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Military Oral History Interview Transcript
George Murphy
Johnson County, NC
16 October 2011
PM: Patrick Murphy
GM: George Murphy
PM: This is Patrick Murphy interviewing George Murphy for the veteran’s oral history project.
It is the 16th of October and I am at George’s house in Johnston County. Can you please state
your full name?
GM: George Richard Murphy.
PM: What branch of the Military did you serve in?
GM: The United States Army!
PM: What reasons did you have for joining?
GM: I didn’t have any choice.
PM: So you were drafted.
GM: yes.
PM: How did that feel?
GM: Oh, not uncommon because at that time the only deferments from the military were for
medical school and any one, male, who was physically able was being inducted into the army
because we have the draft at that time which we don’t have any more.
PM: What year was this?
GM: 1968.
PM: Alright what branch of the military did you serve in?
GM: I served in the Army. I went into the Amy in October of 1968 and was discharged in April
or May of 1970.
PM: Where did you go to boot camp?
GM: I went to basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey for eight weeks for just basic military
skills. After then I was transferred to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for what they called advanced infantry
training commonly known as AIT. And I went to gunnery school at Fort Sill. I came out my
MOS or military occupational specialty with a 13 Eco 20, which means I was a battalion fire
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�directional controller for the artillery. I did not shoot guns all I did was compute firing
coordinates.
PM: Would you have considered yourself good at math?
GM: My worst subject why I was at school was math and I wind up doing nothing but math the
whole time I am in the Army, which is traditional the way the army, does things.
PM: What’s your most memorable experiences of boot camp or any training camp that you went
through?
GM: Probably in basic training. I suppose it was firing weapons some of the weapons I had
never seen before. I had spent a lot of time on a farm and we always had guns. One thing I
remember especially was the seven mile walks or marches to the firing range, and spending the
night in a tent it was snowing, and what did we call it? Riding in cattle cars what were basically
semis behind tractors and they would load everyone up in them. That was basically it. It was an
experience. And that was when I was at Fort Sill; it was absolutely gorgeous just how big it is.
With the animals and all they have a game preserve out there. But the main thing I did was just
like being in college I went to class eight hours a day. And then firing, something you will never
do in civilian life was firing 155mm howitzers, which was an experience. Oh, I liked that they
had tracks so they were movable riding in a tracked howitzer back in forth to the gunnery ranges
was something I had never done and never plan on doing again.
PM: When did you deploy to Vietnam and where exactly did you deploy to?
GM: When I finished gunnery school at Fort Sill I got leave to come back to North Carolina
about two weeks. I received orders to go to Fort Lewis, Washington form that I was deployed
there to Cam Ranh Base, South Vietnam. And we flew from Fort Lewis to Alaska to Japan to
arriving at Cam Ranh Bay. Cam Ranh Bay was a huge air port outside right on the coast of
Vietnam and the thing I remember the most is when they shut the air plane down we had landed,
they opened doors about a quarter to 12, about 15 minutes to midnight and it was still 95 degrees
out and it was absolutely it took me four weeks get acclimated to country to stop sweating it was
so humid so hot.
PM: Just miserable conditions?
GM: Miserable. I didn’t have a dry stitch of clothing for four weeks. But then once you get
acclimated it is not all that bad but until you do its absolutely miserable.
PM: After you landed at that base where did you deploy to?
GM: What they did was, we spent the night in a transit barracks and then you stay there until
you get orders to go to your unit. I was there about a day and a half and I got orders to go up to
Chu Lai, which I am not really sure of the mileage it’s up north about 90 miles from Da Nang. I
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�was ordered with the American Division. I was attached to the 380th Artillery, which was with to
the 26th Infantry. Our battalion headquarters was in Chu Lai. Which everything up there was on
the coast. We did not have any guns in Chu Lai all we had was battalion Headquarters with
radios and relies because the guns were actually in other fire bases 15 to 20 miles apart.
PM: So you were doing fire controlee at an off sight and the guns were somewhere else?
GM: Yes, I start well. I spent seven or eight months in the field on a fire base where we actually
had the guns. People think, you were commonly known as a cannon cocker, which I wasn’t. I
never fired a gun at all. I did was compute firing missions on a. We had a surveyed battery and
we were shooting into a map coordinates. All we did were compute what they call and deflect,
which was the raising of the gun how high and the charge to get it to the target. After about
seven months I was moved I went back to battalion.
Battalion headquarters was strictly in charge of the whole artillery. All we did at battalion was
compute fire missions for all three batteries. We had three batteries bravo charley…and alpha,
bravo and charley that was scattered out in probably about a 70 radius. And I never saw a gun
again all we did was…and at battalion we had contact with all three batteries and we would
compute fire missions for all three batteries. Because any time a battery would compute a fire
mission we had to compute the fire mission at battalion and our data had to meet within one
point of each other and then we could fire guns. If our data did not coordinate we could not fire.
We would have to hold off until we could find out what the problem was.
PM: How frequently would you be firing these weapons? Was it all day every day or was it a lot
of sitting around?
GM: We in what you call the FDC or fire directional controlee center. Where we worked out
of… we were assigned there twelve hours a day you either worked there from two in the
morning or two in the afternoon and every thirty days you would rotate from night shift to day
shift. What you did was…generally during the day we only fired as necessary for fire missions.
A lot of times we would have fire missions from forward observers and air observers because we
were general support for the whole American Division.
We would shoot pretty frequently during the day however every night we had what they called H
and I, which was harassment and interdiction. And we probably had 300 targets computed by the
general staff that these was were the enemy was we might have to fire two rounds at nine o’clock
on a location and two rounds at 12 on the same location and most of the time we’d fire 300 to
400 rounds a night on harassment and interdiction.
The rest of the time we had air observers flying plans and when they saw a target we would
answer to that and of course any ground troops that were…we had to be careful we because our
guns were so big that you couldn’t…anything within 50 meters of where the shell landed was in
the kill zone so you had to be absolutely careful that there were no friendly’s where you were
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�shooting. And a lot of times what we did with Special Forces what they called contact fire
missions where they were actually being shot at and taking casualties and we would walk the
artillery in with a forward observer and just actually walk it in on the ground until we got it
correct and then we would shoot everything we’d got to get them out of there when they were in
that bad situation. We were only heavy artillery…eight inch and 175 an eight inch would shoot
15 miles and throws a 200 pound shell 15 miles, a 175 would shoot 26 miles.
Eight inch was totally accurate 175’s was not very accurate we never shoot 175’s in support of
ground troops. Because they just they weren’t that accurate now eight inch we would shoot
because the American that is was in was an old division that was reactivated…that was used in
World War Two and then deactivated and was reactivated for Vietnam. We had 25,000 men and
they included three infantry battalions, brigades and then aw two Special Forces groups pulse all
the support that goes with it. Our official designation was direct support for Special Forces and
general support of the American Division. We stayed pretty busy the whole time…and I do not
know what else to say.
PM: What are some of the most memorable experiences you have while just being in country? It
does not necessarily have to be related to your mission.
GM: The camaraderie that I developed with the members of our company. It was not always…
in the field was different then…I mean being on a forward base camp was pure military and was
24-7 with guarding and all the rest. Back at battalion head quarters where I spent my last few
months was completely different. It was on top of a hill…we had US shows come in every now
and then… every now and then we could go down to the beach. We could go to the beach
sometimes Bob Hope when he came in for Christmas and…which was totally secret that we
wound up being there. We played flag football a tournament in fact we won so it was…I mean it
was not always as bad as you think it was…you never felt safe or secure you always had to
worry about what was coming around the corner.
PM: How did you and other guys you know deal with that feeling that insecurity?
GM: It was just something that you learned to live with some guys took it better than others we
had some that actually couldn’t take it and they were rotated out. Some guys resorted to drugs
and if we found that out then we got rid of them because we could not depend on them if they
were pulling guard duty we knew they were doing drugs we would find a way to get rid of them.
It was something that you lived with every day if you thought about it would drive you crazy so
you didn’t you try not to think about it you just went and did your job and hoped you would
make it till you get home.
PM: When you transferred where you did you go for the last few months… what was it called?
GM: Battalion Headquarters.
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�PM: What was the difference in your duty?
GM: First of all we did not have the gun crews. You weren’t working hand on hand with guys
who were actually shooting guns and looking after each other. Battalion was less stressful you
had hot meals all the time things you did not have in the field. And we had more responsibility
because we were dealing with all three batteries when in the field you are only dealing with one
battery, which was a lot easier.
Battalion was a lot more stressful and plus you had so many officers coming in and out it wasn’t
as easy as being in the field we had to compute fire missions for all three batteries instead of it
was a lot more work and a lot more stressful aw…I would much rather be in the field. Even
though the field was more dangerous the camaraderie between the fellows in the field was a lot
different.
PM: How did you end up being transferred was it by choice?
GM: I was running out of time in Vietnam and they rotated guys out and they had an opening for
a section chief at battalion. And I got sent to take it. They had two sections at battalion so they
had to have two section chiefs, who were enlisted men, and I was a sergeant so I took one of
those positions. And then we a…we answered to a captain who answered to a major so…you
had…in the field there was just a lieutenant in battalion you never had less than a captain or a
major to be responsible to.
PM: So it was a lot more up tight?
GM: Yes, it was a lot more like civilian.
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Murphy, George
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Murphy, Patrick
Interview Date
10/16/11
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
20:46 min
Copyright
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used.
Tag
Johnston County, Army, Fort Dix, Fort Sill, artillery, Fort Lewis, Vietnam, Cam Ranh Bay , 380th Artillery, 26th Infantry Division, Bob Hope
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with George Murphy, 16 October 2011
Subject
The topic of the resource
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Murphy, George
Veterans
Personal narratives, American
United States
Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
George Murphy, interviewed by Patrick Murphy, served in the United States Army and was stationed in Vietnam.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Murphy, George
Murphy, Patrick
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a>
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
5 pages
Language
A language of the resource
English
American Division
Cam Ranh Bay
Chu Lai
draft
FDC
George Murphy
US Army
Vietnam