TRANSCRIPTION
What was a normal day as a child?
Let's see if I can remember that far back. We played, my grandma had chickens and pigeons back there, she lived in the other side of the house. I would play a lot of cowboys because she had a little hill there. On Saturdays when they used to boil the water for the washing, clothes washing, I used to feed the fire with wood.
What did your mom do for a living?
She was a house wife for the longest time and then after we grew up to where we could take care of ourselves, she started being a maid for a hotel, St.Anthony Hotel.
Your dad fought in World War II?
Yes, he was in WWII in the Philippines, he won the bronze star, that's why I wanted to go to the war, because my dad was in.
What did your dad do for a living?
My dad was a laborer, construction labor, he would come home, and then my mom would leave.
Why did you drop out of high school in the 9th grade?
Because I was playing a lot of hooky (laughs). We used to go to the river and kill Moccasins and stuff. School wasn't for me and basketball was over, so I just quit going to school, then I got married (laughs).
Did you get married before you joined the military?
I was sent to California at the age of seventeen to be with my uncle, because it was getting kinda dad there in the neighborhood. I came back and I got married and we went back to Los Angeles, were we had our first daughter Sandra. I was working during the day and then they put me in the night shift, and then in the graveyard shift, I didn't like the graveyard shift, so I finally told JoAnn, let's go home. That was the year the president got shot.
Before you got drafted, what did you think about the Vietnam War?
Oh, I wanted to go, I was ready to go. I already had Sandra and Christine; I had two kids when I got my papers, but me and JoAnn talked it over and it would be my fantasy to go to war.
Why was it your fantasy to go to war?
Because you know, just to fight for my country. I got drafted and then we were in line getting ready to sign the papers and they would count one, two, three, four, five and they would pull you out. One, two and I was one of the five they pulled out, we said where are we going? Are we going home? No, you are going to the marines (laughs)!
Basic training, where was it and what was it like?
In San Diego, California. What was it like, it was like hell! Those DIs would really beat on you, they even broke a tooth one time, I don't remember why or what I did, but they hit me in my jaw and broke my tooth. Another time he poked my eyes. The drill instructor would walk that way and I would follow him with my eyes and he caught me, that was the last time I did that (laughs).
How much time did you get to eat, because I hear people say someone eats like a marine when they eat fast?
You went through the chow line and you get there, get your food, and sit down. You had so much time to finish your meal because there were more guys coming in after you, so it was quick, and you had to eat everything you served yourself in your plate. It was about maybe fifteen minutes at the most.
How long was basic training?
Eight weeks.
After basic training, was it straight to Vietnam?
No, I got sent home, but we went to ITR, that's infantry training, in this one I trained to be a motorman on 81 mm. Then I got sent home for a month, then went back and we got stationed, stationed for training on jungle warfare. That was two months, and then we got sent to Vietnam.
What was the trip to Vietnam like?
Oh, it was a long trip. We stopped in Alaska to refuel the plane at El Toro, camp Toro, there was an airstrip there. It was a continental, a regular flight company that took us. It took a day and a half because we stopped in Alaska and we stopped in Okinawa, from there we went to Vietnam.
How did you guys get pictures taken and got to keep them?
I had a little camera that I had taken with me, the first camera was black and white, then I got a color one, most of they guys, the wealthy kids, I guess you could call them, had better cameras.
What did you take with you?
Well just, cameras, your personal stuff, your fatigues and stuff. Everything personal we left in Okinawa until we finished our tour and go back. So really, we just took our fatigues and stuff.
While in Vietnam did you keep in touch with anybody here in the states?
Well yeah, me and JoAnn will write to each other often. I wrote to my sisters, they would send me food in packages, cookies, chocolate stuff, and cigarettes.
Did you keep any of the letters?
No, they were destroyed a long time ago. Its hard to keep them, you put them away and its hard to remember where you put them, and then you find them and its mugrero(junk) and you just throw them away.
Exactly what was your duty in Vietnam?
Like I said, when I first got there, I was put in the 2nd battalion 5th marines 1st marines division. That was H&H Company and then after three months with them, I got sent to Echo Company. That was more like a grunt company; it was guys that would go to the fields more than stay in the battalion areas. My duty was to be in the fields looking for the enemy, in battalion areas it was more relaxed, and you had your hot meals, hot showers, and other stuff.
How often were you able to take a bath and take care of yourself hygienically?
Well, out in the field you couldn't do it because there is no way to get water, the water you get is to drink, you had to drop a pill to kill all the bacteria and stuff in the water. The only times you take a bath are in the battalion area. You would go out in the fields for so long and when we went to that outpost we would stay there maybe a month and from there we would go to the fields and look for the gooks, but you would catch a lot of water when it was monsoon season. You would catch it and save it up and you used a lot of that nadamas pa lavarte, just to wash yourself real quick.
Was there any discrimination or racism between ethnicities?
You would get along with them a lot of times in the battalion area, colored guys would stay in a group, the whites would stay in a group, and the Mexicans would stay in another group. There wasn't that many Mexicans so we would kind of group up with the whites, but there wasn't very much discrimination, I mean you where out there. There was a lot of fighting between us because it was our first time being together with them and they were real loud and stuff and talked a lot of big stuff and a lot of them were afraid to be out in the sticks. They would even ask you to shoot them in the leg or break their legs or something so they wouldn't have to go out and that is why you kind of shied away from them, but there were a lot of good ones too, a lot of good marines.
What helped you keep your head during the war?
Wanting to come back to the states, I didn't really take too many chances.
Was there anything good about the war, about being over there?
Well, you would have friends, but from one day to another they would always get killed and it was hard to find a real special friend or something like that, they would come on go, I was just glad to come back. I always knew I was going to come back, because the "Bad Don't Die Young."(Laughs)
Did you get injured at all?
No, I was lucky, there was very close times. The first time we got hit, my very first time out in the sticks, we came to the village where we were going to spend the night. In training camp, they would always tell us, dig yourfox holes fox holes, dig your fox holes! I could see all the guys that were there already for a while, and I would see them making hammocks and laying out there. I dug my fox hole, at night we got hit with motors and a lot of guys that were lying on those hammocks got shrapnel on them. I remember this one guy goes and asks, "Obregon, do you have room for me," because I was in my fox hole. I said yeah come on; he had to lay on top of me. I'm safer now. (We both laugh.)
Why wouldn't they dig their fox holes? That would be the first thing I would do.
See, but after a while, after being out there, you're humping all day long in the heat and stuff, by the time you get down to where you are going to sleep over, you don't feel like digging your hole anymore and me either after a while, only when it was real bad. I mean, even when we were hit, you'd just fight them all night and next day they were all gone, only dead bodies, they had too many holes.
What happened to the dead bodies?
We always had the helicopters come for them, the wounded too. And you would have to put in the dead in the helicopters and the wounded. It was kind of ugly, because you'd see them. Hijo, tripas pafuera, and no arms, hanging legs and damn it was dramatic.
Did the helicopters also drop off food or did you just carry it around with you?
No, well, you'd carry so much, you'd carry like two c-rations and two canteens of water and after you'd lay up, you were there and the helicopters would come and drop us some more.
Is the C-Ration the same thing as an MRE?
Well, it was kinda the same, but it was a little box and it had cans of beans and ham and beans, eggs and stuff like that, coffee, cigarettes, a little packet of four, toilet paper, matches, a little box.
Were they good?
Oh, they were good! We would find a lot of different ways to cook or warm them up, because they were cold. You'd open your can, but you'd mix bean and eggs with, well, beans with ham and eggs and bread, they'd send you a bread, you'd warm the bread, put peanut butter there, they had little peanut butter things. Our c-rations were good, they were filling and you would only, like when you were starting to go out into the fields, you would just take a few cans and a lot of peanut butter, for the diarrhea, that would stop it. Coffee, you would take a little coffee… a lot of ammo though. (Laughs)
When did you get sent back to the United States?
Well, after my thirteenth month we went back to Okinawa to pick up our c-bags that had our belongings that we left there and we came back on another continental, 707, I think it was. We went back to Camp Toro and we were there like a couple of weeks just to get our stuff ready and come back home for a little while. Then I went back, and I only did two years.
Did you bring anything back from Vietnam?
They didn't let you, I had a lot of stuff, I even had a map of Vietnam and stuff, but they, back then, staging would come and they would check everything and they would take everything that was, to them it was contraband. You couldn't bring a riffle; I had a guitar that I took care of, like a little banjo that I found in a village and I carried that and they took it away from me. (We talk about mailing stuff back home.)...but then it got so bad that a lot of guys were sending drugs home and they started cutting a lot of that stuff.
What were some of the things you did on your first day back in the United States, and how were you treated?
Hang out with my family; they treated me like El Rey, like a king. (Laughs) Everybody wanted to find out stories from the war. I didn't realize that all them stories that I would tell, because I would really get all chocked up, real tense and stuff, and I never knew that I had PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You dream a lot about the war, you sweat, you can't sleep and I never realized it was that, it took me so many years to find out, until they started helping us.
Society didn't treat soldiers well after the war, how did they treat you, did anyone call you anything?
Well, that's why we shied away from people. No, just my friends and I just hanged out with my family. I kinda didn't want to have any friends and stuff because I didn't trust them.
Did you view life any differently before you went to Vietnam and after you came back?
Well, I was just proud that I'd gone and served my country when I came back, but no.
What do you think you did differently in your life that placed you where you are today, unlike other Vietnam veterans who are homeless on the streets, hung up on everything?
Well, I went through a hard life after I came back from Vietnam, I turned to drugs, I got sent to prison. I came back, and when I came back from prison in 1974 I straightened myself up.
Why did you go to prison?
It was because of the drugs, but see, I was trying to cure my PTSD. See, I was having all these bad dreams and sweating, couldn't sleep. It was like, marijuana, it started with marijuana because it would calm me down and put me to sleep. I was always very angry and I couldn't take the pressures of the kids and the wife and stuff. That was the bad thing about it, and finally like I said, they finally gave us help from the VA and I started chilling out because they started giving us a little drugs to calm us down, to be able to sleep at night, and I still don't sleep good at night, I might get four or five hours of sleep every day.
Did you get anything for your Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
Oh yes, that's why I took my pill a while ago. I take pills, if not, my anger and stuff comes back. They say it's because of the PTSD and I didn't realize that when I was younger, I put my family through a lot of bad shit.
Was there any drugs and stuff like that in Vietnam?
Oh yeah, oh yeah! That's why a lot of guys came back hooked on heroin, smoking marijuana and opium and all that, all them drugs. I think that was our downfall because a lot of times you would be out in the fields and you would go into a cave and you started to look for stuff and you'd find all these drugs in there. I found a whole pack of white powder, I knew it was heroin. I turned it in because I didn't want to get hooked on heroin over there, but a lot of guys, nombre! A lot of guys didn't, they came back all hooked up on everything, that was the only different stuff.
Do you remember any particular smells that take you back to Vietnam?
Yeah, the cooking of the rice because I ate a lot of that and their tea, there was rice whiskey, the beer we called it tiger piss.
Did they import beer for the military people?
Yeah, they would bring beer to our battalion, we had a club there and they would sell us beer for 10 cents.
You said the beer was 10 cents?
Yeah, when we got to go to Danang that was party time because they had those clubs all over the base, a lot or partying and then they would send musicians from the states and Japan and stuff to entertain us.
Did they let you go into the towns?
Well yeah, in Danang, there was a lot of traveling there and stuff.
How did you get money?
Oh, we got paid every month; we got paid with Vietnamese money.
Do you mind if I ask how much you got paid?
You wouldn't get the whole pay, because you didn't want to carry all that money. Just enough for souvenirs and stuff like that from the gooks. A lot of bananas, I used to eat a lot of bananas, you buy them from the kids, gave them a dollar and they gave you a whole bunch of bananas.
Would you ever like to go back and visit Vietnam?
Yes, I wish I could afford it. I might have a little boy or little girl over there, (laughs) I don't know.
Is there anything else you would like to add to this interview?
Well no, I'm kinda happy now that the VA is helping us out.
