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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/a6b71683a78084e78fc5011a16611d49.pdf
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Name:
Branch:
Years Served:
Conflicts:
Date of Interview:
Richard Gilbert
U.S. Army
1968-1971
Vietnam War
October 15, 2012
Cody Spiker: My name is Cody Spiker, interviewing Richard Gilbert at 214 West Academy
Street, his residence. [Cherryville, NC] Mr. Gilbert, when were you born?
Richard Gilbert: I was born March 27th, 1948.
Spiker: Where were you born at?
Gilbert: I was born in Franklin NC, which was way up in the mountains up in the corner of the
state. But I grew up in Lincoln County.
Spiker: Lincoln County, when did you move down to Lincolnton, or Lincoln County?
Gilbert: Oh, probably when I started school, around First grade. You know, about seven, six or
seven, something like that. I think I actually started second grade down here, so. We moved up
on highway 27 out in the country.
Spiker: Okay, so your family is from the Appalachian Mountains actually?
Gilbert: Yeah my mom was born in the mountains, my grandmother and grandfather yeah,
basically homesteaders, so.
Spiker: Okay, one of the things that they are pushing for in this interview process is people from
the Appalachian Mountains, (“Oh” -Gilbert) the Appalachian area, veterans form this area so
that’s excellent. So, which war did you fight in?
Gilbert: I fought in Vietnam. Yeah I went, I got in the army, let’s see, it would have been ’68. I
think, and then I went to Vietnam in ’69. So, I went in in December, I went to Vietnam I
December of ’68 and came back in December of ‘69.
Spiker: Ok, and where you a volunteer or were you a draftee?
Gilbert: Well, I was a volunteer. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. I didn’t really
support the war but I knew that needed a college education and I didn’t really have a way to pay
for it. So, I saw that as a way of getting an education an you know, so, I enlisted for three years.
Spiker: Okay, so at the time that you enlisted where were you living at?
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�Gilbert: I was living in Lincolnton and I was attending Lincolnton high school, and I was in my
last year. And there were several of us who talked about it and decided we would go see a
recruiter, and so we did. We all went in together; there was about, I don’t know, eight or ten of
us.
Spiker: So you were about eighteen?
Gilbert: … Somewhere along in there, it was just after high school.
Spiker: What branch of service did you enter?
Gilbert: Well, since I enlisting and I got the opportunity to pick, I had some choice and they told
me what was open. Artillery, a couple things, communications, and military police and I
decided that I would go military police. Sounded exciting. (Spiker chuckles and says, “MP’s
lead the way.”)
Spiker: So you obviously enlisted into the Army?
Gilbert: Right.
Spiker: Do you recall your first days of service? Like when you went to basic training? What
was that like?
Gilbert: Oh I remember the first day of training like it was imprinted in my brain, (Gilbert
chuckles) It… we had about a week or so before we actually started basic they had us in a kind
of holding pen, which was extremely boring, there was nothing to do except you know what
freedom we had to go to the PX and eat. That was about it. So… when we were ready to start
basic they put us on the bus and drove us over to our company and then I think you can imagine
what happened after that. Hahahaha. It was in July at Fort Bragg and I think that was probably
the hottest place on earth. And… it was a pretty miserable day.
Spiker: I can imagine. Do you remember any of your instructors?
Gilbert: Oh yes, lets see, there was… a Corporal Norris who had… he was an interesting
character. He had been in the Army and… served and came back home and somehow or another
he was in the reserves and didn’t attend the meetings and got re-drafted, (Chuckles) so they
pulled him back in and they put him as… in our company as a trainer, as an instructor. …There
was a couple of Drill Sergeants, you know I guess if I thought about it I could probably
remember their names but I can’t right at the moment… it was interesting. I learned a lot about
the Army. The Army travels on its stomach, the food was great. Everybody else complained,
but I ate like a king… there was a fairness. They picked on everybody equally, (Chuckles) It
was… interesting. I got kind of an insight into Army thinking which… and I respect that, I
really do. I respect that. I didn’t like being in the Army but I did respect it. You know.
Spiker: You mentioned earlier that you went to talk to a recruiter with a couple of fellows from
your high school; did you end up going to basic training with those fellows.
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�Gilbert: As a matter of fact, we all went through basic training together… all in the same
company except two of use. Two went into the company next door and the rest of us were in the
same. I went in with a guy named Steve Rice from High Shoals and… Steve, Steve was tough
guy. He was real tough; he was a street cred guy you know. He carried a hawkbill knife and
(chuckling)... you didn’t mess with Steve. But… Steve and I were good friends… he and I, we
stayed together all through basic training and.. we did some crazy things together… (“Do you
want to explain some of those?” -Spiker, laughing) Oh, I’m glad to tell you one. We had to do;
you know we had to spend the late afternoon and evening crawling under barbwire while they
were shooting over the top of us in training. And they had these bunkers placed out there that
had artillery simulators in them. And I went first, I was in a wave that went in and crawled under
the barbwire, and then Steve came after me. I said Steve I’ll meet you at that center bunker and
we’ll smoke a cigarette before we go on. And we did, and we both got chewed out (Chuckling)
seriously chewed out. But we did, we had to hold it so nobody could see the light from the
cigarette, we passed it back and forth. And the artillery simulators were going off and the
ground was shaken, all the bullets going over head and all that stuff. It was pretty exciting.
Spiker: So after basic training you went to your MP school, where was that at?
Gilbert: That was at Fort Gordon Georgia. (“Fort Gordan Georgia.”-Spiker) Yeah, and I did not
know it snowed in Georgia, but it sure did. (Chuckling) Yeah, I graduated on November the 22nd
because I remember it was… it got pretty cold down there… it definitely snowed. We had a
bout three or four inches one day. That was fun, we got to drive jeeps in the snow, out through
the hills. We did a night driving class… so we had to keep our interval and that kind of stuff. It
had snowed on the ground so it was a lot brighter than the sergeant liked but…(chuckles) It was
good.
Spiker: So… when you finally graduated… MP school where did you go after that? Did you go
directly to Vietnam or…?
Gilbert: No, I got, I got leave. I came home…for… I got a, I think a thirty day leave. And
then… I reported to… California… and I don’t remember all the details of this but… we had to
stay in… It was right next to the Navy compound and… we could see the swabbies walking
around. Course, you know how soldiers…they are… there is always enough competition to start
something. So, there was always some yelling back and forth across the fence and… I thought
California was kind of neat. I didn’t get to see a whole lot. There was a building there, it was
building 590, which, you know, can you imagine… They must have shipped cow in it because
this thing was huge. It was long and wide and all the bunks were three bunks high and close
together. They were… sending a lot of people to Vietnam. Yeah… I stayed in building 590.
That’s… kind of a famous landmark I guess if you look at the history books.
Spiker: Lets backtrack for a minute, when you said you had leave. Did you come back home?
Did you have a significant other at the time?
Gilbert: I had a girlfriend (“okay, what was her name?” –Spiker) Harriette, Harriette, yes
Harriette Gurley. (“Where was she from?”- Spiker) Cherryville (pronounced Chur-a-ville)
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�(“Cherryville, okay.” –Spiker)… Cherryville and Lincolnton were big rivals so… me dating
Cherryville girls was… kind of a risky thing, but I found out that your Cherryville girls were
very attractive. (“Yes sir.” –Spiker) …I dated here almost a year before I went to Vietnam and
then several years afterwards and then we got married.
Spiker: Okay…When did you actually get boots on the ground in Vietnam?
Gilbert: It would have been December of 1968. I don’t remember the exact date, but… flew
into… Long Binh and then flew from Long Binh to… Quin Yon and that’s where it think, if I
remember correctly or company command headquarters was there and we had two platoons at…
well that was battalion and then we had… another, our main area where I was, was in Pleiku.
And.. Quin Yon is right on the coast, so I got to see the ocean. Of course, Cam Ranh Bay we
did... in-country training. We did a couple weeks of in-country training in Cam Ranh Bay…
Pretty place too. Nice white sands azure sea and sea snakes. (Chuckles, “Did you encounter any
sea snakes?” –Spiker) No, no but they always warned us if you go out into the ocean be careful.
(Still Chuckling) So, but it was a beautiful place I loved it. Vietnam was a beautiful country….
So, Cam Ranh Bay and the I went to Quin Yon; and from Quin Yon I went to Pleiku and that
was where I was mainly stationed. We did have two other, little satellite outpost that we… we
convoyed. So, we would convoy up to the pass from each side and then we would convoy
back… and we would you know, switch of the convoys…. My route was up to the what was
called the Mang Yang Pass, if I remember correctly…. It was real gentle going up on one side
and then It was real steep going down the other side. And there were tanks parked all over the
place on the down-side of that.
Spiker: Now a days there is two different MP’s, you have the Combat MP and the Garrison MP.
Was that still so back in Vietnam?
Gilbert: Well no. I was a 95b10, hahaha, everybody was a 95b10, it was… completely different
I guess from… what’s going on today. It was… our main focus was convoy escort and… then
town patrol, where, you know, you… actually patrolled in the streets of… like Pleiku or An Khe
or some place like that. And… that was pretty much it. There was none of the urban warfare
kinda stuff that you guys have gone through, so….
Spiker: Okay… while you were in Vietnam did you see any combat?
Gilbert: Ambush or two…I got blown out of bed one morning. That was exciting. A rocket
landed between where I was and the mess hall and blew a pretty good size hole in the ground.
And there was a sandbag wall between me and the explosion so I was okay, but I woke up
looking at the floor coming up at my face…and… I couldn’t hear anything. It was just.. ringing
in my ears. I was armorer at that time. They put me in the arms room. I was taking care of the
weapons, and we had florescent lights in the arms room and it blew every one of them out but
one. There was only one burning and that was pretty exciting. We lost a guy that morning, he
was a dog handler. Killed him and his dog as they were going on duty, it was very early in the
morning so…
Spiker: And do you remember his name?
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�Gilbert: I don’t, I didn’t know him… we had two barracks of MP’s, one of infantry who helped
guard our perimeter and then we had a dog handler… barracks…you knew them in passing, but
you didn’t really work very close. Those guys mainly were perimeter guys and they guarded the
ammunition supply dump and that sort of thing. We would mainly patrol and come back. You
know, we considered them as part of our unit, I mean there was no doubt about that but…there
wasn’t as much interaction as there was you know.. with the other MP’s. We had our own club.
Spiker: Really? Tell me about that.
Gilbert: Well it was up on the little hill and it was the road runner club because it was our
mascot and… the MP’s didn’t do well at other peoples’ clubs for some reason… But the club
was just a small little separate building with a bar and… served soft drinks and beer. No hard
liquor. No one was eligible for that… occasionally they would hir, you know, a little
Vietnamese rock band and bring them and they would you know have a couple of Go Go Girls or
something like that.. It was just a nice little club.
Spiker: You mentioned your unit a minute ago, I forgot to ask your unit number.
Gilbert: Oh Lord, let me see. Gah, that’s just been so long. It ws the 504th MP CO, and
Battalion, I think If I remember correctly, I was in Company B. I was in B, 504th MP Battalion
at Pleiku. But that’s been a while, don’t quote me, hahaha.
Spiker: Okay, other than being an armorer, did you have any other details…jobs?
Gilbert: No, that was the only really specialized job that I did. They… our armorer had…the
person who was serving as armorer had left, and…they “Okay you’re good with tools, go down
there and keep the record.” Course you know everybody does things like paint numbers on jeeps
and that sort of thing but that was the only one that I had actually just a separate job. It wasn’t
that bad, there were only two of us and we had… it was one on and one off. We slept, we
actualy had a bunk in the arms room so we could actually sleep in there two…so, there was
always one of us in the arms room, so. If any thing happened we could unlock everything. I did
have a station… if we were attacked, from the arms room I was to move up on to a bunker that
had a .50 on it. I was to… be part of the .50 crew on, if else had…if I had expended all the
ammo that was where I went. (Chuckling)
Spiker: So, that never happened though?
Gilbert: No. Our attacks were mostly rocket attacks, which were pretty long, big rockets and
then of course mortar attacks, we would get those every once in a while. Ambushes would be
anything from a few pot shots to a couple of mortar rounds coming in to some sort of improvised
device… every once in a while they’d blow a bridge up and we would have to put a defile
around it and you know, keep and eye on that. But, I think the road was probably the most
dangerous thing. That’s where we, we got more people hurt. Mainly form accidents…rain, mud,
jeeps turn over. We also had an armored vehicle, we had V100, which I think now is obsolete,
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�we probably sold them all to some other country. I really liked it because it had a 318 Chrysler
engine in it with a four barrel carburetor… (Chuckling)
Spiker: Can you tell me about some of your most memorable experiences while deployed to
Vietnam?
Gilbert: Oh, wow, let’s see. Well I can think of a couple things… I enjoyed shooting rats at the
mess hall at night that was fun, with a crossbow. We would get Vietnamese crossbows and
shoot the rats and try to stick them into the wall and that was fun. I used to like to drive out to a
… yard, you know the local indigenous people…there was…the French had built a damn near
this little village and I used to sneak out their and lay out underneath the trees and just sleep. It
was just a whole different…the kids around and all that kind of stuff. Little kids you know how
they just want to play and I’de go out and skip stoned with them things like that. It was a good
way to kind of relax.
Spiker: So were…was everybody able to just go out?
Gilbert: No, this was something that really wasn’t sanctioned. Haha, but… you would have your
radio on and if there was no convoy…you’d just have to run the road by yourself, just you and
your… you’d have a driver and an interpreter and then a gunner on the jeep who had a
M60…But if there was nothing going on we’d kind of sneak over, it wasn’t just about a quarter
of a mile and just sneak over…relax a while. Have lunch and then get back on the road. It might
have been breaking the rules a little bit, but it wasn’t that serious. It was no, no real threat to
anything. It was just a little way to unwind.
Spiker: Do you remember much from the end of your tour?
Gilbert: Well, I remember when I got short. They took me off duty, I think the last couple of
weeks they take you off duty and then put you on light duty where you’re basically cleaning up
barracks and taking new guys around to get their equipment and showing them where everything
is and things like that. And then, they start processing you out, you have to send your whole
baggage and that sort of thing back…and then I think I caught a ride we was always thumbing
rides on airplanes or something. I went over to the Air force base, which was right behind us, so
I went over and thumbed a ride on a transport and it was a great ride. I remember going back, it
was fantastic because the back door was open a couple of feet. And it had a big crack and I
could look down on the jungle and there was no one else on the plane except the pilot, co-pilot,
crew chief, you know, and me. And I was in the seat, the last seat, just strapped in, looking out
the door at the jungle going by. It was pretty cool; it was a good flight back.
Spiker: You say… getting short…for the sake of the interview can you explain what that is?
Gilbert: Short is when you’re getting ready to go home and your friends will present you with a
swagger stick. And its usually a bullet with a stick stuck in it. (chuckles) And it’s carved to look
like a long, little swagger stick, or it’s a shell with a stick stuck in it, then you kind of stick that
under your arm and you walk around with it and everybody knows you’re short, you’re bragging
you know…and then of course you would make the twoe fingers close together like
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�that…(Demonstrates fore finger and thumb about half an inch apart)…short, and people would
be envious. And of course you would have your short timers calendar up n the wall with all the
X’s over everyday that you been there….
Spiker: What rank where you when you went in and when you came out?
Gilbert: Oh, Lord. I remember being an E2 for about three weeks-four weeks and then they
made me a E1; I guess an E1 and then they made me an E2. I think that when I got out of basic
they made me a E3. And then when I got o Vietnam I became a Spec4 and I stayed that, or
should I say, I stayed that until I got back to the United States, I did get busted. Not real proud
of that but…I lost my rank for about a month but I made it back. I was basically a good guy, just
little things happen.
Spiker: Yes sir, yes sir. So, while serving did you earn any awards/medals?
Gilbert: I had just regular Vietnam medals…I did have a whole bunch of unit citations and all
that kind of stuff…I didn’t get any wounds or anything like that. I just tried to stay out of trouble
and not get killed. I did think I was dead one night though. I ran out of the barracks, we had an
attack, and I ran out in the middle of the night and they had dug a ditch across the walkway and I
had forgotten about it and the next thing I know I had came too looking up at stars. I thought I
had been hit, I start trying to feel for things and, I figured I would get a purple heart for that but
they wouldn’t give it to me for some reason. (Spiker laughs) No, falling in a slit trench was not
considered being wounded in action…
Spiker: Oh, it was a slit trench?! My goodness, haha. Oh, that’s rough (Gilbert laughs)
Gilbert: It was new thank goodness.
Spiker: Oh good, so there wasn’t anything in it yet.
Gilbert: They had just dug it. It could have been worse.
Spiker: It could have been a lot worse. How did you stay in touch with your family while in …
[Vietnam]
Gilbert: Well, we had a new method of communication. It was the cassette tape. My wife, well
my fiancé at the time, we sent cassettes to each other. I got lots of letters. I wasn’t as good at
writing as she was…she…basically, I had a couple of pounds of letters by the time I got to come
back.
Spiker: What was the food like, over there in Vietnam? You said you liked the Army food.
Gilbert: Well, I always thought it was great. The cooks were well trained, they were good. Our
company had one cook who was, all he did was make pastries, so we had fresh bread and cakes,
pies. He would make breakfast rolls and sweet rolls…I guess I was a chow hound because I
liked to eat late. I would have breakfast at eleven o’clock at night and like if I was going on duty
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�and skip the morning breakfast, and eat late…. I never really complained about the food. It was
all I wanted and there was plenty of it, and it was good food, it wasn’t just empty calories…
occasionally we had steak and baked potatoes. Something weird happened, strange happened
when I was in, this was when the Army tried a little experiment. They actually, for the evening
meal, they sold beer in the mess hall. Your limit was two, but they were “tall boys”, you know,
tall ones. After the evening meal, if you were off duty, you could have as many as two beers in
the mess hall. Now I don’t think that lasted too long, but that was an unusual, this was strange
for the Army. That getting very liberal here.
Spiker: So it sounded like ya’ll had plenty of supplies while you were there.
Gilbert: We did run short in Vietnam, we ran short of canned drinks for a while, in the PX and
all that kind of place it was just, something happened and for about a month we couldn’t get soft
drinks and things like that for a while. They were short supply…you could get them. A lot of
guys would take cases of drinks, buy them at the PX and then take them and trade them on the
black market… that kind of thing is always going on.
Spiker: Other than shooting rats, how did ya’ll keep yourselves entertained?
Gilbert: Well, we had a day room, and there was tv, and that’s where I saw the moon landing
cause that happened when I was…you know… there. Then we had magazines and occasionally,
if you had a good friend, you could sneak into the commo bunker, the command bunker, the
communications bunker and you could make a phone call or get a phone call… so, one of my
friends actually called me from Vietnam, he was in another company a couple of hundred miles
away, and he’d call me and we’d talk every once in a while. But that was bellow the radar
(Chuckles “Yes sir.” –Spiker) ...there was always an emergency phone call if somebody at you
home needed to get up with you, you could, it would have to bounce all over the place to get to
you, and there was no guaranty that it would get there, but you could make a phone call to the
states every once in a while. It was not something that was easily done, at least in my unit.
Spiker: I meant to ask you, your buddies from high school, did any of them get assigned to your
unit with you?
Gilbert: No, I was the only MP. The rest of them, I think maybe about half of them ended up in
the infantry and I know one of them became a medic or maybe two of them. Two of them
became medics and I don’t really remember the rest of them….Did have one that went to
Chemical Warfare school. Yeah, I remember him. He went there, he was a pretty smart guy.
They grabbed him up, and I don’t think he went to Vietnam, he went to Washington and, or
some place, kept him stateside. He was real, he was a smart guy.
Spiker: After your three years was up…or did you spend all that three years in Vietnam?
Gilbert: I did not. When I came back from Vietnam I was stationed in Maryland at Fort Meade.
There were…Fort Meade was Basically riot control for the city of D.C. at that time, and this was
when, you know, everybody was rioting about everything. There was always some kind of
march going on somewhere. So, that’s where I was, and I applied to Gaston College and got an
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�early out to go to school. I got about four months out early to go to college. That was just like,
exciting like going into the Army. It was great. I was ready for college then.
Spiker: Did you use your GI Bill to go to college?
Gilbert: I sure did. I got almost four years of college out of three years in the Army.
Spiker: Nice.
Gilbert: Yeah, at that time it was a full, about a hundred and ninety dollars a month if you
weren’t married, so, I think it went to a little over two hundred dollars a month if you were
married, as I recall. But you know you could live cheap in Boone, it was a hundred dollars a
month in rent…
Spiker: So, you went to Appalachian State as well?
Gilbert: I did.
Spiker: Good, good. Were you married to Harriette at that time?
Gilbert: We got married the year that I transferred from…it would have been my third year of
college. We got married just after I graduated from Gaston. I got an AA form Gaston and then
we got married and she started graduate school because she was ahead of me by four years. And,
I had just started my third year at Appalachian.
Spiker: Did you retain any friendships from the service while you were still in college and
throughout life?
Gilbert: A few but unfortunately they have gone by the wayside, most of them. I can’t, only the
ones that are from Lincolnton that I went to school with I still see them occasionally. Most of
them are, you know, you just lose touch.
Spiker: I understand. While…studying at Appalachian State what was your major?
Gilbert: I was an Art Major.
Spiker: Art Major, and did you go on to fulfill your dreams in art?
Gilbert: Well, I got out from Appalachian, my wife and I were married, we moved to Dallas,
NC and I started teaching at William C. Friday Middle School.
Spiker: What did you teach there?
Gilbert: I taught art, my degree was actually art education, so, either being an artist or being a
teacher was…either way. It was convenient and there was a job…I didn’t know I was going to
like teaching though. She talked me into…I was just going to be an art major, she’s the one who
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�talked me into being an art education major she says you might want to teach, you don’t know,
you know. You might not do well as an artist when you first get out. So, why don’t you just do
that, it’s just a few extra courses. I said, “Alright.” …and I kind of like teaching.
Spiker: So, you continued to teach until?
Gilbert: Well I taught for about…six years and then I went to work for a mining company, but
there was financial incentive. Yeah, I got a pretty good raise to move into the mining
industry…I went to work in a lab for them and got to do all kinds of wonderful and interesting
things in mining and in a lab and chemistry and special projects…mainly why they hired me was
because I knew a little bit about chemistry, I knew a little bit about ceramic engineering, I knew
how to weld, I knew how to do some electrical work, so that art background of kind of knowing
a little bit about a lot of stuff, but not being an expert the said, “Well good, we’re going to put
you in special projects.” So, for about twelve years. It was a good job, excellent, I was never
doing the same thing for very long they were always pulling me around and making me do all
kinds of crazy… I mean learned how to survey, learned how to use a computer. Just everything.
Spiker: After that job you went on to teach again?
Gilbert: Well I stated teaching college off and on as an adjunct professor, not a full time
professor, but just in part time. And then I’ve done that ever since. I worked as a computer
programmer at Doran Mills in Shelby. I worked in the printing industry for a couple of years as
a trainer, I would install systems and train people on how to use computer systems and use
programs like photoshop and how to do touch up editing and I was a font expert I guess you
would say. And all of those electronic font things…and then I got back into teaching again in
middle school. An then…this will be my tenth year and last year. And I will retire.
Spiker: Congratulations. Well, I think that’s pretty much all I have. Is there anything else that
you would like to add to…
Gilbert: No, I enjoyed talking to you.
Spiker: I have as well. I have as well. I do appreciate it.
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�
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/c96ca3742e967c7d579080db60668489.mp3
33274ab687bac5808732c11c00bd0f44
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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.
File size
75.7 KB
16 MB
Format, digital
MP3
Military Branch
military branch (U.S. Army, etc)
U.S. Army
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Spiker; Cody
Gilbert; Richard
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Spiker, Cody
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Gilbert, Richard
Interview Date
10/15/2012
Number of pages
10
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UA.5018. American Military History Course Records
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5018_Gilbert_Richard_20121015_transcript_M
5018_Gilbert_Richard_20121015_audio_A
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Interview with Richard Gilbert [October 15, 2012]
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Oral History
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English
English
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Spiker, Cody
Gilbert, Richard
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<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>
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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.
Description
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Richard Gilbert served in the army for three years during the Vietnam War. He was a volunteer right out of high school, and figured the military was his only way to get to college. He was stationed in Pleiku, Vietnam and worked as a military police officer. He saw very little combat but his base was ambushed a couple of times. After the 3 years were up he majored in art at Applachian State and worked as a middle school art teacher.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Gilbert, Richard
Veterans
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
United States
Personal narratives, American
Interviews
army
Fort Gordon Georgia
Fort Meade
GI Bill
military police
Pleiku
Vietnam
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/1bdd75cdd11a394d9998334fae93d20e.mp3
33274ab687bac5808732c11c00bd0f44
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/46401aa1b2f411e996a3a879512b26cb.pdf
480be3d941d9f7530e040f436b289783
PDF Text
Text
Spiker 1
Cody Spiker
Browning
His 3823
15 October 2012
Oral History Report: Richard Gilbert, Vietnam Veteran, Born in Appalachia, and Appalachian
State University state graduate.
My name is Cody Spiker, interviewing Richard Gilbert at 214 West Academy Street, his
residence. [Cherryville, NC]
Mr. Gilbert, when were you born?
I was born March 27th, 1948.
Where were you born at?
I was born in Franklin NC, which was way up in the mountains up in the corner of the
state. But I grew up in Lincoln County.
Lincoln County, when did you move down to Lincolnton, or Lincoln County?
Oh, probably when I started school, around First grade. You know, about seven, six or
seven, something like that. I think I actually started second grade down here, so. We
moved up on highway 27 out in the country.
Okay, so your family is from the Appalachian Mountains actually?
Yeah my mom was born in the mountains, my grandmother and grandfather yeah,
basically homesteaders, so.
Okay, one of the things that they are pushing for in this interview process is people from the
Appalachian Mountains, (“Oh” -Gilbert) the Appalachian area, veterans form this area so that’s
excellent.
So, which war did you fight in?
I fought in Vietnam. Yeah I went, I got in the army, let’s see, it would have been ’68. I
think, and then I went to Vietnam in ’69. So, I went in in December, I went to Vietnam I
December of ’68 and came back in December of ‘69.
Ok, and where you a volunteer or were you a draftee?
Well, I was a volunteer. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. I didn’t really support
the war but I knew that needed a college education and I didn’t really have a way to pay
for it. So, I saw that as a way of getting an education an you know, so, I enlisted for three
years.
�Spiker 2
Okay, so at the time that you enlisted where were you living at?
I was living in Lincolnton and I was attending Lincolnton high school, and I was in my
last year. And there were several of us who talked about it and decided we would go see a
recruiter, and so we did. We all went in together; there was about, I don’t know, eight or
ten of us.
So you were about eighteen?
… Somewhere along in there, it was just after highschool.
What branch of service did you enter?
Well, since I enlisting and I got the opportunity to pick, I had some choice and they told
me what was open. Artillery, a couple things, communications, and military police and I
decided that I would go military police. Sounded exciting. (Spiker chuckles and says,
“MP’s lead the way.”)
So you obviously enlisted into the Army?
Right.
Do you recall your first days of service? Like when you went to basic training? What was that
like?
Oh I remember the first day of training like it was imprinted in my brain, (Gilbert
chuckles) It… we had about a week or so before we actually started basic they had us in
a kind of holding pen, which was extremely boring, there was nothing to do except you
know what freedom we had to go to the PX and eat. That was about it. So… when we
were ready to start basic they put us on the bus and drove us over to our company and
then I think you can imagine what happened after that. Hahahaha. It was in July at Fort
Bragg and I think that was probably the hottest place on earth. And… it was a pretty
miserable day. (Gilbert and Spiker Chuckle, “I can imagine.” -Spiker)
Do you remember any of your instructors?
Oh yes, lets see, there was… a Corporal Norris who had… he was an interesting
character. He had been in the Army and… served and came back home and somehow or
another he was in the reserves and didn’t attend the meetings and got re-drafted,
(Chuckles) so they pulled him back in and they put him as… in our company as a trainer,
as an instructor. …There was a couple of Drill Sergeants, you know I guess if I thought
about it I could probably remember their names but I can’t right at the moment… it was
interesting. I learned a lot about the Army. The Army travels on its stomach, the food
was great. Everybody else complained, but I ate like a king… there was a fairness. They
picked on everybody equally, (Chuckles) It was… interesting. I got kind of an insight
into Army thinking which… and I respect that, I really do. I respect that. I didn’t like
being in the Army but I did respect it. You know.
…You mentioned earlier that you went to talk to a recruiter with a couple of fellows from your
high school; did you end up going to basic training with those fellows
As a matter of fact, we all went through basic training together… all in the same
company except two of use. Two went into the company next door and the rest of us
�Spiker 3
were in the same. I went in with a guy named Steve Rice from High Shoals and… Steve,
Steve was tough guy. He was real tough; he was a street cred guy you know. He carried
a hawkbill knife and (chuckling)... you didn’t mess with Steve. But… Steve and I were
good friends… he and I, we stayed together all through basic training and.. we did some
crazy things together… (“Do you want to explain some of those?” -Spiker, laughing) Oh,
I’m glad to tell you one. We had to do; you know we had to spend the late afternoon and
evening crawling under barbwire while they were shooting over the top of us in training.
And they had these bunkers placed out there that had artillery simulators in them. And I
went first, I was in a wave that went in and crawled under the barbwire, and then Steve
came after me. I said Steve I’ll meet you at that center bunker and we’ll smoke a
cigarette before we go on. And we did, and we both got chewed out (Chuckling)
seriously chewed out. But we did, we had to hold it so nobody could see the light from
the cigarette, we passed it back and forth. And the artillery simulators were going off and
the ground was shaken, all the bullets going over head and all that stuff. It was pretty
exciting.
So after basic training you went to your MP school, where was that at?
That was at Fort Gordon Georgia. (“Fort Gordan Georgia.”-Spiker) Yeah, and I did not
know it snowed in Georgia, but it sure did. (Chuckling) Yeah, I graduated on November
the 22nd because I remember it was… it got pretty cold down there… it definitely
snowed. We had a bout three or four inches one day. That was fun, we got to drive jeeps
in the snow, out through the hills. We did a night driving class… so we had to keep our
interval and that kind of stuff. It had snowed on the ground so it was a lot brighter than
the sergeant liked but…(chuckles)(“Definitely”-Spiker) It was good.
So… when you finally graduated… MP school where did you go after that? Did you go directly
to Vietnam or…?
No, I got, I got leave. I came home…for… I got a, I think a thirty day leave. And then…
I reported to… California… and I don’t remember all the details of this but… we had to
stay in… It was right next to the Navy compound and… we could see the swabbies
walking around. Course, you know how soldiers…they are… there is always enough
competition to start something. So, there was always some yelling back and forth across
the fence and… I thought California was kind of neat. I didn’t get to see a whole lot.
There was a building there, it was building 590, which, you know, can you imagine…
They must have shipped cow in it because this thing was huge. It was long and wide and
all the bunks were three bunks high and close together. They were… sending a lot of
people to Vietnam. Yeah… I stayed in building 590. That’s… kind of a famous
landmark I guess if you look at the history books.
Lets backtrack for a minute, when you said you had leave. Did you come back home? Did you
have a significant other at the time?
I had a girlfriend (“okay, what was her name?” –Spiker) Harriette, Harriette, yes
Harriette Gurley. (“Where was she from?”- Spiker) Cherryville (pronounced Chur-aville) (“Cherryville, okay.” –Spiker)… Cherryville and Lincolnton were big rivals so…
me dating Cherryville girls was… kind of a risky thing, but I found out that your
�Spiker 4
Cherryville girls were very attractive. (“Yes sir.” –Spiker) …I dated here almost a year
before I went to Vietnam and then several years afterwards and then we got married.
Okay…When did you actually get boots on the ground in Vietnam?
…It would have been December of 1968. I don’t remember the exact date, but… flew
into… Long Binh and then flew from Long Binh to… Quin Yon and that’s where it
think, if I remember correctly or company command headquarters was there and we had
two platoons at… well that was battalion and then we had… another, our main area
where I was, was in Pleiku. And.. Quin Yon is right on the coast, so I got to see the
ocean. Of course, Cam Ranh Bay we did... in-country training. We did a couple weeks
of in-country training in Cam Ranh Bay… Pretty place too. Nice white sands azure sea
and sea snakes. (Chuckles, “Did you encounter any sea snakes?” –Spiker) No, no but
they always warned us if you go out into the ocean be careful. (Still Chuckling) So, but it
was a beautiful place I loved it. Vietnam was a beautiful country…. So, Cam Ranh Bay
and the I went to Quin Yon; and from Quin Yon I went to Pleiku and that was where I
was mainly stationed. We did have two other, little satellite outpost that we… we
convoyed. So, we would convoy up to the pass from each side and then we would
convoy back… and we would you know, switch of the convoys…. My route was up to
the what was called the Mang Yang Pass, if I remember correctly…. It was real gentle
going up on one side and then It was real steep going down the other side. And there
were tanks parked all over the place on the down-side of that.
…Know a days there is two different MP’s, you have the Combat MP and the Garrison MP.
Was that still so back in Vietnam?
Well no. I was a 95b10, hahaha, everybody was a 95b10, it was… completely different I
guess from… what’s going on today. It was… our main focus was convoy escort and…
then town patrol, where, you know, you… actually patrolled in the streets of… like
Pleiku or An Khe or some place like that. And… that was pretty much it. There was
none of the urban warfare kinda stuff that you guys have gone through, so….
Okay… while you were in Vietnam did you see any combat?
…Ambush or two…I got blown out of bed one morning. That was exciting. A rocket
landed between where I was and the mess hall and blew a pretty good size hole in the
ground. And there was a sandbag wall between me and the explosion so I was okay, but I
woke up looking at the floor coming up at my face…and… I couldn’t hear anything. It
was just.. ringing in my ears. I was armorer at that time. They put me in the arms room.
I was taking care of the weapons, and we had florescent lights in the arms room and it
blew every one of them out but one. There was only one burning and that was pretty
exciting. We lost a guy that morning, he was a dog handler. Killed him and his dog as
they were going on duty, it was very early in the morning so… (“and do you remember
his name?” –Spiker) I don’t, I didn’t know him… we had two barracks of MP’s, one of
infantry who helped guard our perimeter and then we had a dog handler… barracks…you
knew them in passing, but you didn’t really work very close. Those guys mainly were
perimeter guys and they guarded the ammunition supply dump and that sort of thing. We
would mainly patrol and come back. You know, we considered them as part of our unit, I
mean there was no doubt about that but…there wasn’t as much interaction as there was
you know.. with the other MP’s. We had our own club. (“Realy? Me about that.” –
�Spiker 5
Spiker) Well it was up on the little hill and it was the road runner club because it was our
mascot and… the MP’s didn’t do well at other peoples’ clubs for some reason…(Spike
Chuckles)…But the club was just a small little separate building with a bar and… served
soft drinks and beer. No hard liquor. No one was eligible for that… occasionally they
would hir, you know, a little Vietnamese rock band and bring them and they would you
know have a couple of Go Go Girls or something like that.. It was just a nice little club.
You mentioned your unit a minute ago, I forgot to ask your unit number.
Oh Lord, let me see. Gah, that’s just been so long. It ws the 504th MP CO, and
Battalion, I think If I remember correctly, I was in Company B. I was in B, 504th MP
Battalion at Pleiku. But that’s been a while, don’t quote me, hahaha.
Okay, other than being an armorer, did you have any other details…jobs?
…No, that was the only really specialized job that I did. They… our armorer had…the
person who was serving as armorer had left, and…they “Okay you’re good with tools, go
down there and keep the record.” Course you know everybody does things like paint
numbers on jeeps and that sort of thing but that was the only one that I had actually just a
separate job. It wasn’t that bad, there were only two of us and we had… it was one on
and one off. We slept, we actualy had a bunk in the arms room so we could actually
sleep in there two…so, there was always one of us in the arms room, so. If any thing
happened we could unlock everything. I did have a station… if we were attacked, from
the arms room I was to move up on to a bunker that had a .50 on it. I was to… be part of
the .50 crew on, if else had…if I had expended all the ammo that was where I went.
(Chuckling)
So, that never happened thoug?
No. Our attacks were mostly rocket attacks, which were pretty long, big rockets and then
of course mortar attacks, we would get those every once in a while. Ambushes would be
anything from a few pot shots to a couple of mortar rounds coming in to some sort of
improvised device… every once in a while they’d blow a bridge up and we would have to
put a defile around it and you know, keep and eye on that. But, I think the road was
probably the most dangerous thing. That’s where we, we got more people hurt. Mainly
form accidents…rain, mud, jeeps turn over. We also had an armored vehicle, we had
V100, which I think now is obsolete, we probably sold them all to some other country. I
really liked it because it had a 318 Chrysler engine in it with a four barrel carburetor…
(Chuckling)
Can you tell me about some of your most memorable experiences while deployed to Vietnam?
Oh, wow, let’s see. Well I can think of a couple things… I enjoyed shooting rats at the
mess hall at night that was fun, with a crossbow. We would get Vietnamese crossbows
and shoot the rats and try to stick them into the wall and that was fun. I used to like to
drive out to a … yard, you know the local indigenous people…there was…the French
had built a damn near this little village and I used to sneak out their and lay out
underneath the trees and just sleep. It was just a whole different…the kids around and all
that kind of stuff. Little kids you know how they just want to play and I’de go out and
skip stoned with them things like that. It was a good way to kind of relax.
�Spiker 6
So were…was everybody able to just go out?
No, this was something that really wasn’t sanctioned. Haha, but… you would have your
radio on and if there was no convoy…you’d just have to run the road by yourself, just
you and your… you’d have a driver and an interpreter and then a gunner on the jeep who
had a M60…But if there was nothing going on we’d kind of sneak over, it wasn’t just
about a quarter of a mile and just sneak over…relax a while. Have lunch and then get
back on the road. It might have been breaking the rules a little bit, but it wasn’t that
serious. It was no, no real threat to anything. It was just a little way to unwind.
Do you remember much from the end of your tour?
Well, I remember when I got short. They took me off duty, I think the last couple of
weeks they take you off duty and then put you on light duty where you’re basically
cleaning up barracks and taking new guys around to get their equipment and showing
them where everything is and things like that. And then, they start processing you out,
you have to send your whole baggage and that sort of thing back…and then I think I
caught a ride we was always thumbing rides on airplanes or something. I went over to
the Air force base, which was right behind us, so I went over and thumbed a ride on a
transport and it was a great ride. I remember going back, it was fantastic because the
back door was open a couple of feet. And it had a big crack and I could look down on the
jungle and there was no one else on the plane except the pilot, co-pilot, crew chief, you
know, and me. And I was in the seat, the last seat, just strapped in, looking out the door
at the jungle going by. It was pretty cool; it was a good flight back.
You say… getting short…for the sake of the interview can you explain what that is?
Short is when you’re getting ready to go home and your friends will present you with a
swagger stick. And its usually a bullet with a stick stuck in it. (chuckles) And it’s carved
to look like a long, little swagger stick, or it’s a shell with a stick stuck in it, then you
kind of stick that under your arm and you walk around with it and everybody knows
you’re short, you’re bragging you know…and then of course you would make the twoe
fingers close together like that…(Demonstrates fore finger and thumb about half an inch
apart)…short, and people would be envious. And of course you would have your short
timers calendar up n the wall with all the X’s over everyday that you been there….
…What rank where you when you went in and when you came out?
Oh, Lord. I remember being an E2 for about three weeks-four weeks and then they made
me a E1; I guess an E1 and then they made me an E2. I think that when I got out of basic
they made me a E3. And then when I got o Vietnam I became a Spec4 and I stayed that,
or should I say, I stayed that until I got back to the United States, I did get busted. Not
real proud of that but…I lost my rank for about a month but I made it back. I was
basically a good guy, just little things happen. (“Yes sir, yes sir.” –Spiker)
So, while serving did you earn any awards/medals?
…I had just regular Vietnam medals…I did have a whole bunch of unit citations and all
that kind of stuff…I didn’t get any wounds or anything like that. I just tried to stay out of
�Spiker 7
trouble and not get killed. I did think I was dead one night though. I ran out of the
barracks, we had an attack, and I ran out in the middle of the night and they had dug a
ditch across the walkway and I had forgotten about it and the next thing I know I had
came too looking up at stars. I thought I had been hit, I start trying to feel for things and,
I figured I would get a purple heart for that but they wouldn’t give it to me for some
reason. (Spiker laughs) No, falling in a slit trench was not considered being wounded in
action…(“Oh, it was a slit trench?! My goodness, haha. Oh, that’s rough” -Spiker)
(Gilbert gawfaws) It was new thank goodness. (“Oh good, so there wasn’t anything in it
yet.”- Spiker) They had just dug it. It could have been worse. (“It could have been a lot
worse.”)
How did you stay in touch with your family while in … [Vietnam]
Well, we had a new method of communication. It was the cassette tape. My wife, well
my fiancé at the time, we sent cassettes to each other. I got lot’s of letters. I wasn’t as
good at writing as she was…she…basically, I had a couple of pounds of letters by the
time I got to come back.
What was the food like, over there in Vietnam? You said you liked the Army food.
Well, I always though it was great. The cooks were well trained, they were good. Our
company had one cook who was, all he did was make pastries, so we had fresh bread and
cakes, pies. He would make breakfast rolls and sweet rolls…I guess I was a chow hound
because I liked to eat late. I would have breakfast at eleven o’clock at night and like if I
was going on duty and skip the morning breakfast, and eat late…. I never really
complained about the food. It was all I wanted and there was plenty of it, and it was
good food, it wasn’t just empty calories…occasionally we had steak and baked potatoes.
Something weird happened, strange happened when I was in, this was when the Army
tried a little experiment. They actually, for the evening meal, they sold beer in the mess
hall. Your limit was two, but they were “tall boys”, you know, tall ones. After the
evening meal, if you were off duty, you could have as many as two beers in the mess hall.
Now I don’t think that lasted too long, but that was an unusual, this was strange for the
Army. That getting very liberal here. (“Yes sir.” –Spiker)
So it sounded like ya’ll had plenty of supplies while you were there.
We did run short in Vietnam, we ran short of canned drinks for a while, in the PX and all
that kind of place it was just, something happened and for about a month we couldn’t get
soft drinks and things like that for a while. They were short supply…you could get them.
A lot of guys would take cases of drinks, buy them at the PX and then take them and
trade them on the black market… that kind of thing is always going on.
Other than shooting rats, how did ya’ll keep yourselves entertained?
Well, we had a day room, and there was tv, and that’s where I saw the moon landing
cause that happened when I was…you know… there. Then we had magazines and
occasionally, if you had a good friend, you could sneak into the commo bunker, the
command bunker, the communications bunker and you could make a phone call or get a
phone call… so, one of my friends actually called me from Vietnam, he was in another
company a couple of hundred miles away, and he’d call me and we’d talk every once in a
�Spiker 8
while. But that was bellow the radar (Chuckles “Yes sir.” –Spiker) ...there was always
an emergency phone call if somebody at you home needed to get up with you, you could,
it would have to bounce all over the place to get to you, and there was no guaranty that it
would get there, but you could make a phone call to the states every once in a while. It
was not something that was easily done, at least in my unit.
I meant to ask you, your buddies from high school, did any of them get assigned to your unit
with you?
No, I was the only MP. The rest of them, I think maybe about half of them ended up in
the infantry and I know one of them became a medic or maybe two of them. Two of
them became medics and I don’t really remember the rest of them….Did have one that
went to Chemical Warfare school. Yeah, I remember him. He went there, he was a
pretty smart guy. They grabbed him up, and I don’t think he went to Vietnam, he went to
Washington and, or some place, kept him stateside. He was real, he was a smart guy.
After your three years was up…or did you spend all that three years in Vietnam?
I did not. When I came back from Vietnam I was stationed in Maryland at Fort Meade.
There were…Fort Meade was Basically riot control for the city of D.C. at that time, and
this was when, you know, everybody was rioting about everything. There was always
some kind of march going on somewhere. So, that’s where I was, and I applied to Gaston
College and got an early out to go to school. I got about four months out early to go to
college. That was just like, exciing like going into the Army. It was great. I was ready
for college then.
Did you use your GI Bill to go to college?
I sure did. I got almost four years of college out of three years in the Army. (“Nice” –
Spiker) Yeah, at that time it was a full, about a hundred and ninety dollars a month if you
weren’t married, so, I think it went to a little over two hundred dollars a month if you
were married, as I recall. But you know you could live cheap in Boone, it was a hundred
dollars a month in rent… (“So, you went to Appalachian State as well?” –Spiker) I did.
(“Good, good.” –Spiker)
Were you married to Harriette at that time?
We got married the year that I transferred from…it would have been my third year of
college. We got married just after I graduated from Gaston. I got an AA form Gaston
and then we got married and she started graduate school because she was ahead of me by
four years. And, I had just started my third year at Appalachian.
Did you retain any friendships from the service while you were still in college and throughout
life?
A few but unfortunately they have gone by the wayside, most of them. I can’t, only the
ones that are from Lincolnton that I went to school with I still see them occasionally.
Most of them are, you know, you just lose touch. (“I understand.” –Spiker)
While…studying at Appalachian State what was your major?
I was an Art Major.
�Spiker 9
Art Major, and did you go on to fulfill your dreams in art?
Well, I got out from Appalachian, my wife and I were married, we moved to Dallas, NC
and I started teaching at William C. Friday Middle School.
What did you teach there?
I taught art, my degree was actually art education, so, either being an artist or being a
teacher was…either way. It was convenient and there was a job…I didn’t know I was
going to like teaching though. She talked me into…I was just going to be an art major,
she’s the one who talked me into being an art education major she says you might want to
teach, you don’t know, you know. You might not do well as an artist when you first get
out. So, why don’t you just do that, it’s just a few extra courses. I said, “Alright.” …and
I kind of like teaching.
So, you continued to teach until?
Well I taught for about…six years and then I went to work for a mining company, but
there was financial incentive. Yeah, I got a pretty good raise to move into the mining
industry…I went to work in a lab for them and got to do all kinds of wonderful and
interesting things in mining and in a lab and chemistry and special projects…mainly why
they hired me was because I knew a little bit about chemistry, I knew a little bit about
ceramic engineering, I knew how to weld, I knew how to do some electrical work, so that
art background of kind of knowing a little bit about a lot of stuff, but not being an expert
the said, “Well good, we’re going to put you in special projects.” So, for about twelve
years. It was a good job, excellent, I was never doing the same thing for very long they
were always pulling me around and making me do all kinds of crazy… I mean learned
how to survey, learned how to use a computer. Just everything.
After that job you went on to teach again?
Well I stated teaching college off and on as an adjunct professor, not a full time
professor, but just in part time. And then I’ve done that ever since. I worked as a computer
programmer at Doran Mills in Shelby. I worked in the printing industry for a couple of years as
a trainer, I would install systems and train people on how to use computer systems and use
programs like photoshop and how to do touch up editing and I was a font expert I guess you
would say. And all of those electronic font things…and then I got back into teaching again in
middle school. An then…this will be my tenth year and last year. And I will retire. (“Well,
congradulations.” –Spiker)
Well, I think that’s pretty much all I have. Is there anything else that you would like to add to…
No, I enjoyed talking to you.
I have as well. I have as well. I do appreciate it.
�
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.
Gilbert, Richard
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Spiker, Cody
Interview Date
10/15/12
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
0:35:06
File name
2013_063_Gilbert_Richard_interview
2013_063_Gilbert_Richard_transcript
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 Richard Gilbert, 15 October 2012
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Spiker, Cody
Gilbert, Richard
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>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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.
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
9 pages
Language
A language of the resource
English
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Subject
The topic of the resource
Gilbert, Richard
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Veterans
Personal narratives, American
United States
Personal narratives, American
Description
An account of the resource
Richard Gilbert served in the army for three years during the Vietnam War. He was a volunteer right out of high school, and figured the military was his only way to get to college. He was stationed in Pleiku, Vietnam and worked as a military police officer. He saw very little combat but his base was ambushed a couple of times. After the 3 years were up he majored in art at Appalachian State and worked as a middle school art teacher.
army
Fort Gordon Georgia
Fort Meade
GI Bill
military police
Pleiku
Vietnam