TRANSCRIPTION
What are your earliest childhood memories?
Probably when I was about 7 or 8 years old I was I guess you'd say it was back when there was uh very few cars well I mean there was cars but uh we didn't have but one and dad he'd take it back and forth to work so we lived on a farm anyway well it was pretty nice to see a car but we would typically see horse and buggies a lot too so and we did get to ride in trailers pulled by the horses course back then we had mules pulling them so that was about my earliest childhood memory I guess out on the farm.
What was a typical day on the farm like?
Well you get up about daylight you started uh eaten breakfast cooking you know eat your breakfast then go out and do your chores then get out build a fence chop down trees whatever needed to be done get the trees off the fence that fallen off or whatever uh then you just start working in the fields growing your food that you plant to harvest and then fall close to the end of the growing season you'd start harvesting your foods can it sometimes it'd take all day to shuck it can it or peel it can it put it in a food jar stick it down in a cool place after you got it all canned and everything.
Would you guys hang out together as a family out in the field or…?
Yeah Well we worked together as a family out in the field with my mother somehow always made it fun it was hard work and it's hard work out in the field you know working all daylight to dark you know but you can make it fun you can make it enjoyable and uh I don't it was a lot of fun growing up on the farm.
How where you treated by family and friends when you were young like did a lot of people look at you and say you had a strong work ethic…?
No most people thought I worked pretty good in fact anytime I went to help someone they was always glad for me to come back asking me to come back they wanted me to come back and help them so I guess I had a pretty good work ethic my parents taught me pretty good work ethic while I was growing up appreciate what you're doing and do it well
Was it easy to find a job or work?
Uh when I grew up a little bit yeah I had an easy time finding jobs you know applying for jobs uh some of the jobs I applied for was a little out of my league you know like um welder's helpers and like that didn't really have any wielding experience they didn't want me to most jobs I got was just I walked right in and started and went right to work.
What type of jobs did you have?
Uh well back in my younger days I was on a farm bailing hay or working in the fields pea patches you know where you pick peas you know stuff like that then I graduated on up from there to uh moving on to service stations changing oil filling people's tanks with gasoline and you know what normal service stations jobs check your flat tires stuff like that uh then I went to uh commercial type work and uh basically about it.
What led you to join the military?
Uh back when I was growing up we still had the um regular military it wasn't voluntary not like the military now when you we are 18 you must automatically enter the service for two years and uh that's what happened to me I got caught up in that and now that I look at it I enjoyed it but you know at the time I wouldn't really wantin' to go I did at the time that was back in Vietnam so I didn't want to and yet I did and I did. In fact the day before I was supposed to be enlisted I went down and joined so I got into tanks rather than into the infantry part by joining early
So you were in the draft then, they drafted you?
Yep back then we did the draft
What was boot camp like?
Boot camp was daylight to dark almost you's marching you's you know running jumping crawling whatever they wanted you to do you's doing it from daylight to dark and you had to keep your barracks spotless all the time I mean the floors had to shine the bunks had to be tight you didn't goof off nowhere and if you did goof off you's in lots of trouble
What did you think when they told you, you were being shipped to Vietnam? First thought…?
My first thought was uh golly I wanted to go to Japan or somewhere else I didn't want to go over there but my name was on the list so that's where I gotta go so you know I got a 30 day leave after boot camp to go home and of course I just freshly been married I stayed home for that 30 days and stayed 31 days and uh I was only supposed to have 30 day leave but I took 31 actually when I got back over to California to meet up with everybody I got called in the office and they wanted to know what my excuse was for having that one extra day and I told them there wouldn't no excuse and I didn't have an excuse so instead of taking money out of my back pocket and all that kinda stuff like they normally did back then or you know or put people in a lot of trouble they just told me I had to stay an extra day in the service to make up for that extra day I took so that was alright with me
What was a typical day like in Vietnam?
Well, well it was summer time I was only over there for three months uh I missed some of the monsoon season so I was only over there for the dusty part and it was dusty, dusty, dusty, dirt, dirt, dirt, everywhere you couldn't drive without the dirt flying up in your face you couldn't hardly walk without stirring up dirt, dust um hot muggy uh just a different world altogether here in the united states your used to seeing streets and uh paved roads and uh nice manicured this and nice manicured that over there it's altogether different no paved roads where I was at all jungle and dirt roads so nay it wasn't a pretty sight some of it was fairly nice manicured most of it wasn't, it was just jungle
What about Sight, sound, smell, touch?
Well when you first got into a place like that for me personally my senses were just kinda dull I didn't I guess you might say I was just terrified like everybody else my senses was just dull uh and after a day or two I finally started waking up to the fact that hey there is different smells or different sights different scenery uh different sounds but then your common sense jerks you right into it real quick 'til you wake up and ah ha I'm actually here I better pay attention to what I' doing so you know
How long did you have to stay there?
I was only over there for 3 months and the reason for only 3 months was I was supposed to be over there a year but a tank mine blew up and I caught shrapnel in my face and they booted me out of there medi-vaced me out to Japan well I had surgery there in ben-wal which is down south of Vietnam and they flew me from there on over to Japan where I stayed 60 days in the hospital there no 30 days there before they brought me back to Fort Hood.
So you got to go to Japan after all?
(chuckles)Yeah, I stayed over there like I said about a month at the hospital there and they brought me back to the state so I was over in Vietnam for about 3 months. Long enough!
What were some of your tasks…did you have to clean your gun?
Oh yeah defiantly clean your gun every time you got a chance you always clean you gun yet you're still out you's on uh well see I was on tanks so we had your .45 and your pistol and you had your m16 both of those you had to keep clean at all times and you had to uh keep you machine going had to work on your machine all the time and uh keep you had to set up and watch all night different hours of the night change off you know depending on how many people were on your crew you would change off so many hours a night and you could sleep while somebody else watch just different things all day long and at night you kinda relaxed a little bit but you was afraid to relax too much cause "Charlie" would walk up on you and you didn't want that so that's the way normal life was.
Was there a daily routine?
Yeah pretty much yeah uh you pretty much got up at daylight and you grabbed your chow for breakfast and then we'd go out on marches on what we called thunder runs and you would just run down the roads and then you'd come back or set up perimeters your basically we called it um an outpost you set up for several hours out there or maybe even all day or all night for you'd come back for your regular camp but that was just out post or out look
Tell me about the day you were injured. include Sight, sound, smell, touch
I kinda remember most of the day it was hot dusty day we was driving down the road doing our thunder runs stopped cause we thought probably some mines planted up through the roads in front of us so we had the mine sweep team out mine sweeping the road and we was stopped there was a vehicle come around our tank and when he did he pulled off into a road ditch and hit a Land mine and it blew up and we caught it so I caught part of that shrapnel from that mine tank
And they had to remove pieces?
Yep out of my left eye and my left head…down in my cheek they removed a quarter inch piece of steel out of my left eye and I don't have any eyesight in there anymore and that's about all I remember about that day (chuckles)
You said you were in the hospital for a month in Japan but did you also have to be hospitalized when you got here to the States?
Yeah they brought me back down here to Fort Sam Houston here in San Anton I was in Fort Sam for 3 or 4 months actually 6 months before I got released back to Fort Hood where I spent my last 6 months in service 'fore I got out
So you just did drills here?
Yeah
When did you receive your purple heart?
Uh I received the Purple heart when I was still in Vietnam in ben-wal the commander came in a gave it to me and I still uh right after surgery yeah I was still flying pretty high when he came in (chuckles) they had me doctored up pretty good (chuckles)
What was life like when you came, when you were already out of the military after you had already been discharged?
Uh life went along pretty good other than some people knew I had just gotten out of the military they still…we wasn't very well liked people when we came back out of the military at that particular time in the universe uh we was called baby killers and everything else under the sun and some of us never even saw a baby the whole time we was over there you know anyway well uh as long as you didn't say you had just come back from Vietnam or where ever they treated you like a human being like anybody else until you mentioned you were out of the service in the service whatever you got treated pretty badly and to me I still kinda hold a grudge about that but through the years I've learned to let go, let go, so that's kinda the way it was
Was it hard to find work, when people found out you were in the military did it affect the job process?
It didn't affect the job process; they knew I was in the military it was on my job application they knew I'd done got out so that really didn't stop me from whatever I needed to get
Is there anything else you would like to add to this interview?
Nope
