Why This Soldier Had a $1,500 Bounty on His Head During the Vietnam War | LRRP Veteran Interview

as a loop you you're very quiet and that is because it's your survival and you just as soon as you land on the on the ground and you make contact you get out of there and you like I said you just you whispered most of the time and you take one step at a time you don't try not to step on any branches or anything because they make racket um and let's say we set up for the night or something or and and uh when you hear all kinds of Racket around there I mean the birds and um water buffalo might be bellern or uh monkeys Chad and when they're chattering and everything making normal noise it's usually and to sign everything's okay but when everything gets quiet monkeys aren't making any noise Birds aren't making s when you get a little nervous and you actually develop kind of a sixth sense you know when there's Vietnamese around you just know it it's something in the air maybe it's because like birds or whatever and you actually develop a sixth sense and and when you do when you know they're around you're constantly alert very much alert and but then you know when everything comes back to normal you sit back and you kind of relax now I remember the first oh six weeks here in Vietnam it's the most dangerous time the first six saying in the last six weeks of that year and uh you're just so nervous and you're just scared and you're just a pup man you're only 18 19 years old you know you should be out chasing women not chasing Vietnamese and uh so the first like I said the first six weeks yeah and then after a while you get so tired of being nervous you quit being nervous and by then you've kind of developed that sixth sense you know when they're around you know when to relax and when to be on alert and uh you listen to your gut and uh it got me through got me through yeah when you guys get into fire fights and these really you know intense events uh is it the same thing where you kind of get used to that or is it always uh when you're in a firefight the strange thing about a firefight during the time you're in the fire fight you're really not that nervous you you got a job to do you do it the best you can it's when it's over all the shootings stopped and your mind starts doing tricks with you because are they circling around us uh it could have been that bullet could have been three inches over and you then dead or at least shot in the arm or something uh it's usually after the fire fight is when you're it really comes down in and that'll last for several days but usually during the time of the fire fight there's just so much going on and you're so focused you're really not that nervous it's kind of a kind of a strange phenomena and you're working in such small teams these four-man teams are you guys taking casualties very often out there no not very often occasionally yes um like I said we our whole objective is be as quiet as we can not to get caught and just monitor what's going on and then we call in uh we might call in airstrikes uh which reminds me one time we had been monitoring this Trail or several we were down lower than the trail the trail is Right alongside of a hill right and we were down in the low area and there's rocks and trees and super tall elephant grass and elephant grasses and almost six seven feet high we could see the trail pretty good but they couldn't see us and uh well we've seen these Vietnamese come down this Trail and of course we monitored the team leader he when the Vietnamese old here he called an airstrike over here and when they passed us over here they'd call him over there well we've done this for several days and the Vietnamese started thinking over here and over here somebody must be in the middle somewhere because they're never calling an airstrike in the middle so so they turned around came down and they come right down towards the middle and then it was oh man there must have been 30 of them hidden right direction for us oh Jesus this is not good and there was only I think four of us at the time and uh the guy behind me he starts snoring he went to sleep and he was behind a rock he started snoring she would just snore enough it's oh my God and these and these Vietnamese are coming down there and uh they figure all these these guys are dead asleep we're gonna catch them and there they like the idea of catching an alert they didn't want to kill us so much they wanted to catch us and take us back to Hanoi because we were worth fifteen hundred dollars a piece on her head and at that time 1500 bucks could buy you a pretty nice little tractor for the whole family so that was their objective was catch one of us or more take us back to Hanoi and uh this guy he was just snoring up a storm and uh finally all hell broke loose and we've fired and they fired and oh man it was a mess and uh but we got out of there they didn't I think we killed I don't remember how many we killed but anyway um so we after the firefight uh we backed off and what was left of them they went down the trail and that was the end of that could have been really bad that guy snoring and she yeah she hadn't been snoring he'd probably not ever never would have came down there but somebody had heard that oh yeah that could have been bad and we got out of that all right one of the guys got wounded but that was it when is it difficult to fire at the enemy or are you so well trained that you're just kind of you go into a certain mode and you're just you do your job generally I had when I first got over they had an M16 which is a pretty good sight rifle and then after been in their little time you got an AR-15 if you wanted it and which fires the same round exactly as the M16 only it's shorter as a sliding stock which is really nice because you can hold like this move the brush out of the way like that and generally the Vietnamese uh when you're in getting contact they're usually not more than Maybe 7 500 feet away so you don't have to aim like this unless you're in a Ambush or something like that usually because it got it right here you can just shoot in that direction you're going to hit them yeah a bit like if it's an ambush and of course that's a different story but uh we did that a few times but uh yeah and then that's like the AR-15 was such a good rifle because M16 it was so long and it's that sucker got Heavy after a while holding like this all the time they are 15 coming back over like this you can scrunch it down and it was a good rifle yeah well yeah speaking of your equipment what did you guys are you see pictures of long-range Patrol guys and you see like Tiger Camo and stuff like how is your equipment different than like an average grunt um well our equipment was you we carry usually less weight than the average grunt they would oh man those guys would be carrying close to 100 pounds in the pack well we usually went out four six days so we just have enough food for four to six days and uh so our packs weren't near as heavy but we still had grenades around here and ammo and everything our our we probably carry those 60 65 pounds I suppose in average growth is pretty close to 100 pounds I'm thinking and oh man that's a lot of weight going up them down up and down those mountains and like I was in play cool those Central Highlands and it was some pretty tall amounts up there yeah um yeah so like I said our weight wasn't near as bad as the as it grants uh and our our we had special rations to call verp rations and uh what they were they were in little bags and dehydrated food it might be spaghetti or chili or anything and all you had to do is pour in hot water and mix it around and it was a lot better than sea rations all the sea rations were formed and now after saying that if you mix the seed rations with the lure fractions that wasn't too bad but just plain sea rations oh my God they had sea rations I remember some of the stuff was from World War II and we're talking about you know the late 40s in this in Vietnam it was 68. so we're talking about quite a few years and some of that stuff was pretty old and usually but very seldom that we had do you see rations everything was lure branches because we wanted to keep as light as possible so we could travel fast you know yeah if it looked like we're going to get in contact we were supposed to back off now that's the way it was the first six months that's the way as a reconnaissance you know you weren't supposed to get in contact then after about six eight months I've been there they decided well we're going to make them a hundred killer emissions and then like what we usually went out four-man teams now we're going out six-man teams with a guy with machine gun and we're supposed to be out there looking for uh the Vietnamese which I did not sign up for I signed up for reconnaissance spying not to go out there and hunter killer so I didn't like like that part of it but the hunter killer not at all as a as a regular put I signed up for as reconnaissance that was that was pretty good you know I imagine those hunter killer missions were much more intense because yeah absolutely absolutely yeah they were a lot more intense and they changed the objective on us okay you and I you got six men teen versus 30 or 40 Vietnamese that's not very good odds oh you guys can get in there and get out right yeah but then then they gradually went just back the reconnaissance after that you know did any of those operations kind of go sideways where you did engage in a large force and all of a sudden went uh oh we're in a bad murder tight spot or yeah um we got in one time there's four of us since about 30 of them and uh it was just starting to get dark if I remember rightly and well they had a fire fight and everything it's starting to get dark to the point they couldn't see us we were in the jungle and we kept quiet as we possibly could and uh we had Claymores you know claymore's are up we had them out and uh in the line yet usually you put a claymore out go out this way go out there Buzz alert you zigzag that wire so it if the Vietnamese finds that Claymore he'll try to follow it in and know exactly where you're at but if it's zigzags like this he don't know where you're at and what we decided to do was uh like I said there was like about 30 of them and there they had flashlights looking for us so what we did the uh team leader said hey what we're going to do I'm going to count to three I'm going to blow all these Claymores it's going to scare the crap out of everybody them and us and it makes a lot of Racket we're flattening on the ground these guys are still standing up they got flashlights so as soon as after I get get done blown we're gonna rise and we're heading right through them there everybody's going to be disillusioned they don't know nothing so as soon as I blow that gonna get up the Run everybody grab the guy in front of you his his uh pack and follow us out of there so we went right through him and they didn't know where in the hell we went and we just passed right through him if we got out of there but that was that could have been a little hairy but uh that's the kind of stuff you learn when you're in lerps because you got you gotta think a little bit differently than a rugger grunt yeah so yeah save my butt so well doing stuff like that did you ever get hit when you were over there don't I never got shot or or uh wounded well I did get wounded one time oh how is uh in my Barracks we came back after our four day Mission and I was in barracks and somebody hollered donkey Glenn Campbell's on I love Glenn Campbell he's on the TV well there are a little hooched with TV was outside in this pitch black I come running out of there and there's this wall Locker laying on the ground and I hit that scratched my leg from there to there and I was bleeding like a Sonic Gun and I just took my t-shirt I had to watch Glen Campbell now and nice women there a whole bunch so I took my t-shirt up wrapped around and got the blood stopped went over and watched if that's the only one I had in Vietnam so I come out very very good for for being an infantry I I I was lucky yeah that's the way to get wounded I guess yeah yeah so I just I'm no wall Locker it's tough the only one I had and it well it hurt too but that's that's pretty mild pretty wild yeah well uh when you came back to the United States because you talk about how alert and how you had kind of a sixth sense in the jungle what's that transition like coming back and trying to be a normal person again well you're pretty nervous when you first get back good example I remember is uh Got Back and uh I was taking a shower one time and somebody threw I had the window open somebody threw some rocks up on a tin roof and I heard that and I dove for the floor because it sounds just like uh somebody firing at you but that gives you an idea it kind of scared the crap up um when I got back out of Vietnam [Music] I went down to Midvale it's where I graduated high school and they were pretty good there and they're I bet I was offered five or six jobs and they're treated me real well there now here in Spokane it's not not the case um we'll give you example I went over to see one of my cousins and they asked me about Vietnam I told them this and that oh Eric that that really didn't happen when you come to sending son of a it did happen and uh at the end of our conversation is that Eric now that you're out of the army and everything what are you going to do with your life well the reason why I went in the Army in the first place was so I get the GI Bill fly airplanes and fly helicopters that's what I want to do focus on flying airplanes and flying helicopters so I can get enough money to buy a ranch but I got now and that was the whole thing and my cousin looked at me and says flying airplanes helicopters no Eric you wouldn't mean make a steward we're in God's name did that come from you know I didn't want to go to Vietnam I wanted to go to Hawaii I just want to go in the army to to get the GI bill to go to school I wasn't he's a lawyer I wasn't you know my father was super wealthy to send me to college in Flight Training I I wanted I had to get get some money to go Flight Training so what I'm saying here in Spokane I was treated pretty crappy uh like oh you your low life scum sucking as if I had some great it was my fault that I was sent to Vietnam [Music] the funny thing is I did I did get my draft notice and my draft notice they sent me a draft notice when I've been in Vietnam for seven months yeah oh my God [Music] yeah and they sent me my draft when I did the Vietnam for seven months I wish I would have kept that thing [Music] but I didn't no but um yeah it seemed like the more educated the people were the more they came down on you um but like I said when I went back to Midvale where I had been working for my board room when I was going to high school oh I was treated pretty well yeah and they offered me jobs yeah pat on the back and well we're glad you're home we're glad you made it back but here in Spokane and I was treated like a low life [Music] were you uh suffering from any form of PTSD I know you mentioned in the shower incident but kind of long-term type well for quite a while after I got out I used to have bad dreams um and uh I remember one dream that I had it I re-upped to go in the military [Music] oh my God and that and it has a dream Progressive you stupid B why did you Ria what is the matter with you finally I woke up and I was sweat and I'm so happy that that was just a bad dream but uh I I wouldn't other than having super bad dreams I wouldn't say I had too much I guess I'm pretty fortunate to compare to a lot of those guys that were Infantry [Music] yeah well when you reflect on the Vietnam War now and kind of what happened how you guys were treated uh what do you think of that that whole thing you know I really don't think much about it I have a lot of friends that still keep in contact with me that that were in Vietnam we were Vietnam together Steve for example and then I got another friend named Steve over there in Pennsylvania and we exchanged Christmas cards all the time but uh and he he talked about Vietnam I just kind of I just wanted to go to bed I put it to bed once and for all and but no I'll talk about it but uh yeah well I'm glad like I said I'm one of the luckier ones I get out of there and that was in infantry without other than my scratch with the wall Locker you know uh yeah it could have been a lot worse a lot worse

Channel: The Vietnam Experience

Views: 759,968

Keywords: Lrrp, Lrrp veteran, Long-rang reconnaissance patrol, Vietnam war, Vietnam vet, Vietnam veteran, Vietnam war veteran, Vietnam war vet, Vietnam war stories, Vietnam war music, Vietnam war songs, Vietnam songs, Vietnam music, Vietnam war movies, Vietnam, Vietnam war documentary, Vietnam war sounds, Vietnam war edit, Military history, Vietnam vet interview, Vietnam veteran interview, Lrrps in Vietnam, Lrrp Vietnam, Vietnam veterans interviews, True war stories

Id: VXqhD7Gg3YY

Length: 22min 22sec (1342 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 24 2023