TRANSCRIPTION
Can you describe what your life was like when Vietnam started?
Well when Vietnam first started I was, had just recently married, and jobs were really hard to find. I had seriously thought about joining the military but then I didn't. My draft classification was 1-y, which was physically, mentally, or morally unfit for military service, a lot of people were classified that way at the time. Then later when the war escalated they reclassified everyone to 1-a, which is first drafted. When I got my notice from the draft board that I had been reclassified, by that time I had a wife and two children, so I was reclassified as married with dependants and not draft able except in case of an all out war. But basically life was rough in the early 60's, jobs were hard to find, but by the time the war started escalating I had gotten a good job. Well I was being trained for a profession and I had at the time no interest in going into the military and just taking a big pay cut. So that's why I never went into the service. By the time that I could have went in, I had a wife and two kids and another one on the way, and it just didn't work out well.
What profession were you being trained for?
Dental Technology.
What was that like in the 60's? Different than it is now?
Not a whole lot, not a whole lot. I had gotten a job with one of the major labs in Houston and porcelain bonded to metal was just startin' out good that only started in '57. So it was just startin' to gain popularity. And crown and bridge was, because of the new high speed drills, was startin' to gain popularity. People weren't quite as terrified by it and it was a good time to get into dental technology. The labs were growing and jobs were startin' to become more plentiful and people were startin' to become more concerned with their dental health so you know it, it was a good time to be in that field.
When the war started you had just married Memaw (Dorothy Reynolds Hilton)?
I had just been married a short time, we married in 1960 and at the time during the early part of Kennedy's administration the only troops in Vietnam were as advisors they weren't fighting, but yeah we had just gotten married.
Did ya'll have children during the war?
All four were born during the war yes.
Would you say that the war affected your life at all here in America?
I would say that a lot of people it probably did, but it's like everything is on the T.V., when we had a T.V., you could see the protest marches and all this kind of thing. But basically that was the wealthy kids; they were college kids that their parents were paying their way and they had time to be out protesting. Most of the people that I knew were just trying to make a livin' they were trying to raise their families and do the best they could. They didn't have time to march in demonstrations; they didn't have time to protest. The kids that I knew that got their draft notice went down and were inducted into the military. Most of em' were sent to Vietnam some of em' came back in bags some came back in good shape. One of my nephews lost an arm and a leg in Vietnam, but then he came back to the states the government paid for him to go to college and he became an attorney and did quite well for himself. So you know the biggest part of it, basically the middle class people weren't affected that much by it. The poor people maintained that they were being drafted more so than anybody else. And that was probably true because they didn't get college deferments and educational deferments because they weren't going to college most of em' didn't finish high school. So they drafted them and sent them overseas. But none of the people I knew could afford to go to Canada to dodge the draft they couldn't afford to go to Europe to dodge the draft. When they were drafted they went into the military.
So it Kind of did affect you because some of your friends and family went into Vietnam?
Some of my friends and family went into the military and spent time in Vietnam. Everyday life was just about like it is now with the conflict in Iraq. You know it's happening but there's some good people over there that are being hurt but most of us just go on about our business.
Was the war portrayed in the news like Iraq is now?
Vietnam was the first televised war. Every evening when you turned the T.V. on that was the first thing that you saw; was the shells exploding and the fighting. You heard it every day and it was constant. The protest were nightly news, Jane Fonda is sittin' on the anti aircraft gun in Ho Minh City, protesting Americas involvement. It was really played up big by the media and probably gave it a real bad light because of all the publicity and the fact that cameras were a lot like they are now, like today with photographers and cameramen with the units going into combat so you were getting pictures that probably most of us really didn't want to see. And so yeah it did affect everybody's attitude on the war. It's probably one of the reasons why we left Vietnam without winning the war.
Earlier you mentioned your draft classification, how did they determine what your classification was?
Well they, the board classified anyone that had a problem with authority in school or had a probation record as 1-y because they were problem children and the army didn't want to mess with them. I thought that it was a bad classification. A lot of people were classified 1-y and weren't sent into the military but the military could have done a lot of good. Plus the fact that you had all these hoodlums out there on the street that would have been perfectly happy to have went over to the jungle and drug a rifle around and instead they were sendin' nice clean cut Christian boys over there to get shot at. And it didn't make no sense. We could have emptied our prisons into Vietnam and we would have won the war and it would be a colony of the United States now (laughing). I always thought that had we have actually FOUGHT the war it would have made a lot of difference. We would have made a lot of difference of the attitude of the country. During Johnson's first run for the presidency the war was a major factor in his election. And Barry Goldwater ran against Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater lost the election the worst that any man has ever lost an election in the United States. He got such a small percentage of the votes because he was portrayed as a war monger and he didn't like old people either, he was going to destroy Social Security. And he was gonna escalate the war but primarily all he had said was that he wouldn't send troops into combat without proper equipment. That our troops were dying in Vietnam because the airplanes they were flying were WWII rejects that had been reconditioned and they were falling out of the sky. And that he would not do that we had the best jets we had the best weapons and he would use them all. And because he maintained that position throughout his campaign he lost badly.
You said that you had friends and family that got drafted; did you keep in touch with them throughout the war?
No not particularly, no more so than anybody else. A lot of my friends I lost touch with as I gained different interest and things like that. One particular boy that was married to a cousin of mine, I had known for years, he was sent to Vietnam and he maintained that he stayed his full 12 month tour and never fired a weapon. He was in the motor pool he said that every night when it got dark you couldn't move around the camp very much because you were under sniper fire from the jungle every night and you know you'd have bullets go through the barracks and things like that the mortar rounds every now and then would get inside the perimeter. But mostly they just worked on the cars and kept em' runnin' and didn't worry a whole lot you just stayed inside the barracks after dark. Another friend of mine maintained that the only time he used his weapon in Vietnam was to shoot a child. After he was back in the states for a lot of years, he would get drunk and cry and ah, talk about that. That was the only time he would talk about utmost of the people that saw combat in Vietnam don't discuss it. They don't talk about what they saw and what they did. A lot of them that do talk about it were stationed in Saigon or somewhere like that where there wasn't that much fighting the boys that were in the jungle don't really discuss it, some of them still have bad dreams.
How did you feel knowing that there were other guys your age over there fighting and you weren't?
It wasn't that much different than what it is now. How do you feel knowing there are little girls your age in Iraq? I think Vietnam because of the publicity gave a lot of people in the military a bad rap. Because a lot of the boys when they came back unlike today when some of the boys came back from Vietnam they were spit on, they were called baby killers, they were treated like scum because they did what they were ordered to do and they did the best job they could. And so a lot of them when they came back once they got their uniform off never discussed it, never mentioned the fact they were in the military unless they had to and tried to fit back into society and go on with their lives. I think that they got a really raw deal.
Were president Kennedy or President Johnson criticized for America's involvement in Vietnam?
I think that the reason Lyndon Johnson did not run for a second term was because of the war. And he just would not run for another term. But he was highly criticized for his escalation of the war in Vietnam. And when Nixon took over, he took over on the promise of bringing the troops home, which we did but we abandoned Vietnam. We didn't win, we didn't withdraw, we abandoned Vietnam.
So history is kind of repeating itself?
Very much so, very much so. And everybody keeps saying that Iraq is not like Vietnam but it's become more and more like Vietnam every day. And we lost some 3,000 people in Iraq we lost 50,000 in Vietnam and I hate the concept that we didn't learn anything but we are repeating the same mistakes that we made then. We haven't won a war since the Second World War. We quit in Korea we still have troops starin' across at other Korea troops and we maintain the line to protect South Korea, but we didn't win that. We abandoned Vietnam and I think that we will probably do the same thing in Iraq. Not during Bush's Administration but the next president will withdraw our troops.
So what is your overall opinion of the war?
My overall opinion of the war in Vietnam is that it was a mistake it was not necessarily a mistake to become involved in the war as it was a mistake not to have a commitment to winning. I'm not sure that war should be a spectators sport. I'm not sure that if we would have had a T.V. reporter with Cortez when he landed in Mexico we would all still be in Europe and the Indians would still be doin' what the Indians did in this country. Because it's not pretty. When a reporter goes in and what you see on the news is children being carried to the hospital, the children with lost legs and arms, ad you know that your soldiers did this you start to have bad feelings toward your soldiers. You're not committed to the fact that that boy is just tryin' to stay alive all he wants to do is come home. And he's willing to do anything he has to do to come home. And if that means that children have to be hurt women have to be hurt, he's willing to do that because he wants to come home. But when you're sitting in your living room watching that on television it just really doesn't sit well. And some of the people in this country don't have the commitment to winning that it takes. The people that blew down the towers have the commitment; they don't care who they kill they want to win for their god and for their country. We have lost wanting to win for our god and our country. And I think that is where the mistake is.
So did you protest or did you know people who did?
No that was the rich college kids. The poor middle class, just tryin' to get by, kids spent their weekends under their cars just tryin' to keep it runnin' so that they could get back and forth to work. He didn't have time to protest, he worked five six, seven days a week to make a living try to take care of his wife and family, maybe go out to dance a little on Saturday night and that was a good life. And the war didn't really affect you a whole lot. The people that were involved it affected the rich kids in college that didn't have anything to do because mom and daddy took care of them and they drove nice cars and wore nice clothes and all this they had time to protest. They could burn the flag and all this here sort of stuff and they had the right to do that because our soldiers were over there dying, so they had the right to do that.
Today, everywhere you go there are yellow ribbons, bumper stickers, shirts and all of this to show support for our troops. When Vietnam was going on were out troops supported like they are now?
No they were not supportive of our troops. The news media was not supportive of our troops; a lot of the boys when they came back couldn't get a job because nobody wanted to hire a baby killer. A lot of the boys when they came back in the bus stations and the airports were spit on because they were baby killers and they were trash. And that was wrong it was a bad thing. Before the war was over I found myself in a position that I hired people, and I hired any vet that applied for a job because they did a good job.
Why do you think that it is so different now than it was then?
I am not sure why it is so different at this point in time except possibly 9-11. The people still remember that but even now they say that they support the troops, but they're protesting the president, they're protesting the involvement in the war and it's not very far from protesting the war, to protesting the people that are fighting it. In my opinion, it is a contradiction, because I personally feel that the way to support the troops is to win the war. Do whatever we have to, to win the war. And that's how you support the troops.
After Vietnam was over do you think it affected your life at all?
No, after Vietnam was over they had a little problem in the Middle East and the price of gas went up to 50, 60, 80 cents a gallon instead of 19. And that affected everybody in the country more than Vietnam ever did.
How did something like that affect people more than the war?
Well right now the people that are just barely getting by, that's havin' to pay $2.50 a gallon for gas to get back and forth to work are more affected by the price of gas at the gas station than they are about what's happening in Iraq. Because we only have out of the population a handful in Iraq and basically what they're doin' doesn't affect your daily life.
Is there anything else that you would like to add?
The only thing that I think I would say is that I hope we learned something from our mistakes in Korea and Vietnam. And that we don't make the same mistake with the war in Iraq. Because if we abandon Iraq like we did Korea and Vietnam events like 9-11 will become an everyday occurrence in the United States and then it will affect every American's life. And that would be bad.
ANALYSIS
I learned a lot from doing this interview. I enjoyed doing the oral history project because not only did I learn a lot about my Pepaw but I also learned a great deal about my family. I also enjoyed learning about Vietnam from the home front point of view. I learned that my grandfather is very devoted to his family and his country. He believes in his country and the people fighting for it. He has great knowledge of the past. I learned that my grandfather has a lot of opinions about the war and the way it was handled. This interview was very insightful and helped change my opinion of the war in Iraq. There were many things that I learned that I didn't know before. Before the interview I had never heard of Jane Fonda. It was interesting to learn about her and the lengths she went to protest the war. And I also learned that the war didn't affect many people here in the United States. And the reason it didn't affect them, like the reason it doesn't affect us now is because these wars have not been fought on our soil and as soon as these wars are being fought on our soil it will affect us a lot more. I think oral history is a great way to learn about history. I think this because if I would not have done this project then I would not know what I know now not only about Vietnam but also about my Pepaw.
TIMELINE
- Morris Hilton Born on April 15, 1942 to Adell Gowens in Nacogdoches, Texas
- Moved to Houston, Texas in 1954
- Attended Smiley High School beginning in 1956
- Dropped out of school in the 9th grade in 1957
- Began full-time work as a CDT (Certified Dental Technician) in 1958
- Married Dorothy Reynolds(Hilton)on June 4, 1960 in Houston, Texas
- First child born in December 28, 1960 In Houston, Texas
- Interviewed by granddaughter Sabrina Garland on March 15, 2007
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Handbook of Texas Online
is a multidisciplinary encyclopedia of Texas history, geography, and culture sponsored by the
Texas State Historical Association and the General Libraries at UT-Austin. It was produced
in partnership with the College of Liberal Arts and the General Libraries at the University of
Texas at Austin. Copyright © The Texas State Historical Association. Last Updated: May 6, 2004.
Vietnam Era Draft Classifications. This website lists all the draft classifications of that era.
Death Care Products. The website offers death care products for sale. It gives you pictures of what body bags look like.
Jane Fonda and the Vietnam War. Jane Fonda, this website gives information linking Jane Fonda to the Vietnam War and her protest against it.
Barry Goldwater Biography. Barry Goldwater ran for president. This website provides information about Barry Goldwater and where he stood concerning the election and the Vietnam War.
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