Vietnam Veterans: Full Interview with Larry Stephens

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so tell me where are you from are you from I was born here I grew up at groom which is just down the road uh-huh not very far yeah and what year did you join the army I didn't join really they they said youth Si was drafted okay in 1970 what was it like to get that notice well I guess it was kind of handwriting on the wall cuz I had a low draft number had somebody tell me the other day that's the only lottery they won because their number was 200 so they didn't go and I thought I said I've never heard of it like that what was your number 50 okay so you definitely remember the note yeah so you were how old well I guess when I was drafted I see I was 19 okay I guess before I yeah because I turned 20 in California okay basic training and then how how long after that did you go to Vietnam well I went in mid May of 72 California to Fort Ord and went through basic AIT another little short course thing and got to Vietnam in late October of 70 so you were just 20 year old hmm what when you got your orders to go to Vietnam I guess you knew you were headed well sure went when we went of course you knew you don't know where you're going from out of basic training you could do anything I had made higher score on mechanics but the mistake is you say oh you like to hunt and you like to fish and you think later on you figure out that uh oh you cut your own throat but once you go into infantry AIT that time period it's pretty really given where your duty station if you want to call it that yeah it's gonna be so where did you arrive to when you when you got to Vietnam the first place where the commercial stuff that dropped us off was Cam Ranh Bay was a receiving center I think a lots of guys went through cam'ron Bay at least that time period and then went south to the first Air Cav receiving Center at benoît which was called three core broad area and then the company rear was at Foot vent which was north or north and west don't know the distances yes we just we'd go on an airplane or a helicopter wherever and we'd go for a wagon I'm thinking it's like 30 or 40 miles probably okay foot foot then the company rare was a smaller base if you want to call it that so were you leaving the base and then going up you know into what we what was your job I was infantry combat I was in a company there's always a b c d p-- whatever i was at any company is a little different they had a mortar platoon had a radar Pitou none the firebase and had an infantry platoon which should have had 40 people in it we had about 30 because the strength was down so we functioned with 30 people instead of a several hundred or several thousand when we'd go out and do something but we went out on state and fire bases for a day or two and then we'd go out and stay out for two weeks at a time in patrol for like I said from October clear to November of 71 so what were you patrolling for mostly what we did where we were in the timeframe we look for caches of weapons or food or medical supplies they very long-term plan probably we're getting the political part a little bit I don't politicize any of this but they were no doubt hiding stuff to use well for Tet R for their ultimate end of the war which happened in 75 some big ones some little ones we never found any great big caches that had stuff in them the platoon about a month before I was in it feeling a pretty good-sized one had some anti-aircraft guns in it they dig holes and then make them not wet as as good as can be because it's jungle and and monsoons a lot of lot of wet lots of trees yeah but they we mostly did that we did go hunt the bad guys particularly obviously we didn't avoid hope but we functioned like I said mostly as a patoot we never worked with any more people than that so we were out with 20 or 25 of us and later on our numbers dwindled because they weren't it's when I guess it's Nixon was reducing the numbers total numbers in the country so we didn't get new people in so arc our platoon dwindle clear down to probably 15 12 or 15 and a normal strength would have been 40 to something so we ended up going out six-man teams we did LARP Ames Recon teams and we'd go out and sit for seven or eight days and have extreme noise discipline we didn't talk we didn't cook you can eat c-rations cold if you have to they're not real good warm but the worse than that cold but we didn't have como with anybody communications they call us from a radio thing from the firebase at midnight and we wouldn't talk to him a dancer they'd ask us yes had no questions and we would click the handset on the radio one click for yes and two for no we didn't talk no noise and in it Edit noon we do the same thing now we could call them immediately if something happened but we didn't talk for eight days Wow I can't imagine nobody smoked anyway I mean cigarettes or anything else that was over there to smoke but we were completely quiet for eight days that would seem so almost the isolation well in lots of ways we felt more secure with six of us five or six of us then we did with twenty because twenty would make no way or thirty or forty whatever it was or especially a bit a big group that would have been a hope company size or battalion they know where you are cuz you're making noise cuz there's that many people they couldn't find us cuz I mean the bad guys the gooks but lots of slang terms for them but unless they just stumbled on us they wouldn't have heard us or smelled us because we're unless we smell like Americans and heard stories about I can I can smell the gooks because you know our sit your senses get really keen for survival Wow and so you think things they they also could smell you I don't I have no doubt that they would there was lots of stories about they spell fishier by sea or whatever and I I don't know that our sense is over my senses ever got that astute I thought about that aspect before but they always said that how were your your senses changed during those experiences I don't know how how to answer your question exactly I don't understand how my sense has changed well I mean as you were watching or trying to be quiet and listening or you what would you listen for that would tell you somebody was around well if they were I mean I don't know that we were a smell in post in spit instead of a listening post but I suppose we were assigned an area that they thought there would be infiltration on front from the VC our NVA and if they were going to get closer to us then we would be extra-credit extra quiet instead of you know probably whispering a little bit but I don't know it didn't seem Ike I now that though I did recon stuff for Erb team stuff which is long-range reconnaissance patrol that sounds scary and they said in the other and what we did was not scary at all I mean not any more so than anything else being over there because we were in a well I guess you call it defensive position and if we were walking a trail we could walk on to them sitting there waiting for us so and the tide had be turned if we were sitting still we didn't have specialized weapons like the seals do now or whatever that we're here on TV but we had more weapons and more ammo than we normally would carry so if the bad guys found this we could quite a fight did you come across the enemy often not too much not my Hodor we never did on these lerp team things fortunately because there wasn't six of us but not too much the war had dwindled down a lot when I was over there like I said I stayed out stayed out 13 months I got an early out there was there was a lot of early outs have heard about since for various reasons in our case my platoon I'm saying now in our case they didn't want us back in the United States because we were baby killers back then and they didn't want that they didn't want us infantry back in the United States anyway just to serve on a post for six months or a year or something so I I was on the firebase since we had different areas in our in our company they led us on the firebase the last month or two of our tour which was it a piece of cake but it's better than walking all the time and walking in that you got it you got a berm and you got other people help get up to get the bad guys if they try to come get you but whether you encountered the enemy and you were saying they didn't want you to come back at a post 400k they came out with a early-out or I don't know about for everybody but least draftees and they did not want us back to the United States so they said if you if you come back to the United States you've got a hundred and fifty days left on your two-year draftee thing then you could get out clear out and so I signed up for that and I'm sure my mother died over that because I was going to stay in a war zone longer but at that point felt relatively safe even though we're still in the jungle but when you're twenty or twenty one year in Vince invincible but about a week after I signed the orders or agreed to him signing them probably they came out with 180 days hello well I've been done by done by the army again for 30 days so I left stay over here 30 more days but in a few days I got the other 30 days they're 29 I thinks actually the math on it they figured out that the numbers counters figured out that 150 days wasn't gonna work either still got back to the states so I actually got a 29 they drop off of my deal so I stay I stayed the army I stayed nearly 13 months in Vietnam which is more than a normal tour tour in my case would have been 12 months different services different ranks get different amounts of tour time a lot of the time twelve months I think was kind of the standard so I got back the United States came to Oakland or flew to Oakland and got out immediately so I spent just a little over a year and a half in the army yeah so it doesn't sound like much compared to the guys that were career that spent 20 or 30 years but you were over there so but but so my thinking that the army was just a war zone as oh I never really served in the army like like people talk about they went to this post in that post and and saw the world all I was was training and then a war zone what were conditions like over there well like I said we were i wasn't hardly ever in the company where the company removed two benoît that i mentioned later on and it was a nice place compared to the jungle still would be reset arow we had a not just an army caught but a mattress and stuff when we come into the rear but on the fire bases when we were there for a day or two at a time in between missions we sleep I think as I remember on an army caught in a in a bunker sandbag different kinds of places that we build depending on the area some cases one firebase I remember that we really are longer helped him build the firebase so we were security plus work during the day we urged they probably had a back out dig a big hole and then we had trees and put over the top and then landing mat and then covered it up with sandbags and we'd sleep in there probably on army cots and that firebase the one that I can't remember the name of it was particularly dusty dusty everywhere because of the helicopter still up the dirt but that particular one well I guess was extra dusty or dry season rather than monsoon so it was dusty so they got the bright idea so we got buckets of tar like he put on the roads here and spread it everywhere to keep the dirt nailed and I don't know if it ever dried and I think it was just a horrible mess but but that was that was a different firebase we went to another one once for a bigger USO show once and I think that's the only reason it was an old fire basin we opened it back up that was gravel and so it wasn't break dusty and it was nice and clean and neat for a firebase out in the jungle but most of them and the USO show came and we saw the pretty American girls singing dance and not not Bob Hope not that big deal but we saw that most of the fire bases they send a bulldozer out a small bulldozer that they could carry out with helicopters because these places don't have roads too they're out in the middle of anywhere of anywhere of nowhere but they'll bring small bulldozers out with and they'll push up a berm usually in a triangle or maybe a diamond for military tactical reasons and they have artillery auto 105 105 millimeter guns and a bigger one could have 155 for port for the artillery our platoon like I said was part of it was mortars so there was a couple of mortar pits and they would set up they were during dry season dry and dusty sandbags everywhere you pull guard at night hopefully an hour but if there weren't enough people you could pull two or three hours and then rotate to somebody else I learned over there that you don't have to sleep to function you can rest but during monsoon which is rainy season instead at the dirt you can slog through mud and water on the fire bases they put Matt down and put boards down and throw sandbags down to try to walk not not in water I've got a picture of me of washing my hands in water about 6 inches or a foot deep that's mud instead of instead of having clean water just washing them off so I don't know you get used to it you I mean I don't know you're young and resilient so hot hot i we never knew how hot it was I mean it's hot you sweat but since I've been back these new smart phones you put any weather you want on the smart phones so my mistake was was putting Saigon on it only it's called Ho Chi Minh City now and it's in the summer it's 97 98 and the humidity 70 and 80% and so it's hotter than we've been hot here in the Panhandle for a couple weeks now that's cool that's still cool compared to over there and we're all suffered here of course but it's tremendous the heat I guess the when we'd be on a firebase we could be in our hooch our bunker place sleeping place we call it hooch and get up to go get a drink or go across the firebase or whatever to go do something a duty or something and the time you got up and walked just 100 feet you're sure to be wringing wet your pants it'd be with everywhere your skin touches like the front of your pants and you're in the back of your shirt would be soaking wet but in the jungle I suppose where I was most of the time we were wet constant I suppose a little bit from I guess in the morning from the dew on the plants because we were where I was was considered triple-canopy jungle you've got three layers of vegetation sort of I suppose is what triple comes from there stuff that's low down two three four five six feet high and then another layer that's 20 feet high I guess and then of course the tall trees however tall you are 50 or 60 80 feet so it's called triple so it's shady a lot I suppose so there's no air but we would through there and I guess be soaking wet and if you take your shirt off when you'd stop to make an NDP knight in defensive position you'd take your shirt off because it was cooler and if you didn't wear it put it back on with it wet to sleep in it's still wet the next morning so you had to put up because it was still evaporating it was cold so to speak so if you didn't wear your shirt you wear it shirt to bed your body would dry it overnight huh Wow of course you slept with your pants on and I don't know if we took her boots off or not I guess we probably did when were you most scared really it wasn't from being shot the thing that pops into my mind to begin with several circumstances even though there wasn't a lot going on when I was there I we pulled guard duty at night in the jungle and we're like said there's no roads or anything we just set up in an area and you can walk outside the what's called a perimeter pretty easy if there's no moon it's dark maybe maybe not like a Carlsbad cavern cave but it's dark and if you get turned a little bit you can walk outside your perimeter and I did one night and realized that I was not where I was supposed to be so they always told us to say Garryowen which was the unit crest for our thing because they said the gooks couldn't say it so I was whispering Garryowen Gary Owen and I didn't know whether I needed to stay which side of the tree found a big tree if I stayed on the tree next to us then I could have got shot by us they thought I was the enemy if I got on the outside of the tree if there was goats there I could have got shot by the goats so know what I was going to do and finally somebody whispered her the next guard came on and I wasn't there and I think they finally ever but nearly everybody was up and I finally figured out I was outside where I supposed to be from then on we tied a string a rope kind of loosely around the perimeter of us and like I said if there was 20 of us we could have been in a a lot of a hundred foot diameter circle 75 foot diameter circle not on top of each other but relatively close but from then on we did that another thing that really popped into my mind it may have been the same night I don't remember for sure but we set up our NDP and it was mill at night and we could hear a tiger roars yeah and we didn't have any idea see if it was ten feet away or a mile away and I was a lot more scared of being eaten by a tiger than being shot yeah and and I thought maybe it's kind of an isolated incident and the longer we visit with folks like me people had shot Tigers and had heard Tigers herd of elephants we saw elephant tracks never saw an elephant another thing that was an animal circumstance and it's kind of funny that I talk about animals rather than the bad guys tried to shoot me when I told this story Oh while back maybe for the history class that I talked to that we heard a noise one afternoon oh no they were going terrible noise and it turned out to be a group whatever a horde or a group of monkeys coming through the top of the trees and they were all screaming and hollering as they were going through the trees and we were hunkered down we didn't know what the noise was they went I don't know if there was ten of them or fifty of them but they never knew we were there I don't think they went right over the top of us screaming and holler scared the daylights out of us because we didn't know what it what the noise was yeah that scare me too so that's amazing so what happened when you returned home not a whole lot I'm from here so we didn't get the controversial stuff like we've all heard about all veterans have heard about that happened east coast and west coast but most of the response was oh how are you I haven't seen you for a while you've been gone so it wasn't a big deal I mean small towns from groom I suppose it nothing had changed a whole lot you knew about the protests before you went because well sure at that time frame I don't know I suppose we got news I don't remember dwelling on it about any of it that that was would be on the news just like the news does nowadays and whether it was blown out of proportion like today or not don't know but did you lose people while you were there friends I met a guy just happened chance we I left here when I got home well from from AIT you used most everybody gets a couple weeks leave and it's like nowadays you go to Dallas before you go anywhere and I was in the Dallas Airport waiting to go to Fort Ord which is in California and another guy walked up and we started talking and I guess we were in uniform probably probably class aids they don't travel like that anymore we the guys now we're the camouflage fatigues everywhere but back then we had to wear to classes and he's probably had class aids on to which was a dress uniform the tie and the we didn't have any ribbons and because women in Long but the ribbons and everything but we struck up a conversation he had flown from Houston to Dallas and happened chance of course we we went through no I mixing the stories up now this was not before basic training this is when we were going to go to Tacoma Washington to come to Vietnam and we sat by each other and fluted to coma Washington spent two three days there that was the receiving center to go to to Vietnam and we ended up in the same unit echo 1st to the 7th 1st Air Cav just happened chance he could have been anywhere both army but he could have been but anyway his name was James Tucker and we ended up building hooch together like I don't know if you've walked around the museum here some but there is a mock-up of a hooch over here in the corner and that's what we built together too and so we loosely I'll use the term camp camped out together it takes two people to be able to hooch it's made out of out of a poncho liner and and a poncho liner on the ground and stuff but it takes two people it's not a tent it's a thrown together stuff that work very well in Vietnam what you have your supplies used out well we use half of mine and half of his we tried to build one with three of us one time the medic one time and we just could not build one out of three it just won't work like the one over here in the corner like show-and-tell but we can't get up we can't get up walk around but it's it's a poncho it's like you go to Walmart and buy and we tie the hood shut on it and it's the top we tie it to branches and then tie the top of it up we put one on the bottom to keep the wet out and the bugs out use one mosquito net that drapes around that's designed they got little grommets in them in it it's all made to kind of fit but they may have designed it after the gis figured out how to do it and for a long time we had air mattresses that we would blow up and and then a thing called a poncho liner which is a blanket kind of thing real nylon lightweight thing I still use one as a as a blankie and my recliner at night I just do I don't know it's a throwback been influenced by my past experiences but anyway we did we built our thing together one little side note if you didn't put we called it bug juice but mosquito repellent and we had liquid down on the ground before you put the poncho down some kind of bugs termite or something would eat the plastic off of it overnight and then that poncho would be no good anymore for our water barrier so we had to squirt bug juice although were to to kill the bugs but anyway we host together until February the 19th of 71 I didn't know if I was going to tell his story or not maybe I will I'm headed into it anyway we always went out on patrol had been for ages the same marching order they'd say marching in the jungle but the same order he had been point man head guy not head but the first guy in the Puna tune he wanted to be he felt like he was confident and qualified to do that he was a policeman in civilian life he could have got out of doing Vietnam even my age but anyway it was just a routine we did I had been walking number three when there was six or eight of us out or even when the hope of tumor is out if there was 20 of us we're doing it I had got where I was walking three it was just what we did that day we had set up an NDP night in defensive position early like it 2 3 4 o'clock to 3 o'clock I guess and we went on a went out on patrol what we'd call light without our packs and the Petunia argent and one or two others went out with us so the tenant didn't I don't know why but we were had more of us out that day and the patoot argent wanted to be point man well alright be point man well James Tucker got pushed to third my place and I got pushed further back fifth or sixth or seventh or eighth or whatever we walked up a hill and we got hit they blew probably our claim or mine not our claymore mines but stolen clear mines mines anyway and the third guys dead Tucker's dead that was my place when did some other guys and I've lived with that for 40-something years he he took my place I can't imagine how you deal with that I don't know it's just it's not that he's gone but it's maybe I should be and you hear stories like that and all the wars the survivor's guilt mm-hmm and heard it said that but sure yeah so I'm sorry but another thing I was gonna let's go on how much weight we carry huh we carried 125 to 130 pounds and that's a lot for somebody that weighs 200 but I didn't weigh about 125 pounds so I carried my weight up and down in mud in dirt all day long every day you know whatever thing in that pack weighed like some dude mm-hm well we carried a couple of claymores which are the mines and we all carry a couple hundred rounds of machine gun ammo all that stuff weighs six or seven pounds for the machine gun the m60 machine gun we carried our own weapon whatever it was I carried a thing called an m203 which was a m16 an m79 they pretty well all that the pictures you see now on TV of the two wars that are going on now they've all got a configuration of what I carried so it's a little heavier because you've got the grenades are a little heavier you carry that and you've got a couple Poncho's to build your house your house out of at night they're necessary and and you carry five to seven days worth of food and water we carried like 11 to 13 quarts of water so you carried to an F gallons of water or so depending on how much you wanted to drink how much you want to do hump is the work so we were carrying 20 pounds of water the guys that carried m16s which was predominantly that man was an m16 as well as urban aids we carried a lot of security 21 magazines which would be 300 rounds one magazine doesn't weigh much but when you multiply it by 20 it adds up we had a personal camp which was when people would go down for heatstroke that's the first thing that the officers in charge would go fit over well you can't help that 20-pound can of stuff as well as everything else well that had our camera in it our right and stuff in it we carried whatever you wanted to eat on your on your rations like ketchup or mustard or 57 sauce or something we had that in there so that was our personal can that was that was that was our life in Vietnam that was our personal stuff was in an ammo kid so we carried that so it all added up to 120 230 pounds so what all was most important to you to keep in that camp I don't know maybe the writing stuff I don't know I had a girlfriend at home like so many of the gi's did most able things camera I suppose cuz had a little cheap Instamatic thingy for a while that took took the pictures you've may have seen some of them they're all faded and they're funny colors I think a hump for a while my better camera 35 millimeter there was always places over there when you'd go into the company rear you get some personal food there was a if you got to go clear into the PX or there was a helicopter come out come out to the fire bases when you're on the fire base and you could get what's called flied px and we would carry we'd buy whatever you wanted my particular favorite was those beans and weenies because it was much different than so much different than a sea some of the guys on I try to watch sitting like them had sardines I guess that was a deviation they'd feel a little thing opening if they if they didn't smell us before they dismay us after they opened a can of stinky sardines but so I don't know everybody had a lot the same thing right and stuff and then of course when we got the firebase there was a place to mail it yeah so have you been to the Vietnam Memorial and I finally went I've been a movable wall a couplet eyes very emotional the first time a little bit at the real one I went on the Texas Panhandle owner flight that September it was quite an honor to do that and we'd spend very much time there wish we didn't get very much time at anything because it's fast and furious on the honor honor flight but we go three days some of the some of them go just one day that the group so we're fortunate here that the ones in Amarillo do three days but I scribbled off a couple names my wife's got a Annie my cousin that is on the ball never been recovered he was he went down an airplane and but I didn't know him I kind of sociate with him because of the situation but any time I'm around one of course I scratch off James Tucker's shadow thing or what it whatever it's called wouldn't people write on the pizza yeah on the plaything yeah the pencil Ruby so does the wall mean something to you well not daily of course because I mean it's just I wasn't the lieutenant came to me after after Tucker was killed and said are you all right and I said yeah I'm fine I didn't get close friends with him even though weep hoots together I didn't get real friend he was probably friendly with some other people in the platoon so it wasn't like a close friend being killed as such get more emotional over folks nowadays in civilian life that have passed on for some reason as you look back at the volatility what was going on at home what you went through their perspective well I never look a lot of people try to politicize a lot of things that went on I never was a great person to to get politically I mean I've got my opinion who needs to be present or doesn't need to be present but I'm not real vocal on it I I guess when I think about Vietnam I think about my experience and the physical war part of it obviously this museum is not all Vietnam but it's I say well it did influence me a lot but I wouldn't be doing any of this better and stuff that I do we have got a I say we my wife and I have got a jeep like one of these sitting on the floor here it's in the background and we dress up World War two and do World War two living history stuff and I never thought I wanted to put another green uniform on in my life so I'm sure that it's influenced me on my hobby one of the hobbies I've got and I'm on the board here at the Museum so I'm still involved with military stuff so it's it's part of me it's just the way it is I don't think I've got any serious problems I know some friends that that I think struggle with with the war affects Vietnam my platoon my not my living history but too but my real pattern we've had five or six reunions and I've been to a couple level and it's a small group because we functioned as a platoon like I said earlier and I don't remember I'm very well my brain has blocked some of it out I suppose in age has done away with our memory like like like age does on anything that we try to remember so like today I nearly forgot the interview thank you
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Channel: Panhandle PBS
Views: 8,122
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Length: 42min 53sec (2573 seconds)
Published: Wed Feb 14 2018
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