydrate and then at night we drink whiskey and dr pepper to get drunk cause of kenya drunk on beer anymore we drank so much beer that's that's bad when you fight a word drinking beer huh yeah but Agent Orange doesn't bother me because I was 18 in nineteen at that time in that year I was there and and Asian doors took away a lot of Charlie's cover so I could have got killed when I was 18 without it you know saved a lot of lives at the time and that's all they were thinking they weren't thinking about 40 years in the future what it was gonna do to it's killing us all I mean there's no escape from it once once you've got it in your body you're doomed it's it you know there's no there's no cure everybody keeps saying well I hope they can find a cure for that there is no cure it's not possible to have a cure you can't you can't there's no way to fix it you're doomed like look like her commander Danny anymore and he's got it really bad it's really sad and you killed my uncle my uncle was my dad's baby brother and my uncle was in Vietnam a year and a half before I was and so he died in 1984 over here at the VA hospital his liver was the size of a walnut and in 84 nobody was even had even heard of Agent Orange you know nobody talked about it so I got to check in on it and his official cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver what cut what cousin cirrhosis of the liver is alcoholism the man was a teetotaler he never drank in his whole life so he was Agent Orange he was the first one I know that dad from him but he was a lot older when he got there what Agent Orange does to the human body is it adds 30 to 50 years to your physiological age you can't go by your chronological age so chronologically I'm 66 but I'm at least 96 in Agent Orange years which is 30 years added four years I'm 106 50 years I'm 116 Psalm 116 I'm doing really really good so far you know even for ninety-six I'm not really good but I won't make it to be as old as my dad he's not anyone there's no way because if I was 91 I'd have to be 121 and Agent Orange you can't did there's no escape no hope you just have to you just have to accept it you know if you if you if you get bitter about it and and hate the government and it'll just make it worse and not die sooner you know you have to because there's nothing you do that it it's like a fait accompli oh you're welcome you bet

Channel: Panhandle PBS

Views: 52,256

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Id: J7Tryk0Qx9c

Length: 52min 19sec (3139 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 14 2018