On Christmas Eve 1965, I received a reg & green “greetings” card from the US military telling me to report to a Columbus, OH facility for induction. My draft date & the date for starting college was the same day, so I called the draft board (three elderly women). They consulted for a few minutes and concluded the military had the controlling hand & I’d need to report. I went in Feb. 6, 1966 to be trained by the Marines at San Diego & Camp Pendleton, CA.
I was raised in a conservative farming town in Ohio where there was a lot of support for the war & I felt obligated to go in & I wanted to be in the infantry (which I was: 1st Bat. 3rd Marine Div. 18 miles south of Da Nang). I was often ‘point’ (first man) in a rifle squad, volunteering for additional patrols whenever needed…like looking for land mines in sandy roads (while walking over them) or adding another body to squads that should have had 12 but were down to 8, due to activity. We patrolled nightly fro sundown to sunset during the heavy monsoon season of 1966. At night we’d hear the Viet Cong tunneling 75-100 yards away and they’d bring the soil up in lined pants during the day & act like they were tilling the soil.
I was 19 at the time and went in willingly, though it became clear that the Vietnamese just want to be left alone to tend to their rice fields & let their kids ride the water buffaloes. Our nightly patrols were like ‘hid & seek’ except with guns…all Vietnamese were told to stay in after sunset or they’d be considered Viet Cong & shot & killed. The Vietnamese are amazing people & if the shoe were on the other foot, I’m sure the US public would not have been as friendly or kind. Most of my company was my age and 10 days before I got blown up, my ‘best friend’ in Vietnam (Charles Paul Ellis from NJ) was killed in a case of ‘friendly fire’, as another squad walked into our ambush on a pitch black, new moon monsoon night. Co-ordination of squad patrol locations had been suspended by a new brash LT just over from the US & fresh out of training…I started writing a letter to his family, but was told that the details would just add to the families pain. I had taken his photo with his 35mm camera days earlier with a view over his shoulder that I said would be where he’d get it…& it was.
I was blown up on Sept. 22, ‘66 coming back from night patrol, near a river at a point where we’d turned away from on the way out. Five of us were injured by the landmine that blew up just as I was getting ready to sit on the ground, including a squad leader from Boston (Kennedy-esk), who overstayed his departure date by a week to help us know the trails. One guy who was already seated caught most of his blast in the forehead…I saw him months later at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital, where he’d recovered. When I was blown up, after 3 morphine shots from the Corpsman, I was medi-vacked to a ‘mash style’ tent hospital, where the first of 13 major operations occurred fro vein to artery grafts, etc. (I should’ve been dead right then, 2 days after my 20th birthday. I spent most of my time at the Phil. Naval Hospital, learning how to walk & write again. The 13th & final operation came at a VA Hospital for my left index finger…a bone graft from a Cuban Immigrant doctor who was the only one willing to do it…he said their was a 30% chance it’d hold…it did. I have 100% disability rating from muscle loss, nerve damage, skin grafts, etc.
I entered college in 1968 (Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO) using the GI Bill and graduated in 1972. I tried to get others in the hospital to do the same, but with little success. Following college, I was trained in conservation id (plants, birds, trees, wildlife, wetlands, astronomy) and then taught and started programs at 13 locations in the US & Canada from 1972-‘05. Many are still in operation & the alum are all over the US, Canada & the world doing great things.
For the first 1 & 1/2 -2 years at CSU, I argued the pro-military position, sometimes until 3am with my college roommate from Medford, MA. I changed my opinion as the war dragged on & the killing continued. Several of us Vets drove from Fort Collins to Washington, DC in the early ‘70’s to camp across from Congress at the VVAW (Vietnam Vets Against the War) encampment…John Kerry fro MA was our spokesperson, me met with Congress leaders & I think we helped to get it stopped.
Some of the things that were done there were despicable…I remember one day on patrol we spotted a man in the distance with what could have been a rifle. As he got closer the squad leader was yelling loudly in English to him. When he came up near us he had a rice-cutting machete in a pouch on his shoulder. He was told to show his papers, & the old man was shaking & trembling so hard. I’ll never forget it…we absolutely terrified him, and that couple with the bombings & Agent Orange will kill people & the environment for years. All in the name of stopping an economic system we didn’t like.
After the war, which I’ve always talked about (and there’s a ton more stories), I’ve tried to share what it was like to be in the military & in war. I think there should be a draft, so there’ more of the public that knows how horrific war is & there’d be fewer people so gung-ho about it. Every day is one I’ve gotten that many who were with me didn’t get the chance to have…so I value every one.