TRANSCRIPTION
What are your earliest childhood memories?
My earliest memory I dont know just of my mom and dad and what it was like growing up with my sisters me and my sister Toni were really close and I guess thats it
Well thank you for talking with me today I know that its a hard subject for you but we can get started with you telling me a little bit more about what your life was like before you entered into the military?
Well, No it's not easy for me but I know that you need me to so I will talk to you!But my life before the military was the same as anyone else's I just went to school and to work and hung out with my friends. I had a really good friend named Hector who I was always with and another friend named Kenny.Hector died in Vietnam and Kenny died like ten years ago.
So when you joined the military did you do it on your own free will or were you drafted into the war like many others?
No, I was drafted before I finished high school, I actually went with my older brother to enlist to the army, I chose the army because I couldnt go into the navy because I didnt know how to swim, and I couldn't go into the airforce cause I didn't like heights! but When I went to the recruiting office, at the time the draft was going on and they were drafting you by the last number of your social security number and so before I turned in my paper work I asked the officer "sir, what number are you on in the draft?" and he said that that week they were on number 6 and my social ended in number 7 so I told him that I would wait and have fun until they sent me the letter, when I dedcided to do that it was like a bulb went off and I was like dam, they are going to get me either way if I want to or not and who wants to go away to war anyway shhh!!! after awhile when I thought about it I didn't!! (laughs)
So what part of the military were you drafted into and were you part of any particular units or groups?
I was sent to the US Army and I was supposed to be part of the Americal Unit which people really dont hear to much about but because they were part of the Mai Lai massacre it was dismantled before I even got there so I was then put into the 101st Airborne unit. I was put in charge of making the food for the soldiers cause when they asked me if I ever worked before I said yeah in the cafeteria cleaning and so I got stuck in the Cafeteria in the Army, so I probably should have said I did some other great job! (laughs)
How did your family feel about you leaving home and going off into the military?
Oh I guess that they didn't care cause no one told me anything about it and when I did leave that morning no one got up to take me to the airport or even to say goodbye and I would write and wrtie to my mom but she never wrote me back only my sisters but next question I dont want to talk about that.
Ok, Did you understand anything about the war before you left like why we were fighting over there?
No, I didn't because I was still in school I just knew that I was drafted and I had to leave and that was it, it was like I didnt have a choice, and back then I was still a kid I didn't really care about what was going on over there cause I didnt think that it had anything to do with me, I had other things on my mind.
Can you tell me what was the first memory of yourself as you entered into the army?
Hmmm,I remember that I left to Louisiana first and while we were driving into the town where the base was located I saw a huge sign that said "Welcome to the Land of Infantry", and then Well I went to Fort Dix, New Jersey and I remember while I was still there state side I was sent to prepare the rations for the soldiers and I had to heat them up, and well the device that we used was a 50 gallon drum that ws heated by kerosene that attached to a pipe. It was raining and water had got into the pipe and I lit the stove and there was a flash fire that exploded in my face and I was injured with minor burns to my face and I was sent to the hospital. It was not til later that they told me that I was never supposed to light the pipe in the rain and I was so upset cause I was just a kid someone who knew and was experianced could have told me but I felt like they didn't care there was hundreds of kids just like me to take my job! (laughs)
Well can you tell me a little bit about your first memory as you enter into the actual war of Vietnam?
(long pause) I remember when we were landing in DaNang I was still on the plane and I looked out the window of the plane and I saw that it was raining really hard, and someone made a comment like "man it sure is raining hard out there", and an officer who was on his second tour of duty said that this was not rain it was all the dust and the incoming mortars and it just made it look like it was raining, and I thought to myself oh crap!
What did you do when you finally made it off the plane?
I remember that when we landed and got off the plane the first things was that there were hundreds and hundreds of 50 gallon drums and there was this mist falling and my skin was burning and itching and I had a burning sensation all on me and then I had a flash back to the fire that burned my face. But we were put into holding units were we were kept for several days. they held all the new soldiers just coming on the island in there and I remember that there were large rats in the rafters and we just had to wait there for several days and nights just waiting to be shipped out.
When you were finally shipped out where were you sent to?
I was sent to Chu Lai where I finally joined the 101st airborne unit and I was in a compund where I was placed on guard duty, and I did detail and would check the perimeters. My unit was in charge of transporting the ammo for all the missions and there was a lot of times when we would be caught in the line of fire and I could see people dying right in front of me. I would see incoming and outgoing shelling I would hear the whistle and loud noises from the shells and I could not tell where they were coming from or where they would hit.
What was that like and did you exchange fire often I can imagine so?
Oh of course I had to live, there was one night that I was asleep and out of no where there was a huge explosion and the enemy was shooting at us and we had to fight back and I was so scared, naturally I wanted to run but there was no where to go, and this went on for a long time and there were so many nights that I was in the rain doing duty and hearing the explosions and fighting that I lost all sense of time and days, I couldn't tell you what day it was or what time it was it was like someone took that information out of my head. Only the person's in charge of the unit knew that sort of stuff.
Is there one particular memory that still sticks out in your mind today?
Oh there is a lot, the whole entire war is my memory! But yeah, I remember on once occasion that I was in a bunker and some new recruits had just arrived earlier that day. Across from our bunker was another one that had been off limits because it was already to badly damaged and it was not safe for us to be inside of it, and during the night the heavy bombing and shooting started again and the four new guys got so scared that I can still see them running out of our bunker straight into the damaged one, only that there was barbed wired around it and I guess that because it was night time and they were so scared that they didn't see it and got tangled up in it and they were killed, and I watched as all four of them died right there in front of me. (starts to tear up) And I remember this so good casue I remember going out there the next day to collect the bodies and I looked at them thinking I was just talking to them and they Were the same age as me I had just turned 21.
What was it like while you were in those cities?
It was horrible, we used to be in fields with water up to our knees and planes that would fly over head and spray the fields with what I still don't know, there were no plants and dead animals every where. I would dream about those animals especially the rats, I would wake up screaming because I would have dreams that the rats were eating me.
Were you ever stationed anywhere else beside Chu Lai?
Yes, I stayed there for several months then I was sent to Phu Bai. I was sent to be with the mobil hospital unit wher I specialized in supplies. I met a friend who was a medic and his name was Robert Martinez just like me, and he was from San Benito, Texas. He was in a different unit but we would hang around together a lot. After the war I spent years looking for him so I could re-unite with him cause we said when we got back we were going to go out and drink it up, (laughs) but then while I was searching for him I found out that he had died there in Vietnam, and I cried and I felt so guilty that I lived, why me and he didn't why did I make it back and he didn't?
What was it like being part of the mobile hospital unit, I can imagine it must have been hard?
Yeah it was, I had to take care of the supplies and when I would go to visit the mobile hospital to drop them off, I saw so many people who were in so much pain screaming, crying, yelling because they were missing body parts or they were moaning in pain and some were dying. I remember a young man who had just lost his legs and he was crying and screaming that he didn't want to live and later when I looked I realized he didn't have any arms too, I left out of there so traumatized that to this day I hate hospitals I hate to even visit the doctor!
Can I ask you what was going through your mind while you would see all of this?
I thought about myself, like if I would end up like that with no legs or dead or never knowing if I would come back home, I didn't want to be half a man I was too young!
When did you finally make it back to the states?
You would think that I would remember the exact date but I don't but it was something like February of "72".
What did you do when you finally settled back into normal life?
Well the first thing I did was get a divorce! (laughs) I was young and thought it was the right thing to do she was having my kid so I wanted to step up, but I never lived with her, two days after we got married I left for the war, I barely knew her so when I came back the next day I went down to divorce her (laughs) then I got a job at Toudouze furnature store, it doesn't exist anymore but I used to work in the back loading and moving the furnature, that's where I put the squeeze on the account clerk who later became your mother!(laughs)
How did the war effect you and your family as far as relationships with them?
Well your mom and I have been married for a lot of years and how she put up with me I don't know. I would wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat yelling and screaming that the enemy was coming because in my mind I still thought that they were after me. It was hard for me to get close to you guys because I felt angry all the time, I was angry that the government made me, made me leave and I didn't have a choice and I always held that with me, I would throw like I guess you could call them rage tantrums, I was mad at the world that we fought this war that i felt we had no business in kids died, fathers died, brothers husbands died and the president was sitting here safe and it upsets me still, and so for all of that I kept my distance from my kids because I would fly off the handle at anything. I think my wife and children suffered greatly and I love them but I don't know, I guess anger keeps that from coming out.
It seems to me like you still, like you said hold anger towards the military?
I do, the military unfortunately is all that I know so when I needed work I went to work at Kelly Airforce base and when that closed I looked for more civil service work at Fort Sam Houston. But I do have anger any person sitting in my spot would, after all I did all I went through when I needed the military they were ready to dismiss me, i knew that I suffered from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) I would see it on TV and read about it and all the signs seemed that i had that too. And when I tried to get help and go to the VA (Veterans Administration) they didn't want to help me, and I remember sitting in the office witht the commander telling him the same exact things as I am telling you and he looked at me and said "Mr. Martinez I can't beleive all the things that your saying to me because I was in Vietnam too and it was not that bad" I looked at him and I was so pissed off that I said "Well sir, maybe not for you buy you are not me, so you don't get the right to say if it was bad for me or not cause i went through hell" and I walked out of ther and now five years of asking for help they decided to finally help me!!( almost crying)
Well thanks for talking with me today I know that it is hard for you, but is there anything else that you would like to share or add before me stop?
Just that this was an ugly thing that happened in my life and I wish that it never did who wants bad things to happen to them and I am glad that I can finally talk about some of it, but I work eight hours a day five days a week and I work at the cemetery at Fort Sam, and I see people getting burried, soldiers just like I was and the planed fly over head and I hear the gunfire as they do the salutes and they play TAPS (a song played by a bugle at a military funeral) and I remember the dead, the people with missing body parts, the screaming the yelling in pain, the mortars, the rats, the memories just don't go away and I relive this trauma every single day, because again I have no choice I have to live so I have to work!!!
