Vietnam Veterans Sound Off

good evening and welcome to another edition of City beat TV I'm your host lakiya Stanton and today we have the pleasure of speaking with three gentlemen who were a part of a very significant historical period in the United States we're going to talk about the impact that that period has had on the United States and present day as well as the impact that has had on their lives we have mr. Eugene Bryce Richard Tyrell and Tony Francis in the studio today and each of them is going to share their story as well as their current views on that period without further ado gentlemen welcome absolutely so you guys were a part of the Vietnam War yes very as I said in the intro very significant historical period in the United States what was that like and we'll start with you and I'll and I'll keep it opening it just like that what was that experience like for you first of all it was a it was in Spanish that I was too young to understand all I know is I was drafted and I was told at you you're going or not going that's them I decided to go in and I have my basic training and my IT training and a specialized training with anything I was going to place called Vietnam which I had heard very little about but I knew I had no issues with him personal issues but but that's where we were going to Vietnam and I was one on a year tour and was I wasn't excited about it but I took the challenge took the challenge and I went mister tyro what was it like for you I joined the Marine Corps I volunteered for enlistment well somewhat volunteered from a judge gave me some assistance there and as an 18 year old kid in the infantry initially was quite shocking I mean frightening is really a small word to use some time and a lot of different experiences a lot of personal growth the issues that we dealt with as individuals than infantry platoon we're dealing with issues of society only thirty men at a time so it's the human experience in the combat experience and I say that because the great compassion I'm sure that all of it experienced in Vietnam from the men that we worked with and the terribly violent necessity that comes about when meant go to war Wow Wow mr. Francis yes just like Richie I I enlisted in the army the men in my family they fought in World War one and World War two in Korea and this was the war of my generation so beyond my eyes I enlisted I graduated from Officer Candidate School when I was 20 so I was young and I got to Vietnam I was 21 and not until that time that I realized how much responsibility I had in that situation and like Richie said I think maybe I was too young you know when when you have 40 lives entrusted to you and I learned that war is not a game I learned that it's not a great adventure I can tell you is not fun but on the other side of it I think in the positive vein it was a good experience that helped me grow up but when I came home and all the racial things that was gone and how I was treated in the serve I came home very bit very very very good yeah I want to explore that actually a little bit more you know you guys are fighting a war abroad and then coming home and having to fight a war at home well that war huh that war started with us the home war started while we're at war yes you know say we were fighting a war against uh yes so called also call enemy the Vietcong and NVA we were also fighting an enemy who was sitting right next to me in my dorm in my in my daily operations I mean so we were fighting a war of the known and there all of them knowing at the same time and I say that because the only time I might Luther King got killed we're all we're all were in combat at that time and we could walk through the jungles and see Life magazine pictures posted on trees not by us but by the enemy same black black brothers yes the war is not here your war is back home and I played a hell of a mind game on you because they were right they were right our war wasn't there I wore was back here and like when we got back here it really shows that war was back here all the time you know so we left Vietnam I war has just begun physically we better came back physically some somewhat together but mentally we were destroying and I say that scar while young men young men and women were all young and young I have I don't know here that I had started striking got this article here and it was an article that was written by one of the top isin started five reporters and he did it I did it on my unit and it says he is GI smashed VC assault but they don't talk up and they also talk about 112 us that 28 of us got killed that night another 64 got wounded and that left what we had here and we were we were ass were attacked by enemy side of unknown size and along with my my wife brothers we fought side by side and can we fought the enemy off but where we lost so many men I bet the next morning I looked at my white brothers and said we've majors and that's when I became tight with my white brothers and my Spanish brothers my Indian brothers because I knew we were one and we needed each other to get out of their life and and there was no there was no more joking now when you did you shout to get out of your life and and it never could be more true than this battle right here so you know that's my group my group of 18 year old I grew up and became a man overnight there and I really can't appreciate those who who around me and Richie and I are so close I mean we are we are like brothers and Antonia now our career has gone together side by side he was he was my commander I was a spittoon sergeant he was not cream I come to command and I was this first sergeant so we kind of we kind of hold on hold on to each other and we become surface for each other what was it like for you coming back to a home war if you will have an experience with your I had a very unique homecoming but I'd like to address another issue and and that was racism within Vietnam in the Marine Corps a lot of the long-term career Marines were from the deep south and a lot of the young men black and white didn't get along with but the young african-american men who came from deep south many of them their only contact with a white person was always negative and as a result there was a a bonding that we had to develop within the unit within between him and I you know as to human beings to understand that we were there for each other that he knew he could trust me that I had his back you know and having grown up here in Springfield and I grew up on Green Street I went to all integrated school any parent on my block could kick my butt and if I went home and said mom mrs. kod hit me bang I got banging for mom because she knew mrs. kod would never hit me for no reason so I mean to having grown up in that environment it that sense of community I still to this day feel we have a responsibility all of us to work towards that sense of community saw it all of us feel it you know it can't be just a comfort zone it's got to be living it's like the bumper sticker that says for those who fought for freedom as the flavor of the protected will never know and that's because we know the cost of it we know that this young black man who grew up in the ghettos of Washington DC died beside this young kid from Roslindale mass and this French immigrant from New York you know and we knew that and we have to get the rest of the world to understand that that we have to as a human race stand together because your admission really began with the uniform off and I mission became Dennis it's it's not we were on a world police became a community please but we're not being used properly you know we have some veterans in this community a very very strong and some of us work hard some of us are ignored and community leaders in this community for some reason have a way of breaking us up they have a way of just kind of tearing us apart because I see unity there and people don't like to see success they don't like to see brothers and Weitz's I don't understand that and but I've experienced that over and over again what people in this community are so-called leaders in this community I mean you can't get them to work for do anything for veterans I work for veterans since I retired when I'm in 1996 and never see it never seen that one paycheck and I must put in at least 80 hours a week just working for veterans and their families you couldn't give me a nipper you couldn't give me a paycheck because my mission is to help those doctors in their family that's my mission they I was I was lucky enough to retire good pension type in the city and from the Army so pretty much okay but I know a lot of better that they were not okay so my mission is to help them and we all share the same goal it's up those who are unable to help themselves families goes right so fast-forward to today you know the you know we're no longer fighting or at least we're not calling it a civil rights movement but we have this whole new movement black lives matter what does that mean to you considering your experience and I'd like to start with Mr Francis I think that the the movement it's it's nothing new we're just going through cycles and this is a new cycle that's been embraced by a lot of young people which is important and we should be there to support them and vice versa they should want to listen to what we have to say because we've been through that before so we can give them some good advice and like Jean says we people look past us you know they don't think we have something worthwhile to to give them I wish they would say black lives matter too I think that would end a lot of the controversy that's going on about the name I don't know if you aware of it but they tried to get that designated as a terror group it had something like a hundred and forty thousand people signed a petition and I don't know where it stands now online petition yeah god bless him but it's important things haven't changed and what's sad is we're catching it on video now before we couldn't see it that way and people who don't look at us like us see it differently and all these policemen whether they white black Hispanic Indian or whatever they're getting off with in it and it's clearly you know it is a difference someone tried to tell me about black people are killing more of themselves than the policemen but the ones who's killing us law in our communities are criminals the policemen took oath to serve and protect and they put nuts in a vice grip because we got the gangbangers on one side and then we have the policemen on the other side and we caught in the middle and I think if you talk to the average black man they do not trust policemen at all I told and I think most black men do this with their sons they tell them if a policeman slaps you you'd be polite don't resist get to the police station when you get there give me a call and don't do anything crazy absolutely so that's what you have to teach your young boys or your young man because they don't understand this yet a lot of them don't understand it so I think it's important and they get that from whom the older people I know when I was coming up old people didn't know anything no I'm serious they know what was going on so we told us great you know but I want to go back to something jesus said that needs to be revisited is the racism that was out there in the street and the racism that was in the military and the point you get to is like aren't we all fighting together aren't we all in this together so why do I have to be isolated and then be punished or treated differently and being disrespected because of my complexion now I was I grew up in New York City in Harlem number black people so I wasn't prepared to deal with that racism when I went to Austin Candidate School we were taught the mission the mission and mission the mission we weren't taught about these politics and be aware of all these things that happen around us and most of the units I served in may have had one or two black officers and a battalion that's like two and five hundred men 700 men and my experience my first company commander was from Georgia my second one was from Mississippi my third one was from Alabama South Carolina and the one that treated me the best was from Maryland but I would being naive I would not think I didn't think that people would waste so much time to ensure that I would fail why would they do that that that's irrational you know and it was so obvious that they would get there we were set up because they put Tony and I together she would they'll fail together I mean it was a setup it was a setup they put us together and they kept us together from a former platoon sergeant to the first side and come in they don't have that thought that doesn't happen but they say they're gonna fail it'll make him fail together but we turned the clock on we would have best in the battalion the best the brigade the best in the division so and they didn't like that did not like that because we found a way to get our men to respect us white both white black and Hispanic to respect us and we respected them and we treat them like men and their women and we got along very well and so he found other ways to block us whole motions back passing over us for promotions so in that and we still fight today me that was you know we're still fighting the war today you know to get recognition to get proper the proper treatment to get our benefits properly get a proper benefits I mean we all have to fight and and it's not just blacks or fighting a young white brothers a fighting as well to get those same same same skills people same same same beat steady so well deserve and we have to fight every every single day to get those things met minds are met I'm not guys I know a lot of buttons we'll still fighting me my job is to help them get get this whatever technology look how long it took us to get out I know I came home in 1970 and I really just got into the process in 1995 right that's crazy it's we black white Hispanic it didn't matter when we came home from Vietnam each one of us individually had great feelings of alienation from our families I mean my grandmother used to call me her little Frankie when I came home from Vietnam and she called me her little Frankie this thing inside of me said oh she only knew what her little Frankie has done you know and these are self-employed perhaps but so there was an ingrained negative feeling about myself and then you add on the social rejection that came to so many of us you just felt totally out there alone on an island and until we as veterans started to talk to each other work together the first veterans group in Springfield Massachusetts was the Winchester square of Vietnam era vets and all of us were involved in that and it gave us as a group of veterans a voice together and and that's when people started to pay attention when we stood together right as long as they could keep us separated divided right it works for them but when we joined forces it worked for us Wow and that's what black lives matter and that's what we have to get earned but we can't win people over with slogans we have to win people over one person absolutely speaking to them getting them to understand that you know if an 18 year old kid in Longmeadow is stopped for a traffic stop they're not going to search the car for drugs if an 18 year old kid up here on Eastern Avenue get stopped for a traffic stop they're going to ask permission perhaps ask permission within the law to search the vehicle you know and those are the kind of contrasts that we as a society have to stop yeah you know that's a black know I've seen a great way and they said one person at a time one step at a time when I was 18 years old I I was given the responsibility and Tony had more responsible than any of us but I was given the lives of 12 men that says and said Bryce you're going on a patrol tonight and these 12 men of yours you taking them out of here in good shape bring them back the same way and that's 18 years old I said what responsibility to 18 years of age when I'm just as scared as they are but they gave us a mission and the mission was to do what it says and that's what we did but that but also that I also knew that a lot more than just taking them out on patrol we have to have to trust that to trust him we had to bond we had to wait to be a strong bond there so that we can all feel that no one would be left behind no matter what color whatever you would not be left behind and I had to get my men to believe that if they fall I'll be there to catch them don't worry I just saw one one one of us will cut you and you have to believe that they know and I don't think people realize how close that you get yeah I mean I don't care what you look like at that bottom level people are like this yeah and you don't find that out here in the street right so even by virtue of that you feel alone and isolated because you embrace if guys went out on patrol to set up for the night we would we would take their ponchos and make a shelter form so when they came back they'd have a dry place to sleep you know if somebody had one beer you will make sure everybody they're gonna sit at one kid how did that one can I mean that's how I was and I report came out maybe no more than a month or so ago where they said what added to the PTSD that Vietnam vets were experiencing is because they lost that closeness yes and they worried about the guys we came home by ourselves not as big groups like they do today and you take telephone numbers and addresses and I would stay in touch with you but you don't do it and the reason you don't do it you don't wanna call that home you find find out they didn't make it so we don't we don't really stay we didn't stay in touch with each other because of that so now you're out here in society and they're telling you how the war is oh I know you were everybody was getting high over there or this was gone I said do you really think that when you're out there in the boondocks that you're gonna be getting your head back when you know there's people crawling around there to kill you I know that make sense maybe you do that in the rear yeah more secure place you know but you're not gonna do it out there I'm gonna tell you that you know that Plus you could smell it they tell you not even to put deodorant and Cologne on because they don't win so they move in the area they start getting these nice fragrances that did the Americans are right over there that's really yeah we can smell that Ivory soap Wow so one thing that I've been hearing or gathering from all that you guys have been saying and again you know really we're trying to understand why society even after 50 years is still meeting a black lives matter still needs a movement and you know and it sounds like in order to overcome what we're facing an American really all over the world in some capacity is unity the last time that I felt that America came together was around 9/11 that we found something that we could all of them across racial lines but it was still centered on some form of war right why what what is your take on that like why is that why does it appear that war or trouble or some type of threat has to be the the thing that allows or gathers people together you know you know politicians someone notion get your problems over or to the problem happens right what happened three what up what I'm doing to preach to priests up with what we're doing here as community folks community leaders why don't we get involved before this stuff happens right you know and it the only short wooden window wouldn't win the ball is a little off the table and I'm saying hey it's too late then because when I started training mine my squad these guys were wrong and I knew in order me to make them effective as successful I had to have him in the palm of my hand and we had to work together and I couldn't wait to the war started to do this we had to do it now so what were we doing in and what we do out here who wait to the certs or something happens right well we gotta change it so we have to be more proactive we have to remember that we're one society right you know and we don't seem to remember that until some great tragedy strike right we also put band-aids on we don't solve it that's why you can just keep repeating the cycle problems yeah over and over again through a cycle well I think one of the things that when it's a black-white relationship I think one of the things that white folks have to do is they have to own what they did they have to acknowledge that something happened to us right you know that makes a difference one of the things that I express to people is don't let them define who you are the only person that can define you as yourself awesome so you know they'll say blacks aren't graduating to the same numbers and white folks but most white folks that don't realize that it was against the law for about 300 years for black people to know how to read or write right so I said if they said 20% it used to be zero percent that's an improvement yeah I had some students from Pakistan top students in their nation their government sent them over here I'm a Muslim so they they wanted me to teach them and how it is to to function as a Muslim in a plural society right but when I told him about because they wanted to know about the black experience that that we were not allowed to read or write they couldn't believe that and that's and that's what we you know face and it is just really all about context and really China as much as possible get the full story and that's what we are starting to do you know even with opportunities like this to get you guys to educate the public about not only historical occurrences but how it impacts them today and why it's still relevant today you know so this is just the beginning sure we want to certainly invite you guys back and we want to bring others on to continue to educate the public about these things I want to thank you for your time and for all the information and I look forward to you know talking with you guys real soon thank you very much that was City beat TV there's a lot of information out there it's important that you take the time to research ask questions and find out for yourself what's really happening in the world around you and then with that information take it and do something with it I'm your host Luke is stanton another segment of city beat TV grow

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Id: GEIGLgQVMsY

Length: 29min 9sec (1749 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 24 2016